Foreigners Rigging Our Elections: A Modest Proposal
Russians opened Twitter and Facebook accounts, and used them to say bad things about Hillary Clinton and good things about Trump. They took out Facebook ads that did the same, and organized political events along similar lines.
That's what they're being accused of, anyway.
Just one problem: none of that is election fraud.
In order to evade this point, the media don't use the term "fraud" when discussing why these actions on the part of Russians invalidate Trump's election, and, thus, his presidency. They use terms like "election rigging," or "election interference," or "undue influence."
Just one problem: the acts the Russians* are being accused of are neither "election rigging" nor "election interference."
What the Russians did, assuming the accusations are true, is electoral campaigning. Electoral campaigning is the attempt, through the expression of opinions and information, to persuade voters to vote for one candidate or another. In the history of electoral campaigning, people have used both true information and lies in their attempts at persuasion. There are ethical and practical reasons to punish people for using lies to discredit a candidate. Regrettably, in the history of American politics, such punishment is as rare as hen's teeth.
But no one is discussing whether or not the information conveyed through the Russians' putative Twitter and Facebook accounts was true, or false. That point seems inconsequential to the current furor. The only points that are relevant are: information unfavorable to Hillary Clinton was presented online, to attempt to get people not to vote for her--and Russians did it.
So it is not the veracity of the information that is at stake here: it is that any information unfavorable to Hillary Clinton was presented at all. It is the act of persuasion that is decried. It is, in fact, the act of campaigning itself. The media, the FBI, the CIA, Robert Mueller, most of the Democratic party and some Bush Republicans have decided that electoral campaigning is tantamount to "election interference"--if campaigning is being done on behalf of the wrong candidate.
When it becomes clear exactly what the media, the FBI, Robert Mueller and the others are asserting, it becomes clear why candidates like Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders have also been accused, along with, of course, Donald Trump, of conspiring with Russians to create a fake election result. All these candidates have one thing in common: they all campaigned, at one point or another, against Hillary Clinton. It is the act of campaigning against the establishment candidate which is being decried and potentially criminalized.
It's worth asking, then, what constitutes a clean, genuine election, because by the current logic, every election since the election of George Washington has suffered from "election interference." It's also worth noting that none of the Twitter and Facebook accounts created by David Brock's consulting firm constitute undue influence over the results of the election, nor is that consulting firm being accused of "interference."
Russiagate is a fog of McCarthyism, xenophobia, and, frankly, undemocratic authoritarianism. Think for a minute what it means if it becomes a criminal or treasonable act for a person to express support or opposition to a political candidate. The most logical argument one can extract from this fog is that it's fine for Americans to campaign in American elections, but interference if foreigners do it. The idea would be that foreigners, and foreign states, have too much power over American elections.
Actually, I agree. Foreigners and foreign states do have too much power over American elections. Certain people within America also have too much power over American elections, but that's a topic for another time.
How should we deal with this problem?
If we don't like foreigners campaigning in American elections (a reasonable position), because we're afraid foreigners will have undue influence over our politicians (also a reasonable position) then I'd think we might want to look into foreigners dumping millions of dollars into political candidates' campaigns.
That's my proposal. Let's look at how much money foreigners and foreign interests give to our politicians, especially when on campaign.
Because a few Facebook ads and Twitter accounts amount to jack shit in a world where this happens:
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/chinese-couple-million-dollar-donati...
and this happens:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-13/saudi-arabia-has-funded-20-hil...
and even this happens:
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/25/why-did-the-saudi-regime-and-other-g...
You'd think, if we were so worried about undue foreign influence on our leaders, perhaps we'd be concerned about Chinese nationals dumping millions of dollars into Jeb Bush's campaign. Or that a Saudi prince claimed that Saudi Arabia had funded 20% of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Or that Saudis put millions of dollars into the Clinton Foundation. Similar occurrences among federal politicians are likely legion.
So let's make it illegal for politicians to take large sums of money from foreigners, whether directly or through intermediary organizations like PACs, SuperPACs, and personal or family foundations.
Since we have no interest in doing so, and, apparently, only The Intercept and Zerohedge and similar organizations seem interested in even discussing these donations, the only rational conclusion is that this brouhaha over foreign influence is just so much hypocritical cant.
*A tangential, but important point here is that individual Russian citizens are automatically conflated with the Russian state, much as if someone suggested that every American who expresses a point of view about foreign politics is automatically a CIA agent. I suppose that, from now on, we will all assume that anyone saying bad things about Venezuela's government online is a CIA agent.
Comments
Democrats and all the supposed “progressives” pushing Russiagate
seem to have zero self-awareness of the fact they now sound and react just like the John Birch Society of my childhood, seeing Russian influence everywhere and in everything and everyone who dares to disagree with them.
@lotlizard It's horrifying to see
It's horrifying to see loved ones, who didn't fall for this shit in the 80s, suddenly sounding like the Reagan Administration.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Down with the tweeting traitors, the slimy turn-coats, whose
honey tongues with money sticking out of each side of their mouths, effortless. Down with the book facers, those conning quack salvers. Down with everything.
Es lebe die Revolution!
Vive la révolution!
Viva la Revolución!
Viva la rivoluzione!
Oops. Did you see what the Germans voted for? And the Italians are getting themselves into?
The revolution is dead. But the money is alive and well and kicking.
