Thanks B for this blog. Sorry if this has been asked. This is 200 reply big so this may get missed, but has been percolating in my mind awhile
Over the last month 2 comments stand out too me and I would like clarification/further reading if possible
1st comment (forget poster) the idea that there was a race virus component to the PNAC papers and the ideas expressed within
2nd Comment by Norwegian in regards to the Political youth camp massacre being linked to their pro BDS stance, and then days later we have the massacre.
I would like more reading on this if at all possible.
Many thanks in advance.

Posted by: Tannenhouser | Jan 24 2020 17:03 utc | 204

Again, thanks for your acknowledgement that you oppose movement-building, the one and only historically proven path to deliberate great change. Thanks for proving yet again you want to change nothing.
Posted by: Russ | Jan 24 2020 16:32 utc | 201
I would love to see “movement building”, but.it involves many contradiction. Basically, you seem to require think tanks devoted to the movement. They need money. Money endangers a degree of corruption (the list of methods is too long for a sort post). I would use a loose network of activists, academic researchers etc. Those are resources that are available.
In any case, the angry attitude of people like Russ is antithetical to actual movement building.
Concerning Matt Duss, I would have my own list of gripes. I would choose someone from actual academia, like “As’ad AbuKhalil, a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus.” But he is a real person works for Sanders for more than 2 years on a modest salary (I presume) and can collect a better foreign policy than Biden or Warrren.
In any case, politicians have to consider what is possible, hence possibilism (a.k.a. opportunism), and a movement should be oriented toward what is needed. Your honest fallacy is to conflate the two. A movement that I want should explain to the population that goals and methods in foreign policy (to limit to our main focus) are vile and disastrous. In that context, if Warren approves outright theft of Venezuelan property + denial of basic right to trade, a vile method, to force compliance with Neo-liberal dogma, a dubious goal, I am all for recommending Sanders over Warren with that justification. Then when Warren fails, one has to comment on her obsolete, out of touch…
Actually, in January I contributed to Gabbard who was very good at articulating those points, with few traces of policy team. And her presence and people like her supporters move Sanders to recognition that there are real problems there. The movement of Overton Window on other issues was better, but there is actual progress.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 24 2020 17:23 utc | 206

Perimetr@164
Thanks. I second your concerns about health hazards from fracking waste and add the following to the list of issues
(1) Fracking wells deplete rapidly with over 90% of the petroleum being recovered within three years. The driller goes bankrupt if he/she received longer-term loans for the operation. Economic losses by smaller operators is higher than oil majors due to borrowing money in the junk bond market.
(2) Economic costs of fracking is hidden by reporting the drillers cash cost per barrel of hydrocarbon produced allowing them to get loans or investors on board. Only later is it discovered that there are all-in sustaining costs such as ongoing oil service costs, royalties to landholders (15-20%), severance taxes, and site cleanup costs.
(3) Fracking mostly yields condensate not oil and the wellhead price is generally about $30/barrel but need $50-$60/barrel to break even. Currently the fracking sector has about $200 billion of outstanding debt which corresponds to about 7.0 billion barrels of production to pay off the debt, excluding SG&A.
(4) Fracking gas is flared to the maximum allowed by the Texas Railway Commission and other agencies. With a lack of pipeline capacity smaller operators have to pay pipeline operators to take the excess natural gas.
(5) Many economic costs by the drillers are being externalized to government agencies such as roads (and road wear), worker housing, lighting, police, boom town social issues (drugs, prostitution) medical facilities and cleanup of sites abandoned by drillers.
(6) Taxpayers have to pay for the health costs of exposure to organics leaking from wellheads, radiation damage from exposure to brines, earthquake damage from deep injection of drilling waste, etc.

Posted by: krollchem | Jan 24 2020 17:37 utc | 208

Some seem too obtuse to understand why Russia and Occupied Palestine have their relationship. Maybe if they took the time to read Putin’s speech at the “Ceremony to unveil the Memorial Candle monument dedicated to the residents and defenders of besieged Leningrad” they might get an inkling despite their biases and fragile eggshell brains.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 24 2020 18:22 utc | 210

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 24 2020 17:23 utc | 206
I would love to see “movement building”, but.it involves many contradiction.
Not in the slightest. Stop destroying the Earth, stop destroying humanity, say so. There’s zero contradiction. I, for example, never contradict myself.
Basically, you seem to require think tanks devoted to the movement.
The radical opposite – nothing’s required but an illiterate who has simple human decency and is willing to fight.
Once again you’re projecting all of your own pathologies, and that’s why a known con artist like Senator F-35, advised by the CAP itself, appeals to you.
Evidently Sanders and yourself require the services of a think tank like the CAP in order to justify the US imperial presence in the Mideast, while I figured out all by my lonesome that the West must Get Out completely, with zero help from any “think tank” or anyone else.
A decent human being needs no help on “how to think”, only with fighting those who think and do evil.
In any case, the angry attitude of people like Russ is antithetical to actual movement building.
On the contrary, mine is the only attitude which ever got any movement started.

