All Smoke Is Not The Same

I hear this from many, "Smoke is Smoke."  It is so wrong.

Tobacco smoke is especially harmful in many ways.  Including the highly addictive properties (it is far more addictive than even cocaine) which ultimately demand continuous usage.

Tobacco is a very fussy needy plant and requires intensive fertilization, and some say the best fertilizer for marijuana comes from mines and is slightly radioactive, and some of that radioactivity gets into the product.

Marijuana need only be grown in plain soil.  It's a weed that grows anywhere without assistance.  It can be grown completely organically--completely free of toxic "nutrients."  Marijuana smoke is not physically habituating and works best when very little is used infrequently.

Jack Herer claimed in his famous book "The Emperor Has No Clothes" that no one had ever died from smoking marijuana.  Most lifetime well known users like Jack Herer did not die from lung disease.  A famously big eater and endless high risk performer, it's a wonder Jack Herer lived as long as he did.  A friend of mine who was always immensely overweight and diabetic died from complications of diabetes when he was over 70, again, a wonder he lived that long.  Some studies have shown smoking marijuana to be associated with longer lives, even better job performance and fewer fatal accidents.

One thing is certain, when tobacco smoke gets into electronics, houses, cars, whatever, it never gets out.  It sticks like glue so well it often cannot even be washed away.  I have not been able to remove the smell from electronic circuit boards and I'm not even sure what removes it.

Marijuana smoke dissipates, does not stick to electronics, houses, cars, whatever.  You may smell it in the air far away for awhile then it is 100% gone.  Where it does stick to metal and glass in the actual pipe (iterfaces which are far cooler than the smoke surface so causing condensation) hardenend marijuana smoke can be removed by fruit acids similar to those in the body--the kind the body basically runs on.  Cannabinoid byproducts circulate endlessly BECAUSE they don't stick to anything.  Slowly the liver pulls them out.

Due to chemical affinities, tobacco smoke especially sticks to the lungs.  Marijuana smoke is the reverse: it does not stick to the lungs, it needs to be held in.  One qualification: Marijuana smoke DOES stick to the throat.  It can quickly become irritable to the throat, and could lead to throat disorders if improper use continues.  Proper smoking technique and quantity will avoid this issue.

I say the bottom line is what is the overall result.  Even if marijuana were harmful in itself (which has never been proven fairly sticking to the usage I describe below) that harm might be offset by reducing other harmful behaviors and/or effects.  (Sadly, it is true that tobacco, a very harmful and addictive drug, is a gateway to marijuana, and there are many who have used both marijuana and tobacco, as I did for 15 years of early adulthood.  If anything the marijuana may have spared me from greater tobacco use, and I knew very well which one I liked better.  I kept using tobacco because whenever I stopped my life became intolerable quickly.  OTOH, I smoked marijuana because it made me feel better, better than I had before I started using marijuana.)

But the possibility exists, that Marijuana used properly (as I will describe below) is not only by itself not harmful to the lungs and other organs, it is actually (as some studies have shown) life extending overall because:

1) Smoke is not "just smoke."  Different smokes are entirely different in their tendency to stick to biological surfaces and affect their operation.  And they are also biologically cleaned and degraded in different ways.  Smoke is just particulates.  We are constantly exposed to particulates and particulates vary widely, and the lung is designed to deal with particulates of many kinds pretty well (though, not so well for tobacco smoke and mineral dusts).

2) With some smokes, you become addicted to constantly use the substance, as with Tobacco.  A desireable Marijuana effect is usually achieved with very limited use...excess use does not enhance the experience.

3) Marijuana smoking, done properly, is exercise for the lungs and chest muscles.

4) The downstream influences may have either beneficial or harmful effects.  With tobacco, the downstream processes are harmful to normal body operation.  With proper marijuana use, the downsteam processes have negligible effects on the body, and operate mainly through the mind.  Whether the mind is enhanced or retarded is a matter of perspective, and other influences.

5) Cannabinoids may have cancer retarding and other biologically beneficial effects.

6) Marijuana is mentally soothing (reducing anxiety, stress, and depression--three major causes of illness) and can reduce addiction to more harmful drugs and activities.

Proper use of marijuana is like this:

1) Not smoking all day long, but 2-5 times per day.  3 seems to be about the optimum if you have the whole day available.  If you need to go to work: then it's 2--about all you can usefully squeeze in after work.  Most of my life I've done more, regardless of knowing better, often falsely making up for days "lost" (you can't do that, only add to them).

2) Smoking the highest grade marijuana for the purpose intended, and thereby reducing the quantity of smoking required.  I think the "mental" and "energetic" supposedly THC oritented (more correctly low CBD) actually accomplish everything best in my experience.  All experience, when it comes right down to it, is in the head.

3) Smoking approximately 0.02-0.03g per occasion, very finely ground.  This is a tiny pinch which can at most cover half of a 5/8 inch screen to the depth of a few mm at the maximum.  This is smoked in 3-6 hits in a medium to small water pipe.

Alternating with hits take a drink of water or other watery beverage.  I drink sweet lime mixed with Perrier which has a mild cleansing effect on the throat.  However it also makes tooth brushing mandatory, especially if additional sweetener is used (as I used to do, but no longer, as I use sweet Nellie and Joe's Key Lime Juice which is sweet without artificial sweeteners just like freshly squeezed key limes).  I make the last glass of fluid I drink every day clear reverse osmosis filtered water (should probably be the last two glasses).

Excess smoking detracts, rather than adds, to the experience.

With lower grade, you may have to increase the numbers up to 10 fold, but usually less than 3 fold.  Most Marijuana nowadays IS very good.  It hasn't gotten enormously better since the exotic grades of the 1970's.  I was there.  What has happened is that the crap marijuana unloaded on unsuspecting newbies has gone away.  Marijuana for smoking should be made from the flowering parts of the plant, never leaves or stems.  Traditionally made from those same parts, hash is actually not as potent as the very best marijuana.

It's helpful to smoke outside if possible, beceause re-inhaling smoke increases the pickup of undesirable (IMO for most purposes) CBD type cannabinoids.  Smoking outside increases the mental effects from all breeds of marijuana in the same way that "energetic" marijuana breeds are different from high CBD "pain relief" varieties.

4) Smoke is held in as much as possible, at least for a fraction of a minute.  There is no reason to systematically exhale in any unnatural form.  It is generally harmful, and especially to the vulnerable throat, to exhale through the mouth.  It is best to smoke in through the mouth, then only exhale softly and bit by bit, through the nose.  After holding in as much as possible for awhile, gradually relax into something like normal breathing through the nose.  This minimizes the participation of the throat, and any tendency toward getting nasal congestion--which is harmful.

5) If you cough or have other symptoms, that is generally indication you are doing it wrong, have already had too much, and should quit until the next daily interval.  As a friend once said to me, "If you cough, get off."

