Mac,

Hey, hope all is well, and best of luck with your move.

(Charlottesville might be worth looking into)

On that “co-existing” front. The Clintons can be your run of the mill deeply compromised politicians and not be murderers. They can be guilty of the typically sordid machinations needed to win power and maintain it, the selling out to the donor class, the support of the super rich while in office, the all too quick signing off on wars and covert ops, the lies, the spin, the rationalizations . . . but not be guilty of what right-wingers claim and have claimed for decades. They can be horrible people and still not be involved in Vince Foster’s suicide, or the Seth Rich case, etc. Those things can coexist. In short, we can have hopelessly neoliberal pols, all too cozy with Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex, who also aren’t involved in any of the political right’s fever-dream faux-scandals. Benghazi, Foster, the email server, etc. etc.

As for Seth Rich. There is just no evidence whatsoever that he leaked emails to Wikileaks. It doesn’t exist. It’s pure conjecture, with no foundation outside Republican oppo research and Russian fake news operations. It’s a classic right-wing invention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich

Seth Conrad Rich (January 3, 1989 – July 10, 2016) was an American employee for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) who was fatally shot in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C.[1][2][3] As of May 2017 the shooting is still under investigation by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.[4]

The murder spawned several right-wing conspiracy theories about the crime, including the claim that Rich had been involved with the leaked DNC emails in 2016, which runs contrary to U.S. intelligence that concluded the leaked DNC emails were part of 2016 U.S. elections interference.[5][6][7] These theories were debunked by law enforcement,[5][6] as well as by fact-checking websites like PolitiFact.com,[6][8] Snopes.com,[9] and FactCheck.org.[5] The fabrications were described as fake news and falsehoods by The New York Times,[10] Los Angeles Times,[11] and The Washington Post.[12]

Rich’s parents condemned the conspiracy theorists and said that these individuals were exploiting their son’s death for political gain, with their spokesperson calling them “sociopaths” and “disgusting”.[13][14][15] They requested a retraction and apology from Fox News,[16] and sent a cease and desist letter to the investigator Fox News used.[6][15][16] The investigator admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims, and Fox News issued a retraction.[5][6][17]
Contents

I noticed a few years back that Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple have subtle and not so subtle ways of suppressing leftist thought online. Unless it’s changed recently, if you look up “socialism” or “marxism” on Ipod search, or in their “university” section, you’ll find a far-right site like mises.org explaining what socialism and marxism mean. You won’t find leftists doing it.

And in news aggregators, similar things occur. If you choose “socialism” as one of the topics you’re interested in, the news sources for that are almost all from the far right or center right. It’s less than rare that actual socialist sites pop up.

Silicon Valley has long had a right-libertarian foundation, and the more they dominate the Internet, the more brazen they’ve become in trying to steer the conversation their way, toward a “free market” interpretation of history and current events. The folks who own the gateways and have billions and billions in their war chests are going to do what they can to suppress anticapitalist views.

Things could go in a lot of different directions, but under capitalism, the chances of true dissent coming out aren’t good.

I think the empirical evidence is overwhelming that Trump has set all-time records for lying. To me, it’s not even close.

That said, there are lies of commission and omission, and previous presidents have had their share and then some of the latter. Not telling the American people what was actually going on, etc. Under that standard, Obama is every bit as bad as Bush, etc.

But, the thing is, Trump is doing that as well. In fact, the we only know about the stuff he’s really done because of leaks from within his own White House, usually. Without the Press reports, we’d never find that stuff out. We’d never find out about half the environmental regs he’s cancelled, or the voter suppression commission’s makeup, or the backgrounds of his cabinet.

Boiled down, Trump is guilty of the omission kind, just like previous presidents, and he’s set records for the commission kind. No president has ever lied as often in public. He’s in his own league on that score.

link: http://www.politicususa.com/2017/07/20/winning-trump-average-4-6-false-claims-day.html

By Sarah Jones on Thu, Jul 20th, 2017 at 4:35 pm

Trump averaged 4.9 false or misleading claims a day after the first 100 days. Now, at the six month mark, Trump is averaging 4.6 false or misleading claims a day.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Another part of my reaction to all of this:

I don’t really “blame” Russia for wanting to manipulate elections around the world. It actually makes a lot of sense, in a Game of Thrones sort of way. And it’s what all the great powers have done, in one form or another, using the tech of the day, ever since we first had those elections . . . and before that, palace intrigue and so on.

