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.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I think we’re watching, reading and hearing different sources in the MSM, cuz I’m just not seeing the story being peddled that you see. I mostly see reporters concentrating on Trump, as mentioned above, his actions, the actions of his campaign . . . and while, yes, there is some silly bluster how the boy scout nature of the FBI and other Intel groups, I don’t bump into the “city on the hill” rhetoric, or the evil Russians and the awesome Americans. It’s all about Trump lies, his and his campaign’s seemingly endless meetings with the Russians, their lies about those and so on. I see the focus mostly on Trump’s criminality, not Russia’s.

To me, that’s as it should be.

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

Well, we just interpret what we are seeing differently i guess. I see the DNC-MSM going after Trump as you say. (While the Rep-MSM goes after the Dems)

But i see the Russia-story being ‘used’ by the DNC-MSM as a basic propaganda tool, and as an anti-trump tool. They go hand in hand. The meta story is based on American exceptionalism and purity and the specific story is linking the evil trump to the evil putin empire.

And none of it has any accurate historical context. The DNC-MSM and the Rep-MSM both continue to dum-down the electorate and propagandize them endlessly. And thus we end up with Hillary vs Trump or Obama vs McCain, etc. Its all a circus of lies, comrad.

w
v

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.

The propagandizing is ongoing, but it’s mostly, to me, about an attempted obliteration of any kind of alternative economic vision, which also means leftists have to be silenced. We’re not a part of the national conversation. The furthest “left” it’s allowed to go is Sanders, and the MSM has done its best to block even that. You and I and several others here are to the left of Sanders; our ideas are more egalitarian than his — and least those he’s talked about in public. And he’s it. The powers that be won’t allow anything further, because that really is a direct threat to them.

Trump isn’t. He helps them. He’s all in for the plutocracy. He’s deregulated businesses already, massively (through EOs), has turned federal department after federal department against its own public mission — and they were already weakened — and he’s ready to sign a huge tax cut for them. They may think he’s a lunatic, but they’ll gladly accept all the Christmas gifts he’s handing out . . . and the most destructive may be in the near future, with the privatization of our national parks.

In short, Trump is a dream come true for the corporatocracy, for billionaires, for serial pollutors, for arms merchants, the MIC, etc. They haven’t had a president so willing to make rich people richer since Reagan.

And the above is a big reason why I’m so puzzled by some leftist pundits who seem to be coming to his defense. Trump and the GOP are so appallingly against everything we stand for, it really dumbfounds me. As bad as the Clintons and the Dems are, they don’t come close to being so aggressively plutocratic. It’s just not close. And I say that noting how rotten Clinton and the Dems are . . . and I agree with you about their endless propagandizing of voters. I just don’t get the reluctance by some on the left to ALSO go after Trump. Again, he and the GOP are waaaay more destructive.

Anyway . . . more thots later.

Let me ask you an open question. What do you think of the American NSA/CIA/FBI ?
What do you think of the American Corporotocracy? What do you think of it? Why are you so upset about russian interference with this….thing. ? Do you think this ‘thing’ is a ‘good’ thing?

Those are pretty tough questions to wrap up in a short space, but I’ll take a stab at them. First off, you misread me if you think I’m so “upset about this Russia thing” with a focus on what Russia has done. As mentioned above, my anger is directed at Trump and the GOP, almost exclusively. I know that America and Russia have traded attacks, back and forth, for decades. It’s not what Russia did, per se, as far as I’m concerned. It’s what Trump and company did to get elected — and to build his business empire.

As for our intel agencies. I’ve said before, they work primarily on behalf of capital and capitalism, to keep it safe and help it expand. I despise the capitalist system with every fiber of my being, and I think the “corporatocracy” is a natural outgrowth of capitalism itself. Replace capitalism with an all democratic and egalitarian economic system, and no more corporatocracy. Which also means there’s now next to no reason for those intel agencies to exist.

