MoA - Open Thread 2016-40

December 03, 2016

Open Thread 2016-40

News & views ...

Posted by b on December 3, 2016 at 15:46 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Clinton emails - The struggle of Italy to follow the Western neo-colonial race over the Libyan corpse

Posted by: nmb | Dec 3 2016 16:20 utc | 1

sst comment -
"b

Well, if you looked at it and decided against it why am I wasting my time? "unlike the U.S. military which is used to destroys foreign cities without much thought of the aftermath" Always with the nasty, sneering, condescending attitude toward us. I remind you that it was the BRITISH army that destroyed your grandparents house, not the US Army. pl"

and the usa has learned and followed the british in so many of it's imperialist ways caring the mantel for empire building forward into the 20th and 21st century.. enough of british or american bullshit..

Posted by: james | Dec 3 2016 16:39 utc | 2

carrying -

Posted by: james | Dec 3 2016 16:41 utc | 3

@ james who wrote " and the usa has learned and followed the british in so many of it's imperialist ways caring the mantel for empire building forward into the 20th and 21st century.. enough of british or american bullshit."

I keep trying to point out that these nations are proxies for the global plutocrats that own private finance and everything else. That is the social cancer we need to eliminate. The British people are not all bad any more than all Americans but all of private finance is bad and has been for centuries.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 3 2016 17:10 utc | 4

"the stat made war and war made the state.”
Lords of ‘Pride and Plunder’ by Robert Bartlett
The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government
by Thomas N. Bisson
Princeton University Press, 677 pp., $39.50

One of the major institutions of pre-industrial society, and one that makes it hard for people in the modern Western world fully to grasp the past, is lordship. Lordship means a personal bond, reciprocal but not equal, tying inferiors to superiors, bringing the latter a power over the former that modern democratic and egalitarian ideologies would abhor. We are not accustomed to address others as “Master” or “Mistress,” “My Lord” or “My Lady.”
Of course modern Western societies are not communities of equals. Vast differences in wealth and access to education exist. But the world of lordship embraced and endorsed those differences. Hierarchy was a valued ideal, and some people considered themselves better born than others—remember those nineteenth-century novels with characters “of good family.” The aristocrats (“aristocracy” means “rule by the best”) did not court their inferiors. They ruled them, and, if they were just and well disposed, they protected them and furthered their interests. This is what “good lordship” meant. Not all lords, of course, were good. Submission to cruel, arbitrary, or unhinged masters could mean misery or death. Much of the savagery of the French Revolution is to be explained by the fact that thousands of peasants had suffered just such a submission.
Thomas Bisson’s new book concerns itself with lordship, that all-pervasive institution, in a formative period of European history, the twelfth century (or rather the “long twelfth century,” starting well before 1100 and continuing after 1200). It is an age that evokes for many the majesty of the great cathedrals, like Chartres and Canterbury, the rise of a new kind of intellectual inquiry, embodied in the questing spirit of Abelard or the emergence of the first universities, and the flourishing of the love lyrics of the troubadours and the tales of Arthurian romance. There is even the (now well established but initially paradoxical) notion of “the Twelfth-Century Renaissance.” This book, however, presents a different, and much darker, twelfth century.
Bisson, professor of medieval history emeritus at Harvard, is one of the leading historians of the Middle Ages. His early work concentrated on Catalonia, a region with particularly rich archival sources from this period; he has continually expanded both his geographical range and the breadth of the historical questions he asks. In the 1990s he was a participant in a lively debate on the so-called “Feudal Revolution,” the theory that a transformation in the patterns of power and authority took place in Europe in the decades around the year 1000. In those years it was argued that older, official, and public structures of justice and administration were replaced by new, more violent, and more localized forms, based on strongmen and their fortresses.
In his new book many of the elements of that “Feudal Revolution” recur, now extended to a later period. Bisson’s summary of developments in Catalonia in the years 1020 to 1060 presents such a picture very clearly: there was “a terrifying collapse of public justice and the imposition of a new order of coercive lordship over an intimidated peasantry.” Moving on into the twelfth century, the model is still recognizable: there is an “old passing world” ruled by a few nobles, and a “burgeoning new world” of “vicious men,” castle-lords and knights prepared to use violence against the despised peasantry. This book is indeed an extended discussion of the issues arising from that earlier debate. Bisson acknowledges that it is “not a systematic treatise, still less a textbook,” and those unfamiliar with the period may soon be lost. The book is an interpretation, an individual assessment of European history of that period, one that takes a stand on a dozen debated issues, often in implicit dialogue with other scholars. The main topics are lordship, violence, and the state.
Lordship was a building block of most societies until relatively recently—serfdom was abolished in Russia only in 1861. Such societies were distinguished by extreme inequalities, made visible by costume and gestures, like bowing and doffing of hats, and often supported by belief in hereditary superiority and inferiority of blood. Collective groupings existed, but were not powerful, and conflict and ambition were channeled more by vertical than horizontal solidarities: retainers, servants, and other followers and dependants sought patronage from the great, not action alongside their peers. At the highest level, lesser aristocrats became followers of great aristocrats, who themselves would be competing for the ruler’s favor. Costume dramas set in Tudor England, like Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth, convey some of the flavor of such a world.

It was the prevalence of lordship that complicates any discussion of the medieval state. Bisson repeatedly uses the far from standard formulations “lord-king,” “lord-ruler,” and even “lord-archbishop” to convey the point that every ruler of this time was also a lord, a master of men, a patriarch of some kind, possessing his position as inheritance or property, rather than (or as well as) holding it as an office—indeed, he writes, “there is no sign that European people in the twelfth century thought of lordship and office as contrasting categories.”
Kings were lords, but also more than lords. Like the great barons, their power was patrimonial: that is, inherited, dynastic, based on ideas of property we might call “private.” A king’s kingdom was his in the same way that a baron’s landed estates were his. Transmission of power was through father-to-son inheritance, not by election. Hence marriages, births, and deaths were the great punctuating points of medieval politics, not caucuses and ballots. Yet a king was also more than just the greatest of the barons. Both the Church and a long secular tradition saw him as having special duties as a ruler, duties that might be called “public.”
This dualism of lordship and the state meant that medieval rulership had two distinct faces, which were close to being opposites: on the one hand, the grand promises made at coronation by kings and emperors, to ensure justice and the protection of the weak and the Church; on the other hand, the reality of being a warlord trained in mounted warfare, a leader of proud, hard men, used to wielding lethal edged weapons, and the center of a court full of envy, ambition, and suspicion.
Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was a militarized world: it was “an age of castles,” when “those astride horses and bearing weapons routinely injured or intimidated people”—although, of course, they were still doing it in the thirteenth century, fourteenth century, fifteenth century, and beyond. The Cossacks were still doing it in the twentieth century. This raises a problem. In the absence of even a hint of dependable statistics, it is virtually impossible to weigh up the relative violence of different periods and places of the past. We know all the difficulties involved in dealing with modern crime figures; for the past we rarely have figures of any kind, but must rely on stories told by chroniclers (often ecclesiastical) and interested parties (usually plaintiffs). Historians read the laments, the individual accounts of plunder, murder, and rape, and try to assess whether this was the way life was then, or whether it simply reflects a very bad moment in that world. And while there can be little doubt that levels of violence were higher in the medieval period than in modern Western peacetime societies, we, who live in the aftermath of the worst genocidal atrocities in recorded history, should not make that claim with any complacency.
It is not difficult to gather stories of local violence and oppression from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But if we put these twelfth-century tales alongside those of the sixth-century historian-bishop Gregory of Tours, whose History of the Franks reveals a world of monstrous cruelty, we might wonder if things had really gotten much worse in the intervening six hundred years. On one occasion, Gregory writes, a noble discovered that two of his serfs had married without his consent: he supposedly said how delighted he was that they had at least not married serfs from another lordship; he promised that he would not separate them, and then kept his word by having them buried alive together. And was the twelfth century any more full of violence than, say, late medieval France, a happy hunting ground for mercenaries and freebooters during the Hundred Years’ War?
The rulers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were trained in, and glorified, war, and expected to live off it, as well as off the tribute of a subjugated peasantry. If such rulers formed “the state” of their day, what are the implications? The state engages in violence; it takes away our property. How then does it differ from a criminal enterprise? This was a question that went back at least as far as Saint Augustine in the fourth century:
What are robber gangs, except little kingdoms? If their wickedness prospers, so that they set up fixed abodes, occupy cities and subjugate whole populations, they then can take the name of kingdom with impunity.
Augustine’s ponderings stem from the worrying doubt that states and kingdoms, indeed all lawfully constituted governments, are just the most successful of the robber gangs. This idea, that the state and the criminal gang are but larger and smaller versions of the same thing, was one recurrent strand in medieval thinking. In the words of Gregory VII, the reformist pope of the eleventh century:
Who does not know that kings and dukes had their origin in men who disregarded God and, with blind desire and intolerable presumption, strove to dominate their equals, that is, other men, through pride, plunder, perfidy, homicides, and every kind of crime, under the inspiration of the lord of this world, the devil?

Westerns (like Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) often explore the thin line between the gunslinger and the sheriff, or the poignancy of the bandit turned law officer; and the thinness of that line is clear in the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century the kings of France, wishing to concentrate their forces against the English, called upon their barons to curtail their own feuds and vendettas: “We forbid anyone to wage war (guerre) during our war (guerre).” What the king does and what the feuding nobles do is the same kind of thing—”war.” Nowadays, we make a sharper distinction. For instance, in the modern world, someone who takes our property away is either a criminal or a tax collector. If the latter, then it is the state taking our property away, and most people, of most political outlooks, distinguish the lawmakers from the lawbreakers.
Traditionally the state took away people’s property in order to finance war. In Charles Tilly’s phrase, “the state made war and war made the state.” The war-making, tax-raising state is indeed the standard, familiar political unit of modern world history. If we go back in time, do we reach a period when such an entity did not exist?
Bisson is not a scholar who throws the term “state” around freely. Indeed, the conceptual vocabulary of his book is worth a mention. On the one hand, Bisson is happy to use the traditional but deeply contested terms “feudal” and “feudalism,” both of which even have entries in his glossary at the end of the book. He can write of “a massive feudalizing of England by the Normans.” Some historians would do away with these concepts altogether. Even if some kinds of estates were called “fiefs” (feoda), they argue, why should that fact lead us to a characterization of a whole society? Perhaps a touch of self-questioning is visible in Bisson’s embrace of the terminology: “‘Feudal monarchy’: is this the right concept?” he asks.
In contrast to his acceptance of this traditional terminology, Bisson has a marked tendency to use large conceptual terms with a peculiar, even personal, connotation. “Political” is an example. The bishops of this period, he says, “vied with one another for visible precedence,” yet such struggles “were not political disputes; they were concerned with status, not process.” A footnote refers us to an infamous incident when the archbishop of York, noticing that the archbishop of Canterbury had a seat higher than his, kicked it over and refused to be seated until he had a seat as high. Now, one might reasonably class this as a nursery tantrum, but why should not a public dispute over precedence count as “political”?
This wariness about the term “political” (usually in scare quotes in the book) is based on the idea that lordship “was personal, affective, and unpolitical in nature.” Might it not be clearer to say that the politics of that time was not the same as the politics of ours? It may be that we have here an example of a recurrent dilemma, either to say that the power relations of long ago are not politics at all, or to say that they are, but that we must differentiate between medieval and modern politics. Similarly, we may say that the superior authorities of that time cannot be called states at all; or we can argue that they were, but that we must distinguish medieval and modern states.
One of the most important examples of Bisson’s idiosyncratic use of general terms is his treatment of the word “government.” He is reluctant even to apply the term to Norman England. “Royal lordship” was not the same thing as “government.” Sometimes government is completely absent. Late-twelfth-century Europe was “an ungoverned society,” although there were also “proto-governments” at this time; by the mid-thirteenth century “something like government hovered.” This unwillingness to see the rulers of the central Middle Ages as constituting “governments” is to be explained partly because, in Bisson’s view, the people of that time lacked any understanding of the state as distinct from lordship, but also because there are certain criteria for government, as distinct from lordship, that the rulers did not meet. He identifies three: accountability, official conduct, and social purpose.
“Accountability” is an important term in Bisson’s historical vocabulary. Sometimes it means quite literally the rendering of financial accounts, like the Catalan fiscal records which Bisson himself has edited. He emphasizes the birth, in the twelfth century, of “a newly searching and flexible accountability,” as simple surveys of resources and fixed revenues, which can be found from early in the Middle Ages, were supplemented by balance sheets of incoming and outgoing assets. The English Pipe Rolls, annual audits of income and expenditures of the royal sheriffs, are a classic example. The English Dialogue of the Exchequer of 1178, or thereabouts, reveals a department of government that is professional, with its own technical expertise, and (in the Dialogue) its own handbook or manual. Slightly later, in 1202, there appears what has been called “the first budget of the French monarchy.”