We do it. They do it. All the powers do it.

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

Ok if Trump is Cercei….who is/was Hillary? And who is Putin? And who is Bernie :>)

w
v

;>)

I’d like to see everyone weigh on on this.

I don’t know. Bernie as Davos Seaworth? Putin as Euron? Hillary as a much older, much more bitter Sansa?

I don’t know if there’s a Danaerys or a Jon Snow on the horizon. But we definitely could use a Tyrion, or two, or three. And, well, Missandei. Perhaps Naomi Klein?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Billy_T.

Another part of my reaction to all of this:

I don’t really “blame” Russia for wanting to manipulate elections around the world. It actually makes a lot of sense, in a Game of Thrones sort of way. And it’s what all the great powers have done, in one form or another, using the tech of the day, ever since we first had those elections . . . and before that, palace intrigue and so on.

We do it. They do it. All the powers do it.

The key really comes down to complicity on our side, and that’s where Trump comes in. He colluded with Russia. There isn’t an iota of doubt in my mind about that, and his son’s recent revelations and the published emails are the smoking gun for all of that. I’m also certain they’re only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

But Trump’s collusion to win an election, IMO, isn’t the worst of it. I think it’s also a slam dunk that he’s up to his eyeballs in American and Russian mobsters, money laundering and major financial crimes, and I think Mueller is going to eventually bring all of that out. And all of this talk about the CIA, the DNC, Seth Rich and so on will seem like pure misdirection when that happens, because it actually is.

In short, I don’t think Americans should be “mad” about what Russia did and want to retaliate. We need peace. We need diplomacy. We need to get along in this world. Americans should be pissed off to no end that they elected a cut-rate mobster, who continues to lie about what he did to win the election, and his assault on the environment, science, workers, education, public lands and so on.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I still don’t get all the resistance to the fact that Russia hacked the election. That ship has sailed. They did it. The entire intel community here believes they did it, and they never agree about anything. The GOP and Dems agree that Russia did it, and they, too, never agree about anything. Europe believes they did it here and in Europe. European intel has long said they’ve been hacking elections across the globe.

Do we as well? Of course. America has been seriously interfering in elections around the globe at least since WWII. But it’s a strange and misguided step to go from “We do it too” to “They couldn’t have done it because, the Dems!” It makes zero sense to think that America and European governments would all conspire to present this united front, when it basically just amounts to what everyone has always known: The great powers have always played this game.

And those of us with an Internet background have known how good the Russians are at this stuff for a long, long time. It’s accepted knowledge among IT professionals that the vast majority of cyber-attacks come from Russia and its former satellites.

Again, I just don’t get the resistance to the obvious here.

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

Well for starters Sy Hersh didnt say Russia didnt hack ‘anything’. He was specifically addressing the DNC-wikileaks instance. Thats all he addressed.

And secondly, i wouldnt trust ‘anything’ the ‘whole western Intell community’ said about ‘anything’. They are professional liars, BT. You know that. I mean how would YOU describe the CIA?

w
v

But the CIA is only one part of that, WV, and, again, the various intel organizations typically fight each other on issue after issue. They virtually never agree. But on this they do.

And that trust thing cuts many ways. It’s logical to be highly skeptical of any government’s intel community. But that includes Russia’s, too. Or any government’s “official story.” But that includes Russia’s too. So what are we left with, when it’s the competing stories of institutions we can’t really trust? Media. Corporations, etc. etc.

Common sense and logic. And it’s not logical, IMO, to assume that the DNC put out a hit on a staffer, even if we do say he leaked the info, and there’s no proof whatsoever that he did. Common sense and logic also tell us that, given Russia’s superiority in this realm — we’re superior in military and economic might; they’re superior in cyberland — Russia would focus on what they’re really, really good at . . . and would do what they did in Europe:

Push the far right parties and candidates to the degree possible. In America, that’s Trump/Bannon/Breitbart/Alt-right, etc. In France it was Le Pen. In the Netherlands, Wilders. And so on.

IMO, we’re waaay past all of this. It’s a done deal. It happened. We need to do whatever we can to prevent it from happening again, and to hold our own government accountable for its interference in elections overseas too.

Fuck both parties and both empires, in short. Or, as you’ve called them, gangster governments.

I just keep coming back to my sense of raw puzzlement over these discussions by some public figures/journalists. We just don’t have to choose sides here, but it seems some of these people think we do.