Though, because we’ve had “empire” historically for thousands of years, you’ll still have secret orgs. And because they’re all over the globe, we’ll need them too, tragically. The key then becomes keeping them fully under democratic control, which we’ve never done. That needs to start. Transparent to the degree possible. Under true democratic control. And, IMO, there can never be any real democracy until the economy is fully democratized.

My own philosophy is decidedly antiwar, anti-empire, pro-democracy and radically egalitarian. If my own dreams for humanity came even close to being true, America would not be an empire any longer; we’d be fully democratic, including the economy, and there wouldn’t be any need for those intel agencies. But that’s not the world, obviously. IMO, leftists need to work toward all of that, knowing it may take generations. The struggle is worth it because the end goal is . . . . well, beautiful beyond words.

WV,

I think you must have missed my followup from 10:17pm. It looks like your most recent response doesn’t include it. I talk more about historical context there, including our own history of interference and worse.

And prior to reading your response, I was thinking of yet another followup last night.

;>)

Basically, from my observation of the MSM, they aren’t (and haven’t been) focusing that much on Russia itself, and I see, read and hear very little anger directed their way, ironically. And next to no calls for retaliation. The focus is on Trump and what he did and is doing, and now the most recent shift is away from “collusion” and onto “obstruction of justice.” Obstruction of justice appears to be the next step in this story.

My take is that Trump has long been THE primary focus, not what Russia did, and I think that’s warranted. My own view is decidedly antiwar, anti-empire, anti-capitalist, as you know, and I want serious international diplomacy, not retaliation. But I ALSO want Trump (and some from his inner circle) to go to jail for what he’s done. I think it’s beyond obvious that he’s a criminal of long standing, and that he was helped in his bid for the presidency by Russian criminals, and “justice” demands that he not be rewarded for such things. It demands that he pay a price for his actions. He never has. It’s time for that to end.

(Will respond more directly to your questions above next post)

wv wrote:

I think what we are all trying to do is….kinda, more or less, ‘describe’ or evaluate or figure out, the ‘situation’ — ie,
the Corporotacracy, Plutocracy, Oligarchy, Empire, or whatever. And to me, that requires describing the whole thing. The contexts. And i dont think we can talk about the russian thing (which to me is minor compared to the the other stuff) without talking about Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Propaganda systems (MSM) etc.

To me the Russia thing is there, but its so small compared to the other stuff. And yet, the MSM only wants to focus on Russia. For propaganda-reasons. Not to get to the truth — but for PROPAGANDA reasons. They are USING the issue to prop up the usual mythologies. And so, to me, talking about the russia thing IN ISOLATION, basically just gives aid and comfort to the deep-state.

First off, I’ve never advocated for talking about Russia in isolation, and from my observation, our MSM doesn’t do that. They can’t, really. Cuz Trump is forever stirring up the pot with a thousand other things, so our MSM talks about that too. The NFL. Sexual assault. The tax bill. Health care repeals. North Korea missile tests. Charlottesville. Retweeting fake videos from Islamophobes, etc. etc. Their plate is always pretty full. From my perspective, Russia comes up only when there’s a new revelation or indictment, and there’s always something else going on beyond that.

Second, I don’t see how it’s a very useful propaganda tool for America, for several reasons. It shows how vulnerable we are when it comes to cyberwarfare, how incompetent and unprepared, and because we’re so polarized, much of the country disagrees about what really happened, why, how or if it matters. Just not seeing how this helps the “deep state,” and it’s also a fact that Europe thinks Russia interfered there too. It would be quite the worldwide conspiracy if our MSM and theirs “colluded” to invent this interference, with almost no push back from the vast majority of media outlets.

Third, not seeing how reporting this story props up the usual mythologies. This just isn’t your grandmother’s Russia. Another “red scare” wouldn’t make one iota of sense, because Putin’s Russia is even more ferociously capitalist/neoliberal than we are, and well to our right. I just don’t see how it benefits the “deep state” or anyone else here, except, perhaps, for cybersecurity companies. And even they can be made to look pretty bad for their abject failures to prevent this — the hacks and the massive invasion of our social media infrastructure with endless fake news bots, etc.

