calimary
calimary's JournalI did a fair amount of reading then, myself.
I remember something about this. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, and Charlie Pierce of Esquire and other people. Might have been on HuffPo, might have been from Raw Story, but there were articles and comments galore about how the Russians are WAY into him, financially. They do indeed prop up his projects from over there because he's had so many bankruptcies that American banks won't lend to him anymore. Charles Pierce has written that the whole many-tentacled Russian affair should be the ONE question that keeps getting asked all the way to the election, and then after the election, he updated, writing that the same affair should be the ONE question that keeps getting asked all the way to the inauguration.
Step 2 would be - quit chasing access!
It WILL lead you astray, and you WILL get rolled. Again. Bank on it.
Take two JAY ROSEN columns and you might feel better in the morning. Better still if the dumb-ass gullible press, with its presidential kneepads at the ready, reads it too. And then takes note.
http://pressthink.org/2016/12/winter-coming-prospects-american-press-trump/ (There are two parts.)
One-point-six MILLION shares.
Let that one sink in for a minute.
And how many of those were generated by hired hands and other assorted paid nogoodniks?
We ABSOLUTELY need to get much better at spreading the truth about Trump. And unlike with him and his, WE have the truth on OUR side. Demonstrably and provably. And yes with evidence.
It's devious thinking we need. More than anything else. That has to be the underlying foundational concept, and our "bible" - boiled down into two words. Devious thinking. That's how they win. That's how they roll our professionals in the media and the party system. Again and again. It's thinking outside the political box. Because that, unfortunately, is the currency of the day, that trump is bringing into "office" with him. And, like with Chris Christie, he'll surround himself with people of like mind. He won't have many people pushing anything other than the "Gospel of The Donald." People who either agree an assist OR generate the material and use it to lead the offense. Win at all costs. They don't come more devious than Steve Bannon, or kkkarl rove, or Roger Ailes, or lee atwater, or Ralph Reed, or grover norquist, or any of those nasty, scheming, devious thinkers. Those types for the most part are all over on their side of the aisle.
And I know and support the "when they go low, we go high" creed. That's the high road and the better way. But sometimes, seems to me, we need some Dark-Siders, too. Or Dark Side thinking, the better to outwit and outthink and out-maneuver the bad guys.
KNOW your enemy. That's another thing that Mad-Eye Moody always warned Harry Potter, in the "Harry Potter" books. He'd repeat "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" And he'd also usually follow that with "You've GOT to KNOW!"
Besides, it's not such a bad thing to know where the underbelly is. It's a good thing to know. It's a most useful thing to know. It's where they're vulnerable.
And here I thought we'd get to January with no more obits...
Just one more day, 2016? ONE more and you leave quietly?
Nope. Guess not.
My husband and I used to tape "M*A*S*H" episodes on VHS cassettes. We were binge-watching before binge-watching was cool. Primarily "M*A*S*H" and all things "Star Trek." I LOVED Father Mulcahy. That whole evolving cast was epic.
Cross gently, good man.
I get that.
(MAN do I get that...)
A lot of them are told what to go after, and what you damn well better not come back without.
It's just such a rat's nest. You have Les Moonves of CBS Inc. actually confessing that this election year was "bad for the country but GREAT for CBS!" Yeah, okay, we know. Ratings and revenue. Yeah. we get it. trump makes people stick to their information devices like gum (or toilet paper!) to your shoe.
I think what Jay Rosen was doing the other night on Lawrence O'Donnell's show was attempting not only to talk to his fellow journalists, but also to talk over their heads to their bosses, assignment editors, producers, and department heads. Message: YOU NEED SOME NEW RULES. Because you can't keep covering this shit the way you're used to doing. This guy trump doesn't play by the rules. And everybody around him gets that. He's big into psy-ops, mind-fucking, bait 'n' switch, throwing out all kinds of diversionary tactics and distractions and smokescreens, and sowing confusion and disinformation and flat-out lies in every direction, multiple times in any given minute. He's a salesman! And this is schtick. And as long as you use the old habits with this dude, you're GONNA get rolled. Every time. And then you'll do all your shows where you all sit on panels with each other, talking to and past each other trying to figure out what went wrong and how this could happen and how did we get here?
