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| For more and more Americans, the other side isn’t merely misguided in the extreme. It’s
evil in the absolute, and virtue is measured by the starkness with which that evil is labeled
and reviled. There are emotional satisfactions to this. There is also a terrible price.
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people are
Whataboutism is a nickname MSM have given that dirty the tactic of discrediting the opponent, when the opponent questions the USA objectivity because it commited similar or worse crimes in the past. Which, of course, if nor deprive, but greatly diminish the USA status as an objective judge.
Neoliberal channels are ready to come up with numerous conspiracy theories, painting the opponent, especially Russia, as ruthless canning opportunists, devoid of any moral principles. But unfortunately this is true about the USA too.
But the key idea of this cynical post-modern media strategy, perfected by neoliberal political technologists is to block/suppress/dilute all opposing views in the "neoliberal noise" (like air dominance in war the US MSM practice full airwave dominance). That's why Putin interview is edited in such a wya as to hide any substantial criticism of the US policy. And not only Putin. This is a universal strategy of deciet. Its goal of the US MSM is to confuse what’s true with what’s not, to the point that the truth vanishes. What it undeniable is that over the past year neoliberals created an artificial reality that matches or exceed the one that existed in the USSR. Along with demonization Russia they also greatly succeeded in demonization of Trump.
This color revolution that Clinton and their supporters in several intelligence agencies launched against Trump in election would be painfully familar to one who observed , for example, Uninian Orange revolution. Templates are identical. just the goals are different (in case of Orange revolution delegitimization of elections to the extent that new elections were called; in case of anti-Trump color revolution the appointment of the Special Prosecutor (aka Grand Inqusitor) was the goal.
This is what must be done by free thinkers if they are to counter and reverse the collectivist nightmare of neoliberalism.Try to avoid false trick of "shaming" under some artificial labels like communist or racist: Social justice relies on shaming tactics, usually by slandering an opponent with a label that does not really apply to him, in order to control his arguments and behavior. If you don’t care about being called a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a misogynist, a homophobe, etc., then there is not really much that they can do to you.
Do not self-censor: This does not mean you should go out of your way to be antagonistic or act like an ass, but the thought police have power only if you give power to them. Say what you want to say when you want to say it, and do it with a smile. Let the PC police froth and scream until they have an aneurism. neoliberals are generally weaklings. They avoid physical confrontation like they avoid logic, so why fear them?
Demand facts to back claims: neoliberals tend to argue on the basis of opinion rather than fact. Present facts to counter their claims, and demand facts and evidence in return. Opinions are irrelevant if the person is not willing to present supporting facts when asked.
Do not play the game of "unconscious bias": If social justice cultists can't counter your position with facts or logic, they will invariably turn to the old standby that you are limited in your insight because you have not lived in the shoes of a - (insert victim group here). I agree. In fact, I would point out that this reality of limited perception also applies to THEM as well. They have not lived in my shoes, therefore they are in no position to claim I enjoy "privilege" while they do not. This is why facts and evidence are so important, and why anecdotal evidence and personal feelings are irrelevant where cultural Marxism is concerned.
Let neoliberals know their fears and feelings do not matter: No one is entitled to have their feelings addressed by others. And, a person’s fears are ultimately unimportant. Whether the issue is the nonexistent “rape culture” or the contempt neoliberals feel over private gun ownership, their irrational fears are not our concern. Why should any individual relinquish his liberties in the name of placating frightened nobodies?
Demand that banksters respect your inherent individual rights: Banksters message is that there is no such thing as inherent rights or liberties and that all rights are arbitrary and subject to the whims of the group or the state. This is false. I have written extensively in the past on inherent rights, inborn psychological contents and natural law, referencing diverse luminaries, scientists and thinkers, including Thomas Aquinas, Carl Gustave Jung, Steven Pinker, etc., and I welcome readers to study my many articles on individualism. Freedom is an inborn conception with universally understood aspects. Period. No group or collective is more important than individual liberty. No artificial society has preeminence over the individuals within that society. As long as a person is not directly impeding the life, liberty, prosperity and privacy of another person, he should be left alone.
Maintain your rights as long as they do not hurt other people: PC cultists will invariably argue that every person, whether he knows it or not, is indirectly harming others with his attitude, his beliefs, his refusal to associate, even his very breathing. "We live in a society", they say, "and everything we do affects everyone else...". Don’t take such accusations seriously; these people do not understand how freedom works.
Say, for instance, hypothetically, that I refuse to bake a gay wedding cake for a couple and I am accused of violating their rights in the name of preserving my own. I would immediately point out that no one is entitled to a gay wedding cake, baked by me or anyone else and I have every right to choose my associations based on whatever criteria I see fit. Now, a corrupt government entity may claim I do not have that right. But the fact is I do, and no one — not even government — can force me to bake a cake if I don’t want to. Also, I would point out that the gay couple in question has every right in a free society to bake their OWN damn cake or open their own cake shop to compete with mine. This is how freedom works. It is not based on collective entitlement; it is based on personal responsibility.
Refuse to deny the scientific fact of biological gender: Gender is first and foremost a genetic imperative. Society only partially determine gender roles; nature does the most. A man who chops up his body and takes hormone pills to look like a woman is not and will never be a woman. A woman who tapes down her breasts and gets a short haircut will never be a man. There is no such thing as “transgendered” people. No amount of social justice or wishful thinking will ever allow them to reverse their genetic proclivities. Their psychological and sexual leanings do not change their inborn biological reality.
By extension, we should refuse to play along with this nonsense. I will never refer to a man in a wig and dress as a “woman.” I will never refer to a woman with identity issues as “transgendered.” They are what nature made them, and we should not police our pronouns just to falsely reassure them that they can deny nature.
Deny both neoliberal idea of "greed is good" and the illusion of Utopian equality: "Greed is good" proved to be an effective instrument of destruction of the USA society in just 35 years. Now we have "Dis-united States of America." Not the "United States of America." Like traffic light regulation perform a vital fuinction and removing vital regulations inflict a heavy price of the society. Opposite is also true: too much regulations also inflict a price. There is no such thing as pure social equality. It was never achieved in societies that try it, such as early the USSR. Society is not a homogeneous entity, it is an abstraction built around a group of unique individuals. Individuals can be naturally gifted, or naturally challenged. But there will always be some people who are more apt towards success than others and the success of the society depends of promoting such people to more important roles. Financial remuneration actually can pray here secondary role, but different in status is unavoidable. Primates-related concept of 'alpha male" is a precursor to social differentiation in human societies.
I have no problem whatsoever with the idea of equality of opportunity, which is exactly what we have in this country (except in the world of elitist finance which is purely driven by nepotism). I do have a problem with the lie of universal equality through engineered means.
Standards of success should not be lowered in order to accommodate the least skilled people to facilitate artificial parity. For example, I constantly hear the argument that more people with victim group status should be given greater representation in positions of influence and regard within our culture, from science and engineering, to media, to business CEO's, to politics, etc. The key word here is "given", rather than "earned". There is nothing wrong with one group of people excelling in a field more than another group, and there is nothing wrong with inequality when it comes to individual achievement. We must begin refusing to reward people for mediocrity and punishing success simply because the winners are not part of a designated victim group.
If you are a man, embrace your role: I am a man and cannot claim to know what specific solutions women should take to counter cultural Marxism. I would love to read an article written on the subject by a woman in the Liberty Movement. I will say that men in particular have a considerable task ahead in terms of their personal endeavors if they hope to repair the destruction of social justice.
For thousands of years, men have been the primary industrial force behind human progress. Today, they are relegated to cubicles and customer service, to video games and Web fantasies, to drug addictions and a lack of responsibility. If we have any chance of undoing the damage of cultural Marxism, modern men must take on their original roles as producers, inventors, entrepreneurs, protectors, builders and warriors once again. They should do this for their own benefit, and not for the validation of others.
You don’t have to prove to anyone you do "manly things", just go out and do them. Most importantly, become dangerous. Men are meant to be dangerous beings. That does not mean we are meant to be indiscriminately violent (just as women aren’t meant to be indiscriminately violent), but we are supposed to be threatening to those who would threaten us. Modern society has NOT removed the need for masculinity and I believe people will begin realizing this the more our culture sinks into economic despair. Train in martial arts, learn tactical firearms handling, go hunting and don’t take lip from people. In my opinion, every man should know how to kill things, even if he never plans on using those abilities.
Resist neoliberal brainwashing of your children: It’s simple, if you don’t want your kids propagandized, if you truly want them to be free from collectivist conditioning, then you will make the sacrifice and extract them from public schooling. With the introduction of Common Core into U.S. schools in particular, there is no other recourse but home schooling to prevent the brainwashing of cultural Marxism. If you do not do this, you are relying on the hope that your children will escape with their critical thinking abilities intact. Some do, and some don’t. Others turn into mindless social justice zombies. You can give them an advantage by removing them from a poisonous environment, and that is what matters.
The insane lie that neoliberals seem to have conned themselves and others into believing is that their “activism” is somehow anti-establishment. In fact, social justice is constantly coddled and supported by the establishment.
From politicians to judges to media pundits to the blogosphere, the overwhelming majority of people in positions of traditional power (even in supposedly conservative circles) have been more than happy to become the enforcers of the neoliberal agenda (including "fake democratization" agenda). There is no establishment for the army of enforces of political correctness to fight; the establishment bias works vastly more in favor of their ideology than any other. Neoliberals ARE the establishment.
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Oct 14, 2017 | www.unz.com
Greg Bacon, Website October 14, 2017 at 9:59 am GMT
liveload , October 13, 2017 7:07 PMIf the Senate can 'assess,' so can I! I assess that Hollywood hottie Jenifer Lawrence is secretly in love with me! Although I can't prove this, all of my assessments point to this as being fact.
It just occurred to me that the perfect Halloween decoration this year would be a Russian flag. That is, unless someone comes out with a Zombie Putin, or Dracula Putin...
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Oct 15, 2017 | www.msn.com
In the past few weeks, we have learned that the Russian government reached more than 10 million Americans with a misinformation campaign on Facebook, and that hackers targeted 21 state election systems , stealing information from 90,000 voting records in the state of Illinois alone. These are just the latest of many revelations about Russia's unprecedented interference in the election.
It is cold comfort that we have no evidence so far that Moscow actually manipulated vote tallies to change the election's outcome.
But what if it emerges that Russian operatives were successful on that front as well? Setting Trump aside, what if a foreign government succeeds in the future in electing an American president through active vote manipulation?
The Constitution offers no clear way to remedy such a disaster.
Any evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia raises its own set of important issues -- now being assiduously investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller. But the disturbing scenario in which hackers manipulate election results, conceivably rendering the true vote tally unrecoverable, would pose a unique threat to a foundational principle of our democracy: rule by the consent of the governed. We would in no sense have a government "by the people."
Although such a constitutional crisis now seems all too plausible, we have yet to seriously consider provisions that might protect our democracy -- measures that could allow us to reverse such a result.
... ... ...
Vinay Nayak and Samuel Breidbart are students at Yale Law School.
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Oct 15, 2017 | www.msn.com
Now the focus is less on Trump's extensive personal social media following and more on the roles that Facebook and Twitter may have played in alleged Russian interference in the election. Congress is calling on Facebook and Twitter to disclose details about how they may have been used by Russia-linked entities to try to influence the election in favor of Trump.
But despite the much-publicized case in the U.S., the pervasiveness of these political strategies on social media, from the distribution of disinformation to organized attacks on opponents, the tactics remain largely unknown to the public, as invisible as they are invasive. Citizens are exposed to them the world over, often without ever realizing it.
Drawing on two recent reports by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and independent research, Newsweek has outlined the covert ways in which states and other political actors use social media to manipulate public opinion around the world, focusing on six illustrative examples: the U.S., Azerbaijan, Israel, China, Russia and the U.K.
It reveals how "Cyber-troops" -- the name given to this new political force by the OII -- are enlisted by states, militaries and parties to secure power and undermine opponents, through a combination of public funding, private contracts and volunteers, and how bots -- fake accounts that purport to be real people -- can produce as many as 1,000 social media posts a day.
By generating an illusion of support for an idea or candidate in this way, bots drive up actual support by sparking a bandwagon effect -- making something or someone seem normal and like a palatable, common-sense option. As the director of the OII, Philip Howard, argues : "If you use enough of them, of bots and people, and cleverly link them together, you are what's legitimate. You are creating truth."
On social media, the consensus goes to whoever has the strongest set of resources to make it.
The U.S.: Rise of the bots
America sees a wider range of actors attempting to shape and manipulate public opinion online than any country -- with governments, political parties, and individual organizations all involved.
In its report, the OII describes 2016's Trump vs. Hillary Clinton presidential contest as a " watershed moment " when social media manipulation was "at an all-time high."
Many of the forces at play have been well-reported: whether the hundreds of thousands of bots or the right-wing sites like Breitbart distributing divisive stories. In Michigan, in the days before the election, fake news was shared as widely as professional journalism . Meanwhile firms like Cambridge Analytica, self-described specialists in "election management," worked for Trump to target swing voters, mainly on Facebook.
While Hillary Clinton's campaign also engaged in such tactics, with big-data and pro-Clinton bots multiplying in number as her campaign progressed, Trump's team proved the most effective. Overall, pro-Trump bots generated five times as much activity at key moments of the campaign as pro-Clinton ones. These Twitter bots -- which often had zero followers -- copied each other's messages and sent out advertisements alongside political content. They regularly retweeted Dan Scavino, Trump's social media director.
One high-ranking Republican Party figure told OII that campaigning on social media was like "the Wild West." "Anything goes as long as your candidate is getting the most attention," he said. And it worked: A Harvard study concluded that overall Trump received 15 percent more media coverage than Clinton.
Targeted advertising to specific demographics was also central to Trump's strategy. Clinton spent two and a half times more than Trump on television adverts and had a 73% share of nationally focused digital ads.
But Trump's team, led by Cambridge Analytica for the final months, focused on sub-groups. In one famous example, an anti-Clinton ad that repeated her notorious speech from 1996 describing so-called "super-predators" was shown exclusively to African-American voters on Facebook in areas where the Republicans hoped to suppress the Democrat vote -- and again, it worked.
"It's well known that President Obama's campaign pioneered the use of microtargeting in 2012," a spokesperson for Cambridge Analytica tells Newsweek . "But big data and new ad tech are now revolutionizing communications and marketing, and Cambridge Analytica is at the forefront of this paradigm shift."
"Communication enhances democracy, not endangers it. We enable voters to have their concerns heard, and we help political candidates communicate their policy positions."
The firm argues that its partnership with American right-wing candidates -- first Ted Cruz and then Trump -- is purely circumstantial. "We work in politics, but we're not political," the spokesperson said.
The company is part-owned by the family of Robert Mercer, which was one of Trump's major donors, while Stephen K. Bannon sat on the company's board until he was appointed White House chief strategist (he was dismissed from his post seven months later). According to Bannon's March federal financial disclosure, he held shares worth as much as $5 million in the company . On October 11, it was also revealed that the House Intelligence Committee has asked the company to provide information for its ongoing probe into Russian interference.
But social media manipulation did not begin or end with the election. As early as 2011, the US government hired a public relations firm to develop a " persona management tool " that would develop and control fake profiles on social media for political purposes.
The British parent company of Cambridge Analytica, Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), has been a client of the government for years, working with the Department of Defense, and The Washington Post reports that it recently secured work with the State Department.
There is also growing awareness of hundreds of thousands of so-called "sleeper" bots: Accounts that have tweeted only once or twice for Trump, and which now sit silently, waiting for a trigger -- a key political moment -- to spread disinformation and drown out opposing views.
Emilio Ferrara, an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Southern California Computer Science department, even suggests the possibility of "a black-market for reusable political disinformation bots," ready to be utilitized wherever they are needed, the world over. These fears appeared to be confirmed by reports that the same bots used to back Trump were then deployed against eventual winner Emmanuel Macron in this year's French presidential election.
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Oct 09, 2017 | discussion.theguardian.com
There is nothing new about omission.VSLVSL, 9 Oct 2017 10:09The BBC and the Guardian are as expert at it as any other news sources.
When the BBC can't ignore an off-message news story it buries it in a remote part of its website or uses a misleading headline to minimise views.
carbonblacktest -> Stillgrizzly , 9 Oct 2017 10:04Almost everyone involved in producing papers – publishers, editors and journalists – has been relaxed about this situation. They offer two interlocking arguments as justification.
First, plurality. Given that there are several titles on offer with differing views, people can make a choice about what they read (and don't read).
Second, freedom of the press. Publishers and editors are merely exercising their right to tell readers what they think. If they don't like it they can go elsewhere (back to plurality).
It was always a complacent stance - to say the very least.
The media belonged to the wealthy because of the high costs of entry, and the culture of the press ensured a self-selecting mindset perpetuated this unchallenged view.
For the practically-minded person who wished to have a role in the media, there were alternatives - from trade-union newspapers, to periodicals, to political tracts and pamphleteering. For the wealthy there was self-publishing, and for the rightists there were usually opaquely-funded thinktanks. The academically-inclined would gravitate toward the universities' system.
What all these publishing routes had in common was timeliness - they could never match the national daily press operations to get copy (and ideas) out there quickly enough to shape events in the way that a Beaverbrooke or a Northcliffe could.
The internet has irrevocably changed that position - small, self-funded, focussed pieces can either set-up their own publishing or use social media to publish rapidly. The effect of this is that influence which was always the prerogative of the wealthy is now open to all - whether you're The Canary or ConservativeHome you can influence events in way which a decade ago was beyond the reach of most.
Roy Greenslade, like a lot of traditional print journalists, is finding himself challenged by the loss of authority. Laura Kuenssberg has come up through this journalistic apprenticeship and earned her spurs just as this world has been made redundant.
It is a transitional period, and many old-school journalists have responded to the shifting sand beneath themselves by arguing we are living in a post truth world - i'm not sure this is the case, but we are certainly living in a period when the old certainties handed down from Fleet Street editors are no longer relevant.
PeasantsRevolt, 9 Oct 2017 09:55But there straight away you have a partial truth. Not all "news" is reported, not all views are allowed an "opinion" and not all "opinions" are allowed comments, and not all comments are allowed to remain in place.
Of course not all news is reported - how could it be? There are too many facts in the world for it all to be reported. But you can distinguish between:
(a) people who are trying to provide, to the best of their ability, an impartial outline of the big events
(b) those who are primarily trying to push an agenda and knowingly only report those things which further that agenda, while ignoring the rest
(c) those who put out outright lies and mistruths.The way that I see it, there are some media opetations which do (c) - The Sun can sometimes, for instance; there are others which do (b) - The Mail, and the Canary. And there are some things which do (a) - The Guardian, I'd say, and also the BBC, which tries so hard to be 'impartial' that it self-flagellates every week on Radio 4.
Of course, there's got to be a choice about what to print. And there is also a choice about what people think are the limits of reasonable moral agreement, which is why some 'opinions' will not be given air-time (obviously, even for a liberal, there are certain classic things which are not given air-time, such as incitement to violence) - The Guardian's comment section has rather high limits on some things, and, I think, can be overzealous there.
But, I think many people make the error of jumping from the truism that 'all news outlets will be partial in what they report', to the false conclusion that 'all news outlets are biased, and deal with fake news'.
Face it, with increasing access to information that hitherto was kept from us "for our own good", the only antidote is to muddy the waters with extraneous noise and pretend that there are multiple versions of "the truth". Joe public, suitably jaundiced at the nonsense spread by the press et al, switches off and what would have proved vital information for a democratic electorate is diluted by the "fake news".Ganapathi, 9 Oct 2017 09:45What we are left with are news sources that reinforce the prejudices of those incapable of exercising their brain cells, or for those more discerning in their news consumption, the increasingly insurmountable task of sifting through a welter of crap to find a nugget of verifiable information. In any event, the majority of news reporting is a study in cynicism, as testified by Owen Jones of this organ as he laments: "We can no longer pretend the British press is impartial".
Either way, the ownership and transmission of information has and always will be vital in the task of "winning hearts and minds" by those who have no interest in shedding illumination, and where shadow works best - no matter the cost.
Fake news is something the Guardian specialises in. Reporting is gone. Most of the paper is now given over to so-called "Opinion" pieces - read woefully biased often to the point of being propaganda. The problem doesn't stop there as most of the supposed serious reporting is little better than the opinion pieces. As John Pilger said of this lack of research and reporting the facts in newspapers some time ago, "Look at the Guardian - a whole stable of opinionated wind-bags." How true.GoldenCygnet, 9 Oct 2017 09:31When I was studying 'A' Level Politics as long go as the early 80s I remember reading about a study from the 60s (I think) - can't remember by who. Crick and Rose? Those kinds of names - and they confirmed what surely most of us already suspected, that (most) people don't read news to learn the truth, they read the news to reinforce their prejudices, so there's very little new here. And evermore so in the hunt for the clicks, I'm afraid a large part of the Guardian's coverage seems pretty geared to that as well, which is why they have the recommends.Nada89 -> happylong, 9 Oct 2017 09:21It seems pretty arrogant and ironic to me to preach about fake news and 'conspiracy theories' - which apparently aren't conspiracy theories when the Guardian are reporting them - so it's disappointing to hear Roy Greenslade resort to one of the latest additions to the Dictionary of Demonisations, in which you will find 'do gooder, Communist, 'etc. It's getting to the stage where people will be pointing the finger at Roy Greenslade and telling him he's just a Roy Greenslade, and he'll defensively respond, "No, I'm not". There is no debate of issues, just slanging matches of entrenched views egged on by engineering media outlets with their fishing nets out. Paradise to people like Trump and Farage.
The exchange between Chomsky and Marr nails it, in my opinion, since it addresses the price of admission to the MSM establishment and some of the myths, self-serving myths according to Chomsky which preclude serious analysis of the way news organisations respond to important news events (such as WMD, and today tensions over Russia, Iran and N Korea).pretendname, 9 Oct 2017 09:20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWUNot sure how you made the leap from an often used acronym to accusations of tin foil hat syndrome - perhaps your point might have been clearer if you'd engaged witht the substantive point about egregious lies used to justify Iraq and the fact Blair and Campbell are still given so much space on a libral platform to talk about the future of our country.
I'm not privvy to the workings of 'Journalism' at any sort of detailed level, but from 10,000 feet I can see there's a problem, and I can see roughly what it is.CharteredEngineer , 9 Oct 2017 09:19You mention 3 things I'd pick up on :
Plurality.
[Plurality] There is none. When Piers Morgan decided to take a distinctly anti-war tone whilst editor of the mirror he was quickly embroiled in scandal and turfed out. Now I understand that in times of 'war' there are special rules that apply to what can and cannot be printed.. But to my knowledge those rules didn't apply, and there was absolutely no mainstream media outlet that was overtly anti iraq war. Including the Guardian.
The Guardian was even publicly censored by hammer under Rusbridger.
Some of the articles published in the guardian on Syria have been little short of Neo-Con manifesto's. And I take the Guardian and perhaps the Independent to be as close to actual journalism as we can get in these dark times.
It is obvious to many that the naratives supplied by the government, and promulgated by the media, are so devolved or any real reason as to be incoherent.
Let at least one outlet tell the world that war in the middle east is about alternative gas pipelines to Europe, propping up the oil and dollar based world economy on which we've all so far relied, Israeli security, Surrounding Iran, curtailing the power of Russia.... whatever might be actually true. Have a real debate with the public.
But everyone simply sticking to the ever changing fairytale narratives makes the media and the government look like a 3 year old trying to deny he ate the chocolate... with it smeared around his mouth. The public are not as dumb as the government would like them to be.
Freedom of press...
[Freedon of press] This is one of the most transparent and ridiculous aspects of the proto-fascist anglophone west. Bombing al-jazeera, closing down press-tv, constantly complaining about RT, brazenly smashing the Guardians hard drives.. these are just the more public methods by which press freedom is curtailed. Recently the PACE president was forced to resign because he went to the 'wrong' part of Syria to see what was going on for himself.
This is what is going on... Nobody is allowed to report on Aleppo reconstruction, or celebrate the routing of ISIS from Syria if it was done by the SAA. Personally I find the level of obsequious sychophancy in western Journalism is nauseating. Where are the journalists who are questioning the actual sanity, or motivation of our leadership?
Editorials.
This is the real issue for me. I remember a time when editorial was considered crass, and transparently propagandistic. Now the daily express not only regularly uses the most tasteless pejoratives, but does it in capitals. I long for the days when a quality newspaper printed facts.. and left the reader to decide the context. Sifting though the doublespeak in modern newspaper articles is like trying to translate the fevered French of a tourist who has just been mugged.
I witnessed a father taking his young children around a budget supermarket yesterday. "Can I have a can of drink, Dad?", one asked. The father said that the cans were only sold there in multipacks. Fake information, evident to all. And so around the store they went - with Dad providing ever more ingenious reasons why a child couldn't have something they had seen. It was just a harmless game that the family were playing, and playing well.ErikFBerger , 9 Oct 2017 09:10Only in the scientific world of research and peer review is there an actual expectation of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Expectation not always realised. In a courtroom lies are expected. Which is why statements are subject to expert cross-examination - when it suits to opposition to expose the lie, that is. In politics, the truth is a precious commodity that needs to be protected by a bodyguard of misinformation.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone takes on trust anything they are told, by anyone. Oh, one might appear to - when what's been said or written supports the individual's agenda. Like whiplash injuries, injured feelings are hard to disprove. It's easy to express moral outrage, especially if you have no morals.
In a World where no one believes the truth, unless it supports their own agenda to do so, how can we expect that anyone believes fake news, unless it does likewise? Those that claim to believe conspiracy theories may, or most likely do not, do so. It matters not - if those theories didn't exist, those that want them would still create them.
The author of this piece seems to believe that perpetrators shouldn't get away with things. I can't agree. Far worse things are done legally than could ever be done illegally.
Blame mainstream media. They should have known better than to turn themselves into mouthpieces for powerful corporate and military interests behind the scene. They were the establishment. They should have kept high standards, but the betrayed their own principles.LauraJones83 , 9 Oct 2017 09:01The worst scandal of all is the way "liberal" media have turned themselves into warmongers, supporting whatever is the latest spin lie from the US military-industrial complex.
Problem for news organisations is that people know have more access to information and can self verify facts and figures. So I don't think anyone really believes what is printed in newspapers like they used to. Everyone is more cynical which to some extent is better.Nada89 , 9 Oct 2017 08:56There is certainly a slant to news output and manipulation of the agenda to push a certain narrative, Guardian is as guilty as Daily Mail and BBC. Good example is the constant pushing of the stats on gender 'pay gap', used to be that every time a puff piece was filed on the 18% gap then the stats analysis would get torn to pieces BTL.
The stats were easy to come by and people realized that they weren't being sold an honest narrative, they sought truth out instead, again this should be seen as a positive.
'There is a bleak paradox here. In seeking to combat the hated mainstream media output, which they regard as a form of fake news, they have become ready recipients of fake news themselves.' - this passage unintentionally reveals a touch of snobbery, or at least a power dynamic between MSM commentators, who presumably can see the smoke & mirrors of so called fake news, and Joe Bloggs, who can't.Bjerkley , 9 Oct 2017 08:49This assumption is deeply flawed not least because a variety of information streams are readily available, and BTL there are usually several commentators (often because they have a certain expertise in different spheres) who can rapidly deconstruct the official line implied in various news items.
Look back at the suppine MSM coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq - we have now all learnt to our cost that answers to the deeper questions about these imperial disasters are unlikely to be found in the MSM.
Just a theory but I think there's a glut of information from too many sources. Headlines are increasingly designed to get readers' attentions and often fail to reflect the content of the article, and as a result there isn't the time to critically appraise or analyse what the story actually is.PortlandRace -> IPFS , 9 Oct 2017 08:49That goes hand in hand with a democratization of newspapers (for better or worse) where websites have encouraged readers to share and express their opinion, which necessarily leads to us plebs valuing our opinions as much as the opinions ATL (fairly in many cases).
I don't find the BBC any worse than any other news outlet. They're all pretty bad. Back in the early 2000s I was at the centre of a situation that was of national, albeit very fleeting, interest. Facts were thin on the ground, the major papers took their sides -- not mine I hasten to add -- and for several months every rumour relating to the situation was reported "in quotes", allowing for sensationalised headlines, sub headings etc.Stillgrizzly -> Malunkey , 9 Oct 2017 08:48Shock horror when I eventually had my day in court, and won. Did the mainstream press, including the Guardian, dedicate as many column inches to that as they did all their "previous facts"? Of course not. At the least the BBC did. Was with hindsight a very interesting experience to see how "facts" are reported and to be their subject.
Billy Fluig , 9 Oct 2017 08:46"The Guardian still reports the news"["The Guardian still reports the news" ] But there straight away you have a partial truth. Not all "news" is reported, not all views are allowed an "opinion" and not all "opinions" are allowed comments, and not all comments are allowed to remain in place.
There is a trickle down which is decided by the "editorial" view whatever that is which means that there are a number of filters and what you end up with is very much partial and skewed.
ProjectXRay , 9 Oct 2017 08:43If people only believe what they want to believe, regardless of the facts then journalism's mission to inform is in real peril.
I'm not sure I fully follow the article. You've already said that "Our press has been proudly partisan. The result has been blatant bias. It is an understatement to call it spin. Heavily angled stories and headlines are the norm."
So who is on a "mission to inform?". You've excluded the press; perhaps you mean there's hope in public Radio & TV, but trust in them is tainted because of the political commentary offered by the likes of Laura Kuenssberg.
So, what's the solution? Eliminate commentary from public news bulletins? Might not be a bad idea. Keep it for separate political discussion programmes.
The hyper-partisan people and outlets actively position themselves as the only objective or 'free thinking' ones- see Fox's longstanding claim to be 'fair and balanced'. They present their conspiracy theorizing as interrogating the facts, and accuse everybody else of being blinded by propaganda. They are actually the most aggressive in claiming bias in others, whilst failing to critique their own bias at all. It's a form of blind faith.theybrokedemocracy , 9 Oct 2017 08:43I had an argument with someone on here the other day because they claimed, clear as day, that they wouldn't believe either mainstream reporting or eyewitness testimony about a particular event because they believed it would inevitably be biased, and only believed the 'unbiased' reporting of whatever fringe media outlet it was they subscribed to. They actually said that if someone had been present at an event they were more willing to believe someone who wasn't. I tried to point out how daft it was to claim that only someone who had no experience of something could be unbiased, but they just doubled down. They demanded 'evidence' be produced to back up everything everybody else said (obviously choosing to disregard any that was produced as it was 'biased'), but provided none of their own and didn't seem to see the need. It was like arguing with a religious fanatic.
I think the most egregious example of the UK press and its relationship with facts came from the Telegraph's refusal to run stories about one of its major advertising customers: HSBCProbablyOnTopic , 9 Oct 2017 08:43The Sun, Mail and others long ago gave up selling their journals on the basis of news content relying insted on Littlejohn, Kelvin McKenzie and that execrable Katy Hopkins safe in the knowledge that newspapers are exempt from various laws including those governing race relations
Owlyrics , 9 Oct 2017 08:38
- Step 1: read more than one paper.
- Step 2: disregard all emotive words like "outrage" in news copy.
- Step 3: check facts that can be checked.
This is still far from perfect, of course.
Trust has been eroded so what anyone says will be viewed skeptically, some people employed by the media don't even believe what they are writing but it is their job to write it/ say it.Zagradotryad , 9 Oct 2017 08:32The truth is the agenda for the status quo has become so transparent and vitriolic even people who had no interest in politics have become appalled and suspicious. We saw the character assassination, hate, spite and lies told about the Labor party and Julia Gillard that was laid on so thick against all evidence to the contrary I will never be able to look at the world in the same way again. The worst part was that it seemed to me that both the social left and right of the media were singing from the same song sheet...
Tongariro1 , 9 Oct 2017 08:31Kuenssberg's admirable subtlety and desire to avoid partiality when trying to interpret complex and fluid events
Is this the same Kuenssberg who misrepresented Jeremy Corbyn by editing the interview so he appeared to be answering a different question to the one actually asked? Why would she do that?
As well as blurring news reporting and opinion, the former print media, now online, increasingly publishes strongly polemical articles. These articles make no attempt whatsoever to provide a balanced argument, but rather seek solely to promote their own view. Facts are selected which support this view; counter arguments are ridiculed, if they are presented at all; the style of writing is more similar to a barn-storming campaigning speech, than a thoughtful consideration of the issues. Some of the writers are primarily journalists. Polly Toynbee, who has increasingly become a tub thumper rather than an articulate analyst of complex issues, is a case in point. Others are hybrid journalists/politicians, such as Owen Jones & Paul Mason. The final group of writers are the politicians themselves.IPFS , 9 Oct 2017 08:26Of course, the free press is at liberty to do what it wants. Whether this is what readers want, I don't know. I choose to read a range of media to get contrasting views. If I relied on a single publication, I think I would lose an appreciation of different ways of thinking about the issues at hand. That I would miss.
The BBC is the worst for it. They place an 'Analysis' section in the middle of their news articles, to make sure the proles take away the right message!TragicomedyBeholder , 9 Oct 2017 08:14Curiously and in a way reminiscent of Russell's paradox, we have here in the Opinion section a series of statements and a line of thought which appear to claim overall factual legitimacy. But, of course, valid opinion does and should avail itself of facts. And newspapers are right to keep factual news pieces separate from subjective opinion, even though there is often subtle crucial overlap for not-so-subtle purposes.That said, I agree very much with the thrust of what Prof Greenslade is saying here and also acknowledge the factual status of many of the assertions he makes.
This is an important article (value judgement presented as a factual assertion!) and I wish we could have much more from this author. Young readers, and not only, require valid instruction on how to read and differentiate between opinion and fact. Also on how to read between the lines.
A final thought . The distinction between fact and value judgement is perhaps more blurred than is generally thought. The value judgement that such-and-such a dictator was a bad man can also be a fact. This might be seen as the thin end of the wedge within the present context of the blurring of fact, comment and fake news.
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Oct 09, 2017 | www.theguardian.com
The quote below was extracted from How blurring of fact and comment kicked open the door to fake news by Roy Greenslade
... ... ...According to Trinity Mirror's digital editor-in-chief at its regional titles, Alison Gow, many newspaper website readers scan headlines and then go to the comments thread without bothering to read the copy (the facts).
Gow told a Welsh assembly inquiry she was worried about a change in the public attitude towards news. She said: "People will actively not read a story because they will have a view."
A dozen or so years ago, the public's striking back at the gatekeepers of news seemed refreshing. It notified journalists that the top-down journalism of old was no longer relevant. Audiences were not passive consumers. They had opinions too and, at last, were able to express them.
That initial healthy phase has been transformed into something much more worrying. Having exploded the myth that journalists deal only in facts, a significant portion of the public, especially the younger generation, have adopted a virulent strain of anti-journalism journalism.
Having accepted that news is ideologically determined, they prefer to trade in views – and they do so without apparently realising that news-as-comment is one step away from fake news.
There is a bleak paradox here. In seeking to combat the hated mainstream media output, which they regard as a form of fake news, they have become ready recipients of fake news themselves.
Once all news is identified as fake, then its fakeness becomes a matter of degree.
gubulgaria -> Stillgrizzly , 9 Oct 2017 13:03
Sure, and I have my issues with the Guardian, but the 'fake news' thing has less to do with when the Guardian opened its comment thread and more to do with the Mail & Murdoch, who started stooping to deliberately dishonest decades ago.Laplace_Transforms , 9 Oct 2017 12:48As usual, Roy writes a thought provoking column, but I think he slightly confuses the subtleties between fake news, hoaxes, misinformation and disinformation.Edward Frederick Ezell , 9 Oct 2017 12:28There is a tactic undertaken by the media akin to building a straw man argument. Take, for example, "pizzagate". Without reheating such cold fare, genuine disquiet over activities in Washington DC was distorted by the media as being ridiculous claims that Hillary Clinton was running a paedophile ring out of a pizza shop. Anybody who actually spent time looking at what was being unearthed would know that this was not the accusation, but the media ran with this all the easier to bury the less sensationalist, but still disturbing, real accusations.
The same has happened with the Las Vegas shootings. The reports of multiple shooters, and especially a recording from a taxi that does appear to indicate two separate sources of gunfire, has fuelled claims of a cover-up, with eyewitnesses reporting threats from law enforcement not to deviate from the lone shooter narrative. This is not the same as claiming events were a hoax, but by the media presenting it that way, conflicting accounts are buried.
People have become far less trusting of authority because those in authority have repeatedly proven themselves untrustworthy. Anybody who remembers the run up to the Iraq War will know that the media (remember Judith Miller in the NYT?) was complicit with government in the manufacture of false evidence that led to a disastrous war.
Once the public realise they are lied to, they expect lies, and once trust is lost, it is devilishly difficult to recover.
"Fake news" is a propaganda meme. It serves no other purpose. Please dispense with it.SteveofCaley , 9 Oct 2017 12:19Fake News is a euphemism, an oxymoron for propaganda. An audience will believe or reject propaganda based on their individual capacity to scrutinize those reports which they desire to believe in. People wish to belong to a club of similar believers. The lust for common approval often trumps reason.Confess -> mjmizera , 9 Oct 2017 12:18Commercials are 100% made to fool people, in a fake news kind of way, they don't tell you why you need LeBron James new shoes, they just tell you that you need them. They do this in 30-seconds. With mom and pop stores disappearing at the same rate as saber tooth tigers, I think we must assume commercials work. Why wouldn't the few companies that can afford commercials look to dumb down the world so that it can only think in ten second intervals by controlling our language (trigger words) and ability to rationally debate?Edward Frederick Ezell , 9 Oct 2017 12:15Scientists don't generally talk about "facts". They talk about observations and models and theories and they document their observations, sources, and considerations. Journalists should do the same.HarveyHothead , 9 Oct 2017 12:14The start of this article & Your defense and dismissal of officials accounts (9/11, Sandy hook etc.) when facts stack up against official accounts basically removes your credibility immediately. Many so called Conspiracy theories or alternative explanations have been proven correct but are never reported on but the MSM dismiss these people as mad men?SolDeCapriccio , 9 Oct 2017 13:13You have destroyed your own credibility - like a cheating partner that has been caught, trust is almost impossible to regain.
The BBC almost refuses to allow labour MP's on the flagship news programme Today - so the Tories accuse them of bias to the left to make the complaining balanced. Those with power have abused it and now it is lost.
This is possibly the worst comment piece I have ever read - I know it is for clicks and not education - but to complain about it after being the manufacturer of your own demise is laughable.
All political parties put out fake news.SlumVictim , 9 Oct 2017 12:48I think you will find mainstream media have been printing fake news for decades. The problem they have now is that they have competition.Edward Frederick Ezell , 9 Oct 2017 12:04A very timely piece, but unfortunately more of an excuse for the poor standards of contemporary journalism than a proposal for better standards. As a reader I'm not particularly interested in your conclusions - but I am interested in your evidence and your arguments. An offhand comment that you have looked at photos and drawn identified conclusions from them is not helpful at all, unless you walk me through your consideration of the photos and how they led you to your conclusions - and - ideally some discussion of how other conclusions might have been obtained from the same or other evidence.graun , 9 Oct 2017 12:00Please don't dwell too much on "facts". Any lawyer will happily tell you how "facts" can be very incomplete amenable to many different narratives.
lguindon , 9 Oct 2017 11:49No. It is that someone in power (or at least in the spotlight) has said things that fit or reinforce some preconceived ideas. Much like religious preachers draw huge followings, even though none of what they say can be proved (one way or the other). People like being reassured and dislike being told they are wrong.What is it about "fake news" that draws such widespread attention? Is it, ... a wilful desire to reject "boring" reality and choose its "exciting" opposite?
That is what makes FAKE NEWS so powerful. It requires an audience that is both receptive and ignorant. And given there are so many people who fit both categories, telling them what they want to hear merely reinforces their views, legitimises them. And trying to dissuade or correct what they are being told merely convinces them they are correct and that some "them", a powerful interest group, is therefore trying to suppress the "facts" that they know.
The big question is: why are there so many gullible, ignorant, people? I would suggest that a part of it is due to the speed of technological change and another part is the failure of the educational system to prepare people for the world we live in. This is irrespective of age: there are as many millennials who can't work a TV remote control as there are pensioners. As many 20-somethings who don't understand a smartphone as there are 70+s with the same problem.
And a large percentage of all age-groups who simply haven't got a clue about the Internet, punctuation, online shopping, streaming, security, basic arithmetic, hygiene, budgeting, cooking, other countries, spelling, APRs, bringing up a baby, calories, search engines, writing a job application, changing a lightbulb, social behaviour, electricity consumption, deferred gratification or thousands of other important parts of everyday life. So to have some certainty - any certainty, even it is utterly wrong - in their lives is something to value.
Religion gives that. Believing what you are told by politicians and celebrities you feel a (false) attachment to also gives that. And there are many leaders in both categories who will exploit their position of trust for their own personal gain or reputation.
In the age of print media, comments were in the form of letters to the editor, and there was time for the editor to check the source of the letter and select what he was willing to print. Now my comments are posted immediately. This is dangerous. Journalists need to police THEMSELVES, not rely solely on the police and courts, to which few of us have access.Nedward Marbletoe -> casaleiro , 9 Oct 2017 11:45Perhaps The Guardian, for instance, could run parallel sites, one for purely factual reporting, another for editorials and analysis. Perhaps The Guardian could put a 24-hour hold on comments, to allow staff to review comments and their sources before posting them. Perhaps news media THEMSELVES could sue each other for hacking voicemails. Most individuals can't afford to. Perhaps news media should form professional organizations which automatically blackball 'journalists' who hack into private accounts and mail.
That being said, the internet has been the wild west for too long. SOME policing of comments, hacking, and so forth, needs to be done. At least half of the public cannot read critically. Putting education into the hands of politicians has caused part of this, and part of this is incapable of remediation. And so there must be a body responsible for distinguishing for them between fact and commentary and trolling by 13-year old males living in their mothers' basements. How about stepping up to the plate, Guardian?
Agree. For example it took about two years for the US press to mention that Russia has a major naval base in Syria. Yea we might want to know that before funding rebels and saying "Assad must go."Confess -> macoooos , 9 Oct 2017 11:26On the other side the media seem to avoid the fact that Obama got most of the chemical weapons out of Syria with Russian help. It was reported a lot at the time, but it is now buried and doesn't get a mention even when the "Red Line" and recent chemical attacks are covered.
It seems almost a rule, "do not include enough information for the reader to construct an informed opinion."
I remember when swine flu was the biggest story during the financial collapse.macoooos , 9 Oct 2017 11:23It's rather more complicated than it sounds. I find the coverage of America overblown there is a big world to report on yet the UK media were obsessed with a hurricane that may or may not hit Florida.HamishBuchanan , 9 Oct 2017 11:03Also can anyone remember when Alex Jones 'the crazy conspiracy theorist' told you all the NSA recorded and could listen to every conversation you had on the phone/computer or watch you through your own TV? Turned out to be true. so he is reporting news but that did not make it mainstream.
In addition to the blurring between reporting and opinion, there has been a long-term trend thirds blurring the difference between reporting and advertising, with "sponsored content" and "lifestyle" sections amounting to uncritical endorsements of sets of values. Whole sections of newspapers and broadcasting are basically puff pieces supporting advertising with nary a question about the environmental costs, for example, of rampant consumerism. It's all ideological.casaleiro -> LawdMuck , 9 Oct 2017 10:48Yes, this comparative Mail/Guardian reading is illuminating. One fully expects the Mail to deal in propaganda and general rubbish, but the Guardian also comes out of the comparison looking dishonest and blinkered.Neofaust -> LawdMuck , 9 Oct 2017 10:47Personally I used to read between the Telegraph and the Guardian for the truth, but now there's a paywall, forcing me to wade through the bloody Mail for an attempt at an alternate perspective.Neofaust , 9 Oct 2017 10:44Blame Foucault and fucking post-modernism. It was meant to be a way to beat the fundamentalists, but some idiots weaponised it to become interpretivism and anti-intellectualism on a terrible scale.casaleiro , 9 Oct 2017 10:43The sin-by-omission is the most horrendous of all. Stories that don't fit the narrative are simply ignored.casaleiro , 9 Oct 2017 10:41Excellent piece on news-as-comment. Particularly the strongly-word admission of the blatantly partisan nature of print media.Muzzledagain -> Jacob Schønberg , 9 Oct 2017 10:22rooftile , 9 Oct 2017 10:21This is indeed the very best example of ad nauseam western fake news that pushes people to look elsewhere for alternative reporting, if possible backed by tangible facts.the very best example is when their soldiers shot down the malaysian plane NH17 over Donbass in Ukraine!
I have a friend who is an 'expert' frequently called upon to make a comment. Firstly, he always asks what slant the editor desires, knowing that there will be no payment if the comment is not used. Thus the media gets the expert opinion that it desires. When the media asks for public reaction, it might interview 20 or 30 people but again, the few reported comments are those closest to that desired by the editor. The media wants freedom of speech without any responsibility to actually report the truth. It can hardly complain if that is what it has. Nor should it complain that we have seen through the sham.Muzzledagain , 9 Oct 2017 10:19When the information is not backed by facts, it can be any truth. Facts have become facultative nowadays. Instead there are campaigns, like all mainstream media close to the power simultaneously pull out a "big story", they repeat it ad nauseam until it becomes the truth (hello Doctor G.) and if it turned out fake, the story goes to oblivion while no one is held accountable for a fake story that went headlines.
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Sep 26, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The Russians can dish it out, but don't expect Americans to swallow everything.
During the Cold War, it became an article of faith among Western policymakers and journalists: One of the most effective ways to discredit the leaders of Communist countries would be to provide their citizens with information from the West. It was a view that was shared by Soviet Bloc regimes who were worried that listening to the Voice of America (VOA) or watching Western television shows would induce their people to take political action against the rulers.
So it was not surprising that government officials in East Germany, anxious that many TV stations from West Germany could be viewed by their citizens, employed numerous means!such as jamming the airwaves and even damaging TV antennas that were pointing west!in order to prevent the so-called "subversive" western broadcasts from reaching audiences over the wall.
After the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989, communication researchers studying public attitudes in former East German areas assumed that they would discover that those who had access to West German television!and were therefore exposed to the West's political freedom and economic prosperity!were more politically energized and willing to challenge the communist regime than those who couldn't watch Western television.
But as Evgeny Morozov recalled in his Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom , a study conducted between 1966 and 1990 about incipient protests in the so-called "Valley of the Clueless"!an area in East Germany where the government successfully blocked Western television signals!raised questions about this conventional wisdom.
As it turns out, having access to West German television actually made life in East Germany more endurable. Far from radicalizing its citizens, it seemed to have made them more politically compliant. As one East German dissident quoted by Morozov lamented, "The whole people could leave the country and move to the West as a man at 8pm, via television."
Meanwhile, East German citizens who did not have access to Western German television were actually more critical of their regime, and more politically restless.
The study concluded that "in an ironic twist for Marxism, capitalist television seems to have performed the same narcotizing function in communist East Germany that Karl Marx had attributed to religious beliefs in capitalist society when he condemned religion as the 'opium of the people.'"
Morozov refers to the results of these and other studies to raise an interesting idea: Western politicians and pundits have predicted that the rise of the Internet, which provides free access to information to residents of the global village, would galvanize citizens in Russia and other countries to challenge their authoritarian regimes. In reality, Morozov contends that exposure to the Internet may have distracted Russian users from their political problems. The young men who should be leading the revolution are instead staying at home and watching online pornography. Trotsky, as we know, didn't tweet.
Yet the assumption that the content of the message is a "silver bullet shot from a media gun to penetrate a hapless audience," as communication theorists James Arthur Anderson and Timothy P. Meyer put it, remains popular among politicians and pundits today, despite ample evidence to the contrary.
Hence the common assertion that a presidential candidate who has raised a lots of money and can spend it on buying a lots of television commercials, has a clear advantage over rivals who cannot afford to dominate the media environment. But the loser in the 2016 presidential race spent about $141.7 million on ads, compared with $58.8 million for winner's campaign, according to NBC News . Candidate Trump also spent a fraction of what his Republican rivals had during the Republican primaries that he won.
Communication researchers like Anderson and Meyers are not suggesting that media messages don't have any effect on target audiences, but that it is quite difficult to sell ice to Eskimos. To put it in simple terms, media audiences are not hapless and passive. Although you can flood them with messages that are in line with your views and interests, audiences actively participate in the communication process. They will construct their own meaning from the content they consume, and in some cases they might actually disregard your message.
Imagine a multi-billionaire who decides to produce thousands of commercials celebrating the legacy of ISIS, runs them on primetime American television, and floods social media with messages praising the murderous terrorist group. If that happened, would Americans be rallying behind the flag of ISIS? One can imagine that the response from audiences would range from anger to dismissal to laughter.
In 2013 Al Jazeera Media Network purchased Current TV , which was once partially owned by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, and launched an American news channel. Critics expressed concerns that the network, which is owned by the government of Qatar and has been critical of U.S. policies in the Middle East, would try to manipulate American audiences with their anti-Washington message.
Three years later, after hiring many star journalists and producing mostly straight news shows, Al Jazeera America CEO Al Anstey announced that the network would cease operations. Anstey cited the "economic landscape" which was another way of saying that its ratings were distressingly low. The relatively small number of viewers who watched Al Jazeera America 's programs considered them not anti-American but just, well, boring.
You don't have to be a marketing genius to figure out that in the age of the 24/7 media environment, foreign networks face prohibitive competition from American cable news networks like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, social media, not to mention Netflix and yes, those online porno sites. Thus the chances that a foreign news organization would be able to attract large American audiences, and have any serious impact on their political views, remain very low.
That, indeed, has been the experience of not only the defunct Al Jazeera America , but also of other foreign news outlets that have tried to imitate the Qatar-based network by launching operations targeting American audiences. These networks have included CGTN (China Global Television Network), the English-language news channel run by Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television ; PressTV, a 24-hour English language news and documentary network affiliated with Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting ; or RT (formerly Russia Today), a Russian international television network funded by the Russian government that operates cable and satellite television channels directed to audiences outside of Russia.
After all, unless you are getting to paid to watch CTGN, PressTV, or RT -- or you are a news junkie with a lot of time on your hands -- why in the world would you be spending even one hour of the day watching these foreign networks?
Yet if you have been following the coverage and public debate over the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, you get the impression that RT and another Russian media outlet, Sputnik (a news agency and radio broadcast service established by the Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya ), were central players in a conspiracy between the Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin to deny the presidency to Hillary Clinton.
In fact, more than half of the much-cited January report on the Russian electoral interference released by U.S. intelligence agencies was devoted to warning of RT's growing influence in the United States and across the world, referring to the "rapid expansion" of the network's operations and budget to about $300 million a year, and citing the supposedly impressive audience numbers listed on the RT website.
According to America's spooks, the coordinated activities of RT and the online-media properties and social-media accounts that made up "Russia's state-run propaganda machine" have been employed by the Russian government to "undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order."
And in a long cover story in The New York Times Magazine this month, with the headline, " RT, Sputnik and Russia's New Theory of War, " Jim Rutenberg suggested that the Kremlin has "built one of the most powerful information weapons of the 21st century" and that it "may be impossible to stop."
But as the British Economist magazine reported early this year, while RT claims to reach 550 million people worldwide, with America and Britain supposedly being its most successful markets, its "audience" of 550 million refers to "the number of people who can access its channel, not those who actually watch it."
As the The Economist notes, a 2015 survey of the top 94 cable channels in America by the research firm Nielsen found that RT did not even make it into the rankings, capturing only 0.04 percent of viewers, according to the Broadcast Audience Research Board.
The Times' s Rutenberg argues that the RT's ratings "are almost beside the point." RT might not have amassed an audience that remotely rivals CNN's in conventional terms, "but in the new, 'democratized' media landscape, it doesn't need to" since "the network has come to form the hub of a new kind of state media operation: one that travels through the same diffuse online channels, chasing the same viral hits and memes, as the rest of the Twitter-and-Facebook-age media."
Traveling "through the same diffuse online channels" and "chasing the same viral hits and memes" sounds quite impressive. Indeed, RT has claimed dominance on YouTube, an assertion that apparently caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community, which noted that RT videos get 1 million views a day, far surpassing other outlets.
But as The Economist points out, when it comes to Twitter and Facebook, RT's reach is narrower than that of other news networks. Its claim of YouTube success is mostly down to the network's practice of buying the rights to sensational footage -- for instance, Japan's 2011 tsunami -- and repackaging it with the company logo. It's not clear, however, how the dissemination of a footage of a natural disaster or of a dog playing the piano helps efforts to "undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order."
It is obvious that the Russian leaders have been investing a lot of resources in RT, Sputnik, and other media outlets, and that they employ them as propaganda tools aimed at promoting their government's viewpoints and interests around the world. From that perspective, these Russian media executives are heirs to the communist officials who had been in charge of the propaganda empire of the Soviet Union and its satellites during much of the 20th Century.
The worldwide communist propaganda machine did prove to be quite effective during the Great Depression and World War II, when it succeeded in tapping into the economic and social anxieties and anti-Nazi sentiments in the West and helped strengthen the power of the communist parties in Europe and, to some extent, in the United States.
But in the same way that Western German television programs failed to politically energize East Germans during the Cold War, much of the Soviet propaganda distributed by the Soviet Union at that time had very little impact on the American public and its political attitudes, as symbolized by the shrinking membership of the American Communist Party.
Or as media-effects theorists explain the communication process, the intentions of the producer (Soviet Union) and the conventions of the content (communist propaganda) were interwoven in a strategy aimed at influencing the receiver (the American audience). But the majority of Americans, with the exception of a few hard-core ideologues, interpreted the content of the message as pitiful Soviet propaganda, assuming they even paid attention to it.
Soviet propaganda may have scored limited success during the Cold War when it came to members of the large communist parties in France, Italy, and Japan, as well as exploited anti-American sentiments in some third-world countries. In these cases, the intentions of the producer and the convention of the message seemed to be in line with the interpretations of the receivers.
There is no doubt that Moscow, which regarded President Harry Truman as its leading American political nemesis, was hoping that Progressive presidential candidate Henry Wallace would win the 1948 election -- and had tailored its propaganda effort in accordance with that goal. That pro-Wallace campaign took place at a time when the American Communist Party still maintained some influence in the United States, where many Americans still sympathized with the former World War II ally and a large number of Soviet spies were operating in the country. But then Wallace's Progressives ended up winning 2.5 percent of the vote, less than Strom Thurmond's Southern segregationist ticket.
Yet we are supposed to believe that by employing RT, Sputnik, Facebook, Twitter, and a bunch of hackers, the Russians could help their American candidate "steal" the 2016 presidential election. Is there any evidence that those white blue-collar workers and rural voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan -- the people who provided Trump with his margin of victory -- were even exposed to the reports distributed by RT and Sputnik, or by the memes constructed by Russian trolls or their posts on Facebook? ("Hey, did you watch RT last night?")
Yet the assertion that a "silver bullet shot from a media gun" in the form of Russian propaganda was able "to penetrate a hapless audience" in the United States has been gaining more adherents in Washington and elsewhere. This conspiracy seems to correlate the intent of the Russian government and the content of their messages with the voting behavior of Americans.
In a strange irony, those who are promoting this fallacious assertion may -- unlike their Russian scapegoat -- actually succeed in penetrating a hapless American audience.
