Use “3 Birds, 1 Stone Strategy” if you want to live.

The Two Parties and the Media fail to serve our interests. Actually, work against them most of the time. If this doesn't change, and real soon, they're going to take us over a cliff. And real soon.

That these "3 Birds" are corrupt, self-serving, and divorced from reality is an assertion few "everyday people" would even try to refute. Not least because it can't be done.

Here's what can be done: We can put aside our partisanship for a period of time and flood Big Media with what we know. Along the lines of:

"We all know, even you know, that The Two Parties are corrupt and incompetent, and they're killing this nation. Big Media itself is the propaganda outlet for the Psycho Rich and War Mongers, and their job, in tandem with the Parties, is to keep us distracted, mis-informed, ignorant, and at each other’s throat. You might not recognize this, since courtiers and courtesans long before Versailles are flattered and blinded by proximity to the 'Top Dogs.' Get real and grow up; too much is at stake.”

We add this demand: "Talk about what we all know, and all the time. Fire your idiot 'experts' and 'think tankers’ who are there for special interests, and certainly the Public’s is not all that special to them.”

Maybe you’ve got better to say. I hope so. But whatever is said about the situation, I'm thinking... a million communications a day for however long it takes. But why not two? To all the presses and stations, their editors and reporters and talking heads, and with copies going to elected officials, the Dept. of Justice, etc. Until fixing the 3 Birds mess is all that's being talked about in public. Until there’s panel show after panel show with ordinary people talking about how criminal and failing the Two Parties are.

A laser focus on Media is the One Stone.

Now, here's why this won't work. There’s this cartoon:

In the first panel someone asks a crowd “Who wants change?” and everyone has their hand up. In the next, “Who wants to change?” and there's nobody with their hand up.

Well, sweetie, let’s all be clear on this. If nobody changes, we’re completely screwed. Fact. Guaranteed. Doesn’t matter whether you like it or not.

Back in the 1960s, the advertising industry came to understand that adult value systems (as held by “the inner-directed consumer”) limited sales. Teenagers had their own value system, and joyfully, were easier to part with their money PLUS it was easier to direct their priorities.

The advertisers of course have long and tight associations with Corporate and Intelligence going back to ( "the father of public relations”) Edward Bernays, the man who got the Public to go into World War I and who made it a symbol of freedom for women to smoke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays.

So it was followed that the cynical manipulation of public opinion leaked into politics, and state (ahem!) security. For here has been the goal: to banish from public life adult values and actions, and prevent growing mature at somewhere around the age of a typical 15-year old.

Think on it a few moments, and this “Adolescentification” of culture over decades is impossible to miss. “I am Bart Simpson!” We might all exclaim.

So guess what when you go on about “libtards” and “nutjobs.” You’ve been played, sucker. You’re dealing in fictionalized cartoons whose main purpose is the get you to have a rush explode through your psyche at expressing vile emotions. And making cooperation impossible. Divide and Conquer.

Cause all us adolescents are just so freaken’ badaaaaassss and will say what we want to say, damn convention. We learned it all on our media screens.

Left or Right, you let them turn you into clowns when you talk like spoiled children.

So change that. Act like an adult when dealing with other people. You don’t have to agree with other people. You can continue to think they’re asses. But just act and speak like an adult. If you want to act like a pig after this emergency is handled, okay. But right now….

Right now… we have a major Adult Situation here:

The National House is Burning Down, and we don’t have time to act like nasty, quarreling children anymore. The fire threatens ALL of us.

So, if you want to live, we’re going to have to change ourselves. Put aside all the sideshows of division, at least for a few months, and go for the Three Birds eating our lives and souls. And the thing that keeps the Two Vultures shadowing over us is the Buzzing Buzzard of Mass Media. Shake it up.

Use “3 Birds, 1 Stone Strategy” if you want to live.

==================
1pm EDT edit: I am gratified at the quality of the comments I've seen to this point. I am sorry I don't have time to reply to each at this moment ("things to do, places to be"). But I do hope people consider if there's a better idea ANYWHERE than what is proposed. And say it.

My point in publishing this here is sort of a draft which I hope to go viral through the entire 99% political spectrum, nutjobs and libtards included. We need change and we need it now!

The real Revolution starts when we start acting like Adults, and in concert against these rotten actors running the parties and the media.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

In the first panel someone asks a crowd “Who wants change?” and everyone has their hand up. In the next, “Who wants to change?” and there's nobody with their hand up.

