Need someone to help me figure this out
Booman Tribune has a curious post up here: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2016/12/22/111034/92
I think he's still trying to blame progressives because they aren't onboard with the "Russians did it to Hillary" scenario.
I was booted from that website a few months ago because I asked Longman (Martin Longman, proprietor of Booman Tribune) for some proof. I notice that a lot of the old names are now gone from the site. Not sure if Longman banned them too or they just got tired of his site.
Within the post he admits the long history of the CIA interfering with other country's elections. If I read him right (and my problem is that I start hearing humming in my ears when he starts lecturing progressives about something) he's claiming that progressives are not sufficiently outraged about the Russians hacking our elections.
So I ask you good people here what I asked him back when I was sent to Siberia from the Booman Trib. Where's the proof?
What we have is more proof that the CIA has interfered with the election, certainly the post-election, and that is an ominous threat that poor Martin doesn't seem to be able to comprehend. For example, this kind of stuff was considered improper for a presidential campaign not too many years ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/campaign-stops/i-ran-the-cia-n...
But beyond that, it is rather immature and shallow-thinking to believe that an agency that wages secret wars around the world without any public transparency, that is in the business of controlling governments (for business interests), undermining elections, assassinating people and all the other lovely things that they do, has not attempted to interfere with our elections. The thought that the CIA, which is an international coal and iron police, would not try to curb progressive interests at home. More than that, it's naive. Hillary was the CIA's candidate. A review of Democratic international policies and the resultant suffering of the working class in the US can be pointed to with the rise of the DLC, on which the Clintons rode into power.
I have long suspected that the Clintons were working for intelligence as early as the sixties. In Roger Morris' Partners In Power, the author claims that Bill Clinton was working for the CIA when he was studying in Britain. He certainly went to school where the CIA does its best recruiting, Yale and Georgetown. And that was the height of COINTELPRO, the FBI program to infiltrate and anti-war, feminist and pro-black movements in the US at the time.
It would be nice if Martin Longman could get out of his bubble and actually ask himself the right questions. I don't think he can do that and still serve the Washington Monthly, his paying gig.
So if anyone happens to know Martin, just casually ask him whether since he kicked me off his site because I asked for proof if, you know, he's gotten any proof.
It also raises another question about the Hillary followers. They have bought the "Russia did it" story hook, line and sinker. Today the story began disappearing. The story is following a similar arc to the "Russia did it" MH17 story. The Sunday after the shootdown of the plane, after days of propagandizing that Russia somehow snuck a missile battery into the disputed Ukraine territory in the dead of night, shot down an airliner, then snuck it back, SOS John Kerry said that he had proof of the exact location where the missile was shot from. The curious thing then, like the hacking stories now, is the utter lack of proof. Relatives of the lone American on that plane have asked Kerry repeatedly about his "evidence" and Kerry has never, ever supplied it. I suspect that that's how it's going to be for the Russia hacked story. The story will die down, it will move to another topic, and then another, but the residue of the accusation will live on, like the residue from MH17 continues even though the airliner shootdown appears more and more like a false flag, again out of the CIA.
Perhaps MH17 was a yardstick for the CIA, to assess how much unproven bullshit they can feed the Hillary supporters without them choking on it. Apparently, from the results over at Booman Tribune, the Clintonistas still haven't had their fill.
Comments
It doesn't matter if the Russians did it
Anyone stupid enough to put plain text unencrypted sensitive email on the internet after the Sony hack deserves all of the ridicule anyone can imagine.
The Russians, Chinese, Israelis, British, Australians and maybe
even a few bored high school kids from Topeka, KS probably all hacked the DNC. OK. Maybe the kids weren't from Topeka. Given the lack of cybersecurity the real question is who didn't even care enough to bother to hack the DNC.
I have been saying this all along
Anybody could hack those idiots. I would bet that some of Trump's people hacked them as well. Nevertheless, Wikileaks has maintained vigorously that the DNC emails at least were a leak from an insider and not a hack. Assange has also strongly suggested that it was Seth Rich who was murdered subsequently murdered and Wikileaks has offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of his killer.
If Bernie wasn't Bernie he could have hacked them
And I wonder what exactly was up with that "data breach" accusation or whatever it was that made DWS shut down the Bernie campaign's access to DNC data.
Beware the bullshit factories.
The CIA is doing what they do best, manipulating people
usually it happens in other countries.
Or so they would have you think!