And the Rich family wants this exploitation to end. I don’t blame them. It’s beyond ghoulish, using him to score political points.

http://www.businessinsider.com/seth-rich-family-response-lawsuit-rod-wheeler-2017-8

he family of Seth Rich, a slain former Democratic National Committee staffer, responded to a new lawsuit that may shed light on the source of conspiracy theories about Rich’s death.

On Tuesday, former Fox News contributor Rod Wheeler sued the network, alleging that it and a well-connected supporter of President Donald Trump knowingly pushed a thinly-sourced conspiracy theory about Rich’s death to deflect from growing concerns about Trump’s potential ties to Russia.

In a statement to Business Insider, Rich’s family said it hoped the lawsuit puts an end to the various conspiracy theories swirling around Rich’s death last year.

“While we can’t speak to the evidence that you now have, we are hopeful that this brings an end to what has been the most emotionally difficult time in our lives and an end to conspiracy theories surrounding our beloved Seth,” the family said in a statement.

Wheeler, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer, was a key figure in a series of debunked stories claiming that Rich had been in contact with Wikileaks before his death. Fox News, which reported the story online and on television, retracted it in June.

Rich’s family has repeatedly called for an end to the bizarre saga, criticizing right-wing media figures like Sean Hannity for perpetuating unfounded theories about Rich’s death.

Police have said repeatedly that Rich was shot during an attempted robbery while he was walking home from a bar in Washington, DC.

Yet the staffer’s death has become the source of wild speculation, as right-wing media figures fanned unproven speculation that Rich was killed for leaking embarrassing internal emails of DNC staffers during the 2016 election. Numerous US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian intelligence hacked and leaked internal DNC communications.

In America, for generations, the effort expended on behalf of avoiding the obvious has been and remains stunningly grotesque. The effort to avoid seeing that 800 pound gorilla.

“Profit” costs all of us, massively. Profit forces prices waaay up, quality waaay down, wages waaay down, life-times and health metrics seriously down. It provides NO benefits for the vast majority of humans on this planet, no “value added” benefits, and it is absolutely unnecessary.

Not just “profit,” of course. But all the ways that personal compensation is forcibly propelled and concentrated upward at the very top, so that it becomes obscenely high compensation at the very top, plus those profits. All of that subtracts for everyone else’s quality of life, longevity, disposable income, opportunities to chase our dreams, etc. etc.

When it comes to health care? That we allow vast sums of money to be sucked up and concentrated at the very top is insane. That money is directly removed from what should be spent on patient care. And, contrary to American brainwashing, it can’t exist in two places at once. It really does matter that some people make tens of millions (and more) in this system. It really does negatively impact everyone else. Their control of the money takes it off the table for everyone else, and that forces cuts, substractions elsewhere. It can’t exist in two places at once.

So the obvious answer is — mathematically, logically, ethically, morally — end profit and end private control of the health care system at least. It really should be across the board, throughout the entire economy, because the same math and logic obtains in every other aspect of commerce and trade. But the health care system, at least, needs to end the practice. It’s literally killing us to maintain the way things are now.

ZN,

Interesting about your retake of the Targaryon/Snow scene after watching it again. And I said what I said as a fan of Jon Snow. It’s because I’m a fan that I want him to do better, take better shots, pass the ball more, be a team player, etc. etc. It’s not because I’m a hater.

;>)

I think the ‘thing’ or ‘dynamic’ or ‘deep-state’ or ‘corporotacracy’ or ‘kaleidoscope of corporate-capitalist forces’ or whatever-the-hell you wanna call it, has been snowballing the last five years or so. Citizens United, coupled with the consolidation of the corporate media, plus god-knows-what-else have caused a snowballing of power. Imho. Granted its all contested ground, and there are plenty of resistance forces (Bernie, Jill, activists, etc). But the way i see it — something very bad is snowballing.

WV,

I know you see things that way, but I’m not so sure it’s so different now. I don’t think the power of the Power Elite has snowballed in the last five years. I think the American version has been growing steadily since WWII, with a huge increase under Reagan and then right after 9/11, taking advantage of that attack. Both parties fully complicit. Both guilty.

Just not seeing the last five years as particularly unique when it comes to covert ops and more flagrant (and/or), more violent support for economic apartheid (capitalism).