Posted by: Russ | Jan 24 2020 18:36 utc | 212

To go along with Putin’s speech and many recent articles on the topic is this editorial in today’s Strategic Culture. After an excellent 97 second video, the editorial begins with the crux of the current problem the video introduces:
“There was good reason why Polish President Andrzej Duda was prevented from addressing the Holocaust memorial event in Israel this week. The organizers anticipated he would use the event to make ugly and foolish accusations against Russia for having alleged complicity in the Nazi genocide.”
A few barflies seemed to embrace the idea I presented of a much longer Holocaust, one not aimed at Jews alone but aimed at all people having notions of a Socialist political-economy, which itself is merely the historically recent extension of the 3,000+ yearlong Class War. The Fascist Oligarchy controlling the Outlaw US Empire are clearly globally promoting Nazi and Nazi-like politicos to wage their War and to help raise the Gestapo/SS-like Foreign Legion of Terrorists like al-Qaeda, Daesh, the “Ukronazis,” and already existing Latin American Death Squads to impose their tyranny. There’re already a half-dozen fronts to this ongoing War, but the overall aim is global in extent; yet, too many are blinded to that fact by issues closer to home. The Think Globally, Act Locally mantra needs to be applied so people can see the connections and understand why they must unite to face this common threat.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 24 2020 19:00 utc | 214

@ Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 24 2020 19:00 utc | 217
At least among historians, the fact that the Holocaust was not primarily aimed at exterminating the Jews was common sense. I don’t know how it is in Western Europe or the USA.
The Third Reich had a structural economic problem: it was a liberal economy under total war against a much bigger enemy in resource terms.
The fascist economic system is called corporatism, and indeed Hitler had a private council with the main German industrialists with which he decided the future of the German economy. Those capitalists had real power: they often denied Hitler their highly trained workers (to serve in the Ostfront for the Wehrmacht) and often got their way.
The scape valve for this contradiction of fascism – between the freedom of enterprise of capitalism (at least for big business) and the urgent necessity to crush a communist revolution – was slave labor. In fact, those crazy Nazi experiments that were immortalized in post-war propaganda were relatively limited in scope and only happened to people who couldn’t work: usually, children and disabled people. There wasn’t a lack of supply of insane people in positions of power (high office) in the Third Reich, so the combination was explosive.
Germany’s economy only became genuinely centralized and planned (within the limits of capitalism) in late 1943 – when the war was already lost and absolute desperation was beginning to kick in. Even then the means of production were never nationalized: what happened was more a rationalization of production and distribution to better serve the Armed Forces, more akin to FDR’s wartime economic policies in the USA than with Soviet socialism.
It is a myth nazifascism comprised a third, separate economic system to capitalism and socialism: it was definitely capitalism, molded for total warfare. “War capitalism”, if you like.

Posted by: vk | Jan 24 2020 19:33 utc | 216

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 24 2020 19:18 utc | 218
“Are you sure that you do not want to organize some bloody riots first?”
It seems that will be necessary if humans are to take any agency as far as cleaning their own house. Of course the counter-revolution always dictates the level of violence in any revolution.
“I really do not know how it is done on other planets.”
None of us do, but you surely are acting as if you know, since your mindset has no correlation with human or ecological history on this planet.

Posted by: Russ | Jan 24 2020 19:44 utc | 218

@ Posted by: Russ | Jan 24 2020 19:41 utc | 221
In a certain way, they already are. At least in the Chinese case.
China has 1.4 billion people. This is more than all the First World countries put together. And, in China, Chinese products dominate, including its own versions of Google, Facebook etc. etc.
China is still in the process of consolidating its own population (domestic market). They still haven’t achieved their main objective for 2050, which is to reach a level of a “moderately prosperous society”.

Posted by: vk | Jan 24 2020 19:52 utc | 220

@Russ #221:

if the Chinese/Russians really want to challenge US hegemony, at least on a cultural level, and they have this vaunted technical prowess, why aren’t they offering better alternatives to the likes of Google/Facebook/Twitter etc.

Russia is one of the few countries to have their own national search engine. In Russia’s case, Yandex. Yandex is available in many languages. Whether it’s better than Google or not, I don’t know.
On the social network side, Russia has Odnoklassniki and VK. I’m not familiar with Odnoklassniki, so I can’t comment on it. VK is definitely better than Facebook because there’s no thought police there, so you can post whatever you want (except child pornography, of course). It is available in many languages and has native apps for mobile platforms.
For blogging you can use LiveJournal, and for your e-mail needs – Mail.ru.

Posted by: S | Jan 24 2020 21:49 utc | 222

In many ways it doesn’t matter whether we think Trump is a puppet, robber baron, gangster or political mastermind. His treatment of the the vets who play pawns to US imperial adventurism is vile and nauseating:

“Michael Kaplen, the chair of the New York State Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council and past president of the Brain Injury Association of New York State said that he was “shocked at the ignorant statement” made by Trump.
“To equate traumatic brain injuries as just a headache is insulting and disrespectful to the thousands of military service members suffering from the signature wound of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict,” he said.

One day those vets will burn him, and all the other parasites, to the ground.

Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 24 2020 22:56 utc | 224

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 24 2020 17:23 utc | 206
Basically, you seem to require think tanks devoted to the movement. They need money. Money endangers a degree of corruption (the list of methods is too long for a sort post). I would use a loose network of activists, academic researchers etc. Those are resources that are available.
Above would be my definition of social engineering.
When people hold a wet finger into the air to decide from where the wind blows. Coming to the same conclusion independently. That is movement.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 24 2020 23:00 utc | 226

craig murrays latest is bang on…
The Troubling Decline of International Law

Posted by: james | Jan 24 2020 23:33 utc | 228

I hadn’t read it either until now. Here’s just a teaser:
“The first thing, the thing that is so sad and so infuriating and so centrally symptomatic of everything wrong with American political culture, is that, with painfully few exceptions, Americans have no idea of what their government has done. They have no idea who Qassem Soleimani was, what he has accomplished, the web of relationships, action, and respect he has built, what his assassination means and will bring. The last person who has any clue about this, of course, is Donald Trump, who called Soleimani ‘a total monster.’ His act of killing Soleimani is the apotheosis of the abysmal, arrogant ignorance of U.S. political culture.
It’s virtually impossible to explain to Americans because there is no one of comparable stature in the U.S. or in the West today. As Iran cleric Shahab Mohadi said, when talking about what a ‘proportional response’ might be: ‘[W]ho should we consider to take out in the context of America? Think about it. Are we supposed to take out Spider-Man and SpongeBob?… All of their heroes are cartoon characters — they’re all fictional.’ Trump? Lebanese Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah said what many throughout the world familiar with both of them would agree with: ‘the shoe of Qassem Soleimani is worth the head of Trump and all American leaders.'” [My Emphasis]
And he informs me of something important I didn’t know:
“Indeed, we now know that the assassination of Soleimani was only one of two known assassination attempts against senior Iranian officers that day. There was also an unsuccessful strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, another key commander in Iran’s Quds Force who has been active in Yemen. According to the Washington Post, this marked a ‘departure for the Pentagon’s mission in Yemen, which has sought to avoid direct involvement’ or make ‘any publicly acknowledged attacks on Houthi or Iranian leaders in Yemen.'”
The only mistake I see in the piece is omitting the fact that we’ve been at war with the Iranian people since the 1953 coup–67 years.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 25 2020 0:15 utc | 230

I’d seen Utah Phillips on stage once, but I’d never before heard Utah Phillips’ Moscow Hold routine > “The Moscow Hold- Utah Phillips”< on you tube. If anybody wants to know how the war will defeat the empire they ought to go listen... It's unclear if Iran's gunna do this, or Uncle Vlad... But it's Strategy.

Posted by: Walter | Jan 25 2020 0:38 utc | 232

@240 Cont’d–
I agree with much but not with his conclusion:
“The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense treaty right now. But that’s not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United States.”
Firstly, Russia has already stated publicly on at least two occasions that Iran is underneath its nuclear umbrella, and has likely said so even more times privately. Secondly, As Putin noted in his speech, a great many Soviet/Russian people now live in Occupied Palestine, and he sees it as his responsibility to try and protect them from harm too. Third, both Russia and China need Iran for their Eurasian Integration projects, along with Iraq and Syria. So, the War isn’t just between the Outlaw US Empire and Iran, it also includes Russia and China. The author’s bit players, the Saudis, are aware of the consequences for their fortunes and future and IMO are trying to intercede. Same with UAE. And Fourth, the author mentions an all-out air assault against Iran as the opening phase, but he doesn’t mention where these warplanes are going to fly from, nor does he mention the woeful state of the USAF–indeed, all air arms. Plus, they’d all need to be staged to the region as they can’t fly directly from the EU or USA and they’d immediately be targeted by those accurate missiles and wiped out. It’s not even a bridge too far; rather it’s akin to targeting the moon. The desire may exist but the means do not.
So, where does that leave us? The War still exists. It could be halted via political change within the Outlaw US Empire. It could also be halted via either the Russian or Iranian version of HOPE. But is there time for either? Currently, the Syrian piece is being moved on the board while the Iraqi piece is quivering.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 25 2020 1:00 utc | 234

karlof1 @248: Yeah, I agree, despite all the bloviating, any all-out attack on Iran starts with lots and lots of missiles in an attempt to suppress their air defenses, radars and (one presumes) their offensive missle capabilities, maybe other things …
To make it safe for the planes and cruise missiles and ships and bases and all.
Getting those cruise missiles up over the mountains onto the Iranina plateau is going to require some planning too.
And that is a game the Iranians can play very well themselves, and they have the high ground. It will not be quick, if anything the shock and awe will go the other way once it starts up. Lots more “brain traumas”.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 25 2020 1:42 utc | 236

@244 pft
Good articles. Thx for the heads up.
Funny that b referenced that Hotes guy a while back…same article rebutted at RFK’s website? But for all his glorious sleuthing, maybe he didn’t know that Hotes is himself a vaccine developer with substantial skin in the game. Tantamount to a Lockheed exec telling us why the US needs more missiles.
An article from AP today warned of a far more sinister disease than the Coronavirus and it is right next to us! The Flu. It is indeed true, but all in all it was just another transparent attempt to push the ineffective and dangerous flu shot on the public, with Hotes himself cited in the article stating his worry for the unvaccinated wrt the FLU.
My family and I will take our chances, knowing studies have shown an increased likelihood in hospitalizations from Flu for those who received the vaccine and that those vaccinated exhibit 6.5x the amount of fine aerosol mist from flu infection where the virulent fine aerosol has been shown to be far, far more capable of infection than those exhibiting larger droplets of infectious fluid (sneezes and coughs).
Bottom line: flu vaccine = 6x more virulent fine aerosol from breathing (meaning you are more dangerous to others) and increased hospitalization likelihood.
Who wants the shot now? C1ue?!?!?!?

