American has become a country-sized version of Burpelson Air Base
Trump's Venezuela aggression, and the media and fake-liberal Dem response to it, have pushed me to a new level of awareness of the complete failure of America as a democracy. This RANT tries to organize the collection of outrages battling for the top spot in my consciousness.
The corporate news of the day grows increasingly absurd. The hypocrisy is rampant, the lies barefaced. The Russians are responsible for every bad action or even accident in the world today. The entire conversation about Russia is, as the British put it, "mental". Its only fair to use a Britishism, since the UK has taken the lead in fomenting lies about Russia, including the Steele Dossier and the ridiculous Skripal saga. In all such foreign policy matters, media talking heads dare not deviate from the party line, however paranoid it becomes.
According to the Corporate Media and the fake-liberal Dems, the medieval theocracy of KSA is our ally and we support them in their genocide in Yemen. The apartheid theocracy of Israel is also our ally (more like we are their colony) and we support them in their Yinon Plan to balkanize the Mideast, in their illegal confiscation of occupied territories, and in their maintenance of the open air prison camp of Gaza, including their cold blooded murder of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.
None of the above facts are news to the few people still awake in this country (and I do not include the "woke" jerkoffs in the Identity Politics racket among the conscious.) For example, check out these MoA comments:
another fashion has taken center stage in the West: brazen absurdity delivered with a straight face: Macron denouncing the yellow vests while cheering on Venezuelan protesters, May denouncing Russia's non-existent chemical warfare attack on the Skripals while ignoring British proxy chemical attacks against Syria, Canada denouncing the democratically elected leader of Venezuela as a dictator while describing the American appointment of a CIA stooge in Venezuela as a democracy-restoration project. Trump has provided a fashionable feast of absurdities, but is unusual in now and then injecting unfashionable unscripted flashes of honesty.
But absurdity leads to snickering, and depravity to remain empowered requires a certain amount of dignity, so absurdity as the latest fashion may be helpful in providing an opportunity for sanity to make a comeback.
Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Jan 26, 2019 8:42:33 AM | 124
Essentially, a group of self appointed individuals/countries have taken it upon themselves to decide who can/cannot be a president of another country. These same self appointed individuals/countries have to nerve to talk about "Russian meddling" at every opportunity. How the media allows this to pass is beyond me.
Posted by: Zico | Jan 26, 2019 9:43:10 AM | 129
In tandem with the agitprop spouted by the corporate media, the direct censorship of the internet is being implemented as we speak. Net Neutrality is d-e-a-d. Facebook was browbeaten into accepting the Ukronazi Atlantic Council as their censors. Microsoft has rolled out a free censorship app, NewsGuard, which has been created by New Knowledge, the folks who staged a fake Russian troll campaign that might have tipped the Senate race in Alabama. Kos continues to run his "liberal" website like the Soviet Union ran Pravda - the slightest deviation from the corporate party line is met with denouncements and bannings.
----
Absurdity and censorship - plus an obsession with infiltration, pollution, interference - where have I heard that before? It sounds like "Purity of Essence" from Dr. Strangelove.
A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works. I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love... Yes, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I — I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
Your Commie has no regard for human life, not even his own. And for this reason, men, I want to impress upon you the need for extreme watchfulness. The enemy may come individually, or he may come in strength. He may even come in the uniform of our own troops. But however he comes, we must stop him. We must not allow him to gain entrance to this base.
- General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove
Confiscate the radios. Lock down Burpelson Air Base. Start WW3.
Its getting really hard to distinguish the oligarchs in charge of the Western world from General Jack D. Ripper. The media narrative of Russian "infiltration" is as paranoid as the quotes from General R. The military is moving to a posture that proposes to use nuclear weapons first. They are also as insane as General R.
I could easily generate a list of fifty Big Lies that the majority of Americans believe. Fifty paranoid, delusional, divisive, murderous lies from our so-called free press. To paraphrase James Madison, how can one have a true democracy without a truly free press? I think that we are living in the answer to that question. This is no longer a democracy. It is a dictatorship methodically setting up shop in plain view. One negated clause of the Constitution at a time. One ripoff privatization scheme at a time. One uncontested MIC overreach at a time, funded by an unlimited and unaudited budget that devours our country like cancer.
