The Shit that didn't Stick

Sneaky Pete sneaks out. Good riddance. But why? Just yesterday he was swearing to stay in the race to the finish. I have no inside line to his inner counsels, but to unfold my theory we have to go back to that secret DNC conclave held at one of Bernard Schwartz's billionaire hideaways.

As the New York Slime reported, centrist Democratz, including Karamela Harris and Sneaky Pete Buttigieg, were in attendance at the meeting, the topic of which was: What to do about Bernie. The Slime did not reveal what the strategy was, but subsequent events made it obvious. The centrist strategy was to fling as much shit around as it could and to hope some of it would stick. Translation: field as many “safe” and “reliable” candidates and see which one did best against Sanders. The obvious fall back position was (as we theorized at the time) that, if nothing else, the more candidates in the running, the greater the chances Bernie would never get a first ballot majority.

And so we got Casserole Charisma Amy, Karamela for the (Top) People, Uncle Blue Chip Joe and Sneaky Pete running on his overtly anti-Bernie mantras. It was the obvious hope of Deep Party that Sneaky Pete would be something of a white Obama. In fact, if Obama had been able to pass off as white there would be little difference between the two other than Pete's combat zone “uber driver” (his words) record. Both talked the down home accent to the folks down home while turning around and talking haute English to the haute folk. Both delivered endless orotund fatuous, faux homiletic platitudes that down home would be called “bullshit.” But if Karamela bombed among Blacks was there seriously any hope that a largely Baptist demographic would thrill to a white “abomination.” ? It didn't matter. Shit is shit and who knows what will end up sticking.

Well Pete did not stick. And even though he was more than willing -- determined even -- to stick around to see if he stuck or struck something, someone thought the better of it. The volt face was so sudden that one can be excused for thinking that someone's leash just got jerked and if so, who oh who, might have done the yanking? Q.E.D.

Deep Party is now banking on Uncle Joe to claim the field and take us back to the era of Retro-Normalcy. His is the less fancy bullshit. “I've been there; I've fought for you.” Never mind that it's a total lie, in South Carolina it stuck. But never fear. Sneaky Pete is an ambitious prick. He'll be around to sell his soul in order to sell the rest of us out in some way or another. If Biden could do it, why not him? Let things cure for a while. 

©barfo 2020

Someone is Meddling

Once again, the New York Slime reports that the Russkies are "meddling" in our elections, yet again.  Although "Russia’s interference measures and their intensity remain murky"  (oh those pesky details!)  Nevertheless, 

"Russia’s interference on behalf of both Mr. Trump, the dominant force in the Republican Party, and Mr. Sanders, a stalwart of the left, underscores its efforts to sow chaos across the political spectrum. Undermining the democratic system remains at the core of Russia’s effort to raise its own stature by weakening the United States..."

Chaos... is that what the Slime calls democracy?  

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Russia is "interfering" on behalf of Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders.  Whatever the murky details which have not been disclosed we can reasonably infer that Russia is doing something to boost Trump's chances while at the same time doing something else to boost Sander's chances.  That's what "on behalf" implies.  

What might this mean in practice?  Well... it would mean that Russia is taking out ads which praise Mr. Trump while attacking Mr. Sanders.  At the same time, it is taking out ads or funding bots that praise Mr. Sanders while attacking Mr. Trump.

So fucking what?   Is it suggested that in an election contest between Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders either will not take out ads attacking the other?   The only thing Russia will have done is save Trump and Sanders some money.  In all events, Russia will have done no more than promote a vigorous contest.  How in the fuck does that undermine democracy?

Well, it might be said, Russia promotes nasty ads.  Of course since murky details have not been disclosed we have no idea what quality of ads Russia has promoted.  But suppose they are of the nasty sort. As if American elections needed tutoring in nastiness and gutter tactics from Russia?  Oh puleeze.

What would the Slime prefer?  The subtext of its complaint is that contentious political elections weaken the United States.  That is an axiom adopted only by tyrants and oligarchs.

In 1933 Hitler made a campaign speech excoriating the fact that Germany had 30 competing parties.  In a rhetorical tour de force he went through each of the parties ridiculing their platforms and narrow self interests.  Then, after noting that the leaders of these parties had accused him of not working with them, he said: These gentlemen are right.  I am intolerant.  I have given myself one goal: to sweep these thirty political parties out of Germany!"  No more squabbling.  No more backbiting.  No more disunity. No more chaos. Nothing that will weaken the German State!

No doubt the pundits and pharisees of the Slime will taken the greatest offence and umbrage at being compared to that monster.   But, I ask, what else is the implication of their complaint that sowing chaos across the political spectrum is a tactic that weakens the United States?

For over two hundred years the assumption across the spectrum has been that the American democracy is stronger for the chaos.  Ours is an adversarial political system.  It is an adversarial judicial system .  And it is an adversarial economic system.  Competition and conflict is integral to what America is.  

In his famous Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison discusses precisely this issue.  He notes that it is the nature of democracies to be riven by political factions.   He notes further "The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man" and behind the factions is "the human propensity to fall into mutual animosities, such that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts."  Sounds pretty chaotic to me. But listen to Madison's answer:   

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.   It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.   The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise.

It is evidently the second expedient which the Slime would conveniently prefer, allowing it to be the arbiter of what opinions can safely and unchaotically be held. 

Madison's constitutional system was designed to blunt the effects of faction through an institutional system of checks and balances.  Chaotic, emotional, violently passionate liberty would be preserved but no one party or faction would ever get the sole upper hand.  That system has served its purpose well enough.  It does not need the Slime to impose  acceptable orthodoxies on the public in the name of "clean and orderly" elections.

If anyone is subverting American democracy it is the Slime.

However, behind the subversion (as behind all subversions) there lies a partisan interest.  Mr. Sanders himself alluded to it.  According to the Slime article,

Mr. Sanders said he was briefed about a month ago. Asked why the disclosure came out now, he said: “I’ll let you guess about one day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out?”

Why do you think?  Did Russia leak the information?  Not likely.  Did Trump?  Also not likely since he "called the disclosures a hoax and part of a partisan campaign against him."   Did the Sander's campaign leak the information?  Obviously not.   Who then?  Qui bono?

Gee.  Let me see if I can figure out this brain-cracker of a puzzle. 

Sanders is leading in Nevada.

A news story in effect calling him a Russian dupe or asset is leaked.  

The expected effect of this libellous bombshell would be....?

The beneficiaries of the leak would be....?

Hmmmm.   Something in the back of my mind....  What is it? Ah yes!  Russian asset.  Where have I heard that before.  Seems to me someone else was recently accused of being a Russia asset.

Ja!  The shadowy claws of Hillary Clinton and her centrist, corporate demawhores.   Once again the DNC unleashes its Russian Troll Bullshit to undermine the opposition and preserve its power, privilege and prestige.

Once again the the New York Times obediently does the sliming.

Defence de cracher, svp. 

 ©barfo 2020

 

The Supreme Court's Frisk-A-Negro Doctrine

Billionaire Bloomberg is trying to explain away his notorious "stop and frisk" policy while mayor of New York City.  The squabble between his attackers and apologists is over whether he misused the policy in a racist manner.


This teapot tempest overlooks the more salient point.  The Supreme Court's stop and frisk doctrine undermined the Fourth Amendment for everyone.  Moreover, the nature of the doctrine was such that only a congenital imbecile could fail to see that it would be applied, invariably, in a racist manner.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons....shall not be violated , and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, ...

In 1968, the Supreme Court rewrote the Fourth Amendment so as to allow people to be detained without probable cause. This shameless decision was enabled by a previous one which allowed automobiles to be stopped without a warrant.

