Sean Connery and James Bond

Sean Connery has died.

Sean Connery was an acting genius, activist for Scottish nationalism, charmer, and tough (too often having been cheated) business partner.  I respect him.  I haven't seen many of his movies, but I've seen endless clips of him on TV.

I have complicated feelings about James Bond.  The movie Thunderball came out when I was 9, and I saw it on my birthday and it somehow failed to impress much and I was more impressed a few years later by James Coburn's Flint--which recently I've started re-viewing without disappointment...as I grew up I felt Bond was the inferior other-peoples-icon...I had similar feelings about Johnny Carson who I thought the inferior lowbrow version of Dick Cavett).

Subsequent to the 60's, Sean Connery's bond became legendary.  And perhaps even in part because times had moved on, but the character not so much.  Though no doubt, Connery was a genius at this role.  As he admitted later in life, all his roles represented much of his core as a person.  I would call it rogue.  He's the slick operator, who instead of sneaking from behind to pick your wallet or steal your heart, walks right out in front and distracts you with his casually brilliant hamming.  And you would tend to hope, he wouldn't take your wallet or heart unless you needed it taken.

But the character Bond was cast in a fake cold war drama.  In which the cunning and evil were opposed to us ("the free world"--aka western empire), the slow thinking but honorable people.  But we had Bond, who had just enough bad boy to turn the tables on the evil and cunning enemy.

Not exactly an inversion of the truth, but certainly a simplification.  It was indeed our bad boys vs theirs.

Nevertheless, Bond, and especially Connery's Bond, became a cult, a legend, and much more.  Seeing endless comparison clips, it was obvious how much cooler Connery's Bond was than all the replacements. Few seemed to ask other questions.

I was very looking forward to seeing Bond's Goldfinger at a special screening organized by Texas Public Radio at a major cinemaplex 15 years ago.  I was beginning to think my animus toward Bond series as a whole was that I was the unlucky kid who never got to see Goldfinger.  I had seen Thunderball, but that wasn't the real magic one.  Having been left behind, I worshipped an alternate.

As I drove up the theater (cutting a bit of work time to go see the movie) a thunderbolt hit the transformer near the cinemaplex, which blew up, and the theaters and the entire surrounding area went dark.  I could see all this happen, and headed home.  It seemed like fate had spoken, and a second time.  I was not supposed to see this movie, it seemed.

So then I bought a copy of DVD of Goldfinger.  I was almost afraid to.  JaAfter sitting around for 10 years, about 5 years ago I finally got around to watching the movie.

I was shocked.  I could hardly bear it.  Even by my forgiving standards, the sexism was over the top.  And that was just the start.  The us-vs-them Imperialism and good-guy-vs-bad-guy simplfication was glaring.  I had to take several sessions to watch the entire move.  But then I should admit, this is true of most movies when I watch them by myself.  I greatly prefer watching movies with other people, who can carry me along emotionally just by sharing the experience.

I intend to have another look again, my standards and tolerances and expectations keep evolving.  I'd long ago started wondering about Dick Cavett too.  But I think it's obvious that Goldfinger is a Cold Warrior Movie, and the whole enterprise is warrior-justification, an in-principle evil.

But that's true of virtually everything, including many other things I like to much to give up, so I don't know.  But my theory now is Connery played Bond when Bond was the most cool, but as society moved on, the character didn't so much, and so it's no wonder that no other actor has been able to do it well either.

But Connery was uniquely gifted in his roguishly charming ways too.  So perhaps making a treat for some to watch his act even if you considered the whole enterprise consummate evil.  This possibility is why I'm still looking forward to re-viewing Goldfinger again someday.

How Obama era CIA bought the Narrative

Stories like this landmark report which truly brings it all together is why I continue to support MoonOfAlabama despite his recurring abominable opinions and often knee-jerk predictions.  However, I admit, it took me awhile to decide to support him.

 

Alternative Media Exposed?

Mainstream media, such as the New York Times, and even, mostly, The Intercept, have been exposed as manufacturing consent shills for the endless promotion of the evidence free Russiagate conspiracy theory.

Now, strangely, a reverse thing is happening.  Long time self-proclaimed antiwar journalists may be exposing themselves as a different kind of manufacturing consent shills for the endless promotion of the relatively trivial Hunter Biden allegations.  This includes MoonOfAlabama, Glenn Greenwald, Caitlin Johnstone, and many others.

