"... The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has designated Slotkin as one of its top candidates, part of the so-called "Red to Blue" program targeting the most vulnerable Republican-held seats -- in this case, the Eighth Congressional District of Michigan, which includes Lansing and Brighton. The House seat for the district is now held by two-term Republican Representative Mike Bishop. ..."
"... The 23rd Congressional District in Texas, which includes a vast swathe of the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande, features a contest for the Democratic nomination between Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force intelligence officer in Iraq, who subsequently served as an adviser for US interventions in South Sudan and Libya, and Jay Hulings. The latter's website describes him as a former national security aide on Capitol Hill and federal prosecutor, whose father and mother were both career undercover CIA agents. The incumbent Republican congressman, Will Hurd, is himself a former CIA agent, so any voter in that district will have his or her choice of intelligence agency loyalists in both the Democratic primary and the general election. ..."
An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State
Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence
personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history.
If the Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6, as widely predicted, candidates drawn from
the military-intelligence apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of Congress. They will hold the balance
of power in the lower chamber of Congress.
Both push and pull are at work here. Democratic Party leaders are actively recruiting candidates with a military or intelligence
background for competitive seats where there is the best chance of ousting an incumbent Republican or filling a vacancy, frequently
clearing the field for a favored "star" recruit. A case in point is Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA operative with three tours in Iraq,
who worked as Iraq director for the National Security Council in the Obama White House and as a top aide to John Negroponte, the
first director of national intelligence. After her deep involvement in US war crimes in Iraq, Slotkin moved to the Pentagon, where,
as a principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, her areas of responsibility included drone
warfare, "homeland defense" and cyber warfare. Elissa Slotkin
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has designated Slotkin as one of its top candidates, part of the so-called
"Red to Blue" program targeting the most vulnerable Republican-held seats -- in this case, the Eighth Congressional District of Michigan,
which includes Lansing and Brighton. The House seat for the district is now held by two-term Republican Representative Mike Bishop.
The Democratic leaders are promoting CIA agents and Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. At the same time, such people are choosing
the Democratic Party as their preferred political vehicle. There are far more former spies and soldiers seeking the nomination of
the Democratic Party than of the Republican Party. There are so many that there is a subset of Democratic primary campaigns that,
with a nod to Mad magazine, one might call "spy vs. spy."
The 23rd Congressional District in Texas, which includes a vast swathe of the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande, features
a contest for the Democratic nomination between Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force intelligence officer in Iraq, who subsequently served
as an adviser for US interventions in South Sudan and Libya, and Jay Hulings. The latter's website describes him as a former national
security aide on Capitol Hill and federal prosecutor, whose father and mother were both career undercover CIA agents. The incumbent
Republican congressman, Will Hurd, is himself a former CIA agent, so any voter in that district will have his or her choice of intelligence
agency loyalists in both the Democratic primary and the general election.
CNN's "State of the Union" program on March 4 included a profile of Jones as one of many female candidates seeking nomination
as a Democrat in Tuesday's primary in Texas. The network described her discreetly as a "career civil servant." However, the Jones
for Congress website positively shouts about her role as a spy, noting that after graduating from college, "Gina entered the US Air
Force as an intelligence officer, where she deployed to Iraq and served under the US military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy" (the
last phrase signaling to those interested in such matters that Jones is gay).
According to her campaign biography, Ortiz Jones was subsequently detailed to a position as "senior advisor for trade enforcement,"
a post President Obama created by executive order in 2012. She would later be invited to serve as a director for investment at the
Office of the US Trade Representative, where she led the portfolio that reviewed foreign investments to ensure they did not pose
national security risks. With that background, if she fails to win election, she can surely enlist in the trade war efforts of the
Trump administration.
divideand conquer 1. To gain or maintain power by generating tension among others, especially those less powerful,
so that they cannot unite in opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... In its most general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal, but I'm hoping I can say something new. ..."
"... The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy. ..."
"... Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity. ..."
"... If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members, who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump. ..."
I've been thinking about the various versions of and critiques of identity politics that are around at the moment.
In its most
general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that
members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different
things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal,
but I'm hoping I can say something new.
You missed one important line of critique -- identity politics as a dirty political strategy of soft neoliberals.
To be sure, race, gender, culture, and other aspects of social life have always been important to politics. But neoliberalism's
radical individualism has increasingly raised two interlocking problems. First, when taken to an extreme, social fracturing into
identity groups can be used to divide people and prevent the creation of a shared civic identity. Self-government requires uniting
through our commonalities and aspiring to achieve a shared future.
When individuals fall back onto clans, tribes, and us-versus-them identities, the political community gets fragmented. It becomes
harder for people to see each other as part of that same shared future.
Demagogues [more correctly neoliberals -- likbez] rely on this fracturing to inflame racial, nationalist, and religious antagonism,
which only further fuels the divisions within society. Neoliberalism's war on "society," by pushing toward the privatization and
marketization of everything, thus indirectly facilitates a retreat into tribalism that further undermines the preconditions for
a free and democratic society.
The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies.
As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary
neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that
some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they
then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy.
Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies
of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity.
Of course, the result is to leave in place political and economic structures that harm the very groups that inclusionary neoliberals
claim to support. The foreign policy adventures of the neoconservatives and liberal internationalists haven't fared much better
than economic policy or cultural politics. The U.S. and its coalition partners have been bogged down in the war in Afghanistan
for 18 years and counting. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is a liberal democracy, nor did the attempt to establish democracy in
Iraq lead to a domino effect that swept the Middle East and reformed its governments for the better. Instead, power in Iraq has
shifted from American occupiers to sectarian militias, to the Iraqi government, to Islamic State terrorists, and back to the Iraqi
government -- and more than 100,000 Iraqis are dead.
Or take the liberal internationalist 2011 intervention in Libya. The result was not a peaceful transition to stable democracy
but instead civil war and instability, with thousands dead as the country splintered and portions were overrun by terrorist groups.
On the grounds of democracy promotion, it is hard to say these interventions were a success. And for those motivated to expand
human rights around the world, it is hard to justify these wars as humanitarian victories -- on the civilian death count alone.
Indeed, the central anchoring assumptions of the American foreign policy establishment have been proven wrong. Foreign policymakers
largely assumed that all good things would go together -- democracy, markets, and human rights -- and so they thought opening
China to trade would inexorably lead to it becoming a liberal democracy. They were wrong. They thought Russia would become liberal
through swift democratization and privatization. They were wrong.
They thought globalization was inevitable and that ever-expanding trade liberalization was desirable even if the political
system never corrected for trade's winners and losers. They were wrong. These aren't minor mistakes. And to be clear, Donald Trump
had nothing to do with them. All of these failures were evident prior to the 2016 election.
If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members,
who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump.
Initially Clinton calculation was that trade union voters has nowhere to go anyways, and it was correct for first decade or so
of his betrayal. But gradually trade union members and lower middle class started to leave Dems in droves (Demexit, compare with
Brexit) and that where identity politics was invented to compensate for this loss.
So in addition to issues that you mention we also need to view the role of identity politics as the political strategy of the
"soft neoliberals " directed at discrediting and the suppression of nationalism.
The resurgence of nationalism is the inevitable byproduct of the dominance of neoliberalism, resurgence which I think is capable
to bury neoliberalism as it lost popular support (which now is limited to financial oligarchy and high income professional groups,
such as we can find in corporate and military brass, (shrinking) IT sector, upper strata of academy, upper strata of medical professionals,
etc)
That means that the structure of the current system isn't just flawed which imply that most problems are relatively minor and
can be fixed by making some tweaks. It is unfixable, because the "Identity wars" reflect a deep moral contradictions within neoliberal
ideology. And they can't be solved within this framework.
It is reasonably cheap to buy a journalist and turn him into the attack dog on particular, inconvenient or dangerious for the
financial oligarchy candidate.
New article about Tulsi Gabbard being viciously attacked over religion during Christmas.
Angry Bernie Sanders supporters whom I guess forgot to take their meds over the holidaze
are viciously attacking Tulsi because of Jesus? LOL. This new article is specifically about
Mike Figueroa from The Humanist Report, a semi-popular vlogger, and also a fanatic atheist
type.
He used to be a Tulsi supporter, but since he is connected to the TYT network which is
funded by Hollywood Billionaire and major DNC Clinton funder Katzenberg, he must have
recently been told to toe the party line on smearing Tulsi if he wanted to reap the funding
benefits of TYT who are hardcore Tulsi haters, following the DNC line.
I guess Tulsi showing the Christmas spirit gave him a reason to look hardcore to his
fellow fanatics and appease TYT money folks. Anyways, here is the new article Like, In The
Year 2024
"... "Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win." ..."
"... And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world." ..."
"... The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy." ..."
"... Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis. ..."
"... By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another. ..."
"... George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy. ..."
"... Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake. ..."
"... "Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now." ..."
You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive
lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending
America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy
agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway
defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to
spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November
of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign
policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or
neoprogressivism for short.
Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his
administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive
foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled
by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led
crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive
narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will
lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot
ones too.
Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the
neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean
world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a
world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American
and Western European progressive values.
"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or
democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen
American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe,
including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to
win."
A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis"
which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as
limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous
consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally
-- is at stake."
Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals
at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive
regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats
like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist
authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."
The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent
progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped
as an "authoritarian Internationale."
Cold War Calling
Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in
November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense
industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and
middle classes.
"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the
second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use"
policy.
And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be
one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats
(Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt
capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here
in the United States and around the world."
Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the
Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the
state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."
The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive
writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists
Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies
preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."
Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives
must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among
right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and
supporter."
Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global
authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international
alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared
xenophobia."
Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the
world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War
nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready
to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."
The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU
professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian
school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute
power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom
of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."
Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the
internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow
revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.
Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global
movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context,
history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian"
nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.
By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the
neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and
neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence
that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies
allegedly don't fight wars against one another.
Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often
assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it
cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align
with the West."
George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession
with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So
too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith
and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad
policy.
True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are
global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in
the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the
right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little
sense.
Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the
neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to
anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western
interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific
to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a
mistake.
Echoes of Neoconservatism
The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign
policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S.,
according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and
refuge."
Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned
by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of
liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best
hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such
appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked
American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and
restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough
to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American
international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for
decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves
objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive
values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake
the world in the American self-image.
"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these
days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which
we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max
Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war
record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist
authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."
Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst
impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global
crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises
in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist
approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy
organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of
voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our
wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for
Trump.
Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close
while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests
provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in
Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran,
Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for
office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among
six-in-ten Americans in 2016.
Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering
voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign
policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11
failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained
militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S.
foreign policy.
But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is
urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace
dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of
defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a
footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar
fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.
One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a
post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile
from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than
the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids
can't afford to go to college?"
The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize
their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a
global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?
FDR's Good Neighbor Policy
The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world
becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will
find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And
stability requires balance.
In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root.
This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of
values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have
security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but
essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.
It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The
greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to
make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where
its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."
Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and
minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It
is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good
may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any
price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity
presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go
something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security
interests are at stake."
A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and
shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its
roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy,"
said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor
who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the
neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a
World of neighbors."
What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's
Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No
country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian
David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which
included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in
the domestic affairs of neighboring states."
These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign
policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely
resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the
neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order
to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running
away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.
James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a
member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
@earthling1
I honestly do believe that she thinks long term and, for whatever reason, her decision not to
run for her own congressional seat is a part of her long term plans. Despite her being
smeared over and over by the media, Tulsi has the unique ability to effectively expand the
electorate by appealing to rational people, regardless of party affiliation.
The establishment is terrified of her message. Otherwise, why would they be attacking her
so viciously despite her reported low polling numbers?
While Tulsi is a practicing Hindu, she was raised in a multi faith family with her father
being a still practicing Catholic. And she mentioned that they had attended a Baptist church
in South Carolina on Christmas Eve. I noticed that her parents were in attendance at the
dinner that her brother in law and his mother prepared.
is detonating.
Someone is gonna have to clean up the debri and make some kind of use of what is left
over. Recycle the trash. Make it green. Bernie is past his best by date.
This is what I have suspected all along. To save the Party, we must completely destroy
it.
Even if it means four more years of Trump. By then, climate change will be obvious to
even the dullest among us.
Tulsi is angling to be there to clean up the mess.
IMHO
@gulfgal98
She will not be campaigning as a Dem this cycle, unless perhaps Bernie gets the nomination.
The severance from Congress means de facto severance from the Democrat Party. The stink of
said party becomes more and more apparent daily as Shiftless, No-Nads, Nervous Nancy et. al.
continue their demeaning and angering stupidity. More Dems are getting turned off by the
House sham impeachment daily.
#2 I honestly do
believe that she thinks long term and, for whatever reason, her decision not to run for
her own congressional seat is a part of her long term plans. Despite her being smeared
over and over by the media, Tulsi has the unique ability to effectively expand the
electorate by appealing to rational people, regardless of party affiliation.
The establishment is terrified of her message. Otherwise, why would they be attacking
her so viciously despite her reported low polling numbers?
While Tulsi is a practicing Hindu, she was raised in a multi faith family with her
father being a still practicing Catholic. And she mentioned that they had attended a
Baptist church in South Carolina on Christmas Eve. I noticed that her parents were in
attendance at the dinner that her brother in law and his mother prepared.
@earthling1
that suggest that the Democratic Party is "detonating"?
It looks to me that the Democrats are settling in for a long period of existence as
America's Vichy party. The Democrats are that party that exists so that those Americans who
are afraid of Republican policymakers can vote for them so that, when elected, they can find
clever ways of giving away power to the Republicans.
As for destroying the Democratic Party, we are on the same page.
is detonating.
Someone is gonna have to clean up the debri and make some kind of use of what is left
over. Recycle the trash. Make it green. Bernie is past his best by date.
This is what I have suspected all along. To save the Party, we must completely destroy
it.
Even if it means four more years of Trump. By then, climate change will be obvious to
even the dullest among us.
Tulsi is angling to be there to clean up the mess.
IMHO
@Cassiodorus
friends and family demexiting even today. Many of my union buddies are still pissed that the
union bosses supported Her in 2016.
The teacher strikes last year and before showed the leadership out of step with the rack and
file.
Now, in France the union leadership is being ignored entirely by the membership and see them
as sell-outs to the labor movment.
Ditto in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and numerous other countries around the globe.
It's the same all over the world. Working people are seeing their representation being
deminished by union leaders.
IMHO
#2 that suggest that
the Democratic Party is "detonating"?
It looks to me that the Democrats are settling in for a long period of existence as
America's Vichy party. The Democrats are that party that exists so that those Americans
who are afraid of Republican policymakers can vote for them so that, when elected, they
can find clever ways of giving away power to the Republicans.
As for destroying the Democratic Party, we are on the same page.
@earthling1
Those French union bosses, btw, really like that lockstep marching. One of the primary
reasons for the current general strike is that the union bosses in France finally gave their
okay to the whole thing. Or at least this is what my source, who hails from Montpellier,
tells me.
As for your friends and family, Demexiting has one really big advantage -- they will no
longer be persecuted for not voting for Democrats. Can they still vote for Bernie
Sanders?
#2.5
friends and family demexiting even today. Many of my union buddies are still pissed that
the union bosses supported Her in 2016.
The teacher strikes last year and before showed the leadership out of step with the rack
and file.
Now, in France the union leadership is being ignored entirely by the membership and see
them as sell-outs to the labor movment.
Ditto in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and numerous other countries around the globe.
It's the same all over the world. Working people are seeing their representation being
deminished by union leaders.
IMHO
her chances will be much better in 2024 if Bernie wins in 2020. She will have a base to
lead in place rather than in the wilderness. In short, there will still be an America.
@doh1304
So maybe not should he win and hangs on for all four. (Two big hypotheticals). And unless he
picks her for VP, she will still be in the wilderness in 2024.
her chances will be much better in 2024 if Bernie wins in 2020. She will have a base
to lead in place rather than in the wilderness. In short, there will still be an
America.
Alligator Ed
on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 11:02pm After bravely contesting a nomination she knows she cannot
win, Tulsi Gabbard has and continues to exhibit a tenacious adherence to achievement of
purpose. What is that purpose? I believe it is evident if you only let your eyes see and your
ears hear. Listen to what she says. Looks at what she does.
What this does is obvious. However, please forgive me if I proceed to explain the meaning.
People see what apparently is her home milieu. I've been to Filipino homes for dinner as many
of my nurse friends were Filipino. Tulsi is so human. Despite Hindu belief, she is respectful
to the presence and perhaps the essence of Jesus, and does not sound pandering or
hypocritical.
Getting to know Tulsi at the beginning of her hoped-for (by me) political ascendancy. Get in
on almost the ground floor of what will become an extremely powerful force in future American
life.
Why? What's the hurry?
The more support and the earlier Tulsi receives it propel the campaign. That's what momentum
means: a self-generating growing strength.
One doesn't have to be a Tulsi supporter to hopefully receive some ideas which may not have
occurred to you. This essay does not concern any specific Gabbard policy. What I write here is
what I perceive of her character and thus her selected path. Mind-reading, perhaps. Arm-chair
speculation, possibly.
Tulsi has completed phase 2A in her career. The little that I know of her early life,
especially politically (such as how she voted in HI state legislature) limits a deep
understanding which such knowledge would provide. As the tree is bent, etc.
Phase 1A: youth, formative years, military
Phase 1B: state legislature
Phase 1C: Congress
Phase 2B and possibly subsequent: interim between Congress and Presidential campaigning with
realistic chance of victory.
We are in Phase 2B. Tulsi, as I wrote in another essay, is letting the tainted shroud of
Democrat corruption fall off her shoulders without any effort of her own. The Democrat party is
eating itself alive. It is all things to all people at once. That is a philosophy incapable of
satisfaction.
Omni Democraticorundum in tres partes est (pardon the reference to the opening of Caesar's
Gallic Wars, with liberal substitution by me).
The Dems trifurcate and the division will be neither pleasant nor reconcilable. Tribalism
will be reborn after Trump crushes whomever in 2020.
Tribe one: urban/techno/überkinden.
Tribe two: leftward bound to a place where no politician has ever ventured. Not socialism.
Not Communism. We could call it Fantasy Land, although I fear Disney owns that name.
Tribe three: progressive realists. By using such positive wording, you will correctly
suspect my bias as to which Tribe I belong to.
Once again, policy will not be discussed. Only strategy and reality. Can't have good
strategy without a good grasp of reality. This is why Establidems are bereft of thematic
variability. For the past 3.3 years, they have been singing from a hymn book containing but one
song. You know the title. Orange Man Bad. Yeah, that's it. If they don't like that
title, we establidems have another song for ya. It's called Orange Man Bad. Like that
one, huh? Wazzat, ya didn't like the song the first time. Hey, we thought the song would grown
on you.
Them Dems, noses up, can't see the sidewalk. Oops. Stepped in something there, huh? Oh, yeah
like the Impeachment.
But I digress: The latter part of Phase 2B is not clear. Tulsi will continue to accept small
donor contributions, even after not obtaining the nomination next year. Public appearances will
be important but should be low key with little press attention. Press attention is something
however that won't be available when most desirable. What else Tulsi will do may be to form a
nucleus of like-minded activists, thinkers, and other supporters to promote an agenda for a
more liberal, tolerant society.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to
the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an
examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked well for anyone,"
Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only two
things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about a
month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye towards
Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point memos,
have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape survivors. Of
course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it ain't
Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have pretty much
completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable? Not for me.
Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last go round absent a
Bernie miracle.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be
subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches.
That includes an examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked
well for anyone," Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only
two things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
@Wally
She might back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about
a month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye
towards Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point
memos, have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape
survivors. Of course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it
ain't Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have
pretty much completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable?
Not for me. Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last
go round absent a Bernie miracle.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she never
and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy record
regarding domestic affairs.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she
never and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy
record regarding domestic affairs.
@Alligator
Ed@Alligator
Ed be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would feel
comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone but
Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a Neutral
Party.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
@wokkamile
Her dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
#2.1.1.1.1.1
#2.1.1.1.1.1 be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would
feel comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last
time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone
but Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a
Neutral Party.
Don't forget that 15% state threshold for eligibility to be awarded delegates.
#2.1.1.1.1.1.2 Her
dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
I will be surprised if Tulsi gets so much as one delegate.
More than a few knowledgeable people think he has a very good shot of winning California.
I am less optimistic about NYS but I think he will do well enough to get a good number of
delegates especially if he does well in the earlier primaries (NYS comes April 28).
I don't feel solidly about making any kind of predictions at this point but given the
nature of the Democratic Party, I don't see it as falling into oblivion anytime soon or in
our lifetimes.
As far as Bernie goes, I am not optimistic but I still have some hope. I still fervantly
believe that his candidacy is the best chance we will have in our lifetimes of bringing about
any substantial change -- and if he and his critical mass of supporters can't pull it off
this time around, we're all phluckled big time, even alligators, in terms of combating
climate change and putting a kabosh on endless wars. I wish you good future luck with Tulsi
though. I just don't see it. But I've been wrong on more than one occasion in my life.
Congress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!
House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria - Oct 16, 2019
In a Wednesday vote, the House overwhelmingly backed a resolution expressing opposition to
the end of the US war in Syria, and calling on the US to protect the Syrian Kurds from
Turkey. The vote was 354-60, with the majority of Republicans supporting it, and unanimous
support from Democrats who cast votes .
Positions from Democrat leaders suggested an unconditional opposition to Trump ending
any war and withdrawing any troops under any circumstances. They also objected to the
notion that a president could end a war without their permission .
I don't think Warren is a stalking horse for neoliberalism or whatever, but her inability
to fight back against bad press (combined with her occasional baffling decisions to give
herself bad press) is a big mark against her candidacy. There will be bad press for either of
them.
Trump can be impeached as a war criminal just for his false flag Douma attack (along with
members of his administration). But Neoliberal Dems and frst of all Pelosi are war criminals too,
with Pelosi aiding and abetting war criminal Bush.
So this is a variation of the theme of Lavrentiy Beria most famous quote: "Show me a
man and I will find you a crime"
I think tose neolib Dems who supported impeachment disqualified themselves from the running.
That includes Warren, who proved to be a very weak, easily swayed politician. It is quote
probably that they increased (may be considerably) chances of Trump reelection, but pushing
independents who were ready to abandon him, back into Trump camp. Now Trump is able to present
himself as a victim of neoliberal Dems/neocons witch hunt.
The only real check left is impeachment. It is rarely invoked and (until very recently) has
atrophied as a credible threat. But that doesn't make it any less
indispensable.
The problem was exacerbated by the Clinton impeachment fiasco, which history has proved
foolhardy. (I supported it at the time, but I was a government lawyer then, not a public
commentator.) Republicans were sufficiently spooked by the experience that they seemed to
regard impeachment as obsolete. Faithless Execution countered that this was the wrong
lesson to take from the affair. Clinton's impeachment was a mistake because (a) his conduct,
though disgraceful and indicative of unfitness, did not implicate the core responsibilities of
the presidency; and more significantly, (b) the public, though appalled by the behavior,
strongly opposed Clinton's removal. The right lesson was that impeachment must be reserved for
grave misconduct that involves the president's essential Article II duties; and that because
impeachment is so deeply divisive, it should never be launched in the absence of a public
consensus that transcends partisan lines.
This is why, unlike many opponents of President Trump's impeachment, I have never questioned
the legitimacy of the Democratic-controlled House's investigations of misconduct allegations
against the president. I believe the House must act as a body (investigations should not be
partisan attacks under the guise of House inquiries), and it must respect the lawful and
essential privileges of the executive branch; but within those parameters, Congress has the
authority and responsibility to expose executive misconduct.
Moreover, while egregious misconduct will usually be easy to spot and grasp, that will not
always be the case. When members of Congress claim to see it, they should have a fair
opportunity to expose and explain it. To my mind, President Obama was the kind of chief
executive that the Framers feared, but this was not obvious because he was not committing
felonies. Instead, he was consciously undermining our constitutional order. He usurped the
right to dictate law rather than execute it. His extravagant theory of executive discretion to
"waive" the enforcement of laws he opposed flouted his basic constitutional duty to execute the
laws faithfully. He and his underlings willfully and serially deceived Congress and the public
on such major matters as Obamacare and the Benghazi massacre. They misled Congress on, and
obstructed its investigation of, the outrageous Fast and Furious "gun-walking" operation, in
connection with which a border patrol agent was murdered. With his Iran deal, the president
flouted the Constitution's treaty process and colluded with a hostile foreign power to withhold
information from Congress, in an arrangement that empowered (and paid cash ransom to) the
world's leading sponsor of anti-American terrorism.
My critics fairly noted that I opposed Obama politically, and therefore contended that I was
masquerading as a constitutional objection what was really a series of policy disputes. I don't
think that is right, though, for two reasons.
First, my impeachment argument was not that Obama was pursuing policies I deeply opposed. I
was very clear that elections have consequences, and the president had every right to press his
agenda. My objection was that he was imposing his agenda lawlessly, breaking the limitations
within which the Framers cabined executive power, precisely to prevent presidents from becoming
tyrants. If allowed to stand, Obama precedents would permanently alter our governing framework.
Impeachment is there to protect our governing framework.
Second, I argued that, my objections notwithstanding, Obama should not be impeached in the
absence of a public consensus for his removal. Yes, Republicans should try to build that case,
try to edify the public about why the president's actions threatened the Constitution and its
separation of powers. But they should not seek to file articles of impeachment simply because
they could -- i.e., because control of the House theoretically gave them the numbers to do it.
The House is not obliged to file impeachment articles just because there may be impeachable
conduct. Because impeachment is so divisive, the Framers feared that it could be triggered on
partisan rather than serious grounds. The two-thirds supermajority requirement for Senate
conviction guards against that: The House should not impeach unless there is a reasonable
possibility that the Senate would remove -- which, in Obama's case, there was not.
I also tried to focus on incentives. If impeachment were a credible threat, and Congress
began investigating and publicly exposing abuses, a sensible president would desist in the
misconduct, making it unnecessary to proceed with impeachment. On the other hand, a failed
impeachment effort would likely embolden a rogue president to continue abusing power. If your
real concern is executive lawlessness, then impeaching heedlessly and against public opinion
would be counterproductive.
I've taken the same tack with President Trump.
The objections to Trump are very different from those to Obama. He is breaking not laws but
norms of presidential behavior and decorum. For the most part, I object to this. There are lots
of things about our government that need disruption, but even disruptive presidents should be
mindful that they hold the office of Washington and Lincoln and aspire to their dignity, even
if their greatness is out of reach.
That said, impeachment is about serious abuse of the presidency's core powers, not behavior
that is intemperate or gauche. Critics must be mindful that the People, not the pundits, are
sovereign, and they elected Donald Trump well aware of his flaws. That he turns out to be as
president exactly what he appeared to be as a candidate is not a rationale for impeaching
him.
The president's misconduct on Ukraine is small potatoes. Democrats were right to expose it,
and we would be dealing with a more serious situation if the defense aid appropriated by
Congress had actually been denied, rather than inconsequentially delayed. If Democrats had
wanted to make a point about discouraging foreign interference in American politics
(notwithstanding their long record of encouraging it), that would have been fine. They could
have called for the president's censure, which would have put Republicans on the defensive.
Ukraine could have been incorporated as part of their 2020 campaign that Trump should be
defeated, despite a surging economy and relative peace.
Conducting an impeachment inquiry is one thing, but for the House to take the drastic step
of impeaching the president is abusive on this record. Yes, it was foolish of Trump to mention
the Bidens to President Zelensky and to seek Ukraine's help in investigating the Bidens. There
may well be corruption worth probing, but the president ought to leave that to researchers in
his campaign. If there is something that a government should be looking into, leave that to the
Justice Department, which can (and routinely does) seek foreign assistance when necessary. The
president, however, should have stayed out of it. Still, it is absurd to posit, as Democrats
do, that, by not staying out of it, the president threatened election integrity and U.S.
national security. Such outlandish arguments may make Ukraine more of a black eye for Democrats
than for the president.
But whoever ultimately bears the brunt of the impeachment push, I have to ask myself a hard
question: Is this the world I was asking for when I wrote a book contending that, for our
system to work as designed, impeachment has to be a credible threat? I don't think so . . . but
I do worry about it.
Back to the Clinton impeachment. I tried to make the point that that impeachment effort --
against public opinion, and based on misconduct that, while dreadful, was not central to the
presidency -- has contributed significantly to the poisonous politics we have today. Democrats
have been looking for payback ever since, and now they have it -- in a way that is very likely
to make impeachment more routine in the future.
I don't see how our constitutional system can work without a viable impeachment remedy. But
I may have been wrong to believe that we could be trusted to invoke the remedy responsibly. I
used to poke fun at pols who would rather hide under their desks than utter the dreaded I-word.
Turns out they knew something I didn't.
"Change we can believe in" the second series ? That's a real warning sign ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and Buttigieg. ..."
"... as the neoliberal corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking ship .. ..."
So, the fact that Obama is willing to put in a good word for Warren on behalf of the
wealthy elite should give you a clue as to which side Warren is really on. While many
non-political "normies" look upon the Obama years with rose-tinted glasses, I wonder if the
disillusionment that many people had in retrospect with Obama has sunk in to mainstream
political consciousness yet. If that is the case, an Obama endorsement might actually
backfire among progressives, seeing as how it has become evident that Obama was basically a
silver-tongued neoliberal in the same mold as Clinton and Pelosi.
I know that Warren is a political careerist at heart, but I was willing to give her the
benefit of the doubt when she first launched her 2020 presidential campaign. However, it has
become increasingly clear that she has hitched her wagon to the wrong horse as the neoliberal
corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking ship. I honestly do not
think that she would even be fit to be Sander's vice presidential pick at this point
considering how wide the political gulf between Warren and Sanders actually is. A better
choice would be Nina Turner as Sander's running mate, with Tulsi Gabbard as his Secretary of
State if he gets that far.
My guess is that this is why he's working behind the scenes, minimizing the chances of a
backfire on the left. Of course, how behind-the-scenes is it if it's reported by Politico?
Still.
I'm actually undecided on Warren. There was that story last week about her supposedly
pushing Hillary in 2016 to name decent people to her cabinet if elected. But then you have to
ask why that particular story surfaced at the particular time when Warren was sinking in the
polls.
If true, though, and if what the new Politico story says about her clashes with Obama are
true, maybe Warren isn't quite as objectionable as we tend to think. Then again, she came
right out last week (I believe) and said Medicare for All would be a matter of choice under
her plan, emphasizing that "choice" factor.
So I'm confused. But maybe that's what she, her campaign and various surrogates want at
this stage.
It starts with an ambitious goal: consistent with the objectives of the Green New Deal,
the Pentagon should achieve net zero carbon emissions for all its non-combat bases and
infrastructure by 2030.
having the pentagon 'lead the fight' against climate change is akin to appointing prince
andrew as head of the global task force against pedophilia and child trafficking.
A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like
Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's
finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and
Buttigieg.
A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like
Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's
finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and
Buttigieg.
Buttigieg takes no votes from Sanders. While Warren does on the margins. I think Obama's
calculation is simple as that. She also has special appeal to the virtue signaling liberals
that are Obama's base.
as the neoliberal corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking
ship ..
Bingo. Trump's letter goes right to the heart of it. These clowns are completely exposed
and Obama hawking Warren to donors while the blob talks up a gay McKinsey/CIA Indiana Mayor
shows just how far they have fallen.
It would be impossible for Trump to re-energize his base in any other way. Pelosi acts as
covert agent for Trump re-election? Peloci calculation that she can repar "Mueller effect" of
2018 with this impeachment proved to be gross miscalculation.
Warren who stupidly and enthusiastically jumped into this bandwagon will be hurt. She is such
a weak politician that now it looks like she does not belong to the club. Still in comparison
with Trump she might well be an improvement as she has Trump-like economic program, which Trump
betrayed and neutered. And her foreign policy can't be worse then Trump foreign policy. It is
just impossible.
I am convinced that the Dems are not actually interested or focused on defeating Trump, or
they would adopt an effective strategy. The question I keep wrestling with is, what is the point
to the strategy that is so ineffective?
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water, by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump. ..."
"... fake impeachment procedure ..."
"... For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be what makes for a successful impeachment. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they deserve whatever they believe'. ..."
"... little else can explain the reasoning behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.". ..."
"... "We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy, angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes president. ..."
"... He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy – the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins." ..."
"... We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of the stigma of impeachment. ..."
And so it came to pass, that in the deep state's frenzy of
electoral desperation, the 'impeachment' card was played. The hammer has fallen. Nearly the
entirety of the legacy media news cycle has been dedicated to the details, and not really
pertinent details, but the sorts of details which presume the validity of the charges against
Trump in the first place. Yes, they all beg the question. What's forgotten here is that the use
of this process along clearly partisan lines, and more – towards clearly partisan aims
– is a very serious symptom of the larger undoing of any semblance of stability in the US
government.
The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water,
by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent
to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the
Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar
patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump.
Only in a country that produces so much fake news at the official level, could there be a
fake impeachment procedure made purely for media consumption, with no real or tangible
possible victory in sight.
For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment
possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This
would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term
Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would
reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be
what makes for a successful impeachment.
Don't forget, this impeachment is fake
Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they
deserve whatever they believe'. And her aim appears to be the one who makes them believe
things so that they deserve what she gives them. For little else can explain the reasoning
behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has
assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the
same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill
so that you can find out what is in it.".
In both cases, reality is turned on its head – for rather we will know how the Senate
intends to conduct its procedure as soon as it has the details, which substantively includes
the impeachment documents themselves, in front of them, and likewise, legislators ought to know
what's in a major piece of legislation before they vote either way on it. Pelosi's assault on
reason, however, isn't without an ever growing tide of resentment from within the progressive
base of the party itself.
We have quickly entered into a new era which increasingly resembles the broken political
processes which have struck many a country, but none in living memory a country like the US.
Now elected officials push judges to prosecute their political opponents, constitutional crises
are manufactured to pursue personal or political vendettas, death threats and rumors of coups
coming from media and celebrities being fed talking points by big and important players from
powerful institutions.
This 'impeachment' show really takes the cake, does it not? We will recall shortly after
Trump was elected, narrator for hire Morgan Freeman made a shocking public service
announcement. It was for all intents and purposes, a PSA notifying the public that a military
coup to remove Trump would be legitimate and in order. Speaking about this PSA, and recounting
what was said, would in any event read as an exaggeration, or some allegorical paraphrasing
made to prove a point. Jogging our memories then, Freeman spoke to tens of millions of viewers
on television and YouTube
saying :
"We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy,
angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of
the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes
president.
He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy
– the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to
attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false
information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their
political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins."
This really set the tone for the coming years, which have culminated in this manufactured
'impeachment' crisis, really befitting a banana republic.
It would be the height of dishonesty to approach this abuse of the impeachment procedure as
if until this moment, the US's own political culture and processes were in good shape. Now
isn't the time for the laundry list of eroded constitutional provisions, which go in a thousand
and one unique directions. The US political system is surely broken, but as is the case with
such large institutions several hundreds of years old, its meltdown appears to happen in slow
motion to us mere mortals. And so what we are seeing today is the next phase of this
break-down, and really ought to be understood as monumental in this sense. Once again revealed
is the poor judgment of the Democratic Party and their agents, tools, warlords, and
strategists, the same gang who sunk Hillary Clinton's campaign on the rocks of hubris.
Nancy Pelosi also has poor judgment, and these short-sighted and self-interested moves on
her part stand a strong chance of backfiring. Her role in this charade is duly noted. This
isn't said because of any disagreement over her aims, but rather that in purely objective terms
it just so happens that her aims and her actions are out of synch – that is unless she
wants to see Trump re-elected. Her aims are her aims, our intention is to connect these to
their probable results, without moral judgments.
The real problem for the Democrats, the DNC, and any hopes for the White House in 2020, is
that this all has the odor of a massive backfire, and something that Trump has been counting on
happening. When one's opponent knows what is probable, and when they have a track record for
preparing very well for such, it is only a question of what Trump's strategy is and
how this falls into it, not whether there is one.
Imagine being a fly on the wall of the meeting with Pelosi where it was decided to go
forward with impeachment in the House of Representatives, despite not having either sufficient
traction in the Senate or any way to control the process that the Senate uses.
It probably went like this: ' We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say
he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of
the stigma of impeachment. '
Informed citizens are aware that whatever their views towards Trump, nothing he has done
reaches beyond the established precedent set by past presidents. Confused citizens on the other
hand, are believing the manufactured talking points thrown their way, and the idea that a US
president loosely reference a quid pro quo in trying to sort a corruption scandal in dealings
with the president of a foreign country, is some crazy, new, never-before-done and
highly-illegal thing. It is none of those things though.
Unfortunately, not needless to say, the entirety of the direct, physical evidence against
Trump solely consists of the now infamous transcript of the phone call which he had with
Ukrainian president Zelensky. The rest is hearsay, a conspiracy narrative, and entirely
circumstantial. As this author has noted in numerous pieces, Biden's entire candidacy rests
precisely upon his need to be a candidate so that any normal investigation into the wrongdoings
of himself or his son in Ukraine, suddenly become the targeted persecution of a political
opponent of Trump.
Other than this, it is evident that Biden stands little chance – the same polling
institutions which give him a double-digit lead were those which foretold a Clinton electoral
victory. Neither their methods nor those paying and publishing them, have substantively
changed. Biden's candidacy, like the impeachment, is essentially fake. The real contenders for
the party's base are Sanders and Gabbard.
The Democratic Party Activist Base Despises Pelosi as much as Clinton
The Democratic Party has two bases, one controlled by the DNC and the Clintons, and one
which consists of its energized rank-and-file activists who are clearer in their populism,
anti-establishment and ant-corporate agenda. Candidates like Gabbard and Sanders are closest to
them politically, though far from perfect fits. Their renegade status is confirmed by the
difficulties they have with visibility – they are the new silent majority of the party.
The DNC base, on the other hand, relies on Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer, and the likes for their
default talking points, where they have free and pervasive access to legacy media. In the
context of increased censorship online, this is not insignificant.
Among the important reasons this 'impeachment' strategy will lose is that it will not
energize the second and larger base. Even though this more progressive and populist base is
also more motivated, they have faced – as has the so-called alt-light – an
extraordinarily high degree of censorship on social media. Despite all the censorship, the
Democrats' silent majority are rather well-informed people, highly motivated, and tend to be
vocal in their communities and places of work. Their ideas move organically and virally among
the populace.
This silent majority has a very good memory, and they know very well who Nancy Pelosi is,
and who she isn't.
The silent majority remembers that after years of the public backlash against Bush's war
crimes, crimes against humanity, destruction of remaining civil liberties with the Patriot Act,
torture, warrantless search – and the list goes on and on – Democrats managed to
retake the lower house in 2006. If there was a legitimate reason for an impeachment, it would
have been championed by Pelosi against Bush for going to war using false, falsified,
manufactured evidence about WMD in Iraq. At the time, Pelosi squashed the hopes of her own
electorate, reasoning that such moves would be divisive, that they would distract from the
Democrats' momentum to take the White House in '08, that Bush had recently (?) won his last
election, and so on. Of course these were real crimes, and the reasons not to prosecute may
have as much to do with Pelosi's own role in the war industry. Pelosi couldn't really push
against Bush over torture, etc. because she had been on an elite congressional committee
– the House Intelligence Committee – during the Bush years in office which starting in
2003 was dedicated to making sure that torture could and would become normalized and
entirely legal.
It seems Pelosi can't even go anywhere with this impeachment on Trump today, and therefore
doesn't even really plan to submit it to the Senate for the next stage .
The political stunt was pulled, a fireworks show consisting of one lonely rocket that sort of
fizzled off out of sight.
Trump emerges unscathed, and more to the point, we are closer to the election and his base
is even more energized. Pelosi spent the better part of three years inoculating the public
against any significance being attached to any impeachment procedure. Pelosi cried wolf so many
times, and Trump has made good on the opportunities handed to him to get his talking points in
order and to condition his base to receive and process the scandals in such and such way. This
wouldn't have been possible without Pelosi's help. Thanks in part to Pelosi and the DNC, Trump
appears primed for re-election.
Trump energizes his base, and the DNC suppresses and disappoints theirs. That's where the
election will be won or lost.
"... Some, such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal. ..."
When Will the Afghan War Architects Be Held Accountable?
Even after the release of the Afghanistan Papers, our elites are still determined to escape
without blame. CERNOBBIO, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 06: Chairman of the KKR Global Institute David
Howell Petraeus attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2019 "Lo scenario
dell'Economia e della Finanza" on September 6, 2019 in Cernobbio, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco
Tacca/Getty Images)
Almost two weeks after the Washington Post 's Craig Whitlock published his six-part
series on the trials, tribulations, and blunders of Washington's 19-year-long social science
experiment in Afghanistan, those involved in the war effort are desperately pointing fingers as
to who is to blame. An alternative narrative has emerged among this crop of elite policymakers,
military officers, and advisers that while American policy in Afghanistan has been horrible,
the people responsible for it really did believe it would all work out in the end. Call it the
"we were stupid" defense.
There were no lies or myths propagated by senior U.S. officials, we are told, just honest
assessments that later proved to be wrong. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, who
has advised U.S. commanders on Afghanistan war policy, wrote that "no, there has not been a
campaign of disinformation, intentional or subliminal." Former defense secretary Jim Mattis,
who led CENTCOM during part of the war effort, called the Post 's reporting "not really
news" and was mystified that the unpublished interviews from the U.S. special inspector general
were generating such shock. Others have faulted the Post for publishing the material to
begin with, claiming that public disclosure would scare future witnesses from cooperating and
threaten other fact-finding inquiries (the fact that the newspaper was legally permitted to
publish the transcripts after winning a court case against the government is apparently
irrelevant in the minds of those making this argument).
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
All of these claims and counter-claims should be seen for what they truly are: the flailings
of a policymaking class so arrogant and unaccountable that it can't see straight. That they're
blaming the outrage engendered by the Afghanistan Papers on anything other than themselves is
Exhibit A that our narcissistic policy elite is cocooned in their own reality.
Analysts have been pouring over the Afghanistan interview transcripts for over a week in
order to determine how the war went wrong. Some of the main lessons learned have long been
evident. The decision to impose a top-down democratic political order on a country that
operated on a system of patronage and tribal systems from the bottom-up was bound to be
problematic. Throwing tens of billions of dollars of reconstruction assistance into a nation
that had no experience managing that kind of money -- or spending it properly -- helped fuel
the very nationwide corruption Washington would come to regret. Paying off warlords to fight
the Taliban and keep order while pressuring those very same warlords into following the rules
was contradictory. The mistakes go on and on and on: as Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said,
"We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."
One of the most salient findings about this ghastly two-decade-long misadventure surfaced
after the Afghanistan Papers were released: the commentariat will stop at nothing to absolve
themselves of the slightest responsibility for the disaster they supported. The outright
refusal of the pundit class to own up to its errors is as disturbing as it is infuriating. And
even when they do acknowledge that errors were committed, they tend to minimize their own role
in those mistakes, explaining them away as unfortunate consequences of fixed withdrawal
deadlines, inter-agency tussling, Afghanistan's poor foundational state, or the inability of
the Afghans to capitalize on the opportunities Washington provided them. Some,
such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right
track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled
the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal.
It's always somebody else's fault.
Whether out of arrogance, ego, or fear of not being taken seriously in Washington's foreign
policy discussions, the architects of the war refuse to admit even the most obvious mistakes.
Instead they duck and weave like a quarterback escaping a full-on defensive rush, attempting
yet again to fool the American public.
But the public has nothing to apologize for. It is those who are making excuses who have
exercised disastrous judgment on Afghanistan. And they owe the country an apology.
Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a contributor
to The American Conservative.
Where is AOC in all this? She was the prime mover on impeachment, specifically impeachment
over a phone call rather than concentration camps and genocide.
And now with impeachment she gave Pelosi cover to sell the country out again.
I was wondering why many libreral centrists were expreasing admiration for her, a
socialist. Maybe they recognized something?
"Prime mover"? What planet are you from? They were Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi. Did you
miss that Russiagate was in motion while AOC was still tending bar? AOC isn't even on any of
the key committees (Judiciary and Intel).
I shouldn't have said THE prime mover, but ONE OF the prime movers in the House in
actually pushing it over the line against Pelosi's opposition. It seems like the House Dem
consensus ever since Russiagate was just to tease their base with it and milk the suspense
for all it was worth, until AOC, among others, rallied the base.
There were other reps who pushed for impeachment, but AOC has one of the biggest platforms
and crucially, expanded popular support for impeachment outside the MSNBC crowd. So yes, a
key figure in the political/PR effort to move from conspiracy theories to actual
impeachment.
"AOC is one of the highest-profile members of Congress and she blasted Pelosi for
resisting impeachment since May."
Liz Warren is the one who made it a part of her campaign before anyone else. Rashida
Tlaib was the one who made t-shirt with her "impeach the mf'er" quote on it. A lot of them
were "blasting" Pelosi for dithering. AOC also "blasted" her for giving ICE more money and a
lot of their things .
Your central focus on AOC for the impeachment fiasco while ignoring her active role in
spotlighting so many other issues of importance which no one else speaks about is
interesting. Did you catch any of her speaking at the Sanders rally in LA today? Any other
"high profile" Dems pushing such important issues and campaigns?
Thanks for this comment. I don't trust *any of them* except Sanders, but AOC has been
making more good noises than bad, and to claim that it was she who's been driving Pelosi to
impeachment is quite a stretch. Poor, helpless/hapless Rep. Pelosi sure.
Pelosi has repeatedly stared down the progressives in the House. The overwhelming majority
of the freshmen reps are what used to be called Blue Dogs, as in corporate Dems. AOC making
noise on this issue would not move Pelosi any more than it has on other issues.
IMHO Pelosi didn't try to tamp down Russiagate, and that created expectations that
Something Big would happen. Plus she lives in the California/blue cities bubble.
What Dem donors think matters to her way more than what AOC tweets about. If anything,
Pelosi (secondarily, I sincerely doubt this would be a big issue in her calculus) would view
impeachment as a way to reduce the attention recently given to progressive issues like single
payer and student debt forgiveness.
"... My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden. ..."
"... Amfortas the hippie , December 21, 2019 at 5:40 pm ..."
"... that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday, again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides. ..."
"... "let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from whats really important " ..."
"... Hepativore , December 21, 2019 at 6:49 pm ..."
"... Happy winter Solstice, everyone! ..."
"... Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure to stop Sanders at all costs. ..."
Please bone up on US procedure. It's not good to have you confuse readers.
The Senate can't do anything until the House passes a motion referring the impeachment to
the Senate. The House ALSO needs to designate managers as part of that process.
Michael
Tracey argued that it's only Senate rules that require that the House formally transmit
the impeachment verdict. The Constitution says that the Senate has to try an impeached
president, and the Constitution trumps the Senate's rules. Logically, then, the Senate could
just modify its rules to try the president.
But the whole delay is weird and impeachment has only been done twice before, so not a lot
of precedent.
My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as
to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden.
that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday,
again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides.
"let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from
whats really important "
Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a
one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence
of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure
to stop Sanders at all costs. Plus, if the Democrats get the brokered convention they
are after, he can bow out, satisfied that he helped the DNC protect the donor class from the
Sanders threat.
"... oligarchic greed; a military dedicated to protecting the wealth of oligarchs; and, wars over resources. Granted Bill Clinton began the current charade about 'humanitarian wars' but it was Bush II and Obama who turned our focus into resource wars and the hegemons (Malignant Overlords) who decided it was time to take it all. ..."
Long ago (1968) after returning from Vietnam with a bullet hole in my leg (my 90 wonder, post-ROTC officer shot me when he
panicked) I wondered off to a down-at-the-heel cow college. There I took a class and C Wright Mills 'The Power Elite' was required
reading.
I had just finished 'War is a fraud' and read an article by Paul Ehrlich an then 'The Population Bomb' shortly thereafter.
The three books created an interesting fusion in my mind:
More or less after the year 2000 the world would be plagued by resource wars;
The primary role of the military is to enforce what capitalists want; and
Behind the alleged scenes of our form of government hovered oligarchs who would demand more and more.
I recently found a paper I had written long ago. It wasn't very well written, but even then the handwriting was on the wall:
oligarchic greed; a military dedicated to protecting the wealth of oligarchs; and, wars over resources. Granted Bill Clinton
began the current charade about 'humanitarian wars' but it was Bush II and Obama who turned our focus into resource wars and the
hegemons (Malignant Overlords) who decided it was time to take it all.
I guess the point of all of this is (except for the details) Ehrlich, Mills and Butler warned us. As did Huxley and Orwell
... we were just too damned dumb (or distracted) to see it.
Maybe with the Queen of Chaos, the above will result in either annihilation or in a severe reduction in the numbers of people
... (hopefully including all of the oligarchic class) and the chance to start over?
Nah ... we'll just fuck it up again ... as a species we refuse to learn. Sigh ...
There have been numerous smears of Tulsi Gabbard that have been repeated over and over the
last few years after she went to Syria. She started to give the foreign policy blob a lot of
grief for their support of the overthrow of Syria to install a theocratic jihadi government
controlled by the usual suspects.
One smear they like to use is to call Tulsi an Islamophobe. That began years ago when she
criticized Our Savior Obama (pbaj) for claiming ISIS was not a religious extremist
organization, that it was a criminal group and the US needed to give Iraqi men more to do and
then they wouldn't join those criminal gangs like...ISIS.
Anyways, this article goes into a deeper state (yup, deeper than usual) conspiracy by
various actors to smear Tulsi for a variety of reasons subservient to foreign interests, with
a surprise intro to another often unspoken of interest with a lot of hidden power in
Washington.
Mark Galli, its current editor (who is leaving the publication in two weeks)
takes on Trump directly -- a courageous move on his part, as his magazine has largely been
apolitical. "The facts in this instance are unambiguous: the president of the United States
attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of
the president's political opponents," Galli writes. He draws the obvious conclusion for
Christians: "That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is
profoundly immoral." Galli goes further, digging into the behavior of the man in the Oval
Office, noting that Trump "has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration." He gets
specific: "He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals." As if
that wasn't enough, Galli adds, "He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his
relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone -- with its
habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders -- is a near perfect example of a
human being who is morally lost and confused." Galli's warning to Christians is clear. "To the
many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we
might say this: remember who you are and whom you serve," Galli writes. "Consider how your
justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an
unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump's immoral words and behavior
in the cause of political expediency. If we don't reverse course now, will anyone take anything
we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?" Galli also
acknowledged Friday in an interview on CNN's "New Day" that his stand is unlikely to shake
loose Trump's strong hold on this voter segment, a crucial portion of his political base.
Galli's move is even more admirable when you consider that he published his editorial even
knowing that, as he said in his interview, he's not optimistic that his editorial will alter
Trump's support among white evangelicals. It's not a stretch to say that white evangelicals put
Trump into office in 2016. About
80% of them voted for him. They did so because of the abortion issue, mostly. They wanted
pro-life judges throughout the justice system. But this was a devil's bargain, at best.
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us"
src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg">Faith
could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45,
have been slowly but steadily
moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key
topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always
been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color)
has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys
that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from
Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the
imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth
that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate,"
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told
Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young
Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral
behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton,
there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for
myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always
forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
Humility lies at the heart of
Christian behavior. As does honesty. In these, Trump has set a terrible example, and he's now
been taken down for this by an important Christian voice. If only another 10 percent of
evangelicals take this seriously, and I suspect they will, Donald J. Trump's presidency is
destined for the ash heap of history.
Delaying the Senate trial erodes the Democrats' argument that impeachment was so urgent that
they could not wait for the courts to act on Trump's aggressive claims of privilege.
Seven Democratic presidential candidates who gathered on a debate stage in Los Angeles on
Thursday represent another argument for moving beyond impeachment.
... ... ...
Washington is fixated on the daily turns of the impeachment saga, but polls indicate that
most Americans are not. Business executive Andrew Yang pointed out that, even when the current
president is gone, the struggles of many people will remain, particularly in parts of the
country that helped elect Trump in 2016.
"We blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Ohio, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri. I just left Iowa -- we blasted 40,000 manufacturing jobs
there," Yang said. "The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the
more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve
those problems."
That is what voters are waiting to hear, and the sooner the better for Democrats.
"... Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false) meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress should declare war. And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941. ..."
I just read your article in TD. In my opinion you buried the reason for never ending wars.
You mention exceptionalism. I call that concept preeminence. With it is one of the few ways
we try to fill the void, or as you said in fewer words, try to give meaning to life. There
can be no doubt our lives are becoming increasingly meaningless so we double down and double
down again with what we know despite the self-destruction. https://thelastwhy.ca/poems/2015/6/25/life-a-reaction-to-the-void
Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false)
meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress
should declare war.
And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941.
Doug Barr–It appears to me you are trying to blur some lines, or perhaps you are
confused about, what one might call general human psychology and the official policies of a
specific government, that of the USA. [As a student of Anthropology, I point out that though
our primate ancestors are prone to outbursts of violence, there is no evidence that making
war, especially in the contemporary phase of human society, fulfills an innate "need."] Yes,
the US seeks to be "pre-eminent"–or to be blunter, DOMINANT–over the rest of the
globe. Where "exceptionalism"–which I have designated the American Disease–enters
the picture is the attempt to justify military aggression by suggesting (some are less subtle
and openly assert) that the US somehow has been granted a "right" to do this by "a higher
power." (Apparently God Himself revealed to George W. Bush that he was born to be "a war
president" and the genius Rick Perry asserted recently that Donald Trump was put in the
presidency by direct Divine action.) A "right" to send assassin drones anywhere, anytime, to
target anyone who's been designated a Bad Guy. This is absurd, if not insane, on the face of
it. (In olden times, Rudyard Kipling called it "the white man's burden" to bring civilization
to less "enlightened" peoples.) If there was an international court that had some teeth, the
US would be vigorously swatted down, ordered to cease and desist. But one of the greatest
tragedies of our time is that there is no power on Earth that could stand up to this Monster
(as John Kay and his band Steppenwolf rightly identified the US 50 years ago) even if it
could find the backbone to make the attempt.
After more than 17 years of the United States pouring blood and treasure into the effort
to build an Afghan army and government, why is it that the Kabul government continues to lose
ground against the Taliban? Further, why were we unsuccessful creating an Iraqi army that
could stand on its own against the Islamic State?
Before that, of course, came Vietnam.
Nor was that the start of the failure of American-backed armies. I was a teenager in 1949
when Chiang Kai-shek's American-backed Nationalist army lost to the Communist forces of Mao
Zedong in China. The American secretary of state, Dean Acheson, having conducted a study on
why our side lost, declared: "The Nationalist armies did not have to be defeated; they
disintegrated. History has proved again and again that a regime without faith in itself, and
an army without morale, cannot survive the test of battle."
Forty-four years ago, the American-trained and American-supplied army of South Vietnam
simply melted away before the less-well-equipped but better-motivated army of North Vietnam.
In 1975, I watched South Vietnamese soldiers taking off their uniforms and running away in
their underwear as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon.
Five years ago, the world watched another American-trained and American-equipped Iraqi
army bolt and run when the better motivated Islamic State forces overran Mosul in Northern
Iraq.
Why, over and over again, does the side America has backed in these civil wars end up
defeated? Four threads connect these lost wars of the last 70 years: corruption, patriotic
nationalism, a misplaced belief in American exceptionalism, and self-deception.
I saw corruption on a grand scale in Saigon. Generals and government officials were
funneling America's tax dollars into bank accounts abroad, fielding ghost armies in which
there were fewer soldiers on the ground than on the official payrolls. In Baghdad during the
American occupation, I learned that billions of American taxpayer dollars were bleeding out
to the Persian Gulf and Jordan, causing a laundered money real estate boom in the Jordanian
capital. In Afghanistan I learned that Afghan officers and soldiers routinely robbed the
villages they were sent to protect. Corruption sapped the people's belief in their US-backed
government in all four wars. Soldiers saw no reason to die for corrupt officials.
A second thread is that our side always appeared to be fighting on the side of foreigners,
while the Communists in China and Vietnam, as well as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan,
always had a better grip on patriotic nationalism and resistance to foreigners. The
anti-colonial struggle was more important than the threat of Communism in most of the
post-World War II world, and the Islamist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan knew how to
exploit the traditional resistance to foreign rule. The Taliban could appeal to patriotism
while trying to expel the infidel forces of the United States, just as their fathers,
grandfathers, and great grandfathers had resisted the Russians and the British before that in
the name of jihad.
A third thread is a curiously American trait of willfully ignoring other people's history
and cultures. I remember asking an American officer in Vietnam if he had read anything of the
French experience in Vietnam. His answer: "No, why should I? They lost, didn't they?" Robert
McNamara, defense secretary and an architect of our Vietnam War, said in later life that
Americans had never understood the Vietnamese. There were plenty of people who could have
helped him understand, but he wasn't interested. We were Americans -- exceptional, and
therefore not susceptible to the same forces that thwarted other efforts.
I met Americans in the Green Zone in Baghdad who knew nothing about the great schism
between Sunnis and Shia Muslims that was tearing the country apart. American-style democracy
was the answer to all ills, they felt. In Afghanistan I met Americans who thought purple ink
on the fingers of Afghans who had voted was the answer to a thousand years of tribal and
ethnic rivalries.
The fourth thread is self-deception. In Saigon, in Baghdad, and in Kabul I attended
briefings in which progress was always being made, the trend lines were always favorable, and
we were always winning wars we were actually losing. Wishful thinking is no substitute for
reality. Americans can train and assist the armies of those whom we want to support in the
civil wars of others, but we cannot supply the motivation and morale that is necessary to
survive the test of battle.
As we observe another anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that shattered American
life 18 years ago, its full impact is still unfolding. Those who planned it succeeded beyond
their wildest dreams. The airborne assaults that took nearly 3,000 lives on that day may now
be seen as the most diabolically successful terror attack in history. That attack not only
wreaked carnage at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania.
It wound up dragging the United States into an endless state of war that has drained our
treasury, poisoned our politics, created waves of new terrorism, and made us the enemy of
millions around the world.
The apparent chief perpetrator of the 9/11 attack, Osama bin Laden, presumably cackled
with joy when he heard news of his success on that stunning day. He lived for another 10
years, long enough to cackle with even greater glee at Washington's self-defeating response
to the attack. Using the 9/11 attack as a pretext, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
Bin Laden died knowing that he had lured us into the greatest foreign policy disaster in
American history.
It is a truism that our lives are shaped not by what happens to us, but by how we react to
what happens to us. The same applies to nations. Devastating as the death toll was on Sept.
11, 2001, it turned out to be only a taste of what was to come. The United States has been at
war ever since. Thousands of Americans have died. So have hundreds of thousands of civilians
in the Middle East and beyond. This nearly two-decade-long spasm of attacking, bombing, and
occupying countries has decisively shaped the United States and its image in the world. Every
day that our "forever war" continues is a triumph for bin Laden. So is every wounded veteran
who returns home, every newly minted terrorist infuriated by an American attack, every
citizen of the world who recoils at what US forces are being sent to do. We did not simply
fall into bin Laden's trap, we raced in at full speed. Even now, we show little will to
extricate ourselves.
America's determination to strike back with devastating force after 9/11 was
understandable given our shared sense of ravaged innocence. We might have launched a
concentrated strike against the gang of several hundred criminals whose leaders attacked the
United States, and then come home. Instead we have used the 9/11 attack to justify wars and
military deployments around the world.
On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed an "authorization for the use of military force"
against the perpetrators of that week's attack and against their "associated forces." Three
presidents have used that authorization to deploy troops across the Middle East and in
countries from Kenya to Georgia to the Philippines. Every call for US withdrawal from
Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria is met by warnings that ending wars could produce "another
9/11." This has become the paralyzing mantra that prevents us from halting the hydra-headed
military campaign we have been waging for 18 years. We also use it to justify atrocities at
prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Bin Laden has succeeded even in colonizing our
minds.
Soon after passing its highly elastic authorization for military action against
"associated forces," Congress approved another, even more sweeping law: the Patriot Act. It
gave the government broad new power to monitor people and businesses, and has become a
foundation stone of our emerging "surveillance state." The 9/11 attack led us to distort not
only our approach to the world, but also the balance between freedom and security at
home.
Another pernicious aftereffect of the terror attack has been the deepening of our national
us-against-them narrative. This began with President George W. Bush's assertion that every
country in the world had to be "either with us or against us." Crusader rhetoric posits the
United States as the indispensable guardian of civilization, entitled to act as it chooses in
order to fend off a threatening tide of barbarism. Now this approach has leaked back into the
United States. Racist attacks that tear at our social fabric are the domestic reflection of
foreign policies that see the rest of the world as a hostile "other" bent on destroying our
way of life.
Last month it was announced that the five surviving alleged plotters of the 9/11 attack
will finally be brought to trial in 2021. If they are aware of what is happening in the
world, they will arrive in court with a deep sense of satisfaction. Their great triumph was
not the attack. It was the damage the United States has since inflicted upon itself.
Acheson is parroting Napoleon: "In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to 1."
He is wrong in the matter of "faith", unless the Chiang's army lost faith in Chiang's
moral poverty, what he stood for.
A better quote about Chiang losing is written by George C. Marshall, who went over and
came back sure Chiang was done for.
He said: "The US would not be dragged through the mud by those reactionaries". Meaning
Chiang was not the moral power in China.
Same for Vietnam US puppets were not and had no moral power/authority.
In Afghanistan same!
Iraq is split in moral authority, the areas populated by Shi'a are okay as long as the
central government does not pander to the Sunni 1/3 (Baathists were suppressing Shi'a).
I do not agree with quoting Acheson when there is plenty of professional soldier writings
that say it more clearly.
After Korea the professional soldiers were no longer expressive when it cme to propping
thugs, with no moral power in their own borders (granted many of the borders surround
fictional counties).
US has stood with thugs for most of its quagmire experience.......
This week US is looking for a way to start a new quagmire with Iran for royal murderers'
sharing their oil company!
Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into
account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic,
the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do
quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire
planet.
Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India,
Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying
them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.
America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had
thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many
horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight
to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.
The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very
rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs
of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the
native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local
environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter
how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American
exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back
to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."
No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing
a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the
European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging
and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world
down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part
is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided
it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.
Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08
"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."
"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from
another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."
I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise
in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes
dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.
That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield
which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's
forums on this blog.
Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which,
unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary
of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces
left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery
of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved
of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation
by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous
Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its
own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny,
even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's
chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle
Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in
the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the
Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM |
link
Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:
American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors,
generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.
To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly
and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."
The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate
and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest.
That is why we go to war.
Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are
fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic,
not humanitarian, reasons.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is
him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds
of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious
election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious.
It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest
of the wealthy.
America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian
reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support
Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.
Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators;
it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending
your kids to die. Never.
"... Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal' mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore. ..."
"... Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning, the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a series of impossible demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Qatar not long ago ..."
"... Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. ..."
"... Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia. ..."
"... Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way. ..."
"... False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army. On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media ..."
As a history student years ago I remember our teacher explaining how past events are linked to what happens in the future. He
told us human behaviour always dictates that events will repeat in a similar way as before. I remember we studied 20th century history
and discussed World War I and the links to World War II. At this time, we were in the middle of the Cold War and in unchartered waters
and I couldn't really link past events to what was likely to happen next. Back then I guess like many I considered US presidents
more as statesman. They talked tough on the Soviet Union but they talked peace too. So, the threat to humanity was very different
then to now. Dangerous but perhaps a stable kind of dangerous. After the break up of the Soviet Union we then went through a phase
of disorderly change in the world. In the early 1990s the war in the Former Yugoslavia erupted and spread from republic to republic.
Up until the mid-to-late nineties I didn't necessarily sense that NATO and the West were the new threat to humanity. While there
was a clear bias to events in Yugoslavia there was still some even-handedness or fairness. Or so I thought. This all changed in 1999
with the war in Kosovo. For the first time I witnessed shocking images of civilian targets being bombed, TV stations, trains, bridges
and so on. But my wake-up call was the daily NATO briefings on the war. The NATO spokesman boasted of hundreds of Serbian tanks being
destroyed. There was something new and disturbing about his manner, language and tone, something I'd not encountered from coverage
of previous conflicts. For the first time I found myself not believing one word of the narrative.
When the peace agreement was reached, out of 300 Serbian tanks which had entered Kosovo at the start of the conflict, over 285
were counted going back into Serbia proper which was
confirmation he had been
lying .
From this conflict onwards I started to see clear parallels with events of the past and some striking similarities with the lead
up to previous world wars. This all hit home when observing events in Syria and more recently Venezuala. But looking around seeing
people absorbed in their phones you wouldn't think the world is on the brink of war. For most of us with little time to watch world
events there are distractions which have obscured the picture historians and geopolitical experts see more clearly.
Recent and current
western leaders haven't been short people in military uniform shouting. That would be far too obvious. It's still military conflict
and mass murder but in smart suits with liberal sound-bites and high-fives. Then the uncool, uncouth conservative Trump came along
and muddied the waters.
Briefly it seemed there might be hope that these wars would stop. But there can be little doubt he's been
put under pressure to comply with the regime change culture embedded in the Deep State. Today, through their incendiary language
we see US leaders morphing into the open style dictators of the past. The only thing missing are the military uniforms and hats.
Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal'
mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up
to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore.
Let's look at some of these:
1) Military build up, alliances and proxy wars – for all the chaos and mass murder pursued by the Obama Administration he did
achieve limited successes in signing agreements with Iran and Cuba. But rather than reverse the endless wars as promised Trump cancels
the agreements leaving the grand sum of zilch foreign policy achievements. NATO has been around for 70 years, but in the last 20
or so has become obsessed with military build up. Nowadays it has hundreds of bases around the world but keeps destablising non-aligned
states, partly to isolate Russia and China. And Syria sums up the dangers of the regime change model used today. With over a dozen
states involved in the proxy war there is a still high risk of conflict breaking out between US and Russia. The motives for military
build up are many. First there are powerful people in the arms industry and media who benefit financially from perpetual war. The
US while powerful in military terms are a declining power which will continue, new powers emerging. The only return on their money
they can see is through military build up. Also there are many in government, intelligence services and media who can see that if
the current order continues to crumble they are likely to be prosecuted for various crimes. All this explains the threatening language
and the doubling-down on those who challenge them. In 1914, Europe had two backward thinking military alliance blocks and Sarajevo
showed how one event could trigger an unstoppable escalation dragging in many states. And empires such as Austro-Hungary were crumbling
from within as they are now. So a similar mentality prevails today where the powerful in these empires under threat favour conflict
to peace. For these individuals it's a last throw of the dice and a gamble with all our lives.
2) Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning,
the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and
unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US
has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a
series of impossible
demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic
as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day
US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with
Qatar not long ago.
3) Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is
in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. In addition we face a situation
of highly unpredictable, ideological regional leaders in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Most worrying of all, the language, threats
and actions of Trump, Pompeo and Bolton suggests there are psychopathic tendencies in play. Behind this is a Deep State and Democrat
Party pushing even harder for conflict. The level of paranoia is discouraging any notion of peace. 30 years ago Russia and US would
sit down at a summit and reach a consensus. Today a US leader or diplomat seen talking to a Russian official is accused of collusion.
When there are limited channels to talk in a crisis, you know we are in trouble. In Germany in the 1930s, ideology, propaganda and
creating enemies were key in getting the population on side for war. The leaders within the Nazi clique, Hitler, Goring and Himmler
look disturbingly similar to the Trump, Pompeo, Bolton line up.
4) Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public
would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been
a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia.
The terms and words; regime change, mass murder and terrorist have all been substituted by the media with 'humanitarian intervention',
'limited airstrikes' and 'moderate rebels' to fool a distracted public that the victims of the aggression are the bad guys. Western
funded 'fact checking' sites such as Bellingcat have appeared pushing the misdirections to a surreal new level. Obama was portayed
in the media as a cool guy and a little 'soft' on foreign policy. This despite the carnage in Libya, Syria and his drones. Sentiments
of equal rights and diversity fill the home affairs sections in the liberal press, while callous indifference and ethno-centrism
towards the Middle East and Russia dominate foreign affairs pages. In the press generally, BREXIT, non-existent anti-Semitism and
nonsense about the 'ISIS bride' continues unabated. This media circus seeks to distract from important matters, using these topics
to create pointless divisions, causing hostility towards Muslims and Jews in the process. The majority of a distracted public have
still not twigged largely because the propaganda is more subtle nowadays and presented under a false humanitarian cloak. A small
but vocal group of experts and journalists challenging these narratives are regularly smeared as
Putin
or Assad "apologists" . UK journalists are regularly caught out lying and some long standing hoaxes such as Russiagate exposed.
Following this and Iraq WMDs more people are starting to see a pattern here. Yet each time the media in the belief they've bamboozled
enough move on to the next big lie. This a sign of a controlled media which has reached the point of being unaccountable and untouchable,
deeply embedded within the establishment apparatus. In the lead up to World War II the Nazis ran an effective media propaganda campaign
which indoctrinated the population. The media in Germany also reached the point their blindingly obvious lies were rarely questioned.
The classic tactic was to blame others for the problems in Germany and the world and project their crimes on to their victims. There
are some differences as things have evolved. The Nazis created the media and state apparatus to pursue war. Nowadays this is the
opposite way around. Instead the state apparatus is already in place so whoever is leader whether they describe themself as liberal
or conservative, is merely a figurehead required to continue the same pro-war policies. Put a fresh-looking president in a shiny
suit and intoduce him to the Queen and you wouldn't think he's the biggest mass murderer since Hitler. Although there are some differences
in the propaganda techniques, all the signs are that today's media are on a similar war-footing as Germany's was just prior to the
outbreak of World War II.
5) Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli
aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for
time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily
unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way.
6) False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by
Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of
the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army.
On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being
played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media. The next flashpoint in Syria is Idlib, where it's highly
likely a new chemical fabrication will be attempted this Spring. In the 1930s the Nazis were believed to use false flags with increasing
frequency to discredit and close down internal opposition. Summary – We now live in a society where exposing warmongering is a more
serious crime than committing it. Prisons hold many people who have bravely exposed war crimes – yet most criminals continue to walk
free and hold positions of power. And when the media is pushing for Julian Assange to be extradicted you know this is beyond simple
envy of a man who has almost single-handedly done the job they've collectively failed to do. They are equally complicit in warmongering
hence why they see Assange and others as a threat. For those not fooled by the smart suits, liberal platitudes and media distraction
techniques, the parallels with Germany in the 1930s in particular are now fairly obvious. The blundering military alliances of 1914
and the pure evil of 1939 – with the ignorance, indifference and narcissism described above make for a destructive mix. Unless something
changes soon our days on this planet are likely be numbered. Depressing but one encouraging thing is that the indisputable truth
is now in plain sight for anyone with internet access to see and false narratives have collapsed before. It's still conceivable that
something may create a whole chain of events which sweep these dangerous parasites from power. So anything can happen. In the meantime
we should keep positive and continue to spread the message.
Kevin Smith is a British citizen living and working in London. He researches and writes down his thoughts on the foreign wars
promoted by Western governments and media. In the highly controlled and dumbed down UK media environment, he's keen on exploring
ways of discouraging ideology and tribalism in favour of free thinking.
2- 'Israel and its US relationship'. The 'hands off' policy of the Western powers, guarantees that Syria cannot even be a trigger
to any 'global conflict', supposing that a 'global conflict' was on the cards, especially when Russia is just a crumbling shadow
of the USSR and China a giant with feet of clay, heavily dependent on Western oligarchic goodwill, to maintain its economy and
its technological progress.
In 1914, the Serbian crisis was just trigger of WWI and not a true cause. It is not even clear if it was Germany that dragged
Austria-Hungary into the war or Russia. Although there was a possibility (only a possibility), that a swift and 'illegal' attack
by Austria-Hungary (without an ultimatum), would have localised and contained the conflict.
There is no similarity whatsoever between the 1914 'diktats' and modern US policy, as the US is the sole Superpower and its
acts are not opposed by a balancing and corresponding alliance. Save in the Chinese colony of North Korea, where the US is restrained
by a tacit alliance of the North Eastern Asiatic powers: China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, that oppose any military action
and so promote and protect North Korean bullying. Qatar, on the other hand, is one of the most radical supporters of the Syrian
opposition and terrorist groups around the muslim world, even more than Saudi Arabia and there are powerful reasons for the confrontation
of the Gulf rivals.
You should go back in Time and STUDY what really happened .. that means going back to the Creation of the socalled British Empire
..the Bank of England , the British East Indian Company , the Opium Wars and the Opium Trafficing , the Boer Wars for Gold and
Diamonds , the US Civil War and its aftermath , the manipulations of Gold and Silver by socalled british Financial Interests ,
The US Spanish Wars , the Japanese Russian War , the failed Coup against Czar Russia 1905 , the Young Turk Coup against the Ottoman
Empire 1908, the Armenian Genocide , the Creation of the Federal Reserve 1913 , the Multitude of Assinations and other Terror
Attacks in the period from 1900 and upwards , WHO were the perpetraders ? , , WW 1 and its originators , the Bolshevik Coup 1917
, the Treaty of Versailles and the Actors in that Treaty ,the Plunder of Germany , the dissolution of Austria Hungary , the Bolshevik
Coup attempts all over Europe , and then the run up to WW 2 , the Actions of Poland agianst Germans and Czechs .. Hitler , Musolini
and finally WW 2 .the post war period , the Nuernberg Trials , the Holocaust Mythology , the Creation of Israel , Gladio , the
Fall of the Sovjet Empire and the Warshav Pact , the Wars in the Middle East , the endless Terror Actions , the murder of Kennedy
and a mass of False Flag Terrorist Attacks since then , the destruction of the Balkans and the Middle east THERE IS PLENTY of
EXCELLENT LITERATURE and ANALYSIS on all subjects .
It was your Obama that 'persecuted' Mr Assange !!!
Syria demonstrates that there has NOT been a Western strategy for regime change (specially after the 'defeats' in Iraq and
Afghanistan), let alone a proxy war, but, on the contrary, an effort to keep the tyranny of Assad in power, in a weaker state,
to avoid any strong, 'revolutionary' rival near Israel. Russia has been given a free hand in Syria, otherwise, if the West had
properly armed the resistance groups, it would have been a catastrophe for the Russian forces, like it was in Afghanistan during
the Soviet intervention.
Trump's policy of 'equal' (proportional) contributions for all members of NATO and other allies, gives the lie to the US military
return 'argument' and should be understood as part of his war on unfair competition by other powers.
The 'military' and diplomatic alliances of 1914 were FORWARD thinking, so much so that they 'repeated' themselves during WWII,
with slight changes. But it is very doubtful that the Empires, like the Austro-Hungarian o the Russian ones, would have 'crumbled'
without the outbreak of WWI. They were never under threat, as their military power during the war showed. Only a World War of
cataclysmic character could destroy them. A war, triggered, but not created, by the 'conflict seeking mentality' of the powerful
in the small countries of the Balkans.
Generally attributed to Senator Hiram Warren Johnson in 1918 that 'when war comes the first casualty is truth' is as much a truism
now as it was then.
I'm more inclined to support hauptmanngurski's proposition that the members of the armed forces, from both sides, who return
from conflicts with life-changing injuries or even in flag-draped caskets defended only the freedom of multinational enterprises
and conglomerates to make and continue to make vast profits for the privileged few at the population's expense.
As Kevin Smith makes abundantly clear we are all subject to the downright lies and truth-stretching from our government aided
and abetted by a compliant main stream media as exemplified in the Skripal poisoning affair, which goes far beyond the counting
of Serbian tanks supposedly destroyed during the Balkans conflict. The Skripals' are now God knows where either as willing participants
or as detainees and our government shows no signs of clarifying the matter, so who would believe what it put out anyway in view
of its track record of misinformation ? The nation doesn't know what to believe.
Sadly, I believe this has always been the way of things and I cannot even speculate on how long it will be before this nation
will realise it is being deliberately mis-led.
New book by David NorthA Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016
Notable quotes:
"... "Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly." ..."
"... Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"... ..."
We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North.
The book will be published on August 10, and is available for preorder today at Mehring Books in both
softcover
and hardcover
.
***
"In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than
in the period of boom."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1928
"U.S. capitalism is up against the same problems that pushed Germany in 1914 on the path of war. The world is divided? It must
be redivided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must 'organize' the world. History is bringing
mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1934
This volume consists of political reports, public lectures, party statements, essays, and polemics that document the response
of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to the quarter century of US-led wars that began in 1990–91. The
analyses of events presented here, although written as they were unfolding, stand the test of time. The International Committee does
not possess a crystal ball. But its work is informed by a Marxist understanding of the contradictions of American and world imperialism.
Moreover, the Marxist method of analysis examines events not as a sequence of isolated episodes, but as moments in the unfolding
of a broader historical process. This historically oriented approach serves as a safeguard against an impressionistic response to
the latest political developments. It recognizes that the essential cause of an event is rarely apparent at the moment of
its occurrence.
Much of what passes for analysis in the bourgeois press consists of nothing more than equating an impressionistic description
of a given event with its deeper cause. This sort of political analysis legitimizes US wars as necessary responses to one or another
personification of evil, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the "warlord" Farah Aideed in Somalia, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Osama
bin Laden of Al Qaeda, the Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; and, most recently, Bashar al Assad in Syria, Kim
Jong Un in Korea, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. New names are continually added to the United States' infinitely expandable list
of monsters requiring destruction.
The material in this volume is the record of a very different and far more substantial approach to the examination of the foreign
policy of the United States.
First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in
1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it
emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would
lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism. As far back as August 1990 -- twenty-six years ago -- it was able to foresee
the long-term implications of the Bush administration's war against Iraq:
It marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the
postcolonial era. As it proclaims the "failure of socialism," the imperialist bourgeoisie, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaims
the failure of independence. The deepening crisis confronting all the major imperialist powers compels them to secure control
over strategic resources and markets. Former colonies, which had achieved a degree of political independence, must be resubjugated.
In its brutal assault against Iraq, imperialism is giving notice that it intends to restore the type of unrestrained domination
of the backward countries that existed prior to World War II. [
1 ]
This historically grounded analysis provided the essential framework for an understanding, not only of the 1990–91 Gulf War, but
also of the wars that were launched later in the decade, as well as the post-9/11 "War on Terror."
In a recently published front-page article, the New York Times called attention to a significant milestone in the presidency
of Barack Obama: "He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president." But with several months remaining
in his term in office, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times wrote:
If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty
given the president's recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave
behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war. [
2 ]
On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The number of countries is growing, as the United States escalates its military operations
in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.
Without any sense of irony, Mark Landler, author of the Times article, notes Obama's status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner
in 2009. He portrays the president as "trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. . . ." Obama "has wrestled
with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House . . ."
Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the
order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize,
in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes
necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landler's hero can do. Obama has found
his wars "maddeningly hard to end."
The Times ' portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of objective
forces, beyond his control, that frustrated and overwhelmed the lofty ideals and humanitarian aspirations of the president. If Mr.
Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal
specialty, and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the
historical circumstances that determined Obama's "tragic" fate.
But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obama's war-making record to the entire course of American
foreign policy over the past quarter century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost
continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990–91.
The pretext for the Gulf War was Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context
of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The
first President Bush declared the beginning of a "New World Order." [
3 ] What Bush meant by this phrase was
that the United States was now free to restructure the world in the interests of the American capitalist class, unencumbered by either
the reality of the countervailing military power of the Soviet Union or the specter of socialist revolution. The dissolution of the
USSR, hailed by Francis Fukuyama as the "End of History," signified for the strategists of American imperialism the end of military
restraint.
It is one of the great ironies of history that the definitive emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power,
amid the catastrophe of World War I, coincided with the outbreak of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which culminated in the establishment
of the first socialist workers state in history, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. On April 3, 1917, President Woodrow
Wilson delivered his war message to the US Congress and led the United States into the global imperialist conflict. Two weeks later,
V.I. Lenin returned to Russia, which was in the throes of revolution, and reoriented the Bolshevik Party toward the fight to overthrow
the bourgeois Provisional Government.
Lenin and his principal political ally, Leon Trotsky, insisted that the struggle for socialism was indissolubly linked to the
struggle against war. As the historian R. Craig Nation has argued:
For Lenin there was no doubt that the revolution was the result of a crisis of imperialism and that the dilemmas which it posed
could only be resolved on the international level. The campaign for proletarian hegemony in Russia, the fight against the war,
and the international struggle against imperialism were now one and the same. [
4 ]
Just as the United States was striving to establish its position as the arbiter of the world's destiny, it faced a challenge,
in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, not only to the authority of American imperialism, but also to the economic, political,
and even moral legitimacy of the entire capitalist world order. "The rhetoric and actions of the Bolsheviks," historian Melvyn P.
Leffler has written, "ignited fear, revulsion and uncertainty in Washington." [
5 ]
Another perceptive historian of US foreign policy explained:
The great majority of American leaders were so deeply concerned with the Bolshevik Revolution because they were so uneasy about
what President Wilson called the "general feeling of revolt" against the existing order, and about the increasing intensity of
that dissatisfaction. The Bolshevik Revolution became in their minds the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent.
And that is perhaps the crucial insight into the tragedy of American diplomacy. [
6 ]
In a desperate effort to destroy the new revolutionary regime, Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Russia in 1918, in support
of counterrevolutionary forces in the brutal civil war. The intervention was an ignominious failure.
It was not until 1933 that the United States finally granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The diplomatic rapprochement
was facilitated in part by the fact that the Soviet regime, now under Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, was in the process of repudiating
the revolutionary internationalism that had inspired the Bolsheviks in 1917. It was abandoning the perspective of world revolution
in favor of alliances with imperialist states on the basis of "collective security." Unable to secure such an alliance with Britain
and France, Stalin signed the notorious Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in August 1939. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the exigencies of the struggle against
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan required that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forge a military alliance
with the Soviet Union. But once Germany and Japan were defeated, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union rapidly
deteriorated. The Truman administration, opposing the extension of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and frightened by the growth
of Communist parties in Western Europe, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 and triggered the onset of the Cold War.
The Kremlin regime pursued nationalistic policies, based on the Stalinist program of "socialism in one country," and betrayed
working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But the very existence of a regime that arose out of a socialist
revolution had a politically radicalizing impact throughout the world. William Appleman Williams was certainly correct in his view
that "American leaders were for many, many years more afraid of the implicit and indirect challenge of the revolution than they were
of the actual power of the Soviet Union." [
7 ]
In the decades that followed World War II, the United States was unable to ignore the existence of the Soviet Union. To the extent
that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, provided limited political and material
support to anti-imperialist movements in the "Third World," they denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own
interests. These limitations were demonstrated -- to cite the most notable examples -- by the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the
compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.
The existence of the Soviet Union and an anticapitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted
access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials, and potential markets of a large portion of the globe, especially the
Eurasian land mass. It compelled the United States to compromise, to a greater degree than it would have preferred, in negotiations
over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the
tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, combined with the restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen
Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to repudiate the compromises of the post-World
War II era, and to carry out a restructuring of global geopolitics, with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States.
There was no small element of self-delusion in the grandiose American response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombastic
claims that the United States had won the Cold War were based far more on myth than reality. In fact, the sudden dissolution of the
Soviet Union took the entire Washington foreign policy establishment by surprise. In February 1987, the Council on Foreign Relations
published an assessment of US-Soviet relations, authored by two of its most eminent Sovietologists, Strobe Talbott and Michael Mandelbaum.
Analyzing the discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev at meetings in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986, the two experts concluded:
No matter how Gorbachev comes to define perestroika in practice and no matter how he modifies the official definition
of security, the Soviet Union will resist pressure for change, whether it comes from without or within, from the top or the bottom.
The fundamental conditions of Soviet-American relations are therefore likely to persist. This, in turn, means that the ritual
of Soviet-American summitry is likely to have a long run. . . . [
8 ]
The "long run," Talbott and Mandelbaum predicted, would continue not only during the reign of "Gorbachev's successor," but also
his "successor's successor." No substantial changes in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were to be expected.
The two prophets from the Council on Foreign Relations concluded:
Whoever they are, and whatever changes have occurred in the meantime, the American and Soviet leaders of the next century will
be wrestling with the same great issue -- how to manage their rivalry so as to avoid nuclear catastrophe -- that has engaged the
energies, in the latter half of the 1980s, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. [
9 ]
In contrast to the Washington experts, who foresaw nothing, the International Committee recognized that the Gorbachev regime marked
a climactic stage in the crisis of Stalinism. "The crisis of Gorbachev," it declared in a statement dated March 23, 1987, "has emerged
as every section of world Stalinism confronts economic convulsions and upheavals by the masses. In every case -- from Beijing to
Belgrade -- the response of the Stalinist bureaucrats has been to turn ever more openly toward capitalist restorationism." [
10 ]
The Cold War victory narrative encouraged, within the ruling elite, a disastrous overestimation of the power and potential of
American capitalism. The drive for hegemony assumed the ability of the US to contain the economic and political centrifugal forces
unleashed by the operation of global capitalism. Even at the height of its power, such an immense project was well beyond the capacities
of the United States. But amid the euphoria generated by the end of the Soviet Union, the ruling class chose to ignore the deep-rooted
and protracted crisis of American society. An objective observer, examining the conditions of both the United States and the Soviet
Union between 1960 and 1990, might well have wondered which regime was in greater crisis. During the three decades that preceded
the dissolution of the USSR, the United States exhibited high levels of political, social, and economic instability.
Consider the fate of the presidential administrations in power during those three decades: (1) The Kennedy administration ended
tragically in November 1963 with a political assassination, in the midst of escalating social tensions and international crises;
(2) Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, was unable to seek reelection in 1968, as a result of urban riots and mass opposition
to the US invasion of Vietnam; (3) Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office in August 1974, after the House of Representatives'
Judiciary Committee voted for his impeachment on charges related to his criminal subversion of the Constitution; (4) Gerald Ford,
who became president upon Nixon's resignation, was defeated in the November 1976 election amid popular revulsion over Nixon's crimes
and the US military debacle in Vietnam; (5) Jimmy Carter's one term in office was dominated by an inflationary crisis that sent the
federal prime interest rate to 20 percent, a bitter three month national coal miners strike, and the aftershocks generated by the
Iranian Revolution; and (6) Ronald Reagan's years in office, despite all the ballyhoo about "morning in America," were characterized
by recession, bitter social tension, and a series of foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and Central America. The exposure
of an illegal scheme to finance paramilitary operations in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra crisis) brought Reagan to the very brink of
impeachment. His administration was saved by the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had no desire to remove from office a
president who was politically weakened and already exhibiting signs of dementia.
The one persistent factor that confronted all these administrations, from Kennedy to Reagan, was the erosion in the global economic
position of the United States. The unquestioned dominance of American finance and industry at the end of World War II provided the
economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility that formed the basis of global capitalist growth
and stability. By the late 1950s, the system was coming under increasing strain. It was during the Kennedy administration that unfavorable
tendencies in the US balance of trade first began to arouse significant concern. On August 15, 1971, Nixon suddenly ended the Bretton
Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, pegged to a US dollar convertible at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. During
the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar mirrored the deterioration of the American economy.
The belligerent response of the United States to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union reflected the weakness, not the strength,
of American capitalism. The overwhelming support within the ruling elite for a highly aggressive foreign policy arose from the delusion
that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the deployment of its immense
military power.
The Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992, unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions
of US imperialism:
There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture
of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global
competitor. [ 11 ]
The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the first Gulf War, followed by its campaign to break up
Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999
bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that
decade included the intervention in Somalia, which ended in disaster, the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and
Afghanistan, and repeated bombing attacks on Iraq.
The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity to launch the "War on Terror," a propaganda slogan that provided an
all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa.
They furnished the Bush administration with a pretext to institutionalize war as a legitimate and normal instrument of American foreign
policy.
The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed
9/11, Bush used the phrase "wars of the twenty-first century." In this case, the normally inarticulate president spoke with precision.
The "War on Terror" was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would
necessarily lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq.
The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of "preventive warfare," adopted by the US
in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the
world judged to pose a potential threat -- not only of a military, but also of an economic character -- to American interests.
In a verbal sleight of hand, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a preemptive war, undertaken in
response to the imminent threat posed by the country's "weapons of mass destruction" to the national security of the United States.
Of course, the threat was as non-existent as were Saddam Hussein's WMDs. In any event, the Bush administration rendered the distinction
between preemptive and preventive war meaningless, by asserting the right of the United States to attack any country, regardless
of the existence or non-existence of an imminent threat to American national security. Whatever the terminology employed for propaganda
purposes by American presidents, the United States adheres to the illegal doctrine of preventive war.
The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation
of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The same hypocritical pretext
was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these crimes, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.
The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the
US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are
component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.
It is through the prism of America's efforts to assert control of the strategically critical Eurasian landmass, that the essential
significance of the events of 1990–91 is being revealed. But this latest stage in the ongoing struggle for world hegemony, which
lies at the heart of the conflict with Russia and China, is bringing to the forefront latent and potentially explosive tensions between
the United States and its present-day imperialist allies, including -- to name the most significant potential adversary -- Germany.
The two world wars of the twentieth century were not the product of misunderstandings. The past is prologue. As the International
Committee foresaw in 1990–91, the American bid for global hegemony has rekindled interimperialist rivalries simmering beneath the
surface of world politics. Within Europe, dissatisfaction with the US role as the final arbiter of world affairs is being openly
voiced. In a provocative essay, published in Foreign Affairs , the journal of the authoritative US Council on Foreign Relations,
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has bluntly challenged Washington's presumption of US global dominance:
As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held
its ground. . . .
Today both the United States and Europe are struggling to provide global leadership. The 2003 invasion of Iraq damaged the
United States' standing in the world. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart, and U.S. power
in the region began to weaken. Not only did the George W. Bush administration fail to reorder the region through force, but the
political, economic, and soft-power costs of this adventure undermined the United States' overall position. The illusion of a
unipolar world faded. [ 12 ]
In a rebuke to the United States, Steinmeier writes: "Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism
-- for any nation." [ 13 ]
The journalists and academics, who work within the framework of the official narrative of the defense of human rights and the
"War on Terror," cannot explain the progression of conflicts, from the 1990–91 Gulf War, to the current expansion of NATO eight hundred
miles eastward, and the American "pivot to Asia." On a regular basis, the United States and its allies stage war games in Eastern
Europe, in close proximity to the borders of Russia, and in strategically critical waters off the coast of China. It is not difficult
to conceive of a situation in which events -- either as a result of deliberate calculation or of reckless miscalculation -- erupt
into a clash between nuclear-armed powers. In 2014, as the centenary of World War I approached, a growing number of scholarly papers
called attention to the similarities between the conditions that precipitated the disaster of August 1914 and present-day tensions.
One parallel between today and 1914 is the growing sense among political and military strategists that war between the United
States and China and/or Russia may be inevitable. As this fatalistic premise increasingly informs the judgments and actions of the
key decision makers at the highest level of the state, it becomes a dynamic factor that makes the actual outbreak of war more likely.
A specialist in international geopolitics has recently written:
Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether
there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously. Even those neither eager for nor optimistic
about war may opt to fight when operating in the framework of inevitability. [
14 ]
Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that
the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited. What percentage of the American population, one must ask, realizes
that President Barack Obama has formally committed the United States to go to war in defense of Estonia, in the event of a conflict
between the small Baltic country and Russia? The media has politely refrained from asking the president to state how many human beings
would die in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and either Russia or China, or both at the same time.
On the eve of World War II, Leon Trotsky warned that a catastrophe threatened the entire culture of mankind. He was proven correct.
Within less than a decade, the Second World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people. The alarm must once again be
sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth.
The progressive development of a globally integrated world economy is incompatible with capitalism and the nation-state system.
If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program,
and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built. In opposition to imperialist geopolitics,
in which national states fight brutally for regional and global dominance, the International Committee counterposes the strategy
of world socialist revolution. As Trotsky advised, we "follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle. . . ." [
15 ]
In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were mass protests against the war policies of the United States and
its allies. Millions took to the streets. But after the war began, public opposition virtually disappeared. The absence of popular
protest did not signify support for the war. Rather, it reflected the repudiation, by the old middle-class protest movement, of its
former Vietnam-era opposition to imperialism.
There are mounting signs of political radicalization among significant sections of the working class and youth. It is only a matter
of time before this radicalization gives rise to conscious opposition to war. It is the aim of this volume to impart to the new antiwar
movement a revolutionary socialist and internationalist perspective and program.
The quotes from Trotsky are glaring. These and others were used to argue against socialism in the post war decades, but all that
was needed was time and the working of the forces of capitalism itself. History never ended, it is right on schedule
"Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving
the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel
Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that
war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
VI lenin crushed the Krondstadt rebellion that was the true 'soviet union' model and instituted a hard right revolutionary regime
of ruthless dictatorial control from smolny, not a workers state. The US borgeouis (and french and english) intervened to keep
russia in the war and 160 german divisions from leaving the eastern front. The threat of a workers state was not the concern of
the victors. The failure of revolutionary russia to represent what this article is propping it up to be (some kind of genuine
workers state) leaves me deeply suspect about the other conclusions he's bent history to. Anyone who's read "2 years in russia"
by emma goldman, and "the victors dilemma" - john silverlight and any number of books on the russian civil war, it is clear that
the intervention was for military tactical reasons and that the nascient state was in no ways a workers state but a totalitarian
military dictatorship. Emma Goldman's disillusionment is not her falling out of love with her ideals, but her coming to terms
with the reality vs the PR of Russia. Which is why this website (Wsws) advertised a book repudiating the rejection of socialism
with the faiure of the soviet union as a false narrative a year or few ago.
The historical memoir is clear, diaries, memos, news articles, and the Western soldier revolts, time to smash the revolution.
Kronstadt was a tragedy, but the regime was under threat. history is messy.
I can imagine that
the leadership of imperialist countries was underestimating the bolsheviks in 1917, but once the Russian revolution had given
enough confidence to the German masses to make the war stop one year later, once the French black sea fleet had rebelled in 1919,
etc... they were all very conscious of the risks (potential risks, not immediate threats).
The evidence in favour of what Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt is simply overwhelming. A cmd above gave some basic evidence. Trotsky
was absolutely right and absolutely honest on what he wrote later on ("hue and cry over Kronstadt")
The working class has been the victim of betrayal after betrayal by pseudo-left forces in the 20th century, which led to two catastrophic
world wars and all the other conflicts that have created needless bloodshed around the world. The great task will be, when the
new mass working class anti-war movement arises, to give the working class the political knowledge it needs to not fall for the
traps that dissipated anti-war movements in the past. It must be made clear to the workers of the world that for us, it's do or
die time - literally, as the obscene levels of social inequality and the prospect of nuclear confrontation prove.
I understand this very well, having seen what happened to what I thought at the time was a powerful antiwar movement in the 1960s
against the war in Vietnam. I was quite politically naive at the time and became so disillusioned with politics in general and
what I then thought to be the "left" in particular, that I went off politics completely and started reading Ayn Rand.
After being turned off by Rand's misanthropy and hatred of the working class (even though I admired her atheism), I became
more or less apolitical until 1998, when I first read the World Socialist Web Site and found what I had been looking for.
for this affirming comment. Me too, having all but given up on politics and following a last ditch
search of the web I was rewarded with a political program and party that was more than compatible with my world view and personal
values. Something I had not thought possible, thank you ICFI/SEP.
There are times when even we as Marxists find ourselves scouring the past for a word that befits the character and luminosity
of a moment in human understanding. In this respect David North has given new meaning to the word 'Biblical'.
As a word, its essence is transcendent. For whoever defines an epoch in the clearest and most profoundest way as this, is elevated
to the realms of Greatness.
As the bourgeoisie now scrabbles, in fights, and drowns in the last dregs of its alchemy, a Phoenix arises out of their chaos
lest the bourgeoisie commits all to the Fires of Hell ....
Most excellent words comrade David ...a most excellent call to class struggle .
This is a remarkably panoramic account, grounded in both history and economics, of the unfolding of U.S. militarism and imperialist
warfare over the past 30 or so years. It is without peer in anything else I have seen in terms of showing that events and tendencies
- which we may have been separately aware of - were in fact part of a historical continuum growing out of economic developments
and the perceived interests of the U.S. ruling class.
Always interesting to read cmd. North. ''First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the
Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the
entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown
of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism''. This is great but we also
have German militarism on the rise and we should not underestimate. The working class must be prepared for economic and even actual
wars in Europe and elsewhere. The redivision of markets and resources is evident with Germany and China on the table.
March 12, 2019 at 5:25
pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN
Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law
prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."
Hi AnonfromTN.
Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli
"dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly
given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.
They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.
What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President
t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.
Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type
of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US
military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an
Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!
Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland"
law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman
raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on
the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.
@ChuckOrloski I
can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery.
As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and
donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these
should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally,
desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and
severely punish those who expose these crimes.
I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of
any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves
are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash.
Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel
influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness
on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside
have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making
the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that
serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons
of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens
of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders
from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."
ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing
region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying
to overthrow Syria's secular Government
and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is
the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold.
Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.
The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful
that approach turns out to be.
Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly
by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families
and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined
"Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are
believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish
areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on
Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015,
"Ideology
and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other
Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which
was protected by
the US
In September 2016 a UK official
"FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK
FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield
to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have
also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's
Government.
On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US
military website
"Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined
"WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around
twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry,
shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military
had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015,
"Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were
involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen
Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil
from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.
An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit
for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish
city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city
and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq
and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man
in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto
other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by
a brutal coup in February 2014
: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian
reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport"
near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen
minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining
on 14 March,
"Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked,
"A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The
load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's
gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (
Obama's detail-person
overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would
never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia
was being squeezed by this fascist
Ukrainian-American ploy.
The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists.
As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :
"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed
9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."
Furthermore, On
8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000
tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via
Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey
and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."
Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled
"Islamic State Weapons
in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State
forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking
their lives to fight against those jihadists.
In December 2017, CAR headlined
"Weapons of the Islamic State"
and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition
forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.
That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining
"Russian TV
Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was
working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government
in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's
Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't
the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort
against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action,
"'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?
So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs
the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.
This is today's form of imperialism.
Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the
imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting
for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland.
That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against
corruption around the world." For example, as
RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd,
about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together
to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and
democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians
and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them.
Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors'
many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on
the take.
The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries,
and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive
Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people
never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.
Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined
"Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting
on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't
been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't
expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the
past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).
The USA 'lost' in Syria, the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn't be faced off successfully.
Destroying Afgh., Iraq, Lybia, - all 'failures' in the sense of not garnering 'advantage' for the USA as a territory, a Federated
Nation, its citizens, its trade, boosting hopeful expansion, etc. One aim rarely mentioned is keeping allies on board, e.g. Sarkozy's
France, to invade Lybia. In France many say it was Sark I who did DE-ss-troy! Lybia.
The word *failure* is based on the acceptance of a stated aim reminiscent of old-style-colonialism: grab resources, exploit
super-cheap labor, control the natives, mine, exploit, shunt the goods / profits to home base.
If the aim is to stop rivals breathing, blast them back to the Stone Age, the success is good but relative. (see Iraq.) Private
GloboCorps (e.g. Glencore.. ) are in charge behind the curtain, many Gvmts are just stooges for them in the sense of unawoved
partnerships, the one feeding into the other, in a kind of desperado death spiral.
I have always been struck by the fact that Oil Projects / Management in Iraq, even wiki gives lists that shows major movers
and profiteers are not USA oil cos. / interests, but China, Malaysia, many others.
In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing
more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started
on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction
of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is
a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more
a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump
said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded
back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there
into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting
exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror
groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies
have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia
and Iran.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to"
the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit
analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or
NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and
as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United
States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous
nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the
150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want
us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight"
in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has
berated the Saudis
and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly
$4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter
jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's
mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American
militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its
imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only
superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional
hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's
clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he
said
: "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria
and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans
and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas
night was
reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not
at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign
bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his
knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their
military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the
bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s
condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something
virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor
for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked
as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist
based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world,
the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness
to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for
"pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites
for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything,
and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people
and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've
always been getting.'
"... The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. ..."
"... Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ..."
In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military
bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term,
but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.
Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called
defense contractors, and the " emergency
men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the
national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some
quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits,
promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course,
that's part of the problem.
Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they
come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service
rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this:
in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they
have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation,
they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning
hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and
departing after a couple years to
make way for someone else to give it a try.
... ... ...
Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election
already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to
declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white,
that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.
Until that occurs, however, the American penchant for war will stretch on toward infinity.
No doubt Saudi and Israeli leaders will cheer, Europeans who remember their Great War will
scratch their heads in wonder, and the Chinese will laugh themselves silly. Meanwhile, issues
of genuinely strategic importance -- climate change offers one obvious example -- will continue
to be treated like an afterthought. As for the gravy train, it will roll on.
1. WW1 had total casualties (civilian and military) of around 40M. WW2 had total
casualties of 60M. So yes WW2 was more deadly but "pales in comparison" is hardly justified,
especially relative to population.
2. Marshal Foch, 28 June, 1919: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20
years."
WW1 inevitably led to WW2.
The only politician with a modest national stage to have said that (and meant it) in the
last 50 years was Ron Paul, who was booed and mocked as crazy. Trump made noises in that
direction, but almost as soon as the last words of his oath echoed off into the brisk January
afternoon, he seemed to change his tune. Whether he never meant it, or decided to avoid the
JFK treatment, who knows.
No, as I believe Will Rogers said, democracy is that form of government where the people
get what they want, good and hard.
I supported Ron Paul in 2012. But after his candidacy was crookedly subverted by the
Establishment (cf., Trump's) I vowed never to vote again for anyone that I believe unworthy
of the power wielded through the public office. I haven't voted since, and don't expect to
until the Empire collapses.
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I
highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of
governments:
Controversy
On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.
In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently
criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in
Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European
distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in
1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]
In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining
relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.
In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was
first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.
In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until
1970.[18]
At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]
No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they
supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.
I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public,
always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or
that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public
about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what
is wrong with the U.S. today.
As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate
stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for
there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to
govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself
surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with
them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving –
they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia.
Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with
dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.
I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to
propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are
indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of
dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be
better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and
the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention
something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we
throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was
attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about
it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably
be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't
like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly
beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry
chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are
simply being ignored.
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap?
You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to
JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.
Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They
can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge.
CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy
the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your
bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison
CIA SIS or GTFO.
Since Spain was smart enough to stay out of both World Wars (as was Switzerland, of
course), I wonder what Franco was thinking when he banned the film. Anyway, the final scene
may be the best final scene in the history of movies.
This writer, a retired military officer whose son died in service to the yankee imperium
seems to have as good a grasp as any if not a better grasp than any about the nature of the
yankee system of permanent war.
While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected, salaried members of the
elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are Pharaohs and massively
powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.
Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then
a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must
divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here
the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are
extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.
I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could
beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and
Pharaohs because they are global.
The yawning silence accompanying the centennial of the Great War is baffling to me. It was
the pivotal event of the 20th century. It was the beginning of the unmanning, the
demoralization of Western Civilization. It was the calamity that created the World we inhabit
today.
I've heard nary a peep about it in the U.S. over the last four years. It's as if it were
as remote in people's consciousness as the Punic Wars.
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading
British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human,
and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.
Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate
attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again
with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.
But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their
profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.
In a traditional sense the author is right. Strategy is the attainment of political goals,
within existing constraints. (diplomatic, political, resources etc)
"Goals" traditionally means "victories". (WWI is a great example of the sometimes dubious
idea of victory)
Has the US ceased to have a strategy ? No. (Their strategy is myopic & self destructive
– ie it's not a "good" strategy)
The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony
over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. Afghanistan,
at (relatively) minimal cost, US controls key land mass (& with possible future access to
fantastic resources). Threaten, mess up Russian – Chinese ambitions in this area. Iraq:
Israeli enemy, strategic location, resource extraction. Syria: Israeli enemy, strategic
location, key location for resource transfer to markets (EU esp). Deny Russia an ally. Libya:
who cares ? Gaddafi was a pain in the arse. Iran: Israeli enemy, fantastic resources, hate
them regardless.
Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that
it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional
"war" it's pretty cheap ( which is funny, because it's such a yummy gravy train for the
1% sorry, actually, forgot the FIRST core principle of US strategy: enrich all the "right"
people)
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the
instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so
many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for
the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great,
big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be
a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is
no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side
will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing
and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently
the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long you will see this
curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of
furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as
earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and
all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who
ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen
will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man
will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that
the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of
grotesque self-deception'.
- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)
European politicians, the war on terror, and the triumph of Bankers United: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/12/europe-brainwashed-normalize-relations-russia/
"Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know
what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so
they are likely to stick with Washington .
Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is
the West's weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar
world."
The world is ripe for barter exchange. Screw the money changers.
On January 8, 2018, former government advisor Edward Luttwak wrote an opinion piece for
Foreign Policy titled "It's Time to Bomb North Korea."
Luttwak's thesis is relatively straightforward. There is a government out there that may
very soon acquire nuclear-weapons capabilities, and this country cannot be trusted to
responsibly handle such a stockpile. The responsibility to protect the world from a rogue
nation cannot be argued with, and we understandably have a duty to ensure the future of
humanity.
However, there is one rogue nation that continues to hold the world ransom with its nuclear
weapons supply. It is decimating non-compliant states left, right, and center. This country
must be stopped dead in its tracks before anyone turns to the issue of North Korea.
In August of 1945, this rogue nation dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets, not
military targets, completely obliterating between 135,000 and
300,000 Japanese civilians in just these two acts alone. Prior to this event, this country
killed even more civilians in the infamous
firebombing of Tokyo and other areas of Japan, dropping close to 500,000 cylinders of
napalm and petroleum jelly on some of Japan's most densely populated areas.
Recently, historians have become more open to the possibility that dropping the atomic bombs
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not actually necessary to end World War II. This has also been
confirmed by those who actually took part in it. As the Nation
explained:
Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, stated in a public
address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings that 'the atomic bomb played
no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan ' Adm. William
"Bull" Halsey Jr., Commander of the US Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946 that 'the first
atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . It was a mistake to ever drop it . [the
scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it
A few months' prior, this rogue country's
invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa also claimed at least one quarter of Okinawa's
population. The Okinawan people have been protesting this country's military presence ever
since. The most recent ongoing protest
has lasted well over 5,000 days in a row.
This nation's bloodlust continued well after the end of World War II. Barely half a decade
later, this country bombed North Korea into complete oblivion, destroying over 8,700 factories,
5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, 600,000 homes, and
eventually killing off as much as 20 percent of the country's population. As the Asia
Pacific Journal has noted, the assaulting country dropped so many bombs that they eventually
ran out of targets to hit, turning to bomb the irrigation systems, instead:
By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every
significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the
spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the
North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to
the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating
whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans."
This was just the beginning. Having successfully destroyed the future North Korean
state, this country moved on to the rest of East Asia and Indo-China, too. As Rolling Stone's
Matt Taibbi
has explained :
We [this loose cannon of a nation] dumped 20 million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam
from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win
'hearts and minds' that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease
– including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen
heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of
view, of course.
This mass murder led to the deaths of between 1.5 million and 3.8 million people,
according to the Washington Post. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were unleashed
during the entire
conflict in World War II . While this was going on, this same country was also
secretly bombing Laos and Cambodia, too, where there are over 80 million
unexploded bombs still killing people to this day.
This country also decided to bomb Yugoslavia ,
Panama
, and
Grenada before invading Iraq in the early 1990s. Having successfully bombed Iraqi
infrastructure, this country then punished Iraq's entire civilian population with brutal
sanctions. At the time, the U.N.
estimated that approximately 1.7 million Iraqis had died as a result, including
500,000 to 600,000 children . Some years later, a prominent medical journal attempted
to absolve the cause of this infamous history by refuting the statistics involved despite
the fact that, when interviewed during the sanctions-era, Bill Clinton's secretary of state,
Madeleine Albright, intimated that to this rogue government, the
deaths of half a million children were "worth it" as the "price" Iraq needed to pay. In other
words, whether half a million children died or not was irrelevant to this bloodthirsty nation,
which barely blinked while carrying out this murderous policy.
This almighty superpower then invaded Iraq again in 2003 and plunged the entire region
into chaos . At the end of May 2017, the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)
released a study
concluding that the death toll from this violent nation's 2003 invasion of Iraq had led to over
one million deaths and that at least one-third of them were caused directly by the invading
force.
Not to mention this country also invaded Afghanistan prior to the invasion of Iraq (even
though the militants plaguing Afghanistan were
originally trained and financed by this warmongering nation). It then
went on to bomb Yemen, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and the
Philippines .
Libya famously
had one of the highest standards of living in the region. It had state-assisted healthcare,
education, transport, and affordable housing. It is now a lawless war-zone
rife with extremism where slaves are openly traded like commodities
amid the power vacuum created as a direct result of the 2011 invasion.
In 2017, the commander-in-chief of this violent nation took the monumental death and
destruction to a new a level by removing
the restrictions on delivering airstrikes, which resulted in thousands upon
thousands of civilian deaths. Before that, in the first six months of 2017, this country
dropped
over 20,650 bombs , a monumental increase from the year that preceded it.
Despite these statistics, all of the above conquests are mere child's play to this nation.
The real prize lies in some of the more defiant and more powerful states, which this country
has already unleashed a containment strategy upon. This country has deployed its own troops all
across the border
with Russia even though it promised in the early 1990s it
would do no such thing. It also has a specific policy of
containing Russia's close ally, China, all the while threatening China's borders with talks
of direct strikes on North Korea (again, remember it already did so in the 1950s).
This country also elected a president who not only believes it is okay to embrace this rampantly violent
militarism but who openly calls other
countries "shitholes" – the very same term that aptly describes the way this country
has treated the rest of the world for decades on end. This same president also reportedly once
asked three times in a meeting
, "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" and shortly after proposed a policy to
remove the constraints protecting the world from his dangerous supply of advanced nuclear
weaponry.
If we have any empathy for humanity, it is clear that this country must be stopped. It
cannot continue to act like this to the detriment of the rest of the planet and the safety and
security of the rest of us. This country
openly talks about using its nuclear weapons, has used them before, and has continued to
use all manner of weapons unabated in the years since while threatening to expand the use of
these weapons to other countries.
Seriously, if North Korea seems like a threat, imagine how the rest of the world feels while
watching one country violently take on the rest of the planet single-handedly, leaving nothing
but destruction in its wake and promising nothing less than a nuclear holocaust in the years to
come.
There is only one country that has done and that continues to do the very things North Korea
is being accused of doing.
Take as much time as you need for that to resonate.
1 The Korean War ends (1953
2 President Kennedy invades South Vietnam (1962)
3 The US overthrows Allende in Chile (1973)
4 The West installs Iranian dictator the Shah (1953)
5 The US-led Iraq invasion (2003)
Many honorable mentions including:
– NATO bombing of Serbia
– Libya
– Afghanistan
– Syria (support of ISIS and its predecessors and spinoffs)
The US body count is simply staggering – many millions killed, millions more wounded
or poisoned (Vietnam – agent orange and other chemical agents) and tens of millions of
lives forever damaged.
USA! USA! USA! (its elites that rule us of course!)
"... In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its "exceptionalism", Burns' "entirely new" Vietnam war is presented as "epic, historic work". Its lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in Vietnam. ..."
"... The cynical fabrication of "false flags" that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official documents, notably the Pentagon Papers ..."
"... Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as "nuclear targeting planning is increased". The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against "repeating the worst mistakes of the Cold War All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this." ..."
"... Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record, including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama's overthrow of Ukraine's elected government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia's western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941. ..."
In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its
"exceptionalism", Burns' "entirely new" Vietnam war is presented as "epic, historic work". Its
lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was
burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in
Vietnam.
Burns says he is grateful to "the entire Bank of America family" which "has long supported
our country's veterans". Bank of America was a corporate prop to an invasion that killed
perhaps as many as four million Vietnamese and ravaged and poisoned a once bountiful land. More
than 58,000 American soldiers were killed, and around the same number are estimated to have
taken their own lives.
I watched the first episode in New York. It leaves you in no doubt of its intentions right
from the start. The narrator says the war "was begun in good faith by decent people out of
fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War misunderstandings".
The dishonesty of this statement is not surprising. The cynical fabrication of "false flags"
that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin "incident"
in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official
documents, notably the Pentagon Papers , which the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg
released in 1971.
There was no good faith. The faith was rotten and cancerous. For me – as it must be
for many Americans ! it is difficult to watch the film's jumble of "red peril" maps,
unexplained interviewees, ineptly cut archive and maudlin American battlefield sequences.
... ... ...
The sheer energy and moral persistence of these great movements largely succeeded; by 1987
Reagan had negotiated with Mikhail Gorbachev an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)
that effectively ended the Cold War.
Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche
Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as "nuclear targeting planning is
increased". The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against "repeating the worst
mistakes of the Cold War All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev
and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training
ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this."
But not in America. The thousands who turned out for Senator Bernie Sanders' "revolution" in
last year's presidential campaign are collectively mute on these dangers. That most of
America's violence across the world has been perpetrated not by Republicans, or mutants like
Trump, but by liberal Democrats, remains a taboo.
Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record,
including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama's overthrow of Ukraine's elected
government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia's
western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941.
"... While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation". ..."
"... Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ? ..."
"... Sphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place. ..."
While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and
liberation".
I hate how America exploit the weak. president moon should offer an olive branch to fatty Kim by sending back the
thaad to America and pulling out American base and troops. he should convince fatty Kim that should he really like to proliferate
his nuclear missile development as deterrence, aim it only to America and America only. there is no need for Koreans to kill fellow
Koreans.
Very good idea, after having pushed Ukraine and Georgia to a war lost in advance, lets hope US will abandon South Korea and
Japan because they were helpless in demilitarizing one of the poorest countries in the world....
Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia?
Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life
isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say
farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining
ground btw. Ask yourself why ?
In this person's opinion, the article raises a good point with regards to US defense subsidies. However, its examples are dissimilar.
Japan spends approximately 1% of its GDP on defense; South Korea spends roughly 2.5% of its GDP defense.
In fact, it seems to this person that a better example of US Defense Welfare would be direct subsidies granted to the state
of Israel.
"... Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies professor from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team created an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014. ..."
"... " Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions. ..."
Tyler Durden
Aug 26, 2017 9:15 PM 0
SHARES
US has had a military presence across the world
, from almost day one of its independence.
For those who have ever wanted a clearer picture of the true reach of the United States
military - both historically and currently - but shied away due to the sheer volume of research
required to find an answer,
The Anti Media points out
that
a crew at the
Independent
just made things a whole lot simpler.
Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies
professor
from Evergreen State College in
Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team
created
an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from
Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014.
To avoid confusion, indy100 laid out its prerequisites for what constitutes an invasion:
" Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US
intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military
support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions.
But indy100 didn't stop there.
To put all that history into context, using
data
from the Department
of Defense (DOD), the team also put together a map to display all the countries in which nearly
200,000 active members of the U.S. military are now stationed.
"... As for Washington and the proverbially bombastic, failed futurists across the Beltway, do they even know what is the end game of "investing" in two never-ending wars with no visible benefits? ..."
As for Washington and the proverbially bombastic, failed futurists across the Beltway, do they even know what is the
end game of "investing" in two never-ending wars with no visible benefits?
You start by assuming that the absence of war is the ultimate good, but none can say what a world without war would be like,
or how long it would last.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/20/wars-john-gray-conflict-peace
Has the world seen moral progress? The answer should not depend on whether one has a sunny or a morose temperament. Everyone
agrees that life is better than death, health better than sickness, prosperity better than privation, freedom better than tyranny,
peace better than war. All of these can be measured, and the results plotted over time. If they go up, that's progress.
For John Gray, this is a big problem. As a part of his campaign against reason, science and Enlightenment humanism, he insists
that the strivings of humanity over the centuries have left us no better off. This dyspepsia was hard enough to sustain when
Gray first expressed it in the teeth of obvious counterexamples such as the abolition of human sacrifice, chattel slavery and
public torture-executions. But as scholars have increasingly measured human flourishing, they have found that Gray is not just
wrong but howlingly, flat-earth, couldn't-be-more-wrong wrong. The numbers show that after millennia of near-universal poverty
and despotism, a steadily growing proportion of humankind is surviving infancy and childbirth, going to school, voting in democracies,
living free of disease, enjoying the necessities of modern life and surviving to old age.
And more people are living in peace. In the 1980s several military scholars noticed to their astonishment that the most
destructive form of armed conflict – wars among great powers and developed states – had effectively ceased to exist. At the
time this "long peace" could have been dismissed as a random lull, but it has held firm for an additional three decades.
In my opinion Gray, though wrong that violence is not decreasing, is onto something about the future being bleak because of
the rise of meliorist assumptions, because perpetual peace will be humanity's tomb.
While many suggest a danger for our world along the lines of
Brian Cox's explanation for the Fermi Paradox (ie intelligent life forms cross grainedly bring on self-annihilation through
unlimited war) I take a different view.
Given that Pinker appears substantially correct that serious war (ie wars among great powers and developed states) have effectively
ceased to exist, the trend is for peace and cooperation. Martin Nowak in his book The Supercoperators shows cooperation, not fighting,
to be the defining human trait (and indeed the most cooperative groups won their wars in history, whereby nation states
such the US are the result of not just individuals but familial tribal regional , and virtually continental groupings coming together
for mutual advantage and defence .
The future is going to be global integration pursuit of economic objectives, and I think this exponential moral progress bill
begat technological advances beyond imagining.. An escape from the war trap is almost complete and the Singularity becomes. The
most likely culprit in the paradox is a technological black hole event horizon created by unlimited peace and progress.
Cross-grained though it may be to say that the good war hallows every cause, I think it not so bad in comparison with the alternative.
"... Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor and messianic in its language. ..."
"... At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem," yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways. ..."
"... Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory is built. ..."
"... Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet. ..."
"... I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department. ..."
"... I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization, which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely. Neither is guaranteed. ..."
"... "Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened. ..."
"... Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire, ..."
"... We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem, or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or .... ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'. ..."
"... "If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but a Global Empire only posing as your former country." ..."
Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are
part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from
the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but
can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and
he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and
integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy
of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor
and messianic in its language.
The foundation upon which Barnett builds his binary view of the world is heavily dependant upon the continued advancement of
globalization - almost exclusively so. However, advancing globalization is not pre-ordained. Barnett himself makes the case that
globalization is a fragile undertaking similar to an interconnected chain in which any broken link destroys the whole. Globalization
could indeed be like the biblical statue whose feet are made of clay. Globalization, and therefore the integration of the Gap,
may even stop or recede - just as the globalization of the early 20th century ended abruptly with the onset of WW I and a global
depression. Moreover, Barnett's contention that the United States has an exceptional duty and moral responsibility for "remaking
the world in America's image" might be seen by many as misguided and perhaps even dangerous.
The divide between the `Functioning Core' and the `Non-Integrating Gap' differs from the gulf between rich and poor in a subtle
yet direct way. State governments make a conscious decision to become connected vs. disconnected to advancing globalization. States
and their leaders can provide the infrastructure and the opening of large global markets to their citizens in ways that individuals
cannot. An example can serve to illustrate the point: You can be rich and disconnected in Nigeria or poor and disconnected in
North Korea. In each case the country you live in has decided to be disconnected. Citizens in this case have a limited likelihood
of staying rich and unlimited prospects of staying poor. But by becoming part of the functioning Core, the enlightened state allows
all citizens a running start at becoming part of a worldwide economic system and thus provide prospects for a better future because
global jobs and markets are opened up to them. A connected economy such as India's, for example, enables citizens who once had
no prospects for a better life to find well-paying jobs, such as computer-related employment. Prospects for a better Indian life
are directly the result of the Indian government's conscious decision to become connected to the world economy, a.k.a. embracing
globalization.
After placing his theory of the Core/Gap and preemptive war strategy firmly into the church of globalization, Barnett next
places his theory squarely upon the alter of rule sets. Few would argue that the world is an anarchic place and Barnett tells
us that rule sets are needed to define `good' and `evil' behavior of actors in this chaotic international system. An example of
such a rule set is the desire of the Core to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorist organizations. Other examples are the promulgation
of human rights and the need to stop genocide. Barnett also uses rule sets to define `system' rules that govern and shape the
actions, and even the psychology, of international actors. An example that Barnett gives of a system-wide rule set is the creation
of the `rule' defined by the United States during the Cold War called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Barnett claims that this
rule set effectively ended the possibility of war for all time amongst nuclear-capable great powers. Barnett states that the U.S.
now should export a brand new rule set called `preemptive war,' which aims to fight actors in the lawless Gap in order to end
international terrorism for all time. Barnett makes it clear that the Core's enemy is neither a religion (Islam) nor a place (Middle
East), but a condition (disconnectedness).
Next, Barnett points out that system-wide competition has moved into the economic arena and that military conflict, when it
occurs, has moved away from the system-wide (Cold War), to inter-state war, ending up today with primarily state conflict vs.
individuals (Core vs. bin Laden, Core vs. Kim, etc.). In other words, "we are moving progressively away from warfare against states
or even blocs of states and toward a new era of warfare against individuals." Rephrased, we've moved from confrontations with
evil empires, to evil states, to evil leaders. An example of this phenomenon is the fact that China dropped off the radar of many
government hawks after 9/11 only to be replaced by terrorist groups and other dangerous NGOs "with global reach."
Barnett also points out that the idea of `connectivity' is central to the success of globalization. Without it, everything
else fails. Connectivity is the glue that holds states together and helps prevent war between states. For example, the US is not
likely to start a war with `connected' France, but America could more likely instigate a war with `disconnected' North Korea,
Syria or Iran.
Barnett then examines the dangers associated with his definition of `disconnectedness.' He cleverly describes globalization
as a condition defined by mutually assured dependence (MAD) and advises us that `Big Men', royal families, raw materials, theocracies
and just bad luck can conspire to impede connectedness in the world. This is one of few places in his book that Barnett briefly
discusses impediments to globalization - however, this short list looks at existing roadblocks to connectedness but not to future,
system-wide dangers to globalization.
At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore
never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited
some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by
claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard
wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem,"
yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion
that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways.
Barnett then takes us on a pilgrimage to the Ten Commandments of globalization. Tellingly, this list is set up to be more like
links in a chain than commandments. Each item in the list is connected to the next - meaning that each step is dependent upon
its predecessor. If any of the links are broken or incomplete, the whole is destroyed. For example, Barnett warns us that if there
is no security in the Gap, there can be no rules in the Gap. Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand
strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory
is built.
What else could kill globalization? Barnett himself tells us: "Labor, energy, money and security all need to flow as freely
as possible from those places in the world where they are plentiful to those regions where they are scarce." Here he is implying
that an interruption of any or all of these basic necessities can doom globalization. Barnett states clearly: "...(these are)
the four massive flows I believe are essential to protect if Globalization III is going to advance." Simply put, any combination
of American isolationism or closing of borders to immigration, a global energy crisis, a global financial crisis or rampant global
insecurity could adversely affect "connectedness," a.k.a. globalization. These plausible future events, unnerving as they are,
leave the inexorable advancement of globalization in doubt and we haven't yet explored other problems with Barnett's reliance
on globalization to make the world peaceful, free and safe for democracy.
Barnett goes on to tell us that Operation Iraqi Freedom was an "overt attempt to create a "System Perturbation" centered in
the Persian Gulf to trigger a Big Bang." His definition of a Big Bang in the Middle East is the democratization of the many totalitarian
states in the region. He also claims that the Big Bang has targeted Iran's "sullen majority."
Barnett claims that our problem with shrinking the Gap is not our "motive or our means, but our inability to describe the enemies
worth killing, the battles worth winning, and the future worth creating." Managing the global campaign to democratize the world
is no easy task. Barnett admits that in a worst-case scenario we may be stuck in the "mother of all intifadas" in Iraq. Critics
claim this is something that we should have planned for - that the insurgency should not have been a surprise, and that it should
have been part of the "peacemaking" planning. Barnett blithely states that things will get better "...when America internationalizes
the occupation." Barnett should not engage in wishful thinking here, as he also does when he predicted that Iraqis would be put
in charge of their own country 18 months after the fall of Baghdad. It would be more accurate if he claimed this would happen
18 months after the cessation of hostilities. Some critics claim that Iraq is an example that we are an "empire in a hurry" (Michael
Ignatieff), which then results in: 1) allocating insufficient resources to non-military aspects of the project and 2) attempting
economic and political transformation in an unrealistically short time frame.
The final basic premise of Barnett's theory of the Core and the Gap is the concept of what he calls the "global transaction
strategy." Barnett explains it best: "America's essential transaction with the outside world is one of our exporting security
in return for the world's financing a lifestyle we could far more readily afford without all that defense spending." Barnett claims
that America pays the most for global stability because we enjoy it the most. But what about the other 80 countries in the Core?
Why is America, like Atlas, bearing the weight of the world's security and stabilization on its shoulders?
Barnett claims that historical analogies are useless today and point us in the wrong direction. I disagree. James Madison cautioned
us not to go abroad to seek monsters to destroy. We can learn from his simple and profound statement that there are simply too
many state (and individual) monsters in today's world for the U.S. to destroy unilaterally or preemptively. We must also avoid
overstretching our resources and power. Thucydides reminds us that the great democracy of Athens was brought to its knees by the
ill-advised Sicilian expedition - which resulted in the destruction of everything the Athenians held dear. Do not ignore history
as Barnett councils; heed it.
Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet.
Therefore, America needs to stay engaged in the affairs of the world, but Barnett has not offered conclusive evidence that the
U.S. needs to become the world's single Leviathan that must extinguish all global hot wars. Barnett also has not proved that America
needs to be, as he writes, "the one willing to rush in when everyone else is running away." People like Barnett in academia and
leaders in government may proclaim and ordain the U.S. to be a global Leviathan, but it is a conscious choice that should be thoroughly
debated by the American people. After all, it is upon the backs of the American people that such a global Leviathan must ride.
Where is the debate? The American people, upon reflection, may decide upon other courses of action.
I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend
it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the
military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department.
It seems to be well researched - having 35 pages of notes. Many of Barnett's citations come from the Washington Post and the
New York Times, which some may see as a liberal bias, but I see the sources as simply newspapers of record.
I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization,
which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely.
Neither is guaranteed.
I don't think poorly of Thomas Barnett himself. He's very bright and, I think, good hearted, BUT his well thought-out, well
argued pride and joy (and positive intellectual pursuit) is being badly distorted ---- which happens to all 'tools' that Empire
gets its hands on.
For those who like predictions, I would predict that Barnett will wind up going through an epiphany much like Francis Fukuyama
(but a decade later) and for much the same reason, that his life's work gets misused and abused so greatly that he works to reverse
and correct its misuse. Fukuyama, also brilliant, wrote "The End of History" in 1992 (which was misused by the neocons to engender
war), and now he's working just as hard to reverse a misuse that he may feel some guilt of his work supporting, and is writing
"The Future of History" as a force for good --- and I suspect (and hope) that Barnett will, in even less time, be counter-thinking
and developing the strategy and book to reverse the misuse of his 2004 book before the Global Empire pulls down the curtain.
"Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate
name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened.
Best luck and love to the fast expanding 'Occupy the Empire' educational and revolutionary movement against this deceitful,
guileful, disguised EMPIRE, which can't so easily be identified as wearing Red Coats, Red Stars, nor funny looking Nazi helmets
---- quite yet!
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding
wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem,
or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or ....
ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'.
"If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but
a Global Empire only posing as your former country."
"... Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003. ..."
"... If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents. ..."
People who seem to think that Trump's generals will somehow go along and support his original vision are sadly mistaken.
Since 2003, Israel has had an increasingly strong hand in the vetting who gets promoted to upper positions in the American
armed forces. All of the generals Trump has at his side went through a vetting procedure which definitely involved a very close
look at their opinions about Israel.
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened
in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003.
Officers who openly oppose the dictates of the Israel Lobby will see their prospects for advancement simply vanish like a whiff
of smoke.. Those who support Israel's machinations are rewarded with promotions, the more fervent the support the more rapid the
promotion especially if this knowledge is made known to their congressman or senator..
Generals who support Israel already know that this support will be heavily rewarded after their retirements by being given
lucrative six figure positions on company boards of directors or positions in equally lucrative think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institution or the Hoover Institute. They will receive hefty speaking fees. as well. They learned early that their
retirements could be truly glorious if they only "went" along with The Lobby. They will be able to then live the good life in
expensive places like Washington, New York or San Francisco, often invited to glitzy parties with unlimited amount of free prawns
"the size of your hand".
On the other hand, upper officers who somehow get then get "bad" reputations for their negative views about Israel ( like Karen
U. Kwiatkowski for instance) will end up, once retired, having to depend on just their often scanty pensions This requires getting
an often demeaning second jobs to get by in some place where "their dollar goes further". No bright lights in big cities for them.
No speaking fees, no college jobs. Once their fate becomes known, their still active duty contemporaries suddenly decide to "go
along".
If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years
ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents.
Face it, we live in a country under occupation by a hostile power that we willingly pay large amounts monetary tribute to.
Our government does whatever benefits Israel regardless of how negatively this effects the USA. We are increasing troop strength
in Afghanistan because, somehow, this benefits Israel. If our presence in Afghanistan (or the Mideast in general) didn't benefit
Israel, our troops would simply not be there.
Well put. These people are like the "nobles" of medieval times. They care not a whit about the "peasants" they trample. They
are wealth bigots, compounded by some ethnic bigotry or other, in this case Jewish supremacism. America has an oligarchy problem.
At the center of that oligarchy is a Jewish mafia controlling the banks, and thereby the big corporations, and thereby the media
and the government. This oligarchy sees America as a big, dumb military machine that it can manipulate to generate war profits.
"... There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris. ..."
The Russians were there in Yugoslavia but they were not following NATO's script. There was an incident where Russian forces
took control of a key airport to the total surprise of NATO. The US overall commander ordered the UK to go in and kick the Russians
out. The UK ground commander wisely said he was not prepared to start WW III over Russian control of an airfield.
There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion
of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was
removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess
this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris.
According to some commenters at MoA the US neocons can be viewed as a flavor of political psychopaths: "Linear thinking is precisely
how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation.
It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking
because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates
think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone
straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced
and banished from the Washington tribe."
and " the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath
manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough
about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops
in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things
to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create
our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single
time. "
Notable quotes:
"... Provided the gross flaws of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying. ..."
"... Barack CIA 0bama. ..."
"... It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. ..."
"... Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit? ..."
"... Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives. ..."
"... you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals? ..."
"... it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion. ..."
"... the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him. ..."
"... Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP. ..."
"... There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade. ..."
"... My only gripe with his work is that he always describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc. ..."
"... Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe. ..."
"... the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told, break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed. ..."
"... Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but who cares, the cash keeps flowing. ..."
"... It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end - but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that. ..."
"... Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them! ..."
"... Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic damage. ..."
"... America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road to destruction. ..."
"... the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single time. ..."
"... The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression. ..."
"... Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization is the embodiment of that propaganda. ..."
"... The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored. The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated. The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story. ..."
"... Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is often quite noticeable in comments at SST. ..."
"... The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality. The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane. If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it. ..."
"linear"?, I would say amateurish and often stupid! It seems that the USA cannot see far enough as it's submitted to regime changes
every 5 years and decisions are finally left to powerful lobbies that have a better continuity.
Provided the gross flaws
of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive
universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying.
"Linear" and all that is the mushy feel-good stuff on top of your arrogance. Kleptocracy only NOW putting down its roots? Come
on. Let's get back to the 90's where it started. Vengeance for 9/11? Cover?
It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. All's well in the world with
them as long as the USSA is grinding away on some near helpless ME country. Drugs and other natural resources flow from and death
and destruction flow to the unsuspecting Muslim targets.
With America, you're our friend, (or at least we tolerate you) until you're not (or we don't), then God help you and your innocent
hoards.
The organized and well scripted chaos has been just one act in the larger play of destroying western civilization with throngs
of Muslims now flooding western Europe and to a lesser degree, USA. Of course, the Deep State had felt confident in allowing Latinos
to destroy America...Trump has put a large crimp in the pipeline--one of the reasons he is hated so badly by the destructive PTB.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective
and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.
It is entirely possible that the underlying objective of, for instance, invading Iraq was to win a war and bring democracy.
Subsequent behaviour in Iraq (and Afghanistan) indicates that there might be (likely is) a hidden but central other objective.
I do not want to state that I know what that is because I am not "in the know". However, much that you attribute to failure from
linear thinking just as easily can be explained by the complexity of realizing a "hidden agenda".
Perhaps we can learn from history. Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a
game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power
and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having
sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit?
Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted
by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as
partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make
them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives.
Russia learnt a huge lesson from their experience in Afghanistan. There they retreated in the face of a violent Wahabist insurgency
and paid the price. The Soviet union collapsed and became vulnerable to western free-market gangsterism as well as suffering the
blowback of terrorism in Chechnya, where they decided to play it very differently. A bit more like how Assad senior dealt with
the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980's.
Russia knew that if ISIS and friends were allowed to destroy Syria like the Mujahadeen
had done in Afghanistan, then it would only be a matter of time before blowback would come again to Russia.
Russia's involvement is entirely rational and in their national interest. It should never have come as a surprise to the US,
and the US should shake off their cold war propaganda and be grateful that people are willing to put their lives on the line to
defeat Wahabist terrorism. Russia has played a focused line with integrity. Many Syrians love them for this, and many more in
the Middle East will likewise adopt a similar line.
In other words, the linear mindset blocks out all non-conforming realities in the present and those contingent elements
which might arise in the future
you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals?
i kinda skimmed this piece, but it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy
without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion.
Brenner: Washington never really had a plan in Syria.
Really? Firstly, the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on
a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the
strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him.
Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in
this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP.
The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities
has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic
to Al Qaeda.
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January [2007], Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
that there is "a new strategic alignment in the Middle East," separating "reformers" and "extremists"; she pointed to the Sunni
states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were "on the other side of that divide."
Lastly, Brenner's complaint that Obama has been "scape-goated" as having created ISIS conveniently ignores Obama's allowing ISIS
to grow by down-playing the threat that it represented. Obama's called ISIS al Queda's "JV team" and senior intelligence analysts
dutifully distorted intelligence to down-play the threat (see below). This was one of many deceptions that Obama took part in
- if not orchestrated (others: "moderate rebels", Benghazi, the "Fiscal Cliff", bank bailouts).
After months of investigation, this much is very clear: from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States
Central Command's most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command's intelligence products to downplay the threat from
ISIS in Iraq" . . .
The Joint Task Force can find no justifiable reason why operational reporting was repeatedly used as a rationale to change
the analytic product, particularly when the changes only appeared to be made in a more optimistic direction . . .
There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's
break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade.
Russia has also benefited through the non-linear analysis of US diplomacy failures of the last two decades. Russia has created
a coalition backing up their military entry into the Middle East that allows achievement of tangible objectives at a sustainable
cost.
But b's article is about the US's dismal diplomacy that is exacerbating its rapid empire decline and it does very well to help
explain the rigid lack of thought that hastens the deterioration of US influence.
This article makes a lot of good points, but I didn't really grasp exactly what "linear" thinking is. OK. Venezuela very well
may be turning into a situation. What is the "linear" approach? What, instead, would be the "non-linear" approach? This article
cites many "linear" failures. It would be helpful also to learn of some non-linear successes. If not by the United States then
by somebody else.
Let me clarify my prior posting. This article seems to be asserting that the United States has attempted to pound the square peg
of its policy objectives into the round hole of the Middle East. I pretty much agree with that idea. But how is this "linear,"
as opposed to "bull-headed"? How does being "non-linear" help with the pounding? Would not adapting our policies to pound a round
peg instead be just as "linear" but more clever?
Thanks for posting these great observations by Michael Brenner, b.
The link to his bio on University of Pitsburg site is broken and the page is gone, but it still exists for now in Google's
cache from Aug. 1st
here . His bio can also be found under this ">https://www.theglobalist.com/united-states-common-man-forgotten-by-elites/">this
article from The Globalist
Everything I've read of Dr. Brenner that I've stumbled across is brilliant. My only gripe with his work is that he always
describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never
goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy
infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc.
While he is quite accurate in describing the symptoms, one is left with the impression that they are the things to be
fixed. Linear thinking in a U.S. foreign policy of aggression? Absolutely, but it's pointless to 'fix' that without understanding
the cause.
Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population
for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money,
guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear
thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters
will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels
that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe.
Does anyone in Washington REALLY want to 'save' the Persians and 'rebuild' Iran as they imagine America did post WWII to German
and Japan? Or is the more overriding intent to punish and destroy a leadership that will not submit to the political and commercial
interests in the US? Of course the U.S. fails to deliver any benefits to the 'little people' after destroying their country and
government - they are incapable of understanding what the 'little people' want (same goes for domestic issues in the U.S.).
The U.S. government and leadership do not need lessons to modify their techniques or 'thinking' - they are incapable of doing
so. You can't 'talk a psychopath into having empathy' any more than you can talk them out of having smallpox. 'The law' and voting
were intentionally broken in the U.S. to make them all but useless to fix Washington, yet a zombified American public will continue
to use the religiously (or sit back and watch others use them religiously) with little result. Because we're a democracy and a
nation of laws - the government will fix anything broken with those tools.
In a certain sense, I'm glad Brennan does NOT go on about psychopathy in his articles. He would sound as tedious and nutty
as I do here and would never be allowed near Washington. I'll just be grateful for his thorough illustration of the symptoms for
now.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective
and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.
First, this is more an analysis of military failure to "do the job" that Washington "strategic thinkers" tell them to do, and
the reasons why it's such a futile game. In our system of government, the military does tactics, not strategy. And the above article,
which should be passed out to every politician in this country, isn't really about "the objective".
For example, the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors
and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected
strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told,
break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency
gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever
dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed.
Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from
reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and
breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers
and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling
arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to
keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but
who cares, the cash keeps flowing.
And if you want to know why the Borg State got firmly behind Hillary Clinton, it's because they could see her supporting this
agenda wholeheartedly, especially after Libya. Here's a comment she wrote to Podesta on 2014-08-19, a long 'strategy piece' ending
with this note:
Note: It is important to keep in mind that as a result of this policy there probably will be concern in the Sunni regions of
Iraq and the Central Government regarding the possible expansion of KRG controlled territory. With advisors in the Peshmerga
command we can reassure the concerned parties that, in return for increase autonomy, the KRG will not exclude the Iraqi Government
from participation in the management of the oil fields around Kirkuk, and the Mosel Dam hydroelectric facility. At the same
time we will be able to work with the Peshmerga as they pursue ISIL into disputed areas of Eastern Syria, coordinating with
FSA troops who can move against ISIL from the North. This will make certain Basher al Assad does not gain an advantage from
these operations. Finally, as it now appears the U.S. is considering a plan to offer contractors as advisors to the Iraqi Ministry
of Defense, we will be in a position to coordinate more effectively between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army.
It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end
- but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation
between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead
on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that.
Regardless, it looks like end times for the American empire, very similar to how the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s, and
the last days of the French and British empires in the 1950s. And good riddance, it's become a dead weight dragging down the standard
of living for most American citizens who aren't on that gravy train.
Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems
is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power
to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such
a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them!
Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there
are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such
policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic
damage.
America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down
on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on
committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that
raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road
to destruction.
There's a lot in both this piece and the comments. In a sense, I wonder if the core issue behind the Neocon/Imperial mindset isn't
a complete inability to see the other side's point of view. Psychopathy, short-termism (a common fault in businesspeople), divorce
from reality and hubris are likely a good part of it, as somebody, Paveway IV, Makutwa and nonsense factory put it, but the
Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to
fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough
about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the
troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way
of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly,
that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to
disaster every single time.
I would paraphrase critics of b that he (she?) has fallen into linearity trap: one point is the resources spent by USA on wars
of 21-st century (a lot), the second points are positive results (hardly any), and an intellectual charge proceeds from A to B.
However between A and B there can be diversity of problems. We can stock enough gasoline, run out of potable water. And indeed,
you can encounter pesky terrain. I recall a family vacation trip where we visited Natural Bridges National Monument and we proceeded
to Arizona on an extremely straight highway through pretty flat plateau. Then the pavement end, and the acrophobic designated
driver has to negotiate several 180* hairpins to get down on a cliff flanking Monument Valley. After second inspection, the map
had tiny letters "switchbacks" and a tiny fragment of the road not marked with the pavement. Still better than discovering "bridge
out" annotation on your map only when you gaze at the water flowing between two bridge heads. (If I recall, during late 20-th
century Balkan intervention, US military needed a lot of time to cross Danube river that unexpectedly had no functioning bridge
where they wanted to operate. Landscape changes during a war.)
That said, military usually has an appreciation for terrain. But there are also humans. On domestic side, the number of experts
on those distant societies is small, and qualified experts, minuscule. Because the qualified ones were disproportionally naysayers,
the mere whiff if expertise was treated as treason, and we had a purge of "Arabists". And it was of course worse in the lands
to charm and conquer. Effective rule requires local hands to follow our wishes, people who can be trusted. And, preferably, not
intensely hated by the locals they are supposed to administer. And like with gasoline, water, food, etc. on a vacation trip (who
forgot mosquito repellent!), the list of needed traits is surprisingly long. Like viewing collaboration with Israel supporting
infidels as a mortal sin that can be perpetrated to spare the family from starvation (you can recruit them, success!), but it
has to be atoned through backstabbing (local cadres are disappointing).
Great analysis! This is an excellent example for why I read MOA at least once a day and most of the comments! There's something
of a sad irony that Trump has made at least some kind of effort to thwart the neocons and their relentless rush toward armageddon,
seeing as how lacking in any real intellectual capcity they all seem and with Trump at the helm?
Mostly tptb, our political class, and the pundits for the masses, seem all to exhibit an astonishingly dull witted lack of
true concern or humanity for anybody anywhere, and in my years on earth so far, at least in America, they have inculcated in the
population very dubious ethical chioces, which you would think were tragic, and decisions, which you would believe were doomed,
from the wars being waged, to the lifestyles of the citizenry especially toward the top of the economic ladder, and I don't know
about others here but I for one have been confronting and dealing with these problems both in family and aquaintances for my entire
adult life! Like the battle at Kurushetra. At least they say they "have a plan," scoffingly.
Where is chipnik to weigh in on this with his poetic observations, or I think long ago it was "slthrop" who may have been bannned
for foul language as he or she raged on at the absurdities that keep heaping up exponentially? I do miss them!
Oh well, life is relatively short and we will all be gone at some point and our presense here will be one and all less than
an iota. An awareness of this one fact and its implications you would think would pierce the consciousness of every human being
well before drawing their final breath, but I guess every McCain fails to realize until too late that the jig is up?
Justin Glyn@20 "but the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda."
The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate
their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression.
Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession
with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization
is the embodiment of that propaganda.
The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing
Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored.
The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated.
The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story.
Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in
US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is
often quite noticeable in comments at SST.
That it why the US in its arrogance has failed in Syria, and Russia with its tiny force has been so successful.
The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality.
The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such
a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The
country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial
designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading
to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually
incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like
John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane.
If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime
change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to
decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it.
"... A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating, if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature, is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it; of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it. ..."
"... My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us. ..."
"... Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again. ..."
Consider this article a work of speculation; a jumble of ideas thrown at a blank canvas.
A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating,
if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature,
is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to
teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it;
of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it.
For example, America's overseas wars today are both abstractions and distractions. They're also somewhat surreal to most Americans,
living as we do in comparative safety and material luxury (when compared to most other peoples of the world). Abstraction and surrealism:
two art styles that may say something vital about America's wars.
If some aspects of America's wars are surreal and others abstract, if reports of those wars are often impressionistic and often
blurred beyond recognition, this points to, I think, the highly stylized representations of war that are submitted for our consideration.
What we don't get very often is realism. Recall how the Bush/Cheney administration forbade photos of flag-draped coffins returning
from Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of all the war reporting you've seen on U.S. TV and Cable networks, and ask how many times you saw
severed American limbs and dead bodies on a battlefield. (On occasion, dead bodies of the enemy are shown, usually briefly and abstractly,
with no human backstory.)
Of course, there's no "real" way to showcase the brutal reality of war, short of bringing a person to the front and having them
face fire in combat -- a level of "participatory" art that sane people would likely seek to avoid. What we get, as spectators (which
is what we're told to remain in America), is an impression of combat. Here and there, a surreal report. An abstract news clip. Blown
up buildings become exercises in neo-Cubism; melted buildings and weapons become Daliesque displays. Severed limbs (of the enemy)
are exercises in the grotesque. For the vast majority of Americans, what's lacking is raw immediacy and gut-wrenching reality.
Again, we are spectators, not participants. And our responses are often as stylized and limited as the representations are. As
Rebecca Gordon put it from a different angle at
TomDispatch.com , when it comes to America's wars, are we participating in reality or merely watching reality TV? And why are
so many so prone to confuse or conflate the two?
Art, of course, isn't the only lens through which we can see and interpret America's wars. Advertising, especially hyperbole,
is also quite revealing. Thus the US military has been sold, whether by George W. Bush or Barack Obama, as "the world's finest military
in history" or WFMH, an acronym I just made up, and which should perhaps come with a copyright or trademark symbol after it. It's
classic advertising hyperbole. It's salesmanship in place of reality.
So, when other peoples beat our WFMH, we should do what Americans do best: sue them for copyright infringement. Our legions of
lawyers will most certainly beat their cadres of counsels. After all, under Bush/Cheney, our lawyers tortured logic and the law to
support torture itself. Talk about surrealism!
My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least
in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the
ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us.
As I said, this is me throwing ideas at the canvas of my computer screen. Do they make any sense to you? Feel free to pick up
your own brush and compose away in the comments section.
P.S. Danger, Will Robinson. I've never taken an art theory class or studied advertising closely.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools
and blogs at Bracing Views . He can be reached at
[email protected] . Reprinted from Bracing
Views with the author's permission.
Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a
Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again.
"... It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. ..."
"JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has two big pronouncements as the Trump administration starts reshaping
the government: "The United States of America is truly an exceptional country," and "it is clear that something is wrong."
Dimon, leader of world's most valuable bank and a counselor to the new president, used his 45-page annual letter to shareholders
on Tuesday to list ways America is stronger than ever -- before jumping into a much longer list of self-inflicted problems that
he said was "upsetting" to write.
Here's the start: Since the turn of the century, the U.S. has dumped trillions of dollars into wars, piled huge debt onto students,
forced legions of foreigners to leave after getting advanced degrees, driven millions of Americans out of the workplace with felonies
for sometimes minor offenses and hobbled the housing market with hastily crafted layers of rules.
Dimon, who sits on Donald Trump's business forum aimed at boosting job growth, is renowned for his optimism and has been voicing
support this year for parts of the president's business agenda. In February, Dimon predicted the U.S. would have a bright economic
future if the new administration carries out plans to overhaul taxes, rein in rules and boost infrastructure investment. In an
interview last month, he credited Trump with boosting consumer and business confidence in growth, and reawakening "animal spirits."
But on Tuesday, reasons for concern kept coming. Labor market participation is low, Dimon wrote. Inner-city schools are failing
poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending
is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital
and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive.
" It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and
governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free
enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. "...
"Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure
planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous
it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive."
Let's unpack his list. The 4th (last) sentence is his hope that his bank can back to the unregulated regime that brought us
the Great Recession. His 3rd sentence is a call for more tax cuts for the rich.
We may like his first 2 sentences here but who is going to pay for this? Not Jamie Dimon. See sentence #3.
Why would you object to government creating more demand for labor? Over time, wages will rise and higher wages will fund more
demand for labor produced goods.
"... As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror" into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice. ..."
Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize -- for not being George W. Bush. This seemed unseemly at the time, but not outrageous.
Seven years later, it seems grotesque.
As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror"
into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice.
ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY
(Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS
(Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is
In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the
Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy)
at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics
of Illusion (AK Press).
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam, Lebanon,Somalia,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending wars are expensive
was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street
masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives,
create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class
in US politics and culture.
Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking
about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell
Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into
account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic,
the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do
quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire
planet.
Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India,
Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying
them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.
America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had
thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many
horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight
to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.
The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very
rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs
of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the
native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local
environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter
how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American
exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back
to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."
No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing
a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the
European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging
and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world
down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part
is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided
it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.
Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08
"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."
"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from
another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."
I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise
in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes
dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.
That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield
which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's
forums on this blog.
Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which,
unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary
of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces
left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery
of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved
of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation
by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous
Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its
own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny,
even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's
chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle
Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in
the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the
Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM |
link
Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:
American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors,
generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.
To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly
and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."
The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate
and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest.
That is why we go to war.
Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are
fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic,
not humanitarian, reasons.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is
him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds
of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious
election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious.
It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest
of the wealthy.
America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian
reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support
Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.
Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators;
it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending
your kids to die. Never.
New book by David NorthA Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016
Notable quotes:
"... "Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly." ..."
"... Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"... ..."
We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North.
The book will be published on August 10, and is available for preorder today at Mehring Books in both
softcover
and hardcover
.
***
"In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than
in the period of boom."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1928
"U.S. capitalism is up against the same problems that pushed Germany in 1914 on the path of war. The world is divided? It must
be redivided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must 'organize' the world. History is bringing
mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1934
This volume consists of political reports, public lectures, party statements, essays, and polemics that document the response
of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to the quarter century of US-led wars that began in 1990–91. The
analyses of events presented here, although written as they were unfolding, stand the test of time. The International Committee does
not possess a crystal ball. But its work is informed by a Marxist understanding of the contradictions of American and world imperialism.
Moreover, the Marxist method of analysis examines events not as a sequence of isolated episodes, but as moments in the unfolding
of a broader historical process. This historically oriented approach serves as a safeguard against an impressionistic response to
the latest political developments. It recognizes that the essential cause of an event is rarely apparent at the moment of
its occurrence.
Much of what passes for analysis in the bourgeois press consists of nothing more than equating an impressionistic description
of a given event with its deeper cause. This sort of political analysis legitimizes US wars as necessary responses to one or another
personification of evil, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the "warlord" Farah Aideed in Somalia, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Osama
bin Laden of Al Qaeda, the Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; and, most recently, Bashar al Assad in Syria, Kim
Jong Un in Korea, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. New names are continually added to the United States' infinitely expandable list
of monsters requiring destruction.
The material in this volume is the record of a very different and far more substantial approach to the examination of the foreign
policy of the United States.
First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in
1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it
emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would
lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism. As far back as August 1990 -- twenty-six years ago -- it was able to foresee
the long-term implications of the Bush administration's war against Iraq:
It marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the
postcolonial era. As it proclaims the "failure of socialism," the imperialist bourgeoisie, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaims
the failure of independence. The deepening crisis confronting all the major imperialist powers compels them to secure control
over strategic resources and markets. Former colonies, which had achieved a degree of political independence, must be resubjugated.
In its brutal assault against Iraq, imperialism is giving notice that it intends to restore the type of unrestrained domination
of the backward countries that existed prior to World War II. [
1 ]
This historically grounded analysis provided the essential framework for an understanding, not only of the 1990–91 Gulf War, but
also of the wars that were launched later in the decade, as well as the post-9/11 "War on Terror."
In a recently published front-page article, the New York Times called attention to a significant milestone in the presidency
of Barack Obama: "He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president." But with several months remaining
in his term in office, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times wrote:
If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty
given the president's recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave
behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war. [
2 ]
On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The number of countries is growing, as the United States escalates its military operations
in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.
Without any sense of irony, Mark Landler, author of the Times article, notes Obama's status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner
in 2009. He portrays the president as "trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. . . ." Obama "has wrestled
with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House . . ."
Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the
order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize,
in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes
necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landler's hero can do. Obama has found
his wars "maddeningly hard to end."
The Times ' portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of objective
forces, beyond his control, that frustrated and overwhelmed the lofty ideals and humanitarian aspirations of the president. If Mr.
Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal
specialty, and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the
historical circumstances that determined Obama's "tragic" fate.
But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obama's war-making record to the entire course of American
foreign policy over the past quarter century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost
continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990–91.
The pretext for the Gulf War was Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context
of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The
first President Bush declared the beginning of a "New World Order." [
3 ] What Bush meant by this phrase was
that the United States was now free to restructure the world in the interests of the American capitalist class, unencumbered by either
the reality of the countervailing military power of the Soviet Union or the specter of socialist revolution. The dissolution of the
USSR, hailed by Francis Fukuyama as the "End of History," signified for the strategists of American imperialism the end of military
restraint.
It is one of the great ironies of history that the definitive emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power,
amid the catastrophe of World War I, coincided with the outbreak of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which culminated in the establishment
of the first socialist workers state in history, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. On April 3, 1917, President Woodrow
Wilson delivered his war message to the US Congress and led the United States into the global imperialist conflict. Two weeks later,
V.I. Lenin returned to Russia, which was in the throes of revolution, and reoriented the Bolshevik Party toward the fight to overthrow
the bourgeois Provisional Government.
Lenin and his principal political ally, Leon Trotsky, insisted that the struggle for socialism was indissolubly linked to the
struggle against war. As the historian R. Craig Nation has argued:
For Lenin there was no doubt that the revolution was the result of a crisis of imperialism and that the dilemmas which it posed
could only be resolved on the international level. The campaign for proletarian hegemony in Russia, the fight against the war,
and the international struggle against imperialism were now one and the same. [
4 ]
Just as the United States was striving to establish its position as the arbiter of the world's destiny, it faced a challenge,
in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, not only to the authority of American imperialism, but also to the economic, political,
and even moral legitimacy of the entire capitalist world order. "The rhetoric and actions of the Bolsheviks," historian Melvyn P.
Leffler has written, "ignited fear, revulsion and uncertainty in Washington." [
5 ]
Another perceptive historian of US foreign policy explained:
The great majority of American leaders were so deeply concerned with the Bolshevik Revolution because they were so uneasy about
what President Wilson called the "general feeling of revolt" against the existing order, and about the increasing intensity of
that dissatisfaction. The Bolshevik Revolution became in their minds the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent.
And that is perhaps the crucial insight into the tragedy of American diplomacy. [
6 ]
In a desperate effort to destroy the new revolutionary regime, Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Russia in 1918, in support
of counterrevolutionary forces in the brutal civil war. The intervention was an ignominious failure.
It was not until 1933 that the United States finally granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The diplomatic rapprochement
was facilitated in part by the fact that the Soviet regime, now under Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, was in the process of repudiating
the revolutionary internationalism that had inspired the Bolsheviks in 1917. It was abandoning the perspective of world revolution
in favor of alliances with imperialist states on the basis of "collective security." Unable to secure such an alliance with Britain
and France, Stalin signed the notorious Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in August 1939. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the exigencies of the struggle against
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan required that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forge a military alliance
with the Soviet Union. But once Germany and Japan were defeated, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union rapidly
deteriorated. The Truman administration, opposing the extension of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and frightened by the growth
of Communist parties in Western Europe, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 and triggered the onset of the Cold War.
The Kremlin regime pursued nationalistic policies, based on the Stalinist program of "socialism in one country," and betrayed
working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But the very existence of a regime that arose out of a socialist
revolution had a politically radicalizing impact throughout the world. William Appleman Williams was certainly correct in his view
that "American leaders were for many, many years more afraid of the implicit and indirect challenge of the revolution than they were
of the actual power of the Soviet Union." [
7 ]
In the decades that followed World War II, the United States was unable to ignore the existence of the Soviet Union. To the extent
that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, provided limited political and material
support to anti-imperialist movements in the "Third World," they denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own
interests. These limitations were demonstrated -- to cite the most notable examples -- by the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the
compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.
The existence of the Soviet Union and an anticapitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted
access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials, and potential markets of a large portion of the globe, especially the
Eurasian land mass. It compelled the United States to compromise, to a greater degree than it would have preferred, in negotiations
over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the
tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, combined with the restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen
Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to repudiate the compromises of the post-World
War II era, and to carry out a restructuring of global geopolitics, with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States.
There was no small element of self-delusion in the grandiose American response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombastic
claims that the United States had won the Cold War were based far more on myth than reality. In fact, the sudden dissolution of the
Soviet Union took the entire Washington foreign policy establishment by surprise. In February 1987, the Council on Foreign Relations
published an assessment of US-Soviet relations, authored by two of its most eminent Sovietologists, Strobe Talbott and Michael Mandelbaum.
Analyzing the discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev at meetings in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986, the two experts concluded:
No matter how Gorbachev comes to define perestroika in practice and no matter how he modifies the official definition
of security, the Soviet Union will resist pressure for change, whether it comes from without or within, from the top or the bottom.
The fundamental conditions of Soviet-American relations are therefore likely to persist. This, in turn, means that the ritual
of Soviet-American summitry is likely to have a long run. . . . [
8 ]
The "long run," Talbott and Mandelbaum predicted, would continue not only during the reign of "Gorbachev's successor," but also
his "successor's successor." No substantial changes in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were to be expected.
The two prophets from the Council on Foreign Relations concluded:
Whoever they are, and whatever changes have occurred in the meantime, the American and Soviet leaders of the next century will
be wrestling with the same great issue -- how to manage their rivalry so as to avoid nuclear catastrophe -- that has engaged the
energies, in the latter half of the 1980s, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. [
9 ]
In contrast to the Washington experts, who foresaw nothing, the International Committee recognized that the Gorbachev regime marked
a climactic stage in the crisis of Stalinism. "The crisis of Gorbachev," it declared in a statement dated March 23, 1987, "has emerged
as every section of world Stalinism confronts economic convulsions and upheavals by the masses. In every case -- from Beijing to
Belgrade -- the response of the Stalinist bureaucrats has been to turn ever more openly toward capitalist restorationism." [
10 ]
The Cold War victory narrative encouraged, within the ruling elite, a disastrous overestimation of the power and potential of
American capitalism. The drive for hegemony assumed the ability of the US to contain the economic and political centrifugal forces
unleashed by the operation of global capitalism. Even at the height of its power, such an immense project was well beyond the capacities
of the United States. But amid the euphoria generated by the end of the Soviet Union, the ruling class chose to ignore the deep-rooted
and protracted crisis of American society. An objective observer, examining the conditions of both the United States and the Soviet
Union between 1960 and 1990, might well have wondered which regime was in greater crisis. During the three decades that preceded
the dissolution of the USSR, the United States exhibited high levels of political, social, and economic instability.
Consider the fate of the presidential administrations in power during those three decades: (1) The Kennedy administration ended
tragically in November 1963 with a political assassination, in the midst of escalating social tensions and international crises;
(2) Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, was unable to seek reelection in 1968, as a result of urban riots and mass opposition
to the US invasion of Vietnam; (3) Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office in August 1974, after the House of Representatives'
Judiciary Committee voted for his impeachment on charges related to his criminal subversion of the Constitution; (4) Gerald Ford,
who became president upon Nixon's resignation, was defeated in the November 1976 election amid popular revulsion over Nixon's crimes
and the US military debacle in Vietnam; (5) Jimmy Carter's one term in office was dominated by an inflationary crisis that sent the
federal prime interest rate to 20 percent, a bitter three month national coal miners strike, and the aftershocks generated by the
Iranian Revolution; and (6) Ronald Reagan's years in office, despite all the ballyhoo about "morning in America," were characterized
by recession, bitter social tension, and a series of foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and Central America. The exposure
of an illegal scheme to finance paramilitary operations in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra crisis) brought Reagan to the very brink of
impeachment. His administration was saved by the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had no desire to remove from office a
president who was politically weakened and already exhibiting signs of dementia.
The one persistent factor that confronted all these administrations, from Kennedy to Reagan, was the erosion in the global economic
position of the United States. The unquestioned dominance of American finance and industry at the end of World War II provided the
economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility that formed the basis of global capitalist growth
and stability. By the late 1950s, the system was coming under increasing strain. It was during the Kennedy administration that unfavorable
tendencies in the US balance of trade first began to arouse significant concern. On August 15, 1971, Nixon suddenly ended the Bretton
Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, pegged to a US dollar convertible at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. During
the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar mirrored the deterioration of the American economy.
The belligerent response of the United States to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union reflected the weakness, not the strength,
of American capitalism. The overwhelming support within the ruling elite for a highly aggressive foreign policy arose from the delusion
that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the deployment of its immense
military power.
The Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992, unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions
of US imperialism:
There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture
of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global
competitor. [ 11 ]
The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the first Gulf War, followed by its campaign to break up
Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999
bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that
decade included the intervention in Somalia, which ended in disaster, the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and
Afghanistan, and repeated bombing attacks on Iraq.
The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity to launch the "War on Terror," a propaganda slogan that provided an
all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa.
They furnished the Bush administration with a pretext to institutionalize war as a legitimate and normal instrument of American foreign
policy.
The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed
9/11, Bush used the phrase "wars of the twenty-first century." In this case, the normally inarticulate president spoke with precision.
The "War on Terror" was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would
necessarily lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq.
The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of "preventive warfare," adopted by the US
in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the
world judged to pose a potential threat -- not only of a military, but also of an economic character -- to American interests.
In a verbal sleight of hand, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a preemptive war, undertaken in
response to the imminent threat posed by the country's "weapons of mass destruction" to the national security of the United States.
Of course, the threat was as non-existent as were Saddam Hussein's WMDs. In any event, the Bush administration rendered the distinction
between preemptive and preventive war meaningless, by asserting the right of the United States to attack any country, regardless
of the existence or non-existence of an imminent threat to American national security. Whatever the terminology employed for propaganda
purposes by American presidents, the United States adheres to the illegal doctrine of preventive war.
The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation
of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The same hypocritical pretext
was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these crimes, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.
The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the
US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are
component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.
It is through the prism of America's efforts to assert control of the strategically critical Eurasian landmass, that the essential
significance of the events of 1990–91 is being revealed. But this latest stage in the ongoing struggle for world hegemony, which
lies at the heart of the conflict with Russia and China, is bringing to the forefront latent and potentially explosive tensions between
the United States and its present-day imperialist allies, including -- to name the most significant potential adversary -- Germany.
The two world wars of the twentieth century were not the product of misunderstandings. The past is prologue. As the International
Committee foresaw in 1990–91, the American bid for global hegemony has rekindled interimperialist rivalries simmering beneath the
surface of world politics. Within Europe, dissatisfaction with the US role as the final arbiter of world affairs is being openly
voiced. In a provocative essay, published in Foreign Affairs , the journal of the authoritative US Council on Foreign Relations,
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has bluntly challenged Washington's presumption of US global dominance:
As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held
its ground. . . .
Today both the United States and Europe are struggling to provide global leadership. The 2003 invasion of Iraq damaged the
United States' standing in the world. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart, and U.S. power
in the region began to weaken. Not only did the George W. Bush administration fail to reorder the region through force, but the
political, economic, and soft-power costs of this adventure undermined the United States' overall position. The illusion of a
unipolar world faded. [ 12 ]
In a rebuke to the United States, Steinmeier writes: "Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism
-- for any nation." [ 13 ]
The journalists and academics, who work within the framework of the official narrative of the defense of human rights and the
"War on Terror," cannot explain the progression of conflicts, from the 1990–91 Gulf War, to the current expansion of NATO eight hundred
miles eastward, and the American "pivot to Asia." On a regular basis, the United States and its allies stage war games in Eastern
Europe, in close proximity to the borders of Russia, and in strategically critical waters off the coast of China. It is not difficult
to conceive of a situation in which events -- either as a result of deliberate calculation or of reckless miscalculation -- erupt
into a clash between nuclear-armed powers. In 2014, as the centenary of World War I approached, a growing number of scholarly papers
called attention to the similarities between the conditions that precipitated the disaster of August 1914 and present-day tensions.
One parallel between today and 1914 is the growing sense among political and military strategists that war between the United
States and China and/or Russia may be inevitable. As this fatalistic premise increasingly informs the judgments and actions of the
key decision makers at the highest level of the state, it becomes a dynamic factor that makes the actual outbreak of war more likely.
A specialist in international geopolitics has recently written:
Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether
there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously. Even those neither eager for nor optimistic
about war may opt to fight when operating in the framework of inevitability. [
14 ]
Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that
the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited. What percentage of the American population, one must ask, realizes
that President Barack Obama has formally committed the United States to go to war in defense of Estonia, in the event of a conflict
between the small Baltic country and Russia? The media has politely refrained from asking the president to state how many human beings
would die in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and either Russia or China, or both at the same time.
On the eve of World War II, Leon Trotsky warned that a catastrophe threatened the entire culture of mankind. He was proven correct.
Within less than a decade, the Second World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people. The alarm must once again be
sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth.
The progressive development of a globally integrated world economy is incompatible with capitalism and the nation-state system.
If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program,
and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built. In opposition to imperialist geopolitics,
in which national states fight brutally for regional and global dominance, the International Committee counterposes the strategy
of world socialist revolution. As Trotsky advised, we "follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle. . . ." [
15 ]
In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were mass protests against the war policies of the United States and
its allies. Millions took to the streets. But after the war began, public opposition virtually disappeared. The absence of popular
protest did not signify support for the war. Rather, it reflected the repudiation, by the old middle-class protest movement, of its
former Vietnam-era opposition to imperialism.
There are mounting signs of political radicalization among significant sections of the working class and youth. It is only a matter
of time before this radicalization gives rise to conscious opposition to war. It is the aim of this volume to impart to the new antiwar
movement a revolutionary socialist and internationalist perspective and program.
The quotes from Trotsky are glaring. These and others were used to argue against socialism in the post war decades, but all that
was needed was time and the working of the forces of capitalism itself. History never ended, it is right on schedule
"Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving
the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel
Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that
war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
VI lenin crushed the Krondstadt rebellion that was the true 'soviet union' model and instituted a hard right revolutionary regime
of ruthless dictatorial control from smolny, not a workers state. The US borgeouis (and french and english) intervened to keep
russia in the war and 160 german divisions from leaving the eastern front. The threat of a workers state was not the concern of
the victors. The failure of revolutionary russia to represent what this article is propping it up to be (some kind of genuine
workers state) leaves me deeply suspect about the other conclusions he's bent history to. Anyone who's read "2 years in russia"
by emma goldman, and "the victors dilemma" - john silverlight and any number of books on the russian civil war, it is clear that
the intervention was for military tactical reasons and that the nascient state was in no ways a workers state but a totalitarian
military dictatorship. Emma Goldman's disillusionment is not her falling out of love with her ideals, but her coming to terms
with the reality vs the PR of Russia. Which is why this website (Wsws) advertised a book repudiating the rejection of socialism
with the faiure of the soviet union as a false narrative a year or few ago.
The historical memoir is clear, diaries, memos, news articles, and the Western soldier revolts, time to smash the revolution.
Kronstadt was a tragedy, but the regime was under threat. history is messy.
I can imagine that
the leadership of imperialist countries was underestimating the bolsheviks in 1917, but once the Russian revolution had given
enough confidence to the German masses to make the war stop one year later, once the French black sea fleet had rebelled in 1919,
etc... they were all very conscious of the risks (potential risks, not immediate threats).
The evidence in favour of what Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt is simply overwhelming. A cmd above gave some basic evidence. Trotsky
was absolutely right and absolutely honest on what he wrote later on ("hue and cry over Kronstadt")
The working class has been the victim of betrayal after betrayal by pseudo-left forces in the 20th century, which led to two catastrophic
world wars and all the other conflicts that have created needless bloodshed around the world. The great task will be, when the
new mass working class anti-war movement arises, to give the working class the political knowledge it needs to not fall for the
traps that dissipated anti-war movements in the past. It must be made clear to the workers of the world that for us, it's do or
die time - literally, as the obscene levels of social inequality and the prospect of nuclear confrontation prove.
I understand this very well, having seen what happened to what I thought at the time was a powerful antiwar movement in the 1960s
against the war in Vietnam. I was quite politically naive at the time and became so disillusioned with politics in general and
what I then thought to be the "left" in particular, that I went off politics completely and started reading Ayn Rand.
After being turned off by Rand's misanthropy and hatred of the working class (even though I admired her atheism), I became
more or less apolitical until 1998, when I first read the World Socialist Web Site and found what I had been looking for.
for this affirming comment. Me too, having all but given up on politics and following a last ditch
search of the web I was rewarded with a political program and party that was more than compatible with my world view and personal
values. Something I had not thought possible, thank you ICFI/SEP.
There are times when even we as Marxists find ourselves scouring the past for a word that befits the character and luminosity
of a moment in human understanding. In this respect David North has given new meaning to the word 'Biblical'.
As a word, its essence is transcendent. For whoever defines an epoch in the clearest and most profoundest way as this, is elevated
to the realms of Greatness.
As the bourgeoisie now scrabbles, in fights, and drowns in the last dregs of its alchemy, a Phoenix arises out of their chaos
lest the bourgeoisie commits all to the Fires of Hell ....
Most excellent words comrade David ...a most excellent call to class struggle .
This is a remarkably panoramic account, grounded in both history and economics, of the unfolding of U.S. militarism and imperialist
warfare over the past 30 or so years. It is without peer in anything else I have seen in terms of showing that events and tendencies
- which we may have been separately aware of - were in fact part of a historical continuum growing out of economic developments
and the perceived interests of the U.S. ruling class.
Always interesting to read cmd. North. ''First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the
Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the
entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown
of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism''. This is great but we also
have German militarism on the rise and we should not underestimate. The working class must be prepared for economic and even actual
wars in Europe and elsewhere. The redivision of markets and resources is evident with Germany and China on the table.
March 12, 2019 at 5:25
pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN
Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law
prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."
Hi AnonfromTN.
Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli
"dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly
given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.
They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.
What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President
t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.
Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type
of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US
military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an
Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!
Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland"
law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman
raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on
the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.
@ChuckOrloski I
can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery.
As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and
donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these
should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally,
desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and
severely punish those who expose these crimes.
I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of
any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves
are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash.
Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel
influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness
on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside
have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making
the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that
serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons
of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens
of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders
from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."
ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing
region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying
to overthrow Syria's secular Government
and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is
the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold.
Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.
The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful
that approach turns out to be.
Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly
by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families
and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined
"Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are
believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish
areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on
Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015,
"Ideology
and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other
Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which
was protected by
the US
In September 2016 a UK official
"FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK
FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield
to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have
also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's
Government.
On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US
military website
"Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined
"WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around
twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry,
shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military
had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015,
"Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were
involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen
Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil
from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.
An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit
for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish
city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city
and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq
and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man
in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto
other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by
a brutal coup in February 2014
: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian
reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport"
near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen
minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining
on 14 March,
"Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked,
"A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The
load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's
gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (
Obama's detail-person
overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would
never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia
was being squeezed by this fascist
Ukrainian-American ploy.
The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists.
As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :
"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed
9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."
Furthermore, On
8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000
tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via
Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey
and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."
Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled
"Islamic State Weapons
in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State
forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking
their lives to fight against those jihadists.
In December 2017, CAR headlined
"Weapons of the Islamic State"
and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition
forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.
That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining
"Russian TV
Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was
working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government
in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's
Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't
the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort
against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action,
"'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?
So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs
the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.
This is today's form of imperialism.
Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the
imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting
for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland.
That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against
corruption around the world." For example, as
RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd,
about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together
to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and
democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians
and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them.
Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors'
many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on
the take.
The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries,
and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive
Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people
never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.
Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined
"Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting
on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't
been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't
expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the
past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).
The USA 'lost' in Syria, the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn't be faced off successfully.
Destroying Afgh., Iraq, Lybia, - all 'failures' in the sense of not garnering 'advantage' for the USA as a territory, a Federated
Nation, its citizens, its trade, boosting hopeful expansion, etc. One aim rarely mentioned is keeping allies on board, e.g. Sarkozy's
France, to invade Lybia. In France many say it was Sark I who did DE-ss-troy! Lybia.
The word *failure* is based on the acceptance of a stated aim reminiscent of old-style-colonialism: grab resources, exploit
super-cheap labor, control the natives, mine, exploit, shunt the goods / profits to home base.
If the aim is to stop rivals breathing, blast them back to the Stone Age, the success is good but relative. (see Iraq.) Private
GloboCorps (e.g. Glencore.. ) are in charge behind the curtain, many Gvmts are just stooges for them in the sense of unawoved
partnerships, the one feeding into the other, in a kind of desperado death spiral.
I have always been struck by the fact that Oil Projects / Management in Iraq, even wiki gives lists that shows major movers
and profiteers are not USA oil cos. / interests, but China, Malaysia, many others.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
"... Trump's performance record as president is comprised of an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles violated, and intentions abandoned. ..."
"... despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the Obama administration. ..."
"... Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to Ukraine or giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America. ..."
"... Although Trump promised to stop America's endless wars, as many - if not more - U.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years. ..."
"... The administration has maintained Washington's illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fields-a move that lacks domestic authority and violates international law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other malign influences and forcing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure America's continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest. ..."
"... This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November 3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations would turn out well. ..."
Trump's performance record as president is comprised of an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles
violated, and intentions abandoned.
North Korea may have been the one issue on which President Donald Trump apparently listened to his predecessor, Barack Obama,
when he warned about the serious challenge facing the incoming occupant of the Oval Office. Nevertheless, Trump initially drove tensions
between the two countries to a fever pitch, raising fears of war in the midst of proclamations of "fire and fury." Then he played
statesman and turned toward diplomacy, meeting North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, in Singapore.
Today that effort looks kaput. The North has declared denuclearization to be off the table. Actually, few people other than the
president apparently believed that Kim was prepared to turn over his nuclear weapons to a government predisposed toward intervention
and regime change.
Now that this Trump policy is formally dead, and there is no Plan B in sight, Pyongyang has begun deploying choice terms from
its fabled thesaurus of insults. Democrats are sure to denounce the administration for incompetent naivete. And the bipartisan war
party soon will be beating the drums for more sanctions, more florid rhetoric, additional military deployments, new plans for war.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) already has dismissed the risks since any conflict would be "over there," on the distant Korean Peninsula.
At which point Trump's heroic summitry, which offered a dramatic opportunity to break decades of deadly stalemate, will be judged
a failure.
If the president had racked up several successes-wars ended, peace achieved, disputes settled, relations strengthened-then one
disappointment wouldn't matter much. However, his record is an unbroken string of broken promises, opportunities squandered, principles
violated, and intentions abandoned.
There is no relationship more important than that between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Despite Trump's
supposed friendship with China's Xi Jinping, the trade war rages to the detriment of both countries. Americans have suffered from
both the president's tariffs and China's retaliation, with no end in sight. Despite hopes for a resolution, Beijing is hanging tough
and obviously doubts the president's toughness, given the rapidly approaching election.
Beyond economics, the relationship is deteriorating sharply. Disagreements and confrontations over everything from geopolitics
to human rights have driven the two countries apart, with the administration lacking any effective strategy to positively influence
China's behavior. The president's myopic focus on trade has left him without a coherent strategy elsewhere.
Perhaps the president's most pronounced and controversial promise of the 2016 campaign was to improve relations with Russia. However,
despite another supposedly positive personal relationship, the Trump administration has applied more sanctions on Moscow, provided
more anti-Russian aid to Ukraine, further increased funds and troops to NATO Europe, and sent home more Russian diplomats than the
Obama administration.
Worse, Washington has made no serious effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine. No one imagines Moscow returning Crimea to
Ukraine or giving in on any other issue without meaningful concessions regarding Kiev. Instead of moderating and minimizing bilateral
frictions, the administration has made Russia more likely today than before to cooperate with China against Washington and contest
American objectives in the Middle East, Africa, and even Latin America.
Although Trump promised to stop America's endless wars, as many - if not more - U.S. military personnel are abroad today as when he
took office. He increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and is now seeking to negotiate an exit that would force Washington
to remain to enforce the agreement. This war has been burning for more than eighteen years.
The administration has maintained Washington's illegal deployment in Syria, shifting one contingent away from the Turkish-Kurdish
battle while inserting new forces to confiscate Syrian oil fields-a move that lacks domestic authority and violates international
law. A few hundred Americans cannot achieve their many other supposed objectives, such as eliminating Russian, Iranian, and other
malign influences and forcing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to resign or inaugurate democracy. However, their presence will ensure
America's continued entanglement in a conflict of great complexity but minimal security interest.
The Saudi government remains corrupt, incompetent, repressive, reckless and dependent on the United States. Only Washington's
refusal to retaliate against Iran for its presumed attack on Saudi oil facilities caused Riyadh to turn to diplomacy toward Tehran,
yet the president then increased U.S. military deployments, turning American military personnel into bodyguards for the Saudi royals.
The recent terrorist attack by the pilot-in-training-presumably to join his colleagues in slaughtering Yemeni civilians-added to
the already high cost of the bilateral relationship.
The administration's policy of "maximum pressure" has proved to be a complete bust around the world. As noted earlier, North Korea
proved unwilling to disarm despite the increased financial pressure caused by U.S. sanctions. North Koreans are hurting, but their
government, like Washington, places security first.
Russia, too, is no more willing to yield Crimea, which was once part of Russia and is the Black Sea naval base of Sebastopol.
Several European governments also disagree with the United States, having pressed to lighten or eliminate current sanctions. The
West will have to offer more than the status quo to roll back Moscow's military advances.
Before Trump became president, Iran was well contained, despite its malign regional activities. The Islamic regime was hemmed
in by Israel and the Gulf States, backed by nations as diverse as Egypt and America. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA,
sharply curtailed Iran's nuclear activities and placed the country under an intensive oversight regime. Now Tehran has reactivated
its nuclear program, expanded its regional interventions, interfered with Gulf shipping, and demonstrated its ability to devastate
Saudi oil production. To America's consternation, its Persian Gulf allies now are more willing to deal with Iran than before.
Additionally, the Trump administration has largely destroyed hope for reform in Cuba by reversing the Obama administration's progress
toward normalizing relations and discouraging visits by-and trade with-Americans. The entrepreneurs I spoke to when I visited Cuba
two years ago made large investments in anticipation of a steadily increasing number of U.S. visitors but were devastated when Washington
shut off the flow. What had been a steadily expanding private sector was knocked back and the regime, with Raoul Castro still dominant
behind the scenes, again can blame America for its own failings. There is no evidence that extending the original embargo and additional
sanctions, which began in 1960, will free anyone.
For a time, Venezuela appeared to be an administration priority. As usual, Trump applied economic sanctions, this time on a people
whose economy essentially had collapsed. Washington threatened more sanctions and military invasion but to no avail. Then the president
and his top aides breathed fire and fury, insisting that both China and Russia stay out, again without success. Eventually, the president
appeared to simply lose interest and drop any mention of the once urgent crisis. The corrupt, repressive Maduro regime remains in
power.
So far, the president's criticisms of America's alliances have gone for naught. Until now, his appointees, all well-disposed toward
maintaining generous subsidies for America's international fan club, have implemented his policies. More recently, the administration
demanded substantial increases in "host nation" support, but in almost every negotiation so far the president has given way, accepting
minor, symbolic gains. He is likely to end up like his predecessor, whining a lot but gaining very little from America's security
dependents.
Beyond that, there is little positive to say. Trump and India's Narendra Modi are much alike, which is no compliment to either,
but institutional relations have changed little. Turkey's incipient dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, receives a free pass from the
president for the former's abuses and crimes. But even so Congress is thoroughly arrayed against Ankara for sins both domestic and
foreign.
The president's aversion to genuine free trade and the curious belief that buying inexpensive, quality products from abroad is
a negative has created problems with many close allies, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and multiple European
states. Perhaps only with Israel are Washington's relations substantially improved, and that reflects the president's abandonment
of any serious attempt to promote a fair and realistic peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
This is an extraordinarily bad record after almost three years in office. Something good still might happen between now and November
3, 2020. However, more issues are likely to get worse. Imagine North Korean missile and nuclear tests, renewed Russian attempts to
influence Western elections, a bloody Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, increased U.S.-European trade friction, more U.S. pressure
on Iran matched by asymmetric responses, and more. At the moment, there is no reason to believe any of the resulting confrontations
would turn out well.
Most Americans vote on the economy, and the president is currently riding a wave of job creation. If that ends before the November
vote, then international issues might matter more. If so, then the president may regret that he failed to follow through on his criticism
of endless war and irresponsible allies. Despite his very different persona, his results don't look all that different from those
achieved by Barack Obama and other leading Democrats.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and the
author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
rshimizu12 • 15 hours ago
Personally I think Trumps foreign policy has had mix results. Part of the problem is that Trump has adopted a ad hoc foreign policy
tactics. The US has had limited success with North Korea. While we have not seen any reductions of nuclear weapons. He probably
has stopped flight testing of ICBM's. The daily back and forth threats of destroying each other countries have stopped. We should
have been making more progress with N Korea, but Trump has not been firm enough. Russia on the other hand is a much tougher country
to deal with. As for China we will have to keep up the pressure in trade negotiations.
"... One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries: ..."
"... The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare. ..."
"... The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. ..."
"... When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else. ..."
One of the most revealing and absurd responses to
rejections of forever war
is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries:
Just like @POTUS , who put a limited op of NE
#Syria under heading of "endless
war," this op-ed has "drone strikes & Special Ops raids" in indictment of US-at-war. In fact, those actions are antidote to war.
Their misguided critique is insult to real war. https://t.co/DCLS9IDKSw
War has become so normalized over the last twenty years that the constant use of military force gets discounted as something other
than "real war." We have seen this war denialism on display several times in the last year. As more presidential candidates and analysts
have started rejecting endless war, the war's
defenders have often
chosen to
pretend
that the U.S. isn't at war at all. The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is
a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and
Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare.
Because Obama is relatively less aggressive and reckless than his hawkish opponents (a very low bar to clear), he is frequently
given a pass on these issues, and we are treated to misleading stories about his supposed "realism" and "restraint." Insofar as
he has been a president who normalized and routinized open-ended and unnecessary foreign wars, he has shown that neither of those
terms should be used to describe his foreign policy. Even though I know all too well that the president that follows him will
be even worse, the next president will have a freer hand to conduct a more aggressive and dangerous foreign policy in part because
of illegal wars Obama has waged during his time in office.
The attempt to define war so that it never includes what the U.S. military happens to be doing when it uses force abroad has been
going on for quite a while. When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they
came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the
Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't
engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for
redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't
engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that
gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment
of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something
else.
It isn't just physical war that results in active service body bags but our aggression has alreay cost lives on the home front
and there is every reason to believe it will do so again.
We were not isolationists prior to 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda had already attacked but we were distracted bombing Serbia, expanding
NATO, and trying to connect Al Qaeda attacks to Iran. We were just attacked by a Saudi officer we were training on our soil to
use the Saudis against Iran.
It remains to be seen what our economic warfare against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and our continued use of Afghanistan
as a bombing platform will cost us. We think we are being clever by using our Treasury Dept and low intensity warfare to minimize
direct immediate casualties but how long can that last.
This article confirms what the last Real Commander-in-Chief, General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about when he retired
58 years ago.
His wise Council based on his Supreme Military-Political experience has been ignored.
The MSM, Propagandists for the Military-Industrial Complex, won't remind the American People.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could,
with time and as required, make swords as well.
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments
industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on
military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total
influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the
very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for
granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The psychological contortionism required to deny that we are at war amazes me. US military forces are killing people in other
countries – but it's not war? Because we can manufacture comforting euphemisms like "police action" or "preventive action" or
"drone strike," it's not war? Because it's smaller scale than a "real" war like WWII?
Cancer is cancer. A small cancer is still a cancer. Arguing that it's not cancer because it's not metastatic stage IV is, well,
the most polite term is sophistry. More accurate terms aren't printable.
"I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump
is guilty of wrongdoing," she said. "I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment
because removal of a sitting President must not be the culmination of a partisan process,
fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country."
A censure would "send a strong message to this president and future presidents that their
abuses of power will not go unchecked, while leaving the question of removing Trump from
office to the voters to decide," Gabbard said.
"The CIA was the central protagonist in Russiagate. The origins of the New Cold War are found
in Bill Clinton's first term, when administration neo-cons looted, plundered and moved NATO
against a prostrate Russia in
contradiction to explicit guarantees not to do so made by the George H.W. Bush
administration. Vladimir Putin's apparent crime was to oust the Clintonites from Russia and
restore Russian sovereignty." CounterPunch.org
"Russiagate was a declaration of war by the 'intelligence community' against a duly elected
President. As argued below, the CIA's motive is to move its own foreign policy agenda forward
without even the illusion of democratic consent." CounterPunch.org
Notable quotes:
"... Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the problem, never part of the solution. ..."
Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US
war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and
abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the
problem, never part of the solution.
Her long disturbing congressional record shows she exclusively serves wealth and power
interests at the expense of the vast majority of Americans she disdains, proving it time and
again.
Her deplorable voting record speaks for itself, backing:
the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Blily Act repeal of Glass-Steagall, permitting some of the most
egregious financial abuses in the modern era;
the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), permitting endless
wars of aggression in multiple theaters, raging endlessly;
annual National Defense Authorization Acts and US wars of aggression;
Obama's neoliberal harshness, continuing under Trump, along with tax cuts for the rich,
benefitting her and her husband enormously, without admitting it;
increasingly unaffordable marketplace medicine, ripping off consumers for profit, leaving
millions uninsured, most Americans way underinsured;
the USA Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and other police state law;
the 9/11 whitewash Commission Recommendation Act;
the FISA Amendments Act -- permitting warrantless spying post-9/11, Big Brother watching
everyone;
NAFTA and other anti-consumer/corporate coup d'etat trade bills;
the repressive US gulag prison system, the world's largest by far; incarcerating
millions by federal, state, and local authorities, it includes global torture prisons;
unapologetic support for Israeli apartheid viciousness;
fierce opposition to Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, and other
nonbelligerent sovereign states threatening no one;
the Russiagate witch hunt and Ukrainegate scams.
Calling exploitive/predatory "free market (capitalism) our greatest asset" shows her
contempt for equity and justice.
Her support for the military, industrial, security, media complex is all about backing
endless wars of aggression against invented enemies. No real ones exist.
Pelosi represents what belligerent, plutocratic, oligarchic, increasingly totalitarian rule
is all about, notably contemptuous of nations on the US target list for regime change --
Russia, China and Iran topping the list.
On Friday, she falsely accused Russia of involvement in Ukrainegate, a failed Russiagate
scam spinoff with no legitimacy, supported by undemocratic Dems and their echo-chamber
media.
Repeating the long ago debunked Russian US election meddling Big Lie that won't die, she
falsely accused Moscow of "ha(ving) a hand in this."
Referring to the Ukrainegate scam, she offered no evidence backing her accusation because
none exists.
During a Friday press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York,
Sergey Lavrov slammed Pelosi's Big Lie, saying:
"Russia's been accused of all the deadly sins, and then some. It's paranoia, and I think
it's obvious to everyone."
It's unacceptable anti-Russia hate-mongering, what goes on endlessly, Cold War 2.0
raging.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following on her facebook
page:
"Speaker of the lower house of Congress Nancy Pelosi believes that Russia is involved in the
scandal over July telephone conversation between us and Ukraine Presidents Donald Trump and
Vladimir Zelensky."
"This (baseless) assumption was made on Friday Pelosi (not) explaining what it means, and
without providing evidence of her words."
"Considering that it was Nancy Pelosi who caused the 'Scandal around the telephone
conversation between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine,' then, according to the
speaker's logic, Russia attached the hand to her."
What's going on is continuation of the most shameful political chapter in US history,
ongoing since Trump took office, along with railroading Richard Nixon.
Both episodes represent McCarthyism on steroids – supported by establishment media,
furious about Trump's triumph over Hillary, targeting him largely for the wrong reasons,
ignoring plenty of right ones.
Mueller's probe ended with a whimper, not the bang Dems wanted, Ukrainegate their second
bite of the apple to try discrediting Trump for political advantage ahead of November 2020
elections.
That's what Russiagate and Ukrainegate are all about.
These actions by undemocratic Dems and their media press agents are further clear proof that
Washington's deeply corrupted political system to its rotten core is far too debauched to
fix.
The Trump Card was and is a masterstroke of scripting live, non-stop, divisive, politically
paralytic distraction while the US oligarchy goes all-tard-in for private power.
Since the whole impeachment farce already has been a political loser for the idiot Democrats,
they'd have to be doubly stupid to double down on political stupidity by obstructing the
transmission to the Senate, when most Americans just want this crap to be over with.
Meanwhile the Senate Republicans, once they get the charges, would be stupid to do
anything but vote them down immediately. Otherwise they'll become complicit in the odious
circus and rightly incur their share of the political blame.
@ Posted by: jalp | Dec 19 2019 6:00 utc | 80 with the Green Party status....Thanks
If Tulsi is totally left out of the Democratic race, is it possible that she could be a
Green candidate? When is the "drop dead" date for that to occur? How is the VP pick
handled?
I see Tulsi Gabbard managed to distance herself from the affair and rise above it by
voting "present" instead of "yes" or "no". I sense she is purposely putting a lot of space
between herself and the DNC, and may even be positioning herself to run as an independent
come spring, despite saying that was not her objective only a couple of months ago. Given the
lack of wisdom and loss of sense of direction being shown by the Democrat leadership it would
be a very wise move.
Pres. Trump wants to go down in history for something other than the impeachment
charade.
He thinks outside the box, is afraid of nothing, can turn on a dime, and may be the only
person who can kick open a door that seems jammed, thereby healing half the nation.
It still amazes me that people actually think impeachment accomplishes anything other than
diverting attention from the Dems giving Trump everything he wants. Kayfabe.
I'm starting to think the whole trump presidency is a con by making him look like a target
for the deep state and anti establishment, he continues the empire while people who want real
change get sunk.
I have had this thought more than once since Trump was selected to play president. He makes
too many unforced errors that are timely for democrats to jump on. He could have nipped Russia
Gate in its tracks by having the NSA show how Russia did not hack into the DNC computers. I'm
sure that there were other things he could have done, but never did. But if the Huber
investigation has legs and someone actually gets held accountable for taking the country on
this 3 year insanity I'll rethink my opinion.
So from now on the party which hold the House can start impeachment process on false premises
the day the President from other party was elected. As simple as that.
That open a huge can to worms for future Presidents,
Notable quotes:
"... Let me explain something. This will set a precedent for house of reps to come. When we have a liberal president and a republican house we will do the same and impeach him for nothing because this just shows that if you own the house you can impeach him for nothing and that isn't good for the future ..."
I don't know anything about politics but i know that impeaching a president with radical
fans might not be the smartest move for a country that's all ready divided , just my
opinion.
The claim its a danger to our constitution when they have no pronlem with infringing our
2nd Amendment, 1st Amendment and pledge to do away with the elctorial college...
Hypocrisy
Let me explain something. This will set a precedent for house of reps to come. When we
have a liberal president and a republican house we will do the same and impeach him for
nothing because this just shows that if you own the house you can impeach him for nothing and
that isn't good for the future
Trump is doing a great job,and doing every thing he promises. The only high crime was
defying Dems authority.He has become a clear and present danger to their chances of ever
winning another election.
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't
stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation
and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the
MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors
in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party
system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much
for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying
jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out
like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept.
of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered
his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded
on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship;
3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially
instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984.
Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced
by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will
be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA
foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are
bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar
think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's
famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last
refuge of scoundrels."
The House impeachment is driven by several factors:
After Russiagate, when Trump began to investigate its fraudulent origins, the Dems feared the exposure of Obama-era
corruption if not high crimes. Hence Ukrainegate is preemptive political tactics.
The investigation into Russiagate led right to Ukraine, and thus to Biden. In the context of Sanders' campaign,
Ukrainegate became an imperative for the factions of the capitalist class that dominates the DNC. If Biden falls on Ukraine
issues, then Sanders is inevitable; an anathema to Wall Street and Big Tech DNC donors.
3. While 1 and 2 dominate DNC machinations, foreign policy is also a factor. The foreign policy establishment is absolutely
against any hesitation with respect to confronting Russia as part of a regional and global strategy for primacy. Trump's limited
prevarications on Russia might threaten the long established strategy to expand Nato to Ukraine and thereby to encircle Russia
and maintain US dominance over Europe. So, even though Trump names great power rivalry as the name of the game today, his inclination
for making nice with Putin threatens to weaken the US hold over Europe, which Trump wants to label as an economic competitor.
It is with these points that the strategic differences become apparent: Trump is raising a realist, neo-mercantalist strategy
against ALL potential competitors; the DNC and the deep state hold a strategy of liberal hegemony: globalization and US primacy
through dominating regional alliances, and impregnating US hegemony INSIDE the vassal States of the empire.
All of this, however, is bound to fail for the DNC, and down the road for Trump himself.
The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones.
"... But as we know it has become politically incorrect on the left to do anything but to put on your clown makeup and join the circus. ..."
"... But Tulsi Gabbard as usual doesn't play their game. And because of that, like Trump she is also a target of the deep state and not just the deep state of America--it is the deep state of the entire 5-Eyes security apparatus who together work overtime to overthrow Trump and any and all who resist their attempt to rule the world. ..."
"... Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard did the smart thing and abstained in the vote from the circus. But as we know
it has become politically incorrect on the left to do anything but to put on your clown
makeup and join the circus.
But Tulsi Gabbard as usual doesn't play their game. And because of that, like Trump she is
also a target of the deep state and not just the deep state of America--it is the deep state
of the entire 5-Eyes security apparatus who together work overtime to overthrow Trump and any
and all who resist their attempt to rule the world.
Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep
State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials,
often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and
incipient tyranny.
Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of
European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring
their power to bear on domestic policy as well.
Although both halves of the One-Party really want the effective tyranny of state and
corporate bureaucracies, it's not surprising that it's the Democrats (along with the MSM)
taking the lead in openly defending the tyrannical proposition that the CIA should be
running its own foreign (and implicitly domestic) policy, and that the president should be
just a figurehead which follows orders. That goes with the Democrats' more avowedly
technocratic style, and it goes with the ratchet effect whereby it's usually Democrats which
push the policy envelope toward ever greater inequality, ecocide and tyranny.
Now is a time of rising irredentism and the decline of all the ideas of
globalization and technocracy, though the reality is likely to hang on for awhile. The whole
Deep State-Zionist-Russia-Deranged-Trump-Deranged-MSM-social media censorship campaign is
globalization trying to maintain its monopoly of ideas by force, since it knows it can never
win in a free clash of ideas.
Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its
more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the
culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees
with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too
damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think
they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest
of the world.
Since impeachment's going to fail, we can expect the system to try other ways.
But also may I compliment Kali@18 and Russ@19 for their terrific comments. I have just
finished reading the link provided by Kali, which is an outstanding essay by Pam Ho- a
paradigm shifter if ever there was one! I have been making a determined effort to liberate my
thinking from ideological partisanship and reading this essay was like pressing a refresh
button in my brain.
Despite the ra ra b. s.,Trump's letter will become an historical document, as it does
encapsulate all the manufactured tribulations that have been foisted on his presidency,
though I would have liked b to include all those words which were CAPITALIZED. He's quite a
personality, your president The best summation of the man is, curiosly enough, provided by
Syria's president Assad. There is an honesty about him even when he's uttering a bald-faced
lie!
Tulsi has been newsworthy for a number of years now and right from the getgo I said to
myself "she's my kind of gal"
Here is a woman of courage and presence. She's young and principled, even if she's a
member of a very corrupted party.
@ Posted by: Australian lady | Dec 19 2019 3:26 utc | 71 who ended her comment expressing
support for Tulsi Gabbard
When the impeachment vote was taken today, there were two Dems that voted against and
Tulsi voted Present
She will be ostracized for her non vote but I give her credit for distancing herself from
the impeachment circus. Given that she has stated that she won't run again for Congress, I
speculate that she may jump to the Green Party if given the chance to run ahead of or with
Jill Stein.....any barflies know how the Greens are shaping up for this coming election?
I read in a couple of places today that the strategy of the Dems is to not forward the
impeachment to the Senate for an indeterminate amount of time......let the stew, the Senate
and Trump simmer a bit.....more kabuki for the masses while the public continues to be
screwed economically.
Pelosi risk to turn the case into personal vendetta and DemoRats will be burned as the
result. McConnell just need to wait a couple on months as time works for him.
This pressure from Pelosi actually helps Trump opening interesting lines of the attack:
"McConnell said on the Senate floor that Pelosi and House Democrats "may be too afraid to even
transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate." Trump tweeted as Pelosi spoke Thursday
morning, saying that "Pelosi feels her phony impeachment HOAX is so pathetic she is afraid to
present it to the Senate".
The Deep State Sunk The Democratic Party
Notable quotes:
"... she would delay naming impeachment managers -- who would argue the House case in the Senate -- until the Senate lays out its procedures for the trial. ..."
41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"--US Dept. of
Agriculture. That number of people constituted a crisis for FDR when he delivered his One-Third
of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded on that issue in
his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship; 3.Freedom from want;
4.Freedom from fear.
Faced with a similar situation, Trump advances plans to cut more people from the food stamp
program thus increasing immiseration. One might say Trump's out of step with traditional
American values; but were Obama, Bush, or Clinton any better?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday extended her standoff with Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell over starting President Donald Trump 's impeachment trial,
insisting she's waiting to see whether Republicans will agree to a "fair" process.
Pelosi surprised many House Democrats Wednesday night after the House impeached Trump when
she said she would delay naming impeachment managers -- who would argue the House case in
the Senate -- until the Senate lays out its procedures for the trial.
"When we see what they have, we'll know who and how many we will send over," she said at a
news conference Thursday. Pelosi cast it as a procedural matter and cited the Senate's
ability to come up with a bipartisan trial plan after President Bill Clinton was
impeached.
... ... ...
McConnell and other GOP senators have been indicating they want a quick
trial, with arguments presented by the House managers and Trump's counsel without witnesses.
McConnell was giving no ground.
"It's beyond me how the speaker and Democratic leader in the Senate think withholding the
articles of impeachment and not sending them over gives them leverage," he told reporters at
the Capitol. "Frankly, I'm not anxious to have the trial."
... ... ...
McConnell called the House impeachment process rushed and shoddy.
"If the speaker ever gets her house in order, that mess will be dumped in the Senate's
lap," he said on the Senate floor. "If the nation accepts this, presidential impeachments may
cease being a once-in-a-generation event."
Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"
The underlying critical
point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since
linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the
epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to
regain their credibility.
The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking
credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.
Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much
better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's
genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is
credibility.
>> On top of this Putin himself has made some critical mistakes due to his Naive
personality, especially his falling for Trumps phoney reset (Trumps policies towards Russia
have been harsher then any president since Pappi Bush) and in the aftermath of that flop,
running into the arms of "Red" China's fake belt and Road which will be used to get Russia
completely dependent on the biggest U$ satellite
I don't agree that China is pro-US, with tome China will grow and the US will diminish,
BRI will leads towards that, but I do agree that Trump has been the most anti-russian
president since the 80s. Be objective. Do not look at what they say, look at what they do,
the maxim says. Defacto, Trump has been far more aggressive and hostile to Russia than Obama.
And he made everything possible to increase military budgets.
She also failed to mention that Trump activated Second Fleet in the Atlantic (that Obama
actually disabled) for Russia containment.
Trump is just a military puppet seeking to prolong the US Empire on the cheap. That is -
no more nation building, and let others pay for propping up the US empire.
@ Posted by: lysias | Dec 16 2019 1:46 utc | 25 and Posted by: Passer by | Dec 16 2019 1:39
utc | 24 writing about who was instrumental in being negative towards Russia.
It was during Obama's term that Russia changed the trajectory of the war in Syria.
But lets get real, there is only one "Party" in America, the private finance/money party
and both Obama and Trump are/were puppets for it. And those folks have know for some time
about the integration of China/Russia geopolitical views so the policy has been "consistent"
for probably a decade or more.
The recent shootings of three U.S. soldiers in Florida at the hands of a Saudi citizen raises a standard question in the U.S.
government's perpetual "war on terrorism": "Why do they hate us?"
Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the official mantra began being issued: The terrorists just hate us for our "freedom and values."
No other explanation for motive was to be considered. If anyone suggested an alternative motive -- such as "They are retaliating
for U.S. governmental killings over there" -- U.S. officials and interventionists would immediately go on the attack, heaping a mountain
of calumny on that person, accusing him of treason, hating America, loving the terrorists, and justifying their attacks.
It happened to me and other libertarians who dared to challenge the official motive behind the 9/11 attacks. Shortly after the
attacks, I spoke at a freedom conference in Arizona consisting of both libertarians and conservatives. When I pointed out that the
attacks were the predictable consequence of a foreign policy that kills people over there, another of the speakers was filled with
anger and rage over such an "unpatriotic" suggestion. Then, a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, FFF published an article by me entitled,
" Is This the Wrong Time
to Question Foreign Policy? " in which I pointed out the role that U.S. interventionism had played in the attacks. FFF was hit
with the most nasty and angry attacks I have ever seen.
Eighteen years later, the evidence is virtually conclusive that the reason that the United States has been suffering a constant,
never-ending threat of terrorism is because U.S. military and CIA forces have been killing people in the Middle East and Afghanistan
since at least the end of the Cold War, and even before.
After all, if the terrorists hate us for our "freedom and values," why haven't they been attacking the Swiss? They have pretty
much the same freedom and values that Americans have. And they are much closer geographically to Middle East terrorists than the
United States is. Why haven't the terrorists been attacking them?
