Done like dinner
I am so over this whole "hacked" debacle.
I live with and around people who could not reason their way out of wet paper bags, who when anything presented outside of the "News" of the day, just don't believe it. Even with clear evidence. I am so frustrated and angry that all the same things that predicated "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "Saddam Hussein helping Al-Qaeda" are occurring and that opinion is treated as fact yet again.
You cannot comment anywhere that there are red flags in how the information is being presented and that there are red flags in the information being presented (I can VPN with the best and worst of them), that prudence and reflection, that firm evidence (without 19 disclaimers - my favorite: "Judgements are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents") are needed without being sandbagged as a Reichwing nincompoop who just immigrated from Mother Russia who gets their news from a Foxified bubble.
I have spent almost all of my thinking life (adult and otherwise) being against corporatism, warmongering and being for the rights of people to things like decent wages (regardless of gender), education, healthcare and equality. Maybe not so specifically at first, but from a gradual development as I became aware of how interconnected each issue is. What I am communicating poorly is that it is infuriating and frustrating that people (who may or may not be paid actors) cannot accept that there is no blind trust and so you are dismissed.
I am aware of the strength of the word hate and exactly how much is involved in its use. I hate having to preface every god damned comment with a "I am left on the political spectrum" or " I despise the great Orange Cheetelino" just because any and all opposition to the "News" of the day is now right wing propaganda. I hate that the canonization of the Clintons is rewriting history to our collective detriment. I loathe the Clintons and the neo-liberal crap they are a symptom of. This loathing does not prevent me from recognizing that I know nothing of the Clintons as people so I can only comment from my experiences and understanding of their policies and politics. These distinctions seem to be missing from this cult of personality/celebrity that is the political process. Having said that, the idea that any kind of censure regarding poor behavior (messing with the primaries), is not warranted or needed, or holding people accountable for poor actions is not wanted? Unacceptable.
The stark reality is that this sabre rattling is with a Nuclear Power. A god damned Nuclear Power. No one in my local experience wants to recognize that particular fart in the elevator. Regardless of the veracity of the supposed "hacks" (in my informed opinion- none), wouldn't some caution or deliberation be prudent? A series of ambivalent disclaimers, coupled with information that includes making every geographically locked out video game/media playing teen a potential "Russian Hacker" (by using VPN's) are not enough evidence to get all worked up over. What can't be verified, can't be trusted (hat tip to jorogo).
This leaves a bitter bitter taste in my metaphorical mouth and I am so fed up that I self-censor and disconnect from this all.
Comments
Hacking = yellow cake
It's the final panic filled days before the inauguration. It'll get worse.
Hell I think we should be friends with Russia or at least invite them to dinner the opposite is just too depressing to think about.
Cold War I left so many either impoverished or dead, possibly both.
WE started the cold war. The good 'ol United States...
In my view, it began when Truman and crew decided against loaning the impoverished Soviet Union money they desperately needed to rebuild after WWII. We had just loaned Britain some 4 billion dollars for the same purposes plus to make good and goddamm sure the American bullet makers would get their money back.
Russia had been more competent than the British and certainly as stalwart. Russia was denied because that little prick, Truman was terrified of communism. No doubt, Stalin was a monster but why not give ourselves a chance to groom that out? We would have certainly won the respect and appreciation of the Russian people. And now the fuck wits that be want to pick up that ball again.
We have everything to gain if we carefully act with empathy. Continued hegemony bites us in the ass every time. And some Americans wonder why we are hated.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
The underlying reason for this crap
Obviously there are a lot of reasons. The Democratic Party leadership does not want to admit is bizarrely incompetent. Obama doesn't want to admit that his policies have been rejected. Hillbots do not want to admit that their queen, the most qualified candidate in all universes, lost fair and square. However, this aggression against, and demonization of, Russia has been going on for a while, well before this election. Recall the destabilization of Ukraine in which the US made common cause with Nazis and other white supremacists and Victoria Nuland was recorded discussing who she was going to replace Yanukovych with before the coup (yet another Democrat IT screw up). We have clearly chosen Russia as our next Enemy. My thesis is that the US MIC (or more correctly the Military, Industrial, Security, Congressional Complex--MISCC) needs a technologically sophisticated enemy to justify the huge expenditures on ridiculous weapons systems like the F35 which are of little value in fighting our actual enemies such as ISIS (OK so we sometimes arm ISIS and at other times they are our enemy--coherency has not been a strong suit of Obama Middle Eastern policy). We can't really demonize China because we trade with them way to much so Russia it is.