Nobody screaming about the Rooskies seems able to answer the simple question, "So what?" What if the Russians did hack the DNC emails and leak them to the world? What is in those emails that is a lie? Why is exposing the lever-puller behind the curtain a bad thing? Why should Democrats be so very afraid of being exposed for what they're actually doing? And most importantly, which significant pool of voters was swayed by the contents of what was leaked, who would have swayed the election to Trump?
They can't answer any of these questions. Why interrupt a perfectly good panic attack with a little sanity? And why spoil a wonderfully run disinformation campaign which is distracting people from the complete failure of corporate-friendly neoliberal Democratic politics?
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The CIA has been in the propaganda business
since the Vietnam war at least. Ray McGovern, a retired CIA briefer, has said that the CIA once had two divisions, essentially a rigorous intelligence division and another division that was involved in propaganda, regime change and various forms of megdling (my terms), but they have been essentially merged into a single unit.
They're pushers.
All of them. They throw shit out and see who gobbles it up. Once they know that, they proceed with whatever shit gets eaten the fastest and most of. When the masses they seek have had enough shit (popular word), they switch to a new form of
shitexcrement.They don't even have to rinse before they repeat as some people just love
shitexcrementfecal news material.Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
I read the post
This stands out.
He may be right that the people who believe that Russia interfered with the election will agree with him, but since there hasn't been any proof that exposed the hacking instead of leaking, I don't believe it.
If Russia really did interfere with the election then all they did was expose the corruption in the DNC and Hillary's two faced campaign promises. She admitted that she had a public and private face.
It's not like Russia hacked the voting machines or anything else, they supposedly exposed the emails and her speeches.
One article I read said that if that's all it takes to bring down our democracy then it's pretty weak to begin with.
But since the USA and NATO have been ramping up a war with Russia, I'm going with the Russia did it as just more of their propaganda to get people behind their war.
I wouldn't want to stay on a website that stifles my speech.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
If Putin did personally get involved, dems should hire him.
So Putin if did cause Hillary's defeat, this means he knew more about American political culture, mass media, and election process than the Hillary campaign. The DNC should hire him as a consultant--they needed somebody with deep insight to win the elections they can't.
Putin did say that the Electoral College was undemocratic
The US is playing ITSELF like a cheap fiddle and Putin is now grinning like a Cheshire cat in his catbird seat.
Dang! Putin does understand our system better than democrats!
Putin did in fact outwit the entire democratic party leadership and the Clinton campaign.
Did Putin outwit the Dems?
It is more like he stood to the side while the Dems outwitted themselves.
Indeed!
If Russia did it ...
then in my view, they were upholding the integrity of the election. Without knowledge of how rigged the primary was against Bernie Sanders, I might have been tempted to vote for Hillary as the lesser evil. Once her true evil was revealed, there was no way I could vote for her. So, yes, Russia improved the integrity of the election. We should thank them.
So he wouldn't vote for Hillary, then?
And for that matter, much as it pains me to say it, he wouldn't vote for Bernie either. Actually, he wouldn't vote for any of the elected Democrats. Because none of them do this:
defend the integrity of our elections and to punish those who intervened in them.
"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
Of course the "Russian hackers" story is dying down
It has outlived its purpose which was to gaslight the Electors.
"Please clap." -- Jeb Bush
God, I hope that was its only purpose.
"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 also makes sure no one cuts the war (aka "defense") budget
That is the purpose of all bogeymen, so-called enemies, to make sure the money keeps flowing. These warmongers cannot envision a different way to live, so they must create the pretext for war over and over -- and then sell arms to every side.
There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.
--Amiri Baraka
The story will stay around for awhile
I think democratic party leadership will try to keep the story going for awhile. They will ensure some variation of the story keeps appearing at least through the 2018 elections where democrats will use it to bash the gop. But who knows what Trump will do to the CIA in the mean time. I have a feeling he will try to find out who made the claims and mess them up.
They will keep it around until it fails to gain
further traction or some other distraction comes along to conveniently replace it. Which will be Drumpf himself after taking the oath.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
You know than Drumpf stuff sounds an awful lot like
Republicans calling FDR "Rosenfeld". I don't believe in mocking anyone's name or ethnicity. Their behavior, yes. Their statements, yes. Their ancestry, No.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
If it's still going in 2018, then the Dems will lose again.
I feel like I'm pretty neutral on HRC so can be pretty objective, and the Russia crying always struck me as unreal. It makes them sound like evading responsibility for their own actions, "The Russians made me do it!" while pointing fingers at imaginary foes, like Bernie Bros and people throwing chairs.
But in this case, they're pointing at an unstable gasbag with his finger on the nuclear button. Srsly? You're going to jump all over Putin without proof? Even with proof, it'd be a little risky.
