People are going back and forth about this Comey situation. I did a reading on it a while back so if you check my video, “Why Did Comey Close the 2nd FBI Investigation? Ask A Psychic. You will see how all this and so much more is playing out. It’s all political theater. Politicians are actors who never made it to Hollyweird.
These are some interesting times.
It was stated by someone, and I quote…
“Too many people, who appear to be waking up still think that politics is the best way to life. From the first day that a human can absorb information, it is indoctrinated they have and need masters (teachers, police, priest & politicians). As soon as the awake people also wake up to the fact, that a ruling class is bad for society, things will start to change.” Anonymous
It’s the conundrum of human history. Particularly when you look at the notion of Empire. Modern day empire building manifests as the industrial revolution, but it really boils down to the concept of scarcity, fear of scarcity and then the need for a ruling class to protect everyone from scarcity. In their back rooms and dark halls, the ruling class had to figure out a way to remain the ruling “men behind the curtain” so they invented the notion of scarcity, on an abundant planet, and while they fill their coffers with more than they could ever use or need, and all the rest follows.
Humans, particularly the industrialized human, have the propensity to applaud their rulers no matter how they rule “Stockholm Syndrome” just as long as they promise to arrest their fears. They willingly give up their sovereignty to some external, much bigger, much more powerful force, to protect them and keep them from harm.
Meanwhile, cognitive dissonance is in full swing, as they look around at the failing economy, loss of jobs, horrendous war games, loss of life, health care, etc. which all equal loss of security, yet, the love relationship they have with leadership, i.e., the ruling class, is so pervasive it blinds them to the fact that they are no better off and that the ruling class are blood suckers who have no care for them. The voter will continue to vote against his/her interest for just a sliver of that promise pie, while the ruling class own the pie factory.
The deeper question is, why is humanity susceptible to being duped in this fashion, over and over again?
It appears that “Trump” was an even bigger Psyops than Obama. People actually believe there was a strong populous movement headed by a Billionaire? Even that makes no sense. But, because he was a cantankerous Billionaire, they thought he would be different?
Trump was a bigger Psyops than Obama because he had even the folks who were beginning to distrust the system altogether, get behind him. He pulled folks in from the left, right and center.
He has completely disappointed his base, yet they feverishly hold on to hope. As their hope disappears, it will create a tremendous mental dystopia and the masses who believed in him will join the ones “shouting” NOT MY PRESIDENT, and the populous movement will disintegrate like a morning fog.
Lack of faith in the government could lead to even more unrest and even more need for militarize police all over the country. Society will disintegrate into warring factions among themselves and the outcome will be as it always has been. The ruling class remain in power handing out slivers of pie to the fewer and fewer numbers of humans that are left after destroying them from the inside out.
It is written in the stars, Empires rise and fall over the millennia, however the Empire wheel keeps turning. Why do humans need empires is my question.
Why Is Humanity Susceptible to Building Empires?
“Are we witnessing the beginning of the end? And who’s end will it be? Ours or his!?” Anonymous
The Dems may want to tar and feather Trump for firing Comey. But they keep missing the elephant, the big huge elephant in the room. This is not about the dems vs the Reps, it’s about pedos not wanting their crap to be uncovered. The in fighting is just a smoke screen. Do you realize that they fight each other in public and sleep with each other after dark?
Wake up people, there’s no saving this corrupt system.
Pedophiles are running for cover. What Comey found out will bring even Trump down and it ain’t no Russian BS. How many times has the US interfered in elections, (Homeland Security interfered in US elections) overthrown governments, set up puppets who are allied with the US and NATO?
#Iraq #Haiti #Egypt #Honduras #Venezuela just to name a few.
Come on people!
Remember, Hillary sold 20% of US uranium reserves to Russia. So what’s the hype about Trump or anyone in his inner circle relating to the Russians? Why are these people trying to suggest Russian involvement in US elections when their track record is glaringly obvious of their collusion and interference around the globe? It’s the pot calling the kettle black!
We got, Hillary and Trump hobnobbing with the Saudis but so did Bush. The Saudi government, those guys, who just got Elected by the United Nations to Women’s Rights Commission DESPITE THAT COUNTRY’S APPALLING RECORD ON THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN. This shows you the “world” collusion and moral bankruptcy.
It ain’t about parties, it’s about world dominion, power and control for the psychopaths that run this world.
FYI, the Trump family is featured in the Jeffrey Epstein Blackbook, which indicates they knew a little bit about his lifestyle.
The Trump presidency is a psyops almost bigger than the Obama one was. In fact, Trump IS Obama’s 3rd term. He’s a puppet. He don’t know nothing from nothing, which makes him even easier to be manipulated by the globalist. He has no resistance, he’s a naive narcissistic, touch off. Don’t even think that bringing him down will change anything. It won’t!
Check it out, there’s a huge elephant in the room people!
So folks think that Comey should have been fired since he did not suggest that Hillary be prosecuted for her crimes. SO, good-bye Comey, you didn’t do your job.
But if you people think that Trump is going to hire someone who will prosecute her, you are sadly mistaken. She will not go to jail!
They haven’t forgotten what Hillary said, “If I go down, I am taking everyone with me.” and she wasn’t playing. In order to get to the top, you have to swim in some slime, become slime and then throw slime. All of them are complicit in some way and all of them think they are above the law.
There is no honesty among thieves so they all got to watch their backs, can’t keep their eyes closed to long and eliminate ALL threats. The United States government is a mafia, a criminal cabal, crooks thieves and robbers, and folks keep voting for them, thinking something will change, and it won’t. History should tell us that much.
The other thing that I think is sorely missed is that, usually, the VP is the President’s Handler. Think about it.. they tend to be more of a power broker from the sidelines. We hardly ever heard of Biden except here and there, Obama was the front man, same with Bush and Chaney. they got it all set up, and like Bush said “Oh, I’m not gonna lose.” so whatever they got to do, they will do and have done it. It’s just easier to see it now with the Internet, and if they have their way, they will figure out a way to silence it.
The whole “Alt-Right” and “fake news” meme was the beginning of a paradigm shift from allowing certain information to find its way to the web.
Censorship began, Twitter shut down accounts, Facebook, in addition to its already sending folks to Facebook jail; hired people to filter out so called “fake news”, reddit shut down accounts or deactivated certain sub-reddits and now, under the guise of Advertiser pressure, YouTube/Google is doing its part to silence the masses.
I ain’t even about free speech, you can’t have it on someone else’s platform. It’s a privilege to be able to speak your mind on someone else’s platform, but, it’s discouraging enough to make people self censor or go somewhere else.
The idea is to silence dissent, wherever they find it; and to keep the secret, secret, and at all costs.
Our world is governed by Psychopathic Megalomaniacs who intend on staying in power no matter what.
So to conclude, American voter, as long as you enable your government it will continue to abuse you.
LINKS OF INTEREST
United Nations Elects Saudi Arabia to Women’s Rights Commission
NB Commentary: By permission I am reposting a message sent to me via email. I found Mr. Chism’s thoughts compelling and worthy of posting in my blog. Feel free to leave your comments below. Thanks you.
The Counter Coup…. By Ronald Chism
2017-01-24
Peace,
(I have made fairly significant progress on my book, Nine Keys to Superior Living, so I decided to take a little break and share my perspective on what has just occurred in the U.S. Consider this a “post-election” analysis, although the impact of this election reaches far, far beyond the borders of the United States.)
Some 15 years ago, I told my wife that she and I would live to see a coup–perhaps a military coup–in the United States that would be a counter-coup against the forces that engineered the 1961 coup that was initiated by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a coup and assassination that I, at age 11, “witnessed,” at least on television, as well as a counter-coup against the neo-conservative forces that initiated 9/11.
Yes, there have been two coup d’etats in the U.S., in modern times, and one counter-coup:
The coup that occurred at the assassination of JFK
The coup that occurred on 9/11.
The counter-coup initiated by forces that picked Donald Trump to be the visible representative of that coup.
Now, Trump did not organize it himself, nor did he conceive of it. He was picked by the major counter-coup organizers because of his unique status as a global businessman and, essentially, his status as a civil nationalist [He’s not a Republican, and merely ran on the Republican ticket because he would have had no chance to win had he ran as an independent. Running as a Republican was a mere tool]. I will name the major organizers of the coup in this brief note.
First, a brief note. There are two, cultural views within the United States, neither one of which touched upon the primereality that has been happening in the U.S. and on the planet. Those two cultural views are:
Leftist views that are limited to social issues, such as racism (anti-racism), feminism, the gay agenda, equal rights (including for the handicapped), etc.
Rightest views that center on right-to-life issues (anti-abortion), religion (e.g., prayer in school, the promulgation of “Christian values,” etc.), anti-immigration, etc.