6)  Generally, this results in bursts of smoke from the nose.  As a friend once said to me "smoke expands in the lungs."  One big inhale will produce several bursts of smoke in exhales (barely visible in most light) through the nose, gradually becoming increasingly transparent.

7) Generally there needs to be one long daily period without smoking, in order to have ordinary bowel movements.  So, if you smoke at night, wait until the bowels are cleared again before resuming smoking, such as, by late morning.  (Or, for some, after work.)  Marijuana is like opiates in this regards, but much less, and not necessarily like opiates in other ways.  It has no physical habituation. There is probably no mental habituation either, one can drop smoking for any length of time, but after awhile the axiety reduction is sorely missed.

8) Maintain exercise, diet, ,and other beneficial programs, as a matter of course.  Like wine, marijuana can help you appreciate food which is better for you (as well as the other kind).  Marijuana
makes exercise, especially outdoor exercise, more interesting.

9) Smoked properly, you can small the special sweet smell of each variety.  If you don't smell the smell anymore, it is past time to quit and you should do something other than smoke.  The smell builds up slightly in the throat to become a "taste."  The taste and smell may be part of the magic of marijuana, just as they are for fine alcohols like red wine.

10) Besides the throat, marijuana can also irritate the eyes.  The important thing is to clean below and around the lower surface of the nose, and perhaps up where the face meets the sides, as this is where the irritating parts of marijuana smoke tend to stick to the skin, and be further ejected up into the eyes.  Cleaning around the eyes may also be done, but in my experience it's best to use purified water (I have my own Reverse Osmosis source) in all such cleaning, as well as using clean cotton washcloth.

Modern high grade marijuana is the ultimate drug for humanity, just as Jack Herer said.  It hits the spot, fixing exactly what seems to be wrong with the human psyche, with less collateral damage than any other psychoactive drug.* It paradoxically adapts up or down just as needed to each person.   (Alcohol is also paradoxical like this--nominally a CNS depressant it often enlivens people who are low for awhile, while others who are too high are mellowed.)  Generally, however, marijuana reduces anxiety--our main weakness--by weakening bad thoughts and memories compared with the better ones, so you can focus on the good.  By the same token, good for depression, even schizophrenia.

Alcohol can also be used daily, such as half a glass of red wine daily, is good for health, including mental, too, and has a similar mild anxiety reducing effect, which becomes a full on blast if overdone.  Marijuana doesn't ramp up like alcohol (or physically habituate), instead, an overdose of marijuana is likely to make sleep irresistible if you are near enough to a bed.  Smoked marijuana especially is self-limiting--if you've really smoked too much you just can't get yourself to smoke anymore, depending on what else you are doing.  Then if you need to concentrate, all the fog can be instantly cleared away, but at the expense of the high.  It's messing with probability instead of necessity.

Marijuana can possibly alter your sense of time, however it doesn't  necessarily affect muscle control or reflexes as alcohol does in most people.

Some studies have shown minimal effect on driving for adults well enough experienced with both driving and with marijuana.  Insignificantly better in some ways, insignificnatly worse in others, when all other factors are controlled for.  Back in the day, I remember friends always having one for the road, not to mention smoking all the way.  However, if you are not experienced with the combination, or out of practice, or otherwise impaired, a 3 hour lag time works, best in combination with some nap time and a full washup.

If you want it do, a mild reduction in anxiety can produce "visions" or whatever, if you meditate on those sorts of things, you can get quasi hallucinations or whatever.  It takes enough effort to make in not a problem if you don't want it.  There's no need to clobber your mind so you can't prevent visions, as with LSD.  Marijuana is far safer and does it all.  (When I have more experience with LSD, I'll write a how-to, but the short guide is this--a special occasion like a nature trip with mentors works best.  LSD is far stronger than marijuana, but also less flexible and perhaps ultimately less interesting and useful.  Dumb daily use of LSD results mainly in paranoia rather than blissful glow.)

(*Many have opined the cannibis plant has co-evolved with humanity, and continues so co-evolving.  The plant seeks to be our mental ally, much as catnip seeks to be the ally of cats.)

Honestly I have not much followed these rules until recently, finally being more concerned about my health than I was before, and more discriminating.  But regardless, I do not feel any lung loss from 46 years of using marijuana at age 63.  I now walk 2 miles a day with no sweat, and I'm overweight and should have exercised more when I was younger, but I hope to be catching up with more exercise now that I am retired.

I do not trust "vaporizers" and especially chemically vaporized products.  I have never gotten the same enlivening effect from vaporized marijuana.  One just keeps on inhaling more and more vapor in the hope it will finally hit the spot but somehow it keeps missing.  There is just something magical about marijuana smoke, possibly including the CO2 and other "byproducts" of burning. Marijuana smoke just hits the spot.

Pill form THC is almost unnoticeable mentally for me, at least up to 10 mg Drabinol.  It is processed through the liver instead of going straight into the bloodstream.  By all accounts it is not good for getting high.  It gives me all the constipation without getting high.  I suspect this largely applies to edibles as well.  Marijuana smoke works not just because of one chemical, but because of many chemicals that have complex interactions.

So go ahead, smoke marijuana.  Don't listen to Nancy Reagan.  It is better to be high than low.

There has been endless propaganda and misinformation for decades against marijuana to justify the enormously costly War on Drugs, which has enriched the Prison Industrial Complex, as well and criminal organizations, all part of the evil deep state.   Anti-Marijuana "experts" are fools and shills caught up in all the propaganda who have never understood what I am describing here.

And one little piece of the endless propaganda they have deployed to justify making money by making people suffer in more ways than one is "Smoke is Smoke."

Unlike all the harder drugs, which are hard to harness, and may do lots of weird stuff before doing any good, including those you "swallow," which seems natural, but your liver might not think the drug is so natural.  Drugs are drugs--NOT.  Nevertheless, I would like to see all drugs freed from prohibition, however, which itself always has been the most harm inducing part of drug usage.

Smoke is just particles, and all particles are different.  We breath particles all the time and our respiratory system and lungs are designed to handle them.  Many particles should be avoided far better than we do (diesel smoke has been one of the worst I've experienced, but friends have been killed by illnesses caused by rock dust of various kinds--I wear a respirator whenever cutting tile or handling insulation), and we should save our lungs for the magic smoke of Marijuana, which may do far more good than harm.

Used properly, Marijuana will not make you cough.  You may cough less than most people, as a lot of coughing is nervous coughing, and you will be less nervous.  If you get a cough from marijuana you are doing it at least a little wrong.

