Tuyzentfloot – Does it take some sort of stellar intellect to note that something cannot be a high threat and a low threat at the same time?

Posted by: Waldorf | Dec 9 2020 10:13 utc | 4

Waldorf, real life is not math. There are no strict contradictions. You look at things one way and they make sense. Then you look at things another way and they again make sense. Then you try to join them into a bigger picture and find there are some internal tensions you didn’t realize.
Logically it is quite possible that something which can cause a lot of troubles can also be easy to prevent.
The US has a long history of perceiving external threats. The most common way to combine low and high threat is talking about the future as if it is happening now: a threat is a future problem. Countering the threat is current action. It’s always preventive war.

Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Dec 9 2020 10:50 utc | 6

The effect is to cause cognitive confusion, it’s propaganda/gaslighting 101. Since most of our “media” is full of advertising, i.e. propaganda and gaslighting, watching it makes it so after a while you can’t think at all. Hence the modern USA and its many, many problems.

Posted by: Bemildred | Dec 9 2020 11:48 utc | 8

Posted by: Down South | Dec 9 2020 11:03 utc | 7
Re “Threaten Decisive Nuclear Retaliation”, wow that’s hilarious:
“The danger of nuclear war in Europe is greater than it has been since the Cold War—and growing. A sputtering economy dragged down by low energy prices impedes Russia from competing with the West in advanced technology and conventional military capabilities. Yet, under Vladimir Putin, Russia is menacing its neighbors, including NATO’s Baltic members, diverting attention from its domestic woes. As a result, Russia is increasing its reliance on nuclear weapons and the threat to use them first, and it is pursuing an advantage in nuclear forces in Europe. In the face of this challenge, NATO’s stated nuclear strategy is too stale, vague, and timid to ensure deterrence. This essay offers an alternative strategy to reduce the danger of nuclear war in Europe.”
It goes on like that. Notice the massive projection, notice it’s Russia not China. I would hazard they have settled on the Baltic states as the next bone of contention.

Posted by: Bemildred | Dec 9 2020 11:56 utc | 10

The hey day of this stuff was the Cold War, where they pounded on endlessly about how the USSR was both poised for world domination and on the brink of imploding because of its “dysfunctional” command economy.
Nothing like having it both ways. At least they will have a somewhat harder time selling the second half of the formula with China.

Posted by: Expat | Dec 9 2020 12:50 utc | 12

You can see the same dualism in reverse in the nuclear arms race. One way to keep the first-strikers at bay was to inflate the Russian capability to strike back, but this encouraged building up capacity and thus the arms race.
I recall Gareth Porter went into that when discussing the relation between president and deep state(or political subculture if you want the equivalent with flat organization ). Eisenhower and Dulles inflated the Russian threat for that reason.

Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Dec 9 2020 13:00 utc | 14

1. The hacks have to appease their paymasters to justify their paycheck.
2. Their peers and the U.S. public.
a) It feeds our collective narcissism – ‘We are the champions – WE ARE THE CHAAAAMPIONS’
b) It gives meaning to our lives, to crush the evildoers.
BTW I have searched Evangelical prophetic youtube videos to see if any of them see anything wrong with what we are doing and one Prophet had a dream that he did not understand. He saw a wolf sitting in a tree branch above a turtle and the wolf jumped down and devoured the turtle. The vision gave him a sense of dread.
I posted that ‘the turtle represented someone who was unaware of the world around him but because of his shell still felt secure when disaster struck’. This describes the United States. We are unaware of the harm we are causing other countries and the wrath we are stirring up against ourselves and we feel immune because we believe we can continue to torment countries that are weaker than ourselves with impunity. Our Day of Judgment will come.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Dec 9 2020 14:04 utc | 16

And on a similar note to the above:
I’ve noted before that the NSA is a credible candidate for Satoshi Nakamoto – because bitcoin’s primary purpose continues to be crime, specifically a way to evade capital controls.
Amusingly, it now appears that China’s largely electronic funds ecosystem is now being used against American money laundering laws: Japan Times on drug lords and Chinese money laundering gangs
Note the mechanism: non-bank electronic transfers combined with the large scale of Chinese trade with the US (and Mexico) allows drug money in the US to be shifted from aggregators (dealers) to suppliers (cartels) with China-related trade companies using Chinese payment systems as the intermediary. No more worries about KYC/AML, no more SARs.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 9 2020 14:45 utc | 18

