Three Views On The Current Situation In The U.S. Of A.
No post by me for today but three views of interest on the current situation in the U.S. of A.
Pepe Escobar: 9/11 Was the Prelude. 1/6 Is the Holy Grail
So where will 75 million disenfranchised voters – or 88 million Twitter followers – go?As it stands, we’re deep into Hardcore Class War. The Top of the Scam Gang are in full control. The remains of “Democracy” have gelled into Mediacracy. Ahead, there’s nothing but ruthless purge, protracted crackdown, censorship, blanket surveillance, smashing of civil liberties, a single narrative, overarching cancel (in)culture. It gets worse: next week, this paranoid apparatus merges with the awesome machinery of the United States Government (USG).
Alastair Crooke: America’s Battle Over the Nature and Direction of Change Itself
The next question for 2021 then, concerns that old adage: ‘Beware not to win too much’. It can be a mistake to corner your adversaries to having nothing to lose. The Blue state has ousted Trump; and Blue has taken everything across ‘the board’, and are ready to implement the ‘Re-set’ – the ultimate subjugation of Red by main force, achieved by the preponderance of wealth, ruling institutional leverage, and military power. A social ‘woke’ revolution, as well as a political transformation. The full outcome would likely reconstitute the constitutional order, in ways unrecognizable to most Americans today.
But will Red America succumb from exhaustion, or lack of leadership; or, on the other hand, might it find the energy to revitalise ‘their’ Republic? We shall see – a big question whose ramifications might make the EU élites particularly nervous. Of course Blue now possesses force majeure. But there is another old adage: ‘No passionate, partisan assessment has any value, save to inflame’ – and Big Tech and the MSM’s censorship and accompanying humiliation of Trump may turn him a martyr, and make the spirit of defiance all the stronger.
Diana Johnstone: Biden Exploits His Capitol Gains
From outside the melee, it is easy to define the serious issues that should dominate political debate in the United States. But instead of that, we hear a torrential exchange of insults. The establishment elite cannot stoop to exchange viewpoints with populists denounced as deplorable, racist, misogynist, white supremacist, fascist and now even “terrorist.”The populists’ unfocused denunciation of the elite describes Wall Street Democrats as “socialists” and veers off into accusations of genocidal vaccination campaigns, occult pedophile rites and Satanism. Instead of anything resembling a clear political division, America is increasingly split by blind, burning mutual hatred.
What American political life needs is not more censorship, but the self-censorship of reason. That is very far away.
Posted by b on January 13, 2021 at 19:15 UTC | Permalink
next page »Re: Pepe's 75 million disfranchised voters.
Those 75 million are well represented in Congress. In a winner take all system, you don't get to have your own personal president, OK? Any non-millionaire who believes that any American president is "their" president is a fool.
But agree that America will remain divided. Has there ever been a country with a high level of economic equality that was harmonious?
Posted by: Daniel Lynch | Jan 13 2021 19:41 utc | 2
Too many people believe what they choose to read. The constantly reinforced world view of us vs them. I remember when Obama had a real mandate and both houses of Congress his first two years. His big 'socialist' victory - a corporate run for-profit healthcare system which is the laughing stock of the world and oh yeah he expanded the 911 Forever War.
What did Trump do in four years? Nothing. The government of the USA is failed. The dissatisfaction with the Establishment goes way beyond the QAnon crowd.
The idea that there are actually two opposing political ideologies in the USA is Big Lie 101.
Posted by: gottlieb | Jan 13 2021 19:45 utc | 3
"The remains of “Democracy” have gelled into Mediacracy."
Tsk. Or, as one might call it, 'liberal fascism'. On account of the liberal establishment serving global financial capital.
Oh well, this too will pass.
Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Jan 13 2021 19:49 utc | 4
There will be a wipe out of Trumpists and one party Dem state ala California. The Rep party will divide itself into Trumpists and establishment fighting each other.
The clear changes in the culture of the US population, which is found by numerous surveys, back up this assessment of the situation.
Trump's biggest fault is that he managed to corrupt many naturally isolationist rank and file republicans into "i have the biggest dick" imperialism and China/Iran hysteria. He tried to save the US Empire, corrupted MAGA into Make America Rule the World Again, and for that he paid the price.
He was triggered by the US decline in the world (Murica is no longer number 1, how can this be!) and tried to prop up the Empire that will eat him later.
If he tried to run on anti-imperial isolationit platform he still had a chance. But that required better relations with China, Russia, Iran and others, something impossible for a US rightoid massively triggered about Murica not being "number 1".
Posted by: Passer by | Jan 13 2021 19:49 utc | 5
From the "Biden Exploits His Capitol Gains" article:
Joe Biden’s own language certainly sounded less like a magnanimous winner uniting his people than like that used by autocrats and dictators to hold onto power, argues Diana Johnstone.
Diana Johnstone's opinion is quite reasonable. In fact, a "creeping"/"bureaucratic" coup d'etat took place in the United States. And it wasn't Trump at all, but Biden & Co. The fact that "Joe Biden's own language sounded like that used by autocrats and dictators to hold onto power" is further confirmation of this.
If you are in the majority and you win the election honestly, then there is no need to act the way the Democrats did. The current aggressive rhetoric of Biden (and other Democrats) is evidence that the elections were stolen/falsified. Biden knows this very well, and therefore his language is as cruel, irreconcilable and repressive as possible. After the illegitimate elections, the task is to consolidate own's power and suppress all those who reject what happened. In fact, this is what happened in Ukraine after the Maidan 2014.
That is why we are witnessing the fussy, aggressive actions of the Democrats - a ridiculous re-impeachment of the president, who will leave the White House in a week, the most severe censorship and suppression of dissent. There is no need for the real winners of fair elections to behave like that, as they are aware of their legitimacy and are confident in themselves (relying on the real, not imaginary, support of the majority of the population).
Wrote some thoughts on this issue.
Globalization has made the United States a hollow giant. It has produced an enormous wealth gap, and this inequality is producing a breakdown in social cohesion. They have faced crisis before in the form of political polarization, economic hardship and racial tensions, but the situation now is a combination of every one of the mentioned before amplified by orders of magnitude by the pandemic.
The power of the MIC, Wall Street and Big Tech along with their MSM minions acting in a concerted way is the only thing preventing an implosion of the country. Either that or the notion of "American Exceptionalism" is truly implanted in the hearts and minds of the people, whether they realize it or not.
Posted by: Leftraru | Jan 13 2021 20:33 utc | 8
@ gottlieb | Jan 13 2021 19:45 utc | 3.... ditto your viewpoint.. thanks..
Posted by: james | Jan 13 2021 20:33 utc | 9
"What did Trump do in four years? Nothing." - gottlieb
Excellent point.
1. He made us feel better about ourselves by tormenting smaller countries, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Iraq ... Did this help the MAGAs? No but it made them feel empowered. The new Cold War with China really pleased the DC crowd. Ingraham is giddy.
2. He built 10 miles of wall on the southern border, refurbished 300, and even destroyed some mtn passes https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-border-wall-construction-created-092218877.html.
The Republicans keep talking about all these jobs but that is on a par w/Obama and has been swept away from his careless management of Covid.
3. He gave us a new Cult leader to follow. Again, this did not help the MAGAs but the don't know it yet because they are too busy hating socialists.
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jan 13 2021 20:57 utc | 10
Anybody who isn't already doing so want to work? I hear some states are even paying $15.- and hour now.
Getting the deadbeats up off their a** would really be a change for the U.S.A.
Posted by: Robert | Jan 13 2021 20:59 utc | 11
While people's attentions have been directed onto racial, gender, and orientation diversity, an equally important, if not more important, diversity - diversity of views and positions in the media - has been fully exterminated by the establishment.
Only one official narrative is allowed by our Western news media and Western social media, all acting in concert as one. Anyone that dares to question or contest that narrative is getting silenced and their communication accounts even getting disappeared.
Apt term 'mediacracy' in Pepe Escobar's article. When the state, deep state, and powerful corporations act together to enforce a single narrative, while silencing and disappearing others, is that not a form of fascism?
Just imagine just how different this Western mediacracy's coverage would be if these events had taken place in say Hong Kong, Belarus, or Venezuela?
- An unarmed female protester is shot dead by security forces
- No media outrage or calls for investigation or accountability
- A third, if not a half, of the population is completely disenfranchised
- Even the sitting president is censored
Wouldn't the mediacracy, all in unison, portray this as a brutal purge and crackdown?
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Jan 13 2021 21:00 utc | 12
An article from the Stalker with a Russian perspective on events folding out in 2020 and what may be ahead for 2021.
