triumph of the ruling class
Sure, it seems to intersect in some ways with Putin Derangement Syndrome, but this is by way of an exploration of: How we got here, the recent etiology, the precursors to his brand of fascism, and the basket of great tools bequeathed to him by the Clintons…>Dubya…>Obama. Obviously I won’t hit all the bases, but feel free to add your own. Turns out it’s long, but I reckon it needs to be, s so many of these folks had so much to say. ;-) I wish there were prizes for those who finish it…
For instance, I loved old Sourpuss Hedges’ opening paragraph in his newest polemic at truthdig: ‘Defying Donald Trump’s Kleptocracy’
He opens with:
“The final stages of capitalism, Karl Marx predicted, would be marked by global capital being unable to expand and generate profits at former levels. Capitalists would begin to consume the government along with the physical and social structures that sustained them. Democracy, social welfare, electoral participation, the common good and investment in public transportation, roads, bridges, utilities, industry, education, ecosystem protection and health care would be sacrificed to feed the mania for short-term profit. These assaults would destroy the host. This is the stage of late capitalism that Donald Trump represents.”
Yes, yes; his list of Old Yeller’s cabinet appointments is hideous, and they may run the capitalist casino table. Even I stopped at his choice of self-styled Christianist Sec. Ed. Betsy DeVos being…Blackwater Worldwide Erik Prince’s sister? Just before his Resistance finale, he does mention:
“America has only one genuine political party. It is the corporate party. Schumer and Trump are charter members. They will work together—as Trump has predicted—as a well-oiled wrecking crew.”
What’s wrong with his opening picture: “This is the stage of late capitalism that Donald Trump represents.? But does he call for an end to capitalism? And end to the US Empire? No. And No. And sure; you can hope some of the Constitutional scholars are right, and he’ll be impeached under the emoluments clause.
At least Norman Pollack sees the underpinnings of The System more clearly:
“The ambience of Mar-a-Lago comes to life, contempt for the supposed inferior, who have not made their fortunes (especially through ill-gotten riches), and deservedly merit only scorn—and humiliating treatment for their alleged failures as human beings. Perhaps that might awaken them, or the more ambitious among us (for we are them!) to the glories and our responsibilities as 100% Americans. Patriotism is in vogue, if not embroidered with a Nazi-like banner, then still recognizable for its guttural hatred of all that challenges god, country, flag, and militarism, that which alone can cleanse our fellow countrymen of their sordid betrayal of values sanctioning a rightful hegemony, absent all traces of socialism, in international politics. American GREATNESS is code for world dominance in all areas of life; arguments to the contrary are matters of unjust defamation and internal subversion.
Why this unraveling today? That of course is simplistic. America has always been prejudiced against the poor (Newport “cottages” of 100-plus rooms a precursor of Mar-a-Lago), widely interpreted to include minorities, dissenters, radicals, whomever stands in the way—certainly, gender until recent years–of the ruling groups and capitalism per se. Simplistic, in the more important sense that Trump is merely the present culmination of long-term trends, as though American history by 1800 had not already experienced an ideological-structural scrubbing that would ensure the universality of capitalistic institutions and corresponding hierarchical valuing and arrangement of social classes. Democracy wore a false mask, pace the mileage and the prestige of Jeffersonianism, throughout the period of plantation slavery, and continued in racial segregation. And what held for blacks could be used as leverage against all working people: the stamp and generalization of second-class citizenship. This antidemocratic heritage has been matched, stride for stride, by imperialism, gradually enlarging in scope to embrace both foreign markets and intervention, the latter issuing in regime change, occupation, the works.”
He chronicles some of the early Presidential anti-communist and Amerikan Exceptionalism policies that got us here, and:
“…until we come to Obama, who I believe has gone 90% in the direction, and hence provided the foundation, for where Trump is heading, an all but formalized Fascist State. Intervention, drone assassination, trade adventurism (TPP), CIA-JSOC regime change, the silencing of whistle-blowers—a legacy of George Patton-Joseph McCarthy quite unlike what FDR had envisioned when he presided over WPA, CCC, and later, announcement of the Four Freedoms and its implicit inclusion of all Americans.”
But since Hedges mentioned it, and just for fun, let’s look at the 2013 Report Card by the ASCE on US Infrastructure:
[Every four years] “Using a simple A to F school report card format, the Report Card provides a comprehensive assessment of current infrastructure conditions and needs, both assigning grades and making recommendations for how to raise the grades. An Advisory Council of ASCE members assigns the grades according to the following eight criteria: capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety, resilience, and innovation. Since 1998, the grades have been near failing, averaging only Ds, due to delayed maintenance and underinvestment across most categories.
Now the 2013 Report Card grades are in, and America’s cumulative GPA for infrastructure rose slightly to a D+. The grades in 2013 ranged from a high of B- for solid waste to a low of D- for inland waterways and levees. Solid waste, drinking water, wastewater, roads, and bridges all saw incremental improvements, and rail jumped from a C- to a C+. No categories saw a decline in grade this year.”
Let’s look at the Great Amerikan Recovery job picture Obama is so bloody proud about, shall we? From In These Times.com:
“The U.S stock market may be at record highs and U.S. unemployment at its lowest level since the Great Recession, but income inequality remains stubbornly high.