The answer is simple: the Swiss government, unlike the U.S. government, hasn't been killing, maiming, and injuring people and
hasn't been bombing and destroying countries in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
A long history of U.S. interventionism
U.S. interventions in the Middle East began, of course, long before the 9/11 attacks. There was the 1953 CIA coup that destroyed
Iran's experiment with democracy with a coup that replaced the democratically elected prime minister of the country with a tyrannical
pro-U.S. dictator. Not surprisingly, that produced the violent Iranian revolution almost 25 years later. The Iranian revolutionaries
didn't hate America for its "freedom and values." They hated America for the U.S. government's installation, training, and support
of the tyrannical regime against which they revolted.
In the 1980s, there was the sending of U.S. troops into Lebanon as interventionist "peacekeepers." The terrorists ended up blowing
up a Marine barracks, killing 241 U.S. soldiers. The terrorists didn't hate America for its "freedom and values." They hated America
for the federal government's interventionism into Lebanon. As soon as all U.S. troops were withdrawn from Lebanon, which was the
right thing to do, there were obviously no more deaths of U.S. soldiers in that country.
It was after the Pentagon and the CIA lost their official Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia), that they proceeded
headlong into the Middle East and began killing multitudes of people. There was the Persian Gulf War, waged without the constitutionally
required congressional declaration of war, where thousands of Iraqis were killed or injured. That was followed by a decade of brutal
sanctions against Iraq, which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.
Thus, when Ramzi Yousef, one of the terrorists who tried to bring down the World Trade Center with a bomb in 1993, appeared before
a federal judge for sentencing, he angrily told the judge that it was U.S. officials who were the butchers, for killing multitudes
of innocent children in Iraq.
As those Iraqi children were dying, there were retaliatory terrorist strikes on the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Once again, however, U.S. officials continued to steadfastly maintain that was all about hatred for America's "freedom and values"
and had nothing to do with the deadly and destructive U.S. interventionism in the Middle East.
Then came Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against the United States, in which he expressly cited U.S. interventionism in
the Middle East as his motivating factor. That was followed by the 9/11 attacks, along with other terrorist attacks both here and
abroad. Through it all, U.S. officials and interventionists have blindly maintained that the terrorists hate us for our "freedom
and values," not because the U.S. government kills, maims, injures, and destroys people over there.
The recent Florida killings
And now we have the latest killing spree, this one at the hands of a Saudi citizen in Florida. According to
a story in yesterday's Washington Post about the killing of three U.S. soldiers, the killer, Ahmed Mohammed al-Shamrani
was described as "strange" and "angry." "He looked like he was angry at the world," said one person who knew him. Another said that
he looked at people in an "angry, challenging" way.
The article says that "the FBI has not yet determined a motive for the mass shooting."
Well, of course it hasn't. That's undoubtedly because the FBI hasn't yet found any statements in which the killer states that
he hates America for its "freedom and values."
But the Post article does point out something quite interesting. The article states: "The gunman, who was shot dead by
a sheriff's deputy responding to the shooting, is thought to have written a 'will' that was posted to the account a few hours before
the rampage. In it, he blasts U.S. policies in Muslim countries."
Well, isn't that interesting! Unfortunately, the Post didn't provide a verbatim transcript of the killer's "will" in which
he "blasts U.S. policies in the Muslim countries." The Post does point out though that "the writer says he does not dislike
Americans per se -- 'I don't hate you because of your freedoms,' he begins -- but that he hates U.S. policies that he views as anti-Muslim
and 'evil.'"
I n an article at antiwar.com entitled, " Pensacola: Blowback Terrorism ," Scott Horton provides a verbatim transcript of the
killer's "will," in which the killer states in part:
I'm not against you for just being American, I don't hate you for your freedom, I hate you because every day you supporting,
funding, and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity. I am against evil, and America as a whole has turned
into a nation of evil. What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countrie, I see invasion
of many countries by it's troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV.
Now, if one goes back to Ramzi Yousef's sentencing hearing in 1995 -- some 24 years ago -- one will see that Yousef angrily said
much the same thing to the federal judge who was getting ready to sentence him to jail for his 1993 terrorist attack on the World
Trade Center.
Americans have a choice:
One, continue the U.S. government's decades-long killing spree in the Middle East, in which case America will continue to experience
never-ending terrorist retaliation, the perpetual "war on terrorism, and the ongoing destruction of our liberty and privacy at the
hands of our government, which is purportedly protecting us from the terrorist threats that it produces with its foreign interventionism.
Or, two, stop U.S. forces from killing any more people, bring them all home and discharge them, which would help get America back
on the right track, one toward liberty, peace, prosperity, morality, normality, and harmony with the world.
This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received
his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for
twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987,
Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced
freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren
shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch . View these interviews at
LewRockwell.com and from
Full Context
. Send him email .
Warren's awkward attempts to portray herself as a woman of color, even if a etsy weeny
tiny bit, always seemed strange to me, ignoring the resume nonsense. It makes sense with the
realization that Women of Color, have become a new politically privileged class, in spite of
some of them being not very oppressed.
Indian (subcontinent) women come from a tradition of a caste based society of wealth and
privilege. The most succesful ones intuitively home in on and game American race-based
identity politics in spite of their advantages, such as being one of the wealthiest religious
groups in the nation,
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/
No Bernie style economic class based socialism for them, no way. It's maintain privilege,
Silicon Valley corporate caste based salaries, Republican reductionism, Hillary hopium and
yet, they proudly proclaim their affiliation with real women of color, on whose backs they
surf, like last generation's black cleaning women, the grandparents of which might have
actually been slaves.
3 examples: Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, Neera Tanden and Kamala Harris.
Women-of-color in general are not a privileged class. The not-very-poor women of color are
perhaps a newly privileged class.
The Goldman Sachs women-of-color have become a new privileged class, in line with the
tenets of Goldman Sachs Feminism. " The arc of history is long, and it bends towards rainbow
gender-fluid oligarchy."
As Dean Baker pointed out in his book Rigged, the neoliberal capitalism of America is
rigged to benefit the top 1%. After all, they were the architects. Most Americans appreciate
that. Nevertheless, the vast majority willingly wade into its rigged quicksand. All economies
are rigged in the sense that there is a structure to it all. Moreover, the architects of that
system will ensure there is something in it for themselves – rigged. Our school system
does not instruct Americans on how their own economic system works (is rigged), so most of us
become its victims rather than its beneficiaries.
Books by Liz Warren and her daughter offer remedial guidance on how to make the current US
economic system work for the average household. So, in a sense, Liz comes across as an
adherent to the system she is trying to help others master .
This seems to be a losing proposition for candidate Warren because most Americans want a
new system with new rigging; not a repaired system that has been screwing them for
generations.
This war is 18 years old. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to
think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place. Afghanistan will
figure it out. Once we withdraw to allow Afghanistan to return to self-governance.
The US lied about the Gulf of Tonkin in order to justify attacking North Vietnam, it then
proceeded to lie about the conduct of the war and the terrible genocide it was committing. No
lesson learned because in a heartbeat the US was lying about Chile, Brazil, Argentina,
Colombia, Nicaragua and El Salvador, committing a wide range of atrocities in each.
Add Somalia, Libya, proxy wars in Angola and Yemen, efforts to destabilize Cuba, Venezuela
and Iran, illegal wars in the Lebanon and Syria, the annihilation of Afghanistan in
retaliation for what was actually a Saudi terrorist act, the destruction of modern Iraq and
her people using trumped up claims, to say nothing of Clinton's cheery disregard for the
welfare of Balkan residents when the US rained (illegal) uranium bombs down on the hapless
inhabitants.
And now the WP and Congress are worked up over spending a trillion dollars when plainly
they could care less about the Afghan casualties and American war crimes. Heck this goes back
to Theodore Roosevelt seizing Cuba claiming he was saving it from the ravages of Spain or
even further back to government backed settler land grabs "saving their white women from the
savages". Savages, indeed. Zero accountability and Britain still playing faithful lap
dog.
My take on this is that the American Department of Defense war machine remained in a state of
perpetual excitement after their successes in WW11.. almost as if they had to continuously
invent an enemy in order to maintain their war time budget.. (and therefore demonstrate their
ongoing prowess etc etc) in a cycle of wars starting with Korea and bringing us up to date
with Afghanistan.. so that's nearly 70 years worth of international hubris on display.
All on the excuse of spreading their version of democracy.. is money talks!!
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential
for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the
weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take
nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper
meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods
and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
That both the Afghan war and the invasion of Iraq could happen at all tells us that the UN
Security Council is not fit for purpose. These wars also told us that British pretense at
being the voice of reason or the steadying hand that prevents US foreign policy being
subsumed by the visceral and synthesised reactions of a US public is no more than empty cant.
If the US is unable to prevent foreign and defence policy being captured by money
interests and remains inclined to deliver revenge to its public on demand howsoever it might
be misdirected then the US should not be on the UN Security Council at all. They are fast
becoming the number one major rogue state. And the outlook suggests this is more likely to
get worse than improve. Whatever happens to Trump One more (and likely smarter) Trumps are
coming down the track. More Dick Cheneys too. More Bushes, more Rumsfelds, more Nixons,
Boltons, Kissingers, Johnsons and a host of others we'd all much rather were one offs. The US
is the biggest extant threat to world peace. It is too powerful and far too easily played by
warmongers and terrorists of every stripe and every persuasion. And by those seeking to
profit from war.
To call war profiteering and murder a geopolitical "mistake" is to EXCUSE criminal activity.
Anyone responding to this latest revelation of military dishonest as a "mistake" is
actually part of the crime. They are aiding the abettors. Everyone in Congress knows what
everyone in this comments section knows: our military and its global actions are, first and
foremost, a financial fraud.
But not American oil companies which were basically shut out outside of a few minor service
and procurement contracts. Looks like all the "Blood for Oil" poster were BS.
The Iraq War was only partly, however, about big profits for Anglo-American oil
conglomerates - that would be a bonus (one which in the end has failed to materialise - not
for want of trying though).
Yes, and it made no conclusion as to whether the war was legal or not.
" The inquiry did not reach a view on the legality of the war , saying this
could only be assessed by a "properly constituted and internationally recognised court", but
did make a damning assessment of how the decision was made."
Just think - the USA spends more on its military then the combined amount of the next 10
nations in the list (incl. China/Russia/India). That is a major major spend commitment. A
small percentage of that could be used for US citizens to fund their healthcare - but I
suppose they prefer to spend it to threaten and bomb other nations to their will.
Just to think - a similar report was produced post Vietnam and in the 50's even Eisenhower
was worried about the US military backed by private companies becoming a perpetual spending
machine.
But there's one big question the Post report raises but does not address: why? Why did
so many people – from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to
state department and National Security Council officials – feel the need to lie about
how the war in Afghanistan was going?
Because "how the war is going" is not the operating question. Because it does not matter
if the war is just or unjust, whether it's winnable or not winnable, nor whether it's
supported in the "homeland" or not. No, the operating principle is that there is a war. By
its existence, the war creates funding and jobs and profits for the people that matter, the
people the author mentions, from the Security/Military complex corporations all the way to
careerists in the Pentagon and State.
So, it is NOT a waste of $1 trillion dollars ... it is just as it was supposed to be. That
is why the war president (W), the peace president (Obama), and the swamp drainer (Trump) have
all supported it. The war is doing what it's supposed to do.
In time, the US national debt will force them to rein in their military spending. By lowering
taxes while continuing to spend like drunken sailors on military adventures the national debt
is ballooning. US government debt is currently rated AA whereas Canada is AAA. US debt to GDP
is significantly higher than Canada's. (and that's just Canada vs the US). Trump is trying to
create a mafia style protection racket to force other countries to subsidize reckless US
military spending. "Pay up or who knows what might happen?" It is high time US taxpayers ask
why the US can't lower its' out of control military spending rather than pressuring others to
match their profligate ways? Some US citizens say they pay low taxes but it seems they get
nothing in return; no health care, no equal access to education, decaying public
infrastructure, etc. The rest feel overtaxed when they realize they get nothing in return but
don't question the elephant in the room. If other countries maintain responsible levels of
military spending the US will dig itself deeper into debt until the debt markets force them
to see sense.
Military spending is a fine way to transfer wealth from the general population to the rich.
War has always been a fabulous business opportunity, but what has never been so very clear is
how, even for the winning side, it represents a major defeat as wealth is transferred from
the common good into the hands of the rich.
In such matters always consider 'Who will prosper'.
Follow the money...
Considering the United States has been involved in one war or another, directly or
indirectly, for all but about 20 years of its existence, this latest revelation shouldn't
shock anyone. We're a violent country with a violent history and never more so than now, with
our built-on-conflict empire losing steam. We point fingers ("It's the Russians!" "It's the
Chinese!" It's the Iranians!") to deceive ourselves and others, but we're the real threat to
peace. Us. The United States.
Every time I see a person on the street nobly collecting 50ps or the odd fiver for a good
cause like Cancer Research or some other charity, I wonder why they have to do this when the
US has spent over a USD$1 trillion on the Afghan war and other militaries continue to soak up
massive amounts of funding. How much more could we have achieved by now for the real good of
humanity if these funds were focused on research and real human need?
Te US military has been practicing genocide around the world since WW2, millions have been
murdered and still are. But hey, they are the leaders of the free world, the corruption in
the US government, corporations, and military has no bounds. Their own poorer members of this
society are dying in their thousands for lack of medical care, innocent black people are
murdered by police, yet the greed must go on nothing else matters. The only question now
being, which country will they invade next, which government will they plot to overthrow. How
many will be murdered in the process, not that it matters, greed cannot be measured in dead
people.
World peace and the safety of the American public has never been a priority. Entirely the
opposite. Standard procedure: foment fear to wage immoral, endless, profitable war.
This isn't conjecture or "conspiracy theory"; it's as obvious as the sun rising. Anyone
casting this in any other way is either behind the curve or dangerously soft pedaling -- or
lying to stave off actual accountability.
Please stop pretending that our "leaders" are mistaken. They aren't They're doing the jobs
for which they were paid.
It's worse even than a crime... it's insanity to keep excusing a failed 18 year strategy
costing a trillion dollars, resulting in the death of more than 100,000, and the country
ending up worse than when they started. The military, politicians and the media are all to
blame. The military for being too frightened and too stupid to admit they were losing and had
no idea how to correct it.. the politicians for being too frightened to call out their
beloved but incompetent military, and for not "getting it" after more than a trillion dollars
had already been spent; the press and media for being embedded (sometimes literally) with the
military and acting as no more than unquestioning cheerleaders for a self-evidently failed
strategy. It is a terrible indictment of the US on so many levels... where were the public
anti-war protests or activists? Couldn't they see or didn't they care? Either way it's
pathetic.
Almost every year US generals stood before the media and politicians, jutting jaws and
feeble minds, to say that this year was going to be decisive against the Taliban. The fact
is, after Al Qaeda was scattered in 2001, the US picked on the Taliban pointlessly. They
stayed pretending they were engaged in countering the return of al Qaeda (that was never
going to happen) but actually made a new enemy of the Taliban by picking the wrong side in
what was a civil war. The US never understood what it was trying to do so it lied and lied
out of fear of being found out. I find it sickening that this country -the US - pretends it
is a force for good in the world when they are quite prepared to keep killing innocent people
in order to mask the generals' cowardice about facing the truth of their own
incompetence.
A terrible but interesting dichotomy. You have Governments and a broad part of the public
fiercely opposed to public spending and any kind of redistribution. It is all about the
individual.
Yet they sport and actually worship an institution where the individual counts for naught.
In the military it always is about the collective. They throw huge swaths of money to the
military. Which is the only place in the US where dreaded universal healthcare, pensions and
free education exists. Not only that, even the army shops sell goods as subsidised prices,
something unthinkable outside the barracks.
Entirely intentional according the PNAC document Rebuilding America's Defences, Orwellian for
we're going to make a lot of pointless weapons with huge mark-ups for profit by bombing the
shit out of foreigners.
I was listening to NPR about how Veterans turned against the Vietnam war. The people of south
Vietnam would collect shells and explosives that did not detonate and gave to US troops for a
small financial reward. In one such case - the shell exploded killing few kids and injuring a
girl. That girl was refused treatment from US medics because she was one of them. That
soldier involved later joined the anti war movement.
All the veterans were surprised with the image that soldiers coming back from war were spat
at and disrespected by the anti war protesters - this could not have been further from truth.
Back in Vietnam you were taught how to destroy a village, poison drinking water sources
etc. And understandably many GIs fought back.
There are similar stories out of Afghanistan - the naked prisoners with soldiers acting as
if they are engaging in a sexual act and many such shameless incidents. These soldiers were
acquitted which is another way of saying - An Afghan and his life and honor are below us. It
has de-stabilized the region for many decades.
There is a bright side to Donny and his conmen - maybe there will be less intervention and
more introspection - which can only be good for the World.
I think it should have been seen as a thirty year campaign and the same with Iraq and Libya.
The northern Ireland campaign took 30 years and many people are as bitter as they ever were
much of it secondhand from younger people who weren't even alive during the conflict. The
idea of a quick war is a very big mistake I think and flawed short-term thinking.
The West and the USA in particular have always taken the stand that their ideology is the
only right one. That they have a right to interfere in the interns, affairs of other
countries but their own internal affairs are sacrosanct.
So - USA, with UK support decided that Saddam Hussein had to be removed. They moved in to
do so - they killed Saddam but had no plan to return the country to a functioning nation.
Instead they facilitated the unleashing of internal wars and have now left the citizens of
that country in utter turmoil.
& then went and repeated the exercise n Libya.
Decades ago, Britain decided that Palestinians could be thrown out of their homes to make
way for the creation of Israel and laid the foundation for the Middle-East turmoil that has
caused untold misery and suffering. They followed that up with throwing out the Chagosians
out of their homes and making them homeless. Invited Caribbean's to the 'Mother Country' to
serve their erstwhile lords, ladies, masters and mistresses only to then drive to despair the
children and grandchildren of the invitees who had contributed to the 'Mother Country' for
decades.
We are 18 years into an illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. We are the invaders,
the terrorists. The Taliban are fighting for their country, they may use brutal methods but
so did the French, Dutch, Russian freedom fighters during the Nazi invasions. America's
puppet regime in Afghanistan is reminiscent of the Quislings of WW2. And to use drones to
kill Afghans and to say it is progress that there is more transparency is the height of
hubris. All it does is show the corrosive effect of unfettered power in America and it's
military. Why do we tolerate this inhuman action on another country's society? America is by
far the greatest contributor to the rise in terrorism in the world and if not somehow stopped
the greatest threat to world peace. It keeps on invading country after country with it's MSM
propaganda machine claiming it is spreading Democracy throughout the globe. Thank you America
!
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I have just finished reading William
Shirer's
Berlin Diary
. (This may not fascinate you, but I am coming to something.) I first
encountered it in high school. It is of course Shirer's account as a correspondent in Germany of the rise of
the Nazis. Most of it is well known to the educated. The Nazis, who had control over the domestic press,
convinced the German population that the Poles were threatening Germany, as plausible as Guatemala
threatening the United States. The Poles were said to be committing atrocities against Germans.
Then the Reich, with no justification
whatever, having absolute air superiority, attacked Poland, bombing undefended cities and killing huge
numbers of people. It was a German pattern several times repeated. Many reporters told of the smell of
rotting bodies, of refugees dying of hunger and thirst. Today the Reich is endlessly remembered as a paragon
of evil. It was.
How did Nazi Germany differ from the
United States today? There is the same lying. Washington insisted that Iraq was about to get nuclear
weapons, biological agents, that it had poisonous gas. None of this was true. The government, unimpeded by
the media, persuaded over half of the American population that Iraq was responsible for Nine-Eleven. Now it
says that Iran works to get nuclear weapons, and of course that the Russians are coming. The American press,
informally but strictly controlled, carefully doesn't challenge any of this.
Having prepped the American public as the
Nazis prepped theirs, Washington unleashed a savage attack against Iraq, deliberately destroying
infrastructure, leaving the country without power or purified water. The slaughter was godawful. But, said
America, the war was to rid the Iraqi people of an evil dictator, to bring them democracy, freedom, and
human rights. (The oil was entirely incidental. The oil is always incidental.)
Fallujah, Iraq, after the American military brought it democracy, human rights, and freedom.
Guernica, after the visit of the Kondor Legion. For the historically challenged, this was the Spanish
city bombed during the Spánish Civil War by the Germans in support of the Falangists.
Washington never sleeps in its campaigns to improve the lives of people
whose most fervent wish is that America stop improving their lives. To give the Afghans democracy, human
rights, and American values, the US has for eighteen years been bombing, bombing, bombing a largely
illiterate population in a nation where America has no business. It is a coward's war with warplanes
butchering peasants who have no defenses. The pilots and drone operators who do this deserve contempt, as
does the country that sends them. How many more years? For what purpose? And how were the German Nazis
different?
The German Gestapo perpetrated sickening
torture in hidden basements. America does the same, mainltaining torture prisons around the world. In these,
men, and no doubt women, are hung by their wrists for days, naked in very cold rooms, kept awake and
periodically beaten (exactly as described by survivors of Soviet torture. Nazis, whether American, Russian,
or German, are Nazis.)
Photos of Iraqis at the American torture
operation at Abu Ghraib showed prisoners, almost naked, lying in pools of blood. Tell me, please, how this
differs from what was done by the Reich? (The bloodier photos are no longer online. Many that remain seem to
have been edited.)
Abu Ghraib.
A happy American girl soldier. Note rubber gloves. The US military used many
female soldiers for this duty. They apparently were kinky, as they seemed to get a kick out of it. A
female general ran the operation.
Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, is a sadist
who tortured Moslem prisoners, reminiscent of Ilse Koch, the notorious Nazi torturess, who also worked in
prisons. It is easy to find victims there, I suppose.
An Abu Ghraib pic apparently no longer online. I found it on an ancient memory stick. Are we having
fun yet?
President Trump has just
pardoned
several American war criminals, saying he wanted to give US soldiers the "confidence to
fight." This amounts to blanket permission to commit atrocities. A purpose of military training being to
extirpate human decency and mercifulness, the obscene barbarism is not surprising. Atrocities are what
soldiers do, and will do as long as the wars go on, being furiously denied by the government. (When I
covered Force Recon, the Marine Corps Special Forces, the motto on the wall was "Crush Their Skulls and Eat
Their Faces.")
Perhaps the best known example of
implied approval was Nixon's pardon of Lt. Calley, who ordered the murder of Vietnamese villagers, for which
he received three years of house arrest.
The Germans wanted empire,
lebensraum,
and resources, in particular oil. Americans want empire and oil, control of which allows
control of the world They go about getting them by invasion and intimidation. Thus America wants to bring
democracy and human rights to Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria, which have
lots
of oil, while it
has occupation troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Mideast. What part of Syria is Trump
occupying? Surprise, surprise! The part with the oil. Oil for the Americans, land for the Germans.
As Shirer points out, the German public
was not enthusiastic about the war, at least not through 1940, as neither is the American public today.
Neither public showed any concern about the hideousness its government inflicted around the world. What is
the difference?
The parallels with the Reich are not
complete. Washington does not essay genocide against Jews or blacks or any other internal population, being
content with killing whoever its bombs fall upon. Trump cannot reasonably be likened to Hitler. He lacks the
vision, the backbone, and apparently the viciousness. Hitler was a very smart, very evil man who knew
exactly what he was doing, at least politically. This cannot be said of Trump. However, Hitler was, and
Trump is, surrounded by freak-show curiosities of great bellicosity. Adolf had Goering, Goebbels, Himler,
Rheinhardt Heydrich, Julius Streicher, Eichman. Trump has John Bolton, as amoral and pathologically
aggressive as any in the Fuehrer's entourage, or under a log. Pompeo, a bloated toad of a man, bears an
uncanny resemblance to Goering. Both he and Pence are Christian heretics, Evangelicals, who believe they are
connected to God on broadband. O'Brien sounds like Bolton. All want war with Iran and perhaps with China and
Russia. Sieg heil, and run like hell.
My Lai, after Lt. Calley of the SS Totenkopf Div excuse me, the Americal Division, I meant to say,
brought human rights, freedom, and the American way.
Wikipedia:
"Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers Victims
included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated as
were children as young as 12.")
For this Calley got three years house
arrest, less than the sentence for a bag of methamphetamine, until pardoned by Nixon. Many Americans said,
and many still say, that he should not have been punished at all, that we needed to take the gloves off, let
the troops fight. Again, this is what Trump said.
The German Nazis worshiped Blood and
Soil, the land of Germany and the Teutonic race, which they believed to be genetically superior to all
others. Americans can't easily worship race. Instead they think themselves Exceptional, Indispensable, a
Shining City on a Hill, the greatest civilization the world has known. Same narcissism and arrogance,
slightly different foundation.
Nazi Germany was, like Nazi America,
intensely militaristic. The US has hundreds of bases around the world (China has one overseas base, in
Djibouti), spends appallingly on the military despite the lack of a credible military enemy. It currently
buys new missile submarines (the Columbia class), aircraft carriers (the Ford class), intercontinental
nuclear bombers (the B21), and fighter planes (the F-35).
Nazi Germany attacked Poland, Norway,
Belgium, France, Russia, America, and England. America? Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, supports a
brutal proxy war against Yemen (Yemen is a grave threat to America), threatens Venezuela, China, and Iran
with attack, embargoes Cuba. These are recent. Going back a bit, we have Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Yugoslavia, the intervention in Panama, on and on. Millions and millions killed.
The Third Reich was, and America is, the
chief threat to peace on the planet, a truly rogue state.
Is this something to be proud of?
Other stuff
La FIL,
Feria Internacional
de Libros
, International Book Fair, Guadalajara, an annual event. I post the photo with the joyous sense
of mischief of an eleven-year-old poking a nest of wasps. It will infuriate the Dissident Right, or Alt
Right, or Race Realists. Their leaders excepted, most of these are ill-tempered naifs who insist, and seem
to hope desperately, that Latin Americans are illiterate. I occasionally have conservative friends down and
they are astonished to find that Guadalajara, a large international city, has the sorts of bookstores had by
large international cities. Duh. (If interested,
here
are a couple of dozen.)
Another and cherished conceit of the
Dissident Right is that Latin Americans who can read must be white. Well, I guess. Why, you could easily
mistake the crowd above for Norwegians. Their ancestors probably arrived with Leif Erikson.
Merry Christmas to all! Happy "Winter
Holidays" to none.
Write Fred at
[email protected].
Put the letters "pdq" anywhere in the subject line to avoid autodeletion. All read, reply not guaranteed due
to volume.
This meritorious and beneficial column
will go into hibernation until after New Year, after which it will likely return.
It's almost a century since Smedley Butler wrote his incisive pamphlet War is a Racket.
If you've never read it, it takes about 15-20 minutes to do so. It will astound, anger and
depress you that the only thing that's changed is the number or zeroes on the eye waterering
profits. Oh, and the players. What is it exactly that makes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
untouchable? (Answers on a postcard C/O Beelzebub.)
Smedley Butler knew of what he lectured about, being the most decorated officer in the
history of the Marine Corps.
A brief insight into this insightful all American action man man Hollywood seems to have
overlooked:
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this
country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks
from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time
being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In
short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I
helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues
in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall
Street.
"The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international
banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for
American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its
way unmolested.
"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.
Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could
do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
There's been a century of endless war and profits since then with this century shaping up
nicely for the racketeers, whose finest day might well have been September 11th, 2001.
Anyway, here's a link to a pdf file of War is a Racket if you're interested.
A few days ago, veterans' group VoteVets endorsed Pete Buttigieg. It has previously supported
Tulsi Gabbard. Details:
New York Times, "Liberal Veterans' Group Endorses Pete Buttigieg in 2020 Race":
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-votevets-endorsement.html
"... Public choice economics has big influence and a bad name. It is a school of economic thought that has at different times been associated with scholars at the University of Rochester, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University. ..."
"... Samuelson, in his famous and influential textbooks, saw a clear role for government in regulating markets. Public choice scholars vehemently disagreed . For political and theoretical reasons, they instead saw government as a fountain of corruption. Public choice economists argued that government regulations were the product of special interest groups that had "captured" the power of the state, to cripple rivals and squeeze money from citizens and consumers. Regulations were not made in the public interest, but instead were designed to bilk ordinary citizens. ..."
"... The conventional story is that as Warren moved from the right to the left, she abandoned the public choice way of thinking about the world, in favor of a more traditional left-wing radicalism. A more accurate take might be that she didn't abandon public choice, but instead remained committed to its free-market ideals, while reversing some of its valences. ..."
"... A recent popular history book, which qualified as a finalist for the National Book Award, depicts public choice as a kind of stealth intellectual weapons program , developed by economist James Buchanan to provide Chilean President Augusto Pinochet with the justification for his dictatorial constitution, and the Koch brothers with the tools to dismantle American democracy. ..."
"... Warren's ideas have a close family resemblance to those of Olson, a celebrated public choice theorist. (Perhaps she has read him; perhaps she has just reached similar conclusions from similar starting points.) Olson, like other public choice scholars, worried about the power of interest groups. He famously developed a theory of collective action that shows how narrowly focused interest groups can dominate politics, because they can organize more cheaply and reap great benefits by setting rules and creating monopolies at the expense of the ordinary public. This means that government programs often actively harm the poor rather than helping them. ..."
"... Olson also castigated libertarian economists for their "monodiabolism" and "almost utopian lack of concern about other problems" so long as the government was chained down. He argued that the government was not the only source of economic power: Business special interests would corrupt markets even if the government did not help them. ..."
"... Warren shares far more intellectual DNA with Mancur Olson and his colleagues than with traditional socialism. However, there are important differences. Olson wrote his key work in the 1980s, before the globalization boom. His arguments for free trade depend on the assumption that open borders will disempower special interests. ..."
Elizabeth Warren's politics seem like a tangle of contradictions. She wants free markets,
but also wants to tax billionaires' capital. Her enemies on the right claim that
she is a socialist , but Warren
describes herself as "capitalist to my bones."
Warren's politics are so confusing because we have forgotten that a pro-capitalist left is
even possible. For a long time, political debate in the United States has been a fight between
conservatives and libertarians on the right, who favored the market, and socialists and
liberals on the left, who favored the government.
It has been clear since 2016 that the traditional coalition of the right was breaking up.
Conservatives such as U.S. President Donald Trump are no fans of open trade and free markets,
and even favor social protections so long as they benefit their white supporters. Now, the left
is changing too.
Warren is reviving a pro-market left that has been neglected for decades, by drawing on a
surprising resource: public choice economics. This economic theory is reviled by many on the
left, who have claimed that it is a Koch-funded intellectual conspiracy designed to destroy
democracy. Yet there is a left version of public choice economics too, associated with thinkers
such as the late Mancur Olson. Like Olson, Warren is not a socialist but a left-wing
capitalist, who wants to use public choice ideas to cleanse both markets and the state of their
corruption.
Public choice economics has big influence and a bad name. It is a school of
economic thought that has at different times been associated with scholars at the University of
Rochester, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University. Public choice came into being in fervent
opposition to the mainstream of economics, which was dominated by scholars such as Paul
Samuelson.
Samuelson, in his famous and influential textbooks, saw a clear role for government in
regulating markets. Public choice scholars vehemently disagreed . For
political and theoretical reasons, they instead saw government as a fountain of corruption.
Public choice economists argued that government regulations were the product of special
interest groups that had "captured" the power of the state, to cripple rivals and squeeze money
from citizens and consumers. Regulations were not made in the public interest, but instead were
designed to bilk ordinary citizens.
Perhaps the most influential version of public choice was known as law and economics. For
decades, conservative foundations supported seminars that taught judges and legal academics the
principles of public choice economics. Attendees were taught that harsh sentences would deter
future crime, that government regulation should be treated with profound skepticism, and that
antitrust enforcement had worse consequences than the monopolies it was supposed to correct. As
statistical research by Elliott Ash, Daniel L. Chen, and Suresh Naidu has shown
, these seminars played a crucial role in shifting American courts to the right.
Warren was one of the young legal academics who attended
these seminars , and was largely convinced by the arguments. Her early work on bankruptcy
law started from public choice principles, and displayed a deep skepticism of intervention.
The conventional story is that as Warren moved from the right to the left, she abandoned the
public choice way of thinking about the world, in favor of a more traditional left-wing
radicalism. A more accurate take might be that she didn't abandon public choice, but instead
remained committed to its free-market ideals, while reversing some of its valences. Her work as
an academic was aimed at combating special interests, showing how the financial industry had
shaped bankruptcy reforms so that they boosted lenders' profits at borrowers' expense.
Notably, she applied public choice theory to explain some aspects of public choice, showing how
financial interests had funded scholarly centers which
provided a patina of genteel respectability to industry's preferred positions.
Now, Warren wants to to wash away the filth that has built up over decades to clog the
workings of American capitalism. Financial rules that have been designed by lobbyists need to
be torn up. Vast inequalities of wealth, which provide the rich with disproportionate political
and economic power, need to be reversed. Intellectual property rules, which make it so that
farmers no longer really own the seeds
they sow or the machinery they use to plant them, need to be abolished. For Warren, the problem
with modern American capitalism is that it is not nearly capitalist enough. It has been
captured by special interests, which are strangling competition.
It is hard to see how deeply Warren's program is rooted in
public choice ideas, because public choice has come to be the target of left-wing conspiracy theories. A recent popular
history book, which qualified as a finalist for the National Book Award, depicts public choice as a kind of
stealth intellectual weapons program , developed by economist James Buchanan to provide
Chilean President Augusto Pinochet with the justification for his dictatorial constitution, and
the Koch brothers with the tools to dismantle American democracy.
For sure, the mainstream of public choice is strongly libertarian, and the development of
the approach was funded by conservative individuals and foundations. What left-wing paranoia
overlooks is that there has always been a significant left-wing current of public choice, and
even a potent left-wing radicalism buried deep within public choice waiting to be uncovered.
The free-market ideal is a situation in which no actor has economic power over any other. As
many of Warren's proposals demonstrate, trying to achieve this ideal can animate a radical
program for reform.
Warren's ideas have a close family resemblance to those of Olson, a celebrated public choice
theorist. (Perhaps she has read him; perhaps she has just reached similar conclusions from
similar starting points.) Olson, like other public choice scholars, worried about the power of
interest groups. He famously developed a theory of collective action that shows how narrowly
focused interest groups can dominate politics, because they can organize more cheaply and reap
great benefits by setting rules and creating monopolies at the expense of the ordinary public.
This means that government programs often actively harm the poor rather than helping them.
However, Olson also castigated libertarian economists for their "monodiabolism" and "almost
utopian lack of concern about other problems" so long as the government was chained down. He
argued that the government was not the only source of economic power: Business special
interests would corrupt markets even if the government did not help them.
The result, according to Olson, was that societies, economies, and political systems became
increasingly encrusted with special-interest politics as the decades passed. Countries
benefited economically from great upheavals such as wars and social revolutions, which tore
interest groups from their privileged perches and sent them tumbling into the abyss.
Olson wanted to open up both politics and the economy to greater competition, equalizing
power relations as much as possible between the many and the few. He argued that under some
circumstances, powerful trade unions could benefit the economy. When unions and business groups
were sufficiently big that they represented a substantial percentage of workers or business as
a whole, they would be less likely to seek special benefits at the expense of the many, and
more likely to prioritize the good of the whole. Olson also believed strongly in the benefits
of open trade, not just because it led to standard economic efficiencies, but because it made
it harder for interest groups to capture government and markets. Northern European economies
such as Denmark, which combine powerful trade unions with a strong commitment to free markets,
represent Olsonian politics in action.
Warren shares far more intellectual DNA with Mancur Olson and his colleagues than with
traditional socialism. However, there are important differences. Olson wrote his key work in
the 1980s, before the globalization boom. His arguments for free trade depend on the assumption
that open borders will disempower special interests.
As economists such as Dani Rodrik and political scientists such as Susan Sell have shown,
this hasn't quite worked out as Olson expected. Free trade agreements have become a magnet for
special interest groups, who want to cement their preferences in international agreements that
are incredibly hard to reverse. The U.S. "fast track" approach to trade negotiations makes it
harder for Congress to demand change, but allows industry lobbyists to shape the
administration's negotiating stance. Investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms provide
business with a friendly forum where they can target government rules that hurt their economic
interests. All of this helps explain why Warren is skeptical of arguments for the general
benefits of free-trade agreements: they aren't nearly so general as economists claim.
Close attention to Warren's public choice influences reveals both her radicalism and its
limits. Like Olson, she is committed to the notion that making capitalism work for citizens
will require changes that border on the revolutionary. The sweeping proposals she makes for
changes to America's gross economic inequality, its economic relations with the rest of the
world, its approach to antitrust legislation, and its tolerance of sleazy relationships among
politicians, regulators, and industry are all aimed at creating a major upheaval. Where she
proposes major state action, as in her "Medicare for All" plans, it is to supplant market
institutions that aren't working, and are so embedded in interest group power dynamics that
they are incapable of reform.
Yet this is a distinctly capitalist variety of radicalism. Socialists will inevitably be
disappointed in the limits to her arguments. Warren's ideal is markets that work as they
should, in contrast to the socialist belief that some forms of power are inherent within
markets themselves. Not only Marxists, but economists such as Thomas Piketty, have suggested
that the market system is rigged in ways that will inevitably favor capital over the long run.
The fixes that Warren proposes will at most dampen down these tendencies rather than remove
them.
If Warren wins, she will not only disappoint socialists. Her proposals may end up being too
radical for Congress, but not nearly radical enough to tackle challenges such as climate
change, which will require a rapid and dramatic transformation of the global economy if
catastrophe is to be averted. Libertarians and mainstream public choice scholars will attack
her from a different vantage point, arguing that she is both too skeptical about existing
market structures and too trusting of the machineries of the state that she hopes to use to
remedy them. State efforts to reform markets can easily turn into protectionism.
What Warren offers, then, is neither a socialist or deep green alternative to capitalism,
nor a public choice justification for why regulators ought to leave it alone. The bet she is
making is that capitalism can solve the major problems that the United States faces, so long as
the government tackles inequality and defangs the special interests that have parasitized the
political and economic systems. Like all such bets, it is a risky one, but one that might
transform the U.S. model of capitalism if it succeeds.
Henry Farrell is a professor of
political science and international affairs at George Washington University.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), the outspoken, independent thinker from Hawaii running for the
loftiest perch in the land, has just said "no" to taking the next Democratic presidential
primary debate stage. This signals either a surrender or a strategic end-run around the field.
Yes, we've been down this road before. It is the same sentiment she expressed prior to the last
debate; although she threatened to boycott the circus, she did qualify, show up, and rebuke the
other candidates and the Democratic Party.
Gabbard has been Public Enemy #1 in those
circles since. Instead of playing into the cemented narrative, Tulsi, who has not so far
reached the conditions imposed for participation in the next round, is not wasting her
time.
The Most Repetitive Show On Earth
As the sixth platform for national domination looms, Gabbard tweeted a different plan,
saying:
"For a number of reasons, I have decided not to attend the December 19th 'debate' --
regardless of whether or not there are qualifying polls. I instead choose to spend that
precious time directly meeting with and hearing from the people of New Hampshire and South
Carolina."
Whether her bold decision is based on not quite reaching the necessary baseline
requirements, or because she has had enough of the game playing, Tulsi seems indifferent to
striving
for inclusion . And we all know Gabbard is not one to tread water in the shallow end of the
pool when a good, strong crawl will cover more territory.
Tulsi Gabbard
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has upped the ante for primetime pandering by
requiring candidates to have a minimum of 4% support in selected national polls and 6% in two
state polls of the early primary states Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada.
The deadline for polling qualification is Dec. 12 at the witching hour of 11:59 p.m. in the
Eastern time zone. How dramatic for what is likely to be a boring rehash of Trump-bashing, held
a scant week later.
Although Tulsi has the sheer donor numbers needed – the support of at least 200,000
unique donors – her national polling numbers haven't yet reached the threshold. Those on
the survey leaderboard are Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar
(D-MN), former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, billionaire Tom Steyer, and
businessman Andrew Yang.
A Diverse Or One-Note Race?
Tulsi has been tilting
at the DNC and its primary prerequisites since the get-go, claiming the surveyors they used
weren't "accurate" enough, or that the venues were biased. Gabbard's campaign released a
statement in August, which said:
"Many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable
organizations such as The Economist and the Boston Globe, are ranked by Real Clear Politics
and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some DNC 'certified' polls."
The DNC was insistent that its criteria for inclusion have been fair and balanced. Just ask
the committee's spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa, who responded:
"This has been the most inclusive debate process with more women and candidates of color
participating in more debates than billionaires. We are proud of this historic and diverse
field with 20 candidates participating in the first two debates and at least 10 candidates in
each debate after that."
What's ironic is that no people of color – because of the strident stipulations
imposed – will be at the Dec. 19 debate hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico at the Loyola
Marymount University in Los Angeles. PBS is set to broadcast the debate, and most likely, fewer
people will watch the event than Gabbard can reach by holding town halls or meet and greets.
Perhaps she's on to something, after all.
Any particular American war has no purpose, but the USA waging it does. The main points of
what war does:
1. Transfers wealth from social services to the military industrial complex. Americans
don't have education, infrastructure, or healthcare, but they do have a generation of
soldiers with PTSD, national debt, worldwide hatred, and an ever increasing sense of
exceptionalism.
2. Traps Americans in a cycle of fear and persecution. Americans don't need a bogeyman,
but our corporate overlords do, its how they monetize the populace. Find some disparate
population of brown people who want self autonomy, send in the CIA to fuck them up, and when
they retaliate tell Americans that people who live in a 3rd world land locked country several
thousands of miles away are a threat to their very existence and way of life because they
don't like God and Walmart.
Sadly the US uses the MIC to keep a large chunk of its population under control, as well as
providing a convenient coverup of the actual numbers of people who are unemployable or would
be unemployed if it were'nt for the taxpayer funding humungous spending in the so-called
defence sector, which needs a a constant supply of conflict to keep going. The frankly
moronic 'thank you for your service' soundbite drives me insane but it shows how much the
American public has been brainwashed.
For years my home state of Washington had a New Deal Democrat Senator named Henry Jackson,
AKA the Senator from Boeing.
He did good things for the state & was hugely popular here. One reason being that because
he brought the Federal pork back home.
IMO the things Gen. Butler wrote about in the 1920s are still the modus operandi of US
foreign policy.
If the Afghanistan war ends, the USA will go to war with someone else. You cannot spend so
much on military & not be at war. America must have an enemy. And, don’t forget,
they always have “God on our side!”
The neocons in power during 2001 were hell bent on taking out Saddam Hussein. When 9/11
happened, they were looking for avenues to blame Iraq so that they could launch the war on
that nation. Since things could not be put together, and all evidence pointed to Afghanistan,
they took a detour in their war plan with a half hearted approach.
In fact Afghanistan was never the problem - It was Pakistan that held Afghanistan on the
string and managed all terror related activities. Everything related to 9/11 and beyond
pointed directly at Pakistan. Whatever threat Bush and his cronies projected about Iraq was
true in the case of Pakistan. The war was lost when they made Pakistan an ally on the war on
terror. It is like allying with Al Capone to crack down on the mafia.
Pakistan bilked the gullible American war planners, protected its assets and deflected all
the rage on to the barren lands of Afghanistan. They hid all key Al Qaeda operatives and
handed off the ones that did not align with their strategic interests to the US, while
getting reward for it. War in Iraq happened in a hurry because the Bush family had scores to
settle in Iraq. Pressure was lifted on Afghanistan. This is when the war reached a dead
end.
The Taliban knew time was on their hands and waited it out. Obama did understand the
situation and tried to put Af-Pak together and tightened the grip on Pakistan. He got the
troops out of Iraq. Pakistan is almost bankrupt now for its deep investment on terror
infrastructure. The US has drained billions of dollars and lives in Afghanistan due to
misdirected goals. I am surprised Bush and Cheney have not been sent to jail on lies to
launch the Iraq war and botching the real war on terror.
I read Bob Woodward's book, "FEAR: Trump in the White House" which has a section talking
about a time when Trump wanted to withdraw a substantial number of troops from Afghanistan.
Lindsey Graham, Mattis, and Tillerson all opposed the withdrawl and spoke to him in person
about it. They all just kept saying that we needed troops in Afghanistan "to prevent the next
9/11." Lindsey Graham was especially forceful about this. "If you withdraw those troops, then
you're responsible for the next 9/11" he says [paraphrase].
This is the only section of the book where I actually found myself agreeing with Trump.
How exactly does keeping troops in Afghanistan "prevent the next 9/11"? It seems like a
bizarre non sequitur.
And this is a surprise because? There is a revolving door between Washington D.C. and defence
contractors. When you have a multi trillion dollar industry making stuff that goes bang, the
customers will want to use it. And the more the industry can encourage them to use it, the
more money they make. Better still, when they have finished blowing a foreign country to
hell, their friends in the civil engineering and construction companies can make more
trillions rebuilding it all.
And if you then claim victory and withdraw enough of your troops, the incumbent
Neanderthals can start slaughtering their own people all over again, giving the perfect
excuse to go back in and blow it all to hell again.
With careful planning, you can maintain the cycle of profits for decades, if not
centuries.
Next week - bears implicated in forest defecation scandal.
This war is 18 years old. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to
think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place. Afghanistan will
figure it out. Once we withdraw to allow Afghanistan to return to self-governance.
Why did so many people -- from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to
state department and National Security Council officials -- feel the need to lie about how
the war in Afghanistan was going?
This is because it's easy cash cow for the old boys club by sending working class kids
to be killed in a far off land.
The pentagon with the full cooperation of MSM will sell it as we are defending our ways of
life by fighting a country 10,000 kms away. This show the poor literacy, poor analytical
thinking of US population constantly brain washed by MSM, holy men, clergy, other neo con
organisations like National rifle club etc.
I never knew USA dropped 2.7 millions tons of bombs and now so many left unexploded and
its same in Vietnam, Cambodia as neutral,
but i met so many injured kids etc from the bombs,.
the total MADNESS OF USA IS NAZI SM AT ITS BEST,.NO SHAME OR COMPASSION FOR THE
VICTIMS.
I cannot comprehend the money it cost USA,. AN ALSO PROFITS FOR SOME,.
With the exceptions of two attacks on American soil-Pearl Harbor and 911- the American people
and for the most part their legislative representatives in Congress- will always remain
cluless what the United States Government does overseas.
This country runs on its own drum beats. The ordinary man on the street needs to take care
of his economic needs. The Big Boys always take care of themselves. That includes the
military establishment, that is always entitled to an absurd amounts of monies, fueled by an
empire building machinery, pushed by the elites that control the fate of economic might, and
political orchestra that feeds its ego and prestige.
Time and again, our American sociopaths in power have a strangle hold on us, regardless of
the destruction and animosity they heap on distant peoples and lands the world over in the
name of national security and the democratic spiel, as they like to tell us ....
Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson- Vietnam and the South East Asian countries of
Laos , Cambodia, are an example .
Years later, the establishment manufactures blatant cover-ups with lies upon lies to accuse
on record, as general Powell eloquently presented at the United Nations: That Iraq has
weapons of mass destruction and needs to be held accountable.And now, this report on
Afghanistan with all this pathological violence.
Is it reasonable to conclude that our democracy and its pathological actors in government
and big business will always purchase it by demagoguery and self vested interest, because the
ordinary man whose vote should count will never have the ultimate say when it comes to war
and destruction!
Appearing on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," Maté
said Ukraine's efforts to tamper in the election are "no secret."
"Ukrainian officials -- they leaked information that exposed some apparent corruption by Paul Manafort and it was consequential.
It led to Paul Manafort's resignation
from the Trump campaign," he said. "And, the stated intent of Ukrainian officials was to weaken the Trump campaign because they
wanted to help elect Hillary Clinton ."
Yet, when Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told "Meet The Press" host
Chuck Todd Sunday that reports from various
media outlets indicated that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko favored Clinton over now-President Trump, Todd accused him
of parroting Russian President
Vladimir Putin's talking points.
"Are you at all concerned that you've been duped?" Todd asked.
On the same network, anchor
Nicolle Wallace and her guest The Bulwark Editor-at-Large Charlie Sykes echoed Todd, agreeing that Kennedy "comes off as an addled
Russian asset on television" after "peddling Vladimir Putin's talking points."
"I don't understand the proactive work on behalf of Putin's Kremlin," said Wallace.
Maté told Carlson that what these pundits are trying to do is "conflate that with a different theory by Ukrainian meddling. Which
is not proven -- it's true."
"And, that is the one that Trump tried to put forward in this
phone call with Zelenksy where he appears to be saying that it wasn't Russia that was behind the
hacking of the DNC and that it might have been Ukraine," he continued.
"It's true there's no evidence for that theory, and it's fair enough to point out that. But. what's also ironic here is that the
people who are indignant about that claim by Trump are accepting the claim that Russia hacked the DNC," Maté stated, adding that
journalists should be demanding to see the underlying evidence used by U.S. intelligence to draw that conclusion.
Carlson said the mainstream media now accuses anyone who questions their narrative of being a "traitor to the country" and supporting
Russia. Julia Musto is a reporter for Foxnews.com
So CIA agent Carter Page joins Trump campaign and then do several "improper" moves like
travel to Moscow and contracts with Russian officials things in order to create a pretext for FBI
investigation. Which of course was promptly started. This is called false flag operation.
From comments: "He wasn’t a victim, he was an asset. When actors portray a victim, they
are ACTING!!!"
Notable quotes:
"... "The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X. ..."
"... Seth Rich downloaded the emails on a potable drive. Was he Russian? ..."
"... DNC/ FBI/ CIA/ CNN/ NBC have merged into the 5 headed serpent. ..."
"... Roger Stone got some minor facts wrong and is facing jail time, Brennan and Comey outright lied to Congress, when are they going to jail? ..."
"... "June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them (the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA) renewal. ..."
"... "Lets hope Carter Page spends the rest of his life sueing everyone..." lol Thats the meanest thing ive ever heard you say! O:) ..."
There are so many crooked actors and actresses hired by the MSM it is just pathetic. They
are not reporters, they are there only to put on a show for the masses.
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the
innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the
minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X.
"June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them
(the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA)
renewal.
1:52
- This is what a paid shill looks like. If the money is good, they'll read whatever is on the
prompter. Years from now when they're demonized by the corrupt media they'll scratch their
head and ask... What happened to integrity in our country???
If you asked me 20 years ago wether I would be watching Fox News to get the most rational
point of view in politics, I would have said you were crazy. Another great job Tucker! In my
opinion, you’re one of the best news men of our current time; questioning needless
wars, and calling out politicians, gvmnt officials and your counterparts at other news desks
with rational arguments. Well done sir!
Personally seen these types of things/cases in lower levels, police chiefs and officials,
judges, prosecutors, mayor, FBI, and so on. Not surprisingly it happens elsewhere. ...But
very disappointed of it all.
If I were an American citizen, I'd be very concerned about the utter incompetence of the
FBI that the IG report exposed. The dems don't seem to be bothered by this at all. Go
figure.
The Establishment has played this game many times before .. remember PM Harold Wilson was
put up as a Russian Agent .. sure they won that game but NOT this time .. they fear President
Trump because the have nothing over him .
The Democ-rats and the media (I repeat myself) are shamelessly LYING through their teeth
to the American People. There was NO Russian collision—it's a HOAX made by LOSERS who
can't accept their loss in 2016 so they were up to smear the winner, President Trump, by all
means, possible including Illegal surveillance, fraud and manipulation—ABUSE of
government power for political prosecution.
Steele dossier......fake evidence bought and payed for by the democrats and presented to
the FISA court by James Comey...........FELONY FELONY FELONY!......this one can’t be
talked away!
Tucker, thank you for being a constant drumbeat for the criminal activity undertaken by
the FBI and CIA to ultimately unseat a duly elected President. No rest until they are held
accountable.
How could the FBI be innocent? We saw the emails. We saw them cover up for Bill Gates,
Clinton, Epstein, Brunel, and all the others. We saw how they protected these abusers of
children. We saw how they worked to overthrow a sitting president. We saw how they protected
the Awan’s and Huma.
THE FIX WAS IN - People are saying that Nellie Orr the Russian Expert is best friends with
the IG's Horowitz wife - So nice - Bruce your husband is a lap dog and works for the FBI .
People should be outraged as the cover up continues . Just like OJ - they have 10 times the
evidence that would convict anyone else - have them charged , arrested , tried and jailed .
Different rules for corrupt politicians and their friends in law enforcement .
Michael Cohen In prison, Papadopulos went to prison, Flynn is going to prison, Roger Stone
is going to prison, Manafort is in prison and Devin Nunes and Rudy Giuliani are under
investigation.....Lock them up, lock them up!!!!
CIA tells FBI who in turn uses their corrupt media to spread the lies as truth. The less
intelligent among us believe them as gospel and thus we get "Russian Collusion, or Quid Pro
Quo, or Iraq has weapons of mass destruction " and on and on.....
Ukraine and Barisma may be corrupt, but after reading the summary of this report, this
country better not be calling any country corrupt. The USA is following Rome. Soon it will
die.
FBI is totally corrupted by it's unchecked power, these deep states have the guts to
repeatedly use FALSE Information again & again to spy on the opposition political party
presidential candidate campaign. The Fake News medias continue to cover for them, it is
sickening!
The FBI based on the IG report are either criminally liable for deceiving FISA courts, or
the most inept, bumbling criminal investigation agency ever. Looks like both to me. Any FBI
agent or employee who knew the FBI was breaking the law, and remained silent needs to be
fired immediately and prosecuted along with the principals, for aiding and abetting criminal
activity. This sounds like RICO violations.
if Carter Page didn't run the 2016 "Trump Election Campaign Committee of Moscow" from the
ROSNEFT bureau offices inside the Kremlin, where did Carter Page run the "Trump Election
Campaign Committee of Moscow" ?
Horowitz needs to stop being a wuss and tell the whole truth. His report is a big lie. The
whole thing was a political attack. It started with John McCain and he handed it off to Obama
and Crooked Hillary. There was no reason at all to investigate Trump. Is the IG part of the
deep state? Democrats are acting like this report is good news for them.
Steele was not the author of the fake dossier, DNC FusionGPS Glen Simpson was, and Steele
used as cover. Coming in the Durham findings. 17 FBI "mistakes" in a row all against Trump?
No bias? B S.
How Trump has "conned" the American tax payer: This is just a few of his fraud actions!He
set up a foundation to benefit the military, then him and his family pocketed our money.He
started a Fake University, then stole the money from the American people.He cheated on his
wives, then paid them to keep quiet so it wouldn't damage his chances in the election.He
stiffed 100's of worker's he hired and then made up an excuse y they didn't get paid
If Donald Trump was a Russian spy it would’ve been the deepest cover of any secret
agent ever....he came here after his lgb training as a young man and became a celebrity for
30 years before finally putting his dastardly plan to go from pageant owner to president into
action! If that were anywhere close to true the Russians did so much work I think they earned
the 4-8 years in the White House! I know that at this point I’d rather have Vladimir
Putin as President than any of the top democrats!
Folks..All this soap opera is just a smoke screen to hide what is really important and is
happening right now at this very minute. The Federal Reserve Banking cartel is pumping 100s
of billions of dollars into insolvent banks again like they did in 2008. This time it is more
and we taxpayers will again foot the bill. The banks are getting this money called REPO
loans. Watch your cash everyone as the Federal Reserve has only 1 product and that is
printing money( debt) that they will use to steal your assets and future.
There are many opinions about the Horowitz report. As with a prior report Horowitz lays
out damning evidence and then draws exactly the wrong conclusion. Why does he have to draw
ANY CONCLUSIONS? His job is to present the facts and the evidence and to let "We the People'
draw conclusions. Reminds me of Comey declaring that Hillary's actions were irresponsible but
not criminal. Why? She didn't act with intent. She was just incompetent! Tucker is absolutely
right! What does it matter what their motive was? Like Clinton, they behaved in a criminal
fashion.
One of things which concerns me most about this site and most others inhabited by
contrarian blokes of a certain age is the way that topics discussed are most often the same
topics as those fed to the mugs via corporate media.
Sure the opinions are vastly different, but the subjects are not. So much energy and
time wasted on pointless topics like the amerikan prez when we all know that it really
doesn't matter who jags that gig nothing meaningful will alter for amerikans or the people
outside amerika oppressed by empire.
Now the prez thing is a bit of a troll since so many amerikans have been intensely
indoctrinated right through their lives to believe that all the prezdency guff is
meaningful when it so obviously isn't. That in reality the odds of any amerikan suddenly
having an epiphany about the pointlessness of DC kibuki from reading this, or something
similar written by someone else, are negligible.
So we have to accept, to a degree, that Washington Housewives and Days of Our Lives DC
will continue to feature at MoA.
But what happens when the corporate media chooses not to consider much larger, more
pernicious forms of imperialism than is currently occurring in the ME because that
imperialism is nascent, awful things are being done to humans western populations who have
not been sufficiently propagandised against, so may not greet the tales of murder and
mayhem generated by the actions of french foreign legionaires, english SAS or amerikan
special forces with sufficient approval?
Easy, we just don't talk about it except when told to or where there is no choice
because some action by the imperial thugs for hire has attracted too much attention. In
that case the barest of details make it into the news and we will be told that whoever it
was who had their families butchered belonged to an organisation which 'western
intelligence' said was 'associated with ISIS'. No specificity, not details at all apart
from the one unsubstantiated claim, which lets face it says any village of humans anywhere
that contains a single resident which western intelligence believes is somehow associated
with ISIS, is worthy of being genocided out of existence.
I reckon one of the best indicators of imperial violence is displaced persons. We saw in
the ME that various forms of ethnic cleansing were practised to persuade people to move off
their traditional lands in order to either exploit the natural resources in the area (see
Saudi Amerika driving tribes from the newly discovered hydrocarbon prospects in North
Yemen), or to create lebensraum for another group of humans currently held in favour by the
empire (see the shifting of arabs and Turkamen from North Syria to give ready made villages
to Kurds which only lasted for as long as the Kurds were needed by empire).
So many people were displaced in the ME during the first half of the teens that shock,
horror some european countries felt obliged to allow a few of those whose lives had been
destroyed into their communities.
That was then, yet we still all talk about the ME as though it is where the empire is
committing its most egregious harm, but that is no longer the case.
If you check
this Pew Center article you will see
The total number of people living in
sub-Saharan Africa who were forced to leave their homes due to conflict reached a new high
of 18.4 million in 2017, up sharply from 14.1 million in 2016 -- the largest regional
increase of forcibly displaced people in the world" .
If one checks the chart Pew has provided we can see that the numbers of decent humans in
the ME who have been displaced from their land is alleged to currently be 21.5 million
while the number of persons displaced in sub-Sahara Africa is about 3 million less at 18.4
million.
See so more action in the ME still. No, firstly the ME curve has flattened right out
over the years since 2016 meaning that new displacements are relatively low unless of
course it is your whanau that has been displaced in which case it wouldn't feel
nearly as benign. Secondly if you look at the fine-print on that chart you will see the 21.5 million line is
labelled "Middle East-North Africa".
Libya is an African state which happens to have a proportion of arabic speaking people
in its population, it also contains Berbers (e.g. Muammar Ghadaffi) and what the chart
calls "sub-Saharan Africans when they want say negro but the unfortunate connotations
associated with that term (99% the result of horrific whitefella behaviour) means that
negro is no longer a la mode in whitefella land.
Not enough to rape, steal & steal from black Africans, now we also remove the means
to identify them as a distinct group.
The Libya africa/ME issue matters a great deal because prior to the fukusi rape of
Libya, that nation acted as a bulwark for all the supra-saharan nations, some Saharan eg
Niger and that was just as likely a reason for amerika to destroy Libya setting loose the
ethno-centrists of Misratah to kill black africans, standover Berbers & Turks to ensure
that only Arab speaking semites can get control. This is the deal the empire struck. Not to
enable italy to get some of that sweet sweet crude at the sort of bargain basement prices
Italy hadn't enjoyed since Mussolini invaded Libya - that was purely a minor side benefit,
now the good colonel was no more, fukus became the only game in town. There was no longer any white knight determined to protect his/her neigbours from the
outright theft, extortion, bribery, rape & murder which are the empire's stock in
trade.
It is foolish and counterproductive to ignore the horrors that a US-led fukus mission
which runs across the entire African continent has created in the name of more billions to
the already rich. Do it if you want, but all you are really achieving is enabling the arseholes.
There is a scarcity of relevant links for the usual reasons. Not only are you more
likely to put faith in info from sources you already know & trust, getting there will
help you comprehend this crime far better than something easily digestible from a user, and
most importantly the final paras were done long after the sun rose over the yardarm
here.
@ A User 72
All very true. I would place the de jure war onslaughts within the overall context of
globalization and in particular the imperialistic assault of corporate industrial agriculture
upon Africa, the last great semi-frontier which wasn't fully assimilated by the first "Green
Revolution" onslaught. A main goal as the global empire faces decline or collapse is to seize
control of all land and drive the people OUT.
Globalization acts to destroy all local production and distribution. It destroys this
outright or seizes control of it in order to force it into the global commodity framework. It
seizes control of indigenous land and resources. It dumps subsidized Western goods. It
destroys any functional politics and democracy. It imposes the control of multinational
corporations over every part of life it can. It does this purely in the power interests of
Western elites. Any benefits it lets trickle down to locals are purely calculated payouts to
accomplices. Much of the global South has been crushed under the corporate boot this way, and
Africa has already been subject to the IMF and World Bank’s debt indenture shock
treatment (“structural adjustment”).
All this has been accompanied by the systematic ravaging of African ecosystems,
culminating in the rising climate chaos driven by the patterns of energy consumption, waste,
and ecological destruction practiced and imposed by Western industrialized productionism and
consumerism. Climate change is caused by these actions. Since corporate state elites and
their supporters have long known this and in spite of lots of lip service have refused to do
anything to avert the worst of it, it’s long been true that climate change is an
intentional campaign of aggression against the Earth and all vulnerable peoples. Thus climate
change takes its place as the most extreme and far-reaching of the corporate campaigns
designed to cause disaster, destruction, and chaos. According to this pattern of disaster
capitalism the corporations then proceed to use the crises they intentionally generate as
further opportunities for aggression and profit. All corporate sectors practice this, and
corporate agriculture is the most aggressive and destructive practitioner of all. Today
Africa is its primary new target.
Corporate control of agriculture and food has always been at the core of the globalization
onslaught. In accordance with its food weapon the US government systematically has waged
economic, political, chemical, biological (both of the former in the form of poison-based
agriculture and other pretexts for systemic and systematic environmental poisoning), and
often literal shooting warfare. Throughout this history of war and sublimated war, corporate
agriculture has been a constant weapon and battleground as well as its aggrandizement being a
constant goal.
Don't be so sure. Note that Trump congratulated Tulsi on Kamala's demise. If she isn't the
nominee, her mere presence in the campaign is a boon to Trump because she exposes the rot in
the DNC and the Empire.
Dem Establishment can't control me and that scares the hell out of them
"... "I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United States." ..."
"... Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8 billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza." ..."
"... J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum of understanding. ..."
"... Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank. ..."
"... The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes ..."
The Jews try to run US policy ..but lately the Dem base (and part of the party) has become
more pro Palestine.
Democratic (Jewish) lawmakers reckon with 2020 rhetoric on Israel aid
December 6, 2019
Presidential candidates who want to place conditions on Israeli military aid have prompted
pro-Israel House Democrats to go on the offensive.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
It's becoming harder and harder for pro-Israel Democrats on
Capitol Hill to ignore the increasingly critical voices of the US ally within their party and
the presidential race.
House Democratic leaders -- who happen to be some of the staunchest Israel supporters on
Capitol Hill -- this week added language supportive of the annual $3.8 billion military aid
package to Israel to a symbolic resolution that endorses a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The stalled resolution passed 226-188, largely along party lines, today. But pro-Israel
Democrats only came on board after House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel,
D-N.Y., added their new language to the bill. The new provision is a response to the fact
that several presidential candidates have come out of the woodwork in recent months with
calls to place conditions on the largest recipient of US military aid.
"I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel
told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see
no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that
way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United
States."
When Engel's committee first advanced the resolution in July, Democratic leaders opted not
to put it on the floor, even as they passed another nonbinding resolution condemning the
pro-Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions movement 398-17, which was backed by the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
That changed last month after the Trump administration repealed a decades-old legal
opinion maintaining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international
law.
"There are those on the far-left side of the Democratic Party -- and some of the
presidential candidates -- who are pushing for new conditions on aid, especially in their
interactions with Gaza, which is run by Hamas -- a terrorist organization," Gottheimer told
Al-Monitor.
An October poll from the liberal Center for American Progress found that 56% of
American voters, including 71% of Democrats, oppose "unconditional financial and military
assistance to Israel if the Israeli government continues to violate American policy on
settlement expansion or West Bank annexation."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli
military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and
all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8
billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza."
J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for
placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum
of understanding.
Presidential hopefuls Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South
Bend, Indiana, have jumped on board with J Street's position. However, the current
front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, has flatly ruled out conditioning the aid.
Notably, J Street did not oppose the effort to amend the Lowenthal resolution with the
military aid language. That said, progressive Democrats do not necessarily view that
provision as incompatible with calls to attach strings to that assistance. Congressional
Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., called the Engel language
"meaningless."
"It's just restating what current practice or current law is," Pocan told Al-Monitor. "We
don't really see it as affecting the bill one way or the other. At any time if we feel like
we're better off putting conditions on money and holding back money, Congress could always do
that with any country through the normal process."
Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as
Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military
equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly
conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to
inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes
"... Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force. ..."
"... These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved. ..."
"... September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it. ..."
"... For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific." ..."
"... The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. ..."
"... This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com . ..."
The unrivaled and unchallenged exertion of American military power around the world, or
what's known as "primacy," has been the basis for U.S. Grand Strategy over the past 70 years
and has faced few intellectual and political challenges. The result has been stagnant ideas,
poor logic, and an ineffective foreign policy. As global security challenges have evolved, our
foreign policy debate has remained in favor of primacy, repeatedly relying on a select few,
poorly conceived ideas and arguments. Primacy's greatest hits arguments are played on repeat
throughout the policy and journalism worlds and its latest presentation is in a recent
article in
the Wall Street Journal, written by its chief foreign policy correspondent, titled,
"America Can't Escape the Middle East." The piece provides a case study in how stagnant these
ideas have become, and how different actors throughout the system present them without serious
thought or contemplation.
Hyping the threat of withdrawal
The WSJ piece trotted out one of the most well-worn cases for unending American military
deployments in the region. "The 2003 invasion of Iraq proved to be a debacle," it rightly
notes. However, there's always a "but":[B]ut subsequent attempts to pivot away from the region
or ignore it altogether have contributed to humanitarian catastrophes, terrorist outrages and
geopolitical setbacks, further eroding America's standing in the world."
Primacists often warn of the dire security threats that will result from leaving Middle East
conflict zones. The reality is that the threats they cite are actually caused by the
unnecessary use of force by the United States in the first place. For example, the U.S. sends
military assets to deter Iran, only to have Iran increase attacks or provocations in response.
The U.S. then beefs up its military presence
to protect the forces that are already there. Primacists use the security threats that
are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't
stop, or in fact increase, the use of force.
These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently
ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example,
veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at
unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even
draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't
induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the
Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and
don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all
parties involved.
Terrorism safe havens
And how many times have we heard that we must defend some undefined geographical space to
prevent extremists from plotting attacks? "In the past, jihadists used havens in Afghanistan,
Yemen, Syria and Iraq to plot more ambitious and deadly attacks, including 9/11," the WSJ piece
says. "Though Islamic State's self-styled 'caliphate' has been dismantled, the extremist
movement still hasn't been eliminated -- and can bounce back."
The myth of the terrorism safe havens enabling transnational attacks on the United States
has
persisted despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and significant scholarly research
that contradicts it. The myth persists because it provides a simple and comforting narrative
that's easy to understand. September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the
ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and
denying this space wouldn't have prevented it.
Terrorists don't need safe havens to operate, and only gain marginal increases in
capabilities by having access to them. Organizations engage in terrorism because they have such
weak capabilities in the first place. These movements are designed to operate underground with
the constant threat of arrest and execution. The Weatherman Underground in the United States
successfully carried out bombings while operating within the United States itself. The Earth
Liberation Front did the same by organizing into cells where no cell knew anything about the
other cells to prevent the identification of other members if members of one cell were
arrested. Organizations that engage in terrorism can operate with or without safe havens.
Although safe havens don't add significantly to a terrorist groups' capabilities, governing
your own territory is something completely different. ISIS is a commonly used, and misused,
example for why wars should be fought to deny safe havens. A safe haven is a country or region
in which a terrorist group is free from harassment or persecution. This is different from what
ISIS created in 2014. What ISIS had when it swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014 was a
proto-state. This gave them access to a tax base, oil revenues, and governing resources. Safe
havens don't provide any of this, at least not at substantial levels. The Islamic State's
construction of a proto-state in Syria and Iraq did give them operational capabilities they
wouldn't have had otherwise, but this isn't the same as the possible safe havens that would be
gained from a military withdrawal from Middle Eastern conflicts. The conditions of ISIS's rise
in 2014 don't exist today and the fears of an ISIS resurgence like their initial rise are
unfounded .
Credibility doesn't work how you think it works
For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always
be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America
withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea
and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the
Pacific."
Most commentators have made this claim without recognition of their own contradictions that
abandoning the Kurds in Syria would damage American credibility. They then list all the other
times we've abandoned the Kurds. Each of these betrayals didn't stop them from working with the
United States again, and this latest iteration will be the same. People don't work with the
United States because they trust or respect us, they do it because we have a common interest
and the United States has the capability to get things done. As we were abandoning the Kurds
this time to be attacked by the Turks, Kurdish officials were continuing to
share intelligence with U.S. officials to facilitate the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi because both the United States and the Kurds wanted Baghdadi eliminated and only
the United States had the capability to get it done.
Similarly, the idea that pulling out militarily in one region results in a direct chain of
events where our adversaries move into countries or areas in a completely different region is
quite a stretch of the imagination. Russia moved into Crimea because it's a strategic asset and
it was taking advantage of what it saw as an opportunity: instability and chaos in Kiev. Even
if we left troops in every conflict country we've ever been in, Russia would have correctly
assessed that Ukraine just wasn't important enough to spark a U.S. invasion. When the Soviets
withdrew from Afghanistan, did the United States invade Cuba? What alliance did the Soviets or
Chinese abandon before the United States entered the Korean War?
Assessments of credibility , especially in times of crisis (like that in Ukraine), are made
based on what leaders think the other country's interests are and the capabilities they have to
pursue those interests. There is no evidence to support -- in fact there is a lot of evidence
that contradicts -- the idea that withdrawing militarily from one region or ending an alliance
has any impact on assessments of a country's reliability or credibility.
Not all interests are created equal
Threat inflation isn't just common from those who promote a primacy-based foreign policy,
it's necessary. Indeed, as the WSJ piece claimed, "There is no avoiding the fact that the
Middle East still matters a great deal to U.S. interests."
The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need
to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists
couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve
all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and
importance. Vital interests are those that directly impact the survival of the United
States. The only thing that can threaten the survival of the United States is another powerful
state consolidating complete control of either Europe or East Asia. This would give them the
capabilities and freedom to strike directly at the territorial United States. This is why the
United States stayed in Europe after WWII, to prevent the consolidation of Europe by the
Soviets. Addressing the rise of China -- which will require some combination of cooperation and
competition -- is America's vital interest today and keeping troops in Afghanistan to prevent a
terrorism safe haven barely registers as a peripheral interest. There are U.S. interests in the
Middle East, but these interests are not important enough to sacrifice American soldiers for
and can't easily be secured through military force anyway.
Consequences
Most of these myths and arguments can be summarized by the claim that any disengagement of
any kind by the United States from the Middle East comes with consequences. This isn't entirely
wrong, but it isn't really relevant either unless compared with the consequences of continuing
engagement at current levels. We currently have 67,000 troops in the
Middle East and Afghanistan and those troops are targets of adversaries, contribute to
instability, empower hardliners in Iran, and provide continuing legitimacy to insurgent and
terrorist organizations fighting against a foreign occupation. One
article in The Atlantic argued that the problem with a progressive foreign policy
is that restraint comes with costs, almost ironically ignoring the fact that the U.S.'s current
foreign policy also comes with, arguably greater, costs. A military withdrawal, or even
drawdown, from the Middle East does come with consequences, but it's only believable that these
costs are higher than staying through the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions that inflate
such risks and costs. No wonder then that these myths have become the greatest hits of a
foreign policy that's stuck in the past.
This list tells quite a story. It deserves a name such as "US History Written in Blood," but
more ironically and yet sufficient would be "An Inconvenient List." In any case, mass murder
for fun and profit has defined war throughout the entire history of humankind. That in the
modern era of late that the US has pioneered rentier capitalism as a means of extracting
profits from the industrial war machine is a matter of the natural evolution of state
sanctioned murder, far better at returning profits to investors than the mere slaughter of
stone age natives to steal their land.
OTOH, pacifism is indeed an aberration of political thought, not necessarily an unwarranted
aberration, yet one that should be subject to close inspection for its bona fides. My
Cherokee ancestors inform me to always be suspect of the good intentions of white men
claiming that they despise war.
Pacifism for me is individual. I was a cold warrior (pacifist not!) from '72 to '85 when I
went from supporting operating weapons to the "dark side" in weapons development, which a lot
was also nuclear related.
It's pretty obvious that Team Pelosi is more concerned with the affairs of the Empire,
even though she has no constitutional responsibility. than for the welfare of the American
people. The focus of the impeachment hearing on American policy in Ukraine is further
evidence.
Meanwhile, I have gotten no answer to my basic question: what are the top 5 pieces of
progressive legislation that Pelosi has passed--legislation that representations can brag
about to their constituents when running in 2020? It's pretty obvious that their have been
almost none.
Yet, I have been assured by others here at EV that our two party representative political
system is not merely engaging in so much Kabuki theatre in order to appear relevant. Who
knew?
Outside of the fact that this fellow is a liar of monumental proportion - for instance, this
post alone contains 3 different lies - it is fundamentally untrue that BOTH parties are just
engaged in theater. One actually passes legislation to help people and to reduce the
influence of $$$. The other - as former Republican party member Norm Orenstein has pointed
out - is anti-democracy, pro-despotism and a insurgent danger with a propaganda arm.
Huh... all team Pelosi/Schumer of is rant against the US constitution, demean the congress,
disdain the office of the President and make up things about the Donald.
See the continuing resolution good through 20 Dec because Pelosi who owns the House won't
face the responsibility to try and run the US government's purse.
More selective outrage from EMichael, the partisan hack.
Sure, it's horrendous that Trump pardoned a war criminal. But let's not forget that Obama
never even prosecuted torturers ... or closed Guantanamo as promised.
As usual for EMichael and his ilk, what's a horror when their party does something, it's
perfectly acceptable when his party does it.
All these years of being a almost pacifist and now I am seeing the error in my ways.
Sometimes - hopefully increasingly less often - good people must rise up and stomp out evil.
The pardons were not just condoning war crimes - it was telling the nazi ahs in the ranks
that they can do the same domestically. The right has an army within the US. Most of the
officers are okay - but that said, they are tolerating nazis, white supremacists, oathkeepers
and dominionists in their ranks. These exceptions are to let the other nazis know they can
mass murder if the want.
Could Tax Increases Speed Up the Economy?
Democrats Say Yes https://nyti.ms/2RlDbJx
NYT - Jim Tankersley - December 5
WASHINGTON -- Elizabeth Warren is leading a liberal rebellion against a long-held economic
view that large tax increases slow economic growth, trying to upend Democratic policymaking
in the way supply-side conservatives changed Republican orthodoxy four decades ago.
(Warren Would Take Billionaires Down
a Few Billion Pegs https://nyti.ms/2CtMPRN
NYT - November 10)
Generations of economists, across much of the ideological spectrum, have long held that
higher taxes reduce investment, slowing economic growth. That drag, the consensus held, would
offset the benefits to growth from increased government spending in areas like education.
Ms. Warren and other leading Democrats say the opposite. The senator from Massachusetts,
who is a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, contends that her
plans to tax the rich and spend the revenue to lift the poor and the middle class would
accelerate economic growth, not impede it. Other Democratic candidates are making similar
claims about their tax-and-spend proposals. Some liberal economists go further and say that
simply taxing the rich would help growth no matter what the government did with the
money.
Democrats in the past, including the party's 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, have argued
that a more modest combination of tax increases and spending programs would expand the
economy. But no Democratic nominee before Ms. Warren had ever proposed so many new taxes and
spending programs, and leaned so heavily into the argument that they would be, in economist
parlance, pro-growth.
That argument tries to reframe a classic debate about the economic "pie" in the United
States by suggesting there is no trade-off between increasing the size of the pie and
dividing the slices more equitably among all Americans.
Ms. Warren has proposed nearly $3 trillion a year in new taxes on businesses and
high-earners, largely focused on billionaires but sometimes hitting Americans who earn
$250,000 and above per year. The taxes would fund wide-reaching new government spending on
health care, education, and family benefits like universal child care and paid parental
leave.
Last month, Ms. Warren wrote on Twitter that education, child care and student loan relief
programs funded by her tax on wealthy Americans would "grow the economy." In a separate post,
she said student debt relief would "supercharge" growth.
The last batch of economists to disrupt a political party's consensus position were
conservative -- the so-called supply-siders who built influence in the late 1970s and gained
power in the Reagan administration. Previous Republican presidents had focused on keeping the
budget deficit low, which constrained their ability to cut taxes if they did not also cut
government spending. Supply-siders contended that well-targeted tax cuts could generate big
economic growth even without spending cuts. ...
Ms. Warren is making the case that the economy could benefit if money is redistributed from
the rich and corporations to uses that she and other liberals say would be more productive.
Their argument combines hard data showing that high levels of inequality and wealth
concentration weigh down economic growth with a belief that well-targeted government spending
can encourage more Americans to work, invest and build skills that would make them more
productive.
They also cite evidence that transferring money to poor and middle-class individuals would
increase consumer spending because they spend a larger share of their incomes than wealthy
Americans, who tend to save and invest.
"The economy has changed, our understanding of it has changed, and we understand the
constricting effects of inequality" on growth, said Heather Boushey, the president of the
Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a think tank focused on inequality.
Inequality has widened significantly in America over the last several decades. The
Congressional Budget Office estimates that the incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans more
than tripled from 1979 to 2016, before taxes and government transfer payments are taken into
account. For the middle class, incomes grew 33 percent. More than a decade after the
recession, wage growth for the middle class continues to run well behind previous times of
economic expansion, like the late 1990s.
Research by the economist Emmanuel Saez and colleagues shows that the last time such a
small sliver of Americans controlled such a large share of the nation's income and wealth was
in the late 1920s, just before a stock market crash set off the Great Depression. World Bank
researchers have warned that high levels of inequality are stifling growth in South Africa,
which has the globe's worst measured inequality.
"We have an economy that isn't delivering like it used to," said Ms. Boushey, who advised
Hillary Clinton's 2016 Democratic presidential campaign. "That's leading people to say let's
re-examine the evidence."
The contention that tax and spending increases can lift economic growth is not the only
challenge to traditional orthodoxy brewing in liberal economic circles. Some Democrats have
also embraced modern monetary theory, which reframes classic thinking that discourages large
budget deficits as a drag on growth. Its supporters, including Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the economist Stephanie Kelton, an adviser to Senator Bernie
Sanders of Vermont, argue that the United States government should be spending much more on
programs to fight inequality, like a federal job guarantee, without imposing new taxes.
Some of the inequality-focused economists say they are hoping to build new economic models
to predict the effects of their policies, though they acknowledge few of those models exist
yet. Instead, they rely on evidence about the likely effects of individual programs, added
together.
Many economists who study tax policy contend that Ms. Warren's plans -- and other large
tax-and-spend proposals from Democratic candidates this year -- would hurt the economy, just
as classic economic models suggest.
"Some elements of the large increase in government spending on health and education
proposed by Senator Warren would promote economic growth" through channels like improved
education, said Alan Auerbach, an economics professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, who has written some of the most influential research in the profession on the
relationship between tax rates and growth.
But, he said, "I am very skeptical that these growth effects would offset the negative
effects on growth of the higher taxes, particularly given that the spending increases are not
specifically targeted toward enhancing growth."
Ms. Warren disagrees. In the latest Democratic debate, she said the spending programs
funded by her wealth tax would be "transformative" for workers. Those plans would raise
wages, make college tuition-free and relieve graduates of student debt, she said, adding, "We
can invest in an entire generation's future."
An emerging group of liberal economists say taxes on high-earners could spur growth even
if the government did nothing with the revenue because the concentration of income and wealth
is dampening consumer spending.
"We are experiencing a revolution right now in macroeconomics, particularly in the policy
space," said Mark Paul, an economist who is a fellow at the liberal Roosevelt Institute in
Washington. "We can think of a wealth tax as welfare-enhancing, in and of itself, simply by
constraining the power of the very wealthy" to influence public policy and distort markets to
their advantage.
Taken together, Ms. Warren's proposals would transform the role of federal taxation. If
every tax increase she has proposed in the campaign passed and raised as much revenue as her
advisers predict -- a contingency hotly debated among even liberal economists -- total
federal tax revenue would grow more than 50 percent.
The United States would leap from one of the lowest-taxed rich nations to one of the
highest. It would collect more taxes as a share of the economy than Norway, and only slightly
less than Italy.
Mr. Sanders's plan envisions a similarly large increase in tax levels. Former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s proposals are much smaller in scale: He would raise taxes on
the wealthy and corporations by $3.4 trillion over a decade, in order to fund increased
spending on health care, higher education, infrastructure and carbon emissions reduction.
If Ms. Warren's tax program is enacted, said Gabriel Zucman, an economist at Berkeley who
is an architect of her wealth tax proposal, "in my view, the most likely effect is a small
positive effect on growth, depending on how the revenues are used."
Another economist who has worked with the Warren campaign to analyze its proposals, Mark
Zandi of Moody's, said he would expect her plans to be "largely a wash on long-term economic
growth."
Researchers at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College projected this summer that Ms.
Warren's wealth tax and spending policies would generate a 1.7 percent increase in the size
of the economy. A preliminary study of a wealth tax like Ms. Warren's proposal, by the Penn
Wharton Budget Model, found that it would reduce the size of the economy by a similar 1.7
percent. The model uses the sort of classic methodology that liberals are now rebelling
against and did not evaluate Ms. Warren's spending proposals.
Historical experience offers few parallels for assessing the economic effects of a
taxation-and-spending program on the scale of Ms. Warren's ambitions. A 2002 study of wealth
taxes in rich countries found that those taxes, most of which have since been abandoned,
reduced economic growth slightly on an annual basis.
Conservative economists roundly disagree that large tax increases can spur faster growth,
even those who say government spending on paid leave and child care may get more Americans
into the labor force. They say a wealth tax on the scale of Ms. Warren's proposal would
greatly reduce savings and investment by the rich.
"What a wealth tax does is, it directly taxes savings," said Aparna Mathur, an economist
at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who favors a narrow paid leave program and
whose research finds benefits from reducing tax rates on business and investment. "If you're
taxing savings, you're implicitly taxing investment. So how can that possibly be
pro-growth?"
The supply-side economists' plans were similarly denounced -- George Bush called them
"voodoo economic policies" while running for president in 1980 -- but in time dominated
Republican proposals.
Some members of the new liberal revolt against tax orthodoxy welcome the comparison to the
supply-side uprising.
"While I think that the supply-siders were wrong, and were always wrong, they were
reacting to very real economic problems in the 1970s," said Michael Linden, the executive
director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal policy and advocacy group. "There was
something really wrong with the economy at the time. I think there is now."
It has long required the support of the wealthy -- and a certain level of personal wealth --
to run for president of the United States. In 2016, billions of
dollars were raised by Donald Trump's and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns. But the
rich control much
of this cash flow . In 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the
top .01 percent of all income earners in the United States accounted for 29 percent of all
political committee fundraising.
There are many reasons why this is a dangerous thing. But a big one is accountability.
e at The American Conservative say we're for a 'Main Street' conservatism . There's
perhaps no better example of what that means than this 10 minute segment from
Tucker Carlson's primetime show last night. Carlson, chairman of TAC's advisory board, dared to
go after GOP mega-donor Paul Singer for his thoroughly awful "vulture capitalism" practices --
and the Republican politicians who take his money and remain silent. It was a truly remarkable
segment, especially to appear on Fox News.
For the uninitiated, Paul Singer is a New York hedge fund manager who has made billions by
purchasing sovereign debt from financially distressed countries. He'd offer struggling foreign
governments a lifeline for their debt, then hound them with costly litigation to make a
handsome profit on repayment with interest, not unlike a vulture feeding off a carcass --
hence, vulture capitalism. Singer's vulture capitalism isn't limited to foreign countries,
though; his hedge fund, Elliot Management, also racks up quite the profit by "investing" in
struggling U.S. companies, often off-shoring good paying American jobs in the process.
Much of Carlson's exposé centered around Singer's involvement with the outdoors
retailer Cabela's. For many Americans, Cabela's is a yearly staple for hunting and fishing
gear. For residents of Sidney, Nebraska, population 6,282 and Cabela's corporate headquarters,
it was the economic engine of the flourishing town. For Singer, it was yet another way to add
to his bloated net worth. Elliot Management took an ownership stake in Cabela's in 2015, and
quickly pushed the board to sell the company. Despite its relative health, Cabela's caved to
Elliot Management's wishes, and sold to competitor Bass Pro Shops a year later. Just one week
after the merger, amidst surging Cabela's stock prices, Singer's hedge fund cashed out -- to
the tune of $90 million up front.
Of course, things didn't work out so well for the town of Sidney. With Bass Pro Shops taking
ownership of Cabela's, many good paying jobs in Sidney disappeared -- and many residents were
forced to move. Those who didn't leave town quick enough were stuck, as housing prices
collapsed. Sidney, once one of the rare thriving small towns surviving the "brain drain," found
itself decimated by a New York billionaire who probably never stepped foot in a Cabela's.
Yet the story is not just about another small town fallen prey to a changing economy,
because Singer is not just another hedge fund manager. He was the second biggest donor to the
GOP in 2016, and has pumped millions of dollars into Republican campaigns. Accordingly, he
demands outsized influence over Republican congressmen -- as Carlson noted, Nebraska Sen. Ben
Sasse has been silent on the situation in Sidney. But a closer look at Singer's political
investments is revealing as to his brand of "conservatism". He has bankrolled numerous neoconservative
foreign policy shops , advocated for more
permissive immigration policies , and has been a longtime
supporter of pro-LGBT organizations and causes . It's no surprise that he vehemently
opposed President Trump's ascendance in 2015.
If you're not yet DVR-ing the 8pm Fox News timeslot, you should be. Last night's segment was
the latest evidence that Tucker Carlson is perhaps the only voice on cable news unafraid to
call out those on his own side -- even those who are very powerful like Paul Singer. For too
long, conservatives have been beholden to moneyed interests that feel no obligation to the
country around them. 'Main Street' conservatism, by contrast, sides with the people in places
like Sidney, Nebraska over the culturally progressive, interventionist, market absolutists in
the centers of power -- regardless of which major party receives their dollars.
about the
author Emile A. Doak, senior development associate, coordinates The American
Conservative 's fundraising efforts. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he
studied political philosophy and theology. Prior to joining TAC , Emile worked in
education, teaching and managing college preparation courses for high school students. He and
his wife reside in their hometown of Herndon, Virginia.
Said it before and I'll say it again, Warren's personal ambition is often what
manifests her poor political instincts. Why did she claim Native American Heritage? Why did
she endorse HRC in 2016? Why did she ambiguously support, then unambiguously back away from,
M4A?
This trend leads me to suspect that she will not easily back out of the race, and
cannot be trusted finally to endorse Sanders in 2020 any more than she could be in 2016. I
suspect, in any case, that many of her voters would not default to Sanders but to Buttigieg
in any case. They seem to be mostly white professionals between 30-60yrs old who make
$120,000/year.
Wow, Sanders has really been pulling ahead of Warren if the polls over the past few days
are to be believed. I am hoping that this trend continues. Warren's overly-complicated
healthcare proposal which she decided to backpedal on at the last moment seems like it has
really cost her.
I kind of wonder at this point why Warren decided to run for president in the first place.
She seems like the type of person who would rather follow than lead, and would be ill-suited
to be president as she would be forced to take a position on something. Warren would have
been better served to be clear about what her actual positions are instead of trying to have
it both ways. Her constant mind-changing and backpedaling in response to whomever has the
political upper-hand at the moment has angered both the DNC establishment as well as the
progressive left.
Or, as Abraham Lincoln put it in a letter to "Mr FJ Hooker" as he was contemplating a push
across the Rappahannock in the wake of Lee's move westward in June 1863,
"like a bull stuck across a fence that cannot gore to the front or kick to the rear"
I think it was you, Lambert, who drew my attention to "Rich and Tracey's Civil War
podcast", and I am grateful.
I think Warren is running for treasury secretary in a Biden administration. The theory
being that that will be her reward for stopping Sanders. Everybody has an angle. Except
Bernie. Can someone show me his angle?
Tucker Carlson has been making comments like this for a long time. And he's not a
libertarian. He believes in regulated capitalism.
What we might be seeing is a the beginning of the two parties flipping from left to right
on economic issues. The social issues just obscure it, as they were designed to do.
I wonder if the powers at be at Fox News allow Tucker to go on these rants because they
know two things:
1.) 99% of bought and paid for Republican politicians will never do anything about this
except perhaps some lip service here and there.
2.) The fact that it's on Fox News will cause the Vichy left to not believe it's real or
perhaps a Russian phy op against American capitalism. Thus outside of the Sanders camp there
will be no push/support for any change.
Tucker has CHANGED his views on lots of things. Like I have. To be able to admit you were
wrong is a big deal. He supported the Iraq War. I didn't. In retrospect, he realized he did
this because of group think cool kids thing. Then he realized that he had been conned, He
doesn't like being conned. I thought Obama's speech was the opposite of John Edwards "2
Americas". Obama was delivering a "con" I.e. "We are all One America". So now Tucker and I,
from different sides, are more skeptical. I started questioning my groupthink Democratic
viewpoint in 2004. Slowly I realized that I too had been conned. So some of those on the
"right" and Some of those on the "left" have sought other ports to dock in as we figure this
all out. Naked Capitalism is one of those docks. So soon we should introduce Tucker to
Yves.
As I have frequently pointed out to my once-upon-a-time "liberal" friends, Tucker Carlson
is often these days a worthwhile antidote to the collective yelpings & bleatings of the
brain-snatched amen corner on MSNBC & CNN. In this instance (and others) his observations
are rational and clearly articulated. He makes sense! And he is on the correct (not far
right) side of the topic. The continuing Iraq/Syria catastrophe, PutinGate and the hedge fund
hooligan Paul Singer are just three recent examples. His arguments (and his snark) are well
played. Alas, following these sensible segments, he is still a Fox guy and is obliged to
revert to Fox boilerplate for most of the rest of the night. But in our present crackbrained
media environment, be thankful for small mercies such as Tucker's moments.
Thanks for the post. I probably would have missed this without you.
There are a couple things that are interesting to me. First, why does Tucker Carlson call
out Ben Sasse for accepting a maxed out campaign contribution from Paul Singer? The Governor
of Nebraska then and now is Pete Ricketts. His father (Joe – TD Ameritrade, Chicago
Cubs) is a "very good friend" of Paul Singer. Everyone believes Pete Ricketts wants to run
for US Senate and the nearest opportunity is Ben Sasse's seat. More than meets the eye?
Two, a longtime director of Cabela's is Mike McCarthy of McCarthy Capital. [Former
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel worked for McCarthy.] ES&S (electronic voting machines)
is owned by McCarthy Group, LLC.
Tucker Carlson Tears into Vulture Capitalist Paul Singer for Strip Mining American Towns
Posted on
December 5, 2019
by
Yves Smith
In a bit of synchronicity, Lambert gave a mini-speech tonight that dovetails with an important Tucker
Carlson segment about how hedge funds are destroying flyover. As UserFriendly lamented, "It is beyond sad
that Tucker Carlson is doing better journalism than just about anywhere else." That goes double given that
Carlson has only short segments and TV isn't well suited to complicated arguments.
Lambert fondly recalled the America he grew up in in Indiana, before his parents moved to Maine, where
most people were comfortable or at least not in perilous shape, where blue collar labor, like working in a
factory or repairing cars, was viewed with respect, and where cities and towns were economic and social
communities, with their own businesses and local notables, and national chain operations were few. Yes,
there was an underbelly to this era of broadly shared economic prosperity, such as gays needing to be
closeted and women having to get married if they wanted a decent lifestyle.
I'm not doing his remarks justice, but among other things, the greater sense of stability contributed to
more people being able to be legitimately optimistic. If you found a decent job, you weren't exposed to
MBA-induced downsizings or merger-induced closures. Even in the transitional 1970s, Lambert got his first
job in a mill! He liked his work and was able to support himself, rent an apartment, and enjoy some modest
luxuries. Contrast that with the economic status of a Walmart clerk or an Amazon warehouse worker. And even
now, the small towns that remain cling to activities that bring people together, as Lambert highlighted in
Water Cooler earlier this week:
Please watch this clip in full. Carlson begins with an unvarnished description of the wreckage that
America's heartlands have become as financial predators have sucked local businesses dry, leaving shrunken
communities, poverty and drug addiction in their wake.
Readers may wonder why Carlson singles out hedge funds rather than private equity, but he has
courageously singled out one of the biggest political forces in DC, the notorious vulture capitalist Paul
Singer, best known for his pitched battles with Peru and Argentina after he bought their debt at
knocked-down prices. Carlson describes some US examples from his
rapacious
playbook, zeroing on Delphi, where Singer got crisis bailout money and then shuttered most US
operation, and Cabela's, where a Singer-pressured takeover wrecked one of the few remaining prosperous
American small towns, Sidney, Nebraska. Not only are former employees still afraid of Singer, but even
Carlson was warned against taking on the famously vindictive Singer.
Kev said; "It will also slit your throat tomorrow."
This, aggressive mergers and acquisitions, has been going on for a very long time and everybody
always says that but I have yet to see any wealthy person suffer more than a small loss of a point or
2.
The fact is thats where we are at with capitalism. Money MUST become more money. There are no
outside considerations not even human life.
We all talk about robots going rogue and killing off humanity. Well money is already doing that.
Sound of the Suburbs, your comment suggests that this is the way things are and that there is nothing
to do about it, but that is wrong. It's not inherent to markets or to nature. In fact, "it's not even
hard" because we have agreed to it as part of the social contract, and created policies that enable it.
We can reverse the calculation by changing the tax rules, accounting rules, and legal liability rules and
this calculation reverses. TLDR; vote Bernie.
Which "we" are you talking about? You assume an entity with agency, when there is no such thing.
How do YOU suggest "WE" rewrite the non-existent "social contract?" Or change the tax rules, the
accounting rules, the Delaware corporations law, the Federal Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure,
the current contents of the Code of Federal Regulations, the United States Code and all the other
trappings of legitimacy that give "us" the looting we suffer and remove any access to 'agency" to
re-fix things? I hope Bernie wins/is allowed to win, but he would need the skills of a Machiavelli and
Richelieu and Bismarck to "drain the swamp" of all the horrible creatures and muck that swirls there.
Not to say it's not worth trying "our" mope-level damndest to make it happen.
That said – it doesn't seem to me that Cabelas was 'forced' to sell. Singer owned less than 12% of the
stock. Is he to blame for either managerial greed, or lack of cojones? I'm not praising Singer, just saying
ISTM that he had couldn't have succeeded there without the greed or cowardice of management. I could be
wrong.
Carlson said this behavior is banned in the UK, how does that work?
Tthis is standard operating procedure for takeovers and greenmail in the US. First, 11% is going to be
way way above average trading volumes. Second, unless management owns a lot of shares or has large blocks
in the hands of loyal friends, many investors will follow the money and align with a greenmailer.
When a hostile player is forced to announce that he has a stake >5% by the SEC's 13-D filing
requirement, managements start sweating bullets. "Activist" hedge funds regularly make tons of trouble
with 10% to 15% stakes. CalPERS was a very effective activist investor in its glory years (not even
hostile but pushing hard for governance changes) with much smaller stakes.
The New York Post, which is very strong on covering hedge funds, confirms Carlson's take. From a 2016
article:
Hedgie Paul Singer hit another bull's-eye with his Cabela's investment.
Singer's Elliott Management bought an 11 percent stake in the hunting supply chain last October and
pressed the Springfield, Mo., chain to pursue strategic alternatives -- including a sale.
On Monday, his suggestion was heeded as the 55-year-old company said it agreed to a $5.5 billion,
$65.50-per-share takeover offer from rival Bass Pro Shops.
For Singer, who purchased much of his Cabela's stake at between $36 and $40 a share, Monday's news
means that the fund gained roughly 72 percent on its investment.
The same story depicts Singer as able to exert pressure with even smaller interests:
The hedge fund had an 8.8 percent stake in the company and was expected to net $58 million in
profits, The Post reported.
Elliott, which in June announced a 4.7 stake in PulteGroup, named three board members to the
Atlanta-based homebuilding company.
Last Thursday, it readied a new target, taking an 8.1 percent stake in Mentor Graphics, a
Wilsonville, Ore.-based developer of electronic design automation software.
Since then, shares of the company have risen 6 percent, to $26.24.
Mentor represents a "classic" Elliott investment, a source close to the matter told The Post,
adding that it is a "perfect time" for the company to sell itself.
You have a gift for explaining these things to people with a lot of education but not in finance. I
was confused by this, too, until I read your comment.
"CalPERS was a very effective activist investor in its glory years (not even hostile but pushing
hard for governance changes) with much smaller stakes."
Does that mean they pulled the same parasitical stripping of companies to raise money to help pay
pensions?
But, since it represents public employees and their paymasters, the taxpayers, couldn't CALPERS be
forced to only effect deals that create the most employment, ideally in California, rather than
destroy it? i.e. a ban on job destroying deals.
That would be a long term investment in California, rather than a short term means to raise cash,
no?
Tucker Carlson has taken remarkably courageous positions on a number of issues, including Syria,
Ukraine, Russia, etc.
Matt Stoller tweets praise of Carlson's report on Singer:
"There is a real debate on the right.
@TuckerCarlson just guts billionaire Paul Singer over the destruction of a Nebraska town through
financial predation. And Carlson is merciless towards Senator @BenSasse for taking $$$ and remaining
silent."
I have noticed a considerable uptick in comments across a whole range of sites about things "going to
get biblical".
When the next downturn happens there seems to be every indication that it's going to be on an
unprecedented scale.
Traditionally that's always seem to be time to have a good war, you can get the country to focus on an
external common enemy, you can ramp up industrial production providing full employment and you can use
national security to clamp down on dissent. Nuclear weapons seems to have put paid to that idea unless
our leaders convince themselves that they can survive and flourish in their bunkers (while simultaneously
relieving themselves of a large surplus of global population)
The populations willing embrace of the security state through all our electronic devices will be a large
hurdle for revolutionary elements as well as the crushing of dissent via institutions like the FBI and
the mainstream media.
The French and the Russians succeeded in the past. I doubt if I will either live long enough to see it
(being old) or even less likely to live through it.
Biblical in the OT sense. In the NT going biblical was a sacrifice.
I'm not fond of the phrase as it is a euphemism for violence or war. Under that definition, the US,
through declared and undeclared wars, has been going biblical for most of my life.
In the Jimmy Dore show this is almost a running joke now: He shows a clip with Tucker Carlson, where
Tucker is doing what you would expect the "liberal" media to do, like going against the deep state,
criticizing regime change wars (a few times with Tusi as his guest), or something like this great piece
against Singer and the hedge funds. Jimmy Dore then, each time, shakes his head in disbelief and asks, "Why
the hell is Tucker Carlson the only one who is allowed to say things like this? Its a mystery! I dont get
it!"
-- indeed: Why, and why on Fox News?
Because it sells. Can't let RT steal all the money with anti-war voices, Watching the Hawks, Jesse
Ventura, On Contact with Chris Hedges, these shows have viewership, and the Fox news owners know it.
Perhaps they'll have to make Tucker Carlson FOX, the TCFOX news channel. An anti-establishment,
pro-capitalism libertarianesque program experience, where they can decry all the pro-war democrats, and
RINO's, while making a case that capitalism isn't working cause of "big government".
Of course "private property" requiires state enforcement, which, when you remind libertarians that
they are "statists", they don't like that too much
It sells, but also doesn't pose a real threat to the powers that be. He creates very accurate,
specific, personally moving, well-produced, diagnoses of problems (he even names names!)
Then he and his ilk imply that the only solution is to magically create a government free white
Christian ethnostate where the good non-corrupt capitalists (like, as he states in this video, the
rockefellers and carnegies apparently were) will bring us back to the good ol days.
I strongly recommend sitting down for a good long policy discussion with a Tucker Carlson fan. In
my experience they will, without exception, go to great lengths to convince you that a vote for Bernie
will, undoubtedly, make all the problems Tucker describes worse, cuz gubmint bad and racist dog
whistles.
I suspect absent Carlson and his ilk, Bernie would actually have an easier time making inroads into
the republican base.
I heard no Carlson mention of "magically create a government free white Christian ethnostate
where the good non-corrupt capitalists (like, as he states in this video, the rockefellers and
carnegies apparently were) will bring us back to the good ol days."
Carlson seemed to suggest that prior US capitalists "felt some obligation" while, to me,
implying that current US capitalist versions do not feel this obligation.
Bernie could show he will listen to good ideas from all sides, even when the ideas surface on
Fox.
Carlson did mention some "countries have banned this kind of behavior, including the United
Kingdom" which suggests legislative changes are possible.
If Bernie were to pitch a legislative fix, he might pick up some Tucker Carlson fans.
Maybe Bernie might get mentioned favorably by Carlson.
Carnegie built hundreds of public libraries, Rockefeller donated thousands of acres of land,
Sears founder
Julius Rosenwald funded the beginnings of the NAACP.
Well, we can agree to disagree on whether or not Carlson's regularly invoked vision of
deserving Americans is racist or ethnocentric, and I'll admit his view of the role of
government can seem a bit schizophrenic at times – as far as I can tell he has strongly
libertarian sensibilities but in recent years figured out that "free" markets do, in fact,
require government regulations.
But I do strongly recommend reading a few social/economic histories of the US from the
industrial revolution through the beginning of the great depression.
I promise those fellows you mention were not quite so swell as Tucker makes out, and that
the relationship between philanthropy and capital hasn't changed as much as you seem to
think.
I'll just say this, if I were playing for the other team so to speak, and I were a GOP strategist
trying to secure a future for the party, the easy move would be to adopt a degree of populist rhetoric
and at least make some gestures towards easing the pain of towns which have been rendered post-industrial
wastelands by people like Singer and acknowledge what's been done. It would be almost comically easy to
paint the Democrats as the political party of globalized capitalism (because they are), even more so
because most of the places that are key liberal constituencies are also centers of the financial industry
(Manhattan and San Fransisco, for example). It wouldn't take much to graft the loathing of "urban elites"
in these communities onto PE and hedge funds. This, combined with toning down the nationalist rhetoric,
cutting back on the racism and homophobia (hell, even just keeping your mouth shut about it) would pretty
much build an unstoppable electoral majority.
Back in the days when I was more optimistic about the Democrats, I always tried to warn people that if
the Democrats (and other center left parties) waited too long and let the GOP be the first ones to the
lifeboats when neoliberalism started to sink, they'd get stuck holding the bag even if the GOP had more
to do with those policies historically. But pursuing this strategy would imply that the GOP is somehow
less beholden to its donors than the Democrats, which it isn't, but maybe Tucker Carlson is the canary in
the coal mine. Even people on the right realize the jig is up, and that they better start trying to cut
some kind of deal with the rising populist currents in US politics if they want to stay in power.
Tucker Carlson on Fox is making sense, while MSNBC and CNN peddle nonsense. What better reason to cancel
your cable and say adios to the fakery and programming.
In other unrelated news, Paul Singer has announced that he is providing funding to the Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research to try and understand why so many "flyover" Americans give their votes to
Trump. "It's a mystery. I have no idea why they would not vote for a good Republican candidate instead –
like my boy Mitt Romney" he stated. "Why would they do that? Maybe I should run for President like my buddy
Mike. Then they could all vote for me. Or else!"
Reading his Wikipedia page, I notice that he only donates money to things that effect him personally. He
went to Harvard so he gives to Harvard. He lives in New York so he gives money to the Food bank and the
Police – which both serve to keep the place calm. He is Jewish so he gives a ton to money to pro-Israel
causes. He votes Republican so he helps fund Republicans that will defend wealthy people like him. One son
comes out as gay so he gives to same-sex marriage & LGBTQ causes. He provides money to organizations that
fight taxes being imposed on wealthy people like himself. It is a very narrow circle of concerns that he
has. And the vast bulk of Americans are outside this circle I note.
But of all people to call him on his part in destroying the real economy of the United States. That which
actually makes stuff and does stuff instead of financial bs. Of all the people to do so it is
Tucker-goddamnn-Carlson. And on Fox News to boot. The same person that "liberal" protesters were
demonstrating outside his home with his family inside because they did not like his beliefs. It is kinda
funny when you think about it. A right wing commentator is attacking the Left. But from their left.
It is kinda funny when you think about it. A right wing commentator is attacking the Left. But from
their left.
What better proof that there is no Left left in the Left any more? Today's Left is to the right of
what used to be the Centre, Liberals are what used to be Conservative and Conservatives have moved into
"here there be dragons" territory. .
This is nonsense, the DSA for example is to the right of what used to be the Center? They aren't
left enough for some, including some of their members I suspect but .. But the left period has little
actual power is the thing. And it's all about taking power.
Like I've mentioned previously – politically .. our society has gone through a phase-shift. Mr.
Carlson is but just one example. So are those of us who held our noses, after seeing how transparently
conniving the DNC et al were, and voted for the Julius de Orange !
"the crushing of dissent via institutions like the FBI and the mainstream media"
This will be unnecessary. Recent research indicates that when people feel like they are being
watched, they self-censor.
The growing number of activist special interest groups with a myriad of hot topics and disparate
worldviews and interests just about guarantees that anything you say other than parroting the current
majority opinion will offend someone.
Couple that with murky legal powers, the unpredictability of the Twitter/Instagram mob, doxing, and
the expansion, both in extent and number of players, of ubiquitous surveillance, and significant
dissent becomes more and more a thing of the past.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the growing unreliability of political polls?
There is a populist Left. Its figurehead is Bernie but there are growing local/state organizations
like the DSA that may become relevant nationally in the not-too-distant future. AOC is a
current/future leader for this faction.
There is a populist Right. Its figurehead is Trump. From what I can tell, they're primarily online
but are also gaining strength in traditional conservative institutions like churches, community orgs,
etc.. Tucker appeals to this group. Josh Hawley is a Senator from MO with presidential ambitions who I
expect will lead this faction after Trump is gone. He is the slick-but-folksy and deadly serious
neo-Fascist type many on this board worry/warn about taking power if a real Left does not arise to
counter it/him.
Then there is the establishment elites (or ruling class, or deep state, whatever), which are
primarily Neoliberal (domestic policy) and Neoconservative (foreign policy). There have long been
these types in both parties, differing only by degree, but Trump has forced most of the "liberal"
Republicans into the D party. This group controls the money and most of the key institutions,
particularly the major media, tech, energy, and financial corporations, but their grip is slipping and
the mask is falling off. Some will side with the populist Left, but most will welcome the new Fascism,
i.e. the DNC apparatchiks who would rather lose to Trump than win with Bernie.
Mitt Romney, Bain Capital, another species of parasite, sucking some of the last marrow out of the
bones of America. Beware of billionaires who demonstrate that they are aliens to our society.
I read Tucker Carlsons book "ship of fools". It is all in there: criticism of the war fare state, Wall
Street, TBTF bail outs a.s.o. He spares neither Republicans nor Democrats. Kinda crazy but he voices more or
less exactly what Sanders is saying as well. Except he doesn´t get "Medicare for all" and he is social
conservative. Still you might think that there is enough common ground to work together. Instead we get
crazy idendity politics. I more and more believe that it is indeed so that the people on top have realised
that "identity politics" is the best thing that ever happened to them: divice et impera. Divide and rule as
already the Romans knew
And the biggest threat from Tucker Carlson is that the lower orders will believe that
Carlson-cum-Trump are as much their friend as Sanders. One of the longest-standing Idpol divisions in
US history has been unions vs. scabs. Over the past half-century, the Democratic Party has realigned
its public image in favor of the scabs. The union leadership stayed with the Dems, but the
rank-and-file long ago moved over to the Repubs. Old wine, new bottle.
Unions were weakened and made easier to destroy using IdPol. First by encouraging banning,
sometimes expelling, blacks from the various unions and secondly getting rid of first the
communists, then the socialists, and finally those deemed too liberal (not conservative enough).
Although the efforts by business interests, often helped by government at all levels, to
segregate unions was mainly in the 19th century and the "Better Dead Than Red" campaign was in the
20th especially after 1947, the use of racism and anti-leftism was done in both centuries.
You can see similar successful splintering of the Civil Rights Movements. First separating the
Suffragettes from from the anti-racism efforts. Then later the efforts to unite the Women's Rights
Movement with the successful efforts against racism was the 1960s were thwarted.
Let us just say that reform movement of the past two centuries has been splintered. The earlier
women's rights and the abolitionists, blacks and whites throughout the unions, suffragettes and the
anti lynching efforts, communists from everyone else, anti poverty from equal rights ( MLK did get
lead poisoning when he tried) and so.
So when I see the latest efforts to use IdPol to split poor people from everyone else or blacks
from whites, and see people falling for the same tactics I just lose my mind. Obviously.
You might think but you'd be wrong. St Clair in Counterpunch calls hims Tuckkker Carlson–apparently
because Carlson agrees with Trump on things like immigration. I read Carlson's book too and would say
only about half of it was material I would agree with. But the notion that anyone who doesn't stand up to
IDPol standards is a villain is crushing the left. They obsess over Trump while the wealthy of both
parties wreck the country.
I'd go along sooner with Tucker Carlson than Mr. St Clair, whose CP smeared both Caitlin Johnstone
and CJ Hopkins. St Clair and CP are controlled "oppo", IMO.
The commenter you were replying to had it right: divide et impera is the order of the day;
sometimes from unexpected sources, like the one mentioned above.
Great post! TC has strode out of the Fox News subset of the Overton window a number of times in recent
years.
PS: Yves, some introductory text to the part about Lambert's speech apparently didn't make it into the
post. It would fit between the 1st and 2nd paragraphs.
In my opinion, Tucker Carlson represents a very real and very active right-libertarian view that has been
consistently present within the Republican Party for decades. Anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-big
business/pro-small business, and of course, anti-big union. Robert Taft comes to mind. I don't share their
"ideologies" but as a self-described socialist, I am deeply attracted to their criticisms. And criticisms
ARE important and necessary, even if the solutions are left wanting. I dearly hope that his popularity is a
sign of the realignment of politics, where issues of class and war become commonplace and issues of "to
impeach or not to impeach" fall by the wayside. I recognize that my hopes may not turn to realities.
But for an employee it makes no difference if they work for a big or small business (only big business
on average is LESS exploitative if anything – if for no other reason but they can afford to be – some of
the worst exploitation out there is employees working for small business owners).
Exactly,
right
libertarian. Within the libertarian spectrum there are real and then
royal libertarians, Tucker is of the latter.
http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html
What are his immigration views? Are people motivated to come here because this global vulture octopus
thing has ruined their home market?
I have long thought that paul singer is representative of the worst people in the world (argentina wtf)
and I'm glad carlson put his face up there so many times for his victims to see, in case he ever ventures
out of mordor undisguised. For all the money he has, a truly worthless pos, as the closing comment made so
clear. Good for Carlson, though, almost seems like actual journalism. Kudos.
If we assume that good mergers achieve cost savings which ultimately benefit the consumer (they very
often do, assuming a good merger), is it better that a relatively large number of people save money on
goods, or that a relatively smaller number of people keep duplicate, unnecessary jobs?
Can you name such a good merger? Mergers by definition must reduce competition, and by classical
Liberal theory competition is what reduces prices for consumers.
In Neoliberal theory monopoly is the just reward for beating the competition. Sorry consumers! Bad
luck workers!
By what criteria do you deem a job unnecessary? Neoliberal criteria.
Here are some ways a merger can be bad for the US consumer.
If a merger results in employee pensions being transferred to the Pension Benefit Guarantee
Corporation (US government funded) then employee pension costs are being transferred to the US
taxpayer/consumer.
Or consider that a merger might create a monopoly that can raise consumer prices.
How does one determine that a proposed merger will be a good one that will "ultimately benefit the
consumer."?
Good morning Yves.
Tucker Carlson invoke Paul Singer noted ultra vulture as vehicle to transport Yves, others to Fox News
Commentary!
Seems the Good Night and Good Luck segue from Edward R Murro via Keith Olbermann to Tucker Carlson is
complete.
Thank you for this. It is a story that has been repeated countless times across the country, including
the midwestern town where I was born and raised.
As for Carlson being the only source of occasional light in the MSM -- the clarification continues. It has
truly become Bizarro World.
I wonder if the powers at be at Fox News allow Tucker to go on these rants because they know two things:
1.) 99% of bought and paid for Republican politicians will never do anything about this except perhaps some
lip service here and there.
2.) The fact that it's on Fox News will cause the Vichy left to not believe it's real or perhaps a Russian
phy op against American capitalism. Thus outside of the Sanders camp there will be no push/support for any
change.
Glad to see someone in the MSM point out the obvious .Carlson called out Singer, but in doing so he also
called out the Republican Party, specifically Sen. Ben Sasse from Nebraska. It will be interesting to see if
Sasse is reelected.
Nebraskans – R and D both – should toss Sasse to the curb. He's angered regular bat-poo crazy
Republicans by his "never Trump" blather, then angered Nebraska Democrats (both of us) by voting
Trump/GOP well over 90 percent of the time.
Add to this his folksy BS appearances in the media and his execrable books, and he's a classic empty
suit. Closer to a straight Republican Mayor Pete than any thing else – over-credentialed, over-ambitious
and under performing.
Our Nebraska Democratic Party problem is two-fold: incredibly thin bench for decent candidates and
preponderance of Clinton/Obama/HRC leftovers running the state party. Will be knocking on doors for
Bernie come 2020 but state races are iffy at best.
In a wacky pre apocalyptic world, truth and justice is pined for by many. Conservation is a critical
requirement. I now look at what is true and what is not, I know, very subjective. Those folks that tell us
to do things that harm us are transparent. We follow them at our peril.
I consider Sanders the most conservative option we have for the nation. He intends to 'conserve' our nation
and the people first. Something we have not had for decades, or ever, perhaps. Giving the people with the
most to lose a voice in how things move forward is a critical point of distinction from the rest of the
field.
so vote conservative. Protect that which makes us whole. Stop the looting and take back what has been stolen
to benefit all instead of a small clique of criminals.
But I'm an optimist.
Tucker has good sense. Perhaps Paul Singer is probably retiring from vultury. He's old and it's a nasty
fight. Singer is at the end of a 30 year stint of dispossessing other people. Being vicious really isn't
enough to keep the federal government at bay. Nor are his bribes. There has been an unspoken policy of
dispossessing poor and middle class people. Why? Is the United States actually looking at a specific future?
That wouldn't align with the free market – tsk tsk. Or would it? Live free, die free. Somebody needs to
define the word "free". Did TPTB decide to deindustrialize this country that long ago? That's when they
attacked the unions. And the consensus might have been, "Go for it; get it while you can." So Paul Singer
did just that, along with other creepy people like Mitt Romney. Because once the country has been hosed out
by these guys we won't be pushing the old capitalist economy at all. We will be pushing a globally
connected, sustainable economy. Paul Singer is just a dung beetle. And our government didn't want to discuss
it because they would have had to create a safety net. If we despise Singer, we must also despise Congress.
If we despise Singer, we must also despise Congress.
-Susan the Other
Agreed. I think you can argue Congress (and the Executive Branch) have done more to help the Chinese
middle class than the American middle class over the last 30 years. Co-locating our industrial base with
the CCP on communist soil should be looked upon as the most radical policy in our history but is not.
Imagine if at the height of the Cold War we had told Kruschev hey..how about you make all the stuff we
need and we'll pay you $20 or $30T in trade surplus over a number of years in hard currency which you can
then parlay into geopolitical power in Africa, South America, the ME and else where. What would the
America of the fifties think of this policy?
>Because once the country has been hosed out by these guys we won't be pushing the old capitalist
economy at all. We will be pushing a globally connected, sustainable economy.
Tucker Carlson has been making comments like this for a long time. And he's not a libertarian. He
believes in regulated capitalism.
What we might be seeing is a the beginning of the two parties flipping from left to right on economic
issues. The social issues just obscure it, as they were designed to do.
the only question then is to what extent social issues DERAIL the economic issues then. If social
issues mean paid family leave must be opposed for example because women oughta be barefoot and pregnant,
then that's derailing of real concrete material benefits period. Of course progressive socially is where
demographics trend.
But of course using the example of paid family leave, we're starting from a country with almost no
safety net to begin with, and there are bigger problems with the labor market as well (people having gig
jobs with NO benefits, they aren't going to be helped by policy changes to job provided benefits period).
Medicare for All is the issue that most incisively cuts through this ruling-class kayfabe. Both the
top-dog Dems and the top-dog Repubs get their jollies having their boots licked by workers in abject fear
for the health and life of their families. It is a neon testosterone line that neither Carlson nor Trump
will cross.
I find a good explanation for many behaviors is the human practice of favoring people in their circle of
acquaintances, friends and families, and showing some degree of contempt to others.
Some phrases
He (She) is not one of us! (Typically in an upper class UK accent)
The Others (Typically in a string ulster accent)
Not on our team (US)
He's a Catholic
He's a peasant
The attitude of "them and us" coupled with Greed, appears to drive many bad Human behaviors.
Indeed! My libertarian friend* is all about helping friends and family, I have seen him do it many
times. I totally agree with him, but I have concluded that his definition of "friends and family" is just
somewhat more restrictive than mine.
* True convo: "What about if listeria in the bologna at the nursing home kills your granny?" "Ah, a
whacking great lawsuit!"
Paul Singer is leading the hedge fund group that is trying to take over PG&E from the existing
stockholders/hedge funds through the bankruptcy process. He even offered more money to PG&E fire victims
($2.5B), that PG&E almost met (they want to pay part of the funds in stock).
Does anyone have an idea how he plans to make money by taking over PG&E? While the stock is very low, its
chance of going back to where it was is very low. Besides, PG&E is under pressure to actually maintain and
fire proof the distribution/transmission system and that won't be cheap.
Here's Jon Stewart roasting Tucker Carlson back in 2006 when he was just a clown with a bow-tie. A rare
and well deserved confrontation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
Since then Tucker has ditched his bow-tie and developed a conscience.
We used to call this "being Dutch uncle."
Tucker has CHANGED his views on lots of things. Like I have. To be able to admit you were wrong is a big
deal. He supported the Iraq War. I didn't. In retrospect, he realized he did this because of group think
cool kids thing. Then he realized that he had been conned, He doesn't like being conned. I thought Obama's
speech was the opposite of John Edwards "2 Americas". Obama was delivering a "con" I.e. "We are all One
America". So now Tucker and I, from different sides, are more skeptical. I started questioning my groupthink
Democratic viewpoint in 2004. Slowly I realized that I too had been conned. So some of those on the "right"
and Some of those on the "left" have sought other ports to dock in as we figure this all out. Naked
Capitalism is one of those docks. So soon we should introduce Tucker to Yves.
As I have frequently pointed out to my once-upon-a-time "liberal" friends, Tucker Carlson is often these
days a worthwhile antidote to the collective yelpings & bleatings of the brain-snatched amen corner on MSNBC
& CNN. In this instance (and others) his observations are rational and clearly articulated. He makes sense!
And he is on the correct (not far right) side of the topic. The continuing Iraq/Syria catastrophe, PutinGate
and the hedge fund hooligan Paul Singer are just three recent examples. His arguments (and his snark) are
well played. Alas, following these sensible segments, he is still a Fox guy and is obliged to revert to Fox
boilerplate for most of the rest of the night. But in our present crackbrained media environment, be
thankful for small mercies such as Tucker's moments.
Thanks for the post. I probably would have missed this without you.
There are a couple things that are interesting to me. First, why does Tucker Carlson call out Ben Sasse
for accepting a maxed out campaign contribution from Paul Singer? The Governor of Nebraska then and now is
Pete Ricketts. His father (Joe – TD Ameritrade, Chicago Cubs) is a "very good friend" of Paul Singer.
Everyone believes Pete Ricketts wants to run for US Senate and the nearest opportunity is Ben Sasse's seat.
More than meets the eye?
Two, a longtime director of Cabela's is Mike McCarthy of McCarthy Capital. [Former Secretary of Defense
Chuck Hagel worked for McCarthy.] ES&S (electronic voting machines) is owned by McCarthy Group, LLC.
After presiding over a far-right coup in Bolivia, the US dubbed Nicaragua a "national
security threat" and announced new sanctions, while Trump designated drug cartels in Mexico as
"terrorists" and refused to rule out military intervention.
One successful coup against a democratically elected socialist president is not enough, it
seems.
Washington dubbed Nicaragua a threat to US national security, and announced that it will be
expanding its suffocating sanctions on the tiny Central American nation.
Trump is also turning up the heat on Mexico, baselessly linking the country to terrorism and
even hinting at potential military intervention. The moves come as the country's left-leaning
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warns of right-wing attempts at a coup.
As Washington's rightist allies in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador are desperately
beating back massive grassroots uprisings against neoliberal austerity policies and yawning
inequality gaps, the United States is ramping up its aggression against the region's few
remaining progressive governments.
These moves have led left-wing forces in Latin America to warn of a 21st-century revival of
Operation Condor, the Cold War era campaign of violent subterfuge and US support for right-wing
dictatorships across the region.
Trump admin declares Nicaragua a 'national security
threat'
A day after the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia, the White House released a statement
applauding the military putsch and making it clear that two countries were next on Washington's
target list: "These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in
Venezuela and Nicaragua ," Trump declared.
On November 25, the Trump White House then quietly issued a statement characterizing
Nicaragua as an "unusual and
extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
This prolonged for an additional year an executive order Trump had signed in 2018 declaring
a state of "national emergency" on the Central American country.
Trump's 2018 declaration came after a failed violent right-wing
coup attempt in Nicaragua . The US government has funded and supported many of
the opposition groups that sought to topple elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and
cheered them on as they sought to overthrow him.
The 2018 national security threat designation was quickly followed by economic warfare. In
December the US Congress approved
the NICA Act without any opposition. This legislation gave Trump the authority to impose
sanctions on Nicaragua, and prevents international financial institutions from doing business
with Managua.
Trump's new 2019 statement spewed outlandish propaganda against Nicaragua, referring to its
democratically elected government -- which for decades has been targeted for overthrow by
Washington -- as a supposedly violent and corrupt "regime."
This executive order is similar to one made by President Barack Obama in 2015, which
designated Venezuela as a threat to US national security.
Both orders were used to justify the unilateral imposition of suffocating economic
sanctions. And Trump's renewal of the order paves the way for an escalated economic attack on
Nicaragua.
The extension received negligible coverage in mainstream English-language corporate media,
but right-wing Spanish-language outlets in Latin America heavily amplified it.
And opposition activists are gleefully cheering on the intensification of Washington's
hybrid warfare against Managua.
More aggressive US sanctions against Nicaragua
Voice of America (VOA), the US government's main foreign broadcasting service, noted that
the extension of the executive order will be followed with more economic attacks.
Washington's ambassador to the Organization
of American States (OAS), Carlos Trujillo, told VOA, "The pressure against Nicaragua is
going to continue."
The OAS representative added that Trump will be announcing new sanctions against the
Nicaraguan government in the coming weeks.
VOA stated clearly that "Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the Latin
American countries whose government Trump has made a priority to put diplomatic and economic
pressure on to bring about regime change."
This is not just rhetoric. The US Department of the Treasury updated the Nicaragua-related
sanctions section of its website as recently as November 8.
And in September, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a " more
comprehensive set of regulations ," strengthening the existing sanctions on Nicaragua.
Voice of America's report quoted several right-wing Nicaraguans who openly called for more
US pressure against their country.
Bianca Jagger, a celebrity opposition activist formerly married to Rolling Stones frontman
Mick Jagger, called on the US to impose sanctions on Nicaragua's military in particular.
"The Nicaraguan military has not been touched because they [US officials] are hoping that
the military will like act the military in Bolivia," Jagger said, referring to the military
officials who violently overthrew Bolivia's democratically elected president.
Many of these military leaders had been
trained at the US government's School of the Americas , a notorious base of subversion
dating back to Operation Condor. Latin American media has been filled in recent days with
reports that Bolivian soldiers were paid $50,000 and generals were paid up to $1 million to
carry out the putsch.
VOA added that "in the case of the Central American government [of Nicaragua], the effect
that sanctions can have can be greater because it is a more economically vulnerable
country."
VOA quoted Roberto Courtney, a prominent exiled right-wing activist and executive director
of the opposition group Ethics and Transparency, which monitors elections in Nicaragua and is
supported by the US
government's
regime-change arm , the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Courtney, who claims to be a human rights activist, salivated over the prospects of US
economic war on his country, telling VOA, "There is a bit of a difference [between Nicaragua
and Bolivia] the economic vulnerability makes it more likely that the sanctions will have an
effect."
Courtney, who was described by VOA as an "expert on the electoral process," added, "If there
is a stick, there must also be a carrot." He said the OAS could help apply diplomatic and
political pressure against Nicaragua's government.
These unilateral American sanctions are illegal under international law, and considered an
act of war. Iran's foreign minister,
Javad Zarif , has characterized US economic warfare "financial terrorism," explaining that
it disproportionately targets civilians in order to turn them against their government.
Top right-wing Nicaraguan opposition groups applauded Trump for extending the executive
order and for pledging new sanctions against their country.
The Nicaraguan Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, an opposition front group that
brings together numerous opposition groups , several of which are
also
funded by the US government's NED , welcomed the order.
Trump dubs drug cartels in
Mexico "terrorists," refuses to rule out drone strikes
While the US targeting of Nicaragua and Venezuela's governments is nothing new, Donald Trump
is setting his sights on a longtime US ally in Mexico.
In 2018, Mexican voters made history when they elected Andrés Manuel López
Obrador as president in a landslide. López Obrador, who is often referred to by his
initials AMLO, is Mexico's first left-wing president in more than five decades. He ran on a
progressive campaign pledging to boost social spending, cut poverty, combat corruption, and
even decriminalize drugs.
AMLO is wildly popular in Mexico. In February, he had a record-breaking
86 percent approval rating . And he has earned this widespread support by pledging to
combat neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy.
"The neoliberal economic model has
been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country," AMLO has declared. "The child
of neoliberalism is corruption."
When he unveiled his multibillion-dollar National Development Plan, López Obrador
announced the end to "the long night of neoliberalism."
AMLO's left-wing policies have caused shockwaves in Washington, which has long relied on
neoliberal Mexican leaders ensuring a steady cheap exploitable labor base and maintaining a
reliable market for US goods and open borders for US capital and corporations.
On November 27 -- a day after declaring Nicaragua a "national security threat" -- Trump
announced that the US government will be designating Mexican drug cartels as "
terrorist organizations ."
Such a designation could pave the way for direct US military intervention in Mexico.
Trump revealed this new policy in an interview with right-wing Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
"Are you going to designate those cartels in Mexico as terror groups and start hitting them
with drones and things like that?" O'Reilly asked.
The US president refused to rule out drone strikes or other military action against drug
cartels in Mexico.
Trump's announcement seemed to surprise the Mexican government, which immediately called for
a meeting with the US State Department.
The designation was particularly ironic considering some top drug cartel leaders in Mexico
have long-standing ties to the US government. The leaders of the notoriously brutal cartel the
Zetas, for instance, were originally trained in
counter-insurgency tactics by the US military.
Throughout the Cold War, the US government armed, trained, and funded right-wing
death squads throughout Latin America, many of which were involved in drug trafficking. The
CIA also used drug money to fund far-right counter-insurgency paramilitary groups in Central
America.
These tactics were also employed in the Middle East and South Asia. The United States armed,
trained, and funded far-right Islamist
extremists in Afghanistan in the 1980s in order to fight the Soviet Union. These same
US-backed Salafi-jihadists then founded al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
This strategy was later repeated in the US wars on Libya and Syria. ISIS commander
Omar al-Shishani
, to take one example, had been trained by the US military and enjoyed direct support from
Washington when he was fighting against Russia.
The Barack Obama administration also oversaw a campaign called Project Gunrunne r
and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US government helped send thousands of guns to
cartels in Mexico.
Mexican journalist Alina Duarte explained that, with the Trump administration's designation
of cartels as terrorists, "They are creating the idea that Mexico represents a threat to their
national security ."
"Should we start talking about the possibility of a coup against Lopez Obrador in
Mexico?" Duarte asked.
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She noted that the US corporate media has embarked on an increasingly ferocious campaign to
demonize
AMLO , portraying the democratically elected president as a power-hungry aspiring dictator
who is supposedly wrecking Mexico's economy.
Duarte discussed the issue of US interference in Mexican politics in an interview with The
Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, on their podcast Moderate
Rebels:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7OJyCHjxCEs
Now, a whisper campaign over fears that the right-wing opposition may try to overthrow
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is spreading across Mexico.
AMLO himself has publicly addressed the rumors, making it clear that he will not tolerate
any discussion of coups.
"How wrong the conservatives and their hawks are," López Obrador tweeted on November
2. Referencing the 1913 assassination of progressive President Francisco Madero, who had been a
leader of the Mexican Revolution, AMLO wrote, "Now is different."
"Another coup d'état will now be allowed," he declared.
In recent months, as fears of a coup intensify, López Obrador has swung even further
to the left, directly challenging the US government and asserting an independent foreign policy
that contrasts starkly to the subservience of his predecessors.
AMLO's government has rejected US efforts to delegitimize Venezuela's leftist government,
throwing a wrench in Washington's efforts to impose right-wing activist
Juan Guaidó as coup leader.
AMLO has welcomed Ecuador's ousted socialist leader Rafael Correa and hosted Argentina's
left-leaning Alberto Fernández for his first foreign trip after winning the
presidency.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/D4T0zbASfbA
In October, López Obrador even welcomed Cuban President Díaz-Canel to Mexico
for a historic visit.
Trump's Operation Condor 2.0
For Washington, an independent and left-wing Mexico is intolerable.
In a speech for right-wing, MAGA hat-wearing
Venezuelans in Miami , Florida in February, Trump ranted against socialism for nearly an
hour, threatened the remaining leftist countries in Latin America with regime change.
"The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua
and in Cuba as well," he declared, adding that socialism would never be allowed to take root in
heart of capitalism in the United States.
While Trump has claimed he seeks to withdraw from wars in the Middle East (when he is not
occupying its oil fields
), he has ramped up aggressive US intervention in Latin America.
During the height of the Cold War, Operation Condor thousands of dissidents were murdered,
and hundreds of thousands more were disappeared, tortured, or imprisoned with the assistance of
the US intelligence apparatus.
Today, as Latin America is increasingly viewed through the lens of a new Cold War, Operation
Condor is being reignited with new mechanisms of sabotage and subversion in play. The mayhem
has only begun.
Lesson for 2020 -- Trump is a shape and color shifting chameleon. His statement that he "escaped GOP "mainstream republicans"
(read hard core neoliberals) shackles" was a blatant lie. He never escaped and did not even have intent to escape... He did
their bidding, which was most clearly demonstrated in Trump tax cut
Notable quotes:
"... Trump later tweeted "the shackles have been taken off me". ..."
"... It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to. ..."
"... With the exception of cheating Bernie out of the nom the Dems have always proven to be far more loyal to each other than the Republicans! ..."
"... Disloyal R's are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all sides. They don't know how to win - I will teach them! ..."
Donald Trump is attacking House Speaker Paul Ryan. He's calling him ''very weak and ineffective''
a day after the House speaker said he would not campaign for the Republican nominee.
Ryan told Republican lawmakers on a conference call Monday that he would focus instead on helping
the party keep control of the House.
Trump referred to that call in his tweet Tuesday morning. He said Ryan ''had a bad conference
call where his members went wild at his disloyalty.''
Trump later tweeted "the shackles have been taken off me".
The real estate mogul also claimed Democrats were more loyal to their party than Republicans.
House Speaker Paul Ryan all but abandoned Donald Trump, obliterating whatever bounce he may
have received from Sunday's debate.
It was his second tweet of the morning targeting Ryan. The other said Ryan's ''zero support''
was making it hard for Trump to do well.
Ryan did face some pushback from members upset he was abandoning Trump. The House Speaker continues
to endorse the nominee.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Despite winning the second debate in a landslide (every poll), it is hard to do well when
Paul Ryan and others give zero support!
8:16 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members
went wild at his disloyalty.
9:05 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America
the way I want to.
10:00 AM - 11 Oct 2016
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
With the exception of cheating Bernie out of the nom the Dems have always proven to
be far more loyal to each other than the Republicans!
10:15 AM - 11 Oct 2016 · Queens, NY, United States
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Disloyal R's are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary. They come at you from all
sides. They don't know how to win - I will teach them!
"... A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters. ..."
"... The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them. ..."
aul MacDonald and Joseph Parent
explain in detail that Trump hasn't reduced U.S. military commitments overseas:
But after nearly three years in office, Trump's promised retrenchment has yet to
materialize. The president hasn't meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he
inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the costly burden of defending U.S.
allies. To the contrary, he loaded even greater military responsibilities on the United
States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in
Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue, Trump departed radically
from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas
defense commitments, he largely preserved the chessboard he inherited -- promises to the
contrary be damned.
MacDonald and Parent's article complements my earlier
post about U.S. "global commitments" very nicely. When we look at the specifics of Trump's
record, we see that he isn't ending U.S. military involvement anywhere. He isn't bringing
anyone home. On the contrary, he has been sending even more American troops to the Middle East
just this year alone. While he is being excoriated for withdrawals that never happen, he is
maintaining or steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in foreign countries. Many Trump
detractors and supporters are so invested in the narrative that Trump is presiding over
"withdrawal" that they are ignoring what the president has actually done. Trump's approach to
U.S. military involvement might be described as "loudly declaring withdrawal while maintaining
or increasing troop levels." Almost everyone pays attention only to his rhetoric about leaving
this or that country and treats it as if it is really happening. Meanwhile, the number of
military personnel deployed overseas never goes down.
The authors offer a possible explanation for why Trump has been able to get away with
this:
A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military
footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic
politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few
in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political
moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are
broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military,
flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from
the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and
influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same
fantasy world as voters.
Trump is further insulated from scrutiny and criticism because he is frequently described as
presiding over a "retreat" from the world. Most news reports and commentary pieces reinforce
this false impression that Trump seeks to get the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. There are
relatively few people pointing out the truth that MacDonald and Parent spell out in their
article. The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump
may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them.
Clinton curse sill is hanging over Democratic Party candidates like Damocles sword. 25 year
of betrayal of their core constituency and their alliance with Wall Street has consequences,
which they now feel. Obama now is openly despised by Democratic voters as the person who betrayed
his electorate and then enriched himself in classing "revolving door" corruption scheme. The
phrase "change is can believe in" became a curse. Bill Clinton is mired in Epstein scandal. You
can't get worse cheerleaders for the party and it does not have anybody else.
Notable quotes:
"... Obama was directly addressing Silicon Valley's wealthiest Democratic donors, telling them to "chill" in their debate over the party's candidates, and seeking to ease the tensions among tech billionaires who have broken into separate camps backing Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and -- most surprisingly -- Elizabeth Warren ..."
"... Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats, as only 66% of the party faithful said they're enthusiastic about the upcoming election. ..."
While there are still 15 candidates running for the Democratic nomination (after the
withdrawal of Kamala Harris earlier today), only four are polling in double digits, with most
either at 1% or 0%. But Obama said whoever gets the nod should get the vote.
"There will be differences" between the candidates, Obama said, "but I want us to make sure
that we keep in mind that, relative to the ultimate goal, which is to defeat a president and a
party that has taken a sharp turn away from a lot of the core traditions and values and
institutional commitments that built this country," those differences are "relatively
minor."
"The field will narrow and there's going to be one person, and if that is not your perfect
candidate and there are certain aspects of what they say that you don't agree with and you
don't find them completely inspiring the way you'd like, I don't care," he said. "Because the
choice is so stark and the stakes are so high that you cannot afford to be ambivalent in this
race."
Obama was directly addressing Silicon Valley's wealthiest Democratic donors, telling
them to "chill" in their debate over the party's candidates, and seeking to ease the tensions
among tech billionaires who have broken into separate camps backing Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden,
and -- most surprisingly -- Elizabeth Warren , according to recode.
Obama may have his job cut out for him: with many Democratic voters confused or merely bored
silly by the current roster of candidates, two newcomers, Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval
Patrick and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entered the race adding further to
the confusion. Last month, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, drew fewer than
100 people to a South Carolina "Environmental Justice" forum. And she's a frontrunner!
Meanwhile, Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats,
as only 66% of the party faithful said they're enthusiastic about the upcoming election.
And while for Republicans the number is 65%, "this differed from the typical pattern Gallup has
seen over the years, whereby those who identify with the political party of the incumbent
president have been less enthusiastic about voting than members of the opposing party," Gallup
wrote.
Ironically, Obama isn't alone in saying Democrats need to hold their nose when they vote for
the eventual nominee. Joe Biden's wife, Jill, said in August that her husband might not be the
best candidate, but told voters "maybe you have to swallow a little bit" and vote for him
anyway.
"Your candidate might be better on, I don't know, health care, than Joe is," Jill Biden said
on MSNBC, "but you've got to look at who's going to win this election, and maybe you have to
swallow a little bit and say, 'OK, I personally like so-and-so better,' but your bottom line
has to be that we have to beat Trump."
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, she repeated the point. "I know that not all of you
are committed to my husband, and I respect that. But I want you to think about your candidate,
his or her electability, and who's going to win this race. So I think if your goal -- I know my
goal -- is to beat Donald Trump, we have to have someone who can beat him," she said.
In his foreign policy Trump looks like a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy
is a Deep State controlled republican. Why is the Deep State is attacking him is completely unclear. May be they just do not like unpredictable,
inpulsive politicians
Despite his surrender "Neocon crazies from the basement" still attack his exactly the same way as they attacked him for pretty
mundane meeting with Putin and other fake "misdeeds" like Ukrainegate
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans and former Sanders supporters, who voted
for him in 2016 to block Hillary election.
And in no way he is an economic nationalist. He is "national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on
treaties and prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties. And his "fight" with the Deep state
resemble so closely to complete and unconditional surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two. Most of
his appointees are rabid neocons. Just look at Pompeo, Bolton, Fiona Hill. That that extends far beyond those obvious crazies.
Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President
Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private
conversation in Helsinki last summer.
"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which only the leaders and their translators
were present -- as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I
do it with all countries." -
Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed by Republicans. "The Washington Post
is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump said. When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York
Times report that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you
ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?" "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think
it's the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an
epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting
that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, &
as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations
with Russia again!"
While Obama organized 2014 coup data that smashed contitutional oder in Ukraine and installed far-right nationalists in power (Nulandgate) Obamam did not suppled arms toUkrains; Trump did
In his foreign policy Trump looks
like a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy is a Deep State controlled republican. Why
is the Deep State is attacking him is completely unclear. May be they just do not like unpredictable, impulsive politicians
Despite his surrender "Neocon crazies from the basement" still attack his exactly the same way as they attacked him for
pretty mundane meeting with Putin and other fake "misdeeds" like Ukrainegate
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans
and former Sanders supporters, who voted for him in 2016 to block Hillary election.
And in no way he is an economic nationalist. He is
"national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on treaties and
prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties. And his "fight" with the Deep state resemble so closely to complete and unconditional
surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two. Most of his appointees are rabid neocons. Just look at Pompeo, Bolton, Fiona Hill. That that extends far beyond
those obvious crazies.
Washington
Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his
discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a
phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in
Helsinki last summer.
"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I
couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which
only the leaders and their translators were present -- as "a great conversation" that
included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the
president of various countries. I do it with all countries." -
Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed
by Republicans. "The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump
said. When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York Times report that the FBI had opened an
inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you ever
worked for Russia, Mr. President?" "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think it's
the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an
epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former
FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush
or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often
said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday
we will have good relations with Russia again!"
"... Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Mail On Sunday blog, ..."
"... I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure. ..."
"... In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks ..."
"... But I've never seen one like this. It scared me. ..."
"... If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be started by a falsehood. ..."
I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot
identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure.
I had travelled a long distance by train to an address I had been given over an encrypted email.
I was nervous that the meeting might be some sort of trap.
Leaks from inside arms
verification organisations are very sensitive matters. Powerful people mind about them.
I wasn't sure whether to be afraid of being followed, or to be worried about who might be waiting behind
the anonymous door on a dark afternoon, far from home. I took all the amateurish precautions that I could
think of.
As it happened, it was not a trap. Now, on carefully selected neutral ground, I was to meet a person
who would confirm suspicions that had been growing in my mind over several years – that there is something
rotten in the way that chemical weapons inspections are being conducted and reported. And that the world
could be hurried into war on the basis of such inspections.
Inside the safe house, I was greeted by a serious, patient expert, a non-political scientist
whose priority had until now always been to do the hard, gritty work of verification
– travelling
to the scenes of alleged horrors, sifting and searching for hard evidence of what had really happened.
But this entirely honourable occupation had slowly turned sour.
The whiff of political interference had begun as a faint unpleasant smell in the air and grown
until it was an intolerable stench.
Formerly easy-going superiors had turned into tricky bureaucrats.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had become so important that it could
no longer be allowed to do its job properly.
Too many of the big powers that sponsor and finance it were breathing down its neck, wanting certain
results, whether the facts justified them or not.
My source calmly showed me various pieces of evidence that they were who they said they were,
and knew what they claimed to know, making it clear that they worked for the OPCW and knew its inner workings.
They then revealed a document to me.
This was the email of protest, sent to senior OPCW officials, saying that a report on the alleged Syrian
poison gas attack in Douma, in April 2018, had been savagely censored so as to alter its meaning.
In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks
:
leaks
over luxurious, expensive lunches with Cabinet Ministers, anonymous leaks that just turned up in envelopes,
leaks from union officials and employers, diplomats and academics.
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But I've never seen one like this. It scared me.
If it was true, then
something hugely dishonest and dangerous was going on, in a place where absolute integrity was vital.
If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be
started by a falsehood.
Last week I reported on the first episode in this story. Within days the OPCW had confirmed that the
email I leaked was authentic.
Nobody followed me home or threatened me. A few silly people on social media told blatant lies about
me, insinuating that I was somehow a Russian patsy or a defender of the disgusting Syrian regime that
I have been attacking in print for nearly 20 years. That was what I had expected.
But there is much more to come.
And, as it grows harder for everyone to ignore this
enormous, dangerous story,
I suspect I shall be looking over my shoulder rather more than usual.
"... Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her. Recently, Hillary Clinton smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset, and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested (with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their priorities ..."
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is a
compelling choice for president in 2020. She's principled, she's against America's disastrous
regimen of regime-change wars, and she's got the guts to criticize her own party for being too
closely aligned with rich and powerful interests. She's also a military veteran who enlisted in
the Army National Guard in Hawaii after the 9/11 attacks (she currently serves as a major and
deployed overseas to Iraq during that war).
What's not to like about a female veteran who oozes intelligence and independence, a woman
who represents diversity (she's a practicing Hindu and a Samoan-American), an early supporter
of Bernie Sanders who called out the DNC for its favoritism toward Hillary Clinton
Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned
her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by
establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her.
Recently, Hillary Clinton
smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset,
and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested
(with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Think about that. Hillary Clinton and much of the mainstream media are accusing a serving
major in the U.S. military of being an asset to a foreign power. It's an accusation bordering
on a charge of treason -- a charge that is libelous and recklessly irresponsible.
A reminder: Tulsi Gabbard enlisted in the military to serve her country in the aftermath of
9/11. What did Hillary Clinton do? Can you imagine Hillary going through basic training as a
private, or serving in the military in a war zone? (Hillary did falsely claim that she came
under
sniper fire in Bosnia , but that's a story for another day.)
Tulsi Gabbard is her own person. She's willing to buck the system and has shown compassion
and commitment on the campaign trail. She may be a long shot, but she deserves a long look for
the presidency, especially when you consider the (low) quality of the enemies she's made.
Reply
Whenever I post anything remotely positive about Tulsi Gabbard on Facebook, the same few
people come out to denounce her. My response is below, though I know you can't reason with
haters:
That Tulsi has been on Fox News is an argument in her favor, i.e. her crossover appeal and
her willingness to engage with the "other side." That Tulsi met with Assad is, in my view,
reasonable; true leaders are always willing to meet with "bad" people, even ruthless
dictators, in the cause of averting war. My main point is how she's being smeared as some
kind of traitor, or at least a useful idiot. She's neither. Also, I've read the piece on
Tulsi in Jacobin, and I've heard about alleged cults. Is this really the best the media can
do? Guilt by association?
Some of our readers may have concerns about Tulsi, e.g. alleged Islamophobia, alleged
cults, etc. The main point is this: Does she deserve to be smeared as a Putin puppet? What
does this say about our media? And why are they doing this? I can tell you why. Trillions of
dollars are spent on wars and weapons, and Tulsi is calling for an end to regime-change wars
and a return to diplomacy. She also, like Bernie, is willing to call out the DNC as being
against the interests of ordinary Americans -- and she's right about this. She has a lot in
her favor. I'm a Bernie fan myself, but I'll take Tulsi over all those phony "centrists" like
Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris, and Biden.
I can't speak to the RSS/BJP connection; I've read about it, but I admit to ignorance on the
matter. Of course, every candidate has multiple connections, positions, donors, etc. All
politicians carry baggage. So far, from what I've read, Tulsi is more principled and more
courageous than most of her peers.
I'm still a Bernie fan -- his long record of helping the poor and vulnerable speaks for
itself. Of course, he once went to Moscow oh no! Run away! 🙂
Tulsi has now done four courageous, unusual, and very positive things while merely a
candidate:
1) Tulsi effectively took down a leading contender and DNC favorite, by demonstrating that
Senator Harris had been a corrupt prosecutor.
2) Tulsi defended democracy as she sued Google for at least $50 million, for playing
favorites in search-routing of candidates.
3) Tulsi called out Hillary Clinton for the monster she is.
4) Tulsi supported a process toward 911 truth by supporting 911-victims' families' right to
see FBI documents that have been denied to them.
Tulsi is the anti-war candidate. Tulsi Gabbard should be Commander-in-Chief. Yang should
be VP and in charge of the economy. Read his book. UBI is the way to go. Tulsi needs someone
she can trust as VP.
I consider the vicious persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning -- both
languishing in prison for having committed no crime whatsoever -- along with the exile of
Edward Snowden, among the greatest travesties of justice ever committed by the U.S. and U.K.
(dishonorable mention goes to Sweden and the latest Ecuadorian government, as well). I had
hoped for this subject to come up in the "debates," giving Tulsi yet another opportunity to
shine relative to her competitors, most of whom would soil their undergarments in panic at
the thought of "crossing" the absurdly named "intelligence community" and its entirely
co-opted corporate media outlets.
If Tulsi Gabbard had done no other principled thing than this, I would have considered her
heads and shoulders above anyone else campaigning for a position in the U.S. government
today.
I ought to dedicate this one to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for her principled defense of
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden (and no-doubt Chelsea Manning, as well):
Star Chamber, Incorporated
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
Jailed as twin examples for the proles:
"Look what happens if you publish secrets:
More totalitarian controls."
In Chinese: "Kill the Chicken scare the Monkey."
Rat-out your colleagues. Do not Power tempt.
Or otherwise the judges and grand juries
Will hold you in what lawyers call "contempt."
A strange word-choice, indeed, by Power's minions
Who spend careers perfecting rank abuse.
For them I'd have to feel respect much greater
Before that is the word that I would use.
I've nothing good to say for prosecutors.
Some say I wish to "damn them with faint praise."
But I reply: "You praise with faint damnation.
So which of us has coined the the better phrase?"
Despicable, the treatment of these heroes.
The US and UK have sunk so low.
Still, Julian and Chelsea have together
More balls than these two governments can grow.
No matter, they have passed into the ages.
Already they have earned a fair renown.
Each day they live defiant, undefeated,
They rise as jailers try to put them down.
As JFK once said of his elite class:
"The ship of state leaks mainly from the top."
But if some lowly, powerless, poor person
Tries that, they'll feel the lash. No truth. Now stop!
To scare a monkey, kill another monkey.
If not, the monkeys learn impunity.
While eating KFC they ask, obtusely:
"What has a chicken got to do with me?"
And so the Corporation-State must silence
Reports of its incompetence and crime.
If citizens knew what it did they'd order
Its dissolution. Now. And just in time.
Historically, they called it the Star Chamber
A secret court designed to thwart the king.
But power then perverted it to serve him.
Grand juries in the US, same damn thing.
They now indict ham sandwiches routinely
With no protection for the innocents.
Presumed as guilty, evidence not needed.
Conviction guaranteed. No court repents.
A judge may do whatever he determines
He can. So levy fines. Coerce. Demand
On penalty of prison, testimony
Against oneself, alone upon the stand.
"Democracy" is just a euphemism
If citizens allow this to proceed.
Orwellian: first Hate then Fear of Goldstein.
Two Minutes, daily. Really, all you need.
This is a good commentary. military experience is a good thing especially when we are dealing
with the fact that over half of the national budget is devoted to the military.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a thoughtful article on playing it safe, running out the clock,
prevent defense, etc., on your opponent as it would apply to politics.
Jabbar writes: Almost every poll showed her with a respectable lead over Trump just days
before the election. So, the Clinton campaign tried to run out the clock by not campaigning
much in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota,
all of which turned much redder than in the previous presidential election.
The tactic of trying to pick a "safe" candidate who can beat Trump by appealing to their
ideas about Middle America sends the wrong message to all of America. No team devise a game
strategy based on fear: they emphasize their strengths and exploit their opponents'
weaknesses. The Democratic candidate shouldn't be the least objectionable, but the one who
boldly forges ahead with clear and detailed plans for Making America America Again.
Democrats can't pander to voters by denigrating Trump but then promising them Trump-lite
with a wink. Promote progressive policies and plans worthy of a party that wants to lead this
country without fear of being called "socialists" or "the radical left" or whatever else your
opposing team chants.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/15/how-sports-tactics-can-help-the-democrats-beat-donald-trump-in-2020
===================================
Jabbar is correct. The Corporate Democrats among them Biden, Buttigieg and Bloomberg are
fighting desperately to preserve a perceived lead aided and abetted by the McMega-Media.
Chicago Alderman, Paddy Bauler (1890-1977) said in 1955 on the election of Daley the
Elder, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet", or "Chicago ain't ready for a reform mayor".
Today, the pundits employed by Corporate America, along with various Democratic Party
stooges for Wall Street tell us America ain't ready for Reform.
Yes, ML, so goes American 'Exceptionalism', after WW2 Victory. Today, so goes a Great
American City in violence, all so shortsighted. I'm still confused with our never-ending wars
overseas, as our cities rot in crime & violence, my main concern. I didn't grow up
– or party! -later on in today's disaster areas of Baltimore or Philadelphia, etc.It
was GREAT!
But somethings going on I don't know about, when the WORST cities have black Congresspeople
(Maxime Waters?) living in 6.5$Mil mansions as their "districts" die.
I have NO PROBLEM with black people! Such a smear an insult. But it's worth investigating why
these characters who have ruined their cities are supporters of Dems, & Billary! Oh! They
spend & vote lavishly on more money for our wars, but nothing for their own cities!
Finally starting to figure it out: They're traitors to their own race, for their personal
benefit. They make Dems "look proud", vs "REP's!" Yes, they too re dreadful maybe that's why
I feel: TULCI GO! She's neither dreadful party!
ML: Good citation of KA-J -- - although I've seen the same-sort of criticism of the Dems
elsewhere, Kareem's sports analogy is very helpful in understanding the concept.
(I have to say that I got sick of the Dems milquetoast approach to politics. Maybe it was
an understandable response to a frustrating right-wing zeitgeist, but DAMN, did they have to
be SO passive against the Reps?? Even when they briefly held majorities in Congress under
Obama, the wouldn't introduce/push bills that weren't 'filibuster-proof'!?!? I for one might
still be voting Dem POTUS IF they had pushed those progressive bills., then let the Reps
filibuster for weeks or months, meantime the Dems & Obama could've gone in front of the
public daily and said something like "We're trying to help you by passing Bill X, but the
Reps are filibustering and stopping Congress from getting any work done!" Let the government
shut-down for a few weeks because of it and keep hammering away at the Reps for being the
BLOCKERS, etc. Call their bluff, and use it against them during elections. Instead they tried
to be overly accommodating & conciliatory BEFORE debate had even begun!)
Yes. Eddie. The Democratic Party not only gets its ass kicked for breakfast, lunch, and
dinner, but it seems to have developed something of a masochistic taste for the Republican
abuse. Hence two of my verse compositions essentially agreeing with your observations:
(1) From eight years ago. From "Hope" and "Change" to despair and the status quo. And with
a Nobel Peace Prize for Endless War, too.
Congenital Stockholm Syndrome
He started by giving up quickly,
Surrendering early his case.
He offered to kiss their asses.
Replying, they pissed in his face.
Their urine, he thought, tasted strangely;
Yet not at all bad to his taste.
He'd gotten so used to it, plainly.
Why let such a drink go to waste?
The people who voted in favor
Of him and his promise of "change"
Now see in his many betrayals
A poodle afflicted with mange.
Each time that the surly and crazy
Republicans out for his skin
Condemn him for living and breathing,
He graciously helps them to win.
He'll turn on his base in an instant
With threats and disdain and neglect
While bombing some Muslims so Cheney
Might thrill to the lives that he's wrecked.
A black man in love with apartheid
He offers his stalwart support
To Zionists and their extortion
With "More, please!" his only retort.
A masochist begging for beatings
Obama takes joy in abuse
Receiving just what he has asked for
Which makes him of no earthly use
The little brown men that he's murdered
In homes far away from our land
Bring profits obscene to his backers
Who give him the back of their hand.
Obama seeks praise from the vicious
Republicans, no matter what.
He suffers, apparently, nothing
So much as his need to kiss butt.
Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2011
(2) From twelve years ago and on the Congressional side of the Surrender Monkey
Syndrome:
Nancy the Negotiator
Nancy the Negotiator
Gives up first; surrenders later;
Takes her cards from off the table,
Then recites her loser fable:
"We don't have the votes we need,"
Nancy says, in tones that bleed:
"Mean Republicans will whine
If we do not toe their line."
Nancy bows to George and Dick
While her skinny ass they kick;
Writes them checks both blank and rubber,
Then proceeds to lamely blubber:
"We don't like what Dubya's doing.
Still, we quite enjoy the screwing.
Masochism's what we offer,
Helping crooks to loot the coffer"
"Sure, the squandered blood and treasure
Goes to those we will not measure.
Still, we promise you'll adore us
If you mark your ballot for us."
"Choices you don't have assail you,
Leaving only us who fail you.
Nonetheless, we've gotten fatter.
Why, then, should we think you matter?"
After six years in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club (the last eighteen months of that in the
now-defunct Republic of South Vietnam) it didn't take me long to realize that the Republicans
get paid a lavish salary to do what the fabulously wealthy demand, while the Democrats get a
comparatively meager allowance to do what the Republicans tell them to do, also on behalf of
the fabulously wealthy: namely, betray their own working-class anti-war base so that the
Republicans will not have anything even remotely "leftist" to worry about. In truth, the
Democratic party crawled up its own ass and died so many years ago that I think I've lost
count.
Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the
wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their
priorities
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has crossed an MSM Rubicon and questioned
the Douma "gas attack" fraud on air, bringing up the OPCW whistleblower. Then he "rooted for
Russia" over Ukraine...Carlson boldly went where no mainstream TV host had gone before,
unpacking the explosive story of April 2018's Douma "chemical weapons attack." While the
"attack" was attributed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by an altered report from the
Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, two whistleblowers within the group
accused it of omitting evidence to craft a misleading narrative - a fact that has never crossed
the lips of US media until Monday night... "America almost attacked a country and killed untold
thousands of people over an attack that may never have happened in the first place - that
powerful people may very well have been lying about," Carlson told his audience, replaying
footage of his show from the days following the attack to show he'd always been suspicious it
had happened as reported.
"... "The next president will, for example, have to deal with the enormous loss of U.S. credibility during the past three years, which has stemmedin large part from Trump's reneging on or withdrawing from agreements such as the Paris accord on climate change, arms control accords withRussia, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... What is the PURPOSE of US Foreign Policy? To protect the US homeland and US interests abroad (freedom of navigation, freedom of commerce and trade, and the protection of US citizens travelling abroad to name a few). ..."
"... Unfortunately, US Policy really refers to US interventionism across the globe. Covert activities are presumably necessary to protect US interests so as to thwart the covert activities of our enemies. In practice, what the US really does is protect the interests of friendly countries and US-based multi-national corporations...and the whole thing is smoke and mirrors (hidden from the American people). Thus, we really have NO IDEA what US Foreign Policy is, or what we are doing behind the scenes. That's on both Democrats and Republicans. ..."
This is still a race for a party nomination, and it is well known how political battles at this stage typically focus narrowly
on what are perceived to be the parochial concerns of the party's base and take on a different character in the general election.
But positions taken now can impose constraints later on. Moreover, Democratic primary voters ought to be learning about what difference
the various contenders would make in executing the powers of the presidency, not just in who has the most attractive ideas about
policies that cannot be imposed by fiat.
Foreign policy is where more attention and debate are most required, and not just because foreign policy nearly always gets inadequate
attention in political campaigns. It also is where a president has the most power to make a difference even without getting Congress
to go along with the president's program. This fact is reflected in how many presidents late in their presidencies, especially in
second terms, have turned more of their attention to foreign relations as an area where they can make a difference after experiencing
frustration in trying to get their domestic programs through Congress.
Many issues in foreign policy could profitably be discussed more than they are now, but priority should be given to those subjects
on which Trump has caused the most damage. Candidates should explain how they intend to repair that damage, not just what their policies
would be if they somehow could be written on a clean slate. The slate on which the next administration's foreign policy will be written
starts out very dirty. Coming after Trump will be a major, task-defining fact about the next administration's foreign policy challenges.
The heavy damage to U.S. relations with the European allies represents another especially dirty part of the slate that the next
administration will have to tend to. Brexit will be an added complication in addressing this problem and in a sense is another part
of Trump's legacy given the way he has cheered on the Brexiteers,
contrary to U.S. interests.
Issues examined by the current impeachment proceeding represent more damage-repair needs. Ukraine is a large and important country
and constructing a U.S. policy that adequately reflects Ukraine's delicate situation between East and West would be a challenge in
any event. Now it has been made more difficult by Trump and Rudy Giuliani's
setting back of Ukraine's efforts to stamp out corruption and subordinating an aid relationship to dirt-digging for domestic
political reasons. What are the Democratic candidates' specific ideas for repairing this damage, and for fitting the repairs into
a sensible policy toward not just Ukraine but also Russia?
To emphasize these foreign policy challenges is not to diminish the amount of Trump-inflicted damage that extends to domestic
matters as well, and the need for the next administration to repair that damage as well. Perhaps the greatest over-arching damage,
spanning both the domestic and foreign sides, is that the nation seems to have become inured to wrongdoing because of the sheer volume
of it, with attention to each offense quickly fading as it is succeeded by a new offense or attention-hogging presidential outburst.
What will the next president do to restore a sense of national outrage over wrongdoing whenever it occurs, be it blatant self-dealing,
corruption of U.S. foreign relations, or something else?
Such problems may not have as much resonance in Iowa caucuses as the cost of health care, but they have a lot more to do with
who will make the best president.
Paul R. Pillar is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and Nonresident
Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is a contributing editor to The National Interest, where he writes
a blog.
"The next president will, for example, have to deal with the enormous loss of U.S. credibility during the past three years,
which has stemmedin large part from Trump's reneging on or withdrawing from agreements such as the Paris accord on climate change,
arms control accords withRussia, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran's nuclear program."
What a load of hooey this article is. U.S. credibility with whom? Failed Merkel? Failed Macron?...
Failure of the past three years but no mention of the failures of Obama? Sending an aging hippie James Taylor to console islamic terrorist victims in Paris apparently counts as a major foreign policy
success and that mean Trump refuses to perpetuate. And then there's the cross the red line in Syria and we'll do nothing.
Or maybe ship weapons secretly to Islamic terrorists calling them freedom fighters and surprise surprise, the weapons from
Obama are used to murder American diplomats in Benghazi. Then cover that up by blaming it on a video from a guy in Los Angeles
and sending out a team to blatantly lie about the event.
Now there's real foreign policy you can depend on - from the Democrats.
What is the PURPOSE of US Foreign Policy? To protect the US homeland and US interests abroad (freedom of navigation, freedom
of commerce and trade, and the protection of US citizens travelling abroad to name a few).
Unfortunately, US Policy really refers
to US interventionism across the globe. Covert activities are presumably necessary to protect US interests so as to thwart the
covert activities of our enemies. In practice, what the US really does is protect the interests of friendly countries and US-based
multi-national corporations...and the whole thing is smoke and mirrors (hidden from the American people). Thus, we really have
NO IDEA what US Foreign Policy is, or what we are doing behind the scenes. That's on both Democrats and Republicans.
Warren's New Proposal for Prescription Drugs Is Flying Under the Radar
By Dean Baker
Earlier this month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren put out a set of steps that she would put
forward as president as part of a transition to Medicare for All. The items that got the most
attention were including everyone over age 50 and under age 18 in Medicare, and providing
people of all ages with the option to buy into the program. This buy-in would include large
subsidies, and people with incomes of less than 200 percent of the poverty level would be
able to enter the Medicare program at no cost.
These measures would be enormous steps toward Medicare for All, bringing tens of millions
of people into the program, including most of those (people over age 50) with serious medical
issues. It would certainly be more than halfway to a universal Medicare program.
While these measures captured most of the attention given to Warren's transition plan,
another part of the plan is probably at least as important. Warren proposed to use the
government's authority to compel the licensing of drug patents so that multiple companies can
produce a patented drug.
The government can do this both because it has general authority to compel licensing of
patents (with reasonable compensation) and because it has explicit authority under the 1980
Bayh-Dole Act to require licensing of any drug developed in part with government-funded
research. The overwhelming majority of drugs required some amount of government-supported
research in their development.
These measures are noteworthy because they can be done on the president's own authority.
While the pharmaceutical industry will surely contest a president's use of the government's
authority to weaken their patent rights, those actions would not require congressional
approval.
The other reason that these steps would be so important is that there is a huge amount of
money involved. The United States is projected to spend over $6.6 trillion on prescription
drugs over the next decade, more than 2.5 percent of GDP.
The government has explicit authority under the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act to require licensing of
any drug developed in part with government-funded research.
This is an enormous amount of money. We spend more than twice as much per person on drugs
as people in other wealthy countries.
This is not an accident. The grant of a patent monopoly allows drug companies to charge as
much as they want for drugs that are necessary for people's health or even their life.
While other countries also grant patent monopolies, they limit the ability of drug
companies to exploit these monopolies with negotiations or price controls. This is why prices
in these countries are so much lower than in the United States.
But even these negotiated prices are far above what drug prices would be in a free market.
The price of drugs in a free market, without patent monopolies or related protections, will
typically be less than 10 percent of the U.S. price and in some cases, less than 1
percent.
This is because drugs are almost invariably cheap to manufacture and distribute. They are
expensive because government-granted patent monopolies make them expensive.
The rationale for patent monopolies is to give companies an incentive to research and
develop drugs. This process is expensive, and if newly developed drugs were sold in a free
market, companies would not be able to recover these expenses.
To make up for the loss of research funding supported by patent monopolies, Warren
proposes an increase in public funding for research.
To make up for the loss of research funding supported by patent monopolies, Warren
proposes an increase in public funding for research. This would be an important move toward
an increased reliance on publicly funded biomedical research.
There are enormous advantages to publicly funded research over patent monopoly-supported
research. First, the government is funding the research. It can require that all results be
fully public as soon as possible so that all researchers can quickly benefit from them.
By contrast, under the patent system, drug companies have an incentive to keep results
secret. They have no desire to share results that could benefit competitors.
Public funding would also radically reduce the incentive to develop copycat drugs. Under
the current system, drug companies will often devote substantial sums to developing drugs
that are intended to duplicate the function of drugs already on the market. While there is
generally an advantage to having more options to treat a specific condition, most often,
research dollars would be better spent trying to develop drugs for conditions where no
effective treatment currently exists.
Ending patent monopoly pricing would also take away the incentive for drug companies to
conceal evidence that their drugs may not be as safe or effective as claimed. Patent
monopolies give drug companies an incentive to push their drugs as widely as possible.
The opioid crisis provides a dramatic example of the dangers of this system. Opioid
manufacturers would not have had the same incentive to push their drugs, concealing evidence
of their addictive properties, if they were not making huge profits on them.
In short, Senator Warren's plans on drugs are a really huge deal. How far and how quickly
she will be able to get to Medicare for All will depend on what she can get through Congress.
But her proposal for prescription drugs is something she would be able to do if elected
president, and it would make an enormous difference in both the cost and the quality of our
health care.
"And how on earth did an ex comedian and MMA commentator become one of the better
political interviewers around?"
Dereliction of duty by the gatekeeper oligarch press, and discontent by the
ever-more-discerning consumer to be served cold lies? Baby Boomers and Silent Generation
dying off more by the day? People under 40 who have never experienced an economy that doesn't
suck for the non-rich?
I've started listening to Rogan interviews since Sanders's blockbuster interview a few
months ago.
The guy is actually a surprisingly good interviewer, for reasons that are hard to
understand. For one thing, he is invariably friendly and respectful, which I think draws the
subject out. His format also allows almost unlimited and uninterrupted time, (2-3 hours is
typical), which removes time pressure and allows extended and nuanced conversation. He also
has no particular agenda, and allows the conversation to go where it will, jumping in with
"questions" only when a particular topic seems to be exhausted.
The interesting thing is that anyone, either inside the media or outside it, could be
doing a similar program; it's not technically hard. But no one is.
If I didn't miss anything, then it is not 100% clear that USA will stop invading and
bombing other countries with Gabbard. She is slippery enough to continue the bombings. She
still mentions war as a last option. It is highly subjective to judge whether you have used
up all diplomatic channels to achieve your goal or not.
The wars and invasions has been about stealing natural resources, oil mainly but now
lithium too, feed the MIC-swamp creatures in general and selling out state resources to
American interests. In no way does she tackle the causes of the wars, only the
symptoms.
When have you tried all diplomatic channels to steal Iraq's, Venezuela's, Syria's and
Libya's oil fields? What do the diplomatic tools look like? Economic strangulation? IMF on
steroids?
She needs to talk about a society getting off of oil for a starter
It is amazing on how so many arguments against progressive policies coming from the
Democratic Party all seem to boil down to "Shut up and get back to work, peasants!"
Incrementalists do not even slowly improve things most of the time, as the neoliberal
Democratic Party "incrementally" follows the Republicans rightward with every broad shift to
the right on the GOP side. Today's deregulators and supply-side economic proponents are just
as likely to be Democrats as Republicans and many Democrats are probably cheering on
Kavanaugh's attacks on environmental standards as we speak.
Our aristocracy do not even pretend to adhere to any sort of sense of noblisse oblige,
unlike the feudal lords of old.
"... However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her." According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren. ..."
In November, Barack Obama, who had avoided commenting on the Democratic presidential
primary, came out forcefully in opposition to the extreme positions taken by some leading
progressive contenders, positions that could cause the Democrats to be beaten by Trump in the
2020 election. Obama was a very popular president among Democrats, and what he has to say
carries considerable weight with them. While this may not be his intent, Obama's position could
open the field for Hillary Clinton to enter the fray and quite possibly become the Democrats'
nominee, given the lackluster performance of leading "moderate" Joe Biden, whose weaknesses
have been brought out by the mainstream media, despite their animosity toward Trump.
Now many in the Democratic Party leadership, as well as wealthy Democratic donors, have been
concerned for some time about the radical nature of some of the economic policies advocated by
the leading progressive Democratic contenders. They fear that instead of the 2020 election
revolving around Trump with his low approval ratings, and very likely his impeachment, which
would seem to be a slam-dunk victory for Democrats, it would focus on those radical economic
proposals. Many voters are skeptical about how free college for all, free health care for all,
high-paying jobs in "green energy" -- after greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels, free
childcare for all, just to name some of the "free" things that have been promised, would really
work. Instead of raising taxes on the middle class, most of these free things would purportedly
be paid for by the super-wealthy, which would exclude mere millionaires such as Bernie Sanders
(estimated wealth $2 million) and Elizabeth Warren (estimated wealth $12 million) who are the
leading progressive contenders.
Obama began stressing his concern about the danger of radicalism in an October speech at the
Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago. And he did this not by dealing with presidential candidates
but with youth who think they can immediately change society. "This
idea of purity and you're never compromised, and you're always politically woke and all
that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama lectured. "The world is messy. There are
ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws."
It was at a gathering of Democratic donors in Washington, D.C., in November that Obama
cautioned Democratic candidates not to go too far to the left since that would antagonize many
voters who would otherwise support the Democratic candidate. "Even as we push the envelope and
we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in
reality ," Obama asserted. "The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear
down the system and remake it." Although Obama did not specify particular Democratic
candidates, his warning was widely interpreted as being directed at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie
Sanders.
Currently, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, according to national polls,
is Joe Biden, who is considered a moderate. But Biden has a number of problems. He continues to
make gaffes while speaking, and during his long career in the Senate took positions that are
antithetical to the Democratic Party of today. Moreover, he lacks the charisma to attract large
crowds to his events. Thus, it is questionable that he has the capability to attract large
numbers of Democratic voters to the polls in November 2020.
According to Politico Magazine , Obama was recently discussing election tactics with
an unnamed current candidate and "pointed out that during his own 2008 campaign, he had an
intimate bond with the electorate" and he is quoted as adding, "And you know who really
doesn't have it ? Joe Biden."
Biden's appeal already seems to be waning. For example, in November, a Marquette Law School
poll, which is considered the gold-standard survey in swing state Wisconsin, which the
Democrats need to win the 2020 election, shows
Trump leading Biden 47 percent to 44 percent. In October, Trump had trailed Biden by 6
points (44 percent to 50 percent), and in August, Trump trailed Biden by 9 points (42 percent
to 51 percent). In short, Biden is losing support. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by a slender
margin of 0.77 percent, with 47.22 percent of the total votes over the 46.45 percent for
Hillary Clinton.
Another problem Biden faces is the corrupt activities of his son Hunter and brother James,
who have taken advantage of their connection with him. The mainstream media has so far largely
kept this mostly under wraps, but this tactic won't be successful as the election approaches.
In fact, the progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders are likely to bring this up in a
desperate effort to be nominated. And already these issues are being mentioned by the
alternative media. For instance, there is an article in the non-partisan, anti-government
Intercept
titled, "Joe Biden's Family Has Been Cashing in on His Career for Decades. Democrats Need to
Acknowledge That," and comparable articles in the conservative Washington Examiner such
as, "Hunter Biden-linked company r
eceived $130M in special federal loans while Joe Biden was vice president," and "Hunter
Biden has
99 problems , and Burisma is only one."
David Axelrod, Democratic strategist and longtime aide to Barack Obama, said concerns about
Biden's electability clearly influenced multi-billionaire (estimated $53 billion) and
former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's entrance into the contest for the Democratic
nominee for president. "There's no question that Bloomberg's calculus was that Biden was
occupying a space, and the fact that he's getting in is a clear indication that he's not
convinced Biden has the wherewithal to carry that torch," Axelrod said. "So yeah, I don't think
this is a positive development for Joe Biden."
Similarly, Democratic strategist Brad Bannon contended that "centrist Democrats and wealthy
donors have
lost confidence in Biden's ability to stop Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders from winning
the nomination." Bannon added that with Bloomberg entering the Democratic presidential race,
"Biden's fundraising will get even shakier than it already is. There's only room for one
moderate in this race and Bloomberg threatens Biden's status as the centrist
standard-bearer."
Bloomberg's "stop and frisk"
policy as mayor , which largely targeted blacks and Hispanics, should make it virtually
impossible that he could be the Democratic nominee, despite his recent apology. Unless he has
become senile in his late 70s, Bloomberg should well understand this since he did not make his
billions by being stupid. It could be that he intends to serve as a stalking horse to draw
Hillary Clinton into the contest by showing the weakness of Biden. Then like Superwoman,
Hillary can enter the fray, appearing not to act for her own sake but to save the country from
a likely second term for President Trump.
Similarly, Mark Penn, who was chief strategist for Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential
campaign, said Bloomberg's entrance
could cause Clinton to consider to run and decide there's "still a political logic there for
her."
As Biden's support slips away, Clinton's should rise. Clinton has been recently promoting a
book she co-wrote with her daughter, Chelsea, in Britain. In an interview with BBC Radio 5
Live , Clinton said "many, many, many people" are
pressuring her to jump into the 2020 presidential race and that she thinks about this "all
the time." Clinton told the host that she is under "enormous pressure" but said it is not in
her plans, though she cryptically added that she would "never say never."
Dick Morris, who was once a close confidant of the Clintons during Bill Clinton's time as
Arkansas governor and U.S. president recently said in a radio interview that Hillary Clinton
likely wants to run for the presidency in 2020. "My feeling is that
she wants to ," Morris said. "She feels entitled to do it. She feels compelled to do it.
She feels that God put her on the Earth to do it. But she's hesitant because she realizes the
timing is bad."
However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out
because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her."
According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the
leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren.
Morris has not been in touch with the Clintons for many years, and has become strongly
critical of them, so his claim might be questionable. Nonetheless, his portrayal of Hillary's
current thinking seems quite reasonable.
A Fox News poll included Clinton along with the active Democratic candidates in a
hypothetical election with Trump, and Hillary came out ahead of him by two percentage
points. While some actual candidates did somewhat better than Hillary, she did quite well for
someone who is not currently running for office.
Furthermore, a Harris Harvard poll in late October asked the question, "Suppose Hillary
Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and John Kerry decides [sic] to enter the race, who would you
support as a candidate for President?" Joe Biden received the support of 19 percent of Democrat
respondents while Clinton was a
close second with 18 percent. Elizabeth Warren came in third at 13 percent, John Kerry was
at 8 percent, and Bloomberg was at 6. Again, Clinton does quite well for someone who is not
actually running for president.
One might think that if references to family members' corruption damaged Biden, then Clinton
would be subject to worse damage in that area, since she and her husband Bill were connected
with far more corrupt activities -- Whitewater, Travelgate, the Lewinsky affair, the Paula
Jones affair, t the death of Vince Foster, the Clinton Foundation, her private server, and so
on. But these issues are already known and are presumably already taken into account by the
voters, whereas the Biden family's corrupt activities are so far largely unknown.
It should be pointed out that Clinton has a number of positives as a presidential candidate.
Although losing in the Electoral College in 2016, Clinton had garnered 3 million more votes
more than Trump. The election was decided by a total of 80,000 votes in three states. It is
highly unlikely that such a fluke could be duplicated.
Clinton's staff had been overconfident assuming victory, which was based on their polling of
various states, and as a result began to focus on competing in states well beyond those Clinton
needed for victory.
Moreover, one key event outside the control of Clinton's staff was FBI Director James
Comey's investigation of Clinton's use of a personal email server during her tenure as
secretary of state. Most crucial were his July 2016 public statement terminating the
investigation, with a lengthy comment about what Clinton did wrong, and his October 28
reopening the inquiry into newly discovered emails and then closing it two days before the
election, stating that the emails had not provided any new information. The October 28 letter,
however, probably played a key role in the outcome of the election. As statistician Nate Silver
maintains: "Hillary Clinton would probably be president
if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which
said the FBI had 'learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the
investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended
the news cycle and soon halved Clinton's lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the
Electoral College.'"
[Silver's organization FiveThirtyEight had projected a much higher chance (29
percent) of Donald Trump winning the presidency than most other pollsters]
Clinton has also helped to convince many Democrats and members of the mainstream media that
the 2016 election was stolen from her by Russian agents If this were really true – which
is very doubtful – then Hillary should be the Democrats' candidate for 2020 since Russian
intervention should not be as successful as it allegedly was in 2016.
In endorsing Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, Obama stated. "I don't think that
there's ever been someone
so qualified to hold this office." He has yet to make such an endorsement for Biden and
privately, as mentioned earlier, said he is a poor choice for a nominee. He might ultimately
endorse Biden, but he certainly would not renege on what he said four years ago about Clinton
if she became the Democrats' standard-bearer.
Should Clinton opt to run, she would have no trouble raising money since she set a record in
2016 of $1.4 billion
and wealthy donors want a moderate to be the Democratic nominee. It would seem likely that she
would enter the contest if Biden has serious trouble. She would miss some state primaries since
it would be too late to register in them but given the crowded field of candidates, there is a
likelihood that there will be a brokered convention, that is, the convention will go past the
first ballot. Since the superdelegates would be allowed to vote in all rounds after the first,
they could determine the winner, which would probably mean the selection of a candidate who
would be seen to have the greatest chance of winning, and that would likely be Hillary Clinton,
if she has entered the fray.
I discussed the merits of Pete Buttigieg in a previous article in
Unz Review, and what I write here might seem to conflict with that. However, while Buttigieg is
doing quite well
in the polls, he still does not get much support
from blacks and Latinos, which is essential to become the Democrats nominee for president.
Buttigieg could, however, be nominated for vice president or, more likely, given an important
cabinet position since the vice-presidential slot would probably be reserved for a black or
Latino if a white person were picked as the presidential nominee, which currently seems
likely.
But because of Buttigieg's relatively hardline foreign policy
, which largely meshes with that of Clinton's, and his wide knowledge and language ability,
Buttigieg would fit well in the all-important position of secretary of state in a Clinton
administration. Moreover, Buttigieg, whose tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will end in
January 2020, would almost certainly be willing to take such a position, which could serve as a
jumping-off point for the presidency in the future.
he Democratic establishment is increasingly irritated. Representative Tulsi Gabbard,
long-shot candidate for president, is attacking her own party for promoting the "deeply
destructive" policy of "regime change wars." Gabbard has even called Hillary Clinton "the queen
of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the
Democratic Party."
Senator Chris Murphy complained: "It's a little hard to figure out what itch she's trying to
scratch in the Democratic Party right now." Some conservatives seem equally confused. The
Washington Examiner 's Eddie Scarry asked: "where is Tulsi distinguishing herself when
it really matters?"
The answer is that foreign policy "really matters." Gabbard recognizes that George W. Bush
is not the only simpleton warmonger who's plunged the nation into conflict, causing enormous
harm. In the last Democratic presidential debate, she explained that the issue was "personal to
me" since she'd "served in a medical unit where every single day, I saw the terribly high,
human costs of war." Compare her perspective to that of the ivory tower warriors of Right and
Left, ever ready to send others off to fight not so grand crusades.
The best estimate of the costs of the post-9/11 wars comes from the Watson Institute for
International and Public Affairs at Brown University. The Institute says that $6.4 trillion
will be spent through 2020. They estimate that our wars have killed 801,000 directly and
resulted in a multiple of that number dead indirectly. More than 335,000 civilians have died --
and that's an extremely conservative guess. Some 21 million people have been forced from their
homes. Yet the terrorism risk has only grown, with the U.S. military involved in
counter-terrorism in 80 nations.
Obviously, without American involvement there would still be conflicts. Some
counter-terrorism activities would be necessary even if the U.S. was not constantly swatting
geopolitical wasps' nests. Nevertheless, it was Washington that started or joined these
unnecessary wars (e.g., Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen) and expanded necessary wars well beyond
their legitimate purposes (Afghanistan). As a result, American policymakers bear responsibility
for much of the carnage.
The Department of Defense is responsible for close to half of the estimated expenditures.
About $1.4 trillion goes to care for veterans. Homeland security and interest on security
expenditures take roughly $1 trillion each. And $131 million goes to the State Department and
the U.S. Agency for International Development, which have overspent on projects that have
delivered little.
More than 7,000 American military personnel and nearly 8,000 American contractors have died.
About 1,500 Western allied troops and 11,000 Syrians fighting ISIS have been killed. The Watson
Institute figures that as many as 336,000 civilians have died, but that uses the very
conservative numbers provided by the Iraq Body Count. The IBC counts 207,000 documented
civilian deaths but admits that doubling the estimate would probably yield a more accurate
figure. Two other respected surveys put the number of deaths in Iraq alone at nearly 700,000
and more than a million, though those figures have been contested.
More than a thousand aid workers and journalists have died, as well as up to 260,000
opposition fighters. Iraq is the costliest conflict overall, with as many as 308,000 dead (or
515,000 from doubling the IBC count). Syria cost 180,000 lives, Afghanistan 157,000, Yemen
90,000, and Pakistan 66,000.
Roughly 32,000 American military personnel have been wounded; some 300,000 suffer from PTSD
or significant depression and even more have endured traumatic brain injuries. There are other
human costs -- 4.5 million Iraqi refugees and millions more in other nations, as well as the
destruction of Iraq's indigenous Christian community and persecution of other religious
minorities. There has been widespread rape and other sexual violence. Civilians, including
children, suffer from PTSD.
Even stopping the wars won't end the costs. Explained Nita Crawford of Boston University and
co-director of Brown's Cost of War Project: "the total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars
will continue to rise as the U.S. pays the on-going costs of veterans' care and for interest no
borrowing to pay for the wars."
People would continue to die. Unexploded shells and bombs still turn up in Europe from World
Wars I and II. In Afghanistan, virtually the entire country is a battlefield, filled with
landmines, shells, bombs, and improvised explosive devices. Between 2001 and 2018, 5,442
Afghans were killed and 14,693 were wounded from unexploded ordnance. Some of these explosives
predate American involvement, but the U.S. has contributed plenty over the last 18 years.
Moreover, the number of indirect deaths often exceeds battle-related casualties. Journalist
and activist David Swanson noted an "estimate that to 480,000 direct deaths in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Pakistan, one must add at least one million deaths in those countries indirectly
caused by the recent and ongoing wars. This is because the wars have caused illnesses,
injuries, malnutrition, homelessness, poverty, lack of social support, lack of healthcare,
trauma, depression, suicide, refugee crises, disease epidemics, the poisoning of the
environment, and the spread of small-scale violence." Consider Yemen, ravaged by famine and
cholera. Most civilian casualties have resulted not from Saudi and Emirati bombing, but from
the consequences of the bombing.
Only a naif would imagine that these wars will disappear absent a dramatic change in
national leadership. Wrote Crawford: "The mission of the post-9/11 wars, as originally defined,
was to defend the United States against future terrorist threats from al-Qaeda and affiliated
organizations. Since 2001, the wars have expanded from the fighting in Afghanistan, to wars and
smaller operations elsewhere, in more than 80 countries -- becoming a truly 'global war on
terror'."
Yet every expansion of conflict makes the American homeland more, not less, vulnerable.
Contrary to the nonsensical claim that if we don't occupy Afghanistan forever and overthrow
Syria's Bashar al-Assad, al-Qaeda and ISIS will turn Chicago and Omaha into terrorist
abattoirs, intervening in more conflicts and killing more foreigners creates additional
terrorists at home and abroad. In this regard, drone campaigns are little better than invasions
and occupations.
For instance, when questioned by the presiding judge in his trial, the failed 2010 Times
Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. citizen, cited the drone campaign in Pakistan. His
colloquy with the judge was striking: "I'm going to plead guilty 100 times forward because
until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes
in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops Somalia
and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the
Muslims."
Ajani Marwat, with the New York City Police Department's intelligence division, outlined
Shahzad's perspective to TheGuardian : "'It's American policies in his country.'
'We don't have to do anything to attract them,' a terrorist organizer in Lahore told me. 'The
Americans and the Pakistani government do our work for us. With the drone attacks targeting the
innocents who live in Waziristan and the media broadcasting this news all the time, the
sympathies of most of the nation are always with us. Then it's simply a case of converting
these sentiments into action'."
Washington does make an effort to avoid civilian casualties, but war will never be pristine.
Combatting insurgencies inevitably harms innocents. Air and drone strikes rely on often
unreliable informants. The U.S. employs "signature" strikes based on supposedly suspicious
behavior. And America's allies, most notably the Saudis and Emiratis -- supplied, armed,
guided, and until recently refueled by Washington -- make little if any effort to avoid killing
noncombatants and destroying civilian infrastructure.
Thus will the cycle of terrorism and war continue. Yet which leading Democrats have
expressed concern? Most complain that President Donald Trump is negotiating with North Korea,
leaving Syria, and reducing force levels in Afghanistan. Congressional Democrats care about
Yemen only because it has become Trump's war; there were few complaints under President Barack
Obama.
What has Washington achieved after years of combat? Even the capitals of its client states
are unsafe. The State Department warns travelers to Iraq that kidnapping is a risk and urges
businessmen to hire private security. In Kabul, embassy officials now travel to the airport via
helicopter rather than car.
Tulsi Gabbard is talking about what really matters. The bipartisan War Party has done its
best to wreck America and plenty of other nations too. Gabbard is courageously challenging the
Democrats in this coalition, who have become complicit in Washington's criminal wars.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global
Empire.
And, by the way, it's important to stress that Tulsi ain't picking at Her Majesty all of a
sudden. It was the said majesty who has recently started picking at Tulsi first out of no
reason, extrapolating that joke of Trump's "Russia's candidate" status on her as well.
Also, this:
People would continue to die. Unexploded shells and bombs still turn up in Europe from
World Wars I and II. In Afghanistan, virtually the entire country is a battlefield,
filled with
landmines, shells, bombs, and improvised explosive devices.
At least in Europe it is indeed shells and bombs, which are kind of big schmucks thus
easily noticed when approached and then disarmed by engineers. While all over the Middle
East it is first and foremost IEDs that can look like, virtually, anything starting from a
hand grenade's size.
On one hand, you're right. On the other hand, the average neocon/neolib commenter who will
come to enlighten us as to Russian agents behind the authorship of the article will be
utmostly unable to read the damn thing. For such a feller it ain't gonna be much different
from 5D21DBA0000.
Unfortunately, a lot of Americans in recent years were more concerned about gays getting
married and poor women terminating their pregnancies.
At Thanksgiving dinner today, the conversation eventually turned to politics and more
specifically, Ukraine. I asked the other diners if they knew who Victoria Nuland was and
got blank stares. Most didn't know that Crimea had been part of the Russian Empire going
back to 1783, which happens to be the year that the US was formally recognized as a
separate country under the Treaty of Paris.
How big is $6.4 trillion? Enough to cover outstanding student loans about 4 times. Or
enough to stabilize Social Security and Medicare for decades to come.
Mostly a very good article - but - what possible legitimate purpose was there invading
Afghanistan ? This was the biggest war crime of the lot and you're still there. Afghanistan
had nothing whatsoever to do with the New York plane attacks. It was a failed state and had
the misfortune to have bin Laden and co supposedly holed up in the mountains there and
unable to do much about it. Dealing with that required a specific police style action.
Instead you carpet bombed Kabul to start and unleashed a frenzy of killing across the
country. Unfortunately pretty much as a lot of us predicted around the middle of Sept 2001.
And where did you find Osama in the end ? Oh yeah, hiding in luxury in a Pakistan army
town.
In response to the plane attacks you murdered countless thousands in an immiserated land
and after another brain fart thought Iraq was a good idea because they had nothing to do
with it either.
The only civilian plane to fly out of the US on Sept 11 2001 was carrying the Saudi
Royal family back home. Almost all the plane terrorists were Saudi and Pakistan conspired
against you continually. But you didn't have the guts or brains to take either of them on
and instead picked in the weakest of the lot, Afghanistan followed by a nice flat country
you'd already half destroyed and without nukes.
I'm not sure if it was a "failed state" at that point. True, we did not like the brutal
Taliban to be in charge, but I don't think it had no effective central government. It did.
How clueless do you have to be to express antipathy towards Gabbard's stance and question
"what really matters"? What do these idiots think is more important than policies that send
our children to war?
"Senator Chris Murphy complained: "It's a little hard to figure out what itch she's
trying to scratch in the Democratic Party right now.""
Couldn't agree more, Senator Chris. Most Democrats really like these pointless, endless,
trillion dollar wars. They want to keep them going strong as long as possible, because
there's nothing Democrats like better than staggeringly expensive government programs, and
when it comes down to a choice
between being more frugal and getting Americans out of the Middle East on the one hand, or
a big, juicy budget-busting festival of spending, refugee floods, and death on the other,
there's no question where Chris Murphy and the Democratic Party stand.
As for Tulsi Gabbard, who does she think she's kidding? An anti-war Democrat? A fiscal
restraint Democrat? A "focus on America not foreign wars" Democrat? Whoever heard of such a
thing? She needs a new party, one that isn't run by billionaire elites serving corporate or
foreign interests. Call it "the American Party", to distinguish it from the corrupt garbage
offered by the globalist elites and foreign interests who run the Democrats and GOP.
I appreciate your silly tirade against the Democrats, hate to rain on your biased parade
BUT it is BOTH corrupt political parties that perpetuate this senseless crusade! Both of
these parties should be dismantled and banned!
Tulsi would make the best of all presidents but I am afraid the CIA working for the owner
Oligarchs of the evil Military Industrial War Crime Complex would do the same thing they
did to Kennedy so they could put a stooge in office to do their bidding.
All these wars weren't against terrorists and such. For a good strategist, that was the
best opportunity to get in the Central Asia and plant your bases there under the belly of
Iran, Russia, and China and start making mischief and prepare for the next phases. At that
point, with the new man at helm in Moscow and China getting lift-off, it was clear that the
planned take over of the entire world economy was not happening, so action needed to be
taken.
As for the 6.4 trillion dollars and such, what should be clear to any with two brain
cells between their ears is that the US has no intention to ever repay those loans, or any,
at least not to foreigners. And is the duty of the American cogs to shed their blood for
their betters' ever expanding profits.
I could remind readers that Hillary Clinton is not now running for president and is not
ever going to be president, but I know the TAC target demographic uses snarls about Hillary
the way the rest of us use punctuation marks, so I guess I can let the gratuitous
first-paragraph sneer slide.
Your representation of the Sen. Murphy quote is upside down, inside out, and completely
obviates the rest of the article. He is not bemused that someone is trying to sell steaks
to vegetarians. He is asking why she is trying to sell refrigerators to eskimos.
Meanwhile, her fellow Democrats appear abysmally unconcerned about the human and
financial toll.
You... couldn't be bothered to spend even 15 seconds typing in a name of one of the
Democratic frontrunners and the words "foreign policy" or "endless wars" into google?
"From endless wars that strain military families to trade policies that crush our middle
class, Washington's foreign policy today serves the wealthy and well-connected at the
expense of everyone else... A strong military should act as a deterrent so that most of the
time, we won't have to use it. We must continue to be vigilant about the threat of
terrorism, but it's time to bring our troops home... That means cutting our bloated defense
budget and ending the stranglehold of defense contractors on our military policy."
I'm well to the left of center, and I donated to Tulsi early in her campaign. So many
conservatives have praised her that she's become suspect for people on the left. She's
allowed herself to become a one issue candidate, and that's unworkable in a presidential
campaign.
Her anti gay activities in the past are problematic, and although she identifies as a
Hindu, there are claims she's or was member of a cult like group. It's very clear to me
that the Evangelicals would attack her for her religion in any event. Tulsi will never be
president, but I hope she continues her battle to end the forever war.
There is blindness across the political spectrum about the perilous state of the world.
They do not see the similarities with 1914 and 1939. The situations are not identical, no
two situations are. But the pattern is clear.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
"... The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August 2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate evidence to assign blame to Syria. ..."
Manufacturing a pretext for the U.S.
missile strike on Syria in April 2018 is nowhere near the biggest of OPCW's crimes. The
OPCW is an accessory , both before and after the fact to the crime of
mass murder.
It should now be clear to everyone that Syrian "rebels" gassed thousands of hostages in
cellars, most likely with chlorine gas, and then paraded the victims in White Helmets
snuff videos. OPCW conspired in this crime in both encouraging the terrorists to more murder
and by protecting them afterward by assigning blame to Assad and the Syrian government.
The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August
2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their
pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate
evidence to assign blame to Syria.
We have been documenting
these crimes and hoaxes at A Closer Look On Syria from December 2012. OPCW was used
from the beginning to manufacture consent for war. See for example:
Of course, the OPCW is already there! I highly suggest Caitlin Johnstone's article b
linked be read, which can be
found here .
We should expand on Petri's number of people involved in this crime to include all the
paid disinformation artists noted in Caitlin's essay at minimum. What becomes very clear in
all this is the total collusion with OPCW upper level management--those whom the
whistleblowers and their allies within OPCW petitioned--in these crimes as Petri contends.
Until they are visibly replaced, nothing issued by OPCW has any credence.
OPCW has shown to be a pure political entity, used at will by few regimes in the UN to
promote their agenda, b has done a tremendous job to humanity to bring the truth to the
public worldwide. Syrians have paid the price for UN leaders support to global terrorism for
too long. It must stop now.
"... Starting to remind me more and more of JFK. She's a natural at public speaking; I don't think I've ever seen her lost for words, and while she must have prepared herself for many of these questions. she launches immediately into her response and does not use recovery pauses like "Ummm " that break up the flow of her speech. She responds instantly and seemingly spontaneously, and delivers the whole message as a seamless package. ..."
Did she say she would not vote for impeachment? Up to recently, I thought that, while she was
the best of a bunch of fakers, clowns and idiots, her lack of experience and toughness were
fatal flaws..
However, her ongoing performances suggests to me that she is capable of being a
good president – the first in decades in my opinion.
Starting to remind me more and more of JFK. She's a natural at public speaking; I don't think
I've ever seen her lost for words, and while she must have prepared herself for many of these
questions. she launches immediately into her response and does not use recovery pauses like
"Ummm " that break up the flow of her speech. She responds instantly and seemingly
spontaneously, and delivers the whole message as a seamless package.
"... The polarizing Fox host dismantled the official Western media narrative in a seven-minute segment that included an interview with the Guardian correspondent who personally witnessed the second whistleblower present evidence to the agency. ..."
"... "America almost attacked a country and killed untold thousands of people over an attack that may never have happened in the first place – that powerful people may very well have been lying about," Carlson told his audience, replaying footage of his show from the days following the attack to show he'd always been suspicious it had happened as reported. ..."
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has crossed an MSM Rubicon and questioned the Douma "gas
attack" fraud on air, bringing up the OPCW whistleblower. Then he "rooted for Russia" over
Ukraine. Was it a "betrayal," or epic truth-trolling?
Carlson boldly went where no mainstream TV host had gone before, unpacking the
explosive story of April 2018's Douma "chemical weapons attack." While the "attack" was
attributed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by an altered report from the Organization for
the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, two whistleblowers within the group accused it of
omitting evidence to craft a misleading narrative – a fact that has never crossed the
lips of US media until Monday night.
Must Watch @TuckerCarlson Segment Tonight: New Evidence Shows Syria's Assad May Have
Been Falsely Blamed for 2018 Chemical Attack"We've been lied to, we've been manipulated, we
knew it at the time." pic.twitter.com/vKw6YnphcT
-- The Columbia Bugle (@ColumbiaBugle) November 26, 2019
The polarizing Fox host dismantled the official Western media narrative in a
seven-minute segment that included an interview with the Guardian correspondent who
personally witnessed the second whistleblower present evidence to the agency.
"America almost attacked a country and killed untold thousands of people over an attack
that may never have happened in the first place – that powerful people may very well
have been lying about," Carlson told his audience, replaying footage of his show from the
days following the attack to show he'd always been suspicious it had happened as
reported.
Carlson is politically astute and media smart. He would not make such statements unless he
was sure they would not be excessively damaging, advance his message and boost his
popularity. A real risk is Fox News pulling the plug though.
Fortuitous indeed that I was not eating or drinking anything when he mentioned Samantha Power
and 'stupid decisions'; otherwise, there would have been a pressure-diffused spray of it
everywhere. He did indeed let it all hang out – I continue to marvel at his
transformation. Who would ever have imagined? I would once have liked to hear of him being
roasted alive over a slow fire, back when he was snarking and smirking his way through
defenses of the Bush administrations ham-fisted policy strangulation. Well, by God, whatever
it takes, and hero biscuits to the medium. Rock on, Tucker.
2:42
I find it funny that Kamala said that because if there is any candidate on that stage that
"can speak to all people" it's definitely Tulsi. Conservatives actually appreciate and
respect Tulsi Gabbard, even tho we disagree with her with just about everything, she actually
does a good job speaking to both sides. She's the only candidate that shows respect to
conservatives and isn't afraid to go on Fox News. Unlike Kamala. Conservatives do not like
her and we know she doesn't care about us.
"... Sanders went on to argue that "pressure has got to be put on media" to cover policy issues like income inequality and poverty more heavily, instead of devoting attention to sensational campaign moments and the state of political horse races. ..."
"... 'You know what, forget the political gossip. Politics is not a soap opera. Talk about the real damn issues facing this country.'" ..."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has not been shy about
his disdain for the mainstream media. But the
Democratic presidential hopeful
has rarely, if ever, articulated it as bluntly as he did in an interview that aired on
MSNBC 's "
The Rachel Maddow Show " on Friday night. Sanders
called out the network for its corporate character in a novel exchange with host
Rachel Maddow .
"The American people are sick and tired of establishment politics and economics, and by the way, a little bit tired of corporate
media as well," Sanders told Maddow in an interview taped in Burlington, Vermont.
Maddow pressed Sanders for specifics on how he would change the media if he were president. "What's the solution to corporate
media?" she asked.
"We have got to think of ways the Democratic party, for a start, starts funding the equivalent of Fox television," Sanders
answered. Of course, MSNBC is a corporate media outlet that is widely seen as a Democratic version of Fox News because of the perceived
sympathies of many of its political talk shows.
Sanders went on to argue that "pressure has got to be put on media" to cover policy issues like income inequality and poverty
more heavily, instead of devoting attention to sensational campaign moments and the state of political horse races.
He then claimed that bringing that pressure to bear would be difficult, since corporate ownership makes it harder for news outlets
to cover issues in a way that conflicts with the interests of top executives. "MSNBC is owned by who?" Sanders asked. "Comcast, our
overlords," Maddow responded with a chuckle.
"All right, Comcast is not one of the most popular corporations in America, right?" Sanders said. "And I think the American people
are going to have to say to NBC and ABC and CBS and CNN, 'You know what, forget the political gossip. Politics is not a soap
opera. Talk about the real damn issues facing this country.'"
According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give
Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.
If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter
peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.
While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a
large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.
Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re
direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain
their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?
Since its creation in 1948, the modern state of Israel has steadily stolen Palestinian land
and driven Palestinians from their homes, cities and villages.
Nothing has been done to halt Israel's steady march to tighten its absolute control of the
Palestinian people with the obvious goal of ethnic cleansing, an historic fact well documented
by Israeli scholar
Ilan Pappe .
Under the protection of a security-obsessed military occupation, fully supported and
underwritten by U.S. tax payers, Israel denies it has broken any laws. Israel makes its own
self-preservation laws. It listens to no higher authority.
Israel has destroyed olive tree orchards and smothered stolen farmlands and pastures with
modern malls where U.S. firms like Ace Hardware and Burger King enrich stock holders who don't
know, or don't care, that they are taking part in the ugly crime of ethnic cleansing.
(The first time I saw an Ace Hardware store in a Ma'ale Adumim mall, I started my own
personal boycott of Ace, an action unfair to employees of my local Ace outlet, but one that has
increased the receipts of my small neighborhood hardware store.)
The narrative of Israeli governments heeding no call but their own, has been with us all
along, but U.S. media readers/viewers have avoided having to think about it, or do anything
about it.
They live comfortably within their bubble of ignorance which is created and sustained for
them by their newspapers, news magazines, television outlets, radio broadcasts, government
leaders and, alas, their religious leaders.
It does not have to be this way. During the last decade, the narrative of settlements like
Ma'ale Adumim has been available on the internet in reports like this one from Electronic Intafada , which begins
:
It is only a fifteen minute bus ride from Jerusalem to the Ma'ale Adumim settlement. After
entering through guarded gates, one's first impression is of a Miami-style suburb. The town
at noon seems almost abandoned because the major part of Ma'ale Adumim residents head off to
work in Jerusalem during the day. . . .
As soon as Barack Obama demanded from Israel the simple act of "freezing" its settlement expansion , Israel trotted out Public
Relations Plan A for distribution to the media: Have a heart, settlement residents need room
for their families to grow.
Israel operates on the logic of the man found guilty of killing his parents. The guilty man
begged for mercy on the grounds that he was now an orphan.
To tell you about the Israeli settlers' plea for mercy, the Los Angeles Times (July 6) delivered its version of the
orphan story: "Israel's settlements in West Bank present a major hurdle."
The opening paragraphs of the Times story set the tone for the plea with weasel words
(Lobby talking points) used by writer Edmund Sanders:
Reporting from Ma'ale Adumim, West Bank -- This sprawling, well-manicured Israeli
settlement -- with its rows of red-tile roofs, palm trees and air-conditioned shopping mall
-- could almost pass for Orange County. Except the guards in this gated community sometimes
pack automatic weapons.
Settlements such as the city-sized Ma'ale Adumim, about four miles east of Jerusalem in
the West Bank, are viewed by much of the world as illegal because they are built on land
seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War. Many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of
their country.
Now let us review the weasel words.
