Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
Billy_TParticipantPS — this is really the only part of that post that I was interested in: “…is that SCL, CA’s parent company used to work for MI6 (or be run by them) and this technology was used by them in god knows what elections around the world for the good of the empire…”
——————————–This is just another drop in the vast ocean-of-lies that make up “the West” now.
This is my mantra, BT. (until i become obsessed with a different mantra 🙂 )
Did you know that CA’s parent company worked for the brit-lie-factory? I didnt. Most people dont. What does it mean? I dunno. We dont get to know.
In a land of lies, we dont get to know. What can we trust anymore? What information can we trust in the West? Or the East.
Thats the situation one finds oneself in, in a factory-of-Lies.
And the people are so dummed-down now (not their fault) by the factory-of-lies, that they have…no…clue. They are not ‘citizens’ in any meaningful sense.
There are no citizens in a factory-of-lies.
Just how i see it now. Not tryin to persuade anyone.
w
vWell, WV, just as we all should be skeptical of reports from the MSM, the same skepticism, at least, is warranted when anonymous posters say that X company is tied to X spy agency. How do we know the poster is telling the truth?
It may well be the case. But I need more to go on that just the poster’s word, and he/she got a lot of other things wrong in the section you posted so . . . I’m withholding judgment.
Either way, even if they did have connections, I’m not sure how that alters the exposure of their business practices, what they were caught on tape doing, what they bragged about doing — as in, helping Trump win the election. It doesn’t alter that FB has finally admitted that CA harvested personal information from 50 million users, and sowed disinformation using that platform. It doesn’t alter Steve Bannon’s connection with the harvesting, and the Mercer family founding the company, or the link to Wikileaks, etc.
Anyway . . . I agree with you about this land of lies. Unfortunately, posts from various Internet sites aren’t necessarily the antidote. I know you know this, but we should be wary of all of it.
Hope all is well —
Billy_TParticipantFor me, this isn’t about how much impact it had on the election, if any.
It’s the immorality of it,
the sleaziness,
the likely illegality…===============
Well, I agree on the immorality. And i agree on the Sleaziness.
As for the Illegality — In a Corporotacracy? BT, as you well know poisoning the entire biosphere is perfectly ‘legal’ here. Fracking is legal. Busting Unions is legal. Neoliberalism is legal. NAFTA is legal. Buying elections is legal. Incarcerating gazillions of people on drug charges is legal. Increasing global warming is legal. Imprisoning whistle-blowers is legal. Interfering in other nations elections is legal. Torturing people is legal. Blowing people to bits with drones is legal. Denying poor people adequate health care is legal. Empire is legal. The CIA is legal.
Drenching people in propaganda is legal.I dont even know what ‘legal’ means in a Corporotacracy, BT.
Carry on, Billy. I’m nuthin but dark-matter, i know 🙂
You be the light.
w
vWe both agree on the obscenity of that list of yours. We both want it to stop and that it’s a horror show. But in a world where the vast majority of things are never exposed, when so few even try to expose them, shouldn’t leftists support the rare cases of sunlight when they do occur?
All those things you list — yes, it goes without saying that the rich and corporate America and international capitalism get away with endless crimes against humanity and the planet, and all of that is profoundly wrong and should not stand. None of it. Not one iota of it.
But a tiny sliver of this is being brought to light in the Trump era, in a weird way, in an incredibly ironic way, because he made himself rich and powerful through playing the media, through marketing, through using images and slogans and marketing campaigns to fake it until he made it, and it may well bring him down. The proverbial sword that cuts two ways. The NDAs that cut two ways.
I think he’s guilty of major financial crimes, endless bullying, threats of violence against women, sexual assault against women, stirring up hatred against minorities, plus emboldening white supremacists, neo-nazis, neo-fascists . . . and his policies destroy the poor and the planet. He’s the head of a political party which is much more aggressive about doing those things than the other major party, which is also guilty of crimes against humanity and the planet. He deserves to be in jail for what he’s done, and America has the right to know the entire story.Leftist principles sync up perfectly well with the desire to see all of this brought to light. As mentioned before, if Trump does go down, it’s not a vindication of Clinton, or the Dems, or anyone else. It’s just about Trump and his crime family. Just them. Clinton was a terrible candidate and none of that changes, either way. IMO, leftists make a mistake if they fear supporting these investigations due to side issues like that. It’s just not relevant.