If you are properly using only Marijuana, and still coughing, check for a lung infection, such as mycoplasma (a degraded almost virus-like category of bacteria).  I have picked that up several times (typically from people who smoke both tobacco and marijuana).  Such a cough persists for weeks after incubation whether you continue smoking marijuana or not.  For me it goes away with a regimen of Augmentin, I need that because of many previous infections I have had treated (mostly oral infections resulting from inadequate oral hygene), in others it may recede with a less intense penicillin derivative.  Mycoplasma infections seem amazingly widespread in USA, perhaps aided by the fact there is litte financial incentive for drug companies or providers to fix them--they are easily fixed with one short course of antibiotics.  Untreated mycoplasma infections can lead to COPD or Lung Cancer.  It may well be that many tobacco smokers die from from the effect of such infections rather than from the direct effects of the tobacco itself.  Fortunately, I have had excellent primary physicians who have correctly diagnosed and prescribed adequate treatments for minor lung infections.  But I can imagine people with more tenuous relationship to their physicians who might never get such treatment because minor illnesses are often not seen as "important" even when minor illnesses might be the cause of major illnesses.  I don't have to imagine very hard, because I've known people with "healthcare" identical to mine who clearly weren't getting treated for lung infections which in turn infected me.  Meanwhile, such people might well talk about all the expensive specialists they were seeing.  It's a sick, sick world, and that's a big part of why we need marijuana.  Peace must begin from within.

Point, Counterpoint on Emma Goldman

Disclaimer: I am posting these not because I necessarily agree, but for reference to different POV.

Trotskyists, like the former ISO and ISR, generally don't think very well of Emma Goldman, as in this story on her.

Anarchists, of course, love Emma.  Here's a reply to the above ISR article.

another correct prediction

I predicted last week (in my perhaps ill conceived weak support for Impeachment) that the senate trial would not go deep because neither side wants to upset the Deep State (which they are both part of).

Indeed, that is what MoonOfAlabama is now reporting, a deal has been made between Pelosi and Senate Republicans for a quick up-or-down vote in the Senate.  No CIA rocks will be turned over.

Once again, who runs the USA?

Unions vs Medicare for All ???

Another common theme among my MSNBC-watching centrist Democrat friends is that they don't believe union members support Medicare for All.  They give personal stories of union-family friends (are these stories or stories of stories?) who got million dollar treatments they don't believe they would have gotten from Medicare for All.  (How many people get such treatments anyway?  I tend to believe that such things are uncommon, and when people tell such stories they are most likely not talking about themselves but what they themselves have heard on the corporate media.)

The truth is at least as hard to nail down as such stories.  Some unions support M4A, others don't, and the same is true of union members, with some members of some unions opposing their union's stance.
As an example, AFL-CIO in both Texas and Massachusetts have endorsed Medicare for all, but national AFL-CIO has not taken a position.

Labor for Single Payer (not itself a union) claims that 19 unions that represent 10 million workers have endorsed Medicare for All, and that this means more than half of union members in USA are members of unions that have endorsed Medicare for All.  This is certainly true for American Federation of Teachers (I have verified that) and probably the rest.  The list includes:

• Amalgamated Transit Union
• American Federation of Teachers
• American Federation of Government Employees
• American Postal Workers Union
• Association of Flight Attendants
• Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes/IBT
• International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees
• International Association of Machinists
• International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers
• International Longshore and Warehouse Union
• Massachusetts Nurses Association
• National Education Association
• National Nurses United
• National Union of Healthcare Workers
• NY State Nurses Association
• PA Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals
• Service Employees International Union
• United Automobile Workers
• United Electrical Workers
• United Mine Workers of America
• Utility Workers Union of America

Impeachment Distraction

Already I'm thinking of reversing my weakly pro-Impeachment stance, as it's already clear it's a huge distraction.

On the very day the Articles of Impeachment were passed, the House also endorsed NAFTA 2.0 and it looks like the new "Defense" authorization Trump requested is going to pass.

From what I've seen, the Impeachment drone got 99% of the airtime (even though, even my most pro-Impeachment friends do not believe Trump will be removed from office anyway because the Senate won't convict), and there was hardly any mention of the other issues on Mainstream Media.

Of course, it's likely Mainstream Media would have just found something else to talk about (like Russiagate) if there weren't an Impeachment.

It's very clear corporatocracy-promoting outlets like MSNBC are using obsessive Impeachment! ranting (often bringing back the old disproven Russiagate themes) as something like Impeachment-Washing the rest of their corporate agenda.

All of my friends believe in virtually all of the debunked or widely exaggerated Russiagate claims.  Russia has become the #1 concernt of many people it seems.  And Impeachment-Washing means there will never be the closer examination the false narrative deserves.  Anything that takes the wrong side will be dismissed as RussiaBots or TrumpBots.  This is a lost generation for sure.

Recognizing Regimes

"recognizing" new regimes is a massive form of imperial influence over the self-determination of other countries.

Valid leadership should be determined by world authority, UN, and we should follow that.

Ulghurs

[Correction Update: Grayzone and others have presented evidence that the story of the Ughurs is greatly misrepresented in western media.  There is not a million people incarcerated because of religious persecution.  It is more like a small group of hardened violent separatists who are in re-education.  I will update this essay when I have digested this evidence which is new to me.]


https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/what-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-campaign-against-uighur-muslims/

I could point out many parallels in the US, starting with the locking up of over a million non-violent drug users--people who have not caused harm except, by their own preference, and possibly in less degree than many other legal things, to themselves.  By principles I subscribe to, such behavior should not be made criminal.  But "Illegal Drug Use" is a forbidden religion in the USA.

Some things about the Chinese re-education of Ulghurs might make more sense than the War on Drugs in the USA and other countries--which makes no sense.

Both phenomenon, however, fundamentally result from illiberalism.  Nowadays, it seems even antiwar opinionators are apt to cite the (desireable) end of liberalism in this same sense, but as a virtue.  This has especially caught on among some anti-Imperial tendencies, and is wrong if the context is civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, religion, and so on, as already well stated by international human rights declarations that many countries have agreed to on paper.

If the context is "economic" liberties, then yes, such liberties should in many cases be restricted or not exist.  I don't actually recognize the existence of "economic" liberties.  As far as I'm concerned, there is no inherent right for citizens to move wealth from one country to another, or do business with or in other countries, or have patents or copyrights universally respected, and so on.  Countries may centrally determine such things collectively for the benefit of all their citizens, and then citizens are obliged to follow those rules, avoiding certain kinds of transactions, or paying certain kinds of taxes.

I'm also totally opposed to violence because of higher prices, higher taxes, or even lower pay.  Demonstrations may be warranted but not violence.


Now back to Civil Liberties.

it's true, a state has an actual responsibility to promote true civic virtue.  But this needs be promoted through love and opportunity, not oppression.  Taking the opposite approach creates a Police State, as is now playing in the USA and China and most other places.

An example of love would be free anonymous drug treatment.  Of course the solution to most drugs is to regulate and tax them, and also provide anonymous free treatment for those that want it.

Examples of opportunity are: free education, guaranteed jobs, national healthcare.

We could begin on this project right away by electing Bernie Sanders.