Military-Industrial-Security-Financial Underlying Complex
Wouldn't want to forget Wall Street, Komrades.
I am open to other suggestions about what the U stands for. (Underwriting?)
I do believe that MISFUC is the root of most of our problems in this country.
Radical economists beginning in the 1960's predicted that
the end stage of capitalism would be a financialization of the system, so I think it is indeed the MIFC: the Military/Industrial/Financial Complex.
Radical economists, in addition to being expelled from academia, are mistermed radical because they persist in correctly realizing that we live in a political economy whereas apologists for capital divorce the politics from economics which cuts the ground out from under the system under study thereby rendering their efforts futile, but highly pleasing to those in control.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
A stroke of genius, asterisk, absolutely!
You have nailed the problem on the head--well, almost. The association of these inter-twined monsters is more correctly labelled as MISFUCK.
Military-Industrial-Security-Financial Underlying Competative
Kleptocracy?
For your further delectation.
A couple of thoughts: I think the official start of the Cold War
was the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The Dulles Brothers and Eisenhower continued what Truman and Acheson began, with Republican support.
Stalin was a mass murderer on a par with Churchill. Even the Tories begged Churchill to send food to those starving in the British colony of India but millions died due to Churchill's inaction. Churchill was one of the 20th centuries great racists.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
WWII Wasn't Over Yet
The way the Soviet armies were mangling the Wehrmacht in 1944 frightened "patriots" like James Byrne. Byrne and some others began twisting the Democratic Party out of FDR's control and influence so that the "next" war wouldn't catch the US flat footed when Stalin decided to head for the Atlantic Wall Hitler had built for him.
That was when the Cold War really got going. Overlord was held back as long as politically possible so that Soviet forces would suffer massive casualties under the undivided attention of German forces.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
Both Stalin and Truman deserve their share of blame
for the Cold War. Stalin would not have stopped in East Germany, nor Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria. He wanted more, just like our present day Neocons (no offense, neoconned). HST would not allow this ongoing usurpation of "business opportunities" to continue, lest US Capitalists be deprived of their fair share of the spoils to which we richly entitled ourselves. But good was done in those countries spared Uncle Joe's grasp via the Marshall Plan--one of the greatest humanitarian gestures of all time.
Tasteless Cold War "joke".
I do not remember the date, but during the early saber rattling days, the USSR released a press release featuring its plans for an awesome manned spacecraft.
An incredibly intelligent (she later married me so ...) young lady saw this news item and said, "wait a minute." She went to the bookshelf and opened the Little Golden Book to the page showing that same "spacecraft" picture.
Tasteless : There is nothing funny about the Cold War.
"joke" : People of my ilk have a weird sense of the absurd.
Powell - and his "reason" for going into Iraq
Does anyone else remember when Powell spoke at the UN, "explaining" why the USA had to go into Iraq, stating the (think it was 18?) secret agencies which had "proof" there were WMD there.
Those same secret agencies who now have "proof" ( which can't be made public) of Putin responsible for somehow helping Trump win the election.
Seriously - you must listen to Powell - or as Yogi Berra would have said "deja vu all over again."
Also makes me laugh at how offended people seem to be that Trump is using Twitter - makes sense to me - he's avoiding the MSM, NYT, WashPost, all the garbage bags and giving people the chance to read, or not read, ignore, or not ignore - and all the MSM can do is try to distract. Interesting game.
When Powell spoke I had a civilian
"flashback" to similar statements during the Vietnam War. There were always excuses to keep fighting until Nixon's magical solution that it no longer mattered. It's all just rationalization to get the population to comply with decisions made by the leadership.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
That bothers me too.
This time they haven't even bothered to produce the equivalent of photos aluminum tubes. If they're going to announce fake claims the least they could do is forge some evidence. It's insulting.
Of course emails about development of the forgeries would probably show up on Wikileaks.
Re: Powell - it was 16 agencies
See this Facebook video
Video is 1:21 with Powell in the last 36 seconds.
We apparently chased some Iranian ships in the Gulf of Hormuz.
I do think Obama plans on war in the next two weeks. Someone has suggested we bomb Canada.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Lots of good targets in Scandinavia
They have hospitals, and weddings, and, and, ..., and they are even leftier than Canada!
Nobody who regularly visits needs me to say this, but sadly, yes, that was snark.
Now interviewing signature candidates. Apply within.
