I'd point out that in addition to the actions Glenn highlights above, we also have the current administration either watching silently or giving tacit approval to congressional efforts to encourage corporate censorship of independent journalism.
The media has been predominantly a leftist agenda driven entity for decades. And for those decades distortion of truth has been the MO. This is not new. 90%+ journalists are self described leftists.
What is new is the left now has, for the most part, power over everything.
Yet the same people who vote for Bernie and think he’s their ideal, a man who fell in love with the drabby pathetic life of Eastern European communism at a young age, are surprised that censorship has taken hold when the left gets power? It’s surreal how detached from reality the left has become.
Words don’t mean much. Bernie didn’t pay his own campaign workers $15 because “he couldn’t afford it”. He used to be super anti illegal
Immigration until 2015 (trump) when he did a whole 180 flip. He used to call illegal immigration a “right wing proposal where illegals work for a dollar or two and drive down wages”. He used to complain about millionaires and billionaires until he became a multi millionaire himself. Then he only complained about billionaires. Verify this yourself by searching his twitter for millionaires and billionaires.
How anyone trusts a single word out of his mouth is beyond me.
Here’s him on video calling open borders and illegal immigration “right wing”:
This! I know there are a lot of Minimum wage supporters here, and I respect the sentiment, but I can't understand how it stands to reason. Especially on a national level. Even on some state levels. $15/hr is one thing in NYC and a completely different thing in Iowa. Hell, it's one thing in Miami, and yet a completely different thing in Orlando.
This is just for starters, of course. Nevermind the absurdity of paying so much to a large part of population who cannot bother to show up on time with even a decent attitude.
> New York's minimum wage law would have added $46,000 a month to his labor costs in 2019. Milite said: "I know it doesn't sound like much -- $2 an hour. But when you multiply it by 40 hours, by 130 people, it becomes a big number. It was going to increase our monthly payroll $46,000."
> And yet, even this high level of sales wasn’t enough to inoculate the business from the rising cost of rent and wages in New York. Coffee Shop co-owner and president Charlies Milite told Forbes that rent had become “unusually high,” accounting for close to 27% of the restaurant’s gross revenues. Add in the scheduled $2-per-hour minimum wage hike set to take place on December 31—an increase that, across Coffee Shop’s 150 employees and multiple dayparts of service, would have added $46,000 to the monthly payroll—made it impossible to break even by cutting costs elsewhere.
Also why are we doing this from a federal level instead of local level? Cost of living vastly differ. SF vs Texas. Even within a state they differ vastly from one locality to another.
Some people might get a small raise while others will get a 100% decrease.
And what happens to those people who are currently making $15 (before the hike)? Do people really think they will get a raise too? Or now you will just end up with more people making minimum wage even though they have differing skill sets.
This comment from a post on The_Donald few years ago sums it up well with easy math:
If a coffee shop is open from 7 am to 8 pm, then their staff probably shows at least 30 minutes early and stays at least 30 minutes after closing. That’s a 14 hour period of staff working. If they average 4 workers on the clock at all times, then that’s 56 man hours per day. In NY, I suspect they’re open 7 days a week. That’s 392 man hours per week.
If that business is required to increase their pay rate by $2 per hour, that’s a payroll increase of $784 per week, which is $40,768 per year.
Now if this business was doing well, the owner would probably be paying themselves anywhere from $80-$120,000, since this is NY and living expenses are high. So with this $2/hr pay increase, this small business owner has been forced by the Government (read “under threat of death”) to give up at best 30% of their income and at worst 50%.
**Now you tell my what incentive anyone has under this system to start businesses and employ staff?**
The profit margin at most restaurants is slim, usually around 5%. Larger companies and chains can eat the extra cost, and even welcome it, because as the smaller businesses close they will absorb their customer base. Once competition is eliminated they can then raise prices and continue on as usual. This is true not just for restaurants but across all sectors.
The $15 minimum wage is great for big business (which is why Amazon and Walmart pushed for it as it eliminates competition), but people are too stupid to look behind the curtain at who really controls them. Give a person a cause and (s)he will fight for it blindly.
Symptom of corporate consolidation. Big name retailers and businesses can afford a price hike, smaller scale and local can't.
They think reality can be averted. Use compulsion to force wages higher, many jobs disappear
But then there are those who *know* many jobs will disappear but that’s what they want. They’re not motivated benevolence. They just want everyone with a leash around their neck
I have seen a lot of restaurants and businesses fail. The owners sank their life savings into them and get very little use out of their "capital losses" when the business fails. But if it succeeds, the government is their to tax the earnings and profits. If it succeeds for a while and then fails, you don't get a refund for all those taxes you paid while things were good.
Because most of these restuarants and shops don’t have political connections. Even the franchises like McDonald’s are run by some small mom and pop who has to pay franchise fee.
I am a tax lawyer and I have seen how our efforts to limit executive compensation have failed. We need to be original and find ways that will really work instead of supposed solutions that have backdoors. I am a political conservative, but I am disgusted by the way that big corporations and their executives abuse tax law, steal from their shareholders, cheat their employees, and corrupt our political process.
Then disown, divest, and persuade others. Otherwise, you are a Fascist, thinking that the State (the "agent" of a society) should force property owners to enter contracts they would not otherwise.
Or, buy stock and become active in changing the corporations contracting of management.
Let me parse my answer this way. Anyone deserves exactly what "someone" is *willing* to pay that person. Given that the taxpayers - even evil conservatives - are not willing participants in that transaction, they deserve exactly dick. I'll go further than that. I think officers of publicly held companies should be financially culpable for the results of any gross mismanagement. In other words, they'd be leaving with less than what they came with. If that gross mismanagement is the result of fraud or other illegal activities, then jail should be on the table - obviously.
I am a conservative, but apparently not one of the "evil" ones because I agree with you that corporate executives should be held responsible for their misdeeds. Instead, the "corporation" gets charged or indicted and any penalties are paid out of the corporate coffers (by the shareholders) and not by the executives.
There’s a difference between what I and you want and what we get.
If anyone thinks the corrupt incompetent bloated government will somehow stop watching out for the big crony corporations, same ones who literally lobby and write the bills to be voted on by their bought politicians, then we are living in fantasy land.
I disagree with maximum wage. There shouldn’t even be a bailout or subsidies to begin with. A real capitalist system lets these companies go bankrupt for poor decisions and bad planning. Nor should the government ever be allowed to even tell businesses to shut down.
Firstly I don’t get to decide how much you or someone else makes. I don’t get to tell anyone how many cars and houses they own. I am not rich, don’t own car or house but it’s not my business to tell others.
Secondly putting an upper cap is intentionally stifling innovation.
Also being “worth” is a lot different. The Theranos CEO was worth 10 billion and pretty much went down to zero overnight.
I think we are wasting time debating over things which will never ever get achieved by the corrupt politicians. All the bills and laws and whatever they write is worthless when they don’t get enforced. There’s so many campaign finance laws and yet nothing stopped Facebook from spending 300 million on democrat dense localities. Rick Snyder is still not in prison for knowingly poisoning flint Michigan. Hunter Biden is getting book deals while lying on federal gun background checks and throwing an illegal gun in the dumpster. Richard Burr, Kelly Loeffler, Diane Fiensten, Nancy Pelosi all did insider trading. But they made it legal for themselves. Eric Swallwell literally slept with a spy and he still serves on the house Intel committee. It’s a freaking joke.
So yea, all these laws are useless when it comes to those who are politically connected.
Yes, I do believe in the right to own property but if you going to have a minimum wage you ought to have a maximum wage as well. It should cover both ends.
Exactly he is just like every D & R - they like their pathetic little power seat and they will do what it takes to keep it. Bernie knows there’s a portion of the population for whom “everything will be free” resonates. Basically it resonates with all of the overgrown children who literally think about economics like a toddler.
Respectfully, Nancy, I believe his anecdote was meant to point out the hypocrisy of Bernie's actions, and likely the disingenuous nature of his position entirely (and did a good job of doing so, personally).
The fact that his employees (with the help of bad PR, I'm sure) persuaded him to follow through on his own purported standards, is not a great refutation to the issue posited. Essentially, it doesn't change anything about the (albeit compressed) story that CNNis Fake offered.
He's not so much a senator, as a "politician running for office." He figured out a few years ago that running every 6 years doesn't bring in enough funds to pay for bumper stickers printed by family and friends. So he runs for 2 years every 4 or 6, depending on which office is open.
It's not his fault fools and their money soon part. He's a genius in my book, tapping into cognitive dissonance in the general population for personal gain AND hero status.
And yet - since you can’t comprehend the obvious contradiction in his brain any better than he can - let me help you
All the communist systems he’s been so fond of all use censorship
Is it penetrating yet - or are you just as evasive and intellectually dishonest as him. Your brain can’t comprehend what a contradiction is - yet you think others are the idiot
I wish the Bernie policy advocates would once read up on the fact that Scandinavian countries do the exact opposite of what Bernie policy wants- they have the lowest corporate income tax of 25% and super high personal income tax of 60% for anyone making 1.3x average salary plus 25% sales tax on everything. Plus they are homogenous low population without illegal immigration and even harder legal immigration. Bernie claims to want Scandinavian utopia while using opposite policies. That’s how you know Bernie is a fraud or simply ignorant.
" they have the lowest corporate income tax of 25% and super high personal income tax of 60% for anyone making 1.3x average salary plus 25% sales tax on everything....That’s how you know Bernie is a fraud or simply ignorant."
You conservatives who hate when the neoliberals lie about you are so often gross hypocrites, who lie themselves. Here's what Bernie actually advocates to pay for his desperately needed programs such as universal health care:
>>These options include:
Creating a 4 percent income-based premium paid by employees, exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four.
In 2018, the typical working family paid an average of $6,015 in premiums to private health insurance companies. Under this option, a typical family of four earning $60,000, would pay a 4 percent income-based premium to fund Medicare for All on income above $29,000 – just $1,240 a year – saving that family $4,775 a year. Families of four making less than $29,000 a year would not pay this premium.
(Revenue raised: About $4 trillion over 10 years.)
Imposing a 7.5 percent income-based premium paid by employers, exempting the first $1 million in payroll to protect small businesses.
In 2018, employers paid an average of $14,561 in private health insurance premiums for a worker with a family of four. Under this option, employers would pay a 7.5 percent payroll tax to help finance Medicare for All – just $4,500 – a savings of more than $10,000 a year.
(Revenue raised: Over $5.2 trillion over 10 years.)
Eliminating health tax expenditures, which would no longer be needed under Medicare for All.
(Revenue raised: About $3 trillion over 10 years.)
Raising the top marginal income tax rate to 52% on income over $10 million.
(Revenue raised: About $700 billion over 10 years.)
Replacing the cap on the state and local tax deduction with an overall dollar cap of $50,000 for a married couple on all itemized deductions.
(Revenue raised: About $400 billion over 10 years.)
Taxing capital gains at the same rates as income from wages and cracking down on gaming through derivatives, like-kind exchanges, and the zero tax rate on capital gains passed on through bequests.
(Revenue raised: About $2.5 trillion over 10 years.)
Enacting the For the 99.8% Act, which returns the estate tax exemption to the 2009 level of $3.5 million, closes egregious loopholes, and increases rates progressively including by adding a top tax rate of 77% on estate values in excess of $1 billion.
(Revenue raised: $336 billion over 10 years.)
Enacting corporate tax reform including restoring the top federal corporate income tax rate to 35 percent.<<
Also I won't even mention "Norway is situated on large reserves of oil and charges companies a corporate income tax rate of 78 percent on extractive activities."
Goes against the whole "climate change" narrative.
> they have the lowest corporate income tax of 25%
You stated Bernie:
> Enacting corporate tax reform including restoring the top federal corporate income tax rate to 35 percent.
This alone is exact opposite of what Scandinavian countries do vs what Bernie wants. In fact, when I double checked, Scandinavian countries corporate income tax is even lower:
> Both Denmark’s and Norway’s statutory corporate income tax rates are 22 percent and Sweden’s corporate income tax rate is 21.4 percent. The U.S. tax rate on corporations is higher at 25.9 percent (federal and state combined).
I stated:
> they have super high personal income tax of 60% for anyone making 1.3x average salary plus 25% sales tax on everything
You stated Bernie:
> Raising the top marginal income tax rate to 52% on income over $10 million.
Denmark's income tax is 60% on 1.3x the average income (source below). So if average income is $50k, then it means anyone making $65k and over pays 60% in income tax. Also 25% sales tax on everything you buy - from eggs to everything.
Bernie claiming to want only 52% over $10 million is VERY different from what's actually needed to achieve Scandinavian model of anyone making $65k and over pays 60% in income tax. Especially considering the US population is 70x the population of Scandinavian countries and Bernie is pro illegal immigration now too - free shit for everyone.
"Scandinavian countries tend to levy top personal income tax rates on (upper) middle-class earners, not just high-income taxpayers. For example, in Denmark the top statutory personal income tax rate of 55.9 percent applies to all income over 1.3 times the average income. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $65,000 (1.3 times the average U.S. income of about $50,000) would be taxed at 55.9 percent."
Mona, you know very well that Bernie only "wants" these things when he is campaigning in an election he's planning to lose. He has never fought the corporate democrats for these things except on various vapid talk show appearances and in occasional debates before he pulls out and supports the war candidate.
You mean the ones that after socialism having worked itself through the country like a colony of termites, was forced to privatize industries and revert to mixed economies? You mean the ones that have lived the last 30 years off of selling fossil fuels to capitalist countries?
When every level of tax is factored they are just western mixed economies. But then you’re a lawyer, so like most you know just enough to be dangerous and have the dumbfuck hubris to think central planners can engineer something better than individuals acting in voluntary mutual agreement.
Everyone: Government is so corrupt, incompetent and bloated! They don't care about us people!!!!
Leftists: We agree! Lets give them more power over our lives, give them more of our taxes, health care and let them decide who gets to own guns and who gets to speak what!
It's a sort of rite of passage where socialists discover some optimised form of big government that gets everything right and everything falls into line. I completely understand it in the young but it's terrifying past middle age.
Wow. You are clueless. Bernie didn’t honeymoon in Denmark but the USSR. The scandis laugh at Bernie and have told him to STFU as they are not socialists like him but market economies
Here is Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of Denmark noting that the Nordic Model generally, and Denmark in particular, are not socialist but rather market economies.
Aye, this seems to be the dirty little secret of how things actually work over there. "Socialism" held up by a much more capitalistic and free market than the US (with taxes on even the lowest of earners). Also things like a completely free and strong education system (that includes school choice/vouchers). On and on there are examples of important things that make their system work/sustainable, all of which seems to be ignored in Bernie's version, he had planned for us.
Tulsi Gabbard is the Cheney of the Democrats. She was certainly the most independent-minded, intelligent, and had a more broad perspective on the real world than any other politician on the candidates' stage. She would have been the last to succumb to the pressure of the CIA.
