Lurking mostly to read a few comments in front-page stories and not participating because of the poisonous atmosphere, I find the opinions and comments by TarheelDem fair and a bit of fresh air in what’s left of the ‘community’ at the pond.
I have returned to the European Tribune to cross-post some of my diaries and the EU bloggers are astonished of what has become of BT and America as a whole.
I have written about PropOrNot as soon as it came on line with the anti-Russian bs/propaganda. Across party lines fear of the unknown has taken a foothold and can be witnessed in the craziness in Washington DC and culminates in what’s left of the legislative arm intended by the Constitution. The U.S. has a disfunctional politcal system which harms its citizens and because of its economic and military power, manages to ruin many other nations/regions across the globe.
Each administration has its very own pet projects to place sanctions on competing regional powers beyond what would be possible in accordance with the United Nations or international law. The global community due to population growth has become very complex. The post WWII institutions can hardly manage. The void is filled by corporate power and its conservative think-tanks whose members fill the leadership roles in the executive branch, State Department, IC and the Pentagon. In addition, the collusion of corporate run mass media in the States has placed a strangle hold on free thought in American society. Just Google the following keywords …
Independent investigative journalism can still be found through the Internet but has no mouthpiece in daily news coverage. The daily headlines from USA media still gets coverage in the compliant European press but is diminishing. After Bush, Obama and now with Trump this process will only speed up. The US has lost its political clout across the globe. With Trump the economic interdependency will take a blow at least due to his rhetoric about trade and with Brexit for the UK to lose its grip on Europe.
PropOrNot listed both Pepe Escobar and Moon of Alabama as a danger for American interest and undoubtedly for being ‘unpatriotic’. Makes it worthwhile to read and get a view from an outsider looking at America. A bit of reflection is never a bad idea. For American patriots like Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky and Seymour Hersh a great achievement just to get their articles published. Freedom – a free world and freedom of expression.
Russia Reset? It became all about policy for the New McCarthyism of the Cold War 2.0 …
Atlantic Council? A NATO think tank seeking a casus belli for war with Russia! The allies of America in the context of PropOrNot.
○ NATO strategy outlined by the Atlantic Council: “Make Russia a pariah state”
○ How the media covered Syria and the Imperial project
Favorite columnist Anne Applebaum gets invited for interviews about the conflict in the Ukraine between NATO and Russia. She gets announced as someone with a ‘balanced’ view of the conflict and spouts her warmongering views from neo-cons and husband Radek Sikorski.
○ War in Europe is not a hysterical idea | WaPo – Opinion | by Anne Applebaum
○ NATO secretary general Stoltenberg promises a corrupt Ukraine a path towards membership
Definitely.
Daily Kos Lite
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Added Pepe Escobar to my blog bookmarks on your rec.
While we disagree on Russian intentions, Putin (not about the US election), and Ukraine, we disagree civilly like thinking humans, not cheerleading fanboys.
In case either of us is banned, thank you for all the detail work and wishing you the best of luck.
The intentions of great powers are first, to protect what they have. Second to be seen for their status in the pecking order. Third, if they have been seduced by the Great Game to play to win.
The intentions of authoritarian leaders is to hold their societies together enough to consolidate their absolute power. Often their popularity comes from holding together fractious societies.
The intentions of kleptocrats is to strip the public assets for their own gain.
The intention of kakocrats? Kakocrats have no intentions after they seize power except to continue to occupy the office they’ve seized.
It is fairly easy to see who is who in the world through those categories.
Xi has not shown a kleptocratic side yet. Kim rules as a hereditary monarch with a large family fief; that blurs the notion of kleptocracy. Putin is profiting from riding the Siberian tiger of intra-oligarchy politics. Trump is lost.
And to restore lost empires. I feel that Russia/Putin intend to recover Poland/Ukraine et cetera.
Perhaps that’s what you mean by the Great Game. I have heard the term before but I don’t remember where.
