Exclusive: Mainstream U.S. media is proud to be the Deep State’s tip of the spear pinning President Trump to the wall over unproven allegations about Russia and his calls for detente, a rare point where he makes sense, notes Daniel Lazare.
By Daniel Lazare
The New York Times has made it official. In a Sunday front-page article entitled “Trump Ruled the Tabloid Media. Washington Is a Different Story,” the paper gloats that Donald Trump has proved powerless to stop a flood of leaks threatening to capsize his administration.
New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)
As reporters Glenn Thrush and Michael M. Grynbaum put it: “This New York-iest of politicians, now an idiosyncratic, write-your-own-rules president, has stumbled into the most conventional of Washington traps: believing he can master an entrenched political press corps with far deeper connections to the permanent government of federal law enforcement and executive department officials than he has.”
Thrush and Grynbaum add a few paragraphs later that Trump “is being force-fed lessons all presidents eventually learn – that the iron triangle of the Washington press corps, West Wing staff and federal bureaucracy is simply too powerful to bully.”
Iron triangle? Permanent government? In its tale of how Trump went from being a favorite of the New York Post and Daily News to fodder for the big-time Washington news media, the Times seems to be going out of its way to confirm dark paranoid fears of a “deep state” lurking behind the scenes and dictating what political leaders can and cannot do. “Too powerful to bully” by a “write-your-own-rules president” is another way of saying that the permanent government wants to do things its way and will not put up with a president telling it to take a different approach.
Entrenched interests are nothing new, of course. But a major news outlet bragging about collaborating with such elements in order to cripple a legally established government is. The Times was beside itself with outrage when top White House adviser Steve Bannon described the media as “the opposition party.” But one can’t help but wonder what all the fuss is about since an alliance aimed at hamstringing a presidency is nothing if not oppositional.
If so, a few things are worth keeping in mind. One is that Trump was elected, even if only by an Eighteenth-Century relic known as the Electoral College, whereas the deep state, permanent government, or whatever else you want to call it was not. Where Trump gave speeches, kissed babies, and otherwise sought out the vote, the deep state did nothing. To the degree this country is still a democracy, that must count for something. So if the conflict between president and the deep state ever comes down to a question of legitimacy, there is no doubt who will come out ahead: The Donald.
A second thing worth keeping in mind is that if ever there was a case of the unspeakable versus the inedible (to quote Oscar Wilde), the contest between a billionaire president and billionaire-owned press is it.
Both sides are more or less correct in what they say about the other. Trump really is a strongman at war with basic democratic norms just as innumerable Times op-ed articles say he is. And giant press organization like the Times and the Washington Post are every bit as biased and one-sided as Trump maintains – and no less willfully gullible, one might add, than in 2002 or 2003 when they happily swallowed every lie put out by the George W. Bush administration regarding Iraqi WMDs or Saddam Hussein’s support for Al Qaeda.
Riveting TV
Trump’s Feb. 16 press conference – surely the most riveting TV since Jerry Springer was in his prime – is a case in point. The President bobbed, weaved, and hurled abuse like a Catskills insult comic. He threw out pseudo-facts, describing his victory, for instance, as “the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan” when in fact George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all got more votes. But commentators who panned the display as a “freak show” or simply “batshit crazy” didn’t get it. It wasn’t Trump who bombed that afternoon, but the press.
Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)
Why? Because reporters behaved with all the intelligence of a pack of Jack Russell terriers barking at a cat up a tree. Basically, they’ve been seized by the idée fixe that Russia is a predator state that hacks elections, threatens U.S. national security, and has now accomplished the neat trick of planting a Kremlin puppet in the Oval Office. It doesn’t matter that evidence is lacking or that the thesis defies common sense. It’s what they believe, what their editors believe, and what the deep state believes too (or at least pretends to). So the purpose of the Feb. 16 press conference was to pin Trump down as to whether he also believes the Russia-did-it thesis and pillory him for deviating from the party line.
More than half the questions that reporters threw out were thus about Russia, about Mike Flynn, the ex-national security adviser who got into trouble for talking to the Russian ambassador before the new administration formally took office, or about reputed contacts between the Trump campaign staff and Moscow. One reporter thus demanded to know if anyone from Trump’s campaign staff had ever spoken with the Russian government or Russian intelligence. Another asked if Trump had requested FBI telephone intercepts before determining that Flynn had not broken the law.
“I just want to get you to clarify this very important point,” said a third. “Can you say definitively that nobody on your campaign had any contacts with the Russians during the campaign?” A fourth wanted to get the President’s reaction to such “provocations” as a Russian communications vessel floating 30 miles off the coast of Connecticut (in international waters). “Is Putin testing you, do you believe, sir?” the reporter asked as if he had just uncovered a Russian agent in the Lincoln Bedroom. “…But do they damage the relationship? Do they undermine this country’s ability to work with Russia?”
When yet another journalist asked yet again “whether you are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with Russia during the course of the election,” Trump cried out in frustration: “How many times do I have to answer this question?” It was the most intelligent query of the day.
The press played straight into Trump’s hands, all but providing him with his best lines. “Well, I guess one of the reasons I’m here today is to tell you the whole Russian thing, that’s a ruse,” he responded at one point. “That’s a ruse. And by the way, it would be great if we could get along with Russia, just so you understand that. Now tomorrow, you’ll say, ‘Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia, this is terrible.’ It’s not terrible. It’s good.”
The prose may not be very polished, but the sentiments are unassailable. Ditto Trump’s statement a few minutes later that “false reporting by the media, by you people, the false, horrible, fake reporting makes it much harder to make a deal with Russia. … And that’s a shame because if we could get along with Russia – and by the way, China and Japan and everyone – if we could get along, it would be a positive thing, not a negative thing.”
If the Washington Post and the Times do not agree that bogus assertions about unauthorized contacts with Russia are not poisoning the atmosphere, they should explain very clearly why not. They should also explain what they hope to accomplish with a showdown with Russia and why it will not be a step toward World War III.
But they won’t, of course. The media (with encouragement from parts of the U.S. government) are working themselves into a fit of outrage against Vladimir Putin just as, in past years, they did against Daniel Ortega, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein (again), Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, and Viktor Yanukovych. In each instance, the outcome has been war, and so far the present episode shows all signs of heading in the same direction as well.
Reporters may be clueless, but working-class Americans aren’t. They don’t want a war because they’re the ones who would have to fight it. So they’re not unsympathetic to Trump and all the more inclined to give the yapping media short shrift.
This is a classic pattern in which strongmen advance on the basis of a liberal opposition that proves to be weak and feckless. Today’s liberal media are obliging Trump by behaving in a way that is even sillier than usual and well ahead of schedule to boot.
A Fragile Meme
The anti-Russia meme, meanwhile, rests on the thinnest of foundations. The argument that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee and thereby tipped the election to Trump is based on a single report by CrowdStrike, the California-based cyber-security firm hired by the DNC to look into the mass email leak. The document is festooned with head-spinning techno-jargon.
Couple walking along the Kremlin, Dec. 7, 2016. (Photo by Robert Parry)
It says of Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, the hackers who allegedly penetrated the DNC in behalf of Russian intelligence: “Their tradecraft is superb, operational security second to none, and the extensive usage of ‘living-off-the-land’ techniques enables them to easily bypass many security solutions they encounter. In particular, we identified advanced methods consistent with nation-state level capabilities including deliberate targeting and ‘access management’ tradecraft – both groups were constantly going back into the environment to change out their implants, modify persistent methods, move to new Command & Control channels, and perform other tasks to try to stay ahead of being detected. Both adversaries engage in extensive political and economic espionage for the benefit of the government of the Russian Federation and are believed to be closely linked to the Russian government’s powerful and highly capable intelligence services.”
Impressive? Not to independent tech experts who have already begun taking potshots. Sam Biddle, The Intercept’s extremely smart tech writer, notes that CrowdStrike claims to have proved that Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear are Russian because they left behind Cyrillic comments in their “metadata” along with the name “Felix Edmundovich,” also in Cyrillic, an obvious reference to Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka, as the Soviet political police were originally known.