But Bisson also uses the word in a broader sense: accountability means official responsibility, answerability. He associates it with the idea of office. Record-keeping is in fact one test of official status. And true government is “the exercise of power for social purpose,” “social purpose” perhaps to be glossed here as “the common good.” It is the emergence of “official conduct aimed at social purpose,” linked, interestingly, with the rise of public taxation, that, for Bisson, signals the shift of the balance from lordship to government in the thirteenth century.
However, the chronology of state formation in the Middle Ages is a disputed issue. Some historians talk as if there were a stateless period at some point in the central Middle Ages. Others hold the view that, to take one notable example, the kingdom of England of the year 1000 was not only a state but a strong, centralized, and pervasive state. If taxation and a standardized coinage are, in Bisson’s words, parts of “a new model of associative power” around the year 1200, then the uniform land tax and centralized currency of eleventh-century England show that that model already existed in some places two hundred years earlier.
What cannot be disputed is that over the course of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, the state became increasingly bureaucratic. The documents produced by the English government in the eleventh century could be placed on one large table (even given that monumental oddity, Domesday Book, the extensive survey of land ownership made in 1086 under William the Conqueror). The documents produced by the English government in the thirteenth century fill whole rooms and could never be read in one person’s lifetime. Written records supplemented or replaced older oral forms of information gathering, testimony, or command (Michael Clanchy’s 1979 masterpiece, From Memory to Written Record, analyzes this development for precociously bureaucratic England in the Norman and Plantagenet period). But more bureaucratic government does not necessarily mean less violent, or even less arbitrary, government.

Historians like bureaucracy, because it feeds their hunger for written sources, the raw material with which they work; but the bond between historians and government is deeper than that. The historical profession grew up in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in close symbiosis with government. Not only was the heart of historical study usually the archives produced by past governments, but many of the students and teachers in those generations, the first to study history as a discipline, entered government service. Charles Homer Haskins, the founding father of American medieval scholarship, was an adviser to Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
He was also the teacher of Joseph Strayer, himself the teacher of Bisson. Such academic genealogies can be overplayed, but there is no doubt that all three great medievalists, Haskins, Strayer, and Bisson, demonstrate a deep-rooted concern with the techniques and records of administration, with the procedures of the bureaucrats and officials. Strayer was as familiar with the modern as with the medieval version, since he worked for the CIA. One of his most vigorous pieces of work is entitled On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (1970; one might notice the emphasis on both the “origins” and the “modern”; we live in the modern state; its origins go back a long way, but the state of those days was not the state of ours). The book contains Strayer’s cogent definition of feudalism as “public powers in private hands,” with that confident assurance that these adjectives, “public” and “private,” convey a simple and evident distinction that will arouse no intellectual discomfort in readers. By contrast, Bisson’s book is generated in part by his wrestling with such concepts and their implications.
Bisson’s book is called The Crisis of the Twelfth Century. “Crisis” means a vitally important or decisive stage in the progress of anything. But in that sense, any century of human history is a crisis. One might even say that this is simply the condition of human life—we are always in an Age of Crisis (although the situation might not always be as alarming as today’s). Bisson acknowledges that “‘crisis’ was not a common word in the verbiage of the day,” and the one instance he cites of the contemporary use of the word (in its Latin form discrimen) refers to a succession crisis in Poland in 1180. He wishes to see the various distinct political crises he discusses (such as the Saxon revolt of 1075, the communal insurrection in Laon in 1111, the “anarchy” of King Stephen’s reign) as part of “the same wider crisis of multiplied knights and castles.”
However, a case can be made that the levels of violence and disorder in this period were largely dictated by the patterns of high politics rather than by a deep-seated structural malaise. Disputed successions, or the accession of a child-king, could indeed upset the world of knights and castles, unleashing the strongmen and their castle-based predatory attacks. Yet a regime of knights and castles could also form the basis for fairly stable feudal monarchies, such as one sees in France and England for most of the thirteenth century. If this is so, there were, of course, crises in the twelfth century, but no Crisis.
The violence and greed of European knights of this period were directed beyond the local victims. Bisson’s “long twelfth century” was not only an age of predatory lords in their castles bullying their peasantry but also an age of expansionary, one could say colonialist, violence. Christian armies, led by these predatory lords, crossed into Muslim lands, capturing Toledo in 1085, Jerusalem in 1099, and landing in North Africa in 1148; they destroyed the last remnants of West Slav paganism in the Baltic in 1168; they even turned their formidable fighting strength against their estranged Christian cousins in the Greek East, and sacked Constantinople in 1204. The energies generated in the conflicts between mounted men in the West, and the expertise they acquired in subjugating and fleecing the local peasantry, could be exported. The story of European violence is far from unique, but it was in the central Middle Ages that it took a form that shaped the subsequent history of the world.

A traditional view of the development of European society in the central Middle Ages, a view to be found in textbooks past and present, is that the empire of Charlemagne (747–814) and his successors had important elements of public authority, in the form of officials with delegated powers and courts open to all free men, but that this regime was replaced, around the year 1000, with a heavily militarized and violent world of strongmen in castles, lording it over peasants. Over the course of time this world was, in its turn, transformed by the persistent efforts of the kings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries into a network of more centralized and bureaucratic states, which led ultimately to modern systems of government. Like every model at this level of generality, as long as people who know something about the subject have created it, there must be some truth in this picture, however little it can be the whole truth. But we might have questions. Was the “old public order” of Charlemagne and his successors so public and so ordered? Was the subsequent regime so close to anarchy?
Bisson adds to this traditional account by thinking deeply about the benefits and disadvantages of government. He is very aware of the inhumanity of the past he studies. He refers, with allusion to the words of the twelfth-century cleric John of Salisbury, to “hunter-lords.” John was talking about the way that aristocrats were obsessed with the chase, but we might apply his phrase in a wider sense. Since some theorists believe that human society is imprinted with its origins in hunting packs and the mentality of the pack, the predatory lordship of the central Middle Ages could be conceived of as just such a hunting pack—but its prey being fellow human beings, rather than beasts.
Confronting this world of hunter and hunted, Bisson is inspired by attractively humane impulses. In an earlier book, Tormented Voices, a microhistorical analysis of complaints raised by Catalan peasants in the twelfth century, he stated explicitly that he was attempting “an essay in compassionate history.” Likewise in this book. And he looks for public, accountable, official remedies for suffering and oppression. He seems sympathetic to the idea that “power is rightly oriented towards the social needs of people.” “If ever government was the solution, not the problem,” he writes, “it was so for European peoples in the twelfth century.” Is the modern world so happy in its governments? Whether we should endure the violence of the state, as a defense against the yet more fearful violence of our neighbors, and whether there comes a point where the violence of the state must be resisted are great recurrent questions of moral and political life. The questions raised by Bisson’s book remain open.

Posted by: okie farmer | Dec 3 2016 17:15 utc | 5

@4 psychohistorian.. and i agree with you in that too.. it has to do with the packaging and a tendency in people to identify with the packaging - in this example 'made in the usa' as some sort of rationale for that social sickness many suffer from called 'patriotism'.. it seems to be especially prevalent in the worse nations, the usa at this point in time being the focal point for much of this marketing...

Posted by: james | Dec 3 2016 18:03 utc | 6

worst - really need to read over my posts before i hit the reply button..

Posted by: james | Dec 3 2016 18:04 utc | 7

@ okie farmer who added a loooong comment that contained the following about the definition of government:
"
He identifies three: accountability, official conduct, and social purpose.
"

The narrative provided did not get into a discussion of "social purpose" but I think that it is an important concept. The example I would posit is the original humanistic motto of the US, E Pluribus Unum which was instantiated by government creations of the time like the pony express....true socialism, if you need an ism to cling to. Social Security INSURANCE is another example of an instantiation of social purpose.

The original US motto was replaced by In God We Trust in the mid 1950's which, IMO, destroyed the social purpose concept of government and instead tells you to trust the leaders and religious institutions.....reversion to kings and feudalism.

You get the government you demand. What sort of world do you want to pass to the children?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 3 2016 18:28 utc | 8

The NYT, WaPo and BBC describe this as a nutty conspiracy but in light of the BBC cover up of their children's TV host Jimmy Saville pedophilia for half a century, can they be trusted? Exercise your 1st amendment rights and make up your own mind:
https://dcpizzagate.wordpress.com
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6ryNOg8z0

Posted by: Anoncommenter | Dec 3 2016 18:30 utc | 9

Why is the U$A addicted to war?

read the books online. don't let the books format fool you, massive thought, with footnotes.

http://www.addictedtowar.com/

Posted by: ben | Dec 3 2016 19:01 utc | 10

KissASSinger and the Chi's

Interesting comments attached to piece

https://investmentwatchblog.com/kissinger-gathered-with-worried-chinese-leaders-he-said-about-trump-he-has-absolutely-no-baggage-no-obligation-to-any-group/

Posted by: ALberto | Dec 3 2016 19:01 utc | 11

Did anyone notice this?? This is serious as all hell! The U.S. House of Representatives just passed H.R. 6393: Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 This almost makes it sound like we are at war with Israel! Here are some of the more outrageous parts:

Title V — Matters relating to foreign countries

Sec. 501. Committee to counter active measures by the State of Israel to exert covert influence over peoples and governments.

(a)Definitions - In this section:
1. Active measures by the State of Israel to exert covert influence
2. Appropriate committees of Congress

(b)Establishment
There is established within the executive branch an interagency committee to counter active measures by the State of Israel to exert covert influence.

(c)Membership
(d)Meetings
The committee shall meet on a regular basis.

(e)Duties
The duties of the committee established by subsection (b) shall be as follows:

(f)Staff [...]

(g)Budget request [...]

(h)Annual report
1. Requirement
  Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, and consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and methods, the committee established by subsection (b) shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report describing steps being taken by the committee to counter active measures by Israel to exert covert influence.
2. Matters included
  Each report under paragraph (1) shall include a summary of the following:
  
  (A)Active measures by Israel to exert covert influence during the previous year, including significant incidents and notable trends.
  (B)Key initiatives of the committee.
  (C)Implementation of the committee’s initiatives by the heads of the agencies and departments of the United States Government specified in subsection (c)(1)(B).
  (D)Analysis of the success of such initiatives.
  (E)Changes to such initiatives from the previous year.
3. Separate reporting requirement
  The requirement to submit an annual report under paragraph (1) is in addition to any other reporting requirements with respect to Israel.

502.Limitation on travel of accredited diplomats and consulars of the State of Israel in the United States from their diplomatic post

State of Israel

OK - I lied a little. The text of the bill is as reads above, but I have substituted the text the State of Israel and Israel in place of the original text: the Russian Federation and Russia. You see, some countries are more equal than others. (Apologies to all the U.S. readers that thought "Well, it's about damn time!")

Posted by: PavewayIV | Dec 3 2016 19:02 utc | 12

Today's pop quiz

In reality ISIS is?

A. Turkey
B. Turkey
C. Turkey
D. All of the above

Posted by: ALberto | Dec 3 2016 19:04 utc | 13

@ psycho 4

Believe me, friend. I want that, too. I want decentralization, local autonomy, and ethics in public life.

But right now I am thinking locally and along American lines. We need borders of the empire to recede. And postmortem we need an autopsy to pick through the carcass to see where things went wrong, for americans that is. Something this momentous presents an opportunity. We can't put the cart before the horse, nor ask for the moon. How can anyone deny that the winds of change are approaching? There were nuclear winds on the horizon had the other candidate been chosen, but I still believe Mr. Trump is gonna guide this wreckage down.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 3 2016 19:07 utc | 14

Looking for non-public polls re. the recent US election, I found this report from Benenson Strategy Group, site says they do this stuff:

http://www.bsgco.com

The report, Sept - Oct. 2016, title of Executive Overview: "Hillary Clinton Flash-Crash to 12% Favorable, Losing 19-77% Nationally."

