Bringing some sense to the Russian-Trump relation controversy
Submitted by mimi on Sun, 03/05/2017 - 4:06am
Good Morning, America, I was sliding into the "madness" here in Germany lately, so I don't like you to do the same on your side of the world. In order to help you along with avoiding it, listen to Paul Jay, whose rational thinking offers you a way out of it.
Just listen.
I am a little too sick and tired to stay on here, but might look if you left some comments at your time of Sunday noon. Thanks.
Have a good Sunday, all.
PS:
Get her outta there, will you?
This excellent Cartoon by Mike Luckovich appeared on truthdig
Comments
Glenn Greenwald had a good article about Russia....
last week:
Great article by Glenn Greenwald on various aspects of the Russia story
https://theintercept.com/2017/02/28/the-new-yorkers-big-cover-story-reve...
I also found this conversation from TRNN interesting:
Larry Wilkerson tells Paul Jay that a massive increase in military spending is a disastrous policy, intended to serve the commercial interest of the military industrial complex. (10.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXnZH2PB_AA
Thanks for the clip and the cartoon!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
A rational approach from TRNN. An irrational approach
would be to make this between the two duopoly parties, which is what we've been conditioned to accept.
Russia's political system and economic and social equality is just as bad as ours, except ours is out to rule the world.
It's all about power and money, we're led around by the nose to follow the bouncing red ball, keep us in line so we don't do something crazy like kick the bastards out.
@Big Al Ours is out to destroy
Ours is out to destroy the world, because we can't rule it absolutely enough. Apparently.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Great read Mimi -thanks
Russia is kabuki to cover up the two paragraphs below.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Great clip, mimi.
Thanks for posting it. I also hadn't seen that cartoon on Truthdig. It's a good one.
Paul Jay really confirms what I've been telling folks all along, they do not care about we, the people. It's all about the 1%. Different laws apply to them. We are the pimples on their asses. Depopulation is their goal, just like popping that pimple.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
lol. I kinda don't like the image of myself
being a pimple on anybody's ass...
https://www.euronews.com/live
LOL!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
thank you all for passing by ...
that's my response to all of your comments:
and a 
I have digging and cutting to do. My former parent's house is a jungle. The ivy is covering up everything... like in DC, just there it's poison ivy. Better not to touch that one.
Like this:
https://www.euronews.com/live
Ever hear some idiots *imported* poison ivy to Europe
as an "ornamental" vine? They found out their mistake pretty quickly, and now it's (mostly) confined to controlled spaces like the "poison garden" at Alnwick.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Opposing Trump without supporting the CIA, Hillary Clinton,
George W Bush, the mainstream media, or establishment politics generally, should not be particularly hard.
If you oppose the system that went to extremes to give us Hillary vs Trump, of course, you oppose Trump.
Looking at the current Trump vs establishment as right vs left, Republican vs Democrat, or Mega-Evil (tm) vs ordinary lesser evil, misses the point completely.
Allowing Trump to be made into a larger-than-life figure, a terrifying Hitler-like presence, a supervillain:
Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus
also misses the point entirely.
If you oppose the system that gave us Hillary vs Trump, then, obviously, you oppose both Hillary and Trump, and shouldn't need to focus on one more than the other. "But Trump is President, and Hillary isn't!" people cry, as if elective office is the only thing that grants power around here. Au contraire, mon frere. Hillary--assuming her donors/backers haven't abandoned her after the recent unpleasantness, where she proved that she can't accomplish the simplest task even with help from, well, everywhere--has nearly as much power as Trump does. Remember that we're living in a world where the Pentagon can refuse to obey the President's orders and fire on people the President told them not to shoot, and there's not a whisper of concern about it in any of the branches of government, nor in the press.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I agree with you on your paragraph I quote below, but
I think there is something beyond that.
The reason why I think it's more than that, is best described in Robert Reich's article:
Three Possible Reasons for Donald Trump’s Latest Obama Rant
There is another quality to Trump's behavior. Reich describes three possible reasons for it. He writes:
And finally the argument all what Trump says on twitter is a distraction trick.
