Are Americans Able to Participate in a Reality-Based Election?

Now that the Russia Hoax is behind us, this seems like a good time to shift into reality-based politics. It is the ideal way to understand why the elections will be steered down the same old cul de sacs, moving toward the same old outcomes with rampant misinformation and domestic propaganda littering the way. But eyes-wide-open politics can also reveal the occasional opportunity to nudge things in a different direction.

I consider Tulsi Gabbard to be a valuable candidate because she had direct physical experience of what US foreign policy looks like in action. She has a mindful and conscious way about her that is rare in politicians these days. I think she can honestly analyze how the American people have benefited from the widely scattered wars they are paying for. How their lives and their surroundings and their futures have been improved and enriched by the foreign chaos and death the US delivers to the world. How the steep increases in military spending have finally secured for the American People those human rights that have long been withheld from them — freedom from hunger, a complete and sustaining education, and the right to life; the right not to die from medical neglect. Those are the components of authentic Liberty

At the same time, I think it is pragmatic to keep an eye on the powerful cartel that has, for the past century, handpicked and groomed most of our Presidents, Secretaries of State, Secretaries of Defense, Secretaries of the Treasury, and Directors of the CIA.

The Council on Foreign Relations essentially runs this most lucrative part of the Federal Government. They build the transition teams, they populate the cabinet posts, they run the wars, and they design the policies of the future. For example, over the course of his campaign, Obama selected the ubiquitous Zbigniew Brzezinski (CFR) as one of his top foreign policy advisors. Obama referred to Brzezinski as “somebody I have learned an immense amount from.” Presumably Brzezinski’s teachings included the world government he advocates.

For Treasury Secretary, Obama chose Timothy Geithner: Senior Fellow in International Economics at the CFR, Bilderberger, former head of the New York Federal Reserve, and former employee of both the IMF and Kissinger Associates. One doesn’t get more establishment than that! It is Geithner who would manage the bailout of Wall Street with taxpayer dollars. Assisting Geithner at Treasury in overseeing the auto industry bailout is fellow CFR member Stephen Rattner.

For Director of the National Economic Council — a U.S. government agency created by a Bill Clinton executive order — Obama selected Lawrence Summers (CFR, Bilderberger). Former Chief Economist at the World Bank, his last position was at the investment firm of D. E. Shaw & Co, where he earned $5.2 million in one year while working one day per week....

For Defense Secretary, Obama elected to continue with Bush pick Robert Gates (CFR, Bilderberger). During the Carter administration, Gates served as a special assistant to Zbigniew Brzezinski. In 2004, he co-chaired a CFR Task Force on Iran with Brzezinski.... Joining Gates in the Defense Department are fellow CFR members Michele Flournoy (Under Secretary of Defense for Policy), Jeh C. Johnson (Defense Department General Counsel), and Kathleen Hicks (Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Forces).

For Secretary of State, Obama chose Hillary Clinton, an attendee of the top-secret Bilderberger meetings. Hillary was not a CFR member, but husband Bill is. Her State Department was laden with CFR members, including James B. Steinberg (Deputy Secretary of State), William J. Burns (Under Secretary for Political Affairs), Susan Rice (U.S. Ambassador to the UN), Jacob J. Lew (Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources), Todd Stern (Special Envoy for Climate Change), and many others.

The Department of Homeland Security, which many Americans fear may turn our country into an Orwellian surveillance society, was conceived before 9/11 by a task force called the U.S. Commission on National Security, nine of whose 12 members belonged to the CFR. The administration of the department under Obama is particularly heavy with CFR members, including Janet Napolitano (Secretary), Jane Holl Lute (Deputy Secretary), Juliette Kayyem (Assistant Secretary, Office of Intergovernmental Programs), and Alan Bersin (Assistant Secretary, Office of International Affairs).

Thus the CFR continues to dominate our government’s key areas: finance, defense, foreign policy, and security. To this may be added various other Obama CFR appointees, such as Mona Sutphen (White House Deputy Chief of Staff), Paul Volcker (Chairman, Economic Recovery Advisory Board), Peter Cowhey, (Senior Counsel, Office of U.S. Trade Representative), and Eric Shinseki (Secretary of Veterans Affairs).