Unfortunately, Hillary hated her and Hillary controlled the party establishment and still does. Hillary has the long claws of vengeance so Tulsi went nowhere. Now Biden under the party's direction won't even give her a position near the top, but Peter Buttigieg has a cabinet post despite his failure as Major of an Indiana podunk town. Guess why.
Her father's Dick. Heartless. Yes, he should be tried. She, however, is just a right wing loose cannon and a rebel. I don't know much about her except that she has the courage to defy Trump and Trumpists just as Tulsi defied Trump's Democrat equivalent, Hillary. It was that courage I was talking about. It's hard to find courage in contemporary politics. Were it to be found, a lot of things would change that would be far more profound and lasting than what Hillary and Biden propose.
Almost the entire Republican Party since 2015 has been defying trump. You think defying trump makes someone brave? That’s the opposite reality. Anyone who supported trump got absolutely trashed from the media and democrats. You think Bush, Cheney, Mitt Romney, Lincoln Project, McCain etc are all “brave” because they defy Trump?
As Biden would say- “C’mon man”. Only a real brave person can support and stick with trump. This is why the vast majority of trump supporters absolutely hate the spineless cowards in the GOP. They aren’t brave. They are spineless useless establishment cronies which unfortunately the entire GOP is filled with. Almost every sour loser who lost to Trump in 2016 is an establishment crony supporting Biden.
When you have war criminals like Bush, Cheney, McCain, Brennan, Clapper, Comey and entire Intel agencies support the “progressive” candidate, then it’s time to run far far away.
Real bravery required standing up for your principles instead of running away like a wet cat the first instance someone calls you a racist or sexist. The GOP is filled with such spineless cowards. And that’s how Liz Cheney and Bush become darlings of Rachel Maddow.
Even tulsi didn’t call out censorship and russiagate until it happened to herself.
I could not agree more. At the installment of Biden It was hard to watch at least there prior presidents; all war criminals celebrating in the steps of the capital.
Lets call them democrats and not leftist giving the illusion they're really liberal and think independently. This is the group that pushed our wars and retained no journalistic independence as they pushed the lies that the democrats spun.
Yes! I am sure the "right wingers" are the ones who attacked left-wing Trump, censoring him and getting him out of office. C'mon people. I love Jimmy Dore but this "every bad thing is right wing" is getting tiring.
That's the truth of the matter. This has been an autocratic right-wing nation since the industrial revolution save for the years when FDR had to pick up the pieces for a while- and he was no leftist, just the last of the democratic Democrats.
Yes! So autocratic right-wing that they couldn't spare a single moment bashing the left-wing Trump, censoring him and getting him out of office. C'mon people. I love Jimmy Dore but this "every bad thing is right wing" is getting tiring.
There's no left-wing left. There is the extreme right, center right (Republicans. and minor right (the Democrats.) The two parties are fronts for the Central Intelligence agencies since 1988. They are all gradations of neo and real fascism and they hunger for the wars from which they profit.
You still haven't disclosed why "minor right" democrats went so hard after Trump and his supporters. Was Trump a leftist?
To be fair, Trump was a liberal on many issues. He used to be a Democrat till 2010 too. He changed because the Democrat party has gone insane. Now if they had gone insane because they moved to the right, then why would Trump become a republican which by your definition is "centre right"? So that only leaves one possibility - that the democrat party has moved way far left.
The authoritarian left and the authoritarian right are the exact same. People seem to think it's a linear scale with left and right on each side. But it's not. It's a triangle where the classical left and populist right are on two corners while the third corner is occupied by the authoritarian left + right (consisting of the establishment cronies, media, corporations etc).
I understand what you are trying to say but I would just say - you and I both seem to be classical liberals. But the Democrats are authoritarian left.
Check out this funny skit by Ryan Long "When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything":
I've never heard of anyone, from Basil II to Hitler, who didn't do at least something of value (although Dick Cheney and his cronies would push me to the wall.)
Why? Bannon convinced Trump he could become President. The two men are Opportunists of an extreme. They don't really believe in anything beyond their personal interests. Bannon says as much in a long interview. Bannon was a bright man and a brilliant salesman. And it worked.
I find Woke a joke and Racism everywhere. America has been reduced to a myriad of splinters of Victims. Everyone belongs to somewhere between 1 and 5 splinter groups. They all sound like nails on a blackboard. They all get a little sop at breakfast that gives them the strength for the daily shriek. The cacaphony (yes, I know about spelling) comes from the floor, ceiling, and the four walls, drowning out room for intelligence, solutions, or action of real value.
I did not support Sanders, but he would have been a better president than Biden. When Sanders was Mayor of Burlington, he ran the administration of the city as a good government leader who exposed corruption. Biden is a lying, corrupt influence peddler that the media is hailing as a political messiah. He will allow corruption to flourish while the media gleefully ignores the story.
U.S. media services both the "right" and the so called "left" which is really the corporate Liberal pov -- NYTimes, WAPO, CNN, MSNBC, etc. FOX, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, Newsmax, OAmerica News (along with talk radio) supports regressive right wing views. Generally, they both support Wall Street and "American Global Empire" in slightly different ways, and they both are loath to support and continue to resist the necessity to make fundamental changes in the decaying "capitalist system" that would serve the vast majority of Americans. The Right in America -- insofar as it wants to suppress voting rights across America out of anger from losing the election because more people came out to vote to get rid of the absurd and disastrous Trump -- is far more "detached" from reality than the so called "left" (really corporate Liberals) who engineered the demise of Bernie in order to continue to work with corporate power. None of this is surprising AND we all need to be increasingly wary of censorship -- especially given the power of the Tech giants, etc.
Voter ID is so very repressive. We want every LEGAL vote and voter counted. The last election had an extraordinary amount of fraud in selective states. Why not a legitimate investigation to prove me(and millions of others) wrong
Does it really matter what fraction of journalists are leftists, as long as it's less than 100% ? Whoever wants to can tune in to FOX news or read Breitbart. It's not like more left-wing journalists can really distort the truth more. How much they can distort the truth is determined by the audience.
Re. : "The media has been predominantly a leftist agenda driven entity ..." . You completely misunderstand what "leftist" means; and furthermore, who and what the main stream media represent. Both the so-called "Right wing" media and the so-called "liberal media" are primarily representative of concentrated private capital. As such, they are protectors of an economic & political status quo. They differ ONLY in degrees of their cultural identity affinities.
Unfortunately, your views suggest that you have already fallen into the trap of this binary world-view - one which is cultivated by both the "liberal" and "conservative" faces of the media. Time to wake up.
No, some nebbishy people liked the pathetic life of communism. If you are below average in physical appearance and ability, just average in intellectual output, and envious of those who have what you ain't got... Eastern European Communism is for you!
Are you forgetting the outstanding pulitzer winning NYTimes journalist Walter Duranty and other similar "journalists"? Who lied about holodomor and the famine and millions dying in Soviet?
Bernie’s own senate website to this day includes statements on how the American dream can be achieved easily in Venezuela than USA and asks “who is the banana republic now?”
People have to be special type of stupid to think Bernie is legit LOL
Are you talking to yourself, Andreas, or simply trolling? It is true that most inner cities in the USA are filled with violent criminals and their victims. And it is true that one can seek high and low in the Swiss Alps to find a grubby trailer park such as those prevalent in low-income America. Yet, if I am not mistaken, Glenn's article is about the hypocrisy of Blinken and the totalitarian policies of the Biden administration. A discussion of the pros and cons of communism v capitalism can be found elsewhere.
I have read the Philip Roth biography by Blake Bailey (now not to be reprinted because the author has been found problematic) and the work Roth did to support “Writers from the Other Europe” such as Milan Kundera and Bohumil Hrabal bear close review on these realities.
Actually I think they want to replace CSU/CDU and as a first act cancel NS2 - because of course it is so much more green to haul fracked gas from half a world away with hundreds of ships and creating ports with polluted dead zones than a direct pipe between producer and consumer.
Bernie may not always do what I want, and indeed has disappointed me on occasion, but he is still the best elected official we've had in a very long time. He is the only one to consistently vote against bloated "defense" spending, to speak out against regime change, to give climate change the attention it deserves, and to speak for a fair economy. As a "social democrat" he may not be radical enough for some on the left (who think they'd do better but wouldn't have a snowball's chance at winning any election); and he will always be at the same time impugned as a Commie by those on the right; and the establishment / moneyed elites will continue to put all energy into smearing and obstructing him. I find it amusing that self-professed progressives attack him given this.
Oh, I don't wonder *how* they can lie with a straight face, I know how and why. It's precisely because the United States doesn't have a free press. It has an establishment-(D) loving propaganda machine who will NEVER question the words coming out of that liar's mouth. And HE KNOWS IT. They wouldn't dream of challenging the lies of a Democrat Administration.
They never challenged Dementia Joe when he was calling a lid on the day at 9 am during the campaign and they're not going to challenge anything that this administration does or lies about for the next four years. Get used to it. I've seen this shit before.
The right has their media too, such as FOX. Media supports the establishment, even when it doesn't support the President or members of Congress. The argument about whether media is left leaning or right leaning is kind of pointless because both parties maintain the status quo.
I wish The Democratic Party and media were "far left" but the reality is that they are center or center right, while giving lip service to the left. Since Bill Clinton, The Democratic Party has abandoned the left (workers and families) in order to promote the interests of corporations and the wealthy. The Republican party has always promoted the interests of corporations and the wealthy, mostly in an honest way, though I often disagree with Republican policy.
The problem is that without an actual left voting party, the interests of corporations and the wealthy are over emphasized to the detriment of workers and families. We can argue about how "radical" some left ideas are, but it is pretty obvious that we need to do something about an economy unfair to workers and families, an inadequate, expensive health care system and a political system unresponsive to the democratic will of the public.
Ideas such as a universal single payer health care system do not have to be a path to a socialist government or even a significantly socialist economy. Those ideas have been proven in countries with mixed economies, and despite their own problems, they work better than our current systems.
Despite being a leftist, I am more interested in results than ideology. We need to try some new ideas, both from the left and the right. We should give those ideas a fair shot, with the necessary government and public support, and then see how well they work. The problem now, is that we block ideas that we don't agree with so that they are never given a chance. We don't have to use an all or nothing approach to changes, or treat all changes as permanent. If we on the left and right support each other's ideas we can change the things we agree are problems.
There are choices that fall somewhere between the left and the right. For example, mutual insurance companies are non-profit, public companies that are not part of government. They might be a solution to some of our health care system problems, either alone, or in combination with for profit insurance companies. There will always be a lot of resistance to change, even modest change. The left has to be willing to be less radical, and the right has to be willing to make changes where needed, despite the resistance from corporations and the wealthy. If we don't correct the problems, the systems will fail.
We need to talk to each other, and not depend on media that distorts or exaggerates the opposition. I've had many productive and interesting discussions with people who disagree with me. There are fanatics on the left and the right, but they are not the majority. If we take media out of the middle, we can agree on some things, and build on that. We can also support trying some of the ideas we don't agree with, in exchange for support trying some of our ideas. It is only the media and politics that needs conflict and labeled enemies. We can be perfectly happy without making each other enemies, and despite disagreeing on things.
I think we should take Blanken at his word when he says, "Countries that deny freedom of the press don't have a lot of confidence in themselves or their systems".
One of the reasons why I largely stopped reading mainstream newspapers is their failure to stand up for Assange. Just looking back to the "reporting" about the Assange trial by the Guardian ...
I think I may be a good example of why the US government is scared of Assange and unrestricted journalism. I changed my mind about our military and our government after the reporting on what we were doing in Iraq was exposed. I was disgusted and changed my entire perspective about being lied to. I don't think I was alone.
Blinken and all these guys are stooges for the oligarchy, which I think most people understand in some way, even if they don't fully know what the endgame is. The bigger picture is that the Western financial oligarchy is siting atop the largest financial bubble in human history, hundreds of trillions of dollars in worthless derivatives debt, which the bailouts have been used to keep afloat. In contrast, the Eurasian nations have opted for real physical economic development, and they have not allowed themselves to be kept hostage by predatory financial centers in the same way as the west. Notice all the city building, infrastructure, high speed rail, advanced nuclear power?
The western oligarchy is trying at all cost to somehow stop these developments.
In light of this, I think it's important to keep a discussion of solutions are forefront. Let Wall Street and the City of London go bankrupt. Let their worthless debts be cancelled, and let the average person, their savings, loans to productive business be protected. This is what happened in the 1930s when Roosevelt went to all out war with Wall Street.
I hope you are including state governments and their pensions in this “let them go bankrupt” statement because they are part of the same machine and do the exact same thing as Wall St. If not then you are being hypocritical.
Well, the Glass-Steagall Act is pretty clear and succinct. You should check out how it was done in the 30s with a banking holiday, new credit being issued based on productive activity (as opposed to worthless speculation) etc.. It comes down to the general welfare principle, which is at the heart of the American system. Money is not money. There are different kinds of debts and different kinds of value. In a serious bankruptcy reorganization, you have to be able to made the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate debts. If you can't do that, you're done. Loads to farmers are not the same as loans for bankrupt speculative zombie banks.
You can't honor hundreds of trillions of dollars in worthless financial derivatives (this is what the bailouts have been used for) and also protect the average person. You can't. So a choice needs to be made. Which do you want to save?
So the state governments and pensions do the exact same thing as the Wall St vultures, like run ponzu schemes, lobby the federal government for funds from which they steal, demand tens of billions in stimulus bailouts to pay for buying votes, etc etc, but should be treated differently because some of the money allegedly goes to government run services?
The point is that there is no way to save the bulk of the cancerous speculative debt. You have to start there. You're going to have to make a decision on what you can save and what you can't. Much of the debt is worthless, it has no intrinsic value and it's not tied to anything with intrinsic value. Period.
Glass-Steagall was done before, so maybe look into how it was done in the past? There will always be corruption, that's not an excuse for not coming up with solutions or avoiding a bankruptcy reorganization.... And yes, there are pension funds tied into speculative activities as well, that's why part of what Glass-Steagall banking separation does is it creates guarantees for legitimate debts, commercial debts, debts for farmers, pensions, these things are honored or protected in one way or another, or to some degree. What's not protected is the cancerous bulk of the speculative debt, which is not tied to anything productive or to the average person.
Something like JP Morgan Chase and Co would likely be split up into two or more institutions where some would be left to hold the brunt of the toxic assets while others would contain more of the commercial banking assets, deposits, pensions etc... The other institution(s) would be the toxic bank with purely fictitious assets. It would just be left to go belly up since no one has any obligation to protect these debts, not people, not governments, no one. The banks gambled and lost, they go down, but they can't take the rest of the economy down with them. Period.
One could argue that many of the huge public pensions are cancerous speculative debt. When issued, who could argue that they were actuarially sound? More and more of these guaranteed pensions can not meet its annual increases via a mix of equity and bonds in the current interest rate environment. Just like Social Security, the crushing debt was/is pushed into the future. Who in Congress is looking closely at these debt bubbles? What is the solution? How will these debts be funded?
