At the recent World Economic Forum, former CNN host Brian Stelter led a panel of self-appointed mandarins titled “Clear & Present Danger of Disinformation.” One of the panelists was New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, who described disinformation as the “most existential” problem facing the world.
Sulzberger insisted that disinformation is the reason why there’s a loss of “trust” today, ignoring the fact that American institutions — most notably the mainstream media and public health — have purged credibility through their own flagrantly biased decisions and straight up lies.
This one of the defining characteristics of a Fourth Turning - loss of trust in major institutions. I agree - and have for a couple years, that there isn’t one major US institution that I trust any longer. 4th turning ends in a “crisis”. Prepare accordingly.
For example, we trust Bitcoin (as long as government stays out of it). We also trust other decentralized and transparent systems. But that is about it.
Didn't another NYT pooh-bah--perhaps retired, I don't recall which one at the moment--have the audacity to declare that news reporting should no longer be objective, that the "lived experiences" of reporters should be folded in? I was appalled.
Sulzberger's comment strikes me the same. Yes, "disinformation" is a serious problem, as Matt's reporting lays out so well. But the bigger problem is the utter lack of will by the NYT, among others, to dig into and dismantle the disinformationists. Governments will always abuse, it's the nature of power. We depend on a free and independent press corps to stop these abuses---and our biggest and most well-funded news operators take a pass.
I let the link play on and It is my music but another context. I love Johnny Cash and Kinky Friedman.
I thinking of my play list and said playlists and playlists of play lists and playlists of playlists of playlists of playlists. I been surrounded by music my whole life. I am open to music from many culture.
America is anything but E Pluribus Unum
America is Borg and must assimilate.
I see you listen to Tibet and North American aboriginal music and are comfortable such an environment.
I am a stranger in a strange land I like everybody's music and poetry.
For Sulzberger to pontificate on disinformation is more than a bit rich. The NYT has been consistently biased in favor of Washington's narrative on wars, from Iraq to Ukraine, not to dwell on coups. And the behavior of NYT moderators at the Athens Democracy Forum last year spoke volumes. During a panel discussion titled “Aristotle-Confucius Dialogue,” Roger Cohen, the NYT’s Paris bureau chief, repeatedly interrupted Jeffrey Sachs, as he dared discuss Washington-NATO provocations of Russia. By contrast, Cohen was faithfully deferential to the Korean former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as he parroted the Manichaean line: Putin evil, West good.
At the same forum, in a segment titled "A Decade of Democracy: China and Russia," the Times' Steven Erlanger, Chief Diplomatic Correspondent - Europe, at the 20:15 mark, blocked Sachs from continuing his historical review of Western imperialism, accusing him of making a speech, but minutes later allowed the editor-in-chief of a Polish journal to wander off on the travails of Ukranians. At the 34:04 mark, Erlanger again interrupted Sachs during his response, seemingly not to Erlanger's liking, to a question from the audience; this time Sachs held his ground and fended him off. To top it off, Erlanger had the nerve to say he was there to "facilitate discussion."
LOL They sent Brian Stelter in the plea the corporate media's case asking the Masters for a reprieve from the filthy masses by silencing the masses so they can keep their captive audience.
That guy sucks, BTW. Just a giant ass-kissing clown.
Democracy works it works for me. There are now four Full Democracies in the Americas. Canada, Costa Rica , Uruguay and now Chile. All it took in Chile was a new constitution to change Chile from a flawed democracy like the USA into a Full Democracy like Canada. A rule of law country cannot be a full democracy they are oxymoronic. Read your Jefferson it is an old idea held by Franklin and Jefferson. Separate unsupportable beliefs from human government. In Quebec we call it the laicity of the state.
Laicity:
La·ic·i·ty
/lāˈisədē/
noun
1.
the principles, status, or influence of the laity.
formal
The GOP does not believe in liberal democracy; liberal for short. The rest is babble there is no politics no discussion there is no United States of America. full stop.
There is no MISSOURI COMPROMISE
If you want to blow up the world Canada cannot stop you.
If you want to melt it it Canada can't stop you,
If you want to go out with a whimper Canada can't stop you
If you want to go out with song we can join you
If you need help with repairs Beavers can build dams.
I'll get back to you later on your actual request. Early in Obama's first administration he dispatched an aide to order an Air Force Brigadier General to change his testimony before a Congressional Committee because it would harm the financial interests of a political ally. The General refused, as he was required to do when given an illegal order. Obama was floored. Wasn't the military just another special interest group?
No. His introduction to the reality of a non-politicized military served him well: he set about first politicizing the military so that he wouldn't be caught flat-footed again. It worked. Now, Biden has a politicized military to deal with and it will do what the President wants. Fuck the citizens.
Barrack Obama came to DC bringing Progressive Ideology + Chicago style politics. He found A Lot of people more than happy to oblige him.
Remember when he said "We are 3 days away from Fundamentally Changing America." Well he meant it, and he did. Turned the political corruption dial up to 11.
More accurate would be "Barrack Obama came to DC bringing Progressive messaging..." One can tell by 1) his continuation of Bush's foreign policy; 2) his bailout of the banks while leaving homeowners subject to foreclosures; 3) the betrayal of his public option healthcare promise; and 4) the non-prosecution of the banksters; that he was an Establishment figure masquerading as a Progressive. He totally conned most Progressives, who were so damaged by Trump Derangement Syndrome that most now support the latest forever war, the CIA and censorship.
Given the sheer size of our financial reaming I will always maintain that inserting Barack into the Oval Orifice was a an act of sheer genius by the ruling class. White liberals, especially upscale white liberals, are entirely incapable of criticizing a black man lest someone dares to call them racist. They still can't look at him as anything other than Black Jesus. America wanted Martin Luther King but instead they got a version of Don King. If I didn't live here I'd find it all pretty damn funny.
Maybe Barack can talk Bill Clinton into pulling his sax out of retirement for a nationwide nostalgia tour like Frankie Valli used to do. Then they could hit PBS during one of PBS' 363 days of fundraising with Barack's other BFF Bruce Springsteen. Hell, they could even fly Zelensky in for a benediction & a speech. The Big Z & Brucie could then bring down the house with a duet on The Ghost Of Tom Chode. Jon Stewart could MC sporting his new Hitler mustache that he grew to honor those brave boys in the Azov battalion. Even Stephen Colbert could show up festooned with vaccine needles, looking like an especially nerdy Pinhead from Hellraiser.
Thank you Spiderbaby but I am more Frederick Douglas than Hines, Heintz or Obama. Actually I am more Zelenskiy playing piano. Intellectually the only American I can think of as a Zelenskiy peer is Kamala Harris and all I can do is wait for her to come out of the closet. It is hard being a East Indian West Indian Montreal Jewish Public Intellectual. It must be a very strange closet.
When I first heard her accent I had no idea of her background and fell off my chair.
Trolls and psychos have very sensitive ears.
I think I hear Eartha Kitt in the background.
Stoicism isn't cynicism.
Seneca wasn't a cynic.
Diogenes was a standup comic; comedy is comedy, cynicism is self loathing.
features Joe Scarborough babbling on about Covid as if anyone other than deranged MSNBC-ers actually care about his opinion and, at the 4:05 mark, he invites Sharpton out so Al can stand there like, as Jimmy says, a Madame Tussaud wax figure. Al is so good at looking artificial I think he could have a second career at Tussauds. He'd even do a stellar job as a speed bump.
He had to disinvite the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Nobody likes truthtellers. Don't you read Plato?
Do you think America can accept a truthteller visiting the White House?
It would be an act of treason.
God has damned America as the world is beginning to understand.
Choosing between Beijing and Washington isn't easy. Do we want fools or madmen in charge? Either way you get the Wrigley's Doublemint of two mints in one. 🤣
If memory serves me, Wright was actually physically at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, IL when Obama announced his goal to lead our (read, racist) nation. For some reason, Obama decided at the last minute it might be a bad look for Rev. Jer to be on stage with him from the get-go. The Obama whisperers (white guys?) must have advised against it. Ha. The Bringer of Light, or something.
Please forgive the name dropping. I have no academic credentials they gave me a high school certificate despite my grades. I didn't misbehave I was just retarded.😢
My favorite Obama moment was his climate change speech where he said with much religious fervor, "This is the moment the waters stop rising. This is the moment the Earth begins to heal."
What he should have said was "This is the moment I will bend you over a table. This is the moment the ruling class will not only rape you but they will rape your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren & your great great grandchildren."
Steve I lived in Woodlawn. Obama was a conservative. Obama lost in our congressional primary because we understood a need for revolutionary change. Today we have the Obama Center because they can't afford Hyde Park and the University of Chicago. Obama served Hyde Park not Woodlawn.
Mark Twain said it best
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have no influence."😢
Hard to say the military isn't a political entity. After all, our military's primary purpose is to overthrow foreign regimes that won't sell their natural resources or labor at a discount. Just like the CIA.
Seems more likely the general's political interests didn't align with Obama.
I suppose that's possible. The General was ordered to lie to Congress when testifying. The General's politics weren't relevant in the face of an illegal order.
Bill I know what I am but you think yourself knowledgeable.
What is the role of the USA Military other than aggression and dominion. Madison attacked the British Empire on land and sea because he wanted peace? No! He wanted a piece of this and a piece that there and a piece of that here.
The USA and the Brits did their best to savage our peaceful Kingdom and with John Jay and the East India Company Canada and her parliaments were betrayed.
Francis Scott Key was a wealthy Slave owner and the second stanza of the Star bangled spanner is about the chattel status of the lower classes and inferior races. The only casualties at Fort McHenry were those too sotted to take cover when they heard the the cannons fired..
Sound travels faster than cannon balls especially when they travel from water up to the battlements.
Canada's army after WWII were peacekeepers America's Armies were always invaders.
I grew up less than an hour from Plattsburg's airforce base and on Friday nights the Air Force members were always looking for a fight.
The officers had their own clubs and stayed away from their savages.
Here are Three Dead Trolls and a Baggie singing our version of the the war of 1812.
Which is far more historically accurate than Johnnie Horton's propaganda.
Liberal means free as in libre and you prefer blinders and shackles and pretend freedom another word for nothing left to lose..
We are fewer than California and the second largest country in the world. If you think Ukraine is in tough against Russia our only sovereignty comes from pretending we need defense against anything other than US Imperialism.
America is corrupt from the top down and we believe corruption is more dangerous than insane social philosophy.
It has been over sixty years since Havana was liberated from the Mafia. Say what you want about communism but Cubans are healthier and better educated and longer lived than their kinfolk in Miami.
The Cuban military seems to pick not only the majority but the winning side in battles for liberation against oppression.
