The lesson Nader and Sanders missed

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 12:52pm

Let's start with 2016. The consensus was formed -- Hillary Rodham Clinton was going to be the next President, and neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump was going to stand in the way. Donald Trump was the chosen opponent -- the Clinton forces thought he would appear so horrible that the voters would be motivated to select Clinton simply to avoid electing Trump. Bernie Sanders was merely trying to chirp in with the notion of social-democratic guarantees of economic security. He had no real consideration of actually winning -- he thought he was going to change the Clinton campaign so as to make it a winner through the prospect that Clinton might actually offer the people something between the start of the campaign and the perceived inevitable Clinton victory.

Of course Sanders' intentions all went wrong. The Clinton campaign responded to the Sanders campaign with elaborately-constructed sweet nothings and a vast work of election fraud. And then Clinton lost in November.

Today of course the consensus attempts to articulate its opposition to Trump -- without, of course, revealing their real concern. What the consensus doesn't like is that Trump articulates its aims too honestly -- so for instance you have consensus mouthpiece Robert Reich runs a piece in consensus publication Newsweek on "omigod Trump's going to start a nuclear war!"

Of course the closest they get to showing this is:

Me: You think Trump is really thinking nuclear war?

He: Who knows what’s in his head? But I can tell you this. He’s not listening to anyone. Not a soul. He’s got the nuclear codes and, well, it scares the hell out of me. It’s starting to scare all of them. That’s really why Bob spoke up.

The problem is that the consensus is itself dangerous. They're not really concerned about nuclear war, just as they're not concerned about abrupt climate change or its manifestations in California, Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico or elsewhere. They were going to put warmonger Clinton in power, after all. They're sure that relief efforts will solve any problems caused. Relief efforts so far, however, have been successful because there has been a vast territory to appropriate in order to provide the relief. What happens when the disasters strike that vast territory as well?

The consensus is dangerous because it's a capitalist consensus. Capitalism is an attempt to doll up plunder to make it look like the average guy gets a chance to participate. Capitalist ideology defies logic; if everyone is doing the plundering, then someone must be plundered. The capitalist ideologues are more sophisticated than that, though. Capitalism promotes itself through wage labor -- so here's the deal -- instead of working for free for the local nobility, you get paid in money! The problem under capitalism, though, is that the government controls the money, and capital controls the government. So you're still being plundered. That was the point of Marx's theory of surplus value -- the capitalist profits off of your labor because you're being paid peanuts, while the real meat goes to the for-profit entity. So we're back to plunder. The trick, then, is to be against plunder.

The opposite of plunder in this case is healing, and the social basis for this is in disaster relief. What's missing is a general healing that doesn't go away when the disaster is generally decreed to be "over" and the plunder-institutions take over again. Such a general healing is what Patel and Moore call "reparation ecology" in their recent book.

So here is the lesson that neither Nader nor Sanders appears to have learned. The consensus is against them; the common people might appreciate their agendas, but everyone is mesmerized by the "lesser of two evils" game which keeps the consensus in power. And if the lesser of two evils game doesn't work, there's always the naked exercise of power. If by running for President both Nader and Sanders taught us those lessons, then perhaps it was all worth it.

But why compromise? Don't just try to humanize the consensus. Don't try to divide the consensus over trivial points; that's how lesser-evil governance works. Expose the consensus in its disastrous modes of operation. Oh, and run for office -- that's what both Nader and Sanders got right. And prep the ground by mentioning "socialism" -- that's what Sanders got right.

Tags:

Ralph Nader

bernie sanders

Capitalism

disaster

Vote

Comments

Submitted by Lookout on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 1:13pm

both Ralph and Bernie have accomplished things...

Ralph got us many rights through his campaign in the courts...suing both the government and corporations. Check out some of the evidence in his Tort Museum...
https://www.tortmuseum.org/

And I would argue Bernie awoke many to the corruption of the capitalist system.

I see them both as allies.

I would also suggest what you are calling consensus is in reality the CIA deep state intertwined and in bed with the duopoly.
Ex-CIA agent Kevin Shipp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHbrOg092GA (1 hour...sorry no transcript)

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 1:27pm

I can't entirely say --

@Lookout that the lining-up of movie stars in endorsement of Hillary Clinton is entirely due to "the CIA deep state intertwined and in bed with the duopoly." I'm sure there's more to it than that.

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by Lookout on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 1:33pm

I bet the movie star support was ginned up

@Cassiodorus

by CIA mouthpieces like the WaPo and NYT?

I'm in total agreement that we were had in both elections.

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by Ellen North on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 5:58pm

@Lookout

@Lookout

I don't recall hearing anything about this coming through but:

http://yournewswire.com/cia-influence-on-hollywood-to-be-exposed-by-cong...

CIA Influence On Hollywood To Be Exposed By Congress

June 27, 2016 Sean Adl-Tabatabai Entertainment

Congress have approved a bill that will force the government to shed light on the influence the CIA has over Hollywood.

An amendment to Congress’ annual intelligence spending bill will make the government’s relationship with Hollywood more transparent.

