It is hard to overstate the sociopathy of US national security officials: their casual willingness to blatantly lie about the gravest matters is limitless.
Oh please 🙄 Nobody forced Rhodes to give 2 contradictory accounts of what happened. On that basis alone, he's outed *himself* as a liar. Only 1 of his 2 accounts is consistent with Snowden's. Which means they're either both telling the truth about Snowden being trapped in Moscow, or they're both lying.
Nevermind the only reason we know Snowden's name is bc he revealed the government's massive corruption -- I'm sure he's the one who's lying here. But then how should it rehabilitate Rhodes reputation in your eyes, for him to lie along with Snowden.... to pump up his reputation? I hope you can see how dumb all of that sounds.
I have been thinking about that. I believe now at almost 2 am that we are in Crime and Punishment by Dostoievsky. We are the detective and Rhodes is the murderer. The murderer wishes to confess and confess to the investigator which is really all of us. To accomplish what he has accomplished secretly and invisibly is not enough. He must CONFESS. And he has. And few believe his confession as they are in it. We are not. Greenwald is not. And Greenwald is the investigator par excellence. Rhodes must CONFESS to his peer who seeks him out. He has. And Greenwald is that perfect peer who perceives that he has created what he damns Snowden for doing. Now since this is almost totalized culturally we are all surrounded by sociopaths who block us, ruin us, destroy our goodness our purity, etc. I was told this last month by my Invisible Man that I havnt talked to in almost 2 years. He said, "There are people out there to take away all purity." He had wrapped his legs over mine (why I asked, "to let anyone know I am protecting you")as we sat on a bench in the sunshine by the four lane talking for the first time in 2 years (and the last it seems) and how can I help loving someone who knows this and verbalizes it while sounding like a prophet while completely drunk all the time. IDK. And for the first time I understood alcoholic drunkenness as opposed to HIGH on drugs. And why our culture favors drunk over high and why the middle east favors high over drunk. In each culture the opposite is "criminal" and maybe must recently legalized IDK.Forgive all the typo messes. It is too late to fix them.
Liars don't lie all the time. They lie when it suits them. We need to be suspicious of every utterance of every individual, but when we identify clear conflicts in their language it raises the caution.
Its odd hearing a journalist yell about someone being a liar then point to one of their statements and ask us to use it as the crux of (what I consider) an already tenuous argument
you hit the nail on the head with this one. a lying member of the upper echelon of the national security apparatus and we are supposed to take his every word in his cash grabbing memoir as sacrosanct. glenn is aware that a large chunk of his subscribers will salivate over any criticism of members of the obama/clinton orbit.
you are misunderstanding my comment. i do think he was lying then, so, how are we to know he is not lying now? as iconoclast pointed out, it's a paradox: he lied in the past, so why are we now to take him at his word? these people are not to be trusted in their official public statements, so why should we now believe what they write in a self-serving book?
Right around 1970-71 when after the DNC of 1968 and other nonsense, the media saw it could bully governments and corporations. The world has never been the same since.
If in 1903, you told the average frustrated Russian peasant that in the next fifteen years, the Russian Empire would fight and lose two wars (including losing to Japan) and that Russia would undergo three revolutions, as a result of which there would no longer be a Tsar in St. Petersburg, or in Russia at all, the peasant would think you were possessed by an unclean spirit.
But it's not just the Great Unwashed. If you told the average frustrated London investment banker the same thing in 1903, he would pronounce you quite mad and also altogether not our sort.
There is a lesson here. I am not saying that anything in particular is happening in the next fifteen, but there is a lesson.
Then again, in 1970, Andrei Amalrik wrote "Will the Soviet Union Last Until 1984?" He was widely dismissed as a crank, especially by professional anti-communists. Turns out that Amalrik wasn't that far off.
Nonsense, Amy. That Ayn Rand rant goes on the rocket too. M4A or some equivalent, affordable housing, education are standard in most western capitalist countries. There hasn't been a "free market" since governments entered the market with military budgets, utility budgets, education budgets, etc. So who is your "Majority of Americans"? As for socialism and welfare take even a casual look at how Walmart employees subsidize their minimum wages with food stamps and ask yourself how the Koch family made their fortunes.
Majority might prefer capitalism, might not. Surveys indicate majority of college age prefer Marxism. As that cohort grows, they'll become the dominant opinion. Hopefully they'll change when they get out in the real world. They usually do.
All great ideas, especially the rocket to space, but good luck. I do not see the "Balkanization" happening without a major civil war. The left owns the country, they can manipulate elections from every angle. There is no breaking away without violence, which most Americans, for now, are not willing to do. If we can get our elections right and reestablish the flow of all information ... maybe. The first test is California recall.
It is not just lying in government -- it is lying EVERYWHERE.
This is a sea change from the mid-20th century US, which I remember. At that time, exposure of a lie of any importance could easily get someone in deep trouble. Now, meh, "all people lie!"
Because lying rots society -- it is, after all, a failure in *reciprocal* human connection -- it would be instructive to examine just how this change came to be.
EXACTLY!!! I remember when I was working in a high level Ontario /Canada govt office (Constitutional negotiations) many years ago and we had one weenie obvious liar/sociopath (lol named Barry 🤔) who I caught red handed doing his usual lying in front of the Premier and his staff and YES he tried to spin it 😳😳 Sociopaths will not admit it even if their exposed publicly or caught in the act. Its not that Rhodes is stupid , he sees NOTHING WRONG with his explanation. He doesn't see that it is a lie because that is all they do. Thats a sociopath
Yes. At some point he is overcome with his brilliance at creating a Virtual Reality for everyone around him. And so he must CONFESS as invisibility doesn't do it for him anymore?
As someone who was not always honest in my younger years, I still feel that it's ok to lie to some people. For example, if they ask a question that's none of their business and have power over me.
I, too, can support justifiable defensive lies. I don't mean to be black-and-white here.
What is toxic, though, is the recent *normalization* of lying -- that's it's now "just something people do" to get by in the world. Something has been lost from our consciousness about communication and relationships.
I always lie to authorities unless I know the question is already answered on one of my databases that they have access to. Then I just say what is there. Telling the truth to them is one of the ways they trap you.
I'm telling y'all, it started with Benghazi. Susan Rice blatantly lied on Meet the Press (or whatever show it was), and the lie was repeated by Obama (AND the "moderator" Candi Crowley!) at the 2nd Presidential Debate.
This is when they learned they could say whatever they want.
OMG Americans look back farther!!!!! When did the CIA start (ie morph from-- yup the OSS-- who helped get that going-- those "consultants" who worked fro that German guy???
Well then let me give you the psychoanalyst reply to that: Are you asking that because.....and then you put in whatever you want. It retains its interrogative subtext that the other started and throws it back on them. I am needing to remind myself this today.
As a kid I remember watching those old black and white cowboy and Indian movies on TV, the ones where they made the Indians the bad guys for fighting the cowboys from taking what was theirs, their land. And of course many refer to the McCarthy era as a sea of lies. Etc, etc, etc. So much for the mid-20th century.
You mean when he warned about the military industrial complex? Too bad almost no one listened. Afghanistan is a perfect example of what Ike was talking about. No one said, it was all lies, but they were ever present and usually served the interest of the elites as they continue to do.
Sarah Chayes who was an NPR reporter and covered the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and lived in Kandahar for 8 years made the statement on Democracy Now that the US wasn't interested in going into Afghanistan, an afterthought, she said. The Bush administration was solely interested in going into Iraq, but there was no intelligence connecting 9/11 to them, so they reluctantly went into Afghanistan which meant by 2002 their interest was in Iraq. She of course talks about it in more detail. Worth a listen.
Allen Dulles and his CIA murdered Lumumba -- there is a famous photograph of John Kennedy holding his head in despair after learning what CIA did behind his back.
Kennedy fired Allen Dulles -- who later become a key filter in commission "investigating" John's assassination.
Allen Dulles was the architect of the assassination of JFK. He brought in General Edward Landsdale, an expert in coups to plan the details. Landsdale was photographed in Dealy Plaza after the day of the assassination. He is seen in the photo of "the three tramps" who seem to nod at him as they go by.
Lumumba was a threat to the Euro banks/Belgian far right who were perfectly able to do their own dirty work...and was it ever cruel. Of course, the CIA reports. When you pull the yarn on a big sweater you never know how far things will unravel.
Indians were the bad guys. Settlers were bad guys, too. US government was often worse guys. Bad was a survival skill back then. Then, as now, no one is allowed to kill people for trespassing. And in every culture in the history of the world, if somebody kills, we have a right to kill them. Culture is no excuse.
Sorry but your logic escapes me. If someone puts a knife to your throat with an emphasis on your throat use your sense of logic and see if you don't alter your perception of things.
Again Watson, gross generalities are inappropriate. Your saying the hostilities were started by the Indians, presumes that all Indians were one huge tribe with the same goals and hostilities held against the 'White Man'. It is jejune sloppy thinking.
How old are you David? You seem like a very young person, 15 or 16 years old?
You have a slight regard for history and are obviously ignorant of a great deal of things.
So how do you think it started? All those mean white people sailed across the ocean to pick a fight with darker primitives? The natives had been killing each other for millenia. Their nature. Ours, too, but we had learned to suppress those instincts to create civilization. When civilization confronts uncivilization, civilization usually wins, unless civilization has become suicidal. It took 400 years for our civilization to become suicidal. Maybe we'll learn to suppress that urge, too.
Mccarthy was proven correct - by the Russians. Search Mccarthy venona, or read blacklisted by history. Sometimes accusations of lies are used to conceal the truth. Often works.
How so what? If you need tips on searching, please be more specific. If you don't want to wear a deerstalker, that's fine with me. If are trying to say you don't understand lying to hide the truth, I suspect you are doing so with the implied question. QED. Go to any courtroom for a constant stream of examples. My all time fave was "I didn't have sexual relations with that woman..." which would have worked if not for the blue dress.
I was referring to Dr. Watson, from Sherlock Holmes who wore a deerstalker hat. We disagree and I know we will never reach any middle ground. While I respect your perceptions on this issue I hardily disagree. Clinton's affair was none of my business and the republicans used it to their political advantage and it disgusted me. I couldn't care less who he slept with, even though I couldn't stand him. McCarthy took advantage of the new TV media to spread his BS, and destroy people's lives while he drew attention to himself.
Those who are unaware of Mccarthy's sussesses are unaware that America faced a truly existential threat after WW II. Mccarthy brought the spreading invasion to light while facing enormous resistance from those soviet agents and their supporters. The ensuing confusion slowed the attacks enough that we eventually prevailed, but not before a lot more damage. Communism still has adherents in the US, who still attempt to undermine the recognition of the threat, and many unwitting supporters who Lenin celebrated as "useful idiots."
I don't care what Bubba did with his staff either, simply showing an example of using lies to hide the truth, as you seemed to request. She apparently wasn't the only recipient of his "affections."
Believing something at a point in time, but then deciding later is false, doesn't make one a liar. It takes intention to be a liar. The vast majority of the American public had, and has, no intention to lie. It was ignorant, not evil.
Wel Fran, Joe McCarthy was actually right, there were many Communist agents in the Eisenhower State Department. Edward R. Murrow was one of CIA's Mockingbird boys, and he was put up to taking down McCarthy for clandistine political reasons. Some of the names on his list were undercover FBI and CIA agents. A complex situation, very hush hush -- spy counter spy stuff. The cold war was so complex that no one was sure who was who there was so much entanglement and mutual paranoia.
You're right when you reference the American public. I was thinking about those in the political arena, those that dictate policy. However I wish the American public would make themselves more knowledgeable which in turn would make it more difficult for those in power to lie.
I think that's only possible, and only for a generation or two, after full-blown calamity strikes. THEN, they (the laggard majority) start thinking. So, bad as it seems -- to *us* -- we're not quite there yet.
Unfortunately, this cycle may be built into our DNA and near impossible to rapidly evolve from.
As it's turned out Mr. Snowden was very lucky that he wound up in Russia, one of very few countries who can and will stand up to the empire. Europe has turned out to be a giant vassal state with Quislings for political leaders. Vladimir Putin for all the bad press he gets in the west, mostly because he stood up to the empire and his own oligarchs. After the criminal yeltsin had people starving from turning the country over foreign and domestic oligarchs, he brought tens of millions out of poverty despite everything the west could throw at Russia. Ask Julian Assange if he would have been better off in Russia than the UK. The other country that will stand up to the empire and has by far the largest "real " economy is, of course, China where those terrible authoritarians have brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty including people outside China because they don't screw over countries like the IMF & WORLD Banksters etc. In 2008 and now, China builds infrastructure including more kilometers of high speed rail and more G5 antennas than the rest of the world. Usa has ZERO high speed rail and way behind on G5. BTW Afghanistan had a democratic secular government before Jimmy Carter and Brezinski destroyed it. The same with Iran before the usa destroyed it for the British. Truman wouldn't do it but Eisenhower did. Having lived in the usa for a few years, I've seen the nasty underbelly, the hoods and the hollers and they ain't pretty, nor is the drug addiction and omnipresent crime and poverty, jails with more inmates than any other country, almost all plea bargain cases and related to poverty, lousy housing and schools with few able to escape the system. Let me know when Assange gets out, gets an apology and a huge settlement, I'm not holding my breath.
Tell me how many illegal aliens have snuck into or are clamoring to emigrate to China??? Oh none! You’ve missed the point about the messy experiment called democracy and why it’s preferred. The whole world wants to move here, not move to China and be unwilling organ donors for the CCP.
Reintroduce, ok. Boris there’s all kinds of problems presently especially with the woke lunatics that wind up and control the very demented Biden and send him out (after wiring him with amphetamines) to blather. There is a large group of younger republicans that should be elected next year, many are veterans. Then impeach Biden, fire Austen, blinken, milley plus all political appointees down through three stars, replace with the colonels who aren’t brown misers get rid of cia, nsa, Sullivan, Majorca have I missed anybody? If so fire them too! All Rhinos must go. Then threaten Harris if she so much as farts the wrong way she’s gone too. Then 2024, DeSantis, Hawley, Cotton, others? Then deal and heal all the damage these bastards are inflicting on OUR country. This is now war and we have to regain control to “re introduce” democracy.
2 DNC oligarchs (Biden, Pelosi, Schumer) are even WORSE (censorship, they concocted Russia-gate hoax, torture of Julian Assange, Daniel Hale’s persecution for Obama’s drone crimes, $16+B Haiti-corruption under Hillary/Obama – Biden-family corruption pales in comparison)
The ONLY solution – vote THIRD party – now and forever. ALWAYS vote – but VOTE for a Third (or fourth, fifth..) party – at ALL levels, especially at LOCAL levels (vote OUT each and every incumbent).
“If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less.” [Ralph Nader].
Only ACTION: Sustained organized mass civil disobedience - not distractions like DNC-controlled hollering and tweeting....
PS: Can we be perfectly clear who "won" in Afghanistan? Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, and their "shareholders" (70%+ of "shareholders" are just Wall Street and DC parasitic “blob” + Congress scumbags)
There is no factual bases for this claim. The corporatist oligarcy would not have mounted the conspiracy to rig the 2020 presidential election to install their meat puppet Biden in the White House if Trump wasn't viewed as a danger to their continued rule.
He didn't pardon Julian Assange his strongest witness about still going-on Russia-gate hoax and catastrophic lack of leadership - just two examples:
Donald Trump 'wants FDA to approve oleander plant extract as a drug to cure Covid-19' after it was promoted by Ben Carson and MyPillow founder - despite no proof that it works
• Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson ( my note: the bible idiot – pyramids were built by St. Joseph to store wheat ) and MyPillow boss and ( my note – a deeply repulsive grifter ) Mike Lindell, a big Trump supporter, have urged Trump to look at the botanical extract (oleander oil)
• Meeting arranged by the pair with a director at company developing the product
• Andrew Whitney, of Phoenix Biotechnology, claims he is '100%' sure it's a cure
• But there is no peer-reviewed study to support the claim
• Lindell says that in the meeting, Trump 'basically said the FDA should approve it'
• Senior administration official expressed deep concern that Carson and Lindell were 'pushing a dubious product at the highest levels' during the pandemic
"VOTE for a third party or fourth or fifth", "only action sustained civil disobedience". these aren't going to change anything. May be you like perpetual chaos, I don't. I don't see this young group of republicans as evil, you have to start somewhere and out in the streets won't get it done. Your just going to keep tilting at windmills otherwise.