Leon Hadar is a writer and author of the books Quagmire: America in the Middle East and Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Washington Times, The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the National Interest.
The Color of Celery , says: September 26, 2017 at 1:20 am
For an example of the success of propaganda, look at Breitbart. The messages online during the 2016 election were pervasive and insidious. I think this post underestimates the threat by focusing on traditional media instead of social interaction.polistra , says: September 26, 2017 at 3:39 amRT covered Assange during the election better than other outlets.
It's easy to see everything from a personal perspective and forget that we are very diverse. We don't live in an ABC, CBS, and NBC world anymore, with information controlled. Changes in thought and belief happen online now, in many, many different venues.
A government that has confidence in its own support doesn't need to fight foreign information. In the '30s and '40s the US government encouraged shortwave listening, and manufacturers made money by adding SW bands to their radios. We were going through a depression and then a war, but our government was CONFIDENT enough to encourage us to understand the world.Meddlesome , says: September 26, 2017 at 7:44 amSince 1950 the government has been narrowing the focus of external input because it knows that it no longer has the natural consent of the governed. TV and the Web are intentional forms of jamming, filling our eyes and ears with internally produced nonsense to crowd out the external info.
The ones you have to worry about are those much closer to home – "inside the tent".Fran Macadam , says: September 26, 2017 at 9:24 amFriends in the UK, Canada, and Europe are appalled at the distorting effect Israeli propaganda has on American news sources, and how unaware of it typical Americans seem to be.
Indeed, it is odd and more than a little worrying that all the concern about "foreign meddling" has so far failed to engage with Israel, which is hands down the best funded, most sophisticated and successful foreign meddler.
The FBI annually reports that Israel spies on us at the same level as Russia and China. But we have yet to fully register that Israeli spying includes systematic efforts to influence American elections and policies, efforts that dwarf those of Putin's Russia both in scale and impact.
I think that the corporate masters of propaganda media and politics in these United States, have, in the words of Edward G. Robinson's Rico in Little Caesar, "gotten to where you can dish it out, but you can't take it anymore."Pelayo Viriato , says: September 26, 2017 at 10:20 amIt's counterfactual to conflate Soviet propaganda with the perspective of Russians today, unless Communism never really was the real point. In fact, it's our own leaders in media and politics who now increasingly issue dogmatic and insulting derogatory language, sounding more and more like late Soviet propagandists themselves.
@The Color of Celery:ZGler , says: September 26, 2017 at 11:45 amSo what? What's wrong with people being exposed to a broad array of points of view, trying to better understand the world and constantly challenging, refining, and reshaping their worldview in the process?
You're coming perilously close to suggesting that Americans who are critical of their government are dupes of hostile foreign powers ! an unfair, unhelpful, and undemocratic assertion.
The problem with Russian trolls is that people don't know they are Russian trolls. They think they are their fellow Americans and neighbors on Facebook. The influence of foreign propaganda on Americans is not due to transparent media like Al Jazeera. It's due to propaganda disguised as your neighbor's opinion.Mike Johnson , says: September 26, 2017 at 3:33 pmthis conversation cant be taken serious without a serious discussion on Israel, who by the way provides the perfect case and point of how effective foreign propaganda can be. They work through our media, school systems and even our churches. Just look at what happened to McGraw Hill for daring to show before and after maps of the Palestine over the years.
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Sep 18, 2017 | consortiumnews.com
The NYT's Yellow Journalism on Russia September 15, 2017
Exclusive: The New York Times' descent into yellow journalism over Russia recalls the sensationalism of Hearst and Pulitzer leading to the Spanish-American War, but the risks to humanity are much greater now, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Reading The New York Times these days is like getting a daily dose of the "Two Minutes Hate" as envisioned in George Orwell's 1984, except applied to America's new/old enemy Russia. Even routine international behavior, such as Russia using fictitious names for potential adversaries during a military drill, is transformed into something weird and evil.
In the snide and alarmist style that the Times now always applies to Russia, reporter Andrew Higgins wrote – referring to a fictitious war-game "enemy" – "The country does not exist, so it has neither an army nor any real citizens, though it has acquired a feisty following of would-be patriots online. Starting on Thursday, however, the fictional state, Veishnoriya, a distillation of the Kremlin's darkest fears about the West, becomes the target of the combined military might of Russia and its ally Belarus."
This snarky front-page story in Thursday's print editions also played into the Times' larger narrative about Russia as a disseminator of "fake news." You see the Russkies are even inventing "fictional" enemies to bully. Hah-hah-hah -- The article was entitled, "Russia's War Games With Fake Enemies Cause Real Alarm."
Of course, the U.S. and its allies also conduct war games against fictitious enemies, but you wouldn't know that from reading the Times. For instance, U.S. war games in 2015 substituted five made-up states – Ariana, Atropia, Donovia, Gorgas and Limaria – for nations near the Caucasus mountains along the borders of Russia and Iran.
In earlier war games, the U.S. used both fictitious names and colors in place of actual countries. For instance, in 1981, the Reagan administration conducted "Ocean Venture" with that war-game scenario focused on a group of islands called "Amber and the Amberdines," obvious stand-ins for Grenada and the Grenadines, with "Orange" used to represent Cuba.
In those cases, the maneuvers by the powerful U.S. military were clearly intended to intimidate far weaker countries. Yet, the U.S. mainstream media did not treat those war rehearsals for what they were, implicit aggression, but rather mocked protests from the obvious targets as paranoia since we all know the U.S. would never violate international law and invade some weak country -- (As it turned out, Ocean Venture '81 was a dress rehearsal for the actual U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983.)
Yet, as far as the Times and its many imitators in the major media are concerned, there's one standard for "us" and another for Russia and other countries that "we" don't like.
Yellow Journalism
But the Times' behavior over the past several years suggests something even more sinister than biased reporting. The "newspaper of record" has slid into yellow journalism, the practice of two earlier New York newspapers – William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World – that in the 1890s manipulated facts about the crisis in Cuba to push the United States into war with Spain, a conflict that many historians say marked the beginning of America's global empire.
Except in today's instance, The New York Times is prepping the American people for what could become World War III. The daily message is that you must learn to hate Russia and its President Vladimir Putin so much that, first, you should support vast new spending on America's Military-Industrial Complex and, second, you'll be ginned up for nuclear war if it comes to that.
At this stage, the Times doesn't even try for a cosmetic appearance of objective journalism. Look at how the Times has twisted the history of the Ukraine crisis, treating it simply as a case of "Russian aggression" or a "Russian invasion." The Times routinely ignores what actually happened in Ukraine in late 2013 and early 2014 when the U.S. government aided and abetted a violent coup that overthrew Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych after he had been demonized in the Western media.
Even as neo-Nazi and ultranationalist protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at police, Yanukovych signaled a willingness to compromise and ordered his police to avoid worsening violence. But compromise wasn't good enough for U.S. neocons – such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland; Sen. John McCain; and National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman. They had invested too much in moving Ukraine away from Russia.
Nuland put the U.S. spending at $5 billion and was caught discussing with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who should be in the new government and how to "glue" or "midwife this thing"; McCain appeared on stage urging on far-right militants; and Gershman was overseeing scores of NED projects inside Ukraine, which he had deemed the "biggest prize" and an important step in achieving an even bigger regime change in Russia, or as he put it: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."
The Putsch
So, on Feb. 20, 2014, instead of seeking peace , a sniper firing from a building controlled by anti-Yanukovych forces killed both police and protesters, touching off a day of carnage. Immediately, the Western media blamed Yanukovych. Sen. John McCain appearing with Ukrainian rightists of the Svoboda party at a pre-coup rally in Kiev.
Shaken by the violence, Yanukovych again tried to pacify matters by reaching a compromise -- guaranteed by France, Germany and Poland -- to relinquish some of his powers and move up an election so he could be voted out of office peacefully. He also pulled back the police.
At that juncture, the neo-Nazis and ultra-nationalists spearheaded a violent putsch on Feb. 22, 2014, forcing Yanukovych and other officials to flee for their lives. Ignoring the agreement guaranteed by the three European nations, Nuland and the U.S. State Department quickly deemed the coup regime "legitimate."
However, ethnic Russians in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, which represented Yanukovych's electoral base, resisted the coup and turned to Russia for protection. Contrary to the Times' narrative, there was no "Russian invasion" of Crimea because Russian troops were already there as part of an agreement for its Sevastopol naval base. That's why you've never seen photos of Russian troops crashing across Ukraine's borders in tanks or splashing ashore in Crimea with an amphibious landing or descending by parachute. They were already inside Crimea.
The Crimean autonomous government also voted to undertake a referendum on whether to leave the failed Ukrainian state and to rejoin Russia, which had governed Crimea since the Eighteenth Century. In that referendum, Crimean citizens voted by some 96 percent to exit Ukraine and seek reunion with Russia, a democratic and voluntary process that the Times always calls "annexation."
The Times and much of the U.S. mainstream media refuses even to acknowledge that there is another side to the Ukraine story. Anyone who mentions this reality is deemed a "Kremlin stooge" in much the same way that people who questioned the mainstream certainty about Iraq's WMD in 2002-03 were called "Saddam apologists."
But what is particularly remarkable about the endless Russia-bashing is that – because it started under President Obama – it sucked in many American liberals and even some progressives. That process grew even worse when the contempt for Russia merged with the Left's revulsion over Donald Trump's election.
Many liberals came to view the dubious claims of Russian "meddling" in the 2016 election as the golden ticket to remove Trump from the White House. So, amid that frenzy, all standards of proof were jettisoned to make Russia-gate the new Watergate.
The Times, The Washington Post and pretty much the entire U.S. news media joined the "resistance" to Trump's presidency and embraced the neocon "regime change" goal for Putin's Russia. Very few people care about the enormous risks that this "strategy" entails.
For one, even if the U.S. government were to succeed in destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia sufficiently to force out President Putin, the neocon dream of another malleable Boris Yeltsin in the Kremlin is far less likely than the emergence of an extreme Russian nationalist who might be ready to push the nuclear button rather than accept further humiliation of Mother Russia.
The truth is that the world has much less to fear from the calculating Vladimir Putin than from the guy who might follow a deposed Vladimir Putin amid economic desperation and political chaos in Russia. But the possibility of nuclear Armageddon doesn't seem to bother the neocon/liberal-interventionist New York Times. Nor apparently does the principle of fair and honest journalism.
The Times and rest of the mainstream media are just having too much fun hating Russia and Putin to worry about the possible extermination of life on planet Earth.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ).
jo6pac , September 15, 2017 at 4:51 pm
Common Tater , September 16, 2017 at 2:05 pmAmerikas way of bring the big D to your nation. Death
http://www.globalresearch.ca/unknown-snipers-and-western-backed-regime-change/27904
Thanks RP for reading the times so I don't have to not that would.
BayouCoyote , September 18, 2017 at 11:13 amThanks for the link, I knew about the use of snipers in Venezuela '02, did not realize there were so many more.
JWalters , September 16, 2017 at 7:29 pmKinda reminds me of what our only "Ally in the ME" did to our Marines in Iraq.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIiGfUjZnbUCommon Tater , September 17, 2017 at 3:48 amBingo -- In a surely related story, the mainstream press is equally relentless in AVOIDING telling Americans the facts about Israel, and especially about its control over the American press.
"Israel lobby is never a story (for media that is in bed with the lobby)"
http://mondoweiss.net/2017/09/israel-lobby-never/Virtually everything average Americans have been told about Israel has been, amazingly, an absolute lie. Israel was NOT victimized by powerful Arab armies. Israel overpowered and victimized a defenseless, civilian Arab population. Military analysts knew the Arab armies were in poor shape and would be unable to resist the zionist army. Muslim "citizens" of Israel do NOT have all the same rights as Jews. Israelis are NOT under threat from the indigineous Palestinians, but Palestinians are under constant threats of theft and death from the Israelis. Israel does NOT share America's most fundamental values, which rest on the principle of equal human rights for all.
How has this gigantic package of outright lies has been foisted upon the American public for so long? And how long can it continue? It turns out they did not foresee the internet, and the facts are leaking out everywhere. So it appears they're desperately coercing facebook and google to rig their rankings, trying to hide the facts. But one day soon there will be a 'snap' in the collective mind, and everybody will know that everybody knows.
For readers who haven't seen it yet,
"War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror"
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.comBernard Fisher , September 17, 2017 at 8:57 amJWalters
I can tell you are angry. I too was angry when I figured it out.
Long before I figured it out, I was a soldier. Our unit was prepared for an exercise and we were all sleeping at the regiment compound, the buses would arrive at zero-dark thirty. I was reading a book about the ME(this was shortly after 9-11). A friend, came up and asked what I was reading. I told him I was reading about the Balfour paper and how that had a significant effect on the ME. He began explaining to me how the zionist movement had used the idea that no one lived on that land, to force the people from that land, out of that land.
I quickly responded that Israel had defended that land against 5 Arab armies and managed to hold on to that land. I informed him he was mistaken.
He agreed to disagree, and walked away.
This happened way back in 2002 if only I could pick his mind now. How did he know about this, way back before the internet was in any shape to wake people up?
There is hope still that guys who are young as i was, will say "Fuck You I defend this line and no further."
Without their compliance, there can be no wars.Common Tater , September 17, 2017 at 2:35 pmCommonTater your story parallels mine -- I was in the military, went to Vietnam to 'defend our nation against communism', felt horror at the Zionist stories of how Palestinians rocketed them, was told by senior officer about what Zionism is really about and I, like you, disbelieved him. That was in 1974 -- -- Now, with all the troubles in the world I won't read the MSP but look towards the alternative news sources. They make more sense. But as I try to educate others on what I have learned I am as disappointed as my senior officer must have been back them. Articles such as this one reproduced by ICH are gems: I save and print them in a compendium detailing ongoing war crimes.
michael fish , September 15, 2017 at 5:44 pmBernard Fisher
Thanks for your response.
Good Idea to save and print these "gems" on consortiumnews.
Hopefully they wake more Americans.
CheersYomamama , September 16, 2017 at 1:58 amThanks Mr. Parry,
You are a voice in the hurricane of hatred and lies propagated by the richest people on the planet.
Eventually some moron who believes this new York Times garbage will actually unleash the bomb and we will all be smoke.
That has always been the result of such successful propaganda. And it is very successful. It has almost occluded any truth for the vast majority of westerners .
Michael FishVirginia , September 16, 2017 at 1:49 pmAgreed. I wish this clear and comprehensive article could be stapled on every American voter's door (wanted to say forehead but violence is bad). Many would toss it in the trash. Many would not agree even with full comprehension because of their own horrid beliefs. But maybe a few would read it and have an epiphany. It's very hard work to find an avenue to change the minds of millions of people who've been inculcated by nationalist propaganda since birth. Since 4 years old seeing the wonderful National Anthem and jets fly over the stadium of their favorite sports team. Since required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
I refused to stand for or recite the Pledge when I was seven or eight years old. I was sent to detention. My awesome mom though intervened and afterwards I could remain seated while most or all other kids stood up to do the ritual. I refuse to stand up and place hand-on-heart and remove cap during any sporting contests when the Anthem is played. I've been threatened with physical violence by many strangers around me.
Thanks Mr. Parry, your voice is appreciated, your articles and logic are top-notch. Very valuable stuff, available for the curious, the skeptical. Well, until Google monopolizes search algorithms and calls this a Russian fake news site, perhaps or Congress the same
Common Tater , September 16, 2017 at 2:20 pmExcellent link, Yomamama.
Thomas Dickinson , September 16, 2017 at 3:03 pmMy hat is off to you sir, I have not been to any sporting events since I woke up, but I imagine it would be very difficult to remain seated and hatted during the opening affirmation of nationalism. My waking up coincides with a drastic drop in sports viewing. I used to be an NFL fan, rooted for the Niners (started watching NFL in the late eighties), the last full season I followed was the 2013-14 season.
It was the Ukraine coup that woke me up. It started when watching videos on youtube of guys stomping on riot cops, using a fire hose on them like a reverse water cannon. Then I realized these guys were the peaceful protesters being talked about on t.v. It was like a thread hanging in front of me, I began pulling and pulling until the veil in front of my eyes came apart. It was during this time I discovered consortiumnews.com.
Common Tater , September 16, 2017 at 4:28 pmMr Common Tater–just appreciating reading that someone else "woke up". That is the way it has felt to me. For me it was Oct 2002 and Bush's speech that was clearly heading us to war in Iraq. The "election" (appointment) of Bush in 2000 though was the first alarm clock that I started to hear. Most recent wake up is connected to Mr Parry's relentless (I hope) and necessary debunking of the myth of Russian nastiness and corresponding myth of US rectitude. Been watching The Untold History of the United States and have been dealing with the real bedrock truth that my government invented and invents enemies as a tactic in a game–ie. it's a bunch of boys thinking foreign relationship building is first and foremost a game. It has been hard to wash away all this greasy insidious smut from my life.
Homer Jay , September 16, 2017 at 5:44 pmThomas Dickinson
It sucks to wake up, in a way. Once one gets past the denial, Tom Clancy novel type movies lose some of it's fun, although still entertaining. One secretly knows the audience in the cinema is just eating it all up and loving it. The American hero yells "yippie kayay mother f -- -r" as he defeats the post-Soviet Russian villain in Russia blowing up buildings, and destroying s–t as he saves the world for democracy. The Russian authorities amount to some guy in Soviet peaked hat, and long coat, begging for a bribe.
Oliver Stone's series is really good, it turns history on his head and shakes all the pennies out his pockets. Another good reporter is John Pilger, he has a long list of docs he has done over several decades.
Cheers
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:21 pmI have been watching that same series, about 3 episodes in. The most mind blowing part to think about is how the establishment consipired to block the nomination of the progressive Henry Wallace as a repeat VP for Roosevelt, leading instead to Harry Truman's nomination as VP, and then you know the rest of the story.
Funny how history repeated itself with the nomination of Clinton instead of Sanders. Btw, after Sanders mistakenly jumped on the Russia bashing bandwagon he was one of the few who voted against the recent sanctions being imposed against Russia, Iran, and North Korea. So yeah, I'd feel alot better with a Sanders president at this point.
Paranam Kid , September 16, 2017 at 6:13 amApart from the obvious Exceptionalist and Zionazi imperative to destroy Russia and China in order that God's Kingdom of 'Full Spectrum Dominance' be established across His world by his various 'Chosen People', the USA always needs an enemy. Now, more than ever, as the country crumbles into disrepair and unprecedented inequality, poverty and elite arrogance, the proles must be led to blame their plight on some Evil foreign daemon.
Only this time its no Saddam or Gaddaffi or Assad that can be easily bombed back to that Stone Age that all the non-Chosen must inhabit. This time the bullying thugs will get a, thermo-nuclear, bloody nose if they do not back off. Regretably, their egos refuse to withdraw, even in the interest of self-survival.
mike k , September 15, 2017 at 5:47 pm" It has almost occluded any truth for the vast majority of westerners."
You are so right about that, I notice it every day on other forums on which I discuss current affairs with others: the US views are the accepted ones, and I get a lot of stick for stating different views. It is actually frightening to see how few people can think for themselves.
HopeLB , September 15, 2017 at 10:36 pmThe American people are being systematically lied to, and they don't have a clue that it is happening. There is no awake and intelligent public to prevent what is unfolding. The worst kind of criminals are in charge of our government, media, and military. The sleeping masses are making their way down the dark mountain to the hellish outcome that awaits them.
"These grand and fatal movements toward death: the grandeur
of the mass
Makes pity a fool, the tearing pity
For the atoms of the mass, the persons, the victims, makes it
seem monstrous
To admire the tragic beauty they build.
It is beautiful as a river flowing or a slowly gathering
Glacier on a high mountain rock-face,
Bound to plow down a forest, or as frost in November,
The gold and flaming death-dance for leaves,
Or a girl in the night of her spent maidenhood, bleeding and
kissing.
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire
To change the future I should do foolishly. The beauty
of modern
Man is not in the persons but in the
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain."Robinson Jeffers
Patrick Lucius , September 16, 2017 at 12:42 amGreat, Dark and Accurate poem -- Thank You -- Think I'll send it to Rachel Maddow, Wapo and the NYTimes.Might do them some good. Wouldn't that be lovely.
Thomas Dickinson , September 16, 2017 at 3:22 pmWhich poem is that? Not Shine, perishing Republic, is it?
Jeff Davis , September 18, 2017 at 11:35 amRearmament by Robinson Jeffers. I liked that a lot, too, so looked it up. https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rearmament/
Mike Morrison , September 15, 2017 at 5:48 pmFabulous reply. Back atcha:
Dulce et Decorum Est
BY WILFRED OWENBent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.Gas -- GAS -- Quick, boys -- -- An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. --
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.******************************
And this, from Bob Dylan's "Jokerman" .
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?******************************
I love life and am by nature a cockeyed optimist, but I find myself intermittently gloomy, my optimism overwhelmed by cynicism, when I see the abundance of moronic belligerence so passionately snarled out in the comments sections across the internet. Clearly, humans are cursed with an addiction to violence For my part, I am old and will die soon and have no children, plus I live in a quiet backwater far away from the nuclear blast zone. Humanity seems on course for a major "culling". Insane and sad.
Dr. Ando Arike , September 15, 2017 at 5:49 pmOver three years now the war in Donbass, Ukraine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BoKj39HKls
SteveK9 , September 15, 2017 at 7:22 pmI'd like to see more investigative reporting on the NYT's and other major media outlets' links to the CIA and other Deep State info-war bureaus. What the Times is doing now is reminiscent of the Michael Gordon-Judith Miller propaganda in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Operation Mockingbird, uncovered during the mid-70s Church Hearings, is an ongoing effort, it would seem. Revealing hard links to CIA information ops would be a great service to humanity.
Beard681 , September 18, 2017 at 11:52 amAfter 'Michael Gordon-Judith Miller' I stopped reading the Times.
Rich Rubenstein , September 15, 2017 at 5:53 pmI am amazed at how many conspiracy types there are who want to see some sort of oligarch, capitalist, zionist or deep state cabal behind it all. (That is a REALLY optimistic view of the human propensity for violent conflict.) It is just a bunch of corporate shills pushing for war (hopefully cold) because war sells newspapers.
mike k , September 15, 2017 at 6:03 pmRobert Parry has gotten this exactly right -- I'm a regular NYTimes subscriber /-have been for years -- and I have NEVER read anything about Russia that has not been written by professional Russia-haters like Higgins. Frankly, I don't get it. What accounts for this weird and dangerous bias?
Paranam Kid , September 16, 2017 at 6:32 amHave you looked into who owns the NYT?
Brad Owen , September 16, 2017 at 8:07 amWhy do you keep reading the NYT? Not only the Russia stories are heavily biased, but all their stories are. Most op-ed's about Israel/Palestine are written by zealous pro-Israel/pro-Zionists, against very few pro-Palestine people.
Brad Owen , September 16, 2017 at 8:08 amThe Trans-Atlantic Empire of banking cartels rest upon enmity with the only other Great Powers in the World: Russia and China, while keeping USA thoroughly within their orbit, relying on our Great Power as the engine that powers this Western Bankers' Empire (the steering room lies in City-of-London, who has LONG maneuvered, via their Wall Street assets, to bring us into Empire). Should peaceful, cooperative and productive relations break out between USA, Russia, and China, this would undermine everything the Western Empire has worked to build.
THIS is why the phony Russiagate issue is flogged to get rid of Trump (who seeks cooperation with Russia and China), AND keeping Russia as "The Enemy", keeping the MIC, Intel community, various police-state ops, in high demand for "National Security" reasons (also positioned to foil any democratic uprisings, should they see past the progs daily curtain and see their plight).
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:30 pmProgs=propaganda stupid iPad.
Jeff Davis , September 18, 2017 at 12:31 pmHere in Aust-failure I read the papers for many years until they became TOO repulsive, particularly the Murdoch hate and fear-mongering rags. I also, and still do, masochistically listen to the Government ABC and SBS. In all those years I really cannot recall any articles or programs that reported on Russia or China in a positive manner, save when Yeltsin, a true hero to all our fakestream media, was in charge. That sort of uniformity of opinion, over generations, is almost admirable. And the necessity to ALWAYS follow the Imperial US ('Our great and powerful friend') line leads to some deficiencies in the quality of the personnel employed, as I one again reflected upon the other day when one hackette referred to (The Evil, of course)Kim Jong-un as 'President Un', several times.
mike k , September 15, 2017 at 6:26 pm"What accounts for this weird and dangerous bias?"
Several points:
The Russian -- formerly Commie -- -- boogieman is a profit center for the military, their industrial suppliers, and the political class. That's the major factor. But also, the Zionist project requires a bulked up US military "tasked" with "full spectrum" military dominance -- the Wolfowitz Doctrine, the American jackboot on the world's throat forever -- to insure the eternal protection of Israel. Largely unseen in this Israeli/Zionist factor is the thousand-year-old blood feud between the Jews and Russians. They are ancient enemies since the founding of Czarist Russia. No amount of time or modernity can diminish the passion of that animus. (I suspect that the Zionist aim to "destroy" Russia will eventually backfire and lead instead to the destruction of Israel, but really, we shouldn't talk about that.)
Brad Owen , September 16, 2017 at 8:36 amThe richest man in the world has the controlling interest in the NYT. Draw your own conclusions.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/mexican-billionaire-carlos-slim-becomes-top-owner-of-new-york-times/
Sfomarco , September 16, 2017 at 3:37 pmMexico, ground zero for the world fascist movement in the 20s and 30s (going by name Synarchy Internationale still does) throuout Ibero-America, centered in PAN. The Spanish-speaking World had to contend with Franco, and Salazar being in power so long in the respective "Mother Countries" of the Iberian Peninsula. This was the main trail for the ratlines to travel.
I saw a dead coyote on the side of the road the other day. I know you know what that means to me, Mike. Omens are a lost art in these modern times, and I have no expertise in these matters, but it struck my attention hard. It was on the right side of the road: trouble for Trump coming from The Right? They are more potent than the ineffective Left, so this might be the way Trump is pulled down.
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:31 pmCarlos Slim (f/k/a Salim)
Stiv , September 15, 2017 at 6:51 pmYes, but who bankrolls Slim?
D.H. Fabian , September 16, 2017 at 2:46 amI wouldn't even need to read this to know what's going to be said. After the last article from Parry, which was very good and interesting .plowing new ground for him he's back to rehashing the same old shit. Not that it's necessarily wrong, only been said about a hundred times. Yawn
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 7:26 amAfter months of so many people pointing out how and why the "Russia stole the election" claim is false, it came roaring back (in liberal media) in recent days. It demands a response.
Virginia , September 16, 2017 at 1:58 pmNo one is required to read anything on CN.
Common Tater , September 16, 2017 at 2:40 pmRP brought lots of new things into play in his article and showed how they mesh together and support one another "against Trump." I almost skipped it because so familiar with the topic, but RP brought new light to the subject, in my humble opinion.
Gregory Herr , September 16, 2017 at 8:18 pmI do not need to read or watch established "news" media to know what's going to be said. After the last b.s. story from the usual talking heads which was low brow and insulting to the intelligence of the audience, they are back at it again same ol'shit by the same talking heads. It is most definitely wrong, and it needs to be countered as much as possible not yawning.
anon , September 17, 2017 at 9:02 amThat's what struck me just how absurdly insulting will the Times get?
And I think the point that trying to destabilize the Russian Federation may very well bring about a more militant hardline Russia is important to stress.
Colin , September 18, 2017 at 11:54 am"Stiv" is a troll who makes this junk comment every time. Better to ignore him.
SteveK9 , September 15, 2017 at 7:19 pmWere you planning to contribute anything useful to the discussion?
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:38 pmI always wonder what motivation the accusers believe you have when they call you a 'Putin stooge'. Why would you be one? Are you getting paid? Of course not, so this is just a judgment on your part. They could call you a fool, but accuse you of 'carrying water for the Kremlin' as I heard that execrable creature, Adam Schiff say to Tucker Carlson? That just makes no sense. Of course, none of it is rational.
David Grace , September 15, 2017 at 7:30 pmThey're insane. A crumbling Empire which was supposed to rule the world forever, 'Under God' through Full Spectrum Dominance, but which, in fact, is disintegrating under its own moral, intellectual and spiritual rottenness, is bound to produce hate-crazed zealots looking for foreign scape-goats. Add the rage of the Clintonbots whose propaganda had told then for months that the She-Devil would crush the carnival-huckster, and her vicious post-defeat campaign to drive for war with Russia (what a truly Evil creature she is)and you get this hysteria. Interestingly, 'hysteria' is the word used to describe Bibi Nutty-yahoo, the USA's de facto 'capo di tutti capi', in Sochi recently when Putin refused to follow orders.
David Grace , September 15, 2017 at 7:33 pmI have another theory I'd like to get reviewed. These are corporate wars, and not aimed at the stability of nations. It is claimed that in 1991, at the fall of the Soviet Union, the oligarchs were created by the massive purchasing of the assets of the collapsing nation. The CIA was said to have put together a 'bond issue' worth some $480 Billion, and it was used to buy farms, factories, mineral rights and other formerly common holdings of the USSR. This 'bond issue' was never repaid to the US taxpayers, and the deeds are in the hands of various oligarchs. Not all of the oligarchs are tied to the CIA, as there were other wells of purchasers of the country, but the ties to Trump are actually ties to dirty CIA or other organized crime entities.
The NY Times may be trying to capture certain assets for certain clients, and their editorial policy reflects this.
I'd appreciate feedback on this.
Thanks,
Davidstephen sivonda , September 15, 2017 at 9:51 pmThere are many on-line videos on this theme. Searching 'Black Eagle Trust' is one form. Here is one link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhBZJEqoe0A
D.H. Fabian , September 16, 2017 at 2:39 amDavid Grace . what have we here, a thinking man? I like your premise, and I haven't even watched the link you supplied. That being said, I'll sign off and investigate that link.
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:39 pmConspiracy theories upon conspiracy theories, ensuring that the public will never be able to root out the facts. People still argue about the Kennedy assassination 54 years later.
Zhu Bajie , September 17, 2017 at 7:12 pmThere is no rational 'argument' about what really happened to JFK.
mark , September 16, 2017 at 5:23 pmMost conspiracy theories are fantasy fiction. If you have real evidence, based on verifiable facts, then it's not a theory any more. But most of the conspiracy theories popular in the USA just serve popular vanity. We never have to accept our mistakes, our crimes against humanity, etc. It's always THEIR fault.
We Americans over all are like small children, always making excuses.
RBHoughton , September 15, 2017 at 8:03 pmSome of the material on the Black Eagle Trust are suspect. It gives figures for stolen Japanese war loot, for example, that are simply ludicrous. Figures of so many thousand tons of gold, for example, when the references should probably be to OUNCES of gold.
AshenLight , September 15, 2017 at 10:13 pmOne sniper in Ukraine overthrew the democratic government. Previously one sniper in Dallas overthrew another democratic government. Are there any other examples?
Is our infatuation with democracy just a propaganda thing – to fool citizens into supposing they have value beyond their labour?
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 7:19 am> Is our infatuation with democracy just a propaganda thing – to fool citizens into supposing they have value beyond their labour?
It's about control -- those who know they are slaves will resist and fight, but those who mistakenly believe they are free will not (and if you give them even just a little comfort, they'll tenaciously defend their own enslavement). It turns out this "inverted totalitarianism" thing works a lot better than the old-fashioned kind.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 7:23 amIndeed. Gurdjieff told the tale of a farmer whose sheep were always wandering off due to his being unable to afford fences to keep them in. Then he had an idea, and called them all together. He told some of them they were eagles, and others lions etc. They were now so proud of their new identities that it never occurred to them anymore to escape from their master's small domain.
Anna , September 16, 2017 at 12:53 pmMLK is another example, as is Robert Kennedy.
mark , September 16, 2017 at 5:30 pmThe American patriots are coming out: "CIA Agent Whistleblower Risks All To Expose The Shadow Government" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHbrOg092G That would be the end of the Lobby, mega oilmen and the FedReserve criminals
Zhu Bajie , September 17, 2017 at 7:14 pmYes, snipers on rooftops in Deraa, southern Syria, in 2011. These mysterious figures fired into crowds, deliberately targeting women and young children to inflame the crowd. At the same time the same snipers killed 7 police officers. Unarmed police had been sent in to deal with unrest without bloodshed. These police officers were armed only with batons.
This is a standard page from the CIA playbook. The mysterious snipers in Maidan Square in 2014 are believed to have been Yugoslavian mercenaries hired by the CIA.
BobH , September 15, 2017 at 8:06 pmThe US has had oligarchy since 1789.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 7:13 amWe all have some kind of a bias but fortunately most of us here know the difference between bias and propaganda. Bias based on facts and our own values is often constructive but the N.Y. Times(like most msm) has descended into disseminating insidious propaganda. Unfortunately the search for truth requires a bit more research and time than most people are willing to invest. Thankfully, Robert Parry continues his quest but the dragons are not easy to slay. My own quest for truth once led to a philosophical essay. The cartoon at the bottom(SH Chambers) sums it up.
https://crivellistreetchronicle.blogspot.com/2016/07/truth-elusive-concept.htmlBobH , September 16, 2017 at 11:15 amI put a comment on your blog.
Virginia , September 16, 2017 at 2:20 pmMike, thanks so much, I'll look forward to reading it(so far, I don't see it Moderation?)
Jacob Leyva , September 15, 2017 at 10:12 pmIf we have a bias towards honesty, that helps. It keeps one's mind more open and provides a willingness to entertain various points of view. It's not naivete, however, but thoughtful consideration coupled with awareness and that protects one from being easily manipulated. But then, oppositely, there's a human tendency to want to be popular which inclines one towards groupthink. But why that so entrenches itself, making people impervious to truth, is a conundrum -- Maybe if the "why" can be answered, the "how" will become apparent -- how to reach individuals with the truth as so oft told, though hard on the ears, at CN.
Fuzzy , September 18, 2017 at 7:19 amSo what do you think of the Russia-Facebook dealings? When will we get an article on that?
John , September 15, 2017 at 10:47 pmReally? You think this is important?
Art , September 16, 2017 at 1:43 amThe Russian /Iranian vs the Ashkenazi has been going on for many, many years ..The USA is to a large extent controlled by the Ashkenazi / Zionist agenda which literally owns most of the MSM outlets .Agendas must be announced through propaganda to sway the sleeping public toward conformity .The only baffling question that remains is why do Americans allow Zionist to control such a large part of their great republic ?
D.H. Fabian , September 16, 2017 at 2:33 amRobert, you come from intelligence. Why don't you look at Russia-gate from all possible angles?
I suggest the following. Putin is an American spy. Russia-gate is created to make him a winner, a hero.
And the specious confrontation is a good cover for Putin.
This is in a nutshell.
I can obviously say mu-uch more.mike k , September 16, 2017 at 6:59 amThroughout 2017, we've seen a surge of efforts by both parties -- via the media that serve them -- to build support for a final nuclear war. The focus jumps from rattling war sabers at China (via Korea, at the moment) to rattling them at Russia, two nuclear-armed world powers. This has been working to bring Russia and China together, resolving their years of conflict in view of a potential world threat -- the US. Whatever their delusions, and regardless of their ideology, our political leaders are setting the stage for the deaths of millions of us, and the utter destruction of the US.
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:42 pmOur political leaders have betrayed us.
Jim Glover , September 16, 2017 at 3:15 amThermo-nuclear war would cause human extinction, not just billions of casualties.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 6:57 amIt is the same now with North Korea and China. So what would happen if those nations were destabilized by Sanctions or worse Russia, China Iran and more would support Kim. How to make peace?
Dennis Rodman has the guts to suggest call and talk with Kim or "Try it you might like it better than total mutual destruction". Think Love and Peace it can't hurt like all the war, hate and fear the media keeps pushing for advertising profits. War and Fear is the biggest racket on the planet. What can I do? Fighting a losing battle but it is fun tryin' to win.
GMC , September 16, 2017 at 3:20 amWe may be losing now, but who knows? It ain't over till it's over. Hang in there.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 6:54 amGreat article- again . I used to live in the US, I used to live in Alaska, I used to live in Crimea, Ukraine but now I live in Crimea, Russia and Smolensk, Ru. I watched this all go down but it took awhile to see the entire picture. I seldom get any more emails from the states – even my brother doesn't get it. They think I'm now a " commie" , I guess. I see it as the last big gasp of hot, dangerous air from an Empire -- Exposed. Unfortunately, its not over yet and maybe we/you will have more bad times ahead. Crimea this summer is doing well with much work going on – from the badly needed new infrastructure to the new bridge, the people are much better off than in Ukraine. They made the right choice in returning to Mother Russia even though it was a no-brainer for them. The world is lucky to have free writers like, Parry, Roberts, Vltchek, Pepe', the Saker and the intelligent commenters are as important as the writers in spreading the Pravda. Spacibo Mr. Parry
ranney , September 16, 2017 at 4:22 amThanks for sharing with us GMC. And good luck to you.
Joe Tedesky , September 16, 2017 at 8:55 amYES -- -- -- -- -- Yes to all that you wrote Robert -- Thank you again for writing clearly and saying what obviously needs to be said, but no one else will. We've been down this road before -i.e. the media pulling us into wars of Empire – first the Spanish- American one, then a bunch of others working up to Viet Nam, and then Iraq. Each one gets worse and now we're reaching for a nuclear one. Keep writing; your voice gives some of us hope that just maybe others will join in and stop the media from their constant "messages of hate" and the urging of the public to a suicidal conflagration.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 11:29 amThe funny thing about living through the 'fake news' era, is that now everyone thinks that their news source is the correct news source. Many believe that outside of the individual everyone else reads or listens too 'fake news'. It's like all of a sudden no one has credibility, yet everyone may have it, depending on what news source you subscribe to. I mean there's almost no way of knowing what the truth is, because everyone is claiming that they are getting their news from reputable news outlets, but some or many aren't, and who are the reputable news sources, if you don't mind my asking you this just for the record?
Come to think of it, the 'fake news' theme is brilliant considering that now we have no bench mark for what the truth is, and by not having that bench mark for the truth we all go our separate ways believing what we believe, because certainly my news source is the only truthful one, and your news source is beyond questionable of how the news should be reported.
People read headlines, but hardly do they ever read the article. Many hear news sound bites, but never do they do the research required, in order to verify the stories accuracy. Hear say works even more to rain in the clouds of mass deception. Then there are those who sort of buy whatever it is the established news outlets are selling based on their belief that it doesn't much matter anyway, because 'the establishment' lies to us all the time as a rule, so what's the big deal to keep up on the news, because it's all obviously one big lie isn't it? So not only do we have irresponsible news journalist, we also have a very large number of a monopolized unqualified news gatherers who must accept what the various news agencies report, regardless of what the truth may be. It's better the Establishment keep it this way, because then the Establishment has better control over the 'mob grabbing the pitchforks and sickles' and crying out justice for somebody's head. It's kind of like job security for the Establishment, but in their case it's more like a 'keeping your elitist head' security, if you know what I mean.
To learn how to deal with this 'fake news', I would suggest you start studying the JFK assassination, or any other ill defined tragic event, and then you might learn how to decipher the 'fake news' matrix of confusion to learn what you so desire to learn. I chose this route, because when was the last time the Establishment brokered the truth in regard to a happening such as the JFK assassination? Upon learning of what a few well written books has to say, you will then need to rely on your own brain to at least give you enough satisfaction to allow you to believe that you pretty well got it right, and there go you. In other words, the truth is out there, hiding in plain sight, and if you are persistent enough you just might find it. Good luck.
Joe Tedesky , September 16, 2017 at 12:04 pmThe truth has never been that easy to find Joe. Actually all the beyond obvious propaganda on the MSM might wake some people up to do the searching necessary to get closer to what is really happening in their world. Maybe the liars have finally overplayed their hand? Or are we the people really that dumb? (I am scared to hear the answer to that one -- )
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 9:07 amI could be a wise guy, and say to you 'or so you say' in reply to your kind comment, but then that would make me a troll.
All I'm saying mike is that in this era of 'fake news' we are all running about on different levels, and never shall the two of us meet. That is unless you and I get our news from the same source, but what are the odds of all of us getting the same news? It's impossible, and I'm not quite that sure that that would be what we want either. Still without an objective, and honest large media to set the correct narrative we end up in this place, where you might find yourself doing a spread sheet study to come to some conclusion of what is true, and what isn't.
Case in point, read about Russia-Gate here on consortiumnews, and then go listen to Rachel Maddow report on the same thing. Two different sets of stories. Just try and reconcile what you read on sites like this one concerning Ukraine, then go watch MSNBC or CNN. Never a match. So you mike read consortiumnews, and your in laws read the NYT and watch CNN, and there you go, a controversy arises between you and the in laws and with that life goes on, but where is the correct news to be found to settle the score?
Once upon a time the established news agencies such as CNN, and the NYT, were the hallmark of the news, and sites such as this one were the ones on the edge, now I'm convinced this conviction has reversed itself.
Thanks mike for the reply. Joe
Virginia , September 16, 2017 at 2:38 pmWouldn't it be hilarious mike, if the dumbed down people attacked the Bastille under false pretense? Especially if the lie had been concocted by the blinded by their own hubris sitting powers to be. Talk about poetic justice, and well placed irony. Priceless --
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 8:08 amJoe, Apparently people take the easy way out. And that's just it -- "the way out." Extinction -- Maybe they haven't learned there's something worth learning about and living for. I'm gonna concentrate on that. Open eyes that they might see
Tannenhouser , September 17, 2017 at 7:28 pmYou are right Virginia, it is probably 'a way out', and God bless them for it. My late Mother was like that, but I'll tell you why. When my Mother was growing up in a family of eleven children, her father would rent out their street level basement to the voting polls. A block away my uncle who was quite older than my Mother owned a corner saloon. Now on Election Day my Mother said how the men in suits would pull up in their big expensive cars, and they would descend upon my uncles corner bar. Soon after one by one drunks would come out of the tavern wearing Republican buttons then they would go into grandpap's basement voting booth, and vote. Not long after my Mom said, the same drunks would come pouring out of my uncles tavern and this time they were wearing Democratic buttons, and they would go vote once or as many times as it would take to thank the big guys in the suits for the free drinks. My Mom said this went on all day. She said a lot dead people voted whether they knew it or not, and that's the truth. She would follow up by saying, 'yeah a lot of politicians won on the drunk vote'.
So Virginia some can't take the decept and lying, and with that they give up. I myself don't feel this way, but then there are the times I can't help but think of how my dear sweet Mother probably did have it right for the sake of living your life in the most upright and honest way. Sadly, there is no virtue in politics, or so it seems.
Oh yeah, that uncle who owned the corner saloon, he did go into politics holding nominee appointed positions, until he got wise and got a honest job, as he would jokingly say.
For the record my Mother did vote, but she was the lady standing in line who looked reluctant and pissed off to be there, but never the less my Mum was a voter. Oh, the candidate my Mother loved the most was JFK. John F Kennedy's was the only presidential picture my Mother ever hung in our humble home.
My message here, was only meant to give some cover, and an explanation for those who shy away from politics, and not an excuse to stay uninvolved. For even my non political Mum did at least in the end break down, and do the right thing. We should all at least try, and keep up on the events of our time, and vote with the best intentions we can muster up.
Okay, I'm sorry for the length of my reply, but you are always worth taking time for me to give a reasonable answer to. I also hope I'm entertaining with these stories I seem to tell from time to time. Take care Virginia. Joe
Mulga Mumblebrain , September 16, 2017 at 5:47 pmHumans are approximately 90% water, give or take depending on evaporation (Age). Water always takes the path of least resistance. Oh I wish and hope for the day when most realize they are much more than 'just' water:)
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 8:26 amThe fakestream media lies incessantly, and has for generations. Chomsky and Herman's 'Manufacturing Consent' outlines the propaganda role of the 'mass media', and is twenty-five years old, in which period things have gotten MUCH worse (just look at the fate of the UK 'Guardian' for an example). Yet the fakestream presstitutes STILL have the unmitigated gall to call others 'fake' and demand that we believe their unbelievable narratives. That's real chutzpah.
Zhu Bajie , September 17, 2017 at 7:44 pmYou know Mulga you are correct, many generations have listened to many, many, lies upon their way to the voting booths. It goes without saying, how the aristocrats when they find it necessary, as they often do find it necessary, they lie to their flock for a whole host of reasons. Why we could pick anytime in history, and find out where lies have paved the way to a leaders greater conquest, or a leaders said greater conquest if not met with defeat, but never the less the public was used to propel some leaders wishes onward and upward whether for the good or the bad.
But here we are Mulga, you and the rest of us here, straddling on the fence over what might be right to what possibly could be wrong. Without a responsible press you and us Mulga need to learn from each other. Like when comment posters leave links, that's always been something good for me to follow through on.
We live in a unique time, but a time not that unique, as much as it is our time. Our great, great, grandparents were straddling the same fence, and I'm guessing they too relied on each other to navigate there way through the twisting maze of politics, and basically what they all wanted, was a little peace on earth. So Mulga I also guess that you and we the people are just carrying on a tradition that us common folk have been assigned too continue.
Like reading your comments Mulga, good to see you here. Joe
Herman , September 16, 2017 at 9:39 amFake news has always been common. Critical thinking has never been popular because Occam's Razor might slice your favorite story to shreds. Personally, I give full credence to few things in life, but suspect many more, to some degree. I trust my own experiences more than what I read in the media and try to reject conventional wisdom as much as possible.
Dave P. , September 16, 2017 at 8:27 pmObserving Putin's behavior, you have to be impressed with his continue willingness to extend the olive branch and to seek a reasonable settlement of differences. His language always leaves open the possibility of détente with the understanding that Russia is not going to lay down to be run over. On the contrary, the language of Obama and Trump, and their representatives is consistently take it or leave and engaging in school yard insults of Russia, Putin, Lavrov and others. We have consistently played the bully in the school yard encouraging others to join in the bullying. We talk about the corrosive discourse at home, but observe the discourse in foreign affairs. Trump and his associates are guilty, but slick talking Obama and his subordinates was often worse. .As has so often been said, we have only two arrows in our foreign affairs quiver, war and sanctions. We lack the imagination and will to actually engage in civil discussions with those on our enemies' list.
Parry is of course correct in his opinion of the New York Times but it doesn't stop there, only that the New York Times undeservedly is the "newspaper of record." His citing of Orwell is on the mark. Just turn your TV on for the news and see for yourself.
Patricia Victour , September 16, 2017 at 9:54 amVery well said, Herman. Very true.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 9:31 amI don't subscribe to the NYT for this reason, and it is galling to me that our local rag, "The Santa Fe New Mexican," while featuring excellent local coverage for the most part, gets all it's "national" news from the likes of the NYT, WaPo, and AP. These stories, much of it "fake news" in my opinion, are offered as gospel by the "New Mexican", with no journalistic effort to print opposing views. People I know seem so proud of themselves that they subscribe to "The Times," and I don't even dare try to point out to them that they are being duped and propagandized into believing the most outrageous (and dangerous) crap.
To add another dimension, these sources are so jealous of their position as the ultimate word on what Americans are to believe, and also so worried about their waning influence, that now RT and Sputnik, both Russia-sponsored news outlets, may be forced to register as "foreign agents" in the U.S. I am not familiar with Sputnik, but I have been watching RT on TV for several years and find it to be an excellent source of national and foreign news. Stories I see first on RT are usually confirmed soon after by other reliable sources, such as this excellent site – Consortiumnews. At no point did I feel I was being coerced by Russia during the 2016 election – I needed no confirmation that both Trump and Clinton were probably the worst candidates ever to run for President.
hatedbyu , September 16, 2017 at 10:57 amYou know what I find interesting is how a reporter such as Robert Parry will pinpoint his details to a critique of say the NYT, but when or if a NYTer is to write a likewise article of the Alternative Internet Press the NYTer will just simply critique their internet rival as a 'conspiracy theorist' or as now as in 2017 they refer to them as 'fake news artist'. I mean no rebuttal back referencing certain details such as what Parry mentioned, but just rhetorical words written over tabloid written headlines finalized under the heading of 'fake news'. This must be being taught in journalism school these days, because it's popular in the MSM.
Just like you have never heard or read from the MSM a detailed answered rebuttal to the pointed questions of say the '911 Truthers' or a 'JFK Assassination Researcher' a valid bona fide answer. No, but you do hear the masters and mistresses of the corporate media world call writers such as Parry, Roberts, and St Clair, 'fake newscasters', 'Putin Puppets', and or a whole host of other nasty names, as they feel fit to write, but never a honest too goodness rebuttal. Then they talk about Trump not sounding or acting presidential hmm the nerve of these wordsmiths.
BTW, I don't care much for Trump, and I even care less for our MSM. Just wanted to get that straight.
Nice comment Patricia. Joe
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 10:12 amlet's not forget about the nytimes grossly negligent reporting on syria and libya. judith miller? russian doping scandal. lying about the holdomor . man i could do this all day ..
Stephen J. , September 16, 2017 at 11:27 amYou mean the on air hours of punditry explaining away their professions mistakes, or the honest rebuttal? It's at those particular times and occurrences of ignored self reflection our honorable (not) MSM falls back on Orwell's 1984. Like it never happened. The dog didn't eat no home work, because there never was a dog, nor was there any homework .stupid us. Life goes on uninterrupted and non commercial time can be filled with an update on Bill Cosby's past alleged sexual predator attacks, and this is our professional news casting doing its best to entertain us, not inform us god forbid, but entertain us the ignorant masses of their workless society.
One day hatedbyu the ignorant masses may just show the corporate infotainment duchess and dudes that they 'the people' ain't so ignorant, and things must change. Well at least that's the dream, but it's still a work in progress, and then there's the historical seesaw.
I think it's the power of empire to expand, just like a balloon, until it reaches it's bursting point. But just what that bursting point is, is without a doubt the most disputable of arguments to be made. I am coming to the belief we are, as always, continually getting to that point, and we may of course be very close to igniting that spark in the not so far off future. I would prefer the spark to be completely financial, and dealt with accordingly, but I'm a dreamer purest and a conspiracy theorist, so that means when the crap starts going down, I'll be the old man on the hill lighting up a big fat doobie cue soundtrack 'Fool On the Hill'.
Sorry just had to get carried away, but it's Sunday morning hatedbyu and I'm home alone and nobody's trying to break in .. Good comment hatedbyu. Joe
Bob Van Noy , September 16, 2017 at 9:42 pmA Compilation Not seen in Corporate Media: See Link Below:
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
US Wars and Hostile Actions: A List
By David SwansonJoe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 11:29 amStephen J. Thank you for introducing me to David Swanson. Great link.
Hank , September 16, 2017 at 11:32 amIm with you on that Bob, Stephen J providing the Swanson link should be a must read, to keep things fair and balanced. I also do wonder if Swanson's message isn't getting out there, and we all don't already know it? I'm a glass half full kind of guy, but what do we really know about each other, other than what the corporate media instills on us? I wish cable news would air a program made up of Swanson, Pilger, and Parry, for that at least could put some well needed balance finality back, if it ever was there in the first place, back into the public narrative .but there go I.
Good to see you Bob. Joe
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 12:53 pmThe deep state sticks with what works: controlling the media keeps the masses ignorant and malleable. "Remember the Maine"
Germans are bayoneting Belgium babies and "remember the Lusitania" , some evidence shows higher ups knew the Japanese fleet was 400 miles from Hawaii, recall "Tonkin Gulf" episode, Iran Contra , invasion of Granada, Panama, and of course 911 and war on terror, patriot act, weapons of mass destruction, and Russia hacking the election. The masses "believe" these to be true and react and respond accordingly."
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."–Goering at the Nuremberg Trials
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 11:32 amThanks Hank. Same ole same ole, eh? When will we ever learn?
Voytenko , September 16, 2017 at 11:49 am"Trump might well go down in history of the President who screwed-up a historical opportunity to really change our entire planet for the better and who, instead, by his abject lack of courage and honor, his total lack of political and diplomatic education and by his groveling subservience to the "swamp" he had promised to drain ended up being as pathetically clueless as Obama was." (The Saker)
My sentiments exactly.
anon , September 17, 2017 at 9:53 amWhat a glaring lie this article is, its' author being either "useful idiot" played by Kremlin, or maybe not so much of an idiot. What are you talking about here in comments, those who applaud this article, this bunch of lies? You live in Ukraine, you know anything about that so-called "putch"? How dare you to insult the whole nation – Ukrainian nation? Shame on you, people. You don't know (author of the article including) anything about Russia, Ukraine and that bloody Putin, but you have problems with the US and its' politics. US are your business, Ukraine definitely not. Find some other examples of NYT and USA malfeasance, some you know something about. Stop insulting other nations.
Abe , September 16, 2017 at 1:31 pmYou are not from Ukraine, and you care not for Ukraine, or you would seek unity not dominance of East over West Ukraine. Tell us about your life in Ukraine, and show us the evidence of "that bloody Putin."
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 1:47 pmYellow journalism now employs "open source and social media investigation" scams foisted by Eliot Higgins and the Bellingcat disinformation site.
Bellingcat is allied with the New York Times and the Washington Post, the two principal mainstream media organs for "regime change" propaganda, via the First Draft Coalition "partner network".
In a triumph of Orwellian Newspeak, this Google-sponsored "post-Truth" Propaganda 3.0 coalition declares that member organizations will "work together to tackle common issues, including ways to streamline the verification process".
The New York Times routinely hacks up Bellingcat "reports" and pretends they're "verification"
Malachy Browne, "Senior Story Producer" at the New York Times, cited Bellingcat to embellish the media "story" about the Khan Shaykhun chemical incident in Idlib Syria.
Before joining the Times, Browne was an editor at "social news and marketing agency" Storyful and at Reported. ly, the "social reporting" arm of Pierre Omidyar's First Look Media.
Browne generously "supplemented" his "reporting" on the Khan Shaykun incident with "videos gathered by the journalist Eliot Higgins and the social media news agency Storyful".
Browne encouraged Times readers to participate in the Bellingcat-style "verification" charade: "Find a computer, get on Google Earth and match what you see in the video to the streets and buildings"
Browne of Storyful and Higgins of Bellingcat are founding members of the Google-funded "First Draft" coalition.
Browne demonstrates how the NYT and other "First Draft" coalition media outlets use video to "strengthen" their "storytelling".
In 2016, the NYT video department hired Browne and Andrew Glazer. a senior producer on the team that launched VICE News, to help "enhance" the "reporting" at the Times.
Browne represents the Times' effort to package its dubious "reporting" using the Storyful marketing strategy of "building trust, loyalty, and revenue with insight and emotionally driven content" wedded with Bellingcat style "digital forensics" scams.
In other words, we should expect the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, UK Guardian, and all the other "First Draft" coalition media "partners" to barrage us more Bellingcat / Atlantic Council-style Facebook and YouTube video mashups, crazy fun with Google Earth, and Twitter campaigns.
Abe , September 16, 2017 at 1:49 pmThanks Abe. Sounds like these guys all read 1984, and decided it was just the thing for 2017 Amerika.
Abe , September 16, 2017 at 1:58 pm"Our investigation debunks the claims"
Browne keeps the April 2017 NYT video positioned at the top of his Twitter feed
https://twitter.com/malachybrowne/status/857290743068721152Obviously Browne is proud of the "investigation" even though merely shared a "story" fed to him by Higgins' Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council .