There is little difference between us and the former Soviet Union. We both have out of control military spending that is starving the civilian economy. They had the Gulag (~1.4-2.4 M prisoners in 1953). We have the largest prison population on the planet (2.5 M prisoners in 2015), and it lives in conditions approaching some of the horrors recounted by Solzhenitsyn. We both have intrusive police states that can arbitrarily detain anyone without habeus corpus. (The latest such detainee was Marziah Hashemi.)
Our main difference from the Soviets is that we have this pretend two-party "democracy", where no matter which corporately controlled party wins, our foreign policy is always war or regime change; and our domestic policy is always austerity, tax cuts for the rich, and privatization. Our result is the same as the Soviet result: party bosses (0.01%) and the nomenklatura(1%) skim off the cream, and the workers(99%) get left with second rate Chinese crap and huge ideological pressure to praise the ruling class. In a nutshell, the America ruling class stands for greed and violence. It is only exceptional in its monstrosity.
----
The media and Democratic Party response to the Venezuela coup attempt is the clearest evidence that the bipartisan ruling class of America listens only to itself, and that it is sociopathic and disrespects any rule of domestic or international law that gets in their way.
On the Republican side, Trump keeps appointing neocons: first Bolton, now Abrams. Trump was heavily funded by Israel-first billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner have busied themselves with carrying out Israel's foreign policy, including allying with KSA. The appointment, without any media or Democratic pushback, of death squad enabling war criminal and convicted Iran-Contra perjurer, Elliott Abrams, to be in charge of Venezuela policy is completely consistent with rule by sociopaths. Abrams is also emblematic of America's colonization by Israel. His wife of 23 years was Norman Podhoretz's daughter. Norman was one of the founders of the neoconservative movement. Its fair to say that Donald Trump is the most truly representative president America's/Israel's ruling class could have at this moment.
Dog save America, because our rulers wont.
We now have three obvious, irrefutable reasons for impeachment: the shutdown as an unconstitutional attempt to increase executive power by dictating the budget to the legislature; the threat to invoke emergency powers for purely political purposes; and the promotion of a coup in Venezuela, which is illegal under international and domestic law. Despite these red letter impeachable offenses, the Mueller farce continues - the only bad guy is Putin; Trump is only bad if he can be tied to Putin.
Everything political in this country is a scripted farce. The people are not in control. The elites call all the shots. They steal our money and waste it on foreign policy adventures and "secret" wars and gold plated military garbage. The media lies to our face. This is a dead country walking.
END RANT
Thanks to c99p for allowing me to express my total despair at the fate of America and my total disgust with our corrupt, treasonous ruling class and the propaganda hacks that pass for a press corps. I continue to stand by Chris Hedges' statement that only street demonstrations and other physical acts have any value in countering the police state that is being put in place. My hat is off to the LA teachers, who organized, demonstrated, and defeated the corrupt Latina head of the LA school district and the charter school gangsters who backed her. We need more organizations and more actions like that. Also, a hat tip to the air crews whose threat to walk off the job for safety reasons may (or may not) have ended the shutdown. (I say "may not" because there is the hypothesis that the entire shutdown was a cynical and cruel distraction as the Venezuelan coup was being prepared.)
Peace, if we can attain it.
Comments
Bravo!
Good job Arendt. Your namesake would be proud of you. I never shout on the internet but this essay mirrors my feelings precisely: BRAVO!
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
We refuse to recognize the
This is who our president is..
The good news is that the Koch brothers have decided not to back Trump in 2020. I don't know why the hell they have decided that after he has done their bidding for the whole time he's been president. I'm pretty sure that they were the ones who told Ryan to do that tax bill or else. And he has continued stripping the assets that were left after Clinton, Bush and Obama did their things.
Good rant. You hit the highlights on what I've been thinking. I'm looking forward to seeing Trump declaring a national emergency for his wall which might just be an excuse for him to declare martial law and finish the country off. Guess we'll find out in 3 weeks.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
kudos and respect and thanks ...
if feels like I am getting closer to the point of getting it.
https://www.euronews.com/
Your rant
I share your despair.
Yesterday I read that a permanent US Military base Named Camp Trump is being proposed for Poland. We already have multiple military bases encircling Russia.
More revenue drained from all of us into the pockets of the very few and very rich.
NYCVG
To call 'Murica Israel's colony is a bit of a stretch.
Using that logic, we could also be a colony of Saudi Arabia. Not only that, but that kind of reactionary thinking completely undermines how empires work (and have always, right down to Rome, Greece, etc.).
