The incompetence of the media's reporting on by far the greatest attack on our constitution
You'd think, if Americans could unite on one thing, it would be defending the principles of our constitution.
People would like to think that the constitution stands solid and strong as 'a government of laws, not of men' that the most powerful individuals are subject to, to limit their abuse of power.
In direct conflict to that principle, is the pressure the other direction, that has always been present in our country and has been the dominant structure of human societies across history: the pressure from the few most powerful to have a strong grip on the power and wealth of the society, with the rest of society serving their interests by creating wealth or serving in the military.
Money has been the tool for maintaining that power - and the revolutionary idea for our country was to replace money with the new artificial currency of the vote, where everyone was equal.
That idea, which is the heart of the United States, is a direct attack on plutocracy. The laws, the taxes determining the distribution of wealth, would be set by the people, not the king.
The wealthiest Americans, the 'economic royals' as President Franklin Roosevelt called them, would like the opposite: to hold power and set the rules.
And they have long fought to do so. They were a weak class early in our country - owning a plantation and a hundred slaves would place you among the wealthiest of Americans. And even then the founding fathers warned of the dangers should the wealthy gain too much power. The industrial revolution led to real tycoons, and they wasted no time fighting for more power.
The constitution was amended after the civil war to protect the rights of former slaves, granting rights to all persons. Quickly, corporate owners saw an opportunity and began hiring lawyers to try to win a Supreme Court case declaring that corporations were such persons with rights the people could not limit - since corporations were strongly regulated and forcibly ended if they did not serve narrow purposes for the good of society.
They lost, over and over, until an odd result, which I won't explain in detail here but is written about in Thom Hartmann's "Unequal Justice", in which 'corporations are people' became the law.
More lawsuits had been heard about corporations claiming rights under the new constitutional amendment than cases involving the former slaves it had been written for.
But none of this really created plutocracy in the country for another century.
Finally, the Washington and Wall Street business class had their man, Richard Nixon, in power in the presidency, and quickly moved to try to make the great wealth of the American aristocracy give them greatly increased political power. Since the coin of the realm was the vote, they fought for their money to be allowed to influence public opinion.
Lewis Powell was a leader for this cause, writing a famous memo advocating for business to organize for power this way, and Nixon put him on the Supreme Court to lead the fight - which he did, and that's the root of the court's beginning to relax the restrictions on the use of money, declaring 'money is speech', and since speech is so highly protected, the people cannot limit the use of money to influence elections.
Propaganda organizations to influence public opinion and represent the interests of the wealth were formed - Heritage, Cato; AEI was strengthened as a force for the same things.
All of this background is to lead to my point that these powerful forces, at war in our country against our democracy to instead pursue plutocracy, recognized the importance of the role of the courts - as they had in creating corporate personhood and placing the use of money in our elections into safety as a constitutional right the people could not restrict.
Ultimately, the constitution means nothing but what the Supreme Court says it means, unless we reach a point where the court is not obeyed.
And the 'alternative interpretation' of words for the cause of plutocrats sounds Orwellian - 'war is peace, freedom is slavery' replaced by 'corporations are persons, money is speech'.
But how could the plutocrats get their people who would support these alternative meanings of words, to radically re-interpret and change and remove the protections of our constitution to serve the interests of the plutocrats, get onto the courts? Such legal figures don't grow on trees, and the legal community had long traditions and norms of what words meant.
Enter the Federalist Society, which quickly became the organization to lead this one-sided war.
They understood that using money to organize for their war, sponsoring regular seminars to advocate their ideology for reinterpreting the constitution radically, and the use of professional networking where career opportunities from law students' first employment on up would all benefit from being part of that network, created a powerful movement, especially when unopposed by any such organization on the other side.
The ACLU was the closest to such an organization, but they fought for civil rights in specific cases - they weren't at war to take over the courts.
The Federalist Society grooms right-wing ideologues for judicial power throughout their years, beginning by recruitment of law students.
They lost their first big battle to gain a seat on the Supreme Court with the defeat of Robert Bork, an early leader with the Federalist Society, but they haven't lost much since then.
For example, from President Eisenhower to the newly sad name of President Clinton, judicial nominees were evaluated and ranked on their qualifications - qualified or not - by the American Bar Association. Not really controversial. But George W. Bush reassigned this critical job to the Federalist Society.
The last several Republican appointments to the Supreme Court have all followed the process of the Federalist Society providing the president a list of 'suitable names' which he picks from.
Neil Gorsuch was the latest such name, suggested by the Federalist Society to trump.
Following the loss of the confirmation of Robert Bork, the radical right has learned to train their nominees for the Senate approval hearings.
Neil Gorsuch, well trained, had no opinions, no ideology, only a passion for following the law if you watch his hearings. It worked, again.
This is where we are. Part of the broad war to turn America into a plutocracy - as a de facto result as wealth is increasingly concentrated, and as an intentional result with the organizations fighting for our political structures, our laws, our media, and our courts to be run by plutocratic ideologues - is this war to take over our courts and destroy our constitution through the mechanism which it's vulnerable to, Supreme Court Justices who will use the flexibility of what words mean to re-write the document.
America has responded to many threats - from the real, the British invasion of 1812, the civil war, World War II - to more often the exaggerated or hyped from the commies to terrorism to anarchists.
But this very real war against our system and our citizens and our constitution by this army of the plutocrats is almost invisible to the country and its media.
It wasn't hard to find the media talking about what the Nazis were doing that threatened the US in the 1940's, but you will have to look hard to find any stories of how the latest Federalist Society nominee being approved or the latest radical new legal doctrine passed 5-4 by the Federalist Society on the Supreme Court are such a war on our country.
No mention will be made of any such organization, allegiance, ideology. No context of a long-term war for these changes will be made - they'll all be reported simply as independent incidents of individuals in the normal political back and forth. This essay was triggered by my just reading a Time Magazine overview of Gorsuch's surprisingly forceful presence as a new member on the court - without any mention of the Federalist Society's role.
America has gone to war, spending our nation's fortune, to defend our country's constitution and principles - the democratic founding to opposite plutocracy with the vote against threats.
Our leaders swear to defend it from enemies foreign and domestic. And domestic - which should have the pictures of these plutocrat-advocacy organizations under the phrase in the dictionary.