I heard some female talking head from one of the other news outlets this morning saying (I'm paraphrasing here) "we've gotta start getting used to using the 'L-word.' We have to start calling it a lie when trump lies. He lies and we have to be ready to say that."
HAH!!! Gee, ya THINK????
Okay, well, this is MOST instructive information, radical noodle.
Thanks for sharing this! I'm wondering if maybe we have yet another "tell." You say your people are echoing my friend almost word for word? Hmmmm...
See that tells me about packaging. And marketing. They're all saying the same things? "Almost word for word"? That is, it's not just the same sort of theme or general theme or complaint. These are specific wordings and phrasings that are carefully coordinated and Frank-Luntz-focus-tested and approved. These friends of ours seem, evidently, to be getting these same parroted talking points from the same sources. Hmmmmm...
And then I want to try to figure out where they're getting this from. What/who are they (apparently) all watching/listening to? Radio? Hate radio undoubtedly. limbaugh? Cable? Pox Noise? If they read, it's probably the internet, and which sources? Breitbart? Drudge? Alex fucking Jones? There are other crackpots and propaganda crankers and would-be perception managers generating this shit that people we care about swallow whole without even chewing. They're nicely softened up, already, and easily baited.
Back in the bush/cheney days we used to grouse and gripe about what was called the "blast fax" and the "mighty Wurlitzer." Organized and coordinated propaganda campaigns - on a daily basis, that pushed memes and framings and catchy ways to word things. Pushed the sloganeering - stuff you could use to argue your point in the elevator or the checkout line or while waiting for the bus or some such. Quick hits. Soon came to be referred to as "bumpersticker politics" - slogans or phrases or points you could make that would fit on a bumper sticker. Making the most of the low-information short-attention-span recipients. They're already dumbed down. So exploit the hell out of it for fun and profit and White House appointments!
And by all means repeat, repeat, repeat, and then repeat as necessary. Cuz repetition is important. Why do you think trump repeats himself and all his favorite little buzz phrases all the time - usually by threes? Anybody remember how dubya himself talked about how a big part of his job was "to kind of catapult the propaganda"? Once you have the message pre-written, massaged, tested, and okay'd, spread it far and wide! Sell the hell out of it! You've already got the script. Now take it on the road! (Especially if you photograph well!)
Gotta know the enemy. Know and understand what they do and how and why. With what means. The more you dig down, the more vulnerabilities you can find. You better believe Vladimir Putin is a freakin'-ass MASTER of this game. He was head of the KGB forcryingoutloud!
Welcome to DU, MountainFool!
Man, I was just having that argument with my best friend. "So disappointed in Obama," she says. It's all his fault. He was woefully unprepared for the job. Blah-blah-blah... and I, too, remind her that if it weren't for the fucking GOP CONgress doing its damnedest to foil everything he tried, obstruct everything he proposed, insulted him, attacked him, criticized everything about him except his emails (although I'm sure they would have tried that eventually, too), he'd have done even better than it's widely-acknowledged he's already done. And she won't hear of it. "Oh, no, calimary, it's his fault for this and his fault for that. It's been hard on my family." She won't hear of the problems with the ACA being of such greater magnitude and mess in red states, where CON governors refuse to take any of the federal funding and stand in the way and posture and strut about how their side is so much more moral and "American."
We're back to the era of the massive manifestation of GOP entitlement. They feel they're entitled to rule. And that's that. That's this personality complex that side of the aisle seems to have. I've sensed it from almost everybody I can think of who has an "R" by their name. They're better. They're entitled to govern. It's their right, their purview, their territory, their exclusive jurisdiction. (No wonder that whole "build the wall" thing was so popular on that side of the aisle!) It's THEIR way or bust. Because. Because it's their entitlement. I often refer to it as the World's Biggest Entitlement Program. Not Social Security. Not Medicare. Not food stamps. It's the GOP's purported "divine" right to rule.
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