So keep blaming the Russians. It makes you look like crybabies, sore losers, immature, delusional warmongers who don't care if you start Nuclear War II.
Sure, that'll get you elected. Not so much.
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Well, democrats still blame Nader for 2000.
Putin is the new Nader. Democrats now blame outside forces beyond their control for losing. No wonder they keep losing. i bet that in 2018 while democrats are obsessed with finding Putin in every county election board, the gop will be picking the pockets of the dems to win the midterms.
Good point. I schooled everyone who tried that Nader bit
on me this election season. More Dems voted for Bush in Florida than Nader. Obviously their candidate sucked.
And I say this liking Al Gore a lot (I'm big on climate), but that doesn't make me blind. They think a leftist won't win, but we won't know until we run a good one. Being moderate sure isn't exciting anyone.
But anyway, criticize Nader and he isn't going to think you might attack him violently and respond by launching a first strike. Putin, on the other hand, who knows? I think it's very dangerous to try to make a nuclear-armed superpower a scapegoat, even if she was just a candidate and not the actual President (one of the few areas where I think she is worse than Trump).
As for the Hillarybots thinking we're not outraged enough by Putin, well, that's because as mentioned I don't think we should respond to a hack, if there was one, the same as we would respond to a physical attack; and because I haven't seen any proof yet that they even did anything. If they don't have proof, I think they should shut up, move on, figure out how to better appeal to the average voter.
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I don't agree about Putin being "unstable"
Unethical as all hell, sure - he's a Boss Gangster, and that's how Boss Gangsters get to the top and stay there. But he seems a lot more stable and centered than some of our "top" politicians, and he seems to know how our system actually works better than most of us do.
He has also taken incredible amounts of flak from his own critics, including sly hints that he had something to do with the (temporary) disappearance of then-President Medvedev's cat (a gorgeous blue-point Neva Masquerade aka lynx-point Siberian). http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-medvedev-cat-idUSBRE82R0N620120328
During the height of this "crisis" a photo circulated widely that had Putin wearing a fur cap and claiming that he "hadn't seen" the cat - some versions were photomanipped to add a pair of cat ears to the cap.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I sure hope you're right, and your comments reassure me
a little. Of course, relative to some of our politicians, mental patients come across relatively stable. We're down the rabbit hole.
Still, were Hill President and continuing to make "we will treat cyberattacks like any other attack and respond with force" comments, I would be very worried that Russia would respond first.
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I agree with you.
Russian govt looks a lot more stable than our govt right now.
It's kind of like preferring Cassio Tague to Admiral Motti.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnNSnJbjdws]
"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
You are neutral on HRC?
I'm not, but I agree with you that this Russia Did It business is unreal.
To me it sounds like an HRC temper tantrum to feed her own denial about why she lost. The scary thing to me is that this whole thing indicates the Clinton's still wield power in the media and government - perhaps even the CIA. I sincerely hope Trump will be able to put a stop to that.
Is the new meme about the popular vs the electoral vote also propaganda? They sure are over-talking it in the news.
Well on the one hand I voted for Jill but I'm in a safe state.
OTOH, I probably would have voted for Hill were I in a swing state, believing her marginally better than Trump. So I don't entirely hate her like some do. There is something about her unlikeable beyond the politics, I can't quite put my finger on it, but she is generally attractive and smart and well groomed and articulate, unlike the ridiculous orange combover bigot.
On the third hand, as noted, this "Russia is the enemy" thing scared me. I felt she was too much of a warmonger overall. I think she pays lip service to identity politics. I think she and virtually all politicians are bought by corporate America, thus Dems give us unforgivably incremental progress on issues that matter while Repugs are downright regressive.
And on the fourth hand, I was insulted by the ways she tried to use feminism for her selfish purposes.
So I lean negative, but right now I wish she was PE. Of course I wish more that Jill or Bernie were PE.
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I don't.
The Clintons and the Bushes are friends. And they are basically our two ruling families--or, if you prefer, the two families from which we draw CEOs to manage this country for their board of oil barons and billionaire bankers.
They are the worst of the worst.
"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
Well I guess time will tell, but Trump wants to start a nuclear
arms race? That's not something Clinton would have done, I don't think. And it suggests he just sold out to the MIC.
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And yet Obama Planned it.
Suddenly, NOW it's a big deal because Trump's in charge?
http://billmoyers.com/story/the-trillion-dollar-question-the-media-have-...
Clinton just would have been more... discreet about it.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Yes, the Dems planned it. Nope, HRC wouldn't
be more discreet. Check out the video in my comment below.
