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The MoA Week In Review – OT 2018-68
Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:
When reading about the 'Integrity Initiative' please keep in mind that it is only one of many similar organizations that various governments, companies and interest groups use to spread their self-serving propaganda.
The last piece is, with some 3,600 words after cuts, way too long for a usual Moon of Alabama post. But I felt it was important to detail how the seemingly unconnected issues we watched over the last year fit into each other. Some related stuff, like the issues mention in the Wikileaks tweet below, did not make the cut. Anyway, it took quite an effort to write it. Please spread it wide and far.
bigger
Use as open thread …
“The G J are showing this state of affairs up.”Noirette @ 8
The great achievement of the GJ is to demonstrate that what the politicians, of all stripes want, is office. None of them want power. They are content to let power rest where it is. If they were not, if they really wanted power, they sense that their careers, and probably their lives, would soon come to an end.
Tspiras, in Greece, is a good example. Until he got into office he insisted that the state’s power could be used to benefit the masses. He soon discovered that he was wrong and that while he had got office he was as far from power-further in fact- than he had been in the days when his party had been in opposition.
What the ‘left’dare not tell its supporters is that elections are of very little importance: by winning them all that Socialists achieve is to deny ruling class parties a mandate for reactionary measures. Election victories on the left may prevent or mitigate attacks on the people but they can do very little more: the only reforms that they can produce are reforms already due, reforms backed by powerful parties within the Establishment.
It is certainly true, for example, that after WWII in western Europe and the UK, in particular, long overdue changes were introduced, changes which greatly benefited the masses. Reforms that were not only supported by but midwifed by socialists.
But they were almost all based on old proposals long backed by civil servants and conservative elements of the Deep State.
As everyone knows national insurance and old age pension schemes can be traced back to Bismark and Lloyd George. In the same way the British NHS and the welfare state in general pre-dated the Labour government and were begun in the wartime government headed by Churchill.
We are at the end of forty years of neo-liberal policies, all over the world, policies which have caused more deaths-and will continue to do so for decades to come- than any of the wars begun by the neo-liberals, most of them to distract opponents and victims of their criminality.
What was the origin of this nightmare period, in which working people have been pushed deeper and deeper into poverty and insecurity?
In my view it began with the failure of the left, in Europe particularly, to turn the temporary advances of the Trade Unions and the Welfare State into the basis for taking power. It was afraid to turn down the accommodation offered by the powers that be: ‘You will never have to work again. We will bury you in honours, prestige and, wealth. But recognise that you have gone as far as we will allow. No tinkering with the foundations of the system.”
It ran out of ideas, because what came next involved challenging the system. Or rather it shied away from facing the reality that ideas are not enough. It was afraid to move from reform to revolution, in the sense of telling its clientele, the popular electorate, the truth: no electoral victory would do what was necessary. Casting a vote has very little effect unless behind each vote cast is a pledge by the voter to insist, in person and in the street and workplace, if necessary, on the imposition of the programme desired.
In contemporary terms that means that, in the UK, where, not coincidentally, the warmongers and the peace campaigners, the neo-liberals and those campaigning for nationalisation of the economy, both are to the fore in the political debate, the left has to go beyond a manifesto and honestly tell its supporters that an election victory would signal only the beginning. The dominant Establishment, which has roots far wider than the UK and can exist for long periods without support from it, is ruthless. To resist it a government seriously bent on defying the US and Israel will have to purge the BBC, replace the dominant media with one ready to tell the truth and afraid to misinform and disinform.
The GJ have one enormous advantage: the French language which insulates most working people from the dominant, English language, propaganda.
Posted by: bevin | Dec 16 2018 22:59 utc | 11
(I’ve been lurking on and off here for quite a while, but now it’s time to come out of ‘Lurk-istan’ and into the limelight of MoA’s open thread. The level of intelligence and discourse on this site is–on the whole–excellent, which is why I’ve decided to post the below. Sincere, thoughtful replies requested.)
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~ Could this new grassroots-democracy system actually work? ~
Let’s face it. It’s ‘Borg-world, here we come’ (see DARPA is a major ‘transhumanism’ hub) unless we can somehow overcome the major threats we face. And they are major: large, powerful systems and organizations that basically recruit talented psychopaths to run large corporations, financial institutions, rogue government agencies, stolen elections, etc. All of this is resulting in regional and global eco-catastrophes, omni-surveillance 24/7, etc., etc.
Yet solving these is going to ultimately depend on a critical mass of ‘we the people’ working together with some form of genuinely healthy democracy that effectively connects to a healthy electoral system.
Yep, a daunting task, to say the least. But if we start working now, work smart, and begin to reverse the disastrous course we’re now on by whatever means necessary (but only using those means while truly operating in a deeply democratic grassroots manner), we can still help catalyze a re-blossoming of humanity, one that’s harmonious with both itself and Nature.
