The last post, a guest post by Mandos, about Wikileaks’ releases concerning Clinton, has spawned a lot of controversy in the comments.
All of which we both expected.
So here’s my quick take on Wikileaks:
First, (Removed, as may be inaccurate) (Edit 3:06pm Oct 28th: it appears Wikileaks only linked to the Turkish database of women, and did not release that information itself.)
Second, the information Wikileaks has released on the US election is germane to the election. It is information which it is in the interests of the public to know. I believe that it should have been released. I do not know if it came from Russia, the evidence is circumstantial at best, but I don’t care if it did or not. The information is real, not fake, and that is what matters.
In 2004, the New York Times knew about widespread spying on ordinary people by the Bush administration. They chose not to release that information because they didn’t want to sway the election. That information might have been the difference between Kerry or Bush winning, the election was that close.
That was vast journalistic malpractice. Journalism is about the public’s right to know, and that information was clearly information the public should have known when making its decision who to vote for. It was germane.
That Clinton is a corporate hack who is essentially on the side of bankers (which is one thing the leaks clearly show) is germane to the election. It matters.
Most information held from public view should not be. We keep far too much stuff that the public should know, private. The public needed to know just how sympathetic to bankers Clinton was right after the financial collapse.
That is, actually, journalism.
So, I don’t agree with everything Wikileaks has done, but I support what it has done in relation to the US election. I also believe Assange when he says that if he had information on Trump he would release that as well. I don’t think the source of the information is particularly important, IF the information is real, which it appears to be.
That many people view this through partisan lenses is understandable and expected. Since the leaks have been Clinton leaks, suddenly the Right supports Wikileaks and “the Left” is against them.
I supported Wikileaks when they were goring Bush and Republicans with “Collateral Murder” and I support them now when they are goring Clinton, because I support Wikileaks on the basis of the public’s right to know; if any information can help the public judge whether they support the governments they have elected or those they may elect in the future.
This is not a partisan issue for me. It is an issue of principles. Information is either in the public interest, or it is not. If it is, and I believe, in this instance, it is, then I support its release.
As for the politics, if Trump loses, that will be on political and personal merits which have little to do with Wikileaks. In this I agree with Mandos; in a normal election, the information in the leaks might have sunk Clinton, but it is insufficient in the face of Trump’s problems.
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Oaktown Girl
Whoa – complete remodel! (Visual style, not content). Congratulations on the new look.
Ian Welsh
There’ll be some changes still, quite probably fairly major.
Oaktown Girl
I look forward to seeing more (possibly major) changes. There are some aspects of the previous version I’m going to miss, maybe some of those will be integrated in.
Say, maybe we can do something for Halloween? It’d be nice to have an open thread to post Halloween-y stuff and test drive the new layout.
Good night, everybody. See you in a few days.
11:12 pm PST
Mandos
In the previous thread, I was not saying that people necessarily should turn against Assange because of this situation. That is a whole other issue. I am merely saying that there is no conceivable goal of Assange’s, yes, including the “increasing the cost” idea, that has been served by operating in what appears to be a state of complete numbness to the things that drive US politics. (I trust that everyone agrees that “inconceivable goals” is merely hero-worship.)
If one is convinced (as some of my critics seemed to be) that corruption is not merely a frame in which US politics can be understood but the only frame in which it should be understood, then of course Assange’s leaks about Clinton make perfect sense and even questioning them is a sign of total moral debasement. But maintaining this position in the face of the visible signs of the strategy’s failure reeks of closed minds, still fighting narrow battles that were over long ago.
realitychecker
Please don’t inflict Mandos on us again; reading his putrid piece of pusillanimous propaganda made me fear that you had died.
But, to the point, how fucked are we, really, if we have to argue about whether the consent of the governed can be secured without allowing the governed access to all the relevant information?
That’s right, I said it: THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.
Reality check, anyone?
markfromireland
Off topic:
I like the new template. Strong suggestion – make your text colour black:
#000000
and use a compatible palette here’s one that goes from black to white.
#000000 #191919 #323232 #4c4c4c #666666 #7f7f7f #999999 #b2b2b2 #cccccc #e5e5e5 #ffffff
But for crying out loud DON’T use silver or other very pale greys on a white background it’s bad enough on a good monitor it’s a bloody nightmare on a mobile.
This is a good restricted palette using black and dark greys.
#000000 #0c0c0c #191919 #262626
Also please please please and then an extra pretty please with sugar on it. Use em sizing for your text. That way people who have their browsers set up with text sizes they’re comfortable won’t have their browsing experience arsed up by your site.
All of this is VERY basic CSS it’s CSS2 not even CSS3 – I’m not bad at css and entirely willing to help if you wish. You have my mail.
Bill H
I am pretty much awestruck by the outcome of the Wikileaks release. Clinton accuses the Russians of hacking her server, Assange becomes a Russian tool, the content of the emails is downgraded to trivia, and Russian perfidy becomes a plank in the Democratic platform. Is that due to “Trump’s issues,” or is it simply corporate media playing Clinton’s game?
Jib Halyard
Just who is Julian Assange and Wikileaks accountable to anyway? Or Anonymous, for that matter? Like all revolutionaries, they wield their power uninvited, and to the benefit of noone but themselves.
darms
I didn’t need Wikileaks to know that Ms. Clinton was a big fan of the Wall Street banks…
Adam Eran
Worth a look:
Don’t Think It’s Over When Trump Loses
S Brennan
Ian;
My biggest concern with the moneyed class’s [and their minions] coronation of Hillary is the deep threat of war. Hillary as Secretary of State has started three wars that ended in disaster, recommended that we radically expand the AF-PAK [which also ended in failure] and now sees a chance to redeem her putrid record by intervening in Syria which brings US/NATO into direct conflict with Russia. If Russia backs down I guess we are okay, if not we run the real risk of WWIII.
Now there are many theories as to why Hillary is so hell bent on disastrous war, could it be the byzantine plans of the Saudis, of the Israelis or some ghoulish pleasure…a perversion of the soul that makes itself plain when she publicly gloats over a man’s death by a sodomizing bayonet?
No one could tell you for sure, but it’s clear, Hillary is one very sick puppy who willing to do anything to gain power again. And if past is prelude, to plunge this country into a war where there will only be losers. The highest risk to Americans in this election is to stay on the same course we have been following for the last 16 years, it is certainly not to “take a chance” on an outsider who doesn’t buy into this slow march to the gallows.