Within the US, for the first 1-2 years, “team Joe Biden” (meant only as the personification of the transnational financial capital behind it) will be engaged in a massive purge of the country “from Trumpism” to eliminate those Americans (over 70 million) who supported Trump for 2016 and 2020. Not in the sense of physical destruction, but, above all, their demoralisation, division and deprivation of the will to resist even at the local level.
Hopefully while team Joe is destroying Trumpism he will be too busy to do much on the world scene. The want to do to Trumpism what they did to UK's Labour, turn it into a neutered opposition.
Another one from the Stalker
Why do money masters benefit from the US’ liquidation?
It’s about cutting costs. Nothing personal, just business. The United States was propped up as the world’s only gendarme from 1990 to 2020. However, it is pointless to spend $700 billion a year on defence alone with zero results. Plus a huge social burden on loafers/welfare scroungers.
Previously, the owners of the United States could dump out $2 trillion a year due to the global oil trade in dollars. They didn’t give a damn about the trillion-dollar budget deficit or the foreign trade deficit.
US doesn't have any partners, only vassals, ready to jump ship. Lots of rats will will be looking for a more secure vessel in the next few years.
Posted by: Tom | Jan 13 2021 21:04 utc | 13
It's always the economy:
Jobless, Selling Nudes Online and Still Struggling
And here's the depressing part:
But competition on the site means many won’t earn much.
OnlyFans went from 120,000 "content creators" in 2019 to more than 1 million in 2020. The endgame of the "consumer economy".
Escobar and Johnstone always seemed more erratic and colorful than profound or committed, and I've never troubled to follow them. I'd see comments quoted and approvals made and was never impressed with anything they said, certainly not enough to chase down more. Crooke I never heard of before mentions at this site.
Skimming these links will never change my mind. The common perspective is that the tragedy is that the coup failed, that Pelosi wasn't hanged and Pence wasn't shot down and Trump didn't declare a state of insurrection and send the army in to "restore order." Well, I suppose that is a matter of personal morals. If Escobar, Johnstone and Crooke want Trump to win, that's on them.
But beyond my personal distaste for this kind of shameless evil, there's the blatant stupidity of it all. One of them (I've already forgotten who!) links to a bill introduced in 2019 as some sort of evidence of the Democrats' malign purposes in staging the coup.
Yes, that's the buried presumption for all three. The popular vote *and* this time Electoral College vote winner becoming president is magically transmuted into disenfranchising seventy five million people. This is insane, if honestly meant.
The anticommunist thrust of Trump's election campaign and the coup is ignored by these creatures because as near as I can tell, they hate and detest socialism and Communism because, Marx and Lenin etc. These people are just one of legions of egotistical middle class conventional "thinkers" who've been congratulating themselves so long and so loudly for rejecting Marxist pretentions to science, they're now deaf to reason.
The fact that the Republican Party is alive and well and can quite easily reunite on the pretense that Trump was just an unfortunate lapse, especially when idiots pretend that Trump was just a clown because 1/6 flopped, is a blatant fact entirely unnnoticed. Seriously, the horror at a Democratic Party president who merely won the election is the tyrannical suppression of democracy in the USA! Except this is the opposite, which is what these people stand for. I don't like Biden either but all those Republican governors and state legislature are not going to disappear. There will be election in 2022 in the new districts rigged as much as possible by the Republicans (and a couple of Democratic states, yes.)
Sure, the left isn't going to have equal access to the media, but then, it hasn't since at least the post-WWII purges of the left. Social media is not some giant force for democracy, never has, never will be. The power of social media to torment deviants isn't a useful tool for the left. In my opinion, it's not an accident things like #MeToo have largely managed to take out Jews, gays, blacks. Taking out an Ailes is about infighting at Fox and taking out Les Moonves is about helping Sumner Redstone as much as it is about women. Who in their right mind thinks a twitter campaign to downgrade Harry Potter is some great weapon for the oppressed of the world?
Denying the coup is very much about refusing to root out the fascist sympathizers in the police and armed forces. These people are not leftists, they're pompous, superficial pundits determined to avoid serious thinking.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jan 13 2021 21:05 utc | 15
alaff, there's no evidence the election was stolen. both candidates were and are corrupt, and the whole process is fixed by all the arcane rules (gerrymandering, electoral college, fixed primaries etc.) but just like a sports contest played by ped enhanced athletes, within the parameters of the playing area it was "fair". rhetoric isn't evidence, evidence is evidence, and even trump allied have repeatedly refused to go along with the narrative that the election is somehow fraudulent; the republican state officials who voted for trump themselves responsible for counting the votes in georgia, former trump political allies in congress, mike pence himself who refused to try the bizarre legal maneuver trump wanted him too, trump appointed judges in various state and federal courts, including the supreme court. there's never been any actual credible evidence of fraud presented.
trump lost mainly not because of his authoritarianism, his continuation of the empire wars, his failure to drain the swamp, his relentless pursuit of assange--he lost because he screwed up massively on dealing with the virus. there are almost 400k dead at this point, and it's getting worse even though the vaccines have started (very slowly and erratically) to be distributed. the last nail in his coffin was his encouragement and manipulation of those supporters in d.c. to riot at the capitol building. this is why so many of his erstwhile allies have turned on him in the past few days, and why mitch mcconnell is now apparently willing to impeach him.
people supporting trump are doing it mainly to piss in the punchbowl, and that's a reasonable strategy, but trump isn't for anything but trump. capitalism is in the process of self destructing, either way, and either way both parties will continue to subvert the populists in their ranks, and next election cycle more populists will arise to challenge them in the context of a rigged system because the system itself is failing. caitlin johnstone has the most accurate take on what is going on right now.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 13 2021 21:10 utc | 16
Another, even more vivid portrait of the USA's current situation:
A strong India would act as ‘counterbalance’ to China, says declassified U.S. document
With days to go before its end, the Trump administration has declassified a sensitive document on the U.S. strategic framework for the Indo-Pacific’ from 2018. The 10-page document — which does not come with any surprises — outlines objectives and strategies with regard to China, North Korea, India and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region.Maintaining “U.S. strategic primacy” in the region and promoting a “liberal economic order” while stopping China from establishing “illiberal spheres of influence” is the U.S.’s first national security challenge as per the document.[...]
With regard to India, one of the ‘desired end states’ of the U.S.’s strategy is for the U.S. to be India’s preferred partner on security issues and for the two countries to “cooperate to preserve maritime security and counter Chinese influence” in South Asia, Southeast Asia and other regions of “mutual concern”.[...]
The U.S. aims to help India become a net security provider in the region, solidify a lasting strategic partnership with India “underpinned by a strong Indian military able to effectively collaborate with” the U.S and its regional partners. These objectives it plans to achieve via enhanced defence cooperation and interoperability; working with India “toward domestic economic reform” and greater leadership roles for India in the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus.
Go, Liberalism! Make India Great Again!
@ 7 alaff
Interesting premise. Also enjoyed the post about the US and the Eu at the end of December.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Jan 13 2021 21:11 utc | 18
Try thinking of it this way,
I mean,
Damn,
Really?,
Won't even show up in public?,
Is that a 'funny joke'?,
...
i should mention that in addition to the struggles for control within the democratic and republican parties, and between gatekeepers nominally on the left and the jimmy dore supporters, there is now a dispute between q anon and alex jones, who accuses the movement of being full of shit. interesting times in the u.s.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 13 2021 21:15 utc | 21
meanwhile, trump's attempt to declare the houthis as a "terrorist organization" is driving a spike through efforts to fundraise for starving people in yemen, and is the single worst thing he has done as president, but is receiving almost unanimous bipartisan support by the two parties/scams and the mainstream media, simply by ignoring it. it gets almost no news coverage, just like the assange case.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 13 2021 21:19 utc | 22
josh, there's a pandemic. and the capitol did recently get attacked, something that greatly disturbs both parties since it brought the consequences of their policies home to them. thousands of national guard are being flown in because the capitol security was such a joke--requests for national guard troops were delayed for hours by the pentagon, for one thing. some of the capitol police were apparently cooperating with the crowd and letting them in and providing them with the location of the offices of various politicians they wanted to attack--mike pence and nancy pelosi among them, while other cops were doing their jobs and trying to prevent the crowd (mob by this time) from entering. various police officials have resigned, and various agencies are blaming each other for the lax security, so they are now scrambling to make up for it, and perhaps save their own jobs, by overcompensating. standard washington response to failure. meanwhile the fbi, which first claimed negligence and no advance warning, apparently produced an internal report warming ahead of time that the security presence needed to be enhance because there were credible threats of an attack on the capitol building.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 13 2021 21:30 utc | 24
So much of dealing with conspiracy theory and extremism influencers is a mental game of "when is this person who lies all the time not actually lying?" It's a mind game with no rules and that's impossible to win.