But prime issue that has defined the trajectory of U.S. policy both in the U.S. and abroad has been the struggle between freedom and slavery; between ‘higher’ caste and ‘lower’ caste’ between a tiny controlling cabal, and the rest of us. Although this type of struggle has been happening for thousands of years, it has manifested itself in a unique, and infinitely more dangerous manner in the modern age than in the past.
And this was explained clearly, as a warning, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his famous Farewell Address. The unique manner in which this struggle has manifested itself in the modern age is through what Eisenhower defined as The Military-Industrial Complex, which quickly became the tool by which global dominance [New World Order] would be achieved by a hidden elite (generally hidden from the common people.) If you have not viewed his Farewell Address, you can do so by clicking here. Here is a short quote from that address:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Here are the major players that engineered the counter-coup that installed Trump into the Presidency as the visible representative of that coup (You will not find these people on The Internet, listed as part of a counter-coup. I deduced this list through observation):
A group within the Deep State that feared the impending social destruction of the United States by the forces that were trying to create the NWO. The Deep State was never of one mind. There were always divisions. But it was 9/11, and the horrid results of 9/11 (both domestically and internationally) that swelled the ranks of those within the Deep State that became opposed to the methods of the others within the deep state whom they perceived as destructive to world and national order and peace. The CIA, an arm of the Deep State, was also split, one force wishing to carry on the plans for NWO, the other force wishing to depart from those plans.
Dr. Steve Piezcienik
Roger Stone
Gerald Celente
Alex Jones (believe it or not ) And I’m not kidding.
General James Mattis
General John Kelly
General Michael Flynn
Dr. Steven Greer
Aware, anti-globalist, citizen-dot-connectors of the United States who, using The Internet, exercised a significant portion of the U.S. to the possibility that Trump was an anti-globalist.
Julian Assange
What we have witnessed is a Civil War, which is still happening at this moment that has taken place chiefly in the shadows and on The Internet. And it has not been a bloodless Civil War, unfortunately, because people have been killed. But it is a relatively bloodless coup, waged mostly through The Internet, but also through the hard work of the above people and their assistants, some of whom do not live in the United States.
[Oh, incidentally, I have no special knowledge about this. No one has shown me “the secret files.” My claims are based on what I now perceive as the very obvious disclosure that a counter-coup has occurred, that disclosure appearing before our very eyes, in both the mainstream and alternative media, every single day now. Some of this I pieced together on my own, some of it is information that I gathered from the analysis of others, including experts. Only one individual, a serious expert in intelligence, Dr. Steve Piezcienik, has actually stated that a counter-coup has occurred].
A few articles and YouTube videos that are helpful in seeing this counter-coup are:
Now, all of the “right/left” commotion, in the streets, in the form of marches and counter-marches that you are witnessing has ZERO–nada–to do with what is reallygoing on before our eyes. Trump, in order to get votes, held the mirror up before a significant number of disaffected U.S. citizens, and simply reflected, from that mirror, onto himself, what they wanted to hear.
In short, he out-politicked the politicians. I doubt very seriously if Trump is a committed racist (Mexican, African, or otherwise), misogynist, or that he hates the religion of Islam. Roger Stone was his principal guide who fully understood the various factions in the U.S. that Trump would have to appeal to:
Regarding the last mentioned item, anti-DC politicians, remember: 40% of eligible voters did not vote. This is a measure of the massive discontent, amongst the citizenry. Trump’s handlers were excellent in mapping out a strategy for Trump, as well as appropriate messaging.
When I say “appropriate” messaging, I’m not talking about morality. I’m talking about messaging that was appropriate for appealing to the above-listed audience.
I’ll wrap this up now. Does this mean that I believe Trump to be the real deal? In a word, yes. And I won’t mind if I end up being wrong. No problem.
But understand what I’m saying that he’s the real deal about. He’s the real deal in being the visible head of that side of this current Civil War (occurring in the shadows, on The Internet, and now, actually, partially in public) that is attempting to destroy the machinations of Deep State globalists, who are also called the proponents of a New World Order.
(Before continuing, please understand the following: I will not argue or debatethis matter with anyone. That is a promise. Say, or believe, whatever you wish. I have analyzed the situation, and it is crystal clear to me what is going on. I was correctlyable to discover, on my own, what was happening inside Libya in 2011. And I was proven correct. I wrote 200 articles for Mathaba.net, using a pseudonym, alerting people about what was happening in Libya. Others did also, and that was because, in part, they were studying as hard as I was and we all, 32 of us, came up with the same correctconclusions.
(Trump might not do all that he claims he’s going to do. But there is a priority now. And that priority he is addressing: Destroy the influence of the destructive Deep State, which artificially started a perpetual “war on terrorism” to exact money from ordinary citizens, through taxes, so that arms manufacturers, oil merchants (thieves), corporations, and others could fatten their bank accounts. I believe that Trump is sincerely trying to put this to an end.)
What shocked me (in a positive way) was Trump’s inaugural speech. I was absolutely, 100% certain that he would give a speech that was totally almost the opposite of his campaign rhetoric. I assumed that he would “kick in” and bow down to the political status quo (composed of Democrats and Republicans) and deliver what his opponents would happily call a “conciliatory speech.” He did not!!
I was laughing my ASS off, because he stated the same things that he had stated during the campaign, which is totally not what politicians do. They lie during the campaign, to get votes, and then, at the inauguration, they turn back and give the signal, to the political establishment, that, “Okay, guys, I’m ready to play ball.” He didn’t do that. I was shocked.
Instead, he again lambasted all of the establishment, including the political establishment, and put his reputation on the line by saying that, Here is where it ends, meaning business as usual. I’m paraphrasing, but you can listen to his speech here, if you have not done so. He openly talked, at the inauguration, about how the politicians had enriched themselves, but left Americans impoverished. I do not remember, in my lifetime, any in-coming President saying such things at an inauguration.
We, as ordinary human beings, particularly those of us that are citizens of the United States, have rightly grown almost totally cynical about the power-elite. They are expert liars; expert promisers; expert do-nothings; expert exploiters; expert enslavers. So, it is no surprise that we cannot get ourselves to believe, not to even mention trust, any politicians.
I was suspicious of that guy all the way up to the inauguration. I had hoped that he might be a true outsider, and a truly concerned person, that would go up against the Deep State. But, I could not get myself to believe it. But when he spoke at the inauguration, I thought, “This guy is the real deal!”
I wonder his chances of staying alive for four years? Since the inauguration, his moves have been directly against the Deep State, and obviously so. You can research that in your own way. It’s virtually out into the public domain now, on The Internet.
He dumped TPP. He announced the re-negotiation of NAFTA. He gave hints of working with Russia, in Syria, to destroy ISIS, although, characteristically, he’s not going to openly show his hand (as he had stated during the campaign).
And the hysteria against him is coming from all over the place. When all elements of the establishment–the media, the upper echelon of the intelligence agencies, both political parties, the Executive Branch–go up against someone, then that person is obviously perceived by them to be an immense threat.
At the first White House Press Briefing, his press secretary, Trump’s White House Secretary, Sean Spicer, laid out some dynamic plans that clearly indicated a huge break from Deep State culture. One such break was the announcement that Trump was setting up Skype Seats, which will be for journalist in other parts of the country that do not have the clout and “inside” power as DC journalists have, and that the mainstream media used to have. This is an absolutely clear and direct swipe at one of the main control mechanisms of the Deep State: The mainstream press.
This is an attempt to defang the mainstream press, although that job has been powerfully taken on by the alternative media also, and also to democratize it, for lack of a better word–to give remote news organs the opportunity to compete, in their localities, with the mainstream media (which is now being called, the legacy media, or the lame-stream media).
I urge people again: Work on the metaphysics. Because, the Deep State actors are not going to give up. What we have to hope is that they do not conduct deadly false flag operations designed to force the new President to respond. Or we have to hope that if such operations are being planned, that they be thwarted mystically by the metaphysical efforts of those of us that believe in such efforts, and also by whatever physical efforts can be made.
Remember: All over the planet, even in Africa(east Africa, specifically) there are groups amongst the citizenry that are now fighting against the Deep State. As Dr. Steve Greer has often explained: The Deep State is a trans-national entity, not an entity confined to the United States.
Last, remember: There are priorities. The biggest priority is to destroy the influence of the Deep State, and, eventually, to destroy the Deep State period. I believe that this coup has happened directly for those purposes.
That’s the end of my analysis. It’s going to be interesting.
NB Commentary: What tickles me most about this thing. They outright stole the vote from Bernie, what makes them think that they wouldn’t steal the vote from Trump, which is why he HAD to encourage a landslide. Yet the Clintonians are in the streets tearing up shit cause she didn’t win. They actually wanted their winner to be the Cheater-In Chief. This election was a trainwreck the worse I have ever seen and both candidates suck!!!