Activistpost.com reports:

According to VICE News, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), included an amendment to S. 3017that would require the Director of National Intelligence to submit reports detailing the relationship between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agencies and Hollywood. It would also require 15 other agencies to disclose the nature of their relationships with the film industry. These reports would have to be presented annually to congressional oversight committees.

Between 2006 and 2011, VICE reported, the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs (OPA) had a role in at least 22 of the U.S. entertainment industry’s projects. Some of the productions listed by VICE included the films Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, television shows like Top Chef and Covert Affairs, and documentaries such as the History channel’s Air America and the BBC’s The Secret War on Terror. The book, The Devil’s Light, also had the help of the CIA.

Some of the most controversial findings regarding the relationship between OPA officials and Hollywood insiders were tied to the blockbuster, Zero Dark Thirty.

According to the redacted and previously classified December 2012 CIA report released by Judicial Watch, the CIA granted “‘secret level’ access to the makers of the movie Zero Dark Thirty.” According to VICE, “filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal showered CIA officers involved in the operation with gifts and received unprecedented access, which included the disclosure of classified information to Bigelow and Boal by CIA director Leon Panetta.”

While these revealing facts shocked the world at the time of their release, the relationship between the CIA and the entertainment industry actually dates back to the 1950s. ...

...Once Feinstein’s and Burr’s amendment, along the Intelligence Authorization bill, is voted on by the Senate, we may know more about the relationship between Hollywood and the CIA. However, a review date is yet to be scheduled.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/14/thriller-ridley-scott

An offer they couldn't refuse
The CIA is often credited with 'advice' on Hollywood films, but no one is truly sure about the extent of its shadowy involvement. Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham investigate

Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham

Friday 14 November 2008

... In fact, the story of the CIA's involvement in Hollywood is a tale of deception and subversion that would seem improbable if it were put on screen.

The model for this is the defence department's "open" but barely publicised relationship with Hollywood. The Pentagon, for decades, has offered film-makers advice, manpower and even hardware - including aircraft carriers and state-of-the-art helicopters. All it asks for in exchange is that the US armed forces are made to look good. So in a previous Scott film, Black Hawk Down, a character based on a real-life soldier who had also been a child rapist lost that part of his backstory when he came to the screen.

No matter how seemingly craven Hollywood's behaviour towards the US armed forces has seemed, it has at least happened within the public domain. That cannot be said for the CIA's dealings with the movie business. Not until 1996 did the CIA announce, with little fanfare, that it had established an Entertainment Liaison Office, which would collaborate in a strictly advisory capacity with film-makers. Heading up the office was Chase Brandon, who had served for 25 years in the agency's elite clandestine services division, as an undercover operations officer. A PR man he isn't, though he does have Hollywood connections: he's a cousin of Tommy Lee Jones.

But the past 12 years of semi-acknowledged collaboration were preceded by decades in which the CIA maintained a deep-rooted but invisible influence of Hollywood. How could it be otherwise? As the former CIA man Bob Baer - whose books on his time with the agency were the basis for Syriana - told us: "All these people that run studios - they go to Washington, they hang around with senators, they hang around with CIA directors, and everybody's on board."

There is documentary evidence for his claims. ...

...So, altering scripts, financing films, suppressing the truth - it's worrying enough. But there are cases where some believe the CIA's activities in Hollywood have gone further - far enough, in fact, to be the stuff of movies. In June 1997, the screenwriter Gary DeVore was working on the screenplay for his directorial debut. It was to be an action movie set against the backdrop of the US invasion of Panama in 1989, which led to the overthrow of dictator Manuel Noriega. According to his wife, Wendy, DeVore had been talking to an old friend - the CIA's Chase Brandon - about Noriega's regime and US counternarcotic programmes in Latin America. Wendy told CNN: "He had been very disturbed over some of the things that he had been finding in his research. He was researching the United States invasion of Panama, because he was setting the actual story that he was writing against this; and the overthrow of Noriega and the enormous amounts of money laundering in the Panamanian banks, also our own government's money laundering."
Advertisement

At the end of that month, DeVore had been in Santa Fe, New Mexico, working on another project. He was travelling back to California when, at 1.15am on June 28, he called Wendy, a call she says has been excised from phone records. She told CNN she was "terribly alarmed" because he was speaking as though he were under duress. She was sure "someone was in the car with him". That was the last time Wendy DeVore heard from her husband. ...

...DeVore's laptop computer containing his unfinished script was missing from his vehicle, as was the gun he customarily carried on long trips; after his disappearance, a CIA representative allegedly showed up at DeVore's house to request access to his computer; Hollywood private investigator Don Crutchfield noted that previous drafts of DeVore's script were inexplicably wiped from said computer during the same timeframe; police claimed that DeVore's vehicle careened off the highway, yet DeVore's widow was troubled by the absence of visible damage to the guardrail at the scene of the alleged accident; and how come no one noticed an SUV sitting in the water beneath a busy highway for a whole year? ...

https://www.rawstory.com/2013/01/cia-and-pentagon-have-long-running-infl...

CIA and Pentagon have long-running influence over Hollywood’s representation of military

Kay Steiger
22 Jan 2013

The CIA and the Pentagon pulled out all the stops for the creators of “Zero Dark Thirty,” staging interviews with officials and a Navy SEAL for an inside account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Critics praised the movie’s gritty and gripping feel but, with the film due for release in major European markets this week, controversy has erupted over claims that it justifies US agents’ use of torture on detainees.