"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
Check out this video, starting at 4:31
This, by itself, would have put Hillary Clinton permanently off my list of potential candidates to support for anything.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0U0wGAlpgM]
The idea that Trump would/will get us closer to nuclear war and Hillary wouldn't is pretty widespread, but I haven't found anything to base it on.
"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 have seen that video before, that's why I noted above that
Hillary's Russia stance scared me and Trump's was better. Was. But Trump has now said and/or tweeted that he wants a nuclear arms race. That's not media slant, that's his own words. That's incredibly dangerous and I believe goes well beyond what Obama and/or Clinton did and/or proposed. And FWIW, I did protest Obama's plans for the nuclear arsenal. Don't upgrade, get rid of it. Of course I and all anti-nuclear groups I belong to have been ignored to date. There's gold (for the MIC) in them thar bombs.
I could be wrong and it wouldn't be the first time I had thought better of politicians than they deserve, but I think Obama and Clinton were not talking about something that might be characterized as an arms race. Rather, they were talking about upgrades. Upgrades badly needed, if we're not going to get rid of the things, because of this (yes, it's long, but it's John Oliver, thus entertaining in a horrifying way, so go ahead, watch it if you haven't):
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g width:400]
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I don't see that at all.
What I see is that, as usual, Trump speaks bluntly in public about all the horrible shit he's going to do, whereas Hill and Obama try (in her case, unsuccessfully) to hide the horror with a bunch of weasel-words.
But to be fair, she wasn't even trying hard in that speech at the American legion. Prepare our arsenal for any threats we might receive---as the cap to her talking about how we should respond to cyberattacks the same way we respond to military attacks?
Dore was right; that's fucking crazy.
As for Trump's newfound lust for a nuclear arms race, obviously he's now had "The Talk." Meaning, the talk where representatives of the truly powerful sit down with the new elected President and let him know what the agenda is, and that he's not setting it.
Ultimately, the lesson of this election for me is that it doesn't matter who the President is.
"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
Maybe "The Talk"
is simply the sudden realization that the last President to stand up to the CIA and the military industrial junta died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Dirty Tricks
There is one thing we do have proof of--the DNC and the Clinton campaign pulled "dirty tricks" on the Sander's campaign during the Democratic primary.
He most likely booted you because you won't play ball
The CIA. pppfffffttttt. That is all that they do is lie. That is all that they have ever done. Now they and NSA have managed to coerce the FBI to be in on it so it must really really, really be true.
The reason the left doesn't give a crud is because many already believe it was the work of the Russians, or the Chinese, or Iran, or Hezzbollah(sp), or North Korea or __insert hostile nation here*__ . I believe it. So what? The United States has been
involvedspearheading the meddling, manipulation and outright installation of foreign governments since forever. The Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein. The coup and overthrow of President Salvador Allende by Nixon and lover boy, H. Kissinger to be replaced with hard right wing dictator Augusto Pinochet; particularly messy due to American corporate interests. Those are big and obvious.So, the United States reaps what it has sewn. Blame the idiots at the DNC for having a Mickey Mouse server set up with ZERO security certificates in place.
I think you should email the guy that booted you and tell him that you think the Russians must have hacked his site and that must be why you are banned.
*I left one out. The United States unethically and unlawfully influencing its own elections, e.g. Gerrymandering, voter oppression, voter data purges, etc.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
If I were the DNC
If I were the DNC and or the Democratic Party would I want to accept the blame for arguably the worse campaign disaster in US History? Hell no. Hillary was a horrible candidate if nothing else but the a priori mistake wasn't her campaign but how she became the nominee in the first place. As the party i couldn't just blame it on the candidate because I had created the mess.
So Hell yes I'd use the Russians as a scapegoat. The alternative would be to actually look at the party and come pretty close to scrapping the whole thing and starting over with the same name. In the process, as an insider elite, I would probably loose my seat at the pig trough of power.
Insiders never just give up power. When you fuck up you just find a rock to hide under and weather out the storm. History is short lived. They can rinse and repeat in 4 and 8 years and all will be forgotten. Or that's what they are counting on.
If you doubt it compare the number of BLM stories today vs wall to wall FP news this time last year. Have the police stopped killing innocent blacks? Not likely but Trumpian Dystopia is now the current group think outrage. In 4 years the lemmings will once again stampede the current cliff.
All this bullshit about Russia is complete garbage. The truth is
America rejected the crowning of Hillary and the DNC doesn't want to admit they were attempting to sell a badly tainted product. Just look at her favorably ratings last August. Notice that this predates the full release of the DNC hack. It is mainly based on the FOI release of her emails on her private server.