When you have a system where it tells you that you have to vote… folks feel compelled to do so, even though they vote against their interests, time and time again. And when it doesn’t turn out correctly they scream and holler and complain about how unfair it is. Bu they don’t get it, ain’t this democracy? Ain’t this the system where the majority can rule over the minority? Ain’t this the system where if you don’t like what the majority has chosen for your leader, that you have a few options, and only a few,
1. you can suck it up
2. you can complain
3. you can actively protest
4. you can write your other leaders
5 . you can vote all the other leaders out next time
and
6. Stick your guy in there so he/she can rule and dominate over the other people’s choice.
Democracy is a failed system and needs to be abolished!
People believe in it like it is some kind of Divinity when it has proven time and time again to be the bastion of corruption and failed and harmful policies over and over and over again.
So the definition of insanity is…….
You fill in the blanks.
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
Protesters against President-elect Donald Trump gather in an intersection outside the Humphrey School of Affairs on the campus of the University of Minnesota on November 10, 2016 in Minneapolis. Thousands of people across the country have taken to the streets in protest in the days following the election of Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Remember that illusory “hope and change thing” from 2008?
Tens of millions fell for it. Obama looked SO different from Bush. So we assumed his policies would be different.
Bad assumption. And now, eight years later, many of us are making the same mistake.
Trump looks SO different from Obama, who comes across as a sensitive, educated, literate, liberal, wishy-washy, black, globalist anti-racist. Trump embodies the precise opposite of all these qualities: He is an ultra-assertive insensitive racist nativist nationalist boor who has never finished a serious book in his life.
I wrote most of the first edition of this book BEFORE the 2008 election – and called the entire Obama presidency right. Now, in this article, I’m calling the Trump presidency…before it has even started. (Hope I’m wrong.)
Such differences are purely superficial, designed to hypnotize us into imagining that we are living in a democracy. In reality, presidents are just front men for the global elite and the powerful interests they represent. Their job is to provide a change of scenery so that business-as-usual can continue unmolested by plebs seeking a bigger slice of the pie. To create a really enthralling change of scenery, something to utterly hypnotize the masses and distract them from the actual dire situation, the DIPS (Dominant Inbred Psychopaths) have learned to bring on a front man who seemingly offers the greatest possible contrast with the previous front man.
Hillary didn’t offer enough contrast with Obama; her real function was to play the foil for the rise of Trump. Like Obama, she’s liberal, educated, literate, a little too smooth, and basically a compromiser who identifies with the left wing of the power elite and shares its globalist ideals. And just as Obama was the first black president, Hillary would have been the first woman president. Symbolically as well as in actuality, a Hillary presidency would have been another Obama presidency. That would have driven the Obama-haters nuts. They had to be thrown a bone, just as the Bush-haters were thrown a bone with the coronation of Obama in 2008.
Some criticize Trump for his lack of political experience. But the truth is that Trump’s background provides perfect preparation for the presidency: He is a lifelong front-man for organized crime. Trump got his job in the Meyer Lansky mob through his mentor, Roy Cohn. Fronting for organized crime, and fronting for the government of the United States, is pretty much the same thing these days. Trump has got plenty of the only kind of experience that really counts.
But experienced or not, Trump (like Obama, and Bush before him) is being set up to fail. The truth is that America is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and nobody will be able to change that – at least not for a very long time. The USA’s national identity, and its citizens’ governability, is predicated on endless rapid economic growth with benefits enjoyed by all, or at least most. But the era of rapid American economic growth is over, and such new wealth as is being created is hogged by the top .01%. Ordinary people are facing life sentences of permanent stagnation or worse, and their children’s lot will be even worse than theirs.
These are structural problems that cannot be solved by anything short of revolution – not the illusory revolution offered as a marketing slogan, along with cosmetic reforms, by the likes of Bernie Sanders, but real revolution. (And/or the breakout of “free energy” technologies.)
As the BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares explains, the era of the politics of hope (predicated on endless economic growth and equitably shared benefits) has been eclipsed in the post-9/11 era by the politics of fear.
Bush-Cheney inaugurated the fear era with a satanic public ceremony: The human sacrifice of 3,000 people on 9/11/01. When people started catching on, PRESTO-CHANGE-O they wheeled out Obama, the anti-Bush, to distract, hypnotize and stupefy the anti-Bush crowd. Now people have caught on that the 2008 recession never ended and will never end (at least not for ordinary folks) so the illusion of another massive change is necessary. Bring on Trump, the ultimate distraction, to mollify the Obama-haters!
Trump’s superficial anti-globalist anti-New-World-Order facade is going to be set up to take the blame for the bad stuff that’s coming. The globalists will say: See, we told you that Trump and his nationalist nativism would be a disaster! Then they’ll wheel out the anti-Trump, whether in 2020 or 2024, who will be totally pro-globalist, maybe outright pro-world-government, and who will offer the greatest possible superficial and meaningless contrast with Trump himself, who will be even more loathed then than he is now.
The whole time, business-as-usual will continue, perhaps interrupted by one or more spectacular false flags to keep the fear level raised to orange.
You don’t have to be Nostradamus to figure this stuff out. It’s all right there in front of anyone with eyes to see.
NB Commentary: So I was asked the magic, 50 million dollar question… “You mean don’t vote?”
Yep. Cause every time you vote you co-sign the madness. You can’t say not in my name if you sign on the dotted line. This system needs an overhaul. Every time you vote you are supporting the liars and criminals.
I know that folks will continue to vote. The American voter is an enabler with a severe case of cognitive dissonance. So they will continue to do the same thing over and over thinking things will change, their voice will be heard when time and time again it has shown them otherwise.
They vote against their interests over and over again. They vote for known liars and deceivers but they feel they should vote.
They see that their votes are stolen miscounted or not counted at all.
They see the governments, city, state and local redistricting their towns and cities to garner more votes for those the big hats have selected.
They see campaign promises reneged on over and over and over.
They see a black face, white face, brown face lie to them about know cover-ups.
They see their lives gripped in fear porn while their government is supposedly protecting them.
They see their fellow citizen die in the streets and bombed in parking garages and go on as if it’s business as usual.
They see tax cuts for the rich while the middle class is down graded to lower class and the poor become obsolete.
They see their freedoms of speech and assembly severely curtailed behind barb wire fences, tear gas, mace and militarized police.
They see their lives being under surveillance 24/7 and their privacy stripped to the bone.
They see whistle blowers jailed, killed and demonized.
They see the polluting of the air, water and food by corporations and banksters with no oversight or convictions for their crimes.
They see their country go to foreign lands and kill innocent people on a lie and no one is convicted of war crimes.
They are subject to invasive fondling by the TSA and are humiliated at airports and traffic stops.
They have to lock themselves in their homes and have armed police at their children’s schools.
They are told over and over again that the government is for the people, yet day in and day out they see lobbyists steal the allegiance of their representatives thru bribes and payoffs.
They are of the illusion that they cannot govern themselves so they gladly pay taxes to and for their representatives to lie, cheat and steal from the tax payer by blowing up other countries with money that could rebuild large portions of the infrastructure in the US.
They watch their government arm the so called rebels when they can see that in doing so it prolongs a regime change war that never ends but revels from one “axis of evil” country to another.
They see them bail out corrupt bankers and foreclose on the homes of hard working citizens.
They watch their government send money overseas to victims of so called natural disasters while the Katrina victims are still displaced.
They cannot see blue skies or stars at night and believe their government when it tells them bogus weather reports about what is happening with the weather.
They walk in a fog created by mind control and the illusion of democracy which was never really what this country stood for.
They actually believe that the Masonic, Jesuit, banking cartel that pinned the constitution had them in mind.
They believe that the earth they walk upon stained with the blood of millions of indigenous peoples and millions more of enslaved, tortured and brutalized blacks, can be free.
They are walking and living in a nightmare calling it a dream.
The American voter is so lost in the illusion of inclusion, they actually believe their vote will make a difference.
So to answer your question, I do not vote for politicians. I vote with my dollars. I vote with my mind in resisting tyranny and doing research about what is really going on. I vote by reading and comparing the so called facts about this world.
I vote by doing all I can to stay in alignment with my Divinity and purpose on this planet.
I follow laws put forth. But I will not agree to their unrighteousness.
I vote by avoiding plastics and recycling the ones I do use.
I vote by being conscious of how I consume energy and by purchasing only what I need.
I vote by avoiding pharmaceuticals and using all natural products for healing and cleansing.
I vote by being conscientious about what I put into my body.
I vote by not owning a television or paying a cable bill.
I vote by sharing what I have with others who may need it.
It may not be much, but I don’t participate in their holidays, or shop at Walmart.
My vote is to boycott wherever and when ever I can.