The Carroll brothers were known bootleggers.  One night, the police saw their Model T driving down the highway.  They had no information that the car contained contraband. Nevertheless they stopped it without a warrant. No matter.  The Supreme Court ruled that so long as the police had probable cause a warrant was not needed. (Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925).)  The only problem was that the police did not have probable cause either. No matter.  The Supreme Court left that wrinkle to another day.

That other day came around in 1968 when the police detained three Negro youths on suspicion of being up to no good. It was admitted that the police had no probable cause to detain the youths.  Nevertheless, the Court held that the boys could be briefly detained on a "reasonable suspicion” that they might be up to no good. (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).) The Court did a predictable semantic dance around the difference between a "mere hunch" and a "reasonable suspicion."  They were not the same.  Hunch bad. Suspicion good.  What makes a suspicion good?  Well it had to be "articulable" ... you had to be able to put something into words.  What kind of something?  Well, Officer McFadden testified that he saw the Negro youths walking back and forth in front of a store for about 15 minutes and sometimes stopping to talk to one another.  Uh huh.   Oh... and in his experience and expertise as an experienced officer on the beat this "indicated to him" that the youths were engaged in behaviour "typically associated" with "casing a joint."  On this rock-solid basis, far be it from us to hold that an officer may not "approach" an individual to ask routine non invasive questions. 

Oh but wait....Far be it from us to hold that an Officer of the Law, a Man in Blue on which the safety of all our properties depends, should have to expose himself to potentially lethal danger upon approaching an individual!  Nay! Nay!  An officer may of course, of course, conduct a "limited superficial patdown" of the person detained to insure that he is not carrying a weapon. No probable cause needed for that either.  In fact, no reasonable suspicion even.  A mere unarticulated possibility is good enough.

It did not take long for the police to realize that the Supreme Court had invited them to walk all over the Fourth Amendment at will.   Police "expertise" became expert at knowing all sorts of "potential" nefariousness.  Their tactile senses became adept at detecting "hard" and "soft" bulges indicative of.... whatever... a weapon .. possible contraband.   New courses were given in police academies on how to create "escalating probable cause" where each "legitimate" step gives rise to further cause for further suspicion and further investigation. 

Despite the pious semantics, Terry v Ohio let loose a war on minorities who, in the expertise and experience of tried and true officers in blue, are all "potentially suspect" [sic].    Or as Bloomberg put it

“Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops, ...

“They are male minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in virtually every city,” the clip continues. “And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are [sic] getting killed.”   

Bloomberg was just a sheriff without the white sheet.  But it is equally the case that the men in black robes were hardly so stupid as to not see that among the articulable reasons not to be articulated was the fact that the "youths" in question were minorities.  Just come up with some other feeble, thin, plausible expert excuse.
 

As McReynolds dissented 95 years ago....  "The damnable character of the "bootlegger's" business should not close our eyes to the mischief which will surely follow any attempt to destroy it by unwarranted methods."

©barfo, 2020

Dazzled by Bullshit

.

Writing in the  UK's Alt Fem Guardian, Moira Doengan had this to say about Pete Buttigieg,

"He responded to questions ... with his accustomed air of rehearsed imprecision, never deviating from his robotic affect and never giving a straight answer

"His answers sounded more like marketing copy for a nefarious tech start up than like statements of political principle. He looked, more than anything, like a man who has not relaxed since he was a child.

"Through his cloud of consultant-speak and imprecision, it became clear that Buttigieg was trying to attack Sanders..."

Good copy!  Barfo has previously discussed Buttigieg's rehearsed emollient, reasonable sounding consensualism that covers all bases and none.    He is a master of evading the question in an ever forming cloud of words that say absolutely nothing but create an aura of high minded purpose. 

Or, as they might say down home, he dazzles 'em with bullshit.

And yet, his "demographic" is affluent, college educated whites - the profesional and managerial class that comprise the Nine Percent.    So I have been pondering: how is it that the better educated and erudite of our country are dazzled by bullshit?

The first answer is obvious: they want to be.  As I have said before, investment in a capitalist system is what fealty was in the feudal.  Gentrified Liberals are invested in the system and are its loyal vassals.  They instinctively appreciate it just as they instinctively resist anything that threatens the status quo.  Of course, they like to think of themselves as being in favor of change. After all, there are so many injustices out there!    Some may even feel a nagging guilt about that surely reasonable,  and hardly blameworthy injustice that is called "being comfortably well off."    In either case, they look for causes to fret about and injustices to change all of which have the one common feature of not affecting their real estate holdings or 401k's.

But there is another factor at work as well.  Precisely because they are well educated and erudite they tend to think (money aside) in conceptual categories.   They don't think of "fish" or "shoes" -- that would be too childish -- but of "goods" and from "goods" to summi boni

Aristophanes made fun of Socrates by depicting him as floating about in a basket hanging from the clouds.  Aristophanes was being most unfair because if anyone, it was Socrates who made a point of lancing the balloon of people's abstractions 

There is even on dialogue in which Socrates meets Pete Buttigieg -- although at that time he was called Gorgias.   "What do you do for a living?" Socrates asked.   Gorgias replied

Gor. Rhetoric, Socrates, is my art.

Soc. Very good then; as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a teacher of rhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned?

Gor. With discourse.

Soc. What sort of discourse, Gorgias?   To what class of things do the words which rhetoric uses relate?

Gor. To the greatest, Socrates, and the best of human things.

Soc. That again, Gorgias is ambiguous; I am still in the dark: for which are the greatest and best of human things?

Gorgias:   What is greater than treating of justice in the courts and of governance in the assembly?

And so it went... Socrates trying to find out exactly what Gorgias believed in and what compass he used to guide his counsel and conduct; Gorgias ever sliding about in evasive generalities which sounded impressive so long as they were swallowed without being chewed.   In the end, Gorgias never provided an answer as to what he actually professed.  His discourse was committed to nothing above the technique of persuading.

In Socrates' day, rhetoricians were barristers or pleaders of causes.  Today Gorgias would just as easily be a branding or media consultant. In either case, what is involved is peddling an image.  It doesn't really matter what the image is so long as it sells.  Indeed, where everything is viewed as a commodity, selling is all that matters.

All of which leads back to the question of why Bootigieg's particular imagery is so attractive to the affluent educated?  We might begin by asking what the imagery itself is.  Its nature is to give the impression of treating an array higher goods in a disinterested fashion bearing in mind principles which are both fundamental and transcendent, uplifting and unifying.  By the same token, its nature is to ignore the specific class interests of the professional-managerial class; to act as if they somehow were not in the game or at issue.  Black lives really do matter!  Women's Right to Chose!  But not a question of the tax breaks I got simply because I am wealthy enough to "earn" them.

And so... we are left with our original hunch.  The "better sort" in our country are charmed by Mayor Pete because he presents no threat to their survival and distracts the "less fortunate" from seeing what is necessary for theirs.  

They talk of "working together as a country" or some such vaporous nostrum at which Buttigieg exells.   How come never sharing together as a country?

©barfo 2020

 

Enough Democracy!

Predictably enough, the vote-tallying snafu engineered by the DNC in Iowa coupled with Iowa's weighted caucus system that gives rural counties a more equal vote than others, has evoked cries to change the system. What's wrong with a simple majority vote?! Why should Iowa be the first pirmary anyway?! While these rhetorical questions are valid, they miss an underlying issue. Once again, Rome.

As the three or four students of Roman history in the United States might recall, the history of the Empire is one of chronic wars of succession relieved by shorter or longer periods of “stability and peace” in which a grateful and exhausted nation sought to recover. Most texts portray these wars as or battles between ambitious ego-maniacs grasping at the throne. But they were more than that. For the most part, the protagonists were point men for rival class, economic, or regional interests. More than just ego-driven “revolts,” they were the equivalent of an electoral process, in which different partisans compete. It has been said that in Rome politics was a blood sport.

