What a freaking mess. What have we done to deserve this? [I'm sure the many targeted peoples under the bombs raining down on them from the Empire Above wonder the same damn thing...]
Views from Damascus overnight resemble Baghdad on Shock n Awe night so many years ago. Remember? I don't know anymore whether people do. There's been so much misery, mayhem and bloodshed Over There, it's hard to keep track, isn't it?
The proximate cause of the latest "coalition" air strikes (primarily from off shore missile launches) of yet another Middle Eastern city is the supposed use of prohibited chemical weapons against a rebel stronghold in the suburbs of Damascus.
Whether it actually happened and who did it if it did is subject of some dispute. There are statements that it didn't happen at all. There are statements that it was staged. There are statements that it was done by outside forces. There are statements that it was done by the rebels themselves... Yadda, yadda.
None of us is in a position to know. Whether our military and civilian rulers know much more than we do is a mystery. All we can say with any certainty is that the protagonists of these wars and rebellions tend to be dissemblers.
The launching of retaliatory missiles is essentially de rigeur these days. It's what's done to show the non-compliant who's the boss. It hasn't worked very well with the Assad regime, and it doesn't seem to quell rebellions either. It's just a Thing. Blowing shit up is the way things are done by the Empire and by the Rebel Alliance. Sometimes I think they cause misery for the fun of it.
So they just blow things up. People are in the way, oh well!
Jeepus, I hate this. I was going round and round about the Stephon Clark Thing in Sacramento. My point was that I just want the killing to stop, and he didn't quite get it. Huh? Whut?
The killing. To. Stop.
We seem to be locked into this situation where killing is the number one option when things go sideways or there's a perception of a threat of some sort. When police kill, they're just taking their cue from our Dauntless Leaders. Killing is their Go To solution to practically everything. They're no too bright are they?
Meanwhile the White House (and many other prominent elements of society) are enveloped in one scandal after another. I don't think we've ever had a mobbed up gangster sitting on the throne, but we do now, and our institutions have no idea how to deal with it/him. He's been hamstrung in various ways, but that's not sufficient. He uses what powers he has remaining for making much mischief and propping up his frail ego. This is hardly presidential, but I don't think it much matters any more.
The presidency itself has long since been diminished by various unfortunate and unpleasant occupants and their scandals, deceptions, and military adventures. It's close to time for something else again.
The Ruling Class seems happy to have the Rabble wallowing in it. Distraction? Sure. Entertainment? Yep. A masque?
The downward spiral seems inescapable.
And yet, there must be hope somewhere.
Showing posts with label scandal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scandal. Show all posts
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Monday, October 17, 2016
The Hillary Speeches Hoo-Hah
I've held off saying much about the Hillary Speeches Doc Dump because there isn't really a whole lot to say about it. I have read a few of the docs that have appeared or been linked from elsewhere. It's all but impossible to search WikiLeaks' archives itself (I tried "Podesta emails", for example, and came up with 62 of supposedly thousands of hacked emails.)
Anyway, what's in these emails and the partial transcripts of speeches Hillary gave to the High and Mighty for Big Bucks strikes me as pretty benign. She even tries to inject a modicum of social conscience into people and institutions that have none. No wonder this isn't getting a lot of traction in the media or much of anywhere else. Despite the headlines, there's very little there there.
There's so little there there that Lambert over at NC, always one of the most inciteful (heh) analysts of Things Clinton ("Clintoooon!"), had to say: "Reading these, I’m thinking the $675,000 had nothing to do with the actual content…."
We know from endless prattle of the likes of Lambert and many others that all things Clinton ("Clintoooon!") are the definition of corrupt. There is no political corruption on the face of the earth unless it is smeared with Clintoon shit. None. And these emails, according to Julian Assange would be filled with smoking guns of Clintoon corruption that would, somehow or other, destroy her campaign.
Well. No. Not so far anyway.
They show her getting along with the Mighty-Mighty titans and malefactors of great wealth to be sure, but in every one of the ones I've seen, she's telling them to their faces that they need to get a soul and start treating the rest of humanity -- like all the millions who've been harmed by their shenanigans -- better. Sometimes there are details of what she expects of them -- such as lending to Main Street to get the economy going again -- and sometimes there aren't, it's just a moral(ish) declaration. "It's your obligation to do better for the Little People."[Paraphrase.]
So the question has been raised, "Why the hell didn't she just release this stuff when Bernie asked? 'Cause it sure doesn't look like there was anything worth hiding in what's been hacked."
Of course these aren't the whole transcripts, they're excerpts, but there's nothing shocking or more than modestly ear-grating in them. She doesn't have a way with words, let's put it that way. She's no great orator to the Great and Worthy or to the Rabble. But there's an inner coherence to what she has to say, and gets across her points relatively well. One of which is, "I'm your friend, and I want you to behave better."
Gee. Alert the media! Get this to Olbermann, stat! (An old joke, but sometimes it's fun...)
Her positions -- so far as I can make out -- are pretty much the same as Obama's when it comes to those people. Which has been arm's length but relatively friendly. Enough so that they're rolling in money while the rest of us have continued to struggle with little or no help from Our Betters.
I think it's Greenwald who has proposed that though the emails are not particularly damning or devastating, they do show how She (Who Must Be Obeyed) would govern, and it's not pretty.
Well, no. It never is.
With Hillary it is perhaps less pretty because of her nature and background and her absence of oratorical power -- particularly problematical is her legal training and experience. I'm convinced it destroys otherwise good people who want to do right, but once they learn about the Law, they're lucky to do anything unless it conforms to custom and can be parsed to mean what it doesn't.
I come from a family of attorneys. I don't recommend their ways as a general thing. It's nuts making.
Big Dog has had many of the same problems of excessive legalism as Hillary does.
I think it's interesting that it's called "corruption" when it is really something else again. Let's call it an excess of moralism based in flawed understandings of law and propriety. Or maybe it's inner defiance....