All of the three questions / options Reich mentions are valid thoughts to consider beyond your statements. One can oppose Trump's behavior without "fighting the system" at all. These attitudes of Trump are personal behavioral issue and not even political and have nothing to do with right vs. left politics, imo.
If Trump's tweets are written by himself, (sorry for this conditional, but I want to be overly careful not to make wrong accusations against Trump) it's imo valid to conclucde that Trump is paranoid.
This is dangerous, independent of your political system that allowed a "Trump to happen".
And opposing Trump is imo an obligation from a mental health perspective.
Just my 0.02 euro cents.
https://www.euronews.com/live
@mimi a president willing to
a president willing to put the prestige and power of his office behind baseless claims emanating from well-known right-wing purveyors of lies.
You act like that's something that wasn't done by the last four presidents.
Also, the Democratic establishment, of which Reich is a part, has made baseless claims about Russia hacking our elections for the past 3 1/2 months. We're living in a world of baseless claims. This is the kingdom of lies. Acting like that has something particular and special to do with Trump is, well, baseless.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
To me there is a difference,
I admit that I don't know off hand what kind of claims in particular Reich has made about the Russians meddling in the election process of Trump. But I don't think he has been that stupid to have made them. And if he made them at all - I would think with some arguments based one facts. You can provide proof, if I am wrong in my assessment. I have not checked Reich's comments out on that.
And if I would agree to your statement that all last four presidents have put the prestige and power of his office behind baseless claims emanating from well-known right-wing purveyors of lies, then I argue that they have done it differently than Trump.
Trump does it irrationally, the others have done that purposefully, planned, consistent and more or less in hiding to much of the more gullible public. I don't say that it is better (probably not and as dangerous), but it is not inconsistent, not nilly-willy volatile, not haphazardly or based on emotional reactions to some totally unrelated issues that happen to get on Trump's nerves. And it is shamefully visible to the world. The whole twitter wars are disgusting and beneath Presidential or diplomatic behavior.
I don't need to put every Democrat and every Republican working in public office in one and the same category of lying eltist scumbags so to speak. I can still try to see people as individuals and in context. I have read Reich's articles from time to time and am not willing to trash him as elitist Democrat, who is lying. As far as I remember him he tries to explain lies of others or tries to put complex exonomic issues in terms that the public and understand them and to me he sounded reasonable.
Trump doesn't sound reasonable at all. It's that simple. He IS different. He is an outlier in all the liars. He has to frigging behave. I am even mad that our chancellor is going to visit him. She shouldn't. He doesn't deserve it. Luckily Merkel has a cooler head than me.
https://www.euronews.com/live
@mimi Anyway, why is it a
Anyway, why is it a "rant?" Why is Trump considered "delusional" for thinking Obama had the intelligence community tap Trump's phone? Don't we already know that someone in the intelligence community was monitoring the calls of the incoming Trump administration? If not, how did they get the information that Michael Flynn was talking to the Russian ambassador? How do they know what was said?
This looks like gaslighting, and while I feel pretty weird defending Donald Freaking Trump from gaslighting--the fact that it's being done to a loathsome person doesn't change the nature of the act.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Because with this sentence
you say that Obama is the decision maker in that. I believe it's the intelligence community who runs the oval office and I am not convinced that they didn't have Obama as much under control as they have Trump now.
I do not believe that Obama could control the intelligence agency's agendas. They controlled him. As they control Trump. With that being said, to me it doesn't even make sense anymore to argue or quarrel over what the NSA/CIA/FBI intelligence apparatus has done. Listen to some serious whistle blowers who had to sacrifice their livelihood. The intelligence apparatus will do everything to confuse everybody and keep us entertained, exited, mislead and distracted about anything they want.
I don't deal with crap intelligence.
https://www.euronews.com/live
@mimi
Reich wrote this???!!! Emphasis mine.
He's trying to claim that if government official/agency tapped Trump's phone, by necessity already '...before the tap could occur it’s highly likely Trump committed a very serious crime, including treason. ...'?
Why would he not insert some qualifying term, such as that the agency involved must have considered that it was likely that he'd '...committed a very serious crime, including treason. ...'