In Italy the bossoms are up, the democrats are lost and the crooks are beloved. At least something to look forward to.
with the snark that never was ...
https://www.euronews.com/live
German voters signalled a desire to punish the CDU-SPD coalition
presumably for failing to represent the interests of the 99% adequately.
But too bad for the voters! It turns out the joke’s on them — like it or not, what they’re going to get is “weiter so” (more of the same / business as usual).
Substitute the word "Germans" for America and you have US
that was a signal of a flashlight with dying batteries
we won't get "weiter so" (further so), we will get brownish bullshit filling the minds of the ones, who are frustrated and unhappy, provided by the now only opposition with spice and numbers, the AfD. I can not see how this will work. Not "weiter (further) so", rather "worse so".
Vorwärts rechts marsch, marsch.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Here’s what I find depressing about politics in Germany
Either the elite is lying about the growth of the New Right posing a mortal danger, or the elite is made up of people who quite literally couldn’t come up with a new idea to save their lives.
(By “new idea,” I mean a national vision that isn’t U.S. neocon foreign policy and Washington-Consensus neoliberal economic policy.)
don't have a comment, I am just confused, disappointed
and angry. All is more or less new to me around here. In many aspects I find some cultural developments here more American than their own ones, especially the media. All in all I am more comfortable with our media, but I am still absorbing all the changes compared to the seventies.
We will see what happens.
I think we need to wish us all luck. And that especially to you.
https://www.euronews.com/live
They want to build a wall around the internet
They want the only information available to Americans to itself be American, within the pre-determined bounds of "mainstream" discourse, and approved by gatekeepers (i.e., them.) They can do this with television news but not with the free and democratic internet, which frustrates them to no end. So you see them bullying Facebook and Google and companies like that to change their algorithms to protect us from "Russian" content, based on the laughable premise that for citizens of disfavored countries to express any opinion online within x months of an American election constitutes "meddling." The whole thing would be a farce, except that it's sort of working.
And it's notable--though maybe not surprising--that so many of the same people who believe in borderlessness and statelessness when it comes to capital have become protectionists when it comes to information.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." --Noam Chomsky
@movie buff Well, they're doing the
Well, they're doing the same thing to domestic dissidents, except those people are being called racists or Nazis, and banned on that account. Even if they're so left-wing they barely can be described within the American system.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That is true
But in any case the internet's truly democratic days are over, and we've entered a period where if you want anyone to read what you write, you'd better say what the powerful want to hear.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." --Noam Chomsky
after a while nobody will read it anymore /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
far left-wing
I can describe those left wingers in a single word, at least on this site:
"Us."
And our views would only be considered centrist in most of the world!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Absolutely!
The way centrists and the right (if we use that notation) view anybody left of center is Commie-socialist-Marxist-Nazis. In online political discourse, the center and right conflate everything to the left of the middle ground as one ideology, which is very much untrue--we know it, they don't. Nor do they seem to care with their very inflammatory name calling. On c99, according to them, we are all anarcho-commie-socialist libtards seeking to destroy the good ol' US of A.
anarcho-commie-socialist libtards
You been readin' that there Daily Kos agaim, Ed?
That rotgut crap will rot your brain!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Hey, they sound like republicans who hate
Socialism! Since around 2015, anyone who wants what the democrats used to stand for is ostracized by the New Democrats who proudly claim that they are centrists. Why? I'll let you figure that out.
sigh
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
@movie buff Why is it OK for capital
Why is it OK for capital to be borderless, but not human rights?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
These "elite" bizness aholes just want an
endless supply of non-educated, illiterate, brainwashed serfs. F### them and whatever they skittered in on! Rec'd!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
@orlbucfan not so. They need the
not so. They need the 99% educated just enough to perform all the actual work, but not enough to be a threat to the status quo. Which is why they are so ready to mock free public education. Can't have a talented poor develop critical thinking skills! Or worse, gain those skills needed for full participation in the economy without the leash of student debt.
You keep using that word...
Ah, Venezuela...the constant scapegoat of right-wing idiocy.
"If u luv soshlizum so much y don't u muv 2 dang ol' Venezuela dur dur dur!!!!111!" - Every right-winger/centrist ever. Same with North Korea. Most of the morons screaming this shit are either paid corporate/CIA shills or just idiots with a blatant lack of self-awareness who have never been outside of the United States save for tourist Bitch States like Cancun or the Bahamas.
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.
@The Aspie Corner Wow is there ever a
Wow is there ever a coordinated propaganda push on that subject. I don't know why the same isn't done to Bolivia; maybe they're waiting for the government of Venezuela to fall before they move further south. They're already done with Brazil.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
If you read deeper into the news
Like telesur, you can see the difference into what merican propaganda is reporting versus what local news sources publish. US is being a fed a diet of lies to justify another CIA funded coup. On our nickel. Policy is not under our control. The consequence of the lying may not be revealed to US public until many years after the damage has been done, lives lost and social conditions destroyed. It is the legacy of merican imperialism. Wish it would stop.
@QMS I wish it would stop
I wish it would stop too. Been wanting that since I was in my teens.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Speaking of Venezuela....
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8JxHlyaN6Q]
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.
What Unruhe failed to say was that the profits from the state
owned oil producers are used to DIRECTLY finance programs of social uplift - education, health care, food subsidies, housing for the masses, pensions, poverty alleviation.
4 Gains Maduro’s Venezuela Made That Mainstream Media Ignores
Note: short video at that link shows the cause of "protestor" violence in the streets that is shown over and over on western media.