If folks say that every vote counts than my little efforts should count as well.
Links of Interest:
“Finally, this isn’t about Trump vs Clinton, that is merely the illusion we are being invited into believing. This is about awakening to the fact that our system is absurd and it’s time to do something different. What is the answer? That is what we must discuss instead of playing this broken political game of dividing and choosing which goon to “vote” for.”
The rabbit hole is so deep we are going to end up in China.
I have a question for the Trump Voters. Can you tell me what happened to the Occupy Movement? Last I heard, wasn’t there a big chasm between the Middle Class and the 1% and an even bigger chasm between the 1% and the poor. How is it possible that people actually believe that a Billionaire, has a heart for the common man. Maybe it’s the Oprah’s of the world, the Bill Gates and the JayZ’s that have pulled this trick on the masses.
I think that it is extremely interesting that “Trump” a Billionaire has so many folks following him. If you ask me that is key in showing how duped the American voters are. Trump is part of the 1%, how did it happen that folks believe he will look out for the middle class and the poor. In order to be a Billionaire you have had to rub elbows with the elite. Where are his donations to causes for human rights and social justice? Where is his track record of reaching out to others. Oh yeah, he’s given jobs to many some say, but seriously, he is still a Billionaire, and if folks are having trouble with the elite, and if they feel that the 1% sees the rest of us as useless eaters, why on God’s green earth would they vote into office a 1%ter? It boggles my mind that folks would trust him.
Before he ran, folks were talking about his extravagance and luxurious behavior and how he bought a whole island for him to be buried in.
There was all this controversy and finger pointing at the Bush Administration when he had the most wealthy people in his administration than any other president. And last I heard, many of the Congressmen and women are millionaires themselves. How is it possible that he would not have access to even more bribes, and money laundering and back-room deals than any of the other elite so-called representatives in Congress.
Just because he could fund his own campaign does not tell us that he does not act and think like an elitist, quite the contrary. I find it interesting that this point is not brought up at all, it is as if the American voter has no memory, at all.
This election is a train wreck, but even more unfortunate, the American voter is happily going along for the ride.
You can say I’m a hater, but I’m just saying. This is blatant cognitive dissonance if you ask me.
TRUMP supporters are, perhaps, the only group of voters in America’s history who have been so viciously and consistently maligned, and in such a coordinated manner, by both political parties.
A voter/citizen of the USA expressed that he is aware that this election is a train wreck but wants to be able to say “at least I tried”.
My response. ….
If you are in a sinking boat because it was poorly constructed, to say you tried to save it by using a small bucket to dunk the water instead of a huge one, still doesn’t stop the boat from sinking. It’s time for a new boat!
The American voter is in a codependent relationship with an abusive government. The American voter is an enabler to its abuser because he/she believes by trying to win the game by the government ‘s rules that they will eventually be given Justice and/or correct treatment. They refuse to see that their government is a Psychopathic tyrant who cares only to be fed by its host. They cannot accept that all their trying will make not a shred of difference because the relationship is not dependent on the tyrant being removed. But only the reformation of the Tyrant.
As long as the American voter believes that the tyrant can be reformed, they will continue to try to save the sinking ship with whatever size bucket they have.
It’s time to abandon ship, and build a completely different model that can truly sail the seven seas!
Progressive media claims they’ll be ‘tougher’ on Obama now | Glenn Greenwald
Barack Obama in the Oval Office. Photograph: Pete Souza/AP
Monday 3 December 2012
Given the rationale they have embraced, is there any reason to believe this will happen, or that it will matter if it does?
Last week, the Huffington Post’s media reporter, Michael Calderone, wrote a long article on the widespread perception that MSNBC isn’t so much a progressive network as it is “simply pro-Obama”. Citing a new Pew study that found that MSNBC was actually more negative toward Romney than even Fox News was against Obama “and offered mostly positive coverage about Obama” – most remarkably, during the last week of the campaign, MSNBC did not air a single story critical of Obama: not one – Calderone wrote: “post-election, the question is whether MSNBC continues cheering Obama on – or takes him on.” On Sunday, Politico’s media reporter, Dylan Byers, set out in search of an answer to that question, not regarding MSNBC specifically but “progressive media” generally. Here’s the crux of what he found:
“For the better part of four years, progressive media has had President Barack Obama’s back. “Now that he’s won re-election, it is faced with a choice: Should the left continue always to play the loyal attack dog against the GOP, blaming the opposition at all hours of the news cycle for intransigence? Or, should it redirect some of that energy on the president, holding him to his promises and encouraging him to be a more outspoken champion of liberal causes? “Already, there are rumblings of change. “In the days and weeks following Obama’s victory, progressive voices, primarily in print media, have made efforts to push the president on key parts of the unfinished liberal agenda – including climate change, drone strikes, troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the closing of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, civil liberties and gun control. . . . “‘Liberals in the media are going to be tougher on Obama and more respectful at the same time,’ Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker’s chief political commentator and a former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, told POLITICO. ‘He was the champion of our side, he vanquished the foe….. [but] now liberals don’t have to worry about hurting his chances for re-election, so they can be tougher in urging him to do what he should be doing.'”
[I want to focus on this claim that media progressives will now be “tougher” on Obama, but first, an aside: Hendrik Hertzberg proclaims that they will now be even “more respectful” of Obama than they have been. Short of formally beatifying him, or perhaps transferring all their worldly possessions to him, is that even physically possible? Is there a reverence ritual that has been left unperformed, swooning praise left to be lavished upon him, heinous acts by him that have not yet been acquiesced to if not affirmatively sanctioned in the name of keeping him empowered? That media progressives will try to find ways to be even “more respectful” to the president is nothing short of scary.] As for the vow that media progressives will now criticize Obama more and hold him more accountable, permit me to say that I simply do not believe this will happen. This is not because I think those who are taking this vow are being dishonest – they may very well have convinced themselves that they mean it – but because the rationalization they have explicitly adopted and vigorously advocated precludes any change in behavior. Over the past four years, they have justified their supine, obsequious posture toward the nation’s most powerful political official by appealing to the imperatives of electoral politics: namely, it’s vital to support rather than undermine Obama so as to not help Republicans win elections. Why won’t that same mindset operate now to suppress criticisms of the Democratic leader? It’s true that Obama himself will no longer run in an election. But any minute now, we’re going to be hearing that the 2014 midterm elections are right around the corner and are of Crucial Significance. Using their reasoning, won’t it be the case that those who devote their efforts to criticizing Obama and “holding accountable” the Democrats will be effectively helping the Republicans win that election? Won’t Obama critics stand accused of trying to keep the Speaker’s gavel in the hands of the Tea Party rather than returning it to Nancy Pelosi, or of trying to hand Senate control over to Mitch McConnell (or, soon enough, of trying to give the White House to Marco Rubio instead of Hillary Clinton)? Once one decides in the name of electoral expediency to abdicate their primary duty as a citizen and especially as a journalist – namely, to hold accountable those who wield the greatest political power – then this becomes a permanent abdication. That’s because US politics is essentially one permanent, never-ending election. The 2012 votes were barely counted before the politicalmediabegan chatteringabout 2016, and MSNBC is already – as one of its prime time hosts put it – “gearing up” for the 2014 midterm. I’ve described before how the permanent election cycle is the most potent weapon for keeping the citizenry (and media) distracted by reality-TV-show-type trivialities and horse-race excitement in lieu of focus on what the government is actually doing. But the other significant benefit of having all political disputes viewed through a partisan electoral prism is that it keeps partisans focused only on the evils of the other party and steadfastly loyal to their own. The desire to influence election outcomes in favor of one’s own party subsumes any sense that political officials from one’s own party should be checked in how they exercise their power. How is it rationally possible that those who have embraced this reasoning can – or should – change behavior in light of the looming Incredibly Important 2014 midterm election and then the 2016 election after that? Former MSNBC host and frequent Obama critic Cenk Uygur – who, in one of the most remarkable media events ever, was removed by MSNBC as prime-time host in favor of individual who literally vowednever to criticize the president under any circumstances – told the Huffington Post that it was hard to see how this would happen:
“‘Should MSNBC take a more aggressive stance with President Obama after the elections to make sure he follows through on his progressive promises? Of course,’ Uygur said in a follow-up email. ‘Will they? Probably not. They’ve been leaning back on their criticism of Democrats for so long, that I’m not sure they know how to, or care to, hold them accountable.'”