Dave P. , September 17, 2017 at 12:26 amHiggins and Bellingcat receives direct funding from the Open Society Foundations (OSF) founded by business magnate George Soros, and from Google's Digital News Initiatives (DNI).
Google's 2017 DNI Fund Annual Report describes Higgins as "a world–leading expert in news verification".
Higgins claims the DNI funding "allowed us to push this to the next level".
https://digitalnewsinitiative.com/news/case-study-codifying-social-conflict-data/In their zeal to propagate the story of Higgins as a courageous former "unemployed man" now busy independently "Codifying social conflict data", Google neglects to mention Higgins' role as a "research fellow" for the NATO-funded Atlantic Council "regime change" think tank.
Despite their claims of "independent journalism", Eliot Higgins and the team of disinformation operatives at Bellingcat depend on the Atlantic Council to promote their "online investigations".
The Atlantic Council donors list includes:
– US government and military entities: US State Department, US Air Force, US Army, US Marines.
– The NATO military alliance
– Large corporations and major military contractors: Chevron, Google, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, BP, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Northrup Grumman, SAIC, ConocoPhillips, and Dow Chemical
– Foreign governments: United Arab Emirates (UAE; which gives the think tank at least $1 million), Kingdom of Bahrain, City of London, Ministry of Defense of Finland, Embassy of Latvia, Estonian Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Defense of Georgia
– Other think tanks and think tankers: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Nicolas Veron of Bruegel (formerly at PIIE), Anne-Marie Slaughter (head of New America Foundation), Michele Flournoy (head of Center for a New American Security), Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution.
Higgins is a Research Associate of the Department of War Studies at King's College, and was principal co-author of the Atlantic Council "reports" on Ukraine and Syria.
Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President of Programs and Strategy at the Atlantic Council, a co-author with Higgins of the report, effusively praised Higgins' effort to bolster anti-Russian propaganda:
Wilson stated, "We make this case using only open source, all unclassified material. And none of it provided by government sources. And it's thanks to works, the work that's been pioneered by human rights defenders and our partner Eliot Higgins, uh, we've been able to use social media forensics and geolocation to back this up." (see Atlantic Council video presentation minutes 35:10-36:30)
However, the Atlantic Council claim that "none" of Higgins' material was provided by government sources is an obvious lie.
Higgins' primary "pieces of evidence" are a video depicting a Buk missile launcher and a set of geolocation coordinates that were supplied by the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) and the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior via the Facebook page of senior-level Ukrainian government official Arsen Avakov, the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Higgins and the Atlantic Council are working in support of the Pentagon and Western intelligence's "hybrid war" against Russia.
The laudatory bio of Higgins on the Kings College website specifically acknowledges his service to the Atlantic Council:
"an award winning investigative journalist and publishes the work of an international alliance of fellow investigators using freely available online information. He has helped inaugurate open-source and social media investigations by trawling through vast amounts of data uploaded constantly on to the web and social media sites. His inquiries have revealed extraordinary findings, including linking the Buk used to down flight MH17 to Russia, uncovering details about the August 21st 2013 Sarin attacks in Damascus, and evidencing the involvement of the Russian military in the Ukrainian conflict. Recently he has worked with the Atlantic Council on the report "Hiding in Plain Sight", which used open source information to detail Russia's military involvement in the crisis in Ukraine."
While it honors Higgins' enthusiastic "trawling", King's College curiously neglects to mention that Higgins' "findings" on the Syian sarin attacks were thoroughly debunked.
King's College also curiously neglects to mention the fact that Higgins, now listed as a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's "Future Europe Initiative", was principal co-author of the April 2016 Atlantic Council "report" on Syria.
The report's other key author was John E. Herbst, United States Ambassador to Ukraine from September 2003 to May 2006 (the period that became known as the Orange Revolution) and Director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.
Other report authors include Frederic C. Hof, who served as Special Adviser on Syrian political transition to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012. Hof was previously the Special Coordinator for Regional Affairs in the US Department of State's Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, where he advised Special Envoy George Mitchel. Hof had been a Resident Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East since November 2012, and assumed the position as Director in May 2016.
There is no daylight between the "online investigations" of Higgins and Bellingcat and the "regime change" efforts of the NATO-backed Atlantic Council.
Thanks to the Atlantic Council, Soros, and Google, it's a pretty well-funded gig for fake "citizen investigative journalist" Higgins.
jaycee , September 16, 2017 at 1:52 pmAbe – Thanks for all the invaluable information you have been providing.
Sam F , September 17, 2017 at 9:58 amThe meme of an aggressive assertive Russia, based on what happened in Crimea, is a deliberate lie expressed with the utmost contempt towards principled diplomacy. The average consumer of mainstream news is also being shamelessly and contemptuously manipulated.
First, the people of Crimea did not want to be part of Ukraine after the USSR dissolved, and had previously expressed their opinion through referenda. The events of 2014 were part of an obvious pattern of previously expressed opinion.
Second, around the time of the so-called Orange Revolution, NATO analysts forecast what would probably happen should Ukraine embrace European "security architecture" (i.e. NATO), and concluded that Russia would take steps to protect their naval facilities in Crimea. Yet, in 2014, NATO officials would disingenuously express their utmost shock and surprise at the event.
Third, Viktor Yushchenko, who came to power in Ukraine in 2005 through the NED-financed Orange Revolution, consistently described his intention to join Ukraine with European institutions, including its "security architecture" (NATO), although acknowledging that the Ukrainian citizenry would have to be manipulated into accepting such a controversial and adversarial position. He would downplay presumed Russian reaction to potential removal from Crimea despite the obviousness and predictability of a serious crisis (see Sept 23, 2008 "Conversation with Viktor Yushchenko" Council On Foreign Relations). Yushchenko polled at 5.45% when he lost the Presidency in 2010, running on a platform of European integration.
Fourth, Russian officials at the highest level told their American counterparts in 2009 that any attempt to integrate Ukraine into NATO, and a corresponding threat to the Crimean naval facilities, would result in moves similar to what would later happen in 2014. Yet the United States, after instigating and legitimizing the Ukraine coup, would react to the Crimean referendum as an aggressive act which represented an unexpected security crisis requiring a reluctant but firm response of militarizing the entire region, and portraying the Russian state to the public as a dangerous and aggressive rogue power.
The deliberate omission of relevant contextual background by politicians, military officials, and the mainstream media demonstrates that none of these institutions can be trusted, and it is they who represent the greatest threat to international security. Putin has been relentlessly demonized, but it can be argued that his swift and essentially bloodless moves in Crimea in 2014 avoided what could have been a major international crisis on the level of the Berlin blockade in 1961. It appears, in hindsight, that such a crisis is exactly what the NATO alliance desired all along.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 12:02 pmWell said.
rosemerry , September 16, 2017 at 2:04 pmNicely put jaycee. What you wrote took me back to a time of some eight months before Maiden Square, when my niece decided to live in Kiev. A bit of a ways away from Pittsburgh, so I started researching Ukraine. I also discovered RT & Moonofalabama, and sites like that.
What you wrote jaycee, in my humble opinion should be said in our MSM news. If for no other reason but to give an alternative fair and balance to say the likes of Rachel Maddow, or Joy Ann Reed. The way the MSM picks and chooses, and skims across important events in Ukraine, like Odessa, are criminal if ever the Press is to be judged for crimes of war. To the crys of a destroyed empire's vanquished population would then your small essay be heard jaycee, and yet that's the world we live in, but at least you said it.
Thanks jaycee (that's the first time I wrote your name and the j didn't go capital what does that mean? Who cares.)
JoeMaDarby , September 16, 2017 at 2:05 pmOf course the NYT liars would not bother to watch Oliver Stone's interviews with Pres. Putin, but during them he explained at length about his cooperation during the years after Ukraine elected a pro-Western president, managing to carry out mutual agreements and policies, but after the new pro- Russian president was elected, the USA did not accept him and overthrew him, which preceded the antics of Nuland et al in 2014 and the rest which followed.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 12:19 pmIt appears to me that the elites decided long ago that the best solution to overpopulation is just to let climate change take care of three or four billion people while the Saud family and the Cargill family live on in their sheltered paradises with every convenience AI can provide.
It is clear these mega-rich families DO NOT CARE about society, about mass human extension or even about nature itself. They are the pinnacle of human evolution. Psycho-pathological loss of empathy might have been a bad evolutionary experiment.
This is derangement on a human specie scale, no leader no one in power has been willing to do anything but exploit every opportunity to make money and increase global domination, the great powers knew this day was coming when they made their decisions to hide it 50 years ago. The consequences are acceptable to the decision makers.
A mass extension of organic life is taking place before our eyes, nothing can stop it, THEY DO NOT CARE.
They sure as hell don't care if millions don't believe the Russia crap they just move ahead as the Imperial power, might makes right. In the end it is a religious project, the biblical slaughter of the innocents to appease a vengeful god and rid the world of evil.
Donald Patterson , September 16, 2017 at 2:45 pmWhat you bring up MaDarby takes me towards the direction of wondering what all those other Departments, other than State & Defense, of the Presidential Cabinet are up too? If our news were done and somehow properly organized, in such away as to educate us peons, then whatever the time allowed would be to broadcast and print out what each Federal Agency is up to. Now I know a citizen can seek out this information, but why can't there be a suitable mass media representation to reach us clunkheads like me, not you?
What should be exposed is the corporate ownership of the very agencies that were put in place to protect the 'Commons' has been corrupted to the point of no return. This dilemma will take a huge public referendum short of a mob revolution to change this atmosphere of complacency. The public will get blamed, but the real blame should be put on the massive leadership programs which were bolted down on to their citizens masses knowledge of said events, and there in lies the total crime of deception.
MaDarby your concern for nature is where a smart person should put their number one priority concern, no arguing there, but just a lifting word of approval of how you put it. Joe
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 9:03 pmConsortium has been a clear voice on the lunacy of the Russia-Gate scandal. But to paint Yanukovych former President of the Ukraine as an injured party considering his history in government with what appears to be large scale corruption is part of the story as well. A treason trial started in May. More info needed on what looks like a complicated story. This would be a good piece of investigative journalism as well.
Joe Tedesky , September 17, 2017 at 12:40 pmCan you imagine what a huge can of worms would be revealed if there was a thorough investigation on every congressperson and public official in Washington DC? It would make Yanukovych look like a saint. And in addition, let's investigate the 10,000 richest people in the US, including all their offshore fortunes gained by illegal means. Wouldn't it make sense to do that? Isn't there enough evidence of probable criminal activity to open these investigations? Where is our ethical sense when it comes to our own dirty laundry? I guess it's easier to speculate about other's crimes than look into our own, eh?
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 2:49 pmThe focus I get isn't so much focused on Yanukovych, even Putin wasn't all that crazy about his style of leadership, but my focus on a viable democratically created government doesn't necessarily start with an armed public coup. Yes, leading up to the violence, peaceful protesters took to the streets, but as we both know this is always the case until the baton twirling thugs come to finally ramp up the protest to a marathon of violent clashes and whatever else gets heads busted, until we have a full fledged revolution on our hands pass out the cookies. I mean by by-passing the voting polls, even to somehow ad hoc a temporary government in some manner of government overthrow were done peacefully, well then maybe I could get on board with this new Ukrainian government, but even the NYT finds it impossible to cover up everything.
And what about the people of Donbass? Shouldn't they have a say in this new government realignment? Ukraine has, and has always had a East meets West kind of problem. That area has been ruled over for centuries by each other, and one another, to a point of who's who and what's what is hard to figure out. Donbass, should in my regard be separate from the Now Kiev government. (Be kind with your critique of me for I am just an average American telling you what I see from here)
It's like everything else, where we should let the people of the region sit down with each other and work it out, we instead blame it on Putin, or whoever else Putin appears to be, and there you have it MIC spending up the ying-yang, for the lack of a better portrayal, but still a portrayal of what ills our modern geopolitical society.
Voytenko , September 16, 2017 at 3:48 pm"The best thing which could happen to this country and its people would be the collapse of this Empire. The support, even tacit and passive, of this Empire by people like yourself only delays this outcome and allows this abomination to to bring even more misery and pain upon millions of innocent people, including millions of your fellow Americans. This Empire now also threatens my country, Russia, with war and possibly nuclear war and that, in turn, means that this Empire threatens the survival of the human species. Whether the US Empire is the most evil one in history is debatable, but the fact that it is by far the most dangerous one is not. Is that not a good enough reason for you to say "enough is enough"? What would it take for you to switch sides and join the rest of mankind in what is a struggle for the survival of our species? Or will it take a nuclear winter to open your eyes to the true nature of the Empire you apparently are still supporting against all evidence?" (the Saker)
Please go to the entire article on today's Saker Blog.
Abe , September 16, 2017 at 7:00 pmSick edition consortiumnews, sick readers. Elites, Deep State, Evil Empire USA Dove Putin with olive branch Guys, why don't you watch, say for a week, Russian TV, if you have somebody around who can translate from Russian. If you want to hear real nazi racist alt-whatever crap, Russian TV is the place. But you'll enjoy it, most probably. Thankfully, you guys, are obviously, minority, with all your pseudo intellectual delusions, discussions and ideas. "Useful idiots" – that's what Lenin said about the likes of you.
mike k , September 16, 2017 at 8:50 pmThere is no reason to assume that the trollish rants of "Voytenko" are from some outraged flag-waving "patriot" in Kiev. There are plenty of other "useful idiots" ready, willing and able to make mischief.
For example, about a million Jews emigrated to Israel ("made Aliyah") from the post-Soviet states during the 1990s. Some 266,300 were Ukrainian Jews. A large number of Ukrainian Jews also emigrated to the United States during this period. For example, out of an estimated 400 thousand Russian-speaking Jews in Metro New York, the largest number (thirty-six percent) hail from Ukraine. Needless to say, many among them are not so well disposed toward the nations of Russia or Ukraine, and quite capable of all manner of mischief.
A particularly "useful idiot" making mischief the days is Sergey Brin of Google. Brin's parents were graduates of Moscow State University who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1979 when their son was five years old.
Google, the company that runs the most visited website in the world, the company that owns YouTube, is very snugly in bed with the US military-industrial-surveillance complex.
In fact, Google was seed funded by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The company now enjoys lavish "partnerships" with military contractors like SAIC, Northrop Grumman and Blackbird.
Google's mission statement from the outset was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".
In a 2004 letter prior to their initial public offering, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin explained their "Don't be evil" culture required objectivity and an absence of bias: "We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see."
The corporate giant appears to have replaced the original motto altogether. A carefully reworded version appears in the Google Code of Conduct: "You can make money without doing evil".
This new gospel allows Google and its "partners" to make money promoting propaganda and engaging in surveillance, and somehow manage to not "be evil". That's "post-truth" logic for you.
Google has been enthusiastically promoting Eliot Higgins "arm chair analytics" since 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbWhcWizSFYIndeed, a very cozy cross-promotion is happening between Google and Bellingcat.
In November 2014, Google Ideas and Google For Media, partnered the George Soros-funded Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) to host an "Investigathon" in New York City. Google Ideas promoted Higgins' "War and Pieces: Social Media Investigations" song and dance via their YouTube page.
Higgins constantly insists that Bellingcat "findings" are "reaffirmed" by accessing imagery in Google Earth.
Google Earth, originally called EarthViewer 3D, was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded company acquired by Google in 2004. Google Earth uses satellite images provided by the company Digital Globe, a supplier of the US Department of Defense (DoD) with deep connections to both the military and intelligence communities.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is both a combat support agency under the United States Department of Defense, and an intelligence agency of the United States Intelligence Community. Robert T. Cardillo, director of the NGA, lavishly praised Digital Globe as "a true mission partner in every sense of the word". Examination of the Board of Directors of Digital Globe reveals intimate connections to DoD and CIA.
Google has quite the history of malicious behavior. In what became known as the "Wi-Spy" scandal, it was revealed that Google had been collecting hundreds of gigabytes of payload data, including personal and sensitive information. First names, email addresses, physical addresses, and a conversation between two married individuals planning an extra-marital affair were all cited by the FCC. In a 2012 settlement, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Google will pay $22.5 million for overriding privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser. Though it was the largest civil penalty the Federal Trade Commission had ever imposed for violating one of its orders, the penalty as little more than symbolic for a company that had $2.8 billion in earnings the previous quarter.
Google is a joint venture partner with the CIA. In 2009, Google Ventures and In-Q-Tel invested "under $10 million each" into Recorded Future shortly after the company was founded. The company developed technology that strips information from web pages, blogs, and Twitter accounts.
In addition to funding Bellingcat and joint ventures with the CIA, Brin's Google is heavily invested in Crowdstrike, an American cybersecurity technology firm based in Irvine, California.
Crowdstrike is the main "source" of the "Russians hacked the DNC" story.
Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council "regime change" think tank.
Alperovitz said that Crowdstrike has "high confidence" it was "Russian hackers".
"But we don't have hard evidence," Alperovitch admitted in a June 16, 2016 Washington Post interview.
Allegations of Russian perfidy are routinely issued by private companies with lucrative US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts. The companies claiming to protect the nation against "threats" have the ability to manufacture "threats".
The US and UK possess elite cyber capabilities for both cyberspace espionage and offensive operations.
Both the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) are intelligence agencies with a long history of supporting military operations. US military cyber operations are the responsibility of US Cyber Command, whose commander is also the head of the NSA.
US offensive cyber operations have emphasized political coercion and opinion shaping, shifting public perception in NATO countries as well as globally in ways favorable to the US, and to create a sense of unease and distrust among perceived adversaries such as Russia and China.
The Snowden revelations made it clear that US offensive cyber capabilities can and have been directed both domestically and internationally. The notion that US and NATO cyber operations are purely defensive is a myth.
Recent US domestic cyber operations have been used for coercive effect, creating uncertainty and concern within the American government and population.
The perception that a foreign attacker may have infiltrated US networks, is monitoring communications, and perhaps considering even more damaging actions, can have a disorienting effect.
In the world of US "hybrid warfare" against Russia, offensive cyber operations work in tandem with NATO propaganda efforts, perhaps best exemplified by the "online investigation" antics of the Atlantic Council's Eliot Higgins and his Bellingcat disinformation site.
GMC , September 17, 2017 at 4:53 amThanks Abe. Your insights are invaluable.
Gregory Herr , September 17, 2017 at 10:33 amI live in Russia and see those shows that you speak of. The Nazi rants are from the Ukraine folks invited on the show – you want to see Ukraine shows like the ones in RU. – well, you won't see any Russians invited to talk -- -- NONE --
mrtmbrnmn , September 16, 2017 at 4:48 pmYour posts are so blatantly contrived it's almost funny. Do you write for sitcoms as well?
Dominic Pukallus , September 16, 2017 at 10:13 pmIs this a great country, or wot???
Stupid starts at the very top and there is no bottom to it .
mike k , September 17, 2017 at 8:03 amThe Washington Post has its own ironically self-describing slogan. Perhaps that of the NYT these days should be, in the same vein, "The Sleep of Reason begets monsters". And who will soon then be able to whistle in the darkness full of these things?
Walter DuBlanica , September 17, 2017 at 2:26 pmWhen looking for monsters, the WaPo should start by looking at themselves.
Russian_angel , September 17, 2017 at 9:43 pmThe chaos in Ukraine was engineered by Victoria Nuland at Hillary's request. Good that she is not president. The Ukrainians and Russians are one and the same people, same DNA, same religion Orthodoxy., Slavic, languages very close to each other, Cyrillic alphabet and a long common history .
Florin , September 18, 2017 at 2:15 amThank you for the truth about Russia, it hurts the Russians to read about themselves in the American newspapers a lie.
Jamie , September 18, 2017 at 12:03 pmGershman, Nuland, Pyland, Feltman . essentially ths four biggest US (quasi) diplomats, like Volodymyr Groysman, Petro Poroshenko and perhaps 'our guy' Yats – are Jewish.
Add to this the role of Israeli 'ex' military, some hundreds, which means Mossad, and of Jewish oligarchs in Ukraine – and consider that Jews are less than 1% of the population.
The point is if we were free to speak plainly, the Ukraine coup looks to be one in which American and Ukrainian Jews acted in concert to benefit Jewish power. There is more to be said on this, but this glimpse will suffice because, of course, one is not free to speak plainly even where plain speaking is, on the face of it, encouraged.
Where was fake Antifa when Obama armed Nazi's in the Ukraine?
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/12/u-s-house-admits-nazi-role-in-ukraine/
Obama then put Joe Biden's sleazy son, Hunter, on the board of the largest gas company there:
By ignoring the fascism of one political party, Antifa is actually pro-fascist. This fits in well with their Hitler-like disdain for freedom of press, speech and assembly. And their absolute love of violence, we also saw in the 1930s among Nazi groups
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Sep 15, 2017 | www.unz.com
jacques sheete, September 15, 2017 at 12:39 pm GMT
@Hairway To Steven Conspiracy theories like those expressed in this article and in many of the comments are for those either lacking the good sense to appreciate that the world is complex or the intellectual patience to sort through that complexity. In the absence of these qualities, conspiracy nuts come up with unified theories that "explain everything" (e.g., the Jews control the world). Actually moving out of the basement of their mom's house, or even losing their virginity, might help, but most of these sweaty little pamphleteers are lost causes whose lives rarely extend beyond a circle of like-minded friends and the insular concerns expressed in their over-heated and under-read blogs.
Conspiracy theories like those expressed in this article and in many of the comments are for those either lacking the good sense to appreciate that the world is complex or the intellectual patience to sort through that complexity.
Or they could be lacking in gullibility, which is much more likely.
Anyone using the words, "conspiracy theories" as used above really shouldn't be lecturing anyone about their lack of good sense or their lack of intellectual patience. In fact, using such mass media promulgated terms shows a gross lack of brain power as well as a paucity of experience, a high degree of susceptibility to propaganda, high titer of naivete, not enough sense to question much, if anything, and poor judgement overall.
Someone other than myself coined the term, "coincidence theorist" and that appropriately applies to those who parrot mass media generated concepts and is much more damning.
Joe Hide, September 11, 2017 at 1:16 pm
Millions of us have been aware of the "Empire" for years now Linh. We just don't have access to the media expression as you do. We tend to be quiet about it until we sense a person or group is open to this Truth. Most people think inside the box because it's safe, comforting, and lacks unpleasant reactions. We who want the Truth value your articles, because we really do believe that "The Truth will set you free."
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Aug 11, 2017 | www.unz.com
Here is what Donald Trump should call for this morning. This is the right time to up his ante in the struggle against the Lügenpresse. All his efforts to fix the sinking ship of the US society are in vain with a breach below the waterline. If the Fake News applauds every jerk in a mantle who stops a presidential decree, the jerks will multiply and president's decrees will be worth what? A collector's rarity. A quirky exhibit from the days of Donald Trump's short-lived presidency. The fake news media ridiculed the POTUS so completely, that this big man with big orange hair shrunk down to Lilliput's finger.
Trump can't get out of his disposition by foreign policy acts. Forget about North Korea. It is a big hedgehog: a lot of bother to catch and kill, many prickles and no meat. The only thing Kim wants to tell Trump is "I am not a soft target, go look elsewhere". Is North Korea dangerous? Only for those who want to step on it.
P G Wodehouse's Mr Mulliner argued with anti-smoker lobby: "They come and tell me that if they place two drops of nicotine on the tongue of a dog the animal instantly dies and when I ask them if they have ever tried the childishly simple device of not placing nicotine on the dog's tongue, they have nothing to reply They are nonplussed. They go away mumbling something about never having thought of that before."
This line of argument is perfectly valid referring to North Korea. Try the childishly simple device of not interfering with it, of not sending troops and ships and jets there. This far-away place can, and should be forgotten, as it had been forgotten for many, many years. If you really want to do something about North Korea, move your troops and your aircraft carriers elsewhere, say to Norfolk, Virginia; they will be more appreciated there. You will be praised for your wisdom by South Koreans and by Japanese, and by your base in the US.
The fake news media will surely say that you've got cold feet and ran away from little fat Kim. But they will say something nasty in any case. Even if you were to unleash a nuclear holocaust upon Korea, they will write: he did it because Mueller's FBI agents searched Paul Manaforte's home and discovered he is a Russian spy.
They did not pay attention to the great victory you won a day earlier, when you and your Secretary of State convinced the Russians and the Chinese to vote for a North Korea sanctions draft in the Security Council. It was one of those great diplomatic victories, but the Lugenpresse didn't say a word about it.
Let us come to the point. Your enemy is not Kim, your enemy is your mainstream mass media. Sure, it is not the only enemy, but if this enemy could be knocked out, the judges would obey, the congressmen would fall into line, Mueller would be sent back to oblivion. There is a problem, how to subdue this stubborn enemy.
You tried a Trump TV Real News and have been rightly ridiculed by all and sundry. Though Kayleigh McEnany is not painful for the eye, this sort of TV had been out of fashion even in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis prefer to watch the forbidden Al Jazeera.
You can't bomb the headquarters of New York Times or of CNN . Does it mean you are absolutely vulnerable? Yes, you are, unless you instill some fear in the dark souls of the media lords and their allies. Your buddy Putin had been in the same situation you are now, until he arrested Mr Khodorkovsky, the oligarch, in 2003. When this richest man in Russia had been sent to jail for ten years, the media lords of Russia saw the light. They understood they were playing a dangerous game.
The American media men are not different. The Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady Are sisters under their skins, said the poet. Show them a flayed media lord, and they will become much, much more reasonable.
And here I'd suggest dealing with Jeff Bezos, first of all and immediately. He is a father of the North Korean crisis, let him be the first victim of it. It is his claim that Koreans produced that nuclear warhead that jump-started the crisis. The jerk did it at the anniversary of the greatest atrocity of all times,the Hiroshima bombing.
If there will be a nuclear war, we can call it Jeff Bezos War.
Jeff Bezos is the richest man on our planet. If there is somebody to hate, it's got to be him. Do him in, Donald. Skin him. As opposed to North Korea, he is a soft target. A new-rich, a smart kid out of nothing. No old money, no old school ties behind him. Who will support him? The CIA? Cut the CIA budget for the exact amount they pay to Bezos, so the spooks will understand the message.
Go after his advertisers. Kick his reporters out of White House. Ask, no, demand that the FBI to investigate his doings. A rich guy like Bezos has surely committed multiple crimes, no doubt. If the FBI can't discover his crimes, sack the head of the FBI, and take the one who can. Unleash all the hate you can find upon his head. And when he is be taken to prison, you'll know: the rest will become more careful with their tongues. And the best: rip him off his ill-gotten gains and use that to provide health care for every American. It should be enough. Probably you could cover all the student loans with the change. And you will be able to proceed with your necessary reforms.
So, Donald, start every day of yours with a great booming call: "Bring me the head of Jeff Bezos"!
And the greatest crime of Bezos isn't punishable by law. The man stole the good name of Washington Post, the glorious newspaper of old, the newspaper of Bernstein, Woodward, Seymour Hersh and many other wonderful American journalists and reporters. He turned the venerable paper into propaganda tool by appointing a campaign chief
And the greatest crime of Bezos isn't punishable by law. The man stole the good name of Washington Post, the glorious newspaper of old, the newspaper of Bernstein, Woodward, Seymour Hersh and many other wonderful American journalists and reporters. He turned the venerable paper into propaganda tool by appointing a campaign chief of staff instead of a professional man. If Lenovo is not allowed to use the name of IBM, though they bought the company, Bezos should not be allowed to use the name of good old WaPo. Let him call it Bezos Post.
Thus the campaign against Bezos is not against freedom of press, au contraire, it is for saving the press from moneybags.Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net
Jeff Bozo > , August 11, 2017 at 4:14 am GMT
Priss Factor > , Website August 11, 2017 at 4:18 am GMTTrump calls it best, "Amazon Washington Post". Perfect.
Carlton Meyer > , Website August 11, 2017 at 4:25 am GMTLet him call it Bezos Post.
Bezos' Bozos.
Stephen R. Diamond > , Website August 11, 2017 at 4:44 am GMTMiles Mathis says Bezos is a CIA front man for the Deep State.
http://mileswmathis.com/bezos.pdf
He thinks the CIA controls everything, but does some research, and may be correct.
Thomm > , August 11, 2017 at 5:01 am GMTAre we to think that waging a campaign of destruction aimed at an individual is compatible with the rule of law. Or is that concept dispensable?
Carlton Meyer > , Website August 11, 2017 at 5:15 am GMT@Carlton Meyer Miles Mathis says Bezos is a CIA front man for the Deep State.
http://mileswmathis.com/bezos.pdf
He thinks the CIA controls everything, but does some research, and may be correct. Miles Mathis is even dumber than I thought. In that .pdf..
He says Jeff Bezos is Jewish.
He says Bill Gates is Jewish.He says Stormfront is a 'front' controlled by Jews.
I thought Whiskey and Peterike were dumb, but Miles W. Mathis is at another level..
Wally > , August 11, 2017 at 5:52 am GMTIt seems the CIA fronted Bezos the money to buy the WP.
RobinG > , August 11, 2017 at 8:18 am GMT@Stephen R. Diamond Trying asking the so called 'Democrats':
Undercover video shows Democrat operatives admitting they incited violence at Trump rallies
The Alarmist > , August 11, 2017 at 8:44 am GMT@Carlton Meyer Here's more on Amazon's $600Million contract with the CIA. Slight conflict of interest for Bezos but of course CIA had its thumb on all US media long before this.
https://medium.com/@SarahRRunge/amazon-the-washington-post-and-the-cia-d68a4ee802e
Demonizing Russia: Fake News And The Conflict Of Interest Involving Amazon, The Washington Post, And The CIA
animalogic > , August 11, 2017 at 9:22 am GMT"You can't bomb the headquarters of New York Times or of CNN."
In the interest of science, wouldn't it be advisable to do an empirical test of the proposition before ruling it out?
Greg Bacon > , Website August 11, 2017 at 9:58 am GMTReally enjoyed this article. Shamir talks a lot of sense. Take this:
"Forget about North Korea. It is a big hedgehog: a lot of bother to catch and kill, many prickles and no meat. The only thing Kim wants to tell Trump is "I am not a soft target, go look elsewhere". Is North Korea dangerous? Only for those who want to step on it."
Great analogy."You can't bomb the headquarters of New York Times or of CNN." Doesn't really sound fair, does it ?
As for Bezos: "Do him in, Donald. Skin him." Sounds like a strategy to me. "A rich guy like Bezos has surely committed multiple crimes, no doubt." Yes, indeed, no doubt.
War for Blair Mountain > , August 11, 2017 at 10:23 am GMTI fear Herr Trump is toast. He should've started fighting from Day One in the WH, when the MSM went after and got Mike Flynn's scalp, Trump should've made a stand and protected the guy instead of doing his now familiar routine; Mumble a few words and retire to his inner sanctum to unleash a barrage of Tweets.
He hasn't, he folds on a regular basis–the recent health care flop–and then tries to portray himself as some kind of bad-ass Tweet monster after his defeat.When the Deep State gets the war mongering CZ Pence, it will be back to BAU, with Syria and Assad back in the gun sights.
Misinformed Guy > , August 11, 2017 at 11:37 am GMTThe Washington Post has always been a Deep State institution that promoted death and destruction around the world.
Japan had to be nuked .unfortunately there weren't 10 nukes available in 1941 .
Dip Jeff Bezos in a vat of car battery acid .seal it .enjoy the high pitch screams put the whole thing on YouTube as a warning
Anon > , Disclaimer August 11, 2017 at 1:03 pm GMT@Greg Bacon I fear Herr Trump is toast. He should've started fighting from Day One in the WH, when the MSM went after and got Mike Flynn's scalp, Trump should've made a stand and protected the guy instead of doing his now familiar routine; Mumble a few words and retire to his inner sanctum to unleash a barrage of Tweets.
He hasn't, he folds on a regular basis--the recent health care flop--and then tries to portray himself as some kind of bad-ass Tweet monster after his defeat.When the Deep State gets the war mongering CZ Pence, it will be back to BAU, with Syria and Assad back in the gun sights. Trump is no Octavian/Augustus. He's a real estate baron and TV show host
The kind of blood you need to spill in American domestic politics he is not mentally or physically capable of doing. He'd have to kill (yes kill) a lot of folks. Fleece oligarchs, Purge the military, purge the Judiciary, gut the intelligence community, and destroy the media as we know it. It would be the end of empire, but it would it save the patient America? Pretty much turn the place inside out and lose some extremities. The rest of the world would burn as the United States went through this surgery, the USA might not survive.
It's just survival for the next four years Trumps worried about, thank goodness. No one is promoting that kind of doom scenario. Would just have sectarian and secular monsters roaming the countryside, and villagers would die. Better to exist under a bunch of secure self-satisfied corrupts, than insecure scared and angry corrupts as long as we all eat I say.anon > , Disclaimer August 11, 2017 at 1:08 pm GMTWhat ill gotten gains? Bezos created a great company that we all benefit from. He isn't a criminal and he didn't steal anything from
anybody. He didn't steal the Post- he bought it. So now we're going to unleash the FBI, Beria- style, on the private sector and journalists the President doesn't like? No thanks. If you want to defeat the ideas of the mass media, challenge them with your own ideas. This is one of the most idiotic and outrageous articles I have read in this site.Moi > , August 11, 2017 at 1:33 pm GMT@Stephen R. Diamond You are exactly right.
Anonymous > , Disclaimer August 11, 2017 at 1:33 pm GMT@Jeff Bozo Unfortunately, the Donald is a blow-dried buffoon.
Anon > , Disclaimer August 11, 2017 at 2:07 pm GMTLet us come to the point. Your enemy is not Kim, your enemy is your mainstream mass media. Sure, it is not the only enemy, but if this enemy could be knocked out, the judges would obey, the congressmen would fall into line, Mueller would be sent back to oblivion
He should have cleansed the FBI, CIA and NSA first. The swamp must be investigated and prosecuted if Trump wants to achieve anything. Every trial would have increased Trump's popularity, revealed more Deep State dirt and implicated more swamp creatures (including the media creatures).
The MSM would have been powerless to stop it.
anarchyst > , August 11, 2017 at 2:24 pm GMT@Wally I am trying to locate the links of Anti Trump supporters crying out loud against hypothetical racist anti Muslim anti migrant rhetorics but dropping dead when these dunce were told that those slogans had come from Israel only to wake up one more time before final demise to affirm the support to Zionist's racism
utu > , August 11, 2017 at 2:30 pm GMTBernstein and Woodward were hacks, as well
The Watergate destruction of the Nixon presidency was a result of Mark Felt ("deep throat") being passed over for Director of the FBI in favor or Patrick Gray.
Mark Felt's hatred of Nixon was the stuff of legends. He employed Bernstein and Woodward and made them famous.Michael Kenny > , August 11, 2017 at 2:33 pm GMT@Stephen R. Diamond Keep in mind that Mr. Shamir is old unreformed Stalinist, so he does not see there are any problems in targeted prosecution. And he could justify it that the legal system always is capricious and does not pursue all perpetrators and all crimes with the same intensity.
Would Trump do it? In my opinion he should have gone after some high to mid rank Obama and Clinton people from the day one. And he did not. I conclude that for some reasons he has no means. His only absolute power appears to be that over his iPhone and the twitter account.
TG > , August 11, 2017 at 2:34 pm GMTThis sounds like a rather silly attempt to divert attention away from seems to be a fairly certain capitulation on Trump's part to NK and it's logical corollary, namely, Trump's inevitable search for a softer target. That target is fairly obvious: Putin. No fanatical communists, no fanatical islamists just a crooked gangster regime that can probably be bought off and certainly isn't going to commit suicide by starting a nuclear war. In addition, a "war on Putin" is the only war that will benefit Trump in any way. It will kill off Russiagate before Mueller starts digging too deeply into Trump's business links to Russia and his tax returns. Any other war, including NK, will inevitably be seen as an attempt to divert atention away from Ukraine. So I'm no more expecting to see Bezos arrested than I am to see Kim blasted to kingdom come.
macilrae > , August 11, 2017 at 2:48 pm GMTInteresting, if a little more over-the-top than my tastes.
Let me humbly suggest a much calmer approach.
Let's enforce antitrust laws against the mass media, and undo the concentration of media power into about six discrete hands that Bill Clinton permitted. Prohibit news media corporations from owning/being owned by large corporations with interests other than journalism.
And for something more symbolic but still fun, insist that every news reporter identify themselves by their parent organization, not the subsidiary. It would be a major wake-up call to the public to have a press conference, and there was the reporter from GE, and the reporter from GE, and the reporter from Disney, and the reporter from GE, and the reporter from GE, etc.etc.
anon > , Disclaimer August 11, 2017 at 3:12 pm GMTDonald got to where he is, beating impossible odds; because of his wealth of course; but also because he has this understanding of how to say outrageous things – things that a huge number of people love to hear – and get away with it. He has an uncanny knack of taking political incorrectness to a point just short of what would be political suicide.
Ron Paul, the perfect gentleman, attempted beat the System in 2012 but the media made mincemeat of him – Trump however proved it can be done.
Trump gained the presidency but, like his predecessor, I fear he is turning out to be a talker; not a doer.
Imagine we had a personality like Putin in Trump's place.
Excellent article, Mr. Shamir.
Osten > , August 11, 2017 at 3:54 pm GMTFor the sake or excuse of national security – following -actions :, disinformation, lies that known to who is lying , distorting that is known to distortists , not supplying similar information on the other interested players that are known to the purveyor of the information because of genetic , ideological , ethnic, or financial relations , using of false anti Semitic charges , media should be prosecuted or should be asked to place a rebuttal with apology in same points of the audio visual access to the public .
The person lying or distorting or implying falsely or hiding similar information on the antagonistic parties should be thrown out and never be placed again in same position
A felony charge should be enteredMass lying should be equated with incitement to violence
If Judith Miller or Kraithamner or Wolfowitz or Max Boot were so charged, media would not have been able to continue to do what it has been since 2003 .
Only price will make these thugs prevent them from recidivismBen Banned > , August 11, 2017 at 3:59 pm GMT"Trump is no Octavian/Augustus."
Trump may believe that he is Peter the Great. He alone can drag backward USA into modernity. Delusions of grandeur.
Alden > , August 11, 2017 at 4:16 pm GMTBezos is opportunistically revisiting a famous Reagan-era chant and justification for more defense spending. The fear, loathing and the mini-nuke, which probably fits in an armored suitcase. China has already scolded the American mafia, brand names include Lockheed and Goldman "we are swamp" Sachs. Get an Alexa and talk to it, pro-Trumpers! Spread your Schamir verbally.
Mini-nukes and Korea are good for the Post, Bezos and Trump too – who all act their roles in the US stage play. Trump is of the swamp, regardless of the dozens of insouciant* story tellers' opeds to the contrary.
*insouciant – favored adjective of propagandist Paul Craig Roberts, most often used to describe Americans, the press, personalities, "prestititutes", "whoredom" and at one time, anyone who was opposed to the
psyop pro-Trump movement. The opposition to the pro-Trump movement being a psyop to begin with.Seamus Padraig > , August 11, 2017 at 4:50 pm GMT@Carlton Meyer Miles Mathis is ridiculous. I love his genealogy research. Every White American is vaguely related to European aristocrats.
Anyone with the very common name Howard is a close relative of the Dukes of Norfolk etc.It's not real research . He just goes by last names. And virtually everyone is a crypto Jew whose ancestors held to that identity for a thousand years.
Sometimes he claims Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman and their families never existed. The bodies were mannequins. The CIA did it as a cover up for something or over. Sometimes he concedes Nicole did exist but after the fake death dyed her hair and re emerged as her sister Denise.
RadicalCenter > , August 11, 2017 at 4:54 pm GMT@Carlton Meyer Well, shortly before acquiring the WaPo for $300 million in 2013, Jeff Bezos did indeed get a $600 million "contract" from the CIA. Make of that what you will
https://medium.com/@SarahRRunge/amazon-the-washington-post-and-the-cia-d68a4ee802e
Sergey Krieger > , August 11, 2017 at 5:08 pm GMT@Anon It's terrible to contemplate alright, particularly because nobody knows how to put that kind of explicitly authoritarian djinni (sp?) back in the bottle.
On the other hand, we are increasingly subjected to an authoritarian and hostile regime already, without even the honesty of telling us we are not free. The current regime, including constant surveillance visual and otherwise, grows in size, power, and intrusiveness year after year.
Bezos and his ilk advocate for more of this in all the newspapers and websites etc. that the own, and the deceive, mislead, and misinform people deliberately, including our children.
By invading and inviting the world, this permanent government bankrupts us financially, Balkanizes our home, and effectively imports a class of alien peoples to outvote us, take jobs we should have, and in too many cases, physical harm us and make our neighborhoods filthy, depressing, unfriendly, and unliveable.
(Include in this perm gov the bureaucracy, life tenure judiciary and long-term court staff attorneys, donors, congressional staff, and the revolving door banks, law firms, and "nonprofit public interest" sinecures that reward the deep State's servants when they leave so-called public service).
Bezos and his ilk are actively advocating for completing the cultural, economic, and then physical displacement, impoverishment, oppression, and elimination of decent Americans, especially white Americans, who are clearly a special target.
Yet we should stand by while he does so at the expense of us and particularly our children?
Lives like a king from the profits he rakes in during this dishonest, evil "work", while Americans are falling further behind into near poverty or poverty, and physical danger, precisely due to his favored ideas and policies?
When bezos and his ilk are perfectly fine with restricting our rights to free speech and expression, or at least making a concerted effort to intimidate, mock, and monitor regular Americans so they won't exercise that right lest they lose their jobs and even whole career?
In that context, why should we respect the rights of bezos and his traitorous fellows when they disrespect and actively undermine our rights and our very future existence?
I'm not sharing your outrage.
The hour is getting late, demographically, culturally, financially. How long do we wait before we enact drastic measures into law to take back our government and our country and our resources from these fifth columnists?
RadicalCenter > , August 11, 2017 at 5:11 pm GMTTrump would not do it. All talk no bite. Easily distracted and no focus. weak man.
@Michael Kenny This sounds like a rather silly attempt to divert attention away from seems to be a fairly certain capitulation on Trump's part to NK and it's logical corollary, namely, Trump's inevitable search for a softer target. That target is fairly obvious: Putin. No fanatical communists, no fanatical islamists just a crooked gangster regime that can probably be bought off and certainly isn't going to commit suicide by starting a nuclear war. In addition, a "war on Putin" is the only war that will benefit Trump in any way. It will kill off Russiagate before Mueller starts digging too deeply into Trump's business links to Russia and his tax returns. Any other war, including NK, will inevitably be seen as an attempt to divert atention away from Ukraine. So I'm no more expecting to see Bezos arrested than I am to see Kim blasted to kingdom come. A war with Russia won't kill off only Russiagate, it will kill off tens, possibly hundreds of millions of Americans and Russians and neighbors.
PEACE WITH RUSSIA,
WAR ON MEDIA TRAITORS.
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Aug 07, 2017 | www.informationclearinghouse.info
August 07, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - The American media specializes in fake news. Indeed, since the Clinton regime the American media has produced nothing but fake news. Do you remember the illegal US bombing and destruction of Yugoslavia? Do you remember "war criminal" Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president branded "the butcher of the Balkans," who was compared to Hitler until Hillary passed the title on to the President of Russia? Milosevic, not Bill Clinton, was arrested and placed on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal. He died in prison, some say murdered, before he was cleared of charges by the International Criminal Tribunal. http://www.globalresearch.ca/milosevic-and-the-destruction-of-yugoslavia-unpleasant-truths-no-one-wants-to-know/5540873
Do you remember the destruction of Iraq justified by the orchestrated propaganda, known by the criminal George W. Bush regime to be an outright lie, about Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," weapons that the UN arms inspectors verified did not exist? Iraq was destroyed. Millions of Iraqis were killed, orphaned, widowed, and displaced. Saddam Hussein was subjected to a show trial more transparent than Stalin's trial of Bukharin and then murdered under the pretext of judicial execution.
Do you remember the destruction of Libya based entirely on Washington's lies and the criminal misuse of the UN no-fly resolution by turning it into a NATO bombing of Libya's military so that the CIA-armed jihadists could overthrow and murder Muammar Gaddafi? Do you remember the killer bitch Hillary gloating, "we came, we saw, he died!"
Do you remember the lies that the criminal Obama regime told about Assad of Syria and the planned US invasion of Syria that was blocked by the UK Parliament and the Russian government? Do you remember that Obama and the killer bitch sent ISIS to do the job that US troops were prevented from doing? Do you remember General Flynn revealing on TV that it was a "willful decision" of the criminal Obama regime to send ISIS to Syria over his objection as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency? This bit of told truth is why Gen. Flynn is hated by the Washington criminals who forced him out as Trump's National Security Adviser.
Do you remember the US coup in Ukraine against the democratically elected government and its replacement with a neo-nazi regime? Do you remember that Washington's crime against Ukrainian democracy was quickly hidden behind false charges of "Russian invasion"?
Can you think of any truthful report in the American news in the past two decades?
All of the lies leading to the death of millions told by the criminal Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes were transparent. The US media could easily have exposed them and saved the lives of millions of peoples and saved seven countries from destruction in whole or part. But the presstitutes cheered on the gratuitous and criminal destruction of countries and peoples. Every one of the presstitutes is a war criminal under the standards set by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg trials.
We cannot even get a truthful jobs report. Yesterday (Aug. 4) the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 205,000 new private sector jobs in July and a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.3%. This is fake news.
The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber rah-rahs the fake news, adding that many economists think "robust hiring could continue for many more months, or even years." Let's think about that for a moment. Generally speaking economists regard full employment to be a 5% rate of unemployment. There can never be a zero rate of unemployment because of frictions in the job market. For example, there are people between jobs who have lost or quit a job and are looking for a new one, and there are people who have dropped out of the work force, perhaps to spend more time parenting or to care for an aged and ill parent, and have reentered the work force. Economists also believe that employment cannot go too low without pushing up inflation.
Assuming economists have not suddenly changed their minds about what rate of unemployment is full employment, if the unemployment rate is currently 4.3%, it is already below the full employment rate. How can the rate continue to fall for years when the economy is already at full employment? Apparently, this question did not occur to the AP reporter or to the "many economists."
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Jul 11, 2017 | russiareviewed.wordpress.com
Posted on July 10, 2017 by J.T. Leave a comment "Fake news", like "Russian aggression", is one of those terms I hear thrown around often but never adequately defined.One particular argument says that the definition of "fake news" is determined by intent; that a journalist who publishes false information unintentionally cannot be accused of spreading fake news. The implication is that "intent" is always honorable at "real" news agencies. But even assuming it is, is good intent really enough?
How does one address, within this framework, instances of pure irresponsibility and lazy journalism, such as what eventually led WaPo to retract its "bombshell" (but entirely false) Dec. 30 story about Russians hacking into a VT electricity grid, or led to the resignation of three CNN journalists on June 26th? What about the curious trend of major U.S. media outlets publishing claims about the Russia Threat that turn out to be false – always in the direction of exaggerating the Threat or inventing incriminating links between Trump and Russia; often treating evidence-free assertions from anonymous sources as the Gospel Truth?
Of course journalists make mistakes, but this type of Russia reporting happens a little too often nowadays for it to be entirely coincidental. Under the intent-based definition of "fake news", sensational and misleading reporting from mainstream U.S. media would sooner be dismissed as "newsroom economics" than charged with any political incentive or ideology. You see, because we, The Good American Traditional Media™ don't do those type of things. That's what They™ do.
Doesn't this sound at least somewhat odd?
A "fake news" definition that cannot include mainstream media only serves to shield those organizations from scrutiny. It encourages readers and viewers to simply trust some organizations (and they'll be sure to tell you which ones) rather than examine all reports with a critical eye.
And at the end of the day, whether the piece is from The New York Times or a teen killing time on his laptop, the result is the same: a lot of people come away believing false information to be true. That's the underlying issue at hand – and one that is not solved by self-righteousness or making excuses.
So there must be another definition.
The debate over what does and does not constitute fake news rages on. In the meantime, you won't hear me using the term "fake news" anywhere on my site – except in this very post.
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Jul 07, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
And so, three stories (2 anonymously sourced and one with no facts behind it) in The New York Times ( who recently retracted their "17 intelligence agencies" lie ) and CNN ( where do we start with these guys? let's just go with full retraction of an anonymously sourced lie about Scaramucci and Kushner and the Russians ) should stir up enough angst to ensure the meeting is at best awkward and at worst a lose-lose for Trump (at least in the eyes of the media).
First off we have the 'news' that hackers have reportedly been breaking into computer networks of companies operating United States nuclear power stations, energy facilities and manufacturing plants , according to a new report by The New York Times.
The origins of the hackers are not known. But the report indicated that an "advanced persistent threat" actor was responsible, which is the language security specialists often use to describe hackers backed by governments.
The two people familiar with the investigation say that, while it is still in its early stages, the hackers' techniques mimicked those of the organization known to cybersecurity specialists as "Energetic Bear," the Russian hacking group that researchers have tied to attacks on the energy sector since at least 2012.
And Bloomberg piled on...
So that's that 5 people - who know something - suspect it was the Russians that are hacking US nuclear facilities (but there's no proof).
Next we move to CNN who claim a 'current and former U.S. intelligence officials' told them that Russian spies have been stepping up their intelligence gathering efforts in the U.S. since the election, feeling emboldened by the lack of significant U.S. response to Russian election meddling .
"Russians have maintained an aggressive collection posture in the US, and their success in election meddling has not deterred them," said a former senior intelligence official familiar with Trump administration efforts.
"The concerning point with Russia is the volume of people that are coming to the US. They have a lot more intelligence officers in the US" compared to what they have in other countries, one of the former intelligence officials says.
But, according to Steve Hall, retired CIA chief of operations, the Russians could also be seeking more information on Trump's administration, which is new and still unpredictable to Moscow
So that's more anonymous sourcing about Russian spies... doing what they would normally do during a presidential transition.
And so finally, a third story - with CNN trotting out former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, to pin the 'Russians did it' tail on the "this is why we lost the election" donkey...
Claiming that the Russians alone were responsible for interference ...
"As far as others doing this, well that's new to me," Clapper, who served under former President Barack Obama, said during an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room."
"We saw no evidence whatsoever that [there] was anyone involved in this other than the Russians," he said.
So in summary - 3 stories pinning Russia for shameful acts against 'Murica that just happen to hit hours before Trump shakes hands with Putin... ensuring that unless Trump slams Putin to the ground like a wrestling-CNN-logo, he will be adjudged as being soft... and therefore clearly in cahoots with the Russian leader. Seriously, do the Deep State realy think Americans are that dumb? (rhetorical question)
medium giraffe , Jul 6, 2017 9:49 PM
espirit -> medium giraffe , Jul 6, 2017 9:59 PM" Russian hackers are targeting US nuclear facilities"
Reminds me of the claim that British subs can be hacked. What? do you just fucking google for them?
So much bullshit.....
WordSmith2013 -> espirit , Jul 6, 2017 10:02 PMOld saying goes: Don't piss in the well you drink out of. Scorched earth here we come.
Dukes -> WordSmith2013 , Jul 6, 2017 10:10 PMThe back story to the endless propaganda about Russia is all about the GREAT GAME .
http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=68902
What's really behind all the fake anti-Russia hysteria?
The "Executive Summary" says it all!
J S Bach -> Dukes , Jul 6, 2017 10:54 PMTrump and Putin should have a "beer summit". Let the shitty msm have a field day rationalizing how this time it's bad.
luky luke -> J S Bach , Jul 6, 2017 11:56 PMSometimes I just want to escape to the woods and never come back. This (((media world of inane contrivance))) literally makes me ill.
tip_top -> J S Bach , Jul 7, 2017 12:14 AMThe TRUTH no media will tell you about the conflict with Russia.
http://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/the-truth-about-the-c...
bamawatson -> tip_top , Jul 7, 2017 1:07 AMI'm making over $12k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do,..good luck.. www.Jobzon3.com
burtonm.walker -> bamawatson , Jul 7, 2017 3:30 AMi made $3 a week delivering the local paper every morning in 1961 when i was ten years old. Queer professor named wallace waites would stand in his underwear behind his screen door and beckon me https://vimeo.com/221102826
((another queer professor named cloyd paskins had a heart attack. He did not die. They said he got better after working out with waites))
doctor10 -> J S Bach , Jul 7, 2017 3:34 AMI'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.jobproplan.com
Nexus789 -> Dukes , Jul 7, 2017 5:42 AMThe MIC must be realizing their line of shit is getting pretty old. Next thing you know, they'll 911 Capitol Hill...
sand_puppy -> WordSmith2013 , Jul 6, 2017 10:47 PMThe two should go and get shit faced and solve all the world's problems.
meditate_vigorously -> medium giraffe , Jul 7, 2017 12:54 AMBy "Deep State" and "The Hidden Government" we are referring to the criminal Zionist group, sometimes called just "the neocons" and sometimes the "Khazarian Mafia." (This group does NOT include the majority of American Jews, who tend to be centrist and progressive.) But it does include a smaller subset of the Jewish people. (And a few non-Jewish people like Joe Biden.)
I just came across this interview from the 1970's with H.W. Rosenthal on the Zionist group seeking to rule the world. for me it was very illuminating.
https://nesaraaustralia.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/the-harold-wallace-rose...
EmergentMind -> medium giraffe , Jul 7, 2017 1:46 AMJU's don't care who gets caught in the crossfire of their internecine East/West wars. All of the rest of us are just cattle to the Chosen People.
LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 9:51 PMYou are "wroking" on it? Tyler, get your editorial skills up to speed, or I forget you as legit.
null -> LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 9:58 PMI wish we could all stop paying attention to the "war" between Trump and CNN. It's a distraction from much bigger issues. CNN is not "liberal" media. It is the Deep State, which is not liberal or conservative. And I can't help but conclude that Trump is a knowing part of this circus while he leads us into real war under cover of the media war.
LetThemEatRand -> null , Jul 6, 2017 10:02 PMNice try. Really, that was pretty smooth. But gotta call BS on that ... yes, implying insincerity on your part (with all due respect I suppose).
The shallow play-on-words mixing "liberal" as politically defined with "classic liberal" as in philosophy, would not fool an informed person. But again, nice obfuscation.
null -> LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 10:11 PM"Trump just became president."
CNN's Zakaria when Trump bombed Syria.
Fake news? Liberal media?
This is all an act. A circus. A big show.
LetThemEatRand -> null , Jul 6, 2017 10:16 PMJust admit that you are against the stated US policy which, largely because of detractors like yourself, he May Not Change Yet, duh.
No shame in disagreeing with US policy. Do not blame it on POTUS, yet, is that clear? Not yet ...
null -> LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 10:27 PMI would say you should be more specific, but I am against almost all stated US foreign policy, so you're probably right. But if you can be more specific I'll tell you specifically if you're right about my position. Which US policy do you think I'm against? I'll give you an honest answer whether I am or not.
meditate_vigorously -> null , Jul 7, 2017 1:00 AMNo, that's totally cool! I am guessing polar-opposite, so why nitpick.
One may have to take "US interest" position because of loyalty and not because the US has necessarily acted to deserve this loyalty. The past few decades have been "rough" to say the least.