In this respect, Muduro is just another Qaddafi, Assad and even Putin. The one thing these leaders have in common is they socialized the natural wealth of their nations for programs of social uplift. There have been extremely few developing nations in the last century and a half that have escaped the pillaging by the powerful capitalist controlled nations. If the poor countries refused to give away their natural wealth, they were destroyed, either by subterfuge or by military might.
We will be seeing some extreme violence being perpetrated in/on Venezuela due to the upcoming elections. The US doesn't want these elections to take place because they will show the overwhelming support the Venezuelan people have for Maduro.
If the capitalists in the US cannot control a nation's resources, they will visit total destruction upon that nation.
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." - Smedley Butler, War is a Racket, 1935.
Subverted or Crushed
Exactly. Hence Chavez was demonized for over a decade. Heck, I think Venezuela is on an official U.S. list as a terrorist nation. Yeah, they are seriously a threat to the U.S. with all that Venezuelan terrorism cropping up in the States. Ridiculous.
I don't know how Chavez was able to stave off U.S. subversion for as long as he did. But, I notice soon after his passing, and into Maduro, things quickly disintegrated and I absolutely know, it was due to overt forces, under U.S. behest that has fomented this; the propaganda aimed at that nation, and the hatred toward their 'closed for U.S. business model' was palpable in everything published/mentioned by .gov and their minion press. It was obvious.
Just like Ukraine, just like Syria, just like Libya, just like...
which explains why whenever we meet with other
thinking progressives, there are no negative judgements about the best path forward for social betterment. Somehow, those restricted entities were not on the guest list. Doesn't it make you wonder why most thinking individuals you meet are in agreement on the need for change? Not afraid to try anything that gives us a future to steer. Foggattabout the brain deads. They will only be prodded into mental pens. Not much of a hurdle to positive change.
Cancun
Cancun's no "bitch state".
When I was there, I witnessed a wildcat labor demonstration; it passed right by the sidewalk cafe I was at.
I drank a very visible toast to them!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Glad to hear it.
We could certainly use a few wildcat strikes here in Flawer'Duh but we're "Right to Work" so striking is impossible.
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.
@The Aspie Corner so is WV. Didn't
so is WV. Didn't keep teachers from a statewide wildcat strike last month.
You keep using that word...
This was possibly illegal because of campaign finance laws
David Brock's consulting firm constitute undue influence over the results of the election, nor is that consulting firm being accused of "interference."
FaceBook's VP reported that many of the ads that were supposedly financed by Russia were placed after the election, so how does that cause election interference? hmm
Then there's this gem and the Saudis weren't the only country that did this.
Saudis put millions of dollars into the Clinton Foundation
In fact, many people and corporations that had some type of problem with the State Department asked Hillary to intervene for them. After she did they donated millions to her foundation. This is precisely what pay to play means. But we were told that wasn't wrong because of all the good the foundation does. Funny, I looked at their websites and I really couldn't tell exactly HOW the foundation actually helped anyone. Except of course they got AIDS drugs in Africa which would be a great thing if there wasn't something nefarious with it.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
"many of the ads
, that were supposedly financed by Russia were placed after the election..." Also, there were negative Trump ads, as well as positive ones. (I'm not sure if there were any positive ones about Hillary...I mean, how could they?) It was clickbait, trying to get ad revenue, nothing more.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I've read so many articles saying that no one needed to
buy an ad that told us how bad Hillary would be as president. Her past actions did that for her. The FB VP also said that most of them were aimed at Russians, not Americans.
In addition to the FB ads being debunked, the "Assad used chemical weapons on his citizens" has also been debunked. By whom? James Mattis of all people. Three times he has said that. However in his next breath he says that he's still going to blame Russia for it. This is beyond fucked up. People will only hear the last one.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
@snoopydawg not being able to
not being able to demonstrate concrete accomplishments is a hallmark of the Clinton Cartel. That same kind of weasel wording was omnipresent in Her Heinous' campaign - proximity to important events implying she had some part in the outcome, but on closer inspection it's not what it at first seemed. But when you point out this fact, you're attacked as a BernieBro (during the campaign) or a Russian stooge (Russiagate) or whataboutism (Clinton Foundation's shady history of selling access to power). Never a direct refutation of the claim, because that would narrow the range of reasonable interpretations.
It's why Hillary could challenge anyone to find an instance of her changing her position in exchange for a contrbution. It's hard to show change when her stated positions are deliberately misleading, ambiguous, or open to the listener's interpretation.
You keep using that word...
You are absolutely right
one other thing about Her and her speeches to the big banks prior to announcing her run for the presidency. We were saying that it looked wrong because her being paid by the very banks that she would then have authority over. Her supporters would come back and say that just because she took that money didn't mean that she would change her opinion of what needs to be done if they mess up again. Here is where I agree with them. Of course she wouldn't change her opinion because she had already made up her mind about it. She would never had held them accountable because she would never see that they did anything wrong. "What fraud? I don't see any fraud."
It is just unbelievable that people could not see that for what it was.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Great essay.
I've tweeted out portions of it in screen shots along with the link to the main post.
This is a cogent, well argued rebuttal to the hypocritical, hyperventilating #Russiagate purveyors.
https://twitter.com/StevenDBT/status/970381342885273601
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
@Steven D Wow, thanks, Steven.
Wow, thanks, Steven.
It was just an explosion of my irritation. I'm glad you found it useful, and seriously grateful that you put it on Twitter. Since I don't go there anymore, that results in a lot of things I do--or care about--not getting publicized much.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Put it on Way of the Bern subreddit
and Kossacks for Sanders also.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/82078x/foreigners_have_be...
