I was wondering what people’s thoughts were regarding Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and his allegations of fraud. Personally, i haven’t seen or heard of anything that has convinced me, particularly when looking at the clowns involved (Giuliani and Powell) and the substance of their lawsuits.. ie no fraud or evidence, a few anecdotal depositions by more questionable characters… so … no substance at all basically.
I was surprised to see The Saker stoop this low… i never thought he was all too objective in his world view and analysis, but to go all out in support of an unfounded conspiracy… mah.. maybe he’s really just a paid Russian stooge looking to fuel confusion and discontent in the West after all?
http://thesaker.is/scotus-rejects-texas-lawsuit-is-it-over-for-trump-or-not-what-happens-next-open-thread/

Posted by: Et Tu | Dec 15 2020 16:39 utc | 4

The Saker propagandizes as much as this site does: look how much effort B expended to convince us that COVID is as real as the PCR tests. Did you notice all that analysis B has prepared about the ‘voter fraud’ issue? No? Hehehe that’s because he hasn’t!

Posted by: Idiocrates | Dec 15 2020 17:21 utc | 6

Have you analyzed this?

Posted by: Idiocrates | Dec 15 2020 17:24 utc | 8

more corporate relief at worker expense
who said man’s hand was not part of Covid 19
the content in these two web site suggest the new vaccine is as safe as a cup of Hemlock.

Posted by: snake | Dec 15 2020 17:41 utc | 10

“It shows that it was never about providing help to the people, as the Democrats had claimed, but purely about sticking it to the Republicans.
“Or maybe it was about minimizing help given to the people under the pretense of sticking it to the Republicans under the pretense of trying to help the people.”
Yes, S@3, that seems to me the most convincing explanation of the tactics employed by Pelosi and Schumer, who are both far more authentic champions of Wall St and the master class than moss backed chancers and provincial Rotarians like Mitch McConnell.
The Saker is a White Russian- a conservative Russian nationalist. It was as such, and a fighter against communism, that he worked for the US government, or so I believe, for many years. With Communism resting, he no longer feels any justification for working against Russia so he tells, what he he sees as being the truth.
As to the Covid matter, the WSWS today runs an article arguing, not unconvincingly, that the number of Covid deaths in the United States is probably nearer to 400,000 than 300,000. I am certain that they are correct.
Whether deliberately or not those posting nonsense to the effect that Covid is either a hoax or greatly exaggerated are doing the Empire’s work in assisting it not only to keep capitalism running at full tilt without taking any of the measures, including Publicly funded healthcare and decent levels of unemployment benefits, not to mention the strict regulation of “Care Himes” both private and non-profit, which are minimal requirements to deal with the pandemic.
Not only that but to continue the warfare against working people, what is left of the Trade Union movement and cutting the burden of what Sweden’s neo-liberal Finance Minister charmingly calls the ‘Meat Mountain’ of unproductive retired workers.
As well as, perhaps most importantly, continuing the propaganda offensive against reason and clear perception in order to confuse the population and deter it from thinking for itself.

Posted by: bevin | Dec 15 2020 17:59 utc | 12

@ Posted by: bevin | Dec 15 2020 17:59 utc | 12
Whether deliberately or not those posting nonsense to the effect that Covid is either a hoax or greatly exaggerated are doing the Empire’s work in assisting it…
That’s ridiculous! If ‘looking for truth’ (by asking critical questions) implies assisting the Empire then tell me what isn’t?

Posted by: Idiocrates | Dec 15 2020 18:08 utc | 14

This is how it always was … at least since Jimmy Carter turned neoliberal in mid-term. Two parties that are simply the two-headed representation of the economic and political elite. Prior to Carter, they cared a bit more about the health of US society in general (at least since the Great Depression). Since then we have been carried back to the Robber Baron period, minus the nation-building bit.
Its all about the elite sucking up everything on the way to a Brazil-like existence. COVID was yet another emergency not to be wasted (just like the 1970s, 1980s Latin America debt crisis, 9-11 and 2008 etc.) Billy-boy Clinton showed the way when he passed a right-wing Republican neoliberal agenda. The problem with the elite is that they simply cannot imagine that the sheeple will rebel, or that they are destroying the basis of their own global power – the US economy that pays for the US war machine. Looking forward to the Dems explaining that “there is no money left in the cupboard and we must tighten our belts” as any recovery limps into being.
With the petit-bourgeois pretty much destroyed by COVID and the previous non-enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, the unions vanquished, the police heavily armed, and the media fully tamed we are entering the time of the lumpen-proletariat. Adding to their ranks will be the many over-educated baristas etc., programmed to divide and conquer with their IdPol ideology and Wokeness, as they struggle to make sense of why they earn less than the UnWoke plumbers, electricians, and other skilled tradesmen (and women!).
Welcome to America! At some point a leader will emerge and the US will have its serf revolt. When? Who knows, the full force of the police, Federali, CIA, and army will be used to crush it. The only would be that the latter will not follow commands, thats how regimes fall.