The Neocons and ultraconservative Christofascists see Israel as a convenient place to deport jews so they can nuke them all and be done with it once Israel has outlived its usefulness to the 'Murican bourgeoisie.
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.
Its no stretch at all
Go read Meersheimer & Walt's The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy.
The British controlled India for a century before they formally annexed it. They simply had their folks in the East India Company depose anyone who opposed them. The Israelis don't need to annex us. We are doing everything they want done in the Middle East. We are carrying out the Yinon Plan by ruining Iraq, Libya, and Syria. We have been threatening Iran for decades. These things are all things Israel wants done that are really to the disadvantage of the US. In addition to all those attacks on their behalf, we give the Israelis about $4B a year (a little over 2% of their government budget) to "defend" themselves by shooting defenceless Palestinian demonstrators.
The fact is, Israel runs us. That criminal Netanyahu was able to give a speech to Congress without the permission of the President. Do you have any idea how much political pull that takes? Any politician of either party that crosses them will be dealt with the same way the Brits dealt with uppity maharajas.
Are you serious?
We own Israel, not the other way around. They do OUR bidding in exchange for aid, which would include Bibi (I'm sure we could easily whack his ass if we wanted to) being able to bloviate in front of congress or hell, AIPAC's continued existence. The Saudis have the same set up. Do they own us too? Do Colombia and Brazil? Do any of our client states we control through NATO and the IMF/UN own us?
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.
I don't believe you believe that nonsense
We do what the Israelis tell us to do in the Middle East. Not only that, but we agreed to give them ten years of military aid at $4B/yr. We look the other way while they continue to build illegal settlements, while they massacre Palestinians.
Tell me how we own them.
It was the Israelis who taught our police how to behave like an occupying army, a lesson Israel learned policing their occupied territories. It was the Israelis who invented and sold us all the gear to spy on the internet. They spy on us constantly, see Stephen Pollack.
Tell me one thing the Israelis do for us, except continue to involve us in their plans to Balkanize and dominate the Middle East.
Be away for several hours. Will reply when back.
Looks like I gotta post this again.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzFyXw8u0A8]
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.
Who do you think is pushing for the anti BDS bill?
Why would most of our congress critters vote to pass legislation that makes it illegal for people who do business with some companies to support it? Any chance Vlad would have given a speech before congress, told them to stop Obama's treaty with Iran and then push for them to not let people criticize Russia?
This is exactly what Bibi did. This means that he tells them what to do. Many, too many have dual citizenship with Israel. Think any dual Russians would get elected? Or other countries in this number?
gjohnsit posted an essay here that quoted Israel's telling Trump not to pull the troops out of Syria so they can keep Iran in check. We're destroying the Middle East for Israel. And of course our special interests, but for Israel. Why do you think that they get away with so many crimes against humanity?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Tell me one thing the Israelis do for us?
They purchase our politicians. AIPAC and the NRA are the two most effective lobby groups.
The four-part Al Jazeera documentary about how the government and intelligence agencies of Israel work with US Jewish groups to spy on, smear, and attack critics, was blocked due to heavy Israeli pressure. It was recently leaked online by the Chicago-based Electronic Intifada, the French website Orient XXI, and the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar. Joining Chris Hedges for a two-part interview are Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah and journalist and author Max Blumenthal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFYFNQbJbzE (27 min sorry no text)
Here's an article about the film
https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-wan...
They wag the dog.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
What 'ave they ever done for us?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvPbj9NX0zc]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Hey, I think you left out
the part where their army trains our cops in "counterterrorism," and then ships them back here to act like paramilitary, a process enabled by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League.
That was a terrible day for me when I realized the ADL was doing that. You understand, they used to be heroes of mine, long ago.
"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
Israel teaching us about walls too
And I'd bet big money, if I had it, that if the wall actually gets built, a company with ties to Israel gets the contract. Due to *cough* "expertise, of course. What those experts haven't figured out how to do is plug the tunnel holes being used to smuggle food, medicine and poorly controlled rocket parts in through. No worries, though. Well controlled missiles, snipers for protesters, and rationed food and supplies will keep those animals on the other side of the wall in check. So disgusting!
Bingo!
There's a reason we are the weapons pushers of the world isn't there?
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Ha ha, Ho ho, He he
Another joke. Try to tell this so an irishman with a straight face
How does 1 tiny country control so many others?
