CIA Brennan To Be Fired In 3, 2, 1 ...
Six days ago I wrote about the CIA spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee. At issue was a still secret report the committee wrote about the CIA's torture program. The CIA was going all out to prevent the report from becoming public:
One can reasonably predict that this will become a huge scandal and that John Brennan's half-life as CIA chief is now very limited.
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At the center of this scandal is CIA chief and drone killing promoter John Brennan who was in a leading CIA position when the torture happened. I find it likely that he is personally responsible for the coverup attempt just as he personally was responsible for the crime itself.
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Now, the intelligence committee is well know for usually being very protective of the spies, but I find it likely that it will react very harsh to being spied on itself.Any pretense of a functioning democracy becomes incredible when the executive subverts the legislative arm overseeing it. To keep up the pretense will now necessitate a big purge at the CIA.
In a speech (added: video, transcript) held this morning in the Senate the committee chair Diana Feinstein, usually best friend of the spies, agreed. She summed up: "I have grave concerns that the CIA search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the US Constitution."
Feinstein alleged that the CIA had, without any basis in law, searched the committee's secure stand alone data network for evidence that the committee staff had copied a daming internal CIA report on torture the CIA did not want the staff to see. Feinstein explained that the staff had acquired that internal report from a shared network that was used to research through CIA material for the torture report. She said that the CIA later decided to remove inculpating documents from that shared network and after that accused the committee staff of illegally acquiring the documents it had earlier shared. Feinstein:
In May of 2010, the committee staff noticed that [certain] documents that had been provided for the committee’s review were no longer accessible. Staff approached the CIA personnel at the offsite location, who initially denied that documents had been removed. CIA personnel then blamed information technology personnel, who were almost all contractors, for removing the documents themselves without direction or authority. And then the CIA stated that the removal of the documents was ordered by the White House. When the committee approached the White House, the White House denied giving the CIA any such order.
The CIA spied, without any legal base, against the committee that oversees it. This to cover up its torture history. It first provide and then removed some documents and accused Senate staff that made legal copies of criminally accessing the later removed stuff. This is surely a personal work of CIA chief John Brennan but there were more people involved. The CIA's general council had referred one Senate committee staffer to the justice department for allegedly stealing the internal report. That general council, Robert Eatinger, was also involved in illegally destroying videos of torture sessions. He is mention himself, according to Feinstein, over 1,600 times in the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report.
The whole scandal leaves a lot of egg on Obama's face. He had pressed for Brennan to become head of the CIA. I would be astonished if Brennan manages to survive in that role beyond Friday afternoon. It will be the coverup, not the crime, that will do him in.
Obama will likely use some assertiveness in foreign policies to distract from this scandal.
Posted by b on March 11, 2014 at 14:29 UTC | Permalink
Wapo is now out with its story (hey, I was half an hour faster): Feinstein: CIA searched Intelligence Committee computers
The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.
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she said that the CIA appears to have violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance.
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Feinstein concerned about 4th amendment? Only when it is she who is spied on ...
NYT: C.I.A. Accused of Illegally Searching Computers Used by Senate Committee
WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday accused the Central Intelligence Agency of improperly removing documents from computers that committee staff members had been using to complete a report on the agency’s detention program, saying the move was part of an effort to intimidate the committee.Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the committee, said on the Senate floor that the agency had violated federal law and undermined Congress’s constitutional right to oversee the actions of the executive branch.
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Calling the present conflict a “defining moment” for the oversight of American spy agencies,” Ms. Feinstein forcefully denied that committee staff members had obtained the internal review improperly, saying that the internal document had been made available as part of the millions of pages of documents that the agency had given the committee to conduct its investigation.
Brennan is right now holding a talk at the Council of Foreign Relations. There will surely come up some questions when his marketing talk is over ...
I doubt Obama will fire Brennan. It's not like he directly insulted the President like McChrystal did or had an affair and was a political threat like Petraeus. I believe Brennan can be impeached, but I'm not a hundred percent sure, As to Obama, he is a monumental narcissist; what doesn't touch him directly doesn't count. There is an outstanding portrayal of his character and history over at FDL by David Bromwich. Says all we need to know (and generally suspected) about the man, and says it well. The good news in all this is that Obama is intellectually lazy and easy to play. The only trick is to not make him angry while playing him.
Posted by: Knut | Mar 11 2014 15:28 utc | 4
He wont get fired, come on man.
Funny though how politicians get angry when they get spied on since how they treated all whistleblowers lately.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 11 2014 15:38 utc | 5
Yes knut the Bromwich piece, originally at TomDepatch, is first class: a "first draft of history."
I think that Obama's authority, rarely exercised I suspect except to impress those he admires, is rapidly diminishing. Which means that Brennan is probably toast.
And Brennan was Bandar's man too. Another nail in the Syrian insurgents coffin?
Posted by: bevin | Mar 11 2014 15:41 utc | 6
I for one, don't understand why people still assume Obama has full autonomy in his position as POTUS, as with any caretaker of the modern day Empire, he does as others tell him. The "Shadow Government" behind the apparent Government makes all the decisions.
Posted by: ben | Mar 11 2014 15:52 utc | 7
this is a repetitive theme.
maybe i am reading too much into this - go after the whistle blower rather then examine the illegal actions of the usa gov't.. wikileaks, manning, snowden etc. etc. does it only matter when a politician feels betrayed? why doesn't it matter to a gov't responsible for the murder of many innocent people when someone comes out with the information? feinstein is a friggin hopeless windbag, like a lot of politicians in positions of relative power.
Posted by: james | Mar 11 2014 15:57 utc | 8
b;Collaboration takes time.
Now,if I ran the CIA,the first place I'd look for subversion is in the Zionist occupied Congress of the USA.Where else is the enemy of man?Of course,I don't think that's the CIA's agenda,looking for traitors within,just in covering their corrupt ass.
Posted by: dahoit | Mar 11 2014 16:15 utc | 9
james isn't it because these guys have just one rule:
"Don't get caught."
Brennan got caught making the others look really bad: weak, cowardly, deceitful.
They don't like that. As to the Constitution, the laws, the claimed principles behind their policies, the mountains of dead women and children, they don't give a fig.
But making them look bad is a hanging offence. Besides the Ivy League is full of well endowed chairs "Professor of National Security and Enhanced Interrogation studies" just waiting for them to sit on. So they will never have to work again and the MIC will make Brennan rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Just provided he does the right thing.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 11 2014 16:16 utc | 10
I'll have to check out the Bromwich essay. There is plenty of proof that the Obama administration is in freefall, such as the sudden transformation of Harry Reid into a combination of Eugene Debs and Barry Commoner. The Democrats realize that Obama has immolated himself and they are engaging in a quick and dirty populist makeover: attacking the Kochs, talking up an increase in the minimum wage, pulling Senate all-nighters raising the alarm on climate change, and now threatening to rein in CIA overreach. It is laughable. As if suddenly, after six years, Democrats are standing up for the masses. A sign of true desperation.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | Mar 11 2014 16:18 utc | 11
Mike, wish I'd seen that myself! So what you're saying, basically, is that Dems are finally more afraid of those on their left than those on their right?
Posted by: Nora | Mar 11 2014 16:35 utc | 12
I doubt Brennan gets sacked. Obama has contempt for the constitution and separation of powers. He will keep Brennan on to hi-lite that contempt.
Posted by: Brindle | Mar 11 2014 16:44 utc | 13
I think they see the handwriting on the wall, Nora. The Dems are likely going to lose the Senate. Obama can no longer keep the natives on the rez. There is a shift to the Left underway in the hope it will stem the tide. They think we're all fools, which is generally a safe bet. But I think nowadays, not as much as we have been.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | Mar 11 2014 16:48 utc | 14
Aw jeesh, Mike, I sure hope you're right but don't you think they're probably copying the Rethug GOTV playbook -- pivot Left, rouse everyone so they go to the polls this November, then revert to business as usual. Would love to be wrong about this btw, but Harry Reid is one for grand gestures and... doing as little as possible. imo.
Posted by: Nora | Mar 11 2014 16:57 utc | 15
From McClachy:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/03/11/220849/feinstein-defends-senate-intel.html
Posted by: ben | Mar 11 2014 16:58 utc | 16
b,
It is now clear to the readers of MofW that every western government has been seized by corporatists and non-democratic organizations. The support of jihadists in Syria and neo-nazis in Ukraine is so clearly against the best interest of the American and European people; it validates Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”.
When it is clear that the Assad Regime survives and the Cold War is reignited along with the likely destruction of mankind; there will be ruthless purge of those who lost Syria and Ukraine including John Brennan and Victoria Nuland.
The tragedy will be that the new leaders will not be moderates who believe in regulated capitalism and government for the people; but, extremists who know that government is evil.
Posted by: VietnamVet | Mar 11 2014 17:34 utc | 17
Posted by: Nora | Mar 11, 2014 12:57:07 PM | 15
I agree with that and of course demodogs will also run on they are the lesser of the evil. I'll be voting Green myself.
Posted by: jo6pac | Mar 11 2014 17:43 utc | 18
Furthering the mafia analogy we sometimes use here, Obama, Brennan, Feinstein and ANYONE else who holds some position of power in the US is - besides a war-criminal - already a "made man" which means that the "quarreling" we're seeing is strictly "inside baseball" which means that the outcomes of all this "fighting/bitching" will change/effect things absolutely ZERO percent for anyone not in "the family" - i.e., there's another "made man" who will replace Brennan, another who will replace Obama and on and on....
Brennan may have f*cked up - thus his possible job loss - but he's still a "friend of theirs".
I wonder: much like a contract killing is admission into the upper echelons of the Mafia is committing war crimes the prerequisite for becoming a "made man" in the US power elite?
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 11 2014 18:06 utc | 19
Instead of a flame war on voting Green or not, how 'bout an interview of Alain Sorel and Gilad Atzmon ;~)
Posted by: Nora | Mar 11 2014 18:07 utc | 20
The Open Ukraine Foundation is an international foundation, established in July 2007, at the initiative of Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Zbigniew Dzhymala for strengthening and development of Ukraine’s reputation in the world.
list of "partners" (Owners)
- US State Dept
- Chatham House
- NED
- NATO Info Center
- Polish Gov
- German Marshall fund
They're not even trying to hide it anymore
Just in case anyone had any doubt who and what the Ukrainian Jewish individual represented
Posted by: brb | Mar 11 2014 18:33 utc | 21
Spying on the legislature?
How can the rest of the Western neoliberal war criminals keep up with US in the race to win the coveted "Fascist Society of the Year Award 2014"?
How about this program called Prevent in the UK where the NHS - doctors, nurses, whoever, - take an active role in identifying those people who might be "at risk" for becoming "terrorists" and "treating them".