The reference to the illegality of Ma'ale Adumim is softened by the qualifying rhetorical
device, "viewed by much of the world as illegal". The phase "viewed by" suggests that the issue
at hand is open to debate among reasonable people.
Reasonable, as, for example, as a story that might have appeared in a Birmingham, Alabama,
newspaper, circa 1939, reporting that "segregation is viewed by many in the South as as a way
to maintain harmony between the races and preserve our Southern Way of Life."
Should such an analysis have been open to debate? No, certainly not in the minds of a small
number of courageous Southern liberals, and an increasingly impatient black population.
It required two more decades of U.S. racial oppression for that "debate"–for and
against segregation–to reach a definitive conclusion with "all deliberate speed".
Now we have a 21st century debate. The Times' Monday story includes the phrase: "many
Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of their country." Do they, indeed? How many Israelis?
Most polls suggest that sentiment is largely confined to the pro-settler community, while
"security-minded" government leaders continue to demand the inclusion of Ma'ale Adumimin a
future Israeli state
To other more fair-minded Israelis the phrase "many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of
their country", unpleasantly evokes the case of the parent-killer who begs for mercy because he
is an orphan.
The Time s story continues:
Now the long-simmering dispute over this and other fast-growing settlements has become a
major obstacle to restarting peace talks.
Settlement building is not a long-simmering dispute. It is part of decades of immoral and
illegal actions by Israel and is much more than a "major obstacle" to peace talks. It is an
indisputable violation of international law, which, if allowed to stand, will block any
successful peace talks.
The parent-killer should mourn his Mom and Dad from his jail cell, not while sitting in the
sun in his well-watered grass covered private backyard, shaded from the hot summer sun by a
picnic umbrella purchased from a nearby Ace Hardware.
The LA Times reserves most of its early sympathy for the illegal settlers of an
illegal city with these touching "facts":
"Why is President Obama interfering with our lives, telling us how many children we can
have and whether we can get married?" asked Benny Kashriel, longtime mayor of Ma'ale Adumim.
. . .
Talk about a possible freeze has many here worried.
"You can't freeze a city," Kashriel said. "If you freeze, you go backwards. Every month we
are not building and people are not coming, it affects the economic situation of the city. .
. . It's punishing."
A freeze, officials say, would threaten the opening of four new synagogues and seven
sorely needed schools. Class sizes are already near the legal limit of 40 students per
room.
An additional 400 units of housing in various stages of construction might also be shut
down, leaving homeowners -- many of whom have already taken out mortgages up to $300,000 --
with monthly payments and no place to live.
The Times knew American readers would identify with those folks holding mortgages of
up to $300,000 with monthly payments and no place to live. And those same readers can also
identify with parents whose children are in schools "near the legal limit of 40 students per
room".
Further down in the story, the Times reports on the Arab village of Aziriyeh, (in
biblical times, the village of Bethany), where Lazarus was called from his grave by Jesus. (Or
as the Times writes, carefully avoiding any validation of a religious belief, "where the
biblical Lazarus is said to have risen from the dead").
The comparison of Aziriyeh (Bethany) with Ma'ale Adumim is fact-filled. The comparison also
strains for a "balance" that is impossible to achieve between occupiers and the occupied.
Since 1967, the story reports, the village of Aziriyeh has had three-fourths of its land
stolen to enlarge Ma'ale Adumim. Its mayor, Issam Faroun, makes a comparison between his
citizens and those of the illegal citizens of Ma'ale Adumim. The facts are presented fairly.
The comparative use of water is an example.
Mayor Faroun said:
. . . that as Ma'ale Adumim frets about the fate of its landscaped grounds or swimming
pools, Azariyah residents receive water only once a week. The town gateway has turned into a
junkyard of trash, scrap metal and old appliances. Schools have 45 students per class and
unemployment is 50%, in part because the barrier prevents workers from reaching
Jerusalem.
With no room to expand horizontally, families are adding second and third stories to their
homes as children grow up and marry. Bassem abu Roomy, 31, still lives in his parents' house,
sharing two rooms with his pregnant wife and two children. His younger brothers are not so
lucky.
"We can't add any more stories because the foundation of the house can't support it," he
said. "So they can't get married."
When did the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis in Aziriyeh (Bethany) and Ma'ale
Adumim go wrong? When that first brick was laid in Maale Adumim soon after 1967? When Ma'ale
Adumim gobbled up three fourths of Aziriyeh's farmland for its own use? Name your own moment in
recent memory.
The LA Times wants us to look back no further than two decades when the biblical
village of Lazarus and the modern Israeli city of Ma'ale Adumim had, as the Times
describes it, their harmonious relations "strained".
A decade ago, the two communities lived somewhat harmoniously. Israelis shopped in
Azariyah [Bethany] and Palestinians worked on housing projects in the settlement. But during
the last Palestinian uprising, in 2000, two settlers were shot in the village and relations
have been strained since.
The competing needs of these two communities have become part of the international
debate.
So there you have it. Everything was fine until two Israeli settlers were shot. This is a
case study on why the Israeli Lobby and the U.S. Congress are so grateful for news stories like
this one that appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
For Sanders and the Times , the Arab village of Azariyah and the modern illegal city
of Maale Adumim are merely playing a role in an "international debate".
No wonder that parent-killer failed to get any respect with his request for mercy because he
was now an orphan. He did not have the support of his own personal lobby making a case for
orphans who have killed their parents.
The picture above is of a barrier in the Arab village of Azariyah (Bethany). The break
in the barrier has been covered by barbed wire. The wire is removed and replaced on a regular
basis by Israeli authorities, who built the barrier in the first place. This photo is from
the website of the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and
Israel.
Progressive journalist Michael Tracey claimed Tuesday that MSNBC is has dropped all
pretenses for their "contempt" towards Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).
The political news contributor said the left-leaning network has treated her fellow 2020
Democratic candidates, including businessman Andrew Yang , and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unfairly, but he argued
that with Gabbard it, "crosses a certain threshold."
"Fundamentally they're beholden to whatever the market incentives are and right now it's
within their market interests to depict Tulsi as an infiltrator, as a Trojan horse in the
Democratic Party and not deal on the substance with what she's saying which is why over and
over again they tar her as a Russian plant essentially," Tracey told Hill.TV.
"There's nobody who can really offer any kind countervailing view because it's just not
economically advantageous for them at this point," he added.
MSNBC didn't immediately return Hill.TV's request for comment.
Tracey pointed to a fiery exchange between Gabbard and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) during last week's 2020
primary debate as a prime example.
During the debate, Harris accused Gabbard of being a conservative media darling and
consistently going on Fox News to bash President Obama during his tenure.
"I think that it's unfortunate that we have someone on this stage who is attempting to be
the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, who, during the Obama
administration, spent four years full-time on Fox News criticizing President Obama," Harris
said.
Gabbard dismissed the criticism, calling it "ridiculous."
The California senator also hit Gabbard over her meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
who U.S. officials have accused of being a war criminal. Harris concluded her attack by saying
that Democrats need a candidate who can take on President Trump as well as "bring the party and
the nation together."
The back-and-forth came after Gabbard criticized the Democratic Party of fashioning outdated
foreign policies "represented "by Hillary Clinton and others' foreign
policy."
"Our Democratic Party unfortunately is not the party that is of, by and for the people. It
is a party that has been and continues to be influenced by the foreign policy establishment in
Washington, represented by Hillary Clinton and others' foreign policy, by the military
industrial complex and other greedy, corporate interests," she said.
Leading up to the fifth Democratic debate, Gabbard engaged in a weeks-long feud with Clinton
after the former Democratic presidential nominee said the Hawaii lawmaker was "the favorite of
the Russians."
'thanks b.. looking at the theatre, it seems dems have backed themselves into a corner... meanwhile obama wants to ca-bosh
sanders... You know if Sanders had some character he would run as an independent with Tulsi.. but you all know that stands a snowball
chance in hell.. the problem with conformists, is they spend too much time conforming and that doesn't end up serving anyone..
and it is the reason trump got elected - he is not a conformist.. self centered narcissist, yes, but conformist - no.. too bad
about american leadership being persona non grata...
what i don't understand is why bernie doesn't run as an independent? if he is so great and would be great for the usa, why
can't he figure this basic picture out? this is why i give merit to jackrabbit sometimes - it is all political theatre and they
are all in it together raping the common people..
"... and now Obama weighs in to warn against the real danger to the democrats, Bernie Sanders. that's who they have to beat, and Gabbard. They don't give much of a damn about beating Trump. ..."
"... This pretty much confirms my and many others here hypothesis that the Dems are fighting a "war on two fronts": one against Trump nationalist capitalism and the other against the "democratic socialists" who have been flocking to their party machine since 2014. ..."
"... Clearly, the goal is to prevent the US Polity from clawing back power from the 10% and enacting policies to their benefit. Meanwhile, a new form of Transnational Nationalism continues to take shape that will soon present a serious threat to the Financialized Globalizers and their Cult of Debt. Too many seem to laugh off the entire situation by dismissing it as Kabuki Theatre, which I see as self-serving and shortsighted since there're several very real crises we're in up to our collective armpits. ..."
"... A full blown impeachment trial that exposes the entire Russia-gate/Ukraine-gate/Whatever-gate sham is what this country needs. ..."
"... Bet the MSM sells Ukrainegate this way: Trump is guilty in Ukrainegate and should be impeached, but Democrats are moving on to focus on the election. And besides, Dems will tell us, the dastardly Republicans in the Senate will corruptly block Trump's impeachment. ..."
"... That is what they call a "trial balloon." If there isn't too much of a freakout among the true-believer base, and I don't think there is, it'll be an option they will at least take seriously. Not that I'm encouraging anyone to bet on rational thinking at this point. Anyway I agree it's the best move for congressional Democrats. ..."
"... I am liking all the commenters here that understand that there is only one empire party with two mythical faces. I think this kabuki is necessary if you don't have a major WAR to keep the masses focused on or otherwise distracted from the underlying R2P which I translate to Rape2Protect. ..."
"... If this show should teach people in the US anything (again), it is how both US parties descend like vultures onto countries where they manage to take over the government. Five billion poured into Ukraine with the requisite murder and mayhem, and who knows how many billions come pouring back out. It's a real jackpot for those in the right positions to scoop it into their pockets. ..."
"... The average people in the US don't even have a genuine safety net. Important for all those productive resources to go to pedophile islands and sinecures for coke head sons of politicians, obviously. ..."
"... The GOP is the party of the rich. The Democrats are the party the rich pay to keep the left at bay when the Republicans lose. ..."
"... the deck is stacked even more against independents than it is against actual mildly leftist candidates who run as democrats. there are a substantial number of people who think the only way to change the country is to take over the democratic party. frankly, that isn't going to happen, and nobody is going to win as an independent candidate with all the procedural rules making it so hard to even get on the ballot, while the state government, which is invariably controlled by one of the two parties, throws every roadblock, legal and illegal, in the way. my gut feeling is things are going to have to get quite a bit worse before the citizenry starts to explode, and there's no telling how that process will work out, and no way to control it once it reaches critical mass. ..."
"... the Democrats won't want to censure Trump for matters in which they themselves are equally complicit, as has been discussed here. ..."
"... "The party's true function is thus largely theatrical. It doesn't exist to fight for change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly bestir itself to fight for change. Thus the whole magic of the Dem Party -- the essential service it renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere existence: by simply existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and this is enough to relieve despair & to let the system portray itself as a "democracy." ..."
"... Trump is up against an entrenched powerful bureaucracy and people who buy ink by the 55 gallon barrel. The democrats need to take a hard turn towards Mayor Pete and Tulsi. The rank and file Democrats are tired of the elite political class ..."
"... The real Trump move would be to hit the twitter right before the house impeachment vote and announce that he has instructed the House Republicans to vote for impeachment. ..."
"... He could lay out his story about how the American People never got to hear the full story because of house dems, and how the Senate would fully investigate the 2016 election, Russiagate, Ukraine, and whatever else they want. Maybe even make Hillary testify. Heads would explode and his base would love it. ..."
"... To the people here clamoring for Bernie Sanders to go independent: The American electoral system is very unique. The two parties -- GOP and Dems -- are much more than mere political parties: they are the American electoral machine itself. It is impossible to win the presidency without being the candidate of one of the two, that's why Trump also didn't go as an independent either. ..."
"An impeachment trial in the Senate would be a disaster for the Democrats.
I can not see why the Democrats would want to fall into such a trap. House leader Nancy
Pelosi is experienced enough to not let that happen."
The real reason in my opinion that Pelosi went along with impeachment was that she saw
Bernies message getting through, and even though the DNC pushed all the conserva-dem
candidates they could into the race, Bernie is still doing well and gaining. An impeachment
trial would require Bernie to attend the hearings rather that campaigning. Also Wall Streets
best friend Obama has just stated that Bernie is not a Democrat and that would require Obama
to get on the speaking circuit to campaign against him - you know for the sake of the
corporations - and those 500k speaking thank you gigs. They would rather elect Trump than
Bernie - that is why I think Pelosi would go along with an impeachment trial in the Senate -
Bernie is the greater threat.
The idea to censure Trump and move on has been aired since mid 2017. The latest was
Forbes.com billwhalen 26 September 2019
Link
I ordered a truckload of pop corn to snack on during the trial in the Senate. Just imagine
Joe Biden under cross examination as he flips 'n flops! "Was that me in the Video, I can't
recall."
With interest (even among Democrats) in the impeachment process sliding, the House
Judiciary Committee is set to take over the impeachment probe of President Trump next week,
scheduling a Dec. 4 hearing.
As The Hill reports, behind Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the committee
will hear from legal scholars as Democrats weigh whether the evidence turned up in their
weeks-long impeachment inquiry warrants the drafting of articles aimed at removing the
president from office.
The hearing, scheduled for next Wednesday, will focus on the definition of an
impeachable offense and the formal application of the impeachment process. The panel
will invite White House lawyers to attend and participate.
Ahead of the hearing, Nadler wrote to Trump requesting his participation - or
that of White House counsel - as part of ensuring "a fair and informative process."[.]
Trump will take a page from the other president who campaigned on the "do nothing
congress"
and now Obama weighs in to warn against the real danger to the democrats, Bernie Sanders.
that's who they have to beat, and Gabbard. They don't give much of a damn about beating
Trump.
b, there seems to be a critical flaw in your analysis--you seem to base it on a premise that
the goal of the Democratic establishment is to win elections/gain power/govern. It's not,
it's to ensure the continuing enrichment of themselves and their oligarch peers, financial
industry, military, pharma, etc.
The question people like Pelosi (worth $100 million or so btw along with her husband whose
business she enriches via her position) are pondering isn't "Will doing x, y, z help Trump
win?" It's "Will doing x, y, z ensure Bernie Sanders doesn't win?"
This pretty much confirms my and many others here hypothesis that the Dems are
fighting a "war on two fronts": one against Trump nationalist capitalism and the other
against the "democratic socialists" who have been flocking to their party machine since
2014.
Of all the things that the Democrats could impeach President Trump over, the one thing they
seized upon was the issue that had the most potential to blow back on them and destroy Joe
Biden's chances of reaching the White House. Whoever had that brilliant idea and put it as
the long straw in a cylindrical prawn-chip can along with all the other straws for pulling
out, sure didn't think of all the consequences that could have arisen. That speaks for the
depth (or lack thereof) of the thinking among senior Democrats and their worker bee analysts,
along with a narrow-minded outlook, sheer hatred of a political outsider and a fanatical zeal
to match that hatred and outlook.
The folks who hatched that particular impeachment plan and pitched it to Nancy Pelosi must
have been the same idiots in the DNC who dreamt up the Russiagate scandal and also pursued
Paul Manafort to get him off DJT's election campaign team. Dmitri Alperovich / Crowdstrike,
Alexandra Chalupa: we're looking at you.
Impeachment takes Sanders out of the campaign and that opens things up for the
CIA/establishment's "Identity Politics Candidate #3" , Mayor Butt-gig.
That said, since "Everyone who doesn't vote for our candidate is a deplorable
misogynist!" didn't work as expected, I wonder what makes them think "Everyone who
doesn't vote for our candidate is a deplorable homophobe!" will work any better?
Lots of agreement here with the overall situation becoming clearer with Bloomberg's entrance
and the outing of Obama's plans. I just finished writing my response to Putin's speech before the annual
United Russia Party Congress on the Open Thread and suggest barflies take 10 minutes to
read it and compare what he espouses a political party's deeds & goals ought to be versus
those of the West and its vassals.
Clearly, the goal is to prevent the US Polity from clawing back power from the 10% and
enacting policies to their benefit. Meanwhile, a new form of Transnational Nationalism
continues to take shape that will soon present a serious threat to the Financialized
Globalizers and their Cult of Debt. Too many seem to laugh off the entire situation by
dismissing it as Kabuki Theatre, which I see as self-serving and shortsighted since there're
several very real crises we're in up to our collective armpits.
A full blown impeachment trial that exposes the entire
Russia-gate/Ukraine-gate/Whatever-gate sham is what this country needs.
Obviously, a sufficient number of secure Republican representatives are needed to vote in
favor of impeachment to allow this circus to continue to its bizarrely entertaining,
Democratic Party destroying end.
The MSM will declare Trump guilty - that is, he has earned impeachment for Ukrainegate.
There are Democrats still under the illusion that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the
election. Dems tell us that Trump *obstructed* the Mueller investigation thus Trump could not
be nailed, nonetheless Trump is guilty of collusion until proven innocent.
Back to Ukrainegate. Bet the MSM sells Ukrainegate this way: Trump is guilty in
Ukrainegate and should be impeached, but Democrats are moving on to focus on the election.
And besides, Dems will tell us, the dastardly Republicans in the Senate will corruptly block
Trump's impeachment.
Tulsi
Gabbard Tweet not specifically about impeachment but begs numerous questions:
"My personal commitment is to always treat you and all Americans with respect. Working
side-by-side, we can defeat the divisiveness of Donald Trump, and usher in a 21st century of
peace, human dignity, & true equality. Working side by side, we can make Dr. King's dream
our reality ." [My Emphasis]
Questions: Is Trump divisive, or is it the D-Party and Current Oligarchy that make him so;
and which is more important to defeat? Which party "usher[ed] in the 21st century" with
several wars and abetted the next two? How did Obama, Slick Willie or his wife advance "human
dignity & true equality"? How does her last sentence differ from "Hope you can believe
in"? Hasn't her D-Party worked tirelessly for decades to circumvent the goals she espouses?
Wouldn't Gabbard have a better chance running as an Enlightened Republican than as a Renegade
Democrat if her goal's to defeat Trump?
American Democracy is political professional wrestling, Kabuki Theater, and mediocre Reality
TV all rolled into. by: AK74 @ 4 <= binary divide <=conducted by the USA, is not about
America, Americans or making America great again, its about the welfare of [the few<=
which most Americans would not call fellow Americans].
Sasha.@ 23 I don't understand where you are coming from.. thank Korlof1 @18 for posting
that Putin talk alert. excerpts from the talk.. => The priority [of United Russia has
been] the protection of the people's interests, the interests of [the] Motherland, and
..responsible [approach] to ..country, its security, stability and people's lives in the
long-term perspective.
The party.. offered a unifying agenda based on freedom and well being, patriotism,
..traditional values, a strong civil society and a strong state. The key issue in the party's
work .being together with the people, Karlof1@18 <=this talk suggest change in Russian
leadership that are not congruent with your [Sasha] comment @23. I hope you will make more
clear what you spent sometime writing ( and for that effort I thank you) but it is not yet
clear what you mean.. .
Re: Brenda Lawrence talking about censure rather than impeachment:
That is what they call a "trial balloon." If there isn't too much of a freakout among
the true-believer base, and I don't think there is, it'll be an option they will at least
take seriously. Not that I'm encouraging anyone to bet on rational thinking at this point.
Anyway I agree it's the best move for congressional Democrats.
Yet another other option is to continue the investigation indefinitely. I'm going to say
it is their default move actually. In that case, the House Judiciary Committee would spend a
few weeks putting on their own show, then say they would like more evidence to be really
sure, returning matters to the House Intelligence Committee, and we repeat the cycle.
I am liking all the commenters here that understand that there is only one empire party
with two mythical faces. I think this kabuki is necessary if you don't have a major WAR to
keep the masses focused on or otherwise distracted from the underlying R2P which I translate
to Rape2Protect.
It is sad to see us all talking about which of the lesser of horrible evils will continue
the leadership of American faced empire.....I hope it crashes soon and takes the global elite
down with it.....how many barflies are ready to stand up and say NO to the owners of the
Super-Priority derivatives that will say they own the world because of their casino (no skin
in the game) bets that are currently "legal" in America when the crash comes?
American "Democracy" is a mask for the American Empire and its capitalist
system--including especially the American Military and its Intelligence apparatus (aka The
Deep State). If the American people don't identify with these institutions, you would see
much greater hostility to -- if not outright rebellion against--the American military and
spooks.
Instead, you see the very opposite: the American people saluting, glorifying, "thanking
for their service," and politically fellating the US military and spy agencies every chance
they get. That should tell you all you need to know about Americans.
If this show should teach people in the US anything (again), it is how both US parties
descend like vultures onto countries where they manage to take over the government. Five
billion poured into Ukraine with the requisite murder and mayhem, and who knows how many
billions come pouring back out. It's a real jackpot for those in the right positions to scoop
it into their pockets.
The average people in the US don't even have a genuine safety net. Important for all
those productive resources to go to pedophile islands and sinecures for coke head sons of
politicians, obviously.
Re: #3 Allen – well said. The GOP is the party of the rich. The Democrats are the
party the rich pay to keep the left at bay when the Republicans lose.
The problem with this prediction is that the MSM has been breathlessly pronouncing that THIS
IS EXPLOSIVE EVIDENCE!!!! pretty much every day and after every witness testimony.
So if you are a member of the public who gets their "information" from the MSM (and, be
honest, that is most of the people in the USA) then you have been force-fed is that Trumps
defense against these allegations has already been shredded, and that his guilt has already
been established beyond any reasonable doubt.
How can those opinion-makers then turn around and say "Nah, it'll be fine" and settle for
a mere censure?
Wouldn't the Sheeple respond with a fully-justified "Hey, hang on! What gives?"
The Democrats has leapt on a Tiger. Nobody made them do it, but now they are there I don't
think they are going to be able to leap off.
Some of the first-term nobodies, maybe, but not the Schiffs and the Pelopis and the
Nadlers.
Hang on for dear life and hope for a miracle is probably their only option now.
And, who knows, that trio may be so incompetent that they actually think they are going to
win.
james, the deck is stacked even more against independents than it is against actual
mildly leftist candidates who run as democrats. there are a substantial number of people who
think the only way to change the country is to take over the democratic party. frankly, that
isn't going to happen, and nobody is going to win as an independent candidate with all the
procedural rules making it so hard to even get on the ballot, while the state government,
which is invariably controlled by one of the two parties, throws every roadblock, legal and
illegal, in the way. my gut feeling is things are going to have to get quite a bit worse
before the citizenry starts to explode, and there's no telling how that process will work
out, and no way to control it once it reaches critical mass.
The US is a one party State-- Pepsi _Pepsi Lite. Both parties are capitalist. It is rather
humorous the attention paid to a Dim vs Repug argument. Small thinking for small minds---
As I posted at the beginning of the impeachment process, the Dems would be foolish to hang it
all on the arcane shenanigans in Ukraine but rather should impeach Trump on the numerous more
serious breaches and crimes that he has committed. I also worried that the Democratic Party
leaders would blow the opportunity to demonstrate that Trump and the Republican Party are
rotten to the core and harmful to the country. And so they have blown it. What an inept pack
of asses.
I would think that even censure is still going to be a hot potato for the Democrats. Looking
at the procedure as far as wikipedia describes it, it hasn't done anything of significance
when it comes to being used against a president, especially as the Democrats won't want
to censure Trump for matters in which they themselves are equally complicit, as has been
discussed here.
That means they would be censuring on the same shaky grounds that they would have
impeached him, which only prolongs attention upon the dubious claims of the indictment. It
seems to me Trump will, rather than be shamed by the process, only be saying 'Make my day',
and hopefully have his Attorney General come forward with exonerating revelations on that
issue in the judicial proceeding that it was my contention the impeachment effort had been a
last ditch one to forestall such.
Wishful thinking on that, I know - but at least that probe has merit.
Thanks for your reply! And thanks for linking the Keen video! Made a comment on that
thread.
As I wrote when the possibility of Trump's impeachment arose almost as soon as he was
inaugurated, the entire charade reminds me of Slick Willie's impeachment, trial and
exoneration--the Articles of Impeachment utilized were such that he'd avoid conviction just
as they will be for Trump.
Allen @ 3 said; "The party's true function is thus largely theatrical. It doesn't exist
to fight for change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly
bestir itself to fight for change. Thus the whole magic of the Dem Party -- the essential
service it renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere
existence: by simply existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and
this is enough to relieve despair & to let the system portray itself as a
"democracy."
With very few exceptions, you nailed it..Your description of the Dem. party is sad, but
true.....
Not having much time to watch the show trial it appears to me the Democrats still have a set
of very weak candidates. Anyone who knows Biden knows he in not now and never will be able to
handle a campaign against Trump.
Trump is up against an entrenched powerful bureaucracy and people who buy ink by the
55 gallon barrel. The democrats need to take a hard turn towards Mayor Pete and Tulsi. The
rank and file Democrats are tired of the elite political class in the same fashion that
the rank and file Republicans were tired of the political establishment which caused then to
turn to Trump.
Is the Democrat political establishment smart enough to take a few steps back and push
forward some outsiders? I doubt that but they would not lose much if they did. Any new
leaders would have the same stable of bureaucrats to pick from which will still be there long
after they are gone.
The real Trump move would be to hit the twitter right before the house impeachment vote
and announce that he has instructed the House Republicans to vote for impeachment.
He could lay out his story about how the American People never got to hear the full
story because of house dems, and how the Senate would fully investigate the 2016 election,
Russiagate, Ukraine, and whatever else they want. Maybe even make Hillary testify. Heads
would explode and his base would love it.
The...***The***...core takeaway, the battle at the heart of Russiagate/Ukrainegate, is that
it does not matter who the People elect as President and what platform he was elected on the
Deep State will decide foreign policy.
democrats republicans makes no difference both teams are managed by self serving scum who
refuse to allow "what the people want" to distract them from the big one. "what can I
steal?".
People meed to appreciate two things about both the dems and the rethugs. The first is
they supply a much-needed insight into: "How low can I go as a worthless hang off the wagon
by me fingernails, careerist. The second? That every hack must understand that eventually
every talking head is seen for the ugly sellout which they are.
There is no 'honourable way through this mess', one either quietly resigns pulling the pin
on the worst of us all, or one accepts the previously unacceptable, that we are most likely
both musically n functionally illiterate but it never matters what-u-say, what really counts
is what you do.
Whoever it was the Democrats should shun that person before it creates more damage to
their party.
I would disagree here. If the Democrats continue they will destroy themselves hopefully
leading to Mutually Assured Destruction as they would need to do something very drastic to
destroy the Republicans in return e.g. expose 9/11, Iraq etc, let the swamp / Deep State go
M.A.D. and from the political ashes parties and politicians can rise who are actually working
for the betterment of the USA and its people.
To the people here clamoring for Bernie Sanders to go independent: The American
electoral system is very unique. The two parties -- GOP and Dems -- are much more than mere
political parties: they are the American electoral machine itself. It is impossible to win
the presidency without being the candidate of one of the two, that's why Trump also didn't go
as an independent either.
Bernie Sanders is different from all other independent presidential candidates in American
History because he was the first to really want to win. That's why he penetrated the
Democratic machine, even though he became senator many times as an independent. He read the
conjuncture correctly and, you have to agree, he's been more influential over American
political-ideological landscape than all the other independents put together (not considering
Eugene Debs as an independent).
American "Democracy" is a mask for the American Empire and its capitalist
system--including especially the American Military and its Intelligence apparatus (aka The
Deep State). If the American people don't identify with these institutions, you would see
much greater hostility to--if not outright rebellion against--the American military and
spooks.
Instead, you see the very opposite: the American people saluting, glorifying, "thanking
for their service," and politically fellating the US military and spy agencies every chance
they get.
That should tell you all you need to know about Americans. by: AK74 @ 34
<= No not yet do I agree with you.. The American young people are forced into the
military in order to afford to be educated, and in order to have access to health care and
good-level workforce entry jobs especially the military is default for children of struggling
parents that cannot fund a college education or for the kids who are not yet ready to become
serious students.
The USA has not always discounted America or denied Americans. When I grew up, a college
education was very affordable, health care was available to even the most needy at whatever
they could afford, most of us could work our way through the education and find decent entry
level jobs if we were willing to dedicate ourselves to make the opportunity of a job into a
success (education, degrees, licenses were not needed, just performance was enough).
Unfortunately third party private mind control propaganda was used to extend into fake space,
the belief that the USA provides a valuable service to American interest. As time went on,
the USA had to hid its activities in top secret closets, it then had to learn to spy on
everyone, and it had to prosecute those (whistle blowers) who raised a question. Hence the
predicament of the awaken American dealing with friends that still believe the USA is good
for America.. Others hope the good times will return but the USA tolerance for descent is
dissipating. After the 16th amendment and the federal reserve act in 1913 the USA began to
edge America out in favor of international globalization.
Most of the really important parts of what made the USA great for Americans has been sold
off [privatized] and the protections and umpiring and refereeing that the USA used to provide
to keep the American economic space highly competitive and freely accessible to all
competitors has not only ceased, but now operates as a monopoly factory, churning out laws,
rules and establishing agencies that make the wealthy and their corporate empires wealthier,
richer and more monopolistic at the expense of everyday Americans.
The USA began to drop America from its sights after WWII. The USA moved its efforts and
activities from American domestic concerns to global concerns in 1948, neglected its advance
and protect American ideology; it imposed the continental shelf act in 1954 and the EPA act
in 1972, in order to force American industry out of America (the oil business to Saudi Arabia
and OPEC); by 1985-95 most businesses operating in America were either forced to close or
forced to move to a cheap third world labor force places.. .<=the purpose is now clear, it
was to separate Americans from their industrial and manufacturing know-how and to block
American access to evolving technology . At first most Americans did not notice.
Many Americans are only now waking to the possibility that things topside have changed and
some are realizing just how vulnerable the US constitution has made the USA to outside
influence. .. thanks to the USA very little of good ole America remains. but the humanity
first instinct most Americans are born with remains mostly unchanged, even though the
globalist have decimated religious organizations, most Americans still believe their maker
will not look favorably on those who deny justice, democracy or who abuse mankind. The USA
has moved on, it has become a global empire, operating in a global space unknown to most
Americans. The USA has created a world of its own, it no longer needs domestic America, it
can use the people and resources of anyone anywhere in the world for its conquest.
The last two political campaigns for President were "Change=Obama" and "Make America Great
Again=Trump"; neither of these two would have succeeded if Americans did not feel the
problem.
According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give
Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.
If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter
peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.
While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a
large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.
Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re
direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain
their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?
"The difficulty here is that Trump thinks he's defending the military, when he's not"
No, this is not about Trump defending the military. What this is about is how Trump thinks war should be fought, "tough" in
his words. What he means by this is troops should be utterly ruthless. They should murder and kill civilians, as this strikes
fear into the enemy and shows them how "tough" we are. Plus of course Trump likes vengeance. No one should be surprised by this
as Trump has voiced strong support for war crimes, he wants "strong" torture, he wants the families of terrorists, women, children,
elderly murdered to punish the terrorists. Sad thing is, I've heard lots of support for this kind of warfighting among conservatives.
Trump has the mentality of an authoritarian dictator, thankfully he's not that smart.
Army Col. Keven Benson suggests Trump may have overplayed his hand, considering all the wreckage he wrought playing to his base
at the possible cost of his legitimacy among those in uniform. Benson charges, too, that the president's decision to reverse the
directives of senior Navy officers in disciplining one of their own might lose him support not only among senior officers, but
among the rank and file -- a constituency that voted overwhelmingly to put him in the White House.
"You know, these guys, these three knuckleheads -- Lorance, Golsteyn and Gallagher -- might be welcome on Fox News," Benson
says, "but they wouldn't be welcome in my platoon."
Damn.
If it is all the same to everyone, I think we shouldn't indulge in the kind of permissiveness that makes incidents like the
My Lai Massacre or the Abu Graib prisoner abuse scandal possible.
I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 - 31 May 1968). That is to be blunt, I served as an enlisted man which
is equivalent to a working class peon in civilian life or an Indentured servant who didn't have the money to pay his passage to
the American colony but promised to serve an extended period of apprenticeship to pay it off. In American society at that time
an indentured servant was one rung above being a slave. So I am no fan of the brass. And I have never been a big fan of our Commander-in-Chief
"Bone Spurs" given what I saw during my tour of duty in Vietnam.
But on his decision to deny the brass javing their way and giving them the fickle finger of fate, i.e. the middle finger if
you don't get my drift, I support President Trump wholeheartedly. Anyone who can piss off the brass and make them whine like melting
snowflakes must be doing something right. Also does Mr. Perry remember when President Richard Nixon pardoned Lt. William Calley
after being convicted for the infamous My Lai Massacre?
The American people overwhelmingly supported Nixon's pardon.They will again support President Trump's decision. They do not
read the TAC. Nor do they read any other high-falutin' journal of political opinion. But they are still patriots in their minds.
But being populists they are not necessarily patriots when it comes to the brass who in their thinking are the equivalent of the
1% in civilian life.
It's historical class warfare that fuels populism even though these populists have probably never read Karl Marx. So the brass
can disagree vehemently with Trump, They can also resign like Richard Spencer did and join the private sector. But they may be
in for a rude awakening when they try to give an order to average civilians and are instead given fickle fingers of fate. And
besides, let's be real about this latest crisis du jour, there are plenty more brass where these whiners came from. I bet you
at the Pentagon the brass are literally bumping into each other just walking down the halls.
But they swore allegiance to our Constitution. The president gives orders to them as commander-in-chief. Not the other way
around. Mr. Perry doesn't get how our country has changed since Trump won the election. I assume reading this essay, and if I
am wrong I apologize here, he probably has never broken bread with the great unwashed given how he identifies with military authority.
Trump was elected president surfing on a wave of populism. He played his populist cards in this tempest in a teapot. He gets it.
He is playing to his base. He wants to get re-elected.
But I have one question for Mr. Perry. Why didn't the brass resign en masse against the Iraq War or all these useless Forever
Wars we have been fighting?
These same people stood by and watched our military be socially engineered and gender normed to the point of incompetence. These
are Obama sycophants pure and simple.
A "crisis" in Special Ops is good. Anything that weakens Deepstate is good. Trump didn't make his decision on this basis; he only
needed to assuage his ego; but nevertheless he accidentally did the right thing.
I don't much care about this since I consider most all US military to be war criminals. I suppose I just note the cosmic justice
which punishes many of them with PTSD, drug addiction, and suicide. Now... let's get on with privatizing the VA.
The desk jockey keyboard warrior officers in the Pentagon want to make examples even if they have to use prosecutorial misconduct
to do it and that will help morale and discipline?
Trump should get rid of all the swamp Generals and Admirals. I'm sure they
will enjoy retirement making millions at Lockheed and Raytheon. Trump supports the Troops, not the Bureaucrats.
One gets the impression that the "Rules of Engagement" seem to have been the issue in the case discussed here but they were forgotten
in the bureaucratic squabble between the military and the White House.
People like Pete Hegseth call Chief Gallagher's service exemplary and repeat that he was acquitted of 'alleged war crimes'.
He was acquitted because a medic testified that after he and Gallagher stabilized a wounded, sedated prisoner after 20 minutes,
Gallagher inexplicably stabbed him (non-fatally) below the collar bone, stormed off, and then the medic suffocated him before
Iraqi security forces could torture him. Later Gallagher posed with his corpse.
This is not the sign of a well man or one who was making a snap, life or death decision. I'm not interested in punishing Gallagher
but this hero worship of our military and failure to acknowledge that these long deployments are breaking down our military is
self-deception. But I won't be surprised if I see a trifecta of Trump, Hegseth, and Gallagher at a campaign stop.
If we are being honest, I bet the IRGC has a better reputation than us in the M.E.
Julius Caesar was able to march on Rome because the soldiers gave their fealty to him over Rome. I find Trump's pardoning of soldiers
accused of war crimes deeply disturbing.
The first and foremost principle that must be maintained is that the President has complete authority over the military. Its one
of the central constructs of our republic. The most egregious offence was for Spencer to defy Trump's order. Regardless of what
one's opinion on the state of the special forces is, we can't go down that road. To say that Trump is destroying the commanders
authorities is bass ackwards. The US military, like it or not, MUST have civilians over and above them.
Having said that, I completely agree that there is something very bad wrong with the special forces and especially the Navy
Seals. My experience with Green Berets in the Vietnam era is that they were very effective in working with indigenous populations,
to include recruiting fighters to our side, spoke their language, were highly competent, tough as nails, and very humble. Out
of uniform, one would not even know they were Green Berets. Likewise almost all Army Rangers are equally humble. Green Berets
are recruited from the Rangers.
I never had any personal experiences with Navy Seals, but over the last decade or so at least, its obvious that a large percent
of them are a bunch of braggadocios chest thumpers. There is something seriously wrong with the Navy Seal recruitment program
or training or both. They have a very bad reputation of making their missions public, making jokes out of their security clearances
and never seem to be held accountable for such violations.
The regular military has always distrusted the SOF for the very reasons cited in this article. The Pentagon forbade the beret
until JFK overruled the brass in 1963.
The Founding CO of that vaunted Tier 1 unit Seal team 6 was convicted of federal crimes and spent time in prison in the 1980s.
The Green Beret affair in 1965 resulted in the murder of a allied civilian in Vietnam. The military grew these units beyond
reasonable levels and has misused and overused them since 9/11,
One is left to wonder whether the president has really overplayed his hand or these naval officers are simply Trump-haters as
is all too often the case these days. I'd have to go with let the Navy be the Navy and handle it's own business. But one has to
question whether these officers would've objected as strongly had it been Obama giving the orders?
What a disgrace... I'm a dovish, pacifist peacenik, but even I understand maintaining organizational order, respect for authority,
chain-of-command... (and have respect for many in the military for their desire and attempts to play by international rules and
by-the-book procedures.)
Trump & Gallagher (who strikes me as a sadist) are a disgrace and Fox News is especially beyond the pale, giving Gallagher
a platform to impugn his commanding officer! in public! Where has anyone ever gotten away with that before?... unbelievable.
I guess you could hope for some silver lining that this might undermine the DoD's global empire tendencies... but I'm not sure
this is a good way to get that done (ie leaving or promoting arrogant, cruel men like Gallagher, with the stench of by-gone barbarism
clinging to him, in the services:)
If I were one of this president's advisers, I would make one thing clear.
Don't tweet instructs to any department or department member because it is neither a proper channel for official communique's
nor is it conducive to to effectively, management and more times than not creates more trouble that it solves.
After listing the reasons why "twitter" is an inappropriate forum. i would of course be fired. But I am deeply concerned that
the president is conducting official business in open forums such as twitter.
The official in question was certainly being reasonable to request the order either direct communique or in riding. Given the
nature of twitter, it was a reasonable expectation.
Laugh: I think there are plenty of issues with the military justice system. But that is another matter best left out of twitter
feeds.
Why didn't anyone mention what the effect of these democracy wars are having on our soldiers considering they aren't actually
protecting the country but helping the Muslims move over to it, not just here but to Europe as well.
Most of the terrorist fighters are coming and going from other countries and travel freely oh and besides in Syria we're really
not fighting terrorists but over-throwing a government.
To top it all off these actions are helping to bankrupt our nation. I wonder how this plays for morale of our soldiers? I'm
sure many don't care, the majority of people indluding those just coming in ro the country seem to hate the country anyway so
why would anyone want to fight for them and then maybe there is another side who sees it all and cares, cares that they are losing
their nation. What about the "fight them over there but love them and bow down to their diverstity"? What happens when you realize
that you're not the savior you thought you would be and no one is greatful to have you around, they are fighting you endlessly
and ruthlessly while you're ttying to be a gentle invader, not fighting to win but to install democracy and can't figure out why
no one wants your gift of gentrification.
I'm not so sure I could take his rank from him either, maybe just give him a break from the war on the ground and the two sides
of the war in his head.
On the other hand we increasingly see an unwillingness by the military and Deep State to be ruled over by civilian government,
and instead of a commander in chief, to make of elected Presidents mere puppets for their consensus.
I disagree with Lt.Col Milburns (Ret.) The UCMJ is military law and military law is part of federal law. The president has the
right to pardon anyone convicted under the UCMJ but his authority stops where the law is concerned. The president isn't above
the law, he can countermand the conviction but he can't force the military to withdraw the A@D given by the individual services.
That remains the prerogative of the commanders. Discipline must be maintained and the commanders are responsible and accountable
for that discipline.
CIC is a title conferred on a civilian president, he states that they are responsible for the strategic decisions used to justify
the use of our military forces, the Presidents actions with regard to anything other than the pardon does not meet the criteria
of a strategic decision.
And if water isn't involved in the mission then there really isn't need for SEALS to be there. Mission creep on the part of
the Navy to increase Spec Ops budgets.
Rank has their privilege and as far as I know, PDJT is the CiC. So either you - the un-elected bureaucrat, shut up and follow
the order or put up and resign your commission.
"... 38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall. ..."
"... The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention: ..."
"... With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons ..."
"... There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening. ..."
he Eurasia Group Foundation's new survey of public
opinion on U.S. foreign policy finds that support for greater restraint continues to rise:
Americans favor a less aggressive foreign policy. The findings are consistent across a
number of foreign policy issues, and across generations and party lines.
The 2019 survey results show that most Americans support a more restrained foreign policy,
and it also shows an increase in that support since last year. There is very little support for
continuing the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, there is virtually no appetite for war with
Iran, and there is a decline in support for a hawkish sort of American exceptionalism. There is
still very little support for unilateral U.S. intervention for ostensibly humanitarian reasons,
and support for non-intervention has increased slightly:
In 2018, 45 percent of Americans chose restraint as their first choice. In 2019, that has
increased to 47 percent. Only 19 percent opt for a U.S.-led military response and 34 percent
favor a multilateral, UN-led approach to stop humanitarian abuses overseas.
38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another
31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of
Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that
there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night.
Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to
scale back U.S. involvement overall.
The report's working definition of American exceptionalism is a useful one: "American
exceptionalism is the belief that the foreign policy of the United States should be
unconstrained by the parochial interests or international rules which govern other countries."
This is not the only definition one might use, but it gets at the heart of what a lot of hawks
really mean when they use this phrase. While most Americans still say they subscribe to
American exceptionalism either because of what the U.S. represents or what it has done, there
is less support for these views than before. Among the youngest respondents (age 18-29), there
is now a clear majority that rejects this idea.
The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with
its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran
has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been
nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to
elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this
year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more
support for negotiations and non-intervention:
A strong majority of both Republicans and Democrats continue to seek a diplomatic
resolution involving either sanctions or the resumption of nuclear negotiations. This year,
there was an increase in the number of respondents across party lines who would want
negotiations to resume even if Iran is a nuclear power in the short term, and a bipartisan
increase in those who believe outright that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons to
defend itself. So while Republicans might be more likely than Democrats to believe Iran
threatens peace in the Middle East, voters in neither party are eager to take a belligerent
stand against it.
With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against
Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons, and it
isn't doing that. It may be that the failure of the "maximum pressure" campaign has also
weakened support for sanctions. Support for the sanctions option dropped by almost 10 points
overall and plunged by more than 20 points among Republicans. In 2018, respondents were evenly
split between war and sanctions on one side or negotiations and non-intervention on the other.
This year, support for diplomacy and non-intervention in response to this imaginary nuclear
weapons program has grown to make up almost 60% of the total. If most Americans favor diplomacy
and non-intervention in this improbable scenario, it is safe to assume that there is even more
support for those options with the real Iranian government that isn't pursuing nuclear
weapons.
There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and
avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant
constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right
now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they
want. It is long past time that Washington started listening.
This message is brought to you thanks to the efforts of the combined staffs of the History and Sociology Departments of Alligator
University.
This year of our Lord, the holy Flying Spaghetti Monster 2019, we have discovered a legend--a living, fire-breathing legend at
that. Not since the days of Boudica , a warrior Queen, has the
earth seen such a warrior. Not surpassed by Jean d Árc nor Katherine the Great. This warrior of the wireless age has not only exhibited
compassion on the battlefield, as befits a person of high honor, but has the uncanny ability to perform as the best of Generals (not
just Majors) throughout recorded history have done. Know wherein lies the enemy. Know your own strengths. Know your own weaknesses.
When engaging the enemy, do not hold back. Fight to win! Win as big as you can, while sparing needless damage.
Tulsi, our subject (and [bias apparent here] champion), has arisen, almost from the sea. Far to the West across the Great Water,
from islands spewed from the mouths of living volcanoes, emerged, almost as an eruption, our Warrior Princess Tulsi. She fought to
defend her tribe by joining a council of the advisers, then abandoning such sedentary life and chosing battle instead. Fighting with
distinction, Tulsi saved the lives of many fellow soldiers. Her counsel proved both wise and humane. Troops and others recognized
Tulsi's emerging greatness, coupled with compassion.
To the delight of her cadre, Tulsi sallied forth to the land known today as The Great Swamp. Chauvinistically however, I believe
my south Florida estuary is the true Great Swamp. But we shall leave that debate to a later time.
She joined a regiment called the DNC. At first it seemed to Tulsi this to be a desirable posting, surrounded by fields and rivers
with pleasing structures in which to live. Continuing her steady progress up the ranks, our Warrior Princess, as yet untested by
actual combat, joined others to high councils of War and of Foreign trysts.
But only a few years had yet to pass during her service, Tulsi sensed some problems in the command chain. Plans seemed to favor
neither Nation nor Military, but instead the commanders themselves. Upon thus learning, Tulsi resigned her position, abandoning the
ill-disposed regiment, seeking mission achievement over promotion.
A loosely knit Brigade, called the Democratic Party, united by the power of money and of power itself, was to become the default
posting of TWP. Unfortunately the chain of command was rent asunder by internal factions, an unholy tug of war resulting. This war
is still actively contested--we are in a state of war.
[Injection of unpaid political endorsement, not approved by TWP] Folks, we need this brave general to lead.
Contesting amongst others for the ultimate Brigade command was Tulsi and 21 22 (23?) others. The concept grew either
too tiresome or expensive for many contestants, who either became sick or perished from fatigue and/or loneliness. The field of battle
was becoming clarified, gaining Tulsi progressively improving evaluation and appropriate planning for future campaigns.
The First Slain Enemy, Olaf the Oaf
From the gentle hills and scattered forests of Ohionia came Olaf. Initially he was known as Olaf the Ogre; until he was slain
by sword blows from Warrior Tulsi. Description of her foe is warranted. Her foe was a giant, tall and strong. But Olaf was neither
quick of wit nor of foot. Large he was, as said. The ground would rumble beneath his foot steps. Trees were bent aside as he strode
unstoppably through the woods. Local dwellers both feared and respected Olaf, the mighty.
The battle: the setting is on a level plain under illumination of many cell phones torches soon after sunset.
Other contestants on the field have agreed that only two contestants combat each other. Female referees would enforce rules of combat.
Tulsi and Olaf faced each other. In his ponderous way, Olaf declared his desire to engage. With that, Warrior Tulsi swiftly smote
his pate with a mighty broadsword blow. Owing to the thickness of Olaf's cranium, the sound of the resultant impact was heard for
miles. Yea, more than a thousand miles some say. Rending Olaf's pulsating brain irreversibly damaged, the Oaf staggered from battleground,
only to succumbing to his wounds months later.
Not being particularly fond of Olaf, I did not check the source of the following: it is estimated that 30 people attended his
internment, including undertakers.
Yet the Campaign had only just begun. More foes to conquer.
Second Casualty: Klammer the Camel
Venturing forth from the Kingdom of Kalifornication comes (but not for very long) the former Lord High Executioner, Klammer the
Camel. Since Klammer is of mixed parentage, it is unsure whether Klammer is a Dromedary (one hump camel) or a two hump Bactrian camel.
It is recorded that an expert on Klammer's humping is retired statesman Willie Brown.
It is said said that Klammer's exhalations could kill enemies at 10 paces. Yet Klammer's best weapon was heaving heavy Criminal
Code books at her victims. Strangely, Klammer looked reasonably fit in her drab clothing. Foes who faced her in battle have noted
how white Klammer's teeth are as she gnashes at them. She had a strange reaction to cannabis. When others utilized the substance,
she raged and destroyed them, if she could reach them. Yet when she herself inhaled the aroma of such burning vegetation, she became
as if in a trance.
The battlefield: very much like the field upon which brave Tulsi slew the Oaf, at night with many candles burning held
by acolytes of various contestants. Once again, only two were allowed combat at a time. Supremely self-confident of victory, flush
with self-satisfaction after inflicting a minor wound on former vice-king JoJo the Far Gone. Klammer first engaged other contestants,
smirking from her presumed victories. Now brimming with confidence bordering on hubris, Klammer stood her ground. Then, in a well-planned
straight ahead frontal attack, delivered with swiftness and ferocity, Tulsi struck her foe. And struck her. While Klammer lay quivering
on the ground, TWP demanded an apology of her for her past sins. When none was evinced, Tulsi stuck the tip of her blade into Klammer's
seeming impenetrable armor. This wound, though not immediately fatal, nevertheless is proving fatal to the now debilitated Klammer.
Klammer attempted a counter-attack at another field before falling slack-jawed after a mere glare from Tulsi. Not yet dead, but soon.
Third Casualty: Boots the Jiggler
Wandering from a land not far from the home of Olaf, proceeds the Stolid Boots. He sets his sights on new lands to conquer. The
city he leaves is burning and being plundered by wandering Mnuchkins from the neighboring fiefdom of Illinois. Unconcerned with the
plight of the subjects of the Boots' prior management, Boots bravely strides forth, still not battle-tested. He gathers with him
followers, some of whom are loyal, while others need financial encouragement to participate in his campaign.
Boots has been gifted with the ability to speak so eloquently and at such length that those auditioners of his monologues are
both amazed and yet unable to understand the essence of Boots' message.
The battlefield: interestingly quite similar to those upon which Tulsi administered the blows dispatching the Oaf and crippling
the Camel. Once again, remaining combatants aligned to watch two of their number engage upon combat.
Boots, buoyed by the support of his entourage, summoned forth 400 of his Southern Army to aid in his battle. There Boots turned
upon Tulsi, promising to not only to vanquish her by his superior generalship but send troops across the Southern border. But, becoming
anxious of TWP, he turned to assay his retinue of 400. But lo, none remained, most not having left the barracks.
In face-to-face combat Boots met Tulsi. Mutually acknowledging their military experience, Tulsi struck blows into the Jiggler.
This assault froze Boots into place, unable to respond. The above picture of Boots was made immediately after a biting blow from
Tulsi's broadsword. He was heard to mumble something like "Et tu, Tulsi?".
. . . . .
Campaigns against larger enemies are soon to come. One looming conflict may be likened to a civil war against Brooklyn Bernie
which hopefully be short. A battle against the Hokey Okie is inevitable.
Our AU colleagues assure me that the Feared Medusa will enter the fray after more rivals have fallen. The Snake-head leads a mighty
army, most of whom are oddly cyborg-like. Bots I think they call them. Hilbots actually.
A musical coda is appropriate here. A good choice is a warning, an admonition to those contemplating with the Warrior Princess.
In 2001 and in 2002 Congress passed authorizations for war. While not declarations of war,
these mandates, each titled an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) provided the
legal framework for attacks against al-Qaeda in 2001 and in 2002 for the Iraq War. Both AUMFs
are still in effect today. As Congress considers its annual authorization to fund the Pentagon
our current members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate, are in positions of
responsibility and ability to repeal these AUMFs.
The effect of the AUMFs :
Based on FBI and
journalist
investigations, al Qaeda had between 200-400 members worldwide in September of 2001. Al Qaeda
now has affiliates in every corner of the world, their
strength measures in the tens of thousands of members, and they control territory in Yemen,
Syria and parts of Africa. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now control as much as 60 percent of the
territory and, with regards to international terrorism, where there was one international
terror group in Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon now
reports twenty such groups .
ISIS was formerly al Qaeda in Iraq, an organization that came into existence solely due to
the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States. US military
,
intelligence agencies, journalists
and other
international organizations continually report that the reason people join such groups is
not out of ideology or religious devotion, but out of resistance to invasion and occupation,
and in response to the killing of family, friends and neighbors by foreign and government
forces. It is clear the AUMFs have worsened terrorism, not defeated it.
The cost of the AUMFs :
More
than 7,000 US service members have been killed and more than 50,000 wounded in the wars
since 9/11. Of the 2.5 million troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as many as 20% percent are
afflicted with PTSD, while 20 percent
more may have traumatic brain injury. The Veterans Administration reports Afghan and Iraq
veterans have rates of suicide
4-10 times higher than their civilian peers. This means almost two Afghan and Iraq veterans
are die by suicide every day. Do the math and it is clear more Afghan and Iraq veterans are
dying by suicide than by combat. The cost to the people overseas to whom we have brought these
wars is hard to grasp.
Between one and four million people have been killed, directly and indirectly, by these
wars, while tens of millions more have been wounded or psychologically traumatized, and tens of
millions more made homeless – the cause of the worst refugee crisis since WWII.
Financially, the cost of these wars is immense, at least $6 trillion. Of a vast many statistics that
compose this incomprehensible figure of $6 trillion, is that nearly $1 trillion of it is simply
just interest and debt payments. For any American, Democrat, Republican or independent, these
interest and debt payments alone should cause them to reconsider these wars.
The AUMFs have allowed for wars to be waged without end by the executive branch, wars the
American people, including veterans, say
have not been worth fighting . Congress has the ability and responsibility to help bring
about an end to these wars by ensuring the repeal of the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. Join the debate
on Facebook More articles by: Matthew Hoh
Matthew Hoh is a member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For Peace and
World Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in
protest of the escalation of the Afghan War by the Obama Administration. He previously had been
in Iraq with a State Department team and with the U.S. Marines. He is a Senior Fellow with the
Center for International Policy.
"... America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted. ..."
"... Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it. ..."
"... America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened. ..."
"... Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington. ..."
"... Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so. ..."
The motives for so many Western spies serving the Soviet Union – and in the 1940s and
1950s the Soviets had the best "humint" on earth – were rather idealistic. This was
largely true for the Cambridge Circle in Britain. They were concerned that America was going
to "lord it over" the Russians and everyone else.
America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the
1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted.
Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined
towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of
major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent,
sensitive type would be concerned by it.
You certainly did not have to be a communist to feel that way, but being one assisted with
access to important Soviet contacts. They sought you out.
America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable
position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over"
as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened.
It made little secret of its desire to keep such a monopoly, so brilliant people like
Oppenheimer would be well aware of something they might well regard as ominous.
Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the
Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there
were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington.
A hugely important general like MacArthur was unblinkingly ready in 1950 to use atomic
weapons in the Korean War to destroy North Korea's connections with China.
I read several major biographies of Oppenheimer, and there is little to nothing concerning
Soviet intelligence work. When I came across the Sudoplatov book with its straightforward
declaration of Oppenheimer's assistance, it was difficult to know how to weigh the claim.
Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even
insist they do so.
Judging by what is suggested here, if Oppenheimer did help, it was in subtle ways like
letting Klaus Fuchs, a fellow scientist and a rather distinguished one (but a Soviet spy),
look at certain papers. But the scientific community always has some considerable tendency to
share information, a tendency having nothing to do with spying.
In general, it should be understood, that Oppenheimer, despite all his brilliance, was a
rather disturbed man all his life. Quite early on, as just one example, he attempted to
poison someone he did not like. Only pure luck prevented the man's eating a lethally-laced
apple. There were other disturbing behaviors too.
Later they believed that equality of superpower status for the Soviet Union would
contribute to world peace.
How dumb were these "scientists". Everyone knows that once Soviet Union fell, peace and
freedom and democracy are flowering all over the world and United States are not waging any
wars anymore.
Alligator Ed
on Fri, 11/22/2019 - 8:53pm This message is brought to you thanks to the efforts of the
combined staffs of the History and Sociology Departments of Alligator University.
This year of our Lord, the holy Flying Spaghetti Monster 2019, we have discovered a
legend--a living, fire-breathing legend at that. Not since the days of Boudica , a warrior Queen, has the earth seen such
a warrior. Not surpassed by Jean d Árc nor Katherine the Great. This warrior of the
wireless age has not only exhibited compassion on the battlefield, as befits a person of high
honor, but has the uncanny ability to perform as the best of Generals (not just Majors)
throughout recorded history have done. Know wherein lies the enemy. Know your own strengths.
Know your own weaknesses. When engaging the enemy, do not hold back. Fight to win! Win as big
as you can, while sparing needless damage.
Tulsi, our subject (and [bias apparent here] champion), has arisen, almost from the sea. Far
to the West across the Great Water, from islands spewed from the mouths of living volcanoes,
emerged, almost as an eruption, our Warrior Princess Tulsi. She fought to defend her tribe by
joining a council of the advisers, then abandoning such sedentary life and chosing battle
instead. Fighting with distinction, Tulsi saved the lives of many fellow soldiers. Her counsel
proved both wise and humane. Troops and others recognized Tulsi's emerging greatness, coupled
with compassion.
To the delight of her cadre, Tulsi sallied forth to the land known today as The Great Swamp.
Chauvinistically however, I believe my south Florida estuary is the true Great Swamp. But we
shall leave that debate to a later time.
She joined a regiment called the DNC. At first it seemed to Tulsi this to be a desirable
posting, surrounded by fields and rivers with pleasing structures in which to live. Continuing
her steady progress up the ranks, our Warrior Princess, as yet untested by actual combat,
joined others to high councils of War and of Foreign trysts.
But only a few years had yet to pass during her service, Tulsi sensed some problems in the
command chain. Plans seemed to favor neither Nation nor Military, but instead the commanders
themselves. Upon thus learning, Tulsi resigned her position, abandoning the ill-disposed
regiment, seeking mission achievement over promotion.
A loosely knit Brigade, called the Democratic Party, united by the power of money and of
power itself, was to become the default posting of TWP. Unfortunately the chain of command was
rent asunder by internal factions, an unholy tug of war resulting. This war is still actively
contested--we are in a state of war.
[Injection of unpaid political endorsement, not approved by TWP] Folks, we need this brave
general to lead.
Contesting amongst others for the ultimate Brigade command was Tulsi and 21 22
(23?) others. The concept grew either too tiresome or expensive for many contestants, who
either became sick or perished from fatigue and/or loneliness. The field of battle was becoming
clarified, gaining Tulsi progressively improving evaluation and appropriate planning for future
campaigns.
The First Slain Enemy, Olaf the Oaf
From the gentle hills and scattered forests of Ohionia came Olaf. Initially he was known as
Olaf the Ogre; until he was slain by sword blows from Warrior Tulsi. Description of her foe is
warranted. Her foe was a giant, tall and strong. But Olaf was neither quick of wit nor of foot.
Large he was, as said. The ground would rumble beneath his foot steps. Trees were bent aside as
he strode unstoppably through the woods. Local dwellers both feared and respected Olaf, the
mighty.
The battle: the setting is on a level plain under illumination of many cell
phones torches soon after sunset. Other contestants on the field have agreed that only
two contestants combat each other. Female referees would enforce rules of combat.
Tulsi and Olaf faced each other. In his ponderous way, Olaf declared his desire to engage.
With that, Warrior Tulsi swiftly smote his pate with a mighty broadsword blow. Owing to the
thickness of Olaf's cranium, the sound of the resultant impact was heard for miles. Yea, more
than a thousand miles some say. Rending Olaf's pulsating brain irreversibly damaged, the Oaf
staggered from battleground, only to succumbing to his wounds months later.
Not being particularly fond of Olaf, I did not check the source of the following: it is
estimated that 30 people attended his internment, including undertakers.
Yet the Campaign had only just begun. More foes to conquer.
Second Casualty: Klammer
the Camel
Venturing forth from the Kingdom of Kalifornication comes (but not for very long) the former
Lord High Executioner, Klammer the Camel. Since Klammer is of mixed parentage, it is unsure
whether Klammer is a Dromedary (one hump camel) or a two hump Bactrian camel. It is recorded
that an expert on Klammer's humping is retired statesman Willie Brown.
It is said said that Klammer's exhalations could kill enemies at 10 paces. Yet Klammer's
best weapon was heaving heavy Criminal Code books at her victims. Strangely, Klammer looked
reasonably fit in her drab clothing. Foes who faced her in battle have noted how white
Klammer's teeth are as she gnashes at them. She had a strange reaction to cannabis. When others
utilized the substance, she raged and destroyed them, if she could reach them. Yet when she
herself inhaled the aroma of such burning vegetation, she became as if in a trance.
The battlefield: very much like the field upon which brave Tulsi slew the Oaf, at
night with many candles burning held by acolytes of various contestants. Once again, only two
were allowed combat at a time. Supremely self-confident of victory, flush with
self-satisfaction after inflicting a minor wound on former vice-king JoJo the Far Gone. Klammer
first engaged other contestants, smirking from her presumed victories. Now brimming with
confidence bordering on hubris, Klammer stood her ground. Then, in a well-planned straight
ahead frontal attack, delivered with swiftness and ferocity, Tulsi struck her foe. And struck
her. While Klammer lay quivering on the ground, TWP demanded an apology of her for her past
sins. When none was evinced, Tulsi stuck the tip of her blade into Klammer's seeming
impenetrable armor. This wound, though not immediately fatal, nevertheless is proving fatal to
the now debilitated Klammer. Klammer attempted a counter-attack at another field before falling
slack-jawed after a mere glare from Tulsi. Not yet dead, but soon.
Third Casualty: Boots
the Jiggler
Wandering from a land not far from the home of Olaf, proceeds the Stolid Boots. He sets his
sights on new lands to conquer. The city he leaves is burning and being plundered by wandering
Mnuchkins from the neighboring fiefdom of Illinois. Unconcerned with the plight of the subjects
of the Boots' prior management, Boots bravely strides forth, still not battle-tested. He
gathers with him followers, some of whom are loyal, while others need financial encouragement
to participate in his campaign.
Boots has been gifted with the ability to speak so eloquently and at such length that those
auditioners of his monologues are both amazed and yet unable to understand the essence of
Boots' message.
The battlefield: interestingly quite similar to those upon which Tulsi administered the
blows dispatching the Oaf and crippling the Camel. Once again, remaining combatants aligned to
watch two of their number engage upon combat.
Boots, buoyed by the support of his entourage, summoned forth 400 of his Southern Army to
aid in his battle. There Boots turned upon Tulsi, promising to not only to vanquish her by his
superior generalship but send troops across the Southern border. But, becoming anxious of TWP,
he turned to assay his retinue of 400. But lo, none remained, most not having left the
barracks.
In face-to-face combat Boots met Tulsi. Mutually acknowledging their military experience,
Tulsi struck blows into the Jiggler. This assault froze Boots into place, unable to respond.
The above picture of Boots was made immediately after a biting blow from Tulsi's broadsword. He
was heard to mumble something like "Et tu, Tulsi?".
. . . . .
Campaigns against larger enemies are soon to come. One looming conflict may be likened to a
civil war against Brooklyn Bernie which hopefully be short. A battle against the Hokey Okie is
inevitable.
Our AU colleagues assure me that the Feared Medusa will enter the fray after more rivals
have fallen. The Snake-head leads a mighty army, most of whom are oddly cyborg-like. Bots I
think they call them. Hilbots actually.
A musical coda is appropriate here. A good choice is a warning, an admonition to those
contemplating with the Warrior Princess.
"... "Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount of influence over both parties." ..."
"... She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so serious about what's at stake here." ..."
"... Democratic presidential primary debate, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Atlanta, via the AP. ..."
In a rare moment with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi
Gabbard explained why the leading figures in her party are war hawks. Far from days of the
Democrats feigning to have any semblance of an 'anti-war' platform (only convenient for Liberal
activism during the Bush years, but fizzling out under Obama), today's party attempts to
out-hawk Republicans at every turn.
"I'm looking at the Democratic establishment figures," Matthews introduced, "people I
normally like. John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton. You go down the list. They all supported
the war in Iraq. Why were they hawks? " (Though we might ask, what do you mean, "
were ?"). "Why so many Democrats with a party that's not hawkish, why are so many of
their leaders hawks?" Matthews reiterated.
In the segment, Matthews heaps rare praise on Tulsi for being "out there all alone tonight
fighting against the neocons."
"Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy
establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount
of influence over both parties."
She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors
have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have
people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical
decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so
serious about what's at stake here."
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and try again.
The interview happened immediately after this week's fifth Democratic debate Wednesday night
in Atlanta, and after pundits have continued to complain that Gabbard is a 'single issue
candidate'.
However, is there any candidate in her party or in the GOP saying these things?
We find ourselves in a rare moment of agreement with MSNBC's Matthews: she is "out there all
alone tonight fighting against the neocons." Tags Politics
And again, if we do win despite all the structural injustices in the system the Rs inherited and seek to expand, well, those
injustices don't really absolutely need to be corrected, because we will still have gotten the right result from the system
as is.
This is a pretty apt description of the mindset of Corporate Democrats. Thank you !
May I recommend you to listen to Chris Hedge 2011 talk
On Death of the Liberal Class At least to the first
part of it.
Corporate Dems definitely lack courage, and as such are probably doomed in 2020.
Of course, the impeachment process will weight on Trump, but the Senate hold all trump cards, and might reverse those effects
very quickly and destroy, or at lease greatly diminish, any chances for Corporate Demorats even complete on equal footing in 2020
elections. IMHO Pelosi gambit is a really dangerous gambit, a desperate move, a kind of "Heil Mary" pass.
Despair is a very powerful factor in the resurgence of far right forces. And that's what happening right now and that's why
I suspect that far right populism probably will be the decisive factor in 2020 elections.
IMHO Chris explains what the most probable result on 2020 elections with be with amazing clarity.
Bill Clinton destroyed the USA economy and middle class like no president has ever done.
Bush II and Obama exacerbated the destruction by the hundred folds.
I believe Hedges statement that "the true correctives to society were social movements
that never achieved formal political power" is perhaps one of the most important things for
each of us to understand.
I watched this with interest and curiosity and growing skepticism although he makes some
killer points and cites some extremely disturbing facts; above all he accepts and
uncritically so the American narrative of history.
The message from democrats is "hey we're not bigots". Most people (repubs+dems) aren't. If
they keep calling on that for energy the Dems will forever continue to lose. If they don't
come back to the working class they might as well just call themselves conservatives.
Those of us who seek the truth can't stop looking under every stone. The truth will set
you free but you must share it with those who are ready to hear it and hide it from those who
can hurt you for exposing it. MT
"A Society that looses the capacity for the sacred cannibalizes itself until it dies
because it exploits the natural world as well as human beings to the point of collapse."
I believe Hedges statement that "the true correctives to society were social movements
that never achieved formal political power" is perhaps one of the most important things for
each of us to understand.
I watched this with interest and curiosity and growing skepticism although he makes some
killer points and cites some extremely disturbing facts; above all he accepts and
uncritically so the American narrative of history. The Progressive movement, for example,
(written into American history as being far more important that it ever really was,) unlike
Socialism or Communism was primarily just a literary and a trendy intellectually movement
that attempted, (unconvincingly,) to persuade poor, exploited and abused Americans that non
of those other political movements, (reactive and grass-roots,) were needed here and that
capitalism could and might of itself, cure itself; it conceded little, promised much and
unlike either Communism or Socialism delivered fuck all. Personally I remain unconvinced also
by, "climate science," (which he takes as given,) and which seems to to me to depend far too
much on faith and self important repeatedly insisting that it's true backed by lurid and
hysterical propaganda and not nearly enough on rational scientific argument, personally I
can't make head nor tail of the science behind it ? (it may well be true, or not; I can't
tell.) But above all and stripped of it his pretensions his argument is just typical theist,
(of any flavor you like,) end of times claptrap all the other systems have failed, (China for
example somewhat gives the lie to death of Communism by the way and so on,) the end is neigh
and all that is left to do is for people to turn to character out of first century fairly
story. I wish him luck with that.
The message from democrats is "hey we're not bigots". Most people (repubs+dems) aren't. If
they keep calling on that for energy the Dems will forever continue to lose. If they don't
come back to the working class they might as well just call themselves conservatives.
I have always loved Chris Hedges, but ever since becoming fully awake it pains me to see
how he will take gigantic detours of imagination to never mention Israel, AIPAC or Zionism,
and their complete takeover of the US. What a shame.
The continued growth of unproductive debt against the low or nonexistent growth of GDP is
the recipe for collapse, for the whole world economic system.
I agree with Chris about the tragedy of the Liberal Church. Making good through identity
politics however, is every bit as heretical and tragic as Evangelical Republican corrupted
church think, in my humble, Christian opinion.
The death of the present western hemisphere governments and "democratic" institutions must
die right now for humanity to be saved from the zombies that rule it. 'Cannibalization" of
oikonomia was my idea, as well as of William Engdahl. l am glad hearing Hedges to adopt the
expression of truth. ( November 2019. from Phthia , Hellas ).
ass="comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> Gosh , especially that last conclusion
,was terrific so I want to paste the whole of that Auden poem here:- September 1, 1939 W. H.
Auden - 1907-1973
... ... ...
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Chris Hedges is our very own modern day Thomas Paine. Too bad most the sheep don't even
know he exists let alone be fired by his deeply powerful words and ideas. He is so dangerous
he is universally banned by any and all major media. He is so smart, so well read and so
incredibly morally powerful, they make sure only those few who like myself, go looking can
actually find him.
I only recently discovered Hedges myself. Needless to say, his speeches have blown my
mind. It only requires one to take a look at the world around us to see he speaks the truth.
If only more would wake up to this truth.
renderer-text-content expanded"> There is this Frank Zappa quote, I keep thinking of
when listening to Chris Hedges "The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's
profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to
maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will
move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the
theater." The illusion is hastily crumbling ... thanks CH for wording the decay so
clearly
Four cops were recently indicted for beating an under cover cop posing as a protester
during the recent St Louis race riots. Chris is absolutely correct when he says antifa is
half cops. The oligarchs want Marshall Law. And cops are playing their part in seeing that it
comes to pass.
"... Doesn't Warren claim to have indigenous ancestors herself and was proud of it? She caused Trump to call her "Pocahontas"? She agrees to support the unelected interim president Jeannine Añez, who refers to indigenous inhabitants as satanic? Warren is a very horrible person, inhumane, amoral, and rather stupid overall, who wants to get rich. ..."
"... I personally think that capitalism with "human face" and robust public sector is the way to go. But imperialist imposition and aggression is not the part of "human face" that I imagine. ..."
"... I'm sorry but you all need to come to terms with the farce that is the American political system. Anyone who was supporting Warren or even considering voting for her for ANY reason is apparently either in denial or is being duped. Warren is a Madison Avenue creation packaged for US liberal consumption. ..."
"... She hangs out with Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright, two evil women if ever there were. Now they make the three witches brewing one coup/regime change after another. She's not smart enough to see that HRC and MA are leading her around by her nose. People should call out this phoney everywhere she goes. BTW, Rachel Maddow completes an odious clique. ..."
"... This is a bit of exaggeration. The three ladies are more like good students, they did not write the textbook but they good grades for answering as written, or like cheerleaders, they jump and shout but they do not play in the field. Mind you, "interagency consensus" was formed without them. ..."
"... The DNC's strategy for this election is to ensure that Bernie doesn't go into the Convention with enough delegates to win the first ballot. (Once voting goes past the first ballot, super-delegates get to weigh in and help anoint a candidate who's friendly to the Party's plutocratic-oligarch principals.) ..."
"... That's the reason the DNC is allowing and encouraging so many candidates to run. Warren's specific assignment is to cannibalize Bernie's base and steal delegates that would otherwise be his, by pretending to espouse most of his platform with only minor tweaks. She's been successful with "better educated," higher-income liberal Democrats who consider themselves well informed because they get their news from "respectable" sources -- sources that, unbeknownst to their target audiences, invariably represent the viewpoint of the aforementioned plutocratic oligarchs. ..."
"... if Warren becomes the nominee, I will support her over Trump. It's a lesser of two evils choice, but we must recognize that no candidate will be perfect–ever. ..."
"... Zionism is typically the gateway drug for Democratic would-be reformers. Once they've swallowed that fundamental poison, the DNC feels secure it's just a matter of time before they Get With the Program 100%. Given that "Harvard" and "phony" are largely synonymous, what else could've been expected? ..."
Reiterates Her Neoconservative Policies Against Venezuela
Elizabeth Warren repeated her support for regime change in Venezuela in an interview in September with the
Council on Foreign Relations , a central gear in the machinery
of the military-industrial complex. "Maduro is a dictator and a crook who has wrecked his country's economy, dismantled its democratic
institutions, and profited while his people suffer," Warren declared. She referred to Maduro's elected government as a "regime" and
called for "supporting regional efforts to negotiate a political transition." Echoing the rhetoric of neoconservatives in Washington,
Warren called for "contain[ing]" the supposedly "damaging and destabilizing actions" of China, Russia, and Cuba. The only point where
Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that "there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela."
Soft-Pedals Far-Right Coup in Bolivia
While Warren endorsed Trump's hybrid war on Venezuela, she more recently whitewashed the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia.
Warren refused to comment on the putsch for more than a week, even as the far-right military junta massacred dozens of protesters
and systematically purged and detained elected left-wing politicians from MAS.
Finally, eight days after the coup, Warren broke her silence. In a short tweet, the putative progressive presidential candidate
tepidly requested "free and fair elections" and calling on the "interim leadership" to prepare an "early, legitimate election."
What Warren did not mention is that this "interim leadership" she helped legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian
fundamentalist, the unelected "interim president"
Jeanine Añez. Añez has referred
to Bolivia's majority-Indigenous population as "satanic" and immediately moved to try to overturn the country's progressive constitution,
which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after receiving an overwhelming democratic mandate in a 2009 referendum.
Añez's ally in this coup regime's interim leadership is
Luis Fernando
Camacho , a multi-millionaire who emerged out of neo-fascist groups and courted support from the United States and the far-right
governments of Brazil and Colombia. By granting legitimacy to Bolilvia's ultra-conservative, unelected leadership, Warren rubber-stamped
the far-right coup and the military junta's attempt to stamp out Bolivia's progressive democracy. In other words, as The Grayzone
editor Max Blumenthal put it, Liz's
Big Structural Bailey compliantly rolled over for
Big IMF Structural Adjustment Program
.
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone , and the producer of the "
Moderate Rebels " podcast, which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His
website is BenNorton.com , and he tweets at @
BenjaminNorton .
A vote for evil is never a good choice, and choosing a candidate you perceive as a lesser evil still condones evil. Allowing
the Oligarchy to limit your choice gives them the power to continue advancing evil policies. They control both major parties.
You may succeed in getting non-gender specific restrooms in your Starbucks, but the murdering war machine will continue unabated.
Now, we are seeing the true colors of candidates, who have professed to be progressive. Sanders went on a "tirade" against
Maduro during the last "debate" I saw. Tulsi Gabbard has stayed against US Imperialism, but, I'm sure the Democratic policy controllers
will never nominate her. I foresee I'll be voting for the Socialist next year.
Raymond M. , November 22, 2019 at 18:09
""""On Nov. 10, the U.S. government backed a far-right military coup against Bolivia's democratically elected President Evo
Morales bla blla bla".
And the 3 right wing candidates spent more time slinging mud at at each other than at Morales. Had the CIAs top front man Ortez stepped aside, the vote would not have split and allowed Morales to claim a first round victory and avoid
a run-off that he would have lost. And the right wing Christian fundamentalist for sure was a CIA plant who manged to split the
vote further.
Under the Trump administration, the CIA can even run a coup right.
If only those anti-Western rulers seen the light and joined RBWO (rule* based world order, * rules decided in DC, preferably
by bipartisan consensus), then the economy would run smoothly and the population would be happy. Every week gives another example:
By The Associated Press, Nov. 21, 2019, BOGOTA, Colombia
Colombians angry with President Iván Duque and hoping to channel Latin America's wave of discontent took the streets by the tens
of thousands on Thursday in one of the biggest protests in the nation's recent history. [ ] Police estimated 207,000 people took
part. [ ] government deployed 170,000 officers, closed border crossings and deported 24 Venezuelans accused of entering the country
to instigate unrest.
So if only Iván did not start unnecessary conflict with Maduro, these 24 scoundrels would stay home and the trouble would be
avoided. Oh wait, I got confused
CitizenOne , November 21, 2019 at 22:10
You must imagine that when candidtes suddenly become mind control puppets what is going on. The scariest thing in American
Politics is how supposedly independent and liberal progressives somehow swallow the red pill and are transported into the world
of make believe. Once inside the bubble of fiction far removed from human suffering which is after all what politicians are supposed
to be about fixing they can say crazy things. Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump are the only souls to retain their independent (yet
opposite) minds and both of them got the boot for being different.
Hide Behind , November 21, 2019 at 20:44
The puppet masters are experts, on the one hand there is A Republican, and on the other is a Democrat, but even they mess up
now and then get the different strings tangled.
Some come back on stage on the different hand so to save time they give a puppet two faces.
Watching same puppets gets old so every so often 2-4-6 they restring an old one that was used as props in past, change their makeup
a bit to give them new faces.
We do not actually elect the puppet, we instead legitimize the Puppeteers who own' s the only stage in town.
Those who choreograph the movements and change the backgrouds, media outlets and permanent bureaucrats know the plays before they
are introduced, and they know best how to get adults to leave reality behind and bring back their childhood fantacies.
Days of sugar plums, candy canes, socks filled with goodies and not coal, tooth fairys, and kind generous Fairy God Mothers.
Toy Nutcracker soldiers that turn into Angelic heros, Yellow brick roads, Bunnies with pocket watches, and and magic shoes of
red, or of glass in hand of handsome Princes and beautiful Princesses, all available if we vote.
So who votes, only those who control the voting puppets know that reality does not exist, they twitch we react, and at end of
voting counts one of hand's puppets will slump and cry, while others will leap and dance in joy, only for all to end up in one
pile until the puppeteers need them for next act.
Frederike , November 21, 2019 at 17:30
"What Warren did not mention is that this "interim leadership" she helped legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian
fundamentalist, the unelected "interim president" Jeanine Añez.
Añez has referred to Bolivia's majority-Indigenous population as "satanic" and immediately moved to try to overturn the country's
progressive constitution, which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after receiving an overwhelming democratic
mandate in a 2009 referendum."
Doesn't Warren claim to have indigenous ancestors herself and was proud of it? She caused Trump to call her "Pocahontas"?
She agrees to support the unelected interim president Jeannine Añez, who refers to indigenous inhabitants as satanic?
Warren is a very horrible person, inhumane, amoral, and rather stupid overall, who wants to get rich.
Everything she agreed to in the interview listed above is pathetic. I had no idea that she is such a worthless individual.
arggo , November 22, 2019 at 19:57
"neocon" explains this. She seems to have the support of very foundational structures that enabled Hillary Clinton Democrats to attack
and destroy Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Warren has not lost my vote for the simple reason she never had it in the first place. None of this, sickening as it is, comes
as any surprise. Warren is an unapologetic capitalist. She's like Robert Reich in that regard. They both believe capitalism–if
reformed, tweaked a bit here and there–can work. To give her credit, she's always been very honest about that. And of course our
doctrine of regime change is all in the service of capitalism. Unless I'm simply confused and mistaken.
Sherwood Forrest , November 22, 2019 at 09:38
Yes, Capitalist First! That makes it so difficult for any aware person to believe she sincerely supports a wealth tax, Universal
Healthcare, Green New Deal, College loan forgiveness, family leave or anything else the 1% oppose. Because promising like Santa
is part of Capitalist politics, and then saying," Nah, we can't afford it."
I personally think that capitalism with "human face" and robust public sector is the way to go. But imperialist imposition
and aggression is not the part of "human face" that I imagine.
So Warren's imperialist positions are evil and unnecessary to preserve capitalism, how that projects at her as a person it
is hard to tell. A Polish poet has those words spoken by a character in his drama "On that, I know only what I heard, but I am
afraid to investigate because it poisons my mind about " (Znam to tylko z opowiada?, ale strzeg? si? tych bada?, bo mi truj? my?l
o ) As typical of hearsay, her concept of events in Venezuela, Bolivia etc. is quite garbled, she has no time (but perhaps some
fear) to investigate herself (easy in the era of internet). A serious politician has to think a lot about electability (and less
about the folks under the steam roller of the Empire), so she has to "pick her fights".
It is rather clear that American do not care if people south of the border are governed democratically or competently, which
led Hillary Clinton to make this emphatic statement in a debate with Trump "You will not see me singing praises of dictators or
strongmen who do not love America". One can deconstruct it "if you do not love America you are a strongman or worse, but if you
love America, we will be nice to you". I would love to have the original and deconstructed statement polled, but Warren is not
the only one afraid of such investigations. So "electability" connection to green light to Bolivian fascist and red light to Bolivarians
of Venezuela is a bit indirect. Part of it is funding, part, bad press.
brett , November 21, 2019 at 15:15
I'm sorry but you all need to come to terms with the farce that is the American political system. Anyone who was supporting
Warren or even considering voting for her for ANY reason is apparently either in denial or is being duped. Warren is a Madison
Avenue creation packaged for US liberal consumption.
She is a fraud and a liar. One trained in psychology can see, in her every
movement and utterance, the operation that is going on behind the facade. Everything Warren says is a lie to someone. She only
states truth in order to later dis-inform. Classic deception. She (her billionaires) has latched on to the populism of the DSA
etc. in order to sabotage any progressive momentum and drive a stake in it.
Rob Roy , November 22, 2019 at 00:40
She hangs out with Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright, two evil women if ever there were. Now they make the three witches
brewing one coup/regime change after another. She's not smart enough to see that HRC and MA are leading her around by her nose.
People should call out this phoney everywhere she goes. BTW, Rachel Maddow completes an odious clique.
This is a bit of exaggeration. The three ladies are more like good students, they did not write the textbook but they good
grades for answering as written, or like cheerleaders, they jump and shout but they do not play in the field. Mind you, "interagency
consensus" was formed without them.
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 14:53
The DNC's strategy for this election is to ensure that Bernie doesn't go into the Convention with enough delegates to win the
first ballot. (Once voting goes past the first ballot, super-delegates get to weigh in and help anoint a candidate who's friendly
to the Party's plutocratic-oligarch principals.)
That's the reason the DNC is allowing and encouraging so many candidates to run.
Warren's specific assignment is to cannibalize Bernie's base and steal delegates that would otherwise be his, by pretending to
espouse most of his platform with only minor tweaks. She's been successful with "better educated," higher-income liberal Democrats
who consider themselves well informed because they get their news from "respectable" sources -- sources that, unbeknownst to their
target audiences, invariably represent the viewpoint of the aforementioned plutocratic oligarchs.
Absolutely nothing in Warren's background supports her new calculatedly progressive primary persona. She was a Reagan
Republican. When the Republican Party moved right to become the party of batshit crazy and the Democratic Party shifted right
to become the party of Reagan Republicans, she became a Democrat. She's not a good actress, and it takes willing suspension of
disbelief to buy into her performance as a savvier, wonkier alternative to Bernie. And when she's pressed for details (Medicare
for All) and responses to crises (Venezuela and Bolivia), the cracks in her progressive façade become patently obvious. She's
a sleeper agent for Democratic-leaning plutocrats, like Obama was in 2008, and she would never get my vote.
PS: Impressed by Warren's progressive wealth-tax plan? Don't be. Our country's billionaires know she won't fight for it, and
that if she did, Congress would never pass it. (They know who owns Congress.) Besides, do you really think Pocahontas would
beat Trump? Do you think Sleepy Joe would? The billionaires wouldn't bet on it. And they're fine with that. Sure, they'd like
someone who's more thoroughly corporatist on trade and more committed to hot régime-change wars than Trump is, but they can live
just fine with low-tax, low-regulation Trump. It's the prospect of a Bernie presidency that keeps them up at night
and their proxies in the Democratic Party and allied media are doing everything they can to neutralize that threat.
mbob , November 21, 2019 at 18:13
@Peter
Thanks for this beautiful post. I agree with it 100%. I've been trying to figure out why Democrats are so consistently unable
to see through rhetoric and fall for what candidates pretend to be. Part of it is wishful thinking. A lot of it is, as you wrote,
misplaced trust in "respectable" sources. I have no idea how to fix that: how does one engender the proper skepticism of the MSM?
I haven't been able to open the eyes of any of my friends. (Fortunately my wife and daughter opened their own eyes.)
Warren is, if you look clearly, driven by her enormous ambition. She's the same as every other candidate in that regard, save
Bernie.
Bernie is driven by the same outrage that we feel. We need him.
In the last Israeli massacre on Gaza she was all for the IDF killing Palistinians. Americans like to look at the CCP and cry
about China being a one party state. Well is the US not a one party state?= Are the views of the Democrats and Republicans not
the same when it comes to slaughtering people in the third world? There is not a razor`s edge between them. Biden, Warren, Sanders,
Trump, Cruz and Pense they are all war criminals, or if elected will soon become war criminals.
From someone who at the beginning showed promise and humanity, she has turned into Albright and Clinton. How f**king sad is
that?
Dan Kuhn , November 21, 2019 at 14:33
Better to see her for what she really is now then after the election if she were to win. She is disgusting in her inhumanity.
Rob , November 21, 2019 at 13:43
This Is, indeed, disturbing and disappointing. Warren seems so genuinely right on domestic economic and social issues, so how
could she be so wrong on foreign policy issues? The same principles apply in both–justice, fairness, equity, etc. That said, she
is no worse than any of the other Democratic candidates in that regard, with the exceptions of Sanders and Gabbard, so if Warren
becomes the nominee, I will support her over Trump. It's a lesser of two evils choice, but we must recognize that no candidate
will be perfect–ever.
Far better to stick to your principles and write in " None of the above." believe me with this article we can easily see that
Trump is no worse nor better than Warren is. They are both pretty poor excuses as human beings.
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 16:04
@Rob:
If you'll allow me to fix that for you, "What Warren tactically claims to support, in the primaries, seems so genuinely
right on domestic economic and social issues ." I'm convinced Warren is an Obama 2.0 in the making. I don't think anyone
can match Obama's near-180° turnabout from his 2008 primary platform and that if Warren is elected, she will try to make Wall
Street a little more honest and stable, maybe advocate for a $12 minimum wage, and maybe try to shave a few thousand dollars off
student-loan debts. I suppose that technically qualifies as less evil than Trump. But I fully expect her to jettison 90% of her
primary platform, including a progressive tax on wealth and Medicare for All. And when you factor in her recently confirmed approval
of US military and financial imperialism -- economic subversion and régime-change operations that cost tens of thousands of innocent
foreign lives, and other peoples their sovereignty -- at what point does "less evil" become too evil to vote for?
John Drake , November 21, 2019 at 13:13
" presidential candidate tepidly requested "free and fair elections". Such a statement ignores the fact that Evo Morales term
was not up; therefore elections are not called for. This means she supports the coup. Restoration of his position which was illegally
and violently stolen from him are in order not elections until his term is up.
Her position on Venezuela is nauseating; as the article states classic neo-conservative. Maybe Robert Kagan will welcome her into
their club as he did with Hillary.
Warren used to be a Republican, she has not been cured of that disease; and is showing her true colors. Maybe it's best as she
is differentiating herself from Bernie. I was concerned before she started down this latest path that she would do an Obama; progressive
rhetoric followed by neo-liberal-or worse- behavior once in office. Maybe she is more honest than Obama.
Guy , November 21, 2019 at 12:40
Warren can't be very informed about what democracy actually means .Democracy is not the same as capitalism .
Not a US citizen but am very disappointed with her stated platform .
Short of divine intervention Tulsi will never make it but Sanders for president and Tulsi as VP would do just fine to re-direct
the US foreign policy and maybe ,just maybe make the US more respectable among the rest of the nations of the world.
It would make a lot of sense from actuarial point of view. The chances that at least one person on the ticket would live healthily
for 8 years would be very good, without Tulsi
Punkyboy , November 21, 2019 at 12:02
I was pretty sure Warren was a Hillary clone; now I'm absolutely sure of it. Another election between worse and worser. I may
just stay home this time, if the world holds together that long.
Socratic Truth , November 21, 2019 at 11:42
Warren is just another puppet of the NWO.
Ma Laoshi , November 21, 2019 at 11:12
I remember years and years ago, I guess about when Lizzie first entered Congress, that she went on the standard pandering tour
to the Motherland and an astute mind commented: Zionism is typically the gateway drug for Democratic would-be reformers. Once
they've swallowed that fundamental poison, the DNC feels secure it's just a matter of time before they Get With the Program 100%.
Given that "Harvard" and "phony" are largely synonymous, what else could've been expected?
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 15:32
@Ma Laoshi:
Speaking of Harvard, having contemplated the abysmal track record compiled by our "best and brightest" -- in Congress,
in the White House, and on the federal bench -- I am now almost as suspicious of the Ivy League as I am of the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security (WHINSEC, formerly known as the School of the Americas). The mission of both is to train capable,
reliable, well-compensated servants to the US plutocracy. (And the only reason I say "almost" is because a non-negligible number
of black sheep have come out of the Ivy League and I'm not aware of any that have come out of WHINSEC.)
Sam F , November 23, 2019 at 18:59
Harvard admissions are apparently largely bought, and doubtless those of Yale and others.
MIT was strictly militarist warmongers in the 1970s, and one compete with 80% cheaters.
Dfnslblty , November 21, 2019 at 11:12
" The only point where Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that "there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela."
"
Hell, one doesn't need a military option after immoral, illegal and crippling sanctions.
This essay is the most disturbing piece all year-2019.
Vote anti-military – vote nonviolence.
Don't give these murderers anything but exposure to humane sensibilities.
I didn't think Trump supported a military solution in Venezuela. That was John Bolton's baby and Trump fired him as one would
hope he would soon fire Pompeo as has been hinted at. Trump campaigned on ending wars of choice but has given in to the MIC at
almost every turn. Maybe he will resign in leiu of being impeached. We might then see a Rand Paul vs. Bernie Sanders. I could
live with either one
Skip Scott , November 21, 2019 at 09:12
Once again the Democratic Party is pushing to have our choice for 2020 be between corporate sponsored war monger from column
A or B.
I wish Tulsi would "see the light" and run as an Independent in 2020. There is absolutely no way that she gets the nod from
the utterly corrupt DNC. She is abandoning her largest base (Independents) by sticking with the Democratic Party. Considering
the number of disgruntled non-voters, she could easily win the general election; but she will never win the Democratic primary.
The field is purposely flooded to ensure the "superdelegates" get the final say on a second ballot.
AnneR , November 21, 2019 at 08:50
Warren is as inhumane, amoral and imperialist as anyone in the WH and the US Congress, and she is certainly kindred in spirit,
thought and would be in deed, as Madeline Albright, the cheerful slaughterer of some 500,000 Iraqi children because the "price
was worth it." Of course, these utterly racist, amoral people do not have to pay "that price" nor do any of their families. (And
let us not forget that Albright and Killary are good friends – Warren is totally kindred with the pair, totally.)
And clearly Warren – like all of the Demrat contenders – is full on for any kind of warfare that will bring a "recalcitrant"
country into line with US demands (on its resources, lands etc.). She is grotesque.
She and those of her ilk – all in Congress, pretty much, and their financial backers – refuse to accept that Maduro and Morales
*both* were legally, legitimately and cleanly re-elected to their positions as presidents of their respective countries. But to
do that would be to go against her (commonly held) fundamental belief that the US has the right to decide who is and is not the
legitimate national leader of any given country. And what policies they institute.
Anyone who supports economic sanctions is supporting siege warfare, is happily supporting the starvation and deprivation of
potentially millions of people. And shrugging off the blame for the effects of the sanctions onto the government of the sanctioned
country is heinous, is immoral and unethical. WE are the ones who are killing, not the government under extreme pressure. If you
can't, won't accept the responsibility – as Warren and the rest of the US government clearly will not – for those deaths you are
causing, then stay out of the bloody kitchen: stop committing these crimes against humanity.
Cara , November 21, 2019 at 15:25
Please provide documentation that Sanders is, as you claim, a "full-on zionist supporter of "Israel" and clearly anti-Palestinian."
Sanders has been quite consistent in his criticism of Israel and the treatment of Palestinians: timesofisrael.com/bernie-sanders-posts-video-citing-apartheid-like-conditions-for-palestinians;
and; jacobinmag.com/2019/07/bernie-sanders-israel-palestine-bds
"Sanders is less so, but not wholly because he is a full-on zionist supporter of "Israel" and clearly anti-Palestinian"
Sanders is definitely not "full-on zionist supporter", not only he does not deny that "Palestinians exist" (to died-in-the-wool
Zionists, Palestinians are a malicious fiction created to smear Israel etc., google "Fakestinians"), but he claims that they have
rights, and using Hamas as a pretext for Gaza blockade is inhumane (a recent headline). One can pull his other positions and statements
to argue in the other direction, but in my opinion, he is at the extreme humane end of "zionist spectrum" (I mean, so humane that
almost not a Zionist).
Hopefully Kamala Harris never sniffs the White House, we'd all die in a nuclear war. Her
pathetic and stupid swipes at the courageous and brilliant Tulsi Gabbard last night in the
debates were something to cringe at.
"It Was A Coup. Period": Tulsi Gabbard Slams US 'Interference' In Bolivia
Democratic Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has come out swinging on Bolivia, following an initial period of being silent
and reflection on the issue after leftist President Evo Morales was forced to step down on November 10 over growing anger at election
irregularities, whereupon he was given political asylum in Mexico.
"What happened in Bolivia is a coup. Period," Gabbard wrote on Twitter in the early hours of Friday while warning against any
US interference.
"The United States and other countries should not be interfering in the Bolivian people's pursuit of self-determination and right
to choose their own government, " she argued.
Washington had been quick to endorse and recognize opposition senator Jeanine Anez as 'interim president' after she controversially
declared herself such without a senatorial quorum or public vote, and as Morales' Movement for Socialism was said to be barred from
the senate building when it happened.
Gabbard's statement, which again sets her far apart from a large field of establishment and centrist candidates on foreign policy
issues , comes a few days after Bernie Sanders was the first to condemn the events which led to Evo's ouster as a military coup.
"When the military intervened and asked President Evo Morales to leave, in my view, that's called a coup," Sanders tweeted Monday,
while linking to a video showing Bolivian security forces dispersing an indigenous pro-Morales protest using a volley of tear gas
canisters.
Meanwhile, in a new interview with Russian media this week, Evo Morales said the right-leaning Organization of American States
(OAS), which had initially cited "clear manipulations" in the voting surrounding his controversial re-election to a fourth term,
played a prime role in deposing him, and that ultimately Bolivia's huge reserves of lithium were being eyed by the United States
and its right-wing Latin American allies .
"The OAS made a decision and its report is not based on a technical report, but on a political decision,"
Evo told RT in the interview from Mexico.
Addressing his country's most valued natural resource, he said, "In Bolivia we could define the price of lithium for the world...Now
I have realized that some industrialized countries do not want competition" -- while implying Washington had helped engineer his
downfall.
Most estimates put the impoverished country's Lithium supply at about 60% of the world's known reserves .
The White House in the days after Evo's ouster
had called it a "significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere"; however, the now exiled former president described
it as "the sneakiest, most nefarious coup in history."
* * *
Watch key moments of the translated RT interview below:
And again, if we do win despite all the structural injustices in the system the Rs inherited and seek to expand, well, those
injustices don't really absolutely need to be corrected, because we will still have gotten the right result from the system
as is.
This is a pretty apt description of the mindset of Corporate Democrats. Thank you !
May I recommend you to listen to Chris Hedge 2011 talk
On Death of the Liberal Class At least to the first
part of it.
Corporate Dems definitely lack courage, and as such are probably doomed in 2020.
Of course, the impeachment process will weight on Trump, but the Senate hold all trump cards, and might reverse those effects
very quickly and destroy, or at lease greatly diminish, any chances for Corporate Demorats even complete on equal footing in 2020
elections. IMHO Pelosi gambit is a really dangerous gambit, a desperate move, a kind of "Heil Mary" pass.
Despair is a very powerful factor in the resurgence of far right forces. And that's what happening right now and that's why
I suspect that far right populism probably will be the decisive factor in 2020 elections.
IMHO Chris explains what the most probable result on 2020 elections with be with amazing clarity.
Bill Clinton destroyed the USA economy and middle class like no president has ever done.
Bush II and Obama exacerbated the destruction by the hundred folds.
I believe Hedges statement that "the true correctives to society were social movements
that never achieved formal political power" is perhaps one of the most important things for
each of us to understand.
I watched this with interest and curiosity and growing skepticism although he makes some
killer points and cites some extremely disturbing facts; above all he accepts and
uncritically so the American narrative of history.
The message from democrats is "hey we're not bigots". Most people (repubs+dems) aren't. If
they keep calling on that for energy the Dems will forever continue to lose. If they don't
come back to the working class they might as well just call themselves conservatives.
Those of us who seek the truth can't stop looking under every stone. The truth will set
you free but you must share it with those who are ready to hear it and hide it from those who
can hurt you for exposing it. MT
"A Society that looses the capacity for the sacred cannibalizes itself until it dies
because it exploits the natural world as well as human beings to the point of collapse."
I believe Hedges statement that "the true correctives to society were social movements
that never achieved formal political power" is perhaps one of the most important things for
each of us to understand.
I watched this with interest and curiosity and growing skepticism although he makes some
killer points and cites some extremely disturbing facts; above all he accepts and
uncritically so the American narrative of history. The Progressive movement, for example,
(written into American history as being far more important that it ever really was,) unlike
Socialism or Communism was primarily just a literary and a trendy intellectually movement
that attempted, (unconvincingly,) to persuade poor, exploited and abused Americans that non
of those other political movements, (reactive and grass-roots,) were needed here and that
capitalism could and might of itself, cure itself; it conceded little, promised much and
unlike either Communism or Socialism delivered fuck all. Personally I remain unconvinced also
by, "climate science," (which he takes as given,) and which seems to to me to depend far too
much on faith and self important repeatedly insisting that it's true backed by lurid and
hysterical propaganda and not nearly enough on rational scientific argument, personally I
can't make head nor tail of the science behind it ? (it may well be true, or not; I can't
tell.) But above all and stripped of it his pretensions his argument is just typical theist,
(of any flavor you like,) end of times claptrap all the other systems have failed, (China for
example somewhat gives the lie to death of Communism by the way and so on,) the end is neigh
and all that is left to do is for people to turn to character out of first century fairly
story. I wish him luck with that.
The message from democrats is "hey we're not bigots". Most people (repubs+dems) aren't. If
they keep calling on that for energy the Dems will forever continue to lose. If they don't
come back to the working class they might as well just call themselves conservatives.
I have always loved Chris Hedges, but ever since becoming fully awake it pains me to see
how he will take gigantic detours of imagination to never mention Israel, AIPAC or Zionism,
and their complete takeover of the US. What a shame.
The continued growth of unproductive debt against the low or nonexistent growth of GDP is
the recipe for collapse, for the whole world economic system.
I agree with Chris about the tragedy of the Liberal Church. Making good through identity
politics however, is every bit as heretical and tragic as Evangelical Republican corrupted
church think, in my humble, Christian opinion.
The death of the present western hemisphere governments and "democratic" institutions must
die right now for humanity to be saved from the zombies that rule it. 'Cannibalization" of
oikonomia was my idea, as well as of William Engdahl. l am glad hearing Hedges to adopt the
expression of truth. ( November 2019. from Phthia , Hellas ).
ass="comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> Gosh , especially that last conclusion
,was terrific so I want to paste the whole of that Auden poem here:- September 1, 1939 W. H.
Auden - 1907-1973
... ... ...
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
"... Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News, ..."
"... My favorite paragraph from the NYT article depicting Tulsi as a fringe, divisive cult leader because she wears white pants suits - by the same author and paper who heaped praise on how Hillary's white pants suit shows she's ready to carry the nuclear codes. ..."
My favorite paragraph from the NYT article depicting Tulsi as a fringe, divisive cult
leader because she wears white pants suits - by the same author and paper who heaped praise
on how Hillary's white pants suit shows she's ready to carry the nuclear codes.
Her white suits are not the white suits of Ms. Clinton, nor even the white of Ms.
Williamson, whose early appearances in the shadeoften seemed tied to her wellness gospel
and ideas of renewal and rebirth. Rather, they are the white of avenging angels and flaming
swords, of somewhat combative righteousness (also cult leaders').
And that kind of association, though it can be weirdly compelling, is also not really
community building. It sets someone apart, rather than joining others together. It has
connotations of the fringe, rather than the center.
A New York Times writer who praised Hillary Clinton for wearing a white pantsuit called
Tulsi Gabbard a "cult leader" for wearing exactly the same thing.
Taken together, those twin hasbara refrains evoke a notion of divine punishment. JFK and
RFK were punished for the sins of their Jew-hating, Nazi-loving father. Mind you, it was
Yahweh who took vengeance, not Israel!
Brilliant article by Guyenot. Thoroughly well written & informative.
A Congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard, is being viciously slandered in article after article in
the Mainstream (Zionist) Media. Read the diatribe carefully, and learn some of how the People
are misdirected-brainwashed.
Ms. Gabbard is, apparently, leading in the Polls, and the Zionist controller Power Elite
are Panicky. They will do to Ms. Gabbard what they did to Ron Paul, and his campaign.
It is a sense of frustration that We-I are not able to Revenge the murder of our last
Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy, the Destruction of our Republic, the millions of
murders from November 22, 1963, to the present, or to effectively defend & protect this
noble lady (Ms. Gabbard).
If we protect her, we protect ourselves and our Country. Freedom is not free. We must
Pay for i t!
"... Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News, ..."
"... My favorite paragraph from the NYT article depicting Tulsi as a fringe, divisive cult leader because she wears white pants suits - by the same author and paper who heaped praise on how Hillary's white pants suit shows she's ready to carry the nuclear codes. ..."
My favorite paragraph from the NYT article depicting Tulsi as a fringe, divisive cult
leader because she wears white pants suits - by the same author and paper who heaped praise
on how Hillary's white pants suit shows she's ready to carry the nuclear codes.
Her white suits are not the white suits of Ms. Clinton, nor even the white of Ms.
Williamson, whose early appearances in the shadeoften seemed tied to her wellness gospel
and ideas of renewal and rebirth. Rather, they are the white of avenging angels and flaming
swords, of somewhat combative righteousness (also cult leaders').
And that kind of association, though it can be weirdly compelling, is also not really
community building. It sets someone apart, rather than joining others together. It has
connotations of the fringe, rather than the center.
A New York Times writer who praised Hillary Clinton for wearing a white pantsuit called
Tulsi Gabbard a "cult leader" for wearing exactly the same thing.
"... Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but many of us will never know... ..."
"... They certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for "the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism. ..."
In my July 25th article " Zelenskii's dilemma " I pointed
out the fundamental asymmetry of the Ukrainian power configuration following Zelenskii's crushing victory over Poroshenko: while
a vast majority of the Ukrainian people clearly voted to stop the war and restore some kind of peace to the Ukraine, the real levers
of power in the post-Maidan Banderastan are all held by all sorts of very powerful, if also small, minority groups including:
The various "oligarchs" (Kolomoiskii, Akhmetov, etc.) and/or mobsters Arsen Avakov's internal security forces including some "legalized"
Nazi death squads The various non-official Nazi deathsquads (Parubii) The various western intelligence agencies who run various groups
inside the Ukraine The various western financial/political sponsors who run various groups inside the Ukraine The so-called "Sorosites"
(соросята) i.e. Soros and Soros-like sponsored political figures The many folks who want to milk the Ukraine down to the last drop
of Ukrainian blood and then run
These various groups all acted in unison, at least originally, during and after the Euromaidan. This has now dramatically changed
and these groups are now all fighting each other. This is what always happens when things begin to turn south and the remaining loot
shrinks with every passing day,
Whether Zelenskii ever had a chance to use the strong mandate he received from the people to take the real power back from these
groups or not is now a moot point: It did not happen and the first weeks of Zelenskii's presidency clearly showed that Zelenskii
was, indeed, in " free fall ": instead of becoming
a "Ukrainian Putin" Zelenskii became a "Ukrainian Trump" – a weak and, frankly, clueless leader, completely outside his normal element,
whose only "policy" towards all the various extremist minorities was to try to appease them, then appease them some more, and then
even more than that. As a result, a lot of Ukrainians are already speaking about "Ze" being little more than a "Poroshenko 2.0".
More importantly, pretty much everybody is frustrated and even angry at Zelenskii whose popularity is steadily declining.
... ... ...
Another major problem for Zelenskii are two competing narratives: the Ukronazi one and, shall we say, the "Russian" one. I have
outlined the Ukronazi one just above and now I will mention the competing Russian one which goes something like this:
The Euromaidan was a completely illegal violent coup against the democratically elected President of the Ukraine, whose legitimacy
nobody contested, least of all the countries which served as mediators between Poroshenko and the rioters and who betrayed their
word in less than 24 hours (a kind of a record for western politicians and promises of support!).
... ... ...
Some of the threats made by these Ukronazis are dead serious and the only person who, as of now, kinda can keep the Ukrainian
version of the Rwandan " Interahamwe " under control would probably be Arsen Avakov, but since he himself is a hardcore
Nazi nutcase, his attitude is ambiguous and unpredictable. He probably has more firepower than anybody else, but he was a pure "
Porokhobot " (Poroshenko-robot) who, in many ways, controlled Poroshenko more than Poroshenko controlled him. The best move
for Zelenskii would be to arrest the whole lot of them overnight (Poroshenko himself, but also Avakov, Parubii, Iarosh, Farion, Liashko,
Tiagnibok, etc.) and place a man he totally trusts as Minister of the Interior. Next, Zelenskii should either travel to Donetsk or,
at least, meet with the leaders of the LDNR and work with them to implement the Minsk Agreements. That would alienate the Ukronazis
for sure, but it would give Zelenskii a lot of popular support.
Needless to say, that is not going to happen. While Zelenskii's puppet master Kolomoiskii would love to stick this entire gang
in jail and replace them with his own men, it is an open secret that powerful interest groups in the US have told Zelenskii "don't
you dare touch them". Which is fine, except that this also means "don't you dare change their political course either".
...are going through the famous Kübler-Ross stages of griefs: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance: currently,
most of them are zig-zagging between bargaining and depression; acceptance is still far beyond their – very near – horizon. Except
that Zelenskii has nothing left to bargain with.
Thank you for a rational article about Ukraine. The sad thing is that it might take years to reach the "acceptance" phase.
It would take someone like Hitler to clean out the stables. Arrest is not a viable option as they will bribe their way out.
These people need to be put down like rabid dogs. That is the only way to put an end to their mischief and it would be a deterrent
to their replacements.
Personally, I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel. Another
country that is still in the "denial" phase. Its military and political leaders know full-well that their strategic aims have
all failed. The boot is now firmly on the other foot.
I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.
To give you an idea of how ridiculous it has all become, the UK no longer accepts medical degrees awarded by universities in Crimea.
Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but
many of us will never know...
I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel.
You got that right – what it's all about is building a New Khazaria. But they're neither giving up on their Greater Israel
project between the two rivers, and hence more wars, conflict and chaos to drive out the native Arabs from the Middle East.
I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.
@AWMThey certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for
"the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part
of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism.
@bob sykes Kolomoiskii is the real hidden owner/controller of the company that bribed the Bidens. He has a finger in lots
of pies. His pretense to leaning towards Russia is his way to try to get the Americans to stop attempts to get at the many millions
that he stole from his own Ukrainians bank – fake loans to his companies.
Of course, the Russians understand all of that. This theater is aimed at the Americans – not at the Russians.
For the Ukrainian state to break up, there need to be some forces interested in a break-up. You won't find such forces inside
the Ukraine.
What is Ukrainian South-East? In pure political terms, "South-East" is a bunch of oligarchs, who are all integrated into Ukrainian
system, and have no reason to seek independence from Kiev, especially if it means getting slapped with Western sanctions.
Even the Kremlin doesn't show much interest in breaking up the Ukraine, so why the hell would it break up?
It's worth pointing out that the so-called "Novorossia movement" started out as Akhmetov's project to win concessions from
new Kiev regime. It was then quickly hijacked by Strelkov, a man who actually wanted to break up the Ukraine, and it is because
of Strelkov, that Donetsk and Lugansk are now de-facto independent. Without similar figures to lead secessionist movements elsewhere
in the Ukraine, this break-up that Saker keeps talking about will never happen.
His ratings must be sky-high, because otherwise I cannot imagine why Fox would allow him to continue to use their network as
a medium to broadcast common sense.
Of course the Dems are making it so easy.
Schiff, Kent, Taylor, Yanovitch -- what a pathetic, nauseating crew.
The opposing positions of Warren and her primary opponent Bernie Sanders on Bolivia
highlight an increasingly clear policy gap between the two Democratic frontrunners.
11-20-19
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential nomination frontrunner Elizabeth Warren
endorsed the recent U.S. backed military coup d'état in Bolivia Monday. Warren's
statement carefully avoided using the word "coup," and instead referred to the new government
of Jeanine Añez as an "interim leadership," effectively validating the new
administration.
She stated that the Bolivian people "deserve free and fair elections, as soon as
possible," implying that the October 20 vote, won convincingly by President Evo Morales, was
not clean, thus taking essentially the same position as the Trump administration, who made no
secret of their relief that Morales was ousted.
The opposing positions of Warren and her primary opponent Bernie Sanders on Bolivia
highlight an increasingly clear policy gap between the two Democratic frontrunners.
11-20-19
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential nomination frontrunner Elizabeth Warren
endorsed the recent U.S. backed military coup d'état in Bolivia Monday. Warren's
statement carefully avoided using the word "coup," and instead referred to the new government
of Jeanine Añez as an "interim leadership," effectively validating the new
administration.
She stated that the Bolivian people "deserve free and fair elections, as soon as
possible," implying that the October 20 vote, won convincingly by President Evo Morales, was
not clean, thus taking essentially the same position as the Trump administration, who made no
secret of their relief that Morales was ousted.
You're correct.
The Republicrats in the swamp - when push comes to shove - have each other's backs.
One set of laws for them, another for the masses they rule and make no mistake - we are not
governed, we are ruled.
Seems everyone here is down. The Slime mold's job is to kill all virtuous passion in the
populace, and they do a damn good job.
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Truer words...
If we don't arise like lions, a seriously dystopian future awaits. Which is an exceedingly
melancholy reality, considering we are on the cusp of a golden age driven by a Fusion Energy
new economic platform, a quantum upshift of productivity and energy-intensive industrial
applications. Ending global poverty. Ending the very reason for war.
"The Slime mold's job is to kill all virtuous passion in the populace, and they do a damn
good job."
Today this podcast appeared in my Inbox.
No Irony Alert was appended; apparently the discussants are serious in maintaining that the
will of the people expressed "through digital media " and by the electorate "threaten
democracy" and "fuel deadly conflict."
So there ARE armed militias under the control of "populists" and they have the financial
wherewithal to form an army and wage war?
"Populism attaches itself to whatever issue provokes fear and outrage [and] hate speech
leads to hate crime".
"Populist parties have risen up across Europe and beyond, galvanising electorates and
threatening the multilateral institutions needed to address transnational challenges like
globalisation, deadly conflict, digital transformations and the climate emergency.
". . .[X] and [Y] . . . discuss how populism works, why its appeal has grown in recent
years, and the threat it poses to European democracy. From its ideological
adaptability and the role of digital media in amplifying its message to its role in
fuelling deadly conflict, they examine what can be done to address the grievances that
these parties feed off.
It could be the trial of the century, no doubt. ...
Would the jury in such a case, in a Democratic Stronghold, as Washington DC, have to be
carefully selected according to some superimposed rule beyond the general jury selection
rules reigning access to classified knowledge?
Strictly there is by now enough expertise on jury selection, even specialists. In
Washington D.C., as suggested, maybe the ultimate challenge. Thus I am sure a lot of experts
would queue up.
Not that the result would satisfy everyone, but if you carefully select people that prove
they grasp the "national interest" or are able to carry its burdons. Why not?
The fact that even the disgraced former DDFBI Andy McCabe, who's four documented, acts of
Perjury, two of which were Recorded. Statements which involve a press leak, irrelevant to any
issue of the Russia-Trump collusion myth. Has still not been Indicted, should give us all
cause for alarm...
We appear to be on the Slippery slope toward Mob Rule over law and order...
This quote from Thursday's article in Politico, says it best.
"This is not a hard case," U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton said. "I was a good
prosecutor for a long time. Deciding whether or not you're going to charge someone with false
statements or perjury is not that hard, factually or legally -- maybe politically, but not
factually or legally."
Sundance suggests that FBI Inspector General Horowitz's report is really being delayed so
that the Deep State can push through FISC Court reauthorization -- before we have an
opportunity to learn how the current law has been so horribly abused with a multitude of 4th
Amendment violations and so on.
Unfortunately, much as Republicans regret Fisc abuses by Democrats, this illegitimate
maneuver is so cheap and tempting that even they don't really want to let it die. In short,
the DUOPOLY will ensure continuance.
"And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate -- but there is no competition --
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious."
Can the Constitution be refreshed without patriots' & tyrants' blood? Can the eye of
Mordor stop popular resistance?
Eliot was, of course, writing in England, at the outset of WWII.
"Can the Constitution be refreshed without patriots' & tyrants' blood? Can the eye of
Mordor stop popular resistance?"
You question here makes me shiver.
To me the "tyrant" is the oh-so-cool choom smoking Obama, whose minions have kept our
country in turmoil after he left office. I remember the Roman columns in my city after his
election. He had won with strong support from Soros' capital (the eye of Modor) and took
orders, it seemed to me, from the Bilderberg group of high rollers wanting power over the
world without concern for countries and their governments and their laws that might give
voice to lowly people.
I hope the MAGA hat wearing crowds (our form of Hibbits) grow and grow in number as the
election approaches so that the Democrats see that they will seem like spoiled toddlers who
only want what they want, no matter how absurd their wishes are. (That is unlikely, though,
because toddlers have little ability to see beyond their immediate desires--no
self-reflection.)
Have I interpreted your question correctly?
Who can be the elves and the dwarfs and the men who join the Hobbits? Does Trump have it
in him to be Gandalf?
Two weeks ago I thought I head a different tune. Why the change?
As I said then and say now: Bob Barr did not come to bury the Deep State, but to save
it.
The imperial republic is tottering, and the liberal dispensation of the past three hundred
years that informed it is collapsing, a victim of internal subversion and pathological
egalitarianism.
What will replace it? No one knows.
But the future will probably be like the past: tribal, ethnic, sectarian and vicious.
There is no going back. And the only way out is through.
So attack in two directions.
Shatter left-neoliberalism by provoking the worst ant-white and anti-Semitic tendencies
present in the emerging nonwhite left.
Liquidate its controlled opposition (AKA American conservatism) by attacking its fronts
men as the corporate golems and Zio-shills that they are.
The goal is to eliminate the middle ground and force the gutless middle to choose between
the globalists and us, and to make the price of an unwise choice steep, public, and
permanent.
I read the RCP article by Aaron Mate referenced above and while it was compelling, it
practically made the infamous Peter Strzok, in its brief mention of him, seem like an
innocent bystander. It focused on the CIA as though the FBI wasn't its eager and willing
partner, and yet it was the FBI that paid Christopher Steele, the FBI that obtained FISA
warrants to spy, the FBI that took out Gen. Flynn, the FBI that lied to the new POTUS, the
FBI that led to the appointment of SC Mueller, etc., etc.
Is the FBI playing dumb now as a defense, pretending it was duped by the CIA to engage in
so much nefarious activity?
sorry I am an outsider on this. ... Willmann may help, maybe? basic rules? ... I hardly
grasp my own countries juridical responsiblities, nevermind some venue curiosities. ...
last time I heard the argument concerning the US it didn't seem to be necessary based on
the outcome, at least in hindsight ...
You'll win the bet, but even if you lose, the indicted will be instantly catapulted into bona
fide "Hero of the Republic(R)" status as a result.
Just as the people who took the falls for the Clintons were, except 10x.
The chattering class really really detest Trump, and nothing else matters. They will happy
accept aid from perjurers, torturers and entrapment artists, as long as that gets them
Trump.
I detest Trump as well, but he won the election fair and square, and just because I detest
the man doesn't mean that I need to sink to the level of crackpot conspiracy theory if that
justifies his removal.
Where is the scorecard on Trump's Oct 2016 pre-election speech. Did he call it or what- time
for an accounting - three years later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qIXXafxCQ
I personally will settle for two new Supreme Court Justices, 150 new federal court
justices and breaking up the liberal deadlock of the 9th Circuit. However, Trump's Oct 2016
shot across the bow against the deep state remains a work in progress. However, Trump did not
back off - it is clash of civilizations still going on, as we speak.
Retrospective is often the best perspective for current events.
I think it is important to note that the Real Clear Investigations piece which the Colonel
quotes from was written by Aaron Mate. Aaron Mate is part of the new breed of independent
lefty journalists that are taking on the establishment news media. He has an excellent show
on a youtube channel called The Grayzone.
His cohorts Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Dan Cohen, and Anya Parampil have done excellent
reporting on Syria and Venezuela. They are part of a burgeoning new media ecosystem which
includes the other youtube channels 'The Hill' and 'The Jimmy Dore Show'.
Max Blumenthal has savaged the estimable Alison Weir, author of Against Our Better Judgment
and her years long campaign of speaking out against Israel's maltreatment of Palestinians.
Grayzone may go a bit further than establishment media, and perhaps a bit farther on
issues involving Palestine than, say, Phil Weiss at Mondoweiss, but there are still lines
that are not to be crossed by the reporters at Grayzone.
I don't think that Grayzone goes "a bit further" than establishment media. They go a lot
further.
This Grazyone video from a few days ago (Aaron Mate interviews Ali Abunimah of The
Electronic Intifada) is titled "Israel's relentless violence on Gaza met by global
silence": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o16CV4BTuU0
Or from the back cover of Blumenthal's book Goliath:
'As Blumenthal reveals, Israel has become a country where right-wing leaders like Avigdor
Lieberman and Bibi Netanyahu are sacrificing democracy on the altar of their power politics;
where the loyal opposition largely and passively stands aside and watches the organized
assault on civil liberties; where state-funded Orthodox rabbis publish books that provide
instructions on how and when to kill Gentiles; where half of Jewish youth declare their
refusal to sit in a classroom with an Arab; and where mob violence targets Palestinians and
African asylum seekers scapegoated by leading government officials as "demographic
threats."'
So Blumenthal is an anti-zionist, Alison Weir is a critic of Israeli government policy, and
Blumenthal is critical of Weir. Big deal.
The Colonel is critical of Bernie and I like Bernie - that doesn't mean that I have to
stop respecting the Colonel just because I disagree with him on some issues. One of the
lamentable shortcomings of some of those on the left is that they want to fight with each
other about relatively trivial disagreements. This only benefits the Borg.
And if I was thoroughly paranoid I would think that this whole Blumenthal vs Weir thing is
being amplified by an IO operation designed to sow discord among critics of Israel.
What is the point of indictments when the CIA/NSA/FBI can and will be perceived to be able to
blackmail each juror? The "chilling effect" is real and it will prevent successful
prosecution of any but sacrificial deep state actors.
After what has been done to Trump associates, he is politically radioactive. No one will
want to be part of his team and subject themselves to the tender ministrations of the
FBI.
The reward of the good life, is the good life itself all the sudden makes even more sense.
Picturing now J Edgar Hoover and LBJ laughing over secret files on every member of Congress
at the time. You do not exaggerate, walrus.
But how can we prevent this being only one-way Democrat street? Their manipulation of
language, repetition of talking points, media exclusives and ginned-up events have stunned me
of late. Luckily there in fact is more media transparency only because of the open internet.
Which is also closing in.
I have long wondered why MSM wanted to go to bed with the Democrats so eagerly - most
likely because the one-way street of inside gossip only flows from loose Democrat lips. .
Recent media interview with Jordan, who lambasted the ABC reporter who tried to box him
into a corner over a "secret hearing" transcript that had not been made public -and the
hearing was less than 24 hours prior. Democrat loose lips gave someone a free scoop for some
reason and luckily Jordan swatted this breach right back at her.
Quite honestly female reporters need gynocological swab testing before they go live with
any breaking news stories from now on. What did they do to get that story first.
What was done to Justice Gorsuch was politics by the left meant to keep him off the
supreme court, warn the republicans not to support others like him, and warn the rest of us
to stfu and do what we are told. Brennan and company are worse and may also include Obama and
a number of his backers in and out of his administration. And Epstein didn't kill
himself.
From RedState - DECEMBER 11 - MARK YOUR CALENDAR: The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a
hearing on Dec. 11 to examine the findings from a Justice Department inspector general's
investigation into the FBI's alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
during the Trump investigation, the committee said Monday.
Huber apparently has been assigned to investigate the Clinton Foundation- a report due
shortly too (which is badly bleeding red ink several years in a row after Clinton lost).
No wonder Clinton is hinting she will run again - anything to goose up re-newed donations
for her influence peddling scheme. No wonder she is in fact this time pimping out her
daughter in her latest book tour - the money will be safe with us, folks. Even if I get sent
to the slammer, Chelsea knows enough to carry on the family traditions.
Factotum mentioned Crowdstrike. Many are under the impression that the crowdstrike "server"
Trump mentioned in his typical fragmentary, herky-jerky style in the Zelensky call, must mean
the DNC email server. But I've heard it suggested he was actually referring to a different
Ukrainian server, also managed by Crowdstrike, related to another hokey Russian
hacking claim: a Ukrainian army missile system that was allegedly hacked by the Russians. See
"Fancy Bear" artillery hack. Not sure if that really was what Trump was talking about but
others out there might know.
No, colonel, not a'tall. Don't have a lazy bone in my body. BUT - I do have Extreme
challenges of the body, but less of the mind, (much, much slower organizing thoughts etc.)
but NO challenge regarding Spirit... it's not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the
dog.
No, I'm not a DAV, but I do consider myself a 'DAP' (disabled American Patriot - without
pay - but Cost aplenty) Quite like (but not There Yet) the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier... so
to speak.
I have sixty five years of Active Service... starting a the age of ten in Bristol, PA ...
and [it] will NOT end before I'm dead, down in the woods of central MS.
Alison Weir says "If Americans only Knew"... doesn't know the half of [it].
Don't drink the cool-aid and fo sho DON'T Breathe the Fort Detrick Bio-cocktail.
Thomas Paine could have put out several pamphlets in the time it took me to reply.
@Alfred I had the same thoughts. Zelenskii should show a similar coffin with the text
"This one is still empty" and then start rounding up the terrorists. He finally has a good
excuse.
Thank you Saker and Unz for the very interesting article .
I wonder what has been the role of Germany in the Ukrainian disaster . ...I have the
feeling , just the suspicion , that they contributed to the ucranian disaster out of their
genetic Drang nach Osten Nordic greed , is that right ?
Anyway since the Ukrainian disaster the cohesion of the EU is going going down . Germany
which was gifted with the german reunification , is less and less trusted spetially in south
Europe , and even less in the EU far west , in England which is going out of the EU .
Most of the people in the EU would like to keep collaborating with the US , of course ,
but also with Russia and with the rest of the world . Most of the people in the UE are scared
of the dark forces operating in Ukraine trying to provoke a war with Russia .
The stupid name-calling like the term "ukronazi" makes this article look like a rant like
North Korean communiques or the ravings of some Arab despot's propagandist. It is not better
than calling "The Saker" a "Moskal", "Sovok" or "Putler's stooge" etc. He should keep this
lingo to directly "debating" "Ukronazis" on twitter or youtube commentst etc. not for an
article that is supposed to be a serious analysis.
I understand that it is hard for a Russian nationalist to accept that the majority of
Ukrainians don't want to belong to their dream Russkiy Mir, they were seduced by the West,
which is more attractive with all its failings, because mostly of simple materialistic
reasons. Ukrainians happily go to EU countries that now allow them in as guest workers. The
fact, like it or not that majority of them chose the West over Russkiy Mir despite being very
close to Russians in culture, language, history etc. He is still in the first stage of grief
it seems.
All in all, Ukrainians are probably way above average in most human characteristics. The
area of Ukraine is by planetary standards one of the best available: arable land, great
rivers, Black see, pleasant and liveable.
But it is 2019 and life in Ukraine is barely better than it was 25-50 years ago,
population has actually dropped from its peak in early 1990's. Millions of Ukrainians live
abroad (I know some of them) and have – to be polite – at best an ambivalent
attitude towards their homeland. Almost all of them prefer to be somewhere else, even to
become someone else.
Now why is that? A normal society would have enough introspection to discuss this, to look
for answers. Throwing a temper-tantrum on a big square in Kiev every few years is not looking
for a solution. That is escapism, Orange-this, Maidan-that, 'Russians bad', 'we are going
West', 'golden toilets', and always 'Stalin did it'.
I don't agree with the facile name-calling that sees Nazis everywhere and exaggerates
throw-away symbolism. But Ukraine has not been functioning and it can't go like this much
longer. Not because it will collapse, it won't, but because during an era of general
prosperity Ukraine can't be a unstable exception (oh, I get it, they are better than Moldova,
good for them.)
Rebellions against geography are doomed. Projecting one's personal frustrations on
external enemies (Kremlin!) has never worked. Ukraine needs rationality – accepting
that they will not be in EU, that attempting to join Nato would destroy Ukraine, and that
they can't beat Russia in a war. And following advise of half-mad and half-ignorant
well-wishers from Washington or Brussels is a road to ruin. Nulands, Bidens and Tusks will
never live in Ukraine, they really deeply don't care about it. They have no skin in that
game, it is just entertainment for them.
Or alternatively you can pray that Russia collapses – good luck waiting for
that.
There is not much 'drang' left in Germany, so I think this is mostly fingers on the map
post dinner empty talk.
in 1945 the jewery asked Stalin to give Crimea to the jews , Stalin refused
Crimea is a jewel, but has one big problem: not enough water. But that's also true about
Izrael, maybe there is a deep genetic memory of coming out of a desert environment.
During WWII, Germany actually established settlements in Crimea. Think about it: there is
a massive war, you have like 1-2 years, short on transport and resources, and you start
sending settlers to Crimea – that's how much drang-nach-osten types wanted it.
And the Turks, etc This must be driving them absolutely nuts.
The mexicans are able to make fun of themselves , that`s a good thing . They have a joke
which aplies also to Ukraina ( and other countries )
The mexicans say : when God created Mexico He gave Mexico everything ; land , mountains ,
plains , tropical forests , deserts , two oceans , agriculture , gold , silver , oil . then
God saw how beautiful and perfect Mexico was and He though that He should also give something
bad to the country to prevent the sin of pride , and then he populated Mexico with pure
pendejos ,( idiots ) .
@AWM "Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references?
If you want a decent analysis of current events in the Ukraine, which is what The Saker
provides, I guess you'll just have to put up with his terminology.
The world won't miss a thing if Curmudgeon or AWM goes off in a huff, to sit on his toilet
and read the "one joke per dump" volume lodged on the tank and stops reading The Saker's very
thorough analysis as a protest action!
@Anon My experience is that Ukrainians individually are far from being pendejos .
But they are unable to act as a group or as a nation. (Well, they 'act', but it mostly
somehow fails.)
Maybe it is the relative shallow and heterogenous history of Ukraine. Or – and this
is what I have observed – a fundamental inner disloyalty to the Ukraine as a homeland.
When one observes the assorted Porkys, Timoshenkas, Yanuks, the oligarchs, but also the
crowds on Maidan, I get a sense that they are all about to leave Ukraine or are thinking
about leaving. Societies can't be built with one foot always at the airport, or in an old car
in a 5-km column waiting on the border of Poland. Or Russia.
Another good article – thanks – Yep, the US/EU NWO is not going to let their
"West Ukraine Isis" battalions and intel gang lose their funding , arms trafficking ops, or
terrorist reputation. This is a no win situation in Ukraine and the West knows it –
Even if NovoRossiya gets some independence, the Ukraine Isis will/can reek havoc and murder
for a long time along the border. The modern Cheka { Ukraine Isis } has been modified for the
security of the new Farmland owners – Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont and the rest of the
Globalist Corporations and their ports close to Odessa.
One point of contention since it wasn't made clear in this article – Novorussia
consists of Luhansk and Donetsk, but not Kharkov. While Kharkov has more Russians than most
other provinces of Ukraine do, it does not have a plurality like Donetsk and Luhansk.
All of Ukraine's doomsayers have been crying about Ukraine's demise for the lat 25
years, yet the fact is that it' s getting stronger and stronger every year,
USA diaspora keeps on delivering.
Shoutout to quarter/half Poles USA citizens LARPing as Ukrainian patriots in the
comments.
@Felix KeverichEven the Kremlin doesn't show much interest in breaking up the
Ukraine, so why the hell would it break up?
Follow the money my friend!
Some provinces send much more money to Kiev then they get back in "services". So long as
more loans from the EU, The USA and the IMF were forthcoming, that situation was not too bad.
Now, the spigot is being closed. Hence the sad face of Mr Z when he met Trump in
Washington.
This means that the provinces that are losing most from this internal transfer are going
to be strongly motivated to stop sending money to Kiev. Kiev will lose control and that will
fragment the country.
The Donbass was a big contributor to Kiev and got little in return – that was a
major reason for their dissatisfaction. Everyone there could see that Kiev sent the money
west and kept much for itself.
If the French provinces were to stop sending money to Paris, the Yellow movement would be
totally unnecessary.
@awry About 2.5 million Ukrainians have "emigrated" (you could also say "fled") to the RF
since 2014.
Per Bloomberg most of the outflow not to Russia has been to countries of Eastern Europe, esp.
Poland.
@AP "Ukraine was historically a marsh of Poland for centuries before it was a historical
marsh of Russia"
That was mostly Galicia and Volhynia. It is a tiny part of today's the Ukraine. In these
areas, the Poles were landowners, the Jews their rent/tax collectors and the peasants were
Ukrainian-speaking Slavs. Now, they are planning to sell the best farmland to "foreigners"
(i.e. Jews) and the Slavs will become serfs once again.
@Mr. Hack The problem with your argument is that the 'war' in the east was entirely
predicable. So was Crimea leaving and joining Russia. The people in charge in Kiev –
presumably with 3-digit IQ – would think about it, plan for it, etc They obviously
didn't. Instead they provided a needed catalyst to make it worse by voting in February 2014
to ban Russian language in official use, and the idiotic attacks on Russian speakers like in
Odessa, that were neither prevented nor punished. The other side – in this case Russia
and Russian speakers living in Donbas and Crimea – rationally took care of their own
interests. Post-Maidan Kiev handed them all they could on a silver platter while busying
themselves with silly slogans and videos of golden saunas.
Russia is actually one of the least susceptible countries to an economic collapse in the
world – it is largely self-sufficient, has enormous resources that others will always
buy, and has a very minimal percentage of its economy that deals with foreign trade. What
they are susceptible to is the loss of value for their currency – and that has already
largely happened since 2014. When it comes to energy, the countries that are low-cost
producers are least impacted – who you should worry about are the numerous higher-cost
producers like US shale, coal miners, or LNG gas that have huge upfront fixed costs and
built-in high transportation costs. Russia and Saudis will be fine.
Back to the drawing board, what exactly is the plan in Kiev? If they know that having a
war costs them investments, how do they end that war? It is highly unlikely that it would end
with a victorious Kiev army conquering Donetsk (or Crimea). So what's the plan?
It's amazing how spectacularly inept all these interventions over the last decades have been.
Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Yemen, the coup in Turkey but also Ukraine.
And I know that in the ME, the Isrseli policy, as iterated by Michael Orin is to let all
sides bleed each other to death, and that part has been relatively successful until
recently.
But in Ukraine, they were going to consolidate their control over the country from Kiev
and force-march the Russians out of Sevastopol. And that part didn't work at all, except as
leverage to impose sanctions on Russia; but the long term goal of using Ukraine to overthrow
Putin is now stuck in the Donbas.
My point being that it is the great fortune of the world that these criminal nitwits and
fools in the State (War) Department and their helpers in the "intelligence" community are so
arrogant and incompetent.
@Anon Merkel (who herself was studying in Donetsk for few months) definitely has a hand
in ze EuroUkrainian mess.
Afterall she met with Right Sector representatives one dayt before the final, bloody part
of the coup started. And that meeting of "reporting on delivering at our commitments and
asking Merkel about her delivery of her commitments" both with the next day start of "offence
at the government" was announced by Right Sector yet another day before, 16 February
2014.
However i have reservations about Merkel representing German peoples, especially some
alleged "genetical" trend of them to invade eastwards.
It was public, that Merkel's everything including public phone is spied upon by USA
"intelligence community", and Merkel considered it normal and proper.
So it is clearly stated what she considers her allegiance and whom she considers her
employees. Not citizens of Germany.
"Each of these countries is as inorganic and disunited as Ukraine, or worse, made up as they
are of various racial and ethnic groups who don't identify with each other."
I am dubious about this suggestion. But more importantly, Ukraine or the Ukraine has had a
violent revolution about every ten years. You simply cannot develop a stable government,
economy or safe social system if you you overturn the the government via violence every ten
tears.
That is the key differences and essential to any successful government, and more so for a
democracy that holds as innate belief, a tolerance for difference even competing ideas held
by its population. It is as if the only the only we are exporting is revolution as solution
to differences.
@Mr. Hack > Russia has never been able to lead with a carrot, but only with a stick.
Russia offered dozen billions of loans and years ahead orders for Ukrainian industries.
Those that Yatzenyuk begged to be re-started when he destroyed democratic government of
Ukraine.
EuroMaidan tried to stole the carrot from Ukraine, and while it succeeded in stealing what
Ukraine already picked, about 10%, the rest was kept safe of usurpers' reach, and so they
started looting Ukrainian economy instead. Hrivna fallen 3-fold – more than ruble.
> Positive outside influence into Ukraine's internal development in the form of
investments and economic development
EuroMaidan usurpers stopped real and ongoing investments from China and Russia by looting
what investments arrived into Ukraine already. But at least they got $5 billions of
investments from Nulland.
I like how "economic development" is listed as "outside influence". I thought that any
state or nation would claim being capable of their own economic development, but for
EuroMaidania it is quoted as some miracle that can only be given from outside.
> foreign investments being delayed until the war in the east is resolved
And that was why EuroMaidan usurpers invaded Donbass and started the war. To preclude
investments from the West after they stopped investments form China and Russia.
> create a chaotic situations
EuroMaidan proponent blaming chaotic situations. Precious. "Bees against honey"
movement.
> Since the West changed the dynamics of the energy game around the world
Did it? how exactly? By making Ukrainian pipelines liability no one wants to touch with a
pole?
> It's learned to better feed itself, and that's about it
But that is exactly what Ukraine knew how to do, and what EuroMaidania can not do.
While Russia is gaining this experience – EuroMaidania was and is destroying it, for
the sake of being "not like Russia". Way to go!
> One more jolt like in 2014
You mean the one when rouble fallen two-fold and hrivna three-fold?
Guess if the West could do it again – they would. But they can't.
> where are Russia's automobiles, televisions, medical equipment, computers,
pharmaceuticals etc; within the world markeplace?
Russia is not packaging consumer goods. Russia is sending technologies, which others pack
as consumer goods.
Ukraine could become one of those salesmen, packing Russian technologies into pretty wraps
and selling around.
EuroMaidan usurpers feared that and prevented that.
EuroMaidan even destroyed Antonov company, which was one of just 4 companies in the world
capable of building large airframes. Ensuring AirBus+Boeing+Tupolev/Ilyushin would have one
competitor less. And as Antonov was el-cheapo vendor with strategy based on dumping –
it was especially dangerous for Russian company, of the three. Thank you, guys, for removing
this riddance out of Russian pathway. You did great service!
@Hapalong Cassidy Beckow> the crowds on Maidan, I get a sense that they are all about
to leave Ukraine or are thinking about leaving.
You do not need to "have a feeling"
The promise of "visa-less living and working in EU" was exactly what EuroMaidan crowd
paraded as their aim and treasure, somehow magically warranted by the "Deep Association" that
Yatzenyuk and Poroshenko later dragged feet for months, trying to delay signing of this
economy suicide pact.
They were very public and honest about it. They claimed Yanukovich was somehow putting
ball and chain on them all by giving the second thought to orders from Brussels. Aid in
leaving Ukraine was the price they sold Ukrainian economy for. Ther were never shy in 2014 to
speak about it.
Hapalong Cassidy> While Kharkov has more Russians than most other provinces of Ukraine
do, it does not have a plurality like Donetsk and Luhansk.
There is a point. Kharkov in North-East and Odessa in South-West were trading cities,
routing the official and smuggled goods streams and hosting the largest foreign goods
markets. This clearly had impact upon mindsets of citizens and even more of cities
elites.
People in Kharkov went to the streets right after the coup commited and without support
they were at least equally numerous to all-Ukraine sponsored gathering of EuroMaidan #2.
But their leaders did not seek for independence, Kharkov city mayor Kernes openly shook hands
with Andrey "White Fuhrer" Byletsky and expressed his care about his (not Kharkov citizens)
safety in the night of Rymarskaya street murders, 2014 March 14th AFAIR.
People in Kharkov went against nazi from westernmost Ukraine regions (and even policemen)
and stormed those out of their district government building. Who else did then?
They had a huge impulse, but they also focused the most efforts from usurpers to deflect
and dissipate it. And little free resources the usurpers had back then.
Month later, in April, Kharkov was exhausted and pacified. But other regions of Ukraine were
overlooked those two months.
However, it was that first month which gave people in Donetsk and Lugansk both time and
examples to understand what is really going on (it was almost unbelievable that something
like that can actually happen in XXI century in Europe, wasn't it?) and learn their Ukrainian
elites are prostituting them, and then find some other leaders which would have enough skin
in the game to not sell them out.
You may rightly say Kharkov citizens did not resist for long. But have to admit the
resistance of Donbass and Lugansk was in significant part based upon time Kharkov bought them
in March and April 2014, and upon self-exposing that Kharkov's fleeting but furious
resistance forced EuroMaidan usurpers into.
"All, repeat, ALL the steps taken to sever crucial economic and cultural links between Russia
and the Ukraine were decided upon by Ukrainian leaders, never by Russia who only replied
symmetrically when needed.
Even with international sanctions directed at her, Russia successfully survived both the
severance of ties with the Ukraine and the AngloZionist attempts at hurting the Russian
economy. In contrast, severing economic ties with Russia was a death-sentence for the
Ukrainian economy which has now become completely deindustrialized."
No wonder saker deletes posts to his website containing info like these:
The top trade partner of *the* Ukraine is Russia. So his thesis is a little 'shoddy math'
ish. The links have not been severed as he pretends.
" the severance of ties with Russia " The Ukraine is more tied to Russia than any other
country, by recent trade volumes (as well as in traditional culture). Saker doesn't like
these facts to muddy up his thesis.
This means that the provinces that are losing most from this internal transfer are going
to be strongly motivated to stop sending money to Kiev.
You don't get it. Ukraine's South-Eastern provinces are inanimate objects . They
have no consciousness, no self-interest or free will. They don't decide anything.
Donbass never decided to break away from the Ukraine. That choice was made for it by
Strelkov, when he and his men occupied Slovyansk and began an armed confrontation.
@Anon The Ukraine used to export something like $20 billion worth of goods to Russia
annually. It's now closer to $5 billion, and Ukrainians are a lot poorer as a result.
@Felix Keverich The point is saker maintains it is completely de-industrialized. It is
'dead'. Total trade of >40 B all partners, isn't dead by a long shot. See what he says?
'Death sentence'. Far from it. A decrease isn't death. No doubt there has been a plunge. But
saker is over stating it. Russia is still a center of gravity for the Ukraine.
I am so sick and tired of hearing the term nazi this and nazi that when referring to the
situation in the Ukraine. The term nazi died in 1945 and should be left dead and buried. It
was a stupid word created by the British during the war because of their inability to
pronounce the German name for the NSDAP. The British and American media have a fetish for the
word and will call any "right-wing" movement "nazi" if given any opportunity. This shows
their total lack of creativity to come up with anything new and their deep obsession with
anything to do with Hitler which borders on religious worship. I say get rid of the usage of
the word on this site unless one is referring to the actual NSDAP party that existed until
1945.
@AWM You are an absurd cretin. Of course referring to current Ukraine as being controlled
by Nazi's is 100% accurate.
Ukronazis and Hitler Nazi's have many alignments with eachother:
1. Bizarre, fundamentally paganist usage of ahistoric/religious images from a millenia ago
as national symbols that should have had no connection to national identity of either state
in the 1930's or now ( swastika and Tryzub) even the UPA flag has more sense about it to any
"Ukrainian " state
2. Mass arrests and persecution of political opponents I'm fairly sure that Ukronazi's
have arrested ( and maybe even killed) far more people in their first 5 years, that the
Nazi's ever did in their 6 year, pre-war time in charge
3. Mass killing and torture of the people of the Donbass- now take on board this is with
Russia fighting the war of fighting the war that they are not even there and Russia/DNR/LNR
basically conducting huge talks with west/Banderastan and making huge concessions every time
they have been in a a hugely advantageous position or made a big breakthrough in the war.
Even Nazi's wouldn't have used such a lousy pretext for instigating war against the people of
Donbass – although at least the Nazi's could govern their state ukrops can't govern f
** k all without it descending into farce
4. Above average representation of freaks and/or highly camp idiots Goebbels, Goering and
Ribbentrop versus Avakov, "Yats" the yid, Poroshenko, Turchynov and many more – a
lamentable contest
5. Neither would have got off the ground without Anglo-American funding
Just because the Nazi's in the 30's and 40's were more competent does not take away the
similarities
Structural bottlenecks and slow reform progress lead to anemic growth in Ukraine
The rate of economic growth in Ukraine remains too low to reduce poverty and reach income
levels of neighboring European countries. Following the 16 percent cumulative contraction of
the economy in 2014-15, economic growth has recovered to 2.4 percent in 2016-17 and 3.3
percent in 2018. Faster economic growth for a sustained period of time is needed to reduce
poverty which remains above pre-crisis levels. More needs to be done if Ukraine's aspiration
is to become a high-income country and to close the income gap with advanced economies. Today
Ukraine is far from that goal. In terms of GDP-per-capita, Ukraine remains one of the poorest
countries in the region -- at levels of Moldova, Armenia and Georgia. Ukraine's GDP per
capita in purchasing power parity terms is about three times lower than in Poland, despite
having similar income levels in 1990.
At the growth rate of recent years, it will take Ukraine more than 50 years to reach income
levels of today's Poland. If Ukraine's productivity growth and investment rate remains at the
low levels observed in recent years, overt the medium-term the growth rate will converge to
almost zero per annum -- productivity growth is offset by declining contribution of labor as
Ukraine undergoes the demographic transition. Boosting total factor productivity growth to 3
percent per year and investment to 30 percent of GDP would result in sustained growth of
about 4 percent per year over the medium- to long-term. Given declining total population this
translates to GDP per capita growth of about 4.5 percent per year. These trends will not
improve on their own, they can happen only through the implementation of appropriate policies
that boost productivity and increase the returns on factors of production.
1. It does not split trade to industries. Hi-tech big added value and lo-tech slim added
value – falls into the same "total"
2. It only shows one snapshot, not YoY dynamics.
3. The column "Export Product" shows exactly the same value – literally, 100% –
for ALL the countries, all the rows. I wonder what we should deduce from it
2012 – $19,8B
2013 – $17,6B – the start of the coup
2014 – $15B – the coup won power but did not entrenched yet and did not had time
yet to enforce its ideals
2015 – $9.8B – the work started
2016 – $4.8B – 80% of 2012 exports are cut off, EuroMaidan means business
2017 – $3.6B – 82% of 2013 exports are cut off, coming to plateau ?
2018 – $3,9B – a slight rebound, plateau reached
@bob sykes I'd dismiss this, as Putin is apparently doing. Kolomoisky is looking who else
would provide money that he can steal. He, Porky, and others of their ilk stole Western loans
so blatantly, that even US-controlled IMF is balking at giving Ukraine more money. So,
Kolomoisky hopes that Russia will, so that he has more to steal. I hope that his hopes are in
vain.
The entire Ukraine farce can be explained as a simple project
Khazaria 2.0.
I met a Jew (American) in Ukraine over 20 years ago.
He told me the plan Jews were returning to historically Jewish cities in Ukraine by the
hundreds buying up for kopecki on the Gryvnia anything they could.
Media outlets, banks, factories, beachfront land, farmland, apartments, etc.
The idea? Make Ukraine the next EU Country, and benefit from the huge potential of
Ukraine.
I agreed with him at the time, that Ukraine had huge potential, I was there as an engineer
working for German companies but his lust for what could be 'looted' disgusted me.
This is a standard CIA scenario, used in Sarajevo and Deraa before Kiev. So, Ukrainians
bought an old stale show, swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
But the Georgian snipers brought in 2014 to Kiev by Saakashvili started dying in
suspicious circumstances, so those who are still alive rushed to Belarus and started deposing
their testimony. They implicated a lot of Ukies, including former speaker Parubii, former MP
Pashinsky, etc. It was well known (to those who did not keep their eyes wide shut for
political reasons) that the sniper fire in 2014 on Maidan was from the building controlled by
the coup leaders, who later tried to blame Yanuk for it. That's why post-coup Ukrainian
authorities got rid of the trees on Maidan: bullet holes in those trees indicated where the
fire was coming from. But this recent testimony implicated particular people, who (surprise,
surprise!) happened to be among the coup leaders.
@Truth3 The truth is that you are absolutely right. 'Ukrainians' boasted that they are
the 'Khazars' since Mazeppa and Orlyk of the 'Constitution of Bendery' fame, while parading a
distaste for 'the adherents of deceitful Judaism' and noisy adherence to Orthodoxy.
Look at this entry of the http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com and see if
anything changed:
"After Mazepa's death, on 16 April 1710, Orlyk was elected hetman, with the backing of
Charles XII of Sweden, in Bendery. The chief author of the Constitution of Bendery, he
pursued policies aimed at liberating Ukraine from Russian rule. He gained the support of the
Zaporozhian Host, concluded a treaty with Charles XII* in May 1710, and sought to make the
Ukrainian question a matter of international concern by continuing Mazepa's attempts at
establishing an anti-Russian coalition ** . Orlyk signed a treaty with the Crimean khan
Devlet-Girei in February 1711, negotiated with the Ottoman Porte, which formally recognized
his authority over Right-Bank Ukraine and the Zaporizhia in 1712, conducted talks with the
Don Cossack participants in Kondratii Bulavin's revolt who had fled to the Kuban, and even
contacted the Kazan Tatars and the Bashkirs. In 1711–14 he led Cossack campaigns
against the Russians in Right-Bank Ukraine. Despite initial victories they ultimately failed,
because of Turkish vacillation and because the pillaging, raping, and taking of many civilian
captives by Orlyk's Crimean Tatar allies resulted in the loss of public and military support
on the Right Bank".
Nowhere does the 'first "European" constitution' speak about 'ukrainians', but of 'Exercitu
Zaporoviensi genteque Rossiaca" (Zaporozhian Host and the Ruthenian people) living in
"Parva Rossia"/Little Russia.
* putting Ukraine under the protection of the King of Sweden.
** an plot of 'European' and Islamic powers with an intense 'Masonic-Kabbalistic' coloring
(and Jewish financial support) against Russian 'Tsardom' and 'Patriarchal' Church. 'Ukraine'
was an anti-Russian project from the get go. Brzezinski's quip: "Ukraine, a new and important
space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an
independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a
Eurasian empire" reflects only the revival of the old plan in new circumstances.
@Seraphim " Brzezinski's quip: "Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian
chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot "
Old Zbieg was as lunatic as Pole can be and as cunning as Jew can be (was he?).
The Poles were so desiring to became Slavic superpower, and on the height of their might
in 15th century – they could become. They occupied Russian lands – oh, that
mythical Kievan Rus oppressed by Moscow for centuries. And they even occupied Moscow for few
months – more than unified Europe managed to do under both Napoleon and Hitler
combined! Polska was really stronk then.
.well, they ate themselves from inside and sold their statehood to all the foreign bidders
while boasting about Polish pride. Like ukropeans do today. They lost their strength, they
lost their eastern colony, and for a while they even lost Poland itself.
They could never move over it.
Zbieg – coming from Galicia, the last shrink of Poland-occupied lands – had
this specifically Polish resentment burning in him. And he managed to make USA fight Polish
fights. Managed to use American incompetence in history and geography to sell them that idea
that the Ukraine – the borderlands between Poland and Russia have "geopolitical"
importance. For USA, no less. Wow!
Okay, USA invested at very least $5B into buying Ukrainian warchiefs, and we don't know
how much more was added by EU and Germany. They now have this "geopolitical asset" as Zbieg
urged them to do. What are they gonna do with it now? How do they gonna make Ukrainians pay
back the money they spent? Old Zbieg preached about the world "paid by Russia to fight
against Russia". This is that very "Russia, occupy the Ukraine finally, we are tired of
fruitless waiting!" whining they repeat again and again. But if this won't work, just like it
did not work yet, how do they think to make Ukrainians pay for it? Or whom else? I wonder
@Arioch "> My point is the ukraine isn't dead. It isn't dying.
In which quality? As a swath of land inhabited by few peasants here and there – it
surely will remain.
As an economically vibrant country, one of UN founders, with economy larger than German and
closing on France – what it used to be – it is dead.
As a laws-bound polity it is dead since 2014, though was dying even before.
As STEM engineering and education stronghold it was in USSR – it is dead.
As one in just four in the whole world producers of really large airplanes – it is
dead.
As one of the few ICBM producers – it is dead, know-how sold to Saudi.
As one of the few turbojet engines producers – it is dead, know-how sold to China.
As one of the reliable and well known tanks and APCs producer – it is dead, even
USA-occupied Iraq does not buy this trash.
As the country, living from the geographic rent, just providing roads and hotels for cargo
traffic, it is almost dead. Bridges are collapsing, roads – neither for cars nor
railways – are not maintained."
Bravado, anyone can see.
Dead countries don't produce electricity. Real economists look at things like this. Not
just at industrial reorganization. That is the only point you have. Industrial
reorganization. Not death of industry.
@Anon BTW, most *live* countries of the world do not produce ICBMs, nor jet engines, nor
APCs etc, nor super heavy aircraft. The military industrial complex remnants from the SU are
not industries that most of the planet's countries have. Specialties. Those can not be
measures of whether a country is living or dead. Use some real measures.
@Anon Actually a good point. Mass cargo logistics and energy generation. Indeed.
The thing here is, that as of now the Ukraine is enjoying its privileged position from
times Ukrainians ruled USSR (IOW, after Stalin died in 1953 and of few coup leaders Khruschev
became top dog in 1956). The Ukraine is reeking with then top-tech nuclear power plants, that
very few of other USSR republics had (one in Ignalina in Baltics, one in Armenia, and dozen
in Russia, that is all. Ukraine was #2 with huge gap).
There is a switch, though. What do you do with electricity you produced?
And, what kind of electricity you produce?
The second question is tangential to "green energy" fad.
The generation is split to "base" generation, which covers required minimum and should be
steadily generating around the clock, and "maneuvering" generation which can be turned on and
off in a matter of few minutes, to accommodate with daytime traits, like "people awoke in
between 7-8am, took shower, cooked breakfast and departed to school/work".
In general, base generation is predictable, thus does not need big reserves, can use economy
of scales and cut costs. Maneuvering one has to increase costs, dealing with unpredictable
mode changes and extra wearing it puts on the equipment and employees.
The first question, as you can not pour electricity into a tank and keep it for months
there, can be roughly split to
1) use at home, for things like washing, cleaning, entertaining (TV, computers), air
conditioning in summer and heating in winter.
2) use in industries, this is perhaps what "real economists" look for. Those should had less
daily spikes, they might even have near constant consumption around the clock.
3) export to the countries, who need it, but does not want to build their own power
plants
The export is significant thing. There is so called Byrshtyn Island, a constellation of
power plants in Western Ukraine, that was cut off from Ukrainian grid and plugged to Polish
grid, to act as maneuvering damper for Polish citizens' daylight cycles.
You chart shows that between 2014 and 2015 there was strong (about 2000 GWH) decrease in
production, which remained more or less stable after that. It also shows huge seasonal
variation.
It probably means Ukrainian industries and households enjoy a lot of winter-time heating, but
very little of summer-time AC. Just like it was built during USSR times.
Ukrainian electricity export seems rising. Were there new power plants put to service? I
did not heard. Then it means that domestic consumption shrunk.
There was also a streak of Nuclear Power Plants accidents in the news of 2017-2019.
This can stem from two factors:
1) increased reliance on NPP as other power plants go belly-up, especially forcing those
giant NPPs into maneuvering modes, which they were not designed for. You can find news
sources that Ukrainian NPPs were being tested to 105% of normative capacity and to
maneuvering modes, the modes that just do not make sense when together.
2) decreased maintenance
Anyway, those NPPs are of old Soviet design of 1980-s, they are closing to end of life.
We'll see if new ones will be built. Or if they will just be used regardless of aging until
some hard failure, "run to the ground". And what will come after.
Of course, as long as they operate – no mater how harmful to locals – EU will
buy cheap energy.
And since EuroMaidan government is living on debts, it will have no choice than to sell. Even
if domestic power consumption will get zero, the EU will buy the power.
But I do not think EU would invest into building new power plants there when Soviet ones
finally crack.
@Anon Indeed, only Airbus and Boeing can produce super-heavy aircrafts.
China and Russia are contenders. Ukraine used to be, but stepped out.
Does it mean, USA and France are hell-bent over their military industrial complex?
Maybe.
Does it make them run worse?
Bombardier and EmBraer factories are bought by Airbus and Boeing, not vice versa.
Avro of Canada once used to be a pillar, now is memory.
And all the other countries have to kiss up to political powers that allow them purchasing
Boeing and Airbus jets and maintenance as a privilege for their lapdogging.
Iran wanted to buy Airbus badly, how did it work out?
So, yeah, specialties. Those specialties that can not be replaced – for master
races.
And those that can easily – for lapdogs.
New Zealand can produce good beef. But so can Brazil and Argentina. And Ukraine too.
But Brazil can not produce irreplaceable large cargo aircrafts. And even mid-size they can
not produce independently.
All nations are completely artificial along with the gods, ideologies, fiat money & all
the rest if the human fictions. If humans went extinct overnight would the US, Russia et al
still exist? No, nor would their thousands of gods.
That little trick with the maps can be done with many countries. The US is a fine example.
1st map = 13 colonies – keep adding new maps for every new state they added after
France paid for & won US independence & include the theft/conquest of Mexican
territory & Hawaii.
The Ukraine is a huge basket case made much worse by the US, but your (Orlov too) Rabid
Russian nationalism blinds you. IOW, like the empires propagandists, you too are spinning a
narrative, albeit more truthful than empires, but a narrative (emotional) nonetheless.
@Dr Scanlon Maybe we just compare real Ukraine with what it was promised to become?
Michael Saakashvili, 2014-08-26, "Exactly one year from today Ukraine would send
humanitarian aid to Russia. Mark my words.". I am still trying to find that aid around me, no
luck
There also was a much more extended timetable, year by year, how Ukraine would rocket to
the future and how Russia would fall down to middle ages. Wanted to re-read it but could not
find.
@Anon Or yea, sure. Even Ukrainian statistics (which in terms of reliability might be
somewhat better than Nostradamus, at least sometimes) report 53 births for 100 deaths, with
the population shrinking due to this differential alone by more than 200,000 per year. If you
count in emigration, the picture becomes very bleak. Millions work in Russia, Poland, and
elsewhere. Mind you, temporary emigration for work easily becomes permanent. For example, I
have a cousin who used to live in Lvov. He worked in Russia for 20+ years, and since 2014
never visited Ukraine. I guess he is still counted, as he remains a Ukrainian citizen.
@Mr. Hack OK, let's go to the original of the constitution 'ratified' by "His Majesty the
King of Sweden" (cum consensu S-ae R-ae Maiestatis Sueciae, Protectoris Nostri/with the
consent of His Majesty the King of Sweden, our protector):
"It is no secret that Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky of glorious memory, with the
Zaporozhian Host, took up arms and began a just war against the Polish Commonwealth for no
other reason (apart from rights and liberties) except their Orthodox faith, which had been
forced as a result of various encumbrances placed on it by the Polish authorities into union
with the Roman church. Similarly, after the alien new Roman religion had been eradicated
from our fatherland, he with the said Zaporozhian Host and Ruthenian [Rossiaca] people,
sought and submitted himself to the protection of the Muscovite tsardom for no other
reason than "that it shared the same Orthodox religion". Therefore, if God our Lord, strong
and mighty in battle, should assist the victorious armies of His Royal Majesty the King of
Sweden to liberate our fatherland from the Muscovite yoke of slavery, the present newly
elected Hetman will be bound by duty and put under obligation to take special care that no
alien religion is introduced into our Ruthenian [Rossiacam] fatherland. Should one, however,
appear anywhere, either secretly or openly, he will be bound to extirpate it through his
authority, not allow it to be preached or disseminated, and not permit any dissenters,
MOST OF ALL THE ADHERENTS OF DECEITFUL JUDAISM, to live in Ukraine, and will be bound to make
every possible effort that only the Orthodox faith of the Eastern confession, under
obedience to the Holy Apostolic See of Constantinople, be established firmly for ever
and be allowed to expand and to flourish, like a rose among thorns, among the neighbouring
countries following alien religions, for the greater glory of God, the building of churches,
and the instruction of Ruthenian [Rossiacis] sons in the liberal arts. And for the greater
authority of the Kievan metropolitan see, which is foremost in Little Russia [Parva Rossia],
and for a more efficient administration of spiritual matters, His Grace the Hetman should,
after the liberation of our fatherland from the Muscovite yoke, obtain from the Apostolic See
of Constantinople the original power of an exarch in order thereby to renew relationship with
and filial obedience to the aforementioned Apostolic See of Constantinople, from which
it , was privileged to have been enlightened in the holy Catholic faith by the preaching of
the Gospel".
"neque ignotum est, gloriosae memoriae Ducem Theodatum Chmielniccium cum Exercitu
Zaporoviensi non ob aliam causam praeter iura libertatis commotum fuisse iustaque contra
Rempublicam Polonam arma arripuisse, solum pro Fide sua Orthodoxa, quae variorum
gravaminum compulsu a potestate Polonorum coacta fuerat ad unionem cum Ecclesia Romana;
post extirpatam quoque e patria Neoromanam exoticam Religionem, non alio motivo cum eodem
Exercitu Zaporoviensi genteque Rossiaca protectione Imperii Moscovitici dedisse et libere se
subdidisse, solum ob Religionis Orthodoxae unionem. Igitur modernus neoelectus lllustrissimus
Dux, quando Dominus Deus fortis et potens in praeliis iuvabit felicia sacrae S-ae R-ae
Maiestatis Sueciae arma ad vindicandam patriam nostram de servitutis iugo Moscovitico
tenebitur et debito iure obstringetur singularem volvere curam fortiterque obstare, ut nulla
exotica Religio in patriam nostram Rossiacam introducatur, quae si alicubi clamve , palamve
apparuerit, tune activitatem suam extirpandae ipsi debebit, praedicari ampliarique non
permittet, asseclis eiusdem, PRAESERTIM VERO PRAESTIGIOSO IUDAISMO cohabitationem in Ucraina
non concedet et omni virium conatu sollicitam impendet curam, ut sola et una Orthodoxa Fides
Orientalis Confessionis sub obedienta S-tae Apostoiicae sedis Constantinopolitanae in
perpetuum sit firmanda, atque cum amplianda gloria Divina, erigendis ecclesiis exercendisque
in artibus liberalibus filiis Rossiacis dilatetur, ac tanquam rosa inter spinas, inter vicina
exoticae Religionis Dominia virescat et florescat. Propter vero majorem authoritatem
primariae in Parva Rossia sedis Metropolitanae Kiiovensis faciliorique in Spiritualibus
regimine, impositam sibi idem Illustrissimus Dux vindicata patria nostra de iugo Moscovitico
geret provinciam circa procurandam et impertiendam a sede Apostolica Constantinopolitana
Exarchicam primitivam potestatem, ut hoc actu renovetur relatio et filialis patriae nostrae
obedientia ad praefatam Apostolicam sedem Constantinopolitanam, cuius praedicatione Evangelii
in Fide Sancta Catholica illuminari firmarique dignata est".
ТHЕ PYLYP ORLYK CONSTITUTION,
1710@http://www.lucorg.com/block.php/block_id/26
@Anon > Also, check construction spending – click on 10 year
.now how can i account there for the fact, that UAH in 2013 costed three times more than
UAH in 2015 ?
> Farming is an industry.
Grain industry – is low added value one, it is highly competitive market because
grain from any country on Earth is just grain.
USSR used to buy grain, as it sponsored bread production and peasants all around were
buying bead to feed their hens, goats, pigs, etc. Official meat production was large too.
It is definitely better to export at least something than nothing. But it also is better
to export high added value goods.
Before WW1 a minister of Russian Empire said "Let our peasants starve but we will export
all the grains we contracted" – few years later Russian Empire ceased to exist.
In 1931 and 1932 Stalin tenfold decreased then banned grains export breaking the
contracts. 15 years later USSR won WW2.
Franlky, it is just weird that Ukraine and Russia together produce most world's traded
grain, like there is no other fertile soil on Earth. Also Russia and Ukraine are both to the
north from USA, so USA should be able to produce more grains in its warmer climate. Why isn't
USA world #1 grains exporter?
and EU just whimsically bans Ukrainian meat beyond some arbitrary quota.
EU will easily find where to buy meet.
Can Ukraine reciprocate by banning Airbus or Boeing purchases? I wonder
EU can pressure Ukrainian government, and Ukraine can do little in defense.
Sputnik is reporting that the US has spent $6.4 Trillion fighting wars that have killed
800,000 since Sept 11/01, that number is unbelievable, at least 1,500,000 dead in Iraq,
250,000 in Afghanistan, 750,000 in Syria.
The US military budget alone has averaged about 650 billion since then, plus the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan were funded separately (around 200 million a year), plus CIA/ blackbook
projects - 7 or 8 trillion is a more likely number.
When things get blown up, no one really knows what was actually bought and existed and
what was just a phantom piece of equipment War has always been the ideal cover for
corruption
"DNC Announces 10 Candidates in Atlanta Democratic Debate" [
Bloomberg ]. Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy
Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang. And not Julian Castro,
sadly. "The forum will be co-hosted by the Washington Post and MSNBC. Candidates will be
questioned by four female moderators: Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell and Kristen Welker from
the network, and Ashley Parker from the Post. The two-hour event had a higher bar to qualify
than previous debates. Candidates must have contributions from 165,000 donors, up from 135,000.
And the donors must be geographically dispersed, with a minimum of 600 per state in at least 20
states. In addition, participants must either show 3% support in four qualifying national or
single-state polls, or have at least 5% support in two qualifying single-state polls released
between Sept. 13 and Nov. 13 in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South
Carolina or Nevada."
"In 2019, the bottom 99% of families will pay 7.2% of their wealth in taxes, while the top
0.1% of households will pay just 3.2%."
~~Elizabeth Warren~
do you see how EW has finally opened our eyes?
sure! poor people think about wealth as being income. they think about Wealth as being
their salary. from the perspective of a wealthy senator wealth is a function of assets. EW
had the guts to share this perspective with us, to open our eyes to reality.
we should not be taxing the payroll we should not be taxing the capital gains and other
income. we should be taxing non productive assets, assets which cannot be hidden which cannot
be taken off shore.
the Swiss have such a tax. all of their real estate is taxed at a rate of 0.3% per annum.
it would be easy for us to stop all local taxes All County taxes all state taxes and all
federal tax then initiate a 1% tax on all real property unimproved and on all improved real
property. we should continue this tax until our federal debt is completely discharged. such a
taxation shift would revv up our productive activity and increase our per capita GDP. as
usual there would be winners and there would be losers. the losers would be those who want
more inequality and the winners would be
"... Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral." ..."
"... Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with " Obama rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012. ..."
No, the really intense backlash against Warren and progressive Democrats in general is
coming from
Wall Street . And while that opposition partly reflects self-interest, Wall Street's Warren
hatred has a level of virulence, sometimes crossing into hysteria, that goes beyond normal
political calculation.
What's behind that virulence?
First, let's talk about the rational reasons Wall Street is worried about Warren. She is, of
course, calling for major tax increases on the very wealthy, those with wealth exceeding $50
million, and the financial industry is strongly represented in that elite club. And since
raising taxes on the wealthy is highly popular , it's an
idea a progressive president might actually be able to turn into real policy.
Warren is also a big believer in stricter financial regulation; the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, which was highly effective until the Trump administration set about gutting
it, was her brainchild.
So if you are a Wall Street billionaire, rational self-interest might well induce you to
oppose Warren. Neoliberal_rationality/ does not, however, explain why a money manager like Leon Cooperman
-- who just two years ago
settled a suit over insider trading for $5 million, although without admitting wrongdoing
-- would circulate an embarrassing, self-pitying open letter
denouncing Warren for her failure to appreciate all the wonderful things billionaires like
him do for society.
Nor does it explain why Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren
adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of
economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral."
The real tell here, I think, is that much of the Wall Street vitriol now being directed at
Warren was previously directed at, of all people, President Barack Obama.
Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating
financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He
and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared
with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that
financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And
the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with "
Obama
rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012.
I wonder, by the way, if this history helps explain an odd aspect of fund-raising in the
current primary campaign. It's not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the
financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn't Joe Biden but
Pete
Buttigieg , who's running a fairly distant
fourth in the polls. Is Biden suffering from the lingering effects of that old-time Obama
rage?
In any case, the point is that Wall Street billionaires, even more than billionaires in
general, seem to be snowflakes, emotionally unable to handle criticism.
I'm not sure why that should be the case, but it may be that in their hearts they suspect
that the critics have a point.
What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? Unlike the robber barons
of yore, today's Wall Street tycoons don't build anything tangible. They don't even direct
money to the people who actually are building the industries of the future. The vast expansion
of credit in America after around 1980 basically involved a surge in
consumer debt rather than new money for business investment.
Moreover, there is growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually
acts as a drag on the economy -- and America is well past that point .
Now, human nature being what it is, people who secretly wonder whether they really deserve
their wealth get especially angry when others express these doubts publicly. So it's not
surprising that people who couldn't handle Obama's mild, polite criticism are completely losing
it over Warren.
What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies
would have dire effects. Such claims don't reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent
they're coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted
appropriately. The Times is committed to publishing
a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of
our articles. Here are some tips
. And here's our email: [email protected]
.
If anything good can come from the Democrat's incessant efforts to impeach Donald Trump it will be the outgrowth, from the nurturing
'mother of necessity,' of a more inclusive political system that acknowledges more than just a compromised duopoly as the voice of
the American people.
With complete disregard for the consequences of their actions, the Democrat House Intelligence Committee under Adam Schiff has
abandoned all pretense of democratic procedure in their effort to remove the 45th President of the United States from office.
Indeed, the Democrats have provided the Republicans with a Machiavellian crash course on the subtle art of decadent behavior for
getting what you want , which of course is ultimate political power, and to hell in a proverbial hand basket with the consequences.
The Republicans have been snoozing through a game of 2D checkers, holding out hope that Sheriff Billy Barr and his deputy John Durham
will
round
up the real criminals, while the Democrats have been playing mortal combat.
The dark prince in this Gothic tale of diabolical, dare I say biblical, proportions is none other than Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, who,
like Dracula in his castle dungeon, has contorted every House rule to fit the square peg of a Trump telephone call into the bolt
hole of a full-blown impeachment proceeding. Niccolò Machiavelli would have been proud of his modern-day protégé.
As if to mock the very notion of Democratic due process, whatever that means, Schiff and his torch-carrying lynch mob took their
deliberations down into the dank basement, yes, the basement, of the US Capital where they have been holding secretive depositions
in an effort to get some new twist on the now famous phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky back in June. But
why all the cloak and dagger theatrics when the transcript has long been available for public consumption?
At one point, the frazzled Republicans bared a little backbone against this bunker mentality when they
crashed the basement meetings for some really outstanding optics. Schiff, betraying a lack of foresight, could not defenestrate
the well-dressed hooligans since the meetings, as mentioned, are being held inside of a windowless dungeon. The Republican troublemakers
were ushered back up the stairs instead.
Considering what Prince Schiff has managed to pull off over the course of this not-made for television impeachment process is
astounding, and could not have happened without the drooling complicity of the lapdog media corporations. Schiff got the ball bouncing
when he performed a Saturday Night Live skit of the Trump-Zelensky phone call on the hallowed floor of Congress. The imaginary voices
in Schiff's head made the president sound like a mafia boss speaking to one of his lackeys.
Not only did Schiff survive that stunt, it was revealed that he blatantly lied, not once but several times, about his affiliation
with the White House insider, reportedly a CIA officer, who, without ever hearing the Trump-Zelensky phone call firsthand, blew the
whistle anyways. The Democrats claim Trump was looking for some 'quid pro quo' with Kiev, which would dig up the dirt on Joe Biden
and his son Hunter in exchange for the release of $400 million in military aid. The transcript, however, points to no such coercion,
while Zelensky himself denies that he was pressured by Trump.
Meanwhile, Schiff has taken great efforts to keep the identity of the whistleblower a 'secret' out of "safety concerns." The Republicans
in the House said they will subpoena the whistleblower for the public impeachment that starts next week, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
told reporters. Yet Schiff has awarded himself the power to reject any witnesses the Republicans may wish to grill.
"We'll see if he gives us any of our witnesses," Jordan said.
A person need not feel any particular fondness for Donald Trump to find these circumstances surrounding the impeachment show trial
as disgraceful, dishonorable and beneath the dignity of the American people. And whether they want it or not, the fallout from Schiff's
shenanigans will have repercussions long into the future of the US political system, which is groaning under the weight of corruption
and deceit.
It is doubtful the Republicans will soon forgive and forget what the Democrats have put them through ever since Trump entered
office in 2016. From Russiagate to Ukrainegate, the Trump White House has been held hostage by a non-stop, media-endorsed hate campaign
to oust a democratically elected POTUS. Although it would be difficult for the Republicans, who lack the support of the media, an
overwhelmingly left-leaning propaganda machine, to exact an equal amount of revenge on the Democrats when the latter have one of
their own in the White House, they will certainly try. This will lead the Republic into an inescapable vortex of infighting where
the sole function of the political system will be based on that of vengeance and 'pay backs' and more waste of time and money as
the parties investigate the crimes of the other side.
The public, which is slowly awakening to the problem, will ultimately demand new leadership to break the current two-party internecine
struggle. Thus, talk of a civil war in the United States, while possible, is being overplayed. The truth will be much simpler and
far less violent.
Out of the dust and ashes of the defunct duopoly that is now at war with itself, the American people will soon demand fresh political
blood in Washington and this will bring to the forefront capable political forces that are committed to the primary purpose of politics:
representing the needs of the people, once again. Tags Politics
As it turns out the once apathetic and flustered American woke up pissed off, in large numbers I might add. They sensed that
someone was starting to mess with their happy blind relationship to the materialistic free market American dream. In other words,
they are broke for the most part or are working like a beast to stay even. I get it.
"Apathy does not make us stupid. On the contrary, a great deal of energy is used to offset the world and hibernate in an
apathetic state of existence. Apathy requires an acute awareness of the obvious. It is what drives some to having a broken "give
a damn". Many can only cope with the influence of the pressure of reality by excusing themselves from it and gathering in flocks
for comfort. They yearn for a sheep dog."
And now they are awake, angry and wanting revenge against whomever shattered their illusion of American integrity. In most
respects some have herded together and really are angry political mobs.
So why hasn't Graham started a senate investigation into this whole Ukrainian affair? Why hasn't he called all of Adam Schiff's
witnesses into one of his own investigations of this thing and gotten the truth out of them under penalty of perjury should they
not come clean?
Republicans are as usual cowering in the corner hoping this will all pass by without harming their re-election chances. There
are precious few that really care and the bug eyed liar has them shut down totally. If they were playing chess, the Dems would
have the Republicans in a constant state of Check (thanks to the unwavering support of their media lap dogs). The Republicans
would be sitting at the table hoping time would run out while wetting their pants in fear that they would be discovered to be
the weak kneed mamas boys in suits who just had their lunch money stolen AGAIN by the big bad Dem boys & girls.
The Democratic Socialists will absorb the butthurt left, and Pelosi, Waters, Schiff and the rest will die naturally soon enough.
This is a result of Democrats' identity politics, and radicalizing of the left.
The Republicans will likely move farther right. Both parties will continue to spend too much - just on different causes. But
when the DS get rolling, probably with someone like AOC at the helm, it will be Kristallnacht all over again.
Except this time it will be Christians and conservatives.
I would say that a 3rd and 4th party are not only inevitable but the next organic evolution of party. This will help explain
why --> The Altered States
of America.
If there is one thing that truly illustrates the psychotic break with reality the Democrats, DC Deep State Establishment, and
their *useless* idiots in the MSM have suffered, it has to be the bizarre situation with the identity of the *whistleblower* that
EVERYONE on the planet knows but that somehow THEY think they have kept *secret*.
Cue the Twilight Zone music, America, because THAT takes a special kind of crazy! Lol! 25th Amendment for every Democrat in
the House??
On top of THAT craziness, Sen. Lindsay Graham has made it clear to Dems that if ERIC C*a*Amella (You literally cannot post
comments with his name! Hysterical! lol) does not publicly testify, their show trial is DOA in the Senate. So I hope they have
fun with their impeachment coup to nowhere as ERIC C*A*a*ell* sits like some bloated political elephant in the room for the next
two weeks!
On the upside, it will be loads of fun watching a bunch of crazy people have their mental breakdown on national T.V. so, by
all means, Dems, PLEASE carry on!
The political system is dead. You cannot run this freak show before people in the age of Internet. Most of deplorables are
more online savvy than their ruling political class.
Schiff has connections to sex trafficking and pedophilia. He has a lot to do with well know activities in the Standard Hotel
(west Pedowood) involving minors and powerful people in that filthy city which include politicians and business people. You easily
start with Ed Buck which the media has buried quickly.
This is an excellent example of Orwellian cognitive dissonance.
Everyone knows that almost all, if not all, politicians are bought off to the highest bidder.
Everyone knows that the people who control the money system have the most money.
But very few will logically assemble those two data points and conclude what exists in reality - that the Money Power Monopolists
CONTROL BOTH PARTIES!
Schitt and his cult of DemonRats represents the darkest elements of society. So without writing a long list you already know,
here's what you should prepare yourself for.
Buy guns, ammo, cameras and survival supplies to last a few months.
Civil War 2.0 is coming.
We didn't start this war, but we sure as hell will finish it.
The time has come to take this country back from an elite permanent political class who doesn't give a damn about you, your
family, your future.
Lock and load, the San Fransicko **** has already hit the fan.
The public is in a mood to vote out RINO Republicans and most Democrats, and vote in MAGA Republicans. The Democrats will all
but disappear from sight for awhile. After they reorganize and dump their radicals and after their corrupt ones go to jail, and
after the MSM completely falls apart -- they will then come back, but probably not till 2024 or 2026
The two party political system was never much of a democratic system at all. It's been with us since 1854, and has polarized
the country more than once, the first time being the Civil War. In 2003, the MIT professor Noam Chomsky said, "In the US, there
is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different
but carry out variations on the same policies".
The two party system should be ended, and the Voter Access laws be repealed, and Gerrymandering districts be prohibited. Even
your own vote means nothing, since it is only designed to ratify a selection someone else made for you. The only selection you
can make is choosing personalities, but never on issues or money. You are never allowed to be a participant in the American political
system, but rather, just a "consumer". Why? Because the American society is ruled by an Oligarchy! Why would they want to allow
you to share power with them? None of this is what is practiced in a true democracy. The entire system needs to undergo some major
changes.
"... The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along. ..."
Recent class history of US is quite simple: the elite class first tried to shift the burden
of supporting the lower classes on the middle class with taxation. But as the lower class
became demographically distinct, partially via mass immigration, the elites decided to ally
with the ' underpriviledged ' via identity posturing and squeeze no longer needed
middle class out of existence.
What's left are government employees, a few corporate sinecures, NGO parasitic sector, and
old people. The rest will be melded into a few mutually antagonistic tribal groups providing
ever cheaper service labor. With an occasional lottery winner to showcase mobility. Actually
very similar to what happened in Latin America in the past few centuries.
The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are
'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of
corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing
along.
Unlike the USA (under Neocon stewardship) China has not squandered twenty trillion dollars
of its national solvency bombing countries which never attacked it post 9-11.
China's leaders (unlike our own) never LIED its people into launching obscenely expensive,
illegal wars of aggression across the middle east. (WMD's, Mushroom clouds, Yellow Cake,
etc.)
China has used its wealth and resources to build up its infrastructure, build out its
capital markets, and turbo charge its high tech sectors. As a consequence, it has lifted
nearly half a billion people out of poverty. There has been an explosion in the growth of the
"middle class" in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are now living comfortable "upwardly
mobile" lives.
The USA, on the other hand, having been defrauded by its "ruling elites" into launching
and fighting endless illegal wars, is now 23 trillion dollars in catastrophic debt.
NOT ONE PENNY of this heinous "overspending" has been dedicated to building up OUR
infrastructure, or BUILDING OUT our middle class.
It has all gone into BLOWING UP countries which never (even) attacked us on 9-11.
As a consequence , the USA is fast becoming a failed nation, a nation where all its wealth
is being siphoned into the hands of its one percent "war pilfer-teers".
It is so sad to have grown up in such an amazing country , with such immense resources and
possibilities, and having to bear witness to it going down the tubes.
To watch all our sovereign wealth being vaporized by our "lie us into endless illegal war"
ruling elites is truly heartbreaking.
The white middle class is the only group that might effectively resist Globohomo's designs on
total power.
Blacks? Too dumb. Will be disposed of once Globohomo is finished the job.
Hispanics? Used to corrupt one party systems. Give them cerveza and Netflix and they're
good.
East Asians? Perfectly fine with living like bug people.
South Asians? Cowardly; will go with the flow.
The middle class is almost completely unique to white people.
Racial aliens cannot wrap their minds around being middle class. They think I'm crazy for
appreciating my 2009 Honda Accord. They literally cannot understand why somebody would want
to live a frugal and mundane life. They are desperate to be like Drake but most end up broke.
It will be very easy for GloboHomo to control a bucket of poor brown slop.
There IS a black middle class, but a big chunk of that works for governments of all
shapes and sizes.
Strictly speaking, there is no more "middle class" in the sense of the classical
economists: a person with just enough capital to live off the income if he works the capital
himself or herself. By this definition professionals (lawyers, dentists, physicians, small
store owners, even spinsters [1] and hand loom operators in a sense) were middle class. Upper
class had enough property to turn it over to managers, lower class had little or no property
and worked for others (servants and farm workers, for example). Paupers didn't earn enough
income per year to feed themselves and didn't live all that long, usually.
What we have is "middle income" people, almost all of whom work as an employee of some
organization -- people who would be considered "lower class" by the classical economists
because they don't have freedom of action and make no independent decisions about how the
capital of their organizations is spent. Today they are considered "intelligentsia", educated
government workers, or, by analogy, educated corporate workers. IMHO, intelligentsia is a
suicide job, and is responsible for the depressed fertility rate, but that's just me.
Back in the AD 1800s and pre-AD 1930 there were many black middle class people. usually
concentrating on selling to black clientele. Now there are effectively none outside of
criminal activities, usually petty criminal. And so it goes.
Of course, back then there were many white middle class people also, usually concentrating
on selling to white clientele. Now there are effectively none, except in some rural areas.
And so it goes.
Counterinsurgency
1] Cottagers who made their living spinning wool skeins into wool threads.
@unit472 A
lot of the middle class are Democrats but not particularly liberal. Many of them vote
Democrat only when they personally benefit. For example, my parents were suburban public
school teachers. They voted for Democrats at the state level because the Democrats supported
better pay and benefits for teachers but voted for Republicans like Goldwater and Reagan at
the national level because Republicans would keep their federal taxes lower. They had no
political philosophy. It was all about what left them financially better off. My parents also
got on well with their suburban neighbors. Suburbanites generally like their local school
system and its teachers and the suburban school systems are usually careful not to engage in
teaching anything controversial. A lot of the government employed white middle class would be
like my parents. Except in situations where specific Republicans talk about major cuts to
their pay and pensions they are perfectly willing to consider voting Republican. They are
generally social moderates, like the status quo, are fairly traditionalist and don't want any
radical changes. Since the Democrats seem be trending in a radical direction, this would put
off a lot of them. Trump would be more appealing as the status quo candidate. When running
the last time, he carefully avoided talking about any major cuts in government spending and
he's governed that way too. At the same time, his talk of cutting immigration, his lack of
enthusiasm for nonwhite affirmative action, and his more traditional views on social issues
is appealing to the white middle class.
The term middle class is used in the U.S. to mean middle income. It has nothing to do with
class. Why not just say what you mean? Most of the middle class that we say is disappearing
is really that rarest of phenomenons. A prosperous working class. The prosperous American
working class is no longer prosperous due to the Neoliberal agenda. Free trade, open borders
and the financialization of everything.
Americans know nothing of class dynamics. Not even the so called socialists. They don't
even see the economy. All they see is people with infinite need and government with infinite
wealth. In their world all of Central America can come to the U.S. and the government (if it
only wants to) can give them all homes, health care and education.
Lets stop saying class when we mean income. Not using the word class would be better than
abusing it.
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If
the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the
Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
Are we to the point where we've collectively resigned ourselves to the death of the
middle class?
In the neoliberal worldview, the middle class is illegitimate, existing only as a
consequence of artificial trade and immigration barriers. Anytime Americans are spied out
making a good living, there is a "shortage" that must be addressed with more visas. Or else
there is an "inefficiency" where other countries could provide said service or produce said
product for less because they have a "comparative advantage."
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists.
If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with
the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
I don't know about that anymore. Increasingly, "middle class" means Asian, with Whiteness
being associated with the lower middle class (or perhaps "working class"). Sometimes the
media uses the term " noncollege Whites," which I think is actually very apt. They are the
ones who identify with Whiteness the most.
Thank you, @BlackWomxnFor ! Black trans and
cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I
don't take this endorsement lightly. I'm committed to fighting alongside you for the big,
structural change our country needs. https://t.co/KqWsVoRYMb
People need to remember that we literally didn't even have democracy until the trans
movement started and finally brought us to The Right Side of History.
Thank you, @BlackWomxnFor ! Black trans and
cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I
don't take this endorsement lightly. I'm committed to fighting alongside you for the big,
structural change our country needs. https://t.co/KqWsVoRYMb
People need to remember that we literally didn't even have democracy until the trans
movement started and finally brought us to The Right Side of History.
Deval Patrick served on the board at subprime mortgage giant Ameriquest. Melody Barnes
is on the board at bigwig defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Textbook cases of the
revolving door corruption Warren frequently attacks. https://t.co/KU3Ct3j9eC
If she really cared about the policies she is running on she would have endorsed Bernie.
Period. It was during the primary that Hillary said, "single payer will never ever happen
here."
Bernie was running on it and yet Warren did not endorse him for it. If she actually wants to
help us she would drop out and tell people to vote for Bernie. Sure everyone has the right to
run for president, but we know or believe that she is only running to keep Bernie from becoming
president.
She is lying to us about not taking money from rich people and corporations because she
took their money for her senate campaign and transferred it to her presidential campaign. If
she isn't up front about this then how can we trust her on anything else?
Elites eliting about elites while elitseplaining to working Americans about how they are
going to vote for some elites and beat the Republicans elite. https://t.co/l0W8QPUT0E
"Who is to the left of Bloomberg on guns and climate change?" Hmm let me think...of course
it's not Biden. Nor Harris...Kilobits.... Buttigieg or even Warren. Doh!
Warren did that(what Alex Thompson tweeted about) at her town hall here. Called herself a
teacher, really pushed her teacher history, and asked "Are there any teachers in the crowd",
etc etc. It was so fake and pandering. I wanted to barf. Do people really fall for this
stuff? The folksy garbage was poured on mighty thick. I was sitting there thinking "Come on,
lady-you've been a professor at the highest profile law school in the country for how long
now?"
Yep.
It's funny-I spent 10 years at Harvard, and I lived near The Yard and the law school. I knew
a lot of faculty at H, and was privy to a lot of the politics that went on. My bs detector
was honed there. At the town hall, I could see right through her. It was all so familiar.
Don't underestimate the cunning and doublespeak. What is that quote-"When someone shows you
who they are, believe them"?
Why didn't she proclaim her great groundbreaking achievement of being Harvard's "first
woman of color" professorial appointment? Isn't she proud of that any more?
Dog, that woman seems to be in a race to seem the least authentic. Can't her staff tell
her to act natural?
After I post this comment, I'm gonna get me a beer.
Why assume that what we see isn't her natural self, such as it is? Or, rather, that
there's anything more genuinely human underneath the pandering, opportunistic surface? As
Petal cited above, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."
"... Journalist Glenn Greenwald summarized the testy exchange as Gabbard "responding with righteous rage but also great dignity to the disgusting smears of Democrats about her patriotism and loyalty." ..."
"... What a woman! Get Trump out and give the POTUS to Tulsi. Wonderful. I will definitely contribute to her campaign. ..."
"... What's funny about the whole thing is that the 'regular viewers' of the view are some of the most programmable 'useless' idiots that this (excuse for a country) has ever seen.... ..."
"... The View -- owned by Disney. Openly misandrist show -- in the shows more than 2 decades, having gone through dozens of hosts, the show has never had a male host. How's that for "inclusivity"? ..."
Democratic presidential candidate and Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard faced the
increasingly nasty smears branding her a Russian asset and "traitor" head on during The View on
Wednesday, following the recent spat with Hillary Clinton who suggested the
Kremlin was "grooming" Gabbard to be a third-party candidate .
"Some of you have accused me of being a traitor to my country, a Russian asset, a Trojan
horse, or a useful idiot I think was the term that you used," Gabbard told the panel, after in
prior episodes Joy Behar especially had agreed with and aggressively amplified Hillary's
baseless claims. The panel had also previously called her a Trojan horse. Gabbard came out
swinging in her remarks: "It's offensive to me as a soldier, as an American, as a member of
Congress, as a veteran, and frankly as a woman, to be so demeaned in such a way."
"Well, useful," Behar said, referencing her previously labeling the Iraq war veteran
Moscow's 'useful idiot'. "But that's a Russian term, they use that," she added. "Are You
Calling Me Stupid?" Gabbard at one point angrily shoots back. And demonstrating just how low
and idiotic, and without substantive argument the "controversy" around Gabbard has become,
Behar at one point even offers as 'evidence' of the presidential candidate's supposed Russian
ties that she's appeared on FOX's Tucker Carlson Tonight on multiple occasions.
"I am a strong and intelligent woman of color, who has dedicated almost all of my adult life
to protecting the safety, security & liberty of Americans," Gabbard fired back.
She also schooled the panel on her distinguished military career and slammed Behar's
likening her to Putin's "useful idiot" -- explaining also that she joined the Army after the
9/11 attacks but that her country lied to her in invading Iraq.
"You are implying that I am too stupid, and too naive, and lack the intelligence to know
what I am doing," she further counter-attacked Behar with.
The full segment from Wednesday's The View appearance is below, with the fight over Behar's
"useful idiot" remarks beginning at the 1-min mark:
One astounding moment came when Gabbard reiterated her position that Hillary Clinton is a
"warmonger," at which point Behar actually asked, "What's your evidence of that?"
A perplexed Gabbard immediately shot back, "Are you serious?"
Journalist Glenn Greenwald summarized the testy exchange as Gabbard "responding with
righteous rage but also great dignity to the disgusting smears of Democrats about her
patriotism and loyalty."
What's funny about the whole thing is that the 'regular viewers' of the view are some of
the most programmable 'useless' idiots that this (excuse for a country) has ever seen....
The View -- owned by Disney. Openly misandrist show -- in the shows more than 2 decades, having gone through dozens of
hosts, the show has never had a male host. How's that for "inclusivity"?
Next time you take the kids to the movies or to a themepark, think twice about patronizing
Disney.
I am fearful the Republic for which We Stand, is falling, right before our eyes. I guess
we disengaged at some point, sad. We are all Americans, what happened to the common ground?
It is disappearing...
Joy Behar is a so fugly. She's a loudmouth ******, who is even uglier than the fat negress
with the stupid looking blonde dregs. ****, what a hideous show. Anyone who watches that POS
show is a ******* low IQ moron .
Kirk ludicrously believes that, the Israeli attempt to sink the USS Liberty, is a conspiracy
theory. He's a privileged brat, and he needs a spanking. Now all we have to do is find his
his father. But to give him any sort of acknowledgement is plain stupid. No offense intended.
@bevin | Nov 8 2019 18:29 utc | 12
Exactly, and thanks.
Question: Could Bloomberg change the equation, the equation being that neither Sanders nor
Warren not Biden have what it takes to defeat Trump?
And thank you Tulsi Gabbard for speaking out against the war machine and the penal gulag.
With all the vitriol being leveled against Tulsi to paint her as a Russian plant or useful
idiot or whatever, whether from Hillary or the worthless females on the view, a daytime
television show aimed at influencing the political opinion of stay-at-home middlebrow moms
and retirees (Including low energy males), I think my earlier thought that without the Djt
phenomenon, there would be no Tulsi, is proven more and more correct with each passing day.
And for those suffering from such a quickening case of tds, unable to point out that
before the current potus, the tpp was a thing, fake news was as of yet unexposed, Syria was a
powderkeg with the potential of a Russophobic true believer ready to command and chief, and
where immigration as a national question had not been brought to bear on a people that had
been for decades suffering the effect of the evil of cheap, exploitative labor, your case
against the man is extremely misguided and, dare I say, you are the useful idiot here.
Perhaps
one reason Gabbard's political career will continue to be successful:
"I go on Tucker Carlson, I go on Bret Baier, I go on Sean Hannity, I go on MSNBC, I go on
CNN -- I am here to speak to every single American in this country about the unifying
leadership that I want to bring as president, not just speak to those who agree with me."
IIRC, Sanders is the only other candidate who consistently says we need to do this (Change
America) together. IMO, there's only one way Gabbard and Sanders will be nominated next year
in Milwaukee: That's because We the People hijack the Convention, driving out the
Clintonistas, DNC pukes, and their Super Delegates and nominate them via proclamation. All
that's lacking to attain such an outcome is the effort, the will, the realization that
nothing good's going to happen for We the People unless We do it Ourselves.
Ordinary people accept uncritically and uncomplainingly the laws of nature and the
fundamental and insurmountable limitations they set to the human condition. For liberals, who
have agreed with Francis Bacon since the 17th century that nature is an enemy to be subjugated,
exploited, and ultimately transcended, the program of mobilized rationalism this ambition
requires is reasonable and acceptable. But it is irrational and intolerable to non-liberals,
especially as they are the same people whom liberals, obsessed with psychology and
psychological health, view as anti-social individuals in need of therapeutic treatment and
reeducation to convert them to liberalism. One of the most famous liberals of the 20th century,
John Maynard Keynes, was in this respect a distinguished exception. "[The] pseudo-rational view
of human nature [before 1914]," he believed, "led to a thinness, a superficiality not only of
judgment but of feeling .The attribution of rationality to human nature, instead of enriching
it, now seems to me to have impoverished it."
Keynes identified this grave intellectual error as having been a major cause of the Great
War when he likened his generation to "water-spiders, gracefully skimming, as light and
reasonable as air, the surface of a stream without any contact at all with the eddies and
currents below." John Gray, writing recently in The New Statesman , compared this
sublime naivete in the years immediately preceding the war to the utter inability of
contemporary British elites to comprehend the meaning of the results of the national referendum
three years ago on whether the United Kingdom should remain within the European Union or
withdraw from it. Liberals today, he asserted, cannot grasp the fact that the post-Cold War era
is over and done. "If a majority in Sunderland continues to support Brexit despite the threat
it poses to Nissan [which operates a plant in the vicinity] the reason can only be [in the eyes
of liberals] that they are irrational and stupid. The possibility that they and millions of
others value some things more than economic gain is not considered." Gray added, "Persistently
denying respect to Leave voters in this way can only bring to Britain the dangerous populism
that is steadily marching across the European continent [and that Remainers insist on ignoring,
seeing the EU as a noble dream of mankind]."
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, liberals have been insisting that liberalism is
the future of democracy. Francis Fukuyama even famously argued that liberal-democratic
capitalism represents the end of history. Alain de Benoist, the French political philosopher,
says the opposite. Liberalism and democracy, he thinks, in fact are incompatible, as the first
endows the second with an agenda that commits democracy to a mission having nothing to do with
the restricted practical task it was designed for. Modern liberalism is not a creation of
political philosophy. It is a religion that has developed a body of religious law that elevates
administration over politics, an inversion that another French scholar, Pierre Manent, has also
noted. Since democratic politics is a matter of popular involvement, while administration is
the business of trained specialists, it is unsurprising that the end, or eclipse, of politics
should be a major contributing cause of "populist" rebellion. This movement away from politics
does not end there. As political activity diminishes and the administrative sphere expands ,
the rule of law -- of lawyers and judges -- takes its place. Lawyers and judges are human
beings. The most successful of them, in liberal societies, are liberals as well. And because so
much of law has become discretionary, in liberal societies the law is chiefly liberal law. In
point of fact it isn't really law at all but, as Joseph Sobran remarked decades ago, only bad
philosophy by which judges discover "penumbras" of meaning in legal documents and the
inalienable right of individuals to determine their own reality for themselves -- and afterward
impose it on society at large through the courts.
So politics is replaced by administration; administration reinforced or displaced by law;
and law succeeded by bad law based on personal whim. The result is that an increasingly narrow
space remains in public life for ordinary citizens, often aggrieved ones -- the "populists" --
to play a part in the res publica. Their absence, of course, is conspicuously
unregretted by "egalitarian" liberals. Significantly, the single demand liberals never make on
behalf of "inclusiveness" is that uneducated people be represented proportionately at the
higher levels of society with educated ones, the stupid along with the clever. Yet competency
in politics has never been dependent on technical expertise. Many highly effective, brilliant,
even great politicians have been uneducated people or persons of mediocre intelligence for
which they compensated by talent and innate shrewdness.
Benoist, a brilliant writer insufficiently known in the English-speaking world, attributes
the prevalence of "expertocracy" in part to the idea that many "negative phenomena" are also
inevitable ones. Among these are undesirable and destructive advances in technology, which (it
is argued) answers only to a logic of its own, and global migration, considered by Western
technocrats and political "experts" to be unstoppable and irresistible. These things, Benoist
says, "have been decreed inevitable because we have lost the habit of asking ourselves about
goals, and because we are accustomed to the idea that it is no longer possible to defend a
decision (which is effectively more and more the case)." Whence comes this negativity, this
defeatism?
The answer seems clear enough. The "elites," as the upper directing (and owning) strata of
the Western world are known, have not lost their will. That is confirmed by their insistent
unflagging pursuit of their globalist-technocratic project and by their relentless
determination to impose it on all and sundry who disagree with it. What they have lost
is faith in themselves; not of course as the ruthless omnicompetent titans of their imagination
but as descendants of the greatest civilization known to history, of the tradition that
nourished this civilization and allowed it to develop, and of the religion that formed the
basis of that tradition. They have lost their faith in the God Who is left no place in their
system, as the decision made by the European Union to exclude any reference in its founding
documents to Europe's Christian origins and traditions makes agonizingly plain. Nevertheless
human nature is naturally conservative; and while a large proportion of the comfortable Western
peoples have doubtless grown lazy, fat, materialistic, careless, conformist, and cowardly, the
fact remains that in order truly to disbelieve one needs to deny belief explicitly and
affirmatively, and this the majority of Christians in the West have not done. They are lapsed,
not apostatized, from their faith. Similarly, polls that claim to show that such-and-such a
percentage of the population have no religion, no church, and no belief in God cannot determine
the number of those who "feel" in some vague and indeterminate way, even if they do not
"believe." Nor can they assess in what proportion the popular classes have retained their
acceptance of the world as God made it, and of the natural law that men may deny and defy, but
not alter. What the common people lack in the way of formal knowledge they make up for by
common sense, aided by unreflective experience. Unlike Bishop Berkeley, but exactly like Dr.
Johnson, they test and affirm reality by kicking the rock in their path. Unlike Christoper
Hitchens too, but just like T.S. Eliot, they have become conscious of the stony rubbish, the
dead trees, and the dry stones that comprise the environment of the barren world -- a world in
its unmaking -- that surrounds them. They may not be able to express this consciousness in
poetry but they feel it much as the poets do, though perhaps less keenly than a developed
intellect allows for.
Populism is not, as a contemporary French lumiere has opined, the victory "of ill-educated
people over the well-educated," nor, in the estimation of another representative of the Second
Age of Enlightenment, "a denial of progress itself." It is something just as simple, but
infinitely more basic and healthy. It is the unlettered but true apprehension that the old
familiar world is being turned upside down, roundabout, and inside-out by the people who have
seized control of it and are beavering away at their task of destruction; a process that in
their minds is rather one of reimagination to be succeeded by the glorious recreation of the
original inferior thing.
Chilton Williamson Jr. is the former editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American
Culture and the author of many books, including fiction and nonfiction. His latest
novel, The Last Westerner, is due soon from Perkunas Press .
Kirk ludicrously believes that, the Israeli attempt to sink the USS Liberty, is a conspiracy
theory. He's a privileged brat, and he needs a spanking. Now all we have to do is find his
his father. But to give him any sort of acknowledgement is plain stupid. No offense intended.
If you think this is some kind of 'gotcha' question you don't know the good folks at Unz.
Speaking only for myself, I don't want non-Europeans here in any significant numbers, 100
years ago we got all the diversity we could eat from Europe alone, diversity that could and
did assimilate, unlike today when assimilation is actually fought against.
Whites were the first to build habitable buildings more than four storeys high, the first to
construct bridges to carry the weight of steam trains, which we also invented, and the safe and
secure mines that produced the coal that smelted the metal that formed the engines that powered
the trains with the coal we mined.
We are -- in a word -- astonishing. In invention and innovation we are elves and everyone
else are orcs, and the orcs despise us for it all whilst coveting the things we have
created.
Technology is our culture, and art and music and beautiful soaring cathedrals, penicillin
and botany, flushing toilets and refrigeration and general anesthesia and Shakespeare.
Congratulations to James Kirkpatrick for an excellent article.
Such nonsense is irrelevant to the lived experience of young (and mostly white) campus
conservatives, who are confronted with radical anti-white politics, corporate censorship,
and the ruinous cost of family formation.
Yes, Patriotism, the Nationalist desire to rescue America, and Restore our Democratic
Republic, rests in the hearts of all true Citizens. The so-called 'Right & Left' politics
is making way for a politics defined by Patriotism, Nationalism, Economic control &
policies that benefit all our citizens, not just the rich.
The truth of this observation lies in Kirkpatricks fine essay, complete with
numerous visual supports.
Congrats to Prison Planet for not completely burying the story (as the rest of the
Mainstream Media has done).
Why are they (the Zionist owned & controlled Mainstream media), not asking -the
whereabouts of Ms. Maxwell? Is she with Epstein? In the Entity, Monte Carlo, Switzerland, the
Baleares, Caribbean, on one of the Rothschild's Estates?
Upcoming announcement: Hollywood's Oligarch owners & controllers are producing
a Film about the lives of Epstein/Maxwell. The Film will not mention MOSSAD, but might
misdirect by including reference to "bad elements within the CIA." Film will also have a
brief flash of Casino Trump with Epstein, but no mention of Bill Clinton (in a blue dress),
or former Entity Prime minister, Ehud Barak. Instead of Ethnic Cleansing the Palestinian
People, Hollywood's Traitor Moguls will continue their Brain Cleansing/Washing of the
American People.
Title of the Film will be: The Chosen Ones – Their Private Encounters with little
Girls, Boys, and Owned Americans.
Dave Reilly, who asked Charlie Kirk "how does anal sex help us win the culture war" at a
TPUSA event, joins Henrik and Lana for a segment during Flashback Friday November 1, 2019. We
discuss the rift inside the conservative movement. Is is going to be America First or Israel
First? Additionally, how are values not traditionally associated with conservative activists
going to help win over more people to their cause.
Mainstream Conservatives have no answer to moral questions on sodomy, fornication,
adultery, et cetera, as it pertains to the culture war, and this opens up opportunities for
interlopers. Dave will not have much competition on that topic. I admire the bravery.
Thanks for the post, good interview. Dave Reilly seems like decent fellow, but his "out of
the closet" Roman Catholic material will only work on religious cable shows. It's hard to
take, talking freedom with a back drop of massacres, indulgences, crusades, inquisitions, and
a millennium of Pedophile cover ups.
Gays try to contribute their lifestyle to everyone else. They can contribute but don't
push something I don't agree with on me. I am 100% for equality for everyone
@DanFromCT Well then, thank god for Tucker Carlson for going against the grain. He is
against all the Middle East wars, and wants to bring the troops home and put them on our
Southern Border. His is the only show that I watch anymore, and he pushes back from Fox's
Israel-first orthodoxy as much as he can and still keep his job, which he wouldn't have if
not for his high ratings. Tucker destroyed ultra hawk neocon John Bolton shortly before Trump
stupidly appointed him as his NSA.
BTW, Hannity is a war pig, who happens to be right on one issue – supporting Trump
against the democrat coup. And Buck is also right, Epstein did not kill himself.