Well, sweetie, let’s all be clear on this. If nobody changes, we’re completely screwed. Fact. Guaranteed. Doesn’t matter whether you like it or not.

Truth be honestly told, I don't think this "cartoon" depicts the real state of matters. In very deed, the People have wanted change; they've wanted to change in conformance with the change they want to see everywhere; but your Three Noxious Birds are what stand in their way. And your thesis holds up here, too, as it is the Corrupt Media who have convinced so many that any change from the status quo will result in nothing but pain for them and theirs while un-defined "elites" end up with all available life comforts. (In other words, what we already have now.)

Laser focus on Media is indeed the One Stone. And I say that in the sense that Alchemists have used that term (i.e., the Philosophers' Stone, the Universal Medicine). One thing this Alchemical view reveals is this: just as the ancients called the confection of the Stone "the Great Work", so we need to look at this in the same light. This includes the confection of our own Media, both within the Internet and outside it. The ancient and venerable arts of underground publishing need to be nourished amongst us like never before! And, of course, blogsites like this one. Get to know any and all private secular radio broadcasters in your area, and explain to them how this "scoop of all scoops" would be a feather in their caps if they would just jump on it!

It isn't just the mainstream media we need to focus on; we need our own Media to become so newsworthy that the MSM will have to cover our demands, ownership's opinion be damned!

It's time to fucking scoop their porcine asses!! Smile Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides I disagree that we need "our own media" however. It'll just be fact-checked into invisibility in the current set-up. (Like Stalin, GoogFaceTwit has their own fact-checkers now.)

But if people want to do that AFTER we've thrown a wrench into the apparatus, sure. My focus is that we've got to, and immediately before November make it impossible for the media-as-is to continue as-is; that Big Media is THE creator of the narratives all independent media plays off of.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@thanatokephaloides You're right, Than. The people have repeatedly signaled their desire to change. It took them too long to snap out of this shit, which they never should have fallen for in the first place, but by late 2005 they had done it.

The Dems and Obama had to corral this desire for change and strangle it, and they did it well. Now anybody who complains about anything is a racist or a sexist.

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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

@thanatokephaloides As for behaving like an adult, I already do, and so do all my family, even when sorely pressed. We are polite even when people are spouting the most vile and ridiculous propaganda which plays right into the hands of those currently in power.

I agree that people need to do that, but unfortunately, the ones who agree that needs to be done are usually already doing it. The others, well...I hope they listen to you.

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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

Wink's picture

Amen! I've been saying
@thanatokephaloides
that for years to blank stares.

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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.

who distinguished the inner directed from the other directed (and a "tradition directed")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Riesman (focus on his book The Lonely Crowd)
I have always thought of The Lonely Crowd along with Hannah Arendt's Eichmann In Jerusalem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem
Riesman's other directed people are Eichmanns - having no guidance that is essential to their identity (because their entire life is devoted to being well regarded by their "peers") their moral worth is defined and limited by that of their fellows. Eichmann was the best person he could be - it was just that he was surrounded by nazis and so defined "good" by nazi ideals. Riesman's answer to this problem (he saw the US middle class of the post WW2 era as Eichmanns from a consumerist culture) was to instill a core set of morals that could allow someone to stand up to a corrupt society. "I don't care that everyonee in my neighborhood is a racist, I will not be because racism is wrong!" Sounds good, but where did you incorporate that morality from? (Parents? Religion?) What if you learned morality from racists? The hole in Riesman's thinking is a tautology (though I am probably misusing the word) no matter where your morality comes from, your surroundings or your moral center, it is limited by its origin. You can be an inner directed nazi. The Lonely Crowd is an excellent analysis and critique of suburban, "middle class" America, but it offers only a template of a solution.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304
is that I was lead typographer in one of NYC's elite type shop, and among our customers were the world's leading advertisers, in the US and Britain. We did their conference materials: maybe 200-300 booklets would be printed for an "all-leaders" conference in Switzerland and the like.

Believe me, the focus was "how do we beat people who think for themselves?" and the answer was "install a culture of adolescent value-systems." Whatever Riesman's take on it, the advertisers (and subsequently politicians and Intelligence) meant "people who reason for themselves about their own needs" by "inner-directed") and it had nothing to do with ones peers or social climate, but strictly an individual's value system.

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Wink's picture

money where we
@doh1304
become self sufficient people become less relevant. I need to borrow the car, so I need to be nice to dad. Now that I own my own car... And the more self sufficient we become the less relevant people become. So, expectedly, The Rich don't give a flying fuck about anyone at all.

