Whirlwind

Present events, reporting by Russiagate debunkers on Twitter, and commentary by Russians and RT.com suggests indeed that Putin wants chaos in the USA (as friends had unsuccessfully tried to convince me for years--I falsely assumed he wanted stability, social progress, and respect for his detachment)  and buys speech to that effect at least.  They all take great pains to defend the attempted coup and greatly disparage the de-platforming of Trump.  As if the continuation of a Constitutional republic in the USA is more against their wishes than not.  I had always understood Putin to be a Nationalist leader, not a Communist one (the CPSU is more in line with the CPUSA in these matters, I believe...and the CPUSA calls for immediate impeachment and de-platforming of Trump) but never has the divergence been so clear.*

So it's no longer "St. Putin" for me.  But not that we don't do a lot worse to them.

I've unfollowed a lot of people and started thinning my subscriptions too.  I've unfollowed unconditional opponents of the de-platforming of Trump like Michael Tracy and Dan Cohen.  I cut TheGrayZone, which had for too long mixed a bit of useful with the highly divisive...the latter especially through Dan Cohen.  MoonOfAlabama still seems too useful not to follow.  Glenn Greenwald still seems to have sufficient nuance, barely, though I have little respect for him anymore, and and I don't think I've had the heart to unfollow Caitlin Johnstone yet, who still occasionally has a good quip.  I had little reason to dump on my longtime favorite Aaron Mate, but then he seemed to have disappeared from my Twitter feed after I made a comment regarding Jimmy Dore...who he likes and I loath most of all.  I eye with dismay the increasing number of open right wingnuts and trots at ConsortiumNews...which I think has fallen in quality greatly since the passing of Robert Parry (Parrotofsky?  I still most highly respect him, but I've always been sure he had Russian sources among others, I see that as necessary.  Somehow, though, he always struck the right balance, unlike any of his successors.  Comparing Parry and Caitlin Johnstone is like comparing Walter Cronkite and Maureen Dowd.)  Based on their useful coverage this week, I was planning to subscribe to my up until last week most hated "liberal" digest DailyKos because they've all of a sudden become very useful, and I even turned on NBC this Saturday (as background video while reading online) though I could still never imagine getting a service for MSNBC, or listening to Rachel Maddow any longer than Jimmy Dore.

I'm willing to re-negotiate the "marketplace of ideas" too, though I'm still strongly against censorship of ideas, I think the problem is that social media and things like it maybe not the same as books, need some kind of "fairness doctrine" and other regulation like old fashioned broadcast media.  There may be a billion channels online, but there's a strong winner-take-all effect, people live in detached universes.  Books, which are fundamentally more limited, more like windows than alternate universes, I would not restrict more than now.

This wouldn't eliminate things like books on Q-Anon.  But I think it would reduce cult formation which froths and foams from social media in particular.  And something like the "fairness doctrine" should be restored to broadcast radio and TV.  I envision a transparent, democratic process to generate the best possible "replies" to people hearing cult forming theories like Q-Anon and Trump's "I won big but they stole it from me."  People would have to engage those somehow, such as a daily question.

In the meantime, and perhaps foreseeable future, censorship of people like Trump--who incite violence and terror--on social media is warranted.  Perhaps even the current privately owned monopolies with their rules and skin in the game  is a workable answer to that, though I still prefer a public social media system.