Was it Putin who applied for this FOI request?
Hillary lost on her own merits. She triangulated herself into a corner that she could not recover from. The people saw through her electioneering bullshit.
Thanks for the comment and the links cb.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
What gets me is how these people cling to Hillary, even now?
Cult of personality? But she has the personality of an angry, old she-Boar, drunk on her own wonderfulness/vindictiveness.
I like Bernie Sanders and his political stance/message and voted for him........ but a diehard fan? No.
I've MovedOn.org
(Edited)
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
I don't understand this at all
The continued attempts to blame Russia disturb me deeply. I still spend some time at DK, and some people that I respect and had expected to be above all of this seem to have gotten in on it. They aren't as vulgar or as vicious as the people who have been blaming Russia for months, but they are still blaming Russia, and following a similar script. The script, more or less, is that Russia is somehow uniquely dangerous and ought to be feared.
I am prepared to say that we should treat Russia with caution, and that what Putin wants is in many cases probably not what we want. However, I reject claims that make Putin out to be some kind of brilliant evil genius, some kind of malevolent chessmaster. I also reject claims that what Russia is doing today is anything remotely similar to what Germany was doing in the 1930's.
It just seems awfully convenient to me that Putin is some kind of uniquely evil and uniquely dangerous oligarch, when the US has happily done business on a regular basis with oligarchs who, as far as I can tell, are just as bad if not worse than him. We even helped some of those oligarchs seize power, and others we have supported with arms and money! Am I supposed to believe that Russia under Putin is worse than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, for instance?
What is troubling to me is that this image of Russians as malevolent riddle-wrapped-in-an-enigma intellectuals and sophisticates with all kinds of sinister designs on world domination is a pretty racist trope, and a longstanding feature of Russophobia. What is also troubling to me is that these tropes seem likely to inflame sentiment against Russia generally; and even if these sentiments remain directed only at Vladimir Putin, they could still be used to justify all manner of destructive actions. The American people were indoctrinated to hate and fear Saddam Hussein for over a decade before the invasion of 2003, to think of him as an inhuman monster who was capable of anything. Now I see the same sort of thing being done to Putin, and I worry and I wonder how many years it will take for us to work ourselves up to "liberate" Russia?
It's easy-1984. What gives me hope is that, given the choice
of two evils, Americans have actually chosen the lessor - Trump.
The MIC needs an enemy
It is not really possible to justify the huge expenditures on high tech weapons systems to fight the IS or Al Qaeda. Who needs $4billion ships and $100 million P35 fighters to fight a bunch of guys in a stolen Toyota Tacoma? China is too important to us economically to make into an enemy (although Dick Cheney tried briefly early in the GWBush admin). We are left with Russia so we have been demonizing Putin and Russia, even allying ourselves with Nazis and other white supremacists in Ukraine to kick out the elected (although very bad) government. There is also the convenience of blaming the Russians to distract people from the reality of the leaks (including the utter intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the media) and the utter failure of the US's policy in the Middle East.
The nuclear weapons industry
needs us to have a nuclear-armed enemy. Otherwise they're obsolete.
$348 billion on the table
Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2015 to 2024
Bloody Obama already set the upgrades in motion, then troll vomited:
We're doomed! Both Sides Now
Bookmark: http://thebulletin.org/doomsday-dashboard
Wow, "USA Nuclear Material Security 2010-2015; 27 stolen 14 lost," etc., but don't say blow back.
Future slashed from next budgets to satiate the crazy. Maybe why they don't care about climate change, or anything.
and like conventional arms
the need to be "used up" so they can sell more.
they sell the stuff to the cops
There's a whole scam about the military selling perfectly good equipment, vehicles, and weapons to cops all over the country, and then asking Congress for more money to replace it all.
There were congressional hearings, but of course it was all for show.
The business of the United States is war
There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.
--Amiri Baraka
The emerging racist rhetoric about Russia.
You have it surrounded. At a certain point it seemed to me that the media establishment and rabid democrats began to talk about the Russians in the same ways as Trump spoke of the Mexicans and Muslims. And it is acceptable. The distinction between the Putin and the Russian people has been wiped out and they are one and the same in their actions and intentions.
But also, the recently emerging rhetoric seems to be taking on the style and content of what the real German Nazis made about the Jew controlled Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union--who Hitler considered his greatest enemy. Putin like the Soviet Jews and all Jews everywhere are behind are undermining society and behind national social ills--the EU seems to be very well advanced as it is applying military and social forces to fight the evil Russians. I wasn't so sure about this until I saw a clip in passing where a EU based pundit said the attacks on Russia were soundly very familiar to the Nazis attacking the Jew controlled Soviet Union.