That is what the emails make most clear, the full collaboration between the [D]’s & [R]’s respective neocolonialist wings and the media’s commitment to raw imperialism. Is Trump the solution? I doubt it, but he at least calls out the problem correctly and has a reasonable approach to stopping it. The last guy who tried to stop it died in Dallas when I was just a kid, should Trump be elected I feel certain that deep state will once again makes it’s desire known through a bullet’s short flight.
Tal Hartsfeld
I remember in the early days of the “feminist revival” (early 1970s) the idealistic notion that “if women were in charge there would be less violence in the world”, presumably because of women being the more “sensitive” and “compassionate” gender.
If Clinton wins and assumes office, wouldn’t it be ironic if circumstances on the global front become so desperate she winds up being THE President who “pushes the button” and starts a nuclear war?
Just a thought, that’s all.
Ron Showalter
Trump is JFK?
Someone in Langley just splooged all over their monitor!
The best part of this Spectacle farce – and I thought the Bernie butt-hurt chorus was well worth the price of admission – is that now even in the face of the electoral/Spectacle disaster the completely and obviously incompetent criminal rapist asshat fraud Trump is as both a person and candidate the respected fake-left blogosphere – in toto – is DOUBLING DOWN on their support of Trump b/c of any number of redonkulous reasons ginned up by the very same MSM/blogosphere that they believe they are all smarter than. Naked Capitalism? MoonofAlabama? The Saker?
Just go and sample the asshattery among their illustrious commentariat all lost in some sort of amazing fugue of brainwashed imbecility.
Freaking hilarious/sad.
different clue
If Assange was trying to influence the election here by releasing the Emals and stuff without knowing how it would actually influence things, he would not be the first foreigner to proceed in deep ignorance of the American brainwar battlespace.
Whoever was in charge of the Guardian during the Bush-Kerry election decided to launch a campaign of emailing bunches of ordinary citizens in Ohio about how they should vote for Kerry against Bush. Various pro-Kerry Americans asked him not to do it and said it risked annoying whoever received those emails into voting for Bush because no God Damned Foreigner is going to tell us how to vote. But he did it anyway. ( Granted, there is a fringe conspiracy theory that Mr. Guardian did it precisely on purpose in order to goad more Ohians into voting for Bush, so that his newspaper would have more opportunity to write anti-Bush stories).
I sometimes wonder whether Assange releases things for any other reason than the pure LULZ ( if I am using that word correctly). And all his “reasons” are rationalizations after the fact. Why would I wonder that? Because I wonder what purpose he thought he was serving by releasing all the University of East Anglia Climate Scientist emails. Did he intend to give the Global Warming Denialist community a whole treasure trove of dis-quotable and dis-interpretatable emails to breath years of new vigorous life into the Global Warming Denialist Movement? Because that is the effect he had. He certainly did that release purely for the LULZ.
Gaianne
What realitychecker said.
We really do appreciate Ian’s writing, even if we have to be reminded of that the hard way.
As for wikileaks: Well, obviously, they run their own agenda by their own lights. But mostly, they make public information that ought to be public. This is a real service.
Yes, consent of the governed is one of those quaint but useful concepts we really ought to be keeping.
–Gaianne
XFR
Rubbish.
Bush renounced the deterrence doctrine. As that doctrine underpinned the exercise of national sovereignty, in so doing he effectively declared all other nations to be de facto American possessions unless they could take on the Lone Superpower in a contest of arms. This represented a complete rejection of the spirit of the UN and of the very idea of international law.
There were many people who said “this is simply the insane behaviour of a few militaristic crackpots who have temporarily seized the reigns of power in the U.S.–the American people will sort this out once they see what’s going on.” So the campaign was launched to plead with the American people to please sort it out. They may or may not have, in the end–the irregularities in that election were swept under the rug, as usual, so we may never really know.
In any case, to say people petitioning the American public–who were ostensibly the final boss–for the freedom of their own nations were “interfering” in American affairs is disingenuous. That such a thing constituted interference was in the first place predicated on the idea that no American government would ever do the sort of thing that Bush’s government was doing at the time. (And indeed, that Obama’s government is doing now.)
XFR
And seeing as renouncing the deterrence doctrine had theretofore tended to head up the list of The Sorts of Things You-Know-Who Would’ve Done, to hear that drumbeat now, coming from very the same organs that fawned over Bush at the time–and still do so today–is sickening.
Hugh
We all have our agendas, but sometimes it just comes down to bearing witness. The release of the Podesta emails won’t change the fact that we are screwed no matter who is elected the next President. They simply attest to the corruption and mendacity of one of the candidates, and those around her, and of the media which should have dug up this material and explored its import on its own but continues instead to refuse to do so even when it has been presented with it on a silver platter.
But the degree of our being screwed goes far beyond who is the next President. Even if a real socialist, not a pushover like Sanders, became President, that person at best could do no more than begin a guerilla war against the Establishment. They would still be facing 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and 8 or 9 Supreme Court justices arrayed against them. And beyond these, 10,000 or so in the middle and upper management of the federal government alone (civilian and military), and at least several times that in state and local government. And beyond these, several hundred thousand in elite positions outside of government, on Wall Street, in government contracting (the MIC, surveillance, intelligence), in corporate law firms, in academia, and of course, in the media. And yet again beyond these, the rich, the 2-3 million we call the 1%.
These define an entrenched and self-serving system which has already inflicted great violence against us and has no intention of going quietly and is prepared to use much greater violence to hold on to its power and privilege. Still they both can and need to be swept away, but until we understand the full scope of task before us and organize accordingly to take it on, we likely, as now, will continue to be distracted by what are essentially meaningless contests, like the current Presidential election.
different clue
@XFR,
“Rubbish”? Well, that’s what I remember happening at the time. And that’s what I remember the advice that for-Kerry people was at the time. And I trust my memory as to what happened.
You are addressing a whole other question: why did Mister Guardian do it or arrange it? I am merely noting that it happened, as far as I remember.
But since you are exploring motives and reasons, what do you think Assange’s reason was for dumping the East Anglia Climate Center emails? Was he a secret Global Warming Denialist all along who secretly wanted to assist the Denialist forces? If that’s not the reason, what do you think the reason was? I think it was for the LULZ.
Mandos
Oh wow. This is one I didn’t even know about, or forget: https://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRU_emails_reveal_a_worrying_pattern_of_bad_behaviour
Good grief.
Lulz would be one thing. I suspect it’s probably worse: what I would call the Narcissism of “Truth”, which we see on full display on these threads.
Ghostwheel
In regard to Julian Assange himself, there are rumors abounding of his death or capture. After his internet was cut, the terrain in his regard has been getting increasingly eerie. I wonder if anyone here has been able to ascertain anything reliable one way or the other?
wendy davis
@ ghostwheel FWIW, craig murray, oct. 19/20
“UPDATE
I left Julian after midnight. He is fit, well, sharp and in good spirits. WikiLeaks never reveals or comments upon its sources, but as I published before a fortnight ago, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it is not any Russian state actor or proxy that gave the Democratic National Committee and Podesta material to WikiLeaks. The claim is nonsense. Journalists are also publishing that these were obtained by “hacking” with no evidence that this was the method used to obtain them.”, etc.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/10/really-really-upset-foreign-office-security-services/
BlizzardOfOz
Why do all male Hillary supporters write like teenage girls? There’s a deep truth in there somewhere.
EmilianoZ
On the subject of website design, I’ve always like the elegance and simplicity of the Golem xiv blog:
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/
different clue
@Mandos,
Whatever Assange’s motives, the release of all these Clinton-Podesta-etc. emails is a Good Thing. It will make public For The Ages the river of moral sewage in which these filth sh*t garbage Clintonites drink, bathe and swim.
There was never going to be any good or better or worser time or way or place to release these.
The World OverClass Borg and its MSM would shape the brainwar battlespace around and against these emails with all its might in any case. So it would have been pointless for for Assange to worry about what “effect” the release would have.
A reformation movement to purge and burn every trace of Malignant Clintonoma and Yersiniobama pestis from our public and political life will take decades. And won’t even begin until its necessity is faced up to. And reading these emails dipped up from the Clinton River of Sewage will be a slow start in that direction.
I remember reading on some other thread somewhere that someone offered a very interesting reason to vote FOR Clinton. That reason was offered by James Klunster on his Klunsterfuck Nation blog. And it came to this: that the “bill” or “banquet of consequences” will arrive fairly soon now, and it would be better to have the filth sh*t garbage scum trash Clintonites firmly in power and in the spotlight when it does.
On the other hand, Colonel Lang and all the other retired Intelligence/Military/Diplomat/etc. people over at Sic Semper Tyrannis believe that a President Clinton presents a much more clear and present danger of war ( possibly nuclear) with Russia than a President Trump ever would.
So I am torn about which way to vote. For Madame Execrable in order to Heighten the Contradictions? Or for Mister Deplorable, to lower the chances of Nuclear War?
Jill
I want to correct some information about wikileaks publishing personal information about Turkish women. That story is a lie. “Remember that story going around last week about WikiLeaks and “Turkish women”? It was fabricated.” https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/763093116190597120
The site has gone into detail about this charge and the person responsible for actually leaking the names admitted to doing so and apologized for his actions. He is not affiliated with wikileaks.
The information contained in the Podesta e-mails is of vital importance. Not because it will influence the US election. That has already been influenced by the oligarchy and their selection has been made.
People are realizing just how little this govt. has to do with the rule of law. How it is full of people who lie, are corrupt and commit even murder and torture. Assange’s motives are irrelevant. This knowledge belongs to we the people.
It is we the people who will need to take action to correct all that is wrong with our govt. –the official one and the shadow one. We cannot do this if we don’t have a good handle on how bad things really are. Thanks to these leaks, we are getting a look at the deep state and how they “function”.
It’s difficult to understand why people don’t want to know about what is actually happening in this govt. It’s quite dangerous and completely undemocratic. These are people who could lead us into WWIII. They will also lead us into complete environmental destruction. No person should be o.k. with this or want to remain uninformed about it.
Peter*
Completely OT but I think worth mentioning is the news that the Bundy brothers were acquitted today, by a jury, of all federal charges in the Oregon wildlife refuge occupation. I’m not a fan of these guys but the jury giving the feds the finger is okay especially after their trigger happy shooters got away with murder.
Mandos
WikiLeaks is defensively misrepresenting its behaviour here, and it blocked @zeynep from responding directly, though she responded extensively, which you can see on the @NatSecGeek thread. The linked Glomar Disclosure page semantically nitpicks on the word “released”, totally disingenuous and missing the point. In the meantime, the mostly useless 300K email archive is still up and searchable on the WikiLeaks page, and you don’t even have to read Turkish to figure out that very little of it is relevant to anything.
Again, totally disingenuous, WikiLeaks behaviour on the AKP leaks issue is a demonstration of the weaknesses of the underlying philosophy, and the defensive behaviour of some of its supporters a clear case of paranoid messenger-shooting.
Which people are realizing it? It seems to be mostly the people who already thought so.
If environmental destruction were the issue, why does WikiLeaks take the position a different clue has brought to my attention.
Mandos
There’s a deep contradiction in this position. Either the World OverClass Borg is uniformly powerful, in which case there is no need even to bother leaking anything because their power is absolute, or there are points of weakness. In which case, why wouldn’t these points of weakness vary over time? Why would they be time-invariant, constant?
To me this is a narrative of helplessness. It’s working back from a particular moral posture that is claimed to be the One True Way to solve human problems, with the implication that, if it doesn’t work, then nothing should work. Surely we don’t need to reject utilitarianism so completely, even if we don’t want it to be the center of our worldviews.
V. Arnold
To me this is a narrative of helplessness. Mandos
Well, isn’t that exactly the position of the U.S. citizens? Helpless victims of their corrupt system?
Schools (the U.S. educational system) teach docility, subservience, rules, PC towards gender, race, and sexuality; aka speech, as in what can and cannot be said in society at large.
The control is palpable to anybody with a functional brain.
The proof is in this whole election campaign; orchestrated from before day one; the wild card being the Donald; and I’m not so sure about him being truly a “wild card”. I believe nothing and trust nothing…
Full Definition of utilitarianism – MW
1
: a doctrine that the useful is the good and that the determining consideration of right conduct should be the usefulness of its consequences; specifically : a theory that the aim of action should be the largest possible balance of pleasure over pain or the greatest happiness of the greatest number
2
: utilitarian character, spirit, or quality
Not the center of my world view, for a certainty.
