The internet has killed trust

When your only access to persons you have not met is through the internet, you are standing on shaky ground. With the complete collapse in trust of formerly solid leftwing institutions, due to their selling out to TPTB or being crushed by TPTB, people on the left literally do not know whom to trust.

You can see this happening right on this board. In three recent essays,

The Infantilization of Americans, by strifedelivery
Pullin’ their Counterpunches? (you decide), by Wendy Davis
The Python constricting American thought, by Alligator Ed

people argued about whether Bernie was a sheepdog, whether Glen Greenwald could be trusted. Everyone agreed that Amy Goodman was a complete sellout. The fact that we are arguing about the few people who have (at least at one point in time) made major contributions to the anti-corporate cause tells the tale. TPTB are victorious. We do not trust each other. We fight with each other. We have been fooled (Obama), or been sold out after the fact (Bernie), so many times that we are deservedly gun-shy and paranoid.

After the farcical Bernie primary, I gave up believing that this country was a democracy. Having made that judgment, electoral politics became a joke. I simply cannot get worked up over primary candidates that will be run over by "CIA Democrats", candidates who will not be covered by the corporate media, "centrist (read corporate) Democrats who are electable in Red districts, candidates who will "trim their sails" to get elected. That route is futile.

For me, the only route available is some kind of organizing outside of the two party system; organizing that puts pressure on the political system without become part of it.

The remainder of this essay is one example of the problems encountered trying to do that.

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There are genuine left websites, but they are too ideological to attract a big following. For example, WSWS - the one that discovered the Google censorship algorithm - has some great stories, but they are hardcore Trotskyites. Jesus, they are still living 100 years in the past. And, don't we all recall that the neocons started out as Trotskyites?

So, I have no choice but to look at the websites that TPTB don't algo-censor: places like Quartz and Jacobin. They express modestly leftish opinions, and I expect that I am being manipulated by their choice of topics and authors. Still, just to maintain credibility, they have to let some interesting material past their editors.

The other day, I saw a story at Jacobin: A Socialist Silicon Valley by someone named Ben Tarnoff. The story was interesting and had a distinctly socialist point of view.

But while socialists can and should make common cause with antitrust liberals, our projects diverge in significant ways. We may agree on the need to confront big business, but we disagree on what should take its place. The antitrust answer is smaller business: they believe markets can generate good social outcomes, so long as a vigilant state acts to ensure that markets are competitive.

By contrast, socialists generally want to shrink markets. In the words of Ellen Meiksins Wood, we want “the decommodification of as many spheres of life as possible and their democratization.” This means not replacing big business with small business — although that may prove a desirable short-term strategy to weaken capital — but replacing businesses big and small with publicly and cooperatively owned alternatives. It means not making markets more competitive but less dominant — less central to our survival and our flourishing and the organization of our common life.

I then noticed that Mr. Tarnoff had several other stories on Jacobin, all in the same bent. This was looking interesting in terms of working outside party structures. So I started to investigate Mr. Tarnoff; and that's when the paranoia set in.

Mr. Tarnoff is a 2007 "summa cum laude" Harvard graduate. (I guess the grade inflation is so bad that you have to mention SCL these days to distinguish yourself from all the other elitists at Harvard.) He has a website chock full of interesting socialist articles.

But, after that, all the collateral I turn up makes me think he is a sheepdog. He appears on Chris Lydon and Tom Ashbrook's Libertarian gab fests. He writes for the Guardian (formerly leftwing, now corporate), the NYT, the SF Chronicle. He writes highbrow books about Mark Twain and American literature. I just get this Leonard Bernstein vibe about him, the feeling that his heart (and his comfortable life style) is not in socialist revolution.

Maybe I'm just paranoid; or maybe the google is blocking out links to seriously subversive stuff he has done. His wife runs a netzine called "Logic" that has a cutesy, minimalist layout that reminds me, worrisomely, of Wired Magazine.