But our media does not inform the American people of how these forces are organized and their agenda. They completely normalize them into our political culture.
And it's working.
Just as the changes we're making to the climate lock in harm decades from now, the changes already made to our political rules lock in harm to our democracy for decades to come not yet seen.
The people cannot rise up to reverse these things, when the Supreme Court is not responsive to such popular reactions, any changes take so long to occur, and precedent is so respected.
When it's so hard to get voters to care about the Supreme Court when voting.
Our best chance for some limitation on the radical overthrow of our constitution was the 2016 election when Democrats pledged to only appoint Justices who would reverse Citizens United while the cement was still wet - but instead, we got a fully plutocratic president who appointed the fifth plutocratic Supreme Court Justice giving them a firm control of the court.
Our media is more than shameful in now it does not properly report on these organizations in its 'daily details' news stories normalizing this re-invention of America into a plutocracy.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said that a country can have democracy, or great concentration of wealth, but not both. We're seeing his statement select great concentration of wealth.
The media's role is to be a check on power and to serve the interests of the people against the abuses of power. They should be telling the American people over and over, day after day, of the progress of this war for plutocracy threatening them and their system of government not unlike how they would provide daily reports on an enemy nation marching in our capitol trying to seize power - or how they provided daily counters on the number of days the Iranian hostages had been held in the Carter presidency, strongly helping Reagan get elected.
We'd notice if our government was being taken over by the commies, the Nazis, the Albanians or the Flat Earth Society. But the actual and real threat - the plutocrats - is invisible in the media.
That's what the phrase normalized means. When the fish don't talk about being in water because it's so normal. The takeover of the plutocrats is so normal, there's no need to talk about it.
But the fact is, their changes are not normal - and are why we see an entire political party and some of the others working for them rather than the people. Why we see not only policies that lead to ever-increasing inequality - at record levels now, we're about to have them fight for even further tax reductions for the wealthy, as they control every branch of government - but our very system of government, limiting the people's power to resist them.
This is war on our democracy and the American people - and most of our media has not noticed it.
We have outstanding 'fringe' media a small percentage of our nation consumes - the progressives - yet even there the organized role of the Federalist Society was reported only on occasion.
The small percent of Americans who consume that reporting aren't surprised by that information - but they're the small percent it's safe to have notice and be ignored while 'mainstream' ignores it.
Were Paul Revere to ride his horse today announcing this war by the Plutocrats, he'd be even more deserving of honor - but his warning would go unnoticed this time.
Comments
Sorry, we had NO chance in 2016
Not once Her Totally Corrupt Highness stole the Democorrupt party nomination (and steal it she did!). She is and always has been every bit as much a tool of the plutocrats as her husband, or the Bushes, or the recent Empty Suit (who finked on a chance to get a not-quite-totally-corrupt candidate onto the Court because Mean Republicans bullshit).
Our only hope was Bernie Sanders, and he was (and we were) screwed over seventeen ways from Sunday.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Screwed as usual, without any foreplay whatsoever
@TheOtherMaven I really don't mean to
I really don't mean to have the Hillary topic get too large here, but I'll respond with my own opinion - that I view Bernie as a historic candidate who offers what our country needs like we have rarely seen in our country's history, and I strongly supported him over Hillary in the primary - but I do not think that Hillary is nearly as bad as a plutocrat as the Republicans.
I think she would have supported union rights, higher wages, the consumer protection bureau and any number of things that would be less plutocratic far more than the Republicans - though she is clearly worse in this regard than the progressive wing of the party. We may well have lost a historic opportunity because of her ambition to run - but it's not the first time a politician's ambition has led to the best person not winning.
It is a very good thing that Bernie had the platform as a candidate to at least introduce these views into the national narrative where they are so absent - and the nation is responding.
But I also agree with Bernie that once the choice was Hillary or trump, the choice was very clear - while not everyone agrees, I do not view the choice as between two similarly bad options.
Hillary would not have been the response to plutocracy we need, but she would not have been the general for the plutocrats the Republicans are, either.
You can think whatever you please
but Her track record does not support your beliefs.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
@TheOtherMaven I still don't want
I still don't want the Hillary issue to be too large here, but your comment probably deserves a reply (hopefully just this one).
I'm sure there is a big can of worms with many passionate views on different sides.
But I'd like to suggest some pretty clear opinions that Hillary isn't as bad as trump with specifics.
- Appointing people to cabinet positions who want to destroy their agencies: Hillary no, trump yes
- Trying to gut the state department by a third: Hillary no, trump yes
- Trying to abolish the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau: Hillary no, trump yes
- Withdrawing from the Paris climate accord and opposite climate change policies generally: Hillary no, trump yes
- Appointing right-wing radical Federalist Society judges: Hillary no (she pledged her appointees would support repeal of Citizens United), trump yes
- Attacking the Iran nuclear deal, trying to destroy it: Hillary no, trump yes
- Trying to repeal the ACA/healthcare for 25 million people and other good measures: Hillary no, trump yes
- A broad assault on the environment, including reducing our national monuments: Hillary no, trump yes
- Systematic repeal of Obama's executive orders on countless issues: Hillary no, trump yes
- Repealing the regulation requiring fiduciary duty of financial advisers to clients: Hillary no, trump yes
- Relaxing/ending the restrictions Obama had put in place (imperfect as they were) on roles for lobbyist: Hillary no, trump yes
- Ending funding of various research such as harm to coal miners: Hillary no, trump yes
- Trying to 'build the wall': Hillary no, trump yes
- Ending DACA protections: Hillary no, trump yes
- Trying to pass FURTHER massive tax cuts for the rich, increasing inequality even more: Hillary no, trump yes
These are just some of the issues.
There is a list where Hillary might have been worse on some than trump; and no problem making a list where Hillary is worse than Bernie. But I think it's a clear case she is far better than trump.
I guess a few of my concerns with a Hillary presidency would include the strengthening of the opposition to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party; and her hawkishness (and I hate to say it but that might have been exacerbated by pressure not to 'lose' any foreign policy issues as the first woman president).
You would really need links for most of that conventional
wisdom on FSC.
Fact is, about all she has done since Trump was elected is blame Sanders for her loss.
Well, okay, she did tell Trump to send the hospital ship....