Janet, that's a very cynical view that generally comes out of the comfort of economic security: "making a $killing" and "M-O-N-E-Y". When you have nothing and you're surrounded by nothing but poverty, misery and perhaps war then a flawed place like the US is a dream worth dreaming. That's the tragedy of today's Left: raging about "systemic racism", income inequality, misogyny, and all kinds of Isms and completely ignoring the millions of black, brown, asian...people, women with children who are desperately trying to get here to make a "$killing". To see a scene like a woman handing over a small child to an American soldier in Kabul with the hope that at least the child will get out, should make every morally self-satisfied keyboard warrior pause and ask him/herself why that is. Do you think the dirt poor Irish who survived the mid 1800s "potatoe famine" - that starved about a million people to death - and left everything and everyone behind to come to America just wanted to make a "$killing" or avoid a "killing"?
I think the attitudes are often intertwined. Many are *both* escaping poverty and other horrors, *and* hoping to make a killing. That's why it's specifically *the US* they seem to prefer, instead of any number of other Western-style capitalist democracies. Because if they read the fine print, they'd realize how poorly the U.S. in 2021 stacks up against those other Western countries in many aspects of life for the average citizen.
The US doesn't stack poorly when it comes to immigrants making it. Countries like Germany may have a safer welfare system for a freshly arrived immigrant but when it comes to socio-economic mobility the picture will shift very fast. Also opportunity shouldn't be confused with evenly distributed results and a guarantee of it. And I won't even go into being accepted as an immigrant within a much more homogeneous population in Europe vs. US, personal freedom etc.
I believe this still supports my position. It is *more* likely that an immigrant succeeds to great wealth in the US vs Europe, but it is still statistically unlikely for any random immigrant. Many buy into the dream, but few succeed -- and the upshot is that a larger percentage than in Europe will suffer significant hardship.
They knowingly choose a lottery ticket. So, Janet has a point.
How would you know? Have you asked "these people "? For some reason they are overwhelmingly trying to get to the US and 1 million do, get in, every year, lieber Andreas! 1 million! Does Germany bring in let's say 250,000 into the country as a official immigration policy? How well would that go over in Berlin?
The poor want to move here because of our uncontrolled welfare state. If our poor were a country, they'd have the highest standard of living on the planet, except the tax paying part of America. Control welfare and immigration will slow to only those who can contribute.
Rand understood the mediocre bureaucracy in Foutainhead. He also drew a blueprint for ending capitalism in Atlas Shrugged. The fact that she didn't know she knew does not take away from her accomplishment.
Well Atlas more than shrugged, He got really pissed off and screwed up the whole of industry and all his critics did the boohoohoo all the way home!
That's what happens when the globe falls to the floor of the Universe and cracks open like an egg...and the yoke makes a joke out of the folk who just poke and never stoke the fires of the heart of Lolita.
Let that be a lesson to all them pesky lazy Injuns sneeking about with their murderous knives stalking the magnificent lives of the White Man and his destiny made in Heaven.
Hear ye. Hear ye. The clock has struck thirteen! Stike up the band for the Triskaidekaphobia Boogie.
Must be hydroponic seedless, its as clear as an azure sky of deepest summer thst it's some super shit cuz he's gone gone gone like that catfish twitching on the deck.
Poetic Wonka muses: "as clear as an azure sky of deepest summer thst "
This is on par with the one about spring water and mountain lake. Both deal with clarity as it overflows Willie's brain and spills over to the forum. We're thankful for that.
Not much free health care in Central America, apparently. Yes, some countries are more socialist than America, but that doesn't make us not socialist. We're not really the best at anything any more, except printing money to finance unaffordable entitlements. As was once said, we go broke slowly, then all at once. China can collapse the US any time by simply selling their US debt.
We're one of the most "socialist" (with one of the largest "welfare state" systems) of any country on Earth, David. It has many names: the "corporatocracy"; the "corporate oligarchy"... I call it "soft fascism".
And, thanks to our state-run media/propaganda machine (that would make Joseph Goebbels turn deep-green with envy) people like you think we're some kind of commie-pinko hell hole.
I don't, actually, but I'm aware many people hope to make it so. Not sure what media you're watching, but most of them seem to think we're not commie enough.
Those who support establishment of autocracy do so with a variety of reasons, and by a variety of methods. Socialism is one. Corporate cronyism is another. "People like you" think corporations can control a country on their own. They can't. Only government can do that. Corporations finance politicians to gain favors. But graft only works when willing politicians accept it.
Immigrating to Australia and New Zealand requires a telephone book of forms to fill out and to guarantee you are not going to take any jobs from them and that you have a slush fund for yourself so you wont be a drain on their medical and other benefits. Lots of chinese in Asia want to got o these two countries just for that. We do not demand that. If we had National Health Care we would in a heartbeat.
But we do have national health care. Just disorganized and erratic. Nobody goes without health care if they want it. Just walk into any hospital and demand it. Medical costs are so high because paying customers also pay for the slackers. It's essentially a covert tax on every productive resident.
I see, that rather than answreing my question Mr.Griewank suddenly jumpted down the thread to confront me about blocking up the thread , although this is only the second comment I made up here.
Is that a diversion tactic becase he has no source for his assertions about the Chinese students?
"blocking up the thread" - your term for it, not Andreas Griewank's or anyone else's. As far as your request to Griewank for sources goes, bear in mind that he may be speaking from experience rather than an online source, and various kinds of experience are fine too.
And this is YOUR business for what reason Mr. Rose?
Yes Griewank claimed it made the last thread "unreadable"
These claims are preposterous.
Take this thread for example, there are hundreds of comments by a multitude of people. But you and this Griewanker character blame me for making the thread unreadable?!?!?
Any excuse aye Randall? Any fucking excuse at all and you are bitching and moaning at me again. You are obsessively psychotic (OCD). Get professional help.
How about many of these “repatriated Chinese were spies or the CCP told them to come back or “we kill your family and you’ll share all the research with us”.
I haven't heard of many Chinese (or Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese etc) entering illegally. You don't find many on the welfare rolls. They discipline their kids and become strong contributors quickly. Seen any Chinese ghettos lately?
This sort of thing is thoroughly ridiculed in Russia now. Purposely making up words that would be feminine when applies to a woman holding some position normally expressed as masculine. And it sounds hilarious.
Germany seems to be among the leading, if not the, trendsetters in Europe and the little ones in the EU are fighting for their place in line. German elites seem to completely have lost their minds.
Thank you for the usual list of regurgitated anti-American talking points. Yes, Putin is a hero, saved Russia and stands up to the Empire! Please! Go talk to the political opposition in Russia how that Russian democracy is working out for them. The life expectancy of Russian men is about 15 years behind rest of western countries. Alcoholism, crime, corruption at all levels are epidemic. The only order Putin brought back is that people knew again who to bribe. Russia is a one-trick pony of a petro economy with zero innovation in any other sector that could benefit the population at large in the long term. What the fuck are you talking about? And yes Obama's foreign policy was an utter disaster: Syria, Libya, Jemen, Ukraine etc.etc.
Russophobic? I have friends in Russia, I'm not regurgitating anything but speaking from experience and compassion for the Russian people. The American policy towards Russia since the 1990s has been idiotic but that doesn't elevate Putin to any hero status.
"compassion for the Russian people" - я весь в слезах, болезный ты мой. Describe your experiences for us, will you? Some of us have some too, maybe we can share.
Well, for starters my grandfather was executed in 1937 for being too educated (a veterinarian). My parents were deported to Siberia as kids and furthermore... иди ты нахуй!
Short on temper, are we? So you were born in Siberia big deal! Imagine, some of us also have.
But I'm just curious as to why are you claiming so much here? What kind of friends do you have over there? If you talk to a slice of the populace don't you allow for their being slanted? Just like anywhere?
And watch your language, you're in a public forum. Some English speakers might pick up bad vocabulary. Also, don't bullshit - you can blow air into American ears but not at someone like me.
You will note that the rusky bot is very frustrated that I will not engage him. He has been freaking out for at least the last 5 threads because I refuse to acknowledge his fruitcake shenanigans. His utterly unoriginal "Willy Wonka" splaterglotten verbal cramps. and his "ompalompa' routines.
Ignore the jerk. he's the biggest looser on Greenwald's forums.
Yea look out for russian bot, he thiinks he is a real hotshot cumslinger. He will climb up any ass any time just to pass his shitty time and brown nose anyone that takes umbrage with someone he doesn't like. He is one of Randal fucking Roses trained puppies. Poor Randal fucking Rose lost one of his puppies yesterday in a trainwreck on the last Greenwald forum.
So now both of these delightful fucknobs are making the big boohoo on anyone that passes by.
You have to get used to the cast of characters here. There are a lot of cool and smart people here...but there are several real whackaroos as well. You just got stung by one of the real crackpots...the amazing russian bot and his beltsander slander machine.
Serving Ukrainian community in Sacramento? Helping them escape the Russian aggression? The Ukrainian comic is coming to town, I think - any plans to meet him?
And yet they can influence so much of American politics and the Russia monster can still dominate American media. Imagine that!! Russia boogeyman is truly make believe. Wait, we've moved on now right? It's Domestic Terrorism we are propaganda inundated with now. Can't hardly keep up!!
No, quite the opposite, William! Russiagate was cooked up by the Clintons to undermine Trump from before the 2016 election. It's the libtards at MSNBC who eat from old CIA hands like little kittens and have been running with those moronic boogeyman stories of the all powerful Putin.
"Russia is a one-trick pony of a petro economy with zero innovation in any other sector that could benefit the population at large in the long term."
Yet they are, somehow, destroying our democracy (I think the approved term is "fomenting discord") with Facebook ads, and crippling our digital infrastructure with their Kremlin-commandeered hacker pirates.
Thank you for your own "regurgitated anti-American talking points." Too much of that stuff, and the narratives start crash into other like manic Keystone Kops, as I just showed. Not a good look.
I guess my interpretation of "anti-American" is different from that of our corrupt entrenched establishment, aka deep state, who is licking its chops over how to divide up Russia someday soon.
But first, of course, time to stir things up a little (ok, a lot) in Afghanistan to recharge the imperialism batteries with Pavlovian American outrage. And, right on cue, out pops Leon Panetta and his modest proposal...
Coulter has no idea of what she is talking about. Biden fucked up by breaking the deal Trump had arranged with the Taliban. Taliban knew that if they had played the game with Trump, that they played with Biden that Trump would have taken out their entire leadership by drone strikes. He warned them of that in the deal.
See: Kash Patel Former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense [Trump adm.]
-Coulter doesn't need, and possibly doesn't really care, to know what she is talking about; she saw a rhetorical, i.e. business, opportunity -- and pounced on it.
-The idea that half-century swamper Biden has no idea what he's doing could only point to one thing: serious cognitive decline. That can easily be true.
However, we're observing one curious thing about the "madness" of the Afghanistan fiasco: The military "obeys" Biden. Under Trump, insubordination was a jaw-dropping reality. So if near-octogenarian Biden isn't playing (what appears to be) 4-dimensional chess, then *some* faction is. So, tentatively I believe that, in concert with the MSM of course, we are being set up for a US population-supported return to Afghanistan in short order. Hence my comment above about Panetta.
Graham: ‘We will be going back’ into Afghanistan after withdrawal debacle
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told a BBC reporter the U.S. will eventually sent troops back into Afghanistan.
“Whether you like Trump or not, whether you believe it’s Trump’s fault or Biden’s fault, here’s where we’re at as a world: The Taliban are not reformed, they’re not new,” Graham said.
“They have a view of the world out of sync with modern times. They’re going to impose a lifestyle on the Afghan people that I think is going to make us all sick to our stomach,” he added.
“But most importantly, they’re going to give safe haven to Al Qaeda who has ambitions to drive us out of the Mid East writ large and attack us because of our way of life,” he continued. “We will be going back into Afghanistan as we went back into Iraq and Syria.” Graham continued.
The report was not the first time Graham noted the war with Afghanistan is not over. In a recent Fox News interview, the senator said, “We’ve entered into a new deadly chapter.”
Despite President Joe Biden’s claim the war has ended, Graham argues the war continues and will result in more troops returning to Afghanistan even after 20 years in the region.
I will say this. I would be in favor of targeted drone attacks on the entire Taliban leadership starting today, and only ending when the sons of bitches run back into the hills and dissapear.
Well Anti-Hip, The first thing to grasp is that Biden is not in charge. Biden in a titular figurehead, he is the meat puppet of the corporatist oligarchs who rigged the election to get rid of Trump.
"a US population-supported return to Afghanistan in short order."...
Do you actually think that the oligrarchy media complex really needs to have the US population's support? All the media has to do is pronounce that the US population supports a return of the military to Afghanistan. Das Propaganda.
The past is always in question and the future is literally unknown.
Nobody should trust Wikipedia,' its co-founder warns: Larry Sanger says site has been taken over by left-wing 'volunteers' who write off sources that don't fit their agenda as fake news
Larry Sanger, 53, co-founded Wikipedia with Jimmy Wales in 2001
He said site has been taken over by Democratic-supporting volunteer editors
Sanger said left-leaning editors do not allow Wikipedia users to edit pages
Power abhors a vacuum. Like Marx and his followers riding the proles roughshod, and like Tea Party and Occupy recently, Wikipedia's "anyone can write it" "team" was co-opted, thankyouverymuch.
When they are imprisoned it is not of the order of Assange's imprisonment. They read, write letters, are alive and not kept for extra long periods. Usually.
Wow! Where did you get nonsense? Market reforms lowered life expectancy by 10 years! 70 years of Communism and 5 year economic plans were pure bliss and happiness but then the evil market economy created a genocide! Hahahahahahaha!
Ok Andreas, let me lower my rhetoric a bit and respond respectfully this way: the devastating effects of 1998 financial crisis in Russia is a direct result of an extremely inefficient economy with a weak, depleted infrastructure and fixed rubble exchange rate that in no way reflected the actual weakness of the economy and the currency. In the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the subsequent drop of oil and gas prices, Russia couldn't hide or escape the brutal reality of its fiscal and financial situation. Much can be said it about whether the West could have done a better job in helping Russia face its calamity but the assertion that it were the terms of financial reform package from the World bank and the IMF that lowered the life expectancy of the Russian population and not 70 years of a utterly failed economic system is to me a very superficial look at the whole tragedy called Soviet Union.
More plausibly, neither system worked all that well. The period of Communist Party rule in Russia wasn't great for the economy, but if the '90s market reforms had been the right prescription, we wouldn't have seen the kind of bad effects that Andreas mentions.
By now there's been enough historical experience to know that socialism and capitalism are both seriously flawed systems. Time to move on and look for something better that isn't just based on socialism or capitalism.
And those same Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic terrorists had been recruited by the US starting in July 1979. They were supported and financed by the US.
What was initiated in 1979 is best described as “America’s War With Terrorists” whereby Al Qaeda recruits are used to destroy secular sovereign nations in a diabolical covert operation which has now extended its thrust from the Middle East to South East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond.
_____________________________________________
Interview with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began their aid to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during the 1980s, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise.
Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?
Q: Some stirred-up Muslims? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.
China must be a great country because I never hear one word of dissent from their netizens just unending praise without exception. Meanwhile Americans and other westerners complain about their governments and leaders all the time - there is lots to complain about. In China no one is allowed to complain about the country or criticize the leader, whether they are inside or outside of China, not because everything is perfect but because free expression has been criminalized.
Chairman Xi's unflinching iron death grip around the throats of every chinese citizen encourages harmony. Tyranny and harmony go together like ying and yang, right? No they don't. Free expression is EVERYTHING. Without the right to free expression (and thought and imagination) you will become a mindless prisoner and not have the ability to even know it. Fuck the Chinese police state, it is a fucking plague on humanity. The chinese people are too smart to be treated like that, they will not permit it forever.