But, Biddle observes, there’s an obvious contradiction: “Would a group whose ‘tradecraft is superb’ with ‘operational security second to none’ really leave behind the name of a Soviet spy chief imprinted on a document it sent to American journalists? Would these groups really be dumb enough to leave Cyrillic comments on these documents? … It’s very hard to buy the argument that the Democrats were hacked by one of the most sophisticated, diabolical foreign intelligence services in history, and that we know this because they screwed up over and over again.”
Indeed, John McAfee, founder of McAfee Associates and developer of the first commercial anti-virus software, casts doubt on the entire enterprise, wondering whether it is possible to identify a hacker at all. “If I were the Chinese,” he told TV interviewer Larry King in late December, “and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into organizations. … If it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you: it was not the Russians.” (Quote starts at 4:30.)
This may be too sweeping. Nonetheless, if the press really wanted to get to the bottom of what the Russians are doing, they would not begin with the question of what Trump knew and when he knew it. They would begin, rather, with the question of what we know and how we can be sure. It’s the question that the press should have asked during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but failed to. But it’s the question that reporters should be asking now before the conflict with Russia spins out of control, with consequences that are potentially even more horrendous.
It’s not easy making Donald Trump seem like a peacenik, but that’s what the billionaire’s press has done.
Daniel Lazare is the author of several books including The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace).
This article does not clarify much at all. It examines a segment of the Trump-Russia subject that leaves so much untouched I can’t feel that it is useful. The story, in my mind, seems to be a Trump apologist’s POV. I am sure that was not the purpose. It starts out involving the “Deep State” and more or less abandons that part of the story.
Missing are the all the other segments of the Trump-Russia subject, e.g. Trump’s high regard for Putin, the administration positions filled by individuals with close ties to Russia and Putin, bankrupt Trump was bailed out by Russians, Trump and close associates and their business deals with the Russians, and US real estate projects and dirty Russian money.
IMO, no conclusions should be drawn regarding the Trump-Russia and related topics until all the parts have been explained – with verifiable facts. I am aghast as to how the Republicans, and much of America, went from being commie haters, “Better dead than red” to accepting Putin with his track record and seemingly, at least for Trump, comfortable with “Better red than dead.”
You say Trump was “a favorite of the New York Post and Daily News.” The Post, yes, but had you merely looked at a series of the Daily News’ front pages, you would have seen that the paper was consistently anti-Trump, throughout the campaign, the transition, and now the residency. Such an egregious error casts doubt on everything else you say.
An excellent article. What a shame it is that nobody in the US media seems to have the courage to investigate exactly what it is that this seemingly all-powerful so-called “Deep State”, or rather its most prominent mouthpieces (New York Times, Washington Post, CNN) find so objectionable about Trump. And Putin for that matter. Who are the people behind this “Deep State”? Can they be named? Do these mouthpieces perhaps have an unspoken common agenda, a common purpose, to which they regard Trump as a threat? Relations with Israel for example?
Certainly the mass media do not have the courage, for that would require principles beyond their pure selfishness.
But neither they nor Congress nor the Executive can investigate the secret agencies and their connections to big business and finance. The secret agencies are full of rogues, and must be completely shut down and replaced. Shutting them down requires far more than budget cut and dispersal of personnel. They must be the subject of extensive investigation and continuing monitoring by a dedicated agency, for they will survive as mercenary rogues of big business, with existing means of support from foreign powers and their own businesses.
Their databases must also be destroyed, as they falsely impugn anyone they please, and thereby influence other agencies, countries, and the judiciary and local enforcement. Thus they cause unrelated agencies to attack their personal enemies, those who disagree in politics, anyone they may seek to defame on a whim. This police state could not be more corrupt, or more useless, and must be absolutely erased.
For those with short memories, the actions of the press and intelligence services to drum up war with Iraq should be enough in and of itself to make all of us cautious about today’s claims by the press and intelligence services about Russian efforts to manipulate the U.S. election and claims that Russian troops are enjoying sitting around drinking vodka while little Ukranian children roast over open fires (I made that up but I expect the media will soon start writing similar stories.
Dick Cheney, Paul wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Feith, et. al., deliberately distorted and misused intelligence to lie the U.S. into a war of aggression against Iraq, which had done absolutely nothing to us and was in fact incapable of doing any harm to us. Even Colin Powell was caught up in the scheming and lied blatantly in his testimony to the U.N. Powell has never fully apologized for his lies.