Significant changes in my outlook in one week.  Any alleged 12 dimensional chess player as Putin is sometimes alleged to be, or Trump by his followers, should have realized it would all play out just like this...assuming the attempted coup failed--which was likely giving relative lack of CIA assistance.  It would inevitably end up discrediting Trump and everyone who has ever defended him in any way...and even those who didn't denounce him quickly enough.  It would even cast a possibly unwarranted pall of suspicion around those who defended him for years against false charges like Russiagate--who should immediately grok that they need to split hairs very carefully.  (And especially, those who still do defend him and protest his de-platforming.)  As the saying goes, When you go for the King (in this case Congress), be sure to kill him.  And we should beware, it's not over yet, and may never be over, this is the recurring ghost of 1861.  But in Trump's mind, if you could call it that, it was going to be a big success, so no worry.  This was obviously, clearly, Trump in every way, not some scheme he was pulling off for the benefit of Democrats.  He telegraphed that he was going to do this for months (which I didn't believe...I didn't think he could be that stupid) and then he did.  Meanwhile, the ultimate conspiracy version, that Trump was in cahoots with CIA, Democrats, and Everyone to create a pretext for Social Media Censorship, is utterly implausible.  Trump in fact must have really lost his marbles to go through with this at all--given the likely damage to his high priced brand.  Anyone with a pea brain could see it was utter treason the moment they started battling with Capitol Police on the steps of the Capitol.  Trump, watching it on TV, should have immediately ordered a halt to it then and there--or be in explicit breach of his oath to defend the US Constitution.  At that point they were no longer "protestors" but treasonous insurrectionists he had organized and whipped up and therefore in no small way responsible for.  And they weren't told to just protest either, but to "be strong" and change the vote...not leaving it to the Congress to fulfill their Constitutional Duty to certify the election, and to consider all legal objections without interference.  Anyone having personal responsibility would not have done what Trump did, unless they wanted it to turn into a violent treasonous insurrection.  If he intended a peaceable protest, he should have, in fact, followed the "protestors" as he said he would do, perhaps directing non-violent expressions from the center of the crowd.  All of the left and progressive protests I've been involved with explicitly rule out violence, and are clear about what exactly we are going to do.  But Trump, seems to have left it to a motley army of well known terror and hate groups to carry out their treasonous plans, which he had every reason to believe they would, given the rhetoric of "stealing the election" he was pumping out which would justify it, and his constant "love" for such groups.  Putin should have known way beforehand the optics would not be good, and been tweaking his media empire in preparation--that is, if he was not all for chaos in the USA  in the first place, and sufficiently to not care about probably looking very bad.

January 6th 2021 was the day Trump, Putin and useless trotskyist left and right commentators in the USA showed their true colors.  Chaos, Fascism, and Mob Rule in the USA seem just fine to them.**

And, for what it's worth, the day I seriously began to rethink the need for Social Media regulation, and readjust my subscriptions now that, at least for the moment, debunking and contextualizing anti-Russia warmongering conspiracy theories has disappeared from the top of the agenda, and promoting and defending positive potential in the new government are.  The best I've found so far continues to be Sirota's Daily Poster.   But not to say I'm completely ending my support of the Russia demonization debunking crew, but selecting only those who remain nuanced and/or valuable sufficient to offset their trot tendencies.  And I'm viewing progressive liberal media as more OK, subject to similar considerations.  DemocracyNow, for example, is returning to the top of the pile.

(*People wrongly associate Communists as calling for "violent overthrow" of the government.  What Communists call for is the continued expansion of democracy to all spheres of life (aka Socialism).  Lenin came to power with democratic victory, then was immediately opposed with the violence of the ruling class.  Much more often, it is ultra right wing segments that seek the violent overthrow of the state--and for the sake of limiting democracy to their race.  Nationalists ultimately seek the replacement of Democracy in the name of the People by and for the bourgeosie with Dictatorship of the most criminal bourgeosie in the name of God's Chosen People.  Non-white people I know (though sadly not all non-white people) get this in less than one second.  They don't need any explanation--or videos--to know what Trumpism is all about.)