“The Great Game” referred to the struggle between the British and Russian empires, the point of collision being where British India met Russian-controlled Central Asia. That point of collision was Afghanistan. The British wanted under all circumstances to deny Russia access to a warm-water port.
The Great Game is a seduction of empires. Why exactly did Britain want to deny Russia access to a warm water port? That would threaten the British monopoly of the seas.
But what warm water port has access to Afghanistan?
The US acted as if it wanted to evict Russia from Sebastapol. What role would a US Navy have in the Black Sea? It was just more of the Great Game.
Risk (the game) is the essence of The Great Game — world domination. Every empire acts as if it is seeking world domination and pretending it is defending itself from other nations seeking world domination. The worst get high on their own supply and actually tr to seek world domination. They overstretch themselves and sap their own resources, ending in collapse. Thus most European nations in World War I. Thus Britain, Germany, and Japan after World War II. And thus the US after 43.
Nations that avoid the Great Game prosper until there is a game in their neighborhood. Until 9/11, Europe and Japan were in that position.
Trump’s goal is to finally become an A list celebrity.
Writing a different narrative, one gets hit by the thought police. Much worse than I ever experienced in the bad, very bad days @dKos. OK, I’ll give it a try …
See the result here, here and here.
So much bs, so much bullying. Not my neighbourhood, which I had learned to love when we called it still the Pond.
To these agitators: stop polluting the waters here at the Pond!
I won’t be leaving anytime soon – signing off: OUI (user ID #452)
I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “Only believe half of what you see and none of what you read in the newspapers.”
Twain could have added, “..especially my stuff.”
He was about weird insights not dry facts; he depended on other folks for that.
But his travel writings…
You’ve posted three diaries today, and on average two diaries per day for the last week. I don’t think that qualifies as “lurking”. I think it rather qualifies as taking full advantage of what Booman Tribune offers. It would be decent of you to acknowledge that Martin Longman has made this platform freely available to you to promote your perspective, which he pretty clearly does not share. Perhaps you would also like to set up and maintain a blog where people who disagree with you are allowed to post unlimited material without challenge.
So you are in relational therapy now! What a bloody joke you are …
I have always expressed my appreciation for the excellent writings from our host Martin Longman. Thank you for your concern. More persons have a problem with reading comprehension … never mind. If you really want to go into relational therapy and conflict mediation, the pastures in the front page stories are much greener. You’ll be appreciated.
So besides the troll raters patrolling the place, we have a policeman checking times of posting diaries. Once again, self employment is today’s way to go. Well done, keep at it.
Just happens my diary – A breath of fresh air was posted very early this morning, local time. So theoretically you have a point … doing math, I have posted, on average, less than two diaries a day in July … or am I posting now once again just past midnight. I get all confused sometimes with damn time zones. :-))
Have a nice evening or a good night wherever you may be contributing from.
Signing off – OUI [user ID #452]
A community member who is laying bitter accounts of the behaviors of others is not well positioned to dismissively criticize a less elaborate summary of their own behaviors.
Community members acting in good faith do not attempt to imperiously demand that fellow members refrain from participating in their own diaries or responding to their thread comments.
You offer dissent, as is your right. You demand no dissent in response. At this moment, when the Russian Federation’s collusion with the Trump campaign and Trump Administration is becoming more fully revealed, this is a hell of a time for you to demand fealty.
I’ll offer you the opposite guidance: come join us in the front page threads and engage us with your RT-fueled rhetoric. We’ll see how that goes with the broader community moving forward. You’re not showing much confidence when you paddle over to the diary backwaters and demand the right to commiserate with your fellow believers.
You write:
Revealed by whom?
And for what purpose?
My answer:
Revealed by professional liars in the service of empire.
