Posts
George Monbiot, the Guardian: Donald Trump is a shallow, mendacious, boorish and extremely dangerous man. But those traits ensure that he is not an outsider, but the perfect representation of his caste - the caste that runs the global economy and governs our politics. He is our system, stripped of its pretenses.
Read the Article
Janine Jackson, CounterSpin: "Debt and entitlements" are terms that get tossed around a lot, but they're rarely unpacked or explained. In this interview, economist Dean Baker says the US would have a very different deficit debate if everyone understood that cutting "debt and entitlements" means cutting Social Security and Medicare.
Listen to the Audio and Read the Transcript
CIA Releases Controversial Bay of Pigs History
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Oh. Oh. Oh. Wisconsin?
Deeper.
Much deeper and darker.
Russ Feingold has led most of the polls for most of 2016 in the race for Wisconsin's US Senate seat. But the billionaire class is determined to prevent the election of the progressive populist foe of bank bailouts, bad trade deals and crony capitalism. So, as Election Day approaches, some of the richest people in America are pouring millions into a last-ditch effort to defeat the Democrat.
This will come as no surprise to anyone who recalls Feingold's record as a Senator who from 1993 to 2011 stood up to Democratic and Republican presidents on economic issues - opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement and the permanent normalization of trade relations with China, opposing giveaways to Wall Street speculators, opposing attacks on banking regulations and crony-capitalist giveaways to multinational corporations. And, of course, there's the small matter of Feingold's determination to prevent billionaires and millionaires from buying elections.
Like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren -- both of whom are ardent Feingold backers - the Wisconsin Democrat understands that a campaign-finance system that allows "legalized bribery" is rigging the economy to benefit billionaires. And that scares the idle rich. So the very rich are opening their checkbooks once more, in hopes of keeping a very serious reformer out of the Senate.
. . . That prospect is so scary that billionaire donors -- and the political front groups they fund – are spending astronomical amounts to help reelect Feingold's hapless foe, US Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin. Arguably the most nondescript member of Senator majority leader Mitch McConnell's obstructionist caucus, Johnson was elected in 2010 on a Republican wave that is unlikely to hit again this year. It has been clear for months that the incumbent's only hope for winning reelection is a smear campaign against Feingold.
A catalogue of Clinton Foundation Catastrophes?
Moving half of American military to ring China in furthering Obama's, now Hillary's, Asia Pivot?
Notice how little you've heard reported about this on the TV MSM reporting?
Just listen:
And I'm guessing most people have no idea what the last Wikileaks leaks show: Incredible Media Collusion/Cheerleading for Hillary!
And tanks and machine guns from the American Militarized Police State are turned on the native Americans in Standing Rock, North Dakota trying to protect the pipeline for the BIG BUSINESS NEOLIB INTERESTS WHO RUN AMERICA (their ads - sock puppets - paid for by pro-pipeline interests, say, in essence, come on, people, they've f***ked up most of the country already with fracking, please let them FINISH!):
The Young Turks have a theory: Any time something negative comes out about Hillary or Bill Clinton, the "New York Times" and/or "Washington Post" immediately bring out another story about the sex monster Donald Trump.
Seems to be a good theory.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
If you've considered the oligarchy ruling the USA! USA! USA! as reality . . .
What convinces me that the obvious Oligarchy intends to steal the election is the vast difference between the presstitutes’ reporting and the facts on the ground.
The American Oligarchy speaks loudly.
And carries a big stick.
The "presstitutes."
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts has noted since he worked for Ronald Reagan that the neolib/cons have gone wild every time they could grasp the reins of government.
He doesn't see anything different developing now.
—Wall Street and the mega-banks too big to fail and their agent the Federal Reserve, a federal agency that put 5 banks ahead of millions of troubled American homeowners who the federal reserve allowed to be flushed down the toilet. In order to save the mega-banks’ balance sheets from their irresponsible behavior, the Fed has denied retirees any interest income on their savings for eight years, forcing the elderly to draw down their savings, leaving their heirs, who have been displaced from employment by corporate jobs offshoring, penniless.I know the person who gave me this report and have no doubt whatsoever as to its veracity.