On Facebook, the magazine has announced a meeting near Harvard next month (He lives in NYC.) with the title:

Technology and Inequality: The New Social Contract

The speakers are the kind of highbrow techies you might expect: Cornell professors with appointments at Microsoft Research, and so forth. OK. I can buy that.

But, the venue is something called "The Humanist Hub", across the street from the JFK School of Government at Harvard. When you check their website (It became unreachable for 30+ minutes while I was writing this. A coincidence, I'm sure.) you find:

Humanists, Atheists, Agnostics and Allies: Welcome to your Community.

Its board contains (from memory, since the website is unreachable): Edmund O. Wilson (uber-sociobiologist), Steven Pinker (Enightenment cheerleader and longtime debater of Chomsky), Bank of Sweden Prize-winner Amaratta Sen (economist, not overly familiar with him), and one other academic heavyweight whom I forget superannuated, windbag philosopher, Daniel Dennett. Among the lightweights is the Atheist Humanist"chaplain" of Harvard.

Great, let's mix technical policy with a high profile atheist group at Harvard that is spoiling for a fight with fundamentalists. That will keep things clear. Having elitist atheists on your team is the way to reach the working class with your socialist ideas.

Despite all I've said, I might attend this meeting, if the website ever comes back up; but I will treat the place as hostile territory.

In closing, I hope you can see why I have taken to quoting Uncle Joe Stalin:

I trust no one, not even myself.

-Joseph Stalin

If anyone has any direct knowledge of Mr. Tarnoff, it would help me cut through the internet fog.

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Advantage: TPTB.

It's far easier to sow doubt than inspire trust.
Advantage: TPTB

If we allow our disappointments and disillusionments to overpower our need to trust and love each other, they win. We must continue to risk trusting others and loving others for there to be any hope for the future.

I'm not willing to give up just yet. I'd rather be disappointed again, and then try again. What other choice do we have?

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

Wink's picture

I've got nuthin' but high
@ovals49
hopes, I got high hopes,
I got high apple pie in the sky hopes!
The 0.01% only win over my dead body.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

of everything now, who could not be after watching this shit show? I am not in a great mood today, my negativity is high after watching 4 friends basically give two shits about our wars while worrying about Mueller, Rosenstein, Stormy... They are pretty much all convinced that Impeachment is the answer and I've just had to cut off some communication for a while as they're not going to listen anymore. Not to that, it is far too big a thing to stop so I guess focusing on pink hats and Impeachment serves them well but I will not participate in that. For me to go back to believing in any politician or electoral change I would have to remove from my brain all that I've read and learned over the last 8 years or so. Can't be done. Will NOT be done.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

The fact that we are arguing about the few people who have (at least at one point in time) made major contributions to the anti-corporate cause tells the tale. TPTB are victorious.

If people have earned some trust, then they deserve some trust.
That doesn't mean you have to believe everything they say, but it does mean that you should be spending most of your time attacking people that you KNOW are your enemies.

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CS in AZ's picture

@gjohnsit

so I must disagree that people who have seemed trustworthy in the past should necessarily be trusted or given a pass when they start being disingenuous. I don’t understand your position to admonish others on what they “should” care about, but for me when a seemingly trustworthy person starts talking BS, it’s entirety valid — in fact necessary for critical thinking— to question that turn of events and pay attention to it. It’s a tried and true tactic for propagandists to earn trust of a readership or audience before they start lying and leading them down the garden path and spoon feeding them whatever misinformation they want.

Or maybe sometimes a basically trustworthy source just goes astray themselves. Matt Taibbi is one like that, generally good but occasionally wrong. It’s important to question those sources most of all. We already know that the known enemies are full of it, spending time “attacking” them is useless in my opinion. Looking carefully and critically at those who we think are trustworthy sources is more important to getting to something like the truth.

Nobody should get a pass on current misstatements because they previously said things that were right.

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arendt's picture

@CS in AZ

If someone has told the truth consistently, I will listen to something that I think is wrong...for a while. But, when they start consistently lying - I'm looking at you, Rachel Maddow - then they go into my garbage can.