China is far more capitalist than the US, Russia has not been Communist for 30+ years, while the US is a corporate socialism (more polite term for fascism)
China doesn't have a free market economy. The chinese economy is centrally planned, subsidized and under the thumb of a corrupt government - is that capitalism? One could argue that it resembles crony capitalism. Wallstreet likes china because of the corruption, slavery and lack of human rights and environmental regulations, not because there is a free market or "capitalism". Profits are low in a free market economy and nobody on wallstreet wants that in china or the USA. It turns out that tyranny, slavery, censorship and corruption are all good for profits. Those things are allowed in communist china and are supposed to be illegal in the US. Anyway all that's got nothing to do with free expression, except that it is mostly the corrupt monopoly corporations that are trying to turn the USA into China by censoring, surveilling and corrupting it.
-- The income disparity, kleptocracy, no democracy in the US
-- Financial Times -- July 8, 2021:
“China’s emergence over the past four decades ranks as the biggest and longest-run economic boom in history. Its annual gross domestic product rose from a mere $191 B, or $195 per capita, in 1980 to $14.3 T, or $10,261 per capita, in 2019.
It has raised more than 770m people from poverty and transformed the Chinese economy into a high-tech powerhouse that is on course to eclipse America’s in size. This transformation is the landmark achievement of the Chinese Communist party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday.”
There are problems with America but it still has free expression and democracy. When that goes away I will stop defending it. Can you make any criticism of china or are you a chinese netizen? Say something bad about China, something that would get you thrown into a chinese concentration camp. I can't respect a country that criminalizes free expression. I'm glad people have been lifted out of poverty, now lift them out of prison.
China just really began this in the early 90's. And have you any idea of the level of poverty these workers came from? Unbelievable in rural areas. They were flocking in crowds to Shenzhen with a stick tied with a bandana for their belongings like in old depression US comics. Lines blocks long to use one pay phone.
Amazon is copying Foxconn in their labor practices. Wallstreet corporations have adopted police state tactics, they could not beat china so they joined it.
And of course, the seniors remained in the provinces with the fine non-system of help for the needy. The US spends 50% of it's budget on transfer payments in a social safety net. The Chinese spend truckloads on material acquisitions worldwide.
I'm glad for Snowden's sake he did not wind up in mainland China, and we have Hong Kong to thank for not surrendering him to China or the US. Perhaps that is why the US allowed Hong Kong to be crushed by China.
I don't think anyone would ever have ever heard from Snowden again if he wound up in mainland china. He would probably have been tortured to death to extract every bit of intelligence. The intelligence would have been used to improve the police and surveillance state on chinese citizens. Facebook and Google would have adopted what tactics they could and spread it everywhere else.
As if the people of Hong Kong would need spuring from anyone to protest against annexation by the totalitrarian CCP.
You defend the fucking communist Chinese, the fucking maniac Talaban and ISIS-K, and criticisze the United States which still has more personal freedoms than any other society on the planet.
As corrupt as the government has become here, our heretage of freedom is still in place and in the hearts of American Patriots.
I have read enough of your bullshit to see you ase a shill Petrov. I cannot see for certain who your masters are, but it is certainly anti-American.
Its Tiananmen Square. Bitching gets them into prison, protesting gets them into crematoriums. Wallstreet monopoly corporations have given china the technological capability to implement a police and surveillance state so the iron grip on the throat is getting tighter. Monopoly corporations have learned a few things from china (corruption, surveillance, propaganda and censorship) and are bringing them back here. For those reasons alone we should cut off mercantilism (trade) with that country. There is no need for war but no need to drain the wealth of the USA into china. Sorry for the repeated messages, something got deleted accidentally.
I am free to do both, I don't know about you. The chinese people are not allowed to criticize their government or our corporations so we should do it. Foxconn and Apple treat workers like slaves with the permission of the chinese government. Remaining silent is good for corporate profits. Are you mute because Apple is "woke" or because you are dumb? If the chinese were to start gassing the uyghurs or the Germans started gassing the Jews, useless idiots would plead for silence and respect just like they always do. Chaplin made a film about Hitler called the "Great Dictator" and it was censored in America because the corporatists and the useless idiots opposed it. The perfect useless idiot is one who doesn't know even that he is being used, and that seems to be you. There is no need for war with China and there is no need for self-censorship.
"Afghanistan had a democratic secular government before Jimmy Carter and Brezinski destroyed it"
Ha. The group that violently took over in 1978 was called the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. I guess you're one of those people who think that a state run by the "People's Democratic Party" is a democratic government.
It was a revolution against the monarchy..duu. You had one yourself..duu. Only your's was a revolution of the elites against the British elites. "What's in a name, I think the guy who wrote that is still famous. BTW, under the People's (we the people"; where have I read that?) Women were going to university, didn't have to cover their heads etc. Most revolutions are violent, yours certainly was.
The Afghan monarchy had been overthrown well before that, back in 1973, when Mohamed Daoud Khan set up the Republic of Afghanistan. You say the takeover by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was "a revolution against the monarchy", which is like saying that the ouster of Robespierre was a revolution against the French monarchy. Also, you misspelled "duh".
Even if it was a revolution against the monarchy, that wouldn't make it democratic. (You seem to think that Leninist governments don't have "elites".) In my post above, I didn't go into detail about why the PDPA wasn't a democratic government, but I said more about that down-thread in one of my replies to Whitten.
Mr. Hunter is in fact correct, Afghanistan indeed had a democratic secular government before Jimmy Carter and Brezinski destroyed it. Afghanistan was very "westernized" in that period. no burkas for the women, who were intitled to education, became teachers, could drive, and were essentially seen as equals to men. The men wore suits and ties in business settings, and the same casual wear as seen in western countries.
No turbans for the men in those days. Afghanstan was for all intents and purposes a modern society.
Look up the 1978 violent takeover in Afghanistan by the "People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan". Despite their name, they do not have a democratic record, although Robert Hunter claimed they did. That government (which wasn't democratic enough to be legitimate) was allied with the Soviets and later invited Soviet troops in. Carter and Brzezinski wanted to remove the Soviet-allied government in Afghanistan, and armed the Taliban to do so, but that doesn't mean that these US leaders were destroying a democratic government.
Also, when you say "no burkas for the women", what actually happened is that the "People's Democratic Party" BANNED burkas and chadors even for people who wanted to wear them. Not my idea of freedom.
Practical politics of compromise seems to give us a stark divide between the the modern policies of People's Democratic Party in Afghanistan, and the medieval fanaicism of Afghanistan's former theocratic regimes. As well as the stark reality of the current regimes of the Taliban, before and after the US intervention there.
Yes we are all accustomed to the rights and liberties enjoyed in the US, and find the slightest variation of these principles personally appalling.
But I am sure that Afghani women and girls were greatly relieved by the banishment of genital mutilation that is part of radical Islam. Or the ritual stoning of unfaithful wives, or the practice of cutting off the noses of unfaithful women.
The "Right" to were a burka seems rather trivial in comparison to the afore mentioned realities of fanatical Islamic barbarism.
The record of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan is a lot worse than that. Mohammad Najibullah, later the PDPA president, started out running the State Intelligence Agency (KHAD) which was known for its torture. Does torture matter to you? You condemn violations of rights when they're done by the enemy du jour, and play down rights violations when it's the enemy of your enemy who's responsible. It's the way mainstream American discourse creates an illusion of caring about rights overseas while warping rights talk to demonize whoever the current enemy happens to be.
Again, you're weaseling and shifting your ground. The original question was: was the PDPA state in Afghanistan a democratic government? First you said that this government was "democratic", and then when someone points out that it isn't democratic, you abandon the talk of democracy completely and instead suggest it's unreasonable to expect "the rights and liberties enjoyed in the US". It's the same trick that National Security Advisers like Ben Rhodes have played for decades -- say something nice-sounding about democracy overseas, and then when confronted with facts that show otherwise, abandon the talk of democracy in a way that shows no real interest in democracy overseas at all, using the excuse that you can't expect them to have "the rights and liberties enjoyed in the US". People who talk this way show they aren't taking democracy seriously, and Americans who get used to this way of talking are sure to continue having a garbage foreign policy.
As much as I care about rights overseas and domestically, I understand pragmatic policies. Is it the duty of the United States to police the entire planet?
Is it the duty of the US to be consistant in that policy? If so ALL despotic regimes would need to be dealt with. That would mean China, North Korea. Russia. etc. not just the baby states with no nuclear arsenals.
So shall we simply nuke all the basards?
Or should the US help fledgling democracies in ways that can buttress the democratic tenancies? Or should the US simply step in and pull out all the stops and force democracy onto these nations?
You want to wrap "Democracy" in a nice pure bow and exclaim it is either a true democracy or it is puking despotism. There has to be evolution rather than constant bloody revolution. If a fledgling democracy can grow with just a few civil liberties into a fuller and more free state in stages it is better than 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'.
If you are such a wise and seasoned diplomat Rose, what the fuck are you doing here commenting on a web forum? Why aren't you in the real world of diplomacy making a real contribution to your feigned principles?
The "right" to wear a burka? "Old saying, it's hard to fight an enemy with outposts in your head". When you are constantly exposed to indoctrination as we all are to some degree, you have limited free will. In the case of extreme religion, you have very little despite being "Free!" If you believe that you have free will I would suggest a reading of anything by Yuval Noah Harari; it might help to open your mind.
Not convinced Harari is a serious philosopher, and I notice how you shift inconsistently between denying that people have free will and saying they have "limited" free will.
Your claim that people with "extreme religion" have less free will than others is simply an expression of your prejudice against this group, and deserves no respect. These people have as much free will and as many rights as I do.
Which is very little. Harari is a historian, not a philosopher. As to"Democracy"; there's never been and likely never will be a democracy, the ruling classes wouldn't allow it. The USA is a constitutional republic but the system of government is " manufactured Consent"! The post revolutionary government wasn't even close to resembling a democracy, cmmon, be honest!
Hilarious touting of China. Without the technology gifted to them/stolen from the west and Japan, China would still have bicycles as their primary means of transport. All the commies have done is turn to the very worst form of capitalism, fascism. Capitalism directed by politicians. Red in tooth and claw. Seriously, whatever your view of the US is, China is worse by almost every metric. Remind me where the US concentration and re-education camps are, destroying the culture and religion of an entire people?
"brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty" - sounds quite nice. And how was that done? They became a defacto manufacturing outfit for the world based on near slave labor - indentured servants to a degree. Some of that manufacturing was built on simply copies at first and then via interesting technology transfer more sophisticated building. All assisted by liberal trade policies advanced by the US mainly but anybody wanting to cash in if they could get inside. They did a fine job of being mercantile is a peer capitalist world with no apologies for government sponsored market steals. Sharp, ruthless competition in way that only governments can be. As far as standing up to the US, they know we are fools driven by notions of fairness which does not apply in business or war.
In other words, they basically did what we did to get ahead. If you believe that the USA state believes in fairness, I have a bridge you might be interested in. They also have the benefits of learning from our mistakes and they are. Ever hear of slavery, genocide, ethnic cleansing; that's a large part of how we in the west got rich and we still get rich by exploitation, only now it's mostly banksters instead of battleships but of course the mailed fist is there for those who defy us. Sanctions, remember the us as Albright saying live on the air that sanctioning 500,000 Iraqi children to death was "worth it" or killery, again live cackling, "we came, we saw, he died"; that really went well for the people of the secular state of Libya and we stole their weapons and armed the jihad's in Syria, that went well too for the people of Syria who are still sanctioned and occupied preventing rebuilding. Of course the USA is a free country which you never stop bragging about. I see them free sleeping under the bridge everywhere with obscene wealth all around them. I drive by the jails holding more people than any other countries including China. Millions are about to lose their homes to Blackstone and their ilk, to be securitized and sold on the holy market as rent backed securities but I digress, nothing is likely to change your mind but others may read this so it's not totally wasted time.
Brilliant-- and I LOVE the word quisling. BTW I dont think being behind on G5 is so bad-- lots of electro-magnetic impacts on the human electrical field-- makes cell phones look like Childs play.
All this is true. And China is a capitalistic state wearing the camouflage of communism. Just as the US wears the camouflage of Democracy while becoming a totalitarian state.
China is a Neo-Marxist state, combining capitalism and totalitarian aspects OPENLY. There is nothing covert about it. Just like the U.S. is a corpaorist oligarchy which has been authoritarian since 1947 and the establishment of the National Security State.
Internal (domestic) propaganda is extant in all nations as to the true nature of their political organization.
Hm, this post by Robert Hunter says falsely that "Afghanistan had a democratic secular government before Jimmy Carter and Brezinski destroyed it", but in a post below he shifts to saying "there's never been and likely never will be a democracy." Shows how little he cares, when he compliments a state for being a democratic government even though he doesn't actually believe such a thing exists. In any case, he's wrong: the Afghan government before Carter's intervention was a torturing communist government and not a democracy (though I'm not claiming this justifies what Carter did).
Just to clarify; at first I thought they were traitors. But in the years since I have become, with head spinning clarity, informed of the absolute evil that is our government. I think that was their mission.
Trump was rather overwhelmed trying to keep himself from phony impeachments, 'Russiagate' nonsense and the media slander he experienced his whole presidency. Near the end of his term he was in the middle of the second burlesque called an "impeachment" if you all might recall. Presidential Pardons are usually given in the weeks immediately before a president leaves office. Trump's mind on defending himself should be seen as reasonable.
Trumps record in office is starting to look extremely competent and clear-sighted, even to Democrat voters. I guess you are just significantly behind the curve.
The 2020 Presidential Election was rigged by a cabal of corporate oligarchs to install their own meat-puppet into the White House as a titular figure so they could rule behind the curtain of Oz.
I wouldn't expect anyone who allows the media to tell them what to think to expect that. Just like they didn't think he'd win the election or that he was a Russian asset or any of the other constant propaganda spewed by the enemies within.
It is amazing that the propaganda holsters, those babbling fools that regurgitate what they are told never seem to see themselves for the intellectual cowards they are, like Ben Rhodes.
So true. The deep state would never allow him to perform his job. I know he was considering the pardons, but his ill-advisers (AKA the people who framed them) talked him out of it.
Good for you! You obviously have a mind open enough to change when presented with facts contradictory to what you believed. Unfortunately, open minds seem to be in a minority these days. Cognitive dissonance keeps them closed.
"Cognitive dissonance"? Obviously that is your job here Hunter, attempting to induce cognitive dissonance between the readers here as a Sunsteinian agent of agitprop.
I think it's sad that you aren't living in reality. Look at who he did pardon, and stop looking at him as a white knight. He isn't. This problem is well beyond party lines.
The fact that the American people had a choice between Trump and Biden should have been a wake up call to millions of voters. This is how depraved and low American politics has plunged. And yet...Bread & Circuses truly to rule the masses.
Good, keep going. Red pills aren't easy to swallow. If you'd like another download Rockfin, go to Whitney Webb's Unlimited Hangout and listen to the latest podcast and then listen to the rest.
I listened to it today and I tell you, it hit me pretty hard. Epstein, Maxwell, they were amateur. Compromised politicians and media personalities aren't the exception. They are the norm.
And when you see it, things finally make sense and you can't unsee it.
If you are in the dwindling number of people that trust Dominion voting systems than I guess that's true. I am not positive it matters, it's never been clearer that TPTB are behind the scenes. It was Mercer and BlackRock via Trump, and with Biden, he can't even choose which member of the Press to ask a pre-scripted question too.
The 2020 Presidential Election was rigged by a cabal of corporate oligarchs to install their own meat-puppet into the White House as a titular figure so they could rule behind the curtain of Oz
Buddy, you COULD HAVE voted Green Party, or maybe Libertarian is more your speed; YOU give the ultra-rich the power to hand us the choice of two shit sandwiches by your belief in a "two-party system."
There was no worst between Trump and Biden; both were a shitty choice, differing only in smell and appearance but not flavor.