It was birthed in violence in 17th century Britain; spread by violence, especially in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries; and continues to require it. The methods have changed. They’ve become more sophisticated and far better organized. But I don’t think we’re in the midst of some special moment of “deep state” machinations.

Just my take, anyway. I think you and I are pretty much on the same page, though, that its hegemony needs to end, or the planet won’t sustain life much longer — aside from the fact of its immorality, etc.

PA Ram wrote:

I’ll go with:

The Shield

GOT

The Wire

Some comments on others:

Orphan Black: First season was some of the best television I’ve ever seen. Then it decided to get overly complicated, a little too silly with some things and lost me.

Westworld: I’m watching. I’ll watch. But a big disappointment. So many things COULD have been a bit better but the biggest flaw was pretty much taking the park’s human visitor(besides one who is barely human anyway) out of the plot. Still, I’ll watch. Great acting.

Narcos: Only two seasons so I didn’t put it on the list but it could have been on the list for those seasons alone.

Orange Is the New Black: Loved Season One. Season Two was pretty good. Still a good show but it’s getting old.

Fargo: I was just meh on the whole thing. And this season was the absolute worst. Season two was the best.

The Sopranos: Just now starting to watch it. I think I’m 5 episodes in. Not terrible. A little slow. Good acting. I like the Tony Soprano character. It doesn’t make me want to binge watch. I may be watching one episode a month.

Coming up–from the creator of The Wire: The Deuce. I think it starts in September. Looks good. My only reservation is James Franco. I’m not a big fan and I think he plays two parts or some such thing. Still, I’ll give it a shot.

One other comment on a HUGELY popular show.

Stranger Things: Tried. I tried. I couldn’t do it. Terrible child acting was just my first problem. But people seem to love it.

Love Orphan Black. Amazing acting by the star who plays all of the clones. She’s good enough to play clones pretending to be OTHER clones. Sheesh!!

Like Westworld a lot. Very well made.

As I get old and decrepit, I find myself watching more TV than I should. Used to read a ton of books instead, and now I tend to binge-watch stuff on Netflix or HBO.

It’s helpful that the quality of TV has improved tremendously in recent years, but I really should tone it down. But I just don’t seem to have the same ability to work through books as I once did, especially long books. The Internet Age is another factor in reducing my attention . . . . Um, what was I talking about?

wv wrote:

I think the season does seem ‘rushed’ and i assumed it would because some idiot decided to shorten the number of episodes. Its gonna hurt the show. Well it already has, I’d say. Still a good show, but it woulda been better if they had time to develop things more.

I am thrilled that the Dorn women are gone because they reminded me of villains from the old Batman tv series. They were awful.

I still think all the actors/actresses are great, cept the mother of dragons. I’ve never been able to take her seriously. She’s got nuthin, imho. People argue with me about her all the time around here, though. Maybe I’m the onliest one who thinks that.

I guess my three favorite mega-series have been,
The Wire,
GOT,
BattleStar G.

Some good acting, character development in them series.

w
v

I like the actress who plays Danaerys. But that kind of thing is always subjective. I can see your take on the Sand sisters, as they translated to the screen. But from the books, I thought they’d be pretty cool. Oh, well.

I loved BSG. A great show. Of course, not the original. That was too silly for words, IMO, which is one of the reasons I resisted the remake when it was actually on. I binge-watched the new one via Netflix, after it had left the airwaves, and wanted it to go on and on.

My only complaint was the shaky cam, which I really hate. Same thing with another show I binge-watched and loved, Friday Night Lights. If I were the ruler of the world, one of my first acts would be to make shaky cams illegal. I just hate them. They give me a headache, and make me want to treat them like this:

Rude Behavior

PA Ram wrote:

Three episodes in and I get the sense that the producers are sort of saying–“Okay–let’s wrap this shit up.”

I agree about the border guards. They just march right in? Really?

Also in the ocean battle Euron won that thing fairly easily. So they kind of got to this point where they get rid of the Dorne group and the Tyrells and the Greyjoys. Jon meets Dany–gets his dragonglass–can’t convince her of the walking dead and yet she believes in walking through fire and dragons and other worldly visions.

I just get the sense that the producers feel a bit “done” with the show and may want to move on to other things. I know they shortened the season. I get that it can’t go on forever. But the winding down feels just a bit rushed at some level.

I’m sure there are some great episodes ahead.

Some epic battles. Some jaw dropping moments.

I’m just talking about how it feels to me right now.