The common feature of a “battle” and an “electoral process” is that both require and represent a tremendous martialing of resources. Then as now, behind every arrow or sword lies a legion of hewers of wood and blacksmiths and smelters, to say nothing of tanners and tailors and all the craftsmen needed to equip an army. But the social product does not end there. Then as now every campaign also included publicists and image consultants to make the contenders' case to the Senate and to the public. Making the case included putting on spectacles or “donating” some kind of public work. Running for emperor was an expensive proposition.

The greatest and most devastating effect, however, was the fact that the legions “lived off the land” which is a polite way of saying that they stole their food from the inhabitants who were unlucky enough to be in their campaigning path. Imperial elections in Rome were quite literally devastating.

Presidential elections in the United States are equally exhausting. Of course the media talk about elections as if they were “battles” but they do so in an insipid way that considers this to be “just a metaphor.” Not. While electoral campaigns are increasingly -- and outrageously -- costly, it is true that their proportional economic impact does not equal those of Rome's electoral wars. Instead, the devastation of American elections is wreaked upon the country's social capital.

As with individuals, a healthy civic society needs to be psychologically balanced. Societies, as individuals, can “only do so much.” Both must apportion their attention and energies. To give a simple example: exercise is necessary and good, but a man who becomes consumed by running or weight lifting or tennis neglects other aspects of his life which are equally required for health. He falls into being an obsessive fetishist. All individuals must devote a portion of time to the work of survival, but also to pleasures of leisure. They must devote time to their children and to forming relationships outside the family circle. Lastly, in a democracy, they need to set aside time for for civic participations and to thinking and discussing the needs of their greater “home”. The point of discussion is not to have a discussion but to make some correction or improvement in our collective life - the building of a school, the policing of streets, the preservation of water quality and so on. The expectation is that with such things accomplished we can go on to other things that make life enjoyable and worth living. With too much politics, the means consumes the ends.

But it gets worse. As with spectator sports, spectator politics is simply junk action. The man who sits in front of a teevee getting a vicarious thrill of combat while munching cheezoh's and drinking beer doesn't even get the benefit of exercise. The same can be said for the “political junkie” whose brain gets filled with endless political chatter devoid of civic accomplishment Both simply become useless, pathetic addicts. The endless chatter and clatter ultimately becomes uniform and meaningless. I would wager that one could run news interviews, reports and talk shows from 1988 and no one would notice the difference. People who value their time and sanity simply tune out.

No ruling class ever wants the ruled to have a say in their affairs. The trick is to engage the masses while disengaging them. Politics as the opiate of the masses is precisely want the ruling oligarchies want to see. A politics that consumes energy and focus while accomplishing only exhaustion after, perhaps, a brief moment of euphoria Endless democracy ends up being no democracy.

American democracy is a farce on many levels. But the worst aspect of the farce is turning a four year electoral cycle into an never ending electoral war. What gets devastated is the citizen's civic tolerance. The whole thing becomes tiresome; oft repeated promises ring hollow and meaningless rhetorical generalities dissipate in their own vapour.

There is no reason for a two year long election cycle, in which one and a half years are handed over to organizing, speechifying and primaries spread over successive months followed by a pointless carnival convention and a grand finale of sturm und drang. No other country handles elections in this manner. Elections in European countries are over in a matter of months. Voting is uniform and conducted on a single day with at most a run-off shortly thereafter.

This is not to say that politics goes to sleep at all other times. Of course not. But, at those other times, politics arises in connection with the ordinary, daily business of government. To promote a bill, to read about a policy, to discuss a particular pending issue that is of personal interest is not the same thing as being overwhelmed by the multi-front battle-ballyhoo of a campaign.

It is time to put some real democracy into the political circus. Personally, Barfo would prefer scrapping the current system altogether and reverting to a Parliamentary democracy. Way short of that, the primary season should be reduced by requiring all primaries to be held on a single day in the Spring when the weather is good and people are not snowed in. Winner-take-all voting should be eliminated. Voting should be unweighted with no preference to any geographic area. Conventions should also be held on the same day, in June. Elephant hats, donkey whistles, streamers and baloons should be prohibited. 

Next, we kill all the consultants!

©barfo 2020

Raging at One's Own Frustrated Incompetence

The New York Slime is outraged -- positively outraged -- that  the Senate has failed its constitutional duty by refusing to call witnesses in the “trial” of President Trump, thereby insuring his acquittal on the impeachment charges.  Fie! Ne'er more vile a thing.... and blah, blah, blah.  The inevitable acquittal will serve only to bring a second disgorging of more blah, blah, blah.

Was there any doubt that a Republican controlled Senate would stonewall the trial or -- if it came to that -- acquit?  Not a scintilla of doubt.

As if taken by shock and surprise, the Slime goes on to rant: “the Senate has become nothing more than an arena for the most base and brutal — and stupid — power politics.”

But what of the House?  Was it any less “power politics” to bring charges that were foreseeably certain to fail?  What then was the point if not to score  stupid political points in an election year?

The Demorats and the Slime refuse to grasp the very simple fact that Constitution sets a very high bar for the removal of a president.  This bar has nothing to do with the meaning of “high crimes and misdemeanors” -- a semantic issue on which too much blather has been expended.  The bar is set by the simple and positive fact that, in order to convict, a vote of two thirds of Senate present is required.  (Art. 1, § 3 ¶ 6-7.)   That is the equivalent of what is required to table an amendment to the Constitution. 

One has to return to 1789 to grasp the significance of this threshold.  Then, as now, the House represented the people.  The Senate, however, represented the States as such and as sovereign entities.  Senators were not elected by, and did not represent, the people in the various states. That would be a ridiculous duplication of what was already provided for by the House of Representatives.   No -- the Senate was, in effect, a diplomatic council of legates from the States.  More to the point, it was the equivalent of a House of Lords, representing various estate and incorporated interests.  It was understood by the Founders that each State comprised certain geographical-economic interests and that each state would be ruled by oligarchies of leading and propertied men. The Senate represented not people but clusters of economic interests.   Thus to require a two-thirds vote on anything was to require a very high degree of political consensus on the issue in question. Not unanimity; but certainly more than a partisan plurality. A consensus that included a majority of citizens and a super majority of all political-economic interests in the land.

The reason for such a high bar was that removing a president had a revolutionary character akin to deposing a monarch.  The president, of course, is not a king but neither is he a mere minister.  The powers the Framers endowed him with fit to a “T”  Edward Gibbon's definition of a monarchy -- a definition published in 1776.  The obvious difference is that the president is (1) elected for (2) a short term of years.  Another difference, which Hamilton points out, is that the president can be impeached whereas the removal of a monarch requires the “crisis of a revolution.”   But it is that very distinction which points to the nature of impeachment.  It is not merely a forfeiture of office for malfeasance; it is an act which, at the very least, rattles the settled and regular order of the state, which presuposes a non-interruption of its fundamental processes.  The president was elected by a majority of the franchise plus two thirds of the state electors; he should be deposed by no less an equivalent process. 


Did such a consensus exist on whether Trump should be removed for office?  The Democrats might have been united in heart, mind and desire but -- oh surprise -- the Democrats are not the country.  In fact by the looks of how they have managed to loose governorships and legislatures they are far less than the country.  The same sense of petulant entitlement that afflicted Hillary Clinton appears to have infected the Democrat Party.  No, Scarlett, you don't get what you want because you want it.  Or were the Democrats simply pursuing “base...and stupid power politics”?

In law, substance and process go hand in hand.  One never gets to the merits of a criminal's case without meeting a procedural threshold, one of the most important of which is the requirement of unanimous jury verdicts.  Because they never get to trial, the public seldom reads about all those cases which a prosecutor choses not to bring because he knows (for whatever reason) that he will not be able to convince 12 jurors of the defendant's guilt.  A prosecutor who brought a case knowing it could not be won would be guilty of using his office for no other purpose than to vex and harass.