Screenshot 2018-07-09_10-47-10.png

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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.

Developing nations need to take a good look at the US because that's where they are headed. The Oligarchs and the corporations control everything. Capitalism performs well at first, but eventually leads the the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth, and of course power. It happens year after year, and it's inevitable. Eventually they create a fictitious world perception of their own making, and then do the ultimate stupid - they make decisions based on their own created fantasies. The media and the parties are in fantasy land for the exact same reason, they are controlled by wealth in America. That wealth accumulates year after year after year until it is hundreds of trillions of dollars, that wealth itself being a complete fantasy.

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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.

TheOtherMaven's picture

@The Wizard

and a lot of people get hurt (including some of the richies, who deserve it, but also many who don't) while a few manage to scoop up more wealth from the wreckage - and lather, rinse, repeat.

Most people think the Great Depression was the only financial disaster in US history. It wasn't. It may not even have been the worst (this is debatable) - but for the first time the government had the power, and the willingness, and the need, to help the "little people" as well as the rich. (Because "the people" were very close to taking back their mandate to be governed, if something wasn't done and pronto.)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven being that afraid of another crash. With so much of our economy dependent on the financial industry and the governments mandate to protect the dollar there is built in protections for risky investments. There is the "bail in" provision and the army of lobbyists to shape government response favorably to investors. Capitalists are opportunity chasers and even a disaster is viewed as opportunity, to profit, to exploit, to exert control, some times under government mandate. We, of course, will be exploited as fully as possible and when that is finished, we'll be ignored.

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@Snode the finance/banker class at the top always make out well.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@The Wizard

The media and the parties are in fantasy land for the exact same reason, they are controlled by wealth in America. That wealth accumulates year after year after year until it is hundreds of trillions of dollars, that wealth itself being a complete fantasy.

And that's why we need our own media.

Like the Democratic Party, the mainstreamers are beyond reform, at least in my humble opinion. No disruption(s), by itself/themselves, will break the thralldom of the MSM to Ginormous Capital. And Google, Facebook and Twitter need to be rendered irrelevant, too.

Underground print publishing needs to return in a big way. Probably pirate radio, too. I see no alternative, especially with a major capital wholly-owned FCC in charge of all electronic media.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Wink's picture

@thanatokephaloides

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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 Aspie Corner's picture

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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
"Century of the Self" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
is all about how we've been played into thinking we only need to express feeling and we've actually done something. And the divide-and-conquer based on self-self-self ishness.

If you see adverts on tv now, a good 90% of them feature a relative or friend trying to "get over" on the other, so as to have that all-important thing they're selling. Total selfishness (thus isolation) is the current manipulative strategy.

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Lookout's picture

The idea we could persuade them to be truth tellers is similar to the idea we can reform the dims...just ain't gonna happen.

As someone upthread suggested "underground" media like this site need to be promoted rather than trying to reform a media based on profit which by its very nature must lie to the people to maintain the illusion...that America is grate, and war is good, and we are spreading democracy, and Russia is evil, and people are poor because they don't work hard enough, and....

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

@Lookout of the previous generation of journalists, like children putting on their parents clothes and playing "grownups", and the reputation of seeking and presenting the unbiased truth. Sometimes I think our perception gets skewed by time. Many of us still get pissed about Limbaugh and Hannity, when for the younger folks, they've always been there spouting their crap. Maybe that's part of why people can't agree on what they see.

For me, it's apparent the media is avoiding painting any kind of picture, of anything. Each republican act is just some random thing, maybe slightly related to some other random thing, like the weather. Then tomorrow, it's like there was a memory wipe, and some random thing happened with the republicans. With democrats it's always some sound bite, and hurry get the republicans counter opinion.

With the republicans it's been a decades long assault, with many wins. Even when they lose, they find a way to make the opposition pay.

By looking at the republicans I can only see the democrats as abject losers. After easily stymieing Obama, the blitzkrieg the r's have managed, taking lost ground and capturing vast new territory shows the democrats as inept, out of touch and willing to collude with the republicans on anything. Most of all, when in power unwilling to emulate the republican strategy. It can only be because on some level they agree with republican policies. Or at least their donors do.

I don't know if that's the truth, but it's what I see.

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@Snode

. . . precisely because that's what the D's have wanted them to do.

Think of the R's as the hold Harlem Globetrotters, and the D's as the phony opposition team paid to play them . . . and to lose to them by never mounting any real or genuine resistance.

Think of D's as the professional boxer that is paid to go down in the 6th round and thus throw the fight.