Posted by: Roger | Dec 15 2020 18:20 utc | 16

“Had that investigation ‘leaked’ early enough it would have been excellent campaign material. By holding back, Barr essentially prevented Trump from winning:”
This is bullshit. Woudn’t have made much of a difference. Most of the votes were not for Biden but against Tronald. A ’24 Tronald campaign ist also bullshit. This man is politically spent like an atomic fuel rod is after use. And equally dangerous. A final waste depository is urgently needed. And when they find one, they can dump Biden right there too…

Posted by: pnyx | Dec 15 2020 18:29 utc | 18

@15 Bemildred
I have equal respect for you and Saker. If you think he doesn’t understand the domestic US scene very well, you should have read the piece he wrote somewhere in the last couple of years after he took a road trip across the country. It was, in my own limited view of the US populace, penetratingly resonant with reality. I wouldn’t even know how to find that article now, but perhaps you read it?
Funny to see the troublemakers piling in on both b and Saker right at the start of the thread. These guys must sit by the wire waiting or something. They’re the ones that the Saker moderators kept out 😉
And the straw man posted by et tu at comment #4 was an open thread that the Saker posted, asking for the greater wisdom of his commenters for opinions as to how this was going, not any position from Saker himself.
I don’t understand why people want to denigrate other people for being open minded enough to publish differing views that they might not even as publisher agree with, or to entertain them, but that’s what Saker does, and I value him for it, personally.
bevin’s characterizations of Saker strike me as both appalling and incorrect – vk’s too. That’s all I have to say at present – no time – this is a quick lunch look at the state of the threads. Maybe I’ll say more later, maybe not.

Posted by: Grieved | Dec 15 2020 18:46 utc | 20

The Saker doesn’t know anything about the Russian Revolution, though pretends he does. His rants on 1917 aren’t serious, and in fact push out stupid racist notions of a “Jewish Bolshevik coup.” His family was probably on the losing side of the class struggle.
And that point is critical; it was a class struggle of the urban working-class on a vast, revolutionary scale.
Since the 1980s, the discipline of social history has revisited the Russian Revolution, and revealed the mass activism of the urban working-class and the mass support of the working class for the Bolsheviks — and for the revolutionary insurrection of October.
See the work of academic social historians, David Mandel and Sam Smith, for example. They have gone through the records of all the workers’ councils and soviets to grasp the popular nature of the revolution from below, and the necessity of the Bolsheviks’ conquest of power.
The Saker knows nothing of this. He peddles stupid, reactionary ignorance.
He is best read for geopolitical SITREPS and balance-of-power dynamics between Russia and the Empire. His early work around Lebanon 2006 was also good.

Posted by: Prof K | Dec 15 2020 19:03 utc | 22

@20 Grieved
This is just part of the strategy to attacked any truly progressive action and proponents. Attacks from the right are obvious and expected, but attacks from the far left are less obvious and are used to sow confusion and discredit progressive voices. The example of vk is obvious. A mix of far left rhetoric, attacks on progressive critics for not being suitably marxist, and support for neo-liberal government action on COVID. It’s a pretty toxic combination. Saker is a decent source of information on Russia and the Russian sphere, as is this site for the middle east and Asia, but information on health issues and the US elections is not a strength. Not a problem, informed minds read widely.

Posted by: sad canuck | Dec 15 2020 19:08 utc | 24

The Trump win in 2016 was a colossal mistake by America’s overlords. Martyring him would risk a real and kinetic Swamp draining by the America public so they just squealed hysterically for four years and committed to having the 2020 elections fixed better. Even so that fix wasn’t really enough and needed hundreds of thousands of votes worth of “adjustment” after the polls closed.
So, has Mexico’s President AMLO called with congratulations for Harris/Biden yet? AMLO knows firsthand from 2012 what was done this year in the US, but he also knows that he needs to stay on the good side of the drug-running, gun-running, human-trafficking gangsters controlling the empire to his north or they will turn the violence in Mexico up a notch or two.