I’d be interested in your take on how this actually works as a propaganda tool, and for whom. Again, America is so divided, so fragmented, so at odds with itself . . . it’s difficult for me to see how this is a “winning” issue for anyone among the power elite, really. But I may just be missing the obvious.

Great game. Nice to see the Rams win again.

Btw,

Did you catch this about Kushner?

http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-disclosure-form-west-bank-settlements-israel-white-house-729290

excerpt:

Jared Kushner Failed to Disclose He Led a Foundation Funding Illegal Israeli Settlements Before U.N. Vote
By Chris Riotta On 12/3/17 at 6:00 AM

Jared Kushner failed to disclose his role as a co-director of the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation from 2006 to 2015, a time when the group funded an Israeli settlement considered to be illegal under international law, on financial records he filed with the Office of Government Ethics earlier this year.

The latest development follows reports on Friday indicating the White House senior adviser attempted to sway a United Nations Security Council vote against an anti-settlement resolution passed just before Donald Trump took office, which condemned the structure of West Bank settlements. The failure to disclose his role in the foundation—at a time when he was being tasked with serving as the president’s Middle East peace envoy—follows a pattern of egregious omissions that would bar any other official from continuing to serve in the West Wing, experts and officials told Newsweek.

I have it taped. Will have to watch it today.

The Jesus of the bible was a leftist. He was well to the left of liberal, and on the opposite side of the spectrum from the Christian right. Basically, a DFH before the term was used. A “commie” before the term was used. He and his merry band of leftists went from town to town, sharing everything, refusing monetary compensation for everything, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and never asking for anything in return.

Oh, and he said no rich man could follow him. They’d have to give away all of their money to the poor first. And rich people couldn’t get into heaven.

It’s amazing how the Church subsequently found ways around the frequent Jeremiads against personal wealth, and today some Christians even peddle being obscenely rich as a sign of their god’s favor.

As for refugees? Yeah, Jesus would accept all of them. No limits. No bans on certain religions, etc.

The world is so twisted these days.

This tax bill is another example of why it was always such a mistake to concentrate solely on Trump. The entire GOP is a menace to America. Actually, right-wing ideology itself is.

Also noticed how Cruz keeps lying about taxes in so many ways. Two examples stand out for me:

1. He says Kennedy wanted to cut taxes, and he wouldn’t even be allowed to be a Dem these days. Well, Kennedy didn’t cut taxes. Johnson did. And Cruz conveniently leaves out the part that Johnson cut the top rate from 91% to 70%, and our national debt was in the hundreds of billions, not trillions.

2. He keeps peddling the lie that Obama and the Dems were taxing us to death, even though Obama made the Bush tax cuts permanent, a third of his stimulus was in the form of tax cuts, and he was forever offering up new stimulus packages with more business tax cuts. The GOP kept saying no. Personally, I think both parties need to end their obsessive social engineering via the tax code, and just do direct investment instead. Proactive, direct, no middlemen investment via the public sector. But both parties refuse to do this and the results of tragic.

__

Americans are actually among the least taxed people on the planet (formatting not so good with the copy and paste):

https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2016/10/31/heres-what-the-average-american-pays-in-taxes/21595666/

Effective rates from the Motley Fool, by way of AOL:

1 to $25,000

$208

1.7%

$25,000 to $50,000

$1,871

5.2%

$50,000 to $100,000

$6,251

8.7%

$100,000 to $200,000

$16,977

12.6%

$200,000 to $500,000

$55,536

19.5%

$500,000 to $1 million

$173,678

25.8%

$1 million to $10 million

$632,146

29%

$10 million and above

$7,884,775

26.1%

Overall average

$9,118

13.9%

Data source: IRS Statistics of Income, 2014. Effective tax rates are calculated using the average AGI for each income group.