Many here totally disagree with you about US foreign policy But Hope that this POTUS can cause the US to act in a way that would Mutigate this disagreement. Some things are off the table, but many are likely On The Table with this POTUS.
null -> meditate_vigorously , Jul 7, 2017 6:42 AMI do not presume to speak for mister LTER, but I inferred his point was, that the existence of things that are "off the table" is proof that Trump is some faction of Deep State, rather than above board on what he sold those of us who voted for him.
espirit -> null , Jul 6, 2017 10:20 PMSo disagreement with you about One (or more) policy equals deep-state membership.
Got it ... you certainly can define it how you want.
null -> espirit , Jul 6, 2017 10:33 PMI got the lowdown about them Rooskies prowling about the nookier plant.
Some was dressed like EPA and DHS, real lookin' badges and everything - but I could tell they wasn't real.
I'll tell the whole true story for a million dollahs.
August -> espirit , Jul 7, 2017 11:06 AMThat'd be funny if the odds were not that something like that was happening constantly ... I think all the parties have been at this dance for a long time.
baghead -> LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 10:53 PMBack in the day, Clint Eastwood pulled that sort of stuff off... no problem.
ISEEIT -> null , Jul 6, 2017 10:38 PMTrump bombing syria gave the "deep state" a temporary boner,when he didn't followup with troops,they went right back to bashing him.
null -> ISEEIT , Jul 6, 2017 10:50 PMYou don't get it.
"Progressivism" is the deep state.
"Progressivism" is communism.
Nothing 'liberal' about it.
Wanna be a farm animal.....?
Then be "Progressive".
The Wizard -> null , Jul 6, 2017 11:45 PMI don't disagree. Yes, anti-liberal in a classical sense.
But you are talking about Statism in general at that point. And one of the Vehicles is progressivism, sure.
And sure, I will admit that some "farming" is arguably necessary for a modern society to function, that makes me a full-on animal? Not fair ...
Memedada -> ISEEIT , Jul 7, 2017 8:29 AMThe arguments here are on the definition of labels. Forget the labels it is quite an easy analysis, centralization of authority vs. decentralization of authority. Call it what you wish.
meditate_vigorously -> null , Jul 7, 2017 12:57 AMIt is you who don't "get it".
You write like you've been conditioned to - you use the words of your masters.
But maybe you're different (I think not): can you define "progressivism" and "communism" ? I'm a supporter of neither, but I know that in order to cure a disease you have to diagnose it correctly (the reason why the disease in power have made you misdiagnose it as "communism").
null -> meditate_vigorously , Jul 7, 2017 6:09 AMI was about to tell you to take your meds, but since you got a fair number of upvotes, I wonder what I am missing, that you failed to articulate.
meditate_vigorously -> null , Jul 7, 2017 1:02 AMJust trying to articulate that people be-talking-crap about this POTUS for no actual reason since he has not gotten a chance to govern.
Good point about the meds ... if you just gotta project to motivate yourself to take yours, glad 2 help.
hoytmonger -> LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 10:02 PMGetting people to think of things as systems and management of systems, rather than Hegellian Dialectic (problem/solution), is the hardest part.
The TV PROGRAMMING over the last 70 years has been more than successful.
Billy the Poet -> hoytmonger , Jul 6, 2017 10:31 PMTrump does seem to lead the way in terms of distractions.
He's a proven big-government, tax-and-spend progressive from NYC.
He has zero respect for individual liberty or private property rights.
But the mouth breathers eat it up.
LetThemEatRand -> Billy the Poet , Jul 6, 2017 10:46 PMYou're free to send your global warming contribution to China and make your daughter share a locker room with trannies. No one is stopping you. Release your inner nose breather.
Billy the Poet -> LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 11:06 PMBilly, note that the only changes Trump has made so far have been on these issues. Tranny bathrooms. Paris Accord. The exact issues that are designed to divide us. I'll give you that I'd rather have Trump dealing with these issues than Hillary, but have you noticed that the issues that actually matter because they affect us all -- moar war, moar NSA, moar Deep State, bigger military budget, moar prison industrial complex, moar debt -- are the same as they would have been under Hillary?
LetThemEatRand -> Billy the Poet , Jul 6, 2017 11:20 PMWould the media be fracturing like it is if Hillary had won? Would the average guy have ever discovered this thing called the "deep state" if Hillary had won? Would the Clinton Global Initiative have closed up shop if Hillary had won?
Billy the Poet -> LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 11:27 PMAll good questions. I don't know, except obviously the Clinton Global Initiative would still be going strong had Hillary won.
What I do know is that we're not making any progress towards more individual freedom or less war, or less control by oligarchs/bankers, which are the issues that matter to me. And I'm still making my Obamacare premium payment every month. And my taxes are the same. And my small business red tape is the same.
As for media fracturing, MSNBC has grown in ratings and is now second only to Fox. So divide and conquer seems to be working even better now. I don't have much a dog in the fight of whether CNN specifically rates well.
The Wizard -> LetThemEatRand , Jul 6, 2017 11:47 PMTop General Says Hillary No Fly Zone Means WAR With Russia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzLeRWbVA18
On the other hand:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-prepared-to-ho...
meditate_vigorously -> Billy the Poet , Jul 7, 2017 1:04 AMOne of the experts on the Clinton Foundations Meet Charles Ortel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26DYq6JM3ew&feature=youtu.be
Billy the Poet -> meditate_vigorously , Jul 7, 2017 1:27 AMI am missing where he referenced global warming. Are you a professional shill or a professional idiot?
hoytmonger -> Billy the Poet , Jul 7, 2017 5:31 AMI'm the guy who is amused by your outrage.
Miss Expectations , Jul 6, 2017 9:51 PMAnd you're free to have your land confiscated through eminent domain and have your grandchildren live in debt to pay for your support of the MIC.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/265171/donald-trump-and-eminent-do...
Dormouse , Jul 6, 2017 9:52 PMThe lies are too damn big.
BlindMonkey -> Dormouse , Jul 6, 2017 9:57 PMHow is it that Clapper isn't behind bars yet?
MayIMommaDogFac... -> BlindMonkey , Jul 6, 2017 10:58 PMHe is in line. The have to prosecute Jon Corzine first......
Hahahaha. I kill me...
thinkmoretalkless -> Dormouse , Jul 6, 2017 10:30 PMFREE JON CORZINE
(sorry, can't help myself)
Miss Expectations , Jul 6, 2017 9:56 PMFor the record, he is a verified liar
max_leering -> Miss Expectations , Jul 6, 2017 10:30 PMBegin GIFing....Putin Judo video
he'd snap trump like a twig... then fart on him
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Jul 01, 2017 | www.youtube.com
Published on Jun 30, 2017Project Veritas' newest video from the American Pravda: CNN series exposes Jimmy Carr, the Associate Producer for CNN's New Day attacking President Donald Trump and admitting that CNN has a left-leaning bias.
When asked by an undercover journalist if CNN is impartial, Carr plainly responded, "In theory."
LEAKED ONE AND A HALF OUR LONG AUDIO from CNN segment proves CNN selectively edits to make Trump supporter look like a conspiracy theorist.
Donate: http://projectveritas.com/donate
Website: http://projectveritas.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectVeritas
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Project_Veritas
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Jun 30, 2017 | marknesop.wordpress.com
marknesop , June 29, 2017 at 11:54 amI can't stand Tucker Carlson from his time as a loyal footsoldier in the ranks of the George Dubya Bush Apologist Army, but it's easy to feel in synch with him here just because CNN is so deservedly hated. Can't argue with your conclusions, either.ucgsblog , June 29, 2017 at 2:12 pmThen this will make you chuckle Mark – when I was discussing CNN at a meeting, one of the smarter analysts commented: "yet another reason to hate CNN is because they're making Tucker Carlson look good! Why doesn't anyone bring that up?"marknesop , June 29, 2017 at 2:56 pmThe room responded with laughter. Remember the days when CNN used to claim that they're "the most trusted name in news" – well they're not doing that anymore:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-09/cnn-now-least-trusted-news-network-among-viewers
"In the poll published Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports, 1,000 likely voters were asked to describe their media viewing habits. Seventy-five percent said they watch at least some form of cable news each week, with 42 percent saying they most frequently watch Fox News, 35 percent usually choosing CNN, and 19 percent favoring MSNBC. An even 50 percent of frequent Fox News viewers agreed with a followup question, "Do you trust the political news you are getting?" By comparison, 43 percent of frequent MSNBC viewers and just 33 percent of those who mostly watch CNN said they trust their political news."
"For instance, on Tuesday, over the course of the day, CNN was only able to attract a measly 670,000 viewers. For context, MSNBC nearly doubled this number; Fox News nearly tripled it. CNN has almost always lagged a bit behind MSNBC in total viewers, but not like this."
Why couldn't it be 620,000? The reason I'm asking, is because 6.2 million Americans watched Putin's interview with Megyn Kelly. I'm not yet sure about Stone's Putin Interviews – but that number also seems to be very positive and in the millions. Of course losing to Discovery Channel didn't help CNN:
"Furthermore, throughout this same quarter, CNN lost to MSNBC in total and primetime demo viewers. This is the first time since 2014 that CNN has lost that demo crown to its leftwing rival. In total viewers last quarter, among all cable news channels, Fox News placed first, MSNBC third, and CNN is all alone in tenth place, just barely ahead of Investigative Discovery, a second-tier offshoot of the Discovery Network."
I predicted this would happen back when they fucked up their coverage of the Ossetian War. Now I'm just watching the train-wreck, thinking "am I really eating the best tasting popcorn? Have I finally found it?"
I hope they are driven right out of existence – I can't wait to see Wolf Blitzer sitting on a bench outside Hope Cottage in downtown Halifax, bleary-eyed and waiting for the free soup line to open. All of a journalist's enemies should be among the corrupt mages of the state apparatus – when the common man earnestly prays for you to be brought low, you've lost your way, and are feeding on a projected image of yourself. I think it's safe to say that we have seen the most precipitous decline in ethics in journalism, this past decade, that has occurred since its humble beginnings.
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Jun 30, 2017 | www.msn.com
But to many inside the White House, as well as outside allies, what looked like a public relations debacle amounted to an abundance of "winning" - a Trumpian catchphrase playfully repeated Friday by some West Wing officials, even as they were discomfited by the Brzezinski broadside.
Trump spent the week at war with what he calls the "fake news media," attacking some of the news organizations reporting most aggressively on Russian interference in the 2016 election. CNN gave him fresh ammunition with the resignations of three investigative journalists over a retracted story connected to the Russia probe.
For Trump and his legions of loyalists, the media has become a shared enemy.
"They like him, they believe in him, they have not to any large degree been shaken from him, and the more the media attacks him, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on the side of the Trump supporters who fervently believe the media treat him unfairly," said Tony Fabrizio, the chief pollster for Trump's campaign. "It's like, 'Beat me with that sword some more!'"
Stoking the base was hardly a pre-planned strategy. Instead, some White House officials described it as an inadvertent upside of the president's impulse to punch back at critics in the media.
West Wing aides showed little support for Trump's Thursday morning tweet about Brzezinski's appearance. Sanders defended it forcefully, but other top officials privately voiced disapproval and dismay at what they saw as a gratuitous and unnecessary swipe by their boss.
Trump labeled Brzezinski "low I.Q. Crazy Mika," and called her co-host and fiance, Joe Scarborough, "Psycho Joe." The president charged that Brzezinski and Scarborough visited "Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!"
Trump's attack was roundly condemned by more than three dozen congressional Republicans and Democrats, as well as by Brzezinski and Scarborough, who responded to the president on their show Friday and in a column in The Washington Post.
...Jason Miller, a former Trump campaign adviser who is close to the White House, said, "It does energize the base. . . Certainly a big part of the success the president had last year was this sweeping, counter-culture pushback against information being dictated to the American people."
CNN came under fire after publishing a story alleging ties between Russia and Trump transition official Anthony Scaramucci that was retracted because the network said it did not meet CNN's editorial standards.
West Wing officials viewed CNN's mistake as a public vindication that the Russia investigation - and its ensuing media coverage - is simply a "witch hunt," as Trump has labeled it. Trump and his aides also sought to publicize undercover videos released this week by a conservative group showing CNN employees saying disparaging things about the president and his supporters.
Some White House advisers said they were frustrated that the Brzezinski feud - which continued to unfurl throughout the day Friday with accusations and counteraccusations - overtook the president's fight with CNN, which seemed in their eyes to have clearer villians and heroes.
...One senior White House official said Trump would prefer not to battle with the media, but has grown exasperated by what he considers to be gross negligence and near-constant disparagement by The Post and The New York Times, as well as five of the six major television news channels, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and NBC. By contrast, Trump lavishes praise on Fox News, especially its popular morning show, "Fox & Friends," which reliably trumpets the president's point of view.
"Everyone would much prefer not to be at war," said the official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the president's mindset. "I think we would much rather be getting covered fairly and not be in this constant, very hostile environment where things escalate very quickly between both sides."
... Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, complained on Friday that the media discussion about Trump has become "a one-way conversation of toxicity."
"It's incredible to watch people play armchair psychologist, outright ridiculing the president's physicality, his mental state, calling him names that you won't want your children to call people on a playground," Conway said on "Fox & Friends." "You would punish them for doing that, and then all of a sudden feigning shock when he wants to fight back and defend himself and hopefully change the conversation."
Annie OakleyBrit FisherAgain, when I read this article, I see the bias and a narrative. Get real...Trump loyalists have nothing to do with...Democrat here who is getting tired of the communist takeover of the Kennedy era democrats and the clearly propaganda media...Agenda 21, George Soros anti-American sponsored grps, divide the people. Sorry, eventually even busy Americans get a clue and we are on to you media owned by 6 corps who are all one world., UN ruled globalists.
You lefties dont get to talk about "hypocrisy"....
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Jun 19, 2017 | www.counterpunch.org
We have had a certain amount of success in exposing the amorphous and mendacious term "Fake News" for what it is: a tool in a major campaign of propaganda against dissenting independent journalism and political writing, a campaign perpetrated by governments and corporate media. The wealthy and powerful forces which control both of those influential centers in the formation of public opinion were desperate to regain control of the narrative, which has been slipping away from them at an increasing velocity since the advent of social media, and since the parallel growth of a broad spectrum of information networks with absolutely no interest in currying favor with the mighty, or in defending the status quo.
As soon as the term "Fake News" appeared, Barack Obama pounced on it, and in a joint appearance in 2016 with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, used his worldwide microphone and bully pulpit – if only he had done so occasionally to sound the alarm about the approaching environmental crisis, or to express outrage about racism or police brutality, or to challenge war profiteers! – to announce his deep concern that "Fake News" was making it "difficult to govern" (for more on this and the struggle against corporate/government presstitute propaganda, see my article "Hope Is Our Enemy: Fighting Boiling Frog Syndrome").
This clumsy and panicky maneuver has deservedly met with far less success than Obama's incredibly successful propaganda sally against Russia and Vladimir Putin, which has captivated the paranoid fantasies of many millions of Americans and Europeans who desperately want to believe that NATO countries are virtuous and innocent, and are threatened by ruthless and aggressive foreigners who are responsible for the spreading chaos in the West.
As one of his final acts in office, President Chameleon slapped new sanctions on Russia and deported Russian diplomats: after eight years, his transformation from Nobel Laureate and supposed apostle of peace to McCarthyite New Cold Warrior was complete, and vast numbers of angry Hillaroids were quickly on board the Blame Russia Express, full of self-righteous anger and the conviction that someone had stolen the election and that the usual suspects were obviously the guilty party.
Things haven't gone so well for the "Fake News" campaign, however. Too many people could and can see disturbing patterns that ring true, if they spend enough time looking at truthful, objective analysis of the world around us, and there is quite a lot of it available via the internet.
More people are spending more and more time on the internet and social media, where presstitute media lose the natural advantages they once had in a world dominated by government-regulated, corporate-financed TV, radio, and print news.
It turns out that many of the best-informed writers see the world utterly differently than do the corporate and government shills who determine the "news" content in mainstream media.
Which brings us to one of the latest victims in the assault on language by the 1% and their pawns in the presstitute media: the word "extremism".
Here in the European Union where I live, this word is currently heard so often in the traditional media – along with another victimized word being brutalized almost non-stop, "populist" – that even poorly-educated persons who aren't sure exactly what is meant can understand that they must mean something very, very bad.
If any such confused persons should take the time to pay closer attention and attempt to ascertain what it is that makes these "extremists" and "populists" so deplorable and dangerous, they may soon notice that at least one of these words, "extremist", has a pretty nebulous field of application. According to major sources of conventional wisdom in the EU, terrorists are "extremists". But "extremism", more generally, is also applied casually to nearly any political parties and interest groups to the Left and the Right of the large (if shrinking in some countries like France) parties called "people's parties" (Volksparteien) here in Germany: the no-longer-socialist Social Democrats who are allegedly center-left, the pseudo-Christian Christian Democrats who portray themselves as center-right, and even the thoroughly compromised and faded-to-brown Green Party , which has gone to great lengths and engaged in stupendous contortions of deliberate conformism to achieve its modern status as a pillar of the established order, a long journey from its radical roots in the 1980s.
As you may have deduced from my snarky tone, I find myself firmly ensconced among the so-called "extremists" of the Left.
What, one may legitimately ask, are the views which have led to this branding as a dangerous individual? Do I advocate keeping a stock of Molotov Cocktails handy for quick use when the shit starts to fly? I do not.
- Do I engage in plots to overthrow the "legitimate" government and spread chaos throughout the EU? Do I support terrorism? I do not. While I have grave reservations about the ostensible "legitimacy" of a number of the governments named, and have major issues with the extent to which they are in thrall to American imperial foreign/military policy and the destructive austerity policies of the IMF and World Bank and Big Finance, you will find no blueprints for violent revolution at my house. I pay taxes and comply with bureaucratic governmental requirements. And as far as terrorism goes, I would even argue that it is NATO countries' complicity in American imperial designs and hegemony which is the source of most terrorism and is thus, in reality, "extreme" (see my recent article "Russia Didn't Do It").
- Am I armed? I am not. I have never owned a gun. My only weapon is the keyboard at which I now write.
- Do I support dangerous political organizations? I support the German party "Die Linke" (The Left), which is the largest opposition party in Germany's Parliament, the Bundestag, and a full participant in the national electoral process, having won around 14% of the vote in the last election. AHHH now we're getting somewhere. "Die Linke" is accused quite regularly in the corporate and government media of being "extreme".
- And why? What positions does the party hold which are considered dangerous?
Okay I guess I'll have to come clean. Here are the radical, dangerous, "extremist" positions I support when I advocate more influence for this political party:
- An end to weapons exports from Germany, especially into crisis regions, but more broadly, in principle.
- The disbanding of NATO, which was formed as an allegedly defensive alliance against the "Warsaw Pact" or communist military bloc led by the Soviet Union – which no longer exists. An end to German participation in overseas military intervention (such as the current activity in Afghanistan).
- A more extensive social system which builds more low-cost housing and offers greater protection for the rights of workers and less affluent citizens – rights which were scaled back by the program "Agenda 2010" to make the German economy more "competitive".
- Active measures by government to stop the widening of the gap between rich and poor which, although not yet as profound in Germany as in the USA, is heading in the same direction.
- Higher taxes on the wealthy.
- A much more independent position on the world stage for Germany and the EU, with an end to EU servility to the USA.
- Fundamental reform of the EU, with less power for Big Finance in its deliberations and economic policies, which have created great hardship in Greece, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.
In addition, there is my allegedly "extreme" position on the environment, which is not so much a priority for "Die Linke" but is the most important issue of all for me personally. I am convinced that only a radical transformation of the world economy can save this planet, including most life on Earth. I believe this can only come about through an end to industrial capitalism: a ban on most fossil fuels, an end to the production of most plastics, an end to most beef production and strict organic regulation of all meat production, and worldwide mandatory measures to clean up the poisonous residue of the current system which is killing the planet. This will necessarily involve huge cuts in most military structures and war-making as well. The US military is by far the greatest polluter on Earth.
For these views, and my concomitant rejection of the large political parties in the EU and the USA which have done almost nothing to save the planet that was not outweighed by massive destruction – parties which thus, in the name of "realism", have sold our future to the rich and may have doomed all life on this planet, as scientific opinion is near unanimous that time is short – for these views I am labeled an "extremist".
I consider that an Orwellian assault on language. "Extremism" is what I oppose. Extreme wealth. Extreme greed. Extreme militarism. Extreme suicidal and ecocidal environmental destruction. Extreme governmental authority. Extreme stupidity.
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marknesop.wordpress.com
Cyril on June 14, 2017 , · at 3:07 am UTCMr Reynard on June 14, 2017 , at 6:00 am UTCJun 20, 2017 | thesaker.is
The presstitutes are obviously not that good. They went nuclear on Trump's candidacy, and he got elected anyway. So it's quite clear that a large fraction of the US electorate - at least 50 percent - no longer trust the media. The more the press lie, the more their credibility evaporates.Softly, softly the people will believe the media, like the people in ex-communist countries believed their government ??Veritas on June 14, 2017 , · at 2:51 pm UTCHi Cyril,Tomsen on June 16, 2017 , · at 3:49 pm UTCThe Western MSM are masters at "fake news" and it does have an effect – it might be diminishing but it still has traction. This wasn't about the US electorate – it was about how Russia is perceived to outsiders who only read and listen to their MSM and aren't as well read as people here.
The idea is that as long the majority believes in the fake news and lies, the minority who dont believe will have to waste their time in endless discussions with the majority.
Divide and conquer again again.
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Jun 20, 2017 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
By Jemimah Steinfeld, deputy editor of Index on Censorship magazine. This article appeared in the summer issue of the magazine. Click here for more information on Index . Cross posted from Open DemocracyPeople see propaganda as a modern problem – manipulation by mass media. But the story is far older, and the tactics are timeless. While the game has moved on, the rules remain the same.
The EU's police agency, Europol, recently revealed evidence that Isis is creating its own social media platform for the purpose of disseminating propaganda. It may be connected to Facebook and Google ramping up efforts to curb extremist material and "fake news". In May, according to Reuters, Europol director Rob Wainwright said it showed "some members of Daesh, at least, continue to innovate in this space". But while technological innovation might still be possible, will there be anything original on this new platform?
Until the reign of Augustus, no one in Rome had come close to creating a personality cult.
A striking image, a catchy phrase, shocking material – these are the bread and butter of propaganda. It turns out these tactics stretch right the way back through history. From etchings in caves to the Bayeux Tapestry, pushing out messages that seek to persuade and influence – the basic definition of propaganda – is as old as mankind. There was one figure, though, who really cracked it.
"Augustus is probably the supreme master of the art of propaganda in the entire history of the West. No one has rivalled him and everyone has since been in his shadow," said historian Tom Holland, author of bestselling books on Rome, in an interview with Index on Censorship magazine.
Until the reign of Augustus, no one in Rome had come close to creating a personality cult. Rome was built on the idea that it was a republic and that no single man should dominate all others. When Caesar's vanity led to his face appearing on coins, his demise quickly followed. Augustus, coming straight after Caesar, used hindsight to his advantage. He cast himself as essentially a normal person, even adopting the title princeps (first citizen), and would partake in entertainment with the masses, like racing, boxing and watching gladiators. But he also positioned himself as exceptional, using the title divi filius (son of the god), and his portraits echoed those of Apollo. Augustus's face was everywhere, from statues, friezes and coins to writings and poems, and most famously in his appearance in Virgil's Aeneid.
"He promotes himself with absolute genius," Holland said. "He is simultaneously a figure who is an everyday guy and a figure of supernatural potency he appeals to every aspect."
Augustus perfected propaganda and his influence can be seen clearly in Napoleon, Mussolini and Hitler. The careful crafting of Mao's image – clad in a simple "Mao suit", with sunbeams resonating off his body – was straight out of the Roman ruler's playbook.
The Bayeux tapestry: the death of King Harold of England at the Battle of Hastings, 1066. Trevor Huxham/Flickr. Some rights reserved.
So Augustus provided the template, but technological change has undoubtedly improved the means. The birth of the modern printing press was a godsend for propaganda. It was during World War I, when there was a need to recruit, that Wellington House in London established a secret propaganda bureau, and from this the political poster was born. Driven by similar motives, President Woodrow Wilson in the USA formed the Committee of Public Information, which produced posters, films and other material that sought to champion home security and democracy against a foreign enemy. The committee attempted to convince millions of people that they should support the war, and those that still rallied against it, such as socialist publications, were silenced in the process.
The demands of the Russian Revolution quickly gave birth to a whole new genre, socialist realism or constructivism ("production art"), in which smiling peasants and strident factory workers were portrayed in bold colours and geometric shapes, pithy slogans slapped on top. Anatoly Lunacharsky, who was in charge of the People's Commissariat for Education shortly after the Bolsheviks took charge, believed that by depicting the perfect Soviet man, art could create perfect Soviets.
Propaganda did not work just on what was shown; it worked also on what was omitted. Stalin was a master of this. Long before the advent of Photoshop, technicians in Russia manipulated photos so much that they became outright lies. David King, in The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia, wrote that during the Great Purges, in the 1930s, "a new form of falsification emerged. The physical eradication of Stalin's political opponents at the hands of the secret police was swiftly followed by their obliteration from all forms of pictorial existence". The book highlights classic cases of "now you see me, now you don't". It includes a series of images featuring the same backdrops but with rotating casts, depending on who was or wasn't in favour at the time.
"At the heart of authoritarian propaganda is the manipulating of reality. The authoritarian must undermine this," said Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley , author of How Propaganda Works, in an interview with Index.
The birth of mass media meant that propaganda didn't need to confine itself to unmoving imagery. Instead, people's minds could be influenced in a far more interactive way. Lenin called the radio "a newspaper without paper and without boundaries" and used it to promote the Bolshevik message. And the revolution was televised, first at the cinema and then on TV. Sergei Eisenstein's most famous films – October , Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky – were huge successes precisely because they fused technical brilliance with politically correct storylines.
The myriad possibilities of propaganda were not lost on Hitler, either. He devoted two chapters of Mein Kampf to it and, once in power, recruited a minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who declared that with enough repetition and understanding of the human psyche, people could be convinced that a square was a circle.
Propaganda once again changed with the advent of the internet as information, or misinformation, could be spread with a simple click. Yet even though the game has moved on, the rules remain the same. Whether it's a fabricated blog post, a viral video of North Korea bombing Washington or tirades of tweets telling everyone you're going to Make America Great Again, these are all timeless tactics repackaged for the modern day.
"Everything you read in the newspapers, it's age-old," said Stanley, who added that "tech people" see this as a modern problem that they can solve. People are misinformed about the past, he said.
Misinformed, yes, but also manipulated by people and industries that can look to history's masterminds for best practice when it comes to propaganda.
Synoia , June 18, 2017 at 12:28 pmFor_Christ's_Sake , June 17, 2017 at 6:58 amThe Roman propaganda machine included their version of TV, the Theater, and the head of household imposing the propaganda on the whole household.
Attending Theater was a head-of-household privilege, and attendance also identified exactly where you were in the Civic Strata, based on the position of one's seat in the Theater. No pressure there, no, none at all.
Enquiring Mind , June 17, 2017 at 11:37 amThe photo of the Syrian boy in the back of the ambulance is one example of the power of media coverage. It, in istself, wasn't the most striking or compelling of the myriad photo coverage to date, yet it received a disproportionete amount of coverage in the media, and at a crucial time when the Syrian forces loyal to Bashar al Assad were making considerable gains in the Aleppo area.
integer , June 18, 2017 at 1:06 amThere are various sites , some tending toward tin-foil territory and others closer to what used to be thought of as journalism, where inquirers may learn more about what is not being presented in our media. The public may be deceived by the Grey Lady and her fellow-travelers, but there are still those who seek the truth.
thoughtful person , June 17, 2017 at 9:16 amMintPress Meets The Father Of Iconic Aleppo Boy, Who Says Media Lied About His Son
Willem , June 17, 2017 at 1:58 pmI remember reading a copy of the Pike Report (1976, spokesman books). What impressed me was that most of the CIA budget appeared to be going to propaganda around the world – manipulation of reality as it were. Including a hot topic right now, spending millions on influencing elections. History certainly rhymes. Thanks for the article, will check out the links!
rfdawn , June 17, 2017 at 2:31 pmThe pharmaceutical industry does a similar thing: it spends millions on drug trials that cannot be replicated by doctors, because such trials are too expensive to be conducted by independent doctors. And then the pharma even spends more millions on advertisements (propaganda) to convince doctors and patients alike that the new drug works better than the old one. What would be more rational than spending money on PR is when the pharma would replicate their studies, preferably by independent researchers, but they seldom do this, or only at the time when their 'new' drug runs out of patent and they need yet a newer drug to compare to the 'new' drug. Etc, etc.
It is time that people see through this propaganda, but unfortunately those who should see through this first (doctors in pharma, journalists in news, economists in banking) often have a conflict of interest that makes them deaf blind and stupid. Either because they receive money from corporations or information, or titles, or it could be as simple as receiving a penn from a company that people with a conflict of interest sincerely start to believe that these companies can't be that bad.
And those who do not have a conflict of interest are seldom heard in corporate media.
But fortunately there are other channels too.
Procopius , June 19, 2017 at 1:01 amGood point about the CIA. Propaganda benefits greatly from surveillance providing feedback, so having both in one agency sounds like amazing public sector efficiency. The links didn't get me anywhere much so I still don't know how Augustus got his feedback – the acclaim of the mob? That's important considering the failure of the similar Julian personality cult just prior.
Mike , June 17, 2017 at 9:21 amAs I understand it he had quite a large secret police machine.
Disturbed Voter , June 17, 2017 at 9:33 amI have no proof, but isn't it propaganda when a weak argument upholding the governments position gets commented upon by "cranks", "crackpots", and wild "conspiracy theories" that can easily be used a straw men to be assaulted whenever "proof" of the governments side can't be presented? We have seen countless websites and blogs arise around the 9-11 story, spouting holograms, energy waves, and scientifically hazy plot lines. When "conspiracy theory" has to be kicked, these are the ones presented, while building science and physics are truly denied in the official explanation, and needs no proof because the "nuts" are the only argument against.
Is it possible that the spurious or questionable postings/books/articles are MEANT to obfuscate, meant to create rejection, or at least doubt as to the reality of any position? I don't wish to attribute more power to this than necessary, but we have been hoodwinked before by more and less.
Also, as a side note, Stalin sure did his job is discrediting Communism. Love those monastery students turned apparatchiks
Procopius , June 19, 2017 at 1:09 amYou took the wrong pill. You know too much. Is Alex Jones COINTELPRO?
In the Cold War, the ends justified the means. Not that Communist regimes weren't a threat, but making a big deal about them, certainly served those who wanted to act on "the ends justify the means". The fascist elements in the US weren't gone by 1945 .. they were just getting started.
Basically we little people will never know, even people closer to the events probably have contextual bias that prevents real knowing. Whether 9/11, or the death of Meriwether Lewis. Traditional and PC historical narrative is propaganda too. Even about Washington and Lincoln.
JTMcPhee , June 17, 2017 at 10:31 amI guess I've always been contrarian. When I was in high school (the McCarthy years) I noticed our school library did not have one single book that described Communism. Not one that reported what Marx and Engels had said. Not one copy of a speech by Lenin. Not even a description of the famine caused by Stalin's collectivization of the farms. Nor was there a single such book in the town public library. I think the Detroit Public Library had a copy of Kapital, but it was in the locked section, and you had to have academic credentials to access the material there. On the other hand, our library had two copies of Mein Kampf. I suppose the owners decided that danger was already passed, and Nazis would automatically hate Communists (Prussian Socialism was something very different).
Norb , June 17, 2017 at 12:31 pmIn case any of us missed it, "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt" (FUD) is a "thing," and one can read up on, and take classes in, how to generate and use FUD to promote any dishonorable and deceptive notion or product, or denigrate any decent thought or thing: "How to Market with FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt," https://strategypeak.com/fud-fear-uncertainty-doubt/
Carla , June 17, 2017 at 11:45 pmAfter reading your link, there is no mention as to whether the new computer software was able to actually achieve the stated goal of backwards compatibility. The lost trust was regained by a bold claim playing on the clients fears and desires.
The article has a self-congratulatory tone that clearly shows what is wrong with current social relations. A clever marketing guy figures out a way to "beat" a competitor with lies and deceit. ( no evidence is given contrary) The executives making the decision are probably well paid either way with no downside for failure.
My wife is an ER nurse, and even in that environment, they are given coaching by management to repeat certain phrases to patients during treatment to ensure positive perception. It's really quite disturbing when you consider the ubiquitous nature of the brainwashing by corporate powers. You can refuse to cooperate, but then you are branded as a troublemaker- not a team player.
Norb , June 18, 2017 at 8:53 am"My wife is an ER nurse, and even in that environment, they are given coaching by management to repeat certain phrases to patients during treatment to ensure positive perception."
This is tragic. The profound element of the tragedy is that we all kinda know this goes on, in every area of our lives, including the most intimate ones, and yet we do nothing. Of course, we feel completely overwhelmed and inadequate in the naked face of this POWER.
Norb, honestly, the main things that help me get through the day are Naked Capitalism and the Move to Amend the Constitution with a 28th amendment abolishing corporate personhood and money as speech.
Last November 8, we had local citizen petition initiatives on the ballot in two suburbs of Cleveland: Shaker Heights and South Euclid, Ohio. Both had similar ballot language, stating that the electorates of those communities support and want to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution stating that only human beings are entitled to constitutional rights; and money is not equivalent to speech, and therefore money spent on election campaigns can be regulated.
These local initiatives passed, with 78% voting yes in South Euclid and 82% voting yes in Shaker Heights. They were the 10th and 11th cities to pass such ballot measures in Ohio.
For a look at the 28th amendment we support, see:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint-resolution/48/text?r=19Also just search on Move to Amend (I'm trying to avoid moderation by giving another link).
Blennylips , June 17, 2017 at 11:17 amThanks for sharing the link Carla. Resisting corporate power in any way possible is now the duty of every citizen. That cognitive shift is the main tipping point to bring about social change. What is good for corporations is not good for citizens.
That point has to be repeated over and over.
The message is getting through.
Angry Panda , June 17, 2017 at 10:01 amThank you Mr. Snowden: The Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations
And thank you WashingtonsBlog: How to Spot – and Defeat – Disruption on the Internet
But what have the romans done for us, lately ? Aside from the aquaduct, sanitation, and the roads
DJG , June 17, 2017 at 12:04 pmAaaaaand the article falls apart the moment it veers into actual history. Or, rather, a highly distorted picture thereof. The old Internet-debate principle of why should I listen to your argument if you're getting some tangential facts wrong. [And the fun bit, I'd be the first to agree with the premise that propaganda dates back to at least Sumer and Egypt, which are the first civilizations we have any writings from so far as I know.]
For example, specifically to Rome, before Caesar there was Sulla, for example. And Caesar wasn't killed for his "vanity" but rather by the "wealthy conservative" faction that wasn't happy he, Caesar, cut them off from power and was finally getting stuff done, including for the poor, and wanted to get back to the "good old days" (explicitly saying as much). And even the early-middle Republic saw plentiful propaganda, but especially late Republic when you had a whole conservatives-vs.-demagogues dynamic for many election cycles straight.
I realize that this is meant to be a brief excursus to prove a point ( which could have been expressed in three sentences in lieu of a whole "article", but whatever), however that isn't really an excuse. Also, too, the whole "printing press" to "World War I" segue feels at best rushed (what, no propaganda in the 1500s-1600s? the 1700s? Franklin owned what again?), and at worst misleading (as in – the printing press must have been invented just before World War I ). Also, too, again, fun that the Russian Bolsheviks get top billing while the Nazis get a footnote. Although curiously there is a bit more accuracy in the Russian Bolshevik paragraphs than in the Roman ones.
Synoia , June 18, 2017 at 12:33 pmAngry Panda: Maybe. I tend to doubt that Sulla qualifies as a personality cult. He was a brute during the brutal Roman civil wars.
Julius Caesar may qualify as the first personality cult, regardless of his end. The Gallic Wars and the subsequent "book contract." The symbolic crossing of the Rubicon. Then there is the episode that may seem more bizarre now but was remarkable for its social / religious significance: Mark Anthony, naked from participating in the sacred races of Lupercalia, offering the crown to Julius Caesar, who turned it away three times. That's personality cult! (Although, admittedly, some of the Persian kings had had even more mythical rises to power.)
But only Augustus Caesar, the former Octavian, succeeded in some minor propaganda efforts like renaming the months, eh–and we still use the names July and August (for his putative father Julius Caesar and himself).
Another aspect of the perfection of propaganda under Augustus Caesar: The mystery of why the poet Ovid was sent into exile. Unlike Virgil, who was more flexible about his patriotism, Ovid was genuinely disruptive, and Ovid wrote erotic poetry that didn't fit well with official sexuality. And off he went to farthest Romania, living out his days unhappily.
Susan the other , June 17, 2017 at 10:05 amAnd off he went to farthest
RomaniaDacia, living out his days unhappily.JTMcPhee , June 17, 2017 at 10:19 amAlso recently revealed by Erdogan himself is a "platform" of sorts which Turkey is promoting across Europe. It is meant to disseminate Islam's political views and influence elections. And it is very interesting that Europol is referring to something similar and calling it propaganda, with an intent to censorship. No? How did Isis get the headline and not Erdogan? It's all propaganda, that's how.
lyman alpha blob , June 17, 2017 at 10:36 amThe vector of despair that is propaganda rot is old news, though always, always topical, And still interesting and informative, for those wanting to try to armor themselves against DYSinformation and aim to "try to make things better in the world."
It may be a feckless effort, given the ubiquity of DYSinformation:
"our"the CIA has been at it, on the massive offense against honesty and decency, via all the mechanisms we mopes, or too many of us, have thought worthy of "trust." Here's a telling review of a long form book on the subject of "Who Paid The Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War," https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/CIAcultCW.pdfWho would have thought that all those organs of public thought and the writers and artists that fed "content" into the public consciousness, people lionized for their "progressive" and/or "liberal" credentials, were actually, both consciously and in so many cases for pay out of CIA Secret Funds, filling the public mind and channels of political and "cultural" thought and debate with a particularly ancient and murderous set of poisons?
So it is left up to each of us individuals, as Promethean actors and consumers and sorters and selectors of "information," to try to render ourselves sufficiently perceptive and skeptical and disbelieving and wise, to be discerning enough to separate the signal from the noise, the wheat from the chaff, the polished turds from the real gems of insight and event. Because NOTHING and NO ONE can be trusted to tell the truth, when even the concept of "truth" has been rendered meaningless in the Bernays Bouillabaisse of "ideas" and "information" that sloshes about and seeps and leaks into every corner and crevice of "our" political economy.
Always, there are the Fifth Columnists (like Krauthammer and Krugman and the rest), and subtle little Iagos who infiltrate any kind of decency-based collective action (Occupy, NoDAPL, etc.) who will happily troll with Shakespearean "subtility" and betray and work full time to fiddle the rest of us, short-circuiting and defeating any efforts at collective action that might promote "the general welfare "
Interesting that in so many of the pop cultural video dreck I waste time viewing, so many of the plots involve a supposedly Trustworthy Character warning the protagonist to "Trust no one." And we discover that the TC's phrase included an arch and covert warning that the protagonist should not have trusted the corrupt or murderous TC, who is actually part of the category "No one."
But of course the CIA manipulators and masters know that some public awareness and knowledge of their shenanigans on behalf of corporate globalism, and the CIA as its own fortress of advancement and career and corruption, and the REAL Neos (-liberalism and -conservatism, both sic), only helps build the myth, and reality, of the agency's reach and clout and invulnerability and impunity. So they let us bloggers talk and fulminate about what they have done, to increase the sense of futility and debility that all of us have to feel, in some measure, about the nature and reach of the
DeepREAL state They don't even have to put a lot of active, positive effort into pushing onto our consciousnesses the phrase "Resistance is futile," made iconic via Star Trek (that set of glimmering promises of Wonderful Technology and the triumph of the human spirit and innovation even in seemingly hopeless circumstances - if only we hold to the Federation's principles http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru_scenarioglib , June 17, 2017 at 11:01 amSame it it ever was with propaganda and with political smears as well. The Romans were pretty good at those too with a favorite being that a political figure had buggered one of his family members. Even the contemporary historians had no idea if these rumors were true, but modern historians are still talking about them.
Back then it was Nero screwing his mother, today we have the Trump 'dossier' and piddling prostitutes.
John , June 17, 2017 at 11:18 amThe Romans also imposed wheat on the Empire, to the point of killing those who refused. Many reasons, some related to propaganda: wheat was the fuel of war, so it was good to have it everywhere (not related), but also due to the opioids in wheat and the poorer health of the citizens, they had figured out that wheat eating populations were easier to conquer and hold. Totally unlike the Germans, the Scots and other tribes originating from the steppes.
Yves Smith Post author , June 17, 2017 at 11:25 amYou fail to mention one of the biggest purveyors and origin of the use of the word the Congregatio Propaganda Fide established by Pope Gregory XV in 1622.
Altandmain , June 17, 2017 at 11:28 amAs Edward Bernays pointed out in his 1926 book Propaganda, the word once had positive connotations precisely because it was seen as being about the legitimate spreading of the religious word. Bernays in his book tried hard, and unsuccessfully, to depict propaganda as positive and benign.
Bullwinkle , June 18, 2017 at 8:17 amCloser to home, all the recent American Presidents and candidates have created their own cults of personality.
The Obama Presidency: His cult tells us that he is a selfless community organizer and constitutional lawyer who will make America a post-racial society. He is a speaker who is very persuasive and charismatic. Any criticism of His Presidency is racism by the ignorant. Of course in reality the man had sold out to Wall Street from the start and America may as well have elected Bill Clinton for 2 more terms.
Trump is of course the business man and deal maker who will turn America around. This cult relies heavily on the right-wing propaganda that business is superior to government and that Trump is a capable businessman. In reality, Trump inherited his wealth, went bankrupt several times, and I have read underperformed compared to an index fund. He also has a history of abusing the people he does business with and apparently women too.
Hillary Clinton proved unable to fool people in her cult. She is apparently a selfless experienced politician who will break glass ceilings. The reality? Her economic policies are little more than the typical neoliberalism, which will create ceilings for working and middle class Americans, outright kicking the poor down. She loves going to war. She is not charismatic at all. Her supporters tried to portray all criticism of Clinton as sexism unsuccessfully. The lesson here is that if you want any personality cult, it has to be believable and your candidate has to be likeable.
I think that like Rome, the US is going to come apart. Let's face the reality. It is largely an empire. It relies on its military dominance to get its way and enrich its already obscenely wealthy. Much like Rome or the USSR, internal contradictions could bring it down.
An example, the US claims that it is the land of opportunity, yet social mobility is better in Canada, Australia, and the Nordic Nations which have far more egalitarian cultures. It claims to be number 1 at everything, yet when you look at standards of living, it usually is a competition between the Nordic nations. There are other nations that do well. Japanese women for example have very long life expectancies. Healthcare is said to be the top, yet other nations spend less and live longer. I could go on, but the point is that propaganda can only go so far.
Yet it is the costs of war and the greed of the rich that will eventually bring these contradictions to an end. How this will end, I don't know. I think that it could end up like the Soviet Union. We have am elite class that is literally looting everything from the rest of us. The only question is, can we avoid a total collapse like the Romans?
Procopius , June 19, 2017 at 1:35 amI would like to take a sentence from your Hillary Clinton paragraph, revise it and add it to your Obama paragraph: His supporters tried to portray all criticism of Obama as racism.
Norb , June 17, 2017 at 11:52 amThe "Roman collapse" wasn't actually a sudden event that you can pin down. It was a million collapses and failures and successes by new people and strangers moving in next door and somebody you never heard of being elected to the town council.
The Eastern Empire lasted until Crusaders conquered Constantinople in 1204, and arguably made a partial comeback in 1261 until the Turks captured the city in 1453.
Even in the Western Empire some of the forms were still followed, legal precedents were followed, the ancient taxes were still collected. I think the collapse of the American Empire is going to be more spectacular, but you could argue, I think, that America actually "fell" when we entered World War I.
rps , June 18, 2017 at 12:09 pmGoebbels had at least one thing right. Understanding the human psyche is key in shaping human society. Too bad for us all that current leaders have such limited visions of what human society could be. Or should that be shame on us all for allowing such a condition to arise in the first place. It seems a negative approach is always used to exploit human weakness. The reigning morality is find a weakness and exploit it.
What human society SHOULD be has always been the problem faced by the left. The history of human societies has always been the balance of what is and what should be. These are moral questions that find no place for discussion in a modern world busy consuming the planet.
Somehow, we need to stop consuming and find the strength to reconsider the relationship and bonds we have formed with one another and the rest of the world. It is an approach understanding the fragility of the human psyche and attempting to strengthen that weakness instead of exploiting it.
Propaganda is devoid of morality. It is just the roadmap to where you would like to go. All the talk of fake news, the sharing economy, public/private enterprises, privatization, fighting terrorism, the Russian menace, and TINA are attempts to obfuscate the fact that the morality brought about by capitalism no longer functions.
Deciding what is right and wrong bring about revolutions.
OffgassingWaddler , June 18, 2017 at 11:19 amPropaganda and ideology are one in the same, they are belief systems. Neither can be found in the physical world; rather, they reside in our chosen identities. Thus, the ideologues must persuade each of us to willingly submit our personal power to them and become their compliant subject. The ideologues are not 'in' power but 'hold' the collectives' power until the individual chooses to break away and regain their individual power.
Louis Althusser's "Ideological State Apparatuses" is a good read. For Althusser, ideology was not a passive relation between the economic base and superstructure, but a pervasive set of dynamic conditions suffusing the institutional apparatus of the state and shaping not just the idea of the person as subject, but clarifying in structural terms the idea of a subject position; wherein, political and psychological forces converge to define possibilities of action and forces of constraint and repression.
Religion is one example in the mechanisms of ideology, explaining how the subject is "called" or "hailed", known as interpellation, which has been transferred to the political domain. In Althusser's thesis, ideology has no history since it is carried in the material, institutional forms of social life, and is always submerged back into them (reification).
The analytical problem is to preserve a critical focus on the moment of "calling," as the interpellated subject is both created as a subject by being called, and subsumed by the very acknowledgement that, as he puts it, "It is I" who is being called. In this sense, one is always dealing with ideologies, and not a monolithic doctrine, that may be applied in any arena of social life including: family, schools, churches, political parties, governments, and so forth.
By reading Marx expansively, Althusser had recontextualized Marxist theories by releasing it from the dogmas of doctrine or limitations of subject matter through the next step up of connecting the ranking of the subject to the institutional apparatus that at once sustains and vexes identity. One characteristic of his analytical approach lies in the fact that it does not insist on a barrier between the political and the psychoanalytic, instead, pointing the way to the praxis of ideology within one's identity and participation.
Oguk , June 17, 2017 at 1:23 pmA relevant "quote"
Ariel: You ever heard of the Masada? For two years, 900 Jews held their own against 15,000 Roman soldiers. They chose death before enslavement. The Romans? Where are they now?
Tony Soprano: You're looking at them, a–hole.
Alan , June 17, 2017 at 1:33 pmWondering if people are familiar with Jacques Ellul's book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1962)? I read it a long time ago. My take from it was: (1) propaganda is everywhere, is almost the same as what we might call culture; (2) the case that propaganda is not as much about spreading falsehoods as the selective use of truth, and (3) propaganda is an essential technique of mass politics and the modern state. He traces modern propaganda to the French Revolution, where it was essential to mobilize large parts of the population on behalf of the revolution.
Personality cults seem to me like a vary narrow understanding of propaganda.
Procopius , June 19, 2017 at 1:49 amThe Roman Senate was nominally responsible for paying soldiers but by the time the republic was in it's waning days the coinage had become debased and devalued. The Roman soldier then looked to his individual commander as his meal ticket.
A competent and generous general commanded loyalty above that of the state itself because it was upon his generalship and good fortune his soldiers depended. Caesar, apart from being the Michael Jordan of his day, was exceedingly generous in doling out plunder to his victorious legionnaires.
Caesar's rivals also put their faces on coins, of course vanity played a role but it was much more that that. Troops could often be seduced into transferring allegiance if they believed they could get a better deal. Octavian (Augustus) while a competent general himself did not possess anything close to the skill of Caesar and ultimately owes his success to the tenth legion, Caesar's most loyal and skilled troops.
These men transferred their allegiance to Octavian instead of Marc Antony because Octavian manipulated his men's aversion to what they perceived as the weakness and effeminacy of the East (Antony's relationship with Cleopatra and his subsequent appropriation of Eastern dress and manners). So this then was the beginning of propaganda, Augustus portrayed himself as fighting for traditional Roman virtue against that of the soft and corruptible East. Augustus made a point to always appear in public dressed in humble garb and forbade conspicuous consumption among Rome's patrician class. He further enshrined this commitment to Roman modesty by commissioning Virgil to compose an epic myth of Rome's founding, which masterfully echoed many of the themes Augustus sought to reinforce.
arte , June 17, 2017 at 1:47 pmDo you have a reference for the claim that Roman coinage was debased and devalued? I understood that under the Republic generals were always responsible for distributing their pay to the troops. In fact, as I understood it, Caesar was deeply in debt, to the point where he had to cross the Rubicon and prevail in a civil war or have his head chopped off (I think the actual punishment was to be thrown into the Tiber River, but would need to look it up). Anyway, that was a systemic problem throughout the Empire, as well. I don't think that debasement of coinage can actually be demonstrated, although I know it's a favorite claim of far right wing gold bugs (the Roman monetary system was based on silver, not gold - originally based on iron, but that goes way back).
JTMcPhee , June 17, 2017 at 2:06 pmApart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
VietnamVet , June 17, 2017 at 7:57 pmSome pretty good models from the Romans, for big effing standing armies, and looting colonies, and marking a very few very rich, and a whole lot of lesser people very very dead It's called "civilization
Raised with the fear of The Big Lie, what is interesting today is corporate media's propaganda omissions. The 20% decline in the number of middle class families. Earlier deaths. The transfer of enormous wealth to a very few very rich families.
The fall of the Soviet Union is recent enough that those who lived through it to say to us that the reason for the collapse was USSR's propaganda didn't match reality. When Boris Yeltsin's counter coup took place, Russians didn't take to the streets to defend the Communist Party and the economic system. Perhaps 5% of Americans are doing well servicing the oligarchs. That is far too few to defend predatory capitalism when the global economy crashes; which it will, due to spreading wars, climate change, fading democracy and social unrest. Survivors will say good riddance to the Hamptons. They had it coming.
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Dec 20, 2016 | www.lewrockwell.com
The Information War: Western Crime Cabal and MSM "Fake News" vs. Truth from Alternative NewsVirtually every current headline unequivocally shows how US Empire and its Ministry of Propaganda are lying to the American people. Those in power have been so exposed by alt-media in 2016 that they are growing more desperate by the day. Right now their biggest lie is blaming Putin and Russia for being behind everything gone wrong in the world according to the Obama-Clinton-Bush-CIA-Rothschild crime cabal. The latest claims assert that Putin's hackers overturned the presidential election results in favor of Donald Trump and this whopper is currently being pushed as the flimsiest, last gasp excuse to spearhead its hollow "fake news" crusade in order to both outlaw the truth and derail Trump's January 20 th inauguration.
Longtime State Department veteran psychiatrist Steve Pieczenik , CIA/NSA whistleblower William Binney, CIA whistleblower Ray McGovern, and former UK ambassador Craig Murray have all stated that there is zero evidence showing that the Russians "hacked" emails or interfered with the election outcome in any way. Credible former CIA officers emphatically state that the emails were leaked, not hacked and that Putin had nothing to do with it. The 17 US intelligence agencies remain conflicted with the verdict still out, unable to even arrive at a consensus, despite the FBI's latest cave-in to pressures to feebly present a belated united front against Russia. Flip flopper Comey's at it again. Up until a day or so ago, the FBI maintained that there was not enough evidence to conclude the Russians hacked into DNC records or emails. The Clintons, Obama and their "intelligence" minions are fast growing irrelevant and impotent as the yearend days count down. What's perfectly clear is the CIA/MSM liars are acting on orders from the Clinton et al cartel deceitfully politicizing this meme because they cannot accept the fact that Hillary lost her "anointed" election. The feds' unending war agenda may soon be collapsing.
Before rushing to lynch mob judgment demonizing Putin once again, an important reminder worth noting is the historic track record of the Clintons, Obama, the Bushes and the CIA is that they lie all the time, both pathologically and professionally as full blown certifiable psychopaths . They all played a major part in creating and continuing to back the terrorists al Qaeda, al Nusra and ISIS in the Middle East and beyond. With perhaps the exception of the Saul Alinsky -Bill Ayers, " terrorist-inspired " community organizer and then Illinois state senator Obama, it's worth mentioning that they all bear guilt in murdering 3000 American citizens on 9/11 and then shamelessly promoting the boldface lie that Saddam Hussein had WMD's and direct links to terrorists. But let's not leave out Pinocchio-nosed Barrack who promised to be the most open and transparent president in US history and then proceeded to be the most secretive , least transparent, and perhaps most incompetent president in US history. But then given the mission to destroy America from within by the ruling elite that groomed and launched his meteoric rise, his puppet masters no doubt are very pleased with his record. And as far as the Central Intelligence Agency goes, as the elite's private mercenary army , from its very get-go the CIA's very purpose and everyday business have always been made of lies and propaganda .
Instead of blindly blaming the Russians, far more credible sources have posited that at least one DNC insider – Seth Rich – leaked documents and then likely paid for it with his murdered life. Additionally, if you believe Steve Piecnezik, intelligence operatives launched a soft anti-Clinton counter-coup handing over the thousands of Clinton-Podesta emails to WikiLeaks. And now we're even learning that US Homeland Security has been trying to hack into the Georgia state election apparatus at least ten times. So all these alleged hacks and leaks seem to surfacing internally from sources within the United States, mostly from operatives working either directly inside the government or political apparatchik.
Another relevant point worth raising is the indisputable fact that the US government is the most notoriously guilty entity in the world for constantly meddling and interfering in other sovereign nations' internal elections and affairs, engaging in crime after crime assassinating foreign leaders , and executing dozens of coups overthrowing sovereign governments. And let's face it, all the major players on the global stage are guilty of spying on one another, particularly in cyber-espionage , again with the US the main culprit. So this whole notion of using the blame game to falsely accuse other countries of the very same hideous aggressions that Washington is most guilty perpetrating for well over a century is extremely hypocritical in the least and downright diabolical to the max. Yet for centuries now this kind of duplicity and hubris is exactly how American exceptionalism has criminally operated around the globe with total impunity.
The "blame the Russian" game is an old cold war propaganda tactic from way back. History just keeps repeating itself because the powers-that-shouldn't-be exploit and count on Americans having a short attention span. Those who witnessed or pay attention to history can recall the cold war era of the early 1950's and the Red Scare of McCarthyism when many people's lives were ruined by dishonestly branding them as so-called communists and communist sympathizers. Deep state USA is at it once again, unjustly singling out and punishing those who speak the truth online by again falsely accusing them of being agents of Russian propaganda. Blacklisting alt-media sites that legitimately report accurate accounts of news events and world developments by again falsely accusing them as "fake news" sources when the corporate media liars themselves are infamously guilty of fake news propaganda is just more of the same bogus modus operandi that the government and mainstream media have been redeploying indefinitely for decades.