Posted by: Michael Rothschild | Jan 13 2021 21:30 utc | 25
there are a lot of these clips on alex jones response to qanon caller here's one link.
https://www.newsweek.com/alex-jones-qanon-rant-viral-infowars-1560394
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 13 2021 21:34 utc | 26
gottlieb @4
"What did Trump do in four years? Nothing."
As a member of a state usually on the receiving end of US largesse - Freedom & Democracy - I see that is a good thing.
Remember the Syrian chemical weapon false flag? The pause in the vitriolic denunciation of him was palpable. He launched the largely harmless (by US standards) Tomahawk strike (though it did inflict a small number of civilian fatalities largely through error). The pause in the MSM onslaught continued. Would he go the whole way and take out Assad? Nope. He stuck with the minimal gesture. Then the vitriol resumed as though nothing happened.
Posted by: Heironymous Dosh | Jan 13 2021 21:45 utc | 27
Soo, Trump tards will present dramatic new evidence that Covid 19 came from a Chinese Lab. Even the UK is not backing it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9140251/Trump-team-blame-China-lab-growing-Covid-19.html
This is after the latest Trump tard salvos against Iran, Yemen and Cuba.
You know what? Let Trump Tards be totally destroyed. They are desperate to start a New Cold War and to prop up the US Empire.
Let there be no mercy for these rabid dogs. I say this as former Trump supporter. They had a chance to go on peaceful path of cooperation and isolationism and they blew it.
Posted by: Passer by | Jan 13 2021 21:50 utc | 29
Well, "Joint Chiefs Remind U.S. Forces That They Defend The Constitution".
https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/2021/01/12/956170188/joint-chiefs-remind-u-s-forces-that-they-defend-the constitution#:~:text=The%20Joint%20Chiefs%20of%20Staff%20is%20made%20up%20of%20the,and%20the%20National%20Guard%20Bureau.
Is this not obvious?, what kind of paranoia are they suffering?. Well I suppose they fear what happened to the Volhynsky regiment of the Imperial Guard february 1917.
Unbelievable.
Posted by: DFC | Jan 13 2021 21:51 utc | 30
@Robert #11
Federal poverty level for a family of 2 is $30,680 a year income.
$15/hour = $30,000 a year.
In a big city, $30,000 barely pays the rent on a single room.
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 13 2021 21:59 utc | 31
@c1ue
You don't even need to live in a big city for that not to be enough. Made 25,000 for two years, had to have roommates due to this. Killed a mouse in my sleep who was trying to stay warm by snuggling up to me, rolled over on him in my sleep and suffocated the poor bugger. Which candidate in the last election spoke with regards to problems like that?
Posted by: Mr. House | Jan 13 2021 22:02 utc | 32
@pretzelattack #16
You said:
people supporting trump are doing it mainly to piss in the punchbowl, and that's a reasonable strategy, but trump isn't for anything but trump.
The last part is true, but the first part is no longer true.
I prefer Trump over Biden - not because I think he is a good person (he isn't) or because he's Republican (he isn't really). I do so because Trump prioritized more of what I consider important to the future of this country and most of its people than Biden.
The priority as I see it:
1) National health care. Obamacare is an abomination. Medicare For All is acceptable if the price list is kept. But the Democrats have sold their soul to the pharma and health insurance companies. Trump did some good here but so did Obama - in little things. The big one is still festering. Advantage: nobody
2) Offshoring jobs. China Joe is of a long line of labor betraying Democrats starting with Bill Clinton. Trump may be anti-China for the wrong reasons, but so what? The increasing minority vote for Trump in 2020 vs. 2016 shows that "its the economy, stupid".
3) End/reduce foreign military adventures. Say what you want - Trump didn't start any new wars and made real attempts to reduce the number of troops abroad. Sure, Yemen is terrible but that's the Saudis - and not much different than Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
4) Show that the American political elite are the incompetent, feckless and useless bunch that they really are. Mission Accomplished!
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 13 2021 22:06 utc | 33
Currently, the destruction of the First of the Four Freedoms--Freedom of Speech--shows quite well that BidenCo and its Establishment allies are the enemies of Traditional Liberalism, immoral and unethical as they channel Totalitarianism. That's the second major attack on the Four Freedoms with Freedom of Religion already having been greatly damaged by the Anti-Semitic/Anti-Islam Crusade began by Bush and continued by Obama/Biden and Trump/Pence. For those who missed my writing about the 80th anniversary of FDR's Four Freedoms Speech--which ironically was on the 6th--delivering the freedoms of Speech and Religion, and freedom from Want and Fear to those enslaved by totalitarians were put forth as the moral basis for entering into the Second World War. What's been clear to me for many years now can be made clearer to many as the Outlaw US Empire is now waging war against ideals universally embraced by the American citizenry and those of the Allied nations that fought together in WW2. If anything, those "deplorables" who gathered in DC on the 6th ought to be considered Nationalists, with Nationalism being a longtime declared enemy of the Washington Establishment since Truman. Nationalism, however, isn't merely Conservative as it can easily be Radical--Castro was a Radical Nationalist well before declaring himself Communist. Same with Chavez and a host of others over history. You want Traitors? All the Neoliberal Parasites on Wall Street and elsewhere that are draining the financial life from the USA and thus impoverish it and its people are the real traitors--and that includes all their bought politicians, Trump included. The God of Mammon is what those traitors worship and hold allegiance to, not the USA or any other state. Their false flag has now outed them and their intentions.
IMO, the only way to destroy the vermin trying to destroy the USA is via a Nationalistic Populist take over at the local and state levels that can then demand their own reset of how the national government operates and for whom.
I have a nephew and adult child who have moved with their families from the East and West coasts, respectively, back to Fly-Over Land for safety sake.
Posted by: gm | Jan 13 2021 22:14 utc | 35
@ alaff | Jan 13 2021 20:31 utc | 7
I think your assessment is correct. Their behaviour projects their guilt.
Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 13 2021 22:18 utc | 36
The "mob at the Capitol" reminds me of the 7 or 8 Little Green men in Crimea, or the few dozen Russian troops in Ukraine, or the 10,000 or so Ujghur prisoners in China or all zero HKers that the local police beat up or killed in blackshirt riots.
Quite simply there was no riot, and nothing Trump said before was significant. Police and military were ready in advance, but everyone was stood down for hours except the media who still got no pictures.
Usual test applies - is there any picture (let alone 20) that indicates mob or riot? is the worst thing confirmed or hearsay ("lets hang Pence" is Hearsay).
It didn't really happen - we are dealing with a media event.
Posted by: Michael Droy | Jan 13 2021 22:18 utc | 37
"The anticommunist thrust of Trump's election campaign and the coup is ignored by these creatures because as near as I can tell, they hate and detest socialism and Communism because, Marx and Lenin etc."
Dear Steven,
Marx and Lenin, socialism and Communism are all history. We live in a completely different period. Where have you seen socialists/communists recently?
Proletarians of the world failed to unite, but capitalists - of half-of-the-world at least - succeeded.
In these times, the dichotomy is not capitalism vs communism, it's liberal globalization vs economic nationalism. And you are on a wrong side.
Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Jan 13 2021 22:25 utc | 38
c1ue i support some of the goals trump ostensibly had like dismantling the trade treaties, ending the wars, ending the aggressive foreign policy in general, draining the swamp. medicare for all would be great. i just see both parties as irredeemably corrupt at this point, and so many of the would be reformers (looking at sanders here, and aoc, and trump) turn out to be gatekeepers and frauds.
i'd like to see some kind of general popular resistance like the giant strike by farmers in india, that beats the hell out of a civil war, but how will it be organized and by whom, especially as amazon and google further consolidate their power and deplatform people? i'm not optimistic.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 13 2021 22:30 utc | 39
I didn't guess how totally out of touch that Crooke guy really is until i came to the end of his article. I mean, quoting Francis Fukuyama, a man who has been wrong so many times since three decades ago, so desperate to get noticed he tweets nonsense such as that he wants to learn to code? Like a scratched record, he keeps repeating what he learned (or rather memorized) from his crusty gurus Kojeve, Bloom and Leo Strauss. Recycling the fascist Nietzsche, once again he says we are all care free individuals just enjoying our easy life, but need a tragedy to make us feel heroes. As if we were still living in Kojève's 1960's France. As if neoliberal austerity, 9/11, the Great Recession and covid had not happened! Truly Crooke must have lost touch with reality to close his article with such nonsense! I wonder if it is from senility or the guy has always been a crusty, old tory fool.
