One of the most comprehensive looks at Trump collusion, evah.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I find a great deal of it compelling:

Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler? A plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion. By Jonathan Chait

___

And this article really bugs me, regarding Glen Greenwald. I think Chait just nails him to the wall. Of course, he likely takes him unfairly out of context in this case, but I’ve read enough by GG, and seen enough of his videos, to accept Chait’s conclusions.

Glenn Greenwald Tells Russians Liberals Are Blaming Them As Excuse for Clinton By Jonathan Chait

The problem, as noted, with claiming that the Russia meddling story is nothing but an excuse for Clinton’s loss is that the probe began the summer before the election. It would have required some amazing Back to the Future wizardry to have known the results at that time, and to set up that excuse before hand.

Plus, all the intel heads currently, appointed by Trump himself, say, Yes, Russia did in fact interfere in order to help Trump and hurt Clinton. The GOP-led Senate panel also confirmed this recently. And the most consistent critics of Russia/Trump on this matter have been Republican never-Trumpers, not the Dems. They aren’t making excuses for HRC’s loss. They’re actually focused entirely on what Russia did.

Again, it’s perfectly logical and compatible to hold all of these views at the same time:

1. The Trump organization colluded with Russia to tilt the election in Trump’s favor — though I think this was primarily about debt, improving Trump’s business prospects, access to new sources of cash, etc. etc. rather than actually winning.

2. HRC was a terrible candidate, ran a terrible campaign, and should have won regardless of Russian interference.

3. The Dems make a massive error if they think they ran the right candidate, campaign, agenda, etc. etc. and don’t need to make any (major) changes.

4. Discussing this doesn’t increase tensions with Russia. They’ve always been high. And ignoring it just gives Russia the green light to do much more in 2018 and 2020. It’s pretty clear they want the hard right to win in America, Europe and wherever they can impact elections. We to prevent this push.

5. Yes, we interfere all over the world, too. But it’s never made any sense to think we should go fetal because of this. It’s really the case that two wrongs don’t make a right, and no one but the hard right benefits from our abdication — out of some bizarre adherence to claims of “hypocrisy.”

I agree with you. Personally, I would just as soon leave the entire “dems blame russia/some leftists blame the dems for blaming russia” routine out of it in entirely. In fact mostly I do.

Like you, I find I can pay attention to the issues with russia and with russia/trump without paying the least bit attention to that routine I just named.

….

I agree with your agreement.

;>)

It’s interesting. I think we’ve now gotten to the point where the real “obsession” lies with folks like Greenwald. Their insistence that this is only about the Dems making excuses has become monotonous, and increasingly seems to be out of step with current events as well. Like Trump’s bizarre trashing of NATO, before he goes on to meet Putin without any witnesses.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

wv wrote:

Well you know i disagree on some of that, but we’ve hashed it out and no-one’s gonna change their mind at this point.

I hope Russia interferes on the side of Bernie this time.

w
v

That’s bad, WV.

;>)

On Sanders, etc. etc. I’m very hopeful about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is a star. If the Dems had thousands just like her, I think America would be in a vastly better place.

Which brings me to a side-note and question:

Why do you think this is all too often the case? I’ve been having discussions on other boards, when I’m up to it, about “socialism” recently. When the term “democratic socialism” is mentioned, I try to remind people about some of the great thinkers, humanitarians, peace advocates, civil rights advocates, who carried that banner, but it always seems to just fall flat.

I remind them that the following held that philosophy: MLK, Gandhi, Einstein, Camus, Orwell, Helen Keller, Dorothy Day, Bertrand Russell, Alexander Dubcek and Andrei Sakharov, for starters . . . and it generally elicits crickets.

Any guesses why that doesn’t seem to change any minds regarding the idiocy of viewing that philosophy as scary or dangerous?

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Any guesses why that doesn’t seem to change any minds regarding the idiocy of viewing that philosophy as scary or dangerous?

Well names don’t matter if you’re caught in some blinding assumptions.

I just think that the only course is just to keep chipping away at the assumptions.

Or, to use a term you can’t use in those discussions, ideology.

Just remember. A journey of a 1000 miles begins by tying your shoes.

…

Makes sense.

Of course, using the term ideology should be fair game. When talking about MLK, Gandhi, Einstein, etc. etc. I mention “vision” a lot, and how the Dems and the entire country should embrace their vision.

The debates are generally with both centrist Dems, who reject most of the left (it all too often appears), and with those much further to the right who associate “socialism” with their go-to number of 100 million deaths, etc.

My attempts, which mostly fall on deaf ears, as mentioned, are to associate “socialism” with human rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, peace movements, instead — which is the case, historically. In America, as you know, leftists in general tend to be well in advance of anyone else when it comes to the vast majority of social and economic justice movements/issues/policy ideas . . . with those to their right, including liberals and moderates, joining the peace train much later in the process.

This is not taught in American schools, at least until select university courses, and it’s still rare there.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

wv wrote:

Well you know i disagree on some of that, but we’ve hashed it out and no-one’s gonna change their mind at this point.

