Two videos worth watching

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 12:09am

First: Briahna Joy Gray quizzes Chris Hedges about Cornel West's strategy:

Here I appreciated Hedges' honesty about the prospects ahead. Running as a Green is tough: assume the Democrats hate you. Perhaps the West forces could drop in on Peter Daou? Also, Hedges said that if Trump wins next year he'll be focused on "revenge." Okay. My response is why should I be worried about stuff that's going to happen anyway? If there's nothing I can do about it, then my best option is to adapt.

Also: Hedges is honest about what the Green Party is. Fortunately, Cornel West has enlisted Jill Stein as regards the campaign, so there should be no craziness at the convention. Hopefully Cornel West will also enlist someone who's better at campaigning than Jill Stein is.

Okay so here's the second interview, in which Danny Haiphong interviews Scott Ritter. Danny Haiphong is all right, but I would have preferred someone who is more concise and who knows when to wrap up a discussion. The first two hours are the interview, and then Danny Haiphong has other stuff to say for the forty minutes or so after the interview. The good part begins at 1:23:50 n and ends at 2:08:25.

Sometimes Scott Ritter starts to sound like Cornel West here. You don't have to agree with everything he says to recognize, here, the lordly stupidity of Joe Biden, his appointees, and the people who support him. Danny Haiphong asks "how could you let someone so obviously mentally unfit run for President of the United States?" -- oh, but Danny it doesn't stop there. All the nice liberals want four more years of him.

Tags:

Chris Hedges

Briahna Joy Gray

Scott Ritter

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Comments

Submitted by MrWebster on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 1:31am

Ritter article on failure of NATO planners

Pretty good article by Scott Ritter at:

Here's how NATO trainers knowingly sent Ukrainian troops to their deaths in this month's counteroffensive against Russia

Basically NATO planners put in assumptions in the battle simulations about Russians pushed by Western sources as the Russians were basically incompetent. These are the same claims I have read over and over in the big media outlets like CNN and various think tanks. Ritter believes:

The Orekhov axis of advance was designed to exploit a seam between the 291st and 70th Motorized Rifle Regiments of the Russian 42nd Motorized Rifle Division. The “behavior agents” programmed by the NATO trainers appeared to treat the Russians – especially those from the 70th Regiment – as poorly trained, poorly led, poorly equipped, and poorly motivated troops. In short, NATO trainers compensated for the inability of Ukraine to assemble forces capable of performing even the most basic of suppression tasks by predicting the inevitable collapse of the will on the part of the Russian soldiers to resist. The “behavior agent” emphasized by NATO appears to be derived from the famous encounter between the knights of the Round Table and the “killer rabbit” in Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail – “Run away! Run away!” The real-life Russian defenders, however, had the exact opposite performance response.

Today is the start of the invasion of Nazi Germany and allies into the Soviet Union. From what I read, the Germans had the same assumptions about the Soviets as NATO planners.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 8:28am

Did they fail?

@MrWebster Somehow I imagine a corporate executive saying "we get to sell the government all this new equipment and, hey, Ukraine's only a nation-state." They're filing this under "screwing the planet for fun and profit." If there's a failure here, it's that dollar hegemony will at some point come to a screeching halt and then we here in the US will all really start to hate the parasites who pulled off this con job.

—

The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.

Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 4:18am

I had to laugh at Scott Ritter

Graham Chapman could scarcely have done a better job.

—

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 4:26am

Of course, then he drops the bomb...

@The Liberal Moonbat "...you murdered them."

Well, Dubya's yet to be brought to Justice, so it must be okay.

—

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 5:58pm

What do you think?

@The Liberal Moonbat Are we going to avoid nuclear war?

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The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.

Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 10:55pm

How many nuclear war (literal) dreams have you had in your life?

@Cassiodorus Spring 2022 was the first time in my life I ever had one. I assume you're older enough than me to have a much better memory of the Cold War.

I have no idea what sort answer to that you might be expecting from me (granted, I've not yet watched your linked video, and I'm not sure I can spare the time or reserves).

—

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by wokkamile on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 9:25am

I think

you forgot to add ("Running as a Green is tough: assume Democrats hate you") this: But running as a Green has its advantages -- Republicans will love seeing Cornel West's name on the ballot heading the GP. Nader 2000 redux they are hoping.

And except for one brief moment of mild pushback in that interview, GP voter Briahna gave the sort of softball interview of GP nominee-to-be's close friend Chris Hedges that one would expect. Contra friend Chris, Cornel also is not remotely "deeper" on the issues than RFK Jr. If Chris meant deeper "feelings" that is an entirely subjective assessment, greatly skewed by Chris' biases and what he purports to see, how he interprets, and the great weight Chris gives to teaching one class one time in a prison.

It would be refreshing to see Cornel questioned more skeptically by an indy-left interviewer, someone who would ask him about his previous embarrassing gushing praise of Anthony Fauci and whether he has evolved in his thinking about Tony and covid vaccine mandates since, how practically speaking he would resolve the Ukraine issue, his view on Defund the Police, and reparations for blacks. Unlike RFK Jr, Cornel, with maybe one small-time podcast exception, hasn't yet been subjected to any tough, probing interviews that go beyond the surface. So far, I've seen 99% style and 1% substance from the GP guy.