Posted by: William Gruff | Dec 15 2020 19:21 utc | 26

Gazza @21–
The editorial political cartoon in my newspaper today is quite correct in its depiction of Pelosi confessing to Santa she blocked the aid package, but such must be transmitted far and wide for the proper affect. The Ds are far more notoriously Neoliberal since it was they who’ve been allied with it since its importation @130 years ago. Also forgotten in the mists of time is the fact that the Ds have always been more Fascistic than the Rs, although with them now merged into today’s Duopoly, that isn’t as important as it was from 1933-1948, 1948 being the year Truman desegregated the Military and cast the Southern Ds adrift–a move he made to steal Henry Wallace’s vast electoral appeal in July.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 15 2020 19:31 utc | 28

Re: “I am not sure that those are the real reasons why Barr is leaving. Trump was probably keen to see him go especially after it was revealed that Barr had kept a long running Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden secret. Had that investigation ‘leaked’ early enough it would have been excellent campaign material. By holding back, Barr essentially prevented Trump from winning:”
I believe another, even more proximate cause for Trump firing Barr was related to when Trump learned (belatedly/unfortunately) of Barr’s apparent treachery/gross incompetence, from Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday morning News program (12/13/20) interview of Sen. Ron Johnson.
The topic was Barr withholding from Johnsons [and Grassley’s] Senate investigating committees, the hunter biden/Burisma laptop evidence that would have immediately exonerated Trump from the interminable b*llsh*t Ukraine-gate/impeachment 6 month-long side show from Aug 2019-until Jan 2020.
I have posted a synopsis of this interview already on the last open thread Posted by: gm | Dec 14 2020 2:52 utc | 79 .
You can go back and read what I wrote at #79, but unfortunately the key Fox video link of that interview with Sen Ron Johnson was pulled off of YT the following day.
I found another YT link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVo8GZI7vQI to the same interview, but it was also pulled by YouTube today or last night.
You could see from the video that Sen. Ron Johnson was clearly honked off that Barr had not shared the exonerating Biden laptop evidence with his committee during the BS Ukraine gate impeachment trial.
The Bartiromo-Johnson interview video footage has been removed (not sure if the Overlords are letting Bartiromo have anymore face time on her Fox Biz channel show after her ‘crime’ of covering real news), but Epoch Times (via Zero Hedge) did a write-up of the Johnson interview about Barr/Hunter laptop evidence suppression.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/sen-johnson-congress-should-have-been-told-about-doj-hunter-biden-probe
Sen Grassley was likewise plenty angry about Barr hiding Biden laptop evidence from his Judiciary committee too. And said so in a tirade on the Senate Floor yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYcLDnb9Cmg&feature=youtu.be

Posted by: gm | Dec 15 2020 19:47 utc | 30

For those fruitlessly arguing that there was no merit in chasing election fraud allegations, as a trained election observer, I’ll say that your ignorance reeks of wanting bliss. I would say since at least the 2000 federal elections, and for many state elections there has been systematic internal fraud, that is rather easy to detect. It is just very difficult to prosecute, because election fraud always benefits one party or the other, and is never “balanced.” Therefore it is a political crime and few courts have addressed this systemic, rampant barrier to legitimate elections in the American republic.
I could write a book on this just from the problems of Ohio, 2004 when Bush’s campaign stole Ohio’s electoral votes by engineering a close election win. Teams of observers from all parties observed and many chased it down for years. The 2020 election was like 100 Ohios (not by magnitude of state electoral votes, but the magnitude of methods). The astonishing audacity of blatant machine fraud in 2020 was unprecedented. In Ohio they were still using paper ballots in 2004.
Oh, an hour ago this just posted – You can read the headline in the URL:
https://en-volve.com/2020/12/15/breaking-arizona-senate-issues-subpoena-to-sieze-all-dominion-voting-machines-for-forensic-review-after-major-findings-in-michigan/

Posted by: Mediastan | Dec 15 2020 20:00 utc | 32

Kind of interesting. There still seems to be considerable debate as to the source of the virus, but all the known evidence seems to point to the US as the source. So much for the Wuhan virus. It may Turn out to be the Washington virus, or maybe the Republicrat virus.
https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/covid-19-un-explained/

Posted by: Bluedotterel | Dec 15 2020 20:05 utc | 34

Re: DoJ investigations are supposed to be done in a way that doesn’t interfere with elections.
-Lex | Dec 15 2020 19:48 utc | 30
Actually that’s more of a guideline…
That does not explain WHY Barr withheld/buried clearly exonerating Hunter evidence from the Congress impeachment machinery * ~a year before the election* (more than a year if you count the time since the Mac repair shop owner first contacted the FBI in August(?) 2019 about what he found about Ukraine shady financial dealings on the laptop, and the FBI dragged their feet and did not come and pick up for a few months until Nov(?) 2019.
Barr’s inaction/suppression of evidence allowed Dems six-months time to dirty up the President, a year before the election.