Contributing to this inequality is the fact that while more Americans are working than at any time since August 2007, more people are working part time, erratic and unpredictable schedules—without full-time, steady employment. Since 2007, the number of Americans involuntarily working part time has increased by nearly 45 percent. More Americans than before are part of what’s considered the contingent workforce, working on-call or on-demand, and as independent contractors or self-employed freelancers, often with earnings that vary dramatically month to month.
These workers span the socioeconomic spectrum, from low-wage workers in service, retail, hospitality and restaurant jobs—and temps in industry, construction and manufacturing—to highly educated Americans working job-to-job because their professions lack fulltime employment opportunities given the structure of many information age businesses.”
The bolded ‘working part time’ link goes to Economic Policy Institute, with great visual aids of the horror story. Still, it always vexes me that people speak about income inequality so often, when the larger deal by far is wealth disparity. So many of the precarious working underclass have nothin’ but their crap weekly paychecks and are one emergency away from total destitution or homelessness.
From Clinton: welfare reform, three strikes, the advent of the incarceration state, repealing Glass-Steagal and creating the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CMFA) to further enshrine casino capitalism by OTC derivatives. Thank you, Bubba.
Obama’s crap version of the post-depression Gilded Age bank meltdown Pecora Commission: the three-day Angelides inquiry er what.ev.er. that ended with all the only‘regulation’ the White House could stand! The useless Dodd-Frank. Looks like his admin wrote the Wiki piece, fer crissake. His administration bailed out Wall Street to the tune of many trillions (figures disagree), while many homeowners lost their homes to predatory lenders: especially blacks. Failure to prosecute white collar bankster crime with programs like Lanny Breuer’s ‘Deferred Prosecutions’ (by wd) for “increased accountability” (double ha!), etc. Terror Tuesday drone assassination, outsourcing torture by using a new definition, unitary executive.
Bush, Jr.: endless war, torture at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, first tranche of bank bailouts, well, one could go on and on.
Another gift to Mr. T is of course the bipartisan™ ‘Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act – legislation designed to help American allies counter foreign government propaganda from Russia, China, and other nations – has passed the Senate as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report’.
Ooof: And from Glen Ford’s ‘Locating fascism on the Map’:
“One does not embark on a campaign to lower wages and savage the social safety net without simultaneously buttressing the national security state. In addition to the exponential expansion of the U.S. domestic and global surveillance regime inherited from George Bush, Barack Obama dared to push through Congress a bill authorizing the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens by the military, without trial or charge. The 2011 New Years Eve insert to the National Defense Authorization Act (NNDA) effectively demolished the principle of due process of law in the United States. Although George Bush claimed the same authority, as inherent in the powers of the commander-in-chief, he never attempted to pass legislation to that effect, knowing that Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill would fight him, tooth and nail. But, Obama’s bill sailed through both chambers of Congress.
When Donald Trump moves into the White House on January 20, he will be empowered to imprison whomever he chooses, without recourse to law as we know it, thanks to Barack Obama. Who, then, is the “fascist”?” [snip]
“President Obama’s greatest foreign policy challenge was to put the United States back on the global military offensive, following George Bush’s humiliation in Iraq. This required a new doctrine, to replace Bush’s discredited crusade to “spread democracy.” On March 17, 2011, Obama loosed his “humanitarian” military intervention doctrine on Libya, effectively negating centuries of international law and custom. As interpreted by Obama, national sovereignty and the inviolability of borders means nothing if the superpower, standing in for the planet, deems a government to be a threat to its own people — even if crimes against humanity have not yet occurred. Absent the principle of sovereignty, international law ceases to exist.”
And the list goes on to Syria and other proxy wars for resources, fun, and profit…
Ford also reminds readers that Obama campaigned on the promise that ‘entitlements’ were on the table, but that the nation was saved from O’s Grand Bargain of $4 trillion in cuts by Republicans who refused to bidness with him in the end. It’s easy to agree with him that the Lords of Capital see their coming demise, and seek to improve the US’s falling share of the world economy by stealing from other nations around the world. I mean: ‘exporting democracy’ around the world.
“If you are searching for the real meaning of fascism in the superpower under late stage capitalism, you will find it in the nexus between the presidencies of Obama and Trump.”
From Ajamu Baracka’s Jan. 3 ‘Trump’s Neo-Fascism will be Built on Neo-Fascism of Obama and Democrat Party’
“This is not a new situation for us. When the repressive apparatus of the state focused on radical black organizations like the National Negro Congress and Civil Rights Congress, and on such individuals as Paul Robeson, W.E. B. Dubois, William Patterson and Claudia Jones, to the systematic assault on the radical Black Liberation Movement in the 1960s and ‘70s, we were largely required to fend for ourselves against the state after being abandoned by white liberals and significant numbers of white leftists. I fully expect that to happen again.
Neo-fascism is not a new existential phenomenon for us or for people around the world who have suffered from the racist, arrogant assaults of this criminal state to maintain the Pan-European colonial/capitalist project. So save your hysterical concerns about Trump for others and either commit yourself to building a revolutionary movement or get out of the way.”
From James Risen, NYT Dec. 30: ‘If Donald Trump Targets Journalists, Thank Obama’ (self-explanatory title, actually.)
This piece at wsws.org sorta tells the Dem accommodation story; big surprise, eh? ‘As new Congress is sworn in: Democrats signal readiness to work with Trump’
And this one demonstates their collective hypocrisy name-by-name even more:
“While the Trump administration and the congressional Republicans prepare an unprecedented onslaught against social programs for working people, the Democratic Party is engaged in cynical posturing to give itself a political cover for its inevitable capitulation to the demands of Wall Street and the financial oligarchy.