Apologies if already posted.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 11 2014 18:35 utc | 23
Actually I made a slight mistake on that list
It should read
- CIA
- CIA
- CIA
- CIA
- CIA
- CIA
Posted by: brb | Mar 11 2014 18:36 utc | 24
I went to TomDispatch to read the essay by David Bromwich (from the link upthread, at #11) and surely it is the history that would be written by the deluded bourgeoisie, and penned by the comfortable sort of academic, who by and large, has conceived it on behalf of all the others of that social class. He writes about Barack Obama as if he were describing the presidency of Calvin Coolidge. Bromwich makes the absurd thesis that there is merely an inexplicable disconnect between the president's idealistic (and moral) "preferences" and the hideously immoral things he actually does, as president.
Bromwich's discourse, suspended in a medium of artful and cultured language, reads like the polished writ of a courtier; and even though there is enough, even ample evidence, assembled with academic rigor, to make the superficial case that Obama's historical shipwreck, the authoritative judgment of history, is that he turned out to be, exclusively, the prime example of a padded and hollow resume; moreover, he will suffer history's verdict; and not one that says this president lacked any moral compass, but rather that his odd behavior is ascribed to some kind of psychological quirkiness,
According to this writer, only the fanatics whose opinions are "predigested" will discover the megalomania, the indifference to destruction and human misery, or the narcissism and grandiosity, in Barack H. Obama.
Bromwich is wrong. This president is not merely a petulant type, nor suffering from a neurotic disconnect internally, between his vision of the good, and the crimes or betrayals to which he ultimately resorts. No. And fundamentally, he is not just disconnected psychologically, not really a reluctant leader; and in conclusion, the part of Obama that is an empty suit does not form the definitive picture of his presidency, as Bromwich would have us believe.
I don't know what more to say about a writer, who in an ivory-handed language, describes in his roundabout way the serial betrayals of a political leader, but finds it too harsh to name these things as betrayals.
Feinstein and Neocons are from the same evil camp that have been desperately trying to undermine Obama's collaboration with Putin and Barry's ongoing purge of the corrupt and traitorous US officials. Brennan hates Saudis, Bandar and jihadis and has been working on eliminating them for some time already(says Thierry Meyssan).
Boston bombing - I am sure that recent sudden "discovery" of the MSM, Rachel Madcow among others, that the official version "stinks" has the same goal - to overthrow Obama (and replace him with a Bilderberger stooge - Clinton, Romney, Petreaus, Jeb Bush, ...). Soon we'll learn that the forces behind the bombing are ... wait for it ... Russian!
Posted by: ProPeace | Mar 11 2014 19:44 utc | 26
Wow, how so ever will the US find another knuckle-dragging ape such as Brennan? The infighting by elites, as noted by the always prescient JSorrentine, doesn't matter one jot to the little people.
This is all about them - the separate upper crust of American rulers: it's like World Wrestling, in front of the cameras they bicker and bitch and fight but off screen they share a beer and a laugh at the expense of all the dupes.
Posted by: Prey4 Justice | Mar 11 2014 20:21 utc | 27
Copeland #25: Please tell me more. I know I loathe the man because of all he's done/not done, but I'm still not sure I get how he's wired other than avoiding leaving any fingerprints anywhere.
ProPeace # 26: Is Feinstein's hubby a NeoCon arms merchant or a NeoLiberal arms merchant? Right now though, she's also trying to avoid charges, I think. Also, apparently Russia's been blamed for the Marathon Bombings for some time now, in some quarters. God only knows what really happened, but it's going to take a lot to convince me that kid is guilty and "our side" is 100% innocent.
Posted by: Nora | Mar 11 2014 20:23 utc | 28
Nora #25
The leading edge of propaganda about this man is that he is unmindful, and negligent with respect to events going on around him,--that when it comes to decisions he is weak minded. We are not to presume that Terror Tuesdays and the index card were his idea. Or that he looks forward to the ritual. We are expected to believe that he has a brain indistinguishable from a soft-boiled egg when it comes to the agony of making a decision. They want us to think that Samantha Power and Hillary Clinton talked him into leading the attack on Libya. You and I are supposed to accept at face value his tone of sincerity, when caught on an open mike, assuring Russia's then-president Medvedev, that the threating missile installations of which the Russians were rightfully alarmed would be pulled back, just as soon as he was re-elected. Don't worry; relax and gaze at the smiling face of your friend, your partner in peace.
Obama is mindful and focused; and he knows he is lying, when he is lying. It is not his resume that is hollow, it is him. He is a pure confidence man and a sociopath.
Copeland, I agree completely with your assessment of Obama but I think you are overly harsh on Bromwich. He is not like you and me, he is a player on the national scene and his words have influence in the highest circles. If he were to describe the truth about Obama, he would be purged from the position he now occupies. For the most part his essays make a positive influence on the national discourse. His words about Obama are quite strong as it is: Obama will very likely go down in history as ineffectual and a failed presidency.
But complete disclosure: I empathize with Bromwich because I occupy a low, but politically sensitive, position and any effectiveness in my job would seriously compromised if I openly challenged the Obama-love that has infected the Democratic Party.
Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 11 2014 22:03 utc | 31
Copeland @29 I agree with the point that you made in the third paragraph of @25
"According to this writer, only the fanatics whose opinions are "predigested" will discover the megalomania, the indifference to destruction and human misery, or the narcissism and grandiosity, in Barack H. Obama..."
Bromwich is being less than honest here in dissociating himself from "fanatics."
It is sad but that is the way Academics survive...
On the other hand @29 nothing you say in your first paragraph:
"The leading edge of propaganda about this man is that he is unmindful, and negligent with respect to events going on around him,--that when it comes to decisions he is weak minded. We are not to presume that Terror Tuesdays and the index card were his idea. Or that he looks forward to the ritual. We are expected to believe that he has a brain indistinguishable from a soft-boiled egg when it comes to the agony of making a decision. They want us to think that Samantha Power and Hillary Clinton talked him into leading the attack on Libya. You and I are supposed to accept at face value his tone of sincerity, when caught on an open mike, assuring Russia's then-president Medvedev, that the threating missile installations of which the Russians were rightfully alarmed would be pulled back, just as soon as he was re-elected. Don't worry; relax and gaze at the smiling face of your friend, your partner in peace."
is contradictory of the conclusion that you reach in your last:
"Obama is mindful and focused; and he knows he is lying, when he is lying. It is not his resume that is hollow, it is him. He is a pure confidence man and a sociopath."
You would seem to be in agreement with Bromwich.
I think that it is mistake to down play the significance of Bromwich's piece. It represents the continued peeling away of liberal support from the President. And he needs every bit of liberal support he can retain because the right is just itching for a chance to destroy him.
Obama is just a willing executioner. From the ruling class's point of view he is the perfect figurehead because his mere appearance confuses and disarms so many. He seems to have spent his whole life trying to get chosen to play Judas. And that is all there is in his resume.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 11 2014 23:09 utc | 32
bevin,
my concluding paragraph means to show the contradiction. I didn't intend it as a confirmation of the case that is made about Obama's nature.The image makers, of whom Bromwich is a party, are presenting the president as someone whose motivation is never to be impugned. They present him as negligent, never responsible, never intentionally connected to an evil act, never drawn into the acts of duplicity by a conscious intent. This is the false image, the disinformation projected about who he is.
In the last paragraph I should have prefaced with an "on the contrary" but that is sometimes my style. I regret if there is confusion over this way of presenting the counterpoint to what went before.
I am not in agreement with Bromwich, and reading his essay to the end made me feel nauseous.
The liberal support that exists for the president is lousy at this point in time. Obama's real mindfulness, his focus and intentionality, stands in sharp contrast, to the attributes, the fraudulent portrait that is presented to describe him. I understand the points that you and ToivoS make about incremental gains. But there is damage to the human spirit inherent in Bromwich's courtly discourse, there exists some tangible insult leveled at the truth, with that detached tone of his.
I put her speech on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqPWNKMuhYo&list=PLfrlsC1yJ2dQo2GsAsKEsRmfTN8ewnCNh along with links to videos such as: LOOK what the CIA did to this guy! SEE "No Justice for CIA Torture Victim El-Masri" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsXefHSnurQ&list=PLfrlsC1yJ2dSx3c1PgYsy_qY1-fWFcKGX
Posted by: Tom Murphy | Mar 12 2014 1:52 utc | 34
@33 Nothing wrong with disagreeing is there? We disagree.
But not by very much:
"They present him as negligent, never responsible, never intentionally connected to an evil act, never drawn into the acts of duplicity by a conscious intent. This is the false image, the disinformation projected about who he is...."
It strikes me that Obama is all those things. And that this is the core of the evil in him- that he is without conscience or principle, just an ordinary butcher going about his business, fulfilling the terms of his employment, doing what he was asked to do.
It is this moral emptiness, this sense that "doing good, doing evil, bombing children, kissing babies..." (there is no difference, he is for all of the above) which I think Bromwich captured.
I think that Obama is completely empty of scruples.
You see him as focused and intentional.
I see him as someone who will sign a stack of death warrants without reading them, or thinking about them again. Remember just after November 2008, waiting to take office, how the Israelis attacked Gaza, obviously to show him who is boss? Didn't you sense that even they were surprised at the insouciance with which he watched those extraordinary massacres pass before his eyes?
He didn't care. And he was, at last, relieved of the chore of pretending that he did care about such things.
That's really what he likes about being President: he can relax while the killing goes on, he doesn't need to pretend it bothers him, he doesn't need to pass any kind of moral judgement.
Remember that when he asked his step father "Have you ever killed men?" The reply the boy got was "Only men who were weak."
He has adhered to that moral standard ever since.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 12 2014 4:03 utc | 35
Copeland and Bevin, if there is anything better than a thoughtful debate, it is a beautifully written thoughtful debate. Thanks both.
But all this about Obama - what comes next I think will be much much worse. Hope and change won't even be buzzwords. They're dead and everyone knows it. All that is left for the next President to do is push the exploitation state and US violence to their logical, frightening conclusion. There won't even be any nice sounding promises this time - this next campaign will be about naked power and who promises to use it most ruthlessly.
Obama is the broken promise after which both sides realize there is no longer a thing called trust. From the new deal of Roosevelt to the no deal of Obama - whoever comes we'll be lucky to get a "fuck you". Perhaps this is what it will take for The citizens of the US to stand up - if standing up has not been made technologically obsolete by then.
Posted by: guest77 | Mar 12 2014 5:04 utc | 36
"Obama will likely use some assertiveness in foreign policies to distract from this scandal."
Crimea? Maybe, but that would involve many others.
Has anyone looked at Venezuela lately? The US acts more or less alone down there, and without Chavez it is doable. In fact, it could be read that it is being done right now.