@Patricus You are a victim of finance capitalism propaganda. Communism is Marxism, not
socialism. Socialists do not outright reject private ownership, the goal was co-ops to
displace finance capital. Co-ops are corporations where every member has only one share. The
majority decides, not one shareholder with 50.1% of the shares. The state is not the worker.
Real socialists are opposed to private central banks. I haven't heard any of the allegedly
"far left" Democratic Presidential candidates suggest nationalizing the Fed. Ron Paul was
more of a socialist than they are on that one.
Also part of the brainwashing is the absolute failure of the vast majority of Americans,
who fail to understand that immigration is the reserve army of capital, used to attack the
people of the nation. It lowers wages and working conditions; produces more pollution;
increases living costs; lowers standards of living; and most importantly, increases
profits
Any real nationalism, out of necessity, will have socialist aspects, because doing what is
right for the nation, in the truest sense of the word, means that the best solution can come
from anywhere on the political spectrum. Governments "own" armies. Is that communism, or
should it be a government asset that should be privatized just as the US government
privatized the control of its currency.
As long as people dwell in the land of "left" and "right" the owners will continue to
divide. One solution would be to ban political parties and require all candidates running for
office to be funded equally, out of the public purse. That would make candidates have to face
their electorate more directly, and make them more responsive to the electorate, rather than
the party. In Congress, the political parties would not get to choose committee chairs,
individuals would have to earn the respect of their peers for that.
@follyofwar Tucker Carlson is the only news show I can watch, too. The rest is pretty
obviously intended to neutralize the rise of native leadership with the relentless
insinuation that all we can do is whine like Lou Dobbs and his guests, vote Republican, and
show what we're made of by blowing hot air out our asses like Hannity with his mawkish
imbecilities about America still being great because he gets great deals at Costco. Sean wuvs
America and the gal who follows him turns to American-hating Alan Dershowitz to update us
about the espionage of his long-term client Jeffrey Epstein. Check.
Just yesterday the kosher msm was mendaciously portraying our Army's combat vets as baby
killers, while today no one says a word when Fox' toadeaters tout that "muh brothers, muh
mission" fake and phony honor among "warriors" -- now all heroes of course, just for putting
on the uniform for Eretz Israel and the Yinon Plan. More importantly, Fox News' elaborate
efforts concealing Israel's culpability for 9/11 constitutes, as a matter of law, powerful
circumstantial evidence of their guilt in the greatest act of treason against this country in
its history.
Fox News' basecamp commando and armchair warrior types were outed by Homer's Achilles in
the ninth century BC, in the Iliad. As Pope's translation has it,
O monster! Mixed of insolence and fear,
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer!
When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare,
Or nobly face the horrid front of war?
'Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try;
Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die.
How dare Fox News demand we honor the soldiers who foolishly believed Fox News that they
were fighting for their country. They still go in droves to their possible deaths, mistaking
the costumed bureaucrats in the Pentagon who serve Israel first in all things for warrior
patriots like themselves. I do not believe a military whose leadership's chief trait is
servility toward a foreign nation and betrayal of its own can survive no matter how much
money is counterfeited by the Treasury out of thin air to pay its bills.
Cuckold - Wikipedia A cuckold is the husband of an
adulterous wife. In evolutionary biology, the term is also applied
to males who are unwittingly investing parental effort
in offspring that are not genetically their own. [1]
One definition of "cuckservative" is a conservative who sells out, In a 2015 interview with
Breitbart News, Ben Harrison said he did not
support any presidential candidate in
the 2016 election, but said he admires Trump for "shaking up the
neocon-controlled
Republican Party
Notable quotes:
"... If you're asking how many people might agree with the underlying argument -- that the conservative movement has accommodated the cultural left for too long -- the answer might be millions. ..."
"... As many as 45 percent of self-identified "conservative Republicans" oppose any legal status for undocumented immigrants -- i.e., they oppose the establishment Republican position, as represented by Jeb Bush and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. ..."
Late last week, a neologism was born. Twitter was the incubator. "Cuckservative," a portmanteau of "conservative" and "cuckold"
(i.e. a man whose wife has cheated on him)
burned up Twitter as fans of Donald Trump's politicking warred with the movement conservatives who opposed it.
... ... ...
Who are the "cuckservatives?"
You might be one! The hashtag's targets are conservatives who seem to have made peace with elements alien to traditional white
Americanism. That could mean the transgender movement; it could mean non-white immigrants. Certainly, criticizing Trump's visit to
the border, saying he will alienate certain voters, is a trial run for cuckservative status.
"Just look at them!" said Spencer. "Glenn Beck, Erik [sic] Erickson, Mike Huckabee. They're mediocrities, or sub-mediocrities.
They're grinning, obese doofuses. No person with a deep soul -- no person who wants to take part in a moment that's idealistic,
that's going to change the world -- would want to be a part of 'conservatism.' In a way, the current 'cucks' are the residue of
the Bush era. They were the 'conservative' and 'Religious Right' allies of the neoconservatives. They're still around, for no
apparent reason."
What's the opposite of a "cuckservative," and how many of those people are there? There's no catch-all term, and the answer depends
on how you limit results. If it's just the people using the new term, then it's a limited number of activists online. The white nationalism
represented by Spencer has struggled to find footing. Youth for Western Civilization, a student group that attempted to bring millennials
on campus into the "traditionalist" cause, burned brightly for a few years, then went inactive.
If you're asking how many people might agree with the underlying argument -- that the conservative movement has accommodated
the cultural left for too long -- the answer might be millions.
As many as 45 percent of self-identified "conservative Republicans"
oppose any legal status for undocumented immigrants -- i.e., they oppose the establishment Republican position, as represented
by Jeb Bush and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"... The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution for the breach was ever attempted. ..."
"... In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers argued that it was the party's right to select candidates. ..."
"... The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was protected by the First Amendment . ..."
"... The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race, ..."
"... f Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district. Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election in which Canova ran as an independent. ..."
"... Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal ballot destruction , improper transportation of ballots, and generally shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the Sun-Sentinel reported at the time: ..."
"... Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies. Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments externalize what Gabbard called the "rot" in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet. ..."
"... Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled: " Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," ..."
Establishment Democrats and those who amplify them continue to project
blame for the public's doubt in the U.S. election process onto outside influence, despite the clear history of the party's subversion
of election integrity. The total inability of the Democratic Party establishment's willingness to address even one of these critical
failures does not give reason to hope that the nomination process in 2020 will be any less pre-ordained.
The Democratic Party's bias against Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential nomination, followed by the DNC defense counsel
doubling down on its right to rig the race during the
fraud lawsuit brought
against the DNC , as well as the irregularities in the races between former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova,
indicate a fatal breakdown of the U.S. democratic process spearheaded by the Democratic Party establishment. Influences transcending
the DNC add to concerns regarding the integrity of the democratic process that have nothing to do with Russia, but which will also
likely impact outcomes in 2020.
The content of the DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks demonstrated that the DNC
acted in favor of Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the 2016 Democratic primary. The emails also revealed corporate media reporters
acting as surrogates of the DNC and its pro-Clinton agenda, going so far as
to promote Donald Trump during the GOP primary process as a preferred " pied-piper
candidate ." One cannot assume that similar evidence will be presented to the public in 2020, making it more important than ever
to take stock of the unique lessons handed down to us by the 2016 race.
Social Media Meddling
Election meddling via social media did take place in 2016, though in a different guise and for a different cause from that which
are best remembered. Twitter would eventually admit to actively suppressing
hashtags referencing the DNC and Podesta emails in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Additional
reports indicated that tech giant Google also showed measurable "pro-Hillary
Clinton bias" in search results during 2016, resulting in the alleged swaying of between 2 and 10 millions voters in favor of Clinton.
On the Republican side, a recent episode of CNLive! featured discussion
of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which undecided voters were micro-targeted with tailored advertising narrowed with the combined
use of big data and artificial intelligence known collectively as "dark strategy." CNLive! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan noted that
SCL, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, provides data, analytics and strategy to governments and military organizations "worldwide,"
specializing in behavior modification. Though Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018, related companies remain.
The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The
barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock
were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding
for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The
LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear
to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid
and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign.
In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have
purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls
before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found
broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution
for the breach was ever attempted.
Though the purge was not explicitly found to have benefitted Clinton, the admission falls in line with allegations across the
country that the Democratic primary was interfered with to the benefit of the former secretary of state. These claims were further
bolstered by reports indicating that voting results from the 2016 Democratic
primary showed evidence of fraud.
DNC Fraud Lawsuit
The proceedings of the DNC fraud lawsuit provide the most damning evidence of the failure of the U.S. election process, especially
within the Democratic Party. DNC defense lawyers argued in open court for the party's
right to appoint candidates at its own discretion, while simultaneously denying
any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the impression that the DNC would act impartially
towards the candidates involved.
In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued
against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process
was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers
argued that it was the party's right to select candidates.
The Observer noted the sentiments of Jared Beck, the attorney representing the plaintiffs of the lawsuit:
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee -- nominating process
in 2016 were fair and impartial, and that's not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that
we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that's what the Democratic
National Committee's own charter says. It says it in black and white."
The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's
right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was
protected by the First Amendment . The DNC's lawyers wrote:
"To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court
precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes to
selecting the party's nominee for public office ." [Emphasis added]
The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication
that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race,
Tim Canova's Allegations
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference
was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district.
Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election
in which Canova ran as an independent.
Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal
ballot destruction , improper
transportation of ballots, and generally
shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial
results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the
Sun-Sentinel reported at the time:
"[Canova] sought to look at the paper ballots in March 2017 and took Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to court three months
later when her office hadn't fulfilled his request. Snipes approved the destruction of the ballots in September, signing a certification
that said no court cases involving the ballots were pending."
Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies.
Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms.
Republicans appear no more motivated to protect voting integrity than the Democrats, with
The Nation reporting that the GOP-controlled Senate
blocked a bill this week that would have "mandated paper-ballot backups in case of election machine malfunctions."
Study of Corporate Power
A 2014
study published by Princeton University found that corporate power had usurped the voting rights of the public: "Economic elites
and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
In reviewing this sordid history, we see that the Democratic Party establishment has done everything in its power to disrespect
voters and outright overrule them in the democratic primary process, defending their right to do so in the DNC fraud lawsuit. We've
noted that interests transcending the DNC also represent escalating threats to election integrity as demonstrated in 2016.
Despite this, establishment Democrats and those who echo their views in the legacy press continue to deflect from their own wrongdoing
and real threats to the election process by suggesting that mere discussion of it represents a campaign by Russia to attempt to malign
the perception of the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process.
Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former
Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments
externalize what Gabbard called the "rot"
in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet.
Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a
recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled:
" Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," Jamali
argued :
"Moscow will use its skillful propaganda machine to prop up Gabbard and use her as a tool to delegitimize the democratic process.
" [Emphasis added]
Jamali surmises that Russia intends to "attack" our democracy by undermining the domestic perception of its legitimacy. This thesis
is repeated later in the piece when Jamali opines : "They want to see a retreat
of American influence. What better way to accomplish that than to attack our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of our
elections." [Emphasis added]
The only thing worth protecting, according to Jamali and those who amplify his work (including former Clinton aide and establishment
Democrat Neera Tanden), is the perception of the democratic process, not the actual functioning vitality of it. Such deflective tactics
ensure that Russia will continue to be used as a convenient international pretext for
silencing domestic dissent as we move into 2020.
Given all this, how can one expect the outcome of a 2020 Democratic Primary -- or even the general election – to be any fairer
or transparent than 2016?
* * *
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter, co-host of CN Live! and regular contributor to Consortium News. If you value this
original article, please consider
making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
"... The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution for the breach was ever attempted. ..."
"... In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers argued that it was the party's right to select candidates. ..."
"... The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was protected by the First Amendment . ..."
"... The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race, ..."
"... f Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district. Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election in which Canova ran as an independent. ..."
"... Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal ballot destruction , improper transportation of ballots, and generally shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the Sun-Sentinel reported at the time: ..."
"... Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies. Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments externalize what Gabbard called the "rot" in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet. ..."
"... Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled: " Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," ..."
Establishment Democrats and those who amplify them continue to project
blame for the public's doubt in the U.S. election process onto outside influence, despite the clear history of the party's subversion
of election integrity. The total inability of the Democratic Party establishment's willingness to address even one of these critical
failures does not give reason to hope that the nomination process in 2020 will be any less pre-ordained.
The Democratic Party's bias against Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential nomination, followed by the DNC defense counsel
doubling down on its right to rig the race during the
fraud lawsuit brought
against the DNC , as well as the irregularities in the races between former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova,
indicate a fatal breakdown of the U.S. democratic process spearheaded by the Democratic Party establishment. Influences transcending
the DNC add to concerns regarding the integrity of the democratic process that have nothing to do with Russia, but which will also
likely impact outcomes in 2020.
The content of the DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks demonstrated that the DNC
acted in favor of Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the 2016 Democratic primary. The emails also revealed corporate media reporters
acting as surrogates of the DNC and its pro-Clinton agenda, going so far as
to promote Donald Trump during the GOP primary process as a preferred " pied-piper
candidate ." One cannot assume that similar evidence will be presented to the public in 2020, making it more important than ever
to take stock of the unique lessons handed down to us by the 2016 race.
Social Media Meddling
Election meddling via social media did take place in 2016, though in a different guise and for a different cause from that which
are best remembered. Twitter would eventually admit to actively suppressing
hashtags referencing the DNC and Podesta emails in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Additional
reports indicated that tech giant Google also showed measurable "pro-Hillary
Clinton bias" in search results during 2016, resulting in the alleged swaying of between 2 and 10 millions voters in favor of Clinton.
On the Republican side, a recent episode of CNLive! featured discussion
of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which undecided voters were micro-targeted with tailored advertising narrowed with the combined
use of big data and artificial intelligence known collectively as "dark strategy." CNLive! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan noted that
SCL, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, provides data, analytics and strategy to governments and military organizations "worldwide,"
specializing in behavior modification. Though Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018, related companies remain.
The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The
barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock
were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding
for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The
LA Times described the project as meant to "to appear
to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid
and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton campaign.
In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have
purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls
before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found
broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution
for the breach was ever attempted.
Though the purge was not explicitly found to have benefitted Clinton, the admission falls in line with allegations across the
country that the Democratic primary was interfered with to the benefit of the former secretary of state. These claims were further
bolstered by reports indicating that voting results from the 2016 Democratic
primary showed evidence of fraud.
DNC Fraud Lawsuit
The proceedings of the DNC fraud lawsuit provide the most damning evidence of the failure of the U.S. election process, especially
within the Democratic Party. DNC defense lawyers argued in open court for the party's
right to appoint candidates at its own discretion, while simultaneously denying
any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the impression that the DNC would act impartially
towards the candidates involved.
In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued
against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process
was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers
argued that it was the party's right to select candidates.
The Observer noted the sentiments of Jared Beck, the attorney representing the plaintiffs of the lawsuit:
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee -- nominating process
in 2016 were fair and impartial, and that's not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that
we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that's what the Democratic
National Committee's own charter says. It says it in black and white."
The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's
right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was
protected by the First Amendment . The DNC's lawyers wrote:
"To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court
precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes to
selecting the party's nominee for public office ." [Emphasis added]
The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication
that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race,
Tim Canova's Allegations
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference
was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district.
Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election
in which Canova ran as an independent.
Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal
ballot destruction , improper
transportation of ballots, and generally
shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial
results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the
Sun-Sentinel reported at the time:
"[Canova] sought to look at the paper ballots in March 2017 and took Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to court three months
later when her office hadn't fulfilled his request. Snipes approved the destruction of the ballots in September, signing a certification
that said no court cases involving the ballots were pending."
Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies.
Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms.
Republicans appear no more motivated to protect voting integrity than the Democrats, with
The Nation reporting that the GOP-controlled Senate
blocked a bill this week that would have "mandated paper-ballot backups in case of election machine malfunctions."
Study of Corporate Power
A 2014
study published by Princeton University found that corporate power had usurped the voting rights of the public: "Economic elites
and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
In reviewing this sordid history, we see that the Democratic Party establishment has done everything in its power to disrespect
voters and outright overrule them in the democratic primary process, defending their right to do so in the DNC fraud lawsuit. We've
noted that interests transcending the DNC also represent escalating threats to election integrity as demonstrated in 2016.
Despite this, establishment Democrats and those who echo their views in the legacy press continue to deflect from their own wrongdoing
and real threats to the election process by suggesting that mere discussion of it represents a campaign by Russia to attempt to malign
the perception of the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process.
Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former
Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments
externalize what Gabbard called the "rot"
in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet.
Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon in a
recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed titled:
" Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," Jamali
argued :
"Moscow will use its skillful propaganda machine to prop up Gabbard and use her as a tool to delegitimize the democratic process.
" [Emphasis added]
Jamali surmises that Russia intends to "attack" our democracy by undermining the domestic perception of its legitimacy. This thesis
is repeated later in the piece when Jamali opines : "They want to see a retreat
of American influence. What better way to accomplish that than to attack our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of our
elections." [Emphasis added]
The only thing worth protecting, according to Jamali and those who amplify his work (including former Clinton aide and establishment
Democrat Neera Tanden), is the perception of the democratic process, not the actual functioning vitality of it. Such deflective tactics
ensure that Russia will continue to be used as a convenient international pretext for
silencing domestic dissent as we move into 2020.
Given all this, how can one expect the outcome of a 2020 Democratic Primary -- or even the general election – to be any fairer
or transparent than 2016?
* * *
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter, co-host of CN Live! and regular contributor to Consortium News. If you value this
original article, please consider
making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
@DanFromCT Well then, thank god for Tucker Carlson for going against the grain. He is
against all the Middle East wars, and wants to bring the troops home and put them on our
Southern Border. His is the only show that I watch anymore, and he pushes back from Fox's
Israel-first orthodoxy as much as he can and still keep his job, which he wouldn't have if
not for his high ratings. Tucker destroyed ultra hawk neocon John Bolton shortly before Trump
stupidly appointed him as his NSA.
BTW, Hannity is a war pig, who happens to be right on one issue – supporting Trump
against the democrat coup. And Buck is also right, Epstein did not kill himself.
"... They also failed to note the voice-modulated phone calls received by the law offices of the Becks which contained a caller-ID corresponding to the law offices of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a defendant in the case. In light of this context, the Becks hardly appear to be peddlers of conspiracy theory. ..."
The defense counsel also took issue with Jared Beck for what they termed as: " Repeatedly promoted patently false and deeply offensive
conspiracy theories about the deaths of a former DNC staffer and Plaintiffs' process server in an attempt to bolster attention for
this lawsuit." This author was shocked to find that despite the characterization of the Becks as peddlers of conspiracy theory, the
defense counsel failed to mention the motion for protection filed by the Becks earlier in the litigation process.
They also failed to note the voice-modulated phone calls received by the law offices of the Becks which contained a caller-ID
corresponding to the law offices of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a defendant in the case. In light of this context, the Becks hardly
appear to be peddlers of conspiracy theory.
The DNC defense lawyers then argued:
" There is no legitimate basis for this litigation, which is, at its most basic, an improper attempt to forge the federal courts
into a political weapon to be used by individuals who are unhappy with how a political party selected its candidate in a presidential
campaign ."
The brief continued:
" To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege based on their animating theory would run directly contrary
to long-standing Supreme Court precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties,
especially when it comes to selecting the party's nominee for public office."
It appears that the defendants in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit are attempting to argue that cheating a candidate in the primary process
is protected under the first amendment. If all that weren't enough, DNC representatives argued that the Democratic National Committee
had no established fiduciary duty "to the Plaintiffs or the classes of donors and registered voters they seek to represent." It seems
here that the DNC is arguing for its right to appoint candidates at its own discretion while simultaneously denying any "fiduciary
duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the belief that the DNC would act impartially towards the
candidates involved.
Adding to the latest news regarding the DNC Fraud Lawsuit was the recent
finding by the UK Supreme
Court, which stated that Wikileaks Cables were admissible as evidence in legal proceedings.
If Wikileaks' publication of DNC emails are found to be similarly admissible in a United States court of law, then the contents
of the leaked emails could be used to argue that, contrary to the defendant's latest brief, the DNC did in favor the campaign of
Hillary Clinton over Senator Sanders and that they acted to sabotage Sanders' campaign.
The outcome of the appeal of the DNC Fraud Lawsuit remains to be seen.
Elizabeth Vos is the Co-Founder and Editor in Chief at
Disobedient Media .
"... There is a collection of Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on policy details. ..."
"... They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes. ..."
"... He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside Syria. ..."
"... Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence ..."
" In a sense, the current NeoMcCartyism (Russophobia, Sinophobia) epidemic in the USA can
partially be viewed as a yet another sign of the crisis of neoliberalism: a desperate attempt
to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade using scapegoating -- creation of an
external enemy to project the problems of the neoliberal society.
I would add another, pretty subjective measure of failure: the degradation of the elite.
When you look at Hillary, Trump, Biden, Warren, Harris, etc, you instantly understand what I
am talking about. They all look like the second-rate, if not the third rate politicians.
Also, the Epstein case was pretty symbolic."
I had decided to stay on the sidelines for the most part after making a few earlier
comments, but I liked this summary, except I would give Warren more credit. She is flawed like
most politicians, but she has made some of the right enemies within the Democratic Party.
On Trump and " the Deep State", there is no unified Deep State. There is a collection of
Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and
governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but
also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on
policy details.
They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is
antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes.
He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose
him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is
incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game
right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say
he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside
Syria.
But yes, scapegoating is a big thing with liberals now. It's pathetic. Our policies are
influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go
to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence .
For the most part, if we have a horrible political culture nearly all the blame for that is
homegrown.
Donald 11.07.19 at 4:40 am (no link)
Sigh. Various typos above. Here is one --
Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but
would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about
Russian influence.
--
I meant to say I would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from
liberals talking about Russian influence.
Steven Rattner's Rant Against Warren
By Dean Baker
The New York Times gives Steven Rattner * the opportunity to push stale economic bromides in
columns on a regular basis. His column ** today goes after Senator Elizabeth Warren.
He begins by telling us that Warren's plan for financing a Medicare for All program is "yet
more evidence that a Warren presidency a terrifying prospect." He goes on to warn us:
"She would turn America's uniquely successful public-private relationship into a dirigiste,
*** European-style system. If you want to live in France (economically), Elizabeth Warren
should be your candidate."
It's not worth going into every complaint in Rattner's piece, and to be clear, there are
very reasonable grounds for questioning many of Warren's proposals. However, he deserves some
serious ridicule for raising the bogeyman of France and later Germany.
In spite of its "dirigiste" system France actually has a higher employment rate for prime
age workers (ages 25 to 54) than the United States. (Germany has a much higher employment
rate.) France has a lower overall employment rate because young people generally don't work and
people in their sixties are less likely to work.
In both cases, this is the result of deliberate policy choices. In the case of young people,
the French are less likely to work because college is free and students get small living
stipends. For older workers, France has a system that is more generous to early retirees. One
can disagree with both of these policies, but they are not obvious failures. Large segments of
the French population benefit from them.
France and Germany both have lower per capita GDP than the United States, but the biggest
reason for the gap is that workers in both countries put in many fewer hours annually than in
the United States. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an
average worker in France puts in 1520 hours a year, in Germany just 1360. That compares to 1780
hours a year in the United States. In both countries five or six weeks a year of vacation are
standard, as are paid family leave and paid sick days. Again, one can argue that it is better
to have more money, but it is not obviously a bad choice to have more leisure time as do
workers in these countries.
Anyhow, the point is that Rattner's bogeymen here are not the horror stories that he wants
us to imagine for ordinary workers, even if they may not be as appealing to rich people like
himself. Perhaps the biggest tell in this piece is when Rattner warns us that under Warren's
proposals "private equity, which plays a useful role in driving business efficiency, would be
effectively eliminated."
Okay, the prospect of eliminating private equity, now we're all really scared!
Dirigisme is an economic doctrine in which the state plays a strong directive role, as
opposed to a merely regulatory role, over a capitalist market economy.
Maybe this is the wake-up call that Democrats need.
My old colleagues at The Upshot published a poll yesterday (*) that rightly terrified a
lot of Democrats (as well as Republicans and independents who believe President Trump is
damaging the country). The poll showed Trump with a good chance to win re-election, given his
standing in swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida.
This was the sentence, by Nate Cohn, that stood out to me: "Nearly two-thirds of the Trump
voters who said they voted for Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 say that they'll
back the president" in hypothetical match-ups against Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth
Warren.
Democrats won in 2018 by running a smartly populist campaign, focused on reducing health
care costs and helping ordinary families. The candidates avoided supporting progressive
policy dreams that are obviously unpopular, like mandatory Medicare and border
decriminalization.
The 2020 presidential candidates are making a grave mistake by ignoring the lessons of
2018. I'm not saying they should run to the mythical center and support widespread
deregulation or corporate tax cuts (which are also unpopular). They can still support all
kinds of ambitious progressive ideas -- a wealth tax, universal Medicare buy-in and more --
without running afoul of popular opinion. They can even decide that there are a couple of
issues on which they are going to fly in the face of public opinion.
But if they're going to do that, they also need to signal in other ways that they care
about winning the votes of people who don't consider themselves very liberal. Democrats, in
short, need to start treating the 2020 campaign with the urgency it deserves, because a
second Trump term would be terrible for the country.
What would more urgency look like? Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would find some way
to acknowledge and appeal to swing voters. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would offer more of a
vision than either has to date. Pete Buttigieg, arguably the best positioned to take
advantage of this moment, would reassure Democrats who are understandably nervous about his
lack of experience. And perhaps Cory Booker or Amy Klobuchar can finally appeal to more of
Biden's uninspired supporters. ...
* One Year From Election, Trump Trails Biden but
Leads Warren in Battlegrounds https://nyti.ms/2NDDeNb
NYT - Nate Cohn - November 4 - Updated
E stablishment Democrats and those who amplify them continue to project
blame for the public's doubt in the U.S. election process onto outside influence, despite the clear history of the party's subversion
of election integrity. The total inability of the Democratic Party establishment's willingness to address even one of these critical
failures does not give reason to hope that the nomination process in 2020 will be any less pre-ordained.
The Democratic Party's bias against Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential nomination, followed by the DNC defense counsel
doubling down on its right to rig the race during the
fraud lawsuit brought
against the DNC , as well as the irregularities in the races between former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova,
indicate a fatal breakdown of the U.S. democratic process spearheaded by the Democratic Party establishment. Influences transcending
the DNC add to concerns regarding the integrity of the democratic process that have nothing to do with Russia, but which will also
likely impact outcomes in 2020.
The content of the DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks demonstrated that
the DNC acted in favor of Hillary Clinton in the lead up to the 2016 Democratic primary. The emails also revealed corporate media
reporters acting as surrogates of the DNC and its pro-Clinton agenda, going
so far as to promote Donald Trump during the GOP primary process as a preferred "
pied-piper candidate ." One cannot assume that similar evidence will be presented
to the public in 2020, making it more important than ever to take stock of the unique lessons handed down to us by the 2016 race.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a 2016 Democratic primary debate. (YouTube/Screen shot)
Social Media Meddling
Election meddling via social media did take place in 2016, though in a different guise and for a different cause from that which
are best remembered. Twitter would eventually admit to actively suppressing
hashtags referencing the DNC and Podesta emails in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Additional
reports indicated that tech giant Google also showed measurable "pro-Hillary
Clinton bias" in search results during 2016, resulting in the alleged swaying of between 2 and 10 millions voters in favor of Clinton.
On the Republican side, a recent episode of CNLive! featured
discussion of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which undecided voters were micro-targeted with tailored advertising narrowed with
the combined use of big data and artificial intelligence known collectively as "dark strategy." CNLive! Executive Producer
Cathy Vogan noted that SCL, Cambridge Analytica's parent company, provides data, analytics and strategy to governments and military
organizations "worldwide," specializing in behavior modification. Though Cambridge Analytica shut down in 2018, related companies
remain.
The Clinton camp was hardly absent from social media during the 2016 race. The
barely-legal activities of Clintonite David Brock
were previously reported by this author to have included $2 million in funding
for the creation of an online " troll army " under the name Shareblue. The
LA Times described the project as meant to
"to appear to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is
highly paid and highly tactical." In other words, the effort attempted to create a false sense of consensus in support for the Clinton
campaign.
In terms of interference in the actual election process, the New York City Board of Elections was shown to have
purged over one hundred thousand Democratic voters in Brooklyn from the rolls
before the 2016 primary, a move that the Department of Justice found
broke federal law . Despite this, no prosecution
for the breach was ever attempted.
Though the purge was not explicitly found to have benefitted Clinton, the admission falls in line with allegations across the
country that the Democratic primary was interfered with to the benefit of the former secretary of state. These claims were further
bolstered by reports indicating that voting results from the 2016 Democratic
primary showed evidence of fraud.
DNC Fraud Lawsuit
"Bernie or Bust" protesters at the Wells Fargo Center during Democrats' roll call vote to nominate Hillary Clinton. (Becker1999,
CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The proceedings of the DNC fraud lawsuit provide the most damning evidence of the failure of the U.S. election process, especially
within the Democratic Party. DNC defense lawyers argued in open court for the party's
right to appoint candidates at its own discretion, while simultaneously denying
any "fiduciary duty" to represent the voters who donated to the Democratic Party under the impression that the DNC would act impartially
towards the candidates involved.
In 2017, the Observer reported that the DNC's defense counsel argued
against claims that the party defrauded Sanders' supporters by favoring Clinton, reasoning that Sanders' supporters knew the process
was rigged. Again: instead of arguing that the primary was neutral and unbiased in accordance with its charter, the DNC's lawyers
argued that it was the party's right to select candidates.
The Observer noted the sentiments of Jared Beck, the attorney representing the plaintiffs of the lawsuit:
"People paid money in reliance on the understanding that the primary elections for the Democratic nominee -- nominating process
in 2016 were fair and impartial, and that's not just a bedrock assumption that we would assume just by virtue of the fact that
we live in a democracy, and we assume that our elections are run in a fair and impartial manner. But that's what the Democratic
National Committee's own charter says. It says it in black and white."
The DNC defense counsel's argument throughout the course of the DNC fraud lawsuit doubled down repeatedly in defense of the party's
right to favor one candidate over another, at one point actually claiming that such favoritism was
protected by the First Amendment . The DNC's lawyers wrote:
"To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court
precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes
to selecting the party's nominee for public office ." [Emphasis added]
The DNC's shameless defense of its own rigging disemboweled the most fundamental organs of the U.S. body politic. This no indication
that the DNC will not resort to the same tactics in the 2020 primary race,
Tim Canova's Allegations
Tim Canova with supporters, April 2016. (CanovaForCongress, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz's role as disgraced chairwoman of the DNC and her forced 2016 resignation wasn't enough, serious interference
was also alleged in the wake of two contests between Wasserman Schultz and professor Tim Canova in Florida's 23rd congressional district.
Canova and Wasserman Schultz first faced off in a 2016 Democratic primary race, followed by a 2018 general congressional election
in which Canova ran as an independent.
Debacles followed both contests, including improper vote counts, illegal
ballot destruction , improper
transportation of ballots, and generally
shameless displays of cronyism. After the controversial
results of the initial primary race against Wasserman Schultz, Canova sought to have ballots checked for irregularities, as the
Sun-Sentinel reported at the time:
"[Canova] sought to look at the paper ballots in March 2017 and took Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes to court three months
later when her office hadn't fulfilled his request. Snipes approved the destruction of the ballots in September, signing a certification
that said no court cases involving the ballots were pending."
Ultimately, Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes, finding that she had committed what amounted to multiple felonies.
Nonetheless, Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor through to the 2018 midterms.
Republicans appear no more motivated to protect voting integrity than the Democrats, with
The Nation reporting that the GOP-controlled
Senate blocked a bill this week that would have "mandated paper-ballot backups in case of election machine malfunctions."
Study of Corporate Power
A 2014
study published by Princeton University found that corporate power had usurped the voting rights of the public: "Economic elites
and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average
citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
In reviewing this sordid history, we see that the Democratic Party establishment has done everything in its power to disrespect
voters and outright overrule them in the democratic primary process, defending their right to do so in the DNC fraud lawsuit. We've
noted that interests transcending the DNC also represent escalating threats to election integrity as demonstrated in 2016.
Despite this, establishment Democrats and those who echo their views in the legacy press continue to deflect from their own wrongdoing
and real threats to the election process by suggesting that mere discussion of it represents a campaign by Russia to attempt to malign
the perceptionof the legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process.
Hillary Clinton's recent comments to the effect that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russia, and that the former
Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is a "Russian asset", were soon echoed by DNC-friendly pundits. These sentiments
externalize what Gabbard called the "rot"
in the Democratic party outward onto domestic critics and a nation across the planet.
Newsweek provided a particularly glaring example of this phenomenon
in a recent op-ed penned by columnist Naveed Jamali, a former FBI double agent whose book capitalizes on Russiagate. In an op-ed
titled: " Hillary Clinton Is Right. Tulsi Gabbard Is A Perfect Russian Asset – And Would Be A Perfect Republican Agent," Jamali
argued :
"Moscow will use its skillful propaganda machine to prop up Gabbard and use her as a tool to delegitimize the democratic process.
" [Emphasis added]
Jamali surmises that Russia intends to "attack" our democracy by undermining the domestic perception of its legitimacy. This thesis
is repeated later in the piece when Jamali opines : "They want to see a retreat
of American influence. What better way to accomplish that than to attack our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of our
elections." [Emphasis added]
The only thing worth protecting, according to Jamali and those who amplify his work (including former Clinton aide and establishment
Democrat Neera Tanden), is the perception of the democratic process, not the actual functioning vitality of it. Such deflective
tactics ensure that Russia will continue to be used as a convenient international pretext for
silencing domestic dissent as we move into 2020.
Given all this, how can one expect the outcome of a 2020 Democratic Primary -- or even the general election – to be any fairer
or transparent than 2016?
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter, co-host of CN Live! and regular contributor to Consortium News.
If you value this original article, please consider making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
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It appears that the DNC is responsible in fomenting this new cold war with Russia.
The party has become a war party and made the world very unsafe.
Instead of taking responsibility for Russiagate, it simply has progressed on to impeachment, no apologies simply moving on
to the next tactic.
And why you might ask?
And weren't we a bit put off by our own intelligence agencies contributing to the overthrow of the Trump administration using
the NYT and WAPO to spread innuendo and political chaos ?
Great analysis, yes it is the DNC, but larger than that it is the corporate oligarch which monoplize the power in both so-called
parties which gave us Trump and which still prefer him to Sanders.
Perception is everything. That is why the rigged "superdelegate" system was so effective. Clinton's sham "lead" became self-fulfilling
prophesy. Many people told me, "I like Bernie but I'm voting for Hillary because she's more electable." Pure perception.
To test this widely held view, in March 2016 I started tallying every poll (at Real Clear Politics) that pitted Sanders and
Clinton not against each other, but against GOP contenders including a reality-show buffoon named Trump. I did this all the way
through early June, tallying 150 polls with no cherrypicking.
Result? Sanders outperformed Clinton against GOP candidates in 135 of 150 polls. That's 90 percent of the time. You can still
see the results posted at my site BernieWorks.com.
What's more, Sanders remained consistently strong. It was so remarkable, so I dubbed him Iron Man Sanders. Meanwhile, Clinton's
pattern of results across dozens upon dozens of polls showed disturbing signs of electoral weakness.
No one was paying attention. The corrupt system's rigged structure played a crucial role. The criminally fraudulet DNC and
complicit corporate media played their respective roles.
So, disastrously wrong public perception won.
My tallies clearly show that if Sanders had become the nominee, he would have wiped the floor with Trump. And we would be living
in a different world.
vinnieoh , November 6, 2019 at 12:01
As to your last sentence: yes I think he would have won handily, but no we would not be living in a different world. Recall
that virtually no-one who should have endorsed Sanders did so – not Warren, and certainly not that oft-touted icon of "progressivism"
my own Senator Sherrod Brown; in fact none in the D party that I can think of. They all obeyed the dictate of their undemocratic
ruling central cabal. You need friends and allies to propose and enact legislation, and Bernie would have had few. As for foreign
policy, aka WAR in US-speak, there was a completely unacknowledged military coup in 2000, right here in the good ol' US. The POTUS
does not direct the ambitions of this empire.
Do I wish he would have won – absolutely, and that possibility yet exists. We've all watched the very unsubtle way in which
the media is colluding with the D establishment. As soon as one candidate rises in the polls the media ignores them and focuses
on one of the vote diluters inserted there to staunch the gathering rebellion. There was a piece by Jake Johnson on CD about the
Sanders' campaign rightfully complaining about blatant misrepresentation of Sanders popularity in the polls. When distortion or
silence proves ineffective look for primary election fraud to ensue.
My younger brother was one that was under the spell of that establishment party perception in '16 and I argued with him several
times about it. I was flabbergasted and somewhat angry to hear him say recently that "Sanders could have won" then, but he can't
now.
Good points in the article the main point being the democratic party was far more guilty of interfering with the democratic
primaries by undermining Sanders. The media was complicit and should be considered an accessory to election rigging.
We the people didn't hold the democratic party heads accountable and therefore we are seeing a repeat happening again. I refuse
to be forced to vote force someone I deplore just because they aren't republican. I will always vote for the best candidate. The
duopoly is fiercely maintained by the oligarchs for just that reason. They correctly predict that consumer zombies will stay loyal
to their team and I think they lost control of the process in 2016 by thinking if they ran Krusty the Clown Trump against Hillary,
she certainly win. They didn't have a good handle on the animosity so many people had for Hillary, including millions of progressives
who were are bitter about the wicked, illegal, immoral, unethical, un-American machinations by the democratic henchmen as laid
out expertly in the article.
Korey Dykstra , November 5, 2019 at 22:48
It must be nearly impossible to be an honest politician when many charges made against you are based on lies couched as the
truth (with out evidence) which in turn has to be defended in a way that conveys knowledge and truthfulness. Extremely difficult
against an opponent versed in or deflecting from factual and/or provable information. Great article. I have not read too mcu on
Consortium but will read it consistently from now on
Manqueman , November 5, 2019 at 20:35
Actually, far more harm to democratic institutions has been done not by the DNC or Russians and foreign interests but by our
own GOP.
Ash , November 6, 2019 at 14:55
Thank you for that totally unbiased and nonpartisan viewpoint.
Maura , November 5, 2019 at 19:19
How foolish to use Russia in their plots against republicans.And still nothing gets done!
Walton Andrews , November 5, 2019 at 18:40
Impeachment is all about manufacturing a crime and using an investigation to damage your political opponent. The goal is to
give your friends in the establishment media excuses for an endless series of negative headlines slamming your opponent. The "Russia
collusion" charges were extremely useful in generating propaganda even though they fizzled out when it came time to present some
actual evidence. Today, the Democrats are running the investigations. But the Republicans are open to the same tactics (Remember
the Benghazi hearings?). Congress doesn't have time to address the real problems of the country – they are playing political games.
I will vote third party in 2020 because any vote for a Democrat or a Republican is sending the message that you will go along
with the degenerate system in Washington.
mary-lou , November 6, 2019 at 12:17
vote, but make your ballot paper invalid (in Europe we do this): this way they can see you support the democratic process,
but not the political system. cheers!
Nathan Mulcahy , November 5, 2019 at 18:03
Until Obama's first election in 2008 I was Dem leaning. That's when I started to complain to my Democratic supporting friends
that I find it more meaningful and satisfying to debate and discuss political issues with Republicans as opposed to Democrats.
My rationale was that while I do not agree with the Republicans' worldview I see a rationale. In contrast, Democrats argue illogically
and irrationally.
I was smart enough to recognize what a fraud Obama is, and Ended up not Voting Obama. Instead I voted for the Greens.
Needless to say that that cost me a lot, including friendships Only now do I realize how perceptive I was. The irrationality
and cognitive dissonance of the Dims (among the way I thought it appropriate to change the name of the Party) are in full bloom
now. Only the sheeple are unable to recognize their mental disorder.
Mike K , November 6, 2019 at 02:43
In contrast, Democrats argue illogically and irrationally.
Yes, yes they do.
Richard Annotico , November 6, 2019 at 05:06
[And Look How Well They Did .You are Brilliant
You thereby might be responsible fot TRUMP the CON MAN !!! Take A bow !!!!
Skip Edwards , November 5, 2019 at 16:29
As our country is ever more exposed to be the democratic hypocrisy that it is, we are finding that oligarchic empires never
last. History certainly has proven that time and again. What leaves me in dismay, however, is how seemingly educated, intelligent
societies continually fall asleep while any basic securities that the majority of those populations rely on are stolen away. It
is like sailors whose ship has gone down, we cling to any flotation available to hold us up for one last breath of air as the
sharks circle. What is the answer, you might be asking? Is there an answer? That we certainly cannot be sure of. But one thing
is for certain; and that is, taking the same steps to solve this problem and expecting anything different from the usual results
does not speak wisely of an intelligent people. As the article states, or maybe it was a comment, elections have not, and will
not, change one thing in our entire existence as a nation. Taking to the streets just might be our only answer if we are to retain
any pride in ourselves. And, without pride, what are we?
Mike K. , November 6, 2019 at 03:01
Those sharks you speak of consist of among others, the multinational companies who bribe congresspeople to pass bad trade bills
and rewrite tax code which allowed those companies to offshore good paying jobs and otherwise exfiltrate our wealth. The election
of Trump may well change some things in Washington DC. After the investigations by Durham, Barr, and Horowitz are completed, you
will see the depths that govt officials and various media pundits, descended in their illegal, unconstitutional effort to overturn
the 2016 election results. Hopefully, congress will retract their claws long enough to pass a bill giving congress vastly more
oversight of our IC including the NSA and CIA, along with the FBI.
Lois Gagnon , November 5, 2019 at 16:28
Western Empire centered in the US is being challenged and its illegitimacy exposed by increased wars of aggression abroad and
creeping authoritarianism domestically. Those profiting off the system for decades will resort to the usual tactics of lies, smears
and violence to prevent having to surrender their power.
Elections have no doubt been rigged for a long time, but it's being done in the open now. Those who continue to believe they
live in a functioning democracy being attacked by Russia are probably beyond hope for the short term. The cognitive dissonance
is more than they can deal with. Trump's mistaken elevation to the presidency seems to have turned once functioning brains into
easily controlled masses of obedient children. It's been surreal to watch the transformation.
Perhaps after another election fiasco for the ruling establishment, people will being to question who is really responsible
for the way things are. Then again, maybe not.
karlof1 , November 5, 2019 at 16:13
Pardon me, but how many people were cited to have committed felonies but were never prosecuted for their criminality? Might
I presume that's merely the tip of an iceberg and that the truth of the matter is the entire electoral process within the USA
is utterly corrupt and thus illegitimate?! And of course there's a bipartisan effort to ensure no legislation regulating political
parties ever gets to a vote so we the people have no means to alter their behavior!
I've looked long, hard and deep into the USA's fundamental problems and have mused about various bandages for the 1787 Constitution
that might put the nation back into the hands of those in whose name it was organized–The People–but most people just don't seem
to give a damn or argue that the situation isn't all that bad and just greater citizen activism is all that's required. What was
it JFK said–"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." If the electoral process
is completely illegitimate as it certainly appears to be, then the only real recourse citizens retain is revolution. Have the
corporate pukes at the DNC & RNC thought through the outcome of their behavior; or perhaps revolution is what they want to see
occur so they can crush it and establish the dictatorship their actions deem they prefer.
Yes Ill join the revolution but please, just one more game of Candy Crush first. Can't you see I'm busy.
Charlene Richards , November 5, 2019 at 16:00
Progressives will NEVER have a seat at the Democrat Party table.
The Democrats and the DNC are hopelessly corrupt and the only way to strip them of their power is for ALL true Progressive
Americans to walk away and refuse to vote for ANY Democrat, Trump or no Trump.
Just as Sanders got screwed by them and he and his supporters KNEW it and he STILL supported and campaigned for Hillary Clinton
who is a known liar and corrupt criminal!
I will vote for Tulsi in the California primary only because she had the guts to call out Clinton for what she is.
But I can promise all of you, if necessary the Superdelegates will step in to stop Sanders and when the corruption happens
again next year I will start campaigning for Trump.
Believe me. Not playing their games with them is the ONLY way to stop them.
And I hope Canova will run against DWS again as an Independent. She is evil!!
Skip Edwards , November 5, 2019 at 16:52
Thank you, Charlene, for your simple clarity on a viable, trustworthy candidate to work for. That person is Tulsi Gabbard.
Bernie lost it for me when he "supported and campaigned for Hillary Clinton" after what the Clinton/DNC did to him in the last
election (sorry Bernie; but, you showed your true staying power with that one). Though again I will say it; it will take most
of us in the streets to make the changes we need. Climate change is our real enemy with regards to our survival. US created endless
wars blind us from this reality along with the silent killer, unrelenting population growth on a finite planet. If you care about
any future for those coming after us, those three issues are all that really matter.
ML , November 5, 2019 at 20:07
It seems to me though, that not voting at all would be preferable in the circumstances you describe, to voting for such a one
as trump. I'll never give my vote to any wickedly repulsive human being, no matter their party affiliation. Most Green Party candidates
have been ethical, reasonable, kind, highly intelligent, and have good plans for the commons. But of course, to each his or her
own, Charlene. Cheers, regardless.
Mike K , November 6, 2019 at 03:35
ML one more thing, would you vote for a candidate who hasn't initiated any regime change type of war and is doing his best
to extricate us from the ones he inherited?
Even saint obama sent mountains of arms to Syria via Libya, which ended up in ISIS hands and killed US troops. Despicable!
rosemerry , November 5, 2019 at 15:28
"casting doubt on the legitimacy of our elections". I am not an American but cannot believe that anyone could even pretend
that there is any aspect of democracy in the US electoral process. As well as gerrymandering, the overwhelming effect of donors"
ie bribes, and the appointment of partisan judges to SCOTUS and most of the other courts in the land make the selection and election
of candidates a completely undemocratic procedure.Interference by Russia could never be significant, especially if, as Pres. Putin
pointed out, the difference between the policies o the two Parties is minimal.
Steve Naidamast , November 5, 2019 at 15:27
I am a Green I don't care anymore :-(
Michael Crockett , November 5, 2019 at 14:03
I agree with your assessment of the DNC. They deflect from their own reprehensible conduct to blame Russia for interfering
in our elections. No evidence is needed. It just a mind numbing stream of Russia! Russia! Russia! US elections are among the most
corrupt in the world (Carter Foundation). It appears that our criminal justice system, to include our courts, can not or will
not offer any remedy to this crisis.
Hopelb , November 5, 2019 at 13:55
The only way we US citizens can circumvent this undemocratic treachery is to hold a parallel vote on paper ballots that can
be publicly counted if the election results are contested. Just read that Amazon or was it google has the cloud contract for tabulating
votes in 40% of our elections.
HRC/the DNC not screaming night and day for I hackable paper ballots/publicly counted puts the lie to their Russia hoax.
Thanks for the great article! Love your show.
DH Fabian , November 5, 2019 at 13:42
We've spent years reading and talking about the illegitimacy of elections, interspersed with people railing against those who
don't vote. Each election is "the most important of our lifetimes," and "every vote counts," and if Democrats lose, we're back
to shouting that (fill in the blank) stole the election.
We've gone over "politics 101" a thousand times. Most votes come down to economic issues, and these are the very issues by
which the Clinton right wing divided and conquered the Dem voting base., middle class vs. poor. The Obama years confirmed that
this split is permanent. It isn't the result of arcane ideological differences, much less "Facebook trolls," but of the suffering
caused by the policies of the Democrat Party. Predictably, we once again see much work going into to setting the stage to blame
an expected election defeat on anything/everything other than this.
Antiwar7 , November 5, 2019 at 13:12
One cannot?
The Democratic Party will probably annoint Warren or Biden, one of the establishment candidates. After all, they could point
to Trump as justification for "managing" their primary voters!
And then anyone with a brain and a heart will vote third party.
C.K. Gurin , November 5, 2019 at 18:52
Anyone with a brain and a heart will vote Bernie.
Why the heck do you think the DNC IS working so hard to stab him in the back again.
Mike from Jersey , November 5, 2019 at 13:11
Excellent article.
It seems that dishonesty is not just acceptable to the two political parties and to the media but it is now considered "accepted
practice."
This, of course, has nothing to do with real democracy. Real democracy requires honesty to function properly.
One can only conclude that we no longer have a democracy in this country.
Sam F , November 5, 2019 at 13:00
Very well said. While the DNC corruption is the proper focus for reformers, the Repubs celebrate corruption as an ideal. In
Florida where "Canova was granted a summary judgment against Snipes [but] Snipes was not prosecuted and remained elections supervisor"
I have an ongoing investigation of racketeering involving the theft of over 100 million in conservation funds by wealthy scammers
in government, all of whom do far are Repubs. They regularly sell public offices to donors (get yours now): $2K for committee
memberships and $32K for chairmanships, including your state university board of trustees, no qualifications at all required.
They include judges state and federal, governors, prominent senators, you name it. Money=virtue=qualification is the core of their
belief system, and white-collar theft is their profession and only skill.
I am astounded that Canova got a summary judgment against Snipes, but not that Snipes had no prosecution or penalty and remained
in the very office in which the public trust was utterly betrayed.
michael , November 6, 2019 at 07:40
Your comment calls out corruption by Republicans, but the one concrete example you give is of Brenda Snipes, a Democrat, stealing
a Democratic primary for Wasserman Schultz over Canova? As Federal and Florida judge Zloch noted, primaries are a mere formality.
The DNC can pick any candidates they want, votes are meaningless. The GOP has always been the party of business, mean and corrupt.
But since the Clintons, the DNC has passed them in Wall Street support, corruption and war mongering; and of course they have
abandoned their constituents, the Poor, the Working Class, and Progressives, knowing they will not vote for Republicans and "have
nowhere else to go".
Thank you for reinforcing my cynicism in the two party system in America. Both parties are at fault here of denigrating the
public's confidence in the electoral process. How better than to blame the Russian boogie man in trying to rig our already rigged
system. That's the purview of the plutocrat and oligarch cabal and their elite enablers in government. Stay in your lane.
Jill , November 5, 2019 at 12:50
This article makes many excellent points.
The US hasn't had an authentic election in a very long time. Even if the process was at one time more transparent, the CIA
and OGA/other entities have taken out presidents who they didn't like. Then we come to 2000 where the election for president was
clearly stolen by Bush and again in 2004, there was a likely election theft by Bush. (These thefts may have been by agreement
of both legacy parties, as opposed to actual election theft. I say this because the Democratic party did not fight tooth and nail
to make votes count or challenge voter roll purges that were happening in plain sight.)
What has changed now are the tools available to engage in mass election theft/voter disenfranchisement. Microsoft will be determining
the coming election as they are the ones rolling out the voting machines. This is why we desperately need paper ballots. I lived
in Ohio and I knew people who saw their vote changed in front of their eyes. As we will not get paper we need to figure out some
way around unverifiable machine votes. That may be by filming one's vote or community efforts to have people come out of the polls
and mark a citizen provided private paper ballot. Basically, a citizen run paper parallel voting apparatus that could provide
some basis to challenge unverified machine votes.
This article points out some other things which have changed in the current society. The ability to ignore what most people
really want is endemic. This is coupled with the ability to manipulate people to "want" someone they actually wouldn't "want"
as a candidate where it not for massive propaganda and information restriction. Further, the government is lawless. The powerful
will not be held to account for rigging or stealing elections. That has been made perfectly clear. The lack of legal accountability
has necessitated making certain that citizens will not ask for evil and illegal actions committed by "their" parties' candidate/office
holder to be questioned or called out. The government/corporate amalgam needs a closed system, no legal questions, no citizen
questions. This allows complete impunity for all wrongdoing.
Thus we find ourselves in an incredibly dangerous place. People cling to a party/candidate with a zeal once reserved for cult
leaders. As the cults run most of the discourse and have most of the information (as cults generally do) I think we must look
at ways that people have successfully left cults and apply these stories to our own lives. We must break out of the cult.
Dfnslblty , November 5, 2019 at 12:48
Thanks for a good essay
Keep writing
torture this , November 5, 2019 at 12:30
LOL! I just changed from unaffiliated to Democrat so I can caucus/vote* for the least worst Democrat knowing that I'll end
up voting Green-no-in-between anyway when the multi-party rigged election happens. I never feel dumber than when I waste my time
filling out ballots or showing up for caucuses.
* Colorado changed procedures and I haven't given enough of a shit to figure out what I have to do, yet.
Jeff Harrison , November 5, 2019 at 12:11
The Economist, of course, has called the US a flawed democracy and they were probably being kind. On top of the chicanery Ms.
Vos identifies here, we have the Republicans doing their dead level best to suppress the vote of anyone that even looks like they'd
vote for someone else besides a Republican.
This is the Republicans pure and simple. They are the ones that are focused on winning at all costs. And both parties are now
Republicans. There is, of course, the Republican party which has become extremely right wing in the wake of St. Ronnie, driving
any moderate Republican out of the party and those people have infested the Democratic party as DINOs. Three Names herself is
a former Goldwater Girl. The highly anticipated rematch between Donnie Murdo and Three Names will be a real disaster. (Hint: Donnie
Murdo might get impeached but he'll never be convicted in the Senate)
Was there ever a better argument put forth that would prove that the Chinese Communist Party is a far better form of government
than is the corrupt democratic process in the USA. At least the CCP gives the Chinese people a competant government, with the
over all well being of the population first and foremost. Just look at where this democratic????? system of government has gotten
us. The entire system looks like the movie " The Gangs of New York" with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the rival gang leaders.
Well one thing is certain, we won`t be seeing this op ed in the New York Times or Newsweek or any other major American news
outlet any time soon.
Antonio Costa , November 5, 2019 at 11:25
Yes the rot that is the DNC!
Thank you for this great summary, that brings us to now.
These parties must be eliminated. They cannot be reformed.
Paul , November 5, 2019 at 11:23
When I read this I have to wonder if the Russia agenda is anything less than a raging success. The Democrat party is doing
the work for them by splitting the country by their single minded focus on Impeaching Trump. I do not know if that was the intent
but it certainly is the result.
michael , November 5, 2019 at 11:08
According to REAL CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou a Russian "asset" is someone paid by the Kremlin. The only people paid by
Putin were the Clintons who received $500,000 for a talk to Putin's bank in Moscow while Hillary was Secretary of State.
The only recent documented interference in Elections was by New Knowledge pretending to be Russians to swing the Alabama US
Senate race from Moore to Jones: a 'technological advance that we'll see much more of from NSA/State department spin-offs in 2020).
And by Ukraine's fake Black Ledger which knocked Paul Manafort from Chairman of the Trump Campaign, thus helping Hillary Clinton
in the 2016 Campaign. Manafort is a sleazy corrupt politico just like the Bidens, Ciaramalla, the Podestas and Greg Craig, the
latter two working closely with Manafort in the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine.
jmg , November 5, 2019 at 10:24
A prediction from 2016 that turned out to be correct:
"Hillary Clinton just planted a bomb under American Democracy . . .
"By far the most irresponsible and dangerous Hillary Clinton has done is however to accuse a foreign power – Russia – of meddling
in the election in order to prevent her winning, and to impose Donald Trump on the American people.
"This is dangerous and irresponsible at so many levels that it is difficult to know where to start.
"Firstly, it is not true. . . ."
(Hillary Clinton just planted a bomb under American Democracy -- The Duran -- Oct 31, 2016)
Great article. The use of Russia as the red herring to confuse the public and to serve the Democratic Party apparatchiks. Not
a surprise as ordinary folks like me can see it yet it works. Witnessing the venom in Mueller's voice when he spoke about the
evil Russians interfering in our elections says a lot about the Washington mindset.
Then the point that people don't matter, money does is not a new idea but a telling one about the way we select our leaders.
Throw in the media that benefits most from the money flow and you get what Ms. Vos eloquently describes in the article, a very
corrupt and damaging system.
Skip Scott , November 5, 2019 at 09:16
Excellent commentary! It is apparent to anyone who bothers to think that the DNC did more to destroy our democratic process
than anything Russia could ever be capable of. They constantly cry about the electoral college, yet they have "superdelegates"
set up in the primary process to ensure that "corporate sponsored warmonger from column B" becomes the only Democratic Party option
in the General Election. To call it blatant hypocrisy is an understatement.
Democracy has always been a farce in the USA, and Russia has nothing to do with it.
If everyone started boycotting corporate news shows, it would go a long way toward ending their negative influence over our
lives. There is no excuse for watching CNN, MSNBC or any of the other corporate news outlets, unless of course you want to hear
the lies that the billionaires want you to hear.
Sixty years now of mass delusion. The southern strategy has worked well during the decades.. BUT. This president has exposed
it all. Money Honey, and the Southerners are starting to feel.. STUPID.
I must say, of all of it's confessions, the "we left enough soldiers to protect the oil" (In Iraq/Iran) was casually blurted out
as plain speech.
It's the beginning of the end..good riddance gop.
Paul Ellis , November 5, 2019 at 04:19
Thank you very much for putting all this together in one article. It's great to have as a resource to help people see what's
going on with the DNC.
Jeff Harrison , November 5, 2019 at 01:26
Fortunately, the DNC doesn't want any of my money or support for their candidates. And the RNC is, if anything worse.
torture this , November 5, 2019 at 12:32
Are you crazy (I know you're not)? They lust for your vote and will do ANYTHING they can to get it except offer you anything
you need.
Realist , November 5, 2019 at 00:09
As a life-long registered Democrat I have felt totally betrayed by the DNC for the fraudulent and illegal acts that Ms. Vos
so lucidly and comprehensively outlines in her piece. It is beyond my understanding why so many rank and file party members continue
to embrace the lies and seditious acts that the organisation they entrust with defending their constitutional rights has never
stopped perpetrating, even after being repeatedly caught red-handed. Undoubtedly the collusion of a fully partisan mass media
has a great deal to do with this sad reality. However, one must insist that Trump Derangement Syndrome and extreme Russophobia,
widely propagated by that corrupt media, are not valid reasons to adopt the same sleazy standards and morals reflexively attributed
by Democrats to Republicans for generations. Maybe it used to be only half the country, when Democrats purportedly stood for strictly
objective empirical truth, impartiality and fair play, but now, in light of proven shameless Democratic fraud, deception, false
narratives and phony alibis, most of the country insists upon brazenly embarrassing itself beyond all belief. People don't seem
to care whether they are governed by a rigorously open constitutional process or a demagogic dictator who seizes or sneaks into
power through fraud, as long as that dictator is from "their" tribe. Shameful.
Ditto! It's like a pass interference call in football. My team never deserves a flag and the other side always does.
Sam F , November 5, 2019 at 13:05
Yes, primitive tribalism remains at the core of politics, due to the extreme political ignorance spawned by our corrupt mass
media.
michael , November 6, 2019 at 09:52
"It is beyond my understanding why so many rank and file party members continue to embrace the lies and seditious acts that
the organisation they entrust with defending their constitutional rights has never stopped perpetrating, even after being repeatedly
caught red-handed. "
The rank and file party members have nowhere else to go and the DNC leadership knows it.
jadan , November 4, 2019 at 23:27
Our electoral system doesn't work because no one can have any confidence that their vote is counted as cast in a state wide
or national venue. Aside from gerrymandering, the purging of voter rolls, and other tricks and techniques of election rigging,
there is the manipulation of numbers in computerized vote counts that undermines the validity of US election results. It's not
the Russians or any other outside influence. It's not possible as a practical matter to do a recount of a presidential election.
Why would any rational person have confidence in the outcome?
Fixing the electoral system would be easy in theory but too many players depend on a rigged system. Fact is, no one wants a
true count of the majority vote because it would run counter to special interests that have grown accustomed to buying elections.
The DNC becomes just another special interest. An electoral system that counted every vote as cast and could be recounted would
destroy the oligarchy.
"Our democracy" is a fantasy. Funny how no politician calls for reform of the electoral process. Not even Bernie.
Sam F , November 5, 2019 at 13:12
Yes, and the reforms are quite easy, although some require amendments to the Constitution:
1. Limiting campaign contributions to the average day's pay annually (or similar means) with accounting and penalties.
2. Monitor public officials and all relatives and associate for life, with heavy penalties for payoffs etc.
3. Similar measures to isolate mass media (say over 10% of market in subject area or region) from economic power.
4. Strict monitoring of voting machine design/production/usage, or requirement of manual balloting.
But as you note, "too many players depend on a rigged system."
DH Fabian , November 5, 2019 at 13:52
Agree, and while such reforms have been needed for decades, they would not change the consequences of Democrats successfully
splitting apart their own voting base. By now, middle class liberals simply appear to be unaware of, or unconcerned about, this
split, making it a lost cause.
Bethany , November 5, 2019 at 16:18
Right. Not even Bernie. And no one talks about Julian Assange either. None of them, including Bernie, wanted what WikiLeaks
revealed to be revealed. Bernie's refusal to fight the obvious rigging last time and his subsequent directive to vote for Hillary
were very enlightening. His weak defense of Tulsi Gabbard was also enlightening. Every day I am aware of what Hannah Arendt described
as 'the iron bands' of totalitarianism tightening and don't foresee relief in the future.
nondimenticare , November 5, 2019 at 17:45
It puts me in mind of the election of Liberal Justin Trudeau, who campaigned on a platform of reforming the unfair, he said,
Canadian voting system of first past the post to a form of proportional representation. (This was after years of a Conservative
government.) What a surprise that when he won the election with a majority government, he had a middle-of-the-night epiphany that
the voting system is quite fine as is.
The same reason we haven't gotten tax reform in the US even when people had a modicum of power: Everyone was sure that s/he
was a rich person hiding in a poor person's body and, by golly, when that rich person emerged s/he wanted to keep all the loot.
A pipe dream then, a virtual impossibility now.
Erelis , November 5, 2019 at 22:16
"Fixing the electoral system would be easy in theory but too many players depend on a rigged system. " Indeed. First, I have
worked many an election and the ONLY people who can steal an election are the people inside the electoral infrastructure. That
is, no Russian hacker sitting in Moscow who can change the results of an election. In America it is Americans cheating other Americans.
(Just look to the the centuries long disenfrancshment of African America voters or recently in Georgia–not a Russian in sight.)
In 2000 I thought the democratic party leadership would lead the way to electoral reform as there were just a ton of compliants
about computer based voting machines. Nada. Instead the democrats blamed Nader. There is only one conclusion. Neither the democrats
nor republicans want to give up their electoral advantages to change and alter and the direction of the outcomes of an election.
Zhu , November 4, 2019 at 23:23
I first voted in the US in 1972. Nothing important has ever improved because of voting. We get more wars on third world people,
more homelessness, no matter which team wins. No wonder more than half never vote!
Sweet William , November 5, 2019 at 11:30
that's just silly. Encouraging people not to vote has been highly successful in this country. thanks for your help in making
it a successful tactic. CN plays a part in that same old sorry: both sides are equally evil.
ML , November 5, 2019 at 20:30
This is to Sweet William: Denying party leaders legitimacy, which they both richly deserve to be denied them, is but one way
to deal with the utter sham that comprises our electoral system. I don't judge people for not voting out of sheer outrage and
protestation. I have always voted and since I could not abide either candidate in 2016, I voted Green, but don't judge people
for making the decision not to participate in protest. It's one thing to be completely incurious and apathetic, it's quite another
to be raging mad and calling the system out for what it is- a completely corrupted unethical mess like our fascistic, lying, murdering,
bellicose empire, the USA. I am not proud to be an American. But my right to vote includes my right NOT to, Sweet William.
jadan , November 5, 2019 at 23:01
People do not believe their votes are counted as cast because they aren't. There is no way to recount a national election.
Nothing changes for most people by and large while great benefits accrue to the elites. The war racket continues. exploitation
of the environment and labor continues. People do not trust their government to work for them, so why vote? This is the result
of a rigged system that is not transparent. It is easy to fix the system. Paper ballots will not solve the problem. We need to
develop a block chain system for voting. Just as a bitcoin is secure, so can a voter's ID be secure. You could easily check to
see if your vote was counted as cast. The election itself could be recounted quickly and easily. The majority of people are not
right wing libertarian or left wing radicals. If the voice of the genuine majority were delivered in an election, the oligarchy
would collapse.
Jeffery Denton , November 4, 2019 at 22:11
Next I would like to hear your take on WHY the Republicans went along with the russiagate conspiracy theory. And what Joe thinks
as well.
Skip Scott , November 5, 2019 at 09:20
The MIC funds both parties to a large extent. Trump's musings about detente with Russia made him the enemy of the establishment
on both sides of the aisle.
Antiwar7 , November 5, 2019 at 13:15
Because either 1) they're on the national security gravy train, or 2) they can be easily pressured by all the forces of 1).
DH Fabian , November 5, 2019 at 13:54
Republicans fully support the "Russia-gate" insanity because they see how it has driven away more Dem voters, making Democrats
too dangerous to vote for.
ML , November 5, 2019 at 20:42
I think Antiwar7 has it just about right and so does Skip Scott. I'd add that Trump's musings on detente with Russia went no
further in his tiny, grasping mind than "what will I get out of this personally" if I encourage rapprochement with Russia? Except
that the word "rapprochement" isn't in his vocabulary- but you get the idea.
Noah Way , November 4, 2019 at 21:54
Despite the blatant manipulation of the 2016 election by the Dems (to Hillary's chagrin, LOL) and the coordinated post-election
disenfranchisement of the elected president (no matter how awful he is) by the collapsed accusations of RussiaGate and likewise
the totally fabricated UkraineGate (just think about this for a millisecond – they're using an anonymous CIA "source" to blame
Trump for something Biden actually did, and which has been a basic tool of US foreign policy since WWII), this is only part of
domestic election meddling by both parties that includes gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, media manipulation, unlimited
anonymous money in politics, electronic vote hacking, supreme court interference, etc., etc., etc.
The entire system is corrupt from the top to the bottom.
"... First the constitution emerging from Philadelphia in 1787 did not contain the bill of rights, a fact prominently exposed when the states refused to ratify the constitution their own representatives at the Philadephia convention voted for. The states said, no to ratification unless and until, as a minimum, the first ten amendments were added. <= I assert the founders and their then corporations d\n want the governed to have any privileges or rights. ..."
"... One of the ongoing impediments to broad American public understanding of the US Constitution is its elevation to 'sacrosanct' status, thus placing it above critical discussion. ..."
"... And then you have the mantra of mass continual frequent typically hypocritical/false/programmed swearing of allegiance to it, and also, of all things, the linked elevation into 'symbolic deity' of a flag. ..."
it noted =>America's representative appointed by the electoral college into the
position of CEO of the USA interpreted the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military
Force==> <=to mean=> executive privilege includes the right to assassinate US
Citizens ?
WOW! Does that means person of wealth, corporation or foreign government can pay to get
the USA to assassinate whom ever?
The article says: The democratic institutions, including the press, ..have been neutered.
It notes that the Wealth and power once attributable to Americans is now consoliated inside
and located behind the access controlled walls of privately owned corporate enterprise; where
the dark hole of board room policy establishes how the corporation wealth and power will rape
its next million or so victims...? the article discusses how America's wealth is eqally
divided between 99% (wealth of 350,000,000 Americans) = and 1% (wealth of 35,000 in control
of America) .
But I do not subscribe to the idea that it is deep state that is the problem. I think the
problem lay in the construction of the constitution of the United States.. the deep state is
just using the highly skewed distribution of power [between the governed and the governors
placed in the constitution) to accommodate their for profit purposes. The constitution was
never intended to protect governed Americans from exploitation by those who govern; its
purpose was to protect those with the wealth and power from the Americans its federalism was
designed to govern. Its pure propaganda that the constitution is to be interpreted as a
democratic win for the governed.
First the constitution emerging from Philadelphia in 1787 did not contain the bill of
rights, a fact prominently exposed when the states refused to ratify the constitution their
own representatives at the Philadephia convention voted for. The states said, no to
ratification unless and until, as a minimum, the first ten amendments were added. <= I
assert the founders and their then corporations d\n want the governed to have any privileges
or rights.
Secondly, it was not until the 17th amendment(1913) that Americans were empowered to vote
for who would fill any of the 100 highly paid, very powerful, US Senate jobs, even today, no
American can vote for but 2 senators each. <=to date Americans have no say by vote as to
who shall be paid to be the President or VP of the USA [<=the electoral colleges
determines the President and the states each appoint whomever they wish to the electoral
college]. America is a democracy; the USA is a Republic, the states are trickle down versions
of the USA.
Thirdly, ratification was invented and placed in the constitution to avoid offering all
Americans the chance to decide for themselves if Americans wanted federalism or states
rights, or if the excluded persons (Indians and 3/5 of other persons) wanted to be excluded
or governed by federalism (federalism destroys states rights); had a popular vote been taken,
I believe federalism w\h\b soundly defeated). Ratification (Article VII)<=regime changed
[1788] the Articles of Confederation Government (AOCG: Hanson first President of the USA in
Congress) [it was the AOCG that defeated the British Armies in America [1777] and that
contributed the 1776 Declaration of Independence to the world, not the USA]. After regime
change; USA, old British wealth and corporate cronies were back in charge of governing
America. Today they might be called the deep state.
Fourthly, We, the American public, are spectators. An audience by Jackrabbit @ 36..
Fifthly, no president I am familiar with, has done in office what was promised in the
campaign.
I think the governed must look to the constitution to see how the governors have made this
happen.
My take is that civil liberties never existed in America.. the only civil liberties that
Americans have ever enjoyed were those expressed in contractual promises (offered in the
first 10 <=amendments of the COUS) and that courts were obliged to affirm because it would
defeat the propaganda that such rights actually exist. How enforceable do you think a promise
in a contract are that governors will not infringe the human rights promises made
therein?
Over 200 years, during war time, the governors have suspended such rights and during
normal times the only way to prevent infringement has often been to engage lawyers and costly
expensive courts.. to remind the governors that it is important for propaganda purposes to
honor the promises made in the amendments to the constitution? Its a joke to assume that a
clause in an amended contract would be honored when it is inconvenient to the promissors; ie.
Julian Assange?
even in the 'good articles', even in 'noble efforts' its pretty hard not to slip into,
what? Let's call it, Empire Speak. Or is that Swamp Speak? by: Robert Snefjella @ 42 <=
the mind control weapons that fire bullets made of propaganda are extremely powerful..
One of the ongoing impediments to broad American public understanding of the US
Constitution is its elevation to 'sacrosanct' status, thus placing it above critical
discussion.
Its 'supreme' status renders thoughts of ongoing improvement disabled. And then you
have the mantra of mass continual frequent typically hypocritical/false/programmed swearing
of allegiance to it, and also, of all things, the linked elevation into 'symbolic deity' of a
flag.
This is helped along by a frequent stirring rendition of the national anthem, which has
bombs exploding for the land of the "brave and the free".
(As an aside note of some curiosity and immeasurable impact, in Canada there is much
swearing of allegiance to the very aged titular head of the dysfunctional 'Royal Family' of
the UK.) Sigh.
"... At a first approximation, democracy is the alliance of the city dwellers for the power of the city, ignoring tribes and rural aristocrats, carefully contained so the landowners keep their land, and the slaves are kept under control. Or, to update it, the class collaboration of the wealthy (nowadays some sort of capitalist,) the middling strata and the common people for the power of the nation, carefully arranged so the people with great property make the decisions about the economy. ..."
"... As an example, it's only in the last few years I've wakened up to the extraordinary tendency to people to ignore either the progressive content of bourgeois revolutions, such as in pretending that destroying a national secular state in Iraq or Syria and replacing it with a cantonal confederation is a step backward. Or in surreptitiously pretending that democracy has nothing to do with the democratic state needing fighters against other states. Like most people on the internet, i do tend to get a little trendy, and repetitive. But apparently I'm too socially backward to get the memo on the correct trendy, and repetitive. ..."
"... The classic model of course was the Roman Republic. By coincidence I was reading Livy's first five books and the relationship between rights for the plebs and the need for them in war, stands out. Macchiavelli's Discourses on Livy makes this even plainer. In the US much of this was conveyed to the Americans via Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government as refracted through Cato's Letters. (I hope to live long enough to read Discourses on Davila by John Adams, solely because of the title.) ..."
"... It would seem to me that the answer to the question "what is democracy" is best answered by another question: who gets (and doesn't get) the franchise? ..."
I went to see occasional Timberite Astra Taylor's remarkable film What is
Democracy? last night. It takes us from Siena, Italy to Florida to Athens and from Ancient
Athenian democracy through the renaissance and the beginning of capitalism to the Greek debt
crisis, occupy and the limbo life of people who have fled Syria and now find themselves stuck.
It combines the voices of Plato and Rousseau with those of ordinary voters from left and right,
Greek nationalists and cosmopolitans, ex-prisoners, with trauma surgeons in Miami, Guatemalan
migrants in the US, with lawmakers and academics, and with refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.
All the while it poses the questions of whether democracy is compatible with inequality and
global financial systems and the boundaries of inclusion.
steven t johnson 10.23.19 at 3:05 pm (no link)
At a first approximation, democracy is the alliance of the city dwellers for the power of the
city, ignoring tribes and rural aristocrats, carefully contained so the landowners keep their
land, and the slaves are kept under control. Or, to update it, the class collaboration of the
wealthy (nowadays some sort of capitalist,) the middling strata and the common people for the
power of the nation, carefully arranged so the people with great property make the decisions
about the economy.
It doesn't sound like this is very informative or useful, so I will wait until I have a
cheaper way to see it.
In my opinion, democracy as an actually existing property of a society is only imperfectly
described in terms of institutional arrangements, philosophical constructs, political system
or (as steven t johnson would have it) power relations between social groups. In addition to
all that, but probably prior to all that, democracy relies on principles which are
anthropological in nature, that pertains to the particular way human beings relate to
each other on a given territory.
This means that I absolutely believe in the necessity of a "we" to underlie democracy but
I doubt that this "we" needs to be (or indeed is ever) constitutive, it exists primarily if
not exclusively as a matter of human relations not as a constitutive abstraction. This also
means that I'm not surprised by the general absence of convergence in democratic forms around
the world (much to the bemusement of English-speaking political philosophers, or in the last
20 years, German and Flemish politicians) and that I believe that global citizenship is under
present circumstances a meaningless concept with respect to democracy. Some people understand
this to be arguing for a national, ethnic or cultural definition of democracy, in which only
people with a specific national identity, or a particular ethnicity, or specific cultural
practices or (in the contemporary American libertarian version) specific personality traits
may participate, as a matter of normative or positive judgment, depending on various
proponents of this theory. This seems to me to be a rather ironic analytical error: if indeed
a core property of democracy is rooted in the characteristic ways people relate to each
other, it is highly implausible that this could change under the influence of even a
substantial minority (in one direction or the other).
Incidentally, the idea that democracy is originally native to North-America is somewhat
classical (Voltaire championed it, but as usual with him, it is hard to vouch for his
seriousness). Since then it has resurfaced periodically for instance in William James Sidis
(disturbed) book The Tribes and the States or in the works of Bruce Johansen. Serious
discussions of this question lead, I believe, to the seemingly paradoxical observation that
English and Dutch settlers came to adopt the democratic principles of the Haudenosaunee
because they were themselves rather primitive (temporally speaking), and hence
democratic, in their anthropological values. Suc discussion would also lead to the far more
pessimistic conclusion that beyond their political models, native people in North-America
facilitated the establishment of a political democracy by providing a large neighboring group
to exclude out of humanity.
LFC@10 uses a reason for waiting as an excuse for a rhetorical question meant as a taunt. The
reason I might see it, if it's cheap enough, is because new facts and the (rare) new
perspective, if any, would seep into my thinking. The idea that my thinking doesn't change is
unfounded. It changes, it just doesn't change by conversion experience. The cogent arguments
of the wise on the internet are like Jesus on the road to Damascus, not quite able to be
described consistently, but still irrefutable.
But, try as I may, continual reworking of old ideas by new -- to me -- information
inevitably leads to the change. The process usually goes A Is that really true? B My old
ideas get a parenthesis added. C The parenthesis gets worked into the rest of the paragraph
so that I'm more consisten. D I've always believed that. The step where I abjectly plead for
forgiveness for being a moron is never there, any more than actually being consistent.
As an example, it's only in the last few years I've wakened up to the extraordinary
tendency to people to ignore either the progressive content of bourgeois revolutions, such as
in pretending that destroying a national secular state in Iraq or Syria and replacing it with
a cantonal confederation is a step backward. Or in surreptitiously pretending that democracy
has nothing to do with the democratic state needing fighters against other states. Like most
people on the internet, i do tend to get a little trendy, and repetitive. But apparently I'm
too socially backward to get the memo on the correct trendy, and repetitive.
For a less contentious example, as part of the process I've realized that ancient Sparta
was on the democratic spectrum, not least because of two kings which is definitely not twice
the monarchy. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it is still true, despite authority. But a
true expert who actually cared could revise the elementary insight into a much more
sophisticated, much superior way that might not even seem controversial. It might even seem
just like the answer to the questions: Why did Sparta ever ally with Athens in the first
place? Why did both Athens and Sparta ally (at different times) with Persia?
I will admit to a general prejudice against every historical discovery that a particular
place etc. was the birth of virtue.
steven t johnson 10.24.19 at 3:20 pm (no link)
Re the Haudenosaunee as exemplars of democracy, this is as I recall long known to be true of
Benjamin Franklin, one of the disreputable founders, nearly as disgraced as Tom Paine.
(Indeed, the notion that the revolutionaries weren't the founders, but Philadelphia lawyers'
convention was, is remarkable, though unremarked on.) But, what did Franklin admire about the
Iroquois League? I think it was the power through unity of different "tribes." The league
essentially genocided the Hurons to control the fur trade; launched long distance military
expeditions to drive away many other peoples from large areas in the Ohio valley to free up
hunting grounds; when it was convenient, they sold their rights, lands, there to the US. (The
treaty of Fort Stanwix) was later repudiated, verbally at least, by other.
The classic model of course was the Roman Republic. By coincidence I was reading Livy's
first five books and the relationship between rights for the plebs and the need for them in
war, stands out. Macchiavelli's Discourses on Livy makes this even plainer. In the US much of
this was conveyed to the Americans via Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government as
refracted through Cato's Letters. (I hope to live long enough to read Discourses on Davila by
John Adams, solely because of the title.)
It would seem to me that the answer to the question "what is democracy" is best answered by
another question: who gets (and doesn't get) the franchise?
Elizabeth Warren Releases $20.5 Trillion Plan to Pay
for 'Medicare for All' https://nyti.ms/2N9lI4F
NYT - Thomas Kaplan, Abby Goodnough
and Margot Sanger-Katz - November 1
WASHINGTON -- Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday proposed $20.5 trillion in new spending
through huge tax increases on businesses and wealthy Americans to pay for "Medicare for all,"
laying out details for a landmark government expansion that will pose political risks for her
presidential candidacy while also allowing her to say she is not raising taxes on the middle
class to pay for her health care plan.
Ms. Warren, who has risen steadily in the polls with strong support from liberals excited
about her ambitious policy plans, has been under pressure from top rivals like former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to release details about paying for her biggest plan, "Medicare
for all." Her new proposal marks a turning point for her campaign, in which she will have to
sell voters on a tax-and-spending plan that rivals the ambitions of the New Deal and the
Great Society while also defending it against both Democratic and Republican criticism.
Under Ms. Warren's plan, employer-sponsored health insurance -- which more than half of
Americans now receive -- would be eliminated and replaced by free government health coverage
for all Americans, a fundamental shift from a market-driven system that has defined health
care in the United States for decades but produced vast inequities in quality, service and
cost.
Ms. Warren would use a mix of sources to pay for the $20.5 trillion in new spending over a
decade, including by requiring employers to pay trillions of dollars to the government,
replacing much of what they currently spend to provide health coverage to workers. She would
create a tax on financial transactions like stock trades, change how investment gains are
taxed for the top 1 percent of households and ramp up her signature wealth tax proposal to be
steeper on billionaires. She also wants to cut $800 billion in military spending.
Ms. Warren's estimate for the cost of Medicare for all relies on an aggressive set of
assumptions about how to lower national health care costs while providing comprehensive
coverage to all Americans. Like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, she would essentially
eliminate medical costs for individuals, including premiums, deductibles and other
out-of-pocket expenses.
Critically, her new plan would not raise taxes on middle-class Americans, a question she
has been asked over and over but has not answered directly until now. When confronted on the
campaign trail and debate stage, she emphasized instead that her plan would result in higher
overall costs for wealthy people and big corporations but lower costs for middle-class
families. ...
"A key step in winning the public debate over Medicare for all will be explaining what
this plan costs -- and how to pay for it," Ms. Warren wrote in her plan. To do that, she
added, "We don't need to raise taxes on the middle class by one penny."
The issue of health care helped Democrats win control of the House in last year's midterm
elections, after unsuccessful attempts by President Trump and Republicans in Congress to
repeal the Affordable Care Act. It has been a central issue again this year as Ms. Warren and
other Democrats have competed for their party's presidential nomination, highlighting a
divide on policy between the party's moderates and its liberal wing that favors
transformative change. ...
Ms. Warren's proposal shows just how large a reorganization of spending Medicare for all
represents. By eliminating private health insurance and bringing every American into a
federal system, trillions of dollars of spending by households, employers and state
governments would be transferred into the federal budget over the course of a decade.
Her financing plan is based on cost estimates that are on the low side, relative to those
from other serious economists who have assessed the program. Her estimate of $20.5 trillion
over 10 years is based on a recent cost model by the Urban Institute, but with several
different assumptions that lower the cost from Urban's estimate of $34 trillion over the same
period.
Ms. Warren attempts to minimize fiscal disruption by asking the big payers in the current
system to keep paying for health care through new taxes. She would create a new "employer
Medicare contribution" that would effectively redirect what employers are already paying to
health insurers, totaling $8.8 trillion over a decade. Small businesses would be exempt if
they are not currently paying for their employees' health care.
Ms. Warren has also proposed that states pay the federal government much of what they
currently spend to cover state workers and low-income residents under the Medicaid
program.
But she also describes new revenue streams to replace the other big chunk of health
spending: the money spent by households on premiums, deductibles and direct payments for
services like dental care that are not always covered by insurance.
Ms. Warren would raise $3 trillion in total from two proposals to tax the richest
Americans. She has previously said that her wealth tax proposal, another signature of her
campaign, would impose a 3 percent annual tax on net worth over $1 billion; she would now
raise that to 6 percent. She would also change how investment gains are taxed for the top 1
percent of households.
In addition to imposing a tax on financial transactions, she would also make changes to
corporate taxation. She is counting on stronger tax enforcement to bring in $2.3 trillion in
taxes that would otherwise go uncollected. And she is banking on passing an overhaul of
immigration laws -- which itself would be a huge political feat -- and gaining revenue from
taxes paid by newly legal residents.
Ms. Warren's plan would put substantial downward pressure on payments to hospitals,
doctors and pharmaceutical companies. She expects that an aggressive negotiation system could
lower spending on generic medications by 30 percent compared with what Medicare pays now, for
example, and spending on prescription drugs could fall by 70 percent. Payments to hospitals
would be 10 percent higher on average than what Medicare pays now, a rate that would make
some hospitals whole but would lead to big reductions for others. She would reduce doctors'
pay to the prices Medicare pays now, with additional reductions for specialists, and small
increases to doctors who provide primary care. ...
This seems almost uniformly great. I only have two quibbles.
One is that a 6% wealth tax is actually too high, confiscatory even. The reason is that if
expected ROI is about 6%, the tax takes all the expected return. In perpetuity that is
equivalent to taking the entire net worth. Property tax is a pretty good guide here, 1-1.5%
works, perhaps a bit more.
Two is that the slant shows up immediately with this reporter. One example: "Ms. Warren
would use a mix of sources to pay for the $20.5 trillion in new spending over a decade..."
Note the use of "new spending". This may make sense if the subject is limited to government
spending, but we all know the game is to distract from the good lowered-aggregate spending
and emphasize the component spent by the evil government. We may see much more of this
misdirection including by primary opponents.
She is basically proposing to municipalize the entire payment flows for healthcare, much
as proposals now exist for California to municipalize PG&E, both excellent ideas.
Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday released her proposal to pay for Medicare for All, a
plan to move every American to government-run health insurance that would reshape the US
health care system.
Warren's plan, outlined in a 9,275-word Medium post, included complex ideas for paying for
health care costs after private insurance is ended . It's a lot to digest, so here are five
takeaways.
Much of it is based on the Medicare for All Act
The plan released by Warren on Friday is primarily aimed at answering the question of how to
pay for single-payer health care. When it comes to the nuts and bolts of how her health care
plan would work, Warren points to the existing Medicare for All Act, that "damn bill" Senator
Bernie Sanders colorfully reminded debate viewers that he wrote.
Under the Medicare for All Act, introduced by Sanders in April and cosponsored by Warren,
all US residents would be automatically enrolled in a national health care plan administered
by the federal government. In addition to traditional medical coverage, the Medicare for All
Act includes vision and dental, plus long-term care services.
It relies on a lot of assumptions
At the outset, Warren acknowledges that it's difficult to predict what health care costs
will be in the future, and she notes that current projections about how much Medicare for All
would cost vary widely. Because the Medicare for All Act leaves open questions about how the
single-payer system would work, including major ones like the amount that health care
providers would be compensated, Warren fills in the gaps to arrive at a total cost estimate.
Outside analysts, including two local experts, cited by Warren estimate her plan would result
in overall US health care costs that are slightly lower than what the nation currently
spends.
Arriving at a specific cost allows Warren to figure out how she will pay for it, and there
are some assumptions here, too.
To fund the plan without increasing taxes on the middle class, Warren relies on enacting
seemingly unrelated legislation, including immigration reform. The pathway to citizenship for
millions of people in her immigration proposal would add to the tax base. Warren also wants
to cut defense spending.
There aren't new middle class taxes, but there are hikes for businesses and the
wealthy
Warren announced her Medicare for All plan with a major promise not to increase taxes on
the middle class, but that doesn't mean some taxes won't go up. After accounting for existing
federal spending and health care spending by employers that would be redirected to the
government, there's still a big hole. Warren fills it by levying new taxes and closing
loopholes in ways that target financial firms and large corporations. She also increases her
previously proposed wealth tax.
Some businesses would be hit harder than others. As Vox points out, if Warren asks
businesses to send their existing employee health insurance payments to the government,
businesses that currently provide inadequate insurance, or no insurance at all, fare much
better than those that provide good insurance coverage. That sets up a kind of penalty for
businesses that offer health coverage: They're helping pick up the tab for Medicare for All,
but they no longer have an advantage in attracting top talent with generous benefits.
Under Warren's plan, that situation is temporary as businesses would eventually pay into
the system at the same rate. And Warren says employers ultimately will be better off because
they won't get hit with unpredictable changes in health care costs.
It would be difficult to implement
Moving every single American to a new health care plan is a massive endeavor, so much so
that Warren says she'll release an entirely separate plan that deals with how to handle the
transition.
The transition has become a sticking point in the Democratic primary, with moderates like
former vice president Joe Biden using the lengthy time period (Sanders' plan says it would
take four years) as a reason to oppose it altogether.
And then there's the problem of passing such legislation: During the debate around the
Affordable Care Act in 2010, a proposed public option to allow people to buy into a
government-run health care plan nearly sunk the entire bill, and was stripped out of the
landmark legislation. The episode underscored the difficulty of implementing a government-run
health care program, even one popular with voters.
Warren has a plan for that, though. She wants to get rid of the filibuster, meaning the
Senate would need a simple majority to pass legislation, rather than the 60 votes currently
required to stop debate.
Warren has been reluctant to go on the offensive, but that may be changing
As she rose in the polls, Warren resisted leveling direct attacks against her primary
opponents. Warren's style has been to rail against the concept of big money fueling a
campaign, rather than directly criticizing individual candidates who have taken cash from
high-dollar fund-raisers.
But there are hints that this could be changing. Warren's lengthy Medicare for All plan
includes rebuttals to the criticism she's gotten from the moderate wing of the primary field,
calling on candidates who oppose her plan to explain how they would cover everyone.
"Make no mistake -- any candidate who opposes my long-term goal of Medicare for All and
refuses to answer these questions directly should concede that they have no real strategy for
helping the American people address the crushing costs of health care in this country. We
need plans, not slogans," she wrote.
The corporate health sub system
Intimately involves
the entire corporate system
We are on course toward
20 % of our economic output
Flowing thru our domestic
health services and products sectors
Where is the cost control mechanism
Simply in part
Progressively resourcing
And rechanneling the inflow of funds
Addresses a result not a cause
We have to address costs
We need a cap and trade market system
With a cap sector to GDP ratio that
Slowly squeezes down
the relative costs of the health sector
Public option is the transition
That empowers
people themselves
To spontaneous determine
the timing and pattern of
Their own transitioning
Anything else is political folly
Liz has set a bold end state vision
Bravely out laying where we must go eventually
And drawing in
the major shift in the share of
The total social cost burden
to the wealthy classes
But that's an end a destination
not a path
Urge choice not mandates
as the better path
The present corporate cost
burden share
is a mess
That should self dissolve over time
Now we need an optional public system
And
A means to capture the
Present corporate pay ins
Piecemeal over time as employees opt out of corporate plans into publicnplans one by one
Liz Warren would double her proposed billionaire
wealth tax to help fund 'Medicare for All' https://cnb.cx/332evbX
... Warren's wealth tax proposal would also impose a 2% tax on net worth between $50
million and $1 billion. She has previously said that it would be used to fund her ambitious
climate agenda, a slate of investments in child care and reductions in student loan debt.
But Warren is refusing to tax the middle class. She released an analysis produced by
several respected economists on Friday that suggests she will not have to.
Former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson, former Labor Department Chief Economist Betsey
Stevenson, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, wrote that Warren could pay
for her program "without imposing any new taxes on middle-class families."
The economists cite a number of possible revenue and spending options that they found
could generate $20.5 trillion in additional funding. Much of that funding is expected to come
from reallocating employer spending on health care and taxing the increased take-home pay
that employees are expected to receive under her system.
But taxes on the wealthy form a substantial portion. Doubling the billionaire wealth tax
will raise $1 trillion over 10 years, the economists found. They note in their analysis that
the calculation assumes a 15% rate of tax avoidance. ...
The 'they are manipulating Trump' angle is valid I'm sure but it tends to diminish those
other aspects of Trump's 'intuition'. It is stated in the article though. Trump is antiwar in
the sense that he is against useless wars. Give him a clear goal and he doesn't mind war at
all. Looting and pillage is fine. Attacking defenseless enemies is fine. Convince him that
endless wars are actually good business and he'll support those as well. He doesn't require
manipulating for that. The antiwar elements in his thinking are easily used to paper over his
other characteristics as 'being manipulated'.
Another subject is that of Trump's dishonesty. In fact it is more about out of sync
dishonesty: 'normal people' (policy level) use shared schemas for when to lie and when not to
lie. Trump uses a different one. He will lie when others consider it a bad idea and will
speak the truth when others consider it a bad idea.
The Washington Post actually ran a very favorable article
on Gabbard's campaign in Iowa a couple of days ago. Most unusual for them. Only explanation I can
think of is that they realize she has a good chance of winning the Iowa caucuses and don't want
to be caught flatfooted by continuing their noncoverage of her campaign.
The explanation is more likely the opposite, I'm afraid. The Iowa caucuses are now close
enough, and Gabbard polling low enough, that the WashPost feel they can tidy up their record
by publishing something about her, even something favorable. If she were really threatening
the front-runners, minimal and/or hostile coverage would be de rigueur.
Thanks for your reply! IMO, Gabbard was correct to vote Yea for the inquiry as it doesn't
specify the crime(s). On her Twitter , Gabbard
called out Trump for his continuing criminal actions in Syria which constitute a High Crime
and impeachable offense. Furthermore, the orders given were all illegal orders as they're
against international and US Law and should've been refused by every soldier issued them as
it's their duty to do so . Unfortunately, Gabbard didn't make that very important
point.
The whole impeachment show the Democrats launched is a major political mistake.
Right on b, a MAJOR blunder. But they stampeded themselves into that blunder because of
their hysteria over Trump gunning for Biden and all the other carpetbaggers in Ukraine. This
Demoncrat gang of shysters have as much wisdom as a flat rock. They have now lost Biden, must
choose frootloop Warren as they can never have Sanders.
That looks a lot like keeping USA safe for Trump to me.
It is so pathetically obvious and these Demoncrats can't even assemble a package of
legislation with their majority to benefit USA citizens even one small bit. The Demoncrats
'leadership' are owned in their entirety by the oligarchs of MIC, big pharma and big
insurance. The Greens are incapable of breaking through their glass ceiling. What a total
shambles in just about every USA allied country.
I just posted poll results two days ago from New Hampshire showing Gabbard at 5% while
Harris had dropped to 3%. And given the size of the field, 5% is respectable and was clearly
a boost provided by Clinton's outburst. Gabbard was just given space for an op/ed in
The
Wall Street Journal which prompted the WaPost item. Can't read the WSJ item since
it's behind a paywall, but The Washington Times
ran its own piece about her op/ed that provides some insight as to its content, but that
site won't allow copy/paste so I can't provide MoA with the blurb it published.
Here's a WaPost item about Gabbard's Iowa campaign, which as I discovered when using
google is one of many by the WaPost. Despite all the ads, I liked it, but it won't get me to
subscribe.
Just got another fundraiser email from Tulsi's campaign. It ends with:
Tulsi is taking this fight directly to the people -- with a packed schedule of townhalls and
meet and greets, with big ad spends in the early states, with signs and boots on the ground.
The best thing you can do right now to help Tulsi rise above the smear campaigns is to help
her keep speaking truth to power. . . .
From what I read at ZeroHedge, it sounds like it will be "Make my day" time in the Senate,
with GOP senators able to subpoena anyone they want.
Yes, but if the GOP senators stick with their usual grandstanding posing then they can
subpoena whoever they like and it'll be pointless. Actually, it'll be a complete and utter
waste of fucking time because GOP senators have little or no experience of forensic
cross-examination and will spend their time dicking around and asking stupid questions in a
vain vain attempt to look good.. If they really want to stick it to the Democrats they need a
Senate impeachment resolution that allows them to use really experienced outside criminal
lawyers to plan and carry out the questioning. Since most experienced U.S. criminal lawyers
are experts at making deals with prosecutors for their clients rather than going to trial, I
would suggest they should bring in a couple of top-flight British QCs (barristers)with their
teams of juniors.
With Russia and now Ukrainegate, I'm reminded on the Fed dropping interest rates every time
the market has a down week. Yet eventually this shot of adrenaline will not work and the
market falls through the floor.
So now that Ukrainegate has a huge hole in its chest, do the dems have a plan c, or is this
the Big One?
I make this point because there are very many never Trumpers out there, clinging to this
spiel, but eventually even they will wake up and where do they go? Do they finally accept the
whole system really is rigged?
Eventually the ground under the powers that be will turn to quicksand and this really is a
notable earthquake.
"Well, you know, thank God for the 'deep state'," McLaughlin responded, provoking
laughter and applause.
The former intelligence official was speaking at an event hosted by George Mason
University, joined by former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former CIA Director John
Brennan -- both of whom have been critical of the president.
"With all of the people who knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer
to step forward and say something about it, which was the trigger that then unleashed
everything else," McLaughlin said.
He went on to praise the intelligence community. "This is the institution within the
U.S. government -- that with all of its flaws, and it makes mistakes -- is institutionally
committed to objectivity and telling the truth," he said.
"It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that
makes or implements policy. Its whole job is to speak the truth -- it's engraved in marble
in the lobby."
As b stated in a previous post, it is
the Borg who should dictate US foreign policy. It certainly is not one of the three
branches of government (the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary) of the trias
politica model. The Intelligence Community if the Fourth Estate (Vierte Gewalt)
that rules supreme over the three other branches of government.
Since the UN Charter has the same legal status as Acts of Congress under U.S. law, the AUMF
can certainly violate the UN Charter, under U.S. law. The AUMF may violate international law,
but that is another matter.
A friend of mine attended a government meeting under President G.H.W. Bush. I believe the
subject was the kidnapping of General Noriega from Panama. In any case, I was told that at
the meeting William Barr said, "F!!! international law!" And it is well known that (according
to Richard Clark) George W. Bush said in the White House the evening of 9/11, "I don't care
what the international lawyers say, we're going to kick some ass!"
lysias 98 US when it comes to international law has been lawless since 1986.
"The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America (1986) ICJ 1 is a public
international law case decided by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ ruled in
favor of Nicaragua and against the United States and awarded reparations to Nicaragua. The
ICJ held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their
rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The United
States refused to participate in the proceedings after the Court rejected its argument that
the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The U.S. also blocked enforcement of the
judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from
obtaining any compensation.[2]"
In the last decades, US has used things like R2P and coalitions and so forth, but under
Trump, US is dropping most pretenses.
Pompeo at times is as honest as Trump when it comes to US and what it is.
I linked a video in an earlier comment to Pompeo, but then I realised there was a bit more to
"We lied, we cheated, we stole." The piece that was cut off in the earlier video I linked "
It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment"
The Bushes were a CIA family. William Barr's first jobs after college were with the CIA, and
his father was OSS. This has been the CIA's attitude towards law from the start. They've
largely been running the country since the JFK assassination, and now they're out in the open
trying to topple an elected president.
lysias , Nov 2 2019 2:31 utc |
104Peter AU1 , Nov 2 2019 2:33 utc |
105
The non Trump section of the swamp is not going down without a fight..
That effort was carried out at the request of at least one Ukrainian official, prosecutors
said. Trump ordered the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, removed in May."
b said;" The whole impeachment show the Democrats launched is a major political mistake."
Exactly b, and most Dems know it. That's the whole point, find a way to pretend they
want
DJT gone, when in reality, they love what this Admin. is doing. Devolving the Gov. so their
corporate masters can rake in more $ thru deregulation.
Big $ has finally achieved it's goal of of complete and total hegemony in the U$A.
Pelosi & Schumer are sycophants for the uber-wealthy, along with the majority of both
parties.
Known cost of Intel: $80 Billion for 17 Agencies.
Results? No known benefits.
Unknown cost: The damage they do.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 2 2019 3:17 utc | 106
Since the activity is secret, so are the benefits! Actually, as a place for work,
"agencies" offer a number of benefits, especially post-employment opportunities.
On the topic of scholarship and the benefits of war, here's a reminder of what passes for
elite leadership. Tulsi Gabbard wants to end endless wars and the knives are now out for her.
Somebody takes Morris's thesis seriously. The world will be better off with the US the
permanent military leader of the world.
This is blowing up all over Twitter, with Gabbard slapping back, and the HRC loyalists
calling Gabbard an Assad apologist and worse.
According to HRC logic, American third party candidates are necessarily Russian stooges
placed to help the Kremlin's candidate win. The logic is "inescapable" according to HRC. BUT
OF COURSE!!!! Now it ALL MAKES SENSE! 1992 Perot-Clinton, 2000 Nader-Bush, 2016 Jill
Stein-Trump, and, 2020 Gabbard-Trump!!!!
It's all so clear now! The KGB wanted to keep HW Bush out of office as the former Soviet
Union collapsed! That's how she and Bill entered the WH in 1992! Perot was a KGB stooge, and
Bill and Hillary have been lifelong assets of the KGB. Of course!!! That's why Hillary sold
all that uranium to the Russians! Lest, anyone believe the charge of dual-loyalty leveled
against Gabbard is a fiction, check for yourselves.
The above is an actual argument just made by the 2016 candidate for POTUS. Russia controls
US elections by promoting third-party candidates. The best part is that HRC, beneficiary of
"obvious" Russian interference may yet end up running in 2020. Something to look forward to!
Imagine if HRC had won in 2016. Conspiracy theories out the wazoo!
Kind of puts the Morris "scholarship" in perspective, doesn't it? my mother and sister
have. Dipper, probably not)
Hi John, do whatever you want with this interview with Tulsi. It looks like it's on –
big time. Clinton versus Gabbard for the nomination and the chance to run against orange man
bad. On the basis of what I've seen I'd say Tulsi is the only Dem with a message to take
Donald down, and she's not scared to reach out to everyone for support.
I wonder about the Morris book, really. Histories aimed at the popular market are rarely
written in a vacuum. As you know, post-9/11 we saw a bumper crop of mostly crap histories of
the class of civilizations variety. I won't be buying or reading Morris, simply because I
find wide, encompassing arguments generally useless and dull. Anyway, from the sounds of it,
I do think Morris has a constituency among the FP elites.
by John Quiggin on October 13, 2019 On Facebook, my frined
Timothy Scriven pointed to an opinion piece by classics professor Ian Morris headlined
In the long run, wars make us safer and richer It's pushing a book with the clickbaity
title War! What is it Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to
Robots .". Timothy correctly guessed that I wouldn't like it.
Based on the headline, I was expecting a claim along the lines "wars stimulate technological
progress" which I refuted (to my own satisfaction at any rate) in Economics in Two
Lessons" . But the argument is much stranger than this. The claim is that war, despite its
brutality created big states, like the Roman empire, which then delivered peace and
prosperity.
For the classical world at 100 CE or so, the era on which Morris is an expert, that argument
seemed pretty convincing. As the famous Life of Brian sketch suggests, Roman rule delivered a
lot of benefits to its conquered provinces.
The next 1900 years or so present a bit of a problem, though. There have been countless wars
in that time, and no trend towards bigger states. On the contrary two or three dozen states
(depending on how you count them) now occupy the territory of the former Roman Empire.
You could cut the number down a bit by treating the European Union as a new empire, but then
you have an even bigger problem. The EU was not formed through war, but through a determination
to avoid it. Whatever you think about the EU in other respects, this goal has been
achieved.
Morris avoids the problem by a "no true Scotsman" argument. He admits in passing that the
1000 years of war following the high point of Rome had the effect of breaking down larger,
safer societies into smaller, more dangerous ones, but returns with relief to the era of true
wars, in which big states always win. That story works, roughly, until 1914, when the empires
he admires destroyed themselves, killing millions in the process.
After that, the argument descends into Pinker-style nonsense. While repeating the usual
stats about the decline in violent deaths, Morris mentions in passing that a nuclear war could
cause billions of deaths. He doesn't consider the obvious anthropic fallacy problem – if
such a war had happened, there would not be any op-eds in the Washington Post discussing the
implications for life expectancy.
I haven't read the book, and don't intend to. If someone can't present a 700 word summary of
their argument without looking silly, they shouldn't write opinion pieces. But, for what its
worth, FB friends who have read it agree that it's not very good.
William Meyer 10.13.19 at 12:31 pm (no link)
I have not read the book in question, so I don't know if the author made this point: "Since
violence or implicit violence is how we overcome essentially all collective action problems
as humans, war probably does belong in the human toolkit." Obviously it would be better if we
could find more and better alternatives to war, and remove the obvious glitches in the
alternatives (e.g., representative democracy, single-party states, etc.) we have tried in the
past. So I find it odd as I get old that so little energy/research/academic effort is devoted
by the human race to finding better means of collective decision making. Clearly our current
abilities in this field are completely inadequate. I ponder if this is because we are
incapable of doing better by some inherent flaw in our makeup or if it is because, as in some
many areas of life, the wicked work tirelessly to maintain the systems that enrich and
empower them. I suspect I'll never find out.
Omega Centauri 10.13.19 at 4:33 pm (no link)
There might be a case to be made for empire building conquest advancing human society. I
think it was primarily by forcing the mixing of cultures which otherwise would have been
relatively isolated from each other. Also empires tended to create safe internal trade
routes, the Silk Road was made possible by the Mongol empire.
At least the authors of books about such empires like to state that over a timespan of
centuries that empire creation was a net positive.
Orange Watch 10.13.19 at 7:07 pm (no link)
Tim Worstall and Dipper's suggestion that the EU is borne of war is mostly just a failure to
take Morris's claim on its unsophisticated face and instead assume it contains subtle
complexity that is obviously missing if you read the article itself:
This happened because about 10,000 years ago, the winners of wars began incorporating
the losers into larger societies. The victors found that the only way to make these larger
societies work was by developing stronger governments; and one of the first things these
governments had to do, if they wanted to stay in power, was suppress violence among their
subjects.
For the EU to have been a result of war in the sense that Morris means, it would have to
have been forcibly formed in 1945 by the US/UK/Russia forcibly incorporating Europe into it.
When Morris states "wars make us stronger and richer" he very simply means wars of conquest
are long-term net positives. He doesn't mean something subtle about nations banding together
to forestall further war; he bluntly means conquerors gluing together their conquests into
empires and then liberally applying boot leather to necks.
Mark Brady 10.13.19 at 7:56 pm (no link)
John Quiggin is, of course, well aware of this quotation, but some of you may not.
"Though some of them would disdain to say that there are net benefits in small acts of
destruction, they see almost endless benefits in enormous acts of destruction. They tell us
how much better off economically we all are in war than in peace. They see "miracles of
production" which it requires a war to achieve. And they see a postwar world made certainly
prosperous by an enormous "accumulated" or "backed up" demand. In Europe they joyously count
the houses, the whole cities that have been leveled to the ground and that "will have to be
replaced." In America they count the houses that could not be built during the war, the nylon
stockings that could not be supplied, the worn-out automobiles and tires, the obsolescent
radios and refrigerators. They bring together formidable totals.
"It is merely our old friend, the broken-window fallacy, in new clothing, and grown fat
beyond recognition. This time it is supported by a whole bundle of related fallacies. It
confuses need with demand."
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, Chapter 3, "The Blessings of Destruction."
Alex SL 10.13.19 at 8:37 pm (no link)
On one side, AFAIK the last few centuries of war in Europe have indeed seen a reduction of
the number of states. Yes, the trend was partly reversed since 1914, but never to the degree
of splintering that existed in the middle ages.
On the other side, even the widely accepted cases of supposedly 'beneficial' empires such
as the Romans bringing the Pax Romana and the Mongols allowing far-reaching trade and travel
need to be seen against the devastation they caused to make their victories possible. The
Romans, for example, committed genocide in Gaul and Carthage, and they enslaved millions.
Best case argument in my eyes is that a very successful war is beneficial because it stops
continuous smaller wars, which is still not exactly the same as a general "war is
beneficial". Why not just create institutional arrangements that avoid wars between small
nations in the first place?
fran6 10.13.19 at 9:26 pm (no link)
Here's another personality who's also unfazed by the evils of war (although, she does wish
more folks were "kind" to each other):
Stephen @11 Say what? Are you suggesting that the Soviet bloc was part of the EU? As both
your comment and Tim Worstall's unwittingly illustrate, the fact that the EU has been
entirely peaceful since its creation (by contrast with non-EU Europe) is not because
Europeans suddenly became pacifists.
Sorry if I have a hard time getting Morris' argument, but: towards the end, be seems to be
saying the world requires a "Globocop" like the US to ensure its prosperity. But how does
that relate to his wider point about the benefits of war? Does Morris believe the hegemon
owes it to itself, and to the rest of the world, to wage permanent war?
Morris sold out. This was evident in his book comparing the progress of China and Europe,
though that book made excellent points in between the fluff and is well worth reading. But he
is well versed enough in Chinese history to be aware of the ultimate example of armies
conquering and bringing peace to a large area, which happens repeatedly in Chinese history.
Actually, Chinese history itself shows that the opposite argument has more support, that
instead of war being valuable because one powerful country will conquer a large area and
bring peace to it, its valuable because competition between states who are worried about
other states getting a jump on them turns out to be valuable to progress. Large continental
empires, including the Roman one as well, tended to stagnate in terms of culture and
technology and become correct.
MFB 10.15.19 at 7:18 am (no link)
Well, the opinion-piece was published on Jeff Bezos' blog. Oligarchs are naturally in favour
of centralised power and therefore of empires (so long as they are at the apex thereof, which
they usually are). The best way to build an empire is through war.
Of course, the author has to say "despite Hitler, Stalin and Mao", for ideological
reasons. Actually, Hitler built his empire largely through the threat of war rather than
through war itself; once he had actually started the war, he antagonised three more powerful
empires than his own and his empire was then crushed. As for Stalin, he actually did various
double-back-somersaults to avoid getting into wars, and the "empire" which he built in
Eastern Europe as a result of winning a war he didn't want did not sustain itself. And of
course Mao didn't start any wars at all -- his name just had to be thrown in for reactionary
reasons.
It is true that the Spanish, Portuguese, French and British empires were built upon war.
But where are they now? The United States fought a lot of wars against its indigenous people,
but frankly it would still have been a global superpower if it had simply sidestepped most of
them, at least from about 1865 onward.
An interesting question: can it be that a professor of Classics doesn't actually have to
understand the concept of evidence-based argument in any case, because everything has already
been said on the subject and all you have to do is cherry-pick other people's statements?
Because that seems to be how that silly article reads.
And yes, the whole thing reeks of the better angels propaganda. Let's not forget, by the
way, that various members of the EU -- Britain, France, Italy et al -- have launched brutally
murderous wars elsewhere, and the fact that they don't fight among themselves doesn't make
them peaceful or moral entities.
@TheSophist #25: that was mentioned as a joke rather than self-publicity, but if you're
really interested: The Roman Empire: roots of imperialism (Pluto Press, 2020). Obviously
books about the Roman Empire are ten a penny; my main claim for this one, besides its being
less apologetic and/or gung-ho than most, is that I try to integrate the historical reality
with its reception, i.e. how people have subsequently deployed Rome as an example or model.
Maybe the Roman Empire delivered on peace, but prosperity is a bit more complicated. Some
years ago David Hays wrote a book on the history of technology. One of the things he did was
make a back-of-the-envelope estimate of material welfare at different levels of development.
He concluded that, while civilization has always been a good deal for the elite, it's been
rather iffy for peasants and workers. It's only during the Industrial Evolution that the
standard of living at the lower end of society rose above that of hunter-gatherers. So, the
prosperity delivered by the Roman Empire went mostly to the elite, not the peasantry.
Peter Erwin@43 wanted the Nazis to roll right up to the eastern border of Poland, etc. etc.
So did Hitler. And although I'm quite reluctant to read minds, especially dead one, I will
nevertheless guarantee the move into the Baltics was seen as a blow to his plans, even if
accepted for temporary advantage. You must always see who hates Stalin for beating Hitler,
and those rare few who object to his real crimes.
And, Erwin thinks Chinese troops being in Korea with permission is an aggression, while US
troops closing on Chinese borders is not. The US still isn't out of Korea, but China is, but
he can't figure out who the aggressor is.
Really, Peter Erwin really says it all. The maddest ant-Communist propaganda is now
official.
MFB 10.17.19 at 9:02 am (no link)
I don't want to unnecessarily dump on Peter Erwin, because I don't believe in kicking
disadvantaged children, but if he reads the original post he will notice that it was talking
about international wars, not civil wars. I'll admit the invasion of Finland (and of the
Baltic states and Poland) but those were fairly obviously ways of strengthening the USSR's
position in order to discourage a German invasion, and all took place within the boundaries
of the former Russian Empire which Stalin undoubtedly saw as the default position.
As to Mao, he didn't start the Korean war (as Erwin unwillingly admits) and all the other
wars except for the invasion of Vietnam were civil wars since they entailed moving into
Chinese-controlled territory which had broken away during the main civil war. I'll admit that
Vietnam was a problem, but then, since Mao had been dead for some time by then, it's would be
hard for Erwin to blame him except for the fact that Erwin clearly lives on Planet
Bizarro.
@John Quiggin The claim is that war, despite its brutality created big states, like the
Roman empire, which then delivered peace and prosperity
I don't think this is an intellectually generous summary of the arguments, as presented in
the article.
The author himself summarizes it as "war made states, and states made peace", and if it is
indeed true that the author often speaks of "larger, more organized societies" there is a
strong implication that for a society to be "large" in the sense discussed in the article, it
is not really necessary that it be territorially very wide (the most clear cut indication of
that is that the author refers to the European states of the 1600s as "big, settled states"
while they all were geographically tiny at the time). So the point of the author, if
interpreted with intellectual honesty, seems to me to be twofold: 1) that war has been a
crucial factor in the formation of complex, organized states and societies and 2) that these
complex, organized states and societies brought with them so many positive things that the
wars required to form them were worth it.
The second point is pure Pinker. I consider it logically meaningless, myself (it
ultimately relies on the concept that History proceeds like an individual who is choosing a
pair of shoes) and morally repugnant (it is not hard to see who will be pleased to have a
rhetorical tool that can justify any atrocity by the long term gains it will provide humanity
– indeed, it is instructive in that respect to read SS internal papers on when and why
children should be executed with their parents, and how to select people for that task:
contrary to what could be guessed, the manual recommends the soldiers who appear to have a
strong sense of empathy and morality, with the idea that they will those who will most
strongly endorse the "by doing this abominable act, we are sacrificing ourselves on behalf of
future generations" thesis).
The first point, however, appears to me to be broadly correct descriptively. Extracting an
interesting thesis out of it requires much more work than is indicated by the article,
however (I consider Ertman's Birth of the Levianthan an example of that kind of extra
work done successfully).
@John Quiggin Lots of people predicted, along the lines of your post, that with the
external threat of the USSR gone, and the US pulling back, the old warlike Europe would
reassert itself.
I think what we may call the "wide military context thesis" runs rather like this: because
of the experience of WWII and the Cold War, modern industrial states have amassed enormous
military power while at the same time knowing that they can experience total destruction if
they enter into a military conflict with a state of comparable military might. As a
consequence, peace dominates between them. So France is not at war with the United Kingdom or
Germany, certainly in part because they are all (for now) members of the EU but also in part
for the same reason Japan is not at war with South Korea and Russia not at war with
China.
Personally, I think it would be absurd to claim that the EU has played no role in the
pacification of Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, but I think it
would be equally absurd to deny the role of other factors that plainly play a major role in
the equally remarkable pacification of other regional areas in the absence of an economical
and political unification process (rise in prosperity, rise in education, aging populations,
increased military power ).
@7, Omega
Not really wanting to get into the "do empires benefit civilization by promoting trade"
argument, but having just read Lost Enlightenment, nothing in that lengthy tome suggests the
Silk Road city states gain any special advantage from the Mongol invasion. In fact, quite the
opposite. After the Mongols (in part for reasons preceeding the conquest), Central Asia never
regained its pre-eminence (it had actually not just been a facilitator of trade but also a
center of manufacture, culture, scientific progress). Maybe the trade routes hobbled along as
trade routes but the civilization that was both built by and facilitated trade did not
rebound. Most empires seem to get that there is wealth to be had from involvement in trade,
they don't always know how to keep the gold goose alive.
LFC 10.20.19 at 9:10 pm (no link)
"War made states and states made peace" is a riff on Charles Tilly's line "war made the state
and the state made war."
Arguably some of the most significant events since the eight-year long war's start have played out in Syria with rapid pace over
just the last month alone, including Turkey's military incursion in the north, the US pullback from the border and into Syria's oil
fields, the Kurdish-led SDF&# deal making with Damascus, and the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. All of this is why a
televised interview with Presiden39;st Bashar Assad was highly anticipated at the end of this week.
Assad's commentary on the latest White House policy to "secure the oil" in Syria, for which US troops have already been redeployed
to some of the largest oil fields in the Deir Ezzor region, was the biggest pressing question. The Syrian president's response was
unexpected and is now driving headlines, given what he said directly about Trump, calling him the "best American president" ever
– because he's the "most transparent."
"When it comes to Trump you may ask me a question and I'll give you an answer which might seem strange. I tell you he's the best
American president," Assad said, according to a
translation provided by NBC.
"Why? Not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president," Assad continued.
"All American presidents commit crimes and end up taking the Nobel Prize and appear as a defender of human rights and the 'unique'
and 'brilliant' American or Western principles. But all they are is a group of criminals who only represent the interests of the
American lobbies of large corporations in weapons, oil and others," he added.
"Trump speaks with the transparency to say 'We want the oil'." Assad's unique approach to an 'enemy' head of state which has just
ordered the seizure of Syrian national resources also comes after in prior years the US president called Assad "our enemy" and an
"animal."
Trump tweeted in April 2018 after
a new chemical attack allegation had surfaced: "If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster
would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!"
A number of mainstream outlets commenting on Assad's interview falsely presented it as "praise" of Trump or that Assad thinks
"highly" of him; however,
it appears the Syrian leader was merely presenting Trump's policy statements from a 'realist' perspective , contrasting them from
the misleading 'humanitarian' motives typical of Washington's rhetoric about itself.
That is, Damascus sees US actions in the Middle East as motivated fundamentally by naked imperial ambition, a constant prior theme
of Assad's speeches , across administrations, whether US leadership dresses it up as 'democracy promotion' or in humanitarian terms
characteristic of liberal interventionism. As Assad described, Trump seems to skip dressing up his rhetoric in moralistic idealism
altogether, content to just unapologetically admit the ugly reality of US foreign policy.
I see Americans keep calling Assad and Putin a ''dictator'' Hey, jackasses, they were ELECTED in elections far less corrupt than what you have in the USSA
Assad is a very eloquent speaker. Witty, sharp and always calm when speaking with decadent press. Of course the MSM understood
what he DID mean, but they cannot help themselves, but parse anything to try hurting Trump.
If true. It means the Vatican (the oldest most important money there is) like Saudi Arabia and the UAE sure do seem to care
about stuff like purchasing power in their "portfolios" and a "store of value"?...
I see lots of EU participants taking their money to Moscow as well with that Arctic bonanza that says "come hither" if you
want your money to be worth something!!!
It's always been about oil. Spreading Freedumb, Dumbocracy and Western values, is PR spiel. The reality is, the West are scammers,
plunderers and outright thieves. Forget the billions Shell Oil, is holding for the Biafran people/region in Nigeria, which it
won't give to either the Bianfran states in the east, nor the Nigerian government, dating back to the secessionist state of Biafra/Nigerian civil war 1967-70. The west are nothing more than gang-bangers, but on the world stage.
Yet the department for trade and industry is scratching its head, wondering why their are so few takers for a post-Brexit trade
deal with the UK, where the honest UK courts have the final say? lol
Too bad it is political suicide for an American president to try to establish communication with Assad. He seems like a pretty
practical guy and who knows, it might be possible to work out a peaceful settlement with him.
economic warfare on the syrian civlian population through illegal confiscation of vital civilian economic assets, and as conducted
in venezeula, is called ________________
Assad is saying where before the UKK was a masked thief, with Trompas and his egotism alias exceptionalism, has not bothered
withthe mask. He is still a murderer and thief.
Now Assad has some idea why Trump is so popular with his base, they love him for not being politically correct, for "telling
it like it is". He's like the wolf looking at the sheep and telling them he's going to eat them and the sheep cheering because
he's not being a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Unfortunately in the case of Trump's sheeple, they don't even have a clue they're going to be eaten, the Trumptards all think
he's going to eat someone else like the "deep state" or the "dumbocrats". Meanwhile he's chewing away at their health care, their
export markets, piling up record deficits, handing the tax gold to the rich and corporations while they get the shaft, taking
away program after program that aided students, the poor, and the elderly, appointing lobbyists to dismantle or corrupt departments
they used to lobby against, and in general destroying the international good will that it's taken decades to build.
"... Believing herself untouchable and immune from any genuine criticism or objective analysis after having successfully evaded prosecution from the nation's top law enforcement agencies, HRC went off the deep end dragging the Democratic party further into the ditch. ..."
"... She is a favorite of the Russians. That's assuming that Jill Stein will give it up which she might not because she is also a Russian asset." ..."
"... Gabbard's message is relatively simple -that is: Instead of the US destroying countries it should be spending the Military Budget on rebuilding the US. Yes that sounds like an America First type of stance but it has a decent logic about it. ..."
"... The US needs an enemy to justify its massive defence bill and 800 bases worldwide. ..."
"... Stoltenberg would happily stop all social services in order to buy more missiles and gain a few brownie points from Trump. Stoltenberg along with the US Neocons are are sick SOB's. ..."
"... Both Trump and Jabbard are opponents of the CIA – Wall street complex. Nationalists vs Globalists, but some people still believe the former are more dangerous than the latter. ..."
"... The Dems morphed into neocons when her willy-waving husband sold out and destroyed the Democratic Party of LBJ's Great Society. ..."
"... Tulsi has shown a lot of class, truth to the darkest Power, and long may she have this platform.. ..."
As you may have figured out by now, Hillary Clinton, warped by her own self aggrandizement of entitlement, did Tulsi Gabbard and
her Presidential campaign against interventionist wars a huge incidental favor.
While the Democrats continue to splinter and spiral out of control on the eve of what promises to be a transformative national
election, the Grand Inquisitor seized an opportunity to allege that Gabbard (and Jill Stein) are " Russian assets " and " Putin puppets
".
Since Tulsi is a Major in the US Army Reserves and holds the highest security clearance available, the term 'asset,' which is
associated with being an agent of a foreign power, carries a level of national security significance.
Believing herself untouchable and immune from any genuine criticism or objective analysis after having successfully
evaded
prosecution from the nation's top law enforcement agencies, HRC went
off the deep end dragging the Democratic party
further into the
ditch.
She is a favorite of the Russians. That's assuming that Jill Stein will give it up which she might not because she is also
a Russian asset."
Clinton's
historic pronouncement came in the mistaken belief that publicly humiliating Gabbard would intimidate the Aloha Girl to silence
and seek refuge on her surfboard – but that is not how it has played out.
An unexpected bonus proved once again that political strategy has never been Clinton's strong suit as her malicious comments have
brought the anti-war alt left with the libertarian alt-right together in Gabbard's defense. With HRC's injudicious taunts, the glimmer
of an emerging political realignment , one that has
been at odds with both the Dem and Republican establishments, has surfaced – probably not exactly what HRC intended.
In response to having received a burst of unprecedented support, Gabbard is about to assure her place on the November debate stage
and continues to solidify her credibility as a critic of a corrupt bipartisan political establishment and its endless wars.
If they falsely portray me as a traitor, they can do it to anyone. Don't be afraid. Join me in speaking truth to power to take
back the Democrat Party and country from the corrupt elite."
It is noteworthy that HRCs accusation was to the only candidate who stands in direct opposition to the Queen Bee's history for
the war machine and all of its bells and whistles. As if to call attention to the contradiction, the entire fiasco has acknowledged
what was never meant to be acknowledged: that one little known Congresswoman from Hawaii would dare to publicly confront the omnipotent
HRC with her own demons and malfeasance; thereby elevating the one candidacy that represents a threat to the military industrial
complex and its globalist order.
It is no coincidence that the corporate media operates in lockstep as an offensive October 12th
NY Times article was immediately
followed by a CNN
commentary as well as other media sycophants, all tagging Gabbard as a Russian asset.
Contrary to Journalism 101 on how professional media should conduct themselves, there has been no evidence, no facts, no supporting
documentation as they characteristically rely on innuendo and disinformation.
At the last Dem debate and during the kerfuffle with Clinton, Tulsi has stepped up and
showed herself
to be a candidate the country has been waiting for. With a powerful inner grit, she did not hesitate to take the
Times and CNN
publicly to task and then
in response
called HRC out as a warmonger and
dared her to enter the 2020 fray.
There lies a deep truth within
Gabbard's response especially identifying Clinton as the " personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party.
"
During Clinton's term as Secretary of State which is little more than a Glorified Global Hustler for the US military industrial
complex, the Democratic Party lost its soul, morphing as nefarious neocons in pursuit of raw political and economic power that emanates
from a policy of unfettered regime change and interventionist wars.
As Democrats embraced the neocons with no objection to the unrestrained violence, increased military budgets, indiscriminate selling
of weapons to bomb a civilian population, then why should the party's grassroots object to the Tuesday morning assassination list
or drone attacks on civilians or creating war in four countries living in peace in 2008?
As the party faithful allow themselves to dismiss all the suffering, the death and destruction wrought by US-made weapons as if
Amazon and Google toys were an acceptable trade, they lost their conscience and their connection to the basic essence of humanity's
need for peace, love and compassion.
The latest example of the Party's devotion to war is their opposition to the withdrawal of US troops from Syria as they created
the phony debate that the Kurds were worth more American blood or resources. The Dems have always been more pro-war than they have
been given credit for with WWI, WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam all initiated and/or expanded under Democrat Presidents.
With no substantiation from the mindless meanderings of a seriously disoriented woman, it is now clear that Clinton's derangement
syndrome of unresolved guilt and denial led the Democratic party to its irrational embrace of Russiagate as the justification for
her 2016 loss.
In other words, it was Russiagate that protected HRC's fragile self-esteem from the necessary introspection as Americans were
pitted against one another, dividing the nation in a deliberate disruption of civil society in a more acrimonious manner than any
time since the 1860's. The country has paid a bitter, unnecessary price for a divisive strategy due to Clinton's refusal to personally
accept responsibility for her own failings.
HRC's most egregious war crimes as Secretary of State include assigning Victoria Nuland to conduct the
overthrow of a democratically elected
President in Ukraine in 2014 and the ensuing violence and civil war in the Donbass as well as her
joyous rapture cackling at the death of Libyan President Qaddafi in 2011. The now infamous video " We came, we saw, he died "
showed her to be more than just your average war criminal but a Monster who experiences an aberrant thrill at death and destruction.
Since June, TPTB have done their darnedest to deny Tulsi a spot on the debate stage rigging the qualifying requirements as best
they could. Making it near impossible for the polling firms, which rely on campaign season and their economic connection with the
DNC to call the shots in a fair and equitable manner.
As the early primary states loom ahead, the last thing TPTB need is a powerful pro-peace voice resonating with the American public.
The message seems clear: talk of peace is verboten and equates with being a Russia asset and anyone with pacifist tendencies will
be publicly chastised and condemned for being a tool of the Kremlin.
None of that has stopped Tulsi Gabbard.
Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast
Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member
of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31
Ken Kenn
I am very impressed by Tulsi Gabbard. She's a bit too patriotic for me – but I'm a Brit so for a serving American it's understandable.
It isn't the person that is dangerous- it is the insertion of the idea that Regime Change wars are counterproductive.
Gabbard's message is relatively simple -that is: Instead of the US destroying countries it should be spending the Military
Budget on rebuilding the US. Yes that sounds like an America First type of stance but it has a decent logic about it.
Wasteful wars and the idea that the US should install its version of Democracy across the Middle East has always been a doomed
project and co-operation and an attempt at rebuilding these nations in order to attempt some kind of democracy and future prosperity
is required – not bombing and bullying.
You could be outraged by Clinton's nasty rhetoric but let's face it. Clinton lost to someone she considered to be a Clown.
In actuality the DNC almost promoted Trump as person they could beat hands down.
It bit them on the arse as did the Brexit result in the UK.
Clinton has never got over losing to a chump and she is just covering her backside as to why she lost.
Hell hath no fury like a self appointed Candidate scorned. Like Johnson in the UK Clinton thought she had the right to rule.
She didn't and doesn't. To quote some US Senator; " The people have spoken. The bastards!"
Igor
The objective is not to install American "democracy". Which does not exist anywhere, USA is officially a republic. Unofficially,
it is an oligarchy. Elite super wealthy families and their corporations run the USA. All 45 Presidents have been related to those
families. The President is actually elected by the Electoral College, not the popular vote. This was designed into the Constitution
of USA, Inc.
The aim of regime change is to create chaos in MENA, by which a small ME state can profit without doing any visible dirty work.
The Democrats(oxymoron for il Partito Fascista Americano) are doing this for the simple reason knowing full well that most traditional
old school democrats identify with Bernie Sanders. The whole notion of the WASP notion of left right paradigm is oxymoron in itself.
Any political science follower or student would have to agree. What is the political left mean in the west????????? Has anyone
ever read Marx and Engles ???????????? Social democrat WTF does that mean. Historical revisionist get labelled Nazi sympathisers.
The constant lies and obfuscation with real facts. Like population stats death births . The Classic method being used at the moment
is they no longer due c0up d'etats the good old fascistic way. The popular vote gets discredited by the judicial system. IE the
recent elections of Argentina and Bolivia does not suit the IMF( the International Mafia Fund) henc e the European Union Funded
election monitoring organisations are all openly stating that both elections were not KOSHER.
Look at the people in Venezuela and Bolivia that are demonstrating against the popular elected and voted for Governments. White
upper middle class figli di putane. Plain and simple the western paradigm of fake democrazia and fake economy is dying the plutocratic
and oligarchical class are just creating storms and fires just do deviate from good old fashion bread and butter issues.
Conclusion:
The pax-americana Democrats(RATS) know full well that Bernie will not lead the party Gabbard will not lead the party so here
is there strategy and good old Chuckie Schuemer the anglo-zionist par excellance laid it out in 2015. They are hoping that old
fashion conservative Republicans that are disgusted with the Orange one will vote for them and further reduce the number of voters.
Just think of this. In this day and age with the largest wealth gap exceeding the Gilded age which individual would take a day
off to line up to vote on a bitter grey November day. So these remarkable establishment shills in their great wisdom are running
as Eisenhower Republican and hoping to steal votes from the Republicans and not win any votes from the new ever growing lower
so called middle class.
POST SCRIPTUM: The irony and the complete paradox more war will give us peace and the rich getting richer will give us the
sheeple wealth. Black is white and grey does not exist and left vs right. What a sad state of affairs.
Docius in fundem: The sad reality in our dying western paradigm of pax-americana is never in the history of the modern and
post modern era we have more people graduating from tertiary education but we have created the most ignorant and pliant class
of individuals ever.
Jon
She came, we saw, she lied.
Hugh O'Neill
Russian asset and Putin puppet, Jesus of Nazareth reportedly said: "Blessed are the Peace Makers". As we know, Trump receives
maximum MSM contempt for anything approaching diplomacy and peace, and highest MSM approval when advocating war and destruction.
Likewise, when a Presidential candidate dare breathe the word "Peace" then she is either ignored, ridiculed or accused of treachery
– and that greatest of all crimes, being pro-Russian (ergo anti-American). It is timely perhaps to re-read President Kennedy's
(largely unreported) Commencement Address to American University, 10th June 1963:
" What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons
of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes
life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not
merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time".
"I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and
relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when
a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World
War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and
soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn."
Lest we forget: Lee Harvey Oswald was sheep-dipped as a Russian-loving commie precisely so as to blame Russia for killing that
commie/socialist/pacifist/drug-addled/free-lovin' Jack Kennedy. Somehow, their script didn't really make any sense. Script-writer
Allen Dulles had written a turkey, but the show must go on, and on .
Igor
It won't be allowed. The People have no say in the matter. Politics is pure spectacle, to distract and entertain the masses, and
to make them think that they have a voice. All 45 US Presidents have been interrelated through 200+ super wealth elite intertwined
families. If Tulsi Gabbard is not related, then she is not getting into the White House. If she is related, she will get in and
do nothing different from what the previous actors have always done.
#Resist45 and Trump, Mr. #45, work for the same people. Keeping the nation dazed and confused, since January 2017. Congress
does nothing useful, by design, concentrating on impeachment. The Media has plenty of Trump social media coverage to prevent ever
having space to report on actual events (as if they would).
Chinese Asset?
Please don't make the Republicans look better than they are. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ms. Hua Chunying said at a press briefing
that
Pence's speech made Thursday revealed his "sheer arrogance and hypocrisy, and was packed with political prejudice and lies"
So refreshing to hear it from a high level official! Ms Hua also accused Pence of using China as a prop to distract from
the United States' failings. Now we know, the 'Russian asset' accusation is used to distract from the continuous and
never-ending murderous operation of the US regime.
Seamus Padraig
Since Tulsi is a Major in the US Army Reserves and holds the highest security clearance available, the term 'asset,' which
is associated with being an agent of a foreign power, carries a level of national security significance.
Alt-journalist
Caity Johnstone has recently remarked upon how the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have started to give the
word 'asset' their own little proprietary meaning:
"Russian 'assets' are not formal relationships in the USIC [US Intelligence Community] sense of the word," CNN analyst and
former FBI agent Asha Rangappa explained via Twitter. "If you are parroting Russian talking points and furthering their interests,
you're a source who is too dumb to know you're being played to ask for money."
"It's important to point out here that a Russian 'asset' is not the same thing as a Russian 'agent'," tweeted virulent establishment
narrative manager Caroline Orr. "An asset can be witting or unwitting; it's any person or org who can be used to advance Russia's
interests. It's pretty clear that Tulsi satisfies that criteria."
"One doesn't have to be on the Kremlin's payroll to be a Russian asset. One doesn't even have to know they are a Russian
asset to be a Russian asset. Have you not heard the term 'useful idiot' before?" tweeted writer Kara Calavera.
At this rate, pretty soon, we'll all have to check with RT first before we open our mouths in public, just to make sure we're
not accidentally agreeing with the Russians!
The Dems have always been more pro-war than they have been given credit for with WWI, WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam all
initiated and/or expanded under Democrat Presidents.
Ha, ha! That takes me back–all the way to 1976, to be exact–to when Bob Dole (then a candidate for Vice-President) described
all the wars of the 20th century as " Democrat wars
".
Igor
"CNN analyst and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa explained via Twitter. "
Says the CNN paid asset.
Hugh O'Neill
Thanks once again to Renee for championing Tulsi. Yesterday my local paper here in NZ (The Otago Daily Times) in its "This Day
in History" column, briefly referred to JFK and the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I wrote to the editor my
appreciation:
"Although I am old enough to remember both the 1960 election and the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, I was
blissfully unaware of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 (when I was almost 7 years old). My thanks to the ODT for marking
this date which is the day in History when the world stepped back from the abyss of nuclear war and ended all life on Earth. Sadly,
too many today live in blissful ignorance of the most dangerous moment in the History of Mankind.
As the old saying goes, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Next time around, there may no longer be the politicians
with the courage and intelligence of Kennedy and Khrushchev: both men had to out-manoeuvre their own military hawks, and each
man knew the personal risks he faced in doing so. Khrushchev was replaced within a year and died in ignominy.
JFK's lived another year before his own untimely end. Though we may lament the execution of John F. Kennedy, he had not lived
and died in vain, because we are still here despite the military. I cannot recommend highly enough two books: firstly, Bobby Kennedy's
"13 Days> A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis" and James Doulglass "JFK & The Unspeakable. Why he died & Why it Matters".
Tulsi has been the only candidate in a very long time to speak the unspeakable truth. Do not condemn her for whatever flaws
some commenters below perceive. No-one is absolutely perfect in every way – not even Mary Poppins. But Tulsi is a breath of fresh
air and has immense courage, eloquence, passion, integrity and charisma to bring out the best in people. The real enemy is within
– in every sense.
Thanks, Gwyn. I knew this story already but it is worth rereading. The fact that some dimwitted USN ship started dropping depth
charges without top authority shows that JFKs grip on his own military was tenuous. He had recently read Barbara Tuchman's "The
guns of August" which showed how stupid acts by subordinates could have massive consequences. Once again, this demonstrates the
treachery of the military. Recently, some British General stated publicly that if Corbyn were elected, there would be a coup.
The military mind cannot cope with the concept of Democracy.
Stoltenberg would happily stop all social services in order to buy more missiles and gain a few brownie points from Trump.
Stoltenberg along with the US Neocons are are sick SOB's.
Antonym
Trump doesn't want US taxpayers to fund US mil in Europe, not unreasonable. Both Trump and Jabbard are opponents of the CIA
– Wall street complex. Nationalists vs Globalists, but some people still believe the former are more dangerous than the latter.
Amazon, Google or Apple have more power than North Korea, Iran or Xyz. China cannot be the CIA-Wall street bogey now as they make
too much profit of it: Russia is much smaller fish margin wise (the Clinton's only managed a few dozen million$) so that makes
the perfect fake enemy. On top Russia actually competes with oil and gas, which China can't.
Wilmers31
Someone with more knowledge to the timeline needs to correlate the punishments for Russia (sanctions) to the oil price. I think
they started sanctions when Russian oil and gas deliveries were getting cheaper but US needed 75$+ for the frackers. It was just
eliminating a competitor, especially after they could not purchase the monopoly on Russian gas and oil through the monopoly company
Yukos.
Gary Weglarz
This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and this seems like a good post to share it on.
Watching trolls emerge to discredit and attack the lone U.S. candidate who publicly and vocally opposes America's regime change
wars and even dares tell the American people that "we are supporting the terrorists – not fighting them" – is bad enough in MSM,
but a sad and interesting comment on how completely engaged the State has become with attempting to "control" and "shape" discourse
on progressive sites such as this.
My favorite of course is when one State troll debates another State troll in completely "fake" discourse, attempting to amplify
their troll message. The other technique that is endlessly amusing is when a single troll posts something a well informed person
with progressive values can quite agree with one day, followed the next by complete gibberish posing as "sophistication," followed
the next day by talking points right out of the CIA & Pentagon, and then follows all that up with posting something sensible again.
Just a bit "crazy-making" no?
It pays to remember ("The 4 D's: Deny / Disrupt / Degrade / Deceive") that come right out of the trolling manual. It should
be a red-flag if these descriptors characterize someone's posts.
The saying that if it ("looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck, well, it just might be a duck") – is one
that is worth applying to our comment's sections discourse. Because if it "posts like a troll"- in the end it doesn't really matter
if it "is" a troll (something we will never know), or is simply an uniformed but opinionated idiot – as that person is "doing
the work of" the State sponsored trolls in either case.
I find it is always worth periodically reviewing what we know about these operations (thank you Edward Snowden) – as it helps
us to better understand and prepares us to better deal with the State sponsored troll operations we now see routinely in all of
our truly progressive comments sections on alternative media sites. What we now deal with here at OffG and elsewhere are daily
routine attempts to take over, shape and control otherwise rational informed sincere discussion by readers. Sadly this is how
some people make their living – existing in a continual state of existential "bad faith."
Anyone who stands for a perception managed 'business as usual' candidacy is authentic: anyone who tries to expose the vicious
hypocrisy is an 'asset' or a 'troll'? Welcome to the postmodern anti-debate.
I'm trying to think of where I have come across a more cynical attempt to distort the truth and apologetically cover ethnic
cleansing and cultural anti-Muslim genocide? And I cannot think of a better example. Anyone who attempts to expose Gabbard for
her cultural links to actual Hindutva supremacism and real live fascism must be a paid state troll? What can I say: I am a peace
troll exposing the Politics of Lies you appear to support. Tulsi Gabbard is a traitor to humanity.
What I laid out below is not trolling: it exposes just how much you have to invert the true values of liberation and freedom
to get a 'peace candidate' from a Zionist fascist supporter. In brief synopsis: Modi tore up the Indian constitution; flooded
Jammu and Kashmir with troops; invoked the 'Riot Act' to eject all journalists and TV crews; in order that his ethnic cleansing
of the valley goes unseen. This is a crime against humanity: which also carries no small risk of nuclear war. Making this apparent
is trolling?
In the perversion of the narrative script you propose: this is called "vocally opposing America's regime change wars". How;
by apologising for not being able to attend the 'Howdy, Modi' because she was pre-commited to be lying somewhere else?
In contrast: Arundhati Roy stands accused as a traitor and having her rights and citizenship stripped for bringing attention
to Modi's war crimes. What does Gabbard do? Pass the caviar and offer more lucrative trade deals for Modi's murderers? That is
the difference between a real world candidate and a fake. Will Gabbard call out Modi; el-Sisi; Netanyahu or Adelson for that matter?
You know the scene that Milosevic likes to post: of Netanyahu being feted by Congress – which looks exactly like the Nuremberg
Rallies Gabbard was there to listen to the ally and friend of the United States – that is the only democracy in the Middle East
– denounce Iran. Afterward, she went on Fox News and glibly agreed Greta Van Susteren that the deal was akin to the infamous Munich
Pact. Blithely nodding her head before engaging in some fantasy talking points about North Korean nukes hitting Hawaii: and the
three month acquisition of the Iranian bomb which comes straight off of one of Nuttyyahoo's empty CD-roms. So can we drop the
pretense please?
Adelson's 'Champion of Freedom' nails her real colours to the mast?
Then you invoke Sartre: did you know he was a communist? Who staid loyal to Stalin's Soviet Union for much longer than he really
should have? What do you think he would have made of a candidate who dines with Hindutva fascist racist supremacists and offers
them more trade on a pro rata basis of carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity? Bad faith and authenticity: where
do yo think they lie? Gabbard is an authentic candidate only in such a highly perception managed world as we have. Which is why
we have such a highly perception managed world – because we highly perception manage it ourselves. No paid state trolls required:
except in the imagination perhaps? Perhaps only those not suffering the illusion can see who she really is?
The only way to make this real is by censoring the right to criticism the illegitimate candidacy of those who are silent on
Modi's open fascism and very probable silent, unseen ethnic cleansing. If it is silent and unseen then it is not happening. Then
we have our perfect 'peace candidate'. Do you see how it works?
Let us shut down any chance of any open debate on that. Well done Gary. You and all the fawning sycophants on this page have
the perfect peace candidate you deserve. By ignoring valid and authentic critical consciousness and suppressing the voice of freedom.
Gabbard needs to be exposed as a modified war candidate: and friend of the Gods of Money and their pet dictators. It is a cynical
ploy to try and close down such real world exposure as 'trolling'. Trolling for peace maybe? Peace we may never now know.
Gary Weglarz
My comments were not intended to be a defense of Gabbard. Though she is the only candidate I can remember in many years that is
speaking some truth, any truth, about the amoral U.S. war machine, she of course has no chance whatsoever of winning and no one
in their right mind would suggest otherwise. Yet I and others who are quite aware of this obvious reality find the undeniable
fact she is "publicly speaking some truth" about that war machine a rather important addition to the theatre of the absurd political
debate here in the U.S. So strange that support and recognition of this simple fact is so controversial to some.
No, my comments were not some defense of Gabbard as an impure savior, but rather about the trolls and those who perhaps in
their boundless narcissism simply do the work of the government trolls because they routinely "post like trolls." You know, ("The
4 D's: Deny / Disrupt / Degrade / Deceive"). Perhaps you missed that somehow?
I tire of so much smug narcissistic idiocy, and predictable attacks on any who might disagree, posing as – "commentary" or
"discourse." Of course neither you nor Big B have commented a word on that topic- the actual topic of my post. Instead simply
strawman attacks related to Tulsi. How strange. But then again: "You've obviously got it all sewn up :(" – eh Frank?
I really don't give a shit about what the totally corrupt US political system is doing.
They are all scum and vermin, who, in a sane world, would all be swept down the gutter.
In the Middle East we are on the verge of WW3. The Russians and the Chinese are not going to put up with the American Frankenstein
any more. Do Americans realise what this will mean?
I doubt it, because many Americans don't have a brain cell between them (Clue: America will be totally destroyed in a WW3).
nonameforsure
8 elements appeared on a website recently which the author suggested could be used to identify fake, false, or self agenda propaganda..
learn them.. apply them.
Develop an international way to report in some standard way on the elements that appear in articles. Maybe date, time, place presented,
element identified, together with a comment that fits each expression. In my opinion it is important to build the case that the
same false narrative appears in your favorite fake media as well as everyone else's favorite fake media.
You will be able to detect how these 8 elements develop fact that identify processes and activities of those in charge and
how these elements will allow those seeking the truth to build a collaborative means to debunk fake. Example refer to paragraph
7 in a subject article by indicating "place" on "date" @ "time" "time" "title" and element number and then make a comment to explain
why you marked the expression with a element number.
This kind of reference system allows to detect and compare both intra article fake news with inter publication fake news..
so maybe it will be discovered the news outlets and publishers and authors that hawk the same false or misleading propaganda in
time to inform the public, moreover, if you can get the public to understand and to apply the element method of debunking propaganda;
article by article, paragraph by paragraph, just the act of doing it, might wake them up.
1) EN establish the narrative :fake always try to establish the tuth
2) WR They wrong, we right : inconvenient facts are transformed to support the narrative
3) PF Cherry Pick the Facts : only report the facts that support the narrative
4) IS Ignore stuff : never include something that is contrary to the narrative
5) VB Blame the Victim : keep the victim on the defensive
6) MU Make up Stuff: false or non fact claims can be made up to fit the narrative
7) AC Attack and deny any form to all challengers: Persons who ask ?s are conspiracy terrorist.
8) RL Repeat the lies, repeat the lies, repeat the lies. People need help to remember the lie
Capricornia Man
Your eight methods for creating fake news aptly describe the way the 'systemic anti-Semitism in the UK Labour Party' myth was
promoted. Particularly methods 3,4 and 8.
When I complained to a broadcaster about its incompetent and biased 'coverage' of this non-issue, one of its chief defences
was: 'that's what all the other news outlets are saying'.
The MSM wonder why they are regarded as mendacious and contemptible by thinking people who take the trouble to separate the
facts from the spin.
mark
A Brief Summary Of The War In Syria.
2011. The Neocons activate a long standing plan that has been around for 20 years to destroy Syria. Syria is to be destroyed,
like Iraq and Libya before it. Assad will be toppled within a few months and Syria smashed into a thousand pieces.
The Axis of Evil, the US and its NATO satraps, Shady Wahabia, Kosherstan and Sultan Erdogan, flood Syria with the necessary
cannon fodder, hundreds of thousands of head choppers and throat slitters from a hundred countries, with a licence to murder,
burn, rape, loot, steal and enslave to their hearts content. An alphabet soup of takfiri groups is created out of thin air, armed,
trained, paid, transported and orchestrated with tens of billions of western taxpayers money. ISIS is just one of many.
The Syrian state, armed forces and people resist with unexpected courage and determination, and fight the proxy head choppers
to a standstill. But they are under extreme pressure and have to concentrate their forces in the main battles in the west of the
country. This leaves a vacuum that is filled by the phantom ISIS caliphate. This suits the Axis of Evil just fine. There is no
problem with ISIS black flags flying over Damascus provided Syria is destroyed.
By 2015, the outcome is in the balance. Clinton and Sultan Erdogan have agreed to impose a no fly zone to turn the tide in
favor of the head choppers. A series of Gas Attack Hoaxes and false flag atrocity claims are staged over a protracted period of
time to justify Libya style intervention.
All bets are off as Putin overrides his advisors and dispatches Russian forces to intervene and prevent the destruction of
the Syrian state. With the support of Iran and Hezbollah, the situation is transformed. Though the worst of the fighting is yet
to come, the Neocon plot to destroy Syria is a busted flush. Syria is steadily liberated from terrorist occupation.
The main terrorist sponsors try to salvage something from this failure. Sultan Erdogan switches sides and takes the opportunity
to attack the Kurds. Trump seizes the opportunity to scale back US involvement, generating much hysteria from all the Zionist
shills in Washington. The Kurds seek some kind of accommodation with Damascus.
The war is now winding down. It will take some time before all the terrorist areas are liberated and occupying US and Turkish
forces have to withdraw. But the outcome is now inevitable.
Funny you mentioned Arundhati Roy as I almost bought her book today: Capitalism A Ghost Story, in a Left bookshop here, however
ended up getting Culture & Imperialism by Edward Said and a second hand copy of Pedadogy Of The Oppressed which I've, um, never
read. Time to broaden the mind, as have hardly read any books for years except articles on the Internet. Will pick up Arundhati's
book next time. Have a good day
eddie
The Dems morphed into neocons when her willy-waving husband sold out and destroyed the Democratic Party of LBJ's Great Society.
Tulsi being a member of the establishment which she lambasts is quite a paradox, but can be seen from one's own moral perspective.
During the VietNam war era, '63-75, many who opposed the fiasco took a stronger stance: prison as a conscientious objector, moving
to Canada, undesirable discharges, very vocal public protests & arrests. Many lives and futures ruined, my own included, to actively
stop the illegal & profit driven Invasion ..
Tulsi has shown a lot of class, truth to the darkest Power, and long may she have this platform..
Rhys Jaggar
Next they will try saying that because she is not a mother she has no place being President. If I had a vote in the US, I would
vote for any man, woman, black/white/Hisoanic/Asian/any other ethnicity, straight/gay/indeterminate who:
1. Pledged to cut the US military budget in half, sign up to existing OPCW conventions on chemical+biological weapons and demanded
that Israel did likewise.
2. Removed the right for dual citizen US-Israeli zionists to hold public US office (tell em to decide whether they are primarily
aligned to Israel or not) and neutered the election-rigging AIPAC monstrosity at source.
3. Called out the global warming hoax as the biggest scam of the 21st century.
4. Enforced the concept that polluters pay to clean up their polluting, particularly in extractive industries, agriculture, mining
and packaging.
5. Promoted the restoration of mutually owned local finance, particularly in providing mortgages.
6. Confronted the self-serving victim gravy train, in particular making the terms 'man' and 'woman' beyond the rights of anyone
to take legal action.
7. vowed to shut down 25% of US overseas military bases in a first term and a further tranche in a second term.
Despite
scant polling evidence, Joe Biden's continued
lead , and serious
concerns over her viability with the broader electorate, Elizabeth Warren's Democratic
presidential campaign has taken on an air of inevitability.
Just this fall, the emcee of the financial television circuit, Mad Money 's Jim
Cramer, has gone from wailing "She's got to be stopped" to insisting, "I don't think she's
nearly as anti-business" as commonly portrayed. Either way, Cramer continues, "I think there is
such a thing called Congress." The implication is even if the prairie populist by way of
Massachusetts goes the distance, Wall Street's network on Capitol Hill would make mincemeat of
her agenda.
In my interviews with members of Congress, especially Republicans, Warren's nomination is
generally treated as a fait accompli. Perhaps it's projection, Warren is who many partisan
Republicans think the Democrats are: female, lawyerly and anti-capitalist. The contest of
Warren vs. Donald Trump would provide, if nothing else, clarity.
The dynamic extends past Northeast Washington. Where people put their money where their
mouth is -- political gambling sites -- Warren's chances of winning the Democratic nomination
are assessed at nearing 40 percent. On PredicitIt.com, one can buy a Warren share an absurd
thirty-eight cents on the dollar.
Advertisement
The idea of Democrats nominating an aged, gaffe-prone white male popular with industry and
in the Rust Belt seems absurd on the face: "That's our nominee, right?" David Axelrod,
mastermind of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, earlier this month crowned Warren the
"front-runner."
There's just one problem with this line of thinking: it's not at all clear Warren is going
to be the Democratic nominee for president. Her principal rival, Biden, the former vice
president, still leads in some national polls. Biden is frequently compared to Jeb Bush, the
establishment favorite, paper tiger on the Republican side in the last round.
There are two problems with this analogy. Biden isn't nearly as "establishment" as the
former Florida governor. Bush was the cash-flush son and brother of two presidents, while Biden
is bleeding
dough and has failed to procure the endorsement of the president he served. Conversely,
unlike Bush, whose lead nationally evaporated by Labor Day, Biden has stubbornly stayed more or
less at the top of the heap through all of 2019.
It's Halloween and Democratic voters haven't been spooked enough by the former vice
president's at-times catastrophic performance to dump him. Unlike Bush, Biden has an ace in the
hole: the anchoring constituency of his party, African-American voters. If Bush had commanded
the acclaim of evangelical Christians he might have held on despite his other weaknesses as a
candidate. Biden is also relatively
popular , while the Bush clan is rightly still blamed for the destruction of American
prestige at home and abroad.
Biden frequently, even pathetically presents himself as an "Obama-Biden Democrat."
ButBiden's candidacy remains most similar to a non-Bush 2016 candidate: Donald Trump, the
front-runner the "smart set" claimed was doomed from the start. Like Trump, Biden is
famous . And as Biden has hit campaign troubles, the former veep's raison d'etre can
take on an air of the self-evident: I'm leading the race because I'm leading the race.
Like Trump, who would proudly spend literally hours of his campaign rallies reading off
primary poll results, Biden also seems content to run a campaign based on his own lead. After
weeks of purported political battering, Biden told 60 Minutes Sunday: "I know I'm the
frontrunner."
With almost Trump-like flare, Biden noted: "Find me a national poll with a notable a couple
exceptions." What was true of the last Democratic debate, earlier this month in Ohio, may be
true of the 2020 election as a whole. As Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National
Interest , said
: "It was a good night for the old codgers on stage."
Indeed, insistences from career progressives and conservatives that Warren is the true
Democratic standard-bearer can take on a mawkish tone. Surely, in a time of ubiquitous
partisanship, the victors will be most ideological. The Democrats are moving ever left, the
Republicans, ever right. Surely, it is time for a true believer.
But the logic is too clever by half. Templates are incomplete assessments of the world, but
play along: if Trump is Biden's proper analogue, then Warren's candidacy is perhaps most akin
to Ted Cruz's in 2016. Like Cruz, Warren is somewhat
unpopular with her colleagues, which doubles as a badge of honor with many, more
ideological activists.
But party activists perhaps understand the organization they serve less than they think they
do. Isn't it just as possible, indeed maybe even likely, that Warren, like Cruz, is waiting for
a day that will never come? Trump's "implosions" were never reflected at the ballot box. Maybe
so, it will also be with Biden.
Templates aren't perfect, however. While Cruz did well with evangelicals, Warren has failed
to make inroads among African Americans. And unlike Cruz, the establishment has warmed to
Warren's rise -- her campaign doubles as a Harvard satellite campus.
But perhaps Warren's greatest weakness as a candidate, as it was for Cruz, is that she is
not the real voice of her party's discontented. A well placed source told me that in 2012 he
advised Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, that the person who wins America's big elections
today is the most pessimistic of the two messengers.
Of the 2016 conservatives, Cruz was perhaps most polite to Trump, but in failing to ape the
future president's program, he never emerged as anything more than a poor imitation of the real
estate mogul. Immigration and ennui over America's international role were the orders of the
day, and for a core contingent, no substitutes for Trumpian nationalism would do.
Warren experiences this vulnerability, an intensity gap, not with Biden, but with Bernie
Sanders. Warren, perhaps sensing the establishment's warmth to her, takes pains to emphasize
that she is still a capitalist. Perhaps accordingly, socialist Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez, the
most powerful millennial politician, has thrown in with Sanders, the candidate she volunteered
for four years ago. For the under-forty set, which has been mired in a now-decade of low growth
and the vise-grip of rising housing, education and healthcare costs, Warrenism, like Cruzism,
may come too little, too late.
A well placed source told me that in 2012 he advised Mitt Romney, the Republican
nominee, that the person who wins America's big elections today is the most pessimistic of
the two messengers.
Ummmm... Romney LOST.
For the under-forty set, which has been mired in a now-decade of low growth and the
vice grip of rising housing, education and healthcare costs, Warrenism, like Cruzism, may
come too little, too late.
The article was nearly completely about Biden vs Warren then changed course near the end
by bring Sanders into it. So Warrenism may be "too little, too late" so Dems will go for
less with Biden? Sorry, it really seems incoherent to me.
Yeah, the analogy that makes more sense is Trump:Cruz as Bernie:Warren, except instead of
being a total fraud with no political experience, Bernie has 40 years of experience, with
lots of accomplishments, and is seen as far-and-away the most trustworthy and with the
highest favorability.
As competing right-wing and left-wing versions of the "cool nerd"? I guess so, though the
essence of the "cool nerd" is that most people don't think the "cool nerds" are cool.
Is Biden really less "Establishment" than Jeb Bush?. A lot depends on how you define
Establishment -- and the word is very slippery and hard to define. I'd say they were both
Establishment to something like the same degree. Bush has a waspy pedigree and two
presidents in his family, but 38 years in the Senate made Biden part of the Washington
Establishment to a high degree. Neither of them had much substance. Biden was sort of like
the ottoman in a Washington salon - something you might not notice until you tripped over
it - but still he was a Washington fixture. Jeb Bush had the connections, but so far as
Washington was concerned there was something provincial about him.
It doesn't really matter who wins the Democrat's party nomination or who wins the
Presidential election. The 'Deep State' runs the government and will continue to run the
government no matter which pony is the face on stage. Pick your puppet at the polls. That
is if you want to waste your time voting at all.
True of any candidate except Trump who is the only one not controlled by the Deep State.
Not that he hasn't had limited success so far in going up against them, given their control
of the FBI and CIA and ability to manufacture scandals at will such as the "Russia
Collusion" hoax.
I'll agree that Trump is somewhat outside the 'Deep State's' control. I'll state that I am
not a fan of most of his policies or the man himself and it is my firm opinion that even
though he is not an 'offspring' of the Deep State, his actions and interests are
self-focused just like those that are bred from within. None of them give a rat's behind
about Joe Public; it's the super-elites serving the interests of the super-elites.
The socalled Deep State swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. That oath comes before
their loyalty to Trump.
Trump is president, not dictator. He doesn't just get to do whatever he wants despite
the fact he thinks he can, he thinks he is above the Constitution.
"I have to the right to do whatever I want as president." - Trump
You no doubt nodded in agreement when he said that, but if a Democratic president ever
said that, you'd erupt in outrage completely forgetting how you felt when Trump said
it.
The previous Democratic president ruled largely through executive orders, if you haven't
noticed. Not a dictator, right. While those upholders of the Constitution which are so dear
to you, violated it left and right in everything foreign policy. Try better.
Actually, as Alex stated, rule by Executive Order has become more prevalent with each
successive President regardless of political party. Without going into a long explanation,
I'll just say that the Constitution has been eroded by all Branches of the government -
unfortunately, it's getting to the point where it will be completely ineffectual soon.
Warren (as well as Bernie Sanders) would have been a great candidate for the Democratic
Party to try to win back working-class whites in 2016, but nowadays it seems they are the
Republican base and big Trump supporters and aren't returning back to the fold.
Democrats would do better to find a more center-right figure to win over
neoconservatives, liberatarians, and suburban America, all alienated by Donald Trump and by
what the Republican Party has become, which could potentially get them states like Arizona,
Texas, North Carolina, and the like.
That describes most of the Democratic also-rans, and pretty much Biden, too. And Hilary
Clinton, of course, and look how inspiring she was to the Democratic electorate.
You're pretty much describing Andrew Yang. His base is currently small, but very
passionate, consisting of progressives, disaffected Trump voters, working class whites,
libertarians, etc., basically anyone on the political spectrum.
Warren is who many partisan Republicans think the Democrats are: female, lawyerly and
anti-capitalist.
A few paragraphs down, you said "Warren, perhaps sensing the establishment's warmth to
her, takes pains to emphasize that she is still a capitalist." Did you just assume your
readers would prefer the smear up front and the facts buried near the bottom?
" Franklin Foer : All the investment bankers who have voodoo dolls of you
might be a bit surprised that you recently described yourself as "capitalist to the bone."
What did you mean?
Elizabeth Warren : I believe in markets and the benefits they can produce when
they work. Markets with rules can produce enormous value. So much of the work I have done
-- the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, my hearing-aid bill -- are about making
markets work for people, not making markets work for a handful of companies that scrape all
the value off to themselves. I believe in competition."
Like Cruz, Warren is somewhat unpopular with her colleagues
Wake me up when something actually analogous to Ted Cruz happens, like if Warren calls
the eventual nominee a "narcissist" and "serial liar" for whom "morality doesn't exist" and
then goes on to phone bank for him in the general.
Well, looks like I already have to wake you up. Remember that story with her saying that it
ain't right when a veep's son serves on the board of a foreign company and then immediately
backtracking after having understood what she just said?
Sounds like Warren is thinking of "Capitalism, with fixes from outside capitalism"
I'll admit, even the criticisms make me more interested in her. Though I fear that it's
more of a 'too good to be true' concept. My time in customer service helped me to
understand that sometimes you have to give Hard Messages to people as you really can't have
Everything You Want. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing Warren as "OMG this is everything I
wanted." Which is one of the red flags I had over Trump.
It's hard though. I know that giving hard messages is basically a death sentence in
campaigns so people don't do that. But Bernie did and he's not dying. BLAH.
In any case, don't go too hard on TAC articles about democratic candidates. It's sort of
like when a US new organization puts an editorial on a foreign culture. It's not a bad
viewpoint to have, but it IS going ot be..well.. different.
It becomes more and more obvious with each day that nominating Biden is incomparably
greater priority to the Democratic Party as an institution than winning the election. Yes,
Warren is no orator (which is an extremely ill omen for a candidate when running against
someone like Trump), but neither Biden is. Warren, with all her faults, at least speaks
like a non-orator with both hemispheres functional. While Biden is simply babbling.
And that's not to mention the fact that Democrats (yet) have a candidate who would
reliably beat any opponent aside from Rand Paul - Tulsi Gabbard. But these... epitomes of
alternative genius keep on trying to drive her away from their party at all costs instead
of holding on to her for dear life.
Trump won because of the number of other Republican candidates who wanted to fight it out
to the bitter end, rather than throw in their lot with a better candidate like Cruz or even
Jeb! Had it come down to two Republican candidates, Trump and one holding more traditional
views, it is likely Trump would have lost the Republican nomination.
The Democrats look the same for 2020. Biden represents the Clinton, Republican-lite wing
of the party. He has the name recognition and the big money backing. Sanders is a true
leftist. And Warren is somewhere in-between. The question is whether or not Sanders and
Warren will fight it out to the bitter end, leaving Biden with just enough of a plurality
to win the nomination. I don't give any of the rest a chance.
I tend to think that Trump would beat Biden. For the same reasons he beat Clinton: he's
a neo-liberal, neo-conservative who could give a rat's a$$ about the pain of the working
and middle-classes. I think Warren could beat Trump. She's really not a leftist
economically, and a lot of independents would see her as a rational, thoughtful person, as
opposed to Trump's Trumpism.
My lawn chair and popcorn favorite would be a Trump/Sanders title fight. Maybe terrible
for the country, but definitely fun to watch.
I think she is probably to the right of either Nixon or Eisenhower. She's certainly not
proposing a 91% marginal income tax rate (Eisenhower) or a fully socialized health care
system (Nixon). The world has shifted so far to the right in modern times that I can
understand that some see her as far left.
The reason that Nominee Warren is unlikely to get black support is that she played a card
that was not hers to [play and doubled down on the matter and continues to play that card
inspite of the cold hard light of day that she wasn't, and is not native american.
There is a huge wave of under current simmering anger because I don't cleave to notions
of some incorrectly underpinnings of "conservatism", that are sacrosanct. I don't put much
stock in identity political machinations online. It is simply a nonfactor or less of a
factor than what is on the page as to some's ideas.
But the hijacking of someone's history that is not your own in any fashion and profiting
from the same -- for people whose history are hog to negative narratives, this simply will
not sit well.
----------------
Senator Cruz's attempts to rig the Colorado primaries violates the principles of fair
play. Making arguments about being pro-country and at the same time manipulating the
immigration arguments to favor undermining US citizens -- don't invite much enthusiasm for
his leadership.
"The reason that Nominee Warren is unlikely to get black support is that she played a card
that was not hers to [play and doubled down on the matter and continues to play that card
inspite of the cold hard light of day that she wasn't, and is not native american."
Why in the world would African Americans care one wilt about Warren claiming she was
Native American?
Af-Ams are big on identity..but the only time I've seen it brought as an issue is when
someone who's not Af-Am claims they are Af-Am.
Republicans have a big issue with her using the term. But it's similar to Democrats
hating Trump's attacks on Latinos: the ones that rage weren't considering her in the first
place.
Warren will win or lose the Black vote by whether she notes their issues and offers
options that will change their current situation, something Hillary failed to do in those
key states. Though first she'll need them win them over from Biden. Possible, though not
easily.
Not really sure why the author thinks warren is somehow outside the democratic norms, she
has worked consistently for the working voters that make up her district by trying to bring
some balance against the large corporations that pretty much control the economy. Even
conservatives, the champions of big business and the haters of unions and all social
programs seem to actually have second thoughts about crushing the life out of the common
man, or at least they write occasional comments that make nice to them while giving the
corporations massive tax cuts and cutting the social programs.
If I was a bit more cynical I would think that they are pretty nervous about an
articulate candidate with a solid slate of actual policy papers and positions that try to
lay out a way to make the economy work for the regular folks. Why they might actually be
trying to claim that she will take the side of the corporations that run conservative
politics..
I think Warren's big problem is how she talks and how she looks.
Ever since TV came into the political process, image has become incredibly important.
Look at Ted Cruz. He just looked...weird.
Warren is frenetic when she talks on the debate stage. Mute your TV during the next
debate and watch. She also talks like a school marm.
Lasty, history does not smile on wonks. People want easy-to-understand programs and
straight talk. Warren constantly dodges how she will pay for her programs. This will not
play well in 2020.
I still think it will be Sanders, with the 1980 and 2016 GOP primaries as the templates,
and the crisis in the Reagan/Thatcher/neo-liberal consensus being the bedrock of his, and
Trump's, appeal.
Trump was such a wild card in 2016 that it's hard to make connections or analogies to any
other presidential election. You don't have to see Joe Biden as some clone of Jeb Bush to
see that they both have real deficiencies as candidates. Cruz also was a lousy candidate
who wouldn't have won the nomination or the general election, but he was blindsided by
Trump, someone new from outside politics.
There's nobody in sight who could blindside Warren like that, and I get the feeling that
the Democratic Party base (the White half of it anyway) is more comfortable with Warren
than the Republican Party base was with Cruz. Even Evangelicals couldn't quite bring
themselves to love Ted. However unpopular Warren is with the electorate as a whole, party
loyalists and activists have no problem with her.
I don't see Buttigieg winning the nomination. Alice Roosevelt Longworth once said that
Tom Dewey looked like the little plastic man at the top of the wedding cake. Now that we
have gay marriage, voters are offered the a candidate who looks like the little plastic man
on top of a gay wedding cake. I suspect they won't go for him.
Had Cruz been the nominee he would have had the same advantage that Trump did: Hillary
Clinton herself. She was a deeply unlikable candidate and 2016 is best described as
"Hillary lost" as opposed to "Trump won." Pretty much any Republican, excepting maybe Bush
with his family baggage, would have bear Hillary, and with a more respectable showing.
Letting their foreign policy being hijacked (or, rather, joyridden) by neolib lunatics, the
twins of neocon wackos. That can hardly be called "competence" and "prudence".
gjohnsit on Wed,
10/30/2019 - 3:11pm The Clinton Dead-Enders aren't very clever or original, but they can
stick to a script.
First Bernie defends Tulsi from baseless smears.
Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line to defend this country. People can disagree on
issues, but it is outrageous for anyone to suggest that Tulsi is a foreign asset.
Next they will try saying that because she is not a mother she has no place being President.
If I had a vote in the US, I would vote for any man, woman, black/white/Hisoanic/Asian/any
other ethnicity, straight/gay/indeterminate who:
1. Pledged to cut the US military budget in half, sign up to existing OPCW conventions on
chemical+biological weapons and demanded that Israel did likewise.
2. Removed the right for dual citizen US-Israeli zionists to hold public US office (tell em
to decide whether they are primarily aligned to Israel or not) and neutered the
election-rigging AIPAC monstrosity at source.
3. Called out the global warming hoax as the biggest scam of the 21st century.
4. Enforced the concept that polluters pay to clean up their polluting, particularly in
extractive industries, agriculture, mining and packaging.
5. Promoted the restoration of mutually owned local finance, particularly in providing
mortgages.
6. Confronted the self-serving victim gravy train, in particular making the terms 'man' and
'woman' beyond the rights of anyone to take legal action.
7. vowed to shut down 25% of US overseas military bases in a first term and a further tranche
in a second term.
This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and this seems like a good post to
share it on.
Watching trolls emerge to discredit and attack the lone U.S. candidate who publicly and
vocally opposes America's regime change wars and even dares tell the American people that "we
are supporting the terrorists – not fighting them" – is bad enough in MSM, but a
sad and interesting comment on how completely engaged the State has become with attempting to
"control" and "shape" discourse on progressive sites such as this.
My favorite of course is when one State troll debates another State troll in completely
"fake" discourse, attempting to amplify their troll message. The other technique that is
endlessly amusing is when a single troll posts something a well informed person with
progressive values can quite agree with one day, followed the next by complete gibberish
posing as "sophistication," followed the next day by talking points right out of the CIA
& Pentagon, and then follows all that up with posting something sensible again. Just a
bit "crazy-making" no?
It pays to remember ("The 4 D's: Deny / Disrupt / Degrade / Deceive") that come right
out of the trolling manual. It should be a red-flag if these descriptors characterize
someone's posts.
The saying that if it ("looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck, well,
it just might be a duck") – is one that is worth applying to our comment's sections
discourse. Because if it "posts like a troll"- in the end it doesn't really matter if it "is"
a troll (something we will never know), or is simply an uniformed but opinionated idiot
– as that person is "doing the work of" the State sponsored trolls in either case.
I find it is always worth periodically reviewing what we know about these operations
(thank you Edward Snowden) – as it helps us to better understand and prepares us to
better deal with the State sponsored troll operations we now see routinely in all of our
truly progressive comments sections on alternative media sites. What we now deal with here at
OffG and elsewhere are daily routine attempts to take over, shape and control otherwise
rational informed sincere discussion by readers. Sadly this is how some people make their
living – existing in a continual state of existential "bad faith."
The winners write history. Surviving losers also rewrite history ('Gone with the Wind").
Or, past lives are never written about at all. The problem is that western government has
swirled down the drain into incompetent delusion. Corporations rule. Plutocrats are in combat
over the spoils. Protests won't work until police and mercenaries realized that they aren't
being paid enough to die or to subjugate their own families.
Right now, the problem is two million Californians forced out of their homes or waiting
with no electricity for evacuation orders. The American government is simply incapable
rebuilding Puerto Rico or Northern California . Or handling global plagues such as
African Swine Fever that has already killed a quarter of the global pig population. Simply
put, climate change, overpopulation, and rising inequality assure that revolutions cannot be
orderly.
The 10% Technocrats like Elizabeth Warren will try to keep things running until they can't
anymore.
You know what they say about karma being a (word that rhymes with "witch"), right?
At the second Democratic presidential primary debate back in July, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI)
absolutely torched Sen. Kamala Harris' (CA) criminal justice
reform record during her time as California's attorney general. It was the political shot
heard round the world.
Understandably, Harris was none too pleased about it and let it be known in a post-debate
interview in what Brandon Morse
described at the time as a "childish and elitist"
response :
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: Did you expect that from Tulsi Gabbard? Had you had interaction
about that in the past? And how do you think it went?
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Well, I mean, listen, I -- this is going to sound immodest, but I'm
obviously a top-tier candidate, and so I did expect that I would be on the stage and take
hits tonight because there are a lot of people that are trying to make the stage for the next
debate.
COOPER: For a lot of them it's do or die.
HARRIS: Especially when some people are at zero or 1%, whatever she might be at. So I did
expect that I might take hits tonight.
It was a particularly cheap shot from someone who'd had such a disastrously poor debate
performance. She actually stooped even lower during the same interview with Cooper, calling
Gabbard an "apologist" for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Well, here we are three months later, and the tables have dramatically turned. Not only has
Kamala Harris'
campaign cratered , but in some national and state polls Gabbard is now ahead of her, in
spite of
vicious attacks on the Hawaii congresswoman earlier this month from failed 2016 Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
First up, the CNN/UH state poll out of New Hampshire:
... ... ...
Here's how things have trended in that poll since July:
... ... ...
Next, a national poll from Suffolk University and USA Today:
... ... ...
The trend on that one looks like this:
... ... ...
To be fair, there
are other polls taken recently that show Harris ahead of Gabbard by a few percentage
points, but it's still gotta sting Harris to know that the woman whose numbers she made fun of
back in July is polling ahead of her in select polls now.
Daily Caller's James Hasson calls it for what it is:
... ... ...
To make matters worse for Harris, Gabbard is just one
poll away from qualifying for the November Democratic debate (which is scheduled for
Nov. 20th in Georgia ).
Assuming Gabbard ends up qualifying, one has to wonder if she'll be prepared to use a
rhetorical finishing maneuver on her political foe this time around (assuming the mods
don't run interference ).
-- Based in North Carolina, Sister
Toldjah is a former liberal and a 16+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media
bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here . Connect with her on Twitter . –
Democrats haven't been too kind to Hawaii Rep. Tusli Gabbard. Ever since she took down
California's Sen. Kamala Harris, she's had a target on her back, with wild accusations being
thrown her way such as being a "Russian asset."
Recently, as my colleague
Thomas LaDuke covered , Gabbard announced that she won't be seeking reelection for her seat
in congress, and instead, putting all her efforts into running for President.
It's pretty clear, however, that Gabbard isn't going to win the 2020 nomination from the
Democrats, but some Democrats fear that in light of this obvious fact, Gabbard may continue her
campaign under a different banner, and go for a third party run. Despite Gabbard not being
anywhere near the front of the pack, she is somewhat popular, and Democrats fear that her
third-party run would subtract from the total number of Democrat voters.
According to The Hill ,
strategists are expressing their worries:
Some party strategists and operatives fear that a third-party bid by the Hawaii
congresswoman could fracture parts of the electorate and stir chaos in the 2020 contest,
ultimately setting the stage for President Trump 's reelection.
The criticisms are particularly pointed from people in former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton 's
orbit.
"She has absolutely zero path to becoming the Democratic nominee, so what is she doing?"
said Adam Parkhomenko, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Clinton, the party's 2016
presidential nominee. "To say that she's going to take her campaign all the way to the
convention just suggests that she's trying to create chaos."
Other Democrats have expressed their worries as well according to The Hill:
"I think the possibility of [Gabbard] running as a third party is very, very real and it
should concern all of us," one DNC member said. "Look what Jill Stein did to Hillary Clinton.
She was the difference in three states."
Despite Gabbard's insistence that she has ruled out a third-party campaign, some Democrats
remain skeptical. Sellers said there was still plenty of time for the congresswoman to change
her mind.
"I don't trust anything she says in that regard," Sellers said. "I think we've seen that
before, but I think many of the concerns that Hillary Clinton and myself had about
congresswoman Gabbard are proving to be true and I think that's unfortunate."
This is an echo of things Clinton herself has said previously. The failed 2016 candidate
once indirectly made the wild accusation that Gabbard was being groomed for a third party run.
A spokesperson later confirmed that Clinton was speaking about Gabbard.
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who's
currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," said
Clinton to the Campaign HQ podcast.
Despite their fears, Gabbard herself has made it very clear that she has no intention of
seeking a third-party run, but in the event that she did, Democrats would definitely have a
problem on their hands.
As of right now, Gabbard is polling with an approval average of 12.5 according to
Real Clear Politics . Miniscule in terms of the big picture, but between Gabbard, the Green
Party's Jill Stein, and possibly others who may jump into the race, such as
Dick's Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack , leftist figures could nickel and dime the Democrats
into another election loss.
As of right now, it's already not looking good for Democrats as is. One more pebble in their
shoe would spell doom, and Gabbard has proven to be a pretty big pebble.
Following a short artillery and air engagement with Syria over raids by exiled Palestinian
guerillas, Egypt mobilized against her nemesis in 1967. President Nasser sent six divisions to
the Sinai, removed the UN peacekeeping force, and closed the Straits of Tiran south of Israel.
Israel struck first, fearing annihilation.
As Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld states in
The Transformation of War , "for six glorious days war was Israel and Israel was war."
The result was a smashing victory for the Israelis
, who lost around 800 soldiers, as opposed to 20,000 for Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The Sinai
peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights were added to
Israel's territory.
Compare this short war with another conflict that played out in 2006. For 34 days, Israel
battled Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in response to the Shia terrorist group's killing and
capturing of several Israeli soldiers in cross-border raids. Israel launched a massive air and
artillery campaign, followed by a ground invasion in late July. When the ceasefire was signed
on August 14, both sides claimed victory, but as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt noted in
The Israel Lobbyand U.S. Foreign
Policy , "it was clear to most independent experts" that "Hezbollah had come out ahead
in the fight." The IDF chief of staff resigned, and an Israeli government investigation rebuked
the planning and handling of the campaign, stating that the military had "pursued goals that
were not clear and could not be achieved."
Worse still, the air, artillery, and naval campaign killed an estimated 1,183 Lebanese (a
third of them children) and devastated the country's infrastructure. These actions drew strong
condemnation from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for causing "destruction on a
catastrophic scale." During the last three days of the war, the IDF fired over one million
cluster bombs into southern Lebanon, "saturating the area." The leader of an IDF rocket unit called these actions
"insane and monstrous."
War can still be won by being nasty and short, as shown in the first Gulf War, but time is
not on the side of the powerful. Escalation by a powerful state against a poorly equipped
adversary almost always works to the advantage of the weaker side. Van Creveld compares this
situation to an adult who "administers a prolonged, violent beating to a child in a public
place." Observers will sympathize with the child and intervene, regardless of its prior
behavior.
With the Palestinians, the position of weakness is even more extreme. Israel dominates the
lives of 3.8 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, controlling air, land, and sea
access, in a situation that's been compared to "living in a cage" by Swedish foreign minister
Jan Eliasson. Despite numerous American attempts to secure Palestinian statehood and resolve
the conflict, the present situation seems worse than ever.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, has made it clear that Israel will be supported
through thick and thin. And the world has slowly but surely begun to take notice. The
BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction), initially confined to college campuses and
Palestine, spilled into the national news when Democratic lawmakers Ilhan Omar and Rashida
Talib spearheaded a movement opposing bills aimed at criminalizing support of BDS. Some
Republicans, namely Senator Rand Paul, have opposed those bills, too, on
free speech grounds.
Recently, after the congresswomen were denied entry to Israel because of their support of
BDS, liberal Jewish journalist Peter Beinart defended their stance. Speaking on a CNN panel , he openly
sympathized with the plight of the Palestinians, claiming their treatment by Israel constitutes
an "indefensible denial of basic human rights." Fellow panelists attempted to tie support for
Palestine to terrorism, a common tactic. But terrorism in that part of the world is nothing
new. Israel's defenders tend to forget or are ignorant of the fact that beginning in 1937, the
militant Zionist group Irgun
was responsible for placing bombs in buses and large crowds. One of its leaders during Israel's
war for independence, future prime minister Menachem Begin, was referred to by Prime Minister
Levi Eshkol simply as "the terrorist."
Modern Israel is no longer a weak state in danger of annihilation. The IDF is highly
motivated, trained, and funded. Emboldened by the financial and moral backing of the United
States and powerful lobbying groups, its treatment of Palestinians and other enemies has become
steadily more severe.
With recent
elections still contested , it remains to be seen whether these policies will continue. But
militarily, Israel's position is not tenable. You can win at the tactical level and rack up a
higher body count, but still lose the war. As frequent TAC contributor and military historian
William S. Lind notes, "in the 3,000 years that the story of David and Goliath has been told,
how many listeners have identified with Goliath?"
Israel will last as long as Wash. extorts money from our wages and supports it. Without the
US taxpayer, Israel wouldn't exist, both from its beginning to right now.
I think the lack of sympathy for Israel is not that it s the "Goliath" of this story but
that it is allowing settlers to live in the Occupied Territories.
So TAC is standing with the Palestinians now I see. Will it stand with those other Davids,
the intersectional allies of the BDS crowd too? namely Black Lives Matter, illegal Latino
migrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and other assorted SJW types?
We are now in the end times; when it comes to Israel, all is in the hands of the Lord. As
the nations of the earth seek to attack and destroy Israel, they fall into ruin: look at
the entire Muslim world; look at what's happening to Europe. Most of all, look at the
astonishing rise and continued power of Donald Trump, the man who recognized Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel. Pick your side and accept your fate accordingly.
"Escalation by a powerful state against a poorly equipped adversary almost always
works to the advantage of the weaker side."
I don't always buy this. For me this only works if the powerful state is in the wrong.
And sadly, in this situation, Israel is deeply in the wrong.
But what does happen is over time, the weak becomes slowly stronger. Because they are
always studying their enemies. They are learning their tactics and how to defeat them. This
may take decades, but eventually the weak become the strong.
This is why it is always best to quickly offer a hand of friendship to a vanquished
enemy. If you don't, you'll eventually trade places.
You know what they say about karma being a (word that rhymes with "witch"), right?
At the second Democratic presidential primary debate back in July, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI)
absolutely torched Sen. Kamala Harris' (CA) criminal justice
reform record during her time as California's attorney general. It was the political shot
heard round the world.
Understandably, Harris was none too pleased about it and let it be known in a post-debate
interview in what Brandon Morse
described at the time as a "childish and elitist"
response :
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: Did you expect that from Tulsi Gabbard? Had you had interaction
about that in the past? And how do you think it went?
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Well, I mean, listen, I -- this is going to sound immodest, but I'm
obviously a top-tier candidate, and so I did expect that I would be on the stage and take
hits tonight because there are a lot of people that are trying to make the stage for the next
debate.
COOPER: For a lot of them it's do or die.
HARRIS: Especially when some people are at zero or 1%, whatever she might be at. So I did
expect that I might take hits tonight.
It was a particularly cheap shot from someone who'd had such a disastrously poor debate
performance. She actually stooped even lower during the same interview with Cooper, calling
Gabbard an "apologist" for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Well, here we are three months later, and the tables have dramatically turned. Not only has
Kamala Harris'
campaign cratered , but in some national and state polls Gabbard is now ahead of her, in
spite of
vicious attacks on the Hawaii congresswoman earlier this month from failed 2016 Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
First up, the CNN/UH state poll out of New Hampshire:
... ... ...
Here's how things have trended in that poll since July:
... ... ...
Next, a national poll from Suffolk University and USA Today:
... ... ...
The trend on that one looks like this:
... ... ...
To be fair, there
are other polls taken recently that show Harris ahead of Gabbard by a few percentage
points, but it's still gotta sting Harris to know that the woman whose numbers she made fun of
back in July is polling ahead of her in select polls now.
Daily Caller's James Hasson calls it for what it is:
... ... ...
To make matters worse for Harris, Gabbard is just one
poll away from qualifying for the November Democratic debate (which is scheduled for
Nov. 20th in Georgia ).
Assuming Gabbard ends up qualifying, one has to wonder if she'll be prepared to use a
rhetorical finishing maneuver on her political foe this time around (assuming the mods
don't run interference ).
-- Based in North Carolina, Sister
Toldjah is a former liberal and a 16+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media
bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here . Connect with her on Twitter . –
If Democrats nominate Elizabeth Warren, there will a chorus of well-funded voices
declaring that her progressivism would destroy the economy. So it's not irrelevant to look at
how that sort of thinking is holding up abroad 1/
Pocketbook Woes Drive an Unlikely Comeback in Argentine Presidential Race
President Mauricio Macri rose to office with a promise that free markets would wrest
Argentina from its boom-and-bust cycle. But with the country in recession, voters may now
turn to an archrival.
5:55 AM - 27 Oct 2019
Macri was the business community's candidate; he was going to bring sound management in
after years of populism, and things were going to be great. But he screwed up the
macroeconomics, borrowing heavily in dollars (!), and presided over recession 2/
Chile has long, as Branko Milanovic says here, been the poster child for neoliberalism. I
remember very well when Bush & co tried to sell Chile's privatized pensions as a
replacement for Social Security. But rampant inequality is now causing mass unrest 3/
Obviously governments of both left and right can mess up. But the persistent belief that
big business and the wealthy know How Things Work and can run the economy best is completely
at odds with experience 4/
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... ,
a
Without the necessary due diligence in planning both the transition and the aftermath going
into the meme, then Medicare for All is a promise for some, a threat to many more, and a boat
anchor for the Democratic Party. It could be a great plan if adequately executed, but given
the haphazard approach to leaning on buzz words and memes instead of a explanatory framework,
then this plan will be an executioner's block next November, if not just Tuesday week. The
Democratic Party has screwed itself again unless just pure outrage and at Trump and
Republican politicians can rescue the Dembots from their own idiot angels.
"Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard appeared on Fox News' "Hannity" Thursday
evening to criticize the House's impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump.
"I don't know what's going on in those closed doors," Gabbard said. "We as members of
Congress do not have access to the information that's being shared. I think the American
people deserve to know exactly what the facts are, what the evidence is being presented as
this inquiry goes on."
Imagine that! Republicans as the anti-war party. Could happen ... and Democrats have only
themselves to blame for stiffing the large percentage of the population that opposes fighting
pointless and futile wars forever. But hey, if 'defense' contractors got big bucks, you can
bet Democrats will be sniffing up their crotches...
MOSCOW, October 26, 2019 – RIA Novosti – The Russian Ministry of Defense has
published satellite intelligence images , showing American oil smuggling from Syria.
Image 1: Situation in the Syrian Arab Republic as of October 26, 2019.
According to the ministry, the photos confirm that "Syrian oil, both before and after the
routing defeat of the Islamic State terrorists in land beyond the Euphrates river , under the
reliable protection by US military servicemen, oil was actively being extracted and then the
fuel trucks were massively being sent for processing outside of Syria."
Image 2: Daman oil gathering station, Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 42 km east of Deir
ez-Zor, August 23, 2019.
Here, in a picture of the Daman oil gathering station (42 kilometers east of the Deir-ez-Zor
province), taken on August 23, a large amount of trucks were spotted. "There were 90 automotive
vehicles, including 23 fuel trucks," the caption to the image said.
In addition, on September 5, there were 25 vehicles in the Al-Hasakah province, including 22
fuel trucks. Three days later, on September 8, in the vicinity of Der Ez-Zor, 36 more vehicles
were recorded (32 of them were fuel trucks). On the same day, 41 vehicles, including 34 fuel
trucks, were in the Mayadin onshore area.
Image 3: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Al-Hasakah province, 8 km west of Al-Shaddadi,
September 5, 2019.
As the official representative of the Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov noted, the Americans
are extracting oil in Syria with the help of equipment, bypassing their own sanctions.
Igor Konashenkov:
"Under the protection of American military servicemen and employees of American PMCs, fuel
trucks from the oil fields of Eastern Syria are smuggling to other states. In the event of
any attack on such a caravan, special operations forces and US military aircraft are
immediately called in to protect it," he said.
According to Konashenkov, the US-controlled company Sadcab , established under the so-called
Autonomous Administration of Eastern Syria , is engaged in the export of oil, and the income of
smuggling goes to the personal accounts of US PMCs and special forces.
The Major General added that as of right now, a barrel of smuggled Syrian oil is valued at
$38, therefore the monthly revenue of US governmental agencies exceeds $30 million.
Image 4: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 10 km east of Mayadin,
September 8, 2019.
"For such a continuous financial flow, free from control and taxes of the American
government, the leadership of the Pentagon and Langley will be ready to guard and defend oil
fields in Syria from the mythical 'hidden IS cells' endlessly," he said.
According to Konashenkov, Washington, by holding oil fields in eastern Syria, is engaged in
international state banditry.
Image 5: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 14 km east of Mayadin,
September 8, 2019.
The reason for this activity, he believes, "lies far from the ideals of freedom proclaimed
by Washington and their slogans on the fight against terrorism."
Igor Konashenkov:
"Neither in international law, nor in American legislation itself – there is not and
cannot be a single legal task for the American troops to protect and defend the hydrocarbon
deposits of Syria from Syria itself and its own people, " the representative of the Defense
Ministry concluded.
A day earlier, the Pentagon's head, Mark Esper declared that the United States is studying
the situation in the Deir ez-Zor region and intends to strengthen its positions there in the
near future "to ensure the safety of oil fields."
The Ruskies are mad - Trump is stopping them from taking the oil, it belongs to the Kurds
for their revenue and if US wants to help them have it so what....US is staying to secure
those oilfields against ISIS taking it again!
If everyone listened to the President when he talks there wouldn't be any spin that anyone
could get away with.
The oil is on Kurdish land. This part of Syria is just a small sector of Kurdish territory
that has been stolen from them by dividing it between four "countries", each of which has
oil. This is why the territory was stolen and why the Kurds have become the world's best
fighters.
Putin brokered a deal to stop Turkey wiping the Kurds by having their fighting force
assimilate with the Syrian military and required Russian observers access to ensure the Turks
keep their word and not invade to wipe all the Kurd civilians in order to also take their
Syrian oil.
So the corrupt US generals get caught in the act. Their senators and reps on the payroll
are going to need some more of that fairy tale PR for POTUS to read to us at bedtime.
If we are to believe that this is to protect the oil fields then the oil revenue should be
going to Syria, even though the Kurds are on the land. Follow the money to find the truth
because there is no one you can trust on this stage.
MSM are simply not covering this story. Or the other story about the supposed gas attack
at Douma where evidence was adulterated and/or ignored completely under US pressure.
Expect the same from MH17.
WTF is going on with our leaders and corporate MSM....can no one in a leadership position
distinguish between lies and the truth? Or fantasy and reality? Where are the 'journalists'
who will stand up and tell the truth in MSM? They no longer exist.
18 wheel fuel trucks around here hold 10K gal. 50 truck loads 500K of un processed oil if
it's true? I though they just got there. but no telling who might steal under those
conditions.
That was August. this is now. The Russians must have really wanted that oil to finance
their occupation. Trump is preventing ISIS from using the oil as their piggy bank.
Wasn't Erdogan doing the same not too long ago? Shortly after Erdogan became close friends
with Putin. Does this mean Trump and Putin will become close friends as well? Or is this
simply a common practice between two people who undeservingly place relatives in government
positions? First Turkey hands over Al Baghdadi (he received medical treatment in Southern
Turkey in a private clinic owned by Erdogan's daughter guarded by MIT agents) so that they
can continue to commit genocide against Kurds in Turkey and Syria... and now the US is
stealing Syrian oil like how the Turks initially were doing. What a mess and a
disappointment. Hopefully Erdogan visits DC and unleashes his security guards beating any
person freely walking the streets while Trump smiles and describes him as a great leader.
Watch in coming weeks as the tanker convoys are proven to be rogue operations from an out
of control CIA / Cabal network. Trump removed the troops, and now Russia is shining a light
on it.
No coincidence another article on ZH brung attention to the Ukrainian wareehouse arsos..12
in 2 yrs..2017-2018 where stored munition were carted away...not to fight rebels n Donbass
but sold to Islamic groups in Syria..it was one of Bidens pals..one keeps the wars going
while the others steal siphon of resources..whatever isn't nailed down..I've never seen
anything like this..Democrats are truly CRIME INC
w/o that oil..Syria can never reconstruct itself..Usually in a War or ,after that is, the
victors help rebuild..what we see is pillaging and salting the earth and walk away.. as the
Romans did to enemies like Carthage..it will resemble Libya ...a shambles
So the smuggling is protected by air cover and special forces? Light up the fields using
some scud missiles. I'm sure Iran or Iraq have a few they could lend Syria. Can't sell it if
its burning.
Brits and Americans have pillaged, as any other empire, wherever they conquered.
After WW1 the 'Allies' robbed Germany of all foreign currency and its entire gold. This
triggering hyperinflation and mega crisis.
During WW2 central bank gold was pillaged from countries that were 'liberated' across
Europe.
In more recent history, the gold of Iraq, Ukraine and Libya was flown to Fort Knox.
All well documented.
This is common practice by empires. Just please stop pretending you were the good
guys , spreading freedom and democracy, because that's really a mockery and the
disgusting part of your invasions.
During WW2 central bank gold was pillaged from countries that were 'liberated'.
Exactly, that's where the US got its 8,000 tons of gold. Before WWII, the US had 2000 tons
of gold, after WWII it had 8,000 tons. Even today the US always steals the gold of the
countries it "liberates"
Help me understand why the USA would want to smuggle oil from Syria. When the USA has more
oil than all of the middleast.
Now I can see why Russia would blame the USA if smuggling Oil from Syria. Russia needs
that oil really bad. So to get the USA away from the Syrian oil fields they would of course
create a reason for the rest of the world that the USA is Dishonerable and must not be
trusted with Syrian oil. It is just too obvious to me, what Russia is trying to
accomplish.
Huh? The US is stealing the oil to deprive the Syrian people energy they need to rebuild
the country we destroyed. This is collective punishment of Syrians because they won't
overthrow Assad.
Collective punishment is a crime against humanity according to international law. There's
your impeachable offense. But don't worry, that kind of crime is ok with Shifty Schiff and
the rest of the Israel ***-kissers in Congress.
The US is NOT stealing the oil - the American Military have become PIRATES - no different
than Somali Red Sea Pirates or looters in Newark stealing diapers and TV's
This is nothing new. We've been stealing oil from dozens of countries for the past 75
years since WWII. The only difference is that Trump is being blatant about it which in a way
is weirdly refreshing.
"... Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic growth without end/crisis. ..."
"... I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent, rigid class system ..."
"... If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive. Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners. ..."
"... The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things (despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly likely to be manipulated like Trump. ..."
"... I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral values against socialism, no matter what voters say. ..."
The headline will become operative in December, if as expected, the Trump Administration
maintains its refusal to nominate new judges
to the WTO appellate panel . That will render the WTO unable to take on new cases, and
bring about an effective return to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which
preceded the WTO .
An interesting sidelight is that Brexit No-Dealers have been keen on the merits of trading
"on WTO terms", but those terms will probably be unenforceable by the time No Deal happens (if
it does).
likbez 10.27.19 at 11:22 pm
That's another manifestation of the ascendance of "national neoliberalism," which now is
displacing "classic neoliberalism."
Attempts to remove Trump via color revolution mechanisms (Russiagate, Ukrainegate) are
essentially connected with the desire of adherents of classic neoliberalism to return to the
old paradigm and kick the can down the road until the cliff. I think it is impossible because
the neoliberal elite lost popular support (aka support of deplorables) and now is hanging in
the air. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to
be very destructive.
That's why probably previous attempts to remove Trump were unsuccessful. And if corrupt
classic neoliberal Biden wins Neoliberal Dem Party nomination, the USA probably will get the
second term of Trump. Warren might have a chance as "Better Trump then Trump" although she
proved so far to be pretty inept politician, and like "original" Trump probably can be easily
coerced by the establishment, if she wins.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth by "neoliberal Intelligentsia" does not change the
fact that neoliberalism entered the period of structural crisis demonstrated by "secular
stagnation," and, as such, its survival is far from certain. We probably can argue only about
how long it will take for the "national neoliberalism" to dismantle it and what shape or form
the new social order will take.
That does not mean that replacing the classic neoliberalism the new social order will be
better, or more just. Neoliberalism was actually two steps back in comparison with the New
Deal Capitalism that it replaced. It clearly was a social regress.
John, I am legitimate curious what you find "exactly right" in the comment above. Other than
the obvious bit in the last line about new deal vs neoliberalism, I would say it is
completely wrong, band presenting an amazingly distorted view of both the last few years and
recent history.
Neo-liberalism is not a unified thing. Right wing parties are not following the original
(the value of choice) paradigm of Milton Friedman that won the argument during the 1970s
inflation panic, but have implemented a deceitful bait and switch strategy, followed by
continually shifting the goalposts – claiming – it would of worked but we weren't
pure enough.
But parts of what Milton Friedman said (for instance the danger of bad micro-economic
design of welfare systems creating poverty traps, and the inherent problems of high tariff
rates) had a kernel of truth. (Unfortunately, Friedman's macro-economics was almost all wrong
and has done great damage.)
"In that context it felt free to override national governments on any issue that
might affect international trade, most notably environmental policies."
Not entirely sure about that. The one case where I was informed enough to really know
detail was the China and rare earths WTO case. China claimed that restrictions on exports of
separated but otherwise unprocessed rare earths were being made on environmental grounds.
Rare earth mining is a messy business, especially the way they do it.
Well, OK. And if such exports were being limited on environmental grounds then that would
be WTO compliant. Which is why the claim presumably.
It was gently or not pointed out that exports of things made from those same rare earths
were not limited in any sense. Therefore that environmental justification might not be quite
the real one. Possibly, it was an attempt to suck RE using industry into China by making rare
earths outside in short supply, but the availability for local processing being unrestricted?
Certainly, one customer of mine at the time seriously considered packing up the US factory
and moving it.
China lost the WTO case. Not because environmental reasons aren't a justification for
restrictions on trade but because no one believed that was the reason, rather than the
justification.
I don't know about other cases – shrimp, tuna – but there is at least the
possibility that it's the argument, not the environment, which wasn't sufficient
justification?
Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every political and
institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the free market.
In the EU, East Asia, and North America, some of what has taken place is the
rationalization of bureaucratic practices and the weakening of archaic localisms. Some of
these developments have been positive.
In this respect, neoliberalism in the blanket sense used by Likbez and many others is like
what the the ancien regime was, a mix of regressive and progressive tendencies. In the
aftermath of the on-going upheaval, it is likely that it will be reassessed and some of its
features will be valued if they manage to persist.
I'm thinking of international trade agreements, transnational scientific organizations,
and confederations like the European Union.
steven t johnson 10.29.19 at 12:29 am
If I may venture to translate @1?
Right-wing populism like Orban, Salvini, the Brexiteers are sweeping the globe and this is
more of the same.
Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing
Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional
quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face
of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular
stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't
collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic
growth without end/crisis.
I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading
system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent,
rigid class system .
If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to
hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or
nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good"
mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive.
Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but
self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social
cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners.
The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is
probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be
shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years
of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will
probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things
(despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly
likely to be manipulated like Trump.
Again, despite the fury the old internationalism is collapsing under stagnation and
weeping about it is irrelevant. Without any real ideas, we can only react to events as
nationalist predatory capitals fight for their new world.
I'm not saying the new right wing populism is better. The New Deal/Great Society did more
for America than its political successors since Nixon et al. The years since 1968 I think
have been a regression and I see no reason–alas–that it can't get even worse.
I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way
likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem
being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral
values against socialism, no matter what voters say.
It is a particular mutation of the original concept similar to mutation of socialism into
national socialism, when domestic policies are mostly preserved (including rampant
deregulation) and supplemented by repressive measures (total surveillance) , but in foreign
policy "might make right" and unilateralism with the stress on strictly bilateral regulations
of trade (no WTO) somewhat modifies "Washington consensus". In other words, the foreign
financial oligarchy has a demoted status under the "national neoliberalism" regime, while the
national financial oligarchy and manufactures are elevated.
And the slogan of "financial oligarchy of all countries, unite" which is sine qua
non of classic neoliberalism is effectively dead and is replaced by protection racket of
the most political powerful players (look at Biden and Ukrainian oligarchs behavior here
;-)
> I think every sentence in that comment is either completely wrong or at least
debatable. And is likbez actually John Hewson, because that comment reads like one of John
Hewson's commentaries
> Most obviously, to define Warren and Trump as both being neoliberals drains the
term of any meaning
You are way too fast even for a political football forward ;-).
Warren capitalizes on the same discontent and the feeling of the crisis of neoliberalism
that allowed Trump to win. Yes, she is a much better candidate than Trump, and her policy
proposals are better (unless she is coerced by the Deep State like Trump in the first three
months of her Presidency).
Still, unlike Sanders in domestic policy and Tulsi in foreign policy, she is a neoliberal
reformist at heart and a neoliberal warmonger in foreign policy. Most of her policy proposals
are quite shallow, and are just a band-aid.
> Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every
political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of
the free market.
This is a typical stance of neoliberal MSM, a popular line of attack on critics of
neoliberalism.
Yes, of course, not everything political and institutional development of the last 40
years comes down to the worship of the "free market." But how can it be otherwise? Notions of
human agency, a complex interaction of politics and economics in human affairs, technological
progress since 1970th, etc., all play a role. But a historian needs to be able to somehow
integrate the mass of evidence into a coherent and truthful story.
And IMHO this story for the last several decades is the ascendance and now decline of
"classic neoliberalism" with its stress on the neoliberal globalization and opening of the
foreign markets for transnational corporations (often via direct or indirect (financial)
pressure, or subversive actions including color revolutions and military intervention) and
replacement of it by "national neoliberalism" -- domestic neoliberalism without (or with a
different type of) neoliberal globalization.
Defining features of national neoliberalism along with the rejection of neoliberal
globalization and, in particular, multiparty treaties like WTO is massive, overwhelming
propaganda including politicized witch hunts (via neoliberal MSM), total surveillance of
citizens by the national security state institutions (three-letter agencies which now
acquired a political role), as well as elements of classic nationalism built-in.
The dominant ideology of the last 30 years was definitely connected with "worshiping of
free markets," a secular religion that displaced alternative views and, for several decades
(say 1976 -2007), dominated the discourse. So worshiping (or pretense of worshiping) of "free
market" (as if such market exists, and is not a theological construct -- a deity of some
sort) is really defining feature here.
In her heart, Warren is more of Eisenhower (or Nixon, if you wish ) republican type then a
real fight against excesses of neoliberalism. that actually makes her chances to win 2020
elections much stronger and changes that she will bring radical chances much weaker.
First, as a general rule, politicians who propose meaningful change should get specific
enough about their idea so that voters can have a good look before they go to the polls. So
Warren is setting a good example on this front and likely raising the bar for other Democratic
party aspirants.
Second, I want to make sure I'm not falling prey to the cognitive bias called the halo
effect, which is a tendency to see people as all good or all bad. So I want to make sure my
reaction to the neoliberal frogs that sometimes hop out of Warren's mouth doesn't taint my
reading of her generally. For instance, her private equity plan is very strong, particularly
her sweeping ideas about how to make private equity firm principals liable when they bankrupt
companies. But as America's top bankruptcy scholar, the core of that plan falls in an area
where she has unparalleled expertise.
But generally, Warren's change programs have a frequent shortcoming: they do a great job of
assessing the challenge but then propose remedies that fall well short of remedying them.
As Matt Yglesias pointed out in January :
If Two-Income Trap were released today, I'd say it suffers from a striking mismatch
between the scale of the problem it identifies and the relatively modest solutions it
proposes. Tougher regulation of consumer lending would be welcome but obviously would not
fundamentally address the underlying stagnation of income.
On top of that, Warren's "I have a plan" mantra sounds an awful lot like a dog whistle to
Clinton voters. And even though I've only given a good look at two of her plans so far ex her
private equity plan, there's a lot not to like in both of them. We
covered her wealth plan earlier, and didn't treat Sanders' at the same time because hers
was sucking up all the media attention even though Sanders had proposed a wealth tax years
before she did. That was a mistake. Sanders' wealth tax plan is better than Warren's.