Obama resurrected the R party, when it was on the ropes after two terms of Bush. He was the only one talking about "bipartisan" conciliation with them, when he had huge D majorities in both houses of Congress. There was no need to "be civil" with the R's.

Obama needed the R's in so that he could blame them for stopping things that he really didn't want to pass in his heart of hearts. Obama NEEDED the R's so that he would have an excuse for not fighting for or pushing through progressive measures.

In fact, that is the whole function of the D party, in this phony "right v. left" political system we have in this country. The D's are not a real opposition party. They just pretend to be one on TV.

Here's another analysis of what I'm talking about:

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/stopme/chapter02.html

Either way, at this point, anyone looking to the Democratic Party or to the hope of electing Democrats for some kind of progressive change in this country, or even real resistance to the Republicans on issues that concern the 99% against the 1%, is a FOOL.

And so is anyone that looks to the problems of this country, and focuses mainly upon the R's as being the primary cause of them.

Both parties are complicit in the charade.

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@Lookout
I'm talking about "The King is Naked" going viral. Even in the Soviet Union there reached a point where the lead talking-head (a la "Network") said "hey, this is bullshit!" and it was days later dozens were saying the same. Things changed from there.

This is about throwing a wrench into the apparatus. Independent media in an environment where we have cartoon versions of liberal and conservative and the full exclusion of adult reasoning and behavior is just more of the same self-ghettoization Americans have fallen into. We've got that already and had it with the Internet now for 25 years. And year after year the 1% have their way with us even more. Gotta do something at the root of the problem, and Big Media is the linchpin holding this bullshit together, end of story.

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Lookout's picture

@jim p

See the dilemma? They own the airwaves. All we have is a choked corner of the internet...one becoming more and more constricted as we speak.

The other issue is Twain's idea...
It is easier to fool people than to convince them they've been fooled.

Everything come through the lens of fake news. If I don't "believe" it, it's fake.

Consider this conversation about Russia (in text or video) with CIA shill Michael Isikoff ...I was sorry Aaron couldn't name Bill Binny nor Ray McGovern as being whistleblowers denying Russiagate. They will not let go of this narrative...
https://therealnews.com/stories/trump-putin-and-russian-roulette

When power is challenged they deny it from the start. Promote alternative voices. Support this site, the Jimmy Dore's, the real news, and other sources with integrity. Spread the word about them.

Your premise that media is key is dead on correct, but corporate media by definition is bought. I've considered the possibility of citizens taking over their public channels, but the Koch bros beat us to it. A conversation about the control of media is always a good idea.

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

@Lookout
and the Media Establishment has feet of clay. How would it be possible that the focused fire hose force of one, two million contacts a day doesn't lead to one reporter asking one Duopoly Figure "Americans feel both Parties are corrupt and injurious to them. What do you say to that?" and not have that clip be seen by every single civil-interested person in America within a day?

And the next day, doesn't that reporter have the biggest viewership in history? And do the other reporters notice?

Well, yeah, they could fire the first reporter and have the internet "crash." The media's biggest brick in its apparent wall of invulnerability is too many are resigned to the narrative that they're invulnerable. They're not.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Lookout The Koch brothers bought them? Hmph. Bummer.

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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

snoopydawg's picture

@Lookout

put ex government, military and intelligence people on their staff. Prime example is John Brennan, ex CIA goon who is hell bent on getting people to believe that if Russia hadn't interfered with the election the Her would be president. Nope, not going to happen.

The other problem is that the media is owned by defense companies. Who here thinks that they are going to truthfully report on what the military is doing?

As to independent media sites, I think most of use them here and people are even using sites like Fox, Breitbart and others that we used to mock. Why? Because they are the only ones reporting on it. I will look to see if I can find another site covering the story first and if not will use them anyway. The last one I used was Breitbart who was the only one who had Jonathon Turley on his show. I remember Turley from the Bush years and I find him credible. It's the person, not the website I look at.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg The only chance is to get Conscience working in some public figues, and if the dam cracks and one or two 'talking-heads' starts saying what's happening the whole damn edifice crumbles quickly.

It ain't like 80% of Americans don't know the Duopoly is our corrupt enemy. And it ain't like 2/3 of Americans don't know media ignores the people.

Give me an option to creating a "King Is Naked" moment in public life. Throwing a wrench into the apparatus. What? A blog somewhere. A viable third party by 2030 or so? A boycott of Media? How's any of that change anything?

We got problems and either we get things on a very different track and very quickly or shit gets much much much worse in every area of life, and very soon.