Posted by: gm | Dec 15 2020 20:21 utc | 36

Mr. karlof1
In other words, to my questions you have no answers.
So, the state, in principle, can destroy families and their livelihoods, in order to achieve this or that policy which has been conceived by those who wield power?
That is, a Kulak family has no right to Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness – sort of like Mao’s Cultural Revolution that also resulted in death and misery for tens of millions of actual human beings.
Applied to the United States, the state aided and abetted the destruction of livelihoods of millions of people when cheap Chinese and Mexican labor became available.
So, both the Communists and the Capitalists destroy the livelihoods of actual real human beings in pursuit of an ill-defined future brave and beautiful progressive world.

Posted by: fyi | Dec 15 2020 20:46 utc | 38

“It may Turn out to be the Washington virus, or maybe the Republicrat virus.”
-Bluedotterel | Dec 15 2020 20:05 utc | 33
I like the term coined by someone [Uncle tungsten(?)] here on MoA: the “Frederick Flu”.

Posted by: gm | Dec 15 2020 21:04 utc | 40

Hey, Idiocrates -how suggestive a name- the poor performance of Russian operative Thesaker somewhere in Fla suggests that Putin and FSB are not doing well in the business. To say the least.
And have you noticed the moscovites are nt doing either, because no matter how much they pay their guest Ted Snowden, he does not show up with any leaks.
But to make a point I do believe the
election was rigged and turned upside down: because after 4 years of daily relentless, unending and plentifully funded attacks on the Donald, you re a genuine naiveté king if U suppose they would back down, mi$$ a chance or $pare the effort$ to down him where it counts: the four states ballot counting.

Posted by: augusto | Dec 15 2020 21:20 utc | 42

karlof1 | Dec 15 2020 18:23 utc | 17
if only…..if only we could seriously do some analysis of how things are working and not just accept what we believe to be the proper thing to believe in. I guess in order to reach that place you either need a bit of grey matter or a suitable mind altering substance. I may be quite guilty of the latter…
or maybe it is a quicker route to the inevitable “game over”. why do all the bumping and ninja flipping when the ball is going to eventually go down the middle anyway?
dunno, I have had a lot of extra balls and won a few games so my choice is to keep asking.

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 15 2020 21:35 utc | 44

Would someone please take some pity on those poor kulaks *teardrop*?!

Posted by: v | Dec 15 2020 21:37 utc | 46

I just can’t agree with the conclusion that this was all about “sticking it to” Trump. This was about aiding the transfer of vast amounts of real estate to Blackrock holdings. With evictions and single family foreclosures the largest manager of real estate in the US and maybe the world will acquire millions of properties. And sure, if you can stick it to the village idiot while doing that, even better.

Posted by: Babyl-on | Dec 15 2020 21:38 utc | 48

pnyx #18
A dump for Trump….

A final waste depository is urgently needed. And when they find one, they can dump Biden right there too…

I like that, thank you. But be sure they are well apart or they might combine to critical mass and give us Karma Harris – The recombinant clinton mega virus to haunt the world.
S #3 well said.
I see the treacherous democrats have fleeced their voters even before the inauguration. The treacherous dogs have settled for a radically reduced aid for their citizens. What a betrayal. The Squad of rats is supporting the class enemy and endorsing the future theft of US working people. Trump offered more – and the democrats demanded betrayal and then settled for less.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 15 2020 22:16 utc | 50

Barr probably didn’t want to be the James Comey of 2020. Remember, Comey announced an investigation into Hillary Clinton just 10 days before the election and then mysteriously announced a week later that there was nothing to investigate after all. Everyone jumped all over him for costing her the election. (“Everyone” being the politicos and the MSM – the voters loathed the woman with good reason, so she probably wouldn’t have won anyway.)
The thing is that there is nothing Barr could have said that would have really mattered. Hunter Biden, while a total jag-off and junkie, has not been under any criminal investigation. His taxes are being examined – as are Trump’s, BTW – but he hasn’t been indicted for anything, nor does this tax investigation involve criminal charges. A banking associate of Hunter Biden is under criminal investigation of some sort. However, neither the tax issues nor the bank investigation have anything (so far – and they have been looking into these matters for quite awhile) to do with Joe Biden, the guy who was actually running for office.
I’m old enough to remember the embarrassment of the Clintons, the Bushes, the Kennedys, and Jimmy Carter; all of them had relatives who were either indicted/convicted criminals, or who had been involved in scandals and financial improprieties while their family member was running for office.
Barr might have spoken out if there was more to this story, but SO FAR it isn’t much more of anything remotely provable than the same damn tax stuff that Trump himself has been going through for years. And Barr would be in a position to know.
Still glad Barr is out the door now.