Oh, right, the principle of innocence until guilt is proven can be abandoned when one wishes to publicly imply that someone must necessarily have committed some horrible crime, including treason, otherwise spy agencies would never listen in on anyone's private conversations.
And therefore, everyone in the world possessed of a phone or computer must all have committed horrible crimes, including treason, or we would not have every detail recorded for posterity by some unknown number of agencies/public officials/private companies, in case somebody powerful ever wants to try to pin something on any of us by taking something out of context, or whatever.
I think we should all be suing... and I'm very surprised at Robert Reich, an old enough hand, I would have thought, not to phrase such things in a manner which could pass as an accusation of treason, evidence of which, as far as I recall, we have heard not a whisper until now. Tons of other stuff, though, some likely true or partially true, although not yet anything approaching the abuses of previous administrations, since he's only just started. Certainly made similar corporate/corporate-serving appointments with the now-typical worsening effect gained by lack of accountability and restraint, with the checks and balances left unchecked or balanced for long enough to wind up falling just right every time in flattening The People and their 'just paper' Constitution...
This is obviously not to say that I'd trust Trump any more than I would Obama or the Clinton's.
But I had a lot of respect for the reformed Robert Reich and was very sorry when he... un-formed? de-formed? Reverted?
Got to agree with him there but - is Reich not aware even that Bannon is part of the Breitbart crowd?
Reposting this - still haven't gone back over the narration to check my notes though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUkaEVe7II
(Jotting down bits from video, tired and can hardly see - accuracy may not be achieved.)
Robert Mercer - hedge fund manager making astonishing profits; supported Ted Cruz, then was asked to support Trump. Gave him millions but also a ready-to-go ginormous electoral machine. Bannon and Conway, David Bossey head of Citizen's United, which Mercer funded, among others; Mercer's wife on Trump's transition team, (plans to pollute and depopulate North America, although this is my impression and may not be what was intentionally implied by the narrator. )
Andrew Breitbart also connected. Bannon, Peter Schweizer and Breitbart want to pump their media/ideology into America's culture to channel rage into a force with which to storm Washington, first w/Tea Party (no mention of Koch brothers?) then with Trump.
Koch brothers and Mercer among big funders of Citizen United, which funds Trump. CU was started in 1988 to create a pro-corporate 'far-right' atmosphere in American society, to shape America. 2010, Mercer moved beyond CU, Breitbart was sued for faked slanderous video but continued making propaganda and dies from heart attack at 43 - was considered a 'moderate conservative' and his loss as a blessing in disguise because he was considered 'too conservative'. Had been on Drudge Report and did research for Huffington Post. So Bannon Mercer and Schweizer take over, start the Government Accountability Institute; Mercer top funder, Bannon on the Board, this at the time of Obama/Romney's electoral race. (Bannon spent 15.5 million on Trump, apart from massive other assistance, and 13 million on Cruz before that.)
After the election, Rebecca Mercer, Mercer's daughter stepped into the ring, into her father's think tanks and foundations. Mercer did not like TPP, which Cruz supported. Mercer loves computers, being alone with them, air-conditioned air, whirring noises... bet he supports the Google cyborg/robot replacement of humanity.
Mercer has mastered quantitative trading, which makes billionaires somewhat richer but creates no actual value. (This would come from the losses of smaller investors, of course.) Most major donors are billionaires created by gaming the system/gambling-related activities.
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.
sorry, I saw this comment so late,
I really take back all I said, because I don't think I understand anything anymore. I pretty much have a mental break-down and barely can read the longer essays or the EB anymore. I hope this nightmare will be over soon. I don't want to erase all my comments or diaries to not mess up other folks comments.
Thank you so much to even comment. I don't think that my comments are worth to be reacted to. I don't want to talk anymore. I will be back when all is over.
Be well and happy. All the best to you.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Paul Jay is one of the most
perceptive, even-handed, and well-informed commentators around. He's a real American treasure. Thanks mimi, for highlighting his analysis of the current political chaos.
It's not easy at this time, to maintain a balanced, inclusive, and rational perspective on world affairs. But Mr. Jay does a better job of it than almost anyone else I can think of.
native
Another voice of reason is Abby Martin who consistently speaks
truth to power. The RealNews Network hosts her program, The Empire Files, on their site.