They've been using the anti semite card against anyone not bowing down to whatever Israel does, for decades. Call Bibi the Butcher a bigot, and you get the Scarlet A. Don't like the starving and killing of innocent Palestinians = Scarlet A. Decide to boycott Israeli goods in protest of the country's policy and actions of apartheid = Scarlet A. Express disdain for Israeli citizens setting up lawn chairs to watch the bombing of Gaza = Scarlet A. Are they trying to get free thinkers to actually start hating Jewish people as a whole, which actually is anti semitism, by calling them names that don't apply until it finally does? Are they trying to make people hate all Jewish people? I'd venture to bet it's working on some, because it's relentless.
How does that tiny little country have so much power?
And I hope you don't think what I posted was a joke or snark. It wasn't.
Agree. Somehow I doubt the Irish will buy it.
US poly potions (politicians) get paid big bucks to support apartheid. Just the fact that free speech is being sold to our 'very special ally' should wake up casual observers to undue influence. My bet, the Irish have a pat response. Like - fuch that. We been fighting that religious sh*t longer than you benna country fer chrissakes.
Hope so!
I'm supposedly of Irish descent, surname and all, and I can see myself saying that to someone who expected the absurd, religious or not.
That would be phenomenal, if they actually shoot Bibi the bird. We shall see who's been "brought to heel", as the bullet-we-dodged said about young black men, once upon a time.
Scripted.
Everything is scripted.
The hair flapping up in the breeze, a week or ten days of bs on that.
The tp stuck to his shoe? Really? It was a Commercial ten years ago!
Everybody has their lines And stage directions-hiccups occur when someone misses a cue, Or a bit player pulls the curtain back. Like the bbc reporter announcing building seven had fallen Twenty minutes Early when it was STANDing in the background shot.
ANYBODY that tries to tell me it wasn't 'fixed' after watching That farce should Really take a critical thinking course.
EVERYthing we have been fed is so bad it wouldn't compost. And if it Did compost my Plants wouldn't survive on it.
Good rant.
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
Preach it, brother.
"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
It's just a ride . . .
[video:https://youtu.be/KgzQuE1pR1w]
Awesome. DId you know I like Bill Hicks? n/t
Soft War
We used to be in a Cold War with the USSR. That had agreed upon limits of behavior, to avoid direct confrontation. Today we have a Soft War against Russia and China. The problem with this is that there are no limits. All of the issues against Russia and China are bogus, and entirely concocted by the War Machine ("our marketing efforts will bury you"). This war is far more dangerous than the Cold War in that there are no limits, right up to direct confrontation and that will follow when the US inevitably goes too far. Listening to US rhetoric I think that we are already way too far. We are the nation that spits on international laws and norms and kills people in wars of aggression everywhere. We are the country that inflicts economic hardship globally wherever we can. We talk about democracy as our cause, yet we have an extremely flawed democracy and support right wing, even neo-fascist, dictatorships all around the world. There is no other nation on the face of the planet that is as aggressive and dangerous as the US. We then hide behind the fact that we have a host of dependent European nations that will say whatever we tell them to say, scripted if you have noticed. The thing is that their support is no justification at all for US policies and they are not friends, only sycophants. If they were friends they would tell us when we were wrong and try to restrain our behaviors. This indicates to me that they will run for the hills when the Soft War turns hot. We are close. The first Intermediate range missile placed in Eastern Europe will result in Russia targeting full destruction of that country. You have to understand President Putin's phraseology to realize that he has said just that. If it's Poland, then that country will be placed a few minutes from total destruction. What other European NATO country will come to her aid, and risk total annihilation? None. And for the first time ever, the US would risk it all in coming to Poland's rescue. I seriously doubt it. Having this kind of military alliance with other countries (NATO) in an increasingly hostile world of our own making will lead to horrific results.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
That's my take...and well stated
The US is like climate disintegration... both seem caught in a hopeless spiral.
As you know, it is all wrapped together....
https://www.projectcensored.org/2-us-department-of-defense-is-the-worst-...
https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-2408760609.html
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for he sanity
singing of which
another lost love of a different kind
TPTB just don't hear Putin
They think Putin is the same kind of bloveating bully that they are. They think he just shoots his mouth off. WRONG! He measures and means every word he says.
The morons running this country are going to get the entire planet killed. They make General Ripper look like a sane amateur.
Bummer antidote
First of all -- Arendt -- respect!
My comments are no criticism of yours -- but some who read them are bummed out and I want to advocate for hope -- and action.
