Category Archives: corporate news

Commodifying Dissent: Media, the Arts and the Hope in Cooperatives

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Empire-USA-déclin

By Yoav Litvin

Source: CounterPunch

In the latest onslaught of apocalyptic news updates: The European Union is in crisis after the BREXIT vote, endless wars continue to ravage Africa and the Middle East causing millions of refugees to flee for their lives, ISIS strikes again, this time slaughtering over one hundred and fifty innocent Iraqis in Baghdad, and man-made climate change is wreaking havoc, fueling the third major mass extinction of species on Earth.

Meanwhile, back in the halls of empire the theatrics of the electoral process, together with the usual seasonal sports spectacles are mesmerizing and distracting the vast majority of the American public from the pressing issues threatening society. Despair and hatred mar our streets, nightclubs, schools, churches and movie theaters. Greed has overtaken empathy and a few powerful individuals have squashed the collective. Whole communities have been ravaged by neoliberal agendas that imprison and impoverish, all in the name of the almighty greenback.

But it is just another day at the office for the 1%. They own the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government. As Chris Hedges frequently stresses: “We’ve undergone a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion. And it’s over. We’ve lost, and they’ve won.”

The vast majority of media sources, the watchdogs meant to protect democracy and the people’s interests at all costs, have succumbed to the rule of profit, aka “ratings”. They have become de factopropaganda outlets meant to manufacture consent and sell us on the faux virtues of consumerism and the American dream.

The corporate-owned mainstream media has been complicit on many levels. It is business as usual when a major outlet like MSNBC casually interrupts US Congresswoman Jane Harman speaking about NSA mass surveillance to feature the “breaking news” of teen pop star Justin Bieber’s DUI arrest. News networks carry on for hours with mind-numbing repetition about Donald Trump’s racist and misogynist antics, while all but completely ignoring a massive sit-in led by Democracy Spring, a movement that champions an end to the corruption of big money in our politics. Pundits whose job is to cry wolf endlessly discuss ISIS and the “threat of radical Islam”, but thorough analyses of the continued crimes of capitalism and imperialism are taboo, not to mention any productive discussions about systemic alternatives.

In this climate of corrupted news outlets, media that are independent of corporate funding are crucial in providing the people accurate information about systems of power and control.

But historically, the media has not been the only watchdog for the people and against powerful interest groups. Artists and other creatives have often used their works to voice progressive ideals that rebel against widely held conceptions of gender, race and class. As such, artists have been among the first voices of dissent to be targeted by totalitarian and fascist regimes. In the American capitalist culture, artists fall prey to a system that monetizes and commodifies all walks of life, including health care and education. Many artists willfully sell out, becoming court jesters who contribute their art to the needs of empire, i.e. as propaganda. Now studied as a degree at schools for higher education, the bulk of arts have become part of an “art market” – a multi-billion dollar industry that is more about a lifestyle and an investment, than it is about progressive messages or a passion for a new and interesting aesthetic. In the current cynical era when replicas sell for $100,000, there is little room for political art that expresses genuine and independent notions that challenge systemic conventions.

There are exceptions. Some artists refuse to corrupt themselves and their art by adhering to the whims of the “art market”. Notably, since the late sixties, there has been a movement of graffiti and street artists who have claimed public space from private owners. Born in the Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City (arguably) and now a global phenomenon, graffiti and street art often empower disenfranchised communities by serving as a voice of dissent, and providing free, uncensored messages regardless of commercial constraints.

The pathology behind the hijacking of media and the arts by the lords of capital runs deeper than the mere criminality of the 1%. It lies at the roots of one of the fundamental American values- individualism, where the achievements of the lone genius are sanctified, and those of the collective are ignored or even vilified. Individualism divides and conquers, providing the promise of immense spoils for victors, while always blaming failure on individual inadequacies, not systemic ones.

The cult of individualism has been so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that it has degenerated the biological human affinity to empathize rather than disregard, collaborate rather than dominate and has stifled the desire to give without the expectation of immediate return. Individualism has made cooperation a waste of time. But the fact of the matter is that humans have evolved as a social species and naturally yearn for and need connection, affirmation, love and stimulation to survive, thrive and create.