The RealNews Network also has a number of Special Programs that go into considerable depth on various subjects many here would be interested in viewing.
For sure, CB, I don't follow many sites, but TRN is one
I don't want to miss. Their interviews and issues are for and by the people. I like their format and are seldom not interested in the people they interview.
https://www.euronews.com/live
On Contact: Real purpose of intel report on Russian hacking
(includes clip where Keith Olbermann goes berserk over Russia - enjoy)
yes, I remember that one,
but I think the latest Trump claim that Obama ordered a wiretap of the Trump towers during his campaign has a flair of paranoia or hysteria. I am not willing anymore to consider Trump's tweets reasonable. I don't want him being the commander in chief. His kind of volatility is not up to standard for reasoned Presidential decision making.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I agree that Obama did not order a wiretap. But, that does
not exclude that there was wiretapping of Trump. After all, we now know there WERE wiretaps of people in his circle whenever they made contact with Russians. There was a secret FISA warrant issued October 15 to investigate connections between Trump and two Russian banks. At this very same time, Oct 14, Obama had publicly ordered an increase in covert action against Russia which would obviously include both the CIA and NSA.
Obama relaxed rules for domestic security and intelligence, as well as the CIA, to get increased access to NSA records. This would not preclude any of these agencies from looking at older records. Any phone calls done to any foreign entities from Trump Towers would have been captured by the NSA as part of its normal operations. As of January 12, 2017 these records can now be accessed by the FBI or CIA. This then becomes a de facto authorization, albeit retroactive, to wiretap American citizens for use by domestic agencies.
@CB Yeah, October 15,
Yeah, October 15, right about the time they figured out Hillary might not pull the fat out of the fire.
Anyway, what does it matter whether Trump foolishly personalized the issue by naming Obama? Is this one last hurrah of the "let's all protect President Obama from the bad people who say bad things about him" angle?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@ CB, you are right on that one
And who do you think would not expect that to have been the case since ever? I mean is there anything concerning Russian-US-European connections that is not wiretapped or surveilled otherwise by the respective intelligence communities?
With regards to Obama's Oct 14, publicly ordered an increase in covert action against Russia which would obviously include both the CIA and NSA, wouldn't you think that Obama was gaslighted or heavily manipulated and brainwashed into ordering the relaxation of those rules by the NSA/CIA?
Do you really think that the US Presidents still are thinking independently from the intelligence community's agenda and eventually do NOT react according to their "recommendations"? I have a hard time to believe that.
https://www.euronews.com/live
@mimi Obama didn't need to
Obama didn't need to order a wiretap. The Deep State tends to take care of all of that itself. And we know they did, at least, tap Michael Flynn's phone.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
exactly, the intelligence community does take care of it
which means not the President. (see also my previous comment on that)
It's not only foolish, it's wrong, imo, because it's not precise, it's political warfare hatespeech. To accuse anyone, who criticizes Trump by default being an Obama apologist, is insult to one's intelligence. Can you allow people to think in more than either/or categories?
https://www.euronews.com/live
@mimi Sure.
Sure.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@mimi
Lol, I don't think many wanted Trump at all. He was, however, Not A Clinton and the duopoly allows no actual choice, so the lesser-known devil was seen to many as being potentially less immediately fatal than the Mad Bomber and her 'screw-'em-all-the-most-painful way, who else can they vote for? Republicans?' husband.
And I'll bet there's been less harm done under the unpredictable and not-necessarily-controlled disruptor than there would have been by now under the Clintons. Certainly less nukes than I otherwise would have expected have been used so far.
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.
The Problem is That You Can't Make a Systemic Argument Against
Drumpf without impugning the nobility of the Establishment.
So you make a systemic argument and Obama, Hillary, and the DNC get caught up in the maelstrom. So... RUSSIA!
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
@k9disc One of the best summaries
One of the best summaries I've seen of the current dilemma. I couldn't have said it better myself--and I didn't.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@k9disc One of the best summaries
One of the best summaries I've seen of the current dilemma. I couldn't have said it better myself--and I didn't.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver