Of Course Putin Is A Killer. So Is Biden.

Putin just challenged Biden to a televised debate on one condition – that it be live. LOL

Checkmate

Can anyone provide info on a question I’ve had for a while: how does the percentage of Soviet residents in the gulag in the 1930s compare to the percentage of American residents in prison over the last twenty years or so?

A bit ironic that a major reason Putin is in power is because America decided to “shock therapy” Russia. This was accomplished by interfering in Russia’s elections to help a psychopath win. Americas “shock therapy” followed a worse economic depression than the Great Depression and caused Russian life expectancy to fall by around 5 years in the 1990’s. This isn’t surprising since psychiatric shock therapy consist of causing brain damage and claiming the more docile stupored person is “healed”.

Russian under Putin has done a lot better than Russian under Americas shock therapy, however Putin’s Russia is a oligarchy where wealth and power are held by a select few and the masses suffer. Perhaps if Russia didn’t have the worse depression and life expectancy drop in modern history before Putin gained power his approval wouldn’t be so high among Russian people.

@Hugh

“The guy who keeps refusing to bend over for NATO is poisoning relations with the West smh.”

Bernie and Corbyn are leaders who were not willing to make the kill when it was necessary. They’re chumps who lead their followers to the slaughter.

1. A scary enemy is needed to justify Empire, not to mention sky high military and spy budgets. Why are we constantly invading and attacking and sanctioning countries we don’t like? Is it because scary enemy, or is it because we are glorified robbers?

2. A scary enemy is necessary to head off calls for domestic reform. (“We don’t have time for education/healthcare/infrastructure/etc. now! What are you, some kind of commie? Don’t you know we gotta fight Saddam/Milosevic/Bin Laden/Saddam again/Putin/Assad/Maduro/Kim/Xi?”)

I like to imagine Napoleon showing up at meetings of the small committee that compiled the Code Napoleon and putting his sword on the table.

Leaders are always enmeshed in systems — it can be hard to tell from outside sometimes where they actually have power or merely the appearance of power in prominence or formal authority and what skills are applied to effectively exercise that power. Many of the skills for the conduct of great authority involve the enactment of ritual — close examination of such magic tricks will reveal what? Machiavelli was wishing his Prince from a comfortable chair.

Observing that politics entails violence should hardly be a revelation in itself. Abraham Lincoln “was a killer” would be true, but not politically or ethically informative.

I am not sure why exactly, but somehow I imagine that Biden was referencing the long series of sometimes famously dramatic exotic poisonings of supposed enemies of the regime, which have become a signature feature of Russia’s relationship with several countries, including the U.K. No one seems to really know what those are about. Putin is often blamed or excused and the narrative of events as it becomes public is incoherent and contradictory. It is very strange.

In the west political murder is typically quiet and deniable if done unofficially and lethal force is directed officially only at foreign targets. Seth Rich was mugged. Michael Hastings had a car accident. Sean Hoare’s death was not suspicious. Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide.

But, this weird dance with “novichok” is extremely odd. In the Skirpal case, Putin in evident disgust made the Russian secret agents submit to an interview on national tv with a celebrity interviewer.

someofparts, Yang works for a dictator, Xi. Of course, he is going to diss democracy. None of this is surprising. Tiananmen happened back in 1989, 32 years ago. Outsourcing jobs and technology to China in the brainless way our ruling classes did is the second of the three great unforced errors I alluded to above. The Chinese are upset because the US still has more power than China does and Trump’s bungled anti-China policy is being taken over by more competent operators. It’s not important that some of the things they have to say about us are true. It is that this is about power, and the Chinese would be saying these kinds of things about us whether they were true or not. They are now, and for the next couple of years, at the height of their power, –until climate change starts significantly eroding their industrial base and foreign markets. We should be using this time to repatriate and rebuild core industrial capacities here which we so stupidly sent there.

Yes, bruce, my judgment is so ill-informed that I bet even now you are planning to move to Russia and live under Putin’s enlightened rule.

If progressives want to be credible, they might at least try to apply the same skepticism they have of US policy to that of other countries. Instead we get uncritical caricatures.

This might be your worst post in a long time. Let’s start where we agree: America globed on to Yeltsin and almost the entire area a shambles. No disagreement there.

We set things up for a man such as Putin. He was an inside man rather than outside in the military.

We also wanted a foil: an enemy. “Just because the problem goes away, does not mean the people working to solve it do.” So far, so good.

However, it has been 20 years since that and other plans have emerged particularly how climate change has replaced nuclear weapons. This means that a nominally sane Russia needs to be developed.

An oligarchy needs to come down and it is the US that must take the lead. This is not a simple task but it has to be done.

One major problem for China aside from climate chaos is, China doesn’t have an America like America had a China when America transitioned from an industrial economy to a FIRE economy. Where will China outsource? To Eastern Europe? Africa? North Korea? Also, I believe culturally China is resistant to outsourcing. It’s not that they’re not greedy, it’s that they’re racist and don’t trust that inferior races can accommodate their expectations and standards.

As evil as the US Empire has become, it has become equally stupid, & most of the world (& since little Bush’s ’03 Iraq aggression even some Americans) know we are the worldwide bully and villain.

It takes one to know one, right? Isn’t that what you and Putin say — that it takes one to know one? So, if the “rest of the world,” whatever that means, asserts America is a “bully and villain,” by your logic and Putin’s logic the “rest of the world” is a “bully and villain” too so who are they or you to judge? Right?

I always thought that if you wanted to understand foreign affairs the Godfather, especially its depiction of the relations between the families, was a great place to start.

With the exception that settling family business happens so much more efficiently in the Puzi world. In that place, the Dons start thinking twice about starting wars after their own sons get whacked. In our world, the elites may not care about bit players like Mo Gaddafi, but Don Dubya gets to retire quietly at the ranch to paint abstract portraits and hobnob publicly with Ellen DeGeneres at ball games, to the applause of many.

Jimmy Dore is right in that no one changes the Democratic Party, but the Party will change you.

It’s not that hard. The disease which successfully ruined the GOP, then turned attentions towards the DNC. Even Jimmy Dore wants to live in an expensive home.

Leftist libertarians need to come to terms with Americas endless wartime economy. Sooner or later , the Mike Flynns of the world will see all that ordinance laying around and want to bomb the crap out of Iran. And then hit the Yemeni people instead.

I am curious what Ian thinks is an appropriate response to Chechen separatists or Uighur separatists, especially once their freedom fighter/ terrorists start targeting civilian populations. We have seen how this gets played out in weaker countries that were unable to fight them off, they become partitioned failed states. Is there an actual choice, other than effective brutality, to dealing with violent separatists?

This is even if the separatists have absolute moral high ground on their side. Such as with Palestinians and maybe Hong Kongers (though many of them are clearly fueled by xenophobia and jealousy of Mainlanders). I am not at all convinced that the Saudi funded separatist in Uighurstan and Chechnya represent any sort of positive for their respective population.

Plague Species, I don’t worry about the actions of other governments, whose actions do not hurt me and who should rightly be controlled by their own people. There are people (Communists!) in Russia critical of Putin, they certainly are in a better position to criticize Putin than know nothing Americans, who think 70 years of unmitigated failure still entitles USA to call the shots around the world.

I am concerned about what the USian government does in my name and especially when it engages in actions that hurt me and can destabilize life on earth for everybody.

I posted the interview in the previous thread and remarked that the gross stupidity/arrogance of Biden/Biden handlers is not an artifact of his diminished capacity from alzheimer’s, it’s a lifelong, well..50 years of his political life, attribute, an unbroken chain of self-aggrandizing braggadocio, lies, deceits and vulgar dualities.

Now, had Trump uttered these words, the “blue no matter who” crowd would be beside themselves. Was Trump suddenly being “presidential” or…was this some unknown part of a sophisticated bromance between two Russian spies or…was this the crudest, most impolitic words ever spoken by a sitting US President? Perhaps some nuanced combination?

Things are so much simpler now that the body-politic, the one that has failed at every turn for the past 45 years, is back in charge. I think we can all rest easy now that the man who led the charge of turning the Democratic party away from FDR back into the party of that, still well-respected guided-age fascist, Woodrow Wilson. Yes, yes..by all means, a little whining here and there is fine…before doing your duty and voting for more of the same. Hey, pretending to “hold someone’s feet to the fire” is good for the psyche, it makes one feel virtuous. But please, let’s not be vulgar and talk of ending our neocolonial policy that culminated in the calamitous regime-change wars of the Clinton/Bush/Obama administration [singular intended].
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On subject of Ian’s response, two points jump out at me, one is tightly wound around morality and esthetics, the other belongs to the visceral body of realpolitik. I dispute one and heartily agree with the other.

Since esthetics, with one or two notable exceptions, is the bread and butter of this comment section let’s start there. Killers, isn’t a black and white dichotomy in this modern world, it is a spectrum of greys, some shades quite far beyond charcoal, at the other end of the spectrum, they are just a whiter a shade of grey, but let’s be clear, very few deserve a place in the back yard laundry line.

Did you buy a pair of sneakers from China? You did, well, let’s start there. The container ship that carried the sneakers all the way across the globe to you door burned bunker fuel, the bottom of the refinement barrel, 17 ships alone release more toxins than all the vehicles globally. How many deaths is that every year? And that bunker fuel came from Nigeria, tribes who had the misfortune to live above where the oil was discovered have been KILLED in the tens of thousands to gain access and those left, they are slowly poisoned by the leaching hydrocarbons. But the body count goes on. That factory that made those sneakers gets it’s “cheap” electricity from the un-scrubbed smokestacks of coal burning plants that release mercury and radioactive waste into the atmosphere; both are long term environmental poisons that travel the globe in the atmosphere, so much so that, they are found in Antarctica. And then there is the other trail of bodies, the former workers who can no longer make a living supplying Americans with American made shoes, they are slowly poisoning themselves with cheap poisons made in Afghanistan. That’s quite a body count but let’s be fair, it’s a whiter shade of grey, you do buy organic vegetables and “fair traded” coffee, well, that’s gotta be a carbon offset eh?.

Did you get drafted? Were your opportunities limited by those who can afford organic vegetables and “fair traded” coffee but not American made sneakers? Were your parents unable/unwilling to pay for your college. So one way or another you were induced into joining the military. If you were smarter you probably got a job that somewhat isolated you from the killing that is required by the neocolonial wars that the body-politic in charge of this country demands. If not, well, you were put in a situation were it was kill or be killed. To bad for you if it damaged your body or psyche. The rumpR’s and neoD’s fought hard to keep the wars going and now, they will gleefully thank you for your service. I think all those who buy organic vegetables and “fair traded” coffee will declare you a darker shade of grey while voting for the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, and Mitt Romney, all of whom, through a plausible deniability, gave the orders to kill.

Okay, that’s little people…what about the nuance of “world leaders”. Is Albert Lebrun, who ordered his troops to kill the invading Nazis as dark as say Bush, the 2nd or Obama who ordered US forces to kill huge swathes of civilians to establish an American colony meant to secure the natural resources of another country at peace with the United States? Is there a difference between a “world leader” who defends their country from enslavement and a “world leader” who attacks another country to steal it’s natural resources or are they the same shade of grey?

Is the guy who shoots an intruder in his house as dark as the man who broke in? Surely we wouldn’t think Biden charcoal grey if he was to defend Texas from Putin funding/training/arming “insurrectionists” in the lone star state…unsure, how about DC? Well, maybe we would, because we sure call Putin a killer for putting down a set of rebellions in Chechnya and Georgia where the 3-letter agencies, through cutouts, funded/trained/armed “insurrectionists”. But when the shoe was actually on the other foot, when the Soviets placed missiles so close to the US border that we would have to stay on the highest level of alert indefinitely we reacted immediately, we threatened and were willing to carry out nuclear war over the issue.

