Russia Russia Russia
Since the mass media (and therefore public opinion) is swamped with the Russia Russia Russia propaganda, here's a quick synopsis of all the *facts* you sadly can't find on our American television or "news" outlets:
To begin with, our elections are anything but democratic or un-influenced. The party representatives are selected by very small groups of wealthy people, who also maintain the chosen loyalist (ie, financially-incentivized) pool of "Superdelegates" for counteracting the wills of *entire states*. When the DNC was sued their court defense was that they have no actual obligation to perform fair elections. They repealed every protection possible against unlimited or foreign campaign donations and lobbying. Every news outlet was Trump 24/7 in an attempt to win it for Hillary through "lesser evilism"- a theory Democrats use often, but which backfired.
Forced to choose between two millionaires, stuck between the establishment corruption or a liar's claim of anti-establishmentism, left this country divided. But the numbers don't lie. The problem was that neither of these warmongering, egomaniac corporatists represented the people. For a country that facilitates daily atrocities on foreign ground by using the excuse of "defending democracy," we don't actually practice it. Such direct control is referred to as "mob rule", and to be stopped at all costs for the "good" of the country. Or, at least for the good of wealthy politicians, lobbyists, and businesses who profit off our military industrial complex.
What Russia was accused of doing is merely running a phishing scheme which 'resulted' in Wikileaks airing an email assortment of the DNC's dirty laundry. Ignoring all content (because that would lay some blame at their own feet) and ignoring the polls (which all predicted a Clinton loss against Trump) it became the DNC's go-to excuse that Russian interference was the reason for their loss. Then Hillary-backing three-letter agencies signed off on their "it looks like it could be the kind of attack that one might expect to see from Russian hackers" report, which then got blown up into "Russia hacked our election" through hype, obfuscation, and repetition.
That was the entire source of the supposed moral outrage, and honestly it's entirely hypocritical when we consider how many foreign elections or even entire governments those same agencies have been manipulating with economic and military impunity. Maybe some are OK with corruption, as long as it is only *us* doing it. I'm not. Why should I have more fear from Russia's "influence" than those actively accepting bribes? Does domestic tyranny really come second to any conveniently imagined foreign scapegoat? And why should I believe the word of the same folk proven to (in their own leaked words) have maintained this duplicitous "public and private face"?
I am not anti-American, a secret spy, or a Republican by saying that Russian election talk is wasting our time and just makes us useful idiots to the Democratic-funded new "activism" which re-frames our problems with a couple quick historical rewrites and anti-Trump false nationalism. This country is getting split up into factions; remaining divided, those in power stay in power, while we blame everyone else. Yet fixing our governmental and electoral corruption would mean nobody has to worry about Russia. All the inflammatory Red Scare rhetoric simply protects our own domestic terrorists, who still claim without any evidence to be our "democratic representatives".
The media-hyped foreign redirection should give us deja vu, and frankly be obvious to any citizen remotely familiar with our history. Or even just to anyone who was actually involved in, or paying attention to the election. If you get your understanding of reality from the sponsored infotainment of American network's broadcasting, unfortunately you're woefully under- and mis-informed. Greatest of all ironies, to believe in this Russian nonsense is to be a conspiracy theorist of the highest order. Yet time and moneyed agendas have manipulated to hide the underlying truth- that the greatest threat to our country are the politicians who incite war just to keep power.
Comments
Just to be certain we are on the same page
….you are aware that most folks here are empathetic to your position? Most have similarly evolved and are aligned with a shadow-free reality.
You'll find none of this here:
Folks here don't have the luxury of playing with the toys of the soft minded. They are unable or unwilling to escape into the coddled denial where most Americans find comfort.
I don't speak for this group, however. This is just my understanding.
For my part, I wonder if you are suggesting that the situation you describe in your essay in any way veers from the purposeful thrust of the US system of government and democracy throughout the 20th and 21st centuries? Are you sahing that something has recently changed or is different from the past 125 years?
Fundamentally, this is the way it has been for as long as I have been alive. As far as I can tell, imbedded savagery is a consistent feature of US aspirations and American-style democracy
I know, for some, this is a new thing, and they are pretty sure they can vote their way out of it. The mind-shared Internet has provided more precise and expanded tools of perception. But we are more likely to encounter different ways of seeing than different ways of being.