Billy_TParticipantThere’s a lot of fuss about CA now, seemingly because someone thinks they can convince everyone that Brexit and/or Trump only happened due to computer voodoo, and we should therefore reverse them. While they’re obviously dodgy, I think this story has been overblown by hopeful remainers: eg CA worked for ted cruz first for ages before trump – didn’t do cruz much good – most of the data they had was related to cruz – they switched to trump late in the day, so the effect of any direct trump-related psychometry had would have been minimal i’d guess. Similarly with brexit – they were going to work for leave.eu if they got the main funding, but they didn’t so they didn’t apparently. Companies like CA are in the business of overstating the power of their algorithms seems to me.
The poster’s premise seems inflated to me from the get go, and I think he or she seeks to dismiss recent scrutiny via major exaggeration. I don’t bump into anyone reporting on this trying to claim CA is the reason why Brexit passed or Trump won, and no one is suggesting the results should be reversed because of CA. They’re just doing their due diligence about corporate corruption, which is beyond dispute in this case. Even FB now admits it happened, after two years of trying to hide it. It makes them look bad too, and their stock took a hit, so it’s not as if they gain by finally coming clean about this.
Also, the post is wrong about the timing of the Cruz connection. It can’t have been “ages” as the company wasn’t even formed until 2013, and they switched to Trump in 2015 (marketing his core slogans in 2014). Yes, the Mercers originally backed Cruz, as did people like Kellyanne Conway, but then they switched to Trump and still back him. Bannon, as mentioned, was on the CA board.
For me, this isn’t about how much impact it had on the election, if any. It’s the immorality of it, the sleaziness, the likely illegality. I think the people involved should be held accountable, all the way up to Trump and the Mercers. To me, it sends a horrible message if they can get away with it. It tells billionaires they can use any means necessary to win elections, pass preferred legislation, force their own agenda into law, etc. etc. I think all attempts to corrupt the process should be exposed and the people responsible made to pay the price, regardless of party.
Billy_TParticipantWell there’s several different issues there. Did CA ‘steal’ something from ‘facebook’? If they did why hasnt the FBI arrested someone? Is it ‘illegal’ to steal from facebook or is it a gray area?
Secondly are you saying CA is a russian organization? Or that simply a russian is part of it?
Btw, here is a post i read today on the lifeboat board. Its about CA as well. It was noted that CA has links to the British-CIA, not the Russian-CIA 🙂
Fwiw.__________________________
There’s a lot of fuss about CA now, seemingly because someone thinks they can convince everyone that Brexit and/or Trump only happened due to computer voodoo, and we should therefore reverse them. While they’re obviously dodgy, I think this story has been overblown by hopeful remainers: eg CA worked for ted cruz first for ages before trump – didn’t do cruz much good – most of the data they had was related to cruz – they switched to trump late in the day, so the effect of any direct trump-related psychometry had would have been minimal i’d guess. Similarly with brexit – they were going to work for leave.eu if they got the main funding, but they didn’t so they didn’t apparently. Companies like CA are in the business of overstating the power of their algorithms seems to me.The real issue for me is that SCL, CA’s parent company used to work for MI6 (or be run by them) and this technology was used by them in god knows what elections around the world for the good of the empire – and no doubt still is being used by many agencies, private and otherwise – and probably to a much higher sophistication level than CA has. Not to mention the same technology as used by the major social media giants in-house as a matter of course in their own business models.
(I read somewhere that the tories have apparently been in talks with CA for three months about working for them – can’t remeber where now)
=====================This is a pretty recent development, but I think arrests will be made in the near future. Mueller is apparently looking into this now. It’s pretty obvious by now that he works very slowly, methodically, etc.
As for illegality of harvesting info without permission: You know the law a hell of a lot better than I do, but I would guess it’s illegal in most spheres. I’m also guessing, however, that in the Internet, social media, digital realm, it is “gray” to some degree, but should not be. It’s gray because Silicon Valley has been adept at working both parties — in recent years, especially the Dems — to stave off serious regulations. But in this particular case, it does appear that CA misrepresented what they were doing to FB. So there may be an issue between the two corporations.
I don’t think any private company, of any kind, in any sphere, should be able to harvest any of our personal information, ever, without our consent, and that that should be the law. It appears to be, however, that they can, and they do, without telling us, and then they sell it to other companies, which don’t tell us either. I’d make that all against the law.
No, I don’t think CA is a Russian organization. But it looks like they hired a Russian to build the app in question.
A follow up on your quote from lifeboat in the next post.