Every administration since Woodrow Wilson's looks just like this. The new administration in 2020 will look the same. More of the same.

The idea that Barack Obama became president from a “grass-roots” movement is illusory. American government policy continues to be largely dictated by the rich and the few. This is generally unknown to the public — not because it is a bizarre conspiracy theory, but because the same power elite who run our government, mega-banks, and multinational corporations also run the major media, as an inspection of the CFR membership roster would reveal.

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What's interesting about this is that Tulsi Gabbard is one of those being groomed for an important role. So far, I've found two additional candidates similarly engaged: Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. All three of them are Members of the Council on Foreign Relations.

One more member of the CFR potentially running for President is Joe Biden. Many are encouraging his candidacy because of his foreign policy experience. He knows the drill inside and out. Here is Biden, in January 2018, briefing the Council on Foreign Relations about the Russia Hoax, while it was still a false flag operation. The CFR wants to know why the administration didn't tell the People they were under attack. As if. This particular word salad is a classic.
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"Realistically, it is Bernie who stands the best chance for the Democratic nomination."

Is that realistic?

Bernie may have the best chance to get the highest vote in the Primaries. But that does not guarantee him the Democratic nomination. The Party has other plans. However, I do believe that the moment is ripe for an independent to swoop in without a party, and take the whole thing. There is a theory among some historians that we are at the endpoint of an 80 year political cycle. It's the third time in the nation's history that this cycle has repeated. At the end of an earlier cycle, the Whigs abruptly disappeared. The current pattern suggests that it's a time when new ideas can take hold. This calls for boldness, which has a certain genius and power of its own.

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Anja Geitz's picture

There is a theory among some historians that we are at the endpoint of an 80 year political cycle.

How about we start a party whose platform states that we will not be paying any more of our Federal taxes until the U.S. Government can account for the money they spend overseas "supporting" other countries, or what the Pentagon does with the billions of dollars we send them every year.

Whaddya think the chances are of getting that off the ground?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

arendt's picture

Even "hiding in plain sight" operations like the CFR, founded in 1921 by a bunch of Wall St. insiders, have been all but erased from the public conversation. Referring to them negatively in corporate company, usually results in eyerolls and accusations of CT. But they are, as you rightly point out, ubiquitous and in charge. They are the senior branch of the Deep State.

Again, as you point out, they vet everyone. I have essayed several times on the fake socialist, Ben Tarnoff, whose father was an Assistant Secy of State and ?President? of the CFR, whose mother was another Assistant Secy of State. Ben gets published in the WaPo, the NYT, the Guardian. Ben's wedding made the NYT society page. But this guy is a socialist - really, you gotta believe me.

I accept your premise. This country is so far down the rabbit hole that most people don't have a clue what reality is. Ten years ago they created a legend for a fake progressive, named Obama. Today, they are creating a legend today for a nobody fake socialist. Who knows how far young Ben can go? Of course he has to compete with fake Beto, and fake gay Pete, and fake progressive Que Mala Harris. Pretty soon we are going to need a database of who is the highest ranking fraud.

This kind of lack of reality testing was on display in my recent thread about Lori Lightfoot, mayor elect of Chicago. A large contingent of people thought she was a genuine reformer, when she is millionaire insider in a city whose name is synonymous with crime and corruption.

Thanks again for the reminder of who are our masters.

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vtcc73's picture

@arendt

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"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

arendt's picture

@vtcc73

I confess that I stole it from somewhere, but can't remember exactly where.

It sorta the honest Hispanic take on the woman, as opposed to the fake Hispanic take.

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arendt's picture

I agreed with everything they said...and they are tied to the John Birch Society.

Dog piss on the phony Clintonite assholes who have run a bustout on the Democratic Party - stealing its name and its goodwill and destroying them by doing every rotten thing the Bircherite right has been frothing about since the 1960s. The Bircherites now look like prophets.

I blame the hijacking of the DP (and of the British Labor Party by Tony Blair) for the lack of reality you describe, for the deliberate muddying of the meaning of terms and policies.