First you begin with a commonly accepted truth, they are weak. Then you slip in a lie that you want to reinforce, they are dangerous.
Introduction to social engineering

Posted by: les7 | Dec 9 2020 15:43 utc | 20

Well, the “enemy” has to be dangerous in order to justify a no-holds-barred, overwhelming response, including (1) ever more sophisticated and expensive military capabilities, (2) expensive deployments and/or payments to local mercenaries, (3) ever more expensive and intrusive intelligence (sic) communities and capabilities, and (4) ever more intrusion on US citizen civil liberties and operations to mold public opinion to support (1)-(3). If you’ve noticed the dollar signs (and profits, for the right people) attached to most of these factors, you’re starting to get it.
As for the “but they’re weak” stuff, that’s just required to fit with the endless “We’re No. 1!!” tripe. No-one else in the world, enemy or ally, can ever be depicted as doing anything right or better than the US, because that could provide an opening for challenging the way things are done in the US, the status quo, and of course that just isn’t done.

Posted by: J Swift | Dec 9 2020 16:30 utc | 22

And on a similar note to the above:
clue @ 18 notes NSA is a credible candidate for Satoshi Nakamoto – because bitcoin’s primary purpose continues to do an act made criminal by rule of law, specifically those seeking to do business outside of capital controls. <=the crime is capital control, avoiding it is necessary to remain competitive. ... monopoly powers are not effective against those trying to make a profit. but they are highly effective against those who must pay the owner of the monopoly power. China's largely electronic funds ecosystem is now being used against American (<=America does not make laws; it is governed by the USA) money laundering laws: Japan Times on drug lords and Chinese money laundering gangs Note the mechanism: non-bank electronic transfers combined with the large scale of Chinese trade with the US (and Mexico) allows drug money in the US to be shifted from aggregators (dealers) to suppliers (cartels) with China-related trade companies using Chinese payment systems as the intermediary. No more worries about KYC/AML, no more SARs. bit coin is a very good and excellent justification for solving the the drug problem and its associated crime in the same way the 18th amendment caused when it prohibited the unlicensed manufacture and sale of alcohol became the rule (1919). That law made some crime lords very, very rich, and caused a lot of the crime lord customers much misery and grief. The problem the 18th amendment caused was solved by repealing it and all laws(1939) that prohibited alcohol.. do the same with drug laws including pharmaceutical licensing <=rely solely on tort law to police bad actor drug purveyors Tort law be much better at controlling incompetent or criminal pharmaceutical manufacturers than criminal law. Repeal of the criminal law will increase the numbers of persons making the needed drugs by many fold.. if also the patent and copyright monopolies related to the design, manufacturing and marketing of these drugs is made non enforceable it will reduce the price of pharmaceuticals to just over actual cost. Those damaged by corrupt drug makers will feel the sharp edge of Tort law. Americans would be free of the FDA, it would reduce the numbers of Americans the USA holds in its jails by a lot, and it would be step in returning America to a personal choice nation state<= A first step toward human independence from the nation state rule of law prison is repeal of drug laws. It is not necessary for the state to mandate laws that protect citizens from manufacturers (as the Boeing case proves; corruption or incompetence can only be discovered after the fact) such laws are not effective, they just create massive in place monopoly powers and make a very few very rich at the expense of everyone else. Tort law removed Tobacco from the market place, cleaned up the massive incompetent medical field.. and it can keep the drug and pharmaceutical people honest and help to educate the public to stop taking unnecessary drugs.

Posted by: snake | Dec 9 2020 17:00 utc | 24

Posted by: Laguerre | Dec 9 2020 14:52 utc | 19
Herodotus depicts the Persians as people who are taught to be truthful,brave and good hunters (particularly the nobility. In no way are they represented as horrid monsters. The good name of King Cyrus, for example, owes much to the positive depiction by Herodotus.
King Xerxes is represented as an absolute monarch which, you know, he was. His arrogance and hubris, only to be expected from a fantastically powerful absolute monarch who, as it happens, inherited this position and did not win it through his abilities (limited as proven by his abysmal failure)doesn’t appear to be an exaggeration. In short, it would be good not to conflate modern mentality or sensibilities with those of another era, especially when you are ignorant of the latter.