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@CS in AZ

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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@CS in AZ for me when a seemingly trustworthy person starts talking BS, it’s entirety valid — in fact necessary for critical thinking— to question that turn of events and pay attention to it.

Because it's not about the person, it's about the idea. Does the idea hold up, or not? If not, then don't listen to that person when they spout bullshit.

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"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

Granma's picture

Read sketches about both him and his wife's families.
One thing I read by him that i liked is that he proposes net neutrality isn't enough. He said we need a publicly owned and operated Internet. It sounds to me as though he is a guy worth keeping an eye on. He is young, smart, may be in process of changing or forming his adult life/world/political views.

I think the answer is that we don't put too much trust in any one person. We agree with and support when and where we can. Don't "throw them away" over one or two things on which we disagree, unless those are major issues. But nobody gets pedestal status.

I was one of those people who was very impressed with Bernie. He was the first politician in my lifetime who talked about the things that mattered. He gave a straight answer to questions instead of evasive gobbledy-gook. I also Demexited. I learned a lot during the last election cycle. It was painful. I think it takes time to trust but it is possible to give limited trust.

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arendt's picture

@Granma

As I said, his tech articles seem solid; its the company he keeps that gives me pause.

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Bollox Ref's picture

How does that work? Agnostic questioning I can understand.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

arendt's picture

@Bollox Ref

But, I agree with you. Its like Kosher pork.

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and we can't trust the internet itself, but here we are. It's like television in the beginning, holding great promise, but delivering mostly crap. It has gone from being something we used, to us being used by it, and I bet our government is looking hard at what China and other countries that monitor and censor the internet are doing. It'll be for our own good, of course, but we can't forget the Russian meddling can we? Need to keep the internet "safe" after all.

It's the trust we have in each other that's so important, because without it we can't cooperate to do things that are bigger than ourselves. Anything that increases trust and cooperation between us is a danger to those in power.

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Wink's picture

@Snode

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

The inerrancy of the Bible? The White Helmet videos? Our next door neighbor who has a kid that "might" have killed our dog in "fear of being harmed"?
None of us reading this essay have not been blindsided.
What I can see is that this is the only place I can find on the web that corrects the record, and I mean that literally.
We must always question the evidence.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

arendt's picture

@on the cusp

You can lose a lifetime's worth of trustbuilding with one betrayal. Humans are wired that way. If someone sells you out, they are "dead to you". That's why us lefties hate the corporate Dems and the Clinton Crime Family, and fake-liberal Obama so much.

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@arendt Absolutely!
Anybody who lies to me is toast, insofar as trust goes.
What I think you are talking about here is being suckered by internet peeps once trusted.
I introduced people to Maddow as the end all, be all, and now they are hooked. Boy, regrets right there! Same for Greenwald, although I will give him some room.
We all have to listen to that niggling voice in our head.
I am a lawyer. I ask direct questions. Who/what/when/where/why/how.
I go in my yard, prune roses, thinking about what pundit says, who/what/when/where/why/how.
And go from there.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp
in a not-good way, but I still feel I've gotten a generally net-positive ROI from following him.

Caitlyn Johnstone is less reliable - I think she's completely wrong about alliances with anti-war righties and #metoo - but still worth following.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@on the cusp

We must always question the evidence.

I don't have room in my life for people who do not question evidence and authority. Not anymore.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
arendt's picture

Peter Tarnoff (born April 19, 1937) served as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs during the first Clinton term, from 1993 to 1997.[1] In May 1997, United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented him the Department of State's highest award, the Distinguished Service Award for extraordinary service in advancing American interests through creative and effective diplomacy.

(he served as) Special Assistant to Secretaries of State Edmund Muskie and Cyrus Vance (1977–1981)...Special Assistant to Ambassador-at-Large Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1967)

Tarnoff was President of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1986 to 1993.

-Wikipedia, Peter Tarnoff

Geeez. Dad is a major deep state player (President of the CFR!) with major connections going all the way back to that arrogant asshole, Henry Cabot Lodge.