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
@divineorder
Lol, if you recall, she blamed everybody for her loss, all at once! Except (apart from a brief period) for the Electoral College which is why Trump wound up as Chump-in-Chief.
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.
can I add something to your list of concerns?
Protecting the very resource human beings need to stay alive? Like potable water?
Also, how about we stop calling the killing of women and children in the hundreds of thousands for profit and greed "hawkish". It is a humanitarian abomination that should be called what it is. Murder for money.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
hawkish
In traditional American political parlance, "hawkish" means that the one(s) to whom it is applied tend to like war. And, as we all know, war is unhealthy for children and other living things. We also know from Smedley Butler that all war is, in fact, murder for money.
But you are right: likening advocacy of humanity's most diseased pursuit to the life of the noble hawk, who kills only to eat and sustain itself, is an arch-insult to these birds of prey.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
How about we call anyone
in favor of murderering women and children for money a morally deficient human being in great need of psychotherapy?
Not pithy enough?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
W/out clinton the media wouldn't be what it is today
monopolized into 6 corporations
giving us our daily load of propaganda.
trump/clinton same coin, one is head the
other tail.
EDIT:grammar
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
both tail
Both tail. Of a horse.
Horse's asses!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
btw, I always wanted to know which of the two expressions
is less offensive, bullshit or horseshit? Why two expressions for the same? There must be a difference? Horseshit is the better fertilizer though.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Are you looking for converts or something?
Because if the Dims run another Turd Way neo-liberal money grubbing warmonger I can guarantee that you'll still be singing the blues on November 4, 2020.
I don't think that she would have been better. In fact, I just wonder if she would have used Iran as a pretext for starting shit with Russia, or if her Syrian no-fly zone bullshit would've sufficed.
EDIT: loiking/looking and put ''Because if' back in correctly. Twice.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
I'm inclined to think Clinton, as a democratic party president,
would not have been quite as bad as Trump, whatever that would mean. I didn't initially, but recently I've concluded it couldn't be worse than Trump, he is literally insane imo, and the republicans and any curb on the insanity from Trump would have been slightly better. But it's like comparing Ted Bundy to Jeffrey Dahmer. They both killed people, Dahmer ate them too. Either way people died. It really makes no difference in the end. It's certainly not a choice citizens should tolerate.
Stop. Please.
You're "killing" me.
Dante: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
I'll be here all week Ed.
@Big Al
But they both would have been run by corporate interests, billionaires, the Bush alumni and other warmongers like Kissinger which Hillary 'rehabilitated' and Bibi, who Hillary promised in a Brookings speech to immediately bring in to advise her, as President, on policy.
Hillary would have been with them all from day one, would have implemented that 'no-fly zone' over Syria and begun shooting down (invited-in) Russian planes - at the least, triggering yet another publicly admitted 'war', (military mugging,) one in which nukes would figure largely.
This is the woman who engaged in a lengthy list of horrors too long to repeat here, with her psychopathy clearly showing, and asked 'Can't we just drone him' of a publisher of leaked material essential to the American (and other) public interest, within another country, yet, because she wanted to suppress the facts which were publicly available...
What kind of traitor would insist that the American public should not be informed of criminal/pathological behaviour in a presidential candidate prior to an election? Trump's was certainly publicly available, as should be.
The real issue is that those exhibiting known criminal/pathological behaviours should not be rewarded with public office and the power to loot and destroy freely - and we have to ask when it became acceptable to claim that such venal destructive evil should be covered up to allow criminals/psychopathic individuals to gain public office though being voted in by carefully-duped voters on which they then can prey?
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.
Perhaps I'm affected by the extreme assholishness,
immaturity and stupidity displayed by Trump. As someone who described, with an illustration, Clinton as the Devil herself, I can go either way. Like we all know, it doesn't matter, not now.
What matters is how we can get out of this situation of being ruled by psychos.
@Big Al
Well, at least we're hearing about Trump's, where Clinton's would have been covered over by the media...
But you're right that it doesn't matter now, as the real - if illicit - rulers stand behind them and there must be a way for the American people to take back their delegated powers from all public office-holders who abuse them, without blood-shed and with due process of Constitutional law. Despite the corrupted state of the Justice system...
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.
I totally agree with you.
Nobody could be as bad overall as Trump and nothing is as bad as Republicans. OMG can you say Sessions, Roy Moore and Betsy DeVos. I thought if I quit enabling the Democrats with my vote, I would join in sending a message and possibly rescue the party for generations to come. Change from within and the lesser of evil has been going nowhere for 50 years. I don't believe that anymore. I think change is impossible, death is inevitable, and escape is temporary and fleeting. Without a free and independent media, we have state-sponsored propaganda. Bill Clinton made sure of that.
Thanks for the essay.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Are we talking about the same Hillary?
Is this the same candidate who sent the infamous "Pied Piper" strategy memo to senior media execs directing them to take Das Pumpkinfuhrer candidacy seriously? Thus putting her in the "advantageous" position of cocking a gun to our heads and blackmailing us into voting for her?
In what moral imperative world is SHE better than any of the other sociopaths running for office? On either side?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Of the many things
I want to say in thanks and in response to your essay, the most urgent is to ask if you think the American people have any legal power to bring about change. I have long thought what we need is a good lawyer, a real good one, good in all senses of that word, skillful and decent.
The crimes committed by our federal government are paralyzing in their audacity. In a recent essay, Steven D writes the following:
How is it possible that the National Guard is being sent to Ukraine? Is that legal? Do we have recourse?
I point to this example not just to say I agree that the media should question the legitimacy of the Supreme Court's members, how they were selected, and how they think, but also to say, do we still have a legal system at all?
National Guard outside the USA
Yes, it is legal. No, we do not.
The President can "call up the Militia into the service of the United States" at any time and for any reason, or for no reason.
The Militia Act of 1903 (Dick Act), along with its 1908 amendments, and the National Defense Act of 1916, and its 1933 amendments, eliminated the local and State character of the former traditional State Militias and replaced them with the part-time regular troops that the National Guard is today.