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lotlizard's picture

@arendt  
I’d be reading sources widely regarded as neo-Nazi regularly — yet, that’s the situation now.

Why? Because on certain topics — the foremost one being migration and problems linked to migration — what they write gives me a truer picture of past, present, and probable future than the “happy happy” EU-NATO-CFR narratives that are pervasive elsewhere.

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arendt's picture

@lotlizard

We went from minimal immigration to "borders wide open" immigration - plus the new immigrants get better public services than birth citizens. Did I get to vote on that? No.

First this policy destroys the lengthy process of legal immigration. (I have tech friends who have been waiting in line while working for ten years to get a green card, and they get jumped over by some "refugee". Refugees that our murderous regime change polices have created.)

Second, it energizes the rightwing and makes the leftwing look like culture-destroying world government advocates. Again, that happened because the global neoliberals have hijacked formerly liberal/progressive parties across the Western world and pushed this disastrous mess. They knew full well that it will reduce the targeted countries to chaos. Millions of unassimilated foreigners in Germany, France, Scandinavia. Its an advertisment for neo-fascism, and a boat anchor to social programs across the board.

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lotlizard's picture

@arendt  
https://unherd.com/2019/04/why-does-the-left-sneer-at-the-traditional-wo...

It was a straightforward political point. “Labour comes out in favour of keeping free movement — an utter betrayal of traditional working-class people, the majority of whom oppose it and voted to end it in the referendum. The party will pay a heavy, but deserved, price for this at the ballot box.” This was my tweet after Labour had declared its support for the Common Market 2.0 proposal earlier this week.

Cue hordes of offendotrons, utterly certain that my use of the term “traditional” was really a euphemism for “white”.

— found via Naked Capitalism

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snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

Source

He doesn't address what is causing it to go into overdrive though. This would be the war of terror that he and his buddies in NATO that has caused millions of people to flee their country. Half a million in Syria and gawd only knows how many Libyans have fled or have drowned when their boats capsized.

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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

of the war are over 6 million internally displaced and over 5 million who have fled the country as of 2016, out of a pre-war population of 22 million. In other words, half the country. This does not count the people killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War

Refugees of the Syrian Civil War or Syrian refugees are citizens and permanent residents of Syrian Arab Republic, who have fled from their country since the onset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 and have sought asylum in other parts of the world.

In 2016, from an estimated pre-war population of 22 million,[38] the United Nations (UN) identified 13.5 million Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance, of which more than 6 million are internally displaced within Syria, and around 5 million are refugees outside of Syria.[39] The vast majority of the latter are hosted by countries neighboring Syria. Among countries of the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP), a coordination platform including neighboring countries (with the exception of Israel) and Egypt, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) counted 5,165,502 registered refugees, as of August 2017.[1] Turkey is the largest host country of registered refugees with over 3.5 million Syrian refugees.[3] The UNHCR counted almost 1 million asylum applicants in Europe, as of August 2017.