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 25 2020 2:15 utc | 238

Interesting things going on in Yemen too. There was a ballistic missile attack on some Saudi-Hadi coalition troops that killed over 100 and wounded a couple hundred more. Nobody wants to claim it though some want to blame the Houthis, who deny it.
Then there were several stories about a big attack on Saana from the Saudi-Hadi forces, lots of claims of Houthi casualties, now that’s been called off and the Houthis claim to have rolled up 3000 sq. km.
I was wondering if Iran might have had something to do with the missle attack. It seems to have ended the peace making in Yemen for the moment.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 25 2020 3:08 utc | 240

Circe @245: [To Russ:] You are a real Sanders hater… your Trump’s campaign advisers were …
Those that don’t join the “Democracy Works!” chorus are smeared.
=
Krollchem @249: Back off Russ and save your insults for the democratic establishment …
Sanders has shown himself to be part of the establishment by serving as Hillary’s sheepdog and refusing to start a Movement.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Zionism and the neocon cult it spawned have destroyed democracy in the West.
Neocon philosophy specifically argues for lying to the people. That is the antithesis of democratic governance which relies upon the consent of the governed.
Zionism is a secretive ideological and political Movement that CAN NOT BE addressed via traditional democratic means. It requires a MOVEMENT to restore public integrity, accountability, and democratic principles. Something akin to the Abolitionist Movement: lets abolish empire-building asshats that make us less safe and invest huge sums of our money in the Empire ponzi scheme.
Sanders hasn’t created a Movement because empowering the American people is not in the interest of the Zionist Movement and not in the interest of the US elite that the Zionists have corrupted. It is no accident that BOTH major parties support Israel and the Empire. USA is EMPIRE FIRST – and has been for a long time.
“Democracy Works!” bullshitters are playing us.
They ask for unilateral disarmament. They use twisted logic, emotional pleas, and misdirection to convince people to trust the political process. And they smear anyone that thinks for themselves and recognizes the game.
Your vote is not enough to fix what is broken. Talk with others in your community. Form or join a Movement. Educate yourself. Learn about other Movements – like the Yellow Vest Movement in France.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 25 2020 3:59 utc | 242

@259, I might as well add:
USA politicians find it easy to voice support for Israel and USA military (often via support for “the troops”) while if they voiced similar support for EMPIRE they would have some explaining to do.
AFAICT:
Cold War I was an ideological battle between capitalism and communism. But that fight is over now. Russia and China are essentially capitalist.
Yet after winning the Cold War I, Western Empire-builders, egged on by Zionist ideologues, CHOSE to press on with a new global conflict.
Cold War II is an ideological battle between Anglo-Zionist Supremacists and countries that refuse to submit to the New World Order (NWO). To many, NWO is just a form of fascism.
USA and the West have wasted trillions of dollars and millions of lives pursuing this Zionist-inspired NWO agenda.
It’s really long past time that WE THE PEOPLE put an end to this madness. The only way to do that is via political MOVEMENTS: Pro-Democracy; Anti-War; Climate Change; Economic Fairness; etc.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 25 2020 5:56 utc | 244

Not sure where to post this, but it deserves a wider audience.. China, Wuhan, Coronavirus https://metallicman.com/laoban4site/was-the-2020-wuhan-coronavirus-an-engineered-biological-attack-on-china-by-america-for-geopolitical-advantage

Posted by: Barrie V | Jan 25 2020 7:46 utc | 246

Posted by: Circe | Jan 25 2020 0:28 utc | 231
Matt Duss may be an fp advisor to Bernie today, and next he may bring on Rashid Khalidi, or Nadia ben-Youssef, Fadi Elsalameen, or Amaney Jamal for a true Palestinian human rights perspective and launch a political career or two. And of course Tulsi Gabbard, AOC and Nina Turner and more.
Naomi Klein is also a supporter and no doubt adviser in some ways. Noam Chomsky is a supporter (even though I don’t agree with him on everything). The humerous and affable Cornell West and many more in politics, business and entertainment have endorsed Bernie.
Wow! Such radicals, such fighters! Are they all devoting their being to the great chance they’re going to get if Sanders is elected?
Why would any decent human being need tutoring in “a Palestinian human rights perspective”? The right and wrong of it is self-evident.
BTW I heard that Klein’s latest book now advocates the same “green capitalism” she previously and rightly scorned. No surprise, unfortunately.
“Sanders is so networked he has so much academia and politic talent to choose from; he should take his time before bringing people on board.”
1. Wrong as wrong can be. If someone actually wants to accomplish something against great odds, against real opposition, one plans ahead of time.
Now, you obviously are dumb enough that you may think an insurgent president could wing it and choose from among existing system personnel. I don’t think Sanders is that stupid, though. So again you give evidence that he’s a con-man. Otherwise why would he act as if he had time?
Annnnnd, he’s been doing this for how many years now? How much time does someone need in your retard universe?
2. “Sanders has so much academia and politic talent to choose from”
What kind of “insurgency” would partake of such indelible system “talent”? The point is to overthrow and abolish the entire existing political and cultural-elite class. People who possess brains know that “academia and politic talent” is a DIS-qualifier. Only the morbidly stupid and conformist still could consider that to be a worthy credential. Once again, as always, you demonstrate your hard-core pro-status quo affiliation.
The possibilities for a Sanders Presidency are brilliant and I know he will think outside the box and embrace them all to achieve his goals for a better world.
Hallelujah! Holy Roller! Do you already hallucinate the New Jerusalem physically descending?
BTW you never answered – How could someone contract TDS other than from a pro-status quo POV? I’ve never seen anyone against the status quo who hates Trump above and beyond the way we reject ALL system politicians.
You are a real Sanders hater.
Yes, I hate Senator F-35. I hate all liars and perpetrators of ecocide.