Interestingly, my own father, a three star admiral who was head of the Navy’s R&D, was given a few days to change his verdict on some something to be manufactured in the state of a powerful Senator. He’d nixed it for reasons of reliability based on operational testing and evaluation. He refused to budge and was fired, ending service career he had loved.
I guess he got some of his own back, becoming an overpriced Beltway bandit.
Those are s not fs everybody used Johnson's1755 dictionary of the English Language and Dr Johnson was a conservative's conservative philosopher.
And Madison was deeply conservative and Jefferson was as liberal as it got short of Paine and Franklin. Jefferson was an evolutionary botanist (plant breeder) and a Deist.
Thank you Bill and bless your soul but your history sucks because you were never taught history. Madison attacked Congress in 1789 when Washington became Commander and Chief.
I think what you say is not the opinion of the six federalists on the Supreme Court and America has no idea what the Constitution is about. The constitution put an end to a century of British Democracy.
I am sorry it took over a week to respond I was busy on a distant galaxy.
I wasn't writing for you or Matt for that matter. I was writing for me and I give myself a heart most of the time but my editing still sucks. But you know I am a persistent bastard and its taken me 75 years to enjoy writing. Now all I need is a an editor. I thought my wife could edit she was a doctor of philosophy and helped write dissertations but retired so she could read Mark Twain , Kinky Friedman, John Ralston Saul, David Graeber, Steven Pinker, Dickens and Charles Darwin. Woe is me.
It is not easy with only one eye and your two eyes weren't the best?, advanced senility and a kindergarten keyboard. I am grateful I can still play with myself.
Oh yes , now that Canada post delivers I can enjoy my cannabis in peace and security. It's cheaper than booze and I can't drink it makes me sick.
I just lost a friend to drink. He almost made it to sixty he was the town drunk in a big city and alcohol was the only drug he allowed himself. How do you make a drunk give up alcohol for lent? Remember the story of Noah
My friend loved Kinky Friedman but that was because he was raised Texas.
Federalists do not believe in democracy whether tyranny of a minority like Russia or tyranny of the majority like Canada. The constitution outlaws liberal democracy but that is my opinion and I didn't do well in kindergarten and I 've just learned how to write using 21st century technology. I can interface with a computer and the middle digit of my right hand. What we call in Quebec the driving finger. On Laugh In they called it the Fickle Finger of Fate.😉
70 is a good age to feed your head I will be 75 in March and I am feeding my head instead of my body and loving it. I love cooking for others and never eat alone.
So our rulers use NGOs and the like as cutouts to get plausible deniability for government information operations. Our 70+ years of covert governance has grow into a cancer on our body politic. Not to mention the huge scam that is “philanthropy.” Influence operations but any other name smell as foul.
yes and it sucks that we know this but there is no reporting on it outside of like Peter Dale Scott and a few others - yes from lack of interest by journalists but also the money is hard to follow.
Your workload and stress must be pretty unbearable, but you are doing incredible work, and will deserve to be remembered for it. The very best of "Muckrakers: The Next Generation."
Dana Priest and William Arkin wrote “Top Secret America, the Rise of the New American Security State”, published in 2011. The duo did a ton of research and it appeared that they weren’t particularly happy with what they uncovered. If you could contact them, I’d bet their input would be invaluable (unless they’ve already been erased).
The fact that this needs to be done is scary. The fact that it CAN be done is a testament to the continued, very valid, distrust of a strong central government even when moving from the Articles to the Constitution.
This war you call a Proxy war has gone from on from before the rule of Alexander the Macedonian. I studied the Charge of the Light Brigade in High School the Charge happened in1853 when Russia Annexed the Crimea. What is the meaning of sovereignty or democracy . Canada is democratic but not sovereign as the USA controls our borders. The USA is Sovereign but is not democratic. The rule of law is a religion not a politic. Politics is the art of getting along not tearing apart.
America looks very much like Freedonia in 1933 . They called the Movie Duck Soup.
Sorry, Boris, I believe the right is as untrustworthy as the left when it comes to efforts to manipulate the electorate. It’s why I don’t vote anymore.
Right now the right has an advantage, at least on sites like Substack where it’s cool to believe that the underdogs who aren’t in power (yet) are the only people who have access to the truth and are wholeheartedly dedicated to defending it.
Let me just say I’m as skeptical of that as I am of the left as defenders of the truth.
I don't know what left and right are but here in Quebec's Secular Humanist liberal Democracy where Gender, Race and Religion are figments of the imagination Bernie is a centrist maybe a touch right of center and I always get to vote for who I like the best not who I hate the least.
Of Course Quebec is a Full Democracy not a pretend make believe democracy and the government serves instead of responding to the highest bidder and institutions have the same human rights as ass wipe and ares ubject to cruel an unusual punishment because profit and loss are not the same as pain and pleasyure.
Bill 21 which declares the Laicity of the society is being challenged by Regent's university and our ACLU but 70% of us support Bill21 and your LEFT? and Your Right? say Quebec is Undemocratic because we demand the separation of State and superstitious nonsense.
You know Boris I am really beginning to enjoy my writing. I like my writing and write only for me. Do you think the truth can be as funny as it is painful? I like your gall; Boris Petrov is too American sounding for my sensibilities. You really love your country a lot and I feel your pain.
Mark Twain Remembered the Missouri Compromise, shouted death to the Czars. and wrote about Remembering the Maine as he watched the barbarians slaughtering the villagers in the Philippines.