This Ben Tarnoff is the elite of the elite.

This hidden background is exactly what I was being paranoid about. The guy's background was too slick. He gets all these articles in the corporate media about some fluffy biographies of American authors and "counterfeiters" - because he is so good? No. Because nobody bothered to mention who his dad is, but they damn sure knew that praising his kid to the sky was good for one's career.

This is why I don't trust anyone's bio on the internet. Its too easy to airbrush out all the elite connections.

Does anyone really believe this guy (Ben) is a socialist?
If so, please see me about a bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn. The price has gone up because the neighborhood is full of Harvard-eduated hipsters.

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Wink's picture

@arendt

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

arendt's picture

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@arendt

Council on Foreign Relations

What they write is insidious in its innocence. While they run a shit show out of the State Department. And have done so since WWII.

[edit] For example, I subscribe to CFR's Global Goverence Newsletter.

The titles of these offerings sound sane, but they are redolent with subversion, meant to twist perspective. It's subtle, but purposeful and based on a premise that is a lie, usually buried in the first few lines.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
arendt's picture

(Ben's) mother is the president of Drug Strategies, a research institute in Washington that works to find more effective approaches to substance abuse prevention and treatment, and was the assistant secretary of state for international narcotics matters during the Carter administration.

- NYT wedding announcement for Ben Tarnoff - the fashion section, of course.

Both parents were undersecretaries of state, but the kid is a socialist?

Donne moi une break!

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We have seen wholesale destruction of "brands". The US as a brand, the Democratic Party, Liberals, the New York Times, the Washington Post, even the term Progressive is now suspect. For me, that means now listening to a much broader spectrum of opinion. We are seeing slivers of sanity from places that we used to just dismiss, along with complete insanity from places that we trusted. Perhaps we have been too blind and dogmatic. I can now see clearly why middle america hates the liberal coasties. Hell, I hate them too. They are smug, self righteous and immune to reason. Rachael Madcow is a complete fake, chasing fame money and fortune and selling out sanity, values and working hard for the complete destruction of humanity in a thermonuclear conflagration via unbridled Russophobia. The genuine article is Abby Martin. She's brave and principled, something that Rachel Madcow could never be. But Abby will never get the fame and fortune that comes with a being complete sell-out.
So now I'm listening to a much wider source of opinion, and taking what I consider insightful from each. Interestingly enough I can now find nothing from the mainstream Democratic Party that is at all pertinent to our challenges today. They are totally focused on "getting Trump" and "getting Russia". I re-registered in Massachusetts as "unaffiliated" and will not give a single dime to any candidate just because he or she is a Democrat.

This is not just in the US. If you read opinions around the globe you find the same thing. You have to listen sometimes to people from the right, the left and the middle to get a complete story. I used to think that the American Liberal/Progressive was the the best way, if only everyone else would listen. I am now completely disabused of this, and see how that belief was utterly preposterous.

By the way, did anyone notice the obscene optics on the recent military aggression towards Syria? Here we had France, England and the US, the most notorious empires in recent history, bombing a poor, war torn Middle Eastern country trying to pick itself up from Western sponsored terrorism? --On charges that are unsubstantiated, and before the inspectors could arrive. The rest of the world did notice. Talk about destruction of a brand.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

@The Wizard

France, the UK and the US. That is taken from the Moon of Alabama blog. But I've noticed it starting to spread on various websites.

I even prefer this one, which includes Israel: "iFUKUS" (Kind of has a nice ring to it, here in the age of Apple.)

Remember: i-FUKUS

As for trust, nobody--and I repeat, NOBODY--is 100% accurate 100% of the time. Therefore, no one can or should be believed 100% of the time. One must ALWAYS keep one's skepticism and critical thinking skills close at hand when taking in any source of information or opinion.

As for why people "get it wrong," sometimes it's due to genuine and sincerely held differences of outlook/opinion. Other times it's because they have bad or incomplete information.