This is ultimately about Garden Variety corruption, in which by one means or another Hunter picks up $50,000 or whatever here or there.  I frankly don't care about such things.  I have never spent more than a minute watching Rachel Maddow or others on MSNBC talk about Trumps infinite dealings here or there either, even when there might have been some facts to back them up (which is possible on topics other than the fact-free Russiagate).  I wish journalists would stop obsessing about such things, but they do because they can get a lot of attention, ("dirty laundry") and steer it what every way they want, because of course the entire establishment, even capitalism itself, is based on corruption.  So all you have to do is look exclusively to one side or another to use corruption to steer your audience away from one side and towards another.   The corruption is everywhere, that's not an issue in this election, or any other, or of much importance to making progress vs regress to society in general.  Corrupt societies might well advance more than less corrupt societies following stupidly antisocial policies (such as neoliberalism), corruption is a relatively independent factor, compared with degrees of public support and investment and general social policies.

Some of my friends do take these kinds of corruption things seriously.  I don't speak for them, but I suspect they could claim what is likely true...that Trump and his family have been proven to be involved in far more and/or more serious cases of corruption.  Mainstream media will generally reach for doubt rather than context.

By huffing and puffing about these trivial allegations against Hunter Biden, many of my favorite  alternative media reporters are enhancing continued war with China by two means:

1) Possibly helping the Trump administration retain power, by weakening the resolve of many to vote effectively against Trump by voting for Biden, his leading and only relevant rival.  Trump has had China in his sights from day one, hiring an endless series of anti-China (and anti-Iran) hawks.

2) If people like me manage to get Biden elected (which may require aiding the many groups which are trying to do so, rather than merely Biden and the DNC themselves) the continued huffing and puffing about Hunter Biden could in fact help stall peace with China.

Sadly, I have to say, all these fine journalists who I deeply respect as journalists (but not as analysts--that's my job of course) are following in this self-defeating and self-discrediting track.  I'm still giving them the benefit of the doubt as not having been GOP (and/or Russian) shills all along, as I'm sure many long have, but it is clear they don't care if Trump is reelected, Moon has listed that as his slight preference (and prediction), whereas Caitlin and Glenn simply say it doesn't matter.  This is a mark against them all in my book, though I'd say at this point Moon is not replaceable, because he's currently the best journalist I know of (as well as an often crappy analyst and forecaster and anarcho-Trumper).  Caitlin is brilliant occasionally, but highly variable (which led me to quit my patronage) and Glenn is like that too though I think he's more professional and less variable--when edited.  I should have also mentioned Taibbi, he's in this bunch too,  very good writer, but too long winded in his huffing and puffing for me to take much of.

I'll be looking for replacements who are clear anti-Trumpers.  I believe David Sirota and Aaron Mate are in that category.  I would have believed the late Robert Parry to be, though many of the writers at Consortium News, such as Patrick Lawrence, are not.  When edited for Consortium News, generally Trumpism is restrained if not completely hidden.

Note:  I don't think Russia's or Putin's effect on the 2016 or any other US election has been or will be significant.  There is not evidence that it has been, and Putin clearly would not want to appear to be the meddler he well knows the US to be (unlike most Americans, who seem unaware of how much US hac sontrolled Russia and other countries).  However, this is not necessarily to say Putin wouldn't have any preference.  I would believe he has a soft preference for Trump, and China the reverse.  So could Russians be key sources for people I've mentioned here?  Quite possibly, yes.  Do I care about that?  No, I care about the importance, accuracy, relative fairness, and contextuality of the reporting and opinions expressed or implied, not where the facts came from.  But it may require highly professional standards to prevent sources from becoming leans.  We know that's a problem in the mainstream media.

Not all stories that may originate or pass through the hands of Russians are disinformation or the result of unethical operations.  Russians--including Putin--may have a lot of truths to tell, and if some journalist can distill these truths into journalistic reports, even lacking combination with others, that's an asset of some kind.  However full contextualization is important, and that is in principle why a organization of journalists and editors is useful.

There can be a fine line between advocacy and reporting.  To some degree, all reporting is advocacy by selection, merely deciding which stories to tell.  Excessive reporting on unimportant stories is clear advocacy.