Watched about 6 minutes of the Dore video. Sheesh. I’ve never seen him be so wrong, and in such a cavalier way, and I hope it’s out of ignorance, not out of cynical omission of known facts. Cuz, contrary to what he said, the Russia collusion story has long been fleshed out in great detail. We’ve learned of DIRECT connections between the Trump administration and Wikileaks, Assange’s direct offers to help them, etc. We’ve learned of DIRECT connections with Russians and THEIR offers to help. We’ve learned of sitdown meetings between Donald Jr., Kushner, Manafort and several Russians in Trump Tower, after emails were exchanged offering dirt on Clinton. Accepting the meeting is “collusion” right there. Just that.

And all the while, the Trumps lied about all the above until they were caught.

Also, we know about Cambridge Analytica and granular voting information. Dore asked why the Russians needed Trump help for their hacking and disruptions? One reason is they didn’t have that detailed, granular info on millions of American voters. This enabled micro-targeting by the Russians for their ads. This enabled the Russians to set blacks and against whites, browns against blacks, etc. etc. . . with umpteen fake news stories and phony Black Lives Matter groups, etc. etc. The list goes on and on and on, and Dore tries to dismiss it all as a nothingburger?

Sheesh. My opinion of him plummeted after those six minutes.

wv wrote:

Well the RT quote was a narrow quote about Flynn. Not all the other stuff. One thing at a time. WHY is it a ‘crime’ for Flynn to talk to a Russian ambassador about policies? Trump had been elected, i believe, but hadnt taken office. Now in this vast-wasteland of a country, why in the world is THAT a crime?

I’m not talking about the lying. I’m talking about the terrible ‘crime’ that Flynn perpetrated — ie, talking to a russian ambassador about policies.

Seems like a witch hunt to me, BT. And i loathe Flynn.

w
v

WV, as a lawyer, you obviously know a thousand times more than I ever will about stuff like this, the plea deals, etc. etc. But it appears to me that Flynn got off relatively easy.

Good summary here from the lawfareblog folks ( links/sources on the site) . . .

https://www.lawfareblog.com/flynn-plea-quick-and-dirty-analysis

Excerpt:

The news that former national security adviser Michael Flynn has reached a cooperation and plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller could not come as less of a surprise. Reports of Flynn’s bizarre behavior across a wide spectrum of areas began trickling out even before his tenure as national security adviser ended after only 24 days. These behaviors raised a raft of substantial criminal law questions that have been a matter of open speculation and reporting for months. His problems include, among other things, an alleged kidnapping plot, a plan to build nuclear power plants all over the Middle East, alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) involving at least two different countries, and apparent false statements to the FBI. In light of the scope and range of the activity that reputable news organizations have attributed to Flynn, it is no surprise that he has agreed to cooperate with Mueller in exchange for leniency.

The surprising thing about the plea agreement and the stipulated facts underlying it is how narrow they are. There’s no whiff of the alleged Fethullah Gulen kidnapping talks. Flynn has escaped FARA and influence-peddling charges. And he has been allowed to plead to a single count of lying to the FBI. The factual stipulation is also narrow. It involves lies to the FBI on two broad matters and lies on Flynn’s belated FARA filings on another issue. If a tenth of the allegations against Flynn are true and provable, he has gotten a very good deal from Mueller.

The narrowness gives a superficial plausibility to the White House’s reaction to the plea. Ty Cobb, the president’s ever-confident attorney, said in a statement: “The false statements involved mirror the false statements [by Flynn] to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year. Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn.” Cobb reads Friday’s events as an indication that Mueller is “moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion” of the investigation.

This is very likely not an accurate assessment of the situation. If Mueller were prepared to settle the Flynn matter on the basis of single-count plea to a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, he was almost certainly prepared to charge a great deal more. Moreover, we can infer from the fact that Flynn accepted the plea deal that he and his counsel were concerned about the degree of jeopardy, both for Flynn and for his son, related to other charges. The deal, in other words, reflects the strength of Mueller’s hand against Flynn.