No room for dreamers and the non-indoctrinated…
zot23
My issue with Assange and wikileaks isn’t the release, it’s that they held it until Oct of the election. They had this info in hand much earlier in the season, they could have released this info during the primary. To use Ian’s credibility yardsticks it was germane to that election and it was that close. If this stuff had dropped in May, does anyone doubt that the primary could have swung to Sanders from Hillary?
Waiting for October was not only grandstanding by Assange, but it helped Clinton clinch the nomination and simultaneously helped the odius Trump inch closer to the Presidency. Thanks, but no thanks…
V. Arnold
^ Sanders never had a chance; end of story. The real game of thrones…
Peter*
@zot
You can’t know when wikileaks received this information but you should know that Sanders was a Clintonite stooge who went off the reservation for a short time but was never going to be the nominee. Some Berners still seem to have the juvenile impression that Bernie ever represented them when he repeatedly showed he was there to lead them by their noses back to the veal pens.
Assange’s job is not to fulfill some Amerikan’s fantasies, he and wikileaks are dedicated to attacking the Beast with its own lies and truths. Timing is a critical factor for all news and attacking the Red Queen and her quislings now is just attacking the most prominent servant of the Beast today.
Stirling Newberry
It is rather simple: Trump was about the election, and now that it is going through the motions, Hillary is about the next president. it has been moved up a couple of months, but that is not surprising. it also tells us how bad the baby boom is at leaving, they wanted to be young forever and ever – even if their dead. the millennial’s will be into power, and will see the best side of them at the beginning, and the worst side of them when leaving.
More on Julia:
https://symbalitics.blogspot.com/2016/10/julia-3-das-urteil-0.html
Jill
Mandos,
There’s more to this story than you understand: https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/08/what-a-hit-piece-against-wikileaks-looks-like/
You are still giving out inaccurate information.
As to people understanding things. First, even most leftists did not have this level of detail about the corruption in USGinc. The best way to deal with the corruption is to have as much detail as possible. We need to know who links to who, and what to what.
In this same way, I’ve been grateful to Scahill for his information about military contractors and JSOC. Yes, I knew that was going on but did not know his level of detailed information. If you already know all of the details, then I think that’s very impressive. But most people do not know these details.
On the right, people are learning many things. Of all places, infowars made a distinction between capitalism and corporatism. This is getting into things that libertarians have been in denial about for a long time–ie: corporations run governments on their behalf and vice-versa.
I wasn’t certain what you meant about the environment so it’s difficult for me to address this point. Clinton has made clear that she supported fracking around the world. Coming from a person who claims to understand the science of global warming, this is alarming. It should be clear that even knowing the science, global warming just doesn’t matter to her.
S Brennan
“Sanders never had a chance; end of story” au contraire.
In what was the most brilliant move of this political season, Jill handed him the keys to the kingdom and in declining them, Sanders proved himself to be the fraudulent “sheepdog” that Bruce Dixon said he was…oh so long ago.
A shout out to Bruce Dixon for calling a triple bank combination shot and having the ball drop in the assigned pocket. Bruce saw it all the way and yet, Sanders supporters haven’t opened their eyes to the reality of Bernie’s cowardly fraud. Indeed, all my Bernie friends are now ardent Hillary supporters. My view that Jim Webb was the only genuine populist in the primary has been vindicated…Sanders was a complete fraud who was propped up by Hillary to provide a shiny new toy…yes, things got a little out hand, but the toy has since been returned to it’s dark place in the bottom of the toy box and the lid carefully shut.
…of course Jim Webb was labeled an extreme racist by Hillary’s camp when he said:
“The Confederate Battle Flag has wrongly been used for racist and other purposes in recent decades. It should not be used in any way as a political symbol that divides us, But we should also remember that honorable Americans fought on both sides in the Civil War, including slave holders in the Union Army from states such as Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware, and that many non-slave holders fought for the South,”
Astonishingly, the claim was made by Hillary who has often prominently featured Confederate flags in her/her husbands various campaigns. Even more amusingly, now that the Clinton Foundation organization, “Black Lives Matter” has performed it’s purpose, it too can be returned to the toy box.
Too bad for African Americans, because where the rubber meets the road Jim Webb has done more for the AA community than anyone else in the Senate/congress…especially Hillary.
http://www.newsweek.com/jim-webbs-criminal-justice-crusade-67347
Peter*
@mandy
We should thank you for exposing us to what quislings have adopted as their latest mission for the Red Queen and those she represents. It will require a lot of work and dedication to bring this Goebbelsian Wurlitzer up to speed and keep it fed and tended.
A writer at CP describes this as the ‘ Pathologization of Dissent’ and it will be a widespread program made critically necessary by the fact that soon the Red Queen will be showing everyone including her supporters what despicable behavior she is capable of in the service of empire and personal power.
realitychecker
BREAKING NEWS!!!
FBI Re-Opens investigation into Clinton’s private email server.
(I guess it got hot in the FBI kitchen after the Wiki releases this week lol.)
Ian Welsh
Post corrected re: the Turkish redaction issue.
Peter*
@RC
This is a strange development which caused me to fantasize seeing the Red Queen being perp-walked away from her coronation under a black hood.
The only reality based guess I can make about this is that there is some type of power struggle happening in the Deep State.
Hugh
When credibility is gone, it’s gone. The FBI opening or re-opening an investigation that it’s director did everything in his power to smother and taint is a case in point. Does anyone believe or trust that the FBI will, or even can anymore, conduct an honest investigation into anything?
Mandos’ narcissism of “Truth” is a wonderful encapsulation of how our elites, or any would be fascist and authoritarian, view any evidence-gathering or truth-seeking that they do not control. It is projection at its finest. It is all about them, but we are the narcissists.
Mandos
I addressed this, and so did @zeynep. The author is obviously and disingenuously hairsplitting on the words “release” and “publish.” I would not have taken back what Ian took back.
Mandos
No, the narcissism is the rather bizarre belief, very far from reality, that mere truth-seeking suffices to evade their control. That exposure of the truth ipso facto is an exertion of resistance towards the powerful. That is the narcissism of truth — and it is untrue. In the absence of a little thought towards timing and presentation, it’s a fairy story. Yet here we have people vociferously, remarkably denying that time matters — and, in fact, explicitly making out people who tell them it does matter to be their opponents. So not only narcissism, but old-school sectarianism.
realitychecker
Comey laid out a whole case in July, lacking only evidence of “intent” which he gratuitously inserted into a stature that only required “gross negligence” to convict.
If he is taking the extraordinary step of re-opening his investigation now, then it is a pretty sure bet that he has come up with evidence of “intent” that he dares not ignore in light of the revelations about FBI and DOJ collusion that Wikileaks has since revealed.
In any event, at this point I would settle for a stress-induced stroke or heart attack for the pathological perversion that is Hillary.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©
Wars and corporatism are good, as long as they’re intersectional.
– HRC voters
Furthermore, for all the Dem bootlickers who insist they are making sober decisions for lesser evilism, unlike the silly purity trolls: Look at the damn scoreboard.
You’re being taken to the cleaners election after election, assuming you actually care about anything besides your team winning.
It’s like someone in junior H.S. explaining the best way to deal with bullies is to always give them your lunch money.
Obama sold out hard and turned the Dem majorities he had in 2008 into a pile of shit.
President Hillary is going to make Obama look like a communist. All the winging about wikileaks and Putin is so much shameless deflection and horse shit.
~
Hugh
Speaking truth to power is always resistance and the time to do it is always in the present. As Hillel the Elder said nearly two thousand years ago:
“If I am not for myself who is for me? And being for my own self, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?”
The time to stand up for ourselves, what we believe, and the truth is always now. And as Martin Luther King wrote in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail:
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
There is never a more convenient season for action, and exposing the truth is action of the most fundamental kind. As in John,
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
There have been too many lies. It is pointless to try to outscheme the schemers. It says so much about how much we have lost our way that standing for the truth has become so controversial, that rather than being empowering it is dismissed as stupid, ineffective, and always ill-timed.
Hugh
realitychecker, Comey has already shown that he can be gotten to and that he is in the bag for Clinton. So if we use that as our starting point, then he probably was facing a rebellion in his ranks and knew that if he didn’t get out in front of it, the story was going to get leaked before the election anyhow. So he announced an “investigation” but effectively kicked the can down the road until after the election. This allows Clinton who famously set up her private server to avoid public scrutiny and has never released the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches to proclaim that she wants the FBI to release everything they have now, precisely because she knows that’s not going to happen before the elections. Pure kabuki, in other words. Comey announces an investigation in order to delay one, and Clinton demands transparency secure in the knowledge there will be none.
realitychecker
@ Hugh
You are pretty much my favorite Internet commenter, so no surprise that I agree with your analysis above. 😉
I would just add one little wrinkle, in that I think this week’s revelation about McAuliffe funding the campaign of the wife of the FBI guy in charge of the email investigation was just a bridge too far, something that could not be hidden as per the usual tactics.
Comey would have some strong interest in maintaining the cred of the FBI as an institution; I think it would be almost a relief for him to be able to open a “too late” investigation that focused on Huma/Weiner rather than have the public dwell on how unacceptable the original investigation was.
Separately, I appreciated your prior comment re truth and freedom; it just amazes me how so many seem unable to see or accept unhappy truths. This entire society is based on lies, we swim in a constant ocean of lies. I think a lot of liars would need to die or be severely punished before we could ever hope to make a decent society out of ourselves. But as of now, we are truly People of the Lie.
Growing up, “Don’t shoot the messenger” was universally understood to be good advice. Now, “Shoot the messenger” has become the new wisdom. You can’t fix this level of dysfunction without breaking down a lot of stuff.
Until that happens, clear thinkers are the most precious commodities. I salute you for being one of the clearest.
Jill
This is an important analysis by John Pilger I wanted to share here:
https://archive.fo/1inAb#selection-409.3-413.11
Peter*
@SBrennan
Where do you get this nonsense smear claim that BLM has ever had any connection to the Clintons or their party? It’s true that the Clintonites and others sent operatives to coop the movement and the Clintonite media promoted some of these posers as acceptable movement leaders but they are not and never have been.
Bruce Dixon has written much that I agree with including his early analysis of Sanders and I was puzzled by his almost immediate and continuing baseless attacks on BLM. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an old Commie so terrorized by a few Anarchist women. What is really sad is that he uses the same dirty tactics that were used against the Panthers in the ’60 to try to undermine BLM.
It seems that Dixon still clings to the discredited and failed Bolsheviki Communist Party worship that was challenged by Anarchists such as Emma Goldman early last century.
S Brennan
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/10/26/1587161/-Black-Lives-Matter-activists-endorse-Hillary-Clinton-for-president
S Brennan
Black Lives Matter movement…The Mothers of the Movement organization will be featured Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia…Many mothers in the group have campaigned with Clinton since their first meeting, particularly before the South Carolina primary in February.
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Hillary-Black-Lives-Matter-DNC/2016/07/23/id/740170/
Peter*
@SB
Any person or group of people can claim the hashtag BLM but they don’t have the right to claim they represent the core group that started BLM and they don’t. As far as I know none of this core group has endorsed any candidate or party although some of them have discussed whether or not to be involved in party politics.
The Clintonites and the Clintonite media have promoted these people and groups and may even sponsor them which makes them appear as willing tools of the party not representatives of BLM.
The Clintonite media repeatedly portrayed that clown DeRay Mckesson as a leader of the BLM movement along with Campaign Zero but he stated clearly he and his group did not represent BLM.
You can link to almost endless Clintonite and other media parroting of this claim of some people or groups representing BLM but that doesn’t make it true and never will.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
Aaaand the circular firing squad continues…
Hugh
realitychecker, thank you. I think clarity, and the search for it, is about all we have left. I had forgotten about the McAuliffe angle. It, like Bill’s meeting with Attorney General Lynch, shows that rather than clear lines of separation and an expectation of independence all of these people know each other, move in the same circles, and are constantly exchanging winks and nods, and favors, to each other.
The Clintons are infamous for throwing people under the bus. So even though Comey did the best by them that he could under circumstances they created, I think he’s toast if Hillary wins. The only questions out there are how and when to get rid of him.
Clinton-style grifting has always been unsubtle, in your face, but what I find amazing is that no matter how many servers they destroy, and backups they get erased by willing minions, there always seem to be thousands more emails lying around somewhere else. In anyone else, I would say it was incredibly sloppy, but with the Clintons, I think, it is a sign of their supreme arrogance and indifference. They are used to the accusations and no matter how flimsy their defenses up to now have been, they still have gotten away with everything: a hundred million dollar personal fortune, a billion dollar foundation, one a former Prez and the other very likely to be the next Prez. So why change what has been such a winning formula?