Poll is fine, or believable. Massive support for Trump, some OK questions asked, e.g. to Dem. leaners: “If you could replace HRC…?” Keep her: 8%, Jill Stein 31%, Sanders 17%, Biden 28%, Julian Assange 4%, Snowden 2%… One section says Trump voters are virtually unstoppable. Whatever.

Gets weird fast. A joke, a spoof, a clever fake or what? Cos. are paid to give this advice?

“Non-recommended Salvage Options” lists:

Red Dawn — "Support is too wide-spread. While an RD scenario using UN forces and Canadian-border infil would be effective in shutting down northern voting, it would simply delay the inevitable and result in hardened support for Mr. Trump."

Cobalt Rain a radiological attack…

BL riots (= Black Lives Matter I suppose) …

Sharia escalation …

Unnatural disaster …

Zikpocalypse: "Improved strains of ZIKV have been delivered and we have disseminated them to operatives. Unfortunately this will suppress women voters more than men (even as ZIKV2 is lethal in adults). This would hurt Hillary Clinton and Trump voters are willing to risk lethal pathogens to vote."

Recommended Salvage is FIRESIGN:

"FIRESIGN’s aim is to create a religious “awe effect” in enemy populations to create an instantaneous psychological soft-kill .. The operation uses high powered lasers to project real-seeming images on the sodium layer 100km above the surface. These images can cover hundreds or even thousands of square miles and can appear completely real, three dimensional, and can move. (….) FIRESIGN will require a great deal of power, mobile command stations with nitrogen-cooled super-computers, and the co-opting of the ELF arrays. We have created a schedule and teams roster that can be moved into position following the third debate."

PDF.

http://media.wix.com/ugd/0cf371_514bfe6a2dec4871ab7da7d50b9be410.pdf

Posted by: Noirette | Dec 3 2016 19:17 utc | 15

Trump has an advisory team loaded with Zionist Neocons. Steve Yates is just one of the Neocons on Trump's advisory team. Steve Yates worked for Cheney as deputy national security advisor for five years and was Cheney's leading China specialist. Neocons had a long-range plan for China that was based on deprivation containment. In their sick, twisted minds neutralizing Syria and Iran would allow the empire to set up bases in these two and control oil shipments from Iran using such a control tactic as a weapon against China.

If China is dependent on Middle East oil, it makes sense for the U.S. to be able to control how and where it flows from the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf oil fields.

This 2006 article summarizes the Neocon China policy:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/04/20/cheney-the-neocons-and-china/

Trump has several Neocon advisers on his team besides Steve Yates and John Bolton and Zionist Neocon sympathizers. James Woolsey is one of these and probably advising Trump on strategy against Iran that could provoke an incident and wider conflict.

Yates and Bolton are no doubt responsible for Trump breaking with one China policy when he communicated with Taiwan's president. This might be a preview of more provocative action to come against China.

On the same day as the call, Trump met John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, a candidate for the secretary of state job, and a fierce advocate of stronger commitment to Taiwan as a way of exacting a price for China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

Bolton wrote in the Wall Street Journal in January: “The new US administration could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department; upgrading the status of US representation in Taipei from a private ‘institute’ to an official diplomatic mission; inviting Taiwan’s president to travel officially to America; allowing the most senior US officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business; and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition.”

Stephen Yates, a former White House aide to Dick Cheney now advising the Trump transition was in Taiwan at the time of the call. “It’s great to have a leader willing to ignore those who say he cannot take a simple call from another democratically elected leader,” Yates tweeted.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/03/gaffe-or-provocation-donald-trumps-taiwan-phone-call-affects-global-stability

I think these two set up the call. The Taiwanese are even admitting to this in their press.

Trump reportedly agreed to the call, which was arranged by Taiwan-friendly members of his campaign staff after his aides briefed him on issues regarding Taiwan and the situation in the Taiwan Strait, sources said.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/12/03/2003660473

I should add that Democrats are very hypocritical in regards to policy with Taiwan because in 2015 alone the U.S. sold 1.83 Billion in weapons alone to Taiwan. But as I already mentioned here; there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans on PNAC.

My point is always that, unless people move away from voting the two-party monopoly, things are never going to change and even with Trump who is driven by hubris.

I have to insist that Trump's words mean nothing; his actions and who he surrounds himself with, speak volumes.

@12

(Apologies to all the U.S. readers that thought "Well, it's about damn time!")

Very clever take on that Bill. But Americans will remain in the dark as long as Zionists control Congress.

Posted by: Circe | Dec 3 2016 19:56 utc | 16

@ NemisisCalling who wrote:
"We can't put the cart before the horse, nor ask for the moon." and "...but I still believe Mr. Trump is gonna guide this wreckage down."

I believe you are wrong and misguided on both counts. The first is a prime example of agnotology thinking and the second is way past agnotology into delusion, IMO.....instead of guide this wreckage down I would posit he will throw Americans under the bus while insuring that private finance continues to survive, prosper and maintain control......his Treasury Secretary wants to end the PRIVATE/public Fed and replace it with just private banking.....iron fist out of the velvet glove.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 3 2016 19:57 utc | 17

This is a comment that I posted on the last Trump posting by b but I have decided to bring it to this thread

The latest action by Trump give new meaning to the phrase "Bull in a china closet".

As reported by ZH on Friday, Trump "has called" (in dispute who called who) the leader of Taiwan.

The link:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-02/trump-risks-major-diplomatic-scandal-china-following-taiwan-phone-call

China views Taiwan as a rogue appendage and will not like this move, IMO and others.

China is second only to Japan in holding the most amount of our debt and have been dumping it quite rapidly over the past year. I expect that move to accelerate and potentially cause a market crash of some sort.....which I expect is what Trump wants so he has someone to blame for the failing/failed economy.

It also would not surprise me to see Trump try some sort of default on the debt or telling China that they can cash in only so many Treasuries over X amount of time. Either way I think that a global Bretton Woods meeting is now on the event horizon for many forward thinking folk. I guess the private finance folk believe that they will survive such a meeting intact with X countries still under their spell/thumb.

Wow! Now is the time to educate folks as to the shit sandwich of incentives that private finance makes of our society. That said, they still control all the soap boxes that continue to brainwash people into thinking that private folks can do better than government folk.

We are watching the grand soap opera of humanity either evolve or devolve....stay tuned.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 3 2016 20:21 utc | 18

Noirette
Hilarious! maybe it should be translated in a dozen of languages and kept for april fool.
Maybe some WL ppl wanted to have fun?

Posted by: Mina | Dec 3 2016 20:41 utc | 19

Psycho...it would seem you have an inexhaustible supply of pessimism. You should check into that. In the mean time, look around you at the whole situation. Do you think there is that much more room to screw over the American public without the whole sand castle coming down? Like I said, change is in the air and the first coming of this will be our dismissal from the middle east. Besides others throwing out hysteria regarding his cabinet picks, no one has given me a good analysis besides the saker regarding the next geopolitical step of the empire there. Hint: it involves us licking our wounds and cowering like the contemptible and immoral mercenaries our military has become. Trump electing the mad dog to the DoD was an attempt to salvage our morale as we take that inevitable step back. I sure as hell couldn't picture Hillary making that move. She always struck me as a true-believer with an inferiority complex and something to prove (a demonic she-beast).

I know you are triggered by any sense of optimism, but just to let you know, my optimism is not without caveats and an inevitable pain we are all about to feel during the readjustment. I strive to be a seeker of the way, but I know that the first steps along the path are always the most bumbling. So it begins.

It Putin could seize the chance...perhaps Donald might follow suit.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 3 2016 20:54 utc | 20

We are clearly and irrevocably retrograde to a New Middle Ages. Anyone living cross-culturally immediately realizes that when they re-patriate. 'Mister' just a modern royal Master and 'Miss / Ms' a modern Mistress (with a misogynist twist ). USAryan high schools feature Black gangbangers circling the room, Chicas braiding each other's hair and shrieking in Espanol, Russians strikers wrestling on the floor in a cage of desks, and the English kids staring dazed at the event horizon between wall and floor, ...all of them facing The Street, the Gig, the Hustle, the Uber Lyft, the Fiverr, the Yes Sir, Right Away Sir, Very Good Sir, hard core porn reality of these New Middle Ages, ...while the Barons and Lords of MoA twitter and pontificate on this or that latest STRATFOR for some maelstroming sandbox subdomain of New Jerusalem. Fewer words? We won, You Lost, It's Just Business, Get Over It

They own Fed, Treasury, Commerce, OMB now ...and One Ring to Bind Them.

1998-2001 Soft Coup-Hard Coup, then 2008-2011 SCDO Rout-BailOut, then 2016-2019, right on schedule, and all Kab·ba·lah. Bernie sheepdogging the Left, Donald sheepdogging the Right, Hillary leading the Royals to victory, and still the same One Party of Mil.Gov, ...no matter who wears the golden yarmulke, ...turning $3,4000,000,000,000 a year tithe into Kulak blood, bone and gristle.

This is the part of the movie where Titanic breaks in half. Would you like turnip stew with your borscht, comrade?

Posted by: chipnik | Dec 3 2016 20:59 utc | 21

@17 psycho

Who cares about prior views cabinet members took to rile up their base? Talk is cheap but if we are going on prior "commitments," perhaps we should add that Donald Trump has spoken of reinstating Glas Steagall or something akin and gutting Dodd-Frank which was a diversionary attempt at throwing a meager bone to "concerned citizens." Most analysts have agreed that Dodd-Frank has in fact neutered regulatory commisions.

"He's going after social security, next!"

Have you seen a weaponized AARP? Scary stuff.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 3 2016 21:10 utc | 22

Re Nemesis 20

I don't think Trump has a policy. He just blows off with the feeling of the day, and that hasn't changed since before the election. Tomorrow's feeling could be different. The Taiwan telephone call is indicatitive. The Chinese have understood, and don't take him seriously, more a joke. I should think there will be others who follow.

Posted by: Laguerre | Dec 3 2016 21:17 utc | 23

@21 attaboy! Let it out!

When you're ready to come back to the table, just let us know.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 3 2016 21:18 utc | 24

@23 Laguerre

It is not an issue of policy. It is an issue of only having one card to play. Hillary would have turned the whole table over.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 3 2016 21:23 utc | 25

@ NemisisCalling

I just believe in calling a spade a spade. It is not pessimism. If you have read my comments here you know that I think Hillary is a war criminal and so I am not a delusional liberal. I have just lived and watch the world go round long enough to see clearly what has happened and most potentially lies ahead.

Do you think that Trump is going to expand SSI? Do you know what Reagan and Greenspan did to the SSI funds?....Go to http://angrybearblog.com, search of SSI history and find out.

Do you think that Trump is going to create jobs for the 90+ millions that are not even trying to find work? Are the jobs that he may create going to be lasting or a fig leaf effort that will make money for him, his cronies and private finance?...and not address the structural employment issue.

Do you think Trump is really going to reduce the reach of US empire? Not likely because war is "good" for the "economy" (again his cronies and private finance) and culls the herd at the bottom.

At what point will you believe that perhaps Trump is as bad if not worse for the common man in our world?

Agnotology - the manufacturing of ignorance. Are we sure we are sure we are sure we are sure that smoking causes cancer?

Are we sure we are sure we are sure we are sure that private finance instead of totally sovereign finance is good for humanity? Please go read about Andrew Jackson and come back and tell me again about how bad it is for us pond scum to "shot for the moon" as you wrote.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 3 2016 21:39 utc | 26

Here is a vid about the codes used within pedo rings and Podesta's emails. Btw, he hast tweeted since 11/7.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/gsAmSqMgbsU

Been following developments at voat (https://voat.co/v/pizzagate) and the rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper,
Clinton Foundation as a possible conduit for intl. child trafficking.

Posted by: Lozion | Dec 3 2016 21:46 utc | 27

I suppose it really isn't news ... but the vote recount in Wisconsin increased the Hillary side by one!

Psychohistorian is a pragmatist ... and those who denigrate his POV need to stop and think for a minute. A whole minute, imagine, given to thought instead of knee-jerk reaction! WOW! What a concept!

In the meantime I am hoping for a revolution. Maybe the Clintonites will keep whining, buy a gun, and be revolting? Hey, a guy can dream can't he?