I hope Russia interferes on the side of Bernie this time.

w
v

That’s bad, WV.

;>)

On Sanders, etc. etc. I’m very hopeful about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is a star. If the Dems had thousands just like her, I think America would be in a vastly better place.

Which brings me to a side-note and question:

Why do you think this is all too often the case? I’ve been having discussions on other boards, when I’m up to it, about “socialism” recently. When the term “democratic socialism” is mentioned, I try to remind people about some of the great thinkers, humanitarians, peace advocates, civil rights advocates, who carried that banner, but it always seems to just fall flat.

I remind them that the following held that philosophy: MLK, Gandhi, Einstein, Camus, Orwell, Helen Keller, Dorothy Day, Bertrand Russell, Alexander Dubcek and Andrei Sakharov, for starters . . . and it generally elicits crickets.

Any guesses why that doesn’t seem to change any minds regarding the idiocy of viewing that philosophy as scary or dangerous?

================

If you want to practice your rhetorical skillz….watch FOX news. Watch how they handle the ‘socialism’ thing. They always, always, always go thru the same exact talking points. Which means — itz easy to prepare for them.

For starters Foxers always start with the same argument — “its never worked anywhere”, and then they move on to “Stalin, Soviet Union….its killed a hundred million people…”

So, if libs and leftists want to talk about socializms, they need to have sound-bitey, quick, sharp answers to that point.

…if yer gonna talk to amerikan-humans about politix, study, Fox-News. The evil-brilliance of Fox is in how they get right to the blunt-point. No hemming and hawing and qualifying and explaining — they hit you right in the face, with quick hard sound bytes. They are masters. Leftists are trying to do Chomsky and the Foxers are doing Mike Tyson. Er somethin. I dunno.

Libs use the same framework as Fox, so studying Fox works for dealing with libs too…

w
v

Great point on the Fox News method. Complexity can be our enemy, and simplicity their friend.

I try to fight back against “socialism has failed every time it’s been tried” by demonstrating that it hasn’t ever been tried, outside small enclaves and small-scale practice, and I provide examples of that. I’ll post the Chomsky video, for instance, where he just shreds the idea that the USSR was “socialist,” but that falls on deaf ears too.

I throw in analogies, and they fall on deaf ears . . .

Chicken salad has long had the same basic ingredients. Basically, chicken, chopped celery and mayo. If someone comes along and changes that to liver, BQ sauce, Brussel Sprouts and almond butter, but still calls it chicken salad, does it make any sense to condemn “chicken salad” if you hate it?

I also try to break down the basic tenets in a fairly simply way:

1. Socialism extends democracy to the economy. It democratizes the economy, which means capitalism no longer exists.

2. We the people own the means of production, not “the state,” or political parties, or juntas, or dictators. We the people, directly.

3. Your home and your personal “stuff” is yours, not commonly held. Under socialism, the Commons stops at your gate.

If the above don’t exist as the legal standard for a society, that society can’t be deemed “socialist.” Yes, you can have “socialist policies” within a capitalist context, but the nation itself can’t be called “socialist.”

Again, on deaf ears. Oh, well.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

<
I throw in analogies, and they fall on deaf ears . . .
.

=================

Allz i know iz, this is important. This exchange about ‘socialism’, progressives are having with Lib-Capitalists and Rightwing-crazies.

I see the same exact pattern playing out over and over and over, whether its an MSM talker asking Bernie about socialism or Ocasio-cortez being asked about it on Fox, etc, etc, etc. And its been the same exact dynamic for many years.

The Capitalists/rightwingers are WINNING the tv-debates. (not among leftists but among joe and jane voter)

Leftists need to rethink their answers to the “its never worked” and “its killed a 100 million people”.

We need to study on it. We need better, quicker, sharper answers. To win the average propagandized voter. Keep an eye out to how others answer it. Maybe someone out there has figured out a good tv-answer.

Lefties win the ‘debate’ while righties are winning the ‘voter’ — if that makes any sense. …what do i know 🙂

w
v

Well said. All of it. But especially the last sentence.

And that makes me think about this, too: Marx and other leftists took it for granted that the “proletariat” would remain with them, and for generations into the future. That turned out to be a bad assumption. They may in fact be providing winning margins for far-right parties all over the globe these days, and the union vote in America is now up for grabs. It may just be leaning Republican these days, though I haven’t done the research on that.

I think one of the really smart things Ocasio-Cortez did was to stick to concrete policies, and not try to fight in terms of theories. Which ties me into this, too: I’m almost finished with a book of essays by Dwight MacDonald, an old leftist — with most of the essays being from the 1950s and 60s. He talks about Germany’s history of obsession with Theory, and our history of obsession with Facts, mostly from the angle of weaknesses in both obsessions. He was quite the curmudgeon, but well worth reading. Anyway, I think his point is similar to yours. It doesn’t work in America to trade theoretical arguments. People here want to deal with what they consider to be “facts,” which opens up still another can of worms, of course:

Competing visions of what they are, etc.

I think I’m writing myself into a depression, so will exit stage left for a bit.

;>)

Hope all is well with you and yours.