The crises humanity faces leave no choice but to decommodify dissent, abandon notions of individuality at the expense of others, topple hierarchies, and unite around democratic cooperatives that promote community, democracy and solidarity. Returning ownership of dissent to the public is a crucial step towards revolutionizing the workspace, en route toward a truly free and just democratic society.

Yoav Litvin is a Doctor of Psychology/ Behavioral Neuroscience.

LONDON CALLING! The DNC in England on ‘hols’

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By Daniel Hopsicker

Source: MadCowNews

Primaries polished off, the Democratic National Committee has apparently decided to pop over to swinging London on holiday.  Because what’s happening right now in Great Britain explains how Bernie Sanders somehow “lost” the California Democratic primary to a candidate who couldn’t fill a high school auditorium there without trucking in busloads of middle-aged white women wearing boxy pantsuits and smug smiles.

What’s happening in London puts what happened in California in the context of globalization.

hols

Voting in the “Brisket” Referendum

They were voting on “Brisket,” the surprisingly highly-contested election about choosing the Best BBQ in the UK.

In the end, newspaper columnists were shocked by the voter’s bad taste. Members of the commentariat were said to be absolutely appalled, especially at a few sneers and dirty looks conflated into a rise in racist and anti-immigrant hate crimes, like the non-existent chairs that weren’t thrown after the Nevada Democratic convention.

Disinformation acknowledges no borders, knows no terrestrial bounds!

“The Brexit vote has precipitated the deepest political crisis in Britain in a generation. The nation is divided and the climate is lurching dangerously towards the far right. At this critical moment for the future of the country, the Blairites have opportunistically mounted an anti-Corbyn coup. They have been incubating this coup from day one despite Corbyn’s overwhelming mandate.”

Some guy Americans have never heard of—or if they’ve heard of him don’t know how to pronounce his name— named Jeremy Corbyn, head of the Labor Party (only they spell it “Labour,” like teen-aged girls spelling their names cute: “That Cyndy! She’s special!”

Dozens of Labour Members of Parliament (confusing, don’t they know “MP’” stands for Military Police?) want this Corbyn guy to resign.

It seems they never liked him from the get-go, and would have shrugged him off long before now, except he won a massive victory from the Party’s rank-and-file in an election.

And now he won’t go!

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I thought, OMG! He’s just like Bernie!

And that’s when everything began to make sense.

The ‘objective correlative’ 

Remember how just after the California primary everything looked very “Through the Looking Glass? Remember? Bernie Sanders drawing monster crowds all up and down California… and then going on to “defeat” in the Democratic Presidential primary?

Losing to a candidate who couldn’t fill a third-grade classroom without sprinkling the crowd with California Democratic officials?

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Sure ya do, mate.

 

“Mister Peabody Almost Goes to Washington”

We’ve all seen the movie. A candidate barnstorms across the state. Draws multitudes. Enthusiastic slogans chanted all around.

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Election night is always the next scene in the montage. Basking in the approval of an excited crowd at a victory party roaring in celebration. The candidate waves for quiet (who are they kidding? Everyone knows they don’t mean it.)

But not this time. Not in California. Lucy picked up the football, took it home. It was DEFLATE-GATE  writ large.

 

Romeo wakes up, sees Juliet dead, tears all around. 

Many thought, “I must be dreamin’. This can’t be real.” Because there was no “objective correlative” to help bring sense to the experience. No recognizable human moment, as in “Romeo wakes up, sees Juliet dead, tears all around.”

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On Youtube, a baby struggles to stand; we all smile. Watch a toddler stumble across a room, swaying side to side like a drunk on a gambling cruise unexpectedly caught in high seas.

We silently urge the drooling little thing on. “Trust your tiny gyroscope, diapered one. In your forehead. Behind your Third Eye.”

There was no recognizable human moment in California, nor many of the other Democratic primaries.

Just a sinking feeling that—once again—we’ve been had.

 

Hey! That sinking feeling! Stay outta London 

But the jury’s still out on London.