Posted by: teri | Dec 15 2020 22:21 utc | 52

There is an update by Matt Taibbi in the past few hours. It concludes thusly:

It is of course true that McConnell has essentially vetoed multiple Democratic proposals, so it’s not accurate to say a failure to pass a new Covid stimulus bill is the fault of Democrats. The issue is that these post-election bipartisan negotiations are much more reflective of how the leaders of both parties perceive the crisis than anything said or done between the passage of the CARES Act, and Election Day. A few months ago, Pelosi was saying $300 billion for states and localities was an unacceptable insult; now they will take half that, and may end up taking nothing.

I encourage those who read the original to scroll down to the 12/15 update.

Posted by: _K_C_ | Dec 15 2020 22:26 utc | 54

Well I’m optamistic !!
That election wasn’t a war won, it was but one battle won.
I’ll repeat —- Biden didn’t win that election.
The silent peace loving public, BLM and Antifa won that election. It was won on the streets, the next battle for democracy will be the same. It is what it is. We will win that battle too. Our eyes are open, the foe is blinded by greed and hate.

Posted by: Mark2 | Dec 15 2020 22:32 utc | 56

juliania #48

Here’s my germ. Suppose, instead of clamoring for a Republican dominated Senate with the coming vote in Georgia, we instead insidiously murmur that the Democratic candidate ought to win out? After all, what we NEED is unity not division, and if we are going to have any political groups to aim at – at least, let them be unified! I’m tired of giving the supposed party in power the excuse that the other one is blocking what they could (and would) do without said opposition. So, let’s have none! This time around they’ll all be on the chopping block and I say aye!!!
So of course, it’s not going to happen.

Thank you but I propose an alternative. Every opportunity should be exploited to build a coalition of interests for a third party rather than any support for either R’s or D’s. Look at the Squad. All the leverage in the world and then – cave in to the threats and blandishments of the D machine. Not too many will trust the ‘democratic socialists’ to be elected as D’s ever again I suspect. They have joined Bernie in smashing the ‘hope for change’ possibility and that has reinforced the ‘hate socialism’ rampant mantra of the elite in the USA.
The behavior of the democratic socialists is enough to confirm they are a front for the D’s 😮
So a coalition of interests at every poll – building the working class and unemployed and poor/low wage people is the only way to climb out of the pit. To do nothing is to lose today and to lose on behalf of your children’s future.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 15 2020 22:37 utc | 58

Could Barr as AG have been a bar to pardoning Assange? Barr comes from a CIA family. His father was OSS. Barr’s first employment after college was CIA.

Posted by: lysias | Dec 15 2020 22:44 utc | 60

If the election weren’t fixed, how is it that coincidences like the publication of obamas book is so perfectly timed to Biden’s selection. In order to restore obamas “legacy,” right on cue, his pitiful place in history, and all the pathetic, sad, self-aggrandizing meaningless drivel that individuals deserving absolutely no regard, aspire towards. as if it and or they were “important.”

Posted by: Geoff | Dec 15 2020 22:59 utc | 62

Well lookie-there!
Just as soon as our Overlords officially stole the election from Trump’fair and square’, the American Medical Association (AMA) reverses its former position adopted last Spring, against using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to treat early covid, and now recommends its use!?
Here

Posted by: gm | Dec 16 2020 0:11 utc | 64

fyi @46–
Thanks for your reply. No, respectively, I do not agree. Neither Communism or Socialism has arisen in the modern era given their definitions by Marx. However, throughout the vast majority of human history as I’ve written here before, the primary organizational structure was Socialistic, but isn’t Socialism in its modern definition because there were no industries for workers to become owners. Read Marx! One major contradiction sees workers combining against their own interest through their pension plans that invest in corporate stock in companies that work against their interest. The Russian Revolution did not establish Socialism as Marx would define it whatsoever. The outcome was the trading of one form of Tyranny for another, Stalin being one of the worst despots to ever exist. But did he differ any from those atop Colonial Empires? No. Those people killed many millions, too; and those leaders are revered by many just as is Stalin.
So neither under Communist Rule nor under Capitalist Rule there is any solid and unassailable protection for human individuals and families; any rights enjoyed today may be lost on another day.
The closest form of political-economy to “Communist Rule” is China’s system, but it still doesn’t fit the definition as not all assets are publicly owned. And I know of no nation that’s 100% Capitalist; all nations have a mixed economy. The second part of your query depends on the moral quality of a nation’s government and its leaders, and most importantly the degree with which its citizenry can hold their leaders to account–specifically in relation to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which almost all nations have signed and ratified, the most glaring exception being the Outlaw US Empire when it was the brainchild of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Indeed, when examined and not even too closely, it becomes very clear that there was a break with the Liberalism of the Pre-WW2 era and that which emerged after the war. There was very little the citizenry could do to hold the government to account because that government was withholding vital information about its conduct–conduct that was both illegal and immoral. And despite the 2nd Amendment, the Outlaw US Empire remains just that as Trump just abetted the deaths of 300,000+ US citizens but was awarded almost half the vote.
I suggest taking a very close look at Nature and how it operates, then ask this question: As primates, can us humans evolve to the point where we eliminate all conflict over resources–are we Sapient enough?