Those differences are used to keep us fighting which is why they'll never be resolved by Dems or Repubs; what SHOULD matter to YOU is the continued survival of the current biosphere because that includes us, and it's at grave risk RIGHT NOW. And, the cause of that risk is unbridled capitalism, left to run amok by the choices of our oligarchs who get to do anything and everything they want while keeping us out of control of our own lives and handing them all the fruits of our labor. ...We could suffer under the boot-heel of the ultra-rich forever were it not for their apparently suicidal desire to trash the environment to the entire biosphere's peril. If we don't stop them now, humanity, and most surface life on the planet - your religious and immigration issues are completely meaningless in the face of extinction.
oops, minor editorial omission: That last sentence should read:
If we don't stop them now, humanity, and most surface life on the planet is facing oblivion - your religious and immigration issues are completely meaningless in the face of extinction.
Susan Rice, in her book "Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For", essentially spreads the same lies about Snowden, while adding her own lie that Snowden gave all the data he had stolen to Russia. But we would have to rely on our political elites to change course and bring these behaviors to an end. That would be like pissing in the wind. Just look at what happened to the Lt. Colonel who spoke up about Afghanistan.
First how could you read this without vomiting repeatedly! If there is a classic picture of a apparatchik with absolutely no morals or heart its her. I even (blanch- gulp) prefer Hilary.
Liars will lie-- the 24 hr news cycle lets them hide
I suppose the same way Glenn brought himself to read the Rhodes book. My only defense is that it was a library book so I did not further enrich her by reading it.
A very clear case of malignant prevarication. This is an administration that spied on an opposition candidate using the security services. This is an administration that weaponized the IRS. This is an administration that left an American ambassador and other Americans to die ignominiously and lied about it. These are very bad people.
Thank you for identifying this as sociopathy. In an age that has seemed to have lost all perspective of just how nefarious the US government has become, finally, finally a legitimate journalist calls is precisely what it is. It is *not* hyperbole. Sociopaths do not feel or empathize with their victims. They have no remorse. They incessantly if not addictively self aggrandize at any cost, human or otherwise. And these types of people pursue government positions. And in recent years, security state is a noteworthy example.
But this goes well beyond the security state into many if not most parts of the government.
What’s dangerous is when “normal” Americans become so wrapped up in their party that they let this pass, or even worse, defend it or support it. Normal humans - even having marked differences in ideology- have to stop these parties, both of which are full of sociopaths
I'm not certain how novel this behavior is. We may have had a relatively brief respite from the worst of it in the latter part of the 20th century. Leaving WWII and Korea out of the discussion for the moment (not because I do not believe there were lies involved, only because I don't specifically recall them, and don't want to do the research at this moment), how did the US gain popular approval for its last few wars? I would posit the answer "blatant lies, told by politicians, and echoed by the press". WW I? Wilson lied his ass off. Vietnam? Gulf of Tonkin, anyone? Iraq? Saddam's WMD? Two things have changed, imo. First, because of the proliferation of internet publication, and the low entry bar for same, we have a much wider variety of sources checking and commening on official pronouncements. Frequently, I find this to be a pain in the ass to wade through, however, it is a positive in the sense that it increases the probability that the truth *is* out there, somewhere, waiting to be stumbled upon. Second change is that those in power seemingly once saved their whoppers to put over really big scams, and the empowered liars were most frequently those at the top. Now it seems that any bottom-rung political clerk feels free to concoct and propound blatant falsehoods about even the most trivial of matters.
I recently purchased a handful of T-shirts bearing political commentary. I won't cite the vendor, lest it seem like an advertisement. I had several picked out, then narrowed my selection. Had I seen Glenn's piece on this fuckwad Rhodes in time, I think that the last one to be eliminated might have made the cut: "I miss Nixon - at least there were consequences for his crimes..."
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”—Lord Acton The U.S. Governmnet is absolutely corrupt. Let me be perfectly clear here. My critique is not against the constitutional republic established in 1789. My critique is of the corruption that has subverted the Constitution of the United States of America. I am a proud patriot […]
From Republic to Corporatist State
The Revolutionary War began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The US Constitution was ratified in 1788, establishing a republic.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company 1886, through an error (?) of the Court Recorder (citing obiter dictum unlawfully) began a progression of Supreme Court rulings that asserted that Corporations had the same legal rights as human beings citing the 14th Amendment as the relevant ground for that assertion.
By 1900 the corporations had used this doctrine to amass the huge fortunes that give them the ability to effectively buy the government of the United States. Therein was spawned the Corporatist State. This effectively ended the constitutional republic.
The Disastrous Woodrow Wilson Regime
Woodrow Wilson was by far the worst president in the modern era, He was a stupid man and a puppet of Col Edwen House and a cabal of international bankers who wanted to establish draconian rule over the US by instituting a private consortium of bankers now known as the Federal Reserve. This consortium is neither federal, nor are there any reserves. It is run by a private cartel, whose policies are based on usury and fiat paper money with no backing (such as gold or silver)......
I agree it is NOT novel at any time in history. Whitney Webb is great at ferreting out the lies and getting the goods on her great investigative pieces. Glenn as well-- the best.
I wonder if lying is also so prolific is part of this getting people to "look how impt I am" , feeds ego and the pocketbook (obviously)
Thanks to this BS called COVID Its the only good thing that now so many people are getting a full picture of. Its always been like this-- but the desperation now is palpable because they get that people are figuring it out😊
Ha, it took a once-in-a-hundred year event to reveal just how little the US government cares about their constituency.
Oh, but they can scramble to get 2-4 trillion dollar bailout packages rammed through but nah... a $1200 check ONCE was all they could manage for the people.
The banks all made record profits for the last 5 years.
Everyone else suffered. Millions about to be evicted right now still.
No mention of raising the min wage. No talk of medicare for all. Not even a vote.
How sad that the richest country human history has ever known can't even take care of it's people.
How sad that the government put the cock block on mom and pop stores and allowed the big boxes and Amazon's of the world to enrich themselves like never before. Let the people create their own wealth; we don't need the government "taking care of us".
Nothing worse than hearing people talk about how corrupt and inept and greed ridden government is in one side of their mouth, to turn around and spout off about more free rent, free Healthcare and more government on the other side of their mouth. Which is it? You think the government is your Daddy or a Predator? Couldn't agree more with your comment. Corporations essentially own the government, they are censoring free speech and they think giving these organizations more power over where they live and their health is a good idea.
That's all reasonably correct except for the use of "US government" in your opening line; it's the ultra-rich you're talking about - the government is just their tool of choice.
The arrogance of Rhodes knows no bounds. It's either that, or this kind of flagrant deception has become so ingrained in his modus operandi that he didn't realize what he was actually divulging by including this.
"And yet, over and over, Rhodes told the public the exact opposite of what he knew to be the truth."
And why do Rhodes and his ilk blatantly lie? Because they can. Because nothing serious is EVER done to stop them or punish them for lying. I'm not talking about an "early retirement" here, or a couple month probation there. Look at Clapper, Brennan, Lerner, Comey -- the list could go on and on but why bore you with what you already know?
Ironic, isn't it - that the Rhodes, in essence, helped Snowden to stay in the one place he would be safe from US exradition - if he had gone to SA, he would have wound up like Assange ...
I bet Ben Rhodes thought he was running the country for a time. There he is in on the cover of his masturbatory work, hovering above the Resolute Desk, full of important papers while Obama, hunched and desperate for wisdom, appeals to Rhodes' singular genius. One can imagine how horrible it is to know Ben Rhodes.
I dont believe he knew what Glenn has pointed out. that seems so simple to understand. The important thing is to understand his projections on Snowden areb PROJECTIONS, that is that all this is just Rhodes DEFENSE MECHANISMS in action. And we dknow that the defining attribute of any DEFENSE MECHANISM IS THAT IT IS UNCONSCIOUS! For Rhodes all this, even though written in his book it is still UNCONSCIOUS. And here we sit reading it. How can something so simple be unconscious? Anybody can see it and explain it to Rhodes. But you see, no one will. They will collaborate with him, valididate him, and create a reality that affirms him. Just as the enabler of the alcoholic will do for their special alcoholic other. The alcoholic will believe and the enabler will believe and odnly AA seems able to cut through the whole mess by INVALIDATING what is going on. So can we take AA methods and break this egg into an omelet. No we cant. For the sociopath will not come to a meeting to stop his behavior before it kills him. He is very willing to die with it intact and so are all those who enable it and him. And we can put Obama right in the middle of this. I am betting Fidel Castro's brother knew exactly what was going on and decided not to have a dog in that fight.
If I'm tracking what you're saying, that makes Ben Rhodes - and almost every high ranking politician on Earth - a victim of some sort of mental disorder akin to addition. You may be right, but there's nothing subconscious about their actions. These people are all about power and the perks that come with it, and they will do anything to get more of it.
Just as history will show the current administration to be the most profoundly incompetent one in the span of this nation, it will similarly show the Obama administration to be the most overtly duplicitous.
I.F. Stone was know to have said that the government bureaucrats would leave threads like this for us to figure out how they had deceived in the moment when they needed to. Your work is appreciated by some - and denigrated by the same type of pro-government ideologues who denigrated Stone - but in the end we now realize how valuable Stone's writing was and maybe years from now your work will be similarly appreciated
Wikipedia: {A}ttending New York University and [Ben Rhodes] graduat[ed] in 2002 with an MFA in creative writing.
. . . and has been writing fiction ever since.
But here is an entire Greenwald article saying a statement in said liars book must be 100% true.
How odd of a paradox.
Fair (ish) point, but Rhodes does contradict his earlier statements. So he was either lying then or he's lying now.
Net-net: he's a goddamned liar. Which is probably a job requirement anyway.
Oh please 🙄 Nobody forced Rhodes to give 2 contradictory accounts of what happened. On that basis alone, he's outed *himself* as a liar. Only 1 of his 2 accounts is consistent with Snowden's. Which means they're either both telling the truth about Snowden being trapped in Moscow, or they're both lying.
Nevermind the only reason we know Snowden's name is bc he revealed the government's massive corruption -- I'm sure he's the one who's lying here. But then how should it rehabilitate Rhodes reputation in your eyes, for him to lie along with Snowden.... to pump up his reputation? I hope you can see how dumb all of that sounds.
it's called an admission against interest. Such statements are generally credible.
I have been thinking about that. I believe now at almost 2 am that we are in Crime and Punishment by Dostoievsky. We are the detective and Rhodes is the murderer. The murderer wishes to confess and confess to the investigator which is really all of us. To accomplish what he has accomplished secretly and invisibly is not enough. He must CONFESS. And he has. And few believe his confession as they are in it. We are not. Greenwald is not. And Greenwald is the investigator par excellence. Rhodes must CONFESS to his peer who seeks him out. He has. And Greenwald is that perfect peer who perceives that he has created what he damns Snowden for doing. Now since this is almost totalized culturally we are all surrounded by sociopaths who block us, ruin us, destroy our goodness our purity, etc. I was told this last month by my Invisible Man that I havnt talked to in almost 2 years. He said, "There are people out there to take away all purity." He had wrapped his legs over mine (why I asked, "to let anyone know I am protecting you")as we sat on a bench in the sunshine by the four lane talking for the first time in 2 years (and the last it seems) and how can I help loving someone who knows this and verbalizes it while sounding like a prophet while completely drunk all the time. IDK. And for the first time I understood alcoholic drunkenness as opposed to HIGH on drugs. And why our culture favors drunk over high and why the middle east favors high over drunk. In each culture the opposite is "criminal" and maybe must recently legalized IDK.Forgive all the typo messes. It is too late to fix them.
Wow Janet...WTF ?!?!?!?
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Secrets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUWu744yhjA
It is Hegelian Metaphysics known as, "The Revelation of the Method".
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Liars don't lie all the time. They lie when it suits them. We need to be suspicious of every utterance of every individual, but when we identify clear conflicts in their language it raises the caution.
It’s a statement against interest, why would he tell a lie that indicts himself?
I'm simply pointing out some facts.
Its odd hearing a journalist yell about someone being a liar then point to one of their statements and ask us to use it as the crux of (what I consider) an already tenuous argument
You were wrong. Just pointing out a 'fact'.
What was I wrong about? Please fill me in.
you hit the nail on the head with this one. a lying member of the upper echelon of the national security apparatus and we are supposed to take his every word in his cash grabbing memoir as sacrosanct. glenn is aware that a large chunk of his subscribers will salivate over any criticism of members of the obama/clinton orbit.
Agree but that doesnt mean he is lying at all.
Let the reader decide for themselves and may we all become better critical thinkers, for the good of society.
Play it safe and trust Snowden. He pissed off more people.
This is the single biggest argument I have in my head that what he did wasn't some Gepetto type shit.
Question: what makes you think he's lying now and not then?
you are misunderstanding my comment. i do think he was lying then, so, how are we to know he is not lying now? as iconoclast pointed out, it's a paradox: he lied in the past, so why are we now to take him at his word? these people are not to be trusted in their official public statements, so why should we now believe what they write in a self-serving book?
what makes you think he was lying then?
you are proving the point...it's a paradox
LOL!
Didn't "gender studies" used to be called "urology."
We called it dating.
Now you've really dated yourself.
Its intriguing how "science" changed about trans individuals, isn't it? Science, the jilted lover of all politics.
Right around 1970-71 when after the DNC of 1968 and other nonsense, the media saw it could bully governments and corporations. The world has never been the same since.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
" media saw it could bully governments and corporations."--Iconoclast
WTF?!?! The media ARE corporations!
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@ William Whitten ✔
Thanks William, this astute observation deserves added(modest) emphasis.😉
EA
Thank you Ethan, sometimes the obvious needs to be emphasized.
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this was also when the medical industry was forced to accept fixed prices set by government.
50 thumbs up! Which explains pretty much every visualization on that site…
Maybe I'm being optimistic here, but I don't see us ever getting far enough down the road to get to that level.
I wish I shared your optimism, Scott.
I don't think it"s optimism. He appears to think we won't last that long.
yes
If in 1903, you told the average frustrated Russian peasant that in the next fifteen years, the Russian Empire would fight and lose two wars (including losing to Japan) and that Russia would undergo three revolutions, as a result of which there would no longer be a Tsar in St. Petersburg, or in Russia at all, the peasant would think you were possessed by an unclean spirit.
But it's not just the Great Unwashed. If you told the average frustrated London investment banker the same thing in 1903, he would pronounce you quite mad and also altogether not our sort.
There is a lesson here. I am not saying that anything in particular is happening in the next fifteen, but there is a lesson.
Then again, in 1970, Andrei Amalrik wrote "Will the Soviet Union Last Until 1984?" He was widely dismissed as a crank, especially by professional anti-communists. Turns out that Amalrik wasn't that far off.
Nonsense, Amy. That Ayn Rand rant goes on the rocket too. M4A or some equivalent, affordable housing, education are standard in most western capitalist countries. There hasn't been a "free market" since governments entered the market with military budgets, utility budgets, education budgets, etc. So who is your "Majority of Americans"? As for socialism and welfare take even a casual look at how Walmart employees subsidize their minimum wages with food stamps and ask yourself how the Koch family made their fortunes.
Majority might prefer capitalism, might not. Surveys indicate majority of college age prefer Marxism. As that cohort grows, they'll become the dominant opinion. Hopefully they'll change when they get out in the real world. They usually do.
All great ideas, especially the rocket to space, but good luck. I do not see the "Balkanization" happening without a major civil war. The left owns the country, they can manipulate elections from every angle. There is no breaking away without violence, which most Americans, for now, are not willing to do. If we can get our elections right and reestablish the flow of all information ... maybe. The first test is California recall.
That is a cute little rocket Amy.
Lol
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Ha! It’s right around the corner.
we wont
1913, to be exact. This is the 27th consecutive term of Everwar Banking Inc., known colloquially as the federal reserve system.
It is not just lying in government -- it is lying EVERYWHERE.
This is a sea change from the mid-20th century US, which I remember. At that time, exposure of a lie of any importance could easily get someone in deep trouble. Now, meh, "all people lie!"
Because lying rots society -- it is, after all, a failure in *reciprocal* human connection -- it would be instructive to examine just how this change came to be.