Anyway, it's gotten the Clintons in trouble more than once.
These emails don't show the kind of corruption that Hillary is incessantly accused of. The accusation of "pay to play" quid pro quos between Herself and the myriad High and Mighty interests she's dealt with don't fly in the end because there's no direct sign of a quid let alone a pro quo. Well, I should say, there's more than a few quid, in that many tens of millions of dollars have gone into hers and Bill's pockets and into the Clinton Foundation, but other than a "fair hearing" it's not clear that anything has been delivered to those interests that they wouldn't have already received anyway. They didn't have to pay her for what they got on the other end. They would have gotten it anyway.
In other words, the charges of "corruption" are based in a fantasy understanding of how government is supposed to work.
Not an understanding of how it does work.
So what did they pay her for?
It's always a question, isn't it? Why do ex-officials, it doesn't matter who they are, cash in so heavily on the speaking-lecture circuit or gain multi-millions from legal partnerships or from sitting on boards of directors once they leave office? How does that work, exactly, and what are the parameters?
What do the speakers-partners-board-members provide the payers?
You can't get a clear understanding of this System from all the yapping going on about it, particularly not from all the puerile insults being thrown around: "Clintoooon!!!!" Etc.
Yes, it is a System, fully formed long ago, by which those who once served in high government office (and sometimes not so high) can profit mightily and legally once they leave the marble halls of government, and by which they can thence return to the Hallowed Corridors of Power, rich as Croesus, to start the cycle over again. It is the custom of the tribe. Dick Cheney, anyone?
We may disagree with it -- I certainly do -- but it is legal, and it is all but impossible to prove a direct pro quo for the quid, so legally it's not corruption. No, not really. Really!
It's especially so the higher you go up the ladder of the System. Lower ranks can and do get in trouble or sometimes go to jail for relatively minor indiscretions in squeezing the teats of the System, but the higher the rank, the less likely one is to have one's tits put through the wringer.
The System itself is corrupt, but we don't hear about that, and passions rarely rise over the whole damn thing. No, it's individuals like Hillary who are pilloried for working the System to their advantage, for profiting legally (or sometimes not) from the opportunities on hand.
That someone else does likewise, say Colin Powell or Condolezza Rice to pull two names at random out of a hat, is not a problem -- they're not running for office of course -- but they're profiting from the same System Hillary has. The list of profiteers is almost endless.
That Hillary has worked the System better than many must be galling to her rivals who are convinced she's just not that smart, but the emails show her with a clear grasp of issues and the interests of the people she's speaking to, and the interests of those who have been left behind, a fuller grasp than I would have expected. She may not express herself artfully -- far from it -- but she's no slouch or dullard when it comes down to it.
I suspect she suffers from being "too smart for her own good."
What she seems to lack is good judgment. This has led to some catastrophic misjudgments and utter horror for millions of people in the Middle East, North Africa, Central America and elsewhere. Her husband suffered from some of the same problems of poor judgment Hillary has though perhaps on a different plane...
Yet strangely, or perhaps not, Hillary's poor judgment seems to be right in line with the theories of how things ought to be as they are the accepted consensus among the Ruling Class. In other words, even her moral scolding -- and moral failing -- is taken by them as right and proper.
They should be doing better by the Lower Orders. But they don't. Aww, such a Pity so many have to suffer...
All the Hag-Hate in the world is not going to change that. It will have no affect on the System at all. It's a diversion. Perhaps even an engineered one to ensure that nothing will interfere with the System as it is.
Trump, too, seems to be a diversion.
Keep the Rabble entertained enough and at one another's throats enough, and Wah-Lah! Their impotence for another cycle is assured.
That is key to keeping the Overclass on top and the Rabble incapable of doing anything about it.
Part of the President's job assignment is to soothe or tame the Rabble. Obama is a master at it; there hasn't been anyone as skilled at it since FDR. Hillary is not skilled at it, not at all, and Trump's apparent goal is to rile them up so much they commit mayhem or even a Revolution from the Right.
TPTB cannot tolerate that, of course, but they must be disappointed in Hillary's failure to connect with, let alone tame the Rabble who might well rise up on their own against what they see as an inappropriate continuation of an unacceptable status quo.
The situation puts the Overclass on the spot. Clearly they have decided on Hillary for the White House, but as she is incapable of properly taming the masses, something or someone will have to supplement her rule. I don't see Mr. Kaine being much help in that regard. Certainly Bill will face the same sort of difficulty he did when he was president. Nor would Democratic control of one or both houses of Congress do her any favors. In fact, given the historic fecklessness and misrule of the Democrats, and their lack of interest in progressive policy solutions to domestic and international problems, I can easily imagine a Democratic majority in either or both houses of Congress would be even worse for Hillary than it was for Obama when he had a Democratic majority.
If the Rs keep the House -- likely but not certain -- who would be surprised if articles of impeachment are filed within minutes of her taking office? Who would be surprised with endless "investigations," scandal mongering, hysterics even greater than when Bill was in office? The media will eat it up, just as they have with the sex-accusations against Trump. They don't care about other aspects of his history, though, do they? The man is a gangster and a con man, and he is a representative of his class, but none of that matters when there is sex on the table.
Nothing matters except The Sex.
It strikes me that there's a revenge drama running through all this nonsense, "get back" for past slights and mistakes. How all that works is a topic for another day.
Right now, though, the Hillary Speeches Hoo-Hah is a lot of sound and fury signifying almost nothing.
Anyway, what's in these emails and the partial transcripts of speeches Hillary gave to the High and Mighty for Big Bucks strikes me as pretty benign. She even tries to inject a modicum of social conscience into people and institutions that have none. No wonder this isn't getting a lot of traction in the media or much of anywhere else. Despite the headlines, there's very little there there.
There's so little there there that Lambert over at NC, always one of the most inciteful (heh) analysts of Things Clinton ("Clintoooon!"), had to say: "Reading these, I’m thinking the $675,000 had nothing to do with the actual content…."