Advocacy is fine...for advocates.  Self-proclaimed objective or non-partisan should not be involved in advocacy--even on their own time--because it reduces their appearance and ability to maintain objectivity.  This used to be well understood.  Now it's violated by all, including otherwise exemplary journalists in alternative media.

Taibbi wrote the book on Hate Media.  Now he seems to relish becoming a part of it himself.

I will see if I can add Greenwald and/or Taibbi to my pile of subscriptions I already don't have time for, when they start reporting important stories that need to be reported in their depth.

The truth behind Russiagate was one of those stories, precisely because it was never just about Trump corruption, it was about an alleged justification for endless war with Russia, and a new McCarthyism that painted any skeptics as tools of Moscow.  I could tell from the very beginning that Trump would never be removed, only controlled, as if he needed some such controlling (and not mere insider pressure) to maintain the cold war with Russia.  The National Security State was taking no chances.  Trump might be too big to be pressured (an idea which has been proven false in many cases).

Russiagate was also about destroying the left.  It started as a distraction from the important confirmation that the DNC was strongly working against Sanders.  That real news was immediately drowned out by the fake story that Russia had been behind obtaining that real news, which was essentially irrelevant to the first story even if it was true.  And it would be the illegal activities that Russia engaged in, as opposed to merely assisting a journalistic operation, which would be of some limited interest.  The US has of course engaged in such illegal activities in other countries on a vast scale for decades.  Failing to include that context was also a fault in nearly all Russiagate reporting from the outset.

Biden does deserve calling out whenever he (or anyone else) continues to peddle Russiagate stories, as he has done from time to time.  Trump in some cases rightfully dismisses them.  Fortunately this does not appear to be a big obsession with Biden.  But this kind of thing is so ordinary, it is not big news.  Trump is far more full of fake stories.  I pretty much ignore those too.

Thoughts about ET

Isn't The Earth a fairly desireable chunk of Real Estate for the possibly recently-become-homeless escapees of a cosmic event?

IF there are Extraterrestrial Intelligent Beings, carbon based too (which is likely), and like therefore like us (due to various limits, etc).

That might be the biggest question.

IF there are, then there have to be, at any given time, some displaced and looking for a new nice place (as we might be someday).

AND IF they are reasonable close to us, and capable of traveling near light speed.

THEN they would be looking for a place just like this.

AND what to do about the pesky existing inhabitants... Well that depends a lot on what you consider the fundamental "nature" of such beings, which may be hard to contemplate.

THEY could mix in, unknown to us.  (Possibly the most likely scenario, I think, maybe therefore already could have already have happened a few times--except that they may not be many such possibilities in the past few million years.  In fact, considering this possibility...it could be that's what "homo sapiens" as we know it now is.  A hybrid of ET's that blended in to establish themselves here.)

THEY could take over, blam.

OR they could try to arrange things, so we did ourselves in, saving them the trouble and cleanup.  But in a fairly benign way.  I don't think they'd like the Nuclear Winter option.  Social collapse from excess growth might be fast enough, once again it's hard to know their fundamental nature.  They could be operating from sone distance mostly, out of view, and not in a huge hurry to take the big prize, knowing they have some time before the next such ET.

So that option would entail giving us just the right knowledge.  Knowing too much of some things and too little of others.

I suppose that point is equally likely even without ET orchestration.

Losing leads to More Losing

There's a fundamental problem with trying to make the political system better by not choosing to vote effectively for one of the two potentially winning candidates.  And that is that the winners make the new rules.  So if the "lesser evil" party doesn't win, that alone give it neither capability nor incentive to "reform" by lessening the evil.  The greater evil will further bend the process towards greater evil, and that sets up the next starting points.

"Winning" can also lead to losing, but by a longer term process.  "Stability breeds instability" as Minsky rightly theorized.  But that takes awhile, it takes long enough for the previous instability to be forgotten.

In between, there is some feedback outside the electoral system itself.  Out there in the real world, where, for example, the "winning party" President may find that he has failed to deal effectively with a pandemic.

Neither duopoly party has won enough elections since 1952 to be in the "stability breeds instability" category.  That *might* have been true for 20 years here or there, such as the 20 years from 1932 to 1952, when the Democrats won the Presidency and had solid majorities in Congress

If anything, it's the Republican party which has had "winning stabiiity" since 1968 or so, winning a substantial majority of the Presidential elections since then, in substantial part helped by the institutional anti-progressivism of the Electoral College and Senate.  They have pulled this off despite having lower numbers of voters and activists nationwide, partly with greater assistance from wealth and the deep state, such as Allen Dulles who was instrumental in getting Nixon and Eisenhower elected, as well as JFK removed.