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 16 2020 0:28 utc | 66

Babyl-on @49–
Blackrock got its start with Obama in 2009.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 16 2020 0:31 utc | 68

vk @68–
No, it was a maxim “borrowed” from John Locke.

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 16 2020 0:58 utc | 70

How long before the demented old man and his ho sidekick have us back in Syria? All the Trump haters here will all of the sudden became war hawks again now that the senile old man and his zionist SoS are in place.

Posted by: Mike Wallens | Dec 16 2020 1:20 utc | 72

karlof1 #42

In the United States, the owners of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon – are they class enemies of the industrial working classes?
Or are they enemies of the programmers?
Generally yes, but exceptions exist.

Thank you karlof1 and, IMO they are primarily enemies of the consumers of their products.
They spy on them, they unduly profit from the consumer use, they drive out competition by their dominance, they exploit their workers and they use their extreme advantage to exploit States and counties to build their centre of operations. Through this latter point they further deprive communities of services that could otherwise be provided.
It is the consumers that drove their shares to high levels and I would posit that the consumers rightfully own more of their value than the shareholders. To truly collectivise those companies just appropriate shares from the peak holders and issue shares in some proportionate manner to the consumers and then see how that reallocation goes. It may need tweaking but then it would be a better approach than the mistake of collectivising the kulaks one and all.
All participants should be part of the collective. OK?

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 16 2020 1:39 utc | 74

Karlof1 (various)
I enjoy and respect your postings. Keep them up,please!
About collectivism ( communism, Socialism and other leftist doctrines), I believe one should look at West Africa.
Beyond The Kingdoms of Benin and Dahomey, In most tribes East and south, the tribe was ruled by its elders,
sitting in Council. They vested the Chief with authority to enforce their decisions.
The land was tribal in possession, secured by war and tradition, and collective. The council of elders would attribute usufruct of the land to the initiated adults, as they emerged from initialisation procedures lasting several years.
Then, these being polygamist societies, the area was adjusted as a man acquired new wives and additional land was granted to his usufruct.
Land did not go to descendants.It was reattributed to ascending members of the tribe.
So, before Marx and other philosophers, Africa was living perfect communism.
The defect of such economic politics is that tribes fold upon themselves and shun progress.
Since progress is accelerated by ideas and information interchange with others the lack of interaction led to tribes that were happy in their habitat but easily preyed upon by governments that had acquired more technology through interchanges.

Posted by: CarlD | Dec 16 2020 2:15 utc | 76

Mr. CarlD
Back to the Noble Savage, again?

Posted by: Fyi | Dec 16 2020 3:11 utc | 78

Off topic… sorry…
“This flight is the result of the unification of two major programs of the civil aircraft industry in Russia – the MS-21 aircraft and the PD-14 engine. Through the efforts of scientists, designers, engineers, workers, a new generation airliner is being created, which returns our country to the top league of world aviation, “said Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvN05TYQdwc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjoHoNMvra

Posted by: Francis | Dec 16 2020 3:45 utc | 80

Again, sorry… right link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjoHoNMvra8

Posted by: Francis | Dec 16 2020 3:48 utc | 82

@ albagen | Dec 15 2020 22:20 utc | 52
“saker is somebody (a nobody, really, because it seems he’s ashamed to use his name) who thinks he is a thinker, but is full of shit.”
His name is Andrei Raevsky.
He’s pretty good when he’s analyzing military matters, but he falls down a lot on other topics.
He once wrote 6,000 words trying to get his readers to hate gay persons, while simultaneously twisting himself into knots trying to get the reader to also believe that he’s not a bigot.
He failed.