1) Burpelson Air Base -- LOL! I forgot that's where Dr. Strangelove is set. An incredible movie.
2) Russia. I agree it's not all about Russia, which does not mean that Putin is our friend and also does not mean that the Internet Research Agency did not troll Americans to worsen our already serious divisions. Trump is a monster, not because he collaborated with the Russians, but because he is a self-centered jerk with no sense of service or respect for anyone nor any understanding of our democratic institutions. He doesn't care what he destroys so long as he can win. I am frightened of what he will do when impeachment hearings start ... which they must. Anyone on this site should call their rep. and advocate for impeachment hearings to start immediately. There is a wonderful article which helped me think about this issue more clearly.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/impeachment-trump/5...
3) There are many people who are paying attention, and some of those who are not are too desperately clinging to survival to have moved further up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I agree the woke crowd can be irritating, but why the sneering? The oligarchs want to divide us. Every time we put down a group who have a different focus than we do we assist them. The only thing that we cannot tolerate is intolerance!
4)"... have taken it upon themselves to decide who can/cannot be president ...". Yes ... it used to be called the State Department ... and the CIA.
https://www.newsweek.com/jfk-files-cia-planned-assassinate-cubas-fidel-c...
The CIA has seriously messed with regimes throughout Latin America since its creation
https://www.mondialisation.ca/the-most-lethal-cia-interventions-in-latin...
Yes ... this sucks. Don't let Venezuela get to you. Same old s--, and we all know it.
It is totally not OK ... but at least we can witness to it. If you have never
read Chomsky, I suggest you do so. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/07/noam-chomsky-us-foreign-po... [for the merest introduction]
5) Net neutrality is dead
-- I don't want to get pedantic (yeah -- OK I do -- this is an area of expertise) but Net neutrality and internet censorship are different things. Net neutrality has to do with whether some packets are privileged over other packets based on their originator or purpose. It IS important, though I submit it is probably more important to start-up companies than small political communities like caucus99. Even if there were privately funded internet ``express lanes'', the data rate needed for text-based discussion groups is so incredibly low that it would not matter to intelligent discussion even if some people had 1/10th the bandwidth of others. I am not saying net neutrality doesn't matter, it does, but it won't in itself silence our voices. The real neutrality war is being fought over whether you will be disadvantaged as a relatively poor person in a small town) in New Mexico (for example) if trying to play a 3D interactive combat game against a wealthy opponent in Los Angeles paying for a faster connection.
Regarding censorship ... far more important. Even though the military industrial complex can be said to have designed the internet, it was designed to be decentralized and that is fundamental to its structure. Facebook and others want to recentralize it for their corporate profits. Its a choice whether to live your lives in those corporate fish-ponds. I think C99'ers have chosen NOT. There will always be meeting grounds that aren't censored, and that very same TOR browser that was created for the military to help foment dissent abroad also allows unbreakable encryption for dissent in the US. We have the tools to organize, and no one can take them away from us. The more you tighten your grip, General Tarq, the more star-systems will slip through your fingers..
I live my life in the Linux universe. I am free from control and spying by M'Soft and Apple. I can't wait to buy a Linux-based cell phone and escape from Google's hegemony as well.
https://itsfoss.com/librem-linux-phone/
If you don't already know about it, pay attention to the Free Software Foundation (Free as in freedom, not as in beer) https://www.fsf.org/
Likewise, journalism is a critical profession. There are still things to be learned from the LA Times, the NY Times, WaPo, the New Yorker. And there are still Rolling Stone and the Guardian and there are always new upstarts like Common Dreams, the Young Turks to meet the demand specifically for people like us. Interest in Crowdfunded journalism is growing
http://www.journalism.org/2016/01/20/crowdfunded-journalism/ and there is a promising
new publication called "The Correspondent" which is just opening its doors.
In fact, as Google/Facebook suck up all the advertising dollars, the media is returning to its 19th century roots when it WAS reader funded. Since WW-II, the media has been advertising funded, which is why you were their "product" (just like for Facebook). So let
FB keep the ad money ... and we will pay to keep the true media afloat. If you are not flat broke, I encourage you to subscribe to your local paper and any of the new media that you decide to trust.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/25/how-reader-funding-is...
6) Pretend two-party Democracy
I agree with you wholeheartedly on this one ... but we have to fight rather than despair.