The New York Slime was intent to analogize the situation to that of a criminal trial.  Witnesses should be called!  The Republicans refused!  “Faced with credible evidence that a president was abusing his powers,  .... the Senate abandon[ed] its role as the ultimate guard against a dangerous president.”

    “Faced with credible evidence” is precisely the situation that daily faces a prosecutor who must decide whether or not to pursue the case against an arguably dangerous person.   That is a necessary condition for prosecution, but under our system it is not a sufficient one.  It could never have been in doubt that votes did not exist to convict Trump in the Senate.  With that point in mind it can only be concluded that the entire charade was nothing but stupid power politics aimed at vexing the president and scoring demagogic points.

What is colossally stupid is that there are no demagogic points to be scored.  Trump's base is unmovable and impervious.  The progressive working class wing of the Demorat party has more immediate and substantial things on their minds.  The only groundswell is the one in the brains of media pundits in Le Petit Trianon assembled.   Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff might as well have paraded down the Mall, hand in hand, under a sign reading WE ARE OUT OF TOUCH.  Brioche anyone?

But just for the hell of it let us reach the merits of the case against Trump.

According to the Slime, Trump “was abusing” his powers.  That sounds terrible.  But labels are facile.  How is Trump abusing his power?  In what way is he dangerous?  Saith the Slime,

"The core of the impeachment case against Mr. Trump: his extortion of Ukraine by explicitly conditioning hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid on the announcement of investigations into his political rival."

So... he leaned on a clown turned president in an effort to dig up dirt on a possible opponent in the upcoming president.  This undermines the Republic?  Really?  Not only is digging up dirt on rivals as old as democracy itself, it is an essential element of all politics.  Not only is extorting a foreign country an essential element of all diplomacy, it is one that the United States has excelled at perhaps more than any other in the past 200 years.  Do the self-infatuated pundits of the Slime really believe this garbage?  No.  Their duplicitous unbelief is proved by the way they try to metamorphose the “extortion” of the Ukraine into a “vital national security issue.” 

This is how the theory goes.  The stability and defence of the Ukraine is a vital national security interest to the United States.  By threatening to withhold military aid, Trump was, playing fast and loose with the country's national security.

The first defect with this line of reasoning is that the whole point of any blackmail threat is the expectation that it will not have to be carried out. The kidnapper does not want to kill the daughter; he want's the ransom and, at the end of the day, he doesn't have to kill his hostage. It's a nasty form of gamesmanship, but until the murder has actually been committed that is all it is.   Because military aid was never withheld from the Ukraine for more than 48 or so hours, it simply cannot be argued that Trump prejudiced the national security of the United States.  We are left with “fast and loose.”

    Beneath all of this is the assumed premise that the Ukraine is some kind of cornerstone to America's national security.  Since when?  Never, in the 200 plus years of the Republic has the Ukraine ever been regarded as vital to American interests.  Panama was far more vital.  It was always recognized that if anything the Ukraine fell in Russia's sphere of influence.  Never, at least, until 2000 when the Neocons espoused the doctrine of “pushing America's security perimeter eastward.”  (Rebuidling America's Defences , P.N.A.C., Sept.2000.)    Neocon doctrine is nothing other than the Terminal Dementia of empire, but the notion was that the United States had not only to contain Russia but to constrain her.  “To push her back beyond the Urals” as Hitler would have put it.   Yes, dear reader, this is what the Neocons area about.  But it is only under that demented Neocon premise that the Ukraine becomes a “vital piece” of America's movable security structure. 

    What is truly beyond belief is that the Demorats and the Slime should espouse a premise that was rejected by one of its chief architects.  Before he died, Zbignew Brezinski recanted his own theory of hedging in and breaking up the "Russian Empire." This policy, he admitted, was simply wrongheaded.  If tightening a noose around Russia is wrongheaded then Ukraine is simply not in the vital interests of the United States.

    Yet its precisely on this wrongheadedness that the entire case of impeachment hangs.  It is stupid beyond belief.  The average American might never have heard of Brezinski's The Grand Chessboard but they know in the intuitive way that common people know things that Ukraine means nothing to us.   We can undermine its elected government with the help of neo nazis, we can “stand by it” by funding the fascist Azov Brigade, we can use it to annoy and tweak Russia or to make money from IMF loans... but none of this is in the vital national security interests of the United States.

    The case against Trump simply fails to rise to even a serious level much less to cause for institutionalized revolt.

  

    This is not to say that Trump is not a threat to democracy, to what is called civil society and to the planet.   But if that is the case to be made, the Democrats have failed to make it.  Nor is it clear that they can make it given that the worst of Trump's policies have always been drawn behind a tissue of legality. The way to run him out of town is the way the Constitution provides: by not renewing his contract at the end of his term.   But that is not the way the Demorats have chosen and they have not chosen it because the DNC is nothing more than the alter-ego of a resentful, vituperative, narcissistic bitch. 

©barfo 2020

New York Slime slams Bernie Bros as Deplorable.

.
After months of strenuously dis-reporting on Bernie Sanders' campaign and ignoring his supporters in much the way that it ignores the homeless and anyone else not within the palace gates, the New York Slime finally did an “in depth” report on the movement.   In its frenzy and its panic it could think of nothing better than to call Bernie supporters *deplorable.*

What is the world coming to!?  Bernie Bros have dared to push-back against the corporate Democrat narrative!

As is usual with gutter hit jobs, the Slime's article is short on facts and long on labeling.  Typical are lines like

“Some progressive activists who declined to back Mr. Sanders have begun traveling with private security after incurring on line harassment.”

Well now... When I was a cub reporter FOUR WORDS were drilled into me: who, what, when, how.   It seems that the Slime's polemicists have forgotten them

Some progressives... who? how many?  In logic, “some” means “one or more but at least one.”  

Harassment.... when? how?   Anything can be labelled anything... this is the chief smear tactic of sophists and demagogues.  A real reporter would abide, “Just the facts m'am”

Further down in the article we are told that “former Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a Clinton supporter who had been at the Nevada convention said she worried for her safety after being booed off stage.”

Is that the “some” progressive the Slime had in mind?  Being booed is a threat?  Maybe the Slime ought to do an article on Boxer's narcissistic paranoia?  Since when is booing not permitted in a public forum in a democracy?

Since whenever it is directed at the self-annointed sacrosanct of the corporate democrat elite.

According to the Slime, “Sanders fans were sharing details of Ms. Harris' recent fund raising swing in the Hamptons with Hillry Clinton donors.” 

Awh...it's really unbelievable the depths to which these Berni Bros will sink!

Worse! Worse!  Senator Sanders himself “elevated” the message by himself saying that “I don't go to the Hamptons to raise money from billionaires.”

Shameless!  Pure shamelessness to point out that Harris was a willing whore of the wealthy elite just as she was a chief prosecutor in a justice system designed to be both oppressive and sadistic, while giving a pass to fraudulent bankers.

No doubt fearful that this kind of arrogance by itself would be seen for what it is, the Slime wrapped its gutter tactics in the unassailable mantel of Feminst Identity.... which, in the United States today, serves the same function as La Santa Virgen del Pilar in Spain.  Wanna get ripped to pieces?  Attack either.

"Several well-known feminist writers said they had received death threats...."

Not nice.... but nicer still would be to know what was actually said and in what circumstances.   As the United States Supreme Court has recognized a statement which is facially a threat can be legitimate and legal rhetorical hyperbole. (Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969).)   Back in 1969, when Boxer herself was either at Woodstock or protesting the war,  a draft protestor publicly stated “I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J. . .”  The Supreme Court held that, in context, the statement was not a criminal threat.  “The language of the political arena ... is often vituperative, abusive, and inexact.” In order to objectively qualify as an illegal “threat”  the words spoken must state a threat, must be intended as a threat and must be capable of being realized in the circumstances. A person's neurotic over-reaction does not ipso facto turn something into a threat.    Without being told what was allegedly said, it is not possible to form an opinion as to whether these feminists writers were seriously threatened or not.