We know from endless prattle of the likes of Lambert and many others that all things Clinton ("Clintoooon!") are the definition of corrupt. There is no political corruption on the face of the earth unless it is smeared with Clintoon shit. None. And these emails, according to Julian Assange would be filled with smoking guns of Clintoon corruption that would, somehow or other, destroy her campaign.
Well. No. Not so far anyway.
They show her getting along with the Mighty-Mighty titans and malefactors of great wealth to be sure, but in every one of the ones I've seen, she's telling them to their faces that they need to get a soul and start treating the rest of humanity -- like all the millions who've been harmed by their shenanigans -- better. Sometimes there are details of what she expects of them -- such as lending to Main Street to get the economy going again -- and sometimes there aren't, it's just a moral(ish) declaration. "It's your obligation to do better for the Little People."[Paraphrase.]
So the question has been raised, "Why the hell didn't she just release this stuff when Bernie asked? 'Cause it sure doesn't look like there was anything worth hiding in what's been hacked."
Of course these aren't the whole transcripts, they're excerpts, but there's nothing shocking or more than modestly ear-grating in them. She doesn't have a way with words, let's put it that way. She's no great orator to the Great and Worthy or to the Rabble. But there's an inner coherence to what she has to say, and gets across her points relatively well. One of which is, "I'm your friend, and I want you to behave better."
Gee. Alert the media! Get this to Olbermann, stat! (An old joke, but sometimes it's fun...)
Her positions -- so far as I can make out -- are pretty much the same as Obama's when it comes to those people. Which has been arm's length but relatively friendly. Enough so that they're rolling in money while the rest of us have continued to struggle with little or no help from Our Betters.
I think it's Greenwald who has proposed that though the emails are not particularly damning or devastating, they do show how She (Who Must Be Obeyed) would govern, and it's not pretty.
Well, no. It never is.
With Hillary it is perhaps less pretty because of her nature and background and her absence of oratorical power -- particularly problematical is her legal training and experience. I'm convinced it destroys otherwise good people who want to do right, but once they learn about the Law, they're lucky to do anything unless it conforms to custom and can be parsed to mean what it doesn't.
I come from a family of attorneys. I don't recommend their ways as a general thing. It's nuts making.
Big Dog has had many of the same problems of excessive legalism as Hillary does.
I think it's interesting that it's called "corruption" when it is really something else again. Let's call it an excess of moralism based in flawed understandings of law and propriety. Or maybe it's inner defiance....
Anyway, it's gotten the Clintons in trouble more than once.
These emails don't show the kind of corruption that Hillary is incessantly accused of. The accusation of "pay to play" quid pro quos between Herself and the myriad High and Mighty interests she's dealt with don't fly in the end because there's no direct sign of a quid let alone a pro quo. Well, I should say, there's more than a few quid, in that many tens of millions of dollars have gone into hers and Bill's pockets and into the Clinton Foundation, but other than a "fair hearing" it's not clear that anything has been delivered to those interests that they wouldn't have already received anyway. They didn't have to pay her for what they got on the other end. They would have gotten it anyway.
In other words, the charges of "corruption" are based in a fantasy understanding of how government is supposed to work.
Not an understanding of how it does work.
So what did they pay her for?
It's always a question, isn't it? Why do ex-officials, it doesn't matter who they are, cash in so heavily on the speaking-lecture circuit or gain multi-millions from legal partnerships or from sitting on boards of directors once they leave office? How does that work, exactly, and what are the parameters?
What do the speakers-partners-board-members provide the payers?
You can't get a clear understanding of this System from all the yapping going on about it, particularly not from all the puerile insults being thrown around: "Clintoooon!!!!" Etc.
Yes, it is a System, fully formed long ago, by which those who once served in high government office (and sometimes not so high) can profit mightily and legally once they leave the marble halls of government, and by which they can thence return to the Hallowed Corridors of Power, rich as Croesus, to start the cycle over again. It is the custom of the tribe. Dick Cheney, anyone?
We may disagree with it -- I certainly do -- but it is legal, and it is all but impossible to prove a direct pro quo for the quid, so legally it's not corruption. No, not really. Really!
It's especially so the higher you go up the ladder of the System. Lower ranks can and do get in trouble or sometimes go to jail for relatively minor indiscretions in squeezing the teats of the System, but the higher the rank, the less likely one is to have one's tits put through the wringer.
The System itself is corrupt, but we don't hear about that, and passions rarely rise over the whole damn thing. No, it's individuals like Hillary who are pilloried for working the System to their advantage, for profiting legally (or sometimes not) from the opportunities on hand.
That someone else does likewise, say Colin Powell or Condolezza Rice to pull two names at random out of a hat, is not a problem -- they're not running for office of course -- but they're profiting from the same System Hillary has. The list of profiteers is almost endless.
That Hillary has worked the System better than many must be galling to her rivals who are convinced she's just not that smart, but the emails show her with a clear grasp of issues and the interests of the people she's speaking to, and the interests of those who have been left behind, a fuller grasp than I would have expected. She may not express herself artfully -- far from it -- but she's no slouch or dullard when it comes down to it.
I suspect she suffers from being "too smart for her own good."
What she seems to lack is good judgment. This has led to some catastrophic misjudgments and utter horror for millions of people in the Middle East, North Africa, Central America and elsewhere. Her husband suffered from some of the same problems of poor judgment Hillary has though perhaps on a different plane...
Yet strangely, or perhaps not, Hillary's poor judgment seems to be right in line with the theories of how things ought to be as they are the accepted consensus among the Ruling Class. In other words, even her moral scolding -- and moral failing -- is taken by them as right and proper.
They should be doing better by the Lower Orders. But they don't. Aww, such a Pity so many have to suffer...
All the Hag-Hate in the world is not going to change that. It will have no affect on the System at all. It's a diversion. Perhaps even an engineered one to ensure that nothing will interfere with the System as it is.
Trump, too, seems to be a diversion.