True…meaning complete… “revelations” would include the hundreds and hundreds (proably thousands, actually) of incursions into the governments of sovereign states by U.S. Intelligence agencies. They would also include the meetings of centrist Democratic and Republican representatives with representatives of foreign powers and the influences of foreign money…particularly Middle Eastern (including Israe)…upon the DemRat/Ratpublican UniParty and the Deep State.
Half-truths are simply clever lies.
You been had.
Or…you are part and parcel of the half-truth effort.
There is no third possibility.
ASG
“Revealed by whom?”
Uncovered by Kushner’s legal team, revealed by emails between Kushner, Manafort, Lil Don, and a guy representing a lawyer whom he describes as a Russian government lawyer, with information from the Russian state legal system. It’s actually an interesting story.
“And for what purpose?”
Given there are more than one person on the legal team, there are probably more than a single purpose. Possibly purposes: to do what their client asks, to protect their client by drawing fire onto another target, due to dismay that the White House is in the pocket of the Kremlin.
Your argument, AG (‘S?’ What S???), is explicitly nihilist. Only the ‘whole’ truth matters. The ‘whole’ truth cannot be known. Hence, nothing matters. I don’t know, man. You’re smart, you’re interesting, but I just think you’ve followed your line of thought into a dead end. There’s nothing falsifiable in your arguments. It’s all faith. And maybe, in a sophomoric way, that’s true of all of our arguments. I can’t know that I’m not a brain in a jar. But that’s not a productive conversation to have while not stoned.
They have not “revealed” anything except meetings. Nor has anyone else. Everything else…from total Trump culpability to total Trump innocence and right on through to total U.S./British intelligence culpability…is conjecture.
My argument is not “nihilist.”
There is one thing absolutely provable in all of this. The major mass media of the U.S. and the U.K. have been out for Trump’s scalp since he first began to make waves as a primary candidate, and they have published unprovable accusations by the carload since then about his…and his associates’…so-called treasonous actions vis-à-vis Russia. i say that they are unprovable because they have not yet been proven after a continuing,massive media attempt to plant them in the U.S. consciousness.
Show me the beef!!!
Until they do, it’s all a Schroedinger’s Cat experiment, and I am placing no bets on any outcome.
You want to take on faith that the U.S. Intelligence forces have no interest other than telling the truth?
I got a bridge to sell you.
ASG
P.S. The “S” is for “Sheridan,”, my grandfather’s middle name. He’s the one who radicalized me as a young boy. He taught to read, think and fight as well, so i use his name in my political web dealings. The “S” appeared as a typo so often that I decided to leave it in when it happens.
A) What would “beef” look like, if not an email saying, “Please give me anti-Clinton information that the ‘Crown prosecutor’ of the Russian government has collected?”
B) Does the media usually prove wrongdoing beyond a reasonable doubt? Do they ever? Or is that left to the courts, where the media instead reports about various elements of an issue–say, changing the Republican platform, settling for $6 million after firing Bharara, giving highly classified intelligence to the Russians in the Oval Office, etc?
C) What would beef look like? I’m honestly curious.
D) Nobody, nobody, NOBODY thinks that the US Intelligence community has no interest other than telling the truth. I don’t think anyone has no interest other than telling the truth. But that doesn’t mean I can’t evaluate the validity of various claims. I don’t know for sure that the moon landing wasn’t staged. I’m not 100% on that. How could I be?
Sheridan! Lovely name.
When someone – ANYONE – says “I have the dirt on your opponent” and offers it freely, who doesn’t say “Yeah, let me have it”. We don’t know if the so called dirt was true or not because they never provided it.
So that’s “meddling” with an election? But not Johnny Huang bundling and laundering foreign campaign contributions? Show me false allegations or foreign contributions or PROOF of “hacking” and I’ll admit you have something. But unverified allegations by the DNC’s contractor combined with a refusal to let the FBI examine the computer? No way.
The more the smear campaign continues, the more support Trump gets.
Did you ever ask yourself why this “Russia hacked the election” is all that Democrats talk about? Other than “Bernie Sanders cost Queen Hillary her crown”.
