Introducing The Great Russia Caper. There’s no way for Americans to really appreciate what the Russia story means without going back to the domestic spying programs first exposed in the mid-seventies.
Just shared Untitled Gate with a fund manager whose job is to analyze trends, especially social trends that effect the market. Looking forward to his reaction. My reaction is that Taibbi's writing is clean, on point and incisive. Regardless of one's position on these issues , Matt's analysis has to be addressed by any historian who reviews these issues. Kudos Matt.
Regular people are waking up! At our family Christmas gathering this year my boomer dad exclaimed how he didn't trust the news anymore as each outlet gave wildly different interpretations of events, depending on the owner's political bias. I gave him some good alternative sources and he was really interested in reading your book, Hate Inc. - he even wrote the name down so he could remember buy it later. Slowly but surely the cable outlets are being hoist on their own petard, helped along by truth tellers such as yourself. Looking forward to the new year when, hopefully, these self-appointed gatekeepers will be thrust aside in the search for the truth and nothing but the truth.
Looking forward to this. From a marketing perspective I never understood how Russia could interfere in our elections through social media in a meaningful way. I still don't.
Thank you for all your work and effort. I enjoy and am informed by your writing, and entertained by your writing style. You are appreciated! Wishing you all the best in 2020.
Just had a couple stay, one worked for Google, one for Amazon, as they left I asked if they had heard of Matt Taibbi... blank looks... I wrote your name down and said "Read"... I helping as best as I can; Happy New Year !!
Looking forward to your new series. To finally hear from someone from the other side of the issue in a rational, calm, and honest way is long overdue.
Taibbi wrote: "The idea of a Deep State plot to undermine Donald Trump is popular in Republican circles, but all this lunacy at least somewhat undermines that analysis."
How does the behavior of Comey, Lynch, McCabe, Strozk, Lisa Page, Rosenstein, etc., undermine the "idea" of a plot, a conspiracy, to bring down the presidency of Donald Trump, no matter what label is used? Instead, Taibbi chalks it up "...element[s] of sincere, if misguided or insane, belief.." that Trump was a Russian asset. That's quite a benefit of the doubt.
The Iraq war, according to Taibbi, was about oil, not WMD, not that Hussein was sponsoring PLO terrorism, not that the Sunni minority was persecuting the Shite majority, and certainly not that Bush really believed he could re-make the middle east if only Iraq was turned into a western-style Democracy.
So, Taibbi gives those who despise Trump the benefit of the doubt that their hearts were in the right place, but, then takes the most cynical view towards the disaster in Iraq.
They'll start a war with Russia and start rounding up dissidents for the gulags soon enough.
Maybe even spark a civil war that they can use to justify stripping the few remaing rights we have left and again... rounding people up like cattle and the butchery will begin.
Matt: I'm very intrigue with this story and how it fits into the history for powerful nations/elites to both protect itself and pass that power to the next generations of elites in those nations. Also, I would recommend the working title to NOT be similar to the 'Great Muppet Caper' (silly and fun humor) and maybe find itself leaning towards 'From Russia with Love' (spy narrative).
I have read this article twice and I must confess that I am disappointed in Matt for the first time. The key takeaways appear to be (1) the investigations into trump were a comedy of errors, (2) there was no deep state plot just a few bad apples (3) we can trace all these bad activities of our intelligence agencies to dick cheney and (4) remember the iraq war was about oil. There is almost a willful blindness to assign any blame to the obama administration or, heaven forbid, obama himself - despite the fact the page/strzok text messages implicate him as do the public comments of brennan and clapper. I wonder if Matt's use of the word 'progressive' is instructive here. Saint obama just simply can't be a bad guy to most progressives I know. In all of the coverage of this story there is a lack of curiosity about what did he know and when did he know it. I have found Matt's previous articles to be quite good and a welcome change from most of the nonsense in the left of center press. I would encourage everyone to read the conservative tree house site. The details provided there paint a much stronger picture of deliberate mendacity and not a comedy of errors.
Matt, are you going to consider the Browder hoax - its use of the Magnitsky affair to amplify the anti Russia policies - in your Great Russia Caper? @NakedHedgie ?
Matt is on to something important here, the comedic element. It would be an outrageously funny comedy if it weren't so serious, but it seems it is best understood as 'conspiracy' by a gang which can't shoot straight. To those who have written comments about how "there's no smoking gun", that's right in the sense that nobody intentionally pulled a trigger. But the GroupThink of not just the IC, but the Blob in general, including the Media convinced themselves of the Russian conspiracy, and so, like a bunch of clowns arriving at the scene of a supposed fire, throw buckets of confetti, a few firecrackers, and whatever else, real fire breaks out, the spectators stampede...
Without a real 'enemy' in the post-cold war era, enemies had to be invented. With Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden gone, it had to be the Russians. (It couldn't be the Chinese, because they are commercial partners with the Blob.) It's not 'intentional' in the sense that there is some Leader giving the orders, but it is very Orwellian.