Another gem from the Wikipedia article linked above:
Fair disclosure: I am a staunch advocate of the traditional State Militias, pre-Dick Act style. And I've always found the Dick Act to be a huge mistake, essentially a work-around to result in still more standing federal military -- something the Founders knew was a great big no-no.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@Linda Wood Thank you for the nice
Thank you for the nice post. To answer your question - legal power isn't the most important issue.
Our greatest legal power is largely impotent for a variety of reasons - the power to vote. We could have Bernie Sanders type leaders in every office, legally - not practically.
But you aren't so much asking about legally in terms of the vote - and my answer again is that legally seems less important than the power and politics.
Laws can be changed to fit the politics (and often are); and the constitution itself can not only be changed by 'reinterpreting' it - which there is a major decades-long project going on now to do, which now controls the Supreme court, organized by The Federalist Society (per my first essay, earlier today), but there's even a danger of the constitution actually being altered, as Republicans are only about a state short of having enough states to amend it without Democrats agreeing.
But sometimes the law can help justice. An example is how a left-wing and right-wing lawyer teamed up and got same-sex marriage approved by the Supreme Court (by a narrow vote).
You asked if we still have a legal system at all. It's limited and compromised, but not totally absent. It's still effective at many things.
Unfortunately, in too many cases, it's circumvented - such as when Republicans have appointed people to be in charge of regulation who don't enforce the rules (e.g., Scalia's anti-labor lawyer son appointed to head the labor division of the Justice Department), or they leave regulatory agencies unable to function such as the board that enforces labor laws without a quorum so they can't rule on any claims, or for example when Republicans refused to act on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, holding the spot until it could be stolen for the Federalist Society's Neil Gorsuch.
America has always been a plutocracy.
And no, Billary never would have supported these things. No chance in hell.
In fact, the current makeup of the Democratic Party is little more than 'moderate' Repigs.
This isn't true either. Furthest thing from, in fact. The Clintons did a far more efficient job in championing plutocratic rule than any Repig ever could. The only reason the Dipshit administration hasn't been able to rape us is because they're all grossly incompetent.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Yeah Aspie!
Clinton 'better' indeed.
This is a woman who never let a dead baby or child stand in the way of her family slush fund. Even as a practicing attorney she victimized 12-year old girls for a paycheck.
Sheesh.
EDIT: atorney:attorney and threw in 'practicing'
EDIT EDIT: three:threw - am on a damn iPhone
EDIT EDIT EDIT: iphinr: iPhone (if there are more that's just tough noogies).
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
rape us
.... worse than they already have ....
Thank Cat!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
What is it, 90% plus of the media is owned by six
major corporations, and through those, rich people, i.e., the plutocracy. So it's more of a criminal monopoly rather than incompetence and of course they won't play up the role of the Federalist Society, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, all the think tanks, institutions, and other organizations the oligarchy uses to influence the direction and role of government.
Dismantling the media monopoly has to be on the top tier list of things to do for the revolution. The supreme ignorance and brainwashing of the sheeple is a direct result of this media monopoly, the corrupted educational system and our own government which lies to the people on a daily basis.
Our system of government is an oligarchy, it has been from the start. That oligarchy is largely controlled by wealth, so we're a quasi plutocracy slash oligarchy which is defined as a plutarchy. You can throw corporatocracy somewhere in there, but it damn sure isn't a democracy and never has been.
That is the question, do we want democracy, or are we mice?
Since US mainsream media
are wholly owned and closely supervised by US plutocrats, it's hardly surprising that their point of view predominates. But this seems to be changing. The RT channel for example, represents a serious threat to the Networks' hegemony. I expect some regulatory push-back there fairly soon, but I doubt that it can be very effective. Information warfare is rapidly becoming the order of the day. One man's Fake News can be another man's Gospel in this environment.
native
@Big Al @Big Al Thank you for raising
Thank you for raising the issue of intentional propaganda versus incompetence as causes for the media doing so badly informing the people.
I'd say not even that list is complete - normalization affects the media as well, for example - but media consolidation is a critical issue I should have included.
And then I think there are just sort of institutional pressures causing inertia - if a reporter said 'hey, I'm going to include the Federalist Society role here and their agenda for plutocracy', I think they'd likely get huge pushback from above simply on the basis of, 'you'd make us sound like left-wing radicals, that's not our image'. It's the tyranny of the herd mentality.
When the media was going from 50 companies owning nearly all of it (already considered a terrible concentration compared the history of thousands of independent voices) to a handful, there was a broad consensus that was a bad thing. A large bi-partisan vote in Congress voted to restore the 'fairness Doctrine' as a sort of symbolic respect for that diversity - but as the consolidation has become normalized, there's no longer such a consensus it's off the radar, and good luck getting those remaining large media companies to present the problem to the public.
But we're the consumers and we can push back and we can demand that each outlet that wants our business do better.
Rachel Maddow I think is a lot better than most anchors, and seeing her get the #1 ratings recently was great.
Oh?
Rachel Maddow?
Imperialism supporting, oligarchy supporting, One percent supporting Rachel Maddow?
She works for the media monopoly and spreads the same false narratives and lies, particularly about imperialism and war, as do all the networks and anchors.
I recommend people boycott all television news and get what they need from the internet.
Maddow?
I just about choked, reading that.
"Yeah, um, I'm gonna have to, um, disagree with that...she's been kinda flaky."
If I were to rate, I'd put Maddow among the worst offenders of U.S. media; she relentlessly spews utter garbage, fallacy and non-reasoned opinion. Give me a year and I might be able to compile a complete list of clips and links to prove it, but even given that time span, I'm still not sure that list would be entirely complete. If I didn't know any better, and listened to her, I'd presume she's a complete imbecile.
But, I do know better, and it's not that she's imbecilic, but her ravings contain such nonsense by design.
It's worse in a way.
Rachel Maddow is clearly one smart woman. I even think her heart was once centered and in the right place.
I can almost forgive someone on Fox or other right wing sites for reciting dogma they were taught from their beginnings.
But, Rachel clearly knows better. (OK, I'm assuming that a Rhodes scholar has the intellectual chops and historical education on recent history to make a reasoned argument on what is morally the best way forward given two or more possible futures).
And yet, in her recent profession, she seems to be ok with inciting another round of McCarthyism and even promoting nuclear war if Her side wins...
It is fucking sad, and I think she has to know it.
I want to ask: what is in that contract she signed?