Your skepticism is understandable, but hear me out.
A new grassroots-democracy system exists that enables sovereign-citizen-based, deeply democratic self government—from the voting-precinct level on up—genuinely of, by, and for we the people. We can pool our views to build united views and actions, enabling us—not only in spite of but because of our diversity—to actually work together to determine our own destiny, versus allowing that to be determined by a plutocratic few who act in their own selfish interests.
This system is called the “Neighborhood Councils-Precinct Assembly” (NC-PA), and its detailed pdf ‘how-to’ Manual is at http://preview.tinyurl.com/ncpa-4 . (The main NC-PA website is located at: http://ncpaaction.wordpress.com . A pdf overview and excerpts from the Manual are located at: http://preview.tinyurl.com/ncpa-excerpts .)
Yes, NC-PA’s website is spare and anonymous (www.ncpaaction.wordpress.com) —its purpose is only to introduce and disperse the Manual.
By individually and collectively using techniques of deep democracy and group processes—old and new—at the level of today’s neighborhoods and voting precincts, the NC-PA system finally actualizes Thomas Jefferson’s long-held dream for the establishment of local, authentically democratic, self-government.
[The Manual quote above is referring to Jefferson’s ‘ward-republics’ ideas, which he began promoting around 1816.]
NC-PA emphasizes establishing not only mutual respect but also mutual trust that is based on mutual perceived trustworthiness. So many other groups try to establish mutual trust by simply working to make their members believe that everyone present is inherently trustworthy, when this is too often not the case. That forced perspective has resulted in too many grassroots democracy movements having been hijacked, diverted, twisted beyond recognition, and weaponized by those beholden to shadowy elements of society that have hidden agendas that are decidedly unhealthy for the rest of us.
Basic NC-PA components include:
* Establishing multiple, informally organized, neighborhood-based ‘neighborhood councils’ (NCs)—within a single voting precinct—that are centered on mutual respect and trust-based-on-mutually-perceived trustworthiness. These qualities allow more honest airing and discussion of members’ concerns (NC’s share some similarities with affinity groups);
* Within that same voting precinct, establishing a single, more formally organized, voting-precinct-based ‘precinct assembly’ (PA), at which NC delegates deliberate and decide on the issues brought to it by the NC’s in an atmosphere of mutual respect to the greatest degree possible and using various empowering group-process techniques (including consensus, dynamic facilitation, and super-majority rule, depending on the issue at hand);
* All of the NC members within that same precinct being encouraged to also attend the PA to give immediate feedback to their delegates on the issues being discussed;
* At every meeting level larger than the NC, using delegates (who are explicitly bound to follow their home group’s instructions) and not representatives (who can basically do whatever they want)—the delegate/members ratio is 1 to 5;
* Promoting absolute election integrity by all means necessary (‘absolute election integrity’ is practical only via hand-counted, publicly observed, secure-chain-of-custody, paper ballots—an optional machine recount of ballots for verification purposes can be added), as such election integrity is ultimately the source of any long-term NC-PA political power.
* PA’s teaming up with the PA’s of the voting precincts within an election district (like a state representative’s) to directly impact policy making and elections.
* Promoting the rapid replication of NC’s and PA’s to establish ‘network governance’ within larger and larger geographical areas, each using the same basic delegate format in the assemblies that they form, as well as continual reflection to and from the smaller geographical levels below them.
* At all levels, using basic ‘security-culture’ principles as much as possible to minimize outside interference and disruption. NC-PA confronts some of our more challenging realities: the ‘total surveillance society,’ agents provocateurs, infiltrators, disruptors, etc. Too many other grassroots-democracy movements seem to try to ignore these issues, as if pretending they’re not there will make their unsavory truths simply cease to exist. Security culture methods can include eliminating/ minimizing the use of all hackable communications (e.g., online social media, phones, anything connected to the Internet of Things (IoT)) and instead using alternative communication methods (distributing hard-copy printed materials (remember those?)), door-to-door word of mouth, walkie-talkies, silent written-communication-only meetings, modified sign language… the list can be long).
Admittedly, the Manual’s section on the Precinct Assembly is still too vague about detailed, on-the-ground operations. That will be improved by future readers-turned-practitioners who, writing from personal experience, will improve on the original Manual, which actually encourages such improvement as long as its ‘9 Pillars of NC-PA’ concepts (see http://preview.tinyurl.com/ncpa-excerpts ) are kept fundamentally intact.