The incoming leader of the Senate Democrats, Charles Schumer, declared that the Democrats would fight “tooth and nail” against the overhaul of Medicare, carefully avoiding any such pledge in relation to Medicaid, the more immediate target.
Schumer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 2016 presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to congressional Democrats calling for a “day of action” on January 15 “to vigorously oppose the Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it and throw our health care system into chaos.” Again, the Democratic politicians are deliberately downplaying of the attack on Medicaid.
Sanders has played a particularly rotten and demagogic role, issuing a series of appeals to Trump to “keep your promise” made during the campaign not to cut Medicare and Social Security.
Donna Brazile, the interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, made her own appeal to Trump, saying that he had an “enormous” opportunity to obtain Democratic support, and urging him “to show that he’s eager to find common ground, to meet with Democrats.”
During the Senate ‘Day of Action’, RT is reporting that “In a passionate defense of affordable healthcare, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders used a giant cardboard cut-out of a Donald Trump tweet to remind the president-elect of his promise not to cut Medicare and Medicaid”, fwiw. It seems to have turned into a photo-shop Twit war…
Finally you’re almost at the end of this tome, and sorry it was soooo long. But I’d like to add a bit by Paul Street from his ‘’Beyond Anti-Trump’:
“Let’s be careful about the phrase “anti-Trump coalition.” The phrase leaves the door open for everything being about the Big Bad Donald and for progressives to get sucked/suckered once again into the ruling class politics of the Democrats. We need to take on the unelected deep state dictatorships of money, class, race, empire, militarism, sexism, and ecocide – the reigning oppression structures that have ruled under Barack Obama as under previous presidents. As the activist-artist Brian Carlson recently wrote me from Buenos Aires, Donald Trump is the latest “bobble head doll on the dashboard of real [U.S.] power.” The thin-skinned tyrant Trump is the most terrifying and noxious such doll yet, perhaps, but the point stands.
We must not let Trump become a great red cape in the hands of the ruling class matadors. We charge screaming “Down with Trump” while the owners plunge their weapons into our passing hides. We must learn to head for the masters who hold the swords and spears behind the cloak. Resist him we must, but we cannot afford obsession with Trump.
One of the drawbacks of having Democrats Obama in the White House is the way they put so many folks to sleep on terrible policies and actions people would resist if only they were being carried out by Republican presidents. It’s amazing how many liberals and progressives find things like drone war and Wall Street bailouts and mass deportations strangely acceptable when conducted by supposedly liberal and sophisticated Democrats like Barack Obama. It’s like the matador keeps a special blue (Democratic) cape with the power to render citizen bulls listless in the face of their own slaughter.” [snip]
“Let 2017 be a year of radical awakening in the United States. Imagine the following scenario: sparked into organization and action by the kleptocratic corruption and multiply egregious polices of the geocidal Trump administration but mindful of the Wall Street-captive nothingness of the Obama and Clinton administrations, millions of U.S. citizens rise not only to oppose an appalling right-wing presidency but more fundamentally to confront the unelected capitalist and imperial deep state that controls the nation beneath and beyond the childish, candidate-centered marionette theater of its quadrennial major-party electoral carnivals. Workers and citizens organize against what activists call (updating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the 21st century) “the 10 evils that are interrelated”: the profit system, militarism, imperialism, racism, sexism, classism, police-state-ism, atomization, cynicism and (last but not at all least) ecocide. The new resistance movement (must) insist on merging numerous struggles previously fought on a dysfunctional single-issue basis. A many-sided peoples’ revolution begins, building on Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock and the lessons of great people’s movement across history.”
Please remember that our rulers don’t give a good goddam about our needs; they service their own power and financial needs. We are essentially their neo-feudal slaves. What might a People’ Revolution bring? Remember: it was Obama’s DHS/multi-security state fusion centers that shut down Occupy encampments in one or two fell swoops; another good model for Old Yeller, no?
The End. (Congratulations.) ;-)
Updated Jan. 7 with a few extras I’d forgotten and made in comments, re Obama and SOS Clinton:
$trillion over ten years upgrade of the nuclear weapons, a police state run amok and essentially impunity, an enshrined phony R2P neocon/neoliberal policy, a long list of supporting fascist coups/regime changes by the quaint term ‘soft power’ (CIA, USAID) or military power, always in the favor of the worst tyrants, but friendly to bidness w/ the west. millions of brown people deported to ‘our backyard’; declaring VZ a ‘direct threat’ to US national security, and lo and behold, from the Vatican under the putative liberation theological pope francis, ‘reportedly’, this:
ah; the muddy water clears: from an HRW representative: “Venezuela: Letter to Pope Francis” hitting on the evil, tyrannical maduro government. hrw is one of the most compromised NGOs, and mainly seems to the bidding of the west. amnesty int’l as well, but the horrid part is that both once in awhile get something right.
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
how to piss off of a liberal: point out to them that it was Rachel Maddow who elected Trump by giving him non-stop airtime. for 12 or 18 months or whatever. granted, ratings plummeted every time HRC’s shrieking ugly maw appeared yapping on MSNBC…or anywhere else. just proving that Maddow believes in ratings, nothing else.
