Robert Reich on the Russia investigation

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December 4, 2017 at 5:43 pm #78356

wv
Participant

Zooey wrote:

I just keep thinking about retiring somewhere else. And I’m not even close to being able to retire, but if I retire to a 3rd world country, I will be able to do it sooner. And I’m willing to do that. I’ve just had it here.

This country is just too god-damned ignorant, arrogant, and greedy… .

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

Ha. …I have recurring “off the grid” dreams. Ya know. Living in a tiny-house, growing my own food, solar/wind energy. Maybe an intentional community.

If i were younger…. 🙂

Now for the love of God, would you go watch those two documentaries I posted about
: Act of Killing and the look of silence. And watch the directors cuts. And the commentaries by W. Herzog. He said — and i agree totally — we will never see anything like those films again. Ever.

w
v

December 4, 2017 at 5:51 pm #78357

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

I think where we may be diverging is in the effects of dealing with Trump, versus the ongoing propagandizing of the American people. If I read you correctly, you see the focus on Trump as a part of that. I see it as a separate issue. …

Yes, i think there is divergence there, BT. I think the DNC-MSM (NPR, MSNBC, NYTimes, WashPost, others) are just essentially pimping for the DNC crowd. They attack Trump, but they love the system and they love the DNC-Obama-Hillary tribe.

I see that part of the ‘system’ as just a propaganda-sub-system.

They are anti-trump, but pro-Corporotacracy. How is that helpful? Or truthful? Or accurate?

Now, when the MSM starts saying things like “Trump is driving us off the cliff at 99 miles an hour, whereas, Obama was driving us off the cliff at 70 miles an hour” — then I might start thinking its not a Propaganda system.

w
v

December 4, 2017 at 7:03 pm #78361

Billy_T
Participant

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I think where we may be diverging is in the effects of dealing with Trump, versus the ongoing propagandizing of the American people. If I read you correctly, you see the focus on Trump as a part of that. I see it as a separate issue. …

Yes, i think there is divergence there, BT. I think the DNC-MSM (NPR, MSNBC, NYTimes, WashPost, others) are just essentially pimping for the DNC crowd. They attack Trump, but they love the system and they love the DNC-Obama-Hillary tribe.

I see that part of the ‘system’ as just a propaganda-sub-system.

They are anti-trump, but pro-Corporotacracy. How is that helpful? Or truthful? Or accurate?

Now, when the MSM starts saying things like “Trump is driving us off the cliff at 99 miles an hour, whereas, Obama was driving us off the cliff at 70 miles an hour” — then I might start thinking its not a Propaganda system.

w
v

I think we really are watching, reading, listening to different media. From my pov, the MSM has always gone after the Dems harder than the GOP, primarily to avoid being hit with the bogus “liberal bias” label. For decades now, it’s gone out of its way to have more Republicans on TV than Dems, and when it has Dems, it usually brings in centrists to discuss the issues. And the political shows make it a point to resurrect discredited right-wingers constantly, filling their lineups with them. You get far-right folks on, but never left of liberal.

As for the campaign: it’s been heavily documented that the media spent by far the most time on the Clinton emails. They received disproportionate time, and it wasn’t close. There just isn’t any evidence to support the idea that the MSM loves Hillary or Bill or the Dems. None. Not if you study the coverage itself. The reason why Trump received more “negative” coverage overall is because he deserved it. He asked for it. Demanded it. He was constantly saying and doing racist, xenophobic, misogynistic and all around bigoted shit, so naturally the media is going to report that, and naturally it’s going to appear more “negative.”

That doesn’t make them “anti-Trump,” necessarily. That’s just them reporting what happened. Hillary didn’t give them anywhere near the same amount of ugly material, but the emails still topped the time allotment.

(splitting this up to avoid TL;DNR)

December 4, 2017 at 7:09 pm #78362

Billy_T
Participant

As for being helpful? Yes, the media are pro-corporate, being owned by billionaires/MNCs. So they’re not going to give us the kind of info we want on that front. But in a battle between two corporatist parties, and two candidates from those parties, I definitely think it’s helpful to expose the far, far, far more odious of the two for their corruption, ugliness, racism, neo-nazi sympathies, etc. etc.

Clinton has already been exposed for her neoliberalism, and the media have been critical of her for 25 years. Trump is new to the game. It’s his turn to take the heat. It’s his time in the barrel.

Bottom line for me: I’m actually quite happy the media have been as tough as it has been on Trump, but they need to be tougher. They weren’t on Bush, or Reagan, for instance. Trump has awakened the inner journalist in many, most likely because he’s attacked them on a regular basis, and put their lives in danger in the process. If he had played his cards right, he could have had the same kind of lapdog press we saw during Bush’s run up to the Iraq war. But Trump had other ideas. He thought revving up his base’s hatred of the MSM was more important than gaining their trust and their compliance, which is the usual way for politicians.