I just ordered another copy of Tom Sawyer Abroad in case the bodies aboard the balloon are identified.😢
These are exciting developments. Thanks for your continued service.
I hope your book on profiteering during Covid still materializes! (Maybe to be followed up by the definitive history of recent unconstitutional governmental censorship and manipulation.)
Matt I really hope you have the challenge you decided to take on balanced in your own head. Some critique will be warranted and should be accepted with as much grace as you can muster. But the work is imperative. More importantly I hope you have managed to find peace with taking on this important work and do not consider it a burden but a heavy privilege. Would love to help but my skills don’t match what you are looking for so will continue to support you and your effort in the ways that I can. Thanks for taking the burden.
I have to be honest. Given what has happened, an been revealed in the last couple of years. Its getting to the point where I'm expecting Big Foot to land a UFO in Time Square and bring out Elvis and the sniper from the Gassy Knoll.
At the recent World Economic Forum, former CNN host Brian Stelter led a panel of self-appointed mandarins titled “Clear & Present Danger of Disinformation.” One of the panelists was New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, who described disinformation as the “most existential” problem facing the world.
Sulzberger insisted that disinformation is the reason why there’s a loss of “trust” today, ignoring the fact that American institutions — most notably the mainstream media and public health — have purged credibility through their own flagrantly biased decisions and straight up lies.
Wrote about this here: https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/big-disinfo
The trust was theirs to lose. It turns out you can't insult people's intelligence indefinitely.
"The trust was theirs to lose."
An they did a FINE job of losing it.
The sad/scary thing is Trust in national institutions are being lost. I can't think of one national institution I can implicitly trust.
NIST is solid, excepting the politically charged 9/11 report and cryptography standards. https://www.nist.gov/srd/srd-catalog
Ha, so they are trustworthy until the topic of their work has political implications.
Implications... or assumptions and agendas? There's a crucial difference, yes?
9/11/01 was an inside job.
This one of the defining characteristics of a Fourth Turning - loss of trust in major institutions. I agree - and have for a couple years, that there isn’t one major US institution that I trust any longer. 4th turning ends in a “crisis”. Prepare accordingly.
Decentralized entities only.
For example, we trust Bitcoin (as long as government stays out of it). We also trust other decentralized and transparent systems. But that is about it.
"The New York Times...a former newspaper..."
Andrew Klavan
Didn't another NYT pooh-bah--perhaps retired, I don't recall which one at the moment--have the audacity to declare that news reporting should no longer be objective, that the "lived experiences" of reporters should be folded in? I was appalled.
Sulzberger's comment strikes me the same. Yes, "disinformation" is a serious problem, as Matt's reporting lays out so well. But the bigger problem is the utter lack of will by the NYT, among others, to dig into and dismantle the disinformationists. Governments will always abuse, it's the nature of power. We depend on a free and independent press corps to stop these abuses---and our biggest and most well-funded news operators take a pass.
This idea that news reporting should no longer be objective seems to be spreading unfortunately.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/journalists-reject-objectivity-outmoded-failed-concept-world-view-middle-aged-white-men
lmao
Pulling the government out of your ass is white supremacy!!11one!!
😢
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RYy_8u4blk
The Partisan Leonard Cohen
The comments below the song are worth the price of admission.
As we say in Quebec tissue kleenex.
Great tune. I really like this version: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=TG_ZEovDDKk&feature=share
In my opinion
Best interview and concert leonard Cohen San Sabastian
Two incredible hours of information and music and poetry and LOVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-jtgNTspv0&t=1140s
Thanks for sharing. I am sure Cohen was flattered.
So many people who never listened to Cohen listened to Cohen. Hallelujah
If you listened to Janis you listened to Cohen.
Cohen was Country in High School.
He appeared on video from three until Darker.
He went to the same intellectually elite High School as Kamala Harris.
You will never see Kamala's old High School on American television
Every parent would demand one.
https://westmount.emsb.qc.ca/whs
I let the link play on and It is my music but another context. I love Johnny Cash and Kinky Friedman.
I thinking of my play list and said playlists and playlists of play lists and playlists of playlists of playlists of playlists. I been surrounded by music my whole life. I am open to music from many culture.
America is anything but E Pluribus Unum
America is Borg and must assimilate.
I see you listen to Tibet and North American aboriginal music and are comfortable such an environment.
I am a stranger in a strange land I like everybody's music and poetry.
It is the only truth we are willing to share.
Chopin I know it well
Holy fuck is Sulzberger retarded.
Most existential problem isn’t even idiots like him, though they certainly make an effort.
Haha.
For Sulzberger to pontificate on disinformation is more than a bit rich. The NYT has been consistently biased in favor of Washington's narrative on wars, from Iraq to Ukraine, not to dwell on coups. And the behavior of NYT moderators at the Athens Democracy Forum last year spoke volumes. During a panel discussion titled “Aristotle-Confucius Dialogue,” Roger Cohen, the NYT’s Paris bureau chief, repeatedly interrupted Jeffrey Sachs, as he dared discuss Washington-NATO provocations of Russia. By contrast, Cohen was faithfully deferential to the Korean former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as he parroted the Manichaean line: Putin evil, West good.
At the same forum, in a segment titled "A Decade of Democracy: China and Russia," the Times' Steven Erlanger, Chief Diplomatic Correspondent - Europe, at the 20:15 mark, blocked Sachs from continuing his historical review of Western imperialism, accusing him of making a speech, but minutes later allowed the editor-in-chief of a Polish journal to wander off on the travails of Ukranians. At the 34:04 mark, Erlanger again interrupted Sachs during his response, seemingly not to Erlanger's liking, to a question from the audience; this time Sachs held his ground and fended him off. To top it off, Erlanger had the nerve to say he was there to "facilitate discussion."
Useless,
Do I have to repeat
Love is hate
freedom is slavery
Big Brother is looking after us.
The truth is not the truth
Dont forget China was advertising in the NYT and they were licking it up like the pigs they be
https://freebeacon.com/media/nyt-quietly-scrubs-chinese-propaganda/
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-daily-ad-in-new-york-times-2012-9
https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/has-china-compromised-every-major-mainstream-media-entity/
Well, I hear Brian Stelter is looking for a job
Not really. Like many failedpols and journos, he ended up at Harvard Kennedy.
Isn't that what you call the American dream? Meritocracy meritocracy meritocracy. Emmy for best sock puppet interpretation in a starring role..
LOL They sent Brian Stelter in the plea the corporate media's case asking the Masters for a reprieve from the filthy masses by silencing the masses so they can keep their captive audience.
That guy sucks, BTW. Just a giant ass-kissing clown.
What's the solution? Where are the people discussing fixing this?
We need a DECENTRALIZED NEWS NETWORK. One that acts as an investigative arm on behalf of the people and is truly the 4th branch of government.
Let's talk solutions. Let's have a vision for a better world to counter what the WEF is doing.
Let's put our imaginations together and come up with new ideas. Like this: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/worried-about-voter-fraud-lets-build
Have you subscribed to Racket News yet?
Democracy works it works for me. There are now four Full Democracies in the Americas. Canada, Costa Rica , Uruguay and now Chile. All it took in Chile was a new constitution to change Chile from a flawed democracy like the USA into a Full Democracy like Canada. A rule of law country cannot be a full democracy they are oxymoronic. Read your Jefferson it is an old idea held by Franklin and Jefferson. Separate unsupportable beliefs from human government. In Quebec we call it the laicity of the state.
Laicity:
La·ic·i·ty
/lāˈisədē/
noun
1.
the principles, status, or influence of the laity.
formal
The GOP does not believe in liberal democracy; liberal for short. The rest is babble there is no politics no discussion there is no United States of America. full stop.
There is no MISSOURI COMPROMISE
If you want to blow up the world Canada cannot stop you.
If you want to melt it it Canada can't stop you,
If you want to go out with a whimper Canada can't stop you
If you want to go out with song we can join you
If you need help with repairs Beavers can build dams.
The funny thing is Sulzberger likely lacks the self awareness to grasp that he IS the problem.
I was amazed at the silence of all elected American political leadership when I saw the open hubris deployed at Davos. The DNC has to go.
Economics is religion not science. Economics has many cults. The Cult of DAVOS is really a Roman Cult devoted to worship of Mammon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammon
Economics cannot be science because evolution makes repetition impossible.
ALL SCIENCE IS THE STUDY OF EVOLUTION.
Jefferson studied plant hybridization. He was an evolutionary botanist and a Deist.
Jefferson owned slaves but he was no White Supremacist his children look like America walk like America and sing God Bless America at Yankee games.😂
I'll get back to you later on your actual request. Early in Obama's first administration he dispatched an aide to order an Air Force Brigadier General to change his testimony before a Congressional Committee because it would harm the financial interests of a political ally. The General refused, as he was required to do when given an illegal order. Obama was floored. Wasn't the military just another special interest group?
No. His introduction to the reality of a non-politicized military served him well: he set about first politicizing the military so that he wouldn't be caught flat-footed again. It worked. Now, Biden has a politicized military to deal with and it will do what the President wants. Fuck the citizens.
Barrack Obama came to DC bringing Progressive Ideology + Chicago style politics. He found A Lot of people more than happy to oblige him.
Remember when he said "We are 3 days away from Fundamentally Changing America." Well he meant it, and he did. Turned the political corruption dial up to 11.
More accurate would be "Barrack Obama came to DC bringing Progressive messaging..." One can tell by 1) his continuation of Bush's foreign policy; 2) his bailout of the banks while leaving homeowners subject to foreclosures; 3) the betrayal of his public option healthcare promise; and 4) the non-prosecution of the banksters; that he was an Establishment figure masquerading as a Progressive. He totally conned most Progressives, who were so damaged by Trump Derangement Syndrome that most now support the latest forever war, the CIA and censorship.
Given the sheer size of our financial reaming I will always maintain that inserting Barack into the Oval Orifice was a an act of sheer genius by the ruling class. White liberals, especially upscale white liberals, are entirely incapable of criticizing a black man lest someone dares to call them racist. They still can't look at him as anything other than Black Jesus. America wanted Martin Luther King but instead they got a version of Don King. If I didn't live here I'd find it all pretty damn funny.
But... but... he DANCED ON ELLEN!!! RRRreeeeeeeEEeeEEEE!
I'm more of a Gregory Hines kind of guy.