This is old territory for me and Ian and I attribute his blind spot to Stirling’s lobbying on behalf of those same 3-letter agencies that have facilitated so much murder and misery. Albert Lebrun is not a mirror of Adolf Hitler, yes both killed but, that in no way makes them the same shade of grey. The broad brush term “killer” is a highly misleading word used by sociopathic dissemblers of all types, great and small.
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I think that dispute will continue but one point Ian brought up and one I heartily agree with is:

“Russia [is] now a solid Chinese ally, which is one of the biggest geopolitical errors in history from the US point of view (Russia didn’t want to be. They wanted to be Europeans.)”

Why in the eff the US and the Europeans didn’t bring the Russians in from the cold…why? That one particular historical moment will be a monument to ignorance, arrogance and feeble-mindedness. In future centuries, our Chinese overlords will point to that defining moment to legitimize their hegemony over us and we will be in no position to argue, either morally or physically because our elite, drunk on their power failed to see the obvious.

The 3-letter agencies claim you only hear of their failures, that’s a lie. You don’t hear of their successes for a good reason and not the one they cite. The reason you don’t hear of their victories is because so often they are of a Phyeric nature. Start listing the 3-letter agencies “victories” and you’ll soon learn that our victories cost far more than our defeats.

And so it was at the cessation of the cold war, had we only ceased, we would have “won”…but we didn’t, we sought to annihilate Russia as Napoleon’s France, Victoria’s England and Hitler’s Germany did before us. The only thing that saves us from own foolishness is the geography of Asia. There is a natural conflict between Russian and China. But, as I alluded to in the above paragraph, should China chase the Rus over the Urals and gain the natural resources of Northwest Asia…the game is over and our Euro-centrist world will come to an abrupt halt. I know some here cheer that day, but their tune will change should we not pull our collective heads out of our ass in time and we’re colonized, subjects of foreign rule.

There is still time, but we just signed up for a 12 year tour in November and unless there is a divine intervention, I don’t see anything but darker shades of grey ahead. I hope I am wrong but, this disaster has been a long time coming.

Okay, they own us mentally…no, Markle is entertainment and Dore hardly has enough influence to own anything, he’s just a few voices outside of the Blob.

Sometimes I think the Harry/Meghan situation is entirely engineered by the Firm to make the Queen and Charles look sympathetic, make the Cambridges look amazing by comparison, disappear Andrew down the memory hole, and pocket a fortune from gullible USian media businesses. Meghan and Catherine are the best things to happen to the British Royal Family since WWII.

I once saw a video where The Queens butler was ‘given’ to Diana and he butler’d for her right up until she died. He seemed a trustworthy and friendly sort so he said they both confided in him. That butler was able to observed both sides of that royal feud. After watching the whole thing (while doing my household chores) I realized that I care very little about royalty, except that it was confirmed to me once again that even royals are just human beings. I’m still a little fascinated by the end results of all that Habsburg inbreeding though.

I’m also fascinated by people like Bernie, Corbyn, Allende, Wright Patman, FDR, Teddy R, and others who seem to at least quasi-martyr themselves into championing for the little guy, as opposed to obvious con artists like Huey Long, Adolph Hitler and Trumpty Dumpty.

Willy: I am really not sure what your trying to say about Dore. I think Dore is entitled to make a good time living exposing the hypocrisy and venality of the so called left and hope there is room for many more like him. Is your problem with his message? the existence of political pundits? That some pundits do well financially?

That martyr/conmen dichotomy is odd. FDR and TR aren’t martyrs, they knew how to use power and the bully pulpit and use it very effectively. Long as well and he did a lot of good before being martyred by an assassin. I don’t think Allende and other socialists were seeing themselves up for martyrdom. They just got caught in the US cold war machine. Sanders is apparently temperamentally incapable of challenging the establishment. What’s the through line there?

@Willy

Oh no, not gonna play this game with you. You’re the one who opened with a personal attack against Dore (“he has an expensive house”). Not only is this the same disingenuous tripe that was deployed against Sanders (DO YOU KNOW HE OWNS THREE HOUSES???!!!one), here’s an actual picture of Dore’s ‘sprawling mansion’: https://www.dirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/JimmyDore_SC20.jpg?w=800 LA housing is ludicrously overpriced.

Dore doesn’t ‘own’ anyone. He runs a internet show, out of his garage, that is frequently demonetized. Minor celebrities that are worth a few million are not the enemy. The enemy is individuals and institutions far further up the totem pole than that.

Hugh, whatever you’re on, I want a script. Must be really good stuff to let you parse out *that* out of the actual comments. And durable too as it seems to work over months and years that you’ve been on this strawmanning kick.

Also, damn you to hell for being a groundhog lover, that you obviously are since you’ve never seen you condemn them. Everyone should state in every comment that they hate and oppose the evil destructive obvious Nazi groundhogs. Failure to do so obviously mean they are groundhog supporters.

@Plague Species:

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/01/putin-asks-and-trump-delivers-here-is-a-list-of-all-the-good-things-trump-did-for-russia.html

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/19/25-times-trump-has-been-dangerously-hawkish-on-russia/

Soredemos – Thanks for your cogency and for being willing to wade in. I keep showing up here because there are several regulars that are always interesting to hear from. I hope you stick around.

Willy: if Dore starts lying, it will not matter who he is doing it on behalf, he will be worthless. I have stopped paying attention to many people that I used to respect when they joined the Blob. But if Dore continues to tell seldom heard truths to millions, he could take money from Punxsutawney Phil and I would still listen to him.

Bernie hasn’t been in a position of power to do much, so the 1 score. But Trump:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/18/trump-administration-drops-bombs-record-pace-afghanistan-war/4181084002/

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-have-bombed-yemen-more-than-bush-and-obama-combined-2020-10?op=1

https://www.salon.com/2021/03/05/trump-and-bidens-secret-bombing-wars-one-thing-that-hasnt-changed/

That’s just a few. Had Trump successfully retained power and then gotten the supported he wanted from our military, I think it’s safe to think it’d be a lot more more.