December 4, 2017 at 7:19 pm #78365
Billy_T
Participant
Something to keep in mind when we look at media coverage and do compare and contrast.

If Joe Smith commits dozens of crimes, and Bob Jones commits a few, and “the media” cover them as they happen, in accordance with what happened, it’s going to appear they’re being “unfair” to Joe Smith.

If they wanted to be “fair and balanced,” they’d take six crimes from Smith, and six crimes from Jones, and deal with that. But it would distort reality.

Between the two criminal money parties, the GOP is aggressively worse, and if the media cover what they do as it happens, and what the Dems do as it happens, it’s going to appear to be “unfair.” Because the GOP simply does more ugly, odious shit than the Dems, and that’s been the case at least since the 1960s, and during stretches prior to that.

Same thing goes with Trump versus whomever. If the media tries to “balance” coverage so that they don’t report most of the ugly, racist, deeply corrupt shit Trump does, so it looks like it’s all a lot more even with Dem ugliness, that distorts reality and that’s not “helpful.”

They need to just report what happens and say to hell with trying to artificially manipulate “balance” between the parties. There isn’t any.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Billy_T.
December 4, 2017 at 7:28 pm #78367

Billy_T
Participant

WV,

I’ve mentioned the China Mieville’s book, October, before.

You really need to read it. He deals with the civil war in part, though he concentrates primarily on the lead up to the October revolution. (Recently read new translation of Doctor Zhivago, which spends more time on the civil war. Excellent novel.) Amazing history, and he shows the complexity of it all, how it could have gone in a thousand different directions, hundreds of different times. The wind blew and stuff changed on a dime so often, it’s incredible.

Nothing was inevitable.

And, yes, our support of the Whites was unconscionable, and the West’s in general. I’ve long believed that if we had stepped into help early on, we could have helped a true democracy take hold, if we had just rid ourselves of our ignorance regarding socialism. It never had to get to the point wherein the Bolsheviks made their move . . . and even after that, we could have prevented their inward and dictatorial turn by embracing them, instead of fighting on the other side in their civil war and then embargoing them.

America made that mistake countless times after that, too. It was monstrous for us to invade Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and countless coups and covert wars in between. The world would have been a much more peaceful, prosperous place if we hadn’t.

But all of that said, for me, none of that excuses what Trump and his campaign did to win the election. To me, it’s not relevant. I condemn it all.

December 4, 2017 at 11:40 pm #78382

Zooey
Moderator

wv wrote:

Ha. …I have recurring “off the grid” dreams. Ya know. Living in a tiny-house, growing my own food, solar/wind energy. Maybe an intentional community.

If i were younger….

Now for the love of God, would you go watch those two documentaries I posted about
: Act of Killing and the look of silence. And watch the directors cuts. And the commentaries by W. Herzog. He said — and i agree totally — we will never see anything like those films again. Ever.

w
v

You think those documentaries would cheer me up, or depress me to the brink of suicide?

December 5, 2017 at 8:41 am #78385

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

As for the campaign: it’s been heavily documented that the media spent by far the most time on the Clinton emails. They received disproportionate time, and it wasn’t close. There just isn’t any evidence to support the idea that the MSM loves Hillary or Bill or the Dems. None…

I dont think ‘spending time on the clinton emails’ proves or disproves anything. Its HOW they spent time on it that matters. Ie, what they said exactly.

We just disagree on this, BT. I think there is a big ugly Rep-MSM and a big ugly Dem-MSM. And together they guarantee the voting-public will be politically-illiterate. If the corporate-msm were not pushing the Reps and Dems on us, we’d have a different country.

Do you think the NYTimes was pro-trump? The big bad paper of record was all-in for Hillary, right? Doesnt matter how many paragraphs they spent on the emails.

w
v

December 5, 2017 at 8:50 am #78386

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

Something to keep in mind when we look at media coverage and do compare and contrast.

If Joe Smith commits dozens of crimes, and Bob Jones commits a few, and “the media” cover them as they happen, in accordance with what happened, it’s going to appear they’re being “unfair” to Joe Smith.

If they wanted to be “fair and balanced,” they’d take six crimes from Smith, and six crimes from Jones, and deal with that. But it would distort reality.

Between the two criminal money parties, the GOP is aggressively worse, and if the media cover what they do as it happens, and what the Dems do as it happens, it’s going to appear to be “unfair.” Because the GOP simply does more ugly, odious shit than the Dems, and that’s been the case at least since the 1960s, and during stretches prior to that.

Same thing goes with Trump versus whomever. If the media tries to “balance” coverage so that they don’t report most of the ugly, racist, deeply corrupt shit Trump does, so it looks like it’s all a lot more even with Dem ugliness, that distorts reality and that’s not “helpful.”

They need to just report what happens and say to hell with trying to artificially manipulate “balance” between the parties. There isn’t any.