As for Huma, she seems to be some kind of email machine, reading and churning out tens of thousands of them. Hillary too just at a lesser level. The time consumed that too had to be pretty amazing. Makes you wonder how they had any time for their day jobs. Oh right, those were their day jobs.
different clue
@Mandos,
I think you have over-read and misinterpretated the meaning of what I wrote. Perhaps my language could have been more precision-machined and polished as well.
I am not offering a viewpoint of helplessness. I am offering a viewpoint of severe difficulty in the teeth of unbalanced resources and power between Them and Us. I believe it is vain and foolish strategery and tacktickery for Assange or anyone else to think he will “control” the “outcome” based on “when” he chooses to release material. Therefore, any one time to release is as good as any other time. Once it is released, we race to grab and understand all the info-war resources Assange has given us. Then we try to weaponize them and prepare them for dissemination and viralization. We also try to write the best instructions possible on how to use the weaponised email information and disseminate and viralize those instructions as well.
Everyone is free to suggest their own instructions and also put the weaponised and viralized emails to their own best use, in their own view.
I said it will take decades to de-Clintontaminate our Clintontaminated political and economic and social culture. I did not say it could not be done and I did not say the work should not be attempted.
different clue
@Ivory Bill Woodpecker,
The Left’s constant return to its basic default-setting behavior of circularized firing squadification is a major reason why the Left can’t have nice things.
I have suggested in different places that all the Great Thinkers and Strategists of the Left each gather their own followings and divide themselves up into theory-action groups that way. Each group should try its own thing its own way and every so often the groups should send representatives back to periodically-held Intergroup Meetings to share notes on what worked and what didn’t, and how and why.
And in the meantime, they should all forebear from trying to poach eachothers’ members or achieve dominance over all the other theory-action groups. Such member-poaching worship-demanding jealousy between the Great Leaders and Great Thinkers is why they have no energy left to try doing actual things . . . after they have spent all their energy and time trying to dominate eachother and become the Last Great Leader-Thinker Standing.
Mandos
Hugh,
MLK is not referring to the idea of strategic thought or that people attempting to change things shouldn’t consider what to do. He is, from the text itself, referring to the age-old attempt to submerge minority issues under other agendas deemed more widely important, including that of public order. The idea that he didn’t think of strategic and tactical issues and just “spoke truth to power” all the time is so obviously wrong it’s hard to know where to start.
Same with Jesus and the “the truth will set you free” and all that — that part of the bible is not referring to temporal liberation but instead freedom from sin and divine retribution, preached to people who were not on earth slaves but the elite. And that end of that story is not any temporal liberation but rather torture, death, and a miraculous, spiritually redemptive resurrection.
But I going to invent another term here: gandhiosis — the misuse of an admired historical or religious figure’s apparent postures to prove a pre-determined moral point. You’ve decided that in the face of the opposition when and how you do something don’t matter: a posture of despair and helplessness. Fine, wallow in that despair. Just don’t claim, as you do, that “speaking truth to power” is “resistance” — it isn’t and never will be, by itself. It can very well be tantamount to capitulation.
Mandos
Here’s the thing: there’s one aspect of “speaking truth to power” that I do agree with. That is, it does take a lot of resources to preserve the lie. For this reason, I don’t think the imbalance needs to be as large as people make it out to be. Instead, many progressives (or whatever you want to call them) have taken the size of the difference to mean that they should put no thought in at all in terms of strategy.
But this is not true. It’s not about “controlling” the outcome, it is about preserving the usefulness of the information. The information is now associated, for the near future, with what looks like an alt-right “douchebro” coup. (Even if you think that Hillary is the real coup-ist or whatever.)
That is a good idea, but my point has been from the beginning that smashing the warheads at the start is probably not a good idea.
realitychecker
How clear it is to see that lefties just love to talk; the more paragraphs deployed, the more polysyllabic words and phrases flung about, the more the simple and direct truths become obfuscated, and the more space is created for feelings to dominate logic, and the more ambiguity becomes the final result.
And make no mistake, ambiguity is the friend of those in power, as it prevents the underclasses from taking the risk and inconvenience of opposition if they cannot be certain that they have the clear picture. Uncertainty creates passivity, passivity becomes paralysis, paralysis protects the status quo.
Case in point: For all the diversionary babble we have been inundated with around this election cycle, as Clinton and her supporters try to convince of her devotion to the People, she herself provided the direct truth that contradicts that very proposition.
To wit, in the second debate, which I just reviewed, she openly and correctly states, while trying to take credit for herself and Obama for the so-called economic recovery, that ALL the wealth gains since the Great Recession have gone to “the top.” That is a true fact which has been widely reported and is well-documented.
What does that mean? Well,, it constitutes a frank and inescapable admission that the end result of the Obama/Clinton policy regime has been to blatantly favor the elite over the People.
For those who do not understand markets, from one who specializes in understanding them, there could have been no other result from the relentless creation of fake, free money which has been the hallmark of the Obama years. That free money inevitably went into the stock market, and accounted for the more-than tripling of prices in that market.
Now, who do you think owns all that stock? (Hint:: Not the little folks, who at most have a paltry few shares in their IRA’s and 401K’s.)
One might well wonder about the mental facilities of Democrats who think that is something to celebrate, n’est-ce pas?
One might wonder why we would be talking about anything else, re who and what the current regime has served. And what that says about their true agendas and sympathies.
If one had a working brain, that is.
Stirling Newberry
“How clear it is to see that lefties just love to talk”
Where righties love to prattle.
Hatch act:
https://symbalitics.blogspot.com/2016/10/on-clinton-emails-did-fbi-director.html
Peter*
@DC
My defense of BLM is about why mostly White men of the supposed left, and whackos on the right, are pissing their pants about the social movement these three Black women have created and the Clintonites have tried to coopt for political purposes. Dixon just happens to be an old Black commie with a vendetta for these young radicals and I’m not sure if it’s male jealousy or ideological differences or both.
This reactionary response, by supposedly progressive White males, seems to have started after the BLM confrontations with Sanders. The reactions I saw from that encounter made me wonder if the Berners were actually representatives of the left or just rebranded reformist liberals who any good leftie despises. Even a friend of twenty years who portrayed himself as a leftists cracked, exposing his liberal tendencies, at this affront to their White Moses and described these women as ‘fat Ni**er bitches’
I’ve been critiquing the so called left since the ’60s from a Radical viewpoint and many of the leftists icons of that era have turned out to be little more than liberals playing a radical role until better opportunities came along. Tom Hayden was the perfect example of that reality. Bruce Dixon is not an example of this but he may be an example of the male dominated Black Power movement of that era.