Posted by: Constantine | Dec 9 2020 17:16 utc | 26

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Dec 9 2020 16:22 utc | 21
Methinks it sounds more like Orwellian-style expounding of mutually incompatible views, because it serves the criminal policies of the Anglo-American empire. The line of “reasoning” is this:
Said countries are dangerous (they threaten the “rules-based order”amd other ethno-supremacist claptrap) and therefore need to be confronted, which requires vast expenditures that enrich the corporate oligarchy along with the curtailing of civil liberties.
However, to avoid doubts about the wisdom of escalating conflicts truly dangerous opponents (as opposed to acting rationally and engaging in meaningful diplomacy), the neocons and the lickspittle media insist that said opponents are actually weak and therefore there are limited dangers of going into collision with them.
There is also a plus when the populace accepts such ludicrous narratives and mutually incompatible assertions: it becomes increasingly more docile, more “zombified” so to speak. Eventually, any and all absurdities become perfectly acceptable, while critical thinking is penalized and leads to ostracism (what sort of taitor/coward would refuse to confront such foul enemies, especially when they are at the same time so weak and there is little danger of things go out of hand).

Posted by: Constantine | Dec 9 2020 17:43 utc | 28

Dances with Bears is always worth following. This is John Helmer on the way that the “Intelligence” operatives think.
http://johnhelmer.net/the-enrichment-of-british-intelligence-officers-how-they-think-they-always-get-it-right-about-the-russians-never-do-but-grow-rich-trying/#more-45631

Posted by: bevin | Dec 9 2020 17:53 utc | 30

This sort of propaganda has been running so deep and for so long now in big-money news media that it is becoming a sort of gospel. One must be be a fervent believer in logical fallacy to have any increment of power and influence in the circles that publish such news.
I imagine the whole apparatus functions much the way a cult does. Only the very top of the food chain knows that the cult is a scam for the benefit of those at the top, while all of the cult members are forced to believe impossibilities as a requirement for being a part of the cult. You then find as many true believers as possible to fill the ranks of middle management and create a series of firewalls between the masses and the leader. In the above examples, you can see the true believers I refer to become editors of news outlets.
This is a very clever way to run a criminal enterprise, or at least it seems as such. If your entire organization believes they are motivated by one set of beliefs which have been constructed for them by propaganda, the leader may then use the group for any number of different nefarious activities with strong plausible deniability, as long as the group remains in the dark.
And the further you build the cult, the further you can compartmentalize nefarious activities while still maintaining a facade of righteousness.
The thing with lies, though, is that they never stop growing until the truth ultimately comes out, so expect the lies to increase in proportionality to the conflicts they are covering up.

Posted by: Rutherford82 | Dec 9 2020 18:01 utc | 32

Constantine @Dec9 17:43 #28
Yes the doublethink aspect is as important as the logic of permanent war.
Doublethink is a self-induced psychosis.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Dec 9 2020 18:40 utc | 34

So this kind of thinking / propaganda is aimed at the American public, plus the US vassal states.
Whilst considering the above comments and b’s post.
Two points fit into place.
1 how suggestible the US etc public are.
2 computer war gaming !! After a couple of decades of computer screen zombies, growing up, stumbling into what they perceive to be reality, result perfect mind controlled suggestibility.
The enemy are strong, weak. All neatly impersonalised,
know messy sympathy or empathy.
Perfect complient public.
they did the same with cowboy & war films.

Posted by: Mark2 | Dec 9 2020 20:07 utc | 36

But…but…but, the RT-PCR test is infallible, isn’t it?
BREAKING: 100% PCR false positives found at Cambridge University last week using their own gold standard lighthouse laboratory, when results were double checked with second test.

Posted by: j. casey | Dec 9 2020 21:36 utc | 38

Speaking of big lies, misleading headlines and frauds – report by Eric Zuesse had this to say:

On 23 October 2019, Luke Darby at GQ magazine, headlined “How Biden Helped Strip Bankruptcy Protection From Millions Just Before a Recession”. Joe Biden was the leading Democrat in Congress backing and pushing for the George W. Bush and Republican-backed ‘bankruptcy reform’ bill which passed, in the Senate, with 18 Senate Democrats for the ‘bankruptcy reform’ bill, while 25 Democrats were against it. All 55 Republicans were for it.
In the U.S. House, the Independent Bernie Sanders voted against. All 229 Republicans were for. 73 Democrats there were for, 125 were against.
A lot of Biden supporters say that Biden is “a real Democrat” and that Sanders is no Democrat at all (since he’s an Independent who merely caucuses with the Senate’s Democrats). But Sanders voted like most Democrats did, and Biden voted like all Republicans did.