So if anything it is the Republican party which has become lax about how well things are actually going, and instead pushing their fantasies to the extreme, as Trump represents.

But it should not be surprising that there is wealth and power on both sides.  That is the way democracy works, and always has, since the Greeks coined the term.  Power cannot be ignored, it runs the show, always has, always will, and without a plebiscite would do so even more wantonly.  The best that can ever be done to power is to lean on it, divide it, and so on.  When possible, replace one power with a lesser evil one.  But the presence of differential power controlling society is a basic fact which cannot be eliminated--it is in the fundamental nature of things.  And its reduction requires greater equality in wealth and other forms of power.  True democracy is not possible without equality.  The fight for equality must be primary.

Wow! The real (lack of ) appeal of the Third Reich

Social revisionists like Richard Seymour ar engaged in an attempt to make racism seem like the natural state of things.  In such line of thinking, the NAZI regime was enormously popular because of its racist appeals.

The truth is rather different, as Tony Greenstein clarifies: the NAZIs were forced down the throat of the German working class by Industrialists.  In the last 1933 election, the Nazi's popularity was declining, and that of the SPD Socialists and KPD Kommunists was rising.  The terrible problem was that the Kommunists were stupidly following Stalin's orders, and Stalin wanted Hitler to be successful in destroying the West.  So, the local Kommunists and Socialists didn't combine their forces to stop Hitler.  Meanwhile, throughout the regime, the racist crap it was producing had very little traction outside those middle class and above whose incomes were rising.  Workers incomes were not rising, and they were doing more work.

Why the Left hate each other more

 David Graeber knew the feeling well.  So started one of the longest and most interesting tweet threads about this topic.

Comment on David Graeber's Excellent Essay "Despair Fatigue" from 2016

There are endless things to like about this long article by David Graeber in 2016 titled "Despair Fatigue."  He nails so many complex things that are misunderstood almost everywhere else.

What I like best is vivid portrait of Austerity Thinking in Britain and the pervasive mind control media which makes it a lock, when professional Economists, the IMF, and even the Bank of England disagree with austerity, how-much-austerity remains the only thinkable thing in the media, from the Daily Telegraph to the BBC.  (The IMF gave UK a warning to cut out the Austerity thing in 2012.  This never made it through British Media.)

What I like second best is how Graeber reinforces the post-Keynesian view of money creation.  Post-Keynesians have proven than money is created by private banks when they make loans.  Money is therefore created out of debt.  Graeber excellently references this finding, but not well enough that it would convince my goldbug friends.

QUOTE

The divorce between consensus and reality has grown so extreme and unworkable that even the technocrats charged with running the system have started to cry foul. In 2014 the Bank of England—its economists apparently exhausted by having to carry out economic policy in a made-up, topsy-turvy world designed only to benefit the rich—issued a statement on “Money Creation in the Modern Economy” that effectively destroyed the entire theoretical basis for austerity. Money, they noted, is not created by governments, or even central bankers, who must be careful not to make too much of it lest they spark inflation; it’s actually created by private banks making loans. Without debt there would be no money. The post-Keynesian heterodox economists, regularly denounced as a lunatic fringe by those commentators willing to acknowledge their existence, were right.

UNQUOTE

But there's more, way more.  Graeber explains how (in several ways) the British economy actually operates.  In the end, Britain sells out its subservient working class to the global elite.  Which currently means the US global elite.  They know they can have good townhouses and butlers in London, with not even the slightest chance of proletarian revolution. 

Graeber captured the hopeful moment at the beginning of Corbynism when new things seemed possible, and people were thinking out of the box for the first time in generations.  But he also suspected that the likely downfall of Corbyn would be sabotage by the Blairites, though he didn't predict how it would happen (false and endless accusations of anti-semitism).

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/despair-fatigue-david-graeber

Plurality Voting

Plurality Voting is the word I was looking for.  Wikipedia has an excellent introduction.

Also called First-past-the-post voting (FPTP), which has a separate, but very similar, Wikipedia page.