Still, something must be done, either to rescue the individual or to change the status quo. Your view of the current situation seems right to me.
Carry a flame and share the light.
.
Maybe people will see a pattern.
@Pluto's Republic Yes, something has
Yes, something has changed.
If this were "the way it's always been" they wouldn't have needed to invent K street, or pass the Telecommunications 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
I'll give you the telecommunications act.
This is why I go back only 125 years. Because Americans refused to do their civic duty and keep their constitution relevant to the world they lived in, their government became their rogue enemy and oppressed them. They became weak; the government became strong and developed nationalistic goals of global domination. It lives for money and power. That's where K street comes in. They are the constituents, now. The government works for them, something the founders greatly feared. 125 years ago, the human lifespan doubled quite suddenly. That changed everything, except the one thing that needed to change: the Constitution. We are now the borg: Citizens United. We are a golem to the world.
Carry a flame and share the light.
.
@Pluto's Republic Yeah, we are now the
Yeah, we are now the Borg. Yes, elements of what make us the Borg have existed here from the beginning. No, it wasn't always "like this."
The Powell memo is no less relevant to me than the 3/5 compromise. The history of the past 50 years matters. Actual, concrete actions taken by actual individual people, many of whose names we know, beginning in the late sixties and early seventies, brought about massive change in American culture, the American economy, and the American political economy. Saying things that obscure those concrete changes and actions is not, IMO, helpful, because whatever is revolutionary in me depends on specific history.
Just because evil has always been here does not mean that there hasn't been a powerful and indeed systemic change, one which managed to preserve racism and imperialism, which have always been here, and add a whole array of additional evils that haven't always been here. How do I know they haven't always been here? Because I was alive when they weren't, and I remember the difference. The culture of the United States is wildly different even than it was in the 90s, much less the 70s, and all the changes except one have been bad.
In fact, it wouldn't be out of place to say that the culture of the United States, such as it was, has essentially been cannibalized from within by the capitalism which it fostered. Believing in capitalism, believing it could co-exist with democracy or even basic civilization, the culture of the United States kept it around, and now the culture of the United States has been eaten alive as a result, and is, in the words of one Nixon staffer on the way to jail, "Unrecognizable."
I will not go along with a point of view which effectively erases all the historical changes I've had to live through, living through which have felt like being blitzed constantly from the time I was about 15. I know what I've lost, and what has been done to me, my people, and the land here. I will not be silent about the horrible wrongs that have been done to us over the past 40 years, nor will I replace my knowledge of those wrongs with a categorical dismissal of the American people as crap and the entire enterprise here as crap. Crap has always been present. Often crap has been ascendant. It has never been in the position of total dominance which began in the early 80s, which resulted from decisions made by the elites in the late 60s and early 70s, because they were panicking due to the effectiveness of left-wing movements in this country.
"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
You have to remember that it wasn't always this way.
I heard a Mexican lady say the same thing about cartel violence in her city, which keeps her at home now.
Russian diplomats lingering near fiber optic cables
This thread on the NANOG (North American Network Operators Group) mailing list is informative, as far as infrastructure goes I think: https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2017-June/091249.html
They chat for a bit about a Politico article titled "Russia escalates spy games after years of U.S. neglect", which is sort of unusual I think. Politics is almost never discussed, per their list charter.
Yes, Russians are everywhere, spying on everything. So what? Elect more Ds? Impeach the Precedent? Riight, hamster meet wheel. Please proceed.
Thanks
Interesting link
And I really appreciate that the list members squash the alarmist sentiment by pointing out this is all publically available information anyway. I also find the lack of panic quite refreshing, especially coming from people in the know as it were. Of course, maybe they're all dirty Commies too?
(Another great point made: if you were spying, wouldn't you send someone less conspicuous than a diplomat and try to be a bit more covert?)
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
I think it's safe to
say that if your friends aren't panicking over Trumpgate then they're obvious Commies.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
The media in this country
might as well be directly on the payroll. After Corbyn's win and Bernie's latest Chicago rally, they are slamming him and his supporters as radicals. This is just the intro paragraph in a lengthy bash the left editorial in the NYT.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
"ascendant militant wing" BAM! It's throw down time
lol what kind of stupid rhetoric is that? Diversionary that's what I think. so in the same spirit of loud mouthed hyperbole
Hey, what's up with the DNC class-action lawsuit?