Posted by: Russ | Jan 25 2020 8:32 utc | 248

Posted by: Kabobyak | Jan 25 2020 13:16 utc | 249
Some USians know a lot about empire via their families, simply by being immigrant. You don’t seem to talk to them. There seem to be immigrants that are part of Sander’s movement. He is shifting the overton window for them.
In other news

Ukrainian jet victim ran company suspected by UN of violating Libyan arms embargo

Her Ukraine and British based companies apparently operated via Ukraine and Turkey and specialised in carrying dangerous stuff.

The companies advertise themselves as passenger jet and air freight businesses. The slogan on the website of Volaris Business reads “more than a passenger and goods company” while SkyAviaTrans’ motto is “Anything, Anytime, Anywhere, Professionally.”

Posted by: somebody | Jan 25 2020 13:55 utc | 250

Posted by: Kabobyak | Jan 25 2020 13:16 utc | 249
“Re Bernie and “creating a movement” ….The question is creating a movement for what?”
Myself I have zero expectations of the system. I’ve always said: The economic civilization will burn every last BTU’s worth of fossil fuels it can, and will destroy every last yard of the carbon-sinking earth it can.
So the only thing a sane human being could do is to try to find fellow sane people and work to build some kind of communities where the people could help one another weather every kind of storm.
“I understand Bernie may be a vehicle for shifting the Overton Window in a good way, and if Tulsi drops out I may hold my nose and vote for him if a better alternative isn’t there. But there was a similar level of excitement twelve years ago when Obama was running, and we see where that led. Unless Bernie begins to understand and educate as to the true nature of US Empire, I don’t see any great “Movement” happening through him.”
You can forget about the “Overton window”. That could exist only amid a feeling of abundance. But today, even though the empire nominally is still rich (but not for much longer), the entire “political spectrum” agrees on Mammon and specifically on how Mammon now dictates a zero-sum game.
I remember well the excitement at the econoblogs in 2009. I was an avid participant at Naked Capitalism, Baseline Scenario and others. Some of us thought it just might be a revolutionary situation.
Well, obviously we were wrong about that.
Part of the reason we were wrong is that we underestimated the Democratic Party’s capacity to suck in all free-floating dissension and misdirect it back toward corporate imperialism’s goals.
Like with the kind of scum who shill for the Democratic operative Sanders. Which is why I have such a special hatred for them: With zero excuse of ignorance or naivete, with full conscious malice they still proselytize for the US fake-electoral-representative-democratic system, and do all they can to denigrate the historically-proven options of work fully outside the system.

Posted by: Russ | Jan 25 2020 14:09 utc | 252

Posted by: Russ | Jan 25 2020 14:09 utc | 252
No, the left fell for their own type of racism in 2009. They could not perceive of a black person being part of the establishment. They fell for Obama’s image.
Obama did not lie. He said in many, many ways on many occasians that he was not anti-imperialist, that he was on good terms with the finance industry, that he was not against war, and that he was of the same branch of the Democratic Party as Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton’s health care policy was more to the left than Obama’s as I understand.
The “left” trusted Benetton marketing.
I am not sure Bernie Sanders will even physically survive his campaign but his marketing approach is on the side of authentic.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 25 2020 15:05 utc | 254

Posted by: Russ | Jan 25 2020 15:23 utc | 255
For me a prerequisite would be total contempt for mainstream marketing approaches.
You recommend to stay at home and not talk to anybody?

Posted by: somebody | Jan 25 2020 15:41 utc | 256

somebody, Russ
No. Obama did lie. Like a rug.
“Change You Can Believe In” was a lie.
His pretended peace-loving, progressive orientation was a lie.
He didn’t close Guantanamo, bring troops home (Iraq essentially threw USA out), champion economic fairness (as was insinuated by the “community organizer” hype), etc. Instead, he droned (bragging that he was “good at it”); started covert wars (notably Syria and Libya); bailed out Wall Street; gave CIA a pass on rendition and torture; refused to include a ‘public option’ in his healthcare plan; and made the Bush Tax cuts permanent via a well-planned farce called “The Fiscal Cliff”. (Note: this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of betrayals.)
Obama’s lies are underscore by the apologists that touted his 11-dimensional chess.
Sure, anyone that was already skeptical of the establishment could see that Obama was more of the same but most of the public bought the bullshit because the were so disgusted with Bush and the Republican’s put up the laughable odd-couple of McCain-Palin against Obama-Biden.
Obama’s faux populist Presidential model was so successful that the Deep State adopted it for Trump as well. And it works(!) because the political divide means that the right can not see how they are being played in much the same way. “America First” is just as much a lie as “Change You Can Believe In.”
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 25 2020 16:05 utc | 258

CA primary is on Super Tuesday. Sanders is ahead in the polls there. If he can pile a victory there on top of victories in Iowa, NH, and NV, I do not think he can be stopped. Irresistible momentum.