I have always found the etimology of FPTP baffling, because there is no fixed post.  There is no requirement that the winner have an absolute majority or more than 50% of the actual votes, let alone 50% of the votes of the eligible voters.  All that is needed to win is a plurality of the votes actually cast, that is, more votes than anyone else.  (I believe FPTP is a racing metaphor, but it still eludes me.)

I liked the term Winner Take All, but that appears to be reserved for when there is more than one person being elected (so there is an all to take and not just a one), such as a district with more than one seat.  I am unfamiliar with any so strictly defined winner take all districts.

Technically correct synonyms for plurality voting include single-choice voting, simple plurality, relative majority, and   simple majority.

Plurality Voting systems can only be changed by changing the laws which enact them.  This is possible (and has sometimes been done) in US States.  Meanwhile, the voting system for the US President cannot be so easily changed (it would require a constitutional ammendment in which numerous smaller states give up their present advantages for the greater good--and as long as nearly all smaller states don't give up their present advantages, agreements among other states don't do any good either).  But note that the Presidential election is not a strictly defined plurality system either--that's only what many fair minded people would like it to be (compared with the current small-state-biased Electoral College, which was a compromise made at the US Constitutional Convention, primarily to satisfy the fears of Slave States).

Given a single choice, there is no reasonable and reasoned approach to voting other than Tactical Voting--which means compromising your vote by not necessarily voting for the candidate you like most, but voting for one of the two candidates most likely to win.  The Wikipedia pages above describe the considerations involved.

Though this might not always be the case, in the US, in the 2020 Presidential Election (and all other US elections I am aware of) there is no serious question as to which are the two candidates most likely to win.  They are the Democratic and Republican candidates.

Even if we could abolish the Electoral College and replace it with the direct popular election of the US President (as James Madison himself preferred) we would still not eliminate the fact that it is a single choice for which tactical voting considerations apply.  The only way to eliminate the need for tactical considerations on the part of individual voters would be to make the selection of the Chief Executive a job for the legislative assembly--the so-called Parliamentary System.  But that does not eliminate the tactical considerations either, it simply moves them upwards to another body of voters--the members of Parliament (who might have themselves been selected by FPTP means).

The ultimate system for permitting pure choice voting (and not tactical) would seem to be the combination of Proportional Representation for electing legislators combined with the Parliamentary System for selecting the chief executive by the legislative body.  This is in fact the combination which exists in Israel and New Zealand, and it has as many critics as defenders.  It typically results in many small uncompromising parties (reflecting their uncompromising voters) where small parties often appear to have impact far exceeding their voter base.  It often results in dysfunctional coalition governments where parties combine at the executive level because no single party can win, and at the same time, they have no incentive to compromise either.

A longstanding criticism of proportional representation I have heard is that it leads to people being entirely polarized and uncompromising.  Strangely, the US system has also led to a frightening degree of polarization as well, but without the "benefits" of being able to vote for your ideal.

How all these low level political design features relate to the high level corruption of all existing systems, which use mind controlling media and intellectual development systems would require a much longer and deeper essay.  But I don't think it changes the essence of all political systems--compromise.  It only means that given your lack of relative power and wealth, you will have to compromise even more, or get even less.

Many ultra-left voters, defined as those who refuse to vote for the largest "center-left" party, propose that the establishment duopoly is the root of all evil.  Under present circumstances, perhaps it is, but minimizing the requirements for advancement of small political parties is also a leading factor in the rise of the ultra-right, i.e., fascists.  Meanwhile, the parties responsible for the rise of Social Democracy in the 20th century were entirely majoritarian center left parties, not fringe parties at all.  Even Communist governments were not empowered by far left movements, but from majoritarian popular movements.  Trotskyism and the ultra-left generally have no history of success anywhere.  All the better, perhaps, in the eyes of their advocates who do not have to distance themselves from any unpleasant histories, except the singular history of having accomplished nothing.

Hunter

 The latest "bombshell" story about Hunter Biden is really just more of the same old political smearing we've seen from, well, Democrats as well.

Unlike all of the central Russiagate allegations, and compilations of fabrications like the Steele Dossier, the material on the laptop might actually be true stuff.  (Or not.)

But here, even if they are 100% true and authentic, it's a bunch of perfectly predictable crap we'd see with anyone of Biden's height in the apparatus.  Think of what we know about the Trumps.