Note on a new book
Just shared Untitled Gate with a fund manager whose job is to analyze trends, especially social trends that effect the market. Looking forward to his reaction. My reaction is that Taibbi's writing is clean, on point and incisive. Regardless of one's position on these issues , Matt's analysis has to be addressed by any historian who reviews these issues. Kudos Matt.
Regular people are waking up! At our family Christmas gathering this year my boomer dad exclaimed how he didn't trust the news anymore as each outlet gave wildly different interpretations of events, depending on the owner's political bias. I gave him some good alternative sources and he was really interested in reading your book, Hate Inc. - he even wrote the name down so he could remember buy it later. Slowly but surely the cable outlets are being hoist on their own petard, helped along by truth tellers such as yourself. Looking forward to the new year when, hopefully, these self-appointed gatekeepers will be thrust aside in the search for the truth and nothing but the truth.
Looking forward to this. From a marketing perspective I never understood how Russia could interfere in our elections through social media in a meaningful way. I still don't.
Thank you for all your work and effort. I enjoy and am informed by your writing, and entertained by your writing style. You are appreciated! Wishing you all the best in 2020.
Just had a couple stay, one worked for Google, one for Amazon, as they left I asked if they had heard of Matt Taibbi... blank looks... I wrote your name down and said "Read"... I helping as best as I can; Happy New Year !!
Looking forward to your new series. To finally hear from someone from the other side of the issue in a rational, calm, and honest way is long overdue.
Taibbi wrote: "The idea of a Deep State plot to undermine Donald Trump is popular in Republican circles, but all this lunacy at least somewhat undermines that analysis."
How does the behavior of Comey, Lynch, McCabe, Strozk, Lisa Page, Rosenstein, etc., undermine the "idea" of a plot, a conspiracy, to bring down the presidency of Donald Trump, no matter what label is used? Instead, Taibbi chalks it up "...element[s] of sincere, if misguided or insane, belief.." that Trump was a Russian asset. That's quite a benefit of the doubt.
The Iraq war, according to Taibbi, was about oil, not WMD, not that Hussein was sponsoring PLO terrorism, not that the Sunni minority was persecuting the Shite majority, and certainly not that Bush really believed he could re-make the middle east if only Iraq was turned into a western-style Democracy.
So, Taibbi gives those who despise Trump the benefit of the doubt that their hearts were in the right place, but, then takes the most cynical view towards the disaster in Iraq.
Yours is a much welcomed voice of reason amid the madness.
They'll start a war with Russia and start rounding up dissidents for the gulags soon enough.
Maybe even spark a civil war that they can use to justify stripping the few remaing rights we have left and again... rounding people up like cattle and the butchery will begin.
I am so looking forward to what you will uncover, write about, in 2020. Best wishes for a productive new year!
Just subscribed. Psyched for a new year of being a little more informed!
Matt: I'm very intrigue with this story and how it fits into the history for powerful nations/elites to both protect itself and pass that power to the next generations of elites in those nations. Also, I would recommend the working title to NOT be similar to the 'Great Muppet Caper' (silly and fun humor) and maybe find itself leaning towards 'From Russia with Love' (spy narrative).
I have read this article twice and I must confess that I am disappointed in Matt for the first time. The key takeaways appear to be (1) the investigations into trump were a comedy of errors, (2) there was no deep state plot just a few bad apples (3) we can trace all these bad activities of our intelligence agencies to dick cheney and (4) remember the iraq war was about oil. There is almost a willful blindness to assign any blame to the obama administration or, heaven forbid, obama himself - despite the fact the page/strzok text messages implicate him as do the public comments of brennan and clapper. I wonder if Matt's use of the word 'progressive' is instructive here. Saint obama just simply can't be a bad guy to most progressives I know. In all of the coverage of this story there is a lack of curiosity about what did he know and when did he know it. I have found Matt's previous articles to be quite good and a welcome change from most of the nonsense in the left of center press. I would encourage everyone to read the conservative tree house site. The details provided there paint a much stronger picture of deliberate mendacity and not a comedy of errors.
Matt, are you going to consider the Browder hoax - its use of the Magnitsky affair to amplify the anti Russia policies - in your Great Russia Caper? @NakedHedgie ?
Keep writing great stuff in 2020!
Matt is on to something important here, the comedic element. It would be an outrageously funny comedy if it weren't so serious, but it seems it is best understood as 'conspiracy' by a gang which can't shoot straight. To those who have written comments about how "there's no smoking gun", that's right in the sense that nobody intentionally pulled a trigger. But the GroupThink of not just the IC, but the Blob in general, including the Media convinced themselves of the Russian conspiracy, and so, like a bunch of clowns arriving at the scene of a supposed fire, throw buckets of confetti, a few firecrackers, and whatever else, real fire breaks out, the spectators stampede...
Without a real 'enemy' in the post-cold war era, enemies had to be invented. With Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden gone, it had to be the Russians. (It couldn't be the Chinese, because they are commercial partners with the Blob.) It's not 'intentional' in the sense that there is some Leader giving the orders, but it is very Orwellian.
Looking forward to it!
Thanks so much for your work. The public seems to have such limited sources for real journalism these days. Looking forward to The Great Russia Caper