"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.

Rall Says there is no "Far Left"

November 15, 2019 

Rall says there is "No Organized Left in the United States."   But, there is DSA and the Communist Party.  Both are now small but growing, but to Rall they don't exist.  I don't think this kind of rhetoric moves the ball forwards.

Otherwise, there is much to agree with.  Certainly there is no "Far Left" among leading Democratic Party candidates, and it would be ridiculous to think so, unless you are brainwashed by MSM.

In Foreign Policy, not even Gabbard nor Sanders are the complete antiwar/anti-Imperial candidate I would like to see.  But they are a huge improvement from what we've been offered in a long time.  Very very few candidates in the past have been better in that regards.  We had one of the best with Gravel.  Have to go back to 1900 and William Jennings Bryan to get as much explicit anti-Imperialistm as Gravel in a Democratic Party candidate, and Bryan almost won.   That this has been a remarkably progressive primary for a major US party is worth mentioning, even if it doesn't match the ridiculous claim "far left."  In 2016 the Sanders candidacy helped mitigate 110 years of rightward Overton Window shifting of the commonly accepted political spectrum (itself highly shaped by the Consent Manufacturing Corporate Media), and Bernie remains the "most left" candidate of the bunch as well as a leading one in some polls and THE leading one in a few polls.  This is remarkable and wonderful.  FDR was the last "left" President--and only barely so, about where Bernie actually is.  They've all been center right or looney right ever since.  Finally, the peoples voice is being heard again.

Proxies

For decades, the USA has formed relationships with Jihadi groups across the middle east, as well as established terror states, under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy.  From Beirut to Baghdad, citizens are revolting against the kleptostates established by their imperial masters, sometimes with covert imperial "assistance" to ensure next time the screws are turned tighter still, especially against unaligned imperial enemies.  Not a problem for the flexible Western mind, which has been deploying "counterintelligence" for hundreds of years, though some Westerners still don't get it, thanks to the world's most tightly controlled mass media.

My reply to this:

How Iran Turned Its Neighbor Iraq Into A Persian Proxy

Finkelstein defending himself

Finkelstein's unmatched mastery of the facts, and honest rhetoric, applied to how he was smeared as an anti-Semite, at his graduate alma mater no less, and being an accusation which he takes very seriously.

The very popular, and very well received by nearly all, talk was about Gaza, a fact unmentioned in The Princetonian smear against him, among many others.

In the comments, the almost equally encyclopedic Mistereoso gives the rundown on how Hamas has endlessly agreed to accept the legal international resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict, whereas Israel has done the opposite, with the Likud party claiming the Jordan River as Israel's "permanent and eternal" eastern boundary (leaving no "Palestinian West Bank," nothing but Gaza, which is under endless siege and "lawn mowing").

Regarding Hamas:
On 16 June 2009, after meeting with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Ismail Haniya, prime minister of Hamas’s Gaza Strip government, announced that “If there is a real plan to resolve the Palestinian question on the basis of the creation of a Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967 [i.e. 22% of historic Palestine] and with full sovereignty, we are in favour of it.”

“‘We accept a Palestinian state on the borders of 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the resolution of the issue of refugees,’ Haniyeh said, referring to the year of Middle East war in which Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories.” (Haaretz, December 1, 2010) No response from Israel. (By calling for a “resolution of the issue of refugees,” Haniyeh was in accordance with UNGA Res. 194, which calls for financial compensation as a possible option for the Palestinian refugees rather than their "inalienable Right of Return.”)

In its revised Charter, April, 2017, Hamas again agreed to a Palestinian state based on the 4 June 1967 borders. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Israel promptly rejected the Hamas overture instead of using it to open a dialogue.

“Senior Hamas Official: ‘I Think We Can All Live Here in This Land – Muslims, Christians and Jews.’” By Nir Gontarz. March 28, 2018, Haaretz. No response from Israel.

Unfortunately, Israel’s response to every peace overture from the Palestinians, including Hamas, and the Arab states, has been rapidly increasing illegal settlement construction along with escalating dispossession and violent oppression of the indigenous Palestinin inhabitants.

BTW, The “offer” made in 2008 by then Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was never seen as serious because it lacked cabinet approval, he was under indictment with only a few weeks left in office, had a 6% favorable rating, and, therefore, couldn’t have closed the deal, even if the Palestinians had accepted it. (Olmert was imprisoned.)

As for Netanyahu and the Likud party, here’s a brief summation of their positions that are contrary to international law and explain why the conflict continues:

The Likud Party Platform:
a. “The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.”
b. “Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem”
c. “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”
d. “…. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.”