Posted by: lysias | Jan 25 2020 16:43 utc | 260

A New Definition of Warfare
Sanctions can be more deadly than bullets.
What’s better than a pandemic attack ?
Washington doesnt even need to impose sanction, people’d voluntarily avoid the victim like plague !
———————
FUKUS [fuck UK, US]
JUST SENT THIS GONG HEI FAT CHOY TO THE CHINESE….
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/251998912974-0-1/s-l1000.jpg
THE ULTIMATE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT…..
YOu really couldnt fault the [[[bastards]]] for their choice of Crime venue…
Wuhan is a powerhouse of China’s industries,
also its the hub of TW investments.
A prolong shut down would hit China’s economy where it hurts.
Its a major hub of China’s fast rails and have air links to dozens of countries,
The outbreak was timed to coincide with the annual exodus of Chinese workers to go home for Chinese new year.
These two factors would ensure the max speed of propagation,/
And……
This happens to be the site of a brand new BSL4 biolab,
A casual browse on the net yields the predictable or perhaps anticipated reaction…
Was there a leak from the lab ?
The Chinese are stupid building a biolab so near to the market,
There’r even scumbags who suggest…
Is this a Chinese FF, ?
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/open-thread-2020-06.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a503b6d5200b#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a503b6d5200b
As this author observes…

Even popular Alt Media platforms are being used to float planted propaganda and false narratives — PREEMPTIVELY — in order to deflect any and all attention from this transparent bio-terror attack by the West. See this purposeful headline, which is usually issued by the CIA’s Mockingbird Media, as an example of such a diversionary tactic and strategic misdirection: The Real Umbrella Corp:
Wuhan Ultra Biohazard Lab Was Studying “The World’s Most Dangerous Pathogens”.

http://stateofthenation.co/?p=5231#more-5231
As [[[they]]] expected, now the focus is on
those dirty and stupid Chinese and…
CCP bastards who gass poison their own people !!!
Clever eh , those [[[SOBS]]] !!!
P.S.
Dont get confused, [[[]]] = FUKUS AKA FUCK UK, US

Posted by: denk | Jan 25 2020 16:48 utc | 262

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 25 2020 16:05 utc | 258
Sorry, if you do not understand language, you cannot be a judge if someone is lying or not.
“Change, you can believe in.”
Any new president is “change”. You “can” but you cannot. “believe” it is possible to believe in anything, it does not make it true.
His pretended peace-loving, progressive orientation was a lie.
You do not seem to have listened to him. “I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.”
I do not know what you mean by “progressive”. I know Hillary described herself as such, so Obama might do that in the same right.
Guantanomo – Obama tried but failed according to my knowledge.
To sum it up: You claim Obama lied about something he never said but was other people’s projection.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 25 2020 17:14 utc | 264

b runs a fine site here at MOA,
unfortunately as it grows ever more popular,
it attracts lots of empire apologists/shills.

Posted by: denk | Jan 25 2020 17:31 utc | 266

somebody, Russ
Obama & his Deep State handlers deliberately misrepresented his intentions and misled the American people. In my book that is a lie.
Obama’s specialty was misdirection(a form of lying), often via conflating issues. Some notable examples:

Susan Rice had nothing to do with Benghazi!!
Pretending that valid questions were a racist campaign against Rice.
We now know that the “anti-Muslim video” was a lie (initially started by Max B.)
The fiscal cliff!
Pretending that Obama was FORCED to agree to making Bush tax cuts permanent
“Moderate Rebels”
Pretend that a proxy army is a
Syrian Redline
A dog whistle for “moderate rebels” to conduct a chemical weapons attack.
ISIS as “al Queda’s JV team”
An excuse to allow ISIS to rise
HARP (Home Affordable Refinance Program)
Pretending to help homeowners when they are actually just “foaming the runway” for the banks
NSA Spying: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
Constitutional lawyer Obama’s way of pissing on the Constitution.
Income inequality
Pretend that the real issue is poverty.

Then there’s the broken campaign promises: he didn’t bring troops home, he didn’t close Quantanamo, he didn’t provide a ‘public option’ for healthcare, etc.
What you dismiss as “marketing” of a President, is at best deceptive advertising – a kind of lie that is universally recognized as repulsive.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Now the “marketing” lies continue with more lies about the Obama legacy. Such laxness only serves to bolster “Democracy Works!” propaganda.
Here’s the real legacy: a faux populist deceiver and Deep State team member who started covered up GW Bush’s crimes and started Cold War II.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 25 2020 18:36 utc | 268

Some seem too obtuse to understand why Russia and Occupied Palestine have their relationship. Maybe if they took the time to read Putin’s speech…

Okay, I took the time and I’m still clueless. Leningrad was an undeniable fact. It has little discernible relation to Israel, except that some survivors live there. The Holocaust is a totally fake item, so the fact that Soviets liberated Auschwitz is neither here nor there. No, the real story is that Russian nationalism is a basis for Russian survival, and it cannot manage without artificial stimulants such as the honour of having fought the “greatest evil of all time”. That’s why the Auschwitz documents that were released under perestroika, showing a tiny, tiny fraction of the four million alleged Auschwitz Jewish deaths actually occurred and mostly from typhus, had to be sealed up again by Putin. That, and to get Israel’s help with America, is why Putin needs the Holocaust and moves in such bad company. The ethics of Putin’s Christian Russia is to look after number one, unlike the constitution of Shia Iran that calls for support for the oppressed of the earth.