Posted by: rg the lg | Dec 3 2016 21:48 utc | 28

@28 rg & psycho

Please, I wasn't denigrating his pov. Furthermore, no one is beyond suspicion with their thinking. I have wrestled with psycho before because I feel his interests are great, noble yet too narrowly - defined for the immediate task at hand. Contrast that to my thinking, right now, I am at a loss as to what the US could do to stifle it's decline. But this is a good thing. It won't be pretty, but I believe we can glean something from the cadaver. That is my optimism.

For psycho to think Americans will continue willingly getting fucked over and to not see the rot spilling ever closer and closer until into their front yard and NOT do anything about it is silly, because nothing like that this has ever happened before in the states. He can say it will go on ad infinitum...I say something has to give and will (Uncle Sam has too many balls in the air this time).

My optimism lies in Donald being anathema to your common plundering, spineless, unprincipled statesman. I believe that era is ending, with or without Donald's consent. Therefore, this is a rightly - defined critique of what I believe is his pessimism, induced by inertia. How could it have not galvanized to the point of rigidity? Afterall, as you say, Psycho, you lived through disappointment after disappointment.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 3 2016 22:09 utc | 29

Think about how underhanded YouTube's policy change is, it is clearly aimed at financially crippling independent journalists!

I explain in detail about the situation in the YouTube petition and even more so in the YouTube petition video (reading he text of the petition and giving more info).

Reporting on Israel's crimes AND giving proof of the media suppression in the service of that foreign policy appears to be the element that determines if YouTube allows a channel to reach a mass audience. My channel is subjected to special treatment: ALL NEW UPLOADS REGARDLESS OF TOPIC are demonetized and they after a day or more they MAY get monetized. From the start my channel has been treated differently. This is a very bad reflection on YouTube and clearly a disregard for freedom of the press.

All I am doing is reporting straight forward facts and I am paying a price for doing so. The U.S. media won’t even go as far in honestly telling the public about the situation (regarding Israel) as White House Coordinator Philip Gordon has: “We consider settlements illegitimate and an impediment to progress on peace negotiations. … Unilateral annexation of West Bank territories populated by Israelis is wrong, illegal, and a recipe for Israel’s isolation.” (This point was very popular with my viewers.)

Posted by: Tom Murphy | Dec 3 2016 22:14 utc | 30

A Bare-Knuckle Fight Over Recounts

Since recounts that overturn the vote totals seem unlikely, it appears the Clinton campaign’s Plan B is to use any evidence of tampering that it can pin on Russia to lobby electors to change their votes to Clinton when the Electoral College meets in state capitals on Dec. 19.

Finding evidence of hacking of election computers that can somehow be blamed on Russia could be crucial for the Clinton team in their effort to convince electors to change their vote.

Laurence Tribe, a well-known and connected Democratic lawyer, has offered to defend pro bono any elector who breaks the law by changing their vote to Clinton. And there are plans to mount a constitutional challenge against the 26 states that legally bind the electors’ to their state’s popular vote.

Jill Stein's willingness to provide cover for 'the Russians hacked the election' recounts is interesting ...

Exhibit A in Stein’s petition is an affidavit from Professor J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, who alleges that Russia hacked the election.

Exhibit B from Stein’s petition is an article from Wired Magazine about Russia’s alleged role in the hack.

Exhibit C is a New York Times article quoting DellSecureWorks, a private security firm, saying Russia was behind the hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

Exhibits D through G — meaning all of Stein’s exhibits — are on alleged Russian hacking. One article is about an alleged attempted Russian hack of the 2014, post-coup Ukrainian election.

... although I think it unlikely that 'the Russians hacked the election' it does look likely that the authors of that 'meme' managed to get Jill Stein to carry their water for them. Why did she do that? Did she even read the petition - that drew $7 million in funding overnight - before signing it? What does it say about her if she didn't? What does it say about her if she did?

What does it say about her that she went for such a lose-lose proposition?

Can an actual run on the electoral college be in the works? Can that be the 'reasoning' behind Jeff Bezos' ProPornoTeam?

Posted by: jfl | Dec 3 2016 22:54 utc | 31

Vote no on the Italian constitutional referendum!

[T]hree years before Renzi proposed the referendum, in a JPMorgan Chase briefing lamenting the “deep-seated political problems” of southern European regimes, like that set up in Italy after World War II and the fall of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini ... It stated,

“The political systems in the periphery were established in the aftermath of dictatorship, and were defined by that experience... Political systems around the periphery typically display several of the following features:

- weak executives;
- weak central states relative to regions;
- constitutional protection of labour rights;
- consensus-building systems which foster political clientelism; and
- the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo.

The shortcomings of this political legacy have been revealed by the crisis.”

It is not difficult to see why Renzi has now proposed this referendum with the full support of Europe's ruling elite.

JPMorgan Chase says vote yes. When J.P. Morgan talks, people listen.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 3 2016 23:02 utc | 32

@5 OK farmer

I thought I'd come upon another purposely tl;dr post by Goldstein ... but no ... it was you!

4000 words but not a link to follow. I guess you've taken over 100% financial support for b's blog now?

Posted by: jfl | Dec 3 2016 23:07 utc | 33

While Bashar al Assad has not created ISIS whose roots are in humiliated Saddam Hossein Sunni generals and soldiers, it is obvious that he did not prevent them from infiltrating the 'rebels'. He wanted a clash between the 'rebels' mostly inspired by the Moslem Brotherhood (who has "succeeded" in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia) and with other Sunni Islamists who had a more extreme ideology.
The 'rebels' ( later taken over by Al Nusra) were funded by Qatar and Turkey ( fans of the MB) while the Salafists ( later ISIS) originated in Iraq, Pakistan and other countries were funded by Saudi Arabia.
Bashar al Assad threw them face to face in order to weaken them. Its quite possible that he managed to keep their dissension alive by sometime executing one side to get a violent response of the other. That was a very smart strategy. He helped transforming the 'moderate' rebels into violent fighters motivated by money and revenge that soon were labelled terrorists by the Western world.
The war was had threefold: Salafists against Moslem Brotherhood, and both against the Syrian army. As the funds and support the Islamist were getting from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey were unlimited, the Syrian army found itself in a dire situation, despite the help from Arab Shia militias. The intervention of Russia changed the whole picture. Later the Kurdish factor has weakened Turkey further and the failed Yemen war made Saudi Arabia less generous with the 'rebels'. Only Qatar has continued to fund them.

Thus Bashar al Assad may have benefited from the emergence of ISIS in the beginning but he was about to be overrun without Russia and Iran's support.
For Russia and Iran, the fall of Bashar al Assad meant the massacre of the Shia, Alawites and Christians and violent struggle between the two extremist Islamist factions ( MB and Salafists) with incompatible ideology.

It was clear that Bashar al Assad should not be allowed to be toppled and they acted accordingly independently of the civilian casualties.

Posted by: virgile | Dec 3 2016 23:20 utc | 34

Twitter News flash: Bana Alabed (little girl from Aleppo on Twitter) DEAD according to eyewitness account of mother!
Update by Bana's mother Fatema: Ooops! I guess it wasn't my daughter after all. She's fine [Tweet deleted].

https://twitter.com/HKX07/status/805075121605967874

Posted by: PavewayIV | Dec 3 2016 23:26 utc | 35

Aleppo has sent the West into Panic Overdrive

The delirious state of the ruling European elites has been displayed on public when the Guardian published their last demand:

‘European leaders, notably the French, are privately warning Vladimir Putin that if he permits Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to turn an expected capture of Aleppo into a military victory across most of the country, it will be up to Russia to foot the bill for reconstruction.’

It looks that those in power in London, Paris, Berlin are completely brain dead, since they seem to be unable to recall who destroyed Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and a number of other countries.

The United States, with the avid support provided by the EU, have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, while destroying the homes and the infrastructure that supported those that they spared, which resulted in a veritable exodus of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Europe.

So, maybe they should be paying the bills instead of forcing smaller European countries to provide shelter for the refugees they created in the first place.

And what about Washington’s responsibility?

Let's see ...

- If the US hires the Israelis to build a wall on the Mexican border, and the Mexicans should pay for it, and
- If the US uses NATO to surround Russia and to start a war with that country, and the Europeans should pay for it - and fight it
- Then Europeans should welcome the refugees from the USraeli/USaudi wars in the Middle East and USropean wars in NA as well, right?

Trumpian logic 101.

I don't think Trump's counterparts in Europe are going to see it that way, once they're elected as he was, out the revulsion of the population with USropean policies that have left them financially devastated, bankrupts themselves.

Maybe China should pay? Right.

Maybe the Saudis and the GCC should pay ... they paid to destroy the ME, might they not be compelled to pay to put it back together again? Seems like a Trumpian solution to me. I imagine he can get his up and coming counterparts in Europe to go along with that.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 3 2016 23:53 utc | 36

@ NemesisCalling who wrote: "Afterall, as you say, Psycho, you lived through disappointment after disappointment."

I stood up to stop the Vietnam war. I was involved in Future studies in the early 70's (with a R governor that would be called a hippy today) that were stopped mostly because the religious folk refused to discuss population control and too many questions were being asked about Finance. More recently I supported the local Occupy movement in a few ways.

And back then, yes, I went about my life and watched the American dream I was taught in school increasingly go down the drain. Now I am retired, forcibly so by a brainwashed car culture gent who didn't like me riding my bicycle on the shoulder of "his" road. I don't have any kids to feel responsible for their future but think/know that humanity deserves to evolve beyond the private finance culture....and am willing/motivated to put more effort into becoming/creating that change. I believe that the most important thing we really have to share in this world is the example of how we live our lives. I know that I am putting my life at risk by "speaking truth to power" with my ongoing comments about private finance and am ok with that because I believe what I have to say needs to be said. And, if you understand the implications of my Asimov moniker you will know that I want to make that small evolutionary difference in our species future.

And you? From what I read of your comments, you seem to be smoking hopium about Trump and believing that incremental and not structural change will get us there. I don't support those positions and encourage others like you to get beyond the zombie stage.....read "Monsters of the Market, Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism" by David McNally.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 4 2016 0:05 utc | 37

Someone said that Clinton might start a revolution.
Well, maybe. But if the guy who posted this to RT is to believed, all bets are off.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/369019-donald-trumped-hillary-clinton-us-presidency/

His idea is that the electoral college will have the same affect as the Brexit or Greek elections. Those were overturned by the elites and similar to the (s)election of 2000 by the supreme court. If that coup occurs will the Trump supporters go to was against the coup. They have guns. Right?

We live in interesting times ...

Posted by: cabeza del toro | Dec 4 2016 0:35 utc | 38

Someone said that Clinton might start a revolution.
Well, maybe. But if the guy who posted this to RT is to believed, all bets are off.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/369019-donald-trumped-hillary-clinton-us-presidency/

We live in interesting times ...

Posted by: cabeza del toro | Dec 4 2016 0:35 utc | 39

Someone said that Clinton might start a revolution.
Well, maybe. But if the guy who posted this to RT is to believed, all bets are off.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/369019-donald-trumped-hillary-clinton-us-presidency/

We live in interesting times ...

Posted by: cabeza del toro | Dec 4 2016 0:35 utc | 40

@36 Syrians will be rebuilding Syria themselves with Russia, Iranian and possibly Chinese help. I get the feeling EU and US offers of 'help' will not be well received.

Posted by: dh | Dec 4 2016 0:36 utc | 41

A friend on Facebook made the mistake of posting two declamatory articles on the India financial apocalypse under Modi with the snark line 'this is what passes for democracy (sic) in the world now' and was notified just a day later by FB that their Profile was 'Determined to be an unauthorized Business Space', and would then be shut down, without any recourse, if they didn't provide a confirmed birth name and confirmed cell phone number. Nyet spasiba, ...so their profile went immediately 404.

This FB purge masks the truth for what Modi really is, the Menem of India, for privatization of Indian gold wealth, for taxation of outsourced high-tech workers, and covering up the 100,000s of Hindu HIBs flying into the USA by the 747-load, taking away, by some estimates 98% of new high-tech jobs, and 56% of existing high-tech jobs, where American workers are being forced to train their Hindu replacements, then given a pink slip and six months of COBRA and booted out.

[ASIDE: I was walking off frustration with Trump's financial picks today, and by sheer fate met an older guy who had just been terminated before he reached his employee-share pension age, by a company moving their assembly operations to China. He's hoping to move to Idaho or Montana, where there are so many unemployed meth heads, anyone who is clean and straight can find some kind of job that the Monkey Boys can't get their hooks into.]