Submitted by janis b on Sat, 06/24/2023 - 2:19am

I wonder about how the strength of the Green Party

might have grown if they had remained more local and community based for longer, and worked out their differences. Might they have achieved a stronger foundation to compete nationally at this time?

Although the impulse was strong and valid, the interpretation that spread of Nader being ‘a spoiler' was very unfortunate. Maybe the time wasn’t ripe. Or maybe it was the right time, and we lost it.

Why couldn’t I find a mention of Cornel West on the Wiki page for the Green Party just now? Somehow I fail to see success in the future, if even Bernie, who drew tens of thousands failed.

I haven’t given up hope as much as trust.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sat, 06/24/2023 - 10:22am

Green Parties have to run Presidential candidates

@janis b if they are to maintain ballot status in some states. If they were to drop the drive to ballot status, there would be no point in them being a political party and they would only be a movement organization.

Cornel West, today's candidate, is a kind-hearted old man who is clearly trying to feel his way through on this thing. He originally thought he was going to do this with the People's Party, which quite clearly indicates that he is only now beginning to do serious research on the strategic task of running for President. West does what you'd have to call honest efforts. This goes way back. Take for instance his book "The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought," published in 1991. I'm choosing this example because I'm familiar with the book and because it isn't related to activism and its background, the topics of most of West's books. West's attitude in this book seems to be "well I like Marx, and I have an ethics, so let's put those two things together and see what happens."

The actual Karl Marx, on the other hand, was largely concerned with outcomes, and was guided mostly by the notion that the future will be guided by elements existing in the present day -- see "The Civil War in France" for more on that. Marx's philosophy went through several incarnations. The "1844 manuscripts," "The German Ideology," "The Poverty of Philosophy," "The Communist Manifesto," "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy," the "18th Brumaire," and "Critique of the Gotha Programme" may all have a common thread, but they've also all got distinct philosophies. This is why it's complex.

After the failed uprisings of 1848, Marx devoted his attention to a critique of political economy. The point of the critique was -- narrowly -- to show that capitalism was based on exploitation rather than on fair exchange, and that exploitation was ultimately not going to have a happy outcome. Unlike with Kautsky, Plekhanov, and later writers who made "Marxism" into a civic religion, with Marx the exploration of the world was always incomplete and the reader was -- and is -- obliged to put the pieces together herself. And there are many ways to put the pieces of "Marxism" together. This is why you have works like John Bellamy Foster's "Marx's Ecology," which makes Marx out to be an environmentalist, or the stuff written by Herbert Marcuse, who took Marx in a rather different direction.

So anyway, that's what you'll get from Cornel West -- an honest effort. It might be acceptable to criticize him as being impractical, but he isn't dishonest, which is what you'll get from most people in politics.

—

The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.

Submitted by janis b on Sat, 06/24/2023 - 4:34am

Thanks Cassiodorous

@Cassiodorus

for the education.

#4 if they are to maintain ballot status in some states. If they were to drop the drive to ballot status, there would be no point in them being a political party and they would only be a movement organization. Cornel West, today's candidate, is a kind-hearted old man who is clearly trying to feel his way through on this thing. He originally thought he was going to do this with the People's Party, which quite clearly indicates that he is only now beginning to do serious research on the strategic task of running for President. West does what you'd have to call honest efforts. This goes way back. Take for instance his book "The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought," published in 1991. I'm choosing this example because I'm familiar with the book and because it isn't related to activism and its background, the topics of most of West's books. West's attitude in this book seems to be "well I like Marx, and I have an ethics, so let's put those two things together and see what happens." The actual Karl Marx, on the other hand, was largely concerned with outcomes, and was guided mostly by the notion that the future will be guided by elements existing in the present day -- see "The Civil War in France" for more on that. Marx's philosophy went through several incarnations. The "1844 manuscripts," "The German Ideology," "The Poverty of Philosophy," "The Communist Manifesto," "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy," the "18th Brumaire," and "Critique of the Gotha Programme" may all have a common thread, but they've also all got distinct philosophies. This is why it's complex. After the failed uprisings of 1848, Marx devoted his attention to a critique of political economy. The point of the critique was -- narrowly -- to show that capitalism was based on exploitation rather than on fair exchange, and that exploitation was ultimately not going to have a happy outcome. Unlike with Kautsky, Plekhanov, and later writers who made "Marxism" into a civic religion, with Marx the exploration of the world was always incomplete and the reader was -- and is -- obliged to put the pieces together herself. And there are many ways to put the pieces of "Marxism" together. This is why you have works like John Bellamy Foster's "Marx's Ecology," which makes Marx out to be an environmentalist, or the stuff written by Herbert Marcuse, who took Marx in a rather different direction. So anyway, that's what you'll get from Cornel West -- an honest effort. It might be acceptable to criticize him as being impractical, but he isn't dishonest, which is what you'll get from most people in politics.