I had the same thoughts
this morning as I read about the incident. Will this be Obama's "Gulf of Tonkin" excuse to bomb Iran, which Russia will defend? Twelve more days of Obama-Clinton psychopathic crazy to force Trump into war.
Mon, 01/09/2017 - 12:58pm —
Mon, 01/09/2017 - 12:58pm — riverlover
The Canadian government has long since been invaded by the Koch brothers, et al... the fight is on to get the lyin' Liberals to keep their promise, if elected, of instituting representational voting... and I don't think they know how to actually keep their word to the public which pays them a salary which is less than millions and fails to catch their attention. So bombing Parliament would likely take out most of the US oligarchal allies, less the all-important corporate reps already running things.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
It's a disinformation campaign by BHO.
I predict that when Trump takes office he will redirect the efforts of all seventeen secret
herbs & spicesintelligence agencies towards something more useful, such as finding out how Hillary Clinton got Melania Trump to recite a Michelle Obama speech at the convention."Please clap." -- Jeb Bush
Arguing with people who will not use reason is hopeless.
I also wonder why I keep bashing my head against that wall of determined ignorance. Unfortunately I do love my country and do want to leave the planet as decent as possible for the kids. I would probably be happier if I just spent my time worrying about Kardashians (sp?).
My strategy on the email thing is to post plaintive questions along the lines of:
Do the DNC emails make Hillary look bad or something? Should I go read them?
Is the DNC really a government agency?
I thought Samantha Bee said that the emails were all about ordering pizza and "Please print". Is there really some evidence that Hillary was unfair to Bernie in the Primary? Did her campaign pull dirty tricks or something?
This puts the problem of explaining the lack of coherent logic up to them.
It can be interesting to watch the contortions.
Do hypocrites know they are hypocrites? Will self-examination
make their heads explode? Smug, smarmy, self-satisfied superiority is like a chronic disease which never goes away. The cool kids are members of an exclusive country club and you're not. So there - you deplorable, uneducated, wrong-headed, basement-dwelling, deluded, sexist Trump supporters!
Our TV News Anchors perform a sacred
priestly function, serving as reliable Intermediaries upon whom a Higher Power has chosen to bestow the Authority to transmit The News to all Americans. To question The News that our beloved Newscasters regularly and faithfully provide for us, would be not only ungrateful, it would demonstrate a tragic and profoundly disloyal Lack of Faith in the very Higher Power from which The News emanates.
Our News Anchors have been carefully trained to Know the Truth, to have Access to The Truth. They are fully Qualified, and have been Officially Sanctioned to tell us exactly what The News is, so that we too might know it, and thus be well-informed. Those who would seek Elsewhere for Other Sources become dangerously prone to Error and Falsity, often slipping into the foul clutches of the Conspiracy Theorists, to be forever afterward Marginalized, and condemned to a fate of Ranting and Raving.
native
Amen, Let us now pray to the Gods of Truth.
Either that,
or spit in the collection plate.
native
I have many friends online and off
who are selectively and willfully ignorant. How freaking hard is it to go into the way back machine and look up what really happened since say the Clinton's first regime. the truth is out there folks you just have to kill your TV and look for news sources that are not propaganda mouthpieces whose sole purpose is to maintain this godawful New World Order. What stops the seemingly intelligent people I know who parrot this garbage and piss and moan about their daughters no longer having the lovely Michelle or The Mad Bomber as female roll models?
Here's my theory. They like and are doing okay in this neoliberal meritocracy. They are professionals and the believe they are socially liberal. They are also heavily invested in the us vs. them mentality both domestically and globally. In short they bought the free market=democracy disater capitalism hype that since Clinton has been all the Democrat's are about. Maybe in the pre-internet years this was understandable but there is no excuse for them now. They have doubled down on the denial and are busy lashing out and blaming everyone expcet the powers that be our pols both R and D all work for.
Strangely many of these people were Berner's, who now vilify those of us who refused and will no longer vote for or give consent to the lesser evil that is not lesser and is the left hand of the duopoly. This is really confusing. I think that they have not grasped the way a democratic representational republic works. They are caught up in the cult of following a leader, a savior, a 'liberal' pol who will save the day if we only believe their intentions and speeches. Look at the Obama or even Clinton worshipers and apologist's, even now after we lived through how they abused the power the voters gave them. The cult of identity politics and persona that has no connection to the reality of their anti-democratic, anti- human an civil right actual governance.