Project Mockingbird flourished throughout the cold war from the 1950's right into the 1970's and beyond when the CIA influenced if not controlled all the biggest news outlets (25 newspapers and wire agencies) using them to spread Washington's own cold war propaganda. This sinister collusion between the feds and the press resulted in the imperialistic division of two Asian ethnicities – the Koreans and Vietnamese people each split into two enemy nations fighting two costly wars killing up to over 7 million Asians (not to mention 95,000 American soldiers). And when the Senate Church Committee finally exposed Mockingbird, in 1976 then CIA director George Bush senior was forced to proclaim on paper at least its "official" end. But subsequent planting of disinformation in the foreign press that by design would then spread to the US was yet another covert means by which the deceitful CIA continued its propaganda control over both US and foreign news markets.
This unholy nexus has also persisted right up till today through such common ties as the all-powerful Council on Foreign Relations. For many decades the CFR strategically courts and recruits prominent members from mainstream media as well as the entertainment industry for the exact same PR purpose of using them to promote deep state propaganda and collude in corrupt cover-ups to willfully deceive the American public. Then in recent years the corporatized merging of government and mass media utilizing US military, CIA and FBI liaisons in Hollywood has only consolidated power and media control into fewer and fewer hands, with 6 oligarchs in control of the 6 largest mega media giants controlling the outflow of over 90% of today's news. Virtually every TV show and film out of Hollywood now is pure deep state propaganda serving for a full century as the best recruitment venue for brainwashing the next generation of GI's dying on foreign soil battlefields. Hence, what's emerged today is a fascist government cabal maintaining illegitimate control and authority through false propaganda delivered 24/7 by deep state surrogate the mainstream media.
But during this US presidential election year, largely due to WikiLeaks, social media and alternative and independent news, citizens of the world have discovered how corrosively evil in its criminality this existing crime cabal is, personified by the Clintons, Obama, and their minions in Washington, Wall Street and the corporate media. Over the last couple months the Clinton-Podesta connection has been directly tied to a global child sex trafficking ring operating from the " life insurance " laptop of Hillary's closest, 20-year aide- Saudi operative Huma Abedin's husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner. But the pedophilia network has more recently expanded to include an infamous block of sinister pizza parlors and front offices in upscale Northwest Washington operating eerily close to the White House (perhaps even closer through DC's network of underground tunnels). Enter #Pizzagate .
And through thousands of internet sleuths working together online 24/7, the crumbling, gaping cracks of this crime cabal wall have been exposed like never before, threatening to bring down the most powerful Luciferian worshipping pedophiles at the top of this planet's demonic food chain. And this raw naked exposure of the diabolical matrix has the guilty party – the Obamas, Bushes, and Clintons panicking and resorting to extreme desperate measures to hide and conceal the filthy truth of who and what they are. Hence, in this age of deception and culture of evil, we are now living in a new era of McCarthyism frantically unleashed to justify their latest attack campaign on steroids to censor and ban all blacklisted alternative media news sites that provide much needed counterbalancing truth to the official false narrative lies. The aim here is to eliminate and silence all truth tellers so that the evildoers – as naked and exposed as they already are, can attempt to hold onto their waning power, slipping fast now from their control.
By deep state egregiously accusing alt-news of being "agents of Russian propaganda ," it intends to shut down America's First Amendment right to a free press – the alternative news, which regularly exposes NSM and gov.corps' propaganda lies. The totalitarian agenda now being rushed through prior to Trump becoming president has already passed " anti-Russian propaganda " bills in both chambers of Congress aimed at banning over 200 targeted alt-news sites on their bogus blacklists. Additionally, the EU has threatened further tyrannical censorship if co-opted internet ponds Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, and Reddit don't eliminate the so-called "fake news" from its social media and search engines. In effect, a final power grab is being played out right now attempting to usurp, control and silence the last voice of honest and accurate news accounting of what goes on in this world. But the crime cabal will fail as the world knows too much already.
Since 9/11 those who question authority refusing to believe the deep state lies have been customarily discarded as " conspiracy nuts ." Though for decades this strategy was quite effective, it's now wearing thin as more people every day are beginning to realize the truth about the previously concealed criminality endlessly committed by DC puppets and their masters. As a result, deep state's agenda has been to increasingly criminalize dissidents as potential homegrown terrorists and radicalized enemies of the state. What we're currently witnessing is the systematic targeting of both dissenting individuals and alternative news organizations as "dangerously" unwanted truth tellers posing the single largest threat to the crime cabal's continued power and control.
And with only a few remaining weeks, for that reason alone Obama and the Clintons are moving at breakneck speed to neutralize opposing forces bent on seeking justice by sending them to rot in prison. Since Soros' post-election riots have fizzled, Stein's recount failed and stealing the presidency through pro-Hillary death threats against Trump electoral voters have one by one fallen short of overturning the election, silencing alt-news and igniting a war against Russia are their last, "best shot" ploys that would manufacture the needed national crisis to prevent Trump from assuming office next month. Who knows? In the few days prior to January 20 th , a false flag perpetrated by Washington neo-crazies as a last gasp effort to blame Russia "justifying" war against the nuclear power may still be up their pathetic evil sleeve. That's how desperate these despots are, terrified their pedo-crimes will soon be their ruin.
In the meantime, yet another draconian law HR 4919 was just passed in the House. Using the benignly logical rationale of tracking lost victims suffering from autism or dementia, deep state is now pushing for RFID chips to be implanted in all people diagnosed with autism and dementia. Similar past measures have authorized the government to round up the homeless or those afflicted with respiratory ailments during the Ebola scare. Operating under the auspices of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), in mid-August, the CDC proposed to grant itself the unlimited unconstitutional power to round up and detain citizens en masse without reason or due process, kind of like the medical bookend to the 2013 FDAA that also obliterates citizens' legal rights and civil liberties. The feds are becoming increasingly over-the- top in their totalitarian oppression, knowing that for good reason more people are opposing mandatory vaccinations for both children and adults as well as proposed mandatory microchips. Recall that a couple years ago NBC was predicting that next year every American would be micro chipped .
Like the regretful German pastor Martin Niemoller's famous quote decrying each group targeted and taken away by the Nazis without his speaking out, after the communists, socialists, trade unionists and the Jews, by the time they came for him it was too late. How far will the government go with its growing hit list of expendable throwaways? What's to stop the deep state from making microchips mandatory for anyone diagnosed with a mental disorder? Or the entire world population for that matter?
The insane DSM-5 has recently expanded the number of mental illnesses into absurdity, making sure to include practically anyone and everyone. The Diagnostic Statistical Manual has become the official tool and vehicle by which the government is moving to criminalize abnormality. This slippery slope may soon include every human on the planet.
As a former diagnostic clinician, I can tell you that the criteria by which people can be diagnosed with a dangerous label from a vast array is extremely arbitrary and subjective. There's nothing scientific or foolproof about it. Mislabeling citizens who may pose "trouble or a threat" to the authoritarian state is wide open for overreaching, widespread abuse as the convenient false pretense for microchipping and controlling a growing segment of "undesirables" within the population. Branding any individual who does not trust authority figures with "Oppositional Defiant Disorder" or anyone who appears "overly" health conscious and selective about what they eat as "suffering" from orthorexia nervosa could simply be deep state's way of branding us all with certifiable labels. Deep state has co-opted the psychiatric profession which is largely owned and controlled by Big Pharma, using its Diagnostic Statistical Manual's unlimited mental disorders as yet another weapon of mass destruction playbook for diabolical population control purposes.
In recent years MSM has clearly become Washington's ministry of propaganda . And adding insult to injury, Congress is busily passing bills designed to outlaw the real truth, so as to empower its propaganda ministry to become its "truth" ministry . We are living the Orwellian nightmare come true, as " useless eating " victims of a fascist totalitarian oligarchic police state bent on perpetrating democide as well as human genocide as part of its demonic eugenics plan to drastically reduce the world pop. from 7.4 billion to anywhere from a half to one billion depending on which invasively surveilled and controlled population in human history by a centralized tyrannical government controlling a centralized financial debtor-slave system . Deep state and corporate media together engage in covert concealment of secret, heinously deplorable brutality protecting the elite's systemic criminality perpetrated we now know on a massive colossal scale.
A century ago the ruling elite known as the internationalists envisioned a one world government. Now that same ruling elite controlled by the same tainted bloodlines are called globalists and they're rushing to suppress the truth on their way to bringing on the perfect storm that will usher in the violent tyranny of their global governance. Outside of technology that enables increasing power and control, little has otherwise changed over the course of the last century. That said, never before have more citizens of the world become aware of the treasonous and demonic crimes committed by those psychopaths in power. Before closing a final reminder warrants stating. Regardless of the figurehead occupying the White House, the same demonic power elite is still holding power over this earth. And the battle for truth, justice, and our very lives will continue after January 20 th . The doomsday clock that's been ticking under the Bush-Clinton-Obama cabal is only ticking shorter now and our struggle is hardly over.
Joachim Hagopian [ send him mail ] is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled "Don't Let The Bastards Getcha Down." It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master's degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. In recent years he has focused on his writing, becoming an alternative media journalist. His blog site is at http://empireexposed.blogspot.com .
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Jun 18, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
When AP Spreads #Fakenews - A Forensic Appraisal MoA - When AP Spreads #Fakenews - A Forensic AppraisalNon factual, false news reporting has political consequences. This especially when it is picked up by partisan propagandists to push their agenda. It is often not easy to forensically follow the trail of fake news but here is a recent example "caught in the wild".
The Associated Press is a nonprofit and political neutral news agency financed by U.S. newspapers and other media outlets of various political stripes. Its wide range of customers (mostly) prevents it from partisan domestic reporting. It takes on international issues are different. The selection of the news items it reports on is driven by customer interests and thereby slanted in its selection. But the factual reporting on news items is generally straight forward - or supposed to be such. Political decisions are sometimes based on its reports. It is therefore causing concern when it spreads obviously fake news.
Yesterday the AP pushed out this item:
The Associated Press Verified account @AP
Russia claims it has killed IS leader al-Baghdadi. https://apnews.com/...
7:51 AM - 16 Jun 2017
NY Daily news , FOX News , Politico and many, many other outlets reedited and/or republished that AP piece. The Politico version reads:
Russia claimed Friday it killed the leader of the Islamic State group in an airstrike targeting a meeting of IS leaders just outside the group's de facto capital in Syria.The Russian Defense Ministry said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a Russian strike in late May along with other senior group commanders.
The AP item seemed wrong to me. Russia is usually very cautious with such claims and tends not to make such absolute statements. ( The U.S. military though ...)
I checked with the official Russian agency TASS and it indeed reported something different: IS top leader may have been killed by Russian airstrike in Syria
MOSCOW, June 16. /TASS/. Russia's Defense Ministry has said it is verifying reports that the Islamic State terrorist group's leader Ibrahim Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed by a Russian airstrike on the southern suburb of Syria's Raqqa in late May.Other Russian news-sources reported likewise. The Russian Defense Ministry never claimed that its forces killed Baghdadi. It only said that it is looking into such claims. The NY Times, with its own reporter in Moscow, also reported more carefully: Russian Military Says It Might Have Killed ISIS Leader
MOSCOW - Russia's military said on Friday that it was looking into whether one of its airstrikes in the Syrian desert had killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State.In a statement, the Defense Ministry said that the Russian Air Force struck a meeting of Islamic State leaders on May 28 outside Raqqa, Syria, the group's de facto capital, possibly killing Mr. Baghdadi.
Obviously the Associated Press report, distributed widely, was factually wrong. I was concerned that this false reporting would have consequences:
Moon of Alabama @MoonofA
Moon of Alabama Retweeted The Associated Press
Tass says Russia only investigating such a claim. @AP exaggerating here? Blame Russia when claim turns out false?
http://tass.com/world/951708
8:43 AM - 16 Jun 2017My concern for a "blame Russia" slant turned out to be justified when hacks started to use the false AP report to push their political agenda.
Paul Cruickshank is a:
Editor-in-Chief CTC Sentinel ○ CNN Terrorism Analyst ○ Co-author international bestseller Agent Storm ~ Guardian's Top Ten Spy Books of all timeCruickshank immediately followed up on the false AP story without having checked its veracity:
Paul Cruickshank Verified account @CruickshankPaul
Five reasons why we should be deeply sceptical of the Russian Baghdadi claim.
9:47 AM - 16 Jun 2017Russia never made the claim Cruickshank thought it had made but he uses the false AP item to push his own false narrative:
Paul Cruickshank Verified account @CruickshankPaul
5. It's coming from the Russians who have every interest in being seen as taking fight to ISIS (when most of focus elsewhere)
9:54 AM - 16 Jun 2017For the record: Russia (and Syria and its other allies) have fought ISIS whenever and wherever they possibly could. It was the U.S. that did not fight ISIS but used and uses it for its own purpose. Obama and Kerry publicly admitted such (scroll down for their quotes). Only after Russia pointed out that thousands of tanker trucks moved oil from ISIS areas to Turkey without U.S. interference did the U.S. join in to destroy them. Cruickshank is using the fake news from AP to spread his own false claim that Russia and Syria did not and do not fight ISIS.
Another such hack is the Gulf paid promoter of Takfiri "rebels" in Syria, Charles Lister: Russia's Baghdadi Claim Needs Verification
By Charles Lister
Russia's claim to have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike in Raqqa on May 28 should be taken with a heavy grain of salt .
...
Russia has a long track record of issuing fake claims and deliberate misinformation during its campaign in Syria.
...
Beyond Russia's likely bogus claim, ...Cruickshank and Lister both spread factless propaganda sold as conclusion of the news content of an AP report. But the AP report was fake news.
If there was a need to take the report "with a heavy grain of salt" why not go back and check the original reporting in the first place? Lister and Cruickshank obviously did not do that.
The Associated Press has meanwhile corrected its false original reporting. It now headlines under the same link: Uncertainty over Islamic State leader's fate after airstrike . (The link to the piece still says "Russia-claims-it-has-killed ..".)
BEIRUT (AP) - Uncertainty and confusion surrounded the fate of the head of the Islamic State group Friday as Russia announced it may have killed him ...
...
Apart from Moscow's claim that he may have been killed in the May 28 airstrike along with more than 300 militants, there was not much else to back it up. The Russian Defense Ministry said the information about his death was still " being verified through various channels."While AP corrected its report neither its original tweet nor other media reports derived from the original AP one received any correction. The hacks that made their false political points based on the fake news will certainly not update and correct their claims.
Fake news can be dangerous. But it is not the fake news from some blog or little read partisan outlet that is a danger to the public. It is fake news spread by mainstream media and big news agencies that is of real concern.
Note that the original AP report, seen in the AP screenshot above, has "Moscow" as the dateline. The corrected one is datelined from "Beirut". The original author of the AP fake news was its Moscow correspondent Vladimir Isachenkov. It is certainly fair to say that Isachenkov's other reporting from Moscow is rarely sympathetic to the Russian viewpoint on the issues in question. His reporting is always a reflection the unquestioned predominant U.S. view - be that right or wrong. The Russian standpoint is never analyzed for its own value but always in relation to the U.S. position which is a-priori taken as the ultimate truth.
One wonders how it is serving the knowledge and judgement of the U.S. public and its policy makers to have its premier news agency deliver such slanted, if not fake, news reporting from Moscow.
Posted by b on June 18, 2017 at 04:14 AM | Permalink
1I don't think the US public is generally in a fit enough state of mind to discern fact from fiction.anon | Jun 18, 2017 4:36:42 AM | 2
... crookshank .. lives up to his nameAmanita Amanita | Jun 18, 2017 4:47:42 AM | 3"One wonders how it is serving the knowledge and judgement of the U.S. public and its policy makers to have its premier news agency deliver such slanted, if not fake, news reporting from Moscow."
Grist for the mill within the matrix.
AP: Associated Presstitutes. That dip shit heading up CNN takes the cake though. Ugly turd of a thing he is...a vile mistake of a human being. Armageddon occurs in Syria...and the septic tanks think they will be fighting on the side of Christ...lolBagration | Jun 18, 2017 4:53:58 AM | 4This is a useful dissection from MoA of a case that exemplifies the deceitful, primitive and erroneous culture of disinformation that has become accepted by the majority as "news media".jfl | Jun 18, 2017 5:03:40 AM | 5b, 'it is not the fake news from some blog or little read partisan outlet that is a danger to the public. It is fake news spread by mainstream media and big news agencies that is of real concern'insanity | Jun 18, 2017 5:05:55 AM | 6... and always has been. news of 'fake news' is fake. it's been with us forever. millions in the us wake up everyday and read the nytimes / its cronies to find out what they think. i did it myself for 30 years. the wen ho lee frame up woke me up. judith miller and pinch put me over the top. now i watch the ap stories stories roll out on khao sod english here in thailand in amazement. if you're not immersed in this stuff everyday the discordance with 'reality' is jarring indeed. and amanita2 is right, cnn is even worse. i read an article on the Fitzgerald today that was the weirdest thing i've seen in 'first rank' news medium. my fellow Americans live on a continent of their own - soon to be walled off from Mexico - and in a provincial world of their own as well. it's not going to end well for us.
AP was fake news before there was fake news. AP reports have always parroted the globalist deep state line since before 9/11. At least now there seems to be an awakening of a lot of people to that fact. I know many now who immediately dismiss any article by AP, Wapo, CNN or the NYT as less than truthful. Unfortunately, the ones who still do read and listen to them seem to have dug in deeper, like a parasite.V. Arnold | Jun 18, 2017 5:16:30 AM | 7b - "The AP item seemed wrong to me. Russia is usually very cautious with such claims and tends not to make such absolute statements."Quentin | Jun 18, 2017 5:47:59 AM | 8Absolutely; Russia has been clear from the start; "may" have killed Al Baghdadi. Sputnik and RI have both reported may have; further stating, more time will be needed to be certain about Baghdadi's death in that airstrike.
If it turns out that Russia indeed killed Baghadadi, US politicians and the US propaganda machine will throw a mega-hissy fit. For them, the only solution to Russia's presumptuous disregard of self-awarded US prerogatives will be to double down on the psychotic anti-Russia campaign blitz. A sight to behold: mirabile visu.Sad Canuck | Jun 18, 2017 6:34:35 AM | 9@5 jfllysander | Jun 18, 2017 7:15:50 AM | 10Did you see the bizarre and entirely evidence-free story about a supposed 2011 Iran-sponsored attack on Thailand that was stymied by Thai "special branch" in today's on-line edition?
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1270751/how-bangkok-came-close-to-the-big-one
Why exactly Iran and it's allies would want to attack Thailand is entirely unexplained in the article, especially since Thailand and Iran have a very long history of peaceful relations. The writer of this story is Alan Dawson, an American who has a very "colorful" history in the region, and Bangkok Post is a well known agency shop (right from the beginning). But man this fake news really looks desperate and just plain amateurish.
If Baghdadi is in fact dead, then we need to send condolences to Senator McCain. The poor guy must be distraught.jfl | Jun 18, 2017 7:28:28 AM | 11@9, 'The United States has revealed for the first time that the chief danger came from Hezbollah.'Mark Stoval | Jun 18, 2017 8:11:26 AM | 12that says it all. i don't follow the bkk post, although i do have the 'politics' rss feed page bookmarked. the bkk post is pure mis- dis-information.. this guy is apparently the in-house steno for state/the cia. he was probably cleared to push this fantasy because he mentioned Thai Special Branch ... the bkk post is a stalwart supporter of the coup - any coup - and so of this dic as well. 2011 .. the year yingluck was elected.
All mainstream media in the West lies to support the globalist agenda, whatever it is at a given moment in time. The US Empire has committed crimes and atrocities all across the globe for decades and yet the MSM portrays the US as the "good guys" fighting for peace and democracy. What a joke that is. The US is actively preventing peace on earth every minute of every day.Noirette | Jun 18, 2017 11:10:41 AM | 13The 'top' news - 'wire' - agencies are incredibly powerful and nobody ever challenges, questions, contests them! They furnish the gospel. Who-what is Associated Press? Wiki, mysteries and obfuscations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_PressDon Wiscacho | Jun 18, 2017 11:52:29 AM | 14Their own site is Corp. garbage flash, filled with moving images, not about them:
What about Reuters? Who are these cos? As for Agence France Presse, AFP, never believe one word of it (personal judgement.) It is now 50 yrs. ppl have been asking and no answers?
Why / how do they control World News? Why aren't there bitter accusing exposés? (As e.g. against Banks.)
A list of news agencies with 'web' ranking.
AP has long been the leader of the top three wire services in terms of obfuscation and misinformation, with AFP and Reuters not far behind. They are essentially all privately owned versions of Radio Liberty or Voice of America, existing solely to shore up and reinforce Washington's, Israel's and Nato's narratives and policy goals.hozey | Jun 18, 2017 12:18:20 PM | 15After working for a news paper in the middle east for a few years that used wire services for regional reporting, I learned a useful rule of thumb: Whenever and wherever the blame could plausibly (for your typical mainstream audience, not at all for anyone with knowledge on the subject) be put on US/Israeli adversaries, it was. Where adversaries clearly were not responsible, they used phrases like "hostilities broke out", "tensions flared", "a crisis arose" as if they were reporting a change in the wind and not conscious actors.
Td;lr If AP can at all blame official 'enemies', it will. When it can't, it'll blame the weather.
Development of an alternative media "fake news" identification and tracking strategy.Curtis | Jun 18, 2017 12:18:46 PM | 16In the parlance of software that works something like the algorithmic crawler methods bitcom uses, to implement discover, identify, and track from origin to destination "Fake_News" stories with, IP addresses, authors and publishers appended?
Another strategy might host fake-news contests.. awards of the week .. faker of the week. Lier of the century awards. Audience members would in anonymous fashion, submit names, authors, and publishers and ip addresses, etc. and story details and circumstances to a set of crawler algorithms that could capture and process the inputs from each website, and derive a conclusion or a set of conclusions (something maybe Wikileaks could implement), which could be anonymously published to all of the participating websites thereby picking for nomination fake news publishers, fake news originators, fake news writers for
(most outlandish) fake news of the (week, month, or year) award.When politicians are cornered in a lie/deceit, they say they "misspoke." AP might say the same. Ages ago I thought (bought into the image) of the AP as an independent source. It was the early years of GWOT that had me putting them in with the rest of the MSM. It doesn't take much for them to slant or steer a story. The industry has had decades to polish the skill. When McClatchy became one of the few at that level to question the Iraq War of 2003, I cheered only to realize they all let out little bits of the truth amid the lies.Ghostship | Jun 18, 2017 12:21:28 PM | 17Somewhere I've got a political cartoon from around 100 years ago about the AP with the image of them throwing bundles of papers from a horse-drawn delivery carriage. From the captions I recall, there was a fear of consolidation of news from a single, dominating source.
Nick | Jun 18, 2017 12:22:29 PM | 18While AP corrected its report neither its original tweet nor other media reports derived from the original AP one received any correction. The hacks that made their false political points based on the fake news will certainly not update and correct their claims.I think this is a problem with Twitter - even though the link now takes you to the correct article, Twitter has probably cached the image on the original Tweet so you see the old one. This is just laziness by Twitter who should know and do better.
@Sad CanuckCurtis | Jun 18, 2017 12:45:25 PM | 19haha, Iran attacking Thailand, thanks for the laughs. Unfortunately the global media routinely publish garbage like that and because of apathetic, dumbed down populations they constantly seem to get away with it.
AP can call itself a non-profit all it wants. AP's ownership by those who use/contribute remove any illusion of non-bias. It's like the Federal Reserve being owned by the banks it serves and helps while calling itself Federal. It's like the 9/11 Commission hailed as bipartisan; that only meant it was partisan for both parties and not independent in any way.
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Dec 17, 2016 | www.sott.net
Power of alt media made obvious by backfire of corporate media's 'fake news' war Claire BernishAs you've likely heard by now, Facebook has taken its war against 'fake news' to a whole other level - employing third party media and fact-checking organizations to judge whether news items are legitimate - to the consternation of countless users who see the platform overstepping red lines.
Servile corporate media immediately parroted the wealth of benefits Facebook's plan will ostensibly provide, from an alert and gateway system forced onto articles deemed "disputed," to the organizations making the 'kiss of death' judgment call: Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact, and ABC News.
Anyone with passing knowledge of bias in media is probably spitting out their coffee - all four organizations are notoriously left-leaning and liberal, and the list includes no outlets with any other of myriad ideological tilts.
Indeed, right-leaning outlets from Breitbart to the Drudge Report, as well as the sizable alternative media community - who, collectively, held to higher journalistic standards throughout the election cycle than "old media" titans like the New York Times and Washington Post - quickly condemned the unabashed bias imbued in Facebook's plan.
Mark Zuckerberg, a large consensus concluded, just declared war on dissent - if not information, itself.
But in an article intended to criticize purveyors of 'fake news' and applaud the social media platform's oh-so-noble efforts to strike such outlets from the American interwebs, The Atlantic's Kaveh Waddell posited, " Will Facebook's Fake News Warning Become a Badge of Honor? "
Waddell asks this question, the reader doesn't discover until more than halfway through the article, through a lens of myopic bias - if not outright scorn - against anyone who dare question the motives of Facebook or its choice of fact-checkers.
"There's a danger that people who are disinclined to trust traditional sources of information will treat Facebook's warnings as a badge of honor," Waddell clarifies. "If fact-checking organizations deem a story questionable, they might be more likely to read and share it, rather than less. There's reason to believe this group might think of itself as a counterculture, and take the position that anything that 'the man' rejects must have a grain of subversive truth to it."
For a journalist in a nationally-regarded publication to display such seething condescension toward a category of people perhaps most critical to preventing a narrowing of news media to a single viewpoint is criminally self-interested, indeed - evincing the paranoia among old media to validate its reporting in the wake of horrendous election coverage.
Regardless of his patronizing tone, Waddell's question presents what might be the thinnest silver lining to having a Facebook-approved information gatekeeper - news deemed "disputed" will be viewed by non-establishment thinkers as bearing the Scarlet Letter C - censored for being problematic for the political elite.
In other words, this soft censorship could facilely create a Streisand Effect - whereby efforts to suppress content backfire and instead draw greater attention to something than it ever would have received otherwise.
Waddell and the Atlantic, among others, like the Daily Beast - known mouthpieces for the Democratic establishment scrambling to blame Hillary Clinton's loss on everything but the kitchen sink of a horribly flawed campaign - realize to some degree the threat posed by legitimate criticism of the accepted narrative.
This battle has literally nil to do with fake news - or even Russia - and everything to do with the power of dissent.
Of course, a brazen irony in Facebook's purge of random items is CEO Mark Zuckerberg's comments on the subject prior to mass Democratic and corporate media hysteria over iterations Donald Trump won because Russia:
"Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic. Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics. Overall, this makes it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other."Zuckerberg's protestations and resistance to acknowledge 'fake news' as influencing the outcome of the election quickly melted under pressure from the pro-Hillary camp - and evaporated as Clintonites and a smattering of miffed Republicans switched gears and ratcheted up New Red Scare propagandizing.When utterly unfounded, un-researched, and unverified reporting by the Washington Post termed the collective body of independent, right-slanted, or pro-Jill Stein media organizations as either active agents of Russia or the Putin's "useful idiots," those outlets formed an implicit bond for having been scurrilously blacklisted.
Once the Post's thinly-veneered paper tiger went down in flames for it being impossible to substantiate, the outlet threw journalistic integrity out the window and proffered another unprovable paragon of irresponsibility: " Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House ."
This gem swears CIA officials have performed an extensive assessment of the election and can prove individuals with ties to the Russian government as responsible for submitting documents on the Democratic Party to Wikileaks for publication - an allegation Julian Assange emerged from the shadows to dispel in an interview with Sean Hannity on Thursday.
Wikileaks - whose published documents have never been proven inauthentic - found itself on the Post's 'Russian agent blacklist.'
In other words, by relying on user-reporting and biased outlets to flag articles means any "disputed" contents feasibly earned that label on a subjective - not hard and fast - basis.
But should there be any labeling - read: moderate censorship - of articles and items by a social media behemoth who claims impartiality while rubbing elbows with Democratic heavy-hitters. All grumblings on Facebook's status as a public entity aside, when your platform acts as the primary news aggregator for millions, there is a staunch obligation to preserve the rights of everyone to speak their version of truth.
To be honest, that includes outlets spewing horrendously false news items as the real thing.
In this new age of information aptly deemed the post-truth era by the Oxford Dictionaries this year, the onus of consequence for sharing any erroneous or fabricated information falls squarely on the shoulders of the fecklessly lazy who don't bother checking sources and hyperlinks - or, in most cases, read more than the title - before disseminating information online.
Because that basic duty was apparently too much for so many to bear, we're now all faced with the Huxleyan prospect of being spoon fed vanilla government propaganda disguised as news - while legitimate news earns the dystopic "disputed" label.
Maybe, just maybe, Waddell and the others have it all wrong. Maybe the imminent Streisand Effect will thwart Facebook gatekeeping in its tracks. Maybe people have wearied of the perilous penchant for categorization. Maybe this Scarlet Lettering of dissenting viewpoints will disgust the wary and students of history.
Maybe Facebook will see its fast-approaching, inevitable demise and decide the suppression of information does not a profitable business move make - or maybe the "disputed" info plot represents the ultimate poison pill.
Comment: See also:
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Dec 11, 2016 | Information Clearing House
The phrase "Fake News" has exploded in usage since the election, but the term is similar to other malleable political labels such as "terrorism" and "hate speech"; because the phrase lacks any clear definition, it is essentially useless except as an instrument of propaganda and censorship. The most important fact to realize about this new term: Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
One of the most egregious examples was the recent Washington Post article hyping a new anonymous group and its disgusting blacklist of supposedly pro-Russia news outlets - a shameful article mindlessly spread by countless journalists who love to decry Fake News, despite the Post article itself being centrally based on Fake News. (The Post this week finally added a lame editor's note acknowledging these critiques; the Post editors absurdly claimed that they did not mean to "vouch for the validity" of the blacklist even though the article's key claims were based on doing exactly that).
Now we have an even more compelling example. Back in October, when WikiLeaks was releasing emails from the John Podesta archive, Clinton campaign officials and their media spokespeople adopted a strategy of outright lying to the public, claiming - with no basis whatsoever - that the emails were doctored or fabricated and thus should be ignored . That lie - and that is what it was: a claim made with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for its truth - was most aggressively amplified by MSNBC personalities such as Joy Ann Reid and Malcolm Nance , The Atlantic's David Frum , and Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald .
Clinton camp chief strategist @benensonj : "I've seen things" in Wikileaks emails "that aren't authentic" #ThisWeek https://t.co/LPQJBfACqz
- This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 23, 2016
That the emails in the Wikileaks archive were doctored or faked - and thus should be disregarded - was classic Fake News, spread not by Macedonian teenagers or Kremlin operatives but by established news outlets such as MSNBC, The Atlantic, and Newsweek. And, by design, this Fake News spread like wildfire all over the internet, hungrily clicked and shared by tens of thousands of people eager to believe it was true. As a result of this deliberate disinformation campaign, anyone reporting on the contents of the emails was instantly met with claims that the documents in the archive had been proven fake.
The most damaging such claim came from MSNBC's intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance. As I documented on October 11 , he tweeted what he - for some bizarre reason - labeled an "Official Warning." It decreed: " # PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & # blackpropaganda not even professionally done." That tweet was re-tweeted by more than 4,000 people. It was vested with added credibility by Clinton-supporting journalists like Reid and Frum ("expert to take seriously").
All of that, in turn, led to an article in something called the "Daily News Bin" with the headline: "MSNBC intelligence expert: WikiLeaks is releasing falsified emails not really from Hillary Clinton." This classic fake news product - citing Nance and Reid among others - was shared more than 40,000 times on Facebook alone.
Official Warning: #PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & #blackpropaganda not even professionally done. https://t.co/UuJZrurHAA
- Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) October 7, 2016
Joe, Malcolm Nance & other experts have validated these emails have been forged & altered by Russia before passing them off to Wikileaks! https://t.co/gZ7rVQ6JJp
- VLB (@BickiDoodle) October 27, 2016
The media ( @ABC , @CBSNews , @NBCNews and @PBS ) must heed Malcolm Nance: "You should have ZERO CONFIDENCE in the contents" of Wikileaks dumps!
- Thomas Gordon (@EarthOrb) October 23, 2016
Joy now discussing WikiLeaks with security expert Malcolm Nance who says we can have zero confidence in authenticity of documents. #AMJoy
- LaurenBaratzLogsted (@LaurenBaratzL) October 22, 2016
From the start, it was obvious that it was this accusation from Clinton supporters - not the WikiLeaks documents - that was a complete fraud, perpetrated on the public as deliberate disinformation. With regard to the claim about the Podesta emails, now we know exactly who created it in the first instance: a hard-core Clinton fanatic.
When Nance - MSNBC's "intelligence analyst" - issued his "Official Warning," he linked to a tweet that warned: "Please be skeptical of alleged #PodestaEmails . Trumpists are dirtying docs." That tweet, in turn, linked to a tweet from an anonymous account calling itself "The Omnivore," which had posted an obviously fake transcript purporting to be a Hillary Clinton speech to Goldman Sachs. Even though that fake document was never published by WikiLeaks, that was the entire basis for the MSNBC-inspired claim that some of the WikiLeaks documents were doctored.
But the person who created that forged Goldman Sachs transcript was not a "Trumpist" at all; he was a devoted supporter of Hillary Clinton. In the Daily Beast, the person behind the anonymous "The Omnivore" account unmasks himself as "Marco Chacon," a self-professed creator of "viral fake news" whose targets were Sanders and Trump supporters (he specialized in blatantly fake anti-Clinton frauds with the goal of tricking her opponents into citing them, so that they would be discredited). When he wasn't posting fabricated news accounts designed to make Clinton's opponents look bad, his account looked like any other standard pro-Clinton account: numerous negative items about Sanders and then Trump, with links to many Clinton-defending articles.
In his Daily Beast article, published on November 21, Chacon describes how he manufactured the forged Goldman Sachs speech transcript. He says he did it prior to learning that the WikiLeaks releases of Podesta emails contained actual Clinton speech excerpts to Wall Street banks. But once he realized WikiLeaks had published actual Clinton transcripts, Chacon began trying to lure people he disliked - Clinton critics - into believing that his forged speeches were real, so that he could prove they were gullible and dumb.
Sadly for Chacon, however, the people who ended up getting fooled by his Fake News items were the nation's most prominent Clinton supporters, including supposed experts and journalists from MSNBC who used his obvious fakes to try to convince the world that the WikiLeaks archive had been compromised and thus should be ignored. That it was pro-Clinton journalists who spread his Fake News as real now horrifies even Chacon:
The tweet went super-viral. It started an almost trending - but still going today - hashtag #bucketoflosers. A tweet declaring it a bad forgery was picked up by Malcolm Nance, an intelligence analyst for MSNBC among others, who tweeted to be wary of the WikiLeaks release .
That did not stop Nance, who with a firm intelligence background should have been able to easily spot the fake with "(chaos)" actually written in the side bar and "((makes air quotes))" written before the "bucket of losers" piece in the completely comical so-called transcript, from referencing the document and saying: "Official Warning: #PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & #blackpropaganda not even professionally done."
At the end of the day, did this change anything? I don't know. I think I inadvertently hurt WikiLeaks, which I'm not proud of - but I'm not too sorry about either. I suspect that some people came to realize that they were believing in fake things.
That last sentence - that as a result of his fraud, "some people came to realize that they were believing in fake things" - is false, at least insofar as it applies to people like Eichenwald, Frum, Nance, and Reid. Even though it was clear from the start to any rational and honest person that there was zero evidence that any of the WikiLeaks documents were doctored, and even though (as Chacon himself says) nobody minimally informed (let alone supposed "intelligence experts") should have been fooled by his blatant Fake News, none of the journalists who lied to the public about these WikiLeaks documents have even once acknowledged what they did.
Their Fake News tweets - warning people to view the WikiLeaks documents as fake - remain posted, with no subsequent retraction or acknowledgment of the falsehoods that they spread about the WikiLeaks archive. That includes MSNBC segments that spread this accusation.
Indeed, not only should it have been blatantly obvious that Chacon's anonymously posted document did not impugn the WikiLeaks archive, but also the slightest research would have revealed that the person who manufactured the forgery was a Clinton supporter , not a "Trumpist" or a Kremlin operative. Indeed, one of the Clinton-criticizing journalists who Chacon tried to trick, Michael Tracey, said exactly this at the time . But because his facts contradicted the MSNBC/Newsweek political agenda, they were ignored in favor of the lie that the WikiLeaks archive had been compromised and doctored:
FYI: one of the accounts ( @OmnivoreBlog ) that circulated a fake HRC speech transcript is a pro-Clinton troll spreading disinformation. pic.twitter.com/HZ3UBm9pk8
- Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 11, 2016
I will be shocked if any of them now acknowledge this even with Chacon's confession. That's because MSNBC has repeatedly proven that it tolerates Fake News and outright lies from its personalities as long as those lies are in service of the right candidate (when Democrats were smearing Jill Stein as a Kremlin stooge , Reid's program aired Nance's lie to MSNBC viewers that Stein had previously hosted her own show on RT: an utter fabrication that MSNBC, to this day, has never corrected or even acknowledged despite multiple requests from FAIR ).
On Reid's show, Malcolm Nance falsely claimed Jill Stein hosted an RT show, & they just refuse to correct/retract it. How is that allowed? https://t.co/FKb5J0HDKF
- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 19, 2016
Every day, literally, you can turn on MSNBC and hear various people so righteously lamenting the spread of "Fake News." Yet MSNBC itself not only spreads Fake News but refuses to correct it when it is exposed. How do they have any credibility to denounce Fake News? They do not.
That journalists and "experts" outright lied to the public this way in order to help their favorite candidate is obviously dangerous. This was most powerfully pointed out - ironically - by Marty Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post, who told the New York Times's Jim Rutenberg : "If you have a society where people can't agree on basic facts, how do you have a functioning democracy?"
Exactly: If you have prominent journalists telling the public to trust an anonymous group with a false McCarthyite blacklist, or telling it to ignore informative documents on the grounds that they are fake when there is zero reason to believe that they are fake, that is a direct threat to democracy. In the case of the Podesta emails, these lies were perpetrated by the very factions that have taken to most loudly victimizing themselves over the spread of Fake News.
But the problem here goes way beyond mere hypocrisy. Complaints about Fake News are typically accompanied by calls for "solutions" that involve censorship and suppression, either by the government or tech giants such as Facebook. But until there is a clear definition of "Fake News," and until it's recognized that Fake News is being aggressively spread by the very people most loudly complaining about it, the dangers posed by these solutions will be at least as great as the problem itself.
Note: The article was lightly edited to reflect the correct date of the Daily Beast article: November 21.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy.
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www.moonofalabama.org
According to Fox News and NBC, China flew such bomber on November 25 (Dec 5, 6 reps above), well BEFORE the Trump phone call.
It also flew the bombers AFTER (Dec 9 rep) the Trump's phone call with the Taiwanese government. Indeed it regularly flies these bombers.
The sightseeing flight had thereby nothing at all to do with any Trump call. Correlating the call with those flights is bogus spin.
The headlines above are all nonsense. There is nothing "nuclear" and the flights of outdated bombers have nothing to do with any Trump call to wherever. They are #fakenews just as most of the other news we get is:
News is fake. The higher the stakes for the ruling classes, the more you can be certain the mainstream news about it will be as fake as fuck and conversely, reports deemed fake by those same fakers should be duly considered on their merits.
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www.moonofalabama.org
According to Fox News and NBC, China flew such bomber on November 25 (Dec 5, 6 reps above), well BEFORE the Trump phone call. It also flew the bombers AFTER (Dec 9 rep) the Trump's phone call with the Taiwanese government. Indeed it regularly flies these bombers. The sightseeing flight had thereby nothing at all to do with any Trump call. Correlating the call with those flights is bogus spin.
The headlines above are all nonsense. There is nothing "nuclear" and the flights of outdated bombers have nothing to do with any Trump call to wherever. They are #fakenews just as most of the other news we get is:
News is fake. The higher the stakes for the ruling classes, the more you can be certain the mainstream news about it will be as fake as fuck and conversely, reports deemed fake by those same fakers should be duly considered on their merits.
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Jun 15, 2017 | consortiumnews.com
Exclusive: Russia-gate's credibility rests heavily on ex-Director of National Intelligence Clapper who oversaw a "trust us" report, but a recent speech shows Clapper to be unhinged about Russia, as David Marks describes.Whatever the ultimate truth about the murky Russia-gate affair, it appears that it is Donald Trump's willingness to consider friendship and cooperation with the Russians that is driving this emotional debate.
For some of the older U.S. intelligence and military officers, there appears to be a residual distrust and fear of Moscow, a hangover from the Cold War now transferred, perhaps almost subliminally, into the New Cold War and a sense that Russia is America's eternal enemy.
James Clapper, President Obama's last Director of National Intelligence, is a fascinating example of how this antagonism toward Russia never seems to change, as he revealed in a June 7 speech to the Australian National Press Club.
"The Russians are not our friends; they (Putin specifically), are avowedly opposed to our democracy and values, and see us as the cause of all their frustrations," Clapper declared.
In reaching that harsh judgment, Clapper ignored the U.S. government's own role in the mounting tensions – expanding NATO to Russia's borders, renouncing the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and locating new missile bases in Eastern Europe. Instead, Clapper blamed the renewed arms race and resulting tensions on the Russians:
"The Russians are embarked on a very aggressive and disturbing program to modernize their strategic forces - notably their submarine and land-based nuclear forces. They have also made big investments in their counter-space capabilities. They do all this - despite their economic challenges - with only one adversary in mind: the United States. And, just for good measure, they are also in active violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty."
That Clapper would offer such a one-sided account of the reasons behind the worsening antagonisms and the emerging arms race – leaving out the fact that the United States, despite its own budgetary and economic problems, spends about ten times more on its military than Russia does – suggests that he is not an objective witness on anything regarding Russia.
A Shrill Voice
Clapper's shrill voice confirms his cold-warrior perspective, caught in the past but applying his thinking to the present, still believing that he has a special understanding of America's interests and is protecting them. Clearly, the Russians have been at the center of Clapper's frustrations for many years and Russia-gate just gives him the opportunity to rekindle anti-Moscow hysteria.
Clapper is repeating with new gusto what he has sold to recent presidents, Republicans and Democrats, for decades. His entire attack on Trump beats the drum of Russian deviousness. Yet, Clapper ignores the context of the Russians actions.
Time magazine cover recounting how the U.S. enabled Boris Yeltsin's reelection as Russian president in 1996.
Way ahead of the Russians, the U.S. intelligence community mastered computer hacking and mounted the first known software attack on a country's strategic infrastructure by – along with Israel – unleashing the Stuxnet cyber-attack against Iranian centrifuges. U.S. intelligence also has a long record of subverting elections and toppling elected leaders, both before and since the computer age.
But Clapper only sees evil in Russia, even during the 1990s when the U.S. government advisers and American political operatives were propping up President Boris Yeltsin amid the rapacious privatizing of Russia's industries and resources, which made Russian oligarchs and their U.S. advisers very rich.
Clapper said, "Interestingly, every one of the non-acting Prime Ministers of Russia since 1992 has come from one of two domains: the oil and gas sector, or the security services. To put this in perspective, and as I have pointed out to U.S. audiences, suppose the last ten presidents of the U.S. were either CIA officers, or the Chairman of Exxon-Mobil. I think this gives you some insight into the dominant mind-set of the Russian government."
With such remarks, Clapper acts as if he doesn't know much about recent U.S. government staffing, which has been dominated by people with backgrounds in the oil industry, leading Wall Street banks, and the intelligence community. Indeed, the man who brought Clapper from Air Force intelligence into the White House was President George H.W. Bush, former director of the CIA and an oil company executive.
Bush's son, George W., also came from the oil industry, as did his Vice President Dick Cheney. Meanwhile, both Republican and Democratic administrations have filled senior economic policy positions from the ranks of Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street investment banks. And the U.S. intelligence community has wielded broad power over the few recent U.S. presidents, such as Barack Obama, who came into the White House with more limited government and private-sector experience.
Clapper, having been a senior executive for Booz Allen Hamilton, knows full well that giant intelligence contractors have a powerful influence in how they serve U.S. interests with an eye to profiteering from conflict. And along with Clapper, other White House advisers drift between intelligence contractors and government.
It's also true that a U.S. president doesn't need to have previous employment within the oil sector to do its bidding. Considering the influence of the millions spent on campaign donations and lobbying by the industry, the U.S. government is easily wed to oil and gas – as well as to the military and intelligence complex – at least as much as the Russian government. Indeed, the current Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was the Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil.
Classic Projection
Clapper's perception of the Russians as evil for allegedly practicing the same sins as the U.S. government exemplifies classic projection of the highest order.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
In case after case, Clapper justifies painting darkness onto the Russians with half the data, while ignoring the information that cancels out his perspective. Perhaps he is representative of many in Washington who have lost their rationality and morality in defense of the greatness of the United States. His ethics become situational.
As Director of National Intelligence, Clapper lied to Congress in 2013 about the National Security Agency's massive gathering of private data from Americans. Clapper's deception gave the final push to Edward Snowden who revealed the truth about NSA surveillance.
Subsequently, Clapper led the charge against Snowden, while excusing his own false congressional testimony by saying, "I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner."
Despite this history, the U.S. mainstream media has treated Clapper as a great truth-teller as he adds ever more fuel to the Russia-gate fires. From his Australian speech, most news outlets highlighted his best news-bite, when he declared: "Watergate pales, really, in my view compared to what we're confronting now."
Like other powerful government officials, Clapper may think it is his duty to a higher cause that allows him to defy the truth and transcend the law, a classic symptom of the super-patriot who thinks he knows best what's good for America, a dangerous creature that the U.S. government seems to produce in quantity.
In that sense, Clapper has played a central role in Russia-gate. He was the official who oversaw the key Jan. 6 report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. After promising much public evidence, he released a report that amounted to "trust us."
Clapper has since been a star congressional witness pushing Russia-gate and his confidence in Putin's guilt. But Clapper did acknowledge that the Jan. 6 report – besides containing no actual evidence – was prepared by "handpicked" analysts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, not from a consensus of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies as had been widely reported.
So, as we listen to the debate on Russia-gate, Clapper and his fellow national-security-state representatives are revealing not just their political perspectives but deeply disturbed minds. Those who angrily criticize the Russians are completely blind to their own participation in a similar destructive process. They perceive themselves as the cure when they are a primary cause of the illness they denounce.
In 1956, in the Undiscovered Self , the eminent psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote about the state of the human mind and how it affected the political world: "And just as the typical neurotic is unconscious of his shadow side, so the normal individual, like the neurotic, sees his shadow in his neighbor or in the man beyond the great divide. It has even become a political and social duty to apostrophize the capitalism of one and the communism of the other as the very devil, so to fascinate the outward eye and prevent it from looking at the individual life within.
"We are again living in an age filled with apocalyptic images of universal destruction. What is the significance of that split, symbolized by the Iron Curtain, which divides humanity into two halves? What will become of our civilization and man himself, if the hydrogen bombs begin to go off, or if the spiritual and moral darkness of State absolutism should spread?"
Jung's words still ring with foreboding truth.
David Marks is a veteran documentary filmmaker and investigative reporter. His work includes films for the BBC and PBS, including Nazi Gold, on the role of Switzerland in WWII and biographies of Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra.
mike k , June 15, 2017 at 9:38 pmSillyme 2.0 , June 16, 2017 at 1:16 amOnce you clear away the cobwebs of cultural conditioning, the truth of many things becomes obvious. One does not need the authority of a Carl Jung or anyone to see what is right in front of your eyes. The amazing thing is that people can be so easily deluded to ignore the reality all around them. One of the purposes of meditation in the spiritual traditions of mankind is to clear a space in one's mind that is fresh and unconditioned. Without this cleansing of the consciousness, only those things one's conditioning permits can be seen.
Realist , June 16, 2017 at 5:38 amIf ((("TPTB"))), even if they are only very temporary in the scheme of the time of the Universe, come here and read this, they are either too common-cored to understand the truth of it and change for the better or they are still smart enough to understand it and are laughing all the way to the temporary bank.
If you understand reincarnation you understand that your future personalities will be in-line with the immutable Universal laws of Consciousness-Evolution and Cause & Effect and the next one, at the least, won't be so easy and pretty for you, in view of the lesson that one just isn't learning at a normal Universal standard; the laws of the Universe simply don't allow for degradation to continue unabated so that evolution can take place in the allotted time, it will provide the necessary wake-up call in all it's required force.
Even though all of us who have made it here to read the great articles on this website know, deep down inside, that we are all equal in the grand scheme of all good thoughts, feelings and actions, we know that we are just that little bit ahead of the curve and it would behoove us to accept our and their respective positions in the curve and help them out, come what may.
Hoota Thunk I'd see you around these parts. ;->Bill Bodden , June 15, 2017 at 9:48 pmThese deviants in "intelligence" should have been brought under control long before they killed Kennedy, but they weren't. They've been allowed to self select themselves, with each generation of sociopaths cultivating an even more deranged next generation. I guess that Hoover had so much dirt on every pol ever elected to high office that few had the guts to challenge these most dangerous menaces to our freedoms and democracy. Even if a courageous president could chop off the "heads" of these traitorous agencies their conditioned subordinates would be hard to root out. You read of rumors, though I've seen no evidence but ambiguous grainy photos, that these maniacs actually practice satanic blood rituals and the like. I prefer not to believe such things, but what kind of perverted thinking motivates the very damaging policies driven by these agencies, which bring us to the brink of nuclear war for no discernible reason. How is it allowed for them to blackmail public figures like MLK, threatening to ruin his marriage and destroy his reputation unless he commits suicide? These are not "good" virtuous men. They are not protecting or upholding "American" values. They are sick control freaks.
Bill Bodden , June 15, 2017 at 9:50 pmIf people like James Clapper and their statements become sources for American history in the early 21st Century, then the works of historians should be filed under non-fiction.
The decadence of Washington is obvious when a senate intelligence (?) committee invites Clapper to give evidence after his blatant lie about torture to a former convocation of the committee. The United States senate is the world's greatest deliberative body? What a crock of shit!! Who was the idiot who gave the first utterance to that meretricious nonsense?
Gregory Herr , June 15, 2017 at 11:13 pmthen the works of historians should be filed under non-fiction
Ooops: That should be "under fiction."
Skip Scott , June 16, 2017 at 9:40 amAnd only a blatant liar could characterize his lying as speaking in "the most truthful, or least untruthful" manner.
Pete , June 16, 2017 at 6:52 amI was absolutely amazed when I heard that. What kind of BS does he expect the world to fall for? It really shows his utter arrogance and distain for us "proles". His not being arrested for lying to Congress and the American people shows the ridiculousness of believing there is "equal justice for all" in the USA.
Bill Bodden , June 15, 2017 at 10:04 pmBill, reading your comment, I am reminded of a similar assessment given Washington and it's august Senate by British MP George Galloway, during a Senate sub-committee hearing in May 2005, on his 'alleged' receipt of bribe monies from Iraq's Saddam Hussein. His absolutely devastating verbal attack upon the committee, chaired by Sen. N. Coleman, is a must view for those who haven't seen it online.
Helen Marshall , June 17, 2017 at 12:19 pmIn reaching that harsh judgment, Clapper ignored the U.S. government's own role in the mounting tensions –
Gregory Barrett has an interesting recap of U.S. and Russian histories: "The Russians Didn't Do It" – https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/15/the-russians-didnt-do-it/
Jessica K , June 15, 2017 at 11:02 pmWhen I posted this on Facebook, a "liberal" friend made several angy comments about EVIL Russia and then accused me of being a traitor for "defending a sworn enemy of our country."
In today's climate that kind of charge is not trivial. Watch out when you share it!
Gary Hare , June 15, 2017 at 11:19 pmGreat article by Gregory Barrett from Counterpunch, thanks, Bill. Worth sending around. Send a pile of copies to Clapper. That guy is either sick or evil, maybe both. Couldn't he disappear or something? "Clap-on, clap-off, it's the Clapper!" (Preferably "clap-off".) Maybe too much Booz he's been imbibing.
Sillyme 2.0 , June 16, 2017 at 1:45 amI wouldn't single Clapper out. The entire Washington establishment, and Mainstream Media, appear unhinged, deranged, absolutely stupid. That is unless you consider why they are this way. Are they not promoting the need for more military spending, about the only thing in which the US leads the World these days. Does this not make them feel alpha, tough, patriotic and falsely proud. Classic self-delusion. Or is it cunning propaganda?
What bothers me just as much, is that Clapper's speech was widely reported here in Australia, without a single word of criticism from Australian politicians or the media. However low the US stoops, we seem to get right down there with them.
I watched on YouTube a segment on Colbert interviewing (there must be a better word to describe this fiasco) Oliver Stone. Colbert was infantile. The audience reminiscent of a cheer squad for a college football game. No-one was interested in what Stone had to say. Too few people realise how dangerous this empty-headed jingoism is.Craig Watson , June 16, 2017 at 7:58 amG'Day Gary,
I think it is SBS that is airing The Putin Interviews starting either Sunday or Monday night, depending on your region.
Happy viewing and ammo for counter-attacks on stupidity!
airdates.tv at last resort in the future
Hoota Thunk.Skip Scott , June 16, 2017 at 9:43 amAll of Stone's Putin interviews were published for everyone to watch on Information Clearinghouse yesterday:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47246.htm .
You don't need cable TV to see them now.
john wilson , June 16, 2017 at 5:13 amWow. Thanks for that. I really need to send ICH some money.
Jessica K , June 15, 2017 at 11:38 pmObviously, Garry, they are not unhinged they are simply looking after their own interests. The removal of Trump is essential to their plans for some kind of fight with Russia, so the rubbish about Russia gate and anything else is of course, pure lies and make believe. They all wanted Hillary who was a proven war monger and who they could manipulate to do their bidding. Had she won there would probably be some kind of open conflict in Syria with the USA, Russia and Iran bu now. War makes money so any one who has the temerity to suggest peace, is a threat and has to be got rid of.
Realist , June 16, 2017 at 5:22 amGood observations, Gary. Unfortunately, Clapper has played a large role in the development of this Russiagate fiasco, as former head of the CIA and overseeing of the phony documents that allegedly pointed to "Russian hacking" in the election. You are right that the whole bunch of the MIC bureaucrats depend on ginning up for war. And we had a conversation on CN a couple of days ago about Colbert, who is hugely overpaid for being nothing more than snide and smarmy. That's what passes for entertainment nowadays. Google today shows all the vicious and nasty published articles about the Putin interviews, such as the tabloids Daily Mail, Daily Star, also The Guardian, and no doubt there are other polemics. Hard to contemplate that this is the 21st century when human development was supposed to be advancing due to all the amazing technology, when actually it is regressing.
Skip Scott , June 16, 2017 at 9:45 amClapper has been one of the guys charged with creating Karl Rove's "new realities." He thinks he's a god.
Gregory Herr , June 15, 2017 at 11:48 pmSo far he seems to be getting away with it.
george Archers , June 17, 2017 at 7:51 am"Thursday's appearance by fired FBI Director James Comey before the Senate Intelligence Committee has raised the anti-Russian hysteria in the US media to a new level. The former head of the US political police denounced supposed Russian interference in the US elections as a dire threat to American democracy. "They're going to come for whatever party they choose to try and work on behalf of," he warned. "And they will be back they are coming for America."