If sustained criticisms of the president should have been suppressed in deference to the 2012 election, then I simply don’t see why the same mindset won’t apply to the 2014 and 2016 elections. But let’s assume for the sake of argument that I’m wrong here, and that the “progressive media” really is gearing up to change behavior and unleash a torrent of demands and criticisms aimed at Obama. Here’s my primary question about that: why would that matter? Once you vow unconditional, permanent loyalty to a politician and a party – once you demonstrate that you will support them no matter what they do – why would you possibly expect that they will do anything but ignore you? A rational politician, by definition, pays attention to those whose support is conditional and uncertain, not to those who loudly proclaim that it is a solemn duty to support that politician and his party under all circumstances. That’s just the basic rules governing how power works, of negotiations and politics: those who eagerly renounce all their leverage make themselves inconsequential and impotent. What Hertzberg and his Obama-loyal media comrades mean by “getting tougher” with Obama is some version of this message:
I’d really appreciate it if you did X, Y and Z, and strongly believe you should, but even if you don’t, you should know that I’m going to be there for you and your party: cheering for you, raising money, demanding that everyone else support you, doing everything in my ability to keep you empowered.
Why would anyone believe that posture will affect anything? Once the choice is made to lock oneself into a state of permanent, unbreakable partisan loyalty, based on the lesser-evil justification, then one renders oneself completely powerless. I’m not arguing here against that choice. Whatever one thinks of the lesser-of-two-evils rationale, it’s at least cogent and rational. The debate over that choice has already been hashed out and there’s no point in repeating it here. But whatever one thinks of it, there are costs and benefits to that choice, and one should be honest about both. The benefit, which its proponents endlessly tout, is that it prevents the empowerment of the “greater evil”: the GOP. But there’s a significant cost to that choice that they almost never acknowledge: namely, to announce ahead of time that you will always lend your unlimited support to a particular party no matter what it does is to instruct politicians to ignore you, to disregard all of your beliefs and grievances and efforts to “get tough” and hold them accountable. It should be said that there are other ways to impose genuine accountability besides making one’s electoral support uncertain. One way is to engage in political protest movements outside the electoral process, of the type that forced Lyndon Johnson out of the 1968 race in protest of his Vietnam war, or even the Tea Party protests that put genuine fear in the hearts of political elites. But progressive media figures, for the most part, want nothing to do with street protests. There was, and is, a genuine, powerful movement devoted to protesting the political class on populist grounds – the Occupy movement – and most of them treated it with a mixture of condescension and scorn, largely because they couldn’t figure out how it might help Obama and the Democratic Party win elections. Nobody should hold their breath waiting for Hendrik Hertzberg and other similar progressive media figures to start supporting protest movements against the policies of the Democratic Party which they claim to find so objectionable. Another possibility is waging a battle within the Party against those perpetrating policies to which one objects by, for instance, challenging the Party’s establishment candidates in primaries. That is how the Tea Party was able to force the GOP to pay more heed to their agenda. But establishment progressives regard the Tea Party’s tactic with contempt because it was guilty of the most grievous sin – it undermined the Party’s ability to maximize its electoral success – and would never dream of posing a similar challenge to their own party’s establishment. I know from experience, having worked for several years on a project to recruit and empower primary challenges to awful Democratic incumbents, that any project that might cost the Democrats even a single seat in Congress will be met with anger and recrimination by establishment progressives. So, even if it actually happens, what Hertzberg and company are really talking about with their tough-talking vows to “be tougher” on Obama are empty gestures. “Demands” of politicians unaccompanied by a strategy to wield power are inherently inconsequential. There are truly few things I’d like to see more than progressives holding Obama accountable and trying to compel him to change behavior, but their past conduct – and especially the reasoning they offered to justify it – leaves little reason to believe that this can or will happen. Doing that requires a radical change in how one thinks about political priorities and, even more so, one’s own functions and duties as a journalist. Do you see any serious grappling with those questions in the giddy, triumphant, self-congratulatory progressive media? One final point: most of the people interviewed in the new Politico article (including from media figures who have been quite critical of Obama) all agree that the “progressive media” suppressed legitimate criticisms of Obama in order to help him and the Democrats win the election. As the Nation’s publisher, Katrina vanden Huevel, accurately put it to Politico (with a statement that is a strong contender for Understatement of the Year):
“‘MSNBC, with all due respect, has not been that strong in terms of talking about closing Guantanamo, about militarization, about this administration’s civil liberties record,’ Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor and publisher of The Nation, told POLITICO. ‘We may address alternative approaches to those issues, but they won’t be the talking points on MSNBC that night.'”
The Huffington Post article expressed the same idea:
“MSNBC’s afternoon and primetime hosts kept their sights on Romney and the Republicans during the election cycle, while spending considerably less time holding Obama accountable on issues like civilian casualties from drone strikes, use of executive power and the Afghanistan conflict, the nation’s longest-ever war, which escalated under the current White House. Instead, the network’s top partisan hosts –- with the exception of former Republican Rep. Joe Scarborough –- seemed to circle the wagons around the Democratic president during his reelection bid.”
If you think about it, this is actually an extraordinary indictment of these media outlets. What could possibly be worse for a media outlet – even one with acknowledged political leanings – than purposely to suppress and ignore criticisms of the nation’s most powerful political officials in the name of keeping one’s favorite politicians in power? Recall the controversy – and the endlessprogressive mockery – that erupted when Rush Limbaugh admitted after the 2006 midterm election that he had “carried water” for the GOP by suppressing criticisms of it because he wanted to help them win the election:
“The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I’m going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, ‘Well, why have you been doing it?’ Because the stakes are high! Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country’s than the Democrat [sic] Party does and liberalism.”
Is this not the same confession, grounded in the same mentality, expressed in that Politico article from many stars of “progressive media”? Ultimately, it’s not actually that difficult to maintain and express these two simultaneous ideas:
(1) as a journalist, I’m now going to tell you about some truly heinous policies that President Obama, as the nation’s most powerful political official – as well as the Democratic Party, in control of the bulk of the US government – are embracing; as a citizen and an opinionist, I believe we should do everything possible to oppose these heinous policies loudly and effectively; and (2) now that an election is about to happen, I believe, as a citizen and an opinionist, that President Obama and the Democratic Party should win the election because their opponents are worse.
But so monomaniacally obsessed were many members of the progressive media that idea (1) was completely ignored and suppressed in favor of idea (2) – not in the days or weeks before the election, but for years. There is never any justification for those who work in media or hold themselves out as journalists – as opposed to, say, those who are party apparatchiks – to refrain from holding the nation’s most powerful political leaders accountable. That is the core function of journalism – and citizenship. I genuinely hope they’re serious and sincere with their vows to change this conduct, but it is very difficult to see how that can happen given the precepts to which they have so steadfastly committed themselves.
Update on AP/Iran story
Regarding the two columns I wrote last week about AP’s depicting of an absurd graph as evidence of Iran’s work toward a nuclear weapon: the AP reporter responsible for that story, George Jahn, has written a new article admitting that “a leaked diagram suggesting that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon is scientifically flawed”, but Jahn nonetheless insists that the graph somehow “still supports suspicions that Tehran is trying to build a bomb, especially when combined with other documents that remain secret.” This post says all that needs to be said about that. Meanwhile, the graph, by design, is now being touted by Fox News and John Bolton to scare people about Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons program.
On the resignation of Gen Petraeus. It’s a mess and a rabbit hole, that goes very, very deep. I find it strange that folks can go around killing innocents, drone striking, torturing, destroying infrastructures on other people’s land, dropping depleted uranium on towns and villages, messing up the water and electric infrastructure, cause all manner of birth defects, cover up rape and abuse towards military women, deal very poorly with the veterans upon their return, declassifying PSTD to other than a medical issue, have these veterans homeless and suicidal, fund and support terrorists militias, cover up and enhance the opium production, drop bombs on people in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, arm the insurgents in Syria, yet, when they pull their little dingy out and flash it around, inserting it here and there, NOW THEY MUST RETIRE?????
Something is seriously and morally wrong with American ethics. Dude done did something else other than fool around with a drama queen, and that’s for sure!!! NB
Petraeus scandal is reported with compelled veneration of all things military | Glenn Greenwald
2011: Holly Petraeus (left) holding a bible as David Petraeus is sworn in as CIA director by Vice President Joe Biden. Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
The reverence for the former CIA Director is part of a wider religious-like worship of the national security state.
(updated below [Sun.])
A prime rule of US political culture is that nothing rivets, animates or delights the political media like a sex scandal. From Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, and Eliot Spitzer to John Edwards, Larry Craig and David Vitter, their titillation and joy is palpable as they revel in every last arousing detail. This giddy package is delivered draped in a sanctimonious wrapping: their excitement at reporting on these scandals is matched only by their self-righteous condemnations of the moral failings of the responsible person.
All of these behaviors have long been constant, inevitable features of every political sex scandal – until yesterday. Now, none of these sentiments is permitted because the newest salacious scandal features at its center Gen. David Petraeus, who resigned yesterday as CIA Director, citing an extramarital affair.
