I dunno for sure, but I think i disagree BT. I dont think we ‘outnumber’ them. I think its like the Matrix 🙂

I dont think the masses have just reluctantly ‘accepted’ things or have ‘adapted’ to things — The VOTE COUNT proves that. NO-ONE is forcing them to continue to vote, year after year after year after year for Bushes, Reagans, Nixons, Trumps, Clintons, and Obamas. Plus look…at…the…SENATE. My lord. Just look at who…they…vote for. Willingly. They dont have to. There’s always progressive candidates out there.

I think the masses’ brains have been colonized.

I dont think looking to past revolutions helps anymore. There’s never been a modern-propaganda-system like the one that exists in the USA. At least I dont think there has. I dunno.

btw, i am skimming a Pat Tillman book:
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From “Where Men Win Glory” The Pat Tillman story, by J Krakaur

“…a fervent subculture of Marxist intellectuals, professionals and students had by this time taken root in Kabul….
…..
…….…Carter called it (the soviet invasion) ‘the most serious threat to peace since world war II’….
….But Carter’s righteous indignation was more than slightly disingenuous. Although the US government claimed otherwise in official statements, the CIA had begun purchasing weapons for the Mujahideen at least six months before the Soviet invasion and this clandestine support was intended not to deter Moscow but to provoke it. According to Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the purpose of arming the Afghans was to stimulate enough turmoil to ‘induce a Soviet military intervention’…”
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Our tax dollars at work. The info is out there. The masses dont care. How would joining the CIA stop any of this?

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Zooey wrote:

Yeah, we don’t have the numbers. I mean…not at all. And don’t let Bernie Sanders’ numbers fool you. Sanders is, of course, a kind of FDR level of Democrat. Maybe he’s to the left of that, and just knows it no use talking about anything to the left of that for now, I dunno.

But when I started to think I saw signs of life on the Left because of various polls saying that young people are questioning capitalism, and supporting Sanders, and all his social proposals…I have that tempered by the fact that a lot of those people don’t know what they’re talking about.

I mean…a lot of Sanders supporters list Joe Biden as their second choice as a candidate.

Essayons!

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Yeah the political-IQ of “the 95 percent” is so low, i dont think they could change anything in ‘the establishment.’ They ‘are’ the establishment. Bernie-voters not withstanding.

Sometimes the surreal-ness of the Amerikan-situation is fascinating. For example, think about how many books are out there right now DETAILING atrocity after atrocity after atrocity by this system. The “five percent” write books all the time. From Chomsky, to Zinn, to Hedges, to Naomi Klein, to the Media-Lens guys, to Max Blumenthal, to Greg Palast, to Bill Blum, and on and on and on and on…

Doesnt matter. Not one iota of difference.

The bloody info is out there.

Doesn’t matter.

Cause the people are so dummed-down. Its like tryin to show shakespeare to Frankenstein’s monster. He’s just gonna eat the book and then twist yer head off.

Anyway, its just a fascinating, unique situation. I assume during Hitler’s reign there were not hundreds of books being published about all his atrocities. The American system is so much more sophisticated than Hitlers. I mean, the powers that be dont even have to care.

Have a nice day. Call me Mary-Sunshine.

…btw I watched the movie Whiplash. It made me want to listen to Jazz drummers.

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Well, for starters, I dont think there’s enough of a ‘left’ anymore to make a difference. I’d say 95 percent or so, of the adult-citizenry is Mainstream-Dem or something to the Right of ‘that.’ So I just dont think we have the numbers, Billy. All you have to do is count the votes to prove that — how many votes do the third-parties get? No-one is twisting anyone’s arm to vote for the Obamas, Clintons, Etc, etc, etc all the way back to World War II.

Europe has a left. We dont.

Having said that, lets say our small numbers wanted to ‘make a difference’ by joining the ‘establishment’ — how would that work? I mean think of the Media. Go get a job with the Wash Post, NYT, NPR, MSNBC, etc. How long do you think you would last BT? Hedges and Taibbi talked about this in the Vids.
What if you joined the Military — how could you make a difference? What are you gonna do, tell the generals they are part of a Racket? Are you gonna pass out Howard Zinn books? What could a leftist do?
What would you do exactly if you joined Monsanto?

Join the establishment — and you will regret it.
Dont join the establishment — and you will regret it.
wv-kierkegaard.

PS — what do i know. I got nuthin, but political-darkness. 🙂

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Billy_T wrote:

So the article suggested we alter our routines whenever we can. Find the new in life when possible.

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

I suppose i could try crunchy peanut-butter.

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I hear Jalen Ramsey can whip Chuck Norris, with one hand tied behind his back.

Also, the Rams have completed a Mega-Media-BLOCKBUSTER trade this year. And the Falcons havent. So there’s that.

Moreover OLines dont really matter in this new era of Mega-Media-BLOCKBUSTER-Trades and five billion dollar techno-stadium-complexes.

Therefore, I foresee another Strip-Sack for Goff, another fumble for Henderson, another 23 yards for Gurley on the ground, another two INTs for Goff. But none of that will matter. Because Jalen Ramsey will bat two balls down.