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

Well my view overlaps some with that, but also diverges. If the media only covers the Dems and the Reps, and only compares/contrasts the TWO corporate-planet-killers and ignores the other parties (such as the green party, socialist parties etc) then i think what you have is a corporate propaganda system. And since its a corporate propaganda system, i dont get all ‘into’ the idea that the media should hammer the reps more than the dems. That just plays into the hands of the Dem-powers-that-be.

Its like if you have Godzilla, King Kong, and Mr Rogers running for President. And lets say, Godzilla is worse than King Kong. But King Kong is still a city-stomper. Well, i dont really care if the MSM says Godzilla is better than King Kong, or if the media says King Kong is better than Godzilla. Because both are city-killers. And painting EITHER of them as “better” just insures destruction.
But Mister Rogers is running too…so, if the MSM is ignoring Mister Rogers….then its a propaganda system and thats all it is.

I’m exaggerating to make a point, of course.

w
v

December 5, 2017 at 8:57 am #78387

wv
Participant

Zooey wrote:

wv wrote:

Ha. …I have recurring “off the grid” dreams. Ya know. Living in a tiny-house, growing my own food, solar/wind energy. Maybe an intentional community.

If i were younger….

Now for the love of God, would you go watch those two documentaries I posted about
: Act of Killing and the look of silence. And watch the directors cuts. And the commentaries by W. Herzog. He said — and i agree totally — we will never see anything like those films again. Ever.

w
v

You think those documentaries would cheer me up, or depress me to the brink of suicide?

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

Watch the ‘bonus features’ of Look of Silence. Then watch that film. Then watch Act of Killing. (even though the Act of Killing film came first).

I have never seen anything like these films. Your jaw will drop open, again and again. And for different reasons. And you will become a huge fan of Mr Joshua Oppenheimer.

…oh, and there are weird surreal scenes of dancing girls and a giant fish…and they are dancing in front of a big lake…the lake happens to be the lake formed by the volcano that almost caused the extinction of humans 70,000 years ago. The great ‘bottleneck’ i think its called.

w
v

December 5, 2017 at 9:19 am #78390

zn
Moderator

wv wrote:

The great ‘bottleneck’ i think its called.

The bottleneck theory refers to this—I don’t understand the specifics, but if you study human DNA you discover that it points backward to a very limited number of progenitors in the past. That is, everyone now comes from a very small number of original people.

As it happens, that genetic bottleneck coincides with the evidence showing a massive caldera (giant volcano) erupting in Indonesia (what you just referred to). That event could have caused a volcanic winter blocking out the sun with ash and dust for up to a decade. That would have killed plant life, causing massive extinctions on a global scale as food sources died out. (BTW, it has been said that the disaster disrupting life in McCarthy’s The Road is also a caldera.)

This leads to the theory that the human population was reduced to about 3,000 or so survivors at that time before it later took off again.

Near as we can tell, the Russians were not involved. But then of course they would deny that.

From the wiki:

Toba catastrophe theory

The Toba supereruption was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred about 75,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the Earth’s largest known eruptions. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that this event caused a global volcanic winter of six to ten years and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode.

In 1993, science journalist Ann Gibbons posited that a population bottleneck occurred in human evolution about 70,000 years ago, and she suggested that this was caused by the eruption. Michael R. Rampino of New York University and Stephen Self of the University of Hawaii at Manoa support her suggestion. In 1998, the bottleneck theory was further developed by Stanley H. Ambrose of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Both the link and global winter theories are highly controversial.

The Toba event is the most closely studied supereruption.

Genetic bottleneck theory

The Toba eruption has been linked to a genetic bottleneck in human evolution about 70,000 years ago, which may have resulted from a severe reduction in the size of the total human population due to the effects of the eruption on the global climate. According to the genetic bottleneck theory, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, human populations sharply decreased to 3,000–10,000 surviving individuals. It is supported by genetic evidence suggesting that today’s humans are descended from a very small population of between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago.

Proponents of the genetic bottleneck theory suggest that the Toba eruption resulted in a global ecological disaster, including destruction of vegetation along with severe drought in the tropical rainforest belt and in monsoonal regions. For example, a 10-year volcanic winter triggered by the eruption could have largely destroyed the food sources of humans and caused a severe reduction in population sizes. Τhese environmental changes may have generated population bottlenecks in many species, including hominids; this in turn may have accelerated differentiation from within the smaller human population. Therefore, the genetic differences among modern humans may reflect changes within the last 70,000 years, rather than gradual differentiation over hundreds of thousands of years.

Other research has cast doubt on a link between Toba and a genetic bottleneck. For example, ancient stone tools in southern India were found above and below a thick layer of ash from the Toba eruption and were very similar across these layers, suggesting that the dust clouds from the eruption did not wipe out this local population. Additional archaeological evidence from Southern and Northern India also suggests a lack of evidence for effects of the eruption on local populations, leading the authors of the study to conclude, “many forms of life survived the supereruption, contrary to other research which has suggested significant animal extinctions and genetic bottlenecks”. However, evidence from pollen analysis has suggested prolonged deforestation in South Asia, and some researchers have suggested that the Toba eruption may have forced humans to adopt new adaptive strategies, which may have permitted them to replace Neanderthals and “other archaic human species”.