I certainly don't care if there's a photo of Hunter smoking crack.  I might have done that once.

The problem is more that our political discourse focuses on such crap as this and Russiagate.  Rather than very real concerns about the present and future governance of the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth.

Trump is the far greater danger to the Republic and the Planet.  He must be effectively and decisively voted out, not merely against.  The only way to vote Trump out is to vote for his leading competitor who is Biden.

We know Biden will be better for Abortion and Equal Rights, not stoke white supremacy and other racist and sexist division at home and abroad.  Trump is a far outlier there.  An embarrassment to the modern world.

Biden has a history of helping achieve arms control agreements, of the kind which Trump decided to rip up.  (For that reason, he is endorsed by the longstanding Council for a Liveable World.)  

Biden recognizes rather than discredits Global Warming, and has proposed slightly less ambitious (but still nearly impossible to hope for) goals for reducing net carbon, and a somewhat coherent program.  Leading Global Warming scientist Michael Mann is strongly pushing for Biden, despite not believing in the carbon storage thing.  He says the big deal about fracking is only one detail, we don't necessarily have to ban it to launch a major change from the status quo.  Even the radically outspoken 350.org has endorsed Biden.  

The vast majority of radical political commentators and organizations explicity endorse or clearly prefer Biden to Trump.  As much as was ever true with Obama, maybe more, in the General Election.

Biden doesn't present a perfect program, or a perfect person, but vastly better, jumping over the cliff rather than slowly walking, and hopefully turning.  But with the jump, there is little time or hope.

The Republicans hyped dangers are our impossible dreams.  We can't expect much, we know that, sadly.  But there is still very much at stake.

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Responding to the Ghost of David Graeber

Circulating on Twitter now is a 3 minute segment of David Graeber denouncing centrism.

As a statement of principles, it is fine.  But it is being highly promoted now for one and only one reason.  To discourage people from effectively voting against Trumpian fascism by voting for the only candidate who could defeat him.  Because of that, I made this tweet:

"Trotskyism, not participating in "bourgeois politics" and praying for "The Revolution" to save us, is also a failed ideology.  In 100 years, it has enabled nothing but right wing regimes and fascist dictatorships.  The Communist Manifesto, last section, advises differently." 

Responding to Chris Hedges

He presents not one case where Biden would be worse, and even admits that he hopes Biden will win. He's just not going to "Play their game." Mr Hedges, that game is OUR game, and may determine whether some people survive the next 4 years or not, and under what state of fascism. Unwilling even to tap the rudder to the left or right, he hopes for a general uprising to break down the system through non-violence and civil disobedience. How likely is that to happen on a large enough scale, remain non-violent, and how likely is it to lead to progress vs regress? And with Trump still as President? Actually, I'm afraid I consider Mr Hedges himself part of the "botique" left, the ultra-left which is still very much among us (including some associates of mine and nearly half of the people I follow on Twitter) which refuses to take part in effective collective political action, in exchange for "personal" posturing (I appreciate Hedges' honesty in admitting over and over this is "personal"). This is not at all new, it never goes away, it is what communists like me call "trotskyism," and it leads only to more right wing victories (and many have theories it's financed by the right wing, as has sometimes been proven to be the case).

Chris Hedges, as a reporter, has a special privilege to not even to participate in an election. Indeed it might make it difficult to retain sources, etc. It's a conflict of interests. He could say flatly "I don't personally participate in politics, to remain non-partisan and objective." This is similar to what used to be the case for military officers. But he chose not to invoke his reporter privileges, and instead played out his useless and illogical political arguments for others to follow who are not reporters. Since he has chosen to "participate" in this way, counter-argument is warranted if not demanded.

Hedges was a Divinity student at Harvard long ago and finally ordained as an actual Presbyterian minister in 2015. He wrote a book condemning atheists including Richard Dawkins in 2008 (and condemning atheists was not new for him). As a Christian, he must believe in miracles, and only divine miracles, as our only hope. And also, according to a daring report by Christopher Ketcham, published in the post-Perez The New Republic, in a story that I find very convincing, plagiarism. Here is Hedges' response. I'm thinking I like Christopher Ketcham, his looks like daring reporting.  

Hedges reported for the New York Times for 15 years. Could a real truth teller have done that in the first place??? Certainly the New York Times has never reported on war objectively. Now it is unlikely but not impossible that Hedges was not a party to their Manufacturing Consent bias. But even if he were not, he was contributing to it and allowing it to happen for a long time--and he would be in a position to know this.