The New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media went happily along with the govt. propaganda. A few, such as Judy Miller, became infamous for their deliberate lies, which the NYT happily printed without ever questioning even the most outrageous lies.
It is almost impossible for an American to believe that our govt, our intelligence agencies, and our newspapers and t.v. news have lied to us, have started wars, caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and are ready to lie us into another war if we let them. But stranger things have happened. And this is where American is: on the verge of war with Iran or Russia or a civil war to defend our country from death by a massive fifty column.
William, a couple years ago the US finally declassified that “Remember the Maine”, the slogan that was used to hype the Spanish American War in the news[papers was a misrepresentation. The explosion was blamed on terrorists (of course) but investigation of the incident had indicated that a boiler in the ship had blown up accidentally. That never made the press and we assumed control over the Philippines and Cuba as part of the Treaty that ended that war. over 100 years later who cared? What FDR knew about Pearl harbor remains classified and I suspect always will. Your point is very good. I do not believe that we Americans have forgotten the lies about WMD’s and aL-Qaeda in Irag and I do not believe that most Americans believe that Russia influenced the election . In fact many of us, like me , are disappointed that Trump couldn’t go through with his promise to cool off Obama’s Cold War. I might add that the media did not present the truth about Syria or Libya either and if you want to go back in time , the Regime Change that was pulled off in Yugoslavia has a decidedly anti-Serbian bias in the press way back when.
“Both sides are more or less correct in what they say about the other. Trump really is a strongman at war with basic democratic norms just as innumerable Times op-ed articles say he is. And giant press organization like the Times and the Washington Post are every bit as biased and one-sided as Trump maintains – and no less willfully gullible, one might add, than in 2002 or 2003 when they happily swallowed every lie put out by the George W. Bush administration regarding Iraqi WMDs or Saddam Hussein’s support for Al Qaeda.”
Thank you. That captures the whole of the present discussion.
A fair minded discussion would be useful and important. We apparently can’t do that. The so-called independent investigation demanded by one is meant to be another partisan dog and pony show of the sort we’ve seen too much before.
The real alternative is better press. This is an excellent start.
The “problem”, if it is one, with the “deep state” argument is that if you postulate that there is an American “deep state” that can do all these dastardly things and leave no evidence behind, then logically, there must also be a Russian “deep state” capable of the same things and also leaving no evidence behind. Thus, the deep state argument actually hurts Putin.
Not without evidence. Your opposing hypothesis lacks even evidence of pro-Russia mass media actions.
So the Constitution is an “Eighteenth-Century relic?
What is really sad that this obvious CIA false flag psyop underlying NYT and other MSM anti-Russian hysteria [new reincarnation of Mockingbird Operation) and WaPo slanderous piece based on ProPornOt fake website seems to be working somewhat. American sheeple seem to be biting the sh..t and gorge themselves on it again like in old Joe McCarthy days where millions voluntarily enlisted to search for card-carrying commie bogymen under their beds.
Old Joe McCarthy methods from beyond his grave, used by a fake CIA Putin slanderous leak, already utterly repudiated by former CIA and NSA executives as baseless, rejected by current FBI and NSA experts as containing groundless conclusions with completely absent evidenciary support after they read secret CIA report in its entirety. That should have close the case.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/12/us-intel-vets-dispute-russia-hacking-claims/
But it did not. Hard facts completely repudiating the CIA anonymous claim did not matter for MSM propaganda machine.
So what is this all about? Surely not about finding out the truth.
Some are picking up a the false narrative of MSM propaganda and lies that this is all about Russian influence on the US elections when massive MSM media machine was unified and about three months before elections became a monolithic propaganda tube for Hillary in a soviet “Pravda” style of single voice of Trump condemnation even examining Ivankas sexual life as teenager and her racial and sexual preferences. When top 100 newspapers in the US endorsed Hillary, some the first time in 100 years endorsed a Democrat it became clear that the claim of politically diverse MSM media in the US is a utter fallacy, and instead we have Orwellian propaganda outfits under unified commend and control of political establishment and her oligarchic supporters influence peddling and backing single candidate Hillary.
In fact it is not even about that, nothing even close to it.