What hell is this we have found ourselves in?
As you can see, Neoliberals are confusing as fuck to me.
Rachel (I see Russian Dead People) Maddow?
Really? How much did she get per episode spouting off that donor approved agit prop? Journalistic integrity, indeed.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
$30,000
Rachel Maddow's annual salary is currently around $7 million. That works out to a little under $600,000 a month, or $30,000 for each show.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
Journalistic "integrity"
Pays well, eh?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
It's obscene
It's obscene. I don't think I truly understood what "obseqious" means until I started observing all these kiss-ups. They derive their sense of high status from the bootlicking they do for people they consider their betters.
I try to sense what it would feel like to be them, doing what they do, and it just feels "icky". I feel like I've been slimed and need a lengthy hot shower.
It's kind of sad, when you think about it; the lack of true self esteem they must have, that leads them to believe kissing super-wealthy corporatist butts makes them superior people.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
I appreciate the points you made in your essay
As to your point that the media should be telling us what is actually happening with the plutocrats screwing us, I doubt that founding fathers could have imagined that the media would be bought up by the same plutocrats that they were warning us about.
Since the internet was made public for us rubes, we saw alternative news websites try to bring us the news that the fathers wanted. And it was working for a few decades, but now that the PTB have decided to take of their gloves and go all out war with us, those alternate websites are a threat to them. This is why we saw Google neuter them. Many of these websites have been asking us to help them fight against this because they have lost readerships from 30=90%. The World Socialist Website had lost 90% of its readership and they have been covering this Google take over since it started. This is another way that the PTB can get around the first amendment on freedom of the press.
This also stood out:
Again I agree with you that the parties will choose different Supreme Court Nominees. However, Obama appointed two candidates that were actually corporatists. They could be counted on for social issues like same sex marriage, but one of them came from Monsanto and if any case came before the SC that dealt with them, she would have to excuse herself from it. And I see this happening some day. So net affect.
The other problem with this is that if Obama would not fight for his candidate after the republicans blocked his hearings, then why would we the peons feel that we could affect who is appointed? Obama had numerous chances to appoint Garland for 18 months before he would have to come up for confirmation, yet he did not. It is possible that he thought Hillary would win and he wanted her to appoint her own candidate. If this is what happened and he did believe she would win, then couldn't they have talked about who she might have picked? I'm not sure if that was possible, but hey, why not.
Thanks for this thoughtful essay.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
This essay is very detailed, especially on the history
I won't go down the path of would Hillary have been better than Trump on appointments because The Other Maven has already done so. I would just say, that I believe that the end result would have been the same, just maybe a little more subtle.
As to the main point of your essay, the death of real journalism and how it has enabled the plutocracy to now have a stranglehold on our government, I am of the opinion that there are many layers to how the plutocracy has become so strong.
However the problem with the mass media no longer exhibiting even a scintilla of journalistic integrity can be directly traced to the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 under President Bill Clinton. This bill was considered one of Clinton's five greatest accomplishments as President and allowed for the consolidation of the media. Nearly all the mass media that is readily available to Americans is owned by five or six major corporations. This includes print media such as newspapers and magazines, radio and television stations, and motion pictures.
Small independent sites, such as C99, are islands of hope in the sea of misinformation, disinformation, and lack of information. However when net neutrality is finally killed, it will be even more difficult for Americans to get alternative views and factual information. It is already happening with Google changing its search algorithms which push progressive sites down the search list.
We are already under plutocratic rule and have been for some time. It is just that they are no longer trying to hide it.
I want to add that how much I appreciate the depth of work you put into this essay and hope we will see more from you in the future. It has spawned some good discussion.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Our media is paid not to notice the
assault on democracy. They are competently earning their money. Their propaganda is second to none in it's proficiency.
The Federalist Society topic is interesting.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Thanks for the essay and
Thanks for the essay and information! I don't recall ATM hearing about the Federalist Society, apart from a rather faint bell.
Unfortunately, it's not incompetence in the corporate media; they spit propaganda because it suits the interests of owners whose media concentration was in great part enabled by President Clinton, who essentially eliminated monopoly protections in legislation, and because the billions spent - and predominately initially supplied by corporate interests and billionaires whose ever-increasing power and profiteering benefits by their selecting and purchasing the candidates - on America's peculiarly extended and ever-more expensive election media campaigns gives them a massive and reliable infusion of cash otherwise not available.
Their bread was buttered in pure gold and they were pushing the Clintons (with Bill to have been in charge of the economy, if you recall) for the Presidency in the hope of a platinum finish.
In order to maintain their so-profitable perks, they pump out propaganda on demand.
Now, access to and discussion of contradictory facts to the state party line are to be shut down with massive censorship and repression of citizens so that the truth will never surface, with public dissension to be brutally suppressed.
That doesn't stem from corporate media incompetence, it stems from their sharing in the leprous pathology represented by the US government infiltrated and run/staffed by the Psychopaths and Parasites That Be consuming the world in its insatiable greed for power and wealth.
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.
One huge thing that the media did during the Iraq war
was to collude with the pentagon and other agencies and bring generals or other agency members on and spew the propaganda of how well the war was going and other bullshit like that.
The media's job is to tell us what the PTB want us to hear and people don't realize that they were blowing smoke and lying their buttocks off. The people who grew up trusting news anchors didn't realize how much it changed during their lifetime.
This especially goes for Rachel Maddow and this is why she is getting away with this. During the Bush administration, she came to Keith's show straight from Air America and both of them constantly nailed his administration for their war crimes. But after Obama was elected, she stayed quiet when he did the same things as Bush did and he went even farther in both committing war crimes, his expanding the war of terror to countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 and helped the Saudis commit genocide in Yemen.
Funny thing, I read that congress is writing legislation that will tell Trump to stop helping them and to quit selling them our weapons they are using to deliberately target civilians and their infrastructures.
The irony here is that it was Hillary and Obama who sold them the weapons and he started helping them refuel their jets. And just for fun, he'd lob a few bombs from his drones.
This folks is called hypocrisy. When Bush did his war crimes, people were pissed, Obama got a pass and now it's back in vogue to protest what Trump is doing.
I have no idea how people can pretzlize their thought process to think this way.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
@snoopydawg I'd suggest a main
I'd suggest a main reason is that people pick one side or another, and while they might not like some things the side they pick does, they turn a blind eye more because of the alternative.