The access granted to director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal has turned the Oscar-nominated movie into the most detailed public account that exists of the May 2011 raid on a Pakistani compound to kill Bin Laden.

Nate Jones of the National Security Archives research institute dubbed it “the closest thing to the official story behind the pursuit of bin Laden.”

Bigelow has been forced to release a statement denying widespread allegations that the film set out to justify or sanitize the “enhanced interrogation techniques” employed during the so-called ‘war on terror’.

Although the assistance offered to the “Zero Dark Thirty” crew sparked accusations that the White House used the movie as a propaganda tool, cooperation between Hollywood and the Pentagon or CIA is nothing new.

The first film ever to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, “Wings” in 1929, featured dogfight scenes with bi-planes thanks to help from the army.

It was the beginning of a relationship that has grown over decades. ...

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/foia-docs-war-cia-controls/

FOIA Docs Show CIA/Pentagon Made 1,800 Movies, TV Shows to Make America Love War

Newly-obtained documents show the Pentagon and CIA have enormous influence over Hollywood — its pro-war propaganda must be accepted or the government packs its assistance and goes home.
By
Claire Bernish -
July 6, 2017

...In fact, according to documents obtained by Tom Secker and Matthew Alford for Insurge Intelligence, the DoD and CIA, and more frequently the NSA, don’t take kindly to portrayal in a negative light — even when that well-deserved derision and criticism covers past exploits long common public knowledge.

It may be better known how the Pentagon consults with Hollywood to ensure accurate portrayal of chains of command, military culture, proper use of equipment, and other obvious factors, but the DoD, it turns out, might as well pen the script — and, in many cases, that’s exactly what happens.

When applicable, films and television series must be rubber-stamped by the government — no seal of approval, no production.

Most often, DoD chief Hollywood liaison, Phil Strub, grants the ‘seal’ for productions where Pentagon guidance has been officially sought — anything amiss would require rewrites and adjustments to accommodate the military’s best interests. Instances where the two cannot come to agreement can mean scrapping the entire production — and it has happened before. ...

...Lest there be any doubt, the DoD’s weighty presence in filmmaking extends to the most picayune of details. Insurge Intelligence describes several instances in which one-liners and dramatic repartee the average moviegoer wouldn’t necessarily think twice about featured as the subject of bitter, behind-the-scenes quarrels pitting itinerant directors against the PR interests of the U.S. military — with the latter, one way or another, forever the victor. ...

...So meticulous the world’s most gargantuan military, even the ostensively fictitious name of an operation to capture the Hulk in the eponymous 2003 movie had to be switched to “Angry Man” from “Ranch Hand” — because the latter “is the name of a real military operation that saw the US Air Force dump millions of gallons of pesticides and other poisons onto the Vietnamese countryside, rendering millions of acres of farmland poisoned and infertile.

“They also removed dialogue referring to ‘all those boys, guinea pigs, dying from radiation, and germ warfare’, an apparent reference to covert military experiments on human subjects.”

Past transgressions — no matter how publicly excoriated at the time — do not acceptable material for the Pentagon make. References to the Iran-Contra scandal ultimately sounded the death knell for a movie called Countermeasures, because, according to Strub in the documents,

“There’s no need for us to… remind the public of the Iran-Contra affair.” ...

So, yeah, Hollywood people might well feel pressured to support the Mad Bomber and keep such as the Pentagon and CIA happy, so as not to have anything happen to a nice career in a time when a lot of military-related films are being produced.

—

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.

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 4:50pm

Michelle Obama's surprise appearance at the Oscars.

@Ellen North

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/michelle-obama-at-oscars-announces...