—The military/security complex which has spent trillions of our taxpayer dollars on 15 years of gratuitous wars based entirely on lies in order to enrich themselves and their power.
—The neoconservatives whose crazed ideology of US world hegemony thrusts the American people into military conflict with Russia and China.
—The US global corporations that sent American jobs to China and India and elsewhere in order to enrich the One Percent with higher profits from lower labor costs.
—Agribusiness (Monsanto et.al.), corporations that poison the soil, the water, the oceans, and our food with their GMOs, hebicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers, while killing the bees that pollinate the crops.
—The extractive industries—energy, mining, fracking, and timber—that maximize their profits by destroying the environment and the water supply.
—The Israel Lobby that controls US Middle East policy and is committing genocide against the Palestinians just as the US committed genocide against native Americans. Israel is using the US to eliminate sovereign countries that stand in Israel’s way.
What convinces me that the Oligarchy intends to steal the election is the vast difference between the presstitutes’ reporting and the facts on the ground.
According to the presstitutes, Hillary is so far ahead that there is no point in Trump supporters bothering to vote. Hillary has won the election before the vote. Hillary has been declared a 93% sure winner.
I am yet to see one Hillary yard sign, but Trump signs are everywhere. Reports I receive are that Hillary’s public appearances are unattended but Trump’s are so heavily attended that people have to be turned away. This is a report from a woman in Florida:
“Trump has pulled huge numbers all over FL while campaigning here this week. I only see Trump signs and stickers in my wide travels. I dined at a Mexican restaurant last night. Two women my age sitting behind me were talking about how they had tried to see Trump when he came to Tallahassee. They left work early, arriving at the venue at 4:00 for a 6:00 rally. The place was already over capacity so they were turned away. It turned out that there were so many people there by 2:00 that the doors had to be opened to them. The women said that the crowds present were a mix of races and ages.”
I also receive from readers similar reports from around the country.
This is how the theft of the election is supposed to work: The media concentrated in a few corporate hands has gone all out to convince not only Americans but also the world, that Donald Trump is such an unacceptable candidate that he has lost the election before the vote.
By controlling the explanation, when the election is stolen those who challenge the stolen election are without a foundation in the media. All media reports will say that it was a run away victory for Hillary over the misogynist immigrant-hating Trump.
And liberal, progressive opinion will be relieved and off guard as Hillary takes us into nuclear war.
That the Oligarchy intends to steal the election from the American people is verified by the officially reported behavior of the voting machines in early voting in Texas. The NPR presstitutes have declared that Hillary is such a favorite that even Republican Texas is up for grabs in the election.
If this is the case, why was it necessary for the voting machines to be programmed to change Trump votes to Hillary votes? Those voters who noted that they voted Trump but were recorded Hillary complained. The election officials, claiming a glitch (which only went one way), changed to paper ballots. But who will count them? No “glitches” caused Hillary votes to go to Trump, only Trump votes to go to Hillary.
The most brilliant movie of our time was The Matrix. This movie captured the life of Americans manipulated by a false reality, only in the real America there is insufficient awareness and no "Neo," except possibly Donald Trump, to challenge the system. Americans of all stripes — academics, scholars, journalists, Republicans, Democrats, right-wing, left-wing, US Representatives, US Senators, Presidents, corporate moguls and brainwashed Americans and foreigners — live in a false reality.
In the United States today a critical presidential election is in process in which not a single important issue is addressed by Hillary and the presstitutes. This is total failure. Democracy, once the hope of the world, has totally failed in the United States of America. Trump is correct. The American people must restore the accountability of government to the people.
Professor Mark Crispin Miller is one of my favorite sources of unquestioned integrity in reporting.
And although he seems so thoroughly straight and professional in demeanor, be careful when picking up the top of your head off of the floor after his rather mild-mannered presentation:
New York University Mark Crispin Miller talks about US government propaganda, the corporate media, the CIA and the Russian “Putin” threat. Miller talks about how Rupert Murdoch’s VICE tried to get him fired, using a graduate student in NYU’s journalism department. He also discusses the role of the CIA and the US government in their organized effort to demonize Putin and Russia and create a wave of war hysteria reminiscent of the 1950s.