So a lot of Democrats might have not liked some war policies of Obama, or not liked his not prosecuting Wall Street, but the alternative was the far worse Republicans.
This is why I say that the primary is so critical to try to get the best Democrat we can, so that we aren't having to turn a blind eye as much to prevent even worse.
And I do think that refusing to support even someone terrible in order to prevent someone much worse than that, to 'feel good' about not supporting them, is itself a harmful choice.
It can be rationalized as 'sending a message', but it doesn't really do that much.
In fact, what history shows is that when a Republican who can barely get elected wins, they tend to solidify their support and move the country in the wrong direction.
The right response to narrowly picking Nixon over Humphrey in 1968, for example, was to realize their mistake and turn to the further left McGovern; instead Nixon was re-elected by 49 states.
@Craig234
Actually, the thing to do is to not vote for either terrible candidate but to vote for the best of any alternative available and if everyone did that, the corporate party issues could be solved by attrition.
How do people get so brainwashed into remaining in the Two-Corporate-Party-Trap scenario? Obviously, if some better alternative exists in another party, that's where to go, and all it takes is for enough people to be sufficiently aware, informed and smart enough to do that. And that's where much of the government/corporate media censorship and propaganda is directed, to try to prevent the people from being informed and of having any chance of government actually representing the public interest which it actually exists to serve.
They can fool some of the people some of the time, but not enough any more.
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.
@snoopydawg
I love the way you nail things down so the details can be examined!
Incidentally, one thing I'd noticed was that much more information far more easily found regarding such as governmental corruption, polluting industry excesses and public health issues resulting from these was available on the internet during the burning Bush 2 era than during the Obama years.
And I rather suspect that the increasing dearth of pertinent negative information available combined with Obama's personal likability factor - also affected by a protective give-the-man-a-break reaction to not only typically bizarre right-wing troll and Republican attacks (and what was presented as 'mere' obstructionism in what was evidently an arranged excuse for bad policy,) resulted in the latter being carried over to legitimate criticisms.
But there comes a point when it becomes impossible to make excuses, although I know it did take me quite some time. Such excuses began to erode as the Union of Concerned Scientists and others tactfully made it known that interference with federal science and other issues 'had not improved as might have been hoped' under Obama, and 'weak protections were adopted when better could have been achieved'... and worse, far worse...
'But look at the situation he's in' actually applied to a far worse situation than the created scene with which we were officially presented. The corruption not merely encompassing the politicians, Justice system and agencies, but the various groups and individuals running the government and selecting which lackeys the American people get to 'elect' into public office, as well as the 'policies' they enact against the public interest..
Bill Clinton was a charming psychopath; Obama did manage some degree of objection to the bloodthirsty tendencies exhibited by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, making it seem doubtful that he was a born psychopath, more of a 'happy drug' put in, together with the injection of more poison, in the next step of the looting phase. and some people are still high on it, perhaps because they simply can't face the fact that Americans (and much of the world) had been conned yet again and that America was not an actual functional democracy at all.
That's why, of course, there's that Two-Party (good cop/bad cop) Trade-Off and the propaganda that it simply can't work any other way - with no actual choice allowed the American voter.
The government still, in a sense, operates 'with the consent of the governed', who too-often not only continue to vote for evil but accept the interpretations and story-line of those infiltrating their government as legitimate and keeps themselves within the falsely constructed boundaries designed to keep them caged.
Once the mind is trapped, the slave becomes, even if involuntarily, voluntarily prone to remaining in captivity and incapable of freeing him/herself.
We must purge our learnt helplessness and think outside the mental box in which we've allowed ourselves to become trapped and which they fight so hard to keep us walled within, where law-makers can pass off illegal 'law' they create and establish as (bad) 'precedent' in corrupted Justice systems in order to 'legalize' their own criminality, using the powers which the people delegated to the public office they abuse - and the people accept each such destructive pretense and obey the law-breaker's creation as if criminality really could be made 'legal for them' in a democracy already protected from any such evil, just because 'Simon Says' So.
Nobody can be 'above the law' in a democracy, where there must be equal rights, treatment and opportunity. No matter what the perpetrators may self-servingly claim.
If some technical loophole, such as a lack of specific provision against once-unimaginable levels of corruption, is being used as an excuse for government officials to get away with profit-driven attacks and invasions of other countries, murder, torture and kidnapping at home and abroad, the spying upon, groping, repression, censoring and propagandizing of the citizens their public offices exist to serve, and defiance of both domestic and international law in the pursuit of personal wealth and power, then the excuse of no previous law to cover the issue is no excuse for it being allowed to take over/destroy civilization and ultimately life on the planet.
In example, large-scale industrial poisoning or other hazarding of the lives and health of people and the environment for corporate/billionaire profit can no more be made 'legal' than could someone cold-bloodedly poisoning a relative to faster gain profit from their will.
And those holding public office do not own, for the duration of this responsibility, the country, people, public funding and public property which that office exists to serve the interests of/maintain and cannot do as they will with them.
A country of law, not men, a civilization which looks after its own, which ensures a decent life and protection of the rights of all within its borders was the real American dream of its most advanced Founders, and the dream which has been sold around the world.
It's long past time to wake from the nightmare America's been twisted into by the ruthless self-interested, starting from its very beginning...
Edited because I somehow messed up the bolding symbols. (I haz epic typo skillz.)
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.
Have others noticed this?
The same people who will defend their second amendment rights are some of the most vocal about the NFL players kneeling in protest of police actions. They say that it's fine if they want to protest, but they shouldn't do during their "job" , but on their own free time.
They say that the BLM should be at their jobs working instead of being on the streets protesting, even though many of the protests happen at night.
Ahh, American hypocrisy at its best.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Craig234,
I'll try to explain why I think Hillary Clinton would have been a worse president even if all the decisions you've listed, where you've pointed out Trump's hideous decisions and suggested Hillary would not have made them, are correct. I'll assume you're right about all of them for the sake of my argument.
I agree with Michael Moore, who tried to warn the Democrats that if they sneered at the Rust Belt they would lose because Trump was what Moore called, a "human Molotov cocktail."