Rams 20
Falcons 22.

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Mangini dont like it

Billy_T wrote:

Lotsa good questions, as usual, WV. As well as food for thought.

I’m fine with your term, corporotocracy. But, as you know, I think we need to drill down at least one more level. I sincerely believe that the capitalist system itself, its very “nature,” its internal logic, leads inevitably to corporate control, monopolies and oligarchies..

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

I basically agree, but I like to use the terms “CORPORATE-capitalism” or corporotocracy, for ‘strategic’ reasons. Same reasons i never use the term ‘NeoLiberal.’

I just figure that the bewildered-herd has been dummed down and propagandized so much that to criticize “capitalism” is just asking them to go where they cant go. Ya know. But they tend to mistrust Big-Corporations. So I always toss out the term Corporate-capitalism. Instead of Capitalism. I figure they ‘might’ not totally slam their brains shut if I use the CC term instead of the C term.

I could be wrong. Itz just somethin i do.

On ‘this’ board people ‘get it’ so it dont really matter, but out there in the Vast Wasteland…..

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Well Jalen equals one of those first round picks. So they are basically flushing a First and a Fourth for an allpro CB.

Interesting.

I’m glad Peters is gone. I never took to him. Didnt seem like an allpro to me.

The storyline of this season is still all about the OLine and Gurley, in my view.

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Billy_T wrote:

IMO, the constant is money equals power. Power is for sale. But that also means short memories and temporary alliances, not blood-memory endurance through time.

Boiled down: We have a top-down dynamic in America, and it’s arguably the most volatile and contingent one in the “developed” world. Money talks. Not blood lines and clan groupings.

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Agreed. Money and Power and Ideology. The three dynamics intersect and those are always the crux of it.

But in a ‘corporotacracy’ or modern plutocracy or modern oligarchy or modern ‘whatever, those 3 things manifest in certain shapes or ways.

One of the ways they exist is in the structures of the secret-government. The Lying-government. The part that ‘fights commies.’ By murder, torture, coups, pysops, disinformation, misinformation, bribes, drug-dealing, killing socialists-by-any-means-necessary. And telling and selling lies upon lies upon lies.
The CIA/Pentagon/NSA and the private sector tentacles (Arms Corpse, CIA-‘journalists’ etc, etc)

I name that whole, hard-to-describe, shadowy shebang, the ‘deep state’ sometimes. Sometimes i just call it ‘part of the corporotacracy’. Thats just how i name it.

Unless I’m mistaken you and zn, just use terms like “CIA” and “NSA” etc. I kinda gob them together into a ‘thing’ of sorts. Not monolithic of course. (I mean the Nazis werent monolithic. I’m sure there were Nazi’s who opposed hitler and did what they could etc. But they were still Nazis, and we dont go around saying “there were good Nazis”. No big org is monolithic.)

Anyway ‘deep state’ works for me. Doesnt work for you. No prob.

ZN has never taken to term ‘corporotacracy’ — what about you?

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Billy_T wrote:

Back to the discussion of the term, “deep state.” Unless I misread Zooey, and I probably have, it doesn’t sound like he thinks there are enough people involved to constitute one, even if we’re just talking about per department or agency.

Same caveat with WV, but it sounds like he does think there are enough.

My own view is closer to ZN’s, and his contention of various factions. Though I would add that “desire for power” tends not to show up very often in career employees. The dynamic of power seeking is a highly selective process. As in, if someone seeks it out, and the “conspiracies” and machinations that generally go with it, they’re not likely to take the career civil servant route in the first place. Exceptions, of course, exist. Still, they’re far more likely to take shorter, more lucrative routes, which may end up with someone like a Gordon Sondland, who gave a million dollars to the Trump campaign and was handed an ambassadorship as a result. That’s a far more common practice for those who seek some form of state power.

Power both pre-selects and is selected. This is why a “deep state” is unlikely in America. In more “traditional” societies, where kin and kith and long memories are much more important, there are far better grounds for it. American society is too ephemeral, too “get yours now!”, too opposed to the long view. It’s far too “dynamic” to keep such a thing in place, beyond the built-in power that resides with wealth. This is why, I think, C. Wright Mills’ “Power Elite” idea makes much more sense for us.

Also, until we can dump capitalism for good, which is the necessary stage before we dump centralized state power, we better hope there are serious professional/career civil servants in place, who can counter venal leaders like Trump. Rather than view this as some sinister, coordinated plot . . . I think it’s one of those rare bright spots in a truly ugly time.

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Well just as a thot-experiment. Do you think Hoover’s FBI was or had parts of it that could be analogous to a ‘deep state’ ? Do you think he had the power, knowledge, will, to create and nurture something akin to a ‘deep state.’ ? The ‘deep state’ aspect of course is not the same as saying the FBI was ‘monolithic’ etc.

Just curious as to what you would label the Hoover thingy.

Btw, just so you know, the Hoover analogy is more of a RIGTHWING version of ‘the deep state.’

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Lordy.

I am reminded of Mad Max for some reason.