“A massive show of support for Jeremy Corbyn has left the coup coalition of media pundits and disgruntled MPs with their jaws to the floor. With only 24 hours notice, over 10,000 people marched on parliament square to reinforce the Labour leader’s unprecedented democratic mandate.”

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Being Britain, things quickly got snarky.

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We wish them well. They’re a plucky bunch. Some have even had their lips surgically removed, which must be a pretty painful procedure.

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Was Super Tuesday Rigged?

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By Jerry Kroth

Source: The Hampton Institute

Social scientists have long known that releasing poll information early, before polls have closed, has two effects: first it decreases voter turnout by about 12 percent,[1] and it increases the bandwagon effect, where people hop on and vote for the winner, by about 8 percent. [2]

On the morning of Super Tuesday, before anyone had voted, the Associated Press released a story that Hillary Clinton had already won. She was the “presumptive presidential nominee” and the victor. AP had made that announcement because of a super delegate count and decided she already beat Sanders.

Other media outlets then piggy-backed on this story, and virtually every American woke up that morning to headlines that Hillary had won-and remember, that is before anyone voted on Super Tuesday.

What a surprise! By the time you had your morning coffee and went off to the polls, you already knew Mrs. Clinton was the winner. Did that bias the election? Did it discourage people from voting? Did it create a “bandwagon effect?”

If one looks carefully at the percentage totals for Clinton versus Sanders totals for those primary states, it is clear the so-called “landslide” victory of Clinton on that day was fully within this margin of bias created by the bandwagon and voter turnout effects.

In other words, the AP story determined the outcome of this election.

Strong words? Well, let’s look at the data.

Three days before the election, a Yougov poll showed Clinton leading Sanders by two points in California. But after the Associated Press released its story, Clinton beat Sanders not by two points but by 13! Hillary got an 11 point “bump.”

From somewhere.

The same effect happened in New Mexico. Sanders was ahead of Clinton by a wide margin 54 to 40 percent. [3] By Super Tuesday, the situation reversed and Clinton beat Sanders 51.5 to 48.5. That surprising result gave Hillary an additional 13 points. Surprise! A 13 point “bump.”

In New Jersey, poll results just before Super Tuesday showed Clinton leading sanders 54 to 40 percent [4] but on election day she beat him 63 to 36, another unexpected 9 point “bump” in Hillary’s favor.

In South Dakota, a poll showed Sanders ahead of Clinton by 6 percentage points [5] just a few weeks before the primary, but on Super Tuesday Hillary pulled another rabbit out of her hat and beat Sanders by two points; an 8 point “bump” for Clinton.

Those are the only states where we can calculate pre-post results. Hillary got an unexpected 9 points in New Jersey, 8 points in South Dakota, 13 points in New Mexico, and 11 points in California. All unexpected. All unpredicted. All quite different from polls held just days before Super Tuesday.

And all very suspicious!

If one tries to rebut these findings alleging they all are within the margin of error for polls, then Sanders should have had just as many spurious bumps as Clinton. Didn’t happen! All went to Hillary. The skewing is not random! The statistical anomalies are consistently prejudiced toward Hillary.

Sixteen European countries ban reporting election results before voting occurs, and in the UK, reporting poll data on the day of the election is forbidden. [6]

All for good reason.

Serious attention should be paid to declaring these primaries invalid. Furthermore, the possibility of investigating media entities, in particular Gary Pruitt, CEO of the Associated Press, for any alleged collusion with the Clinton campaign should be aggressively pursued. Even if there is no corporate media complicity, it can still be argued that the AP’s desire for an early morning scoop determined, biased and corrupted this entire election.
Jerry Kroth, Ph.D. is Associate Professor Emeritus Santa Clara University. He may be contacted through his website, collectivepsych.com

Notes

 

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Decoding the Orlando Shooting, Cui Bono? Who Benefits?

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By Mark Taliano

Source: GlobalResearch.ca

The shooting in Orlando, Florida, is not about homosexuals, or Muslims, or assault rifles.

It is about waging aggressive warfare overseas, empowering the domestic police state, and electing a warmongering President.