I would ask the pundits at RT this:

If it’s all a “so what?” deal, why has Trump, and his entire administration, lied (endlessly) about their contacts with Russia from the beginning? Lied and lied and lied. We have dozens and dozens of examples from video, audio and written transcriptions attesting to this, including lying under oath (Sessions, especially). If it’s not a big deal, why lie? If there’s nothing wrong with these contacts, why keep them secret? Why not put them on forms for security clearance, for example? Why hide work for Russia and Turkey and Ukraine — all of which breaks the law?

Trump and his admin started out by saying, repeatedly, they had ZERO contacts with the Russians, and zero business dealings, etc. etc. We keep learning about extensive contacts, going back years, and there has yet to be a single case where media reports about this have been proven false, much less “fake news.” The NYT, the WaPo, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, etc. etc. . . . I can’t think of a single time that one of their articles regarding these Russia connections has turned out to be incorrect . . . and much of the corroboration has come from Trump insiders over time.

Yeah, the Flynn, Manafort, Gates and Papadopolos indictments are big deals. I have no doubt whatsoever that Trump won the election with the help of Russia, and that we’ll learn how extensive this actually was in the coming years. I think Clinton was a terrible candidate, and the Dems turned their backs on the working class decades ago, AND Trump won with the help of Russia. To me, the latter isn’t an excuse for the former. The two coexist:

Clinton and Dem rottenness AND Trump collusion with Russia. (Kinda like the LAPD “framed” a guilty OJ.)

And, to me, it doesn’t matter that “we do it too.” It’s all wrong. American serial interference in international elections doesn’t let Trump and the Russians off the hook. It all needs to be exposed and stopped dead in its tracks. All of it. I’m honestly baffled that some of the RT punditry asks “so what?”

An analogy.

You have this national sport called Mayhem. You’ve had it for more than a century. Two contestants score points by maiming individual parts of their opponent’s body. The most points win the match.

Throughout history, you’ve had various activists pushing for various regulatory regimes . . . trying to reduce the carnage, increase it, make the game more wide open, or a bit less horrific. The most popular way of doing this is to increase or decrease the number of points scored for each maimed area of the body. Five points, ten points, one hundred points for broken bones — higher still if they can’t be mended, etc.

Almost no one talks about the game itself. The actual game. Almost no one talks about maybe, perhaps, finding a different national sport. Instead, they talk about ways of “managing” the pain levels or ending the PC whining about that pain to one degree or another.

One very small group says, “Um, hmm. Let’s try a sport that doesn’t start out with the premise of inflicting the most bodily harm possible, whatever the relative rewards may be. How about that for a change?”

wv wrote:

Well, I glanced at some of the ads, and they really didnt elicit any processing in my brain. I just kinda shrugged. But my point wasn’t that the ads didnt appear, my point was i havent seen proof or evidence that they were planted by Putin or the Russian government. I read an article the other day about how google/twitter/facebook arrived at their conclusion that something was russian, and their criteria was extremely weak.

But i just dont care about any of that. I really dont. Thats just me.

And the reason i dont care is because of how i view the American system now. I view it as a toxic, empire-stew of lies upon lies upon lies upon lies. From ‘public education’ to Advertising to Public Relations, to CIA-lies, NSA-lies, FBI-lies, ‘National-security’ lies, Defense Contractor lies, DNC-lies, Republican-lies, Economic-Lies…. I believe the biosphere (all life) is in danger by this Corporate-Empire-of-Lies.

So thats the context for me. This soul-less corporate-empire-of-lies is now all aflutter because RT is telling Americans that neoliberalism is destroying the biosphere and causing untold suffering — and I’m supposed to be upset about RT? Because its linked to Putin?

I watch RT everyday. Its the single best political website i know of on the internet.

Just my opinion 🙂

And yes, i know they dont dare critique Russia. Thats a separate subject to me.