It does seem rushed. And they no longer have the foundation of the novels to follow. They’re on their own. It’s all on the showrunners and writers, really. Martin can’t seem to bring himself to complete his series.

Don’t like the Euron arc on TV. He was a better villain in the novels. And I’m disappointed in the Sand Snakes arc, cuz they were a lot cooler in the novels, too . . . though the actress who plays Cersei’s most recent object of revenge is more than appealing, and I was kinda hoping she’d survive. They just could have done a lot more with the sisters and Ellaria, IMO.

But, to me, the real surprise is how flat and kinda lame John Snow was when he met Danaerys. To go to the football well once too often . . . The actor, or the script, or the direction, or all of the above, made that moment seem like bad preseason football to me. The team wasn’t prepared, even though this moment was in the making for years. In a word, I found it anticlimactic, when I was really looking forward to it, as I’m guessing most fans were.

It’s easily one of the best TV shows ever made . . . but, so far, in the first three episodes, it hasn’t lived up to that greatness, with the exception of a few scenes.

wv wrote:

At any rate, I dont think we disagree on anything substantial. I think we disagree on how we talk about the russian-hacking saga. But it may just be differences in emphasis, i dunno.

What are you reading?

I’m skimming the book about the Queen of Chaos, at the moment.

Hillary Clinton: the Queen of Chaos and the Threat of World War III

w
v

That makes a lot of sense, WV. A difference in emphasis and the way these things are discussed. No disagreement on what really matters, I’m betting.

Have not heard of that author or that book, but have saved it. Sounds interesting, but depressing, too. And I really wish I knew Irish. Googled it: looks like his name is pronounced Mike Caw-hal. When I was in Ireland in 2003, went to several areas where Irish is a first language. Is beautiful to the ear, IMO.

As for my own reading: Seriously slowed down these days. Recently reread The Late Mattia Pascal, by Luigi Pirandello, which holds up pretty well. Good novel. Also reading a newish translation of Dr. Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak (Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky).

Finished writing my third novel in five years, and am starting on another. Have forgotten if I mentioned it here, but in the last one, the narrator finds an Alaskan Husky, and names her Lara — from Pasternak’s novel. Made sense to finally read it. The David Lean film is a classic, but the book is known to be as well.

The new one is my first attempt at a ghost story . . .

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Billy_T.

wv wrote:

No-one is making the argument that “we do it too” and then just leaving it at that. Thats a straw-argument type characterization.

But the “we do it too” factor HAS to be taken into account, I think. Its part of the totality of the circumstances. If we just leave that out and focus on Russia, i think it leaves too much out and just becomes exactly what the corporate-dems want. I think they want the situation framed that way. So i never leave out the “the US does it too” part.

Also, i think a lot of lefties favor Russia in the global chess-game because they see the russia-empire as a lesser-evil compared to the US-empire. It does seem to me the US-gangster-empire is a lot more powerful and deadly. Maybe. Seems that way to me.

We tend to get into a bit too much ‘heat’ on this board when we talk about Russia and hacking and empire, etc. Let us ‘try’ to post without heat

w
v

Hey, WV,

No heat was coming from here. Just wanted to make a general comment, and it wasn’t directed at any poster. It was meant for a few public figures, intellectuals, writers, etc. etc. and what I see as a baffling perspective on Trump and Russia.

I reject our form of sham democracy, our empire, our history of imperialism and especially our economic system. I reject Russia’s under Putin as well. I reject the Democratic Party and the GOP. I reject Hillary and Trump, both, etc. etc. But what I’m seeing with some public lefties, however, is a kind of choice, a selection between the two, and this puzzles me, because no choice is needed. There’s no reason at all to support either of them. Not the powers that be in USA or the powers that be in Russia, or any interaction between those powers that be unless it actually helps humans live better lives and sustains the planet.

Can anyone honestly say the Trump/Putin interactions do that? That they’ve led (or will lead) to peace, stronger human rights, environmental protections and so on?

I’m just not getting why anyone thinks they have to “pick one” . . . for whatever reason, including our history of empire right up through this minute, etc. etc. Just not getting why that would lead to anyone making a choice between the two. I think the left should condemn both instead and fight for a world where neither empire holds sway, where we’re without hegemons . . . The duopoly here, the economic system here, the oligarchs and plutocrats and corporate interests here . . . AND over there. No mas to all of it. We really don’t have to choose between them — at least when it comes to our support.