Billy_TParticipantUnfortunately, and primarily because of Trump and his media fluffers, the viewpoint taking hold isn’t the logical one, the one perhaps first formulated by C. Wright Mills as the Power Elite back in the 1950s. It’s the Alex Jones view. That’s why the polling numbers have ticked up so much recently.
And I find that change interesting but highly dangerous, too. Many of the most fervent believers on the right in the “deep state” idea not so long ago were true believers in its necessity. They were Bush fanboys, who took every criticism of the “Law and Order” state, including the Surveillance State, as “anti-American” and/or treasonous. It’s only now, because their guy Trump has painted himself as a victim that they did a 180. But even that 180 is incredibly selective.
None of these people are against the “deep state” in the way it’s seen by the left. They’re only against the part they see as in a conspiracy to bring down Trump. And they view that as all Dem, all left-wing, even “socialist.” They don’t see the GOP as involved, or conservatives, or right-wingers. Their “deep state” is “far left” with one major aim:
destroy Trump.
I’ve never seen one iota of a discussion from them about the need to clean any of this up across the board — regardless of party — or to put in democratic checks to restrain the powerful. Not one iota of it is directed at the powerful crushing the powerless. It’s all about Trump and his supposed victimhood. They would be just fine if Trump controlled the “deep state” and used it to consolidate his own power, etc. They’d be perfectly fine if he expanded its grip, just as long as he controlled all the levers of the machine.
This won’t end well.
Billy_TParticipantI dont get it BT. I dont see the illegality in any of that. (granted i havent studied on it)
That analytics stuff just looks like the same ole political focus group crap that Obama, Clinton, and all the rest of them have used for a long time. Whats illegal about it?
w
vCambridge Analytica stole personal information from 50 million Facebook users, and FB has known about this for more than two years, apparently. They’re just now admitting it and have supposedly severed ties with CA. CA suspended their CEO in the wake of these revelations.
Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach
Cambridge Analytica was founded by the Mercers, the far-right billionaire family, and Steven Bannon was on its board. Kushner brought them into the Trump campaign and they were key in his social media/digital operations. CA also had direct communication with Wikileaks.
And — surprise surprise!! The guy who created the app which culled those 50 million profiles is a Russian.
;>)
If you read the articles, you’ll also see a pattern with Cambridge of very sleazy business practices, including entrapment.
Yes, political operations for both major parties have engaged in seriously sleazy nonsense for a long, long time. But I’ve never seen anything like the Trump campaign. He makes Nixon look like a choirboy.
As mentioned before, I think the main driver for all of this is massive debt. Trump and Kushner owe billions, likely, and no one would lend Trump money except for the Russians. Kushner, while in the White House, managed to get half a billion from CEOs he met with in the Oval Office.
They’re breaking all records for corruption, and America has had more than its share.
Billy_TParticipantA Guardian article on the subject as well. It includes the hidden camera video of Cambridge execs:
Also, with the Facebook data breach involving 50 million members, the suggestion from some that the reach was minimal should be a dead talking point. And I think this is just the beginning. A recent article alleges Republicans in North Carolina utilized this service back in 2014 as well.
While both major parties may end up implicated, right now, at least, this appears to be a GOP-only scandal in the making, extending beyond Trump.
Billy_TParticipantWell…..for me…The CIA itself is a terrorist organization. With a long long long history of terror, torture, assassination, lying, stealing, framing people, interfering in elections, and drug-dealing.
So does it matter who runs a Terrorist Organization?
I suppose so. But in a better world the MSM would be discussing the Organization itself instead of the musical chairs part of it.
w
vWell, we both know the media aren’t gonna do that, and we also know their tendency to leave key things out of the discussion. So, in relative terms, this is kinda refreshing, at least to me. Mainstream sources openly talking about torture programs and who ran them, and that a person who was in charge of one will now run the entire agency. They seemed to have jumped on that right away.
I suspect that prior to Trump, when the media were much more likely to be sleepy lapdogs to power, they wouldn’t have done this so quickly, if ever. Now, because of an awakening of sorts — which, of course, is still way too limited — they seem to be channeling their inner Watergate.
Who knows how this will play out? But I’m glad to see them expose what she was up to before her confirmation. It also adds more proof that Trump never had any intention of bucking the “deep state.” He just wants to make sure it works for him.
-
This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Billy_T.
Billy_TParticipantThe Washington Post adds some further details:
A key section:
Jameel Jaffer, formerly deputy legal director of the ACLU, said Tuesday on his Twitter feed that Haspel is “quite literally a war criminal.”