Maybe Barack can talk Bill Clinton into pulling his sax out of retirement for a nationwide nostalgia tour like Frankie Valli used to do. Then they could hit PBS during one of PBS' 363 days of fundraising with Barack's other BFF Bruce Springsteen. Hell, they could even fly Zelensky in for a benediction & a speech. The Big Z & Brucie could then bring down the house with a duet on The Ghost Of Tom Chode. Jon Stewart could MC sporting his new Hitler mustache that he grew to honor those brave boys in the Azov battalion. Even Stephen Colbert could show up festooned with vaccine needles, looking like an especially nerdy Pinhead from Hellraiser.
Ha, oh gawd, PBS would sop up SO much Ford Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates money from that.
Don't doubt they'd schedule it to coincide with their biggest pledge drive.
I used to love NPR and then after Trump won it turned to dog shit. I never thought I'd see NPR turn into fascistic propagandists but here we are.
Thank you Spiderbaby but I am more Frederick Douglas than Hines, Heintz or Obama. Actually I am more Zelenskiy playing piano. Intellectually the only American I can think of as a Zelenskiy peer is Kamala Harris and all I can do is wait for her to come out of the closet. It is hard being a East Indian West Indian Montreal Jewish Public Intellectual. It must be a very strange closet.
When I first heard her accent I had no idea of her background and fell off my chair.
Trolls and psychos have very sensitive ears.
I think I hear Eartha Kitt in the background.
Stoicism isn't cynicism.
Seneca wasn't a cynic.
Diogenes was a standup comic; comedy is comedy, cynicism is self loathing.
Al Sharpton was a regular at the Obama White House.
Speaking of Al "I'm Not The Sharpest Knife In The Drawer" Sharpton, this Jimmy Dore segment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3JkMR87izA
features Joe Scarborough babbling on about Covid as if anyone other than deranged MSNBC-ers actually care about his opinion and, at the 4:05 mark, he invites Sharpton out so Al can stand there like, as Jimmy says, a Madame Tussaud wax figure. Al is so good at looking artificial I think he could have a second career at Tussauds. He'd even do a stellar job as a speed bump.
He had to disinvite the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Nobody likes truthtellers. Don't you read Plato?
Do you think America can accept a truthteller visiting the White House?
It would be an act of treason.
God has damned America as the world is beginning to understand.
Choosing between Beijing and Washington isn't easy. Do we want fools or madmen in charge? Either way you get the Wrigley's Doublemint of two mints in one. 🤣
If memory serves me, Wright was actually physically at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, IL when Obama announced his goal to lead our (read, racist) nation. For some reason, Obama decided at the last minute it might be a bad look for Rev. Jer to be on stage with him from the get-go. The Obama whisperers (white guys?) must have advised against it. Ha. The Bringer of Light, or something.
Please forgive the name dropping. I have no academic credentials they gave me a high school certificate despite my grades. I didn't misbehave I was just retarded.😢
Things are better for some of us.
My favorite Obama moment was his climate change speech where he said with much religious fervor, "This is the moment the waters stop rising. This is the moment the Earth begins to heal."
What he should have said was "This is the moment I will bend you over a table. This is the moment the ruling class will not only rape you but they will rape your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren & your great great grandchildren."
Steve I lived in Woodlawn. Obama was a conservative. Obama lost in our congressional primary because we understood a need for revolutionary change. Today we have the Obama Center because they can't afford Hyde Park and the University of Chicago. Obama served Hyde Park not Woodlawn.
Mark Twain said it best
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have no influence."😢
pRoGreSivE iDeOlogY.
Some people understand the political philosophies of the people that they disagree with and why they agree with them.
Others are not so smart.
Ugh. Go back to reddit.
Jonathan
Please explain.
I have no idea what reddit is.
What the eff if a social news aggregation
I lived in an agglomeration
What is a formation of a number things in a cluster?
All philosophy is
political just as religion is not politics but ideology.
Keats said
Beauty is truth--truth beauty that's all ye need to know.
There are no politics in America only religion.
What has smart have to do with gaslighting?
I understand Obama
Obama believes he is doing the right thing
Spiderbaby believes otherwise
and I believe most people are born Marxist and find what they seek.
Hard to say the military isn't a political entity. After all, our military's primary purpose is to overthrow foreign regimes that won't sell their natural resources or labor at a discount. Just like the CIA.
Seems more likely the general's political interests didn't align with Obama.
I suppose that's possible. The General was ordered to lie to Congress when testifying. The General's politics weren't relevant in the face of an illegal order.
Amazingly, former stalwart NAVY man, I have become staunchly anti-military.
I'm a bit more nuanced. I am anti-war. The most fervent anti-war group in the country is the US military.
Really is a shame they keep getting forced into all those wars against their will. Poor guys.
Bill I know what I am but you think yourself knowledgeable.
What is the role of the USA Military other than aggression and dominion. Madison attacked the British Empire on land and sea because he wanted peace? No! He wanted a piece of this and a piece that there and a piece of that here.
The USA and the Brits did their best to savage our peaceful Kingdom and with John Jay and the East India Company Canada and her parliaments were betrayed.
Francis Scott Key was a wealthy Slave owner and the second stanza of the Star bangled spanner is about the chattel status of the lower classes and inferior races. The only casualties at Fort McHenry were those too sotted to take cover when they heard the the cannons fired..
Sound travels faster than cannon balls especially when they travel from water up to the battlements.
Canada's army after WWII were peacekeepers America's Armies were always invaders.
I grew up less than an hour from Plattsburg's airforce base and on Friday nights the Air Force members were always looking for a fight.
The officers had their own clubs and stayed away from their savages.
Here are Three Dead Trolls and a Baggie singing our version of the the war of 1812.