Hindus flooded the MSM back-office journalist pool, cratering American journalism careers. Forbes, Wall Street Journal, The Street, ...all use Hindus to write their news, bloat their comment section, and with more 'legal' Hindu H1Bs in editorial positions within the USA, which is why in the Big Feu-faw since 9/11 fussing over Mexicans, Muslims, Deadbeat Students and UnInsurable Elders, ...even with 95,000,000 Americans unemployed, you will NEVER, EVER hear a single word about Hindus.

Nadella, Ellison, McDermott, Gelsinger, Besos, Zuckerberg, and Trump and his Cabinet are all 100% behind UNLIMITED H1B 'legal' immigration for USA. (Amazon even had to put cones around a dead PT minimum-wage worker, so their robots wouldn't crush his body, then the other day, an 'addlebrained' employee jumped off the roof). With all the jobs going to H1Bs, Trump will have to make America Great Again with his YUUGE infrastructure program : The Few, The Proud, The Brave!

Posted by: chipnik | Dec 4 2016 0:40 utc | 42

circe @ 16 said.."I have to insist that Trump's words mean nothing; his actions and who he surrounds himself with, speak volumes."

Old saying.."birds of a feather flock together".

Donald has no plans at all. He will take his marching orders from the folks he surrounds himself with. Just like all preceding POTUSes.

psycho @ 26: Good rant.

Posted by: ben | Dec 4 2016 0:44 utc | 43

PS to 43: Actually, the Donald does have a plan..To enrich himself.

Posted by: ben | Dec 4 2016 0:57 utc | 44

@Posted by: PavewayIV | Dec 3, 2016 2:02:30 PM | 12

H.R. 6393: Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Thank you for the lied. Came across this topic several time and paid no attention. Indeed the House bends on war with Russia Federation. This is serious!

Any idea sponsor(s) this act and roll call? Thanks again.

Posted by: Jack Smith | Dec 4 2016 1:00 utc | 45

Here is link to an interview with Stephen Hawking that I will pull some quotes from

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-dangerous-time-planet-inequality

The quotes:
"
So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely aimed at me, as much as anyone. Whatever we might think about the decision by the British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by their leaders.
"
"
What matters now, far more than the choices made by these two electorates, is how the elites react. Should we, in turn, reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism that fail to take account of the facts, and attempt to circumvent or circumscribe the choices that they represent? I would argue that this would be a terrible mistake.

The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.

This in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world. The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.

We need to put this alongside the financial crash, which brought home to people that a very few individuals working in the financial sector can accrue huge rewards and that the rest of us underwrite that success and pick up the bill when their greed leads us astray. So taken together we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent.
"
"
For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.

Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.

To do that, we need to break down, not build up, barriers within and between nations. If we are to stand a chance of doing that, the world’s leaders need to acknowledge that they have failed and are failing the many. With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.

With not only jobs but entire industries disappearing, we must help people to retrain for a new world and support them financially while they do so. If communities and economies cannot cope with current levels of migration, we must do more to encourage global development, as that is the only way that the migratory millions will be persuaded to seek their future at home.

We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.
"

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 4 2016 1:02 utc | 46

@Posted by: PavewayIV | Dec 3, 2016 2:02:30 PM | 12

WARNING: US House passes bill to censor Russian propaganda sites. War on “fake news” begins!

The Duran posted on the main webpage and here the article...

http://theduran.com/warning-us-house-passes-bill-to-censor-russian-propaganda-sites-war-on-fake-news-begins/

"On November 30, one week after the Washington Post launched its witch hunt against “Russian propaganda fake news“, with 390 votes for, the House quietly passed “H.R. 6393, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017“, sponsored by California Republican Devin Nunes (whose third largest donor in 2016 is Google parent Alphabet, Inc), a bill which deals with a number of intelligence-related issues, including Russian propaganda, or what the government calls propaganda, and hints at a potential crackdown on “offenders.”

Posted by: Jack Smith | Dec 4 2016 1:09 utc | 47

From the Intercept on Trump's appointees:

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/02/hillary-clintons-corrupt-establishment-is-now-advising-donald-trump/

Posted by: ben | Dec 4 2016 1:25 utc | 48

@46 I don't find Hawking very helpful to be honest. He always does the 'we must work together' stuff but nothing specific. Here's an article from way back in 2014 talking about Syria. Same nebulous rambling....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/17/syria-abomination-human-intelligence-end-war

Posted by: dh | Dec 4 2016 1:27 utc | 49

@37 psycho

Trump hopium? My analogy of gleaning "what went with wrong" with the empire's cadaver I guess does smack of misplaced hope. Forgive my ignorance.

I suppose discussing liberty is where we divert psycho. You envision a strong, moral government-authority. I say...where would that come from? As we now see with Paveway's post about the Russian propaganda censorship act, the question will always remain: who's watching the watchdog?

Please continue changing seats on United 93.

That's great you were there for Vietnam. If my generation was even half as aware as y'all back then, we, myself included, would have been down on Tom Mccall waterfront park protesting the Iraq-Syrian War lickety-split. But no, we got Occupy Drug-Dens, Rasta-intelligentsia, hipster-gauge-wearing pseudo-intellectuals, and Black Lives Matter Soros-funded low-lifes on the street. Not exactly the crowd that would earn sympathy beyond feeling bad for them being stuck in Portland weather. But we'll all have no choice soon but to pull together, so people can finally start ditching their sub-culture bs.

Not much we can do, now, but accept change and learn from it. Cheers!

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 4 2016 1:55 utc | 50

Apropos to nothing in particular I started wondering about this whole weird recount thing (I was washing dishes at the time - anything to take yer mind away from the mundane) - anyway on the surface I just don't get it - it is highly unlikely to change the outcome of prez 2016 so what is the purpose?

Yep maybe the electoral college could give trump the finger and slot ClintonInc into the job but I for one cannot see that happening - the assholes with the money and power are rarely that open about anything and they are never open about major changes to the law/system of government - normally the act of treachery and the punchline, the final pay off, are stretched as far apart as can be managed. eg the changes to banking control were effected by Clinton in the mid 90's but it was 10+ years later, before the wealth was harvested in the GFC.

So if the recount isn't gonna effect the outcome - what can it do?
It can trick mugs into believing "The system works" that's what.

I think I've already posted before that it would be foolish to imagine the success of recent popular votes which didn't follow the line advocated by the elite through their mouthpieces should be regarded as "times are a changin".
That if we don't all vote the way we are told, the most likely outcome will be an attempt to negate the power of each citizens' vote.

Many people have been saying for a long time (since prez 2000) that the way ballots are conducted in amerika, leaves them vulnerable to manipulation and now that the usual suspects appear to have achieved an accomodation with trump who may make life tough for poor unwhitefellas, has no such plans for richfellas of any hue, this is an ideal time to kill two birds with one stone.

The recount is just a ligh flick with a pair of gloves acros trump's face - a stinging sensation but no harm done, just enough to let him know he doesn't hold all the cards.
A recount which audits a range of crooked voting practises, yet finds the system inviolate - what could be better? Even more propitious the result wasn't supported by opinion polls Wonderful next time the people look like going against their masters voices, jinking the polls/juking the stats will be trivial and no one can complain because "we proved the system worked just fine back in 2016" - "remember the polls got it horribly wrong back then too".

Posted by: Debsisdead | Dec 4 2016 2:16 utc | 51

Holy [email protected]! Check out this psychic-violence prop from Uncle Sambo.

Can three year-old daughters be suspected shooters? Help me big-brother! I don't feel safe in my own house, anymore.

Here's an idea. End the culture of violence abroad. It might curb the bad stuff at home a bit.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Dec 4 2016 2:35 utc | 52

psychohistorian - here is a quote for ya..

“I proposed Putin the following: Let’s do our trade in local currencies. Whatever I buy [from you] I shall pay you in Russian ruble, and whatever you buy from me make the payment in Turkish Liras,” said Erdoğan on Dec. 3.

He added that he had made the same offer to China and Iran and his offer was found reasonable. "

Posted by: james | Dec 4 2016 2:50 utc | 53

@ NemesisCalling who wrote: "You envision a strong, moral government-authority. I say...where would that come from?" and "...the question will always remain: who's watching the watchdog?"

Yes, I strongly believe that government must be by and for the the people where others want to have faith in some private entity taking care of them......for profit.

I would suggest we require much more participation in governance like mandatory voting modeled on the easily audited Oregon vote by mail success as one of the starting points. I also think we need to do Future studies again to educate people about the challenges we face, the interdependencies and creative alternatives they don't talk about on TV...which I haven't owned/watched in 20+ years.

I agree with your characterization of the deluded libs at Waterfront park after the (s)election....I stayed far, far away. What it should prove to you though is the brainwashing power of the MSM which needs to be neutered/eliminated....we use to have a Fairness Doctrine but that is so old school.

Ping me on my web site and we can share more about the current Portland scene....grin....I am an old fart though and mostly don't drink anything but water so am socially "boring".

namaste

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 4 2016 2:57 utc | 54

@ james who wrote about the US Reserve Currency ripoff.

Thanks for the example of how sick the current rules of global finance are. Many do not know how countries are being financially raped by the US/global private finance syndicate. It is good to see that countries in their communications are calling out the current fiat money scam and exchange requirements for what it is......as the US printing presses continue to run, depreciating the value of all currencies.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 4 2016 3:51 utc | 55

It's not over till it's over...

With the recount scam going on where the votes are being forged to give the Hitlary false win I see it as a clear plan to start civil war or give a pretense for an emergency state.

Which would be consistent with previous predictions of the "deep state" cabal not giving up.

Posted by: ProPeace | Dec 4 2016 3:59 utc | 56

@37 psychohistorian

Well said. I always enjoy hearing your perspective here. I too believe that the idea of slowly compromising with modern capitalism/private finance in order to create equality and peace is a pipe dream. It's hard for me to believe Trump of all people would be the one to do it even if I assumed it possible.

Do you read Chris Hedges? I think you might really enjoy his work (esp his books). He's truly uncompromising and has a similar perspective as you in regards to the role of priv. capital in our society. He writes for Truthdig if you're curious. Here's a lecture of his I enjoyed - i hope it's the right one but they're all good/relevant regardless:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CN4fCaL9P4&app=desktop

Posted by: FecklessLeft | Dec 4 2016 4:02 utc | 57

Is The Donald trumped? Clinton scheming to seize White House through backdoor — RT Op-Edge

Next month, Donald J. Trump, with hand on Bible, will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Or will he? The recent talk about recounting votes and 'faithless electors' suggests this highly contentious power struggle is far from over.

In fact, it may be just beginning.

Anybody who believes Hillary Rodham Clinton has been sent to the political graveyard by a Manhattan real estate developer has forgotten the cruel surprises of recent history (Remember the Greek referendum? Brexit anyone?). Democratic due process has devolved into something like ‘The Hunger Games’ for the rich - a sensational televised spectacle to entertain the elite every four years, while keeping the people believing they can effect real change.

Although it may seem implausible to some, Donald J. Trump may be denied the presidency due to a democratic system that has been corrupted to the bone by excessive wealth, power and collusion at the highest levels.

Countdown to disaster?

As the world media continues to eulogize Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the neocon-liberal establishment is quietly positioning their chess pieces for a power grab of epic proportions. As far as I can tell, there are three stages of this silent coup presently being carried out on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

The first step in the process was to perpetuate the news that although Donald Trump won the Electoral College (306-232), he failed to win the popular vote - reportedly by 2.5 million votes, at last count.

Clinton’s alleged victory in the popular vote count, which continued for three weeks after Nov. 9 (keep in mind that most of the vote monitors had already gone home as these votes were being quietly tallied), could present serious complications for Trump and his chances of entering the White House, as will become clear a bit later.

Meanwhile, the blatantly anti-Trump media is conducting “thought experiments” to show how Clinton would have, could have, should have won the Electoral College if only the Electoral map had been spliced and diced here and there across the nation. The implicit media message behind all of this tomfoolery, of course, is that Wall Street-approved Clinton deserves her coronation, because, well, that is what the elite want, democratic procedure be damned.