Billy_TParticipantQuick addendum:
It already has in part. When I first looked her up this morning, Wikipedia described her as a “war criminal,” as a part of its intro. That’s now gone.
Billy_TParticipantLike everyone here, I think the MSM is pretty lame. But I read it, watch it, listen to it, along with a lot of stuff outside the MSM.
Perhaps the main reason for that is that I want to know what they’re actually saying, and not what people are sayin’ they’re sayin’. I want to know for myself, first hand.
Over time, by doing this, I’ve discovered that a lot of the criticism about the media, left, right and center, falls into the same traps, ironically, that beset the MSM: lack of context, absurd glibness, an unsaid assumption of being smarter than everyone else, and not needing to really make a solid case for this or that. But perhaps the worst thing they do, like the MSM, is to use the part for the whole. That bugs me — a lot. A person or two, a show or two, isn’t a zeitgeist, etc. A person or two, a show or two, doesn’t give the critic license to imply or state straight up that “they all do X, Y or Z.”
Another observation: The next president, Dem or Republican, is gonna catch hell. I have a strong feeling that Trump has helped the media take itself seriously again, perhaps too seriously. They played lapdog through several administrations, and largely because Trump went after them viciously, they finally woke up out of their lapdogmatic slumber.
The next occupant of the White House is gonna get the full Trump treatment, especially if he or she is a Dem. The MSM are gonna do everything they can to avoid being accused of “bias” and double standards.
Billy_TParticipantI’m basically an atheist, with caveats. As in, I don’t think there is a supreme being of any kind, but I’m not going to stick with that belief if actual “proof” arrives. Not just as a personal revelation. I don’t trust those. But if it’s the kind of proof millions and millions of people can see at the same time . . . and agree that they’re seeing the same thing at the same time.
I first decided against Christianity as a kid, after reading a ton of mythology and then studying the myths themselves. A light just came on for me that if we’ve had thousands of different iterations of the divine, with thousands of different stories, then there can be no “one true god.” The sheer overwhelming mass of diversity renders that impossible in my view. For me. I fully accept that others feel differently.
As I got older, I tried to refine that, and soon enough came to the conclusion that the Christian god is no more likely than Zeus, Thor, Isis, Krishna, the Dagda or any god from any mythology. So while I might have a caveat that prevents me from being a rock-solid, permanent, never-changing atheist, I am rock-solid, permanent and never-changing in my belief that no human being knows, and no religious/mythological tradition can possibly represent “reality.” From that rock I can’t move. Which is why these church histories are so fascinating, and so tragic at the same time. People actually died for their beliefs and faith that they had been told the truth when no human can know. Church leaders actually killed one another over minute theological differences, riots broke out, wars were launched, basically because one mythology clashed with another.
Life is far too short for that shit, IMO. Live and let live. If people want to believe in the divinity of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, I couldn’t care less. As long as they don’t corner the market on them and share.
Billy_TParticipantI was just talking at work last night with a guy who told me about a co-worker who is a Seventh Day Adventist who celebrates the Sabbath on a Saturday because that’s how it is supposed to be–that the Romans had just decided to make it Sunday instead because of the pagans who worshiped the sun God as they were were forced to become Christians. I told him that I thought most of the traditions were handpicked by men and that you could not separate man’s influence on this.
But it’s interesting how one sect will accept some things while some accept others and they all believe they’re practicing the TRUE religion.
Everyone thinks they don’t want a theocracy–unless it’s in their own tradition–but even within that they’d get outraged over things that did not line up to their personal beliefs.
One of the biggest internal battles in early Christianity was between Jewish Christians and those who followed Paul, directly or indirectly, and wanted to sever all ties or most ties from Judaism. There were many factions and degrees of this. Jesus, of course, was born and raised a Jew, and said often enough that he never had any intention of changing the Jewish Law. Scholars, including Ehrman, have noted the contradictions and changes in the gospels and NT in general that reflect this battle, and the movement away from Jewish conceptions over time. Certain parts are downright anti-Semitic, and dangerously so. It’s not a leap to say that antisemitism started with the NT and that shift, the prime rationale being that the Jews supposedly had killed the Christian god, not the Romans.
Complexities galore, of course. Cuz even the “gentile” movements of Christians wanted to appropriate the antiquity of the Jewish faith, knowing it was a hard sell to start something brand new. How much better to show a tradition that goes back, at least via myths and legends, before Homer? But they also knew that circumcision and the strict dietary laws were a deal-breaker for millions of pagans who might convert, so the proto-orthodox did their best to split the difference.