Dr. Graeme McQueen, founding member of the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University, Canada and author of The 2001 Anthrax Deception, argues that the prime suspects in any such case should be intelligence agencies.

We don’t have to go far to see the hand of intelligence agencies in this catastrophe. The shooter himself was an employee of G4S, described by journalist Alex Emmons as “a giant, often controversial global contracting corporation that provides mercenary forces, prison guards and security services.”

Additionally, the shooter’s father is said to be a CIA asset.

Given that Intelligence agencies are well-positioned to engineer synthetic terror threats, author Naomi Wolf argues that it is “crazy” not to question new events, since “spectacles” drive “outcomes”.  Further, she observes that propagandizing the public includes films (i.e. “Zero Dark Thirty”) – arguing that the Pentagon must have “signed off” on it —which indirectly seek to “normalize” intelligence operations such as torture and mass surveillance.

Intelligence operatives know that synthetic terror events shock and anesthetize the public; that they make people susceptible to manipulation; and that they lay the groundwork for the terror event to be easily politicized.

Naomi Klein describes the same dynamic in The Shock Doctrine.  When people are shocked by a real or man-made event, they can be easily manipulated to support wars, or neoliberal market schemes, or any number of toxic agendas.

A simple formula underpins these operations:  problem, reaction, solution.

The problem from the perspective of criminal warmongers is that the public doesn’t want war or a police state.  The intended reaction of the operation is that the synthetic terror event will induce people to seek protection from the state, coupled with aggressive war to bomb the threat out of existence. The solution, or intended result, is already occurring.  Engineered fear and racism have set the stage for the public to be manipulated to accept a covert agenda that it would otherwise reject.

Cui Bono?  Who benefits? The police state apparatus, War Inc., and a warmongering Presidential agenda all benefit.

The manipulation of the public is further enabled by an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which negates the Smith-Mundt Act (SMA) of 1984 which prohibits government agencies from propagandizing domestic populations.

Susan Posel explains in “How the NDAA Allows US Gov to Use Propaganda Against Americans”:

“SMA  defines the prohibition of domestic access to influence information through a variety of means, from broadcast to publishing of books, media, and online sources by restricting the State Department.”

The Broadcasting Board of Governors was created from SMA. This agency claims to “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of ‘freedom and democracy’. They omit that their specialty is making sure propaganda is added to the informational flow we all depend on.”

Instead of succumbing to the shock of terror events, instead of allowing our “reptilian minds” to overrule rational decision-making processes, we need to decode the Orlando shooting, and other terror events, within the “problem, reaction, solution” framework, and be conscious of how they are being manipulated and politicized to suit covert agendas that do not serve the public interest. The “therapy” for the shock will allow us to subordinate our “reptilian” mindsets, and to act rationally.  A rational mindset will reject the racism, hatred, and warmongering which are intended off-shoots of these terror events.

 

Related Podcast:

Radio WhoWhatWhy – Russ Baker: Don’t Rush to Judgment in Orlando Shooting

Related Video:

Sanders Supporters Vindicated: Proof DNC Used Media to Rig Election for Hillary

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By Claire Bernish

(AntiMedia)

While Bernie Sanders’ supporters and independent media outlets have exhaustively pointed out that corporate media’s fatuous prattling over Hillary Clinton likely tipped the elections in her favor, we now have solid proof — leaked emails show the DNC colluded with mainstream outlets to heavily favor Clinton.

“Our goals in the coming months will be to frame the Republican field and the eventual nominee early and to provide a contrast between the GOP field and HRC,” reads an email dated May 26, 2015, referencing the former secretary of state by her initials, posted by “Guccifer 2.0” — after the Romanian hacker who allegedly accessed Clinton’s private email server multiple times.

One of the strategies listed for “positioning and public messaging” states, “Use specific hits to muddy the waters around ethics, transparency and campaign finance attacks on HRC.”

https://twitter.com/MatthewKick/status/743418063937220608

As the mainstream largely directed attention to the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s strategy to oppose Donald Trump, this collusion to steer the narrative in Hillary’s favor appears to have gone unnoticed, as US Uncut reported. But this series of leaked emails show a meticulously plotted coordination between DNC narratives touting Clinton, rather than Sanders, as if she had been the presumptive nominee from the outset — precisely as activists and fair elections advocates had suspected.