Additional caveats include difficulties in estimating the global and regional climatic impacts of the eruption and lack of conclusive evidence for the eruption preceding the bottleneck. Furthermore, genetic analysis of Alu sequences across the entire human genome has shown that the effective human population size was less than 26,000 at 1.2 million years ago; possible explanations for the low population size of human ancestors may include repeated population bottlenecks or periodic replacement events from competing Homo subspecies.

Genetic bottlenecks in other mammals

Some evidence points to genetic bottlenecks in other animals in the wake of the Toba eruption. The populations of the Eastern African chimpanzee, Bornean orangutan, central Indian macaque, the cheetah, the tiger, and the separation of the nuclear gene pools of eastern and western lowland gorillas, all recovered from very low numbers around 70,000–55,000 years ago.

December 5, 2017 at 9:57 am #78394

Billy_T
Participant

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Something to keep in mind when we look at media coverage and do compare and contrast.

If Joe Smith commits dozens of crimes, and Bob Jones commits a few, and “the media” cover them as they happen, in accordance with what happened, it’s going to appear they’re being “unfair” to Joe Smith.

If they wanted to be “fair and balanced,” they’d take six crimes from Smith, and six crimes from Jones, and deal with that. But it would distort reality.

Between the two criminal money parties, the GOP is aggressively worse, and if the media cover what they do as it happens, and what the Dems do as it happens, it’s going to appear to be “unfair.” Because the GOP simply does more ugly, odious shit than the Dems, and that’s been the case at least since the 1960s, and during stretches prior to that.

Same thing goes with Trump versus whomever. If the media tries to “balance” coverage so that they don’t report most of the ugly, racist, deeply corrupt shit Trump does, so it looks like it’s all a lot more even with Dem ugliness, that distorts reality and that’s not “helpful.”

They need to just report what happens and say to hell with trying to artificially manipulate “balance” between the parties. There isn’t any.

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

Well my view overlaps some with that, but also diverges. If the media only covers the Dems and the Reps, and only compares/contrasts the TWO corporate-planet-killers and ignores the other parties (such as the green party, socialist parties etc) then i think what you have is a corporate propaganda system. And since its a corporate propaganda system, i dont get all ‘into’ the idea that the media should hammer the reps more than the dems. That just plays into the hands of the Dem-powers-that-be.

Its like if you have Godzilla, King Kong, and Mr Rogers running for President. And lets say, Godzilla is worse than King Kong. But King Kong is still a city-stomper. Well, i dont really care if the MSM says Godzilla is better than King Kong, or if the media says King Kong is better than Godzilla. Because both are city-killers. And painting EITHER of them as “better” just insures destruction.
But Mister Rogers is running too…so, if the MSM is ignoring Mister Rogers….then its a propaganda system and thats all it is.

I’m exaggerating to make a point, of course.

w
v

I like the Godzilla versus King Kong analogy. We both agree that the media shouldn’t be concentrating just on the two parties. I think that’s horrifically bad for this country and have mentioned that countless times. Our political conversation is among the most narrow in the world, in fact, because of the duopoly’s monopoly and stranglehold on the system . . . which serves the powers that be in so many ways . . . chief among them is to block all discussion of alternatives to our economic system, which powers everything else. We don’t get to discuss ending empire, wars, protecting the planet, ending the surveillance state, ending the carceral state, etc. etc. . . . because the two parties are it. Virtually nothing outside them is discussed, except when it comes to scapegoating:

“Jill Stein voters gave us Trump!!!”

Bullshit.

Anyway, on the topic above, I think we’re closer than you may have considered. Will add more thots later . . .

December 5, 2017 at 10:12 am #78395

Billy_T
Participant

And painting EITHER of them as “better” just insures destruction.

On this we part. It’s just not the job of the media to consciously try to paint the two parties as the same. They aren’t. Again, it distorts reality if they do. And I don’t think they do try to paint one party as “better” than the other. Media is almost always in the business of presenting what’s wrong. The negative. The bad. How often do they ever talk about what’s right, what’s good, what’s “better” about things?

If it bleeds, it leads.

But, again, if the cumulative effect of presenting the mountains of horrible, odious shit committed by the GOP and the political right, versus the smaller mountains of odious shit committed by the Dems and the political center, results in folks seeing the Dems as the lesser of two evils . . . well, I think that’s accurate, fair and definitely helpful. Because, whether we like it or not — and I hate it — the two parties rule all. And there really is a difference between them. The GOP really is significantly worse for the planet, for workers, for women and minorities. They really are far more aggressively in the tank for plutocrats. So when our choices suck, and when BOTH parties suck, and when BOTH parties do horrible things, but one party is significantly worse than the other — and it is — logic demands our media make that clear to everyone. Not via the Op Ed route, but via flat out telling the truth.