Hedges' reports emphasized the ghoulishness of the Serbians (who were imperial enemies the US waged war against, specifically because of their alliance with Russia). Trotskyists frequently focus on criticizing imperial enemies, thereby enabling imperial wars. Trotskyist portrayals are idealist and lacking context and comparison.  

So after a decade and a half enabling war at the Times by selectively castigating imperial enemies, he moves on to becoming a pompous and pretentious (actual reviews) Antiwar writer, while discounting the utility any progressive forces actually in government. Our only hope is a miracle (a good non-violent but sufficiently massive mass revolution). Is he organizing this, or merely praying for it? (See note 7 below.)

And then after himself enabling the rise of Donald Trump by denouncing Democrats generically and in particular for decades, he then moves on to blaming Democrats for Trump.

Meanwhile, I have little to complain about vetted reports by Chris Hedges, such as this one in Consortium News. I agree completely that the religious right is full of dangerous extremists who are getting more and more control of government. I only wonder, however, how much any variety of Christianity has done to oppose elite systems of power and wealth (of which, generally, it has been a part).  

So Hedges' reporting can be factual, but his analysis may have blind spots. For analysis, since I first heard him in 2001, I'm going with Chomsky (just after my 3rd and last ineffective-vote), who reiterates that the lesser evil is the greater good.

In the past, Chomsky has suggested that in non-Swing-states, one could vote "conscience". However, in this election, we may not know what the swing states are, and it is no good to take any chances, especially having a President who has threatened to ignore the election and has many armed folks on his side. Trump needs to be denounced big at the polls.

Despite frequent libertarian or even not-a-Trumper posturing, when election day rolls around, Republicans know about winning. Only on the lefter side is there much ado about this.

Notes:

1. I am not disputing that we will need "miracles," or low probability events, to save us. This should not be surprising, as it appears a large number of low probability events led to our existence in the first place. The question is, how can we enable such miracles, or can we? Do we try to enable them ourselves, by moving, as best we can (imperfectly), toward what appear to be reasonable solutions using a scientific approach? Or do we focus on our own righteousness, including especially our faith in God, and leave the dirty work to God ?

2.  I agree with Hedges regarding the utopianism of some atheists, including Dawkins.  But as many reviewers point out, this is not generically true of all atheists.  And then there is the particular kind of supernatural utopianism built in to Christianity that fills the same comforting role.  Hedges uses a broad brush against atheists, not unlike the broad brush he uses against Democrats--he claims Bernie Sanders is a fake progressive water carrier for centrist corporate Democrats, a meme which has quite a bit of traction on the far left, and contributes to our democratic dysfunction.  I see Sanders as doing nearly everything right, including especially withdrawing from the race as soon as it became clear he could not win.  That was precisely what a good person should have done, but is now used to defame Sanders in far too many accounts I read endlessly on Twitter.  And meanwhile, it seems to garner no fame for Sanders among Centrists either, who would say he should never have primaried Biden in the first place.

3.  Given the design of the US republic, 3rd parties (often called splinter parties in Communist discourse) are worse than useless.  The far left splinter party  may help defeat the center right splinter party, and the far right splinter party may help defeat the center right party.  And that's all.  There is no magic ledger where the splinter party votes are applied to ongoing struggles in designing legislation.  They are pretty much ignored after Election Day.  Until a splinter party actually gets a member in Congress, the Presidency, or the Court, it has no substantive effect other than being a spoiler.  Now, once in a great while, a major party collapses and may be replaced by a former splinter party.  This does not happen often, and the chance of it happening this year are near infinitely small.  If there were a reasonably credible chance a minor party could win and become the new major party, then and only then might it be worth voting for a splinter party.

4.  Chomsky's fully objective and rational argument that the lesser evil is another way of describing the greater good remains absolutely true, despite endless subjectivist rants against it.  While subjectivists will never accept this, their argument amounts to saying eh, I won't touch that slime.  While that's not an unreasonable reaction, it is a completely wrongheaded on every other level.  With a moment's thought, to save someone else's life, one may have to touch slime for awhile, and if it would save someone's life, we must do so.

Yes, indeed, even if the choices were Hitler or Mussolini, one should get out and vote if not campaign heartily for Mussolini for the sake of fewer deaths, if nothing else.