The Guardian

In a recent editorial, The Guardian concludes by telling us politics no longer ends at the water's edge.

To which I had this reply:

Which century are they living in?  1300?

All you need to know about The Guardian is that they have been pushing the "Anti-Zionism equals Anti-Semitism" charges against Corbyn for over 5 years now.  They push all the other fake news Russiagate, etc, stories too.  They've pushed all the smears against Assange.

They are at least 80% as much a "liberal internationalist" war monger as NYTimes, and some say they are worse.

However, they do take the good side on Bolivia:

The OAS has to answer for its role in the Bolivian coup

Because of their take on Bolivia, I'm only rating them as 80% as much war monger as NYTimes, but that's probably being too nice to them.

Why is US Propaganda More Effective

1) The US government spends more money on political influence than anyone else by orders of magnitude.

Essentially the entire US "intelligence" and foreign service is a giant Influence operation, not limited to the explicit propaganda funded through NED, USAID, and VOA--which are themselves huge also.  The total funding for these agencies and operations is divided up in various ways to hide it, but $62.8 Billion is visibly allocated for the "National Intelligence Program," and $21.5 Billion is allocated for the Military Intelligence Program, for  a total of $81.5 Billion spent on explicit and openly funded "Intelligence" operations.  Meanwhile, the State Department and USAID receive a total of $31.3 Billion.

This influence is not spread worldwide evenly, though there is wide coverage, it's focussed on some spots with laser intensity.  Whole areas of the world we know we might as well write off, but we keep trying everywhere.

2) The US private sphere spends more on influence than anyone else also.

The mainstream media itself is owned by the richest plutocrats, and serves their interests first.  Add all the lobbyists, PR agencies, think tanks, NGO's, etc, all a giant influence operation.  There's influence in the ads and influence in the content and the ads also affect the content.  Add to this all the levels of education where there are rich donors--they don't do that for nothing, but sway the direction of teaching and research.

Bottom line: we have more richer people, and they spend more money on influence of endless kinds.

The money available to US media and influence operations means it can be slicker than anything else, and, at least to the US trained audience, this makes it more real.  And what really makes it stick is having a wide range of apparent differences in outlook, such as both Neocon and Progressive NGO's, which are nevertheless contained to the sphere of acceptable opinion with regards to the continuing expansion of US influence.

3) History.  While other countries have been utterly changed in the last 200 years, the US has remained a functional republic, or so it seems, for over 200 years, with only a short disruption 160 years ago.  Success and stability have bred and entrenched the mind control aristocracy (the OhSoSocial Class, which includes secretive tribes such as Skull and Bones and the like at every elite university).  Germany and Russia have been turned upside down several times in the past 200 years, so the mind control aristocracy is less pervasive and facile.  Also, an emphasis on speculative finance has led to greater entrenchment of the mind control aristocracy, in the hands of finance spooks like Allen Dulles who had an immense impact on US history but were rarely known in their day.  A long uninterrupted history means that our most powerful totalitarian and epitome of the Deep State, J Edgar Hoover--whose career started with breaking up leftist groups and kept that theme throughout--remained in power longer than Joseph Stalin and had immense permanent influence that continues to this day, in the prohibition of Marijuana, the weak and small (if finally growing) US Left, and the near elimination (and now slow recovery) of the US Labor Movement, as well as the continuing influence of organized crime (which he nutured and protected) and far right (which he was part of).

4) Foreign Allies don't question US propaganda not necessarily because they believe it, but because they depend on it also.  Every US client state wants US to be their investor and customer, we have more money to spend, and we are the savior of oppressive client regimes especially by supporting them in various ways.  Nobody in the loop wants to halt the gravy train, even though they may secretly distrust or despise us, but talking the talk and walking the walk long enough, it ultimately sinks in there also, and in the case of UK we're the continuation of their former empire of misinformation and war and their current partner in the new one.

5) The US population has long been bred and trained to be as stupid as rocks.

We've had it easy--relatively free of danger of military attack or political upheaval--and lived in an extensive, diverse, and uninterrupted system of highly funded full spectrum mind control all our lives.  The whole training is not to think much about anything political, but to have endless diversions instead, diverting time and money to still more commercial influence seeking interests, which fund the aforementioned media establishment, to keep things that way.  Development and promotion of bourgeois diversions has been a US speciality, though often now partly outsourced where actual manufacturing is involved.  Meanwhile, within the US, a person is made to feel endless dangers of all kinds, not the kinds that make a person fear the US military and police state but instead the kinds that make them want to bring that military and/or police state ON even more.  The diversions created are the only way to cope with the highly programmed fears, keeping people from thinking beyond the acceptable sphere,while they hope and pray for ever greater military and police state protection from foreign and ungodly influences.

If you fit right in with the doctrinal systems, particularly in their most extreme Religious Conservative form, you are likely to have lots of kids, like the Quiverfull, and be filling them with the same mindset.  US is one of the most religious contries in the world.  If you are an ideological "outlier" (not so outlying perhaps)  like an atheist, leftist, or pacifist who questions military or police state authority, you are more likely to live and die alone in your home staring at your computer.  Especially if you are non-white, your home might well be a prison cell or street corner compared with your peers who accepted authority. And so, passive acceptance of authority is bred, as it always has been, but rarely with such efficiency.

People in other coutries have seen huge regime changes in recent history.  The cover on the war consent manufacturing system has long been blown for many if not most people.  They don't trust the media.  They don't trust the deep state.  They don't have as much money to spend on the latest coolest diversions, which cost more to them too.  They live in much greater danger of war and/or political upheaval, and so they pay attention to politics as if their lives depends on it.  Far fewer people are in prison, and population growth hasn't favored the extremely religious quite as much.

Here in USA, it seems 40% hope the Deep State will save them from Trump (as-if-they-would), and many notables have said so explicity.  Many take umbrage at Trump for suggesting the US Media is Fake News (which of course it is, as described above).

6) US has to do propaganda better than anyone else.  We spend more on the military, more on wars, and have killed more people by far than any other country since 1945.  We need to keep the US population protected from thinking off script with a theatric politics that appears full spectrum, but isn't in certain critical ways, most notably the ways that protect the ongoing war machine.

Part of this need is fufilled endlessly projecting our mind control prowess onto other countries.  I recall as a toddler fearing that the Soviets were the brilliant chessmasters of evil misinformation, and that was why the whole world didn't settle down and accept US vision and benevolence.  It wasn't until my teens I realized that people in the rest of the world didn't live in caves and wear grass skirts.

(Beaney and Cecil cartoons featured a vaguely Soviet looking and sounding evil character named Honest John, one of about a million examples of such.  These have never been censored, though other stereotyped ethnicities have been.)