New parties are created. We need to fight for ranked-choice voting so that when we vote for a minor-party candidate we are not "throwing our vote away". We need to fight for public funding of elections, and for integrity of our own system. Trump claimed vast voter fraud ... utter bulls--t. Voter fraud was at the one in a million level. The main problem was voter suppression, disproportionately in "red" states. There are some technical efforts to fight that though. An early success was here: https://ncgovote.org/
This site was supported by InsightUs and Ragtag. Ragtag is a group of software enthusiasts who donate their time to strengthening the political process. I have volunteered for them enough to know that they are very supportive of career development. If you want to volunteer and also develop better software skills for your own advancement, I recommend checking them out. What they did in North Carolina was let the cheaters know that the
voter rolls were being watched by software (and people) so that massive voter purges would be caught ... and ... son of gun ... no more voter purges.
C99 is a great place to vent and organize your thoughts in a supportive environment -- but despair leads to paralysis -- and that's what we can't afford. The very election of Trump was made possible because so many ordinary people weren't willing to go along with the status quo. I hate all that he is ... he is true banal evil (to quote H Arendt), but the impetus that lead people to take a shot at him also carries hope.
Peace ... we can attain it! (Love and respect to all 99ers)
Do not let the plutocrats divide us!
First of all: http://www.burpelsonafb.com/
#2: Like nearly all media outlets, The Atlantic contains pearls if you root around for it (it actually deigned to host one of the most excellent and powerful articles against "identity politics" I've ever seen, which by this point is saying something: https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/11/if-you-want-identity-politics-...) - but I would NOT trust it as a stand-alone source for basically anything.
As for Pooty-Poot, I'd just been thinking sometime within the past 24 hours about how/if "divide and conquer" could actually be utilized by/for the 99+%, and not just against it: Putin's an oligarch/kleptocrat on very bad terms with the Western oligarchy/kleptocracy. Jimmy Dean's dear pen-pal Ivan Kovanovich is in the same boat as we are. Is there not hope - even utility - for us in rifts between oligarchs?
As for Regent-Lord Bozo, the fact that he's not a team player is the most merciful thing about him - again, making divide-and-conquer do a bit of work against malarchy rather than just for it.
#3: Why the sneering? Think of the people you've been stuck with in your own life (bad neighbors, stupid co-workers, etc.) who you only wish would disappear. The term I've read is "turd in the punch-bowl" - some people are nothing but toxic hot-potatoes, even worse as allies than as enemies. The depth of their effect is more felt and better-understood in some milieus than others, and can come back around where you can see it in a form that can no longer be recognized as starting with them.
#5: The Guardian and The New York Times in particular have suffered a severe case of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in recent years. It's a sad and horrifying sight.
#6: RANKED-CHOICE VOTING! YYYYEEESSS! It's such a no-brainer, that it occurs to me it can and should be wielded as a powerful, powerful "litmus-test". No fucking way any politician in any putative democratic-republic can get away with saying no to it if only the issue is brought up point-blank.
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!
Glad you believe voting matters
I don't. As long as it's done on and counted by machines, both utilizing executable code, well no thanks. My state scans my driver license, a ticket with a code printed on and associated with my name is printed up and handed to me. I have to type the code into the machine in order to vote.
I know you believe this too:
Maybe you didn't hear about New York and California? Or are they "red" states now? One of our own members and her husband were wiped off the rolls in Cali.
I know you believe Trump to be evil demon spawn, so I have to ask what you think of Hillary? Biden? Obama? McCain?
Based on the comment I'm replying to and another by you, you trust the MSM. Does that include Fox, or just the "blue" ones (every channel but Fox, and virtually every newspaper/magazine)?
I'm guessing you missed the 2016 primaries in this country and the way CNN called it for Hills before Cali voted, then again even though pallets worth of ballots hadn't been counted. They never were counted, iirc. Not much good using paper if they never get counted.
Remember the stories of chants of "English only" and chairs thrown by Bernie supporters in the Nevada (iirc) caucuses? Never happened, but the lies were "reported", aired, and printed by people you claim are trustworthy.
Thanks for the Linux phone link, though! That's certainly something I'm interested in.
@Deja Thanks for taking an
Thanks for taking an interest!
If you don't believe in the vote then you've got nothing but violence -- and I am not going there.
I am totally with you on voting without a paper trail ... it has to go.
Since you responded to my linux/fsf comments, you probably know about this organization:
www.verifiedvoting.org.