Keep the Rabble entertained enough and at one another's throats enough, and Wah-Lah! Their impotence for another cycle is assured.
That is key to keeping the Overclass on top and the Rabble incapable of doing anything about it.
Part of the President's job assignment is to soothe or tame the Rabble. Obama is a master at it; there hasn't been anyone as skilled at it since FDR. Hillary is not skilled at it, not at all, and Trump's apparent goal is to rile them up so much they commit mayhem or even a Revolution from the Right.
TPTB cannot tolerate that, of course, but they must be disappointed in Hillary's failure to connect with, let alone tame the Rabble who might well rise up on their own against what they see as an inappropriate continuation of an unacceptable status quo.
The situation puts the Overclass on the spot. Clearly they have decided on Hillary for the White House, but as she is incapable of properly taming the masses, something or someone will have to supplement her rule. I don't see Mr. Kaine being much help in that regard. Certainly Bill will face the same sort of difficulty he did when he was president. Nor would Democratic control of one or both houses of Congress do her any favors. In fact, given the historic fecklessness and misrule of the Democrats, and their lack of interest in progressive policy solutions to domestic and international problems, I can easily imagine a Democratic majority in either or both houses of Congress would be even worse for Hillary than it was for Obama when he had a Democratic majority.
If the Rs keep the House -- likely but not certain -- who would be surprised if articles of impeachment are filed within minutes of her taking office? Who would be surprised with endless "investigations," scandal mongering, hysterics even greater than when Bill was in office? The media will eat it up, just as they have with the sex-accusations against Trump. They don't care about other aspects of his history, though, do they? The man is a gangster and a con man, and he is a representative of his class, but none of that matters when there is sex on the table.
Nothing matters except The Sex.
It strikes me that there's a revenge drama running through all this nonsense, "get back" for past slights and mistakes. How all that works is a topic for another day.
Right now, though, the Hillary Speeches Hoo-Hah is a lot of sound and fury signifying almost nothing.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Sharks!!! Missing White Women!!!! The Summer Driving Season Comes Early This Year!!!!
The recent trio of Scandals!!! at the White House remind us just how desperate the media can be when ginning up something -- anything -- to keep the masses distracted for the Summer.
This Summertime Distraction is an Absolute Tradition and Iron Law among the ink stained wretches who ply the media trade. You got to have a hook. That's all there is to it. And because the media is largely on hiatus during the summer, the thinking is that certain tried and true stories, particularly of Shark Attacks!!! and Missing White Women!!!! and Summer Driving (as gas prices go through the roof, again)!!!, will do the trick. They always have in the past, why not again?
But what if the media doesn't want to play that record again? The summer of 2001 was the most notorious one for these sorts of distractions, really quite shameful when you think back on it. Bush cleared brush, White Women went missing, and sharks, sharks, sharks patrolled the waters eating whomever they chose, and then, right after Labor Day, bam. 9/11 happened. Putting the kibosh on frivolity, at least until the next summer, when of course, WAR was all the rage, and the occupation of Iraq was getting all the news.
It took some time to get back to the distractions of Shark Attacks and Missing White Women, but eventually things seemed to settle down enough to fire up the old tried and true stories once again. And so it has been for a while now.
But there is another summertime media tradition that goes back to Nixon at least, and probably farther.
I'm always amazed when I read historical political material to discover that everything old is new again, and that the political cycle and the scandal-mongering that goes with it has been churning unrelentingly all my life, since well before I was born in fact, cycling through the same, same, same things over and over and over again.
The White House Scandal (!!!!!) is part of the traditional cycle, but it doesn't come around every year like Missing White Women and Shark Attacks are supposed to do. No, the White House Scandal is periodic, but not annual. It typically begins when Someone Who Matters takes offense at something someone in the White House has said or done, much as Katherine Graham took offense at something Nixon said or did (or simply because she didn't like him) and launched the Watergate Thing. The Thing that eventually took him down.
It was a Summer Scandal that ultimately went on for a couple of years, but it was based not so much in the crimes of the Nixon Administration -- gawd knows, there were plenty of those -- as it was in the animosity of the Press (ie: Katherine Graham of the Washington Post) to Richard M. Nixon, President of These United States of America.
Somewhat similar was the media attack on President Clinton, for everything it seemed, until something stuck, ie: Monica. Leading to his aborted impeachment -- which itself was a full-on Summer Scandal (!!!) though the impeachment itself was delayed until fall.
The Media Summer Distraction Machine was fully on during the summer of 2001, and many observers at that time seemed to sense that something was up. The 2000 election was an abomination decided through the lawless intervention of the Supreme Court, and the People were not happy about it, not on a bet. Bush himself was shortly revealed as a stumble bum fool once installed on the Throne, with that eminence grise Cheney skulking about in the shadows doing who knew what mischief? Meanwhile, Bush cut brush on his phony ranch in Texas, and the mighty White House press corps suffered through the heat and humidity of a Texas summer. Bush ponderously pondered stem cell research, and he would give a Speech From the Throne about it, with bats zipping around in the night sky behind him, that left everyone scratching their heads and saying "Whatttt????"
But Chandra Levy was Missing (!!!!!) and Congressman Gary Condit was just like Clinton!!!!! and the likeliest suspect in her disappearance, obviously a murderer, just like Clinton!!!, and he would not be allowed to get away with it, the way Clinton was, not if Nancy Grace had anything to say about it!
Yes, well.
And the sharks were biting up a storm. Chomp. Chomp, Chomp.
It was Such a Beautiful Summer. Then it was spoiled by the Nasty Mooslims.
Now that we are deep into White House Scandal Stories that have prefigured what the Summer Stories will be like -- All Scandal, All the Time, with one or two Missing White Women and a Shark Bite Story thrown in for good measure -- we might want to think about what is not being covered in the "news" and what sort of Holy Horror is being worked up for the fall.