(**Trotsky himself may have had legitimate quarrels with Stalin.  Though I think the "revolution in one country" critique of USSR is stupid and useless.  But as the 20th century proceeded, Trotsky and his direct and indirect followers became more committed to anti-Communism (that is, anti-USSR) than Socialism.   Some even re-formed as the conservative Neocon movement.   Generally, Trotskyists and Trotskyites are uber criticial of every detail of really existing people's movements, and say you should abandon those (such as voting in bourgeois elections, or working with Democrats or Communists) and simply join Trotskyists tomorrow for their general strike (where you might meet 2 other Trotskyists if you're lucky).  One wonders if they are merely insane or paid for by the worst of the bourgeois who need to keep the worst part of the bourgeois above the better.   Real Communists try to bring all the people's groups together...because that's what we're going to need.  But you can't do much with Fascists.  Fascism appears to be some kind of social disease--growing out of isolation, racism and unbalanced education--which must mitigated if not eradicated with better education, socialization, and social media.  The Capitol Insurrectionists could not have had a very good understanding of US Constitutional principles, for example.  Fascism thrives when there is economic or social alienation, but it doesn't represent the whole of the economically alienated population, but the portion who work live and work in greater isolation, such as clans.  Therefore they lack proletarian class consciousness...and aren't uniformly from the proletarian class either.  Their consciousness, is of a lost empire, which they falsely imagine their great grandparents being coddled by, rather than in fact having been sacrificed for.  The past they claim to be living for was not known by their great grandparents who would have surely been happy to take their place in a more modern world.  But for such false histories, they forever wish to rebuild their lost emperor.  Peculiarly ambitious and unscrupulous con artists, swindlers, and mobsters are more than willing to step up to the job, and give them what they want, by taking the common from many others and the future from all, with an extra large share going their own clan.  See The 18th Brumaire by Marx.  Ahh, but the Democratic Party isn't a "people's movement" (it's a bourgeois party) the Trots will chime in.  No, but it is curiously manned at nearly all levels, save the very top in Congress, with proletarians and petty bourgeois.  If you include all its voters--it is quite representative of at least the urban proletariat.  It is where the people are.  And within it, the most progressive elements seek substantive reforms that Communists participate with organizing.  One of the key things...is that it does in fact have majorities, sometimes, in Congress.  Not, for example, zero members, like many Trot and splinter parties.  Therefore, the Democratic Party can actually make laws, and it's not the Fascist party, so therefore all working people should be work through the Democratic Party.   Marxist-Leninists don't see much advantage in multiple electoral parties anyway.  It's primarily a way to funnel corporate cash to defeating anyone who doesn't most follow the corporate line.  We don't need a second Party for people of greater sociopathic tendencies. to enable them to do that.  In fact, the often falsely hallowed Founders of the USA didn't like or want parties either...but parties quickly developed, so one could defend Slavery more.  The contest should then properly be "the Primary," where each individual can make their own cases according to their own conscience, and not necessarily towing some peculiar slant to apply to a specific set of morons that THAT particular party has targeted in recent history.  Sure, in many cases people may find themselves at odds with establishment organs (say, the DNC) but those organs should be made to follow rules that are fundamentally fair.  Nobody in my mind has made a fair argument that the single surviving party should be the Republican Party, and by now it ought to have shown itself to be completely discredited.  Marx and Engels are completely clear in the Communist Manifesto that they favor the most progressive party that has large popular support, typically precisely a bourgeois party.  But Trots never seem to have read these lines.  Meanwhile, if the only difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party was that the former believes that women have abortion rights, and the latter doesn't, it would still be crucial to vote for the Democratic Party, and in fact this remains true even if by some miracle the Republican Party were actually the more socialist Party...we refuse to give up our rights as bargaining chips.  Trots and splinter parties are always pointing to the more effective imperialism of the Democratic party, which is simply because they are more competent at everything except winning elections in a deeply dysfunctional electoral system designed to give morons controlling power--to maintain slavery, etc.   Democratic Voters are far more inclined to believe in downsizing the military...where The Military is often a big part of the lives of Republican voters.  I wouldn't trust Republican to reduce Military spending, or Wars, though they might be lucky if they avoided starting new ones given their greater tendency to tear up treaties and saber rattle.)