We are progressing on requiring auditable voting. The big lagging states are in the South (I'm including Texas, though I know it's also its own country ... no snark, I have heard Texans really believe that.)
So you should be a paper-voting fan rather than saying "I don't believe in it." In fact, it truly is older "conservatives" voting in large numbers that produce the results that discourage younger more liberal folk who think change will never come. Change will come ... vote!
Right ... I didn't hear. Happy to be educated, though. Again the solution is people getting involved. The coders who are protecting registrations against shady business are not just protecting Democrats ... they are protecting everyone. I know that the "tribes" don't trust eachother -- so we should agree on open-ness and verifiability for all.
Do not let the plutocrats divide us!
More responses
I guess you never heard the sarcastic remark:
Most people on this board think Hillary is exactly that: a lying, neoliberal warmonger. A person so entitled she ignored rules about email security, and then had the DOJ save her ass when she got caught. A person so entitled she used the Clinton Foundation as a pay-to-play scheme. To say that "she did not have contempt for our institutions" is either incredibly naive or an incitement.
McCain is also thoroughly despised on this board. He joins the ranks of Margaret Thatcher as a person so hated that people slagged him off at his ludicrously overblown funeral. The man was a reverse-ace, a person who met with ISIS and Ukranain Neo-nazis to offer them encouragement, and an all around nasty piece of work. (His nickname at Annapolis was McNasty, and he graduated 894th out of 899 in his class.) Anything he ever did was to foster his own career. He was the biggest warmonger of his generation. The fact that you appreciate anything about him tells me you are completely uninformed.
Joe Biden, the Senator from MBNA, is a corrupt neoliberal hack. He sent his son off to run a Ukranian oil company. The man is way worse than a yawn. He is more of the same corrupt Clintonite elite.
Bernie sold out. Liz Warren was a Republican most of her life. A few days ago I posted a dissection of her position on the social contract.
----
Bottom line here: I find your take on politics to be deeply conventional and pollyanish in the extreme. You may find my take on politics "despairing", but I assure you it is way more realistic and accurate than yours.
Wait just a minute
Not sure what what your intention is by putting that out, but it sounds really off. By wide margins. You support resistance otherwise? Maybe I'm not getting your drift. But work it out best you can.
BTW, there are no no brainers here.
@QMS
Perhaps "them" was unclear. "Them" is the oligarchs, the billionaires, the Koch's ... those who would divide us an have us fight over scraps.
As I understand it some of the woke crowd wear it like a badge of honor -- and that's not OK. They mirror GW Bush's ethos if you are not with us you are with the terrorists. The conservative side that I have seen a lot is for those who believe in chem-trails or the Jade Helm plot (moon landing fraud etc.) to call the rest of us "sheeple". It's a funny word ... clever -- but I am opposed to intolerance and unkindness no matter whether you call yourself a liberal or a conservative.
I have a friend who says that liberal and tolerant go together almost by definition and so he reclassifies the judgmental preachy liberal woke types as just another flavor of conservative (he calls them fascists actually).
If you still have a problem w/ my comments, fire away my friend -- and you bet there are no no-brainers here. Policy by tweet is a scourge!
Cheers!
Do not let the plutocrats divide us!
Thanks for responding hopeful
yeah, you lost me on the set up. The bad guys you identify are clear. The woke guys with their badges, not so much. You are trying the media game of grouping collective thought into categories easily corralled. Woke does not equal George Bush. Sheeple are neither conservative nor liberal consistently. A better argument may be to consider individuals as having the capability to decide for themselves, and their clans, where they stand. Without the labels and luggage you seem to ascribe. There is a lot at stake here with our self-determination of future. Assuming a representative democracy which we are tasked with. Educated argument is for the purpose of clarification.
On what charges?
The emoluments clause could be one avenue for it, but then I'm betting that the republicans would bring up Hillary's pay for play and that's not going to see the light of day. Too much effort has gone into covering up Her misdeeds.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Hello, I haven't seen you here before
So, its going to take a bit to figure out where you are coming from. You have made a lengthy reply with many sub-parts. Its going to take an equal amount of work to respond. But, I have to begin somewhere.
Please realize that I agree with a lot of what you said. But I also disagree with a lot of what you said; and the sum total of what I disagree with leaves me feeling unhappy with the totality of what you said. Acknowledging that you made some points I agree with, let me move on to the disagreements.
First, let me note that the OP was a RANT. I said inflammatory things. That's what rants are about. But, after "END RANT" I did say how I think things should proceed.