No existing "competitor" such as Russia, China, or Germany has such far flung military, imperial, and commercial intersts.  Throughout the previous century, Russia has been had a far more defensive posture than us.  Not long ago, their previous "country" split apart partly from our long time engineering for that to happen.  Pulling back a few lost regions that were part of Russia for over 100 years like Crimea with a referendum is nothing like our endless uninvited aggression in foreign countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

FAIR on Bolivia

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR.org) is the source I trust most, everything is fully referenced, and they have written extensively on Bolivia.

On the Coup and the Interim President

https://fair.org/home/the-bolivian-coup-is-not-a-coup-because-us-wanted-it-to-happen/

https://fair.org/home/western-media-whitewash-bolivias-far-right-coup/

CEPR (Center for Economic Policy Research...another totally reliable source) analyzed the election results, found no evidence of fraud.  The researcher was interviewed at FAIR.org:

https://fair.org/home/years-from-now-itll-be-clear-to-everyone-there-was-a-coup-in-bolivia/

"The Conversation" is Wrong

On Pink Floyd and The Wall anyway.

The artistic leadership of Waters didn't begin after Dark Side.  It began right after Barrett was kicked out, or certainly by the time of Atom Heart Mother.  Waters was a far more brilliant rock visionary than Barrett.  Then, after Waters left the band in 1980, Pink Floyd was no longer the leading "Conceptual Rock" group.  It became a very fine post-conceptual-era rock band not quite of the same ultimate tier (rather, more of the same tier as Supertramp) with their signature album Momentary Lapse of Reason being merely very good, but still having the Pink Floyd name to ride on.  Meanwhile, Waters produced one of the ultimate Conceptual albums in 1986, Amused to Death, which could have been the last and best of the Pink Floyd greats, building on The Wall but even better, actually perfecting it.  (The series of albums Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall have never been equalled by any other band (only The Beatles could have, if they had stayed together for 5 concept albums after Sgt Pepper--instead of just The Beatles and Abbey Road).

Rogers was the hard left edge of Pink Floyd, equivalent to John Lennon in the Beatles.  Imagine Paul,   George, and Ringo, all among the finest rock musicians ever by any reckoning, carrying on The Beatles without John Lennon.  Couldn't be done.  It couldn't be The Beatles without John Lennon!  Surely anyone can see that.   No wonder Roger Waters felt that way about the name Pink Floyd, but rarely acknowledged in these hit pieces (which I've seen endlessly since 1980) is that he ultimately relented, and let the other musicians keep the name.

But, primarily because of left politics, Waters has been smeared ever since Animals, and especially for The Wall.  I can tell when people just can't take leftism for their negativity toward Waters in these albums, calling them self-absorbed, as if that weren't true of all Rock albums.

Sadly, The Wall two disc set could have made a pretty good single disc, but as two discs it was way too much filler, except as rock opera performance.  It clearly suffered from lack of musical collaboration within the band, which was indeed emotionally flying apart, as bands often do, and with substantial contribution from egos Roger's and other's.  Side One of The Wall is by itself one of the all time greats of Rock, and accounts for much of the success of the entire package.  Amused to Death is a much grander, and yes, even much less self-absorbed, coming close to reaching the magic of Dark Side of the Moon.  If it had the band name Pink Floyd it would have been their second or third best.

Point, Counterpoint, on RFK assassination

Mintpress (one of my favorite new sources) has published an interview of Lisa Pease whose new book on the RFK Assassination, entitled A Lie Too Big To Fail, is said to be the new best reference on the RFK Assassination Conspiracy.



Meanwhile, Mel Ayton has a long putdown review of the book, citing a number of factual points (after a long section merely blasting all assassination conspiracy theories, which almost had me writing off this guy as a crank).

I'm still a believer in the conspiracy theory.  However, it seems too complicated, and it's a less clear cut than the JFK assassination conspiracy, which was almost certainly a conspiracy.

A difficult part in both JFK and RFK assassination conspiracy theories, is that Oswald and Sirhan had to have been doing something--exactly what were they doing?

For Oswald, he was curiously on the FBI payroll, and according to many accounts watching the likely CIA assassins for Hoover personally.  However, shots were fired up there by someone, and for what purpose?  Was Oswald acting for himself at that point?  Were the shots being made by someone else (a claim sometimes made)?  Was he a willing part of a "team" of assassins who were all taking their best shots?  Was his plan (as far as he knew) simply to "shake" Kennedy up, putting the fear of Hoover (or something) into him?  I would only say fairly confidently that the team of shooters was not Oswald's team.  Oswald--a mere bit player--was almost certainly not the shooting team leader, by many stories that was Bay of Pigs cover "oilman" George HW Bush, with the ultimate conspiracy director certainly being the legendary but recently fired superspy Allen Dulles.  As the intended patsy, Oswald would know few if any of the other shooters--he may even have originally thought he was acting alone (probably to create an incident, not an assassination), but he knew who his CIA handler was, which could unravel the entire conspiracy back to Dulles if it had been widely known in 1963.   Oswald's capture put the coverup in danger, but Meyer Lansky's dying friend Jack Ruby took care of that.

Sirhan has long claimed he had no idea what he was doing, nor did he remember, he was hypnotized.

A far simpler theory is that Sirhan was "hypnotized" not in the sense of having total control and memory loss, but of having been plied with drugs and hypnotic experiences, riled up about Kennedy, and then put into position by capable handlers, without having time to fully cognitively process what he was doing.  This is all made easier because he did not necessarily need to fire the fatal shots, someone else far more qualified would have been there to do that.  He was more needed to be the patsy than anything else.

The complexity of RFK conspiracy theories comes primarily, I believe, from trying to completely exonerate Sirhan Sirhan, no doubt because, unlike Oswald, he is still alive.  Few theorists of the JFK assassination worry too much about completely exonerating Oswald, except from being the ultimate killer of Kennedy, which he could not have been.

It's still almost certain Sirhan did not fire the fatal shot, even if he was a not-entirely-unwilling asset of the conspiracy.  This is not quite as certain as with Oswald and JFK, but still quite strongly so.

Violence

Mastering the arts of flame throwing is not what Democracy Looks Like.

When the flame throwers are wielded by "protestors" it's Trotskyism or other proto- Fascism.

As in Hong Kong and now Iraq.

Winning elections is more of what democracy looks like, but US denounces them (or pretends they never existed) in every case it doesn't like (like Assad, China, Russia), and praises them when it does (Hong Kong 2019), and I suspect the truth has much less of that bias.

Still I'm glad to see something more political happen in Hong Kong, and hope it will lead to less violence.

The Purpose of Internet Research Organization

Commercial.  Making money through advertising.  That's what MoonOfAlabama says based on the story he presents.  I would imagine that's what Internet Research Association themselves says (and why don't we ever hear their side, isn't that the way criminal justice is supposed to work?  Internet Research Association came to the USA demanding to be interviewed, but Mueller and others refused to hear from them, nor was Julian Assange ever interviewed and he invited it too).  I should see if I can find out what they themselves say, but actually I have not seen that quoted anywhere.

