Touchy Subjects

A Controversy for the Trump Era // Popular Culture

Three takes by Camille Paglia:

https://youtu.be/B553na_skKI

 

https://youtu.be/4y3-KIesYRE

 

https://youtu.be/kyPUH825Bjk

A Controversy for the Trump Era // Russia

Two episodes from Ben Swann’s series Reality Check

https://youtu.be/CNIrPLHVfdI

 

https://youtu.be/Pqm2TmQ1Fho

 

The following is a quote from the blog What’s Left,

How an evidence-free CIA finding alleging Russian interference in the US election was turned into an indisputable ‘truth’

December 17, 2016
Updated December 18, 2016

By Stephen Gowans

Only a few days ago the New York Times acknowledged that the CIA finding that the Kremlin hacked the Democratic National Convention’s computers with the intention of influencing the US presidential election was based, not on evidence, but conjecture. Today, the newspaper’s reporters have forgotten their earlier caveats and have begun to treat the intelligence agency’s guess-work as an established truth.

Emblematic of the newspaper’s approach of acknowledging the uncertainty of many intelligence assessments only to quickly throw caution to the wind to embrace them as certain facts, was a December 15 report by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo in which the two reporters wrote that the “hack influenced the course, if not the outcome, of a presidential campaign.” [1] The sentence is astonishing for not only stripping the CIA finding of its immanent uncertainty, but in venturing well beyond the intelligence agency’s judgment to aver what no one could possibly know, namely, whether the release of DNC e-mails influenced the presidential campaign.

That it did, and at Clinton’s expense, is, of course, the conclusion the Democrats, if not a faction of the US ruling class associated with the Clintons, would like the US public to arrive at. In this, the New York Times has provided signal assistance as the unofficial propaganda arm of the US ruling class’s Democratic Party wing. Yet, we don’t even know if the DNC e-mails were hacked let alone by agents of the Russian government. One alternative explanation is that the e-mails were leaked by someone inside the DNC. Nevertheless, Goldman and Apuzzo claim to know far more than anyone could possibly know: that the CIA’s analysis is true despite the agency’s own admission of uncertainty and that, additionally, the Russian government intended to influence the outcome of the campaign and that its efforts bore fruit.

New York Times reporters Julie Hirschfeld Davis and David E. Sanger were slightly more circumspect than the omniscient Goldman and Apuzzo, but nevertheless wrote of “Russia’s efforts to influence the presidential election,” as if this is not a matter of conjecture but established fact. They also mentioned Trump’s refusal “to accept Moscow’s culpability,” as if Moscow’s culpability is indisputable. [2] Sanger is a member of the Wall Street-directed foreign policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, of which most members of the Obama cabinet are also members, as were occupants of the most significant offices of the US state, going back to at least the Carter administration. [3] The CFR is likely the body through which the anti-Trump faction of the US ruling class organizes itself.

Let’s recall how much uncertainty underlies the CIA finding which the New York Times now accepts as fact, in the same way the newspaper quickly accepted as fact an equally tentative, and evidence-free US intelligence finding that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons in its war against Al Qaeda and the Islamist group’s allies, offshoots and auxiliaries. Today, “Assad’s use of chemical weapons” is bandied about in the Western media as if it were an incontrovertible fact, belying the reality that the US intelligence finding on the matter was based on belief, not evidence, and that there was, by Washington’s own admission, no “smoking gun.” What’s more, the idea that the Syrian military would use chemical weapons, which are less effective than conventional arms, when doing so would have crossed a redline drawn by Washington, and invited a more muscular US intervention in Syria, never made sense….

https://gowans.wordpress.com/2016/12/17/how-an-evidence-free-cia-finding-alleging-russian-interference-in-the-us-election-was-turned-into-an-indisputable-truth/

A Controversy for the Trump Era // Capitalism

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K8bf6dbYt4

 

Lessons about Propaganda // media literacy 104

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfo5gPG72KM

Published on Oct 20, 2013

This is a video on the psychology of propaganda. Prof. Kroth reviews five major techniques for how American mass media manipulates and twists the view Americans have of their world. The seriousness of the distortion, and our progressive loss of contact with reality is dramatic. We are increasingly living inside a media-induced trance without knowing it. Children believe Ronald MacDonald is more real than Abraham Lincoln. From Coke to Carl's Jr., Hip-hop to the Iraq war, the role of subliminal propaganda in our lives is unveiled and exposed. This talk is based on Dr. Kroth's recent book, Duped! Delusion, Denial, and the end of the American dream. However, Duped! has been updated, and has a new title. Look for Implosion: delusion, denial, and the prospect of collapse, coming out shortly.] More information at collectivepsych.com