#1.1.1 I don't recall hearing anything about this coming through but: http://yournewswire.com/cia-influence-on-hollywood-to-be-exposed-by-cong... CIA Influence On Hollywood To Be Exposed By Congress June 27, 2016 Sean Adl-Tabatabai Entertainment Congress have approved a bill that will force the government to shed light on the influence the CIA has over Hollywood. An amendment to Congress’ annual intelligence spending bill will make the government’s relationship with Hollywood more transparent. Activistpost.com reports: According to VICE News, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), included an amendment to S. 3017that would require the Director of National Intelligence to submit reports detailing the relationship between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agencies and Hollywood. It would also require 15 other agencies to disclose the nature of their relationships with the film industry. These reports would have to be presented annually to congressional oversight committees. Between 2006 and 2011, VICE reported, the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs (OPA) had a role in at least 22 of the U.S. entertainment industry’s projects. Some of the productions listed by VICE included the films Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, television shows like Top Chef and Covert Affairs, and documentaries such as the History channel’s Air America and the BBC’s The Secret War on Terror. The book, The Devil’s Light, also had the help of the CIA. Some of the most controversial findings regarding the relationship between OPA officials and Hollywood insiders were tied to the blockbuster, Zero Dark Thirty. According to the redacted and previously classified December 2012 CIA report released by Judicial Watch, the CIA granted “‘secret level’ access to the makers of the movie Zero Dark Thirty.” According to VICE, “filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal showered CIA officers involved in the operation with gifts and received unprecedented access, which included the disclosure of classified information to Bigelow and Boal by CIA director Leon Panetta.” While these revealing facts shocked the world at the time of their release, the relationship between the CIA and the entertainment industry actually dates back to the 1950s. ... ...Once Feinstein’s and Burr’s amendment, along the Intelligence Authorization bill, is voted on by the Senate, we may know more about the relationship between Hollywood and the CIA. However, a review date is yet to be scheduled. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/14/thriller-ridley-scott An offer they couldn't refuse The CIA is often credited with 'advice' on Hollywood films, but no one is truly sure about the extent of its shadowy involvement. Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham investigate Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham Friday 14 November 2008 ... In fact, the story of the CIA's involvement in Hollywood is a tale of deception and subversion that would seem improbable if it were put on screen. The model for this is the defence department's "open" but barely publicised relationship with Hollywood. The Pentagon, for decades, has offered film-makers advice, manpower and even hardware - including aircraft carriers and state-of-the-art helicopters. All it asks for in exchange is that the US armed forces are made to look good. So in a previous Scott film, Black Hawk Down, a character based on a real-life soldier who had also been a child rapist lost that part of his backstory when he came to the screen. No matter how seemingly craven Hollywood's behaviour towards the US armed forces has seemed, it has at least happened within the public domain. That cannot be said for the CIA's dealings with the movie business. Not until 1996 did the CIA announce, with little fanfare, that it had established an Entertainment Liaison Office, which would collaborate in a strictly advisory capacity with film-makers. Heading up the office was Chase Brandon, who had served for 25 years in the agency's elite clandestine services division, as an undercover operations officer. A PR man he isn't, though he does have Hollywood connections: he's a cousin of Tommy Lee Jones. But the past 12 years of semi-acknowledged collaboration were preceded by decades in which the CIA maintained a deep-rooted but invisible influence of Hollywood. How could it be otherwise? As the former CIA man Bob Baer - whose books on his time with the agency were the basis for Syriana - told us: "All these people that run studios - they go to Washington, they hang around with senators, they hang around with CIA directors, and everybody's on board." There is documentary evidence for his claims. ... ...So, altering scripts, financing films, suppressing the truth - it's worrying enough. But there are cases where some believe the CIA's activities in Hollywood have gone further - far enough, in fact, to be the stuff of movies. In June 1997, the screenwriter Gary DeVore was working on the screenplay for his directorial debut. It was to be an action movie set against the backdrop of the US invasion of Panama in 1989, which led to the overthrow of dictator Manuel Noriega. According to his wife, Wendy, DeVore had been talking to an old friend - the CIA's Chase Brandon - about Noriega's regime and US counternarcotic programmes in Latin America. Wendy told CNN: "He had been very disturbed over some of the things that he had been finding in his research. He was researching the United States invasion of Panama, because he was setting the actual story that he was writing against this; and the overthrow of Noriega and the enormous amounts of money laundering in the Panamanian banks, also our own government's money laundering." Advertisement At the end of that month, DeVore had been in Santa Fe, New Mexico, working on another project. He was travelling back to California when, at 1.15am on June 28, he called Wendy, a call she says has been excised from phone records. She told CNN she was "terribly alarmed" because he was speaking as though he were under duress. She was sure "someone was in the car with him". That was the last time Wendy DeVore heard from her husband. ... ...DeVore's laptop computer containing his unfinished script was missing from his vehicle, as was the gun he customarily carried on long trips; after his disappearance, a CIA representative allegedly showed up at DeVore's house to request access to his computer; Hollywood private investigator Don Crutchfield noted that previous drafts of DeVore's script were inexplicably wiped from said computer during the same timeframe; police claimed that DeVore's vehicle careened off the highway, yet DeVore's widow was troubled by the absence of visible damage to the guardrail at the scene of the alleged accident; and how come no one noticed an SUV sitting in the water beneath a busy highway for a whole year? ... https://www.rawstory.com/2013/01/cia-and-pentagon-have-long-running-infl... CIA and Pentagon have long-running influence over Hollywood’s representation of military Kay Steiger 22 Jan 2013 The CIA and the Pentagon pulled out all the stops for the creators of “Zero Dark Thirty,” staging interviews with officials and a Navy SEAL for an inside account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Critics praised the movie’s gritty and gripping feel but, with the film due for release in major European markets this week, controversy has erupted over claims that it justifies US agents’ use of torture on detainees. The access granted to director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal has turned the Oscar-nominated movie into the most detailed public account that exists of the May 2011 raid on a Pakistani compound to kill Bin Laden. Nate Jones of the National Security Archives research institute dubbed it “the closest thing to the official story behind the pursuit of bin Laden.” Bigelow has been forced to release a statement denying widespread allegations that the film set out to justify or sanitize the “enhanced interrogation techniques” employed during the so-called ‘war on terror’. Although the assistance offered to the “Zero Dark Thirty” crew sparked accusations that the White House used the movie as a propaganda tool, cooperation between Hollywood and the Pentagon or CIA is nothing new. The first film ever to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, “Wings” in 1929, featured dogfight scenes with bi-planes thanks to help from the army. It was the beginning of a relationship that has grown over decades. ... http://thefreethoughtproject.com/foia-docs-war-cia-controls/ FOIA Docs Show CIA/Pentagon Made 1,800 Movies, TV Shows to Make America Love War Newly-obtained documents show the Pentagon and CIA have enormous influence over Hollywood — its pro-war propaganda must be accepted or the government packs its assistance and goes home. By Claire Bernish - July 6, 2017 ...In fact, according to documents obtained by Tom Secker and Matthew Alford for Insurge Intelligence, the DoD and CIA, and more frequently the NSA, don’t take kindly to portrayal in a negative light — even when that well-deserved derision and criticism covers past exploits long common public knowledge. It may be better known how the Pentagon consults with Hollywood to ensure accurate portrayal of chains of command, military culture, proper use of equipment, and other obvious factors, but the DoD, it turns out, might as well pen the script — and, in many cases, that’s exactly what happens. When applicable, films and television series must be rubber-stamped by the government — no seal of approval, no production. Most often, DoD chief Hollywood liaison, Phil Strub, grants the ‘seal’ for productions where Pentagon guidance has been officially sought — anything amiss would require rewrites and adjustments to accommodate the military’s best interests. Instances where the two cannot come to agreement can mean scrapping the entire production — and it has happened before. ... ...Lest there be any doubt, the DoD’s weighty presence in filmmaking extends to the most picayune of details. Insurge Intelligence describes several instances in which one-liners and dramatic repartee the average moviegoer wouldn’t necessarily think twice about featured as the subject of bitter, behind-the-scenes quarrels pitting itinerant directors against the PR interests of the U.S. military — with the latter, one way or another, forever the victor. ... ...So meticulous the world’s most gargantuan military, even the ostensively fictitious name of an operation to capture the Hulk in the eponymous 2003 movie had to be switched to “Angry Man” from “Ranch Hand” — because the latter “is the name of a real military operation that saw the US Air Force dump millions of gallons of pesticides and other poisons onto the Vietnamese countryside, rendering millions of acres of farmland poisoned and infertile. “They also removed dialogue referring to ‘all those boys, guinea pigs, dying from radiation, and germ warfare’, an apparent reference to covert military experiments on human subjects.” Past transgressions — no matter how publicly excoriated at the time — do not acceptable material for the Pentagon make. References to the Iran-Contra scandal ultimately sounded the death knell for a movie called Countermeasures, because, according to Strub in the documents, “There’s no need for us to… remind the public of the Iran-Contra affair.” ... So, yeah, Hollywood people might well feel pressured to support the Mad Bomber and keep such as the Pentagon and CIA happy, so as not to have anything happen to a nice career in a time when a lot of military-related films are being produced.