This ongoing campaign on behalf of Clinton is much more than just sour grapes; in fact, it is a war of attrition designed to exert undue pressure on the Electoral College, the rickety institution that got Trump elected in the first place. And although it has never robbed an election from a candidate who has gained the majority of Electoral College votes, there is a possibility – and a very high one in this particular battle - of so-called “faithless electors” tipping this contest in Clinton’s favor.

This represents the second stage of Clinton’s attempt at reversing the results of the presidential election in her favor.

Will the Electoral College go rogue?

The Electoral College is scheduled to meet on December 19 to perform what, under normal circumstances, would be a mere formality of voting for either Clinton or Trump, according to the will of their constituents.

Needless to say, however, we are not dealing with “normal circumstances.” This is a battle the Democrats have no intention of losing, no matter what the Electoral College results tell us.

The 2016 presidential campaign represents an epic power struggle that will determine the trajectory of US domestic and foreign policy like no other contest in recent history. No surprise, then, that neo-liberal lobbying groups have been exerting immense pressure on these electors to ignore the will of the people and “vote their conscience.”

Marvin DeLeon (L) of Washington County, NY, cries as he stands in the overflow crowd for Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's election night rally at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, U.S. November 8, 2016. © Mark Kauzlarich American media licking its wounds in wake of Clinton loss,

You’d be very wrong to think this couldn’t work. If 37 Republican electors essentially break the law and vote against Trump, it will block him from winning the presidency. The Democrat's team of lawyers and political consultants are now working around the clock to make this happen.

Micheal Baca, a Denver Democrat and a member of the state’s Electoral College delegation, is one of the individuals attempting to persuade Republican electors to discard the will of the people and vote for anybody but Trump.

Baca makes no secret about his intentions to override the Constitution and go rogue.

“This is not about Hillary,” he said. “This is about trying to stop Donald Trump.”

The Democrat full-court press is getting results. Art Sisneros, a Texas Republican elector, confirmed this week that he would resign his position rather than perform his Constitutionally mandated task.

Before continuing, let's take a moment and perform our own "thought experiment" and consider would would happen if Hillary Clinton somehow gets the nod for the presidency instead of Trump. If the country is not completely overwhelmed by coast-to-coast riots and protests, and there is somehow a peaceful transition of power, then Clinton can expect to face four years of the most hostile, uncooperative (Republican) Congress in American history. Although given the number of neocons who openly support Clinton and her hawkish tendencies, there could be points of agreement.

In a best-case scenario, there would be - aside from carrying out the necessary task of maintaining ‘law and order’ at home, while continuing on a war footing abroad - a four-year-long government shutdown. America would get its first real taste of what martial law feels like.

The American Conservative painted the following picture as to what would happen if Trump’s Electoral College victory were rescinded: “Constitutional government would have broken down, and we would be facing something like a Latin American presidential dictatorship. For several years, Washington’s political debate would be reduced to something like a Hobbesian war of all against all.”

Is that something we really need? Apparently it is for some folks, and not least of all Green Party presidential candidate, Jill Stein.

And this brings us to the final stage of a possible Clinton coup.

Civil War, anyone?

It is generally assumed that it was Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate who masterminded the call for a recount of votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. That’s not quite right.

New York magazine reported that on November 17 Hillary Clinton was “urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump… The group is so far not speaking on the record about their findings and is focused on lobbying the Clinton team in private.”

Just one day after the above article appeared (Nov. 22), Jill Stein, who came in dead last with about 3 million votes less than Gary ‘What is Aleppo?’ Johnson, announced she would be collecting money to recount votes in the swing states. One of the interesting things about Stein's choice of swing states to hold recounts is that these are the very same places where Trump emerged victorious. Coincidence or not, that alone should have set off some alarms.

In any case, the reason Jill Stein and not Hillary Clinton is calling for the recount is evident: Throughout the campaign, the media hounded Trump with a single annoying question never asked of the future loser: Would he accept the results of the election in the event he lost? When Trump said he would take a “wait and see” approach, Clinton assumed a holier than thou position.

“Now make no mistake,” Clinton solemnly told supporters, “by doing that, he is threatening our democracy. The peaceful transition of power is one of the things that sets us apart. It’s how we hold our country together no matter who’s in charge.”

So now that the tables are turned, Stein is in the kitchen doing the dirty work. And the media suddenly can’t get enough of this woman who haunted the 2016 election campaign like a rare phantom sighting.

Here’s how News Busters tallied her sudden stardom: “When Jill Stein was the Green Party’s candidate for US president, the networks only gave her 36 seconds of coverage. However, as soon as she launched a campaign to contest the presidential election and demand a recount of ballots in several key states, the evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find 7 minutes and 26 seconds of coverage for her in just four days. That's more than 12 times as much coverage as in the entire campaign.”

Shame on Donald Trump for objecting to #Recount2016, which makes it even more expensive: https://t.co/wzH7WiIFHl
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) December 2, 2016

But it gets better. Stein has managed to accumulate a massive war chest to carry out the recount - $7 million at last count (or about seven times what she received during her entire presidential campaign). At one point, her recount drive was pulling in almost $5,000 every minute. Somehow that doesn’t sound like Joe Voter digging deep in his Levi's; that sounds more like big league spenders stepping up to the plate. Incidentally, when Stein first started passing the hat around, she said $2.5 million would be plenty, thank you very much. Yet every time she hit the target, a higher threshold was introduced.

Is Stein’s recount campaign really about collecting some easy money while giving the Green Party some much-needed attention? Or is Stein just trying to shed some light on the dry rot gnawing away at the foundation of US democracy? All that, however necessary, seems very unlikely. After all, the recount plan was initially floated to Hillary Clinton, not Jill Stein. Thus, we must assume this is all part of a major power push for the Democrats to steal the White House from Donald Trump.

As Paul Joseph Watson summed up the situation: “Her entire campaign was backed by an establishment that wouldn’t hesitate to exploit a recount to carry out the vote fraud they thought they didn’t need on Election Day.”

Exactly.

And here is where we can fit the last piece into the puzzle to understand what is really going on here. If the recount effort alone won’t make much of a difference to either Clinton or Stein’s chances of overturning the massive edge that Trump now enjoys, then why are they bothering themselves? Hold onto your seats, folks, this gets interesting.

The answer boils down to simple arithmetic, as well as some monkey play in the system.

Presently, Michigan has already agreed to a recount, which will be carried out this weekend and require hand-counting of ballots in the regions. This process will take many days. Federal law requires the recount to be finished by Dec. 13 – just six days before the Electoral College is expected to cast its votes.

Wisconsin has already agreed to a recount, while Pennsylvania is dragging its feet. In other words, this process will probably take us right up to Dec. 19 – the date the Electoral College is supposed to cast their votes (Why the Electoral College vote isn’t valid without these voters, who could go rogue, is a question for another day).

Keep in mind that the total number of Electoral College Votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania equals 46. Now take Trump’s 306 Electoral votes and subtract that amount. This leaves you with 260, which is below the 270 required for a candidate to be automatically considered the winner of a presidential election. Do you see where this is going?

Now if this recount should start to point toward a Clinton victory in these three swing states, this will present Trump with a very serious quandary. Should he kick up a fuss and protest the recount on the grounds that he won the Electoral College, this could provoke some sort of “constitutional crisis” that prevents the recount from being completed by the Dec. 13 deadline.

Now, if the matter remains unsettled by Dec. 19 this could - technically speaking - give the Electoral College’s “faithless electors” yet more reason for not aligning themselves with their constituents. Or, on the other hand, the Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania votes could be considered forfeited because they failed to resolve the issue by the Dec. 19 deadline.

So if it did come down to this, who do you think will be selected – possibly by the very Supreme Court that Trump hopes to disband once in office – to be the 45th president of the United States?

Yes, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the candidate we have been told got 2.5 million more popular votes than Donald Trump (I would suggest Trump start a serious process to challenge those votes right now).

For those who still doubt this possibility, please consider the two latest failed grassroots movements of our times – Brexit and the Greek referendum - two examples of ‘democracy in action’ that the political elite has de facto canceled or put on hold indefinitely.

Such dramatic setbacks, which are becoming the rule rather than the exception, lend credence to Mark Twain’s famous observation that “If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.”

In other words, the elite will always get what they want, regardless how the votes goes.

Clinton seizing the White House through the backdoor would not be the strangest thing to happen in old Washington. Just ask George W. Bush how he got elected president in 2000 by the Supreme Court, not We the People.

Posted by: ProPeace | Dec 4 2016 4:22 utc | 58

Ben @ 10, it's not the USA that's addicted to war. Rather it is the US govt AS CAPTURED BY THE OLIGARCHS. Nor is it truly an addiction, but a means to the end of a global oligarchy. It isn't enough to see the evil of US aggression. One must also understand why the international institutions which have usurped nationhood around the world are evil: Fed/IMF system, World Bank, WTO and the entire UN system to which they belong. US hegemony has never been intended as the endgame. Oligarchical global govt is-- initially as a decentralized administration which they are already trying to sell you as "multipolarity".

Posted by: Penelope | Dec 4 2016 4:47 utc | 59

James @6, I disagree that patriotism is a disease. People all over the world believe that their own culture and civilization are the best, because it is the one they know and are at home in. To be patriotic is to love one's homeland, one's fellow-nationals. It is to feel a loyalty toward them. A nation is a group of people bound by common ties-- of language, history, experience, and all the minutiae of culture which allows one to "read" one's fellow-citizens in a way not possible with the outlander.

To cling to one's own, to wish to live among one's own, to prefer one's own is not to hate others, nor to be zenophobic or racist. The demonization of the preference for one's own is a part of the political correctness created by the oligarchs as a weapon in their war against the nation-state. Whenever anyone says he would like to limit immigration they at once called him a "fascist." Ludicrous. In all justice, who ought to decide the extent & type of immigration-- except the citizens?

Patriotism can of course be rationalized as an excuse or figleaf to permit aggression. But this is a misinterpretation, an error or purposeful manipulation. The oligarchs and their think tanks have long-since learned to manipulate us by what we love. Hence they appeal to justice in compelling that we have no preference, and many people are unable to ferret out the error in such a conception of justice and so are caught fast. Just as many people, having been told that being an environmentalist requires that they accept the rather silly phobia of CO2 and turn the management of the environment (and us too) over to the oligarchs, the very people who care least for either, and who are demonstrably funding the AGW program.

Posted by: Penelope | Dec 4 2016 4:48 utc | 60

[email protected] 11, re TRUMP. http://journal-neo.org/2016/11/25/the-dangerous-deception-called-the-trump-presidency/ Wm Engdahl

Posted by: Penelope | Dec 4 2016 5:18 utc | 61

@ FecklessLeft who asked if I read Chris Hedges

I have read articles by him but not his books.....and agree and support much of what he writes/says but where we part company is with his values as a Presbyterian minister. I see religions as a big part of the problem with the brainwashing about patriarchy and centuries of fealty to private finance......I have commented before that I think Xtians and private finance made a devils pact during the Enlightenment period of mutual support.....hence we never really evolved through the Enlightenment period and are still stuck with myths from then.

Thanks for your support of my commenting. I am just a bloke trying to make a difference around what I see as shared ignorance about private finance which I see as a social cancer.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Dec 4 2016 5:20 utc | 62

JackSmith @ 47, yes, the "fake news" attack is greatly concerning. Here's what I have on it:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Congress_Approves_Measure_for_Crusade_Against_%E2%80%9CFake_News%E2%80%9D_%E2%80%94_Using_DoD_Funding/55580/0/38/38/Y/M.html
Congress is ready to join the crusade against so-called “fake news,” forwarding a measure through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to combat purported foreign propaganda and disinformation. The news comes after mainstream media have been busy promoting bogus blacklists, lashing out at those who dare question the narrative. According to VOA:
“A congressional committee on Wednesday approved the measure, which would expand the ability of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center to identify and combat online disinformation. It still must be voted on by the full House and Senate and signed by the president before taking effect…
The measure advanced this week would draw on the resources of the Defense Department, intelligence agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Broadcasting Board of Governors — parent organization to Voice of America and other U.S. government-funded international broadcasters — according to the Washington Post newspaper.”

Posted by: Penelope | Dec 4 2016 5:29 utc | 63

@60 penelope - i am going to share some of circe's post from a week or so ago, as i think it bears repeating.. we can agree to disagree. thanks..

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
― Samuel Johnson

“You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.”

― George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House

“People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

The first one especially applies to Trump. American politicians have been pooping on the flag ever since they took the country into foreign entanglements for regime change and empire building.