Posted by: Hal Duell | Mar 12 2014 5:54 utc | 37
Just a wild guess:
Snowden was, that is my suspicion since long, fed by cia who, for whatever reason, wanted to fuck nsa.
The current "revelations" (which anyone with a brain wasn't surprised by) might be nsas "thank you" to cia.
No matter whether I'm right or wrong, the world wins either way with major institutions and players of zusas system kicking each other.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Mar 12 2014 6:38 utc | 38
JSorrentine @23
Prevent operates in the 'pre-criminal space'.
I had to drill down and peruse the Govt sites to ascertain that this wasn't some sort of spoof.
Posted by: DM | Mar 12 2014 10:04 utc | 39
MofA: Brennan will be gone by Friday.
Finally, a pundit with the balls to make a concrete, time delimited prediction.
And even better, another pundit, MT Wheel, who predicts the opposite: Brennan is safe and won't be going anywhere.
A clash of blogosphere titans. And somebody's gonna' eat crow before the sun rises on Saturday.
Posted by: b jeebus | Mar 12 2014 16:30 utc | 40
Bevin, Copeland and ToivoS;
I think this is a very interesting debate, and although my opinion regarding the situation in the West is not as informed as yours, and it should be considered as such, I will express it here.
My main question is this: Should we even care what Obama's real personality is, or what his real intentions are? Does it really play such an important role? Let me ask a question, would it make a substantial difference if we were to replace him with someone with a sound personality and with the best of intentions? How much is the behavior of a president dictated by the requirement of an "office" and how much is it dictated by his personality? When Obama acts in a certain way, how much is it an action of "the president of USA" rather than the actions of the person of "Obama"? Remember this is the same Obama who opposed the invasion of Iraq when he was NOT the president! This question becomes really significant, because if it is mainly the "position" which determines the behavior rather than the "personality" of the occupant of that "position" then whether the personality is sound or weak, whether the "intentions" are good or bad become IRRELEVANT, the main problem will no longer be about the "flaws" and "strengths" in the personality of a president but rather the "flaws of the SYSTEM" which dictate the behavior of the president even if we were to assume that he is Jesus Christ!
ToivoS makes an excellent point:
"He [Bromwich] is not like you and me, he is a player on the national scene and his words have influence in the highest circles. If he were to describe the truth about Obama, he would be purged from the position he now occupies....
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I empathize with Bromwich because I occupy a low, but politically sensitive, position and any effectiveness in my job would seriously compromised if I openly challenged the Obama-love that has infected the Democratic Party."
And this is precisely what I mean when I talk about "position" determining the behavior rather than the "personality" of the occupant of that position.
To put the emphasis on the flaws of the personality of the president has -in my very humble opinion- the dangerous consequence of going under the illusion that if we were to change the president next time around with a better one, that the situation will change in some meaningful way. It will have the consequence of making people chasing a mirage rather than trying to address the REAL PROBLEM which is a completely broken system.
Posted by: Pirouz_2 | Mar 12 2014 16:54 utc | 41
Pirouz-2
"Should we even care what Obama's real personality is, or what his real intentions are?"
I think so, because his type, amoral, conformist, eager to please the powerful and contemptuous of the poor and powerless (his stepfather Colonel Seotoro's 'weak men') needs to be exposed. People need to understand that Obama is not just an extreme example of cynical careerism but is the product of a society ruled by terror, namely Indonesia after 1967. His position was very difficult, as a black child in a society in which race underpinned the genocide there, he had to be very careful, wary and conscious of what was happening around him. As an American with connections to the Embassy, the CIA and the Suharto army his was a privileged, protected perch. Rootless? Cosmopolitan? (I know the type because I am one myself.)
"Does it really play such an important role?"
It was a lot easier to organise scepticism of US Foreign Policy when the faux cowboy, ignoramus and callous W was in office. In that sense Obama, has been a huge distraction from the reality that nothing has changed. And that, given the term limit, is enough for the ruling class. When he leaves office he will still very likely retain the loyalty of a third of the "progressives" the "blacks" the poor and others he has betrayed.
The importance is that people learn by experience to judge politicians by what they do, promises by their specificity and policies from the small print.
"Let me ask a question, would it make a substantial difference if we were to replace him with someone with a sound personality and with the best of intentions?"
It would not be "us", as you understand very well, doing the replacing. But, yes, I do think it would represent progress if the next puppet the financiers and their political machines put forward didn't turn out to have a swastika carved on his forehead, wear a Goldmann Sachs T-shirt and believe the Constitution didn’t apply to him.
The point is that while these office holders are almost invariably bought and paid for, they emerge from a process in which the candidate's ability to win public sympathy and support is important. Obama was elected because he was mistaken by large numbers of Americans as a man committed to change and reform, which was, again, mistaken to be something shared by the party and the organisation around him. So, in November 2008, millions of Americans voted for what they sensed was "radical."
The significance being that the ruling class knows instinctively that it is a tiny minority that exists only on the sufferance of the masses, so it understands that it can never ask for more than the best compromise it can get. Sometimes that involves progressive taxation, social security, full employment, free healthcare and education; sometimes it gets away with much less. That is what it’s doing now: cashing in on the illusion that Obama means full employment etc, because to the untutored, inattentive eye he looks as if he should.
We saw something similar with "W", believe it or not! He won many votes from ordinary Americans who viewed Gore as an elitist (lifetime Washingtonian) prig and felt that W, with his criticism of meddling in other countries, "nation building", was an isolationist from the boondocks who shared the ambitions and tastes of the "regular" people.
What I suspect will happen, perhaps as soon as 2016, is for a candidate putting forward a popular socio- economic platform- which, though very mild, will seem highly radical- to emerge from the primaries. This is likely because the Democratic Party is so controlled by corporate interests and political “pros” that they will try to run Hillary and or Biden both of whom have “Sell by 1999” printed on their faces.
What will that signify? We will see, especially as it is not impossible that the Republicans will counter with their own non-traditional candidate.
Any change of direction could upset the applecart of the status quo, the deep consensus which reduces politics to celebrity contests.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 12 2014 22:55 utc | 42
I agree with you, bevin@42. I just finished the Bromwich essay; it's definitely worth reading. Good diagnosis of the Obama phenomenon: "Such is Obama’s belief in the power and significance of his own words that, as he judges his own case, saying the right thing is a decent second-best to doing the right thing."
The Bromwich essay, with its -- which displeased Copeland -- Lewis Laphamesque Brahmin tone, makes for a good companion piece to Adolph Reed's "Nothing Left," a March Harper's cover story. "Nothing Left" is subscriber only access, but Reed's interview, "The Surrender of America's Liberals," with Bill Moyers is worth watching.
Bromwich focuses on Obama; Reed looks at the Obama voter.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | Mar 13 2014 2:04 utc | 43
@bevin (#42)
Thank you very much for your reply. As always, it is a great pleasure to read your comments.
Posted by: Pirouz_2 | Mar 13 2014 4:32 utc | 44
Hagiography has its borders because, after all, it is about the lives of saints; at least this is what the word implies. And so Bromwich observes strictly the parameters, since the verdict of a cautious academic of history in this country--one who wishes to remain acceptable--cannot tarnish the saintly mantle, the cloak that rests respectfully on any president's shoulder.
History's verdict (by Bromwich's lights) will be "Tut tut...Barack Obama...what a shame...what missed opportunities...what an unfortunate, incapable, mixed up fellow he was, whose selling points (his aspirations to do good) played second fiddle to the deeds, the doings he couldn't seem to resist. Here was a man who rode in on a hollow resume and who exhibited a peculiar, dysfunctional executive style."
This is about as telling and incisive as an academic of this particular cadre can be.
And here in the debate, with bevin and I disagreeing, but not disagreeing by very much, examine whether or not this president is an ambitious, purposeful confidence man, proud of his talent for killing people,-- or alternatively--a bureaucrat doing his fastidious work in a charnel house, for the most venal of reasons, and to please those superiors who vetted him and brought him along.
I read Adolf Reed's article in Harper's a week or so ago. It is good work. And Reed is honest enough to confront something closer to the whole truth; whereas Bromwich clearly is not so inclined; and bevin, to whom I've been replying, is a far far better, and more honest writer, than Bromwich will ever be.
We could wrestle over the question of intentionality or purpose, or the feckless lack of it in Obama. But we agree about the man's hollow interior, an abstract void, of the kind that echoes tragically in a sociopath.
@43
Thanks for the link. I used to be a Harpers subscriber but I gave up because I never saw anything I wanted to read, so I'm unsurprised that now they are publishing good stuff. The sub used to be $12 too now it is thirty something.
As to Reed's ideas, I agree with most of what he says. So do most people around here but you don't have to be a "libertarian" (in the capitalist sense) to disagree with this, from Moyers, I believe:
" And that the neo-liberal parties, both of them, devoted to promoting the interests of multinational companies and capitalism don't care what you think about cultural and social issues, as long as they control the process by which nothing interferes with markets."
It's important for the "left" to recognise that capitalists may pretend to believe in markets, but they know better. And their interest in politics stems from their desire to control and monopolise markets, including the most important one of all, the labour market. Adam Smith understood the capitalist soul: he knew that, given the tiniest opportunity, they will always conspire against the public good. They always do. The problem is not the market but monopolists. And the "left" (without in any way espousing free market ideas, because they are nonsensical, as Polanyi most eloquently pointed out in "The Great Transformation") might be surprised at the gains it could make by challenging those who pretend to be in favour of the market to campaign against the private, virtually unregulated, monopolies which dominate our lives. And threaten the very existence of the planet.
Posted by: bevin | Mar 13 2014 18:46 utc | 46
Regarding the analysis of Obama and other wastes of everyone's effing time:
Firstly, if people spent, oh I don't know, about one-BILLIONTH the amount of time dissecting/analyzing/humanizing/examining/pontificating/writing about etc any one or the millions of more "mundane" residents - criminals and non-criminals alike - of the American gulag system, society would be a much better place as many, many of these people would not be rotting away their lives away - often unjustly - in solitary confinement. Wasting time talking about the latest war criminal du jour at the head our system makes it seem as if there's a chance his replacement MIGHT NOT be a war criminal and that is - barring a full-on revolution - just obvious bullshit.
Again, Obama is a war criminal not because of the dreamed up of reasons offered by any of these well-paid armchair psychoanalytic historians like Bromwich et al who waste everyone's time with their fancifully well-written suppositions about the O-man's "inner workings" but rather because - shocker - he's a COLD-BLOODED MURDERER who has repeatedly violated international law.
Remember sports fans it's called PLAYING THE BALL AND NOT THE MAN!!!