And you are right--all the Russia hysteria is following the same demonization pattern of Saddam to justify for the American people the invasion of Iraq. Among democrats at least, it seems to be working.
Thanks
It is very difficult to argue with these people. They seem so sure of themselves, and seem to have no care for the facts of the matter. They seem to believe that Putin is literally the Devil or Hitler; some of them actually make that comparison openly. If Putin is Hitler, then I might as well be Lenin. As you say, the distinction between Putin and the Russian people seems to have been wiped out. It really disturbs me that this kind of thing is acceptable among Democrats now. They don't see how wrong it is. They seem to blame Putin for everything, and completely fail to acknowledge how the US has helped create the problems for which they now blame Putin and Russia alone. They don't even seem to have noticed that the media and political establishment have been doing this since at least 2008.
I wish I had a better notion of how to argue with these people and convince them. My arguments seem incapable of reaching them so far. I suppose the thing to do is to keep arguing anyway, and hopefully it will convince the people who remain silent and only read.
The whole "Jew controlled Soviet Union" thing was a common trope in the ideology of all the right wing fascists of Central and Eastern Europe. It was common with the Lithuanian fascists and the Ukrainian fascists, who both actively assisted the Germans in killing the Jews. The Lithuanian fascists actually started killing the Jews in some places before the Wehrmacht even arrived! That trope was also common in the Polish Home Army, which was the main Polish resistance organization. They actively viewed the Jews as the national enemy of the Polish people, with the Communists (whom they identified with the Jews) as a very close second, and were perfectly happy to sit back and watch while the Nazis slaughtered the Jews, and occasionally kill a few Jews themselves.
Could you pass along the link to that EU pundit if you can find it? I'd like to see that. Most of my information explaining the Russia situation comes from Stephen Cohen. He comes to me recommended as a solid Russia expert from someone I trust who has also made a study of Russia.
Important point in understanding hatred of Russia
I always thought that a lot of the current Russian hysteria that comes from both the Ukrainians and Lithuanians comes from their history of anti-Jewish/Soviet/Russian fascism. I have know a decent number of Lithuanians who came out of WWII and others born in the Soviet area, and many believed as the Nazis did about the Jews. Strangely enough, maybe not strange, antisemitism seems to have mainly come from people from the major cities of Kaunas and Vilnius--not from more rural areas.
Sorry when I was going quickly through some sites, and just never bothered to mark them.
Pull back the curtain on Oz - it's evil Toto's fault!
That danged dog!
The Great and Powerful Oz ... is no more than Professor Marvel! Exposed completely! And does the Professor, once exposed, attack the diminutive but scrappy terrier who revealed his subterfuge? He does not. Rather, he confesses his sins and then hangs his head in shame since all present can see him for the sham that he indeed is. The brave Toto scampers at his feet the whole time and receives nary a kick.
I do not care one whit who exposed Hillary and her gang of deplorables at the DNC. If it turns out to be five-headed alien space frogs from the planet Zenetia, I could not care less. I care about what is behind the curtain - and we were able to find out with complete certainty what that was: deceit, corruption, election tampering, our vaunted unbiased press in collusion with the DNC, ad nauseam.
Kicking Toto - especially weeks and weeks later - when we've all seen behind the curtain, just adds to the disgust. Except, in the case of Hillary and the Neo-liberals, the "Toto" they've chosen to kick happens to have very sharp teeth. One of the primary reasons I voted against Hillary Clinton was to avoid the seemingly certain risk of war with Russia. Evidently, it's going to take more than just Hillary losing the election to stop that. There are some truly insane people about, and - sadly - a large group of them seem to be known as Democrats.
Heh.
Booted from the Frog Pond eh?
Badge of Honor. I left in 2006 I think. Didn't get booted, just left. His NeoLib proclivities were marked even then though oddly enough it was a haven for those dumped from DK for Kerry/Ohio CT.
Anyway, good on you.
Before the great exodus of 2016
I liked DKOS well enough but Kos himself often seemed to be in contradiction to liberal notions. The unwillingness to even discuss the possibility of electronic vote rigging or any of the solid evidence left me a bit puzzled. The ban on 9/11 conspiracy conversation was also disappointing.
In retrospect, I think I understand that authoritarian approach much better. I'm regretful - we shouldn't have allowed a dictator to rule us. But the fact so many have allowed this explains to some degree all the Russia hysteria. They have mostly become "unwitting agents" of the deep state.