Regardless, much of what’s in the Manual is reality-based enough—all elements are already ‘off the shelf’ and have been successfully used for many years. This is especially true of the voting precincts upon which NC-PA is based, and it is thus designed to plug directly into our electoral infrastructure. Bringing about genuine election integrity is key (and a powerful tactic is detailed in the Manual (pp 65–66) for the public to retake their elections back from voting machine companies, their programmers, and their manipulators)—NC-PA could have tremendous impact in helping society govern and evolve itself.
Anyway, we’re going to need something that works, and soon.
But that’s just my (admittedly biased) take on it. Please check NC-PA out using the links provided above, and—if you feel moved to do so—report back with your own thoughts about this NC-PA system.
Posted by: Catalyst | Dec 17 2018 19:25 utc | 40
Don’t Mess With Texas, er, I mean (((Tex-Aviv)))
commenting on an article from The Intercept: A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States — so She Lost Her Job
Welcome to Texas, land of cowboys and goys, cattle auctions and obedient shkotzim, oil drilling and Israel shilling and so on.
As the Lone Star State rapidly transforms itself into another province of may-hee-co, at least everyone has their priorities straight, namely total and complete subservience to the poisonous mushroom and its (((criminal bandit state)))
You better say you love the globalist nation-wrecker like your future depends on it, because when it comes to employment, it does.
A children’s speech pathologist who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told that she can no longer work with the public school district, after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation.
Translation: The absolute state of our dying nation in 2018. Open borders, foreign invasion, cities transformed into burning African tribal war zones…none of that matters. What does matter is bowing down to the (((synagogue))) of satan so you can have the crumbs that fall off the semitic plate to you, the dogs.
The child language specialist, Bahia Amawi, is a U.S. citizen who received a master’s degree in speech pathology in 1999 and, since then, has specialized in evaluations for young children with language difficulties.
Naturally, not a single White person had any problem with swearing allegiance to a hostile foreign power. It’s up to some muslim immigrant to display more courage in the face of evil than the entire gelded population of may-hee-co norr-tay.
Amawi was born in Austria and has lived in the U.S.
Come on in, “Austrians!” Just cool it with the “anti-semitism,” okay?
She was prepared to sign her contract renewal until she noticed one new, and extremely significant, addition: a certification she was required to sign pledging that she “does not currently boycott Israel,” that she “will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract,” and that she shall refrain from any action “that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israeli or in an Israel-controlled territory.”
This is real. It’s not some tasteless joke. It actually happened. A muslim immigrant come into conflict in a nation that lost its mind, soul and testicles.
I solemnly swear to affix my lips to kosher tuckus, under the threat of losing my livelihood. And I’m proud to be a murrkann, where at least I know I’m free…
The language of the affirmation Amawi was told she must sign reads like Orwellian — or McCarthyite — self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading.
Every right-thinking American would immediately reject this marxist atrocity. Which is why they all quietly signed off on it until Amahi raised a stink, perhaps wrongly thinking there is any victim identity on par with g*d’s chosen.
Whatever one’s own views are, boycotting Israel to stop its occupation is a global political movement modeled on the 1980s boycott aimed at South Africa that helped end that country’s system of racial apartheid.
And now South Africa is doing great! Ahem. Cough.
That’s one extraordinary aspect of this story: The sole political affirmation Texans like Amawi are required to sign in order to work with the school district’s children is one designed to protect not the United States or the children of Texas, but the economic interests of Israel.
Good Texans with long ancestral ties to the land like Amawi and *series of clicking noises* are being forced to side against the America they sincerely love!
As Amawi put it to The Intercept: “It’s baffling that they can throw this down our throats and decide to protect another country’s economy versus protecting our constitutional rights.”
Muh constitution, declares the immigrant. Bow down to the shekel almighty! Whoever wins, we lose.
https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-law/
Posted by: monika | Dec 19 2018 21:31 utc | 56
A look back: Thinking of FP Realist Steven Cohen in 2011
Obama’s Russia ‘Reset’: Another Lost Opportunity?”
Obama’s celebrated “reset” of US-Russia relations is limited and unstable. A fundamental transformation requires bold leadership and a full rethinking of Washington’s triumphalist attitudes.
… when President Obama took office in January 2009, relations between Washington and Moscow were so bad that some close observers, myself included, characterized them as a new cold war. Almost all cooperation, even decades-long agreements regulating nuclear weapons, had been displaced by increasingly acrimonious conflicts. Indeed, the relationship had led to a military confrontation potentially as dangerous as the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Georgian-Russian War of August 2008 was also a proxy American-Russian war, the Georgian forces having been supplied and trained by Washington.
What happened to the “strategic partnership and friendship” between post-Soviet Moscow and Washington promised by leaders on both sides after 1991? For more than a decade, the American political and media establishments have maintained that such a relationship was achieved by President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s but destroyed by the “antidemocratic and neo-imperialist agenda” of Vladimir Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin in 2000.