If it’s doing its job, it’s also making clear that neither party should be in power, that neither party has earned that, and that America would be far, far better off with leftists in charge. But we’re not going to get that. So the next best thing? Be truthful about the differences between the two controlling parties.

Btw, speaking of “planet killing,” did you see my post on Trump’s new executive order privatizing two million (formerly) protected acres in Utah? The Dems don’t do things like that. In fact, Obama set it aside to begin with.

December 5, 2017 at 10:25 am #78396

Billy_T
Participant

It’s also worth noting the factors that tilted the election in favor of Trump and the Republicans, which also led to more coverage about this by the media. None of this should ever have happened:

1. Wikileaks’ being in the tank for Trump and the GOP. We now have a concrete paper trail showing that Assange directly offered help to the Trump campaign, and we know he gave it to them. Directly. And the timing? Their doc dump happened right after the Access Hollywood tapes hit. How convenient!

The Wikileaks connection to the Russians is less clear, but likely.

2. Comey went public with the Clinton investigation during the campaign, twice. But he withheld the fact that Trump was being investigated too. This also distorted media coverage and was likely a big factor in Trump winning.

. . . .

I voted for Stein, and couldn’t stand either candidate. But I think it’s a major misreading of what happened to suggest that media coverage was “pro-Clinton.” I also think it’s a huge misreading of things to think that the powers that be preferred Clinton over Trump.

The Dems and Clinton are quite good for those powers that be. Like really good friends. But the GOP and Trump are exponentially better. They’re more than just friends. They’re lovers.

(Again, I wish both parties would go away.)

December 5, 2017 at 6:38 pm #78412

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

But, again, if the cumulative effect of presenting the mountains of horrible, odious shit committed by the GOP and the political right, versus the smaller mountains of odious shit committed by the Dems and the political center, results in folks seeing the Dems as the lesser of two evils . . . well, I think that’s accurate, fair and definitely helpful.

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

Ok, but i dont think the Dem-MSM presents the Dems as “the lesser evil”. And i dont think the Rep-MSM presents the Reps as “the lesser evil”. If the two corporate-MSMs told the american people “both parties are destroying the poor and the biosphere and both parties are supporting wars and atrocities and torture, etc…but one of those horrible hideous corporate parties isnt as bad as the other” — well, if they said THAT, I’d be fine with it. That would be accurate. King Kong and Godzilla. Smallpox and the Black Death. John St.Clair and Greg Robinson.

But the two MSMs dont do that. The each have their agendas. The Rep-MSM slams the Dems and holds out the Reps as the good guys. The Dem-MSM slams Trump and holds out the Dems as the good guys. THAT is all propaganda. THAT is not ‘lesser evil’ stuff. Zn voted for Hillary but he knew what she was. He voted for her as a ‘lesser evil’ strategically, which is fine. But the MSM does NOT present the corporate parties in ‘that’ light.

And so what “I” see is the Dem MSM attacking reps and offering up the Same Ole Sorry Ass Dems as alternatives. I do NOT see the Dem-MSM offering up any planet-saving alternative.

I just dont take the MSM seriously as a ‘news’ media. Its a propaganda machine for the corporotacracy/empire/deep-state. Its a Lie-machine. Drenches us in lies of commission and lies of omission. I dunno much about North Korea media, but i doubt North Korean media is any more effective as propaganda than the american MSM.

….btw, i know that you and me and zn and the other ‘leftists’ would agree on almost ALL the practical, do-able, incremental capitalist POLICY decisions. Ya know. The real-world stuff. We’d all support better regulations on pollution, better health care systems, etc etc etc. We dont have to agree on some of this ‘big picture’ stuff to know we agree on specific policy stuff.

w
v

December 5, 2017 at 8:06 pm #78419

Billy_T
Participant

WV,

I’m not getting the distinction between “Dem-Media” and “Rep-Media” that you’re talking about, unless you mean opinion pieces and partisan shows, outside the “straight news” coverage. If you’re talking about a Maddow versus a Hannity, and so on, yeah. You have Dem versus Republican. But even there, there’s asymmetry when it comes to the use of facts, which partisans like Maddow are much better at than their counterparts on the right. The partisanship is still destructive. But one side is a lot better when it comes to facts.

But if you’re talking about just regular news reporting at outlets like the NYT, WaPo, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, then I’m not seeing it. In fact, I think they’re tougher on the Dems overall than the Republicans, relative to what each party actually does. And there are several reasons for this, the two biggies being:

1. Virtually every MSM company is owned and managed by center-right folks. Conservatives, with conservative, corporate agendas. There’s not a left of center management/ownership group among them, as far as I know.

2. They fear being labelled with the “liberal bias” smear. They act accordingly.

And, again, if it’s the cumulative tally of negative coverage that makes you believe in this split, the GOP is objectively guilty of more shit than the Dems. It would be a distortion to try to even this up, and the MSM tries to all too often.