Gotta promote the good stuff on this site.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
@Steven D Although I may not be
Although I may not be a Bernie supporter anymore, trying to make him out to be a Putin puppet is, as usual, despicable.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Americans are propaganda victims
Americans are propaganda victims and they can't even see it, because they have been so dumbed down, they can't think critically anymore.
It's "The Big Lie" that's being shouted down upon us from all corners. Even Amy Goodman is repeating the Lie ad-nauseam. It saddens me greatly how far she has fallen. Local muckrakers here in Seattle, Geov Parish, and Maria Thomchick, who have a long history of being progressive advocates, repeat the Lie on air on Saturday mornings. "Down with Tyranny" website is on the Lie Train. Even the skeptical left is no longer skeptical. C99 is about the only place I can go online where I'm not surrounded by sycophants. Same in person, 90% of my friends have become Hillbots. On Facewaste, I'm a communist Trumpster to most people.
The main problem is the un-enforcement of the "Fairness Doctrine", and the logically dishonest and emotionally driven dreck that passes for public debate over the airwaves and cable TV. NPR and PBS is complete BS now too. Americans have become so de-educated, and divorced of critical thinking skills, they cant even see logical fallacies when they are being shouted right in their face.
@BORG_US_BORG Not Down with Tyranny!
Not Down with Tyranny! GODDAMMIT!
I suppose when Democracy Now! falls, one can expect that everything above a certain size will fall.
Another way of looking at it: when they come after BAR and Jackpine Radicals and Debbie the Sane Progressive, you know they have already eliminated all the larger and better-funded purveyors of dissent.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Sane Progressive capitulated to the far-right anyway.
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.
@The Aspie Corner I find that difficult
I find that difficult to believe. She's not precisely the type to capitulate, having continued to say her piece until she was banned from YouTube.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
She's still on youtube.
And she's fully capitulated to the Gundamentalists. Every time there's a mass shooting, there she is screaming "FALSE FLAG!!!11!" and "Teh Gubmint gonna take R Gunz!" and other conspiracies along with the rest of them. If that isn't capitulation, what the hell is it?
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.
@The Aspie Corner Saying a shooting
Saying a shooting is a false flag operation is upsetting to people. Sometimes saying a shooting is a false flag is inaccurate. But it is not necessarily right-wing. A very large number of left-wing people called 9/11 a false flag, for instance. The fact that they got their reputations shredded did not make them right-wing. In my opinion, it didn't make them wrong, either; personally, I feel that, since there was never any serious investigation of the matter, we will never get proof one way or the other. In the absence of proof, the bulk of the evidence--including the fact that the Bush Administration and the military showed little interest in investigating the incident--leans, it seems to me, toward it being a false flag.
That belief may make me a lunatic or a fool, but it doesn't make me right-wing.
As for the government coming to take our guns...
I, myself, have absolutely no trust of the government, to the point that I now think that marijuana legalization might be used to get small suppliers and growers--and users--out into the open--and then the legalization changed to make what those small growers and suppliers are doing illegal again. Like flushing out game.
If the government wanted to take our guns, they already would have. That's the idiocy of that particular right-wing position, not the fact that the government is an untrustworthy authoritarian structure intent on creating a more and more extensive police state and depriving more and more ordinary people of basic rights. The right wing is right about that. So are the parts of the left wing that believe that.
The truth is that the government doesn't need gun control legislation to "take away our guns." They can already take away our cars, our houses, or anything else they please through civil forfeiture. They might have to plant some illegal drugs to be able to seize our property thus, but that's not hard nor that unusual these days when a Black family driving through Texas is pulled over and told that they'd better give the cops all their cash or the cops will plant drugs and say they're taking their kids to a drug drop-off, and they will never see their kids again.
Both locally and federally, the government is a pile of deceptive authoritarian crap. Just because a lot of right-wing people think that doesn't make it untrue.
I'm sorry if Debbie has gotten on the anti-gun-control bandwagon, as that is, in its own way, deeply stupid and she should know better. That's not enough for me to say she's "capitulated to the right wing" and certainly what she said about the Vegas shooting isn't enough.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The far-right may 'hate' the government.....
....but at the first sign of authoritarianism, they immediately kiss ass in the same manner as centrists pretending to be 'left'. Those sons of bitches bowed to Dipshit so easily because he told them exactly what they wanted to hear the way so many bowed to Obama when he said 'Hope and Change'.
As for the Gundamentalists and 9/11 truth folks? They're just obscuring the forest for a couple of trees. Same with the 'Deep State', 'Jews', and 'Frankfurt School' folks. At the end of the day it all comes down to Capitalism and the alienation and outright destruction caused by it in order for it to sustain itself.
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.
@The Aspie Corner I seriously
I seriously disagree with you about 9/11. I've seen nothing in the past 15 years that makes me disagree with Gore Vidal's analysis of the subject, nor that of Stan Goff, a military veteran and West Point instructor:
From Gore Vidal's "The Enemy Within:" http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/WTCDEMO/wot/vidal1.htm
Complicity. The behavior of President George W. Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to all sorts of not unnatural suspicions. I can think of no other modern chief of state who would continue to pose for 'warm' pictures of himself listening to a young girl telling stories about her pet goat while hijacked planes were into three buildings.
Constitutionally, Bush is not only chief of state, he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Normally, a commander in such a crisis would go straight to headquarters and direct operations while receiving the latest intelligence.