Submitted by Ellen North on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 11:04pm

@HenryAWallace

@HenryAWallace

Thanks! To my great surprise, I see that planned war-related - starring Iran and the 9/11-excuse 'hunt for Osama bin Laden' - and a patriotic Founder-related movie(s) oddly enough seem to have cleaned up on the awards and publicity that year, and I just loved Michelles speech quoted in the 2013 article at your link:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/michelle-obama-at-oscars-announces...

...The film is about a CIA plan to rescue Americans trapped in Iran during the Carter-era hostage crisis.

After being introduced by legendary actor Jack Nicholson, Obama spoke by satellite from inside the White House, where she thanked the Hollywood community for their “vitally important work” before announcing “Argo” the winner.

“Welcome to the White House, everyone,” Obama said, wearing a silver Naeem Khan gown. These movies "took us back in time and all around the world. They made us laugh. They made us weep and made us grip our armrests just a little tighter. They taught us that love can endure against all odds and transform our minds in the most surprising ways. And they reminded us that we can overcome any obstacle if we dig deep enough and fight hard enough and find the courage to believe in ourselves.” ...

Yup, just keep digging that hole deeper, fight the War on the World until all public and private money is in the hands of the war-profiteers and disaster capitalists - and find the courage to ignore reality and believe in the propaganda we're feeding you Disposables Of The World.

So inspirational that I almost aspirated the vomit in my mouth.

Damn it, I liked the Obamas, and like so many others, cut enough President Obama enough slack to hang myself with for a very long time...

—

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.

Submitted by Deja on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 5:02pm

Supposedly CIA has to pre approve The Americans scripts

@Lookout
It was actually a question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Hadn't heard of the show before.

Here's link to the show.

https://g.co/kgs/UNUPFX

Submitted by Meteor Man on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 3:04pm

Hollywood Is The Deep State

@Cassiodorus
Nobody does 1% like Hollywood. The Pentagon and CIA have been cooperating with producers and movie moguls for decades. Hollywood has always glorified war. Captain America anyone? NCIS?

Whose side was Hollywood on during The McCarthy hearings, even when they were the target? Where is the Charlie Chaplin anti-war radical today?

—

"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Submitted by Lookout on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 3:32pm

Case in point!

@Meteor Man

I think that is exactly the case.

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by Deja on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 6:39pm

Many "got woke" by Bernie and the exposed collusion

@Lookout
Some more than others, but woke nonetheless.