Posted by: sarz | Jan 25 2020 18:57 utc | 270

Jin Rappoport is an independent investigator who has extensively covered various alleged viral epidemics. He has some sensible advice on the latest scare.
Man who pushed SARS dud now pushing new Chinese virus

Posted by: sarz | Jan 25 2020 19:11 utc | 272

sarz @270–
In his speech, Putin directly linked the Jewish/Soviet experience with Leningrad’s and the overall Holocaust. Several million former Soviet and Russian citizens–some with dual citizenship–reside in Occupied Palestine: Russian affinity for Russians exists wherever they may reside and are seen as children of the Motherland. The relationship dynamics are very similar to those between Ukraine and Russia as well as the other former Soviet states and Russia.
Gazing about Eastern Europe, statues, cemeteries and other memorials to the Soviet Liberators are being defaced and torn down amidst an acute rise is racist Russophobia; but in Occupied Palestine a brand new memorial was erected dedicated to not just the liberators of the Death Camps, but to those who shared the fate of the Jews during the War in their own distinct type of death camp–Leningrad. Not all Jews are bloodsucking Zionists.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 25 2020 21:11 utc | 274

Karlof1 reads the documents so we don’t have to! (or a least only have to read a minimum)
Thanks for your inspired and stalwart efforts.
A word that people need to have inculcated into their brains, if they think they think, is parse. This is particularly true for the interpretation of politician’s statements – especially masterful ones like V V Putin. ie how much or how little is s/he actually stating about something.
An example could be from the “Ceremony to unveil the Memorial Candle monument dedicated to the residents and defenders of besieged Leningrad” speech that karlof1 | Jan 24 2020 18:22 utc | 210 linked to. Putin used the phrase death camp about Auschwitz. Everyone can agree about that description (so many deaths there) – but it is not the same as saying extermination or killing camp.
Speculations about meaning are further broadened by translation. In the speech Putin also used the word antisemitic. What would that be in the original Russian? In English the word is a bastardised appropriation from a description of a class of language (semitic) that now means antijew (or more cynically, refers to someone/something jews don’t like). Does the Russian word have the same history?

Posted by: tucenz | Jan 25 2020 21:34 utc | 276

@275 karlof1
I’m sorry, but I must disagree with you on this: the over a million former SU/Russian Jews that occupy the West Bank are USURPERS violating the Geneva Conventions and oppressing the rightful inhabitants of that land, the Palestinians for now close to a Century. Because of these Russian squatters Palestinians have endured decades of indignity, ethnic cleansing, loss of life and limbs, destruction of property, discrimination and outright injustice!!! Please do not give people who are on the verge of the greatest swindle of this Century thanks to Donald Trump that kind of legitimacy!
Everyone who has settled illegally on Palestinian land IS A ZIONIST PERIOD, no ifs or buts! None of those people squatting there fled from a concentration camp! Do not give legitimacy to Zionist propaganda for the sake of Mother Russia. If Putin were honest about this he would’t be in Israel shaking hands with a Zionist terrorist from Irgun. Maybe he should get all the squatters out of there by opening the doors of Russia to his beloved Zionist Russians. His affectionate talk for them is CHEAP. You can cut the hypocrisy with a knife, it’s that thick!

Posted by: Circe | Jan 25 2020 22:46 utc | 278

Circe @279–
It would be very helpful for you to learn some history and do some research before jerking your knee. Jewish people from Europe including Russia emigrated to Palestine and other areas of Southwest Asia to escape unbearable persecution well before Zionist promoters began their evil work. Same goes for Jewish refugees before, during and after WW2. Educate yourself, please!!

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 25 2020 23:15 utc | 280

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 25 2020 19:43 utc | 273
Then why was there an expectation that he would bring troops home, close Guantanamo, provide a ‘public option’ in his healthcare initiative, and let the Bush tax cuts expire?
Because he offered a huge projection screen. And because people did not look past the label “black”,
It was not Obama’s fault if people did not hear what he was saying.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 25 2020 23:30 utc | 282

worth a look..

Posted by: Barrie V | Jan 25 2020 23:43 utc | 284

I wonder if people are just unaware or just intellectually dishonest.
I’ve seen the videos from Project Veritas that show who the people who work for Bernie Sanders, the alleged ‘Democratic-Socialist’, are, in fact, Communist revolutionaries pining for a chance to guillotine the rich and implement a violent revolution in America complete with gulags.
I haven’t seen any media address this issue.
I’m shocked that people cannot see through the fog of lies generated by the Propaganda Sirens (so called MSM).
America has found itself in a position where it’s economy can be rapidly crashed by bankers. The voter machines are owned by Soros et al.
How many people believe it can’t happen here? 1917 2.0 is becoming more and more likely. I see events such as the Northam goading of Middle America as part and parcel for the circumstances required to precipitate a violent revolution.
Anyone else paying attention or is it better to just blather about Gabbard and other faux saviour?