I'd long had this idea it was a research organization, as in the name, and I think that sounds as plausible.  A kind of poll, to measure partisan attitudes in the USA, with weird clickbait for either side.  But it could also have been a test of marketing methods, rather than actual marketing as such.  To me, it sounds too small scale to be either commercial or political.  But it could have been just a small commercial operation, like a startup.

A $44,000 pre-election ad buy (and everything else I've seen about the details) doesn't make much sense to change things.  As the saying goes, when you go for the king, be sure to kill him.  Gentle nudges are a way to get hung.  And with what appeared to be high probability of Hillary winning, that wouldn't be good for sure.  Facebook ads can be traced.

The US knows a lot about this.  We spend billions a year on foreign soft power (USAID, NED, CIA, etc): propaganda, supporting opposition groups, training opposition groups, even violent opposition groups, and still change rarely goes our way (unless "our way" means endless chaos and war).  And then, even more billions on hard power, drones, military missions, military assistance.  We are the country most dedicated to influencing other countries in the world by far, and quite brazenly in large part.

Once you get beyond the headlines, none of the RussiaGate stories ever made any sense, as pointed on by the late Robert Parry and the late Edward Herman (co-author of "Manufacturing Consent") near the beginning, except as manufacturing consent for war by the USA against Russia.  Also distraction, projection, etc.

Vote to Impeach? Sure

I haven't been a fan of Ukrainegate because of various issues, military aid to Ukraine was something I opposed anyway.

But Trump may have done illegal and otherwise impeachable things here.  (Popular myths notwithstanding, anything is Impeachable, all the rules are decided by the House itself and not some court.)  And besides I think there are a dozen other far better reasons he should be impeached, which weren't selected to become part of our national dialogue mostly because of our bi-partisan war and corporatocracy consensus.

So why not vote to impeach?  I can't think of any reason not to vote to impeach.  I would.

Will the Senate reverse the case and make a fool of Democrats?

In principle, if they were smart, they could.  MoonOfAlabama is sure the Senate would make Democrats look bad about the impeachment, with greater corruption on the Democrat side, so this would cost Democrats both the removal of Trump AND success in 2020.

But I have faith.  The Senate Republican Leadership will look as bad as ever, and in the end the Democrats will not clearly look worse.  Whether or not Trump is actually removed.  Republicans will not make the best case against UkraineGate just as Democrats could not choose a better case than UkraineGate, for bipartisan "national security" reasons.  Neither side will decisively win or lose as a result.

It won't change anyone's mind, nor remove Trump, and will be a big waste of time notwithstanding.  But we've gone so far down the plank we might as well jump.  Maybe I'm just resigned to it, and don't want to be blamed yet again for making Trump possible.  Meanwhile I'll just keep on mostly ignoring the details behind the hyperbolic headlines until the dust settles.

Under the current circumstances, the current Congress can't do anything important anyway, though in my dreams the House would be passing "model" legislation*, showing what Democrats could do if they won in 2020.  Won't happen because Congressional democrats are mostly corporate fat cats and don't want to be pushing a left agenda.

The one loss is airwaves for truly progressive 2020 campaigns, like Bernie's.  But Bernie himself is calling for full on Impeachment, conviction, and everything.  So it seems I can hardly support Bernie by opposing him on this.  He asked for it.  His commitment to Impeachment and Conviction inspired me to write this post.

(*Model legislation, or shadow governments, is what truly democratic but oppressed opposition groups must do.  They must be the change they want to see.  Failure to do this, merely chanting The Regime Must Go along with violent acts is Trotskyism or other proto- Fascism.  Merely replacing the old boss with a new boss rarely improves matters, except for some insiders.)

"Russian Trolls" did not influence 2016 Election, Nor were they intended to

There's been a news story circulating in mainstream media this week.  A Dutch study analyzed the election impact on people who had clicked on facebook ads produced by the Internet Research Agency.  This study showed zero effect on the 2016 election.

However, a deeper analysis, by MoonOfAlabama, shows they were not intended to.  Internet Research Agency was a commercial clickbait farm intended to produce ad revenue from commercial entities.

Only some of the $40,000 they spent on ads before the 2016 election were even political.  The political ones were evenly distributed between pro-Trump and pro-Clinton.  Any advertiser wants to get both audiences.

It has previously been reported in the US media like NYTimes that Russian trolls were "sewing discord."  That's an admission that the ads were evenly balanced between pro-Trump and pro-Clinton.  For sure you can say the same thing about CableTV, where Fox News and MSNBC channels, which both appeal to strong partisans, and their business is also selling advertisements.

Nobody's mind was changed by these ads.  People click on the ads which appeal to their strong bias, which is not going to be changed as a result.  (This is essentially what the Dutch study found.  Only strong partisans clicked on the ads, and their voting tendencies were unchanged.)

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/11/new-study-russian-trolls-did-not-sow-discord-they-influenced-no-one.html#more

Hong Kong and China

China has gotten a lot richer since 1993.  Hong Kong hasn't, it might have slipped considerably I think.

With a government mostly owned by HK business class, who get set asides in the government, one might ask, "Why Not?"

If capitalism is such a wonderful system, why hasn't Hong Kong remained richer than Communist (or at least Authoritarian) China?

As I said not long ago, I'd be tempted to give the "protestors" what they want, and let the HK ship sink completely.  There is probably a geopolitical reason why China doesn't--it would be a beachhead.  And there had appeared to be a lot of people who did not go along with protestors--it might not be fair to them.

Now the "pro-democracy" forces have "won" some local elections.  That sounds like "becoming" part of the establishment, no question now.  I said they always were.  I am fine with winning elections--that's the way to move forwards, or somewards, and way beats violence.

Will they be able to produce anything other than angst?  I strongly doubt it.  I see nothing but a worse downhill spiral than before.  Just like in:

Libya

Iraq

Afghanistan

Honduras

Syria

Ukraine

and everyplace else touched by US "Democracy Promotion."

In 10 years will we look back to the protests of 2019 as being the beginning of a great worldwide liberation?

No.  

But 2020 could be, if Bernie is elected President.

US: The Leading Force in Disinformation

US is also the leader in internet trolling and disinformation generally.  Hardly ever mentioned, but you would expect that wouldn't you?  It works in some ways, less in others.  $10M on trolls didn't "help" Hillary very much, if indeed the plan was to win.  But it was successful in establishing the RussiaGate narrative and the new Russophobia sweeping the west.  It's easy to conclude that was the actual priority.  Hillary's campaign was sacrificial in comparison.  That Hillary lost by deep state design (and with her own assent) is now widely believed.

I see a NYTimes headline on "Russian Disinformation" this morning.  What we see in the Western media is endless projection.

Iran "Protests" and Internet Shutdown

Direct war with Iran, however, is not likely to be what anyone wants.  But chaos can be stirred up for a few days, looks good on Western Media.