EXACTLY!!! I remember when I was working in a high level Ontario /Canada govt office (Constitutional negotiations) many years ago and we had one weenie obvious liar/sociopath (lol named Barry 🤔) who I caught red handed doing his usual lying in front of the Premier and his staff and YES he tried to spin it 😳😳 Sociopaths will not admit it even if their exposed publicly or caught in the act. Its not that Rhodes is stupid , he sees NOTHING WRONG with his explanation. He doesn't see that it is a lie because that is all they do. Thats a sociopath
Yes. At some point he is overcome with his brilliance at creating a Virtual Reality for everyone around him. And so he must CONFESS as invisibility doesn't do it for him anymore?
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democrats-finally-get-comfortable-saying-obama-is-a-jerk/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=native-evergreen&utm_term=sixth
Yes it is everywhere which means it is invisible.
These days I find great amusement in not lying. It’s very difficult for many.
The standard American greeting "How's it going?" is often a lie.
Just like that movie with Jim Carrey. As referenced by Seth Rogen in the movie with Steve Carell.
As someone who was not always honest in my younger years, I still feel that it's ok to lie to some people. For example, if they ask a question that's none of their business and have power over me.
I, too, can support justifiable defensive lies. I don't mean to be black-and-white here.
What is toxic, though, is the recent *normalization* of lying -- that's it's now "just something people do" to get by in the world. Something has been lost from our consciousness about communication and relationships.
Highly paid liars are the worst of all.
I always lie to authorities unless I know the question is already answered on one of my databases that they have access to. Then I just say what is there. Telling the truth to them is one of the ways they trap you.
It's called "hyper-realism" and it's exactly how the USSR tried to keep hold as it, too collapsed.
I'm telling y'all, it started with Benghazi. Susan Rice blatantly lied on Meet the Press (or whatever show it was), and the lie was repeated by Obama (AND the "moderator" Candi Crowley!) at the 2nd Presidential Debate.
This is when they learned they could say whatever they want.
No, actually it started with, "And ah did not have inappropriate sexual relations with that woman.", or something to that effect...
“I’m NOT a crook!”
OMG Americans look back farther!!!!! When did the CIA start (ie morph from-- yup the OSS-- who helped get that going-- those "consultants" who worked fro that German guy???
My Grand Father used to say, “if you ask me a question that is none of your business and I lie to you, you get what you deserve.”
I agree with gramps, though rather than lie, I usually tell 'em off.
I like that approach too.
Well then let me give you the psychoanalyst reply to that: Are you asking that because.....and then you put in whatever you want. It retains its interrogative subtext that the other started and throws it back on them. I am needing to remind myself this today.
Yes Toynbee addresses this in Disintegration of Empires. Language becomes corrupted. And words.
As a kid I remember watching those old black and white cowboy and Indian movies on TV, the ones where they made the Indians the bad guys for fighting the cowboys from taking what was theirs, their land. And of course many refer to the McCarthy era as a sea of lies. Etc, etc, etc. So much for the mid-20th century.
Still, Eisenhower's farewell address was a fountain of truth compared to what recent politicians emit.
You mean when he warned about the military industrial complex? Too bad almost no one listened. Afghanistan is a perfect example of what Ike was talking about. No one said, it was all lies, but they were ever present and usually served the interest of the elites as they continue to do.
Yes, the MIC and also scientific-technological elite. Ike spoke a truth that still reverberates, as opposed to the modern liars-in-chief.
Sarah Chayes who was an NPR reporter and covered the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and lived in Kandahar for 8 years made the statement on Democracy Now that the US wasn't interested in going into Afghanistan, an afterthought, she said. The Bush administration was solely interested in going into Iraq, but there was no intelligence connecting 9/11 to them, so they reluctantly went into Afghanistan which meant by 2002 their interest was in Iraq. She of course talks about it in more detail. Worth a listen.
GW Bush was hot to go into Iraq to show up his dad, who didn't take the oportunity when he had it.
The whole PNAC thing seems to be forgotten now 20 years later.
They were the ones who called for a "New Pearl Harbor" and instigated 9/11 as just that, their new Pearl Harbor.
The ONLY country they didn't hit was actually the main target; Iran.
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Generations come and go, and no one remembers anything at all.
True, and weeks and a few years can come and go and the same thing happens.
And he let his CIA murder Lumumba the loved and elected president of The Congo
Allen Dulles and his CIA murdered Lumumba -- there is a famous photograph of John Kennedy holding his head in despair after learning what CIA did behind his back.
Kennedy fired Allen Dulles -- who later become a key filter in commission "investigating" John's assassination.
No one will ever convince me that Allen Dulles wasn't involved in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK.
Allen Dulles was the architect of the assassination of JFK. He brought in General Edward Landsdale, an expert in coups to plan the details. Landsdale was photographed in Dealy Plaza after the day of the assassination. He is seen in the photo of "the three tramps" who seem to nod at him as they go by.
See: Col. Fletcher Prouty - THE SECRET TEAM
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Lumumba was a threat to the Euro banks/Belgian far right who were perfectly able to do their own dirty work...and was it ever cruel. Of course, the CIA reports. When you pull the yarn on a big sweater you never know how far things will unravel.
Indians were the bad guys. Settlers were bad guys, too. US government was often worse guys. Bad was a survival skill back then. Then, as now, no one is allowed to kill people for trespassing. And in every culture in the history of the world, if somebody kills, we have a right to kill them. Culture is no excuse.
Sorry but your logic escapes me. If someone puts a knife to your throat with an emphasis on your throat use your sense of logic and see if you don't alter your perception of things.
If someone puts a knife to your throat when you try to kill them, that's justified. Hostilities were started by the Indians.
"The only good Injun is a dead Injun"
Again Watson, gross generalities are inappropriate. Your saying the hostilities were started by the Indians, presumes that all Indians were one huge tribe with the same goals and hostilities held against the 'White Man'. It is jejune sloppy thinking.
How old are you David? You seem like a very young person, 15 or 16 years old?
You have a slight regard for history and are obviously ignorant of a great deal of things.
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Old enough to recognize those who can't make coherent points, and why.
This is LAUGHABLY WRONG:
"Hostilities were started by the Indians."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaahahahahahahaha!
Thanks for the entertainment.
So how do you think it started? All those mean white people sailed across the ocean to pick a fight with darker primitives? The natives had been killing each other for millenia. Their nature. Ours, too, but we had learned to suppress those instincts to create civilization. When civilization confronts uncivilization, civilization usually wins, unless civilization has become suicidal. It took 400 years for our civilization to become suicidal. Maybe we'll learn to suppress that urge, too.
Mccarthy was proven correct - by the Russians. Search Mccarthy venona, or read blacklisted by history. Sometimes accusations of lies are used to conceal the truth. Often works.
How so Watson? I phrase the question this way, and I don't even smoke a pipe, or wear a deerstalker.
How so what? If you need tips on searching, please be more specific. If you don't want to wear a deerstalker, that's fine with me. If are trying to say you don't understand lying to hide the truth, I suspect you are doing so with the implied question. QED. Go to any courtroom for a constant stream of examples. My all time fave was "I didn't have sexual relations with that woman..." which would have worked if not for the blue dress.
I was referring to Dr. Watson, from Sherlock Holmes who wore a deerstalker hat. We disagree and I know we will never reach any middle ground. While I respect your perceptions on this issue I hardily disagree. Clinton's affair was none of my business and the republicans used it to their political advantage and it disgusted me. I couldn't care less who he slept with, even though I couldn't stand him. McCarthy took advantage of the new TV media to spread his BS, and destroy people's lives while he drew attention to himself.
Those who are unaware of Mccarthy's sussesses are unaware that America faced a truly existential threat after WW II. Mccarthy brought the spreading invasion to light while facing enormous resistance from those soviet agents and their supporters. The ensuing confusion slowed the attacks enough that we eventually prevailed, but not before a lot more damage. Communism still has adherents in the US, who still attempt to undermine the recognition of the threat, and many unwitting supporters who Lenin celebrated as "useful idiots."
I don't care what Bubba did with his staff either, simply showing an example of using lies to hide the truth, as you seemed to request. She apparently wasn't the only recipient of his "affections."
Believing something at a point in time, but then deciding later is false, doesn't make one a liar. It takes intention to be a liar. The vast majority of the American public had, and has, no intention to lie. It was ignorant, not evil.
You mean McCarthy wasn't a political opportunist, or Hollywood didn't know it's history?
Wel Fran, Joe McCarthy was actually right, there were many Communist agents in the Eisenhower State Department. Edward R. Murrow was one of CIA's Mockingbird boys, and he was put up to taking down McCarthy for clandistine political reasons. Some of the names on his list were undercover FBI and CIA agents. A complex situation, very hush hush -- spy counter spy stuff. The cold war was so complex that no one was sure who was who there was so much entanglement and mutual paranoia.
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McCarthy wasn't what I meant when I said the "vast majority of the American public".
You're right when you reference the American public. I was thinking about those in the political arena, those that dictate policy. However I wish the American public would make themselves more knowledgeable which in turn would make it more difficult for those in power to lie.
I think that's only possible, and only for a generation or two, after full-blown calamity strikes. THEN, they (the laggard majority) start thinking. So, bad as it seems -- to *us* -- we're not quite there yet.
Unfortunately, this cycle may be built into our DNA and near impossible to rapidly evolve from.
They call it “progress”.
Hannah arendt: "All progress is mirrored by chaos."
Thank you, Glenn, for continuing to bring the truth to light.
As it's turned out Mr. Snowden was very lucky that he wound up in Russia, one of very few countries who can and will stand up to the empire. Europe has turned out to be a giant vassal state with Quislings for political leaders. Vladimir Putin for all the bad press he gets in the west, mostly because he stood up to the empire and his own oligarchs. After the criminal yeltsin had people starving from turning the country over foreign and domestic oligarchs, he brought tens of millions out of poverty despite everything the west could throw at Russia. Ask Julian Assange if he would have been better off in Russia than the UK. The other country that will stand up to the empire and has by far the largest "real " economy is, of course, China where those terrible authoritarians have brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty including people outside China because they don't screw over countries like the IMF & WORLD Banksters etc. In 2008 and now, China builds infrastructure including more kilometers of high speed rail and more G5 antennas than the rest of the world. Usa has ZERO high speed rail and way behind on G5. BTW Afghanistan had a democratic secular government before Jimmy Carter and Brezinski destroyed it. The same with Iran before the usa destroyed it for the British. Truman wouldn't do it but Eisenhower did. Having lived in the usa for a few years, I've seen the nasty underbelly, the hoods and the hollers and they ain't pretty, nor is the drug addiction and omnipresent crime and poverty, jails with more inmates than any other country, almost all plea bargain cases and related to poverty, lousy housing and schools with few able to escape the system. Let me know when Assange gets out, gets an apology and a huge settlement, I'm not holding my breath.
Tell me how many illegal aliens have snuck into or are clamoring to emigrate to China??? Oh none! You’ve missed the point about the messy experiment called democracy and why it’s preferred. The whole world wants to move here, not move to China and be unwilling organ donors for the CCP.
Let's fight to reintroduce democracy in our beloved country -- instead of "fighting" to free China ;-))
Reintroduce, ok. Boris there’s all kinds of problems presently especially with the woke lunatics that wind up and control the very demented Biden and send him out (after wiring him with amphetamines) to blather. There is a large group of younger republicans that should be elected next year, many are veterans. Then impeach Biden, fire Austen, blinken, milley plus all political appointees down through three stars, replace with the colonels who aren’t brown misers get rid of cia, nsa, Sullivan, Majorca have I missed anybody? If so fire them too! All Rhinos must go. Then threaten Harris if she so much as farts the wrong way she’s gone too. Then 2024, DeSantis, Hawley, Cotton, others? Then deal and heal all the damage these bastards are inflicting on OUR country. This is now war and we have to regain control to “re introduce” democracy.
1 Trump and GOP are truly HORRIBLE.
2 DNC oligarchs (Biden, Pelosi, Schumer) are even WORSE (censorship, they concocted Russia-gate hoax, torture of Julian Assange, Daniel Hale’s persecution for Obama’s drone crimes, $16+B Haiti-corruption under Hillary/Obama – Biden-family corruption pales in comparison)
The ONLY solution – vote THIRD party – now and forever. ALWAYS vote – but VOTE for a Third (or fourth, fifth..) party – at ALL levels, especially at LOCAL levels (vote OUT each and every incumbent).
“If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less.” [Ralph Nader].
Only ACTION: Sustained organized mass civil disobedience - not distractions like DNC-controlled hollering and tweeting....
PS: Can we be perfectly clear who "won" in Afghanistan? Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, and their "shareholders" (70%+ of "shareholders" are just Wall Street and DC parasitic “blob” + Congress scumbags)
"1 Trump and GOP are truly HORRIBLE."--Petrov
There is no factual bases for this claim. The corporatist oligarcy would not have mounted the conspiracy to rig the 2020 presidential election to install their meat puppet Biden in the White House if Trump wasn't viewed as a danger to their continued rule.
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/01/2020-presidential-election-fraud/
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He didn't pardon Julian Assange his strongest witness about still going-on Russia-gate hoax and catastrophic lack of leadership - just two examples:
Donald Trump 'wants FDA to approve oleander plant extract as a drug to cure Covid-19' after it was promoted by Ben Carson and MyPillow founder - despite no proof that it works
• Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson ( my note: the bible idiot – pyramids were built by St. Joseph to store wheat ) and MyPillow boss and ( my note – a deeply repulsive grifter ) Mike Lindell, a big Trump supporter, have urged Trump to look at the botanical extract (oleander oil)
• Meeting arranged by the pair with a director at company developing the product
• Andrew Whitney, of Phoenix Biotechnology, claims he is '100%' sure it's a cure
• But there is no peer-reviewed study to support the claim
• Lindell says that in the meeting, Trump 'basically said the FDA should approve it'
• Senior administration official expressed deep concern that Carson and Lindell were 'pushing a dubious product at the highest levels' during the pandemic
By ROSS IBBETSON -- 17 August 2020
"VOTE for a third party or fourth or fifth", "only action sustained civil disobedience". these aren't going to change anything. May be you like perpetual chaos, I don't. I don't see this young group of republicans as evil, you have to start somewhere and out in the streets won't get it done. Your just going to keep tilting at windmills otherwise.
VOTING FOR A THIRD PARTY IS ALSWAYS A WASTED VOTE.
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Like the immigrants from the 1800's the US is the land of "making a $ killing!" They want to come for the dream of M-O-N-E-Y!
Janet, that's a very cynical view that generally comes out of the comfort of economic security: "making a $killing" and "M-O-N-E-Y". When you have nothing and you're surrounded by nothing but poverty, misery and perhaps war then a flawed place like the US is a dream worth dreaming. That's the tragedy of today's Left: raging about "systemic racism", income inequality, misogyny, and all kinds of Isms and completely ignoring the millions of black, brown, asian...people, women with children who are desperately trying to get here to make a "$killing". To see a scene like a woman handing over a small child to an American soldier in Kabul with the hope that at least the child will get out, should make every morally self-satisfied keyboard warrior pause and ask him/herself why that is. Do you think the dirt poor Irish who survived the mid 1800s "potatoe famine" - that starved about a million people to death - and left everything and everyone behind to come to America just wanted to make a "$killing" or avoid a "killing"?
I think the attitudes are often intertwined. Many are *both* escaping poverty and other horrors, *and* hoping to make a killing. That's why it's specifically *the US* they seem to prefer, instead of any number of other Western-style capitalist democracies. Because if they read the fine print, they'd realize how poorly the U.S. in 2021 stacks up against those other Western countries in many aspects of life for the average citizen.
The US doesn't stack poorly when it comes to immigrants making it. Countries like Germany may have a safer welfare system for a freshly arrived immigrant but when it comes to socio-economic mobility the picture will shift very fast. Also opportunity shouldn't be confused with evenly distributed results and a guarantee of it. And I won't even go into being accepted as an immigrant within a much more homogeneous population in Europe vs. US, personal freedom etc.
I believe this still supports my position. It is *more* likely that an immigrant succeeds to great wealth in the US vs Europe, but it is still statistically unlikely for any random immigrant. Many buy into the dream, but few succeed -- and the upshot is that a larger percentage than in Europe will suffer significant hardship.
They knowingly choose a lottery ticket. So, Janet has a point.