I agree that Trump is a human Molotov cocktail. The issues you've listed as Hillary's pluses are unimportant to me compared to war. Killing children for profit makes all those humanitarian things you've credited her with a lie for me. All the baiting of Russia with nuclear forces, the threat to attack Iran, the expansion of war in Syria, Yemen, the catastrophe of Libya, these things make her likelihood of bringing about incremental progress in the areas you've described not only less important but bullshit.
Sadly, I think so many good people like yourself do not focus on war because it's overwhelming. Exactly. It overwhelms everything else because it destroys everything else. We're not going to have environmental protection when we bomb other countries.
War -- The Trump card
You are correct Linda Wood. The War Card trumped all other cards for me. When I looked at the (terrible) choice between Clinton and Trump, one issue took precedence. War. With Clinton, we had an almost certain possibility of war with Russia ... and soon. Is there a chance of the same with Trump? Yes, in fact the odds have turned out to be much worse than I expected.
Still, when faced with the certainty of an insane act on one hand, and simply the chance of it on the other, my choice was clear: I voted for Dr. Stein.
War was my primary reason
for voting for Dr. Jill Stein. From the very beginning, even before the primaries, I said I could not vote for Clinton because of her record of hawkishness in supporting regime change and war.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@travelerxxx
If everyone had voted Dr. Stein (and if the votes would have had been properly counted and the result respected and all the rest) there'd be a whole different everything right now...
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.
@Linda Wood A disagreement I have
A disagreement I have with your position is that I think trump is possibly as or more dangerous than Hillary on war.
While Hillary's problems on war are clearer and severe, I think trump is more of a wildcard and there are two things that are worse.
One is that I think the upper amount of war with him is higher - that he could start a war with North Korea or Iran or even China that Hillary likely would not.
Second is that I have said for trump's entire presidency that it seems the odds are quite high he will start a war to save his ratings - which war reliably does for presidents in the short term.
If you look at Bush's presidency it's 8 years of declining ratings except a few blips up on 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, and the capture of Saddam.
In fact, as he began his candidacy in 1999, Bush candidly told a reported he wanted to be a war president because a war president has more political capital for his other policies.
These lessons are not lost on trump who will be increasingly desperate for improving his ratings.
War with Russia
Seems like war with Russia, the other nuclear superpower, would be of greater magnitude than with any of the countries you listed. Hillary was headed in that direction. The Dem establishment and their mainstream news media helpers are still pushing hard to stir up big trouble with Russia.
Trump is a wildcard, a loose cannon. Hillary's warmongering would have been a sure thing.
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone
I think Big Al
Said it best when he drew the comparison between Trump vs Hillary as a choice between Dahmer and Bundy.
Call me crazy but comparing being fucked in the ass with a 12 foot bat vs a 24 foot bat seems beside the point. Either way, you're going to need a lot of Vaseline.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
@Anja Geitz I think a better
I think a better comparison is Stalin or Bundy, in this context - that not appreciating why Hillary and trump are not equivalent is a large error and very dangerous.
The distinction for you
Is apparently worth considering. For me, not so much. We are being run by sociopaths either way. We can't fight back using the electoral process. We can't fight back against an ever increasing militarized police. We can't fight back against the agit prop being funneled out of our esteemed fourth estate. All of which renders a discussion about which implement I'd prefer to be beaten across the head with as indulgently masturbatory. Respectfully.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
@Anja Geitz Also
Also respectfully, I'm not sure whether some of the equivalency thinking is drive more by not appreciating differences, or more by the emotional side, where disliking someone for 5 units of an imaginary measure is strong enough to feel the same as disliking someone for 500 units of that measure - they both suck!
Yet winning the right things is a step by step process, and electing a worse evil over a lesser evil can not only cause great harm directly, but lose ground on the fight for the right things.
A lot of Democrats sat out the election in 1968 in protest of Humphrey's flaws - yet this paved the way for things like Nixon's appointment of Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court and the ability of the right to get money an unlimited role in our politics that's threatening our society today. It was not worth the price to 'protest' Humphrey's flaws.
That's not how the right side comes to win.
As flawed as Hillary was, her election helped progressives more than trump's - Bernie understood that and fought for her because of it. The idea of a backlash has some truth, but is overrated.
But since the election did what it did - we should try to make the most of the backlash issue, and luckily it seems to be working some, with Medicare for All boosted by the reaction to repeal.
The electoral process
Has been compromised. Your vote doesn't count. Now explain to me how the "ideological" differences between a woman who corrupted the process so she could run against Trump, and then lost, and Trump himself is significant?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Please
expand on your thoughts about the backlash issue.
Do you begin here to see the difference between Hillary and Trump? Trump is unmasked. He's a corporate monster pillaging our country. And we can respond accordingly. Hillary is like someone's air-headed Grandma. How can anyone get upset if a forgetful Grandma can't remember if she said she would nuke North Korea or if she didn't say it and just won't come down with a straight answer. Like she couldn't about same sex marriage. Air-headed, duplicitous, vaporizing as we speak. With Trump we know what we're dealing with, and as you point out, suddenly, we begin to act like we can fight for what's right.
And as for his being a lunatic, great! Now we know what we're dealing with!
@Linda Wood Linda, I
Linda, I think the points in favor of the backlash issue are valid - but that the harms cause by how much worse trump is, and how that side winning tends to solidify its hold on power much more than lose it because of backlash, greatly outweigh any benefit of backlash. I think backlash was seen as far more attractive than it is, as a rationalization, because people who Just Did Not Want To Vote For Hillary really wanted a way to justify not voting for her, rather than facing the harm that choice caused. The backlash idea met that need very well.
You're not supposed to have to like voting for Hillary; it's ok to feel terrible about it; but that doesn't change the relative merits of the choices and the need to do it anyway.
But not everyone does the math on that, and some prefer to just refuse to take part.
And the other side LOVES that, just as we were very happy to see Rand Paul oppose the Republican healthcare repeal bill even though it was for all the wrong reasons, opposing it from the right.
Thank GOODNESS for a Republican purist who would rather see the repeal he agreed with as far as it went go down in flames rather than vote for something that didn't go even further.
And the trump supporters thank goodness for the voters who would rather lose to trump than vote for someone less flawed, in order to avoid voting for someone they don't like.