In response, you said:
I despair of the ruling class and the duopoly political system, not of the people. I think that we must organize outside of the duopoly, as the teachers have done, if the people are going to gain any leverage. We must hold demonstrations. They will motivate people to organize for voting. At this point, constant demonstrations and strikes are more important than once every two or four years voting.
As for the election of Trump, it had nothing to do with "ordinary people who were't willing to go along". It had to do with Hillary and the DNC stealing the election, Bernie caving in, and the media whitewashing the whole tawdry mess. People voted against Hillary, not for Trump. Both of them were different flavors of the status quo. The only real non-status quo person was pre-cave-in Bernie, whom people voted for in droves. The end result of 2016 was to convince me, and many others that voting is absolutely worthless.
You said:
I need a citation for Voter fraud was at the one in a million level. I seriously doubt that number. I have never heard anyone but Republicans make such elevated claims. The number of fraudulent votes is too small to measure.
As for ranked-choice voting, it is only meaningful if the entire political system has been reformed. Ranked choice between Hillary and Trump would still have given us a disaster. Now the Dems have moved to eliminate caucuses entirely, because they are too small-d democratic. Again, ranked choice voting has no effect on such rule changes.
I never said they were the same. But, they reinforce one another. Without NN, censorship just becomes easier.
I really have to ask how naive you are. The NYT and WaPo are hard core propaganda shops. Everything that comes out of them is spun, slanted, and tainted. I never use them as source material. Ditto, the Guardian, which completely sold out after they published some of the Snowden material. The Young Turks are yet another fake liberal site, run by a former Republican.
Oh, please, the IRA shop was a clickbait farm. Nothing more. Half their posts came after the election. All of their posts were nothing but clickbait. Their entire spend was less than 0.001% of the billions of dollars spent. To hear you buy into the baloney that these clowns were some carefully thought out plot to "pollute" America, along with your other beliefs about which are legitimate news outlets has already caused me to put you in the "drunk the kool aid" bin.
You seem to be new here. I have been completely fed up with the IdPol racket for a long time, not merely irritated. I have written entire diaries to the effect that AOC is an IdPol troll and defended that postion at length. To me, the only way to deal with zombie liars like the IdPol folks is to sneer at them, because they can't be reached with facts or logic.
Interesting to make your acquaintance.
Appreciate your effort
at dissembling this loaded opinion. Wish I had read yours before draining my mind on this topic.
@arendt Thanks Arendt -- I can
Thanks Arendt -- I can dig up some refs on voter fraud with the estimates from the various SecsofState, but I think you misunderstood. One in a million = perhaps 125 votes TOTAL. I didn't write one million. One in a million is the fraction 1/millionth. Out of 125M votes in 2016 that is 125 total ... which is the very definition of too small to measure. So ... we are in radical agreement on that bit.
Thanks for the open mind. More later.
Do not let the plutocrats divide us!
It's a pleasure making your acquaintance.
Any glimpse of optimism is encouraging.
OT, if you have time I, and I expect others, would appreciate an essay with suggestions on how to make a computer operating with Windows 10 as private and secure as possible. I use Windows because they used it at work and I had to take work home. (Moving to Linux is definitely on my agenda.) I use Word, Excel, and Outlook for the same reason.
There is a lot of contradictory information out there. I read that TOR is the gold standard of browsing security. I read recently that the government has a back door into it. I've read many times that using TOR guarantees you will get government scrutiny.
I know someone is integrating my browsing with other aspects of my life. My doctor recently gave me a prescription for a statin drug. I never looked it up on the web, but I'm getting ads about statins, the dangers of statins, alternatives to statins, and self-cures for high blood pressure when I go on the web.
I will look at your links. If you can recommend a book that provides this information, that would be great. I've tried to learn on my own and everything I read contradicts something else I've read.
I just want to go on the web; read what I like; and communicate with people of my choosing without anybody else looking in.
Welcome. And thanks for listening.
Indeed, I quoted in "one IN A million" and didn't see it.
We are on the same page on that. Sorry for the misread.
However, I am perplexed. I gave two lengthy responses in which I stated more than ten objections to what you said. In response, you only pointed out this misread, while avoiding all the other subjects I had problems with.
There is a difference between hopeful and in denial. I am still waiting for you to discuss all the issues I pointed out: Hillary, McCain, NYT/WaPo etc., Russiagate-IRA.