"A Portland lawyer saw her business rating tumble on an online review site after tussling with Sanders supporters on Twitter."

Uh huh.  Post hoc ergo propter hoc, right? 

Let's just put the shoe on the other foot... or the fork in the other mouth.  Would the pro-LGBTQ bastion of political correctness be aghast and outraged if a certain baker saw his “ratings” tumble after exercising his First Amendment Rights not to bake a cake?   Of course not.  They would gleeful cheer his bankruptcy were it to happen.  So then....

Since when are certain people immunized from the consequences of their publicly stated opinions?   Ah ha... when they are (a) feminists, (b) corporate centrists, (c) Hillary supporters and (d) those whom the Slime has anointed as Sacrosanct.

The Slime can play this card all it wants, it holds water only in an ever shrinking circle of Narcissist Affluent Feminists, who thinking “all politics is personal”  (that's their motto) take everything personally.

Last but not least, the Slime's screed notes that “for some perceived Sanders critics, there has been mail sent to their home addresses. ... The message is clear: We know where you live.”

No.  The message is whatever was written in the mail.  Since when is it unlawful to send political mail to someone?  Since when do certain people deserve to live in an “off-limits” security bubble that immunizes them from any contact with fellow-citizens.   Is that the kind of Open Society a George Soros would support?   Evidently, for the Slime, there is “open” and then there is “open to a few.”   Par for the course.

Let's get one thing clear.  The New York Times has ever and always been the organ for American Corporate Imperialism.  They are very good at hiding assumptions under a veneer of reporting and very good at varnishing their real agenda under a coating of “humanistic” and “liberal” causes.   They will adhere to a high-minded, disinterested tone so long as things are going their way... but when faced with a real threat, the fangs are bared, the hissing starts and the lashing out begins.  

©barfo, 2002

Cultural Feudalism

A few years back, all I Love Lucy episodes could be watched -- and laughed at -- on YouTube.  Then they disappeared.  It was hardly a secret why.  Lucy and Desi's heirs imposed a copyright lockdown.   Pay to laugh, peasants!

Why should this lock-down be allowed?  The social policy behind copyrights is to give the original creator an incentive for the exercise of his  -- or in this case -- her and his genius.   It is a sound, fair and unobjectionable policy.  The public enjoyed and benefited from the aesthetic, intellectual, musical or dramatic genius of the creator who was in turn rewarded with the public's gratitude in the form of money.

But what have Lucy's children done to reap the rewards of their mother's efforts and talent?  Nothing; nothing at all.   They are not even analogous to the children of counts or dukes who take over and continue to manage the estate.   In this latter case, the heirs don't simply inherit benefits they inherit a job and obligations as well. The same is true for the heir of a tycoon, who takes over the running of the company.  In either of these two cases the successors in interest put their own work into the matter.   But other than hire accountants to manage their royalties, Lucy's children don't do a damn thing.  They simply live off the copyright their parents earned.

But the purpose of that copyright was to act as an incentive for genius -- “to stimulate the useful arts and sciences.” That purpose was served.  Holding on to an inherited copyright stimulates nothing. Copyright was never envisioned as analogous to a fee simple absolute in land.  On the contrary it expired after some term, at which point it became public property in the common realm. 

Allowing successors in interest who are not themselves original creators of the work simply creates a form cultural feudalism in which all peasants must pay fees for grazing on what was intended to be common pasture.

The regime of capitalism in its furious demise is relentless, heartless and implacable.  Its parasites and robed whores are privatising everything making everyone else pay for what ought to be held in common and enjoyed freely for free. 

The West Crumbles

Another screed from the WokeLib Guardian. Simon Tisdall scrawls...

it is crystal clear Putin fears the sort of political liberalisation that might facilitate greater economic competitiveness and international investment.

Uh huh... translated:  “political liberalization,” “more democracy,” “human rights” and “FREEDUM” are Trojan Horses for “international investment” which is code for “us buying up you.” Tisdall is too stoopid to realize he just gave away the game.

He goes on to scribble

The continuing drag on Russia’s development caused by western sanctions, imposed after the illegal annexation of Crimea, symbolises the broader, negative aspects of perpetual Putinism.

Actually... the sanctions reflect the broader aspects of American hegemony. It is absurd to blame Putin for an economic drag cause by sanctions.

Simon-the-Moron goes on,

Putin’s poison meanwhile seeps through other western institutions, bamboozling Donald Trump, weakening the Nato alliance and the G7 (from which he has been banished), and undermining European democracy with his glib talk about “obsolete” western liberalism.

So... Trump was not a mole but just simply “bamboozled” ? Okay. But Putin undermined European democracy by talking? PUTIN SPEAKS THE WEST CRUMBLES!!!! How Biblical! Why, it's a miracle beyond the realm of known physics given that Putin's talk is virtually never reported in the Western press and certainly not on the channels of mass media delusion.


©barfo 2020

Wokehounds sniffing for Analogies

"Brazil’s culture secretary, Roberto Alvim has been fired after he appeared to paraphrase the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels ... 'Brazilian art in the next decade will be heroic and national,' said Alvim, to the music from Wagner’s Lohengrin, said to be Hitler’s favourite opera."   (Alt Fem Wokian)

Gawd these jerks are stupid.  “Said to be....”  by whom?  When I was a cub reporter it was drilled into us always to provide our sources.   “Said to be” is not only lazy, it bespeaks falsity.   Actually -- according to John Toland's biolgraphy -- Hitler's favourite opera was Meistersinger

Oh what the hell.... we need to link this guy to Hitler in some fashion.... a fellow Lohengrin-Liker!    Oh how horrible!

But to the point.... art can't be “nationalistic” ?  Who says?  Was David nationalistic and heroic?  What about Siquieros?   How about Diego Rivera?  What of Shostakovitch or Sergei Eisenstein?  Lully anyone?  What about ....

What about the fucking morons writing for the  Alt Fem Wokian?  "Hounds" is too good a word for this plague of angry imbeciles


 
©barfo 2020

Qui Bono?

NOTED: Die Zeit reports that the Boonystag is about to pass a bill outlawing the burning of any foreign flag. Oh gee.... I wonder whose flag they had in mind?

.

Man and Cockroach

Is there any difference between this mob and a swarm of insects on a log?  No; certainly not from a cosmic perspective.  From the infinitude of space a man and a cockroach are the same in size and significance.   But “God loveth all his children....”  In other words, should we adopt a less cosmic view; ought we to consider each one of these creatures, swarming over the train like insects, as a human being full of inherent dignity, unique of character and born with inalienable rights.... blah, blah, blah.

Whether we ought to or not, the inescapable fact is that we will not.  This Earth is at its breaking point thanks mostly to our unquenchable greed and unrestrained self proliferation.  The Market Moloch which needs an endless supply of consumers to fuel its profit-driven production will, in the not too distant future, be incapable of feeding these same mouths.  It will be unable to house them, to educate them, to care for their health, to give them employment (much less meaningful employment) -- in short to do anything to keep alive the myth of inherent human worth and dignity.

Our rulers will then simply give up trying.  They will shelter themselves in eco-bubbles, guarded by well fed, de-sensitized goons, who will employ pest control tactics to keep the swarm in line while -- as a residual sign of humanity -- shoot blasts of synthetic food chips over their heads for them to hungrily scramble for.