Even though Sanders plan has the same fundamental problem, that of not recognizing how the
IRS in recent decades has never won a large estate tax case where you have the same valuation
issues with a wealth tax, Sanders proposes a more aggressive beef up of the IRS than Warren
does, so he may have a sense of the severity of the enforcement problem and also provides for
some legal fallbacks regarding valuation. He also realistically does not depict his tax as a
global wealth tax, since there's no way to get the needed information or cooperation on foreign
holdings that aren't in bank or brokerage firms.
But even more important, both Warren and Sanders wealth tax schemes rely on the work of
economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in devising their taxes and estimating how much
they'd yield. The structure of Sanders' tax hews to their recommendations as to how to maximize
revenues and cut into inequality. Warren's does not. So contrary to popular perceptions,
Sanders' wealth tax plan
should get higher wonk points than Warren's .
So on to the next Warren plan.
Warren's Excess Lobbying Tax
Warren presented her Excessive Lobbying Tax
. The problem it is meant to solve is not just lobbying as currently defined, which is the
petitioning of member of Congress to influence legislation. Warren is out to tackle not just
that but also what she depicts as undue corporate influence in the regulatory process:
But corporate lobbyists don't just swarm Congress. They also target our federal
departments like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau .
Regulatory agencies are only empowered to implement public interest rules under authority
granted by legislation already passed by Congress. So how is it that lobbyists are able to
kill, weaken, or delay so many important efforts to implement the law?
Often they accomplish this goal by launching an all out assault on the process of writing
new rules -- informally meeting with federal agencies to push for favorable treatment,
burying those agencies in detailed industry comments during the notice-and-comment rulemaking
process, and pressuring members of Congress to join their efforts to lobby against the
rule.
If the rule moves forward anyway, they'll argue to an obscure federal agency tasked with
weighing the costs and benefits of agency rules that the rules are too costly, and if the
regulation somehow survives this onslaught, they'll hire fancy lawyers to challenge it in
court.
Before we get to Warren's remedies, there are some odd things about the problem statement.
One is that she fails to acknowledge that regulatory rulemaking devises more specific policies
in order to implement legislation. That reflects the fact that legislation often isn't detailed
enough to provide a definitive guide to agencies. And the public is entitled to weigh in on
rulemaking. So what she is objecting to is that corporate interests are able to overwhelm the
comment process. Second is that there is a significant abuse that she fails to mention, that
some proposed rule changes, such as regarding net neutrality, where ordinary citizens weighed
in heavily, saw comments on the other side that were submitted by bots, overwhelming the
agency. The bot abuse is specific and important, and it's odd to see Warren leave it by the
wayside.
Warren's plan has three main prongs. First, she would make pretty much anyone who as part of
their employment seeks to influence Federal legislation or regulation register as a lobbyist.
They would be require to make public who they'd been lobbying and what information they
provided (an interesting question here as to what gets reported from in person
discussions).
Second, she would require that "every corporation and trade organization" with over $500,000
per year in lobbying expenditures is subject to an "excess lobbying tax". Spending of $500,000
to $1 million would be taxed at a 35% rate, over $1 million, at a 60% rate, and over $5
million, 75%.
Warren states that her tax would have raised $10 billion in the last ten years and she
intends to use that for the third major leg of her programs, which is various anti-lobbyist
initiatives. She plans to spend the revenues on
A "Lobbying Defense Trust Fund" to bolster "Congressional independence from lobbyists" by
providing more money to Congressional support bodies like the CBO
Extra funding to agencies that are on the receiving of lobbying. When an entity in the
$500,000 or higher lobbying spending bracket, the agency gets a special allocation "to help
it fight back".
An Office of the Public Advocate to help ordinary citizens get better representation in
the lobbying process
She also asserts that her plan will also "shut the revolving door between government and K
Street" but she offers no mechanism to provide for that. So that is a handwave.
The Conceptual Flaws in Warren's Approach
It's hard to know how much of this Warren believes and how much of this was dreamed up by
her staffers (the document is signed "Team Warren).
Taxation is the wrong approach . Even though Warren discusses how much money her tax would
raise, her strident disapproval of lobbying and the punitive tax levels make clear that the
purpose of the tax is to discourage lobbying. But if lobbying is as bad as Warren believes it
is, she should instead be prohibiting abuses, like comments by bots. In the 1970s, economist
Martin Weitzman came up with an approach to determine when taxation was the right way to
discourage problematic behavior, as opposed to barring it.
A summary from the Bank of England's celebrated economist Andrew Haldane :
In making these choices, economists have often drawn on Martin Weitzman's classic public
goods framework from the early 1970s. Under this framework, the optimal amount of pollution
control is found by equating the marginal social benefits of pollution-control and the
marginal private costs of this control. With no uncertainty about either costs or benefits, a
policymaker would be indifferent between taxation and restrictions when striking this
cost/benefit balance.
In the real world, there is considerable uncertainty about both costs and benefits.
Weitzman's framework tells us how to choose between pollution-control instruments in this
setting. If the marginal social benefits foregone of the wrong choice are large, relative to
the private costs incurred, then quantitative restrictions are optimal. Why? Because fixing
quantities to achieve pollution control, while letting prices vary, does not have large
private costs. When the marginal social benefit curve is steeper than the marginal private
cost curve, restrictions dominate.
The results flip when the marginal cost/benefit trade-offs are reversed. If the private
costs of the wrong choice are high, relative to the social benefits foregone, fixing these
costs through taxation is likely to deliver the better welfare outcome. When the marginal
social benefit curve is flatter than the marginal private cost curve, taxation dominates. So
the choice of taxation versus prohibition in controlling pollution is ultimately an empirical
issue.
Moreover, the tax would hit all lobbyists. Who do you think has the better odds of raising
more money to offset the tax and carrying on as before: Public Citizen or the Chamber of
Commerce?
By contrast, one idea of ours that could have helpful chilling effects would be to go much
much further than merely requiring all lobbyists, broadly defined, to register and also require
them to provide reports on what government officials they contacted/met with and what
information they provided them.
We'd also make these lobbyists subject to FOIA and provide stringent standards that apply
only to lobbyists, such as:
Set strict and tight time limits for responses (California requires that an initial
determination be made in 10 days, for instance)
Require judges to award legal fees and costs to parties who successfully sue over FOIAs
where the records were withheld. Provide for awards in cases where the defendant coughs up
records as the result of a suit being filed. Set punitive damages for abuses (such as
excessive delay, bad faith responses). Strictly limit invocation of attorney/client privilege
to demonstrable litigation risks
Letting journalists and members of the public root around in the discussion between various
think tanks and their business allies would regularly unearth material that would be
embarrassing to the parties involved. It would go a long way toward denting the perceived
legitimacy of lobbying, which over time would strengthen the immune systems of the
recipients.
Warren assumes that most people in Congress and at regulators are anti-corporate but are
overwhelmed by lobbyists. First, the piece presents a Manichean world view of evil greedy
corporate interests versus noble underrepresented little people. And while this is very often
true, it's not as absolute as Warren suggests. The companies are often have conflicting
interests, which can allow for public-minded groups to ally with the corporate types who are on
their side on particular matters.
A second part of the Manichean take is the notion that the agencies aren't on board with the
corporate perspective. Unfortunately, reality is vastly more complicated. For instance, banking
regulators are concerned overall with the safety and soundness of the institutions they
oversee. They aren't in the business of consumer advocacy or consumer protection save as
required by legislation. The concern with safety and soundness perversely means that they want
the institutions they oversee to be profitable so as to help assure capital adequacy and to
attract "talent" to make sure the place is run adequately. (We've stated repeatedly we disagree
with this notion; banks are so heavily subsidized that they should not be seen as private
businesses and should be regulated as utilities). For instance, in the late 1980s, McKinsey was
heavily touting the idea of a coming bank profit squeeze. McKinsey partner Lowell Bryan in his
1992 book Bankrupt spoke with pride at how his message was being received, and in particular,
that regulators were embracing deregulation as a way to bolster bank incomes.
Another complicating factor is that in certain key posts, industry expertise and therefore
an insider status is seen as key to performing the job. For instance, it's accepted that the
Treasury Secretary should come from Wall Street so he can talk to Mr. Market. Of all people, GW
Bush defied that practice, appointing corporate CEOs as Treasury Secretary. The position wound
up being a revolving door in his Administration as his appointees flamed out. Finding a modern
Joe Kennedy, someone who knows sharp industry practices and decides to go against incumbents,
is a tall order.
Similarly, agencies have career staffers and political appointees at a senior level. That
included critical roles like the head of enforcement at the SEC. If Republicans or
pro-corporate Democrats control the Administration and the Senate, business-friendly appointees
will go into these critical posts. The optics may be better with the Democrats, but the outcome
isn't that much different. As Lambert likes to say, "Republicans tell you they will knife you
in the face. Democrats tell you they are so much nicer, they only want one kidney. What they
don't tell you is next year they are coming for your other kidney."
So Warren is also implicitly selling the idea of Team Dem as anti-corporate vigilantes, a
fact not in evidence.
And speaking of kidneys a letter from a departing SEC career employee and Goldman
whistleblower, James Kidney, shows how even staffers who want to do the right thing have their
perspective warped over time.
As we said about his missive, which you can read in full :
Two things struck me about Jim Kidney's article below. One is that he still wants to think
well of his former SEC colleagues
Number two, and related, are the class assumptions at work. The SEC does not want to see
securities professionals at anything other than bucket shops as bad people. At SEC
conferences, agency officials are virtually apologetic and regularly say, "We know you are
honest people who want to do the right thing." Please tell me where else in law enforcement
is that the underlying belief.
So it also seems unlikely that there is a cadre of vigorous regulators just waiting to be
unshackled by the likes of Warren and her anti-lobbyist funding. The way institutions change is
by changing the leadership and enough of the worker bees to send the message that the old way
of doing things isn't on any more. That does not happen quickly. And absent a system breakdown
like the Great Depression, staff incumbents know that talks of new sheriffs in town may not
last beyond the next election cycle.
And the experience of Warren's hand picks at her own pet agency shows that they were all too
willing to let corporations set the agenda. Recall that Warren recommended that Richard
Cordray, head of the CFPB when it became clear she would not get the job, and Raj Date, the
first deputy director of the CFPB, was also an ally of hers. From our 2012 post,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Launches "Make Life Easier for Lobbyists" Tool :
There is more than a little bit of NewSpeak in this idea. "Streamlining regulations" is
generally right wing code for "eliminating/relaxing regulations." Admittedly, Elizabeth
Warren during her brief time as de facto head of the nascent CFPB, proposed and launched a
project to simplify mortgage disclosure forms to combine
two required forms into one and make them easier to understand .
However, this opening of the door by Cordray does not look as likely to produce such happy
outcomes. Maybe this is a means for the CFPB to force lobbyists to provide their input in a
format that makes it easier for CFPB to process. But I can't imagine that Cordray or Raj Date
would say to the American Bankers Association: "We are trying to create a level playing
field, so we won't meet with you. Put it in writing and we'll give it due consideration."
So if this portal is a supplemental channel, who exactly is it intended to serve? The
dropdown menu on the "Tell Us About Yourself" page tells us who it expects to comment: people
from organizations, specifically:
Financial services provider
Trade association
Government agency
Community organization
Other
In other words, it does not contemplate that consumers have the expertise or motivation to
provide input. Citizens are probably assumed to be represented via the CFPB itself or perhaps
also by consumer groups, but even then, they may have specific axes to grind (think the
AARP).
More generally, this is another example of attacking the problem at the wrong level. The
reason there is so much corruption in Washington is that the pay gap between what people can
make at senior levels at regulators versus what they can make in the private sector is so
enormous. And pay matters more than ever given the cost of housing, private schools, and
college. Singapore's approach was designed explicitly to prevent corruption in government: pay
top-level bureaucrats at the same level as top private sector professional (think law firm
partners) and have tough and independent internal audit. We are a long long way from embracing
any system like that, but it's important to recognize what the real issues are.
Lobbyist "tax" walks and quacks like an attack on free speech and the right to petition the
government . Even worse, she makes it easy to attack her program in court with this section and
similar observations in her piece:
In the first four months, the DOL received hundreds of comments on the proposed
[fiducairy] rule, including comments from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Morgan Stanley, Bank
of America, BlackRock, and other powerful financial interests. After a public hearing with
testimony from groups like Fidelity and J.P Morgan, the agency received over 100 more
comments -- including dozens from members of Congress, many of which were heavily slanted
toward industry talking points. Because the law requires agencies to respond to each concern
laid out in the public comments, when corporate interests flood agencies with comments, the
process often becomes so time-consuming and resource-intensive that it can kill or delay
final rules altogether -- and that's exactly what happened.
Warren is depicting the act of making public comments as an abuse. And her clear intent is
to reduce corporate input. This particular bit is very problematic: " .many of which were
heavily slanted toward industry talking points." Was she objecting to the fact that a lot of
the submissions were highly parallel, and therefore redundant, designed to choke the pipeline
or simply that they presented familiar pro-business tropes and were low value added? Not being
well crafted is not a basis for rejecting a public comment.
Warren sets herself for a legal challenge to her idea with this bit: "..if the regulation
somehow survives this onslaught, they'll hire fancy lawyers to challenge it in court," and she
later criticizes opponents of the fiduciary rule:
Today, the Department of Labor is led by Eugene Scalia, the very corporate lawyer and
ex-lobbyist who brought the lawsuit to kill off the proposal.
Was Warren missing in action in civics class when they presented the fact that Presidents
make appointments subject to the advice and consent of the Senate? And what would she do about
future Eugene Scalias? She is intimating that he shouldn't have been allowed to serve, but
that's the call of the Senate, not hers.
But more important, Warren makes it clear that she is so opposed to undue corporate
influence that she objects to judicial review. Help me. Philosophically, the US system allows
even the devil to have the benefit of law. But apparently not former law professor Elizabeth
Warren.
Again, the problem of ordinary people and pro-consumer organizations being outmatched in
court isn't going to be solved by treating use of the legal process as illegitimate. The idea
in her scheme that struck me as the most promising was the idea of an Office of the Public
Advocate. If I were in charge, I'd throw tons of money at it, including for litigation.
The Practical Flaws in Warren's Approach
Since this post is already long, we'll address these issues briefly. The IRS is a weak
agency that loses cases against corporate American all the time. A colleague recently confirmed
that take with an insider story on enforcement matters. The short version is that the IRS was
unable even to pursue issues only of moderate complexity. The problem isn't just expertise but
apparently also poor internal communication and coordination.
Tax avoidance is completely legal. If you don't think some of the targets of Warren's tax
would find ways to restructure their operations so as to greatly reduce their tax burdens, I
have a bridge I'd like to sell you. And they'd probably do it not so much to reduce taxes ("We
need more donations due to meanie Warren" would be a powerful fundraising cry and a lot of the
heavyweight groups and big corporations that lobby directly wouldn't miss a stride) as to avoid
funding her anti-lobbying initiatives.
And who would be least able to reorganize their lives to reduce the tax hit? The smaller
public advocates, natch.
* * *
It could be that I've simply hit upon two of Warren's weakest plans. But I have a sneaking
suspicion not. A contact who is an expert on political spending gave a big thumbs down to her
campaign reform proposal. The spectacle of Warren, whose Congressional staffers would regularly
turn out pointed, well-argued, very well supported requests for information from officials that
showed her to be operating way way above legislative norms, publishing plans that score high on
formatting and saber rattling and low on policy plumbing is a bad sign.
The most charitable interpretation is that Warren has weak people on this part of her
campaign and either doesn't know or doesn't care. But Warren historically has also show herself
to be an accomplished administrator. Is she more over her head than the press has figured
out?
Just an excellent critique. My view of Warren's plans was rather shallow and limited. I
could not find any flaws in your assessment. One might think that a senator would have a
better grasp of how DC works – or at least human nature.
"... Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic growth without end/crisis. ..."
"... I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent, rigid class system ..."
"... If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive. Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners. ..."
"... The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things (despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly likely to be manipulated like Trump. ..."
"... I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral values against socialism, no matter what voters say. ..."
The headline will become operative in December, if as expected, the Trump Administration
maintains its refusal to nominate new judges
to the WTO appellate panel . That will render the WTO unable to take on new cases, and
bring about an effective return to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which
preceded the WTO .
An interesting sidelight is that Brexit No-Dealers have been keen on the merits of trading
"on WTO terms", but those terms will probably be unenforceable by the time No Deal happens (if
it does).
likbez 10.27.19 at 11:22 pm
That's another manifestation of the ascendance of "national neoliberalism," which now is
displacing "classic neoliberalism."
Attempts to remove Trump via color revolution mechanisms (Russiagate, Ukrainegate) are
essentially connected with the desire of adherents of classic neoliberalism to return to the
old paradigm and kick the can down the road until the cliff. I think it is impossible because
the neoliberal elite lost popular support (aka support of deplorables) and now is hanging in
the air. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to
be very destructive.
That's why probably previous attempts to remove Trump were unsuccessful. And if corrupt
classic neoliberal Biden wins Neoliberal Dem Party nomination, the USA probably will get the
second term of Trump. Warren might have a chance as "Better Trump then Trump" although she
proved so far to be pretty inept politician, and like "original" Trump probably can be easily
coerced by the establishment, if she wins.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth by "neoliberal Intelligentsia" does not change the
fact that neoliberalism entered the period of structural crisis demonstrated by "secular
stagnation," and, as such, its survival is far from certain. We probably can argue only about
how long it will take for the "national neoliberalism" to dismantle it and what shape or form
the new social order will take.
That does not mean that replacing the classic neoliberalism the new social order will be
better, or more just. Neoliberalism was actually two steps back in comparison with the New
Deal Capitalism that it replaced. It clearly was a social regress.
John, I am legitimate curious what you find "exactly right" in the comment above. Other than
the obvious bit in the last line about new deal vs neoliberalism, I would say it is
completely wrong, band presenting an amazingly distorted view of both the last few years and
recent history.
Neo-liberalism is not a unified thing. Right wing parties are not following the original
(the value of choice) paradigm of Milton Friedman that won the argument during the 1970s
inflation panic, but have implemented a deceitful bait and switch strategy, followed by
continually shifting the goalposts – claiming – it would of worked but we weren't
pure enough.
But parts of what Milton Friedman said (for instance the danger of bad micro-economic
design of welfare systems creating poverty traps, and the inherent problems of high tariff
rates) had a kernel of truth. (Unfortunately, Friedman's macro-economics was almost all wrong
and has done great damage.)
"In that context it felt free to override national governments on any issue that
might affect international trade, most notably environmental policies."
Not entirely sure about that. The one case where I was informed enough to really know
detail was the China and rare earths WTO case. China claimed that restrictions on exports of
separated but otherwise unprocessed rare earths were being made on environmental grounds.
Rare earth mining is a messy business, especially the way they do it.
Well, OK. And if such exports were being limited on environmental grounds then that would
be WTO compliant. Which is why the claim presumably.
It was gently or not pointed out that exports of things made from those same rare earths
were not limited in any sense. Therefore that environmental justification might not be quite
the real one. Possibly, it was an attempt to suck RE using industry into China by making rare
earths outside in short supply, but the availability for local processing being unrestricted?
Certainly, one customer of mine at the time seriously considered packing up the US factory
and moving it.
China lost the WTO case. Not because environmental reasons aren't a justification for
restrictions on trade but because no one believed that was the reason, rather than the
justification.
I don't know about other cases – shrimp, tuna – but there is at least the
possibility that it's the argument, not the environment, which wasn't sufficient
justification?
Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every political and
institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the free market.
In the EU, East Asia, and North America, some of what has taken place is the
rationalization of bureaucratic practices and the weakening of archaic localisms. Some of
these developments have been positive.
In this respect, neoliberalism in the blanket sense used by Likbez and many others is like
what the the ancien regime was, a mix of regressive and progressive tendencies. In the
aftermath of the on-going upheaval, it is likely that it will be reassessed and some of its
features will be valued if they manage to persist.
I'm thinking of international trade agreements, transnational scientific organizations,
and confederations like the European Union.
steven t johnson 10.29.19 at 12:29 am
If I may venture to translate @1?
Right-wing populism like Orban, Salvini, the Brexiteers are sweeping the globe and this is
more of the same.
Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing
Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional
quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face
of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular
stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't
collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic
growth without end/crisis.
I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading
system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent,
rigid class system .
If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to
hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or
nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good"
mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive.
Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but
self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social
cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners.
The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is
probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be
shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years
of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will
probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things
(despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly
likely to be manipulated like Trump.
Again, despite the fury the old internationalism is collapsing under stagnation and
weeping about it is irrelevant. Without any real ideas, we can only react to events as
nationalist predatory capitals fight for their new world.
I'm not saying the new right wing populism is better. The New Deal/Great Society did more
for America than its political successors since Nixon et al. The years since 1968 I think
have been a regression and I see no reason–alas–that it can't get even worse.
I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way
likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem
being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral
values against socialism, no matter what voters say.
It is a particular mutation of the original concept similar to mutation of socialism into
national socialism, when domestic policies are mostly preserved (including rampant
deregulation) and supplemented by repressive measures (total surveillance) , but in foreign
policy "might make right" and unilateralism with the stress on strictly bilateral regulations
of trade (no WTO) somewhat modifies "Washington consensus". In other words, the foreign
financial oligarchy has a demoted status under the "national neoliberalism" regime, while the
national financial oligarchy and manufactures are elevated.
And the slogan of "financial oligarchy of all countries, unite" which is sine qua
non of classic neoliberalism is effectively dead and is replaced by protection racket of
the most political powerful players (look at Biden and Ukrainian oligarchs behavior here
;-)
> I think every sentence in that comment is either completely wrong or at least
debatable. And is likbez actually John Hewson, because that comment reads like one of John
Hewson's commentaries
> Most obviously, to define Warren and Trump as both being neoliberals drains the
term of any meaning
You are way too fast even for a political football forward ;-).
Warren capitalizes on the same discontent and the feeling of the crisis of neoliberalism
that allowed Trump to win. Yes, she is a much better candidate than Trump, and her policy
proposals are better (unless she is coerced by the Deep State like Trump in the first three
months of her Presidency).
Still, unlike Sanders in domestic policy and Tulsi in foreign policy, she is a neoliberal
reformist at heart and a neoliberal warmonger in foreign policy. Most of her policy proposals
are quite shallow, and are just a band-aid.
> Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every
political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of
the free market.
This is a typical stance of neoliberal MSM, a popular line of attack on critics of
neoliberalism.
Yes, of course, not everything political and institutional development of the last 40
years comes down to the worship of the "free market." But how can it be otherwise? Notions of
human agency, a complex interaction of politics and economics in human affairs, technological
progress since 1970th, etc., all play a role. But a historian needs to be able to somehow
integrate the mass of evidence into a coherent and truthful story.
And IMHO this story for the last several decades is the ascendance and now decline of
"classic neoliberalism" with its stress on the neoliberal globalization and opening of the
foreign markets for transnational corporations (often via direct or indirect (financial)
pressure, or subversive actions including color revolutions and military intervention) and
replacement of it by "national neoliberalism" -- domestic neoliberalism without (or with a
different type of) neoliberal globalization.
Defining features of national neoliberalism along with the rejection of neoliberal
globalization and, in particular, multiparty treaties like WTO is massive, overwhelming
propaganda including politicized witch hunts (via neoliberal MSM), total surveillance of
citizens by the national security state institutions (three-letter agencies which now
acquired a political role), as well as elements of classic nationalism built-in.
The dominant ideology of the last 30 years was definitely connected with "worshiping of
free markets," a secular religion that displaced alternative views and, for several decades
(say 1976 -2007), dominated the discourse. So worshiping (or pretense of worshiping) of "free
market" (as if such market exists, and is not a theological construct -- a deity of some
sort) is really defining feature here.
"MSNBC names four renowned female journalists as moderators for November debate" [
NBC ]. "Moderating the Nov. 20 event, which is being co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington
Post, will be Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC; Andrea Mitchell, host
of "Andrea Mitchell Reports" on MSNBC and NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent;
Kristen Welker, NBC News' White House correspondent; and Ashley Parker, a White House reporter
for The Washington Post." • The count of journalists is off by at least one.
"... The below analysis is provided by " Ehsani " -- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment . ..."
"... An M1 Abrams tank at the Udairi Range Complex in Kuwait, via Army National Guard/Military Times. ..."
Here's
Why Trump's "Secure Syria's Oil" Plan Will Prove Practically Impossible
by
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/26/2019 - 23:30
0
SHARES
The below analysis is provided by "
Ehsani
" -- a Middle
East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes
for the influential geopolitical analysis blog,
Syria Comment
.
Much has been debated since President Trump tweeted that
"The U.S has secured the oil"
in Syria. Is this feasible? Does it make any sense? The below will
explain how and why
the answer is a resounding
NO
.
Al-Omar and Conoco fields are already secured by Kurdish-led SDF and U.S forces. Some of the oil
from these fields was being sold through third parties to Syria's government by giving it in crude
form and taking back half the quantity as refined product
(the government owns the
refineries).
Syria's government now has access to oil fields inside the 32km zone
(established
by the Turkish military incursion and subsequent withdrawal of Kurdish forces). Such fields can produce
up to 100K barrels a day and will already go a long way in terms of meeting the country's immediate
demand.
So the importance of accessing oil in SDF/U.S hands is not as pressing any longer.
SDF/U.S forces can of course decide to sell the oil to Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
but Syria's government now has control over the border area connecting Syria to KRG territory through
both Yaaroubia and Al-Mallkiya.
The Syrian government also now has control over supply of electricity. This was made possible by
taking control of the Tishreen and Furat dams.
Operating those fields needs electric power
supply and the state is now the provider.
Securing and operating these fields also entails paying salaries to those operating the fields.
International companies would be very reluctant to get involved without legal backing to operate
the fields.
"Securing the oil" therefore
can only mean preventing the Syrian state from accessing al-Omar/Conoco
only (not oil in the north)
. It's unlikely anything can be sold or transported.
And let's not forget "securing" this oil would need
ready air cover, and all for what?
SDF composition included Arab fighters and tribes who accepted Kurds in leadership since they had
American support and key cities in north. Many of those Arabs are already switching and joining the
Syrian Army.
"Securing" oil for benefit of the Kurds is likely to antagonize the Arab fighters
and tribes in the region.
Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more
than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of
"securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level
.
The psychopaths destroyed the last secular country in the ME. Same
with Lybia. Now all we get are extremists on all sides. Mossad doing
what it knows best, bringing chaos for the psychopaths.
By withdrawing from Northern Kurdistan and by making an exception
for the oil fields, Genius President Trump just told the world a number
of things:
To trust the U.S.A. as an ally is sheer stupidity
The "alternative media" theory that it is all about oil (and
possible gas) has been proven true
The U.S.A. is being ruled by a hobbyist who has no strategic
plans, replacing them with a "random walk" concept
Of course, the European allies (except Turkey) are still refusing
to learn from this experience. "Duck and cover until November 2020"
is their current tactics. Not sure if this is a good idea.
Turkey has learned to go their own ways, but I don't think it is
a good idea to create ever more enemies at one's borders. Greece,
Armenia, the Kurdish regions, Syria, Cyprus, not sure how their stance
is towards Iran. Reminds me of Germany before both World Wars. Won't
end well.
"America/The US", a label, is
actually just a location on a map and is not a reference to the actual
identities of those who start wars for profit.
Also it is hilarious to use that label as if an area of the planet
is or has attacked another area. Land can not attack itself, ever,
just as guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Trump is not claiming posession of oil in syria by leaving some
troops behind. Just as he did not declare war, nor start any EVER.
Every conflct on earth has it's roots with very specific individuals,
none of whom are even related to Trump.
Syria was a conflicting mess before he took office and he is dutifully
attempting to pull US soldiers out of a powder keg of nonsense he
wants no part of. Nor does any sane American want more conflict in
battles we can't afford, in countries we'll never even visit.
Like I said before, Trump can't just abruptly yank all our troops.
It's simply not that simple. And for those pretending he is doing
syria a disservice, I dare any one of you to go there yourselves and
see if you bunch of complete dipshits can do better. Who knows, maybe
you'll find the love of your life, ******* idiots.
First, the US invades Syria in violation of the Geneva Convention
on War making it an international criminal. Then it funds and equips
the most vile terrorists on the planet which leads to the killing
of thousands of innocent Syrians. And now it has decided to stay and
steal oil from Syria. The US is now the Evil American Empire owned
and run by crooks, gangsters and mass murderers. The Republic is dead
along with morality, justice and freedom.
Let's limit the culprits to: The Obama regime... and
not all the US. This is why these devils need to be brought
to trial and their wealth clawed out of their hiding places to
pay reparations to some of the victims.
The US has been an Evil American Empire for a long time, since
at least the Wilson administration, and Republican or Democrat...it
make little difference. World wars, the Fed, IRS, New Deal,
Korea, Vietnam, War OF Terror, assassinations, coups, sanctions,
Big Pharma, Seeds of Death and Big Agri...and the list goes
on and on. Please understand that America is not great and one
day all Americans will have to account for what their country
did in their name. If you believe in the Divine, then know that
their will be a reckoning.
The Obama regime was merely a continuation of the Chimpy Bush
regime, which was merely a continuation of the Clinton regime,
which was merely a continuation of the Pappy Bush regime, which
was merely a continuation... etc.
More chinks in the petrodollar armor will be the outcome of this. The credibility of murica is withering
away as every day passes. Iraqi pressure upon foreign troops there
to leave and/or drawdown further will also make this venture even
more difficult to manage.
The Kurds
may not be the smartest with regards to picking allies, but even they
may by now have learned that sticking to murica any longer will destroy
any semblance of hope for any autonomy status whatsoever once the
occupants have left. Likewise, the Sunni tribes around this area don't
want to become another Pariah group once things revert to normal.
Assad will eventually retake all his territory and
this is speeding up the process of eventual reconciliation in Syria.
They've spent far more on these wars than they've made back by stealing
other countries' resources. Trillions wasted in exchange for mere
billions in profit, to say nothing of the massive loss of life and
destruction incurred.
'The below analysis is provided by "
Ehsani
"
-- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst
who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical
analysis blog,
Syria Comment
.'
this quote was my first red flag.
so POTUS outsmarts Erdongan, takes out ISIS leader BAGHDADI along
with Erdongan MIT agents meeting with him. sorry, Ehsani, i think
your full of sh*t.
CIA & MOSSAD LLC
friends ISIS is just the excuse the american
an israeli terrorists used and use in order to keep trying to remove
Assad from the Government.
They just can't accept defeat and absolute failure. What's worse
than an american/israeli terrorist destroyed ego?!
All info needs verification. US sources are not trustworthy including
anyone where money originates from the usual fake info instigators/
players.
POTUS is so misled by the deep state MIC /CIA/ FBI et al and their
willing fake media cohorts that he agreed to give the White Helmets
more public money for more fake movies, as has been properly proven
and widely reported.
Either they have taken control of his mind with a chip insert or
they have got his balls to the knife.
The false flags have been discredited systematically and only a
very brainwashed or a very frightened person would believe anything
from the same source until after a thorough scourge is proven successfully
undertaken.
It is evident that even the last hope department has been got at
by the money-power.
If they can do 9/11 and get away with it, as they have, then they
will stop at nothing to remain entrenched.
90% of oil is traded in U.S. dollars if that stops living standards
will drop in the U.S.. We dropped from 97% look how bad its now
with 7% imagine going down to 50% life would be unlivable
here.
...meanwhile, both according to
russia today
as well as the
(otherwise lying rag of a newspaper)
guardian
, the russian
government seems to take a different position to the views expressed
here by "a middle east expert".
russian state media is reporting that US troops are in the process
of taking control of syrian oil fields in the deir el-zour region
and have described such actions as "banditry". the crux of the matter
is this: if the US were not actually illegally taking control of Syrian
oil, then Russia would not be reporting this. Contrary to western
mainstream media, Russian sources have repeatedly shown themselves
to be factual.
Shame the "withdrawl" from Syria is tainted with "securing the oil".
US doesnt need that oil at all. So Orwellian! Unless the Kurds somehow
get rights to it.
Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of
"securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level
.
Trump
is
securing
the
oil
not
for
the
Kurds
or
anything
in
the
middle
east-
his
doing
it
as
a response
to
the
media
backlash
he
received
when
he
announced
he's
abandoning
the
Kurds.
this is nonsense. thinking of the kurds and their interests is the absolutely last thing on trump`s mind: what counts for trump is how he is viewed by his voter base, no more, no less.
No
wonder Democratic Party bosses and mainstream media are trying to bury presidential contender Tulsi
Gabbard.
She is the only candidate, perhaps the only politician in the US, who is telling
the American public exactly what they need to know about what their government and military are
really up to: fighting illegal regime-change wars, and to boot, sponsoring terrorists for that
purpose.
It didn't come much clearer nor more explicit than when Gabbard fired up the Democratic TV
debate this week. It was billed as the biggest televised presidential debate ever, and the Hawaii
Representative
told
some prime-time
home-truths to the nation:
"Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our
country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that
started in 2011 along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing and
cheer-leading this regime-change war."
The 38-year-old military veteran went on to denounce how the US has sponsored Al Qaeda
terrorists for its objective of overthrowing the government in Damascus.
It was a remarkably damning assessment of US policy in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.
And it was by no means the first time that Gabbard has leveled with the American people on the
brutality and criminality of Washington's so-called "interventions".
The other 11 Democratic candidates on the stage during the TV debate looked agog after Gabbard's
devastating and calmly delivered statement. All the others have proffered the false narrative that
US forces are in Syria to "fight terrorism". They deplore Trump's announcement last week to pull
back US troops from northeast Syria because, they say, it will undermine the fight against Islamic
State (IS or ISIS) and other Al Qaeda affiliates. They also condemn Trump for "betraying Kurdish
allies" by his partial troop withdrawal.
President Donald Trump talks about "ending endless wars" and "bringing our troops home".
But he still premises his views on a credulous belief that the US under his watch "defeated ISIS
100 per cent". In that way, he essentially shares the same corny view as the Democrats and media
that America is a force for good, that it is the "good guys wearing white hats riding into the
sunset".
On the other hand, Gabbard stands alone in telling the American people the plain and awful
truth. US policy is the fundamental problem. Ending its regime-change war in Syria and elsewhere
and ending its diabolical collusion with terror groups is the way to bring peace to the Middle East
and to spare ordinary Americans from the economic disaster of spiraling war debts.
American
citizens need to know the truth about the horror their government, military, media and politicians
have inflicted not just on countries in the Middle East, but also from the horrendous boomerang
consequences of this criminal policy on the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Americans,
including millions of veterans destroyed by injuries, trauma, suicide, and drug abuse.
Following the TV debate this week, it seems that Gabbard won the popular vote with her
truth-telling. A major
online poll
by the Drudge Report
found that she stole a march on all the other candidates, winning approval from nearly 40 per cent
of voters. Top ticket candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden were trailing
behind with 7 per cent or less.
Gabbard has clearly struck a deep chord with the US public in her honest depiction of
American wars.
Despite her shattering exposé and seeming appreciation by the public, most mainstream media
tried to bury her after the TV debate. Outlets like Vox and CNN
declared
that
Warren was the winner of the debate, whose talking points were mainly about domestic policy issues.
Like the other candidates, Warren plies the propaganda narrative of US forces "fighting terrorism".
Vox even slated Gabbard as "a loser" in the debate and claimed she had made "blatantly false"
statements about the US' role in Syria.
Other mainstream news outlets chose to ignore reporting on Gabbard's demolishing of the official
propaganda about American wars. Earlier this week, CNN and the New York Times
smeared
her
as a "Russian asset" and an "apologist for Assad", referencing a visit she made to Syria in 2017
when she held talks with President Assad.
The Democratic National Committee is
claiming
that
Gabbard does not have sufficient support in polls it deems worthy for her to qualify for appearing
in the next TV debate in November.
International events, however, are proving the Hawaii Representative right. US troops, as with
other NATO forces, have been occupying Syrian territory illegally. They have no mandate from the
United Nations Security Council. The pullback of US troops by Trump has created a vacuum in
northeast Syria into which the Syrian Arab Army is quickly moving to reclaim the territory which
US-backed Kurdish fighters had de facto annexed for the past five years. Several
reports
show
the local people are joyfully welcoming the arrival of the Syrian army. The scenes are reminiscent
of when Syrian and Russian forces liberated Aleppo and other cities previously besieged by terror
groups.
America's war machine must get out of Syria for the sake of restoring peace to that
war-torn country.
Not because "they have defeated ISIS 100 per cent", as Trump would
conceitedly claim, nor because "we are betraying Kurds in the fight against terrorism", as most
Democrats and US media preposterously claim.
Peace will come to Syria and the Middle East when Washington finally ends its criminal
regime-change wars and its support for terrorist proxies. Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the
only politician with the intelligence and integrity to tell Americans the truth.
Unlike Trump she's against the patriot act and foreign
intervention. Trump hired Bolton, attempted a coup in Venezuela,
has been dropping more bombs on Syria than Obama did, is
escalating a new war with Iran, has sent more troops to Saudi
Arabia and Yeman. He's also for red flag laws to take away guns.
I cannot see her have a shot as DNC candidate. Either she
will end up like a young and liberal version of Ron Paul; get
angry and become a RossPerot-like spoiler type or (least likely)
become another Bernie sellout for a beachhouse.
The way she is being demonized by the Democrat party,
it is clear that she cannot win this battle.
Warren (D)(1): "Warren cutting into Biden's lead in new SC 2020 Democratic poll" [
Post and Courier ]. "Biden's lead in South Carolina, which had hovered around 20 percentage
points since the summer, has shrunk Biden received 30 percent to Warren's 19 percent. Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders at 13 percent and California Sen. Kamala Harris at 11 percent are the only
two other candidates with double-digit results in South Carolina . The biggest gains in the
latest poll came from fifth- and sixth-place contenders, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg
and billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer." • Everybody loves a winner, but the gains
in the third tier show SC is still fluid (though perhaps not a firewall for Biden).
Yet another case where Warren's problem statement isn't commensurate with the proposed
solution .
Impeachment
"Republicans criticize House impeachment process -- while fully participating in probe" [
WaPo ]. "Then the questions begin to fly, largely from the expert staff hired by lawmakers
on the House Intelligence Committee and other panels participating in the probe. Each side gets
an equal amount of questions, as dictated by long-standing House rules guiding these
interviews. 'It starts one hour, one hour,' said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), explaining how the
questioning moves beyond one-hour blocks for each side. 'Then it goes 45, 45, 45, 45, with
breaks, occasionally, and breaks for lunch.' Meadows, one of Trump's staunchest allies, said
each side has been allowed an unlimited amount of questions they can ask of witnesses.' Those
participating in the closed-door depositions generally say that these interviews are very
professional and that both sides have operated under
rules that were approved in January ." • As I've said, I don't like the policy on
transcripts, and my litmus test for legitimacy is that there's no secret evidence at all. I
don't much like that Republicans can't subpeona witnesses, either.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas
drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about
Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge
Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic
prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get
on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.
What distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured.
He made it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context,
media and process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American
dream. It was a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.
"MSNBC names four renowned female journalists as moderators for November debate" [
NBC ]. "Moderating the Nov. 20 event, which is being co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington
Post, will be Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC; Andrea Mitchell, host
of "Andrea Mitchell Reports" on MSNBC and NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent;
Kristen Welker, NBC News' White House correspondent; and Ashley Parker, a White House reporter
for The Washington Post." • The count of journalists is off by at least one.
New York - Tel
Aviv - Moscow
Triangle
This section contains the materials
that document the background of Trump - Russia. From the banking houses of
New York, to the Bolshevik Revolution. From the New School to the Neo-Cons.
From the arming of Irgun to the creation of the Zionist state of Israel.
From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the mafia state that rose out of the
USSR. The development of international criminal networks, think tanks,
governments, oligarchy and multinational corporate control of our politics,
interests, technology, freedoms and even our minds.
The Life of an American Jew Living in
Racist Marxist Israel
Jack
Bernstein
The Soviets would institute a pro-Arab policy
solely as a camouflage for its true intention, which was to furnish aid
to the Arabs, but never enough to enable the Arabs to destroy Israel.
The Soviets would open the gates of Soviet
satellite countries to Jewish immigration to Israel. Should this be
insufficient, Soviet Russia then would open its own gates to
immigration.
<strong>The Soviets would absolutely guarantee the
security of Israel.
Both the Soviet Union and Israel would share
intelligence reports.
The latest scientific developments that the US
provides Israel are channeled on to the Soviet Union. The main center
through which this scientific information passes is Israel's Weizman
Institute in the town of Rehoovot about 40 kilometers south of Tel Aviv.
The Controversy Of Zion (Book)
Douglas Reed
This is the text area for this paragraph. To change it, simply click
here and start typing.Once you've added your content, you can customize
the design using different colors, fonts, font sizes and bullets.
Highlight the words you want to design and choose from the various
options in the text editing bar.
All Israeli Prime Ministers linked to
USSR/Russian Empire
Jon Swinn
This infographic details the links each Israeli Prime Minister has to
the USSR/Russian Empire.
TRUMP IS PUPPET OF KISSINGER, CFR AND
ROTHSCHILDS, THE TRUE ARCHITECTS OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION
David
Livingstone
A vital read detailing the history that has led to
the present day situation we face.
NIXON CENTER -- KREMLIN -- TRUMP
Zarina Zabrisky
The Center for the National Interest, former Nixon
Center, a hosting institution for Trump's first foreign policy speech
and the adviser who helped writing the speech have multiple long-term
ties to the Kremlin.
Red Mafiya - How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America
Robert
Friedman
New York -- Moscow -- Tel Aviv Triangle
Fitzpatrick
Israel and the Soviets are ideological allies –
both follow the ideas of Karl Marx, so both are communist/socialist.
Yet, the Soviets supplied military equipment to the Arabs -- Israel's
enemies; and at the same time, the Soviet Union's enemy, the United
States, was arming Israel.
To understand the treachery which Zionist/
Bolshevik Jews are capable and to understand the treachery which took
place before and during the 1973 War, I must explain the New York/
Moscow/Tel Aviv Triangle.
PUTIN DOSSIER
Fitzpatrick
Exposing Russian president Vladimir Putin and his
crypto-Soviet state for the Judeo-masonic, Chabad mafiya collaborators
that they are
THE AMERICAN AWAKENING - NEW YORK - TEL AVIV - MOSCOW AXIS
Michael
Herzog and Brendon O'Connell
Part 1 - 18 June 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3GpnUF_nwA
Part 2 - 22 June 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kso1KWHXmNo&t=1688s
Rare Interview with Gordon Thomas author
of Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy
Gordon
Thomas
Gordon Thomas is interviewed on TruNews about his
book Robert Maxwell Israel's Superspy.
AT PUTIN'S SIDE, AN ARMY OF JEWISH
BILLIONAIRES
Gil Stern
Watching the group of mega-wealthy interact, one
cannot help but wonder how so many affluent businessmen in the former
Soviet Union are Jewish.
On Multiple Fronts, Russian Jews Reshape
Israel
Phillip
Reeves
"I was [politically] on the left, and I thought it
was possible to reach an agreement with the Arabs. But after 20 years, I
no longer think an accord is possible," he says.
Most of Israel's Russian-speaking community,
including Esterman, is on the right these days. Since they now make up
about 15 percent of Israel's 8 million people, they wield considerable
political clout and have played a significant role in the general
rightward shift of the Israeli electorate.
Russian-speaking immigrants form the base of the
influential right-wing nationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu. The party has
teamed up with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud to form a bloc
that is leading the polls ahead of this month's elections.
Galili argues that immigrants from the former
Soviet Union have made a considerable impact on the politics of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- not least because of their resistance to
the idea of giving up territory.
Russian Immigrants
in Israeli Politics:
The Past, the Recent Elections
and the Near Future
Arkadi
Mazin
Since the beginning of the large-scale immigration
to Israel from the
former
Soviet Union in the 1990s, Israel's community of Russian speakers has
played an dominant role in Israeli politics. Some maintain that it has
tipped the balance and decided the final outcome in all the elections
since then, perhaps with the exception of the most recent ones.
Nevertheless, as will be shown, the
Russian-speaking community's
vote
played a major role in these elections, too.
From this, it may be concluded that the electoral
behavior of the
Russian-speaking
community in Israel differs from that of the majority of the Israeli
population. And indeed, as has been observed in various areas of life,
such as consumer behavior, media and entertainment, as well as from the
political-electoral perspective, the Russian-speaking community in
Israel is commonly viewed as a separate sector, alongside two other
important minority sectors – the ultra-Orthodox and Arab
– and the "general Israeli population."
An Emerging Alliance: Russia and Israel
Robert Zapesochny
The core of this growing alliance is the more than
one million Israeli citizens who were born in the former Soviet Union.
Between 1970 and 1988, only 291,000 Jews, and their non-Jewish
relatives, were allowed to leave the Soviet Union (165,000 went to
Israel, and 126,000 went to the United States).
In 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev ended restrictions on
Jewish emigration, in part for better relations with the United States.
From 1989 to 2006, 1.6 million Soviet Jews, and their family members,
left the former Soviet Union (979,000 went to Israel, 325,000 to the
U.S. and 219,000 to Germany).
Earlier this year, President Putin said, "Russia
and Israel have developed a special relationship primarily because 1.5
million Israeli citizens come from the former Soviet Union, they speak
the Russian language, are the bearers of Russian culture, Russian
mentality. They maintain relations with their relatives and friends in
Russia, and this make the interstate relations very special."
Israel also needs Russia, as well. Israel's
Start-Up Nation has been fueled by one million Russian-speaking
Israelis. For this economic miracle to continue, the Israelis will need
more engineers from the former Soviet Union. The Russian-speaking
Israelis will have plenty of talent to choose from in the former Soviet
Union. According the World Economic Forum, in 2015, Russia graduated
454,000 engineers and Ukraine graduated 130,000 engineers.
THE DEBILITATING BRAIN DRAIN
Shilomo Maital
Israel has gained immensely from the brain gain of
one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union during the years
1990-1999. According to a study by Sarit Cohen of Bar-Ilan University
and Chang-Tai Hsieh from Princeton University, 60 percent of the
Russian-speaking immigrants who arrived in Israel between 1989 and 1990
were college educated, twice the proportion of college-educated
Israelis. From 1990 to 1993, their study notes, "57,000 [Russian
immigrants] had worked as engineers and 12,000 as medical doctors; in
contrast, there were only 30,000 engineers and 15,000 medical doctors in
Israel in 1989."
That brain gain was a one-time stroke of luck.
Many of the brain-gain Russian-speaking engineers and doctors are now
retiring, and many of the educated Israelis who could replace them are
going abroad.
Israel's former Soviet immigrants
transform adopted country
Harriet Sherwood
The million-plus citizens of the former Soviet
Union who migrated to Israel in the past 20 years have not only made new
lives of their own but they have transformed their adopted country. They
have influenced the culture, hi-tech industry, language, education and,
perhaps most significantly, Israeli politics.
Jews in the former Soviet Union were largely
banned from making aliya – migrating to Israel – before the collapse of
the empire. But from 1990 onwards they came in their thousands, and they
now constitute around 15% of Israel's 7.7 million population.
Strictly speaking not all of them are Jewish. In
traditional Judaism only someone whose mother is Jewish or who has
undergone a formal conversion to Judaism is a Jew. But from 1990 anyone
from the former Soviet Union who had a Jewish father or grandparent, or
who was married to someone meeting those criteria, was granted Israeli
citizenship under the country's law of return.
The Million Russians That Changed Israel
to Its Core
Masha Zur Glozman
The authors begin their story toward the end of
the 1980s, after Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir realized that Mikhail
Gorbachev was prepared to release those Jews who longed to leave the
Soviet Union, because he wished to obtain American loan guarantees for
the far-reaching reforms he had planned.
Bronfman and Galili describe the clandestine and
open channels through which the State of Israel acted to advance this
immigration, and the various interests involved, such as the desire to
bolster the "demographic data" (a euphemism for increasing Israel's
Jewish population ).
Yitzhak Shamir, the Prime Minister Who
Spied on Me
Aluf Benn
According to Meridor, Shamir's most important
contribution was convincing the U.S. administration under President
George Bush Sr. to desist from issuing refugee visas to Soviet Jews.
Up to 1989, Jews leaving the USSR could choose to
immigrate either to the United States or to Israel, with many choosing
the U.S. Shamir was opposed to this "defection," as it was termed at the
time. He believed Jews ought to settle in Israel, whether they were from
a Russian gulag or Brooklyn. He persuaded the American government and
U.S. Jewish organizations that the Soviet Jews weren't refugees, that
they had a homeland in Israel. Then the floodgates of the collapsing
Soviet Empire opened wide, and a million Jews along with their relatives
immigrated to Israel. Had Shamir not insisted, today, many of them would
have been living on the shores of the Hudson River.
Shamir Wants U.S. Pressure on Emigrants
The so-called "dropout" rate among Jews who leave
the Soviet Union has reached as high as 80% in recent years. "Dropouts"
are Jews who claim political refugee status from the United States when
they reach Vienna rather than fly to Israel.
How Russia's rich elite spend their
billions in London
Roman
Borisovich
Wealthy [Jewish] oligarchs have become a fixture
of the British landscape during the past 20 years. But what do they
offer to the country's culture?
Rich Russians: The Wealthiest Oligarchs
Who Call London Home
Alisher Usmanov and Roman Abramovich are joined in
the capital by a host of lesser-known wealthy compatriots
Vladimir Putin told me a personal story
in the Kremlin
This video includes excerpts from the speeches of
Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, Attorney Alan Dershowitz, and footage
of the legendary Chabad Lubavitch "Roll Call" at the 2006 International
Conference of Shluchim.
Putin's Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar
friend of Nathaniel Rothschild.
"My call to fame is actually being Mr.
Rothschild's friend and it is a pleasure to honour Mr. Rothschild and
David Slager for what they have done here in Oxford for the Oxford
University Chabad Society." -
Chief Rabbi Lazar
The KGB's Middle East Files: 'Illegals'
in Israel
Ronen Bergman
In
1992, Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist, defected to the West with a
trove of top secret documents from the Soviet intelligence agency, which
helped expose many Russian agents and assets in Israel and elsewhere.
This series of articles explores these documents and brings to light the
secrets they revealed.
Russian Firm to Train Israelis in Hot
Tech Fields
Ruti Levy
Fifty Israeli students – most of them computer
science graduates or veterans of army technology units – will begin a
program in October to learn the ins and outs of some of the hottest
fields in Israeli high-tech, such as data science and machine learning.
he classes will meet at Tel Aviv University, but
no Israeli academic institution is involved. The syllabus was written
and the lecturers hired and paid for by the Russian company Yandex.
The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That
Connects Trump and Putin
Ben Schreckinger
Chabad of Port Washington, a Jewish community
center on Long Island's Manhasset Bay, sits in a squat brick edifice
across from a Shell gas station and a strip mall. The center is an
unexceptional building on an unexceptional street, save for one thing:
Some of the shortest routes between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin run
straight through it.
Know Your Oligarch: A Guide to the Jewish
Billionaires in the Trump-Russia Probe
Ron Kampeas
Of 10 billionaires with Kremlin ties who funneled
political contributions to Donald Trump and a number of top Republican
leaders, at least five are Jewish
Russia's Chief Rabbi Reportedly Paid
Secret Visit to Iran on Trip Organized by Putin
Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar secretly visited
Iran almost six months ago as part of a diplomatic trip organized by
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli media reported over the
weekend.
The Islamic Republic opposed the rabbi's arrival,
but Putin himself insisted on Lazar's participation in the diplomatic
mission, the website Ynetnews reported. The trip was reportedly headed
by the chairman of Russia's State Duma and included talks in the Iranian
parliament.
Lazar, who heads the Chabad movement in Russia, is
considered close to Putin and is often accused of supporting the
president unconditionally in exchange for his regime's seal of approval
for Chabad.
Israel has argued for months that Iran needs to
withdraw its forces from the war-torn country. In recent weeks, senior
U.S. officials have stated that while both Russia and the U.S. agree
with Israel that Iran needs to exit Syria, it is currently unrealistic
for Russia to force Iran out of the country.
DONALD TRUMP, CHABAD-LUBAVITCH AND THE OLIGARCHS
Despite his alignment with the racist right, Trump
has professed ultra-right views on Israel. His connections with Israel
also extend to his broad ties with the Russian mafia, many of whom hold
dual citizenship in Israel. The Russian mafia is closely associated with
Chabad-Lubavitch, a Hasidic movement that derived originally from
Sabbateanism.
Putin: 'I support the struggle of Israel'
Chaim Lev, Ari Yashar
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday met
with a delegation of rabbis, led by Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef,
former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar,
and rabbis of the Rabbinical Center of Europe (RCE).
"I follow closely what's going on in Israel," said
Putin during the long meeting, which was held in Moscow.
"I support the struggle of Israel as it attempts
to protect its citizens. I also heard about the shocking murder of the
three youths. It is an act that cannot be allowed, and I ask you to
transmit my condolences to the families," added the Russian president,
in referring to the abduction and murder of three teens in June by Hamas
terrorists.
PUTIN AND NETANYAHU TO STRIKE DEAL ON
LEVIATHAN GAS FIELD
Erica
Mills
Israeli foreign affairs analyst, Ehud Yaari, says
Russian President Vladimir Putin & Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu want to
strike a deal on the Leviathan field
Ronald S. Lauder: Russia's fight against
anti-Semitism isn't just good for Jews – it's good for Russia as well
"At a time when global terrorism singles out Jews
around the world, at a time when we see the impact of intolerance and
hate on every continent, here in Russia, the Jewish community is
thriving. Jewish kindergartens and Jewish schools are filled to
capacity, synagogues are crowded on Shabbat. But Jews in Western Europe
are seriously thinking of leaving," Lauder said.
"President [Vladimir] Putin has made Russia a
country where Jews are welcome. And that's not just a good thing for
Jews. It is good for Russia as well," Lauder said. "It is because of
this unprecedented change that the World Jewish Congress looks to
continue to work with Russia. We want to be able to count on Russia as a
solid friend."
PUTIN TO NETANYAHU: ISRAEL, RUSSIA
'UNCONDITIONAL ALLIES' IN WAR AGAINST TERROR
Israel and Russia agreed to strengthen their regional military
cooperation, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian
President Vladimir Putin met face-to-face in the Kremlin on Tuesday.
The
two leaders agreed to tightened their cooperation in the fight against
terrorism and stressed the importance of ending regional violence such
as in Syria. They also reiterated the importance of Israel ending its
short-term conflict with Turkey and its long-standing one with the
Palestinians.
"We
discussed the continued coordination between our two militaries in the
region, which already works quite well," Netanyahu told reporters at a
joint press conference in the Kremlin with Putin after their meeting.
It
is their fourth meeting in the last year, and their third in Moscow.
The Countless Israeli Connections to
Mueller's Probe of Trump and Russia
Chemi Shalev
The Israeli media usually takes scant interest in
Robert Mueller's investigations. It prefers to dwell on Donald Trump's
supposedly pro-Israeli policies. Last week's report in the New York
Times about the participation of Joel Zamel, the Australian-born
"Israeli specialist in social media manipulation," in an August 3, 2016
meeting at Trump Tower in New York was an exception to the rule. The
FBI, the Times reported, had even come to Israel to search the offices
of Zamel's company. Here was a direct Israeli link to the scandal that
has bewitched much of America since Trump was first elected.
Mueller reveals ANOTHER effort to arrange
a Trump-Putin meeting – this one involving the chief Rabbi of Russia known
as 'Putin's Rabbi' who visited Trump Tower in 2016
Geoff
Earle
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report sketches
out yet another effort to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and
Russia's Vladimir Putin – this time from a man touting a connection to
the Chief Rabbi of Russia.
The Trump-Putin meeting never occurred, but Rabbi
Berel Lazar, known as 'Putin's Rabbi,' did attend a Trump Tower meeting
in 2016 with the man who pitched it.
Here are 5 shady ways Trump, Israel and
Russia are colluding on the world stage
Tana Ganeva
In
the latest bizarre twist in the Paul Manafort saga, the Guardian reports
that Manafort may have conspired with an Israeli official to manipulate
members of the Obama administration into supporting Viktor Yanukovych
over Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine, and link the latter to anti-Semitism.
Yanukovych was Russia's chosen candidate.
1.
As Bashar al-Assad moves to consolidate power in Syria, the US, Russia
and Israel seem united in their efforts to throw Hezbollah, a proxy of
Iran, out of the conflict. In mid-August, Secretary of State John Bolton
told ABC that the three countries are united in this goal.
3.
During the President's much derided one-on-one talks with Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump assured the world that the
security of Israel is a priority for both Russia and the United States.
4.
House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the
Russian Mafia, the writer Craig Unger writes about how up to 59 Russian
oligarchs have been cultivating Donald Trump and his associates for
years, through such means as New York's unregulated real estate
industry.
As
the Times of Israel has pointed out, many of these wealthy Russian
business-people also have ties to Israel.
5.
So far, the President has made good on his promise to prioritize the
interests of the current Israeli government.
It's not a surprise when Trump flouts international norms. But his
decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem sparked furor around the
world and led to deadly protests by Palestinians.
The
administration dismissed the demonstrations, in which multiple civilians
were killed, as 'unfortunate propaganda'.
Paul Manafort: Trump's ex-campaign chair
agrees to cooperate with Mueller
Jon Swaine
Manafort may have conspired with an Israeli
official to manipulate members of the Obama administration into
supporting Viktor Yanukovych over Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine, and link
the latter to anti-Semitism. Yanukovych was Russia's chosen candidate.
Manafort allegedly orchestrated a plan to smear a Yanukovych domestic
rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, by disseminating "with no fingerprints"
allegations that Tymoshenko had paid for the murder of a Ukrainian
official. "My goal is to plant some stink on Tymo," Manafort wrote in a
message.
He also allegedly schemed to have "Obama Jews" exert pressure on Barack
Obama's administration to support Yanukovych and disavow Tymoshenko, and
conspired with an Israeli government official to spread allegations
linking Tymoshenko to antisemitism. Manafort allegedly wrote in one
message to an unidentified associate: "I have someone pushing it on the
NY Post. Bada bing bada boom.
MATIMOP, Skolkovo deepen Israel-Russia
start-up cooperation
Israeli Industry Center for R&D (MATIMOP) and
Russia's Skolkovo Foundation will shortly announce a call for papers for
joint R&D project by Israeli and Russian start-ups to obtain support
from Office of the Chief Scientist in Israel and the Skolkovo
Foundation. Skolkovo Foundation VP Stanislav Naumov said, "The
difference between Russia and Israel's entrepreneurial system required
thinking together to find a formula for cooperation. The formula we
reached enables us to move forward to the stage of extensive
collaboration by ventures of the two countries. The special call for
papers that we are publishing is another important stage in developing
cooperation between Russia and Israel, which began a year ago with the
fostering of innovation and the commercialization of advanced
technologies."
Israel-Skolkovo Center co-managing director
Alexander Zinigrad said, "This is the first time that special binational
collaboration for start-ups has been declared in Israel. This is an
important measure, which gives a great boost to the cooperation that
began in the summer of 2011 between the start-up industry in Israel and
the Skolkovo Foundation. Since the establishment of the Israel-Skolkovo
Center, we have received scores of inquiries from Israeli start-up
companies every month. Within less than a year, we have assisted six
Israeli start-up companies at Skolkovo."
Putin Reveals Who Will Be the Lord of the
World
"Artificial intelligence is not only the future of
Russia, but the future of all mankind. It holds both tremendous
opportunities and is fraught with scarcely predictable dangers. Whoever
takes the lead in this sphere will become Lord of the World," President
Putin told Russian schoolchildren during an open lesson on their first
day of the new school year.
Hillary's Secret Kremlin Connection Is
Quickly Unraveling
John
Schindler
Exactly how Clinton profited off deals with
Skolkovo is something the American public has a right to know before
November 8.
Then there's the matter of what Skolkovo actually
is. In truth, it's nothing like Silicon Valley except in outward
appearance. It's a fully state-driven enterprise -- funded largely by the
Kremlin and acting on its orders. It does the bidding of the Russian
government, and President Putin has taken intense interest in his
high-tech complex, understanding its value to the country's defense and
security sector.
Yandex Partners With Tel Aviv University
to Launch AI Study Program, Scholarships
Amarella
Wenkert
The Russian technology company will launch the
Yandex Machine Learning Initiative, offering courses in artificial
intelligence and financial support to students and faculty
Modeled on Yeshiva University, first
Jewish university to open in Russia
Modeled after Yeshiva University in the United
States, The Jewish University of Moscow is a private institution with a
student body of 200 whose budget comes mostly from donors and the
Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, dean Alexander Lebedev told
JTA earlier this week.
The university -- whose faculties include
economics, law, humanities and Jewish studies – comprises two existing
Jewish community colleges: Institute XXI century for men and Institute
Machon CHaMeSH for women. Their reconstitution as campuses of a single,
state-recognized university is a first in Russian history, according to
Lebedev.
Russian VC shows the love to Israeli
startups
Abigail Klein Leichman
Titanium Investments unveils its $50 million
venture capital fund geared mainly to Israeli companies such as
Feedvisor, Any.do and MUV Interactive.
US backs Israel's proposal for railway
link to Gulf
The US has expressed support for an
Israeli plan to revive a historic railroad network linking the Jewish
state to Gulf countries.
Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump's
peace envoy, hailed the proposal on Monday as an Israeli minister visits
Oman to present the "Tracks for Regional Peace" project.
How Russia Created a Jewish Museum and
Tolerance Center Even Vladimir Putin Can Tolerate
Olga Gershenson
The museum project was initiated by the Federation
of Jewish Communities of Russia -- the umbrella organization for
Chabad-Lubavitch in Russia -- supported by the Kremlin and financed by a
handful of Russian Jewish oligarchs at a cost of $50 million. The
journey to museum from garage began in 2001, when Moscow City Hall
donated the dilapidated building to the Hasidic Jewish Community Center.
The idea was that the building would house a cultural center, including
an exhibition on Jewish culture and an art gallery. While this site is
neither central nor easily accessible to tourists, it is part of an
entire campus of Jewish religious and cultural organizations that
sprouted in the post-Soviet era in the traditionally Jewish neighborhood
(to the extent that Moscow has Jewish neighborhoods) of Maryina Roshcha.
The museum building shares its territory with a Jewish day school, a
yeshiva, a medical center and several Jewish charity organizations.
Several years of faltering attempts to renovate
the garage building ended in 2007, when Roman Abramovich, a federation
board member, restored it. In 2008 it opened its doors to the public as
the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, managed by Dasha Zhukova,
Abramovich's girlfriend at the time.
Top Israeli officials were part of KGB
spy ring -- report
Toi Staff
KGB files reportedly revealed the existence of an
extensive Soviet spy ring in Israel, encompassing Knesset members,
senior IDF officers, engineers, members of the Israeli intelligence
community, and others who worked on classified projects.
Top-secret KGB documents reported on by the
Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth Wednesday detailed the extent of
the network of agents run by the Soviet secret service.
The documents were copied over a period of 20
years by Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior KGB archivist who defected to the UK
in 1992. His edited notes on various KGB operations were released in
2014 and are stored in Churchill College in Cambridge; his handwritten
notes remain classified by MI5.
Soviet documents 'show Abbas was KGB
agent'; Fatah decries 'smear campaign'
Tamar
Pileggi
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was
a Soviet spy in Damascus in the 1980s, Israel's Channel 1 television
reported Wednesday, citing information it said was included in an
archive smuggled out of the USSR.
According to Channel 1's foreign news editor Oren
Nahari, the famed Mitrokhin archive, kept by KGB defector Vasily
Mitrokhin, revealed that Abbas was a Soviet mole in Damascus in 1983.
The documents -- obtained by Israeli researchers
Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez -- purportedly show that Abbas,
code-named Krotov (mole), was involved with the Soviets while Mikhail
Bogdanov, today Vladimir Putin's envoy to the Middle East. was stationed
in Damascus.
KGB Infiltrated Highest Echelons of
Israel's Army, Business, and Political Leadership
Richard
Silverstein
The Israeli military censor compelled Bergman to
suppress the names of the most damaging of the KGB spies working in
Israel in a three-part series published in recent weeks by Ynet. In part
four of his series, Bergman secured the cooperation of an Israeli triple
agent who worked for the CIA, KGB and Shabak. The ex-spy agreed to be
interviewed and for his identity to be exposed. But the IDF censor, Col.
Ariella Ben Avraham, so eviscerated the proposed article that it could
not be published. As a result, it will be some time before we learn this
individual's identity. Given that the former spy agreed to be identified
and the incident presumably occurred decades ago, one wonders what the
censor is protecting except her own power and prerogative to render
secret what should be known in any other democratic society.
Lieberman Appointed Israeli KGB Agent to
Senior Government Role, Then He Disappeared
Richard
Silverstein
Bergman, who is compelled by the military censor
to suppress the names of almost all of the spies, tells (Nana recounts
the story at 3:05 of this news report) of a Soviet Jew born in
south-central Russia in the mid-1950s. He studied engineering and was
considered quite proficient in his field of study. The spy, whose
code-name was Bejan, was recruited to an elite Soviet espionage school,
where he was trained in the field of spycraft. He made aliyah to Israel
and was inducted into the IDF shortly thereafter. He joined the officer
training school and from there rose quickly in the ranks until he was
appointed the chief of one of the army's most critical infrastructure
ventures. He was privy to a multitude of highly secret material
including the location of bases, infrastructure facilities, data on the
order of battle, and preparations for future wars.
After retiring from the IDF, he turned to various
jobs in private industry. Later, he was appointed by Avigdor Lieberman,
who himself has often been rumored to be a Russian intelligence asset,
to a senior post. Then suddenly, Bejan disappeared in 2005. He has not
been heard from since.
He is not the first person in Lieberman's circle
to suffer a strange, mysterious fate. News1 detailed the circumstances
in which several key witnesses in the last Lieberman investigation who
either committed suicide, disappeared, or "forgot" key elements of their
previous testimony. Among them are Michael Falkov, a Lieberman
communications advisor who disappeared in 2014. Yosef Shuldiner was
found shot to death in an Israeli cemetery in 2006. Artium Borovik, a
senior Russian journalist close to the Kremlin, whom Lieberman used to
lobby on behalf of his business ventures, died in a mysterious plane
crash in 2008. Daniella Mourtzi was the corporate accountant for five
Cyprus-based Lieberman companies which were fronts. She was to testify
as part of the government investigation into Lieberman's shady business
dealings about his ownership of the companies. But before her time came
to testify, she suddenly developed amnesia and couldn't recall a thing.
Another witness in Moldova (where Lieberman was born) was interrogated
and shortly afterward had a fatal stroke.
Soviet spies infiltrate Mossad, sources
say
Richard
Sale
Soviet infiltration of Israel's spy agency,
Mossad, is the most serious blow to Israeli intelligence since the 1970s
and U.S. intelligence also was breached as a result, U.S. sources
reveal.
Mossad has been penetrated by 'highly placed'
Soviet moles and a full-scale internal counterintelligence investigation
is under way, the intelligence sources said.
A Justice Department source said U.S.
counterintelligence agents became aware of the Israeli-Soviet espionage
pipeline when data stolen by Jonathan Jay Pollard, a U.S. Navy analyst
convicted of spying for Israel, was 'traced to the Eastern bloc.'
Intelligence sources said data reaching the
Soviets via this route included sensitive U.S. weapons technology and
strategic information about the defense forces of Turkey, Pakistan and
moderate Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia.
U.S. intelligence analysts said the Pollard data
was traded to the Soviets in return for promises to increase emigration
of Soviet Jews to Israel.
One analyst said Israel's 'right-wing' Jews are
involved with spying for the Soviets and called it 'ironic,' noting that
left-wing elements were responsible for similar scandals in the past.
No Love Lost
Yossi
Melman
"There is a paradoxical situation," says the chief rabbi of Moscow. "The
Jews in Russia have power, money and influence, as never before; yet at
the same time the situation of the Jewish community is at an all-time
low." A guide to the wars of the Jewish oligarchs in Russia.
Why Data Science is Booming in Israel
Jacob Maslow
Yandex, the "Google of Russia," is going to expand
into Israel. The tech firm, the largest in Russia, will be launching a
few services in Israel. The firm will be launching Yandex Music in just
a few weeks, and then there are additional plans for Israel.
Times of Israel broke the news that Yandex is
still thinking about opening a taxi venture in Israel and also plans to
offer an eight-month course in data science. Yandex plans to introduce
their Y-Data initiative in Israel, a course that will be very similar to
what is already running in Russia.
Exploring Al Qaeda's Murky Connection To
Russian Intelligence
John
Schindler
[Note: This is an unusually controversial piece, even for my blog, for
reasons that will quickly become obvious. Linkages between Al-Qa'ida and
Russian intelligence have been discussed in hushed tones among spies in
many countries, for years, and this matter has been a "hobby file" of
mine for some time. Here is a think-piece on it, in the hope of spurring
additional discussion and research into this important yet murky matter.
This is particularly necessary given rising tensions between Moscow and
the West at present.
'The USSR Is Our Second Homeland,' Said
One Kibbutznik When Stalin Died
Tom Segev
In
fact, it is of interest to recall - incredible as it may seem - that
Stalin's Soviet Union was once at the center of Israeli identity. In the
first Knesset, the left-wing Mapam (United Workers Party ) was the
second-largest faction, with 19 seats. During the debate over the makeup
of the government that was held in the Knesset on March 10, 1949, one of
Mapam's two leaders, Ya'akov Hazan of Kibbutz Mishmar Ha'emek, said:
"For us, the Soviet Union is the fortress of world socialism, it is our
second homeland, the socialist one." That comment could go down as one
of the 10 most-quoted sentences in the history of Israeli politics.
Jabotinsky's Likud Was Anything but a
Liberal Bastion
Ofri Ilany
While Ze'ev Jabotinsky has in recent years been
lionized as the picture of a faultless liberal standout, there is no
justification for describing Likud as a movement that was once liberal
and has deteriorated into fascism.
David Ben-Gurion visited the Soviet Union in 1923,
and drew inspiration from the Leninist form of organization and use of
power. He described Lenin admiringly as "an iron-willed man who would
not spare human life or the blood of the innocent on behalf of the
revolution." In the wake of that visit, Ben-Gurion built his political
party into a power-centric revolutionary organization that was not
squeamish about using whatever means possible to realize its objectives.
RUSSIANS AND JEWS: THE ODD COUPLE
Jonathan
Adelman
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in the last
three years gone nine times to a Russia that has promoted dozens of
Russian Jews to become oligarchs in the new Russia.
FROM RUSSIA WITH JEWS
Amiram Barkat and Yossi Melman
Zvi Magen did what few Israelis would dare to do:
He rejected a tempting, well-paying job offer from Arcadi Gaydamak, the
Israeli-Russian oligarch, whom the State Prosecutor's office is
considering putting on trial for money laundering, and who is wanted in
France on suspicion of illegal arms trading with Angola. Gaydamak wanted
Magen to head the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and
Organizations in Russia (KEROOR). This is an off-the-shelf organization
that came to life about 18 months ago under the aegis of Gaydamak, who
contributes money to it and acts as its president.
Magen received the generous offer a few months
ago, while he was still head of Nativ, but preferred to join the
Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya as head of a new Euro-Asia institute
that will conduct "studies from the Balkans to Mongolia."
Magen, a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense
Forces reserves and a former ambassador to Ukraine and Russia, has
headed Nativ for almost seven years. He concluded his term of office at
the beginning of last month, but his successor has only just been named.
Last week, Naomi Ben Ami, Israel's ambassador to Ukraine, was chosen to
head Nativ. This is the first time in the history of the Israeli
intelligence community that a woman has been named to head one of its
agencies - although Nativ in fact is no longer involved in intelligence.
HOLY RUSSIA SACRED ISRAEL
Dominic
Rubin
Jewish‐Christian Encounters in Russian Religious
Thought
Russia's use of false flag terrorism
facilitating the rise of Putin
'September, 1998: Kremlin Insider Predicts
'Massive Unrest' to Journalist'
March 19, 1999: Bombing in Russian Market Near
Chechnya Kills Fifty.
June 6, 1999: Kremlin False Flag Terror Plot
Rumors Surface in Swedish Newspaper
July 22, 1999: Russian Journalist Alleges
Destabilization Plot by Kremlin Insiders
September 9, 1999: Apartment Blast in Moscow Kills
94; Chechen Rebels Blamed
September 13, 1999: Second Moscow Apartment
Bombing Kills 118; Chechen Rebels Blamed
September 22-24, 1999: FSB Agents Plant Large Bomb
in Ryazan: 'Security Exercise' or Terror Plot?
Henry Kissinger's criminal sale of
nuclear weapons technology to Soviet Russia in 1972
Antony Sutton
Kalmanowich affair shows
KGB-Israeli mafia link
Thierry Lalevee and Joseph Brewda
On Dec. 23, 1987, Israeli businessman Shabtai
Kalmanowich was arrested by Israeli authorities on charges of being "a
spy
for the Soviet Union." Since his emigration from Lithuania in 1971,
Kalmanowich had become a leading figure in the Israeli political and
business establishment, directing a far-flung diamond, gold, gambling,
prostitution, and armstrafficking empire, based in Africa, West Germany,
and New York City. When Israeli authorities announced Kalmanowich's
arrest on Jan. 10, however, they failed to mention the fact that
millionaire Kalmanowich was also an officer in the Israeli foreign
intelligence service, the Mossad. Kalmanowich was something of the late
CIA director Bill Casey's ideal intelligence officer: He made a fortune
as he carried out espionage.
Kalmanowich is certainly not the first Soviet
Jewish
emigre caught as a spy;
there have been four or five over recent years. Analyzing this
phenomenon, a former head of Israeli military intelligence reported on
Israeli television that there are two kinds of spies among the emigres:
those who are blackmailed because their families have remained behind,
and those who are ideologically committed to Soviet communism.
Kalmanowich belonged to the second category.
The Chicago School of Economics
Jon Swinn
This infographic displays the connections and
people known collectively as the 'Chicago School'. The strong links to
the elites are identified.
The neoconservative as well as Thatcherism and the
false opposition libertarian movement find their roots in the 'Chicago
School'.
This is essential background information into
understanding the next infographic 'Rise of the Neo-Cons / Wohlstetter
Network'.
The Rise of the Neo-Cons / Wohlstetter
Network
Jon Swinn
This infographic displays the links between some of the important
players behind the creation of the neoconservative movement, 9/11 and
resulting War on Terror.
[Perle, Feith, Gaffney] Suspected Soviet
Cell Wrote Reagan's Long-Term Strategy
Jeffrey
Steinberg
Jackson - Vanik amendment
Jackson organized the political movement to link
trade and emigration in America's relations with the Soviet Union in
concert with Jewish activists, but he soon took matters into his own
hands. Jackson drafted what would become the Jackson–Vanik amendment in
the summer of 1972 and introduced it to the Ninety-second Congress on
October 4, 1972. Jackson's efforts, rooted in his own domestic political
calculations and ideological distrust of and antipathy toward the Soviet
Union, complicated the Nixon White House's pursuit of Detente, which it
had worked on since 1969. However, three-quarters of the Senate
co-sponsored the amendment, neutralizing opposition from President
Nixon.
Jackson's staffer Richard Perle said in an
interview that the idea belonged to Jackson, who believed that the right
to emigrate was the most powerful among the human rights in certain
respects: "if people could vote with their feet, governments would have
to acknowledge that and governments would have to make for their
citizens a life that would keep them there." While there was some
opposition, the American Jewish establishment on the whole and Soviet
Jewry activists (particularly the Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry
and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry) supported the amendment...
Soviet Union
At first the Jackson–Vanik amendment did little to
help free Soviet Jewry. The number of exit visas declined after the
passing of the amendment. However, in the late 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev
agreed to comply with the protocols of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe. Lazin (2005) states that scholars differ on how
effective the amendment was in helping Soviet Jews. Some argue that it
helped bring the plight of Soviet Jews to the world's attention, while
others believe it hindered emigration and decreased America's diplomatic
bargaining power.
Since 1975 more than 500,000 refugees, large
numbers of whom were Jews, evangelical Christians, and Catholics from
the former Soviet Union, have been resettled in the United States. An
estimated one million Soviet Jews have immigrated to Israel in that
time.
Jackson-Vanik also led to great changes within the
Soviet Union. Other ethnic groups subsequently demanded the right to
emigrate, and the ruling Communist Party had to face the fact that there
was widespread dissatisfaction with its governance
Russia
In 2003, Vladimir Putin pursued an economic agenda
for Russia to begin normalized trade relations with the West which
included Russia joining the European Union and the repeal of the
Jackson-Vannik amendment. Putin tried to use his relationships with both
the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was the head of the
European Union's Council in 2003, to gain Russia's membership in the
European Union, and also Hank Greenberg, who was the chairman and CEO of
the American International Group (AIG), to repeal the Jackson-Vannik
provisions in the United States.[20] Putin wished for Greenberg to
support through Greenberg's AIG greater development of the nascent
Russian home-mortgage market.
On November 16, 2012 the U.S. House of
Representatives passed a bill that would repeal the Jackson–Vanik
amendment for Russia and Moldova. After approval by the Senate, the law
repealing the effects of the Jackson–Vanik amendment on Russia and
Moldova was signed together with Magnitsky bill by President Barack
Obama on December 14, 2012.
Excerpt from Robert Friedman's Red Mafiya -
America's gates were opened to Jewish mobsters by
the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which withheld most-favored-nation status
from Marxist countries that restricted Jewish emigration. According to
Mr. Friedman, the Soviets were happy to oblige during the 1970s by
"emptying their jails of thousands of hard-core criminals, dumping vast
numbers of undesirables" on an unsuspecting United States. More than
40,000 Soviet Jews settled in Brighton Beach which soon became the seat
of the "Organisatsiya," the new Jewish mob. Initially assisted by the
Genovese crime family and the politically astute and well-connected
Jewish rabbi Ronald Greenwald, the Jewish mobsters, some of whom have
Ph.D.s in mathematics, physics and engineering, as well as MBAs, quickly
expanded their operations to include bank fraud, money laundering,
Medicare and insurance fraud, counterfeiting, drug dealing, natural gas
bootlegging - scams which netted billions of dollars. The mob has even
infiltrated the National Hockey League through its intimidation of
Russian and Ukrainian players.
The Soviet mole network running U.S.
counterintelligence
At the very beginning of 1988, a purported
"official CIA
evaluation" of
the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy case surfaced among senior French
intelligence officers. The essential conclusion of the dossier,
according to French officials who directly reviewed it, was that the
Pollard case showed only that "one or two" KGB agents had infiltrated
Israeli intelligence. No higher-level problems were shown to exist
within the Mossad. The purported document went on to say, that while
senior Israeli officials, including Ariel Sharon and Rafael "Dirty Rafi"
Eytan, would be cut off from continued
collaboration with their American counterparts,
there was no
evidence
suggesting that the pair were either Soviet "moles" or involved in any
witting perfidy with Moscow.
Whether or not the document was a bona fide CIA
damage
assessment, the
evaluation, as reported, is a fraud. Not only was Jonathan Jay Pollard
merely one small fish in an extensive Soviet "false flag" espionage ring
run through the highest
levels of Israeli intelligence; the same ring,
operating principally through Israeli and social democratic channels,
has
successfully penetrated the
inner sanctums of the Reagan administration's counterintelligence
apparatus.
The "CIA document" bears mentioning, because it
perhaps provides a clue to the identities of some of the "bigger
fish"-American
and Israeli-who are still in place, attempting to "damage control" the
continuing search for "other Pollards. "
The Israeli spy network that
Jonathan Pollard left behind
Joseph Brewda
Sanhedrin Asks Putin and Trump to Build
Third Temple in Jerusalem
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
The Nascent Sanhedrin is calling on Russian
President Vladmir Putin and US president-elect Donald Trump to join
forces and fulfill their Biblically-mandated roles by rebuilding the
Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the Sanhedrin,
contacted Breaking Israel News to announce that the election of Trump,
who has promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,
coupled with Putin's expressed desire for the Temple to be rebuilt,
prompted the Jewish court to send a letter offering the two the
opportunity to act as modern-day Cyrus figures: non-Jewish kings who
recognize the importance of Israel and the Temple.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: 200 years together - English audiobook
Part 1
Part 2
Grant
Stern
Grant Stern's 10 part series on the Grand Old
Putin Party.
Part 1 - Prologue
Part 2-
Putin's Propagandist Eerily Predicted Trump's Relationship With General
Flynn and Dana Rohrabacher Last Year
Part 3-
Putin's Favorite Congressman Secretly Met With Paul Manafort After The
FBI Warned Russian Agents Were Recruiting Him
Part 4-
The GOP's Favorite Russian Professor Spent Decades Building Conservative
Ties To Moscow
Part 5-
American University In Moscow: Linked To Russian State, But Fake Like
TrumpU
Part 6-
Here's Lozansky Introducing Republicans To The Father Of Russian Foreign
Intelligence -- And Putin's Mentor
Part 7-
Soviet Human Rights Activists Believed Lozansky Worked With Russian
Intelligence
Part 8-
From Orange Revolution To "Stars And Stripes Revolution"
Part 9-
Opinion: Edward Lozansky's Russia Lobby Compromised The Republican Party
Part 10-
Opinion: Without Ed Lozansky, Trump-Russia Could Not Have Happened
Communism Among Jewish Children in Russia
Nov 5, 1924
The Communist Child Movement, according to figures
published here, includes 7,000 organized Jewish children in the Ukraine
and 2,000 in White Russia. The work among the Jewish "pioneers", as they
are called, is conducted exclusively in the Yiddish language. There are
five detachments of Jewish "pioneers" in Witebsk, three in Homel, a
Jewish "pioneer" base in Minsk, and scores of detachments in Odessa and
Kiev. "Pioneer" clubs are attached to the schools, children's homes and
workshops. A proposal is now made for the publication of a special
Yiddish magazine for the Communist Child Movement.
Freiheit Calls on Jews to Desert Zionism, Back Soviets
Nov 9, 1930
Calling upon the Jewish workers to desert the
Zionist cause and to fight for Soviet Russia and Communism, an editorial
in Friday's Freiheit, New York Yiddish Communist organ, enumerates what
it alleges to be Jewish failures in Palestine with regard to land
settlement, and contrasts this with what it regards as the great success
of Jewish land settlement in Russia within recent years.
"During the past five years the Soviet Union has
settled three hundred thousand Jews on the land," says the editorial.
"During the coming five years it will build a large new settlement in
Bira-Bidjan. Wherever Jews live in compact masses the whole governmental
apparatus is conducted in Yiddish. If great Jewish masses will come to
Bira-Bidjan a Soviet Republic will be organized there.
"All this is being done by the Soviet Republic
without noise, without trumpeting; it is part of the general work of
building up the country. The Jews in the Soviet Union have equal rights
together with all citizens. Jewish books and periodicals are being
issued at the expense of the government. Anti-Semitism is being uprooted
with an iron hand.
"In Palestine it is just the opposite. There
during the past fifty years hundreds of millions of dollars have poured
in, nevertheless only about twenty thousand Jews are settled upon the
land. There everything is kept up by philanthropy, and there is no room
for a large Jewish population. There the ruler is the British
imperialistic power which has encouraged pogroms and which now declares
openly that it will give the Jews no governmental power in Palestine.
There Jews are being settled upon alien soil from which the peasants are
being driven off by force, although they have been living there scores
and hundreds of years. There a poisonous hatred on the part of the local
population towards the aliens who come with the bayonet and the dollar
exists, and the masses have already revolted against the alien
oppressors."
"Down with Zionism! Long live the Soviet Union!"
JEWS CREATED COMMUNISM
Dewey
(Buddy) Tucker
THE JEWS AND THE COMMUNIZATION OF RUSSIA
Elizabeth Dilling
Very few people are aware of the extent to which
Jews were responsible for the Communization of Russia, first through
organizing of the unsuccessful revolution of 1905, and then the later
and successful Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Both were heavily financed
by outside Jewish financial and banking houses, and ultimately resulted
in Jews assuming control of what had become the Russian Soviet
Government. Concurrently, Jewish machinations in the United States,
Germany and elsewhere helped set the stage for the take-over.
The Three Holodomor Genocides
"You must understand. The leading Bolsheviks who
took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated
Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered
millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. The October
Revolution was not what you call in America the "Russian Revolution." It
was an invasion and conquest over the Russian people. More of my
countrymen suffered horrific crimes at their bloodstained hands than any
people or nation ever suffered in the entirety of human history. It
cannot be understated. Bolshevism was the greatest human slaughter of
all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant of this reality is
proof that the global media itself is in the hands of the perpetrators."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), Nobel-Prize-winning novelist,
historian and victim of Jewish Bolshevism (Marxism).
Woodrow Wilson And The Zionist Network
Infographic highlighting the Zionist influence
surrounding Woodrow Wilson, his rise to power and historical events
during his presidency and the role of the Zionist powers in the creation
of WW1, WW2, creation of the Federal Reserve system, Bolshevik
Revolution, Great Depression etc.
Geneva Versus Peace
Comte de Saint-Aulaire
Comte de Saint-Aulaire, French Ambassador to Great
Britain in the 1920s, discussed his meetings with Kuhn, Loeb, & Co.
financiers. They had discussions regarding why they [the Kuhn, Loeb, &;
Co. bankers] financed the Bolshevik Revolution. One of them said (p.
80):
"You say that Marxism is the very antithesis of
capitalism, which is equally sacred to us. It is precisely for this
reason that they are direct opposites to one another, that they put into
our hands the two poles of this planet and allow us to be its axis.
These two contraries, like Bolshevism and ourselves, find their identity
in the International. These opposites, which are at the antipodes to one
another in society and in their doctrines meet again in the identity of
their purpose and end, the remaking of the world from above by the
control of riches, and from below by revolution.
Our mission consists in promulgating the new law
and in creating a God, that is to say in purifying the idea of God and
realizing it, when the time shall come.
We shall purify the idea by identifying it with
the nation of Israel, which has become its own Messiah. The advent of it
will be facilitated by the final triumph of Israel, which has become
it's own Messiah."
This same financier also said (pp. 83-84):
"our essential dynamism makes use of the forces of
destruction and forces of creation, but uses the first to nourish the
second. Our organization for revolution is evidenced by destructive
Bolshevism and for construction by the League of Nations which is also
our work. Bolshevism is the accelerator and the League is the brake on
the mechanism of which we supply both the motive force and the guiding
power.
What is the end? It is already determined by our
mission. It is formed of elements scattered throughout the whole world,
but cast in the flame of our faith in ourselves. We are a League of
Nations which contains the elements of all others."
Israeli support for anti-Ukrainian
separatists of "Novorussia"
Sean Jobst
Eurasianists and Nazbols link Ukraine with Israel,
ignoring Putin's close alliance with Israel and the central involvement
of hardcore Zionists like Avigdor Eskin in Dugin's networks. They
rewrite this narrative to deceive Western dissidents opposed to Zionism
and Jewish power, into signing off on their own anti-Ukrainian
subversion. Their efforts to enlist support for separatists who openly
proclaim themselves a Communist "People's Republic", include bizarre
claims that have been refuted by no less a figure as Donetsk leader
Denis Pushilin, who openly touts himself as "Chairman of the Soviet"
while his fighters brandish Soviet flags and include many foreign
Communists.
Borscht Belt: Will Israel Spurn America
for Russia?
Lincoln Mitchell
FOR MOST OF LAST YEAR, THE WEST STRUGGLED TO find
an appropriate response to Russia's incursions into Crimea and eastern
and southern Ukraine. Many European and North American governments
strongly condemned Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, but Israel
has been noticeably silent.
In the past, Israel has been similarly mum on
Russian aggression -- or worse. In 2008, when the Russia-Georgia war began,
Israel cut its previously substantial military support for Georgia and
withdrew its military advisors.
Why has Israel declined to slap Russia? Because
the Jewish state may someday need Russia as a powerful ally if relations
with the U.S. wither -- something that's not an immediate risk but not
necessarily unthinkable .
The Partition Plan, November 29, 1947:
Soviet Support for Establishing Israel in Perspective
Alex Grobman
Given the Soviet Union's avowed hostility to
Zionism, the Soviet vote "came as a great surprise, as a bombshell,"
recounted Moshe Sharett, then head of the Jewish Agency's political
department.
When May Day Was a Major Event in Israel
Armin Rosen
It wasn't just that Stalin's Red Army had
liberated Auschwitz, or that "the Soviets had shipped Czech weapons to
the IDF in 1948" and supported Jewish statehood at a crucial moment,
including in the United Nations partition vote in 1947. The ties went
deeper than any political alliance: For many, Zionism was an avowedly
secular pro-labor movement with the same utopian aims as Communism
itself. As Halevi writes, the logo of the newspaper for the Hashomer
Hatzair Marxist Zionist movement translated to "For Zionism -- For
Socialism -- For the Fraternity of Nations."
May Day was a major event for some Israeli
communities, outranking most of the Jewish holidays in importance.
Stalin's Jews
Sever Plocker
We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers
of modern times were Jewish
Back in the USSR?
David
Horovitz
Chabad's chief rabbi
The Jewish leader closest to Putin is Chabad's
Berel Lazar, one of Russia's two chief rabbis, a Milan-born, New
York-ordained emissary, who first came here in the late 1980s on several
trips to teach Judaism to refuseniks and was then appointed by the
Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to help revive and
strengthen the Jewish community as the Soviet Union entered its death
throes in 1990.
A father of 12 aged 49, with a graying beard and
the trademark Chabad warmth -- he immediately invites me for Shabbat
dinner when we meet -- Lazar works from a book-lined sixth-floor office
in the Moscow Jewish Community Center building that houses his
now-thriving Maryina Roshcha District synagogue.
When he arrived, Lazar recalls, there was "an
underground" of people leading a return to Judaism. By 1989 Mikhail
Gorbachev had granted "unofficial permission to open a school and a
yeshiva." And when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, most everyone
whose Judaism was important to them was leaving. "The place was emptying
out. The Israeli embassy was sure there'd be no Jews left," says Lazar.
"They laughed at us as we tried to fix up synagogues. It was a conveyor
belt: come to shul, learn Hebrew, go to Israel. No one thought there'd
be a future here."
Putin Welcomes Kissinger: 'Old Friends'
to Talk Shop
Ellen
Berry
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin will meet Friday
with former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to discuss world
affairs, including elections in Russia and the United States, said Mr.
Putin's press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov.
Mr. Peskov said Mr. Kissinger requested the
meeting in late November or early December. The two men are "old
friends" who have met 8 or 10 times over the years, once dining at Mr.
Kissinger's home in New York, he said. Mr. Peskov said Mr. Putin was
interested in Mr. Kissinger's counsel about domestic politics, among
other subjects.
"He values everyone's point of view, and
especially such a wise man as Henry Kissinger," Mr. Peskov said.
Alexander Dugin - The one Russian linking
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Henry Meyer, Onur Ant
Dugin, who's been described as everything from an
occult fascist to a mystical imperialist, lost his prestigious job
running the sociology department at Moscow State University in 2014
after activists accused him of encouraging genocide. Thousands of people
signed a petition calling for his removal after a rant in support of
separatists in Ukraine in which he said, "kill, kill, kill."
What is Duginism and why it matters
Youtube video by Freedom Alternative.
Duginist publication calls Russians and
Jews "chosen peoples"
Sean Jobst
The volume was part of an effort to strengthen
ties between the Eurasianist movement and Chabad and far-right-wing
Zionist movements, approvingly quoting one of Bromberg's contemporaries
(Lev Karsavin, who greeted the Soviet regime) about the "primordial tie
between the Jewish people and Russia". Dugin has praised the predominant
Jewish role in Bolshevism as representing a continued "positive" Jewry,
that can now contribute to "the general struggle against Western
culture" and to the founding of the "Great Eurasian Empire". He extolled
"messianic national-bolshevism" as "the spiritual union of Jewish and
Russian eurasianists".
Rise of the NazBols
MAGA OPUS Bitchute video.
Holocaust Deniers in Russia Now Face Five
Years in Prison
ussian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on
Monday making the denial of Nazi crimes and distortion of the Soviet
Union's role in the World War Two a criminal offence punishable by up to
five years in jail.
The law, described by critics as an attempt to
curb freedom of expression to appease conservative Russians, the ex-KGB
spy's main support base, also criminalises the public desecration of war
memorials.
The Kremlin has used World War Two as a pillar to
unite a society that Putin has said lost its moral bearings following
the 1991 Soviet collapse.
It has become increasingly risky for Russians to
dispute an official line that glorifies the wartime achievements of the
Soviet leadership and plays down its errors.
The new law would ban "wittingly spreading false
information about the activity of the USSR during the years of World War
Two".
LIFE AFTER PUTIN: THE JARED KUSHNER OF
RUSSIA
Fiona Zublin
The putative son-in-law is the son of Nikolay
Shamalov, one of Putin's longtime friends and hockey buddies. "Putin
made Shamalov Jr. a billionaire and effected a transfer of wealth to the
next generation," Dawisha says. Nikolay is also a shareholder in Rossiya
Bank -- described by the BBC as the "personal bank" of Russian oligarchs
-- and was sanctioned by the U.S. and EU after tensions mounted over the
annexation of Crimea in 2014, along with several other Russian banks and
businessmen.
Former Israeli double agent shot dead
near Putin's office
Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem
Shabtai Kalmanovich, a former Israeli double agent who penetrated Golda
Meir's government on behalf of the KGB, has been shot dead in Moscow.
Kalmanovich, who later became a prominent businessman and allegedly had
links with the Russian mafia, died after an unidentified gunman fired at
least 20 shots into his chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz. Mr Kalmanovich's
driver was seriously wounded in the incident.
"Kalmanovich had practically no chance of surviving," a police official
was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency. "He died on the
spot from numerous gun wounds." A figure with a colourful if chequered
past, Kalmanovich and his Jewish family immigrated to Israel from
Lithuania in 1971.
After becoming an Israeli citizen, he joined the Israeli Labour Party,
was appointed to a position in the government press office and became a
mole for the KGB.
Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The
Life and Murder of a Media Mogul
Robert Younes
Was Robert Maxwell a Soviet spy? FBI
files reveal US fears the media mogul was working for Russia
Rob Cooper
Stalin & Secret Diaries: "Soviet
Involvement in the Creation of the State of Israel"
The Maisky Diaries ed by Gabriel
Gorodetsky, review: 'a spectacular find'
Nicholas Shakespeare
n February 1953, two weeks before Stalin's death,
Ivan Maisky, Soviet ambassador to London from 1932 to 1943, was arrested
and accused of being a British spy. Interrogated 36 times in his
Lubyanka cell, the stocky exdiplomat was detained for two years without
books, pen or paper.
Rehabilitated in 1960 and desperate to write his
memoirs, he was granted one year of limited access to his personal
archive, which included the 1,500-page diary Maisky had kept while in
London, when he enjoyed automatic access to the chief personalities of
the day.
Published in the Sixties and written under the
twin clouds of purges and censorship, his memoirs were apologetic,
misleading and selective - and not terribly interesting. Then, in 1993,
the historian Gabriel Gorodetsky discovered Maisky's original diary in
the Russian Foreign Ministry. "Spiced with anecdotes and gossip", this
differed radically from the official version. Its candid depictions of
the British political and social scene reminded Gorodetsky of Samuel
Pepys.
Harry Hopkins, Soviet agent
But there are still many people alive who can
remember when the chief confidant of President Franklin Roosevelt was a
man named Harry Hopkins. And they will be understandably astonished to
learn that in a message dated May 29, 1943, Iskhak Akhmerov, the chief
Soviet "illegal" agent in the United States at the time, referred to an
Agent 19 who had reported on discussions between Roosevelt and Winston
Churchill in Washington at which the agent had been present. Only Harry
Hopkins meets the requirements for this agent's identity. Small wonder
that Akhmerov, in a lecture in Moscow in the early 1960s, identified
Hopkins by name as "the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in
the United States."
It took 50 years to bludgeon Alger Hiss' defenders
into admitting that this suave bureaucrat, who rose to be chief of the
State Department's Office of Special Political Affairs, had actually
been a Soviet agent all along. And it will probably take another 50 to
force Franklin Roosevelt's admirers to concede that their hero's closest
confidant and adviser was yet another Soviet agent.
But the documents and the testimony are now on the
public record, and they make it plain that those of us who sounded the
warning about Soviet espionage and policy subversion 50 years ago didn't
know the half of it.
The Resumption Of Russian-"Israeli" Free
Trade Talks Proves Ties Are Fantastic
Andrew Korybko
No, Russian-"Israeli" ties aren't in a state of
"crisis" after the latter bombed Syria earlier this month, but are
actually enjoying an unprecedented flourishment that won't be offset by
whatever happens in the Arab Republic, and Moscow might even tie Tel
Aviv into the same multilateral free trade area that has recently
expanded to include Iran.
"Israel's" bombing of Syria earlier this month
predictably prompted many in the Alt-Media to declare that this time
Russia will surely 'teach its ally a lesson' by openly turning into the
'anti-Zionist crusader state' that their dogma has indoctrinated them
into imagining that it's been this entire time. They were, as is
becoming the norm, totally wrong, and three specific events prove that
ties between the two sides aren't in a state of "crisis" but are rather
flourishing, with the latest milestone in their relationship being the
resumption of free trade talks.
Israel and Russia are NOT on the verge of
war. They are allies!
Andrew Korybko
The alternative media community, especially its
social media iteration, is experiencing collective psychosis in
hallucinating that "Israel" and Russia are on the verge of war with one
another.
The prevailing narrative is that Israeli "Defense
Minister" Lieberman's threat to destroy Syria's air defense systems is
tantamount to a declaration of war against Russia, with the assumption
being that Moscow is on a crusade against Zionism and has thus become
Tel Aviv's worst enemy.
There's no diplomatic way to say this, but the
presumptions on which such a crazy conclusion has been reached are
absolutely and utterly wrong.
Far from being Israel's hated nemesis like many in
the alternative media community wishfully pretend that it is, Moscow is
one of Tel Aviv's closest allies, and this is entirely due to President
Putin's deliberate policies. Not only does he enjoy a very strong
personal friendship with Netanyahu, but President Putin also sees a lot
of opportunity to advance his country's interests in Israel through the
large Russian diaspora there.
Does anyone still seriously think that
Russia and Israel aren't allies
Andrew Korybko
Russian Oil Giant Rosneft Expands in
Middle East
Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft has begun
to expand its operations in the Middle East with deals in Libya and
Iraq, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.
Rosneft, which is run by Putin ally Igor Sechin,
struck a deal to purchase an undisclosed amount of crude oil from the
Libyan National Oil Corp on Monday. The deal will also allow the Russian
company to invest in exploration and production in the volatile North
African country.
The chairman of National Oil Corp welcomed the
deal, saying it would help to stabilize the warring country's economy.
"We need the assistance and investment of major
international oil companies to reach our production goals and stabilize
our economy," NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement.
Rosneft announced on the same day it had struck a
deal with authorities of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq
to purchase oil until 2019. The deal with Kurdish authorities will also
allow the Russian company to invest in exploration and production.
REPORT: MAJORITY OF ISRAELI OIL IMPORTED
FROM KURDISTAN
Sharon
Udasin
On Sunday night, The Financial Times reported that
Israel had imported as much as 77 percent of its oil supply from
Kurdistan in recent months, bringing in some 19 million barrels between
the beginning of May and August 11. During that period, more than a
third of all northern Iraqi exports, shipped through Turkey's Ceyhan
port, went to Israel, with transactions amounting to almost $1b., the
report said, citing "shipping data, trading sources and satellite tanker
tracking."
Nonetheless, Dr. Amit Mor, CEO of the Eco Energy
Financial and Strategic Consulting firm, confirmed to The Jerusalem Post
that "for some time, Kurdish oil [has been arriving] to the Ashkelon
petroleum port." In all likelihood, he explained, the oil was being
stored at the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company facilities for commercial
reasons, by international trading firms and investors. Israel's
refineries may then be purchasing the oil from the international
companies, he added.
Importing Kurdish oil could be beneficial to
Israel from both geostrategic and economic perspectives, according to
Mor.
"Although I don't think the Kurds are having major
difficulties in exporting their oil these days, it is very sensible for
the Israeli refineries to purchase Kurdish oil via Turkey's Ceyhan
petroleum port, as it takes only one day of sailing for oil tankers to
reach the Ashkelon petroleum port. Such is also the case for
[Azerbaijani] oil," he said.
The Truth about Oil and the Iraq War, 15
Years Later
Gary Vogler
The oil agenda I discovered and experienced was to
supply Iraq oil to Israel. The players were the neoconservatives in the
Bush Administration, their favorite Iraqi – Dr Ahmed Chalabi and the
Israeli government. One of the motives was because Israel was paying a
huge premium for its oil imports and this premium had just started in
the late1990s. The agenda called for the reopening of the old Kirkuk to
Haifa pipeline and its significant expansion. When this pipeline plan
became unattainable in the 2nd half of 2003 then Chalabi took other
actions to get inexpensive Iraqi oil to Israel.
A much more credible explanation for intentionally
destroying the Syrian export pipeline than what Secretary Rumsfeld told
the NY Times was found in the British press. The Guardian, a London
newspaper, quoted a retired CIA agent just after the Syria pipeline
attack. "It has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people
now driving the Bush administration and the war in Iraq to safeguard
Israel's energy supply.
Russia is suspected of deploying troops
to Libya, but what's Moscow's play in this muddy conflict?
"Vladimir Putin wants to make the war-torn North
African country 'his new Syria.'" Citing sources in British
intelligence, the tabloid claimed that Russia has already embedded
"dozens" of GRU agents and Spetsnaz troops in eastern Libya, and
established two military bases in the coastal towns of Tobruk and
Benghazi, supposedly using the Wagner private military group as "cover."
Russian Kalibr anti-ship missiles and S-300 air-defense systems are also
reportedly on the ground in Libya. The tabloid's sources claimed that
the Kremlin has sided with the warlord General Khalifa Haftar in an
effort to "seize control of the country's coastline." This would
allegedly give Russia the power to unleash a "fresh tidal wave of
migrants" across the Mediterranean "like a tap."
note -
Khalifa
Belqasim Haftar studied in Egypt and the Soviet Union, also at the M.V.
Frunze Military Academy. He is a fluent Russian speaker. In 1969, Haftar
took part in the coup that brought Muammar Gaddafi to power and
overthrew the monarchy.
9/11 inside job "impossible to conceal," says Vladimir Putin
"Claims that the terror attacks of September 11,
2001 were orchestrated by US intelligence agencies are "complete
nonsense," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told attendees of a youth
forum"
How the War on Terrorism Did Russia a
Favor
Simon Shuster
"Putin, who had been the first to call Bush with
his sympathy after learning of the 9/11 attacks, graciously offered to
help with the invasion of Afghanistan"
Putin: Russia warned U.S. of Iraq terror
"Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country
warned the United States several times that Saddam Hussein's regime was
planning terror attacks on the United States and its overseas interests"
REPORT: IRAN ACCUSES RUSSIA OF GIVING ISRAEL CODES FOR SYRIAN AIR DEFENSES
Yasser Okbi, Maariv Hashavua
According to the source, Damascus and Tehran "were
shocked" every time the Russian-made air defense system did not work to
defend Syria's airspace, or even give notification that the air space
had been penetrated in order to evacuate outposts prior to the
airstrike. The systems are supposed to identify the takeoff of Israeli
Air Force jets from their bases because of the small distance between
the countries and is even supposed to attempt to target the planes and
any missiles that are fired from them.
According to the source, three weeks ago, during
Iranian military maneuvers, Iranian engineers hacked into the codes of
the S-300, but when the Bavar-373 was not working in conjunction with
the Russian air defense system the experiment was suspended.
The source said further that the Iranian Defense
Ministry sent several engineers to Syria to change the codes of the air
defense system that was under the control of the Syrian army, without
Moscow's knowledge. "They succeeded in changing some of the codes last
month and therefore when the Israel fighter jets took off from their
bases - the air defense system succeeded in identifying them and firing
interceptor missiles at them and at the missiles they had launched."
Russia canceled S-300 deal with Assad,
report says
Ron
Friedman
Despite official statements to the contrary,
Russia will not transfer a shipment of advanced anti-aircraft missiles
to Syria, an unnamed senior Russian official has told London's Sunday
Times.
According to Sunday's report, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu managed to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin
of the risk such a deal posed to regional stability and Israeli
civilians, during a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi earlier
this month, leading to the cancelation of the planned sale of six S-300
batteries to Bashar Assad's regime.
In their meeting, Netanyahu reportedly warned
Putin that Moscow's sale of the sophisticated missile defense system to
Assad could push the Middle East into war, and argued that the S-300 had
no relevance to Assad's civil-war battles against rebel groups.
Netanyahu visits Moscow in secret to
obstruct Iran missile sale
Rory
McCarthy
Russia and Israel were both facing domestic
embarrassment today after it emerged that the Israeli prime minister,
Binyamin Netanyahu, had taken a secret trip to Moscow to persuade the
Russians not to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.
Officials in Moscow and Jerusalem were left
backtracking after they initially denied media reports that Netanyahu
flew by private jet to Russia to discourage the Kremlin from giving the
Iranians Russia's advanced S-300 system
Israel, Russia to cooperate on foreign
troop exit from Syria - Netanyahu
Putin's Double Game in Syria:
Russian-Israeli Cooperation
Sean Jobst
Assorted Assad groupies and Putin cultists use as
"evidence" of Putin's alleged chess-playing hidden "maneuvering" against
Israel, his support for the Syrian government side in Syria's war. They
simply ignore all evidence to the contrary, not least of which they're
at a complete loss to explain why the Russian air force never engages
with Israeli planes attacking their alleged "allies" in Syria, including
this very week. Why is Putin always silent even in token criticism?
Much can be said about the Kremlin's role in
setting the stage for what later became ISIS, by exporting thousands of
extremists from its occupied territories in the Caucasus in 2013 and
2014, knowing full well they'd go to Syria. The flow of Russian-speaking
fighters has continued to ISIS and other armed Wahhabist groups in
Syria, yet we're supposed to believe this large number couldn't leave
the Russian borders without complicity from the security services?
Senior Russian Rabbi Says Putin's Ouster
Would Endanger Jews
Boroda's Federation is among several Russian
Jewish organizations that credit Putin for facilitating efforts to
re-consolidate Russia's Jewish community of 350,000 after decades of
communist repression.
Under Putin, dozens of synagogues have been
renovated with government support and a massive Jewish museum was opened
in Moscow with state funding.
"In Russia, there is virtually unlimited freedom
of religion and the Jewish community must ensure this situation
continues," Boroda said. "The support for religious institutions is
wider than in the United States and defense of Jews against
manifestations of anti-Semitism is greater than in other European
countries. We do not have the privilege of losing what we have achieved
and the support of the government for the community."
Russia-Israel Relationship
Transformed by Syria Conflict
Lidia Averbukh and Margarete Klein
The American Jews Who Are Proud to Be
Pro-Putin
Lev Stesin
An alarming number of Jews who fled authoritarian
Soviet Russia for America are now admirers of Mr. Putin, a peculiar show
of intellectual sclerosis and utter ethical failure
President Donald Trump is one more factor in these
shifting attitudes. Many Russian-speaking Jews have flocked en masse to
support him. His direct tone and 'toughness' fell on fertile ground.
Many abhor the Democratic Party in general and the radical tendencies of
its extreme left wing in particular. They tend to think of liberalism as
a modern-day reincarnation of Communism, and of Islam as a modern-day
Nazism and the biggest threat facing the world. Grey is not a color they
know: you're either with or against them.
The Democratic Order's Berezovsky Trap
Phil
Butler
It was Litvinenko the UK government and the
mainstream media said was "probably" ordered killed by Vladimir Putin.
But the other side of the story tells of two who were intricately
involved in the steeping criminal activity Boris Yeltsin essentially
resigned over, and the literal theft of the heritage of the Russian
people from the instant of perestroika onward. In a poisonous bit of
irony, a slew of Russian mafia outcasts and New World Order captains
have now fallen into the same game of blackmail and murderous betrayal,
or something my Dutch colleague Holger Eekhof refers to as "The
Berezovsky Trap".
The Berezovsky Trap Revisited: The Israel
Connection
Phil
Butler
The Russian mafia we've seen on TV is also known
as the "Red Octopus", but this organization is really the Jewish mafia
in disguise. The story you are reading comes full circle when you
research how the Jewish mafia has links to Mossad, the Rothschild
family, the Federal Reserve Bank, and to powerful Jewish organizations
such as AIPAC and the ADL. Like I mentioned, the Chuck
Schumer-Komorov-Ivankov association is one clue to how deep and
intricate this organization's "screws" go into the American system.
Laura Radanko, in her book "The Superpower of Crime", gives up the goods
on Russian Jews as instruments for Israeli aims:
"During the detente days of the early 1970s, when
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had agreed to allow the limited emigration
of Soviet Jews, thousands of hard-core criminals, many of them released
from Soviet Gulags by the KGB, took advantage of their nominal Jewish
status to swarm into the United States ."
https://journal-neo.org/2017/05/08/the-berezovsky-trap-revisited-the-israel-connection/
RUSSIAN OLIGARCH WANTED TO TURN MY JOKE
INTO REALITY
Jon
Schwartz
"Berezovsky also had another brilliant idea, which
to his regret Putin did not grasp: creating a fake two-party system,
with Putin at the head of a socialist-democrat sort of party and
Berezovsky leading a neoconservative one, or the other way around."
Here are Berezovsky's exact words, in an interview
with Gessen from 2008:
When Putin became president, I was for a long time
in a state of profound naiveté. Well, I went to him I told him:
"Listen, Volodya, what happened: we destroyed the entire political
space. Devoured, not destroyed, but devoured it. We absolutely dominated
Look, I'll suggest that we can not have effective political system, if
there's a tough competition. So I suggest we create an artificial
two-party system. So, let's say, the left and right. A Socially Oriented
party and neo-conservatives liberal party. Choose any. And I'll make
another party. At the same time, my own heart is closer to
neoconservatives, and I think so, you [Putin] are socially oriented. " I
earnestly believed then that he understood it. But I think that even
then he looked at me like I was crazy.
The Hidden Author of Putinism:
How Vladislav Surkov invented the new
Russia
Peter
Pomerantsev
There is no mention of holy wars in Surkov's
vision, none of the cabaret used to provoke and tease the West. But
there is a darkling vision of globalization, in which instead of
everyone rising together, interconnection means multiple contests
between movements and corporations and city-states -- where the old
alliances, the EUs and NATOs and "the West," have all worn out, and
where the Kremlin can play the new, fluctuating lines of loyalty and
interest, the flows of oil and money, splitting Europe from America,
pitting one Western company against another and against both their
governments so no one knows whose interests are what and where they're
headed.
Documentary - HyperNormalisation
Adam
Curtis
We live in a time of great uncertainty and
confusion. Events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of
control. Donald Trump, Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant
crisis, random bomb attacks. And those who are supposed to be in power
are paralysed - they have no idea what to do.
This film is the epic story of how we got to this
strange place. It explains not only why these chaotic events are
happening - but also why we, and our politicians, cannot understand
them.
It shows that what has happened is that all of us
in the West - not just the politicians and the journalists and the
experts, but we ourselves - have retreated into a simplified, and often
completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us we
accept it as normal.
But there is another world outside. Forces that
politicians tried to forget and bury forty years ago - that then
festered and mutated - but which are now turning on us with a vengeful
fury. Piercing though the wall of our fake world.
Alternative links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUiqaFIONPQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thLgkQBFTPw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM
PUTINISM: INTRODUCTION
Zarina Zabrisky
translation of excerpts from a blog Putinism As Is
by a Radio Svoboda analyst and blogger Artem Kruglov. In the light of
Helsinki Summit 2018 and Trump/Putin relationship, it is important to
know these facts of Putin's background.
"The group around Putin today is the same as the
one that brought him to power from St. Petersburg in the 1990s," wrote
celebrated author Karen Dawisha in her book Putin's Kleptocracy. In
today's political climate it is critical for the EU and US analysts,
journalists and general audience to understand the true origin and
background of the Russian mafia state. "In the 90s, gangsters and the
KGB fused into one structure," said Olga Litvinenko... This structure is
what we now call a mafia state. "Putin was never in business and he does
not have 'business associates,'" noted Nikita Kulachenkov, a forensic
accountant and political activist fighting against corruption in the
Russian government, has also served as a principal investigator at the
Anti-Corruption Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Moscow and
founded by Alexei Navalny. "Russian oligarchs do not own their fortunes.
They can't hide their money. They need the status quo and will fight for
it, using the mafia methods" -- even if it requires taking these mafia
methods to the West.
Read the profiles of Putin's allies. The
incomplete list of their achievements includes cocaine and heroin trade,
illegal arms trafficking, running prostitution rings, using child labor
for diamond mining, smuggling, extortion, assassinations, dismemberment,
blackmail, racketeering, theft, money-laundering and much more.
Is Israel becoming a mafia state?
Simona Weinglass
Some 25% of the revenue of Israel's lauded
high-tech sector comes from shady or fraudulent industries;
three-quarters of MKs are said to be in thrall to special interest
groups.
Israel has become one of the world's leading
exporters of investment scams, stealing an estimated $5 billion to $10
billion per year from victims worldwide.
Despite the fact that Israeli police recently
announced that these investment scams are largely run by organized
crime, which has grown to "monstrous proportions" as a consequence of
little to no law enforcement for years, the Israeli government,
parliament and authorities have to date proved unwilling or unable to
shut them down, in part because these fraudulent industries have a
powerful lobby in the Knesset.
How Russia's mafia is taking over
Israel's underworld
Billions invested in Israel
Former police chief Asaf Hefetz says £2.5bn ($4bn)
of organised crime money from the former Soviet Union has been invested
in Israeli real estate, businesses and banks in the past seven years.
Jewish-American organized crime
The History of the Jews and the Mob
Youtube video featuring Jewish 'tough guy' Myron
Sugerman, the "Last Jewish Gangster," running his mouth for an hour
complaining about antisemitism while bragging about their criminal
history. The deluded Sugerman spills the beans on how the Jewish mob
played in arming Jewish terrorists in the Middle-East.
Israeli Mafia
Out of prison, notorious Russian mobster
yearns to return home
Jake
Pearson
New York's most notorious living Russian (Jewish)
mobster just wants to go back to the motherland.
Once flush from heroin trafficking, tax fraud
schemes and other criminal enterprises, Boris Nayfeld is now 70, fresh
out of prison for the third time, divorced and broke. And he is left
with few job prospects in his adopted country, at least those in line
with his experiences.
"I can't do nothing," Nayfeld griped in a thick
Russian accent between shots of vodka at a restaurant a few blocks north
of Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood, which has been a haven for
immigrants from the former Soviet Union since the 1970s. "Give me a
chance to start a new life."
Human Trafficking: Russian Mafia and the
Israeli Connection
The illegal trafficking of human beings is a
growing international crime. Criminal groups have developed a brisk
trade selling tens of thousands of women into prostitution. The result
is virtual enslavement, as Attorney General John Ashcroft emphasized in
announcing new regulations for dealing with traffickers and their
victims. Russian mafia, and its connections in Israel, provide an
example of how the trade works.
The newspaper ad is hard to resist: a high paying
job as a waitress or secretary or model, and it helps to be young and
pretty.
For desperate women in the shrunken economies of
Russia, Ukraine, and other states of the former Soviet Union, the offer
from abroad is too good to be true, and of course it is not. But they do
not know that as they make their first contact with the elaborate
traffic in prostitution.
Sharp Increase in Sex Trafficking in
Years Since Israel Lifted Visa Restrictions
Or Kashti
Justice Ministry official says criminals are
bringing in women from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Russia and Georgia on
three-month tourist visas.
Esther
Hertzog and Erella Shadmi
Destination Israel for Sex 'Slaves'
Eric
Silver
"On the third night I was desperate," she says. "I
tried to break out. I shouted for help. But it was no use. Two men, who
spoke Russian with a Georgian accent, carted me off to a massage
parlour. When I refused to work there, they beat me up. They raped me,
punched my body, slapped my face. I agreed."
Israel becoming 'safe haven for
paedophiles' with laws that allow any Jews to legally return, activists
claim
Peter
Walker
14 Israelis suspected of running child
sex trafficking ring in Colombia
Toi Staff
Fourteen Israelis are suspected by Colombian authorities of running a
child sex trafficking ring which marketed tour packages from Israel to
the Latin American country aimed at businessmen and recently discharged
soldiers, according to reports on Monday..
Israeli who headed Colombia child
prostitution ring arrested in Portugal
An ex-Israeli soldier wanted in Colombia for
heading a child prostitution ring and sex trafficking offences has been
arrested in Portugal.
Forty-five-year-old Assi Ben-Mosh – also known as
Assi Moosh – was arrested near the Portuguese capital Lisbon on
Wednesday during an operation by Spain's Guardia Civil police force. The
Guardia Civil said in a statement that Ben-Mosh is thought to have been
hiding on the Spanish island of Ibiza, and then in Barcelona, before
eventually being arrested in Portugal this week. It added that Ben-Mosh
had been using a fake Israeli ID, the Times of Israel reported
yesterday.
Ben-Mosh is wanted by Colombian authorities for
running a child prostitution ring in the small fishing village of
Taganga, located on the South American country's Caribbean coast. He,
along with a group of ex-Israeli soldiers, reportedly turned the luxury
Benjamin Hostel into a "sex and drug den" in which more than 250
underage girls were subjected to sexual exploitation.
The shocking story of Israel's
disappeared babies
Jonathan
Cook
His biological parents - recent immigrants to
Israel from Tunisia - were told their child had died during delivery.
They were sent home without a death certificate and denied the chance to
see their baby's body or a grave.
A Field Guide to Israeli Organized Crime
Assaf Gur
Exploring an underworld of gambling, drug
trafficking, arms dealing, extortion, assassination, and corruption
'Israel's First Oligarch' Grigori Lerner
¦ How a Serial Criminal Got Help From an Israeli Government Minister
Gidi Weitz
and Maya Zinshtein
Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver pursued
business ties with serial criminal Gregory Lerner. Her former chief of
staff had links to Alexei Zakharenko, a Russian tycoon who disappeared
two years ago. New facts from police files, published here for the first
time.
He also admitted to receiving $37 million
fraudulently from Mostroy, a Russian bank, establishing a series of
straw companies that he controlled, and committing numberless forgeries.
He admitted to having defrauded Semion Mogilevich, who holds Russian and
Israeli citizenship and is high on the FBI's most-wanted list.
Reputed Israeli Ecstasy Dealer Charged in
U.S.
NEW YORK - An Israeli, once reputedly the world's
most active ecstasy dealer, was extradited from Spain and charged in a
U.S. court Wednesday with recruiting women nightclub strippers as
couriers and laundering millions of dollars in cash.
Known as "The Fat Man," Oded Tuito was designated
as a drug kingpin by the U.S. government a year ago. He pleaded not
guilty in a U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to charges of supervising
the trafficking of millions of ecstasy pills to New York from Paris,
Brussels and Frankfurt.
Prosecutors accused Tuito, a 41-year-old Israeli
citizen who lived in New York, California and France before his arrest
in May 2001 in Barcelona of operating the international trafficking
scheme since 1997.
Israeli Organ-trafficking Ring Busted
Ukrainian police have smashed an Israeli-run
organ-trafficking network illegally recruiting organ donors to send
their body parts to Israel.
Ukrainian authorities said on Friday that twelve
people, most of them Israelis, were arrested for taking part in a scheme
to recruit organ donors from Ukraine and other former Soviet countries
via internet and transplant the organs into Israelis who had ordered
them in advance.
The network, which sought mostly kidneys, offered
as much as USD 10,000 per body part and according to Ukraine's interior
ministry most of the organ donors were impoverished young women.
The head of the ministry's department on human
trafficking, Yuriy Kucher, said the transplant surgeries, which cost up
to USD 200,000 an operation, were performed in Kiev, Azerbaijan and
Ecuador.
Israeli Organ Trafficking and Theft: From
Moldova to Palestine
Alison
Weir
The fact is, however, that Israeli organ
harvesting – sometimes with Israeli governmental funding and the
participation of high Israeli officials, prominent Israeli physicians,
and Israeli ministries – has been documented for many years. Among the
victims have been Palestinians.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes is Chancellor's Professor of
Medical Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley, the
founder of Organ Watch, and the author of scholarly books and articles
on organ trafficking. She is the pundit mainstream media call upon when
they need expert commentary on the topic.5
While Scheper-Hughes emphasizes that traffickers
and procurers come from numerous nations and ethnicities, including
Americans and Arabs, she is unflinchingly honest in speaking about the
Israeli connection:
"Israel is at the top," she states. "It has
tentacles reaching out worldwide."
Organ Trafficking: Anatomy of a network.
Israeli nexus #1
Robert Maxwell
Organ Trafficking: Anatomy of a network. Israeli
nexus #1
Israeli organ trafficker walks free in
Cyprus
An
Israeli man convicted of international human organ trafficking walked
free on Tuesday, after Russian authorities failed to challenge a Larnaca
judge who dismissed an extradition request.
Gangsters of the Mediterranean
Seb
Rotella
In hundreds of telephone calls intercepted during
the year before Petrov's arrest in 2008, Spanish investigators listened
as the mob boss chatted with powerful businessmen, notorious criminals
and high-level officials in the government of Vladimir Putin. During one
trip to Russia, Petrov called his son to say he had just met with a man
who turned out to be the Russian defense minister -- and to report that
they had sorted out a land deal, the sale of some airplanes, and a
scheme to invest in Russian energy companies.
Britain's contribution to fighting Russian organised crime is 'less than
negative', says renowned prosecutor
Tom
Embury-Dennis
Britain's contribution to fighting Russian
organised crime is "less than negative", one of Europe's leading
prosecutors has said.
Jose Grinda, hailed as the man who "brought down
the Russian mafia in Spain", condemned the UK's lack of cooperation in a
fight which has gone increasingly global.
"We have a wonderful relationship with the United
States," the Spanish prosecutor told The American Interest magazine.
"However we have a very serious problem in fighting organised crime with
the UK.
The truth behind McMafia: London is 'the
jurisdiction of choice' for Russian crime gangs
Robert Verkaik
"Unfortunately, London has become the global
centre for laundering the money and reputations of Russian organised
criminals. McMafia brings that realisation into the living rooms of
people all over the country. Hopefully, this will actually lead to some
political change and tougher rules in the future."
Russians kill Dublin drugs lord in Spain
Henry
McDonald
Russian mafia hitmen shot dead Dublin gangland
member Paddy Doyle on the Costa del Sol, senior gardai claimed this
weekend
Doyle, the survivor of a vicious criminal turf war
in south Dublin which has claimed at least 10 lives, was gunned down in
Estepona last Monday. Veteran detectives with the Garda Siochana's
'Operation Anvil', the drive against Dublin's crime gangs, said the
27-year-old had beaten up a close relative of a Russian mafia leader
based on the southern Spanish coastline.
'From what our Spanish colleagues have told us,
this was a professional Russian hit. There were 13 shots and we don't
think they wasted a bullet. It has a military-trained assassin written
all over it, possibly ex-special forces,' a senior detective told The
Observer. 'The intelligence coming back from the Costa del Sol is that
Paddy Doyle crossed the Russian mafia, which is something you do there
at your peril.'
Cold blood: Shocking CCTV footage of
Kinahan enforcer's murder
Owen
Conlon and Stephen Breen
THIS is the moment the Kinahans' main enforcer met his end at the hands
of Russian gangsters -- with the blessing of his old boss Christy.
WATCH: RUSSIAN MAFIA LEADER ARRESTED ON
SPAIN'S COSTA DEL SOL WHILE 'PLOTTING GANG RIVAL'S MURDER'
Luke
Madeira
One of the leaders is said to be third-in-command
of the mafia and was arrested as the group held a meeting in which they
were said to be planning the assassination of a rival gang leader.
According to El Correo, the planned assassination
of a rival gang leader was to warn other clans of their strength in
Europe.
The suspects were also thought to have been trying
to restructure the organisation after Policia Nacional arrested 129
members of the clan in June, including seven highly ranked members.
The investigation was then reopened in July after
a former leader of a criminal gang in Lithuania was spotted in Marbella.
Roman Abramovich invests $10m in StoreDot
June 15, 2014 | According to reports by the "Wall
Street Journal" Russian billionaire and Chelsea Football Club owner
Roman Abramovich invested $10 million in StoreDot. StoreDot is an
Israeli startup producing electronics using bio-organic materials and
recently made a splash in the headlines when it revealed a method for
charging a Samsung smartphone in 30 seconds. The investment was carried
out through Abramovich's asset management company Millhouse LLC, making
this is the second investment of the firm in Israel.
Israeli crowd-funding company i-Angels
raises $2.25M from Millhouse Capital.
March 25, 2015 | Israeli crowd-funding company
iAngels has raised $2.25 million in a seed round led by investment firm
Millhouse Capital, which is owned by Russian billionaire Roman
Abramovich. iAngels enables private investments in early-stage startups.
It was founded in 2013 by Mor Assia and Shelly Hod Moyal.
Roman Abramovich invests in AltaIR
October 26, 2015 | Millhouse Capital, the
investment fund owned by Roman Abramovich is investing an undisclosed
amount in AltaIR, the venture capital firm led by Russian-Austrian
investor Igor Ryabenkiy. AltaIR has already invested in almost 80
companies from Israel, the US, Europe and Australia. Among its early
stage investments in Israel are Gbooking, Crowdx, Klear, and Correlor.
Oligarch Roman Abramovich Leads $21m
Investment in Startup AnyClip
Inbal Orpaz
Russian-British billionaire Roman Abramovich is
deepening his presence in Israeli high-tech, leading a $21 million
investment round in the start-up AnyClip Media.
Russian Internet Giant Yandex Acquiring
Israeli Geolocation Startup KitLocate
Inbal
Orpaz
Yandex, a Russian Internet company that operates
the country's most popular search engine, said on Tuesday that it was
acquiring Israel's KitLocate and plans to turn the startup into the
basis a research and development center for an undisclosed price.
Israeli social analytics startup Klear
secures $1.5 million from Altair and TMT
Israeli startup Klear, formerly known as Twtrland,
has raised $1.5 million in new funding from Altair and TMT Investments,
two international venture funds with Russian backers.
The company defines its product as "a social
intelligence platform that helps you do smarter marketing." It has
rebranded to Klear, since the platform now looks at data from Facebook
and Instagram in addition to Twitter, and plans to integrate other
social networks, including Pinterest, Google Plus, and LinkedIn,
TechCrunch notes.
BILLIONAIRE ROMAN ABRAMOVICH REVEALED AS
$30M. TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY DONOR
Greer Fay Cashman
Yandex: Tool of Russian Disinformation
and Cyber Operations in Ukraine
Sergey Sukhankin
The recent decision by Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko to ban popular Russian social networks VKontakte (VK) and
Odnoklassniki, on May 15 (see EDM, June 7), provoked serious debate both
inside Ukraine and abroad. Now that the initial anxiety over that ban
has somewhat subsided, it is worth analyzing other, less commented-on
but no less important, elements of the decree.
Aside from social networks, Poroshenko's May 15
decree bans Russian Internet search engine giant Yandex, some
information technology (IT) programs, as well as anti-virus software
(including Kaspersky and Doctor Web) that have allegedly been
undermining Ukrainian information and cyber security. According to
Colonel Oleksandr Tkachuk, from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU),
approximately 300 of the largest Ukrainian companies and corporations
use Russian IT programs "directly controlled by the Russian Federal
Security Service [FSB]" (Espreso.tv, April 27). Moreover, the Ukrainian
side has suffered huge financial losses as a direct result of using
Russian products. In his interview, the head of the information security
division of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine,
Valentin Petrov, noted that Ukraine annually spends approximately one
billion hryvnas (roughly $39 million) on Russian IT and software
products (Ukrinform.ua, May 17).
Russia's Billionaire Usmanov Among
Investors Of Uber Taxi Service
USM Holdings owned by Russia's business magnate
Alisher Usmanov and his partners is one of investors of the popular Uber
taxi service, a source close to the company told TASS on Sunday.
The official representatives of USM and Uber in
Russia have declined to comment on the reports.
Uber is an international transportation network
company that develops mobile app for requesting trips with personal
drivers. The company provides services in 360 cities in 64 countries of
the world.
In Russia, the company began operations in 2013.
In October 2015, Uber said it planned to launch services in all Russian
million-strong cities this year. The value of the car-booking company is
estimated at $62.5 billion, CNBC reported earlier this month citing
sources.
USM Holdings Ltd. is an international company that
has assets in metals and mining industry, telecommunications, the
Internet and mass media. USM's main shareholders are Alisher Usmanov,
Vladimir Skoch and Farhad Moshiri. Usmanov has earlier invested in
Apple, Facebook, Alibaba, JD.com and other high-technology companies.
VK taken over by the Kremlin claims
founder Pavel Durov.
Durov started VKontakte, later known as VK, in
2006, which was initially influenced by Facebook.[16] During the time
when he and his brother Nikolai built upon the VKontakte website, the
company grew to a value of $3 billion.[5]
In 2011, he was involved in a standoff with police
in St. Petersburg when the government demanded the removal of opposition
politicians' pages after the 2011 election to the Duma; Durov posted a
picture of a dog with his tongue out wearing a hoodie and the police
left after an hour when he did not answer the door.[15][16]
In 2012, Durov publicly posted a picture of
himself extending his middle finger and calling it his official response
to Mail.ru's efforts to buy VK.[15] In December 2013, Durov was
pressured[vague] into selling his 12% of VK stock to Ivan Tavrin, the
owner of the major Russian internet company Mail.ru,[5] who subsequently
sold it to Mail.ru, giving it 52% majority ownership of VK. In 2014,
Mail.ru bought all remaining shares and became the sole owner of
VK.[17][18]
Durov then claimed the company had been
effectively taken over by Vladimir Putin's allies,[23][24] suggesting
his ouster was the result of both his refusal to hand over personal
details of users to federal law enforcement and his refusal to hand over
the personal details of people who were members of a VKontakte group
dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement.[23][24] Durov then left
Russia and stated that he had "no plans to go back"[24] and that "the
country is incompatible with Internet business at the moment".[3]
Mossad Launches New Social Media Account
on VKontakte to Recruit Russians
Mossad is known for being a very secretive spy
agency responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations and
counterterrorism. Its director reports directly to the Prime Minister.
A new group called "Mossad" has appeared on
Vkontakte. According to information on the group's page anyone who wants
to "say something" should click on the link provided below.
Usmanov's Mail.ru Israeli technology connections.
Israeli mobile video platform secures $2 million from Mail.ru Group
Magisto, an Israeli cloud-based mobile video platform, announced on
Friday a $2 million investment from Mail.Ru Group, the LSE-listed
Russian Internet giant. The investment is designed to fuel further
growth and customer acquisition.
In addition, Magisto has integrated its offering into Odnoklassniki.ru,
a subsidiary of Mail.Ru Group and the second largest social network in
Russia with 33 million daily unique visitors.
Image recognition startup Cortica nabs $1.5M from Russian tech leader
Mail.Ru
Now the startup will have backing from Mail.Ru, which has a major
presence in the Russian-speaking markets. Mail.Ru Group claims that its
sites reach 86 percent of Russian-speaking Internet users every month.
It operates top Russian email service Mail.Ru, two of the largest IM
services (Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ), and two of the three largest Russian
social networking sites (My World and Odnoklassniki.ru). Additionally,
it owns a minority equity stake in top Russian social network Vkontakte.
"We are really excited to work with Mail.Ru Group," Cortica CEO and
co-founder Igal Raichelgauz said in a statement. "Mail.ru shares our
vision for leveraging Image2Text technology for visual search and
contextual advertising and taking users' web surfing experience to a
whole new level."
Cortica was founded in 2007 and has employess in New York City,
Sunnyvale, Calif. and Israel.
https://www.cortica.com/
-
The first AI capable of human-level image understanding.
ARCHIMEDICX Announces Partnership with Mail.Ru Group, Providing
Millions with Access to the Best Medical Care in the World
a big data search engine for specialized medical facilities around the
world, is announcing a partnership with Mail.Ru Group, the largest
internet company in Russia. Mail.Ru Group will integrate ARCHIMEDICX
onto its platform on Health Mail.Ru (the most popular health portal in
Russia), allowing any user who searches for medical problems to use the
ARCHIMEDICX search engine. Together, they will provide millions of users
with vast information about the top treatment facilities in the world.
Billionaire Alisher Usmanov's partnership
with Alibaba reveals his strategy for survival in the era of sanctions
Russian oligarchs are making difficult decisions
in the face of possible new sanctions. Some are trying to do everything
to distance themselves from those in the Kremlin. While others are doing
the exact opposite and getting as close to the authorities as they can.
The best example of the latter is Alisher Usmanov, who -- on his 65th
birthday no less -- announced a deal fully in line with the government's
aim to build economic ties with China. On September 11,
telecommunications giant Megafon (partially owned by Usmanov), internet
group Mail.ru Group (Usmanov owns 15% via Megafon), and the Russian
Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) announced the creation of a joint venture
with Alibaba Group.
Usmanov publicly supports the "digital
transformation" announced by Putin, a key part of the president's
election campaign. Together with state conglomerate Rostec and
Gazprombank, Usmanov in May announced the creation of a new digital
company, MF Technology. Usmanov has also talked about a joint investment
fund. All of this, of course, makes Usmanov very vulnerable to
sanctions. But the billionaire has likely earned what he was probably
fighting for in the first place: the Kremlin's loyalty. On his last
birthday, Usmanov received a personal telegram from Putin.
Kazakh Rakishev is a lead investor of Russian VC who held major stake in
Mobl
i
Rakishev is the lead investor of Fastlane
Ventures, a Russian tech development company, he held a major stake in
the Israeli visual media platform Mobli, and invested in the Russian
bank card and loyalty program company IQcard. Rakishev is Chairman of
Net Element International, a global technology group based in the US
that specializes in value-added transaction services and mobile
payments.
The whole truth about Kenes Rakishev
Rakishev and Imangal Tasmagambetov
It is believed that in part Kenes Rakishev is a
nominal figure. In reality, all the assets and billions that he
allegedly owns belong to the higher elite of Kazakhstan, which uses
Kenes as a screen. It's about the test of Rakishev Imangale
Tasmagambetov,
Timur Kulibayev (the head of Kazakhstan's
Nursultan Nazarbayev), the head of the KNB Karime Massimov. Rakishev
himself categorically denies such statements, assuring himself that he
has achieved everything himself, thanks to his talents. And here is that
he says under oath about his test Tasmagambetov. .
Moshe Hogeg, Singulariteam partners (Rakishev) sued for $50m
"Embezzlement of tens of millions of shekels"
"Forbes Magazine" named Rakishev as one of the 50
most influential people in Kazakhstan, with wealth in excess of $2
billion. According to the statement of claim, Chen, a director in IDC
Holdings, was a consultant in enterprises led by Singulariteam,
including stox.com.
The manager of Singulariteam in 2014 was Adi
Sheleg, a former shares trader who turned state's witness in the IDB
share offering case, in which Nochi Dankner was later convicted of share
manipulation. Singulariteam's chairperson in 2014 was former Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, who was convicted of accepting a bribe in the
Hazera Genetic case in 2015. Olmert served 18 months in prison in
2016-2017 for this conviction. Singulariteam's current chairperson is
Hogeg.
Lev Leviev claims to have personally
appointed 8 of 18 members of the Knesset.
In this article we give an entertaining
conversation Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, the current billionaire,
and then "key holder" from the Treasury of WOMEN. Abramovich says that
yesterday, when they were at Chernomyrdin, Polezhaev showed him
(Berezovsky) a letter addressed to Yeltsin. Polezhaev spoke by A.
Korabelshikov, he said that to meet the President now impossible, but
he'll talk to Livshits, who must give this letter. Abramovich asked
whether Berezovsky to deliver the letter to Livshits, he replies in the
affirmative. Abramovich reports that yesterday he met Levayev. Levayev
said that he is great friends with Netanyahu and if it is necessary that
Netanyahu spoke in support of Yeltsin, he (Levayev) can organize.
Levayev also said that of the 18 members of the Israeli government, he
personally appoints 8, including the Minister of energy. So they will
have plans there
Russia oligarch and Pres. of Israeli
Jewish Congress, Vladimir Slutsker is a serious criminal
If analysts immediately suspected in this contract
murder the political underpinnings, the investigation initially
stubbornly clung to only the version of the connection of the crime with
the commercial activities of the retired general. The son of the
murdered, Boris Trofimov, then also suggested that his father's
involvement in the conflict between the owners of the company, Vladimir
Slutsker and Ambartsum Safaryan, who at that time was very tense,
divided.
Criminal list of Mikhail Fridman (Alfa Bank, Genesis Prize, CFR)
"Mikhail Fridman - Friend of Bibi,
Putin and linked to Trump, allegedly. Dual citizen of Israel and
Russia." - Jon Swinn
Part 1 -
https://rucriminal.info/en/material/664?hl=israel
Is Jewish Oligarch the Cyber Link Between
Donald Trump and Russia?
Larry Cohler-Esses
Is a Russian Jewish oligarch with Israeli
citizenship and close ties to both Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu
running a secret cyber-communications channel between Donald Trump's
presidential campaign and Russian authorities?
That question, about billionaire Mikhail Fridman,
is at the heart of a new and detailed investigative report by Franklin
Foer, the former editor of The New Republic, published Tuesday on the
news website Slate.
According to a story published in The New York
Times just hours after Foer's report went live, FBI investigators looked
into -- and ultimately came to doubt -- evidence that a mysterious server
registered to the Trump Organization was receiving regular covert email
communiqués from two servers registered to Fridman's Alfa Bank, the
largest commercial bank in Russia.
Tea Pain - Alfa Bank server connection to Trump Tower
Trump Tower's "Stealth Russian Data Machine"
Jared Kushner is currently taking a victory lap, crowin' about his
"Stealth Data Machine" that put Donald Trump over the top in the 2016
race. Let's pry off the lid and peer into the inner-workings of this
"Data Machine."
Major Alfa Bank-Trump Tower Breakthrough!
The funny thing about mysteries is
sometime the answer is starin' you right in the face so intently you
can't see it. A year ago, Tea Pain saw a signal in the noise that got
him lookin' into the mystery of the Trump Tower/Alfa Bank server
scandal.
Trump Tower's "Stealth Russian Data
Machine"
Mikhail Fridman's bank is linked to
financing the installation of nuclear reactors in Iran.
Tara
Palmeri
Fridman's Alfa Bank provided financing
throughout the 2000s to Atomstroyexport, the state-owned Russian nuclear
vendor that installed the reactors at Bushehr, according to reports.
DIAMOND KINGS, LUXURY CONDOS, CORRUPT
COPS AND CHINESE SPIES
Zarina Zabrisky
In 2008, a self-pronounced Putin's friend,
USSR-born Israeli Lev Leviev sold $710 million in Manhattan real estate
to a subsidiary of the infamous 88 Queensway Group.
In 2011, Blackstone bought 51% of one of three
properties, the old New York Times Building. In 2015, Jared Kushner's
company bought the remaining 49%.
The Mueller Report, Alfa Bank, and the
Deep State
Peter Dale
Scott
As the Guardian reported in 2002, Alfa's 1990s
clout in Washington was demonstrated when its oil company, Tyumen,
was loaned $489m in credits by the US
Export-Import Bank after lobbying by Halliburton . The [Clinton] White
House and State Department tried to veto the Russian deal. But after
intense lobbying by Halliburton the objections were overruled on Capitol
Hill [which then was Republican controlled] . The State Department's
concerns were based on the fact that Tyumen was controlled by a holding
conglomerate, the Alfa Group, that had been investigated in Russia for
mafia connections.
Fridman is behind Alfa group
Russia-Israel investments
Netanyahu's 'list of millionaires'
List of potential donors prepared by
then-opposition leader in 2007 provides peek into his fundraising
industry in US. Officials include extreme rightists, people who got in
trouble with law.
Included in the list of prominently Jewish
millionaires and billionaires appears the name 'Donald Trump'.
Genesis Prize: Flattering Oligarchs and
Laundering Their Ill-Gotten Gains
Richard
Silerstein
Among the oligarchs are Mikhail Fridman (net
worth, $18-billion and 46th on Forbes list of the richest people in the
world and second richest Russian) and some of his cronies, Petr Aven
(chairman of Alfa Bank, Russia's largest commercial bank) and Stan
Polovets (who made his billions in Russian energy). Here's a Foreign
Policy article from way back in 2000, detailing how these crooks
stripped assets and stole billions.
" Asset-stripping has also victimized major
international oil companies. In a highly publicized case, [Mikhail]
Fridman's Tyumen Oil Company (TNK) allegedly stole Sidanko's most
valuable assets by manipulatinig the bankruptcy process. According to
defrauded Sidanko shareholders (who include BP Amoco), the theft was
carried out through the corrupt appointment of a TNK-friendly receiver,
the unlawful reduction of the claims of major creditors such as the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (in which the United
States holds shares), and a rigged bankruptcy "auction" in which only
TNK-affiliated companies could bid."
Psy Group sister company controlled by
Russian billionaire
Scott
Stedman
A month-long investigation into the corporate
structure of the private intelligence company that met with Donald Trump
Jr., Erik Prince, and George Nader in the middle of the 2016 election
campaign has revealed that a sister company of Psy Group is controlled
by a Russian billionaire.
Investigation links Psy Group to
Macedonian Troll Farms
Justin
Hendrix
New Knowledge also looks closely at "Kris
Crawford," another Facebook account PSY-Group used in the pitch material
obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
While he appears to be an American man, Crawford's
URL suggests his Facebook page used to belong to a "Martina Jakimovska."
"Looking through the 'Kris Crawford's' account history it's still
possible to see when Martina updated her profile photo and used Facebook
to check in at a location in Macedonia," New Knowledge notes.
The fake news machine: Inside a town
gearing up for 2020
Veles used to make porcelain for the whole of
Yugoslavia. Now it makes fake news.
This sleepy riverside town in Macedonia is home to
dozens of website operators who churn out bogus stories designed to
attract the attention of Americans. Each click adds cash to their bank
accounts.
The scale is industrial: Over 100 websites were
tracked here during the final weeks of the 2016 U.S. election campaign,
producing fake news that mostly favored Republican candidate for
President Donald Trump.
Meet the shady Putin crony funding
Russia's troll farm and mercenary army
Zack Beauchamp
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man widely
referred to as "Putin's chef," doesn't actually prepare food. Instead,
he cooks up international plots -- like Russia's campaign to use social
media to undermine Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and promote Donald
Trump's.
Prigozhin was among the 13 Russian nationals
indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in February and is by far the
most well-known. His ties to Putin go back to at least 2001: He's worked
on everything from election interference to setting up pro-Putin
newspapers to sending Russian mercenaries to Syria to fight on behalf of
Bashar al-Assad's regime.
A recent Washington Post report says that he
personally approved a Russian mercenary attack on US forces stationed in
eastern Syria in early February; US intelligence, per the Post,
intercepted a conversation where he promoted the idea.
"Putin's chef" would be better described as
Putin's fixer: someone who does the Russian leader's dirty work, while
giving Putin plausible deniability if things go wrong
Deeper Than Blackwater
Jon Swinn
Utkin became the CEO of Concord Management and
Consulting LLC, which belongs to the Concord company group and is
co-owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin.[8]
Prigozhin, or "Putin's chef" as he is also known,
is among the 13 Russian nationals indicted by special counsel Robert
Mueller for his connections to troll farms involved in an operation to
assist U.S. President Donald Trump win the 2016 Presidential election.
According to the indictment , Mueller accuses troll farm company
Internet Research Agency employees of "posing as U.S. persons and
creating false U.S. personas, operating social media pages and groups
designed to attract U.S. audiences."[9]
Prigozhin's Concord Management is directly
involved with the administration of troll farm Internet Research Agency,
according to documents published by hackers from Anonymous
International.[10]
Understanding Krysha
The Putin-Prigozhin relation is great example of
the "Krysha" concept. Krysha means roof and is a slang word for
protection. In exchange for contracts with the Kremlin, oligarchs such
as Prigozhin work on behalf of the Mafiya State.[11]
Internet Research Agency
Kremlin-linked Billionaire, Netanyahu
Friend Donated to Trump's Private Legal Fund
Len Blavatnik, who made his fortune in the former
Soviet Union in the oil business, appears on a legal defense fund list
uncovered by the Wall St. Journal
A Soviet-born billionaire who is considered close to Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu donated to a private legal defense fund for U.S.
President Donald Trump, the Wall Street Journal revealed.
Israel questions PM's billionaire friend
over corruption charges
Israeli police are to fly to London today to
question billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik in relation to corruption
charges facing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to
Haaretz.
The Soviet-born media investor will primarily be
questioned as to whether Netanyahu was involved in the sale of a
television channel in 2015 to Arnon Mozes, publisher of Israeli daily
Yedioth Ahronoth, as part of "Case 2000". It is alleged that Netanyahu
tried to negotiate a deal with Mozes, offering legislation that would
impede the activities of Mozes' rival paper, Israel Hayom, in return for
more favourable media coverage of the prime minister and his policies.
Blavatnik's ties to the Bronfmans.
Blavatnik's the Bronfman Buyer! Oil
Tycoon Spills $50 M.-Plus for Townhouse
Every kvetching New Yorker wants more
space. But only a Russian-born, Harvard-trained oil tycoon would want
more legroom than a 14-room Fifth Avenue co-op (bought just this year
for $27.5 million) and an East 63rd Street palace (bought two years ago
for $31.25 million).
Those properties didn't content Len
Blavatnik. According to two sources, he's the buyer for Seagram heir
Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s 31-foot-wide townhouse at 15 East 64th.
Time Inc. Shares Rise After Reported Buyout Bid from Bronfman,
Blavatnik
Edgar Bronfman Jr. and billionaire
investors reportedly offered $18 a share for Time.
Shares of Time Inc. were soaring as
much as 20 percent ahead of the closing bell on Monday after the New
York Post reported that the parent of magazines like People, Sports
Illustrated and Time had turned down an acquisition offer from Edgar
Bronfman Jr., Leonard Blavatnik and Ynon Kreiz.
Billionaire Len Blavatnik Buys Warner Music Group (From Bronfman) For
$3.3 Billion
Mikhail Fridman
The oligarchs behind Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR)
include Fridman.At 47, he has an estimated wealth of $15.1bn, making him
Russia's seventh richest man.
Fridman and Peter Aven founded the Alfa Group
Consortium – a holding company which controls Alfa Bank, Alfa Capital,
Tyumen Oil, several construction material firms and a supermarket chain.
Len Blavatnik
The multibillionaire recently agreed to pay $3.3bn
for Warner Music via his industrial holding company Access Industries.
Blavatnik is a major petrochemicals investor, but has occasionally
bought media assets. Access has a controlling stake in Top Up TV, the
pay-TV business.
Born in the Soviet Union in 1957, he emigrated
with his family to the US in 1978. He lives in New York and London,
where he has a home in Kensington Palace Gardens.
Viktor Vekselberg
Ukraine-born oil and metals baron Vekselberg is
overseeing a turnaround at aluminium giant UC Rusal, which he formed
with fellow billionaire, Oleg Deripaska. Made first million selling
scrap copper from old cables. In the 1990s together with fellow
billionaire Leonard Blavatnik bought aluminum smelters to form a company
called Sual. Consummate dealmaker also has interests in chemicals,
utilities and telecoms.
Owns Fabergé egg collection.
German Khan
A native of Kiev, graduated from the Moscow
Institute of Steel and Alloys in 1988. The next year, with former
classmate Fridman, co-founded Alfa-Eco, a commodities trader and
predecessor of Alfa Group. Heads Alfa Group's oil business as executive
director and board member of oil company TNK-BP. He enjoys hunting and
has a large collection of sporting guns and rifles.
MOSCOW'S SECRET WEAPON: THE ISRAELI
MOSSAD AND THE ZIONIST CULTS
Putin met with the Exxon Mobil CEO,
Jewish organisation leaders in Washington
Russia and Israel's Technion Agree to
Launch Satellite in Joint Venture
Russia and the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology in Haifa have agreed to a joint venture that will launch a
satellite into space in 1995.
After a five-member delegation arrived here to
finalize details of the venture, the agreement was signed Monday between
the Technion and the Russian STC Complex. The Russian firm was
established in 1991 to convert Soviet military technology into Russian
civilian enterprises.
The Gurwinl-TechSat communications satellite was
designed and built over a period of three years at a cost of $3.5
million. The satellite is scheduled to be launched into space in March,
along with two other satellites from a site about 560 miles from Moscow.
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Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified
documents from the U.S. Department of Defence which reveals the agencies earlier views on
ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they
should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND
TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A
DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS
IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN
REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was
circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS,
NGA, State Dept., and many others.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the
group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.
Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified
documents from the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department.
The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on
ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they
should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and
some of its coalition allies had actually facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria –
as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also that ISIS
members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency
at facilities in Jordan in 2012.
[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters
trained in Jordan became members of the ISIS after their training.]
JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan,
according to informed Jordanian officials.
The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of
covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in
Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future campaign in
Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria
were first vetted for any links to extremist groups like al-Qaida.
In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a
training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern
desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in
Jordan.
Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it
was not clear whether the Americans worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but
the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan reportedly focused on
use of anti-tank weaponry.
The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three
months amid U.S. plans to train a total of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps
in the south and the east of Jordan.
Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding
Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British and French instructors.
Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on
the German magazine's report. The French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense
ministries also would not comment to Reuters.
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
"... It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East. ..."
"... Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ..."
"... They've re-started the Cold War. Keeps all the warmongers in business. Surely they're not stupid enough to want a hot one are they? ..."
"... It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold. ..."
"... "Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them." ..."
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision
to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure
of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger
picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the
paper writes
that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".
Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the
last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.
Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the
Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains
of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington,
in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.
No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to
the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance
at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State
– and they didn't care.
Overthrow, not regime change
You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to
be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined
in international law as "the supreme war crime".
The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states
with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations
, these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.
The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied
in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.
The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region.
The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction,
the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable
population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".
The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as
new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about
building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.
Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of
dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted
– from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning
from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based
community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."
The birth of Islamic State
The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these
societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they
were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest
public health services.
Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to
prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture
I want to address.
The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create
a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be
found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.
The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing,
flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in
the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even
more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.
A dark US vanity project
After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always
abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.
The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis
saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned
state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.
This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before
their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building
their state on parts of Syria.
Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that
in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the
moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.
The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through
Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.
From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of
thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became
instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.
A giant red herring
Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly
only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East,
one intimately tied to Islamic State.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they
are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was
inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with
money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.
Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival
of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.
With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project
is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its
Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.
Doomed Great Game
The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in
northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds
too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army,
which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.
The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best
hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.
That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those
deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly
became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western
military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.
Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is
really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama
spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against
the head-chopping extremists?
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to
silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political
realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues
to bestow on them.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.
The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism
that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish
credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.
ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme
and immediate solution and broke away.
-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme
ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.
-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New
Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.
One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the
problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving
the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to
the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution.
If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside
forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".
Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not?
Forces outside of what?
ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created
the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.
Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011,
the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal
of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern
Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge"
in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent
and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.
While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over
most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.
And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left
ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could
be dealt with later after Assad was gone.
That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed
the situation.
The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis
who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of
them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated
to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously:
Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.
And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel
statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.
So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates
and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste
under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.
We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless
of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political
and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.
The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing
that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly
alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts
on this site?
Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read
it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who
they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.
Given the craziness of Wahhabism
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country
– Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that
the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are
the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and
fully implement the New World (banking) Order.
Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring
they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .
My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel
isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" --
instead of our own lying eyes.
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and
Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.
"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section
of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small
group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."
Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct
It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.
This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly
and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency
of having clothes on .
"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region."-
This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.
Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain
and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with
Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally
better than Hitlery Clinton.
Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate
change led to repeated crop failures?"
Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run
out of water because of "climate change," that's false.
The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made
the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic
Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).
The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which
point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical
care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).
Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year
there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored
in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there
is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.
Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically
as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell
as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination,
but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and
later senators who become lobbyists are doing.
I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled,
or even dead, it was all for naught.
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.
We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.
Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist
attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to
happen to Israel since 9/11.
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "
That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's
meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the
most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like
it – was inevitably going to fill."
Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created.
IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in
the existence of (international) banks.
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing
the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib
"don't measure up?")
I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian
aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been
President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last
100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about
Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power
Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.
I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis.
Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction
of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized.
In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for
Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical
care for their wounded, training and weapons.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and
create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence
Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.
From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American
Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.
Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in
Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about
chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor
a preordained conclusion.
We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts
to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments
-- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring
the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.
Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention
the weak sheep-dog Sanders).
The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be
the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos
masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans
or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and
evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.
But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.
Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting"
neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"
Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a
charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as
a third-party candidate.
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.
Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one
of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks
watching the headlights approach:
1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting
mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas
Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.
2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child
policy.
Climate:
If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back
a few years, at most.
The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree
with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often
triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European
and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration
and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.
It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing
their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and
influence it continues to bestow on them."
FTFY
Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest,
the country be damned.
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more,
that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for
their lifestyle.
As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to
Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the
Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human
beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision
to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure
of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger
picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the
paper writes
that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".
Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the
last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.
Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the
Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains
of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington,
in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.
No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to
the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance
at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State
– and they didn't care.
Overthrow, not regime change
You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to
be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined
in international law as "the supreme war crime".
The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states
with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations
, these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.
The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied
in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.
The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region.
The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction,
the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable
population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".
The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as
new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about
building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.
Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of
dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted
– from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning
from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based
community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."
The birth of Islamic State
The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these
societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they
were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest
public health services.
Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to
prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture
I want to address.
The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create
a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be
found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.
The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing,
flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in
the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even
more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.
A dark US vanity project
After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always
abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.
The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis
saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned
state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.
This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before
their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building
their state on parts of Syria.
Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that
in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the
moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.
The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through
Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.
From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of
thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became
instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.
A giant red herring
Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly
only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East,
one intimately tied to Islamic State.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they
are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was
inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with
money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.
Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival
of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.
With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project
is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its
Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.
Doomed Great Game
The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in
northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds
too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army,
which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.
The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best
hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.
That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those
deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly
became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western
military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.
Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is
really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama
spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against
the head-chopping extremists?
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to
silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political
realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues
to bestow on them.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.
The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism
that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish
credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.
ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme
and immediate solution and broke away.
-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme
ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.
-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New
Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.
One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the
problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving
the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to
the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution.
If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside
forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".
Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not?
Forces outside of what?
ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created
the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.
Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011,
the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal
of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern
Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge"
in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent
and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.
While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over
most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.
And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left
ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could
be dealt with later after Assad was gone.
That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed
the situation.
The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis
who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of
them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated
to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously:
Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.
And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel
statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.
So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates
and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste
under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.
We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless
of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political
and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.
The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing
that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly
alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts
on this site?
Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read
it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who
they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.
Given the craziness of Wahhabism
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country
– Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that
the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are
the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and
fully implement the New World (banking) Order.
Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring
they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .
My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel
isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" --
instead of our own lying eyes.
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and
Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.
"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section
of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small
group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."
Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct
It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.
This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly
and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency
of having clothes on .
"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region."-
This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.
Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain
and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with
Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally
better than Hitlery Clinton.
Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate
change led to repeated crop failures?"
Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run
out of water because of "climate change," that's false.
The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made
the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic
Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).
The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which
point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical
care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).
Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year
there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored
in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there
is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.
Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically
as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell
as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination,
but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and
later senators who become lobbyists are doing.
I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled,
or even dead, it was all for naught.
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.
We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.
Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist
attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to
happen to Israel since 9/11.
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "
That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's
meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the
most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like
it – was inevitably going to fill."
Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created.
IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in
the existence of (international) banks.
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing
the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib
"don't measure up?")
I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian
aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been
President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last
100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about
Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power
Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.
I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis.
Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction
of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized.
In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for
Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical
care for their wounded, training and weapons.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and
create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence
Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.
From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American
Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.
@Digital Samizdat Absolutely. Gabbard is the "Democrat" Trump. A Jew puppet presented as an outsider. They're exactly the
same. Even Obama was presented that way to an extent.
Yet the dumb goyim will fall for it for the third time in a row.
Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in
Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about
chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor
a preordained conclusion.
We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts
to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments
-- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring
the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.
Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention
the weak sheep-dog Sanders).
@Ilyana_Rozumova The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be
the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos
masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans
or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and
evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.
But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.
@MarathonMan Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting"
neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"
Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a
charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as
a third-party candidate.
And now, according to the latest news, Trump will send tanks into Syria to help the Kurds secure the oil for Israel. It's hard
to understand why the Elders of the Deep State want to impeach Trump. He has done everything they wanted, moved the embassy, gave
Syria's Golan Heights to Israel, never criticizes the illegal settlements in Palestine. What else do they want from him?
What do you mean Pelosi has no credibility? Have you checked her bank balance lately? Nancy, had she not waded into politics,
would have been a pole dancer she had the goods for it.
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.
Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one
of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks
watching the headlights approach:
1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting
mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas
Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.
2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child
policy.
Climate:
If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back
a few years, at most.
The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree
with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often
triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European
and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration
and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.
When it comes to senior American politihoes, no one is ever right. Pelosi may be cultivating the ISIS, but Gabbard is busy blowing
assorted dictators and more closer to the heart, the hindoo nationalist queers, as impotent (I mean that in a literal sexual context,
as their elites don't marry) as they might be.
Tulsi needs to conduct herself with gravitas, because of her age. However, she is helped by the fact that the leader of the progressive
wing is a former bartender, and the leader of the environmental resistance is a high-school sophomore.
@MarathonMan It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing
their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and
influence it continues to bestow on them."
FTFY
Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest,
the country be damned.
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
Lol! Deceitful lies from some godless/pagan whitrash.
If you are referring to some self-perceived notions of barbarity/deception/etc., within Islam, then you are a deceitful !@#
who is trying to cover up the sheer savagery/psychopathy/deception/hypocrisy/etc., of the Christoo whitrash race.
Again, as far as the roots of Islam being in Judaism, that is laughable. It is Christooism which is clearly having roots in
Judaism (there have been so many here who have quoted from your pagan scriptures about the haloed position of the Jooscum)
and Hindooism .
In-his-image mangods/womangods, Trinity/Trimurthi, the human body is the temple of god the list is long where you all share
your pagan theologies.
Islam utterly rejects all such pagan abominations. The following verses of the Holy Quran amply proves the simplest and purest
form of monotheism, that is Islam;
Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born , Nor is there to Him
any equivalent ."
@A123 "Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability."
Wrong.
The Oded Yinon Plan employs exactly this strategy, and along with the Neocon dominated State Dept with its Regime Change program
(Oded Yinon plan in stealth mode) is the predicate. Meanwhile, once it emerged, Obama & Kerry sought to preserve ISIS as a means
to pressure Assad. Neocon Zionist fifth column in the US, & Israel-behind-the-scenes are the dual agency-behind-the-curtain of
US regime-change wars ***EVERYWHERE*** (because they hate Russia, too.).
@DESERT FOX And rule, finally, over a smoldering wreck of a planet? They already rule most of it, they're at the Endgame of
their long match with the world. Not that they eschew violence and mass murder. Indeed, they got their start thousands years ago
by worshiping a god who told them to genocide all their neighbors and steal all their goods.
@really no shit I'm in the same age cohort as most of these shameless grifters, so I know the end of this run on earth is
drawing near. I know that no one can take whatever they accumulate in this life with them into oblivion or whatever their imagined
version of paradise might be. The loot stays here in this vale of tears.
ALL of these players busy ruining and ending lives, like Pelosi, the Clintons and the Bush family, are multi-millionaires at
the least–and all on the taxpayers' dime. Why do they desperately seek to add ever more cash to their bank accounts by bringing
yet more misery into the world? It won't be very long and either the collection of psychopaths known as the government of the
United States and its ruthless war machine will end up with the proceeds or they will pass down to further generations of these
congenital parasites and deadbeats.
Does Joe ask himself whether it was worthy to spend his wretched life accumulating ill-gotten wealth to pass on to Hunter and
his ilk? Or for Hillary to set up Chelsea and the next generation of Rodham Clinton lampreys? Jimmy Carter seems to have been
the only American president who didn't constantly grasp for money once out of office and the world never heard a peep about Amy
ever again.
[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters trained in Jordan became members
of the ISIS after their training.]
JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S.
instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials.
The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting
the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future
campaign in Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to
extremist groups like al-Qaida.
In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in
the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.
Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it was not clear whether the Americans
worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan
reportedly focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.
The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three months amid U.S. plans to train a total
of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the south and the east of Jordan.
Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British
and French instructors.
Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the German magazine's report. The
French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense ministries also would not comment to Reuters.
Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defence
which reveals the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that
they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION
THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR),
AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government
agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic
asset.
Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department
of Defense and the State Department.
The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable
presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and some of its coalition allies had actually
facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria – as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also
that ISIS members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency at facilities in Jordan
in 2012.
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more,
that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for
their lifestyle.
As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to
Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the
Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human
beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.
The path of U.S.-Israeli arrogance and domination, with its various dimensions, and with its direct and indirect extensions
and alliances, which is witnessing military defeats and political failures, reflected successive defeats for the American strategies
and plans, one after the other. All this has led [the U.S.] to a state of indecision, retreat, and inability to control the progress
of events in our Arab and Islamic world. There is a broader international context for this – a context that, in its turn, helps
to expose the American crisis, and the decline of the [U.S.] unipolar hegemony, in the face of pluralism, the characteristics
of which are yet to be stabilized.
"The crisis of the arrogant world order is deepened by the collapse of U.S. and international stock markets, and by the confusion
and powerlessness of the American economy. This reflects the height of the structural crisis of the model of capitalist arrogance.
Therefore, it can be said that we are in the midst of historic transformations that foretell the retreat of the USA as a hegemonic
power, the disintegration of the unipolar hegemonic order, and the beginning of the accelerated historic decline of the Zionist
entity.
After World War II, the U.S. has adopted the leading, central hegemonic project. At its hands, this project has witnessed great
development of the means of control and unprecedented subjugation. It has benefited from an accumulation of multi-faceted accomplishments
in science, culture, technology, knowledge, economy, and the military, which was supported by an economic political plan that
views the world as nothing but open markets subject to the laws of [the U.S.].
"The most dangerous aspect of Western logic of hegemony in general, and the American logic of hegemony in particular, is their
basic belief that they own the world, and have the right to hegemony due to their supremacy in several fields. Thus, the Western,
and especially American, expansionist strategy, when coupled with the enterprise of capitalist economy, has become a strategy
of a global nature, whose covetous desires and appetite know no bounds.
The barbaric capitalism has turned globalism into a means to spread disintegration, to sow discord, to destroy identities,
and to impose the most dangerous form of cultural, economic, and social plunder. Globalization reached its most dangerous phase,
when it was transformed into military globalization by the owners of the Western hegemony enterprise, the greatest manifestation
of which was evident in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, to Palestine, and to Lebanon.
There is no doubt that American terrorism is the source of all terrorism in the world. The Bush administration has turned the
U.S. into a danger threatening the whole world, on all levels. If a global opinion poll were held today, the United States would
emerge as the most hated country in the world.
The most important goal of American arrogance is to take control of the peoples politically, economically, and culturally,
and to plunder their resources.
– Hassan Nasrallah December 8, 2009
and Trump IS NOT "pulling out" Will Tulsi? One way to find out. Doesn't look good though, unless shes willing to splinter the
C.I.A. into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds, as they say..
Where's the proof that she is CFR member, I see sock puppets parrot this line all the time but offer no proof. Her serving
on the armed & financial services committees and doing a speech for them doesn't make her a member. I'd take her over Trump any
day.
Hundreds of Islamic State fighters, both Syrian and foreign, were covertly evacuated by US,
UK and Kurdish forces from the besieged city of Raqqa last month and freed to "spread out far
and wide across Syria and beyond".
Although reports on the convoy surfaced at the time, BBC journalists Quentin Sommerville
and Riam Dalati have revealed the details in their documentary Raqqa's Dirty Secret.
Their investigation describes how the convoy carrying 250 fighters, 3,500 family members,
and lorry loads of arms and possessions, was arranged for October 12th by local officials in
meetings attended by a western officer.
During a visit to Syria in mid-October, The Irish Times was told not only about the
evacuation but also that senior Islamic State commanders and their families, 45 people in
all, had been airlifted out of Raqqa by a US helicopter and flown to the Kurdish region in
northern Iraq.
Fighters escaping Raqqa were said to have been given passage across the desert to join
comrades battling the Syrian army and its allies in Deir al-Zor.
Among the people the BBC team interviewed for the exposé were drivers paid by the
Islamic State to drive the buses and trucks carrying the evacuees. According to driver Abu
Fawzi, men, women and children wore suicide vests and the trucks had been booby-trapped in
case "something went wrong".
The convoy contained 50 trucks, 13 buses, and more than 100 of the fighters' own vehicles.
Although it had been agreed they would take only personal weapons, they filled 10 trucks with
arms and ammunition.
Three-day convoy
It had also been stipulated that no foreigners would leave, but drivers told the BBC that
French, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Saudi, Chinese, Tunisian and Egyptians had
joined the exodus. The only restriction observed was a ban against flags and banners.
Whenever it passed through a village or hamlet, fighters warned frightened bystanders they
would return, a villager called Muhanad told the BBC, "running a finger across their
throats".
Two Humvees led the convoy into the desert where the going was rough. Coalition aircraft
and drones hovered above, dropping flares after dark to light the way. When the motorcade
reached Islamic State-held territory, fighters and civilians departed with their arms and
possessions and drivers returned home.
The BBC investigation compelled Col Ryan Dillon, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve,
to admit to the deal. He told the team: "We didn't want anyone to leave. But this goes to the
heart of our strategy 'by, with and through' local leaders on the ground.
His statement on foreign fighters contradicted information given to the BBC by drivers and
people along the route as well as a statement about strategy made by US defence secretary
James Mattis in May.
"... Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit. ..."
"... At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown. ..."
"... For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria. ..."
"... This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics. ..."
"... During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy. ..."
"... The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world. ..."
"... Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. ..."
"... Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc ..."
"... Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds? ..."
"... Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks. ..."
"... It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it. ..."
"... Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria. ..."
"... He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress. ..."
"... The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/ ..."
"... It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change. ..."
"... Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests. ..."
"... Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist. ..."
"... IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause ..."
"... The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it. ..."
"... "This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth. ..."
"... On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/ ..."
"... TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them. ..."
"... ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously. ..."
"... That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds ..."
"... the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous. ..."
"... we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power. ..."
"... He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers. ..."
"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the
Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate
Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have
developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was
refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.
In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the
other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the
Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the
Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the
oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government
owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates.
Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and
its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!
Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the
national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own
palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party
air forces (Russia) who support them
This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and
stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.
IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession
and they are a danger to us all. pl
If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico
border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug
cartel?
I view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe
his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.
Its probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past
couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.
Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart.
After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I
can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their
exit.
As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their
oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow
any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what
Congress wants?
At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a
steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is
unknown.
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no
legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply
are playing dog-in-the-manger.
My guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny
relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the
SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore
social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to
the policy of FUKUSing Syria.
Why is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty
people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)
Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the
United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.
A good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream
media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation.
Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the
region and their customs is a national treasure.
This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning
of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut
instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact --
saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where
they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.
In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They
thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their
country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what
the war was about.
Now "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's
about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?
During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when
asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.
The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that
200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or
keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is
threaten to blow up the world.
Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the
United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's
impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence.
The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.
Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer,
but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police
and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a
second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds
me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried
to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen
serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is
chaos.
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural
plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador,
Peru, etc
No doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump
is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security
advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against
this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt
Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked.
Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk
with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia
should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not
see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.
My concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the
President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate
trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No
one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling"
Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded
to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs
Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said
in Persian, has grown a tail.
Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has
released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?
Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE
pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success.
During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of
curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and
banks.
It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were
beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even
leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that
Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.
Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something
big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation
between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.
Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump
will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a
cataract.
They will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good
reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to
the price.
Lose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is
supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was
endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to
be the nominee?
Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the
indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a
95% probability of winning the day before the election.
As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to
convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that
will vote to convict?
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not
nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed,
there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a
stampede.
You can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him
on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In
addition to circus acts.
I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am
not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the
compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore..
representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.
It's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican
candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the
polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense
opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election
defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast
majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office
for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an
election for the presidency is no small feat.
There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial
which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the
general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic
supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on
his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't
worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying
when he was asked questions.
Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies
so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and
failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.
He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he
simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near
flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.
With the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the
putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War
Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and
became midwife to additional disasters.
It probably should come as no surprise to us that
Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many
deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive
to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a
platform of change.
Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen.
At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy--
turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the
dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard
against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual
interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying
degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.
With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in
an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably
completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not
tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even
some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed
as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would
cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as
such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus
Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity
towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see
beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia
Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This
administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside
SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to
the Battle of Khasham.
The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media
is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the
MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them
distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of
affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking
points without understanding any of it.
While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support
America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for
eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these
wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to
it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to
contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from
under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively
prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with
Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the
permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless
covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever
holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and
Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact
certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.
you are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a
little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need
of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I
was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be
trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me
that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let
the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of
our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And
then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof
that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into
the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not
people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump
get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by.
Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon
and Zionist.
Bacevich interview:
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from
this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?
> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at
any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that
you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are
going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens
back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is
a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that
seriously.
> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again,
is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy
or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And
here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our
abandonment of the Kurds.
> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was
immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that
there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the
humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of
people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as
big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are
concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of
U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of
bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism.
Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen
to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a
fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment
nervous.
> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan
criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an
opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster
and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the
groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's
retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners
and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As
neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more
talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars
are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you
think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to
happen now with U.S. withdrawal.
> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to
set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I
mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the
problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.
> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even
members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to
reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if
you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if
you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a
different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say,
people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in
Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that
region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have
to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce
any more positive results?
> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have
inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties
that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has
done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to
oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully
appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a
profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.
This oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of
2018:
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and
conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is
intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?
In the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen
exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as
Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to
witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes
around comes around?
But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the
Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One
additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example.
Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war
be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?
As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG
leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his
flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but
didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry
[at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.
It seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the
Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a
long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is
actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch
another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the
north.
To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in
one field and 400 contractors in the other.
There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has
reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon
number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something
they wish to see.
"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and
Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.
1. CIA, Hillary Clinton, 'Rothschild-Octopus' money power. Altogether, British Israel
(Zionism).
2. Pentagon-NSA, Donald Trump, second tier elites including, for example, Sheldon Adelson.
Altogether, Israel (and the USA) First.
If these are the primary factions vying for control of the New World Order, why did HRC
throw Tulsi such a honkin' big bone by calling her a Russian asset?
Clinton has endorsed Gabbard in the same way Catholicism endorses sin: ergo, there is a
working agreement between all Globalist factions for a final settlement of WW3.
Or is there a better explanation for HRC's non endorsement endorsement of TG?
Should we also mention both are card carrying members of the Council on Foreign
Relations?
Understanding we are ruled by a duopoly of 1st and 2nd tier elites is essential piecing
together who represents whom - and what it means for the vast majority of humanity, which
remains generally ignorant and utterly voiceless.
Class is everything, which is why both Globalizing tiers have agreed to, amongst other
things, pretend we don't exist. Clinton threw Tulsi a bone so that Tulsi could throw us
another, but it all counts for nothing when the bill for elite criminality comes due. Both
factions agree that We the People, the unrepresented Third Estate, will be paying for
everything.
"... Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit. ..."
"... At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown. ..."
"... For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria. ..."
"... This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics. ..."
"... During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy. ..."
"... The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world. ..."
"... Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. ..."
"... Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc ..."
"... Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds? ..."
"... Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks. ..."
"... It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it. ..."
"... Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria. ..."
"... He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress. ..."
"... The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/ ..."
"... It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change. ..."
"... Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests. ..."
"... Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist. ..."
"... IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause ..."
"... The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it. ..."
"... "This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth. ..."
"... On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/ ..."
"... TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them. ..."
"... ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously. ..."
"... That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds ..."
"... the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous. ..."
"... we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power. ..."
"... He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers. ..."
"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the
Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate
Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have
developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was
refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.
In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the
other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the
Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the
Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the
oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government
owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates.
Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and
its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!
Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the
national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own
palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party
air forces (Russia) who support them
This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and
stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.
IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession
and they are a danger to us all. pl
If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico
border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug
cartel?
I view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe
his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.
Its probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past
couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.
Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart.
After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I
can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their
exit.
As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their
oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow
any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what
Congress wants?
At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a
steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is
unknown.
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no
legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply
are playing dog-in-the-manger.
My guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny
relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the
SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore
social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to
the policy of FUKUSing Syria.
Why is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty
people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)
Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the
United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.
A good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream
media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation.
Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the
region and their customs is a national treasure.
This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning
of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut
instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact --
saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where
they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.
In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They
thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their
country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what
the war was about.
Now "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's
about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?
During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when
asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.
The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that
200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or
keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is
threaten to blow up the world.
Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the
United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's
impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence.
The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.
Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer,
but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police
and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a
second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds
me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried
to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen
serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is
chaos.
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural
plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador,
Peru, etc
No doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump
is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security
advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against
this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt
Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked.
Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk
with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia
should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not
see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.
My concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the
President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate
trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No
one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling"
Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded
to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs
Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said
in Persian, has grown a tail.
Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has
released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?
Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE
pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success.
During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of
curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and
banks.
It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were
beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even
leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that
Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.
Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something
big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation
between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.
Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump
will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a
cataract.
They will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good
reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to
the price.
Lose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is
supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was
endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to
be the nominee?
Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the
indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a
95% probability of winning the day before the election.
As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to
convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that
will vote to convict?
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not
nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed,
there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a
stampede.
You can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him
on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In
addition to circus acts.
I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am
not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the
compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore..
representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.
It's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican
candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the
polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense
opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election
defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast
majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office
for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an
election for the presidency is no small feat.
There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial
which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the
general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic
supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on
his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't
worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying
when he was asked questions.
Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies
so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and
failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.
He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he
simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near
flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.
With the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the
putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War
Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and
became midwife to additional disasters.
It probably should come as no surprise to us that
Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many
deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive
to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a
platform of change.
Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen.
At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy--
turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the
dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard
against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual
interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying
degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.
With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in
an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably
completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not
tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even
some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed
as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would
cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as
such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus
Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity
towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see
beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia
Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This
administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside
SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to
the Battle of Khasham.
The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media
is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the
MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them
distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of
affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking
points without understanding any of it.
While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support
America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for
eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these
wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to
it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to
contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from
under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively
prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with
Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the
permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless
covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever
holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and
Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact
certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.
you are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a
little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need
of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I
was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be
trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me
that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let
the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of
our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And
then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof
that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into
the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not
people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump
get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by.
Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon
and Zionist.
Bacevich interview:
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from
this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?
> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at
any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that
you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are
going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens
back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is
a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that
seriously.
> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again,
is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy
or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And
here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our
abandonment of the Kurds.
> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was
immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that
there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the
humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of
people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as
big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are
concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of
U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of
bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism.
Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen
to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a
fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment
nervous.
> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan
criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an
opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster
and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the
groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's
retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners
and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As
neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more
talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars
are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you
think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to
happen now with U.S. withdrawal.
> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to
set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I
mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the
problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.
> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even
members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to
reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if
you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if
you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a
different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say,
people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in
Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that
region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have
to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce
any more positive results?
> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have
inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties
that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has
done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to
oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully
appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a
profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.
This oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of
2018:
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and
conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is
intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?
In the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen
exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as
Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to
witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes
around comes around?
But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the
Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One
additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example.
Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war
be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?
As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG
leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his
flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but
didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry
[at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.
It seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the
Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a
long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is
actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch
another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the
north.
To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in
one field and 400 contractors in the other.
There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has
reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon
number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something
they wish to see.
"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and
Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are
just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to
speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important
article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group,
Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported
way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.
This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium,
but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need
to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about
when discussing the Democratic party.
When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be,
"Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard
as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly
calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever
existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions
with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a
world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan
member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:
... ... ...
Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately
reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and
pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm
a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These
people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't
even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape
and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of
political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.
This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment;
there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species
within a hair's
breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest,
and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the
life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.
... ... ...
I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My
article about Senator John
McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received
an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from
CNN to
USA Today to the
Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar
talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie
Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted
my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.
This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate
nonsense , showing
where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician,
some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.
This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has
engaged in, and some that
it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look
at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the
first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I
still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.
Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns
at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless
hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are
traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any
kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are
whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around
what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.
-- -- --
I'm a 100 percent reader-funded journalist so if you enjoyed this, please consider helping me out by sharing it around, liking
me on Facebook , following me on
Twitter , or throwing some money into my hat on
Patreon .
With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the
decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country
has done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to
endless war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed
them off, declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the
choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by
Turkey as an existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's
a big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort
of hand wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable
person could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees.
Why must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops
to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These
forces do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed
their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John
Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign
policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
gjohnsit on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 5:38pm With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls,
the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has
done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to endless
war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed them off,
declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the choice
of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an
existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's a
big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand
wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person
could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why
must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to
Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces
do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their
attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry
admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy
was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public relations
companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of the
public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
The New Arab article quote "public relations firms to brandish their image in the US" has a word usage problem. The correct
word would be burnish, not brandish. You brandish your weapon. You burnish your image.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public
relations companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of
the public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the United
States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability to
go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing a long-term
buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by Syrian/Russian/Kurdish
forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the whole
thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking Syrian
forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where it dies
down in a couple weeks.
"Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness" won't happen. The MSM won't allow it.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the
United States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability
to go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing
a long-term buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by
Syrian/Russian/Kurdish forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the
whole thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking
Syrian forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where
it dies down in a couple weeks.
(as Kurdish Syria is sometimes called) is that one
of the Kurd leaders became a follower of Murray Bookchin after spending a bunch of time as a Marxist-Leninist, and so portions
of Kurdish society are an experiment in Bookchinism. Here is a
piece by Bookchin's daughter on the correspondence between him and the Kurds. Hopefully the Kurds will find some protection
in the new Putin-brokered Syria.
Otherwise, yeah, the Kurds are an ally of convenience for the Democratic Party and its apologists on that most disgusting of
propaganda instruments, National Public Radio.
but it should have also been illegal for us to arm the same people that we had declared terrorists. Now those people are killing
the people who fought on our side against the ones now doing the killing.. my head is spinning with all the insane talking points
coming from people who have never met a war they didn't support.
This is a good read.
Former and current US officials have slammed the Turkish mercenary force of "Arab militias" for executing and beheading Kurds
in northern Syria. New data from Turkey reveals that almost all of these militias were armed and trained in the past by the CIA
and Pentagon.
By Max Blumenthal
Left: John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss (right) in 2013; Right: Salim Idriss (center) in October, announcing the establishment
of the National Front for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.
Hmm..kinda hard to explain that huh? The article talks about Idriss in detail. As well as Obama and Hillary's roles in the
'no boots on the ground' war.
This should embarrass every person who is moaning over Trump's actions in Syria. Turkey was coming in one way or another and
the only way to stop them was for our troops to stand in their way. But what really ticks me off is all of that equipment they
left behind on their bug out. Not just tents , TVs and air conditioners and everything in between, but they left weapons and bombs
there and they just blew them up. This will make the defense companies very happy!
After the ceasefire, US backed
#Kurds are deciding to hand over the north of
#Syria to Turkey rather than the
Syrian army. All trump had to promise them was a stake in
#Syria 's oil fields.
https://t.co/euat8DvIa4
Syrian Girl lives in Syria and has been a good source of information, but I'm not sure if what she is reporting is true. But
wouldn't that shut lots of people up?
Obama kept troops out of Syria until the last minute. Then he took a force small enough to justify his successor's escalation.
So when the Turks tried to genocide the Kurds - like they were certain to do - Trump gets the blame. But it was supposed to be
Hillary. What was in it for her? The joy of another country seeing genocide?
The Kurds were promised land and valuable oil fields in North Eastern Syria by... the US. What's wrong with this picture? Damascus
has I invited the Kurds to be part of the multi-ethnic Syria. The Kurds refused and took America's deal. We armed them to the
teeth with 10s of billions of dollars of weapons. What could go wrong? Well just about everything as the US offer was highly illegal,
they are stealing Syrian oil, and Turkey will not accept any Kurdish permanent enclave on her border. Syria, Russia, Iran, China,
Hezbollah, Iraq and more support the reunification of all of Syria. Why were the Kurds so stupid? Go it? Blind belief in the all
powerful US!
"... It was this curious arrangement that Tulsi Gabbard ran smack into earlier this week. Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii and Democratic presidential candidate, was attacked seemingly out of nowhere by Hillary, who implied that the Russians might somehow be controlling her. "I'm not making any predictions," Clinton intoned on a podcast, "but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate." ..."
"... It was a base (and baseless) smear, and it drew a furious response. Gabbard tweeted that Clinton was "queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long." She also dared Clinton to jump into the race, declaring that the primary was now effectively between the two of them. ..."
"... in a more macro sense, she's correct. Of all the dividing lines vivisecting the Democratic Party right now, there's an important and understated one that runs between Clinton World and everything that Gabbard has come to represent. At issue is whether or not one family ought to be able to run the Democratic National Committee like its own LLC, installing loyalists as its leaders, freezing its foreign policy in the past, embarrassing it with self-serving fabrications. ..."
"... Preserve the brand even at the expense of the party : that's what the Clintons have always done. ..."
"... The common denominator in Clinton World is always personal short-term gain; all else, including political reality, is subordinated to that. And even when they lose, they still linger, their business more like a monopoly, having accumulated so much personnel power as to immunize it from market forces. ..."
"... Gabbard, then, isn't Clinton World's most formidable opponent, but right now she looks like its clearest antithesis. Her knight's move has been to take the Clintons off the grounds of personal accomplishment and put them on the harsher terrain of policy accomplishment ..."
"... Hillary is less eager, meanwhile, to discuss her and her husband's writ large policy records, given the current revolt against the liberal internationalism and Third Way centrism they've long regarded as de rigueur . Gabbard not only brings this up, her entire candidacy is a homing missile aimed at the establishment's failed foreign policy, one of its most gaping vulnerabilities. While Clinton World thrashes on the floor screeching at the Russian nanobots in their nose hairs, Gabbard offers up informed critiques of actual events. ..."
"... THANK YOU TULSI GABBARD for opening this debate on the direction our national diplomacy should take in the future, for demanding a reassessment of the old Cold War approach that abandoned the Constitutional requirement that wars be declared by Congress. ..."
"... It doesn't look like she has much of a chance, but I admire Ms. Gabbard's integrity and forthrightness. ..."
"... Well spoken. Indeed, one doesn't have to buy all her policy positions or support her nomination campaign. But Gabbard is worthy of the kind of genuine respect ..."
Is there anything sadder in the year 2019 than to be a hanger-on of the Clintons? It's the one form of communitarianism even we here
at TAC can oppose. Five years back, the New York Times pointed its telescope at what it called
Clinton World, the seemingly endless ecosystem of staffers, clients, strategists, old friends, wonks, flatterers, henchmen, consiglieres,
and hired dog walkers who have latched on to the Clintons over the years. The takeaway for the Times was that such a vast
coterie is difficult to control, a big rig that can only turn so quickly -- but one quote in particular stands out. Said a Clinton
friend of Clinton World: "Some people get eaten up by the charisma and forget that, in the end, it is a business."
And that's just it right there. Has anyone ever fine-tuned the business-ification of politics as have the Clintons? Their conquering
of the Democratic Party over the past 25 years has often felt like a corporate takeover, the absorption of a nationwide political
apparatus into a family syndicate that exists to build and burnish the brand of a single couple.
It was this curious arrangement that Tulsi Gabbard ran smack into earlier this week. Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii
and Democratic presidential candidate, was attacked seemingly out of nowhere by Hillary, who implied that the Russians might somehow
be controlling her. "I'm not making any predictions," Clinton intoned on a podcast, "but I think they've got their eye on somebody
who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate."
It was a base (and baseless) smear, and it drew a furious response. Gabbard tweeted that Clinton was "queen of warmongers,
embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long." She also dared Clinton
to jump into the race, declaring that the primary was now effectively between the two of them.
She's wrong about that, of course, at least in the literal sense. Gabbard, who rarely clears 2 percent in the polls, has little
chance of winning the Democratic nomination. But in a more macro sense, she's correct. Of all the dividing lines vivisecting
the Democratic Party right now, there's an important and understated one that runs between Clinton World and everything that Gabbard
has come to represent. At issue is whether or not one family ought to be able to run the Democratic National Committee like its own
LLC, installing loyalists as its leaders, freezing its foreign policy in the past, embarrassing it with self-serving fabrications.
The reason Clinton slimed Tulsi as a Russian patsy is because Clinton herself is obsessed with Russia. Over and over again, she's
blamed her own loss on their supposed meddling in the 2016 election, even going so far as to call Donald Trump's presidency
"illegitimate."
This is partly understandable -- no one wants to accept fault for difficult failures, least of all when the entire country is
watching -- and partly egotistical. But the belief that maybe Hillary really won, which extends well beyond the candidate
herself and throughout Clinton World, is also good business. However scant the evidence might be that the Russians heave-hoed votes
in Wisconsin, the Clintonian goal is always to guard their own -- "protect the shield," in the nonsensical words of the NFL. Better,
then, to hang around Democrats' neck a nutty conspiracy theory then to admit, even all these years later, that the Clinton product
might not be what it once was.
Preserve the brand even at the expense of the party : that's what the Clintons have always done. It's why Bill dragged
the Democrats into the realm of adolescent word parsing ("the definition of sex") rather than admit to his affair with Monica Lewinsky
from the start. It's why he was willing to triangulate during his presidency, chucking half the party platform off the wagon in order
to ensure he could net legislative victories. It's why Hillary obtusely insisted on running in 2008 and 2016, even though anyone
paying attention knew these would be populist years with her cast in role of Dickens' Monseigneur. The common denominator in
Clinton World is always personal short-term gain; all else, including political reality, is subordinated to that. And even when they
lose, they still linger, their business more like a monopoly, having accumulated so much personnel power as to immunize it from market
forces.
Still, all the bumps and losses have at least somewhat diminished the Clintons. There is little enthusiasm for another Hillary
rev of the engine, no matter how badly she seems to want one. As for Bill, when people say they're nostalgic for the 1990s, they
generally mean boy bands and Legends of the Hidden Temple , not blue dresses. Now enter Tulsi Gabbard. She is both a walking
repudiation of Clinton World and a product of its failures. A former vice chair at the DNC, she
resigned after it became clear the organization intended to slight Bernie Sanders' presidential candidacy in favor of Hillary's.
A political neophyte, she's running a barebones campaign, in contrast to Clinton World's legions. She remains unsullied by the corrupt
Democratic influencers of yore, from Goldman Sachs to Jeffrey Epstein, all of whom the Clintons have rubbed elbows with. And most
importantly, she served as a National Guard medic in Iraq and came away jaded by the very wars Hillary keeps endorsing.
Gabbard, then, isn't Clinton World's most formidable opponent, but right now she looks like its clearest antithesis. Her knight's
move has been to take the Clintons off the grounds of personal accomplishment and put them on the harsher terrain of policy accomplishment.
Hillary loves to tout her (substantial) record of public service as a woman, but Gabbard, a war veteran, can claim that too.
Hillary is less eager, meanwhile, to discuss her and her husband's writ large policy records, given the current revolt against the
liberal internationalism and Third Way centrism they've long regarded as de rigueur . Gabbard not only brings this up, her
entire candidacy is a homing missile aimed at the establishment's failed foreign policy, one of its most gaping vulnerabilities.
While Clinton World thrashes on the floor screeching at the Russian nanobots in their nose hairs, Gabbard offers up informed critiques
of actual events.
The contrast is unavoidable, and it's made Clinton World look one slice short of a (faux New York-style) pizza. (It's always wrong
to say that conspiracy theories are the sole province of "the fringes"; they can afflict the center, too, and they're all the more
embarrassing when they do.) Sure enough, fade to Iowa, where voters are expressing renewed interest in Gabbard. One
told the Associated Press that Hillary's smear
was "divisive and despicable" and said he likes Tulsi's "anti-regime-change message," while another accused Clinton of "sowing division
in the primary." As it turns out, protecting the brand of a couple that hasn't won a nationwide election in 23 years is not
a priority in flyover country.
It may be that this is the year the Democrats are finally ready to cast out the Clintons for good, along with all their attendant
wars and machinations and courtiers. If so, the strongest tonic they could swallow would be the campaign of Tulsi Gabbard. You don't
have to support her candidacy (I don't) to appreciate what she's trying to do here.
Matt Purple is the managing editor of The American Conservative.
Tulsi Gabbard has volunteered twice to serve active duty in the US military, and continues today as a Major in the Army National
Guard...definitely NOT a "Russian asset" but rather a very patriotic American. The worst thing about HRC's slander against Ms.
Gabbard (and the repeats of that slander by other Dem party operatives and even major media publishers of HRC-echoing op-eds)
is that the endless-undeclared-multiple-wars party won't debate the merits of their approach but rather only accuse opponents
of treason.
THANK YOU TULSI GABBARD for opening this debate on the direction our national diplomacy should take in the future,
for demanding a reassessment of the old Cold War approach that abandoned the Constitutional requirement that wars be declared
by Congress. THANK YOU TULSI GABBARD for your military service to our country, for your public service in various elected offices,
and now for your campaign that forces these issues back into the national debate.
It doesn't look like she has much of a chance, but I admire Ms. Gabbard's integrity and forthrightness. She ought to at least
rate a cabinet position if a Democrat becomes president. (SecDef, or State or National Security Advisor, perhaps?). I hope she
keeps hammering away on the foreign policy issue.
Well spoken. Indeed, one doesn't have to buy all her policy positions or support her nomination campaign. But Gabbard is worthy
of the kind of genuine respect that will elude HRC's legacy.
What she coerced in life will be denied her for eternity, methinks.
But Gabbard, however she may fare this time around, has upside. Because she's the real deal.
There is such a hole where our leadership
should be, an enormous surfeit of vacuity in the leadership ranks on both sides of the ball that looks to be the curse of our
time. It wouldn't bother me a bit if she helped fill the void.
Protecting the faded brand indeed. Because it's the sole explanation of a situation when someone starts dividing a party a year
before the election and after an impeachment debacle, aside from idiocy in both colloquial, clinical and ancient Greek meaning.
Russian agents behind Gabbard, Russian agents behind Stein, Russian agents behind Trump, Russian agents behind Clinton's fridge.
And it's not said by a 5-year-old girl. It keeps on being said by a grown-up woman who, basically, rules one of America's two
biggest parties. It starts feeling like some tragifarce already.
"... NATO has become an end run around the UN in legitimizing our dirty little wars. No wonder they are going after Tulsi. ..."
"... War and spooks. It makes it me absolutely disgusted to see intelligent, left-leaning people following obvious traps into xenophobia and fascism. People I love talking about Russian conspiracies, foreign "assets", etc. ..."
What was Hillary Clinton thinking? The 2016 Democratic nominee, for some reason, felt the
need to insert herself into the 2020 race with an attack on Tulsi Gabbard, an oddball
Democratic presidential contender who barely registered in polls. The congresswoman from
Hawaii is a completely discreditable candidate -- more on that in a moment -- but Clinton's
accusation that Gabbard is a tool of the Russians was so blunt and clumsy that it has added
new life to a primary bid that should never have existed in the first place. Within a day,
Gabbard was already fundraising off of it, a development as predictable as a sunrise.
Oh no! The great neo-liberal hope proves herself inept again, and the rest of the spooks get
antsy. Damn it Hillary, you're not supposed to directly say that. You're supposed to
imply it from unverifiable sources. Geez, you're making us all look like amateurs over
here.
Here we are again, watching the people that foiseted Her onto us in the first place,
gnashing their teeth because she can't play even the most elementary of politics.
Moreover, Clinton is also right that both Stein and Gabbard are favorites of the Russian
government, which has rushed social-media bots and state-controlled media to their defense at
various times. Stein even got a seat at a dinner with Vladimir Putin, an honor one might
think is a bit out of the weight class of a super-minor American candidate. The fact that
Stein was sitting at the same table as Putin, along with the retired general, future Donald
Trump appointee, and current felon Michael Flynn, should have raised alarm bells because
Putin never wastes a minute of his day on people who cannot be of use to him. But once Trump
was in the race, Russia focused its efforts on getting him elected, and Stein was left to do
what damage she could as a third-party spoiler.
And this is great! We're just going to repeat everything she said, embellish it, and pretend
like it's common knowledge! Brilliant!
Makes Kamala's answer the other day look especially telling. Well, of course ,
everyone knows that... But god, don't say that out loud!
The Atlantic Council of the United States was established in 1961 by former Secretaries
of State Dean Acheson and Christian Herter to bolster support for NATO. The name is
derivative of North Atlantic Council, the highest governing body of NATO.
+ On April 23, 1999, NATO rocketed the central studio of Radio Televisija Srbije (RTS),
the state-owned broadcasting corporation in Belgrade, destroying the building. Sixteen
civilian employees of RTS were killed and 16 wounded. Amnesty International concluded the
attack was a war crime.
+ In a Feb. 12, 2010 atrocity that was kept secret until March 13, US Special Forces
killed a teenage girl, a pregnant mother of 10, a pregnant mother of 6, a police officer
and his brother, and were accused of then trying to cover-up the killings by digging
bullets out of the victims' bodies, washing the wounds with alcohol and lying to superior
officers.
+ While bombing Libya in March 2011, NATO refused to aid a group of 72 migrants adrift
in the Mediterranean Sea. Only nine people on board survived. The refusal was condemned as
criminal by the Council of Europe.
+ On Nov. 26, 2011, NATO jets bombed and rocketed an allied Pakistani military base for
two hours, killing 26 Pakistani soldiers and wounding dozens more. NATO refuses to
apologize
War and spooks. It makes it me absolutely disgusted to see intelligent, left-leaning
people following obvious traps into xenophobia and fascism. People I love talking about
Russian conspiracies, foreign "assets", etc.
My wife is from Hawaii, and she used to respect Tulsi a great deal. It's heartbreaking for
me to watch her fall for this shit.
@Lookout
I think it's because she actually went to school for Political Science. She was in fact, an
intern in the Clinton administration.
Now, she left politics because she was disgusted by it.... I can only imagine how gross it
is up close and personal. But, I think like many women of her time, and a true feminist,
she's fallen for Hillary's victimization game.
When I told her I made my first political donation yesterday, she was excited. When I told
her it was to Tusi, for what Clinton had said, she became immediately combative. But when, I
in exasperation, yelled "I'M DOING IT TO DEFEND A WOMAN!" I think it finally clicked. I'm
hoping that maybe she can finally see that she is just a nasty, vindictive woman.
#2.1 I think
it's because she actually went to school for Political Science. She was in fact, an
intern in the Clinton administration.
Now, she left politics because she was disgusted by it.... I can only imagine how
gross it is up close and personal. But, I think like many women of her time, and a true
feminist, she's fallen for Hillary's victimization game.
When I told her I made my first political donation yesterday, she was excited. When I
told her it was to Tusi, for what Clinton had said, she became immediately combative. But
when, I in exasperation, yelled "I'M DOING IT TO DEFEND A WOMAN!" I think it finally
clicked. I'm hoping that maybe she can finally see that she is just a nasty, vindictive
woman.
Feminism isn't about saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as
men.
Exactly right. My wife and I own a company. She's better at sales and customer service
than I am, so she does that. I'm better at marketing and technology issues, so I do that. We
each have strengths and weaknesses. The best policy for us, and I posit for society in
general, is to base decisions on quantifiable facts, not on gender.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
@edg
generally, women just think a little different. It was a woman, accountant, that confronted
Ken Lay and brought down Enron. She had nothing to gain. It was a woman FBI agent that
noticed foreign nationals were taking flying lessons that didn't include landing an aircraft.
Her observations were dismissed. Men say, do this, you will prosper, women say do this, it's
the right thing to do. Because that's what they teach their kids. Yes, women can emulate men,
the glass ceiling omits that those standing on the top rung are standing on the fingers of
those below them. But damn it, we need a different way of thinking.
Feminism isn't about saying women are better than men but saying women are as
capable as men.
Exactly right. My wife and I own a company. She's better at sales and customer service
than I am, so she does that. I'm better at marketing and technology issues, so I do that.
We each have strengths and weaknesses. The best policy for us, and I posit for society in
general, is to base decisions on quantifiable facts, not on gender.
women are not shamed, objectified, exploited, deprived of choice, deprived of freedom,
deprived of opportunity, abused, or killed for being women.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
#2.1.1 may
consider herself a true feminist, her unrelenting support of women as THE answer to our
problems says to me, in my own opinion, she's really no feminist. Feminism isn't about
saying women are better than men but saying women are as capable as men. To me, the
uttering of women who say, like some twit in the media a couple weeks ago, that "women
aren't corrupt" is actually a highly sexist thing to say. Women with real power in our
corrupt system are indeed as corrupt as any man is and seem fully capable of using their
corruption to get ahead. And there have been many women historically who proved that
capability rather well.
I have a couple of friends who are on the same wavelength in too many ways for me.
Both are younger than I am so some of that might be generational differences in
perception, but I think a lot of it is also the media hype of MeToo, Trump, etc. I get
extremely frustrated with them at times but I have learned lately not to even respond to
the latest outrage and keep reminding them, which both do not really like, that woman or
man, in this world, that choice matters about as much as the one between R and D...
Hillary and her disgusting minions sicken me with their sexism talk. They make an open
mockery of real sexism and they feel absolutely no shame doing it. Anything to get ahead
after all, they do not care how many real women they step on, bomb, and kill to get there
either.
Gabbard herself has already ruled out such a challenge, but that is beside the point.
Gabbard has now vowed to take her fight to the convention, where she might argue that the
nominee, whom Clinton will applaud and support, is just another tool of the Democratic,
neoconservative, neoliberal, warmongering, globalist establishment.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think of
her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my feet
applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that may
very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every one of the
major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates - with the
exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the Wikileaks email
from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly, the vicious and
vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past was
testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut the same
hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be asked
about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and I
especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the other,
the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should all be
swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of me wonders
why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should be relegated
to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a rat's ass about her
or her "opinions."
@Le
Frog
Based on Fmr. Sec. Clinton's libelous statement. The language was more direct and
absolute.
Rep. Gabbard should get a bump but she, and certainly Sen. Sanders, have bigger fish to
fry than jumping up and down every time Her rattles the car keys.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
@OzoneTom
I would love to see a lawsuit from Jill Stein.
#4
Based on Fmr. Sec. Clinton's libelous statement. The language was more direct and
absolute.
Rep. Gabbard should get a bump but she, and certainly Sen. Sanders, have bigger fish
to fry than jumping up and down every time Her rattles the car keys.
...but it fits this conversation too
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/20/max-blumenthal-on-why-hillary-clinton... (22 min)
Max Blumenthal says that Clinton's comments reflect a continued effort by Democratic
neo-liberals to deflect responsibility for their loss to Trump in 2016; marginalize voices
like Gabbard and Stein's who challenge their pro-war, corporatist agenda; and preview their
potential future attacks on Bernie Sanders.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
Representative Gabbard, We were very disappointed to hear that you would resign your
position with the DNC so you could endorse Bernie Sanders, a man who has never been a
Democrat before. When we met over dinner a couple of years ago I was so impressed by your
intellect, your passion, and commitment to getting things done on behalf of the American
people. For you to endorse a man who has spent almost 40 years in public office with very
few accomplishments, doesn't fall in line with what we previously thought of you. Hillary
Clinton will be our party's nominee and you standing on ceremony to support the sinking
Bernie Sanders ship is disrespectful to Hillary Clinton. A woman who has spent the vast
majority of her life in public service and working on behalf of women, families, and the
underserved. You have called both myself and Michael Kives before about helping your
campaign raise money, we no longer trust your judgement so will not be raising money for
your campaign.
Darnell Strom & Michael Kives
Ooh..bet that hurt.
These are the guys who represent lots of powerful people in government, the media and
Hollywood. If you want to go anywhere then you need them on your side.
is a Donald Trump asset.
I sure hope that Tulsi gets a boost out of this nonsense. No matter what one may think
of her as a candidate, I am all for a bigger group of voices, and I am definitely on my
feet applauding Tulsi's response.
Correct me if this is wrong, but I saw a graphic on Twitter or Reddit last night that
may very well explain why Tulsi Gabbard was targeted by the Great White Failure: every
one of the major candidates were either Clinton state delegates or Clinton superdelegates
- with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Also floating around was the
Wikileaks email from the Clinton Cabal to Tulsi, chastising her for resigning. Suddenly,
the vicious and vindictive swipe makes sense.
There was also lot of speculation online too about whether the Ghoul of Politics Past
was testing the smear job waters to see what would knock Tulsi, with the plan to debut
the same hits against Bernie Sanders. I can believe it.
Just to throw the question out there too: do you think other candidates should be
asked about this? I'm now of two minds. On one hand, I believe it's a fair question, and
I especially want to hear all of them demanding that Clinton provide proof of her pretty
serious allegations. Seems to me that no one has asked for the receipts yet. On the
other, the press shouldn't have time to be asking candidates what they think; they should
all be swarming Hillary Clinton, demanding to see her alleged evidence. A third part of
me wonders why we are still giving this human herpes any attention whatsoever. She should
be relegated to the same heap that Glenn Beck currently occupies, where no one gives a
rat's ass about her or her "opinions."