“Russia is undermining our democracy!” by pointing out the truth about our democracy! huh? what? the idea is just so beyond laughable that these liberals are gonna stand up to DT when they haven’t noticed the mounds & mounds & mounds of dead bodies piling up w/ every single thing the obama admin has done (incl. esp. ACA; life spans lowering much?), and the fact that they wouldn’t notice the dead & the rubble if you gave them Hubble’s telescope or whatever, that electron microscope at CERN or what have you. go to the hairstylist or zumba or hell, the gun range, for all the significance of this impotent, empty, ignorant, self-congratulatory posturing liberals do “fighting fascism” by liking/not liking shit on Facespace & MyBook. align yourselves w/the masters of global destabilization at the CIA in order to keep the freedumb fries frying here at home.
it’s a false choice, but the structure of the choice, the fake dichotomy b/n 1) media fiction & fabrication & bankrupt swindler donald trump and 2) unfounded hysterical BS spewed by the CIA & dutifully mouthed by court reporters gulled by a transparent psy-op, doesn’t this fake choice bother liberals? even if one believes in mom & apple pie & school house rock & all that. the choice to save America is either Trump or the CIA? if that’s the choice, there’s already nothing worth “saving”, so why bother? Lindsay Graham et al are making threats about the consequences of taking on the intelligence services. omg! DT comes out looking like some kind of vertebrate hero w/principles & integrity b/c he doesn’t just instantly wilt & wither before a chorus of dogs barking “CIA.”
is it a cyclical thing? birthers, gun-nutters, tea party types, etc., frothed about obama for 8 years, so now it’s keith olbermann’s turn?
and so what if it is? seeing thru the (public) game doesn’t stop the (deeper) game.
ah, i’m so sorry that my eyes are too rough to read now. given that i can sorta see (if not correctly) some of your righteous rant, you caused me to hear this in my mind. yeah. images and lyrics for me.
tomorrow then, to both you and davidly. bless your hearts for reading. no; that WE see doesn’t stop shit, sadly, but we do our best to act as megaphones for the (gads, i hate to say it) truth/reality.
such a wild ride of a perfect characterization of our fake democracy, amigo. i’d have to say this is my fave:
“go to the hairstylist or zumba or hell, the gun range, for all the significance of this impotent, empty, ignorant, self-congratulatory posturing liberals do “fighting fascism” by liking/not liking shit on Facespace & MyBook. align yourselves w/the masters of global destabilization at the CIA in order to keep the freedumb fries frying here at home.”
and in that paul street essay, iirc, he said that the same cycles keep on tickin’ w/o, of course, doing anything but perpetuate the same rotten system machine. but oh, my; they showed mr. T they’re not to be discounted:
New Big Bad Claims!!! more in a bit; i’m so far behind. but woot! i slept till 5:43!
Comrade. (Meaningful silence.)
Power is its own reward. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Great stuff wd. Perfect illustration of the setting it up and knocking down quality of US faux partisan policy.
zounds; how succinct! and to think it took me 7 pages to say it! ;-) but, as i’d noted, these folks had a hella lot to say…(grin)
Here at the hermitage, I just watch the magic theater from afar, while shaking my head in disbelief.
Revolution? In the U.S.? Not hardly…
It is my observation that the U.S. is already a crypto-fascist state.
The below link is Sheldon Wolen (rip) being interviewed by Chris Hedges in Salem, Oregon a few years ago prior to his recent death. Whatever you think of Hedges, this is Sheldon’s stage and in his 90’s, is brilliant.
Sheldon, by the way, invented the term “Inverted Totalitarianism”; which is his term for what the U.S. has become.
Nice post WD, thanks.
hard to say what folks imagine when speaking of a peoples’ revolution, but i will say that when i’ve hoped for one in the past…the images kinda stalled out on the follow-through. ach, i started typing some questions, but it’s far too long a subject for now.
yes, i know wolin, but my god man! three hours? the wiki has the cliffs notes. when i’d used the term here the other day, i was trying to remember what comrade axe’s objections to it had been in the past. but oh, i love synchronicity, and given that Peter at ian’s had mentioned something about greenwald being harassed by…somebody, i went to find the great wikileaks train robbery w/ greenwald and klein in close pursuit…scrolled down the comments and found: him saying:
““Yeah, the “prophet” Wolin, but Sourpuss is his fucking apostle. My original complaint was that “inverted” is a confusing modifier BECAUSE it’s still totalitarianism. Now, we see it’s worse than inept because the totalitarianism Wolin is naming is not “inverted” at all.
It’s hard for Sourpuss to keep up these days – he’s been on the battlefield so long and his prior trauma is overwhelming – but he’s also too polite – gawd would punish him for saying “duh” from here to eternity …”
i dunno, maybe peter’d like this one, but blog-whoring is soooo declaseé, lol.
Inverted is important. Totalitarianism is a political system in which government is on top with economics subservient.
Inverted Totalitarianism is the government subservient to the economic system, which is exactly what we have today.
Which do you prefer?
The difference is not insignificant. Which today’s realities do well to exemplify.
This is a situation in which details are important; not understanding the minutiae, means not understanding the mechanics of what rules our lives. I hate to have to dive that deep; but it’s critical to understanding just what is actually going on…
Regardless; this will not end well.
I’m just thankful to be reporting from the hermitage; and not some obscure site in the U.S..