None of the capitalist politicians who questioned him challenged the premise that Russia was the principal enemy of the United States, or that Russian hacking was a significant threat to the US electoral system. None of them suggested that the billions funneled into the US elections by Wall Street interests were a far greater threat to the democratic rights of the American people .the political issues in the anti-Russian campaign, which represents an effort by the most powerful sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, backed by the Democratic Party and the bulk of the corporate media, to force the Trump White House to adhere to the foreign policy offensive against Moscow embarked on during the second term of the Obama administration, particularly since the 2014 US-backed ultra-right coup in Ukraine.
Those factions of the ruling class and intelligence agencies leading the anti-Russia campaign are particularly incensed that Russian intervention in Syria stymied plans to escalate the proxy civil war in that country into a full-fledged regime-change operation. They want to see Assad in Syria meet the same fate as Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Their fanatical hatred of Putin indicates that they have similar ambitions in mind for the Russian president.
The entire framework of the anti-Russian campaign is fraudulent. The military-intelligence agencies, the Democratic Party and the media are following a well-established pattern of manufacturing phony scandals, previously a specialty of the Republican right:Of what does the "undermining" of US democracy by alleged Russian hacking consist? No vote totals were altered. No ballots were discarded, as in Florida in 2000 when the antidemocratic campaign was spearheaded by the US Supreme Court. Instead, truthful information was supplied anonymously to WikiLeaks, which published the material, showing that the Democratic National Committee had worked to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders, and that Hillary Clinton had cozied up to Wall Street audiences and reassured them that a new Clinton administration would be in the pocket of the big financial interests
Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election because she ran as the candidate of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus and made no appeal to working-class discontent. This was after eight years during which Obama had intensified the economic stagnation, wage cutting and austerity that had been going on for decades, while overseeing a further growth in social inequality
[The Democrats] have chosen to attack Trump, the most right-wing president in US history, from the right, denouncing him as insufficiently committed to a military confrontation with Russia."
https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/the-russians-are-coming-the-russians-are-coming/
G² , June 15, 2017 at 11:50 pmExcuses. "Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election because she ran as the candidate of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus and made no appeal to working-class discontent." pure garbage
Listen folks,Both parties take turns every 8 years like clock work–except one term Jimmy Carter who p!ssed off Israel firsters. Hillary was in it for the election donations collected.Cal , June 16, 2017 at 12:41 amThank you for your thoughtful analysis, speaking truth to power Mr Marks, alarming how democracies are so chaotic?
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Super patriots defying truth and transcending laws, his ethics becoming situational, which checks and balances are implemented to reign in the retired general?
irina , June 16, 2017 at 12:58 amRemember the neos and zios "Project for the New American Century that preceded the Iraq war?
Well Clapper is with the same group-except they have a new name now still lying and lobbying for the US to control the universe
Center for a New American Security
Realist , June 16, 2017 at 10:36 amClapper said something so astounding on 'Meet the Press' on May 28th that I found the transcript and printed it out.
In the context of Jared Kushner meeting with Sergei Kislyak, Clapper said "I will tell you that my dashboard warning
light was clearly on and I think that was the case with all of us in the intelligence community, very concerned about
the nature of these approaches to the Russians. If you put that in context with everything else we knew the Russians
were doing to interfere with the election. And just the historical practices of the Russians, who (are) typically, ALMOST
GENETICALLY DRIVEN TO CO-OPT, PENETRATE, GAIN FAVOR, WHATEVER, which is a typical Russian technique.
So we were concerned."(Apologies for caps, no way to bold that statement and it is an extremely scary and revealing phrase.)
Chuck Todd ignored Clapper's "genetically driven" diatribe and soldiered on, reinforcing 'the Russians did it' meme.
Bill Bodden , June 16, 2017 at 11:38 amThat was quite a racist statement, was it not? If he had applied the remarks to any other distinct group of people Chuck Todd would have gone ballistic, playing the race card for all it's worth in the grand American tradition.
Bill Bodden , June 16, 2017 at 11:46 amno way to bold that statement
There is. At the beginning of the text to be set in bold, type the word "strong" inside . At the end type "/strong" inside but not the quotation marks shown in this example.
Joe Tedesky , June 16, 2017 at 12:59 amOops: After "inside" above there should have been a less-than sign ""
Gregory Herr , June 16, 2017 at 5:36 amThe profits of War drive people like Clapper to do some hideous and unquestionable things. The beast they feed is the same beast Rumsfeld gave a speech about on 9/10/01 where he sighted the Pentagon not being able to account for 2.5 trillion dollars. If you recall last summer the DOD year ending June 2016 sighted another missing 6.5 trillion dollars this time tripling the 2001 unaccountability. This is a known unaccountability of 9 trillion dollars by the Defense Department so far this 21st Century that no one is even talking about. When a nation can spill this much coffee and not worry about it, then you know that the people spending this nations well earned capital aren't spending their own money, but they no doubt are profiting from all this saber rattling and war. Imagine the defense budgets with Russia in it's crosshairs.
Joe Tedesky , June 16, 2017 at 7:20 amJoe, have you seen this? https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Office_of_Naval_Intelligence
"Also killed in the Pentagon on 9/11 were a large number of budget analysts and accountants who may have been looking into the $2.3 trillion of unaccounted military spending that Donald Rumsfeld announced on Sept 10th, 2001."[
Realist , June 16, 2017 at 10:50 amThis is something to new to me, but when it comes to 911 I have seen other similar things like it, like building #7. Nice of you Gregory to share this with me, thanks.
When it comes to 911, there are so many questions that I just wish there were somebody who could answer them. Yet, questioning any of the oddities regarding the 911 Attack will get you a 'tinfoil hat' since this is what we Americans do to each other these days over things such as assassinations or other unexplained tragedies. Like having doubts over Russia-Gate will deem you being a Trump Supporter or Putin Apologize.
backwardsevolution , June 16, 2017 at 12:43 pmSince you bring up 9-11 and the inconsistencies in its narrative, I just want to ask the question: Why didn't that high rise tower in London collapse under its own weight like the twin towers in NYC, especially since the fire appeared to be so much more intense? It wasn't just a localised burn, the entire structure was engulfed in flames. And, no, rebar-strengthened concrete is not more resistant than steel girders to damage from high temperatures. Concrete will more likely crack than steel girders will melt in a fire. I look for the structural engineers to chime in on this one.
backwardsevolution , June 16, 2017 at 12:44 pmMy dad always told me: "Never be above the third floor in an apartment building or a hotel. The smoke will get you before the fire does." Good advice. A fire fighter's worst nightmare, a hi-rise fire. As the London fire points out, they can be death traps.
Yeah, buildings don't just fall down. 9/11 was most definitely a controlled demolition, and if a proper investigation were conducted, "controlled demolition" would scream out at everyone with half a brain.
If you haven't seen this half-hour video, give it a watch. It's one of my favorites because the guy is a physicist/mathematician who used to work for N.I.S.T. He had never before questioned the findings, at least until August of 2016 when he started looking at it. He couldn't believe what he found.
Especially watch at 18:03 when he starts talking about the collapse. "Asymmetric damage does not lead to symmetric collapse. It's very difficult to get something to collapse symmetrically because it is the law of physics that things tend towards chaos. Collapsing symmetrically represents order, very strict order. It is not the nature of physics to gravitate towards order for no reason."
And:
"Huge chunks of steel perimeter beams flying hundreds of feet off to the side. Steel does not fly off to the side, hundreds of feet, due to gravity. Gravity works vertically, not laterally. There has to be a FORCE there pushing it to the side, otherwise it would just fall down to the ground. It would be like dropping a ball out of a window. It would just fall straight down."
The video is called "Former NIST Employee Speaks Out On World Trade Centre Towers Collapse Investigation".
Gregory Herr , June 16, 2017 at 1:50 pmHere's the link:
Joe Tedesky , June 16, 2017 at 9:50 pmOther examples: http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html
Realist , June 17, 2017 at 2:27 amHonestly Realist I thought the same thing when I saw that high rise ablaze. I even made mention of it to my wife, commenting to how that is the way a high rise burns, not like 911. Now, Realist how many others had the same thought, as you and I.
Sam F , June 17, 2017 at 7:14 amQuite a powerful video by that analyst from Wisconsin, backwardsevolution.
I have read analyses by physicists and engineers of the collapses, mostly through PCR's website, but I had not seen that video with all the slo-mo shots parallel to computer models. Why is that production never shown on American television? Why was NIST so remiss in its analysis, as the narrator points out? Of course, we know the answers to both questions. The truth will never be admitted by any authorities in our life times, or even in our children's life times. Maybe in 50 years when all the blame can be placed on corpses that can't protest it will be. Even that will be done to usher in some new world order as the game never changes.Sam F , June 17, 2017 at 7:40 amNot a structural engineer but with knowledge and experience there. I have no prejudice as to motives and means of the WTC collapse. The WTC towers were uniformly supported by steel columns and one floor was subject to broadly distributed intense aviation fuel fire exceeding their melting point, so that floor was uniformly weakened.
Large steel columns are severely weakened by several minutes of intense petroleum fire, as I have observed myself. When a single failure occurs, adjacent components are subjected to the additional loads which is normally within their capacities by design. When those are also much weakened they too will fail, subjecting adjacent components to even greater overloads, etc. This is called "progressive failure." So filling an entire steel-supported floor with burning aircraft fuel would soon cause the entire floor to collapse in a rapid side-to-side progressive failure.
Because the floors are thin flat sections, not tall compared with their width, a quick lateral failure across the whole floor would cause the entire structure above to fall quite vertically until it hit the floor below. This in turn would severely overload all columns below that, causing the entire structure below to collapse. Because the entire support structure was uniform and was uniformly greatly overloaded, a near-vertical collapse is not surprising.
Smaller structures are usually not built that way; they have strong outer walls and a few inner "bearing walls." When part of the structure collapses, often some of the bearing walls collapse but others remain standing, so that forces on the collapsing structure are asymmetrical and it falls partly to the sides.
As to reinforced concrete columns (assuming as you suggest that these were used in the London fire), it is the concrete that provides most of the vertical support, and it does insulate the steel reinforcement rods, which mainly provide tension strength against bending loads (wind and earthquakes). The horizontal bars hold the concrete together against cracking loads during its curing and later, when it often has many small cracks. So it is not surprising that such a structure survives a fire sufficient to burn the combustibles normally inside, without a broad progressive failure.
Also it was probably not subjected to such a large. intense, and broadly-distributed fuel fire.
But of course it was defective in safety systems for a high-rise structure, and this is not permitted in the US or under the International Building Code so far as I know. It should have had smoke detectors, fireproof unit doors and hallways, sprinklers to suppress non-petroleum fires, non-combustible materials on all interior surfaces, and at least two "separate and independent" fireproof exit stairways. Presumably investigation will reveal the deficiencies in its construction, maintenance, and enforcement practices, if not in the building code itself.
Sam F , June 17, 2017 at 7:52 amIt is not necessary to remind me that there are other explanations and perhaps additional causes of the WTC fire, and that Bldg 7 apparently had intelligence offices with provision for a deliberate large fire that occurred while WTC was burning. I do not know what happened there.
I remain skeptical that persons so long and carefully prepared to attack WTC by aircraft would have prepared a distinct method of attack requiring ability to plant explosives, etc. It is not impossible but why do both? They would probably have attacked other structures with the aircraft. Also, if another attack on the same structures was planned, there is no obvious reason to wait until after the aircraft attacks to use the other method. Also, the plane that did not hit any buildings did not correspond to any structure simultaneously destroyed by other means.
So if there was another demolition means used simultaneously, we need evidence of that, and I have seen no convincing photos or reports of explosive residues. I have already looked at videos that do not in fact show this, but merely events not inconsistent with the aircraft-only model.
backwardsevolution , June 17, 2017 at 3:41 pmI accept that there were motives for an attack like 911, and those parties may have been involved in the aircraft attack. But without direct evidence, our efforts are better spent investigating the sources of the aircraft attack.
We know that AlQaeda did the attack, that KSA was fairly directly involved, that AlQaeda was grown by US warmongers attacking the USSR in Afghanistan, and that US interests wanted another Pearl Harbor. That says a lot, and suggests that there is much more to be learned about US/KSA/Israel involvement that we may hope will be exposed.
Sam F , June 17, 2017 at 4:04 pmSam F – had Building No. 7 not come down in exactly the same manner as the other two, I might have bought (maybe) what you just said. A really big "maybe". I think the reason the scientists at N.I.S.T. did not extend their models out past the collapse initiation stage is because they KNEW they wouldn't be able to replicate the building coming down in its own footprint. As the fellow in the video said, there would have been chaos and the building would have deviated to one side. No way it would have come straight down.
Could be the reason they hit the buildings with the planes was precisely to provide the excuse of the "jet fuel". "Oh, yes, it was the heat from the jet fuel. Wrap it up, boys, no more questions." I wonder whether that other plane was supposed to have hit Building No. 7, but didn't make it there. "Whoops, how do we explain this? Oh, who cares, just say the fire did it. Who is going to know the difference?"
I'm not buying any of it. Three huge buildings ALL come down on their own footprint? Yeah, right.
Gregory Herr , June 16, 2017 at 1:45 pmI agree, b-e, the Bldg 7 collapse is very strange and suspect; and I apologize to others for the long posts above, and do not object to anyone else's views on this.
1. The lowest floors of Bldg 7 are not shown in any of the videos, only floors above maybe floor 3 or 6, none of which show any damage at the time that it collapsed. So the damage must have been to lower floors.
2. It also fell quite vertically, which is odd because that implies near-simultaneous damage across an entire floor, while the only causes related to WTC N&S would be asymmetrical debris impacts from their prior collapses.
3. There were reports of a US intelligence agency office there, equipped with devices to burn that structure if security required. I do not know about this.But I today reviewed many videos of the WTC collapses, and found nothing in the WTC N & S tower collapses that suggests controlled explosions; they appear to have only aircraft damage:
4. Both collapsed first at the lowest level of the burning sections, where the aircraft and fuel hit.
5. The structure above fell almost vertically (up to 20 degree tilt in the first collapse) with chunks and dust thrown outward from the collapsing sections only.
6. No damage is seen to lower sections until the upper structure hits them on the way down. That is conclusive.
7. It would be very difficult to install and detonate explosives progressively just below the falling structure as it comes down just to create that appearance, and would use many times the explosives necessary to do that to a single lower floor.
8. So the only way planted explosives could have been significant would be if the lowest burning floor had collapsed due to explosions instead of weakened columns. But the aircraft impact floor could not have been predicted so as to put explosives there, nor could such a system have been controlled with a high temperature fire burning so long on the same floor.
9. The temperature of a petroleum fire will collapse large steel columns in a few minutes. I saw the results when a fuel truck overturned and burned next to a very tall billboard (maybe ten floors high) supported by large steel columns near MIT in Cambridge in the 1970s (no casualties).
10. The planes probably had at least 10,000 gal of aircraft fuel in them: the wings are mostly fuel tanks; no doubt that has been estimated.
11. While interior materials also burn at temps higher than the melting point of steel, they wouldn't supply heat as fast as an intensive petroleum fire, likely not enough to prevent the rest of the steel cooling the heated portion.Anyway, backwardsevolution is an interesting tag; I've wondered whether it warns of the peril of the fittest or survival of the least fit, both very apt in our era.
backwardsevolution , June 16, 2017 at 2:25 pmObviously a key to grasping 9/11 involves motive. The obvious things like expanding "security" budgets and "justifications" for war are easy. E.P. Heidner's "Collateral Damage" shows how more than two birds were killed with one stone .
Joe Tedesky , June 16, 2017 at 9:51 pmGregory – yep. So many lies, so many cover-ups. Divided States of Lies would be a better name. Thanks, Gregory.
Gregory Herr , June 16, 2017 at 10:22 pmI think we have seen the motive play out over these last 16 years .what do you think Gregory?
Gregory Herr , June 17, 2017 at 10:50 amTo the hilt, Joe and tragically so for so many.
george Archers , June 17, 2017 at 7:57 amA good deal of aviation fuel was likely used up in the initial explosion. Once the remaining fuel burned up there would be no source other than office furnishings for fires. There was never any large, intense, or broadly distributed fuel fire associated with the WTC. If any temperature melting points for steel were achieved (dubious), it would have been of very short duration and isolated with respect to the entire structure. My God, even the core columns disappeared .which is certainly not consistent with the already fanciful progressive destruction at rates that suggest no resistance. "Cut" beams (promptly removed and shipped out) and nanothermite residue were in evidence.
Why do both?
The hijacker narrative is part of the setup to assign blame and is also connected to the Pentagon, not just the WTC. The "plane crashes", in and of themselves were not sufficient to bring down the towers. Motives to bring down the towers can be discerned.
The "parties involved", the "sources" of the attacks, certainly constitutes the crux of the matter. Let's not make assumptions about this. Evidence supporting the "official" narrative is thin to contrived to nonexistent.Unless and until Mr. Parry publishes an article concerned with 9/11, this is my last comment on the subject here. Discussion about 9/11 gets to be endless and prompts all sorts of abuse. I trust the many capable people who read CN can research the matter to their own satisfaction (or dissatisfaction).
UIA , June 16, 2017 at 2:13 amJoe–that hush money 2.5 trillion dollars disappeared into Israel. Payment for Sept 11 2001 bombings
mej , June 16, 2017 at 2:51 amIt might as well be $200 trillion, it's a fiction and a gov fiction at that. People are missing body parts for the big oil adventure in Iraq. All the busted out US towns need new filling stations and used car lots to boom. With bad sandwiches, gas and lottery computers we can have an economy again. Supermarket is a bust. People are dying for nothing who knows where. War on terror and new scams to expand rackets. Smedley Butler called it. System is unhinged. Don't sleep much. You can't afford it.
Make the coins with lead, so we can melt them down and make bullets to kill with to fight over what's left. Nothing is left now. News isn't fake, the money is.
backwardsevolution , June 16, 2017 at 3:56 amI think we will hear Clapper say, 10 years after today's kerfuffle is buried by the next scandal, "yes, I lied, but it was for a good reason!"
Reminds me of Pres.Saakashvili after his failed war in 2008 and all the hysterical noise about Russia starting the war in Georgia. That statement helped seal his fate as the soon-to-be ex-president of Georgia.
Wendi , June 16, 2017 at 3:20 ammej – you're right.
Sillyme 2.0 , June 16, 2017 at 3:42 amBring back Iron Curtain discussion. Ultimately, we see it is a Mirror. Whatever dirt we say of Russians shows in fact we're looking at ourselves.
Realist , June 16, 2017 at 5:19 amLet me put it another way;
We're not going to return kind for kind,
we're going to let you think about what it means to be a human being
in your own good time on your own good island, with good isolation from us.
Good luck .backwardsevolution , June 16, 2017 at 12:01 pmClapper is either thoroughly devious, or paranoid. In either case, any sensible president would discharge him from his office immediately.
mike k , June 16, 2017 at 7:01 amClapper resigned in November of 2016, his resignation took effect in January of 2017. Instead of being thoroughly discredited for lying to Congress, he's instead put on a pedestal and continually brought forward by the media as some sort of wise man.
He sits there, all calm, all knowing, a Wilford Brimley clone, and the public eat his words up. "This man is at the end of his career, so there's no way he would be lying to us." They don't realize grandpa-types can deceive too.
Yeah, I haven't figured him out yet, but I like your choices: either devious or paranoid. It's one or the other. Now he's off to pollute Australia.
"In June 2017 Clapper commenced an initial four-week term at the Australian National University (ANU) National Security College in Canberra that includes public lectures on key global and national security issues. Clapper was also expected to take part in the ANU Crawford Australian Leadership Forum, the nation's pre-eminent dialogue of academics, parliamentarians and business leaders.
In a speech at Australia's National Press Club in June, Clapper accused Trump of 'ignorance or disrespect', called the firing of FBI director James Comey 'inexcusable', and warned of an 'internal assault on our intuitions'."
The asylum has taken over.
Jessica K , June 16, 2017 at 8:16 amThe secret police always gain a lot of power over time; now they are exercising their power in a big way. These are glory days for the spooks. From their secret lairs they are showing what they can do. Trump challenged them directly, as he did the media, both major political parties, and the MIC. These power centers cannot tolerate this, and are acting decisively to crush Trump. The Donald's electoral supporters are the only friends he has left, and these are a disorganized rabble, no match for the forces arrayed against them.
It looks like Donald's days in the spotlight are turning into a deer in the headlights moment. He just doesn't have the resources to withstand the shit storm he has provoked against his presidency.
mike k , June 16, 2017 at 10:11 amClapper's evil mendacity being permitted to be aired as fact is testimony to the nearly complete unhingement of a segment of the American population who have no rational understanding of what happened in this election. If the insanity unleashed by the loss of Madame Warmonger Clinton is not stopped, something very evil seems on the horizon. Russia has become the scapegoat for the madness unleashed in the US.
In an article this morning on Zero Hedge by Daniel Henninger titled "Political Disorder Syndrome: Refusal to Reason is the New Normal", the author reports that James Hodgkinson, the shooter of Steve Scalise and four others had tweeted before the incident: "Trump is a traitor. Trump has destroyed our democracy. It's time to destroy Trump." And a production to be staged in Central Park by New York Public Theater is planned for a production of "Julius Caesar" where Caesar is presented looking like Trump and will be pulled down from a podium by men in suits and assassinated by plunging knives.
This is beginning to look like a long, hot summer. The author of the article on Zero Hedge mentions that social media has become a marinade for psychological unhingement of much of the population, leading to "jacked-up emotional intensity". Is it possible this could happen simply because the Democrat presidential candidate lost? Or is there something else driving this insanity behind the scene? I was startled to see the number of vicious published articles about Oliver Stone's interviews with Vladimir Putin. Where's the curiosity, only knee-jerk reaction that Putin is a source of evil? The insanity, the sickness in America is becoming unnerving and I have a strange sense of foreboding.
Pixy , June 16, 2017 at 9:00 amRationality will be in short supply in the days ahead. To resist being sucked in by the waves of emotional madness will be important.
mike k , June 16, 2017 at 10:06 amAs a Russian I should say I agree with this Clapper person actually. Consider what he says:
"Russia is America's enemy." – True. Russia has always stood on the way of any nation bent of world domination. Since the USA have embarked on that very mission, Russia IS their enemy.
"The Russians are avowedly opposed to our democracy and values." – Absolutely true! Russia does oppose to what passes for democracy in USA nowadays. And it opposes to your values, but not the officially declared ones, but those that you follow unofficially: blatant racism, dividing the world on übermensch and untermensch and treating nations and countries accordingly, hypocrisy and open lies, when children in Aleppo are very-very important and every tear they cry is the reason for the Hague tribunal, while children in Mosul are apparently non-existent, and no one gives two f..ks about carpet bombings, absence of safety corridors, suffering and deaths of civilians and general state of humanitarian crisis there. This is just one, most recent example.
USA is insulting the intelligence of the people all over the world (and I mean THE WORLD really, all 7 billion people, not just US satellites), if they think anybody but the american Joe buys into their transparent lies and double standards.
For as long as USA will continue on this trek, Russia will oppose you and remain your enemy. And we'll see how it turns out. So far the human history teaches us that every time the übermensch eventually break their necks and diminish.
Linda Wood , June 16, 2017 at 10:12 amYes. Good comment.
MaDarby , June 16, 2017 at 9:09 amPixy,
Thank you for saying all of this.mike k , June 16, 2017 at 10:07 am""The Russians are not our friends; they, (Putin specifically) are avowedly opposed to our democracy and values, and see us as the cause of all their frustrations," Clapper declared."
I have a high regard for this site and this author but I want not so much to disagree with but to deepen the discussion.
Underlying Clapper's views are far far deeper forces than just being "stuck in Cold War mentality." Powerful forces in the US are gripped by extremist Calvinist ideology and have been sense the beginning of the US. These powerful forces supported the Nazi movement against the "godless" Soviet Union (to show just how extreme they are). Their view is that the US (them and their power) is the chosen instrument of god to rid the world of the evil devil (exceptionalism). This means taking over the world and dominating all non-Calvinest countries. It means the justification of the biblical slaughter of the innocents to appease a vengeful god and rid the world of evil. We see the results of this extremist religious ideology in the continuous slaughter the US has perpetrated against the rest of the world sense WWII.
Further, neutrality in the fight against the devil himself is unacceptable as immoral and those countries trying to be neutral are just as evil as the others.
All Clapper is doing is carrying on the fundamental views the US has held of itself as morally superior to the rest of the world the same view Roosevelt and Carter and Kennedy had much less Reagan or Lyndon Johnson.
Nothing will change until the iron grip of extremist Calvinism, which justifies the slaughter of millions, is no longer the fundamental guiding ideology.
You ask the fish abut the water and he responds – What water?
Linda Wood , June 16, 2017 at 10:10 amInteresting. There is much truth in what you say.
mike k , June 16, 2017 at 10:17 amYou describe the mindset that is used so well. But the military industrialists who use it are doing it for the trillions of dollars in defense spending. People have killed for a lot less. Clapper represents an industry. He uses the mindset you describe to explain to us why we have to accept the pouring of more trillions into the black hole of war.
hyperbola , June 16, 2017 at 10:27 amAbsolutely true Linda.
Chet Roman , June 16, 2017 at 9:58 amCalvinism is only half the story.
The Revolutionary Jew and His Impact on World History
http://www.culturewars.com/2003/RevolutionaryJew.html. By 1649, when Charles I went on trial, the tradition of Judaizing which had been extirpated from Spain had struck deep roots in England. The English judaizers were known as Puritans, and Cromwell as their leader was as versed in using Biblical figures as a rationalization for his crimes as he was in using Jewish spies from Spain and Portugal as agents in his ongoing war with the Catholic powers of Europe. The Puritans in England could implement the idea of revolution so readily precisely because they were Judaizers, and that is so because revolution was at its root a Jewish idea. Based on Moses' deliverance of Israel as described in the book of Exodus, the revolutionary saw a small group of chosen "saints" leading a fallen world to liberation from political oppression. Revolution was nothing if not a secularization of ideas taken from the Bible, and as history progressed the secularization of the concept would progress as well. But the total secularization of the idea in the 17th century would have made the idea totally useless to the Puritan revolutionaries. Secularization in the 17th century was synonymous with Judaizing. It meant substituting the Old Testament for the New. The concept of revolution gained legitimacy in the eyes of the Puritans precisely because of its Jewish roots. Graetz sees the attraction which Jewish ideas held for English Puritans quite clearly. The Roundheads were not inspired by the example of the suffering Christ, nor were they inspired by the medieval saints who imitated him. They needed the example of the warriors of Israel to inspire them in their equally bellicose campaigns against the Irish and the Scotch, who became liable to extermination because the Puritans saw them as Canaanites. Similarly, the King, who was an unworthy leader, like Phineas, deserved to die at the hands of the righteous, who now acted without any external authority, but, as the Jews had, on direct orders from God. "The Christian Bible," Graetz tells us,
"with its monkish figures, its exorcists, its praying brethren, and pietistic saints, supplied no models for warriors contending with a faithless king, a false aristocracy and unholy priests. Only the great heroes of the Old Testament, with fear of God in their hearts and the sword in their hands, at once religious and national champions, could serve as models for the Puritans: the Judges, freeing the oppressed people from the yoke of foreign domination; Saul, David, and Joab routing the foes of their country; and Jehu, making an end of an idolatrous and blasphemous house-these were favorite characters with Puritan warriors. In every verse of the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, they saw their own condition reflected; every psalm seemed composed for them, to teach them that, though surrounded on every side by ungodly foes, they need not fear while they trusted in God. Oliver Cromwell compared himself to the judge Gideon, who first obeyed the voice of God hesitatingly, but afterwards courageously scattered the attacking heathens; or to Judas Maccabaeus, who out of a handful of martyrs formed a host of victorious warriors."
mike k , June 16, 2017 at 10:09 am"Clapper may think it is his duty to a higher cause that allows him to defy the truth and transcend the law"
"Those who angrily criticize the Russians are completely blind to their own participation in a similar destructive process"
Interesting article but the author is giving Clapper and the rest of the "intelligence" community too much credit. There is no "higher cause" and the "Washington consensus" is not blind to their own actions. Clapper and the deep state are well aware of their self serving actions and it is motivated by money and power. What is happening is the deliberate and aggressive promotion of propaganda to the U.S. public by the intelligence agencies, patriotism has nothing to do with it.
Gregory Herr , June 16, 2017 at 6:55 pmYes. The secret police are the slimiest of the slimy. To call them intelligent is absurd.
Jessica K , June 16, 2017 at 10:12 amI think this is accurate to a great extent. But even "wicked" people who deep down know their own black hearts allow themselves the relief of their rationalizations that is to say that in a psychotic sort of way, they sometimes allow themselves to "believe" their own shit even while knowing it's not true. It's how they are able to function.
mike k , June 16, 2017 at 10:32 amThank you for your viewpoints from outside the United States, and I hope you know that people who follow and post on CN are opposed to the United States' militarism and destruction in the world, which, as you say, MaDarby, is based upon the arrogance of the US, and you say comes from Calvinism, a belief that success means you are blessed by God. That may have been a starting point when the US was formed, but now there are such forces in power play that it goes farther. We, the dissenters in the US, have a powerful armed structure that makes opposition to it very difficult. And your good points from Russia are written in a clearer way than many Americans could even write, since the educational system has been deliberately controlled to "dumb down" the citizens.
But what to do even when we challenge this militaristic power in control? Our elections as you must know are certainly not fair and democratic. There are weapons now used against protesters so that has become increasingly difficult, as we just saw with the native peoples who opposed the Dakota oil pipeline. It looks as if the problems in the US will come to a head economically because of the enormous debt the US has allowed to get out of control, which may be the only way to stop the failing empire. We have read that Russia has paid off its debt wisely, and that's even after the bankers of the world mainly through the US in the 1990s tried to destroy Russia. But the US just keeps printing fictitious money to pay for its warmongering. And President Putin accurately stated that it is a multipolar world, no longer can one power such as the US call the shots.
I do not think that Russia is an enemy, but that Russia has the intelligence to lead a challenge to the USA, knowing that US cannot continue its behavior. I see it more as a challenge, and in fact, China is important to that challenge. Yes, it is ignorant and arrogant that Americans are not disturbed by the merciless destruction and killing their government has done. Good points you have made, thank you.
Realist , June 16, 2017 at 7:01 pmAnyone who presents the vaguest challenge or limit to US hegemony is seen as an enemy to be dominated or destroyed. Capitalism is the cover for worship of unlimited power. This is the essence of fascism which is simply a religion of power worship. As Thrasymachus said in Plato's Republic, "Justice is the interest of the stronger." Meaning that force trumps all other considerations, and is the ultimate goal and meaning of human life. Human history has been the story of men's struggle to dominate others. The ultimate goal of this sick philosophy is for one man to dominate everyone and everything: the apotheosis of Power! One Man becomes God over everything! When Ayn Rand said that altruism is the enemy of mankind, she was voicing this deranged philosophy.
Jessica K , June 16, 2017 at 11:04 amYes, there are so many riches on this planet in which all of its creatures were meant (more accurately "required") by nature to share, yet 5 men claim ownership of as much "wealth" (land, resources, means of production, etc) as another 4 billion and they do everything in their power to keep it all for themselves causing untold misery for those billions. They accomplish this by conflating the onerous realities of naked unregulated "capitalism" with the platitudes of "freedom and democracy," evidenced in the "invisible hand" of the free market clearly implied to represent "god's will" in action. So this inequitable status quo is buttressed in conventional wisdom not only by phony altruism but by the power of organised religion.
Really, these self-anointed de-facto gods know they're just hucksters who have hoodwinked the public into subordinating their own interests to tyrants. It is arguably a dysfunctional principle hardwired into the human genome, as strong-man rule traces back to our earliest recorded history. But knowledge is power and recognising this flaw in the system that makes life a misery for so many should give us a reason and the leverage to change things.
Aside from widespread ignorance and fear, what is it that has kept so many down for so long? Ah, yes, the principle of "divide and rule," wherein a deliberate socioeconomic gradient is maintained amongst the 99% to make us compete and fight with one another rather than challenge them. So much easier to hate your neighbor for the little more that he many have, so much more feasible to assault and steal from him than from the lords at the top.
I could go on, but the trolls still wouldn't see it since they are too invested in their delusions and meager rewards. They are sure to have some talking points on why degrading the planet so a few pashas can shit in solid gold commodes is a simply capital idea! And how we are fools for not seeing the obvious nature of things.
Abe , June 16, 2017 at 11:41 amHyperbola's point about the Old Testament domination of New Testament is interesting, carrying it through history by the Roundheads and Puritans. We certainly see plenty of that vicious Old Testament "YHWH" in the actions of Israel and its armed-to-the-teeth lackey, USA. The OT god is a god of power and hate, and we're seeing plenty of it now. Some of these Bible bangers really do believe in end times.
Jessica K , June 16, 2017 at 12:46 pm"complex conspiracy theories buttressed by the most tenuous documentation have been spun and promoted in the midst of public hearings, political rearrangements in the White House and other theatrics designed to keep the public engaged and convinced of the notion that Russia's government actually attempted to manipulate the results of America's presidential election.
"However, the entire spectacle and the narrative driving it, is based entirely on the assumption that Russia's government believes the office of US President is of significant importance enough so as to risk meddling in it in the first place. It also means that Russia believed the office of US President was so important to influence, that the substantial political fallout and consequences if caught were worth the risk.
"In reality, as US President Donald Trump has thoroughly demonstrated, the White House holds little to no sway regarding US foreign policy.
"While President Trump promised during his campaign leading up to the 2016 election cooperation with Russia, a withdrawal from undermining and overthrowing the government in Damascus, Syria and a reversal of decades of US support for the government of Saudi Arabia, he now finds himself presiding over an administration continuing to build up military forces on Russia's borders in Eastern Europe, is currently and repeatedly killing Syrian soldiers in Syria and has sealed a record arms deal with Saudi Arabia amounting to over 110 billion US dollars.
"It is clear that the foreign policy executed by US President George Bush, continued by President Barack Obama and set to continue under US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, is instead being faithfully executed by President Trump."
US Election Meddling: Smoke and Mirrors
By Ulson Gunnar
landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/06/us-election-meddling-smoke-and-mirrors.htmlbackwardsevolution , June 16, 2017 at 2:30 pmI just listened to YouTube of the phenomenal Russian pianist, Denis Matsuev, playing Rachmaninoff's incredibly difficult Piano Concerto no. 3 with the Moscow Symphony, such talented people in the orchestra. And this mediocre bureaucrat, James Clapper, should call Russia "our enemy". I'll bet he has no appreciation for art. There has got to be a stop to this madness. The pianist was one of many Russian artists who signed a letter in support of President Putin when Crimea returned to Russia. The government of the USA is very, very sick and evil.
DMarks , June 16, 2017 at 4:20 pmDavid Marks – just a great article! Very well done. Thank you.
Sam F , June 17, 2017 at 9:04 amThanks, I'm always interested in the comments provoked by my writing. A family member wrote to me: "There's no reason to give the Russian government some kind of trust, Russian policies towards gay people, the oligarchical power structure than ensures only the favored voices are heard, murdered journalists who raise criticisms against Putin, state controlled media, and the fact that Putin has turned himself into his own brand of reality TV star by staging ridiculous feats that are widely publicized in order to give him a superhero reputation these things are not the signs of a misunderstood government." I don't disagree. If I were in Russia, I could/would write an article that mirrors the one I just wrote. That's the central concept. From each side, the other side appears as the aggressors/destroyers.
Among Europeans, there are many who feel the Russian government is at the core of the problem, rather than the people in general. The farther you get from Europe, the easier it is to smear the whole country, along with their "failed" communism. We are the sum of history and it's hard to separate cause and effect of the events that lead us here. If there wasn't the immense fear of communism at the beginning of the 20th century coming from Royals, European industrialists and US oligarchs, we might have seen what the Russian experiment would have yielded. Instead the militarists and profiteers prevailed, with mirror images on both sides from the Stalin era through the Reagan era. No matter how much they were demonized before, the defeated Nazis became partners in fighting back the Soviet world. Just that single fact shows how desperately communism needed to fail in the eyes of the capitalists.
If we could have a re-run of the "cold-war" where no one is allowed to spend money on arms, defense, etc. (and of course no social repression) - purely an economic competition - what would happen? Well that's what the West feared and prevented - and we will never know what the outcome might have been.
My "neurosis" is formed as an American and still I struggle not to take "our" side. To keep some balance, I avoid the pressure to become a "fan" of anyone. Unfortunately, the majority of the general public (from all political persuasions) are pressured to see conflict as a sports event. Those in power support the notion that it's the whole other "team" that is evil and by extension the demonization of their leader is acceptable. The fanatical war mongering oligarchs of both sides bring conflict to a head by lying to us about everything, helping us believe we can win the "super-war" because we are the "good guys." Clapper is simply a great example of these beasts and the extremis we have reached. Unfortunately, there is someone just like him on the other "team."
mike k , June 16, 2017 at 5:28 pmIndeed the warmongers and oligarchs of the US seek to provoke and grow similar forces in other powers, because they need a foreign monster to pose as protectors and accuse their moral superiors of disloyalty. While such elements can be found in every large group, the US failure to protect democratic institutions from economic concentrations has allowed them to predominate. Russia has a much smaller military, and even China has no modern record of foreign domination, provocation, and scheming.
This makes one consider whether the ideological vetting of the communist parties, which originally selected some rulers of present day Russia, and those of China, served their people better by excluding the worst of the warmongers. If the US cannot find better ways to protect democracy from warmongers, it will be discarded by history as less democratic than communism.
backwardsevolution , June 16, 2017 at 6:37 pmMr. Marks, I agree with most of what you said in your article, but I must respectfully disagree with what I felt was your leaning over backwards to be "objective" and "even handed." Although it is true that nobody is all good or bad in this world situation, there are sides to be taken, and values to be affirmed. The United States is far and away the major cause of the very serious and potentially life ending problems on this planet at this time. The American Empire is the number one disaster for everyone alive today. I am not even going to try to prove what I have said here. To me it is by this time too obvious to ignore. I am tired of trying to point out the obvious to those who refuse to see what is right in front of them. By the way, I am not including you in that category. You have a good grasp of what is going down, but maybe you are a little too concerned with being "even handed" for my taste.
Jessica K , June 16, 2017 at 7:56 pmDavid Marks – well, it's just a very fair article. You point out Clapper's projections. I'm always floored when I hear these guys speaking about how aggressive other countries are when, if the truth were told, they're actually the aggressor and the other country is just trying to defend themselves. Yeah, the other country is on their back, being pummeled, and they're the aggressor?
I know there are bad people in Russia too (they're everywhere), and I also know that if the U.S. wasn't the biggest bully on the block, someone else would step in and fill the vacancy. But for right now, in our current situation, the U.S. are acting like warlords, and it's just nice to have someone spell that out, point out the idiocy of people like James Clapper.
Linda Wood , June 17, 2017 at 12:42 amMr. Marks, one could say very parallel things about the US government that your family member said about Russia. The US bureaucratic leaders apparently have no desire to get their own house in order but would rather create scapegoats for their mistakes. There's no way to make exact comparisons between cultural values from one country to another, people's origins have similarities but also many differences. The US has no business deciding the gay issue for Russians, and that is especially hypocritical since the US still cannot treat its descendants of slaves equally, throwing a disproportionate number of them in prison after not even giving them opportunities as the whites. The US has a lot of housecleaning to do, but they don't really want to do it, they prefer to attack others and they never stop. And we the people can't get through to them, they don't care what we think.
turk151 , June 16, 2017 at 8:04 pmJessica K, just to support what you are saying about our outrage over Russian backwardness with respect to gay rights, there is a writer at caucus99percent who contributes an essay nearly every day about another murder of a transgender person in the United States.
Linda Wood , June 17, 2017 at 12:55 amMr. Marks,
I sincerely appreciate the article, but my thoughts upon reading it, is that, while I agree with all of your points about Clapper, he is merely the top bureaucrat, not the agenda setter. As you can see by the comments above, while there is unanimous condemnation of the nefarious covert operations run by our government, there is a broad divergence of who sets that agenda, ranging from satanists, Calvinists, Jews, the MIC or Wall Street . However, in your follow up comment, you address a very under reported issue, which I feel is at the heart of this matter. That this stems from a fear from the Royals, who allied themselves with the Nazis to fight the communists. I believe this is the central story of the past century, yet perhaps it is still a topic that is too sensitive to discuss and does not receive nearly the coverage it deserves. I would love to more of your ideas on this subject.
Bob , June 16, 2017 at 8:16 pmNot just the royal families of Europe, but Standard Oil, Chase Bank, and other U.S. corporations. This is the truth that is, just as you say, too sensitive to discuss, and is as you say so very clearly, the central story of the past century.
Thank you for saying it so well.
Jamie , June 17, 2017 at 12:40 amClapper and people like him in those positions are expected to lie when asked such things. Telling the truth might see you ending up like William Colby. Once you take that oath and realize the type of people you are dealing with, lying comes much easier.
Andrew Nichols , June 17, 2017 at 3:20 am"If you look at Facebook, the vast majority of the news items posted were fake. They were connected to, as we now know, the thousand Russian agents."
– Hillary
Cal , June 17, 2017 at 6:25 am"The Russians are not our friends; they, (Putin specifically) are avowedly opposed to our democracy and values, and see us as the cause of all their frustrations," Clapper declared.
And the Aussie pollies and media just lapped up the crap from the Clap and also from Mad Jihadi lover McCain. We in Aus really are pathetic grovellers.
Jessica K , June 17, 2017 at 7:52 amThis nails the anti Russia movement
Zero Hedge
Why the Elites Hate Russia
1, Russia is an independent country. It's not possible to manipulate Russia via external remote control, like it is most countries. The Elite don't like that! Russia kicked out Soros "Open Society":
Russia has banned a pro-democracy charity founded by hedge fund billionaire George Soros, saying the organization posed a threat to both state security and the Russian constitution. In a statement released Monday morning, Russia's General Prosecutor's Office said two branches of Soros' charity network - the Open Society Foundations (OSF) and the Open Society Institute (OSI) - would be placed on a "stop list" of foreign non-governmental organizations whose activities have been deemed "undesirable" by the Russian state.
2. Russia is not easy to cripple via clandestine means, whether it be CIA, MI6, or outright military conflict. Some other BRICs however, that's not the case. Say what you will about Russia's military – it's on par and in many cases, advanced, compared to the US military. And that's not AN opinion, that's in the opinion of top US military commanders:
3. Russian culture, and language, is too complex for the average "Elite" who pretends to be internationally well versed because they had a few semesters of French.
. Plain and simple, the Elite do not control Russia.
While there are backchannels of Russian oligarchs that work directly with Western Rothschild interests, for example, they simply don't have the same level of control as they do European countries, like Germany for instance.
Michael Kenny , June 17, 2017 at 9:37 amThanks, Linda, for your point about murders of gays and transgenders in the US. This country for all its vaunted proclamations about being so advanced and exceptional, has a huge amount of prejudice and ignorance among the people, who have been kept down economically so many harbor resentments.
Your points about Russia are interesting, Cal, especially about the military. US has exploited its citizens for military service when jobs have been taken away in other fields, so that a huge number of the enlisted are just waiting to get out. I have a friend whose son-in-law has to finish his third or maybe fourth deployment to Afghanistan and he can't wait to get out. And as noted in various posts, sloppy work has been done on military equipment in US, much of which becomes wasted money. I suspect Russians have to pay more attention to the job they do because money can't be thrown around as in US, Russian defense budget is far leaner.
Bill , June 17, 2017 at 11:34 amEvery time I see an American article about Russiagate, I run a search for the word "Macron". I never get a hit. MacronLeaks proves Russiagate but no American author even mentions it. None even bother to refute the proposition that it does prove Russiagate. The parallels are astonishing: a populist "ranter" (Trump, Le Pen), a moderate candidate who is being discredited (Clinton, Fillon) and a dark horse (Sanders, Macron). The scam was to get Le Pen and Fillon into the second round and then discredit Fillon, in the hope that Macron's "new generation" voters would be so disgusted with the "old style" politician that they would abstain in the second round, thereby allowing Le Pen to win. The scam failed principally because the media blew the lid off the Fillon story before the first round of voting, meaning that Fillon's voters had already been driven into Macron's arms before the vote. In a ham-fisted, last-minute, panic move, the scammers tried to discredit Macron but, in their haste, made lots of mistakes and fell into a trap he had set for them. The matter is now before the French criminal courts, but three names have already become public, one Russian and two figures of the US alt-right, one of whom worked for the Trump campaign. It is therefore established that Russians, whether working for the Russian government, the Russian Mafia or someone else in Russia, and American rightwing extremists sought to rig the French presidential election. The same pattern in the US election, so logically, the same perpetrators. Thus, James Clapper's reasoning is perfectly sustainable and calling him rude names doesn't change that.
Jessica K , June 17, 2017 at 12:28 pmIs Clapper in a conspiracy with Brennan and Comey? Who else are they working with?
TellTheTruth-2 , June 17, 2017 at 1:50 pmMacron leaks were not any more provable than Russiagate, they were allegations. Macron is a Rothschild banker, he appeared as a politician very suddenly and is undoubtedly part of the New World Order plan for the neoliberal free market agenda manipulated by the wealthy. Obama endorsed Macron in the days preceding the French election showing that it is clear that Obama supports the neoliberal agenda of "free market" control which has stripped people of their assets and enriched the wealthy wherever it is employed. Just watch France in the next few years, there will be problems as great or greater than under Hollande. Immigrants will be brought in, hired as wage slaves, the economy will be manipulated by bankers, and the people will pay the price as usual. You are making inferences from hearsay, there is no proof of what you say. James Clapper is known to have lied in the past about domestic surveillance; he has claimed in the Russiagate investigations first one thing, then another: we have no proof but it is possible, later we know they did it (although we have no proof), once even saying that Russians are genetically prone to be dishonest, the most bizarre thing he has said. If you want to defend someone who says things like that, you put yourself in the same category of absurdity.
J. D. , June 17, 2017 at 3:32 pmLet's face it .. they tried to shift from Russia to the WAR ON TERROR; but, after 15 years with no end in sight the American public got sick and tired of it and now they need to shift back to Russia so they have a bogyman they can use to scare us into supporting more guns. Econ 101 .. Guns or Butter? How about us getting some butter for a change?
Clapper's rant revealed the actual reason for the coup attempt against President Trump, which he, along with Brennan, Comey, and the Obama Dems have coordinated,. Contrast his lying depiction of Putin to the actual words of Russia's president in his interviews with Megyn Kelley and better yet, with Oliver Stone. Hopefully. Americans will get an actual chance to see and hear President Putin and not the demonized caricature they have been barraged with by the MSM.
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Jun 12, 2017 | www.unz.com
Show Comment Next New Comment June 12, 2017 at 1:18 pm GMT@Agent76 If only more people knew this information, and that all *Wars are Banker's War's* as well!
Jun. 14, 2012 These *6* Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America
That's consolidated from *50* companies back in 1983. But the fact that a few companies own everything demonstrates "the illusion of choice," Frugal Dad says.
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
Which Corporations Control the World?
A surprisingly small number of corporations control massive global market shares. How many of the brands below do you use? It's a Small World at the Top!
http://www.internationalbusinessguide.org/corporations/ Jun 11, 2017 The Weaponization of Information in the War of Terror
If terrorist incidents are always tied back to shadowy groups linked to Al Qaeda or ISIS, an online, independent media might connect those dots to show how Al Qaeda and ISIS were literally created, fostered, funded, trained and equipped by the UK government, the US government and their allies across the world as a tool in their quest of dominance of the Middle East and control of their domestic population.
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Jun 09, 2017 | marknesop.wordpress.com
Lyttenburgh , June 7, 2017 at 7:59 amEt Al, it does not matter because the whole system is rigged. Yes, there are long term concerns which, if not adressed, gonna fuck all right in the arse generations of Britons to come. But they won't be adressed. The system is such that it precludes from that.et Al , June 7, 2017 at 8:25 amTake the terror situation. There is one half-bad (others and "do nothing" approach are worse) solution for it – the so-called "Israelisation" of the UK. No one's gonna implement it. NO. ONE. No one, as well, won't go and bust illegal arms trafficers, suppliers of the IED components, liquidate "no-go" borroughs, and, most of all – go after suppliers of the ideological component for the jihad which assures shit like in attacks in Manchester and London keep happening – and will happen in the future.
No one wants to go and say that the capitalist system adopted by the hopefuls in the past-war era is not sustainable for Europe anymore. There are two possible exits – either its total dismantling, or new war and plunder. But the system itself is beyond redeeming. You can't "reform it from within", because it's designed such way to prevent just such a thing.
The King is dead, long live the King?Probably. But these are not normal times. They are extraordinary times. Yes, the Establishment corrals its wagons in a circle and squeals about Indians on the horizon, but there are fissures all over the place. Whether something will bust or not, I do not know, but what I do know is that some things are beyond control and we are passengers.
History is its own master and time and time again when we proclaim that everything is 'OK', the carpet is swept away from under our feet and the serious s/t hits the fan. If that happens, I hope we survive. I've got a cat to feed.
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Jun 09, 2017 | www.msn.com
In January, CNN conducted an internal brand survey, eager to find out whether remarks made by Trump suggesting CNN offered "fake news" had any sort of lasting impact on prospective viewers.
"There has been no diminution whatsoever in the CNN brand," Zucker said to reporters in February. "It's as strong as it's ever been. It's incredibly trusted and we see no impact whatsoever in all of those attacks on the CNN brand."
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May 31, 2017 | jackrabbit.blog
There are numerous clues that point to the 2016 US Presidential Election as having been a set-up. Few seem willing to take a close look at these facts. But it is necessary for an understanding of the world we live in today.Trump's first 100 days has come and gone and he has proven to be every bit the faux populist that Obama was (as I explained in a previous post). In hind-sight we can see how a new faux populist was installed.
Evidence
- Sanders as sheep-dog Black Agenda Report called Sanders a sheep-dog soon after he entered the race . Sanders made it clear from the start that he ruled out the possibility of running as an independent. That was only the first of many punches that Sanders pulled as he led his 'sheep' into the Democratic fold. Others were:
>> "Enough with the emails!"
>> Not pursuing Hillary's 'winning' of 6 coin tosses in Iowa;
>> Virtually conceding the black and female vote to Hillary;
>> Not calling Hillary out about her claim to have NEVER sold her vote;
>> Endorsing Hillary despite learning of Hillary-DNC collusion;
>> Continuing to help the Democratic Party reach out to Bernie supports even after the election.
As one keen observer noted: Sanders is a Company Man .
- Trump as Clinton protege
Trump knew the Clinton's for years and was very friendly with them. His daughter Ivanka is close to Chelsea. He supported Hillary's Presidential run in 2008 – even taking up the 'birther' nonsense that she started so as to weaken Obama (just as 'fake news' now weakens Trump).Trump has done several things that have played into the hands of his 'fake news' critics, while doing other things that have alienated his base. These "own goals" are hard to explain. Like keeping Comey in his Administration and hinting that he taped conversations with Comey, etc. Trump has effectively turned the Russian witchhunt into an investigation into obstruction of justice.
- Hillary – playing along
Hillary ran a very poor campaign for someone that has been in politics for a lifetime and has the support of the sharpest minds in politics (including her husband). The NY Post deemed it, "The Worst Campaign Ever" .Media rumors that Hillary was ill reached a high point when she was lifted into a van on 9-11. The frenzy over Hillary's health came and went in a matter of weeks but these bogus concerns (she appears to be the picture of health now) :
1) gave Hillary an implied excuse for having run a poor race (along with Russians!!!!) , and
2) helped to quell partisan outrage when Trump said – within days of winning the election – that he wouldn't prosecute Hillary.
3) Despite her character flaws, collusion with DNC, and disastrous election showing, Hillary is still on top and aids and associates (like VP Biden) make excuses for her. Why do powerful people tip-toe around the Clintons like that?
Fake News
Why is the irresponsible journalism of 'fake news' so prevalent. Why are journalists, historians, politicians, and pundits so caught up in promoting it? In short, why has our society gone crazy?
The 'fake news' frenzy is both a mechanism used to create the appearance of pressure on a faux populist President and a distraction from the the REAL news: the fake election. Seen in this light, 'fake news' was both inevitable and a smart media strategy.
TRUMP COULD END THE 'FAKE NEWS' ABOUT RUSSIAN ELECTION MEDDLING BY POINTING TO OTHER COUNTRIES WHOSE MEDDLING IS MUCH MORE PERVASIVE, LIKE SAUDI ARABIA AND ISRAEL. But he doesn't.
Implications
The rot runs deep. Citizens must develop a keen understanding of history and be as discerning of their news sources as they are of their food sources. Question everything. The passage of Citizens United that allowed almost unlimited money in politics, makes the election of a 'populist outsider' is nearly impossible. But a faux populist is nearly certain to be elected.
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Jan 11, 2017 | insider.foxnews.com
During his first press conference since the election, Donald Trump got into a back-and-forth exchange with CNN reporter Jim Acosta over the news organization's coverage of the unverified report -- first posted on BuzzFeed -- claiming Trump's deep ties with Russia.
While answering a question relating to his earlier tweet asking "Are we living in Nazi Germany," Trump specifically called out BuzzFeed as a "failing pile of garbage" and CNN for building up the story after BuzzFeed first released it.
When Trump finished his response, Acosta could be overheard trying to ask a question. "Since you're attacking us can you give us a question? Since you are attacking our news organization can you give us a chance?" Acosta said.
"Not you, your organization is terrible," Trump responded, telling Acosta to be quiet. "She's asking a question, don't be rude."
Acosta however kept trying to ask his question, until Trump ended the exchange by declaring CNN to be "fake news." "No, I'm not going to give you a question. You are fake news!" he said. "Mr. President-elect that's not appropriate," Acosta said before allowing the next reporter to ask her question.
Acosta appeared on CNN to discuss the incident.
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May 22, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
Petri Krohn | May 18, 2017 8:57:21 PM | 71
TIME magazine has just published a cover story on the Russian takeover of America: Inside Russia's Social Media War on America . The cover image shows the White House turned into the Kremlin. I will list some of the key points below with quotes from the article:1) Social media has become a danger to democracy.
The vast openness and anonymity of social media has cleared a dangerous new route for antidemocratic forces. "Using these technologies, it is possible to undermine democratic government."2) Democratic society must isolate itself from public opinion.
Russia may finally have gained the ability it long sought but never fully achieved in the Cold War: to alter the course of events in the U.S. by manipulating public opinion.3) Russia spies on you.
The Russians "target you and see what you like, what you click on, and see if you're sympathetic or not sympathetic."4) America is losing the cyberwar.
As Russia expands its cyberpropaganda efforts, the U.S. and its allies are only just beginning to figure out how to fight back.5) Russia has clever algorithms that America lacks.
American researchers have found they can use mathematical formulas to segment huge populations into thousands of subgroups... Propagandists can then manually craft messages to influence them, deploying covert provocateurs, either humans or automated computer programs known as bots, in hopes of altering their behavior.6) Russia has huge troll farms.