The only way to fund debts is by creating debts which at the same time create the means for extinguishing the debt. Creating speculative bubbles is the opposite, you create fake assets, fake debts, and then require more capital and investment to be directed into the bubble in order to keep it going. If you dont keep feeding it, the bubble crashes and the game is over. Infrastructure on the other hand means creating the platform on which all economic activity can thrive. And major scientific drivers and innovation is key to unlocking and developing new platforms.
Take Nasa’s Apollo program as an example. It was shown that for every dollar invested in the program there was a 10-14 dollar return.
Why? Because the program creates countless spinoff technologies that could then be integrated into the civilian economy, from heart monitors, telecommunications, engineering and materials production, insulation etc...
The same applies with basic infrastructure like water irrigation which can turn deserts into fertile lands, advanced rail which increases connectivity among cities and trade centres, making new economic relations possible.
However, the possibilities are endless when society is producing generation after generation of people who can make new fundamental breakthroughs. THIS is what empires want to eliminate and instead force a fixed closed Malthusian system where things just become reduced to the allocation and control of fixed resources and scarcity, which they as much want to control and limit. Basically, to run an empire you have to make sure the mind of the average person is allowed to develop to freely or deeply, because that entails a closed system of constant change, which is much more difficult to control than a open system which constantly changes and integrates new principles.
So, I got this email yesterday from...(😂 as I write this I get another about Rachael Maddow called out Trump’s crimes “arrest Donald Trump” wow! These people have lost it!)... Progressive Take Over about “Bankrupt Donald Trump” and how they want to strip him of his lifetime presidential pension and any other benefits he gets from having been president. Which, that’s fine by me actually.
If we do that to ALL ex presidents - instead of paying them a salary, paying security for them to fly private from $.5M corporate speech to $.5M corporate speech and allowing them to profit from the Office for the rest of their lives at catastrophic costs to on going politics- right there we can fund SS.
It is a novel/crazy idea on one hand - borne and driven purely by DTS. But!!!!! Even a broken clock is right twice a day. On the other it’s a paradigm shift that could stand to benefit us greatly in the sense that it would deter your typical greedy politicians and attract public servants.
But the public pension is a dinosaur. Yes, there will be pain in phasing out defined benefit, as opposed to defined contribution. These are lifetime timelines. Change will take time, but it is already a foregone conclusion.
"A few bankers possess the world 's commodities and put the rest in debt and misery."
Right. The pie never grows. Ever. And no non-banker individual is free to collect pie (save and invest). They must consume ALL the crumbs the big bad bankers throw down to them.
The essence of the twentieth century doctrine of "Geopolitics" (coined by Lord Mackinder) is all about the control of Eurasia. He who controls Eurasia, the "world island" is able to control everything around that. The whole purpose of geopolitics is to keep Russia, China and the US at odds. That's literally what geopolitics is about. That's where the word comes from. It's a historically specific term about how the British would be able to keep Russia, China and the US separated and polarized, with the Middle East as a key choke point between Europe and Asia.
You can even go back to the history of Venice to study how they kept one nation pinned against the other in order to maintain a "balance of power." We are simply dealing with the modern version of this. The whole thing is maintained by artificial means.
On a more spiritual level, I think you probably need to swallow your pride. You don't have the moral high ground; the US does not have a moral high ground; you are NOT in a position to lecture others on morals and a "rules based order." The US is also not in a position to have military bases across the world, ABM systems on Russia's border and claim that they are "defensive" when they can rapidly be retooled as an offensive system to prevent Russia from launching a retaliatory Nuclear Strike as a response to a US Nuclear FIRST STRIKE.... i.e. certain factions in the US establishment want to be able to initiate a Nuclear war and win it... And it makes sense if you put yourself in the position of a psychopath, because they really don't have any means left for subverting Russia, China and the rise of Eurasia.
The US is also not in a position to lecture about Chinese "aggression" when sailing warships in the SOUTH CHINA SEA.
The Five Eyes has done a lot of work to make you feel like you are the victim, that the West is "under attack" in the same way Hitler said he had to respond to "communist" aggression. It was just an excuse to establish a fascist state and launch wars of aggression, the highest crime according to the Nuremberg standards. Notice any similarities? Wars of aggression launched under the guise of self-defense?
If you want to get along with others, you need to start there. One has to swallow their pride and cut the moral high-ground crap. The western system is completely rotting from the inside, and none of it has to do with China or Russia. It has to do with Wall Street, the City of London (which run most of the media outlets telling you it's all Russia and China's fault) and their Five Eyes intelligence establishment, which is much more sophisticated and advanced than anything Russia or China have in terms of global surveillance and surveillance of its citizens.
If you get rid of the bankrupt Wall Street/City of London system, Russia, China and the US would get along just fine. In fact, that peaceful dialogue among such different and rich cultures would be one of the best things that could ever happen to the world. The oligarchs (which are not a country, nation or government) do everything they can to make sure this doesn't happen.
Investing in infrastructure and regulating banks is not a communist idea bud... Are you sure you're not reading some City of London mouth piece like "The Economist"?
High speed rail and nuclear power are not Chinese communist ideas... Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater... The alternative in bail-ins and hyperinflation. That's where you are. Some serious decisions have to be made.
Yes, but not stopping construction because a few workers fell into the concrete pilings, and to fish them out would cause unnecessary delays... that's efficiency!
MSM propaganda. There is no evidence for slave labor camps in China. Just the opposite, in fact, as "eyewitness" testimony is inconsistent and often individuals quoted change their story over time. And all presenters organize their release of information through Uygur Congress types, American Neocon think tanks, and the "Memorial of the victims of communism Foundation" in Washington D.C.
Yet there are no photographs. No images of the camps. No video of this massive scale abuse. What it seems to be is what the PRC says it is: a program of vocational training for Uygurs, some of whom are forced into the programs as a diversion from potential extremist or criminal activity. It is, no doubt, not something that most people in the West would define as democratic, yet it falls far short of the hysterical and blown up claims of genocide and slave labor. In fact, Western news coverage of the topic seems a great deal like hybrid information war being echoed through media.
Videos of...people going to school. People decrying Western reports as nonsense. People working at their jobs and providing for their families. Where are the videos of abuse, of people being beaten, of mass graves and crematoriums? In the era of satellites and drones this should all be easy to come by. Please provide a link or a reference or two.
Thanks for the link. Some quesitons that come to mind. How does one distinguish different kinds of debt? Is this eyeballing it, or are there sound principles? Similarly, can we distinguish the financial economy with the real economy in a principled way? Is there data comparing the developments of the two over time?
The historical example of Glass-Steagall is probably a good starting point. Journalist Mathew Ehret on Strategic Culture has done some good work on this. Wall Street on Parade also covers Wall Street's major financial "problems" quite well.
A lot has been done to obscure the issue, with Wall Street banks threatening the apocalypse if there is an end to the infinite money printing. Instead, now the discussion is also going away from "Bailouts" towards "Bail-in." Bail-in is where the banks directly impose haircuts on their own depositors i.e. they will seize people's accounts and savings to cover their losses. And guess what, this was actually written into Dodd-Frank years ago. It's on the books, Title II of Dodd-Frank.
Of course, in the event of a Bail-in, none of the big players will have their money in these institutions at that point, the brunt of it will fall on the average person, their life savings, all of which will be dramatically reduced, if not vaporized, given the level of toxic debt these zombie banks are actually sitting on.
If that doesn't sound too kosher, I recommend these pieces:
One can make sound arguments about a bubble, which incidentally is a function of central bank policy, but hundreds of trillions in notional value is different than hundreds of trillions in derivatives “debt”.
Individuals, financial institutions, commodity driven businesses, among others have been using derivatives since contractual transactions have existed.
Notice in the 2008-2009 debacle, for every loser in a derivatives position (banks, for example), there existed a winner. There are two sides to every trade.
Which derivatives are you talking about right now? Care to articulate?
What you might have meant is just “debt”, not derivatives debt.
Sorry, I should have just used the word “worthless paper.” There are hundreds of trillions of dollars (if not quadrillions) in worthless financial paper. The whole bailout operation was to keep those values afloat.
The 2007-2008 crisis wasn’t just about people not being able to pay their mortgages, it was about the whole other level of Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and all of the other derivatives built on top of that layer, which is also potentially endless. You can bet on a bet and bet on that bet on another bet and then buy insurance against that as well. Because the instruments don’t have to actually be tied to anything real, you can gamble forever, use algorithms to do a lot of the work for you, but if something goes wrong, well, you’re in for big trouble. Imagine the global economy being tied to that kind of game? How much of a bailout will you need to cover the losses and keep banks liquid as those things unwind?
That’s why when things blew up in 2007 and a giant financial black hole appeared in the system, Congress was actually threatened with Marshall law, that if they didn’t immediately approve the TARP bailouts the system would freeze, and a large chunk of the financial institutions would have just been vaporized because of the level of toxic debt that they were all holding. The bailouts were just meant to stem the bleeding, but the reality is that the bubble is actually a lot bigger today than it even was a decade ago. We are looking at the largest financial cataclysm in human history.
Hence why we need Glass-Steagall to freeze all that, biens in the accountants, salavage what’s still good or payable, and just let the other stuff go, split up the banks into toxic garbage traps and viable institutions and then issue new productive credit tied to major physical economic development i.e. what an economy looks like when you cut out the major speculative cancer that has been consuming everything.
Fair enough- I will read your post shortly as it is long
Look, I have argues at *length* about the bailouts - that they never should have happened. I’m opposed to all the fed/treasury/congressional behavior that made it all possible.
The reckoning *should* have been just that: a massive increase in purchasing power for responsible people who maintained healthy financial conditions. Instead the government bailed out banks instead of letting them fail as they deserved to.
Again, I haven’t read all your post yet but I will
The problem of debt is solely State created. Crony-Capitalism is not just anti-free-market, it is free-market destroying.
The problem of monopoly is EXACTLY similar.
The problem of healthcare (and ANY insurance market) is EXACTLY similar.
The problem of the moral hazard of public bailouts is EXACTLY similar.
I said this starting 40 years ago, and my wording does not change: We need a "separation" of economy and State, in EXACTLY the same manner as we have achieved for church and State. THAT is the unifying concept of Classical Liberalism.
When there is a threat to free speech, presumably liberals are okay with government being strictly limited by a constitution making any attempt to abridge it *illegal* - that *is* the solution
When there is a threat to due process presumably liberals are okay with government being strictly limited by a constitution - that *is* the solution
When there is a threat to one’s safety in one’s own person presumably liberals support the government being strictly limited by a constitution- that *is* the solution
When it comes to government trying to establish religion (and of course the powerful in the religions lobbying for their own religion) presumably liberals support a separation clause because the problem is government- not religion
But when it comes to one’s own property, the product of one’s labor, suddenly voluntary mutual agreement is a terrible idea, and government needs *more* power, and if there is any corruption the problem is the productive - and for some reason government is no longer the problem
You are exactly right, the only solution is government completely out of the economy, lobbying is not possible because the government is constitutionally forbidden from being involved.
The irony is: when liberals want government to get incolved it has the exact opposite of the allegedly supported outcomes. It opens up the government to bribery, to selling its power a d influence to the highest bidder
It is literally a pathology. You will never penetrate, it’s incurable
Which is to say simply people entering into exchange on a voluntary mutual basis.
It’s where so called liberals enter world of saying they care about rights but simultaneously advocate for confiscating someone’s productivity without blinking an eye. It’s such an obvious contradiction it can only be a function of indoctrination. Black is white, up is down, private entities who have no ability to force anyone to do anything are “tyrannies”. It’s like trying to reason with cult members. Just isn’t going to happen.
I hear that there is a Third World country where the recently deposed president is blocked from criticizing the current regime on social media. At least we ought to be able to lecture that sh*thole place about their lack of political free speech.
Beyond farcical. Lecturing others about press freedoms while torturing Assange and seeking to put him away for life, along with other whistleblowers. Lecturing others about THEIR aggression/militarism while encircling the globe with 800+ military bases (vs China’s/Russia’s, what, a fistful of foreign bases?), having a larger military budget than the next 10 countries combined and bombing/droning, what, 7 countries just right at this moment? Lecturing others over their alleged interference in US affairs/elections while overtly (and covertly) interfering in, undermining, couping, invading innumerable countries at will. Lecturing others about democracy and human rights while supporting and arming the 73% of the world’s dictatorships that obey US dictates/are client states and routinely toppling democracies that dare disobey. https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistance-to-73-percent-of-world-s-dictatorships/
Not even to mention imposing unilateral, illegal, genocidal sanctions that starve and kill masses of ordinary civilians in countries the US doesn’t like and is targeting for regime change.
It's Blinkin's hypocrisy that is so appalling . . . and yet, so expected.
Where would the left be without double standards (as well as confirmation bias and confirmation bias's handmaiden, the post-hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy)?
Which came first? The shitty politician, willing to lie, cheat, steal, corrupt and destroy any and every one or thing to win? Or the righteous superiority complex in our ignorant society that demanded for one?
What blows my mind is that we as an American society have not only come to expect and accept this from our leaders, but we are utterly complicit. We don’t protest it. We vote for it repeatedly, the same people over and over for decades on end. We donate and endorse and rally behind it. No matter how many bombs our government drops, no matter how many innocent civilians are killed by our military... we do nothing. Fight and argue about ideologies and virtues with anyone who isn’t in line online. That’s what we do.
Sadly, I believe our government is INDEED representing us. Exactly as we are: ignorant, vicious and corrupted. Unable to do democracy. Unable to do diplomacy. Unable to not attack others and take to satisfy our selfish, overwhelming needs. Unable to discern anything presented to us-because we’re right and that’s all there is to it.
The order say I heard something that left me hollow. I seriously felt like a hot air balloon that just lost it’s fire. The conversation was going well and was about how the US having bases at other country’s footsteps with weapons pointing isn’t such a great national security idea. And that we clearly use them to commit crimes abroad and kill innocent people and get away with it because there are no consequences because I said “we are bullies.” The response was “well, we do have them (weapons). And we will launch.” With this smile I can’t stomach -some kind of evil “I know we’re wrong but there’s nothing they can do about it so... lucky us!”. Made me sick hearing that. That there are innocent dead people out there whose families hold us responsible and can do nothing about it, and we’re over here bragging that yeah, no you can’t do nothing about it because if you do 💣
If I ever walk outside and there’s bombs falling, I’ll know why. And I won’t be mad except at my own government. I know what we’ve done and I think we deserve it. Not to say others are completely innocent and don’t have their own ill wills. But in the race for World Biggest Asshole we are many miles and about 800+ bases ahead of the closest competitors. #WeAreTheEnemy
Yes. We deserve what's coming to us, no doubt. And it will come to mass violence, primarily because this Anglo-American Imperial construct won't cede their moment of dominance back to a true multilateral world order peacefully. They believe that only they should run the world, and only their ways will function for human beings and they believe these things so strongly that they'll lash out with their last appendages of strength, the long arms of their military force. Russia and China have been patient, they have turned the other cheek and practiced levels of restraint that at times are just unbelievable but in the end, backed into a corner, willpower will finally match up with the firepower that both states possess in ample amounts and they'll strike back. I see it as almost inevitable, sadly.