Cheers
ha. well, i’m certainly not going to argue axe’s belief w/ you. esp. as i happen to agree w/ wolin….and chalmers johnson, et.al.
but i keep forgetting to ask you again… when i’d made various suggestions as to how you could show some photos here, “it works for me”, but you never said which suggestion worked for you.
as the homily goes: “it’s always darkest before….lights out”. that’s how it went, wasn’t it? but more seriously, i’d think that any ‘successful’ peoples’ revolution would have to be global, as in the rabble classes finally rising up against being slaves of the feudal lords of capital. and not, by the by, a gene sharp color revolution.
Is “inverted totalitarianism” a self-contradition, riddle, paradox, or oxymoron, comrade?
It pretends to capture a contrast between Euro-fascism and our “Corporatocracy” when the contrast is minor to the similarities. It falsely concentrates on minor difference. More, it’s an allusion to Burkean conservatism: put the oppressed on top and the oppressors on bottom and you only have a new form of totalitarianism. It means to say, “Our corporatocracy is an inversion of German Nazism.” This is an untruth, so he must put his maxim riddle-icuously.
It’s a delusive rectification, intended to steer you from understanding what is and what will come …
Yeah, the borg wants your “images kinda stalled out on the follow-through”, comrade, especially when you’re following them through .
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
It’d be interesting to follow the “inversions of totalitarianism” through Western history, for example the growth of Kwistian anarchy in fading Roma and it’s co-optation. The New Wholly Roman empire later subverted by crapitalist kwistian “anarchists” even later again coopted …
These bastard children still carrying the traits of their traitorous parents.
and later,
Now, comrade, why became it popular to conflate a “distinguishing quality” with “one false to his allegiance to a […] cause”?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Pwogress.
Funny you should mention the last flick I saw, “Old Yeller” in your conglomeration. Brought back memories of a family drive (way before seat belts) the movie theater in our county seat and others, from my childhood.
I noticed and had read some of the included excerpts above at their sources and yes, I can’t get too fidgety-widgety over Putin or Trump in the larger scheme of things. We’ve been cast out to rely on ourselves for decades now within the decline of empire, as it has created from the start the inevitable means of its self-destruction, and events like fighting DuPont napalm and agent orange research in Madison, WI during the Vietnam War, isn’t much different from resisting the Monsanto types and their pumping endocrine disrupters into our residential groundwater wells for investor/owner profits in the “marketing/nutritional/industrial ag complex.” Same fight for sure. They haven’t gotten us completely yet. The harder they try, the more determined (if not always more immediately effective) resistance manifests. There is a certain satisfaction with clearly recongizing one’s role in life.
Peace and Resolve,
yes, i did steal ‘old yeller’ as another doubly appropriate name, esp. given what folks say about his bellicose speaking voice, although i’ve used ‘col. yellow hair’ (custer, seventh cavalry) as well.
yes, same fights for a long time, as you say, but i laugh when hillbots rant about T’s denial of climate change, as if there’s any fix for it now, and cuz: O led the global charge, didn’t he? oy.
“they tried to bury us; they forgot we were seeds” ~ various attributions
but i’d forgotten to mention so many other precursors to the election of T, especially from obomba:
$trillion upgrade of the nuclear weapons, a police state run amok and essentially impunity, an enshrined phony R2P neoon/liberal policy, a long list of supporting fascist coups/regime changes by the quaint term ‘soft power’ (CIA, USAID) or military power, always in the favor of the worst tyrants, but friendly to bidness w/ the west. millions of brown people deported to ‘our backyard’; declaring VZ a ‘direct threat’ to US national security, and lo and behold, from the Vatican under the putative liberation theological pope francis, ‘reportedly’, this:
one wee bit: “Now, with the reported call the part has also begun another process: delegitimizing itself. It’s simple dialectics, the process idealists verbally ignore, but faithfully go by its rules in their material transactions including pocketing profit. The process of delegitimizing self by the part will get stronger and more vibrant the more class struggle sharpens, the more people educate themselves politically, the more mobilizations of people are organized, the more earthly issues of exploitation and class rule are discussed, the more superficial issues are thrown away from tables of discussion, the more class line is followed.
The part issuing the reported call to stand for democracy has not identified the question: Democracy for whom? Is it for the democracy of ravaging capital or for people? Is it the democracy of tyrants, tyranocracy, or of the toilers?”
ah, the first shoe that had dropped. you may remember that the pope had offered to mediate between the maduro govt. and the thug opposition govt. apparently the opposition had announced that it would not attend the talks, since tyrant maduro hadn’t made enough concessions to them. zo, not long before the vatican homiles to be delivered at the churches:
from an HRW representative: “Venezuela: Letter to Pope Francis” hitting on the evil, tyrannical maduro government. hrw is one of the most compromised NGOs, and mainly seems to the bidding of the west. amnesty int’l as well, but the horrid part is that both once in awhile get something right.
oct. 26: “For any dialogue to succeed, it must tackle head-on the Venezuelan government’s authoritarian practices. Since the crackdown on anti-government protests in 2014, the government has resorted to the courts, which lack judicial independence, to arbitrarily arrest and prosecute opposition leaders and ordinary Venezuelans who speak out about the crisis.[2] Many have been abused while in custody, including some cases that amount to torture. These criminal cases have been repeatedly plagued with due process violations. In addition to those who remain in detention since 2014, several others—including political activists and journalists—have been detained in recent weeks and subjected to similarly flawed judicial processes”, yada, yada. let those coup plotters go!
“Your rebellion is the cause of your oppression” iz morality The Church are masters at, too. Same authoritarian schtick whether buttressed on a book or a baton ….