Posted by: Circe | Nov 29, 2016 11:39:58 PM | 81

Posted by: james | Dec 4 2016 5:29 utc | 64

Jack, Also the internet is threatened by the loss of net neutrality:

It appears Trump doesn't support net neutrality. Actually, he thinks it will lead to the censorship
of conservative media. "Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab.
Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media," he tweeted in 2014.
(He's saying that there will be quotas for liberal & conservatives under Fairness Doctrine.
Actually I think that this is just his pretext) Legislation to revoke net neutrality
probably not viable cuz Senate Dems wd filibuster. But he's appointed 2 anti-net-neutrality
to "FCC transition team" Mark Jamison and Jeffrey Eisenach.
"Instead, expect quick action at the FCC itself, which will have a 3-2 Republican majority
under a Trump presidency. After a June appeals court ruling upholding the FCC rules,
the agency has broad authority to basically change its mind and repeal, or pass,
regulations without showing a change in market conditions." http://www.pcworld.com/article/3144522/internet/how-trump-will-attack-the-fccs-net-neutrality-rules.html

This is speculative interpretation of his appointing these two, but it's difficult to put an
innocent face on it.

Posted by: Penelope | Dec 4 2016 5:42 utc | 65

I have been reading MoA for a long time but have not posted. Recently I decided to find some good sources for information on what is happening on a day-to-day basis in Syria, and I have come up with a list of Twitter accounts, and a few websites, to share, in case anyone is interested.

First, here's a great report that has just been published: ALEPPO UPDATES: REAL Syrians Saving Real Syrians

Now some Twitter accounts and websites, many from people within Syria, that are ongoing sources of current news:

There is a lot of duplication, because these people often re-tweet one another, and of course you can't take everything at face value, but overall reading these accounts gives you a very good idea of the overall state of affairs.

Posted by: Robin | Dec 4 2016 8:35 utc | 66

To the real hasbara trolling this site: EAT THIS!

http://journal-neo.org/2016/11/25/the-dangerous-deception-called-the-trump-presidency/

I don't impress easily; but this piece is brilliant.

Posted by: Circe | Dec 4 2016 9:11 utc | 67

Oh, and by the by, the Saker commented on that excellent piece I just linked, and boy, for someone who supported Trump, is he a lot more honest than some of you here.

Posted by: Circe | Dec 4 2016 9:16 utc | 68

Circe | Dec 4, 2016 4:11:09 AM | 67

Very good catch; F. William Engdahl is someone I pay attention too.
There be monsters lurking everywhere; one will go in a little over a month; one was defeated; and one won the election.
We are besieged on all fronts and must remain diligent; but with little hope of victory, IMO.

Posted by: V. Arnold | Dec 4 2016 10:46 utc | 69

Pizzagate is so horrific. But people who care about children, truth, common humanity, and exposing sick psychopaths amongst the elite need to look into it and spread the word.

An hour of a internet research will alert any but the most closed minded that something horrifically evil has been going through n and covered up and high levels, across the Western world.

Child protection is everybody's duty.

Posted by: Anoncommenter | Dec 4 2016 12:03 utc | 70

@"anon"
a minute of a internet research will make you a laughstock. there are horrible enough news worldwide not to pay attention to such retarded crap...

Posted by: ratatat | Dec 4 2016 12:10 utc | 71

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
― Samuel Johnson

Posted (or rather cited) by: james | Dec 4, 2016 12:29:41 AM | 64

This dictum is universally misunderstood. Dr Johnson was not attacking patriotism in this quote. He took it for granted that patriotism was a virtue, a good instinct. He was attacking dishonest politicians and noting how they so often perverted good instincts for bad ends.

He was himself a staunch patriot of a type we could do with today. Pugnacious in defending the interests of his own country. Respectful, allowing for an admittedly large measure of Johnsonian waywardness, of the interests of others. No tinge, incidentally, of the implicit racism that pervades our modern thinking. It's a patriotism that is very far removed from the "White man's burden" approach. an approach that I do sometimes find even on this site and that is often the explicit basis, for PR purposes anyway, of our current Western foreign policy. He would not have approved of Bush or Clinton-style diplomatic practice. The justification for that practice usually advanced, that it's the duty of the West to supervise and regulate the "lesser breeds without the law", would have been quite foreign to Johnson's thinking. Pity it's not as foreign to ours.

That aside, what was the patriotism Johnson exemplified? The Russians are said to make this distinction between patriotism and nationalism: - patriotism is regard for one's own community, nationalism is a desire to damage the interests of someone else's. We use different terms perhaps but the distinction is one Johnson recognised and lived by.

English Outsider

Posted by: EnglishOutsider | Dec 4 2016 12:57 utc | 72

Trump was called by the Taiwan president in congratulations.Why does anyone think China should have any consent on American POTUS deliberation or business?
They are Israel?
Another one that will learn a new rule,as Trump is boss.
Intercept?A bunch of lying propagandist dweeb losers,all but GG terrible posers of journalism,a phenomena throughout the MSM and zio web sites.

Posted by: dahoit | Dec 4 2016 14:58 utc | 73

Circe @67

Engdahl's scare-mongering nonsense is very similar to your own.

We are to believe that Trump & Co. will not risk WWIII over Syria but intends to do so by aggressively confronting Iran.

Really?

If neocon influence on Trump is so great, why the Jill Stein/Electoral College maneuvering? And why wouldn't they just double-down in Syria with expanded use of ISIS/al Queda?

And the Saker politely rebutted Engdahl so it's strange that you use him to reinforce your point.

<> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Engdahl's & Circe's concern trolling over "The Project called the Trump Presidency" is actually rather convenient for 'The Project to Elect Hillary' - which is ongoing. The neocon game plan has not changed: make Trump the greater evil.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Dec 4 2016 15:18 utc | 74

Please, if your link has more than fifty or sixty characters without a hyphen (-), learn to use the 'A HREF' HMTL tag shown above or refrain from using that link.
Look at Penelope's link above as an example. Others can be google pictures, titles with underlines (_), etc. Try to show other readers respect, and if not,
that you have a modicum of intelligence sufficient to use HTML. Thanks in advance.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Dec 4 2016 15:58 utc | 75

@72 english outsider.. thanks.. that is a good distinction to make and i appreciate your post! unfortunately most all of the way the word 'patriotism' has been used in my lifetime has been to clobber people over the head with going to war in some faraway country.. it has nothing to do with community, and in fact is intent on destroying others sense of community.. i don't need to give any examples, as everyone knows them.. so when folks get wound up about someone burning a flag, while constantly saying they 'support the troops' and that kind of blather - i take it as code for them being duped by politicians into the ''foreign wars to protect america'' ( or make it great again) mantra that is all part and parcel of what i have seen in my lifetime..

if folks were truly interested and supportive of their local community, they wouldn't be cheering the murder and mayhem that has been unleashed so many times and places for the past 60 years.. that ain't patriotism..

either way - i hate the word and what it has come to represent in the world today.. it is like a few other words that have been used way too much while holding no value, other then a surface knee jerk one.. maybe i ought to blame the politicians. some folks seem easily sucked in to following them in using these vacuous words as if they had some substance.. maybe they do for some, but i haven't witnessed it with any politicians or people i know.. freedom and democracy are another 2 words one may as well throw in the garbage can, especially if they're coming from a politicians mouth.

Posted by: james | Dec 4 2016 16:17 utc | 76

@74

You know; I shouldn't bother even responding because you lie through your teeth; your spin is so effing obvious...but I just can't give such nonsense a pass.

And the Saker politely rebutted Engdahl so it's strange that you use him to reinforce your point.

The Saker didn't rebut Engdahl; he demonstrates a great deal of intelligent skepticism about Trump; UNLIKE you who is drunk on Kool-Aid.

And I didn't use him to reinforce my point; I used Engdahl and I'll demonstrate it later by posting the response I posted on Saker's site.

We are to believe that Trump & Co. will not risk WWIII over Syria but intends to do so by aggressively confronting Iran.

Syria's over for the PNAC handlers since Putin scuttled that strategy and you especially should know that; their ultimate target in ME was Iran anyway. The narrative for war is already happening as three strategic members in Trump's cabinet, Mattis, Flynn and Pompeo are already replacing ISIS with Iran as public enemy number one--stating that Iran is more dangerous than ISIS and Pompeo stated that Tehran was intent on destroying America; in essence adopting the meme Zionist's use against Iran that Iran will wipe Israel off the map; so they're already rattling the sabres.

Oh pawwwleeeees quit insulting everyone's intelligence with this drivel. I already stated that BOTH parties are Zionism's prostitutes and I don't give a rat's ass about Hillary! I also clearly stated the night before the election here that I wanted anyone but her to win...so FAIL; try again.

Adelson invested 25 million on Trump one week before the election! The Zionist front-man throws millions at Trump and isn't expecting anything back? I'll be amused at how far Trump will bend over?

Netanyahu should change the hasbara army trying to make Trump look like the artist of change when he's really the agent for the Zionist culmination of PNAC.

You're increasingly more transparent. Did you have a front-row seat when Trump groveled at AIPAC's pedestal? I could just picture the drooling. Trump's the wet dream of every hard-core Zionist.

Posted by: Circe | Dec 4 2016 16:29 utc | 77

Which purveys more "fake news" - RT.com on the one hand, or Fox News, MSNBC and CNN on the other? I asked that question on reddit and my post was deleted.

Posted by: micawber | Dec 4 2016 17:30 utc | 78

your Podesta trivia did reveal this tantalizing tidbit.

Posted by: john | Dec 4 2016 19:25 utc | 79

@ Formerly T-Bear | Dec 4, 2016 10:58:35 AM | 75

Please, if your link has more than fifty or sixty characters without a hyphen (-), learn to use the 'A HREF' HMTL tag shown above or refrain from using that link.

FTB, like you, I wish people would pay attention to this, but I have also found that different browsers handle these very long links differently. I usually use Opera, which can't break up these long links, so when I looked at this comment thread, the text is three screens wide, and basically unreadable. But when I open it in Internet Exploder, the comments appear normal.

So part of the problem here is that, depending on what browser they're using, commentors using extra-long links might very well not see the damage that those links cause in other browsers.

Posted by: PhilK | Dec 4 2016 19:37 utc | 80

This is seriously big news:

NGOS SMUGGLING IMMIGRANTS INTO EUROPE ON INDUSTRIAL SCALE?

The original SouthFront article appeared on GEIFRA, "Global Analysis from the European Perspective. Preparing for the world of tomorrow". Their links are all very slow or dead today.

The article details a wide-spread and significant operation by shady NGOs to smuggle people (not necessarily refugees) across the Mediterranean into Europe using their privately-owned ships. Some of this done under the guise of 'rescuing' stranded refugees, but appears to be nothing more than ship-to-ship transfers off the North African coast. This is done under the protection of the EU - apparently Belgium exempts these ships from any legal action. More worrying is the involvement of people from organizations like Blackwater/Academi/XE and other U.S.-linked corporations.

The whole thing is very odd. Is this getting any press in Europe? Government-backed human trafficking - but for what purpose? It's destabilizing to say the least. Does the EU government have some reason to cause unrest so it can come in an 'rescue' its members (by more firmly planting its jackboot on their necks)? And why the U.S. involvement? Pretty soon, you'll have NATO 'anti-terror' troops stationed in Paris and White Helmets cleaning up after the terrorist attacks.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Dec 4 2016 19:39 utc | 81

@ PhilK | Dec 4, 2016 2:37:37 PM | 82

You are likely correct about the browser capacity. I supposed it was the system in use here that could not inject a virtual hyphen to initiate a line wrap without changing the link and was using that assumption.
I will use your considerations from now on or forego the thread altogether depending on subject. Problem solved.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Dec 4 2016 19:46 utc | 82

@66 robin.. thanks!

Posted by: james | Dec 4 2016 19:50 utc | 83

"Pizzagate is so horrific. But people who care about children..." should not feed them with pizza?

Sorry, recently I hardly followed any news that did not concern Syria.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 4 2016 19:51 utc | 84

I found a really interesting article on the Strategic Culture Foundation's online journal. But I would add to it that if Trump gave his Likud son-in-law the responsibility of overhauling his advisory committee after the election, it's because Trump was already all in with the Zionist Neocon plan, and perhaps the 25 million Adelson windfall helped solidify this direction. Although James Woolsey was around since September; but I guess Trump just needed a little monetary incentive to help him see the Neocon light. So really they're not undermining his Presidency; he's doing it willingly.