The difference between Biden and Trump is manners and very little else.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Dec 9 2020 22:06 utc | 40

Perhaps the adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan by James Morier is another of those good western Orientalist books characterizing the Iranians? time to demonize Iranian no more .

Posted by: Kooshy | Dec 9 2020 23:08 utc | 42

Weak and strong. I think I just said that the other day. Happy to see it’s being picked up. Sorry for the repost.

‘War with Iran’ prediction (for some, there is no distinction between prediction and advocation) is a cottage industry. It’s an exercise in fantasy. An exercise in futility. It is bandied about with or without logic. It’s practitioners seem to have a dual mentality of Iran. On the one hand, Iran is weak and can’t respond to certain acts. On the other hand, Iran is strong and should be feared. They hold these contradiction openly and without regard to facts, or logic.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Dec 9 2020 23:12 utc | 44

Kooshy @41–
In Herodotus’s time, the Greek word for Barbarian merely meant the people referred to didn’t speak Greek. Also, there’s a strong possibility that Herodotus and Socrates were Africans who were Hellenized

Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 10 2020 0:08 utc | 46

I’m told that Oz has a bigger variety of poisonous snakes than any other country, including the most lethal snake on Earth.
They’re all “weak and dangerous” which means that if a snake sees you coming, it’ll slither into the bushes. But if you threaten or attack it it’ll bite you. And if you’re lucky, you won’t die.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Dec 10 2020 3:18 utc | 48

@45 Boon quotes from a British Parliamentary report on Russia: …..”and, of course, a weak economy.”
One country has a strong enough economy to build military and commercial jet aircraft. The other does not.
One country can launch and operate its own satellite navigation system. The other can not.
One country can make nuclear icebreakers. The other wouldn’t know where to start.
One country is still designing and building main battle tanks. The other is not.
I could go on, but if you were to make a list that had on the left all the things that the Russians make that the British do not, and on the right a corresponding list of British-made stuff that eludes Russian industrialists, well, it’d be chalk and cheese.
Still, I’m sure there were plenty of Harrumphs!! and Here!!Here!! from the government backbench Hurray Henry’s when that report was tabled. Maybe even a few table-thumps thrown in for good measure.
Oh yeah, and this astonishing lack of self-awareness: …”and its status as a victor of the Second World War: nuclear weapons, a space presence and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council”…
Man, coming from the *British* that is very, very ironic indeed.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Dec 10 2020 11:49 utc | 50

@karlof1 #46
Perhaps you can define “African”: North African/Egyptian is very different than Bantu/Xhosa, for example.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 10 2020 15:08 utc | 52

Many (if not all) things are both weak and strong at the same time and it usually simply means that whatever is the topic has more than one single characteristic.
The US itself is both incredibly weak and quite strong depending on which characteristic one chooses to focus on, the same can even be said of the US armed forces (of which are four main ones).
Yes it is propaganda when it is simplified and endlessly repeated for manipulative narrative control without enough or crucial context but all of that is separate from being simultaneously weak and strong.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Dec 10 2020 15:16 utc | 54

Who is the audience?
I did not read all of the comments, but what I did scan seemed to miss the point.
Putting aside the question of audience, the operation is narrative control and the purpose is to provide cover for the political class to accede to the wishes of the militarists. Since the next prez played a prominent role in the seminal event of this century – namely the passage of the AUMF which facilitated the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq (and a minimum of a half-century of continued military adventurism) – this is extremely pertinent.
The US Congress could have availed itself of a myriad of experts who correctly predicted the disaster(s) that would ensue from that action. Biden helped ensure those voices would not be heard and twisted many D arms to get the votes to proceed.
Fast forward to 2020. So now, “it was all a mistake.” and “Who knew?” and all and assembled are exonerated from their purposeful lack responsibility to examine truth and consequences.
In an e-mail message I sent to every god-damned sitting Senator on October 29, 2002 I closed with the following remarks:
“Now is not the time to remain silent for the purpose of political expediency. While representative democracy still exists between these shores it is time to rein in a chief executive and his cabal who are apparently in the throes of a consuming blood-lust. I have considered myself and have voted Democrat all of my life (I’m 50 years old), and I must say that I am disgusted that most of the elected Democrats in Washington have been struck mute on this issue. No reasonable person who is fully contemplating the consequences of what is about to happen could come to the conclusion that any good is going to come from this. I believe, despite the gaudy and superficial manifestations of popular American culture, that this country is populated by reasonable people, and our elected representatives should consider the consequences of remaining mute and cowardly as George II leads us into a national disgrace and disaster”
It seems I was too optimistic about the power of the electorate, or the functioning of “democracy.”