How would you know? Have you asked "these people "? For some reason they are overwhelmingly trying to get to the US and 1 million do, get in, every year, lieber Andreas! 1 million! Does Germany bring in let's say 250,000 into the country as a official immigration policy? How well would that go over in Berlin?
But Andreas, there is no Statue of Liberty in Canada or Europe, and certainly not Draconian Australia...
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
--Emma Lazarus (1883)
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Me Wonka is ignorant ain't we? Not in Europe, Willie? Paris? Look it up.
The poor want to move here because of our uncontrolled welfare state. If our poor were a country, they'd have the highest standard of living on the planet, except the tax paying part of America. Control welfare and immigration will slow to only those who can contribute.
"our uncontrolled welfare state."
You do know that Ayn Rand wasn't a documentarian, right? She wasn't a philosopher, either.
Rand understood the mediocre bureaucracy in Foutainhead. He also drew a blueprint for ending capitalism in Atlas Shrugged. The fact that she didn't know she knew does not take away from her accomplishment.
I've seen blueprints for things that didn't work. Often found in fiction.
Of course. Witches that fly on brooms, and humans that turn itno monsters. Haven't you watched Star Wars etc?
Sounds like you're a fan. I never have much time for fiction.
Well Atlas more than shrugged, He got really pissed off and screwed up the whole of industry and all his critics did the boohoohoo all the way home!
That's what happens when the globe falls to the floor of the Universe and cracks open like an egg...and the yoke makes a joke out of the folk who just poke and never stoke the fires of the heart of Lolita.
Let that be a lesson to all them pesky lazy Injuns sneeking about with their murderous knives stalking the magnificent lives of the White Man and his destiny made in Heaven.
Hear ye. Hear ye. The clock has struck thirteen! Stike up the band for the Triskaidekaphobia Boogie.
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Nice. Been reading Joyce FW?
Truth is in fiction. Lies are in non-fiction. Which do you read?
Biographies.
Sounds like you have trouble dealing with reality.
"Welfare state" -- David, have you started drinking again?
All developed countries have universal healthcare and free education... Our beloved country is the LAST, the WORST, in health care to its population.
Our poor brainwashed David Watson...
Drinking? ! want some of that top-of-the-line stuff that David is smoking.
Must be hydroponic seedless, its as clear as an azure sky of deepest summer thst it's some super shit cuz he's gone gone gone like that catfish twitching on the deck.
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Poetic Wonka muses: "as clear as an azure sky of deepest summer thst "
This is on par with the one about spring water and mountain lake. Both deal with clarity as it overflows Willie's brain and spills over to the forum. We're thankful for that.
William "Wordsmith" Whitten. Respect!
Denied. We can only have one David here.
"David, have you started drinking again?" - I don't think he ever stopped. That's the source of clarity of his thought.
As Willy Wonka would say - "clear as the spring water of the mountain lake" or some such. He's a romantic and a poet, our William.
Not much free health care in Central America, apparently. Yes, some countries are more socialist than America, but that doesn't make us not socialist. We're not really the best at anything any more, except printing money to finance unaffordable entitlements. As was once said, we go broke slowly, then all at once. China can collapse the US any time by simply selling their US debt.
We're one of the most "socialist" (with one of the largest "welfare state" systems) of any country on Earth, David. It has many names: the "corporatocracy"; the "corporate oligarchy"... I call it "soft fascism".
And, thanks to our state-run media/propaganda machine (that would make Joseph Goebbels turn deep-green with envy) people like you think we're some kind of commie-pinko hell hole.
I don't, actually, but I'm aware many people hope to make it so. Not sure what media you're watching, but most of them seem to think we're not commie enough.
Those who support establishment of autocracy do so with a variety of reasons, and by a variety of methods. Socialism is one. Corporate cronyism is another. "People like you" think corporations can control a country on their own. They can't. Only government can do that. Corporations finance politicians to gain favors. But graft only works when willing politicians accept it.
Immigrating to Australia and New Zealand requires a telephone book of forms to fill out and to guarantee you are not going to take any jobs from them and that you have a slush fund for yourself so you wont be a drain on their medical and other benefits. Lots of chinese in Asia want to got o these two countries just for that. We do not demand that. If we had National Health Care we would in a heartbeat.
But we do have national health care. Just disorganized and erratic. Nobody goes without health care if they want it. Just walk into any hospital and demand it. Medical costs are so high because paying customers also pay for the slackers. It's essentially a covert tax on every productive resident.
"Nobody goes without health care if they want it. Just walk into any hospital and demand it."
Whatever you're smoking is some TOP quality stuff. Mind telling us where you get it? And stop fapping to Ann Coulter - your palms are hairy enough.
Ann Coulter has an adam's apple, are you 'she' is a she?
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He's a young boy who cannot leave his mother.
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I see, that rather than answreing my question Mr.Griewank suddenly jumpted down the thread to confront me about blocking up the thread , although this is only the second comment I made up here.
Is that a diversion tactic becase he has no source for his assertions about the Chinese students?
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"blocking up the thread" - your term for it, not Andreas Griewank's or anyone else's. As far as your request to Griewank for sources goes, bear in mind that he may be speaking from experience rather than an online source, and various kinds of experience are fine too.
And this is YOUR business for what reason Mr. Rose?
Yes Griewank claimed it made the last thread "unreadable"
These claims are preposterous.
Take this thread for example, there are hundreds of comments by a multitude of people. But you and this Griewanker character blame me for making the thread unreadable?!?!?
Any excuse aye Randall? Any fucking excuse at all and you are bitching and moaning at me again. You are obsessively psychotic (OCD). Get professional help.
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And Mr. Griewank, the proofs of your assertions are to be found where exactly?
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How about many of these “repatriated Chinese were spies or the CCP told them to come back or “we kill your family and you’ll share all the research with us”.
Outdated? I missed where you said you live Andreas.
His proflie says Andreas lives in Berlin.
William "The Sleuth" Whitten. Finding what's hidden for those not looking. Making readable unreadable. Autosubtract. From zero. Polynomial.
I haven't heard of many Chinese (or Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese etc) entering illegally. You don't find many on the welfare rolls. They discipline their kids and become strong contributors quickly. Seen any Chinese ghettos lately?
This sort of thing is thoroughly ridiculed in Russia now. Purposely making up words that would be feminine when applies to a woman holding some position normally expressed as masculine. And it sounds hilarious.
Germany seems to be among the leading, if not the, trendsetters in Europe and the little ones in the EU are fighting for their place in line. German elites seem to completely have lost their minds.
Thank you for the usual list of regurgitated anti-American talking points. Yes, Putin is a hero, saved Russia and stands up to the Empire! Please! Go talk to the political opposition in Russia how that Russian democracy is working out for them. The life expectancy of Russian men is about 15 years behind rest of western countries. Alcoholism, crime, corruption at all levels are epidemic. The only order Putin brought back is that people knew again who to bribe. Russia is a one-trick pony of a petro economy with zero innovation in any other sector that could benefit the population at large in the long term. What the fuck are you talking about? And yes Obama's foreign policy was an utter disaster: Syria, Libya, Jemen, Ukraine etc.etc.
Thank you for the usual reply of regurgitated Russophobic talking points.
Russophobic? I have friends in Russia, I'm not regurgitating anything but speaking from experience and compassion for the Russian people. The American policy towards Russia since the 1990s has been idiotic but that doesn't elevate Putin to any hero status.
"compassion for the Russian people" - я весь в слезах, болезный ты мой. Describe your experiences for us, will you? Some of us have some too, maybe we can share.
Well, for starters my grandfather was executed in 1937 for being too educated (a veterinarian). My parents were deported to Siberia as kids and furthermore... иди ты нахуй!
Short on temper, are we? So you were born in Siberia big deal! Imagine, some of us also have.
But I'm just curious as to why are you claiming so much here? What kind of friends do you have over there? If you talk to a slice of the populace don't you allow for their being slanted? Just like anywhere?
And watch your language, you're in a public forum. Some English speakers might pick up bad vocabulary. Also, don't bullshit - you can blow air into American ears but not at someone like me.
You will note that the rusky bot is very frustrated that I will not engage him. He has been freaking out for at least the last 5 threads because I refuse to acknowledge his fruitcake shenanigans. His utterly unoriginal "Willy Wonka" splaterglotten verbal cramps. and his "ompalompa' routines.
Ignore the jerk. he's the biggest looser on Greenwald's forums.
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Yea look out for russian bot, he thiinks he is a real hotshot cumslinger. He will climb up any ass any time just to pass his shitty time and brown nose anyone that takes umbrage with someone he doesn't like. He is one of Randal fucking Roses trained puppies. Poor Randal fucking Rose lost one of his puppies yesterday in a trainwreck on the last Greenwald forum.
So now both of these delightful fucknobs are making the big boohoo on anyone that passes by.
You have to get used to the cast of characters here. There are a lot of cool and smart people here...but there are several real whackaroos as well. You just got stung by one of the real crackpots...the amazing russian bot and his beltsander slander machine.
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Incoming Russian F-bombs!
(Thanks to Google Translate)
yes. I have read Victor Herman's account.
Accurately describing Russia as the authoritarian backwater that it is isn't "Russophobic."
American "leadership", as you must know, has zero problem with authoritarians. It has a VERY BIG problem with independent countries.
I don't care. People here seem engaged in some other debate.
Serving Ukrainian community in Sacramento? Helping them escape the Russian aggression? The Ukrainian comic is coming to town, I think - any plans to meet him?
And yet they can influence so much of American politics and the Russia monster can still dominate American media. Imagine that!! Russia boogeyman is truly make believe. Wait, we've moved on now right? It's Domestic Terrorism we are propaganda inundated with now. Can't hardly keep up!!
It seems that Mr. Winter still buys into the discredited 'Russiagate' hokum.
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No, quite the opposite, William! Russiagate was cooked up by the Clintons to undermine Trump from before the 2016 election. It's the libtards at MSNBC who eat from old CIA hands like little kittens and have been running with those moronic boogeyman stories of the all powerful Putin.
Well gosh Mr. Winter, I suppose I did misread your comment,
I apologize most sincerely sir.
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You've misread his comment.
I see, so he didn't REALLY mean this "the usual list of regurgitated anti-American talking points."
Perhaps you can untwine the true non-Orwellian meaning for me.
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William Whitten is the top commenter on Greenwald's Substack, though the quality of his posts is lacking.
Pass
"Russia is a one-trick pony of a petro economy with zero innovation in any other sector that could benefit the population at large in the long term."
Yet they are, somehow, destroying our democracy (I think the approved term is "fomenting discord") with Facebook ads, and crippling our digital infrastructure with their Kremlin-commandeered hacker pirates.
Thank you for your own "regurgitated anti-American talking points." Too much of that stuff, and the narratives start crash into other like manic Keystone Kops, as I just showed. Not a good look.
I guess my interpretation of "anti-American" is different from that of our corrupt entrenched establishment, aka deep state, who is licking its chops over how to divide up Russia someday soon.
But first, of course, time to stir things up a little (ok, a lot) in Afghanistan to recharge the imperialism batteries with Pavlovian American outrage. And, right on cue, out pops Leon Panetta and his modest proposal...
Ann Coulter yesterday: "Thank you President Biden for keeping a promise Trump made but then abandoned when he got to office."
To which someone asked, "Is this a trap?"
Bingo. Of course, it matters whether it is Coulter or Biden doing the trapping...
(1) Who is the King, um, Queen of shock?
(2) Who do you think had/has more willpower against TPTB -- Trump or Biden?
Do the math on (2) and extrapolate...
Trump had/has more willpower against TPTB.
Coulter has no idea of what she is talking about. Biden fucked up by breaking the deal Trump had arranged with the Taliban. Taliban knew that if they had played the game with Trump, that they played with Biden that Trump would have taken out their entire leadership by drone strikes. He warned them of that in the deal.
See: Kash Patel Former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense [Trump adm.]
https://www.theepochtimes.com/kashs-corner-with-many-left-behind-in-afghanistan-what-should-the-us-do-now_3980635.html
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Agreed.
-Coulter doesn't need, and possibly doesn't really care, to know what she is talking about; she saw a rhetorical, i.e. business, opportunity -- and pounced on it.
-The idea that half-century swamper Biden has no idea what he's doing could only point to one thing: serious cognitive decline. That can easily be true.
However, we're observing one curious thing about the "madness" of the Afghanistan fiasco: The military "obeys" Biden. Under Trump, insubordination was a jaw-dropping reality. So if near-octogenarian Biden isn't playing (what appears to be) 4-dimensional chess, then *some* faction is. So, tentatively I believe that, in concert with the MSM of course, we are being set up for a US population-supported return to Afghanistan in short order. Hence my comment above about Panetta.
Graham: ‘We will be going back’ into Afghanistan after withdrawal debacle
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told a BBC reporter the U.S. will eventually sent troops back into Afghanistan.
“Whether you like Trump or not, whether you believe it’s Trump’s fault or Biden’s fault, here’s where we’re at as a world: The Taliban are not reformed, they’re not new,” Graham said.
“They have a view of the world out of sync with modern times. They’re going to impose a lifestyle on the Afghan people that I think is going to make us all sick to our stomach,” he added.
“But most importantly, they’re going to give safe haven to Al Qaeda who has ambitions to drive us out of the Mid East writ large and attack us because of our way of life,” he continued. “We will be going back into Afghanistan as we went back into Iraq and Syria.” Graham continued.
The report was not the first time Graham noted the war with Afghanistan is not over. In a recent Fox News interview, the senator said, “We’ve entered into a new deadly chapter.”
Despite President Joe Biden’s claim the war has ended, Graham argues the war continues and will result in more troops returning to Afghanistan even after 20 years in the region.
https://americandigest.com/graham-we-will-be-going-back-into-afghanistan-after-withdrawal-debacle/
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I will say this. I would be in favor of targeted drone attacks on the entire Taliban leadership starting today, and only ending when the sons of bitches run back into the hills and dissapear.
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Well Anti-Hip, The first thing to grasp is that Biden is not in charge. Biden in a titular figurehead, he is the meat puppet of the corporatist oligarchs who rigged the election to get rid of Trump.
"a US population-supported return to Afghanistan in short order."...
Do you actually think that the oligrarchy media complex really needs to have the US population's support? All the media has to do is pronounce that the US population supports a return of the military to Afghanistan. Das Propaganda.
The past is always in question and the future is literally unknown.
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You forgot to provide the link to Wikipedia. They should know how to find it in Kyiv.
LOL! Wikipedia 🙄
I saw a piece of an interview of the creator of Wikipedia and he said if he knew what it would become, he never would have created it.
Nobody should trust Wikipedia,' its co-founder warns: Larry Sanger says site has been taken over by left-wing 'volunteers' who write off sources that don't fit their agenda as fake news
Larry Sanger, 53, co-founded Wikipedia with Jimmy Wales in 2001
He said site has been taken over by Democratic-supporting volunteer editors
Sanger said left-leaning editors do not allow Wikipedia users to edit pages
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9793263/Nobody-trust-Wikipedia-founder-Larry-Sanger-warns.html
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He mentioned the Wikipedia entry on Joe Biden as example of leftist bias
Biden entry doesn't make mention of scandals and Hunter Biden laptop
Power abhors a vacuum. Like Marx and his followers riding the proles roughshod, and like Tea Party and Occupy recently, Wikipedia's "anyone can write it" "team" was co-opted, thankyouverymuch.
When they are imprisoned it is not of the order of Assange's imprisonment. They read, write letters, are alive and not kept for extra long periods. Usually.
How Vladimir Putin helped resurrect the Russian Orthodox ...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how...
I'm glad you're not loosing the forest for the trees! Let me know how that innovation benefits the Russian population!
Wow! Where did you get nonsense? Market reforms lowered life expectancy by 10 years! 70 years of Communism and 5 year economic plans were pure bliss and happiness but then the evil market economy created a genocide! Hahahahahahaha!