And other times it is because they have undisclosed conflicts of interest caused by such things as bribes, threats, paychecks, payoffs, purposely hidden or disguised agendas, etc. Such people are otherwise known as liars, sellouts, sheep herders, psy-op participants, shills, propagandists, etc. (BTW, the elites of both major parties and their media allies fall into this last category.)

What I see a lot of people writing/complaining about on this blog are the people they have begun to see as being in, or suspect are, in the last category.

That is a GOOD thing. It means they are aware of how the real world works, instead of being naive and asleep.

One must ALWAYS be ready to identify people in the last category . . . . if and when evidence for such an identification exists.

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@SoylentGreenisPeople @SoylentGreenisPeople I've watched amazed as people I considered sane and savy have toppled down the Russiagate rabbit hole. The latest casualty, Truthdig this morning with an article by Somali Kolhartar whining that so many people on the left aren't buying the White Helmet myth and quoting The Guardian for chrissake. I gave them money so, as with Democracy Now's inexcusable spreading of obvious propaganda, my pain includes feeling played like a chump. On the plus side, the internet has so many places to look for information we can all search about, compare and contrast, and come up with the truth, or a reasonable facsimile of it. I'd appreciate it if people would refer to sites, writers, reporters they read in reaching their own conclusions so I could check them out.

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@GusBecause

I've noticed for several years now that Pacifica has another bullshitter on . . . Ian Masters, who back in 2013 was taking it as gospel that Assad gassed his own people, even though people then--on both the right and left--saw that alleged attack as a "false flag." I finally concluded that he had no integrity when Seymour Hersh later came out and wrote his article about the 2013 attack in which he made it clear it was done by U.S. aligned interests. A true journalist would have at least made mention of the existence of Assad-gases-his-own-people skeptics, especially at a time when Obama was pushing for war because of it. A true journalist also would have made mention of the Hersh artcle, if for no other reason that it seemed to debunk the official narrative--at least to discuss it and then perhaps dismiss it.

But from Masters came nothing. And during the 2016 election, he was firmly behind the Clinton campaign/Democratic Party.

Goodman started on Pacifica as well, and is still affiliated with that organization. People have mentioned here and in other places how disappointed in her they are with respect to many stories, and many people have said that she is a sell out.

More and more I see Pacifica and its ostensibly "leftist" journalists as "controlled opposition." One of its functions is to attract people with leftist points of view, and channel them back into the Democratic Party. I suspect that the whole Pacifica organization has long been infiltrated by what people would refer to as "the establishment." Thus, what you write about Somali Kolhartar does not surprise me at all. These days, I don't tune into any of Pacifica's content and distrust just about everybody affiliated with them, except for Jimmy Dore, who I think still has a show on one of their stations.

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@SoylentGreenisPeople

More and more I see Pacifica and its ostensibly "leftist" journalists as "controlled opposition." One of its functions is to attract people with leftist points of view, and channel them back into the Democratic Party.

I stopped paying attention to Pacifica and WBAI so long ago that I can't remember the date. Somewhere inside, I recognized there was a problem. Your statement crystallizes it perfectly! Smile

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Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos

@SoylentGreenisPeople @SoylentGreenisPeople

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

mimi's picture

because if you can't trust anymore, the relationship is destroyed, and imo it is very necessary to drop the internet and walk away from it like you would from a person you couldn't trust anymore.

If people could walk away from everything the online internet has to offer and all of the TV media and live without it, they would come to senses again.

Never trust someone who tells you "trust me" and there is the huge competition of actors online, who all want desperately that you trust them. Forgettaboutit.

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@mimi We somehow got things done before the internet.

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The internet has become a huge confusion machine driven by profit motive. Like the telephone or television. Great in the beginning but later monetized by robocalls and endless commercials. Look at where TOP began, and what it is now. There were people who saw this 20 years ago with the rise of AOL. Fox proved that you can be profitable by deliberately telling lies all day. So after all the little profit takers stake out their territory I guess the next step is a march toward monopoly. Maybe 3 big players controlling the whole thing with the government riding shotgun, and that will be that. When profit is the highest use, everything else, even the truth is subservient.