We are responsible of the consequences of our actions, including the relative badness or goodness of their outcomes.  We are responsible for inaction as well as action, if the inaction were something any fair minded person could do, and would do in full examination of the likely outcomes.

The history of voting may not have accomplished much, but the history of non-voting, or non-effective voting, has not accomplished anything, and campaigns that encourage non-effective-voting may have done worse--such as bequeathing us some of our worst Presidents, including George W Bush--now retrospectively even being praised (in comparison with Trump) by Hedges himself.  (My view is that GWB, the author of two major wars based on lies, was the worst US President ever, though there are many other bad examples, and even the best US President ever--FDR--was defective in very many ways, but still worth voting for every single time.)

5.  I have myself many times failed to vote effectively.  By strange coincidence, each time I did this the result far exceeded my worst expectations.  I neglected to vote in 1980, and as a result we got the Reagan Revolution which finally upended the New Deal World I thought I was going to live in.  I voted for (and gave some financial support to) Nader in 2000, and as a result we got the worst President in US history.  That was the event which forced me to reach the conclusions Chomsky has always promoted.  But even in 1996 I voted for a splinter party candidate instead of Clinton.  And Clinton won anyway.  But rather than reforming Clinton, pressuring him back towards the left, it seemed to bring out the worst in both Republicans and Democrats for the next 4 years, as if I had abandoned my chair at the table and a food fight ensued.  Notably it was during his second term that Clinton finally destroyed the last two banking reforms of the New Deal era.

6.  That made it clear to me.  The way to make the political process better is through using it effectively for that purpose, including voting effectively, and also pressuring government effectively (which is one way of being a part of it).  And effective means making material--even if small--changes for the better.  That is never accomplished by walking away from the existing major political parties, unless in the process of creating a new major political party.

It's a worthwhile bonus, therefore, that participating with the lesser evil party almost certainly helps keeps doors open to influence it better.  Affinity works better than disaffinity in politics, and life in general.

Given the opportunity, a person should even join a greater evil government if they believe they can influence it for the better.  But that's not something we can expect any fair minded person to be able to do.

7.  In organizing a revolution--for tomorrow--it is not possible to get far without participating in real struggles for the day.  Getting some relief, however incomplete, through the lesser evil.  Reform and Revolution are not incompatible, they are partners.  This is the thinking of one of the most successful revolutionaries of all time: Vladimir Lenin.

Populism, Progressivism, and Neoliberalism

An amazing thread of discussion at Ian Welsh's blog by Tony Wikrent.

I'll try to summarize:

The original 19th century Populism was a good thing, at least in part, as it represented the mass interests then being dominated and hugely exploited by the ruthless capitalism of the late 19th century.  But elites did not like it at all, and it was also somewhat hobbled by a lack of a full Marxian analysis (my take).

Progressivism was the reaction to Populism manufactured by the Professional and Managerial Classes (PMC) to displace Populism, and was a ruling ideology in the USA from the early 20th century to the rise of Neoliberalism (which began in 1966 when Reagan became governor of California and began dismantling the Progressive Free Education State created by the preceding Progressive governments).

Now a faux Populism has emerged as a tool of oppressing classes the original Populism opposed.

Discussion of this and much more in the linked article.

However the author's POV is itself limited by a dismissive anti-Marxianism.  Wikrent uncritically quotes from another Welsh poster Stirling Newberry who says:

"One can look at numerous Marxian ideas. They have a different irrefutable logic which is also wrong but to argue from 1st principles as to why it is wrong would take a dissertation."

(In other words, he's not going to try.  Good riddance with him then.)

My interpretation is that unless Populism (or anything that pretends to be its successor) is fully grounded in Marxist or at least Marxian principles, it will become useless.

So, thus to Wikrent/Newberry/Welsh.  But interesting to read nonetheless.

Update: I tried to comment on another thread at Ian Welch's blog.  I was given a captcha to enter.  The captcha box would not accept letters, but the code contained two letters.  So I could not get my comment posted.  I do in fact wonder if this is purely coincidental (such as because I am using Safari browser).  If not coincidental, it would be consistent with the theory that this blog is "3rd way" neoliberalism in sheep's clothing, which does not want to recognize the existence of Communism, a word (and theory) which appeared in my comments.