Almost finished rereading Lost Christianities, and into the part that he talks about forgeries and copies of copies of copies, which I have always found interesting. We have NO original texts for the NT, and the only fully complete NT copies are from the 4th century. And because they were copied by hand, they’re filled with alterations, errors, divergences, etc. etc. Basically, no two copies are the same . . . and scholars have basically agreed that there are from 200,000 to 300,000 differences in the main 5400 copies.
We’re not reading anything close to the “original” manuscripts.
Billy_TParticipantAnother pattern that seems to come out from reading about this era again . . . and then projecting it onto others:
With exceptions, the “winners” were the folks who were best organized, and went for the jugular. It was rarely the case that they were ever “Oh, we’re cool with whatever you do. Live and let live. The more the merrier.”
In almost all cases, the “losers” were the folks who wanted a “live and let live” dynamic, or more broadly, society. Which is my preference. I think “the left” often ends up on the losing end because we do in general champion openness and diversity, a vibrant exchange of ideas, pluralism, etc. etc. We do think “live and let live” is better than “crush all your opponents without mercy.”
But the latter attitude tends to win the day, and that causes even more problems down the road, because to maintain power, that attitude often must become the rule and the Way. The more adamant a group is in their “our way or the highway,” the more forceful they have to be to keep that going. It tends to snowball.
So in the case of the various factions in early Christianity, it seemed that the ones who were okay with serious diversity and lots of different visions and versions . . . ended up losing to the proto-orthodox who weren’t okay with that. Same thing happened with the battle between polytheists and monotheists.
Billy_TParticipantThe Gnostics were fascinating. It was a great thing that at least some of their writings were recovered in 1945 in Egypt.
Diverse though they were, there does seem to be some basic commonality among them. That the secret teachings of Jesus were what mattered, not his death and resurrection. They had elaborate and often beautiful myths to describe fallen worlds, fallen beings, and the difference between our true home and this (living in a) material world. Escaping from it to go back to that original realm was key. Gnosticism seems to have some things, at least tangentially, in common with Hinduism and Buddhism in that sense.
Books: I’m running out of space for mine too. But I love them. I love looking at them, picking them up, flipping through the pages. E-books will never come close to giving me that kind of pleasure.
Billy_TParticipantIOW, so many people assume there was this agreement about what Jesus said, did, meant, and how he should be worshiped. In reality, scholars have discovered, especially from the Enlightenment to the present, there was incredible diversity of thought and vision for centuries, including debates about his divinity . . . Was he human, and not divine? Was he divine, and not human? Was he both? Was the son lesser than the father? Were they the same in essence or just similar? Even into the 4th century, after Constantine had become the first Roman Emperor to (at least nominally) accept the Christian faith, riots were started over “same essence,” “similar essence” visions. The so-called Arian Heresy . . . where one single letter in Greek might be the difference between excommunication or worse.
Another key: This didn’t happen as some “natural” evolution of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This wasn’t some kind of hashing out of disagreements, and then everyone decided they can get on board with X, Y and Z. This was mostly a matter of violent suppression of opposing views . . . both by the competing church factions and brutal state suppression.
It’s also amazing to think about the lost context regarding various “saints.” Many of them were among the most vicious when it came to these doctrinal disagreements . . . and none of this even touches upon how Christians, once in power, went after pagans.
And that seems to always be the thing: Power. History teaches us most of the people who hold it, abuse it, with tragic consequences. Exceptions exist, of course. But they’re rare.
Billy_TParticipantEllsberg is an American hero. Not many people would risk what he did, knowing he was going to catch hell and maybe die because of the Pentagon Papers.
Didn’t know about Gun.
Will take a closer look at both videos later. With the chemo, my ability to concentrate comes and goes. Running on a coffee high for now, but that’s gonna crash soon enough. I can’t predict any of this.
Hope all is well in WV land.
Billy_TParticipantNot sure this link will work but:
books vid:https://www.facebook.com/ahmetk62/videos/o.308011272639434/1603402759710447/?type=2&theaterThanks, WV.
I’m not a FB person. But will figure it out.
March 6, 2018 at 11:02 am in reply to: Hiding in plain sight: WHY the GOP/Trump collude with Russia. #83528Billy_TParticipantJust to clarify a coupla points.