Yes, and they will destroy us all. I had a long, private conversation with the #1 civilian in the Pentagon (yes, there is one, chosen to not rock the military boat,) and it was at the peak of the Libyan crisis when they threatened to sell all of their oil elsewhere. Reminding Kaddafi that the CIA had put him there did no good; he wanted to run his country the way he saw best, not for America's use.
My living room conversation was about what to do with him. In this comfortable room near the Harvard, my pipe-smoking friend said the answer was clear and simple: "Nuke him!" The professor lectured at Harvard a couple of days a week training future Presidents. I could not believe what I heard. He repeated it, explained it, and yes, one day someone will have had enough and someone, somewhere in the world, will push his or her red button and Boom!! Bomb!! Tra la tra la.
Glenn - I love reading your Substack but believe your comments section is often hijacked by people who often engage in petty off-topic bickering.
I read a lot of blogs and have found the heavily moderated comment section at ‘nakedcapitalism.com’ to have the most informative and interesting comment section of all. Their commenters often add far more to an article than just the article alone.
I don’t suspect you have the time or inclination for that type of moderation but here is a suggestion: Allow subscribers one comment and one reply comment per article. I think this would greatly improve the quality of your comment section which should be a place for thoughtful discussion, not middle school bickering.
Following the YouTube model (perfectly exemplified by Anita "Answer-To-An-Obscure-Trivia-Question-That-Nobody-Is-Asking" Sarkeesian) "heavily moderated" means "I clicked the NO COMMENTS ALLOWED" box. Nothing "problematic" to see here. Move along, folks, move along.
Hey, that's a pet peeve of mine, too! And I'm getting old and keep forgetting things, like to turn my turn signal off, and to check the stupid junk file.
Oh, Chrissie! Does it hurt and have a temperature? Take two and don't call me in the morning. If the comments pain you, don't read them. If you still want to read them read quickly and move on to the next one if your little tolerance spirit can't abide what others enjoy. Cancel much budd?
Why not set up 2 (two) comment sections, one for each crowd. I'd be happy on both, trying to trick the censor on the one, and trying to call for less ad hominem (while LOLing) on the other.
... I think this would greatly improve the quality of your comment section ...
Mr. Greenwald is an outstanding advocate of free speech and all the off topic comments are distracting from that focus. Heavy moderation is needed if free speech is to have a fighting chance.
While your suggestion of limiting readers to one comment is good, wouldn't limiting them to zero comments be even better?
Quantity is no guarantee of quality .. . but no-zero comments indicates a haughty disregard of all commenters (see the NYT, WaPo, Guardian, etc., etc.).
The poster has already used their one comment, but they've got one reply coming. .. waste not, want not.
Like the News Media itself, I suspect the quality of a comment section (if it has a comment section.), will only be diminished by the haughty disregard of its commenters.
*aside. never trust anything without a comment section.
So what? Your solution is to petition GG to censor?!?! It isn't difficult at all to read the posters you come to like (even if you disagree), and self-censor the ones you dislike. You are like the crony-corporations petitioning the government to pick them! pick them! and shut out the competition.
I subscribe to Glenn because he writes well on areas I’m interested in. I enjoy reading comments that are on-topic, well reasoned, and contribute to thoughtful discussion among his readers. What I object to is people hijacking the comment section for their own personal agendas that contribute nothing to the topic at hand. If you want to do that feel free to start your own blog and bang away at whatever.
Claiming ‘censorship’ when you are blabbing away in a theater and others are telling you to shut up is the argument of a moron. Do yourself a favor and pull up any article at nakedcapitalism.com and then check the comments. You’ll quickly see what a well moderated comment section contributes to the overall discussion.
"not middle school bickering" - this suggests one other possible approach.
No middle school criteria assumes people who are thoughtful and responsible and highly likely have achieved financial independence. Raising membership dues to some sufficiently high number will make those middle-schoolers disappear.
Or pay-per-post. Replies are also your financial responsibility so better watch what you say.
"How can you feign anger over others’ attacks on a free press when you imprison Assange as punishment for his vital revelations about U.S. officials?" Because no government is every really interested in free press. Lenin said, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." Those in power didn’t get there by telling the truth--or wanting the truth be told by others. They got there by manipulating stories. The internet has proved as dangerous for the State as the printing press did in 1440. People like Assange can't be disseminating information to the general public. Free access to information is dangerous. People will do all sorts of crazy things--like decide children shouldn't have to wear masks, and they will do research to back up this idea and band together with others who agree. And so, such irrationals will be labeled conspiracy theorists. Once this label is applied, all conversation is shut down. A State version of truth must be told across all platforms. Anything else must be discredited and silenced. This isn't going to end well... https://khmezek.substack.com/p/the-problem-of-faith
And once the printing press the wars of the Reformation and New Jerusalem in Munster. Or the Vatican sends troops to steal the books from the Bibliotheca Palatina so no one can read the Protestant heresy (and they still have the books).
It helps to know some history, but of course those in power write the history books,.so.... My mother was Mennonite and could trace her family back hundreds of years. Perhaps you read this in my writing to sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I have an ancestor, the Marquis Van Bergen, who died in a Spanish prison for the crime of pleading with King Phillip to have mercy on the anabaptists. So I'm kind of passionate about freedom of thought, speech, religion, etc. Thanks for follow-up ng btw!
"How can you feign anger over others’ attacks on a free press when you imprison Assange as punishment for his vital revelations about U.S. officials?"
Very easily, for this question is now entirely rhetorical. It's time to recognize that public discourse no longer proceeds in the good-faith manner required by democracy -- and stop wasting too much time acting as if it did.
What is the meaning of Glenn informing us of this? In the West of 2021, its purpose is now entirely emotional, not functional. He proceeds with old-fashioned journalism as understood by the public, now discerned apparently only by a few, but for what purpose? Our institutions and authorities have no longer have any respect for it, and have proved they can ignore it with impunity. Not long from now, they will laugh directly in our faces.
It's time to invent and use other things that will work. What those things are, I don't know.
"The aide [later identified as Karl Rove] said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." -- as reported in 2004 by Ron Suskind from the White House
Will we reclaim the right to be "history's actors"? How will we do it?
Nah, there are enough of us who still believe in representative government by an informed citizenry to make a difference. I wholly understand your pessimism, and won't try to argue it isn't warranted. But I also cannot adopt it, for then truly we are lost.
I believe the answer isn't to abandon what Glenn does, but to embrace it. To celebrate it. To share it.
Throughout history, there have been times when a determined group, though small in number, was able to make the case for democracy and freedom in spite of all the evidence being against them.
As a writer myself who has experienced being "canceled" bit not having as big a platform as, say, Glenn Greenwald, I can say it meant a lot when he and others like him started standing up against mainstream media giants and speaking out. The more, the better. Fearless writing. The voice needs to get bigger. And I think it will.
That's it!! It means the world, what these journalists are doing. And for you to feel and say this in light of your frustration is to your credit, M. Hunt. Thank you.
Being pessimistic is to argue nothing can be done. I'm not at all dismissing Glenn's, and other true journalists', value. What I'm saying is to consciously acknowledge that the *reporting* on these abuses simply does not have the ostensible, and apparently former, function of inducing change -- and that we seriously need to up our game. Somehow.
I think what we're starting to see is that more and more folks are willing to push back against the woke orthodoxy - to say "Enough." To do so requires being willing to withstand the kinds of withering - if vacuous - attacks that Glenn, Matt Taibbi, etc., endure, of being falsely called racist or sexist or some kind of phobic.
We need to start ALL pushing back, and not allowing Glenn, et al, to stand in for us.
How we do that without participating in a social media environment many of us find repugnant - that I'm not sure of. I have zero interest in getting on Twitter - I left Twitter a decade ago. I find Facebook's corporate censorship abhorrent, and try to avoid it.
Maybe part of the answer is in finding new ways of communicating and creating community?
Great point in a conversation between Bill Maher and John McWhorter Friday night: “Twitter has made liberals its bitch.” Absolutely true.
It’s seen as an essential part of a journalist’s job, which is a big part of their problem. But it’s still only a small minority of even Democrats who are politically active there. The people who are on there, including journalists, seem to represent more of liberalism than they actually do.
I really think that Substack is part of the answer, just as blogs were. The voices on Twitter have used accusations of the ism/phobe nature and it has kept everyone in line, for a time. But I think the spell is breaking.
Poll after poll tells us that the woke crowd doesn’t represent anything but well educated rich kids. They certainly don’t represent the groups that they hope to speak for and defend. I don’t know what the next phase looks like, but I believe that it has already begun.
I hope that we’re not too late to preserve genuine liberalism, especially free speech.
There is certainly no question that all Institutions around the Globe are either in paroxysms of *change, or of total collapse right now. Not so much that they *will change, but that they are even *now changing. Change rarely happens overnight, although it certainly can. However, like the old axiom about the toad in the increasingly hotter water, we amidst the change may be the *last to be properly aware of it.
For instance, when I was born in 1948 the population of the U.S. was 146.63 million.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. population at the end of December 2020, was 330.66 million.
A "gee whiz" fact *this seemingly simple, actually represents astounding change bit
by bit such that most people really don't immediately notice it.
But as we see here, in the span of one relatively short lifetime (72 so far), The U.S population has *way more than doubled. It is like putting more than an "entire U.S." (in terms of population) on *top of that which was here in 1948. That fact alone represents change that is difficult for most human minds to fully comprehend. As of recent times, however, "change" has bolted on a no-kidding Supercharger !
Let's not forget patience, the lack of which has derailed many a movement, imo. I am naturally an optimist (disclaimer), but I do think the arc of public perception is bending our (classical liberal) way. Won't the midterms be the next sign?
"Throughout history, there have been times when a determined group, though small in number, was able to make the case for democracy and freedom in spite of all the evidence being against them. ..."
Agreed.
"... This is one of those times."
Unfortunately here, 'this time it's different', because of technology. The history-long accumulation of technology -- i.e., power (of all kinds, physical and psychological) -- IMO has finally reached a watershed, and we're in deep trouble because of it.
We now have nanotechnology, which can be body-invasive and undetectable. We now have deep fakes, so that you can't believe what you see. "Scientists" work on mind-reading and mind-manipulating as we speak. We already know we have unprecedented propaganda through media and formal education, the effects of which on large segments of the population makes our jaws drop, and most of us (myself included) have no idea how this works so effectively. And I'm just an amateur media reader, and don't want to think what else exists...
That's why I want to pour a bucket of ice water on us. I don't see our uprising being so straightforward. The last 20 years have been a good lesson on this.
The most intelligent and brilliant minds go and work for companies like Facebook and Google. This alone should be a warning sign that society is on a downhill trajectory.
(In re-reading this, I see myself being unnecessarily critical of Glenn. But that is not my intent at all. I wholeheartedly support his efforts and those of others like him. Rather, I am enormously frustrated that we have so few effective tools at our disposal today. We readers can no longer simply cheer him and others on; we need to brainstorm and do much more.)
I'll add a bit of pessimism, though, in that until the public starts experiencing more hurt nothing can be done. Glenn and most active few can jump out of their pants (not that they should not continue to do the great job) but they should be under no illusion that by pure intellectual appeal they can move things.
I'd point out that in addition to the actions Glenn highlights above, we also have the current administration either watching silently or giving tacit approval to congressional efforts to encourage corporate censorship of independent journalism.
Ok now I am confused, so of your comments are pro empire others against. Are you ok?
You are confused because 1) The U.S. is not an empire (go ahead, look it up), and 2) you think an argument is won by belittling, instead of engaging.
The media has been predominantly a leftist agenda driven entity for decades. And for those decades distortion of truth has been the MO. This is not new. 90%+ journalists are self described leftists.
What is new is the left now has, for the most part, power over everything.
Yet the same people who vote for Bernie and think he’s their ideal, a man who fell in love with the drabby pathetic life of Eastern European communism at a young age, are surprised that censorship has taken hold when the left gets power? It’s surreal how detached from reality the left has become.
Bernie is one of the only politicians in either party who criticized the Assange indictment. Idiot.
Words don’t mean much. Bernie didn’t pay his own campaign workers $15 because “he couldn’t afford it”. He used to be super anti illegal
Immigration until 2015 (trump) when he did a whole 180 flip. He used to call illegal immigration a “right wing proposal where illegals work for a dollar or two and drive down wages”. He used to complain about millionaires and billionaires until he became a multi millionaire himself. Then he only complained about billionaires. Verify this yourself by searching his twitter for millionaires and billionaires.
How anyone trusts a single word out of his mouth is beyond me.
Here’s him on video calling open borders and illegal immigration “right wing”:
https://youtu.be/vf-k6qOfXz0
This! I know there are a lot of Minimum wage supporters here, and I respect the sentiment, but I can't understand how it stands to reason. Especially on a national level. Even on some state levels. $15/hr is one thing in NYC and a completely different thing in Iowa. Hell, it's one thing in Miami, and yet a completely different thing in Orlando.
This is just for starters, of course. Nevermind the absurdity of paying so much to a large part of population who cannot bother to show up on time with even a decent attitude.
Fun fact: Did you all know that AOC's own work place "The Coffee Shop" closed down because of the rising minimum wage?
The left will never tell you this. AOC's own previous employer "The Coffee Shop" closed because of the rise in minimum wage:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2018/10/12/remembering-the-coffee-shop-a-new-york-institution-is-closing-after-28-years/#2e2cb1ae10a0
Quotes from the Forbes article:
> New York's minimum wage law would have added $46,000 a month to his labor costs in 2019. Milite said: "I know it doesn't sound like much -- $2 an hour. But when you multiply it by 40 hours, by 130 people, it becomes a big number. It was going to increase our monthly payroll $46,000."
> And yet, even this high level of sales wasn’t enough to inoculate the business from the rising cost of rent and wages in New York. Coffee Shop co-owner and president Charlies Milite told Forbes that rent had become “unusually high,” accounting for close to 27% of the restaurant’s gross revenues. Add in the scheduled $2-per-hour minimum wage hike set to take place on December 31—an increase that, across Coffee Shop’s 150 employees and multiple dayparts of service, would have added $46,000 to the monthly payroll—made it impossible to break even by cutting costs elsewhere.
Also why are we doing this from a federal level instead of local level? Cost of living vastly differ. SF vs Texas. Even within a state they differ vastly from one locality to another.
Some people might get a small raise while others will get a 100% decrease.
And what happens to those people who are currently making $15 (before the hike)? Do people really think they will get a raise too? Or now you will just end up with more people making minimum wage even though they have differing skill sets.
This comment from a post on The_Donald few years ago sums it up well with easy math:
If a coffee shop is open from 7 am to 8 pm, then their staff probably shows at least 30 minutes early and stays at least 30 minutes after closing. That’s a 14 hour period of staff working. If they average 4 workers on the clock at all times, then that’s 56 man hours per day. In NY, I suspect they’re open 7 days a week. That’s 392 man hours per week.