Which is far more historically accurate than Johnnie Horton's propaganda.
Liberal means free as in libre and you prefer blinders and shackles and pretend freedom another word for nothing left to lose..
The War of 1812 and you are still A1 crybabies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVC677-YmfM
We are fewer than California and the second largest country in the world. If you think Ukraine is in tough against Russia our only sovereignty comes from pretending we need defense against anything other than US Imperialism.
America is corrupt from the top down and we believe corruption is more dangerous than insane social philosophy.
It has been over sixty years since Havana was liberated from the Mafia. Say what you want about communism but Cubans are healthier and better educated and longer lived than their kinfolk in Miami.
The Cuban military seems to pick not only the majority but the winning side in battles for liberation against oppression.
Interestingly, my own father, a three star admiral who was head of the Navy’s R&D, was given a few days to change his verdict on some something to be manufactured in the state of a powerful Senator. He’d nixed it for reasons of reliability based on operational testing and evaluation. He refused to budge and was fired, ending service career he had loved.
I guess he got some of his own back, becoming an overpriced Beltway bandit.
Madison rejected Democracy. He was a Federalist
https://www.founderoftheday.com/founder-of-the-day/federalist-51
Those are s not fs everybody used Johnson's1755 dictionary of the English Language and Dr Johnson was a conservative's conservative philosopher.
And Madison was deeply conservative and Jefferson was as liberal as it got short of Paine and Franklin. Jefferson was an evolutionary botanist (plant breeder) and a Deist.
Thank you Bill and bless your soul but your history sucks because you were never taught history. Madison attacked Congress in 1789 when Washington became Commander and Chief.
I think what you say is not the opinion of the six federalists on the Supreme Court and America has no idea what the Constitution is about. The constitution put an end to a century of British Democracy.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Toleration-Act-Great-Britain-1689
The rule of law is not the rule of the people. it is the rule of the government.
Moe, your series of post-response-response rinse and repeat makes no sense.
I am sorry it took over a week to respond I was busy on a distant galaxy.
I wasn't writing for you or Matt for that matter. I was writing for me and I give myself a heart most of the time but my editing still sucks. But you know I am a persistent bastard and its taken me 75 years to enjoy writing. Now all I need is a an editor. I thought my wife could edit she was a doctor of philosophy and helped write dissertations but retired so she could read Mark Twain , Kinky Friedman, John Ralston Saul, David Graeber, Steven Pinker, Dickens and Charles Darwin. Woe is me.
It is not easy with only one eye and your two eyes weren't the best?, advanced senility and a kindergarten keyboard. I am grateful I can still play with myself.
Oh yes , now that Canada post delivers I can enjoy my cannabis in peace and security. It's cheaper than booze and I can't drink it makes me sick.
I just lost a friend to drink. He almost made it to sixty he was the town drunk in a big city and alcohol was the only drug he allowed himself. How do you make a drunk give up alcohol for lent? Remember the story of Noah
My friend loved Kinky Friedman but that was because he was raised Texas.
https://www.amazon.com/Legends-Bible-Louis-Ginzberg/dp/0827604041
I know it was Published in 1909 when Russia was the mightiest Empire that ever existed.
Don't tell me of the Russo Japanese war and I won't mention Iran, Cuba or Viet Nam. I don't mean the Ayatoola . I mean the CIA and liberal democracy.
That is I a TOOL A.
Eh is western Ontario not Quebec.
We have Bill21
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bill-21
We are a real democracy we don't believe in fairies.
In a 21st century liberal democracy the government serves and the people rule.
America is a constitutional republic under law not tyranny of the masses.
https://www.founderoftheday.com/founder-of-the-day/federalist-51
Federalists do not believe in democracy whether tyranny of a minority like Russia or tyranny of the majority like Canada. The constitution outlaws liberal democracy but that is my opinion and I didn't do well in kindergarten and I 've just learned how to write using 21st century technology. I can interface with a computer and the middle digit of my right hand. What we call in Quebec the driving finger. On Laugh In they called it the Fickle Finger of Fate.😉
They call it autism. I call it my side of the looking glass where Humpty Dumpty has no clothes as in
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have no influence." Mark Twain
Twain and Dodgson or is that Clemens and Carroll understood logic and good fortune and chasing rabbits down rabbit holes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnJM_jC7j_4
I wore out the vinyl.
FEED YOUR HEAD FEED YOUR HEAD
70 is a good age to feed your head I will be 75 in March and I am feeding my head instead of my body and loving it. I love cooking for others and never eat alone.
Who's the political ally?
Senator Fulbright.
I am very grateful for your work!
So our rulers use NGOs and the like as cutouts to get plausible deniability for government information operations. Our 70+ years of covert governance has grow into a cancer on our body politic. Not to mention the huge scam that is “philanthropy.” Influence operations but any other name smell as foul.
Well after Iran-Contra the CIA had to pretend it didn't exist anymore. So, money was moved to "private" organizations carrying out... contracts.
“N”GOs, amirite?
such as the Clinton Foundation? Biden’s Institutes? indeed.
yes and it sucks that we know this but there is no reporting on it outside of like Peter Dale Scott and a few others - yes from lack of interest by journalists but also the money is hard to follow.
grateful for your diligence and professionalism. I will ask around. Your work is essential and we take notice.
You go Matt! What a great idea!