Obama is a sick fucker. Period. How do I know this? He's needlessly murdered thousands of people in cold-blood for the most laughable reasons. Period. End of story. I don't give a shit what might have been, what his momma thought about him, what he wanted to be when he grew up, how he could have really changed things, how he was dealt a bad hand, and on and on and on and on...
Whatever he was, he's a war criminal now and those are the facts.
All of this horseshit analysis/expostulation of Obama as a human being is shit best left for his defense attorneys when he's in the dock.
Gee, do you think there's a reason that this stuff SOUNDS like what Obama's theoretical defense attorney might say to a jury (read: the demographically known audiences of certain news outlets where people like Bromwich are offered space/read)? That maybe this dissection of Obama's reasoning/legacy is meant to play to a certain crowd (read: the usually insightful, moral and righteous people who would normally STOP listening to propagandists who are attempting to humanize war criminals for posterity so that said usually insightful crowd will keep participating in said war-criminal producing system)?
Remember, in the US/West there is a propaganda flavor for EVERYONE, ever single person - idiot, genius, ones who don't care about politics, newsies, etc. EVERYONE!
Bromwich's piece is the type of digusting trash that could only exist in a society as sick as the US because no matter how much he might "lambast" the O-man - remember: EVERYONE - it's still stands as an stark example of ameliorating apologetics for the war criminal system of the US that produces Obama after Obama after Obama to continue on in our murderous descent as a society.
Oh, but Bromwich couldn't say those things and retain his job, they scream.
Sick fucking society, I reply.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 13 2014 19:26 utc | 47
Adding:
One of the major thrusts of propaganda aimed at the "intelligent" classes in the West is that there is NEVER such a thing as a black and white situation. Nope. It is always always always always some shade of gray no matter how seemingly obvious a situation may appear to be.
This propaganda campaign has been beaten into the minds of Westerners for decades now and it is very clever and insidious because it allows the elite with the massive propaganda machine at their backs to immediately mitigate past and present "black and white" crimes into palatable grey "oopsies" reserved for the "serious" people who had "hard decisions" to make blah blah blah.
Murdering innocent people especially on trumped up reasons is such a black and white issue. No amount of propaganda should be able to change that fact but it does.
It is not only OK for intelligent people once again to staring thinking in black and white terms concerning the people that supposedly lead their countries but it is MANDATORY remedy against wave after nauseating "greywashing" propaganda that turns normally good people who would be disgusted at the murderous crimes of their leaders into accomplices who are "debating the issues" and other such things that are NOT prosecuting people for war crimes.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 13 2014 19:47 utc | 48
I think it is going be to a tough sell to come up with another Obama, which is of course a good thing going forward. Obama juiced turnout among blacks and Latinos and liberal Dems. Now in Obama year six many who supported him are finally figuring out he is not 1) who he said he is, and 2) not who they thought he was. So you have the beginnings of a reassessment from smart-set types like Bromwich. It took so long because as you say JSorrentine people are horribly brainwashed. Though it was clear from the outset that Obama would be business as usual (Geithner as Treasury Secretary, counterinsurgency surge in Afghanistan, etc.), people were sold on "Hope & Change" after Bush/Cheney and the Great Recession.
Does this burgeoning reassessment mean that people will gain insight into the Deep State perpetual war machine of American imperialism? I hope so. I think we're getting closer. People I work with who don't pay close attention to politics get the connection you made a while back -- what are we doing spending billions stirring up trouble halfway around the world in Ukraine while Detroit is bankrupt?
I thought Bromwich's riff on Obama's "I can't hear you" (which Obama ripped off from FDR) was effective.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | Mar 13 2014 21:14 utc | 49
Sure, but the glacial pace of this "reawakening" only buys these criminals more and more time to rewrite history, engage in more crimes etc etc. One of the main factors in slowing down its pace is the reluctance of the brainwashed "smart set" to jettison the now innate strictures of the "propaganda of mitigation" in which they've been steeped for decades and which would mean that they'd have to admit they were not kind of, not maybe, not partially, but just plain wrong in not calling a war criminal a war criminal whenever the topic arose and not matter how much they had been suckered into cheering him/her on at some point in the past.
The "smart-set" if it wants to once again be considered "smart" must unlearn the "moral equivalency" that Parry stated was put into overdrive during the Cold War but then morphed into a strategy to mitigate EVERYTHING. Every elite crime in any context could be "greyed" out and the best part was that once a few well-placed and "respected" journos (read: propagandists) got the whole "greywashing" ball going with a timely op-ed or appearance on a Sunday talk show they - the elite - wouldn't have to do a damned thing!!!
The "smart set" and their debates would take on near immediate lives of their own with each passing day the issue of criminal culpability would be a thing of the past as NOW the debate was about some tangential (read: not criminal) aspect of the topic.
The "smart set" in thinking that their continued analysis was getting them closer to the bottom of things was actually - clever, huh? - taking them farther and farther AWAY from the real issues that needed to be addressed i.e, war crimes , etc.
IMO, the only way to stop this maddening cycle of "smart-set" time-wasting is for them to start manning/womaning up and stop accepting the words/deeds of people who have crossed clearly marked and legally defined limits as to what is and what is certainly NOT acceptable behavior if one wants to be considered a human being in good stead.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 13 2014 21:33 utc | 50
You're right. The problem for us is that the smart set is for the most part bought off. As long as a few scraps fall from the table for them to gobble down the "greywashing" you speak of will continue.
Posted by: Mike Maloney | Mar 13 2014 22:40 utc | 51
Obama made a major appeal to the left wing of the Democratic Party in his primary race against Hillary. I know because I was part of his campaign then. This is not to say that there weren't a number of warning signs that he was just playing us and it became abundantly clear where his administration was headed once the cabinet picks were announced: Obama was just another DLC/neoliberal. This isn't in debate anymore.
What took longer to see: he was not just another in a long line of war mongering presidents but that he was without any depth or understanding how to exercise power, especially in foreign policy. In short, he is spectacularly incompetent. His surge in Afghanistan was the first indication, though his apologists effectively explained that away by saying the Pentagon and CIA was just too powerful for him. However, it became totally clear to me of his lack of understanding with his policies towards Libya and Syria. Those were cock ups of the first order and no self respecting imperialist should have signed off on those fiascoes. Now with our policy in Ukraine it should clear to all that he has no clue. There is no way that the current crisis is something he and Kerry desired. Nor is he being controlled by some behind the scenes force that pushed him in this direction. What he allowed to happen, is that he let a group of neocons at State, left over from the previous admin, to control the Eurasian and Europe portfolio. These guys work over-time to concoct another war.
This is the significance of the Bromwich piece -- he is signalling to a wide and influential audience that there is something seriously broke at the top. It is not at all clear that it can be fixed; all we can hope for is that he and Kerry can muddle through without letting this grow into a world-wide financial crisis or, worse, war.
Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 14 2014 0:01 utc | 52
ToivoS;
The way you guys discuss about Obama (and all other presidents), his personality -or the lack of it- and how impotent he is in the face of various centers of power in US reminds me very much of the discussions that the Iranians always have about various presidents that Iran has had and how they have fared vis-a-vis centers of power in Iran... :)
I have always found the most amazing similarity between the two countries' systems.
Posted by: Pirouz_2 | Mar 14 2014 0:30 utc | 53
It's amazing, just change a few names and it will become pretty much a discussion between Iranians word by word! :)
Posted by: Pirouz_2 | Mar 14 2014 0:32 utc | 54
@52 if what you describe at the end of the second paragraph is true - and I'm really not sure it is - then this would surely be one of the most shocking abdications of responsibility by a US President in living memory.
Is, then, Obama simply a powerless figurehead and there is no one at the helm of the ship of state? That Obama merely hears about these events when they become public crises and then rushes out to do damage control and put the best possible face on it? That he make vociferous statements threatening war on the good word of people below him - people that he doesn't trust have have repeatedly failed him? This defies the imagination. This would make him less the president, and more the well-known paid spokesperson. Which is possible, but highly doubtful.
It is impossible to believe that Obama doesn't know about these events long before they become public crises. That he isn't a part of planning and executing them. On the other hand, perhaps I am underestimating the decadence of the American elite.
Posted by: guest77 | Mar 14 2014 0:57 utc | 55
In short, he is spectacularly incompetent.There is no way that the current crisis is something he and Kerry desired. Nor is he being controlled by some behind the scenes force that pushed him in this direction.
This is the significance of the Bromwich piece -- he is signalling to a wide and influential audience that there is something seriously broke at the top. It is not at all clear that it can be fixed; all we can hope for is that he and Kerry can muddle through without letting this grow into a world-wide financial crisis or, worse, war.
Bullshit fucking shit. Need I really say more? I will.
So Obama's incompetent, huh? Like W was incompetent in waging his wars? Like Condi and Rumsfeld were incompetent during 9/11? Like the financial wizards were incompetent when they stole TRILLIONS of dollars from the people 6 years ago?
All of this "incompetence" that just happened to lead to the shredding of the world's legalistic frameworks going back not just 60 years but centuries, huh?
All of this "incompetence" that has only aggrandized the power and wealth of the .0000000001% of the people on this planet over and over and over and over again?
Man, that is some weird "incompetence" that always seems to work out for a handful of war criminals 100 times out of 100, huh?
Well, I guess it's ok that they committed all of those war crimes due to "incompetence". I mean, consciously deciding and ordering innocent people to be murdered for no reason sure seems like an "incompetent" thing to do, huh? Especially when it happens over and over again. F*cking incompetence. I hate that shit.
Obama is not being controlled, huh? So, then he could - I dunno - maybe fire, prosecute, call out these evil meanies who are messing with his incompetent mind? Or he's just too incompetent not to be able to fire/prosecute people?
Gee, I sure hope HILLARY is around. She's like real COMPETENT!!! HOORAY!!! SHE'LL FIX IT ALL!!!!!
So, the floundering and brainwashed "smart-set" has been pathetically reduced to arguing that their once beloved Obama is just - wait for it, suckers - incompetent like his predecessor W who took over from Slick Willy Clinton who - gee, wasn't he impeached because the meme was that HE WAS ALSO incompetent - who took over from wimpy George HW Bush who was - it's the economy stupid! - ALSO incompetent who took over from - do I even need to say anything?
This is EXACTLY why we as a society can no longer allow our minds to suck on this propaganda shit.
Here we have a collection of living breathing war criminals who not only destroyed the lives of thousands and thousands of innocent people but who have or will personally enrich themselves in the process and here we are PATHETICALLY discussing their INCOMPETENCY? THEIR INCOMPETENCY?!!!! Just because we're scared they may do some MORE INCOMPETENT DAMAGE?!!! Holy weak-ass shit.