The staged violence in Iran ended awhile ago.  There've been street filling pro-regime demonstrations since then.  I was meaning to send you that direct from PressTV.  But now you can see the same thing at Al Jazeera, no friend of Iran.  Note they refer to "protests" in the past tense.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/iran-loosens-internet-restrictions-protest-shutdown-191121195539005.html

I wouldn't blame them for internet restrictions, that's like letting the US in through your bedroom window.

UkraineGate Begins and Ends with CIA

1.  Zelensky himself says there was no quid-pro-quo, he wasn't aware of any linkage, etc.

2.  After some unimportant delay, he "aid" was delivered, in the meantime Kyiv had not been overrun by Russia, and still isn't.  It's not clear how much this military "aid" was even "needed."  Obama wasn't delivering any military aid, on his choice, he simply refused from the get go.

3.  Zelensky himself can read the tea leaves, he can see that Trump is not going to be removed from office until at least 2021, if then.  And he's never going to face the likes of Biden/Harris/Clinton--who would need him to collaborate against Trump to prove Trump "treasonous"--because Biden/Harris/Clinton simply could not defeat Trump otherwise because they have no new popular ideas like Sanders, Gabbard, and Warren.  So there's downside in playing against Trump, but no upside in playing for Democrats.

4.  Given that Zelensky knows that, how likely is it that he's going to go out of his way to trip up Trump to help Biden/Harris/Pelosi/Clinton?

5.  Still, he hasn't delivered any kind of thing that Trump wanted, even merely "announcing" an investigation into Biden son as Trump reported wanted (though, Trump never directly asked for that "announcement", nor would he be expected to, for deniability reasons that Trump is certainly smart enough to understand.)  Biden's son's corruption would have gone unmentioned by anyone, if CIA/Democrats had not decided to pursue this.  So Zelensky is playing a conservative nice guy to both sides, which is exactly what he could be expected to do.  Nice, but not so nice as to go out of his way to give them something the other guys wouldn't like.  He's certainly been smart enough to know to play this way from the beginning.  Therefore there was never any real "threat" of an investigation.  Meanwhile, it appears CIA/Democrats were willing to throw Biden under the bus without any real chance of winning the ultimate conviction of Trump in the US Senate, for some reason that's not directly visible.

6.  So it's much ado about an allegedly threatened quid-pro-quo, which is long since moot (no serious quo), and which the principals directly involved have no incentive to belabor, and which produced no quid either.  And to remove Trump from office, nearly half of Senate Republicans (as well as all Senate Democrats) would have to agree this was sufficiently disgusting.

7.  The CIA did get even the shadow of an investigation in Biden's son stopped, because it could have revealed the roots of how the CIA coup'd Ukraine.  They got what they wanted by starting the Impeachment Circus, and it's likely the fear of that will stick sufficiently so no actual investigation will ever be done, not that it ever would have been anyway.  Centrist Democrats were useful tools in CIA politics, rather than the reverse.  CIA's interests, even the paranoid shadow of a threat to their interests in the potential possible opening of an investigation in Ukraine, was more important than a supposedly "leading" Democratic candidate.

Conclusion: US politics is run for the benefit of the CIA.

Impeachment Support Dropping?

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/?ex_cid=rrpromo

Wow.  Even with all the power of the Russia-is-enemy#1/CIA/WarWurlitzer like the NYTimes pumping out throbbing impeachment screeds daily, it still seems to be returning to baseline.

Of course, with the other half of the Iran-is-enemy#1/CIA/WarWurlitzer like FoxNews is fully informed about all the counter arguments, even if they don't always promote the best ones, there appears to be rough parity.

The only chance was like last time, creating some sort of moral justice stampede to get the orange guy to resign before the votes could be counted.  He would probably resign before turning over tax returns.  I myself see this as an only slightly better case than the full-on lies of RussiaGate, and that seems to be the take of the AntiWar community in general*, which would much prefer to Impeach Trump! over many other things, such as sending and re-sending troops to Syria, and assistance given to coup'sters in  Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, and Hong Kong, The full list of truly egregious actions by Trump is endless.  And once again, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" is whatever the Congress chooses it to be, it need not have a musty Watergate smell.  Sadly, we have a Congress made of about the same stuff as Trump, and for the most part they wouldn't bother stopping the ongoing war crimes, even to the point of honestly describing them, and often egging them on more.  But the same is true for the presently alleged crimes of personal quid pro quo (which didn't even get off the phone, so to speak) so why not choose the best?  I have never believed a politics of anti-corruption (as opposed to anti-imperialism or anti-capitalism) will ever accomplish anything but institutional stagnation.  It is always sublimely hypocritical.  As long as there is Empire there will be corruption AND evil on vast scales, and at least partly legal.  Empire is where to start chipping away at the Leviathan, because it is the greatest evil, and most of the rest falls with it.

Lack of visible high moral ground anywhere doesn't help UkraineGate, and even all the serious deep intonations of the NYTimes are not changing anyone's mind.  The whole project of sending weapons to Ukraine is a war crime, on top of the original illegal war crime of coup'ing the uncooperative government, on top of the broken promise and wisdom not to extend NATO.

I think we may have reached the point where CIA is deciding that overall, this track is giving the Empire more exposure than protection from Trump--which was never much needed in the first place by all appearences.

So it's going to be wound down.  My bet that they'd keep it running till 2021 and beyond if Trump gets re-elected (which would also be their plan) is now looking like a loser.  I wonder what will take it's place.  I hope it's not war.

(*Many, such as Aaron Mate, believe Trump did wrong if he did intend a quid-pro-quo, as has been alleged, but it's a hard case to prove, especially to those that don't want to change their minds.  Trump would have for sure left deniability everywhere, he may be stupid in some areas but NOT that one, he learned Mobster rules in his youth if not diapers.  Others see this by design to restrain Trump in making peace, in Syria and Ukraine, where he might be inclined to.  Still others (or including many of the same) see this as a way to help defeat Democrats in 2020, by making such a losing spectacle.  And some see it as directed mostly at Democratic progessives, including Bernie Sanders and/or Elizabeth Warren, since the whole affair shows much of Biden's previous wrongdoing he must not be the "chosen" one, he must be the "unchosen" one, with either Hillary or Warren swung in at the last moment to take his place.  Some of these same theorists opine that Trump Himself has contributed to ImpeachmentGate, throwing fuel onto the fire, just because he smartly knows in the end it will all accrue to his advantage.  That's getting pretty deep into the Mobster playbook and I'm not sure he trusts his stars that far.  It's probably a minor nuisance, but an opportunity for great opera singing, which is one of his specialties.  Mud Wrestling I called it earlier.  Looks like the season is closing earlier than expected.)

Putin's "wealth"

Friends asked me to check up on this.  The questions were, how rich is Putin and how big is his house.

My answer, which nobody else believed, is that Putin lives in a small apartment.