More than Huxley and Orwell or even Stanislaus Lem,  Harrison/Fleischer were prophetic geniuses.   And what did the New Yorker have to say about Soylent Green?  “This pompously prophetic thing of a film hasn't a brain in its beanbag. Where is democracy? Where is the popular vote? Where is women's lib? Where are the uprising poor, who would have suspected what was happening in a moment?” 

Ha ha.    Ah yes!  the Uprising Poor would have rebelled against Chezzoh's at Walmarts!  Women's Lib would have alerted us to the terminal systemics of capitalism!  The  ever vigilant and suspecting popular vote would have protected us from Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Blair, Bolsonaro, Modi, JinPing, Al Saud and, last but not least, Mitch McConnell. 

 God, Gentrified Liberals are idiots. 


©barfo, 2020

Another Boating Accident!

BBC reports that the CCTV of Epstein's cell was “accidentally erased.”

Ranting against Facebook

Once again, a scribe for the WokeLib Guardian raised her pen (or jabbed her pad) to excoriate Zuckerberg and Facebook for....

Actually, I'm not quite clear what the article was supposed to be about but the gist and drift of it appears to be a complaint that Facebook allows "right wing demagogues" to post content.  Bleh.  I'm pretty tired of pseudo-left warriors calling for censorship, which is what all the wokeness boils down to.

All media at all times have engaged in omissions, half-truths, exaggeration, misrepresentations, doctored images and rhetorical manipulation. Anyone who thinks that the New York Times or the Guardian don't filter their output to conform to their ideological views and political agendas is living in a land of self delusion. The same can be said for Le Figaro or Razón.

The underlying fallacies of the outraged, woke brigades are the assumptions (1) that "true facts" exist and (2) that information is something we are fed... like food. Actually, the realm of true, indisputable facts is rather small. Most so-called "facts" are based on individual perceptions and opinions -- "testimony" in lawyer talk. Even polls are subject to distortions. As Mark Twain cracked, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

What this means is that "news" and "information" is never anything we should trust or rely on. What is called being informed is not passive intaking but an occasion to exercise our mental faculties. Anything we read calls for us to bring to bear our experience and use our judgement. What makes us informed is exposing our brains to as many lies, damned lies and statistics as possible.

If people want to be stupid and just gulp down anything that CNN or Facebook or Junge Europa put before them, that really is their problem but it should not be used as an excuse to make safe and sanitize information for the rest of us.

©barfo, 2020

Alt Fem Guardian Craps on Berni

Typical bunk from a gentrified liberal perspective pretending to be progressive.

Number One. The headline is misleading in that it suggests that Warren is the "best chance" since FDR. But that is not what she said. When asked about a die-hard Sanders supporter, Warren replied "“C’mon guys, this is the best chance we have to elect a real progressive since FDR.” As the article itself states "That might be the strongest statement she has made about Sanders."

Number Two. "Senator Bernie Sanders could argue that he is addressing those same themes." Could? COULD? C'mon, there is no doubt whatsoever about it. None. Zip. It's not debatable. For all of his life and for 40 years in Congress he has consistently been the often LONE voice for progressive causes.

Since the Guardian likes to focus (obsess) on identity issues: Sanders was arrested back in 1963 [sic] protesting for Black civil rights. He has consistently supported a woman's right to choose even before Roe v Wade. He was in favour of gay rights way before the term LGBTQ or LGBT or LGB became current.

He has opposed every war the U.S. has engaged in since Vietnam.

For those who don't have cushy medical and retirement programs, Sanders has pushed Medicare for All since before 2016. He has pushed a decent minimum wage since 2014. He has consistently advocated secure, affordable housing, free higher education, student debt relief, renters rights, disengagement from fossil fuel and an aggressive new green deal.

Could? Gimme a break. He is the one tried and true and proven progressive in the race without doubt. I know bias when I read it.

 ©

©barfo 2020

Hey Sinner Man

There was a popular folk song in the early Sixities, the refrain of which was "Hey sinner man, where ya gonna run to, all on that day...?"

“We’re only here because nobody’s acted quick enough,” said Corrin Mueller.   Exactly.  That creature known as  Man, which prides itself on its superior-to-animal faculties and its supposed ability to make "objective" and "disinterested" decisions based on reason  has preferred instead to burn its candles at both ends.    Was there anything more ludicrous than Australians gathering to gawk and goo at fireworks blasting against a particulate saturated sky while their country burned?    Ridet et moritur.

Let it be an object lesson to climate deniers here and everywhere.  

My sorrow and pity goes to all the beautiful animals, birds, insect and fauna that have paid with their lives for Man's self-indulgent rapacity.  

©Barfo, 2020

Slime Speak

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/us/politics/democratic-candidates-qassem-soleimani.html

"Reshape the race" is New York Times-speak for "oh goody, this will boost plus ça change corporate centrists!" .

Priorities

A man abandoned his dog at a church altar with a note that read: “"Life has taken a really bad turn for me and I couldn't imagine him being outside with me cold and hungry."   Officials “urged any pet owners struggling financially to contact their vet, a local rescue centre or a charity like the RSPCA.”

So... they'll rescue the pet but not the human?  

To the Slime: "Countless animals..." = 500 million animals burned or choked to death (Independent UK.) Not only that but the entire insect bio-sphere on which wildlife depends has been wiped out.
This ecocidal holocaust is brought upon us by fossil fuel whores like Morrison, in Australia, McConnell in the United States and Bolsonaro in Brazil. If a crime against humanity is an outrage what do you call a crime against all living life?
And to the niebelungen who censor this blog -- "whores" is exactly what they are -- that's what it's called when a "position" is paid for. To insist on effete gentilesse when the greatest of all crimes is being committed is itself an obscenity. No doubt you would insist that King Lear have begun, "Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!"
Howl!
©barfo, 2020

Australian Apocalypse

While newscasters blabber about homes destroyed in the Austrialian fires, I have been wondering about the animals. Of course, not a word about them in our anthropocentric news, until today:

Up to 500 million mammals, birds and reptiles – including 8,000 koalas – have been killed, say ecologists from Sydney University, prompting fears entire species of animals and plant life may be lost for ever. More than 300 baby flying foxes have been abandoned by their mothers trying to survive, experts said. Jenny Packwood, a wildlife rescuer, told The Herald: “Mothers are abandoning babies at two weeks after birth because there is no food for them. Last week we had 300 come in, and we’ve been flat out feeding since then. “I’ve never seen anything like this before – we’re calling it a starvation event.” “There’s no grass for the ’roos, no insects for the birds, the leaves on eucalypts are brittle, ensuring starvation for koalas, gliders, possums, birds, insects.”

THIS is a true holocaust -- a real fire of apocalyptic proportions. “Five hundred million” -- the number is almost unfathomable. It is an ecocidal wipe-out of a continents innocent wildlife... beautiful creatures all of them who never deserved this fate.

I could give a shit for the humans rushing for safety to the ocean... the ocean whose dead sea corral they killed with their avarice and indifference. May the sea break out in flames. I have no pity for them. None. Zip.

The Greens have called for a Parliamentary commission to look into the Government's handling of the climate crisis. What candy assed bullshit. Morrison and his gang of industry pimps and thugs should be lined up against a wall and shot. Better yet, they should be forced to walk into the flames at gunpoint. All of them....

But the average “decent, hard working, hard playing Australian” is no better. While a holocaust consumes his homeland and wipes out its wild-life, what are they doing? Watching fireworks in Sydney. The drooling, stupid, indifference is as criminal as the Government's ecocidal avarice.

The human race is a complete, utter, disastrous failure. A mistake as colossal as Creation itself. We deserve to be wiped out. The tragedy is that before we are, everything else will be wiped out first.