Me thinks the judge must have read volumes by now, maybe he took a vacation. Is it really that hard to decide? I don't know. Friday news dump wanna bet, either way.
Which panther are we now? How 'bout now? Labeling a bunch of people militant is pretty extreme, I think. Classic tactic, hope it doesn't work on the masses like Russia did. Good luck because everyone knows what a clampdown on militants looks like, right?
Edit: speaking of throw downs after reading the rest, I guess Bernie thinks this is it:
Finally when? That's what I want to know. Maybe it is the fall, like ggersh thinks, maybe he'll finally decide which side he is on. I hope so. Otherwise please stfu.
The only "side" Bernie
is on is the one that gets more progressives elected, no party banner required.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
If you are disinclined to support
a neoliberal, corporatist vision of the D Party, that means you are a "militant". And if you prefer Sanders to Clinton, that makes you a "devotee". If by some chance you have managed to avoid being herded aboard the anti-Russia bandwagon, then you are clearly not as patriotic as you should be.
- Politics according to the NYT
native
Not being on the anti-Russian bandwagon
makes you a straight-up Russian agent, on their payroll. You're either with us or against us, with no room for any other position or opinion, just ask the folks at TOP, they'll tell you.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
I'm still waiting to get my first check
from GRU. I don't know what the hell taking them so long.
native
They pay us in coupons
good for discounts on black bread, borscht, and and film rentals of the speeches of Joe Stalin.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Quoting old honest Abe
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter
and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
The 546 Super PAC is all that was needed.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Have you now or have you ever been....
back to the future?
Great article. Thanks.
Putin's words are worth noting...
"... But they continue to churn out threats, imaginary and mythical threats such as the ‘Russian military threat’. This is a profitable business that can be used to pump new money into defence budgets at home, get allies to bend to a single superpower’s interests, expand NATO and bring its infrastructure, military units and arms closer to our borders.
Of course, it can be a pleasing and even profitable task to portray oneself as the defender of civilisation against the new barbarians. The only thing is that Russia has no intention of attacking anyone. This is all quite absurd. I also read analytical materials, those written by you here today, and by your colleagues in the USA and Europe.
It is unthinkable, foolish and completely unrealistic. Europe alone has 300 million people. All of the NATO members together with the USA have a total population of 600 million, probably. But Russia has only 146 million. It is simply absurd to even conceive such thoughts. And yet they use these ideas in pursuit of their political aims."
He then provides us with his opinion on the 2016 American presidential election and the alleged Russian meddling:
"Another mythical and imaginary problem is what I can only call the hysteria the USA has whipped up over supposed Russian meddling in the American presidential election. The United States has plenty of genuinely urgent problems, it would seem, from the colossal public debt to the increase in firearms violence and cases of arbitrary action by the police.
You would think that the election debates would concentrate on these and other unresolved problems, but the elite has nothing with which to reassure society, it seems, and therefore attempt to distract public attention by pointing instead to supposed Russian hackers, spies, agents of influence and so forth.
I have to ask myself and ask you too: Does anyone seriously imagine that Russia can somehow influence the American people’s choice? America is not some kind of ‘banana republic’, after all, but is a great power. Do correct me if I am wrong."
Lastly, he looks at how democracy has been weakened and how there is a growing dissociation between what voters want and what they get:...."
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2017/06/vladimir-putin-and-state-of-...
A very good analysis of US problems
Putin apparently gets it, unlike our media and politicians. He seems to have better information about our pressing issues, despite our 17 "intelligence" agencies.
Putin is a great statesman who calls it like it is
From your (excellent) link:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2017/06/vladimir-putin-and-state-of-...
You say that Russia has no intention
of attacking anyone, well that is clearly insufficient proof to get them off the hook as being aggressors and evil-doers. It's been reported that Russia would strike us back, if we attack them, and that is clearly out of bounds. Retaliation is a red-line.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
that Vlad is a stitch! (++)
All Trump did was too say
Wouldn't it be nice if we got along with Russia. It turns out that that is precisely how most Russians feel. Hillary and the Democrat establishment and the MSN saw this as an opening to bash Trump. Absolutely pathetic. Red baiting, soft on communism all over again. They still feel that this opening is powerful, despite Trump having won the election. The really sick part of this is that it was an opening to reduce geopolitical tensions. There would have been a significant peace bonus.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
How do you sell weapons
And destroy civil liberties with peace?