If that business is required to increase their pay rate by $2 per hour, that’s a payroll increase of $784 per week, which is $40,768 per year.
Now if this business was doing well, the owner would probably be paying themselves anywhere from $80-$120,000, since this is NY and living expenses are high. So with this $2/hr pay increase, this small business owner has been forced by the Government (read “under threat of death”) to give up at best 30% of their income and at worst 50%.
**Now you tell my what incentive anyone has under this system to start businesses and employ staff?**
The profit margin at most restaurants is slim, usually around 5%. Larger companies and chains can eat the extra cost, and even welcome it, because as the smaller businesses close they will absorb their customer base. Once competition is eliminated they can then raise prices and continue on as usual. This is true not just for restaurants but across all sectors.
The $15 minimum wage is great for big business (which is why Amazon and Walmart pushed for it as it eliminates competition), but people are too stupid to look behind the curtain at who really controls them. Give a person a cause and (s)he will fight for it blindly.
Symptom of corporate consolidation. Big name retailers and businesses can afford a price hike, smaller scale and local can't.
They think reality can be averted. Use compulsion to force wages higher, many jobs disappear
But then there are those who *know* many jobs will disappear but that’s what they want. They’re not motivated benevolence. They just want everyone with a leash around their neck
I have seen a lot of restaurants and businesses fail. The owners sank their life savings into them and get very little use out of their "capital losses" when the business fails. But if it succeeds, the government is their to tax the earnings and profits. If it succeeds for a while and then fails, you don't get a refund for all those taxes you paid while things were good.
Because most of these restuarants and shops don’t have political connections. Even the franchises like McDonald’s are run by some small mom and pop who has to pay franchise fee.
I am a tax lawyer and I have seen how our efforts to limit executive compensation have failed. We need to be original and find ways that will really work instead of supposed solutions that have backdoors. I am a political conservative, but I am disgusted by the way that big corporations and their executives abuse tax law, steal from their shareholders, cheat their employees, and corrupt our political process.
Then disown, divest, and persuade others. Otherwise, you are a Fascist, thinking that the State (the "agent" of a society) should force property owners to enter contracts they would not otherwise.
Or, buy stock and become active in changing the corporations contracting of management.
Let me parse my answer this way. Anyone deserves exactly what "someone" is *willing* to pay that person. Given that the taxpayers - even evil conservatives - are not willing participants in that transaction, they deserve exactly dick. I'll go further than that. I think officers of publicly held companies should be financially culpable for the results of any gross mismanagement. In other words, they'd be leaving with less than what they came with. If that gross mismanagement is the result of fraud or other illegal activities, then jail should be on the table - obviously.
I am a conservative, but apparently not one of the "evil" ones because I agree with you that corporate executives should be held responsible for their misdeeds. Instead, the "corporation" gets charged or indicted and any penalties are paid out of the corporate coffers (by the shareholders) and not by the executives.
Nope. That's up to the owners.
There’s a difference between what I and you want and what we get.
If anyone thinks the corrupt incompetent bloated government will somehow stop watching out for the big crony corporations, same ones who literally lobby and write the bills to be voted on by their bought politicians, then we are living in fantasy land.
I disagree with maximum wage. There shouldn’t even be a bailout or subsidies to begin with. A real capitalist system lets these companies go bankrupt for poor decisions and bad planning. Nor should the government ever be allowed to even tell businesses to shut down.
Firstly I don’t get to decide how much you or someone else makes. I don’t get to tell anyone how many cars and houses they own. I am not rich, don’t own car or house but it’s not my business to tell others.
Secondly putting an upper cap is intentionally stifling innovation.
Also being “worth” is a lot different. The Theranos CEO was worth 10 billion and pretty much went down to zero overnight.
I think we are wasting time debating over things which will never ever get achieved by the corrupt politicians. All the bills and laws and whatever they write is worthless when they don’t get enforced. There’s so many campaign finance laws and yet nothing stopped Facebook from spending 300 million on democrat dense localities. Rick Snyder is still not in prison for knowingly poisoning flint Michigan. Hunter Biden is getting book deals while lying on federal gun background checks and throwing an illegal gun in the dumpster. Richard Burr, Kelly Loeffler, Diane Fiensten, Nancy Pelosi all did insider trading. But they made it legal for themselves. Eric Swallwell literally slept with a spy and he still serves on the house Intel committee. It’s a freaking joke.
So yea, all these laws are useless when it comes to those who are politically connected.
Yes, I agree with you. A good thing would be to have the entire government apparatus smaller and efficient. How can we get there?
That is for the owners (by way of a board) to decide, not you, and certainly not the State (i.e. by statute).
You don't believe in the right to own property, do you?
Yes, I do believe in the right to own property but if you going to have a minimum wage you ought to have a maximum wage as well. It should cover both ends.
Yeah! It’s about time that someone brings up the maximum wage issue. No CEO should be pay that kind of money “period”.
Exactly he is just like every D & R - they like their pathetic little power seat and they will do what it takes to keep it. Bernie knows there’s a portion of the population for whom “everything will be free” resonates. Basically it resonates with all of the overgrown children who literally think about economics like a toddler.
He agreed to pay them, remember?
His campaign staff unionized.
Why tell half truths? After getting exposed, he cut hours to pay staffers $15 minimum wage - which is one of the many problems with minimum wage.
And then he also complained about how his campaign staff went to the media to expose him.
Not a half truth. I told part of the story to respond to YOUR less than half truth.
Respectfully, Nancy, I believe his anecdote was meant to point out the hypocrisy of Bernie's actions, and likely the disingenuous nature of his position entirely (and did a good job of doing so, personally).
The fact that his employees (with the help of bad PR, I'm sure) persuaded him to follow through on his own purported standards, is not a great refutation to the issue posited. Essentially, it doesn't change anything about the (albeit compressed) story that CNNis Fake offered.
Lmfao, this has to be the perfect example of why he's a fraud.
He's not so much a senator, as a "politician running for office." He figured out a few years ago that running every 6 years doesn't bring in enough funds to pay for bumper stickers printed by family and friends. So he runs for 2 years every 4 or 6, depending on which office is open.
It's not his fault fools and their money soon part. He's a genius in my book, tapping into cognitive dissonance in the general population for personal gain AND hero status.
Look, follow the money to find the culprits.
Politicians words don’t mean much
And yet - since you can’t comprehend the obvious contradiction in his brain any better than he can - let me help you
All the communist systems he’s been so fond of all use censorship
Is it penetrating yet - or are you just as evasive and intellectually dishonest as him. Your brain can’t comprehend what a contradiction is - yet you think others are the idiot
Yeah, the famously censorious Norwegian and Danish governments.
I wish the Bernie policy advocates would once read up on the fact that Scandinavian countries do the exact opposite of what Bernie policy wants- they have the lowest corporate income tax of 25% and super high personal income tax of 60% for anyone making 1.3x average salary plus 25% sales tax on everything. Plus they are homogenous low population without illegal immigration and even harder legal immigration. Bernie claims to want Scandinavian utopia while using opposite policies. That’s how you know Bernie is a fraud or simply ignorant.
" they have the lowest corporate income tax of 25% and super high personal income tax of 60% for anyone making 1.3x average salary plus 25% sales tax on everything....That’s how you know Bernie is a fraud or simply ignorant."
You conservatives who hate when the neoliberals lie about you are so often gross hypocrites, who lie themselves. Here's what Bernie actually advocates to pay for his desperately needed programs such as universal health care:
>>These options include:
Creating a 4 percent income-based premium paid by employees, exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four.
In 2018, the typical working family paid an average of $6,015 in premiums to private health insurance companies. Under this option, a typical family of four earning $60,000, would pay a 4 percent income-based premium to fund Medicare for All on income above $29,000 – just $1,240 a year – saving that family $4,775 a year. Families of four making less than $29,000 a year would not pay this premium.
(Revenue raised: About $4 trillion over 10 years.)
Imposing a 7.5 percent income-based premium paid by employers, exempting the first $1 million in payroll to protect small businesses.
In 2018, employers paid an average of $14,561 in private health insurance premiums for a worker with a family of four. Under this option, employers would pay a 7.5 percent payroll tax to help finance Medicare for All – just $4,500 – a savings of more than $10,000 a year.
(Revenue raised: Over $5.2 trillion over 10 years.)
Eliminating health tax expenditures, which would no longer be needed under Medicare for All.
(Revenue raised: About $3 trillion over 10 years.)
Raising the top marginal income tax rate to 52% on income over $10 million.
(Revenue raised: About $700 billion over 10 years.)
Replacing the cap on the state and local tax deduction with an overall dollar cap of $50,000 for a married couple on all itemized deductions.
(Revenue raised: About $400 billion over 10 years.)
Taxing capital gains at the same rates as income from wages and cracking down on gaming through derivatives, like-kind exchanges, and the zero tax rate on capital gains passed on through bequests.
(Revenue raised: About $2.5 trillion over 10 years.)
Enacting the For the 99.8% Act, which returns the estate tax exemption to the 2009 level of $3.5 million, closes egregious loopholes, and increases rates progressively including by adding a top tax rate of 77% on estate values in excess of $1 billion.
(Revenue raised: $336 billion over 10 years.)
Enacting corporate tax reform including restoring the top federal corporate income tax rate to 35 percent.<<
https://berniesanders.com/issues/how-does-bernie-pay-his-major-plans/
Also I won't even mention "Norway is situated on large reserves of oil and charges companies a corporate income tax rate of 78 percent on extractive activities."
Goes against the whole "climate change" narrative.
Where did I lie?
I stated:
> they have the lowest corporate income tax of 25%
You stated Bernie:
> Enacting corporate tax reform including restoring the top federal corporate income tax rate to 35 percent.
This alone is exact opposite of what Scandinavian countries do vs what Bernie wants. In fact, when I double checked, Scandinavian countries corporate income tax is even lower:
> Both Denmark’s and Norway’s statutory corporate income tax rates are 22 percent and Sweden’s corporate income tax rate is 21.4 percent. The U.S. tax rate on corporations is higher at 25.9 percent (federal and state combined).
I stated:
> they have super high personal income tax of 60% for anyone making 1.3x average salary plus 25% sales tax on everything
You stated Bernie:
> Raising the top marginal income tax rate to 52% on income over $10 million.
Denmark's income tax is 60% on 1.3x the average income (source below). So if average income is $50k, then it means anyone making $65k and over pays 60% in income tax. Also 25% sales tax on everything you buy - from eggs to everything.
Bernie claiming to want only 52% over $10 million is VERY different from what's actually needed to achieve Scandinavian model of anyone making $65k and over pays 60% in income tax. Especially considering the US population is 70x the population of Scandinavian countries and Bernie is pro illegal immigration now too - free shit for everyone.
"Scandinavian countries tend to levy top personal income tax rates on (upper) middle-class earners, not just high-income taxpayers. For example, in Denmark the top statutory personal income tax rate of 55.9 percent applies to all income over 1.3 times the average income. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $65,000 (1.3 times the average U.S. income of about $50,000) would be taxed at 55.9 percent."
Source:
https://taxfoundation.org/bernie-sanders-scandinavian-countries-taxes/
Bernie is selling you a pie in the sky dream. Anyone who believes him deserves to lose their donations like they did in 2016 and 2020.
Mona, you know very well that Bernie only "wants" these things when he is campaigning in an election he's planning to lose. He has never fought the corporate democrats for these things except on various vapid talk show appearances and in occasional debates before he pulls out and supports the war candidate.
"...desperately needed programs such as universal health care..."
There's the rub. I KNOW how the State will "pay" for it.
You mean the ones that after socialism having worked itself through the country like a colony of termites, was forced to privatize industries and revert to mixed economies? You mean the ones that have lived the last 30 years off of selling fossil fuels to capitalist countries?
When every level of tax is factored they are just western mixed economies. But then you’re a lawyer, so like most you know just enough to be dangerous and have the dumbfuck hubris to think central planners can engineer something better than individuals acting in voluntary mutual agreement.
Fuck off
Everyone: Government is so corrupt, incompetent and bloated! They don't care about us people!!!!
Leftists: We agree! Lets give them more power over our lives, give them more of our taxes, health care and let them decide who gets to own guns and who gets to speak what!
It’s incurable
No matter how many governments historically have ultimately acted as their citizens own enemy
No matter what atrocity they perform internally or against other countries, the left will keep seeing government as the answer
Even on these pages - they think more government the answer to bad government. It’s just a substitute for a religion and you won’t shake it
It's a sort of rite of passage where socialists discover some optimised form of big government that gets everything right and everything falls into line. I completely understand it in the young but it's terrifying past middle age.
Wow. You are clueless. Bernie didn’t honeymoon in Denmark but the USSR. The scandis laugh at Bernie and have told him to STFU as they are not socialists like him but market economies
Here is Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of Denmark noting that the Nordic Model generally, and Denmark in particular, are not socialist but rather market economies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO7wgS5tdz4
It is truly hard to find a more pathetic figure than Comrade Bernie.
Imagine having Hillary and the DNC blatantly steal the election... er, I mean nomination, and then genuflecting before her and kissing her ring.
Far worse, imagine the level of depravity required to call oneself a socialist after a century where socialists murdered well over 100 million souls.
Aye, this seems to be the dirty little secret of how things actually work over there. "Socialism" held up by a much more capitalistic and free market than the US (with taxes on even the lowest of earners). Also things like a completely free and strong education system (that includes school choice/vouchers). On and on there are examples of important things that make their system work/sustainable, all of which seems to be ignored in Bernie's version, he had planned for us.
And they save money by no having to print all their government forms in multiple languages.
Yet he does nothing to free Assange.
Assange is the Rubicon, I guess.
Still ran for office though.
No one's perfect.
Tulsi Gabbard is the Cheney of the Democrats. She was certainly the most independent-minded, intelligent, and had a more broad perspective on the real world than any other politician on the candidates' stage. She would have been the last to succumb to the pressure of the CIA.
Unfortunately, Hillary hated her and Hillary controlled the party establishment and still does. Hillary has the long claws of vengeance so Tulsi went nowhere. Now Biden under the party's direction won't even give her a position near the top, but Peter Buttigieg has a cabinet post despite his failure as Major of an Indiana podunk town. Guess why.
You say that as if Cheney is a good person? She and her father are war criminals and a typical RINO who should be kicked out of politics forever.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/06/asking-the-wrong-question-about-liz-cheney/
Her father's Dick. Heartless. Yes, he should be tried. She, however, is just a right wing loose cannon and a rebel. I don't know much about her except that she has the courage to defy Trump and Trumpists just as Tulsi defied Trump's Democrat equivalent, Hillary. It was that courage I was talking about. It's hard to find courage in contemporary politics. Were it to be found, a lot of things would change that would be far more profound and lasting than what Hillary and Biden propose.
Almost the entire Republican Party since 2015 has been defying trump. You think defying trump makes someone brave? That’s the opposite reality. Anyone who supported trump got absolutely trashed from the media and democrats. You think Bush, Cheney, Mitt Romney, Lincoln Project, McCain etc are all “brave” because they defy Trump?