Posted by: gottfried | Jan 13 2021 22:32 utc | 40
@Bemildred | Jan 13 2021 21:48 utc | 28
House voted to impeach again.
How does that work after Trump has already resigned? This is just childish idiocy, in fact much worse. Does this mean that Biden/Harris have no other policies than being anti Trump? So now they want to make him a martyr? This looks like it is going to blow up in their faces, figuratively or literally.
Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 13 2021 22:35 utc | 41
Seems like more kayfabe theater to me.
By over-playing their hand Democrats invite backlash.
And in the process they transform 'canceled' Trump from PITA to virtual martyr.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 13 2021 22:43 utc | 42
@ 32 Mr. House
There are very few instances of any candidate ever speaking about policy. It's not about governance for the citizens of their respective countries. As Norwegian says, there aren't, and weren't any policies other than being anti Trump.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Jan 13 2021 22:44 utc | 43
Just three authors acting like protecting the results of an election and thwarting Vanilla ISIS terrorism constitutes a kind of coup.
Posted by: Sigil | Jan 13 2021 22:51 utc | 44
A Fourth View, from Mark Dice (it's a YT, soon to be gone):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k-BvJ8D7m8 (8 min)
Posted by: gm | Jan 13 2021 22:51 utc | 45
@ 22 pretzelattack... exactly... who the fuck is assange anyway?? and yemen??? where the fuck is that?? but boy this juicy fairy tale on trump sure is fun to keep the kiddies engaged... speaking of which...
@ steve johnson.. yeah, that was a coup attempt and i am sure you believe in the tooth ferry too... i can't understand how anyone could believe that b.s... that usa msm is better then i thought, or people are a lot more naive then i thought... those are the 2 choices..
Posted by: james | Jan 13 2021 22:54 utc | 46
"How does that work after Trump has already resigned? This is just childish idiocy, in fact much worse. Does this mean that Biden/Harris have no other policies than being anti Trump? So now they want to make him a martyr? This looks like it is going to blow up in their faces, figuratively or literally."
Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 13 2021 22:35 utc | 40
I don't think reason is going to work here. I expect a witch hunt. We'll have to see how bad it gets. It all depends on when people "come to their senses". There are various factions in the Trumpists talking big too, the real problem is that the real problems we have are still being ignored in favor of these gang wars. (Well, what else is it?) I can understand Biden wanting everybody to shut up and get in line, he has a lot on his plate as they say, but if he is stupid enough to start a real vendetta against the Trumpists, he's not going to get far.
Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 13 2021 22:57 utc | 47
Gee, has anyone besides myself actually read all three essays? Johnstone dissects the issues decidedly different from Escobar and Crooke and she tries to interject a longer view and properly calls BidenCo the War Party. But she fails to present any real solution because she doesn't clearly see the entire situation and its temporal context. IMO, a very deep review of events since GHWBushCo became POTUS in 1989 is warranted for when the USSR fell is when the Neoliberals became far more energized and voraciously began their Russian Rapine and even further disdain for the UN and its Charter. Johnstone at least has the correct scent as she invokes the first Neoliberal attack on another nation:
"What happened on Jan. 6 was not an insurrection. Anyone wanting to know what an insurrection is should look up the U.S.-sponsored armed uprising that overthrew duly elected Chilean President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973."
She then cites a few others. Those who read the Karganovic essay I linked ought to get the connection. Last yet most importantly are Dr. Hudson's writings, especially Killing the Host, that provide the detailed history of the assault on the USA's integrity and who've proven to be the most deadly Totalitarians of them all. Did the "Businessmen" who paid the would-be assassin whose shot missed FDR and fomented their failed coup attempt and gained the reins of government by foisting Truman on a very unsuspecting public aim for this outcome? Since they were Fascists, I'd say yes.
A fifth view, from the Duran:
Swamp mad rush to prevent Trump 2024 Presidential run
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmmijOn5XF8
Posted by: gm | Jan 13 2021 23:01 utc | 49
My message to the “winners”.
You won because you were more determined to win, because you had minions in all the right places and because your opponent, the supposed populist leader of the other side, was never what he sold himself to be. He could not even start up an insurrection against your steal.
One of the key points that you sold yourself to the grey middle of the voting population was that the vote for Trump was a vote for civil war. Take just that CEO of an online accounting software firm who emailed to $10M customers internationally that vote for Trump is a vote for civil war (what a blatant abuse of the commercial trust by a leftist moron not fit to clean toilets in the company’s office, but it shows that determination to win at any cost).
Well, all your braying, mouth and keyboard farting now is definitely leading to civil war. I know that you are terribly afraid of a real insurrection which you are projecting into your opponents because this is exactly what you would do if they managed to cheat better and to win. But you really need to shut up now and stop abusing those who lost. Impeaching Trump, taking the guns away and taking any remaining freedoms is not a wise strategy against people who already feel disenfranchised. Where is a compromise in that?
I expect you to stop after Jan 20, relax and give in a little bit once you control the powerful machinery of the USG and your risk of an insurrection against you is severely diminished. If you do not, then you will bring exactly what you have been promising to the grey middle that your win will NOT bring. I know that you are liars and cheaters but this is the only promise that you must keep - do not create conditions for a civil war by ruthlessly oppressing the losers. Because what you won by cheating, you will lose by over-bearing.
Posted by: Kiza | Jan 13 2021 23:03 utc | 50
@ 47 karlof1
Personally, I don't find any of the three writers offer up anything that would suggest a solution. I also find it refreshing that they do have separate viewpoints base on what their particular take off points are.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Jan 13 2021 23:07 utc | 51
How to Un-Trump Four Years of Trump?
A central rule of a color revolution is to avoid an "orderly transition". The new regime must have a revolutionary mandate instead of a democratic one. Only then can it operate outside the constitution and outside the law.
The plan here is to declare not only Trump illegitimate but his whole administration illegitimate. The new regime can then undo all of Trump's executive decisions. There is no need to "stuff" the Supreme Court with extra judges. Simply declare Trump's appointments null and void.
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Jan 13 2021 23:08 utc | 52
vk@11
Sounds like benighted ignorance masquerading as desperate hubris. Did anyone go review the non-aligned cold war relationship dynamics, or even the ENRON collapse triggers.
India is not the new kid on the block, even if it nominally shed the British more recently. It has a lot of independently moving parts, and the more corruption grease they glob on, the more the thick the bureaucratic inertia will become. It is way out of the KKR leagues.
It could be a place where the empire can go to die!
Posted by: rahuala | Jan 13 2021 23:12 utc | 53
@ 51 Petri Krohn
I suspect they may do both in regards to the Supreme Court.....null his choices and appoint their justices too.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Jan 13 2021 23:12 utc | 54
Is there anything more pathetic than competition between competing business entities hiding as some sort of disagreement over principle?
InfoWarsInc© one of the first of 'profit from lies' corporations to be de-platformed by big tech has been losing market share to the more recent QanonCorp® startup.
Q has all the media profile now, the profile jones once had.
At first jones went along with it foolishly imagining he could ride on the q back until he got set once more. The opposite happened and now InfoWarsInc© is crying heresy. Pathetic but also amusing.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Jan 13 2021 23:17 utc | 55
It’s all just farts in a jar. The trajectory was set decades ago and the political oligarchy and gerontocracy aren’t going to let go of that trajectory. Trump was only a “populist” insofar as it was a means for him to be popular. In reality, he’s a dishonest, craven asshole. If he was a populist he would have responded to Covid way differently. What he is, however, is a nationalist. Those are dangerous because they don’t think clearly.
Absolutely his instinct to rebalance the economic relationship with China was correct. But he’s too stupid to do it in a way that actually benefits or improves the US long term. Every once in a while with him there was hint of a good instinct but he never followed through because his base instincts always win out.
The cries of censorship are asinine. Real censorship of diverging opinions was accomplished decades ago. Banning Donald trump from twitter isn’t censorship. They didn’t ban the POTUS account (they did delete tweets when he tried to use it), they banned his personal account because he’s an asshole who broke the rules. Republicans have been telling me about the sanctity of property my whole life. Now they change their minds?
The empire is in terminal decline. Trump doesn’t change it. Biden doesn’t change it. Who controls Congress doesn’t change it. Because all of them are beholden to the declining empire and/or they believe in America’s myths (they are nationalists). A failed color revolution run by people who don’t want to accept an election result just says real loud that the empire is falling.
