Alittleliberal
Alittleliberal's JournalOn the Milo Bus With the Lost Boys of Americas New Right
"This is a story about truth and consequences. It’s a story about who gets to be young and dumb, and who gets held accountable. It’s also a story about how the new right exploits young men — how it preys not on their bodies, but on their emotions, on their hurts and hopes and anger and anxiety, their desperate need to be part of a big ugly boys’ own adventure."
"It is horribly ironic that of all the disgusting nonsense Yiannopoulos has said — about women, about Muslims, about transgender people, about immigrants — it is only now that the moderate right appears to have reached the limits of what it will tolerate in the name of free speech. The hypocrisy is clarion-clear: This was never, in fact, about free speech at all. It was about making it OK to say racist, sexist, transphobic, and xenophobic things, about tolerating the public expression of those views right up to the point where it becomes financially unwise to do so. Those suddenly dropping Yiannopoulos are making a business decision, not a moral one — and yes, even in Donald Trump’s America, there’s still a difference. If that difference devours Yiannopoulos and his minions, they will find few mourners."
"It is vital that we talk about who gets to be treated like a child, and what that means. All of the people on Yiannopoulos’ tour are over 18 and legally responsible for their actions. They are also young, terribly young, young in a way that only privileged young men really get to be young in America, where your race, sex, and class determine whether and if you ever get to be a stupid kid, or a kid at all. Mike Brown was also 18, the same age as the Yiannopoulos posse, when he was killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014; newspaper reports described him as an adult, and insisted that the teenager was “no angel,” as if that justified what was done to him. Tamir Rice was just 12 years old when he was shot and killed in Cleveland for playing with a toy gun. The boys following Yiannopoulos are playing with a toy dictator, and they have faced no consequences as yet, even though it turns out that their plastic play-fascism is, in fact, fully loaded and ready for murder."
"It seems perfunctory to point out the hypocrisy of building a movement and a career on the back of insulting people — Muslims, migrants, women, people of color — while nursing a hair-trigger sensitivity to any personal attack you haven’t pre-approved. That hypocrisy, though, does not appear self-evident to anyone within this movement, because a fundamental tenet of far-right pro-trolling is that it’s only other people’s feelings that are frivolous. Their own feelings, by contrast, including the capacity to feel shame when they’re held accountable for their actions, are so momentous that infringing them is tantamount to censure, practically fascism in and of itself. These are men, in short, who have founded an entire movement on the basis of refusing to handle their emotions like adults."
"If Yiannopoulos is as screwed as he seems, the left has little to celebrate in the manner of the defeat; he has been brought down, after all, by the one weapon we don’t want to give power to. He has been brought down not by reasoned liberal argument, nor by moral victory over his cod theories, nor by anti-fascist agitation. He has been brought down by conservative moral outrage. Specifically, by conservative moral outrage over gay male sexuality. I can think of nobody on Earth who more richly deserves to be humbled and held accountable. I just wanted my team to be the ones to do it."
https://psmag.com/on-the-milo-bus-with-the-lost-boys-of-americas-new-right-629a77e87986?curator=MediaREDEF#.orp4eplju
Foundations of Geopolitics
Hey yall, First post in a while.
I would like to take the time now to remind everyone about the book Foundations of Geopolitics by Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin. This book has essentially become a training manual for Russian geopolitical doctrine. Here are a few important things the book addresses.
1. "Military operations play relatively little role. The textbook believes in a sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian special services. The operations should be assisted by a tough, hard-headed utilization of Russia's gas, oil, and natural resources to bully and pressure other countries."
2. "France should be encouraged to form a "Franco-German bloc" with Germany. Both countries have a "firm anti-Atlanticist tradition"
- Le Pen the rabid nationalist in France is being supported both directly and indirectly by Russian interests. Her biggest opponents data is being accessed by Russian security forces to leak info that suppresses his vote. Thats the only feasible way La Pen could win. Sound Familiar?
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-14/macron-urges-eu-pressure-on-russia-as-campaign-suffers-cyber-hit
3. "The United Kingdom should be cut off from Europe."