And certainly it is not about suppose ulterior motivation driven propaganda of “external” [read Russian] influence on the US politicians and political process via network of spies and allegedly associated with them independent websites, knowing well that American political process for long decades is bought and sold by foreigners [running numerous networks of websites and supported by an army of lobbyists with well know ties with foreign intelligence community] namely Israelis and their extortionist outfit AIPAC, as well as Saudis, EU, Japan even China during Bill Clinton years when a later convicted Chinese spy paid for a night in Lincoln bedroom, and more, buying for pennies on a dollar all American politicians wholesale every elections and by that often pushing US into senseless wars, enormous expenditures and economic losses.
Let’s not be fooled by such a straw-man arguments The Russian affair as put by MSM is a pure propaganda.
There still has been no explanation why there should be no communication between incoming officials such as Flynn and foreign governments. This seems a sensible plan to prepare for the new administration. Apparently Flynn was on holidays in the Dominican Republic and telephoned lots of people- I heard no complaints about any words with Israel, for example. Why should he remember every word of each introductory talk? I am not for Flynn, but it was obviously a setup.
Logan Act says he can not negotiate with foreign power until in office. Flynn states he did not mention sanctions only expulsions, of which he only said they will be reviewed. O meet with heads of state even before election.
If the Logan Act was such a big deal, why has John McCain not been prosecuted for his dealings with the MEK, ISIS, and the OUN(B)? What about all of Congress for the spectacle with War Criminal Bibi?
A fourth wanted to get the President’s reaction to such “provocations” as a Russian communications vessel floating 30 miles off the coast of Connecticut (in international waters).
This is another example of the mainstream corporate media’s hypocrisy – being offended by Russia (and other nations) gathering intelligence when there is no other nation on the planet that does more spying than the United States.
And giant press organization like the Times and the Washington Post are every bit as biased and one-sided as Trump maintains – and no less willfully gullible, one might add, than in 2002 or 2003 when they happily swallowed every lie put out by the George W. Bush administration regarding Iraqi WMDs or Saddam Hussein’s support for Al Qaeda.
Perhaps, they weren’t so much gullible as willing accomplices.
I don’t recall seeing the main stream media speaking with such a singular voice since maybe Nixon’s impeachment fiasco. That was a pretty clear case, the missing 18 minutes of tape just being the icing on the cake. This one is nothing like that, no smoking gun and the available evidence appears ambiguous at best. This sort of thing has been done going back to Nixon and Vietnam and his “secret” formula for peace which he would only divulge to us poor voters if we reelected him. Deep state, vested interest, whatever you call it is not in fact an elected body responsive to voters. It is probably responding to a half dozen big donors that write checks and call the shots. Having the major organs of the press in bed with the government is not what the 1st Amendment was written to protect. They need to go away with hillary and her DNC operators and the neo-cons and let us try to run an honest government.
Hopefully President Trump will convince the naysayers in this country and indeed the world,of the beneifits in having good relations with Russia and China both diplomatically and economically. In time perhaps the walls of paranoia and greed will give way to new alliances that will indeed keep rogue nations and individuals in check. The devision in this country and other western democracies is based on greed, racism, hatred and a immorality that is totally contrary to the very foundation this country was built on. I see President Trump as new leadership with promise not just to make this country great again but to reset the ships course and make the world a better place.
The country’s foundation was based on Greed, Racism & Immorality.
You should read Howard Zinn’s History of the United States.
The US was founded on invasion, rape, genocide, theft, and slavery. The US has been sticking to its tried and true successful system, ever since.
Slavery has continued to date: slave labor; sex slavery is a multi-billion $ industry; human organs trade of Kosovo and other poor countries where the filthy rich harvest human organs from the poor citizens after destroying their own organs by too drinking, smoking or engaging in other gluttonous activities!
Dick Cheney got a very young heart, allowing his ideas to continue wreaking havoc on others on planet earth!
Powerless people of world are under siege by the Deep State elites and their recruited accomplices who have sworn to wage war on them!
https://www.forbes.com/2007/11/02/book-review-nobodies-oepd-cz_es_1105bowe.html
This is a pictorial organ trade story. How long has this trade being going on in Kosovo or did it just start after the NATO bombing, Mhh?:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Kosovo+organ+trade&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzjI-VjLbSAhXBthQKHW6WDycQsAQIQA&biw=1067&bih=497
Genocide, Slavery, and Propertied White Men only voting
We can’t trust the motives of either Trump or Putin. Otherwise it would be a good idea.