Posted by: Lex | Jan 13 2021 23:25 utc | 56
Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 13 2021 22:35 utc | 40
Trump's 2nd impeachment: what it reminds me of is the impeachment of Andrew Johnson during reconstruction, a lot of historical resonance there, the bitterness, the desire to undo as much as possible, and I'd say that this now is in some sense unfinished business from back then.
Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 13 2021 23:28 utc | 57
Very skeptical from years of reading Pepe's repetitive and one dimensional propaganda... but out of respect for Mr B.. i will try read it.
Sorry, but there is only so many times a man can read about the same OBOR/WinWin/BeltAndRoad accolades and not see the common denominator: motivated promotion, which undermines objectivity and truthful analysis.
Posted by: Et Tu | Jan 13 2021 23:34 utc | 58
I would like to add this analysis from The Saker to the mix already put up by "b" all are relevant and interesting reads. Leading to the statement from an old TV show... Let the Games Begin ... (They are not games though as it will affect so many lives and the Saker is so right in saying .. "it is not only revenge SNIP: .... But even more important, is to humiliate him, make him pay, show him once and for all “who is boss”! These people thrive on revenge and victory is never enough to appease them, they simply hate anybody who dares oppose them and they want to make an example of any and every serf who dares to disobey them. That is why they always send “messages”, no matter how inchoate: they want to bully all the deplorables on the planet into total subservience."" END SNIP
Link: http://thesaker.is/the-mob-did-not-win/
Posted by: KamNam | Jan 13 2021 23:38 utc | 59
>> he is, however, is a nationalist. Those are dangerous because they don’t think clearly.
No, he isn’t. No, they aren’t.
Maintaining accountability in a democracy is improved by delegating control to localities. The opposite extreme is having 7 billion people vote for a small number of people who then are extremely detached from regular people.
Posted by: oglalla | Jan 13 2021 23:44 utc | 60
Digital Spartacus @50--
Thanks for your reply! Yes, only Johnstone offers what might be called a suggestion rather than solution:
"What American political life needs is not more censorship, but the self-censorship of reason. That is very far away."
And I fail to see how that changes anything. From the remaining comments, it appears most are satisfied with the current situation, although many probably have no oar to row making me the outlier.
As for “solutions”, Jimmy Dore’s “Force the vote” showed (for the umpteenth time) that the people have no voice in this sham. Therefore, it is time to VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS and VOTE WITH YOUR FEET.
No, other locales don’t not heed the people much either. But, if it’s a little better, it’s an improvement.
Spend your money on AliExpress instead of Amazon.
If you’re young and skilled or old and rich, move to another country that doesn’t spend your tax money on evil.
Don’t feed the beast. Deprive the financial monster of its input. Legally.
Posted by: oglalla | Jan 13 2021 23:52 utc | 62
Et Tu @57--
Escobar mentions none of that in his essay, so you construct your straw man to discredit him. Bye!
@pretzelattack "alaff, there's no evidence the election was stolen"
Why do people treat this like a court of law with a presumption of innocence? - "if there is no proof of wrongdoing, it must have been fair and honest".
Suppose someone demanded that you prove the election was honest? Could you do it? I know I couldn't.
It's not hard to imagine a system where you could prove that, however. It would require voter ID's, much stricter chain of custody for ballots and the ability for a voter to check how their vote was recorded and challenge it, if necessary. This is all perfectly possible technologically. If I can return something to a store 6 months after I bought it without a receipt and have them look up the visa purchase, we should be able to do this. The reason, of course, is that the political parties don't really want honest elections.
The whole thing reminds me a bit of that line in "The Sting" - "what do you expect me to do? challenge him in front of everyone for cheating better than me?"
Where I'm going is this: why _should_ I believe the election was honest? I simply don't know if it was, or wasn't. There won't be real confidence in elections until we provide better means of validating the results that are available to everyone. Simply saying "there was no evidence of fraud" won't be enough.
Posted by: ian | Jan 14 2021 0:42 utc | 65
There are billions or people in the world who don't give a toss about the US, except when they are bombed. Who would, frankly, like to hear a lot less.
Posted by: cdvision | Jan 14 2021 0:43 utc | 66
@ 60 karlof1
Do you feel it is acquiescence of most people to their fate under that political landscape or perhaps apathy? Or "going along to get along"? Difficult to rouse interest when largely faced with a nation of headline readers...if that.
Posted by: Digital Spartacus | Jan 14 2021 0:53 utc | 67
Dimitri Orlov:
"...Fellow-Satanists, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen! The year 2020 has been a banner year for our society and for His Satanic Majesty! [Applause]
Our major success of 2020, of course, was in locking down half the planet by hyping a not-too-dangerous respiratory virus that's mostly dangerous for the old and the sick with the help of Satanic Minion Tedros Adhanom Boutros-Boutros-Boutros Ghebreyesus at our affiliate World Health Organization. This has allowed us to proactively set in motion a controlled demolition of the global economy. It stands to greatly enrich our members, whereas the inevitable spontaneous collapse would have wiped us out. [Enthusiastic applause, shouts of "Bravo!"]
Still, we must not grow complacent; the virus ploy will stop working for us at some point. We do not want to find ourselves in the situation of a Boutros-Boutros-Boutros who cried wolf one time too many! The hype is wearing off already. The use of the term "lockdown" was unfortunate; after all, it is US prison slang for locking inmates in their cells. Plus those damnable Russians seem to have developed their Sputnik-V, a vaccine that actually works. Now everybody seems to want it instead of our preferred toxic, fertility-destroying potions. Still, it brought tears of joy to many a Satanist's face watching millions of people wear face masks and stand 1,5 meters apart just as shown in Stanley Kubrik's excellent film "Eyes Wide Shut" starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. [Confused looks; some stifled guffaws, a smattering of applause]..."
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2020/12/world-satanic-society-2020-year-end.html#more
Posted by: Mario | Jan 14 2021 0:56 utc | 68
Seventh view... Dr. Richard Wolff, via Jimmy Dore...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyu0gYnDy1o
Posted by: gm | Jan 14 2021 1:02 utc | 70
re ian @ # 64 who carelessly spouted:
"It's not hard to imagine a system where you could prove that, however. It would require voter ID's, much stricter chain of custody for ballots and the ability for a voter to check how their vote was recorded and challenge it, if necessary. This is all perfectly possible technologically. If I can return something to a store 6 months after I bought it without a receipt and have them look up the visa purchase, we should be able to do this. The reason, of course, is that the political parties don't really want honest elections." sorry but that is the most poorly thought thru post I've seen here for a while.
The reason someone's ballot is not traceable has nothing to do with elite control, altho many of the poorly constructed systems put in place by rethug state administrations since the 2000 mess do abuse electoral law to keep the impoverished from voting as well as having backdoors for some adjustment. Major adjustment being near impossible due to the need to have a number of co-conspirators at every polling station, to swap out the hard copy printouts so they agree with the machine adjusted tally. Now that makes such a scam impossible since any conspiracy that requires more than a small cadre of committed crooks always comes undone by a less committed conspirator on the periphery.
The reason ballots remain untraceable is simple, a lesson learned early in voting, that is if you can go back and check your vote, so can others, this was soundly demonstrated back in the day when ward heelers bought votes in the thousands for a couple of dollars each. Their ability to check & make sure someone voted as they promised was integral to the scam.
Worse than that were the honest voters who lost their job because their boss didn't like their choice.
Returning voting to public knowledge rather than secret between the voter & his/her mark on the paper/pull of a handle will create far more issues than it could solve.
There is no way that any method of storing an individual's vote so he/she can check on it whether it be stored by hard copy or machine would not be hacked by the usual suspects - no way!
Posted by: Debsisdead | Jan 14 2021 1:11 utc | 71
Now this looks more like the War of Secession:
Massachusetts teen turns in her own family as Capitol rioters
Digital Spartacus @66--
IMO, it's a combination of those plus, a la 1984, and distractions, sports particularly. I was taught early that knowledge is power, then picked up Socrates admonition: The unexamined life is not worth living; which later led to this formula: Gnosis=Logos. Then there's defending against Machiavelli's Prince, which requires knowledge. Plus the Enlightenment-based premises upon which the USA was founded. And most importantly, if you're to be part of a self-governing nation, one must be informed as many Founders observed. I'm well versed on what an ignorant life is like as there was a time from my late teens to my mid 30s when I lived that way, with my 50-60 hour per week job, chasing women and having fun taking precedence. I do often wonder if my efforts are useful. Maybe not so much anymore since the trolls seem to have stopped trying to smear me.