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I hope
that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough Democratic
Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information
than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in
narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates
on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through
WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual
footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be
taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic
elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has
occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer service model in higher
education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment
machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of
information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of
ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary
citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions
themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst
case, a combination of both.
@konondrum@konondrum
But I can't remember who. The big quote was something like, "In America every shopkeeper is
an expert."
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I
hope that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough
Democratic Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more
information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a
surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled
informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a
quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an
equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most
ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is
dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this
rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a
customer service model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry
into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the
increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated
public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce
intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than
anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to
populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both.
@konondrum
This is just what I need: My worst of all fears confirmed.
It wasn't so long ago that "standing up to experts" was just something crank Texas
dentists got skewered by Stephen Colbert for...but now?
Thomas M. Nichols
He closes the article with this tidbit -
As a former Republican who will vote for the Democratic nominee again in 2020, I
hope that I never have to talk about Tulsi Gabbard again. I can only hope that enough
Democratic Party leaders can convince Hillary Clinton to feel the same way.
Check out his book! -
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
(!!!!)
Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more
information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a
surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled
informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a
quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an
equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most
ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is
dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this
rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a
customer service model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry
into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the
increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated
public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce
intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than
anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to
populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both.
Will any of HER buddies address anything in Tulsi's tweet aside from Russia? I think not.
HER is going to have to take the "rot" comment on the chin because I'm sure they really
really don't want to have that conversation.
So, I am glad Tulsi opened that door and I hope she doesn't let up on it. Russiagate is,
after all, a symptom of the corruption in the party, just like Trump is.
@Lookout
I watched it yesterday and was amazed by his take on it, especially after he had harsh words
for Tulsi regarding her version of Medicare for All. To be sure, Time Black is a big Bernie
supporter, but his latest on Tulsi is excellent.
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now think
Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her messages of
anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like Bernie's
constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate to
the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy and
war.
@MrWebster
Nothing today should be about Her. It is straight from the Trump playbook. Allowing this
absurd slander to distract us from keeping our eyes on the prize is a win for Her.
Senator Sanders and Representative Gabbard are moving ahead on the front. They are
depending on the rest of us to resist on the flanks.
"Not me, Us!" is not just a slogan...
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now
think Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her
messages of anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like
Bernie's constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll
numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate
to the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy
and war.
@MrWebster
Excellent comment that reflects my own view of what is going on here.
Just as Bernie's 2016 Presidential campaign has greatly changed the dommestic policy
landscape, the oligarchy and the MIC are seeing that Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 Presidential
campaign is beginning to take hold in changing the political landscape foreign policy wise.
The empire is coming apart and they are lashing back.
I was sorta confused about why Hillary did it. Mostly I thought to open door to attack
Bernie. In many ways that door is closed now given the reaction of the masses. I now
think Hillary's comments were meant to sideline not so much the candidate Tulsi but her
messages of anti-war and anti-regime change. I think her constant iteration just like
Bernie's constant iteration of m4a, was reaching people way beyond her poll
numbers.
It boils down to this:
Atlantic Council (war mongers) = regime change and war is good. Losing ground.
Tulsi: regime change and war is bad. Winning ground.
Tulsi's influence goes beyond her poll numbers. She is thee most dangerous candidate
to the establishment because she is winning the ideological battle over foreign policy
and war.
...something to do with HER server, wasn't it? But what I REALLY think is going on, and I
could be totally wrong, is that Bernie is considering Tulsi as his VP pick, when and if, and
this is to sow enough doubt and deceit about Tulsi that it wounds Bernie. But one thing I
know for sure: that Clinton hag is one evil bitch!
...something to do with HER server, wasn't it? But what I REALLY think is going on,
and I could be totally wrong, is that Bernie is considering Tulsi as his VP pick, when
and if, and this is to sow enough doubt and deceit about Tulsi that it wounds Bernie. But
one thing I know for sure: that Clinton hag is one evil bitch!
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are
just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to
speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important
article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group,
Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported
way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.
This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium,
but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need
to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about
when discussing the Democratic party.
When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be,
"Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard
as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly
calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever
existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions
with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a
world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan
member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:
... ... ...
Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately
reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and
pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm
a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These
people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't
even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape
and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of
political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.
This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment;
there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species
within a hair's
breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest,
and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the
life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.
... ... ...
I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My
article about Senator John
McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received
an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from
CNN to
USA Today to the
Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar
talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie
Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted
my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.
This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate
nonsense , showing
where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician,
some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.
This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has
engaged in, and some that
it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look
at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the
first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I
still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.
Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns
at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless
hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are
traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any
kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are
whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around
what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.
-- -- --
I'm a 100 percent reader-funded journalist so if you enjoyed this, please consider helping me out by sharing it around, liking
me on Facebook , following me on
Twitter , or throwing some money into my hat on
Patreon .
"... This is when it became clear it wasn't just political operatives pushing fake news about Russian influence, but that "respected" mass media would be leading the charge for them. The rest is pretty much history. MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, etc have been spewing outlandish Russiagate nonsense for three years straight, and despite the complete failure of special counsel Robert Mueller to find any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, these agents of empire refuse to stop. ..."
"... Americans like to sneer at more transparently unfree societies around the world, but when you think about the disturbing implications of former spooks delivering news to the public, one can't help but conclude that mass media in 2019 looks like a gigantic propaganda campaign targeting U.S. citizens. Moreover, as can be seen by the recent attacks by Clinton and her allies in the media on Gabbard, they aren't easing up. ..."
"... Comey was a senior vice president for Lockheed Martin before returning to Washington ..."
"... Excuse me, the voting going on up there for sanctions on Russia for various bogus things has been pretty much unanimous and bipartisan. ..."
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their
wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
– Arundhati Roy
Last week, Hillary Clinton called Tulsi Gabbard (and Jill Stein) Russian agents on a podcast. More
specifically :
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the Democratic primary and
are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians," said Clinton, apparently referring to Rep.
Gabbard, who's been accused of receiving support from Russian bots and the Russian news media. "They have a bunch of sites and
bots and other ways of supporting her so far." She added: "That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because
she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset -- I mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate.
So I don't know who it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states
that they most needed."
Tulsi subsequently responded to this slanderous accusation with a series of devastating blows.
Her tweets set off a firestorm, and even if you're as disillusioned by presidential politics as myself, you couldn't help but
cheer wildly that someone with a major political platform finally stated without any hint of fear or hesitation exactly what so many
Americans across the ideological spectrum feel.
Of course, this has far wider implications than a high profile feud between these two. The "let's blame Russia for Hillary's loss"
epidemic of calculated stupidity driven by Ellen-Democrats and their mouthpieces across corporate mass media began immediately after
the election. I know about it on a personal level because this website was an early target of the neoliberal-led new McCarthyism
courtesy of a ridiculous and libelous smear in the Washington Post over Thanksgiving weekend 2016 (see:
Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of "Russian Propaganda" Websites) .
This is when it became clear it wasn't just political operatives pushing fake news about Russian influence, but that "respected"
mass media would be leading the charge for them. The rest is pretty much history. MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, etc have been
spewing outlandish Russiagate nonsense for three years straight, and despite the complete failure of special counsel Robert Mueller
to find any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, these agents of empire refuse to stop. The whole charade seems more akin to an intelligence
operation than journalism, which shouldn't be surprising given the proliferation of former intelligence agents throughout mass media
in the Trump era.
Former CIA Director
John Brennan
(2013-17) is the latest superspook to be reborn as a TV newsie. He just
cashed in at
NBC News as a "senior national security and intelligence analyst" and served his first expert views on last Sunday's edition of
Meet the Press .
The Brennan acquisition seeks to elevate NBC to spook parity with CNN, which employs former Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper and former CIA Director
Michael Hayden
in a similar capacity.
Other, lesser-known national security veterans thrive under TV's grow lights. Almost too numerous to list, they include
Chuck Rosenberg
, former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and
counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III;
Frank Figliuzzi , former chief of FBI counterintelligence;
Juan Zarate , deputy national security adviser under Bush, at NBC; and
Fran
Townsend , homeland security adviser under Bush, at CBS News.
CNN's bulging roster also includes former FBI agent Asha Rangappa
; former FBI agent James Gagliano
; Obama's former deputy national security adviser
Tony Blinken ; former House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers ; senior
adviser to the National Security Council during the Obama administration
Samantha Vinograd ; retired CIA operations officer
Steven L. Hall; and
Philip Mudd , also retired from the CIA.
Americans like to sneer at more transparently unfree societies around the world, but when you think about the disturbing implications
of former spooks delivering news to the public, one can't help but conclude that mass media in 2019 looks like a gigantic propaganda
campaign targeting U.S. citizens. Moreover, as can be seen by the recent attacks by Clinton and her allies in the media on Gabbard,
they aren't easing up.
Which brings us to the crux of the issue. Why are they doing this? Why is Clinton, with zero evidence whatsoever, falsely calling
a sitting U.S. Congresswoman, a veteran with two tours in Iraq, and someone polling at only 2% in the Democratic primary a "Russian
asset." Why are they so afraid of Tulsi Gabbard?
It's partly personal. Tulsi was one of only a handful of congressional Democrats to set aside fears of the Clintons and their
mafia-like network to endorse Bernie Sanders early in 2016. In fact, she
stepped
down from her position as vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee to do so. This is the sort of thing a petty narcissist
like Hillary Clinton could never forgive, but it goes further.
Tulsi's mere presence on stage during recent debates has proven devastating for the Ellen Degeneres wing of the Democratic party.
She effectively ended neoliberal darling Kamala Harris' chances by simply telling the truth about her horrible record, something
no one else in the race had the guts to do.
In other words, Tulsi demolished Kamala Harris and put an end to her primary chances by simply telling the truth about her on
national television. This is how powerful the truth can be when somebody's actually willing to stand up and say it. It's why the
agents of empire -- in charge of virtually all major institutions -- go out of their way to ensure the American public is exposed
to as little truth as possible. It's also why they lie and scream "Russia" instead of debating the actual issues.
But this goes well beyond Tulsi Gabbard. Empire requires constant meddling abroad as well as periodic regime change wars to ensure
compliant puppets are firmly in control of any country with any geopolitical significance. The 21st century has been littered with
a series of disastrous U.S. interventions abroad, while the country back home continues to descend deeper into a neo-feudal oligarchy
with a hunger games style economy. As such, an increasing number of Americans have begun to question the entire premise of imperial
foreign policy.
To the agents of empire, dominant throughout mainstream politics, mega corporations, think-tanks and of course mass media, this
sort of thought crime is entirely unacceptable. In case you haven't noticed, empire is a third-rail of U.S. politics. If you dare
touch the issue, you'll be ruthlessly smeared, without any evidence, as a Russian agent or asset. There's nothing logical about this,
but then again there typically isn't much logic when it comes to psychological operations. They depend on manipulation and triggering
specific emotional responses.
There's a reason people like Hillary Clinton and her minions just yell "Russia" whenever an individual with a platform criticizes
empire and endless war. They know they can't win an argument if they debate the actual issues, so a conscious choice was made to
simply avoid debate entirely. As such, they've decided to craft and spread a disingenuous narrative in which anyone critical of establishment
neocon/neoliberal foreign policy is a Russia asset/agent/bot. This is literally all they've got. These people are telling you 2+2=5
and if you don't accept it, you're a traitorous, Putin-loving nazi with a pee pee tape. And these same people call themselves "liberal."
Importantly, it isn't just a few trollish kooks doing this. It's being spread by some of the most powerful people and institutions
in the country, including of course mass media.
This inane verbal vomit is considered "liberal" news in modern America, a word which has now lost all meaning. Above, we witness
a collection of television mannequins questioning the loyalty of a U.S. veteran who continues to serve in both Congress and the national
guard simply because she dared call out America's perpetually failing foreign policy establishment.
To conclude, it's now clear dissent is only permitted so long as it doesn't become too popular. By polling at 2% in the primary,
it appears Gabbard became too popular, but the truth is she's just a vessel. What's really got the agents of empire concerned is
we may be on the verge of a tipping point within the broader U.S. population regarding regime change wars and empire. This is why
debate needs to be shut down and shut down now. A critical mass of citizens openly questioning establishment foreign policy cannot
be permitted. Those on the fence need to be bullied and manipulated into thinking dissent is equivalent to being a traitor. The national
security state doesn't want the public to even think about such topics, let alone debate them.
Ultimately, if you give up your capacity for reason, for free-thought and for the courage to say what you think about issues of
national significance, you've lost everything. This is what these manipulators want you to do. They want you to shut-up, to listen
to the "experts" who destroy everything they touch, and to be a compliant subject as opposed to an active, empowered citizen. The
answer to such a tactic is to be more bold, more informed and more ethical. They fear truth and empowered individuals more than anything
else. Stand up tall and speak your mind. Pandering to bullies never works.
* * *
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For those of us who grew up during the Cold War going to Russia is intense. I have never been so scared in my life as when
that plane touched down at Pulkovo 2. And I though Dulles was a shithole.
Russians love art and they have fantastic museums and fantastic architecture. Food is a bit sketchy but you can make do. No
fat women there that I saw. In fact, you will see some of the most beautiful women in the world there. Trust me on that.
Pelosi is smart enough to know that all roads lead to Putin. But is she smart enough to know that're not just American and
its 'allied' Western 'roads', but now its all the roads in the world.
Because the world finally understands that Putin is the only peacemaker on the scene. And that most of the disputes the international
community is saddled with are a direct result of American foreign policy and the excesses of its economy.
The world is tired of being dragged through Hell at the whim of a handful of American neocon devotees of Paul Wolfowitz and
the fallacious Wolfowitz Doctrine which was credited with having won the Cold War for the West and has been in effect ever since.
Except there seems to be some doubt now who actually won the Cold War with America scrambling to get out of Syria, leaving
behind a symbolic force of a couple of thousand troops.
That's the reason for everything that's going on America today. Russia, under Putin, has turned the tables on Congress, the
neocons, the warmongers, and those politicians and elite who want the Middle East and its vast reserves of oil to continue to
be destabilized by intranational, neighborly hatreds, by terrorism and by America's closest ally, Israel to continue to expand
its borders with its policy of settlements. This problematic situation is scrupulously avoided in America and the West's MSM,
and can only be seen in foreign media. Which brings us back to Putin.
Is he following the strategies of Sun Tzu, who advises you to
'appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.'
'all warfare is based on deception'
'victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first then try to win.'
Hillary Clinton is obviously testing the waters for a last-minute, swoop-in candidacy. She sees Biden deflating and realizes
there's nobody to keep the Democratic nomination firmly in corporate hands. She wants them to beg her, though.
Without Russia, ASSAD would be long gone and IRAN would have been bombed to oblivion, and Greater Israhell would have been
fulfilled and ruling over the MidEast.
In other words, Russia bashing by Jewish-controlled politicians and in Jewish-controlled Western media
is simply PAYBACK .
I am a Russian Agent. Well, not formally but act as one. Only in elections though as Russia forbids (after losing 30 million
dead in WW2) any military or violent interference. Agent may be too strong a word as my actions reflect the beauty of Russian
literature, music and philosophy. (qv Kropotkin, Rimsky Korsakoff etc. etc.) Maybe a spokesman?
In this coming election vote for the agent of your choice. Gabbard, Trump, (Cackles, hang on and wait for this one) or Biden
( on whom we await a conversion). This agency stuff is fun. Can't wait.
The quid pro quo for many Deep State bureaucrats comes after they are no longer in office as typified by jobs as "experts"
with the corrupt news networks. Comey was a senior vice president for Lockheed Martin before returning to Washington.
Trump is outing them all and they are out to destroy him.
If the Russians are so bad, why did we give them our Uranium? Hillary and corrupt Washington Swamp dwellers in action. How
many in Congress opposed the deal? We need Trump to be reelected to Make America Great Again.
I remember in the 80's Democrats would mercilessly lampoon and make fun of Conservatives for their (at the time) hard-line
stance against the Soviet Union and how we should just get over it: peace, love and b*llsh*t. My how times have changed.
You need a scorecard to keep track these days. Barry lampooned Mitt for speaking against the Russians, like they were the 'good
guys' (ahem, 'tell Vlad' and Kills power reset button) Make up your ******* minds people.
Thank you for bringing my attention to Russia. Had it not been for your constant denunciations, I probably would never have
investigated that nation to the extent that I have, and that would have been my loss. Allow me to explain.
As a permanent student of human history and culture, I've traveled to, and studied many different nations, from Japan, China
and Thailand, to Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, but somehow I managed to completely miss Russia. Of course I was familiar
with the Western narrative concerning communism and the USSR - I grew up with that - but I never fully understood Russian culture
until, by your actions, you forced me to look into it.
I've since studied their history intently, and have studied their language to the point where I can at least make myself understood.
I've spoken to Russian expats, read numerous books, watched their TV shows, listened to their music, and have kept a close eye
on current events, including the coup in Ukraine and Russia's response to that event. At this point I feel well enough prepared
to travel to Russia and I'm looking forward to my upcoming trip with great anticipation.
I operate on the basic premise that I'm nobody special - that there are thousands of people just like me with a deep interest
in human affairs, who, like myself, have been prompted to investigate a culture that, for various reasons, has been largely overlooked
in the West. So, on my own and their behalf I thank you for providing the impetus to focus our attention in that regard. It's
probably not what you intended, but it is what it is. Thanks to you, many hundreds, if not thousands of people have now undertaken
a study of Russia and her people, and that can only be a good thing, as the more we know about each other, the less we have to
fear, and the less likely we are to come into conflict with one another.
Bravo well written and right on the mark. If Tulsi wasn't a gun grabber and openly supported the 2nd Amendment she would be
a front runner, only a few steps behind Trump. And by the way, don't trust those 2% Polls. We all know the polls are pure ********.
When one Colonel Gary Powers was shot down in his USAF U2 spy plane in 1960 and captured alive he was asked by his then KGB
interrogators what the difference was between the Republican and Democratic parties.......and he admitted to being at a loss to
explain that there was any fundamental difference at all.
Therein lies the root problem with the American political system. All through the process it arrives at the same outcomes and
it doesnt matter who you vote for.
It could be argued that it is in effect a one party system as both are indistinguishable from each other ultimately as they
push the America PLC agenda.
The entire system is held captive by secretive and "invisible" unelected groups who call the shots and if you push too hard
they have you killed one way or another.....all the esoteric secret societies of any significance are represented.
The question therefore is this; Is America any different to China other than the wallpaper coverings?
To paraphrase Mark Twain; If voting really mattered they wouldn't let you do it.
Those on the fence need to be bullied and manipulated into thinking dissent is equivalent to being a traitor
This is true with Trumptards on this comments board. They unquestionably follow lies, manipulative, and hollow Trump doctrine
without thinking.
Just yesterday there was and idiot spewing out that 'Assange was treasonous' before engaging his cerebral matter to realise
you cannot be a traitor against a country that's not yours.
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren to put out plan on how to pay for 'Medicare for All'" [
CNN ]. • "Pay for" being both delusional and a question nobody, including Warren,
ever asks about war, and "taxes on the middle class" being, shall we say, a well-worn,
content-free trope.
Warren (D)(2): "Why Criticize Warren?" [Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs ]. "What
will the right's main line of attack against Warren be? I think you can see it already,
actually: They will attempt to portray her as inauthentic and untrustworthy. She will be
painted as a Harvard egghead who has suddenly discovered populism for self-serving reasons, a
slippery elite who isn't telling you the truth about her agenda . What worries me about
Elizabeth Warren is that the criticisms of her as untrustworthy are not easy to wave away.
Warren began her 2020 campaign with a video claiming to be a Native American, even though she
isn't one. She
has now tried to bury the evidence that she did this, by deleting the video and all
accompanying social media posts .
I have tried, so far, to avoid lapsing into the usual discussions of "Bernie Sanders
versus Elizabeth Warren," but here I should note that one reason I think Bernie Sanders is
such a powerful potential candidate against Trump is that he doesn't have these kind of messy
problems of authenticity and honesty.
The thing almost nobody denies about Bernie is that you know where he stands."
As The Big Picture says above. This is a massive takedown, and I've focused on a single,
tactical issue, but this post is a must-read in full. If it's correct, the Warren campaign is
a train-wreck waiting to happen.
(Adding, the Cherokee issue really matters to me, because the Penobscots were enormously
powerful allies in the fight against the landfill (and cf. Standing Rock). It just drives me
bananas that Warren didn't check in with the Cherokees before declaring herself one of them.
I think it's an outrage, and I don't care if I get eye-rolls for it.)
In keeping with professional journalistic ethics, The Times also reached out to
experts on fascism, fascist terrorism, terrorist fascism, fascist-adjacent Assad-apologism,
Hitlerism, horrorism, Russia, and so on, to confirm Gabbard's guilt-by-association with the
people The Times had just associated her with. Brian Levin, Director of the CSU Center
for the Study of Hate and Extremism, confirmed that Gabbard has "the seal of approval" within
goose-stepping, Hitler-loving, neo-Nazi circles. The Alliance for Securing Democracy (yes, the
one from the previous paragraph) conducted an "independent analysis" which confirmed that RT
("the Kremlin-backed news agency") had mentioned Gabbard far more often than the Western
corporate media (which isn't backed by anyone, and is totally unbiased and independent, despite
the fact that most of it is owned by a handful of powerful global corporations, and at least
one CIA-affiliated oligarch). Oh, and Hawaii State Senator Kai Kahele, who is challenging
Gabbard for her seat in Congress, agreed with The Times that Gabbard's support from
Jew-hating, racist Putin-Nazis might be a potential liability.
"Clearly there's something about her and her policies that attracts and appeals to these
type of people who are white nationalists, anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers."
But it's not just The New York Times , of course. No sooner had Clinton finished
cackling than the corporate media launched into their familiar Goebbelsian piano routine,
banging out story after television segment repeating the words "Gabbard" and "Russian asset."
I've singled out The Times because the smear piece in question was clearly a warm-up for
Hillary Clinton's calculated smear job on Friday night. No, the old gal hasn't lost her mind.
She knew exactly what she was doing, as did the editors of The New York Times , as did
every other establishment news source that breathlessly "reported" her neo-McCarthyite
smears.
As I noted in my previous essay ,
2020 is for all the marbles, and it's not just about who wins the election. No, it's mostly
about crushing the "populist" backlash against the hegemony of global capitalism and its happy,
smiley-faced, conformist ideology. To do that, the neoliberal establishment has to
delegitimize, and lethally stigmatize, not just Trump, but also people like Gabbard, Bernie
Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and any other popular political figure (left, right, it makes no
difference) deviating from that ideology.
Ask yourself, what do Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, and Gabbard have in common? No, it's not their
Putin-Nazism it's the challenge they represent to global capitalism. Each, in his or her own
way, is a symbol of the growing populist resistance to the privatization and globalization of
everything. And thus, they must be delegitimized, stigmatized, and relentlessly smeared as
"Russian assets," "anti-Semites," "traitors," "white supremacists," "fascists," "communists,"
or some other type of "extremists."
Gabbard, to her credit, understands this, and is focusing attention on the motives
and tactics of the neoliberal establishment and their smear machine. As I noted in
an essay last year , "the only way to effectively counter a smear campaign (whether
large-scale or small-scale) is to resist the temptation to profess your innocence, and,
instead, focus as much attention on the tactics and the motives of the smearers as
possible ." This will not save her, but it is the best she can do, and I applaud her for
having the guts to do it. I hope she continues to give them hell as they finish off her
candidacy and drive her out of office.
... ... ...
Ask them whether their smear machine is working... if you can get them off the phone with
their brokers, or whoever is decorating their summer places in the Hamptons or out on
Martha's
Vineyard .
Or ask the millions of well-off liberals who are still, even after Russiagate was exposed as an
enormous hoax based on absolutely nothing , parroting this paranoid official narrative and
calling people "Russian assets" on Twitter. Or never mind, just pay attention to what happens
over the next twelve months. In terms of ridiculous
official propaganda , spittle-flecked McCarthyite smears, and full-blown psychotic mass
Putin-Nazi hysteria, it's going to make the last three years look like the Propaganda Special
Olympics.
* * *
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
She is absolutely in the best position to talk about foreign policy having been there in the
trenches and personally knowing horrors or war. I've seen bits of those Fox videos and she
was admirable there. Being a veteran probably counts for something in small towns where most
Americans live.
I wasn't following her on social media so not sure how she fares there.
Bernie, on the other hand, knows how to campaign and has very good domestic policy and he
used to be popular in swing states, certainly better than Clinton.
So two of them would be my dream ticket. I feel Warren and Biden would be a loss of
another four years or even longer.
While the mainstream liberal media remains firmly in the pocket of the Clintons' propaganda machine, spewing russophobic accusations
at any and every one who dares question the establishment and military-industrial complex line, there are some - on the left - that
are willing to step up and defend Tulsi Gabbard against the latest delusional suggestion from Hillary that she is a 'Russian asset'.
So now Crooked Hillary is at it again! She is calling Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard "a Russian favorite," and Jill Stein "a Russian
asset." As you may have heard, I was called a big Russia lover also (actually, I do like Russian people. I like all people!).
Hillary's gone Crazy!
What the circular firing squad left undone, will be accomplished by infighting between Clintonites and "moderates" ( a too
positive concept). May the Deluge drown you all in 2020.
...Tulsi served two tours of duty in the Middle East, and she continues her service as a Major in the Army National Guard.
Tulsi's 2005 deployment was a 12-month tour at Logistical Support Area Anaconda in Iraq, where she served in a field medical unit
as a specialist with a 29th Support Battalion medical company. She was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal at the end of this
tour.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren are reportedly developing a close
political friendship that might prove pivotal to deciding the Democratic presidential nomination.
Both have kept in touch since Warren announced her decision to seek the Democratic nomination last February, NBC News reported
Saturday.
"Hillary Clinton would absolutely have influence over a number of delegates to this convention," Deb Kozikowski, the vice-chairwoman
of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, told NBC, referring to the possibility that Clinton could help Warren secure delegates
if there is no clear nominee heading into the Democratic National Convention next summer .
One Democratic strategist told NBC that Clinton has been watching and approving of Warren's campaign as the senator has unveiled
a series of increasingly progressive policy proposals.
"... And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party ..."
"... Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . ..."
"... Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic candidate debate the New York Times ..."
"... quid pro quos ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
There was what might be described as an extraordinary amount of nonsense being promoted by
last week's media. Unfortunately, some of it was quite dangerous. Admiral William McRaven, who
commanded the Navy Seals when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed and who has been riding
that horse ever since, announced that if Donald Trump continues to fail to provide the type of
leadership the country needs, he should be replaced by whatever means are necessary. The
op-ed entitled "Our Republic is Under Attack by the President" with the subtitle "If
President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a
new person in the Oval Office" was featured in the New York Times, suggesting that the Gray
Lady was providing its newspaper of record seal of approval for what might well be regarded as
a call for a military coup.
McRaven's exact words, after some ringing praise for the military and all its glorious deeds
in past wars, were that the soldiers, sailors and marines now must respond because "The America
that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within."
McRaven then elaborated that "These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen
the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State
Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen,
preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have
heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort
Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, 'I don't like the
Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!'"
It is a call to arms if there ever was one. Too bad Trump can't strip McRaven of his pension
and generous health care benefits for starters and McRaven might also consider that he could be
recalled to active duty by Trump and court martialed under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice. And the good admiral, who up until 2018 headed the state university system in Texas,
might also receive well merited pushback for his assessment of America's role in the world over
the past two decades, in which he was a major player, at least in terms of dealing out
punishment. He wrote ""We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the
good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom
and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the
protectors of the less fortunate."
Utter bullshit, of course. The United States has been acting as the embodiment of a rogue
nation, lashing out pointlessly and delivering death and destruction. If McRaven truly believes
what he says he is not only violating his oath to defend the constitution while also toying
with treason, he is an idiot and should never have been allowed to run anything more demanding
than a hot dog stand. Washington has been systematically blowing people up worldwide for no
good reasons, killing possibly as many as 4 million mostly Muslims, while systematically
stripping Americans of their Bill of Rights at home. "Good guys" and "champions of justice"
indeed!
And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an
interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's
dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including
nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party . She said, clearly suggesting
that it would be Tulsi Gabbard, that "They're also going to do third-party again. I'm not
making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the
Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of
the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far."
Clinton explained how the third-party designation would work, saying of Jill Stein, who ran
for president in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, "And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it
up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset -- I
mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate. So I don't know who
it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in
the key states that they most needed."
Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . You, the queen of warmongers,
embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party
for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my
candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was
behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies
in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this
primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race
directly."
Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that
she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic
candidate debate the New York Timesran an
article suggesting that Gabbard was an isolationist, was being promoted by Russia and was
an apologist for Syria's Bashar al-Assad. In reality, Gabbard is the only candidate willing to
confront America's warfare-national security state.
The Hillary Clinton attack on Gabbard and on the completely respectable Jill Stein is to a
certain extent incomprehensible unless one lives in the gutter that she and Bill have wallowed
in ever since they rose to prominence in Arkansas. Hillary, the creator of the private home
server for classified information as well as author of the catastrophic war against Libya and
the Benghazi debacle has a lot to answer for but will never be held accountable, any more than
her husband Bill for his rapes and molestations. And when it comes to foreign interference,
Gabbard is being pilloried because the Russian media regards her favorably while the Clinton
Foundation has taken
tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and billionaires seeking quid pro
quos , much of which has gone to line the pockets of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea.
Finally, one comment about the Democratic Party obsession with the Russians. The media was
enthusing last Friday over a photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing up across a table from
President Trump and pointing at him before walking out of the room. The gushing regarding how a
powerful, strong woman was defying the horrible chief executive was both predictable and
ridiculous. By her own admission Pelosi's
last words before departing were "All roads lead to Putin." I will leave it up to the
reader to interpret what that was supposed to mean.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected]
While Mayor Pete was a little evasive on actually talking down the "Russian asset"
accusation, he did question it, saying that "statements like that ought to be backed by
evidence."
"I don't know what the basis is for that," he said.
"But I consider her to be a competitor. I respect her service. I also have very different
views than she does, especially on foreign policy, and I would prefer to have that argument
in terms of policy which is what we do at debates and what we're doing as we go forward."
Another 2020 presidential hopeful, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, also dismissed
the Gabbard claim , insisting the focus of the presidential campaign should be on the economy,
climate change and other issues affecting Americans.
"That's not correct. Tulsi is not being groomed by anyone. She is her own person," he told
reporters after delivering a keynote address Saturday at the Alabama Democratic Conference
Semi-Annual Convention in Birmingham.
"Obviously (she) has served this country, continues to serve this country in uniform, in
Congress, as a candidate for presidency so I think those facts speak for themselves."
" Tulsi Gabbard deserves much more respect and thanks than this. She literally just got
back from serving our country abroad."
And now, having been cheated of his chance against Hillary in 2016 - running to her side
like a loyal party comrade after the DNC practically ran him out of the party - a
post-heartattack Bernie Sanders - perhaps with little left to lose - has finally come out
swinging at Clinton.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth
Warren are reportedly developing a close political friendship that might prove pivotal to
deciding the Democratic presidential nomination.
Both have kept in touch since Warren announced her decision to seek the Democratic
nomination last February, NBC News reported Saturday.
"Hillary Clinton would absolutely have influence over a number of delegates to this
convention," Deb Kozikowski, the vice-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, told
NBC, referring to the possibility that Clinton could help Warren secure delegates if there is
no clear nominee heading into the Democratic National Convention next summer .
One Democratic strategist told NBC that Clinton has been watching and approving of
Warren's campaign as the senator has unveiled a series of increasingly progressive policy
proposals.
"... "I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate." ..."
"... The Times piece goes on to list an assortment of unsavory, extremist, white supremacist, horrible, neo-Nazi-type persons that Tulsi Gabbard has nothing to do with, but which Hillary Clinton, the Intelligence Community, The Times , and the rest of the corporate media would like you to mentally associate her with. ..."
So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked,"
or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy. Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up
a last-minute
military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration
camps, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public
schools, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.
We probably should have seen this coming.
That's right, as I'm sure you are aware by now, president-in-exile Hillary Clinton has discovered Putin's diabolical plot to steal
the presidency from Elizabeth Warren, or Biden, or whichever establishment puppet makes it out of the Democratic primaries. Speaking
to former Obama adviser and erstwhile partner at AKPD Message and Media David
Plouffe, Clinton revealed
how the godless Rooskies intend to subvert democracy this time:
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary
and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate."
She was referring, of course, to Tulsi Gabbard, sitting Democratic Member of Congress, decorated Major in the Army National Guard,
and long shot 2020 presidential candidate. Apparently, Gabbard (who reliable anonymous sources in the Intelligence Community have
confirmed is a member of some kind of treasonous, Samoan-Hindu, Assad-worshipping cult that wants to force everyone to practice yoga)
has been undergoing Russian "grooming" at a compound in an undisclosed location that is probably in the basement of Mar-a-Lago, or
on Sublevel 168 of Trump Tower.
In any event, wherever Gabbard is being surreptitiously "groomed" (presumably by someone resembling
Lotte Lenya in From Russia With Love ),
the plan (i.e., Putin's plan) is to have her lose in the Democratic primaries, then run as a third-party "spoiler" candidate, stealing
votes from Warren or Biden, exactly as Jill Stein (who, according to Clinton, is also "totally a Russian asset") stole them from
Clinton back in 2016, allowing Putin to install Donald Trump (who, according to Clinton, is still being blackmailed by the FSB with
that "kompromat" pee-tape) in the White House, where she so clearly belongs.
Clinton's comments came on the heels of a preparatory smear-piece in The New York Times ,
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?
, which reported at length on how Gabbard has been "injecting chaos" into the Democratic primaries . Professional "disinformation
experts" supplied The Times with convincing evidence (i.e., unfounded hearsay and innuendo) of "suspicious activity" surrounding
Gabbard's campaign. Former Clinton-aide Laura Rosenberger (who also just happens to be the Director of the
Alliance for Securing Democracy , "a bipartisan transatlantic
national security advocacy group" comprised of former Intelligence Community and U.S. State Department officials, and publisher of
the
Hamilton 68 dashboard) "sees Gabbard as a potentially useful vector for Russian efforts to sow division."
The Times piece goes on to list an assortment of unsavory, extremist, white supremacist, horrible, neo-Nazi-type persons that
Tulsi Gabbard has nothing to do with, but which Hillary Clinton, the Intelligence Community, The Times , and the rest of the corporate
media would like you to mentally associate her with.
Richard Spencer, David Duke, Steve Bannon, Mike Cernovich, Tucker Carlson, and so on. Neo-Nazi sites like the Daily Stormer .
4chan, where, according to The New York Times , neo-Nazis like to "call her Mommy."
In keeping with professional journalistic ethics, The Times also reached out to experts on fascism, fascist terrorism, terrorist
fascism, fascist-adjacent Assad-apologism, Hitlerism, horrorism, Russia, and so on, to confirm Gabbard's guilt-by-association with
the people The Times had just associated her with. Brian Levin, Director of the CSU Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, confirmed
that Gabbard has "the seal of approval" within goose-stepping, Hitler-loving, neo-Nazi circles. The Alliance for Securing Democracy
(yes, the one from the previous paragraph) conducted an "independent analysis" which confirmed that RT ("the Kremlin-backed news
agency") had mentioned Gabbard far more often than the Western corporate media (which isn't backed by anyone, and is totally unbiased
and independent, despite the fact that most of it is owned by a handful of powerful global corporations, and at least one CIA-affiliated
oligarch). Oh, and Hawaii State Senator Kai Kahele, who is challenging Gabbard for her seat in Congress, agreed with The Times that
Gabbard's support from Jew-hating, racist Putin-Nazis might be a potential liability.
"Clearly there's something about her and her policies that attracts and appeals to these type of people who are white nationalists,
anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers."
But it's not just The New York Times , of course. No sooner had Clinton finished cackling than the corporate media launched into
their familiar Goebbelsian piano routine, banging out story after television segment repeating the words "Gabbard" and "Russian asset."
I've singled out The Times because the smear piece in question was clearly a warm-up for Hillary Clinton's calculated smear job on
Friday night. No, the old gal hasn't lost her mind. She knew exactly what she was doing, as did the editors of The New York Times
, as did every other establishment news source that breathlessly "reported" her neo-McCarthyite smears.
As I noted in my previous essay
, 2020 is for all the marbles, and it's not just about who wins the election. No, it's mostly about crushing the "populist" backlash
against the hegemony of global capitalism and its happy, smiley-faced, conformist ideology. To do that, the neoliberal establishment
has to delegitimize, and lethally stigmatize, not just Trump, but also people like Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and any
other popular political figure (left, right, it makes no difference) deviating from that ideology.
In Trump's case, it's his neo-nationalism.
In Sanders and Corbyn's, it's socialism (or at least some semblance of social democracy).
In Gabbard's, it's her opposition to the Corporatocracy's ongoing efforts to restructure and privatize the Middle East (and
the rest of the entire planet), and their using the U.S. military to do it.
Ask yourself, what do Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, and Gabbard have in common? No, it's not their Putin-Nazism it's the challenge they
represent to global capitalism. Each, in his or her own way, is a symbol of the growing populist resistance to the privatization
and globalization of everything. And thus, they must be delegitimized, stigmatized, and relentlessly smeared as "Russian assets,"
"anti-Semites," "traitors," "white supremacists," "fascists," "communists," or some other type of "extremists."
Gabbard, to her credit, understands this, and is
focusing attention on the motives and tactics
of the neoliberal establishment and their smear machine. As I noted in
an
essay last year , "the only way to effectively counter a smear campaign (whether large-scale or small-scale) is to resist the
temptation to profess your innocence, and, instead, focus as much attention on the tactics and the motives of the smearers as possible
." This will not save her, but it is the best she can do, and I applaud her for having the guts to do it. I hope she continues to
give them hell as they finish off her candidacy and drive her out of office.
Oh, and if you're contemplating sending me an email explaining how these smear campaigns don't work (or you spent the weekend
laughing about how Hillary Clinton lost her mind and made an utter jackass of herself), maybe check in with Julian Assange, who is
about to be extradited to America, tried for exposing U.S. war crimes, and then imprisoned for the remainder of his natural life.
And, if Katharine is on holiday in Antigua or somewhere, or having tea with Hillary in the rooftop bar of the
Hay-Adams
Hotel , you could try Luke Harding (who not only writes and publishes propaganda for The Guardian , but who wrote a whole
New York Times
best-seller based on nothing but lies and smears). Or try Marty Baron, Dean Baquet, Paul Krugman, or even Rachel Maddow, or any
of the other editors and journalists who have been covering the Putin-Nazi "
Attack on America ," and keeping us apprised of who is and isn't a Hitler-loving "Russian asset."
Ask them whether their smear machine is working... if you can get them off the phone with their brokers, or whoever is decorating
their summer places in the Hamptons or out on
Martha's Vineyard
.
Or ask the millions of well-off liberals who are still, even after
Russiagate was exposed as an enormous hoax
based on absolutely nothing , parroting this paranoid official narrative and calling people "Russian assets" on Twitter. Or never
mind, just pay attention to what happens over the next twelve months. In terms of
ridiculous official
propaganda , spittle-flecked McCarthyite smears, and full-blown psychotic mass Putin-Nazi hysteria, it's going to make the last
three years look like the Propaganda Special Olympics.
* * *
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published
by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel,
ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy,
Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or
consentfactory.org .
This post generated over 2K comment on zero hedge...
Looks like Tulsi masterfully capitalized on Hillary mistake. after Russiagate the change of being Russian agent does not have the
same byte as before and now can even be played to one's advantage as a sign of anti neoliberal establishment orientation. Which is what
Tulsi did.
Tulsi would be a powerful Secretary of State I think, if she did not win the nomination...
Notable quotes:
"... "If you stand up to the rich and powerful elite and the war machine, they will destroy you and discredit your message... ," says Gabbard, who said she's suffered smears " from day one of this campaign. " ..."
"... Great! Thank you Hillary Clinton," Gabbard tweeted late on Friday afternoon. " You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain ." ..."
"... "From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose." Gabbard added. ..."
"... And now, Gabbard has capitalized on Hillary's hubris and unchallenged conspiracy theory to fundraise and increase her visibility. ..."
"... For comparison, a real protest looks like Gilet Jaunes. Some people started protesting because they are being disenfranchised by their own government. They were already in real pain long before Macron went backward on all his campaign promises. ..."
"Toe The Line Or Be Destroyed": Tulsi Gabbard Dismantles Establishment 'Hit-Job' In Viral Video by
Tyler Durden Sun, 10/20/2019 - 16:57 0 SHARES
Tulsi Gabbard unleashed her latest counterattack to the establishment hit-job against her, after Hillary Clinton suggested she's
an Russian asset.
"If you stand up to the rich and powerful elite and the war machine, they will destroy you and discredit your message...
," says Gabbard, who said she's suffered smears " from day one of this campaign. "
In a Sunday tweet accompanied by a video which has nearly 450,000 views on Twitter (and 18,000 on YouTube) as of this writing,
Gabbard writes "Hillary & her gang of rich, powerful elite are going after me to send a msg to YOU: "Shut up, toe the line, or be
destroyed." But we, the people, will NOT be silenced."
Hillary & her gang of rich, powerful elite are going after me to send a msg to YOU: "Shut up, toe the line, or be destroyed."
But we, the people, will NOT be silenced. Join me in taking our Democratic Party back & leading a govt of, by & for the people!
http:// tulsi.to/take-it-back
Last week, Clinton told Democratic operative and podcast host David Plouffe that "Russians" were "grooming" a female Democratic candidate
- clearly referring to Gabbard.
"I'm not making any predictions but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are
grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said, in apparent reference to Gabbard, a Hawaii Army National Guard major
who served in Iraq. " She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so
far. "
Great! Thank you Hillary Clinton," Gabbard tweeted late on Friday afternoon. " You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of
corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind
the curtain ."
"From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was
behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine,
afraid of the threat I pose." Gabbard added.
And now, Gabbard has capitalized on Hillary's hubris and unchallenged conspiracy theory to fundraise and increase her visibility.
People are seeing entirely too much into this. Seriously this is nothing but some crazy old crone, extremely jealous of someone
else and wanting revenge, honestly all I see is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrUEjpHbUMM
. No political scam, not grand strategy, just a really jealous vengeful old crone, HRC can see Tulsi Gabbard winning and in infuriates
her, fills her with jealousy fueled rage, Tulsi in every way better than Hillary, smarter, more popular, prettier (never forget
this can really freak out women) and younger (ohh the rage) and HRC blames Tulsi and Jill for HRC's arrogant public failure.
History will think extremely poorly of Hillary Rodham Clinton, extremely poorly.
Consider what is occurring here. Citizen Hillary has started a media circus with 1 of the 12 - or is it 16? - "candidates"
the spy infested DNC is fielding. The C_A MSM mouthpieces are shilling this white noise, blocking out any more important, more
difficult reporting if not analysis of world events they don't want in the news.
World Events like the Clinton, Obama, Biden, Kerry, Pelosi, Feinstein and Schiff scandals in Ukraine and China, how
well things are going in Syria and who the real villains there have been, how well negotiations are going with China, how the
Syrian refugee crisis is being settled in the best way for all concerned and how the C_A plan to start WW3 has been exposed.
The C_A can repeat this op another 11 Times. This is good because they are lazy and stupid, but even so you can expect them
to **** it up in some way every time. Evil has recruiting problems. Remember Hillary laughing about obliterating civilization
in Libya. Remember the corpse of Gadafi being dragged through the street by her mercs. Remember who stole Libya's gold, and Ukraine's
gold.
Consider all these "best" pictures of Gabbard. The method is obvious: Don't listen to the pettiness and low news value of this
PR stunt, just look at the cutie. This fits the media op signature of the Tavistock faggots on loan to Soros. Here are a few more:
BLM: Look at us. We all black! Don't listen to our demands, we still working on them, but whoever you are we coming for your
stuff.
Antifa: Look at us. We all revolutionaries! We like to rumble! Don't listen to our message. We don't have one. We're really
a lot of fun. Come to us, children, or we'll mess you up.
Naked woman protests: We are women! Every day we pretend to be smart but we're really emotionally unbalanced fools! REEEEEE...
Our message is, we need to be taken care of like babies. When you take off your clothes to protest, you've already lost.
For comparison, a real protest looks like Gilet Jaunes. Some people started protesting because they are being disenfranchised
by their own government. They were already in real pain long before Macron went backward on all his campaign promises. The
government of France has been bought and paid for from top to bottom by a few rich Jews and they are destroying civilization just
like Hillary did Libya, only they are in the subversion stage. The bombing is still to come. If you doubt me, dig for stories
about who Macron is meeting with, who he takes orders from. This is a peek into the real criminals behind the current form of
the EU. Thousands of people in the street. A few big protests got the imagination of the world, giving Macron ulcers. Good. They
got solidarity. Then Macron started sending in the thugs and gestapo. Then he sent in EU troops suited up for urban warfare. Both
the optics and the message of this are devastating to the cabal, worldwide.
IMO the best thing to do is to follow this circus and all that follow loosely. If you can't turn it around on them, for instance
pointing out that Gabbard is CFR and her positions are folly, do not give it the clicks (((they))) expect. At least screw up their
stats, make their psychological warfare "experts" lose their jobs or at least work day and night to keep up, until they melt down
in pools of their own saliva.
What this stunt is, is "opening a second media front". They created this meaningless drivel to hide the news that is favorable
to Trump and good for everybody in the world, and bad for the cabal. This is all they got. This is the best they can do. They
have nothing to offer but lies, threats and tyranny. As Hillary said, her policy is to keep them dumb, keep them poor and keep
them hungry. They are all gangsters.
Consider how cheap it is to do an op like this. That is the signature of the DS. They like cheap ops because they can do so
many.
The best we can do is open second fronts right back at them. Expose errors, omissions and lies in their fake news, as well
as what their lies are meant to conceal. It is fun to watch when the first slavos of their campaigns immediately fall apart and
get thrown back at them. Sometime real news gets out.
Tomorrow is the Canadian election. It will be a good message to them if Trudeau gets destroyed.
Brexit deadline is coming up. Pelosi swore that if they Brexit she will do all the crimes she can to obstruct US-UK trade.
Pretty sure she used up whatever stolen credibility she had with that admission of lawless tyranny.
Point is, Brexit will have a significant meaning to Americans and gangsters like her will be in the spotlight. We want good
will and trade with the UK. If this is obstructed, Pelosi has already said she's responsible and obstructing trade will have criminal
consequences on the US side. Learn all you can, keep track and if you get the chance, share any damning facts you find.
"... How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion.. NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area. ..."
"... Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. ..."
"... Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind. ..."
"... A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion? ..."
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
"... How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion.. NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area. ..."
"... Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. ..."
"... Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind. ..."
"... A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion? ..."
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
But its not just the US that is a war machine. Bourne's statement equally applies to _all_
states everywhere, past present and future.
If any state appears to not be making war on other countries at any particular time,
its only because it is too busy making war on its own citizens [ eg taxes, drug laws,
weapons/gun laws, religion laws, speech laws, environmental laws etc.etc. etc.], and has not
yet created enough fake money via its central bank to enable it to debt-fund consistent
overseas aggressions against others.
Wars by the US will never end because arms manufactures own Trump. Almost one half of the
US budget goes for the security of the state, domestic and abroad. New weapon development
would come to a halt if the US was not threatened. Fake news about China and Russia planning
to attack the US keeps the arms industry humming. Over a million national security workers
and their families would be devastated if Trump stopped fighting fake wars. God bless
imagined threat of wars.
This has strengthened the possibility of the revival of the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). There are around 10,000 such ISIS fighters currently lodged in
prisons run by the SDF.
And with this, "the war on terror" is guaranteed to go on, and on, and on..
Just in case you hadn't heard the good news, the last man from the president's foreign
policy "team" still standing, Trump whisperer Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently left
National Security Advisor John Bolton in the dust.
June 27, 2018 Harvard Research Scholar Explains How America Created Al-Qaeda & The
ISIS Terror Group
It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5
years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas
ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
What Trump wants to do and what he can do are two very different things. The MIC/Zionist rot
in DC is way too deep and entrenched for any one man to tackle.
Trump could make all his Schiffty problems go away by bombing Iran. Overnight, the man
would be lauded as the president we need and that aging hack Pelosi would suddenly drop that
phony impeachment hearing.
Trump is finding out that when making foreign policy, the safest route to take is to first
ask, "Is this good for Israel?"
I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego. Let's
inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he hasn't
vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego will
opt for the former
@DESERT
FOX Exactly, with thousands of ISIS,ISIL(American/Israeli proxy forces)types now being
freed due to Turkey's incursions into Syria, these "rebels" will be free to re-group and
fight another day. Hence the need for American forces to STAY deployed in the Area. This is
nothing more than a distraction move by Trump, which will result in the opposite "intended"
actions of American forces being withdrawn from Syria. This will also guarantee the "need"
for a strong Soviet presence in Syria.
America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria, the only point of
contention between America/Israel and Russia was whether Assad was to be forced from power or
would be allowed to remain President as a puppet of Putin and the Russians. Syria was to
never remain a sovereign nation.
The US still hasn't acknowledged the Armenian Massacre by the Turks. Why should it care
about Kurds. US is the nation that said killing 500,000 kids in Iraq was worth it.
Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind
of peace.
Not really. All are still standing and not under US control. Iraq now leans even more
toward Iran and Syria toward Russia ..and that outcome in these countries has made Israel's
goal of destroying Iran much harder and less likely .
The curtailment of the Kurds, Israel's long time friends and proxy , is another blow to
Israel's plot.
It appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and
borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey
loose to do that job.
@WJ
Right. But as Giraldi always points out, Trump almost attacked Venezuela. He said mean
words and rattled sabres! As opposed to Obama, who said no mean words ('cause he upheld the
"dignity of the office") but sent the fighter jets into Libya and turned that country from a
stable, secular regime into a human trafficking warzone. And also got an ambassador killed.
Here are some of Giraldi's gems from April 2011:
Libya is a humanitarian mission
it [the invasion] has no clearly stated objective except to protect Libyan
civilians
it is now clear that the rebels do not have any military organization to speak of and
Gaddafi has the whip hand
Nice analysis there, Mr. CIA lifer and Obama lickspittle. I can only assume Giraldi was
part of the crack CIA team of Sovietologists who were utterly blindsided when the Soviet
Union broke up. It's amazing how much slack he's given around here for his anti-Israel stuff.
It's like Teflon for him.
@Priss
Factor Agree, and the ZUS has killed millions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and
Syria, for their zionist masters, the only lives the ZUS cares about is zionists.
@NoseytheDuke
The only question you failed to address is what was the true motives of Putin's intervention
into the whole mess. A few good points:
As in Ukraine, Putin will stay in Syria until it no longer suits him. He has no
long-term strategic goals beyond creating chaos and weakening the alliances of the free
world wherever possible. This allows him to play the big man on the international stage, an
essential element of his domestic appeal. 24/7 propaganda and Soviet nostalgia have turned
Putin's invasion into a domestic hit in Russia. In contrast, Russians have no interest in
Syria or Assad, but who cares what they want? Unlike the leaders of Europe, the U.S., and
other democratic countries, Putin doesn't have to worry about how popular his foreign
adventures are at home. There are no checks and balances in the Russian government, no free
media to criticize him, and no popularity polls that matter more than ranks of well-armed
riot police.
Licks for Giraldi: Giraldi has been careless but not where he lists Trumps lies about ending
'silly' wars. from what Trump has actually done compared to what he says about ending
America's wars he is a liar of clear and complete proportions
"the military the only real source of pride the only thing Americans feel they excel at"
An insightful point. Politicians support the military and its deployments for economic
reasons, but the support of the public might derive from "what else is there?" Examples of
institutional and private-sector failure abound in the news over recent years, and every day.
The Boeing Max. The hotel collapse. 250,000 deaths per year from medical negligence. Power
shutoffs. Useless college. The dive boat. A relaxed performance standard. The demise of
meritocracy and rationality. During Katrina, every agency except the Coast Guard went into
gridlock. There are remaining islands of expertise, but the unraveling is contagious.
The dirty, filthy hand of the Jew is all over America's Mideast policy. Israel backs ISIS in
Syria with weapons. The Israeli-Occupied Government in Washington D.C. has even protected
ISIS in Syria at times. The Jew-owned media gives no credit to Iran and Russia for defeating
Jew and American-supported terrorists inside Syria. Now the Jew-owned government is aching
for war with Iran, which is not a threat to Gentile America.
The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime
are still there. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Replacing Assad was an Globalist goal, heavily pushed by Erdogan. We also remember the
failed presidency of Barak Hussein that never represented the citizens of the U.S. So it
would be more precise to say that:
-- George Soros, Erdogan, Obama, Wahhabism, and the Globalists are losing.
-- Putin, Trump, Assad, and Populism are winning.
The real test will be Putin getting all other foreign troops & proxies to leave. The
Globalist agenda is to keep the fight between Iran (Shia) and Turkey (Sunni) going, when they
both leave combatants in Syria. Hopefully, Putin will be able to fully rout the Globalists
and move out both Turkish and Iranian agitators.
@Johnny
Walker Read Maybe you don't know who the author of that article is .Garry Kasparov
Kasparov might be great at chess but in Russia he was big fail as a politician .couldn't
get any votes on his campaign to make Russia like America. He went into a self-imposed exile
in the West. claiming Putin ruined his political campaigning.
Now everything Putin does infuses all Kasparov's punditry
Kasparow's love for Bolton should clue you to what he is about.
Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) · Twitter
As I said about Bolton entering the Trump admin nearly 3 years ago, you may not agree with
his views as much as I generally do, but he puts US interests first, not Trump's. Can't say
same about Pompeo & the rest.
31 mins ago
The short story on Syria, Turkey, USAISRAEL, Russia –
Turkey-Syria offensive: Russia vows to prevent clashes with Assad forces
BBC
Takeaways
THEN .
"When the US decided to equip and train Syrian Kurds, as well as some Arabs, to fight IS,
they were aware of a potential problem, that their would-be Kurdish allies were regarded as
terrorists by their Nato ally, Turkey. Washington turned a blind eye to a problem that could
be kicked into the future. Now the future is here, and it has blown up."
NOW .
"On Sunday the Kurds announced a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
agreeing that its troops could advance into the zone that had not been controlled by Damascus
since 2012, right up to the border with Turkey. That is a big victory for the regime. The
troops moved quickly out of bases they maintained in the north-east. Assad loyalists dug out
regime flags.
It was a disastrous day for American Middle East policy. The alliance with the Kurds, and the
security guarantee safeguarding their self-governing slice of Syria, gave the Americans a
stake in the war's endgame. It was also a way of pushing against the backers of the Assad
regime: Russia and Iran. The departure of the Americans, and the advance of the Syrian army,
are victories for them too.
European governments, rattled in the way that happens when the problems of the Middle East
come knocking at their doors, are calling on Turkey to stop the offensive. Some Nato members
can see a nightmare scenario unfolding, with Syria, backed by Russian power, potentially
facing off against Turkey, a fellow Nato member. The Russians say they are in regular contact
with Turkey. But in a fluid, violent theatre of war. the chances for misperception, mistakes
and escalation are always present.
Perhaps what has happened in the last week simplifies the endgame of the Syrian war. Two
major players, the Americans and the Kurds, look to be out of the picture. And President
Assad, along with his allies from Russia and Iran, continue to solidify their victory in
Syria's catastrophic war."
WHAT IS BEING LEFT OUT OF THE CURRENT COMBING THRU THE ASHES OF THE SYRIAN WAR IS THE FACT
SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR.
The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald
Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably
developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines.
Not too sure where this partisan line is, Dr. G.
It looks like they're screeching from both sides of the isle.
Both powerful Republican Liz Cheney and Hillary called the pull out "sickening".
While Republican Senator Rand Paul applauds the decision, Tulsi Gabbard condemns it.
As for 'ideological', we all know that ideologically, the vast majority of all
congress-critters (99+%) from both sides of the isle, are motivated by the ideology of
doing "what's good for the Jew$"
NATO agreement stipulates that if an alliance member is threatened, other members must
support it in its defense. Turkey has not made that claim, but it is completely
plausible that it should do so .
Are you joking, Dr. G?
Hasn't Turkey been engaged in waging an aggressive war on Syria these last few years?
Wouldn't Turkey demanding military aid from NATO, (for a "threat" from the Kurds or
Syria), amount to the US demanding NATO aid for a "threat" from Iran?
IOW, it's Turkey that has been the murderous aggressor, and the Kurds and Syrians their
victims. Not to mention that Turkey's military could make mince-meat out of the Kurdish
"threat" in a New York minute.
So it seems to me that the only thing holding Turkey back, is orders from the ZUSA and
Russia. Russia is certainly a large part of this equation, IMHO.
did not understand the Turkish mindset regarding the Kurdish threat, which they regard
as existential.
'Existential'?
Would a limited autonomy Kurdish state on Turkey's southern border, perhaps incorporating
a small swath of Turkey, be the end of Turkey's existence?
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the world demanded that Germany sacrifice some of its
territory as recompense for its aggressive military imperialism.
If I were in a position to do so, I'd hand Syria a slice of Israel's and Saudi Arabia's
and Turkey's territory – as a punishment for their depraved attacks on an innocent and
unthreatening Syria.
Definitely the Hatay province, which arguably belongs to Syria anyways.
I'm sure Turkey would call that an existential! calamity, but I'd tell them 'karma's a
bitch'.
Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's
actual record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more
soldiers to no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special
ops forces in numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in
Venezuela, continues to support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors
and has exited to from treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed
conflict less likely. And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in
Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity
and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump
is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than
all of his predecessors. These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to
end wars
I remain you most loyal fan, Dr. G. But I confess this sounds to me like you think the
situation above started on the day of Trump's inauguration.
He inherited those things by the former ZUS regimes.
He has tried over and over again to disengage, only to be dragged back by the screeching
from the members of his own party. Not to mention the ((media)).
There are a lot of reasons to condemn the actions of Trump. The Golan Heights, for
instance. But it seem glaringly obvious to me at least, that Trump is not ideologically
committed to Eternal Wars.
As you put it, he threatened regime change in Venezuela.
He wanted to have talks with the Taliban, (and the whole deepstate and their ((media))
screeched)
He "continues to support Saudi Arabia" but as Pat Buchannan points out.. "The Saudis
got the message when the U.S., in response to a missile and drone strike from Iran or
Iranian-backed militias, which shut down half of Riyadh's oil production, did
nothing.
Said Washington, this is between Saudi Arabia and Iran."
And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that
the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now
experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds
You really do make it sound like all that is his fault.
I love your work Dr. G. And consider you one of the very best, most honorable and most
courageous writers out there.
But I confess, (like so many others!), it seems like to me that you have an irrational,
personal hatred for Donald Trump that colors your perspective.
IMHO.
I didn't have time to write this response well, have to go. Hope it's not too off
base..
@animalogicMore information on Trump & drone attacks would be useful & welcome.
There is a gigantic problem in America. It makes us dysfunctional. Certain news cannot get
to the American people.
Everyone in the know gets it – do not go to the NY Times with anti-Israel news. Do
NOT buck the AIPAC agenda – period. The darkest element of the ADL will be at your door
within minutes. The US government will soon follow.
It is obvious – when it comes to Jew matters, US government employees fear for their
jobs, if not their lives. Same for the MSM.
US President Donald Trump has lambasted American broadcaster ABC News for airing a video from
Knob Creek Gun Range in the town of West Point, Kentucky, claiming that the network used
footage from the facility to depict a Turkish attack on Kurdish civilians in northern Syria.
Trump called the mistake "a big scandal" and "a real disgrace".
"A big scandal at @ABC News. They got caught using really gruesome FAKE footage of the
Turks bombing in Syria. A real disgrace", the president wrote on Twitter early Tuesday
morning.
@renfro
The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014.
Despite all the protests about Crimea, the Donbass invasion using asymmetric tactics with
Putin out outright denying responsability, Ukraine is a vital interest for Putin, and he
would have been willing to confront America and Nato there because it is his home ground and
advantage. But Russia is powerful enough to; Putin only went into Syria after Obama decided
not to overthrow Assad. No one particularly cares about Syria and neither do they care about
the Kurds (despite them having as good a case as the Palestinians to be given a state) and
that is why jumped up Turkey can get away with invading Syria and attacking Kurds, just like
they INVADED Cyprus.
This whole thing is probably a a storm in a teacup, but if Turkey gets into trouble they
know, because they were already told very clearly over Cyprus, that if they play Lone Ranger,
Nato does not have their back. Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey
threatening to get their own nuclear weapons because Israel has them is not very good
diplomacy from Turkey's point of view. It is begining to experience delusions of its own
importance.
@renfroIt appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and
borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey
loose to do that job.
Here is a very good video – Putin being interviewed. They asked him hard questions.
He came across as being very rational.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
People! The internet is there for you to verify/debunk any statement you question. Running a
website is a lot of work, why don't you guys collect the information you demand from Mr. Unz,
and share with us?
Or are you looking at others to supply you with ready-made opinions?
@onebornfree
Thanks for the link about Mr.Bourne and you correct about his statement applying to ALL
states.
They are more like progressive, merciful and humanitarian slave owners.
Be free
I wonder why the "high IQ" westerners have never deemed it fit to study their undeniable mass
psychopathy.
If they were indeed as smart as claimed, they would begin to admit it, and given the claim
to their innate highly civilised humanitarian inclinations *cough* , they would come to the
conclusion that this world needs less of their cursed kind.
Since that is not going to happen, I guess nature has its way
@Rev.
Spooner The point he makes is extremely vague. No specificity. None. Yet 10's of
thousands are dead. Ok, how about some evidence.
Why don't you go back to kindergarten, Rev?
@SafeNow
The support of the public for the military derives from constant and pervasive propaganda
particularly through movies and TV shows , David Sirota calls it the "Military
Entertainment
Complex".
Zero Hedge : " Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon , CIA
& NSA ".
@Johnny
Walker Read I was making a rhetorical point. I don't think the U.S. can decouple from the
Middle East.
I do, however, think that Trump wants value for blood and treasure.
Long-term, America simply lacks the financial strength to continue to project power. The
MIC costs the U.S. a tremendous amount of money. Budget to the MIC will continue to be
slashed over time. The Deep State in the U.S. will contract simply due to financial
realities.
Israel will be less and less of a priority.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio relative to
the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.
@Whitewolf
Yes, lack of talent and totall inane radical left wing proposals whiped up by the AOC wing
and swallowed by all the candidates 'hook, line and stinker '.
@OscarWildeLoveChild
After JFK's assassination, every successive president is/was shown a film clip of JFK's head
exploding from an angle nobody's ever seen.
It doesn't matter what party they're from; they'll tow TPTB's line. All of them.
US Foreign Policy = Occupied Palestine Foreign Policy.
That's all that's wrong with US foreign policies in a nutshell.
@Bragadocious
Whether he or his father served is irrelevant. Carter was in the Naval Academy, Reagan and
Bush 43 were in the reserves. Clinton had none and neither did Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge,
Harding, or Wilson.
What is telling, is the "alleged bone spurs", and "Trump's surname was changed from the
original German Drumpf".
An allegation is an unproven accusation. What Giraldi is stating, is that Trump's physician
falsified records. You think old man Trump sent Donnie for a megadollar military academy
education so he could avoid the military?
As for Drumpf, I was acquainted with a couple of Schmidts who became Smith, a Bryjolfson who
became Byron, a Pachkowski who became Berry and, no one says Roosevelt's name was changed
from Rosenfeld. The snide commentary doesn't help.
I have said all along, that there is a lot not to like about Trump, but let's keep it in the
realm of reality. Whether he wants to end the stupid wars or not, he will never be allowed
to, as long as Giraldi's old employer is in business and making up non-existent bullshit
"threats to American interests", whatever they are.
@Sean
"Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey threatening to get their own nuclear
weapons because Israel has them is not very good diplomacy from Turkey's point of view"
Israel is known to puff and bluff . It is grandiose polemic or rabid canine barking. It
was not exposed by the west . But the west now knows it ,thanks to Hizbullah
@anon
Getting women to work had nothing to do with their 'liberation.'
Even though my mom had her own [private] school, my dad's salary was enough to provide for
all 5 of us, go on annual holidays abroad and put three kids through college, loan-free.
To TPTB, it's better to tax 2 people instead of 1.
To them it's just a number game, like the 'Torches of Freedom' gambit, all spiel, smoke
and mirrors, to fool us gullible idiots into believing we do have a say
We should really start to use our guns and rifles to free the country and rid it of the
rot that's smothering it.
Oh, look, another Cartra$$hian selfie butt shot on Instagram!!!!!!
It's very old habit.Very much ingrained . It is also generational . Increasingly and suddenly
religious also as the feckless toothless Evangelicals are rooting for 1 second fame .
But here is a short chronology–
1 Plans for mayhem in Syria have been on the imperial table since the 1950s (Operation
Straggle).
2 US general Wesley Clark gave the game away years ago when he revealed US intentions in
the Middle East after 9/11: seven countries were to be invaded
3 Seymour Hersh gave the game away too in his 2007 New Yorker article: "The Redirection".
In this piece he revealed how the US were hooking up once again with the Saudi/Sunni
fundamentalists in and around Syria.
4 France's ex-foreign minister Roland Dumas also gave the game away when he revealed that the
British State (a definite CIA asset) was preparing for a war on Syria two years before the
start of the Syrian Holocaust in 2011.
"This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June,
"goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."
As we recently learned from former French Foreign Minister Dumas, it was also about that
time, that actors in the United Kingdom began planning the subversion of Syria with the help
of "rebels"' (Christof Lehmann, Interview with Route Magazine)
Between 2006 to 2010, the US spent 12 million dollars in order to support and instigate
demonstrations and propaganda against the Syrian government. 6,3 million dollars was funneled
to the Movement for Justice and Development, a Syrian dissident organization based in London.
The Movement operated the Barada satellite channel
@Johnny
Walker Read Quote: "America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "
Reply: Kindly allow me to correct your statement.
"America/Israel have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "
Russia has a wet entrance into the Med via Syria.
Perhaps you've dozed off a bit over the past few years, but Russia has been destroying and
killing the FUKZUIS 'war' machine goons in Syria [aka the takfiri terrorist].
They're assisting in getting the country back [on its feet] as a whole again.
@anon
I'll keep it short. You can find the beginnings back in the 2012 coverage.
In 2012 Saudi sent Saudi Prince Bandar to Syria to be in charge of helping Syrian rebels
bring down Assad, an ally of Riyadh's biggest regional rival Iran.
They were originally created, set up and armed and financed by Saudi.
The Saudis were then joined by Israel and Qatari and finally by the US under Obama.
A new twist appeared in the Saudi rebels war with Assad when ISI appeared and joined the
fight.
This scared Saudi shitless as they thought this ISI version of ALQ might be a threat to them
and lead to an invasion of Saudi as ALQ always saw it as a' westernerized' Saudi.
Everyone doubled down on both fighting Assad and fighting ISI ..which was a FUBAR if there
ever was one.
Then enter the proxies, the Kurds, the PPK terrorist group all fighting for their own
agendas within and under cover of the original war on Assad.
What could possibility go wrong in all this? LOL
Then enter Russia. Which gave some pause to the US in how far they wanted to go to throw
Assad out for Saudi and Israel and open a gateway to get Iran.
So now we are headed to the ending of the Saud and others Syrian adventure which is probably
best expressed by the fable of the fox and his shadow.
"A fox arose in the morning and saw his large shadow cast in the morning sun and said " I
will have a camel for lunch today'. The fox hunted all day for the camel without success. As
he paused in the afternoon setting sun he saw his shadow was much smaller and said "A mouse
will do after all."
In 1992, Alexandra Zapruder began to collect diaries written by children during
the Holocaust. These diaries speak eloquently of both hope and despair.
[Alexandra said:] "Anne Frank's diary was the first diary that was published. And her
voice was so powerful that it captured the voices of all the children and all the people
who had been killed. That's the way it's framed. And that by reading her diary and sort of
taking her into our hearts, we could redeem her life. . . ." [US Holocaust Memorial Museum
https://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/alexandra-zapruder
]
Alexandra Zapruder is the author of Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the
Zapruder Film.
Her grandfather was Abraham Zapruder, who took a twenty-six second home movie of President
John F. Kennedy's assassination[1] -- now known as the Zapruder film.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Zapruder
]
From a strategic point of view it is very noteworthy to observe that Kurdish troops are
fully positioned east of the Euphrates River. The Kurds are allies of Israel and a vital
proxy implemented to fracture Syria along the lines envisioned for Greater Israel (Oded Yinon
Plan).
It is perceived that Russia is an ally of Syria. However, Putin has not prevented Kurdish
troops from establishing themselves firmly within Syrian territory.
Israel along with their diaspora will never relent until their abomination of "Eretz
Yisrael" is achieved. It's not an accident that the ISIS flag is marked "All Jew."
@NoseytheDuke
Washingtonsblog : " Balkanizing the Middle East – The real goal of America and Israel :
shatter Iraq and Syria into many small pieces "
Thomas Harrington : " One of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine
conflict in the territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet "
Sanchez : " Plan B is to Balkanize Israel is endorsing its plan B for Syria just when its
enemies are making it clear that its plan A (Assad must go) is not happening anytime soon ."
Pro-Israel America launched Tuesday endorsing 27 candidates -- 14 Democrats and 13
Republicans. All have long histories of working with the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee to advance the brand of pro-Israel legislation it favors. Its endorsements on its
website praise the named lawmakers for their actions favoring the legislative agenda closely
identified with the lobby: funding for Israel's defense, sanctions on Iran and its regional
proxies, and bills that seek to counter the boycott Israel movement.
They include Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del.; Rep. Steny Hoyer,
D-Md., the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy,
R-Calif., the minority leader; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, that committee's ranking Republican.
here are all of them listed .make sure you don't vote for one:
@barr
Blaming Saudi or Turkey or UAE has possibly some validity but as far as far the effect of the
independent move by any of them is concerned , it has less than zero effect on Syria on its
own.
It is like a hypothetical scenario where Florida and Alabama are independent countries .
Rest of America is splintered into 50 different states and Canada is trying to get rid of
Cuban regime for 50 years and only in last 5 years Florida and Alabama have joined the scheme
under dubious circumstances of pressure bribery and blackmail.
@NoseytheDuke
Israel was more powerful and also more favorite of the west across ideological drive until
2003
It is not a normal country . Somewhere that guilt and remorse of stealing and killing have
left a mark on its psyche . It doesn't know how to settle and be normal
It doesn't know the meaning of the power, advantage or gain . The paranoia drives to more
dangerous world of fear and insecurity . It can't rest . Even if it is left alone, he talks
to itself and bangs it head against wall . Recent election is the manifestation of more
madness . It's begging jaunt to Russia and screaming through US media show how badly weakened
the country is.
The countries that bow to Israel – UK, USA, Egypt, Saudi are finding themselves also
badly weakened ,
A seed was planted in 2006 in Lebanon . That tree is growing taller and establishing roots
, Israel will be a shrub hiding in the shadow of that tree in a few years time.
Soviet and Russia were both almost destroyed by Jews . Now they look for the Russian shadow
to hide .
@renfro
A pack of lions can bring down an adult elephant at night when they have the advantage, but
they are careful not to choose a really big strong one. Russia is fighting in the Ukraine its
traditional heartland and what H. Mackinder called the Heartland of the World Island. A
victory in Syria that only came because Obama chose to not crush Assad with a couple of days
of air raids is hardly evidence of the Empire falling.
The real meaning of Trump is the facing of the threat from China, and if the neocons want
to play games in the Middle East so what? There is a fight coming with China and it is a
match for the West led by giant Bull Elephant America, Backward ME shitholes all together
could not take down America in a thousand years.
And what were the Kurds in Iraq called?
Didn't Saddam use some type of gas on them and that's why we were siding with them? Who told
about the incubator babies, maybe some other terrorist group?
@renfro
Mmmm, okay, you must have meant something like 'organized shooting' when you said, "SAUDI
STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR." Sorry I bit on false advertising.
As you see from 'barr' at #119 above, your starting point is months, years, even decades
too late. For a fact (I've met some of the Syrians who met with Robert Ford in Damascus, now
here and still lobbying for regime-change), the US was meddling, encouraging, prompting the
anti-Assadists well before the 2011 demonstrations.
@Daniel
Rich Putin is not the nice guy we have been told he is. He is in Syria for a reason, and
that is not simply because he wants Syria returned to al-Assad. Syria is only one cog in the
wheel. World wide Communism marches on, if you hadn't noticed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=4sKxkY0Tz5s
LOL. My favourite rapid US evacuation was the CIA flying off the roof of the Saigon
Embassy while the Viet Kong were busting in through the door and running up the stairs.
who benefits from these wars – isn't it just one small but powerful segment of
America – AIPAC. Isn't it time to call these wars by the honest truthful term –
"AIPAC Wars?"
Except the main beneficiary of these wars is George Soros and his anti-Semitic Globalist
movement.
Soros intentionally orchestrated the ultra-weak, time limited JCPOA treaty to create a
nuclear arms race among Iran, SA, Turkey, and possibly other MENA nations. That way he and
his buddies with MIC investments could profit by selling weapons to all sides.
So let's put in everyone's face with a factual term
Trump confuses tweeting with taking action. How many times has he mentioned 'birthright
citizenship' and then done nothing about it?
A: Every time.
If Trump drives too hard, too early and the case arrives at the Supreme Court while it is
split 5-4 in favor of 'birthright citizenship' Is that a win? Or, a loss?
There is a huge difference between 'failed action' and 'successful action'.
Given the proven hostility of the deep state establishment, it makes a great deal of sense
to lay groundwork now (via tweets), but only launch the correct constitutional action once
the courts are prepared to support it.
With class, Philip Giraldi amused me by his article's mere title, "Trump wants to end the
"Stupid Wars?"
Oh yea! Thanks, Phil , & please continue with offering dashes of intelligent,
dissident, & unflappable humor. Haha. For example, "Trump's surname was changed from the
original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs at Normandy, they were undoubtedly on
the German side."
(Zigh) The insatiable global tag team, M.I.C. and The Land of Bilk & Money , want "Big
Time" and more stupidly unnecessary & immoral wars. (Zigh) One sure path to a 2nd term
for President Bonespur is for him to get off the "low energy" Turkey/Syria skirmish, &
get on with real war against Iran , for Israel.
Thanks, Phil! Fyi, I think Senator Lindsey Graham wants to get Bolton back in The Blue
& White House, and sanction Camp Mar a Lago.
P.S.: For all commenters assembled here, linked below is Stephen Colbert's satiric
covering of President Drumpf's having followed Israel's yonder (fallen) , and establishing a
US Space Force Command! To that, Colbert quipped, "Trump can not join it because of his
galactic bonespur."
@9/11
Inside job Seven Nations to Destroy for the nine eleven false flag. Wesley Clark
mentioned the seven – Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.
Seven Nations to Destroy for Yahweh's Israel – Deut. 7:1-2 –
Tanakh/OT.
Iraq 2003 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces
Libya 2011 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces
How four other nations on the list that were destroyed.
Somalia –
Since 2006 it has been a mess with Israel/US Al-Qaeda running the show.
Bizarre article about US/Israel terrorists "worried" about the environment.
Somalia-based militant group Al-Shabab has reportedly announced a ban on the use of
single-use plastic bags in territories under its control.
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization, which has been blamed for thousands of deaths
since its inception in 2006, dubbed plastic a "serious threat to the well-being of both
humans and animals," the BBC reported, citing Al-Shabab's radio station Radio Andalus.
It even mentions that Osama Bin Laden, the puppet of Israel/US, was "worried" about the
environment too. It makes one wonder if this Climate Change thing and Imperialism terror are
connected.
Bin Laden wrote that Americans needed to save Obama from corporate and other nefarious
influences to empower him to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its
destiny."
He added that the world would be better off fighting climate change than waging what he
claimed was a war against Islam.
Sudan
Divided in two in 2011. Israel/US is pushing for more divisions.
Asked about his demand for protection during his meeting with Putin, al-Bashir said we
wanted to highlight "the big U.S. pressure and conspiracy" on Sudan in Darfur crisis and
the huge pressure exerted on his government to separate the South Sudan.
"Now we have information that the American quest is to divide the Sudan into five
countries If we do not find protection and security. America took the world leadership and
devastated the Arab world. (See) what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Iraq, what
happened in Syria, what happened in Yemen and what happened in Sudan," said al-Bashir.
Lebanon
Invaded by Israel in the summer of 2006. It made a mess out of Lebanon. Israel had a lot
of trouble fighting off Hezbollah. This is the reason that Israel fears going into Lebanon
again. After this adventure, Golems like US and its friends are the go to for Israel's war
adventures.
Initially, both Israel and Hezbollah claimed victory in the war, with Nasrallah
declaring that Hezbollah had achieved a "divine, historic and strategic victory". Some
international observers saw the fact that Hezbollah had survived the Israeli assault,
despite the asymmetrical power balance, as a PR victory for the group. According to
Reuters, the Lebanese government estimated direct war damage at $2.8 billion, and lost
output and income for 2006 at $2.2 billion. The economy also shrank five per cent, with
tourism effectively halted.
Six of the seven were messed up, destroyed. It leaves only Iran left. Iran is in the
"news" everyday for this reason.
Trump is flawed, ok then, but we had Clinton as the alternative. She would have been ten
times worse so what choice did the American people have? He's rolling up the Obama-Clinton
project in Syria which was a huge atrocity. Can you imagine the bloodbath that would have
ensued had the US backed jihadi cannon fodder actually succeeded in overthrowing Assad? It's
not a one man show and Trump has to go along with much of what has been taking place. Much of
this has been imposed upon the American people as well as on Trump.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish PKK. Why
so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have been resisting
for so long. But yet the mighty Turks are going to defeat the Kurds of Syria even as they
can't defeat the ones living in their own country? Perhaps they'll take on the inferior
Syrian army at the same time. After all, they're a big NATO ally with lots of weapons to dump
on lightly armed foes. Reality is they haven't fought anyone in a hundred years so who knows
how well they'd do.
Quit calling Afghanistan a "war". It's an occupation with anti-guerilla operations going on.
Apparently they don't like being occupied so they fight on.
Trump's name is Trump, not Drumpf. Or do we now refer to people by the family name used a
hundred years ago, or why not five hundred years ago?
Excerpt from
"Trump Mistake: Allowing Turkish Invasion of Northern Syria"
by Joel Skousen (there is no direct link to it but it is/was on his website World Affairs Brief ):
This week in a telephone conversation with Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan he [President
Trump] assented to Erdogan's demand from over a year ago to let them enter Turkey and
establish a buffer zone where Turkey can resettle the hundreds of thousands of Syrian
refugees that have burdened Turkey since the beginning of the US-created terror attacks on
Syria. But as part of that strategy, and without emphasizing that to Trump, Erdogan intends
to drive out or destroy the Syrian Kurds which occupy northern Syria. Erdogan calls them
terrorists because the US-backed YPG Kurds are affiliated with the homegrown Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) which represents about 20% of the Turkish population, and which has
been fighting for independence from Turkey. So while the Turkish Foreign Minister plays lip
service to Syrian sovereignty, Turkey has already begun the invasion and occupation of
northern Syria. While Trump claims he is fulfilling a campaign promise to remove troops
from Syria, this isn't really a pullout at all since only two observation posts in the path
of the Turkish invasion are pulling out. There are thousands of other US troops elsewhere
in Syria protecting US-backed terrorist rebels.
@Johnny
Walker Read H.E. Mr. Putin has clearly stated it's up to the Syrian population to choose
who leads them, not him.
Tartus has a port Russia needs and uses.
Khmeimim Air Base is also needed and used by the Russian AF.
These are military strategic assets and used to counter balance the FUKZUS 'war' machine's
bases dotted around the ME region. Of course, those you don't mention.
No president actually controls the government, least of all Trump. The Deep State controls
the government. Trump is a an interloper. Why does one have to remind the author of this
elementary fact? The threat to destroy the economy of Turkey was made by Stephen Israel
Mnuchin. Trump had to make noises as if it was his "decision" when in fact he had nothing to
do with it. What Trump wants to do, and what he can do, are entirely different things. And
anyone who has anything to do with Americans knows what happened to all the previous allies.
Mnuchin has clued in those Turks who may have had illusions.
@renfro
very bad US is indeed . It continues to sabotage ,cast evil eye,try to strangle ,and continue
to punish Cuba . That long history is really long punctuated by half hearted Obama attempt
.
Once empire decided a project,it becomes , NASA , Present Danger , PNAC or NED . The project
goes on losing the aim . The project goes on because the vested interest
,employees,pensioner,glory seeking men, arm merchant, politicians and expatriate find means
to rake up profit and launder dishonest living into honest lifestyle . Name is changed when
it suits the project . Aim is not lost. It becomes the final destination . It never stops
energegizing the dishonest, looter,profit seekers, and opportunists . Often the brains that
gather under the flag are not that intelligent or ideologically certain.
Money and corruption drive them.
It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past
5 years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas
ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
Going broke happens slowly at first, then quickly. The Western cities are going broke, as
are those in the Third World. Nothing else changes peoples minds like having their basic
income reduced or eliminated.
All the promises (including self-governmement and freedom and equality) have turned out to
be lies, smoke. Computers, which were supposed to be a seamless adjunct to human existence, a
source of education and information, and a liberation from the bad parts of part of reality,
have turned into (poor but cheap) entertainment, gossip, a drug substitute, and a propaganda
source. The result is shock and horror, sometimes followed by violent psychosis [1] (e.g.
antifa).
Once again, I recommend "Marat/Sade"
(1967). It gives you a feel for what a revolution is like once the revolution gets going.
Note the movie's final scene, which almost breaks the "fourth wall" convention. It was made
during our last revolution, and the director wanted to record the spirit of what he had
seen.
@Art I
like it, very catchy, original, Art said: "AIPAC Wars."
Oh yea, Art, thanks, and a "spade is a spade" when one manages to get the hell out of the
AIPAC shade.
Unfortunately tonight, millions of process estranged Amerikan Democrat & GOP voters
are now "beamed up" to an AIPAC-approved strange & hostile telescreen's DebateLand.
(Zigh) Across aisle, including a possible Beaming Bloomberg entry, , "winnable" 2020
presidential nomination contestants shall pick & choose, finagle & sell, an either/or
USrael foreign policy posture, as regrettably follows:
1.) The Zio-Democrat War to end the deplorable Trump's stupid call to end all Amerika's
endless Wars just for the paltry good of gradually achieving Greater Israel's unending
endgame. or,
2.) The Zio-GOP's War to end all Democrat Party hopefuls' stupid call to end all US endless
wars just because a lefty AIPAC-Branch put an Israel Labor Party "bug in their ear" about
having lowly dead-ender 'Merikan workers fucking pay for it.
Thanks again, Art, and "Good night America."*
* Phil Giraldi inhabits Sinatra's City That Never Sleeps.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio
relative to the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.
Agree.
And the financial debt must be augmented by degradation of physical infrastructure
(especially in cities and city support infrastructure) and the degradation of human capital
by importation of low IQ populations and effective destruction of education. And the capital
misallocation that continues today.
The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as global
trade will end with it.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish
PKK. Why so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have
been resisting for so long.
Turkish birth rate low (lower in cities than in hinterlands), Kurdish birth rate high.
Kurds replace Turks in a few decades. Kurds don't follow Turkish cultural norms, nor Turks
follow Kurdish. Kurds don't want to wait a few decades, want power _now_ (c.f. Black Power
and Whiteness in USA). Kurds use destructive commando raides ("terrorism") to get power now.
Turks don't like that, respond with same.
Long term: demography wins barring very large change.
Please correct parts of this that are wrong. I'm not following this conflict closely.
Latest TruNews godcast, E. Michael Jones: The Deception Facing the Church by Christian
Zionism
YT Description:
Today on TruNews, Dr. E. Michael Jones joins us to talk about the influence of modern
Christian Zionism upon the American Church, and how that has led to a dramatic
radicalization of US foreign policy in favor of one nation, Israel.
Prof. Jones takes the deluded xian Zionists to task, calling them "useful idiots." My
favourite passage starts @ 18:58:
.. which means you got a lot of Christians who don't understand the gospel. Because
there are plenty of Christians out there who are Christian Zionists. It's a simple fact of
life. I think it can be traced to Jewish influence in our culture Jewish influence over the
publishing industry, for example. How did the Scofield Bible end up being published by
Oxford University Press? Because it's a great scholarly work? No! Because of people like
Mr. Untermeyer pulled strings. This is the way this happened. It's the biggest issue facing
American politics, right now. The role that Zionism is playing right now, in corrupting the
government of the United States, in diverting American resources into a quagmire in the
Middle East, which doesn't serve the interests of the American people at all and is all
done in the name of Israel.
@Counterinsurgency
I'm kind of having a mental barrier with this now.
There is a guy in Vancouver who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, Jensen I believe (he
wrote to the Bank of Canada and a list of people in 2006). He argues that the fundamentals
are even worse now due to the failure to finance these foreign adventures and other factors
(expenditures on domestic expenses not matching tax income, etc.).
I haven't even taken the time to consider the knock on effects. Mentally, I've been more
focused on having to sit through the screaming match that is going to occur over who is to
blame and the lying that will go on with respect to needing to move to a sound money system
but having bankers et al try to argue for a rollover into a new currency. It is going to be
ugly, I can feel it. It will provide an opportunity for some serious structural change and
constitutional amendments. A whole host of reforms are open when you have a debt induced
currency collapse. I just know it could be really ugly and I've been dreading thinking
through how this will play out. I keep thinking that I never expected to live in a time like
this; I think back to being a teenager during the Reagan years and, despite the Cold
War-nuclear war scenario hanging over our heads, it seemed a much more optimistic time.
I am not optimistic. I'm very worried.
@Robjil
Somalia under a failing Siad Barre regime was going to the dogs with various warlords
cannibalising each other. Then the Americans were told in the flush of victory in the Gulf in
1991, that they should just kick the door in to save the dumb Muslims. It is not the fault of
the late senior Bush that Somalia is compounded of that specimen of humanity that emerges
like clockwork when African tribalism is married to Islamic fanaticism (but is there any
other kind?) . The Americans were minding their own business, but were told that it was the
humanitarian thing (and furthermore quite cheap to boot) to do at little cost to themselves
to save Muslim chillun'.
Afghanistan was no better : The idiot, the younger George Bush instead of bombing the the
hell out of Al-Queda and leaving was instead misled by mystagogues of various hues, including
his own self into sinking lives and treasure in a vain attempt to civilise the Afghans.
The truth is the further you keep away from Muslims, the better it is for your health and
sanity, notwithstanding the parallel machinations of various neocohens, for Islam is a
pernicious religion that breeds insanity, intolerance and bloodshed all by itself.
E. Michael Jones: a very wise man. He believes in free speech and is hated by Jews who, of
course, label him an 'anti-semite'. I would argue they are 'truth averse' fanatical
maniacs.
He makes a good case that 'Christian Zionism' is a heresy. I don't believe he uses that term
BUT I do.
It's just another bubbling that is bursting.
What will they do besides scream and throw tantrums? Is it time for another false flag 911
type event?
What the media never really exposed was how Syria, and every Middle East country that has
been attacked by the DeepStateZio monster, has seen the oldest Christian communities on the
planet under attack. Strange pattern. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, initiated by the
British alliance with the Wahabi's and the Saud Family and furthered by the CIA/Mossad in
Afghanistan, has corresponded with the destruction and diasporas of the world's oldest
Christian communites.
Somehow, Europe has ended up with a bunch of Muslims when these Christians would have fit
into their societies much better.
I think that none of this just 'happened'. I strongly suspect that if we were to kick over
some rocks we would find the usual suspects: the Khazar/Black Nobility Alliance.
@renfro
How?????????????????????????????????????????
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I do think it was Mc Cain.
Concerning historically lazy Saudis I am entirely confident that they were only taking care
of payroll.
( I am not entirely confident but there is a possibility that CIA did channel some profits
from Afghanistan poppy fields for this noble cause.
@Counterinsurgency
Quote: "The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as
global trade will end with it."
Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road project,
[IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global trade will
not nosedive along with it.
Too much a stake for the multinationals [not necessary a good thing, but alas].
Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington
that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which
later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were,
at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.
It's very challenging to come up with any foreign policy initiatives that do not serve
Zionist Israel's interests, first and foremost. Israeli interests have defined American
foreign policy objectives in the ME for much of the post-WWII era. Not at Israel's behest,
but on Israel's instructions and demands via pro-Zionist lobbies and the infestation of the
Administration with Israel First officials, Israeli citizens and spies. Add to that the
Israel First MSM.
@ivan
Is it methamphetamine instead of regular fentanyl ? Anyway, this logic and perverted emotion
make sense to you. Unfortunately it will reinforce your decision to switch . Business will
sure be coming back from China to rural America.
@A123 I
respectfully disagree on this particular matter. There is no US law bestowing birthright
citizenship. All that would change is recognition of what the law really says.
Trump waiting to win another 4 (still a gamble) AND for RBG's animatronics to fizzle out
AND for her replacement to not be another skunk like Roberts is foolish.
There is no underwater 38th-dimensional quantum chess being played here, and we still have
no wall.
Oops, I posted this under another writer. (Small wonder I got no answer.) Since then, someone
else remarked that at the end of WWI this land (northern Syria) was taken from Turkey. So
this is a long grievance, with deep sense of entitlement.
Rurik wrote, " .the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they
use Libya's stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "
Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this
conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring that
Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the team.
Maybe Phil can enlighten us:
We know that Robert Ford, US Embassador to Syria, was meeting privately with Syrian "civil
society" activists before the 2011 demonstrations.
-- Was Erdogan/Turkey also involved in infiltrating, inflaming those anti-Assad
elements?
-- How did Turkey involvement begin?
-- Was the CIA actively involved in Syria before the fall of Libya?
C'mon guys.
Using prior military service as some sort of litmus test to the right to critique involvement
and opinion sharing today plays to an audience mentality that encourages blind
patriotism.
There really are no necessary wars these days as they are all being fought for the banker
elite which holds no loyalty to country though it plays on ppl's ignorance to use such
loyalties for propaganda purposes.
There is no justification for US troops to be all over the world as a banker mercenary force
and this site acknowledges 911 was an Israeli- internationalist false flag which removes all
justifications for the meddling in Israeli neighbor's internal affairs.
Tolerating this to get air time with magazines that lie for power is encouraging this
negative behavior for personal advantage in a country and world striving to control the most
minute areas of our lives.
Going along to get along only brings the eternal boot down of the forehead forever@!
The fact that none of these bickering forces are targeting Israel who always was the
catalyst for the divisions there, is a huge clue that we and Israel are the problem causers
primarily. Of course we need false flags to excite the population to support the fake war on
terror within the US and Europe (as well as justify the reverse colonialism going on). Jews
for hundreds of years have counted on stupid goyim to do the fighting but now that Israel is
a supposed stand alone nation, that should be harder to accomplish but apparently total
corporate media control keeps the truth hidden from 85% of the public.
Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road
project, [IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global
trade will not nosedive along with it.
I actually hadn't thought of that. Now that you point it out, of course the dollar trade
will decrease. Negative interest rates are, in a way, saying that nobody wants US Dollars
anymore, and trades that are not in US Dollars are being actively sought. The decrease will
happen a bit before the USN becomes ineffective. And that will be hard on the
multi-nationals, but I can't say I have much sympathy. They were firmly behind the move of
Western manufacturing to East Asia – what did they think would happen?
But I do disagree over the assertion that global trade will remain about as it is.
The New Silk Road. Interesting topic.
Well, first of all it's a reasonable thing for the PRC to do. Historically, the Silk
Road has paid off for China, at least in terms of precious metals, and being dependent on a
single transportation mode for one's raw materials is strategically undesirable. It's a
good move. It's also an attempt to realize McKinder's proposed making the World Island into
a unified state[1].
But a couple of points:
a) New Silk Road is much more expensive than sea transport [2]. If sea lanes are cut
off, China's raw materials costs increase by several times.
b) New Silk Road recapitulates the interaction of European empires of the 1800s through
1900s with ethnicities along the Silk Road. The Europeans were resented and eventually
ejected. The Chinese are having similar problems.
China has loaned money to various nations which have then spent that money on immediate
consumption and are attempting to repudiate the debt. The Chinese (who have no compunctions
about debt repudiation through currency devaluation) are apparently taking over completion
of the Silk Road facilities for which the natives can no longer pay (having spent the money
on other things). Local rulers are saying that this makes the Chinese foreign invaders (on
a very low level so far). Just like the Europeans.
Chinese society also does not mix well with either Islamic or African tribal society, yet
the Silk Road crosses both cultural territories.
So far as I know, the Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal since the US evacuation has gone
well. Last I heard, a few years back, Panama had started teaching Chinese in its public
schools. Chinese operations in South and Meso America are increasing, however, and I know
little about how they are going.
The nice thing about policed sea lanes is that shippers don't have to worry much about
the natives. Piracy is and has been a problem, but so far not a serious one. New Silk Road
goes overland, and that has (historically) always led to security problems with the locals,
whoever the locals may be.
So: Let's suppose that the USN were to become ineffective. Only the part of the Silk
Road guarded by the Russian Federation would remain secure. The rest would be subject to
local raids and extortion from the local government. Note that raw materials costs would
increase drastically for everybody (because of less shipping), so local governments and
bandits would have motives for confiscating goods.
This would be especially the case in Africa, which is largely dependent on food imports.
That conflict could become severe, as China is increasingly dependent on Africa for raw
materials (as is the rest of the world).
In other words, sole reliance on the New Silk Road (should that ever be necessary) would
be expensive in terms of shipping and in terms of security / warfare costs. China's
bellicose policy is, IMHO, counterproductive. China should be positioning itself to police
the sea lanes cooperatively but reluctantly with a declining USN, gradually assuming the
mantle of worldwide protection of the sea lanes that China needs so badly. Current efforts
to be able to interdict the sea lanes are not in the PRC's interest, as the PRC needs these
sea lanes open. It's sort of like developing a hyperbomb to make the Sun go nova. Under
what circumstances would you use such a device? Under what circumstances would China want
to cease shipping by sea?
So, what's likely to happen? The USN will decline because it needs recapitalization due
to age and a changing threat, and the US is instead devoting its income to debt repayment
and immediate social stability expenditures. The PRC, which has never been a naval power,
will still attempt to keep global trade alive. When that fails, the PRC will trade more
with the Russian Federation It will also take what sea and land it has, make an
expeditionary force out of it, and deploy it in some trading zones (possibly in countries
that have resources China needs) rather than see its population starve and itself
overthrown. That's the standard response from any H. Sap. political organization. Things
will get very messy.
And please remember that I'm like the weatherman: I report, I don't cause.
@Stan
Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the
West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility. A
confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on
tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state
would weaken the West,
@Daniel
Rich What part of BOTH the US and Russia are only there to serve their own
interest don't people understand. My only point is Russia is not there out of the goodness of
their hearts. People who claim Russia is fighting the globalist juggernaut and is only in
Syria to "fight ISIS/ISL" and to make Syria "safe for Democracy" aren't seeing the big
picture. Russia is working hand in hand with China to make sure America is reduced to a
second rate global power. Assad has become nothing more than Putin's puppet on a string.
Syria will need money for re-construction, thanks to Russia destroying much of their
infrastructure, that money more than likely will come from China(China's version of "Economic
Hit Men"). All the while, lurking in the back ground, that little shit stain known as Israel.
This report will present the reality of Russia's Syrian campaign. Russia launched air
strikes on hospitals, water treatment plants, and mosques. Russia used cluster bombs.
Russia almost exclusively targeted non-ISIS targets. These are the truths that Russia will
not admit, and the truths that must be understood when negotiating with Russia as a
potential partner.
It's all about the "Belt and Road Initiative". There are no good guy's in this mess, and
the real losers in this conflict are the citizens of Syria. Russia is a main partner in
"Globalization".
One of the main problems of the People's Republic is to connect the "Belt" with the
"Road". For China it is crucial to be able to bypass the choke points represented by the
straits that separate the South China Sea from the Indian Ocean (Malacca, Sunda and Lombok)
that, being controlled by the US, prevent the Chinese maritime power to fully develop. A
first important asset in this sense is represented by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,
which connects by land Eastern China to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, in turn connected
to the String of Pearls.
Why Syria?
In this perspective, Syria becomes a crucial junction within the BRI: a possible
development of its transport and port infrastructures, properly connected with each other
and with the Belt and Road Initiative, would allow China a further maritime outlet for its
land trade and a formidable trade post in the Mediterranean. A further advantage is
represented by the increased quantity of goods that China could deliver into the
Mediterranean, overcoming the further bottleneck of the Suez Canal.
Syria also has at least two important factors that represent opportunities to be
exploited by Beijing: the country's urgent need to obtain funds to be allocated to
reconstruction and development and the simultaneous disengagement of the United States from
the Middle East, an empty space not filled by the EU. Syria is therefore an extremely
interested and receptive partner to the proposals of the Chinese government, which finds
itself at the same time freed from any diplomatic controversy that could slow down its
action.
@Counterinsurgency
Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and other
third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn sour for
them eventually.
@Abdul
Alhazred Thank you for that video. I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my
life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering to people like me,
but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said.
More on Trump by Shamir's recent article:
What is much worse for Israel, is Trump's intent to leave the region. There is a good
chance you haven't seen relevant tweets of the President, for the MSM doomed to surround it
by the wall of silence. That is what the President said while ordering withdrawal:
"Fighting between various groups that has been going on for hundreds of years. USA
should never have been in Middle East. The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending! The
United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East.
Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have
died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE
HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers
& military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE!"
Just for this recognition "GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN
THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY" and for this promise "The stupid endless wars, for us, are
ending!" Trump deserves to be re-elected and remembered as the most courageous and
independent US President since Richard Nixon.
His efforts on withdrawing from the Middle East remind of Nixon's hard struggle to leave
Vietnam and to make peace with Russia and China. If he succeeds in this endeavour, he will
be rewarded by the American people in 2020..
If he succeeds, then he sure will have my support!
One of the main instigators of the Syrian imbroglio – Saudi Arabia – had
been beaten in Yemen and is no longer eager for battle; ditto Qatar and UAE. Europe is less
keen on removing "bloody dictators" than it was. CIA, Jewish Lobby and Clintonite Democrats
would keep Syria boiling, but mercifully they are not in full command in Washington. .
@A123
What is allegedly being built is the same worthless fence. The wall prototypes couldn't
legally be used per a clause in one of the terrible spending bills hastily signed by "Master
Negotiator" Trump.
Better than cacklin' cankles? Yes, but so is my last bowel movement.
Even if we got a real wall, Orangemeister wants legal gimmegrants in record numbers. We
just can't effing win.
Don't you think Trump was a tad premature in announcing "Only I can fix," to all these
problems?
Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and
other third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn
sour for them eventually.
Every high value PRC project in Africa seems to come with as suspiciously large number of
military age, ethnic Han Chinese staff.
The PRC colonization effort is informed by the lessons of former Euro colonies. They have
built-in measures to make them very hard to displace. And, should they eventually be forced
out, the locals will get nothing but destroyed and poisoned lands.
@geokat62
Know more News with Adam News covers the Christian Zionist story. He is still on you
tube.
Jones was banned from that platform recently. He can still be heard on bitchute as well as
his own website, Culturewars.com
the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they use Libya's
stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "
Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this
conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring
that Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the
team.
I have a metric that I use.
If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is
suspect, at best.
Insofar as Erdogan has been aligned with Israel and its interests and agendas (the
destruction and carving up of Syria)- is the degree to which he has been a malefactor on the
world's stage.
/
Vs. the degree to which he's opposed to Israel's nefarious agendas;
– he's demonstrated actual statesmanship.
So that's my metric. That's why generally I don't have to pour over the minutia of every
action or issue with a fine tooth comb, rather I just ask, 'is this person or action aligned
with Israel's agenda.. (genocide, theft, murder, hegemony, strife ), and the question always
seems to answer itself!
Just consider the Obama regime. When I approved of what Obama was doing- peace with Iran-
it was when he was in Israel's crosshairs.
When I disapproved of Obama's treasons, it was when his actions were perfectly aligned
with Israel – destruction of Libya, destruction of Syria and so forth.
It really is a near perfect, if not perfect metric.
When Trump is betraying America and Americans, is when he's serving Israel – open
borders, drones, sanctions on Iran and Russia and others..
When he's acting like an actual American president, in the service of this nation, is when
he's in direct opposition to Israel's agenda – ending the Eternal Wars, making videos
about dead American soldiers, firing Bolton, talking about nationalism at the UN..
I'm really sort of waiting for this test to ever fail, it's been so reliably perfect for
so long.
So if you want to know if Erdogan is acting in good faith, just check to see if what he's
doing pleases Israel, and you'll know all you need to know!
Is a Kurdish state a good thing?
Well, what does the 'metric' say?
Is Turkey's incursion into Syria a good thing?
Here, a mouthpiece of Zion posits 'no'.
The Turkish government is no longer interested in helping Syrians liberate themselves
from Assad's murderous regime.
The video is very powerful, and this video linked in this link features Trump's speaking
with attendant images of the families of the soldiers and what they have to go through
.because of the lies of the warmongers.
@Rurik
As Commander in Chief tRump wanted to kill Syria President Basher Assad for having gassed his
own people & having to be restrained by his Generals, Amerikans now see another side to
their president which Rurik observed on video & gushed: "I've never been so proud of a
U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering
to people like me, but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said Thank
God. Peace."
Am sincerely glad you're "happy," Rurik, that Trumpstein moved to shed some of his
Adelson/Netantahu skin implants. Nonetheless, & I don't want to be a GOP Likud-Party
pooper, but am sticking with Philip Giraldi's advisory to, "Let's see what he actually
does."
At any rate, linked below (& fyr in ), is Brother Nathanael's latest video. In order
to stave off our nation's descent into Greater Sodom & Gomorrah, it's understandable to
me how Bro Nat prefers "The Chosen One" to continue as ZUS president over his uber-liberal
& decadent Zio-Democrat opponents.
Thanks Rurik, and enjoy the good times of tRump's proclamation of an end to endless wars
for Greater Israel while it lasts!
"Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue
for the West . . . A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons"
Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is at the heart of US
FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's
rise.
The wonderful context is, it's not up to Trump. It's not up to the US government. The world
will squeeze the CIA regime out of Syria. Russian doctrine of coercion to peace works equally
well on degenerate great powers, with the minor filip of face-saving subterfuge for routed US
functionaries.
Lindsay Graham gets to shake his tiny fist ineffectually at a sneering NATO ally instead
of shaking his tiny fist ineffectually at a nuclear power with overwhelming hypersonic
nonballistic missile capability. Much safer.
@Wally
The only way to change this cast of filthy charACTORs we have running this country is to have
a "NONE OF THE ABOVE" box located prominently at the bottom of every ballot. One I
would take the time and effort needed to check.
@Cloak And
Dagger Trump's problem is that he has very little support for his MAGA agenda in his own
party. People like Lindsey Graham who support him here and there will not hesitate to turn on
him if he takes positions that offend Sheldon Adelson. Trump's none-too-sophisticated,
none-too-affluent base is opposed by the media, academe, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the FBI
and CIA, and the Rainbow Coalition assemblage of minority voices. Even Fox News (apart from
Tucker) opposes Trump's agenda even as it defends Trump against spurious charges of colluding
with the Russians. For example, Hannity regularly charges the Democrats with being in league
with Putin, in effect conceding that the Russians are evil enemies. Yet Trump's MAGA proposal
was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian) Russia.
At the end of the day, the 4D Chess view seems more right than wrong. While Trump's
commitment to the right is both shallow and wavery, in the present setting he cannot do more
than hold the enemy at bay and wait for reinforcements to show up. That means it's up to US,
his supporters, to find ways to weigh in on his side. As the fascists used to say, a bundle
of sticks can be strong even if the individual sticks are weak.
@Sean
My question to you is: a confrontation between who or what and China? To the extent that
America collapses into a post-Christian, post-European congeries of plutocrats and their
commercial interests, such a confrontation has no clear shape. The evolving character of
American society has been put on the table by the Trump/populist revolution, and the role of
Jews in our cultural evolution is part of that even if it is taboo to discuss it. The issue
over the Palestinians is the only way to challenge the successful assumption of moral carte
blanche by the secular Jewish community, which Jewish thought leaders have parlayed into an
effective assault on freedom of speech and assembly (particularly in Europe but also here),
and a campaign to stigmatize whiteness, Christianity, and the nuclear family.
Conclusion: The issue of Palestine is a proxy for the larger issue of whether secular
Judaism deserves its current status as moral hegemon. It is the only way to raise this issue
that is not instantly dismissed as neo-Nazism.
@SolontoCroesus
SolontoCroesus wrote: "Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is
at the heart of US FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's rise."
To All commenters,
Above, when SolontoCroesus speaks, I listen & learn.
When President Bonespur speaks, it pains to listen, & I can potentially become
deceived.
Will likely get friendly fire from Rurik, but I truly wish he reads your comment &
astutely watches the very informative linked Talpiot video. Hurts when I see good men (like
him) gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.
Thanks for your patriotic servus, S2C!
P.S.: Behind D.C.'s Blue & White House curtain, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin licks his
choppers in anticipation of effectual ZUS sanctions, & the Chinese communist government's
finally granting Goldman Sachs Group permission to do "untethered" investment business" in
the mainland; the largest consumer market on the planet.
@Sean'Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for
the West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility.
A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on
tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state
would weaken the West,'
As usual you've being dishonest. You agree Israel is a 'shitty little country' -- but
manage to insinuate we should continue to support it.
After all, we don't have to spend a penny to 'play Santa' to the Palestinians (as if we
had nothing to do with their expulsion.). It's the Israelis we subsidize and protect, not the
Palestinians.
In fact, we can help the Palestinians and save money too! Yank Israel off our tit and we
get to have our cake and eat it too. The Palestinians get their home back, and we save
billions every year. All we have to do is to stop funding their tormentors,
If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is
suspect, at best.'
It is always wrong to support Israel.
In 2008, I voted for McCain instead of Obama. I told myself they'd both be equally
supportive of Israel, but I knew deep down inside that was a lie.
I voted for McCain because he wasn't black. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is
that I allowed some other consideration to seduce me into supporting Israel -- however
trivially and as it turned out ineffectually.
If you establish 911 was a fraud then subsequent war on terror is a fraud. The West will
exhaust themselves waging war against Islam and the Muslims despite killing millions of
people. They will dig their own graves and cast themselves in hell fire for eternal damnation
for subscribing to Santa Claus lies and Jesus died for their evils by supporting the money
changer's ideology for greater Israel project to usher in their Anti-Christ as their Messiah.
Anti-Christ Dajjal will take them for a ride to hell. He will play them "By way of Deception"
just as they are playing the rest of the world "By way of Deception wage wars." So how many
of us are willing to sell our souls in exchange for the worldly gains and pay a penalty for
eternal damnation?
gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.
"I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video.
"
Gushing?
Perhaps, I suppose, depending on your definition.
But when's the last time you heard a Z.U.S. president speak of the war dead with
compassion and pathos? Hell, when's the last time you heard them speak of these tragic
victims of American f0lly (treason and war crimes), and their families- at all?
He was saying 'enough of this madness!'
And from what I understand, American troops are indeed vacating Syrian bases.
BTW, leaving for a few days, so keep up the good fight, Brother Chuck!
@Wally
Wally likes to cheap shot P.G., haha, and once again futilely asked him: "Has Giraldi ever
stated which current candidate is his preference vs. Trump?"
Get on the ball, wailing Wall! (zzZigh) Likely, even some knowledgeable CODAH associates
will inform that YOU'LL get what Supremacist Jews give you.
Haha. The Zionized D.N.C. is presently fretting over which Jewish Lobby-approved
presidential 2020 candidate they should give to their "base" voters. Haha. Liberal tribe
chieftains are confident that even Mayor Pete Buttigieg will make incumbent, Trumpstein,
Tweet-out "endless" sweat on election night.
Nonetheless, had Amerika a real choice, , Ron Paul would be my #1 "anti-Chosen One"
alternative. Refer to his article below, wailing Wall?
Yet Trump's MAGA proposal was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian)
Russia.
That's why the NeoCohens hate Putin so much, for re-establishing Russian Christian
Orthodoxy as the 'national' religion. Trump, on the other hand, admires Putin for his
nationalism and wants white Christian Russia to be friends with nominally Christian
America. Unfortunately he must bow down to the Satanic anti Christ power brokers, the Cabal,
that keeps him in power and checks his nationalist leanings. Hopefully he will overcome this
in a second term but I've been saying that about presidents for years!
@ChuckOrloski
Thanks ChuckOrloski.
Undeserved, tho -- I was just being a shepherd guiding the flock to other people's good work,
a practice I learned from your comment style.
I don't want to be in the business of educating you on un-American actions undertaken by
"Z.U.S. presidents." You really know better, but since Jacques Sheete, peace be upon him, is
M.I.A., I will now do my best.
No doubt, Trumpstein is different. Please pause momentarily and consider how he very
recently wanted to sell/provide nuclear weapons systems to Saudi Arabia. Fyi, and lucky for
the entire Middle East's general population, Trump's lack of "compassion" was overuled by
those higher in the ZUS's Blue & White House Lowerarchy. (Note: He ain't "The Decider,"
he is the ever useful & divisive Zion Tweet-Chord)
So given the U.R. Moderator sword is not activated, linked down below, is a joint radio
show, hosted by Dr. David Duke & Ryan Dawson. Ideally, this action will take the job of
trying to educate YOU from off my shoulders, Rurik. No reading needed, & just carefully
listen!
Fyi, Dr. Duke and Mr. Dawson will provide the means by which an anti-Zionist &
patriotic American can resist the evil sway dished-out daily by our "Homeland's" Zionist
Corporate Media. These largely demonized gentlemen/scholars explain how Zionized Republicans
& Democrats are curiously "on the same page" when it comes to humanely protecting the
Kurds.
But when it comes to supporting & defending The Land of Bilk & Money, they unite.
Yippie! On other hand, and when it comes to actually helping the restless & sorry lot of
dumb goyim working Amerikans, they fight like , er, "Tom and Jerry." (Zigh) Why Trumpstein
even moved to kill the underachieving & oft unaffordable "Affordable Care Act," a.k.a.,
Obamacare.
Enjoy your time off, my Brother Rurik, and I suggest, at minimum, partial evacuation from
the dug-in Jewish Corporate Media "bases."
@Rurik'That's a very honest act of self-reflection, Colin.
I voted for Ron Paul, (If I recall, I wrote in his name).
I would have preferred the racist commie to the war mongering scumbag, but only because by
then I understood the nature of McCain all too well '
Now you're reminding me of 2012. Of course, I was going to vote for Obama over Israel's
man-in-the-White House-to-be. An unpleasant choice, but there it was
So my wife and I were down in Alameda at a winery. Somewhat incongruously, the server was
right-wing, and started praising Romney. I stayed tactful, as I didn't want to kill my buzz,
but my wife -- who is easily influenced -- came out of there going 'Romney number one.
Yeah -- I'm going to vote for him!'
In an unusual display of wisdom, I bit my tongue. We'll see how this plays out
You need to understand my wife comes from a poor background. If you want to meet 'the
working poor,' go see her relatives.
So the very next day, Romney comes out with his '49%' remark. It was classic.
@Johnny
Walker Read Right. This happens every so often. I am not recommending de Sade or any of
his works.
I'm recommending the movie:
"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the
Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade ", play 1963, movie 1967 [1].
The movie has very little to do with the writings of the original Marquis de Sade [2], but it
does do a good job of showing the spirit of revolutions.
de Sade had a good reputation with the revolutionaries. He was elected a delegate to the
French National Convention, but fell during the Reign of Terror [3]. He really did direct
publicly presented plays at Charenton starting in 1803, but was eventually arrested and
denied paper and pen in 1809. Died 1815, and several large manuscripts were subsequently
burned by his son, who apparently thought that de Sade had done quite enough harm
already.
Insofar as tje video has anything to do with the real de Sade, it is that the director
(fictional de Sade) manages to stage a small revolution himself in the final scene, _after_
demonstrating that the audience is little more sane than de Sade is ("15 glorious years"
scene). As in the link given by Read [4], de Sade acts as the philosophical godfather of
revolution and revolt as an end in itself.
The really pathetic attempt by ABC to pass off Kentucky gun range footage as a Syrian
conflict zone is a good example of the consequences of Congress' horrible 2013 decision
(that you may not have heard of) to totally legalize domestic propaganda. @_whitneywebb
In the age of legal, weaponized propaganda directed against the American people, false
narratives have become so commonplace in the mainstream media that they have essentially
become normalized, leading to the era of "fake news" and "alternative facts."
The bad and ugly shepherds persistently hit vulnerable & trusting Unzers with their
"best shot." For one example, the currently M.I.A. commenter, Maven Sam Shama.
Subsequently, I see no valid reason why intelligent & good men -- like you! -- should
not give their "best shot" and attempt to support & rescue lost sheeple who regularly
appear here.*
* Some lost sheep simply like it that way, and therefore, bad shepherds, for one example,
the featherweight commenter "Sean," get lots of practice at misguiding the flock.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
Right, what to do is the question now that everybody has been taken by surprise.
I'd say that the advice "get out of debt, get out of the major cities" is fairly good, and
fairly obvious, and has been so for some time. As to income, I just don't know. You might try
linking up to some group (non-Left) that seems to be cohesive and has _some_ plan of action
that isn't too weird. Under stress, cohesive groups can survive better than individuals.
You might also remember the rule of thumb that prophets can predict either what or when,
but not both. It's obvious that the US in general and cities in particular are in severe
decline, but _when_ the current system will cast off much of the population it now supports
is simply not known. Abandon it too soon and you end up extremely poor, so a sharp break is
extremely risky. I'd say that retiring debt, hardening your house against home invasion, and
finding some group as above, would be about all that would be justified right now. If your
neighborhood is deteriorating, it might be a good idea to go to another one that isn't, since
the deterioration is unlikely to reverse itself. If you're in with an ethnic group that
doesn't like your ethnic group, it might be a good idea to displace, if only to avoid the
unpleasantness.
@jack
daniels The current US system / world order will end within the next decade no matter
what Trump does. Trump is trying to shut it down with minimal casualties and replace it with
something viable, which is a good thing to do, but if Trump were to vanish tomorrow the
current US system / world order would still end within the next decade, maybe two decades if
things went very badly wrong.
Trump has the wind at his back, he's trying to do things that would do themselves (although
not as well) and that's why the appearance of 4D Chess. But, as you point out, Trump leads a
very small force of government officials, and would lose without the strength given by his
supporters. Continued support, in word and in deed, should reduce casualties (to include
Trump and his family) during the current transition.
MEANWHILE, Millions Hungry and Food Insecure in the US
"According to the US Department of Agriculture in 2018, food insecurity affects 37 million
Americans, including over 11 million children -- the numbers likely way understated."
"Around 40 million Americans experience hunger annually."
"At least 15 million US households endure food insecurity."
"Hunger is caused by poverty and inadequate financial resources, a nationwide
problem."
"Around 45 million Americans rely on food stamps, an eroding program providing inadequate
help."
"1 in 6 American children may not know where their next meal is coming from."
"22 million children in America rely on the free or reduced-price lunch they receive at
school, but as many as 3 million children still aren't getting the breakfast they need."
@Rurik
I applaud the sentiment too.
I'm hearing rumours that Trump has put a thousand troops into Saudi Arabia and claimed they
are paying for it.
Is it now America's lot to be not just Israel's but SA's mercenaries?
2020 can't come fast enough. I'd love to see a Trump super majority and some serious
reform.
It's pretty clear the Evangelical Zionist's are Israelis' b@tches.
America, it seems, must not only reclaim itself but also it's religion. EV is a heresy and
the leaders are on their knees f@llating Israel. It is disgusting to watch.
Yes, I agree, having trucks and trains go overland and via various countries comes with
the risk of conflicts erupting between 2 or more states participating in Chinese projects.
China burnt itself badly in Libya, where Hillary " We Came, We Saw, He Died! Haw, haw,
haw " Rotham Clingon ran amok.
China is actively setting up routes via the attic as well, so I think China carefully
weighs all its options, but doing business comes with certain risks, those are
unavoidable.
When I was in Africa [The Gambia and there about], I noticed a lot of Chinese merchandise
being sold all over the place. I heard stories of some Chinese being attacked and/or murdered
elsewhere in Africa, but haven't dealt with any Chinese businessman myself or heard their
stories in person.
Having been on that vast continent doesn't make me an expert whatsoever, but I see Africa
become a huge anchor around the world's neck. Can't use a single brush to paint entire
nations, I know, but what I saw didn't look good.
side note : I didn't live in a hotel with armed guards, I lived in a compound with
Africans, so it's not that I have no up close experience. Furthermore, I was always treated
with kindness, respect and warmth.
"... "Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and beyond to show for it," she added. "That's nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare for All (though estimates vary)." ..."
"... cancellation of current plans to develop more nuclear weapons, saving $20 billion a total nuclear weapons ban, saving $43 billion ending military partnerships with private contractors, saving $364 billion production cuts for the F-35 -- a military plane with 900 performance deficiencies, according to the Government Accountability Office -- saving $17.7 billion a shift of $33 billion per year, currently used to provide medical care to veterans, servicemembers, and their families, to Medicare for All's annual budget. ..."
"... "The public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding," wrote Data for Progress. ..."
Yves here. For those of you who have friends and colleagues who would go on tilt if you tried educating them about MMT, a simpler
approach to persuade them that Medicare for All is affordable is to sell them on another worthy goal, cutting the military-surveillance
state down to size.
Even then, I still encourage you to set them up for a later conversation about MMT: "Even if you accept the idea that taxes pay
for spending, which actually isn't true for the Federal government, we can still get the money for Medicare for All by ."
Note also that the Pentagon has various black budgets, an "official" one and covert ones.
By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published at
Common Dreams
The Institute for Policy Studies on Thursday shared the results of extensive research into how the $750 billion U.S. military
budget could be significantly slashed, freeing up annual funding to cover the cost of Medicare for All -- calling into question the
notion that the program needs to create any tax burden whatsoever for working families.
Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), took aim in a
New York Times op-ed at a "chorus of scolds" from both sides of the aisle who say that raising middle class taxes is the
only way to pay for Medicare for All. The pervasive claim was a primary focus of Tuesday night's debate, while Medicare for All proponents
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) attempted to focus on the dire need for a universal healthcare program.
At the Democratic presidential primary debate on CNN Tuesday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was
criticized
by some opponents for saying that "costs will go down for hardworking, middle-class families" under Medicare for All, without using
the word "taxes." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), on the other hand, clearly stated that taxes may go up for some middle class families
but pointed out that the increase would be more than offset by the fact that they'll no longer have to pay monthly premiums, deductibles,
and other medical costs.
"All these ambitious policies of course will come with a hefty price tag," wrote Koshgarian. "Proposals to fund Medicare for All
have focused on raising taxes. But what if we could imagine another way entirely?"
"Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and
beyond to show for it," she added. "That's nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare
for All (though estimates vary)."
"While we can't un-spend that $4.9 trillion," Koshgarian continued, "imagine if we could make different choices for the next 20
years."
Koshgarian outlined a multitude of areas in which the U.S. government could shift more than $300 billion per year, currently used
for military spending, to pay for a government-run healthcare program. Closing just half of U.S. military bases, for example, would
immediately free up $90 billion.
"What are we doing with that base in Aruba, anyway?" Koshgarian asked.
Other areas where IPS identified savings include:
cancellation of current plans to develop more nuclear weapons, saving $20 billion a total nuclear weapons ban, saving $43 billion
ending military partnerships with private contractors, saving $364 billion production cuts for the F-35 -- a military plane with
900 performance deficiencies, according to the Government Accountability Office -- saving $17.7 billion a shift of $33 billion
per year, currently used to provide medical care to veterans, servicemembers, and their families, to Medicare for All's annual
budget.
"This item takes us well past our goal of saving $300 billion," Koshgarian wrote of the last item.
As Koshgarian published her op-ed in the Times , progressive think tank Data for Progress released
its own report showing that a majority
of Americans support a "progressive foreign policy" far less focused on decades-long on-the-ground wars, establishing military bases
around the world, drone strikes, and arms sales.
"The public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American
foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding," wrote Data for Progress.
"Voters want to see U.S. funding go to domestic needs such as healthcare, or to other national security tools like diplomacy,
instead of to the Pentagon and more endless war," according to the report.
Polling more than 1,000 ppl with YouGov, Data for Progress found that 73 percent of Democratic primary voters ranked numerous
issues -- including economic challenges and the climate -- as more important to them than national security and military funding.
Progressive national security proposals proved popular with respondents, including closing Guantanamo Bay, ending arms sales to
Saudi Arabia, and leveraging military aid to Israel to force it to adopt better human rights policies toward Palestinians.
"There is a clear appetite for progressive reforms to U.S. foreign policy," wrote Data for Progress.
In her op-ed, Koshgarian acknowledged that remaking the U.S. military as a truly "defense-based institution, rather than a war
machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes."
But, she wrote, "that's no excuse for continuing to spend hundreds of billions in ways that make our world more dangerous and
deny us the ability to seriously invest in things like jobs, healthcare, education, and all that makes our lives better."
I would love to see it, but I strongly doubt this would happen in my lifetime. The Pentagon budget seems to be one of those
political "third rail" issues like Social Security.
Many people are so paranoid that I think it constitutes a mass hysteria; others are propagandized into 24×7 jingoism. I'm not
talking concepts here, I deal with pro-military people almost daily. Its the glorifying and fetishizing of the military that bothers
me.
Most if not all pro-military types are also deeply conservative; bring up *any* social program and they will wonder how to
pay for it.
I don't know, how many "third rail" type taboos has Trump danced on and become more popular because he did? I think the average
voter would be *extremely* receptive to a well-crafted message promoting the redirection of resources away from forever foreign
wars and bases to concrete material benefits for Americans. I don't even think it'd be a hard sell, once the pearls had been gathered
up.
What's so maddening about this question is the fact that we know that the military budget is probably much more than 750 billion
per year, but we can never know how much more, because the government is expressly allowed to hide and even fake spending totals.
What matters is whether the goods and services are there for them to buy with that money, and this is where real wealth lies.
Governments can create all the money they want, but if they create too much you will get inflation, or hyper-inflation if they
type in too many zero's when creating money.
Money has no intrinsic value; its value comes from what it can buy.
Banks create money from loans and that's easy too, just type the numbers in.
They can dash wildly into the latest fad, like the dot.com boom, and finance it with money they create out of nothing.
What could possibly go wrong?
Bankers do need to ensure the vast majority of that money gets paid back, and this is where they keep falling flat on their
faces.
Banking requires prudent lending, that is all there is to it.
If someone can't repay a loan, they need to repossess that asset and sell it to recoup that money. If they use bank loans to
inflate asset prices they get into a world of trouble when those asset prices collapse.
"It's nearly $14 trillion pyramid of super leveraged toxic assets was built on the back of $1.4 trillion of US sub-prime
loans, and dispersed throughout the world" All the Presidents Bankers, Nomi Prins.
When this little lot lost almost all its value overnight, the Western banking system became insolvent. Wall Street can turn
a normal asset price bubble into something that will take out the global economy using leverage.
Bankers create money out of nothing and the monetary system requires that nearly all that money they loaned out gets paid back.
Bank credit is a claim on future prosperity, and when you realise all that debt can't be paid back, a financial black hole
opens up, as it did in 2008.
When governments create too much money you tend to see it in consumer price inflation.
When banks create too much money you tend to see it in asset price inflation.
We see inflation in asset prices as good and consumer price inflation as bad.
The asset price boom will crash the economy, but no one realises while it's happening.
They believed in the markets and neoclassical economics in the 1920s and after 1929 they had to reassess everything. They had
placed their faith in the markets and this had proved to be a catastrophic mistake.
This is why they stopped using the markets to judge the performance of the economy and came up with the GDP measure instead.
In the 1930s, they pondered over where all that wealth had gone to in 1929 and realised inflating asset prices doesn't create
real wealth, they came up with the GDP measure to track real wealth creation in the economy.
The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn't create real wealth and therefore does not add to GDP.
The real wealth creation in the economy is measured by GDP.
Inflated asset prices aren't real wealth, and this can disappear almost over-night, as it did in 1929 and 2008.
Real wealth creation involves real work, producing new goods and services in the economy.
Banking requires prudent lending, that is all there is to it. Sound of the Suburbs
100% private banks with 100% voluntary depositors means we (the general public) wouldn't have to give a flip if banks lent
prudently or not since we would have an additional but risk-free payment system consisting of debit/checking accounts for all
who want one at the Central Bank (or Treasury) itself.
Moreover without government privileges and without captive depositors and unable to hold the economy hostage via a SINGLE payment
system that must work through them, you can rest assured that banks WOULD lend prudently or go under, like they should, if they
don't.
So what is required is 100% private banks with 100% voluntary depositors and that situation has NEVER before existed in history
so it cannot be said to have failed.
When governments create too much money you tend to see it in consumer price inflation. Sound of the Suburbs
Because the DEMAND for fiat is suppressed in that only depository institutions may use it in the private sector.
Fix that injustice and eliminate all other privileges for banks and then government should be able to create much MORE fiat
for the general welfare since banks would be much LESS able to create deposits for the private welfare of themselves and for the
so-called "worthy" of what is, currently, the public's credit but for private gain.
if they [governments] create too much you will get inflation
Is this true, or is it an economist's assumption? Here's the other thought:
Capitalism embraces borrowing for investment. Real estate development is an example. Borrowing involves an assumption of paying
back more than was borrowed, but at a future date. When that future date arrives, it is in the borrower's best interest if the
face value dollars are wroth less in spending power that the face value of the loan. You stated that, but the link to inflation
is fuzzy. Bank credit is a claim on future prosperity
Rather than the government's causality, and a nebulous prosperity, it may be the borrower's CFO who then decides to raise consumer
prices to keep up with expenses. The borrowed dollars came from a banker-created asset, but the inflation is tied to a direct
result similar to the so-called "wage-price spiral." In this case, the "interest-price spiral" that is not visibly tied to the
supply of money.
I've got a new disconnect. I understand and appreciate how MMT works. It is the only way, imo, for a sovereign country to pay
for the social costs of a good society. And, of course, the government does not charge itself interest, does not expect to be
"paid back" at all. The tradeoff for the government is the betterment of society. So if your neighbor loans you $500 and you tell
him you'll pay him back as soon as your check comes in and with some interest that seems fair bec. you're dealing with two private
budgets. But when a licensed bank loans you money for a new house under the terms that you pay it back over 30 years with interests
that amounts to triple the original cost of the house – then you are not dealing as one private person to another. You are then
dealing with usury. Made legal by the private financial industry. This private industry does not use its own money – it uses the
government's money by a computer click. And the government then lets it profiteer on this tiny transaction of apples and oranges
to the degree that over time the money "earned" by the private bank accumulates and topples the steady state of the economy. At
that point there's no place left to invest that "private" profit and the whole financial system goes haywire in a panic not to
"lose" money. Money that should never have been given to them in the first place. It's an oxymoron – demanding that money be paid
back with interest when it's not your money in the first place and you do nothing to stabilize your profligate profiteering. Nothing.
Just a thought.
Zimbabwe found it all too easy to create so much money they caused hyper-inflation.
Yes, after destroying their Ag Industry, and having no Ag products to export, because Mugabe and his party assumed all the
white farmers just sat around drinking beer while the dark farm workers did all the work.
After Mugabe took the land, there was no collateral for the farmers to get loans for the next planting season.
Who knew that managing the farm was so much work? /s
Inflation in Zimbabwe first came from shortages, especially food, as things looted rhe country of 4x and mismanaged the economy,
like farm price controls under cost of production.
Historically shortages cause high inflation.
"In her op-ed, Koshgarian acknowledged that remaking the U.S. military as a truly 'defense-based institution, rather than a
war machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes.'"
Interesting. Beyond cost cutting, what exactly would it take to remake the military into a true defense-based institution ?
How would assets be deployed? What weapons systems would be prioritized and ultimately receive funding? What doctrines would need
to change to flip from an offensive mindset to a defensive mindset? What alliances would we maintain and what alliances would
we discard?
I see that the article offers some examples, but I think crafting a progressive foreign policy would entail answering these
kinds of more fundamental military questions. Cost cutting is a laudable goal but it strikes me that there's much more to it if
real transformation is desired.
As a civil servant working for the Department of Defense, I can tell you that this would be a difficult shift in priorities
for Congress to accept. It all comes down to the defense industry political donations they receive year after year, and the jobs
the defense industry provides their constituents (no matter how meager or sub-optimal). Since defense spending is basically this
nation's sole industrial policy, I think that finding employment for displaced workers (whether defense civil servants or contractors)
is the biggest hurdle to address; a green new deal would solve the problem. We'd also need political campaign reform to force
Congress off of the teet of defense industry political contributions.
Finding employment for displaced defense civil servants or contractors? We've done that before . . . we tell them to train
for the jobs of the future as we did for manufacturing workers and leave it at that. The same goes for the parasites working in
health insurance companies, pharmacy benefit management and healtcare administration when M4A becomes a reality.
I have no sympathy for those people nor care for their well being as they deliberately, and with malice aforethought, make
life meaner for us all.
I remember when the defense/aerospace industry collapsed in Southern California in the early 1970's as the Vietnam war was
winding down.
Tech jobs were scarce.
The political sphere is well aware of potential job loss due to defense cutbacks.
I have mentioned before, the relatively liberal CA Senator Barbara Boxer fought to preserve Mare Island Naval Shipyard, in
Vallejo, CA, when it was slated to be shut down in the 1990's.
One could suggest that Vallejo has not fully recovered.
It is a tragedy of immense proportions, as I believe a future historian will remark that the USA, a nation that in its 200
+ year history had only one large deadly war on its soil (the internal Civil War), re-titled its WWII "War Department" as "Defense
Department" and then consumed tremendous resources in its purported defense for the next 70+ years.
A recent discussion with someone, that I regard as a "Northern California Liberal", about Trump's pullout of Syria further
re-enforced that the resistance to ANY change in the MIC in the USA is formidable.
He was sure that Trump would be deservedly impeached because he was pulling out of Syria and abandoning our allies, the Kurds.
And he is old enough to remember Vietnam.
The USA news media and entertainment industries (big sports/Hollywood) are fully on board with the righteous USA "war is good"
meme.
Given how the USA economy has restructured much employment and lifelihoods in costly sectors (finance, education, medicine,
military) it is difficult for me to see how there would be political will to downsize the military to any extent as "good paying"
jobs of politically powerful people would be lost.
Many of the manufacturing jobs have been moved overseas.
There is some hope for policy redirection in the Administration's recent Turkey-Syria-Kurd action. If there really is a shift
away from foreign nation building and away from endless wars over endless enmities, then that could lead to redirection and reduction
of military budgets. Watching the defenders of those engagements fall all over themselves recently has reconfirmed my notion that
they are not acting in the best interests of their constituents. Meanwhile, the sun rose today.
The current defense spending and growth of national debt
more or less "prove" the validity of MMT. This has supported the channeling of resources and energy into military activity (and
profits for enterprizes). Something similar is happening with healthcare; maybe it's inelastic
demand. (The similar something is ever-increasing costs.)
Healthcare at the moment seems to be outside of
the scope of current uses of MMT. But there are major
cost-control issues with it nonethess.
In what direction will things head if healthcare is
swept under the government MMT umbrella in the form of medicare for all? Will the government negotiate prices
with providers (hospitals, staff, pharma)? Certainly military procurement is no leading light.
While cutting the bloated Pentagon's budget is a very good idea, why is no one talking about the fringe benefit that is employer
provided healthcare? I do believe a sizable fraction of folks on private insurance (maybe 40%?) get their health coverage through
a fringe benefit from their employer. If that coverage is no longer necessary under universal coverage, it seems contractually
that the money spent on the fringe benefit should go to the employees. That money is enough to pay for their insurance under universal
coverage, so the employer pays it to the employee, the government taxes part of that to pay for the universal healthcare and everyone
is better off. The employee, due to savings in the system, ends up with more money in pocket. The employer is out from under the
ever increasing costs of the fringe benefit (plus can now claim to be paying higher salaries), and, well, the insurance companies
are left behind to pick up "expanded coverage" for those wanting to pay for it.
This and "defense" spending cuts could pay for the whole system easily, no?
The relative value of small business based jobs would increase with a functional health care system. There would be an outflow
of employees from jobs with healthcare benefits.
With single payer, looking for a less stressful job becomes an alternative. Big employers know this.
It also means people may retire earlier if they don't need their employer-provided health insurance.
Health insurance becomes a minor consideration in selecting which employer to work for.
Companies and state/local governments that provide health care coverage in retirement should see their liabilities for that
plummet as healthcare costs drop and public insurance improves.
COULD employers give the surplus to employees?
Technically, yes.
WOULD employers give the surplus to employees?
Not in this age of activist stockholders seeking new sources of "revenue." Everywhere. Benefits are simply a "cost." Human Resources
is a "cost center." Defined benefits that averaged out the risk among many have segued to defined contribution that is no more
than a tax-abated savings account. Risk has monetary value, but risk invisibly is shifting more and more to the individual.
After the last Democratic debate, it is safe say anti-war Progressivism is dead. Everyone was frothing at the mouth to prove
how much they care for the Kurds, and our nation's honor, and that we should stay in the ME. Except Tulsi, but her response fell
flat with the audience, and judging by my Left friends/family on Facebook, fell flat with them too. Having the same position as
Trump is a death sentence. My faith in my fellow citizens is at quite a low ebb.
Cheer up. No matter what you used to think of Lindsay Graham, he is setting the pace for a representative to think for him/herself.
Commentators reported surprise that he was "formerly in Trump's corner." Think about how easily we accept that the future is secured
by a majority in either house. The outrageous president is inspiring elected Republicans to analyze issues (imagine!). Even if
it is cold and calculated to influence their own voters, let's begin to applaud and encourage those who seem to think for them/ourselves.
We don't suffer from a lack of ideas in this area; no, we lack the ability (political will) to accomplish it. Thus, another
exercise in mental masturbation.
we lack the ability (political will) to accomplish it. Carl
A Citizen's Dividend would be the camel's nose under the tent since the less wasted by government, the more that could be distributed
to citizens to counter price deflation.
And it's only justice that all fiat creation, beyond that created for government to spend for the general welfare, be in the
form of an equal Citizen's Dividend.
Funny you should mention Europe since an equal Citizen's Dividend for all Euro zone citizens would be a way to eliminate austerity
that even Germany might not object to since Germans would receive it too.
For example, Italy gives the unemployed 500 euros per month and tries to find them any sort of job. I think you're a little
behind. But by all means, keep tilting at windmills.
i was just thinking about that this am while finishing my fence like in alaska.
i figger that after 40+ years of declining or stagnant wages, a majority of us are owed some frelling back-pay.
but "dividend" works just as well.
a majority of us are owed some frelling back-pay. Amfortas the hippie
The Citizen's Dividend would vary as required to counter price deflation but during the period when the banks are progressively
de-privileged, it would have to be quite high to provide for the conversion of bank deposits to fiat deposits at the Central Bank
– with the banks, by necessity, having to borrow the needed fiat from citizens.
Its still the wrong set of arguments. The problem in the US is not that Medicare-for-All would require new taxes that need
funding. The problem is that the US spends twice per capita on healthcare what the average OECD country spends. The US spends
more public tax money on healthcare per capita than Canada does, and Canada insures the entire population.
We can pay for our entire military budget as it exists if we simply drop our per capita healthcare spending to less than what
Switzerland pays. Name one other thing that costs more in the US than in Switzerland.
Americans simply cannot comprehend how exorbitantly expensive and unequal the US healthcare system is compared to the rest
of the developed world.
While I gladly accept the results of these surveys, I question the reasons they seem to have garnered from the public. To most
citizens, lower taxes mean much more than non-aggresive foreign policy and peaceful diplomacy. If the question was phrased in
such a way that respondents were replying to the lower cost AND the concomitant peace-oriented habits that should (would?) come
from it, then it is an issue whether they agreed with both statements. Further, this reorientation of spending would have to be
bully-pulpited quite strongly to educate the US as to its long-term benefits since most of us have been prepped to be anxious
about foreign nations and the paranoia of saving us from the evil dictator "X". Oh, yes, peace should come, but compare the Syria
brou-ha-ha to what would descend upon us when peace broke out. The elites won't disappear.
Bizarre. The question is: How can we afford something that's half as expensive as what we're already paying? I wouldn't expect
that level of insanity from someone in a straitjacket yet it's a commonplace in these discussions.
Even worse: the argument that government is financially constrained. It's not "tax & spend," it can't be. Where would taxpayers
get dollars to pay those taxes if government didn't spend them first?
So it must be "spend first & then ask for some back in taxes." This is how reality works. And what do we call the dollar financial
assets left in the economy, not retrieved by taxes? a) The dollar financial assets of the citizens, i.e. their savings or (same
thing) b) National 'Debt'
National 'Debt' is completely unlike household debt. It's like bank debt. If you have a bank account, that's your asset, but
to the bank, it's a liability. It's the money they owe you. It's their debt.
Now imagine a mob of depositors marching down to the bank to demand it reduce the size of its debt (i.e. make their accounts
smaller) Crazy? Yes, but that's the austerian line of talk.
Finally, the inflationistas: "If you just print money, you'll have [gasp][hyper-]inflation!" This is the finest quality bullshit,
and people spout it practically without prompting. The truth: The Fed extended $16 – $29 trillion in credit to cure the frauds
of the financial sector in 2007-8. I defy anyone to find a measurement of inflation that says there was any then.
Was there central-bank-run-amok inflation in the classical cases (Weimar, Zimbabwe). Nope. Not even there. Yes they did print
lots of Deutchmarks and Zimbabwe currency, but only after a shortage of good occurred that actually caused the inflation.
Just printing money, especially if there's spare capacity, does not cause inflation. You need a bidding war for some commodity
that's become scarce (like oil in the '70s). So Weimar had the burden of war reparations, a balance of payments problem, and when
they delayed sending some telephone poles to France, the French military shut down the German equivalent of Ohio (the Ruhr). Shortages
led to the hyperinflation. Similarly, the Rhodesian colonists left Zimbabwe, which had previously fed itself, and food shortages
led to the hyperinflation.
The Cato study of 56 hyperinflationary episodes in human history also validates the above. In *no* case did a central bank
"run amok" and print too much to kick off the hyperinflation. Always the cost push of a shortage of goods drove it.
Gosh, it's all so simple. We just need to take on the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, and our
corrupt political system all at the same time.
Researchers Detail How Slashing the Social Security and Medicare Budgets Could Pay for More Pointless Wars While Creating the
Progressive Wall Street Bailouts Americans Want.
Looks like our stable genius" pushed Putin against Erdogan and sided with Erdogan in the
process.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med -- Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf. ..."
"... There is first President Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles, from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq. ..."
"... Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish troops. ..."
"... The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS, Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted, and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe. ..."
"... Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining American values. ..."
"... Endless demonization of Putin by the elitist press is pure idiocy. Putin's aim is no different from any decent leader. Do the best for your countrymen and countrywomen; yet without harming others. ..."
"... The answer lies in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Sadly, today's USA revenue to large extent dependent on militaristic revenue; even though most of that revenue ends up in the coffers of the MIC, supported by the media that is sustained by the MIC. Yet, I still believe that with a bit of pain Americans can turn around this horrid situation. ..."
"... The war in Syria and the growth of ISIS was entirely the result of actions by the Obama administration - and it is an outrage that no one in a position of power, not even Donald Trump, has called the Democrats out on this. ..."
"... Oh yeah, Name you seem to have forgotten Obama authorizing CIA training the moderate rebels (AKA Al qaida or moderate head choppers). By the way we handed the ME at least to Iran when Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretenses. Saintly Obama wanted to look forward but not backward on the false pretenses and he in turn engaged on the same BS as Bush. When history is written in a few years all this will come out. ..."
"... ISIS formed in the chaos that was the Iraq War, neat how you guys never accept blame for anything. ..."
"... The people who are obsessed w/staying in Syria, just for the sake of denying Russia a 'victory', at admitting that they just want to be a spoiler. They want to keep Syria partitioned into two weak states and not allow it to reform into a single state and heal. ..."
"... Our imperialists must have misread Tacitus, because it seems they aspire to making peaceful deserts. ..."
"... Putin is trusted in the middle east (and in most of the rest of the world) because he is an intelligent, consistent and respected world leader. Now compare this to the clown show of US politicians (Republican and Democrat). ..."
"... No serious person can say that US politicians are better than Putin, which is also the reason Putin is so demonized by the US political elite. ..."
"Russia Assumes Mantle of Supreme Power Broker in the Middle East," proclaimed Britain's
Telegraph .
The article began:
"Russia's status as the undisputed power-broker in the Middle East was cemented as Vladimir
Putin continued a triumphant tour of capitals traditionally allied to the U.S."
"Donald Trump Has Handed Putin the Middle East on a Plate" was the title of yet another
Telegraph column. "Putin Seizes on Trump's Syria Retreat to Cement Middle East Role,"
declared the Financial Times .
The U.S. press parroted the British: Putin is now the new master of the Mideast. And woe is
us.
Before concluding that Trump's pullout of the last 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is America's
Dunkirk, some reflection is needed.
Yes, Putin has played his hand skillfully. Diplomatically, as the Brits say, the Russian
president is "punching above his weight."
He gets on with everyone. He is welcomed in Iran by the Ayatollah, meets regularly with Bibi
Netanyahu, is a cherished ally of Syria's Bashar Assad, and this week was being hosted by the
King of Saudi Arabia and the royal rulers of the UAE. October 2019 has been a triumphal
month.
Yet, consider what Putin has inherited and what his capabilities are for playing power
broker of the Middle East.
He has a single naval base on the Med, Tartus, in Syria, which dates to the 1970s, and a new
air base, Khmeimim, also in Syria.
The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med -- Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania,
Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and
bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such
panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf.
We have the world's largest economy. Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's, and not a
tenth the size of ours.
And now that we are out of Syria's civil war and the Kurds have cut their deal with
Damascus, consider what we have just dumped into Vladimir Putin's lap. He is now the man in the
middle between Turkey and Syria.
He must bring together dictators who detest each other. There is first President
Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds
from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles,
from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq.
Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is
unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish
troops.
Reconciling these seemingly irreconcilable Syrian and Turkish demands is now Putin's
problem. If he can work this out, he ought to get the Nobel Prize.
"Putin is the New King of Syria," ran the op-ed headline in Thursday's Wall Street
Journal.
The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS,
Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred
thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted,
and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe.
If Putin wants to be king of this, and it is OK with Assad, how does that imperil the United
States of America, 6,000 miles away?
Wednesday, two-thirds of the House Republicans joined Nancy Pelosi's Democrats to denounce
Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and dissolve our alliance with the Kurds. And
Republican rage over the sudden abandonment of the Kurds is understandable.
But how long does the GOP believe we should keep troops in Syria and control the
northeastern quadrant of that country? If the Syrian army sought to push us out, under what
authority would we wage war against a Syrian army inside Syria?
And if the Turks are determined to secure their border, should we wage war on that NATO ally
to stop them? Would U.S. planes fly out of Turkey's Incirlik air base to attack Turkish
soldiers fighting in Syria?
If Congress believes we have interests in Syria so vital we should be willing to go to war
for them -- against Syria, Turkey, Russia or Iran -- why does Congress not declare those
interests and authorize war to secure them?
Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their
Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the
nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining
American values.
If Putin is king of Syria, it is because he was willing to pay the price in blood and
treasure to keep his Russia's toehold on the Med and save his ally Bashar Assad, who would have
gone under without him.
Who dares wins. Now let's see how Putin likes his prize.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.
Endless demonization of Putin by the elitist press is pure idiocy. Putin's aim is no
different from any decent leader. Do the best for your countrymen and countrywomen; yet
without harming others. At a recent interview with Arabic media a UAE journalist tried to
drive a wedge between Russia and Iran in favor of Saudi Kingdom by challenging Putin to
condemn Iran for alleged attacks on Saudi oil installations by Iran.
To which Putin
skillfully replied: "Russia will never be friends 'with one country against another' in the
Middle East". Nor would Putin condemn Iran unless he was presented with clear evidence - not
just accusations - of Iran's guilt. Point in case: Putin does it better than others; sure,
but why is that bad?
Oh of course envy and fear of one being exposed for inept leadership.
Time long overdue to shake hands with Putin and Russia.
https://www.rt.com/russia/o...
I haven't a concern for Russia in the middle east.
Russia is doing the US the biggest unasked favor proving where our friends and allies
loyalties in the middle east lay by forcing them to make choices in the face of shifting
alliances that they wouldn't reveal if the US continued its presence.
Russia is depopulating and it has choke points with China, with Central Asia, with the
middle east and Europe. Russia will eventually not have the population to defend all these
choke points and will eventually withdraw and focus on its own national security. At that
time, I think its possible to see Russia shift its relationship in eastern Europe while
distancing itself from Chinese expansionism that might one day want its old north pacific
territories back (like what is today Vladivostok and Sakhalin).
Depopulating? Where did you get that from? Population decrease in Russia stopped. By the
latest stats it is just about breaking even (death rates = birth rates). Moreover, population
is growing albeit very slowly. Sorry but Russkies won't die out like extinct species. As far
as its own national security; well, the old notion of "Russia is, more or less, a giant gas
station pretending to be a real country." is as dead as Senator McCain, who pretended to know
something about Russia; alas he was sadly and dangerously uninformed.
https://www.forbes.com/site...
The US has troops and a base or more in Syria?
I don't see any Syrian army bases in the US...
And, the US is telling/demanding where the Syrian army come and goes in...Syria?
What the hell is wrong with this picture?
You know!?
Oh, now hypocrite neo-con enabler Pelosi and some of the freaky other politicians are
concerned with human lives in Syria? Ha ha
But...not about the lives of children dying in Yemen and Afghanistan and Gaza?
How come?
And, the US is telling Turkey what it had better do with it's border? Also, friends and enemies o' mine,just which entity, nation and group is not a US ally?
Ally? What does that mean?
As if the American people know the hell that words means anymore and as if there's even a
meaning to that. And the American people do not watch the news, read magazines (news) as they
did before.
They don't know what is going on in the world, they gave up.
People under 50 automatically tune world news out, thanks mostly to the phonies at CNN and
the major, basically neo-con supporting networks confusing the public, purposely so that they
don't see the misery that is in the nations of the MId-East thanks to US invasions and
bombings. Just look at cnn-they spend all day talking about what Trump or some politician
said, no coverage of battles overseas, unless it benefits the continuing spinning of the news
for intervention and so on.
The US won't get a grip and stop threatening nation after nation
(while Russia does not) and so, people all over the world are thinking,
you now what, look at how dumb Americans are that they allow people from Obama, Hillary,
Schumer, Pelosi, Graham and more to conduct foreign policy that makes enemies for America
daily. And don't forget Cheney and that group, too from before. These people are actually an
insult to America.
Compare how the leaders of Russia and America talk and conduct themselves.
Russia has Lavrov, the gentleman diplomat, the US has Pompeo and the likes of Bolton and
Kushner, the Israeli lobbyist and the Presidents son in law.
How does a so-called Republic allow the President to have his daughter and Kushner, her
husband, to be security/foreign policy advisers. You're really losing it, America.
"But those same elites appear to lack the
confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they
contend are vital American interests and defining American values."
No, they don't lack "confidence". They've got all the confidence in the world. What they
lack is competence, integrity, and credibility with the American people and the rest of the
world. They have dragged America through the mud in the Middle East for nearly two decades.
They transformed the once proud American military and diplomatic corps into a customer
service operation for Israel and Saudi Arabia.
We don't need more lectures and directives about "our interests" and "Western values" that
always turn out to be Israeli and Saudi Arabian interests and values. We need new foreign
policy elites, free of the current elite's miserable record of failure, corruption, and
subordination to foreign interests. Above all, we need to get out of the Mideast swamps that
the younger Bush and Obama pushed us into, bring our troops back to America, start defending
America and American interests again.
How simple and true what U've said. Sounds like a sound position and logical too. So why is
this not happening? The answer lies in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Sadly, today's
USA revenue to large extent dependent on militaristic revenue; even though most of that
revenue ends up in the coffers of the MIC, supported by the media that is sustained by the
MIC. Yet, I still believe that with a bit of pain Americans can turn around this horrid
situation.
The war in Syria and the growth of ISIS was entirely the result of actions by the Obama
administration - and it is an outrage that no one in a position of power, not even Donald
Trump, has called the Democrats out on this.
Oh yeah, Name you seem to have forgotten Obama authorizing CIA training the moderate rebels
(AKA Al qaida or moderate head choppers). By the way we handed the ME at least to Iran when
Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretenses. Saintly Obama wanted to look forward but not
backward on the false pretenses and he in turn engaged on the same BS as Bush. When history
is written in a few years all this will come out.
The people who are obsessed w/staying in Syria, just for the sake of denying Russia a
'victory', at admitting that they just want to be a spoiler. They want to keep Syria
partitioned into two weak states and not allow it to reform into a single state and heal.
Trump is indeed our Dorian Gray, he is just outwardly reflecting our narcissism, 'if we
don't get to do it then no one else can'.
Obvious Pat we have no consistent foreign policy in the region since we inherited the mantle
from the Brit Empire post WW 2. Oil and Israel were a marketable justification for our wars
and changing partners ( regime change ), for a long time. Now neither is relevant. We have
all the fossil fuels we need, and Israel is all powerful.. Long term I doubt the Russians
will make a difference, in the Muslim quest to resurrect the Ottoman Empire. We have lost too
many of our sons and daughters. get out.
Trump is a genius.
At the moment, Syria is a poisoned chalice to anyone accepting responsibility for it.
Russia is only there because they cannot get a naval base in any other Mediterranean
country.
When, or if peace is achieved in Syria, it will be the US that swoops in to market the
brands the Arabs love. The Syrians won't be buying Russian products.
Name an American brand the "Arabs love": Toyota, Lexis, Rollex, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic,
Samsung, iPhone (made in China)? Which one(s). While their infrastructure and basic
technology are and will continue to be Russian.
Putin is trusted in the middle east (and in most of the rest of the world) because he is an
intelligent, consistent and respected world leader. Now compare this to the clown show of US
politicians (Republican and Democrat).
No serious person can say that US politicians are better than Putin, which is also the
reason Putin is so demonized by the US political elite.
The Middle East is home to oil, terrorism, access points for maritime transportation (The Red
Sea, The Bosphorus, Suez Canal, Persian Gulf). It is strategically important. It was a
mistake for Obama to leave Iraq before there was a stable situation and it is a mistake for
Trump to leave before there is a stable situation.
To say, "Just let them all fight it out" is foolhardy and likely just a rationalization
for your mistake to support the narcissistic fool in the White House.
I don't think Putin is going to be unhappy about it. The various powers of the ME will now go
to him for favors, and he will get favors in return. I doubt US interests will be among them.
Putin said, I've got your no fly zone right here. After Russian deployment of the SA400's,
america had no choice but to begin withdrawal.
And kind of missing from Buchanan's list of
putin friends, is erdogan himself.
So, it will be interesting to see what happens now. Putin
holds all the cards and is in the best position of anybody on the planet to broker a deal
between assad and erdogan. Part of that deal will likely be very bad for those who threw
their lot in with the US.
Turkey is not a small country and has an enormous military.
Buchanan himself said that we should stay out of Syria and let the Turks deal with ISIS.
But
they were too smart for that, and had their own coup to worry about. I have always thought
that the US should have brokered a homeland for the kurds. It would have been hard, but now
it is impossible.
Turkey is now a client state of Russia much more than a member of NATO. At
least in appearance. They now buy SA400's and SU-57's from mother russia.
Who supplies and
maintains your best weapon systems indicates who your real allies are. What has the US lost?
I would say we lost anybody across the globe that we ever hoped would ally with us against
the new sino-russian superpower. Russia has unlimited space and resources. China has
unlimited people and no limits on its technical growth and markets. The US? We are the
biggest debtor third world nation that has ever existed. But hey, we have the most stable
genius as our president, and the sky is the limit for what he will accomplish other than
permanent tax cuts for corporations. Right? The right again.
Except for 2 wrongs, they
wouldn't even exist. Can faith overcome inconvenient truth? Real faith probably could by
accepting inconvenient truth. But real faith is mostly dead. It was replaced with tax free
religiosity and assault weaponry sponsored by corporate fascist government. I watched it
happen. And his story is being rewritten in days or weeks instead of years and decades.
It's not often that I would agree with Pat B. Essentially never.
But on this point, yes. If Putin wants the Middle East, by all means proceed.
That region has been messing up our politics for literally my whole life - It is most
decidedly not a Promised Land for the United States. Let the Saudis and the
Iranians and the Russians and the Turks fight it out. It should be lovely. The Israelis call
sell weapons to all of them.
Thank you for this small bit of obvious wisdom, Mr. Buchanan. Your insights are very common
sensical here, and thus, most valuable. Too bad they will mostly fall on the deaf ears of our
moronic "Elites".
I believe Obama said that Putin would be overwhelmed in Syria. However, Putin has overseen an
excellent strategy of picking an area of insurgents, militarily pounding them, then offering
them free passage to a safe area (Idlib). After doing this across Syria, he and Assad now
have all of the jihadist groups in one place where they can pound them senseless or just sit
back and wait for them to start shooting each other.
Trump did not screw up the Kurds' clearing of ISIS above the Euphrates. Now he has given
Putin and Assad the results of that. I expect the PA team will stabilize that area in short
order.
So, Idlib and NW Syria will be a cauldron for a while. Now Al Tanf is the only insurgent
holdout. Be interesting to see how that unfolds.
Lest Trumpland forget, there is a reason we got involved in the region. Jihadists can and
will use neglect to later come after us.
Putin shows us how its done. 3 billion or so, find good Muslims (anyone other than Sunni
islamists) and help them blow up, conquer, and occasionally repress the bad Muslims.
We spent several TRILLION ourselves and thousands of American lives for nothing. We never
had a single achievable objective in any of these conflicts.
Donald is a moron for selling out the Kurds, who it cost nothing to back, to Turkey but
the DC elites made this inevitable by refusing to cut a deal with Assad for the Kurds. He's
been the only realistic option for a long time now.
@Ron
Unz Thanks to Tucker Carlson's show, some folks on the left like Cohen, Mate and
Greenwald, are more likely to get air time on Fox News than MSNBC and CNN.
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally
come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a
...
Tulsi Gabbard 1:20 PM - 18 Oct 2019
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why.
Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and ...
Tulsi Gabbard 1:20 PM - 18 Oct 2019
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your
proxies. Join the race directly.
"... I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against 'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans. ..."
"... This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a good description ..."
"... The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely two branches of the Business Party. ..."
"... Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points across at the same time. ..."
"... Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment. ..."
"... Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local. ..."
Hillary Clinton appeared to suggest that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is the "favorite of the Russians" to win the 2020 presidential
election and is being groomed by Moscow to run as a third-party candidate against the eventual Democratic nominee.
...
The Russians already have their "eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party
candidate," she said, in an apparent reference to Gabbard.
"She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her, so far," Clinton
told David Plouffe, the podcast's host and the campaign manager for former President Obama's 2008 campaign.
"And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton added, referring
to the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate.
The responses were appropriate:
Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard - 22:20 UTC
· Oct 18, 2019
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that
has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy,
there has been a ...
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through
your proxies and ...
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.
The Streisand effect of Clinton's shoddy remark will help Tulsi Gabbard with regards to name recognition. It will increase her
poll results. With Joe Biden faltering and Elizabeth Warren increasingly exposed as a phony Clinton copy, Bernie Sanders could become
the Democrats leading candidate. Then the “favorite of the Russians” smear will be applied to him.
Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party for damaging it's chances to regain the White House. But the Democratic
establishment would rather sabotage the election than to let one of the more progressive candidates take the lead.
Voters do not like such internal squabble and shenanigans. The phony Ukrainegate 'impeachment inquiry' is already
a gift for Trump. Messing with the candidate field on top
of that will inevitably end with another Trump presidency.
and Suspend her from what? a lamp post? That's a little bit harsh.
Hillary is actually doing something constructive for the first time in her career - by giving a boost to Tulsi Gabbard who
is the only candidate who challenges the military industrial complex, which has probably caused more death and destruction than
anyone else in history.
I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against
'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans.
But none of the other Democratic candidates stand a chance of beating Trump either. The two front-runners are medically unfit
for any important challenging job - Biden (senility) and Sanders (recent heart attack/stroke?).
Tulsi is urging Hillary to "enter the race" !! Hillary is foaming at the mouth with desire to enter the 2020 race. Is Tulsi
working for Hillary?
Behind the scenes it was decided to make HunterBidenGate the pretext for a Trump impeachment. This, it
was thought, would damage Trump AND Biden and make way for the resurrection of Hillary Clinton. There were so many other pretexts
available but they chose this one.
"Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party"
This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual
structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a
good description. Even a quick review of the Wikipedia entry reveals little.
As best I can tell, a person is a party member by checking the box on the voter registration form. The few times I have registered,
I did not check a box for any party. It is none of the state's business who I associate with or vote for.
It is also not the state's business to supervise and fund the selection of party candidates. But that is what happens in the
US. The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely
two branches of the Business Party.
"It didn't come much clearer nor more explicit than when Gabbard fired up the Democratic TV debate this week. It was billed
as the biggest televised presidential debate ever, and the Hawaii Representative told some prime-time home-truths to the nation:
"Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have
supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that started in 2011 along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing
and cheer-leading this regime-change war."
The 38-year-old military veteran went on to denounce how the US has sponsored Al Qaeda terrorists for its objective of overthrowing
the government in Damascus."
Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points
across at the same time. The way she tries to finesse her stances on Iran, India and Israel is disturbing though.
Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary
of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement.
When she's forthright, punches hard and says the things that many people are thinking but few dare say - as she did in her
statement on Syria, but didn't in her statement on Iran - she comes off as the first real candidate for President that I've seen
in my lifetime (I don't count the likes of Dennis Kucinich, who never seemed to actually want to win).
If Tulsi is serious about doing the world good, this is the path she needs to take. Speak the truths no one else is willing
to say; punch hard; stick with it. Yeah and be willing to die for it. If they can't stop you, which I don't think they can, they'll
come gunning for you...
Finally, at last, foreign affairs (i.e wars) has made it into a presidential campaign, and by a veteran, with veterans currently
being sanctified in the U.S. The women (Tulsi, Jill and Hillary) are getting down and dirty, too, which is always a good thing
and a feature of politics in time past, as in the Truman era. President Harry Truman: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of
the kitchen. If you cannot handle the pressure, you should not remain in a position where you have to deal with it."
Let's hope that they get into the details of Hillary's failures, including Libya, Somalia, and especially Syria. Let's get
it on! In the last election she never was forced to answer for her specific failures. Now's the time.
Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way
from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate
media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment.
What Trump has successfully done from the right that Sanders/Gabbard (like Corbyn in the UK) are struggling to do from the
left is to attack the establishment that's in a permanent state of warfare abroad and at home against its "enemies" and unfettered
capitalism at home For a brief moment it was hoped by progressives that Obama - who defeated the faces of the establishment, Clinton
and McCain in 2008 - would really fight the establishment but he ended up becoming more of a celebrity politician like Trudeau
who talked a good game but was unable to effect real change on the ground which of course led to a large number or African Americans
not voting in 2016 and a lot of white blue collar Obama 2008 voters going for Trump.
The corporate media which has been totally corrupted and infiltrated by intelligence agencies - quote openly versus covertly
as in the past - is going to make every effort to shut down not just Gabbard but Sanders and ensure that Warren - a wannabe feel-gooder
like Obama - be completely neutered to effect real change.
Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed
through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local.
"... Clinton's claims, made without the slightest effort at factual substantiation, are an attempt to criminalize the anti-war statements of the two candidates as treasonous. ..."
"... Clinton's attacks on Gabbard and Stein make clear once again that the Democrats' assertions of "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election were primarily aimed not at Trump, but at the anti-war and anti-capitalist sentiments that led millions of people to refuse to vote for her in 2016. They underscore how the Democrats have appropriated the McCarthyite tactics historically associated primarily with the Republican right. ..."
"... As a central part of their anti-Russia campaign, Clinton and the Democrats promoted the media effort to poison public opinion against journalist Julian Assange by slandering him as a "Russian agent," preparing the way for the Trump administration to indict him on bogus sedition charges and secure his imprisonment in London under conditions that threaten his life. ..."
"... "That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton said. "Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate." ..."
"... Gabbard replied to Clinton's slander on Twitter by declaring, "Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain." Gabbard's performance in this week's Democratic presidential debate no doubt put her in Clinton's crosshairs. Gabbard vowed, "As president, I will end these regime-change wars," and "would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like Al Qaeda in Syria, who have been the ground force in this ongoing regime-change war." ..."
"... Gabbard's true statement that the United States -- with Clinton as secretary of state under Obama -- had allied with forces linked to Al Qaeda in the drive to overthrow the Syrian government was passed over in total silence by the rest of the candidates and the CNN and New York Times moderators. It was then blacked out in the post-debate media coverage of the event. ..."
"... In an earlier debate, Gabbard said the greatest geopolitical danger facing the United States was the threat of nuclear war -- another taboo in the broadcast media, which routinely demands that the United States "stand up" to Russia without mentioning what a military confrontation with the nuclear-armed country would look like. ..."
Hillary Clinton, the widely despised former Democratic Party presidential candidate, has
slandered two of her political opponents -- Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and 2016 Green Party
presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein -- as traitors and Russian spies.
The World Socialist Web Site has fundamental political differences with both Ms.
Gabbard and Dr. Stein. But Clinton's claims, made without the slightest effort at factual
substantiation, are an attempt to criminalize the anti-war statements of the two candidates as
treasonous.
Clinton's attacks on Gabbard and Stein make clear once again that the Democrats' assertions
of "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election were primarily aimed not at Trump, but at the
anti-war and anti-capitalist sentiments that led millions of people to refuse to vote for her
in 2016. They underscore how the Democrats have appropriated the McCarthyite tactics
historically associated primarily with the Republican right.
As a central part of their anti-Russia campaign, Clinton and the Democrats promoted the
media effort to poison public opinion against journalist Julian Assange by slandering him as a
"Russian agent," preparing the way for the Trump administration to indict him on bogus sedition
charges and secure his imprisonment in London under conditions that threaten his life.
At the same time, in the name of countering the supposed menace of Russian "fake news," the
Democrats pressured Google to slash search traffic to left-wing political websites and insisted
that Facebook and Twitter delete left-wing accounts with millions of followers.
In a podcast interview published Thursday, Clinton told former Obama adviser David Plouffe,
"I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are
grooming her to be the third-party candidate." Implicitly but clearly referring to Gabbard,
Clinton continued, "She's the favorite of the Russians."
"They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her," Clinton added.
Asked later if the former secretary of state was referring to Gabbard in her comment,
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told CNN, "If the nesting doll fits "
Clinton then went on to make her strongest assertion yet that Jill Stein was a "Russian
asset."
"That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a
Russian asset," Clinton said. "Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they
can't win without a third-party candidate."
Gabbard replied to Clinton's slander on Twitter by declaring, "Thank you @HillaryClinton.
You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has
sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain."
Gabbard's performance in this week's Democratic presidential debate no doubt put her in
Clinton's crosshairs. Gabbard vowed, "As president, I will end these regime-change wars," and
"would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like Al Qaeda in Syria, who have been the
ground force in this ongoing regime-change war."
Gabbard's true statement that the United States -- with Clinton as secretary of state under
Obama -- had allied with forces linked to Al Qaeda in the drive to overthrow the Syrian
government was passed over in total silence by the rest of the candidates and the CNN and
New York Times moderators. It was then blacked out in the post-debate media coverage of
the event.
In an earlier debate, Gabbard said the greatest geopolitical danger facing the United States
was the threat of nuclear war -- another taboo in the broadcast media, which routinely demands
that the United States "stand up" to Russia without mentioning what a military confrontation
with the nuclear-armed country would look like.
Toward the end of Thursday's interview, Clinton implicitly called for censorship. She
condemned the growth of internet news outlets, which have broadened the number and range of
sources of information available to the population.
"I think it's a lot harder for Americans to know what they're supposed to believe," she
said. In the 1970s, with only three major national newspapers, "It was a much more controllable
environment."
Jill Stein advocates the reform of capitalism and is an opponent of Marxism. She has stated
that she is opposed to "state socialism." Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran of the Iraq war and major in
the Hawaii National Guard, describes herself as a "hawk" in many aspects of US foreign
policy.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the statements they have made in opposition to the wars in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria correspond to the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of
the American people, who see these wars of aggression launched on the basis of lies, which have
killed and maimed millions, as a criminal squandering of lives and resources.
Clinton, speaking for a rabidly pro-war faction of the American financial oligarchy and the
military-intelligence establishment, sees these sentiments as treasonous and argues for their
criminalization.
Her statements make clear once again that the working class has no stake in the struggle
between the Trump faction and his opponents in the Democratic Party and intelligence apparatus.
Trump, relying on fascistic appeals to his right-wing base, is seeking to turn the United
States into a personalist dictatorship. But Clinton's faction does not oppose his concentration
camps for immigrants or his pro-corporate agenda. Rather, it opposes Trump on the grounds that
he is "soft" on Russia and insufficiently aggressive in waging America's wars.
Isn't it funny that the Clinton trolls were weaponizing her gender in the last election,
screaming "sexist!" at anyone who criticized her for her actual policies and corrupt
practices, slandering Sanders supporters as "Bernie Bros", and to the point of Albright
claiming there was a special place in hell for women who didn't support her, while the Queen
of Warmongering, who was besties with Trump, married to Bill, took cash from Weinstein, and
flew with Epstein (all serial rapists) gets to baselessly smear women as treasonous spies
without a peep from the liberal feminists, metoo-ers, and media mouthpieces? And, for a
cherry on top, she's on tour for a book called "Gutsy Women"!
Gabbard, after deftly doing a front-stabbing number on Bad Cop Harris, torpedoing Saint
Obomber's "legacy" with his bungled attempt to surf AQ to regime-change in Syria and rightly
ripping the agitprop rags NYT and CNN some fresh axeholes, has indeed now flushed out the
deranged Alien Queen, wildly spitting globs of steaming molecular acid at the one who dared
wound her drones.
She raises some ugly home truths rarely heard from bourgeois politicians at this level
and, having busted the media blackout to get back in the debates, for her troubles is now
receiving what amount to transparent public death threats from a top Mafiosa desperate to
evade any proper scrutiny of her own and the Party's many warcrimes.
Regardless of the rest of her politics, one has to recognise Gabbard's personal bravery in
tackling dangerous predators like this and hope she has an extremely dedicated 24/7 armed
personal protection detail, to ward off the elevated risk of Arkancide.
""I think it's a lot harder for Americans to know what they're supposed to believe," she
said. In the 1970s, with only three major national newspapers, "It was a much more
controllable environment.""
This is a true voice of bourgeois democracy, of course.
" 'That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a
Russian asset,' Clinton said. 'Yes, she's a Russian asset, I mean, totally. They know they
can't win without a third-party candidate.' "
"We came, we saw, he died." -- Clinton on Khaddafy
But can you guess who uttered the following quote(hint: it is not the "white nationalist"
Donald Trump, who unlike some public figures is politically apt enough not to say "white
people" aloud):
"Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening
again, and whites in both states who had not completed college are supporting me." *
The capitalist Democratic Party is a loudmouthed, racist buffoon.
* working hard when not hardly working--but maybe it's not just whites
The vile, vindictive nature of Mrs Clinton has reached new lows as her seeming unaccepting
the loss of the '16 election to shift the blame to anyone but her. She is why we have Trump.
She really needs to fade away and quit meddling in our elections.
"Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally
come out from behind the curtain." - An Interview with Tulsi Gabbard regarding the role of
HIllary Clinton, the military-industrial complex, and her anti-war stance here. To my
surprise, she makes the clear connection that Clintons claim that she is a 'russian asset' is
aimed also at demonizing all Americans who oppose the war-regime.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
"... Clearly, Gabbard may have real problems with Donald Trump as president but she's learned very quickly from him that the best way to deal with Hillary and her media quislings is to attack them without mercy. ..."
"... Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the current crop of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters as possible. ..."
"... She emerged from that debate as the only candidate with any moral compass capable of pointing in a single direction. Warren made a fool of herself responding with bromides about leaving in the 'rightt way' indistinguishable from any other presidential puppet of the last twenty years. ..."
"... The people Gabbard is up against are even more ruthless since Hillary intends to win, whereas the Republicans in 2008 were fighting for the right to lose to her at the time. ..."
"... Gabbard's rise in popularity among Trump voters and centrists is born of the same exhaustion the American people have with endless wars for globalism. She is Trump's Kryptonite. ..."
"... The party she represents is irrelevant. By wrapping herself in the mantle of the front-runner for the nomination is not delusional, it's the most strategic thing she's done to date. ..."
"... Join my Patreon to assist me in helping you expose the frauds and liars whose perversions of truth threaten the fabric of civil society. Install the Brave Browser to make it harder for them to track you and marginalize similar voices. ..."
Clearly, Gabbard may have real problems with Donald Trump as president but she's learned very quickly from him that the
best way to deal with Hillary and her media quislings is to attack them without mercy.
Gabbard throws down the gauntlet here outing Hillary as the mastermind behind the DNC strategy of allowing the
current crop of future losers to fall all over themselves to alienate as many centrist voters as possible.
This paves the way for Hillary to swoop in on her broom, pointed hat in hand, and declare herself the savior of the
Democratic Party's chances to defeat Donald Trump next November.
Remember that leading up to the debate Gabbard was going to boycott the event because it was such a corrupted event
and stage-managed to showcase the chosen 'front-runners' -- Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.
It makes sense to me that she decided at the last minute to join the debate after the Times piece just to ensure she
got the national platform to openly call out the corruption in the same breath as attacking Trump for his, to this
point, disastrous foreign policy mistakes.
She emerged from that debate as the only candidate with any moral compass capable of pointing in a single direction.
Warren made a fool of herself responding with bromides about leaving in the 'rightt way' indistinguishable from any
other presidential puppet of the last twenty years.
This is two debates in a row where Gabbard came out blazing at the front-runner, claiming a moral and ethical high
ground on foreign policy that, at just over half the age of her rivals, that shows a maturity well beyond her years.
Her calling Hillary the "Queen of Warmongers" is so self-evidently true that it will reverberate far beyond Twitter
into votes.
And it tells Hillary that Gabbard has zero fear of her and her political machine.
You can't cow a person without fear who has nothing to lose.
Bullies like Hillary never learn that lesson until they are humiliated beyond recognition.
Moreover, when you look at this sequence of events it's clear that the DNC, Hillary and everyone else close to the
corridors of power fear Gabbard's rise. If they weren't they wouldn't be putting out smears in the New York Times.
They wouldn't be spending millions on social media trolls to discredit her in the public fora.
The first rule of politics is "You never attack down."
Well, Hillary attacked down. The Times attacked down. The DNC, by gaming the debate rules, attacked down. And that
spells disaster for anyone who does it.
This was the exchange that ended Rudy's political career. 150 seconds of truth-telling that ignited a movement which
culminated in the election of Donald Trump.
Gabbard is following that same course. The difference between her and Dr. Paul is that she's less polite. But as to
their moral clarity there is little difference. And she shouldn't be polite. The stakes are higher today than they were
in 2008.
The people Gabbard is up against are even more ruthless since Hillary intends to win, whereas the Republicans in 2008
were fighting for the right to lose to her at the time.
Gabbard's rise in popularity among Trump voters and centrists is born of the same exhaustion the American people have
with endless wars for globalism. She is Trump's Kryptonite.
The party she represents is irrelevant. By wrapping herself in the mantle of the front-runner for the nomination is
not delusional, it's the most strategic thing she's done to date.
It's also becoming more and more realistic as the days go on.
Because by responding to Hillary's ham-fisted
attempts to position herself as the voice of reason, Gabbard clarifies for everyone just how sick and
bile-filled Hillary is by outing her as the delusional one.
And reminding everyone that Hillary is the architect of the very policies in the Middle East that Trump is
now taking heat for trying to unwind.
Gabbard knows what the plan is. She was there in 2016 when Hillary stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders
and quit her position in the DNC because of it.
Even Trump knows that foreign policy and foreign entanglements will be the big ticket issue for this
election cycle.
Why?
Because Gabbard has single-handedly made it so.
Trump is already running against her by pulling back from Syria, looking for peace options in Afghanistan,
firing John Bolton while using proxies and, yes, Vladimir Putin to assist him in fixing his myriad mistakes of
the first thirty months of his presidency.
Hillary trying to position herself as the one who can save the Middle East from Trump's bumbling is
laughable and Gabbard just laughed in Hillary's face.
Calling everyone who voices any dissent from foreign or domestic policy orthodoxy a Russian agent is a
losing proposition. It belies reality and what people see with their own eyes.
Americans want better relations with Russia now World War III. Trump's popularity has risen since he backed
off on starting a war with Iran.
The media spent four years marginalizing Dr. Paul. The RNC stole the nomination from him just as surely as
the DNC stole the nomination from Bernie. As the people in the U.K. are finding out, their votes don't matter.
Democracy doesn't matter, only the fever dreams of the soulless and the power mad who think they run the
world. Look at what Hillary has become, not what you remember her to be.
She's a tired, sick, fragile woman whose bitterness and evil is literally eating her up from the inside out.
Have you noticed that she hasn't been photographed standing up for months?
She's the epitome of everything wrong with America and, in fact, the world and Tulsi Gabbard just stood up
and laughed at her for still thinking she was the Emperor when in reality she's The Joker.
Join my Patreon
to assist me in helping you expose the frauds and liars whose
perversions of truth threaten the fabric of civil society.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
It is more accurate to call it Russia's reannexation of Crimea, supported by over 90% of the
people there via an election. Russia didn't invade, it had 20,000 troops based there as
Russian troops have been there for over a century.
Jeffery Epstein should have declared that he was running for President, because according
to the logic of many Democrats and their media allies, Trump would be forced to release him
so as not to interfere in the elections.
Remember Joe Biden claimed that he knew nothing about his son's shady business in Ukraine.
Tucker Carlson broke the big story of the week that was ignored by our corporate media to
include Fox News itself:
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' obtains photo of Joe Biden golfing with his son and Ukrainian
business partner
"... For those who don't speak fluent neoconservative, "isolationist" here means taking even one small step in any direction other than continued military expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth, and "We are becoming isolationist" here means "We have hundreds of military bases circling the globe, our annual military budget is steadily climbing toward the trillion-dollar mark, and we are engaged in countless undeclared wars and regime change interventions all around the world." ..."
"... a war criminal with a blood-soaked legacy of mass murder, torture and military expansionism telling Trump that he is endangering peace with his "isolationism" ..."
"... Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is under any threat of anything remotely resembling isolationism. The real purpose of this buzzword is to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton window so far in the direction of ghoulish hawkishness that the opposite of "war" is no longer "peace", but "isolationism". By pulling this neat little trick, the propagandists of the political/media class have successfully made endless war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be happening and any small attempt to scale it back look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and peace is of course normal. This is the only healthy way to see things. ..."
Humanity was treated to an important lecture on peace at a recent event for the NIR School of the Heart by none other than Ellen
Degeneres BFF and world-renowned peace expert George W Bush.
"I don't think the Iranians believe a peaceful Middle East is in their national interest," said the former president according
to The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin, whose
brief Twitter thread on the subject appears
to be the only record of Bush's speech anywhere online.
"An isolationist United States is destabilizing around the world," Bush said during the speech in what according to Rogin was
a shot at the sitting president.
"We are becoming isolationist and that's dangerous for the sake of peace."
For those who don't speak fluent neoconservative, "isolationist" here means taking even one small step in any direction other
than continued military expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth, and "We are becoming isolationist" here means "We have
hundreds of military bases circling the globe, our annual military budget is steadily climbing toward the trillion-dollar mark, and
we are engaged in countless undeclared wars and regime change interventions all around the world."
It is unclear why Bush is choosing to present himself as a more peaceful president than Trump given that by this point in his
first term Bush had launched not one but two full-scale ground invasion wars whose effects continue to ravage the Middle East to
this very day, especially given the way both presidents appear to be in furious agreement on foreign policy matters like Iran. But
here we are.
From a certain point of view it's hard to say which is stranger:
(A) a war criminal with a blood-soaked legacy of mass murder, torture and military expansionism telling Trump that he is
endangering peace with his "isolationism", or
(B) the claim that Trump is "isolationist" at all.
But these bogus warnings about a dangerous, nonexistent threat of isolationism are nothing new for Dubya. In
his farewell address to the nation , Bush said the following:
"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism
and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity
at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
As we discussed
recently , use of the pro-war buzzword "isolationism" has been re-emerging from its post-Bush hibernation as a popular one-word
debunk of any opposition to continued US military expansionism in all directions, and it is deceitful in at least three distinct
ways. Firstly, the way it is used consistently conflates isolationism with non-interventionism, which
are two wildly
different things . Secondly, none of the mainstream political figures who are consistently tarred with the "isolationist" pejorative
are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination, or even proper non-interventionists; they all support many interventionist positions
which actual non-interventionists object to. Thirdly, calling someone who opposes endless warmongering an "isolationist" makes as
much sense as calling someone who opposes rape a man-hating prude; opposing an intrinsically evil act is not the same as withdrawing
from the world.
Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is under any threat of anything remotely resembling isolationism. The real
purpose of this buzzword is to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton window so far in the direction of ghoulish hawkishness
that the opposite of "war" is no longer "peace", but "isolationism". By pulling this neat little trick, the propagandists of the
political/media class have successfully made endless war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be happening and any small attempt
to scale it back look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and peace is
of course normal. This is the only healthy way to see things.
It would actually be great if George W Bush could shut the fuck up forever, ideally in a locked cell following a public war tribunal.
Failing that, at the very least people should stop looking at him as a cuddly wuddly teddy bear with whom it's fun to
share a sporting arena suite or a
piece of hard candy or to
hang award medals on for his treatment of veterans. This mass murdering monster has been
growing more and more popular with
Democrats lately just because he offers mild criticisms of Trump sometimes, as have war pigs like
Bill Kristol and Max Boot and even John
Bolton for the same reason, and it needs to stop. And in the name of a million dead Iraqis, please don't start consulting this
man on matters of peace.
@Ron
Unz Thanks to Tucker Carlson's show, some folks on the left like Cohen, Mate and
Greenwald, are more likely to get air time on Fox News than MSNBC and CNN.
This New York Times article about @TulsiGabbard is perfect. It belongs in a museum to show
how the NYT & DNC smear anyone who expresses any dissenting views: accuse them of serving
RUSSIA & white nationalists, quote Neera Tanden & Laura McCarthy Rosenberg, etc.
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? - The New York Times
6:56 AM - 12 Oct 2019
[ Radical, unethical Democratic National Committee folks are determined to defame and
destroy an heroic Democratic member of congress, a combat veteran and still serving member of
the armed forces, reelected with a 70% majority in 2018. ]
Astonishing the Democratic leadership calumny of a Democratic member of Congress, a woman, of
Indian and Samoan heritage, a combat veteran and serving member of the armed forces. Such is
self-styled supposed Democratic leadership, steeped in the terrible terrifying tradition of
Joseph McCarthy.
(The price of admission, so as to be
able to read the posts of others, is
for now, posting something, anything.)
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? https://nyti.ms/33s1Aj8
NYT - Lisa Lerer - October 12
WASHINGTON -- Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed
with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could
vote for her. Former Representative Ron Paul praises her "libertarian instincts," while
Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her "refreshing."
And far-right conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich see a certain MAGA sais quoi.
"She's got a good energy, a good vibe. You feel like this is just a serious person," Mr.
Cernovich said. "She seems very Trumpian." ...
(The price of admission, so as to be
able to read the posts of others, is
for now, posting something, anything.)
What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To? https://nyti.ms/33s1Aj8
NYT - Lisa Lerer - October 12
WASHINGTON -- Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed
with her political talent. Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist leader, says he could
vote for her. Former Representative Ron Paul praises her "libertarian instincts," while
Franklin Graham, the influential evangelist, finds her "refreshing."
And far-right conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich see a certain MAGA sais quoi.
"She's got a good energy, a good vibe. You feel like this is just a serious person," Mr.
Cernovich said. "She seems very Trumpian." ...
Among her fellow Democrats, Representative Tulsi Gabbard has struggled to make headway as a
presidential candidate, barely cracking the 2 percent mark in the polls needed to qualify for
Tuesday night's debate. She is now injecting a bit of chaos into her own party's primary
race, threatening to boycott that debate to protest what she sees as a "rigging" of the 2020
election. That's left some Democrats wondering what, exactly, she is up to in the race, while
others worry about supportive signs from online bot activity and the Russian news media. ...
On podcasts and online videos, in interviews and Twitter feeds, alt-right internet stars,
white nationalists, libertarian activists and some of the biggest boosters of Mr. Trump heap
praise on Ms. Gabbard. They like the Hawaiian congresswoman's isolationist foreign policy
views. They like her support for drug decriminalization. They like what she sees as
censorship by big technology platforms. ...
Ms. Gabbard has disavowed some of her most hateful supporters, castigating the news media
for giving "any oxygen at all" to the endorsement she won from the white nationalist leader
David Duke. But her frequent appearances on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show have buoyed her
support in right-wing circles.
Both Ms. Gabbard and her campaign refused requests for comment about her support in
right-wing circles or threat to boycott the debate. Even some political strategists who have
worked with her are at a loss to explain her approach to politics.
"She's a very talented person but I'm not sure, I just don't know what to say about the
campaign exactly," said Mark Longabaugh, a Democratic strategist who worked with Ms. Gabbard
when she was campaigning for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2016. ...
Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, is impressed with her political
talent....
-- Lisa Lerer
[ This is a vile article, contemptible for the New York Times to have printed. An heroic
member of congress, a woman, a person of color, a combat veteran, a serving member of the
armed forces, a person who serves others to seek peace, is being contemptibly slandered.
Shame, shame, shame for writing and printing such an article. ]
You and a number of the posters here are horribly naive about the Nixon Rat(bad word
omitted)s. Tulsi has been working with them. This should be automatically disqualifying.
Gabbard is a veteran, very much younger than I, she also is the most opposed to the neocon
permanent war (strong in securing the US' post WW II world order)agenda which seems to be
standard democrat stance.
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is paying Facebook Inc. to run false
advertisements that its Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is endorsing President Donald
Trump.
Warren's campaign sponsored the posts which were blasted into the feeds of U.S. users of
the social network, as it pushed back against Facebook's policy to exempt politicians' ads
from its third-party fact-checking program.
The ads, which begin with the falsehood, quickly backtracks: "You're probably shocked. And
you might be thinking, 'how could this possibly be true?' Well, it's not." ...
"If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should
not be in the position of censoring that speech," Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook, said
in a statement to CNN on the ads.
This isn't the first time Warren has used Facebook's own platform to make a political
point. In March, Facebook took down ads from her campaign that called for the company to be
broken up, but later restored them.
This time, Warren's latest ads strike a more forceful tone, calling on users to hold the
Facebook CEO accountable and to back her mission.
"Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once," the ads read. "Now, they're
deliberately allowing a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people."
Great tactic, and Hilarious at that. I passed it on on my face book account. Great political
humor has been a proven vote winner. Anytime you get a chuckle, the residual resentment gets
same relief.
"
By Dillon Ancheta | October 10, 2019 at 10:13 AM HST - Updated October 10 at 5:54 PM
HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - Claiming a "rigged" primary process, presidential
candidate Tulsi Gabbard says she's seriously considering boycotting the next Democratic
presidential debate.
Twelve contenders, including Gabbard, have qualified for the Oct. 15 debate in Ohio.
But in a video posted on social media Thursday, Gabbard said she's not sure she'll take
the debate stage because she believes the Democratic National Committee and corporate media
rigged the 2016 primary election against Bernie Sanders and are trying to do it again with
the 2020 primary.
She said the election is being rigged against early voting states.
"There are so many of you who I've met in Iowa and New Hampshire who have expressed to me
how frustrated you are that the DNC and corporate media are essentially trying to usurp your
role as voters in choosing who our Democratic nominee will be," Gabbard said, in the
video.
"In short, the DNC and corporate media are trying to hijack the entire election process,"
she added."
This of course is sheer nonsense, and so hurtful to Dems that she has drawn the admiration
of right wing crazies for her efforts to help trump.
Nonsense in 2016 just like this hurt Dems; ruined the Supreme Court; and damaged the
country. And she is trying to do it again in the midst of a primary in which she never, ever
had a ghost of a chance. And that was because of her total inexperience and a number of
highly questionable actions in the last decade.
At this point, she has managed to remove herself from higher office for the rest of her
life. And deservedly so.
In Hawaii you cannot run for two public offices at once, so this is her plan to run for
the House. Trash the DNC and media for defeating her, despite the fact she never had any
chance to even be a serious player in the primary.
Combine that with her gay conversion stance of a decade ago and her meddling withe asaad
and Modi, and I am starting to question her sanity.
If she loses the House primary, I would fully expect her to be the Rep candidate.
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily
uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits
as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person
of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane
Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials
responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over
the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more
to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.
George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether
he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only
moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:
And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has
many deaths on his conscience:
Here's the money quote from her apologia:
"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio
audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be
kind to everyone."
This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it
should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still
have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end
of his days.
Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:
There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong,
and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion,
I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues
the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief
extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency
to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes
from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that
his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency
has to die.
DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity.
From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems
very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."
...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.
Tulsi Gabbard
Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago
.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear
us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha,
& work together for the people.
There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.
The term "centrist" is replaced by a more appropriate term "neoliberal oligarchy"
Notable quotes:
"... Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly, suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps. ..."
"... So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House in the first place. ..."
"... For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed path. ..."
"... In a recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point: Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as foreordained. ..."
"... Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much) change. ..."
"... These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy. ..."
"... "For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely. ..."
"... how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal oligarchy" who preceded him? ..."
"... Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the question not only goes unanswered, but unasked. ..."
"... To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie. Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed, apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse "to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war to economic inequality." Just so. ..."
"... Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's what Hillary thought too. ..."
"... Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars. ..."
"... Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no better than last time. ..."
"... I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the price that's going to have to be paid. ..."
"... At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight of hand there corporate Dems. ..."
There is blood in the water and frenzied sharks are closing in for the kill. Or so they
think.
From the time of Donald Trump's election, American elites have hungered for this moment. At
long last, they have the 45th president of the United States cornered. In typically ham-handed
fashion, Trump has given his adversaries the very means to destroy him politically. They will
not waste the opportunity. Impeachment now -- finally, some will say -- qualifies as a virtual
certainty.
No doubt many surprises lie ahead. Yet the Democrats controlling the House of
Representatives have passed the point of no return. The time for prudential judgments -- the
Republican-controlled Senate will never convict, so why bother? -- is gone for good. To back
down now would expose the president's pursuers as spineless cowards. TheNew York
Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC would not soon forgive such craven behavior.
So, as President Woodrow Wilson, speaking in 1919 put it, "The stage is set, the
destiny disclosed. It has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God." Of
course, the issue back then was a notably weighty one: whether to ratify the Versailles Treaty.
That it now concerns a "
Mafia-like shakedown " orchestrated by one of Wilson's successors tells us something about
the trajectory of American politics over the course of the last century and it has not been a
story of ascent.
The effort to boot the president from office is certain to yield a memorable spectacle. The
rancor and contempt that have clogged American politics like a backed-up sewer since the day of
Trump's election will now find release. Watergate will pale by comparison. The uproar triggered
by Bill Clinton's "
sexual relations " will be nothing by comparison. A de facto collaboration between
Trump, those who despise him, and those who despise his critics all but guarantees that this
story will dominate the news, undoubtedly for months to come.
As this process unspools, what politicians like to call "the people's business" will go
essentially unattended. So while Congress considers whether or not to remove Trump from office,
gun-control legislation will languish, the deterioration of the nation's infrastructure will
proceed apace, needed healthcare reforms will be tabled, the military-industrial complex will
waste yet more billions, and the national debt, already at $22 trillion --
larger, that is, than the entire economy -- will continue to surge. The looming threat posed by
climate change, much talked about of late, will proceed all but unchecked. For those of us
preoccupied with America's role in the world, the obsolete assumptions and habits undergirding
what's still called " national
security " will continue to evade examination. Our endless wars will remain endless and
pointless.
By way of compensation, we might wonder what benefits impeachment is likely to yield.
Answering that question requires examining four scenarios that describe the range of
possibilities awaiting the nation.
The first and most to be desired (but least likely) is that Trump will tire of being a
public piñata and just quit. With the thrill of flying in Air Force One having
worn off, being president can't be as much fun these days. Why put up with further grief? How
much more entertaining for Trump to retire to the political sidelines where he can tweet up a
storm and indulge his penchant for name-calling. And think of the "deals" an ex-president could
make in countries like Israel, North Korea, Poland, and Saudi Arabia on which he's bestowed
favors. Cha-ching! As of yet, however, the president shows no signs of taking the easy (and
lucrative) way out.
The second possible outcome sounds almost as good but is no less implausible: a sufficient
number of Republican senators rediscover their moral compass and "do the right thing," joining
with Democrats to create the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump and send him packing.
In the Washington of that classic 20th-century film director Frank Capra, with Jimmy Stewart
holding
forth on the Senate floor and a moist-eyed Jean Arthur cheering him on from the gallery,
this might have happened. In the real Washington of "Moscow Mitch"
McConnell , think again.
The third somewhat seamier outcome might seem a tad more likely. It postulates that
McConnell and various GOP senators facing reelection in 2020 or 2022 will calculate that
turning on Trump just might offer the best way of saving their own skins. The president's
loyalty to just about anyone, wives included, has always been highly contingent, the people
streaming out of his administration routinely making the point. So why should senatorial
loyalty to the president be any different? At the moment, however, indications that Trump
loyalists out in the hinterlands will reward such turncoats are just about nonexistent. Unless
that base were to flip, don't expect Republican senators to do anything but flop.
That leaves outcome No. 4, easily the most probable: while the House will impeach, the
Senate will decline to convict. Trump will therefore stay right where he is, with the matter of
his fitness for office effectively deferred to the November 2020 elections. Except as a source
of sadomasochistic diversion, the entire agonizing experience will, therefore, prove to be a
colossal waste of time and blather.
Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection
chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For
that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly,
suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as
punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay
in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so
that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps.
Besides, as Trump campaigns for a second term, he would almost surely wear censure like a
badge of honor. Keep in mind that Congress's
approval ratings are considerably worse than his. To more than a few members of the public,
a black mark awarded by Congress might look like a gold star.
Restoration Not Removal
So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more
favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being
pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of
impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with
Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is
to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House
in the first place.
Just recently, for instance, Hillary Clinton
declared Trump to be an "illegitimate president." Implicit in her charge is the conviction
-- no doubt sincere -- that people like Donald Trump are not supposed to be president.
People like Hillary Clinton -- people possessing credentials
like hers and sharing her values -- should be the chosen ones. Here we glimpse the true
meaning of legitimacy in this context. Whatever the vote in the Electoral College, Trump
doesn't deserve to be president and never did.
For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of
impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed
path.
In a
recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point:
Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close
to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more
important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking
repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as
foreordained.
Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political
mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal
Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much)
change.
These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as
defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating
on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a
global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they
define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees
from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to
believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and
privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American
political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore
that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy.
"For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying
a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary
precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo
interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his
mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
The U.S. military's "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad at the start of the Iraq War, as
broadcast on CNN.
For such a scheme to succeed, however, laundering reputations alone will not suffice.
Equally important will be to bury any recollection of the catastrophes that paved the way for
an über -qualified centrist to lose to an indisputably unqualified and
unprincipled political novice in 2016.
Holding promised security assistance hostage unless a foreign leader agrees to do you
political favors is obviously and indisputably wrong. Trump's antics regarding Ukraine may even
meet some definition of criminal. Still, how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal
oligarchy" who preceded him? Consider, in particular, the George W. Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 (along with the spin-off wars that followed).
Consider, too, the reckless economic policies that produced the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
As measured by the harm inflicted on the American people (and others), the offenses for which
Trump is being impeached qualify as mere misdemeanors.
Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental
hubris. When it comes to tallying up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who
sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include
thousands of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to
struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands of non-Americans killed or injured ;
millions displaced ;
trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and in its case
even formed
inside a U.S. prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it
has yet to recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the
administration of President Bill Clinton and continued by his successor. Deregulating the
banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet, as a
direct result of
the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment
shot up to 10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock
market cratered and millions saw their life savings evaporate. Again, the question must be
asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?
Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has
been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq
War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the
question not only goes unanswered, but unasked.
Sen. Carter Glass (D–Va.) and Rep. Henry B. Steagall (D–Ala.-3), the co-sponsors of
the 1932 Glass–Steagall Act separating investment and commercial banking, which was
repealed in 1999. (Wikimedia Commons)
To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship
on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie.
Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed,
apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden
worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That
the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another
cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency
somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse
"to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war
to economic inequality." Just so.
What are the real crimes? Who are the real criminals? No matter what happens in the coming
months, don't expect the Trump impeachment proceedings to come within a country mile of
addressing such questions.
Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed
match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's
what Hillary thought too.
Now the Republicans who lost their party to Trump think they can take it back with
somebody even more lame than Jeb, if only they could find someone, anyone, to run on that
non-plan.
Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any
alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they
want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four
times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars.
Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no
better than last time.
LJ , October 9, 2019 at 17:01
Well, yeah but I recall that what won Trump the Republican Nomination was first and
foremost his stance on Immigration. This issue is what separated him from the herd of
candidates . None of them had the courage or the desire to go against Governmental Groupthink
on Immigration. All he then had to do was get on top of low energy Jeb Bush and the road was
clear. He got the base on his side on this issue and on his repeated statement that he wished
to normalize relations with Russia . He won the nomination easily. The base is still on his
side on these issues but Governmental Groupthink has prevailed in the House, the Senate, the
Intelligence Services and the Federal Courts. Funny how nobody in the Beltway, especially not
in media, is brave enough to admit that the entire Neoconservative scheme has been a disaster
and that of course we should get out of Syria . Nor can anyone recall the corruption and
warmongering that now seem that seems endemic to the Democratic Party. Of course Trump has to
wear goat's horns. "Off with his head".
Drew Hunkins , October 9, 2019 at 16:00
I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute
worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the
price that's going to have to be paid.
At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental
bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now
established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to
concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable
Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight
of hand there corporate Dems.
Of course, the corporate Dems would rather lose to Trump than win with a
progressive-populist like Bernie. After all, a Bernie win would mean an end to a lot of
careerism and cushy positions within the establishment political scene in Washington and
throughout the country.
Now we even have the destroyer of Libya mulling another run for the presidency.
Forget about having a job the next day and forget about the 25% interest on your credit
card or that half your income is going toward your rent or mortgage, or that you barely see
your kids b/c of the 60 hour work week, just worry about women lawyers being able to make
partner at the firm, and trans people being able to use whatever bathroom they wish and male
athletes being able to compete against women based on genitalia (no, wait, I'm confused
now).
Either class politics and class warfare comes front and center or we witness a burgeoning
neo-fascist movement in our midst. It's that simple, something has got to give!
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily
uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits
as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person
of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane
Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials
responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over
the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more
to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.
George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether
he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only
moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:
And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has
many deaths on his conscience:
Here's the money quote from her apologia:
"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio
audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be
kind to everyone."
This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it
should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still
have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end
of his days.
Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:
There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong,
and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion,
I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues
the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief
extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency
to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes
from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that
his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency
has to die.
DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity.
From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems
very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."
...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.
Tulsi Gabbard
Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago
.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear
us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha,
& work together for the people.
There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.
The term "centrist" is replaced by a more appropriate term "neoliberal oligarchy"
Notable quotes:
"... Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly, suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps. ..."
"... So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House in the first place. ..."
"... For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed path. ..."
"... In a recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point: Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as foreordained. ..."
"... Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much) change. ..."
"... These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy. ..."
"... "For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely. ..."
"... how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal oligarchy" who preceded him? ..."
"... Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the question not only goes unanswered, but unasked. ..."
"... To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie. Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed, apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse "to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war to economic inequality." Just so. ..."
"... Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's what Hillary thought too. ..."
"... Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars. ..."
"... Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no better than last time. ..."
"... I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the price that's going to have to be paid. ..."
"... At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight of hand there corporate Dems. ..."
There is blood in the water and frenzied sharks are closing in for the kill. Or so they
think.
From the time of Donald Trump's election, American elites have hungered for this moment. At
long last, they have the 45th president of the United States cornered. In typically ham-handed
fashion, Trump has given his adversaries the very means to destroy him politically. They will
not waste the opportunity. Impeachment now -- finally, some will say -- qualifies as a virtual
certainty.
No doubt many surprises lie ahead. Yet the Democrats controlling the House of
Representatives have passed the point of no return. The time for prudential judgments -- the
Republican-controlled Senate will never convict, so why bother? -- is gone for good. To back
down now would expose the president's pursuers as spineless cowards. TheNew York
Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC would not soon forgive such craven behavior.
So, as President Woodrow Wilson, speaking in 1919 put it, "The stage is set, the
destiny disclosed. It has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God." Of
course, the issue back then was a notably weighty one: whether to ratify the Versailles Treaty.
That it now concerns a "
Mafia-like shakedown " orchestrated by one of Wilson's successors tells us something about
the trajectory of American politics over the course of the last century and it has not been a
story of ascent.
The effort to boot the president from office is certain to yield a memorable spectacle. The
rancor and contempt that have clogged American politics like a backed-up sewer since the day of
Trump's election will now find release. Watergate will pale by comparison. The uproar triggered
by Bill Clinton's "
sexual relations " will be nothing by comparison. A de facto collaboration between
Trump, those who despise him, and those who despise his critics all but guarantees that this
story will dominate the news, undoubtedly for months to come.
As this process unspools, what politicians like to call "the people's business" will go
essentially unattended. So while Congress considers whether or not to remove Trump from office,
gun-control legislation will languish, the deterioration of the nation's infrastructure will
proceed apace, needed healthcare reforms will be tabled, the military-industrial complex will
waste yet more billions, and the national debt, already at $22 trillion --
larger, that is, than the entire economy -- will continue to surge. The looming threat posed by
climate change, much talked about of late, will proceed all but unchecked. For those of us
preoccupied with America's role in the world, the obsolete assumptions and habits undergirding
what's still called " national
security " will continue to evade examination. Our endless wars will remain endless and
pointless.
By way of compensation, we might wonder what benefits impeachment is likely to yield.
Answering that question requires examining four scenarios that describe the range of
possibilities awaiting the nation.
The first and most to be desired (but least likely) is that Trump will tire of being a
public piñata and just quit. With the thrill of flying in Air Force One having
worn off, being president can't be as much fun these days. Why put up with further grief? How
much more entertaining for Trump to retire to the political sidelines where he can tweet up a
storm and indulge his penchant for name-calling. And think of the "deals" an ex-president could
make in countries like Israel, North Korea, Poland, and Saudi Arabia on which he's bestowed
favors. Cha-ching! As of yet, however, the president shows no signs of taking the easy (and
lucrative) way out.
The second possible outcome sounds almost as good but is no less implausible: a sufficient
number of Republican senators rediscover their moral compass and "do the right thing," joining
with Democrats to create the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump and send him packing.
In the Washington of that classic 20th-century film director Frank Capra, with Jimmy Stewart
holding
forth on the Senate floor and a moist-eyed Jean Arthur cheering him on from the gallery,
this might have happened. In the real Washington of "Moscow Mitch"
McConnell , think again.
The third somewhat seamier outcome might seem a tad more likely. It postulates that
McConnell and various GOP senators facing reelection in 2020 or 2022 will calculate that
turning on Trump just might offer the best way of saving their own skins. The president's
loyalty to just about anyone, wives included, has always been highly contingent, the people
streaming out of his administration routinely making the point. So why should senatorial
loyalty to the president be any different? At the moment, however, indications that Trump
loyalists out in the hinterlands will reward such turncoats are just about nonexistent. Unless
that base were to flip, don't expect Republican senators to do anything but flop.
That leaves outcome No. 4, easily the most probable: while the House will impeach, the
Senate will decline to convict. Trump will therefore stay right where he is, with the matter of
his fitness for office effectively deferred to the November 2020 elections. Except as a source
of sadomasochistic diversion, the entire agonizing experience will, therefore, prove to be a
colossal waste of time and blather.
Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection
chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For
that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly,
suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as
punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay
in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so
that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps.
Besides, as Trump campaigns for a second term, he would almost surely wear censure like a
badge of honor. Keep in mind that Congress's
approval ratings are considerably worse than his. To more than a few members of the public,
a black mark awarded by Congress might look like a gold star.
Restoration Not Removal
So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more
favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being
pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of
impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with
Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is
to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House
in the first place.
Just recently, for instance, Hillary Clinton
declared Trump to be an "illegitimate president." Implicit in her charge is the conviction
-- no doubt sincere -- that people like Donald Trump are not supposed to be president.
People like Hillary Clinton -- people possessing credentials
like hers and sharing her values -- should be the chosen ones. Here we glimpse the true
meaning of legitimacy in this context. Whatever the vote in the Electoral College, Trump
doesn't deserve to be president and never did.
For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of
impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed
path.