I think Trump and the GOP were on two different tracks with Russia until recently. It’s overlapping now, but it didn’t start out that way.
I also think Trump hooked up with Russia, not because he thought they could help him win the election. I’m betting he thought he never had a chance — even to win the Republican nom. He hooked up with Russia because of his massive debts, and he brought in all kinds of shady characters — Flynn, Manafort, Page, Gates, etc. etc. with contacts in Russia to help him. We’ve never seen any campaign with even a fraction of a fraction as much.
Russia likely didn’t think he’d win, either, but it wanted to hurt Clinton, so it put its thumb down on the scale for Trump and the GOP. Wikileaks did the same.
Once he won, he started to pay them back.
The GOP, however, accepted Russia help to win elections in general. It gladly accepted that help and worked, and is still working to prevent effective, coordinated countermeasures. As the likelihood of a blue wave becomes more and more real, the GOP knows Russian help — along with its usual voter suppression tricks — may be the only thing standing in the way of a wipe out.
All of that said, America would be obviously better off without either of the major parties. Their record of governance is a scandal in and of itself, and an epic failure going back more than a century — with only brief moments of sunlight. Both parties have proven, time and time again, they don’t represent us and they don’t deserve the power we’ve mistakenly ceded to them. Any of it.
March 6, 2018 at 10:47 am in reply to: Hiding in plain sight: WHY the GOP/Trump collude with Russia. #83527Billy_TParticipantWell, i disagree with most of that, but its a minor thing to me. I’m not gonna repeat myself on the topic.
We agree on all the big stuff.
I think I’m gonna concentrate more on what we agree on from now on. I dunno why. I just feel like it.
w
v
———–
PS, this looks like a good book to me:https://legalform.blog/2018/01/19/review-of-sidney-l-harrings-policing-a-class-society-the-experience-of-american-cities-1865-1915-second-edition-chicago-haymarket-2017-part-one-stuart-schrader/
Review of Sidney L. Harring, Policing a Class Society: The Experience of American Cities, 1865–1915, second edition (Chicago: Haymarket, 2017) (Part One) — Stuart Schrader“…Harring argues that police in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the First World War played a key role in capital accumulation by controlling labor strife and managing the growth of the restive industrial working class. His analysis centers on the Great Lakes region, focusing on Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Toledo, plus some other smaller cities. He looks at both concentrated police activity toward working-class organization, like strike-breaking, and diffuse control of labor pools, like the enforcement of vice regulations and control of “tramps”, the itinerant unemployed or underemployed male proletariat.
One insight of Harring’s research is that it was not inevitable that police officers would side with capitalists against workers…”
Thanks, WV.
The last sentence is really important. Throughout history, one of the keys to the success, even temporarily, of popular uprisings is when the police and the military side with workers and “the people.” With exceptions, that’s about the only way it happens.
If you’re still reading October, Mieville does a great job of demonstrating that.
Another book of interest:
Fraser is really good at compare and contrast, especially between the reaction to the first of our Gilded Ages and the second.
March 6, 2018 at 10:42 am in reply to: Hiding in plain sight: WHY the GOP/Trump collude with Russia. #83526Billy_TParticipantRecently, all the heads of the Intel community appeared before Congress and were unified on Russia’s meddling, past, present and future. All were Republicans, and most of them were appointed by Trump. They looked extremely uncomfortable when they reluctantly admitted they had received NO directives from Trump to do ANYTHING about election or social media interference. Their body language made it pretty obvious they hated having to answer these questions in that way. But the truth is, the Trump administration, despite unanimous agreement about the threat, has done nothing to defend the nation against that threat, including implementing sanctions that were already passed by Congress, failing to spend any of the 120 million dollars allocated to the State Department to combat that threat, failing to even hire Russian speakers, while gutting the State Department overall.
Same goes with directives for Defense, the CIA, the FBI, etc. etc. Nothing coming from the Trump administration, and no outcry from GOP leadership.
Can you imagine what the right would be doing now if it had been Obama and the Dems in the same situation? The calls of “treason” would be 24/7, and he would already have been impeached.
IMO, Trump got caught up in all of this initially because of his massive debt. Russia was basically the only source willing to lend to him, and they obviously have him over the barrel. But the GOP itself just wants to stay in power, and Russia can help them, DID help them already.
This really should be seen as a much, much bigger scandal than the current media narrative suggests.