- Brexit. Like in France there is little doubt that Russian misinformation campaigns were common in the lead up the Brexit vote. The Russian Federation has a long history of using internet trolls, bots, compromised real accounts and other means to spread disinformation and propaganda. I don't need to tell any of you to take a look at ANY article or internet forum that is critical on Putin and the Russian deep security state. You will see an eerily familiar pattern among the pro Russian posters.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/11/what-russia-thinks-of-brexit-and-how-it-could-gain-from-a-fractured-europe
4. "Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "“Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible."
-See the Ukraine Crisis.
5. "Russia needs to create "geopolitical shocks" within Turkey. These can be achieved by employing Kurds, Armenians and other minorities."
-In reality this ones playing out a little differently then played out in the book. Putin is using the syrian crisis to isolate Turkey from the west.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-dugin-trump-putin-turkey-20170203-story.html
6. Russia should manipulate Japanese politics by offering the Kuril Islands to Japan and provoking anti-Americanism.
- Holy shit didn't Trump just suggest the the Japanese PM do this, this weekend? Yes yes he did.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-japan-commentary-idUSKCN12507D
7. "Russia should use its special forces within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."
- So now we have Trump. Ya know, the guy with 3 senior staff members who have resigned because of Russian connections (Page, Manafort, Paul). The guy with decades of business interests in Russia. The guy who's SoS was the CEO of an oil company who has a 500 billion dollar deal on the line with Russia's state oil company. The guy who's senior policy adviser is neo-nazi propaganda mogul who has a fetish for war with China, which brings me to.
8. "China, which represents a danger to Russia, "must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled". Dugin suggests that Russia start by taking Tibet-Xinjiang-Mongolia-Manchuria as a security belt. Russia should offer China help "in a southern direction – Indochina (except Vietnam), the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia" as geopolitical compensation."
It really looks like Bannon is playing by Dugins playbook. There's a group called Cambridge analytical and they are a data analysis company that was very active in the UK pre Brexit and the US during the presidential campaign. Bannon is a board member of the group and Conway also has a connection via the Mercer family. Robert Mercer is a large shareholder of CA. CAs parent company is the SCL group. Here's this gem from SCLs Wikipedia page
"After an initial commercial success, SCL expanded into military and political arenas. It became known for involvement "in military disinformation campaigns to social media branding and voter targeting".[5] According to its website, SCL has participated in over 25 international political and electoral campaigns since 1994.[2] Since 2009, it has also started to apply its operations for disaster management and disease prevention."
I think that Trump is at best being taken advantage of by Putin and at worst is a Russian asset and that many members of his inner circle are compromised. I think we are seeing Putins takeover play out in real time and this is the playbook that's being used. I really hope I'm wrong but what the fuck does this look like to you?
Is anyone else really disappointed with MSNBCs reaction so far?
That was fucking pathetic right? That had to have been the most pathetic attempt at displaying an understanding of, well... anything. How did their coverage not start with, "Just so you all know Trump just spent 30 minutes saying nothing!" Have we ever had such an unqualified presidential candidate?
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Food Waste
Producers, sellers, and consumers waste tons of food. John Oliver discusses the shocking amount of food we don’t eat.
Hudson River Valley Heritage
Check out this wonderful resource with collections from the FDR Library, Bard College, Vasser Brothers Medical Center and many more.
Our partners are continually adding new material to the collections of photographs, maps, letters, postcards, manuscripts, scrapbooks, programs from events, memorabilia and ephemera, oral histories and much more. Historical newspapers from the region can be found at our companion site: HRVH Historical Newspapers.
http://www.hrvh.org/
Grateful Dead Santa Clara show live stream! Audio and Video!
http://m.ustream.tv/channel/phish-1-1-15Enjoy
Huge Bernie AMA on Reddit!
He answers a ton of questions. There's some great discussion occurring.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36j690/i_am_senator_bernie_sanders_democratic_candidate/
Robert Reich Hammers TPP As More "Trickle-Down" Economics: "Have We Learned Nothing?"
The biggest beneficiaries would be giant American-based global corporations, along with their executives and major shareholders.