Putin dispatched his newly installed head of military intelligence, Igor Sergun, to begin repurposing cyberweapons previously used for psychological operations in war zones for use in electioneering. Russian intelligence agencies funded "troll farms," botnet spamming operations and fake news outlets as part of an expanding focus on psychological operations in cyberspace.7) You must trust mainstream media.
Eager to appear more powerful than they are, the Russians would consider it a success if you questioned the truth of your news sources, knowing that Moscow might be lurking in your Facebook or Twitter feed.8) Russia invaded Ukraine in April 2014 .
Putin was aiming his new weapons at the U.S. Following Moscow's April 2014 invasion of Ukraine.9) Hillary Clinton did not murder Seth Rich.
That story went viral in late August, then took on a life of its own after Clinton fainted from pneumonia and dehydration at a Sept. 11 event in New York City. Elsewhere people invented stories saying Pope Francis had endorsed Trump and Clinton had murdered a DNC staffer.10) The evidence:
Russia plays in every social media space. The intelligence officials have found that Moscow's agents bought ads on Facebook to target specific populations with propaganda. "They buy the ads, where it says sponsored by–they do that just as much as anybody else does," says the senior intelligence official. (A Facebook official says the company has no evidence of that occurring.) The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner of Virginia, has said he is looking into why, for example, four of the top five Google search results the day the U.S. released a report on the 2016 operation were links to Russia's TV propaganda arm, RT. (Google says it saw no meddling in this case.) Researchers at the University of Southern California, meanwhile, found that nearly 20% of political tweets in 2016 between Sept. 16 and Oct. 21 were generated by bots of unknown origin; investigators are trying to figure out how many were Russian.
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May 04, 2017 | marknesop.wordpress.com
Our deeds still travel with us from afar; and what we have been makes us what we are.
George Eliot, Middlemarch
We have arrived, in my opinion, upon the moment in the course of human history which marks the nadir of the journalistic profession. I cannot conceive of a situation in which the occupation could become more debased, more wretched than it has become already, and what we refer to as the 'mainstream media' no longer makes any effort to tell the truth, to substantiate what it purports to be true with hard evidence or even any evidence, or to disguise its service in the cut and thrust of political bias and character assassination.
Shaun Walker, The Guardian 's corpulent correspondent in Russia, and his sidekick Roland Oliphant claimed to have seen with their own eyes a convoy of regular Russian Army vehicles and soldiers crossing the border from Russia into Ukraine but neither of them got a photo or a video clip despite their both supposedly being journalists by profession, who understand the maxim, "A picture is worth a thousand words". But his dinky little cell-phone camera is ever ready to do yeoman service in the pursuit of mocking Russian food on Aeroflot flights , and he has lots of time to arse about on his Facebook group dedicated to what he feels is a Russian obsession with dill . All of his complaining is backed up, it goes nearly without saying, with photographs. Yet he didn't get a picture of the stealth-invading Russian battalions even though he knew the subject was hotly debated, and proof would have made his name a household word. Well, he is a household word, although it's not "Shaun Walker". But you know what I mean.
Or peruse this piece of rubbish . Among yearning for a repeat of the 1917 revolution on its hundredth anniversary and quoting the Moscow Times' tiresome demand for Russia to 'condemn its Soviet past'
It is at this moment that Russia and its president must address the legacy of 1917-the throngs in the streets waving red banners, dragging the emperor from his throne and pumping slugs into him and his kids. "The upcoming centennial of the 1917 revolution that toppled the czar and paved the way for Bolshevik rule promises to put the Kremlin in a tight spot," predicts the (still-) independent Moscow Times. "At the same time, the Kremlin is unwilling to unequivocally condemn the events the revolution set in motion or its Soviet past."
and selectively quoting Putin without context or background,
And it is Yeltsin whose deconstruction of the USSR itself is what Olga from the Volga is thankful her red-eyed grandmother did not live to see. (Putin has called it "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.")
so as to imply yet one more time that Putin seeks to recreate the Soviet Union, the author persists with the simpleminded meme that Putin rigged the American presidential election to prevent Hillary Clinton from winning.
He and his fellow western journalists are aided in this bizarre allegation by the USA's intelligence agencies, who claim to have evidence that points to Russian interference. They can't show anyone, of course – everything the CIA deals with has important national security implications, and if they told the world how Putin hacked American elections, well .well, he might do it again. Or something.
Consider. What actually happened? Information was released which reported that Mrs. Clinton was using a private email server to conduct government business, as Secretary of State for the Obama government, so as to avoid the law which required all official email traffic to be archived as government property.
Was this true? While I can't speak to her motivation, her unauthorized use of a private server is a matter of public record, as are testimonials from State Department staff members that they mentioned repeatedly the behavior was not permitted, to which Mrs. Clinton allegedly replied that she had permission. If she said that, it was a lie.
Then information was released which said the Democratic Party establishment was conspiring to rig the Democratic nomination for Mrs. Clinton by manipulating the process against Bernie Sanders, who enjoyed a significant following and who was assessed by polling results to have the best chance of beating Trump. Was that true? Sure was; the DNC chair, Debbie Wassserman-Shultz, resigned in disgrace – Mrs Clinton promptly promoted her to honorary chair of her presidential campaign, and President Obama rushed out a supportive statement as well, demonstrating that political heavyweights don't really care if you rig elections as long as you're not Russian.
So what sabotaged the win Hillary Clinton thought she had in the bag was the release of damaging information about her which was true and accurate. It was not a pack of lies, and the suggestion that the truth about such activities should have been kept from voters until after they had cast their ballots would be monstrous. There was absolutely no proof that Russia was responsible for releasing that information, if they even knew it, and they were pretty far down the chain of people in a position to know.
What are the rigging methods in Russian elections of which the Kremlin is always accused by the morally-superior beacon of democracy? Ballot-stuffing. Carousel voting, a term US State Department spokeshole Jen Psaki was quite comfortable using in the most accusatory fashion, although she had to admit when questioned that she had no idea what it meant . Suppression of opposition candidates and advertising time which disproportionately favours the ruling party. If Vladimir Putin can actually tip elections in foreign countries with such confounding precision without access to any of those tools, why would he rely on such quaint and archaic blunt-instrument methods to rig elections in Russia?
Fake news stories in the western media abound, although the west rarely if ever acknowledges them; when FOX News, mouthpiece of the Washington regime-changers, broadcast a story ostensibly about protests in Russia , but featuring footage of rioting in Athens, The Daily Telegraph set a new standard for crawling by positing that the channel had just made an innocent mistake, like Athens is a lot like Moscow and people make that mistake all the time. It then proceeded to excoriate the paranoid Russians for imagining that it was done with intent. Al Jazeera broadcast a fake report of the fall of Tripoli in the west's successful regime-change war against Gaddafi; the supposed capture of the city by 'opposition forces' was actually put together in a studio in Doha, Qatar. I've lost track of the number of accounts of Putin's fabulous stolen wealth which he has squirreled away in secret bank accounts somewhere which nobody can find or prove to exist, yet his status as one of the world's wealthiest men remains part of the argot of common wisdom.
Well, I spent a lot longer on that than I meant to do; but, damn it, that 'Putin stole our election' nonsense just turns my teeth sideways. How could he have done that? Voting machines are not connected to the internet, and there is no realistic suggestion that Russia actually manipulated the vote count. Somebody released true information regarding unlawful and undemocratic behavior by Mrs. Clinton, but not a shred of evidence supporting Russian involvement has been produced, although the CIA maintains that it knows .
Anyway, I wanted to take you through what is described as a step-by-step analysis of a fake news story , an example of Russian trickery, or manipulation by Putin's international minions. The author is eminently well-qualified to discuss fake news, or at least as well-qualified as one can become in the short interval since caution was thrown to the winds, and fakery in the news went from a hobby to mainstream default mode; he worked for more than three years in Pheme, a multinational online project funded by the European Commission to define, evaluate and model fake news.
Let's take a look. The story used as an example is a clip about Russian soldiers using the Uran 6 robotic mine-clearance vehicle to demine sites in Aleppo following the victory of Syrian government forces' retaking of the city. I want you to note at the outset that the author claims the story is completely false.
This post shows a story originating in the Middle East, about Russian soldiers clearing up bombs left in Syria by Obama's troops. The story was related using first-hand video and personal accounts, and was picked up by major outlets. However, the truth was that this story was completely false - fabricated and framed in such a way that it looked like real news. We'll pull on threads behind this fake news, and find just one small part of what may well be a large, international network that is feeding our Western media.
Please note also the odd choice of words; " bombs left in Syria by Obama's troops". We'll see if anyone actually claims that.
Mr. Derczynski acknowledges at the starting line that there is nothing untoward with the original clip – it probably does show Russian soldiers in the performance of their duties in Syria, and the vehicle featured probably is the Uran 6.
Then the token jackass Ukrainian enters the fray, announcing that the item is a fake and the vehicle is actually of Croatian origin. He is quickly shot down by Marcel Sardo. I think most of us know Marcel's work, and I have found him usually pretty accurate; always, where military hardware is concerned, and he seems to be a bit of an aficionado. The author points out that while there is no reason at this point to believe anything is other than what it seems, in fact this is a common tactic, and the good-cop-bad-cop are often on the same side or are even the same person.
Then the story is picked up by RT, a source Mr. Derczynski tells us many of the Russians he talks with don't really trust. I think you can probably imagine the Russian circles he moves in. He tells us RT claims the Uran 6 is the same robot the Russian military used to help clear Palmyra of explosives left behind by Islamic State (IS). Still possible this is a real story, he says, although he seems to believe RT is setting the stage for something.
As an aside, Islamic State did in fact take Palmyra, and remained in control of it for long enough to do tremendous damage – some of which appeared to have been wrought just for the sheer deviltry of it and for the grief it would cause, rather than the achievement of a strategic objective. It is difficult to imagine, I think, that the inhabitants of Palmyra left explosive booby-traps for the soldiers who drove out Islamic State – since their rule was unpopular – so it does not seem too much of a stretch that the explosives and mines left behind (a matter of public record) were left by Islamic State. There is apparently nothing thus far to suggest the story is 'fake news', although the author is suspicious about the direction it is heading.
And then, BAM! The fake hits us like a runaway locomotive.
Sarah Abdallah joins in on Twitter, attributing the explosives left behind to 'Obama's moderate rebels'. Oh no, you don't, Sarah, you delicious-looking young female trading on your looks and flirting with the camera. This has now just become fake-news propaganda, framing the story so that it reflects badly on the Greatest Democracy That Ever Lived.
Let's take another pause to reflect. I have no idea if Sarah Abdallah is the real thing, or a Putin shill – I'm not familiar with her and have not seen her before this. But how realistic is her attribution to 'Obama's moderate rebels' of the explosives left behind in Aleppo? Well, the Obama government was fairly well known to be arming the Syrian rebels both overtly (which it admitted) and covertly (which it did not). The U.S. government also admitted, at various points in the conflict, that it had less and less of an idea who was who and who was al Qaeda as things went along. Oftentimes the side the USA supported was blanket-referred to as 'moderate rebels' for the sake of optics, but it is well-established that the USA provided not only arms, but satellite radios which would allow rebel commanders to call in air strikes by US military aircraft . The USA wriggled and squirmed and called for endless ceasefires in Aleppo whenever the Syria government forces appeared about to exploit a vulnerability. It seems pretty clear that Washington supported anyone it thought might get the job of ousting Assad done. It is therefore quite conceivable that explosives left behind in Aleppo with the intent of killing or injuring incoming enemy forces were left behind by 'moderate rebels' . It is also quite conceivable that some, perhaps many of these 'rebels' were supported by the U.S. government.
Other sources go on to say that departing extremist rebels placed explosives even in children's toys. I have no idea if that is accurate, but considered in the frame of the deliberate murder of many children from the buses leaving Aleppo , lured out with the promise of snacks and then blown up by a suicide bomber, I would have to say it does not seem that far-fetched.
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May 06, 2017 | marknesop.wordpress.com
yalensis , May 5, 2017 at 2:34 pmThis is a good post, Mark. "Fake news" just means factual news that doesn't follow the propaganda narrative of the American establishment.Cortes , May 5, 2017 at 4:23 pmI agree entirely.J.T. , May 5, 2017 at 7:46 pmThe effort to establish acceptable news for public consumption is only just gathering pace if the following piece is any guide:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/05/02/nyt-cheers-the-rise-of-censorship-algorithms/
By the by, I'm increasingly impressed with the way that popular fiction is used to reinforce stereotypes helpful to the agendas of our leaders. The supposedly random selection of nefarious Russkie villains in works by the likes of Stieg Larsen, Jo Nesbo and Lee Child made me wonder if it's random at all. The other day I was reading a Lawrence Block novel, "The Burglar on the Prowl" which contains a McGuffin about Soviet repression of Latvian nationalism and began to think that perhaps there's an element of orchestration in generating stories which, oddly enough, coincide with current political orthodoxy.
Hey Cortes, you're definitely on to something.
You should read Ted Bell's Patriot , which I reviewed here .
Just kidding. Don't waste your time. It's 10% spy thriller and 90% Neoconesis .
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Mar 31, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
ken melvin -> anne... , March 31, 2017 at 07:09 AManne -> ken melvin... , March 31, 2017 at 07:53 AM
https://medium.com/@d1gi/data-is-the-real-post-truth-so-heres-the-truth-about-post-election2016-propaganda-2bff5ae1dd7In a New York Times op-ed, William Davie, an associate professor at University of London, elaborates on how we ended up here:
We are in the middle of a transition from a society of facts to a society of data. During this interim, confusion abounds surrounding the exact status of knowledge and numbers in public life, exacerbating the sense that truth itself is being abandoned.
Once numbers are viewed more as indicators of current sentiment, rather than as statements about reality, how are we to achieve any consensus on the nature of social, economic and environmental problems, never mind agree on the solutions? Conspiracy theories prosper under such conditions. And while we will have far greater means of knowing how many people believe those theories, we will have far fewer means of persuading them to abandon them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/opinion/campaign-stops/the-age-of-post-truth-politics.htmllibezkova -> ken melvin... , March 31, 2017 at 10:06 AMAugust 23, 2016
The Age of Post-Truth Politics
By WILLIAM DAVIESFacts hold a sacred place in Western liberal democracies. Whenever democracy seems to be going awry, when voters are manipulated or politicians are ducking questions, we turn to facts for salvation.
But they seem to be losing their ability to support consensus. PolitiFact has found that about 70 percent of Donald Trump's "factual" statements actually fall into the categories of "mostly false," "false" and "pants on fire" untruth.
For the Brexit referendum, Leave argued that European Union membership costs Britain 350 million pounds a week, but failed to account for the money received in return.
The sense is widespread: We have entered an age of post-truth politics....
When society is entering the crisis of the current economic and social order, the same sentiments arise.People stop believing official propaganda.
And that gives space for "improvised news" (which previously were called rumors, but now are called "fake news").
Among them the most prominent are theories damaging to the credibility of the ruling elite ( which CIA nicknamed "conspiracy theories").
Such as
1. A part of the US government was complicit in 9/11 ( http://presstv.ir/Detail/2015/09/11/428763/US-government-September-11-2001 ),
2. Pedophiles ring in the US government similar to catholic priests pedophilia, and, specifically, affecting Clinton's close circle (aka "Pizzagate" https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/10/business/media/pizzagate.html )
3. Out of control of elected government activities of intelligence agencies such as NSA and CIA ("Deep state gate" https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/ditching-the-deep-state-the-rise-of-a-new-conspiracy-theory-in-american-politics/ ).
Compare with 30th. "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
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Mar 11, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
Dusty Rhodes' M... , Mar 11, 2017 12:06 AMRightLineBacker , Mar 11, 2017 1:06 AMIf there were a Room 101, these people would send me there...when Facebook, Twitter, et al behave as if they are doing Winston Smiths job, that makes them motherfucking INGSOC...they are the people Mr. Blair warned us about...I always said he was writing about the U.S. and its propaganda machinery...reckon Mr. Jones owes me a beer...
TheWrench -> RightLineBacker , Mar 11, 2017 3:59 AMFor today's Journalism & Common Core graduates:
1984 was a prediction about the Deep State of 2017 [Think CIA, NSA & MSM].
Read and beware - Then drain the swamp.
"Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel published in 1949 by English author George Orwell. The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation. The superstate and its residents are dictated to by a political regime euphemistically named English Socialism, shortened to "Ingsoc" in Newspeak, the government's invented language. The superstate is under the control of the privileged elite of the Inner Party, a party and government that persecutes individualism and independent thinking as "thoughtcrime", which is enforced by the "Thought Police"
Author's real name was Eric Blair. 1984 wasn't about Stalinist Russia but was about today. He was aware of the plans for the modern technology surveillance state. I found a snowflake at work reading this book recently. I relayed that it was about current times. Just think, 24/7 news channels, appliances that spy on you, Homeland security and such. The look on his face was priceless.
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Mar 11, 2017 | www.ukessays.com
Published: 3rd October, 2016 Last Edited: 7th March, 2017
This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers.
How is the neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism supported by propaganda?
Introduction
According to Taylor C. Boas and Jordan Gans-Morse (2009), the term "neo-liberal capitalism" has been used in recent years to describe the extreme privatisation, deregulation, free market and whole reduction in government control of the economy. American scholar, Rober W. McChesney, states that the term, which colloquially means "capitalism with the gloves off", is largely by the public audience. In short, the neo-liberal capitalist model refers to the free-market which has been the dominant type of capitalism for the last three decades. The neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism is a kind of liberal media, with the role of news media as significant to the modern democratic press. Propaganda is the tool that official governments use to spread information which may be true or false to the public, with an aim to influence opinion. Propaganda news stories are filtered for political effect. The neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism can only exist with the support of propaganda.
This essay will mainly discuss how the neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism is supported by propaganda. This paper will be composed of three parts. The first part will describe what the neo-liberal capitalist model is and also look into propaganda. The second part will focus on how propaganda supports the neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism. In this part, I will review the five filters of propaganda (mainly exploring three of them) and use some examples to explain the relationship between neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism and propaganda. This will analyse the techniques used in how propaganda works. The third part of this essay will discuss and analyse the effects of this relationship and the conclusion.
For the past twenty to thirty years, the word, "neoliberalism", has become a universal term used in many political and academic arguments. Denord, F. (2009) thinks that to be "neo-liberal" means that a modern economic policy with government intervention is required. Neoliberal economics has its foundations in the thoughts of the famous liberal economist, Adam Smith, in the 1920s. At the same time, the tools of propaganda in the neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism have become more and more pervasive.
There are numerous scholars who gives a definition of the word propaganda. According to Jowett and O'Donnell (2008), propaganda means to disseminate and deliver the perceptions or specific ideas in a particular way. Jacques Ellul (1965) deemed propaganda as sociological phenomena, not something generated by the people with the intentions. He also thinks propaganda is important to us. It enables us to participate in some major issues such as elections and big anniversaries. I believe that propaganda is a kind of manipulation, with the main purpose of trying to control peoples' minds and behaviors.
Herman and Chomosky (1988) first mentioned their propaganda model in their book, Manufacturing Consent. Its vital structural factors originate from the fact that the propaganda model is firmly imbedded in the neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism. The media are to a great extent, influenced by the government and corporate businesses. This model focuses on the inequality of wealth and power and its effects on the neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism. Most independent research has found that the media are influenced by wealthy businesses and conservative interests. The propaganda model demonstrates how the media can be determined by conservative elites. Furthermore, they set five filters to select and edit news. These filters are greatly influenced by a succession of entities pressures, for instance who the owners are, the role of advertisers, and the source of information they use. They look at five factors: ownership, advertising, sourcing, media criticism and anticommunist ideology. I will be taking a closer look into the first three filters.
Regarding ownership, power is determined by the owners, and not the journalists in media organisations. According to Herman, E. and N. Chomsky (1988), the mainstream media presents an elite interest and this can be deemed as carrying out a propaganda function. The owners of most mainsteam media outlets usually relate with other wealthy and powerful groups, which can impact the country's media. For example, Rupert Murdoch purchased The Times and the Sunday Times and also created News Corporation in order to control all his media interests. He supported Labour Party leader, Tony Blair, in the 1997 British election and Blair's win is often put down as a result of Murdoch's support because he has a strong influence in the western world.
Another important filter to select and edit news is advertising, which is the main revenue source of mass media. The survival of mass media depends on the choice of advertisers. Corporations pay up to $170 billion a year to media outlets to advertise to a wide audience. With this kind of financial backing, advertisers can demand a supportive editorial and programming environment.
The third important filter is the source, which is how journalists obtain information, usually from experts or some authority. The media requires reliable and truthful raw materials of news in order to achieve an "objective" viewpoint. Government and corporate sources have the automatic assumption of being reliable and truthful because of their status and reputation. However, I believe that there are some news agencies that use propaganda techniques to manipulate the minds and behaviors of audiences. Fox News uses obvious propaganda techniques to influence Americans to an extent that can be considered "brainwashing". Some of these techniques include using specious news sources, indicated by the use of words like "some people say", and interviewing people with "expert" attached to their name to report news. The greatest problem with this kind of free press in the America is that it is largely dependent on the government's version of the story. They leading by political elites when they reporting the political events instead of the objective with authority.
These elements are linked together and help reinforce each other. The raw news material, i.e. the source, is rendered unworthy and disreputable through the use of these filters. It reflects the government and corporation's exertion of power to control the flow of information.
Timothy Cook (2006) thinks the news agency reports the content of news is similar to everyday expect to cover some unpredictable news. This is another example to explain how propaganda supports the neo-liberal capitalist business of journalism. China Central Television, abbreviated as CCTV, is the most prominent state television broadcaster in China. CCTV has turned its news and historical drama series into propaganda aimed at brainwashing its audience. Its monopoly has ignored much of the truth regarding social and political events. CCTV key player, Zhu Y (2012), said that "certain common themes, about ideals distorted or altogether thwarted by commercial and political pressure, emerged". The free press has become something like a "speaking tube" of the government in that many people now doubt the truth and reliability behind the information. The "free" is based on the government it is supposed to surveillance the people's behaviour. Herman, E. and N. Chomsky (2002) has stated that the media has also become institutionalised because of their relationship to government. This case illustrates perfectly the dependence of the institutional media upon official authority.
The effectiveness of propaganda is dependent on the techniques used. It is usually applied by politicians, journalists and others achieve their objectives. One frequently used propaganda techniques is to use testimonials from celebrities such as actors, musicians, artists or sometimes authority figures like doctors to endorse the product or idea. For instance, if your idol is Beckham who promoted a perfume ad that makes you think that perfume is good and you will go to buy it. But you will never know how often he uses it. Another propaganda technique that is used is the "bandwagon", which is a way to encourage conformity, to join in because others are doing so as well. For example, in the Walmart adverts, a large crowd tries to rush into store at same time and Nike's slogan, as an obvious example, is "Just do it". These words are just are attempting to delude us. These are just a few examples of techniques among other propaganda methods that are applied to the neo-liberal capitalist business model of journalism. And these techniques are effective to making propaganda influence us.
Propaganda is everywhere in our lives. Though propaganda is usually seen as negative, it can sometimes be positive. Positive propaganda is applied when spreading the ideas of a healthy lifestyle and world peace. For example, the AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) War: propaganda, profiteering and genocide from the medical-industrial complex. This book uses propaganda tool to cover the story for helping people away from AIDS.
Conclusion
In short, the propaganda model describes a decentralised market system of control process.
The dramatic changes in the economy and politics over the past few decades seek to enhance the applicability of the propaganda model. Neo-liberal propaganda has had a great effect everywhere. Herman and Chomsky agreed that the use of propaganda was a necessary tool for controlling the mechanism of population by government and corporate elites in neo-liberal capitalist regimes. In a democratic country, the government controls the public's information sources. This was generally understood when forming propaganda model. In capitalism, the free is based on manipulation for the neo-liberal democratic. Although propaganda supports neo-liberal capitalism, the media should still cover the news and information independently. The public should be encouraged to have their own judgment and opinions to the news.
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Mar 11, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
pods, Mar 10, 2017 10:25 PMMs No -> pods , Mar 10, 2017 10:46 PMThe air of superiority that these former bastions of public information exude is laughable. They think that those below them will never upend the society they built.
Sorry, the days of big media are waning. Younger people do not see these outlets as the end all of information.
They could still carve a place out with in depth reporting that is overlooked by most fast paced internet media, but they will never settle for that. They will pretend they can shape the world, while the world moves beyond the legacy media, and in depth analysis is done by small time bloggers, to everyone's benefit.
The pompous vanguards of the old media will sneer at us as their ivory towers sink in the sand.
I cannot wait for the day when they realize that they are, in fact, irrelevant.
pods
RightLineBacker -> pods , Mar 11, 2017 12:33 AMGreat comment, as usual. I always miss you because you are on in the daytime weekday crowd, with the smart people. Their air is laughable but it's not funny. It's creepy as hell. It actually reminds me of Caligula, not the history... but the movie. It's when insanity and surrealism meets some kind of peak. We are right at that point where they are shoveling out this complete ludicrous shit that everybody knows is false. We are right at the precipice of something . We just wait to see what happens... I am kind of hoping for banker's balls in rat traps... peanut butter... I have some ideas but I don't run the world. We shall see what happens. It doesn't look like we will be waiting long.
runnymede -> pods , Mar 11, 2017 1:46 AMThe MSM is DOA.
Now we can move on to the actual truth, thanks to the new independent Internet media.
My prayer is that the MSM and all associated with it will soon burn in Hell. Amen.
The ultimate battle is for the Internet itself. Control of information. Without that tptb cannot prevail.
Never underestimate your opponent though. The situation is fluid and they have billions and the big weapons. And >half the population is clueless or dependent on the state.
They'll burn this down with financial WMD before going quietly into the night. I hope folks are really as committed as they sound. We've not had a real war on our soil since the civil and that was internecine.
There's still a lot of cyber shit that can be turned on the general public as we've seen
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Mar 04, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
The Mainstream Is Circling The Wagons: "They're Coming For All Of Us...It's An Orchestrated Attack Against Truth" stizazz , Mar 3, 2017 11:00 PMtechies-r-us -> stizazz , Mar 3, 2017 11:04 PMHere's some truth for you:
"Congress is Israeli-occupied territory." -Pat Buchanan
wee-weed up -> techies-r-us , Mar 3, 2017 11:05 PMAnd no media (MSM or AltM) would dare call Israel what it truly is: an apartheid state.
Mano-A-Mano -> wee-weed up , Mar 3, 2017 11:07 PMMSM, thy name is hypocrisy (silencing criticism)
kavlar -> Mano-A-Mano , Mar 3, 2017 11:08 PMMSM is afraid of the UGLY truth.
http://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/the-new-apartheid-is-...
Paul Kersey -> kavlar , Mar 3, 2017 11:16 PMThey CAN'T handle the truth!
Twee Surgeon -> Paul Kersey , Mar 3, 2017 11:32 PM"Tomorrow, they may try to silence you."
They have already silenced me, or I wouldn't be hiding behind a screen name. We must be careful not to leave our electronic fingerprints on social media.
xythras -> Twee Surgeon , Mar 3, 2017 11:42 PMGood luck with that -- many a fine Man was arrested at the tavern for speaking against the Pope. Speak out, in public. Die if needed, our ancestors did, so we must too, if needed.
SMG -> xythras , Mar 3, 2017 11:47 PMCIRCLE AROUND this , suckers -- His day are numbered. You just don't mess with The Donald.
Pedophile Enabler? Chuck Schumer Helped Accused Child Sex Abuser into US
http://dailywesterner.com/news/2017-03-03/pedophile-enabler-chuck-schume...
JamesBond -> SMG , Mar 4, 2017 2:25 AMWe've made the beachead in the revolution. Now we just have to see it through. Live free or die.
prime american -> JamesBond , Mar 4, 2017 3:42 AMI've never had any problem finding it on duckduckgo.com
Tarzan -> prime american , Mar 4, 2017 6:29 AMI'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... http://bit.ly/2jdTzrM
VinceFostersGhost -> Tarzan , Mar 4, 2017 7:08 AMThat's the Progressive way. lies are a means to conquest, just like Muslim Jihadists, there's no moral standard to be truthful for those who've embraced the Machiavellian way!
apadictionary -> VinceFostersGhost , Mar 4, 2017 7:17 AM
Fake Stream Media...
Yog Soggoth -> VinceFostersGhost , Mar 4, 2017 1:54 PMsimple boycott google
New_Meat -> prime american , Mar 4, 2017 7:13 AMThe Obama-Bezos-CIA-WaPo Link Coincidentally Lurking Behind So we pay for it with our taxdollars. Really should constitute a breach of the First Amendment. The amendment is generally understood to prevent the government from interfering with the distribution of information and opinions.
BarkingCat -> JamesBond , Mar 4, 2017 10:42 AM15 days old and already able to self-pleasure its posts? MDB's bot is not very smart.
Akzed -> BarkingCat , Mar 4, 2017 10:48 AMIt is the sesrch engine I use as well, but unfortunately they simply sit on top of Google.
If Google removes pages then DuckDuckGo will not find them.
There is always StartPage and Yandex.
dizzyfingers -> BarkingCat , Mar 4, 2017 1:06 PMStartpage works the same way as DDG.
This is funny, I put MalWareBytes on my PC and it won't let me go to Yahoo.
Kernighan -> JamesBond , Mar 4, 2017 1:20 PMStatePage is google. Yandex... Russian.
Bastiat -> SMG , Mar 4, 2017 9:22 AMDuckDuckGo Dot Com is the search engine which DOES NOT do as Google does. It's policy is to NOT exploit your searches, and any other metadata, to engage in side hustles such as contributing to advertising networks, etc.
If you are sick of Google knowing all your searches, then DuckDuckGo should be one search engine you definitely consider.
El Oregonian -> SMG , Mar 4, 2017 12:57 PMMSM is exactly "an orchestrated attack on the truth."
IntercoursetheEU -> Twee Surgeon , Mar 3, 2017 11:40 PMTHINK OF IT AS THE NEW FORM OF BOOK BURNING... DIGITAL BOOK BURNING!
JRobby -> IntercoursetheEU , Mar 4, 2017 6:32 AM"Mainstream", like when you flush the toilet? Boycott cable, revenue sharing is their lifeline.
Lordflin -> Twee Surgeon , Mar 4, 2017 6:48 AM+1,000,000
CUT THE CABLE
VinceFostersGhost -> Lordflin , Mar 4, 2017 7:10 AMI would rather die with a rifle in my hands than a keyboard...
New_Meat -> VinceFostersGhost , Mar 4, 2017 7:14 AM
I've killed more with a keyboard......than I have with a gun.
AlaricBalth -> New_Meat , Mar 4, 2017 8:26 AMmodern-day "pen is mightier than a sword."
Lordflin -> AlaricBalth , Mar 4, 2017 9:35 AMThe pen is mightier than the sword, yet be a master of each.
HedgeJunkie -> Paul Kersey , Mar 4, 2017 3:05 AMYes gentlemen, I get that the pen is mightier than the sword... that is true until it isn't. In any regard discourse seems at an end, sides are all but drawn up, and the enemy is pulling out the stops... so I will maintain my original point... or as a wise man once said...
Give me liberty or give me death...
rocmon -> HedgeJunkie , Mar 4, 2017 5:38 AMWhen the FBI arrived on my doorstep, they had my name, social security number, my wife's name and SS, my son's names and socials, along with my oldest sons wife's name and socials, And all the addresses we'd lived at over the last twenty years...including my son's addresses that were independent from us.
The Agent was aware that my older son had a a security clearance several levels above his.
While he was respectful and friendly, he insisted on making a physical inspection of our home from one pace away from the door.
We don't have nazi adornments or half put together weapons laying about, so he was satisfied with that one step inside.
This was two years ago. The agent admitted that he had another eight people to check up on in this town of less than 200K for the day.
One relatively small town, nine people a day, and the facebook post I made was four months old.
The title of the post was "Who should we shoot first, Politicians or Banksters?"
That's how pissed people are.
And that's how fuckin' pathetic they can respond to it.
new game -> rocmon , Mar 4, 2017 6:42 AMWow, just wow.
JRobby -> HedgeJunkie , Mar 4, 2017 6:34 AMboth...thats why you need me.
Tarzan -> HedgeJunkie , Mar 4, 2017 6:42 AMThere are plenty of guns to shoot both.
Mr Kurtz -> HedgeJunkie , Mar 4, 2017 8:30 AMThey know the people are going to flood the streets one day. Their visit was to stem that tide, even just to slow it's certain arrival. They're hoping out spoken people like you wont wake the sleeping giant, before they flip the switch.
It's never good when men in black show up at your door. I dare say, it's at least working a bit... Likely your face book posts have moderated some what since their visit.
I was seven years old when I answered the door and two men dressed in black showed up to anounce my father was a "hero". My mother's screams of no no no still ring in my ear. Through the years, that memory is as fresh as it was 4 decades ago.
One day, the bastards will pay, by God!
Mustafa Kemal -> Mr Kurtz , Mar 4, 2017 11:35 AM
1.
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. ~ G. K. Chesterson
etudiant -> Paul Kersey , Mar 4, 2017 8:48 AMChesterton was magnificent. Another his I llke is
"its not that they cannot find the solution, its that they cant find the problem"
matter.form -> etudiant , Mar 4, 2017 9:11 AMUnless you're posting from a very well protected site, something better than TOR, you are already identified/identifiable.
Also note that this is an ABC owned site. It belongs to Disney, which is very much an establishment based company. So you are participating in monitored dissent at most.
AlaricBalth -> etudiant , Mar 4, 2017 9:26 AMWhile it is very possible to anonymize yourself online, it is only needed if you are doing Julian Assange level work. Embrace your identity online, you are doing nothing illegal and should not have to hide your identity to speak your mind. Defend against the lists and you won't have anything to fear.
peddling-fiction -> AlaricBalth , Mar 4, 2017 10:01 AMZeroHedge is not an ABC/Disney owned site. ABC Media Ltd. was formerly registered in Sofia, Bulgaria and is now hosted at easydns.com in Ontario, Canada.
Escrava Isaura -> Mano-A-Mano , Mar 4, 2017 9:54 AMThe domain is hosted at easydns.com. Good choice.
The site when Pinged gives me 56.152.80 --> Whois gives me Amazon for active site.
Google handles ZH mails.
JRobby -> wee-weed up , Mar 4, 2017 6:28 AM
Paper Mache -> JRobby , Mar 4, 2017 7:31 AMi'll be disruptive in jail too. I have been disruptuve since I was in first grade. I would rather die than submit to censorship and silencing of free speech and expression.
Fuck them all!
CUT THE CABLE !!!!!
SCRAP THE DISH !!!!!
CANCEL THE SUBSCRIPTIONS! !!!!
STARVE THE FUCKING BEAST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A Nanny Moose -> techies-r-us , Mar 4, 2017 2:04 AM+ 1000 never stop fighting the corrupt news networks
HedgeJunkie -> A Nanny Moose , Mar 4, 2017 3:24 AMWell...the Untied States was aparthied. We just didn't need walls.We had the natural barrier call THE DESERT.
Even prison Inmates don't bother escaping.
TDK -> techies-r-us , Mar 4, 2017 3:39 AMHey, I have authentic prison cred.
I've been in prison.
I was invited then locked up. I was invited to do mock job interviews. I had no idea I was going to be locked up with the rest of them. Among all the volunteers, I actually represented a company and we actually WERE looking for employees. The question "are you Felon friendly" initially stumped me. But if you're mining a hole in the ground, all we want to see is sweat, and you get a paycheck. I'm told I'm the most popular interviewer EVAH and they want me back this year. (I told them what they were facing when they got out in hard, cold, truth. They don't get news, so they had no idea we had degenerated so much. One guy had tears in his eyes.)
And this prison IS in the desert. https://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/vvm/
To prove your point, the minimum security females were allowed the run of the 'outside hard prison', which allows them to walk the ten miles or so to civilization. They haven't lost one yet.
Inside the 'hard' prison, they have razor wire dripping at every possible cranny, just in case some moron wants to make a walk that the essentially free women won't even consider.
Sonny Brakes -> techies-r-us , Mar 4, 2017 3:49 AMYou are 100% correct - The Left have been saying this about Israel for decades and the right wing media will not go there!
Jubal Early -> techies-r-us , Mar 4, 2017 4:22 AMWe live in a hypocrisy.
new game -> Jubal Early , Mar 4, 2017 7:07 AMThat is the problem with AltM like Breitbard, Alex Jones and Natural News: They will not name the jew, and for that reason they are effectively just Mossad and CIA limited hangouts. Whether they acknowledge it or not.
What is really interesting is watching to see how these limited hangouts react. Will they finally come out and discuss ownership and control of US and Western culture? Or will they keep banging the drums and blowing the horns of "globalists" and "NWO" without ever pulling back the curtains to show who these "globalists" really are.
Jubal Early -> new game , Mar 4, 2017 7:34 AMit is like the joo is the ultimate boogyman, the shaman, the brain washed no-no we must not speak of.
my take is straight forward. they are the best at the art of the deal. look at the results. who has the controls of most all finance, debt and money? huh, right in our face. step one is to see the truth for what it is.
and the nefarious results of this power and wealth is what? IMO, they are doing what any and every human would do, with very few exceptions. all they are doing is protecting the wealth accumulated over many generations(money to them is survival of their cultural hertitage). what we are seeing is an apex of their wealth accumulation being challenged as they have overstepped. what is owed is billions of hours of labor stolen from billions of humans. and this my friend is the true parable from my commonsense book., volumn I.
and maybe what truely makes this revolution different is the information is available to anyone seeking the truth.
"they are doing what any and every human would do, with very few exceptions."
What you are really saying is that you would do what they do. Very few goyim that I know would crucify Jesus, firebomb Dresden, nuke Nagasaki, or torture and murder tens of millions of Russian Orthodox Christians and Armenians. What race are you anyway, or have your ancestors miscegenated so much that you no longer have a clue?
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Feb 21, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
But just who are these self-appointed gatekeepers who claim to be the ultimate arbiters of what is or is not "fake news"?WND found "fact-checker" sites run by:
A gamer. A leftist, Trump-hating, feminist professor who specializes in "fat studies." A sex-and-fetish blogger. A health-industry worker. Organizations with billionaire Democratic Party activists and donors. And another guy who went to extreme lengths to conceal his identity. But most of the self-appointed "fact-checker" sites had one thing in common: President Trump – and the news sites that dare to give him a fair shake – are overwhelmingly their favorite targets.
The websites often show an obvious bias against conservative-leaning outlets. And many fail to include clear explanations of the criteria they use for determining whether a news site is legitimate. Other "experts" offer little or no biographical information establishing their qualifications for making judgments about journalism quality.
WND has compiled the following list of the Top 9 "fakest 'fake-news' checkers."
1. PigscastThe website Pigscast , which stands for Politics, Internet Gaming and Sports, was founded by "gamer" Will Healy .
In a Reddit forum discussing the chart, Healy explains in late January: "I tried to base as much of it off this site that someone posted in the thread yesterday mediabiasfactcheck.com ."
On Jan. 25, Healy tweeted his chart of news organizations and the message, "Stop #FakeNews, check out this news guide @ThePigscast #Pigscast #alternative facts."
He ranked the news organizations as "Garbage Left (not worth it)," "Hyper-Partisan Left (To Confirm Your Beliefs)," "Leans Left (Not Horrible)," "Neutral (What Journalism Should Be)," "Leans Right (Not Horrible)," "Hyper-Partisan Right (To Confirm Your Beliefs)" and "Garbage Right (Not Worth It)."
Healy labeled WND, the Drudge Report, the Blaze, Accuracy in Media, the Family Research Council, Breitbart and other organizations as "Garbage Right (Not Worth It)."
However, Healy considers the following to be "Neutral (What Journalism Should Be)": Reuters, USA Today, the Texas Tribune, Financial Times, Associated Press, C-SPAN and the Economist. Even NPR is located partially in the "neutral" category on his chart.
One Twitter user named Nigel Fenwick asked Healy : "Hi Will – is this your own graphic? What's the basis of this analysis? What data was used? Is it objective or subjective?"
Healy simply replied : "[M]ost of this was from mediabiasfactcheck.com but note this is just the first draft. I plan on a final version later."
WND's request for comment from Healy concerning his news ranking methodology and expertise in evaluating news organizations hadn't been returned at the time of this report.
He appears to have some anti-Trump views. On Election Day, Healy tweeted: "Anyone who voted third party should hold their head high. They didn't vote for a horrible candidate. That they voted their conscience." 2. Media Bias Fact Check
MediaBIasFactCheck.com describes itself as "the most comprehensive media bias resource in the Internet." The site is owned by Dave Van Zandt from North Carolina, who offers no biographical information about himself aside from the following: "Dave has been freelancing for 25+ years for a variety of print and web mediums (sic), with a focus on media bias and the role of media in politics. Dave is a registered Non-Affiliated voter who values evidence based reporting" and, "Dave Van Zandt obtained a Communications Degree before pursuing a higher degree in the sciences. Dave currently works full time in the health care industry. Dave has spent more than 20 years as an arm chair researcher on media bias and its role in political influence."
WND was unable to locate a single article with Van Zandt's byline. Ironically, the "fact checker" fails to establish his own credibility by disclosing his qualifications and training in evaluating news sources.
Asked for information concerning his expertise in the field of journalism and evaluating news sources, Van Zandt told WND: "I am not a journalist and just a person who is interested in how media bias impacts politics. You will find zero claims of expertise on the website."
Concerning his purported "25+ years" of experience writing for print and web media, he said: "I am not sure why the 25+ years is still on the website. That was removed a year ago when I first started the website. All of the writing I did was small print news zines from the '90s. I felt that what I wrote in the '90s is not related to what I am doing today so I removed it. Again, I am not a journalist. I simply have a background in communications and more importantly science where I learned to value evidence over all else. Through this I also became interested in research of all kinds, especially media bias, which is difficult to measure and is subjective to a degree."
WND asked: Were your evaluations reviewed by any experts in the industry?
"I can't say they have," Van Zandt replied. "Though the right-of-center Atlantic Council is using our data for a project they are working on." Van Zandt says he uses "three volunteers" to "research and assist in fact checking." However, he adds that he doesn't pay them for their services.
Van Zandt lists WND on his "Right Bias" page , alongside news organizations such as Fox News, the Drudge Report, the Washington Free Beacon, the Daily Wire, the Blaze, Breitbart, Red State, Project Veritas, PJ Media, National Review, Daily Caller and others.
"These media sources are highly biased toward conservative causes," Van Zandt writes. "They utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Sources in this category may be untrustworthy."
His special notes concerning WND link to Snopes.com and PolitiFact.com, websites that have their own questionable reputations and formulas as so-called "fact checkers." (See the "Snopes" and "PolitiFact" entries below.)
Van Zandt says he uses a "strict methodology" in determining which news sources are credible , but his website offers vague and typo-ridden explanations of his criteria, such as the following:
Asked if his own political leanings influence his evaluations, Van Zandt said: "Sure it is possible. However, our methodology is designed to eliminate most of that. We also have a team of 4 researchers with different political leanings so that we can further reduce researcher bias."
Bill Palmer of the website Daily News Bin accused Van Zandt of retaliating when the Daily News Bin contacted him about his rating. Palmer wrote :
"[I]t turns out Van Zandt has a vindictive streak. After one hapless social media user tried to use his phony 'Media Bias Fact Check' site to dispute a thoroughly sourced article from this site, Daily News Bin, we made the mistake of contacting Van Zandt and asking him to take down his ridiculous 'rating' – which consisted of nothing more than hearsay such as 'has been accused of being satire.' Really? When? By whom? None of those facts seem to matter to the guy running this 'Media Bias Fact Check' scam.
"But instead of acknowledging that he'd been caught in the act, Van Zandt retaliated against Daily News Bin by changing his rating to something more sinister. He also added a link to a similar phony security company called World of Trust, which generates its ratings by allowing random anonymous individuals to post whatever bizarre conspiracy theories they want, and then letting these loons vote on whether that news site is 'real' or not. These scam sites are now trying to use each other for cover, in order to back up the false and unsubstantiated 'ratings' they semi-randomly assign respected news outlets.
"'Media Bias Fact Check' is truly just one guy making misleading claims about news outlets while failing to back them up with anything, while maliciously changing the ratings to punish any news outlets that try to expose the invalidity of what he's doing."
But Van Zandt accused Palmer of threatening him , and he said MediaBiasFactCheck welcomes criticism. If evidence is provided, he said, the site will correct its errors.
"Bottom line is, we are not trying to be something we are not," he said. "We have disclaimers on every page of the website indicating that our method is not scientifically proven and that there is [sic] subjective judgments being used as it is unavoidable with determining bias."
3. Fake News CheckerFakeNewsChecker.com is another self-appointed "fact checker" run by anonymous individuals. The website offers no contact information.
As WND reported , the site is publishing "fake news," specifically "fake news" about WND. It claims that WND's founder and CEO, Joseph Farah, "received donations from the Donald Trump superPAC "Great America "PAC" (sic) calling into further question the motives behind the 'fake' and conspiratorial nature of the content."
But there's one major problem with the site's purported "fact."
WND didn't get any donations from any superPACs, "not this one or any other," company officials confirmed.
FakeNewsChecker.com effectively categorizes as "fake" virtually all news resources except those in the "mainstream media," which surveys reveal are enjoying less and less consumer trust these days.
The website states:
Fake news has become a catchall term for news sources that lack journalistic integrity. These sites use sensational headlines, make false claims, exaggerate the editorial spin to reflect a bias, are misleading, are conspiratorial, are anti-science, promote propaganda, are written in satire or just plain hoaxes. Many of the sites are untrustworthy because they begin with a premise that is close to a truth and build a false story around it. Please check your sources and your emotions as you read the articles on these sites.
4. Trump-bashing prof's 'hit list' of 'fake' news sitesThe mainstream media went wild circulating a viral list of so-called "fake news" websites in November 2016 – and the list included established news sites like WND, Breitbart, Red State, the Daily Wire and Project Veritas – but WND found a leftist, Trump-bashing assistant professor in Massachusetts who specialized in "fat studies" was behind the effort to target and discredit legitimate news organizations.
Meet Merrimack College Assistant Professor Melissa Zimdars, a 30-something self-identified feminist and activist who has expressed great dislike for President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Merrimack College assistant professor Melissa Zimdars, author of the "fake news" list circulated online (Photo: Twitter)
She had only actually held her teaching position at the private college in North Andover, Massachusetts, for 15 months when she published her "fake news" list.
Zimdars published and circulated a list of "fake, false, or regularly misleading websites that are shared on Facebook and social media." She said she began writing the list because she didn't approve of the sources her students were citing.
The problem?
In addition to some satirical and bogus sites, her list attacks the credibility of well-established news organizations such as Breitbart , BizPac Review , Red State , the Blaze , the Independent Journal Review , Twitchy , the Daily Wire , WND and James O'Keefe's Project Veritas . In many cases (such as with her WND listing), she offers no explanation for why the news organizations were included on the list. Mainstream media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times circulated Zimdars' growing list. The Times headlined its story, "Want to keep fake news out of your newsfeed? College professor creates list of sites to avoid." The Times offered no details concerning Zimdars' qualifications or background. News organizations such as CNN , the Washington Post , Boston Globe , New York Magazine , USA Today , Business Insider , the Austin American-Statesman , the Dallas Morning News and others spread the list like gospel and cited it in their reports.
But nearly none of them considered Zimdars' political leanings or questioned her criteria or qualifications for determining which news sources should be included on her list.
Zimdars teaches courses in radio, production, mass communication, feminist media studies, television criticism and new media and digital communication. She received her doctorate in communication and media studies just in 2015.
In response to the list, PJ Media's Stephen Kruiser wrote , "It's no surprise that a college professor compiled this list; what's galling is that the Los Angeles Times 'reported' on it without mentioning that it's complete garbage."
Sean Hannity's website warned that Zimdars' list includes "mainstream conservative sources" and "is giving us insight into just what kind of websites the left plans on targeting for censorship."
In addition to her new job as an assistant professor, Zimdars is also a columnist and contributor for Little Village Magazine – a left-leaning magazine that says it's focused on issues such as "racial justice," "gender equity," "critical culture," "economic and labor justice" and "environmental sustainability." Her Twitter profile describes her as a "feminist" and "activist."
Zimdars' social-media accounts are protected from public view, leading tweeter Vanessa Beeley to note that Zimdars "can't take the heat. Named 'fake media' & then protected all her own media sites."
5. International Fact-Checking NetworkIn December, Facebook announced it would use the International Fact-Checking Network, or IFCN, to check on the legitimacy of news articles posted to the social media site. IFCN is hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and funded, in part, by Google and foundations of leftist billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates. Soros donated $25 million to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The Daily Mail reported that Clinton super-donor and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is also backing the project.
In response to Facebook's announcement, FrontPage said conservatives should consider ditching Facebook.
"In essence, Facebook is giving the partisan left free space on conservative news links. It's also allowing them to undermine a conservative link while promoting their own agenda," FrontPage said.
"It's not quite censorship, but the partnership with left-wing partisan 'checkers' helps move it to the next step of barring sites outright. For the moment, Facebook has decided that you shouldn't just be able to share links to what you're interested in without the left getting a say.
"This is yet another reason for conservatives to rethink being on Facebook."
The website reveals: "Poynter's IFCN has received funding from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Duke Reporters' Lab, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Foundations and the Park Foundation."
Alexios Mantzarlis runs IFCN, which does not appear to have published any "fact-checking" articles since 2015.
However, a Feb. 16 Poynter "news" headline blasted "President Trump's anti-media meltdown." From the very beginning, the story trashed the president for unveiling "an alternate universe in which virtually every problem of his is a creation of the press."
"In a rambling, angry and contradictory media meltdown, Trump bashed 'the failing New York Times,' The Wall Street Journal, CNN and the BBC, among others, following a fleeting announcement of a new nominee for Labor Secretary," wrote Poynter's James Warren. "It constituted what at minimum is a quadrupling down – or might it be quintupling down? – on a transparent strategy to portray the press as an opposition party."
In the same post, Warren continued: "Never has Trump's personal obsession with coverage of himself been so vivid. It was only sidetracked, it seemed, by an odd array of declarations and claims. Those included his taking selective and self-serving use of polling to new depths, while also proffering a new species of political self-congratulation during his strikingly defensive performance: prospectively heralding the 'massive' crowd to attend a Saturday rally in Melbourne, Florida."
6. Washington Post Fact Checker
The Washington Post's Fact Checker has come under fire repeatedly, as critics charge it has a left-leaning bias.
Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler
As WND reported , Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, who is also a Democratic Party donor and controls a personal investment firm that owns the Washington Post, had an army of 20 newspaper staffers to scour Donald Trump's life for any dirt they could find on the presumptive GOP nominee. Bezos, a Seattle billionaire and the world's 19th wealthiest man , purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million.
The Washington Post's Fact Checker uses Pinocchio ratings to rate the truthfulness of statements. Zero Pinocchios means a statement is true. Two makes the statement half true. Three means mostly false, and four indicates it is false.
Red State reported that Washington Post "Fact Check" columnist Glenn Kessler fell for fake campaign ads claiming Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, campaigned to be mayor of New York City in the 1970s.
Washington Post "Fact Checker" Michelle Ye Hee Lee
In 2015, the Washington Free Beacon's David Rutz published a list of "5 Times the Washington Post failed at fact-checking."
And in August 2016, the Washington Post's Fact Checker came under fire from the New York Post after it "fact checked" Trump's statements concerning Hillary Clinton lacking stamina to be president. The Fact Checker gave Trump its worst rating.
"Trump has claimed twice, without proof, that Clinton lacks the physical and mental stamina to be president," it said. "In the absence of any evidence, he earns Four Pinocchios."
But New York Post writer Eddie Scarry observed : "Curious that the Post, in earnest, would fact-check Trump's opinion on his opponent's energy level. The paper didn't bother to investigate the veracity of Clinton's claim in late May that Trump 'lacks the temperament to lead our nation and the free world."
7. Snopes
Snopes.com , a website that's been around since 1995, is sometimes cited by other "fact-checking" sites to support their claims. Facebook has indicated it plans to use Snopes as one of its arbiters of "fake news." But WND revealed the site has been criticized by conservatives for a left-leaning bias and admits it has no standard procedure for fact-checking.
Kim LaCapria, principal fact checker at Snopes, has blogged as "Vice Vixen" and offered sex toy tips
One of Snopes' leading fact-checkers is a former sex-and-fetish blogger who described her routine as smoking pot and posting to Snopes.com, and the company now is embroiled in a legal dispute between its former married founders that includes accusations the CEO used company money for prostitutes.
"This is Facebook's high journalistic standard," commented Pamela Geller, an author and blogger who focuses on the politically incorrect subject of Islam and terrorism.
"What a joke," she wrote on her blog . "Facebook's fact checkers will be used to censor and ban conservative perspectives, not to distinguish truth from falsehood. Everyone knows that."
The Daily Mail of London reported one of Snopes.com's main fact checkers, Kim LaCapria, is disclosed to be a former sex-blogger who called herself "Vice Vixen."
Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told WND in December that she thinks the uproar over "fake news" is a "narrative-driven propaganda campaign."
"I think there's an agenda to censor the news as opposed to actually trying to eliminate fake news," she said.
A DailyMail.com investigation found that Snopes.com's founders, former husband and wife David and Barbara Mikkelson, are embroiled in a lengthy and bitter legal dispute in the wake of their divorce.
He has since remarried to a former escort and porn actress who is one of the site's staff members.
Snopes Founder David Mikkelson with his new wife, Snopes staff member Elyssa Young
Barbara Mikkelson accuses her ex-husband of embezzlement while David claims she took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas.
One of Snopes.com's lead fact-checkers is Kim LaCapria, the Daily Mail reported, who has also been a sex-and-fetish blogger who went by the pseudonym "Vice Vixen." Her blog had "a specific focus on naughtiness, sin, carnal pursuits, and general hedonism and bonne vivante-ery."
Snopes Founder Barbara Mikkelson (Photo: Facebook)
Her day-off activities she said on another blog were: "played scrabble, smoked pot, and posted to Snopes.'"
"That's what I did on my day "on," too," she added.
David Mikkelson told the the Daily Mail that Snopes does not have a "standardized procedure" for fact-checking "since the nature of this material can vary widely."
He said the process of fact-checking "'involves multiple stages of editorial oversight, so no output is the result of a single person's discretion."
Snopes has no formal requirements for fact-checkers, he told the London paper, because the variety of the work "would be difficult to encompass in any single blanket set of standards."
Mikkelson has denied that Snopes takes any political position, but the Daily Mail noted his new wife ran for U.S. congress in Hawaii as a Libertarian in 2004.
During the campaign she handed out "Re-Defeat Bush" cards and condoms stamped with the slogan "Don't get screwed again."
"Let's face it, I am an unlikely candidate. I fully admit that I am a courtesan," she wrote on her campaign website.
8. PolitiFact
In December, PolitiFact.com was identified by Facebook as one of the sites the social media platform would use to label "fake news" stories. But Breitbart reported, "Facebook's decision to tout PolitiFact as a credible and independent fact checker is awfully disturbing, given the organization's repeated smear campaign against Donald Trump throughout the 2016 election."
"OH HELL NO," was the response from the Weekly Standard's Mark Hemingway to Facebook's announcement that it would use PolitiFact.com to check news stories.
"Facebook is bringing in Poynter/PolitiFact to police 'fake news'? They're INCREDIBLY biased," he said.