March 6, 2018 at 10:28 am in reply to: Hiding in plain sight: WHY the GOP/Trump collude with Russia. #83524Billy_TParticipantAs for the hypocrisy angle. Technically, yeah. It’s “hypocritical” to call out Russia when we have such a horrible history of international meddling too. But I see it as largely irrelevant, primarily because of this:
It’s the game of empires. Or, to use a sports metaphor, it’s two teams, battling it out, trying to score on their opponent.
If the Rams drive down the field and score on the 49ers, are they being “hypocritical” if they do their best to defend their own side of the field, when the 49ers have the ball?
No. Doesn’t matter that “we do it too.” The game is the game, and unless and until you stop playing it, you should defend your own goal.
A much better example of “hypocrisy” is when the two combatants aren’t in the slightest bit equal, and don’t have a history of head to head battling. When there’s a hegemon, like America, throwing around its weight, telling a relatively weak nation that it can’t do X, Y or Z, even though America has done exactly X, Y and Z for generations. Telling them that if you do it, we’ll crush you. Or, far worse, invading them, etc.
That’s the kind of “hypocrisy” that actually matters, in my view.
March 6, 2018 at 10:19 am in reply to: Hiding in plain sight: WHY the GOP/Trump collude with Russia. #83522Billy_TParticipantSo, again, the starting line should be a deep investigation of all the ways the GOP and Trump have done everything they can to prevent hardening our voting system, protecting election integrity, as they obstruct probes into this, start the most absurd distractions, selectively leak classified and declassified information to obstruct, distract and deflect, etc.
The goal is to keep power. It’s not just Trump. It’s the Republican leadership, especially McConnell, Ryan and amateur-hour pitbulls like Nunes, Gaetz, Grassley and Graham.
Not saying the Dems are clean. But at least when it comes to Russia — they have their own forms of corruption desperately in need of sunlight — this is all about the GOP. This is all about their willingness to do anything to stay in power, expand it, no matter how much that hurts the American people.
Billy_TParticipantQuick addendum to the above: In America, especially, we don’t have much — if anything — in the way of a pure public sector exchange. The private sector has lobbied for and won inroads on virtually everything, including Medicare, so that the potential for amazing tax and share deals is at least a bit watered down. If . . . if we had a system where the private sector could NOT do this, and that our public goods and services were truly non-profit, without an iota of privatization of ANY kind, it would be even more amazing.
As in, all non-profit, and universal, all public, without ANY influence from the private sector, and the bang for the buck goes up even more.
I don’t think the private sector can compete against a model like that, which is why they fight to the death to prevent it everywhere. It’s also why our government actually fights to prevent this in other nations too. The capitalist elite simply don’t want any unfettered examples of a fully functioning non-profit, public sector operating, any place on the planet.
Billy_TParticipantOn the “millennials want free stuff” nonsense.
Right. And Maher is just perpetuating the fraud that getting services from the government in exchange for your tax money is “mooching.” Americans have been brainwashed into resenting the sliver of the budget that goes to people who pay less in taxes than they do while never noticing that the lion’s share of their taxes are being directed into corporate profits, very often corporations who are harming society in significant ways.
What a world.
I just don’t know what little guys are supposed to do about a political and economic system which is completely rigged for the benefit of a tiny minority when the vast majority of the victims of the system believe to their cores that the problems are caused by other victims of the system.
Agreed. And the really frustrating thing about all of this? Americans get a far better deal on public sector goods and services than private. The tax and share model is actually amazing, if you think about it, and nothing in the private sector can match it. We share the cost over space and time, and get to share the assets for life. All of that means our individual burden is a fraction of a fraction of what it would be if we had to do this one on one in a private transaction.
Throw in non-profit versus for-profit and it’s an even better deal. Add to that the much lower overhead for the public sector, and it gets even better. Americans have been brainwashed into believing that everything is better in the private sector, when the reality is that virtually NOTHING is. I can’t think of a single case in which that exchange of dollars for goods and services works out better in the private sector.
It may exist. But I can’t find one.
Guys like Maher, a multi-millionaire, don’t have to worry about such things, but 90% of the country does.
Billy_TParticipantWow. I was totally unaware they were even working on that.
I’ll have to process that for a while.
Hard for me to believe it will ever be cheap enough for poor people to afford.
w
vWell, unless they can make it affordable for the masses, it will never become anything more than a novelty.