FBI is soliciting people to identify people involved with the rumble on Capitol Hill. This is very 1984ish. The FBI must have the best facial recognition software in the land. Really? This is heading to a dark place. (My man of the year is the Trump rebel with the Trump hat waving holding the podium. He would be a rich man if he could get a copyright on that photo. They really had to go this far to catch him? LOL)
Posted by: Tom | Jan 14 2021 1:31 utc | 74
ian@64 seems to think that your votes should be recorded by name and permanently stored. Perhaps there really is a case to be made for abolishing the secret ballot but if there, please make it. Simply ignoring the difficulty of having a secret ballot and easy accessibility at the same time isn't it. There is a reason secret ballots have been regarded as honest elections. Given how many obstacles the Patriot Act put in way of getting a driver's license, even the demand for voter ID isn't that simple. I think the secret agenda here is rig elections by limiting the voting, not honest elections.
The ways in which national elections are fixed have nothing to do with falsifying the ballot box. The most glaring example is we were practically faced with a choice between Biden and Trump (those of us who still couldn't vote for Biden knew by other people's standards we were throwing away our vote.) That makes sure there will be nothing really different, just like Biden said. The rigging isn't illegal because the laws and regulations are corrupt...but they're still legal. Tin God Trump lost, get over it. The only reason for not having confidence in the vote totals in elections is Trump told you not to. This is not a manly independent thinking, it's playing the stooge.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jan 14 2021 1:42 utc | 75
@ Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 13 2021 23:52 utc | 62
Fair enough sir, hadn't quite read the whole article, so can't argue with your comment.
Nevertheless, my point was, i view Pepe's work in the broader context of his long running weekly reminders of essentially the same story being regurgitated over and over... often masqueraded or obfuscated with witty historical and literary references, to his credit, but in essence, always the same story: West bad, China good.
I don't essentially disagree most of the time, especially in matters of geopolitics in ME and Asia, though i would also add that to be credible, out of 100 cases, one could also find plenty of evidence of the contrary.. yet somehow we never get those articles from Mr Pepe... so i take all his articles with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Nevertheless, glad to see Mr Escobar telling a new version of the same story from another vantage point and with fresh, updated source material.
Posted by: Et Tu | Jan 14 2021 1:48 utc | 76
I did nt notice in recent days anyone talking about one further shadow, dark cloud looming over Biden coming ruling days.
In three -four months in open daylight will be the Dems and elites disapointing indifference to the BLM, the immigrant issue, the myriad unemployed by Covid. This highly probable failure to meet campaign promises will take its political toll.
And rebound, bounce back in unprecedented way aganst the triumphant
MSM, deepstate and warparty winners. And add up to the angry, resentful redpart of the country.
Posted by: ian | Jan 14 2021 0:42 utc | 64
Here's my question: Have you EVER trusted ANY election, or did your distrust start with 'Stop the Steal'?
To my knowledge, the only elections stolen in the past 25 years are the 2000 presidential election in Florida and 2004 in Ohio - both times in favor of Republicans and in one case where there were serious conflicts of interest and appearance of back-end voting tabulation software-based fraud.
I'm no fan of the Democrats on the national level, certainly not since Bill Clinton, but in state after state too many votes to count are stolen before the would-be voter ever has a chance to cast them. Republican gerrymandering, vote suppression, purges of voting rolls, denial of voting rights for previous criminal convictions, and draconian voter ID laws that make a voter take extra steps beyond just having a state issued ID. Nearly all of those are DESIGNED to prevent minority, poor and left-leaning voters from having their say.
Also you don't seem to understand the concept or beginnings of secret ballots but Debsisdead cleared that up.
All of this having been said, I have not been given one single credible account of widespread or even small scale coordinated vote rigging by the Democrats in the presidential election. It's all circumstantial guessing (why doesn't the down ballot race always mirror the presidential, etc.) or videos that have all been proven to be edited and misrepresented once journalists are able to obtain the whole thing, as was the case with the alleged boxes of ballots being counted in Georgia after counters were told to go home. All of Trump's accusations, and those of his supporters in this regard amount to vapor. Nothing. Just a feeling that they were wronged because they can't accept that in a horrible winner takes all two party system like most voting is done in the USA, the results will often be closer than predicted and, well, sometimes your side LOSES ALL.
Americans are some of the most gullible people on the planet and I know because I was born there and lived there until 2016. We are brainwashed from birth about American exceptionalism, the beauty of vulture capitalism, our right to dictate to the rest of the world what they or their leaders may or may not do without following our own "advice" and most importantly and relevant to this discussion, the claimed and often used ability to re-write the rules in our own favor, as we have seen time and time again since Ford pardoned Nixon, Wall Street gamblers being repeatedly bailed out while workers suffer, being told that OUR torture is just "stress positions" and OUR kidnapping for the purpose of torture is "extraordinary rendition" all to protect the precious homeland.
There are two sets of laws in the US and increasingly in the West. One for the rich and powerful, one for the rest of us. The people in Trump's class and the banksters can afford high profile attorneys to 1) write the law to enable unethical behavior or 2) throw a wrench into any attempt to hold them accountable when they DO break a law by filing motion after motion and other legal trickery that causes the regulators or law enforcement to just give up due to lack of resources or time to deal with it.
I can't believe more people don't see that this is exactly what Trump's team has done after he lost the popular vote and electoral college. They thought the same approach they use in business would work on a larger scale. Throw tons of lawsuits against vote counts to the point that either 1) the system breaks and you can declare victory or 2) you get lucky on a single one that you can take to the SCOTUS and invalidate a portion of the votes. That's how Trump, big business and Wall Street make their problems go away. That's exactly what Trump did here, except he also incited a large number of people to believe that he was the duly elected president and to protest the vote count for the first time in their voting lives.
Posted by: _K_C_ | Jan 14 2021 1:56 utc | 78
I do often wonder if my efforts are useful. Maybe not so much anymore since the trolls seem to have stopped trying to smear me.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 14 2021 1:25 utc | 72
----
Well if it helps, I don't automatically skip over your posts nearly as often as I used to.
I even click and read sone of the links. Wasn't vvery impressed by Mr Cooke, whom you linked to 3 times in one thread recently. I finally decided to click it after the 3rd mention but as I said, didn't really grab me.
I have noticed a change in both tone and direction from you though, since 6th Jan. Not sure i agree, but it was interesting to see happen nonethless.
The refusal to pretend the election was not blatantly stolen was commendable. If nothing else it's a useful IQ/honesty benchmark, or reality-denial benchmark. One sj johnson failed utterly.
I still don't do video though, so links to videos of the max and stacy show are still wasted on me entirely, unfortunately
Posted by: Triden | Jan 14 2021 2:19 utc | 79
@77 K C
KC, you wrote:
"All of this having been said, I have not been given one single credible account of widespread or even small scale coordinated vote rigging by the Democrats in the presidential election."
If there was any vote rigging done to make sure Trump lost, do you actually think it would have been done by the Democrats? If the Deep State, or the financial oligarchy behind the Deep State, had decided that Trump absolutely had to go, wouldn't they have given the job of vote rigging to the experts at manipulating elections at the CIA or some other part of the Intelligence community?
I don't pretend to know whether there was any anti Trump vote rigging, but I think any discussion of whether or not it was even possible needs to start with a correct identification of who might plausibly have done it.
Posted by: Fnord13 | Jan 14 2021 2:19 utc | 80
to maintain the facade of a democracy, they have to maintain the facade of legit elections.... as k c points out - 2000 and 2004 looked pretty dicey already... but keeping the illusion up is important.. maybe one of the issues that most challenges the powers that be, and i include the dem party in this - is the fact that trump and the repubs have challenged these election results... people can say it is all bullshit, but one has to question it with the use of computers to generate the result... i am not confident in this approach myself, but i don't like in the usa.. regardless, i am sure many on the inside trying to maintain this facade of democracy are enraged that trump would question the legitimacy of it... good for him that he did!
Posted by: james | Jan 14 2021 2:38 utc | 81
to me, Diana Johnstone offers the most meaningful and insightful analysis of the three, examining many of the threads of these incredibly complex times, including the scandalously under-educated and under-organized masses in the USA, the truly frightful authoritarianism of Old Joe and his tribe of Know-Little Democrats, and what I consider to be the neo-fascist tendencies of the Techo-Overlords who together with the other Economic Elites truly run the country. These overlords are just beginning their censorship, purges and imprisonments.
"....The oligarchic nature of the American War Party is revealed by the haste with which privately owned social media enterprises silence dissent – even the still acting President of the United States. Indeed, who really rules the United States?.....
Trump managed to appeal to millions of discontented Americans without offering any coherent practical program to replace the War Party with policies capable of transforming the nation into a haven of peace and prosperity. His confusion mirrored the ideological confusion of a population scandalously undereducated in history and political ideas....."