Bottom line for me: The MSM at the ownership and management level is more in line with GOP ideology than Democratic Party ideology, though on key issues, like economics, taxation, war, empire and so on, the two parties are not that far apart. The Dems are best buds with the powers that be, but the GOP makes love to them. They get a far better deal from the GOP.

December 5, 2017 at 8:10 pm #78420

Billy_T
Participant

Another example of a difference that matters. To me, this is outrageous and scary stuff.

https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/

Excerpt:

Trump White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter “Deep State” Enemies
Matthew Cole, Jeremy Scahill

December 4 2017, 10:24 p.m.

The Trump administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.

The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda.

“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”

North, who appears frequently on Trump’s favorite TV network, Fox News, was enlisted to help sell the effort to the administration. He was the “ideological leader” brought in to lend credibility, said the former senior intelligence official.

Some of the individuals involved with the proposals secretly met with major Trump donors asking them to help finance operations before any official contracts were signed.

December 5, 2017 at 8:13 pm #78421

Billy_T
Participant

And, speaking of colluding with Israel, The Intercept has this article as well:

https://theintercept.com/2017/12/05/michael-flynn-jared-kushner-israel-settlements-trump/

Excerpt:

Trump’s Transition Team Colluded With Israel. Why Isn’t That News?
Mehdi Hasan
December 5 2017, 11:36 a.m.

Did the Trump campaign collude with Vladimir Putin to win the 2016 election? Maybe. We await Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s next move to learn more about that. But in the meantime, why aren’t more members of Congress or the media discussing the Trump transition team’s pretty brazen collusion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to undermine both U.S. government policy and international law? Shouldn’t that be treated as a major scandal?

Thanks to Mueller’s ongoing investigation, we now know that prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration, members of his inner circle went to bat on behalf of Israel, and specifically on behalf of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, behind the scenes and in opposition to official U.S. foreign policy. That’s the kind of collusion with a foreign state that has gotten a lot of attention with respect to the Kremlin – but colluding with Israel seems to be of far less interest, strangely.

December 5, 2017 at 8:16 pm #78422

Billy_T
Participant

WV,

If you get the time, would be interested in you fleshing out what you mean by that media split (Dem versus Rep) a bit more.

It may well be I’ve just misread you. Wouldn’t be the first time. Won’t be the last.

Regardless, hope all is well.

December 5, 2017 at 8:33 pm #78426

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

Another example of a difference that matters. To me, this is outrageous and scary stuff….

“…The Trump administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies…

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

Well, that was predictable in my view. I (and others) think there is a split in the deep-state. A fracture, in the deep-state…concerning Trump. Trump ‘gets that’. Otherwise why would he want a separate intell force? He knows there’s an ‘anti-trump’ contingent in the ‘Intell community’.

He doesnt trust a large part of the deep-state’s intell-community. He wants a group he can trust. So, he privatizes an intell-group.

Now for me, its more “King Kong vs Godzilla” stuff. I am appalled at the monstrosity of the CIA. They are godzilla to me. A torturing, lying, enforcing subsystem of the Corporotacracy. So i dont get quite as upset about Trump creating a ‘different’ hideous, lying, enforcing, torturing thing. Trumps intell-system and the Establishment Intell systemy — King Kong vs Godzilla. Both, non-democratic hideous subsystems.

Will Trumps private-cia be worse than the establishment-cia, Billy? The films i posted about are about Indonesia — the place where the CIA participated in the extermination of a million labor leaders, artists, academics, chinese, and ‘communists’. The CIA provided many of the names to the death squads. Goodyear benefited from the slave-labor of many of them before they were butchered.
Will Trump’s group be worse than that?

Maybe. But my point is, when a system is as bad as the CIA, i dont get all that upset about ANY alternative to it.

Btw, who killed more humans in his first year as Prez – Obama or Trump? I dont know the answer to that. I really dont. Does anyone know?

w
v

December 5, 2017 at 8:43 pm #78427

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

WV,

If you get the time, would be interested in you fleshing out what you mean by that media split (Dem versus Rep) a bit more.

It may well be I’ve just misread you. Wouldn’t be the first time. Won’t be the last.

Regardless, hope all is well.

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

What i mean is simply the “Fox-News/Rightwing-Radio/Washington Times…MSM’. Which of course is nothing more than propaganda for the Corporotacracy.

And. the “MSNBC-NYTIMES-PBS/NPR…MSM” part of the media. Also fulfilling propaganda function. Also providing the grease for the Corporate killing machine.

Yes, I see a difference between the two MSMs. Just like i see a difference between the Dems and Reps. But they both fulfill the meta-mission of greasing the corporate-killing-machine. Neither part of the Meta-MSM fosters discussion outside the usual dem-rep-PRO-corporate-shared-reality-tunnel.

Neither of the MSM’s wanted a Bernie or a Jill anywhere near the Presidency. Neither of the MSM’s ever offer any non-corporate-capitalist solutions. Neither of the MSM’s ever question American exceptionalism or american good intentions or the white-washed sanitized version of history….blah blah blah.