In a
recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point:
Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close
to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more
important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking
repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as
foreordained.
Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political
mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal
Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much)
change.
These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as
defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating
on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a
global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they
define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees
from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to
believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and
privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American
political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore
that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy.
"For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying
a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary
precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo
interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his
mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
The U.S. military's "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad at the start of the Iraq War, as
broadcast on CNN.
For such a scheme to succeed, however, laundering reputations alone will not suffice.
Equally important will be to bury any recollection of the catastrophes that paved the way for
an über -qualified centrist to lose to an indisputably unqualified and
unprincipled political novice in 2016.
Holding promised security assistance hostage unless a foreign leader agrees to do you
political favors is obviously and indisputably wrong. Trump's antics regarding Ukraine may even
meet some definition of criminal. Still, how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal
oligarchy" who preceded him? Consider, in particular, the George W. Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 (along with the spin-off wars that followed).
Consider, too, the reckless economic policies that produced the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
As measured by the harm inflicted on the American people (and others), the offenses for which
Trump is being impeached qualify as mere misdemeanors.
Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental
hubris. When it comes to tallying up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who
sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include
thousands of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to
struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands of non-Americans killed or injured ;
millions displaced ;
trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and in its case
even formed
inside a U.S. prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it
has yet to recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the
administration of President Bill Clinton and continued by his successor. Deregulating the
banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet, as a
direct result of
the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment
shot up to 10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock
market cratered and millions saw their life savings evaporate. Again, the question must be
asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?
Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has
been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq
War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the
question not only goes unanswered, but unasked.
Sen. Carter Glass (D–Va.) and Rep. Henry B. Steagall (D–Ala.-3), the co-sponsors of
the 1932 Glass–Steagall Act separating investment and commercial banking, which was
repealed in 1999. (Wikimedia Commons)
To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship
on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie.
Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed,
apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden
worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That
the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another
cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency
somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse
"to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war
to economic inequality." Just so.
What are the real crimes? Who are the real criminals? No matter what happens in the coming
months, don't expect the Trump impeachment proceedings to come within a country mile of
addressing such questions.
Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed
match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's
what Hillary thought too.
Now the Republicans who lost their party to Trump think they can take it back with
somebody even more lame than Jeb, if only they could find someone, anyone, to run on that
non-plan.
Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any
alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they
want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four
times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars.
Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no
better than last time.
LJ , October 9, 2019 at 17:01
Well, yeah but I recall that what won Trump the Republican Nomination was first and
foremost his stance on Immigration. This issue is what separated him from the herd of
candidates . None of them had the courage or the desire to go against Governmental Groupthink
on Immigration. All he then had to do was get on top of low energy Jeb Bush and the road was
clear. He got the base on his side on this issue and on his repeated statement that he wished
to normalize relations with Russia . He won the nomination easily. The base is still on his
side on these issues but Governmental Groupthink has prevailed in the House, the Senate, the
Intelligence Services and the Federal Courts. Funny how nobody in the Beltway, especially not
in media, is brave enough to admit that the entire Neoconservative scheme has been a disaster
and that of course we should get out of Syria . Nor can anyone recall the corruption and
warmongering that now seem that seems endemic to the Democratic Party. Of course Trump has to
wear goat's horns. "Off with his head".
Drew Hunkins , October 9, 2019 at 16:00
I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute
worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the
price that's going to have to be paid.
At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental
bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now
established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to
concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable
Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight
of hand there corporate Dems.
Of course, the corporate Dems would rather lose to Trump than win with a
progressive-populist like Bernie. After all, a Bernie win would mean an end to a lot of
careerism and cushy positions within the establishment political scene in Washington and
throughout the country.
Now we even have the destroyer of Libya mulling another run for the presidency.
Forget about having a job the next day and forget about the 25% interest on your credit
card or that half your income is going toward your rent or mortgage, or that you barely see
your kids b/c of the 60 hour work week, just worry about women lawyers being able to make
partner at the firm, and trans people being able to use whatever bathroom they wish and male
athletes being able to compete against women based on genitalia (no, wait, I'm confused
now).
Either class politics and class warfare comes front and center or we witness a burgeoning
neo-fascist movement in our midst. It's that simple, something has got to give!
"The president is dropping by the city on Thursday for one of his periodic angry
wank-fests at the Target Center, which is the venue in which this event will be inflicted
upon the Twin Cities. (And, just as an aside, given the events of the past 10 days, this one
should be a doozy.) Other Minneapolis folk are planning an extensive unwelcoming party
outside the arena, which necessarily would require increased security, which is expensive.
So, realizing that it was dealing with a notorious deadbeat -- in keeping with his customary
business plan, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago has stiffed 10 cities this year for bills relating
to security costs that total almost a million bucks -- the company that provides the security
for the Target Center wants the president*'s campaign to shell out more than $500,000.
This has sent the president* into a Twitter tantrum against Frey, who seems not to be that
impressed by it. Right from when the visit was announced, Frey has been jabbing at the
president*'s ego. From the Star-Tribune:
"Our entire city will stand not behind the President, but behind the communities and
people who continue to make our city -- and this country -- great," Frey said. "While there
is no legal mechanism to prevent the president from visiting, his message of hatred will
never be welcome in Minneapolis."
It is a mayor's lot to deal with out-of-state troublemakers. Always has been."
This is not about Trump. This is not even about Ukraine and/or foreign powers influence on
the US election (of which Israel, UK, and Saudi are three primary examples; in this
particular order.)
Russiagate 2.0 (aka Ukrainegate) is the case, textbook example if you wish, of how the
neoliberal elite manipulates the MSM and the narrative for purposes of misdirecting attention
and perception of their true intentions and objectives -- distracting the electorate from
real issues.
An excellent observation by JohnH (October 01, 2019 at 01:47 PM )
"It all depends on which side of the Infowars you find yourself. The facts themselves are
too obscure and byzantine."
There are two competing narratives here:
1. NARRATIVE 1: CIA swamp scum tried to re-launch Russiagate as Russiagate 2.0. This is
CIA coup d'état aided and abetted by CIA-democrats like Pelosi and Schiff. Treason, as
Trump aptly said. This is narrative shared by "anti-Deep Staters" who sometimes are nicknamed
"Trumptards". Please note that the latter derogatory nickname is factually incorrect:
supporters of this narrative often do not support Trump. They just oppose machinations of the
Deep State. And/or neoliberalism personified by Clinton camp, with its rampant
corruption.
2. NARRATIVE 2: Trump tried to derail his opponent using his influence of foreign state
President (via military aid) as leverage and should be impeached for this and previous
crimes. ("Full of Schiff" commenters narrative, neoliberal democrats, or demorats.)
Supporters of this category usually bought Russiagate 1.0 narrative line, hook and sinker.
Some of them are brainwashed, but mostly simply ignorant neoliberal lemmings without even
basic political education.
In any case, while Russiagate 2.0 is probably another World Wrestling Federation style
fight, I think "anti-Deep-staters" are much closer to the truth.
What is missing here is the real problem: the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA (and
elsewhere).
So this circus serves an important purpose (intentionally or unintentionally) -- to disrupt
voters from the problems that are really burning, and are equal to a slow-progressing cancer in the
US society.
And implicitly derail Warren (being a weak politician she does not understand that, and
jumped into Ukrainegate bandwagon )
I am not that competent here, so I will just mention some obvious symptoms:
Loss of legitimacy of the ruling neoliberal elite (which demonstrated itself in 2016
with election of Trump);
Desperation of many working Americans with sliding standard of living; loss of meaningful
jobs due to offshoring of manufacturing and automation (which demonstrated itself in opioids
abuse epidemics; similar to epidemics of alcoholism in the USSR before its dissolution.
Loss of previously available freedoms. Loss of "free press" replaced by the neoliberal
echo chamber in major MSM. The uncontrolled and brutal rule of financial oligarchy and allied
with the intelligence agencies as the third rail of US politics (plus the conversion of the
state after 9/11 into national security state);
Coming within this century end of the "Petroleum Age" and the global crisis that it can
entail;
Rampant militarism, tremendous waist of resources on the arms race, and overstretched
efforts to maintain and expand global, controlled from Washington, neoliberal empire. Efforts
that since 1991 were a primary focus of unhinged after 1991 neocon faction US elite who
totally controls foreign policy establishment ("full-spectrum dominance). They are stealing money from
working people to fund an imperial project, and as part of neoliberal redistribution of wealth up
Most of the commenters here live a comfortable life in the financially secured retirement,
and, as such, are mostly satisfied with the status quo. And almost completely isolated from
the level of financial insecurity of most common Americans (healthcare racket might be the
only exception).
And re-posting of articles which confirm your own worldview (echo chamber posting) is nice
entertainment, I think ;-)
Some of those posters actually sometimes manage to find really valuable info. For which I
am thankful. In other cases, when we have a deluge of abhorrent neoliberal propaganda
postings (the specialty of Fred C. Dobbs) which often generate really insightful comments from the
members of the "anti-Deep State" camp.
Still it would be beneficial if the flow of neoliberal spam is slightly curtailed.
"... "Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted. ..."
"... While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for which Bush is condemned today. ..."
"... From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan, establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria – Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner. ..."
"... *Nobel Peace Drones™ ..."
"... "Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions," ..."
Actor Mark Ruffalo was shredded for double standards after he posted a "callout" tweet
assailing George Bush for the sins of the Iraq War, with many netizens noting his aversion to
slamming Barack Obama's military adventures. Weighing into a controversy kicked off by TV
personality Ellen Degeneres, who came under fire for schmoozing it up with former President
George W. Bush at a football game last weekend, Ruffalo insisted no quarter or kindness should
be offered to perpetrators of heinous war crimes until they face consequences, including
Bush.
"Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War,
(including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars --
emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even
begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted.
Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War,
(including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars --
emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even
begin to talk about kindness. https://t.co/dpMwfck6su
While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why
similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a
pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for
which Bush is condemned today.
Claiming Bush is some monster while worshipping Obama even though they did the same things
abroad🤔
From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan,
establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading
a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria –
Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd
already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh
words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
"Woke Twitter, [including] Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call outs," one user
observed, noting the several occasions former first lady Michelle Obama posed affectionately
with Bush without facing a similar wave of outrage from figures like Ruffalo.
People ripping Jameela Jamil and the celebs in these screenshots but it was tumbleweed 101
when Michelle Obama was getting regular sweeties fixes from George W. Bush & going above
and beyond duty in friendly optics. Woke Twitter, incl Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call
outs. pic.twitter.com/snNYZEbAWM
It's funny how Mark Ruffalo can criticize Ellen, who was an actual person affected by
Bush's ignorance, but not a peep about Michelle Obama who admits to having a special
FRIENDSHIP with GW. https://t.co/9UM1BP8GpY
Another commenter seconded Ruffalo's views on Bush, but encouraged the actor to take his
criticism further, applying the same humanitarian standard evenly, regardless of the party in
power.
"Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible
for the displacement and death of millions," the user said.
The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush.
However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over.
Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for
the displacement and death of millions
The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush
However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over
100% on Bush. You forgot to add Obama & Clinton though. No reason to root for justice
against one war criminal, while giving a free pass to others. It makes it partisan, rather
than ethical.
Hillary Clinton has threatened to enter the 2020 presidential race for president after
President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter that she throw her hat in the ring in an effort to
"steal it away" from Elizabeth Warren. Trump tweeted Tuesday that "Crooked Hillary"
should run for president again to deprive the "Uber Left" Warren of a shot at the White
House, but only on "one condition" to be subpoenaed to "explain all of her high
crimes and misdemeanors."
I think that Crooked Hillary Clinton should enter the race to try and steal it away from
Uber Left Elizabeth Warren. Only one condition. The Crooked one must explain all of her high
crimes and misdemeanors including how & why she deleted 33,000 Emails AFTER getting "C"
Subpoena!
Five hours after Trump's jab, Clinton replied: "Don't tempt me. Do your job."
Reaction to Clinton's warning was mixed, to say the least. While mainstream media outlets
seemed to love the idea, many social media users recoiled in horror at the thought of a 2016
re-run.
"I don't think my heart could take it" if Hillary really runs again, one fan
proclaimed on Twitter.
"The president is dropping by the city on Thursday for one of his periodic angry
wank-fests at the Target Center, which is the venue in which this event will be inflicted
upon the Twin Cities. (And, just as an aside, given the events of the past 10 days, this one
should be a doozy.) Other Minneapolis folk are planning an extensive unwelcoming party
outside the arena, which necessarily would require increased security, which is expensive.
So, realizing that it was dealing with a notorious deadbeat -- in keeping with his customary
business plan, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago has stiffed 10 cities this year for bills relating
to security costs that total almost a million bucks -- the company that provides the security
for the Target Center wants the president*'s campaign to shell out more than $500,000.
This has sent the president* into a Twitter tantrum against Frey, who seems not to be that
impressed by it. Right from when the visit was announced, Frey has been jabbing at the
president*'s ego. From the Star-Tribune:
"Our entire city will stand not behind the President, but behind the communities and
people who continue to make our city -- and this country -- great," Frey said. "While there
is no legal mechanism to prevent the president from visiting, his message of hatred will
never be welcome in Minneapolis."
It is a mayor's lot to deal with out-of-state troublemakers. Always has been."
This is not about Trump. This is not even about Ukraine and/or foreign powers influence on
the US election (of which Israel, UK, and Saudi are three primary examples; in this
particular order.)
Russiagate 2.0 (aka Ukrainegate) is the case, textbook example if you wish, of how the
neoliberal elite manipulates the MSM and the narrative for purposes of misdirecting attention
and perception of their true intentions and objectives -- distracting the electorate from
real issues.
An excellent observation by JohnH (October 01, 2019 at 01:47 PM )
"It all depends on which side of the Infowars you find yourself. The facts themselves are
too obscure and byzantine."
There are two competing narratives here:
1. NARRATIVE 1: CIA swamp scum tried to re-launch Russiagate as Russiagate 2.0. This is
CIA coup d'état aided and abetted by CIA-democrats like Pelosi and Schiff. Treason, as
Trump aptly said. This is narrative shared by "anti-Deep Staters" who sometimes are nicknamed
"Trumptards". Please note that the latter derogatory nickname is factually incorrect:
supporters of this narrative often do not support Trump. They just oppose machinations of the
Deep State. And/or neoliberalism personified by Clinton camp, with its rampant
corruption.
2. NARRATIVE 2: Trump tried to derail his opponent using his influence of foreign state
President (via military aid) as leverage and should be impeached for this and previous
crimes. ("Full of Schiff" commenters narrative, neoliberal democrats, or demorats.)
Supporters of this category usually bought Russiagate 1.0 narrative line, hook and sinker.
Some of them are brainwashed, but mostly simply ignorant neoliberal lemmings without even
basic political education.
In any case, while Russiagate 2.0 is probably another World Wrestling Federation style
fight, I think "anti-Deep-staters" are much closer to the truth.
What is missing here is the real problem: the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA (and
elsewhere).
So this circus serves an important purpose (intentionally or unintentionally) -- to disrupt
voters from the problems that are really burning, and are equal to a slow-progressing cancer in the
US society.
And implicitly derail Warren (being a weak politician she does not understand that, and
jumped into Ukrainegate bandwagon )
I am not that competent here, so I will just mention some obvious symptoms:
Loss of legitimacy of the ruling neoliberal elite (which demonstrated itself in 2016
with election of Trump);
Desperation of many working Americans with sliding standard of living; loss of meaningful
jobs due to offshoring of manufacturing and automation (which demonstrated itself in opioids
abuse epidemics; similar to epidemics of alcoholism in the USSR before its dissolution.
Loss of previously available freedoms. Loss of "free press" replaced by the neoliberal
echo chamber in major MSM. The uncontrolled and brutal rule of financial oligarchy and allied
with the intelligence agencies as the third rail of US politics (plus the conversion of the
state after 9/11 into national security state);
Coming within this century end of the "Petroleum Age" and the global crisis that it can
entail;
Rampant militarism, tremendous waist of resources on the arms race, and overstretched
efforts to maintain and expand global, controlled from Washington, neoliberal empire. Efforts
that since 1991 were a primary focus of unhinged after 1991 neocon faction US elite who
totally controls foreign policy establishment ("full-spectrum dominance). They are stealing money from
working people to fund an imperial project, and as part of neoliberal redistribution of wealth up
Most of the commenters here live a comfortable life in the financially secured retirement,
and, as such, are mostly satisfied with the status quo. And almost completely isolated from
the level of financial insecurity of most common Americans (healthcare racket might be the
only exception).
And re-posting of articles which confirm your own worldview (echo chamber posting) is nice
entertainment, I think ;-)
Some of those posters actually sometimes manage to find really valuable info. For which I
am thankful. In other cases, when we have a deluge of abhorrent neoliberal propaganda
postings (the specialty of Fred C. Dobbs) which often generate really insightful comments from the
members of the "anti-Deep State" camp.
Still it would be beneficial if the flow of neoliberal spam is slightly curtailed.
"... This is a profound and sound thesis, i.e., the Power Elites could encourage universal suffrage and not feel it threatened, significantly, their long term interests or direction. The "Masses", that undifferentiated formless and shapeless blob-like gelatinous mass, could simply be "Nudged" and fudged and snockered to vote against their own interests based on generated fantasy, lies. agitprop, propaganda, and easily subverted Christianity-thoroughl made into a double agent. ..."
"... They are a kind of unlanded gentry, or a bankster oligarchy if you will. The "capitalist class" is really a pseudo-capitalist, Cultural Marxist, corruption-dependent, chosen class. ..."
"... YES – Trump is an insufferable jerk – but clearly, they are the ones being dishonest. Russiagate was a hoax – Ukrainegate is a gross exaggeration of a problem. ..."
"... This is as it's going to get before the country breaks apart. Overall, I don't regret voting for Trump, but there is not a lot of swamp draining going on. ..."
Tell me something about liberal hatred and plans I don't know.
Trump is not ridiculous. He looks good for his age. Compare him to that withered crone
actor de Niro.Or the hideous Lyndon Johnson. Or lardass big bellied cucumber nose WC Field
face Bill Clinton. whoever said a president has to be good looking?
NYC has been corrupt since it was a Dutch Colony and pirate's flea market to rival Port
Royal in Jamaica. NYC Real estate? Founding fathers Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr and
others were NYC real estate speculators 230 years ago. Construction may have been reasonably
honest in NYC at some point but that ended when immigrants from 2 countries took over the
construction business long before Trump and his parents were born. Construction and real
estate is a tough business as I know well. The Trumps waded in to the toughest town in the
country fought the good fight and beat the crooks at their own game.
I can't wait till Trump wins again to see the liberals heads totally explode. I was in a
joyous mood all November and December 2016 as I saw the angst and despair of the liberals
The liberals hate me and mine as much as they hate Trump.
I suppose the author is trying to say Trump and the liberals are both bad. Trump used too
much gold in his apartment in Trump tower. Well, I suppose if you're an IKEA person you're
not used to anything else
He'll have to find something other than Trump is a repulsive clown to convince me.
@animalogic
i agree with you .. the oligarchs are just fine.. they have N. Korea wondering what to do
next, the situation in Iraq is Kurds have generated total Chaos in Iraq. the situation in
Syria in Idib has the Terrorist hiding behind the Syrians trapped there, so it is a stand off
for now, and Erdergodan has abandoned the USA as a partner in N. Syria and will move
independently into Syria to establish the 20 mile wide buffer zone in order to separate Kurds
from Turks, Iraq just wiped out the Kurd radio and tv stations, and Sissi in Egypt has been
exposed in corruption so the masses in the streets demanding his demise, the situation in
France is yellow jackets on the rise, the situation in Hong Kong is shoot the protesters,
China has given the high sign and is preparing for war, Israel can't find an honest leader,
Russia and Iran have teamed to avoid the USA dollar Hegemony..and Iran is setting higher and
better than ever and Briton is about to leave the UK and the EU and the USA is infighting to
impeach its President.
but what I see coming is not another American revolution instead I see a worldwide
revolution developing the masses against the corrupt nation state system and all its bankers,
corporatist and politicians. The elites have been using the Nation state system, and
privately owned media, to organize their crimes and to further their corrupt profits and to
deny everyone, everywhere their human rights. and that denial is about to come home to rest.
Americans are far behind the rest of the world in understanding but soon, I believe, they too
will catch up..
I believe we are about to see humanity take on the powers that be. everywhere all at once.
The war cry is going to be no more corruption, no more nation states, no more top down
governance.. and the result is going to be chaos for the bankers, the corporations and the
people that depend on the rule of law and bureaucracies for their protection.. Cause I don't
think there is going to be any protection for them.
@Laurent
Guyénot LOL. Donald Obama Trump belongs to the swamp. Only the zombie voting class
can't see that. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that the voting class consists of
100% deluded zombies who believe they personally can influence the creatures who own and rule
them.
Doing what is needed to avoid fighting/dying in yet another "bankster's" war is hardly
cowardly, in fact it is the only moral and brave thing to do. Wars for the sake of empires
are not only immoral, they are illegal.
I don't know how old you are but that realization only took place in the population
because of the Vietnam war ..not before it.
The military allowed for pacifist who objected to killing anyone as medics or supply
jobs.
This guy made clear he ran not because he objected to war on a moral basis but because he was
afraid of getting his little self hurt.
There IS a difference.
@French
Pronografer You ain't kidding! Does anyone remember the Don(ald) was hobnobing with the
Clintons? He was writing checks to their reelection campaigns and they had been guests at his
last wedding. The zombies are getting scarier
Many insightful comments to think about, but the most practical one was to be ready when the
"SHTF." (I love that initialism. The precursor to GTFO). Graham Greene wrote that every man's
life has a turning point; but that most men do not recognize it at the time. Societies, I
think, are the same. The challenge is to recognize the SHTF/GTFO/RuralTown point in a timely
fashion.
@Ash
Williams Q: "Do you seriously believe that the people coming out of 'higher education'
today with basket weaving degrees can compete with the Chinese that major in STEM?"
A: "You mean the IP spies they send to the USA? I think that's being addressed."
Regardless of how STEM-educated the Chinese really are, and regardless of whether they
stole or invented their high tech, their high tech manufacturing capabilities appear to have
already outpaced those of the USA. They quickly build giant automated factories making very
sophisticated and high quality gear at low cost, and seem to have few problems finding
employees to operate them. They are quite agile and advanced. I doubt that they have
hindrances like unions, drug-addiction, high labor cost, and stifling regulations on the same
scale that the USA does. Probably about 20% of USA working-age citizens are basically
ineducable.
@RoatanBill
". Do you also attend some religious institution to pray to some space man? "
Hey Bill, l enjoy your comments but you ought to show a little decency towards certain
aspects of this so- called "life" and the faith and INSPIRATIONAL aspects that give some of
us the courage and energy to FIGHT on here on the front lines.. for what is OURS. What WE
built.
To pot shot from the side-lines in Roatan, is kinda dirty pool, eh?
This is a profound and sound thesis, i.e., the Power Elites could encourage universal suffrage
and not feel it threatened, significantly, their long term interests or direction. The
"Masses", that undifferentiated formless and shapeless blob-like gelatinous mass, could
simply be "Nudged" and fudged and snockered to vote against their own interests based on
generated fantasy, lies. agitprop, propaganda, and easily subverted Christianity-thoroughl
made into a double agent.
Hmmm. We are approaching an existence resembling that of The Matrix-which was non-fiction
fiction.
Let me offer you democratarians some succor. The Republic is in good hands, by the
populace, so shall ye know the country:
@SafeNow
When the Dems take over they will do the opposite of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot who forced
people into the countryside. The current elites hate the rural life and those that own small
farms. Absolutely hate them. The Dems will install heavy carbon, meat and ammunition taxes
among others forcing what is left of meth infested rural white America into the cesspools
that are our cities. Really I don't see any way out of this mess we've got ourselves in. You
think people are going to stand up and fight knowing the heavy counter force that will come
their way swiftly and savagely? The time to roll this lunacy back was in the 70s and 80s.
I'm
a YM 1955. Lived through it all my man. By the grace of God the Vietnam war ended the year I
graduated high school and I did not have to face the decision of submitting to a governments
edict that I must "go and do my patriotic chore" or saying f*ck it and disrupting my life up
to that point and knowing it could never, ever be the same.
You keyboard commando's talk shit, because it is cheap. How many of you have ever received
a letter from uncle sugar which started out with the words "Greeting"? By the way, after
5o,000 KIA's and many more WIA's, what was actually achieved by the Vietnam war? My
chonies(google it) are now made in Vietnam. Please tell me why this could not have been hashed
out in a trade deal, without all the death and destruction.
@Stonehands
Congratulations – you're the first person I'm aware of that figured out what my screen
name signifies.
To me, religion and gov't are the two worst inventions of mankind with religion being the
precursor that led to gov't. Once you can convince people of some god, it's not a far stretch
to convince them they absolutely need a leader. Both institutions are anti freedom and
detrimental to the worlds people.
Throne and alter were twins–two vultures from the same egg.
To attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest, blasphemy.
The sword and cross were allies.
Together they attacked the rights of men; they defended each other.
The king owned the bodies of men, the priests the souls.
One lived on taxes collected by force, the other on alms collected by fear.
Both robbers, both beggars.
The king made laws, the priest made creeds.
With bowed backs the people carried the burdens of one, with open-mouthed wonder received the
dogmas of the other.
The king said rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me.
The priest said God made you ignorant and immoral; He made me holy and wise; you are the
sheep, I am the shepherd; your fleeces belong to me.
You must not reason, you must not contradict, you must believe.
Robert G. Ingersoll
My only gripe would be referring to the Western power class as "capitalist" (a common, minor
complaint here in the comments section of this article).
Granted, there is a thin veneer of capitalism coating the ugly visage of the globalist power
class, but scratch the surface and you discover something else altogether.
Western elites do not live by the rules & strictures of the free market. They are a kind of unlanded gentry, or a bankster oligarchy if you will.
The "capitalist class" is really a pseudo-capitalist, Cultural Marxist, corruption-dependent,
chosen class.
The homeless & the powerless know capitalism.
The powerful & rich here in the West know only that their financial missteps must be
& will be socialized, & insured by the dwindling wealth of the angry but impotent
masses.
@renfro Now
students, let us go over the history of American warfare.
Revolution;
organized by the wealthiest people in the colonies who borrowed 13 billion in French money
to pay for it all. This included our first gold deposits for our treasury. As per usual, most
of the money stayed in France to pay for armaments soldiers and ships to get it all to
America.
After the war, Hamilton and the rest of the founders decided they weren't going to tax
themselves to pay for the war, build the Capitol and support the new government.
So Hamilton sec treasury decided to tax the frontier hillbillies redneck deplorables who'd
done most of the fighting on their only transportable cash crop whiskey. The deplorables
rebelled. Washington led a bigger army against veterans of the revolutionary war than he ever
did against the British. The leaders of the whiskey rebellion were hanged. By the way, we
never did pay France back
Civil War; 750,000 White men in the prime of life killed so as to leash on the scale of the Black Plague. Side effect
100 years of poverty for the south
Spanish American War;
ostensibly to free Cubans from Spain so they could have a wonderful democracy. Lots of
American men killed and crippled. Real purpose, to grab Manila Harbor and the Philippines for
a forward base to harass east Asia. Side effect, burdened with Puerto Rico and Rican
immigrants.
WW1;
conned into it by Britain that needed our help to destroy its major economic competition
Germany and Jews who wanted to invade Palestine using the British army. Lots of American men
killed and crippled
WW2.;
more of the same. Side effects communists swallowed up China east and Central Europe and
fomented revolution and death all over the world. Jews became supreme rulers of the west due
to their martyrdom during the war.
Korea;
A lot of American men killed and crippled for no good reason. Side effect, best guarded
border in the world. Unlike the borders of America which are essentially unguarded
Vietnam;
Caused by Cold War egomania of Kennedy and Johnson. A lot of American men Killed and
crippled for no good reason. We lost Side effect all S Vietnamese classified as refugees for
admission to America Set a very very very very bad precedent.
Late 1990s Balkan War;
America fought with the bad guys Muslim Albanians and Bosnians against the good guys
Christian Culture Serbs and Croats.
1990 to eternity war;
Killing and bombing Middle East so Israel won't have to fight its own wars. Lots of
American soldiers lots of civilians killed and crippled for no good reason. Side effect
Zionist jews in Pentagon steal billions of dollars and vast amounts of armaments. Loot
presumably sent to Israel.
Oldie but goodie
Q. What's the battle song of the Israeli army?
A. Onward Christian Soldiers
Off topic, that Batman movie with Danny de Vito and Christopher Walken's on TV.
@Ash
Williams Interesting observations about China and Russia. They seems to prefer a
multi-polar world based on co–operation and being "left alone". In my view they would
probably also co-operate with the Anglo-Zionists if they were not such warmongers intent on
global hegemony. I think Trump wants to cooperate with Russia but the MIC globalists will not
let him.
@Anon Sorry
to be a spoil sport and a doom monger. I really wish I could say that there were good guys. I
always used to think of Israel (and the US and UK) as the "good guys" but then I woke up.
There are no good guys. Nations operate out of self-interest. Empires struggle for supremacy.
They have all done bad things. Might is right.
Where does this leave us? We must seek out like minded Christians and like minded people
who will resist the coming evil. We are all asked to repent and to preach about the coming
judgement. If the Apocalypse is anything to go by then "overcoming the world" actually means
resisting until death. I am sorry. Bad times ahead. Keep the faith try and be kind don't back
down from standing up for the truth.
Perhaps the monetary answer to the banksters' usury has been tried before. And because it was
so successful the banksters declared war on this simple yet principled system of monetary
discipline and demonized its leader–unlike any other person before and since
(specifically so this system would not catch on and put the banksters out of usurious
money-lending practices).
What if most of everything we were told–especially about history–was an
outright lie, fabrication, "enhancement", distortion or embellishment? What if you could
investigate for yourselves and confirm this fable was organized? If so, then it must be by
way of reason to have been intentional! We are not talking about pieces here or there, but
wholesale chunks inverted and presented by corrupt "officials" as sacrosanct history based on
"research". No, ladies and gentlemen, these are no more than propaganda talking points made
to keep you in your place: devoid of the truth, distracted from an en-devour thereof, or
coerced into silence or taken out if all else failed.
The awakening is here and now in our lifetimes; what remains is our effort to commit .
time for a reprogramming course indeed .
Hitler, more than an other politician since then, cared more about his people than
imaginable. For example, he used non-inflationary government created and issued Labor
Treasury Certificates to fund Germany from the poorest country in Europe to the richest in
five years. This made the bankers (Judea) declare on Germany. This simple approach to money
(money is not an intrinsic value rather it is a "measure" of value much like a measuring cup
that measures commodities like sugar, flour, grain, etc.) could have caught on in the rest of
Europe and throughout the world putting the end to the banksters and their usury.
"Germany issued debt-free and interest-free money from 1935 on, which accounts for
Germany's startling rise from the depression to a world power in five years. The German
government financed its entire operations from 1935 to 1945 without gold, and without debt.
It took the entire Capitalist and Communist world to destroy the German revolution, and
bring Europe back under the heel of the Bankers."
If you have ever dared or not to watch a video, please make an concerted effort to watch
this one (just about six minutes long but one that needs views and redistribution like none
other) and one that may hold the most retained value from its consumption:
The American attitude has changed dramatically the public majority has lost its innocence
and is not 'trusting' as it was once. Vietnam was the eye opener for the public but not until
it dragged on and on till no one could justify it. People didn't want to believe the
government perfidy.
With good reason we have learned war is politics and the still fooled or patriot believer
young people get sent to war.
A lot of people talking about war have great 'hindsight'.
@RoatanBill
Even the average atheist draws the line whenever someone says that we DO NOT have any degree
of freedom and that moral responsibility is not a reality.
As a die-hard unbeliever, you may
reject the position that moral laws descend from a higher plane unperceived by our senses; as
a tax- paying citizen, however, you still need to live by sublunary standards of civility.
And this can be done only if free will and moral realism are the law of the land.
In the normal course of events both you and l are one in promoting some kind of " operative
morality."
As a guardian of morality, whether you feel this necessary truth is objectively real (
Christianity) or subjectively true (as l presume it is for you)- we could not go on living
and believe that being alive is all right , unless we enact these inferences or postulations.
@Who Cares
Well, my friend, CA is way ahead of you. High gas prices, translating into high
transportation costs. Outrageous vehicle license fees. Everything is more expensive here, and
going up everyday. Insane building codes and exorbitant fees. Background checks every time
you buy a box of ammo. Homeless everywhere, some have been arrested up to 50 times and still
on the street. I've seen bums sleeping on the sidewalk roll over and piss right in front of
everyone. Don't expect any help from the cops, they're too busy chasing car thieves,
stabbings, murders and other mayhem. And if you're stupid enough to take matters into your
own hands?
You'll end up in jail. Meth, opioids, you name it. Oh, and on windy days, they
sometimes cut the power. This is out here in the country, the cities are way worse. The
communists have turned a once great state into a turd world shit hole. I'm not overly fond of
Trump, but the Bolsheviks scare the piss out of me. And they're just getting started. Smile!
It only gets worse. Try the Soylent Green New Meal at McDonald's! Babies. It's what's for
dinner! America the fucking beautiful, my ass.
@Johnny Walker
Read An informative book on Vietnam is, Charlie Company, What Vietnam Did to US, by Peter
Goldman and Tony Fuller, based on interviews of 65 Vietnam veterans.
@Laurent
Guyénot No doubt Trump is fundamentally a non-obedient character which is what
determines the "information" attitude towards him.
No doubt Trump tried to wake up the part of America that the élite lives on the
shoulder of, in the early stage of his political rise: the élite noticed it and found
it, naturally, outrageous. The part of America that is ridden herd on by the élite,
however, didn't notice the wake-up signs.
That's natural too no Trump nor anyone else can revert the natural hiearchy, and order of
things between people, because that's determined by the quality of their minds.
The comments against Trump by people who are on his same team just confirm the above, with
their primary (or secondary) school way of looking at things in here-and-now and
smash-them-to-win ways.
Trump's achievements are severely limited by his team's characteristics, so to speak.
@Cyrano
Great comment But around 99% of Western "nationalists", brought up on a constant brainwashing
diet of socialism-o-phobia, Soviet-o-phobia, Russophobia, and mindless adoration of "Western
capitalism" as patriotism literally since their toddler days, will shy away from recognizing
the truth of this.
@Robert
DolanAnn Coulter has soured on him, but says she feels compelled to defend him
because the
Jmedia lies about him all day long.
Exactly – I find myself in the same boat. It is not just the Dems and the Jew media,
it is also the entrenched security state – the CIA, the FBI leadership, and the
permanent bureaucracy, that are all trying to take Trump down on false premises.
YES – Trump is an insufferable jerk – but clearly, they are the ones being
dishonest. Russiagate was a hoax – Ukrainegate is a gross exaggeration of a
problem.
The "virtue signaling" of his opposition is without question BS! Truly his opposition are
phonies! The truth is they are all ripping off America – using the government to enrich
themselves.
Trump is doing America a favor by exposing Bidden as a crook. (Good god – when Is
Obama going to be a three-figure millionaire?)
The real evil is Bannon, Clapper, and Comey using the security state to attack and nullify
the 2016 election. They are making fools of democracy itself.
Anything that can be construed as actually or potentially presenting a "threat" or a
"challenge" to the untrammeled world domination of the globo-imperialist capitalist
Anglo-Zionist/Western ruling class must be demonized, execrated and slandered – up to
& including their own native population's yearnings for a normal existence and sensible,
nativist ethno-nationalism.
This is as it's going to get before the country breaks apart. Overall, I don't regret voting
for Trump, but there is not a lot of swamp draining going on. Too bad we can't repeal
birthright citizenship and kick more illegals out of the country. Team R wants to give more
greencards out.
"... The intemperate comments of an imperial-minded candidate for the presidency ..."
"... The democrat coup/impeach/coup machine suffers is bi-polar disorder. Every they way fill the military industry complex trough! In their war manic state they supress freedom fighters, and arm their jailers, in their war depress state they support rioters in Hong Kong. If Donbass rebels were in Macao they would get US support, in Dobass the US will suppress freedom. ..."
"... With Ukraine, because the democrat neocons want to surround Russia, US national security arms Ukriane to forcibly put down Donbass as they attempt some form of "self determination". ..."
"... In the case of Hong Kong because US is enemy to the PRC (Red China at Menzie Chinn blog) the US is all for self determination, like Hitler was for pulling Sudetenland out of Czechoslovakia in 1938! ..."
"... This bipolar morality fits with deep state surveillance on Trump in 2016 and in 2019 claiming Trump doing it to Biden so that Trump/DoJ cannot fight corrupt (all) democrats ever! ..."
Is Time for the United States to Stand Up to China in Hong Kong
Tweets aren't enough. Washington must make clear that it expects Beijing to live up to its
commitments -- and it will respond when China does not.
By ELIZABETH WARREN
It Is Time for the United States to Stand Up to China in Hong Kong
Tweets aren't enough. Washington must make clear that it expects Beijing to live up to its
commitments -- and it will respond when China does not.
By ELIZABETH WARREN
[ Shocking and appalling; unethical and immoral; discrediting. The intemperate comments of an imperial-minded candidate for the presidency. ]
The democrat coup/impeach/coup machine suffers is bi-polar disorder. Every they way fill the
military industry complex trough!
In their war manic state they supress freedom fighters, and arm their jailers, in their
war depress state they support rioters in Hong Kong. If Donbass rebels were in Macao they would get US support, in Dobass the US will suppress
freedom.
With Ukraine, because the democrat neocons want to surround Russia, US national security
arms Ukriane to forcibly put down Donbass as they attempt some form of "self
determination".
In the case of Hong Kong because US is enemy to the PRC (Red China at Menzie Chinn blog)
the US is all for self determination, like Hitler was for pulling Sudetenland out of
Czechoslovakia in 1938!
This bipolar morality fits with deep state surveillance on Trump in 2016 and in 2019
claiming Trump doing it to Biden so that Trump/DoJ cannot fight corrupt (all) democrats
ever!
1) We don't know for certain what Shokin was investigating and what he wasn't.
2) Ukraine was rife with corruption. But most likely Biden was more concerned with
uprooting pro-Russian elements calling them corrupt as shorthand. Pro-Western corruption was
most likely overlooked.
3) We don't know why Hunter Biden was appointed to the Burisma board along with one of Joe
Biden's big bundlers and the CIA-friendly former President of Poland. We do know that Hunter
was put on the board immediately after the color revolution in Ukraine and that he served a
stint on the National Democratic Institute, which promotes regime change. Much more needs to
be learned about what the Bidens were up to in Ukraine and whether they were carpet baggers
cashing out.
As I have said, I would be delighted if Trump went down and took Joe Biden with him. The
last thing this country needs is a Joe Lieberman with a smiling face serving as President
which is basically what Joe Biden is.
"As I have said, I would be delighted if Trump went down and took Joe Biden with him."
Biden was already destroyed by Ukrainegate, being Pelosi sacrificial pawn (and for such
semi-senile candidate exit now looks the most logical; he can hand around for longer but the
question is why? ), but it is unclear how this will affect Trump.
In any case each accusation of Trump boomerang into Biden. And Biden China story probably
even more interesting then his Ukrainian gate story.
CIA ears over all Ukraine-gate are so visible that it hurts Pelosi case. Schiff is a sad
clown in this circus, and he has zero credibility after his well publicized love story with
Russiagate.
The fact that Warren is now favorite increases previously reluctant Wall Street support
for Trump, who is becoming kind of new Hillary, the establishment candidate.
And if you able to think, trump now looks like establishment candidate, corrupt
interventionist, who is not that far from Hillary in foreign policy and clearly as a "hard
neoliberal" aligns with Hillary "soft neoliberal" stance in domestic policy.
As Warren can pretend that she is better Trump then Trump (and we are talking about
Trump-2016 platform; Trump action were betrayal of his electorate much like was the case with
Obama) she has chances, but let's do not overestimate them.
Pelosi help with Trump re-election can't be underestimated.
Candidates for POTUS who are fundraising off "impeachment" are undermining credibility of
inquiry in eyes of American people, further dividing our already fractured country. Please
stop. We need responsible, patriotic leaders who put the interests of our country before
their own.
On day one of my presidency, I will call a summit between the United States, China, and
Russia to work to end the new Cold War, stop the arms race, and reduce tensions and increase
cooperation going forward.
If Krugman is surprised that some Democratic donors will support Trump over Warren, he is not
an analyst.
And Obama was a Wall Street prostitute, much like bill Clinton, no questions about it. Trump
betrayal of his voters actually mirror the Obama betrayal. May suspect that Warren will be
malleable with will fold to Wall Street on the first opportunity, governing like Trump-lite.
Warren Versus the Petty Plutocrats. Why do they hate her? It's mainly about their
egos.
By Paul Krugman
Remember when pundits used to argue that Elizabeth Warren wasn't likable enough to be
president? It was always a lazy take, with a strong element of sexism. And it looks
ridiculous now, watching Warren on the campaign trail. Never mind whether she's someone you'd
like to have a beer with, she's definitely someone thousands of people want to take selfies
with.
But there are some people who really, really dislike Warren: the ultrawealthy, especially
on Wall Street. They dislike her so much that some longtime Democratic donors are reportedly
considering throwing their backing behind Donald Trump, corruption, collusion and all, if
Warren is the Democratic presidential nominee.
And Warren's success is a serious possibility, because Warren's steady rise has made her a
real contender, maybe even the front-runner: While she still trails Joe Biden a bit in the
polls, betting markets currently give her a roughly 50 percent chance of securing the
nomination.
But why does Warren inspire a level of hatred and fear among the very wealthy that I
don't think we've seen directed at a presidential candidate since the days of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt?
On the surface, the answer may seem obvious. She is proposing policies, notably a tax on
fortunes exceeding $50 million, that would make the extremely wealthy a bit less so. But
delve into the question a bit more deeply, and Warren hatred becomes considerably more
puzzling.
For the only people who would be directly affected by her tax proposals are those who more
or less literally have more money than they know what to do with. Having a million or two
less wouldn't crimp their lifestyles; most of them would barely notice the change.
At the same time, even the very wealthy should be very afraid of the prospect of a Trump
re-election. Any doubts you might have had about his authoritarian instincts should have been
put to rest by his reaction to the possibility of impeachment: implicit death threats against
whistle-blowers, warnings of civil war and claims that members of Congress investigating him
are guilty of treason.
And anyone imagining that great wealth would make them safe from an autocrat's wrath
should look at the list of Russian oligarchs who crossed Vladimir Putin -- and are now ruined
or dead. So what would make the very wealthy -- even some Jewish billionaires, who should
have a very good idea of the likely consequences of right-wing dominance -- support Trump
over someone like Warren?
There is, I'd argue, an important clue in the "Obama rage" that swept Wall Street circa
2010. Objectively, the Obama administration was very good to the financial industry, even
though that industry had just led us into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
Major financial players were bailed out on lenient terms, and while bankers were subjected to
a long-overdue increase in regulation, the new regulations have proved fairly easy for
reputable firms to deal with.
Yet financial tycoons were furious with President Barack Obama because they felt
disrespected. In truth, Obama's rhetoric was very mild; all he ever did was suggest that some
bankers had behaved badly, which no reasonable person could deny. But with great wealth comes
great pettiness; Obama's gentle rebukes provoked fury -- and a huge swing in financial
industry political contributions toward Republicans.
The point is that many of the superrich aren't satisfied with living like kings, which
they will continue to do no matter who wins next year's election. They also expect to be
treated like kings, lionized as job creators and heroes of prosperity, and consider any
criticism an unforgivable act of lèse-majesté.
And for such people, the prospect of a Warren presidency is a nightmarish threat -- not to
their wallets, but to their egos. They can try to brush off someone like Bernie Sanders as a
rabble-rouser. But when Warren criticizes malefactors of great wealth and proposes reining in
their excesses, her evident policy sophistication -- has any previous candidate managed to
turn wonkiness into a form of charisma? -- makes her critique much harder to dismiss.
If Warren is the nominee, then, a significant number of tycoons will indeed go for Trump;
better to put democracy at risk than to countenance a challenge to their imperial
self-esteem. But will it matter?
Maybe not. These days American presidential elections are so awash in money that both
sides can count on having enough resources to saturate the airwaves.
Indeed, over-the-top attacks from the wealthy can sometimes be a political plus. That was
certainly the case for F.D.R., who reveled in his plutocratic opposition: "They are unanimous
in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."
So far Warren seems to be following the same playbook, tweeting out articles about Wall
Street's hostility as if they were endorsements, which in a sense they are. It's good to have
the right enemies.
I do worry, however, how Wall Streeters will take it if they go all out to defeat Warren
and she wins anyway. Washington can bail out their balance sheets, but who can bail out their
damaged psyches?
"Deductive reasoning" within the media message is mob control.
"It ain't what you know... it's what you know that ain't so"#. Keep reading the mainstream
media!
Given enough time [and strategy wrt 2020 election] we will get to the bottom of Obama's
"criminal influence" on 2016 election.
It takes a lot more to debunk the Biden, Clinton, Nuland, Obama Ukraine drama. To my mind,
Ukraine needs to be clean as driven snow* to "earn" javelins to kill Russian speaking
rebels.
Why do US from Obama+ fund rebels in Syria (Sunni radicals mainly) and want to send tank
killers to suppress rebels where we might get in to the real deal?
# conservatives have been saying that about the 'outrage' started by the MSM for
decades.
Warren might be an improvement over the current situation. Moreover she has some sound ideas about taming the financial
oligarchy
"Best alternative to the above? Get Liz Warren elected, IMO."
True. IMHO Warren might be an improvement over the
current situation. Moreover she has some sound ideas about taming the financial oligarchy.
The idea of taking on
financial oligarchy will find strong support of voters and in some respects she is "a better Trump then Trump" as for
restoring the honor and wellbeing of the working people mercilessly squeezed and marginalized by neoliberalism in the USA.
Her book "The two income trap"(2004) suggests that this is not just a classic "bait and switch" election trick in
best Obama or Trump style.
And I would say she in her 70 is in better shape then Trump in his 73+. He shows isolated
early signs of neurologic damage (some claim sundowning syndrome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwh6Fu9BcAw slurring speech patterns, repetitions, disorientation, etc), which is
natural for any person in his 70th subjected to his level of stress.
But it is completely unclear to me whether the impeachment favors Warren or Trump. the treat of impeachment already
cemented fractures in Trump base which now, judging from comments in forums, is really outraged.
Some people are
talking about armed resistance, which is, of course, hopeless nonsense in the current national-security state, but does show
the state of their mind.
Also nobody here can even imagine the amount of dirt Obama administration accumulated by
their actions in Ukraine. They really supported a neo-fascist party and cooperated with neo-Nazi (other important players
were Germany, Poland and Sweden). Just to achieve geopolitical victory over Russia. Kind of total reversion of WWII alliance
for me.
That avalanche of dirt can affect Warren indirectly as she proved to be a weak, unsophisticated politician by
supporting Pelosi drive for impeachment instead of pretending of being neutral. Which would be more appropriate and much
safer position.
Neoliberal democrats despite all Pelosi skills ( see https://mediaequalizer.com/martin-walsh/2017/12/gifford-heres-how-pelosi-learned-mob-like-tactics-from-her-father
) really opened a can of worms with this impeachment.
Also it looks like all of them, including Pelosi, are scared of
CIA: https://galacticconnection.com/nancy-pelosi-admits-congress-scared-cia/
== quote == In response to Senator
Dianne Feinstein’s speech last week calling out the CIA for spying on her staffers, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was asked to comment
and gave what might be the most revealing comments to date as to why Congress is so scared of the CIA:
“I salute
Sen. Feinstein,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference of the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I’ll tell
you, you take on the intelligence community, you’re a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without
evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth.”
Pelosi added that she has
always fought for checks and balances on CIA activity and its interactions with Congress: “You don’t fight it without a price
because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth. ==end==
I strongly doubt that Trump will ever
risk to drop a bomb by declassifying documents about Obama dirty actions in Ukraine; so to speak go "all in" against
neoliberal Democrats and part of intelligence community (and possibly be JFKed).
But Trump is unpredictable and
extremely vindictive. How he will behave after being put against the wall on fake changes is completely unclear. I wonder if
Pelosi correctly calculated all the risks.
I wrote the other day about Wall Street fear and loathing of Elizabeth Warren, suggesting
that it has more to do with threatened egos than with money per se 1/
Some more thoughts on reports that Wall Street Democrats will back Trump over Warren.
Obviously it's hard to know how big a deal this is -- how many of these guys are there, were
they ever really Dems, and will they back Trump as more revelations emerge 1/
So I remembered a sort of time capsule from the eve of the financial crisis that nicely
illustrated how these guys want to be perceived, and retrospectively explains their fury at
no longer getting to pose as economic heroes 2/
The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age
The new titans often see themselves as pillars of a similarly prosperous and expansive
age, one in which their successes and their philanthropy have made government less important
than it once was.
The thing is, even at the time the idea that financial deregulation had ushered in a
golden age of prosperity was flatly contradicted by the data 3/
[Graph]
And of course the financial crisis -- which is generally considered to have begun just
three weeks after that article was published! -- made utter nonsense of their boasting 4/
But they want everyone to forget about the hollowness of their claims to glory; and Warren
won't let that happen, which makes her evil in their minds 5/
When Bill was president Warren met with Hillary and persuaded her to talk Bill into killing
Biden's increased protection for lenders from rapacious borrowers. When Hillary was senator she
supported the Bill. Warren gave an interview on the subject before she was involved in
politics. She was not happy.
Warren was the single female Democratic senator who declined to give Hillary an endorsement
before the primaries started. That's an event of some significance.
During the debates Warren took actions that helped Bernie on several occasions. Someone, I
think Paul Krugman, said Glass Stegall would have done nothing to stop the meltdown because it
didn't deal with shadow banking. Bernie was able to respond that he supported Warren's proposed
Glass Stegall bill, which did have provisions to regulate shadow banking. On another occasion
someone pointed out that Warren's bill did not break up big banks. Warren stated publicly that
the bill didn't propose breaking up too big to fail banks but she supported the idea.
Warren and Sanders both supported Clinton when she had the nomination locked up. It was
Bernie's responsibility to defend his supporters from Team Clinton's smears and insults during
and after the convention.
It wasn't Warren that Clinton invited to the Hamptons to be introduced to a few dozen of her
favorite fundraisers. It was Harris.
It wasn't Warren that Clinton invited to the Hamptons to be introduced to a few dozen of
her favorite fundraisers. It was Harris.
But, even if so, Harris was to be nothing more than a Clinton place-holder to be swept
aside one HER decided to resurrect the same Dimocratic party, which she has still not
successfully destroyed, even with minor assistance from Barack, JoJo and Wild Bill. Nope. My
contention is that Hillary Rodent Clinton will sweep the field of duped pseudo-contenders in
a fixed horse race. HRC -- still with her!~
"... The first casualty of Pelosi's cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already, this past week, fallen behind Senator Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire, and California. ..."
"... By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden and son Hunter will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes. ..."
"... What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president, he ordered then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forego a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts. ..."
"... There is another question raised by Biden's ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forego the loan guarantee. Why was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt? ..."
"... This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi's decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren. ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
"... the Movers and Shakers in the Democrat Party have wanted Warren as their standard bearer on the belief that Biden is "yesterday" and that the rest of the field is either too loony (O'Rourke), nondescript (Booker) or -- potentially -- too corrupt (Harris).. ..."
"... Warren is the most pro-establishment candidate of all the non-establishment candidates, that is true ..."
"... Roughly 37% of Americans love Trump and will never change their mind. On the other side there are 38% who already supported impeachment based on previous investigations. That leaves 25% of Americans who are likely to be swayed one way or the other over this. In any case, those 25% are unlikely to be on this website. ..."
"... It'll be interesting to see what the voter turnout will be in 2020. 2016 --one of the most pivotal and controversial elections in modern times--saw 42% of the electorate stay home. This was a shockingly high numbter, little noted in the press. If you tack on the 6% who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, that would mean that 48% of the electorate--nearly half--did NOT vote for either Trump or Clinton. ..."
"... Well, given that Trump has already released the transcript and Zelensky has already confirmed there were no pressure in their conversation plus said that Hunter's case is to be investigated by the AG, any impeachment hearings can only be damaging to those who decide to go further with them, because, as it turns out, there is no basis for such hearings and they were started a year before the election, showing what those who started them think regarding their own chances to win. ..."
Even before seeing the transcript of the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
Nancy Pelosi threw the door wide open to impeachment.
Though the transcript did not remotely justify the advanced billing of a "quid pro quo," Pelosi set in motion a process that is
already producing a sea change in the politics of 2020.
The great Beltway battle for the balance of this year, and perhaps next, will be over whether the Democrats can effect a coup
against a president many of them have never recognized as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he took the oath
of office.
Pelosi on Tuesday started this rock rolling down the hill.
She has made impeachment, which did not even come up in the last Democratic debate, the issue of 2020. She has foreclosed bipartisan
compromise on gun control, the cost of prescription drugs, and infrastructure. She has put her and her party's fate and future on
the line.
With Pelosi's assent that she is now open to impeachment, she turned what was becoming a cold case into a blazing issue. If the
Democrats march up impeachment hill, fail, and fall back, or if they vote impeachment only to see the Senate exonerate the president,
that will be the climactic moment of Pelosi's career. She is betting the future of the House, and her party's hopes of capturing
the presidency, on the belief that she and her colleagues can persuade the country to support the indictment of a president for high
crimes.
One wonders: do Democrats, blinded by hatred of Trump, ever wonder how that 40 percent of the nation that sees him as the repository
of their hopes will react if, rather than beat him at the ballot box, they remove him in this way?
The first casualty of Pelosi's cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already,
this past week, fallen behind Senator Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire, and California. The Quinnipiac poll has her taking
the lead nationally for the nomination, with Biden dropping into second place for the first time since he announced his candidacy.
By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden
and son Hunter will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes.
What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president, he ordered then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko
to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forego a $1 billion
U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts.
Biden insists the Ukrainian prosecutor was corrupt, that Hunter had done no wrong, that he himself was unaware of his son's business
ties. All these assertions have been contradicted or challenged.
There is another question raised by Biden's ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forego the loan guarantee. Why
was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor
whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt?
Whatever the truth of the charges, the problem here is that any investigation of the potential corruption of Hunter Biden, and
of the role of his father, the former vice president, in facilitating it, will be front and center in presidential politics between
now and New Hampshire.
This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi's decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the
center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren.
Warren already appears to have emerged victorious in her battle with Bernie Sanders to become the progressives' first choice in
2020. And consider how, as she is rising, her remaining opposition is fast fading.
Senator Kamala Harris has said she is moving her campaign to Iowa for a do-or-die stand in the first battleground state. Senator
Cory Booker has called on donors to raise $1.7 million in 10 days, or he will have to pack it in. As Biden, Sanders, Harris, and
Booker fade, and "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg hovers at 5 or 6 percent in national and state polls, Warren steadily emerges as the probable
nominee.
One measure of how deeply Biden is in trouble, whether he is beginning to be seen as too risky, given the allegations against
him and his son, will be the new endorsements his candidacy receives after this week of charges and countercharges.
If there is a significant falling off, it could be fatal.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided
America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators website at www.creators.com.
They would be, if it were Sanders to get the nomination. Warren's chances are, obviously, better than Biden's - anyone's, save
for complete fringe wackos, are - but, if they really wanted to win, they would need Sanders. Or, even better, Gabbard. But Sanders
is too independent, dangerously so, and Gabbard is an outright enemy of their totalitarian cult. Hence, they pick Warren, who
might be vaaaaaaaaaaguely considered Sanders-lite. But lite is not enough against someone like Trump. Or, even worse for them,
they resort to all possible and impossible machinations to still get Biden nominated. It'll be a screaming mistake, but it's not
excluded at all, given how easily the've just been lured into a trap.
Happened to tune in to Rush Limbaugh yesterday just as he was saying that Pelosi's motivation to spin the wheels was at least
in part to kill two birds with one stone--Trump AND Biden. Mehhh...maybe, but it's been clear from the beginning that the Movers
and Shakers in the Democrat Party have wanted Warren as their standard bearer on the belief that Biden is "yesterday" and that
the rest of the field is either too loony (O'Rourke), nondescript (Booker) or -- potentially -- too corrupt (Harris)..
Warren is the most pro-establishment candidate of all the non-establishment candidates, that is true . Incrowd-lite.
Bernie of course is the big unknown. Will he prevail over Warren?
If this scandal sinks Biden and Trump together, the Dems will come out ahead because they are not committed to Biden as their
nominee. I think Warren will be the biggest net winner. My prediction is that we see an impeachment with the Senate voting on
party lines to acquit. That could still be very damaging to Trump's election chances, if the portion of the public who dislikes
Trump decide that he abused his power.
Roughly 37% of Americans love Trump and will never change their mind. On the other side there are
38% who already supported impeachment based on previous investigations. That leaves 25% of Americans who are likely to be
swayed one way or the other over this. In any case, those 25% are unlikely to be on this website.
The main question, other than whether there is something damning that shows up, is whether the majority of voters think a quid
pro quo is necessary for corruption to be an impeachable offense. It is required in a criminal bribery conviction, but impeachment
isn't a criminal trial. Is the president using a diplomatic call to pressure a foreign government to dig up dirt on his political
rivals something the 25% will be okay with? If they believe the story of Biden's corruption, will they see that as justification
for using a diplomatic talk to push for an investigation into it? Will moderate voters who have a high opinion of Biden from the
his time as Vice President view this as an unfair attack on him or will they change their view of him to match Trump's narrative?
Biden is in a tough spot, because he will be smeared here whether he is guilty or not. Trump is very good as slinging mud to
distract from his actions. And most Americans are very unlikely to parse through the information overload to figure out whether
the fired prosecutor is corrupt, whether the decision to fire him came from Joe or the state department/UK/EU/local protest, whether
Hunter Biden was qualified for the job with his ivy law degree/experience on corp boards/previous consulting experience, and whether
the investigation into Burisma was actuall ongoing when Shokin was fired. Who has time to read through everything and figure out
which side is manufacturing a controversy?
But if Biden decides to go down a Martyr, it wouldn't be difficult for him to take Trump with him.
It'll be interesting to see what the voter turnout will be in 2020. 2016 --one of the most pivotal and controversial elections
in modern times--saw 42% of the electorate stay home. This was a shockingly high numbter, little noted in the press. If you tack
on the 6% who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, that would mean that 48% of the electorate--nearly half--did NOT vote for
either Trump or Clinton.
These numbers are ominous and do not bode well for the future of this thing of ours.
Well, given that Trump has already released the transcript and Zelensky has already confirmed there were no pressure in their
conversation plus said that Hunter's case is to be investigated by the AG, any impeachment hearings can only be damaging
to those who decide to go further with them, because, as it turns out, there is no basis for such hearings and they were
started a year before the election, showing what those who started them think regarding their own chances to win. If Democrats
want to cut losses, they should stop it now and, using military terms, regroup immediately, nominating Gabbard who consistently
opposed this stillborn impeachment stupidity. But something makes me think they won't. Their visceral hatred to an anti-war candidate
like her is simply too strong.
I think you are missing that Trump's lawyers can subpoena people and drag up a lot of dirt on the Democrats too. I think it can
go both ways.
Still Warren can be tough for Trump. She is not tainted by Clinton. She is a chameleon; will sound sufficiently WASP in New
England and sufficiently woke in California and new York. If Buttgig becomes her sidekick he can get all the gays on-board.
You're missing one thing about Warren: she's a wonk. And she actually has some good ideas alongside the more crazy ones. Even
Tucker Carlson praised her book.
But Warren is an absolute stiff. Zero charisma. Like Kerry or Gore on their very worst day. And in this day and age, where
the only thing that counts for the overwhelming majority of low information voters are soundbites and how telegenic you come off
in a debate, someone like Trump will chew her up and spit her out for breakfast.
Warren? OK. I don't see how she could be any worse than Trump. Plus, we might not feel like we were snorkeling in a cesspool all
the time, like we do now.
Literally every progressive I know save one is team Warren. I think there might be an age divide. Progressives under thirty are
more likely to be for Sanders, and over thirty for Warren.
I have no idea what will happen with the election. But if Trump wins it after the Dems have done nothing for four years except
impeach him - every day is going to be like Christmas.
I sincerely hope that Trump is right in thinking that Biden is his biggest threat, because this affair is going to ensure Warren
is the nominee. I think a lot of proggy Dems know this as well, which partly explains their enthusiasm for impeachment at this
particular moment (not that they haven't been itching for this since November 8, 2016).
I agree Biden and Bernie are toast but Warren is far from a sure thing. Of all the democratic candidates Tulsi is the most attractive
in more ways than one and I could see Tulsi appealing to the many Trump voters who voted for him because he claimed to be non-interventionist
only to discover he is a war-pig like the rest of them. Imagine Tulsi in a debate with Trump! If not Tulsi I would bet another
high profile Dem will enter the race because Warren is un-electable and I would not be surprised to see Hillary get in the race
at the last minute. American's love re-matches and come-back stories.
In breaking news: Pelosi has just revealed who was behind all this. It's Cardinal Richelieu Russians again.
Does the girl even understand that, by saying so, she's, basically, stating that she's the chief Russian agent out there, because
she was the one who initiated that freak show?
Jesus Harold Christ, what a travelling circus. And this passes for a parliament these days.
Ukrainegate is Watergate in reverse. The farcical impeachment unintentionally acts as a foil, amplifying the significance of the
Ukraine stories in the press (John Solomon, Andrew McCarthy) which reveal a culture of corruption and venality permeating the
Democratic leadership: the Clintons, the Bidens, the DNC, the current Democratic caucus, and the entire deep state remnants of
the obama administration. We haven't seen election interference like this since the Watergate break-in and coverup. This impeachment
is the coup-de-grâce of the Democratic Party not just Biden. The Democrat faithful now have a choice between Scylla and Charybdis
- self-proclaimed socialists with a tenuous hold on reality, or the discredited establishment. As an old-school Democrat, I can
only hope that Trump buries them in 2020, so that the Democrats finally get the message and return to their pre-Clinton roots.
It is insane to pursue impeachment this late in a divisive President's mandate. The Democrats should spend their efforts selecting
a moderate nominee that doesn't show signs of cognitive decline (Only candidate that matches these requirements is Tulsi Gabbard.
) rather than make Trump a "victim" in the eyes of many.
Drama Don is doing a good enough job himself to make sure that the Democrats win in 2020. "Trump fatigue" is going to be the
most used expression next fall if Trump runs. If Trump is pushed out before the election, the Republicans may choose a charismatic
new nominee who actually has a chance to win in 2020. The biggest asset that the Democrats have in 2020 is Trump.
Somebody, somewhere, had decided that Democrats stand little chance with Biden, because he is so old and gaffe prone. So they
have put their money on Warren. Warren will choose Buttigieg as VP candidate, primarily because they want all that gay billionaire
money flowing in. At the same time, they tick the SJW boxes -woman, gay candidates, so the left will love them. The fix is in.
Hence the stupid "impeachment " controversy, which is obviously a sham to knock Biden out.
I voted for Trump, not as a Republican because I despise both political parties. I voted for him based on the need for a nationalist
trade policy, and especially because I was so against the TPP --and President Trump rewarded me for that vote his first week in
office by pulling the US out of TPP negotiations. Also I have great respect for you, Mr. Buchanan, and learned much from the 3
of your books I've read and recommended to others. But it looks like President Trump has been using his office for personal political
gain, so I am sorry to admit I support the impeachment investigation to bring the facts to light and make a judgement of whether
it is true he used the office to solicit a foreign country to help undermine his political opponent. But even before this, I'd
decided I will not vote for him again, mainly because I have become alarmed at the looming climate crisis, and believe we need
urgent policy towards full decarbonization of the global energy economy. But that doesn't motivate me to support the impeachment
inquiry, a path I hate and regret...but it seems there is no other way to demand the President not abuse his office and manipulate
foreign governments to help his political career. That is no patriot, that is corrupt and an embarrassment to our nation.
"...effect a coup against a president many of them have never seen as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he
took the oath of office."
Every single word of that describes the Republicans in Congress during the eight years Obama was president. Every single syllable.
Remember that birth certificate? And remember that Dick Tracy villain, Pocket-Neck McConnell, an excrescence that still infects
us, standing up and actually saying, with a straight face, "Our ONLY goal is to make Obama a one-term president." Never mind an
economy that was in free-fall, right Mitch? Or a couple of bothersome wars going on?
And what about how, for the very first time in history, Standard and Poor's downgraded America's credit rating, all because
of completely meaningless Republican obstruction about the debt ceiling? And when I say completely meaningless, I mean completely
meaningless. Now, under Trump, the deficit is approaching a trillion, and those very same Republicans couldn't give a hoot.
It's all in the great 2012 book, It's Even Worse Than it Looks, by Ornstein and Mann. We've had partisanship and gridlock before.
But what was new is how the Republicans behaved under Obama: they treated him as completely illegitimate from the word go, and
absolutely refused to work with him under any and all circumstances. The stimulus, which by the way saved the entire world economy
from complete meltdown, didn't get a single Republican vote.
But Republicans can feel proud of one thing: their disgusting, scorched-earth, win-at-all-costs tactics are now business-as-usual
in Washington. Probably for all time. Nice going, guys.
Warren is the best candidate to defeat Trump. She is super smart ,honest and works hard as heck for the non 1% to get more of
a fair shake. If she softens her hard left positions she could be a great candidate
I assume most here are sick of hearing about it further today.
I enjoy speculating on what Speaker Pelosi might do with the results of the Impeachment
Inquiry by the House.
Assumption: The House finds grounds for Impeaching Trump and hands it to Pelosi.
What will she do or rather what can she do?
She can have the full House vote to Impeach and march the Articles over to the Senate.
She can have the House Censure Trump, not vote to Impeach, and go no further at this time.
That brings Trump's crimes to light, but saves the country from a Political Trial in the
Senate, that won't convict Trump.
She can hold the Committee's report for review and not go forward until and unless she
see's the POLITICAL need.
She can, IMO, have the House vote Articles of Impeachment and then HOLD them in the House
waiting to take them to the Senate at a much later date of her choice or never.
The Senate cannot act until the Speaker delivers the Articles of Impeachment. No where
does the Constitution declare WHEN those Articles, once voted, must be delivered, only that
they are to be.
She can set a new precedent if she desires. Who can stop her?
This would allow the Articles to float over Trump's head - and the Re-Election campaign
serving to restrain Trump, like a cudgel over his head - preventing or at least limiting more
of Trump's outrageous unconstitutional and illegal acts in Office until Election 2020.
Simultaneously this would allow The House to continue its multiple investigations of
Trump, including the IRS Whistle Blower complaint, further checking Trump, and even to open
more investigations into Trump's abuse of Office, e.g., his use of AG Barr on Ukraine/Biden
as well as investigations of AG Barr pursuing Ukraine/Biden.
Not to mention other investigations into Trump including NY's pursuit of Trump's Tax
Returns, which could well be as revealing as the Ukraine phone call transcript.
So, while today was interesting in D.C., the future is far more so, imho.
1. Biden is now a zombie and has less then zero changes to beat Trump. Even if nothing
explosive will be revealed by Ukraine-gate, this investigation hangs like albatross around
his neck. Each shot at Trump will ricochet into Biden. Add to this China and the best he can
do is to leave the race and claim unfair play.
2. Trump now probably will be reelected on the wave of indignation toward Corporate Dems
new witch hunt. People stopped believing neoliberal MSM around 2015, so now neolibs no longer
have the leverage they get used to. And by launching Ukraine-gate after Russiagate they
clearly overplayed their hand losing critical mass of independents (who previously were ready
to abandon Trump_
3. If unpleasant facts about neolib/neocon machinations to launch Ukraine-gate leak via
alternative press via disgruntled DNC operatives or some other insiders who are privy to the
relevant discussions in the Inner Party, they will poison/destroy the chances of any Dem
candidate be it Warren or anybody else. Joining this witch hunt greatly damages standing of
Warren exposing her as a mediocre, malleable politician ( unlike Tulsi )
4. Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats again tried to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump. This is a huge political mistake which exposes them as
political swindlers.
Neolib/neocon in Democratic Party from now on will be viewed as "The Children of
Lieutenant Schmidt" (a fictional society of swindlers from the 1931 classic "The Little
Golden Calf" by Ilf and Petrov).
I would say that Pelosi might now be able to understand better the situation in which
Wasserman-Shultz had found herself in 2016 and resign.
IMHO this is a king of zugzwang for neoliberal Dems. There is no good exit from this
situation.
After two years of falsely accusing Trump to have colluded with Russia they now allege
that he colluded with Ukraine.
In addition to overpaying their hand that makes it more difficult for the Democrats to
hide their critical role in creating and promoting Russiagate.
Here is one post from MA which tries to analyse this situation:
== quote ==
nil , Sep 25 2019 19:37 utc | 24
I think what's going in the brain trust of the DNC is something like this:
i. Biden is a non-starter with the public. He'll be devoured alive by the Republicans, who
only need to bring up his career to expose his mendacity.
ii. Warren might be co-opted, having been a Republican and fiscal conservative up to the
mid-90s, but what if she isn't?
iii. Sanders is a non-starter, but with the "people who matter". Rather than having to
threaten him with the suspicions around his wife, or go for the JFK solution, they'd rather
[make that] he didn't even get past the primaries, much less elected.
iv. As a CNN talking head said weeks ago, it's better for the wealthy people the DNC is
beholden to that their own candidate loses to Trump if that candidate is Sanders.
So better to hedge their bets start impeachment hearings, give Trump ammunition to destroy
Sanders or Warren. That way, the rich win in all scenarios:
a. If Biden wins the nomination, the campaign will be essentially mudslinging from both
sides about who is more corrupt. The rich are fine with whoever wins.
b. If Warren gets the nomination and is co-opted, the media will let the impeachment
hearings die out, or the House themselves will quickly bury it.
c. If Warren gets the nomination and is not co-opted, or if Sanders get it, the
impeachment will suck up all the air of the room, Trump will play the witchhunt card and will
be re-elected.
That's a very good idea to concentrate on your job instead of some fluff, or worse, criminal
activity.
Millions of dollars, millions of manhours of political discourse and newsmedia coverage,
were wasted on Russiagate. That's a typical "control fraud." Control fraud occurs when a
trusted person in a high position of responsibility in a company, corporation, or state
subverts the organization and engages in extensive fraud (in this case a witch hunt) for
personal gain.
Those hours could have been used researching and discussing country foreign policy,
economic policy, healthcare policy, industrial policy, environment policy and other important
for this nation topics.
Instead the Dems chased a ghost (and they knew that this a ghost) for 3 years and now
Pelosi have just signaled that they will spend the next 6 months chasing another ghost --
trying to impeach Trump for his attempt to re-launch (in his trademark clumsy, bulling way)
investigating Joe Biden's family corruption in Ukraine. Action which is in full compliance
with The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA)
During the last two years there were actions of Trump that probably deserved launching
impeachment proceeding. For example, attempt of regime change in Venezuela. But neoliberal
Dems were fully on board with that. So the main loss which this bunch of swindlers can't
settle with is the the loss in their ability to defraud the country: I feel that the
neoliberal Democrats' real problem with Trump is that he ended their scheme of defrauding the
country in favor of his own.
Now with this Ukraine-gate scandal the US voters have, in effect, are being defrauded by a
group of the same sophisticated political swindlers that ruled the county during Clinton and
Obama administrations.
"Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats again tried to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump."
If Warren is nominated she can run on dirt because she does not have the sewage history.
If she runs on policy people will remember that she will fce 20 million families who got a
$500/month Obamacare tax. These are the families that cost Dems four elections. She should
not mention medicare at all, once she has the nomination.
Impeachment is what happens when a President has sex and lies about it. So it has become
meaningless, thanks to Repubs.
If I were Trump, I would take the impeachment and run with it. Trump will claim he got
impeached because he was hunting for Biden sewage, and there is no Biden, thanks to the
impeachment. His team agrees, take the impeachment and run with it.
Who liked Biden? None of the young turks, they want Biden out as badly as they want Trump
out. I just have this feeling, Biden is a gonner, sort of a bipartisan play if you ask
me.
For The First Time, Warren Beats Out Biden For No. 1 Spot In National Poll
--
Biden gone. Harris gone. Pete gone. Beto gone. It is between Bernie and Liz. Both of whom
will be telling 10 million families that health care is free and they will not get hit with a
$500/month tax. Problem is, voters regret on this is lifelong, a ot of voters, right here in
this blog, think Obamacare was deceptive. But these same voters now put the cost on the
federal debt machine, courtesy of Trump, and they prefer that.
Trump wins as long as there is no blue bar and Repubs avoid mass shootings in Florida or
Texas. We, this group and our favorite economists have lost credibility on medical
programs.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
Sanders is spend force in any case. His endorsement does not matter much. But for Warren this
is a blunder. Tulsi is the only one out of this troika who proved to be capable politician.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
"... Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest of you are on your own." ..."
And yet America's policies were headed in the wrong direction. The big banks kept lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would
gut families' last refuge in the bankruptcy courts -- the same bill we describe in this book. (It went by the awful name Bankruptcy
Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, but it should have been called the Gut the Safety Net and Pay OIT the Big Banks Act.).
The proposed law would carefully preserve bankruptcy protections for the likes of Donald Trump and his friends, while ordinary families
that had been crushed by debts from medical problems or job losses were thrown under the bus.
When we wrote The Two-Income Trap, it was already pretty clear that the big banks would win this battle. The fight kept going
for two more years, but the tide of blame-the-unlucky combined with relentless lobbying and campaign contributions finally overwhelmed
Congress.
In 2005, the Wall Street banking industry got the changes they wanted, and struggling families lost out. After the law was rewritten,
about 800,000 families a year that once would have turned to bankruptcy to try to get back on their feet were shut out of the system.1
That was 800,000 families -- mostly people who had lost jobs, suffered a medical catastrophe, or gone through a divorce or death
in the family. And now, instead of reorganizing their finances and building some security, they were at the mercy of debt collectors
who called twenty or thirty times a day -- and could keep on calling and calling for as long as they thought they could squeeze another
nickel from a desperate family.
As it turned out, the new law tore a big hole in the last safety net for working families, just in time for the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, the bank regulators kept playing blind and deaf while the housing bubble inflated. Once it burst, the economy collapsed.
The foreclosure problem we flagged back in 2003 rolled into a global economic meltdown by 2008, as millions of people lost their
homes, and millions more lost their jobs, their savings, and their chance at a secure retirement. Overall, the total cost of the
crash was estimated as high as S14 trillion.2
Meanwhile, America's giant banks got bailed out, CEO pay shot up, the stock market roared back, and the investor class got rich
beyond even their own fevered dreams.3
A generation ago, a fortune-teller might have predicted a very different future. With so many mothers headed into the workforce,
Americans might have demanded a much heavier investment in public day care, extended school days, and better family leave policies.
Equal pay for equal work might have become sacrosanct. As wages stagnated, there might have been more urgency for raising the minimum
wage, strengthening unions, and expanding Social Security. And our commitment to affordable college and universal preschool might
have become unshakeable.
But the political landscape was changing even faster than the new economic realities. Government was quickly becoming an object
of ridicule, even to the president of the United States. Instead of staking his prestige on making government more accountable and
efficient, Ronald Reagan repeated his famous barb "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are Tin from the government
and I'm here to help."'8 After generations of faithfulness to the promise of the Constitution to promote general welfare, at the
moment when the economic foundations of the middle class began to tremble, our efforts to strengthen each other and offer a helping
hand had become the butt of a national joke.
Those who continued to believe in what we could do together faced another harsh reality: much of government had been hijacked
by the rich and powerful. Regulators who were supposed to watch out for the public interest shifted their loyalties, smiling benignly
as giant banks jacked up short-term profits by cheating families, looking the other way as giant power companies scam mod customers,
and partying with industry executives as oil companies cut comers on safety and environmental rules. In this book we told one of
those stories, about how a spineless Congress rewrote the bankruptcy laws to enrich a handful of credit card companies.
Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's
Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest
of you are on your own."
These shifts played nicely into each other. Every' attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules tilted
more and These shifts played nicely into each other. Every attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules
tilted more and more in favor of those who could hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. Lower taxes for the wealthy -- and more money
in the pockets of those who subscribed to the greed-is-good mantra. And if the consequence meant less money for preschools or public
colleges or disability coverage -- the things that would create more security for an overstretched middle class -- then that was
just too bad.
Little by little, as the middle class got deeper and deeper in trouble, government stopped working for the middle class, or at
least it stopped working so hard. The rich paid a little less and kept a little more. Even if they didn't say it in so many words,
they got exactly what they wanted. Remember the 90 percent -- America's middle class, working class, and poor -- the ones who got
70 percent of all income growth from 1935 through 1980?
From 1980-2014, the 90 percent got nothing.9 None. Zero. Zip. Not a penny in income growth. Instead, for an entire generation,
the top 10 percent captured all of the income growth in the entire country. l(X) percent.
It didn't have to be this way. The Two-Income Trap is about families that w'ork hard, but some things go wrong along the way --
illnesses and job losses, and maybe some bad decisions. But this isn't what has put the middle class on the ropes. After all, people
have gotten sick and lost jobs and made less-than-perfect decisions for generations -- and vet, for generations America's middle
class expanded. creating more opportunity to build real economic security and pass on a brighter future to their children.
What would it take to help strengthen the middle class? The problems facing the middle-class family are complex and far-reaching,
and the solutions must be too. We wish there could be a simple silver bullet, but after a generation of relentless assault, there
just isn't. But there is one overriding idea. Together we can. It's time to say it out loud: a generation of I-got-mine policy-making
has failed -- failed miserably, completely, and overwhelmingly. And it's time to change direction before the entire middle class
has been replaced by hundreds of millions of Americans barely hanging on by their fingernails.
Americas middle class was built through investments in education, infrastructure, and research -- and by' making sure we all have
a safety net. We need to strengthen those building blocks: Step up investments in public education. Rein in the cost of college and
cut out- standing student loans. Create universal preschool and affordable child care. Upgrade infrastructure -- mass transit, energy,
communications -- to make it more attractive to build good, middle-class jobs here in America. Recognize that the modem economy can
be perilous, and a strong safety net is needed now more than ever. Strengthen disability coverage, retirement coverage, and paid
sick leave. And for heavens sake, get rid of the awful banker-backed bankruptcy law, so that when things go wrong, families at least
have a chance at a fresh start. We welcome the re-issue of The Two-Income Trap because we see the original book as capturing a critical
moment, those last few minutes in which the explanation of why so many hardworking, plav-by- tho-mlcs people were in so much trouble
was simple: It was their own fault. If only they would just pull up their socks, cinch their belts a little tighter, and stop buying
so much stuff, they -- and our country -- would be just fine. That myth has died. And we say', good riddance.
"... Tulsi is the only Democrat who has her head screwed tight on her shoulders. As for the rest of that clown show---God help us!! ..."
"... Russia Gate 2.0 ..."
"... The Ukrainian gas HoldCo gave Hunter Biden a no-show job that paid $600K a year. They could have hired dozen of Yale Law grads for less. ..."
"... Kind of sad we Americans after two years of Russia gate will be dragged through a new political ploy. Our intelligence community and the DOJ need come clean and quick. ..."
"... The transcript of Trump's call to the Ukrainian president is out. There is absolutely no mention of anything close to a quid pro quo. ..."
"... "Repeat after me: the President should not demand foreign powers investigate his political rivals." How about Senate Democrats, Hillary Clinton, the DNC? Do you have a problem with them soliciting, even paying cash, to foreigners to investigate Trump? How about spying? Do you have a problem with one party using U.S. intelligence to spy on another party's nominee? ..."
"... This time - played into showing an utter electoral weakness by demanding an impeachment with no grounds for such a year before an election they, according to their screams on every corner, are "poised to win". Uncool, bros and sises, uncooool... ..."
"... The only mildly critical observation as to how exactly Trump played the said fiddle is that it would have been a tad better had he taken his time and waited for some days. ..."
"... The Democrats have hitched their train to the impeachment star not with impeachment per se as the goal. ..."
"... Just dragging us through this execrable process will achieve what they want nicely, i.e., disrupting possible Trump progress on his policy initiatives ( such as they are ), and weakening his electoral chances amongst the incorrigibly indecisive segment of American voters at the margin. Fighting corruption with corruption has now become the norm in Washington, D.C. ..."
I agree with Tulsi Gabbard - an impeachment at this time serves no point. It also discounts
the value of voting Democrat. This act may hand the White House to Trump for another 4
years. One can only hope that a Tusi G can arise and become our next president. The rest of
the team are basically knee jerk politicians waiting for the lobbies to instruct.
If Democrats weren't fanatically determined to prevent her from arising at all costs, she
could become the president already in a year. She can realiably beat any Republican aside
from Rand Paul, who isn't much more loved within his party than she within hers. One can
only wonder why the Democratic establishment hates her so much. Not a member of the Cult?
Better losing on and on and on than allowing an anti-war candidate to get the nomination?
Collective political manifestation of Freudian death wish?
"I hope with all of my soul, and with respect for those like Ellsberg, Manning, and
Snowden, that this whistleblower proves worthy to stand next to them. And God help him and
our country if not."
So, Democrats have done just what he wanted them to do - started a miserable (and a doomed,
given that the Senate is in Republican hands) circus instead of actually campaigning with
their voters, while also riling his ones. But thanks, team D, for showing what your
candidates' chances to get elected really are. Has been no secret to me that those chances
are illusory, but thanks for making the thing official anyways. Starting a stillborn
attempt to depose a president, against whom you, in your fantasy world, are "poised to win"
in a year, is the best testimony of how toast you are in the said fantasy world's real
counterpart. Attacongressboys and attacongressgirls. Take some metaphorical cookies from
the metaphorical jar.
The only sad thing is that you're sullying the notion of whistleblower with a clown,
who, most probably, doesn't even exist. The whole thing is actually your petty revenge
against Snowden, who has just released his new book, ain't it? Low.
"Remember, he knows what was said and the Dems demanding impeachment do not."
Exactly and the Dems are setting themselves up for another public disaster thus handing
Trump his reelection. Anyway Biden is history and he should withdraw immediately. Fighting
this losing battle will only invoke the well deserved wrath of justice.
Looks to me that Trump is turning the tables on the democrats and they are in for a
world of hurt when the investigations and indictments start rolling now.
Kind of sad we Americans after two years of Russia gate will be dragged through a new
political ploy. Our intelligence community and the DOJ need come clean and quick.
The transcript of Trump's call to the Ukrainian president is out. There is absolutely no
mention of anything close to a quid pro quo. Trump asks the president to take calls from
Bill Barr and Giuliani to talk about corruption broadly. Biden's son is also included in
what they'll talk about. It is all very high-level, general, surface talk. If Dems want to
try and impeach on this, it is a long shot at best.
https://fm.cnbc.com/applica...
"Repeat after me: the President should not demand foreign powers investigate his political
rivals."
How about Senate Democrats, Hillary Clinton, the DNC? Do you have a problem with them soliciting, even paying cash, to foreigners to
investigate Trump? How about spying? Do you have a problem with one party using U.S. intelligence to spy on
another party's nominee?
I'll repeat after you once you clarify your position on those things. But if you're not
consistent, why should I?
The transcript released has Trump asking for an investigation of Biden and Biden's son
explicitly. Then it emphasizes how "very good" to the Ukraine the U.S. has been and how the
relationship "has not always been reciprocal".
At the time of the call the president was holding back hundreds of millions of dollars
in Ukranian aid. How dumb do you have to be to not interpret this as a gangsta time of quid-pro-quo
attempt?
The whole whistle blower report should be released.
The Demos have no real choice but to start an impeachment query as their voters will
interpret not doing this as clear cowardice and moral spinelessness. They know the
impeachment won't succeed.
So, looks like "some" folks have been played like a fiddle all over again. This time -
played into showing an utter electoral weakness by demanding an impeachment with no grounds
for such a year before an election they, according to their screams on every corner, are
"poised to win". Uncool, bros and sises, uncooool...
The only mildly critical observation as to how exactly Trump played the said fiddle is
that it would have been a tad better had he taken his time and waited for some days.
Nothing practical - the situation served its purpose fairly and squarely - but it would be
such a cute circus, and wailings would be so much louder if everything fell apart just a
little bit later. But maybe he just doesn't like the circus. De gustibus non est
disputandum , though.
Whoa, there cowboys and indigenous peoples! The Democrats have hitched their train to the
impeachment star not with impeachment per se as the goal.
Just dragging us through this
execrable process will achieve what they want nicely, i.e., disrupting possible Trump
progress on his policy initiatives ( such as they are ), and weakening his electoral
chances amongst the incorrigibly indecisive segment of American voters at the margin.
Fighting corruption with corruption has now become the norm in Washington, D.C.
It's sort of the long game, with a hint of the "Hail Mary" pass thrown in for good
measure. They know what they're up to. But, as the author says, it just might backfire.
They may overplay their hand. Or make one of the two classic blunders.
Vizzini: "Ha-ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most
famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well
known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line!'"
Minor quibbles aside -- Warren presumably doesn't derive most of her income from capital
owner-ship, and markets are compatible with socialism -- the
Massachusetts senator is right. She and Sanders draw their lineage from distinct political
traditions.
Warren is a regulator at heart who believes that capitalism works well as long as fair
competition exists; Sanders is a class-conscious tribune who sees capitalism as fundamentally unjust . Warren
frames her most ambitious reforms as bids to make capitalism " accountable
"; Sanders pushes legislation called the "
Stop BEZOS Act " and denounces ceos for exploiting
workers . Warren seeks a harmonious accord between workers and employers; Sanders
encourages workers to fight back.
Foreign policy differences spring from their respective traditions as well. While both are
suspicious of military interventionism, Vermont's junior senator has shown himself much more
willing to criticize the crimes of US empire -- famously proclaiming in
a 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton that "Henry Kissinger is not my friend." Warren, though a
critic of Bush-style adventurism, sees America's role in more conventional terms, arguing in a
Foreign
Affairs essay this year that we should "project American strength and values
throughout the world."
Warren's political tradition is the left edge of middle-class liberalism; Sanders hails from
America's socialist tradition. Or, to put the distinction in more personal terms: Warren is
Louis
Brandeis , Sanders is Eugene Debs .
A presentation and reading by Hamilton Gregory, author of "McNamara's Folly: The Use of
Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam." Because so many college students were avoiding military service
during the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered mental standards to induct
354,000 low-IQ men. they were known as McNamara's "Moron Corps." Their death toll in combat was
appalling. Gregory indicates at the end of his talk that the situation didn't really change.
The same practice is taking place nowadays.
England patriot says:
September
24, 2019 at 5:27 pm GMT 100 Words A lot of people mistake low IQ brutishness for genuine
bravery and strength, which is why blacks are considered by many whites to be the toughest race
and probably why they are favoured by the military.
A big weakness of the US and UK militaries is the assumption that street thugs make the most
effective and capable troops, in reality such people are often the most useless and cowardly in
an actual war zone. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All
Comments
The story is definitely true. Not only were there low moron troops but even the so called
West Point graduates with no experience in war were complete idiots. It was a two fold fiasco
because these graduates couldn't read coordinates on maps and the morons couldn't find them
and thus they often bombed our own troops.
There were a lot "friendly fire" deaths that were never reported. The carnage of Vietnam
was a disgrace from poor military strategies to morons and incompetents running them. We were
not prepared for the "Jungle Type Gorilla War" our leaders got us into and the results are
told forever on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. What did they die for? Another
"Communist" are taking over Domino Policy when the true Communist Jews were running the stuff
in the USA and destroying us.
Two destroyers were recently collided into by slow-moving merchant ships. Someone said that
this is like a Chevy Corvette being struck by a bulldozer on the Bonneville Salt Flats while
a team of trained experts had the job of keeping the Corvette from being hit.
@A123
Any civilization that sends their Best and Brightest to the front lines is taking huge risks.
Cannon fodder troops generally come (and should come) from the lower tiers of society. This
promotes a nation's long-term health and vitality.
There is no starvation–only fasting–during Ramadan. Fasting occurs each day
from sunrise to sundown. On the other hand, Israel's high fertility rates among Orthodox and
Sephardic Jews has dysgenics written all over it. This explains why Israel's average IQ
average remains below 100. Highly religious and less-intelligent Jews are producing a
disproportionate number of the births inside Israel.
It's a lesson the US could've learned back in World War II. The US deployed black troops in
France, and instead of proving that the blacks were just as capable fighters as the whites,
the blacks engaged in typical black behavior of rape and thievery. It got so bad in areas
like Cherbourg that the local population preferred the Germans over their supposed
'liberators'.
The same thing happened earlier in the war when the Allies deployed Moroccan mercenaries
in Italy.
After the battle of Monte Cassino, these savages could rape Italian women with impunity, they
wouldn't be stopped by the French, the British or indeed the Americans, and as a result more
than 30.000 Italian women became victims of these vicious assaults.
But I bet it was all in good faith of course, after all the US was making Europe safe for
stali I mean, 'democracy'
Politicians did not want the war to become an issue among the affluent. It was the old adage
about wars: "Rich men start them; poor men fight them." There were plenty of chicken hawks
around.
The article and comments, so far, are interesting.
A military is a tool of the ruling class/caste/layer/whatever. What is moronic, or not, is
for them to decide. The only principle: is the tool good for the job?
There are several very good reasons to have "low-level IQ" troops in the military, a
modern war/combat in particular.
In an infantry company of, say, 160 men, a smart O.C. would love to have 10-20 of those
types. Plenty of jobs/assignments for them and definitely attributing to combat efficiency of
the unit.
Even better in logistics, especially in higher units/rear areas. Comparison:
warehouse/storage facilities employees in civvy street.
BTW, those guys, if/when properly treated (LEADERSHIP) can be utterly loyal and
dependable. For "experts" around, there are plenty of miserable, mind-numbing jobs/tasks in
the military, plus quite dangerous, which those guys shall do when others won't. If .treated
properly
And, one more element, especially in contemporary wars: certain moral attitude, "relaxed"
approach to human life and limb etc. Ability to commit acs of war other, more, say, smart,
"sensitive" troops, are reluctant to do.
Israel. IDF as the state tool to keep Palestinians under control.
Occupation forces of The Empire in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And one more thing: for suppressing possible internal unrest in a Western country ..For
that job you really don't want very intelligent/sensitive people.
Etc.
Big topic but, of course, not for this thread, for obvious reasons. Program.
Sorry for the interruption, guys. Feel free to resume the "bashing".
Infantry in Vietnam was known to be awful. Everyone in the military knew to avoid it. It was
openly used as a threat for non-compliance to troops elsewhere.
There were certainly exceptions. Some Marines, people wanting or needing to get their
ticket punched, etc. But before anything, Vietnam Infantry was getting the dregs. Not that I
doubt McNamera leaned into it as an opportunity.
Why in the world did they want or need all these troops? Westmorland kept asking for more
and more. After 500,000, per the pentagon papers, the JCS mood Westmorland that given US
presence in Europe, Japan, Korea, etc., there were no more extra troops.
Too bad that the US military has made a cottage industry out of revisionist accounts
regarding how it could have been "won". Showing a remarkable lack of insight into what it
means to win.
@A123
Interesting to see how a conniving Jew takes a piece about Vietnam and uses it to further his
objective of trying (quite unsuccessfully, one infers) to generate sympathy for the
Judenreich. He then doubles down with a further tangent leading somehow to Ramadan (!) It's
almost comical how transparent Jew scheming has become. It makes one wonder if the Hasbara
brigades have had to go low-IQ at this point?
Both in terms of IQ and class background, infantry in Vietnam were generally
representative of the general population. As one author assessed, "If they [soldiers in
combat units] were not the social and intellectual cream of American youth, neither were they
its dregs or castoffs."
nI saw the author of the book give at talk. I believe it was at a Tennessee Unversity. What
he described he saw as an enlisted man if I remember correctly. He was sent to OCS later and
sounded a very decent man. The conditions were awful for these guys. They were treated as
expendable by peers and officers alike.
I wonder how the IDF works this issue out. The Israelis are masters of the universe at
everything don't you know. They are utter geniuses.
"... Rudy Drops New Bombs: Slams Obama Cabinet 'Pattern Of Corruption'; Claims China 'Bought' Biden ..."
"... Warren wins the nomination because the issue is Swamp Sewage and she hasn't been around long enough to emit much of it. Biden has a ton of it. Trump has three years of it. ..."
Rudy Drops New Bombs: Slams Obama Cabinet 'Pattern Of Corruption'; Claims China 'Bought'
Biden
---
Rudy on a roll. Go look it up on a safe site.
Warren wins the nomination because the issue is Swamp Sewage and she hasn't been around
long enough to emit much of it. Biden has a ton of it. Trump has three years of it.
"... Warren proved to be a very weak, mediocre politician. By joining the calls to "Impeach Trump" she proved this again. And this is not the first time she made a very bad call. Looks like she is completely malleable candidate. The candidate without spine outside his favorite re-regulation issues. ..."
"... Ukraine-gate impeachment process (aka another attempt to demonize Trump after Russiagate fiasco) is what Trump badly needs now, as it will cement his voting block and might bring back those voters who are appalled by his betrayal of almost all election promises. ..."
"... As Ukraine-gate is based on a false rumor and actually implicates Biden, not Trump (and after Trump decision to open the transcript Dems now need to move goalposts like it was with the inner party member Parteigenosse Mueller witch hunt ). ..."
"... It portrays the Dems as clueless political scum who are ready to resort to dirty tricks in order to protect neoliberal warmonger Biden, and maintain Wall-Street favorable status quo. ..."
The Senate republicans should be forced to block trumps impeachment. This is a good election
issue in deep purple states with a senator up for re election. Plus a good house issue. Let
the people judge both party wagons
Trump and Biden make a perfect pair of party Totem heads
Tulsi is the only talented politician among those who are running on Democratic Platform.
And I applaud her courage to stand against the mob
Warren proved to be a very weak, mediocre politician. By joining the calls to "Impeach
Trump" she proved this again. And this is not the first time she made a very bad call. Looks like she is completely
malleable candidate. The candidate without spine outside his favorite re-regulation issues.
She essentially gave Trump additional ammunition to attack her and poach her supporters. I
would now attack her along the lines:
"Do not believe anything Warren say; she does have spine. Look how easily she was
co-opted to join this witch-hunt. If Warren wins, she will instantly fold and will do what
bought by Wall Street Dems leadership will ask her. I am not perfect but I withstood
Russiagate witch-hunt and that proves that with all my faults I am the only independent
politician in this race, who can go against the flow and deliver what was promised; please
give additional time and I will deliver"
Of course, this is disingenuous projection as Trump did the same, but that's politics
;-)
I still believe that Warren has chances to win against Trump. But with such moves by Dem
leadership this might no longer be true. Why Warren does not attack Trump disastrous domestic
and foreign policy record instead of making such questionable calls is not clear to me. Just
a diagram "Trump promises vs reality" as election advertisement might improve her
chances.
Ukraine-gate impeachment process (aka another attempt to demonize Trump after Russiagate
fiasco) is what Trump badly needs now, as it will cement his voting block and might bring
back those voters who are appalled by his betrayal of almost all election promises.
As Ukraine-gate is based on a false rumor and actually implicates Biden, not Trump (and
after Trump decision to open the transcript Dems now need to move goalposts like it was with
the inner party member Parteigenosse Mueller witch hunt ).
It portrays the Dems as clueless
political scum who are ready to resort to dirty tricks in order to protect neoliberal
warmonger Biden, and maintain Wall-Street favorable status quo.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has supported the nuclear agreement since its
inception, has levied criticism toward the White House. On June 18, in response to a New York
Times report titled, "Trump Adds Troops After Iran Says It Will Breach Nuclear Deal" (a
questionable media framing given that the U.S. had already violated the deal), she
tweeted:
"I hope Iran chooses a different path. But let's be clear: Trump provoked this crisis. He
has no strategy to contain it, he's burned through our friends and allies, and now he's
doubling down on military force. We can't afford another forever war."
While Warren was correct to argue against war, she opens by appearing to place blame
against Iran, neglecting to acknowledge the U.S.'s role in villainizing Iran in the first
place.
On June 20, after reports of the Navy drone were published, Warren elaborated on her
comments, adopting a stronger oppositional stance to the prospect of war with Iran.
"Trump provoked this crisis, and his reckless foreign policy by tweet will only worsen it.
I've co-sponsored legislation to prohibit a war with Iran. We need to de-escalate tensions --
not let the war hawks in this administration drag us into conflict. #NoWarWithIran"
That same day, she followed with
"Donald Trump promised to bring our troops home. Instead he has pulled out of a deal that
was working and instigated another unnecessary conflict. There is no justification for
further escalating this crisis -- we need to step back from the brink of war."
Here, Warren uses stronger language to denounce Trump's actions, but still falls short of
a moral denunciation of U.S. violence or a more incisive analysis of the Iran nuclear deal's
power relations. Meanwhile, Warren's vote for new sanctions against Iran in 2017 weakens her
legislative record. ...
Warren is far more progressive than mainstream Democrats like Joe Biden. She calls for
withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Warren campaigns for the United
State to rejoin the nuclear accord with Iran and to end trade pacts that hurt workers.
"Warren's foreign policy positions have shifted a fair amount in recent years,
particularly during the past few months," says Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics at the
University of San Francisco, who provides foreign policy advice to the Warren campaign.
The ratcheting up of retaliatory actions between the US and Iran will lead to a war that
will be devastating to the people of both countries. As president I will re-enter the Iran
Nuclear Agreement and end the sanctions against Iran to move us back from the precipice of
war.
Reckless Retaliation Has Us One Spark Away From War
That's to who political power belongs under late capitalism and neoliberalism: financial
oligarchy. He who pays the piper calls the tune: " Do you imagine those who foot those huge
bills are fools? Don't you know that they make sure of getting their money back, with interest,
compound upon compound? "
Notable quotes:
"... Here we all are, piddling around with why Nancy Pelosi won't release the hounds in the House of Representatives, and waiting for some poor bastard in intelligence to come forward with what he really knows, and with a vulgar talking yam still in office. Meanwhile, Bill Weld has cut right to the heel of the hunt. You think you can't scare this guy? Put the gallows in his eyes. I mean, wow." ..."
"... " The greatest single hold of "the interests" is the fact that they are the "campaign contributors" -- the men who supply the money for "keeping the party together," and for "getting out the vote." Did you ever think where the millions for watchers, spellbinders, halls, processions, posters, pamphlets, that are spent in national, state and local campaigns come from? Who pays the big election expenses of your congressman, of the men you send to the legislature to elect senators? ..."
"Well, Bill Weld, former governor of the Commonwealth (God save it!), really shot the moon
to begin the week. Appearing on MSNBC, Weld made it plain. From the Washington Post:
"Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election,"
Weld said during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"It couldn't be clearer, and that's not just undermining democratic institutions. That is
treason. It's treason, pure and simple, and the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is
death. That's the only penalty...The penalty under the Constitution is removal from office,
and that might look like a pretty good alternative to the president if he could work out a
plea deal.""
Well, all right, then.
Here we all are, piddling around with why Nancy Pelosi won't release the hounds in the
House of Representatives, and waiting for some poor bastard in intelligence to come forward
with what he really knows, and with a vulgar talking yam still in office. Meanwhile, Bill
Weld has cut right to the heel of the hunt. You think you can't scare this guy? Put the
gallows in his eyes. I mean, wow."
" The greatest single hold of "the interests" is the fact that they are the "campaign
contributors" -- the men who supply the money for "keeping the party together," and for
"getting out the vote." Did you ever think where the millions for watchers, spellbinders,
halls, processions, posters, pamphlets, that are spent in national, state and local campaigns
come from? Who pays the big election expenses of your congressman, of the men you send to the
legislature to elect senators?
Do you imagine those who foot those huge bills are fools? Don't you know that they make
sure of getting their money back, with interest, compound upon compound? Your candidates get
most of the money for their campaigns from the party committees; and the central party
committee is the national committee with which congressional and state and local committees
are affiliated. The bulk of the money for the "political trust" comes from "the interests."
"The interests" will give only to the "political trust."
Our part as citizens of the republic is plain enough. We must stand our ground. We must
fight the good fight. Heartsick and depressed as we may be at times because of the spread of
graft in high places and its frightfully contaminating influence, we must still hold up our
heads. We must never lose an opportunity to show that as private citizens we are opposed to
public plunderers."
"Warren's rise shakes up Democratic field" [ The
Hill ]. "A new poll showing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leading former Vice President
Joe Biden in Iowa has shaken up the Democratic nomination battle -- and insiders across the
party are gaming out what it all means. Warren currently has 22 percent support to Biden's 20
percent, according to the well-respected Des Moines Register–CNN–Mediacom poll,
released Saturday night. The two are well clear of the rest of the field, with Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) in third place with 11 percent support . With more than four months to go, the
experts all agree that it's too early to make solid predictions. But the battle for Iowa is
heating up by the day."
Is there any reason to see what is going on as more than just Biden support bailing to "Plan
C", i.e., the next most establishment-friendly candidate who has any apparent chance of
winning? Sanders' support seems solid. Admittedly, I would much rather see Sanders slowly
eating away at the "pro-establishment" fraction of Dem voters, but there is nothing to suggest
that he is losing support.
The more I see of Warren, the less I like her- and I would not have voted for her to begin
with. I'm getting very tired of moderate Republicans being packaged and sold as
"progressives".
To her credit, Warren does have a theory of change:
After dinner, "Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice," Ms. Warren
writes. "I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say
whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get
lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what
they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize
other insiders.
"• I'm not sure I agree. There are many, many, many of those "boutique lobbying or
consulting shops" -- "
And how is Trump's shakedown hotel any different from DNC dialing for dollars? Or would it
be better if he limited himself just renting out the Lincoln Bedroom like the Clintons did?
I want to reiterate the point that Yglesias seems incapable of recognizing* that a network
of small shops could create more damage than one guy, even a titan. Look at health care policy,
for example. It looks like Elizabeth Warren's daughter runs a body-shop for the kind of person
Yglesias regards as harmless. Thread:
Samuel Douglas Retweeted Samuel Douglas
I spent some time looking into Warren Tyagi's consulting firm (Business Talent Group), and I
learned some interesting things 1/
Elizabeth Warren's daughter co-founded HealthAllies, a venture capital-backed health
benefits firm which was later acquired by United Health Group, the second largest health
insurer in the U.S.
NOTE * Incapable of recognizing, because obviously professionals don't have class
interests.
Wow, thanks for this, Lambert. See my link to the story in a reply
above for yet another shady bit about Warren's daughter. I wouldn't normally find myself on
RedState, but searching 'WARren daughter WFP' in the googlygoo brought this up first and after
a read-through, seems pretty straight-up. It even includes reporting from Jordan Chariton in
the meat of the story.
It's time for Warren to drop out. She's way too compromised.
"... Aaron Maté warned, "They're doubling down on failure: a failure to transform after losing 2016; & a failure to bring Trump down w/ the failed Russiagate conspiracy theory." ..."
We've long commented that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is certainly the most interesting and
'outside-the-establishment-box' candidate on the Democrat side running for president
--
a
"Ron
Paul of the Left"
of sorts given her outspoken criticism of US regime change wars and standing
against foreign policy adventurism as her central message.
She even once met in 2016 with then President-elect Trump to discuss Syria policy and
non-interventionism at a private meeting at Trump Tower just ahead of his being sworn into office,
after which she said both agreed to resist "the drumbeats of war [on Syria] that neocons have been
beating to drag us into an escalation...".
And now
she's resisting calls for Trump to be impeached,
saying it
would be
"terribly divisive"
. She
told "Fox &
Friends"
on Tuesday that she'll remain consistent to her message that the road to 2020 can only
be found in a clear victory and mandate, saying it's for
"the American people... making
that decision" of who is in the White House,
not impeachment
.
"I believe that impeachment at this juncture would be terribly divisive for the
country at a time when we are already extremely divided. The hyperpartisanship is one of the
main things driving our country apart,"
Gabbard
told
host Brian Kilmeade.
Once again showing herself outside of the establishment and its blindly loyal partisan
narrative, and perhaps more in-tune with the American public, she's further setting herself apart
from her main Democratic rivals and the presidential nominee front-runners on this one.
"I think it's important to beat Donald Trump, that's why I'm running for president," she said.
"But I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard making that
decision."
Top contender Elizabeth Warren, for example, tweeted
early Tuesday
, "The House must
impeach. It must start today."
A number of commentators pointed out this would likely end in failure as the Democrats double
down on impeachment even after Trump agreed to release the full, unredacted transcript of the
Ukraine call in question.
One progressive journalist and political commentator, Aaron Maté warned, "They're doubling down
on failure: a failure to transform after losing 2016; & a failure to bring Trump down w/ the failed
Russiagate conspiracy theory."
As we noted earlier, Democrats are now scrambling as it seems President Trump's
decision
to release the transcript has spoiled their narrative.
Like the failed Mueller investigation, should this blow up in Democrats' faces
it will
practically guarantee the reelection of Donald Trump
.
And likely for this very reason, Pelosi herself had for months resisted calls to start the
impeachment process, and
yet here we are
, with Pelosi leading the charge.
When the other candidates prove reliably progressive, I'll consider them. So far, Sanders
is the only one to reach that threshold. You may call that "purism"; I call it not supporting
candidates who don't support me.
I contributed to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign (and supported her as a potential VP candidate)
despite having reservations about her, specifically because I wanted her to be on the debate
stage to promote her anti-imperialist foreign policy views. She lost a lot of ground with me
on her vote on the anti-BDS referendum.
Not a Gabbard 'fan', despite donating to her. She was never a serious candidate; her
usefulness was in bringing a genuine anti-war platform into the debate. Now that the
'democratic' Party has cut her out, she doesn't have much point. She's still a drone loving
Zionist, and her continued supporting of literal fascist (or the next closest thing) Modi is
just gross.
Purity suggests politics is about morality. It isn't. It's about who's going to get you
stuff. Only Bernie talks in those terms. And he isn't pure but barely acceptable.
Purity is posturing for those who think politics is about public performance and self
expression. Upper middle class liberals can afford to approach things this way, but most
people are too busy trying to keep their horse out of the ditch. They need stuff.
FOX NEWS HOST Tucker Carlson was saying nice things about Elizabeth Warren again.
Well, not entirely nice things.
Speaking at a conference of conservative journalists and intellectuals this summer (*), he
took a moment to label the liberal Massachusetts senator and top contender for the Democratic
presidential nomination a "joke" and a "living tragedy."
But he also spoke, in admiring tones and at substantial length, about "The Two-Income
Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke," the book Warren wrote with her daughter in
2004.
"Elizabeth Warren wrote one of the best books I've ever read on economics," he said.
By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and
declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a
pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually
"completely real" and "totally bad."
His Bolshevist pronouncements were probably not a surprise to anyone who'd watched
Carlson's show closely in the months leading up to his speech. But Fox, despite its outsize
influence, has a relatively small audience.
And it's not just Carlson's evolution that's escaped notice. It's hard to keep track of
what most of the key players on the right are saying these days, with President Trump soaking
up so much attention.
But while the commander-in-chief thrashes about, something important is taking shape in
his shadow -- the outlines of a new conservatism inspired, or at least elevated, by his rise
to power.
It's a conservatism that tries to wrestle with the post-Cold War, post-industrial angst
that fired his election -- dropping a reflexive fealty to big business that dates back to the
Reagan era and focusing more intently on the struggles of everyday Americans.
"There are many downsides, I will say, to Trump," Carlson said, in his speech this summer.
"But one of the upsides is, the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely ... that it did
cause some significant percentage of people to say, 'wait a second, if that can happen, what
else is true?' "
The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but
among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley
of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of
opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But
it looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an
energized left.
Whether the two sides can actually forge a meaningful alliance in the glare of our
hyperpartisan politics is an open question. But a compact -- even a provisional one -- may
offer the country its best shot at building a meaningful, post-Trump politics.
. . .
CARLSON DELIVERED HIS speech at the National Conservatism Conference -- the first major
gathering aimed at forging a new, right-of-center approach in the age of Trump.
"This is our independence day," said Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political theorist and chief
organizer of the event, in his spirited opening remarks. "We declare independence from
neoconservatism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism."
"We are national conservatives," he said.
Any effort to build a right-of-center nationalism circa 2019 inevitably runs into
questions about whether it will traffic in bigotry.
And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do
just that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which
migrants are allowed into the country.
"In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off
with more whites and fewer nonwhites."
But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant.
Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately
rejecting six applicants. ...
"Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ...
She did make him look stupid – all he had was a handful of talking points. Occasionally
he did try to talk over her to hammer home his points, but often he sat quietly and let her
finish. When your interviewer lets you speak, he's interested in what you have to say, or if
opposed to you, in letting you hang yourself.
When he talks over you, he's simply trying to do all the talking while offering the
pretense of an interview.
Gabbard's uncompromising honesty and principles on these important foreign policy positions
give her the moral high ground.
Trump can't respond to that without betraying his entire Presidential aura.
She is correct that US citizens who sign up for the military take an oath to protect and
defend the constitution and the people of the United States. They did not take an oath to
protect foreign dictators incapable of basic defense of their most precious and valuable real
estate.
This is especially true when said dictators are the aggressors in a war of conquest against
their neighbors. After more than four years of fighting, using weapons produced by the United
States, with assistance by US military advisers, the Saudi Arabians have completely botched
their war in Yemen, committing dozens, if not hundreds, of despicable attacks on civilian
targets without anything to show for it but animosity and, now, wholly insecure
infrastructure.
That this infrastructure is vital to the global economy should be irrelevant to Trump's
calculus as to where to send US troops and war materiel. That was something Saudi Arabia's
Clown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman should have considered before starting this war back in
2015.
The Houthi rebels in Northern Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on the Abqaiq gas
processing facility as a direct consequence of Saudi aggression. Of course, they are backed by
Iran and Iranian technology.
It's nearly a week after the event and we still don't know for sure what happened. We have
vague assurances from anonymous sources with the US and Saudi governments but no concrete
details other than what was hit and how.
More questions abound, still, than answers.
That Trump ultimately decided against going to war with Iran over this incident doesn't
negate Gabbard's attack on him. It was cogent given the moment and is principled in how US
troops should be used.
In all of this discussion about a potential war with Iran no one in the Trump administration
or anywhere else have made a credible argument as to what actual threat Iran poses to the
people of the United States.
Vague proclamations by Iranian politicians of "death to America" are, ultimately far less
threatening or interesting than the parade of US Senators and Congresscritters saying that Iran
is a "rogue regime" and it should be wiped off the face of the earth.
Are our sensibilities so fragile that we can't handle a little criticism from people we have
waged war by proxy with for over 70 years?
How is this any different than the average tweet
by Lindsay Graham (R-AIPAC)?
We have senior officials, like the Secretary of State and the erstwhile National Security
Adviser calling Iran 'evil' and we have officially lumped their army in with the same lot of
terrorists as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. We have sanctioned their government and individuals within
it.
Never forget that you reap what you sow in this life. And any animosity Iran and Iranians
bear towards the US and Americans is richly deserved. The reverse, however, is difficult to
make a case for.
Because, little factoid, Iran hasn't attacked anyone in a span of time that is longer than
the US has been a country.
Iran threatens Israel in the same way that Israel threatens it. Saudi Arabia threatens Iran
as an oil competitor and religious one.
And the idea that the President of the United States should entertain even a mere thought of
going to war with Iran over an attack on Saudi oil production should be anathema to anyone with
two brain cells to rub together and make a spark.
Because at the end of the day this is not our fight. This is a fight between enemies made
rich by oil in some cases (Saudi, Iran), political clout in high places in the US and U.K. in
others (Israel) and friends in other high places and cultural integrity (Iran).
This is a cultural and religious conflict we barely understand and cannot change the
dynamics of by blundering in with weapons of mass destruction. It is precisely because we take
sides in this conflict that this conflict never ends.
And it is a conflict that dovetails with prevailing 'wisdom' in the West about how to
maintain control over the planet that dates back more than 150 years. And that is why we do
what we do. But it is time for that worldview to end.
It's time bury Mackinder's ideas alongside his corpse.
To Trump's credit he seems to have realized that this incident was another like the events
which led up to the US Global Hawk drone getting shot down in June. It was designed to get him
to over-commit to a policy which would engulf the world in a war that only a very few powerful
and highly placed want.
Even the tweet that Gabbard called him out on was carefully worded to cool things down and
hint that he wasn't prepared to respond militarily to this incident. As Gabbard climbs in the
polls and is treated worse than Bernie Sanders in 2016 and Ron Paul by the Republicans in 2008
and 2012, she will hold Trump to account on foreign policy with an ever-growing clout and moral
clarity which bodes well for the future of US involvement overseas.
And, like Nigel Farage in the U.K. offering the Tories a non-aggression pact to get a real
Brexit over the finish line, Gabbard should put country before career and applaud Trump when he
doesn't act like Saudi Arabia's "Bitch." That will win her even more votes and more respect
among the silent majority who are not in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome on both the
Left and the Right.
Along with this, the likely end of Netanyahu's political career should mark a sea change in
US policy. While AIPAC's pull is still very strong in the US, Israel's commitment to an
aggressive foreign policy with an uncommitted President should falter under a new government
without its Agitator-in-Chief.
And without that animus propelling events along eventually cooler heads will prevail, and
the present dynamic will change.
Trump made an enormous mistake pulling out of the JCPOA. That genie cannot be put back in
the bottle. The question now is does he have the sense and the humility to realize his board
position has materially weakened to the point where the probability of a rout is rising?
2020 for him has to be about making good on his promises to end the Empire building and
improving relations with Russia. With Putin openly trolling him and the Saudis recently over
weapon sales the odds of the latter happening are low.
But he can still make good on the former. Trump has lost so much of his goodwill with the
people he's 'negotiating with' that there is little to no wiggle room left. He has no leverage
and he's got no goodwill.
I saw this coming the day he bombed the Al-Shairat airbase in April 2017. I said then that
it was one of the biggest geopolitical mistakes ever. It set the stage for all the others
because it showed us just how out of his depth Trump was on foreign affairs. It set him back
with both Putin and Chinese Premier Xi and it also showed how easily he could be manipulated by
his staff and their rotten information.
It's a deep hole he's dug for himself. But there are still people who want to help him climb
out of it. Gabbard's 'bitch slap' is an example of the kind of tough love he needs to right his
Presidency's ship.
His base needs to do that a little more often and then maybe, just maybe, we'd get
somewhere
[T]here was no such thing as a progressive movement, that is, no organized campaign
uniting all the manifold efforts at political, social, and economic reform. On the contrary,
there were numerous progressive movements operating in different areas simultaneously . [T]he
progressive movement, in its political manifestations, was essentially a revolt of the middle
classes [i]
The Progressive Era is the title traditionally applied to the period from roughly 1900
through 1920 in U.S. history. It is particularly significant because it marks the first time
that our shared, fundamental values -- which collectively we call the American Political
Culture (APC) -- were called into question and, consequently, transformed. Although those two
decades are described by the single term, Progressive Era, there was actually much less
consistency to the period than its now well recognized title implies.
Progressive
Origins: the Populist Movement of the 1890s
For most of the first century of our nation's existence -- until the later decades of the
nineteenth century -- politics was fairly elitist in nature. That is to say, while much has
been written about our democratic heritage in general and about periods such as the "era of
Jacksonian democracy" in particular, in fact the role of ordinary citizens in running the
country was pretty limited. Over time, however, that situation became less and less acceptable
to the ordinary people who were doing the hard work that was moving the country forward but who
didn't have much of a say in deciding how the fruits of those labors got divided up and
distributed among different interests in society. The slowly spreading movement by which
ordinary people began demanding more of a voice in how the political economy was run is what we
call populism . Populism, in simple terms, is a democratic revolt against the ruling
powers of the well-to-do, well-positioned elites.
Common mythology has it that the populist revolts of the 1890s were, by and large, sagebrush
revolutions launched by small, independent farmers. The story holds that farmers in the
upper-midwest regions of the country were being gouged by the newly developed power of the
railroad trust. The monopoly-like power of the big railroads allowed them, according to this
line of analysis, to charge exorbitant rates for farmers to ship their crops to big-city
markets. While there certainly is an element of truth to this rendering of history, there also
is more to the story than that simple approach conveys.
The populist revolts of that period may have had as much to do with land speculation and the
price of real estate as with the relative rates for crops and shipping. The entrepreneurial
spirit for which Americans became so well known apparently was in full swing by the last decade
of the nineteenth century, including among small farmer-landowners in the rural Midwest.
Despite history's tendency (and our political culture's desire) to paint them as small,
independent farmers in the Jeffersonian tradition -- hacking out a new way of life for
themselves and their families in the bounteous but untamed wilderness of the American frontier
-- land speculation was not uncommon among the agricultural set. When, in the throes of the
worldwide economic depression of the 1890s, the bottom fell out of the (international)
agricultural real estate market, thousands of "small farmers" were left holding deeds to
homesteads that were suddenly worth considerably less than they had paid for them. And when the
private market failed, panicked landholders began turning to government to help them save their
real estate holdings.
As those cries for relief mounted, America grew up. Although the myth of the yeoman farmer
would never fade away completely -- indeed, it remains a critical component even in today's
political culture -- subsequently the ideal would be tempered by the new economic reality of
agriculture-as-ever-bigger-business. More important for our purposes, the politics of
the era underwent a fundamental change.
Those seeking to reform the system gravitated from an insurgent (populist/third-party)
political approach to a more traditional pursuit of politics by means of lobbying and pressure
tactics exercised within the existing, two-party system of Republicans and Democrats. The
Populist movement reached its apex with the presidential candidacy in 1896 of William Jennings
Bryan. Thereafter, the Progressives took up the reformist cause.
In a sense, the political unrest that characterized the populist decade was absorbed by a
growing rumble in the nation's cities. Where the landowner-farmers who drove the populist
movement had been narrowly rural in their upset, however, the newer, urban brand of
reform-minded agitator was more broadly national in outlook and more professional/intellectual
in background. In short, Progressivism would be a more complex, but also a more moderate,
tendency than was Populism.
In place of angry farmers and small-town leaders would form a coalition of clergy,
academics, lawyers and small professionals; all united against the growing power of both the
new barons of the industrializing, increasingly concentrated economy and the recently forming
labor unions that supplied a growing share of the manpower for the modern engines of American
growth. At the heart of the Progressives' concerns was the fear that the increasingly
concentrated power of the trusts and the unions would be able to drive prices ever upward.
Progressivism: A Conservative Approach in Liberal Clothing?
Seeking a
Restoration of Values
The Populists had been backward-looking insofar as they saw many of the problems facing
America as arising from the impersonal nature of the modern world, with its emphasis on science
and specialization; from economic concentration and social collectivization; and to a certain
extent from immigration.
Progressives shared some of those concerns, but with different interpretations of the
symptoms characterizing the changing American political economy. In particular, Progressives
didn't so much fear the future as they longed for a kind of idealized past that few of them (as
city-dwellers) had actually experienced. For them, the moral/spiritual purity springing from
the rugged individualism of the small, independent farmer was a loss that needed to be
restored.
Unlike their predecessors, however, Progressives were not unmindful of the benefits of the
newly industrializing economy. Thus, they didn't seek to retard progress entirely (as had at
least some of the populist strains). Instead, the Progressives sought to insure that the
increasing concentration in both economic and political life would not stifle the incentives
for individual attainment; that the economic trusts and political parties would not
interfere with the traditional, American value of individual opportunity via the
acquisition of private property . In that sense, rather than appear as what we would
today call a "liberal" movement, Progressivism can be seen as inherently conservative in
nature, in that it sought a restoration of an imagined, righteous past.
Since the concentrated economic power of the trusts (rail, coal, steel, meat-packing, etc.)
was seen by the Progressives as the major impediment to the realization of a more broadly
virtuous society -- they were aided immeasurably in their quest to preach the Progressive
gospel to the masses by the investigative journalists (as we would call them today) known
alternately as "yellow journalists" Yellow
Journalism or "muckrakers" -- the solution they proposed was to increase the power of
governments (federal, state, and/or local, as need be) so as to put them on a more equal
footing with large corporations.
The underlying goal, then, was to help those whom they saw as the victims of
industrialization -- but to do so in all cases without resorting to the kinds of "radical" or
"socialistic" solutions that were at that time finding considerable sympathy among certain
groups, particularly among the working classes.
The Place of Labor in the Progressive
Universe
In the roughly sixty-year period stretching between the Civil War and the First World War,
approximately thirty million immigrants were absorbed into the United States. The male
breadwinners for an overwhelming number of those newly arrived families became the backbone of
the emerging, organized labor movement in this country.
In their old countries, many of them had become personally familiar with systems of
government and schemes for workplace organization that were far more progressive/socialistic
than were the political and economic institutions that they encountered in their new, American
home. As a result, labor unions in the rapidly industrializing American political economy
became seedbeds for revolution. Proposals for asserting the role of common laborers in the
workplace came to be heard with increasing frequency and growing intensity. Their opposition to
the emerging class of corporate titans might seem to have positioned workers to be the natural
allies of the Progressives, who also sought to curtail (albeit for their own reasons, recall)
the seemingly unbridled power of the business elites.
In fact, however, the largely middle-class reformers who rallied under the Progressive
banner had little sympathy for organized labor -- and, in some respects, actually saw their
concentrated, potential strength as a threat to the restoration of individualistic virtue for
which they longed.
The labor unions, being far weaker than the big businesses and
the [political party] machines, held an ambiguous place in Progressive thinking. The
Progressive sympathized with the problems of labor but was troubled about the lengths to which
union power might go if labor-unionism became the sole counterpoise to the power of business.
The danger of combinations of capital and labor that would squeeze the consuming public and the
small businessman was never entirely out of sight . And wherever labor was genuinely powerful
in politics Progressivism took on a somewhat anti-labor tinge.[ii]
Even without the sometimes overt opposition of the Progressive leadership organized labor
faced problems as it sought to become a central force in the evolving, American political
economy. Although they may have shared concerns about their corporate superiors, workers in
early-twentieth-century United States nevertheless were divided by ethnic, religious, and
racial considerations -- differences that their managers were only too willing to exploit if
they allowed them to maintain control in the workplace by pitting one group of workers against
another.
The labor movement was divided, as well, along professional lines: into a more conservative
class of skilled artisans -- under the banner of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) -- and
a much larger but less prestigious group of by and large common laborers -- under the banner of
the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). It would be some years before those two groups
would overcome their disagreements and merge into the AFL-CIO.
In the end, then, the American political economic system failed to deliver the kind of
welfare state that was becoming more and more common in Europe. The United States became
"exceptional" among modern, industrialized democracies for that failure. Facing the often
staunch opposition of the business community (led by the National Association of
Manufacturers); led during its period of greatest potential for reform by a President (Woodrow
Wilson) who exhibited no sympathy for the kind of collectivization that might have resulted in
significant increases in social welfare for its most at-risk groups; and with a working class
plagued by internal divisions; the U.S. failed to implement what is perhaps the bottom-line
characteristic of a true "welfare state": that male workers (i.e., "breadwinners") should be
broadly and automatically protected by social insurance as a matter of course, rather than in
only scattershot fashion (as became the case here). In the end, only mothers and their children
(the so-called "deserving poor") were targeted for public assistance. For the rest of the
working class, the rugged individualism that constituted the core of the American political
culture would have to sustain them through economic hard-times.
The obvious question that arises is, given the agitation for change among the working
classes at the time, why did the U.S. not see the formation of a true labor party? In addition
to the cultural explanation provided in the preceding paragraph, we must consider also the
relative prosperity enjoyed by the typical American worker. If not wealthy, the average worker
at least was making steady material progress as the economy which he helped drive grew
dramatically during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the economic
historian Warner Sombart has so cleverly put it, "All socialistic utopias come to nothing on
roast beef and apple pie." [iii] With their personal,
financial situations improving regularly, in other words, there was not always an obvious
rationale for workers to get riled up.
But cultural and economic explanations of American "exceptionalism" provide an incomplete
accounting of the situation. It was neither natural nor inevitable, in fact, that workers would
adopt a less threatening posture toward the development of corporate capitalism. Rather, the
ability of workers to band together under a common banner of worker solidarity was
short-circuited -- often deliberately, although not always so -- by the tactics of the
Progressive reformers with whom they vied for control of political economic developments of
that era.
In addition to dealing with the fallout from the corporate trusts that had come to dominate
key sectors of the economy, the Progressives also were determined to weed out the political
corruption that was the lubricant for the political party
"machines that dominated so many major cities in the increasingly urbanized nation. In
seeking to loosen the stranglehold that the party organizations had on politics in
turn-of-the-century, urban American, reformers succeeded in throwing the "baby" of political
organization for the masses out with the "bathwater" of corrupt, one-party politics.
By instituting such reform measures as nonpartisan elections, the secret ballot, and civil
service examinations as a prerequisite for holding government jobs, reformers were able to deny
the machines the tools they needed to sustain their positions of privilege. At the same time,
however, those reforms tended to work against the ability of the working classes to present a
united, political front against the growing alliance between big business and big government.
Political parties were the best hope of the lower classes for securing for themselves a decent
share of the growing "pie" that the American economy was producing. Lacking that institutional
mechanism for realizing their shared interests under a common, partisan banner, the lower
classes were more easily bought off by material rewards or diverted by racial, ethnic, or
religious concerns -- and the first era of significant reform in the American political culture
was more easily steered in a centrist direction that was deemed acceptably safe by the barons
of the new, corporate-capitalist order.
Progressivism: A Precursor of the New Deal?
The Progressive era ended clearly and decisively with the U.S.'s entry into the First World
War. The new internationalism required by that initiative cost Woodrow Wilson dearly, as the
economic sacrifices required by the war effort ushered in a series of Republican presidents
(Harding, Coolidge, Hoover) following the war. With its figurehead in political retirement and
with the postwar prosperity of the "Roaring '20s" distracting Americans' attentions from
pre-war concerns, the reform spirit dwindled and then died.
Although it is possible to cast a retrospectively critical eye on America's first period of
political-cultural reform, we must be careful to acknowledge as well the important changes in
the system that were realized as a result of the Progressive era.
Not only the extent of government intervention, but the manner in which policy was
formulated and executed changed beyond recognition. The main features were the appearance of
regulatory agencies entrusted with wide discretionary powers and a consequent diminution of the
role of both legislatures and courts in the conduct of economic policy.[iv]
Government, in other words, began to take the shape that would come to characterize it in
later decades: a public authority alternately allied with and antagonistic to corporate
capital. Maintained was the traditional, American allegiance to markets -- i.e., to
private authority -- for organizing the political economy. The driving spirit had been
to restore markets, to counter-act the organizational power of the new, corporate giants
that came to dominate the economy. What was different as a result of the Progressive era was
that government would exercise the police power deemed necessary to check the abuses of
the new class of economic plutocrats.
Essentially lost in the political shuffle, however, was the collective fate of millions of
lower- and working-class Americans. Although it was their plight at the hands of an apparently
uncaring, corporate-capitalist order that seemed to have spurred much of the activity during
the Progressive era, in fact the economic fortunes of the poor, the elderly, the working
classes, and racial minorities wound up taking a back seat to the broader, institution-driven
agenda of Progressive reformers. It would fall to the next significant era of
political-cultural change, the New Deal, to address those needs in any significant way.
In an even broader sense, however, what was perhaps the Progressive era's most fundamental
goal proved to be unattainable: for it sought nothing less than the removal of politics
from the decision-making processes that had come to characterize the modern political economy.
What Progressivism succeeded in doing, instead, was substituting one form of politics
(bureaucratic) for another (partisan -- i.e., "machine"). As subsequent eras would demonstrate,
that change made the American political system even more open to influence by special interests
-- an ironic outcome for America's first, major reform era.
[T]here was no such thing as a progressive movement, that is, no organized campaign
uniting all the manifold efforts at political, social, and economic reform. On the contrary,
there were numerous progressive movements operating in different areas simultaneously . [T]he
progressive movement, in its political manifestations, was essentially a revolt of the middle
classes [i]
The Progressive Era is the title traditionally applied to the period from roughly 1900
through 1920 in U.S. history. It is particularly significant because it marks the first time
that our shared, fundamental values -- which collectively we call the American Political
Culture (APC) -- were called into question and, consequently, transformed. Although those two
decades are described by the single term, Progressive Era, there was actually much less
consistency to the period than its now well recognized title implies.
Progressive
Origins: the Populist Movement of the 1890s
For most of the first century of our nation's existence -- until the later decades of the
nineteenth century -- politics was fairly elitist in nature. That is to say, while much has
been written about our democratic heritage in general and about periods such as the "era of
Jacksonian democracy" in particular, in fact the role of ordinary citizens in running the
country was pretty limited. Over time, however, that situation became less and less acceptable
to the ordinary people who were doing the hard work that was moving the country forward but who
didn't have much of a say in deciding how the fruits of those labors got divided up and
distributed among different interests in society. The slowly spreading movement by which
ordinary people began demanding more of a voice in how the political economy was run is what we
call populism . Populism, in simple terms, is a democratic revolt against the ruling
powers of the well-to-do, well-positioned elites.
Common mythology has it that the populist revolts of the 1890s were, by and large, sagebrush
revolutions launched by small, independent farmers. The story holds that farmers in the
upper-midwest regions of the country were being gouged by the newly developed power of the
railroad trust. The monopoly-like power of the big railroads allowed them, according to this
line of analysis, to charge exorbitant rates for farmers to ship their crops to big-city
markets. While there certainly is an element of truth to this rendering of history, there also
is more to the story than that simple approach conveys.
The populist revolts of that period may have had as much to do with land speculation and the
price of real estate as with the relative rates for crops and shipping. The entrepreneurial
spirit for which Americans became so well known apparently was in full swing by the last decade
of the nineteenth century, including among small farmer-landowners in the rural Midwest.
Despite history's tendency (and our political culture's desire) to paint them as small,
independent farmers in the Jeffersonian tradition -- hacking out a new way of life for
themselves and their families in the bounteous but untamed wilderness of the American frontier
-- land speculation was not uncommon among the agricultural set. When, in the throes of the
worldwide economic depression of the 1890s, the bottom fell out of the (international)
agricultural real estate market, thousands of "small farmers" were left holding deeds to
homesteads that were suddenly worth considerably less than they had paid for them. And when the
private market failed, panicked landholders began turning to government to help them save their
real estate holdings.
As those cries for relief mounted, America grew up. Although the myth of the yeoman farmer
would never fade away completely -- indeed, it remains a critical component even in today's
political culture -- subsequently the ideal would be tempered by the new economic reality of
agriculture-as-ever-bigger-business. More important for our purposes, the politics of
the era underwent a fundamental change.
Those seeking to reform the system gravitated from an insurgent (populist/third-party)
political approach to a more traditional pursuit of politics by means of lobbying and pressure
tactics exercised within the existing, two-party system of Republicans and Democrats. The
Populist movement reached its apex with the presidential candidacy in 1896 of William Jennings
Bryan. Thereafter, the Progressives took up the reformist cause.
In a sense, the political unrest that characterized the populist decade was absorbed by a
growing rumble in the nation's cities. Where the landowner-farmers who drove the populist
movement had been narrowly rural in their upset, however, the newer, urban brand of
reform-minded agitator was more broadly national in outlook and more professional/intellectual
in background. In short, Progressivism would be a more complex, but also a more moderate,
tendency than was Populism.
In place of angry farmers and small-town leaders would form a coalition of clergy,
academics, lawyers and small professionals; all united against the growing power of both the
new barons of the industrializing, increasingly concentrated economy and the recently forming
labor unions that supplied a growing share of the manpower for the modern engines of American
growth. At the heart of the Progressives' concerns was the fear that the increasingly
concentrated power of the trusts and the unions would be able to drive prices ever upward.
Progressivism: A Conservative Approach in Liberal Clothing?
Seeking a
Restoration of Values
The Populists had been backward-looking insofar as they saw many of the problems facing
America as arising from the impersonal nature of the modern world, with its emphasis on science
and specialization; from economic concentration and social collectivization; and to a certain
extent from immigration.
Progressives shared some of those concerns, but with different interpretations of the
symptoms characterizing the changing American political economy. In particular, Progressives
didn't so much fear the future as they longed for a kind of idealized past that few of them (as
city-dwellers) had actually experienced. For them, the moral/spiritual purity springing from
the rugged individualism of the small, independent farmer was a loss that needed to be
restored.
Unlike their predecessors, however, Progressives were not unmindful of the benefits of the
newly industrializing economy. Thus, they didn't seek to retard progress entirely (as had at
least some of the populist strains). Instead, the Progressives sought to insure that the
increasing concentration in both economic and political life would not stifle the incentives
for individual attainment; that the economic trusts and political parties would not
interfere with the traditional, American value of individual opportunity via the
acquisition of private property . In that sense, rather than appear as what we would
today call a "liberal" movement, Progressivism can be seen as inherently conservative in
nature, in that it sought a restoration of an imagined, righteous past.
Since the concentrated economic power of the trusts (rail, coal, steel, meat-packing, etc.)
was seen by the Progressives as the major impediment to the realization of a more broadly
virtuous society -- they were aided immeasurably in their quest to preach the Progressive
gospel to the masses by the investigative journalists (as we would call them today) known
alternately as "yellow journalists" Yellow
Journalism or "muckrakers" -- the solution they proposed was to increase the power of
governments (federal, state, and/or local, as need be) so as to put them on a more equal
footing with large corporations.
The underlying goal, then, was to help those whom they saw as the victims of
industrialization -- but to do so in all cases without resorting to the kinds of "radical" or
"socialistic" solutions that were at that time finding considerable sympathy among certain
groups, particularly among the working classes.
The Place of Labor in the Progressive
Universe
In the roughly sixty-year period stretching between the Civil War and the First World War,
approximately thirty million immigrants were absorbed into the United States. The male
breadwinners for an overwhelming number of those newly arrived families became the backbone of
the emerging, organized labor movement in this country.
In their old countries, many of them had become personally familiar with systems of
government and schemes for workplace organization that were far more progressive/socialistic
than were the political and economic institutions that they encountered in their new, American
home. As a result, labor unions in the rapidly industrializing American political economy
became seedbeds for revolution. Proposals for asserting the role of common laborers in the
workplace came to be heard with increasing frequency and growing intensity. Their opposition to
the emerging class of corporate titans might seem to have positioned workers to be the natural
allies of the Progressives, who also sought to curtail (albeit for their own reasons, recall)
the seemingly unbridled power of the business elites.
In fact, however, the largely middle-class reformers who rallied under the Progressive
banner had little sympathy for organized labor -- and, in some respects, actually saw their
concentrated, potential strength as a threat to the restoration of individualistic virtue for
which they longed.
The labor unions, being far weaker than the big businesses and
the [political party] machines, held an ambiguous place in Progressive thinking. The
Progressive sympathized with the problems of labor but was troubled about the lengths to which
union power might go if labor-unionism became the sole counterpoise to the power of business.
The danger of combinations of capital and labor that would squeeze the consuming public and the
small businessman was never entirely out of sight . And wherever labor was genuinely powerful
in politics Progressivism took on a somewhat anti-labor tinge.[ii]
Even without the sometimes overt opposition of the Progressive leadership organized labor
faced problems as it sought to become a central force in the evolving, American political
economy. Although they may have shared concerns about their corporate superiors, workers in
early-twentieth-century United States nevertheless were divided by ethnic, religious, and
racial considerations -- differences that their managers were only too willing to exploit if
they allowed them to maintain control in the workplace by pitting one group of workers against
another.
The labor movement was divided, as well, along professional lines: into a more conservative
class of skilled artisans -- under the banner of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) -- and
a much larger but less prestigious group of by and large common laborers -- under the banner of
the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). It would be some years before those two groups
would overcome their disagreements and merge into the AFL-CIO.
In the end, then, the American political economic system failed to deliver the kind of
welfare state that was becoming more and more common in Europe. The United States became
"exceptional" among modern, industrialized democracies for that failure. Facing the often
staunch opposition of the business community (led by the National Association of
Manufacturers); led during its period of greatest potential for reform by a President (Woodrow
Wilson) who exhibited no sympathy for the kind of collectivization that might have resulted in
significant increases in social welfare for its most at-risk groups; and with a working class
plagued by internal divisions; the U.S. failed to implement what is perhaps the bottom-line
characteristic of a true "welfare state": that male workers (i.e., "breadwinners") should be
broadly and automatically protected by social insurance as a matter of course, rather than in
only scattershot fashion (as became the case here). In the end, only mothers and their children
(the so-called "deserving poor") were targeted for public assistance. For the rest of the
working class, the rugged individualism that constituted the core of the American political
culture would have to sustain them through economic hard-times.
The obvious question that arises is, given the agitation for change among the working
classes at the time, why did the U.S. not see the formation of a true labor party? In addition
to the cultural explanation provided in the preceding paragraph, we must consider also the
relative prosperity enjoyed by the typical American worker. If not wealthy, the average worker
at least was making steady material progress as the economy which he helped drive grew
dramatically during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the economic
historian Warner Sombart has so cleverly put it, "All socialistic utopias come to nothing on
roast beef and apple pie." [iii] With their personal,
financial situations improving regularly, in other words, there was not always an obvious
rationale for workers to get riled up.
But cultural and economic explanations of American "exceptionalism" provide an incomplete
accounting of the situation. It was neither natural nor inevitable, in fact, that workers would
adopt a less threatening posture toward the development of corporate capitalism. Rather, the
ability of workers to band together under a common banner of worker solidarity was
short-circuited -- often deliberately, although not always so -- by the tactics of the
Progressive reformers with whom they vied for control of political economic developments of
that era.
In addition to dealing with the fallout from the corporate trusts that had come to dominate
key sectors of the economy, the Progressives also were determined to weed out the political
corruption that was the lubricant for the political party
"machines that dominated so many major cities in the increasingly urbanized nation. In
seeking to loosen the stranglehold that the party organizations had on politics in
turn-of-the-century, urban American, reformers succeeded in throwing the "baby" of political
organization for the masses out with the "bathwater" of corrupt, one-party politics.
By instituting such reform measures as nonpartisan elections, the secret ballot, and civil
service examinations as a prerequisite for holding government jobs, reformers were able to deny
the machines the tools they needed to sustain their positions of privilege. At the same time,
however, those reforms tended to work against the ability of the working classes to present a
united, political front against the growing alliance between big business and big government.
Political parties were the best hope of the lower classes for securing for themselves a decent
share of the growing "pie" that the American economy was producing. Lacking that institutional
mechanism for realizing their shared interests under a common, partisan banner, the lower
classes were more easily bought off by material rewards or diverted by racial, ethnic, or
religious concerns -- and the first era of significant reform in the American political culture
was more easily steered in a centrist direction that was deemed acceptably safe by the barons
of the new, corporate-capitalist order.
Progressivism: A Precursor of the New Deal?
The Progressive era ended clearly and decisively with the U.S.'s entry into the First World
War. The new internationalism required by that initiative cost Woodrow Wilson dearly, as the
economic sacrifices required by the war effort ushered in a series of Republican presidents
(Harding, Coolidge, Hoover) following the war. With its figurehead in political retirement and
with the postwar prosperity of the "Roaring '20s" distracting Americans' attentions from
pre-war concerns, the reform spirit dwindled and then died.
Although it is possible to cast a retrospectively critical eye on America's first period of
political-cultural reform, we must be careful to acknowledge as well the important changes in
the system that were realized as a result of the Progressive era.
Not only the extent of government intervention, but the manner in which policy was
formulated and executed changed beyond recognition. The main features were the appearance of
regulatory agencies entrusted with wide discretionary powers and a consequent diminution of the
role of both legislatures and courts in the conduct of economic policy.[iv]
Government, in other words, began to take the shape that would come to characterize it in
later decades: a public authority alternately allied with and antagonistic to corporate
capital. Maintained was the traditional, American allegiance to markets -- i.e., to
private authority -- for organizing the political economy. The driving spirit had been
to restore markets, to counter-act the organizational power of the new, corporate giants
that came to dominate the economy. What was different as a result of the Progressive era was
that government would exercise the police power deemed necessary to check the abuses of
the new class of economic plutocrats.
Essentially lost in the political shuffle, however, was the collective fate of millions of
lower- and working-class Americans. Although it was their plight at the hands of an apparently
uncaring, corporate-capitalist order that seemed to have spurred much of the activity during
the Progressive era, in fact the economic fortunes of the poor, the elderly, the working
classes, and racial minorities wound up taking a back seat to the broader, institution-driven
agenda of Progressive reformers. It would fall to the next significant era of
political-cultural change, the New Deal, to address those needs in any significant way.
In an even broader sense, however, what was perhaps the Progressive era's most fundamental
goal proved to be unattainable: for it sought nothing less than the removal of politics
from the decision-making processes that had come to characterize the modern political economy.
What Progressivism succeeded in doing, instead, was substituting one form of politics
(bureaucratic) for another (partisan -- i.e., "machine"). As subsequent eras would demonstrate,
that change made the American political system even more open to influence by special interests
-- an ironic outcome for America's first, major reform era.
Nadler:Corey what time is it? Corey :It's 2pm. Nadler: The clock shows 1:59 . Charge Corey for
lying to Congress! All a gotcha game by a group of angry haters.
Nadler:Corey what time is it? Corey :It's 2pm. Nadler: The clock shows 1:59 . Charge Corey for
lying to Congress! All a gotcha game by a group of angry haters.
"... American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. ..."
"... A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some ..."
"... U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is: ..."
"... Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be. ..."
"... Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. ..."
"... The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. ..."
"... Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense. ..."
"... any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it. ..."
"... Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. ..."
"... Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment. ..."
"... I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power. ..."
"... Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion. ..."
"... What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure. ..."
"... We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt. ..."
"... I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets. ..."
"... The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged. ..."
"... It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting. ..."
"... I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries. ..."
"... The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. ..."
Stephen Wertheim explains
what is required to bring an end to unnecessary and open-ended U.S. wars overseas:
American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe.
Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do
what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace.
Any government that presumes to be the world's hegemon will be fighting somewhere almost all of the time, because its political
leaders will see everything around the world as their business and it will see every manageable threat as a challenge to their "leadership."
A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire
itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some.
U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at
the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to
use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is:
Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military
force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be.
Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and
intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts.
Our government's frenetic interventionism and meddling for the last thirty years hasn't made our country the slightest bit more secure,
but it has sown chaos and instability across at least two continents. Wertheim continues:
Continued gains by the Taliban, 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate
deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones.
The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the
idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous
goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. Constant warfare achieves nothing except to provide an excuse
for more of the same. The longer that a war drags on, one would think that it should become easier to bring it to an end, but we
have seen that it becomes harder for both political and military leaders to give up on an unwinnable conflict when it has become
an almost permanent part of our foreign policy. For many policymakers and pundits, what matters is that the U.S. not be perceived
as losing, and so our military keeps fighting without an end in sight for the sake of this "not losing."
Wertheim adds:
Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric about ending endless wars, the president insists that "our military dominance must be unquestioned"
-- even though no one believes he has a strategy to use power or a theory to bring peace. Armed domination has become an end in
itself.
Seeking to maintain this dominance is ultimately unsustainable, and as it becomes more expensive and less popular it will also
become increasingly dangerous as we find ourselves confronted with even more capable adversaries. For the last thirty years, the
U.S. has been fortunate to be secure and prosperous enough that it could indulge in decades of fruitless militarism, but that luck
won't hold forever. It is far better if the U.S. give up on hegemony and the militarism that goes with it on our terms.
Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership,
resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense.
Truth be told, as your article states, any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is
considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it.
It makes us less safe. Isolationism did not cause 9/11. In the 90's when we were being attacked by Al Qaeda we were too distracted
dancing on Russia's bones to pay any attention to them. While Al Qaeda was attacking our troops and blowing up our buildings we
were bombing Serbia, expanding NATO and reelecting Yeltsin and sticking it to Iran.
It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan.
We later abandoned them when the job was done: a pack hound we trained, pushed to fight, then left in the forest abandoned and
starved. Then we wonder why it came back growling.
Isolationism may not be the most effective solution to things, but I'll admit a LOT of pain, on ourselves and others, would've
never happened if we took that policy.
Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only
from reward and punishment.
So far, they only have been rewarded for their crimes.
While I think the economic basis of the Soviet Union was faulty, and it had lost the popular support it might have had in early
days, the USSR's military aggression, particularly in Afghanistan, was a major precipitating factor in its downfall. It would
have eventually crumbled, I believe, anyway, but had they taken a less aggressive stance I think they would have lasted several
decades longer.
Is it really in our hands to actually disengage though? Is this politically feasible?
How does this work? The US gets up one day and says "We're pulling all of our troops out of Saudi and SK. No more funding for
Israel! No bolstering the pencil-thin government of Afghanistan. All naval bases abroad will be shut down. Longstanding alliances
and interests be damned!"
I sympathize very strongly with the notion that we must use military force wisely and with restraint, and perhaps even that
the post-WW2 expansion abroad was a mistake, but I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without
destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power.
This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not, and barring some military or economic disaster that forces a strategic
realignment or retreat (like WW2 did for the old European powers) I don't know how you practically pull back. Empires have
a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion.
What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our
debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure.
We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending
and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt.
Sure. That doesn't mean American withdrawal would create less instability in toto. Maybe it would. Who knows? We mortals can only
take counterfactuals so far.
I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/
hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets.
The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled
congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged.
It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The
money and power is too corrupting.
Maybe, just maybe, however, as we are at $22 trillion in debt and counting (just saw a total tab for F-35 of $1.5 trillion)
that the money will run out, and zero interest rate financing is not all that awesome, this unsustainable mindlessness will be
curtailed or even better, changed.
It's not really hegemony. Old-fashioned empires took over territory in order to gain resources and labor. We haven't done that
since 1920. Especially since 1990 we've been making war purely to destroy and obliterate. When our war is done there's nothing
left to dominate or own.
Domestically we've been using politics and media and controlled culture to do the same thing. Create "terrorists" and "extremists"
on "two" "sides", set them loose, enjoy the resulting chaos. Chaos is the declared goal, and it's been working beautifully for
70 years.
China is expanding empire in Africa and Asia the old-fashioned way, improving farms and factories in order to have exclusive
purchase of their output.
Could not have said it better. "On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own
hands, I hope. But chanches are slim, history shows empires must fall hard and break a leg or so first before anything changes.
Iran, Saudi-arabia, the greater ME, China, the trade wars and the world economy are coming together for a perfect storm it seems.
The problem with US hegemony is Israel. Look around the world. Neither Japan nor South Korea nor Vietnam nor Philippines nor India
nor Indonesia nor Australia (the same can be said for South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and Europe) require a significant
US presence.
None of them are asking for a greater presence in their country (except Poland) while being perfectly happy with
our alliance, joint defense, trade, intelligence and technology sharing.
It is only Israel and Saudi Arabia which are constantly pushing the US into middle eastern wars and quagmires that we have
no national interest. Trump sees the plain truth that the US is in jeopardy of losing its manufacturing and its technological
lead to China. If we (US) dont start to rebuild our infrastructure, our defense, our cities, our communities, our manufacturing,
our educational system then our nation is going to follow California into a 3rd world totalitarian state dominated by democratic
voting immigrants whose only affiliation to our country and our constitutional republic is a welfare check, free govt programs
and incestuous govt contracts which funnel govt dollars into the re-election PACs of democratic / liberal elected officials.
The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking.
Defeat is now when war's income streams end. The only wars that are lost, are those that end, defeating the winning of war profits.
War, as a financial success story, has become an end in itself, and an empire that looks for more to wage means some mighty big
wages with more profit opportunities. Victory is to be avoided - red ink being spilled through peace detestable - and blood spilled
profitably to be encouraged.
"... Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen. Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution, they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. ..."
"... "Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the region." ..."
"... "The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued. ..."
"... Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing a successful bill to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen. ..."
"... "It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest between the Saudis and Iranians." ..."
"... "Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.), who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran. ..."
"... "This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not a walk in the park." ..."
"... "In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's desulphurization capacity out of commission. ..."
"... "This little accident was designed to be maximally disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil in the long run. ..."
"... On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump understands." ..."
Retired Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis pointed out that the puncture marks do not actually show
the origin of the attack. "Missiles can fly from almost anywhere. They have the ability to
maneuver! And certainly drones can, too," the Defense Priorities senior fellow told the
National Interest . "There hasn't been the time to do an actual analysis on the
ground, so let's wait and see."
Mark Latham, managing partner at the London-based analysis firm Commodities Intelligence,
told the National Interest that the puncture marks pointed to a cruise missile with no
explosive warhead. Removing the payload would allow the missile to carry more fuel and launch
from farther away from its target.
... ... ...
"Mr. X is a sophisticated fellow. He's sourced some Iranian cruise missiles.
He's removed the explosive payload. He's replaced the explosive payload with fuel," he said.
"So this isn't your twenty dollar Amazon drone. This is a sophisticated military operation."
"The culprit behind the Abqaiq attack is most definitely the Islamic Republic, either
directly or through one of its proxies," argued Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst at
the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
"The attack fits the pattern of Iran signaling to the Gulf states that if it can't get its
oil out, it will cause their oil exports to become collateral damage," Koduvayur told the National Interest . "It's because of how strong our coercive financial tools are that
Iran is resorting to attacks like this: it's lashing out."
Violating an Obama-era agreement to regulate Iran's nuclear research program, the Trump
administration imposed massive sanctions on Iran's oil industry beginning in May 2018. The goal
of this "maximum pressure" campaign was to force Iran to accept a "better" deal. Since then,
Iranian forces have captured a British oil tanker and allegedly sabotaged tankers from other
countries.
There were some signals that Trump was planning to use the ongoing United Nations General
Assembly in New York to open a new
diplomatic channel with Iran, especially after the
firing of hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton. But the weekend attack sent Trump
into reverse.
"Remember when Iran shot down a drone, saying knowingly that it was in their 'airspace'
when, in fact, it was nowhere close. They stuck strongly to that story knowing that it was a
very big lie," he said in a Monday morning Twitter post, referring to a June incident
when Iranian and American forces almost went to war. "Now they say that they had nothing to do
with the attack on Saudi Arabia. We'll see?"
He also hinted at a violent U.S. response.
"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on
verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of
this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" Trump wrote on Sunday.
"Saudi Arabia is not a formal treaty ally of ours, so there are no international agreements
that obligate us to come to their defense," John Glaser, director of foreign-policy studies at
the CATO Institute, stated. "This does not amount to a clear and present danger to the United
States, so no self-defense justification is relevant. He would therefore need authorization
from Congress."
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had mixed reactions to the attack.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed putting "on the table an attack on Iranian oil
refineries" in order to "break the regime's back." His press office did not respond to a
follow-up question from the National Interest asking whether the president would have
the authority to do so.
Amy Grappone, spokeswoman for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), told the National Interest
that the Senator "will support an appropriate and proportionate response" after "studying the
latest intelligence pertaining to Iran's malign activities, including these recent attacks in
Saudi Arabia."
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, condemned the attack with
a backhanded insult towards Saudi Arabia. "Despite some ongoing policy differences with the
kingdom, no nation should be subjected to these kinds of attacks on it soil and against its
people," he wrote on Twitter, declining to name Iran as the culprit.
Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced
their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen.
Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution,
they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder
reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The
president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin
(D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi
Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain
its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the
region."
"The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with
Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi
Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued.
Asked how he would vote on a declaration of war, the senator told the National
Interest : "Let's hope it does not come to that. Congress has not authorized war against
Iran. The majority voted to engage them diplomatically to slow their nuclear ambitions. The
international community is ready to work with the U.S. again to ease economic pressure on Iran
in exchange for their restraint. We are at a dangerous precipice."
In a statement emailed to the National Interest and posted to Twitter, Sen. Tim
Kaine (D-Va.) was even more direct: "The US should never go to war to protect Saudi oil."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing
a successful bill
to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override
the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread
explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen.
"It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual
defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And
frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long
term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest
between the Saudis and Iranians."
But the reaction did not fall neatly along party lines.
"Iran is one of the most dangerous state sponsors of terrorism. This may well be the thing
that calls for military action against Iran, if that's what the intelligence supports," said
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) in a Monday interview with Fox News. Others pointed out that
attacking Iran would contradict Trump's own principles.
"Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic
presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.),
who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud
with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran.
"This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States
needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he
told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the
Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not
a walk in the park."
Davis agreed with Paul's assessment. "There's too many people who have lost touch with
understanding what war is all about. They think it's easy," he told the National
Interest . "Just imagine this. What we go ahead and do this, and Iran makes good on their
threats, and American warships get sunk in the Gulf?" "This is not America's fight," he
concluded. "The American armed forces are not on loan as a Saudi defense force."
"There's another claim that the impact on oil markets is sufficient to impact the vital U.S.
interest in the free flow of energy coming out of that region, but that argument quickly
descends into absurdity when we remember that the Trump administration has been trying to
zero-out Iranian oil exports, for a host of spurious reasons," Glaser told the National
Interest . "Washington is also aggressively sanctioning Venezuela, making it harder for
Caracas to bring oil to market, too. If we really cared about the supply of oil, we wouldn't be
doing this."
In any case, the attack may not have affected oil markets in such a straightforward way.
Latham says that the attack struck an oil desulphurization facility. At the moment,
desulphurized fuel is in high demand from the shipping industry, which is rushing to comply
with new international environmental regulations.
"In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping
fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur
fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham
explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's
desulphurization capacity out of commission.
"This little accident was designed to be maximally
disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is
really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous
stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might
delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil
in the long run.
On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's
not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy
infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense
capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale
war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what
that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump
understands."
Matthew Petti is a national security reporter at the National Interest.
"... American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. ..."
"... A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some ..."
"... U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is: ..."
"... Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be. ..."
"... Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. ..."
"... The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. ..."
"... Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense. ..."
"... any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it. ..."
"... Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. ..."
"... Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment. ..."
"... I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power. ..."
"... Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion. ..."
"... What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure. ..."
"... We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt. ..."
"... I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets. ..."
"... The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged. ..."
"... It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting. ..."
"... I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries. ..."
"... The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. ..."
Stephen Wertheim explains
what is required to bring an end to unnecessary and open-ended U.S. wars overseas:
American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe.
Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do
what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace.
Any government that presumes to be the world's hegemon will be fighting somewhere almost all of the time, because its political
leaders will see everything around the world as their business and it will see every manageable threat as a challenge to their "leadership."
A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire
itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some.
U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at
the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to
use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is:
Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military
force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be.
Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and
intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts.
Our government's frenetic interventionism and meddling for the last thirty years hasn't made our country the slightest bit more secure,
but it has sown chaos and instability across at least two continents. Wertheim continues:
Continued gains by the Taliban, 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate
deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones.
The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the
idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous
goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. Constant warfare achieves nothing except to provide an excuse
for more of the same. The longer that a war drags on, one would think that it should become easier to bring it to an end, but we
have seen that it becomes harder for both political and military leaders to give up on an unwinnable conflict when it has become
an almost permanent part of our foreign policy. For many policymakers and pundits, what matters is that the U.S. not be perceived
as losing, and so our military keeps fighting without an end in sight for the sake of this "not losing."
Wertheim adds:
Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric about ending endless wars, the president insists that "our military dominance must be unquestioned"
-- even though no one believes he has a strategy to use power or a theory to bring peace. Armed domination has become an end in
itself.
Seeking to maintain this dominance is ultimately unsustainable, and as it becomes more expensive and less popular it will also
become increasingly dangerous as we find ourselves confronted with even more capable adversaries. For the last thirty years, the
U.S. has been fortunate to be secure and prosperous enough that it could indulge in decades of fruitless militarism, but that luck
won't hold forever. It is far better if the U.S. give up on hegemony and the militarism that goes with it on our terms.
Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership,
resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense.
Truth be told, as your article states, any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is
considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it.
It makes us less safe. Isolationism did not cause 9/11. In the 90's when we were being attacked by Al Qaeda we were too distracted
dancing on Russia's bones to pay any attention to them. While Al Qaeda was attacking our troops and blowing up our buildings we
were bombing Serbia, expanding NATO and reelecting Yeltsin and sticking it to Iran.
It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan.
We later abandoned them when the job was done: a pack hound we trained, pushed to fight, then left in the forest abandoned and
starved. Then we wonder why it came back growling.
Isolationism may not be the most effective solution to things, but I'll admit a LOT of pain, on ourselves and others, would've
never happened if we took that policy.
Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only
from reward and punishment.
So far, they only have been rewarded for their crimes.
While I think the economic basis of the Soviet Union was faulty, and it had lost the popular support it might have had in early
days, the USSR's military aggression, particularly in Afghanistan, was a major precipitating factor in its downfall. It would
have eventually crumbled, I believe, anyway, but had they taken a less aggressive stance I think they would have lasted several
decades longer.
Is it really in our hands to actually disengage though? Is this politically feasible?
How does this work? The US gets up one day and says "We're pulling all of our troops out of Saudi and SK. No more funding for
Israel! No bolstering the pencil-thin government of Afghanistan. All naval bases abroad will be shut down. Longstanding alliances
and interests be damned!"
I sympathize very strongly with the notion that we must use military force wisely and with restraint, and perhaps even that
the post-WW2 expansion abroad was a mistake, but I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without
destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power.
This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not, and barring some military or economic disaster that forces a strategic
realignment or retreat (like WW2 did for the old European powers) I don't know how you practically pull back. Empires have
a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion.
What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our
debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure.
We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending
and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt.
Sure. That doesn't mean American withdrawal would create less instability in toto. Maybe it would. Who knows? We mortals can only
take counterfactuals so far.
I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/
hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets.
The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled
congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged.
It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The
money and power is too corrupting.
Maybe, just maybe, however, as we are at $22 trillion in debt and counting (just saw a total tab for F-35 of $1.5 trillion)
that the money will run out, and zero interest rate financing is not all that awesome, this unsustainable mindlessness will be
curtailed or even better, changed.
It's not really hegemony. Old-fashioned empires took over territory in order to gain resources and labor. We haven't done that
since 1920. Especially since 1990 we've been making war purely to destroy and obliterate. When our war is done there's nothing
left to dominate or own.
Domestically we've been using politics and media and controlled culture to do the same thing. Create "terrorists" and "extremists"
on "two" "sides", set them loose, enjoy the resulting chaos. Chaos is the declared goal, and it's been working beautifully for
70 years.
China is expanding empire in Africa and Asia the old-fashioned way, improving farms and factories in order to have exclusive
purchase of their output.
Could not have said it better. "On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own
hands, I hope. But chanches are slim, history shows empires must fall hard and break a leg or so first before anything changes.
Iran, Saudi-arabia, the greater ME, China, the trade wars and the world economy are coming together for a perfect storm it seems.
The problem with US hegemony is Israel. Look around the world. Neither Japan nor South Korea nor Vietnam nor Philippines nor India
nor Indonesia nor Australia (the same can be said for South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and Europe) require a significant
US presence.
None of them are asking for a greater presence in their country (except Poland) while being perfectly happy with
our alliance, joint defense, trade, intelligence and technology sharing.
It is only Israel and Saudi Arabia which are constantly pushing the US into middle eastern wars and quagmires that we have
no national interest. Trump sees the plain truth that the US is in jeopardy of losing its manufacturing and its technological
lead to China. If we (US) dont start to rebuild our infrastructure, our defense, our cities, our communities, our manufacturing,
our educational system then our nation is going to follow California into a 3rd world totalitarian state dominated by democratic
voting immigrants whose only affiliation to our country and our constitutional republic is a welfare check, free govt programs
and incestuous govt contracts which funnel govt dollars into the re-election PACs of democratic / liberal elected officials.
The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking.
Defeat is now when war's income streams end. The only wars that are lost, are those that end, defeating the winning of war profits.
War, as a financial success story, has become an end in itself, and an empire that looks for more to wage means some mighty big
wages with more profit opportunities. Victory is to be avoided - red ink being spilled through peace detestable - and blood spilled
profitably to be encouraged.
Nadler:Corey what time is it? Corey :It's 2pm. Nadler: The clock shows 1:59 . Charge Corey for
lying to Congress! All a gotcha game by a group of angry haters.
Nadler:Corey what time is it? Corey :It's 2pm. Nadler: The clock shows 1:59 . Charge Corey for
lying to Congress! All a gotcha game by a group of angry haters.
"... This is no coincidence. The DNC elite, a who's who of Wall Street donors and "party insiders," have chosen Elizabeth Warren as the safest insurance policy to Joe Biden. Warren has positioned herself as the safer version of progressivism in contradistinction to Bernie Sanders' full-fledged New Deal politics. ..."
"... In recent weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been putting smiles on the faces of the Democratic Party establishment. Her performance at the DNC's summer fundraiser in San Francisco in late August received widespread positive coverage from the corporate media. The New York Times , for example, reported that Warren has been sending private messages to Democratic Party insiders to let them know that she is more interested in leading a "revival" of the Democratic Party rather than a revolution. ..."
"... In other words, Elizabeth Warren is saying and doing all the right things to position herself as the DNC's choice for the presidential nomination should the Biden campaign continue to falter. ..."
"... The DNC is looking for a candidate who will oppose Trump but support the neoliberal and foreign policy consensus that exists in Washington. At first, Warren's mimicry of Bernie Sanders' talking points raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. While some of those eyebrows remain raised, the DNC clearly prefers Warren's "revival" over Sanders' "political revolution." ..."
From forgetting former President Barack Obama's name to having your
wife ask voters to "swallow
a little bit" of his pro-corporate positions on healthcare, the oligarchs in control of the
two-party political system in the United States are well aware of Biden's struggles .
According to the Washington Times , Biden is losing the support from the corporate
media. The editorial
cited a study from Axios which concluded that of 100 media stories about the Biden
campaign that received the most attention on social media, 77 were negative in character. While
Biden consistently leads in the polls, the DNC elite has gone fishing for of an insurance
policy for Biden's flailing campaign.
Enter Elizabeth Warren. At first, the Massachusetts Senator seemed like a dark horse in the
race and a mere thorn in the side of Bernie Sanders. Kamala Harris appeared to be the early DNC
favorite and her campaign has worked overtime to show its commitment to a neoliberal economic
and political agenda. However, Harris was stymied by Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's
thirty second run
down of her record as Defense Attorney and Attorney General for the state of California
during the second Democratic Party primary debate. Ever since, Harris has seen her stock
decline mightily
in the polls while Elizabeth Warren's polling numbers have increased dramatically.
This is no coincidence. The DNC elite, a who's who of Wall Street donors and "party
insiders," have chosen Elizabeth Warren as the safest insurance policy to Joe Biden. Warren has
positioned herself as the safer version of progressivism in contradistinction to Bernie
Sanders' full-fledged New Deal politics. As far back as late February of 2019, Warren was
deriding corporate "special interests" while signaling that she would not succumb to
"unilateral disarmament" in a general election against Trump by forgoing corporate
donations.
The progressivism of Elizabeth Warren was thus a malleable project with a history of
inconsistency, as evidenced by her constant flip-flopping on issues such as the privatization
of education in Massachusetts.
In recent weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been putting smiles on the faces of the Democratic
Party establishment. Her performance at the DNC's summer fundraiser in San Francisco in late
August received widespread positive coverage from the corporate media. The New York
Times , for example, reported that Warren has been
sending private messages to Democratic Party insiders to let them know that she is more
interested in leading a "revival" of the Democratic Party rather than a revolution.
An article
in The Atlantic provided snippet remarks from people like Don Fowler, described in the
piece as a former DNC-chair and "long-time Clinton-family loyalist," who called Warren "smart
as shit" for her inside-out approach to her political campaign. A more recent editorial in The
New York Times offered a glimpse into Warren's former big donor connections from her
2018 Senate campaign. According to the Times , Warren was able to transfer 10.4
million USD to her presidential campaign effort in part because of the generosity of the
very same corporate elite that she now condemns as holding too much influence over the
Democratic Party. NBC News further revealed that Elizabeth Warren has an open line of
communication with the much maligned but infamous Democratic Party establishment leader,
Hillary Clinton.
In other words, Elizabeth Warren is saying and doing all the right things to position
herself as the DNC's choice for the presidential nomination should the Biden campaign continue
to falter.
Donald Trump is guaranteed the nomination for the Republican Party ticket after
taking over the party in 2016 from defunct establishment figures such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush,
and Ted Cruz.
The DNC is looking for a candidate who will oppose Trump but support the
neoliberal and foreign policy consensus that exists in Washington. At first, Warren's mimicry
of Bernie Sanders' talking points raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. While some of those
eyebrows remain raised, the DNC clearly prefers Warren's "revival" over Sanders' "political
revolution."
That's because Warren's campaign to "revive" the Democratic Party is bereft of political
principle. Whatever Sanders' political limitations as a "left" alternative to the
establishment, the Vermont Senator is by far more progressive than Warren. Warren voted for the
Trump Administration's recent
military budget in 2017 even after tens of billions of dollars were added by Congress to
the original proposal. During Israel's 2014 massacre of the Palestinians in Operation
Protective Edge, Warren claimed Israel had a
right to defend itself. Bernie Sanders offers a clear proposal for Medicare for All already
drafted in the Senate, while Elizabeth Warren believes that Medicare for All can be implemented
in
"many different ways." In CNN's Climate Town Hall, Warren opposed public control of utilities
while Sanders supported it. A deeper look at Elizabeth Warren reveals that she is more aligned
with the establishment than she wants the public to believe.
All of this is to say that the DNC is looking for the best-case scenario for its corporate
masters, which is the worst-case scenario for working people in the United States. The
principle goal of the DNC is to stop Bernie Sanders from getting anywhere near the nomination.
Prior to Warren becoming insurance policy for Joe Biden, the DNC hoped that the Massachusetts
Senator would split supporters of Bernie Sanders down the middle. This would lead either to a
clear path to the nomination for a handpicked candidate (Biden, Harris, fill in the blank) or
to a contested convention where the unelected but very wealthy
"superdelegates" would cast the deciding vote. Should Warren have turned out a lame duck,
the DNC could still rely on over a dozen candidates with careerist ambitions to force a
contested election at the DNC convention in Milwaukee.
Workers in the United States have no insurance policy when it comes to the 2020 presidential
election or any other election for that matter. Austerity, privatization, and super
exploitation is the law of the capitalist land in the USA. Sanders is attractive to many
workers in the U.S. because of his consistent articulation of an anti-austerity platform which
includes living wage employment, a Green New Deal to help provide that employment, and a solid
commitment to Medicare for All. But Sanders remains deeply loyal to the Democratic Party and
has stated firmly on several occasions on the campaign trail that he would support any
Democratic Party candidate should he lose the nomination. Sanders frames Donald Trump as the
most dangerous element in U.S. society even as his own party colludes to prevent him from
having a fair shot at the nomination. Sanders and his supporters must realize that Elizabeth
Warren is not a friend, but an opportunist who is more than willing to profit from their
demise. The best-case scenario for the working class is that wall to wall resistance to Sanders
will lead to a mass exodus from the party and open the door for an independent worker's party
to form amid the collapse of the DNC.
Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending
on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what
terms we would proceed!
in American imperialism and the power imbalance isn't about just oil? How about we elaborate on that. It's not enough to criticize
American military meddling without also calling out the geopolitical and economic meddling. These are intertwined and while I
think Tulsi is very strong and very correct on military "interventions," she can and should go further. (All Americand should,
no arguments here.) I mean, as far as this tweet goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target. Is she
tweeting this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
as far as this tweet [by Tulsi] goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target. Is she tweeting
this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
The "total loser" is a master politician, surviving a coup attempt , battling hostile MSM 24/7 and with an enlarging voter
base. Include rising favorability ratings, though still less than 50%. His popularity currently equals that of Obomber at a similar
point in first term.
in American imperialism and the power imbalance isn't about just oil? How about we elaborate on that. It's not enough to
criticize American military meddling without also calling out the geopolitical and economic meddling. These are intertwined
and while I think Tulsi is very strong and very correct on military "interventions," she can and should go further. (All Americand
should, no arguments here.) I mean, as far as this tweet goes, it's a cheap shot at a total loser who is already an easy target.
Is she tweeting this at the American companies with interests in Saudi oil?
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch" because
he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally I think that's
a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking unilateral
action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems like an odd way
to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
@CS in AZ@CS in AZ
I ran across her statements on youtube. And I don't see how you can interpret what she said as "goading" him.
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch"
because he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally
I think that's a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking
unilateral action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems
like an odd way to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
was a country at peace and was suddenly attacked, I could sort of understand your objection to Gabbard criticizing Trump for
waiting to hear from the Saudi princes about what to do next.
But that's not the situation. Saudi Arabia has been targeting school buses, hospitals, weddings, and has starved 85,000 children
to death in Yemen, and we have HELPED! Starving a child to death is torture.
The fact that the civilized world hasn't rained retribution down on the Saudi government for supporting Al Qaeda, for supporting
ISIS and its atrocities, and for using the people of Yemen for target practice just to benefit our defense contractors, is an
abomination. We are not just being USED by the Saudi government. We are being ABUSED, as a nation, as a people, as a culture that's
supposed to have values. We are being transformed into the sucking scum of the earth. For money. For a few contractors.
I'm not trying to be contrary, but I honestly do not get what she's saying here, other than Trump is being KSA's "bitch"
because he's waiting to hear what they say before letting bombs fly at whoever the US "believes" is responsible. Personally
I think that's a big improvement over him immediately ordering an attack on Iran, or wherever.
If her statement criticized the "locked and loaded" part of his statement and she directly said we should not be bombing
anyone on behalf of Saudi Arabia, then I'd agree with her.
But instead she criticized his waiting to hear from the country that was actually bombed, before doing anything or taking
unilateral action. Calling him SKA's bitch, means he's being weak and submissive. Goading him into quicker action ... seems
like an odd way to discourage war and the macho-man thinking that drives it.
I guess I really don't understand at all why people like this rhetoric from her. I personally have a confused, but basically
negative, gut reaction to her comment.
Trump is his own worst enemy. His thoughtless tweets reveal him to be some seriously damaged goods.
Not since the late days of dementia ridden Reagan has a more dangerous finger been on "The Button".
@earthling1@earthling1
Trump's policies are by and larger terrible, neoliberal, disguised as populism. But before considering that Trump is an idiot,
rather than one prone to bad choices in policy, please consider his current POLIICAL status. See my comment above to Monsieur
le Frog.
Trump is his own worst enemy. His thoughtless tweets reveal him to be some seriously damaged goods.
Not since the late days of dementia ridden Reagan has a more dangerous finger been on "The Button".
have not unreasonably read his tweet as saying what it clearly seems to be saying, that the US will wait to see who the Saudis
decide carried out the bombing, and the US will wait for their instructions on how the US should proceed -- deferring to the Saudis
on two counts.
Does seem rather clear, and odd, for a US president to state a foreign power should dictate our actions on their behalf.
I didn't read it at all as a complaint that the US has to wait and cool its heels for the Saudis in order to rush into military
action.
Of course she went on twitter to respond to DT's tweet. Twitter, the short-form of communication, where brief tweets are always
vulnerable to misunderstanding.
This used to be called diplomacy. That's what we (the peace-not-war minded) people) wanted from our government. I still
do, and I'm forced to say I think I actually agree with trump on this one. His tweet was unusually diplomatic and relatively calm.
I was glad he said something reasonable, for perhaps the first time ever.
WE (the US) are not the world dictatorship that should feel free to bomb anyone anywhere anytime, and screw the rest of the
world. Cooperation among governments is not being anyone's bitch. That's the pro war, pro US empire kind of thinking.
America first... see, that's not really what I believe in. So I see now, that must be why I felt so disturbed by her comment.
I just disagree with her basic premise.
have not unreasonably read his tweet as saying what it clearly seems to be saying, that the US will wait to see who the
Saudis decide carried out the bombing, and the US will wait for their instructions on how the US should proceed -- deferring
to the Saudis on two counts.
Does seem rather clear, and odd, for a US president to state a foreign power should dictate our actions on their behalf.
I didn't read it at all as a complaint that the US has to wait and cool its heels for the Saudis in order to rush into military
action.
Of course she went on twitter to respond to DT's tweet. Twitter, the short-form of communication, where brief tweets are
always vulnerable to misunderstanding.
@CS in AZ@CS in AZ
is when two countries engage in discussions to possibly reach a mutual agreement. That seems like an incredibly expansive and
pro-Trump reading of his bizarre tweet.
Twump's tweet, in the clear language of the brief text, was about the US president waiting to hear marching orders from Crown
Prince Mohammed "Ben" Salman as to what the US should do.
Tulsi's tweet and use of the word "bitch" was actually referencing a previous tweet she had made months ago criticizing the
way the US seems to be subservient to the Saudis.
This used to be called diplomacy. That's what we (the peace-not-war minded) people) wanted from our government. I
still do, and I'm forced to say I think I actually agree with trump on this one. His tweet was unusually diplomatic and relatively
calm. I was glad he said something reasonable, for perhaps the first time ever.
WE (the US) are not the world dictatorship that should feel free to bomb anyone anywhere anytime, and screw the rest of
the world. Cooperation among governments is not being anyone's bitch. That's the pro war, pro US empire kind of thinking.
America first... see, that's not really what I believe in. So I see now, that must be why I felt so disturbed by her comment.
I just disagree with her basic premise.
Gabbard Campaign Video Slams Trump For Making US "The Prostitute Of Saudi Arabia"
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/17/2019
Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 Rep. Tulsi Gabbard lashed out at Trump on Wednesday after the president vetoed
the Yemen War Powers Resolution this week, which sought to end US support for the Sauid-led war in Yemen.
The Hawaiian congresswomen and outspoken US foreign policy critic asserted the president is turning the nation "into the
prostitute of Saudi Arabia" and further stated he vetoed the bill "to please his Saudi masters" in a minute-and-a-half campaign
video.
"Unlike Donald Trump I will not turn our great country into the prostitute of Saudi Arabia."
#5.1#5.1 is when two countries
engage in discussions to possibly reach a mutual agreement. That seems like an incredibly expansive and pro-Trump reading of
his bizarre tweet.
Twump's tweet, in the clear language of the brief text, was about the US president waiting to hear marching orders from
Crown Prince Mohammed "Ben" Salman as to what the US should do.
Tulsi's tweet and use of the word "bitch" was actually referencing a previous tweet she had made months ago criticizing
the way the US seems to be subservient to the Saudis.
@Linda Wood
which provides the context for Tulsi's latest tweet. In this manner, Tulsi continues to emphasize a theme: no matter the circumstance
(i.e., excuses), Saudi is a barbarous country, executing its detractors with swords rather than nice "surgical" drone strikes
like Obomba and DJT have used.
Gabbard Campaign Video Slams Trump For Making US "The Prostitute Of Saudi Arabia"
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/17/2019
Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 Rep. Tulsi Gabbard lashed out at Trump on Wednesday after the president vetoed
the Yemen War Powers Resolution this week, which sought to end US support for the Sauid-led war in Yemen.
The Hawaiian congresswomen and outspoken US foreign policy critic asserted the president is turning the nation "into
the prostitute of Saudi Arabia" and further stated he vetoed the bill "to please his Saudi masters" in a minute-and-a-half
campaign video.
"Unlike Donald Trump I will not turn our great country into the prostitute of Saudi Arabia."
very
convoluted version , Iranian drones were launched from an Iranian affiliated militia base in Iraq in retaliation for Saudi
funded Israeli drone strikes originating from a US/Kurdish base in Syria that struck Iranian/Iraqi bases, weapons depots, and
a convoy in August.
Middle East Eye, a Qatari financed outlet, reported yesterday that the attack was launched from Iraq by Iran aligned forces
in revenge for Israeli attacks in Syria. The author, David Hearst, is known for slandered reporting. The report is based on
a single anonymous Iraqi intelligence source. Qatar, which is struggling with Saudi Arabia and the UAE over its support for
the Muslim Brotherhood, would like to see a larger conflict involving its rivals east and west of the Persian Gulf. The report
should therefore be disregarded.
but with all the various reports it does seem clear that who launched them (drone or planes) look hard to ascertain for certain.
but trump was far more careful than pompeo and lindsey graham who want to bomb bomb bomb iran on speculation, because iran
is evil.
ah, i've been trying to figure out ho to compile a post on possibilities v. blame, and it's getting further and further away
from me. but both KSA and trump (or his generals) may really understand what's at stake. what's bibi saying?
very
convoluted version , Iranian drones were launched from an Iranian affiliated militia base in Iraq in retaliation for Saudi
funded Israeli drone strikes originating from a US/Kurdish base in Syria that struck Iranian/Iraqi bases, weapons depots, and
a convoy in August.
it's clear that Gulf oil installations are vulnerable from a new generation of drones that these players are assembling or
otherwise acquiring themselves. Several years ago, the Iranians were able to hack a Predator drone and bring it down intact, suitable
for reverse engineering. In past war games, the entire US fleet in the Persian Gulf was destroyed in a matter of minutes by swarms
of Iranian missiles. The Yemen war is likely to be over and the possibility of an attack on Iran seems more unlikely now as well.
Middle East Eye, a Qatari financed outlet, reported yesterday that the attack was launched from Iraq by Iran aligned
forces in revenge for Israeli attacks in Syria. The author, David Hearst, is known for slandered reporting. The report is
based on a single anonymous Iraqi intelligence source. Qatar, which is struggling with Saudi Arabia and the UAE over its
support for the Muslim Brotherhood, would like to see a larger conflict involving its rivals east and west of the Persian
Gulf. The report should therefore be disregarded.
but with all the various reports it does seem clear that who launched them (drone or planes) look hard to ascertain for
certain. but trump was far more careful than pompeo and lindsey graham who want to bomb bomb bomb iran on speculation,
because iran is evil.
ah, i've been trying to figure out ho to compile a post on possibilities v. blame, and it's getting further and further
away from me. but both KSA and trump (or his generals) may really understand what's at stake. what's bibi saying?
against such a swarm attack like this (and so accurately targeted), nor does the US, according to b and a few others. iran
probably does have russian missile defense, but clearly: riyadh needs to make peace with the houthis at any cost. there must be
next to nothing left standing there after what, four years?
it's clear that Gulf oil installations are vulnerable from a new generation of drones that these players are assembling
or otherwise acquiring themselves. Several years ago, the Iranians were able to hack a Predator drone and bring it down intact,
suitable for reverse engineering. In past war games, the entire US fleet in the Persian Gulf was destroyed in a matter of minutes
by swarms of Iranian missiles. The Yemen war is likely to be over and the possibility of an attack on Iran seems more unlikely
now as well.
against such a swarm attack like this (and so accurately targeted), nor does the US, according to b and a few others. iran
probably does have russian missile defense, but clearly: riyadh needs to make peace with the houthis at any cost. there must
be next to nothing left standing there after what, four years?
@dystopian
She, as many predicted, is pushing Trump further and further into a non-confrontational foreign policy. There is not one of the
Klown Kontenders with enough guts to call out Trump as forcefully as this--including Bernie.
This is a new tweet from Tulsi this afternoon with a short vid...
The attack marks a turning point in asymmetrical warfare: no longer can a country bomb its neighbor without fearing a significant
attack in return. An that attack won't be tossing a few rockets in the general direction of a targey; instead they'll be precision
strikes taking out key infrastructure.
The concept of an air force has changed and the big powers won't have a monopoly going forward. Mutually assured destruction
lite.
"... Ms. Warren described Washington as utterly compromised by the influence of corporations and the extremely wealthy, and laid out a detailed plan for cleansing it. ..."
"... "Corruption has put our planet at risk, corruption has broken our economy and corruption is breaking our democracy," Ms. Warren said Monday evening. "I know what's broken, I've got a plan to fix it and that's why I'm running for president of the United States." ..."
"... Their version of populism, which Mr. Sanders pioneered but did not bring to fruition when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, is about attacking concentrated wealth and economic power and breaking its influence over government. Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders, effectively tied for second place in their party's primary, both describe the country's political institutions as rotten and vow to make vast changes to the economy ..."
Warren and Trump Speeches Attack Corruption,
but Two Different Kinds https://nyti.ms/2IaKMVQ
NYT - Alexander Burns - September 17
In New York, Senator Elizabeth Warren described a government compromised by the influence
of the wealthy. President Trump, in New Mexico, denounced a "failed liberal
establishment."
Senator Elizabeth Warren stood beneath a marble arch in New York City, telling a crowd of
thousands that she would lead a movement to purge the government of corruption. Not far from
the site of a historic industrial disaster, Ms. Warren described Washington as utterly
compromised by the influence of corporations and the extremely wealthy, and laid out a
detailed plan for cleansing it.
"Corruption has put our planet at risk, corruption has broken our economy and
corruption is breaking our democracy," Ms. Warren said Monday evening. "I know what's broken,
I've got a plan to fix it and that's why I'm running for president of the United
States."
Only a few hours later, on a stage outside Albuquerque, President Trump took aim at a
different phenomenon that he also described as corruption. Before his own roaring crowd, Mr.
Trump cast himself as a bulwark against the power not of corporations but of a "failed
liberal establishment" that he described as attacking the country's sovereignty and cultural
heritage.
"We're battling against the corrupt establishment of the past," Mr. Trump said, warning in
grim language: "They want to erase American history, crush religious liberty, indoctrinate
our students with left-wing ideology."
The two back-to-back addresses laid out the competing versions of populism that could come
to define the presidential campaign. From the right, there is the strain Mr. Trump brought to
maturity in 2016, combining the longstanding grievances of the white working class with a
newer, darker angst about immigration and cultural change. And on the left, there is a vastly
different populist wave still gaining strength, defined in economic terms by Ms. Warren,
Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The messages underlined the possibility that the 2020 election could be the first in a
generation to be fought without an ally of either party's centrist establishment on the
ballot. While it is by no means certain that Ms. Warren will emerge as the Democratic
nominee, two of her party's top three candidates -- Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders -- are
trumpeting themes of economic inequality and promises of sweeping political and social
reform.
Their version of populism, which Mr. Sanders pioneered but did not bring to fruition
when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, is about attacking concentrated wealth and
economic power and breaking its influence over government. Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders,
effectively tied for second place in their party's primary, both describe the country's
political institutions as rotten and vow to make vast changes to the economy . ...
Let's hope the Sanders campaign does not play this card.
"Senator Professor Warren continues to play error-free baseball in this here presidential
campaign. Not only does she schedule a certified Big Speech in Washington Square Park in New
York on Monday night to talk about the contributions of women to the labor movement not far
from the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, but also, in the afternoon, she scoops an
important endorsement across town. From The New York Times:
'The party endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont during the last presidential cycle,
at which time he described Working Families as "the closest thing" to "my vision of
democratic socialism." The group's endorsement of Ms. Warren on Monday, one of the few by a
prominent progressive organization this early in the primary, is sure to turn heads among
left-leaning Democrats who are desperate to defeat the current front-runner, Mr. Biden, in a
primary election where their party's ideological future is at stake.
Mr. Mitchell brushed off the possibility that the group's endorsement would be seen as a
sign of a splintering of the progressive left. The vote among "tens of thousands" of party
members resulted in a commanding majority for Ms. Warren, a party spokesman said; she
received more than 60 percent of the votes on the first ballot.'
The Sanders camp is already raising holy hell. They will now position SPW as a tool of her
corporate masters. (That's been going on for a while now among some of the more enthusiastic
adherents of the Sanders campaign. My guess is that it will become more general now.) The WFP
endorsement is an important and clarifying one. If there is a liberal lane, there's some
daylight open now."
"... I do like the author's take on the importance of corporations' fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, though. There WAS a time when a company's first priority was customer satisfaction. The moment they became corporations, however, customers went out the window in favor of the shareholders. ..."
Go to the section of Warren's website entitled
"Plans" and at the time of this writing you'll have a choice between a staggering 43 links.
Many of the plans could hugely impact our economy, but one stands above the rest in its
potential to overhaul our commercia landscape. Warren calls the reforms she envisions to
corporate mandates and governance
"accountable capitalism."
Corporations sometimes do bad things, and Warren's plan might stop some of them.
So just what is accountable capitalism? It was originally a bill proposed by Senator Warren
last year. In a fawning write-up in Vox
, Matthew Yglesias inadvertently exposed the idea's flimsy intellectual foundation:
Warren's plan starts from the premise that corporations that claim the legal rights of
personhood should be legally required to accept the moral obligations of personhood.
... ... ...
Warren's plan requires corporations valued at over $1 billion to obtain a special federal
charter. This charter exposes corporations to regulation from a new Office of United States
Corporations that "tells company directors to consider the interests of all relevant
stakeholders -- shareholders, but also employees, customers, and the community within which the
company operates -- when making decisions."
... ... ...
Warren has spent much of her career crusading against the harmful and unjust cozy
relationships between Wall Street and government, often to her credit. It's curious that
someone with such expertise in the matter doesn't seem at all concerned that this new
"accountability" would multiply the number of meetings, phone calls, and emails between senior
regulators and the titans of the private sector.
These billion-dollar corporations already employ armies of lawyers and accountants to
navigate regulatory minefields and turn them into weapons against their smaller competitors.
Does Warren believe this practice will stop overnight?
If most rent-seeking were a matter of nefarious corporate executives buying off weak or
greedy officials, we could just elect better people. The fact that this problem persists over
decades is indicative of a more subtle process. Rent-seeking is an inevitable systemic feature
in a network with thousands of contact points between business and government.
She had her chance in the '08 credit crash when she took on Wall Street & The
Banksters!
She ended up filling the Banksters & 1%'ers pockets with billions of Tarp funds some
of which were donated to her campaign while enacting competition killing Dodd Frank
compliance laws! No one was ever charged or convicted for the $9Trillion debacle!
I recall Barry the magical ***** had similar plans that disappeared the moment of his
coronation/deification. Campaign plans are like that: fictional lies that vanish like
magic.
I do like the author's take on the importance of corporations' fiduciary
responsibility to shareholders, though. There WAS a time when a company's first priority was
customer satisfaction. The moment they became corporations, however, customers went out the
window in favor of the shareholders.
These days, thanks to algos, things like revenue and performance don't even seem to matter
to stock valuation anymore, only buybacks and options seem to keep prices up.
The problem of corporation lack of empathy is not caused by capitalism, it is caused by
the lack of moral values of the people running the corporation. What is needed is a moral
framework within which to raise our young... Religion? Yes! correct answer.
I think the author is too generous with Warren's intentions. She pretends she cares, and
this is her misguided effort to "help". I don't think that's true.
Look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It, too, sounds like it's about
"helping" people. Warren proposed the whole thing, and wrote much of the legislation.
Its real purpose, if you look at its actions (which, I remind you, speak louder than
words) is to extort money from large companies in order to fund left-wing activist groups. In
nearly all its settlements, the CFPB offers companies the option to "donate" money to these
third-party groups in lieu of larger fines and penalties. They've diverted billions of
dollars to activist groups. Controlling the money allows them to control the groups, and
these groups can exert all kinds of pressure, usually in ways that would be illegal, if done
directly by the government.
It's the equivalent of having the government fund paramilitary groups or third party
propaganda.
Warren would establish this new "Office of United States Corporations" to extort even more
money, diverted to third parties to use to destroy people, companies, and anything else she'd
like to target but cannot target directly through government because of our pesky
Constitution.
She's an aspiring totalitarian dictator, using clever language and 21st century tools.
Don't pretend, for a moment, that she's interested in "helping" anyone - she'd happily kill
as many people as Hitler or Stalin ever did, if she had the chance.
"Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) slammed President Donald Trump for turning the nation into
"Saudi Arabia's bitch" after he assured the kingdom that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" as
it waits to hear who may be behind an attack on its oil supply.
"Trump awaits instructions from his Saudi masters," the Democratic presidential candidate
tweeted Sunday. "Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First.'"
Gabbard previously accused Trump of making the U.S. "Saudi Arabia's bitch" last November
for his failure to take action against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who, according
to the U.S. intelligence community, directed the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal
Khashoggi."
"Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has doubled down attacking President Donald Trump over his
response to the weekend's drone attacks on major oil sites in Saudi Arabia.
Trump assured Saudi Arabia via Twitter that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" and awaiting
its direction following the strikes, which were claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels but which
Trump claimed were backed by Iran.
The Democratic presidential candidate -- a combat veteran and a major in the Army National
Guard ― called Trump's response "disgraceful" in a new video shared online Monday.
"Mr. President, as you know, I have never engaged in hateful rhetoric against you or your
family and I never will," said Gabbard. "But your offering our military assets to the
dictator of Saudi Arabia to use as he sees fit is a betrayal of my brothers and sisters in
uniform who are ready to give our lives for our country."
Gabbard said Trump's belief he can "pimp out our proud servicemen and women to the prince
of Saudi Arabia is disgraceful and it once again shows that you are unfit to serve as our
commander in chief."
"My fellow service members and I, we are not your prostitutes," she concluded. "You are
not our pimp."
Most of our disagreements here are not on either economic or political principles, but rather
the awarding of style points with considerable confusion regarding the (sometimes remotely)
possible, the plausible, and the actual.
"... Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is possible but I don't believe it." ..."
"... So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution? ..."
Just bewildering to read the Left's continuing insistence that Israel is best understood as
'just another outpost of the American empire'. This is probably the most damaging idea in
circulation right now, as its diversionary effect is only matched by its absurdity.
The Left simply cannot 'go there' though, no matter how much factual evidence is stacked up.
(On top of the spying and theft we have 'The Lobby' documentary, the defence pact, party
funding, etc. etc.). They have to avoid the reality, one which can only be explained through
cross border tribal allegiances and religious history going back many centuries. These, of
course, lay outside the Left's purview, and any consideration of them is dogmatically
opposed. It is getting to be a kind of insanity.
Tulsi can allege that Saudi Arabia was behind the 9/11 attacks and that they pull the
strings in Washington, (and many on the Left will applaud) but she cannot point out the
rather more glaring 9/11 connections to Israel and the whole machinery of control that lies
at the centre of American empire.
As she votes against BDS, has there ever been a more ridiculous double standard ?
Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual
personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think
the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is
possible but I don't believe it."
So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution?
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been
found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non
stop.
@Cloak And
Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the
few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them. It just
boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all
the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people
understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would RISE UP IN ARMS.
Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." – Admiral Thomas Moorer, head
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview, 24 Aug. 1983
Admiral Moorer, "the dirty anti-semite," was one of the few people with influence to call
out Israel for their deliberate attack on the USS Liberty – https://www.erasingtheliberty.com/
The American Legion continues to wet its pants apparently believing that kissing (((ass)))
is more patriotic than standing up for America and members of the Navy.
Whats new about Israeli spying against the zio/US, hell the government is full of zionists in
every facet of the government, they run every department, including and especially the CIA ,
which would be better named the Mossad West, in fact the Mossad is so embedded in the CIA
that the only way to end this would be to as JFK said to scatter it to the winds aka abolish
the Mossad infested CIA.
Steve Peoples and Will Weissert - AP - September 16
NEW YORK -- Elizabeth Warren has released a sweeping anti-government corruption proposal,
providing a detailed policy roadmap for a fight she says is at the core of her presidential
campaign.
The Democratic senator from Massachusetts is announcing the plan Monday in Manhattan's
Washington Square Park, near the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co., which caught fire in
1911, killing 140-plus workers. Many of those deaths later were attributed to neglected
safety features, such as doors that were locked inside the factory.
Warren's plan would ban lobbyists from many fundraising activities and serving as
political campaign bundlers, tighten limits on politicians accepting gifts or payment for
government actions and bar senior officials and members of Congress from serving on nonprofit
boards. ...
Senator Elizabeth Warren is blitzing the 2020 Democratic primary field with a series of
ambitious policy proposals covering everything from student loans to the use of federal
lands.
Her proposals have become a signature part of her campaign, solidifying her reputation as
a policy wonk and spurring a new campaign slogan: "I have a plan for that."
Big Tech breakup
Child care
Clean energy
Criminal justice
Economic patriotism
Electoral college
Farmers
Filibuster
Green energy
Gun control
Higher education
Housing
Immigration
Minority entrepreneurship
Native American issues
Opioids
Pentagon ethics
Public lands
Puerto Rico
Racial wage disparities
Reparations
Roe v. Wade
Rural communities
State Department
Tax plans
Trade
Voting rights
Wall Street regulation
The Americans have gotten themselves in a real bind with their maximum pressure campaign on Iran. This latest attack on Saudi
Arabia's oil production looks like an escalation of the previous attacks on shipping and the spy drone. It is not evident how
the Americans can respond to this latest attack.
As I see it their options are:
1. To let KSA respond to the Houthi attack and continue with their campaign to shut down Iranian oil production, without any
direct U.S. response to the attack. However this will achieve nothing, as next month Iran will up pressure again with another
attack on Middle-East oil assets, and we'll be back to the same place.
2. To bomb Iran's oil industry, as Pompeo and Graham suggest. However this risks blowing up the whole Middle East, as well
as the World's oil market and their own (Western) economies.
3. Forget about Iran and move the fight to maintain U.S. global hegemony to another front: back to Venezuela? Serbia? Hong
Kong? Taiwan? However the end result of such a move would more than likely be another humuliating defeat for the U.S.
4. Do as Stephen Wertheim / New York Times suggest and sue for peace. This will end the dream of U.S. World dominance, Globalization
and the current western based financial system. The U.S. will become no more than a heavily indebted regional power in a 'Multi-polar
World Order' led by China and Russia.
As I see it, the U.S. is out of options to continue their war for global dominance. #4 is the only viable option. But, as one
author argued in a recent paper (I don't have the reference), wars continue long after the victor is clear, because the loser
can't admit defeat (at heavy additional costs to the loser). I think that this is the position that the U.S. finds itself in now.
What the attack on Saudi oil infrastructure shows us, is that now Iran has united her proxys into one united front.
While they were cautious to not leave evidence of their involvment with the Houtis before, they now are putting their support
more and more into the open.
The attack seemed to have involved not only Houti drones (already build with help from Iran), but also Iranian backed forces
in Iraq, AND pro Iranian forces in Saudi Arabia itself. And maybe even other actors.
This is a major new development. Not only for the war on Yemen, but also in the context of Iran providing a credile detterence
against US+Saudi aggression.
They excalated with increasing levels, and one wonders, what could top this last attack off.
And i am pretty sure, we will find out sooner rather than later.
@ 27
WaPo: Abqaiq . .damaged on the west-northwest sides
That's it! It was Hezbollah for sure. (not)
Actually there were two targets, the Buqaiq (Abqaiq) oil processing plant and the Khurais oil field, both in the Eastern Province.
These attacks are not the first -- from longwarjournal:
Last month, the Houthis claimed another drone operation against Saudi's Shaybah oil field near the United Arab Emirates. At
more than 1,000 miles away from it's Yemen territory, that strike marked one of the Houthis farthest claimed attacks.
The Houthis also claimed a drone strike on the Abu Dhabi airport last year, but that has been denied by Emirati officials.
Additionally, a drone strike on Saudi's East-West oil pipeline near Riyadh earlier this year, which the Houthis claimed responsibility,
was allegedly conducted by Iranian-backed Iraqi militants. If accurate, that means the Houthi claim of responsibility acted
as a type of diplomatic cover for the Iraqi militants.
Since beginning its drone program last year, the Houthis have launched at least 103 drone strikes in Yemen and Saudi Arabia
according to data compiled by FDD's Long War Journal. . .
here . . .and more
here .
Really appreciated the write up on the Houthis attack.
Sounds like the attack left substantial damage. Another bigger issue underlying all of this, aside from Saudi inability to get
what it wants now from it's IPO, is the fact that the US Patriots did not detect this attack.
The Saudis spent billions last year on this defense system. Sounds like the clown Prince better give Russians a call about their
S-400.
But the US wouldn't appreciate that much, would they?
Those who control the public forum, as Spengler pointed out, obviously use their control to further their own interests and no
others. Why in the world would an American-hating MSM give Americans an equal voice?
Notable quotes:
"... These educated lemmings believe what they're spoon fed by CNN or Fox News. They cannot possibly accept that they're immune to facts and disproof of their cherished assumptions because they've been emotionally conditioned on a subconscious level, after which facts and reasoning are emotionally reacted to like they were personal attacks. ..."
"... A newly scripted financial crisis will complete transfer of much of America's corporate assets to the government when the $7 trillion in private retirement assets is appropriated in emergency legislation, immediately conceded by the Republicans amid the usual handwringing and crocodile tears. In exchange Americans will receive rapidly deflating gov bonds that will be accepted as the new store of wealth, which it will be for the elites who own American as surely as they do in Venezuela. ..."
Politics in America is a function of those who control the public forum via the msm. Those
who control the public forum, as Spengler pointed out, obviously use their control to further
their own interests and no others. Why in the world would an American-hating msm give
Americans an equal voice?
The msm aren't merely some unfortunate artifact of the First Amendment we have to live.
The msm control the formation of men's minds. As Jacques Ellul points out in his masterpiece
on propaganda, it's those among us who're most educated and most inclined to closely follow
the "news" who are most susceptible to brainwashing. These educated lemmings believe what
they're spoon fed by CNN or Fox News. They cannot possibly accept that they're immune to
facts and disproof of their cherished assumptions because they've been emotionally
conditioned on a subconscious level, after which facts and reasoning are emotionally reacted
to like they were personal attacks.
This explains why college educated white women are the Dems' winning edge, trading empty
moral posturing for condemning their own children and grandchildren to die hounded and
dispossessed in their own land. But there are never any consequences when they insist they
have the best of intentions. These women whose thoughts are authored by their own people's
enemies will probably put a Warren or one of the other Marxists over the top in 2020.
A newly
scripted financial crisis will complete transfer of much of America's corporate assets to the
government when the $7 trillion in private retirement assets is appropriated in emergency
legislation, immediately conceded by the Republicans amid the usual handwringing and
crocodile tears. In exchange Americans will receive rapidly deflating gov bonds that will be
accepted as the new store of wealth, which it will be for the elites who own American as
surely as they do in Venezuela.
DNC is a criminal organization and the fact that Debbie Wasserman
Schultz escaped justice is deeply regreatable.
Notable quotes:
"... The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0. ..."
"... Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed a different policy. ..."
"... The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class. But people can vote for a representative of the One Percent and the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party. ..."
"... I'm just curious about how much longer this log-jam situation can persist before real political realignment takes place. Bernie Sander is ultimately a relic not a representative of new political vigor running through the party, like Trump he would be largely be on his own without much congressional support from his own party. ..."
"... As the 2016 election and Brexit have illuminated, globalisation is a religion for the upper middle classes. ..."
"... They just refuse to understand that political solidarity, key to any such policies is permanently damaged by immigration. ..."
"... If you make people chose between their ethnicity being displaced and class conflict, they'll pick the preservation of their ethnicity and it's territory every time. I ..."
"... My prediction: The elites in the US won't give way, people will simply become demoralised and the Trump/Sanders moment will pass with significant damage done to the legitimacy of American democracy and media but with progressives unable to deal with immigration (Much like the right can't deal with global warming) they will fail to get much done. The general population has become too atomised and detached, beaten-down bystanders to their own politics and society to mount a popular political movement. Immigrants, recent descendants of immigrants and the upper middle classes will continue to instinctually understand globalisation is how they loot America and will not vote for 'extreme' candidates that threaten this. The upper middle class will continue to dominate the overton window and use it to inject utter economic lies to the public. ..."
I hope that the candidate who is clearly the voters' choice, Bernie Sanders, may end up as the party's nominee. If he is, I'm
sure he'll beat Donald Trump handily, as he would have done four years ago. But I fear that the DNC's Donor Class will push Joe Biden,
Kamala Harris or even Pete Buttigieg down the throats of voters. Just as when they backed Hillary the last time around, they hope
that their anointed neoliberal will be viewed as the lesser evil for a program little different from that of the Republicans.
So Thursday's reality TV run-off is about "who's the least evil?" An honest reality show's questions would focus on "What are
you against ?" That would attract a real audience, because people are much clearer about what they're against: the vested
interests, Wall Street, the drug companies and other monopolies, the banks, landlords, corporate raiders and private-equity asset
strippers. But none of this is to be permitted on the magic island of authorized candidates (not including Tulsi Gabbard, who was
purged from further debates for having dared to mention the unmentionable).
Donald Trump as the DNC's nominee
The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing
social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial
markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0.
DNC donors favor Joe Biden, long-time senator from the credit-card and corporate-shell state of Delaware, and opportunistic California
prosecutor Kamala Harris, with a hopey-changey grab bag alternative in smooth-talking small-town Rorschach blot candidate Pete Buttigieg.
These easy victims are presented as "electable" in full knowledge that they will fail against Trump.
Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending
for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of
all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed
a different policy.
The Democratic Party's role is to protect Republicans from attack from the left, steadily following the Republican march rightward.
Claiming that this is at least in the direction of being "centrist," the Democrats present themselves as the lesser evil (which is
still evil, of course), simply as pragmatic in not letting hopes for "the perfect" (meaning moderate social democracy) block the
spirit of compromise with what is attainable, "getting things done" by cooperating across the aisle and winning Republican support.
That is what Joe Biden promises.
The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class.
But people can vote for a representative of the One Percent and the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic
column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party.
The Democratic National Committee worries that voters may disturb this alliance by nominating a left-wing reform candidate. The
DNC easily solved this problem in 2016: When Bernie Sanders intruded into its space, it the threw the election. It scheduled the
party's early defining primaries in Republican states whose voters leaned right, and packed the nominating convention with Donor
Class super-delegates.
After the dust settled, having given many party members political asthma, the DNC pretended that it was all an unfortunate political
error. But of course it was not a mistake at all. The DNC preferred to lose with Hillary than win with Bernie, whom springtime polls
showed would be the easy winner over Trump. Potential voters who didn't buy into the program either stayed home or voted green.