Posted by: AntiSpin | Dec 16 2020 4:11 utc | 84

This just happened. Really.
I was watching an episode of a Netflix series titled Maniac
starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill. The episode has the two
stars mentally linked and simultaneously participating in the same
nightmarish altered dream state. The dream is controlled by a psychotic machine
(for brevity this is more of a tiny glimpse than a synopsis). Emma Stone played an
undercover CIA agent in the dream and Jonah Hill was not who he appeared to be
but it was Emma’s mission to help him fully realize his potential.
The episode finished so I closed Netflix and switched immediately to live
cable tv. Cable happened to be set to the channel with Christiane Amanpour.
She was interviewing Alexei Navalny about a report unveiling the truth about his
poisoning by Russian intelligence agents.
It grabbed my gut. I immediately thought to myself, these two, Amanpour and Navalny, are messing
with people’s reality. They are two cogs in a propaganda machine and
some people in the audience don’t even know they are experiencing a
manufactured reality – delusions.
It was heavy. One moment I am watching a dark comedy with
Emma Stone and Jonah Hill
and the next moment I am living in a dark comedy with
Christiane Amanpour and Alexei Navalny.
That just happened a few minutes ago. Really.

Posted by: librul | Dec 16 2020 4:58 utc | 86

Mediastan@31 You are right about election frauds. The case of Ohio in 2004 was well understood to have been extremely suspicious. Harvey Wasserman- with no Russians involved he was quite rational then- wrote several stories about what was taking place. As I recollect it there was a small airplane crash fatality involved, just after the election. There was a terror alert on election day and the Secretary of State was often mistaken for the rear leg of a dog.
If this election in 2020 was not riddled with every sort of fraud it will have been unique. And that fraud will deepen and expand in the coming years, now that the Republicans control so many States and a new re-districting is due.
The Democrats obviously like the system, it saves them the embarrassment that results when they are asked why they never carry out the desires of the base: no let up in the anti-union laws, no moves to lessen the accelerating inequality, no single payer Health system, no progressive taxation and, of course, no end to the incredible waste of money on Defense.
I stand corrected by Dr. George W Oprisko on the matter of The Saker’s background, but only it seems on a detail. He is wrong about collectivisation however: Russian agriculture was always part of a collective culture, with land redistribution taking place, by communal decisions on a regular basis and on the basis of the needs of the peasants. The expropriation of those who tilled the land-the signature policy of British imperialism- and its enclosure as private property had not taken place in Russia. Successive Tsars tried to encourage it and Stolypin famously set out to do it but peasant resistance proved too strong.
So far as the Soviet Union is concerned it is fatuous to talk of the policies implemented by the CPSU except in the context of the state being under permanent and vicious siege. Both the beginning and the ending of NEP and the collectivisation of Agriculture, the seizure of peasant crops and the eradication of the Kulak class were all moves forced upon the government by the aggressive ‘containment’ policies of the Imperial world. Russia was forced to act in its own defence just as, today, Iran and Venezuela are being forced by economic sanctions and political and military aggression to prioritise defence over every other matter.
Thanks to sanctions and lawfare Venezuela is no longer able to use its oil wealth to improve living standards within the country and to win friends abroad by supplying, for example, subsidised heating oil in Boston and fuel in Haiti. Not only must it use every political resource to fight off imperialist attacks, but the commodities it trades in are excluded from most markets.
This was the situation that the Soviet Union faced, for most, actually all, of its existence. That plus constant subversion making internal political debate an invitation to foreign interference and the vast military campaigns of the successive wars after 1917 against the Revolution, the Nazi led attacks which culminated in Barbarossa and the long Cold War.
One can no more judge the efficacy of the policies of Bolshevism by the history of the USSR than one can assess the theology of the pastor of a Church in which one of the congregants has a machine gun and is massacring the rest.

Posted by: bevin | Dec 16 2020 5:47 utc | 88

Thank you, uncle tungsten @ 59. Your alternative is a good one. There is a vast majority out there that is truly disaffected with both ‘parties’. My ‘solution’ was only one for the immediate scenario of at least toppling the Senatorial ‘leadership’ position, and I’ll admit to wishing Schumer’s demise in that scenario, which seems an admitted pipedream.
But lest we lose heart, there is an oncoming generation I do have hopes for – I think they’ve been under the radar so far. That’s my elder children’s group, not baby boomers but the next lot. They’re not as noisy about stuff as their older brothers and sisters but they got a kind of education that’s lost to those coming after them. They are tech savvy (as I am not). And they’ve got children they do want to have a better future. They could be your (and my) kulaks. After all, Putin had parents. He didn’t just come out of nowhere. There could be a Putin among them.
I raised my kids to shun war. So did many of my generation. We lived through the horror of the assassinations and the horror of Vietnam. The many mistakes which may or may not have been purposeful as the bloom came off the rose that had been a functioning democracy. My kids lost friends to drugs, to ghetto conditions that had worsened as families lost homes and jobs. They believed in civil rights; we taught them to, we sang those songs because we believed them. I have faith in them; I am proud of them.
I don’t think it’s about ideology. I think it’s generational. Their time is coming, and we few left have to help them take the stage. If your way will do it, uncle tungsten, I am all for it.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 16 2020 5:52 utc | 90

On the subject of alternatives to Amazon. Try Banggood to get away from feeding the tyrant. You wont get it next day but you will get it and securely.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 16 2020 6:55 utc | 92

fyi @ 28

I am asking you: the so-called Kulaks – where did they fit into this grand scheme of class struggle?