Same people that believe the war in Syria is a civil war,
that believe that Obama had to bomb the shit out of Libya for seven months to save the "people", and give Obama an approval rating after more than seven years of killing more people.
At this point, they're irrelevant except for the damage they can cause. The democratic party is evil, just like the republican party. The duopoly is the establishment, so evidently Booman, whoever that is, is too.
Booman is for laughs
I've read his site occasionally for many years. Never understood what people thought was great about it, but I have found myself going there more often since the election. I guess I'm weirdly fascinated with how far out of touch with reality he's gonna get.
It's hard to see how the magazine he works for could be doing very well, and I imagine that he's experiencing some anxiety over that. That kind of anxiety could make it much easier to double down on what's worked in the past than to figure out what needs to be done in the future.
To add, this whole "integrity of our elections" bullshit,
makes me laugh and shows me where people who say it are at.
In what way, regardless of whether the presidential election was hacked or not, did an election between Clinton and Trump have anything to do with integrity? They're asking the wrong question which should be, why do we still have a political system that gives us such a choice and masquerades it as democracy?
It's like they're saying that if the Russians did not hack the election, of which no proof has been provided, then the election would have had integrity. That is hilarious, and sad.
^Nailed it!^
Sometimes a good question is more powerful and important than even the most brilliant argument. Too bad most people are addicted to the mental junk food of simple declarative statements and get a bad case of indigestion when asked to chew on a more substantial question.
“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Exactly, thank you Big Al
Integrity in our elections?? Like, when has that been going on?
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
Totally in agreement.
For more reasons than one.
"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
This brain-eating mind virus emergent on the Left
…is, of course, disturbing to everyone, victims and observers alike. The opening line of the essay in question would make anyone living a considered life shudder:
"Forget everything else," he cries out. "Someone is defending Russia!"
As if mean old Russia ever did anything to him, a calcified notion you'll find implanted in the brains of Americans past a certain age. And really that's all he has throughout the whole essay, which is basically a footnote to the opening whine.
What we have here can be explained in common and pratical psychological terms:
The Democratic Party is getting a divorce. They are not going to stay together for the sake of the kids. They have to divide up everything, including their celebrity friends.
Yes, it's a pedestrian process. You've seen the pattern many times in your adult life as "the couple" breaks up and goes their separate ways, endlessly narrating the betrayal to anyone who will still listen. As always, the one who loved the most, is the most distressed.
Whether it's triggered by a mid-life crisis, a divorce, or a job loss, these events can result in a full-blown "identity crises," where the person is overwhelmed by an unexpected change of audience.
For example, when admiring glances are aimed elsewhere and one abruptly discovers they are middle aged and their audience has moved on. How can they find themselves again?
The Democratic Divorce of 2016 is a messy affair. One side thinks, "How could she betray me for so long? She's an evil witch." And the other side thinks, "What did I ever see in him? He's disgusting." I expect this public display of disaffection to continue for most of 2017, as the Party parts ways.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Booman Tribune? Never heard of it, not that that means anything.
Forward into the past! Back to the Cold War!
That's the ticket. Democratic elites, the top 4 percenters with PhDs and masters and LLDs and juris doctors degrees and M.D.s, they know the path to victory -- appeal to the other top 4 percenters...along with the top 1 percenters.
From Matt Taibbi's interview with Bernie Sanders:
"Sanders believes it is a mistake to dismiss the Trump movement as a monolithic expression of racism and xenophobia. Trump's populist appeals, sincere or not, carried the day, and Democrats need to answer them."
What's the response I get from Democrats?
NO NO NO NO NO!!!! F*** YOU, YOU F***IN' F***! WE'RE NEVER GIVING UP ON BLACK LIVES MATTER AND EQUAL PAY FOR WOMEN AND GAY MARRIAGE!!!
Nobody asked you to give up on those things. But where's your economic message? What are you saying to ordinary voters about what you're going to do about the economy?