Link to Neocon 'Blasts from the Past

Very insightful article.

Posted by: Circe | Dec 4 2016 20:05 utc | 85

Innumeracy at The Guardian: "Two engineering graduates from Aleppo University, Abdulrahman and Amr Shayah, have called for the use of guided parachute drops which have cameras and navigation equipment on the aid pallets, allowing an aircraft to fly at 35,000ft (10,670 metres) and drop its payload up to 100km (62 miles) from the intended target."

Is the reporting as accurate as the deliveries planned by Abdulrahman and Shayah? Mere 62 miles from the intended target?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/04/us-uk-explore-possibility-aid-airdrops-syria-drones

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 4 2016 20:10 utc | 86

Why the awful formatting of this thread: walk-to-wall sentences? What gives on this site? It happens often.

Posted by: Quentin | Dec 4 2016 20:15 utc | 87

Putin's propaganda initiative, sending the floating dumpster called the "Admiral Kuznetsov" to Syria has blown up in his face. The aging rust-bucket, which spews soot while under way like a 19th century coal-burner, is Ru's one and only aircraft carrier. Now it's not even good for that. Well, maybe China will buy it as another fixer-upper project.

After two incidents w/ MiG-29s in just a month or so, losing one, the Su-33's and MiG-29's are now safely on land. Time for the Kuznetsov to limp on home and go back to dry dock. Wonder how many rubles it takes to keep that piece of crap afloat for a day, even if it's not trashing MiGs w/ its broken arrestor cables.

http://www.janes.com/article/65775/russian-carrier-jets-flying-from-syria-not-kuznetsov

Also this week, the US beefed up its Med 6th fleet w/ an amphibious contingent of 4000 Marines ready to kick some ass. (Marines are always ready to kick some ass. Just ask Mad Dog.)

Posted by: Denis | Dec 4 2016 21:14 utc | 88

The tweets from this account are so stupid it is hard not to wonder if it is an hoax. But I can't decide from which side!! I am afraid it is a good exemple of the complete brainlessness of the Aleppo insurgents.
https://twitter.com/AlabedFatemah

Posted by: Mina | Dec 4 2016 21:20 utc | 89

Circe @77

The Saker didn't rebut Engdahl
He did. Politely (as I said). People can read Saker's view and decide for themselves.

BOTH parties are Zionism's prostitutes
Trump ran against the Republican establishment. Zionists don't especially like nationalism (unless it is Israeli nationalism.)

Syria's over for the PNAC handlers since Putin scuttled that strategy ... rattling sabres.
Attacking either Syria or Iran means WWIII. Rattling sabres is not war. Countries that LOSE wars feel obliged to rattle sabres so as to not appear weak.

Hillary and the Neocons want to double-down in Syria. Trump wants to end the Syrian Conflict and he rattles sabres against Iran to placate the butt-hurt neocons/MIC/allies.

Obama's Agreement with Iran was never meant to be lasting. So Trump is not particularly onerous wrt Iran. And, as everyone knows, there is ALWAYS an enemy.

Adelson invested 25 million on Trump one week before the election!
Adelson's reluctant backing of Trump

[As of Oct 19th] Adelson has only contributed $10 million to the Trump campaign, and continues to focus his efforts on aiding GOP candidates in Senate and House of Representatives races... Adelson has told people he disagreed with Trump’s erratic campaign style and frequent attacks on GOP establishment figures ... Trump has raised just $200 million, compared to more than $500 million raised by the Clinton campaign.

Everyone knows that Israel always plays both sides. Doesn't mean that they're happy with the outcome. The clear favorite was Hillary. (And still is - as proven by Jill Stein's recount.)

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

Interesting that you are repeating the same BS at the Saker site that you've already been castigated for here. That the Israeli leader is the first or one of the first Heads of State that a President-Elect speaks to is meaningless.

Trump's support for Israel isn't much different than prior American Administrations. It has to be balanced against other positions that he has taken (notably 'America First'). He has bought himself some space to fashion his own foreign policy.

I will wait and see what he does. For example, after he was elected, Trump backed away from several positions: he will not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and will keep some parts of Obamacare.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Dec 4 2016 21:41 utc | 90

PIV
looks like just another extreme right website,
seeing the comments here, it fits in well
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-04/something-strange-taking-place-mediterranean

Last year during the 'refugee crisis' these NGOs mentioned in the article of the so-called think tank behind these 'reports' were very public about their distribution of leaflets in multiple languages with phones to call for rescue etc.

https://twitter.com/gefirafundation
Their twitter line says... they do really stink.

It's hard to understand what exactly want the Eastern Europeans who are behind this website.
(I assume that on the base they claim to be based in the Netherlands but offer translations in English French and Polish. But no Dutch). Focus on Greece/Turkey (Gefira is a Greek town), close to Italian extreme-right, want the reintroduction of the lira but find it abnormal that Erdogan calls for trading in own currencies with China Russia etc rather than in dollar.
And they post (on their twitter line) a youtube video of neo-nazis who went for asylum seekers hunt in october. Nice guys, you would say?
http://www.thelocal.de/20161103/refugees-hunted-through-notorious-east-german-town
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37372029

Posted by: Mina | Dec 4 2016 22:05 utc | 91

@90 denis.. you sound deranged.. is janes something like sohr, that 'one man' publishing house out of britian? or does it get a wee bit more from the uk trough for this kind of stuff? lol..

Posted by: james | Dec 4 2016 22:09 utc | 92

Dear all news (#79,80)

Now that was funny. As a retired academic I was apalled when the ideas of Foucalt and Derida infested the thinking inside our social "science" and language departments about 30 years ago. You capture their thinking perfectly. But it was not funny at the time. It was "WTF are these fools think they are actually saying"?

Posted by: ToivoS | Dec 4 2016 22:18 utc | 93

[email protected]

"....I have commented before that I think Xtians and private finance made a devils pact during the Enlightenment period of mutual support.."

It being Sunday, I'll bite. Sorry I've missed your previous comment(s) on the subject. Do you mean all Christians?

I would maybe take it back further than that, to Christ's comment "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" as far as
an encapsulation of the problem involved in mixing faith with commerce or government. Do you mean in particular countries
the leaders purporting to be Christian? Homing in on the Enlightenment period, perhaps governing bodies in the world at that
time who were Christian?

Then too, you say, "... brainwashing about patriarchy and centuries of fealty to private finance..." I have to say, no one is
brainwashing me - I think for myself, thank you, for better or for worse. Are you just focussing on the Bush era Christians?
This is a very limited group to claim represents the whole - and even within that group I remember there was a website publishing
photos of people who were sorry when Bush was re-elected. I saw a woman on that site holding a placard that read: "I am a
fundamentalist Christian and I am very sorry." She hadn't been brainwashed either.

But I will await your comments because I could well have misunderstood what you meant. (By the way, I have problems with
some of Chris Hedges' interpretations, but not with his being a Presbyterian minister. I suppose I am a sort of minister myself -
that is, as close as one can be such and be Russian Orthodox whilst not being Russian. (Now there's a conundrum.)

I would say being a Christian is incidental to whatever government one supports or finds oneself governed by, and that is why
I agree with 'e pluribus unum' and that God should be left out of the governments of men, but I am a Christian and I think there
are many like me - I really think all should be but we each have our failings.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 4 2016 22:24 utc | 94

Apologies for the dangling parenthesis - I do that all the time.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 4 2016 22:25 utc | 95

@Robin | Dec 4, 2016 3:35:15 AM | 66 Thanks! Good work.

@Formerly T-Bear | Dec 4, 2016 10:58:35 AM | 75 I recommend "copy url expert" add-on on Firefox.

Posted by: ProPeace | Dec 4 2016 22:38 utc | 96

@juliania #96:

I have problems with some of Chris Hedges' interpretations, but not with his being a Presbyterian minister. …

I am a Christian and I think there are many like me

I do have problems with Presbyterians myself. As you may recall, I was raised Russian Orthodox but joined a Lutheran church. So I had been trying to figure out for a long time what denominations I can relate to. For a while, I thought it was only Orthodoxy and Lutheranism. Then I went to an Anglican (Episcopalian) church a couple of times and had a long talk with the vicar, who is Australian. To me, he might as well be Lutheran.

From that experience, I decided that the denominations of Christianity that are valid are ones that have a well defined liturgy and practice sacraments. That means Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism. All the other denominations branch off from Calvinism, which rejected too much from the Roman church, unlike Luther and the Anglicans, who kept what should rightly be preserved.

I think preserving the liturgy and sacraments is essential, because otherwise, it is impossible to avoid the impulse to try to rationalize everything. as fundamentalists do. This should be a natural position for a Russian Orthodox. And in my experience, both Lutherans and Anglicans have great admiration for how Russian Orthodox treat some issues as mysteries.

Demian is now known as Adalbrand

BTW, I have a habit of choosing either Greek or Germanic names as my user names/handles. So for Twitter, I chose Adalbrand, since that was free. (Demian wasn't.) The chose of a Germanic sounding name turned out to be fortuitous, I think, given have Trump and Hillary popularized the alt-right (which I only learned about a year ago).

P.S. I guess one thing I don't like about Protestantism is that they do not restrict Christian names to saints' names, as the Orthodox and Catholics do.

Posted by: Adalbrand | Dec 4 2016 22:50 utc | 97

Posted by: Denis | Dec 4, 2016 4:14:20 PM | 90

Putin's propaganda initiative, sending the floating dumpster called the "Admiral Kuznetsov" to Syria has blown up in his face.
Time for the Kuznetsov to limp on home and go back to dry dock.

Bullshit! The Admiral Kuznetsov has a secondary mission of 1) testing and proving its airplanes and their new weapons systems in combat, and 2) giving its pilots combat experience, something that is extremely rare in the Russian Navy.

It's real mission is to create a naval exclusion zone in the eastern Mediterranean and prevent the US Navy from launching attacks on Syria. The Russian Navy has been fulfilling this role from late 2012. It already once prevented a US attack in August 2013.

It took an extraordinary long time for the Kuznetsov to reach the Syrian coast after it had entered the Mediterranean. All this time it was fulfilling its primary role and keeping the US away from the Mediterranean at the very hight of the Syrian crisis. Now that Clinton and her war plans are defeated the Kuznetsov and her planes can do as they please, bomb terrorist the most effective way. If tensions arise again, the Su-33s will be on the deck of the Kuznetsov before a US carrier can leave port.

See my full article here:

Russia's Big Guns Go to War - Donbass Defence Journal, October 21, 2016

The two largest ships of the Russian Navy, the nuclear powered battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy (099) and the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov (063) are now in the English Channel, steaming toward the eastern Mediterranean. Their mission, to establish a 1,500 km naval exclusion zone outside the coast of Syria and to sink any US carrier strike group willing to challenge them.
...

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Dec 4 2016 23:25 utc | 98

@Petri Krohn | Dec 4, 2016 6:25:08 "Now that Clinton and her war plans are defeated"

Not so fast...

Is the Donald trumped? Clinton scheming to seize the White House through backdoor.

Posted by: ProPeace | Dec 4 2016 23:41 utc | 99

Remember general Smedley Butler's pamphlet "War is a racket!" ? Not so much have chaned since then... This is a member of Business Round Tables that prof. Quigley's wrote about in his "Tragedy and Hope" and other works. That's where world terrorism, conflict and enslavement come from:

Chiquita’s Terrorist Funding

A federal judge in Florida ruled that “victims of Colombian paramilitary death squads funded by Chiquita” have a right to have their case heard in the United States rather than Colombia, “clearing the way for the historic case to advance toward trial.” The ruling comes nearly a decade after Chiquita pled guilty in 2007 to charges of “engaging in unauthorized transactions” with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which was designated a global terrorist organization by the US State Department in 2001...

----

1984 already here Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

And some more interesting news:

Looks like a NATO/GLADIO hit against Russia's future prominent friends maybe?

Female politician & two journalists shot dead in Imatra, Finland – police — RT News

Funny: Bild: Eurovision 2017 may take place in Moscow

Scary: Senate Passes New Bill Targeting College Students Who Criticize Israel

Also Fecesbrook will be censoring content based on some "collective body"....

Posted by: ProPeace | Dec 4 2016 23:46 utc | 100

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