This is what Bush actually did — or did not do — according to Stan Goff, a retired US Army veteran who has taught military science and doctrine at West Point. Goff writes, in 'The So-called Evidence is a Farce': 'I have no idea why people aren't asking some very specific questions about the actions of Bush and company on the day of the attacks. Four planes get hijacked and deviate from their flight plan, all the while on FAA radar.'
Goff, incidentally, like the other astonished military experts, cannot fathom why the government's automatic 'standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking' was not followed. Once a plane has deviated from its flight-plan, fighter planes are sent up to find out why. That is law and does not require presidential approval, which only needs to be given if there is a decision to shoot down a plane. Goff spells it out: 'The planes were hijacked between 7:45 and 8:10am. Who is notified? This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified and going to a Florida elementary school to hear children read.
'By around 8:15am it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handling teachers. By 8:45am, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower, Bush is settling in with children for his photo op. Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously and one has just dived into the twin towers, and still no one notifies the nominal Commander-in-Chief.
'No one has apparently scrambled [sent aloft] Air Force interceptors either. At 9:03, Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower. At 9:05 Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff whispers to Bush [who] "briefly turns somber" according to reporters. Does he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No. He resumes listening to second-graders ... and continues the banality even as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of Washington DC.
'Has he instructed Card to scramble the Air Force? No. An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a public statement telling the United States what they have already figured out — that there's been an attack on the World Trade Centre. There's a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been scrambled to defend anything yet? No.
'At 9:35, this plane conducts another turn, 360 [degrees] over the Pentagon, all the while being tracked by radar, and the Pentagon is not evacuated, and there are still no fast-movers from the Air Force in the sky over Alexandria and DC. Now the real kicker: a pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school for Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled downward spiral descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, brings the plane in so low and flat that it clips the electrical wires across the street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the side of the building at 460 knots.
'When the theory about learning to fly this well at the puddle-jumper school began to lose ground, it was added that they received further training on a flight simulator. This is like saying you prepared your teenager for her first drive on the freeway at rush hour by buying her a video driving game ... There is a story being constructed about these events.'
There is indeed, and the more it is added to the darker it becomes. The nonchalance of General Richard B. Myers, acting Joint Chief of Staff, is as puzzling as the President's campaigning-as-usual act. Myers was at the Capitol chatting with Senator Max Cleland. A sergeant, writing later in the AFPS (American Forces Press Service) describes Myers at the Capitol. 'While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television report that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre. "They thought it was a small plane or something like that," Myers said. So the two men went ahead with the office call.'
Whatever Myers and Cleland had to say to each other (more funds for the military?) must have been riveting because, during their chat, the AFPS reports, 'the second tower was hit by another jet. "Nobody informed us of that," Myers said. "But when we came out, that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit."' Finally, somebody 'thrust a cellphone in Myers' hand' and, as if by magic, the commanding general of Norad — our Airspace Command — was on the line just as the hijackers mission had been successfully completed except for the failed one in Pennsylvania. In later testimony to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Myers said he thinks that, as of his cellphone talk with Norad, 'the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft'. It was 9:40am. One hour and 20 minutes after air controllers knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked; 50 minutes after the North Tower was struck.
This statement would have been quite enough in our old serious army/air force to launch a number of courts martial with an impeachment or two thrown in. First, Myers claims to be uninformed until the third strike. But the Pentagon had been overseeing the hijacked planes from at least the moment of the strike at the first tower: yet not until the third strike, at the Pentagon, was the decision made to get the fighter planes up. Finally, this one is the dog that did not bark. By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8:15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted or shot down. I don't think that Goff is being unduly picky when he wonders who and what kept the Air Force from following its normal procedure instead of waiting an hour and 20 minutes until the damage was done and only then launching the fighters. Obviously, somebody had ordered the Air Force to make no move to intercept those hijackings until ... what?
Vidal became, in later years, more cagey about this, saying that this version of events was a possibility rather than a certainty. It seems like a pretty good possibility to me, and the questions it raises have never been seriously addressed.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
So Dubya let it happen. I already knew that.
I also found Gore Vidal's words fascinating. Thanks.
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.
@The Aspie Corner Yeah,
Yeah, this is some good shit. I miss Vidal.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Aspie - I missed that - can you show
what she said to support your judgment about her?
https://www.euronews.com/live
@BORG_US_BORG a communist Trumpster
a communist Trumpster
How in the hell is that even possible?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
If you don't/didn't support Hillary
and the other neoliberals in the Dem Party it's become automatic to either label you a Trump supporter, someone who caused Trump to win, or a Russian bot.
I'm dead serious, this is the level of brainwashing to which so many have succumbed.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
@Steven D But you can't be a
But you can't be a Communist and support Trump.
Does anybody still know what Communist means?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Logic has flown the coop since Her lost to Trump
Actually it flew away right after Obama was elected. How else can you explain how the wars that so called progressives once frowned upon suddenly became acceptable? People used to flick off what the intelligence agencies were telling us when they gave their reasons for why we had to go invade or bomb some country across the pond?
Obama, Clapper, Mueller and others have stated that they have seen no evidence of Russian interference, yet people still believe that there was. After Mueller indicted the 13 ham sandwiches he said that what they did had no effect on the election, and yet people are still waiting with baited breath for him to frog march Trump out of the WH.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
@CSTMS - no, nobody today knows what communism was
You would have been an adult in the times of the fifties to sixties and actually lived in a communist country or have very close family ties to those who lived under communism to know what it was.