Except for whatever you say. It always turns out to be some kind of highly rationalized bust, but when has that ever stopped you?

Hi, “Plague Species”. So, your accusations and the (wrong) assumptions behind them fall under the rubrics of both category error and straw man arguments, so I won’t waste much time responding to word salad.

I will say that I am no friend of Putin and I think that in his brilliant recent 6 part documentary, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”, Adam Curtis’s take that Putin “believes in absolutely nothing” is correct, and makes Putin not a great deal different than most of the ruling classes worldwide.

I could ask you if you have fought in any of the wonderful wars of Liberation (y)our Country endlessly starts to establish your warrior bona fides, but won’t bother debating someone who relies on distortion and misunderstanding, whether based on either lack of intellect or bad faith, in order not to seek truth or understanding, but simply to reinforce one’s own prejudices and self-righteous insecurities.

Finally, if somebody starts a nuclear war, I don’t think as an anti-imperialist I will bear any responsibility, direct or indirect. Rather the reverse.

Wow, Bernie one of the longest stretches in power 1991-2021…but can’t be held accountable for a single day in all his 30 years…just wow.

Because there may be people who are too young to know the score, Bernie has loudly supported every war/intervention of the Clintons and Obamas and even supported the Iraq Invasion albeit with his own war resolution…singularly, the most gutless hedge the US congress has ever seen in it’s, almost, 250 year history. Indeed that bozo move is how I ID bitch boy Bernie, long before 2016 you could count on Bernie to talk big and fold like a cheap suit when it came time to climb into the ring. Very early in life I learned to ignore what people say, watch what they do.

Okay, after all your mealy-mouthed double-talk and pussy-footing, I’m gonna go with sociopathic liar, no more lifelines…you’ll just use them to hang yourself.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/02/facebook-posts/no-bernie-sanders-didnt-vote-favor-every-war-durin/

When it comes to debates over the evil of war, well it’s pretty much obvious. War is hellish evil.

Unfortunately I am pro-war. But only if there are no other alternatives, such as with the American involvement in WW2 and in post 9-11 Afghanistan. The DNC had no choice but to support those actions since pacifism would’ve meant political suicide. Too many Americans wanted it. Sometimes you’ve just gotta fight. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was so obviously unwarranted that I considered it evil and a possible prelude to even more viciously anti-American “blowback”, as Ron Paul once stated.

So one must pick their battles. Which is why I enjoy my exchanges with S B. It’s like beating up on a small child.

No one here ever (not even the right wing Trumpers) said Trump is anti-war. Just that unlike his 4 predecessors, he didn’t start a new war. Maybe it’s incompetence or deep state or even honest intention, the effect is that he didn’t start a new war.

So unlike his 4 immediate predecessors ( I am willing to give Reagan a pass on Grenada) he didn’t go off to destroy a new country though he did plenty of damage through continuation of existing wars and sanctions and support of right wing coup governments. Not a good president not even a bad president, he’s a terrible one. But still likely to be better than Hillary Clinton presidency based on her track record as a senator and SecState.

Astrid, have you figured out why they all do that, start wars? I can always speculate. I can say that deep staters from their military-industrial complex division have determined that a couple new invasions per decade is what best keeps most taxpayer sheep docile. And focused on anything but their economic futures. But I’d be speculating.

Anybody who blurts out something as worthless as “The US is such a stupid society” is a worthless sock puppet to me. But if they have something useful to say which is worth further thought, then they’ll be forgiven and I’ll consider them a useful sock puppet.

So if not Bernie then who? I’m always open to somebody better. But it can’t be a wasted vote.

I don’t often comment on your blog, but really, this Russia did it bullshit has to stop. First, the quote you cite is a mistranslation, so you’re first impression is false. Second, the canard about Russia bombing Syrian hospitals should be obvious to you by now. Third, it’s funny to me how you seek enlightenment on one hand and masturbate with all this western media Russia bullshit on the other. It’s like you’re halfway there but can’t quite get out of the crib.

Astrid also wrote: “But still likely to be better than Hillary Clinton presidency based on her track record as a senator and SecState.”

Lest we forget —

Hillary Clinton “We Came, We Saw, He Died” (Gaddafi)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmIRYvJQeHM

Get a load of that incompetent psychopath laughing and clapping herself after the death of Gaddafi via sodomization by bayonet, which was one upshot of her authorizing and instigating regime change in Libya. Another was the death of as many as 25,000 people.

And for what?

Principally, for Clinton to build her bona fides as a hawk in preparation for pursuing the presidency again and to gain more campaign money from military-industrial complex donors than any other presidential candidate in history.

Utter human vermin, and incompetent besides — as Colin Powell admitted, everything she touched always seemed to go to crap. Moreover, the elite of the U.S. — above all, the Democrats — were all in with giving Clinton the presidency. So what does that tell you about them, and their own competence and morality?

if AOC and Bernie are insufficient for the cause, then who else is there? . . .

there is no one.

S Brennan mentions Tulsi Gabbard, who does seem a remarkably sensible person, but still she hardly makes up the deficit of numbers

we don’t solve the deficit of numbers by denying that it exists

the deficit of numbers is down to “the system”, which comes down to politicians (and pundits and operatives and union leaders) not being able to make a career and a living out of integrity with the interest of the commonwealth and the institutions of the republic. Which comes down to the people generally being willing to pay for and reward recognize its heroes and champions. Which comes down to the people generally being enlightened enough to choose general constraints in mutual protection over the promise of freedom to screw their fellows and be screwed.

Most people — not everyone — can see that they are better off in a society that suppresses violence and fraud. At least on some days, I think so. But, there are always some who see their main chance as being in convincing people that letting some people act as wolves among the sheep is best even for the sheep.