Posted by: vinnieoh | Dec 10 2020 16:56 utc | 56

Posted by: Waldorf | Dec 10 2020 17:41 utc | 57
It’s been my observation that people are very good at keeping contradictions compartmentalized when their interests are affected. I consider “doublethink” to be pretty normal, as long as it works in peoples interests. Where it gets interesting is when people are led to believe contradictory things that affect their interests adversely. “Stockholm syndrome” for example. Or US citizens voting for cretins who fear and hate them. Then I feel there has been some sort of abuse going on.

Posted by: Bemildred | Dec 10 2020 18:00 utc | 58

Taxi driver laughing at daily newspaper headlines? Astonishing to think Black cab and licence purchase price is a dream for most working class.

Posted by: cadaver | Dec 10 2020 18:47 utc | 60

@50 Yeah, Right As for what we might sell to Russia? How about some “controlled equipment”? These could be military, dual use items(both civil & military), firearms or items that can be used for torture or capital punishment. http://markcurtis.info/2020/07/23/uk-has-approved-over-200-million-worth-of-exports-with-potential-military-use-to-russia-since-the-salisbury-poisoning/

Posted by: boon | Dec 10 2020 20:09 utc | 62

@Mark2 #55
I don’t watch vids, doubly so for Twitter.
As for Brexit making the UK stronger: depends on who you are and what you care about.
Yes, being part of the EU means being inside the EU’s powerful trade barriers. But that isn’t a benefit for British farmers or consumers since the UK isn’t self sufficient in food – something like 80% of the UK’s food is imported. Trade barriers around the EU make food more expensive for Europeans as well as directly propping up specific EU farmer segments.
Financially: the UK has historically made its bones by being a close off-shore financial center. Are the EU’s financial barriers sufficiently strong to replicate the agriculture situation? not at all clear.
Travel: the anti-Brexiteers talk about how Brexit hurts British traveling to the EU – to Spain for cheap vacations and what not. This is true, but the converse is that Polish and other Eastern European plumbers, construction workers, etc can’t come into the UK freely either. Is a cheaper vacation better than having tens of millions of cheaper competitors for your job?
Sovereign power: the UK’s isolation was great when the Continent was wracked by continuous wars. From the Hundred Years’ war onwards to the end of World War 2 – there was at least one war involving at least 2 of the EU’s present members, pretty much continuously.
Being largely apart from this was a benefit to the UK. Is there likely to be an EU war any time soon? If not, then being isolated is a net detriment.
The sad fact is that the UK would be 4th behind Germany, France and the Netherland should it completely integrate into the EU. The British oligarchy wants to think they’re on par with Germany and France, but it just isn’t so – especially since the UK cannot both be a “special partner” to the US and a full member of the EU.
So from my view: Brexit actually makes sense unless you’re of the oligarch class – which loses easy travel, EU Parliament retirement seats and being a top shrub in the EU walled garden.

Posted by: c1ue | Dec 10 2020 20:26 utc | 64

Doesn’t it become easier to distinguish false speech meant to persuade when the gap between the would-be persuaders and the ‘persuadees’ has become great enough that they move in different worlds completely? I am noticing this in the book I have almost finished reading, Solzhenitsyn’s “The First Circle.” There the zheks, prisoners, have been so long imprisoned, out of what passed for normal society in Moscow, that the encouragements and enticements of the persuaders no longer find common ground. Persons in each group have become residents of different worlds unable to use a common language since their experiences are so very different. And increasingly, it is the ones who have power who lose sight of the needs and desires of the ones who do not.
And that is when the argument being broached by the powerful does become both weak and dangerous…for them.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 10 2020 20:51 utc | 66

I would say Russia was genuinely weak in the Yeltsin years, and the West was fine with this. Yeltsin may even have been controlled in some way.
Putin’s Russia is a different matter.

Posted by: Waldorf | Dec 11 2020 8:38 utc | 68

Weakness and dangerousness can coexist in one scenario: a slowly declining empire.
I don’t think this is China’s case, because:
1) it isn’t an empire;
2) it is not declining.
Ironically, I think this condition describes the USA, as it is both an empire and in slow decline. This may be your classic case of projection.

Posted by: vk | Dec 11 2020 11:54 utc | 70