“they tried to bury us; they forgot we were seeds”
The planters forgot, comrade?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough expansion, and I’m certain we are on the same page. I am focusing locally though, on publicly discrediting at every turn the PR coming from the ex-marine captain, ex military intelligence and ex Scott Walker (potus run fail) foreign affairs advisor and now our new district US congress critter. Exactly asking the questions about democracy for whom.
Pointing out such otherwise overlooked assessments in the local “news,” blogs the latest McCarthyist leanings, (sticking to what I think local people whom I know, can actually maybe absorb and countering his press releases with the caveat of “lying by omission” again Mr Congressman?):
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-04/house-gop-gives-staff-broader-new-powers-to-grill-witnesses
Best and hugs,
so sorry, nonq, but it’s sat.night, date night, and mr. wd and i have a date to watch 2 pbs mysteries. sunday too, new sher’luk holmes.(yeah, i’m an addict of sorts, bit the best kind. lol) ;-) tomorrow, and my love to you and your daughter.
“are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party?”
but oddly, the Ds had used similar deposition rules before? well, the ‘absent holidays’ provision is a set-up, isn’t it?
but yeah, local activists have to almost try to channel the thoughts and social politics of those they’re trying to dialogue with. that was one of my favorite parts of occupying mancos, co: it was so easy for folks to stop by and ask us questions, tell their stories, etc., and actually converse. plenty of antagonists ended up nodding as they left; i loved it.
in the days ahead, for any ‘peoples’ movements’ to bear fruit, both listening and finding common ground with folks quite unlike us…will be key, won’t it? my sense is that you’re very good at that, nonq. some predict that increased immiseration & precarity ahead will open up spaces to open up the ‘rules of acceptable discourse’ into a larger and larger shape. but these do seem to be the days of demagogues, both ‘left’ and right’. whooosh.
…Hi wd
…Evidently the FBI has not / did not / or was not allowed by DNC to do any kind of look/see/pull at the loose strings ” virtual or actual investigation and evidence compilation ” of the so called hacking done by Russians to supposedly hacked ” DNC servers etc. as now being revealed/reported over at ZH this Jan.06/2017 Friday AM…
….golly gee willickers…imagine that…
….But!!…But!…It Was Vlad Putin And The Russian!! It Must Be Vlad Putin And Those Rotten Hate USian Democracy Russians!!
…Hillary Clinton was to be crowned Queen of the USA!! Not Putin Russkie Lov’in Trump!! USian DeMockracy Was Hacked!!
…Plainly This Means War!!
…Those No Good Putin Led Russians Need Some Good o’l USian Empire Whoop Assing Getting Being Done To E’m !!
…This is what Dr Crapper Clapper, the Central Intelligence Agency and far too many and numerous Obama WH/Cap Hill stooges and hacks are going with…Yessiree!! Must be so.
…Can’t make this kind of BS up…Credibility? What is that?
…sta
well here’s the link, although as i suggest to others, if you want folks to read something, you might want to bring it yourself. i haven’t the time right now, but i will say that the leaks of the brand-spanking new, 50 page-report by the man with the clap is bloody cringe-worthy in its juvenile tautologies. the intel community seems to talk like dubya bush, i swear. as mr. wd noted: they can’t even lie convincingly; what amateurs (well, i added that last bit). i won’t even clip anything from it, it’s all just another agitprop con job.
once i got my laptop live again, i’d thought to do a couple diaries from my word doc notes, but sheeesh; after ten days they all seemed so dated. but one was a zillion links for a ‘why the hell does anyone believe the cia and intel services?’ (unless they’re paid to, or so brainwashed they’re illegitimate in any event.)
washingtons blog did a guest post at zero hedge on that order; quite a narrative.
Goodness! You musta been famished comrade. How much did YOU gorge to find these tasty bits?
If comrades take on “the 10 evils that are interrelated” intersectional-imentarially don’t they need some communal spirits to go with that meal?
(.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..)
Say, a religion that is not a Meisters’ fraud?
Is everything, eventually, the Meisters’ fraud, comrade?
Well, then, you must either get rid of everything, or …
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
do you ever have anything fooking uncritical to say here, comrade? piss.off. and go argue w/ v arnold about ‘inverted totalitarianism’ up yonder.
on edit: please pardon me; i should have said: “please.piss.off.”
“Trump […] is a distillation of American political culture (and US culture in general)”
And the opposition’s pretentious derangement is an approved “distillation” as well.
i like ‘the distillations’ a lot, and thank you. by tonight, after a few hours of reading on twitter and the about the by now total reification of ‘putin handed trump the election, and he is glad’ reporting on the new ‘declassified’ parts of the joint investigation…i’ve concluded that the widespread conviction is all by way of a religion, or quasi-religion, and a male authoritarian one, at that.
admittedly, i’m going a bit dotty in my dotage, but i may try to string few thoughts together tomorrow.