No votes will be cast for months, so I don't know how Mr. Hudson can say that Sanders is "clearly the voters choice." He would
be 79 on election day, well above the age when most men die, which is something that voters should seriously consider. Whoever
his VP is will probably be president before the end of Old Bernie's first term, so I hope he chooses his VP wisely.
In any case I laugh at how the media always reports that Biden, who has obviously lost more than a few brain cells, has such
a commanding lead over this field of second-raters. The voters, having much better things to do, haven't even started to pay attention
yet.
And, how could anyone seriously believe in these polls anyway? Only older people have land lines today. If calling people is
the methodology pollsters are using, then the results would be heavily skewed towards former VP Biden, whose name everyone knows.
I lost all faith in polls when the media was saying, with certainty, that Hillary was a lock to win against the insurgent Trump.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate beside Trump with charisma today. With her cool demeanor, she is certainly the least unlikeable.
She would be Trump's most formidable opponent. But the democrats, like their counterparts, are owned by Wall Street and the Military
Industrial Complex. Sadly, most democrats still believe that the party is working in their best interests, while the republicans
are the party of the rich.
If you watch the debates tonight, which I will not be, you will notice that Tulsi Gabbard won't be on stage. That is by design.
She is a leper. At least the republicans allowed Trump to be onstage in 2016, which makes them more democratic than the democrats.
Plus they didn't have Super Delegates to prevent Trump from achieving the nomination he had rightfully won. Something to think
about since the DNC, not the voters, annointed Hillary last time.
If the YouTube Oligarchs still allow it, I plan on watching the post-debate analysis with characters like Richard Spencer and
Eric Striker. Those guys are most entertaining, and have insights that are not permitted to be uttered in the controlled, mind-numbing
farce of the mainstream media.
Elizabeth Warren seems a more likely nominee than Sanders.
Elizabeth Warren is phony as phuck(PAP). Just like forked tongued Obama she's really just a tool for the neo-liberal establishment,
which does make her more likely.
Here is another question. Can the DNC or RNC really change institutionally fast enough?
I'm just curious about how much longer this log-jam situation can persist before real political realignment takes place.
Bernie Sander is ultimately a relic not a representative of new political vigor running through the party, like Trump he would
be largely be on his own without much congressional support from his own party.
As the 2016 election and Brexit have illuminated, globalisation is a religion for the upper middle classes. Many of
them may be progressives but they refuse to understand the very non-progressive consequences of mass immigration (Or, one should
say over-immigration) or globalisation more generally. The increasing defection of such individuals to the Liberal Democrats in
Britain is a fascinating example. They just refuse to understand that political solidarity, key to any such policies is permanently
damaged by immigration.
It is interesting to see the see-saw effect of UKip and now the Brexit party in the UK (Well, in England). With them first
drawing working class voters from Labour without increasing Conservative performance, bringing about a massive conservative majority
and now threatening to siphon voters from the Tories with the opposite effect.
But UKip and later the Brexit party almost exist through the indispensable leadership of Nigel Farage and a very specific motivating
goal of leaving the EU. I can't see a third party rising to put pressure on the mainstream parties.
If you make people chose between their ethnicity being displaced and class conflict, they'll pick the preservation of their
ethnicity and it's territory every time. I f the centre left refuses to understand this (Something that wouldn't have been
hard for them to understand when they still drew candidates from the working classes) they will continue their slide into oblivion
as they have done across the Western world. (Excluding 2 party systems and Denmark where they do understand this)
My prediction: The elites in the US won't give way, people will simply become demoralised and the Trump/Sanders moment
will pass with significant damage done to the legitimacy of American democracy and media but with progressives unable to deal
with immigration (Much like the right can't deal with global warming) they will fail to get much done. The general population
has become too atomised and detached, beaten-down bystanders to their own politics and society to mount a popular political movement.
Immigrants, recent descendants of immigrants and the upper middle classes will continue to instinctually understand globalisation
is how they loot America and will not vote for 'extreme' candidates that threaten this. The upper middle class will continue to
dominate the overton window and use it to inject utter economic lies to the public.
The novel internet mass media outlets that allowed such unpoliced political discussion to reach mass audiences will be pacified
by whatever means and America will slide into an Italian style trans-generational malaise at a national level for some time.
Here is another question. Can the DNC or RNC really change institutionally fast enough?
Trump is trying to change the RNC away from Globalist elites and towards Christian Populist beliefs and Main Street America.
I am some what hopeful, as the U.S. is not alone in this trajectory. There is a global tail wind that should help the GOP change
quickly enough.
The true test will be the 2024 GOP nomination. A bold choice will have to break through to keep the RNC from backsliding into
the clutches of Globalist failure.
I think Sanders could have beat Trump in 2016. This time around it is not that clear because so many of his supporters in 2016
feel burnt.
Badly burnt. Or Bernt. He threw his support for Hillary, even if it was tepid, and then got a bad case of Russiagateitis which
his base on the left really hated. His left base never bought Russiagate for a minute. We knew it was an internal leak, probably
by Seth Rich, who provided all the information to Assange. He still seems to be a strong Israel supporter even if has stood up
to Netanyahu.
And while it may seem odd, many of his base on the left have grown weary of the global climate change agenda.
He has not advocated nuclear power and there is a growing movement for that on the left, especially by those who think renewables
will not generate the power we need.
But since Sanders does seem to attract the rural and suburban vote more than any other Democrat, Sanders has a chance to chip
away at Trumps' base and win the Electoral College. Another horrible loss to rural and suburban America by the Democrats will
cost them the EC again by a substantial margin, even if they manage to pull off another popular vote win.
the republican party is as globalist as you can find,and I'm sure you will be the first one to inform us when the global
elite including those in America throw in the towel,
Some elite Globalist NeverTrumpers, such as George Will and Bill Kristol, have thrown in the towel on the GOP. This allows
their "neocon" followers to return to their roots in the war mongering Democrat Party. So it *IS* happening.
The real questions are:
-- Can it happen fast enough?
-- Can it be sustained after Donald Trump term limits out?
I'm not bold enough to say it is inevitable. All I will say is, "There are reasons to be at least mildly hopeful."
Has everyone forgot the last time the DNC openly cheated Sanders he said nothing publicly, but then endorsed Clinton? Sanders
knows he is not allowed to become president, his role to prevent the formation of a third party, and to keep the Green Party small.
Otherwise he would jump to the Green Party right now and may beat the DNC and Trump.
Sanders treats progressives like Charlie Brown. Once again, inviting them to run a kick the football, only to pull it away
and watch them fall. He recently backed off his opposition to the open borders crazies, rarely mentions cuts to military spending
to fund things, and has even joined the stupid fake russiagate bandwagon.
Note that he dismisses the third party idea as unworkable, when he already knows the DNC is unworkable. Why not give the Green
party a chance? Cause he don't want to win knowing he'd be killed or impeached for some reason.
@Carlton Meyer The
Stalinist DNC openly cheated Tulsi Gabbard when they left her off the debate stage last night. When asked about it on 'The View'
recently, Sanders said nothing in her defense, or that she deserved to be on the stage. Nice way to stab her in the back for leaving
her DNC position to support you last time, Bernie. Socialist Sanders wants to be president, yet is afraid of the DNC. Nice!
Those polls were rigged against Tulsi, and everyone who is paying attention knows it. But, far from hurting her candidacy by
not making the DNC's arbitrary cut, her exclusion may wind up helping her. Kim Iverson, Michael Tracey, and comedian Jimmy Dore,
anti-war progressive YouTubers with large, loyal followings, have lambasted the out-of touch DNC for its actions. Tucker Carlson
on the anti-war right has also done so.
One hopes that the DNC's stupidity in censoring her message may wind up being the best thing ever for Tulsi's insurgent candidacy.
We shall see. OTOH, who can trust the polls to tell us the truth of where her popularity stands.
@RadicalCenter Do you
forget about Trump's declaration that he wants the largest amount of immigration ever, as long as they come in legally? There
are no good guys in our two sclerotic monopoly parties when it comes to immigration. Since both are terrible on that topic, at
least Tulsi seems to have the anti-war principles that Trump does not.
"... By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually "completely real" and "totally bad." ..."
"... The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida. ..."
"... Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But it looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an energized left. ..."
"... And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do just that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which migrants are allowed into the country. "In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites." But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant. Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately rejecting six applicants. ... "Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ... ..."
...But he also spoke, in admiring tones and at substantial length, about "The Two-Income Trap:
Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke," the book Warren wrote with her daughter in 2004.
"Elizabeth Warren wrote one of the best books I've ever read on economics," he said.
By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and
declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a
pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually
"completely real" and "totally bad."
His Bolshevist pronouncements were probably not a surprise to anyone who'd watched Carlson's
show closely in the months leading up to his speech. But Fox, despite its outsize influence,
has a relatively small audience.
And it's not just Carlson's evolution that's escaped notice. It's hard to keep track of what
most of the key players on the right are saying these days, with President Trump soaking up so
much attention.
But while the commander-in-chief thrashes about, something important is taking shape in his
shadow -- the outlines of a new conservatism inspired, or at least elevated, by his rise to
power.
It's a conservatism that tries to wrestle with the post-Cold War, post-industrial angst that
fired his election -- dropping a reflexive fealty to big business that dates back to the Reagan
era and focusing more intently on the struggles of everyday Americans.
"There are many downsides, I will say, to Trump," Carlson said, in his speech this summer.
"But one of the upsides is, the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely ... that it did
cause some significant percentage of people to say, 'wait a second, if that can happen, what
else is true?' "
The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but
among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley of
Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of
opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But it
looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an
energized left.
Whether the two sides can actually forge a meaningful alliance in the glare of our
hyperpartisan politics is an open question. But a compact -- even a provisional one -- may
offer the country its best shot at building a meaningful, post-Trump politics.
. . .
CARLSON DELIVERED HIS speech at the National Conservatism Conference -- the first major
gathering aimed at forging a new, right-of-center approach in the age of Trump.
"This is our independence day," said Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political theorist and chief
organizer of the event, in his spirited opening remarks. "We declare independence from
neoconservatism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism." "We are national conservatives," he said. Any effort to build a right-of-center nationalism circa 2019 inevitably runs into questions
about whether it will traffic in bigotry.
And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do just
that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which migrants
are allowed into the country. "In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off
with more whites and fewer nonwhites." But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant. Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately
rejecting six applicants. ... "Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ...
* At the National Conservatism Conference, an 'Intellectual Trumpist' Movement Begins to
Take Shape
DNC is a criminal organization and the fact that Debbie Wasserman
Schultz escaped justice is deeply regreatable.
Notable quotes:
"... The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0. ..."
"... Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed a different policy. ..."
"... The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class. But people can vote for a representative of the One Percent and the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party. ..."
"... I'm just curious about how much longer this log-jam situation can persist before real political realignment takes place. Bernie Sander is ultimately a relic not a representative of new political vigor running through the party, like Trump he would be largely be on his own without much congressional support from his own party. ..."
"... As the 2016 election and Brexit have illuminated, globalisation is a religion for the upper middle classes. ..."
"... They just refuse to understand that political solidarity, key to any such policies is permanently damaged by immigration. ..."
"... If you make people chose between their ethnicity being displaced and class conflict, they'll pick the preservation of their ethnicity and it's territory every time. I ..."
"... My prediction: The elites in the US won't give way, people will simply become demoralised and the Trump/Sanders moment will pass with significant damage done to the legitimacy of American democracy and media but with progressives unable to deal with immigration (Much like the right can't deal with global warming) they will fail to get much done. The general population has become too atomised and detached, beaten-down bystanders to their own politics and society to mount a popular political movement. Immigrants, recent descendants of immigrants and the upper middle classes will continue to instinctually understand globalisation is how they loot America and will not vote for 'extreme' candidates that threaten this. The upper middle class will continue to dominate the overton window and use it to inject utter economic lies to the public. ..."
I hope that the candidate who is clearly the voters' choice, Bernie Sanders, may end up as the party's nominee. If he is, I'm
sure he'll beat Donald Trump handily, as he would have done four years ago. But I fear that the DNC's Donor Class will push Joe Biden,
Kamala Harris or even Pete Buttigieg down the throats of voters. Just as when they backed Hillary the last time around, they hope
that their anointed neoliberal will be viewed as the lesser evil for a program little different from that of the Republicans.
So Thursday's reality TV run-off is about "who's the least evil?" An honest reality show's questions would focus on "What are
you against ?" That would attract a real audience, because people are much clearer about what they're against: the vested
interests, Wall Street, the drug companies and other monopolies, the banks, landlords, corporate raiders and private-equity asset
strippers. But none of this is to be permitted on the magic island of authorized candidates (not including Tulsi Gabbard, who was
purged from further debates for having dared to mention the unmentionable).
Donald Trump as the DNC's nominee
The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing
social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial
markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0.
DNC donors favor Joe Biden, long-time senator from the credit-card and corporate-shell state of Delaware, and opportunistic California
prosecutor Kamala Harris, with a hopey-changey grab bag alternative in smooth-talking small-town Rorschach blot candidate Pete Buttigieg.
These easy victims are presented as "electable" in full knowledge that they will fail against Trump.
Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending
for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of
all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed
a different policy.
The Democratic Party's role is to protect Republicans from attack from the left, steadily following the Republican march rightward.
Claiming that this is at least in the direction of being "centrist," the Democrats present themselves as the lesser evil (which is
still evil, of course), simply as pragmatic in not letting hopes for "the perfect" (meaning moderate social democracy) block the
spirit of compromise with what is attainable, "getting things done" by cooperating across the aisle and winning Republican support.
That is what Joe Biden promises.
The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class.
But people can vote for a representative of the One Percent and the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic
column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party.
The Democratic National Committee worries that voters may disturb this alliance by nominating a left-wing reform candidate. The
DNC easily solved this problem in 2016: When Bernie Sanders intruded into its space, it the threw the election. It scheduled the
party's early defining primaries in Republican states whose voters leaned right, and packed the nominating convention with Donor
Class super-delegates.
After the dust settled, having given many party members political asthma, the DNC pretended that it was all an unfortunate political
error. But of course it was not a mistake at all. The DNC preferred to lose with Hillary than win with Bernie, whom springtime polls
showed would be the easy winner over Trump. Potential voters who didn't buy into the program either stayed home or voted green.
No votes will be cast for months, so I don't know how Mr. Hudson can say that Sanders is "clearly the voters choice." He would
be 79 on election day, well above the age when most men die, which is something that voters should seriously consider. Whoever
his VP is will probably be president before the end of Old Bernie's first term, so I hope he chooses his VP wisely.
In any case I laugh at how the media always reports that Biden, who has obviously lost more than a few brain cells, has such
a commanding lead over this field of second-raters. The voters, having much better things to do, haven't even started to pay attention
yet.
And, how could anyone seriously believe in these polls anyway? Only older people have land lines today. If calling people is
the methodology pollsters are using, then the results would be heavily skewed towards former VP Biden, whose name everyone knows.
I lost all faith in polls when the media was saying, with certainty, that Hillary was a lock to win against the insurgent Trump.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate beside Trump with charisma today. With her cool demeanor, she is certainly the least unlikeable.
She would be Trump's most formidable opponent. But the democrats, like their counterparts, are owned by Wall Street and the Military
Industrial Complex. Sadly, most democrats still believe that the party is working in their best interests, while the republicans
are the party of the rich.
If you watch the debates tonight, which I will not be, you will notice that Tulsi Gabbard won't be on stage. That is by design.
She is a leper. At least the republicans allowed Trump to be onstage in 2016, which makes them more democratic than the democrats.
Plus they didn't have Super Delegates to prevent Trump from achieving the nomination he had rightfully won. Something to think
about since the DNC, not the voters, annointed Hillary last time.
If the YouTube Oligarchs still allow it, I plan on watching the post-debate analysis with characters like Richard Spencer and
Eric Striker. Those guys are most entertaining, and have insights that are not permitted to be uttered in the controlled, mind-numbing
farce of the mainstream media.
Elizabeth Warren seems a more likely nominee than Sanders.
Elizabeth Warren is phony as phuck(PAP). Just like forked tongued Obama she's really just a tool for the neo-liberal establishment,
which does make her more likely.
Here is another question. Can the DNC or RNC really change institutionally fast enough?
I'm just curious about how much longer this log-jam situation can persist before real political realignment takes place.
Bernie Sander is ultimately a relic not a representative of new political vigor running through the party, like Trump he would
be largely be on his own without much congressional support from his own party.
As the 2016 election and Brexit have illuminated, globalisation is a religion for the upper middle classes. Many of
them may be progressives but they refuse to understand the very non-progressive consequences of mass immigration (Or, one should
say over-immigration) or globalisation more generally. The increasing defection of such individuals to the Liberal Democrats in
Britain is a fascinating example. They just refuse to understand that political solidarity, key to any such policies is permanently
damaged by immigration.
It is interesting to see the see-saw effect of UKip and now the Brexit party in the UK (Well, in England). With them first
drawing working class voters from Labour without increasing Conservative performance, bringing about a massive conservative majority
and now threatening to siphon voters from the Tories with the opposite effect.
But UKip and later the Brexit party almost exist through the indispensable leadership of Nigel Farage and a very specific motivating
goal of leaving the EU. I can't see a third party rising to put pressure on the mainstream parties.
If you make people chose between their ethnicity being displaced and class conflict, they'll pick the preservation of their
ethnicity and it's territory every time. I f the centre left refuses to understand this (Something that wouldn't have been
hard for them to understand when they still drew candidates from the working classes) they will continue their slide into oblivion
as they have done across the Western world. (Excluding 2 party systems and Denmark where they do understand this)
My prediction: The elites in the US won't give way, people will simply become demoralised and the Trump/Sanders moment
will pass with significant damage done to the legitimacy of American democracy and media but with progressives unable to deal
with immigration (Much like the right can't deal with global warming) they will fail to get much done. The general population
has become too atomised and detached, beaten-down bystanders to their own politics and society to mount a popular political movement.
Immigrants, recent descendants of immigrants and the upper middle classes will continue to instinctually understand globalisation
is how they loot America and will not vote for 'extreme' candidates that threaten this. The upper middle class will continue to
dominate the overton window and use it to inject utter economic lies to the public.
The novel internet mass media outlets that allowed such unpoliced political discussion to reach mass audiences will be pacified
by whatever means and America will slide into an Italian style trans-generational malaise at a national level for some time.
Here is another question. Can the DNC or RNC really change institutionally fast enough?
Trump is trying to change the RNC away from Globalist elites and towards Christian Populist beliefs and Main Street America.
I am some what hopeful, as the U.S. is not alone in this trajectory. There is a global tail wind that should help the GOP change
quickly enough.
The true test will be the 2024 GOP nomination. A bold choice will have to break through to keep the RNC from backsliding into
the clutches of Globalist failure.
I think Sanders could have beat Trump in 2016. This time around it is not that clear because so many of his supporters in 2016
feel burnt.
Badly burnt. Or Bernt. He threw his support for Hillary, even if it was tepid, and then got a bad case of Russiagateitis which
his base on the left really hated. His left base never bought Russiagate for a minute. We knew it was an internal leak, probably
by Seth Rich, who provided all the information to Assange. He still seems to be a strong Israel supporter even if has stood up
to Netanyahu.
And while it may seem odd, many of his base on the left have grown weary of the global climate change agenda.
He has not advocated nuclear power and there is a growing movement for that on the left, especially by those who think renewables
will not generate the power we need.
But since Sanders does seem to attract the rural and suburban vote more than any other Democrat, Sanders has a chance to chip
away at Trumps' base and win the Electoral College. Another horrible loss to rural and suburban America by the Democrats will
cost them the EC again by a substantial margin, even if they manage to pull off another popular vote win.
the republican party is as globalist as you can find,and I'm sure you will be the first one to inform us when the global
elite including those in America throw in the towel,
Some elite Globalist NeverTrumpers, such as George Will and Bill Kristol, have thrown in the towel on the GOP. This allows
their "neocon" followers to return to their roots in the war mongering Democrat Party. So it *IS* happening.
The real questions are:
-- Can it happen fast enough?
-- Can it be sustained after Donald Trump term limits out?
I'm not bold enough to say it is inevitable. All I will say is, "There are reasons to be at least mildly hopeful."
Has everyone forgot the last time the DNC openly cheated Sanders he said nothing publicly, but then endorsed Clinton? Sanders
knows he is not allowed to become president, his role to prevent the formation of a third party, and to keep the Green Party small.
Otherwise he would jump to the Green Party right now and may beat the DNC and Trump.
Sanders treats progressives like Charlie Brown. Once again, inviting them to run a kick the football, only to pull it away
and watch them fall. He recently backed off his opposition to the open borders crazies, rarely mentions cuts to military spending
to fund things, and has even joined the stupid fake russiagate bandwagon.
Note that he dismisses the third party idea as unworkable, when he already knows the DNC is unworkable. Why not give the Green
party a chance? Cause he don't want to win knowing he'd be killed or impeached for some reason.
@Carlton Meyer The
Stalinist DNC openly cheated Tulsi Gabbard when they left her off the debate stage last night. When asked about it on 'The View'
recently, Sanders said nothing in her defense, or that she deserved to be on the stage. Nice way to stab her in the back for leaving
her DNC position to support you last time, Bernie. Socialist Sanders wants to be president, yet is afraid of the DNC. Nice!
Those polls were rigged against Tulsi, and everyone who is paying attention knows it. But, far from hurting her candidacy by
not making the DNC's arbitrary cut, her exclusion may wind up helping her. Kim Iverson, Michael Tracey, and comedian Jimmy Dore,
anti-war progressive YouTubers with large, loyal followings, have lambasted the out-of touch DNC for its actions. Tucker Carlson
on the anti-war right has also done so.
One hopes that the DNC's stupidity in censoring her message may wind up being the best thing ever for Tulsi's insurgent candidacy.
We shall see. OTOH, who can trust the polls to tell us the truth of where her popularity stands.
@RadicalCenter Do you
forget about Trump's declaration that he wants the largest amount of immigration ever, as long as they come in legally? There
are no good guys in our two sclerotic monopoly parties when it comes to immigration. Since both are terrible on that topic, at
least Tulsi seems to have the anti-war principles that Trump does not.
Democracy is a loaded word. Reasoning about it in a public discussion is thus fraught with
lots of difficulties. This comment is to highlight some crucial factors that are rarely
mentioned.
1. democracy is the particular political outcome of centuries of struggles within the
context of Early-Modernity in Western European societies (14th to 18th centuries). Three
forces were in competition for the control of power: the clergy, the nobility, and the new
rich merchants (those who in France were living in the "bourgs" and were thus called the
bourgeoisie. They were also the one's who were owning the capital). The gradual expansion of
the right to vote, to all adult citizens along the 19th and 20th centuries, was calibrated by
big capital holders to act as a system serving their interests through the manipulation of
the public's opinions. And man how successful the West is at this game
2. the history of the other people, outside of western territories, is rich with their own
experiences. Even if they are largely unknown to Westerners these histories offer viable
alternatives to the Western model of democracy. But Westerners are not interested to learn
about these other models. They firmly believe that their own system is the best and they are
always ready to impose it by force
3. Western political science is relatively young (1 or 2 centuries at best). This compares
with Chinese political science that spans over 3 millennia as a written matter that finds its
origin through oral transmission from earlier times.
_________
The words "Government of the People, by the People, for the People" is an ideological logo
that never materialized on any large scale nor over any long time-span anywhere on earth.
The shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world' to East Asia and more
particularly to China is a 'fait accompli' that still has to register in the West. The longer
it takes the West to come to its senses the more painful the downfall will be and the more
totalitarian the governance system will become
The issue isn't really democracy, and in any event not liberal democracy, which is close
to an oxymoron, given that liberalism creates imbalances of power and wealth inimical to
democracy. And the argument is a bit incoherent : voting rights in most countries were based
on property ownership, not wealth as such, and much of the political conflict of the 19th
century was between traditional landowners and the emerging middle classes, who had the
wealth and wanted the power. Likewise, the move to neoliberalism had begun before the end of
the 1970s' and slower economic growth was a consequence of it, not a cause.
The real issue is that people expect political leaders, whom they elect and pay, to do
things. But modern political leaders have for the last generation or so developed the art of
saying that nothing can be done, or at least nothing that will make life better. So a
political figure who proposes to actually do something that people want is a dangerous and
disruptive force. Irrespective of their precise views and policies, they are a danger to the
current political class, which resolutely refuses to do anything useful.
+1000
The allergy to actually enacting policies that have been proven in the past to be beneficial
to the citizenry of a country is impressive in its almost pathological implementation. No
matter how bad the outcomes of neoliberal economics is, we can't possibly change those
policies. This goes beyond TINA. I look at people like Joe Biden and Jo Swinson and marvel at
their innate ability to defend the worst excesses of policies like bailing out the banks and
austerity and yet still cry crocodile tears for the people.
But if you cannot expect to elect a leader that migth do something this is another way of
saying democracy is in trouble. The result is that democracy is constrained by a dominant
ideology and this undermines democracy. Everything becomes technocratical and obscure,
particularly –but not only– monetary policy. I wonder by how much this already
short room of maneuver has to be reduced to allow claiming democracy is already dead. There
are many candidates that go with the discourse that "I will do the only thing that can be
done" so you know from the very beginning that business will go as usual an nothing will be
done. For instance, Joe Incremental Biden. A very good example in US is Health Care. A good
majority wants H.C. for all, but we migth find again that candidates that promise it are
effectively blocked because "it cannot be done (too expensive etc.)". I really think
democracy is in trouble if this occurs again.
Why should "science" have anything to do with democracy?
As someone from the united states, I live in a republic.
Our founding fathers rejected democracy as a form of government.Some of them, like alexander
hamilton loathed democracy Which is one reason I think he was an ass but that is besides the
point..
Democracy, as an ideal to be promoted in this republic with democratic assumptions . is
just something that stands on its own in the sphere of "civics"
democracy is just a practice of engaging with others. it is a discipline.
science may exemplify practical thinking and action as expressed in the scientific method
.. but democracy isn't just about what is the "most likely to be true" . it is just what
"most people choose" Now education is what lies between what those people know, how they know
it and then their choices as to what they really want . but science is a discipline that is
really to be exalted in a free society . but has no real place in the democratic institution.
IMO
People make democracy not science . and "people" is a tough nut to crack
Hitler was keen on science, to explain his motives his perversions of truth became state
mandated axioms of truth . despite being pure BS..
Under neo-liberalism, the state does little more than maintain the rights of ownership
and internal and external security through criminal justice and armed services –
notwithstanding, the state may bail out financial services if they require public
aid. Kevin Albertson [bold added]
It does more than just bail out financial services, the state PRIVILEGES them beforehand
by failing to provide something so simple, so obvious as, for example, inherently risk-free
debit/checking accounts for all citizens at the Central Bank (or National Treasury)
itself.
The result is nations have a SINGLE* payment system that MUST work through the banks or
not at all – making their economies hostage to what are, in essence,
government-privileged usury cartels.
We can have nations that are for their citizens or ones which privilege banks and other
depository institutions but not both.
*apart from mere physical fiat, paper bills and coins.
The problem may not be so much with democracy as with "representative" democracy. I
believe that it was Harvard that did a study that found that the wishes of the bulk of the
electorate were habitually ignored unless it aligned with the wishes of the wealthier portion
of society. In other words, after the elections were over, voter's wishes were not a factor.
Perhaps more imaginative ideas need to be adopted. We have secret balloting right now so how
about secret ballots in the Senate and the House of reps – on pieces of paper counted
in public under the watch of several parties. No digital crap allowed. No donor would be able
to tell what his purchased politician actually voted in any session. Every vote would then
become a conscience vote. When you think about it, there is nothing to say that how things
are now should also be the way that things always are.
" the promotion of the neo-liberal political economic paradigm need not result from a
conspiracy."
Just because it "need not" doesn't mean it does not. There is a playbook for
privatization:
1) Identify a government function that could provide a profit opportunity.
2) Deprive the dept. that provides that function of the funds needed to adequately do a
proper job of it.*
3) Point out, loudly & publicly, what a crappy job the gov't is doing.
4) Announce that "We have a solution for that" – which, of course, involves
privatization.*
*Note: steps 2 & 4 require co-operation of gov't representatives which is obtained
through lobbying & briber.. er, campaign contributions.
Well, now governments just 'restructure' and pass out contracts to justify laying off
employees. There is no need to starve a department of funds first.
My experience is that the contracted 'service' is oversold and mostly goes to pot, and the
gov will still renew the contracts for the crappy service providers over and over.
In simpler times, democracy was viewed at risk if citizens could vote themselves money.
Now citizens are at risk when pirates can dispense with the voting to get money.
A cruel twist is where those pirates and their paid pols stick the citizens with the
downside.
It seems to me, including all the above comments, underlying all of this is the pursuit of
"economic growth", which ultimately means the pursuit of economic wealth by the most powerful
of the ownership class at the expense of everyone else. And they are the group that buy and
install the politicians to ensure that pursuit remains as unimpeded as possible.
Examples of this off-the-rails philosophical and social justification of "modern"
capitalism are apparent to everyone (I hope); Shareholder Primacy, Intellectual "Property"
Laws, Health Care as a Profit Center replacing health care of citizenry, abstract legal
entities, Corporations, given the same rights (and few responsibilities) as individual
people, the taking over of education systems by this same ownership class, again primarily
for profit and propaganda, increasing for-profit, and control, surveillance, and more rule
the day.
Historically, and unfortunately, the prime reset has often been violent revolution. Mike
Duncan's Revolutions podcast teaches us many examples throughout history and should be
required listening for today's ownership class and politicians everywhere and High School
history classes.
THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH by Benjamin Friedman in the HarvardScholar link
was a thought provoking read about the linkages between affective economic growth and
morality– and visa versa.
I believe he was arguing that a cultures adopted values directs the benefits of that cultures
economic growth and applications(without direct outside meddling). And that can become a
reinforcing feedback loop–for both the held values and values had about economic
growth.
Economic Growth is often compiled in numbers in Lamberts Water Cooler at least
weekly–however, like Inflation Stats, often a lot of critical things are not considered
in the compilation(gas price in inflation and happiness in economic growth–as two
simple i.e.)
imo, We need more progress in expanding the term Economic Growth beyond consumption and
production to be pertinent in 2019.
I think this is a really good analysis in that it comes to the conclusion that we need
more democracy; we are not democratically "liberal" at all. We were just hoodwinked for about
the last 50 years. We need to be socially democratic. It will bring an end to the obscene
inequalities we see and stabilize civilization. So the apotheosis of unregulated growth and
the free-range consumer is over. Tsk tsk. That was imposed on society by the mandate for
profits (which they never wanted to admit, but it depended entirely on demand). I guess the
consumer is headed for the bone yard of Idols. We will, by necessity, have something entirely
different. A form of social demand; a cooperative of some sort. Hanging on to old worn out
ideas is all that is left – kind of like nostalgia. Like the Donald pandering to
"business" by gutting the EPA now when manufacturing has been decimated and methods of
mitigating pollution are a market in themselves. Trump is just campaigning like an old fool;
but it's probably working.
Finally, an article on Neolib Capitalism that a 5th-grader can grasp – maybe granny
too. I already shared it with a dozen friends (ironically – most with doctorates as the
choir can never be too big).
Now let's all rise and sing a rousing chorus of Dude Where's My Democracy.
After reading about the failure of the F.D.A. to regulate pharma and protect us, after
witnessing our military going into losing war after losing stalemate, after seeing
homelessness explode, drug use, the failure of schools supposedly controlled by the
Department of Education, an eroding environment, etc.
At what point do citizens stop voluntarily paying taxes and complying with federal
laws?
After the collapse of NHS care, after the oversubsciption of our local schools by a factor
of n, after there being no police in the streets to curb the harassment rowdiness and
burglary, after a complete collapse of democracy following people's vote for liberty from
shackles of giant EU squid, after the horrific waste of local councils monies on sucking up
to the terror of minorities (racial, ethnic, sexual), after our own councils ramming the
extreme numbers of noninvited imported alien population down the throats of hitherto
taxpaying funders of the target occupation environment, and so on, can I have a separate TV
station to tell you, the only thing left for the sitting target taxpayers paying for all this
largesse, abuse, and outright extortion is indeed to abandon any of the previously normal
concepts of tax, duty and bills payments, and let the local and state governments get into
the costly business of corralling each and every hitherto low lying fruit taxpayer, and
forcing monies out of them at a great expense to the target and the enforcer.
Read all the way through and never encountered the names Reagan or Thatcher. As the
principal enablers of the financial / economic disaster called the Washington Consensus,
their names should be right up there. We need an annual festival with bonfires and fireworks
when we can burn the rogues in effigy.
The author is right that prolonged peace allows power to concentrate. He does not indicate
the end result that Rome and Constantinople experienced when deprived citizens declined to
fight for the empire and the Goths / Crusaders were able to take over. We study Greek and
Roman history in school but somehow its relevance to our declining state means nothing to
us.
I've always been a huge fan of the Haynes Guides . A finer series of "how-to" books
has never been published.
Gratified to read the phrase "carrying capacity" in a political discussion. One of the
central drivers of elite power and asset hoarding is the perception of scarcity and the
compulsion to ration (i.e. cut-off supplies of "nice things" to the proles and dusky-hued
people).
Looking forward to the Haynes Guide to Eating the Rich .
https://c.deployads.com/sync?f=html&s=2343&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2019%2F09%2Fdude-wheres-my-democracy.html
<img src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=16807273&cv=2.0&cj=1" />
Legitimate Government
Recently,
Foa & Mounk argued that many citizens in supposed advanced democracies have become
rather disillusioned with the workings of the political system in their nation. There is good
reason to suppose the current political economic paradigm is skewed against the people.
So-called democratic deficits exist in the USA and elsewhere . In
the UK, for example, the electorate disapprove and have disapproved of
four decades of tax and welfare and
privatisation policies – yet are apparently powerless to influence these
policies.
As politicians and the donors who support them become less responsive to voters' wishes it
is hardly surprising many, perhaps the majority, of the populace will
view government as illegitimate . In consequence, voters seem increasingly inclined to
elect (so-called) populist leaders, political outsiders who may change
the rules in favour of the people .
The Left and the Right
Legitimate government, so Abraham Lincoln observes, is that which
does for a community that which the community cannot do (or cannot do so well) for themselves.
With this it is difficult to disagree. However, political theory differs on who might make up
that community.
Broadly speaking, those
on the (so-called) economic "right" argue government should enact policy for the benefit of
those who own the nation, while those (so-called) economic "left" consider policy should
prioritise the interests of citizens. By definition, therefore, capitalist governments will
take up positions on the right – particularly in nations, such as the UK, which are increasingly
owned by foreign interests . Conversely democratically accountable governments must take
positions economically to the left, prioritising the preferences of citizens.
Universal Adult Suffrage
At the dawn of democracy, only the wealthy could vote. Thus, there was less conflict between
the aspirations of the powerful and of voters. Following the extension to the adult population
of the right to vote in the late 19th and early 20th century, politicians became answerable to
a wider range of stakeholders.
In particular, from the middle of the 20th century until the late 1970s, legitimate
democratic governments held markets to account in the interests of the demos. An increasingly
affluent society facilitated profit making opportunities and thus economies grew; the interests
of capital and citizens coincided.
In response, to preserve or increase their own income growth, elites are motivated to argue
for the
"freeing" of markets . Rather than markets being held accountable to citizens through
democratic governance, it was suggested that holding governments (and through them the
citizenry) to account through reliance on market forces would facilitate a
return to economic growth.
The Washington Consensus
The economic paradigm which promotes the small state and reliance on market forces is
generally known as neo-liberalism, or the Washington Consensus . Under
neo-liberalism, the state does little more than maintain the rights of ownership and internal
and external security through criminal justice and armed services – notwithstanding,
the
state may bail out financial services if they require public aid. In the UK and the USA
politicians from both main parties adopted this point of view, often in sincere, if misguided,
belief in its validity. Thus, neo-liberalism maintains the appearance of democracy, in that
citizens may vote for political leaders, but limits the range of policies on offer to those
which are acceptable to markets – or rather, those who command market forces.
@follyofwar
Agreed . she was better off absent from that snore session. They all looked weak and
pathetic. BTW, Tulsi's now gotten her 3rd qualifying poll. She'll surge back much stronger.
And maybe even smarter, if she endorses this:
That means protection against the Republican-Democratic threats to cut back Social
Security to balance the budget in the face of tax cuts for the richest One Percent and
rising Cold War military spending. This means a government strong enough to take on the
vested financial and corporate interests and prosecute Wall Street's financial crime and
corporate monopoly power.
Analogies with late Imperial Rome are by now so cliché that even your average
dullard is familiar with them. But I find that the most fascinating -- and frightening --
parallels are with another empire of more recent vintage: the Empire of Japan.
The above quote brought to my mind the political unrest in Tokyo during the 1930s. Far
from being the work of a cabal of "militarists", as postwar legend would have it, Japan's
various internecine (and often bloody) political feuds and expensive military ventures were
driven by a public heavily invested in these affairs; hoping against hope for an outlet to
vent their increasing rage over dwindling social programs and opportunities at the cost of
propping up a concurrently fattening elite class.
Analyzing events like the Ni-ni-roku jiken (2/26 Incident) can be highly
instructional for Americans seeking some manner of explanation for their present failing
political system. While it is true that this nearly successful insurrection was carried out
by ultra-nationalists, their intention was not to deny the people a voice in the running of
government with their aspiration for direct rule by the Shōwa Emperor (then as now, the
Emperor served in a quasi-religious capacity with little ability to actually govern). Rather,
they felt that parliamentary democracy was a sham that benefitted only the monied and
privileged; and that only the Emperor, as the living incarnation of the Japanese state, could
act and respond according to the sovereign will of its people. What appeared to be a desire
for authoritarianism was, in fact, the radical, ideological inversion of the Marxist concept
of a "dictatorship of the proletariat". The Shōwa Emperor, in other words, was the
instrument of effecting the will of the nation; the "Emperor of the people"
(天皇の國民 Tennō no kokumin ).
I view in a similar vein the fascination and dreams that Trump and other such figures
excite in many: The radical hope that only a leader willing to smash the system, which to all
intents and purposes appears to only serve the few, can paradoxically restore the ability of
the many to express and act. Bogged down as we are by ballooning military debt (and blood),
economic stagnation, and an ever-widening chasm between the "haves" and "have-nots", and it
becomes difficult to ignore the parallels between the US today and Japan in 1936.
This was an interesting article, but I hold no illusions about the future. There will be
no breakup of the two major parties, no viable alternatives. Things will only get worse.
I envy those in their 50s and up today -- they will likely miss out on the momentous
history that people my generation and younger will be bearing reluctant witness to.
"... As in every election we're now being bombarded with propaganda about how "your vote makes a difference" and associated nonsense. According to the official version ordinary citizens control the state by voting for candidates in elections. The President and other politicians are supposedly servants of "the people" and the government an instrument of the general populace. This version is a myth. ..."
"... It does not matter who is elected because the way the system is set up all elected representatives must do what big business and the state bureaucracy want, not what "the people" want. Elected representatives are figureheads. ..."
"... Politicians' rhetoric may change depending on who is elected, but they all have to implement the same policies given the same situation. Elections are a scam whose function is to create the illusion that "the people" control the government, not the elite, and to neutralize resistance movements. All voting does is strengthen the state & ruling class, it is not an effective means to change government policy. ..."
"... What a politician says to win an election and what he actually does in office are two very different things; politicians regularly break their promises. This is not just a fluke but the outcome of the way the system is set up. Bush the second said he wouldn't engage in "nation-building" (taking other countries over) during the 2000 election campaign but has done it several times. He also claimed to support a balanced budget, but obviously abandoned that. Clinton advocated universal health care during the 1992 election campaign but there were more people without health insurance when he left office than when he took office. Bush the first said, "read my lips – no new taxes!" while running for office but raised taxes anyway. Reagan promised to shrink government but he drastically expanded the military-industrial complex and ran up huge deficits. Rather than shrinking government, he reoriented it to make it more favorable to the rich. ..."
"... Carter promised to make human rights the "soul of our foreign policy" but funded genocide in East Timor and backed brutal dictators in Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia and elsewhere. During the 1964 elections leftists were encouraged by Democrats to vote for Johnson because Goldwater, his Republican opponent, was a fanatical warmonger who would escalate US involvement in Vietnam. ..."
"... Johnson won, and immediately proceeded to escalate US involvement in Vietnam. FDR promised to maintain a balanced budget and restrain government spending but did the exact opposite. Wilson won reelection in 1916 on the slogan "he kept us out of war" but then lied us into World War One. Hoover pledged to abolish poverty in 1928 but instead saw it skyrocket. ..."
I have no Idea when this article was printed, but it matters
not. This holds true for every election ever held in America.
If voting mattered they
wouldn't let us do it.
As in every election we're now being bombarded with propaganda about how "your vote makes a
difference" and associated nonsense. According to the official version ordinary citizens
control the state by voting for candidates in elections. The President and other politicians
are supposedly servants of "the people" and the government an instrument of the general
populace. This version is a myth.
It does not matter who is elected because the way the system
is set up all elected representatives must do what big business and the state bureaucracy want,
not what "the people" want. Elected representatives are figureheads.
Politicians' rhetoric may
change depending on who is elected, but they all have to implement the same policies given the
same situation. Elections are a scam whose function is to create the illusion that "the people"
control the government, not the elite, and to neutralize resistance movements. All voting does
is strengthen the state & ruling class, it is not an effective means to change government
policy.
From the same article, a list of campaign promises never kept (needs to be updated with
Obama/Trump).
What a politician says to win an election and what he actually does in office are two
very different things; politicians regularly break their promises. This is not just a fluke
but the outcome of the way the system is set up. Bush the second said he wouldn't engage in
"nation-building" (taking other countries over) during the 2000 election campaign but has
done it several times. He also claimed to support a balanced budget, but obviously abandoned
that. Clinton advocated universal health care during the 1992 election campaign but there
were more people without health insurance when he left office than when he took office. Bush
the first said, "read my lips – no new taxes!" while running for office but raised
taxes anyway. Reagan promised to shrink government but he drastically expanded the
military-industrial complex and ran up huge deficits. Rather than shrinking government, he
reoriented it to make it more favorable to the rich.
Carter promised to make human rights the "soul of our foreign policy" but funded
genocide in East Timor and backed brutal dictators in Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Brazil,
Indonesia and elsewhere. During the 1964 elections leftists were encouraged by Democrats to
vote for Johnson because Goldwater, his Republican opponent, was a fanatical warmonger who
would escalate US involvement in Vietnam.
Johnson won, and immediately proceeded to escalate
US involvement in Vietnam. FDR promised to maintain a balanced budget and restrain government
spending but did the exact opposite. Wilson won reelection in 1916 on the slogan "he kept us
out of war" but then lied us into World War One. Hoover pledged to abolish poverty in 1928
but instead saw it skyrocket. https://www.bigeye.com/elections.htm
"... Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down. ..."
"... Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as whatever was most useful politically. ..."
"Carlson concluded by warning about the many other Boltons in the federal bureaucracy,
saying that "war may be a disaster for America, but for John Bolton and his fellow neocons,
it's always good business."
He went on to slam Trump's special representative for Iran and contender to replace Bolton,
Brian Hook, as an "unapologetic neocon" who "has undisguised contempt for President Trump, and
he particularly dislikes the president's nationalist foreign policy." Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed Carlson hours later in a tweet, arguing that "Thirst for war
– maximum pressure – should go with the warmonger-in-chief." Reuters and
Haaretz
-------------
Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar
of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite
German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them
allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not
accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down.
Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they
developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like
Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic
campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as
whatever was most useful politically.
They are not conservative at all, not one bit. Carlson was absolutely right about that.
They despise nationalism. They despise the idea of countries. In that regard they are like
all groups who aspire to globalist dominion for their particular ideas.
"... After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism. ..."
"... In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation. In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." ..."
"... Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high "the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system." ..."
"... The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another. ..."
This is as good a time as any to point to an alternative vision of foreign policy. One based on the principle of non-interference,
respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and, above all, international law. One based on peaceful coexistence and mutual
cooperation. A vision of the world at peace and undivided by arbitrary distinctions. Such a world is possible and even though
there are currently players around the world who are striving in that direction we need look no further than our own history for
inspiration. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one Henry A. Wallace, for your consideration.
(The following excerpts from an article by Dr. Dennis Etler. Link to the full article provided below.) --
The highest profile figure who articulated an alternative vision for American foreign policy was the politician Henry Wallace,
who served as vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1944 and ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the
Progressive Party.
After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's
role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with
partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism.
Wallace gave a speech in 1942 that declared a "Century of the Common Man." He described a post-war world that offered "freedom
from want," a new order in which ordinary citizens, rather than the rich and powerful, would play a decisive role in politics.
That speech made direct analogy between the Second World War and the Civil War, suggesting that the Second World War was being
fought to end economic slavery and to create a more equal society. Wallace demanded that the imperialist powers like Britain and
France give up their colonies at the end of the war.
In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation.
In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in
war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and
by such means as we see fit."
Wallace responded to Luce with a demand to create a world in which "no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other
nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there
must be neither military nor economic imperialism." Wallace took the New Deal global. His foreign policy was to be based on non-interference
in the internal affairs of other countries and mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Sadly, since then, despite occasional efforts to head in a new direction, the core constituency for US foreign policy has been
corporations, rather than the "common man" either in the United States, or the other nations of the world, and United States foreign
relations have been dominated by interference in the political affairs of other nations. As a result the military was transformed
from an "arsenal for democracy" during the Second World War into a defender of privilege at home and abroad afterwards.
-- - Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without
political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high
"the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key
policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance
of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system."
--
Wallace's legacy suggests that it is possible to put forth a vision of an honest internationalism in US foreign policy that
is in essence American. His approach was proactive not reactive. It would go far beyond anything Democrats propose today, who
can only suggest that the United States should not start an unprovoked war with Iran or North Korea, but who embrace sanctions
and propagandist reports that demonize those countries.
Rather than ridiculing Trump's overtures to North Korea, they should go further to reduce tensions between the North and the
South by pushing for the eventual withdrawal of troops from South Korea and Japan (a position fully in line with Wallace and many
other politicians of that age).
Rather than demonizing and isolating Russia (as a means to score political points against Trump), progressives should call for
a real détente, that recognizes Russia's core interests, proposes that NATO withdraw troops from Russia's borders, ends sanctions
and reintegrates Russia into the greater European economy. They could even call for an end to NATO and the perpetuation of the
dangerous global rift between East and West that it perpetuates.
Rather than attempt to thwart China's rise, and attack Trump for not punishing it enough, progressives should seek to create new
synergies between China and the US economically, politically and socioculturally.
-- -
In contrast to the US policy of perpetual war and "destroying nations in order to save them," China's BRI proposes an open plan
for development that is not grounded in the models of French and British imperialism. It has proposed global infrastructure and
science projects that include participants from nations in Africa, Asia, South and Central America previously ignored by American
and European elites -- much as Wallace proposed an equal engagement with Latin America. When offering developmental aid and investment
China does not demand that free market principles be adopted or that the public sector be privatized and opened up for global
investment banks to ravish.
-- The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing
its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying
on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with
nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another.
Good catch; you were first with that blockbuster. You know who would be a good replacement?
Tulsi Gabbard. It would please those who moan the government is too partisan, it would remove
the only real non-ideologue from the Democratic slate, and leave them with doddering Uncle
Joe and a bunch of no-ideas bobbleheads. Few would dare question her lack of foreign-policy
experience, given her actual experience of being at the sharp end of it with the military.
The American people claim to be sick of war – although not sick enough of it to do any
real protesting against it – and Gabbard is anti-war. She's easy on the eyes, but if
Trump tried his grab-'er-by-the-pussy move, he would find himself only needing one glove this
winter; her obvious toughness would appeal to feminists. I think she'd take it if asked,
because although she despises Trump and his government, she would not be able to resist the
opportunity to shape America's foreign policy. She would eat news outlets who tried to
portray her as an apologist for terror or Putin or whatever for lunch.
Well, she was not on the short list of names I saw for potential Bolton replacements. I don't
see her making president, though, her support base is just not big enough. But if the
Democrats put all their eggs in the Burnout Joe basket, he will in all probability lose to
Trump. Trump's support has eroded, but not so far that very many people want to see Joe Biden
running the country.
I don't usually find much value at the Atlantic but this article (written before Trump even
fired Bolton) about Trump's FP timeline (and flip flops) and Bolton who was acting like he
was President is very, very good.
It will allow Trump loyalist to more easily support Trump and give everyone else a tad bit of
hope that Trump really won't go bonkers and start any wars.
Since President Trump appears to talk about things and stuff with Tucker Carlson, perhaps he
should ask Tucker Carlson to spend a week thinking . . . and then offer the President some
names and the reasoning for offering those names.
If the President asks the same Establishment who gave him Bolton, he will just be handed
another Bolton. "Establishment" include Pence, who certainly supported Bolton's outlook on
things and would certainly recommend another "Bolton" figure if asked. Let us hope Pence is
not consulted on Bolton's successor.
different clue,
re "Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor."
Understandable point of view but then, Trump still is Trump. He can just by himself and
beyond advice easily find suboptimal solutions of his own.
Today I read that Richard Grenell was mentioned as a potential sucessor.
As far as that goes, go for it. Many people here will be happy when he "who always only
sais what the Whitehouse sais" is finally gone.
And with Trump's biggest military budget in the world he can just continue the arms sale
pitches that are and were such a substantial part of his job as a US ambassador in
Germany.
That said, they were that after blathering a lot about that we should increase our
military budget by 2%, 4%, 6% or 10%, buy US arms, now, and of course the blathering about
Northstream 1 & 2 and "slavedom to russian oil & gas" and rather buy US frack gas of
course.
He could then also take a side job for the fracking industry in that context. And buy
frack gas and arms company stocks. Opportunities, opportunities ...
I don't usually find much value at the Atlantic but this article (written before Trump even
fired Bolton) about Trump's FP timeline (and flip flops) and Bolton who was acting like he
was President is very, very good.
It will allow Trump loyalist to more easily support Trump and give everyone else a tad bit of
hope that Trump really won't go bonkers and start any wars.
Since President Trump appears to talk about things and stuff with Tucker Carlson, perhaps he
should ask Tucker Carlson to spend a week thinking . . . and then offer the President some
names and the reasoning for offering those names.
If the President asks the same Establishment who gave him Bolton, he will just be handed
another Bolton. "Establishment" include Pence, who certainly supported Bolton's outlook on
things and would certainly recommend another "Bolton" figure if asked. Let us hope Pence is
not consulted on Bolton's successor.
different clue,
re "Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor."
Understandable point of view but then, Trump still is Trump. He can just by himself and
beyond advice easily find suboptimal solutions of his own.
Today I read that Richard Grenell was mentioned as a potential sucessor.
As far as that goes, go for it. Many people here will be happy when he "who always only
sais what the Whitehouse sais" is finally gone.
And with Trump's biggest military budget in the world he can just continue the arms sale
pitches that are and were such a substantial part of his job as a US ambassador in
Germany.
That said, they were that after blathering a lot about that we should increase our
military budget by 2%, 4%, 6% or 10%, buy US arms, now, and of course the blathering about
Northstream 1 & 2 and "slavedom to russian oil & gas" and rather buy US frack gas of
course.
He could then also take a side job for the fracking industry in that context. And buy
frack gas and arms company stocks. Opportunities, opportunities ...
"... Any honest Eisenhower Republican would be a lot better than Clinton or Obama (although still capitalist and imperialist). I am worried, however, about the palling around with HRC and it seems to me that she is (willingly or unknowingly) being used as a firebreak to prevent voters from moving to Bernie. ..."
Essentially, Toback argues that Warren's project is to somehow hoodwink us into believing that she is an opponent of neoliberalism
when in reality she is committed to legitimating neoliberalism. For Warren, neoliberalism is simply really 2 legit 2 quit (I'll spare
you the MC Hammer video).
Still, while stark differences between Sanders, Biden and the rest seem obvious to most, when it comes to Elizabeth Warren,
many on the alleged left have taken to collapsing distinctions. They argue that Warren's just as, or even more progressive, equal
but a woman and therefore better, not quite as good but still a fundamental shift to the left, or at the very least, a serious
opponent of neoliberalism. Some have even fantasized that Sanders and Warren function as allies, despite the obvious fact that
they are, you know Running against each other.
All of these claims obscure the fundamental truth that Sanders and Warren are different in kind, not degree. Warren has always
been a market-first neoliberal and nothing she's doing now suggests deviation. Despite her barrage of plans and recent adoption
of left rhetorical shibboleths like "grassroots movements" and "structural change," Warren remains a neoliberal legitimization
machine. Anybody who's serious about amending and expanding the social contract and/or preserving the habitability of the planet
needs to oppose her candidacy now.
Toback nicely weaves together and systematically presents pretty much all the analysis I've seen here at C99%. It's well worth
reading as is the David Harvey interview linked above.
And for some icing on the cake, Toback quotes some lyrics from the splendid Leonard Cohen song 'Democracy':
"It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat." -- Leonard Cohen
might be someone I could support. She said all the right things. That was all I had to judge by. So I took a wait and see.
I have always been able to see the reality of actions that differ from words. Hers don't match. It's far better that she lacks
Obama's charisma and has shown who she is before she's sitting in Trump's chair.
might be someone I could support. She said all the right things. That was all I had to judge by. So I took a wait and see.
I have always been able to see the reality of actions that differ from words. Hers don't match. It's far better that she lacks
Obama's charisma and has shown who she is before she's sitting in Trump's chair.
@orlbucfan
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such as
Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of neoliberal
freedoms.
#3
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such
as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of
neoliberal freedoms.
#3
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such
as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of
neoliberal freedoms.
over toward Obama. I don't think she's to the left of him. Then again, I'm not really sure how much of what she says I believe.
A lot of it seems mushy and ill-defined (what is "access to healthcare?"), and she certainly isn't consistent in her support for
MFA. For that matter, how can you take large donations from the people who put us where we are if you intend to change the system
they created? Does that mean that the multi-millionaires and billionaires don't like the system they created? That they see its
destructiveness and now, finally, want to head it off? That's the only logical way you can put together "I'm going to change the
system" and "I'm going to take large donations from people who built, maintain, and profit from the system." Since I've seen no
evidence that the "smart money," or any other money, is interested in changing the system, I'd have to reject this hypothesis.
So what am I left with? I'm left with guessing that Warren is another one of those "all we need to do is tweak the system a
little" types--but if that's the case, she's not going to solve global warming, the health care crisis, the economic crisis, the
collapse of wages, the destruction of basic human rights, the destruction--or distortion--of the rule of law, or the endless wars.
All those things have been put in place by the people she wants to take lots of money from. And take it in the dark, too. Spiffing.
She was an outspoken opponent of the TPP in 2015 before she could be seen reasonably as posturing for a Presidential run. The
TPP is the essence of neoliberalism.
I have seen her as an Eisenhower Republican and therefore to the left of the Democratic leadership. I think the Consumer Protection
Agency was an attempt at moderating some of the worst effects of unrestrained capitalism.
Any honest Eisenhower Republican would be a lot better than Clinton or Obama (although still capitalist and imperialist).
I am worried, however, about the palling around with HRC and it seems to me that she is (willingly or unknowingly) being used
as a firebreak to prevent voters from moving to Bernie.
slippery...just like Clinton (Bill I mean). And don't get me started on this whole palling around with Hillary crap. I mean
really Liz?
iv> I see the GLOBALIST shills are in full force on this video, trying to artificially
bring down the ratio from probably 99% Positive that such a bad man is gone. Doesn't matter,
the Silent Majority & good people everywhere know that Bolton was a poor candidate for
that job with a catastrophic failure record & everybody is better of with a more
competent person in that position.
John Bolton is owned by foreign powers like many in Washington. They get paid by their
lobby to push the neocon agenda which translates into robbing the US of it's $ to fight wars
that don't benefit the US.
War monger Bolton. How did that Libya thing work out for Europe ? Now after looking back,
I am sure the African invasion into Europe was planned by Obama and his boss Soros.
Tucker while I agree with you on the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya. But one thing
you left out Tucker. Foxnews hired John Bolton as a Contributer for over a decade. How do you
miss that part.
All the policies in the Middle East are complete and other failures. I'm so sick of neo
cons. You can't get rid of them. You can not get rid of them. It doesn't matter who you vote
for. Constant war. Like every regime couldn't be replaced around the world. Absolutely
ridiculous.
"In Washington, nobody cares what kind of job you did, only that you did the job. Nobody
there learns from mistakes, because mistakes are never even acknowledged. Ever." Yes, Tucker
DOES understand Washington!!!
xt" role="article"> If Bolton becomes a Fox News contributor: I will change the channel
immediately... I already do this when Jeff Epstein's, the child trafficker and rapist, good
buddy Alan Dershowitz comes on as a guest... Do not know why Fox News selects guest
contributors that have their morals/values in the wrong directions...
icle"> Bolton was signatory to PNAC- the project for a new american century, like other
progressives and neo-cons of his generation. They do not view the chaos left by taking out
Ghaddafi and Saddam as problems, rather the creation of failed states was their objective all
along. Members of the GOP went along with these plans where they coincided with their own
political and business objectives- the military industrial complex and the oilmen.
The Pope didn't seem too put out when faced with a long list of accusations against him from
American Catholics as he was flying from Rome to Mozambique. He said he was honored to be
attacked by them.
The book 'How America Wanted to Change the Pope' explores the supposed efforts of the
conservative Catholic opposition in the US to launch a "coup d'état" against Francis.
A copy was given to the pontiff by the author Nicolas Seneze, a journalist from France's
Catholic newspaper La Croix, who was on board the papal plane Wednesday.
"For me it is an honor that Americans attack me," the pope quipped as he received the
book, which he had apparently heard about and wanted to procure.He joked that the book about
his critics "will be a bombshell."
But Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni attempted to deflate tensions, clarifying that the
comments were made informally. He said Francis "always considers it an honor to be
criticized," especially when it comes from "authoritative voices" or, as in this case, "an
important nation."
"... But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. ..."
"... Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't. ..."
"... It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist. ..."
"... It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One. ..."
"... Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016. ..."
No major politician, not even Barack Obama, excoriated the Iraq war more fiercely than did
Trump during the primaries. He did this in front of a scion of the house of Bush and in the
deep red state of South Carolina. He nevertheless went on to win that primary, the Republican
nomination and the presidency on that antiwar message.
And so, to see Bolton ascend to the commanding heights of the Trump White House shocked many
from the time it was first rumored. "I shudder to think what would happen if we had a failed
presidency," Scott McConnell, TAC' s founding editor, said in late 2016 at our foreign
policy conference, held, opportunely, during the presidential transition. "I mean, John
Bolton?"
At the time, Bolton was a candidate for secretary of state, a consideration scuttled in no
small part because of the opposition of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. As McConnell
wrote in November of that year: "Most of the upper-middle-level officials who plotted the Iraq
War have retreated quietly into private life, but Bolton has kept their flame alive." Bolton
had already been passed over for NSA, losing out early to the doomed Michael Flynn. Rex
Tillerson beat him for secretary of state. Bolton was then passed over for the role of
Tillerson's deputy. When Flynn flamed out of the White House the following February, Trump
chose a general he didn't know at all, H.R. McMaster, to replace him.
Bolton had been trying to make a comeback since late 2006, after failing to hold his job as
U.N. ambassador (he had only been a recess appointment). His landing spots including a Fox News
contributorship and a post at the vaunted American Enterprise Institute. Even in the early days
of the Trump administration, Bolton was around, and accessible. I remember seeing him multiple
times in Washington's Connecticut Avenue corridor, decked out in the seersucker he notoriously
favors during the summer months. Paired with the familiar mustache, the man is the Mark Twain
of regime change.
But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the
Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive,
influential Mercer billionaires. He also struck a ferocious alliance with the Center for
Security Policy, helmed by the infamous Frank Gaffney, and gave paid remarks to the National
Council for the Resistance of Iran, the lynchpin organization of the People's Mujahideen of
Iran, or MEK. The latter two associations have imbued the spirit of this White House, with
Gaffney now one of the most underrated power players in Washington, and the MEK's "peaceful"
regime change mantra all but the official line of the administration.
More than any of these gigs, Bolton benefited from two associations that greased the wheels
for his joining the Trump administration.
The first was Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. If you want to
understand the administration's Iran policy under Bolton to date, look no further than a piece
by the then-retired diplomat in conservative mainstay National Review in August 2017,
days after Bannon's departure from the White House: "How to Get Out of the Iran Deal." Bolton
wrote the piece at Bannon's urging. Even out of the administration, the former Breitbart
honcho was an influential figure.
"We must explain the grave threat to the U.S. and our allies, particularly Israel," said
Bolton. "The [Iran Deal's] vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran's
direction; Iran's significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable
conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that [the Iran deal] is
not in the national-security interests of the United States."
Then Bolton, as I
documented , embarked on a campaign of a media saturation to make a TV-happy president
proud. By May Day the next year, he would have a job, a big one, and one that Senator Paul
couldn't deny him: national security advisor. That wasn't the whole story, of course. Bolton's
ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive
Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson
failed to strenuously object.
So will Trump finally do it? Other than White House chief of staff, a position Mick Mulvaney
has filled in an acting capacity for the entire calendar year, national security advisor is the
easiest, most senior role to change horses.
A bombshell Washington Post story lays out the dire truth: Bolton is so distrusted on
the president's central prerogatives, for instance Afghanistan, that he's not even allowed to
see sensitive plans unsupervised.
Bolton has also come into conflict with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to three
senior State Department officials. Pompeo is the consummate politician. Though an inveterate
hawk, the putative Trump successor does not want to be the Paul Wolfowitz of the Iran war.
Bolton is a bureaucratic arsonist, agnostic on the necessity of two of the institutions he
served in -- Foggy Bottom and the United Nations. Pompeo, say those around him, is keen to be
beloved, or at least tolerated, by career officials in his department, in contrast with Bolton
and even Tillerson.
The real danger Bolton poses is to the twin gambit Trump hopes to pull off ahead of, perhaps
just ahead of, next November -- a detente deal with China to calm the markets and ending
the war in Afghanistan. Over the weekend, the president announced a scuttled meeting with the
Taliban at Camp David, which would have been an historic, stunning summit. Bolton was
reportedly instrumental in quashing the meet. Still, there is a lot of time between now and
next autumn, and the cancellation is likely the latest iteration of the president's showman
diplomacy.
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and
ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.
You confuse "politician" and "liar" here, whereas he is "consummate" at neither politics
nor lying. His politicking has been as botched as his diplomacy; his lying has been
prodigious but transparent.
Bolton has been on the way out now for how many months? I will believe this welcome news
when I see his sorry ___ out the door.
I think much of America and the world will feel the same way.
It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't
change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon
interventionist.
It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One.
Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could
replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing
people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat
its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016.
Trump whole administration is just a bunch of rabid neocons who will be perfectly at home (and some were) in Bush II
administration. So firing of Bolton while a step in the right direction is too little, too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud. ..."
"... Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane. ..."
While there was some feverish speculation as to what an impromptu presser at 1:30pm with US
Secretary of State Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Security Adviser Bolton
would deliver, that was quickly swept aside moments later when Trump unexpectedly announced
that he had effectively fired Bolton as National Security Advisor, tweeting that he informed
John Bolton "last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House" after "
disagreeing strongly with many of his suggestions. "
... ... ...
Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering
neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even
Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud.
While we await more details on this strike by Trump against the military-industrial
complex-enabling Deep State, here is a fitting closer from Curt Mills via the American
Conservative:
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general
and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he
didn't.
"... But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. ..."
"... Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't. ..."
"... It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist. ..."
"... It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One. ..."
"... Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016. ..."
No major politician, not even Barack Obama, excoriated the Iraq war more fiercely than did
Trump during the primaries. He did this in front of a scion of the house of Bush and in the
deep red state of South Carolina. He nevertheless went on to win that primary, the Republican
nomination and the presidency on that antiwar message.
And so, to see Bolton ascend to the commanding heights of the Trump White House shocked many
from the time it was first rumored. "I shudder to think what would happen if we had a failed
presidency," Scott McConnell, TAC' s founding editor, said in late 2016 at our foreign
policy conference, held, opportunely, during the presidential transition. "I mean, John
Bolton?"
At the time, Bolton was a candidate for secretary of state, a consideration scuttled in no
small part because of the opposition of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. As McConnell
wrote in November of that year: "Most of the upper-middle-level officials who plotted the Iraq
War have retreated quietly into private life, but Bolton has kept their flame alive." Bolton
had already been passed over for NSA, losing out early to the doomed Michael Flynn. Rex
Tillerson beat him for secretary of state. Bolton was then passed over for the role of
Tillerson's deputy. When Flynn flamed out of the White House the following February, Trump
chose a general he didn't know at all, H.R. McMaster, to replace him.
Bolton had been trying to make a comeback since late 2006, after failing to hold his job as
U.N. ambassador (he had only been a recess appointment). His landing spots including a Fox News
contributorship and a post at the vaunted American Enterprise Institute. Even in the early days
of the Trump administration, Bolton was around, and accessible. I remember seeing him multiple
times in Washington's Connecticut Avenue corridor, decked out in the seersucker he notoriously
favors during the summer months. Paired with the familiar mustache, the man is the Mark Twain
of regime change.
But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the
Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive,
influential Mercer billionaires. He also struck a ferocious alliance with the Center for
Security Policy, helmed by the infamous Frank Gaffney, and gave paid remarks to the National
Council for the Resistance of Iran, the lynchpin organization of the People's Mujahideen of
Iran, or MEK. The latter two associations have imbued the spirit of this White House, with
Gaffney now one of the most underrated power players in Washington, and the MEK's "peaceful"
regime change mantra all but the official line of the administration.
More than any of these gigs, Bolton benefited from two associations that greased the wheels
for his joining the Trump administration.
The first was Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. If you want to
understand the administration's Iran policy under Bolton to date, look no further than a piece
by the then-retired diplomat in conservative mainstay National Review in August 2017,
days after Bannon's departure from the White House: "How to Get Out of the Iran Deal." Bolton
wrote the piece at Bannon's urging. Even out of the administration, the former Breitbart
honcho was an influential figure.
"We must explain the grave threat to the U.S. and our allies, particularly Israel," said
Bolton. "The [Iran Deal's] vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran's
direction; Iran's significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable
conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that [the Iran deal] is
not in the national-security interests of the United States."
Then Bolton, as I
documented , embarked on a campaign of a media saturation to make a TV-happy president
proud. By May Day the next year, he would have a job, a big one, and one that Senator Paul
couldn't deny him: national security advisor. That wasn't the whole story, of course. Bolton's
ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive
Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson
failed to strenuously object.
So will Trump finally do it? Other than White House chief of staff, a position Mick Mulvaney
has filled in an acting capacity for the entire calendar year, national security advisor is the
easiest, most senior role to change horses.
A bombshell Washington Post story lays out the dire truth: Bolton is so distrusted on
the president's central prerogatives, for instance Afghanistan, that he's not even allowed to
see sensitive plans unsupervised.
Bolton has also come into conflict with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to three
senior State Department officials. Pompeo is the consummate politician. Though an inveterate
hawk, the putative Trump successor does not want to be the Paul Wolfowitz of the Iran war.
Bolton is a bureaucratic arsonist, agnostic on the necessity of two of the institutions he
served in -- Foggy Bottom and the United Nations. Pompeo, say those around him, is keen to be
beloved, or at least tolerated, by career officials in his department, in contrast with Bolton
and even Tillerson.
The real danger Bolton poses is to the twin gambit Trump hopes to pull off ahead of, perhaps
just ahead of, next November -- a detente deal with China to calm the markets and ending
the war in Afghanistan. Over the weekend, the president announced a scuttled meeting with the
Taliban at Camp David, which would have been an historic, stunning summit. Bolton was
reportedly instrumental in quashing the meet. Still, there is a lot of time between now and
next autumn, and the cancellation is likely the latest iteration of the president's showman
diplomacy.
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and
ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.
You confuse "politician" and "liar" here, whereas he is "consummate" at neither politics
nor lying. His politicking has been as botched as his diplomacy; his lying has been
prodigious but transparent.
Bolton has been on the way out now for how many months? I will believe this welcome news
when I see his sorry ___ out the door.
I think much of America and the world will feel the same way.
It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't
change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon
interventionist.
It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One.
Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could
replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing
people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat
its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016.
Trump whole administration is just a bunch of rabid neocons who will be perfectly at home (and some were) in Bush II
administration. So firing of Bolton while a step in the right direction is too little, too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud. ..."
"... Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane. ..."
While there was some feverish speculation as to what an impromptu presser at 1:30pm with US
Secretary of State Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Security Adviser Bolton
would deliver, that was quickly swept aside moments later when Trump unexpectedly announced
that he had effectively fired Bolton as National Security Advisor, tweeting that he informed
John Bolton "last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House" after "
disagreeing strongly with many of his suggestions. "
... ... ...
Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering
neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even
Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud.
While we await more details on this strike by Trump against the military-industrial
complex-enabling Deep State, here is a fitting closer from Curt Mills via the American
Conservative:
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general
and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he
didn't.
These idiots don't hire themselves. The problem is Trump. It doesn't matter whether Bolton
(or Pompeo, or Hook, or Abrams) is in or out as long as Trump himself is in the White
House.
That realization has turned my 2016 protest vote for Trump into a 2020 protest vote for
Elizabeth Warren. The underlying principle is be the same, voting yet again for the lesser
of two evils.
Elizabeth Warren Stands Out at New Hampshire Democratic
Party Convention https://nyti.ms/2POixCr
NYT - Katie Glueck - September 7
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s backers roared supportive slogans and banged on
drums as they camped outside Southern New Hampshire University Arena. Backers of Senator
Elizabeth Warren marched as part of a jazz-inflected brass band. A fan of Senator Amy
Klobuchar admonished passers-by to consider electability, and banners associated with Senator
Bernie Sanders that highlighted his own standing in the polls appeared aimed at drawing a
contrast with Mr. Biden.
The New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention drew 19 of the presidential candidates
and some of the state's most committed party activists -- including more than 1,200 delegates
-- to its gathering here Saturday, offering an early test of campaign organization and
enthusiasm in a contest that is traditionally a must-win for candidates from neighboring
states.
This cycle, that includes Mr. Sanders of Vermont, who won New Hampshire by a wide margin
in 2016, and Ms. Warren of Massachusetts, whose ground game is often regarded as the most
extensive in a contest that party officials describe as still fluid -- though Ms. Warren
received the most enthusiastic reception of the day, with an opening standing ovation that
stretched on for nearly two minutes.
Her supporters wielded inflatable noise makers and she received thunderous applause
throughout her address.
"There is a lot at stake and people are scared," she said. "But we can't choose a
candidate we don't believe in because we're scared."
It's a version of a line that Ms. Warren has deployed before, though it took on new
significance when she deployed it Saturday, days before she faces off against Mr. Biden for
the first time on the debate stage.
While many voters feel warmly toward Mr. Biden, some have also cited the perception that
he is the most electable candidate in the race, rather than displaying outright enthusiasm
for his campaign.
"There's that sense of, we know who Joe is and we trust him," said former State Senator
Sylvia Larsen, the former New Hampshire Senate president. "There's still a little bit of
people still looking around to say, 'Well, O.K., so what else is out there? Where are the
voices? Who else might be a voice?'"
Mr. Biden, the former vice president, was the first of the presidential contenders to
speak, and he received a polite though hardly raucous reception as attendees trickled into
the arena, which was not yet full on Saturday morning.
Mr. Biden has led in most polls here since entering the race -- though the surveys have
been relatively few. He is focused on blue-collar voters, moderates and other Democrats who
believe his more centrist brand offers the most promising path to defeating Mr. Trump, in
contrast to the more progressive coalitions Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are working to
build.
On the ground, Mr. Sanders's supporters challenged the notion that Mr. Biden is the only
candidate well positioned to defeat Mr. Trump.
"Bernie beats Trump," read one banner hanging in the arena. Outside, another banner
affixed to a pro-Sanders tent read, "In poll after poll after poll Bernie BEATS Trump."
Mr. Sanders received frequent applause throughout his speech and his supporters -- who
appeared dispersed throughout the arena -- greeted many of his remarks with loud whoops.
"Together, we will make Donald Trump a one-term president," he said. "But frankly,
frankly, it is not enough just to defeat Trump. We must do much, much more. We must finally
create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the one percent."
In a sign of organizational strength, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., was also a
prominent presence at the convention: He had a large cheering contingent that punctuated his
address with rounds of applause. Flush with a field-leading fund-raising haul, his campaign
has significantly expanded its presence in New Hampshire, and has announced the opening of 12
new offices in the state.
Senator Kamala Harris of California had a visible support section, too -- her fans wore
bright yellow T-shirts -- and she also received applause and cheers.
Yet Ms. Harris's standing in the polls has slipped over the summer, and party leaders here
say she does not have the same footprint in the state as some of the other contenders.
Perhaps reflecting those dynamics -- and a lunchtime-hour speaking slot -- her ability to
excite the room was at times uneven.
"Everybody else and the pundits can ride polls; I'm not on that roller coaster," she told
reporters after her speech. "I am working hard, we are steady, I don't get high with the
polls, I don't go low with the polls."
Senator Cory Booker, too, found himself brushing off the polls when speaking to reporters
after giving an energetic speech that resonated in the room. His candidacy has mystified some
veteran New Hampshire Democrats who note his relatively stagnant poll numbers despite
extensive on-the-ground campaign organization, endorsements and an ability to deliver a fiery
speech.
Certainly, the convention is an imperfect test of the state of the New Hampshire primary.
It's a window into the mood of the most plugged-in activists, but isn't necessarily
representative of the entire electorate that will turn out on Primary Day -- and it also drew
attendees from out of state, from places including Massachusetts, New Jersey and even, in at
least one case, California. ...
"... It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception of the environment. ..."
"... literal medical necessity ..."
"... @humphrey ..."
"... My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs? ..."
Imagine if America had to answer for its war crimes
gjohnsit on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 5:25pm Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demonstrated what the term "ugly American" meant the
other day when he
bragged about his defeat of the International Criminal Court.
"Americanism means taking care of our own," said Pompeo.
"We stopped international courts from prosecuting our service members," Pompeo continued, adding that the potential probe "was
an outrage."
...
Pompeo confirmed earlier this year that the administration would revoke or deny visas for ICC personnel who try to investigate
or prosecute U.S. officials or key allies for potential war crimes. A month later, in April, the administration followed through
and revoked prosecutor Bensouda's visa for entry into the U.S.
Just because you defeated justice doesn't mean the crimes go away.
However, it does mean that there is no incentive to stop committing war crimes.
That brings us to today's news from Yemen .
The UK, US, France and Iran may be complicit in possible war crimes in Yemen over their support for parties to the conflict there,
UN experts say.
A new report warns the countries they could be held responsible for aiding or assisting the commission of violations.
The Western powers provide weapons and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's government, while Iran backs
the Houthi rebels.
...
The UN says the four-year conflict has claimed the lives of at least 7,290 civilians and left 80% of the population - 24 million
people - in need of humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive.
Yemen has gotten a significant amount of much needed attention in recent years, but just across the Gulf of Aden another
humanitarian disaster of gigantic size is happening in
near total silence and obscurity.
"In the absence of humanitarian assistance, up to 2.1 million people across Somalia face severe hunger through December," the
UN warned, citing the 2019 Post-Gu report's conclusion that this would bring the total number of Somalis expected to be food insecure,
to 6.3 million by year's end.
1 million children are expected to be malnourished in Somalia by year's end.
The United States may have committed war crimes as it bombed al-Shabab militants in Somalia, a new report Amnesty International
alleges...
They found that the airstrikes killed farmers, women and an eight-year-old girl, whom the group assessed had no ties to al-Shabab.
"Due to the nature of the attacks, the U.S. government is violating international humanitarian law and these violations may
amount to war crimes," Hassan said.
While the United States has been bombing Somalia for more than a decade, the Trump administration has accelerated the attacks.
The insurgency there is fueled by
Somali rage over now decades-long American interference in their country.
Why Americans cannot bring themselves to care about Somalia is something I will never understand.
Meanwhile in Libya things have gone from
bad to worse .
"Unless action is taken in the near term, it is highly likely that the current conflict will escalate into full civil war," Guterres
said on Thursday in his latest report on the UN Support Mission in Libya.
AFRICOM says that a civil war would "give existing terrorist elements in Libya oxygen."
The leading instigator of the fighting is General Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, after the defeat of the Libyan troops he was commanding in 1987, he offered his services to
the CIA
, which backed him for years as he awaited the opportunity to topple Muammar Gaddafi.
Is it really any surprise that
Trump loves him
?
An airstrike by Khalifa Haftar's forces hit a migrant detention center east of Tripoli yesterday and killed at least 44 people
and wounded up to 130. Haftar and his forces are mainly backed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and this airstrike is part
of the assault on the Libyan capital that Trump reportedly endorsed when it began. The Trump administration is now shielding Haftar
from condemnation by the Security Council by blocking the statement promoted by the U.K.
The
ICC plans to investigate these war crimes, but since the Trump Administration won't even allow a condemnation, and considering
how much Washington hates the ICC, i wouldn't count on this investigation going very far.
The idea that POMPEO is "outraged" is...well, he's a Nazi. So is anybody who thinks that way (lookin' at you, Dubya & Friends).
THEY ARE DETERMINED TO OBLITERATE THE ENTIRE 20TH CENTURY, THE CENTURY THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT PRECISELY BECAUSE, FOR A BRIEF
MOMENT IN TIME, IT CAST OFF AND STOOD AGAINST THAT VERY MENTALITY.
Men like him belong in their own torture-camps...or a short distance under them.
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
NUREMBERG II: JUDGMENT DAY.
It is what they most dread.
It is the least they deserve.
It is what the entire world - the American people most of all - NEEDS NOW. It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception
of the environment.
FIAT JUSTICIA, RUUAT CAELUM: "Let there be Justice, though the Heavens may fall".
I believe that Justice (REAL Justice, not just the way it's been redefined by some as "goodies for my clique"), delivered in
a timely, precise, and reliable manner, is nothing short of a literal medical necessity - and the truth is, Caelum IS
Ruuating PRECISELY BECAUSE there has been no Justicia.
Our war crimes go way back and they continue to today.
Unfortunately, the US is the 800 lb gorilla on the world stage and no one is willing or courageous enough to challenge that
gorilla.
thank you. i look forward to reading it more carefully later, especially your link on somalia. i remember bill clinton's hypocritical
R2P only too well.. which precious Somalian mineral was the hegemon really after?
In the book The Ugly American, the ugly guy was actually the good guy who understood and respected local culture; he was just
ugly and unsmooth. The "pretty" Americans were the villains. IIRC, it's been over 50 years. Might be worth re-reading.
Are we surprised? This is the Pax (or Bellus?) Americana. Since the USSR folded, the UN is toothless and GodGun$Gut$ dominates
the world with endless war -- or thinks it does; after all, one in six humans is Chinese.
My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall
for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs?
In comparison with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, Warren is huge progress even with her warts and all.
Notable quotes:
"... the DNC is already gaming polls, cherry-picking which are "official" for their 2% threshhold. MSNBC and other networks and pundits also cherry-pick. Or even simply outright lie if the poll doesn't match what they want it to. ..."
"... Polling should either be eliminated or held to MUCH more consistent and much more scientific standards. (demographics, prediction analysis, neutral rather than leading questions, standardized formats, etc.) Until then they're simply more and more useless as predictors of the real poll, the primaries or general. ..."
"... The difference no is, that countries like Canada, the U.S., Australia, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and with the AfD Germany are either as fascist, or more fascist than ever before. Once again, Russia is hyped up to be the eternal arch enemy of 'Western fascist values', 'freedom and democracy'. How much more difficult would it be today to round up resistance against a fascist axis that is hellbent to march again Russia? ..."
"... Sure, Trudeau is nothing but a bag of lukewarm air, but he employs hard core fascists in his cabinet – paid for by the Canadian people. ..."
"... History will look at the Sanders Warren debacle in the same way it must look now at the theft of the nomination of Henry A. Wallace in favor of the person that had no whatsoever second thoughts about dropping two nukes on an enemy that had already succumbed to the Soviet forces. Henry A. Wallace would heve never dropped these nukes. He was a staunch supporter of the 'common man'. All his policies reflected that. He was a presidential nominee for, of and by the people. ..."
"... To all the mindless party members of the Democratic fascist party: if you repeat history by allowing for the second time to install a puppet of the fascist powers in the U.S., you bear the full responsibilty for the dropping of the next nukes. ..."
"... The difference between Sanders and Wallace is a painful one. Wallace fought against the theft of his nomination with all he got. Subsequently, he realized that the 'Democratic' party would never allow for a person with integrity and the well being of the people at heart to win any nomination. He would have won the following presidency as a third party nominee – Trumann however knew how to prevent that. ..."
"... Much of what is sickening about the US as an imperial power today was present well before 1944 – indeed was present during the 19th century when the US made colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines in the 1890s, and occupied Haiti in 1915 (?), not leaving that country until the 1930s. ..."
"... Forgive me for saying so, but is a party of working folks really supposed to be grovelling for favours from billionaires? ..."
"... I think Gabbard is as authentic a new voice as i have ever seen in the DNC. She may well make it as an independent. Would Sanders? ..."
"... I'd say if a Gabbard/Paul grassroots campaign run by the Sanders 'momentum' network got their act together the USA may finally mature into a proper democracy not owned by their neolib con artistes. ..."
"... America where democracy has been extinguished and their increasingly paranoid voters are under the mistaken belief that yet another talking head can return them to a fair and impartial existence. ..."
"... Too late. Money is king and those that have most want more. The sideshow of elections produces the performing clowns such as Trump, Obama, Bush etc.all spouting the same vacuous promises on behalf of their wealthy benefactors. No real choice or change and an illusion of caring for the welfare of their citizenry. Listen carefully to the clowns, it's the sound of money talking. ..."
So: the rise of Elizabeth Warren gives the billionaires a 'progressive' candidate who might either win the
nomination or else at least split progressive voters during the primaries (between Sanders and Warren) and thus give
the nomination to Buttigieg, who is their first choice (especially since both Biden and Harris have been faltering so
badly of late).
I feel like any analysis that even mentions polls is guesswork, because nowadays polls are almost
entirely useless. In that they aren't accurately measuring people who are actually going to go to
open/semi-open or even closed primaries, and caucuses. The cohort of likely voters is different from
the cohort who bothers to pick up a phone call from an unknown (polling) number. Or make it through a
whole poll. Or do any online polls. Or have a reachable phone # at all.
Plus the fact that the DNC is already gaming polls, cherry-picking which are "official" for their
2% threshhold. MSNBC and other networks and pundits also cherry-pick. Or even simply outright lie if
the poll doesn't match what they want it to.
Polling should either be eliminated or held to MUCH more consistent and much more scientific
standards. (demographics, prediction analysis, neutral rather than leading questions, standardized
formats, etc.) Until then they're simply more and more useless as predictors of the real poll, the
primaries or general.
I liked the article other than that though.
mark
"Vote for me, I'm gay!"
"Vote for me, I'm a Red Indian!"
Daniel Rich
Do these 'Democratic Party billionaires ' have names and further affiliations?
Could it be that most of these 'Democratic Party billionaires ' favor the Apartheid State?
Hmmmmm?
George Cornell
David Bradley's The Atlanticmagazine headlined on August 26th, "Elizabeth Warren Manages to Woo the
Democratic Establishment". Wooing in American politics = betraying your principles, cutting deals,
bending to the wishes of the powerful, and all round submissive boot-licking.
Roberto
That would be describing successful politics in any country at any time in history.
An unsuccessful politician would do the inverse of what you list. For those with good memories,
let's try to name some.
George Cornell
Not everyone would agree with that definition of success, but you are quite right.
wardropper
Voice in the "Emperor's New Clothes" story:
"Why don't we just ban all financial support of presidential candidates? – I thought this was supposed
to be about the person best qualified and best suited to run the country "
HEY! Somebody shut that
child up right now, will you!
The significance of Sanders is this: if he wins the nomination he will have done so by leading an
insurrectionary movement, not only within the Democratic Party but in US society itself. He simply
cannot win otherwise. And if he wins the primaries it will have been in spite of the great mass of
money and Establishment influence having been mobilised against him.
In other words he is right to call his supporters a "revolution."
It is of course equally true of the Corbyn movement- any victories are immense defeats for both the
Establishment and its media. That, in itself is important.
And nowhere more than in Canada where the third and fourth parties- the NDP and the Greens- continue
to tack further and further to the right, trying to catch up with the rightward swing of the Liberal
Party -now close to full on neo-naziism- and the ultra right Tories.
Thank You for the link. While I am keenly aware of the untold history of WWII and the fact that
Hitler would have never gotten where he was from 1933-1941 without the propping up by both U.S. and
Zionist interests (mind the redundancy), eager to crush the perceived anti-capitalist behemoth
Soviet Union, I am wondering about the present re-run of the same story unfolding.
The difference
no is, that countries like Canada, the U.S., Australia, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and with the
AfD Germany are either as fascist, or more fascist than ever before. Once again, Russia is hyped up
to be the eternal arch enemy of 'Western fascist values', 'freedom and democracy'. How much more
difficult would it be today to round up resistance against a fascist axis that is hellbent to march
again Russia?
Sure, Trudeau is nothing but a bag of lukewarm air, but he employs hard core fascists in his
cabinet – paid for by the Canadian people. The rest of the what goes for the 'value West' is more
of a disgrace than at any time before. These are the real dark ages, as I have stated before.
Nothing good can come from these psychopathic puppets in control of countries that ought to deserve
much better. Maybe, just maybe, the people of the countries in question should read Rudi Dutschke's
works about 'Extra Parliamentary Opposition' – for Dummies?
Until Turkey is able to produce S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems – it will buy weapons from Russia.
Turkey intends to buy from Russia additional S-400 air defense systems
While Bernie Sanders is no Henry A. Wallace by a long shot, Elizabeth Warren is the new Harry Trumann.
The Democrats are still the Democratic fascist Party of America and have their party base hypnotized
into believing that it has the well being of its voters on its mind.
That is of course a lie and
pure propaganda. And since the U.S. is the second most vulnerable nation to propaganda and fascism –
with Germany being the number one, in both the past and the present – the people that refuse to leave
the Democratic Fascist Party are remiscent of those people who kept following Hitler, even after it
had become clear that his 'party' would drive Germany into the abyss.
For the brownshirt-like followers of proven war criminals that both lead, or finance the 'party',
absolutely no crime is big enough that would warrant to turn their back on the fascist party.
History
will look at the Sanders Warren debacle in the same way it must look now at
the theft
of the nomination of Henry A. Wallace
in favor of the person that had no whatsoever second
thoughts about dropping two nukes on an enemy that had already succumbed to the Soviet forces. Henry
A. Wallace would heve never dropped these nukes. He was a staunch supporter of the 'common man'. All
his policies reflected that. He was a presidential nominee for, of and by the people.
That did not sit too well with the fascists and they stole the nomination from him. Present day
America has turned into this corrupt cesspool because of this stolen nomination. Everything that is
sickening about the U.S. today, started in 1944. All the surveillance, the mindcontrol, the cold war
and the transformation into a wannabe empire – they are all the result of this infamy by the hands of
the Democratic fascists.
To all the mindless party members of the Democratic fascist party: if you repeat history by
allowing for the second time to install a puppet of the fascist powers in the U.S., you bear the full
responsibilty for the dropping of the next nukes. Suffering from such deep sitting cognitive
dissonance, party members will find all kinds of excuses to prevent the truth from coming out. Just as
there was no war crime by Clinton and Obama sufficient enough to not cheer them like the greatest
baseball team ever. Leave the Democratic fascist party now, or have history piss on your graves.
Norcal
Very convincing argument and link, perfectly done. Thank you nottheonly1.
nottheonly1
Thank You, Norcal. It may be best to download these video clips, since they are all taken down
one after another based on 'copyright issues'.
The difference between Sanders and Wallace is a painful one. Wallace fought against the theft
of his nomination with all he got. Subsequently, he realized that the 'Democratic' party would
never allow for a person with integrity and the well being of the people at heart to win any
nomination. He would have won the following presidency as a third party nominee – Trumann
however knew how to prevent that. As the clip states, the American people only have to be
frightened and you can sell them their own demise on a golden platter. The ridicule and shaming
of those who want a third party can also be traced back to this time.
It is equally very disturbing that the owner class managed to brain wash the people into
accepting the use of 'oligarchs', 'billionaires', or 'donors' when in truth they are the real
fascists Henry Wallace had warned about. This must be reversed by all means available. People
must understand that the concerted use of these euphemisms will make it next to impossible to
accept what these persons really are and what their goals are.
Jen
Much of what is sickening about the US as an imperial power today was present well before 1944 –
indeed was present during the 19th century when the US made colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines
in the 1890s, and occupied Haiti in 1915 (?), not leaving that country until the 1930s. Of course
there was also the genocide of First Nations peoples through the theft of their lands, the wars
waged to force them onto reservations, and the massive slaughter of bison as a way of destroying
many indigenous cultures.
nottheonly1
Yes, but never before was the deliberate change of course towards fascism so blatant than with
the ouster of Wallace. This was the watershed moment that turned the U.S. into the greatest
threat for humanity. When You read about Wallace, You will find out that he generally wanted
reconcile with the Native Indian Nation. He wanted cooperation with the Soviet Union/Russians
for a lasting global peace and prosperity for everyone, not just a few American maggots. Present
day U.S. started at that real day of infamy.
Lysias
Wallace was also a big supporter of establishing Israel.
Seamus Padraig
So, whereas they would be able to deal with Warren, they wouldn't be able to deal with Sanders,
whose policy-record is remarkably progressive in all respects, and not only on domestic U.S.
matters.
Frankly, Bernie could be better on foreign policy. While he
did
vote against the Iraq War–I give him all due credit for that–he hasn't really opposed any of
Washington's other wars, coups and régime-change operations in recent memory. Oh: and Bernie, the
self-described socialist, once referred to Hugo Chavez as a "dead dictator". That being said, he would
still be preferable to the remaining flotsam in the today's Democrap Party.
Rhys Jaggar
Forgive me for saying so, but is a party of working folks really supposed to be grovelling for favours
from billionaires? The Republicans are supposed to be the party for the rich, not the Democrats .
And is not time for billionaires to be bumped off by politicians, not politicians bumped off by
billionaires?
A tad uncritical on Sanders, especially his foreign policies, but otherwise an excellent and closely
argued takedown of the risible but sadly widespread delusion that America is a democracy. Thanks Eric.
Wilmers31
Democracy itself does not say anything about quality of life, it's just a system. US democracy runs
on money. Most thing in life do – pretending it is otherwise, that's where the problem is.
Democracy is just the shell – if you fill it with sh1t it's bad; if you fill it with honey it's
sweet.
Biden is remote-controllable, he'd do as told – so of course big money would prefer him.
I've just the other day written
this piece on democracy
. The immediate context is
the fiasco re the UK Queen granting Boris Johnson's request to prorogue (temporarily dissolve)
parliament, but the issues run deeper and wider.
Dungroanin
I skimmed through and didn't spot one mention of Gabbard!
Seems as if she is being non-personed
and ignored as a viable candidate (much like JC has been over here).
There is a long way to that election yet. (The US, ours is finally within reach, unless some
wildebeast tramples in )
The DNC dirty tricks won't wash this time – perhaps its time to start reading and talking about
the nitty gritty of these leaked mails – if for nothing else for the bravery and ultimate sacrifice
of Seth Rich.
Well I'm already stretched perilous thin, DG, but will give it thought.
Meantime,
this piece from last week
by Katia Novella Miller, first of a two parts with second part to
follow on the same KBNB World News site, gives a precis of what Wikileaks showed the world.
The lack of mention of Gabbard is telling, as is the fact the Billionaire crowd (Rubinites) are
pushing for a candidate I ain't even heard of.
The fact remains, a Sanders – Gabbard ticket
against Trump is the preferable outcome for many observers on the Left.
Just as a reminder, neither Sanders & Gabbard are God like figures, in much the same way
Corbyn ain't, however, they are the best available at this juncture in time if we really want
some change, even if it is incremental.
Dungroanin
I think Gabbard is as authentic a new voice as i have ever seen in the DNC. She may well make
it as an independent. Would Sanders?
I read somewhere that the US electorate were self
identified as third Republican, Democrat and independent.
If they were given an independent ticket- not part of the two billionaire funded main
parties then enough may join the independent third from these.
I'd say if a Gabbard/Paul grassroots campaign run by the Sanders 'momentum' network got
their act together the USA may finally mature into a proper democracy not owned by their
neolib con artistes.
Grafter
America where democracy has been extinguished and their increasingly paranoid voters are under the
mistaken belief that yet another talking head can return them to a fair and impartial existence.
Too
late. Money is king and those that have most want more. The sideshow of elections produces the
performing clowns such as Trump, Obama, Bush etc.all spouting the same vacuous promises on behalf of
their wealthy benefactors. No real choice or change and an illusion of caring for the welfare of their
citizenry. Listen carefully to the clowns, it's the sound of money talking.
It is not vey clear for whom Epstein used to work. Mossad connection is just one hypothesis.
What sovereign state would allow compromising politician by a foreign intelligence service. This
just does not compute.
But the whole tone of discussion below clearly point to the crisis of legitimacy of
neoliberal elite. And Russiagate had shown that the elite cares about it and tried to patch the
cracks.
As Eric
Rasmusen writes: "Everybody, it seems, in New York society knew by 2000 that Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were corrupting teenage girls, but the press wouldn't cover it."
Likewise, everybody in New York society has long known that Larry Silverstein, who bought the
asbestos-riddled white elephant World Trade Center in July 2001 and immediately doubled the
insurance, is a mobbed-up friend of Netanyahu and a confessed participant in the controlled
demolition of Building 7 , from which he earned over 700 million insurance dollars on the
pretext that al-Qaeda had somehow brought it down. But the press won't cover that either.
The New York Times , America's newspaper of record, has the investigative talent and
resources to expose major corruption in New York. Why did the Times spend almost two
decades ignoring the all-too-obvious antics of Epstein and Silverstein? Why is it letting the
absurd tale of Epstein's alleged suicide stand? Why hasn't it used the work of Architects and
Engineers for 9/11 Truth -- including the brand-new University of Alaska study on the controlled
demolition of WTC-7 -- to expose the biggest scandal of the 21 st century, if
not all of American history?
The only conceivable answer is that The New York Times is somehow complicit in these
monstrous crimes. It must be protecting its friends in high places. So who are those friends,
and where are those high places?
One thing Epstein and Silverstein have in common, besides names ending in "-stein," is
alleged involvement in the illicit sex industry. Epstein's antics, or at least some of them,
are by now well-known. Not so for Silverstein, who apparently began his rags-to-9/11-riches
story as a pimp supplying prostitutes and nude dancers to the shadier venues of NYC, alongside
other illicit activities including "the heroin trade, money laundering
and New York Police corruption." All of this was exposed in a mid-1990s lawsuit. But good
luck finding any investigative reports in The New York Times .
Another Epstein-Silverstein connection is their relationships to major American Jewish
organizations. Even while he was allegedly pimping girls and running heroin, Larry Silverstein
served as president for United Jewish Appeal of New York. As for Epstein, he was the boy toy
and protégé of Les Wexner, co-founder of
the Mega Group of Jewish billionaires associated with the World Jewish Congress, the
Anti-Defamation League, and other pro-Israel groups. Indeed, there is no evidence that
"self-made billionaire" Epstein ever earned significant amounts of money; his only investment
"client" was Les Wexner. Epstein, a professional sexual blackmailer, used his supposed
billionaire status as a cover story. In fact, he was just an employee working for Wexner and
associated criminal/intelligence networks.
Which brings us to the third and most important Epstein-Silverstein similarity: They were
both close to the government of Israel. Jeffrey Epstein's handler was Ghislaine Maxwell,
daughter of Mossad super-spy Robert Maxwell; among his friends was Ehud Barak, who is currently
challenging Netanyahu for leadership of Israel. Larry Silverstein, too, has friends in high
Israeli places. According to Haaretz , Silverstein has "close ties with Netanyahu"
(speaking to him on the phone every weekend) as well as with Ehud Barak, "whom Silverstein in
the past offered a job as his representative in Israel" and who called Silverstein immediately
after 9/11.
We may reasonably surmise that both Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Silverstein have been carrying
on very important work on behalf of the state of Israel. And we may also surmise that this is
the reason The New York Times has been covering up the scandals associated with both
Israeli agents for almost two decades. The Times , though it pretends to be America's
newspaper of record, has always been Jewish-owned-and-operated. Its coverage has always been
grotesquely
distorted in favor of Israel . It has no interest in exposing the way Israel controls the
United States by blackmailing its leaders (Epstein) and staging a fake "Arab-Muslim attack on
America" (Silverstein). The awful truth is that The New York Times is part of the same
Jewish-Zionist "
we control America " network as Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Silverstein.
Epstein "Suicide" Illustrates Zionist Control of USA -- and the Decadence and Depravity
of Western Secularism
Since The New York Times and other mainstream media won't go there, let's reflect on
the facts and lessons of the Jeffrey Epstein suicide scandal -- a national disgrace that ought
to shock Americans into rethinking their worldviews in general, and their views on the official
myth of 9/11 in particular.
On Saturday, August 10, 2019, convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was allegedly
found dead in his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City, one of
America's most corrupt prisons. The authorities claim Epstein hanged himself. But nobody, not
even the presstitutes of America's corporate propaganda media, convincingly pretends to believe
the official story.
Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile pimp to presidents and potentates. His job was recruiting
young girls for sex, then offering them to powerful men -- in settings outfitted with hidden
video cameras. When police raided his New York townhouse on July 6-7 2019 they found locked
safes full of pornographic pictures of underage girls, along with piles of compact discs
labeled "young (name of girl) + (name of VIP)." Epstein had been openly and brazenly carrying
on such activities for more than two decades, as reported throughout most of that period by
alternative media outlets including my own Truth Jihad Radio and False Flag Weekly News . (Even
before the 2016 elections, my audience knew that both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were
blackmailed clients of Jeffrey Epstein, that Clinton was a frequent flyer on Epstein's "Lolita
Express" private jet, and that Trump had been credibly accused in a lawsuit of joining Epstein
in the brutal rape of a 13-year-old, to whom Trump then allegedly issued death threats.) It was
only in the summer of 2019 that mainstream media and New York City prosecutors started talking
about what used to be consigned to the world of "conspiracy theories."
So who was Epstein working for? His primary employer was undoubtedly the Israeli Mossad and
its worldwide Zionist crime network. Epstein's handler was Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of
Mossad super-spy Robert Maxwell. According to sworn depositions, Ghislaine Maxwell recruited
underage girls for Epstein and oversaw his sex trafficking operations. As the New Yorker
reported August 16: "In court papers that were unsealed on August 9th, it was alleged that
Maxwell had been Epstein's central accomplice, first as his girlfriend, and, later, as his
trusted friend and procuress, grooming a steady stream of girls, some as young as fourteen,
coercing them to have sex with Epstein at his various residences around the world, and
occasionally participating in the sexual abuse herself." Alongside Maxwell, Epstein's other
Mossad handler was
Les Wexner, co-founder of the notorious Mega Group of billionaire Israeli spies , who
appears to have originally recruited the penniless Epstein and handed him a phony fortune so
Epstein could pose as a billionaire playboy.
Even after Epstein's shady "suicide" mega-Mossadnik Maxwell continued to flaunt her impunity
from American justice. She no doubt conspired to publicize the August 15 New York Post
photograph of herself smiling and looking "chillingly serene" at In-And-Out-Burger in Los
Angeles, reading The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of C.I.A. Operatives .
That nauseating photo inspired the New
Yorker to accuse her of having "gall" -- a euphemism for the Yiddish chutzpah , a quality
that flourishes in the overlapping Zionist and Kosher Nostra communities.
Maxwell and The New York Post , both Kosher Nostra/Mossad assets, were obviously
sending a message to the CIA: Don't mess with us or we will expose your complicity in these
scandalous crimes. That is the Mossad's standard operating procedure: Infiltrate and compromise
Western intelligence services in order to prevent them from interfering with the Zionists'
over-the-top atrocities. According to French historian
Laurent Guyénot's hypothesis, the CIA's false flag fake assassination attempt on
President John F. Kennedy, designed to be blamed on Cuba, was transformed by Mossad into a real
assassination -- and the CIA couldn't expose it due to its own complicity. (The motive: Stop
JFK from ending Israel's nuclear program.) The same scenario, Guyénot argues, explains
the anomalies of the Mohamed Merah affair
, the Charlie Hebdo killings, and the 9/11 false flag operation. It would not be surprising if
Zionist-infiltrated elements of the CIA were made complicit in Jeffrey Epstein's sexual
blackmail activities, in order to protect Israel in the event Epstein had to be "burned" (which
is apparently what has finally occurred).
So what really happened to Epstein? Perhaps the most likely scenario is that the Kosher
Nostra, which owns New York in general and the mobbed-up MCC prison in particular, allowed the
Mossad to exfiltrate Epstein to Occupied Palestine, where he will be given a facelift, a
pension, a luxury suite overlooking the Mediterranean, and a steady stream of young sex slaves
(Israel is the world's capital of human trafficking, an honor it claimed from the Kosher Nostra
enclaves of Odessa after World War II). Once the media heat wave blows over, Epstein will
undoubtedly enjoy visits from his former Mossad handler Ghislaine Maxwell, his good friend Ehud
Barak, and various other Zionist VIPs. He may even offer fresh sex slaves to visiting American
congressmen.
This is not just a paranoid fantasy scenario. According to Eric
Rasmusen : "The Justice Dept. had better not have let Epstein's body be cremated. And
they'd better give us convincing evidence that it's his body. If I had $100 million to get out
of jail with, acquiring a corpse and bribing a few people to switch fingerprints and DNA
wouldn't be hard. I find it worrying that the government has not released proof that Epstein is
dead or a copy of the autopsy."
But didn't the alleged autopsy reportedly find broken neck bones that are more commonly
associated with strangulation murders than suicides? That controversy may have been scripted to
distract the public from
an insider report on 4chan , first published before the news of Epstein's "suicide" broke,
that Epstein had been "switched out" of MCC. If so, the body with the broken neck bones wasn't
Epstein's.
The Epstein affair (like 9/11) illustrates two critically important truths about Western
secularism: there is no truth, and there are no limits. A society that no longer believes in
God no longer believes in truth, since God is al-haqq, THE truth, without Whom the whole
notion of truth has no metaphysical basis. The postmodern philosophers understand this
perfectly well. They taught a whole generation of Western humanities scholars that truth is
merely a function of power: people accept something as "true" to the extent that they are
forced by power to accept it. So when the most powerful people in the world insist that three
enormous steel-frame skyscrapers were blown to smithereens by relatively modest office fires on
9/11, that absurd assertion becomes the official "truth" as constructed by such Western
institutions as governments, courts, media, and academia. Likewise, the assertion that Jeffrey
Epstein committed suicide under circumstances that render that assertion absurd will probably
become the official "truth" as recorded and promulgated by the West's ruling institutions, even
though nobody will ever really believe it.
Epstein's career as a shameless, openly-operating Mossad sexual blackmailer -- like the
in-your-face 9/11 coup -- also illustrates another core truth of Western secularism: If there
is no God, there are no limits (in this case, to human depravity and what it can get away
with). Or as Dostoevsky famously put it: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."
Since God alone can establish metaphysically-grounded limits between what is permitted and what
is forbidden, a world without God will feature no such limits; in such a world Aleister
Crowley's satanic motto "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" becomes the one and
only commandment. In today's Godless West, why should men not "do what they wilt" and
indulge their libidos by raping young girls if they can get away with it? After all, all the
other sexual taboos are being broken, one by one. Fornication, adultery, homosexuality,
sadomasochism, gender-bending all of these have been transformed during my lifetime from crimes
and vices to "human rights" enjoyed by the most liberal and fashionable right-thinking Western
secularists. Even bestiality and necrophilia are poised to become normalized "sexual
identities" whose practitioners will soon be proudly marching in "bestiality pride" and
"necrophilia pride" parades. So why not normalize pedophilia and other forms of rape
perpetrated by the strong against the weak? And why not add torture and murder in service to
sexual gratification? After all, the secret bible of the sexual identity movement is the
collected works of the Marquis de Sade, the satanic prophet of sexual liberation, with whom the
liberal progressivist secular West is finally catching up. It will not be surprising if, just a
few years after the Jeffrey Epstein "suicide" is consigned to the memory hole, we will be
witnessing LGBTQBNPR parades, with the BNPR standing for bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia,
and rape. (It would have been LGBTQBNPRG, with the final G standing for Gropers like President
Trump, except that the G was already taken by the gays.) The P's, pioneers of pedophile pride
parades, will undoubtedly celebrate Jeffrey Epstein as an ahead-of-his-time misunderstood hero
who was unjustly persecuted on the basis of his unusual sexual orientation.
It is getting harder and harder to satirize the decadence and depravity of the secular West,
which insists on parodying itself with ever-increasing outlandishness. When the book on this
once-mighty civilization is written, and the ink is dry, readers will be astounded by the
limitless lies of the drunk-on-chutzpah psychopaths who ran it into the ground.
Correct me if I am wrong but I thought Lucky Larry only leased the WTC buildings rather than
actually purchased them. I think I have read that his investment was in the region of 150
mill for which he has recouped a whopping 4 bill.
Would you please answer a preliminary question before I put finishing this on my busy agenda?
You stake a fair bit of your credit on what you say about Larry Silverstein and insurance. My
present understanding is that the insurance cover for WTC 1 and 2 was increased as a routine
part of the financing deal he had made for a purchase which was only months old. Not true?
Not the full story? Convince us.
As to WTC 7 my understanding is that he had owned the building for some years and had not
recently increased the insurance. Not true? And when did any clause get into his WTC7
insurance contract which might have had some effect on inflating the payout?
“Trump had been credibly accused in a lawsuit of joining Epstein in the brutal rape of
a 13-year-old, to whom Trump then allegedly issued death threats.)”
The “Katie Johnson” case collapsed in 2016 when it was revealed that
“she” was in fact a middle-aged man, a stringer for the Jerry Springer show. Just
another Gloria Allred fraud.
“a society that no longer believes in god no longer believes in the truth, since god is
the truth….blah blah blah”
This is thin gruel indeed…..just silly platitudes from a muzzie convert. There are at
least 100 billion galaxies in the universe with each galaxy containing as many as 100 billion
stars. And there is no telling how many universes there are. Does anyone really believe
Barrett’s preferred deity takes a time out from running this vast empire to service
Barrett’s yearning for “truth”? Just goes to prove that humans will believe
almost any idea as long as it’s sufficiently idiotic.
“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse
of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that
studied the collapse.”
“It is our conclusion based upon these findings that the collapse of WTC 7 was a
global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of all columns in the building and
not a progressive collapse involving the sequential failure of columns throughout the
building.”
Speaking of the truth v. parody I’d really rather work on the cause of
Epstein’s death –yes I think he’s dead– suicide or
strangulation ?
There are some things the Justice Dept. could do if they wanted to. Why they apparently
didn’t want to expose the corpse in greater detail, let media view the cell, have
correspondent(s) interview the ex- cellmate of Epstein, et.al just leads to suspicions.
This is something they should have to answer for . That includes AG Barr. Trump could make
it happen–like every thing else– if Barr says no. The President won’t.
Dostoyevsky with his “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”
overlooked the Jewish God who permits much more when it comes to Jewish gentile relations.
The Jewish God is not limited by the Kant’s First Moral Imperative. The Jewish
God’s moral laws are not universal. They are context dependent according to the
Leninist Who, whom rule.
Not so for Silverstein, who apparently began his rags-to-9/11-riches story as a pimp
supplying prostitutes and nude dancers to the shadier venues of NYC, alongside other
illicit activities including “the heroin trade, money laundering and New York
Police corruption.”
I would like to see more about the beginnings of Silverstein’s career.
Good work Kevin, Irrelevant exactly what Silverstein did in way of insurance.The FACT is
that WTC7 DID NOT FALL due to fires. Neither did WTC1 or 2. The 6 million dollar question
is ‘WHO put the ‘bang’ in the building?’ to bring them down, by
what ever means. Im in favour of nukes for 1 and 2.
Answer that! Why isnt Silverstein arrested? I think Kevin provided the answer in the
article..
I just stumbled onto your article from a link on reddit, r/epstein. You make some
convincing arguments. I was thrilled that you brought 9/11 into this – because the
Epstein “suicide” and how it is being covered reminds me so much of how I felt
after 9/11 and the run-up to the war. -But you lost me at the end with the stuff about
Godless secularism. I’ve read the bible and it is not the answer to what’s
wrong with the world.
Why did the Times spend almost two decades ignoring the all-too-obvious antics of
Epstein and Silverstein? Why is it letting the absurd tale of Epstein’s alleged
suicide stand?
One thing cannot be denied : Epstein was arrested, denied bail and jailed awaiting trail
on a Federal indictment for much the same offence he had pleaded guilty to a decade ago,
which did not involve even a single homicide yet made him universally reviled and in as
much trouble with the legal system as a man could be (almost certain never to get out
again). Epstein was in far more trouble that anyone of his financial resources has ever
been, but then that was for paying for sex acts with young teen girls.
What an awesomely impressive testament to the impunity enjoyed by the Jewish
elite Epstein is. It is no wonder that Larry Silverstein was insouciant about the risks of
a Jewish lightning fraud controlled demolition killing thousands of people in a building he
had just bought and increased the insurance coverage of. After all, it wasn’t
anything serious like paying for getting hundreds of handjobs from underage girls. And it
is not like someone like the Pizzagate nut that fired his AR15 into underground child
molestation complex beneath the Dems restaurant/pedophile centre would take all those WTC
deaths seriously enough to shoot at him just because of inevitable internet accusations of
mass murder. Mr Barrett, why don’t you step up and do it, thereby proving you
believe the things you say .
@NoseytheDuke Yes, he leased the World Trade Center buildings one and two from the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey. He built World Trade Center building seven, having
acquired a ground lease from Port Authority.
I can’t imagine why you ask this question in a public venue. I found the answer in
less than one minute on the internet.
I assume the insurance policies were for the present value of his net profits for the
duration of the leases.
I recall reading about this guy prior to the event. I believe it was USATODAY . He and a
silent partner had bought the complex with a down of 63million and had it insured for
7billion. I thought it odd that the port authority would let go of the property at the
time.
As the building deficiencies became known afterwards,my thoughts were along the line of
insurance fraud.
I came across a copy of the rand Corp “state of the world 2000” which
accurately describes the scenario and resulting culture of terror as “one possible
future “…. funny how it’s taken all these years to discover this
website.
Indeed, there is no evidence that “self-made billionaire” Epstein ever
earned significant amounts of money.
Good thing that Wexner is Jewish so we can discount the possibility that he was telling
the truth the other month when he said that Epstein stole vast amounts of Wexner money
Alongside Maxwell, Epstein’s other Mossad handler was Les Wexner, co-founder of
the notorious Mega Group of billionaire Israeli spies
Wexner and his fellow Mossad spy Maxwell leaving Virginia Roberts alive to repeatedly
sue them, and use the world”s media to accuse them of sexually abusing, trafficking,
pimping her out to VIPs, and fiming the trysts was a brilliant way to keep everything a
secret.
Mossad handler Ghislaine Maxwell, his good friend Ehud Barak, and various other
Zionist VIPs.
Yes, they are the greatest covert operatives ever.
Epstein’s crimes are simple breaches of etiquette when compared to Silverstein. I
believe the term “Silverstein valleys” has been used to describe the melted
granite discovered beneath the former towers, Silverstein grins widely in interviews, while
so many suffered horribly.
One might even consider the 9/11 deaths to be something of a “holocaust”.
Certainly one of the most evil human beings to have walked the Earth.
@Wizard of Oz Silverstein said he gave the okay for wtc 7 to be “pulled”.
The building was on fire at the time. Either someone wired it to be pulled while it was on
fire and already damaged or it was wired for demolition beforehand. The second scenario
seems a lot more likely. In that case all the insurance contract details are largely
irrelevant to the bigger picture.
The idea that the CIA is somehow independent of Mossad and that Mossad would have to warn
the CIA off of the Epstein matter is implausible to me. Guyenot’s hypothesis tends to
give cover to the CIA in the assassination of JFK by claiming that the CIA plot was set in
motion as some sort of attempt to control JFK and that it was hijacked into an actual
assassination by Mossad. That just isn’t credible.
It’s much more accurate to observe that the CIA was erected by the same zionists
who oversaw the creation of Israel and later the forming of Mossad, and that the two
agencies have been joined at the hip ever since.
@WorkingClass Bad cop good cop. NYT is trying to destroy him . Israel says to him
:” send this , do this ,allow us to do this , increase this by this amount , and we
will make sure that in final analysis you don’t get hurt ”
Trump possibly knows that the only people who could hurt him is the Jewish people of power
.
Has NYT ever criticized Trump for relocating embassy , recognizing Golan, for allowing
Israel use Anerican resources to hit Syria or Gaza , for allowing Israel drag US into more
military involvement. for allowing Israel wage war against Gaza ,? Has NYT ever explored
the dynamics behind abrogation of JCPOA and application of more sanctions?
NYT has focused on Russia gate knowing in advance that it has no merit and no public
traction, Is it hurting Trump or itself ?
People with normal IQ would believe that Epstein killed himself, if the following took
place –
Media day and night asking questions about him from 360 degree of inquiries
1 why the surveillance video were not functioning despite the serious nature of the
charges against a man who could rat out a lot in court against powerful people
2 why the coroner initially thought that Epstein was murdered
3 how many guards and how many fell asleep?
4 who and why allowed the spin story around Epstein brilliance and high IQ build up over
the years ?
5 how does Epstein come to get linked to non -Jews people who have absolute loyalty to
Israel
6 how did Epstein get involved with Jewish leaders ?
7 How did Epstein continue to enjoy seat on Harvard and enjoy social celebrity status after
plea deal ?
8 Why did Wexner allow this man so much control over his asset ?
9 Media felt if terrorism were unique Muslim thing , why media is not alluding to the fact
that pedophilia is a unique Jewish thing ?
10 why the angle of Israel being sex slavery capital and Epstein being sex slave pimp not
being connected ?
11 how death in prison in foreign unfriendly countries often become causus celebre by US
media , politicians , NGO and US treasury – why not this death ?
@Fozzy Bear Not true. A respectable civil rights attorney, Lisa Bloom, handled Katie
Johnson’s case. Shortly before the scheduled press conference at which Johnson was to
appear publicly, she received multiple death threats: “Bloom said that her
firm’s website was hacked, that Anonymous had claimed responsibility, and that death
threats and a bomb threat came in afterwards.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/3/13501364/trump-rape-13-year-old-lawsuit-katie-johnson-allegation
Johnson folded because she was terrified (and perhaps paid off).
@Twodees Partain In “Body of Secrets” by James Bamford, a newspaper article
from the Truman era is referenced where the OSS, predecessor of the CIA, is described as
“a converted vault in Washington used as an office space for 5 or 6 Jews working to
protect our national secrets” (or similar wording).
Going from memory and gave away my copy of the book….. sorry for the vague
reference, but you can look it up.
@nsa An atheist like “nsa” must concede Dosteovsky’s point from his
novel The Possessed that even for the atheist the concept of God represents the collective
consciousness, highest principles, and ontological aspirations of believers. Given this
sense, “nsa’s” real animus is more than likely an atavistic hatred of
Christians and Muslims, probably for just being alive in his paranoid mind. What imbecility
when this clown cites a multiverse of universes that has no proof and less plausibility for
its existence than the tooth fairy. I’d also bet “nsa” speaks algebra,
too, like the recently deceased mathematical genius, Jeffrey Epstein.
What’s Mr. Wexner’s, Mega’s, and Mossad/CIA’s involvement?
That’s the real question trolls like “nsa” and the Dems and Republicans
alike are crapping in their pants we’ll find out. When evidence starts to cascade out
of their ability to spin or suppress it, things will get interesting. Meanwhile, Fox News
is still doing its best from what I can tell to run cover for 911, now extended to the
suspiciously related perps in the Epstein affair.
“The Epstein affair (like 9/11) illustrates two critically important truths about
Western secularism: there is no truth, and there are no limits. A society that no longer
believes in God no longer believes in truth…..”
“While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national
consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state,
the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to
build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a
central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own
sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted
scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.
It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one
section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open
effrontery comes out as the Jewish race.”
More prophetic words were ever spoken or written by any of the statesmen of the
Twentieth Century than these, even though they themselves were insufficient to describe the
horrors that the Zionist state would bring upon the world if left unchecked- and its power
and influence have been unchecked since the 1960’s. The last time that the world
stood up to Zionist power in an appreciable way was during the Suez Crisis.
DOT.. Port loses claim for asbestos removal | Business Insurance https://www.businessinsurance.com › article
› ISSUE01 › port-loses-claim-… May 13, 2001 – The suit sought claim of the Port Authority’s huge cost
of removing asbestos from hundreds of properties ranging from the enormous World Trade
Center complex
DOT…Silverstein knew when he leased WTC 7 that he would have to pay out of pocket
for asbestos abatement removal in WTC 7, multiple millions, which is why the Port Authority
leased it so cheaply.
DOT…In May, 2000, a year before, signing the lease, he already had the design
drawn for a new WTC building. Silverstein had no plans to remove the asbestos as he already
had plans to replace it.
DOT… Larry Silverstein signs the lease just six weeks before the WTC’s twin
towers were brought to the ground by terrorists in the September 11, 2001, attacks.
DOT….After leasing the complex, Silverstein negotiated with 24 insurance
companies for a maximum coverage of $3.55 billion per catastrophic occurrence.
However, the agreements had not been finalized before 9/11.
DOT…..Silverstein tries to sue insurers for double the payout claiming 2
catastrophic occurrences because of 2 planes involved.
DOT….Silver loses that lawsuit but sues the air lines and settles for almost
another billion, $ 750,000,000.
Just another Jew insurance fire folks. He planned on tearing down WTC 7 to begin with.
The only missing DOT is who he hired to set the demolition explosives in WTC 7. Were they
imported from our ME ally?
While people do not agree of detail the main theme is common: government stories explaining
both 9/11 and Epstein death are not credible. And that government tried to create an "artificial
reality" to hide real events and real culprits.
Absence of credible information create fertile ground for creation of myths and rumors,
sometimes absurd. But that'a well known sociaological phenomenon studies by late Tamotsu Shibutani in the
context of WWII rumors ( Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor (1966)).
Now we can interpret famous quote of
William Casey "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American
public believes is false as an admission of the fact that the government can create artificial
reality" much like in film Matrix and due to thick smoke of propaganda people are simply unable
to discern the truth.
A foreign policy of "maximum pressure" and swagger: tawdry bribes, heavy-handed threats,
and complete failure ..now what group does this remind me of?
US State Dept Program Offers $15 Million to Iran Revolutionary Guards September 4,
2019
The US State Department has unveiled a new $15 million "reward program" for anyone who
provides information on the financial inner workings of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, in an
attempt to further disrupt them.
The program comes after the US declared the Revolutionary Guards "terrorists," but remains
very unusual, in as much as it targets an agency of a national government instead of just
some random militant group.
The Financial Times reports on the farce that is our government's Iran policy:
Four days before the US imposed sanctions on an Iranian tanker suspected of shipping oil
to Syria, the vessel's Indian captain received an unusual email from the top Iran official at
the Department of State.
"This is Brian Hook . . . I work for secretary of state Mike
Pompeo and serve as the US Representative for Iran," Mr Hook wrote to Akhilesh Kumar on
August 26, according to several emails seen by the Financial Times. "I am writing with good
news."
The "good news" was that the Trump administration was offering Mr Kumar several million
dollars to pilot the ship -- until recently known as the Grace 1 -- to a country that would
impound the vessel on behalf of the US. To make sure Mr Kumar did not mistake the email for a
scam, it included an official state department phone number.
The administration's Iran obsession has reached a point where they are now trying to bribe
people to act as pirates on their behalf. When the U.S. was blocked by a court in Gibraltar
from taking the ship, they sought to buy the loyalty of the captain in order to steal it.
Failing that, they resorted to their favorite tool of sanctions to punish the captain and his
crew for ignoring their illegitimate demand. The captain didn't respond to the first message,
so Hook persisted with his embarrassing scheme:
"With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age," Mr Hook wrote in
a second email to Mr Kumar that also included a warning. "If you choose not to take this easy
path, life will be much harder for you."
Many people have already mocked Hook's message for its resemblance to a Nigerian prince
e-mail scam, and I might add that he comes across here sounding like a B-movie gangster.
Hook's contact was not an isolated incident, but part of a series of e-mails and texts that
he has sent to various ships' captains in a vain effort to intimidate them into falling in
line with the administration's economic war. This is what comes of a foreign policy of
"maximum pressure" and swagger: tawdry bribes, heavy-handed threats, and complete
failure.
The Committee of 300 is an evolution of the British East Indies Company Council of 300. The
list personally last seen included many Windsors (Prince Andrew), Rothchilds, other Royals.
Some of the Americans included some now dead and other still living: George HW Bush, Bill
Clinton Tom Steyer, Al Gore, John Kerry, Netanyahu, lots of bankers, Woolsey (ex CIA),
journalists like Michael Bloomberg, Paul Krugman, activists and politians like Tony Blair,
now dead Zbigniew Brzezinski, CEOs Charles and Edgar Bronfman. The list is long and out of
date but these people control much of what goes on whether good or bad. Their hands are
everywhere doing good and maybe some of this bad stuff.
Given the facts a 10 year-old child could see that the official 911 explanation was totally
flawed. Just three of these facts are sufficient, the 'dancing Israelis', Silverstein
admitting to the 'pull (demolish) it' order and the collapse of steel-framed WTC 7 in
freefall despite not being hit. It is not hyperbole to say that America is a failed state
given that the known perpetrators were never even charged. ZOG indeed.
A respectable civil rights attorney, Lisa Bloom, handled Katie Johnson's case.
"Respectable"?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
You do realize that Lisa Bloom is the daughter of Glora Allred and defender of Harvey
Weinstein do you not?
You people are so desperate to try to link Trump to Epstein it's pathetic.
I suggest you go back to your gatekeeping nonsense of trying to discredit the 9/11 Truth
Movement by spreading misinformation about nukes in the towers.
This article stakes out much important ground of information and interpretation Kevin
Barrett. The essay resonates as a historic statement of some of our current predicaments.
What about the comparisons that might be made concerning the mysteries attending the
disappearing corpses of Osama bin Laden and Jeffrey Epstein. And according to Christopher
Ketcham, the release of the High Fivin' Urban Movers back to Israel was partially negotiated
by Alan Dershowitz who played a big role in defending Epstein over a long period.
@anon The ultimate "nutjob quackery" of 9/11 is Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission Report,
a document that stands as a testimony and marker signifying the USA's descent into a mad
hatter's imperium of lies. legend and illusion.
It is getting harder and harder to satirize the decadence and depravity of the secular
West, which insists on parodying itself with ever-increasing outlandishness. When the book
on this once-mighty civilization is written, and the ink is dry, readers will be astounded
by the limitless lies of the drunk-on-chutzpah psychopaths who ran it into the ground
@Kevin Barrett Adding to Junior's comment, I quit reading after you wrote of "credible
accusations" of Mr. Trump being involved "in the brutal rape of a 13 year old." And feminist
shakedown artist Lisa Bloom, daughter of the even more infamous feminist shakedown artist G.
Allred, is your "credible source?" Bloom has about as much credibility as the sicko democrat
women who tried to derail Judge Kavanaugh.
Regardless of how much one might hate Trump (and I'm no Trump supporter) levelling such
unfounded accusations is journalistic malfeasance. Did we elect the Devil Incarnate? Mr.
Barrett, I'm done reading you.
The special relationship between the CIA and the Mossad was driven partly by the efforts of
CIA officer James Angleton . Philip Weiss in his article in Mondoweiss entitled "The goy and
the golem: James Angleton and the rise of Israel." states that Angleton's " greatest service
to Israel was his willingness no to say a word about the apparent diversion of highly
enriched plutonium from a plant in Western Pennsylvania to Israel's nascent nuclear program "
The same program which JFK tried to curtail which efforts may have led to his assassination .
a confessed participant in the controlled demolition of Building 7,
For the love of God, this is stupid. Larry Silverstein was talking about the Fire
Commander , for fuck's sake. The Fire Commander made the decision to pull the
firefighters out of the building because they could not put the fire out and were in
unnecessary danger. That's all he meant. There is not one word in this that has anything to
do with a controlled demolition whatsoever.
In order to believe what the 9/11 Douchers would have you believe about this comment, you
would have to believe that 1) Building 7 was wired for demolition beforehand; 2) That the NYC
Fire Commander somehow knew about this; 3) That the NYC Fire Commander was perfectly okay
with allowing his men to spend hours inside a burning building in which he knew that
explosive charges had already been rigged to blow; 4) That the NYC Fire Commander had the
authority to decide when the charges should be blown and had access to the master switch that
would blow them all; 5) That after 7 hours of attempting to fight the fire, the NYC Fire
Commander (who by now can be nothing but a full-fledged member of the conspiracy) decides,
after briefly consulting with Larry Silverstein, "Oh, the hell with this! Let's just blow up
the building now!", to which Larry Silverstein agrees; 6) That after spending 7 hours in a
burning building that had fires burning randomly throughout it and that had been struck by
multiple pieces of debris, all of the explosive charges and their detonators were still in
perfect working order; 7) That none of the firefighters extensively searching the building
for survivors happened to notice any of the pre-placed explosive charges nor thought it
necessary to report about such; 8) That the NYC Fire Commander then proceeds to "pull" the
building after presumably giving some other order for the men to evacuate, which order was
never recorded because the "pull" order must have meant "blow up the building"; 9) And that
Larry Silverstein, after being part of a massive conspiracy involving insurance fraud,
murder, and arson which, if exposed, would send him to a federal death sentence, just decides
to casually mention all of this in a television interview for all and sundry to see, but it
is only the 9/11 Douchers who pick up on the significance of it.
Does any of this sound remotely believable? Did anyone subscribing to this nonsense stop
to think about the context in which this conversation took place? Do any of you 9/11 Douchers
even care that you're being completely ridiculous and grasping at nonexistent straws in your
vain attempt to establish some sort of case for controlled demolition? Do you even care that
everybody can see that what you are saying makes no sense at all? It is perfectly
obvious that Larry Silverstein is NOT talking about controlled demolition here. To
believe otherwise would require you to literally be insane, to not understand the plain
meaning of words and to have no awareness of conversational contexts; yet not only have you
swallowed all of this, you have been beating the drum of this insanity for nearly 20
years.
There is no point in reasoning with an insane person. There is, however, the possibility
that you don't really believe what you are saying and are just flogging a hobbyhorse, in
which case it is you who are engaging in mendacious journalism and trafficking in
lies. In either case, you need to be silenced. Neither lies nor insanity have any "right" to
be uttered in the public square. You 9/11 Douchers are really the ones doing everything you
accuse the mainstream media of doing, and worse. You have become a danger to the public weal
and must be stopped. Your conspiratorial nonsense just isn't cute anymore.
The official stories about the Kennedy assassination, Epstein's death, and 9/11 are
clearly suspect. No one with the capacity for critical thinking can seriously deny this.
Which elements of these stories are true and which are false will never be resolved.
Because:
The mainstream media including Fox News have abdicated their mission as fact finders and
truth tellers. They peddle entertainment and sell ad space. Rachel Maddow foaming at the
mouth about Trump's pee tape and Hannity fulminating about FISA abuse are the same product,
simply aimed at different demographics.
Nothing in the above two paragraphs is even remotely novel. It's all been said before
twenty bazillion times.
Being a feminist or Democrat (or nonfeminist or Republican) is irrelevant to a person's
credibility. It's possible that Lisa Bloom was part of a conspiracy to invent a fictitious
Katy Johnson story, in which case Bloom is guilty of criminal fraud as well as civil libel.
That would be quite a risk for her to take, to say the least. It's also possible that she was
somehow duped by others, in which case they would be running the civil and criminal
liabilities, while she would just get disbarred for negligence.
The same is true of Johnson's attorney Thomas Meagher.
It is also possible that Johnson's story is at least roughly accurate. There is supporting
testimony from another Epstein victim.
If you set aside your prejudices about Democrats-Republicans, feminists-antifeminists,
Trump-Hillary, etc., and just look at what's been reported, you'll agree with me that the
allegations are credible (but of course unproven). If you suffer emotional blocks against
thinking such things about a President, as so many did when similar things were reported
about Bill Clinton, I sympathize but also urge you to get psychiatric treatment so you can
learn to face unpleasant facts and then get to work cleaning up this country.
The release of Prof. J. Leroy Hulsey report on the finite element analysis of the WTC7
collapse should be a big news.
But won't be.
Democracy works this way. The ruling elite, via the media, Hollywood, etc., tell the
people what to think, the people then vote according to the way they think.
So the truth of 9/11 will never be known to the majority unless we have a public statement
from George W. Bush acknowledging that he personally lit the fuse that set off the explosions
that brought WTC 7 down at free-fall
speed .
This is fortunate for the intrepid Dr. Hulsey* who would, presumably, otherwise have had
to be dispatched by a sudden heart attack, traffic accident, weight-lifting accident suicide
with a bullet to the back of the head. As it is, hardly anyone will ever know what he will
say or what it means.
* Fortunate also for those who so rashly advocate for truth here and elsewhere on the yet
to be fully controlled Internets.
Nicely done. Article will not be featured on front page NYT & discussed on TV.
There are many highlights in your article. This is one.
Epstein's career as a shameless, openly-operating Mossad sexual blackmailer -- like the
in-your-face 9/11 coup -- also illustrates another core truth of Western secularism: If
there is no God, there are no limits (in this case, to human depravity and what it can get
away with). Or as Dostoevsky famously put it: "If God does not exist, everything is
permitted."
Please consult the following papers about the CIA/Mossad crimes against humanity and their
pimps who pose as 'politicians' of the fake Western 'democracy' where Epstein was their agent
serving their interest as a PIMP.
{from being the work of a single political party, intelligence agency or country, the
power structure revealed by the network connected to Epstein is nothing less than a criminal
enterprise that is willing to use and abuse children in the pursuit of ever more power,
wealth and control.}
This discussion avoids comparing society in the mid-19th century and today. It really isn't that long ago. I've lived through
almost half of it. Except for officers most of the soldiers I served with were conscripted or enlisted because of the draft. In
a war your choices are limited. If they were in the march, driving wagons, armed to the teeth, they were soldiers; no matter how
they got there.
Today's volunteer Army most of the soldiers and contractors are there because they couldn't get a better job unless they are
adrenaline junkies or psychopaths. The current neoliberal economy purposefully exploits people and the environment to make a profit.
Today's soldiers aren't too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome. Perhaps, "warriors" isn't that much of a misnomer.
"... But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental stagnation? ..."
"... You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're "how" thinkers not "if" thinkers. ..."
"... This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside. ..."
"... Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day against the forces of change in modern warfare ..."
"... "[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests." ..."
"... "By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says Macgregor. ..."
Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy
op-ed written by former secretary of defense James Mattis, his first public statement since
his resignation in December. The article is adopted from his forthcoming book, Call Sign
Chaos: Learning to Lead , out this week.
The former Pentagon chief opens a window into his decision making process, explaining that
accepting President Trump's nomination was part of his lifelong devotion to public service:
"When the president asks you to do something, you don't play Hamlet on the wall, wringing your
hands. So long as you are prepared, you say yes." Mattis's two years at DoD capped off 44 years
in the Marine Corps, where he gained a popular following as a tough and scholarly leader.
Mattis received widespread praise from the foreign policy establishment when he resigned in
protest over President Trump's directive for a full U.S. military withdrawal from Syria and a
partial withdrawal from Afghanistan. "When my concrete solutions and strategic advice,
especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite
the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution," he
writes.
But did Mattis really offer "concrete solutions and strategic advice" regarding America's
two decades of endless war? spoke with four military experts, all veterans, who painted a very
different picture of the man called "Mad Dog."
"I think over time, in General Mattis's case a little over 40 years, if you spend that many
years in an institution, it is extremely hard not to get institutionalized," says Gil
Barndollar, military fellow-in-residence at the Catholic University of America's Center for the
Study of Statesmanship. Barndollar served as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps and
deployed twice to Afghanistan. "In my experiences, there are not too many iconoclasts or really
outside-the-box people in the higher ranks of the U.S. military."
It's just that sort of institutionalized thinking that makes the political establishment
love Mattis. "[A] person with an institutional mind-set has a deep reverence for the
organization he has joined and how it was built by those who came before. He understands that
institutions pass down certain habits, practices and standards of excellence," wrote David
Brooks in a hagiographic New York Timescolumn .
But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting
unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental
stagnation?
"The problem is, from at least the one-star the whole way through, for the last two decades,
you've seen them do nothing but just repeat the status quo over and over," observes Lieutenant
Colonel Daniel L. Davis, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, who served 21 years in the U.S.
Army and deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan. "I mean every single general that was in
charge of Afghanistan said almost the same boilerplate thing every time they came in (which was
nearly one a year). You see the same results, nothing changed."
"And if those guys took someone from a major to a two-star general, we'd probably have a lot
of better outcomes," he adds.
Major Danny Sjursen, who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, agrees:
You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether
they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim
it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking
on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're
"how" thinkers not "if" thinkers.
Barndollar says: "The vast majority of military leaders, up to and including generals at the
three-, four-star level, are not operating at the strategic level, in terms of what that word
means in military doctrine. They're not operating at the level of massive nation-state
resources and alliances and things like that. They're at the operational level or often even at
the tactical level."
This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic
concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one
superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside.
The only component of national security policy Mattis discusses in his op-ed is America's
system of alliances, which he believes is the key to our preeminence on the world stage.
"Returning to a strategic stance that includes the interests of as many nations as we can make
common cause with, we can better deal with this imperfect world we occupy together," he
writes.
"Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day
against the forces of change in modern warfare," counters Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who served
28 years in the U.S. Army. "He lives in denial of the technological breakthroughs that make the
World War II force structure (that he as SecDef insisted on funding) an expensive tribute to
the past."
Mattis muses that the Department of Defense "budget [is] larger than the GDPs of all but two
dozen countries." Yet having acknowledged that disparity, how can such underpowered foreign
nations possibly contribute to American security?
"He has that line in there about bringing as many guns as possible to a gun fight. What are
those guns?" asked Barndollar. For example, the British Royal Navy is the United States' most
significant allied naval force. But the United Kingdom has
only seven vessels stationed in the Persian Gulf and they're "stretched to the absolute
limit to do that."
"Our problem has been double-edged," says Davis of America's reliance on others. "On the one
hand, we try to bludgeon a lot of our allies to do what we want irrespective of their interests
as an asset. And then simultaneously, especially in previous administrations, we've almost gone
too far [in] the other direction: 'we'll subordinate our interests for yours.'"
"[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment
Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The
means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests."
Sjursen says:
Mattis's view is the old Einstein adage: "doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." Well that's all he's proposed.
He has no new or creative solutions. For him, it's stay the course, more of the same, stay in
place, fight the terrorists, maintain the illegitimate and corrupt governments that we back.
That's what he's been talking about for 18 years. It's all the same interventionist dogma
that's failed us over and over again since September 12, 2001.
"In the two years he was in office, what did he do that changed anything? He was a caretaker
of the status quo. That's the bottom line," says Davis, adding, "you need somebody in that job
especially that is willing to take some chances and some risk and is willing to honestly look
at 18 consecutive years of failure and say, 'We're not doing that anymore. We're going to do
something different.' And that just never happened."
Barndollar is more generous in his estimation of Mattis: "He needs to be lauded for standing
for his principles, ultimately walking away when he decided he could no longer execute U.S.
national security policy. I give him all the credit for that, for doing it I think in a
relatively good manner, and for trying to do his best to stay above the fray and refuse to be
dragged in at a partisan level to this point."
Mattis ends his Wall Street Journal op-ed by recounting a vignette from the 2010
Battle of Marjah, where he spoke with two soldiers on the front lines and in good cheer. But
his story didn't sit well with Sjursen, who says it encapsulates Mattis' inability to ask the
bigger questions: "He never talks about how those charming soldiers with the can-do attitude
maybe shouldn't have been there at all. Maybe the mission that they were asked to do was
ill-informed, ill-advised, and potentially unwinnable."
All this suggests that a fair evaluation of Mattis is as a soldier who is intelligent but
unoriginal. A homegrown patriot, but one who'd like to plant the Stars and Stripes in Central
Asia forever. A public servant, but one who would rather resign than serve the cause of
restraint.
"By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned
future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says
Macgregor.
Hunter DeRensis is a reporter for The National Interest .Follow him on
Twitter@HunterDeRensis
.
The author should use the word "neoliberal" instead of "debauched"
Notable quotes:
"... When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control. ..."
"... In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power. ..."
"... The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy? ..."
"... Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution. ..."
"... Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism ..."
"... I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it. ..."
"... The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out. ..."
"... We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us. ..."
"... It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment. ..."
"... The problem is that we are led by sociopaths. ..."
"... This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted. ..."
"... I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package. ..."
TAC are no doubt familiar with the truism that "politics is downstream of culture." This maxim, which is undoubtedly true,
should not, however, only be applied to social issues. In fact, culture shapes our public policy very broadly, far more than do dispassionate
"policymakers" exercising careful reason and judgment. The nature of our governance tends to reflect the cultural and philosophical
orientation of our elites, and this orientation is increasingly debauched.
When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated
with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control.
All the great religious and philosophical traditions understood that there is a part of our nature that can get out of control
and a divine part that can exert control. A culture thus becomes debauched when elites lose the sense that they need to rein themselves
in, that "there is an immortal essence presiding like a king over" their appetites, as Walter Lippmann put it. In the political
realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power.
The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how
might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy?
Let's start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home? One might surmise, for example, that
their lack of self-control might cause them to spend federal money as a means of keeping themselves in power. They might also attempt
to bribe their constituents by promising a variety of domestic programs while also pledging that the programs will be funded out
of the pockets of others. If they were really debauched, they might even borrow money from future generations to pay for these incumbency
protection initiatives. They might run up staggering
debt for the sake of their expedient political needs and promise that "the rich" can provide for it all. In short, the hallmark
domestic policy of a debauched democracy is, and has always been, class warfare.
It should be pointed out that class warfare is not simply a creation of demagogues on the left. Class warfare tends to resonate
most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives."
In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution.
While most conservatives might agree about the dangers of class warfare, it is on the foreign policy front where they seem most
debauched themselves. They remain stuck in a vortex of GOP clichés, with standard references to Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill,
leaders who were closer in their time to the American Civil War than we are to them now. For many of these "conservatives," every
contemporary authoritarian leader is the progeny of Hitler and any attempt to establish cordial relations is a rerun of Munich 1938.
As with domestic policy, the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power
reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others with no particular nexus to the national interest. A debauched foreign policy
might just look like the decision to invade Iraq -- a war whose supporters offered numerous justifications, including alleged weapons
of mass destruction, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism. Yet in hindsight, its real cause seems to have been the simple desire
by our leaders to impose their will. In a debauched democracy, class warfare is the paradigmatic domestic policy and profligate war
making is the paradigmatic foreign policy.
Given that self-control and restraint are the hallmarks of a genuinely conservative foreign policy -- because they remain humble
about what human nature can actually achieve -- one should receive the recent conference on
national conservatism with some
skepticism . The
retinue of experts who spoke generally espoused a foreign policy that sought dominion over others -- in other words, a continuation
of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. This may be nationalism, but it seems not to
be conservatism.
One hopes that the leaders of this new movement will re-consider their foreign policy orientation as they have increasingly formidable
resources to draw upon. The creation of the Quincy Institute and the rise of
an intellectually formidable network of foreign policy "restrainers" provide hope.
Given that culture is king, however, these intellectuals may want to keep top of mind that restraint is not simply a policy option
but a character trait -- a virtue -- that needs to be developed in leaders who are then elevated. Prudent policies are no doubt essential
but the most important challenge in politics is, and always will be, attracting and encouraging the best leaders to rule. Our system
often does the opposite. This is at root a cultural problem.
William S. Smith is research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University
of America, and author of the new book
Democracy and Imperialism .
I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy.
Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler,
Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it.
Moreover, has the author never heard of the concept "reasons of state"?: a purely political reason for action on the part of
a ruler or government, especially where a departure from openness, justice, or honesty is involved (e.g. "the king returned that
he had reasons of state for all he did"). In an existential emergency, would the leader of a nation be justified in using amoral
means to save his nation; but in all other circumstances should rely on conventional Christian morality as the default position?
This is what Pres. Truman apparently did when he dropped a-bombs on two Japanese cities. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer was apparently
involved with in the assassination attempt on Hitler. What Moses was embroiled with when he slayed 3,000 of his "debauched" followers
in the Exodus from Egypt.
The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other
than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous
non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the
country out.
The opponent who beat her in the election promised the opposite and pretty much has delivered on his promises. Just
how is the current administration "unrestrained" other than he has not fulfilled pacifist's fantasies of pulling out of every
foreign country and conflict? Such pull outs have to be weighed on a case by case basis to determine the cost to human life and
world order. If the current administration has a policy it is that our allies have to fight and fund their own wars and conflicts
rather than rely on the U.S. to fight their wars for them.
The article is full of inflationary clichés ('politics is downstream of culture', 'class warfare', etc. And just how does the
author connect the dots between pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was elected to nothing and held no power over anyone, and our "debauched'
foreign policy? Correlation is not causation but there isn't even a correlation there.
The more one reads opinions of Intellectuals , and as anyone with half a brain knows, to never believe a Politician, I am always
reminded, after considerable research why I personally choose Realism . Realism is certainly not new and has some varied forms.
Realism re-surfaced leading up to and during WW 2.
"...the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts
to exert dominion over others"
I love this.
We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families,
we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these
countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us.
This reminds me of a Nick Pemberton article when he wrote ...
"We still play the victim. And amazingly we believe it ... We believe we can take whatever we want. We believe that this world
does not contain differences to be negotiated, but foes to be defeated."
I could never get this out of my head.
It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the
gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment.
Trump the adulterer was the one who decided against bombing
because he did not have a taste for blood while the pious were eager for it.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth."
-Matthew 5:5
"Meek" is the wrong word/translation. In the original Greek, the word is "preais" and it does not mean docile and submissive.
Rather the word means gentleness blended with restrained strength/power.
The passage should read, "Blessed are those who have swords and know how to use them but keep them sheathed: for they shall
inherit the Earth."
There is a simpler explanation of what has happened to the US. When it comes to human beings, the only thing you need to remember
is Lord Acton's dictum: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did
not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent
NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint
of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever).
Get absolute power, get corrupted.
The same thing is true domestically in the US. A small ethnic minority gave 50% and 25% of the money spent by the Democrats
and Republicans in the last presidential election. That gives them huge influence over the foreign policy of the country. Best
of all, no one else can question what is going on because classic tropes etc. Give a small group absolute power, get the swamp.
I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters.
Destroying historic value sets is part of this package.
The destruction of main core Christianity has not helped stem this tide
(subtle Happy Holidays, CE, BCE, etc.) . Brave women and men must arise and sewerize (drain the swamp) this mob of miscreants
defiling our belief system. .They have a right to exist but not dictate by subterfuge and fake news our values as they have been
doing.
Remove the OP pic of the Marines NOW, and fix the rest of your whine later.
This is America, we have no "betters" and our "gov't" has never, and will never, be comprised of anything other than our idiot
ay-whole neighbors who needed a job, whose sole job it is to govern the machinations of gov't and not us, as an un-self-governed
Society is otherwise un-governable.
And [due to human nature and physics (of which neither has or will change in the entire history of humanity)] sometimes you
have to go to war at the slightest of hints of provocation in order to achieve "illimitably sustainable conflict" of "Society"
[J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012] not have to haphazardly fight minute to minute of every day.
“ If when Political objects are unimportant, motives weak, the excitement of forces small, a cautious commander tries
in all kinds of ways, without great crises and bloody solutions, to twist himself skillfully into peace through the characteristic
weakness of his enemy in the field and in the cabinet, we have no right to find fault with him, if the premise on which he
acts are well founded and justified by success;
still we must require him to remember that he only travels on forbidden tracks,
where the God of War may surprise him; that he ought always to keep his eye on the enemy, in order that he may not have to defend
himself with a dress rapier if the enemy takes up a sharp sword ”.
(Clausewitz, “On War” pg. 137)
Loosely paraphrased: " peaceable resolution to conflict is only effective, and should only be sought and relied upon, when
it is certain that the other party will never resort to arms, with the implication that that is never " [J.M.Thomas R., TERMS,
2012 Pg. 80]
Weakness is provocative don't provoke your enemies. Quit whining.
Let’s start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home?
Let's see. They'd likely repeatedly cut taxes on the wealthiest and on corporations and skyrocket deficits. They'd likely increase
military spending to insane levels to the benefit of the military industrial complex. They'd likely perform wide scale deregulation
on polluting industries. They'd ignore all inconvenient science, especially that which didn't support the fossil fuel industry.
They'd likely avoid meaningful action on a healthcare system that is more broken and expensive than any other OECD nation. Then
they'd look for targets, the "others", to bash and attack in attempt to hide the real world consequences of what they were doing.
Why would they do this? They do it for campaign contributions, "a means of keeping themselves in power."
I believe we are in the hands of:
The Demons of “Democracy”
The demons of “democracy” speak of “peace”
While their selling of weapons does not cease
Hypocrites from hell who posture on the world stage
When they should be in a gigantic prison cage
Evil reprobates in positions of power Anything that’s good they devour Destroying countries and families too This is the satanic work they do
Fancy titles are given to their names
Such is the state of a system insane
Madness and filth has become “normal”
Nobody speaks or asks: “Is it moral”?
Principals and ethics, they are of them, devoid Speaking of decency and truth has them annoyed Pimping for war is their diabolical expertise Killing and bombing is the forte of this demonic sleaze
Training and supporting terrorists, they do this as well
Will nobody arrest this treacherous crew from hell?
These people are devils and full of hypocrisy
We need to be freed from these, demons of “democracy”...
"... What do all those "safe" candidates have in common? Oh, that's right- they all lost . ..."
"... So the more overtly neoliberal candidates are stalling or bailing, with the more progressive candidates (actually or putatively) -- Sanders and Warren -- sailing along. Is that some kind of surprise? ..."
Warren has the Acela corridor's backing and that has been expressed in some fawning
coverage from the likes of the WaPo and NYT. Krugman has hinted that she's his candidate as
well.
Unless something completely untoward happens, expect her to get great reviews in the next
debate.
I don't see how a classic Massachusetts liberal like Warren (to me she's very close to
Teddy K in her policy views ) motivates enough abstaining voters to beat Trump. Not enough
there, there.
Re the polls: Matt Taibbi recently wrote that if Biden lost ground Sanders would be the
likely gainer, since Bernie is the second choice for most Biden supporters. But it appears
Warren is benefiting as Biden slides.
Too bad. Still, maybe it's just the minority of Biden supporters who pick Warren as their
2nd choice who are bailing on Biden so far. Sanders may still gain if the more hard-core
Bidenites begin to leave.
As for Beto's plan to snatch our AK's and AR's, good for him for being so forthright. It's
a terrible idea, but one can appreciate the flat-out honesty.
" the enduring questions surrounding Biden's age and fitness for office may mean
Democrats will lack the "safe" choice they have had in the past, whether the candidate has
been former Vice President Al Gore in 2000, former U.S. Senator John Kerry in 2004 or
Clinton, the former U.S. senator and secretary of state, in 2008 and 2016."
What do all those "safe" candidates have in common? Oh, that's right- they all lost
.
That and they didn't upset the apple carts of the political consultants and the major
donors.
Funnily I think the author is missing several 'safe' candidates still in the running, all
of whom might secure the nomination on the second ballot depending on who the superdelegate
darling is. All of whom would probably be able to uphold that loss record of the safe
candidate.
I didn't click through to read if it was a joke, but I suspect "safe" for Team Blue types
means "a candidate who most assuredly won't be criticized by the Republicans."
Al Gore would blunt whining about the deficit. John Kerry was for a "stronger America."
Hillary was so qualified and had faced all arrows including machine gun fire in Serbia.
Yep, those moderate Republicans are going to eliminate the need for Team Blue elites to ever
have to worry about the poors again.
Right -- and none of them had the press openly speculating about a lack of cognitive
capacity, as is happening with the current "safe" candidate. That's what passes for "safe"
these days, I guess.
Also: "Biden's appeal wanes," Gillibrand crashes and burns, Harris "hasn't caught fire,"
and Black Lives Matter of South Bend calls for Buttigieg to resign as mayor. (What
language(s) will "Mayor Pete" give his resignation speech in, one wonders.)
So the more
overtly neoliberal candidates are stalling or bailing, with the more progressive candidates
(actually or putatively) -- Sanders and Warren -- sailing along. Is that some kind of
surprise?
While details on Epstein death are not interesting (he ended like a regular pimp) the corruption of high level officials his case
revealed in more troubling.
Notable quotes:
"... Epstein was released, and various lawsuits were filed against him and settled out of court, presumably in exchange for silence. The media was quiet or complimentary as Epstein worked his way back into high society. ..."
"... What would I do if I were Epstein? I'd try to get the President, the Attorney-General, or the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to shut down the investigation before it went public. I'd have all my friends and all my money try to pressure them. If it failed and I were arrested, it would be time for the backup plan -- the Deal. I'd try to minimize my prison time, and, just as important, to be put in one of the nicer federal prisons where I could associate with financial wizards and drug lords instead of serial killers, black nationalists, and people with bad breath. ..."
"... What about the powerful people Epstein would turn in to get his deal? They aren't as smart as Epstein, but they would know the Deal was coming -- that Epstein would be quite happy to sacrifice them in exchange for a prison with a slightly better golf course. What could they do? There's only one good option -- to kill Epstein, and do it quickly, before he could start giving information samples to the U. S. Attorney. ..."
"... Trying to kill informers is absolutely routine in the mafia, or indeed, for gangs of any kind. ..."
"... Famous politicians, unlike gangsters, don't have full-time professional hit men on their staffs, but that's just common sense -- politicians rarely need hit men, so it makes more sense to hire them on a piecework basis than as full-time employees. How would they find hit men? You or I wouldn't know how to start, but it would be easy for them. Rich powerful people have bodyguards. Bodyguards are for defense, but the guys who do defense know guys who do offense. And Epstein's friends are professional networkers. One reporter said of Ghislaine Maxwell, "Her Rolodex would blow away almost anyone else's I can think of -- probably even Rupert Murdoch's." They know people who know people. Maybe I'm six degrees of separation from a mafia hit man, but not Ghislaine Maxwell. I bet she knows at least one mafioso personally who knows more than one hit man. ..."
"... Or, if you can hire a New York Times reporter for $30,000 ( as Epstein famously did a couple of years ago), you can spend $200,000 on a competent hit man to make double sure. Government incompetence does not lend support to the suicide theory; quite the opposite. ..."
"... Statutory rape is not a federal crime ..."
"... At any time from 2008 to the present, Florida and New York prosecutors could have gone after Epstein and easily convicted him. The federal nonprosecution agreement did not bind them. And, of course, it is not just Epstein who should have been prosecuted. Other culprits such as Prince Andrew are still at large. ..."
"... Why isn't anybody but Ann Coulter talking about Barry Krischer and Ric Bradshaw, the Florida state prosecutor and sheriff who went easy on Epstein, or the New York City police who let him violate the sex offender regulations? ..."
"... Krischer refused to use the evidence the Palm Beach police gave him except to file a no-jail-time prostitution charge (they eventually went to Acosta, the federal prosecutor, instead, who got a guilty plea with an 18-month sentence). Bradshaw let him spend his days at home instead of at jail. ..."
"... In New York State, the county prosecutor, Cyrus Vance, fought to prevent Epstein from being classified as a Level III sex offender. Once he was, the police didn't enforce the rule that required him to check in every 90 days. ..."
"... Trafficking is a federal offense, so it would have to involve commerce across state lines. It also must involve sale and profit, not just personal pleasure. ..."
"... Here, the publicity and investigative lead is what is most important, because these are reputable and rich offenders for whom publicity is a bigger threat than losing in court. They have very good lawyers, and probably aren't guilty of federal crimes anyway, just state crimes, in corrupt states where they can use clout more effectively. Thus, killing potential informants before they tell the public is more important than killing informants to prevent their testimony at trial, a much more leisurely task. ..."
"... Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is the only government official who is clearly trustworthy, because he could have stopped the 2019 Epstein indictment and he didn't. I don't think Attorney-General Barr could have blocked it, and I don't think President Trump could have except by firing Berman. ..."
"... "It was that heart-wrenching series that caught the attention of Congress. Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska, joined with his Democratic colleagues and demanded to know how justice had been so miscarried. ..."
"... President Trump didn't have anything personally to fear from Epstein. He is too canny to have gotten involved with him, and the press has been eagerly at work to find the slightest connection between him and Epstein and have come up dry as far as anything but acquaintanceship. But we must worry about a cover-up anyway, because rich and important people would be willing to pay Trump a lot in money or, more likely, in political support, if he does a cover-up. ..."
"... he sealing was completely illegal, as the appeals court politely but devastatingly noted in 2019, and the documents were released a day or two before Epstein died. Someone should check into Judge Sweet's finance and death. He was an ultra-Establishment figure -- a Yale man, alas, like me, and Taft School -- so he might just have been protecting what he considered good people, but his decision to seal the court records was grossly improper. ..."
"... Did Epstein have any dealings in sex, favors, or investments with any Republican except Wexner? ..."
"... Dershowitz, Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson, Dubin, George Stephanopolous, Lawrence Krauss, Katie Couric, Mortimer Zuckerman, Chelsea Handler, Cyrus Vance, and Woody Allen, are all Democrats. Did Epstein ever make use of Republicans? Don't count Trump, who has not been implicated despite the media's best efforts and was probably not even a Republican back in the 90's. Don't count Ken Starr– he's just one of Epstein's lawyers. Don't count scientists who just took money gifts from him. (By the way, Epstein made very little in the way of political contributions , though that little went mostly to Democrats ( $139,000 vs. $18,000 . I bet he extracted more from politicians than he gave to them. ..."
"... What role did Israeli politician Ehud Barak play in all this? ..."
"... Remember Marc Rich? He was a billionaire who fled the country to avoid a possible 300 years prison term, and was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 2001. Ehud Barak, one of Epstein's friends, was one of the people who asked for Rich to be pardoned . Epstein, his killers, and other rich people know that as a last resort they can flee the country and wait for someone like Clinton to come to office and pardon them. ..."
"... "intelligence" is also the kind of excuse people make up so they don't have to say "political pressure." ..."
"... James Patterson and John Connolly published Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him , and All the Justice that Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein . Conchita Sarnoff published TrafficKing: The Jeffrey Epstein Case. I never heard of these before 2019. Did the media bury them? ..."
"... There seems to have been an orchestrated attempt to divert attention to the issue of suicides in prison. Subtle differences in phrasing might help reveal who's been paid off. National Review had an article, "The Conspiracy Theories about Jeffrey Epstein's Death Don't Make Much Sense." The article contains no evidence or argument to support the headline's assertion, just bluster about "madness" and "conspiracy theories". Who else publishes stuff like this? ..."
"... The New York Times was, to its credit, willing to embarrass other publications by 2019. But the Times itself had been part of the cover-up in previous years . Who else was? ..."
"... Not one question involving Maurene Comey, then? She was one of the SDNY prosecutors assigned to this case, and her name has been significantly played down (if at all visible) in the reportage before or after Epstein's death. That she just "happened" to be on this case at all is quite an eyebrow raiser especially with her father under the ongoing "Spygate" investigation ..."
"... As important as it is to go on asking questions about the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein, I have to admit that personally I'm just not interested. I've always found people of his social class to be vaguely repulsive even without the sordid sex allegations. Just their demanding personalities, just the thought of them hanging around in their terrycloth jogging suits, sneering at the world with their irrefrangible arrogance, is enough to make me shudder. I want nothing of their nightmare world; and when they die, I couldn't care less. ..."
"... We are supposed to have faith in this rubbish? The cameras malfunctioned. He didn't have a cellmate. The guards were tired and forced to work overtime. ..."
"... One tiny mention of Jewish magnate Les Wexner but no mention how he & the Bronfmans founded the 'Mega Group' of ultra-Zionist billionaires regularly meeting as to how they could prop up the Jewish state by any & all means, Wexner being the source of many Epstein millions, the original buyer of the NYC mansion he transferred to Epstein etc the excellent Epstein series by Whitney Webb on Mint Press covering all this https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/ ..."
"... ex-OSS father Donald Barr had written a 'fantasy novel' on sex slavery with scenes of rape of underage teens, 'Space Relations', written whilst Don Barr was headmaster of the Dalton school, which gave Epstein his first job, teaching teens ..."
The Jeffrey Epstein case is notable for the ups and downs in media coverage it's gotten over the years. Everybody, it seems, in
New York society knew by 2000 that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were corrupting teenage girls, but the press wouldn't cover
it. Articles by New York in 2002 and
Vanity Fair in 2003 alluded to it gently,
while probing Epstein's finances more closely. In 2005, the Palm Beach police investigated. The county prosecutor, Democrat Barry
Krischer, wouldn't prosecute for more than prostitution, so they went to the federal prosecutor, Republican Alexander Acosta, and
got the FBI involved. Acosta's office prepared an indictment, but before it was filed, he made a deal: Epstein agreed to plead guilty
to a state law felony and receive a prison term of 18 months. In exchange, the federal interstate sex trafficking charges would not
be prosecuted by Acosta's office. Epstein was officially at the county jail for 13 months, where the county officials under Democratic
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw gave him scandalously
easy treatment , letting him spend his days outside, and letting him serve a year of probation in place of the last 5 months
of his sentence. Acosta's office complained, but it was a county jail, not a federal jail, so he was powerless.
Epstein was released, and various lawsuits were filed against him and settled out of court, presumably in exchange for silence.
The media was quiet or complimentary as Epstein worked his way back into high society. Two books were written about the affair, and
fell flat. The FBI became interested again around 2011 (
a little known fact
) and maybe things were happening behind the scenes, but the next big event was in 2018 when the Miami Herald published a
series of investigative articles rehashing what had happened.
In 2019 federal prosecutors indicted Epstein, he was put in jail, and
he mysteriously died. Now, after much complaining in the press about how awful jails are and how many people commit suicide, things
are quiet again, at least until the Justice Department and
the State of Florida finish their
investigation a few years from now. (For details and more links, see " Investigation: Jeffrey Epstein
"at Medium.com and " Jeffrey Epstein " at Wikipedia
.)
I'm an expert in the field of "game theory", strategic thinking. What would I do if I were Epstein? I'd try to get the President,
the Attorney-General, or the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to shut down the investigation before it went public.
I'd have all my friends and all my money try to pressure them. If it failed and I were arrested, it would be time for the backup
plan -- the Deal. I'd try to minimize my prison time, and, just as important, to be put in one of the nicer federal prisons where
I could associate with financial wizards and drug lords instead of serial killers, black nationalists, and people with bad breath.
That's what Epstein would do. What about the powerful people Epstein would turn in to get his deal? They aren't as smart as Epstein,
but they would know the Deal was coming -- that Epstein would be quite happy to sacrifice them in exchange for a prison with a slightly
better golf course. What could they do? There's only one good option -- to kill Epstein, and do it quickly, before he could start
giving information samples to the U. S. Attorney.
Trying to kill informers is absolutely routine in the mafia, or indeed, for gangs of any kind. The reason people call such talk
"conspiracy theories" when it comes to Epstein is that his friends are WASPs and Jews, not Italians and Mexicans. But WASPs and Jews
are human too. They want to protect themselves. Famous politicians, unlike gangsters, don't have full-time professional hit men on
their staffs, but that's just common sense -- politicians rarely need hit men, so it makes more sense to hire them on a piecework
basis than as full-time employees. How would they find hit men? You or I wouldn't know how to start, but it would be easy for them.
Rich powerful people have bodyguards. Bodyguards are for defense, but the guys who do defense know guys who do offense. And Epstein's
friends are professional networkers.
One reporter said
of Ghislaine Maxwell, "Her Rolodex would blow away almost anyone else's I can think of -- probably even Rupert Murdoch's." They know
people who know people. Maybe I'm six degrees of separation from a mafia hit man, but not Ghislaine Maxwell. I bet she knows at least
one mafioso personally who knows more than one hit man.
In light of this, it would be very surprising if someone with a spare $50 million to spend to solve the Epstein problem didn't
give it a try. A lot of people can be bribed for $50 million. Thus, we should have expected to see bribery attempts. If none were
detected, it must have been because prison workers are not reporting they'd been approached.
Some
people say that government incompetence is always a better explanation than government malfeasance. That's obviously wrong --
when an undeserving business gets a contract, it's not always because the government official in charge was just not paying attention.
I can well believe that prisons often take prisoners off of suicide watch too soon, have guards who go to sleep and falsify records,
remove cellmates from prisoners at risk of suicide or murder, let the TV cameras watching their most important prisoners go on the
blink, and so forth. But that cuts both ways.
Remember, in the case of Epstein, we'd expect a murder attempt whether the warden of
the most important federal jail in the country is competent or not. If the warden is incompetent, we should expect that murder attempt
to succeed. Murder becomes all the more more plausible. Instead of spending $50 million to bribe 20 guards and the warden, you just
pay some thug $30,000 to walk in past the snoring guards, open the cell door, and strangle the sleeping prisoner, no fancy James
Bond necessary. Or, if you can hire a New York Times reporter for $30,000 (
as Epstein famously did a couple of years ago), you can spend $200,000 on a competent hit man to make double sure. Government
incompetence does not lend support to the suicide theory; quite the opposite.
Now to my questions.
Why is nobody blaming the Florida and New York state prosecutors for not prosecuting Epstein and others for statutory rape?
Statutory rape is not a federal crime, so it is not something the Justice Dept. is supposed to investigate or prosecute. They
are going after things like interstate sex trafficking. Interstate sex trafficking is generally much harder to prove than statutory
rape, which is very easy if the victims will testify.
At any time from 2008 to the present, Florida and New York prosecutors could have gone after Epstein and easily convicted him.
The federal nonprosecution agreement did not bind them. And, of course, it is not just Epstein who should have been prosecuted. Other
culprits such as Prince Andrew are still at large.
Note that if even if the evidence is just the girl's word against Ghislaine Maxwell's or Prince Andrew's, it's still quite possible
to get a jury to convict. After all, who would you believe, in a choice between Maxwell, Andrew, and Anyone Else in the World? For
an example of what can be done if the government is eager to convict, instead of eager to protect important people, see
the 2019 Cardinal
Pell case in Australia. He was convicted by the secret testimony of a former choirboy, the only complainant, who claimed Pell
had committed indecent acts during a chance encounter after Mass before Pell had even unrobed. Naturally, the only cardinal to be
convicted of anything in the Catholic Church scandals is also the one who's done the most to fight corruption. Where there's a will,
there's a way to prosecute. It's even easier to convict someone if he's actually guilty.
Why isn't anybody but Ann Coulter talking about Barry Krischer and Ric Bradshaw, the Florida state prosecutor and sheriff who went
easy on Epstein, or the New York City police who let him violate the sex offender regulations?
Krischer refused to use the evidence the Palm Beach police gave him except to file a no-jail-time prostitution charge (they eventually
went to Acosta, the federal prosecutor, instead, who got a guilty plea with an 18-month sentence). Bradshaw let him spend his days
at home instead of at jail.
In New York State, the county prosecutor, Cyrus Vance, fought to prevent Epstein from being classified
as a Level III sex offender. Once he was, the
police didn't enforce the
rule that required him to check in every 90 days.
How easy would it have been to prove in 2016 or 2019 that Epstein and his people were guilty of federal sex trafficking?
Not easy, I should think. It wouldn't be enough to prove that Epstein debauched teenagers. Trafficking is a federal offense, so
it would have to involve commerce across state lines. It also must involve sale and profit, not just personal pleasure.
The 2019 indictment
is weak on this. The "interstate commerce" looks like it's limited to Epstein making phone calls between Florida and New York. This
is why I am not completely skeptical when former U.S. Attorney Acosta says that the 2008 nonprosecution deal was reasonable. He had
strong evidence the Epstein violated Florida state law -- but that wasn't relevant. He had to prove violations of federal law.
Why didn't Epstein ask the Court, or the Justice Dept., for permission to have an unarmed guard share his cell with him?
Epstein had no chance at bail without bribing the judge, but this request would have been reasonable. That he didn't request a
guard is, I think, the strongest evidence that he wanted to die. If he didn't commit suicide himself, he was sure making it easy
for someone else to kill him.
Could Epstein have used the safeguard of leaving a trove of photos with a friend or lawyer to be published if he died an unnatural
death?
Well, think about it -- Epstein's lawyer was Alan Dershowitz. If he left photos with someone like Dershowitz, that someone could
earn a lot more by using the photos for blackmail himself than by dutifully carrying out his perverted customer's instructions. The
evidence is just too valuable, and Epstein was someone whose friends weren't the kind of people he could trust. Probably not even
his brother.
Who is in danger of dying next?
Prison workers from guard to warden should be told that if they took bribes, their lives are now in danger. Prison guards may
not be bright enough to realize this. Anybody who knows anything important about Epstein should be advised to publicize their information
immediately. That is the best way to stay alive.
This is not like a typical case where witnesses get killed so they won't testify.
It's not like with gangsters. Here, the publicity and investigative lead is what is most important, because these are reputable and
rich offenders for whom publicity is a bigger threat than losing in court. They have very good lawyers, and probably aren't guilty
of federal crimes anyway, just state crimes, in corrupt states where they can use clout more effectively. Thus, killing potential
informants before they tell the public is more important than killing informants to prevent their testimony at trial, a much more
leisurely task.
What happened to Epstein's body?
The Justice Dept. had better not have let Epstein's body be cremated. And they'd better give us convincing evidence that it's
his body. If I had $100 million to get out of jail with, acquiring a corpse and bribing a few people to switch fingerprints and DNA
wouldn't be hard. I find it worrying that the government has not released proof that Epstein is dead or a copy of the autopsy.
"Beyond its isolation, the wing is infested with rodents and cockroaches, and inmates often have to navigate standing water
-- as well as urine and fecal matter -- that spills from faulty plumbing, accounts from former inmates and lawyers said. One lawyer
said mice often eat his clients' papers."
" Often have to navigate standing water"? "Mice often eat his clients' papers?" Really? I'm skeptical. What do the
vermin eat -- do inmates leave Snickers bars open in their cells? Has anyone checked on what the prison conditions really like?
Is it just a coincidence that Epstein made a new will two days before he died?
I can answer this one. Yes, it is coincidence, though it's not a coincidence that he rewrote the will shortly after being denied
bail. The will leaves everything to a trust, and it is the trust document (which is confidential), not the will (which is public),
that determines who gets the money. Probably the only thing that Epstein changed in his will was the listing of assets, and he probably
changed that because he'd just updated his list of assets for the bail hearing anyway, so it was a convenient time to update the
will.
Did Epstein's veiled threat against DOJ officials in his bail filing backfire?
Epstein's lawyers wrote in his bail request,
"If the government is correct that the NPA does not, and never did, preclude a prosecution in this district, then the government
will likely have to explain why it purposefully delayed a prosecution of someone like Mr. Epstein, who registered as a sex offender
10 years ago and was certainly no stranger to law enforcement. There is no legitimate explanation for the delay."
I see this as a veiled threat. The threat is that Epstein would subpoena people and documents from the Justice Department relevant
to the question of why there was a ten-year delay before prosecution, to expose the illegitimate explanation for the delay. Somebody
is to blame for that delay, and court-ordered disclosure is a bigger threat than an internal federal investigation.
Who can we trust?
Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is the only government official who is clearly trustworthy,
because he could have stopped the 2019 Epstein indictment and he didn't. I don't think Attorney-General Barr could have blocked it,
and I don't think President Trump could have except by firing Berman. I do trust Attorney-General Barr, however, from what I've
heard of him and because he instantly and publicly said he would have not just the FBI but the Justice Dept. Inspector-General investigate
Epstein's death, and he quickly fired the federal prison head honcho. The FBI is untrustworthy, but Inspector-Generals are often
honorable.
Someone else who may be a hero in this is Senator Ben Sasse.
Vicki Ward
writes in the Daily Beast :
"It was that heart-wrenching series that caught the attention of Congress. Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska,
joined with his Democratic colleagues and demanded to know how justice had been so miscarried.
Given the political sentiment, it's unsurprising that the FBI should feel newly emboldened to investigate Epstein -- basing
some of their work on Brown's excellent reporting."
Will President Trump Cover Up Epstein's Death in Exchange for Political Leverage?
President Trump didn't have anything personally to fear from Epstein. He is too canny to have gotten involved with him, and the
press has been eagerly at work to find the slightest connection between him and Epstein and have come up dry as far as anything but
acquaintanceship. But we must worry about a cover-up anyway, because rich and important people would be willing to pay Trump a lot
in money or, more likely, in political support, if he does a cover-up.
Why did Judge Sweet order Epstein documents sealed in 2017. Did he die naturally in 2019?
Judge Robert Sweet in 2017 ordered all documents in an Epstein-related case sealed. He died in May 2019 at age 96, at home in
Idaho. The sealing was completely illegal, as the appeals court politely but devastatingly noted in 2019, and the documents were
released a day or two before Epstein died. Someone should check into Judge Sweet's finance and death. He was an ultra-Establishment
figure -- a Yale man, alas, like me, and Taft School -- so he might just have been protecting what he considered good people, but
his decision to seal the court records was grossly improper.
Did Epstein have any dealings in sex, favors, or investments with any Republican except Wexner?
Dershowitz, Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson, Dubin, George Stephanopolous, Lawrence Krauss, Katie Couric, Mortimer Zuckerman,
Chelsea Handler, Cyrus Vance, and Woody Allen, are all Democrats. Did Epstein ever make use of Republicans? Don't count Trump, who
has not been implicated despite the media's best efforts and was probably not even a Republican back in the 90's. Don't count Ken
Starr– he's just one of Epstein's lawyers. Don't count scientists who just took money gifts from him. (By the way, Epstein made very
little in the way of
political contributions
, though that little went mostly to Democrats (
$139,000 vs. $18,000
. I bet he extracted more from politicians than he gave to them.
What role did Israeli politician Ehud Barak play in all this?
Remember Marc Rich? He was a billionaire who fled the country to avoid a possible 300 years prison term, and was pardoned
by Bill Clinton in 2001. Ehud Barak, one of Epstein's friends, was one of the people
who asked for Rich to be pardoned
. Epstein, his killers, and other rich people know that as a last resort they can flee the country and wait for someone like Clinton
to come to office and pardon them.
Acosta said that Washington Bush Administration people told him to go easy on Epstein because he was an intelligence source. That
is plausible. Epstein had info and blackmailing ability with people like Ehud Barak, leader of Israel's Labor Party. But "intelligence"
is also the kind of excuse people make up so they don't have to say "political pressure."
Why did nobody pay attention to the two 2016 books on Epstein?
James Patterson and John Connolly published Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him ,
and All the Justice that Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein . Conchita Sarnoff published TrafficKing:
The Jeffrey Epstein Case. I never heard of these before 2019. Did the media bury them?
Which newspapers reported Epstein's death as "suicide" and which as "apparent suicide"?
More generally, which media outlets seem to be trying to brush Epstein's death under the rug? There seems to have been an
orchestrated attempt to divert attention to the issue of suicides in prison. Subtle differences in phrasing might help reveal who's
been paid off. National Review had an article,
"The Conspiracy
Theories about Jeffrey Epstein's Death Don't Make Much Sense." The article contains no evidence or argument to support the headline's
assertion, just bluster about "madness" and "conspiracy theories". Who else publishes stuff like this?
How much did Epstein corrupt the media from 2008 to 2019?
Even outlets that generally publish good articles must be suspected of corruption. Epstein made an effort to get good publicity.
The New York Times
wrote,
"The effort led to the publication of articles describing him as a selfless and forward-thinking philanthropist with an interest
in science on websites like Forbes, National Review and HuffPost .
All three articles have been removed from their sites in recent days, after inquiries from TheNew York Times .
The National Review piece, from the same year, called him "a smart businessman" with a "passion for cutting-edge science."
Ms. Galbraith was also a publicist for Mr. Epstein, according to several news releases promoting Mr. Epstein's foundations In
the article that appeared on the National Review site, she described him as having "given thoughtfully to countless organizations
that help educate underprivileged children."
"We took down the piece, and regret publishing it," Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review since 1997, said in an email.
He added that the publication had "had a process in place for a while now to weed out such commercially self-interested pieces from
lobbyists and PR flacks.""
Eric Rasmusen is an economist who has held an endowed chair at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and visiting
positions at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the Harvard Economics Department, Chicago's Booth School of Business, Nuffield
College/Oxford, and the University of Tokyo Economics Department. He is best known for his book Games and Information. He has published
extensively in law and economics, including recent articles on the burakumin outcastes in Japan, the use of game theory in jurisprudence,
and quasi-concave functions. The views expressed here are his personal views and are not intended to represent the views of the Kelley
School of Business or Indiana University. His vitae is at http://www.rasmusen.org/vita.htm
.
Not one question involving Maurene Comey, then? She was one of the SDNY prosecutors assigned to this case, and her name has
been significantly played down (if at all visible) in the reportage before or after Epstein's death. That she just "happened"
to be on this case at all is quite an eyebrow raiser especially with her father under the ongoing "Spygate" investigation
Apparently, there will always be many players on the field, and many ways to do damage control.
So the problem was finding a motivated prosecutor in case of Jewish predator with very likely links to intelligence services
of several countries. The motivation was obviously lacking.
Your "expertise" in game theory would be greatly improved if you let yourself consider the Jewish factor.
As important as it is to go on asking questions about the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein, I have to admit that personally
I'm just not interested. I've always found people of his social class to be vaguely repulsive even without the sordid sex allegations.
Just their demanding personalities, just the thought of them hanging around in their terrycloth jogging suits, sneering at the
world with their irrefrangible arrogance, is enough to make me shudder. I want nothing of their nightmare world; and when they
die, I couldn't care less.
More generally, which media outlets seem to be trying to brush Epstein's death under the rug?
Not the National Enquirer:
Jeffrey Epstein Murder Cover-up Exposed!
Death Scene Staged to Look Like Suicide
Billionaire's Screams Ignored by Guards!
Fatal Attack Caught on Jail Cameras!
Autopsy is Hiding the Truth!
I don't hold AG Barr in the high regard this piece does. While I'm not suggesting he had anything to do with Epstein's
death I do think he's corrupt. I doubt he will do anything that leads to the truth. As for him relieving the warden of
his duties, I would hope that was to be expected, wasn't it? I mean he only had two attempts on Epstein's life with the second
being a success. Apparently the first didn't jolt the warden into some kind of action as it appears he was guilty of a number
of sins including 'Sloth.'
As for the publications that don't like conspiracy theories –like the National Review
-- they are a hoot. We are supposed to have faith in this rubbish? The cameras malfunctioned. He didn't have a cellmate. The
guards were tired and forced to work overtime. There was no camera specifically in the cell with Epstein.
In the end I think Epstein probably was allowed to kill himself but I'm not confident in that scenario at all. And yes the media
should pressure Barr to hav e a look in the cell and see exactly how a suicide attempt might have succeeded or if it was a long-shot
at best, given the materiel and conditions.
19. Why is the non-prosecution agreement ambiguous ("globally" binding), when it was written by the best lawyers in the country
for a very wealthy client? Was the ambiguity bargained-for? If so, what are the implications?
20. With "globally" still being unresolved (to the bail judge's first-paragraph astonishment), why commit suicide now?
21. The "it was malfeasance" components are specified. For mere malfeasance to have been the cause, all of the components would
have to be true; it would be a multiplicative function of the several components. Is no one sufficiently quantitative to estimate
the magnitude?
22. What is the best single takeaway phrase that emerges from all of this? My nomination is: "In your face." The brazen, shameless,
unprecedented, turning-point, in-your-faceness of it.
ER the answer is easy to you list of questions .. there is no law in the world when violations are not prosecuted and fair open
for all to see trials are not held and judges do not deliver the appropriate penalties upon convictions. .. in cases involving
the CIA prosecution it is unheard of that a open for all to see trial takes place.
This is why we the governed masses need a parallel government..
such an oversight government would allow to pick out the negligent or wilful misconduct of persons in functional government
and prosecute such persons in the independent people's court.. Without a second government to oversee the first government there
is no democracy; democracy cannot stand and the governed masses will never see the light of a fair day .. unless the masses have
oversight authority on what is to be made into law, and are given without prejudice to their standing in America the right to
charge those associated to government with negligent or wilful misconduct.
There are big questions this article is not asking either
The words 'Mossad' seems not to appear above, and just a brief mention of 'Israel' with Ehud Barak
One tiny mention of Jewish magnate Les Wexner but no mention how he & the Bronfmans founded the 'Mega Group' of ultra-Zionist
billionaires regularly meeting as to how they could prop up the Jewish state by any & all means, Wexner being the source of many
Epstein millions, the original buyer of the NYC mansion he transferred to Epstein etc the excellent Epstein series by Whitney
Webb on Mint Press covering all this https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/
Was escape to freedom & Israe,l the ultimate payoff for Epstein's decades of work for Mossad, grooming and abusing young teens,
filmed in flagrante delicto with prominent people for political blackmail?
Is it not likely this was a Mossad jailbreak covered by fake 'suicide', with Epstein alive now, with US gov now also in possession
of the assumed Epstein sexual blackmail video tapes?
We have the Epstein 'death in jail' under the US Attorney General Bill Barr, a former CIA officer 1973-77, the CIA supporting
him thru night law school, Bill Barr's later law firm Kirkland Ellis representing Epstein
Whose Jewish-born ex-OSS father Donald Barr had written a 'fantasy novel' on sex slavery with scenes of rape of underage
teens, 'Space Relations', written whilst Don Barr was headmaster of the Dalton school, which gave Epstein his first job, teaching
teens
So would a crypto-Jewish 'former' CIA officer who is now USA Attorney General, possibly help a Mossad political blackmailer
escape to Israel after a fake 'jail suicide'?
An intriguing 4chan post a few hours after Epstein's 'body was discovered', says Epstein was put in a wheelchair and driven
out of the jail in a van, accompanied by a man in a green military uniform – timestamp is USA Pacific on the screencap apparently,
so about 10:44 NYC time Sat.10 Aug
FWIW, drone video of Epstein's Little St James island from Friday 30 August, shows a man who could be Epstein himself, on the
left by one vehicle, talking to a black man sitting on a quad all-terrain unit
Close up of Epstein-like man between vehicles, from video note 'pale finger' match-up to archive photo Epstein
The thing that sticks out for me is that Epstein was caught, charged, and went to jail previously, but he didn't die .
The second time, it appears he was murdered. I strongly suspect that the person who murdered Epstein was someone who only met
Epstein after 2008, or was someone Epstein only procured for after 2008. Otherwise, this person would have killed Epstein
back when Epstein was charged by the cops the first time.
Either that, or the killer is someone who is an opponent of Trump, and this person was genuinely terrified that Trump would
pressure the Feds to avoid any deals and to squeeze all the important names out of Epstein and prosecute them, too.
The author professes himself "expert in the field of "game theory", strategic thinking," but he doesn't say how his 18 questions
were arrived at to the exclusion of hundreds of others. Instead, the column includes several casual assumptions and speculation.
For example:
"Probably the only thing that Epstein changed in his will was the listing of assets, and he probably changed that because
he'd just updated his list of assets for the bail hearing anyway, so it was a convenient time to update the will."
"President Trump didn't have anything personally to fear from Epstein."
"I do trust Attorney-General Barr, however, from what I've heard of him and because he instantly and publicly said he would
have not just the FBI but the Justice Dept. Inspector-General investigate Epstein's death, and he quickly fired the federal
prison head honcho. The FBI is untrustworthy, but Inspector-Generals are often honorable."
As to this last, isn't "quickly [firing] the federal prison head honcho" consistent with a failure-to-prevent-suicide deflection
strategy? And has Mr. Rasmusen not "heard" of the hiring of Mr. Epstein by Mr. Barr's father? Or of the father's own Establishment
background?
I hope to be wrong, but my own hunch is that these investigations, like the parallel investigations of the RussiaGate hoax,
will leave the elite unscathed. I also hope that in the meantime we see more rigorous columns here than this one.
...Also, subsequently, it should have been a top priority to arrest Ghislaine Maxwell but the government, justice and media
lack interest . Apparently, they don't know where she is, and they're not making any special efforts to find out.
"... A new opinion poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal last Sunday shows that 70% of Americans are "angry" because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power. Both Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren have also reflected on this sentiment during their campaigns. Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else." ..."
A new opinion poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal last Sunday shows that 70% of Americans are "angry" because
our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power. Both Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth
Warren have also reflected on this sentiment during their campaigns. Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system
designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks
dirt on everyone else."
A New York Times opinion article written by the political scientist Greg Weiner felt compelled to push back on this message, writing
a column with the title, The Shallow Cynicism of 'Everything Is Rigged'. In his column, Weiner basically makes the argument that
believing everything is corrupt and rigged is a cynical attitude with which it is possible to dismiss political opponents for being
a part of the corruption. In other words, the Sanders and Warren argument is a shortcut, according to Weiner, that avoids real political
debate.
Joining me now to discuss whether it makes sense to think of a political system as rigged and corrupt, and whether the cynical
attitude is justified, is someone who should know a thing or two about corruption: Bill Black. He is a white collar criminologist,
former financial regulator, and associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He's also the
author of the book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Thanks for joining us again, Bill.
BILL BLACK: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: As I mentioned that the outset, it seems that Sanders and Warren are in effect taking an open door, at least when
it comes to the American public. That is, almost everyone already believes that our political and economic system is rigged. Would
you agree with that sentiment that the system is corrupt and rigged for the rich and against pretty much everyone else but especially
the poor? What do you think?
BILL BLACK: One of the principal things I study is elite fraud, corruption and predation. The World Bank sent me to India for
months as an anti-corruption alleged expert type. And as a financial regulator, this is what I dealt with. This is what I researched.
This is a huge chunk of my life. So I wouldn't use the word, if I was being formal in an academic system, "the system." What I would
talk about is specific systems that are rigged, and they most assuredly are rigged.
Let me give you an example. One of the most important things that has transformed the world and made it vastly more criminogenic,
much more corrupt, is modern executive compensation. This is not an unusual position. This is actually the normal position now, even
among very conservative scholars, including the person who was the intellectual godfather of modern executive compensation, Michael
Jensen. He has admitted that he spawned unintentionally a monster because CEOs have rigged the compensation system. How do they do
that? Well, it starts even before you get hired as a CEO. This is amazing stuff. The standard thing you do as a powerful CEO is you
hire this guy, and he specializes in negotiating great deals for CEOs. His first demand, which is almost always given into, is that
the corporation pay his fee, not the CEO. On the other side of the table is somebody that the CEO is going to be the boss of negotiating
the other side. How hard is he going to negotiate against the guy that's going to be his boss? That's totally rigged.
Then the compensation committee hires compensation specialists who–again, even the most conservative economists agree it is a
completely rigged system. Because the only way they get work is if they give this extraordinary compensation. Then, everybody in
economics admits that there's a clear way you should run performance pay. It should be really long term. You get the big bucks only
after like 10 years of success. In reality, they're always incredibly short term. Why? Because it's vastly easier for the CEO to
rig the short-term reported earnings. What's the result of this? Accounting profession, criminology profession, economics profession,
law profession. We've all done studies and all of them say this perverse system of compensation causes CEOs to (a) cheat and (b)
to be extraordinarily short term in their perspective because it's easier to rig the short-term reported results. Even the most conservative
economists agree that's terrible for the economy.
What I've just gone through is a whole bunch of academic literature from over 40-plus years from top scholars in four different
fields. That's not cynicism. That's just plain facts if you understand the system. People like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders,
they didn't, as you say, kick open an open door. They made the open door. It's not like Elizabeth Warren started talking about this
six months ago when she started being a potential candidate. She has been saying this and explaining in detail how individual systems
are rigged in favor of the wealthy for at least 30 years of work. Bernie Sanders has been doing it for 45 years. This is what the
right, including the author of this piece who is an ultra-far right guy, fear the most. It's precisely what they fear, that Bernie
and Elizabeth are good at explaining how particular systems are rigged. They explain it in appropriate detail, but they're also good
in making it human. They talk the way humans talk as opposed to academics.
That's what the right fear is more than anything, that people will basically get woke. In this, it's being woke to how individual
systems have been rigged by the wealthy and powerful to create a sure thing to enrich them, usually at our direct expense.
GREG WILPERT: I think those are some very good examples. They're mostly from the realm of economics. I want to look at one from
the realm of politics, which specifically Weiner makes. He cites Sanders, who says that the rich literally buy elections, and Weiner
counters this by saying that, "It is difficult to identify instances in American history of an electoral majority wanting something
specific that it has not eventually gotten." That's a pretty amazing statement actually, I think, for him to say when you look at
the actual polls of what people want and what people get. He then also adds, "That's not possible to dupe the majority with advertising
all of the time." What's your response to that argument?
BILL BLACK: Well, actually, that's where he's trying to play economist, and he's particularly bad at economics. He was even worse
at economics than he is at political science, where his pitch, by the way is–I'm not overstating this–corruption is good. The real
problem with Senator Sanders and Senator Warren is that they're against corruption.
Can you fool many people? Answer: Yes. We have good statistics from people who actually study this as opposed to write op-eds
of this kind. In the great financial crisis, one of the most notorious of the predators that targeted blacks and Latinos–we actually
have statistics from New Century. And here's a particular scam. The loan broker gets paid more money the worse the deal he gets you,
the customer, and he gets paid by the bank. If he can get you to pay more than the market rate of interest, then he gets a kickback,
a literal kickback. In almost exactly half of the cases, New Century was able to get substantially above market interest rates, again,
targeted at blacks and Latinos.
We know that this kind of predatory approach can succeed, and it can succeed brilliantly. Look at cigarettes. Cigarettes, if you
use them as intended, they make you sick and they kill you. It wasn't that very long ago until a huge effort by pushback that the
tobacco companies, through a whole series of fake science and incredible amounts of ads that basically tried to associate if you
were male, that if you smoked, you'd have a lot of sex type of thing. It was really that crude. It was enormously successful with
people in getting them to do things that almost immediately made them sick and often actually killed them.
He's simply wrong empirically. You can see it in US death rates. You can see it in Hell, I'm overweight considerably. Americans
are enormously overweight because of the way we eat, which has everything to do with how marketing works in the United States, and
it's actually gotten so bad that it's reducing life expectancy in a number of groups in America. That's how incredibly effective
predatory practices are in rigging the system. That's again, two Nobel Laureates in economics have recently written about this. George
Akerlof and Shiller, both Nobel Laureates in economics, have written about this predation in a book for a general audience. It's
called Phishing with a P-H.
GREG WILPERT: I want to turn to the last point that Weiner makes about cynicism. He says that calling the system rigged is actually
a form of cynicism. And that cynicism, the belief that everything and everyone is bad or corrupt avoids real political arguments
because it tires everyone you disagree with as being a part of that corruption. Would you say, is the belief that the system is rigged
a form of cynicism? And if it is, wouldn't Weiner be right that cynicism avoids political debate?
BILL BLACK: He creates a straw man. No one has said that everything and everyone is corrupt. No one has said that if you disagree
with me, you are automatically corrupt. What they have given in considerable detail, like I gave as the first example, was here is
exactly how the system is rigged. Here are the empirical results of that rigging. This produces vast transfers of wealth to the powerful
and wealthy, and it comes at the expense of nearly everybody else. That is factual and that needs to be said. It needs to be said
that politicians that support this, and Weiner explicitly does that, says, we need to go back to a system that is more openly corrupt
and that if we have that system, the world will be better. That has no empirical basis. It's exactly the opposite. Corruption kills.
Corruption ruins economies.
The last thing in the world you want to do is what Weiner calls for, which he says, "We've got to stop applying morality to this
form of crime." In essence, he is channeling the godfather. "Tell the Don it wasn't personal. It was just business." There's nothing
really immoral in his view about bribing people. I'm sorry. I'm a Midwesterner. It wasn't cynicism. It was morality. He says you
can't compromise with corruption. I hope not. Compromising with corruption is precisely why we're in this situation where growth
rates have been cut in half, why wage growth has been cut by four-fifths, why blacks and Latinos during the great financial crisis
lost 60% to 80% of their wealth in college-educated households. That's why 70% of the public is increasingly woke on this subject.
GREG WILPERT: Well, we're going to leave it there. I was speaking to Bill Black, associate professor of economics and law at the
University of Missouri, Kansas City. Thanks again, Bill, for having joined us today.
BILL BLACK: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.
Well, Sanders certainly knows that elections are rigged. But he's not quite right when he says that money does the rigging.
It would be more accurate to say that powerful people are powerful because they're criminals, and they're rich because they're
criminals.
Money is a side effect, not the driver. Specific example: Hillary and Bernie are in the same category of net worth, but Bernie
isn't powerful. The difference is that Bernie ISN'T willing to commit murder and blackmail to gain power.
> Hillary and Bernie are in the same category of net worth
Clinton's net worth (says Google) is $45 million; Sanders $2.5 million. So, an order of magnitude difference. I guess that
puts Sanders in the 1% category, but Clinton is much closer to the 0.1% category than Sanders.
There's also a billion-dollar foundation in the mix.
We had our choice of two New York billionaires in the last presidential election. How is this not accounted for? It's like
the bond market, the sheer weight carries its own momentum.
Very similar to CEO's. I may not own a private jet, but if the company does, and I control the company, I have the benefit
of a private jet. I don't need to own the penthouse to live in it.
"We came, we saw, he died. Tee hee hee!"
"Did it have anything to do with your visit?"
"I'm sure it did."
From a non-legal perspective at least, that makes her an accessory to murder, doesn't it?
Is it fair to say the entire system is rigged when enough interconnected parts of it are rigged that no matter where one turns,
one finds evidence of corruption? Because like it or not, that's where we are as a country.
Yes. And it is also fair to say, and has been said by lots of cynics over the centuries, that both democracy and capitalism
sow the seeds of their own destruction.
Burns me to see yet another "water is not wet" argument being foisted by the NYT, hard to imagine another reason the editorial
board pushed for this line *except* to protect the current corrupt one percenters who call their shots. Once Liz The Marionette
gets appointed we might get some fluff but the rot will persist, eventually rot becomes putrefaction and the polity dies. Gore
Vidal called America and Christianity "death cults".
"Due to technical difficulties, comments are unavailable"
Pisses me off that I gave the propaganda rag of note a click and didn't even get the joy of the comments section. I'm sure
there's some cynical reason why
The other thing is that the NYT runs this pretty indefensible piece by a guy who is a visiting scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute. Just how often does NYT -- whose goal,
according to its
executive editor, "should be to understand different views" -- run a piece from anyone who is leftwing? What's the ratio of pro-establishment,
pro-Washington consensus pieces to those that are not? Glenn Greenwald
points out that the political spectrum at the NYT op-ed page "spans the small gap from establishment centrist Democrats
to establishment centrist Republicans." That, in itself, is consistent with the premise that the system is, indeed, rigged.
I think we have to drill down another level and ask ourselves a more fundamental question "why is cynicism necessarily bad
to begin with?" Black's response of parsing to individual systems as being corrupt is playing into the NYT authors trap, sort
to speak.
This NYT article is another version of the seemingly obligatory attribute of the american character; we must ultimately be
optimistic and have hope. Why is that useful? Or maybe more importantly, to whom is that useful? What is the point?
In my mind (and many a philosopher), cynicism is a very healthy, empowering response to a world whose institutional configuration
is such that it will to fuck you over whenever it is expedient to do so.
Furthermore, the act of voting lends legitimacy to an institution that is clearly not legitimate. The institution is very obviously
very corrupt. If you really want to change the "system" stop giving it legitimacy; i.e. be cynical, don't vote. The whole thing
is a ruse. Boycott it .
Some may say, in a desperate attempt to avoid being cynical, "well, the national level is corrupt but we need to increase engagement
at the community level via local elections ", or something like that. This is nothing more than rearranging the chairs on the
deck of the titanic. And collecting signature isn't going to help anymore than handing out buckets on the titanic would.
So, to answer my own rhetorical question above, "to whom is it useful to not be cynical?" It is useful to those who want things
to continue as they currently are.
So, be cynical. Don't vote. It is an empowering and healthy way to kinda say "fuck you" to the corrupt and not become corrupted
yourself by legitimizing it. The best part about it is that you don't have to do anything.
Viva la paz (Hows that for a non cynical salutation?)
Uh this sounds like the ultimate allowing things to continue as they currently are, do you really imagine the powers that be
are concerned about a low voting rate, and we have one, they don't care, they may even like it that way. Do you really imagine
they care about some phantom like perceived legitimacy? Where is the evidence of that?
Politicians do care about staying in office and will respond on some issues that will cost them enough votes to get booted
from office. But it has to be those particular issues in their own backyard; otherwise, they just kind of limp along with the
lip service collecting their paychecks.
IMO, it is sheer idiocy to not vote. If you are a voter, politicians will pay some attention to you at least. If you don't
vote, you don't even exist to them.
"I don't think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you've served in Congress," said Ocasio-Cortez.
"At minimum there should be a long wait period."
"If you are a member of Congress + leave, you shouldn't be allowed to turn right around&leverage your service for a lobbyist check.
I don't think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you've served in Congress."
–AOC, as reported by NakedCapitalism on May 31, 2019
I try to be despairing, but I can't keep up.
Attributed to a generation or two after Lily Tomlin's quote about cynicism.
Out of curiosity, would it be cynical to question that political scientist's grant funding or other sources of income? These
days, I feel inclined to look at what I'll call the Sinclair Rule* , added to Betteridge's, Godwin's and all those other, ahem,
modifications to what used to be an expectation that communication was more or less honest.
* Sinclair Rule, where you add a interpretive filter based on Upton's famous quote: It is difficult to get a man to understand
something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
It's good to look at funding sources. But it's kind of a slander to those who must work for a living when assuming it's paychecks
(which we need to live in this system) that corrupt people.
If it's applied to the average working person, maybe it's often true, maybe it has a tendency to push in that direction, but
if you think there are no workers that realize the industry they are working in might be destructive, that they may be exploited
by such systems but have little choice etc. etc., come now there are working people who are politically aware and do see a larger
picture, they just don't have a lot of power to change it much of the time. Does the average working person's salary depend on
his not understanding though? No, of course not, it merely depends on him obeying. And obeying enough to keep a job, not always
understanding, is what a paycheck buys.
With all the evidence of everyday life (airplanes, drug prices, health insurance, Wall Street, CEO pay, the workforce changes
in the past 20 years if you've been working those years etc) this Greg better be careful as he might be seen as a Witch to be
hanged and burned in Salem, Ma a few hundred years ago.
It's cynical to say it's cynical to believe the system is corrupt.
Greg Weiner is cynic, and his is using his cynicism to dismiss the political arguments of people he disagrees with.
And just this week, I found out I couldn't even buy a car unless I'd be willing to sign a mandatory binding arbitration agreement.
I was ready to pay and sign all the paperwork, and they lay a document in front of me that reserves for the dealer the right to
seek any remedy against me if I harm the dealer (pay with bad check, become delinquent on loan, fail to provide clean title on
my trade); but forces me to accept mandatory binding arbitration, with damages limited to the value of the car, for anything the
dealer might do wrong.
It is not cynical at all when even car dealers now want a permission slip for any harm they might do to me.
Okay, a few more. We are literally facing the possibility of a mass extinction in large part because of dishonesty on the par
of oil companies, politicians, and people paid to make bad arguments.
"Assad (and by implication Assad's forces alone) killed 500,000 Syrians."
"Israel is just defending itself."
I can't squeeze the dishonesty about the war in Yemen into a short slogan, but I know from personal experience that getting
liberals to care when it was Obama's war was virtually impossible. Even under Trump it was hard, until Khashoggi's murder. On
the part of politicians and think tanks this was corruption by Saudi money. With ordinary people it was the usual partisan tribal
hypocrisy.
The motivator is "
Gap Psychology
," the human desire to distance oneself from those below (on any scale), and to come nearer to those above.
The rich are rich because the Gap below them is wide, and the wider the Gap, the richer they are .
And here is the important point: There are two ways the rich widen the Gap: Either gain more for themselves or make sure
those below have less.
That is why the rich promulgate the Big Lie that the federal government (and its agencies, Social Security and Medicare) is
running short of dollars. The rich want to make sure that those below them don't gain more, as that would narrow the Gap.
Negative sum game, where one wins but the other has to lose more so the party of the first part feels even better about winning.
There is an element of sadism, sociopathy and a few other behaviors that the current systems allow to be gamed even more profitably.
If you build it, or lobby to have it built, they will come multiple times.
A successful society should be responsive to both threats and opportunities. Any major problems to that society are assessed
and changes are made, usually begrudgingly, to adapt to the new situation. And this is where corruption comes into it. It short
circuits the signals that a society receives so that it ignores serious threats and elevates ones that are relatively minor but
which benefit a small segment of that society. If you want an example of this at work, back in 2016 you had about 40,000 Americans
dying to opioids each and every year which was considered only a background issue. But a major issue about that time was who gets
to use what toilets. Seriously. If it gets bad enough, a society gets overwhelmed by the problems that were ignored or were deferred
to a later time. And I regret to say that the UK is going to learn this lesson in spades.
'Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said
it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else."'
Yet the rest of the article focuses almost entirely on internal US shenanigans. When it comes to protecting wealth and power,
George Kennan hit the nail on the head in 1948, with "we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3 of its population.
This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the
object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us
to maintain this position of disparity." This, which has underpinned US policy ever since, may not be corrupt in the sense of
illegal, but it certainly seems corrupt in the sense of morally repugnant to me.
About Kennan's comment. That's interesting because no one questioned the word "wealth". Even tho' we had only 6.3% of the world's
population we had 50% of the wealth. The point of that comment had to be that we should "spread the wealth" and we did do just
that. Until we polluted the entire planet. I'd like some MMT person to take a long look at that attitude because it is so simplistic.
And not like George Kennan at all who was sophisticated to the bone. But that's just more proof of a bred-in-the-bone ignorance
about what money really is. In this case Kennan was talking about money, not wealth. He never asked Nepal for advice on gross
national happiness, etc. Nor did he calculate the enormous debt burden we would incur for our unregulated use and abuse of the
environment. That debt most certainly offsets any "wealth" that happened.
Approaching from the opposite direction, if someone were to say "I sincerely believe that the USA has the most open & honest
political system and the fairest economic system in human history" would you not think that person to be incredibly naive (or,
cynically, a liar)?
There has been, for at least the last couple of decades. a determined effort to do away with corruption – by defining it away.
"Citizens United" is perhaps the most glaring example but the effort is ongoing; that Weiner op-ed is a good current example.
What is cynical is everyone's response when point out that the system is corrupt. They all say " always has been, always will be so just deal with it ".
Strawmannirg has got to be the most cynical behavior in the world. Weiner is the cynic. I think Liz's "the system is rigged
" comment invites discussion. It is not a closed door at all. It is a plea for good capitalism. Which most people assume is possible.
It's time to define just what kind of capitalism will work and what it needs to continue to be, or finally become, a useful economic
ideology. High time.
Another thing. Look how irrational the world, which is now awash in money, has become over lack of liquidity. There's a big
push now to achieve an optimum flow of money by speeding up transaction time. The Fed is in the midst of designing a new real-time
digital payments system. A speedy accounting and record of everything. Which sounds like a very good idea.
But the predators are
busy keeping pace – witness the frantic grab by Facebook with Libra. Libra is cynical. To say the least. The whole thing a few
days ago on the design of Libra was frightening because Libra has not slowed down; it has filed it's private corporation papers
in Switzerland and is working toward a goal of becoming a private currency – backed by sovereign money no less! Twisted. So there's
a good discussion begging to be heard: The legitimate Federal Reserve v. Libra. The reason we are not having this discussion is
because the elite are hard-core cynics.
I work for a law firm that represents Wall Street banks and I can tell you who they don't
like, and that is Sanders and Warren. They hate that Warren created the CFPB and blew the
whistle on Wells Fargo and all the other games being played by Wall Street banks. Therefore, I
will vote for either of them, Warren preferred.
apenultimate on Fri, 08/30/2019 - 12:39am Even though she will not be included in the
3rd DNC debate, upon her return from Indonesia where she was training with her Hawaii National
Guard unit, Tulsi has indicated that we should not be discouraged and she has given every
indication she will continue to campaign at this point:
The USA centered global neoliberal empire falls from grace at alarming speed.
Just the discussion of this possibility would be unthinkable in 90th -- the period of triumphal advance of neoliberalism all over
the globe. So thinks did change although it is unclear what is that direction of the social change -- neo-fascism or some kind of return
to the New Del Capitalism (if so who will replace previous, forged by Great Depression political alignment between trade unions and
management against the financial oligarchy, which financial oligarchy managed to broke using neoliberalism as the Trojan horse and bribing
CEOs)
Om a was original fascist movements were also a protest against the rule of financial oligarchy. Even anti-Semitism in Germany was
a kind of perverted protest against financial oligarchy as well. They were quickly subverted and in Germany anti-Semitism degenerated
into irrational hatred and genocide, , but the fact remains. Just looks at
NSDAP program of 1920 . Now we have somewhat
similar sentiments with Wexner and Meta group in the USA. To say that they do not invoke any sympathy is an understatement.
The problem with empires that they do not only rob the "other people". They rob their own people as well, and rob them hard. The
USSR people were really robbed by Soviet military ind
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us" src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg"> Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45, have been slowly but steadily moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color) has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate," Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton, there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us"
src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg">
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