This interview was done during the Project Censored 40th Anniversary at Sonoma State University on October 22, 2016 by Pacifica KPFA WorkWeek host Steve Zeltzer.
Definitely rigged.
Donald Trump says the presidential election is “rigged.” Although he provides no evidence for his charge, lots of things can be said about it. For one thing, he equivocates over the word rigged to include voter fraud along with news-media/polling bias — two very different things. The former suggests that the outcome is predetermined, the latter only that influential organizations try to move voters in a particular direction. (Ignoring third parties is one flagrant way to do this, but that may redound to Trump’s benefit in some cases.)
I might also point out that Trump has helped “rig” the election against himself with his inveterate estrangement from the truth and his braggadocio about and apparent penchant for sexual assault. These flaws have overshadowed what otherwise would have been damaging information about Hillary Clinton’s political career and the WikiLeaks disclosures. Compared to Trump’s antics and outrages, dry emails about Goldman Sachs speeches and the Clinton Foundation just aren’t sexy enough to grab the electorate’s attention. Cable TV’s quest for ratings may adequately account for the seeming bias; viewers are more likely to reach for the remote when they hear about transcripts of speeches to Wall Street than when they hear “locker-room banter” and insults. Considering that Trump is partly a creature of the media, without whom he might not have won the Republican nomination, the case for sheer anti-Trump bias is not so straightforward.
Trump is also buffoonish, so let’s face it: he makes better TV than the robotic Clinton does. A candidate without Trump’s abundant baggage might have had an easier time prosecuting the case against his deeply flawed, state-worshiping opponent, even in the face of media bias.
But there’s another side to the “rigged election” charge that’s bound to go unnoticed. The American political system, like all political systems, requires a good deal of peaceful cooperation to operate. This is obviously relevant to the transfer of power, which gets so much attention nowadays. This cooperation goes on in two respects: first, between the government and the subject population — government cannot rule purely through force because the ruled always substantially outnumber their rulers — and second, among the many individuals who constitute the government’s branches, agencies, and bureaus. Again, we cannot explain this process purely by the use of force. Even totalitarian states understand this, which is why they invest so much effort in propaganda ministries. Ideas, not force, rule the world.
Notice how dark things seem to have gotten economically lately?
Don't blink.
Don't Diss the Dark Ages
Once dissed as The Dark Ages, the Medieval Era is more properly viewed as a successful adaptation to the challenges of the post-Western Roman Empire era. The decline of the Western Roman Empire was the result of a constellation of challenges, including (but not limited to) massive new incursions of powerful Germanic tribes, a widening chasm between the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), plague, an onerous tax burden on the non-elite classes, weak leadership, the dominance of a self-serving elite (sound familiar?) and last but not least, the expansion of an unproductive rabble in Rome that had to be bribed with increasingly costly Bread and Circuses.
In effect, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire ran out of time and money. The Grand Strategy, successful for hundreds of years, relied heavily on persuading "barbarian" tribes to join the Roman system for the commercial and security benefits. This process of integration worked because it was backed by the threat of destruction by military force.
The Empire maintained relatively modest military forces given its vast territory, but its road system and fleet enabled relatively rapid concentration of force to counter an invasion. It also maintained extensive fortifications along active borders.
All of this required substantial tax revenues, manpower and effective leadership, not just for fortifications, the army, roads and the fleet, but to maintain the commercial and political benefits offered to "barbarians" who chose integration in the Empire.
Once the military threats proliferated and the benefits of Imperial membership eroded, the Grand Strategy was unable to maintain the integrity of the Imperial borders.
As tax revenues and the bureaucracy they supported imploded, security declined, reducing trade and communications. This unvirtuous cycle fed on itself: reduced trade led to reduced tax revenues which led to phantom legions that were still listed on the bureaucratic ledgers but which no longer had any troops.
The collapse of the Western Empire was a process, not an event. Key organizational infrastructures that endured through the Medieval era - for example, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian Churches - gained traction in the waning centuries of the Western Empire.
A contribution (or two) would be appreciated for the Fall Fundraiser.
No comments:
Post a Comment