As for your question about whether anyone actually listens to RT or absorbs their critiques….well….thats another separate subject. I am not optimistic that RT or ANY group is getting through to Americans. I think the Corporate-Empire has damaged most Americans too much now for anything to get through. But i dont wanna go there 🙂

I’m a curmudgeon now, BT. A Vonnegut-curmudgeon.

Carry on,
Go Rams
w
v

Being a curmudgeon is a good thing in my book. And being a Vonnegut-curmudgeon’s right up there at the top of the heap. I think being one is the main reason I’ve survived cancer for 15 years — or longer, since they don’t really know when it started. It’s kinda ironic that more than a few old curmudgeons, who railed against life, society, the way things are, like Thomas Hardy, Samuel Beckett and E.M. Cioran lived into their 80s.

That said . . . I think I get why you’re attached to RT, and it’s really not the issue here, IMO. It’s more a symptom. But if they’re focusing solely on the evils of “neoliberalism,” as opposed to the capitalist system itself, I think they’re doing folks a disservice. I like sites like Jacobin much more because they’re anticapitalist, and in my view, that’s the real issue.

“Neoliberalism” is the current management regime. It’s just another in a long line of management regimes, and in my view, the thing that’s killing the biosphere is the system it’s managing, capitalism. It’s never NOT destroyed the environment, regardless of regime. And the main reason for that? Any economic system set up for personal enrichment, as opposed to the public good, is going to do that. Any economic system that places the personal accrual of wealth at the core, the center of its reason for being is going to do that. It will always have irreconcilable differences and conflicts between ownership and workers, ownership and consumers, ownership and society, and especially, ownership and the planet.

All the rest is just a matter of tweaking at the edges.

Quick clarification, just to be safe: When I say “you” in the last paragraph, I’m referring to Russia, not anyone else. I thought that was obvious in context until I just reread it.

wv wrote:

In general i think the info linked to russia is way more accurate and useful than the american-corporate-media stuff. When i compare the stuff I’ve read from RT and the stuff from usual suspects in the corporate media — I’ll take the RT stuff anyday.

Is it ‘divisive’ ? You bet. Is it targeted at oppressed groups? You bet.

Does it drive the powers that be up the wall ? Obviously. I’ve never seen anything like it. For the first time in my life, something is driving the powers-that-be crazy. I love it. Course its being shutdown.

w
v

In my view, there’s a huge difference between sober, reflective, analytical shows on RT and those ads. Actually, a huge difference. The former does actual critique of American life, oftentimes zeroing in on things our MSM never touches. The latter, however, are blatantly all about pitting Americans against one another, stoking hatred between groups, and that’s incredibly, obviously dangerous.

Also, when it comes to “trust,” right off the bat, if you’re faking who you are — as in, pretending (for example) to be a BLM group when you’re not — no one should believe anything else you’re saying. If your message is valid, there’s no need to set up a fake front out of a Russia bot farm to do it. Just be open about it and make your case.

Another key factor for me: RT doesn’t do critiques of Russian society in Russia, for Russians, and Russia, internally, is actually even more right-wing, hierarchical, plutocratic and anti-democratic than we are. As bad as we are, they’re actually a hell of a lot worse. The absence of Russian critique by RT is simply indefensible.

It’s a bit like, say, the CIA going into Russia, setting up TV shows there that are highly critical of its society, broadcasting that to Russians, while never once saying anything whatsoever about America. That’s pretty much the dynamic in play.

But the bottom line (for me) is to remember those Russian ads, twitter bots, social media bots and their fake-news generation was never, ever in service of making America a better place. It was to sow the seeds of division and chaos, and the way they do it is to pit the most vulnerable Americans against one another. I see that as absolutely despicable and unforgivable.

Go after the powers that be all you want. Go after Clinton, the DNC, the GOP, American corporations, capitalism, etc. But whipping up violent hatred between groups on behalf of Putin is disgusting.