Those giant corporations initiated the deal in the first place, their lobbyists helped craft it behind closed doors, and they’re the ones who have been pushing hard for it in Congress – dangling campaign contributions in front of congressional supporters and threatening to cut off funding to opponents.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/03/1382221/-Robert-Reich-Hammers-TPP-As-More-Trickle-Down-Economics-Have-We-Learned-Nothing?detail=facebook_sf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems naive to assume the corporations have our best interests at heart. Why are we still using the same principles and trusting the same people who kept fucking everything up? Without increased tax rates on the rich, a massive expansion of the safety net and a minimum income the TPP could damage us tremendously.
What can we possibly do?
Peaceful Protests are ignored. Acts of civil obedience are ignored. Both parties have sold us out to the fascist overlords and our M$M propaganda machine is owned by the same people who own our politicians. From the lack of quality, affordable, available education to the shredding of the safety net; the racist immoral drug war to the off-shoring of our manufacturing jobs our issues are all linked to this toxic relationship between government, corporations and the media. This is what oligarchy looks like and just because we have only recently started to talk about this on a national level doesn't mean that people haven't been experiencing it for decades. It's very easy to say rioting doesn't solve anything without offering an alternative solution to the very real problems that people (especially minorities in large cities) deal with everyday.
So what do we do now? Jobs will continue to get shipped to countries were labor is cheaper until the technology improves enough that people won't have to do any work themselves. There's going to lead to a lot of people with no job, no money and no food. All over the world. Higher education levels and greater skilled labor is a solution for a small amount of people but there isn't a need for 7 billion engineers and doctors. So the population keeps growing, wealth keeps consolidating and opportunities keep disappearing. Baltimore is simply the latest in a long string of warnings across the world.
We can vote, we can start a movement, we can back candidate that will slow down this trend and help make it an easier fall (Sanders, Clinton and Biden are all better then any of the republicans by at least a little bit) but a fall is coming. The status quo isn't sustainable and regardless of who is president the changes will still be incremental. Congressional gridlock will still exist not to mention we don't live in an isolated bubble. The stability of this country is just is much dependent on the actions of the populations of China and India as ours. There are very dark times coming unless we get our shit together.
Want to See Domestic Spying’s Future? Follow the Drug War
The future looks grim.
The DEA’s newly revealed bulk collection of billions of American phone records on calls to 116 countriespreceded the NSA’s similar program by years and may have even helped to inspire it, as reported in USA Today’s story Wednesday. And the program serves as a reminder that most of the legal battles between government surveillance efforts and the Fourth Amendment’s privacy protections over the last decades have played out first on the front lines of America’s War on Drugs. Every surveillance test case in recent history, from beepers to cell phones to GPS tracking to drones—and now the feds’ attempts to puncture the bubble of cryptographic anonymity around Dark Web sites like the Silk Road—began with a narcotics
“If you asked me last week who was doing this [kind of mass surveillance] other than the NSA, the DEA would be my first guess,” says Chris Soghoian, the lead technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “The War on Drugs and the surveillance state are joined at the hip.”
In 2013, a staggering 88 percent of Department of Justice's reported wiretap warrants were for narcotics.
It’s no secret that drug cases overwhelmingly dominate American law enforcement’s use of surveillance techniques. The Department of Justice annually reports to the judiciary how many wiretaps it seeks warrants for, broken down by the type of crime being investigated. In 2013, the last such report, a staggering 88 percent of the 3,576 reported wiretaps were for narcotics. That’s compared to just 132 wiretaps for homicide and assault combined, for instance, and a mere eight for corruption cases.
intercepting router shipments to plant bugs, or secretly rewriting the hard drive firmware of their spying targets. But drug-related surveillance, which is far more domestic in its focus, does push the legal limits of that spying. Again and again, says Electronic Frontier Foundation defense attorney Hanni Fakhoury, it’s drug investigations that cross into the realm of unconstitutional search and seizure, and it’s these cases that result in the judicial system setting new legal precedents for Americans’ privacy protections—both for the better and for the worse. “If you go back and look at just about every major Fourth Amendment case in the last 30 years, it’s been a drug case,” says Fakhoury.
More at link
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/want-see-domestic-spyings-future-follow-drug-war/
Profile Information
Member since: Thu Oct 17, 2013, 08:51 AMNumber of posts: 528