Read the damn-emails and bankster speeches and then tell me again how pig ignorant the far lefties and the unspeakable R's the other side is to not elect more better Dems. The aftermath of this debacle of an election is even mopre absurd and surreal then the process was. One thing for sure I think fear is a mind killer. The fear revel in the US is off the charts right now. Hard for me to decide which is scarier Trump or the Clinton's. When it boils down to it I honestly think that behind the political theater were living through either out come would have been and will be disastrous.
The only antidote I can see is solidarity, community and resistance with the 99% or maybe the 80% who find none of these creepy crawlers fit to govern. None of them are you know, especially the Democratic party and it's apparatchiks and the so called progressives Dems. who symbolically make a little noise and then caucus with the vicious big dogs who run the world.
The people who fear Trump
and the people who fear Clinton are now getting together and agreeing to fear Russia even more than they fear one another. I'm not sure how that's going to work out, but probably not very well.
native
yep
the political system will try to start a much bigger war than the however many we have going on currently, to distract everyone from the corruption and blatant monetary abuse by the political system for the last 30 years with the death of their children in wars based entirely on lies. Perhaps I'm just being cynical ....
I feel your frustration.
I got totally infuriated eariler today myself on this, when I tried to talk politics with my father. A man who is as liberal as the day is long, has been a loyal Democrat forever. But the short version of our convo went, "Russia hacks / fake news / pizzagate." and him asking me after he saw the news on "the report." "Do you not trust the CIA and FBI on this?"
*HEADESKHEADESKHEADDESK*
YOU'RE GOD DAMN RIGHT I DON'T!!!!!
It's mind boggling, I CAN, NOT, understand how not just him but people I thought were sane rational actors, people who honestly cared about more then mere party, or winning, or something I dont know anymore have gone so far round the bend they are accepting without a single *bleep*ing question these lies, in the exact same way we were duped back before Iraq, which I told him as much too, I had to get off the phone though before it became a shouting match in public. I haven't been this angry in weeks, I specifically have been avoiding politics for reasons I'll probably get into in another rant of the night soon. But this. *sighs* It's equal parts anger and depressing. No one seems to give a damn and I've got no one left to talk to about it. does not give me hope for the future.
See, their morals, their code... it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be.
-The Joker-
The Greatest Threat?
Is this just going to be a repeat of Iraq?
Like...2035 rolls around, we fought Russia for 10 years and then the war ended. The people (who are alive) are wondering how did you people fall for this stupid garbage? And then they shrug and say "but well man those Russians, they HACKED our democracy or something..." Of course then the people, who knew all along, will say "did you ever find those WMDs?". It just amazes me how people don't see this. You were conned into believing Iraq, why can't you believe you can be conned into Russia? Of course these are two different subsets of people. Many Republicans bought into the lies of Iraq, now many Democrats are buying rront-row seats for Russia.
I've been mulling this over in my head, wondering about the next potential 10 years. Almost thought about penning an essay... anyway, that perhaps the greatest threat to the survival, yes, survival of the entire human race...are Democrats.
Democrats and their neocon warlords are drumming the sounds of war with Russia. They have placed the seeds of hate, fear, and propaganda. Think I read an article recently (too tired at the moment to go research) that polled Democrats and saw 50% believe that Russia hacked and changed voting tallies... 50 PERCENT. So we went from Podesta being utterly incompetent and falling for a phishing scam to having KGB agents laughing as they infiltrate America to change voting tallies. This is becoming horrifying folks. But back to my point.
First comes the demonizing of Putin (one of the easiest ways to mobilize people to war). The news* paints him as the scariest man alive (no longer ISIS with stolen Toyota trucks). Then you take an event, like Podesta being a moron, and spruce it up... "Russia has engaged in cyberattacks that have threatened our democracy". Terrifying right? We already saw with Clinton her itching for war with Russia, a no-fly zone in Syria, which would set us perilously close to war with Russia. So now, the powder keg is prime and ready. All it needs is a spark. Something. Anything.
So, why the greatest threat to our survival? I'm not trying to sound hyperbolic here; however, this brings us back to the 40 year reign of terror known as the Cold War. This isn't Iraq, this isn't terrorists with sandy AK's or some weak government. No, this is Russia, a superpower (little bit hollowed out but still) with nuclear arms. See we haven't seen a modern war between two superpowers who now have nuclear capabilities. This is the thing that is so terrifying right now about Democrats and their neocon masters. They are poking the bear in its cave, who is hibernating with nuclear missiles.