Excerpts from a speech by Stalin on why they eliminated the Kulaks, they were standing in the way of industrialisation and collectivisation of food production.

… Can we advance our socialized industry at an accelerated rate as long as we have an agricultural base, such as is provided by small-peasant farming, which is incapable of expanded reproduction, and which, in addition, is the predominant force in our national economy? No, we cannot. Can Soviet power and the work of socialist construction rest for any length of time on two different foundations: on the most large-scale and concentrated socialist industry, and the most scattered and backward, small-commodity peasant farming? No, they cannot. Can Soviet power and the work of socialist construction rest for any length of time on two different foundations: on the most large-scale and concentrated socialist industry, and the most scattered and backward, small-commodity peasant farming? No, they cannot. Sooner or later this would be bound to end in the complete collapse of the whole national economy.

Stalin on the Liquidation of the Kulak

Posted by: Down South | Dec 16 2020 7:14 utc | 94

“All 538 electors voted Monday in the Electoral College, formalizing President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.”
Looks there are 6 or 7 states which sent dueling electors.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/exclusive-six-swing-states-pa-ga-mi-wi-az-nv-new-mexico-pick-slate-electoral-delegates-president-trump-joe-biden-means/
So when on January 6th 2021 VP Pence is doing the actual counting this Biden victory may still proof to be an illusion.

Posted by: JR | Dec 16 2020 7:42 utc | 96

JR #96

So when on January 6th 2021 VP Pence is doing the actual counting this Biden victory may still proof to be an illusion.

Thank you for that amusing post. The Gateway Pundit sure can’t write but I get the picture. I could really enjoy watching such a fiasco live with tequila shots for every mad or maddening moment.
Imagine having Pelosi as a fake compromise president. That is a form of madness that the MIC and its terrorist friends deserve.
To think that the USAi struts around the world demanding democracy of all and yet it can only elect farce.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 16 2020 8:44 utc | 98

@ Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Dec 16 2020 3:32 utc | 81
The numbers tell you’re lying.
By 1898, the vast majority of the peasants in Russia were effectively landless (i.e. their land was too small for their own subsistence). This Lenin demonstrated with official statistics: most peasants had to work the lands of the kulaks to survive. Which means most of them were de facto proletarians, not peasants – to say otherwise would induce us to make absurd conclusions, for example, that Brazil is a feudal country.
The kulaks weren’t “the oldest and most successful peasants”. They were an artificial fabrication of the czar, who arbitrarily expropriated and redistributed the land during his 1863 capitalist reforms. The serfs of the government – only freed in 1866/8 – were outright landless. The kulaks are fruit of direct and violent State intervention and expropriation, not of hard work by successful peasants.
Even this little story (on the artificiality and meritlessness of the kulaks) is irrelevant, as, with the NEP, the kulaks immediately begun to hoard grain and to starve the cities to death. They speculated – like those worms from Wall Street today – on the price of food in order to gain political dominance and luxury for themselves. They tried to re-feudalize Russia.
Collectivization definitely worked. Before collectivization, the Russian Empire/USSR had a history of more than 500 famines in a little bit more than 1000 years of history – almost one every two years. the USSR itself had three famines – one right before the NEP (it was the reason the NEP was created in the first place), one during the NEP (which was the reason it ended) and the “holodomor”, which was caused by a new mutation of lice or rust, right at the beginning of the forced collectivization. Forced collectivization was finished at the end of the 1930s, right before WWII in Europe. After WWII was over, the USSR never had any other famine – 60 years straight. I don’t think you’ll find such a streak in Russian History, and Yeltsin had a lot of difficulty ending the collective ownership of agricultural land (he only achieved that in 1996, after a five year struggle against public opinion and the Duma).
I also have integrity and tell it like it is. The problem with The Saker is that he pictures himself as some kind of unique story, when in fact he was the fruit of mass immigration – one of the many in American history. His story is not special, he is not special, he is just one of the many Soviet refugee propagandists of the Cold War that I’m tired of reading. He’s just another Cold Warrior who just happened to be alive in the 21st Century.

Posted by: vk | Dec 16 2020 12:04 utc | 100