I don’t know how S Brennan would describe his politics just that he is repeatedly attacking these women/BLM for actions perpetrated by Clintonites and that he appears to be a guy.
S Brennan
Pretty funny prediction; in that, 3 days later…
=================================================
Markfromireland – October 26, 2016
Calm down everyone. Mandos’ record for accurate political prediction is quite simple abysmal. He’s a tone deaf political gadfly and that’s all he is. Read his stuff at all closely and you’ll see he’s already in the political dustbin.
===============================================
…even pro-Hillary media outlets are suddenly beginning to see what the US citizenry already knows:
“It’s obvious the American political system is breaking down. It’s been crumbling for some time now, and the establishment elite know it and they’re properly frightened. Donald Trump…is a symptom, not a cause…James Comey’s announcement about the renewed Clinton email investigation is the bombshell in the presidential campaign…every thinking person that what the FBI is looking at is extremely serious.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-hillary-clinton-emails-kass-1030-20161028-column.html
Mandos
S Brennan:
I was still careful to avoid explicitly predicting a Hillary win, even though most people say that even after these email revelations, it’s extremely likely — but anything can happen, everyone could be lying to the pollsters, etc. What I can say in this case is that any disadvantage to Clinton did not come from Assange, but directly from the government itself. It already seems to be in the process of being talked away. Anyway, we’ll see — President Trump would sure be interesting, at least.
realitychecker
@ Stirling
Thanks for once again drawing attention to your limitations. I see your desperately idiotic post linked to above is not only idiotic, but is so idiotically irrelevant it has not even attracted a comment. You must be so proud.
“righties love to prattle”
FYI, as if anyone cares, I just cast the first and only vote of my long life for ANY Republican. I was sick to my stomach at having to do so, but was so constrained by my APPROPRIATE respect for the Rule of Law and all that it entails.
Your automatic resort to that ad hominem labeling tactic is a perfect illustration of why erstwhile committed progressive lefties like me are realizing in large numbers that our integrity and our future do not and cannot lie with the hopelessly and thoroughly corrupt Clinton Party.
So, GFY, slave.
Hugh
Thank you, Mandos, for illustrating Martin Luther King’s point that “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
What continues to resonate in Jesus’, Hillel the Elder, and Martin Luther King’s words are their timelessness and universality. Mandos’ argument is reductionist and ultimately nihilistic. We can only understand their words within specific contexts, which can only be those of Mandos or at least his pretty wobbly concept of them. As a result, they have very narrow or no application in the modern world. But if such selective parsimony can be applied to them, then why not to everything in the history of religion and philosophy? Oops, there go the Greeks next, and really everyone else as well.
wendy davis
@ realitychecker Wikileaks tweeted a link to ‘the hill’ saying that rush limburger opined that comey opened the investigation to deflect from the podesta emails; i like it, lol.
and this is because: weiner’s still technically married to huma abedin, the ovien queen’s deputy campaign advisor:
https://twitter.com/Wonkette/status/792239851735244800
can all this election rubbish get any more creepy? when will it be over???
Stirling Newberry
Comey is try not to save Trump, he is try to save Republican control of the Senate.
realitychecker
@ wendy davis
Hi, Wendy. IMO, this is all part of the necessary process of opening the public’s eyes to the incredible dysfunction and corruption that now characterizes every level of our governance infrastructure, moving us closer to the realization that this must all be opposed by force if we really want the sweeping changes that are necessary to get us back to any semblance of justice and rationality.
IOW, a great nation cannot survive by mindfuckery alone. 😉
realitychecker
ON EDIT:
Instead of “force,” meant to say “force or the credible threat of force”
Peter*
@RC
Let me be the first and probably only one here to acknowledge your courage for voting for those republican rascals and actually telling people you did it. There is only one positive outcome from this election and that is breaking the back of Clintonism and sending them and their lackeys into the dustbin of history. I’ve watched and joined the crowd who preached holding our noses and voting for LOTE democrats for years and it’s good that some people can apply that tactic, that helped empower the Clintons, to ending their reign of terror.
I’m trying to not be too optimistic about the outcome of this made for TV drama because the system is rigged and the winner was selected long ago. The Rule of Man is what controls our future while the Rule of Law is a distant fading memory.
wendy davis
@ Peter: the title of mandos’s GOS essay is misleading compared to the wapo title, but sadly the move to coopt the black lives movement for dems is afoot, by way of the ford foundation, and before that, george soros, of course. my best guess is that TFA grifters ‘blue vest’ and packnett were recipients of that blood money, as well as some from TFA itself. and most detractors will believe as mandos does, yes?
i’d written about it awhile back, based on an article at wsws. one commenter came in and said “yep, you were right”, giving moandos’s link. he asked if Obomba would have asked them for their endorsement of the queen. yep. not only was blue vest’s, samswey, and packnett’s ‘campaign zero’ a white house reform the police thing, but they were at the WH a number of times, iirc (w/ jonetta elzie and others as well). whether or not that predated mckesson and elzie becoming BLM stars in the NYT or not, i forget. now tometti, garza, and cullors will take the bread, it’s hard to imagine; same for blackout collective.
i don’t recall dixon dissing the movement, but ford has to an extent. but at the panther conference and gala in oakland recently, panther elaine brown sure as hell told them ‘they were still on the plantation’. ouch; sean king objected on DN! the #m4bl does seem pretty committed to policy changes, likely reformist, and i don’t remember if they’d mentioned capitalism as the over-riding culprit, both historically and in the present. but they might just like the bucks to ‘create movemental leaders to run for office and be lobbyists’ or however the billionaire fordites announced it.
http://alturl.com/own84
@ realitychecker: sadly, i dunno how many citizens have had their eyes opened by this version of the quadrennial circus. thanks for amending it ‘to “force or the credible threat of force”, although i don’t know what that really looks like, myownself. history tells us that MLK’s success was partly due to Malcolm x and his comrades, there are likely many other examples. panther community defense patrols? maybe a bad example because: COINTELPRO. AIM? same thing, no?
no way i can mark and X for orangutan hair, but i’ll kinda laff if he wins. comrade rax brought an essay positing contrasting styles of leadership v. active neocon deep state v. passive, tra la la, that contends the T-man would be more tractable for the non-neocons. i didn’t read it all since it was so long, but his last response to me was that ‘the proles must revolt’. that reminded me of that old wizard of id cartoon. a page comes running in and says to the wizard: “sire! your people are revolting!”