I think that's exactly the reason why today they use the Russian commie smear at anybody who just isn't impressed with their own democratic party policies of whatever leaning, neo-lib or otherwise. They know the old feelings of being scared can always be used and picked up to manipulate today's US populations. People don't know what communism was, but they remember what the US told them what communism was in the fifties and sixties in their propaganda radio and TV stations. They scared the kids in the fifties and sixties within in the US.
Strangely the US propaganda, though being transmitted in Germany in the fifties and sixties as well, didn't influence Germans a great deal, at least not the average population. Of course the conservative politicians played to the US propaganda playbook and we the Western German population were of course grateful to the US for not having to endure the communist East German propaganda and their oppression of freedoms of speech and mobility.
But at the same time we had some real socialist politicians, who didn't back down, in West Germany as well. So, those of us, who were too left leaning ack then were smeared Sozis.
I have asked around people in my current neighborhood, who just watch German TV and are my age (almost 70) here in Germany, if they are nowadays scared of the Russians. I have not anyone heard saying yes. But still quite a lot of people don't distinguish between the Sovjet Union and the current Russians in the United States.
So, hinting at Russians, the evil folks, who mess in the elections, always works in your country. It shows that the propaganda in the US of the post wwII cold war times put their own population and kids through, just has been transferred to the next generations. That is imo the fault of the TV media and may be what is taught in US schools (but that's just a guess, I didn't go through the US highschool system and from the little I have seen with my son, I would say most kids didn't learn anything about it at all).
I remember well that my family members, who were either teenagers or young adults in WWII always laughed at US propaganda radio stations. The US propaganda was not taken seriously. Then we switched on the radio stations in East Germany and stopped laughing, it was even worse.
I remember well, when we had to drive from West Germany to West Berlin, passing through East Germany, we were on alert and borderline scared. All Western printed newspapers in the car had to be hidden and you were not allowed to leave the one route that put you through to West Berlin.
Apparently some (also here on C99p) in their defense of Russians, also like to see in the history of Russian communism only what they want to see. I think it's good to remember that the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall was built to prevent ordinary East German citizens to flee from the communist regime and cage them in and was not build to defend the East Germans from aggressive capitalist Western regimes' intrusion.
On the other hand, many of our family members, had close relatives in communist Eastern Germany, and it would be very hard to convince a West German to believe that the Russian communist were holier than the evil capitalist Westerners. I think it would have just caused a tz, tz, pfft kind of small laugh and that would have been the end of it.
I am sorry that I get a little "uhmm, what, heh" kind of a reader when the Russiagate saga is for the upteenth time reported over and over and the the Putin's puppet smear taken way too personally, When I see that some, who in the defense of Russia and Putin pointed to facts over and over and so compassionately, that they lose their balance and can't accept easily anymore someone, who is hinting vaguely, that not all of what looks reasonable and clear, really is so clear, it makes me sad.
What I also feel is happening is the undermining and co-option of German media by the borderless news productions through online foreign language websites of US based English reports. It leaks into the natinal media one article at the time.
If I do a normal news google or bing search, I do get the same coverage from US news bureaus or their international news bureaus in Germany and France and from everywhere. So, I consider that a bad thing to happen. I really don't need to read Huffington Post in German. Or other originally US based or Russian based news coverage, through their foreign news offices in my own mother language.
The US propaganda is seeping into the national overseas media and that's what I don't like. I haven't seen Russian propaganda or French propaganda or British propaganda seeping into the German news coverage on TV. That's the difference between US propaganda's effectiveness vs. Russians.
I think most of it is history anyway and not relevant. Internationalism has shown to be much more complex and it's not enlightened by black and white capitalist vs communist vs socialist smear tactics.
I have just a lot of compassion for those Americans who have suffered greatly in the Vietnam War and later greatly through the intolerable social and economic inequality that has developed over the last decades. In that sense, I am yours truly compassionate C99p puppet, love you all and come back every day.
Thank God there is music. And food. And gardens. And cats and dogs. And fiction movies. And a lot of writers here that are so good, I can't be sure I understand what they try to hint at. And always they react very kind and patient. So thanks to everybody, for being patient with me and for "schlepping me along".
https://www.euronews.com/live
Not since the country went down the rabbit hole
I'll let Humpty Dumpty explain it for you:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
@BORG_US_BORG Americans have become so
Americans have become so de-educated, and divorced of critical thinking skills, they cant even see logical fallacies when they are being shouted right in their face.
All true, but something else is also at work here. A lot of people who were rational, ethical truth-tellers as recently as early 2016 have gone for this shit hook, line, and sinker. That's what has been most profoundly demoralizing for me over the past year. It's as if the liberals have collectively gone mad. And their responses to people who refuse to join them in their talking points are as insane as the crap the right wing was saying to dissidents after 9/11. YOU'RE A TRAITOR WHO SUPPORTS OSAMA BIN LADEN! YOU'RE A FIFTH COLUMN RUSSIAN MOLE!
Or, as somebody said on here, you're a Communist Trump supporter.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
most profoundly demoralizing
we have to take into consideration the neurosis of the brainwash treatment. The conditions most minds, still able to absorb unfiltered information, are not conducive to either rational thought nor critical thinking. While the choices left for an individual willing to maintain a degree of sanity in this are limited, I think what we are seeing is a response to either swallowing madness or going along wth the status quo. Obviously, the stronger persuasion to to shut-up and adapt to the new norm. Please do not be demoralized by lack of sane choices. There exists many other ways of responding and coping.