I don't f*cking care if they committed this war crime or that war crime due to brilliance, incompetency, half-assedness, boredom etc because they are still war crimes in the end and that's all that should matter.
The US is illegally murdering/maiming/displacing people and destabilizing/destroying sovereign nations around the planet and our considerations of those actions MUST rise above the idiotic parameters the war criminals have set for our "debate" that focuses on ridiculous things like their competency.
Let their real lawyers - not the media and ESPECIALLY not regular peon citizens - argue for mitigating circumstance - e.g., incompetency, etc - we should be completely finished with validating the nonsense they dish out for intelligent people to chew on like their "true motives", "their abilities" and other such rot.
When crimes are being committed, it's time to ditch the whole "let's game this situation" nonsense and start talking like real civilized grown ups for a change and not infantilized morons talking about our favorite TV show characters and celebrities, ffs.
It's real simple. Someone acts like a pariah, treat them - and those who cover for them - like a fucking pariah. It is not that hard.
/rant
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 14 2014 1:11 utc | 56
[...] he is signalling to a wide and influential audience that there is something seriously broke at the top. It is not at all clear that it can be fixed; [...]Stupid can't be fixed.
For anyone prepared to go through the archives, to many of us here at the Moon it was painfully clear who and what Obama represents long before he ever set foot in the white house. His spineless and tacit approval as president elect of USrael's Dec 2008 murderous bombing campaign in Gaza was all the evidence needed to declare this man a soulless buffhead from the start. It went downhill from there.
To me quite frankly any presidential candidate not prepared once elected to revisit the 9/11 massacre can be written off as a puppet of those forces who orchestrated this monumental crime.
What is not mentioned often enough is how much truth there is in the old proverb 'people get the leaders they deserve'. Tell me what leader a country has and I tell you what its people are like. Much can be said about the mindset prevalent in the electorate of NATO countries who continuously vote in proven sociopaths ready to bomb foreign places at the drop of a hat.
Obama, the Bushs, the Clintons, are the personified expressions of the collective sentiment harbored by US voters. Rather than aim our view at those empty imperial suits at the top, far more important is to realise who has put them there. Unless and until the population as a whole is shaking off this idea they have the god given right to rule the world, they will always elect warmongering freaks prepared to walk over dead bodies. The responsibility lies ultimately with the people.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Mar 14 2014 2:25 utc | 57
There isn't much difference between J Sorrentine's analysis and any other form of anti-intellectualism.
Which means not opposition to intellectuals as a caste but, opposition to thought as a guide to action.
The role of the individual in history is not something fixed by rule. Systems and classes are made up of individuals, ideologies are developed by individuals, often auditioning for power and rewards before individuals acting on behalf of class interests, who guide the system.
The system does not run itself.
The thesis that Obama is incompetent is perfectly tenable. There is a wealth of evidence supporting it, and it will not dissolve because someone shouts at it or laughs at the very idea of its existence.
This may be news to J, and others, but the history of imperialism is rife with examples of incompetence in high places.
Some of the greatest, which is to say the most influential and revered among their peers, leaders have been the architects of spectacular disasters.
The fact that the system survived them does not, contrary to the Sorrentine school of logic, mean that they, far from being disasters were parts of cunning plots designed to give an implacable system an air of vulnerability, in order to...The possibilities are endless. But they always come down to the same thing: imperialism cannot be beaten.
Juan Moment explains why:
"...What is not mentioned often enough is how much truth there is in the old proverb 'people get the leaders they deserve'. Tell me what leader a country has and I tell you what its people are like. Much can be said about the mindset prevalent in the electorate of NATO countries who continuously vote in proven sociopaths ready to bomb foreign places at the drop of a hat...."
So "democracy" does work, is that the conclusion?
Remarkably it is precisely what the imperialists themselves tell us. It is what the apologists for Congress tell us. It is what at least five members of the Supreme Court tell us.
And it isn't true. I don't have to explain why-or do I?- because everyone here knows why what the Capitalist class call representative democracy is neither.
As to J's answer:
"It's real simple. Someone acts like a pariah, treat them - and those who cover for them - like a fucking pariah. It is not that hard."
I've tried it and it doesn't work. I've been giving Obama, just like I used to give Tony Blair, the pariah treatment for years. And neither pays me any heed. Call them thick skinned but they just persist in their evil ways. And yet there are millions like me and J.who despise them.
So, as you see, I'm reduced to doing what David Bromwich is doing: patiently explaining to anyone who will listen why I have concluded that these people are not what they are presented as being-(knowing as I do that J. Sorrentine and Juan Moment are either not convincing the population or don't have the ear of the masses)- but are nothing more than puppets acting for the Ruling Class. And I explain this by suggesting why this might be. And that could include psychology, horrible though the thought is.
The job of ridding the world of a dangerous and evil system of government, which I call Imperialism (because I'm not very inventive?), requires that we begin somewhere. And that place is where the great weight of humanity is. So we begin, (and this is a labour of Sysyphus, which requires repeated beginnings), by asking people what they think and proceeding from there.
Of course it is always tempting to tell the masses to shut the fuck up, because any fool can see that Obama is a war criminal and anyone who disagrees is just as bad as him, and if everyone just follows instructions-does what we tell them, and leaves the thinking to the ranters among us, everything will turn out great.
The only problem is that though nobody expects the masses to think they might have to give up their lives. In the meantime they will certainly have to give up a night a week for branch meetings, early mornings for newspaper sales, 20% of their income for funding the "party" and resign themselves to being blacklisted by employers, while their families, if they have any, live in poverty and constant apprehension of disaster.
It is tedious always to have to return to the same positions: some people regard the ruling class, its figureheads and creatures as being completely aware of the consequences of everything that they do. They see everything that happens as having been consciously planned and executed. What they do is evil.
Those brought up in religious cultures may recognise this sort of thinking.
The devil is everywhere, he is a fount of evil plans, inspiring evil deeds. And the way to deal with him is to denounce him. To expose the cloven hoof.
There can be no backsliding here, brothers and sisters, do not talk to the evil one.
Or to his servants because they are evil too. Oh ,there will be those, serpents tempting you-let us call them the "smart set"-who will tell you that we are dealing with capitalism and that it has contradictions to be exposed and probed, that it can be torn apart and a better world built.
But that is the devil's talk, too! There can be no compromise with evil! Do not be tempted by the smart set! You could end up thinking for yourselves. God knows you might end up thinking that you could play an equal part in ruling the world, organising your own lives.
Yes, friends, the "smart set" are clever, they are tempting you. But pay them no mind! Your brains aren't up to it. We have seen the mess that you make when given the chance: look at the wars that you have brought us, that you have imposed upon your poor hardworking leaders, enslaved by your blood lust and racism into attacking unoffending countries. Laying waste and mowing down the innocent in their thousands, yea, and tens of thousands, even unto millions!
Have faith and leave the thinking to your betters: you will recognise them by the violence of their ranting-the wrath of God is within them, brothers and sisters, Hallelujah.
(At which point members of the smart set slink out from the meeting house, pursued by an angry mob.)
Posted by: bevin | Mar 14 2014 3:46 utc | 58
guest77 #55
There is no doubt about this fact. Victoria Nuland is a neocon. She was an aid to Cheney in the previous admin. Hillary Clinton as Sec of State gave her the title of Assistant Secretary of State for Eurasian and European Affairs. That happens to be one very high level title. That means she owned the portfolio for Europe and Western Asia at State. Obama had to be utterly clueless if he had no idea how much damage Nuland could create from that position.
Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 14 2014 4:18 utc | 59
This has been a discussion about the nature of evil, which is always a worthy subject, at any time, at any place, under diverse circumstances. It is worth taking time with. This is not phenomenology; this subject does not make its home in the adrenal glands; and even thoughtful people who once sat around at night together under the stars, or who were perhaps in the barracks of a concentration camp under a collective sentence of death, are remembered for taking the time to talk quietly, and considerately to one another, about this.
We're looking at the nature of this destructive political alliance, this whole system, asking whether the apparatus of an authoritarian office like the presidency or the State department, has, since the establishment of the National Security State, been rigged in such a way, as to rewire the men who take hold of its reins. But as Chris Hedges has written "Those who are attracted to power are mediocre at best". And living through the tenure of a series of presidents, we have seen what the worst examples can be.
President Obama is not incompetent, if the criteria for competence is his purposeful aim toward the frightful gamble into which he has thrown our country, along with Europe, into possible war with Russia. I'd like to understand the trajectory of this madness.
When the president more or less convicted Pvt. Manning in the public forum, extemporaneously, without turning to the teleprompter for guidance, I would say that it was his own idea. I would say that the private, hidden Obama, thought all along that Manning deserved all the abuse he suffered in solitary, while in military custody. Obama, in my view, has left his personal stamp on the presidency, through his associate, the Attorney General, Holder. The war on whistle-blowers, an extravagant departure from precedent, driving the war wagon of the Espionage Act. All that reveals Obama, as I see it. And his private, secretive conclave with Hillary after the primary election was over: it cries out intentionality, strategy, personal style of governing, Hillary's designation as his hatchet person in the arena of vulnerable nations, and maybe even a quid pro quo, wherein he promised his support for 2016, for her future presidency.
A president who boasts that he's "good at killing people", to his staff, is surely the stuff of nightmares. And General Dempsey, grinning and announcing he's ready to go toe to toe with the Russkies: an about face, from the cold feet the military seemed to have during the crisis over Syria. And Secretary of State, John Kerry, whose whole demeanor seems to match a physical change, his face is transformed into a brutish mask.
What is going on with these men?
This may be news to J, and others, but the history of imperialism is rife with examples of incompetence in high places.
You're too effing smart and have read too many of my posts to consistently mischaracterize what I say so you can whip out your canned horseshit every time I want to rant about the war criminals leading the country I live in.
I've explained over and over and over again that we have too look at the actions of our war criminal leaders as BOTH the actions of a short-sighted criminals AND a cleverly and cunning system of efficient killing and theft.
If I am addressing the individual war criminals, I can use the incompetence "context" as it accurately captures the situation but ONLY TO AN EXTENT. Once people start to use the context of incompetence and other such personal failing as THE PRIMARY way in which to view our overlords it's time for someone to call bullshit as the observed data do no longer fit that model. What, does it make people feel good if incompetency is the sole/real cause? OHHHH I GET!!!! It reaffirms that little warm fuzzy feeling called hope once again. If these people are incompetent and that's the real reason for bad things then we - ooh, goodie - can STILL allow ourselves to be played like a bunch of schoolyard suckers when they roll out the NEXT "Hope and Change" campaign!! Partay!