Furthermore:
As the respected human rights organization Human Rights Watch declared in 2005: "...Israel will continue to be an Occupying Power [of the Gaza Strip] under international law and bound by the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention because it will retain effective control over the territory and over crucial aspects of civilian life. Israel will not be withdrawing and handing power over to a sovereign authority - indeed, the word 'withdrawal' does not appear in the [2005 disengagement] document at all… The IDF will retain control over Gaza's borders, coastline, and airspace, and will reserve the right to enter Gaza at will. According to the Hague Regulations, 'A territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised'. International jurisprudence has clarified that the mere repositioning of troops is not sufficient to relieve an occupier of its responsibilities if it retains its overall authority and the ability to reassert direct control at will."

The International Committee of the Red Cross: "The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, ratified by Israel, bans collective punishment of a civilian population.”

“In practice, Gaza has become a huge, let me be blunt, concentration camp for right now 1,800,000 people” - Amira Hass, 2015, correspondent for Haaretz, speaking at the Forum for Scholars and Publics at Duke University. Hass, an Israeli who has won numerous awards for her reporting, has been covering the region since the early 90s.

"‘The significance of the [then proposed] disengagement plan [implemented in 2005] is the freezing of the peace process,’ Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser Dov Weisglass has told Ha’aretz. ‘And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a [U.S.] presidential blessing [i.e. President George Bush] and the ratification of both houses of Congress.’ Weisglass, who was one of the initiators of the disengagement plan, was speaking in an interview with Ha’aretz for the Friday Magazine. ‘The disengagement is actually formaldehyde,’ he said. ‘It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.’" (Top PM Aide: Gaza Plan Aims to Freeze the Peace Process, Ha’aretz, October 6, 2004)

Protests and Success

Q: How many of the worldwide mass protests that started in 2019 will not end in tears?

A: Probably not any, for the masses of people in or not in the protests.  For elite coupsters, the ones that succeed, may seemingly work out well for a few minutes or days for THEM.  But by and large, in terms of achieving the better outcomes many yearn for, mass chaotic protests which merely proclaim the regime must go are a good way to set the clock backwards, not forwards.  Many of these "protests" are in fact heavily backed by outsiders or oligarch themselves (Hong Kong is the clearest example), but that's probably not a needed factor in failure.

The main factors (and the requirements for successful movements for positive change are)

1) Truth

2) Disgust (at the status quo)

3) Vision (shared view of desired future)

4) Organization (somebody has to be able to say "yes", "when", and "how").   And this organization should resemble the vision of change desired (be transparent, democratic, etc).

5) Culture (we must laugh, cry, dance, and sing)

6) Love (for everyone)


Rarely do modern protests go beyond #2.

Now, even without all the details right, non-violent organized protests, or protests which manage to stay (themselves) non-violent despite lack of central organization, are good practice.  And practice makes perfect.

But Violent Protests are anywhere and always the path to fascism, which can arrive quite quickly.

Aaron Mate on Brennan

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/11/15/the_brennan_dossier_all_about_a_prime_mover_of_russiagate_121098.html

Capturing the Party is an Important Goal

For Progressives, Capturing the Democratic Party Is More Important Than Beating Trump

By Ted Rall

November 8, 2019 

I'm largely in agreement with Rall here, however I see a few conceits.

It's a good story perhaps, but there is no evidence given (or probably existant) that Bernie primary voters didn't vote for Hillary in sufficient measure to affect the general election, let alone people who did anything more than just vote for Bernie.*

I'm not so sure about lame duck presidents going after bankster-popular goals.  THAT is when the bad stuff like that happens, because nobody is paying attention.  That's when Clinton did the most damage to the New Deal regulation of banks (though killing AFDC had come in his first term).

There is zero evidence impeachment would be any easier in 2021, even if there are a few more Democratic Senators amidst a Trump re-election (which itself would tend to work against having more than a few, I would think).

Strangely, mid-stream, he makes it unclear why HE actually supports Bernie.  I share that ambiguity.  I'd like a more anti-Imperial president also, and Gabbard seems a step or two closer to that, maybe (voting history and some words on Israel notwithstanding).  But at this point, Gabbard is almost like (and might well become, many believe) a third party candidate.  If the Democratic candidate is Biden, Harris, or Booker, I'd vote for her in that role, but not against Bernie or Warren because I think then she'd be a spoiler.

The press keeps covering it up by omission, but Bernie leads in many critical places and against Trump in particular.

And that's important.  We could win, defeating "moderate" Democrats for the first time since 1948 and have the Party of FDR again!!!