Regions with important populations (over 1,000 refugees)[a]
Turkey 3,541,572 (registered July 2018)[3]
Lebanon 2.2 million (estimated arrivals as of December 2015)
1,001,051 (registered)[4]
Jordan 1,265,000 (census results as of November 2015)[5]
661,114 (registered July 2017)[6]
Germany 698,950 (2017)[7]
United Arab Emirates 242,000 (estimated foreign workers and overstays as of 2015)[8][9]
Iraq (incl. Iraqi Kurdistan) 230,836 (registered)[10]
Kuwait 155,000+[11][12] (estimated foreign workers and overstays to June 2015)
Egypt 117,702 (registered by March 2016)
124,534 (UNHCR estimate as of September 2017)[13]
500,000 (Egypt MFA estimate as of September 2016)
Sweden 122,087 (applicants to December 2017)[14]
Sudan 100,000 (2016)[15]
Yemen 100,000 (2015)[16]
Saudi Arabia 500,000–2,500,000 (estimated foreign workers and overstays as of 2016)[17][11][18][19][20]
Hungary
72,505 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Canada 62,000+ (applicants to Feb 2017)
43,000+ (approved as of Feb 2017)
40,081 (resettled as of Feb 2017)[22][23]
Croatia 55,000 (estimated as of September 2015)[24]
386 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Greece 54,574 (estimated in country May 2016)[25]
5,615 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Qatar 54,000 (estimated overstays 2017)[11][26]
42 (registered)[11]
Austria 45,827 (applicants to April 2017)[21]
Algeria 43,000 (estimated as of November 2015)
6,468 (registered as of November 2015)[27]
Netherlands 31,963 (applicants to July 2016)[21]
Libya 26,672 (registered as of December 2015)[28]
Armenia 22,000 (estimated as of January 2017)[29]
Denmark 19,433 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Bulgaria 17,527 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
United States 16,218 (resettled by November 2016)[30]
Belgium 16,986 (applicants to July 2016)[21]
Norway 13,993 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Singapore 13,856 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Switzerland 12,931 (applicants to July 2016)[21]
Serbia 11,831 (applicants to February 2016)[21]
France 11,694 (applicants to July 2016)[21]
United Kingdom 10,583 resettled as of August 2018 [31]
Brazil 9,000 (approved)[32]
2,097 (as of November 2015)[33]
Spain 8,365 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Russia 7,096 (overstays in residence to April 2016)[34]
Finland 6,232 (as of 2017)[21]
Australia 6,000 (resettled to Jan 2017)[35]
Malaysia 5,000 (estimated in August 2015)[citation needed]
1,980 (registered to May 2017)
Tunisia 4,000 (September 2015)[36]
Cyprus 3,527 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Bahrain 3,500 (estimated June 2015)[11]
Argentina 3,000 (approved)[37]
Montenegro 2,975 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Italy 2,538 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Romania 2,525 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Macedonia 2,150 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Malta 1,222 (applicants to December 2015)[21]
Somalia 1,312 (as of January 2016)
Language: Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish, Armenian, Aramaic, French, English
Religion: Sunni Islam, Christianity, Shia Islam, Yazidism, Druze

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snoopydawg's picture

@Linda Wood

Thanks for the correction, Linda. Yeah I did know that the number was much higher and it's half a million deaths that his lil war caused. Did you see the article I posted about how Syrian refugees are stuck in a camp surrounded by ISIS and other terrorist groups? ISIS holds food from women and children until they do some sexual acts. Then maybe they get some. And we know all about it happening.

6 million! From one country. Honduran refugees increased after their coup. Ukrainians have fled to Russia and elsewhere. Just imagine what the world would be like if we stopped trying for global hegemony. But it's Iran's military that is causing most of the world's problems right? From the you can't make this up file... a real terrorist organization MEK which included many people from here had been considered that until Hillary just decided that they no longer were.

Just looking at the number of people who were granted asylum makes me sad. The rest are living in horrible, horrible conditions in the refugee camps. I just can't imagine what life for them is like.

Sad

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lotlizard's picture

@snoopydawg  
The whole goal of Israel and her western supporters has been to leave them in limbo and never let them return home.

Gaza? One big refugee camp.

Funny how, except for Ilhan Omar very recently, there is no honest compassion (or even just dishonest virtue signalling) in the West and especially in the U.S. Congress on behalf of those refugees, eh?

The silence of the elites re the treatment of Gaza tells you what all the moral posturing about refugees is really worth.

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snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

The world has doesn't care ignored what has been happening there for far too long. When Israel ran out of bombs in 2014 after killing hundreds of civilians they asked congress to send them more. The final toll was 2,200 people dead and mostly women and children. Israel bombed Gaza for 54 days and congress stayed silent. Or blamed Palestinians and Hamas for it.

The silence of the elites re the treatment of Gaza tells you what all the moral posturing about refugees is really worth.

And now Bibi is going to make it worse if he gets reelected. Beta did call Bibi racist yesterday. I think he said that Bibi is one, but not the Israeli citizens. I think if they reelect Bibi again after he's gone more insane then the shoe fits.

