Letter to my rep about Russiagate

Russiagate is a scam by the "centrist" neocons to pursue endless imperial dominance, including war with Russia, and "centrist" neoliberals to deny the unpopularity of neoliberal candidates like Hillary Clinton and policies like those of her husband, in particular.  One of the best places to read how much a scam this is has been ConsortiumNews.  The legendary Robert Parry was exposing the Russiagate flimflam daily until his recent death.  He was fully backed up by the likes of Edward Herman, co-author of Manufacturing Consent.  Now Caitlin Johnstone is one one of the best debunkers of Russiagate.

I am very sorry to see that otherwise progressive Representatives such as you and the Senator I supported for President in 2016, Bernie Sanders, have jumped fully in the arena on this.  I have always voted for and supported you and intend to continue doing so, despite this terrible mistake, for your essential goodness in other areas.  But I do believe the party and the people will ultimately pay a price, both for perpetuating this nonsense and for not focusing completely on stopping Trump in the here and now with the most progressive policies, like those of Bernie Sanders, which have proven popularity.  We need to flip the switch back to the New Deal and Great Society, but ultimately further, with single payer healthcare for all, which had been the hopes of FDR and Johnson.  There is no middle ground worth considering, and middle grounds don't sell anyway.

We ought to eliminate sanctions on Russia.  Russia's influence is almost nil, and besides Russians should have free speech just as anyone else.  We've been influencing the governments of other nations around the world to a far greater degree for decades.  This is hypocrisy beyond imagining to the knowledgeable.  BTW, RT shows many of the best US journalists our military-industrial-corporate media won't include.  If that's what we did in other countries, I'd be proud.  We spend billions a year on programs such as USAID and NED to "influence governments."  And that's not counting the way we influence Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and many other countries by violence.  Meanwhile, one headlined report that clogged our newstime for weeks was about a private Russian corporation spent less than $50,000 in Facebook ads before the election, which were not ever directed and candidates and only partly having political messages.  In the State of Michigan, the amount spent on political message ads was much less than $100.  How many other non-US-citizen actors were spending far more?

We should be more concerned about the endless influence Israel and Saudi Arabia have on our government, as well as multinational corporations and the super wealthy.  Disposing of Citizens United would be the biggest and most important step in restoring a bit of Democracy here, not obsessing over Russia.

Respectfully.

The War with Russia Wurlitzer belts out another one

Now, the poisoning of another Russian expat.  

While the Mighty War Wurlitzer of the US Empire plays it's favorite tune, Evul Putin, once again it makes little sense that even the most possible Evul Putin would do this, especially now.

And I don't believe Putin is so uniquely Evul as to uniquely bear that title compared especially with the greater Evul of the US Empire and US Presidents.

One way to judge the greater evil would be to count the all dead bodies, such as the excess deaths caused by US Foreign Policy through wars and covert missions since 1945.  Here we could just count the numbers, without regarding who was right or wrong.  Mostly both were wrong.  In no way did Soviet actions result in the many tens of millions of excess deaths that US actions did.

Since the Putin era, however, a slightly different pattern emerges.  While the US continues long standing and mega deadly war crimes in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and threats and sanctions (which are illegal acts of war also), many of Putin's actions have some legitimacy.  For example, he was invited in by the legitimately elected president of a legitimate and recognized country, Syria, to defend that country from terrorists.  Meanwhile, the US has been creating, sponsoring, and funding those terrorists for decades.  Here, generally speaking, Putin and Assad are fighting a "just war" while the US/Saudi/Israeli actions are war crimes, pure and simple, with no justification.

Likewise, but more complex, is what has happened in Ukraine.  And when I defend Russian actions, which are almost as defensible as the ones in Syria, given the entire background, it's a long story.  I've given it in previous posts.  Basically we funded a coup against another legitimate government, and in this case it actually fell to our coup, upending what was once the heart of Russia.  OTOH, some liked being that heart, and some didn't.  I take the re-annexation of Crimea as a legitimate claim, and the case for separation of the Donbass is a good one also.  Meanwhile, the US has used these arguably legitimate responses to the coup it engineered as an excuse for the first stage of war: Sanctions.  For no good reason, as elsewhere in the world we are doing far worse.

But, we could still apply the cold war judging standard I am proposing, all excess deaths are equal, whether war crimes or justifyable, and the US has still caused far more.

Another essay on the Skripal case, showing false flag to be the only plausible explanation.

Why Capitalism Exploits Women

The claim that capitalism exploits women because women inherently have less power is false.  In households, individual relationships, even consenting to relationships, women have the upper hand, as follows from biology, owning the scarcer resource.

Capitalism differs from more basic situations in that the aim of the Masters, is to keep people divided.  Divided over everything Except the rights of capital...those must be unquestioned and absolute.

Division includes racism, sexism, and sex war.

By forcing women down in the extraction of labor power, the Masters are furthering Sex War, and thereby increasing atomization and alienation.

And then, owning the media, the Masters can blame all men, furthering Sex War even more.