Yeah, a false & sade-istic religion. But then, most Amurkans have imbibed too much.
if only al gore & the democrats had shown this much zeal in 2000! or 2004 or…a rat! a rat! I smell a rat. anyway, ’98/’99 clinton impeachment, stolen 2000 election, and almost certainly stolen 2004 election (or “stolen:” the electoral college voted against the voting public – and won. and cockamamie shenanigans going on in FL & then OH.) and now another “stolen” election, w/a new wrinkle: open state-police (FBI/CIA) interference.
anyway, we can milk these cows dry & shoot ’em full of growth hormone & repeat the teat-squeezing till we die of arthritis. by which i mean arguing over & parsing what the hell these partially-staged managed & partially impromptu electoral spectacles “mean”. why aren’t 15 million of us in the DC metro area marching on Langley to burn it to the ground? & next stop, the fucking FBI building? here, here’s my vote right here. stick your big dumb schnaz in my “free, impartial, democratic election”, will you? then ya lost your charter. to exist. raze ’em to the ground and salt the earth after. sic semper tyrannis and all that.
i know, might as well be working on the next sci-fi fantasy novel. sorry, FBI/CIA. that was a hallucinatory revenge fantasy induced by an acid flashback to my MKUltra dayz. all that wishing the plagues of Egypt upon both your asses was a fevered dream. forgive me?
yeah; have theya ll forgotten their erstwhile BFF ‘ole hanging chad’? and proof that voting machines are easily hacked but in the dark of night? but yeah, jill stein *proved* that votes can’t actually be counted, and that putin personally rigged the election for…who was it? oh, yeah, the guy that will be taking orders from the winter palace. united states of the russian federation, indeed.
but no, libruls are srsly giddy with outdoing one another on the various related #stopTrump hashtags on twitter, some form or another of masturbatory pleasure at play. by tonight i’m fair reeling w/ the believability quotient of the cia and dni, myownself. goddam bernays and his acolyte goebells taught them well.
i had some info for you on trump’s jihad against china, but…another day, but i will say that several ironies come into play, as ever. sleep well, amigo. great rant as always; it’s a treat to have you here. arg! i reckon you’ll think i’ve gone round the twist totally, but when i muse on ‘who believes the cia, i ping ‘who needs them’, of course…then hear zappa, who of course knew that the cia recruited from peace corps volunteers. yeah, call me a whack job crone, but:
the rites & ceremonials of Holy Amerikkka Mother Church are experiencing “convulsions,” possibly leading to a “reformation” (wink wink) wherein the electoral college is abolished. will liberals be happy then? no doubt they’d think all the labor for the upcoming DC marches was not in vain if such deck chair rearrangement transpired. (“i’m joining the Women’s Lodge! no pu$$y-grabbers allowed. Oh, look! wave at Bill Clinton. isn’t it thrilling to be joined by him here in The Women’s Lodge?!?”) of course such Bambi-hearted libs will fail to notice that the abolition of the Electoral College comes at the price of massive, unfounded, hysterical paranoia about Russia coupled w/equally massive increases in state surveillance & propagandizing. and did the libs notice how sparky & chirpy the CEO’s of Google, Apple, etc., etc., were after meeting w/DT (per wsws today)? Rachel Maddow? anyone?
yes! revolution by libruls is a-comin’ down the track! get outta the way! we know how to reform the D party, and reform capitalism and anti-roosian influence as well!
campbell brown to facebook news! we allus used to love her!
yeah, once i saw the religious/cultist angles, the pieces sort fell into place; thanks, jason. time to rest mine eyes; i’ve been on the prowl since early morn.
“religious/cultist”? libs may not believe in the Eucharist or the efficacy, meaning, value, whatev of “liturgical” actions. nope, they believe in VOTING. and Trump’s victory threatens to tear down the Golden Calf…or…something. how does Satan enter one? i’m not sure, but it starts w/violations of the sanctity of the voting booth! by commie KGB oligarchic crony-capitalist Reds! who hack Podesta’s “password” password w/their nefarious cyber-empire!
i think that the PTB’s are finding much of Murka so indifferent/overworked (as always) and a big nother part easily distracted (aka stupid) by this “illegitimacy of Trump”/”election fraud” great sleight of hand. there’s some chance to regroup from the Syria debacle, pivot to China, we’ll get a big fight over ACA (holy snooze, batman!), there’ll be a couple more mass shootings from men trained by the nation’s own gov’t, continued assaults on the living standards of the majority of the (still- or no longer- ACA-insured) populace, we’ll long fondly for the “green” days of Obama, days when the US would stand up to Israel and Mexico was not mad at us despite the 10’s of thousands of drug war dead & millions deported.
is this rooskie thing just a big stupid sick joke? i just remember how indifferent President Kool was to all this Russian subversion until someone pointed out to him that he had to pretend to take this stuff seriously. he never, iirc, feigned any interest in the whole electoral college thing. other lib sheepdogs had to corral & herd, which they did, w/o fail.
zounds, jason; all of that awesomeness and ya never even ha to take a breath? “you’re HIRED!” yeah, all of a sudden ObamaDontCare is the gold standard of health insurance. but no.not public/privte, nossir. wish i had to say more, but i spent too much time on a new post, and i need to go cook our evening meal. you’re a peach+++.
amerikan liturgical voting: yes! but as long as they’re free to choose…between two duopoly candidates (good enuff for who it’s for). will there ever be a serious popular movement to take the debate Rules outta the purview of that nefarious debate commission? i can almost envision one likely scenario: if a new prophet heads a new socialist peoples’ party and catches fire, or a post-next-war or wall street meltdown, a big bright new demagogue may come along to…gather the disaffected together.
trump’s bellicosity re: china: yes, ‘he’ got his drone back, but the biggie’s been that he’ll sue china under the wto rules (i assume investor state rules) for currency manipulation. funny mr. anti-‘free’ trade treaties wants to use that ploy, eh? i’d gone to cepr to see if mark weisbrot had anything new on VZ, and saw this piece: ‘Trump’s Policy Toward China is Already a Disaster, Even Before Taking Office’
“Trump’s ostensible reason for the hard line against China is that he wants to negotiate a better deal for US manufacturing, including for workers in the US. The big complaint here is that China has manipulated its currency, keeping it undervalued against the US dollar. This would make US imports from China artificially cheap, and US exports more expensive. But there is an easy way to deal with this: as any economist knows, the US Treasury Department and Federal Reserve can move the value of the dollar against foreign currencies, like any other country. In fact it is even easier for us than for other countries, since the world accepts the US dollar as the major international reserve currency.