They are not always entirely wrong. Or rather conceptions of ideal societies, utopias can be singularly impractical and unrealistic. People in the environmental movement sometimes want absolute prohibition on business and industry polluting — as if such an ideal is physically possible. Catholic christianity markets an absolute morality of martyred saints and pure unselfishness and self-denial — it is impossible and in real life Mother Theresa becomes good friends with Papa Doc Duvalier. Russia still suffers in its business and legal culture from the moral instruction of communism, which makes predators of entrepreneurs and leaves little space for ethical business and property relations. Ayn Rand libertarianism has an obvious sophomoric appeal to 14-year-old boys, who are primed to see society as a videogame, but it also contains a sharp critique of the hypocrisy of unselfish socialism. Mainstream economics is a wildly unrealistic theory that nevertheless succeeds as neoliberalism, a political program and ideology so pervasive that many deny it even exists.

My point, though, is that we create the deficit of numbers of trustworthy voices and leaders together with “the system”. We do it when we abandon, say, Julian Assange to “his fate”. We do it when we insist on getting news for “free” from sources paid for by corporate business advertisers and operated by oligopolist corporate businesses.

I have been watching Governor Cuomo fight off the hyenas and I have to wonder at why charges of sexual harassment are potent, while years and years of corrupt incompetence as a policymaker have no purchase. The nursing home holocaust? The decrepit state of NYC rail transit? Cynical and open promotion of Republican control of the State Senate? These do not get him into trouble but the sudden discovery that he is a domineering personality who makes passes at women around him is. I will take it, of course, but it is odd.

I’m neither hasbara nor troll, and you damn well know it. You’re literal poison.

close bold. apologies.

Bridget, have you never had a fight forced upon you?

Hasbara troll: LOL. Takes one to know one. Nicely confirmation that you know exactly what you are, since you took the bait.

Willy, your question belies the issue by equating individual (or even small group) disputes with nation-state endeavors. Silly. And monstrously lethal.

Wrong Astrid. I know that evil is very good at acquiring power of every possible kind, often hiding behind benign and beneficial masks. I’ve stated so many times here. How do you propose we try and prevent this?

Willy: please use what you said and apply it to the US and DNC. If there is that evil, it currently resides primarily with the US and within the DNC.

I don’t know if it can be prevented at this point, there’s too much momentum amongst the bellicose echo chamber of the USA. I must resign myself to whatever the fates have in store for me. But I sure as hell am not going to join that echo chamber.

“do I hate China for how it persecutes Uighurs and Tibetans and destabilizes the whole world? Do I hate it for slandering and destroying the reputation and careers of many decent people for simply standing up for Democracy? Absolutely.”

Well, you have to give it to Astrid. At least, she’s consistent.

Hugh: Sure, the Chinese are quite brutal in their methods and I don’t approve of them, even if I understand the logic behind them and know Western MSM intentionally run false stories to exaggerate the brutality.

But unlike the Israelis right-wing government, the Chinese don’t control the US governing apparatus to be extent that it must be considered a part of the US government. Thus, it’s mostly a Chinese internal matter that the US should not “humanitarian intervene” in.

Unlike me, who have stated many times about the bad in the Russian and Chinese regimes…

Notice how Hugh’s Rescue Game obsession just happen to be focused on the enemies of the US/Israel state. He can’t even being himself to say anything for the Palestinians or Yemen or Libyians. Where’s Hugh’s consistency?

Willy,

I am in agreement with you on the wanting most of those things. There may be a way to control the dark triad types, even in the earth spanning civilization that we are in, but I’m not sure we will arrive at that solution before destroying ourselves and everything around us. I should say that full control is usual not possible, even relatively stable empires like the Chinese, modulated with Buddhism and Confucianism, still experience regular collapses due to systemic stress and malign influences. I think in the end, we cannot scourge perfect justice for all times, but simply live our best lives with what we’re given.

I do pay attention to what you write and I do think you want a better path forward. I do wish you would recognize that unlike many here who are earnestly trying to seek better understanding, Hugh and PS are not interested in learning, just in lording their particular narrow hatred over the rest, never engaging or understanding or processing what the others are saying to them. Be careful about reading goodness into what they are saying. I have them benefit of the doubt for a long while, but it’s clear to me now that they do not wish to learn goodness, only to bask in their narrow self righteousness. Any critique of their position will be ridiculed with non sequiturs and ad hominems, when that fails, they bail from one thread and then repeat themselves on the next thread.

I do take exception to Libertarians. They’re are about hoarding all the license and benefit of civil society (so obsessed with property, which is absolutely a construct of social order) without any of the responsibilities. Being a libertarian after 19 is a sign of intellectual and moral stunting. There are problems with socialism, but Democratic socialism has worked quite well in much of the world for a time, why not try to revive that and make another go at it, even knowing that our time is short and salvation very uncertain.

Willy, There was a time when I thought Markos Moulitsas and Ezra Klein were worth reading and taking seriously too. Hell, I paid for subscriptions to the New Yorker, the Economist, and the New Republic as a poor college student, then dumped them one by one as I realized there agendas behind them. Sometimes, most times, people we learn from are stunted in their development or maybe it was always just a conjunction of interests that hid foundational issues about source of their understanding.

I think it’s pretty healthy to outgrow my idols, I’ve outgrown many. I have the luxury of more free time than most and an iconoclastic temperament. I sometimes happen upon on a blog where I learn some new stuff and then spot the seams in the argument and realize how limiting the view point is.

Even though I don’t always agree with Ian, I have never spotted those seams with him. I really appreciate Ian for that and for helping me refine my own thinking over the years.

Hugh did not always strawman everyone trying to have a conversation by restating their argument in absurd black v white morality or some similar extreme. Sometimes he would marshal actual facts.

Number 1, Willy, I would caution against ill-considered narrative. Narrative tells us who a character is and what a policy or a series of events mean. A lot of politics is contested story-telling, and it is stories put out there by cynical manipulators that flood the public discourse. Not uncommonly, claims are made in such a way as to plant an idea in the minds of readers or listeners, without literally asserting that idea has a factual foundation.

For what it is worth, I think Trump is a troubled individual. In psychiatric terms, hypomania is rather obvious. In social psychological terms, he has an orientation to social dominance that makes him prone to demagoguery and petty conman ventures in business. That makes him somewhat untrustworthy in some contexts, and he favors a socially destructive political conservatism. It does not make him anymore “evil” than the general run of men, which is hardly an endorsement of his virtue. It does not even make him particularly racist, a false charge that was made constantly to explain his political success in terms that did not embarass the other political Party.