Its not like either Fox or PBS ever had Howard Zinn come on as a regular weekly guest expert, right?

w
v

December 5, 2017 at 8:54 pm #78431

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

And, speaking of colluding with Israel, The Intercept has this article as well:

https://theintercept.com/2017/12/05/michael-flynn-jared-kushner-israel-settlements-trump/

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

Yeah, the Israel thing is infuriating. Israel has colluded with every president and almost every senator for decades. Its just not called colluding. Cuz…..its Israel.

Its spawning some weird contortions out on the internetz:https://forward.com/opinion/388867/jared-kushner-was-right-to-collude-with-russia-because-he-did-it-for-israel/

w
v

December 5, 2017 at 8:56 pm #78432
Billy_T
Participant
wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Another example of a difference that matters. To me, this is outrageous and scary stuff….

“…The Trump administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies…

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

Well, that was predictable in my view. I (and others) think there is a split in the deep-state. A fracture, in the deep-state…concerning Trump. Trump ‘gets that’. Otherwise why would he want a separate intell force? He knows there’s an ‘anti-trump’ contingent in the ‘Intell community’.

He doesnt trust a large part of the deep-state’s intell-community. He wants a group he can trust. So, he privatizes an intell-group.

Now for me, its more “King Kong vs Godzilla” stuff. I am appalled at the monstrosity of the CIA. They are godzilla to me. A torturing, lying, enforcing subsystem of the Corporotacracy. So i dont get quite as upset about Trump creating a ‘different’ hideous, lying, enforcing, torturing thing. Trumps intell-system and the Establishment Intell systemy — King Kong vs Godzilla. Both, non-democratic hideous subsystems.

Will Trumps private-cia be worse than the establishment-cia, Billy? The films i posted about are about Indonesia — the place where the CIA participated in the extermination of a million labor leaders, artists, academics, chinese, and ‘communists’. The CIA provided many of the names to the death squads. Goodyear benefited from the slave-labor of many of them before they were butchered.
Will Trump’s group be worse than that?

Maybe. But my point is, when a system is as bad as the CIA, i dont get all that upset about ANY alternative to it.

Btw, who killed more humans in his first year as Prez – Obama or Trump? I dont know the answer to that. I really dont. Does anyone know?

w
v

WV, I consider you an online friend, but stuff like this just baffles me. Honestly. Your reaction to this baffles me.

Mostly for this reason: Trump’s attempt to add ANOTHER intel group, privatized, with Eric Prince of Blackwater fame at the helm, a hard-right, Christian fundamentalist fanatic . . . along with his family’s billions . . . . won’t prevent any of the bad stuff the CIA does. It will ADD new shit to the mix, with zero accountability.

I could see your reaction if this was about STOPPING the CIA and various official intel organizations, reforming them, democratizing them, making them transparent and accountable to America, but it’s not. It’s like adding another rapacious horde of mongols to attack a previously safe area of Asia.

This isn’t a Gandhi, or an Orwell, or a Camus, coming to the rescue. This is ADDING another brick in the wall of insanity, corruption and destruction.

To me, that’s the most baffling aspect of any sort of “so what?” response from the left when it comes to Trump. He’s not OPPOSING the horrible stuff we all agree is horrible. He’s adding more of it, with his own special hard-right twist.

Oh, well. We leftists are a diverse bunch, aren’t we?
- This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Billy_T.
December 5, 2017 at 9:07 pm #78435

Billy_T
Participant

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

WV,

If you get the time, would be interested in you fleshing out what you mean by that media split (Dem versus Rep) a bit more.

It may well be I’ve just misread you. Wouldn’t be the first time. Won’t be the last.

Regardless, hope all is well.

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

What i mean is simply the “Fox-News/Rightwing-Radio/Washington Times…MSM’. Which of course is nothing more than propaganda for the Corporotacracy.

And. the “MSNBC-NYTIMES-PBS/NPR…MSM” part of the media. Also fulfilling propaganda function. Also providing the grease for the Corporate killing machine.

Yes, I see a difference between the two MSMs. Just like i see a difference between the Dems and Reps. But they both fulfill the meta-mission of greasing the corporate-killing-machine. Neither part of the Meta-MSM fosters discussion outside the usual dem-rep-PRO-corporate-shared-reality-tunnel.

Neither of the MSM’s wanted a Bernie or a Jill anywhere near the Presidency. Neither of the MSM’s ever offer any non-corporate-capitalist solutions. Neither of the MSM’s ever question American exceptionalism or american good intentions or the white-washed sanitized version of history….blah blah blah.

Its not like either Fox or PBS ever had Howard Zinn come on as a regular weekly guest expert, right?

w
v

We definitely agree that they block any discussion of alternative societies — egalitarian, just, equal, fair, cooperative and peaceful societies. And this is horrifically wrong. They all try to narrow the framework to just Dem versus Rep, and this is, well, blah blah blah. We are in full agreement about how bad that is, how wrong, how immoral and destructive.