To really capture the full extent of the criminal horrorshow that they've SUCCESSFULLY - mind you - rained down on millions of innocents, one - it is my belief - must also view the system as a devious whole that is ruthless, relentless - let's not have that convo again, kay - and efficient no matter how stupid the individuals involved might be. This model successfully captures how from the elite points of view - in many respects - things could not be better.
Both models are needed to look at the situation correctly and I've said that repeatedly.
So to incorrectly try to paraphrase me - again - so that it justifies and vindicates your PERSONAL decision to engage the brain-washed masses among whom we live with the exact same sort of mealy-mouthed pabulum that has clogged the fake left airways for decades is not only unfair to me but self-serving. Way to go, big guy. A two-fer.
I also really enjoy your defense of the present state of things. If I was going to write a parody trying to capture the pure essence of bourgeois apologetic I don't that I could do better than your likening one person's heatedly pointing out how poorly served the masses - and the rest of humanity - have been by the "smart set" in their acquiescence war crimes to the creation of a mass religious movement that will inevitably lead to another Reign of Terror (Pol Pot version of course).
(BTW, I'm sure I've mentioned that I am a Marxist but don't worry, that would just ruin your attempt at satire or something.)
Continuing: Yes, I mean, it's not like we REALLY ARE talking about the destruction of millions of people's lives etc and the near blanket silence we have received from the smart set or if not silence than active mitigation and amelioration/normalization of those crimes.
Or have I just not been reading The Nation closely enough to get the sophisticated send-up they are doing of looking like a bunch of self-satisfied non-conscientious bourgeois enablers of all of this criminality?
Is that it? That I've just allowed myself to get too angry about all the needless death that I'm missing the brilliant satire of the rascally hidden American left that is such a "smart-set" that I can only dimly perceive their fiery moral outrage?
Hahahahaahaha, Jsorrentine is - get this - mad and upset that so many people have been needlessly murdered!!He would like people to actually start viewing - snicker - the crimes - chortle - of the war criminal rulers of the US - kneeslap - as the OUTRAGEOUS CRIMES THEY ACTUALLY ARE IN REALITY!!!!
What, doesn't he know to calmly discuss such things over tea like we've always done?
I've tried it and it doesn't work.
Well, then I guess I should just not be pissed anymore about murder and won't try to communicate that rage since one anonymous person on one discussion board told me that I would better get my message across if I would - not shut up, necessarily - just tone it down to acceptable levels so that reasonable people like the ones he himself has quietly spoken to won't get discomfited.
Smart-set indeed.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 14 2014 5:09 utc | 61
Pirouz_2 #53 and #54 I have to agree with you. Those politicians, both in Iran and in the US, are playing roles and they must all hide their real feelings to fulfill those roles. The big problem is the US is, given that it is the most powerful country on earth -- there are no longer competing super powers, there is only the US hyper power. Given that the policies of that singular power flow through Obama and Kerry we really have to pay attention to their intelligence, personalities and possible psychotic tendencies.
I really would like a system where a minor folk like myself could influence events but currently that does not seem possible (I will admit that I am part of the problem in that I remain silent in my professional life, but my salary and pension are at risk if I become to vocal).
There is a big problem inside the political life of the US. It really struck me reading one of Chalmer Johnson's books (the second of his "blowback" trilogy in the last years of his life) where he said that politics in the US is so broken that it cannot be repaired short of a major calamity that would shock every American to their core. He mentioned two: one was the bankruptcy of the US, probably after the loss of the US dollar as the reserve currency and the other was catastrophic defeat of the US military in some foreign war.
I happen to agree with Johnson, but that is not advice I can follow -- it is unlikely I will live that long and until then I will try to reform the system.
Also thanks to other participants here -- Bevin, Copeland, Juan and Guest -- there have been some interesting comments. Too bad we just peons on the outside looking in.
Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 14 2014 5:16 utc | 62
[...] any other form of anti-intellectualism. Which means not opposition to intellectuals as a caste but, opposition to thought as a guide to action. [...]Bevin, in my opinion what you wrote here is nonsense. The problem is that two crucial elements in your "thought as a guide to action" are missing: thought and action.
If anything the exact opposite is true. What is most frustrating is that despite overwhelming evidence clearly showing most senators, reps or presidents being nothing more than enablers of this anti-social plutocratic killer system, there is no 'thought' amongst the electorate. If there was and it is indeed guiding their actions, say when they re-elect the same bunch of idiots over and over again, one doesn't have to be 'anti-intellectual' to be not impressed with the quality of said thought.
[...] The thesis that Obama is incompetent is perfectly tenable. There is a wealth of evidence supporting it, and it will not dissolve because someone shouts at it or laughs at the very idea of its existence. [...]Has it occurred to you that people can be both, incompetent and depraved enough to intentionally blow up human beings? No one denies that Obomber is incompetent, what is argued here is that in addition his personality has all the properties required to order executions of innocent people all over the world and still manage to fall asleep with a smile.
[...] Of course it is always tempting to tell the masses to shut the fuck up, because any fool can see that Obama is a war criminal and anyone who disagrees is just as bad as him, [...]What are you smoking man? The core message is to speak the fuck up, and I mean not by writing essays explaining Obama's dirty deeds away as him guided by incompetence clumsily ending up as the one who has to take responsibility for circumstances he never wanted to arise.
[...] some people regard the ruling class, its figureheads and creatures as being completely aware of the consequences of everything that they do. [...]Presidents, chancellors, prime ministers get briefings from their numerous teams of so called experts tasked with playing through various scenarios. Only apologists for their criminal actions would argue that no one could have foreseen that decisions taken would cause events to unfold as they did.
Besides, any preschool kid can figure out that when a president gives orders to bomb villages or allows his quislings to plan violent coups there will be death and mayhem.
I seem to remember a Canadian diplomat once said he came to the conclusion that it is not as he first thought that politicians have good intentions but act on bad information. Its the other way round, he found that most politicians have bad intentions and good information. From my understanding and observation, he may well be right.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Mar 14 2014 5:33 utc | 63
Adding:
Of course it is always tempting to tell the masses to shut the fuck up, because any fool can see that Obama is a war criminal and anyone who disagrees is just as bad as him, and if everyone just follows instructions-does what we tell them, and leaves the thinking to the ranters among us, everything will turn out great.
Yes, yes, bevin, in your fantasy world the most effective propaganda system the world has even seen - y'know, the one that gets people psyched to carry out unnecessary murder time and again, the one that gets people to actively vote against their own self-interests, the one that actually gets people to believe in voting, the one that gets people to NOT understand that they are actively being stolen from - just doesn't exist.
Nope, people spend their copious amounts of free time just sitting at the local agora calmly debating and reasoning with each other waiting for the best of rational arguments to percolate to the top of their conversational agendas all the while our leaders wait for the commoners to come to a decision before they then can take some carefully weighed action.
No, by Apollo, this is how it must be and ranters are not actually people who are f*cking sick of needless death and murder, why, they're actually people who are trying to rule your life. That's the ticket.
Never mind that the ranter may be trying to draw attention to things that somehow get lost in the hurricane of propaganda and idyllic discussions of the processed masses, what a ranter is really trying to do is tell you how to live your life.
That's right. One person on one board is EQUAL to the murderous propaganda of the entire system. Remember: the system allows us now to calmly and quietly discuss things. Let us not endanger that freedom.
So beware, gentle shepherds, first the ranter will try to tell you to pay attention to murder and destruction, that they are the most evil of crimes and should always be vilified.
Next, he will ration your food stuffs and make you mate with your cousin!
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 14 2014 5:45 utc | 64
52/52 ToivoS, Pirouz_2
Of course. The necessary qualification of a politician is to be able to sell policies.
They do not make them.
So Obama is very good in popular culture and knows everything about Democrats and their donors. Of course he is not interested in Ukraine.
It is not to the advantage of politicians to go into a fight with the power centers of a country. Best to let them fight it out amongst themselves, go with the winning side and be nice to the losers.
To play tough is only possible in foreign policy.
Policies are made where government closely mixes with business. In the US (and Iran) that would be - above all - the military and security. So Obama shows he can give the order to kill and clamps down on whistle blowers. There is more to the Manning case - Manning showed graphically - the facts were known before - what the US army did in Iraq and what Obama did not prosecute - or stop. Manning was bad for Obama's (and US) image. But in the end - Obama works with Bill Clinton's triangulation. It is calculated.
Obama has not the slightest chance to change hard facts. Organizations have a life of their own.
For example like this:
According to a preview of the book in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper:The September 11 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, was retaliation by Islamist militants who had been targeted by covert U.S. military operations.
The book claims that neither Stevens nor even Petraeus knew about the raids by American special operations troops, which had ‘kicked a hornet’s nest’ among the heavily-armed fighters after the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser, had been authorizing ‘unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure,’ according to the e-book. Brennan is Obama’s pick to replace Petraeus as head of the CIA.
If true, much would be explained about why the Benghazi consulate was targeted and why the administration has been so anxious to avoid congressional and media scrutiny of the first assassination of a U.S. ambassador in over 30 years.
The book’s authors also claim that:
Senior CIA officers targeted Petraeus [for exposure] because they didn’t like the way he was running the agency — focusing more on paramilitary operations than intelligence analysis. They used their political clout and their connections to force an FBI investigation of his affair with Paul Broadwell and make it public . . .
“It was high-level career officers on the CIA who got the ball rolling on the investigation. It was basically a palace coupe to get Petraeus out of there,’ Jack Murphy, one of the authors, told MailOnline. . . .
“It was well known to Petraeus’s Personal Security Detachment (bodyguards) that he and Broadwell were having an affair. He wasn’t the only high-ranking Agency head or general engaged in extramarital relations, but when the 7th floor wanted Petraeus out, they cashed in their chips,” Webb and Murphy write. . . .
“It’s almost like they wanted him not just to resign but that they wanted him kicked out of the political game for at least a number of years,” Murphy told MailOnline. . . .
The authors say that Kelley’s report may have started in the FBI investigation — but CIA officers pressured the Justice Department to keep the inquiry open. . . .
Petraeus was furious, they say, because he was kept in the dark about the raids being conducted without his knowledge by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) across Libya and North Africa.
Webb and Murphy claim that the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate and a CIA outpost in Benghazi proved to Petraeus that he was an outsider in the Obama administration and that he would remain marginalized as long as he was at the CIA.
A lot of fact-checking will have to be done to substantiate the claims by Webb and Murphy. But from my own reporting, I have learned that no one runs afoul of senior CIA officials — or John Brennan — lightly or without peril. CIA officials angry at the Bush administration’s treatment of the agency in 2006 helped elevate the Valerie Plame affair into a national scandal and crippled much of the White House’s ability to conduct foreign policy. In the end, there was precious little evidence of any real security breach or wrongdoing beyond a perjury conviction of Scooter Libby, a top aide to Vice President Cheney.