But I think as technology improves and the process continues to become more efficient, eventually lab grown meat could become cheaper than conventional farm raised meat. For example, think about all the resources and time necessary to grow a cow to maturity. The land, food, and medical requirements, waste generated, etc…
I like the idea. I also like the idea of finding a way to make people require far less in the way of food and water. I can’t even play a scientist on TV, and haven’t stayed at a Holiday Inn in years . . . but I would imagine that we’re not too far away from tweaking our own biology a bit to downsize our needs.
Of course, I also worry about how “designer babies” and the whole array of monkeying around with our genetics is going to go . . . and I’m about 99% sure it will be abused to generate an even greater gap between rich and poor — like an update from Gattaca. So we’d have to create air tight preventative measures, democratically, first. The Wrath of Khan was a 1960s story, if memory serves . . . and science has advanced in leaps and bounds since then, obviously.
But if there were a way to guarantee egalitarian implementation, it could be a major plank in our survival. As in, reducing our environmental footprint by reducing our daily nutritional needs/desires . . .
Billy_TParticipantOn the “millennials want free stuff” nonsense. This isn’t rocket science. A modern capitalist society collects taxes. It spends money on things like infrastructure, military, courts, R and D, education, environment, “entitlements”
and so on. Millennials seem to understand this much better than the Mahers of this world. Spending those tax dollars on bread and butter instead of guns makes a hell of a lot more sense, and “free stuff” is no more applicable to that than it is to our trillion dollar military budget.We send in tax dollars to DC, localities, states, in exchange for public goods and services. Same basic idea as handing over consumer dollars in exchange for private sector goods and services. What “free stuff” is he talking about, other than tax cuts for rich people and corporate welfare?
-
This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Billy_T.
Billy_TParticipantHe is hit and miss. That socialism rant isn’t even about socialism, and he ignores the obvious fact that many countries have those things AND MORE all without Santa Claus’ intercession.
He is hit or miss. He’ll say something fairly intelligent about capitalism and then come back and say something truly ignorant about socialism. Very few Americans know that the Soviets never implemented it. Lenin said he had to institute capitalism first to pull Russia into the 20th century, and no subsequent dictator there altered that.
They had State Capitalism, not socialism. For more than two centuries, socialists have described what it means, and it’s abundantly clear it’s never been tried ANYWHERE in the modern world on a national basis. But folks still think Soviet Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, China, etc. etc. had “socialism.” Not even remotely close.
Socialism means the economy is democratized, the people — not political parties, juntas or dictators — own the means of production, and the surplus value of what they generate belongs to the people, not “the state.” The Soviet model is “capitalism” for a host of reasons, but primarily because the people don’t own what they produce, the surplus value they generate is appropriated from them by non-workers, and there isn’t any democracy.
Mr. Chomsky still has one of the best short videos on the abuse and misuse of the word, evah:
March 4, 2018 at 10:39 am in reply to: teachers (images/ideas of teachers in the wake of Florida) #83437Billy_TParticipantA black teacher was interviewed the other day on NPR and was so on point, bringing up a rather neglected issue in the discussion. She was brilliantly concise, and I wish she had been there at the White House to talk to President Flip Flop.
Can’t reproduce how well she said it, but the gist of the matter is this: Police in America have a history of shooting black people first, asking questions later. So, a black teacher has a gun in an active shooter situation. Police arrive. They’re gonna shoot the teacher.
She also brought up the issue of shooting students by mistake, in the chaos of the situation, etc. etc.
And I would add . . . the permanent damage done to any teacher who has to kill someone. You guys are probably well aware of the studies done about our military . . . How so few soldiers in WWI and even into WWII actually fired their weapons at other humans, which “worried” the military brass. So they instituted special psych-ops training to increase the kill rates. They went waaay up for Vietnam, and Iraq. But people have to be trained/desensitized to kill. Humans have a “natural,” internal taboo against it.
Billy_TParticipantI hope America learns a lesson from this fiasco. Never, ever elect big business tycoons, especially when they try to hide their business dealings, refuse to divest, won’t publish their taxes, and bring in family.
We actually have nepotism laws against much of this, but the GOP basically said, whatever. Same with the security forms, which Kushner has revised more than 100 times, apparently — after being caught in lies and omissions. That’s why his permanent clearance was never granted. There are dozens and dozens of staff still waiting for clearance.
Drain the Swamp? He’s the biggest swamp creature in American history.
I also hope — but doubt — this will force Congress to enact laws for the Executive and itself that will prevent future abuses. Those “norms and traditions” obviously failed, and we can’t trust the Dems or the GOP to follow them, at all. Gotta have real teeth.
-
This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by
-
AuthorPosts