One controversy for the Trump Era // SCOTUS

 

An interviewer on the street with students,  asking them about SCOTUS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRqufakbdJ8

Greenwald’s response to the Washington Post’s “Blacklist” // media literacy 103

 

 

 

 

Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group

Ben NortonGlenn Greenwald

November 26 2016, 10:17 a.m.

THE WASHINGTON POST on Thursday night promoted the claims of a new, shadowy organization that smears dozens of U.S. news sites that are critical of U.S. foreign policy as being “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda.” The article by reporter Craig Timberg — headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say” — cites a report by an anonymous website calling itself PropOrNot, which claims that millions of Americans have been deceived this year in a massive Russian “misinformation campaign.”

The group’s list of Russian disinformation outlets includes WikiLeaks and the Drudge Report, as well as Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute.

This Post report was one of the most widely circulated political news articles on social media over the last 48 hours, with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of U.S. journalists and pundits with large platforms hailing it as an earth-shattering exposé. It was the most-read piece on the entire Post website on Friday after it was published.

Yet the article is rife with obviously reckless and unproven allegations, and fundamentally shaped by shoddy, slothful journalistic tactics. It was not surprising to learn that, as BuzzFeed’s Sheera Frenkel noted, “a lot of reporters passed on this story.” Its huge flaws are self-evident. But the Post gleefully ran with it and then promoted it aggressively, led by its Executive Editor Marty Baron:

 

Marty Baron

Russian propaganda effort helped spread fake news during election, say independent researchers http://wpo.st/PHWG2

6:07 PM - 24 Nov 2016

Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say

Researchers say sophisticated tools were used to boost Trump and undermine Clinton.

washingtonpost.com

In casting the group behind this website as “experts,” the Post described PropOrNot simply as “a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds.” Not one individual at the organization is named. The executive director is quoted, but only on the condition of anonymity, which the Post said it was providing the group “to avoid being targeted by Russia’s legions of skilled hackers.”

In other words, the individuals behind this newly created group are publicly branding journalists and news outlets as tools of Russian propaganda — even calling on the FBI to investigate them for espionage — while cowardly hiding their own identities. The group promoted by the Post thus embodies the toxic essence of Joseph McCarthy, but without the courage to attach individual names to the blacklist. Echoing the Wisconsin senator, the group refers to its lengthy collection of sites spouting Russian propaganda as “The List.”

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/

 

Chomsky on the context in which we should understand Trump’s Election // media literacy 102

 

 

 

 

The following is from a piece by Daniel Falcone on Counterpunch 

What Readers Need to Know About Noam Chomsky’s Position on Lesser-Evil Voting

…For starters, Chomsky has long held that the US political system has intentionally offered weak candidates close in ideology, while presenting the illusion of choice, and both wings are dedicated to the business class and business run society. This is why, Chomsky states, we have an extraordinarily violent labor history.

I also think the premise that Chomsky advocates less than evil voting is incorrect. Chomsky, in select circumstances does not advocate less than evil voting, he simply suggests, but never insists, on strategic voting. Simply put, Chomsky holds that if you live in a state that is safe for Democrats, you have the options of: voting for the Green Party, not voting, but most importantly perhaps, carrying on with democratic action and organizing, which Chomsky holds to be the more significant part of the political process. The process is entirely independent of voting and since voting should occupy about five minutes of our time, we need to keep up the important work.

Then, if the state you reside in is not safe, meaning it is a toss-up state that Republicans can win, it’s wise to vote for the Democrat. He never suggests that Democrats should be voted for necessarily, but that voting against Republicans is vital. For one thing, they are not even a party, but a renegade group that can’t even admit climate change is real. Even if someone did not vote for a Democrat in a toss-up state, Chomsky, I think, would be more interested in what the citizen was doing to be collectively engaged.