In reality, the historic opportunity for a post–cold war partnership was lost in Washington, not Moscow, when the Clinton administration, in the early 1990s, adopted an approach based on the false premise that Russia, having “lost” the cold war, could be treated as a defeated nation. (The cold war actually ended through negotiations sometime between 1988 and 1990, well before the end of Soviet Russia in December 1991, as all the leading participants—Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush—agreed.)
The result was the Clinton administration’s triumphalist, winner-take-all approach, including an intrusive crusade to dictate Russia’s internal political and economic development; broken strategic promises, most importantly Bush’s assurance to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastward beyond a reunited Germany; and double-standard policies impinging on Russia (along with sermons) that presumed Moscow no longer had any legitimate security concerns abroad apart from those of the United States, even in its own neighborhood. The backlash came with Putin, but it would have come with any Kremlin leader more self-confident, more sober and less reliant on Washington than was Yeltsin.
Nor did Washington’s triumphalism end with Clinton or Yeltsin. Following the events of September 11, 2001, to take the most ramifying example, Putin’s Kremlin gave the George W. Bush administration more assistance in its anti-Taliban war in Afghanistan, including in intelligence and combat, than did any NATO ally. In return, Putin expected the long-denied US-Russian partnership. Instead, the Bush White House soon expanded NATO all the way to Russia’s borders and withdrew unilaterally from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow regarded as the bedrock of its nuclear security. Those “deceptions” have not been forgotten in Moscow.
. . .
When President Obama made “resetting” relations with Moscow a foreign-policy priority, he seemed to understand that a chance for a necessary partnership with post-Soviet Russia had been lost and might still be retrieved. The meaning of “reset” was, of course, what used to be called détente. And since détente had always meant replacing cold war conflicts with cooperation, the president’s initiative also suggested an understanding that he had inherited something akin to a new cold war.
. . .
The political failings of the reset may be transitory, but the fundamental fallacies of Obama’s Russia policy derive from the winner-take-all triumphalism of the 1990s. One is the enduring conceit of “selective cooperation,” or seeking Moscow’s support for America’s vital interests while disregarding Russia’s. Even though this approach had been pursued repeatedly since the 1990s, by Presidents Clinton and Bush, resulting only in failure and mounting Russian resentments, the Obama White House sought one-way concessions as the basis of the reset. As the National Security Council adviser on Russia, and reportedly the next US Ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul explained, “We’re going to see if there are ways we can have Russia cooperate on those things that we define as our national interests, but we don’t want to trade with them.”
. . .
The twenty-year-long notion that Moscow will make unreciprocated concessions for the sake of partnership with the United States derives from the same illusion: that post-Soviet Russia, diminished and enfeebled by having “lost the cold war,” can play the role of a great power only on American terms. In the real world, when Obama took office, everything Russia supposedly needed from the United States, including in order to modernize, it could obtain from other partners. Today, two of its bilateral relationships—with Beijing and Berlin, and increasingly with Paris—are already much more important to Moscow, politically, economically and even militarily, than its barren relations with a Washington that for two decades has seemed chronically unreliable, even duplicitous.
Behind that perception lies a more fundamental weakness of the reset: conflicting American and Russian understandings of why it was needed. Each side continues to blame the other for the deterioration of relations after 1991. Neither Obama nor the Clinton-era officials advising him have conceded there were any mistakes in US policy toward post-Soviet Russia. Instead, virtually the entire US political class persists in blaming Russia and in particular Putin, even though he came to power only in 2000. In effect, this exculpatory history deletes the historic opportunities lost in Washington in the 1990s and later. It also means that the success or failure of the reset is “up to the Russians” and that “Moscow’s thinking must change,” not Washington’s.
. . .
… in addition to triumphalist fallacies about the end of the cold war, three new tenets of neo–cold war US policy have become axiomatic. First, that present-day Russia is as brutally antidemocratic as its Soviet predecessor. Evidence cited usually includes the Kremlin’s alleged radioactive poisoning of a KGB defector, Alexander Litvinenko, in London, in 2006, and its ongoing persecution of the imprisoned oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on whom the New York Times and Washington Post have bestowed the mantle of the great Soviet-era dissenters Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. Second, that Russia’s nature makes it a growing threat abroad, especially to former Soviet republics, as demonstrated by its “invasion and occupation of Georgia” in August 2008. And third, that more NATO expansion is therefore necessary to protect both Georgia and Ukraine.
. . .
The Obama administration has done nothing to discourage such anti-Russian axioms and too much to encourage them. [In addition, Obama has revised] … the reset to include so-called democracy-promotion policies—intrusions into Russia’s domestic politics …
It’s worthwhile to read the full article, if you have the time.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Dec 21 2018 14:20 utc | 57
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