Here's the economic message I got from Hillary Clinton: training and education. The same dead ancient long-debunked mantra we've been hearing from Demos for 25 years now. Those nostrums don't work. Retrain a 45-year-old stock clerk to program in Javascript, and you think anyone's going to hire him? Get real. Employers want to hire 20-something programmers who have spent their entire lies doing coding, not some johnny-come-lately who switched to a new profession out of desperation. More education has been lethal, that's a dead end. Stats show that fully 60% of new jobs taken by college graduates are jobs that have not traditionally required a college degree. Jobs like barista. Or xerox clerk. It's just degree inflation. Better education merely forces workers into a cruel game of musical chairs, where jobs that used to require a high school degree now require a 4 year college degree, and jobs that used to require a bachelor's now require a master's or a doctorate. Soon, you won't be able to get a job unless you have a PhD *and* an MBA. Then you'll need not only a PhD and an MBA, but post-doc as well. And on and on, up it goes, never-ending. The credential spiral isn't connected to the skills you need, it's designed to reduce the number of applicants. Because there are just too many people for the available jobs. That's the essential problem. Too many people and too few decent-paying jobs.
I ask Democrats about this stuff, and demand to know what their economic message is -- aside from the failed and futile mantra of "more training and more education."
And the Demos stare at me and their mouths open and close like guppies in a tank in the pet store, and no words come out.
"Tell me," I ask Democrats. "What's your economic message? What is it?"
Mn mn mnmnmn... Uh-uh-uh....
Nothing. That's their economic message. Silence. Crickets. Nothing.
I'm all for black lives matter, women's rights, all that stuff. And guess what? If you're so busy talking about all that stuff that you never utter a word about the economy, then you Democrats are dead. You are gone. You are over. Because the death of the working class (let's call them what they are, not middle class or blue collar but the bottom 94% of the American population, the people without advanced degrees or professional credentials and without millions or billions in the bank), this collapse of the U.S. economy for almost everyone below the top 4%, is what the German military used to call a schwerpunkt. It's the weak spot in the enemy lines. That's where you attack.
The Republicans are vulnerable on the economy. Everyone knows it. So why aren't Democrats pushing hard on this point? Instead, it's all finger-pointing and blame-naming, by top-4-percenter multimillionaires like minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and their daughter Chelsea Clinton, who together with her Goldman Sachs hedge-fund trader husband Mark Mezvinsky just bought a 10.5 million dollar townhouse in Manhattan. (Mark's daddy, Ed Mezvinsky pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 felony counts of financial fraud, BTW. Meanwhile, after leaving Goldman, son Mark just lost the money of all his investors in his new private hedge fund by making a bad bet on the Greek economy. These are the people the Clintons have chosen to associate themselves with.)
Now Chelsea Clinton is talking about running as a congressperson. Just what we need. Democrats: the Next Generation. Does it occur to anyone in the Democratic leadership that words like "hedge fund" and "Goldman Sachs trader" and "fraud convictions" and "lost all his investors' money" are not something you want to be associated with?
Apparently not. With the Democrats, it's now the top 4 percent against the top 1 percent.
You have a choice in the American political system today. You can go with the top 4 percenters, the Democratic party elites, who don't give a damn about you or any of the rest of the bottom 96% of workers. Or you can go with the Republicans, who don't give a damn about you or any of the rest of the bottom 99% of workers.
Great choice, huh?
Instead of offering constructive economic proposals, the Democratic elites have chosen to rail against "low-skill workers." Meanwhile, their highly-paid highly-credentialed "experts" got everything wrong. Democratic Treasury Secretary Larry Summers handled the transition of the Russian economy to capitalism, and it was a disaster. Then treasury undersecretary Democrat Brad DeLong failed to predict the asian currency crisis, got the Mexican peso devaluation wrong, and predicted NAFTA would create a million jobs. All wrong. Democratic economists predicted a rapid V-shaped economic recovery after the 2008 financial meltdown. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, all wrong. 100% wrong, totally wrong, completely wrong.
Who are the low-skill workers here? Looks to me like the Democratic elites are the actual low-skill workers. They can't win elections and all their economic predictions are wrong and all their economic policies are a disaster. They want to revive the Cold War and gear up for another conflict with Russia...which has an economy half the size of Italy and threatens no one.
The low-skill workers with useless PhDs and masters degrees who run the Democratic party need to get fired. These low-skill workers need to lose their jobs. We need to put some high-skilled workers in their place -- people like auto mechanics, hairdressers, people who actually work for a living. People who know what the economy is actually like in 2016, and are determined to do something to fix it.
Post worthy.
May I steal it?
With attribution of course.
mclaren,
just catching up with Caucus99percent discussions after the holiday, I have been aware that some of the greatest posted comments I have seen in years are here. This one of yours is absolutely stunning and crucial. Thank you so much for writing and contributing it. I predict it will be the beginning of a lot of new threads of discussion. Peace. Bravo, or Brava, as the case may be.
I have an economic message!
Create the union of free producers!
'French theory is a product of US cultural imperialism." -- Gabriel Rockhill