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Lily O Lady's picture

@arendt

thanks to the Koch family, it has largely been accomplished. Not prophesy, but promise which is well on its way to being fulfilled.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

1. Just like this post describes, a presidency is not one person, but an army of advisors and consultants. They are not elected, they are not vetted or subject to veto by the public, and many of their machinations are frankly invisible. When you cast a vote for POTUS, it's merely for the face of that hidden army.

2. Theatrics count for more than policy substance. I can't think of another country that has a political figure make it into the news because they didn't wear a flag pin to a debate or a town hall. The 24 hour corporate news cycle have helped make elections performative.

3. Lobbying is legal. (And perhaps 3.5, Citizens United.) Everything from election campaigns to elections themselves rests on behind-the-scenes money to deliver outcomes for those who have it. You only have one vote every 4 years and the 1-800 number for your Congress person? Good luck to you!

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she deems bombable. Pete Gettabutt (don't retain his last name & not willing to put it any effort on it) is gaining in the polls and is another one not to be trusted.

ALL ABOUT PETE

Only accept politicians who have proved they actually care about people other than themselves…

by NATHAN J. ROBINSON
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is being hyped as the “Democratic celebrity” of the moment. Buttigieg has been the subject of buzz since 2014, when the Washington Post called him “the most interesting mayor you’ve never heard of.” Now, Buttigieg is running for president, and headlines are appearing in New York and the New York Times like “Could Pete Buttigieg Become the First Millennial President?” and “The First Gay President?” Barack Obama has mentioned Buttigieg as one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party, he appeared at a well-received CNN town hall, FiveThirtyEight is charting his possible paths to the nomination (complete with inscrutable diagrams), and Buttigieg has been rising in the polls (even placing third in an Iowa poll after Biden and Sanders). He is still considered a long-shot. He’s only 37, and no one has ever gone directly from being a mayor to being a president, let alone the mayor of a city half the size of Boise. But of course, we live in strange times, and nobody had ever gone from firing D-list celebrities on a reality show to being president either, so if there’s one thing we should expect, it’s the unexpected.

If you know only one thing about Pete Buttigieg, it’s that he’s The Small-Town Mayor Who Is Making A Splash. If you know half a dozen things about Pete Buttigieg, it’s that he’s also young, gay, a Rhodes Scholar, an Arabic-speaking polyglot, and an Afghanistan veteran. If you know anything more than that about Pete Buttigieg, you probably live in South Bend, Indiana. This is a little strange: These are all facts about him, but they don’t tell us much about what he believes or what he advocates. The nationwide attention to Buttigieg seems more to be due to “the fact that he is a highly-credentialed Rust Belt mayor” rather than “what he has actually said and done.” He’s a gay millennial from Indiana, yes. But should he be President of the United States?

When he is asked about what his actual policies are, Buttigieg has often been evasive. He has mentioned getting rid of the electoral college and expanding the Supreme Court, but his speech is often abstract. In this exchange, for instance, a VICE reporter pressed Buttigieg to better specify his commitments:

The whole interview with Vice follows. I truly think all the Democrats in the pool are there to send the primary to the superdelegates for a second vote. The thing I do agree with is that the Dems will never let Bernie win.

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

arendt's picture

@dkmich

I wrote about this same essay a week or so ago.

Yet another slick, fraudulent neoliberal Dem

As you say, the game is to flood the system and kick the vote into a second ballot.

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wendy davis's picture

@dkmich

award goes to you, imo:

"Nice to think that Tulsi has empathy and understanding for those she deems bombable."

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snoopydawg's picture

that Trump isn't being controlled by Vlad? That the president of the USA is not under the thumb of a foreign government? Why aren't people celebrating this? My friend sent me this article.

Where's the media's apology?

Yeah it's not going to happen. But the new thing that needs to be addressed is that Russia did not interfere with the election. Hillary lost in 3 states because she didn't go there. After all she got 3 million more votes than Trump did. Let's start working on killing the Russia Gate propaganda.

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

vetting process here is going to leave us with a choice of Marianne Williamson and Mike Gravel.

And I'm sure both of them have something in their resumes to answer for. Marianne for instance -- I'm sure we can nail her for being just a puppet of her friend the corporatist media star and billionaire Oprah Winfrey.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@wokkamile

Marianne Williamson is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

No.

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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