I fully expect the neo-cons and neo-liberal interventionists and war mongers who are packed into the Old Joe administration to launch a new war in the Middle East (or even re-ingnite an old war? perhaps one against Syria) soon after taking office.... And for any protests to be denounced as rioting and terrorism - Not, mind you, that any Democrats will ever protest any foreign war, drone attacks, subversion or coup d'etat initiated by their Party, god forbid!
Keep your eye on the ball, and the ball is Class...... Along with wealth and real power in the country; where and how the ruling class maintains all its incredible advantages
Posted by: michaelj72 | Jan 14 2021 2:50 utc | 82
but keeping the illusion up is important
Posted by: james | Jan 14 2021 2:38 utc | 80
Well as you have seen throughout several threads here at MOA the gameplan at the moment just seems to be screaming "nazi!" as loudly and as long as possible everytime reality is referred to by the uncouth. That will work for a while perhaps, but it'll get tired and worn out soon enough.
I supposse we can expect some FBI "domestic terrorism" entrapment plots along the way, like we saw during the obama admin, tricking exceptionally gullible or lowIQ patsys into "swearing alligence to" ISIS
Posted by: Triden | Jan 14 2021 3:03 utc | 83
michaelj72 @Jan14 2:50 #81
To me, Diana Johnstone offers the most meaningful and insightful analysis ...
I agree. However I think she fails to fully appreciate the USA 'regime' when she says:
... a powerful reaffirmation of the regime that was really still there during Trump’s largely deformed four-year term.
Its the same "regime" that has been there through Clinton, Bush, and Obama Presidencies. And arguably since the JFK assassination. Trump is also an extension of that regime.
We need to recognize that billionaire Clinton-crony Trump has done a service for the Centrist establishment just as Obama and Sanders have. Trump led his sheep to a dead end. He also conducted a massive military build-up and defied the UN To benefit Israel.
Smart people could see that Trump was NOT a "populist outsider" anymore than he was Putin's stooge. But sheeple blindly follow anyone that pays them some lip service.
Ms. Johnstone hits the nail on the head: until Americans learn to reason, they will continue to be manipulated.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 14 2021 3:30 utc | 84
caitlin seems to poach from moa as often as not too.... not saying i don't like what she has to say, but the focus on yemen that b gave - she gave quite a bit later in the day....
triden.. indeed... at this point, i thought michaels suggestion/s @ 81 are just as possible... same thing really... to sum up - jackrabbits viewpoint none of these leaders are as they pretend to me rings true for me as well.. but i like mysteries and never feel like i have the answers.. mostly just more questions then answers..
Posted by: james | Jan 14 2021 3:48 utc | 85
speaking of caitlin - here is the line from her latest... you have to respect the lady.. she tells it like it is...
"Point of order regarding Sheldon Adelson: the correct term for someone who spent his whole life being an asshole and then died is "dead asshole", not "philanthropist"."
i'm on her e mail list..
Posted by: james | Jan 14 2021 3:50 utc | 86
Simplify:
The debt can never be paid back, so it won’t. Politicians always pick the easiest way out of the debt trap : inflation.
The fed aims for 2% ...while they know the real figure is already 10% or more. In their repris of “ The sorcerers apprentice”, they will continue to lose control, and hyper inflate the $. We have historical examples of what happens then. Buy toilet paper.
Posted by: James joseph | Jan 14 2021 4:05 utc | 87
Its not that the election was stolen. But that choice was stolen. The MAGA team wanted to vote Trump but then were obliged to vote for Repugnants. Not forced to vote down ticket and so a sufficient few voted Dimratss.
2022 and 24 will be different imo. There will be many more non 'elite party' candidates.
The MAGA crowd will have a presidential candidate in 2024, likely it won't be Donald as the Dimratss are ripping the wheels off his cart right now. Maybe Ivanka, maybe another billionaire smarty. in 2022 they will also be running hard to win a Congressional or Senate seat as well and accusing the repugnant incumbents of treachery.
The progressives might, could, perhaps run a workers party or some such and they too will have a presidential candidate and contest the Congressional and Senate positions. It will be interesting to see how the first iteration pans out. They too will have lots to flog the dimwitted party bosses with.
One thing you can bet on is that the Dimratss will do nothing good.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 14 2021 4:32 utc | 88
I dont think this will be decided by elections...that option has passed, along with the fed reserv correcting the inballances of the last 35 years. Buy toilet paper.
Posted by: James joseph | Jan 14 2021 5:12 utc | 89
The brazen hypocrisy of the squad of dogs.
Jimmy Dore appreciates AOC and her CIA interference training.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 14 2021 5:18 utc | 90
Lets pretEnd that 20 million home owners, losing their home, will be thinking donkey vs elephant.... while they’re living in their van?? Their thoughts are more likely to be : “Why da fuck am i paying any attention to these assholes? The more hungry , the more radical their solutions. Thank god, when we finally hit the wall, and take back our local economy.
Posted by: James joseph | Jan 14 2021 5:25 utc | 91
The split in USAi politics is bipartisan so you might take some additional pleasure as the Dimratss party commences its implosion.
The Democratic Socialists of America (well lets just say NORTH America) have now engendered a serious split as their membership calls out the leadership as tools of the Dimratss party.
Jimmy Dore gets it in one devastating blow;
"my report on the DSA and #ForceTheVote got more views than they have members."
As one DSA member comments: "its hard not to ask myself why we continue electing politicians who - at the end of the day - still capitulate to the Democratic Party"
And this:-
"For an organisation that supposedly prides itself on mobilization, its hard to understand why the DSA, even after getting a 20-6 vote in favor of backing #ForceTheVote, chose not to officially endorse the movement."
The DSA membership will either throw these treacherous leadership cabal out or the DSA will disintegrate. In which case the squad will get primaried by the Dimratss ugly machine bosses and they will likely lose seats in 2022. The squad will now desperately try to get $2000 checks per month and then cave in to per quarter, then per year and then they will be turfed out of office. Bernie will say very little and Neera Tanden will scream about those terrorist Bernie Bros. I can see the whole tawdry circus will become a distraction for the never ending wars.
The USA descent into farce will become a horror movie within this year.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 14 2021 5:50 utc | 93
karlof1 @ 72, since you mention Socrates' admonition, perhaps you would be heartened by this from his own inner conversation with 'the laws' after he has been condemned by the Athenian court:
"...as it is, you will leave this place, when you do, as the victim of a wrong done not by us, the laws, but by your fellow men. But if you leave in that dishonorable way, returning wrong for wrong, and evil for evil, breaking your agreements and covenants with us, and injuring those whom you least ought to injure -- yourself, your friends, your country, and us -- then you will have to face our anger in your lifetime and in that place beyond when the laws of the other world know that you have tried, so far as you could, to destroy even us their brothers, they will not receive you with a kindly welcome. Do not take Crito's advice, but follow ours.This, my dear friend Crito, I do assure you, is what I seem to hear them saying, just as a mystic seems to hear the strains of music, and the sound of their arguments rings so loudly in my head that I can not hear the other side. I warn you, that as my opinion stands at present, it will be useless to urge a different view. However, if you think that you will do any good by it, say what you like.
CRITO: No, Socrates, I have nothing to say.
SOCRATES: Then, give it up, Crito, and let us follow this course, since God points out the way."
[End of dialogue, 'Crito'; Translated by Hugh Tredennick]
Posted by: juliania | Jan 14 2021 6:24 utc | 94
mistake number 1: People are discussing this as if this problem began yesterday or lets say when Trump won in 2016. They cannot be more wrong.
USA has always been a 100% totally fake country. From day 1. I should know, I lived in in for 22 years. USA felt fake since my day 1. I knew it was fake and the whole thing was a big giant circus that everyone agreed to participate in as long as they got a "good life" out of it, a life filled with entertainment, things to buy and "having fun", not having any of the worries of the poor fuckers of 3rd world hell holes such as Africa where people were being killed or/and robbed.
The problems of USA have been slowly building over decades. We cant even exactly pinpoint when they began. 1913 with the creation of the Fed? 1940s with the fake Pearl harbor attacks? 1950s with J. Edgar Hoover, a closeted homosexual who hated gays? but the boiling frog principle applies: the water is being warmed slowly so the frog wont notice it. And the idiotic Americans, busy with entertainment and "having fun", never noticed. And not it is too late, fuckers. Welcome to the Real World, fuckers. No, you never really had "freedom" or/and "democracy", fuckers. It was all fake. FUCK YOU.
mistake numebr 2: Democrats vs republicans. People talks as if this is a battle between Democrats and Republicans. Nothing can be further from the truth. Real "left" died in USA with the 1970s. Neither of them are worth anything, both are as fake as USA's "democracy" is fake. This is about the real owners of USA taking over.