Apparently, the more rabid of the Rightists are intent on forcing the impeachment or resignation of the President, though what the point of it might be is anybody's guess. They want Happy Joe on the Throne instead? I seriously doubt it. No, this is Show Business and the political motive is to keep the common people distracted and entertained while... what?... is going on in the background?
The Correspondent's Dinner seemed to mark the point at which the White House Press Corps turned on the President, and from that point their sole (pack) interest was focused on what damage they could help the Rs do to the White House.
Beng[h]azi was the key to the process in that Congressional Hearings were in the offing, and they would heat the Scandal Pot to a boil, no matter what was revealed. But then to find out that the IRS had been targeting conservative political groups!!!! OMG!!!. Actually, this had long been known, the 'Baggers had long been fuming about the delays in approving their non-profit status, and there had already been official look-sees over it. In other words, the story was old, it just hadn't been made a Scandal(!!!!) yet. But you see, anything can be turned into a Scandal(!!!!). And so it has been with the IRS Thing. Notice that with this one, the White House has gone fully along with it, too. Something in the background will likely not be done because of this, and I wonder what it might be. Some people seem to think it could mean that Obamacare subsidies would have to be scrapped (because they are administered by the IRS.) That would be interesting. It would effectively blow up the whole Rube Goldberg contraption, and there are plenty of Americans who would not have a sad over that. On the other hand, we may be looking at the imposition of "Tax Reform" sooner rather than later. "Tax Reform" as in "broadening the base and 'lowering the rates.'" What it really would be is a massive tax burden shift from them that's got onto them that's not, and though I've been pointing this out for many years, the notion still hasn't firmly penetrated the conscious understanding of many of those who write about these things.
That's what I see as the likely upshot of the IRS Thing.
The Beng[h]azi Thing appears to be little more than endless face-time opportunities for that execrable Darrell Issa, and I say, dayum, if Dude wants to get his ugly mug on the teevee that bad, let him. He has always come across as a maroon of the first water, and the more people see of him, the more they loathe him and everything he "stands" for -- which is more face time.
The Beng[h]azi Thing is going nowhere as a Scandal (!!!!) except on FOX, and they don't have any idea what to do with it. In due time, it will simply evaporate as if it never was.
On the other hand, the Beng[h]azi Thing could be serving as a mask -- or an excuse -- for preparations for yet another warrior foray into the Heart of Darkness, ie: the Mooslim World. The various wars, after all, have not been going well, and clusterfucks (like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya) that have resulted from unleashing the Dogs of War among Those People have created a level of uncontrollable chaos that gives the willies to anyone who observes it and leaves tragedy and bloodshed throughout the region. Shock Doctrine principles (which seem to be the rule among Our Rulers) require an even bigger shock than the daily bombings and dronings and catastrophic living conditions that have become routine in the Middle East and North Africa. Something much bigger must occur to bring Those People into line. I would guess that's a joint American-Israeli attack on Iran, something lusted after by the already blood-drenched Ruling Class for many a long year.
Perhaps the Beng[h]azi Thing will prove to be the catalyst for doing it. I hope not, but that's the way these things tend to go. They take on a life of their own.
The AP Thing is another one that was a story but not a Scandal(!!!!) sometime back. It involves a key aspect of the National Security State, the essentially universal surveillance of the public that's been going on for years.
Apparently, the AP (along with other news outlets) think they should be exempted and immune from the surveillance everyone else is routinely subjected to. There's a lot of history of press freedom in this country, and there is the tattered remnant of the Constitution to fall back on, but there are certain court rulings that essentially cancel those privileges in the face of National Security, and so as much as Gary Pruitt and the AP want to make this into some Big Deal, it's unlikely they will succeed. For one thing, the public has little tolerance for media preening and complaining, and for another, the AP has long sucked. They have been the ones promoting the Summer Scandal/Summer Distraction stories for years and years, and the AP wire is filled with trash like this (though Pruitt, to his credit has tried to clean it up a little).
The AP is trying to make a case that they are somehow above you and me, and it's just not going to fly among the public. Whether it will have an impact among the High and the Mighty remains to be seen. And it will depend on what the real objection is -- and who is making it. Nobody really cares if the phone calls of reporters in the field are looked into by the Security State. But if the Government goes "too far" all hell could break loose, with the press going fully rogue against the State. So I'd look at this as a shot across the bow, a warning to the Government to stay within bounds, which will be set by the High and Mighty to protect the High and Mighty.
Surveille the public all you want (and please share the information with the press!!) they seem to be saying, but stay within strict bounds when it comes to surveilling the establishment press or pay the price. This is a periodic issue. It's always been resolved one way or another, but it crops up again and again.
So Summer has come early. I don't know where all these White House Scandals are headed, but there were signs on the "news" last night that the media isn't going to go all the way with them -- depending on how well they are able to control these things of course, and how much the White House is willing to play.
Now that the White House is paying attention to the plaints of the media, they seem to be happy enough.
We'll see.
If the Missing White Women and Shark Attacks start bubbling up to the front pages again, we'll know that the plug has been pulled on these Scandals(!!!) -- at least for the time being. On the other hand...
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The AP Thing, The IRS Thing, The Beng[h]azi Thing...
Whoo boy, the Roller Coaster is in overdrive now boys and girls. Did somebody offend somebody? Or is the situation behind the scenes just too unstable to keep the ship of state aright?
This is primarily a media scandal-fest, something like the ones that went wilding during the 90's leading to the Impeachment Circus and all the rest of it. Which led, of course, directly to the Supremes' lawless intervention in the 2000 election to put the majority's candidate on the Throne. If we think back, it's easy to see how media driven this all was, from the get-go to the miserable end of the Bushevik Regime.
How many millions paid with their lives and fortunes for this political misadventure? Did the media gain from their scandal mongering? Ask Roger Ailes, maybe he'll tell you. Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll lie.
The AP Thing is a doozy; they're all panty-wadded because their counsel got notice that phone records of certain reporters had been scrutinized by the DoJ, apparently as part of a leak investigation by the gov't. Hm. Yes, well. At least they got notice.