Why
did you leave out Russia?
Is it because you don't want to think about it? Or is it because you think the people arming and exercising NATO forces on Russia's borders are playing?
@Linda Wood You're right - I
You're right - I included Russia implicitly at the end when I said there is a list of things on which Hillary is worse than trump, but did not mention it explicitly.
That was because I wasn't trying to get into detail in that area, and because while I think it's safe to say Hillary was definitely more pro-war toward Russian than trump, it's unclear what that would have meant as a result. You can talk about an speculation from a least-case scenario where she pushes Russia and gets them to back down on some things to a worst-case scenario where she starts a nuclear war.
On balance, I suspect that while she is capable of Very Bad Things, with her crush on Henry Kissinger, I think she has some 'norms', some limits, some talents and experience, that reign in the dangers from her relative to trump. She took credit for the initial diplomacy leading to the Iran deal; trump seems he wants war with Iran and to destroy the deal.
The dangers from trump worry me more. Here's why:
- I think trump is uniquely dangerous, in his sociopathy (Hillary might be less of one) where he could kill a billion people without any conscience, and where he is so driven by narcissism.
Normally, the idea of launching a nuke in a tantrum is an absurd caricature; not so much with him.
- His lack of skills in diplomacy pale in comparison to Hillary's basic competence after serving as Secretary of State.
There's an old saying, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and all trump has is a hammer. He doesn't know how to do anything but attack an enemy with what he can.
In some cases, his incompetence could make him less dangerous than Hillary - she is capable and motivated to pursue more intricate aggressive policies - but overall I rank him far more dangerous.
And his 'all he has is a hammer' is reinforced by his fixation on increasing the already grotesquely oversized military budget.
- I think the likely scenarios under each are much more dangerous under trump - such as his war of words with North Korea escalating to a disaster.
- I think trump is under enormous pressure to start a war for the political benefit of saving his approval ratings, which reliably get a short term boost from war. It's hard to see him not doing it.
@Craig234
Hi, Craig! I would like to suggest that you might benefit by having a look at Hillary's record and perhaps reconsider your assessment. I'm really not up to compiling a list just now, as it would give me nightmares and I hope to get a decent sleep tonight. I'm sorry, but I really feel, in light of numerous instances and indications revealing Hillary to be unsuitable for any responsible position, that you have been misled by a giant propaganda machine, which is hardly surprising, under the circumstances.
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.
Craig234,
you have reached a point of actually describing the problem clearly between supporters of voting for Hillary Clinton and supporters of refusing to do so.
Hello? I'm sorry. I apologize for that question.
But do you understand your own remarks here? You describe a scenario where she pushes Russia and gets them to back down on some things.
What if they don't? What if they back down on some things, but not on other things? Would she back down? Or is it my family and the family of man blown to radioactive dust because she wanted to be macho, or because Putin wanted to be macho, or because someone screwed up and misunderstood someone's answer?
If someone tells me I have a choice between being threatened with nuclear war or losing all the backward progress we've made in justice and healthcare, I will vote for life, and refuse to vote for anyone who threatens my family.
Don't you understand that nuclear war means no healthcare, no schools, no school children, no environmental protection, no marriage for anyone?
I think I finally get it. You think Putin is evil, but you trust him to back down if confronted by nuclear weapons. I don't think you understand what happened in Russia in WWII, I don't think you understand what happened in Ukraine in WWII or in 2014. But what's really scary is that I don't think you understand what nuclear war would do. That's a serious problem of our education system. I don't think you know what we're dealing with.
@Linda Wood Linda, I'm
Linda, I'm afraid you badly misunderstand my comments.
What I discussed is that what is clear is that Hillary has an aggression toward Russia, but that what that would result is in very clear with a wide range of possibilities.
You ignored everything I said except to seize the 'best case' possibility, and then insisted I was claiming that's what would happen and was denying worse possibilities, when I had not.
You then question my understanding of the harm of nuclear war without any basis for doing so.
What I discussed was the comparison of the risks in damage, likelihood, personal characteristics between Hillary and trump, and weighing them. You ignored almost everything I said on it.
You're the one trying to claim the choice is nuclear war with Hillary or no risk of it with trump.
You're creating a straw man that I'm choosing nuclear war, when I actually made the case I see the risk of nuclear war - which you say you don't want - as higher with trump.
The Rump bellows (or tweets) loudly and carries a toothpick
while the Deep State carries out business as usual and ignores (or publicly deplores) him. Putin hit it on the nose: Presidents come and go, but the bureaucracy does not change. (Whatever else you can say about Mr. Public Face of Russia, he's a hard-nosed realist.)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
@TheOtherMaven I think
I think there's truth to that - but it's limited. Every president seems to feel their power is quite limited - yet they do have a huge influence.
We could discuss at length both ways the president has to deal with and can be undermined by the permanent bureaucracy - and big things they have been able to do.
What I think is probably more important to discuss is how the plutocrats would love to stoke people's fear of both - because the more they get the people to hate the government, the more they weaken the only force that can possible stand up to them. It's the biggest trick of the right in our history, turning the people on their own government - in party by taking it over.
I've read
everything you've written in your essay and all of your comments to all of the writers in this thread. So I think it's unfair to say,
I haven't ignored what you've said. I believe you've acted in good faith and that you believe Hillary Clinton was the lesser risk. I disagree. I think Trump was the lesser risk, partly because he wasn't advocating war with Russia, and partly because he campaigned against senseless wars and received populist support from it.
I didn't vote for him. I voted for a member of Congress who voted against the war authorization. But I was totally shocked and hugely relieved that he won, thanks to the Electoral College, which I don't even believe in.
In this discussion, I have been trying to explain why someone like myself would see Trump as the lesser risk of nuclear war, and I have included the fact that you see him as a risk, what you have described as the backlash factor. Now you take this risk seriously! That is a plus, as far as I'm concerned.
The fact that you think of Hillary Clinton as less likely to start a war with Russia when she repeatedly called for a no fly zone in Syria means to me, and I may be wrong, but it looks to me that you are either not paying attention to why Russia is in Syria or that you trust our political leadership, flawed as it is, beyond all common sense.
We disagree. But I respect you, and I will continue to read what you write here at C99 because it is of real value, especially including this disagreement.