Sadly, not the antiwar Party of Henry A. Wallace or even Tulsi Gabbard--that will take greater efforts, for which I don't yet see enough general Disgust yet--though there should be.  The powerful hold of RussiaGate, the wholesale acceptance of Imperial narratives on Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, Bolivia, Israel/Palestine and Hong Kong--with varying weaknesses even on the left--shows how far we are from breaking through with the full Antiwar agenda as expressed here and across a left-right spectrum of legitimate antiwar sites and authors.  Back in the day, Wallace couldn't even win the rigged VP selection and had to run as a third party, and got 2.4% of the vote as a third party candidate.  Hopefully people have become more antiwar since then, but look at those narratives again, we don't seem there yet.

Bernie hasn't foresworn Imperialism with as much vigor as Gabbard, but he's far different in that regards than LBJ, the previous progressive Democrat (Carter, Clinton, and Obama were all "centrists").  Bernie has said many good things and even written good foreign policy bills (including the one on Yemen, which got vetoed).  I believe he would move the ship of state in a better direction as quickly as it can be done.

(*To get very technical, the real question is what difference the Bernie candidacy made in 2016--were there enough people who would have voted Hillary if Bernie had not even run to have made the difference in getting Trump an Electoral College victory?  This may be a smaller set than Bernie-leaning-voters because some Bernie-leaning-voters might never have voted for Hillary in any case...so their "loss" because of Bernie's candidacy doesn't count against (or for, depending on your perspective) the Bernie candidacy wrt Trump's victory.  This question is also unanswerable, but could have been discovered or may yet be approximated with careful examination of polls.  I suggest that even if there were studies showing the "Bernie" voters not voting for Hillary to have made the difference, the standard I'm proposing is even harder  and probably would not have been met in that case.  Deep State rigging like the Comey October Surprise made far more difference, and show the Deep State's weirdly conflicting goals as I have elaborated, but proves one thing, they weren't acting consistently against Trump getting elected if at all.  And one more thing: the Deep State always counts the votes, and especially if there are machines.  So, don't blame or credit Bernie for the Trump victory.  It was as much a DeepState victory as any previous one, but now,  with Mud Wrestling 24/7, just what the DeepState ordered, because of course it's the perfect distraction.)

Comment on Impeachment

Rank and file Democrats seem to be doing a lot of magical thinking here.  First, convicting Trump would require a 2/3 Supermajority in the Senate which has a Majority of Republicans.  The partisanship shown in the impeachment, ignoring Biden's crimes, and the arguably unconstitutional operation of CIA officials, following on the trail of the RussiaGate fabrications, lies and hyperbole are not going to win any Republican friends in the Senate.  We already know the outline of UkraineGate, and it hasn't changed anyone's mind.  What remains to be done is to prove what the President intended and when he intended it.  Intent is as always is near impossible to prove, and so this can drag on forever (which must be the plan).  All the theatrics and hyperbole keeps people wrapped to their newsfeeds but most likely isn't going to change the mind of a single Republican Senator--who probably don't even care if the President's intent was to benefit his own campaign with crude extortion.  The intent of the investigation demanded has already, can and will always be framed by Republicans as serving a deep need for justice in Ukraine (which it could even be, theoretically, if done towards proving how the coup in Ukraine started, but it's implausible even Trump would go there, and there is no evidence either).  And the claim that this endangered US Security is absolute balderdash--we should be stopping the military "aid" everywhere (Ukraine, Syria, Israel, Egypt) anyway to quit endangering US security with such imperial intrigues.  Curiously Obama refused to send the military aid to Ukraine altogether during the last years of his administration.  And now, the current Ukrainian President is even more interested in making Peace.

Electing a lot more Democratic Senators would be a good thing, but numerically it's not any easier than just electing a Democratic President, and no way are we going to get to 2/3 Democrats in the Senate.  And this highly partisan issue probably isn't going to help elect new Democratic Senators anyway, it's just the same old hyperpartisanship which most who are not solid blue despise.  It would be more likely to Lose close races for Democrats, the same races Democrats might win by opposing actual Trump policies and failures and proposing popular policies, like Medicare for All instead.

And then, most rank and file Democrats, like me, wouldn't even necessarily prefer Pence.  Nothing in the docket here relates to Pence at all.  But most seem to magically feel Impeachment would remove Pence also (most I've talked to do) with no plausible justification.  Somehow, it will just happen, Trump and Pence with one Impeachment.

Somewhere, there have to be some people who are not thinking magically about all this.  And their goal must be something different, which I'm pretty sure is far more about Controlling Trump, making sure he wouldn't be tempted to make peace anywhere, and also helping to get him re-elected because he is so easy to control.  That must be what the Deepstate is actually doing.