“yes, they are,” answered the wiz.
good luck, and good night. what a failed experiment humanity has been, and yet: some beacons of light shine here and there. i just had reason to remind juliania that in the #noDapl twittersphere the old irish proverb was remembered:
“they tried to bury us….they forgot we were seeds.”
Stirling Newberry
https://symbalitics.blogspot.com/2016/10/julia-nocturne-nuages.html
writing on music, specifically Debussy.
Peter*
@WD
Dixon’s attacks on BLM are just as vile and insinuating as Ford’s projecting their coming sellout to the Clintonites and mammon that has never materialized. They both display this male pattern belligerence that is parroted by others.
Old Panthers even women can criticize BLM but they have to recognize their own failures and that their failed movement is no model for today. You didn’t identify who in BLM is offering these likely reformist policies but with all the demands for ‘Demands’ I’m not surprised someone produced a batch to deflect these howlers and try to move the discussion into more interesting territory. These organizational howlers barked the same orders at Occupy Wall Street and they relented producing something for the howlers to chew on.
What these three women anarchists set loose in the Beast was simple but powerful. It is a platform for improving the morale in Black society while offering the opportunity for building unity and even Black Power. They have, so far, refused to use the statist political tools that others are demanding even though they must know they are the road to cooptation and failure. Most people are so conditioned to look only to statist solutions/illusions that anarchist thought confuses and frightens them.
I’ll view BLM as successful if they are able to enlighten a few thousand young Black people about the idea that they don’t need someone else to lead them or speak for them or dictate to them what to think or do. They can then move on to not leading others but showing them how to lead themselves.
atcooper
It’s extremely comforting to hear there are anarchists out there having some impact on the dialogue.
Ian Welsh
Well then, we should liberate N. America for the native Americans, who have experienced worse than the Ukrainians.
But your metaphor is moronic anyway: there is good reason to believe that the majority of Crimeans want to be in Russia (yes, the Russian Tatars are being screwed, yes, that’s bad, just like our Indians). The area of the Ukraine which Russia is interfering in is primarily Russian ethnic and likewise seems to want the Russians there.
“He’s dating two of the sisters, and it seems like that’s consensual, even though the rest of the family doesn’t like it”.
To use another idiotic metaphor.
There are atrocities all around the world; terrible things happening every day. Far worse things are going on in East Timor. Shall we invade them?
The question for intervention is “is Putin indeed going to do bad things to multiple countries.”
I submit that if there’s a country in the world that needs to be stopped from killing and killing again, it’s America.
Saudi Arabia would be the other cancer that should be expunged.
Want to fight a war? End the American empire. After all, you and your allies are responsible for destroying Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and to a large extent, Syria. Your front-running Presidential candidate celebrated Libya’s destruction, voted for Iraq and wanted a no-fly zone over Syria. Your last two presidents run an assassination program with worldwide reach which kills virtually every day.
That’s worse than Russia’s recent record, in which the serious atrocities are in Chechnya, something everyone seems to forget.
America goes half way around the world to destroy countries who are no threat to it.
And you’re worried about Russia getting involved in regions with majority ethnic Russians?
wendy davis
@ Peter: we seem to be talking past each other, at least as far as i can discern from what seems to be your tone. i’m falling quite behind wrangling the café, and RL chores are calling. i’ll try to come back, maybe even tomorrow to say more. but for now, #OperationZero is reformist, #m4bl is bold, but will take policy, not just rebellion. and yes, there have been plenty of groups with the movement with demands lists.
i’ve been writing about pushback to the police state since the movement actually began in albuquerque, it was the progenitor to the overarching BLM movement, not that it’s likely to any of them. turtle island indigenous movements, as well.
i did begin to collect some BAR references to the movement that may or may not ballast your contention about ford and dixon, but yes: black is back conferences are poorly attended and seem to harken to the past panther days. and yes, in the end it was an incomplete movement in the end, much like the original civil rights movement steeped in ‘respectability politics’ failed to stick. hence, #blacklivesmatter, and recently #nativelivesmatter.
wendy davis
correction: “not that it’s likely that any of of the black protestors know that.” and of course i’d forgotten the link: https://policy.m4bl.org/
Tom
http://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/turkey-russia-sign-landmark-agreement-on-syria-2556332
Took several months of horse trading, but if this article is true, then Erdogan has achieved his goals. Putin simply can\’t afford to keep propping up Assad in unsustainable salients like Aleppo especially as SyAA is effectively destroyed with only the Tiger Force and Snake Force still combat worthy and the latter is stuck in Deir Ezzor in an ever shrinking pocket.
At some point, the Assad Regime is going to catastrophically collapse even with Hezbollah and Iranian backing if it doesn\’t pull back from its salients and protect its main heartland. Even then, the rebel victory is assured with Turkey\’s safe zone being carved out and Syrians resettling back in it.
charlie
Off topic, but Peter Thiel has it nailed.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-31/what-trump-represents-not-crazy-and-not-going-away-peter-thiel-full-transcript
Hugh
If self-determination is OK for Russians, why isn’t it OK for Chenchens, Crimean Tatars, and many other ethnic groups in Russia? The answer is that self-determination is just an excuse for resurgent Russian imperialism. I have never understood the demonization nor the adulation of Putin among certain groups. He is just another dictator presiding over an oligarchic kleptocracy with lots and lots of nukes but a relatively weak economy.
wendy davis
er…are some of these comments meant for ian’s disappeared diary on ‘saudi arabian bonds’ or some such?
oh yes, peter thiel, silicon valley creator of paypal has it nailed, good god all-friday. good thing all the silicon valley dollars are going to elect the ovien queen, right?
Peter*
@Tom
If this story is verified the Assad loving fanatics at MOA and SST are either going to be apoplectic or will spin themselves off the edge of the earth trying to create fantasies about it.
It’s hard to accept this deal as possible but the Russians not bombing Aleppo during this rebel offensive does give it some credence.
Ian Welsh
I am on the record as saying, I even posted, that “Putin is an evil man”.
He is not, however, more evil than George W. Bush or Obama or Clinton.
And he is less dangerous to most countries, as best I can see.
atcooper
That Thiel speech is good. I’ll have to rethink reading his book. I’d assumed he was just another Silicon Valley jagoff.