Your workload and stress must be pretty unbearable, but you are doing incredible work, and will deserve to be remembered for it. The very best of "Muckrakers: The Next Generation."
Dang!!!! I wish I had those qualifications. I’d help in a heartbeat!
I was thinking the same thing. Would love to be involved.
Same!!
FYI: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/disinformation-group-secretly-blacklisting-right-wing-outlets-bankrolled-state-department
This story is a direct hit, intersecting with my own research. Reached out to Gabe already…
Thanks for posting
It seemed relevant. I live to serve.
Dana Priest and William Arkin wrote “Top Secret America, the Rise of the New American Security State”, published in 2011. The duo did a ton of research and it appeared that they weren’t particularly happy with what they uncovered. If you could contact them, I’d bet their input would be invaluable (unless they’ve already been erased).
Thank you for what you are doing.
Talked to Bill last week… he’s great. This all goes in that direction, but the programs may have gone off the rails since then.
Fantastic. At least you have access to their background information. The beast they discovered has digested the billions it was fed and turned ugly.
Fantastic Matt. Thank you. Appreciate your diligence.
The fact that this needs to be done is scary. The fact that it CAN be done is a testament to the continued, very valid, distrust of a strong central government even when moving from the Articles to the Constitution.
Go after PBS too Matt!
Million thanks for your efforts to save what is left of democracy in the US and to postpone the rise of fascism in the US.
Populism in the US is a must against current bipartisan War uniparty.
This war you call a Proxy war has gone from on from before the rule of Alexander the Macedonian. I studied the Charge of the Light Brigade in High School the Charge happened in1853 when Russia Annexed the Crimea. What is the meaning of sovereignty or democracy . Canada is democratic but not sovereign as the USA controls our borders. The USA is Sovereign but is not democratic. The rule of law is a religion not a politic. Politics is the art of getting along not tearing apart.
America looks very much like Freedonia in 1933 . They called the Movie Duck Soup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Soup_(1933_film)
“Populism”?
Do you mean Trump or Bernie?
It’s a rhetorical question, I think I know the answer.
Here is the (today's response):
Feb. 23 – Ep. 45 -- New SBF Indictment Exposes How Washington Really Works. Plus, Investigative Reporter Lee Fang in-studio! -- https://rumble.com/v2any1e-system-update-show-45.html -- Woke Washing the Crypto Scam
Q & A -- https://greenwald.locals.com/upost/3574812/going-live-supporters-only-after-show-q-a-february-23
Feb. 22 – Ep. 44 -- McCarthy Releases 1/6 Tapes to Tucker + Escalation in Ukraine as Putin Withdraws from Nuclear Treaty -- https://rumble.com/v2aidry-system-update-show-44.html -- Massive Ukraine Escalation + New 1/6 Tapes
Sorry, Boris, I believe the right is as untrustworthy as the left when it comes to efforts to manipulate the electorate. It’s why I don’t vote anymore.
Right now the right has an advantage, at least on sites like Substack where it’s cool to believe that the underdogs who aren’t in power (yet) are the only people who have access to the truth and are wholeheartedly dedicated to defending it.
Let me just say I’m as skeptical of that as I am of the left as defenders of the truth.
Of course.
Air Power “Mystery” Explained -- Dreizinreport -February 22, 2023
https://thedreizinreport.com/author/dreizinreport/
I don't know what left and right are but here in Quebec's Secular Humanist liberal Democracy where Gender, Race and Religion are figments of the imagination Bernie is a centrist maybe a touch right of center and I always get to vote for who I like the best not who I hate the least.
Of Course Quebec is a Full Democracy not a pretend make believe democracy and the government serves instead of responding to the highest bidder and institutions have the same human rights as ass wipe and ares ubject to cruel an unusual punishment because profit and loss are not the same as pain and pleasyure.
Bill 21 which declares the Laicity of the society is being challenged by Regent's university and our ACLU but 70% of us support Bill21 and your LEFT? and Your Right? say Quebec is Undemocratic because we demand the separation of State and superstitious nonsense.
Bill 21 passed in 2019
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bill-21
America is insane 100%.
That is why we fly the the maize and blue and shun the red white and blue of the USA and Russia we are only 30% insane.😘
You know Boris I am really beginning to enjoy my writing. I like my writing and write only for me. Do you think the truth can be as funny as it is painful? I like your gall; Boris Petrov is too American sounding for my sensibilities. You really love your country a lot and I feel your pain.
Mark Twain Remembered the Missouri Compromise, shouted death to the Czars. and wrote about Remembering the Maine as he watched the barbarians slaughtering the villagers in the Philippines.
I just ordered another copy of Tom Sawyer Abroad in case the bodies aboard the balloon are identified.😢
These are exciting developments. Thanks for your continued service.
I hope your book on profiteering during Covid still materializes! (Maybe to be followed up by the definitive history of recent unconstitutional governmental censorship and manipulation.)
Matt I really hope you have the challenge you decided to take on balanced in your own head. Some critique will be warranted and should be accepted with as much grace as you can muster. But the work is imperative. More importantly I hope you have managed to find peace with taking on this important work and do not consider it a burden but a heavy privilege. Would love to help but my skills don’t match what you are looking for so will continue to support you and your effort in the ways that I can. Thanks for taking the burden.
I have to be honest. Given what has happened, an been revealed in the last couple of years. Its getting to the point where I'm expecting Big Foot to land a UFO in Time Square and bring out Elvis and the sniper from the Gassy Knoll.