In December 2015, PolitiFact claimed 76 percent of all Donald Trump's statements were "mostly false," "false" or "pants on fire."
PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan
Breitbart noted that PolitiFact pushed "fact checks" to discredit Republicans while promoting stories that favored Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.
In fact, one of PolitiFact's largest contributors is Clinton donor Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation. Ibarguen contributed $200,000 to the 8th annual Clinton Global Initiative University meeting in February 2015, Breitbart reported . The Knight Foundation also donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation, Politico reported.
PolitiFact's editor is Angie Drobnic Holan, who helped launch the site in 2007.
Breitbart's Jerome Hudson published an analysis that included the following list of reasons PolitiFact is "unqualified to be an objective judge of what's real and 'fake' news":
1. Last March, PolitiFact delivered a " mostly false " rating for a joke made by Republican Senator Ted Cruz.
2. Last April, PolitiFact made phone calls and sent a reporter to investigate whether Governor Scott Walker actually "paid one dollar for" a sweater he bought at Kohl's. PolitiFact later ruled Walker's claim "true."
3. When Trump said Clinton wants "open borders," PolitiFact deemed his statement "mostly false" - despite the fact that Clinton admitted as much in a private, paid speech to a Brazilian bank on May 16, 2013. "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders," she said at the time.
4. PolitiFact cast doubts on comments Pat Smith made during her emotional speech at the Republican National Convention, where she said Hillary Clinton said "a video was responsible" for her son's death during the terror attacks in Benghazi.
Smith was referring to when she "saw Hillary Clinton at Sean's coffin ceremony," and then-Secretary of State Clinton "looked me squarely in the eye and told me a video was responsible."
But PolitiFact, taking an oddly defensive stance, said Smith's memory could've been "fuzzy" and referred its readers, instead, to a "brief meeting behind closed doors" where Clinton addressed the families of the victims of the attack.
5. Despite video evidence to the contrary , PolitiFact claimed Hillary Clinton didn't laugh about Kathy Shelton's rape as a child. Trump invited Shelton to the second presidential debate and called out Clinton's embarrassing behavior.
Again, moving to dismiss and downplay Clinton's actions, PolitiFact wrote: "Trump is referring to an audio tape in which she does respond with amusement at her recollections of the oddities of the case, which involve the prosecution and the judge. At no point does she laugh at the victim."
6. In an attempt to explain Hillary Clinton's role in the sale of 25 percent of the United States' uranium stockpile, Politifact ignored numerous key facts, downplayed other key facts, and ultimately made 13 errors in its analysis .
7. A few months later, PolitiFact was, again, attempting to whitewash Clinton's role in the Russian uranium deal. Like PolitiFact's first foray into the subject, the second report commits many factual errors and is full of glaring inaccuracies and omissions.
8. During a televised campaign event , Clinton said Australia's compulsory gun buyback program "would be worth considering" in the U.S.
When the National Rifle Association included Clinton's comments on one of its flyers, PolitiFact ruled the organization's claim "mostly false."
9. While PolitiFact admitted that Trump's claim that Russia's arsenal of nuclear warheads has expanded and the U.S.' has not, the left-wing outfit deemed Trump's statement " half true ."
In a June 2016 piece published at Investor's Business Daily , Media Research Center President Brent Bozell wrote:
"This is a pattern with PolitiFact. Overall, they've rated Trump "False"/"Mostly False"/"Pants on Fire" 77% of the time. But they've rated Clinton "False" and "Mostly False" only 26% of the time.
"The PolitiFact political agenda jumps off the page. On the Republican side, Sen. Ted Cruz lands on the "False" side 65% of the time, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 57% of the time and former Sen. Rick Santorum 55% of the time. For Democrats, President Obama is ruled false 25% of the time, and Sen. Bernie Sanders is false only 30% of the time. This is the guy who routinely says, 'the business model of Wall Street is fraud.'"
Also, in 2013, WND reported PolitiFact misled the public on Obamacare .
A 2013 study from the George Mason University Center for Media and Public Affairs found that PolitiFact determines Republicans are dishonest nearly three times as often as it reaches the same conclusion for Democrats.
"PolitiFact.com has rated Republican claims as false three times as often as Democratic claims during President Obama's second term," the center said, "despite controversies over Obama administration statements on Benghazi, the IRS and the AP."
9. FactCheck.org
FactCheck.org was launched by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which was founded by the late philanthropists Walter and Lenore Annenberg, friends of former Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. FactCheck's current editor is Angie Drobnic Holan .
The website is perhaps the least overtly partisan "fact checker" in this list. However, the organization came under fire after it published a July 21, 2015, piece called "Unspinning the Planned Parenthood Video," an entry that defended the abortion provider during the baby-parts scandal. Several leftist groups linked to the article, tweeted it and shared it on Facebook.
FactCheck.org Director Emeritus Brooks Jackson
Breitbart's John Sexton noted that FactCheck.org only addressed one video in a series of at least seven videos exposing the baby-parts trade. The site wrote about an interview with Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood, who commented on crushing babies. Nucatola also suggested Planned Parenthood is satisfied with turning a profit in the body-parts trade, so long as doing so doesn't make the nonprofit look bad.
Sexton writes : Here is how FactCheck frames Nucatola's admission: 'Nucatola does make one statement in the unedited video that suggests to critics that some clinics would be comfortable with a payment that was slightly more than their expenses for providing the tissue.' Is this really only suggestive to critics? Why isn't it just a fact that she admitted it despite her obvious concern about getting caught? And is it possible Planned Parenthood has supporters as well? Might the supporters be eager to downplay this admission? FactCheck doesn't have anything to say about that. It's another instance of the real story being sidestepped by introducing a partisan narrative, i.e. 'Republicans pounced.'"
In yet another article concerning FactCheck.org , Breitbart reported the site was forced to "make an embarrassing correction" after it appeared to have made up a quote that never appeared in Peter Schweizer's book, "Clinton Cash." The site falsely claimed Schweizer wrote in his book that Hillary Clinton had "veto power" and "could have stopped" the sale of 20 percent of U.S. uranium to the Russian government.
In 2016, FactCheck.org claimed TV host Bill Nye is "more of a scientist than [Sarah] Palin," and the site listed his "six honorary doctorate degrees, including Ph.D.s in science from Goucher College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute" as evidence for its assertion.
In 2015, FactCheck.org dubbed Donald Trump the "King of Whoppers."
"In the 12 years of FactCheck.org's existence, we've never seen his match," the site wrote. "He stands out not only for the sheer number of his factually false claims, but also for his brazen refusals to admit error when proven wrong."
In a post titled, "Trump's bogus voter fraud claims," FactCheck.org stated, "Donald Trump is citing unsubstantiated urban myths and a contested academic study to paint a false narrative about rampant voter fraud in the U.S. and the likelihood of a 'rigged' election."
While Trump said the U.S. has a problem with ballots that are cast by illegal immigrants and on behalf of dead people – a 2014 study in the Electoral Studies Journal shows illegals may have cast as many as 2.8 million votes in 2008 and 2010 and investigations have found that ballots have been cast for dead people in multiple elections – FactCheck.org found, "his evidence is lacking," and "researchers say voter fraud involving ballots cast on behalf of deceased voters is rare."
Any examination of a "fact-checking" website would not be complete without a look at the organization's primary source of funding. FactCheck.org receives the largest amount of its funding from the Annenberg Foundation , which funds a number of nonprofits. The foundation funded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to the tune of $49.2 million. In 1995, Barack Obama was a founding member of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. He remained on the board until 2001, when the challenge was phased out.
According to CNN , the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was the brainchild of Weather Underground terrorist group co-founder Bill Ayers. "A review of board minutes and records by CNN show Obama crossed paths repeatedly with Ayers at board meetings of the Annenberg Challenge Project," CNN reported. The Wall Street Journal reported , "The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists."
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Feb 12, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
im1dc : February 12, 2017 at 07:44 PM
The Tax stuff is maybe, this is happening nowlibezkova -> im1dc..."America's Biggest Creditors Dump Treasuries in Warning to Trump"
by Brian Chappatta...February 12, 2017...5:00 PM EST
> Japanese investors cull U.S. government debt by most since '13
> Currency-hedged returns were worst on record last quarter
"In the age of Trump, America's biggest foreign creditors are suddenly having second thoughts about financing the U.S. government.
In Japan, the largest holder of Treasuries, investors culled their stakes in December by the most in almost four years, the Ministry of Finance's most recent figures show. What's striking is the selling has persisted at a time when going abroad has rarely been so attractive. And it's not just the Japanese. Across the world, foreigners are pulling back from U.S. debt like never before.
From Tokyo to Beijing and London, the consensus is clear: few overseas investors want to step into the $13.9 trillion U.S. Treasury market right now. Whether it's the prospect of bigger deficits and more inflation under President Donald Trump or higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve, the world's safest debt market seems less of a sure thing -- particularly after the upswing in yields since November. And then there is Trump's penchant for saber rattling, which has made staying home that much easier.
"It may be more difficult than usual for Japanese to invest in Treasuries and the dollar this year because of political uncertainty," said Kenta Inoue, chief strategist for overseas bond investments at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo. "Treasury yields may rise rapidly again in the near future, which will continue to discourage them from buying aggressively."
Nobody is saying that foreigners will abandon Treasuries altogether. After all, they still hold $5.94 trillion, or roughly 43 percent of the U.S. government debt market. (Though that's down from 56 percent in 2008.) A significant drawdown can harm major holders like Japan and China as much as it does the U.S.
And, of course, homegrown demand has of late been able to absorb the pickup in overseas selling..."
im1dc,Here is the link https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-02-12/america-s-biggest-creditors-dump-treasuries-in-warning-to-trump )
Bloomberg, like WaPo and NYT, is "a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Deep State"
Thank God they stopped their Putin-did-it nonsense. Now they have found something new along the lines Trump-did-it. Both those attempts to control the narrative are false and dishonest.
I understand that Trump is now assigned to be as designated scapegoat for all blunders of three previous neoliberal administrations.
But can you please ask yourself two very simple questions:
- Who and how accumulated that much debt?
- Who did run the wars of neoliberal empire expansion to the tune of five trillion dollars?
Was it Trump?
I would greatly appreciated if you can answer them in the reply to this post. Or, even better, make some pause in posting neoliberal propaganda.
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Jan 08, 2017 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Posted on January 8, 2017 by Lambert Strether By Lambert Strether of Corrente ."It took me a long time to discover that the key thing in acting is honesty. Once you know how to fake that, you've got it made." –Actor in Peyton Place, 1970
So the news is like sincerity (and honesty) ? Or not? Interestingly, the epigraph comes from the start of the neoliberal dispensation, but let's not go down a rathole of meta. Or rather, let's go down another rathole of meta by quoting defeated Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who seems to have been the (self-infected) Patient Zero for the "fake news" moral panic when she spoke these words ( C-SPAN ) at the unveiling of Harry Reid's portrait, December 8, 2016:
[CLINTON:] Let me just mention briefly one threat in particular that should concern all Americans, Democrats, Republicans and independents alike, especially those who serve in our Congress: the epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year . It's now clear that so-called fake news can have real-world consequences . This isn't about politics or partisanship. Lives are at risk, lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days, to do their jobs, contribute to their communities.
IIt's a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly. Bipartisan legislation is making its way through Congress to boost the government's response to foreign propaganda , and Silicon Valley is starting to grapple with the challenge and threat of fake news . It's imperative that leaders in both the private sector and the public sector step up to protect our democracy and innocent lives."
(Presumably that "bipartisan" - dread word - legislation was the "Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act," discussed at NC in detail here .) Parsing this verbiage, we find it unusually sloppy and dishonest, even for Clinton. What, for example, is the distinction between "malicious fake news" and "so-called fake news"? Is sincerely meant (not "malicious") and/or genuine (not "so-called") fake news not really fake? And how is it that we start with "false propaganda" and end with "foreign propaganda"? Obviously, whatever "danger" is to be "addressed" can't be from "fake news" as such, since conceptually there's no there there. Democrat establishment lapdog Paul Krugman makes Clinton's agenda more clear:
Still, none of this would work without the complicity of the news media. And I'm not talking about "fake news," as big a problem as that is becoming; I'm talking about respectable, mainstream news coverage.
So, "fake news" just doesn't happen in "respectable, mainstream news" outlets (showing Yves was quite right to cite to independent, alternative media , like Naked Capitalism, as being under the blame cannons). But Krugman's vulgar institutionalism gets us no forrader on "fake news" conceptually, does it? Here's the best taxonomy of "fake news" that I've been able to find. From Matthew E. Kahn's blog, Environmental and Urban Economics, "The Economics of Fake News":
There are four cases to consider.
Case #1: Both the supplier and demander know that the story is false. Think of the National Enquirer stories stating that Elvis is on Mars.
Case #2: The supplier knows the story is false but the demander believes the story is true.
Case #3: The supplier believes the story is true and the demander believes the story is true.
Case #4: The supplier believes the story is true and the demander believes the story is false.
"Fake News" has no social consequences in cases #1 or case #4. Case #3 will feature no strategic element. This is just Tiebout sorting[1] in ideological space.
Tellingly, the articles listed at the Snopes "fake news" tag (e.g., "Did a Man Lock His Daughter in a Cage for Overusing a Snapchat Filter?" [FALSE]) fall primarily into Case #1 (that is, no social consequence, since both supplier and demander know the fake news is fake). And the "malicious" "foreign" WikiLeaks, DCLeaks, and Guccifer Democrat email leaks are Case #3: The supplier believes the story is true, and the demander believes the story is true.[2]. Case #4 (the supplier believes the story is true, and the demander believes the story is false) may end up applying to us all, if current trends continue , but again, let's not go down the rathole.
So the interesting case is Case #2: The supplier knows the story is false but the demander believes the story is true. And the nice thing about Kahn's taxonomy is that it abstracts away from institutions, so we don't have to accept Krugman's silly, and self-serving, notion that "mainstream publications" don't produce "fake news." Here's the definition of "fake" from my Oxford English Dictionary:
fake [adjective & noun(2)] /feɪk/ Orig. slang. l18. [ORIGIN: Rel. to fake verb2.] A. adjective. Spurious, counterfeit, sham. l18. Glasgow Herald Fake whisky..the symptoms following consumption are similar to those of gastric poisoning.
I mean, come on. Nobody ever said that alternative, independent, small distilleries are the only institutions that every produced fake whiskey, right?
Before I dig more deeply into Case #2, I'd like to introduce an additional case:
Case #5: The supplier knows the story is true, but the demander knows nothing about it at all
(This introduces a pleasing element of informational asymmetry into Kahn's model, enabling it to conform more closely to the real world. The example I have in mind comes from Operative K's employer, the New York Times. From FAIR :
By any standard, the New York Times ' story of December 16 was a blockbuster: Reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed that following the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration initiated warrantless wiretaps on hundreds of people within the U.S.–including U.S. citizens–even though a federal law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, expressly forbids the government from doing so. This program was legal only if one accepts the administration's contention that the executive branch has essentially unlimited powers during "wartime" (even though Congress has not declared war).
The Times story would be an outstanding example of how the First Amendment works to protect liberty–were it not for the ninth paragraph:
The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
The reasoning is absurd on its face. As Times executive editor Bill Keller noted in a statement released on December 16 explaining his decision to publish the story, "The fact that the government eavesdrops on those suspected of terrorist connections is well-known." But this was as obvious a year ago as it is today. As for the government's spying being "jeopardized," placing illegal and unconstitutional programs in jeopardy is the whole point of the First Amendment ( Extra! Update , 12/05 ).
But Keller's statement revealed that the Times does not see itself as competent to watch out for illegal government activity. In explaining the delay, Keller stated that the administration had "assured senior editors of the Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions." Keller went on to say that "it is not our place to pass judgment on the legal or civil liberties questions involved in such a program, but it became clear those questions loomed larger within the government than we had previously understood."
In other words, Keller believes it is the Times ' "place" to accept officials' own evaluation of the legality of their behavior.
What FAIR delicately omits to mention is that the Times had and then spiked the story before election 2004 , and therefore suppressing it until Bush was safely elected might well have affected the (very close) Presidential race, which everybody is so concerned that fake news does, right?
Now, is Case #5 - suppressed news - really news ? I would argue that is it is. The replaced pages in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia were surely part of that Encyclopedia, and in less well-regulated polities than our own, censored news is simply printed as blank columns:
Back to Case #2, which I'd argue should be refined, again through the introduction of information asymmetry. On the supplier side, we need to introduce the possiblity of delusion as opposed to malevolence, and on the demander side, "Cassandras" (a minority) as opposed to believers (the great majority)[3]. The case study I have in mind is Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in the case of the Iraq War.
I remember the WMD case of fake news - news that is "spurious, counterfeit, sham" as the OED has it - well, because it happened in my very first year of blogging, in 2003. (Cue the "I'm so old, I remember ______" snowclone jokes.) The justifications for Saddam's WMDs came thick and fast: The aluminum tubes, the white powders, the yellowcake uranium, the mobile biological laboratories, the drones, the atropine, the "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." As soon as one story was debunked - which foul-mouthed bloggers of the left using open sources could do quite easily, within hours - another story would pop up. Only later did we learn that it didn't just feel like playing whack-a-mole; it was playing whack-a-mole; The Bush White House was planting stories in the press (through a process, for those who came in late, very similar to what the Clinton campaign used, as shown in the Wikileaks Podesta email dump).
The long-forgotten Sam Gardiner, Colonel, USAF (Retired)[4], interviewed by Kevin Zeese in Counterpunch , describes the supplier side:
[GARDINER:]As the war unfolded, I became increasingly uneasy about what was being reported out of the White House, Pentagon and Central Command. I was hearing things that just did not make sense with what I knew and what my intuition was telling me. I began tracking some of the stories. It was just a matter of going over what we were told and connecting that with the truth as it emerged later.
There is absolutely no question that the White House and the Pentagon participated in an effort to market the military option. The truth did not make any difference to that campaign. To call it fixing is to miss the more profound point. It was a campaign to influence. It involved creating false stories; it involved exaggerating; it involved manipulating the numbers of stories that were released; it involved a major campaign to attack those who disagreed with the military option. It included all the techniques those who ran the marketing effort had learned in political campaigns.
We [know] the WMD story fairly well. We know the story of the uranium from Niger. We know about the aluminum tubes that were not for uranium enrichment. We know the biological labs Powell showed to the UN did not exist.
[ZEESE:] Is the media being fooled by the Administration or is it complicit in this effort to misinform the public?
[GARDINER:]The media have been fooled. They have been lazy. They have lost sight of the historic calling of journalism. Journalists have been replaced on television by cheerleaders.
[ZEESE:] How much did this campaign of misinformation cost?
[GARDINER:] Tough question, Kevin. I don't think it possible to get a total handle on the effort. I have read one estimate that put the marketing at $200 million. That cost is trivial, however, to the collateral damage that has been done to democracy.
And on the demand side, some may actually have believed their own bullshit. Former White House insider Richard Clarke , interviewed in 2004:
[GUARDIAN]: Do you believe the administration believed the intelligence on Iraqi WMD?
[CLARKE]: We all believed Saddam had WMD.
And Bush Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice in 2007 :
[RICE:] We all believed the intelligence was strong. It wasn't just a problem with intelligence in the United States, it was an intelligence problem worldwide. Services across the world thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."
So, give Rice and Clarke the benefit of the doubt, and put them in the delusional bucket on the supplier side, as opposed to the malevolent bucket. That said, those in the malevolent bucket were the drivers supporting policy, as we knew ( in 2005 ) from The Downing Street Memo. Quoting it :
SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL – UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
.C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy . The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
Gardiner's estimate of $200 million would buy rather a lot of "fixed" facts, eh? Even at Beltway rates.
* * * So that's my walk on memory lane on fake news. The utter effrontery of Clinton, and her lapdog, yammering about fake news from Macedonian teenagers on social media, after fake news from the mainstream press - very much including the Times' own infamous Judy Miller - helped foment the Iraq War just boggles the mind. And all those faraway brown people blown to pink mist make Clinton's "lives are at risk" especially nauseating. I'm gobsmacked by the "fake news" moral panic, hornswoggled, beyond flummoxed. Or I would be, if only Clinton blaming fake news for her loss weren't just another example of Democrats never holding themselves responsible for anything.
Oh, and at some point I should propose some solutions. Obviously, the whole fact-checking paradigm is wrong; I'm so old I remember when we had editors and reporters to do that, so returning to those days would be a start, at least. So, whatever public policy it would take to get more local newspapers going again is something we should think about. We should also think about breaking up ginormous media monopolies; after all, epidemics spread more easily in a monoculture. And then there's Facebook; maybe they shouldn't be in the algorithmic newsfeed business at all; after all, the most reliable parts of a program are the ones that aren't there. And Facebook, too, is an enormous monopoly. Perhaps there should be more power centers in social media, as well. Just some thoughts.[5] Readers?
NOTE
Bud from legal insists that I say this post solely represents the views of "Lambert Strether," and does not represent the views of Naked Capitalism.
NOTES
[1] "Tiebout sorting refers to the sorting of households into neighborhoods and communities according to their willingness and ability to pay for local public goods," via Encyclopedia of Education Economics & Finance . Here is an NBER paper: "Tiebout Sorting and Neighborhood Stratification" (PDF).
[2] The "demanders" in the Clinton campaign would disagree, but the Rice-Davies Rule applies. None of that mail has even debunked, despite false claims by the Clinton campaign . Whether the mail had no strategic consequence, especially at the margin, is another issue entirely.
[3] Leaving aside, again, the dystopia where demanders believe all stories are false.
[4] Gardiner's paper, "Truth from These Podia," suffers from serious link rot. And so we lose our history.
[5] Also, some kind soul should fund deliberative debate in the schools and for adults at the rate of, oh, $10 million a year or so. It would't take much. I guarantee we'd see improvement in discourse in as little as three years, as varsity debaters came up and started to show the critical thinking skills they gained at the podium in public policy discussion. Incidentally, historically black colleges and universities have done very well recently in debate, so do let's make sure all the debate money doesn't go to the already credentialed burbclaves, mkay?
0 0 0 0 0 This entry was posted in Guest Post , Media watch , Politics on January 8, 2017 by Lambert Strether . About Lambert StretherLambert Strether has been blogging, managing online communities, and doing system administration 24/7 since 2003, in Drupal and WordPress. Besides political economy and the political scene, he blogs about rhetoric, software engineering, permaculture, history, literature, local politics, international travel, food, and fixing stuff around the house. The nom de plume "Lambert Strether" comes from Henry James's The Ambassadors: "Live all you can. It's a mistake not to." You can follow him on Twitter at @lambertstrether. http://www.correntewire.com
View all posts by Lambert Strether →Subscribe to Post Comments 27 comments Synoia , January 8, 2017 at 1:56 pm
Trade now with TradeStation – Highest rated for frequent traders Waldenpond , January 8, 2017 at 2:34 pmThe whole "fake news" narrative is not about "fake news," or propaganda, or agitprop.
It is about taking control away from, and by implication devaluing the analysis, of these who debunk the propaganda, or agitprop from the "legitimate (aka: fake official)" news outlets. Examples of this are Naked Capitalism, Ian Welsh, Marcy Wheeler and Zero Hedge.
It is both a monopolistic action of the "legitimate (aka: fake official)" news outlets, and the powers in Washington, enabling this monopolistic behavior for both parties self interest.
This comment solely represents the views of "ME" and does not represent the views of anyone else. (OK Bud?)
Webstir , January 8, 2017 at 6:47 pmThe fake news chant is just an addition to the Russia, Russia, Russia bs. The goal is always delegitimizing any voice other than far right capitalists and war mongers. Media has collapsed/flipped. The media being promoted as legitimate is outright lies and never ending propaganda. They occasionally slip in facts but they are meaningless to the discussion. The alternative sites are the only ones attempting to distribute facts and discuss issues based on facts.
I won't be surprised to see legitimate news sites blocked from accessing ad revenue and payment systems. No ads, no facebook, no twitter, no paypal for those deemed to be disseminating facts.
craazyman , January 8, 2017 at 2:38 pmA friend of my mine stated the other day, "Don't mistake gaslighting for a genuine concern that you might, in fact, be crazy."
To which I replied:
"The age of modern advertisement (think Mad Men) was kicked off by behavioral psychology professor John B. Watson who is most popularly known for the "Baby Albert" experiments. What is not widely known is that he was kicked out of John Hopkins for having an affair with his research assistant shortly after said experiments. Where did he take his talents? You guessed it: Advertising - where he popularized the notion of selling "sex appeal" rather than a product. In mu opinion, the rest the western world's economic and political history, then, are all "gaslighting" footnotes to the recently discovered ability to psychologically manipulate people to create demand where there was none previously."
My point being, it is worth considering the impact media creating ideological demand where there was none before.
lyle , January 8, 2017 at 5:25 pmThis problem is so old it's ludicrous. They're talking about it like it was just discovered! LOL.
I think these quotes are true, but I didn't know Thomas Jefferson and I did not carry on a literary correspondence with him. It would have been a pleasure! Despite his flaws. He was a man of his time, but a brilliant one.
Here are some more Thomas Jefferson quotes about newspapers. I think he would have been in the peanut gallery railing at the mainstream media just like the rest of us.
#2 below is my favorite "the violence and malignity of party spirit" Whoa!:
1. "The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." ~Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:225
2. "I deplore the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them These ordure's are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our functionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit." ~Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:46
3. "As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers." Thomas Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 1806. ME 11:118
4."Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper." ~Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1819. ME 15:179
5. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle."
source: http://www.fourwinds.com (I Googled a string of words about Jefferson and newspapers, since I knew of his opinion there.)
JF , January 8, 2017 at 5:38 pmI grew up in Detroit during the Vietnam war. In Detroit you could listen to the news from Canada and hear the elements of Propaganda in the US news (or fake news to use the modern term). It was as if two different wars were happening depending on which side of the river the news was broadcast from. Back then from the US news perspective Pravda was one big sheet of fake news (propaganda) . Back then you could also buy a shortwave radio and listen to the BBC as well as Radio Moscow (which had strong signals in the US).
So back then one had to learn to take all news with a very large grain of salt because the folks putting the news together influenced how news was reported. It is just now that it appears that younger generations have tumbled to the fact that news organizations pursue a point of view and report news skewed to support that point of view.
For another example back then the Socialist workers party had a newspaper that to the US mainstream point of view was propaganda,but from their point of view was the truth.hunkerdown , January 8, 2017 at 7:04 pmIn large part this is also why the Framers put together a United States Republic, "wherein the legislative authority necessarily predominates."
Democracy was too susceptible so reliance was placed on the two-house, separately elected sources, to provide thoughtful discourse via indpendent legislators. Ideally these people were to be thoughtful people who tried.
This too has become a department-of-thought (the others are judicial and executive) that is lacking thought, well at least in one party, the one that also denies scientific fact and believes we can not govern ourselves because we are the problem. But their richtung is clear, no need to think too much about how to vote.
susan the other , January 8, 2017 at 2:40 pmThe Framers were the very same class of idle oligarchs that we are attempting to do battle with today. Jeremy Belknap's famous Supplication, that we should submit to the "enlightened" (i.e. freed from having to actually work to the order of others) rule of liberal dispensationalist Rescuers, is a bipartisan stipulation.
Surely you didn't forget Hamilton Electors so quickly? Or Becky Fischer interviewed in Jesus Camp : "excuse me, but we have the truth!" Or which class and which interests are in fact running the press, and at whose interests' expense? People who vend noble lies klike liberalism or Belknap's learned helplessness tend to be discredited rather quickly.
hunkerdown , January 8, 2017 at 7:08 pmThe disastrous world that Hillary built is coming apart. She said in the 90s that she saw no way to save labor and prevent offshoring and being killed by cheap imports: "There's just no way to stop it." She came from the left and became the biggest free marketeer there ever was. Yet, her behavior has been so pious. She, as much as any tool who ever graced the halls of Washington DC, is to blame for shamelessly securing her own position by destroying the country. While the rest of us were lamenting the disappearance of truth, the neoliberals were attacking that idealism with a term coined by Steve Colbert: "truthiness" and everybody had a good chuckle until the truthiness was on the other foot – now they demand an end to "fake news". What about just tolerating all the "fakiness" And the "newsiness" with a fake smile? C'mon Hill, I know you can do it.
BeliTsari , January 8, 2017 at 3:19 pmWorse, Obama demanded "truthiness". That's code, to me. There is a malicious design afoot.
BeliTsari , January 8, 2017 at 3:20 pmAs one by one, well known lefty blog aggregators got all 'et up by David Brock's CTR, it was difficult to miss their trolls & sock-puppets were all using Rick Berman's playbook http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/24/1519540/-Paid-Clinton-Troll-Speaks-out-I-was-aghast-at-what-I-saw Dissidents were entitled, gullible. basement-dwelling millennial, or misogynistic, racist agents provocateurs, spreading discordant enemy agitprop. They used Hill + Knowlton Strategies' decades-old buzz-words from tobacco, asbestos, fracking & bio-engineering scams, to discredit anybody questioning Debbie, Robby and John's stomping down loyal, lifelong Keynesian Democrats and handing the presidency to Trump, the states to ALEC and Judiciary, regulatory agencies & Congress to leering, smirking, up-front drooling Fascists. http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/06/resistance-2/
Gaylord , January 8, 2017 at 3:33 pmWow people still READ The Guardian? Bloomberg spews the same crap for FREE!
Paul Tioxon , January 8, 2017 at 3:42 pmAnother aspect of this is the obfuscation of true news. An example of this is the news blackout and dismissal of any significance pertaining to the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns, fallout, and continuing emissions of dangerous radioactive isotopes into the environment. This is an institutionalized conspiracy borne of complacency and self interest.
The worst part of this is there are typically no judgments or consequences against the perpetrators of false information that is explicitly used to gain support for and acquiescence to policies that result in criminal actions and grave harm - i.e. war, exploitation & impoverishment, mass displacement, confiscation of resources, deleterious pollution & ecocide, etc. The justice system is as irredeemably corrupt as the rest of the political system.
oho , January 8, 2017 at 4:14 pmhttp://www.ucpress.edu/blog/23963/
This lucky coincidence is from the UC Press. They have a blog about different books they put out. And this one's relevant and timely. There is a brief overview of Watergate and The Kennedy/Nixon TV debates of 1960 and the ongoing myths surrounding them.
Debunking Media Myths, Those Prominent Cases of Fake News
by W. Joseph Campbell, author of 'Getting It Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths in American Journalism'.
"The mainstream media's recent angst and hand-wringing about a surge of "fake news" has tended to ignore that the media themselves have often been purveyors of bogus tales and dubious interpretations.
"Fake news" has plenty of antecedents in mainstream media - several cases of which are documented in my book, Getting It Wrong, a new, expanded edition of which was published recently.
The book examines and debunks media-driven myths, which are well-known stories about and/or by the news media that are widely believed and often retold but which, under scrutiny, dissolve as false or wildly exaggerated. Think of them as prominent cases of "fake news" that have masqueraded as a fact for years. Decades, even."
Steve H. , January 8, 2017 at 4:19 pmDon't forget that the entertainment divisions all of MSM's parent companies rely on quid pro quo "fake reviews" to juice positive buzz for movies/TV series.
And often those fake reviews are spun as real news.
Edward , January 8, 2017 at 4:30 pmJust checking, since I took a crack at the Reuters disclaimer, is the Bud from legal thing irony? 'Cause I cain't tell no more.
'Cause if that's the case, that's a Case-1. And that means NC is a purveyor of fake news.
But Wait! Is it weasel-words to say 'does not represent the views of (institution)'? Where is the agency? The DNC has a platform with explicit, well what are they, the DNC says 'political rhetoric' as opposed to actual positions. Wouldn't it be better to say 'the views of the owners of' or 'the editors of'? But are you then saying that Yves does not share this view? Or are you an editor and don't agree with yourself? Well, you get the idea.
Anyway, I'd say let's kill all the lawyers, but let's leave legal Bud alone.
ambrit , January 8, 2017 at 6:14 pmOne comment I would make about the WMD reporting was that the international press, including some British papers, were debunking the propaganda. It was as if America and the rest of the world were in separate realities. Many Americans were reading the Guardian to obtain independent news. The WMD claims of the Bush administration were debunked in congressional speeches, but the pro-war lawmakers didn't seem to care.
Edward , January 8, 2017 at 6:54 pmThat's what's scary now. The pro war legislators don't seem to care now as well. Last time, it was Iraq, no push over, but not "really" dangerous. Now, it's Russia, which is truly dangerous. There's a significant difference between IEDs and ICBMs.
ambrit , January 8, 2017 at 7:19 pmThis is why I almost voted for Trump. I ended up voting for Stein, but I dithered for a while.
Bugs Bunny , January 8, 2017 at 4:35 pmI know that dither feeling. Many of us, and I include myself, are going to be very upset when we're dithered.
ekstase , January 8, 2017 at 5:04 pmSeems to me that enforcement of existing Anti-trust law would go a long way in remedying the blob opinion that characterizes MSM reporting. I'm no neoliberal but competition law forces competition and from competition comes diversity in media strategy, reporting and publishing.
Sorry I said competition three times. I tend to harp on this subject since I was at the center of some pretty tough Anti-trust fights back in the day when the DOJ did its job.
H. Alexander Ivey , January 8, 2017 at 5:38 pmQuestions I'm asking myself:
" put them in the delusional bucket on the supplier side, as opposed to the malevolent bucket."
1) Could someone, theoretically, be put in both buckets?2) If Elvis is not on Mars, then where is he?
ambrit , January 8, 2017 at 6:18 pmHe has left the building, that's all I know.
Persona au gratin , January 8, 2017 at 5:04 pmThe answer to question 1) is quantum based. Whichever bucket you look in, there "they" are. I suspect the answer to question 2) is also quantum based. Schrodingers Blue Suede Shoes anyone?
NotSoSure , January 8, 2017 at 5:04 pm"News" – aka storytelling/myth making about "real" recent events – has always been "fake" to some degree or another. The question is, to what degree? However, I doubt most of any political stripe would contest the fact that lately it's become simply out of control. Welcome to the "information age!"
nonsense factory , January 8, 2017 at 5:42 pmDoes the following scenario: "The supplier knows the story is true, but the demander wants to believe it's true/false" falls under the scenario of "The supplier knows the story is true, but the demander knows nothing about it at all"
Or how about: "The supplier wants to believe the story is true, and the demander wants to believe it's true"? Sounds a bit like religion (probably not "fake news").
XonX , January 8, 2017 at 6:34 pmWas the 2013 Syrian gas attack stories blaming the Syrian government fake news?
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-12-06/anti-fraud-experts-launch-news-accuracy-site-find-us-probably-blamed-wrong-side-for-syria-chemical-attackVery likely so.
But this is right in line with Hillary Clinton's "public vs. private" position claims. It's okay to be dishonest about it because intervening to overthrow Assad is obviously "the greater good" just as overthrowing Gaddafi "we came we saw he died ha ha ha!" was a good idea. Unintended consequences? We'll just cook up some more propaganda to make it look like it's all going well. Image matters, not substance. If we tell everyone we're going to win the election, then we're sure to win the election; we just have to believe, get everyone on message, tell the right story. . .
Reminds me of a William Gibson quote from Neuromancer:
"I mean, these guys are all batshit in here, like they got luminous messages scrawled across the inside of their foreheads or something."Bud from legal insists that I say this post solely represents the views of "Lambert Strether," and does not represent the views of Naked Capitalism.
OK, but is Bud part of the problem or part of the solution? Does Naked Capitalism have a view? I thought NC was a forum of views, not a person or a corporation-"person" (and so what if it was).
So why does Bud need you to say that? What good or bad thing does this enable or prevent because you have now followed Bud's advice?
Just curious I guess. I took the time to read it, so now I'd like to know why I did.
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Jan 04, 2017 | www.unz.com
Introduction: There are deep flaws in the blogs, media reports, and official statements, which purport to describe world historic events and changes.
These so-called 'up-to-date' reports of major world events undergo repeated revisions in hours, days or weeks as the story is being 'played out'. What might start out as a 'scoop' for the upwardly mobile journalist is transformed into a by-word for a 'critical blogger' rewriting mainstream reports by simply substituting negatives for pluses (or vice versa).
'Immediacy' trumps historical context and structural understanding. Protagonist or antagonists of the moment are demonized , slandered and scandalized, or lauded , praised and iconized.
The practice of deep falsification involves magnifying transient trivia and glossing over world-historic change. The false prophets substitute superficiality for deep understanding.
Soon after proclaiming a 'major systemic transformation', which fail to occur, a series of modifications or reversals take over, and the initial 'great prophesy' is forgotten – as if the readers of news were afflicted with an epidemic of dementia.
Most political parties, left, right and center, have their own unchanging warped world view to frame everyday minutiae.
For example, on the Left, it is the 'imminent collapse of capitalism' or the 'perpetual stagnation of the capitalist state', 'the collapse of democracy' or 'the emergence of fascism'. In the absence of any real empirical or historical findings to support their hypotheses, they add escape clauses about 'tendencies'.
The Center has its own historic narrative, which includes 'threats from the Left and Right', and the 'dangers posed by populists to democratic values'. They cite the overwhelming responsibility to 'defend Western values' everywhere, from threats, past, present and future and especially from independent nations, like Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran and other 'emerging' powers, as a pretext to escalate militarism and to bolster support for vassal states.
The Center repeatedly point to the 'resilience of Western liberal democratic institutions' even as police state edicts are dictated to counter dissenting voices, while false prophets predict that China's robust economy is on the verge of collapse; that democratic Russia is an unstable autocracy; and that the Ukraine is an emerging democracy – while its 'Right Sector' and 'Azov Battalions' runs amok amidst a kleptocratic, neo-fascist regime
The Right frames its world-historic ideology by stressing the need to (1) revive the Cold War to counter the US global decline; (2) confront the world-wide wave of 'populism' threatening 'liberal' democracies; (3) portray Brexit as a sign of the European Union's collapse; (4) equate Trump's victory with the rise of fascism in the US; (5) emphasize the ascent of bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism, based on the result of a single election ; (6) denounce Leftists 'conspiracy' writers who 'falsely' blame rising class inequalities to free-market monopolies; and (7) explain that cuts in social expenditures, tax cuts to big capital, increased work hours and decreased pensions are ultimately rewarding the masses.
These mega- narratives lead 'prophetic academics' to insist on their infallible insight into the future direction of the world economy, global politics and class relations.
False prophets maintain a veneer of authenticity, by presenting the future in unspecified, ambiguous, general and distant terms, to allow for any or all outcomes – like professional fortune tellers.
Academic and media prophets are enveloped in a mystique of expertise, which allows them to rehash yesterday's news as deep strategic insights.
False Prophets: Trump
Contrary to the wailings of the Right, Center and Left, Donald Trump is not a fascist, or a nationalist or a populist. An objective assessment of his most recent policies and cabinet appointments show that he is a free-market politician with a propensity to appoint militarists to security positions.
Trump's populist demagogy most closely resembles President Obama – although the appeal is to a different audience. Trump speaks to impoverished, displaced, skilled workers in the rust belt with campaign promises of a renaissance in manufacturing, upscale suburbanites, and downwardly mobile working women, while appointing billionaire bankers and global business executives to run the economy and set policy. Obama appealed to poor minorities, middle class urbanites and the same business elite.
Like Obama, Trump is an imperialist committed to protecting and projecting US global power. He differs from Obama in emphasis. Obama and his predecessors pursued a primarily military-driven imperialism while Trump will shift the emphasis to economic imperialism.
Trump's 'double discourse', of talking to the masses during the campaign while working for the elite once in office, reflects a long-standing American Presidential tradition.
Editorial writers' descriptions of Donald Trump lack historical and empirical depth.
Powerful systemic constraints define the rate and scope of any long-term, large-scale changes that Trump might propose. Trump can only introduce minor incremental changes in the behavior of the biggest banks and five hundred most powerful global multi-nationals. Trump might re-negotiate around the edges of some bilateral trade agreements, but he cannot convert the US into a closed self-sufficient economy.
Contrary to the 'end of the world' hysteria, promoted by the mass media, Trump has never made any pact with white racists and anti-Semites. There are no major Jewish organizations currently engaged in a struggle against Trump's 'fascist hordes'. The KKK is not preparing to burn Goldman Sachs. Since Trump's election the stock market has jump over a thousand points. Like all of his predecessors from both parties, Trump appointed prominent Jews to key economic and policy positions, including Treasury Secretary. Many editorialists, who rely on selected excerpts of campaign rhetoric and gossip, have presented an unrealistic picture of the trajectory of the US state and economy.
ORDER IT NOW
False Prophets: China
The US prophets and self-described 'experts' describe China in inflated terms of either its impending doom or its relentless drive toward world supremacy. They rely on the minutiae of the moment or distorted extrapolations, uncertainties and contingent systemic changes. Rigorous analytical accounts are in short supply.
China, according to the free-market financial prophets of doom, suffers from a declining growth rate, shrinking work force, massive capital flight, deep-seated corruption and an impending intra-elite war. According to the prophets of doom, this sets the stage for an economic collapse and a military confrontation with the US empire.
Many of these pronouncements are easily dismissed. For the last 30 years, China's economy has exceeded 6% and it is steadily developing its high technological work force and scientific innovations. China's emphasis is on diversifying its production and consumption to domestic and overseas markets. The challenge of its aging work force is met by the increasing development of robotics and computerized productive systems.
China has applied capital controls and limits on capital flight. The national campaign against corruption and real estate speculation in real estate has led to the arrest of over 200,000 officials and executives for fraud, bribery and money laundering via overseas banks.
In other words, the false prophets, parading about as 'China experts', have consistently made nonsensical predictions of doom and collapse. Faced with factual refutations, they merely repeat and recycle their prophecies by projecting longer time frames, up to infinity, for the coming of the inevitable catastrophe.
On the other hand, some progressive writers peddle prophesies of China's endless progress predicting its inevitable emergence as a supreme global power. They convert China's 30-year pattern of economic growth into a formula guaranteeing 'harmonious development', which they claim is based on China's correct handling of emerging challenges and contradictions. Their predictions of stable future growth assume ever-expanding markets while ignoring the threat of military confrontations with rival imperial powers.
China's prophets of global power ignore contingencies: Skilled and innovative workers, who are necessary for economic growth, have their own vision of the social structure in which they play a leading role in advancing society.
While robots can substitute for human labor power, it is worker knowledge and initiative that design, produce and adjust the robotic manufacturing system.
Harmony, free markets and mutually beneficial trade alliances are relations that are always changing; only interests remain constant. As China moves from investing in commodities to manufacturing and technology, customers can turn into competitors.
As China emerges as a global power, the outflow of capital and arms and technology increases, and the risks of global rivalry and domestic instability, challenging the Chinese ruling class likewise increase.
Prophecies or predictions depend on (1) the stability of incremental changes in the structure of power; (2) the uncertainty of elite outcomes in world markets and (3) the volatility of domestic class relations.
False Prophets: Latin America
Latin America is almost universally regarded as unstable – a region, where revolutions and counter-revolutions alternate, and electoral regimes rise and fall among neo-liberal, populist and nationalist leaders.
The long-term reality is actually quite different. Latin America has been one of global capitalism's most stable regions. With few exceptions, property-ownership has remained stable for decades, with entrenched oligarchical elite families enjoying wealth, multiple-luxury properties throughout the world and their own perpetuation.
Electoral regimes may frequently change but the underlying state structures endure for decades. Bureaucratic, military and financial institutions set the margins of change. Neo-liberal, post-neo-liberal and anti-neo-liberal policies come and go, but large-scale mining, export agricultural and banking structures ultimately set the conditions for the growth of economies and demise of governments.
There is a tendency for some academic prophets and writers to use metaphors from astronomy and geology to divide the world. They describe a 'world-system' composed of 'a core, a semi-periphery and a periphery'. Adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing quantities of productive resources, the false prophets solemnly predict how the entire world system will function 'ad infinitum'.
While data, derived from observations in space, provide scientists with insights into the movements of distant galaxies and the fate of planets, extrapolation to socio-economic and political 'bodies' is risky.
On the real planet Earth, the so-called 'periphery' of the 'world system' subsumes countries, economies, social structures, states and inter-state relations with entirely distinct composition, behavior and histories. Cuba, a 'peripheral state', differs in every respect from Haiti, Guatemala and scores of other likewise categorized nations. And among the 'core' countries, the US invades, occupies and plunders dozens of countries every decade, while China engages in 'trade'. Iran, among the 'semi-peripherals', has not invaded any neighbor for two centuries, while Israel, a fellow 'semi-peripheral', has ravaged a dozen countries in the past 50 years.
ORDER IT NOW
False Prophets: Russia
Western prophets on the right and left predicted that the break-up of the USSR would augur a period of harmony, democracy and widespread prosperity. The true believers claimed 'anything was better than Stalinism' while ignoring the fact that Stalin was dead for a half-century.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev oversaw the transformation of the USSR's allied nations into pillaged satellites of the Western imperial powers. He blindly accepted US Presidents Bush and Ronald Reagan's promises that the US would not expand NATO and would not transform the newly emerging post-Soviet nations into military bases. What emerged was a crippled and encircled Russia, which had been converted into a Beggar-State of oligarchs and swindlers who seized over a trillion dollars of public property, wealth, land and resources in less than ten years. Gangsters murdered their way into public office through US-manipulated sham elections, celebrated by the Western press. Living standards for millions of post-Soviet citizens collapsed, resulting in the greatest decline of life expectancy, health, culture, science and education in peacetime history.
Contrary to the predictions of Western prophets Russia rebuilt its state and economy. The new political leadership, headed by Vladimir Putin, replaced the dipsomaniac puppet President and mobsters favored by Washington. Living and health standards have vastly improved; production, agriculture, exports, national security, science and culture have recovered.
The angry false prophets, then promoted a new pseudo-scientific assertion that the re-emergence of the Russian state and its recovering economy led inexorably to autocratic rule by a former KGB official, who violated 'Western values' by . jailing swindler billionaires and self-made oil mobsters and re-appropriating vital national assets.
Western editorialists ceaselessly denounce the popularly elected President Putin for his crime of refuting the bankruptcy of their prophecies.
Despite reams of reports by the 'experts', despite their wide circulation in the mass media and their citations by top Western officials, the Russian state and economy, just like the Chinese, are not on the verge of collapse nor are they declining or facing popular revolts.
False Prophets: The Left
The shallow, self-serving Left prophets of progressive governments in Latin America, as well as admirers of Putin's Russia and Xi Jinping's China, fail to recognize the structural, historical and class constraints that determine and limit policies.
First and foremost, they fail to recognize the socio-economic continuities within these states. In all three regions, elites and oligarchs continue to control the commanding heights of the economies, despite occasional expropriations and sporadic reforms.
Secondly, even the most 'progressive' regimes rely on Western markets and investors limiting their long-term growth.
Thirdly, the long-term dependence on extractive exports, global demand and fragile mono-culture economies weakens the long-term stability of Russia and Latin America.
The absence of a socialist democratic alternative to the brutal capitalist restoration in China undermines the optimistic perspective of progressive prophets.
Conclusion
The debate among experts, regarding the rise or decline of the Imperial West or the progressive forces in China, Russia and Latin America, fails to consider their 'hidden resources and liabilities'. These include the untapped scientific discoveries, the failure to develop alternative resources and innovations, as well as the ongoing repression of skilled workers. The Western prophets underestimate how the reliance on the paper economy has squandered immense social and productive value.
The ongoing cultural deformations, perversions and falsifications of information and analysis at the behest of established power centers, has clouded any real understanding of everyday life and greatly reduced our chances for a future without barbaric wars and social exploitation.
Culture is an everyday phenomenon determining how economies and states, rulers and ruled see the world, exercise power or are forced to submit.
We have witnessed the spread of cultural squalor into language and life, with only an occasional respite, when people overcome their everyday stupor and create a momentary burst of creative political, economic, social and cultural energy, which can lead to transformations.
Humdrum incremental changes, left and right, and the reality of continuities, limit and ultimately reverse social reforms and corrupt language to serve the ruling powers. We must move forward against the flatulence of everyday life by rejecting the false prophets and by writing, speaking and acting against crackpot sages. Our progress toward a new order must be firmly rooted in our everyday struggles writ large.
(Reprinted from The James Petras Website by permission of author or representative)
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Jan 01, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
Readers of the Washington Post received some alarming news yesterday when the paper published a story alleging that those pesky "Russian hackers" were up to their no good tricks again and had managed to "penetrate the U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont." The full headline read as follows:The opening paragraph of WaPo's story directly linked the "hack" of the Vermont utility to the same "Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe" that the Obama administration has blamed for the DNC and John Podesta email hacks . Vermont's Governor, Peter Shumlin, told WaPo that " Americans should be both alarmed and outraged" by these actions perpetrated by " one of the world's leading thugs, Vladimir Putin," before seemingly calling for further retaliatory actions from the Obama administration.
Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world's leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality-of-life, economy, health, and safety. This episode should highlight the urgent need for our federal government to vigorously pursue and put an end to this sort of Russian meddling.
Moreover, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy took the rhetoric to a whole new level by asserting a diabolical Russian plot to shut down the U.S. electrical grid in the middle of winter ...a move that would most certainly kill off half the state's population in an instant.
Of course, it didn't take long for the New York Times and ABC to latch on to the story since it fits their "2016 election hacking" narrative so perfectly.
Our Russian "friend" Putin attacked the U.S. power grid. https://t.co/iAneRgbuhF
- Brent Staples (@BrentNYT) December 31, 2016
NEW: "One of the world's leading thugs, [Putin] has been attempting to hack our electric grid," says VT Gov. Shumlin https://t.co/YgdtT4JrlX pic.twitter.com/AU0ZQjT3aO
- ABC News (@ABC) December 31, 2016
Alas, there was just one minor problem, namely that the entire article was completely fabricated. Apparently the esteemed "journalists" of the Washington Post didn't even bother to contact the Burlington Electric Department to confirm their bogus story...and why should they...it fit the "Russian hacking" narrative so perfectly therefore it must be true, right?
Well, apparently not. The quick spread of WaPo's "fake news" story forced the Burlington Electric Department to issue a clarifying statement assuring worried residents that, indeed, their electricity grid had not been hacked, but rather a single "laptop not connected" to the grid had been found to have a malware virus.
Which forced the embarrassed Washington Post to quickly tone down their provocative headline...
...and supplement their original article with the following "Editor's Note" admitting the entire premise of their original story was nothing more than "fake news."
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.
Which drew quick reactions from twitter...
1) Not an infiltration of the power grid.
2) "Russian" malware can be purchased online by anyone.
3) See 1 & 2. https://t.co/bVIG8zQBsk- Dell Cameron (@dellcam) December 31, 2016
Pretty amazing how badly the Post appears to have mangled this one. You didn't call the Vermont utility regulator before publishing?
- Eric Geller (@ericgeller) December 31, 2016
...and Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept , who blasted WaPo for their " irresponsible and sensationalist tabloid behavior."
THIS MATTERS not only because one of the nation's major newspaper once again published a wildly misleading, fear-mongering story about Russia. It matters even more because it reflects the deeply irrational and ever-spiraling fever that is being cultivated in U.S. political discourse and culture about the threat posed by Moscow.
The Post has many excellent reporters and smart editors. They have produced many great stories this year. But this kind of blatantly irresponsible and sensationalist tabloid behavior – which tracks what they did when promoting that grotesque PropOrNot blacklist of U.S. news outlets accused of being Kremlin tools – is a by-product of the Anything Goes mentality that now shapes mainstream discussion of Russia, Putin and the Grave Threat to All Things Decent in America that they pose.
Ironically, a few weeks ago we noted that The Washington Post was all too happy to promote an anonymous website that described Zerohedge as "'dark gray' propaganda, systematically deceiving its civilian audiences for foreign political gain" (see " Washington Post Names Drudge, Zero Hedge, & Ron Paul As Anti-Clinton 'Sophisticated Russian Propaganda Tools' "), all while presenting exactly zero evidence to support their preposterous claim. Perhaps it's time for WaPo to dedicate a bit more of its time to self-reflection.
dlweld , Dec 31, 2016 9:32 PMIf WAPO is a business they're going to be having major problems - the CEO should be on the case.tazs SWRichmond , Dec 31, 2016 11:24 PMReality:
an older, out of date, commercially available virus was discovered on an employee's laptop. A single laptop, not connected to anything. Similar situation to many older computers around the world. A total non-event.
Headline:
Russian Hackers penetrated US electricity grid! Not an iota of reality here, but which then led to folks who still trust the WAPO, to all get in a tizzy and propose that the US blast the evil Russian ogres! What we used to call highly irresponsible reporting.
So it was all a self-generated fantasy - why should we trust the WAPO on anything? If credibility is their capital, they're burning through it at a great rate.
"Russian Hackers" is a more palatable way of saying TRUMP STOLE the election.J S Bach peddling-fiction , Dec 31, 2016 8:35 PMhttps://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/views-of-news/#presidenttrump
The Washington Post IS the new National Inquirer. The difference is... the original NI used to have obviously laughable headlines. There is absolutely NOTHING funny about the lies spewed from the WaPo sewer pipe. Their absurd headlines are a brazen attempt to lure the <80 IQ readership into senseless rage over make-believe effronteries of a potential Russian adversary. It is criminal and all of those responsible for the evil propaganda should be tried and executed. Their time is over... no more crying "fire" in our theaters... no more screaming as they stab US in the back. They must be overtly called out without fear of ostracism.Mr Pink peddling-fiction , Dec 31, 2016 9:11 PMThat cuck Bezos got his orders at the Bilderberg meeting years ago.css1971 , Dec 31, 2016 8:27 PMTime to put this blimp warehouse, drone army fuckwad out of business
#BOYCOTTAMAZON
It occurs to me that by creating the "Fake News" meme, they've just given us a stick to beat them with.nmewn css1971 , Dec 31, 2016 8:31 PMRecommend we do exactly that. Hard and repeatedly, to the point that the first thing anyone thinks of when the words Washington Post, and New York Times are mentioned is "Fake News".
Repeatedly and with gusto ;-)auricle nmewn , Dec 31, 2016 8:36 PMAll of this narrative building, when does the false flag hit?Socratic Dog auricle , Dec 31, 2016 9:16 PMIt just did, in Instanbul. CIA/Mossad has gone to war. Trying to drive wedge beween new Turkey/Russia relationship, new since the <<failed>> CIA/Mossad coup attempt.Akzed Socratic Dog , Dec 31, 2016 9:31 PMDon't think I'll be partying anywhere public tonight. One is way overdue in the US.
I was reading Freddie's link, Dave McGowan's work on the Laurel Canyon music and murder scene, last night. It really got me thinking....has the CIA really been a Mossad operation since the 60's? Who benefitted from the 60's flowerchild bullshit? I'd say, jews. Israel. That shit really took traditional western values off the rails.
Dave McGowan (RIP) pretty much nails it in Weird Scenes from the Canyon.DeadFred auricle , Dec 31, 2016 11:20 PMI have dibs on the 6th... just because.grunk nmewn , Dec 31, 2016 8:42 PM'til they bleed.Nobodys Home grunk , Dec 31, 2016 9:13 PMHard and repeatedly with gusto til they bleed laughing maniacally! MWaHahaHAhahhahhhh!!!!Akzed nmewn ,