Obama's achievement - and that really is an achievement - is to be the first US president of mixed race. And that sure was not easy.
Political change needs the change of society first.
Posted by: somebody | Mar 14 2014 6:38 utc | 65
surely somebody (#65) is joking? has he missed the fact that racial/sexual/ethnic identity politics is of the essence of the witches' brew the US is serving up at home and abroad, with which nothing could be more compatible than this "achievement" of Obama?
no doubt "somebody" will hail the "achievement" of the first woman (Hillary?) president as she ramps up the policies of her predecessors, eliciting squeals of joy from liberal imperialists everywhere
"The Crimean population has reason to fear that their elected President was illegally deposed not for his kleptocracy, but as part of a regional and ethnic identity politics of the sort that the Americans are sponsoring throughout the world, from the Shite/Sunni split to similar splits in countries they seek to control."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/03/ukrainian-hangovers/
. . .the problem with a notion of equality or social justice that’s rooted in the perspectives of multiculturalism and diversity is that from those perspectives you can have a society that’s perfectly just if less than 1 percent of the population controls 95 percent of the stuff, so long as that one percent is half women and 12 percent black, and 12 percent Latino and whatever the appropriate numbers are gay. Now that’s a problem.
Like in black politics, for instance, the subtle shift from a notion of equality that’s anchored in the political economy to a notion of equality that tends to a norm of parity has been a really important shift.
Posted by: Cu Chulainn | Mar 14 2014 8:25 utc | 66
Or have I just not been reading The Nation closely enough to get the sophisticated send-up they are doing of looking like a bunch of self-satisfied non-conscientious bourgeois enablers of all of this criminality?
I think its Counterpunch you should be reading, if you want to hear the authentic voice of smug pseudo-interlectual utterly ineffectual wankers that the genuine working classes would run a mile from
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 10:18 utc | 67
Obama's achievement - and that really is an achievement - is to be the first US president of mixed race. And that sure was not easy.Political change needs the change of society first.
Posted by: somebody | Mar 14, 2014 2:38:07 AM | 65/
Quick, pass the puke bucket.
An it sure weren't easy
No siree
All he had to do was signal that hes prepared to murder as many people as his masters require, without a moments hesitation.
Now surely those deaths are worth it, if they are ordered by "the 1st US Prez of mixed reace"
Horray for the US and Obama, they're not just murderous fuckheads, theyre equal opportuniy nonracist, gender-neutral murderous fuckheads.
What a f'n retarded opinion to even have, let alone give voice to
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 10:32 utc | 68
bevin (58)
There isn't much difference between J Sorrentine's analysis and any other form of anti-intellectualism.
Which means not opposition to intellectuals as a caste but, opposition to thought as a guide to action.
Oh well, just count me in there, right next to JSorrentine.
There's a reason I chose the "Pragma" in my nickname. Not that I'm in any way opposed to "intellectual" in the original meaning of that term. But I'm
massively annoyed by "intellectuals" arguing over detail issues they themselves created in the first place, while millions and millions of real (physical)
people see their life earnings burning away or simply stolen, if they are lucky, that is; if they are less lucky they're part of the millions and millions
of people who get shot, bombed, missiled, shred, and pissed on when they're dead.
And all that while some "intellectuals" argue over the details of something being slighty less bourgeois or slighty more ideologically right or whether Nietzsche influenced some politician or ideology more than lenin.
And, in fact, I got reprimanded for being a human being. I really and seriously got reprimanded by you and other "intellectuals" here for being a human being, venting my perfectly justified anger over all the suffering, pain, and damage that was - and is right now - created by *ultracriminal piles of bio-waste* - to call them human I refuse.
The funny thing being that the "intellectuals" are an actively co-operative wheel in the machinery that so easily takes millions of lifes, that so easily
makes billions of life unpleasant, that create so much damage, that destroy places of millenia old high culture to make room for a football field or a mc donalds for the bio-waste tools of the criminal bio-waste.
The "intellectuals" are actively co-operating wheels of the machinery because they *talk* about "human values" and "acting humanely" and they theoretically
refuse evil deeds, but then they ponder fucking irrelevant micro-details of this or that "school of thought", or worse, this or that political concept ... while bio-waste like nuland, obama, merkel, hollande, mc cain't prepare end enact their moves.
There are billions of human voting, working, consuming bots out there who unfortunately lack the brains and/or the opportunity to understand the cruel
system and its luring games like democracy in which they, the 99.999% are meant to never ever achieve any not insignificant level of participation, of a good life, of wealth, of education or, satan beware, of power.
They are in urgent need of real intellectuals, i.e. of bright people, capable to understand what's going on, to stand aside the 99.999%, of explaining, of educating and, most importantly, to fight for some freedom for the masses.
But alas, no, the "intellectuals" prefer to wank over minutiae and microdetails, over issues like "is rice bigger an influence (on whomever) than krauthammer?".
And you reprimand me? Seriously? So, we finally achieved the point where "intellectual" but co-operative theoretical minutiae pondering bots feel free to judge people like me?
Pardon me, but I sometimes can't but worry whether the "good intellectuals" who are, oh soooo opposed to any and all negative concepts, and who are, oh soooo much on the side of good and right ... aren't more dangerous than the obamas and merkels who, after all, act quite openly rassistic, inhuman, and despicable.
Let me let you in on a secret: No amount of intellectual pondering will stop the criminal murderers and traitors and nazis in kyiv. Bullets, however will. And reliably so.
Similarly no amount of intellectual pondering will stop the ultra-criminal satanist gang in washington. Sunken war ships, missiles into their bases (thousands of miles away from zusa), and finally, bullets right into their heads *will* stop them.
No doubt, you have the right to think and to opine and say whatever you please. And so do I.
Don't you ever again dare to reprimand me, intellectual! But feel absolute free to consider me anti-intellectual. I couldn't care less.
Ceterum censeo israel americanamque vehementer delenda esse.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Mar 14 2014 11:39 utc | 69
No doubt, you have the right to think and to opine and say whatever you please. And so do I.
there's the thing though
he doesn't actually think that you have the right to have and voice your own opinion.
If he could shut you up, he would - since he cannot physically do that (yet) he settle for trying to slander you with his insidious labelling which he uses in the hope that others will ignore what you say because he and his pseudo-interlectual ilk have labelled it outside the bounds of rational polite discourse
And when that doesn't shut you up he'll try deliberately mis-stating what you have said, like he did with JSorrentine above
And if that doesn't work he'll eventually resort to outright lying
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 11:54 utc | 70
oh soooo opposed to any and all negative concepts, and who are, oh soooo much on the side of good and right ... aren't more dangerous than the obamas and merkels who, after all, act quite openly rassistic, inhuman, and despicable.
yep - gimme an honest bigot anyday - at least you know what you're dealing with
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 11:58 utc | 71
brb (70)
No doubt, you have the right to think and to opine and say whatever you please. And so do I.there's the thing though
he doesn't actually think that you have the right to have and voice your own opinion.
If he could shut you up, he would - since he cannot physically do that (yet) he settle for trying to slander you with his insidious labelling which he uses in the hope that others will ignore what you say because he and his pseudo-interlectual ilk have labelled it outside the bounds of rational polite discourse
And when that doesn't shut you up he'll try deliberately mis-stating what you have said, like he did with JSorrentine above
And if that doesn't work he'll eventually resort to outright lying
I know my IQ, I know my cognitive abilities, and I have lots and lots of experience with people who, for one reason or another, employ diverse tactics to suppress or bend or ridicule opinions hey don't like. I don't want to lack modesty but so far I have had reason to be content with the results, theirs and mine.
I btw. do not think that bevin is a professional or even just evil minded hit-guy. It's worse; I'm pretty convinced that he actually believes what he thinks and says.
Two things that come to mind.
- I prefer every day a real gangster, say a bank robber, over a convinced to be right aggressor. With a gangster you can discuss and deal ("Let the hostages go and we will not shoot you and give you a milder jail term") because he knows that he's a gangster. With the terrorist who actually believes to be right and to do a good thing when bombing a bus full of people, there is no reasonable discussion or negotiation.
- "Simple minded people think the world is a very complex place. Half bright and educated poeple think the world is a very complex place but that they are capable to understand and manipulate it. Only wise men see that the world is a place looking very complex but working according to very simple principles which are interwoven in delicate ways." (some old buddhist monk)
democracy, propaganda, brainwashing, social manipulation, and the like; following simple laws of how humans tick, e.g. group adherence. Or "the larger any given group the lower its intelligence" which comes to explain a whole lot about democracy which, after all, is a system that is designed and guaranteed to create the largest group possible. zeu and similar constructs are so attractive for the zio criminals because they create even larger - and dumber - groups that are even easier to manipulate and remote control.
Religion, family, and other core fibers of a healthy society are attacked for one simple reason: in order to create even more easily manipulatable bot groups.
Them "intellectuals" are put into a seemingly complex situation with lots of attractive (to them) diversions so as to keep them busy and completely irrelevant - and out of the game; self occupied they don't pose any danger anymore and won't and can't educate and help the people (whom they'll consider inferior rather soon anyway).
I don't think they are any similar to b. b, after all, created and runs MoA and, very importantly, puts spots of light and attention on dark corners that otherwise might stay unnoticed comfy places for vipers.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Mar 14 2014 13:15 utc | 72
I btw. do not think that bevin is a professional or even just evil minded hit-guy. It's worse; I'm pretty convinced that he actually believes what he thinks and says.
Neither do I -
unlike bevin I don't need to go inventing lies about people I disagree with - I leave that to bevin and his little coterie of dishonest & completely ineffectual armchair "revolutionaries". Completely amatuer propagandists imo. Simply highlighting their own words is usually more than enough to completely discredit them in the eyes of any rational person.
I don't think they are any similar to b. b, after all, created and runs MoA and, very importantly, puts spots of light and attention on dark corners that otherwise might stay unnoticed comfy places for vipers.
I agree - and for saying it I'll probably be accused of "sucking up" or some other moronic accusation that the liars invent - cos that's how they roll, apparently
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 13:33 utc | 73
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/03/14/354653/russia-not-to-bow-to-us-over-ukraine/
PCR is a man of absolute truth , the SATANIC triangle of war and destruction is preparing for its final WAR , SATAN vs the survival of mankind.....
Posted by: Sufi | Mar 14 2014 15:28 utc | 74
What has gone wrong, Mr. Pragma?--will you be eating someone's lung soon?
Your adrenal glands are spewing all over the thread. You would prefer just to rub out our conversation, as far as I can tell.
But no thank you, I can see that it's best to keep thinking. The world will always be simple in the Pragma brain; within the dark and base emotions that will remain satisfying and stimulating, and keep your hate alive, if not your soul. Please forgive us if we don't stand in line impatiently with you, for the first opportunity to roil our hands in blood. Dear God, man! You have gone off your rocker so violently, that the rockers have completely detached from the chair.