Ok Andreas, let me lower my rhetoric a bit and respond respectfully this way: the devastating effects of 1998 financial crisis in Russia is a direct result of an extremely inefficient economy with a weak, depleted infrastructure and fixed rubble exchange rate that in no way reflected the actual weakness of the economy and the currency. In the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the subsequent drop of oil and gas prices, Russia couldn't hide or escape the brutal reality of its fiscal and financial situation. Much can be said it about whether the West could have done a better job in helping Russia face its calamity but the assertion that it were the terms of financial reform package from the World bank and the IMF that lowered the life expectancy of the Russian population and not 70 years of a utterly failed economic system is to me a very superficial look at the whole tragedy called Soviet Union.
More plausibly, neither system worked all that well. The period of Communist Party rule in Russia wasn't great for the economy, but if the '90s market reforms had been the right prescription, we wouldn't have seen the kind of bad effects that Andreas mentions.
By now there's been enough historical experience to know that socialism and capitalism are both seriously flawed systems. Time to move on and look for something better that isn't just based on socialism or capitalism.
And those same Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic terrorists had been recruited by the US starting in July 1979. They were supported and financed by the US.
What was initiated in 1979 is best described as “America’s War With Terrorists” whereby Al Qaeda recruits are used to destroy secular sovereign nations in a diabolical covert operation which has now extended its thrust from the Middle East to South East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond.
_____________________________________________
Interview with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began their aid to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during the 1980s, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise.
Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?
Q: Some stirred-up Muslims? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.
**Translated from French by William Blum
***
Michel Chossudovsky, August 22, 2021
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cias-intervention-in-afghanistan-u-s-recruitment-of-islamic-terrorists-started-in-1979-zbigniew-brzezinski/5629070
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Brzezinski pure psycopath-- may he rot in hell.
China must be a great country because I never hear one word of dissent from their netizens just unending praise without exception. Meanwhile Americans and other westerners complain about their governments and leaders all the time - there is lots to complain about. In China no one is allowed to complain about the country or criticize the leader, whether they are inside or outside of China, not because everything is perfect but because free expression has been criminalized.
Chairman Xi's unflinching iron death grip around the throats of every chinese citizen encourages harmony. Tyranny and harmony go together like ying and yang, right? No they don't. Free expression is EVERYTHING. Without the right to free expression (and thought and imagination) you will become a mindless prisoner and not have the ability to even know it. Fuck the Chinese police state, it is a fucking plague on humanity. The chinese people are too smart to be treated like that, they will not permit it forever.
China is far more capitalist than the US, Russia has not been Communist for 30+ years, while the US is a corporate socialism (more polite term for fascism)
China doesn't have a free market economy. The chinese economy is centrally planned, subsidized and under the thumb of a corrupt government - is that capitalism? One could argue that it resembles crony capitalism. Wallstreet likes china because of the corruption, slavery and lack of human rights and environmental regulations, not because there is a free market or "capitalism". Profits are low in a free market economy and nobody on wallstreet wants that in china or the USA. It turns out that tyranny, slavery, censorship and corruption are all good for profits. Those things are allowed in communist china and are supposed to be illegal in the US. Anyway all that's got nothing to do with free expression, except that it is mostly the corrupt monopoly corporations that are trying to turn the USA into China by censoring, surveilling and corrupting it.
Just compare the results:
-- The income disparity, kleptocracy, no democracy in the US
-- Financial Times -- July 8, 2021:
“China’s emergence over the past four decades ranks as the biggest and longest-run economic boom in history. Its annual gross domestic product rose from a mere $191 B, or $195 per capita, in 1980 to $14.3 T, or $10,261 per capita, in 2019.
It has raised more than 770m people from poverty and transformed the Chinese economy into a high-tech powerhouse that is on course to eclipse America’s in size. This transformation is the landmark achievement of the Chinese Communist party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday.”
Thanks Walmart!
There are problems with America but it still has free expression and democracy. When that goes away I will stop defending it. Can you make any criticism of china or are you a chinese netizen? Say something bad about China, something that would get you thrown into a chinese concentration camp. I can't respect a country that criminalizes free expression. I'm glad people have been lifted out of poverty, now lift them out of prison.
Our beloved US is a failed (and a terrorist) state:
Over 900,000 People Dead, a ‘Vast Undercount,’ and $8 Trillion Looted
These are the findings of the Costs of War Project. What would you rather have had for the $8,094 that you, personally, spent on the War on Terror?
https://foreverwars.substack.com/p/900-thousand-people-and-eight-trillion-dollars?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1NTc3OTQsInBvc3RfaWQiOjQwNzMxMTQ3LCJfIjoiMXJwZUYiLCJpYXQiOjE2MzA1MDQ0NjYsImV4cCI6MTYzMDUwODA2NiwiaXNzIjoicHViLTM5MzY2NCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.Qf2U9dLnsflpZjbI1lLcwMhxBLk_YPEP9bQPsX3DKkw
You can in China. They have a history though. They dont bother so much as they know it is useless. They act in different ways from westerners.
Sad. Mao made an error in his thinking and so we got this.
See the comment above Boris about who wants to move to China.
China just really began this in the early 90's. And have you any idea of the level of poverty these workers came from? Unbelievable in rural areas. They were flocking in crowds to Shenzhen with a stick tied with a bandana for their belongings like in old depression US comics. Lines blocks long to use one pay phone.
They opened their economy and adopted US technology, raising their standard of living. Unfortunately they did not adopt free speech and human rights so they remain in the dark ages in that sense. A chinese citizen would be jailed for posting what I post on substack. Chris Hedges has a youtube interview with Jenny Chan on what working at Foxconn is like. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=chris+hedges+china&&view=detail&mid=044F51583E652703DA96044F51583E652703DA96&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dchris%2Bhedges%2Bchina%26FORM%3DHDRSC3
Amazon is copying Foxconn in their labor practices. Wallstreet corporations have adopted police state tactics, they could not beat china so they joined it.
And of course, the seniors remained in the provinces with the fine non-system of help for the needy. The US spends 50% of it's budget on transfer payments in a social safety net. The Chinese spend truckloads on material acquisitions worldwide.
I'm glad for Snowden's sake he did not wind up in mainland China, and we have Hong Kong to thank for not surrendering him to China or the US. Perhaps that is why the US allowed Hong Kong to be crushed by China.
I don't think anyone would ever have ever heard from Snowden again if he wound up in mainland china. He would probably have been tortured to death to extract every bit of intelligence. The intelligence would have been used to improve the police and surveillance state on chinese citizens. Facebook and Google would have adopted what tactics they could and spread it everywhere else.
Thank you for sharing your fantasies.
Hong Kong protest were well financed by CIA "NGOs"...
Our beloved country is a failed (and a terrorist) state...
As if the people of Hong Kong would need spuring from anyone to protest against annexation by the totalitrarian CCP.
You defend the fucking communist Chinese, the fucking maniac Talaban and ISIS-K, and criticisze the United States which still has more personal freedoms than any other society on the planet.
As corrupt as the government has become here, our heretage of freedom is still in place and in the hearts of American Patriots.
I have read enough of your bullshit to see you ase a shill Petrov. I cannot see for certain who your masters are, but it is certainly anti-American.
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yes
They bitch all the time. Protesting as in Tienaman (sp?) Square or Hong Kong gets them nowhere.
Its Tiananmen Square. Bitching gets them into prison, protesting gets them into crematoriums. Wallstreet monopoly corporations have given china the technological capability to implement a police and surveillance state so the iron grip on the throat is getting tighter. Monopoly corporations have learned a few things from china (corruption, surveillance, propaganda and censorship) and are bringing them back here. For those reasons alone we should cut off mercantilism (trade) with that country. There is no need for war but no need to drain the wealth of the USA into china. Sorry for the repeated messages, something got deleted accidentally.
You should spend your energy in fighting to reintroduce democracy in our beloved country -- rather than blabbering on what to do in China...
I am free to do both, I don't know about you. The chinese people are not allowed to criticize their government or our corporations so we should do it. Foxconn and Apple treat workers like slaves with the permission of the chinese government. Remaining silent is good for corporate profits. Are you mute because Apple is "woke" or because you are dumb? If the chinese were to start gassing the uyghurs or the Germans started gassing the Jews, useless idiots would plead for silence and respect just like they always do. Chaplin made a film about Hitler called the "Great Dictator" and it was censored in America because the corporatists and the useless idiots opposed it. The perfect useless idiot is one who doesn't know even that he is being used, and that seems to be you. There is no need for war with China and there is no need for self-censorship.
So do Palestinians...
Yes they do. What is your point? You think if oppression exists in one place its ok to have it everywhere?
"Afghanistan had a democratic secular government before Jimmy Carter and Brezinski destroyed it"
Ha. The group that violently took over in 1978 was called the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. I guess you're one of those people who think that a state run by the "People's Democratic Party" is a democratic government.
It was a revolution against the monarchy..duu. You had one yourself..duu. Only your's was a revolution of the elites against the British elites. "What's in a name, I think the guy who wrote that is still famous. BTW, under the People's (we the people"; where have I read that?) Women were going to university, didn't have to cover their heads etc. Most revolutions are violent, yours certainly was.
The Afghan monarchy had been overthrown well before that, back in 1973, when Mohamed Daoud Khan set up the Republic of Afghanistan. You say the takeover by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was "a revolution against the monarchy", which is like saying that the ouster of Robespierre was a revolution against the French monarchy. Also, you misspelled "duh".
Even if it was a revolution against the monarchy, that wouldn't make it democratic. (You seem to think that Leninist governments don't have "elites".) In my post above, I didn't go into detail about why the PDPA wasn't a democratic government, but I said more about that down-thread in one of my replies to Whitten.
Mr. Hunter is in fact correct, Afghanistan indeed had a democratic secular government before Jimmy Carter and Brezinski destroyed it. Afghanistan was very "westernized" in that period. no burkas for the women, who were intitled to education, became teachers, could drive, and were essentially seen as equals to men. The men wore suits and ties in business settings, and the same casual wear as seen in western countries.
No turbans for the men in those days. Afghanstan was for all intents and purposes a modern society.
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You're conflating Afghanistan with Kabul.
Perhaps this is so...
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The "westernized" Afghanistan was more or less a few streets in the center of Kabul.
Look up the 1978 violent takeover in Afghanistan by the "People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan". Despite their name, they do not have a democratic record, although Robert Hunter claimed they did. That government (which wasn't democratic enough to be legitimate) was allied with the Soviets and later invited Soviet troops in. Carter and Brzezinski wanted to remove the Soviet-allied government in Afghanistan, and armed the Taliban to do so, but that doesn't mean that these US leaders were destroying a democratic government.
Also, when you say "no burkas for the women", what actually happened is that the "People's Democratic Party" BANNED burkas and chadors even for people who wanted to wear them. Not my idea of freedom.
"Not my idea of freedom."--Rose
Practical politics of compromise seems to give us a stark divide between the the modern policies of People's Democratic Party in Afghanistan, and the medieval fanaicism of Afghanistan's former theocratic regimes. As well as the stark reality of the current regimes of the Taliban, before and after the US intervention there.
Yes we are all accustomed to the rights and liberties enjoyed in the US, and find the slightest variation of these principles personally appalling.
But I am sure that Afghani women and girls were greatly relieved by the banishment of genital mutilation that is part of radical Islam. Or the ritual stoning of unfaithful wives, or the practice of cutting off the noses of unfaithful women.
The "Right" to were a burka seems rather trivial in comparison to the afore mentioned realities of fanatical Islamic barbarism.
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The record of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan is a lot worse than that. Mohammad Najibullah, later the PDPA president, started out running the State Intelligence Agency (KHAD) which was known for its torture. Does torture matter to you? You condemn violations of rights when they're done by the enemy du jour, and play down rights violations when it's the enemy of your enemy who's responsible. It's the way mainstream American discourse creates an illusion of caring about rights overseas while warping rights talk to demonize whoever the current enemy happens to be.
Again, you're weaseling and shifting your ground. The original question was: was the PDPA state in Afghanistan a democratic government? First you said that this government was "democratic", and then when someone points out that it isn't democratic, you abandon the talk of democracy completely and instead suggest it's unreasonable to expect "the rights and liberties enjoyed in the US". It's the same trick that National Security Advisers like Ben Rhodes have played for decades -- say something nice-sounding about democracy overseas, and then when confronted with facts that show otherwise, abandon the talk of democracy in a way that shows no real interest in democracy overseas at all, using the excuse that you can't expect them to have "the rights and liberties enjoyed in the US". People who talk this way show they aren't taking democracy seriously, and Americans who get used to this way of talking are sure to continue having a garbage foreign policy.
Look Randall,
As much as I care about rights overseas and domestically, I understand pragmatic policies. Is it the duty of the United States to police the entire planet?
Is it the duty of the US to be consistant in that policy? If so ALL despotic regimes would need to be dealt with. That would mean China, North Korea. Russia. etc. not just the baby states with no nuclear arsenals.
So shall we simply nuke all the basards?
Or should the US help fledgling democracies in ways that can buttress the democratic tenancies? Or should the US simply step in and pull out all the stops and force democracy onto these nations?
You want to wrap "Democracy" in a nice pure bow and exclaim it is either a true democracy or it is puking despotism. There has to be evolution rather than constant bloody revolution. If a fledgling democracy can grow with just a few civil liberties into a fuller and more free state in stages it is better than 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'.
If you are such a wise and seasoned diplomat Rose, what the fuck are you doing here commenting on a web forum? Why aren't you in the real world of diplomacy making a real contribution to your feigned principles?
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The "right" to wear a burka? "Old saying, it's hard to fight an enemy with outposts in your head". When you are constantly exposed to indoctrination as we all are to some degree, you have limited free will. In the case of extreme religion, you have very little despite being "Free!" If you believe that you have free will I would suggest a reading of anything by Yuval Noah Harari; it might help to open your mind.
Not convinced Harari is a serious philosopher, and I notice how you shift inconsistently between denying that people have free will and saying they have "limited" free will.
Your claim that people with "extreme religion" have less free will than others is simply an expression of your prejudice against this group, and deserves no respect. These people have as much free will and as many rights as I do.
Which is very little. Harari is a historian, not a philosopher. As to"Democracy"; there's never been and likely never will be a democracy, the ruling classes wouldn't allow it. The USA is a constitutional republic but the system of government is " manufactured Consent"! The post revolutionary government wasn't even close to resembling a democracy, cmmon, be honest!
(applause)
Hilarious touting of China. Without the technology gifted to them/stolen from the west and Japan, China would still have bicycles as their primary means of transport. All the commies have done is turn to the very worst form of capitalism, fascism. Capitalism directed by politicians. Red in tooth and claw. Seriously, whatever your view of the US is, China is worse by almost every metric. Remind me where the US concentration and re-education camps are, destroying the culture and religion of an entire people?
"brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty" - sounds quite nice. And how was that done? They became a defacto manufacturing outfit for the world based on near slave labor - indentured servants to a degree. Some of that manufacturing was built on simply copies at first and then via interesting technology transfer more sophisticated building. All assisted by liberal trade policies advanced by the US mainly but anybody wanting to cash in if they could get inside. They did a fine job of being mercantile is a peer capitalist world with no apologies for government sponsored market steals. Sharp, ruthless competition in way that only governments can be. As far as standing up to the US, they know we are fools driven by notions of fairness which does not apply in business or war.
In other words, they basically did what we did to get ahead. If you believe that the USA state believes in fairness, I have a bridge you might be interested in. They also have the benefits of learning from our mistakes and they are. Ever hear of slavery, genocide, ethnic cleansing; that's a large part of how we in the west got rich and we still get rich by exploitation, only now it's mostly banksters instead of battleships but of course the mailed fist is there for those who defy us. Sanctions, remember the us as Albright saying live on the air that sanctioning 500,000 Iraqi children to death was "worth it" or killery, again live cackling, "we came, we saw, he died"; that really went well for the people of the secular state of Libya and we stole their weapons and armed the jihad's in Syria, that went well too for the people of Syria who are still sanctioned and occupied preventing rebuilding. Of course the USA is a free country which you never stop bragging about. I see them free sleeping under the bridge everywhere with obscene wealth all around them. I drive by the jails holding more people than any other countries including China. Millions are about to lose their homes to Blackstone and their ilk, to be securitized and sold on the holy market as rent backed securities but I digress, nothing is likely to change your mind but others may read this so it's not totally wasted time.