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Lookout's picture

at least I find essays and comments to that effect. Which of us ever get it right all the time? Why think that reporters can't be misled and report incorrectly?

It isn't about people, it is about ideas and concepts. Most of the time I agree with Glenn Greenwald. However his comments that Assad probably did poison his citizens recently, I find ill-informed and incorrect. So should I distrust everything Glenn says? Hell no he's spot on with his insights on the coup in Brazil and many other issues.

Same with publications like truthdig which an earlier comment said is no longer trustworthy because of one article which was BS. What publication doesn't have some BS articles? Even c99?

I guess I'm suggesting looking at information based on issues and giving those issues a smell test weather they come from a trusted source or not. Like the earlier Stalin quote...you can't even trust yourself - I know I've been misled and advertised those mistaken views.

Project mockingbird is alive and well.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/fbi-impersonate-media-mockingbird/

Ed Schultz comments the other day also make the case...Jimmy, Ron, and Stef tell the story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18YMTWFpKmo (25 min)

Sorry folks we have to think and evaluate for ourselves. There are journalists you can trust more than others, but no journalist gets it right all the time. My complaint is that there a damn few real investigative journalists period.

As a parting shot here's an insightful conversation about the fate of journalism with Chris Hedges and journalism prof Mark Miller (worth 25 min of your time IMO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec9uRsku4oA

Thanks for the essay!

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

@Lookout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18YMTWFpKmo (25 min)

I repeat the link here. Ed describes exactly how he was censored and how the MSM killed Bernie Sanders. You can hear the mechanism first hand.

I had the pleasure of running into a guy who was a senior editor at the NYT for very many years. So I asked him how exactly did the NYT become a cheerleader for the war on Iraq. Why was their coverage not balanced reporting at all, when we all know that it was propaganda? He explained to me in detail how management accomplished this. So if you think that there is subtle pressure, peer pressure or something like that, forget it. It is a direct edict from management to toe the corporate (CIA) line.

I have to laugh in amusement when Ed talks about RT management allowing him freedom to do what he wants. Others at RT have mentioned exactly the same. How does this fit with the US official position that Russia and RT are dictatorial regimes where everyone toes the line? It turns out, of course, that it's all vice-versa.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Lookout's picture

@The Wizard

...and Tucker Carlson on FAUX news is the only corporate mouth piece to suggest caution in bombing Syria.

Yes Ed's story is important. Check out operation Mockingbird too.

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

Big Al's picture

People forget this isn't new at all, the internet is just an added feature. Think of the problems with trust in the radical leftist groups in the sixties with Cointelpro. Or back to the union heyday in the early part of the 20th century. Infil"traitors", surveillance, subversives, many problems with knowing who to trust. To think that's not happening today on the internet would be very naïve. (Not directed at the author).

The old saying, "trust but verify" doesn't apply on the internet or with the corporate media. It should be "verify then trust, or not". That should be especially true for radical leftists intent on revolution against the ruling class.

As for Sanders, the discussion from my end isn't just about Sanders. It's always been his affiliation with the democratic war and wall street party, which is why the term sheepdog is an important issue to debate. The democratic party has lost all trust and Sanders is hawking it's wares. It's connected to how the duopoly operates and the importance of changing this political system.

I wholly agree with the need for a massive organizational process outside of the system of electing politicians who don't represent us.

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arendt's picture

From SoylentGreenIsPeople:

More and more I see Pacifica and its ostensibly "leftist" journalists as "controlled opposition." One of its functions is to attract people with leftist points of view, and channel them back into the Democratic Party. I suspect that the whole Pacifica organization has long been infiltrated by what people would refer to as "the establishment."

Yes. This is a two word summary of why I am paranoid. Thank you.