The idea Trump=Hitler was always ridiculous. The notion that he might hire hookers to mess a bed Obama had slept in was a headline story in a pack of narratives paid for by Hillary Clinton, secular saint, and used irresponsibly to pollute American politics with Russiagate.

The use of false narratives to attack Trump was always a significant tell against the DNC/Democratic Party efforts to neuter and unseat him without highlighting let alone altering any policy harming the country but near and dear to the donor class.

What’s the alternative, you ask. Can’t we just pretend the Republicans are worse and forcing the Democrats to be evil? Can’t we pretend that the Democrats would try real hard in an alternate reality?

There will be no alternative until many more of us walk away from the circus staged to keep us in our moment of false optimism.

The alternative to being manipulated by propaganda storytelling is to at least try to find some factual truth and moral judgment derived from prudence and good will.

Bruce, I demur on your characterization of Trump as not necessarily worse than the general run of men. I might just be extremely lucky, but I would say vast majority of people I run across appear to be better than Trump.

General run of politicians, high profile businessmen, reality TV personalities… he seems par for that course.

I took Fri afternoon/evening off and have little to add, I think all the points I would make have been covered by others, specifically, Mr Wilder, Ms Bridget and Mr Astrid.

1] I think it fair to say, any person running for US Prez has got a screw or two loose* and anybody who is actually going to do something worthwhile better have a “bully” personality. Take my #1 choice** for Prez, Tulsi Gabbard, her annihilation of Kamala Harris at the one debate she was allowed to speak at. That demolition was very unladylike…Tulsi showed no mercy, very nasty, very mean and…an ass-kicking that was very very much needed.

Kamala is a true sociopath, Willie Brown, who knows a thing or two about Kamala urged black folks not to vote for her…how bad do you have to be to get that “endorsement” out of Mr Brown?

Any voter who wants somebody “nice” is going to be conned, over and over again. And if by one in a million chance, a really “nice” person is elected, you’ll have a disaster. The capitol of a powerful country is full of untalented, vicious sociopaths and you need to have the will & ability to crush such people…if you are to accomplish anything worthwhile. No candidate, including my favorites, are not “mean” to the bone when they have to be.

2] If you, like me, think revolution is unlikely and unwise, then voting/not-voting is the only tool in your belt. Dammit, use it like a tool, I have yet to see a carpenter or a surgeon trying to display their virtue when they chisel a mortise or excise a tumor. Try to think what electing candidate[A] over candidate[B] portends 4-8-12 years out. The simplistic, naive and dangerous concept of the “lessor of two weevils” blinds you to the game each party is playing, don’t be suckered into a shell game.

Generally, do what the two parties want the least and you will be doing the right thing for the American public. Both parties, at this point in time, are domestic enemies of the state and they hold a monopolistic [singular intended] position which, they can strengthen if need be, at a moments notice. Any 3rd party route is a 30 year proposition, if well funded…and if history is any guide, should any 3rd party grow to be a threat, they will immediately be infected with quislings, those willing to sellout the effort for a price.

3] Regarding Ms Bridget’s point that the Russian did not bomb hospitals in Syria, the charge has been debunked numerous times and each time the story has been changed to avoid contrary facts. At my last count we are six versions in, hard to keep track since previous stories keep being “disappeared”. But since we now know MI-6 was directly involved in the staged “gas attacks” that almost led to US/Russia going to war over Syria any “white helmet” reports should be treated as deceit until proven…beyond a shadow of a doubt.

*In 1984 the Democratic party choose to loose with Mondale, they could have won with John Glenn…a “nice guy” if you were on the same team, but not if you were on the other side. John Glenn was a populist and boilerplate FDRist and fell prey to the great neoD party purge orchestrated by Al From’s DLC of the ’80s.

**Yang was my #2

bruce, with all due respect, you simply don’t have the life experience to understand what I’m talking about. Intelligence, education or rationalization is no substitute for wisdom gained from the school of hard knocks, plus as Ian has repeatedly stated, the discipline to force oneself (and I do mean “force”) to make objective sense of painful reality. When you feel a combination of eureka! exhilaration with helpless depression, both at the very same time, you’ll know. It’s sorta like the time you fully understood that the light speed limit is an incontrovertible fact which makes all of your Star Trek dreams a wishful fantasy. Brilliant, yet bummer.

There can be no such thing as a superman. Extreme personalities were not made by mother evolution to pass on their genes. One way or another, mother evolution shall prevail.

For what it is worth, I think Trump is a troubled individual. In psychiatric terms, hypomania is rather obvious. In social psychological terms, he has an orientation to social dominance that makes him prone to demagoguery and petty conman ventures in business. That makes him somewhat untrustworthy in some contexts

To say the conclusion doesn’t logically follow would be the understatement of all eternity. In fact, it makes him wholly untrustworthy in all contexts except those that personally benefit him and his current circle, which itself is constantly subject to change depending on how it benefits Trump. Trump has no long-term confidants in any area of life because he’s unable to develop relationships that would allow such conversations to take place.*

It does not make him anymore “evil” than the general run of men, which is hardly an endorsement of his virtue. It does not even make him particularly racist, a false charge that was made constantly to explain his political success in terms that did not embarass the other political Party.

It makes him relate to any and all issues solely in the context of how the responses make him feel in the immediate moment, firstly, and secondly how the results of the engagements may benefit him in the near-term. There is no evidence of any thought or feeling beyond these two benchmarks in any of Donald Trump’s entire life history of actions, writings, or orations.

To say these qualities don’t “make him anymore “evil” than the general run of men”is rather insulting to we laypeople who’ve never wanted for anything more than a simple, decent life for ourselves. I’d imagine it’s insulting to yourself. I would hope so.

More tellingly, its indicative of serious deficiencies in both reasoning as well as the broader intuitive faculties.