As Biden would say- “C’mon man”. Only a real brave person can support and stick with trump. This is why the vast majority of trump supporters absolutely hate the spineless cowards in the GOP. They aren’t brave. They are spineless useless establishment cronies which unfortunately the entire GOP is filled with. Almost every sour loser who lost to Trump in 2016 is an establishment crony supporting Biden.
When you have war criminals like Bush, Cheney, McCain, Brennan, Clapper, Comey and entire Intel agencies support the “progressive” candidate, then it’s time to run far far away.
Real bravery required standing up for your principles instead of running away like a wet cat the first instance someone calls you a racist or sexist. The GOP is filled with such spineless cowards. And that’s how Liz Cheney and Bush become darlings of Rachel Maddow.
Even tulsi didn’t call out censorship and russiagate until it happened to herself.
I could not agree more. At the installment of Biden It was hard to watch at least there prior presidents; all war criminals celebrating in the steps of the capital.
Probably. She’s probably slightly more honest. But given enough time in office they all are corrupted
She can be respected but she's a gun grabber. NEVER COMPROMISE.
Lets call them democrats and not leftist giving the illusion they're really liberal and think independently. This is the group that pushed our wars and retained no journalistic independence as they pushed the lies that the democrats spun.
There is actually no left.
Yes! I am sure the "right wingers" are the ones who attacked left-wing Trump, censoring him and getting him out of office. C'mon people. I love Jimmy Dore but this "every bad thing is right wing" is getting tiring.
That's the truth of the matter. This has been an autocratic right-wing nation since the industrial revolution save for the years when FDR had to pick up the pieces for a while- and he was no leftist, just the last of the democratic Democrats.
Yes! So autocratic right-wing that they couldn't spare a single moment bashing the left-wing Trump, censoring him and getting him out of office. C'mon people. I love Jimmy Dore but this "every bad thing is right wing" is getting tiring.
There's no left-wing left. There is the extreme right, center right (Republicans. and minor right (the Democrats.) The two parties are fronts for the Central Intelligence agencies since 1988. They are all gradations of neo and real fascism and they hunger for the wars from which they profit.
You still haven't disclosed why "minor right" democrats went so hard after Trump and his supporters. Was Trump a leftist?
To be fair, Trump was a liberal on many issues. He used to be a Democrat till 2010 too. He changed because the Democrat party has gone insane. Now if they had gone insane because they moved to the right, then why would Trump become a republican which by your definition is "centre right"? So that only leaves one possibility - that the democrat party has moved way far left.
The authoritarian left and the authoritarian right are the exact same. People seem to think it's a linear scale with left and right on each side. But it's not. It's a triangle where the classical left and populist right are on two corners while the third corner is occupied by the authoritarian left + right (consisting of the establishment cronies, media, corporations etc).
I understand what you are trying to say but I would just say - you and I both seem to be classical liberals. But the Democrats are authoritarian left.
Check out this funny skit by Ryan Long "When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg
I've never heard of anyone, from Basil II to Hitler, who didn't do at least something of value (although Dick Cheney and his cronies would push me to the wall.)
Why? Bannon convinced Trump he could become President. The two men are Opportunists of an extreme. They don't really believe in anything beyond their personal interests. Bannon says as much in a long interview. Bannon was a bright man and a brilliant salesman. And it worked.
I find Woke a joke and Racism everywhere. America has been reduced to a myriad of splinters of Victims. Everyone belongs to somewhere between 1 and 5 splinter groups. They all sound like nails on a blackboard. They all get a little sop at breakfast that gives them the strength for the daily shriek. The cacaphony (yes, I know about spelling) comes from the floor, ceiling, and the four walls, drowning out room for intelligence, solutions, or action of real value.
I did not support Sanders, but he would have been a better president than Biden. When Sanders was Mayor of Burlington, he ran the administration of the city as a good government leader who exposed corruption. Biden is a lying, corrupt influence peddler that the media is hailing as a political messiah. He will allow corruption to flourish while the media gleefully ignores the story.
U.S. media services both the "right" and the so called "left" which is really the corporate Liberal pov -- NYTimes, WAPO, CNN, MSNBC, etc. FOX, The Daily Caller, Breitbart, Newsmax, OAmerica News (along with talk radio) supports regressive right wing views. Generally, they both support Wall Street and "American Global Empire" in slightly different ways, and they both are loath to support and continue to resist the necessity to make fundamental changes in the decaying "capitalist system" that would serve the vast majority of Americans. The Right in America -- insofar as it wants to suppress voting rights across America out of anger from losing the election because more people came out to vote to get rid of the absurd and disastrous Trump -- is far more "detached" from reality than the so called "left" (really corporate Liberals) who engineered the demise of Bernie in order to continue to work with corporate power. None of this is surprising AND we all need to be increasingly wary of censorship -- especially given the power of the Tech giants, etc.
Voter ID is so very repressive. We want every LEGAL vote and voter counted. The last election had an extraordinary amount of fraud in selective states. Why not a legitimate investigation to prove me(and millions of others) wrong
Does it really matter what fraction of journalists are leftists, as long as it's less than 100% ? Whoever wants to can tune in to FOX news or read Breitbart. It's not like more left-wing journalists can really distort the truth more. How much they can distort the truth is determined by the audience.
Re. : "The media has been predominantly a leftist agenda driven entity ..." . You completely misunderstand what "leftist" means; and furthermore, who and what the main stream media represent. Both the so-called "Right wing" media and the so-called "liberal media" are primarily representative of concentrated private capital. As such, they are protectors of an economic & political status quo. They differ ONLY in degrees of their cultural identity affinities.
Unfortunately, your views suggest that you have already fallen into the trap of this binary world-view - one which is cultivated by both the "liberal" and "conservative" faces of the media. Time to wake up.
No, some nebbishy people liked the pathetic life of communism. If you are below average in physical appearance and ability, just average in intellectual output, and envious of those who have what you ain't got... Eastern European Communism is for you!
Are you forgetting the outstanding pulitzer winning NYTimes journalist Walter Duranty and other similar "journalists"? Who lied about holodomor and the famine and millions dying in Soviet?
“falsely accused of praising the Castro” lol wtf hahahaha
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/bernie-sanders-praise-fidel-castro-why-it-matters/
Bernie’s own senate website to this day includes statements on how the American dream can be achieved easily in Venezuela than USA and asks “who is the banana republic now?”
People have to be special type of stupid to think Bernie is legit LOL
Are you talking to yourself, Andreas, or simply trolling? It is true that most inner cities in the USA are filled with violent criminals and their victims. And it is true that one can seek high and low in the Swiss Alps to find a grubby trailer park such as those prevalent in low-income America. Yet, if I am not mistaken, Glenn's article is about the hypocrisy of Blinken and the totalitarian policies of the Biden administration. A discussion of the pros and cons of communism v capitalism can be found elsewhere.
I have read the Philip Roth biography by Blake Bailey (now not to be reprinted because the author has been found problematic) and the work Roth did to support “Writers from the Other Europe” such as Milan Kundera and Bohumil Hrabal bear close review on these realities.
Actually I think they want to replace CSU/CDU and as a first act cancel NS2 - because of course it is so much more green to haul fracked gas from half a world away with hundreds of ships and creating ports with polluted dead zones than a direct pipe between producer and consumer.
O, that is a path to explore. Thx.
Bernie may not always do what I want, and indeed has disappointed me on occasion, but he is still the best elected official we've had in a very long time. He is the only one to consistently vote against bloated "defense" spending, to speak out against regime change, to give climate change the attention it deserves, and to speak for a fair economy. As a "social democrat" he may not be radical enough for some on the left (who think they'd do better but wouldn't have a snowball's chance at winning any election); and he will always be at the same time impugned as a Commie by those on the right; and the establishment / moneyed elites will continue to put all energy into smearing and obstructing him. I find it amusing that self-professed progressives attack him given this.
"He is the only one to consistently vote against bloated "defense" spending"
Right.
*Bernie Sanders Loves This $1 Trillion War Machine*
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-loves-this-dollar1-trillion-war-machine.
Comrade Bernie is just another hypocritical corporatist whore.
Pretty fair. Michael Parenti has it about right when it comes to Bernie, I think.
Oh, I don't wonder *how* they can lie with a straight face, I know how and why. It's precisely because the United States doesn't have a free press. It has an establishment-(D) loving propaganda machine who will NEVER question the words coming out of that liar's mouth. And HE KNOWS IT. They wouldn't dream of challenging the lies of a Democrat Administration.
They never challenged Dementia Joe when he was calling a lid on the day at 9 am during the campaign and they're not going to challenge anything that this administration does or lies about for the next four years. Get used to it. I've seen this shit before.
Props to you, and only you, for pointing it out.
The right has their media too, such as FOX. Media supports the establishment, even when it doesn't support the President or members of Congress. The argument about whether media is left leaning or right leaning is kind of pointless because both parties maintain the status quo.
I wish The Democratic Party and media were "far left" but the reality is that they are center or center right, while giving lip service to the left. Since Bill Clinton, The Democratic Party has abandoned the left (workers and families) in order to promote the interests of corporations and the wealthy. The Republican party has always promoted the interests of corporations and the wealthy, mostly in an honest way, though I often disagree with Republican policy.
The problem is that without an actual left voting party, the interests of corporations and the wealthy are over emphasized to the detriment of workers and families. We can argue about how "radical" some left ideas are, but it is pretty obvious that we need to do something about an economy unfair to workers and families, an inadequate, expensive health care system and a political system unresponsive to the democratic will of the public.
Ideas such as a universal single payer health care system do not have to be a path to a socialist government or even a significantly socialist economy. Those ideas have been proven in countries with mixed economies, and despite their own problems, they work better than our current systems.
Despite being a leftist, I am more interested in results than ideology. We need to try some new ideas, both from the left and the right. We should give those ideas a fair shot, with the necessary government and public support, and then see how well they work. The problem now, is that we block ideas that we don't agree with so that they are never given a chance. We don't have to use an all or nothing approach to changes, or treat all changes as permanent. If we on the left and right support each other's ideas we can change the things we agree are problems.
There are choices that fall somewhere between the left and the right. For example, mutual insurance companies are non-profit, public companies that are not part of government. They might be a solution to some of our health care system problems, either alone, or in combination with for profit insurance companies. There will always be a lot of resistance to change, even modest change. The left has to be willing to be less radical, and the right has to be willing to make changes where needed, despite the resistance from corporations and the wealthy. If we don't correct the problems, the systems will fail.
We need to talk to each other, and not depend on media that distorts or exaggerates the opposition. I've had many productive and interesting discussions with people who disagree with me. There are fanatics on the left and the right, but they are not the majority. If we take media out of the middle, we can agree on some things, and build on that. We can also support trying some of the ideas we don't agree with, in exchange for support trying some of our ideas. It is only the media and politics that needs conflict and labeled enemies. We can be perfectly happy without making each other enemies, and despite disagreeing on things.
I think we should take Blanken at his word when he says, "Countries that deny freedom of the press don't have a lot of confidence in themselves or their systems".
One of the reasons why I largely stopped reading mainstream newspapers is their failure to stand up for Assange. Just looking back to the "reporting" about the Assange trial by the Guardian ...
I think I may be a good example of why the US government is scared of Assange and unrestricted journalism. I changed my mind about our military and our government after the reporting on what we were doing in Iraq was exposed. I was disgusted and changed my entire perspective about being lied to. I don't think I was alone.
Blinken and all these guys are stooges for the oligarchy, which I think most people understand in some way, even if they don't fully know what the endgame is. The bigger picture is that the Western financial oligarchy is siting atop the largest financial bubble in human history, hundreds of trillions of dollars in worthless derivatives debt, which the bailouts have been used to keep afloat. In contrast, the Eurasian nations have opted for real physical economic development, and they have not allowed themselves to be kept hostage by predatory financial centers in the same way as the west. Notice all the city building, infrastructure, high speed rail, advanced nuclear power?
The western oligarchy is trying at all cost to somehow stop these developments.
In light of this, I think it's important to keep a discussion of solutions are forefront. Let Wall Street and the City of London go bankrupt. Let their worthless debts be cancelled, and let the average person, their savings, loans to productive business be protected. This is what happened in the 1930s when Roosevelt went to all out war with Wall Street.
https://risingtidefoundation.net/2021/02/06/how-to-overcome-todays-crisis-a-lesson-from-fdr/
I hope you are including state governments and their pensions in this “let them go bankrupt” statement because they are part of the same machine and do the exact same thing as Wall St. If not then you are being hypocritical.
Well, the Glass-Steagall Act is pretty clear and succinct. You should check out how it was done in the 30s with a banking holiday, new credit being issued based on productive activity (as opposed to worthless speculation) etc.. It comes down to the general welfare principle, which is at the heart of the American system. Money is not money. There are different kinds of debts and different kinds of value. In a serious bankruptcy reorganization, you have to be able to made the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate debts. If you can't do that, you're done. Loads to farmers are not the same as loans for bankrupt speculative zombie banks.
You can't honor hundreds of trillions of dollars in worthless financial derivatives (this is what the bailouts have been used for) and also protect the average person. You can't. So a choice needs to be made. Which do you want to save?
So the state governments and pensions do the exact same thing as the Wall St vultures, like run ponzu schemes, lobby the federal government for funds from which they steal, demand tens of billions in stimulus bailouts to pay for buying votes, etc etc, but should be treated differently because some of the money allegedly goes to government run services?
It’s all the same game and it’s all as corrupt.
The point is that there is no way to save the bulk of the cancerous speculative debt. You have to start there. You're going to have to make a decision on what you can save and what you can't. Much of the debt is worthless, it has no intrinsic value and it's not tied to anything with intrinsic value. Period.
Glass-Steagall was done before, so maybe look into how it was done in the past? There will always be corruption, that's not an excuse for not coming up with solutions or avoiding a bankruptcy reorganization.... And yes, there are pension funds tied into speculative activities as well, that's why part of what Glass-Steagall banking separation does is it creates guarantees for legitimate debts, commercial debts, debts for farmers, pensions, these things are honored or protected in one way or another, or to some degree. What's not protected is the cancerous bulk of the speculative debt, which is not tied to anything productive or to the average person.
Something like JP Morgan Chase and Co would likely be split up into two or more institutions where some would be left to hold the brunt of the toxic assets while others would contain more of the commercial banking assets, deposits, pensions etc... The other institution(s) would be the toxic bank with purely fictitious assets. It would just be left to go belly up since no one has any obligation to protect these debts, not people, not governments, no one. The banks gambled and lost, they go down, but they can't take the rest of the economy down with them. Period.
I recommend some stuff written by Mathew Ehret:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/07/avoid-collapse-means-restoring-glass-steagall-without-green-new-deal/
One could argue that many of the huge public pensions are cancerous speculative debt. When issued, who could argue that they were actuarially sound? More and more of these guaranteed pensions can not meet its annual increases via a mix of equity and bonds in the current interest rate environment. Just like Social Security, the crushing debt was/is pushed into the future. Who in Congress is looking closely at these debt bubbles? What is the solution? How will these debts be funded?