It has now been widely reported that the affair was with Paula Broadwell, the author of a truly fawning hagiography of Petraeus entitled “All In”, and someone whom Petraeus, in her own words, “mentored” when he sat on her dissertation committee. The FBI discovered the affair when it investigated whether she had attempted to gain access to his emails and other classified information. In an interview about Broadwell’s book that she gave to the Daily Show back in January, one that is incredibly fascinating and revealing to watch in retrospect, Jon Stewart identified this as the primary question raised by her biography of Petraeus: “is he awesome, or super-awesome?”
Gen. Petraeus is the single most revered man in the most venerated American institution: the National Security State and, specifically, its military. As a result, all the rules are different. Speaking ill of David Petraeus – or the military or CIA as an institution – is strictly prohibited within our adversarial watchdog press corps. Thus, even as he resigns in disgrace, leading media figures are alternatively mournful and worshipful as they discuss it.
On MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell appeared genuinely grief-stricken when she first reported Petraeus’ resignation letter. “This is very painful”, she began by announcing, as she wore a profoundly sad face. Her voice quivered with a mix of awe and distress as she read his resignation letter, savoring every word as though she were reciting from the Dead Sea Scrolls. On the Rachel Maddow Show later that night, Mitchell began her appearance by decreeing that “this is a personal tragedy” and said she was particularly sorrowful for “the men and women of the CIA, an agency that has many things to be proud about: manythings to be proud about” [emphasis in original].
What does all that even mean? From which glorious “battlefield” is the CIA Director now absent, and how and why are we “at a time when we need them most”? But Amanpour is reciting something akin to a prayer here, and it’s thus insusceptible to rational inquiry of that sort.
Meanwhile, Michael Hastings – whose Rolling Stone cover story ended Gen. McChrystal’s career by including numerous intemperate quotes and, in doing so, revealingly prompted widespread animosity among his media colleagues for the crime of Making a General Look Bad – was on MSNBC yesterday with Martin Bashir. Hastings explained how the media has been devoted to Petraeus’ glorification and thus ignored all the substantive reasons why Petraeus should have received far more media scrutiny and criticism in the past. In response, Bashir – who has previously demonstrated his contempt for anyone who speaks ill of a US General – expressed his anger at Hastings (“That’s a fairly harsh assessment of a man who is regarded by many in the military as an outstanding four-star general”) and then quickly cut him off just over two minutes into the segment.
Then there’s the Foreign Policy Community, for which David Petraeus has long been regarded with deity status. Foreign Policy Magazine Managing Editor Blake Hounshell, under the headline “The Tragedy of David Petraeus”, gushedthat “Petraeus’s downfall is a huge loss for the United States,” as “not only was he one of the country’s top strategic thinkers, he was also one of the few public figures revered by all sides of the political spectrum for his dedication and good judgment.” He added: “He salvaged two disastrous wars, for two very different presidents.”
Also at Foreign Policy, Thomas Ricks, formerly of the Washington Post, arguedthat Obama should not have accepted his resignation: “So the surprise to me is that Obama let him go. But the administration’s loss may be Princeton’s gain.” Like most people in the media, Ricks has long been an ardent admirer of Petraeus, even turning his platform over to Paula Broadwell in the past for her to spread her hagiography far and wide.
There are several revealing lessons about this media swooning for Petraeus even as he exits from a scandal that would normally send them into tittering delight. First, military worship is the central religion of America’s political and media culture. The military is by far the most respected and beloved institution among the US population – a dangerous fact in any democracy – and, even assuming they wanted to (which they don’t), our brave denizens of establishment journalism are petrified of running afoul of that kind of popular sentiment.
Recall the intense controversy that erupted last Memorial Day when MSNBC’s Chris Hayes gently pondered whether all soldiers should be considered “heroes”. His own network, NBC, quickly assembled a panel on the Today Show to unanimously denounce him in the harshest and most personal terms (“I hope that he doesn’t get more viewers as a result of this…this guy is like a – if you’ve seen him…he looks like a weenie” – “Could you be more inappropriate on Memorial Day?”), and Hayes then subjected himself to the predictable ritual of public apology (though he notably did not retract the substance of his remarks).
Hayes was forced (either overtly or by the rising pressure) to apologize because his comments were blasphemous: of America’s true religion. At virtually every major sporting event, some uber-patriotic display of military might is featured as the crowd chants and swoons. It’s perfectly reasonable not to hold members of the military responsible for the acts of aggression ordered by US politicians, but that hardly means that the other extreme – compelled reverence – is justifiable either.
Yet US journalists – whose ostensible role is to be adversarial to powerful and secretive political institutions (which includes, first and foremost, the National Security State) – are the most pious high priests of this national religion. John Parker, former military reporter and fellow of the University of Maryland Knight Center for Specialized Journalism-Military Reporting, wrote an extraordinarily good letter back in 2010 regarding why leading Pentagon reporters were so angry at WikiLeaks for revealing government secrets: because they identify with the military to the point of uncritical adoration:
“The career trend of too many Pentagon journalists typically arrives at the same vanishing point: Over time they are co-opted by a combination of awe – interacting so closely with the most powerfully romanticized force of violence in the history of humanity – and the admirable and seductive allure of the sharp, amazingly focused demeanor of highly trained military minds. Top military officers have their s*** together and it’s personally humbling for reporters who’ve never served to witness that kind of impeccable competence. These unspoken factors, not to mention the inner pull of reporters’ innate patriotism, have lured otherwise smart journalists to abandon – justifiably in their minds – their professional obligation to treat all sources equally and skeptically. . . .
“Pentagon journalists and informed members of the public would benefit from watching ‘The Selling of the Pentagon’, a 1971 documentary. It details how, in the height of the Vietnam War, the Pentagon sophisticatedly used taxpayer money against taxpayers in an effort to sway their opinions toward the Pentagon’s desires for unlimited war. Forty years later, the techniques of shaping public opinion via media has evolved exponentially. It has reached the point where flipping major journalists is a matter of painting in their personal numbers.”
That is what makes this media worship of All Things Military not only creepy to behold, but downright dangerous.
Second, it is truly remarkable what ends people’s careers in Washington – and what does not end them. As Hastings detailed in that interview, Petraeus has left a string of failures and even scandals behind him: a disastrous Iraqi training program, a worsening of the war in Afghanistan since he ran it, the attempt to convert the CIA into principally a para-military force, the series of misleading statements about the Benghazi attack and the revealed large CIA presence in Libya. To that one could add the constant killing of innocent people in the Muslim world without a whiff of due process, transparency or oversight.
Yet none of those issues provokes the slightest concern from our intrepid press corps. His career and reputation could never be damaged, let alone ended, by any of that. Instead, it takes a sex scandal – a revelation that he had carried on a perfectly legal extramarital affair – to force him from power. That is the warped world of Washington. Of all the heinous things the CIA does, the only one that seems to attract the notice or concern of our media is a banal sex scandal. Listening to media coverage, one would think an extramarital affair is the worst thing the CIA ever did, maybe even the only bad thing it ever did (Andrea Mitchell: “an agency that has many things to be proud about: many things to be proud about”).
Third, there is something deeply symbolic and revealing about this whole episode. Broadwell ended up spending substantial time with Petraeus when she, in essence, embedded with him and followed him around Afghanistan in order to write her biography. What ended up being produced was not only the type of propagandistic hagiography such arrangements typically produce, but also deeply personal affection as well.
This is access journalism and the embedding dynamic in its classic form, just a bit more vividly expressed. The very close and inter-dependent relationship between media figures and the political and military officials they cover often produces exactly these same sentiments even if they do not find the full-scale expression as they did in this case. In that regard, the relationship between the now-former CIA Director and his fawning hagiographer should be studied in journalism schools to see the results reliably produced by access journalism and the embedding process. Whatever Broadwell did for Petraeus is what US media figures are routinely doing for political and especially military officials with their “journalism”.
Other matters
Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith, formerly with the Bush justice department, has an excellent analysis explaining why “one important consequence of President Obama’s re-election will be the further entrenchment, and legitimation, of the basic counterterrorism policies that Obama continued, with tweaks, from the late Bush administration.” He explains why an Obama presidency will strengthen these policies far more than a Romney presidency could have (as a former Bush official, Goldsmith is understandably delighted by this fact).
In Seattle tonight, I’m delivering the keynote speech to the annual Bill of Rights dinner for the ACLU in Washington; there are still a few tickets left for the event, which begins at 7:00 pm, and they can be obtained here.
Finally, I participated, along with ABC’s Jake Tapper and Lisa Rosenberg, in a report by NPR’s “On the Media’ on Obama’s first term record on transparency. My participation is in the first four minutes or so and can be heard here. I was also interviewed yesterday by NPR’s local Seattle affiliate for about 30 minutes on Obama’s foreign policy and civil liberties record, and that segment, which was quite good as it included several adversarial calls from listeners, can be heard here.