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
That's the key Jim P.
This Russia bashing is about maintaining enough hysteria to keep people from looking hard at out military budget. Russia is a Goldilocks enemy--strong enough and technologically sophisticated enough to justify expensive weapons systems, but not so big that we have to have them as a trading partner. They also have the benefit that we can plausibly justify building ships, plains and ground weapons systems to fight them. ISIS is, after all, a bunch of assholes in used Toyota Tacomas. Are billion dollar boats really necessary to fight them. The powers that be do not really want a war with Russia. They are not stupid. They want a perpetual conflict, a Cold War II. The problem is that there are morons in the media and in Congress (looking at you John McCain) that are dumb enough to start believing their own propaganda. It is also a convenient excuse for the DNC Democrats and their stooges for their humiliating loss, but the ginning up of Russia as an enemy had already started well before the election.
Yes, the Russia baiting
has been going on for some time. And in addition to submarines, missile defense systems, launch systems, and new weapons developments, nuclear weapons modernization is the biggest ticket item. It's pretty hard to justify a Trillion dollars over ten years for reconfigured nukes to be used against terrorists in Tacomas.
But I disagree with you that,
I agree that they're not stupid. But they do want war with Russia. They armed and financed a Nazi paramilitary group in Ukraine in order to provoke Russia into securing Sevastopol. In so doing they also acted to destroy the economic peace that would ensue if Russia and Eastern Europe had trade and loan agreements with each other like the one between Russia and Ukraine that caused our government to support a coup. NATO would quickly become a less reasonable way of using resources if economic peace developed.
They want war. And because they are reconfiguring our nuclear weapons to make them "more useable," they want to demonstrate their usefulness by what they are calling limited use. They insist on first strike, and they are provoking Russia into providing an excuse to use them.
They think nuclear war is winnable
As far as the elites go, of course.
Yes,
I think from what they are saying that they believe much of the populated world is expendable and that they themselves would survive.
This is not all coming from inside the US
There is a international cartel deeply involved with manipulating Americans via fears of Russian threats. It's tendrils reach into our intelligence agencies.
Carry a flame and share the light.
.
The British want their empire back.
nah, they love playing
second fiddle. Not as much name recognition, but nearly as many perks.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
The Russian narrative is the perfect panacea
for the warpigs. Not only does it vindicate the inept performance of the DNC and the Hillary campaign, but it also drums up support for future conflict with Russia. Watch for more "color revolutions" in the coming years, especially in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The neocons and neolibs will scream for "democracy" in those countries while salivating over their energy resources.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
The war-pigs meddling in Uzbekistan has a long, sordid history
The current wave of Islamic Jihadist terrorism was conceived, born and nurtured from US foreign policy in the MENA and Central Asia dating from the Truman administration. It is interesting the the two presidents most responsible have been Democrats.
Putin's opposition
to ISIS and terrorism is informed by this, from your link:
Putin knows
what has happened in his own country as well as in the region with respect to CIA terrorism:
Thank you for this and the important links
Putin sounds like a sane and articulate observer. Who can match that candor or care here?
Away from C99 I feel I'm living in a dazed, drugged society missing its history and memories of any map home.
Nail head hit.
and I'm starting to believe Her wiping out was the best gift the Russiahawks could have asked for. Of course, this was all in the works with the assumption Her would win, but when she didn't, they had their public reason for restarting the Cold War (aka Russia stole our election.) And if there's one thing Her can understand, it's that you have one set of truths for the 1% and another for the rest of us. I can't help but feel they'd be having a harder time selling the public on Russia if Her was president and the grab for resources was more transparent.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Mad Dog Mattis is already drooling
all over his microphone, like an ancient demented pitbull. But it's not as if Ash Carter was much better really, he just talked a lot smoother. Neither of them seem particularly averse to the idea of blowing the whole world to smithereens.
"American Psycho"... indeed.
native
My wife and i have eschewed commercial news media
for much of our life. People who depend on mainstream media become experts on an 'issue' much like they master the statistics of their favorite sport. Difficult to get them to take a look at different information streams.... Posting this on my FB feed for all the good it will do and tagging some friends in a comment in hopes they will read it.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Seems like many Russians are upset with Putin and his government
As we saw in the protests in Russia yesterday. All over the World, people are sick of right wing and neo-liberal, anti-democratic governments.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Yes.