Perhaps what was meant was Trump isn’t more evil than most other people in power. I’m not sure what criteria we’d use to measure degrees of evil other than the common sense one I outlined above. But I’ll indulge here. True, Trump isn’t any more evil. He’s also not any less evil. His single-minded attention to his own personal prestige and power and the relationships said attention has fostered with even greater power over a lifetime might be worth pursuing. But then why waste any more of our precious time on any of these scoundrels?

We can definitively say that Trump is more unstable. Unstable evil isn’t inherently less evil than stable evil, though it may seem so at first. It’s appealing and energizing because it destabilizes the entrenched, stable evil. It’s appeal also lies in the fact that it’s often seen – not so much rightly or wrongly, but shortsightedly – as the only option to resist the entrenched evil.

Of course, shortsightedness is an innate feature of the larger society at this point. The shortsighted Trump fits the shortsighted society perfectly.

*I can’t imagine we’ll be learning a lot about the inner workings from Trumps’ diaries once he’s gone. He doesn’t have the breadth to keep diaries. Trump has absolutely nothing to tell us beyond his transactions and his golf game because he’s never been interested in anything else.

If the maddeningly smooth stability of a Clinton-Bush-Obama-Biden evil subtly pushes even otherwise intelligent, sensitive people towards a Donald Trump evil, then evil itself has won.

Personally, the people who won’t or can’t see who Trump is are just as maddening as the people who won’t or can’t see who Obama is.

On a logical-intellectual level they are maddening. On a sensate-intuitive level they’re just plain lost.

Would Hitler have still been evil had he fallen to his death in some tragic accident back in 1937?

Thoughtful question! That’s why I was reluctant to engage with “evil” as an all-encompassing, static personal identity.

Willy, the speed of light establishes a speed limit for particles moving through space-time. As cosmic inflation, Hubble expansion, and black holes show, however, there is no speed limit on space-time itself. Quantum entanglement is another phenomenon where the speed limit of light does not appear to apply.

Hugh, after you’ve gotten your quantum entanglement engines perfected and tested, will you give me a ride? I’d really like to solve the Fermi paradox once and for all.

Bridget, I had a friend who turned out to have just cultivated our friendship so he could use me for his own workplace political gain, at my expense. He’d used the phrase “cut from the same cloth” a few times. My naïve self researched it after he’d taken advantage of me, in the hopes that I’d be less naïve the next time around. It led me to the semi-secret world of innate temperaments, a place where those expert in discerning such can more accurately predict the scope and limits of another’s future behaviors.

Had Trump actually achieved personal control of the military (yes, a ridiculous assumption given his incompetency) I probably would’ve started hiding all evidence of my “leftism”, since history suggests that leftists are usually the first to go under those circumstances.

Meanwhile we’re on the fourth administration in a row that is defending that actual backers of the 9/11 attacks, Saudi Arabia.

There’s a lot more to the events of 9/11 than “Saudi backers.” Some of the alleged Saudi hijackers were found – alive and well – after the fact.

Any layperson with reasonable critical faculties who dares take even a cursory look beyond the officially sourced narrative will see that the vast majority of the information pertaining to the events of that day – provided by said officials – has been deceitful.

Willy, it’s all early days on all this. For FTL travel, you would want to bend space-time. To transfer information across interstellar distances, quantum entanglement might work. Of course, you would have to get the entangled particles there first. There are Police Boxes too.

Bridget is quite adept at sifting through the bullshit. Indeed, names such as Kristol, Kagan, Sharon, Silverstein, Zakheim, Perle and Abrams, among many others, are more impressive than the “Mohammed Attas” one may encounter. These are just a handful of the more recent names.

https://www.serendipity.li/cia/counterspy/secret_cia_documents_on_mossad.htm

@Willy

In the better alternate universe timeline where we weren’t led by warmongering scumbags who exploited the attack to put longstanding dreams of conquest into action:

1. 9/11 doesn’t happen because at minimum the CIA doesn’t withhold information from the FBI.

2. If it does happen, we treat it as the crime it was. We don’t dignify the piss-ant perpetrators by launching invasions, we track them down and arrest them like the criminals they are. We drag them into courtrooms and put them on trial, after first interrogating them. And by interrogate I actually mean interrogate, not torture, which objectively doesn’t work in addition to being immoral and the recourse of a scoundrel.

As part of this effort we start by trying to take the Taliban up on their offer of handing bin Laden over. Maybe they were lying, or maybe they were serious but couldn’t do it in practice. We’ll never know, because Bush never responded (and our media largely ignored the offer). Ideally we drag him into an interrogation room, hand him over to people like Ali Soufan, instead of executing him on sight before dumping his body in the mountains and then lying about the whole operation. Questioning him in short order leads us back to Riyadh, which brings us to point 3.

3. We don’t bend over backwards to protect the head-chopping Saudi government that bankrolled the attack. We ditch them, and all the other Arab Gulf oil dictatorships that export Wahhabism as part of their foreign policy. (also, since we’re talking about idealized foreign policy not conducted by scumbag morons, we tell Israel to go fuck its own face and make clear that we’re no longer going to let a tiny dipshit parasite state direct our foreign policy). We realign our middle-east policy to center on supporting Iran, not Saudi Arabia, who in our real-world timeline were helping us out in Afghanistan, before Bush made his retarded Axis of Evil speech and slammed the door on any possibility of that relationship.

And before you say “that’s all very well and good, but politically unfeasible because people were so angry”, no. The American people after 9/11 (as always) could (and were) easily manipulated into anything. All of the above could be very easily sold to the public. The neocons went to war because they desperately wanted to go to war, and 9/11 provided an excuse. Public pressure had zero to do with it, and in fact massive protests (huge even by world historical standards) against the invasion of Iraq were not only ignored, but essentially memory-holed by the media in real-time as they were taking place.

@Bridget

9/11 ‘truthers’ are a. dumber than dirt and b. lie.

@Soredemos

Okay, that works for me.