Ironically . . . back in the 1960s, you did find folks like Zinn on regular TV once in awhile. Even on entertainment shows like Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin. They’d have 60s radicals on now and then. They probably thought they could make them look bad, and usually failed, but they had them on.

Our media has gotten far more “conservative” and corporatized by the year, at least since 1968 or so.

I’m with Zooey. I want to leave this country and never look back. Hoping to retire to Portugal, or maybe the South of France in five years. If all goes well. I will miss my family, but they should visit often. And I’ll miss access to the Rams.

But it’s time.

December 5, 2017 at 10:21 pm #78445

Billy_T
Participant

WV,

I do this too often. Get a bit carried away with the discussion, and I think I come across in too harsh a manner at times. Sincere apologies. We’re all on the same team here.

Regardless, found this article about great places to retire in Europe. Portugal sounds really good to me.

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-places-europe-retirement-american-retirees-2017-12

December 5, 2017 at 11:26 pm #78451

zn
Moderator

Billy_T wrote:

Portugal sounds really good to me.

Been to Portugal. It’s beautiful and sleepy. One of the distinctions that sets Portugal apart–it’s one of the few western european countries that did not have to rebuild after ww2 (or the spanish civil war). All the pre-40s architecture is still there.

December 6, 2017 at 8:25 am #78462

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

WV,

I do this too often. Get a bit carried away with the discussion, and I think I come across in too harsh a manner at times. Sincere apologies. We’re all on the same team here.

Regardless, found this article about great places to retire in Europe. Portugal sounds really good to me.

I didnt think you came across as harsh at all, BT.

w
v

December 6, 2017 at 10:17 am #78468
Billy_T
Participant
Thanks, WV.

I want my own posts to remain within the realm of friendly discussions. At times I fear I’ve unintentionally moved it elsewhere. That’s an ongoing struggle for me.

__

ZN,

Cool picture of Portugal. I’ve been to Ireland, France, Monaco and dipped a toe on the other side of the French Pyrenees, so can technically say I’ve been to Spain. But haven’t made it to the land of Jose Saramago and Fernando Pessoa yet.

Aside from the natural beauty, culture and cuisine of Portugal, it would also offer easy connections to the rest of Europe, which is extremely appealing to me. If for no other reason than cultural/historical depths, I’d prefer being in Europe to here.

No place on earth is without its problems, of course. But on balance . . . . the art, music, cultural centers, the castles, the ancient ruins, etc. etc. . . . I’m drawn to the world across the Pond.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Billy_T.
December 7, 2017 at 6:31 pm #78521

wv
Participant

Billy whats your take on this article from WSW’s website:

wsw:http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/07/pers-d07.html

excerpt: “…It is evident that a significant faction of the ruling elite has concluded that Trump must go, in one form or another.

There is not, however, an ounce of democratic or progressive content to this campaign. The conflicts in Washington are conflicts within the ruling class, pitting the Trump administration—which is increasingly relying on far-right and fascistic forces—with powerful elements of the military and intelligence apparatus with which the Democratic Party is aligned….” see link

w
v

December 8, 2017 at 8:43 am #78546

Billy_T
Participant

wv wrote:

Billy whats your take on this article from WSW’s website:

wsw:http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/07/pers-d07.html

excerpt: “…It is evident that a significant faction of the ruling elite has concluded that Trump must go, in one form or another.

There is not, however, an ounce of democratic or progressive content to this campaign. The conflicts in Washington are conflicts within the ruling class, pitting the Trump administration—which is increasingly relying on far-right and fascistic forces—with powerful elements of the military and intelligence apparatus with which the Democratic Party is aligned….” see link

w
v

Fox News, especially Hannity, Breitbart and other Trump media are aggressively pushing the “Dems control the Deep State” meme. It’s reached Congress, where several Republicans are trying to discredit Mueller (a Republican), Comey (a Republican) and the entire FBI now as hopelessly biased against Trump (in open hearings). To me, this is sheer nonsense. It’s also highly dangerous, if it ends up working.

At this point, I think it’s abundantly clear that Trump and his allies know he’s in trouble. Legitimately under threat of exposure for decades of corruption, self-dealing and the already proven “collusion” charge. The rest is panic, desperation and projection.

IMO, the import of the “Deep State” is wildly exaggerated by the right for political and propaganda ends, mostly to protect Trump and deflect from his criminality. They’re trying to make it seem like this is something new, when it actually goes back well over a century, and it’s not controlled by either party. It’s basically the American Frat system, writ large. Big money, Old money, New money, merged with corporate power, protected by the Intel agencies and the MIC, the latter being traditionally far more aligned with right of center Republicans than anyone else. It’s the social network of the super rich and powerful. The Establishment. The power elite.

(breaking this into two to avoid TL;DNR.
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