Copeland
Wow, the "eating lung" association. Another way of saying that you are empty brained and have no other means available than to paint someone into the Hitler or the lung-eater corner.
And that from a retard that has a little A. Politkovskaya memorial and some mandela admiration corner on his hope page - of course not knowing and even less understanding even the tiniest part. The fact that mandela was very active in anc, a mass murder organisation, has escaped copeland as has the strong hint of lots of other mass murderers like obama coming together to praise the dead mandela.
Don't worry, I won't eat your lungs. I'd be turned off by all the dirt in you.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Mar 14 2014 18:07 utc | 76
Mr Pragma, you are clearly an unprincipled polemicist, who wants to put a brake on civilized conversation of any kind.
I was responding because you bathe in the use of "vermin and scum" and every word that has long associations, with starting people down the road of totalitarian mind control. Also you succumb to, and increasingly are injecting into these threads, what the respected American historian, David Neiwert, calls "eliminationist language" which he rightly classifies as a language of the fascist mind. And I notice, over time, that your derangement is becoming worse.
So bevin has called you on this, as well, but you act like you can't remember what you write, and won't own up, or ever even modify some of your tedious diatribes. We know that dehumanization is always inculcated in language, before calls for extermination go out. And I have been reading what you write, and you are making this stuff programmatic. And I don't think you are fooling many here. You have let your hostility escape to a degree that is unhealthy to say the least. You have given yourself over to hatefulness. You have surrendered unconditionally to the reign of beasts.
We have all, from time time, surrendered to rants; but those who ride those rants on a permanent basis, engage in undisciplined thought, and this polemic drains their words of all meaning over time.
Copeland
We know that dehumanization is always inculcated in language
I knew that you are an idealistic idiot propagating zionist bullshit, possibly even not evil spirited but simply stupid enough to believe in all that democracy and non-discrimination bullshit.
Thanks for confirming my suspicion.
Oh and feel free to consider me anything you please, Nazi, communist, anti-gay, whatever fits your needs.
My grandmother always used to say "Try to not step on ants. But their names you do not need to know".
Ceterum censeo israel americanamque vehementer delenda esse!
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Mar 14 2014 19:55 utc | 78
Copeland, thanks for saying the obvious. When Mr P enters a thread it does discourage others -- who likes getting in a pissing match with a skunk? Unfortunately, he seems to have picked up an accomplice.
Posted by: ToivoS | Mar 14 2014 20:22 utc | 80
Who's gonna fire Brennen?
He probably has enough dirt on all these sacks of shit in DC that he could flush the whole bag of maggots with just one well placed leak to the media. He ain't going anywhere.
Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Mar 14 2014 20:29 utc | 81
ToivoS,
Thanks for the heads up. It's easy to fall into the trap. And thanks also for great commentary, I always enjoy reading your posts.
Copeland and ToivoS
Well spoken! Always keep our interests in mind!
Posted by: PM Netanyahu | Mar 14 2014 20:54 utc | 83
We know that dehumanization is always inculcated in language, before calls for extermination go out.
ARGGGGHHHHH!!!
And here's where we get to listen to a screechy - yet chock of full of nonsense - explanation as to WHY the leftist "smart-set" are such a bunch of GODDAMNED F*CKING PUSSIES who won't take principled stands on anything yet continue to claim that the high-brow "conversations" and "debates" they engage in are actually worthwhile and not complete effing wastes of everyone's time.
See, it's not because the fake leftists are really and truly afraid of being called radicals and actually calling the powers TPTB a bunch of murderous war criminals which might jeopardize their bourgeois livelihoods and get them un-friended on FB. Nope. Don't think that!!!
It's because they're just plain SMARTER and WISER than the rest of us leftists and they just KNOW FOR A FACT - reading books and whatnot - that once someone starts calling bullshit and naming names why it's just a hop, skip and a lamp post before your sister's manning the guillotine, right?
Holy fuck, what a bunch of pathetic sickening horseshit.
Hmmm, I'm trying to think of a good epithet - here comes the dehumanization, the horror - analogous to "Uncle Tom" that captures the completely subservient mindset of the fake left "smart set".
Y'know, a person who is so terrified of being called "uppity n*gger" by their overlords that instead they'll go the OTHER ROUTE and wholesale adopt the nonsense intellectual/social/moral confines of said overlords.
Wait, wait, JRantingtine, if you are going to speak within our earshot about the unfairness of things, don't you think you should tone it down a bit so you don't get your kind all "riled up"?
Look at Uncle Toivos and how mild and sweetly he talks about working within the system! You should use Uncle Toivos as the model for future conversations - if you must have them, I guess - about things we don't talk about in polite society.
Come now, JRantingtine, when you continue to speak that way don't you know it "dehumanizes" ALL of us? Why, you don't want me to have to take time away from my job of needlessly murdering men women and children around the planet to teach you a lesson about morality and humanism do you?
Look at Uncle Copeland and how quietly he stands there proud of the kind of humanity we are busy upholding. He's learned that if your type of people get uppity and start talking about dehumanizing then we - your betters - will be just forced to blow your fucking faces - and the faces of your wives and children - off in the street like we have already done thousands and thousands of times around the globe.
Now, what do you say? Are you going to dehumanize us anymore?
Retarded.
So, instead of calling TPTB on their obvious bullshit propaganda-pushed paranoia about the "evil-doers" and "terra terra terra" and that whole bunch of bullshit instilled since 9/11 what my favorite Uncles suggest is that we actually BUY INTO the selfsame bullshit paranoia and start censoring ourselves because - as they tell us time and time again - our complaining/ranting about murder and war crimes is really the gateway drug to actually carrying out our own mass murders?
You can never be to sure!!! One day he was ranting on the Internet, the next why he set up his own Killing Fields and wiped out 3 million innocent souls!!!
But that's EXACTLY how it starts mildly suggest the Uncles Tom. But that's exactly how it starts.
Rubbish. Trash. F*cking garbage.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Mar 14 2014 21:17 utc | 84
What has gone wrong, Mr. Pragma?--will you be eating someone's lung soon?
Your adrenal glands are spewing all over the thread. You would prefer just to rub out our conversation, as far as I can tell.
Posted by: Copeland | Mar 14, 2014 1:50:26 PM | 75
See?
Told you it wouldn't take them long to get around to that sort of pathetic childish dishonesty
All that is required to discredit these people is to simply quote their own words.
Nothing more nothing less.
and when that sort of thing won't shut you up, Pragma, they'll just start outright lying - predictable as the tides, that lot. Imagine what they'd do to you if they gained power tomorrow, with their little noggins full of revenge fantasies
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 21:36 utc | 85
Yes, you are a great one for "names" Pragma. Everything for you is a spitting contest.
Posted by: Copeland | Mar 14, 2014 4:05:50 PM | 79
Scored an 11 on the Hypocrisy-ometer there Copey - and from the guy that introduced 'lung eating' into the conversation - well done!
of course he feels fully justified in that cos in good old Trotsky/Alinsky-ite fashion his hypocrisy is for a noble cause dontcha know
And Dave Neiwert?
A professional hitman for the Zio-run Anti-Semitism-industry.
Not at all surprising he's a hero of yours
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 21:45 utc | 86
brb
Not meaning to be picky but our conversation was about grown up men, maybe sometimes led a little astray men or about men who sometimes write bullshit, but anyway about grown up men.
Those two here are not men. They are just helpless retards hoping to gain some significance by trying to get some attention from someone like myself.
Shutting me up? Funny idea.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Mar 14 2014 21:57 utc | 87
brb can you provide a link for your disgusting slander against David Neiwert? I bet you can't, dear coyote.
"Zio-run Anti-Semitism industry"? Now you guys are just getting careless. You'll give yourselves away.
polite "Left" intellectuals in US and Europe, in Germany most flagrantly, seem to conceive their role as that of Gedankpolizei
nothing against policemen, but they rarely have anything interesting to say
Posted by: Cu Chulainn | Mar 14 2014 22:25 utc | 89
Copey
Another 11 on the hypocrisyometer?
You're really outdoing yourself in the old hypocrisy today, eh?
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 22:51 utc | 90
Whats really funny is that you think that if you insert the phrase "disgusting slander" into your comment that everyone will suddenly magically just forget that you are an astounding hypocrite that himself spins a fine line in "disgusting slander."
You must think everyone is blind or has the memory-span of a goldfish
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 23:08 utc | 92
88
Ok ok there's no well financed zio run anti-semitism industry.
Groups like The ADL are mere figments of our over active imaginations
Thanks for setting us straight on that sport.
Another invaluable contribution to the debate from our dear non-hypocritical friend Mr Copey
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 23:12 utc | 93
Oh and the PM of Ukraine, old Yats, wasn't newly installed by a combination of Neo-nazi and Zio-nazi street thugs. Never happened I guess
Oh and only 3 of his grandparents are alleged to be jewish, not all 4, so thats alright then
Oh and the hungarian Right wing politician ranting against jews a few years back, that was exposed as having jewish grand/parents ? that never happened either
And the Canadian Nazi party was never at any time being helped run by a guy in the pay of Canadian Zionists, that never happened either.
And the US nazi party? also never run by anyone that turned out to be quite jewish, nope, never happened
And Adam Gadahn, famous al queada spokesman, certainly his original name was never Adam Pearlman, right? and even if it was, he was certainly no relation to a board member of the ADL, right?
Right Copey?
Clearly no such thing as a zio-run anti-semitism industry.
No siree
Perish the thought.
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 23:32 utc | 94
And though I have read plenty from Mr Neiwert, i didn't learn any of the reading Mr Neiwert.
Which ain't a surprise really cos Mr Neiwert aint at all interested in that sort of history.
In fact if you or Mr Neiwert had your way no one would ever get to hear such history
Posted by: brb | Mar 14 2014 23:37 utc | 95
Just in case anyone is interested in the actual subject matter of this post . . .
We have a clear, unequivocal prediction from MofA: I would be astonished if Brennan manages to survive in that role beyond Friday afternoon. It will be the coverup, not the crime, that will do him in.
Today is Monday.
Just sayin'.
OK, philistines . . . back to your "dialog."
Posted by: b. jeebus | Mar 17 2014 15:10 utc | 96
The comments to this entry are closed.
But...but...but who will supervise Barry if Brennan is gone? Who will fill the leadership void, since Obama is obviously incapable of leading himself?
Unless a strong heir apparent has been fully groomed, there will have to be a strong distraction, as you say, that will allow Brennan to stick around.
Posted by: JohnH | Mar 11 2014 14:41 utc | 1