Could it be because Democrats want the Trump tax cuts rolled into the ACA repeal and the rest of his Centrist agenda? They just can’t admit it, so instead of organizing opposition to the policies, they tout this Russia crap and talk about coups.
LOL. Good Lord, the bellylaughs….thanks for them.
If someone says, “My friends in the government of the People’s Republic of China want you to have this high-level, incriminating, sensitive dirt they collected on your opponent because they want you to win,” NOBODY says, “Great, let’s have a meeting!” That’s nuts.
Hell, if Canada said that, it’d raise flags, and Kushner didn’t try to subvert normal communications channels to establish secure channel to Ottawa via their embassy. You can’t take intelligence from a foreign government for the purposes of besting a domestic political rival. I’m embarrassed to have to say that.
Proof of hacking? I can’t show you proof that the earth is warming. I can show you that 97% of climate scientists believe it–or CLAIM they believe it, but I can’t prove they really do. I can show you charts, but you can say that they’re lies the environmental community is cooking up. I can direct you to articles, but they’re just words, they’re not proof.
Actually, I don’t ask myself why Democrats are only talking about Russian interference (and a little ‘blame the evil Berniebros’). We’re doing the former partly because we don’t want to take responsibility for our own failures and HUGELY OVERWHELMING LARGELY BECAUSE IT’S GENUINELY A CRISIS. Also, because to the extent that the Democratic Party is not totally brain-dead, they’re using the near-treasonous activity of the Republicans to gain political advantage.
You’re a smart person, but I’ve met smart people who refuse to believe that we landed on the moon. Why do they refuse? Because their identity, in some way, is bound up in that refusal.
You can show me proof of Global Warming, but you can’t show me proof of Russian hacking. You can show me dozens or more original research papers (probably hundreds), but you can show me only one original claim of hacking, Crowdstrike’s. And unlike peer-reviewed research journals, they won’t let anyone, even the FBI look at the evidence. That’s the difference.
BTW- Do you really believe in Global Warming because lots of people say it’s true. Lots of people say that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. Lot’s (millions) of people claim that Mohammed ascended into heaven on a magical beast. Do you believe both those stories too? Just because lots of people say it’s true.
Just for the record, I have read journal articles and seen the graphs and followed the logic. I believe in Global Warming and I believe that a large part, possibly a majority of it is anthropomorphic. I don’t believe the other two stories.
Please don’t believe the Democrats boogeyman theories. Look at how they vote on real bills. Look at who funds them. You will see that they are just a rival gang with their own list of underpeople and boogeymen.
It usad to be different, but since the Clinton’s it has all changed.
New Deal Democrat, late of Dkos, says it far better than I: Trump: the endgame
For example:
Where is the neocentrist media’s hullabaloo about this?
Half truths are lies.
AG
Tell us more, Arthur.
I noticed the link was to the Washington Times. Now there is a “reliable” source if I ever saw one. Right up there with Breitbart and Drudge.
He’s doing great. C’mon, AG, show us how to righteously defend Trump and his whole gang. This moral crusade you are taking on this week, of all weeks, is very inspiring to everyone here, I can tell you.
Courage!!
i am not “defending” Trump, I am pointing out that his attackers are equally guilty. Worse, actually, because they have been lying, cheating and killing on a massive scale for decades.
Trump is just a little pisher in comparison. A nasty little pisher, granted, but an amateur in the theft and killing department compared to the Deep State that is heaving mightily to get rid of him so it can go back to business as usual.
AG
Equally guilty… more centrist both sides babble.
It’s not “babble” if it’s the basic truth of the matter.
Then the whole “babble” talk becomes simply another effort to hide what is really happening.
AG
Oh, man….
Go, Arthur. More, more! We need more information. You’re this close to turning the community against BooMan’s conclusions, and towards yours.