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
It's like a real life "Invasion of the Body Snatchers/ They Live" mashup. It's an unfortunate zeitgeist that defies explanation.
The worst of it is, the sainthood that HRC has achieved in their minds. They view her just loss as some unholy coup of her "rightful heir" (most qualified ever in the history of the universe, LOL)/ ascension to the throne.
They are completely amnesiac over hers (and Bill's) shady, long history of corruption and disastrous policies (NAFTA, Repeal of Glas-Stegall, Communications Act of 1996, "Welfare Reform"(defunding) to name a few hits), her own votes for war, destabilization, and pay to play schemes with Russia and Saudi Arabia. And in absolute denial about her would be neo-lib disaster capitalism agenda if she had won the GE. Just like Obama, she would have sold out her base in a NY second, in the name of bipartisanship, as long as it would disenfranchise everyone except the top .01%..
They aren't amnesiac
They refuse to see her for who she really is. Same with Obama as the article I essayed showed. And even when solid proof is displayed, they still refuse to believe it. This type of attachment to people who they really have no clue about is deranged. Neither of them gives a rat's ass about them. Unless they are in the top 10%. Maybe.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
@snoopydawg This is starting to
This is starting to look like a cult.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
"Most qualified" leaker on earth. Unsecured server much?
thanks, I am really enjoying the comments and this essay.
First term Secretary of State Clinton got all the CIA assets in China killed for her first act of breach. She is not qualified to be anything ever again. Never ever ever! heh
NY Times: Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations
Booya! And how is the Imran Awan case coming along? Her law firm represents him too, right? I don't understand how people can be so thick about everything, cannot believe it. It's not easy for me to have to suspend my disbelief every damned day, three six five. oh well
peace
@BORG_US_BORG They're also
They're also forgetting that in a Republic, there are no "turns."
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Well at least they didn't call you Putin's puppet
or a Russian bot. It really is amazing how many people have drunk the Kool Aide, isn't it? People who saw through the Saddam has WMDs" are now believing the agencies that they used to mock.
Sigh
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Drives me crazy.
At least in my experience, I’m noticing people either don’t know or don’t care that these are the same agencies, and sometimes the exact same people, who were the worst people ever for their Gulf War II lies. It seems “Trump Bad!” is stronger than any earned skepticism.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
You are not alone
I get the same thing. People I have known nearly my entire life, that I always considered critical thinking, questioning and well-reasoned, are now unrecognizable. They will immediately bash ANY question or even just the utterance of a debatable point, with some absurdity that I must be falling for Russian propo, or a closet Trump supporter.
Beyond irritating. Especially, when from day-to-day, their own utterances and positions are contradicting themselves; they are completely irrational and reactionary to the latest outrage, with nary an ounce of reflection or reasoned position.
Hey, guys.
I was called away to puppy-training and housework.
This was a spur-of-the-moment essay. It was going to be a comment but then I decided the space of a comment was inadequate to my irritation.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Glad you made it an essay
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
@Steven D Thanks!
Thanks!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
This is far more than 'adequate' CStMS
It puts an acutely observed solid floor under our feet.
You're a major analytic essayist.
My idea: The diversion is needed to cover the amputation of our future.
Also that all the time that has been 'saved' over the last 200 years by making everything happen fast is a debt that will become payable in full by the lifetimes of nearly everything now living.
As W. R. Bion wrote some forty years ago, perhaps some bacteria may survive.
The true state of Russiagate...
They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore
“Shocked that clickbait ad farms have been using this platform!”
Perfect.
This political system is doing just fine even without foreign
influence. As Jimmy Carter himself said a few years ago when things were much better:
"now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.”
Two main things this Russia bullshit indicate to me, it takes the focus off the fact that this political system is completely controlled by an oligarchy while making people think if our government fixes the foreign influence issue they will have strengthened our "democracy", and it helps paint Russia as an enemy of the state which is what the oligarchy needs to continue it's global military imperialism.
@Big Al Yeah, as I've said
Yeah, as I've said elsewhere, you can't trash a garbage house, and you can't corrupt American elections.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Perfect excuse for DHS to seize control over the voting process
The way the U.S. conducts elections is already fishy enough — just wait until the last remnants of independent observability and verifiability vanish behind that “national security” curtain.
British Data Mining company admits to US election meddling
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMqIU2ue0eE]
The worst part? It's owned by the Mercers.
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.
Great essay.
This is making me crazy also. The words matter and I’m convinced the misspeaking is intentional. Look at the DNC email leaks that are still called hacking. It matters what they call this. Subtle shifts in words set the narrative they want.
In this case though, its super depressing to me that otherwise intelligent people can’t see the absurdity in claiming 13 people running ads on Facebook swayed our election. That’s barely a piss in the ocean vs. all the other election related Noise out there.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Shhhhh, you speak to much truth
GREAT ESSAY!!!
One must remember how the FBI/CIA/MIC interfered
also, Loretta Lynch, Comey, Brennan and Clapper
all had their moments of interference.
Bottom line, our government has long been bought
and sold by the highest bidder to the their fave
politician err, foundation.
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
Our government was never ours to begin with.
It was always wholly owned by the capitalists, for the capitalists.
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.
Great piece, CStMS.
You should consider sending it to Counterpunch or somewhere similar also.