When I took a peek inside that better alternate universe, I found that the punishment for gross incompetency at that level wasn’t just getting fired in public disgrace, but also a week spent in stocks at the designated location in the National Mall with a guard standing nearby in case frustrated citizens (R, D, and I) ran out of moldy fruit.

Sadly, in our current reality timeline not only do we get the leaders we deserve, we get the citizenry we have instead of the citizenry we wish we had. Simple people of the land, the common clay of America. You know, morons.

I tried talking some sense into the neocon version of morons back in the Iraq invasion day, but Dubya Bush was on such a holy war mission from God they’d curse at me in ASCII symbols. I left blogging until 2015 when I read about the mailman who landed on the DC Capitol lawn in a gyrocopter. I knew that guy from anti-war blogs back in the day. In 2015, he’d hoped to encourage campaign finance reform by delivering 535 letters of protest to 535 members of congress. He said that it was even more of a corrupt/incompetent government than it was back in 2003, usually “selling out to the highest bidder”. Not much came from his adventure, but he did have to do some time.

So I visited some of my old conservative blogging acquaintances. They were all still there. But they hate Bush now. Maybe because he didn’t like Trump. They gave few details about why. Maybe it’s because “He’s so hot now.” At first (in 2016) they agreed with draining swamps and getting out of Iraq, finally. But as Trump wore on they got big into owning the libs (later the Democrats and socialists and especially antifa and BLM) and currently spend most of their time bitching about transexuals.

So you say that the simple morons can be easily manipulated into everything. I agree, but how do we manipulate them into wanting more competency and less corruption from our so-called leaders, when all most of them seem to want is to worship their current “He’s so hot now” incompetent and corrupt leaders?

9/11 ‘truthers’ are a. dumber than dirt and b. lie.

Oh, I didn’t realize.. Thanks. I’ll turn off the fruitfully inquisitive portion of my mind immediately and join you in your comfortably ignorant state.

SOP, No meanness intended; and I really don’t have the answer but, I very much doubt your explanation of my question.

Jeez, the mere mention of Dore brings out total derangement from his critics. The first thing they love to do is attack Dore because the show he hosts from his garage has become a success. He’s done well for himself but he is in no way on the same stratosphere of wealth as the pundits on MSNBC, CNN, and FOX News. The next thing that his critics use to attack him is his nice but in no way exorbitantly lavish house in LA. Liberals who hate him make it seem as if he is living on the same street as A-list Hollywood celebrities. It is very nice and would be worth half the price he paid for it where I live. Who doesn’t want to live in a nice house and how does that take away from what he says on his show? Should all progressives and socialists be poor to satisfy the corporatist left and their supporters? It’s the same attacks that were leveled at Bernie Sanders for owning three homes.

American fascists hate to be called fascist. It hurts their iddle-bitty feelings.

Jeez, the mere mention of Dore brings out total derangement from his critics

Dore’s rebel strategy to show the DNC that progressives won’t just vote blue and get yet another shit sandwich, resulted in three conservative supreme court justices and a Trump base which despises “the left” even more than it ever did. The dream of unifying with conservatives to actually Make America Great Again became a helluva lot harder. Things like wealth inequality, racial prejudice and climate change got worse.

And now we get to have all these “progressive” Trump voters desperately trying to rationalize the “progressive things” which Trump did, not a single one of which is at all unconvincing.

On the plus, Biden does seems to be just a bit more on the ball when it comes to Americas onrushing failed state status, not to mention the rapid increase in fascist and authoritarian movements, unthinkable in America just a couple short decades ago.

The “total derangement” black and white thinking schtick has become incredibly lame. It was originally just some Krauthammer sarcasm, which idiot lemming conservatives ran with to try and own the libs.

S Brennan – I agree with you. My answer was formulaic and not really thought through carefully.

Opposition to communism is the reason traditionally given for U.S. rejection of cooperation with Russia, but that’s probably just a public relations mask for whatever actual power dynamics are really underway.

Maybe Clinton’s success in crashing their economy is what the U.S. wants to repeat and perpetuate. Maybe the objective is to dominate them and appropriate their resources on unfavorable terms against their wishes.

You may disagree with this analysis too. I’m not the brain police, so if you have a different perspective I’ll just listen to you and then think about it.

“So you say that the simple morons can be easily manipulated into everything. I agree, but how do we manipulate them into wanting more competency and less corruption from our so-called leaders”

If you hold them in contempt and see them as objects to be manipulated, you should get used to being “mysteriously” rejected. That presumption of being superior to less enlightened humans has a way of extending to a presumption of superiority to the entire natural world and the next thing you know you are destroying your own planet.

The moron is not a widget. The moron has dreams. The moron loves other morons.

In my experience, the only approach that ever works is to get to know the other person and then go from there. If it is possible to establish a friendly acquaintance that is a good beginning. Cultivate the friendship and build a history of cordial mutual support. While you’re busy just being a mensch, talk about events of the day will bubble up comfortably. Treat those conversations as a dance, not a military campaign. To be the best kind of dancer, get psyched up about the probability that you are going to learn something from the moron.

Ian, thanks for the cover of Time with Yeltsin on the front. For a number of years, I have kept both electronic and hard copies of it to show to friends and acquaintances who are up in arms about supposed “Russian interference” in US elections.

Modern Communism is as prone to plutocratic dysfunction as is Milton Friedmanism. This is because population and technology provide too many hiding places for psychopathy. Not to mention those two things can leverage their power to insane levels with all the inevitable ruin.

I have this theory that back when all humans were communist (pretty much their entire social species evolutionary history up right up until the Pleistocene ended), psychopathic bad seeds (or “evil spirit” whatevers) were dealt with quickly and severely by clans which were so small that everybody knew what everybody else was all about, and life was so brutally tenuous that every clan member had to have a useful purpose. And here we humans are at the top of the food chain. Clans which didn’t handle psychopathy well became dysfunctional and their genes died out. At least that’s my theory anyways.

In modern history, nobody has ever figured out how to deal with the paradox of power, especially that bit where the least deserving tend to be the very best at achieving power.