Biden was the one who got all the European countries Snowden apllied to to refuse him. Snowden said this in a youtube.
Brilliant-- and I LOVE the word quisling. BTW I dont think being behind on G5 is so bad-- lots of electro-magnetic impacts on the human electrical field-- makes cell phones look like Childs play.
Thanks Carol; no doubt G5 will add significantly to the omnipresent EMFs all around us. I'm hoping we're not part of a giant experiment.
Well... they have kind of broken through that wall with COVID right? 😉 Though those cell towers are easier to "remove"
All this is true. And China is a capitalistic state wearing the camouflage of communism. Just as the US wears the camouflage of Democracy while becoming a totalitarian state.
China is a Neo-Marxist state, combining capitalism and totalitarian aspects OPENLY. There is nothing covert about it. Just like the U.S. is a corpaorist oligarchy which has been authoritarian since 1947 and the establishment of the National Security State.
Internal (domestic) propaganda is extant in all nations as to the true nature of their political organization.
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Hm, this post by Robert Hunter says falsely that "Afghanistan had a democratic secular government before Jimmy Carter and Brezinski destroyed it", but in a post below he shifts to saying "there's never been and likely never will be a democracy." Shows how little he cares, when he compliments a state for being a democratic government even though he doesn't actually believe such a thing exists. In any case, he's wrong: the Afghan government before Carter's intervention was a torturing communist government and not a democracy (though I'm not claiming this justifies what Carter did).
I'll always be disappointed Trump did not pardon Snowden and Assange.
Just to clarify; at first I thought they were traitors. But in the years since I have become, with head spinning clarity, informed of the absolute evil that is our government. I think that was their mission.
I wasn't disappointed because I had no expectation Trump would do the right thing.
However, I would have been both very surprised and very grateful if he had.
Trump was rather overwhelmed trying to keep himself from phony impeachments, 'Russiagate' nonsense and the media slander he experienced his whole presidency. Near the end of his term he was in the middle of the second burlesque called an "impeachment" if you all might recall. Presidential Pardons are usually given in the weeks immediately before a president leaves office. Trump's mind on defending himself should be seen as reasonable.
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Why would anyone expect Trump to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time?
Art,
It is better for your snot-boogers to be blown into a tissue rather than posted on a public forum.
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That's extremely impolite, Willie. Handling those matters in your hands for too long? As otherwise not working?
Trumps record in office is starting to look extremely competent and clear-sighted, even to Democrat voters. I guess you are just significantly behind the curve.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FRAUD
William Whitten 4:14 AM — 6/5/2021
The 2020 Presidential Election was rigged by a cabal of corporate oligarchs to install their own meat-puppet into the White House as a titular figure so they could rule behind the curtain of Oz.
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/01/2020-presidential-election-fraud/
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I wouldn't expect anyone who allows the media to tell them what to think to expect that. Just like they didn't think he'd win the election or that he was a Russian asset or any of the other constant propaganda spewed by the enemies within.
It is amazing that the propaganda holsters, those babbling fools that regurgitate what they are told never seem to see themselves for the intellectual cowards they are, like Ben Rhodes.
So true. The deep state would never allow him to perform his job. I know he was considering the pardons, but his ill-advisers (AKA the people who framed them) talked him out of it.
Good for you! You obviously have a mind open enough to change when presented with facts contradictory to what you believed. Unfortunately, open minds seem to be in a minority these days. Cognitive dissonance keeps them closed.
What "facts" are you talking about Hunter?
"Cognitive dissonance"? Obviously that is your job here Hunter, attempting to induce cognitive dissonance between the readers here as a Sunsteinian agent of agitprop.
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Me bad!
That is called, Mens Rea.
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I think it's sad that you aren't living in reality. Look at who he did pardon, and stop looking at him as a white knight. He isn't. This problem is well beyond party lines.
The fact that the American people had a choice between Trump and Biden should have been a wake up call to millions of voters. This is how depraved and low American politics has plunged. And yet...Bread & Circuses truly to rule the masses.
Well, Trump was instrumental in letting me know just how corrupt this government is.
Good, keep going. Red pills aren't easy to swallow. If you'd like another download Rockfin, go to Whitney Webb's Unlimited Hangout and listen to the latest podcast and then listen to the rest.
I already took note of that from your previous post. Always looking to broaden the horizons.
I listened to it today and I tell you, it hit me pretty hard. Epstein, Maxwell, they were amateur. Compromised politicians and media personalities aren't the exception. They are the norm.
And when you see it, things finally make sense and you can't unsee it.
That just reveals your previous ignorance.
Which I freely admit.
Indeed - more credit to you for it.
I remember what Will Rodgers said about this:
"Everybody's ignorant, just about different things is all."
Wise man.
If you are in the dwindling number of people that trust Dominion voting systems than I guess that's true. I am not positive it matters, it's never been clearer that TPTB are behind the scenes. It was Mercer and BlackRock via Trump, and with Biden, he can't even choose which member of the Press to ask a pre-scripted question too.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FRAUD
The 2020 Presidential Election was rigged by a cabal of corporate oligarchs to install their own meat-puppet into the White House as a titular figure so they could rule behind the curtain of Oz
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/01/2020-presidential-election-fraud/
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Worst of two choices?
Buddy, you COULD HAVE voted Green Party, or maybe Libertarian is more your speed; YOU give the ultra-rich the power to hand us the choice of two shit sandwiches by your belief in a "two-party system."
There was no worst between Trump and Biden; both were a shitty choice, differing only in smell and appearance but not flavor.
Those differences are used to keep us fighting which is why they'll never be resolved by Dems or Repubs; what SHOULD matter to YOU is the continued survival of the current biosphere because that includes us, and it's at grave risk RIGHT NOW. And, the cause of that risk is unbridled capitalism, left to run amok by the choices of our oligarchs who get to do anything and everything they want while keeping us out of control of our own lives and handing them all the fruits of our labor. ...We could suffer under the boot-heel of the ultra-rich forever were it not for their apparently suicidal desire to trash the environment to the entire biosphere's peril. If we don't stop them now, humanity, and most surface life on the planet - your religious and immigration issues are completely meaningless in the face of extinction.
oops, minor editorial omission: That last sentence should read:
If we don't stop them now, humanity, and most surface life on the planet is facing oblivion - your religious and immigration issues are completely meaningless in the face of extinction.
Susan Rice, in her book "Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For", essentially spreads the same lies about Snowden, while adding her own lie that Snowden gave all the data he had stolen to Russia. But we would have to rely on our political elites to change course and bring these behaviors to an end. That would be like pissing in the wind. Just look at what happened to the Lt. Colonel who spoke up about Afghanistan.
Rice showed Rhodes the way with Benghazi: lies have no consequences.
First how could you read this without vomiting repeatedly! If there is a classic picture of a apparatchik with absolutely no morals or heart its her. I even (blanch- gulp) prefer Hilary.
Liars will lie-- the 24 hr news cycle lets them hide
I suppose the same way Glenn brought himself to read the Rhodes book. My only defense is that it was a library book so I did not further enrich her by reading it.
A very clear case of malignant prevarication. This is an administration that spied on an opposition candidate using the security services. This is an administration that weaponized the IRS. This is an administration that left an American ambassador and other Americans to die ignominiously and lied about it. These are very bad people.
May I add assassinated an American citizen and his son?
May I add that there are currently 1-200 US citizens still stuck in Afghanistan?
The military left.
You actually believe that #? I would multiply that by 10
I thoroughly enjoyed this read today: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democrats-finally-get-comfortable-saying-obama-is-a-jerk/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=native-evergreen&utm_term=sixth
Thank you for identifying this as sociopathy. In an age that has seemed to have lost all perspective of just how nefarious the US government has become, finally, finally a legitimate journalist calls is precisely what it is. It is *not* hyperbole. Sociopaths do not feel or empathize with their victims. They have no remorse. They incessantly if not addictively self aggrandize at any cost, human or otherwise. And these types of people pursue government positions. And in recent years, security state is a noteworthy example.
But this goes well beyond the security state into many if not most parts of the government.
What’s dangerous is when “normal” Americans become so wrapped up in their party that they let this pass, or even worse, defend it or support it. Normal humans - even having marked differences in ideology- have to stop these parties, both of which are full of sociopaths
I'm not certain how novel this behavior is. We may have had a relatively brief respite from the worst of it in the latter part of the 20th century. Leaving WWII and Korea out of the discussion for the moment (not because I do not believe there were lies involved, only because I don't specifically recall them, and don't want to do the research at this moment), how did the US gain popular approval for its last few wars? I would posit the answer "blatant lies, told by politicians, and echoed by the press". WW I? Wilson lied his ass off. Vietnam? Gulf of Tonkin, anyone? Iraq? Saddam's WMD? Two things have changed, imo. First, because of the proliferation of internet publication, and the low entry bar for same, we have a much wider variety of sources checking and commening on official pronouncements. Frequently, I find this to be a pain in the ass to wade through, however, it is a positive in the sense that it increases the probability that the truth *is* out there, somewhere, waiting to be stumbled upon. Second change is that those in power seemingly once saved their whoppers to put over really big scams, and the empowered liars were most frequently those at the top. Now it seems that any bottom-rung political clerk feels free to concoct and propound blatant falsehoods about even the most trivial of matters.
I recently purchased a handful of T-shirts bearing political commentary. I won't cite the vendor, lest it seem like an advertisement. I had several picked out, then narrowed my selection. Had I seen Glenn's piece on this fuckwad Rhodes in time, I think that the last one to be eliminated might have made the cut: "I miss Nixon - at least there were consequences for his crimes..."
WHY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”—Lord Acton The U.S. Governmnet is absolutely corrupt. Let me be perfectly clear here. My critique is not against the constitutional republic established in 1789. My critique is of the corruption that has subverted the Constitution of the United States of America. I am a proud patriot […]
From Republic to Corporatist State
The Revolutionary War began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The US Constitution was ratified in 1788, establishing a republic.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company 1886, through an error (?) of the Court Recorder (citing obiter dictum unlawfully) began a progression of Supreme Court rulings that asserted that Corporations had the same legal rights as human beings citing the 14th Amendment as the relevant ground for that assertion.
By 1900 the corporations had used this doctrine to amass the huge fortunes that give them the ability to effectively buy the government of the United States. Therein was spawned the Corporatist State. This effectively ended the constitutional republic.
The Disastrous Woodrow Wilson Regime
Woodrow Wilson was by far the worst president in the modern era, He was a stupid man and a puppet of Col Edwen House and a cabal of international bankers who wanted to establish draconian rule over the US by instituting a private consortium of bankers now known as the Federal Reserve. This consortium is neither federal, nor are there any reserves. It is run by a private cartel, whose policies are based on usury and fiat paper money with no backing (such as gold or silver)......
Read entire article:
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/02/why-the-u-s-is-government-corrupt/
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Not novel. It’s growing exponentially though.
I agree it is NOT novel at any time in history. Whitney Webb is great at ferreting out the lies and getting the goods on her great investigative pieces. Glenn as well-- the best.
I wonder if lying is also so prolific is part of this getting people to "look how impt I am" , feeds ego and the pocketbook (obviously)
98%+ politicians and now I'm convinced MSM journalists are sociopaths whose only interests are power, self, and money.
Thanks to this BS called COVID Its the only good thing that now so many people are getting a full picture of. Its always been like this-- but the desperation now is palpable because they get that people are figuring it out😊
Ha, it took a once-in-a-hundred year event to reveal just how little the US government cares about their constituency.
Oh, but they can scramble to get 2-4 trillion dollar bailout packages rammed through but nah... a $1200 check ONCE was all they could manage for the people.
The banks all made record profits for the last 5 years.
Everyone else suffered. Millions about to be evicted right now still.
No mention of raising the min wage. No talk of medicare for all. Not even a vote.
How sad that the richest country human history has ever known can't even take care of it's people.
How sad that the government put the cock block on mom and pop stores and allowed the big boxes and Amazon's of the world to enrich themselves like never before. Let the people create their own wealth; we don't need the government "taking care of us".
Nothing worse than hearing people talk about how corrupt and inept and greed ridden government is in one side of their mouth, to turn around and spout off about more free rent, free Healthcare and more government on the other side of their mouth. Which is it? You think the government is your Daddy or a Predator? Couldn't agree more with your comment. Corporations essentially own the government, they are censoring free speech and they think giving these organizations more power over where they live and their health is a good idea.
Common sense, not even once.
Precisely!
That's all reasonably correct except for the use of "US government" in your opening line; it's the ultra-rich you're talking about - the government is just their tool of choice.
According to The Iron Law of Oligarchy, all political systems eventually become oligarchies.
This appears to correspond with observable reality.
Nice work if you can get it.
????? really is it? there is no free lunch-- someone loses.
Yes they are entanled in the Discourse they have woven
Rewriting history... the audacity of hope? Nope! The audacity of absolute, utter bullshit.
The arrogance of Rhodes knows no bounds. It's either that, or this kind of flagrant deception has become so ingrained in his modus operandi that he didn't realize what he was actually divulging by including this.
Narcissism en regalia!
"And yet, over and over, Rhodes told the public the exact opposite of what he knew to be the truth."
And why do Rhodes and his ilk blatantly lie? Because they can. Because nothing serious is EVER done to stop them or punish them for lying. I'm not talking about an "early retirement" here, or a couple month probation there. Look at Clapper, Brennan, Lerner, Comey -- the list could go on and on but why bore you with what you already know?
Great, hard-hitting story, Glenn. Thank you.
Ironic, isn't it - that the Rhodes, in essence, helped Snowden to stay in the one place he would be safe from US exradition - if he had gone to SA, he would have wound up like Assange ...
I bet Ben Rhodes thought he was running the country for a time. There he is in on the cover of his masturbatory work, hovering above the Resolute Desk, full of important papers while Obama, hunched and desperate for wisdom, appeals to Rhodes' singular genius. One can imagine how horrible it is to know Ben Rhodes.
He seems a right cunt.
I dont believe he knew what Glenn has pointed out. that seems so simple to understand. The important thing is to understand his projections on Snowden areb PROJECTIONS, that is that all this is just Rhodes DEFENSE MECHANISMS in action. And we dknow that the defining attribute of any DEFENSE MECHANISM IS THAT IT IS UNCONSCIOUS! For Rhodes all this, even though written in his book it is still UNCONSCIOUS. And here we sit reading it. How can something so simple be unconscious? Anybody can see it and explain it to Rhodes. But you see, no one will. They will collaborate with him, valididate him, and create a reality that affirms him. Just as the enabler of the alcoholic will do for their special alcoholic other. The alcoholic will believe and the enabler will believe and odnly AA seems able to cut through the whole mess by INVALIDATING what is going on. So can we take AA methods and break this egg into an omelet. No we cant. For the sociopath will not come to a meeting to stop his behavior before it kills him. He is very willing to die with it intact and so are all those who enable it and him. And we can put Obama right in the middle of this. I am betting Fidel Castro's brother knew exactly what was going on and decided not to have a dog in that fight.
If I'm tracking what you're saying, that makes Ben Rhodes - and almost every high ranking politician on Earth - a victim of some sort of mental disorder akin to addition. You may be right, but there's nothing subconscious about their actions. These people are all about power and the perks that come with it, and they will do anything to get more of it.
Great insights-- totally agree! Love the AA angle
"I bet Ben Rhodes thought he was running the country for a time" You mean like Ron Klain & co?
Don't you love the losers in high school getting their "15 mins (sic)" 🙄 Its the revenge of the sociopaths no one would socialize with in high school.
Yes exactly
Just as history will show the current administration to be the most profoundly incompetent one in the span of this nation, it will similarly show the Obama administration to be the most overtly duplicitous.
The MSM will of course instruct you otherwise.
Very good piece. Please keep up the good work.
I.F. Stone was know to have said that the government bureaucrats would leave threads like this for us to figure out how they had deceived in the moment when they needed to. Your work is appreciated by some - and denigrated by the same type of pro-government ideologues who denigrated Stone - but in the end we now realize how valuable Stone's writing was and maybe years from now your work will be similarly appreciated