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From BigAl:

People forget this isn't new at all, the internet is just an added feature. Think of the problems with trust in the radical leftist groups in the sixties with Cointelpro. Or back to the union heyday in the early part of the 20th century. Infil"traitors", surveillance, subversives, many problems with knowing who to trust. To think that's not happening today on the internet would be very naïve. (Not directed at the author).

Very good point. People treat the Internet like it is some alien apparation, something sui generis. But, it is merely a continuation of the same old games of influence, propaganda, infiltration, and sabotage. The internet is doing to our skepticism what GPS is doing to our ability to navigate. We need to remind ourselves of all the sneaky crap that TPTB have used for centuries to disrupt opposition.

Thanks for the disclaimer; I do recognize your comment as generic and valid.

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From snode:

We can't trust what's on the internet and we can't trust the internet itself, but here we are. It's like television in the beginning, holding great promise, but delivering mostly crap. It has gone from being something we used, to us being used by it,

This goes along with BigAl's comment. I think we have to remind ourselves that every new media/communication technology at first offers freedom (and pornography). But TPTB rather quickly get centralized control of it and start censoring or obfuscating. Someone needs to coin a moniker like "a vast wasteland" to describe the internet. "world wide attic" just doesn't do justice to the manipulation and censorship.

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From Pluto'sRepublic:

Council on Foreign Relations --- What they write is insidious in its innocence. While they run a shit show out of the State Department. And have done so since WWII.

This is so true; but CFR has been their for so long that criticism of it can be dismissed as CT or Elvis-sightings.

I was very surprised that no one(except PR) reacted directly to the family facts I finally dug up about Ben Tarnoff. I am open to arguments that he (and his wife, daughter of a tax law professor at NYU), both SCL Harvard graduates, have somehow become socialists without disrupting any of their Deep State friendship/career networks. I suppose that they could be the echo of the Rockefeller heirs who funded Ramparts magazine in the 1960s; but I sorta doubt that.

Perhaps everyone just expects this kind of connection, ala "controlled opposition".

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Lookout's picture

@arendt

I think it is possible for an elite to become a socialist. I can't speak to Tarnoff's case, although it seems he talks the talks. Walking the walk may be another matter.

Marx himself was privileged if not elite...

Karl Heinrich Marx was one of nine children born to Heinrich and Henrietta Marx in Trier, Prussia. His father was a successful lawyer who revered Kant and Voltaire, and was a passionate activist for Prussian reform. Although both parents were Jewish with rabbinical ancestry, Karl’s father converted to Christianity in 1816 at the age of 35.

Other wealthy socialist include...
Robert Owen, (1771-1858) a Welsh utopian socialist, was a wealthy textile manufacturer tried to change the conditions of his workers by introducing a model of equitable employment and community cohesion in his factories.

Charles Fourier, (1772-1837) a French utopian socialist thinker was also a prosperous individual who originated the word feminism.

Another Frenchman utopian socialist was an aristocrat, named Henri de Saint-Simon. (1760-1825)

Mikhail Bakunin, (1814-1876) was born to a noble family (his family owned 500 serfs) Bakunin was among the most influential figures of anarchism and one of the principal founders of the "social anarchist" tradition.

And finally one of the intellectual founders of communism Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)was himself an industrialist. Son of a wealthy cotton textile manufacturer, Engels was the co-author of The Communist Manifesto who sacrificed his own family fortune so that Karl Marx could have the freedom to write.

Wealth typically breeds greed and arrogance. However sometimes it allows people to have the time and opportunity to study and understand the human condition. Our backgrounds influence us but none of us are made into a mold. It is difficult for the nut to sprout too far from the tree.

I knew Jessica Mitford (Decca) in my youth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Mitford
The first elite socialist I met.

All the best...

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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

we are gun-shy and paranoid. We are dissing them because they are supporting narratives which we know to be lies perpetrated in the worst interests.