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Wink's picture

@Lookout

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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.

Raggedy Ann's picture

enemy we are trying to change. They know who is buttering their bread. But, I do agree.

When I read an article presented by the MSM, I think of lots of comebacks to straighten out their crooked thinking. My issue is that I don't want to create an account in their realm. I don't want their BS in my inbox. I don't sign up for retailers discount cards because I don't want their BS in my inbox. It's a delimma for me. But, I do agree.

They need to hear from us. Thank you for the encouragement to respond to THEIR BS. I'll take it under advisement.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@Raggedy Ann I'm just asking we have a full-political spectrum push to stop the agit/prop machine, and it wouldn't take more than the summer, imo, to get that happening. Thanks for your response!

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@jim p --shrugs--no inconvenience could be as bad as what we're currently going through

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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

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Raggedy Ann

The media is owned by the very enemy we are trying to change. They know who is buttering their bread.

Thinking about Rachel Maddow, are we? Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

your essay is music to my ears. I think some of what you advocate is already happening. There was a piece at Consortium News yesterday pointing to a shift in reporting on the Nazi forces we support in Ukraine. It's mild, I mean, the shift as described is mild, but it surely reflects the fact that lying about a reality that people are living can only go so far.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/05/corporate-medias-about-face-on-ukr...

Corporate Media’s About-Face on Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis
July 5, 2018
By Daniel Lazare

Last month a freelance journalist named Joshua Cohen published an article in The Washington Post about the Ukraine’s growing neo-Nazi threat. Despite a gratuitous swipe at Russia for allegedly exaggerating the problem (which it hasn’t), the piece was fairly accurate.

Entitled “Ukraine’s ultra-right militias are challenging the government to a showdown,” it said that fascists have gone on a rampage while the ruling clique in Kiev closes its eyes for the most part and prays that the problem somehow goes away on its own...

Also, I hope someone will offer access to broadcasting that is selective, so customers can customize their selections. I shouldn't have to pay for access to mainstream media liars in order to watch sports and garden shows.

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@Linda Wood leaking to the surface now and then. I really think we (liberal, conservative, centrist, parts of the political spectrum) need to upend the current arrangement, and immediately. Before November. I don't see any other option that the one I've written here to get that done. And, it can get done, if the Strategy goes viral.

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Wink's picture

Not as easy as
@Linda Wood
it looks, but it can be done.

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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.

Pluto's Republic's picture

We can do this:

Left or Right, you let them turn you into clowns when you talk like spoiled children.... So change that.

Certainly, there are many calm and lucid examples among us, people who practice the art of rational understanding and dialogue with those in different camps. I admire that. They listen. They can convey the crux of the disconnect if pressed, but they prefer to do the work of paving the common ground one person at a time.

You spend your days in a partisan cacophony of shrill and dogmatic acting out, a place that the core group, here, abandoned well before all hell broke loose. They needed to get far away from the relentless pounding of hated and the monotonous mockery of the Republicans that filled the Left side of the page. You're right that gaining a mature control over the programmed resentments and reactions to propaganda can help unite Americans and repair some of the deliberate tearing apart that is pushed on our society.

But is that really the place where a solution will make a difference?

Isn't it possible that there is a meta level to this situation where things are actually in perfect harmony and accord. Having the American people tossed around and battered in the machine under their feet is likely the ideal construct for Our Overlords and their Media Monopoly cohort. For them, it's been working wonderfully since the 1920s with no end in sight. The feeble mewling of a few activists results in some domestic confections here and there, but nothing they really care about. However, none dare organize against the endless war business, even though that is where the real power and money flows. The people cannot even conceive of such a thing. They sense, rightly, that they could lose their lives, livelihoods, and liberty if they dare. Yet it is the key to defeating the oligarchs who own and operate the US government for nearly a century.

The other night I saw a conversation between Chris Hedges and Seymore Hersh about this very thing. They are among the very few investigative journalists in the US that haven't turned to mush. They've held the line of truth for their entire careers. They know what it costs. They know what is possible. They know what cannot be done.

In my mind, the best hope is to start with that reality and decide where to go from there. There are only a scant handful of people operating on that front line, able to look past the manipulative lies and willing to face the stark reality of our likely fate. Sy Hersh has this terrible need to see the truth and write about it, but it comes at a cost. He can no longer live or work in the United States.

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____________________

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

@Pluto's Republic

Did you catch this? I found it insightful as well. (28 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI3ZkL9Soos]

It's been great hearing all his interviews as he promotes his new book "Reporter"

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

@Pluto's Republic
The situation is as we have it. The narrative-making process, the thing everybody including Chris and Sy are forced to play against, is in the hands of our enemy. Media is the linchpin to the entire set-up.