UPDATE [Sun.]: CORRECTION
I wrote above that Petraeus “sat on [Broadwell’s] dissertation committee”. This is inaccurate. Petraeus was one of Broadwell’s “dissertation advisers”.
First as 1 artist to another, I appreciate you &all the hard work that went into creating this. HOWEVER, what I strongly disagree with, is making the POTUS into a celebrity.Creating this mythos around a man whose job is to lead the country FORWARD. He’s not a HOLLYWOOD STAR/ACTOR. I think it’s disrespectful.Will he go down in history as a SUPERSTAR or someone who really moved the country forward? Allegiance to a man? American Idol? Exalt & Elevate integrity, peace, love & truth. Poetic License? http://youtu.be/c_d9mntKvGM My comment on YouTube
I wish I could find the right words to express how uncomfortable it makes me feel. It’s like some kind of cult or something. “The Cult of Obama” Obama-Mania. People are all frenzied, teary eyed, gushing like they are having orgasms over him. That last campaign with the Obama girl was really over the top. What is that? Why do people need to idolize him? How is that cool for a thinking, educated, civilized nation of people? What if they did that to Bush, whom they clearly did not like. What if the Tea Party wrote songs about John Boehner?
Okay, political parody, satire, or even cartoons, but this romanticizing of the President is a bit much for me. They are so memorized they care not to look at the true picture, the real deal and that means they are dangerous. That Obama Kool Aid is really powerful.
Is this really poetic license or is it opportunism? The number of YouTube videos that are out with people singing to him, and the number of hits these videos are getting begs to question the real motive behind this type of “free advertisement”.
I don’t particularly agree with all that is presented in this movie, but the song does kind of say it all for me.
It just don’t sit right with me, and this is a very subjective assessment on my part. But idolizing another human being is a sure fired way to trouble. Look at the many other cult personalities that have lead people into serious trouble. Again this is subjective.
Cult of Personality Links
“A personality cult appears whenever an individual uses mass media propaganda to create idealized, quasi-heroic public personae arising from unquestioned flattery and praise. Personality cults aim to make the leader and the state synonymous, so that it is nearly impossible to make a distinction between them.” Read more here GeeeeeeZ! OBAMA: Cult of Personality
A 1950s Chinese propaganda poster showing a happy family of five enjoying life under the image of Mao Zedong. The caption above the picture reads “The happy life Chairman Mao gives us”.
The term Cult of personality or Personality Cult first appeared in Nikita Khrushchev‘s Secret Speech in 1956[1]. Cult of the individual is a more accurate translation[2].
Background
Throughout history, monarchs and heads of state were almost always held in enormous reverence. Through the principle of the divine right of kings, for example, rulers were said to hold office by the will of God. Imperial China (see Mandate of Heaven), ancient Egypt, Japan, the Inca, the Aztecs, Tibet, Thailand, and the Roman Empire (see imperial cult) are especially noted for redefining monarchs as god-kings. The spread of democratic and secular ideas in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura. However, the subsequent development of photography, sound recording, film, and mass production, as well as public education and techniques used in commercial advertising, enabled political leaders to project a positive image like never before. It was from these circumstances in the 20th century that the best-known personality cults arose. Often these cults are a form of political religion.
Personality cults were first described in relation to totalitarian regimes that sought to alter or transform society according to radical ideas.[3] Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation, and came to be treated as a benevolent “guide” for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future couldn’t occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies of the 20th century, such as those of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Not all dictatorships foster personality cults, not all personality cults are dictatorships (some are nominally democratic), and some leaders may actively seek to minimize their own public adulation. For example, during the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime, images of dictator Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) were rarely seen in public, and his identity was under dispute abroad until after his fall from power. The same applied to numerous Eastern EuropeanCommunist regimes following World War II (although not those of Enver Hoxha and Nicolae Ceaușescu, mentioned below).
Che Obama: the new cult of personality “It is doubtful that anyone ever thought to wear a t-shirt with George Bush’s image splashed across it, except to deride him. Now, wearing the image of the president is not only popular, it has become almost obligatory in some circles.
An Obama T-Shirt
Obama’s image is not just appearing on t-shirts. There are Obama hats, Obama pencil cases, Obama hoodies, Obama screen savers, Obama jewellery, Obama coffee cups and Obama street murals. And Obamamania has gone mainstream. Today in DC we can buy metro tickets sporting Obama’s image. Numerous buildings are decorated with huge banners welcoming the new president. Even the National Portrait Galley has got in on the act, snapping up Shepard Fairey’s original collage for the gallery walls long before the new president’s official portrait will be commissioned.
Such is the strength of the cult surrounding Obama’s image that vendors at the inauguration were hard pushed to find new ways to commemorate the day. Many tried, of course. On my own walk into the city I saw Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street, a local landmark, displaying a huge red, white and blue ice sculpture of the letters OBAMA. A church on 16th Street offered hot cocoa and a chance to be photographed with a life-sized Obama cut-out. On the Mall itself everything from Obama special inauguration bandanas to Obama dollar bills (with President Lincoln’s image replaced with President Obama’s) to my own personal favourite, Obama water, was on offer.” The media’s new Messiah is a mania and fad like the hula hoop “Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.” …Barack Obama just seems to get cooler and cooler. He’s the most popular topic on the New York Times topics page…Internet widgets allow you to see what great thing Barack Obama has done for you…on the New York subway Friday morning, one of our copy editors…heard one woman joke to another: “Obama, will you pick me up after my noninvasive minor surgical procedure?” To which the other replied: “Obama, will you hold my hair back when I puke?”… Many spiritually advanced people I know…identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul… John Lewis, the venerable civil rights hero and congressman, put words to this feeling recently. “In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” he said, suggesting that he might switch his superdelegate vote from Hillary Clinton to Obama. “Something is happening in America and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.”…On Facebook, people write about dreams featuring Obama. There is only one correct reaction to the will.i.am “Yes We Can” video and that is to start chanting along… There was the woman in New Hampshire who compared him with Christ. There was Maria Shriver’s comparison of the candidate with the state of California, with the rhetorical fervor usually seen only after a preacher shouts, “You are healed!”… “Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat.”
The Obama cult “Recently I have noticed an interesting but disturbing phenomenon in New York City. On the streets, subways and buses, you can see people still wearing Barack Obama buttons even though the election is long over. I wonder to myself whether these buttons express an inchoate political/psychological yearning. In some ways it reminds me of how people wore pictures of the fifteen year old guru Maharaj-ji, who counted former 60s radical Rennie Davis as one of his main followers. When I spoke to a fellow radical in my department at Columbia University about my concerns, his eyes lit up and he said:
I know exactly what you mean. There’s this guy in my health club who wears an ‘Obama Knows’ t-shirt. The other day I went up to him and asked him, “Knows what?” He really couldn’t answer me.
At some point I will ask one of these Obama button wearers the same kind of question. What’s up with the Obama button? What are you trying to say? I once asked someone wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt the same kind of question. Trust me; they did not decide to wear the t-shirt after reading “Socialism and Man in Cuba”.
“Obama’s popularity is clear evidence of a brand strategy that has succeeded beyond any strategists wildest dream and further proof that once you build a compelling saga and unleash it to the world, there is no telling how far and wide it will go. From a branding perspective, Obama may have become too hot too fast and now one of his biggest challenges might be dealing with the inevitable backlash created by the frenzied admiration from the millions of kool-aid drinking Barackolytes:”
More from Dorothy:“I honestly don’t know whether to put this in religion or politics. I honestly feel the passion for Senator Obama expressed by most of his followers has equal elements of both – even if they deny it. But I suspect the moderators would move it here to politics if I put it in religion, so here it is in politics. I know this will make many people angry (primarily Obama followers), but I am not looking to debate. I just wanted to display some of the images of Obama because I find the whole media’s marketing – in this case, just the visual elements- behind the man so fascinating.
“CNN’s Carol Costello said that audience response at a Barack Obama rally is “a scene some increasingly find not inspirational, but ‘creepy,’ ” quoting columnists who have likened Obama supporters to members of a cult or described their enthusiasm as “creepy.” On-screen text during Costello’s report read: “OBAMA-MANIA BACKLASH” and “PASSION ‘CULT-LIKE’ TO SOME.” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer similarly cited other writers to make the same assertion: “ABC’s Jake Tapper notes the ‘Helter-Skelter cult-ish qualities’ of ‘Obama worshipers,’ what Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times calls ‘the Cult of Obama.’ ”
Friday, November 9, 2012 US Elections: The Empty Politics of Duopoly Nile Bowie, Contributor Activist Post
After months of rhetoric and political campaigning, the smoke has finally cleared on the media frenzy that is the US Presidential Election. Once the winner of the race was announced, supporters at the Obama Campaign headquarters in Chicago jubilantly celebrated.