Our protests are bigger than their protests. Our things are bigger than their things. Our hatred of corruption is greater than their hated of corruption. Or maybe that's because we have twice as many people as Russia.
It seems to me that Putin is no angel
I think it's totally within the realm of possibility that Putin messed with our elections above and beyond the Clintons. Yesterday Putin arrested "anti-Kremlin politician" Alexey Navalny, a hopeful Presidential candidate and leader of the protest movement, as he was heading to one of the many protests. Nadya Tolokno from Pussy Riot calls Navalny:
He was given 30 days in jail. Many other people were also arrested. The idea that Putin would interfere in elections around the World for his own self interest, or that he and the Russian oligarchy or Russian mafia has close ties to Trump is not as far-fetched as many people want to make it. I think very few people really know what's going on underneath all this murkiness.
Beware the bullshit factories.
So? The USA interferes *everywhere, all the time*,
and it's become a case of dirty pot calling the kettle sooty.
And if you think the USA doesn't have political prisoners, and doesn't make political arrests - well, think again, please.
We no longer have any moral standing to point fingers and call names - that is, if we ever really did.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Yeah it is similar
But we don't confuse the American people with the American government and we shouldn't do that with Russia either. Not when we're dealing with worldwide oligarchy.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Timmethy2.0,
I am happy to hear you say we should not confuse the Russian people with the Russian government and that you acknowledge that we don't confuse the American people with the American government.
So in that spirit, I think you're right to say it's totally within the realm of possibility that Putin messed with our elections. But I also think it's totally within the realm of possibility that the CIA messed with our elections.
I think what sways me to believe the Democrats are lying about Russia hacking the DNC is that the logic and reasoning behind their claim is so tawdry. The evidence from the CrowdStrike contractor is flimsy and overly designed to expose Russia in such a juvenile way that it seemed meant to create an impression. Other supposed experts claimed that if the hack had been by the Russian government they wouldn't have left overt clues.
The CIA Vault7 files also showed the CIA was capable of creating false attribution, and other supposed experts state that attribution is extremely difficult to determine in any case. So we have to take a lot of this on faith and weigh what we know from past experience about our own bad actors as well as Putin.
All of that said, I think what shocks someone like me is behavior like Ron Wyden's yesterday in the Jeff Sessions hearing. I say this as someone who has respected and voted for Senator Wyden:
When someone like Sen. Wyden asks a question based on no information, based on Comey saying something happened that he can't talk about, we are in a realm of non-reality. The Democrats seem to be so desperate to create an illusion out of nothing that they can even waste the people's time with a question about nothing. Do you begin to see why people like myself attribute no credibility to the CIA or the Democratic Party at this point?
This troubling Dutch documentary, completely verifiable
Suggests that Trump is in deep with the Russian mafia. An important person with the Russian mafia had an office in Trump Tower directly below Trump's office. I think that's what the FBI was bugging when Trump complained of Obama bugging Trump Tower. That could be totally independent of Clinton / DNC shenanigans but maybe a lot worse.
[video:nertherlands documentary trump russian mafia]
Dubious Friends Of Donald Trump
Beware the bullshit factories.
I promise to watch
the video as soon as I can and to respond.
And it's wrong for me to say this, and I'll have to admit to being wrong if I come to see your point, but in this exchange you are corresponding with a person who sees anything called Russian mafia as: Bushworld, Langley, gun running, drug running, war mongering, terrorism, psychopathic killers, and big oil. Brought to you by the American taxpayer.
I did watch the
Dutch documentary, parts 1 and 2, and I agree with you that it is compelling and important. I hope everyone here will watch it if they can. The beginning of the first part is thin, though, and innuendo-ish about Russia hacking the election. But the legal part with the oligarchs and Mafia connections are worth finding out about. What leaps out at me, though, is that James Comey, as a board member and legal fixer for the HSB settlement over terrorism money laundering, is up to his elbows in more international crime than Trump will ever come close to. That's the joke.
So the information that Trump was involved with a Russian Mafia investment criminal who was an FBI informant has a lot of meaning next to what we're seeing now. Is the FBI after Trump, or have they been running him and every other American crook of this kind, including the Clintons? Where have they been all these years when this informant was "advising" Trump? Why now are we hearing about these deals?