I mean, this sort of thing really galls me. Ever since the imposition of the Patriot Act back in the day, warrantless domestic surveillance has been essentially universal. But now AP is calling foul, stomping its little feet and screaming, "You can't do this to MEEEEE!!!!" Everybody else is fair game? But not the AP? Bullshit. The problem is not surveillance of the press; the problem is universal domestic surveillance. Period. And that's not something the Mighty-Mighty Press has ever had the least bit of concern about. Was it assumed that the Press would be immune?
This is not unlike my annoyance at the nearly hysterical response to the "torture" of Bradley Manning by members of the blog-o-tariat, with nary a nod to the fact that what was happening to him was relatively mild compared to what goes on in American detention facilities to tens of thousands of Americans, every. fucking. day. And which has been going on for YEARS. What happened to Manning shouldn't have happened, but in my view, you cannot separate out his treatment from the gross brutality -- and yes, torture -- that is part and parcel of the entire American detention system.
Just so with the surveillance of the AP reporters. Yes? And? This is 'Merika. This is what goes on, has been going on for YEARS, "it's the Law," and this is what has been done to millions and millions of Americans on a day-in and day-out basis. What has the AP had to say about that? Nothing, right?
The AP is demanding -- now -- special treatment for itself, to be free of "this sort of intimidation!" Great, fine. They should be free of it -- so should everyone else. But you are unlikely to ever hear that from the AP or any of those marching around with their chins thrust out in AP's defense these days.
No, they want their own special dispensation, just as many of the advocates for Bradley Manning wanted his dispensation, ignoring the thousands and the millions who faced the same sort of intimidation/torture under the color of authority every day. For whatever reason, in the minds of so many people, the masses who suffer don't matter, only the individual -- or institution in the case of the AP.
To my way of looking at these things, it's nonsense.
Separating out an individual or one institution and demanding recompense for their suffering while ignoring everyone else who is facing the same sort of thing or worse is not even a simulation of "justice."
It's grotesque.
But that's how very far we've fallen under the spell of the Individual.
As for the IRS Thing, the notion that the IRS uses its power and authority to go after certain targeted individuals and institutions, and it sometimes oversteps its authority in doing so, is hardly news. The notion that some of their scrutiny has the appearance of a political motivation again is hardly news. What's news in this case is apparently that the agency was inclined to use its clout to look into nonprofit status of TeaBagging and other rightist political organizations, something that simply is not done in this country, rightists being Free and all. Well, Patriots, you know.
Scrutinizing Leftist outfits is only right and proper, but dare the IRS -- or anyone else in Gubmint -- to probe the behavior of a 'Bagging interest and all hell breaks loose. Again, we are dealing with demands for special exemptions and dispensations for certain (perhaps momentarily) favored individuals or groups, leaving everyone else who has the same or similar difficulties to fend for themselves. This is not "justice." I can't put it any plainer than that.
To my way of looking at it, the IRS should be abolished for cause (along with quite a few other government department and agencies) and its functions should be reformed from the bottom up. The notion of non-profit, religious, or charitable tax exemptions should be re-thought. Just what is the purpose of these exemptions, and why should certain industries and individuals be exempt while others must pay and pay more, with the tax burden being shifted more and more onto the backs of those least able to pay?
But that's not what the hoop lah is about. No, it's about "targeting" rightist outfits, purely and simply. The whole system is rotten, but as long as it doesn't "target" rightists, it's OK? Leftists can be targeted -- and have been for generations -- but not rightists? What utter crap.
Finally The Beng[h]azi Thing. It's as if no one involved in the many "investigations" has ever heard of or utilized (deceptive) Talking Points before. Yes, of course, the talking points were not accurate. Yes? So?
How often are talking points used by anyone fully accurate? How often are they intended to spin and how often are they intended to deceive?
In this case, the whole thing appears to be a mighty clusterfuck. It's not the first time. And until the AP and IRS Things, it seemed that the "investigations" of the clusterfuck were going to be taunted and dismissed by the media as so much political posturing by the Rs (which they are), but now, with the other "scandals" on the table as it were, Beng[h]azi will loom large on the topic list for some time to come.
I assume all this is coming to a head now (even before the Summer Driving and Shark and Missing White Woman Season gets going) because someone who matters in the media was offended by someone in the White House, possibly even by the President Himself. The media skin is sometimes very thin, and the least insult, or even an accidental one, can open the gates of Hell on an otherwise unsuspecting officialdom.
It's happened before. I would just remind readers that the Watergate Thing happened largely because A Person Who Mattered in the Media (Katherine Graham) took offense at the White House, and took personal offense at Richard Nixon for some insult or slight or other, and she vowed to have his ass in a sling or know the reason why. She got what she wanted.
A lot of people tend to think the Watergate story reporting and the subsequent investigations leading to the resignation of Richard Nixon was somehow a high point of public and media integrity. I would suggest it was nothing of the kind. It was instead an act of gross and deliberate revenge for... an insult. There were crimes committed, lord knows, in the course of the Nixon administration, monstrous, horrible crimes, compared to which the Watergate burglary was small potatoes. The point, which got completely missed, is that it is in the nature of our system of governance for the government itself to operate lawlessly, criminally, and often murderously. It is in the DNA of the institution, and the only way I know of to change things is to start over with a different institution.
Thus, as criminal as the Nixon administration was, it was by no means uniquely criminal. It was typically criminal. Decapitating the operation doesn't change its fundamental nature. But in the course of events, someone who mattered in the media demanded and got revenge against Richard Nixon, thus in effect decapitating the government, yet not changing it in any important way (she didn't care about that, after all), and here we are, forty years down the line, and guess what?
Nothing has really changed but the optics.
But at least the media now has its summer shitstorm laid out. What will happen to the Sharks and the Missing White Women?
And what of the Summer Driving Season?