Now we have to "stay woke".

Grammar folks: woke is urban slang.

Getting woke is like being in the Matrix and taking the red pill. You get a sudden understanding of what's really going on and find out you were wrong about much of what you understood to be truth.

I understand the extra burden it puts on you but I still feel everyone needs to get woke.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woke

And there are other definitions depending on who's saying it, and to whom.

Submitted by Lookout on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 8:16pm

Staying awake

@Deja

(or is it awoke?) is required for any forward momentum. We need folks to woke up too.

Can teach-ins make a come back? They need to.

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by lotlizard on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 12:48am

Indeed even Alt-Righties view themselves as the“woke” Right. n/t

@Deja

Submitted by gustogirl on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 9:25am

A lot of Truthers

@lotlizard
are right wing, and attribute much of the malignancy of the Deep State and the Shadow Government to the "liberal agenda". So tightly do they cling to their red state/blue state duopolistic view that they attribute the ecological disasters out in full play to weather manipulation rather than admit human caused climate change.

I don't consider anyone fully "woke" until they recognize the deliberate divisiveness the duopolistic model engenders. Our only hope really, is for the people to unite.

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 7:25pm

The Grace Adler character used "woke" this fall in the new

@Deja @Deja

version of Will and Grace.

Submitted by BrutallyHonest on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 3:29pm

Capitalism promotes sociopaths and sociopathic behavior

Capitalism, the large, top down power structure of our government, the large % of our populace that has internalized the propaganda lies they have grown up on, and the sociopaths empowered by the previous three, are all the problems we face.

The solution to it all is promoting and empowering the people to create a new economic/governmental system that I call Cooperative Democracy.

Cooperative Democracy uses cooperatives ( a corporation where the workers are also equal owners of the same corporation) to give the people back the power that has been taken from them by capitalism + giant government. There are 2 major hurdles that any change movement will face. These are:
1) The general populace has no desire to fight back due to learned helplessness, and the propaganda that they have internalized that makes them feel that defense that uses violence is wrong and makes them as "bad" as the people who they are fighting against.
2) The sociopathic ruling class who have no empathy and will fight tooth and nail to keep their power.

Submitted by Ellen North on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 12:19pm

@BrutallyHonest

@BrutallyHonest @BrutallyHonest

If I can add something illustrating one of the points in your interesting post which I just came across?

All emphasis mine.

(Up top, the photo caption says that 'banks are praying for a miracle' )

https://qz.com/1099705/former-barclays-ceo-antony-jenkins-believes-in-bi...

Barclays’ former CEO is long bitcoin and says big banks need to start over

Written by
John Detrixhe@johndetrixhe
Obsession
Future of Finance

... Antony Jenkins knows a lot about the big banks that run global finance. During more than 30 years in the industry, he was a credit card executive at Citigroup before becoming CEO of Barclays in 2012. He was ousted in 2015.

Now, after a long career in mainstream finance Jenkins is an entrepreneur: Last year he self-funded 10x Future Technologies, which sells cloud-based computing platforms to banks. He thinks big banks are in denial about the threat posed by fintech upstarts—his pitch is that they can only save themselves by starting over with better technology. In September, 10x raised £34 million ($45 million), led by consulting company Oliver Wyman and Chinese insurance group Ping An.

Quartz spoke with Jenkins about the fintech scene, bitcoin, and other hot topics in the world of finance. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. ...

...What do you think about blockchain?

When you have a banking system, which is basically a set of intermediaries, what those intermediaries do at any point in time is they cluster risk. Now, it’s not that the risk is created or destroyed. It’s simply clustered in one place. When it’s clustered in one place, you then have to hold a lot of capital against the fact that this risk may crystalize one day. Classically in banking, we leave our money in our banking account, and the bank lends that money out to somebody. If the bank doesn’t get repaid, that risk crystalizes, but we still want to get our money out, so the bank has to hold capital to buffer against that risk.

If you imagine a world in which we’re all connected by some distributed ledger technology, there’s no need for those central counterparties. There’s no need for the capital that sits in the middle, and all the friction that goes with moving in between those counterparties. You can imagine a world where you have essentially frictionless banking. You don’t eliminate risk, because risk is always there. But you eliminate the clustering of risk and that capital behind the cluster and the things that go with it.

Speaking of distributed ledgers, what do you think of bitcoin?

I am long bitcoin. I think there’s clearly a bubble going through the market, but like all of these technologies, it’s the learning that comes with it.

Over time I think those currencies are going to be important. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we see some kind of boom and bust behavior, but that is to be expected in something as new as this.

I wonder if Obama's allowing banks to simply steal depositor's money out of their accounts if their own created risk or any other circumstance causes them to run short is something already universal, perhaps imposed on other countries through corporate coup 'trade deals' purportedly superseding domestic law in each case, to suit a certain relatively few ruthless and pathologically greedy corporate interests and billionaires?

Just saw and signed an Openmedia petition last night about Internet censorship being spread by NAFTA re-negotiation:

(Editing to add emphasis.)

Just when we thought we’ve seen everything from Bell Canada, the Internet and media conglomerate goes and pulls one of their dirtiest tricks to date.