©barfo, 2020

The Sponge as Civic Ideal

In a Guardian hack job entitled “How Russia spreads Disinformation via RT is more nuanced than we realise” Robert Elliot launched a  full bore frontal attack on freedom of thought with an astonishing frankness evident for those with eyes to see. The article states:

The daily deluge of disinformation produced by RT and Sputnik is a vital component of the tactics that other authoritarian regimes are seeking to replicate. ...The volume of coverage, framing of coverage, and average engagement with that coverage is, at times, widely disparate [from that of western media].

Our research at the State Owned Media Analytics and Research programme has shown us that RT sometimes dedicates a disproportionate amount of time to pushing certain stories – such as the coup in Venezuela or the leaked memos from the British ambassador about Donald Trump.

•   what is “disproportionate” and by what objective criteria do you measure this?

•   how do you measure which stories should be pushed?

•   do you take into consideration the stories that are not covered or pushed by the MSM?

RT’s coverage on the Venezuela coup attracted an average of 2,558 engagements (retweets, likes or shares) per online article, more than the BBC’s 1,780 engagements per article.  [¶ ]  And evidence is mounting to suggest they routinely disseminate stories designed to sow division in the west and pursue the foreign policy goals of the governments that back them, consciously or otherwise.

•  evidence is "mounting" means what exactly?  suggests in what way?   

•  the only “evidence” thus far cited is that RT got more hits than BBC on a story; and the only thing that suggests is that more people liked RT's coverage. Maybe they found it more balanced or reliable. Maybe it just better suited their prejudices. That “suggests” nothing about the intent of the “disseminator” 

•“disseminate” - cute “to scatter or spread widely, as though sowing seed, spreading disease.

•“consciously or otherwise” - i.e. with or without intent to sow division? how do they “pursue” policy goals unintentionally?  Gibberish.

It is difficult to demonstrate the extent to which this influences public discourse, but measuring the online activity of state media is a useful way to start.

•  well, it is the only way to start - but the hidden assumption here is that  "influencing” is a bad thing which ought not be allowed.

The methodology employed by these news organisations poses a series of questions for policymakers. If they are being used to destabilise civil society and widen social fissures, then what is the right response?

•  rhetorical question, isn't it? rather like asking what do we do with those who poison wells.

Their coverage of the European elections in May focused on the success of populist parties like the Brexit party, while for the most part ignoring a surge in support for the Greens and other non-traditional parties on the left. Why is it that state-controlled media portrayed the results as a populist backlash against the European project, which, according to this narrative, seeks to suppress national identities and usurp nation states? Does it matter that they encourage UK citizens to question the veracity or impartiality of the news they consume from traditionally reliable sources?

•  why assume that these "traditional"  sources are "reliable”?

•  people should  question the news they consume from “traditionally reliable sources” 

States will always use all the tools at their disposal to protect their national interests and pursue foreign policy objectives. But if the modus operandi of state-controlled media is to delegitimise institutions and sources of authority in the eyes of a section of the wider public, undermine social cohesion by amplifying divisive voices, draw attention to examples of western hypocrisy, and promote narratives of fear and uncertainty, then how do we respond?

•  “states” includes the western states, does it not?

•   what media outlets do the western liberal states use? BBC perhaps? NY Slime? Alt Fem Guardian

Disinformation does not consist solely of fabricated news stories, Photoshopped images or wild conspiracy theories presented as fact. It is often more nuanced, more sophisticated – and more effective – than policymakers or the public realise. Only by monitoring and measuring their influence can we develop strategies to counter their growing power and reach.

--o0o--

The opening salvo to this entire Orwellian campaign to scare people into trusting Big Sister and accepting the neo-liberal narrative was shot by (Shut Her Up) Hillary in 2014 in testimony before Congress. 

https://youtu.be/L6sYB5d1Bu4

No question but that Hillary was explicitly calling for a propaganda war -- or in today's verbiage for “weaponizing” the media. Of course RT was in her sights because it was winning. Once again, we got a version of the Appeasement Narrative, for starting a war on yet another front.

To be sure the Guardian article is correct to say that governments have always propagandized their interests. They put their best foot forward and expose their protagonist's dirty linen.  Plus ça change.  For the rest of us, the solution is very simple: read both accounts and hone your detective skills. I certainly would not trust RT News for an objective account on Russian elections but, under the same principle of skepticism, I would not rely on the New York Slime for an objective account of U.S. elections. Of course, the Slime will give us accurate reports on figures and results but it will leave untouched the sordid underbelly of oligarchic control over the process.

What the Guardian article slides over grossly is the simple fact that we do not read the news; we judge it. Or should. Every time we pick up a magazine, or newspaper or tune in on a chatter-show, we should recall that we are in the position of a juror listening to and ultimately weighing testimony. For that is, ultimately, all the “news” is -- a hearsay account by a witness as to some occurrence or fact. It makes no difference whether the witnesses is ill or well intentioned, for in either case his account is subject to bias,  to errors of perception ... and... errors of judgement on his part. There is very little “purely” factual reporting in the vein of empirical litmus tests. In subtle ways mental judgements are always brought to bear on perceptions. Intelligent people understand this. People who have lived in press-controlled dictatorships understand this. They learn to read between the lines, to remember previous and inconsistent reports, and to assess the likelihood of the thing asserted, in light of the common experience of mankind. They exercise their brains and their judgement. That is what freedom of the press presupposes.

But the Guardian, the Slime, Shut Her Up Hillary, Heiko the Idiot and Jucinda the Lord Protectress do not want you thinking. They want to turn your brain into a passive sponge for safe and sanitized news which they will present to you. NO CHILD HARMED.

This is an old canard and it uses the same cry it has always used: SEDITION. We have already written about John Wilkes and the North Briton No. 45 - a story all Americans ought to know and might know had they not been assured by such safe and reliable punjarums like Paul Klunkman that Murka was the “birthplace of democracy.” In response to Wilkes' scurrilous (if not quite fake) news about King George III, Parliament brought down upon him the full force of the sedition act.

In England, speech was seditious if it brought the Crown or any branch of government into "hatred or contempt" or if it promoted discontent or hostility between citizens.  The law had its origin in a 1275 statute of King Edward I (“of fierce tempre”) which established the Star Chamber and outlawed the telling or publishing of “any false news or tales whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may grow between the king and his people or the great men of the realm.” (Slander and Sedition Act, 1275, 3 Edw. 1, C. 34 (England)). As one might expect, it was sometimes called “blasphemous” libel.

In the case of De Libellis Famosis (1606) 5 Co Rep 125a, 77 ER 250, it was ruled that truth was not a defence. The King might be a gouty pig but it brought his reputation equally into disrepute to say so. Ernst Kantorowicz (The King's Two Bodies) wrote a lengthy juridico-theological tome on the interesting christological concepts involved in this and like tenets. The full import of De Libellis Famosis bears note,

“The Star Chamber ruled, first, that a libel against a private person might be punished as a crime, on the theory that it might provoke revenge and, hence, a breach of the peace. Second, the Star Chamber held that a libel against the government might also be punished criminally and was especially serious because "it concerns not only the breach of the peace, but also the scandal of government." Third, although the statute of 1275 had insisted upon proof of falsity, the Star Chamber ruled that the truth or falsity of the libel was immaterial under the common law; thus, even a true libel of government could now be the subject of criminal prosecution.