But…you know, I honestly don’t understand what your conclusions are; they remain a little unclear. Please, fill our screens, fill them! We’ll get it and join your legendary MEDIASTRIKE! any minute now.
You’re so close. Come on, you can do it.
I want “this community” to decide for itself…on the long-term evidence at hand…whether the lesser of two evils (in this case the Deep State) is any better than is Trump. If it comes to its senses about that question, maybe it could start working towards either reforming the Democratic Party or starting a third party that has some chance of winning.
Until then?
This whole “Deep State vs. Trump” rigamarole is just HRC vs. Trump ramped up another several levels.
You remember how that HRC vs. Trump thing panned out, right?
How can you have any faith left in the Deep State’s neocentrist, bipartisan UniParty and its weapon of choice, the Governmental Media Complex, if it couldn’t convince about half of the voting population that Trump would be a total disaster?
The whole electoral fix system is broken, centerfield. It’s time for a real change.
And…you wrote:
I take that as weak snark, but I’ll answer it anyway.
If this “community” does change its mind about the whole RussiaGate thing, it will not be because of my efforts or those of anyone else here, it will be because the whole case will have been proven to be full of hot air and vaporized shit.
That result is getting closer with every day of unproven accusations of “collusion” by the media. People are beginning to get tired of the game. It’s just another long pitcher’s duel, and both sides are throwing nothing but curves and knuckleballs. If this game continues much longer it will be called simply because of a rapidly emptying stadium.
I repeat…show me the beef or shut the fuck up.
AG
The old false equivalence fallacy – one of my personal favorites. Thanks for the free entertainment.
Now we hear from a graduate of Rhetoric 101.
Great.
Thanks.
So what?
Trump’s Deep State enemies…and believe it, that’s what is powering this whole Russiagate brouhaha…are equally guilty.
As I said:
This is not a false equivalence fallacy, it is a condemnation of both sides of this vicious little drama. I support neither side, and if I had my way both sides would be flushed down the toilet of history like the deep shit they really are.
I do not think that the Deep State and the Trump group are “equivalent;” I think that the Deep State is much worse and I support neither. I have been very clear about this from the time I predicted Trump’s win in early 2016 right on through the campaign and its ongoing, ugly continuation by other means.
Scylla and Charybdis, ramped up a few more notches.
Bandersnatches everywhere.
I personally will not gyre and gimble in the wabe. Too slithy. I stay on high ground, watching the carnage and trying to encourage others not to slithe around.
You have obviously made your choice.
So it goes.
One way or another, you are eventually going to have to take a serious bath.
So that goes as well.
Enjoy.
Later…
AG
And you keep talking past any commenter here who is critical of your posts and double down. No substance, just blather and insults as usual. Long-winded at that. So what, indeed.
Keep on slithing, bro’.
Once this thing works its way through…
Whether one side or another actually “wins” or whether…as is looking increasingly likely to me…there is some kind of tie game, we still will all be the losers.
Scylla and Charybdis redux.
Yet again.
Y’all made your choice with HRC and the DNC.
Live wid it.
AG
That I did, and I have a clean conscience. I was not one of those responsible – either by commission or omission – for a mob family ending up in the White House. I can live with that just fine. Obviously I would breathe a bit easier without the mob boss in the White House and the GOP running Congress (not the least of which includes legislation that would directly impact me and mine), but if rear-guard actions to avert the worst of the damage are what my present and future holds, so be it. Latching on to the latest conspiracy theorizing (whether it be permagov, Deep State, or whatever gets concocted next by that nexus wherein the loony left and loony right meet) doesn’t cut. Never did. Never will. Good luck.
And WAPO and The New York Times.
Liars all.
When liars contradict other liars, sometimes the truth drops out and sits there looking at you.
But with your eyes wide closed, you never see it.
AG
That’s a bizarre argument, and I’m pretty sure that if you think about it for two minutes, you’ll realize why.
If that’s how long you thought about it, I am not surprised at your conclusions.
AG