They're trying to use closed-door NAFTA talks to sneak in a mandatory website blocking system and radical new copyright rules that would give an agency unprecedented power to dictate what you can and can't see online.1,2

The fourth round of negotiations is happening near D.C. as we speak and talks are heating up. U.S. trade representatives are tabling controversial topics, and Mexico and the U.S. are impatient to wrap up the deal.3 This represents a perfect opportunity for Bell to sneak in its radical copyright proposals behind closed doors without public scrutiny.

Bell's proposals are reckless and extreme, and would result in sweeping Internet censorship and criminalizing everyday online activities. But if we speak out now we can stop these outrageous proposals dead in their tracks.

Tell Minister Chrystia Freeland to reject Bell's plan to exploit NAFTA to impose Internet censorship and undermine our digital rights.

This is an unprecedented move – we've never seen an Internet service provider in Canada have the nerve to call on government to take an active role in censoring the Internet before.

Canada's copyright rules should be shaped democratically by Canadians, not decided in closed-door trade talks. Plus, Bell – being both an Internet service and media content provider – already has a stranglehold over a huge part of our online experience. We cannot let them go any further!

You'd think Canadians would know better than to use Bell after what they've been doing in America, but enough censorship will fix the 'knowing' part, I suppose.

—

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.

Submitted by don mikulecky on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 4:03pm

complex systems are more than the sum of their parts

As usual we agree in spirit but you refuse to give up the reductionist approach to a very complex self organizing system.

Peoples names and labels for ideas about a model of reality (Sanders, Nader, Capitalism) tell me that you still miss the point. Take out any individual and see what will change. I know the answer. Lots of noise and false analysis but the system will grind on.

Biological evolution is an example on another scale. species go extinct more often than they survive so how can they possibly be key causal agents? Yet for a while they are. Sanders could have never existed and we still would be roughly where we are now.

You use the word "capitalism" as if it had meaning yet it is merely a name for what you don't understand.

We deviated from any rational course almost at the beginning. Now we rationalize everything and mislead ourselves further.

We are animals. Another sex driven species striving to make it. We devised our games and our words to make them look meaningful. Nevertheless we are merely animals and we have no meaning nor purpose. The earth system sees us as a cancer soon to be gotten rid of.

Capitalism is bred by a sociopathic failure of the human mind to grasp its condition. It breeds nothing. It destroys and consumes.

Tell us how it could be different given the human mind and its limits.

—

An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.

Submitted by Meteor Man on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 5:21pm

FDR and Eisenhower Paradigm Shift

@don mikulecky
For a brief period, from 1945 to 1970, America was on an economic/political path to a rational world. LBJ made great strides for social progress and MLK was breaking racist intellectual and tribal chains that had endured since the dawn of time.

What happened? JFK (1963), MLK (1968) and Robert Kennedy (1968) were assassinated. Robert Kennedy said:

Progress is a nice word, but change is its motivator and change has enemies.

Nixon became President and the enemies of progress we're ascendent. Then came Watergate and Vietnam. Walter Cronkite informed the American people that Vietnam was a moral tragedy. Cronkite was the last credible American journalist:

After watching Cronkite's broadcast Lyndon Johnson said to his press secretary, George Christian, "If I have lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America."[5] Whatever the effect Cronkite's broadcast had, by 1967 Johnson's approval rating on the war was down to 32%.

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Cronkite

The next Paradigm Shift was the Reagan "Revolution" which has continuously accelerated and brought us where we are today.

There are now two paths for America. Another paradigm shift or global extinction of mankind. The odds are in favor of the global extinction of mankind.

—

"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Submitted by don mikulecky on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 5:39pm

@Meteor Man Wow! I was born in

@Meteor Man Wow! I was born in 1936 and don't recognize any paradigm shift. We have been having various facades on the death march but we were readying the planet for what it is now all during this time. Meanwhile the political theater you describe was but one more way of distracting people from what they really were doing to themselves and the planet. There was no recognition of the genocidal and slavery origins of the pseudo wealth as well. The illusion that you could have "progress" without cleaning up the mess it cost was and is alive and well. We must live on different planets.

—

An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.

Submitted by Meteor Man on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 11:22pm

Political Theater

@don mikulecky

Meanwhile the political theater you describe was but one more way of distracting people from what they really were doing to themselves and the planet.

Well union strength grew along with a thriving middle class. MLK was political theater? How about The Whole Earth Catalogue?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog

Environmental protection was a dominant narrative. The Clean Air and Clean Water Act we're political theater?

Minimize the 50's and 60's if you must. They were not Happy Days for blacks and Native Americans, but the trend lines were in the right direction.

—

"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Submitted by dkmich on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 5:33pm

Damn Don

@don mikulecky
The story of mankind in a paragraph.

We are animals. Another sex driven species striving to make it. We devised our games and our words to make them look meaningful. Nevertheless we are merely animals and we have no meaning nor purpose. The earth system sees us as a cancer soon to be gotten rid of.

Capitalism is bred by a sociopathic failure of the human mind to grasp its condition. It breeds nothing. It destroys and consumes.

Tell us how it could be different given the human mind and its limits.