Ok, thats enough. who gives a fuck anyway. Fuck it. I dont give a fuck explaining obvious shit. It bores me.
Posted by: Hoyeru | Jan 14 2021 7:01 utc | 95
Posted by: Fnord13 | Jan 14 2021 2:19 utc | 79
Fair enough. That's a valid critique of my comment and a legitimate question to ask in a general sense involving any election of significance (the significance of WHO sits in the White House is another matter entirely). And I erred in stating that it is "the Democrats" who stole (or rigged) the election, which detracts from my analysis and I thank you for pointing it out and raising the question.
Yes, indeed; there's no reason to assume that the "deep state" (yours and my definition of such may vary) or the "intelligence community" (intelligence deserves double quotes - and they are often given way too much credit for competency to carry out a massive operation, anywhere) are not capable of altering the outcome of elections. I'm sure they try and sometimes succeed at such in too many OTHER countries to count.
Here's the rub, though. Look at what Trump and his supporters are actually alleging in courts, the media, social media and on right leaning websites and apps. That the election was stolen in a very specific manner, on the ground (not via back-end deep state hacks and such), such that votes were manufactured after the fact or that fake mail-in ballots were delivered to counting stations after counters had been sent home and the 'crisis actor' counters had come back in to count the fake ones. That would require a level of coordination and, dare I say, competency that boggles the mind. Now, if the allegations were that the CIA/NSA and whomsoever else were rigging the vote via backdoors and other means of accessing the various software or hardware systems involved in the American election system, my ears would perk up at the first sign of a legitimate looking complaint. BUT that's NOT what Trump and his supporters are alleging.
What they ARE alleging - without any proof, either on a localized OR systemic/coordinated level - is that numerous states, precincts, judges (in many cases those who support or were nominated by Trump himself) were involved in a nationwide, state/precinct-specific "steal" that ALWAYS and ONLY benefitted Joe Biden (and the deep state if you're a Q fanatic). Never were any vote counts rigged in FAVOR of Trump in areas or precincts that felt the need to ensure a large Trump landslide. No. Always in favor of Biden and Harris. It's nonsense. And it failed to pass muster in literally every court and other venue where the arguments (and costly lawsuit - probably involving taxpayer funded recounts or ones that Trump will never pay for due to his ability to summon armies of lawyers as I mentioned previously) were levied.
THAT is what they are alleging. NOT that the deep state or "IC" intervened. And to that point, I am reminded of jackrabbit's (and my own) posts that Trump never would have been allowed to secure the Republican nomination or win the presidency if he wasn't already approved (or, to go as far as the rabbit does...CHOSEN) to ascend to that high office. And you wanna know what else? He would have been Kennedied if he REALLY did anything to piss off the powers that be and the oligarchy. Instead, outside of a few very public facing examples and companies, he bent to the will of most of the longstanding oligarchic and ideological interests that control Washington D.C. - to name a few: the fossil fuel industry (which despite silly propagandistic objections Obama did too), the Zionist lobby (I won't call them the Israel lobby because they really don't represent all Israelis or Jews), the Military Industrial Surveillance Complex (see: record "defense" appropriations and the indictment of Julian Assange - OR - the unprecedented official rebuke of Russia and Putin when it really mattered), and of course corporate oligarchs and the western private finance and the financial "services" industry.
Getting off topic, I know, but Trump WASN'T a populist. He was and is a populist pretender that was allowed to ascend to power by those who intend to destroy any LEFTIST populist movements in the future via media cooptation, consolidation and the systems that will surely be implemented to prevent another incident such as what happened on January 6th in DC from happening there or anywhere else in the future. Trump was not only a symptom of a larger problem, a self-serving greedy idiot who didn't realize it, but also a tool CHOSEN by certain elements of the larger system that share the same major goals with the "other side" of the multi-billionaire boy's club, Zionist Israel, the MIC, the "swamp" and any fake populist quasi right-wing government in the world - the finalization, concentration and consolidation of the theft of national wealth/treasure/wealth of the rent seeking and corporate/hedge fund class which has been socked away in bank accounts at off-shore tax and accountability havens dating back to the 70s.
As I usually do, apologize for the rant and thank you for the podium at which to make it.
Posted by: _K_C_ | Jan 14 2021 7:47 utc | 96
Message from Joint Chiefs on U.S. Capitol Riot
https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20449029-jcs-message-to-the-joint-force-jan-12-21
Posted by: Nick | Jan 14 2021 7:54 utc | 97
Posted by: Hoyeru | Jan 14 2021 7:01 utc | 94
LOL, my sympathies. I agree. Americans are subject to one of the most massive propaganda regimes ever concocted and deployed from day one of our lives. It has spread to Europe, in fact dating back to Operation Gladio (post WWII) and of course all the other "white" colonizer ruled countries of central and south America as well as the south Pacific and...well....to many other places to count. Don't you dare put your country too close to our military forward operating base applies in every case where the "offending" nation or entity doesn't agree to an IMF loan or western privatization of their basic economic lives.
The USA is a cancer. Culturally, economically and militarily. And it's all very disguised or distracted from with people like Trump and his supporters (but also hopey changey Obama and the like) and the way the western media deals with it (promotes division, caters to increasingly stratified or separated elements of the population).
I forgot to mention in my previous 'manifesto' @95 that my viewpoints as expressed here are largely derived not from the "news" or what goes on in the media, but by my own personal/anecdotal social media and family communication intake. As I've said before, I have an entire army of family and acquaintances who FULLY believe in the nonsense of Q and I suspect that a few regular (and regular drive by) commenters at MOA do too.
Posted by: _K_C_ | Jan 14 2021 7:57 utc | 98
Posted by: james | Jan 14 2021 3:50 utc | 85
Caitlyn knows her stuff. She rightly sees the situation for what it is. I sometimes decide to bypass her articles and emails because it gets repetitive and there isn't much actionable information (other than to be a skeptic of NATO and western media output)to be had. She's a good writer and obviously very smart, not to mention fully "woke" to the USA's ownership over Australia post-Gough Whitlam's (RIP) attempt to assert actual sovereignty there. Imagine if that REALLY happened in the USA. We have the fake Russia-Stole-the-Election-for-Trump as a fake example of such a thing, but the USA really did it to a friendly western-minded ally. Not in the same manner of course, but yeah. The USA Incorporated (aka Uncle Scam) has no scruples when the interests of big business and their co-optation of the MIC as their enforcer are concerned. As I'm sure you know, Canada is just another lapdog.
Posted by: _K_C_ | Jan 14 2021 8:03 utc | 99
chris hedges, in a piece written in early Dec 2020, has a different and darker view of things to come in America, with much interest in the historical parallels of Germany and Europe in the late 1890s into the 1930s.
the old Liberal Class, or rather the Liberal wing of the Ruling Class, has failed us, as has the Democratic Party, which should have been abandoned by progressives and leftists in the 1990s and on....
https://scheerpost.com/2020/12/07/chris-hedges-the-collective-suicide-of-the-liberal-class/
"...The Biden administration resembles the ineffectual German government formed by Franz von Papen in 1932 that sought to recreate the ancien régime, a utopian conservatism that ensured Germany’s drift into fascism. Biden, bereft like von Papen of new ideas and programs, will eventually be forced to employ the brutal tools Biden as a senator was so prominent in creating to maintain social control – wholesale surveillance, a corrupt judicial system, the world’s largest prison system and police that have been transformed into lethal paramilitary units of internal occupation...
...All the pieces are in place for our own descent into what I suspect will be a militarized Christianized fascism. Political dysfunction, a bankrupt and discredited liberal class, massive and growing social inequality, a grotesquely rich and tone-deaf oligarchic elite, the fragmentation of the public into warring tribes, widespread food insecurity and hunger, chronic underemployment and unemployment and misery, all exacerbated by the failure of the state to cope with the crisis of the pandemic, combine with the rot of civil and political life to create a familiar cocktail leading to authoritarianism and fascism....."
I think that his is also a quite possible scenario, at least in part
Posted by: michaelj72 | Jan 14 2021 8:17 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
It is only because so many small businesses are being destroyed, that there is some small possibility of change.
These people have been nose down making their businesses work - their diktat enforced de-employment gives them both reason and time to learn and act.
But can is not do.
The sad fact is that I have yet to see any thought out, coherent plan to attack the problem.
Instead, the leadership seems to be loudmouths and posers.
We will see...
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 13 2021 19:41 utc | 1