Yep, that's it, it's all about controlling and re-electing Trump, not removing him.  Democrats do have a solution to that--select the candidate with the most intense appeal to both partisans and non-aligned voters: Bernie Sanders.  That would get a lot of new Democratic Senators elected also.  But corporatist DNC would rather lose than do that.

Mifsud

Mifsud was a very duplicitous asset and/or agent of British and/or US intelligence who was trying to entrap the Trump coffee boy Papadopoulos by offering him sugar plum fairies.

All Russiagate Roads Lead To London As Evidence Emerges Of Joseph Mifsud's Links To UK Intelligence

All Russiagate Roads Lead To London As Evidence Emerges Of Joseph Mifsud... Elizabeth Vos Thanks to corporate press' overzealous attempts to paint Mifsud at the center of the Trump-Russia scandal, the r...

It's another example of spooks and/or FBI trying to entrap the Trump campaign in one way or another from 2015 onwards.  In NOT ONE instance was the Trump campaign seeking foreign assistance--it was various US/UK intel assets trying to entrap the Trump campaign to prove collusion with Russia.  Every one of these assets would have been sure this would produce a more lucrative job after Hillary got elected.  

How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election

How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election The evidence is plain---there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of fore...

But the fix was in.  Like "The Producers," Hillary had made too many promises to insiders.  She HAD to lose, in fact, that was the plan all along.  (I have little evidence for this, but MANY people are thinking it now, and Hillary made so many unforced campaign errors it seems possible.  Towards the end, it was becoming unclear if she wanted to win, or maybe just see how close she could cut it without making any substantive campaign promises to voters, just simply trashing her opponent.)  The Deep State feared not Trump, in fact kinda preferred him,  except that he might unravel some of the carefully crafted military stalemates around the world involving Russia.  But they had the developed the perfect means to keep Trump on the Imperial WWIII trajectory.  They had better means to control Trump than they had to control Hillary.  AND, as a side benefit, these new means would turn all Democrats into Russia hating neocons like Hillary, WHERAS if Hillary had been elected, the opposite trend would have been hard to stop.  And for these purposes, all these assets would be getting new jobs after all.  Lose, Win, Win!

Just to be clear, I'm not saying Hillary wanted to lose.  It was the deep state that had collectively made that decision, and she almost certainly probably already knew well before it happened.  (So, her decisions not to sweat it, at the last minute.)  It was certainly clear by the time that Comey made his last pre-election statement.  I've always felt that to have been certainly more influential than Russia ever did, and probably anything the already brewing Russia hacking and collusion theory had done in the opposite direction.  But that's ignoring the #1 source of deepstate control: the media--who was giving endless attention to Trump.

But nevermind, keep watching the show.  We're paying for it.

Predicting Violence?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614568/predicting-organized-conflict-ensemble-modeling-ethiopia-ahmed/

Ring up the CIA and see what they have planned.  That gets you to about 70%.

Everything else is superficial charting, which economists proved long ago doesn't work.  It will miss the worst when you needed it the most (e.g., banking collapses of 1990 and 2007).  Prediction schemes that work the best are also their own best undoing, by breeding complacency.  However, I don't imagine it working well enough to get off the ground in this case.

And what were you planning to do with this information, anyway???  Possibly something to set off self-fufilling prophecy of violence?  Possibly delaying something useful until it's too late?

More and more I read technology is becoming Orwellian.  Like the automated "fact checking" I saw at IEEE last month.

Perhaps better that violence NOT be predictable, all the better to keep elites quaking in their guccis and not whipping as hard.

UkraineGate, RussiaGate, and CIAGate

Why is the CIA/Media hiding (in plain sight) the whistleblower Ciaramella?  Because he's a partisan hack mole committed to a particular hawkish foreign policy his boss may not be, and colluded with all the key players in concocting the fake RussiaGate stories in 2016 (Brennan, Chalupa, etc) and beyond.

After all the BurismaGate revelations (Biden withholding $1B until Shokin who was investigating Burisma was fired) is it possible Biden gets elected?  NOT A CHANCE.  (Absolutely no doubt here!)  At best, he's a stand-in for someone else.

Why has John Solomon been turned into an Enemy of the CIA/State in the CIA/Media?  Because he exposed the Biden/Burisma connections the CIA/Media has been trying to suppress, and which have been validated/extended by others.

Does this episode expose the unelected CIA unconstitutionally running the country through the media, moles, and deep state?  Yes.

PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Impeachment Pantomime