The haze of American flags, pop music, and confetti worked wonders to mask the absence of any real political substance throughout the election process.
Cheering supporters shouted “four more years” as President Obama took to the stage to deliver his victory speech – complete with highly emotional grandiloquence, two mentions of the US military being the strongest in the world, and of course – a joke about the family dog.
After an exorbitant $6 billion spent by campaigns and outside groups in the primary, congressional and presidential races, Americans have reelected a president better suited for Hollywood than Washington. A 2010 ruling by the US Supreme Court that swept away limits on corporate contributions to political campaigns has paved the way for the most expensive election in American history, in the midst of an economic crisis nonetheless. [1]
In the nation that gave birth to the marketing concept of branding, it is to be assumed that politicians would eventually adopt the same techniques used to promote consumer products – enter Obama.
After eight years under the Bush administration, America desperately needed change. Instead of any meaningful structural reform, America ushered in a global superstar whose charm and charisma not only resuscitated American prestige, but also masked the continued dominance of deregulators, financiers, and war-profiteers.
Obama’s most valuable asset is his brand, and his ability to channel the nostalgia of transformative social movements of the past, while serving as a tabula rasa of sorts to his supporters – an icon of hope who is capable of inspiring the masses and coaxing them into action – despite the Obama administration expanding the disturbing militaristic and domestic surveillance policies so characteristic of the Bush years, and channeling never before seen authority to the executive branch.
The American public at large is captivated by Barack’s contrived media personality and the grandeur of his political poetry and performance, and is therefore reluctant to acknowledge his enthusiastic continuation of the deeply unethical policies of his predecessor. Obama is indeed a leader suited for a new age, one of post-intellectualism and televised spectacle – a time when huge demographics of voters are more influenced by Jay-Z and Katy Perry’s endorsement of Obama over anything of political substance he preaches. [2]
While the US has historically exported “democracy promotion” through institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy (trends that have accelerated under the Obama administration), so few see the American electoral process for what it is – unacceptably expensive, filled with contrived debates, and subject to the kind of meticulous controls that America’s foreign adversaries are accused of presiding over.
A leaked ‘Memorandum of Understanding,’ signed by both the Obama and Romney campaigns, provides unique insight into the nature of the three televised debates, and the extent to which organizers went to prevent the occurrence of any form of unplanned spontaneity. [3] The document outlines how no members of the audience would be allowed to ask follow-up questions to the candidates, how microphones will be cut off right after questions were asked, and how any opportunities for follow-up questions from the crowd would be disregarded. In what was billed as a series of town-hall style debates where members of the community can come together and ask questions that reflect their concerns – in actuality, the two candidates dished out pre-planned responses to pre-approved questions, asked by pre-selected individuals.
The political domination of the Republican and Democratic parties over the debates is nowhere more apparent than in the arrest of Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, as the two attempted to enter the site of the second presidential debate. [4]
Despite the obscurity and almost non-existent media presence of third party candidates, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party received 1% of the popular vote in the general election, amounting to over 1.1 million votes, the best in the history of the Libertarian Party. [5]
In contrast to the choreographed exchanges offered by the televised debates between Obama and Romney, Moscow’s state-funded Russia Today news service offered third-party candidates an opportunity to voice their political programs in two debates aired on the channel. [6] Throughout these debates, third-party candidates spoke of repealing Obama’s authorization of indefinite detention through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the need for coherent environmental legislation, the gross misdirection of American foreign policy, the necessity of deep economic restructuring, and the illogicality of marijuana prohibition. In her closing statement at the debate, Green Party candidate Jill Stein brought up a significant point:
They’re 90 million voters who are not coming out to vote in this election, that’s one out of every two voters – that’s twice as many as those who will come out for Barack Obama, and twice the number that will come out for Mitt Romney. Those are voters who are saying ‘No’ to politics as usual, and ‘No’ to the Democratic and Republican parties. Imagine if we got out word to those 90 millions voters, that they actually have a variety of choices and voices in this election.
American presidential politics are not devoid of progressive voices; but, in reality, America doesn’t need a third-party – it needs a second party. The overwhelming lack of choice offered by this election can only be attributable to the political duopoly of the Republican and Democratic parties.
As President Obama begins his second and final term, some feel that this could be a chance for the White House to pursue more progressive ends – an opportunity for Obama to act on his own campaign rhetoric and roll back militarism and the influence of Wall St. financiers.
Barack Obama now prepares for his second term as the President of the United States. Though the race was tight, especially in states like Florida and Virginia, Obama won by more than 2 million popular votes at last count, and had at least 303 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 206. (Florida was still too close to call as of midday Wednesday.)
While such optimism may prevail in the minds of many, the fact that President Obama issued a drone strike that killed three people in Yemen just hours after being reelected is a telling sign of things to come from the Obama administration. [7]
As the United States continues to project itself around the world as the definitive model of “freedom and democracy,” it is apparent that the central bankers, corporate financiers, and crony capitalists who control America’s electoral system did indeed learn and thing or two from Communism:
The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves. – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Nile Bowie is a Kuala Lumpur-based American writer and photographer for the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal, Canada. He explores issues of terrorism, economics and geopolitics.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012 The Special Interests Won Again
Paul Craig Roberts, Contributor
The election that was supposed to be too close to call turned out not to be so close after all. In my opinion, Obama won for two reasons: (1) Obama is non-threatening and inclusive, whereas Romney exuded a “us vs. them” impression that many found threatening, and (2) the election was not close enough for the electronic voting machines to steal.
As readers know, I don’t think that either candidate is a good choice or that either offers a choice. Washington is controlled by powerful interest groups, not by elections. What the two parties fight over is not alternative political visions and different legislative agendas, but which party gets to be the whore for Wall Street, the military-security complex, Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and energy, mining, and timber interests.
Being the whore is important, because whores are rewarded for the services that they render. To win the White House or a presidential appointment is a career-making event as it makes a person sought after by rich and powerful interest groups. In Congress the majority party can provide more services and is thus more valuable than the minority party. One of our recent presidents who was not rich ended up with $36 million shortly after leaving office, as did former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who served Washington far better than he served his own country.
Wars are profitable for the military/security complex. Israel rewards its servants and punishes its enemies. Staffing environmental regulatory agencies with energy, mining, and timber executives is regarded by those interests as very friendly behavior.
Many Americans understand this and do not bother to vote as they know that whichever candidate or party wins, the interest groups prevail. Ronald Reagan was the last president who stood up to interest groups, or, rather, to some of them. Wall Street did not want his tax rate reductions, as Wall Street thought the result would be higher inflation and interest rates and the ruination of their stock and bond portfolios. The military/security complex did not want Reagan negotiating with Gorbachev to end the cold war.
What is curious is that voters don’t understand how politics really works. They get carried away with the political rhetoric and do not see the hypocrisy that is staring them in the face.
Proud patriotic macho American men voted for Romney who went to Israel and, swearing allegiance to his liege lord, groveled at the feet of Netanyahu.
Obama plays on the heart strings of his supporters by relating a story of a child with leukemia now protected by Obamacare, while he continues to murder thousands of children and their parents with drones and other military actions in seven countries.
Obama was able to elicit cheers from supporters as he described the onward and upward path of America toward greater moral accomplishments, while his actual record is that of a tyrant who codified into law the destruction of the US Constitution and the civil liberties of the American people.
The election was about nothing except who gets to serve the interest groups. The wars were not an issue in the election. Washington’s provoking of Iran, Russia, and China by surrounding them with military bases was not an issue. The unconstitutional powers asserted by the executive branch to detain citizens indefinitely without due process and to assassinate them on suspicion alone were not an issue in the election.
The sacrifice of the natural environment to timber, mining, and energy interests was not an issue, except to promise more sacrifice of the environment to short-term profits. Out of one side of the mouth came the nonsense promise of restoring the middle class while from the other side of the mouth issued defenses of the offshoring of their jobs and careers as free trade.
The inability to acknowledge and to debate real issues is a threat not only to the United States but also to the entire world. Washington’s reckless pursuit of hegemony driven by an insane neoconservative ideology is leading to military confrontation with Russia and China.
Eleven years of gratuitous wars with more on the way and an economic policy that protects financial institutions from their mistakes have burdened the US with massive budget deficits that are being monetized.
The US dollar’s loss of the reserve currency role and hyperinflation are plausible consequences of disastrous economic policy.
How is it possible that “the world’s only superpower” can hold a presidential election without any discussion of these very real and serious problems being part of it?
How can anyone be excited or made hopeful about such an outcome?
This article first appeared at Paul Craig Roberts’ new website Institute For Political Economy. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His Internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.
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