Can not trust the oligarch Duopoly. Dump Identity politics.
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected the promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world-government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries. —David Rockefeller, Speaking at the June, 1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden, Germany (a meeting also attended by then-Governor Bill Clinton and by Dan Quayle)”
You won´t seethat speech recorded in the New York times
whew…..?what a swell guy….. ?hmmmmm….?
And to validate David Rockefeller’s vision? – according to former Fed Chairman Paul Volker, the only useful innovation from these big banks on Wall Street over the last few decades was the ATM machine….
When they “manage” the whole world, I wonder whether they will be able to “innovate” that ATM machine to handle world monetary transactions….
The rest of their wealth as I see it comes from skimming maybe 30% off the labor of others….
although that takes a few million foreclosures here and there….
And apparently David Rockefeller thought that would be a fine protocol for “running” the world economy…..
The internet has been a very precious resource on behalf of a more democratic and just world….
Although that’s under threat too from anti net neutrality forces.
These days the innovative ATM machines are being covered with skimmers. Since my credit union has lots of branches, I go in to the tellers for cash.
What are skimmers please?
A skimmer is a device that can be attached to an ATM or cedit card machine (by someone who is trying to steal information) that captures all of the information on a card, along with the PIN. They can be very difficult to spot, especially if you are not looking for them.
Skimmers were developed to copy information on ATM cards’ magnetic swipe-strip. One would hope that the development of encryption ships would eliminate skimmer schemes.
And to validate David Rockefeller’s vision?
If I recall correctly, several years ago David Rockefeller told Maria Bartiroma during an interview on CNBC or some other channel that “morality was not a factor in business decisions.”
Not for him apparently
And also not for the Harvard MBA school given the havoc some of those graduates have wreaked on this world
It seems the “controllers” from the Deep State, whoever that may be….THE MIC? THE BIG BANKS? BIG OIL? BIG PHARMA? – those powerful interests working in concert? with tentacles to BIG MEDIA? POLITICAL APPOINTEES TO HEAD THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES? who knows….
But it seems that for many decades they have set a trajectory of controlling fossil fuel sources of energy ; the transportation of those fuels on land and sea; exploiting people in Central and South America through alliances with right wing oppressive regimes and endless wars decimating weak countries in the Middle East/allying with oppressive regimes there; ‘causing millions of refugees to flee to Europe.
It’s clear to me that there’s little intelligent thought to these policies. If we had used our “Super Power” wealth to fund the development of virtually unlimited solar and wind power instead of turning into Attila the Hun or Julius Caesar (as Secretary Clinton apparently views herself – “we came, we saw, he died”) there would have been no 9/11.
Elon Musk’s Master Plan Part Deux is an example of visionary thinking that our leaders lack.
Bernie, had he not been betrayed by the DNC and dismissed by Big Media would have beaten Trump – he even appealed to life long Republicans, not because they agreed with everything he said but because they trusted him.
And Bernie would have had a much better chance than Trump dealing with the Deep State.
He’s smart, articulate, has a moral compass and addresses the critical issues of our time in language that people can understand and makes sense.
The Deep State may have all the money and power but they are digging a deep hole for this country – financial debt and moral bankruptcy , preying on the most vulnerable and, given the 2016 election results, I think “everybody knows” .
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8IfmiKnZi3E
The neocon stated policy is global projection of full spectrum dominance. Now we have an undiscriminating anti trump establishment orchaestrated hysteria that manifests as the Demo’s embracing the neocon deep state neo mccarthyism. I evaluate administrations and nations by body count. The USA is outstanding in that approximately 20 million humans have been murdered directly as a result of wars against the peace or USA supported coups during the last sixty years.
The Middle East nations the USA invaded and destroyed were not weak. Militarily France would be weak as compared to the USA. Lybia was the wealthiest nation in Africa, and socialist, the foundation for its destruction. Iraq and Syria both socialist Bathist party regimes were also wealthy, educated and prosperous. Yemen and Somalia were less prosperous before falling victim to USA strategy.