This is primarily a media scandal-fest, something like the ones that went wilding during the 90's leading to the Impeachment Circus and all the rest of it. Which led, of course, directly to the Supremes' lawless intervention in the 2000 election to put the majority's candidate on the Throne. If we think back, it's easy to see how media driven this all was, from the get-go to the miserable end of the Bushevik Regime.
How many millions paid with their lives and fortunes for this political misadventure? Did the media gain from their scandal mongering? Ask Roger Ailes, maybe he'll tell you. Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll lie.
The AP Thing is a doozy; they're all panty-wadded because their counsel got notice that phone records of certain reporters had been scrutinized by the DoJ, apparently as part of a leak investigation by the gov't. Hm. Yes, well. At least they got notice.
I mean, this sort of thing really galls me. Ever since the imposition of the Patriot Act back in the day, warrantless domestic surveillance has been essentially universal. But now AP is calling foul, stomping its little feet and screaming, "You can't do this to MEEEEE!!!!" Everybody else is fair game? But not the AP? Bullshit. The problem is not surveillance of the press; the problem is universal domestic surveillance. Period. And that's not something the Mighty-Mighty Press has ever had the least bit of concern about. Was it assumed that the Press would be immune?
This is not unlike my annoyance at the nearly hysterical response to the "torture" of Bradley Manning by members of the blog-o-tariat, with nary a nod to the fact that what was happening to him was relatively mild compared to what goes on in American detention facilities to tens of thousands of Americans, every. fucking. day. And which has been going on for YEARS. What happened to Manning shouldn't have happened, but in my view, you cannot separate out his treatment from the gross brutality -- and yes, torture -- that is part and parcel of the entire American detention system.
Just so with the surveillance of the AP reporters. Yes? And? This is 'Merika. This is what goes on, has been going on for YEARS, "it's the Law," and this is what has been done to millions and millions of Americans on a day-in and day-out basis. What has the AP had to say about that? Nothing, right?
The AP is demanding -- now -- special treatment for itself, to be free of "this sort of intimidation!" Great, fine. They should be free of it -- so should everyone else. But you are unlikely to ever hear that from the AP or any of those marching around with their chins thrust out in AP's defense these days.
No, they want their own special dispensation, just as many of the advocates for Bradley Manning wanted his dispensation, ignoring the thousands and the millions who faced the same sort of intimidation/torture under the color of authority every day. For whatever reason, in the minds of so many people, the masses who suffer don't matter, only the individual -- or institution in the case of the AP.
To my way of looking at these things, it's nonsense.
Separating out an individual or one institution and demanding recompense for their suffering while ignoring everyone else who is facing the same sort of thing or worse is not even a simulation of "justice."
It's grotesque.
But that's how very far we've fallen under the spell of the Individual.
As for the IRS Thing, the notion that the IRS uses its power and authority to go after certain targeted individuals and institutions, and it sometimes oversteps its authority in doing so, is hardly news. The notion that some of their scrutiny has the appearance of a political motivation again is hardly news. What's news in this case is apparently that the agency was inclined to use its clout to look into nonprofit status of TeaBagging and other rightist political organizations, something that simply is not done in this country, rightists being Free and all. Well, Patriots, you know.
Scrutinizing Leftist outfits is only right and proper, but dare the IRS -- or anyone else in Gubmint -- to probe the behavior of a 'Bagging interest and all hell breaks loose. Again, we are dealing with demands for special exemptions and dispensations for certain (perhaps momentarily) favored individuals or groups, leaving everyone else who has the same or similar difficulties to fend for themselves. This is not "justice." I can't put it any plainer than that.
To my way of looking at it, the IRS should be abolished for cause (along with quite a few other government department and agencies) and its functions should be reformed from the bottom up. The notion of non-profit, religious, or charitable tax exemptions should be re-thought. Just what is the purpose of these exemptions, and why should certain industries and individuals be exempt while others must pay and pay more, with the tax burden being shifted more and more onto the backs of those least able to pay?
But that's not what the hoop lah is about. No, it's about "targeting" rightist outfits, purely and simply. The whole system is rotten, but as long as it doesn't "target" rightists, it's OK? Leftists can be targeted -- and have been for generations -- but not rightists? What utter crap.
Finally The Beng[h]azi Thing. It's as if no one involved in the many "investigations" has ever heard of or utilized (deceptive) Talking Points before. Yes, of course, the talking points were not accurate. Yes? So?
How often are talking points used by anyone fully accurate? How often are they intended to spin and how often are they intended to deceive?
In this case, the whole thing appears to be a mighty clusterfuck. It's not the first time. And until the AP and IRS Things, it seemed that the "investigations" of the clusterfuck were going to be taunted and dismissed by the media as so much political posturing by the Rs (which they are), but now, with the other "scandals" on the table as it were, Beng[h]azi will loom large on the topic list for some time to come.
I assume all this is coming to a head now (even before the Summer Driving and Shark and Missing White Woman Season gets going) because someone who matters in the media was offended by someone in the White House, possibly even by the President Himself. The media skin is sometimes very thin, and the least insult, or even an accidental one, can open the gates of Hell on an otherwise unsuspecting officialdom.
It's happened before. I would just remind readers that the Watergate Thing happened largely because A Person Who Mattered in the Media (Katherine Graham) took offense at the White House, and took personal offense at Richard Nixon for some insult or slight or other, and she vowed to have his ass in a sling or know the reason why. She got what she wanted.
A lot of people tend to think the Watergate story reporting and the subsequent investigations leading to the resignation of Richard Nixon was somehow a high point of public and media integrity. I would suggest it was nothing of the kind. It was instead an act of gross and deliberate revenge for... an insult. There were crimes committed, lord knows, in the course of the Nixon administration, monstrous, horrible crimes, compared to which the Watergate burglary was small potatoes. The point, which got completely missed, is that it is in the nature of our system of governance for the government itself to operate lawlessly, criminally, and often murderously. It is in the DNA of the institution, and the only way I know of to change things is to start over with a different institution.