The rationale of the Star Chamber decision was straightforward: If government is to govern effectively, it must command the respect and allegiance of the people. Since any utterance critical of government necessarily undermines this respect and allegiance, it must inevitably tend, however remotely, toward disorder. Moreover, a true libel is especially dangerous, for unlike a false libel, the dangers of truthful criticism cannot be defused by mere disproof. It was thus an oft-quoted maxim after 1606 that "the greater the truth the greater the libel." The potential benefits to be derived from bringing governmental shortcomings to light were not seen as sufficiently valuable to justify the exclusion of true libels from the reach of the criminal law. The Star Chamber's open-ended formulation of the crime opened the door to essentially unchecked suppression of dissent. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, prosecutions for seditious libel ran into the hundreds.    [Source ]

As noted, British sedition laws were extensively used in the 18th century most notably against John Wilkes, who was a scurrilous extremist ("activist" to his friends) who bravely challenged the extent of freedom of speech and media freedom in Britain at that time through his publication North Briton.  It was eventually declared seditious by parliament and was publicly burned. The Colony of Maryland sent him 45 hogsheads of tobacco to aid in his defence; and it was the libel-for-profit, scandal-mongering Wilkes that the Framer's most recently had in mind when they enacted the First and Fourth Amendments. As James Madison, put it

"Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency." (Federalist Paper No. 10)

We have never tired of citing James Madison because people, and today particularly liberals, never tire of forgetting him. The First Amendment stands in direct repudiation of sedition laws precisely against the alleged “good” sedition laws are aimed to protect: the peace and concord of the realm. Madison's answer is unequivocal. Freedom is risky. It presents a clear and present danger to the peace and concord of the realm. So be it!

In a famous dictum, Justice Holmes analogized the First Amendment to a “market place of ideas” (Abrams v. United States (1919) 250 U.S. 616) -- a metaphor originally used by John Milton in his Areopagitica (1644). But in today's society, the metaphor unduly suggests consumer passivity and, in tandem, the need for some kind consumer protection against unsafe, injurious or contaminated ideas. That is indeed precisely the cheating gambit resorted to by the pharisees of political correctness. These snakes hiss and whine about “harmful content” on the internet, as if one could get punched in the nose by a computer screen. “Harmful content” to whom?

There is no way one can get “harmed” by reading a book, looking at a video, linking to on line material other than by knowing or thinking things someone decides one ought not know or think. Think about it. How in the fuck am I harmed by being exposed to the blasphemous idea that Jesus did not really rise from the grave unless it be assumed that (1) I actually have an eternal soul and (2) that my eternal soul will be irreparably damaged by not believing in the Saving Grace of Jesus Christ, bought and pledged by his crucifixion and resurrection?  The premise of "harm" always presupposes an iceberg of hidden assumptions.   How am I harmed by knowing that corrupt oligarchs who run the United States are leading the country into war or causing ecological collapse?  The only thing that is harmed is the narcotic assurance of not knowing -- the peace and concord of my empty mind.

NO! At the time Milton wrote there was no consumer protection in the market. Caveat Emptor was the rule. And, whatever might be said today of the need to regulate hot dogs and water, caveat emptor applies most essentially to freedom of speech. The First Amendment does not simply guarantee a “choice” of purchased opinion -- it imposes an obligation to exercise judgement. It is up to each of us to undertake to act as jurors of everything we read, without having our verdicts being directed by Content Guardians.

And I will say it further: if you don't read RT News or China Daily, if you don't read Stormfront, if you don't read Jihad Journal or Socialist International, if you don't read Institute for Historical Revisionism -- in short if you don't read the full spectrum of misinformation available and if you content yourself with approved “reliable” sources like the Slime, the Guardian, Le Monde, Die Zeit and the battery of neo-liberal, Atlanticist bullshitters, you are not being a responsible juror.

Not only do Hillary, Heiko and Jucinda want to protect you from “harmful content,” they are actively seeking to imbecilize you, in the hope that  civil society will be infantilized even more  than it is. The supposed evils, which the Guardian dangles before you like the terrible spectre of an Erlkönig are cribbed undiluted from Edward "the Hammer's"  statute of 1275

sow division!

undermine social cohesion!

draw attention to examples of western hypocrisy!

destabilise civil society and widen social fissures!

or, as Nancy Peelousy put it

“We must also be vigilant against bigoted or dangerous ideologies masquerading as policy, and that includes BDS.” 

The trajectory bears note. It began with Hillary's call for counter-propaganda -- a new cold war of words. While this was hardly unprecedented, it was concerning depending on the amount of government management that might be brought to bear. After all,  it was Donald Rumsfeld, who back in February of 2003, blithely remarked that the U.S. would be undertaking counter-information "dark ops."  He seemed to find it amusing that one would never be able to tell who really might be behind some report or opinion.  Fast forward 13 years.  Accusing the Russians of what Rumsfeld promised to do, the trajectory then hit the next stage with Neo-McCarthyite scaremongering against subversive fake news which supposedly deprived Hillary of her rightful due thereby undermining our democratic processes. From that pivot point of vengeance and hysteria, the trajectory very quickly metamorphosed into Heiko and Jucinda's call to securitize the internet against so-called "violent extremist" and "inappropriate" content. 

Today's Guardian screed could not more clearly state what these scumbags of safety and correctness are about. They spit it out at your face. And as they do so, they tell you that you need to be protected from things that are “masquerading” as policy, as news, as something you might want (but ought not) to consider. No...no! There is no need for you to consider anything! The acceptable “choices” will be given to you in due and proper course. Otherwise, do not read what we don't want you to read, and hate what we tell you to hate.

https://youtu.be/0KeX5OZr0A4

While 1984 states the paradigm, what our rulers have learned since 1949 is that hate can be managed more suavely under a veneer of civility, appealing to so-called humanitarian principles accepted a priori. “Hate” is replaced with “unacceptibility.” The epithet is the proof.  Anything labelled “inappropriate” (or fascist, or extremist, or racist or chauvinist, or xenophobic or homophobic or antisemitic or any one of a veritiable lexicon of virtue signalling epithets) is disparaged with an annoyed contempt.  Anything branded is rejected as  “potentially dangerous” with furrowed concern. But this is merely a question of modulation and volume. When it is necessary to dial up the frenzy, it can be done as it was in 1991 or 2003.

Moreover, as we have also discussed before, it is never simply a matter of banning some speech or opinion which is actually injurious to the status quo.  It is always a question of tendencies.  Just as truth as not a defence, seditious libel statutes never required proof of actual harm but only of a tendency to give rise to harm -- or in today's pleonastic lingo of a potential danger.   The ferocious claw of state will be brought down on anyone who rubs the cat the wrong way.

And while the Guardian blabbers about extremist content, hate speech, and fake or weaponized news, it publishes crap like the following:

"The unemployment rate rose [sic] one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.7% as people entered [sic] the labor market."

How Orwellian is that? During the 1950's and 60's when the United States was happy and prosperous, there was no need to fabricate statistics as to the availability of grams of chocolate per capita. But in the 1990's as the long term trajectory of economic decline became clear, it became necessary to engage in statistical double-think to keep the people cohesive and ignorant as to their own state of well-being. As economic and ecological collapse continue unabated we can expect the mainstream media to feed us more lies as to the true state of affairs and Truth Warriors like the Guardian will urge us to emphatically reject examples of western hypocrisy brought to our attention by hostile actors. 

This article is not just a matter of some techie seeking to justify his employment.  It is part and parcel of an assault on freedom of speech and an open internet that has been going on with vengeance in the past two years.  Google's algorithms are being adjusted so as to steer users to "mainstream" content.  You Tube is demonetizing, marginalizing and outright suppressing content it arbitrarily bans as "extremist" or "dangerous" or guilty of some unspecified "inappropriateness" under so-called "community guidelines." It is straight out of the Nazi playbook. The fact that the bans may appear inconsistent and irrational is no comfort.  Arbitrariness is a well tried method in the arsenal of despotism. Why?  Because, as was said,  "the question is not what is prohibited but what is allowed."  That is exactly the state of generalized uncertainty all tyrants are delighted to engender.   

There is no life without oxygen or without strife.  Howsoever stuffed with righteousness Hillary the Scorned, Heiko the Idiot , Jucinda the Mournful and their long train of politically correct, liberal virtue warriors may be, they are suffocating the life out of civil society. 

©wcg 2019