I'm too cloudy now with a head cold, that's getting worse by the minute as night settles in, to add anything much.
Great comments too.
Sad to hear (from BORG US BORG) that Down With Tyranny are also chomping on Russian Red Herring Hysteria. And Amy Goodman, I'm not listening to her much anymore because of her lack of integrity on this subject. Which is a shame because she's practically the only one doing news about stuff that really effects the 99% and usually has great guests who come from dissenting backgrounds who will never be heard on MSM. As Eduardo Galeano, who I was turned onto from her show, titled one of his books, "Upside Down," which is what everything is at the moment.
It just makes me appreciate and revere Jimmy Dore, Lee Camp, Tim Black, The Rational National and Kyle Kulinski so much more. It's a weird time in this fucking country.
It shouldn't be like we're watching a master class in propaganda. We've been down this road so many times in this country, from the Red Scare in the early 20th Century to McCarthyism to 9/11, that it should be a joke. The propaganda just gets stupider and stupider, but it blankets most people who only get their "news" from the MSM. It's just that we don't know our own history, especially with respect to how the FBI and CIA actually operate as political arms to stifle opposition and that our gov't, captured in the straitjacket of an uber-capitalist economy, is nothing more than an auction house to the highest bidder.
As Gore Vidal called us, "The United States of Amnesia."
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Why has Democracy Now jumped the shark?
Because of its funding sources. I heard about this a few weeks ago, but I couldn't find a source for it. This is from The Boiling Frog - Sibel Edmonds
Now we know why Amy is all in on Russia Russia Russia! This is sad to learn. I was upset when I listened to her ranting about Russia and wondered why she sold out. Now I know.
So it's true. Money talks and people will sell themselves out if the price is right.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Ha!
It's what I've been saying for a long time now, the alternative media was taken over by money and they do the same damn thing the corporate media does, anything that keeps their money trains going. I tend to internet search the net worth of these "progressives leaders and heroes" and invariably it's in the one percentile of income, maybe not wealth. Sounds like Goodman is solidly in the one percent. Ivy league one percenters are not going to lead a revolution anywhere but into a ditch.
Pretty sad, isn't it?
After watching Rachel sell herself out for $7,000,000 a year $30,000/day, I would read DN and could not believe what she was saying. Then I came across this DN show being discussed and someone in the comments said that she was being financed by the Ford foundation and some others like that. The person she had on this show about what was happening in Syria closed the book on Amy for me. Follow the links in this to see who all is involved with the person she had on her show. Every one of them are war criminals and it sickens me to realize what we have done to Syria and its citizens. Americans need to wake the fuck up and understand what our country is/has done to too many people and countries. Sadly I think that your list of sellouts will be long.
The Most Disgusting Democracy Now show evah!
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
The incriminating videos on that site have been deleted by
YouTube censorship. You can now find them on Steemit if you search using video descriptors. Unfortunately, Google is also severely censoring anything that goes against the American Deep State. Most of what will appear in response to searches will be the Mockingbird media.
Russian based Yandex has a search engine. But, with net neutrality now in the process of being destroyed, any "unauthorized" use will be choked.
It's only a matter of time when the chip implanted in your ass at birth will give your nethers a sharp shock for engaging in Wrongthink.
@Big Al Sorry to be all "one
Sorry to be all "one true Scotsman," but if you invariably repeat the same junk the "mainstream" media does, you're no longer "alternative."
"Alternative" isn't about how rich you are, though it can be about how your station/venue gets funded. "Alternative" isn't about being left or right, either. "Alternative" simply means that you don't allow your material to be dictated by wealth or power.
There aren't many of us left. C99, Black Agenda Report, Jackpine Radicals, Tim Black, Jamarl Thomas, Debbie Lusignan--I'm sure there are a few others. There are some on the right, too, but I'm less familiar with them.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@snoopydawg They bought her off? I
They bought her off? I was assuming she had been intimidated into it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I never dreamed
we would fall for the propaganda so easily. I am astonished, it's unreal to me. People who I know, who are supposedly "open-minded" and hold "advanced" degrees have fallen for the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. I am watching this happen in total amazement and shock. But then I read somewhere that Germany in the 30's was considered one of the best educated with some of the highest of numbers of advanced degrees. So much for education. We still behave like a bunch of lemmings.
So I sadly agree when you say;
. For all the grave problems this planet is facing, the ease by which people are propagandized seems to me to be among the most serious problem of all. It guarantees that we will never be able to address the other problems.
@randtntx It's horrifying to me
It's horrifying to me too, and there's an essay in that as well, but a highly unpleasant one.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Equally horrifying
To me is the ease in which the intelligence community uses the media to employ effective psy-ops campaigns on the masses at will. Decade after decade.
I had a conversation with a stranger yesterday where I had to politely listen to why the movie "The Post" should've won for best picture at the Academy Awards last night. Frankly, it was all I could do to not rip her fantasy over the integrity of the press to shreds. I am so cynical at this point, I would have no trouble believing that movie was made expressly for the intended effect of "reminding" us how vital our intrepid and courageous journalists are to the health of our democracy so that we may get all starry eyed over the sacrifices our noble servants of the Fourth Estate make for us each day.
A Very Necessary Narrative for the rulers who purge our pay checks each week, no?
So, perhaps it is less surprising to me that so many people are falling for this shit when they are still plugged into the very means by which the intelligence community scrambles their brains.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Thanks for taking apart
the propaganda step by step. That's helpful. I'm going to read it again and put it in my brain for future use.
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