Thus, as criminal as the Nixon administration was, it was by no means uniquely criminal. It was typically criminal. Decapitating the operation doesn't change its fundamental nature. But in the course of events, someone who mattered in the media demanded and got revenge against Richard Nixon, thus in effect decapitating the government, yet not changing it in any important way (she didn't care about that, after all), and here we are, forty years down the line, and guess what?
Nothing has really changed but the optics.
But at least the media now has its summer shitstorm laid out. What will happen to the Sharks and the Missing White Women?
And what of the Summer Driving Season?
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Leaking WikiLeaks
Everyone knows that the highly touted "Bank Revelations" that Julian Assange promised would be released by WikiLeaks soon after the New Year have essentially disappeared from the radar screens of WikiLeaks and the WikiLeaks partisan community. These days, the tout is that WikiLeaks is behind all the Revolutions in the Mid East.
Most people who followed the Assange drama last December were aware that the sudden official (private and government) hyper-interest in "getting" Assange and shutting down WikiLeaks coincided with Julian's claims in December about the upcoming release of the "Bank Revelations." Up to that point, the cat and mouse, spy vs spy gamesmanship between Julian and his pursuers was almost casual. WikiLeaks was never actually shut down, and the cyberwar against WikiLeaks seemed to peter out when Julian turned himself in and agreed to be held to answer for alleged sex crimes in Sweden. At the same time, WikiLeaks changed its MO, no longer accepting leaks online, and changing its operations to emphasize its journalistic assertions.
Meanwhile, a plethora of other leak sites has arisen, including one at Al Jazeera which published a trove of documents from the Israel/Palestine negotiations that demonstrated there were no real negotiations at all during nearly the last ten years, that in fact, Israel wasn't interested in peace with the Palestinians, and the whole "peace-process-road-map" was an ongoing fraud in which the United States was neither an honest broker nor a power player. Israel simply stomped all over everyone and then ignored the wreckage.
These incendiary documents are likely to have a stronger long term effect than anything WikiLeaks has put in the public domain to date though the overall effect of the Palestine Papers remains to be seen.
Comes now the release of "Inside WikiLeaks" a book by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, former WikiLeaks spokesperson and close ally of Julian Assange. It is reviewed by Laurel Maury at Truthout and Truthdig..
I have no personal desire to read this book, but I was interested in the review, not just for what Domscheit-Berg had to say about Julian and WikiLeaks, but for what reviewer Laurel Maury had to say about the book. She does not engage in the smear tactics that are routine for WikiLeaks/Assange partisans. For that failure, I'm sure that she and Truthout/Truthdig will be subject to intense propaganda campaigns and smearing by WikiLeaks/Assange partisans, some of which is already apparent in the comments to the review. The level of partisan animosity toward anyone and anything that doesn't follow the correct propaganda line about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is sometimes thoroughly
It really is
Daniel Domscheit-Berg aims to tear down some of the personality cult and propaganda that surrounds Assange/WikiLeaks through what seems to be a fairly straighforward telling of what he saw, participated in and experienced as an insider. It's not a pretty picture, but neither is it surprising to anyone who has been paying attention and has maintained any critical thinking ability at all
One of the most interesting aspects of Daniel Domscheit-Berg's story is that when he left WikiLeaks last September, he and another unnamed employee deliberately crippled the organization.
The author claims that he and this man, whom he calls “the architect,” before their departure shut down the platform WikiLeaks uses to accept submissions, essentially locking the door to new material and walking off with the keys. He says the system still isn’t fixed and implies a fix isn’t likely.
This would seem to be confirmed by the fact that WikiLeaks no longer accepts online submissions.
Perhaps more germane to the overall picture is Domscheit-Berg's assertions that the WikiLeaks operation and especially Julian Assange is immersed in lies.
It must be remembered that “Inside WikiLeaks” is written by a man who admits to lying a great deal and who claims that the principal character of his book, Assange, is an arch-liar.
Again, anyone who has been paying attention and has maintained any sort of critical thinking skills at all during the repeated media frenzies that have arisen due to WikiLeaks and the antics of Julian Assange is well aware not just that there have been lies upon lies disseminated by Assange and WikiLeaks, but that propaganda -- a somewhat more subtle thing than straight out lies -- is Assange's and WikiLeaks' stock in trade.
Back in December, Michel Chossudovsky published an examination of WikiLeaks and its origins titled Who is Behind Wikileaks? at GlobalResearch.ca that covers in much greater detail some of the speculation I and others engaged in last year regarding the origins and motives of WikiLeaks' operations. Even with Domscheit-Berg's revelations, the picture is no where near complete, and what is really going on -- or meant to go on -- with the media phenoms of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is still mysterious.
The release of the State Department cables -- very slowly, almost all through media partners (in this country, exclusively through the New York Times, on the schedule and with whatever spin and emphasis the Times chooses) seemed to indicate that Julian and WikiLeaks had been tamed, brought into the fold of the mainstream as it were.
But at least since the episode last December when Julian threatened the Banks and all holy hell broke loose to chase him down and shutter WikiLeaks -- holy hell that abated promptly when Julian was run to ground we ought to note -- WikiLeaks essentially became sidelined while Julian's drama became the sole matter of public interest.
Other leak sites have arisen in the interim, some publishing explosive revelations, and the revolutionary spirit sweeping the Arab autocracies and the Middle East has simply eclipsed the plodding pace of whatever might come from the State Department trove WikiLeaks and its media partners were featuring.
The issue is supposedly government and corporate secrets. Domscheit-Berg is offering some secrets about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for balance you might say. He is being actively smeared by WikiLeaks/Julian partisans because that's what they do. Whether he's telling the truth or not, few of us have any way of knowing. Nor do we have any way of knowing whether WikiLeaks is what it purports to be.
This uncertainty is part of our new reality, as is the tendency to believe rather than rationally -- and critically -- consider. We've passed into another universe, perhaps without even noticing.
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