—

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Submitted by Ellen North on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 8:34pm

@don mikulecky

@don mikulecky

We need to clean out and keep out all psychopaths from public service and other positions of power over others. Born psychopaths (some are created through brain injury or life experience) lack the 'human' portion of the brain, cannot even comprehend empathy and various other human emotions and cannot relate to the feelings of others. This mental disability is not their fault, but they can only understand self-interest, don't mind harming others to achieve their own goals and may even enjoy doing so and do so for fun.

Brain scans can be used to identify that incapacity in empathy tests.

What you refer to is inhuman nature, something with which whole cultures may become infected once run by psychopaths - but psychopaths are, in example, often selectively hired as corporate CEOs because ruthless in achieving their desires and too-often have been permitted to enrich and empower themselves themselves by force, stealth or parasitic methods, accumulating fortunes which permit them to purchase political influence or positions.

Lawless capitalism is their ideal preying ground, where they'll fatten until either they or the economy they drain explodes.

However, such 'cost-saving' and 'profitable' corporate measures as paying inadequate wages, hazarding the health/lives of workers/consumers to increase profits and freely emitting toxic industrial pollution would not work out to be profitable for corporations if the public and environment were adequately protected with polluters and abusers held liable for all of the costs they create, rather than being permitted to off-load them onto the public and victimized individuals. As matters stand, various corporations/industries continue to routinely get away with literal, if generally slow, murder for increased profit to the point of expecting to be able to do this as a right - and no-one but a psychopathic individual would be comfortable with that.

America's strain of pathological cultural tendencies are not those of Americans per se, but those of unrestrained psychopaths running corporations and governments, media propaganda campaigns and the like.

Just as some are born blind, some are born psychopaths and this mental deficiency has likely always appeared within various populations. But civilization - and now global survival of life - depends upon their no longer gaining, via that ruthlessness, ascendancy over normals, especially where they can gain the capacity to sicken/kill large groups of people, access large-scale weapons including such as nukes, pollute widely and ultimately destroy the global life support system, because their ability to think long-term beyond the achievement of their personal desires is also affected by this brain injury/dysfunction and they tend to believe that they are too clever and exceptional to suffer from their own actions, even when this may be inevitable, as with the production of commonly unsafe food, air, water and products increasing both their own profits/bonuses and their own exposures to some of the more universal toxins or with a push toward 'limited nuclear war' whether for personal MIC investment increases, a fatter cheque, a lucrative job, the promise of a share in a country's stolen resources or any number of personal benefits not worth Armageddon.

Nobody lacking in empathy should ever hold any position in the public service or anywhere that power can be used to harm others, or to declare themselves impossibly 'above the law' within a democracy.

The word 'humanity' has more than one meaning, even if they are related:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humanity

Definition of humanity
plural humanities
1 :compassionate, sympathetic, or generous behavior or disposition :the quality or state of being humane

bespeaking humanity for the enemy in the midst of a bloody struggle —C. G. Bowers

2 a :the quality or state of being human

joined together by their common humanity

b humanities plural :human attributes or qualities ...

The condition of psychopathy is essentially defined by, and identifiable by, that lack of empathy, of humanity, of essential species/social survival characteristics typically despised by psychopaths as 'weakness'. It ain't us norms which are the actual hazard to life, the universe and everything.

—

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.

Submitted by irishking on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 6:51am

we are merely animals without purpose.

@don mikulecky

reductionist view of a complex self- organizing system

the Buddha is a fact.
he came with no special equipment.
merely an animal.

I know it can happen because it did happen.

Submitted by MsGrin on Sun, 10/15/2017 - 5:31pm

"Bob" as you call him

...was a really HUGE Bernie surrogate, btw.

—

'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

Submitted by SnappleBC on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 12:57pm

Sort of

@MsGrin

Yes, he did support Bernie, but he did so without any real indictment of the establishment. In other words, even as he was supporting Sanders, he was providing cover and legitimacy to the corrupt political establishment which makes a Bernie necessary.

I have him in the "partial ally" category.

—

A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

Submitted by irishking on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 1:11pm

didn't Reich end in "vote HRC" camp?

@SnappleBC

Submitted by SnappleBC on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 8:54pm

Of course he did

@irishking

Like Sanders himself, he's establishment to the core. He wants to change that establishment, but there's no way on earth he wouldn't try to stop Trump.

As I said, I see him as a partial ally.

—

Submitted by irishking on Tue, 10/17/2017 - 6:50am

heaven grafitti- "I thought it would be a lot classier."

@SnappleBC

from a gahan wilson cartoon

Submitted by Ellen North on Tue, 10/17/2017 - 11:17am

@irishking

@irishking

The Christian heaven was designed a very long and primitive time ago - doesn't even have internet or anything but harp music all freaking day. I'm aiming for the Beer Volcano myself. R'Amen!

—

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.

Submitted by Ellen North on Tue, 10/17/2017 - 11:19am

@irishking

@irishking

The Christian heaven was designed a very long and primitive time ago - doesn't even have internet or anything but harp music all freaking day. I'm aiming for the Beer Volcano myself. R'Amen!

Timed out again... usually doesn't double, but my apologies if it does.

—

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.