I was just guessing based on my general understanding of things, but it also happens to be the truth, I quickly determined later.  Or at least he lives in one of his two small apartments, in Moscow and St Petersburg, when he is not traveling, which is frequently.  And he works long hours, so he's rarely in those apartments anyway.  It wouldn't be any different if he had the $100B pad many theorize he has, based on western propaganda.  When would he have time to choose the lampshades?

My friends weren't buying.  They'd heard Putin is the worlds richest man, or something like that, worth $160 Billion.

I said that's wrong.  He doesn't need that kind of "wealth," only western oligarchs do.  He doesn't need it, so he hasn't bothered to acquire it, it would be just a waste of time.  He's too busy doing other things.  He lives for his work, the man who more than any other helped create an independent Russian State, not subservient to Western power and finance.

St. Putin.  The greatest world leader of the past 20 years by far, and certainly if you are Russian.

Well, that brought out the laughs and other stuff.  One friend strongly believes Putin is nothing other than a continuation of the corrupt US backed Yeltsin, and they both came from KGB which describes everything about them.  Putin being identical to Yeltsin is easily disproven.  Putin was the workaholic public administrator who (along with many friends) rescued Russia from becoming a corrupt US client petrostate, as had almost been institutionalized by Yetsin whose friends were western-friendly oligarchs owning everything.

Anyway, the story about Putin being worth $160 billion comes from one highly unreliable crooked tax cheating oligarch defector named William Browder.  He had every reason to lie, as he wanted asylum in the USA.  And he did lie about many things, as is now well established.

Because of his lies, the US passed the Magnitsky Act to punish Russia, which of course the US Congress wanted to do anyway.  It turns out Magnitsky wasn't even a registered accountant or lawyer, so the whole story Browder presented to Congress is demonstrably false.

But it provided the magic numbers, $100-$160 Billion, reported by the NYTimes, so they must be true.

And that's how Western Media Russophobia (and other Orientalism) works, just the tip of the iceberg anyway.  Lies of the worst liars become the truth, and you're crazy or PutinBot if you think otherwise.

Here's a pretty good article on Putin's wealth.

And by the way, what would you pay to already be recognized as one of the world's greatest leaders? What would that be worth to you???  Sadly, US leaders have not much chosen to go this route, at least since FDR.

Countering Hero Worship of Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem was a CIA agent or asset following Communist youth groups in the early 1960's and taking names.  She looked kind of like a hippy and blended in.

Then, as a New Left was emerging, she got a new assignment.  Subvert leftism with pro-capitalist "Second Wave Feminism."

Her next assignment was to be a part of the systemic destruction of the growing New Left of the 60's.*

The New Left was getting promotion from a new class of "Cool" enterpreneurs.  Steinem was assigned to
smoke out that budding cultural left bourgeois icon, Hugh Hefner (who remained a Green Party supporter to the end FWIW).  She destroyed all his pretenses merely by exposing the gritty inside details of a slightly more progressive than usual bar establishment in Chicago that in it's day was revolutionary and remains exceedingly rare, and sadly.  Hefner moved to LA and gave up the 60's promotion of leftism in his magazine (no more Vidal interviews, that I recall).  The Playboy Clubs have come, gone, and Come again, but never exactly like the Cool Jazz and Left Culture original (which is what society still needs badly and everywhere).

(Journalist and "pro-sex" Feminist Ellen Willis broke these stories around 1980, but they are still not widely known.)

Steinem's version of Feminism didn't involve making society more equal in general.  It merely involved putting more women at the top, in CEO positions for example.  This has not been fully successful, and has done nothing to help make all jobs more equal--in fact the opposite has happened since then at an alarming rate.

However, it worked for her.  Almost overnight she was catapulted from a nobody to the leader of the new Feminism, a leading publisher of the leading Feminist magazine, and she remains so today, the #1 person Americans think of given the word "Feminism."

She has even been a longtime Honorary Board Member of DSA despite consistently preferring right-center women like Hillary Clinton to far lefter male candidates.

There is no reason to believe Gloria Steinem is not still a CIA asset to this day.

Throughout her career, she has endorsed the strictest form of anti Pornography, almost like Islam in forbidding human representations of any kind, and has fought against civil rights in these regards alongside extremists like Andrea Dworkin, who was pushing for laws to enable collecting damages from the publishers of women's picture magazines for ANY and ALL violent crime, claiming all violence (and virtually all ills in society) come from printing images of women appearing erotic, because "Objectification" (which is nonsense and highly sexist concept).

Fortunately, freedom of press prevailed in the USA for now, at least in these regards, thanks to civil rights heroes like the Hustler publisher Larry Flynt.

But the association of eroticism with leftism (and where it belongs too) has been long lost in popular culture, largely through the influence of Gloria Steinem.  Though, I suppose, if it hadn't been her, the CIA would have found someone else.

BTW, similar deconstruction can be made of other "cultural left" icons.  The fact that the MSM highlights a particular person as the leading voice of a left or populist tendency is virtual proof that they are either highly compromised in some way or an explicit CIA asset.  So it is, for example, with the likes of the Alinskiy trainee Ceasar Chavez, whose actual success was weak and built on earlier unheralded and rarely-duplicated labor organizing efforts.  He was never a "labor organizer" as such, or a leftist, socialist, or communist.  But in the MSM, he is THE leading icon in the "labor movement."  The organization he built barely functions anymore, and good luck trying to duplicate his opportunist victories.  The true heroes are those one rarely if ever hears of, and their work has barely started yet, and you can be sure they will not be televised in the MSM.

But meanwhile, I'm listening to more Frank Zappa, despite his milbrat background, support for the Vietnam War, and hatred of hippies and marijuana smokers.  I'm not sure if CIA kept him on the payroll after the '60's, he did pivot to an antiwar stance later.

(*Other parts of the Neutralization of the New Left included the CIA/FBI orchestrated "Manson" murders and the assassination of Martin Luther King.  The Manson murders discredited LSD and the growing Left Psychedelic movement, and, simultaneously buried evidence that FBI had planned the RFK assassination--though I wouldn't call RFK himself "new left" as such.  The murder of Sharon Tate was significant not only as an RFK fan and conspiracy trail follower--who had the goods right then, but as a Left-Liberal Southern Movie Starlet married to a leading Left-Liberal Movie Producer--whose US career was later destroyed with a phony sex scandal.  In 1969, there was great potential we were on the dawn of a new era of progressive movies and psychedelic culture.  First on the block would have been a movie about the JFK assassination.  No one like Sharon Tate has emerged since, but we have a comparably good Left Movie Producer in Oliver Stone.  Meanwhile psychedelic culture became more commercial stereotype than reality when it re-emerged in the mid 70's.  Few more mental doors were opened by that.  The CIA/FBI worked overtime to ensure the '60's ended as quickly as possible, and they did, in August 1969.