Posted by: dorje | Jan 26 2020 0:18 utc | 286

The truth about Epstein is slowly leaking out, Cindy McCain (John McCain’s widow) let her tongue get a little too lose at a conference in Florida and admitted that
““We all knew about him. We all knew what he was doing, but we had no one that was – no legal aspect that would go after him. They were afraid of him. For whatever reason, they were afraid of him.”
so many questions are opened up by this, John McCain was one of the most powerful and influential senators in the US and had an extremely abrasive, stubborn and warmongering personality. Heck, McCain was the “highly placed” Senator who vouched for the accuracy of the Steele dossier to the FBI, basically meaning that he was backing a coup attempt against Trump. “Who” or “What” could intimidate McCain? Unless of course, McCain wasn’t intimidated by Epstein at all and was perfectly fine with Epstein running his blackmail campaign against the wealthy and powerful.

Posted by: Kadath | Jan 26 2020 0:52 utc | 288

@287 dorje
I see Ziofascist fear-mongering smear propagandists have already reared their ugly head. And who pays you? Trump, Bloomberg, other Zionist oligarchy, the DNC, the RNC, or ZOA?
Doesn’t matter; all one and the same.

Posted by: Circe | Jan 26 2020 1:17 utc | 290

@ Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 25 2020 23:55 utc | 286 with the Assange coverage by Catlin Johnstone and the Belmarsh prisoners standing up for basic human morality better than the leadership on the outside of the cages they are in…….thanks
Western reality has become a real time soap opera. Behind the curtain of this soap opera are the global private owners of the economic lifeblood money system/social contract. America is about to be thrown under the bus of blame for those international folks behind the curtain. Trump is firmly driving the American bus into the ravine. Not that it doesn’t deserve more balancing with other parts of the world, instead of being complicit tools for Hand, The Invisible (my new name for what I have called God of Mammon)
Hand, The Invisible is from The Lost Science Of Money by Stephen Zarlenga which I recently finished ploughing through its 685 pages. The Hand, The Invisible may have come from one of Zarlenga’s sources, I haven’t been able to find it again..
Zarlenga wrote that in the US there should be a fourth, monetary, part of our executive, legislative and judicial parts and I agree.
The cult of private finance has stolen the ability of each of us to control the definition of our personal interactions through our government, that core socialistic experiment of social governance we are executing today, like we did yesterday, but don’t have to do in the same way tomorrow.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 26 2020 2:40 utc | 292

@ Posted by: lex talionis | Jan 26 2020 3:04 utc | 294 and others
Below is some more about the Stephen Zarlenga book
Zarlenga, who died in 2017, writes in his book, “The Lost Science Of Money”, that monetary reform is needed and that Money’a Nature must dictate that reform.
Zarlenga bases his understanding of the Nature of Money on
Aristotle – “Money exists not by nature but by law;”
Plato – “a money token for purposes of exchange;”
Paulus – “This device being officially promulgated, circulated and maintained its purchasing power not so much from its substance as from its quantity.”
Berkeley – “Whether the true idea of money as such, be not altogether that of a ticket, or counter?;”
Locke and Franklin viewed money as a pledge for wealth rather than wealth itself.
Del Mar “…what is commonly understood as money has always consisted tangibly, of a number of pieces of some material, marked by public authority and named or understood in the laws or customs: that its palpable characteristic was its mark of authority; its essential characteristic, the possession of value, defined by law; and its function, the legal power to pay debts and taxes and the mechanical power to facilitate the exchange of other objects possessing value.”
Knapp – “Our test, that the money is accepted in payments to state offices.”
Zarlenga – “Money’a essence (apart from what is used to signify it), is an abstract social power embodied in law, as an unconditional means of payment.”
As I wrote in my earlier comment, Zarlenga wanted to add a fourth, monetary, branch to the US government.
His 3 steps to get there from here are
1. Nationalize the Federal Reserve
2. End fractional-reserve banking and institute the 100% reserve solution developed by Frederick Soddy (guy who also laid groundwork for big bang theory)
3. Institute anti-deflation programs and beware of deflation
Zarlenga wrote about Pope John Paul II calling for a debt Jubilee and saw usury stopped with new public money and “….a national legal limit of 8% annual interest, including credit cards, with no offshore loopholes. No interest should be paid on checking accounts. Cumulative interest should never be allowed to exceed the amount loaned…..”
I believe that Western society, to become a civilization, needs to evolve to a public form of money, or it will remain in the barbarism approach that Trump and his staff are showing.
China is leading the way and forcing this issue…..socialism or barbarism…..I vote for socialism.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 26 2020 4:46 utc | 294

And read the link below as another example of shit going down in America you couldn’t make up….
A Bank Called the Cops on a Black Man Trying to Deposit the Money He Won in a Discrimination Lawsuit

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 26 2020 5:17 utc | 296

Bernie Sanders would probably be an improvement over his fellow tribesman Donald Trump. Both are Zionists, Trump excessively so, but Sanders in a devious way, promoting the two-state solution, a lite-Judaic caper that serves Zionist goals.
Both know the score on the Fed. Trump had called for auditing the Fed, and during the campaign had reached out to people like Bill Still who want to abolish it. Then he brought in Goldman Sachs. And made Mnuchin, multiply related to the Rothschilds, his treasury secretary. We realize we were had.

Posted by: sarz | Jan 26 2020 11:37 utc | 298

Continued (sorry)
Bernie Sanders was the Senate sponsor of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill that passed in the House with overwhelming support. But when it came to the Senate, Sanders gutted his own billl with amendments that made it, according to Ron Paul, worse than nothing. (See Ron Paul talking about it on YouTube.) Why? Is that not Judaic baggage?

Posted by: sarz | Jan 26 2020 11:44 utc | 300