The only way to fund debts is by creating debts which at the same time create the means for extinguishing the debt. Creating speculative bubbles is the opposite, you create fake assets, fake debts, and then require more capital and investment to be directed into the bubble in order to keep it going. If you dont keep feeding it, the bubble crashes and the game is over. Infrastructure on the other hand means creating the platform on which all economic activity can thrive. And major scientific drivers and innovation is key to unlocking and developing new platforms.
Take Nasa’s Apollo program as an example. It was shown that for every dollar invested in the program there was a 10-14 dollar return.
Why? Because the program creates countless spinoff technologies that could then be integrated into the civilian economy, from heart monitors, telecommunications, engineering and materials production, insulation etc...
The same applies with basic infrastructure like water irrigation which can turn deserts into fertile lands, advanced rail which increases connectivity among cities and trade centres, making new economic relations possible.
However, the possibilities are endless when society is producing generation after generation of people who can make new fundamental breakthroughs. THIS is what empires want to eliminate and instead force a fixed closed Malthusian system where things just become reduced to the allocation and control of fixed resources and scarcity, which they as much want to control and limit. Basically, to run an empire you have to make sure the mind of the average person is allowed to develop to freely or deeply, because that entails a closed system of constant change, which is much more difficult to control than a open system which constantly changes and integrates new principles.
I have one idea😅
So, I got this email yesterday from...(😂 as I write this I get another about Rachael Maddow called out Trump’s crimes “arrest Donald Trump” wow! These people have lost it!)... Progressive Take Over about “Bankrupt Donald Trump” and how they want to strip him of his lifetime presidential pension and any other benefits he gets from having been president. Which, that’s fine by me actually.
If we do that to ALL ex presidents - instead of paying them a salary, paying security for them to fly private from $.5M corporate speech to $.5M corporate speech and allowing them to profit from the Office for the rest of their lives at catastrophic costs to on going politics- right there we can fund SS.
It is a novel/crazy idea on one hand - borne and driven purely by DTS. But!!!!! Even a broken clock is right twice a day. On the other it’s a paradigm shift that could stand to benefit us greatly in the sense that it would deter your typical greedy politicians and attract public servants.
But the public pension is a dinosaur. Yes, there will be pain in phasing out defined benefit, as opposed to defined contribution. These are lifetime timelines. Change will take time, but it is already a foregone conclusion.
Good expose. But there is more to do. A few bankers possess the world 's commodities and put the rest in debt and misery.
"A few bankers possess the world 's commodities and put the rest in debt and misery."
Right. The pie never grows. Ever. And no non-banker individual is free to collect pie (save and invest). They must consume ALL the crumbs the big bad bankers throw down to them.
Your hyperbole borders on cognitive dissonance.
The essence of the twentieth century doctrine of "Geopolitics" (coined by Lord Mackinder) is all about the control of Eurasia. He who controls Eurasia, the "world island" is able to control everything around that. The whole purpose of geopolitics is to keep Russia, China and the US at odds. That's literally what geopolitics is about. That's where the word comes from. It's a historically specific term about how the British would be able to keep Russia, China and the US separated and polarized, with the Middle East as a key choke point between Europe and Asia.
You can even go back to the history of Venice to study how they kept one nation pinned against the other in order to maintain a "balance of power." We are simply dealing with the modern version of this. The whole thing is maintained by artificial means.
On a more spiritual level, I think you probably need to swallow your pride. You don't have the moral high ground; the US does not have a moral high ground; you are NOT in a position to lecture others on morals and a "rules based order." The US is also not in a position to have military bases across the world, ABM systems on Russia's border and claim that they are "defensive" when they can rapidly be retooled as an offensive system to prevent Russia from launching a retaliatory Nuclear Strike as a response to a US Nuclear FIRST STRIKE.... i.e. certain factions in the US establishment want to be able to initiate a Nuclear war and win it... And it makes sense if you put yourself in the position of a psychopath, because they really don't have any means left for subverting Russia, China and the rise of Eurasia.
The US is also not in a position to lecture about Chinese "aggression" when sailing warships in the SOUTH CHINA SEA.
The Five Eyes has done a lot of work to make you feel like you are the victim, that the West is "under attack" in the same way Hitler said he had to respond to "communist" aggression. It was just an excuse to establish a fascist state and launch wars of aggression, the highest crime according to the Nuremberg standards. Notice any similarities? Wars of aggression launched under the guise of self-defense?
If you want to get along with others, you need to start there. One has to swallow their pride and cut the moral high-ground crap. The western system is completely rotting from the inside, and none of it has to do with China or Russia. It has to do with Wall Street, the City of London (which run most of the media outlets telling you it's all Russia and China's fault) and their Five Eyes intelligence establishment, which is much more sophisticated and advanced than anything Russia or China have in terms of global surveillance and surveillance of its citizens.
If you get rid of the bankrupt Wall Street/City of London system, Russia, China and the US would get along just fine. In fact, that peaceful dialogue among such different and rich cultures would be one of the best things that could ever happen to the world. The oligarchs (which are not a country, nation or government) do everything they can to make sure this doesn't happen.
Investing in infrastructure and regulating banks is not a communist idea bud... Are you sure you're not reading some City of London mouth piece like "The Economist"?
High speed rail and nuclear power are not Chinese communist ideas... Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater... The alternative in bail-ins and hyperinflation. That's where you are. Some serious decisions have to be made.
Your point is well taken, however, taking CCP talking points at face value is a dicey proposition.
Yes, but not stopping construction because a few workers fell into the concrete pilings, and to fish them out would cause unnecessary delays... that's efficiency!
NewYorker a literature fiction magazine, enlisted to manufacture consent, like most others. Here is some real investigative journalism that goes after the money trail: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/30/xinjiang-forced-labor-china-uyghur/
MSM propaganda. There is no evidence for slave labor camps in China. Just the opposite, in fact, as "eyewitness" testimony is inconsistent and often individuals quoted change their story over time. And all presenters organize their release of information through Uygur Congress types, American Neocon think tanks, and the "Memorial of the victims of communism Foundation" in Washington D.C.
Yet there are no photographs. No images of the camps. No video of this massive scale abuse. What it seems to be is what the PRC says it is: a program of vocational training for Uygurs, some of whom are forced into the programs as a diversion from potential extremist or criminal activity. It is, no doubt, not something that most people in the West would define as democratic, yet it falls far short of the hysterical and blown up claims of genocide and slave labor. In fact, Western news coverage of the topic seems a great deal like hybrid information war being echoed through media.
There are videos, what are you talking about?
Simply arrive in China and say bad things about the CCP. Let us know how soon you get disappeared.
Videos of...people going to school. People decrying Western reports as nonsense. People working at their jobs and providing for their families. Where are the videos of abuse, of people being beaten, of mass graves and crematoriums? In the era of satellites and drones this should all be easy to come by. Please provide a link or a reference or two.
Thanks for the link. Some quesitons that come to mind. How does one distinguish different kinds of debt? Is this eyeballing it, or are there sound principles? Similarly, can we distinguish the financial economy with the real economy in a principled way? Is there data comparing the developments of the two over time?
The historical example of Glass-Steagall is probably a good starting point. Journalist Mathew Ehret on Strategic Culture has done some good work on this. Wall Street on Parade also covers Wall Street's major financial "problems" quite well.
A lot has been done to obscure the issue, with Wall Street banks threatening the apocalypse if there is an end to the infinite money printing. Instead, now the discussion is also going away from "Bailouts" towards "Bail-in." Bail-in is where the banks directly impose haircuts on their own depositors i.e. they will seize people's accounts and savings to cover their losses. And guess what, this was actually written into Dodd-Frank years ago. It's on the books, Title II of Dodd-Frank.
Of course, in the event of a Bail-in, none of the big players will have their money in these institutions at that point, the brunt of it will fall on the average person, their life savings, all of which will be dramatically reduced, if not vaporized, given the level of toxic debt these zombie banks are actually sitting on.
If that doesn't sound too kosher, I recommend these pieces:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/21/real-new-deal-debt-jubilee-or-green-new-deal-global-dictatorship/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/07/avoid-collapse-means-restoring-glass-steagall-without-green-new-deal/
Best,
Dave
Mmm trillions in derivatives “debt”?
Do you understand what you are talking about?
One can make sound arguments about a bubble, which incidentally is a function of central bank policy, but hundreds of trillions in notional value is different than hundreds of trillions in derivatives “debt”.
Individuals, financial institutions, commodity driven businesses, among others have been using derivatives since contractual transactions have existed.
Notice in the 2008-2009 debacle, for every loser in a derivatives position (banks, for example), there existed a winner. There are two sides to every trade.
Which derivatives are you talking about right now? Care to articulate?
What you might have meant is just “debt”, not derivatives debt.
Sorry, I should have just used the word “worthless paper.” There are hundreds of trillions of dollars (if not quadrillions) in worthless financial paper. The whole bailout operation was to keep those values afloat.
The 2007-2008 crisis wasn’t just about people not being able to pay their mortgages, it was about the whole other level of Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and all of the other derivatives built on top of that layer, which is also potentially endless. You can bet on a bet and bet on that bet on another bet and then buy insurance against that as well. Because the instruments don’t have to actually be tied to anything real, you can gamble forever, use algorithms to do a lot of the work for you, but if something goes wrong, well, you’re in for big trouble. Imagine the global economy being tied to that kind of game? How much of a bailout will you need to cover the losses and keep banks liquid as those things unwind?
That’s why when things blew up in 2007 and a giant financial black hole appeared in the system, Congress was actually threatened with Marshall law, that if they didn’t immediately approve the TARP bailouts the system would freeze, and a large chunk of the financial institutions would have just been vaporized because of the level of toxic debt that they were all holding. The bailouts were just meant to stem the bleeding, but the reality is that the bubble is actually a lot bigger today than it even was a decade ago. We are looking at the largest financial cataclysm in human history.
Hence why we need Glass-Steagall to freeze all that, biens in the accountants, salavage what’s still good or payable, and just let the other stuff go, split up the banks into toxic garbage traps and viable institutions and then issue new productive credit tied to major physical economic development i.e. what an economy looks like when you cut out the major speculative cancer that has been consuming everything.
I recommend this fun piece:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/03/09/the-real-causes-for-the-oncoming-economic-collapse/
Fair enough- I will read your post shortly as it is long
Look, I have argues at *length* about the bailouts - that they never should have happened. I’m opposed to all the fed/treasury/congressional behavior that made it all possible.
The reckoning *should* have been just that: a massive increase in purchasing power for responsible people who maintained healthy financial conditions. Instead the government bailed out banks instead of letting them fail as they deserved to.
Again, I haven’t read all your post yet but I will
So spot on.
The problem of debt is solely State created. Crony-Capitalism is not just anti-free-market, it is free-market destroying.
The problem of monopoly is EXACTLY similar.
The problem of healthcare (and ANY insurance market) is EXACTLY similar.
The problem of the moral hazard of public bailouts is EXACTLY similar.
I said this starting 40 years ago, and my wording does not change: We need a "separation" of economy and State, in EXACTLY the same manner as we have achieved for church and State. THAT is the unifying concept of Classical Liberalism.
When there is a threat to free speech, presumably liberals are okay with government being strictly limited by a constitution making any attempt to abridge it *illegal* - that *is* the solution
When there is a threat to due process presumably liberals are okay with government being strictly limited by a constitution - that *is* the solution
When there is a threat to one’s safety in one’s own person presumably liberals support the government being strictly limited by a constitution- that *is* the solution
When it comes to government trying to establish religion (and of course the powerful in the religions lobbying for their own religion) presumably liberals support a separation clause because the problem is government- not religion
But when it comes to one’s own property, the product of one’s labor, suddenly voluntary mutual agreement is a terrible idea, and government needs *more* power, and if there is any corruption the problem is the productive - and for some reason government is no longer the problem
You are exactly right, the only solution is government completely out of the economy, lobbying is not possible because the government is constitutionally forbidden from being involved.
The irony is: when liberals want government to get incolved it has the exact opposite of the allegedly supported outcomes. It opens up the government to bribery, to selling its power a d influence to the highest bidder
It is literally a pathology. You will never penetrate, it’s incurable
Thank you. Except for your last sentence. I will, and I will never give up.
Which is to say simply people entering into exchange on a voluntary mutual basis.
It’s where so called liberals enter world of saying they care about rights but simultaneously advocate for confiscating someone’s productivity without blinking an eye. It’s such an obvious contradiction it can only be a function of indoctrination. Black is white, up is down, private entities who have no ability to force anyone to do anything are “tyrannies”. It’s like trying to reason with cult members. Just isn’t going to happen.
It must happen to avoid bloody revolution. You and I both know (and millions of others) that we will not live under the current growing State tyranny.
re: infrastructure... Have you seen this: https://www.worldabandoned.com/athens-olympic-park
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/03/our-wealth-cloud-castles-in-sky.html
I hear that there is a Third World country where the recently deposed president is blocked from criticizing the current regime on social media. At least we ought to be able to lecture that sh*thole place about their lack of political free speech.
The clip of Azerbaijani president responding to BBC’s crackdown claims by asking her about Assange: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9s6YggbTk4
Well that was a big league slap down of a fake journalist.
Beyond farcical. Lecturing others about press freedoms while torturing Assange and seeking to put him away for life, along with other whistleblowers. Lecturing others about THEIR aggression/militarism while encircling the globe with 800+ military bases (vs China’s/Russia’s, what, a fistful of foreign bases?), having a larger military budget than the next 10 countries combined and bombing/droning, what, 7 countries just right at this moment? Lecturing others over their alleged interference in US affairs/elections while overtly (and covertly) interfering in, undermining, couping, invading innumerable countries at will. Lecturing others about democracy and human rights while supporting and arming the 73% of the world’s dictatorships that obey US dictates/are client states and routinely toppling democracies that dare disobey. https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistance-to-73-percent-of-world-s-dictatorships/
Not even to mention imposing unilateral, illegal, genocidal sanctions that starve and kill masses of ordinary civilians in countries the US doesn’t like and is targeting for regime change.
But, but, but...America's not an Empire!
It's Blinkin's hypocrisy that is so appalling . . . and yet, so expected.
Where would the left be without double standards (as well as confirmation bias and confirmation bias's handmaiden, the post-hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy)?
Have you ever heard of him before this gig?
Which came first? The shitty politician, willing to lie, cheat, steal, corrupt and destroy any and every one or thing to win? Or the righteous superiority complex in our ignorant society that demanded for one?
What blows my mind is that we as an American society have not only come to expect and accept this from our leaders, but we are utterly complicit. We don’t protest it. We vote for it repeatedly, the same people over and over for decades on end. We donate and endorse and rally behind it. No matter how many bombs our government drops, no matter how many innocent civilians are killed by our military... we do nothing. Fight and argue about ideologies and virtues with anyone who isn’t in line online. That’s what we do.