Like it or not, some positions are so noxious that they cannot help but be litmus tests for any thinking person. Anyone who supports the Russiagate narrative or the Syrian war is embracing some of the deepest lies the hegemony has to offer. These beliefs are quite literally Orwellian: there is no hard evidence to suggest Russiagate is true or that the war in Syria is justified; there is substantial evidence that Russiagate has no legs and that the atrocities supposedly committed by Bashar al-Assad either didn't happen as advertised--people wandering around in the area of a recent chemical weapons attack without cleansuits, for instance--or were done by people other than Assad. There's even a bit of hard evidence that the CIA was the one who committed the sarin gas attack in 2013.

In addition to the complete divorce from fact inherent in both positions, there's also the implication of holding them: namely, World War III, which has now apparently gotten a makeover, as an open military conflict between two (or possibly three!) major nuclear powers is now apparently cause for as little alarm as the most recent police action against Hondurans.

None of this has to do with paranoia. It has to do with the war on the mind that is now, basically, the only war the PTB have not conclusively won. They are now in the process of a major shutdown of all public dissent, and of course they go after figures like Goodman and Greenwald, whether with carrots or sticks, the same way they went after Pelosi when she became Minority Leader and changed her position on the Iraq War 180 degrees without explanation.

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"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

arendt's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

to refer to new actors, about whom we have little information, such as Ben Tarnoff. I was paranoid about Ben, and it only took about an hour of digging to confirm my paranoia. (I recognize (as lookout mentions) that Ben could be genuine; but I will maintain my skepticism until I find out different.

Of course what you say about Goodman and Greenwald is correct. It's just sad to see TPTB corrupt or intimidate the few honest leftwing big-names.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@arendt Sure is. Jesus.

I'm glad y'all are here.

We should probably take some steps to keep in touch, all of us.

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"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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

It's the PTB shutting down dissent any way they can, via a psychological carpet-bombing of propaganda via traditional news sources, paid internet trolls with their sockpuppets undermining communities of dissent online, and the subversion of famous people who have, at one time or another, said something good.

If they can do it to John Lewis and Dolores Huerta, why not to Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman?

There's a reason Occupy Wall St eschewed leaders. A very good tactical reason. Pick a leader and the PTB will do everything they can to subvert or suppress him.

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"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

arendt's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Usually, the tentative title is the beginning of my writing. By the end of the writing I usually go back and change the title, because the writing, with a life of its own, has walked away from the title. This time, I got distracted by the dead Humanist Hub website and forgot to reconsider the title.

----

There's a reason Occupy Wall St eschewed leaders. A very good tactical reason. Pick a leader and the PTB will do everything they can to subvert or suppress him.

I do understand that. Yet, the whole "leaderless" tactic could easily be gamed by agents provocateur. TPTB didn't do that to OWS because it was new, and no one knew how it would play out. But, with OWS as an example, I'm sure TPTB are ready with whatever the "leaderless resistance" equivalent to the Black Blok is. That is assuming they ever allow something like OWS to survive more than 24 hours again. OTOH, leaderlessness means "herding cats". With the right jiujitsu, TPTB could paralyze a new OWS or make it implode and look impotent.

Unfortunately, I think people need individual human beings and their unique personalities as a nucleus for a political movement. I think its just how we are wired - pack animals, tribes. I think we need something like the often-maligned "cadres" of Leninist/Maoist infamy. There need to be a core of people with at least the authority of being committed to the struggle. Then there needs to be "the sea the fish swim in", more dedicated people. Both cadre and support are highly at risk.

The problem is that we have yet to precisely define "the struggle". OWS was a step in the direction of definition, with its most lasting outcome being the phrase "the 99% versus the 1%". However, TPTB are constantly surveiling all resistance movements (its easy with TIA and the NSA Utah site), infiltrating them, suppressing them. Even when said movements aren't doing anything overt, their organizing and consciousness-raising is a threat to TPTB. That constant surveilance/disruption is the first hurdle any organized resistance must overcome.

IMHO, public, leaderless gatherings are less of a threat to TPTB than cadre-driven, as far under-the-TIA-radar as you can get, organizing. But that's just my opinion.

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