Blaming China for the value of the dollar against their currency is therefore mistaken. The reason that our government doesn’t intervene to push down the dollar is that powerful US transnational corporations (like Walmart) prefer an overvalued dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them. The financial sector also prefers it because it lowers inflation. These people don’t care about manufacturing jobs in the US. When our government has negotiated with China over economic issues, it has fought for things that profit US corporations, like more patent and copyright protection and greater access for US financial corporations.
Ironically, China has actually been intervening to keep its own currency from falling, and has burned through about a quarter of its international reserves (about $1 trillion) since June 2015 doing this. At this point, the Chinese would likely welcome US intervention in the same direction, at least to keep the dollar from rising further.”
can we have a clap-clap and a ha ha?
thanks. i knew the “zomg!!! china manipulates its currency!!!” screech-fest was stupid (hello, QE2). but i didn’t know all that.
church today, the Rev. Mother: “we want to open our church as a sanctuary for the hordes that will be batoned & pepper-sprayed for standing up against fascism this Jan 21 by Trump’s thugs!!!” (i’m exaggerating slightly). “and we want to do a program w/the diocese on MLKj day to commemorate MLK! and we need help organizing!” i had a suggestion that i kept to myself for MLKj day:
can you ignore his militant anti-war message like you do every goddam year? oh, right. you don’t need any help w/that.
someone rushed by me during coffee hour w/breathless excitement: “He’s going to be impeached!” dare i utter, bring to consciousness, their unspoken desire? something about, oh, i don’t know, getting rid of a “howard beale” comes to mind. funny, if only donald could act more avuncular like GHWB…well, he could do all the same shit he wants to do & spare us the futile, self-congratulatory marches! and the excited or hushed hopes that somehow or other…Mike Pence will take over. Gah. these people. as long as HRC’s on Sam Walton’s board, Wal-Mart ain’t all bad.
i hadn’t known the facts weisbrot told, either, but i did discover that yellen’s term won’t be up until 2018. what weird system the fed is, jayzus!
the church won’t likely bring the fact that mlk’s major indictment against war was: capitalism itself, will they? ;-) so the ‘impeachment’ issue: do the proponents image that it’ll be ahead of his inauguration, or did the breathless one even say?
when you’d mentioned the ‘no pussy grabbers here’, later i realized that saying such a troglodytic thing was hideous 9and it is), but staying married to a sex addict who’d gotten blow jobs from monica and a prolly a host of others in the cubby under the resolute desk (while getting his daily briefing?) was juuuust cuz she was so forgiving. and her forgiveness was in service to US! srsly, i read that at a librul website a month ago.
but yeah, whole cities are offering themselves as sanctuary cities, but i reckon that’s a good thing as far as social gospel goes, depending on what they imagine might happen soon, of course.
“i give him until March! Then Scott Ryan…” “wait, you mean Paul Ryan? or is it Mitch McConnell you are pinning your hopes on?” (i know, it’s speaker of the house. who is that again? and who cares?)
Paul Craig Roberts & Ray McGovern discuss why Trump will be ASS-ASS-IN-ATED!!!!!!
i’m thinking this Howard Beale thing may be more relevant. Trump has an inaugural “meeting w/Mr. Jensen” and softens his tone. Most libs then do more quickly what they were always gonna do anyways: quit & go home. Rachel Maddow/spirit-food Podesta types start worrying about TV ratings & the 2020 election b/c if Trump adopts a “Clintonian” demeanor while enacting Clintonian policies, just what the hell does the donkey party stand for??? why not take the donk out back & shoot it? speaking of shooting things, if Terror Tuesday is any indication, there is a “one-size-fits-all” solution the donkeys love.
not that any of this going to happen. at least, not quite like this. (except the earnest libs quitting part). wouldn’t put it past any of ’em.
This from Tom at nakedcapitalism links so totally tickled my funnybone as analysis of the ‘report’ on hacking the election, hope you enjoy:
“The report does spend a lot of time breathlessly tattling on RT’s outrageous coverage of U.S. political and economic issues, such as:
RT’s reports often characterize the United States as a ‘surveillance state’ and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use (RT, 24,
28 October, 1-10 November).
and
RT aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and
4 November. RT framed the movement as a fight against ‘the ruling class’ and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations.
and
In an effort to highlight the alleged ‘lack of democracy’ in the United States, RT
broadcast, hosted, and advertised third-party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates. The RT hosts asserted that the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a ‘sham.’”
The part that actually cracked me up was the ‘hosted and advertised third-party candidate debates’.
HOW DARE THEY????
The sooner we squash that kind of thinking, the better!
made me laugh, too, juliania. he forgot:’ they host a show w/ that radical commie thom hartmann!!’
(i’m cookin’ up a new diary in my angst-ridden befuddlement of late…)