Sadly, I believe our government is INDEED representing us. Exactly as we are: ignorant, vicious and corrupted. Unable to do democracy. Unable to do diplomacy. Unable to not attack others and take to satisfy our selfish, overwhelming needs. Unable to discern anything presented to us-because we’re right and that’s all there is to it.
The order say I heard something that left me hollow. I seriously felt like a hot air balloon that just lost it’s fire. The conversation was going well and was about how the US having bases at other country’s footsteps with weapons pointing isn’t such a great national security idea. And that we clearly use them to commit crimes abroad and kill innocent people and get away with it because there are no consequences because I said “we are bullies.” The response was “well, we do have them (weapons). And we will launch.” With this smile I can’t stomach -some kind of evil “I know we’re wrong but there’s nothing they can do about it so... lucky us!”. Made me sick hearing that. That there are innocent dead people out there whose families hold us responsible and can do nothing about it, and we’re over here bragging that yeah, no you can’t do nothing about it because if you do 💣
If I ever walk outside and there’s bombs falling, I’ll know why. And I won’t be mad except at my own government. I know what we’ve done and I think we deserve it. Not to say others are completely innocent and don’t have their own ill wills. But in the race for World Biggest Asshole we are many miles and about 800+ bases ahead of the closest competitors. #WeAreTheEnemy
#FreeAssange
Yes. We deserve what's coming to us, no doubt. And it will come to mass violence, primarily because this Anglo-American Imperial construct won't cede their moment of dominance back to a true multilateral world order peacefully. They believe that only they should run the world, and only their ways will function for human beings and they believe these things so strongly that they'll lash out with their last appendages of strength, the long arms of their military force. Russia and China have been patient, they have turned the other cheek and practiced levels of restraint that at times are just unbelievable but in the end, backed into a corner, willpower will finally match up with the firepower that both states possess in ample amounts and they'll strike back. I see it as almost inevitable, sadly.
Yes, and they will destroy us all. I had a long, private conversation with the #1 civilian in the Pentagon (yes, there is one, chosen to not rock the military boat,) and it was at the peak of the Libyan crisis when they threatened to sell all of their oil elsewhere. Reminding Kaddafi that the CIA had put him there did no good; he wanted to run his country the way he saw best, not for America's use.
My living room conversation was about what to do with him. In this comfortable room near the Harvard, my pipe-smoking friend said the answer was clear and simple: "Nuke him!" The professor lectured at Harvard a couple of days a week training future Presidents. I could not believe what I heard. He repeated it, explained it, and yes, one day someone will have had enough and someone, somewhere in the world, will push his or her red button and Boom!! Bomb!! Tra la tra la.
>"Which came first?"
A few bad apples can spoil the whole bunch.
*otoh, a skilled gardener will prune the bad apples and cultivate the good ones.
Glenn - I love reading your Substack but believe your comments section is often hijacked by people who often engage in petty off-topic bickering.
I read a lot of blogs and have found the heavily moderated comment section at ‘nakedcapitalism.com’ to have the most informative and interesting comment section of all. Their commenters often add far more to an article than just the article alone.
I don’t suspect you have the time or inclination for that type of moderation but here is a suggestion: Allow subscribers one comment and one reply comment per article. I think this would greatly improve the quality of your comment section which should be a place for thoughtful discussion, not middle school bickering.
And then...at what point does moderating become censorship 🤔
No no no, it's MODERATED you see. Totally not problematic ever.
Following the YouTube model (perfectly exemplified by Anita "Answer-To-An-Obscure-Trivia-Question-That-Nobody-Is-Asking" Sarkeesian) "heavily moderated" means "I clicked the NO COMMENTS ALLOWED" box. Nothing "problematic" to see here. Move along, folks, move along.
When it first is committed.
"heavily moderated comment section"
TRANSLATION: Where I allow someone else to do all my intellectual heavy lifting for me.
Reminds me also that, of 4 (major) email platforms I use, *none* provide a simple switch to just turn off the "spam"-catcher. Hmmm...
Hey, that's a pet peeve of mine, too! And I'm getting old and keep forgetting things, like to turn my turn signal off, and to check the stupid junk file.
Can't tell if this is satire or serious considering Glenn (and most of his followers) hate censorship.
"one comment and one reply comment per article"? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA I feel personally attacked lol
Hey, sometimes that petty bickering gets us places!
Exactly. I'll add that I noticed your attempt to turn a contentious conversation earlier into a productive one. This is what it's about.
Thanks!
Punch each other in the mouth, get a beer afterward. One of my favorite things.
Oh, now you've gone a pint too far. Whiskey's the ticket, obviously, you off-topic rabble rouser!
Bar fight?
That WAS fun and enlightening.
Oh, Chrissie! Does it hurt and have a temperature? Take two and don't call me in the morning. If the comments pain you, don't read them. If you still want to read them read quickly and move on to the next one if your little tolerance spirit can't abide what others enjoy. Cancel much budd?
Maybe Glen could appoint an independent Bickering Oversight Board with plenary power to moderate the Bickerers here.
Why not set up 2 (two) comment sections, one for each crowd. I'd be happy on both, trying to trick the censor on the one, and trying to call for less ad hominem (while LOLing) on the other.
... I think this would greatly improve the quality of your comment section ...
Mr. Greenwald is an outstanding advocate of free speech and all the off topic comments are distracting from that focus. Heavy moderation is needed if free speech is to have a fighting chance.
While your suggestion of limiting readers to one comment is good, wouldn't limiting them to zero comments be even better?
Quantity is no guarantee of quality .. . but no-zero comments indicates a haughty disregard of all commenters (see the NYT, WaPo, Guardian, etc., etc.).
The poster has already used their one comment, but they've got one reply coming. .. waste not, want not.
Like the News Media itself, I suspect the quality of a comment section (if it has a comment section.), will only be diminished by the haughty disregard of its commenters.
*aside. never trust anything without a comment section.
So what? Your solution is to petition GG to censor?!?! It isn't difficult at all to read the posters you come to like (even if you disagree), and self-censor the ones you dislike. You are like the crony-corporations petitioning the government to pick them! pick them! and shut out the competition.
Maybe your attempt at censoring will be more at home at 'snowflakesocialism.com.'
I subscribe to Glenn because he writes well on areas I’m interested in. I enjoy reading comments that are on-topic, well reasoned, and contribute to thoughtful discussion among his readers. What I object to is people hijacking the comment section for their own personal agendas that contribute nothing to the topic at hand. If you want to do that feel free to start your own blog and bang away at whatever.
Claiming ‘censorship’ when you are blabbing away in a theater and others are telling you to shut up is the argument of a moron. Do yourself a favor and pull up any article at nakedcapitalism.com and then check the comments. You’ll quickly see what a well moderated comment section contributes to the overall discussion.
"not middle school bickering" - this suggests one other possible approach.
No middle school criteria assumes people who are thoughtful and responsible and highly likely have achieved financial independence. Raising membership dues to some sufficiently high number will make those middle-schoolers disappear.
Or pay-per-post. Replies are also your financial responsibility so better watch what you say.
Antony Blinken is clearly evil. He certainly knows better.
He wouldn’t have the job otherwise.
reminds me of Chomsky v. Marr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU
I have criticized Chomsky in the past, but he has this one exactly right.
Aye. Mainstream thought, in other words.
"How can you feign anger over others’ attacks on a free press when you imprison Assange as punishment for his vital revelations about U.S. officials?" Because no government is every really interested in free press. Lenin said, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." Those in power didn’t get there by telling the truth--or wanting the truth be told by others. They got there by manipulating stories. The internet has proved as dangerous for the State as the printing press did in 1440. People like Assange can't be disseminating information to the general public. Free access to information is dangerous. People will do all sorts of crazy things--like decide children shouldn't have to wear masks, and they will do research to back up this idea and band together with others who agree. And so, such irrationals will be labeled conspiracy theorists. Once this label is applied, all conversation is shut down. A State version of truth must be told across all platforms. Anything else must be discredited and silenced. This isn't going to end well... https://khmezek.substack.com/p/the-problem-of-faith
And once the printing press the wars of the Reformation and New Jerusalem in Munster. Or the Vatican sends troops to steal the books from the Bibliotheca Palatina so no one can read the Protestant heresy (and they still have the books).
It helps to know some history, but of course those in power write the history books,.so.... My mother was Mennonite and could trace her family back hundreds of years. Perhaps you read this in my writing to sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I have an ancestor, the Marquis Van Bergen, who died in a Spanish prison for the crime of pleading with King Phillip to have mercy on the anabaptists. So I'm kind of passionate about freedom of thought, speech, religion, etc. Thanks for follow-up ng btw!
I mean thanks for the follow.
"How can you feign anger over others’ attacks on a free press when you imprison Assange as punishment for his vital revelations about U.S. officials?"
Very easily, for this question is now entirely rhetorical. It's time to recognize that public discourse no longer proceeds in the good-faith manner required by democracy -- and stop wasting too much time acting as if it did.
What is the meaning of Glenn informing us of this? In the West of 2021, its purpose is now entirely emotional, not functional. He proceeds with old-fashioned journalism as understood by the public, now discerned apparently only by a few, but for what purpose? Our institutions and authorities have no longer have any respect for it, and have proved they can ignore it with impunity. Not long from now, they will laugh directly in our faces.
It's time to invent and use other things that will work. What those things are, I don't know.
"The aide [later identified as Karl Rove] said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." -- as reported in 2004 by Ron Suskind from the White House
Will we reclaim the right to be "history's actors"? How will we do it?
Nah, there are enough of us who still believe in representative government by an informed citizenry to make a difference. I wholly understand your pessimism, and won't try to argue it isn't warranted. But I also cannot adopt it, for then truly we are lost.
I believe the answer isn't to abandon what Glenn does, but to embrace it. To celebrate it. To share it.
Throughout history, there have been times when a determined group, though small in number, was able to make the case for democracy and freedom in spite of all the evidence being against them.
This is one of those times.
As a writer myself who has experienced being "canceled" bit not having as big a platform as, say, Glenn Greenwald, I can say it meant a lot when he and others like him started standing up against mainstream media giants and speaking out. The more, the better. Fearless writing. The voice needs to get bigger. And I think it will.
That's it!! It means the world, what these journalists are doing. And for you to feel and say this in light of your frustration is to your credit, M. Hunt. Thank you.
Thanks Timothy! If you're interested you can find my writing here https://khmezek.substack.com/p/the-problem-of-faith
Being pessimistic is to argue nothing can be done. I'm not at all dismissing Glenn's, and other true journalists', value. What I'm saying is to consciously acknowledge that the *reporting* on these abuses simply does not have the ostensible, and apparently former, function of inducing change -- and that we seriously need to up our game. Somehow.
I'm with you there. But I think gearing up our game is going to start from a foundation of what Glenn and others are doing.
Agreed. Maybe one big thing we need to develop are robust communities.
I think what we're starting to see is that more and more folks are willing to push back against the woke orthodoxy - to say "Enough." To do so requires being willing to withstand the kinds of withering - if vacuous - attacks that Glenn, Matt Taibbi, etc., endure, of being falsely called racist or sexist or some kind of phobic.
We need to start ALL pushing back, and not allowing Glenn, et al, to stand in for us.
How we do that without participating in a social media environment many of us find repugnant - that I'm not sure of. I have zero interest in getting on Twitter - I left Twitter a decade ago. I find Facebook's corporate censorship abhorrent, and try to avoid it.
Maybe part of the answer is in finding new ways of communicating and creating community?
Great point in a conversation between Bill Maher and John McWhorter Friday night: “Twitter has made liberals its bitch.” Absolutely true.
It’s seen as an essential part of a journalist’s job, which is a big part of their problem. But it’s still only a small minority of even Democrats who are politically active there. The people who are on there, including journalists, seem to represent more of liberalism than they actually do.
I really think that Substack is part of the answer, just as blogs were. The voices on Twitter have used accusations of the ism/phobe nature and it has kept everyone in line, for a time. But I think the spell is breaking.
Poll after poll tells us that the woke crowd doesn’t represent anything but well educated rich kids. They certainly don’t represent the groups that they hope to speak for and defend. I don’t know what the next phase looks like, but I believe that it has already begun.
I hope that we’re not too late to preserve genuine liberalism, especially free speech.
If enough of the left pushed back this woke bull shit would end overnight
The empirical fact of reality is most are enjoying it because it’s accomplishing their objectives.
Unfortunately it’s just getting started. We are diving head first into a bizarre high tech statist dystopia.
@ Jim Trageser
There is certainly no question that all Institutions around the Globe are either in paroxysms of *change, or of total collapse right now. Not so much that they *will change, but that they are even *now changing. Change rarely happens overnight, although it certainly can. However, like the old axiom about the toad in the increasingly hotter water, we amidst the change may be the *last to be properly aware of it.
For instance, when I was born in 1948 the population of the U.S. was 146.63 million.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. population at the end of December 2020, was 330.66 million.
A "gee whiz" fact *this seemingly simple, actually represents astounding change bit
by bit such that most people really don't immediately notice it.
But as we see here, in the span of one relatively short lifetime (72 so far), The U.S population has *way more than doubled. It is like putting more than an "entire U.S." (in terms of population) on *top of that which was here in 1948. That fact alone represents change that is difficult for most human minds to fully comprehend. As of recent times, however, "change" has bolted on a no-kidding Supercharger !
Let's not forget patience, the lack of which has derailed many a movement, imo. I am naturally an optimist (disclaimer), but I do think the arc of public perception is bending our (classical liberal) way. Won't the midterms be the next sign?
"Throughout history, there have been times when a determined group, though small in number, was able to make the case for democracy and freedom in spite of all the evidence being against them. ..."
Agreed.
"... This is one of those times."
Unfortunately here, 'this time it's different', because of technology. The history-long accumulation of technology -- i.e., power (of all kinds, physical and psychological) -- IMO has finally reached a watershed, and we're in deep trouble because of it.
We now have nanotechnology, which can be body-invasive and undetectable. We now have deep fakes, so that you can't believe what you see. "Scientists" work on mind-reading and mind-manipulating as we speak. We already know we have unprecedented propaganda through media and formal education, the effects of which on large segments of the population makes our jaws drop, and most of us (myself included) have no idea how this works so effectively. And I'm just an amateur media reader, and don't want to think what else exists...
That's why I want to pour a bucket of ice water on us. I don't see our uprising being so straightforward. The last 20 years have been a good lesson on this.
The most intelligent and brilliant minds go and work for companies like Facebook and Google. This alone should be a warning sign that society is on a downhill trajectory.
(In re-reading this, I see myself being unnecessarily critical of Glenn. But that is not my intent at all. I wholeheartedly support his efforts and those of others like him. Rather, I am enormously frustrated that we have so few effective tools at our disposal today. We readers can no longer simply cheer him and others on; we need to brainstorm and do much more.)
I'll add a bit of pessimism, though, in that until the public starts experiencing more hurt nothing can be done. Glenn and most active few can jump out of their pants (not that they should not continue to do the great job) but they should be under no illusion that by pure intellectual appeal they can move things.