Thank you!
In addition, we must not be overly distracted by domestic issues, and ignore the neocon drive to destroy, the one of only two nations left on the list of seven targeted nations, revealed by general Clarke. Iran, another war the oligarch duopoly wishes to initiate. Not until the two duopoly parties are discarded will have he USA become prosperous and peaceful for all.
Thank you.
We seem as indifferent to cultural riches in other countries as the Taliban….
When we invaded Iraq we protected the Ministry of Oil, if I read about that correctly, but nothing else……
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ZJZfc-DeU
Your welcome. I sat on the head of the larger Buddha in Bamiyan, the frecoes of bodhisattvas floating on clouds painted on the underside of the arch above were wonderously bueatiful. The Afghans were gracious. The taliban never had any intentions beyond Afghanistan. For all the taliban’s faults, bombing the Afghan women out of their burqa’s (some of whom are happy with their burqa’s), was and is not the answer.
so terribly sad, especially when, according to the 2 French investigative authors, the Bush/Cheney criminals told the Taliban they wanted to build a pipeline or something and would give them lots of gold OR if they refused they’d get a carpet of bombs.
We’ll do bidness with anyone….as long as they play ball.
I loved “The Kite Fliers” about the Sunni Shia divide in Afghanistan
“An Unexpected Light” excellent book ,post soviet defeat pre USA invasion. Rumsfeld past employer Calcon wanted to build TAPI pipeline, Turkmenistan , Afghanistan ,Pakistan , India . India backed out when Pakistans transit fee was too costly. Ironically the pipeline terminus seaport in Pakistan was Chinese developed. The USA attacked three weeks after the Taliban gave the contract to Argentina. Taliban were willing to give bin Ladin to a third nation if USA provided evidence. Karzai and Taliban frequently were amendable to peace treaty not USA. Hope my spelling does not get jumbled again.
Evelyn have you ever been to a City Council or a Planning Comission meeting where elected Government officials are exercising their power to, say push through a project that is destroying some wetlands or developing open space? People, the Opposition, Citizens groups have these little fights all over the country continuously trying to stop projects that they feel are wrong headed. Sometimes these just plain folks are up against powerful interests that employ dirty tricks, private investigators , dubious legal tactics. etc. .. What I’m saying is the reason these people have this Governmental power is to use it. They are more interested in making money and facilitating business than protecting the public interest. The reason people in the deep state and both political parties use this power is a use it or lose it mentality. WE are the USA , the world’s indispensable nation, the world’s moral high ground,and all that because we kill people and force the action to maintain control. This is what all Empires throughout history have done. We are the last one standing .Can’t have China in an alliance with SCO states , Russia and Iran kick us to the curb with the One belt one road project OBOR and the opening of the northern trade route over Russia to Europe. We aren’t going to fade away soon. It is immoral, wasteful l and probably wrong but people have made hard decisions that some of them probably didn’t like and the USA remains the strongest nation in the world . We have a high standard of living and a lot of Freedom still. We won WW II and the beat still goes on.
LJ your comment provokes me to bring up the Dakota Access defenders, and how ashamed I am to be a white European decent American for once again we beat down the Indigenous of the Americas. Here we are in the 21st Century and we are still breaking treaties and promises of good faith to these Native of this American land before us, and all in the name of civilized progress. When Trump announced this in his speech to Congress I heard a few cheers go up, and I just hung my head.
Transporting oil is superior over having healthy clean water, are we all nuts? I need to drink water, and I can’t drink crude oil, so which one do I choose….oh I don’t know, why not have a coal-burger with your crude. I’m telling you our society has gone certifiable and that’s no lie.
gently and nicely put comment,
Another parallel: Trump campaigned on a platform suggesting some kind of economic help for working stiffs, but he appointed a cabinet of Plutocrats working against their economic interests. The New York Times claims to be liberal, but does not back liberal policies on issues of economic or foreign policy substance – it merely camouflages itself as liberal by criticizing the slightly more conservative Republicans for the boorishness when it comes to wedge issues not having a big impact on any part of the Federal budget or foreign policy or the fear mongering/false flag based “War on Terrorism” that drains the majority of U.S. discretionary spending.