It is impossible that we discuss the war-making, or political bribery/extortion, etc ruling this country in a way open to the entire public. We can go to our left- or right- information ghettos and discuss things. But I'll tell you right now I've NEVER seen Hedges nor Sy on a libertarian site; nor Paul Craig Roberts nor Charles Hughs Smith nor Lew Rockwell at a "liberal" site. Although they all agree on the main threats to our viability as a nation. (Caitlin Johnstone is the only one I can think of in the commentariat who seems to cross partisan lines effectively.)

Divide and conquer. Bottom line: we don't have time to fuck around. The bulldozer of full-out tyranny is just a few yards away. Give me one alternative to what I've proposed to turning that situation around that has even that slight a chance of succeeding? There is none, no "more people seeing a reporter"; no third-party; no number of opinion pieces on the internet.

It's "Use '3 Stones, 1 Bird Strategy' if you want to live." And nobody else has a better alternative that I've heard of.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Pluto's Republic I'm with you, Pluto, except I don't agree that they've had it all their own way since the 20s. They don't think so either. The panic in the Powell memo is real. They were fucking shitting themselves because they not only had to deal with the New Deal and the Great Society, but also might have to pay Black people the same as white people, and clean up the crap they dump into the water and the air. They were freaking the hell out, and couldn't understand why the government was saying no to them as often as it did (or at all). That's why they asked Lewis Powell for help in the first place.

He said, well here's your problem!

democracy-768x384.jpg

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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

I can't, apparently, join Medium because I don't have a TwitFace account (and never will) and I see no other "contact" option, even to Medium let alone Johnstone.

And her own website offers no contact method that I can find. So if anyone can tell me how to reach her, heck, even by snail-mail, that would be much appreciated.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

thanatokephaloides's picture

@jim p

Contacting Caitlin Johnstone. Know how?

I can't, apparently, join Medium because I don't have a TwitFace account (and never will) and I see no other "contact" option, even to Medium let alone Johnstone.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

-- Christian Scriptures, Revelation 13:16-17 (KJV)
source

(My attitude about TwitFace is showing!)

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@thanatokephaloides You're kicking ass in these comments, Than.

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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

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

You're kicking ass in these comments, Than.

thank you, CSTMS! Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

travelerxxx's picture

@jim p

... And her own website offers no contact method that I can find. So if anyone can tell me how to reach her, heck, even by snail-mail, that would be much appreciated.

Before she was well known I exchanged some emails with her. I don't remember where I got her contact information; it was a long time ago. I'll go back and see whether I kept them. It's possible I didn't. If I can find them, I'll let you know. Bedtime right now, so tomorrow....

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Wink's picture

Twitter at @caitoz
@jim p
And, I would tweet her before sending her a DM.

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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.

k9disc's picture

3 Birds 1 Stone as you laid out leaves us zero heads to roll and no path to the guilty parties.

I'm all for taking them down a peg, but I don't think this kind of siege warfare against a public/private partnership media designed to manipulate the masses and shape public opinion is the answer.

I do think it is a solid tactic, but what is the strategy?

The strategy, IMO, must be to unveil and disarm the Oligarchs and their institutions.

3 Birds 1 Stone can leave the architects of the new aristocracy completely untouched.

If we don't get the oligarchs in the sites we don't get a shot at putting this crooked system down. We just replace some tools.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc
At the moment, shaking the building while abandoning at-each-other's-throatism is the most we can do. Of course the Oligarchs are going to make moves to stay Oligarchs as they always have. But if we can open up a space for genuine public conversations, we've got a hell of a lot more say on outcomes than we do now, no?

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k9disc's picture

decade ago. It will continue to be a big part of my schtick.

I'm just really interested in pointing at the Suits at this point in time. I think the mass realization has already happened; take a look at the polling numbers of the 3 bird Institutions. Hammering them is beating a dead horse at this point in time, IMO.

It's like standing around arguing about what kind of monster we're facing in a slasher flick - that time where people would rather stand around debating the minutia than get on with uncomfortable action.

@jim p

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc
Happy, because you were one of the few who were thinking clearly about how we actually get change to happen.

You might recall my tagline over at Orange State was along the lines of "Until we take narrative-making out of the hands of mass-reach media, we'll keep losing, no matter what we do."

Ten and 12 years ago. And since....?

Always glad to see your name.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?