Chomsky thinks that we shouldn’t so easily tolerate the view which, for example, consigns hundreds of millions of Bengalis to a grim fate as the sea level rises, following Trump-Republican prescriptions. Or at home, the view that says that it’s fine if we get four more Scalias on the Supreme Court.

In reality of course, Smolski, McDonald and Cox share plenty of common ground with Chomsky. Is there a difference between a Democrat and a Republican when it comes to Noam Chomsky’s politics? Yes, but very small. Usually, this is the case anyway, but since the GOP has abandoned parliamentary procedures, they are no longer a political party.  They are, literally, a menace to survival and hence the need to vote strategically.

But in the small difference, now maybe colossal, Chomsky maintains, there lies a potential for far reaching consequences when in a toss-up state. But again, as always, there is no substitute for the active citizens that devote themselves to on-going issues to participate in. This, to Noam Chomsky, is true participation and why he likes to quote Howard Zinn and the importance of “the countless small actions of unknown people.” 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/14/what-readers-need-to-know-about-noam-chomskys-position-on-lesser-evil-voting/

The controversy about “Fake News” // media literacy 101

The question I had was whether the computer file on Weiner’s laptop was, in fact, labeled “life insurance.”  Only some of the news sources mentioned this. Others had no mention at all. Is there a way to find out about this?  Depends on which news sources you go to that now even mentions this issue. Does the FBI tell us truthfully about that file?  Where did this claim come from? Was it made up by people who wanted to make Hillary look bad?  Has the fact that it was named “life insurance” been scrubbed from “reputable” news sources in order to make Hillary not look so bad? Will it take a whistleblower risking his  or her career to expose the truth?

These tubes discuss the current issue of “fake news”

 

 

 

 

What Progressives, if not Democrats, should do about Trump // Arguments from Elsewhere

I’ve wondered whether the kids in the streets here in Portland thought about what they were doing. The President –elect has yet to take office. What are they complaining about? Part of the problem is that, if they have a complaint they aren’t educating the rest of us about the virtues of their position. If the anti-war movement wanted people to oppose the war in Vietnam, they had an effort to educate. Where is the effort by these kids in the streets today to educate anyone about the things they’re concerned about?  NADA NOWHERE.

The following tube is a discussion of this issue, what to do…

What to Make of Our Election // Trump and Russia Policy

Stephen Cohen on RT’s Shevardnadze and Co.

See this interview on video at https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/366442-trump-promises-foreign-policy/

 

Follow @SophieCo_RT

Sophie Shevardnadze: Dr. Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus at Princeton and New York University, contributing editor at “The Nation”magazine, welcome to the show, it’s always great to have you back. Now, the media backed Clinton, Hollywood backed Clinton - but Trump had a stronger social media presence - his tweets to his 14 million followers made all the news - was that what made the difference in the end? Do Americans not believe in traditional media anymore, do they find social media more trustworthy?

Stephen Cohen: I have no idea - I am not a social media person. I think, the media here has covered this, that there was a profound disenchantment, I guess, anger, with many many people, with the political establishment, both Republican and Democratic, and Trump took on the establishment. I mean, plus, the very bad domestic situation for many people, plus, I think, because he did something no other candidate had done in many years: he ran as what we call “the candidate of detente”, especially with Russia, and people are worried about all these wars, but primarily it was driven by domestic pain, social pain.

SS: I’m sorry to bring you back to social media, but I’m just saying, what analysts are saying, I’m repeating: they’re saying the social media played a big role in this outcome, so is the Internet now the future of election campaigns?

SC: Well, all the analysts were wrong about Trump winning, so I think we should forget all the other analysts. I mean, this was one of the great mis-analyses, miscalculations, mis-prognosis in American political history. It was kind of like Brexit - everybody said it wasn’t possible. And, by the way, he didn’t win the electoral college just by a few votes - he won very substantially. I don’t know, I can’t testify to this. Nonetheless, about 80% of Americans still get their political news from television, so it’s what drives people’s opinions more than the Internet. There’s a lot of chatter out there and I know Trump did a lot of tweeting late at night - but so did the Clinton campaign. After all, it was Obama who really started using social media as an election device, and it helped him win. So, both campaigns knew about it, both campaigns were doing it. I was getting emails every day from the Clinton campaign, I mean, two or three times a day, so I assume that Trump was doing the same thing.