Under the heading “Tactics,” the document states, “Working with the DNC and allied groups, we will use several different methods to land these attacks” — including, under the subheading, “Reporter Outreach”:

“Working through the DNC and others, we should use background briefings, prep with reporters for interviews with GOP candidates, off-the-record conversations and oppo pitches to help pitch stories with no fingerprints and utilize reporters to drive a message.” And under “Bracketing Events,” the email states: “Both the DNC and outside groups are looking to do events and press surrounding Republican events to insert our messaging into their press and to force them to answer questions around key issues.”

https://twitter.com/WNC4Bernie/status/743420416295763968

Most revealing in this particular document is its conclusion, which reads, in part, “Our goal is to use this conversation to answer the questions who do we want to run against and how best to leverage other candidates to maneuver them into the right place.”

Guccifer 2.0 also leaked a two-page list titled “HRC election plans,” which, as US Uncut noted, includes a talking point that later appeared word for word in Clinton’s video announcement of her bid to run for president:

“Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times but the deck is still stacked for those at the top.”

Not only does this show a carefully-orchestrated spoonfeeding of vapid Clinton-isms to the ostensibly unsuspecting public, the irony of the former First Lady pontificating on ‘stacked decks’ for the elite bears a startling degree of hypocrisy in this context.

Prior to the release of these hacked documents, an analysis of election coverage by Neal Gabler, published in Truthout, evidenced startling favoritism for Clinton by the mainstream media throughout the 2016 election season thus far. While not entirely overt, the media’s fondness for Hillary often comprised propagandic semantic gymnastics to avoid showing Sanders in a rosy light.

Even as Sanders experienced growing success, the media downplayed its extent through comparisons with Trump — characterizing the two as ‘outsider’ candidates — thus creating a psychological parallel between the Vermont senator’s popularity and the demagoguery of the contentious billionaire.

Eventually, as Sanders continued to experience success despite a veritable media blackout, a few mainstream outlets resorted to outright hostility to achieve a pro-Clinton message. As Anti-Media previously reported, Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald published a scathing hit piece on not only Sanders, but his supporters, titled “Get Control, Senator Sanders, or Get Out.”

“So, Senator Sanders,” Eichenwald patronizingly penned, “either get control of what is becoming your increasingly unhinged cult, or get out of the race.”

To say the corporate, mainstream media has been complicit in a coordinated effort to grant Hillary the nomination would be an egregious understatement of reality. Though irate voters and journalists with actual integrity across the country immediately called out the Associated Press’ premature announcement Clinton had won the nomination as farce, it’s clear — particularly with these leaked emails — that had been the end game from the outset.

US Uncut reported neither the DNC nor the Clinton campaign returned request for comment.

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ even rebuffed claims Sanders had not received fair treatment in the press during an April interview with the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah:

“You know, as powerful as that makes me feel, I’m not doing a very good job of rigging the outcome, or … blocking anyone from being able to get their message out.”

Evidence, however, would beg to differ.

 

Leaked list of Clinton Donors (h/t to Zero Hedge):

hillary donors 1_0

hillary donors 2_0

Related Video:

The Electoral Farce: an Interview with John Stauber

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By Mohsen Abdelmoumen/John Stauber

Source: Algérie Résistance

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: In your book coauthored with Sheldon Rampton “Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry”, you make a statement without concession on lobbying and democracy. In your opinion, can we evoke a democracy with a hegemony of lobbies? Do you not think that it is rather about a plutocracy?

John Stauber: That book, my first of six for the Center for Media and Democracy, is my tour de force. It exposes how modern propaganda is conducted in the United States by public relations (PR) professionals whose job is to protect the powerful and their corporate wealth from democracy.

The USA is indeed an oligarchy, a plutocracy, and the situation is much worse today than when I wrote my book in 1995.  The super-rich whose interests lie with Wall Street, the global corporations, and what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex, own and control both the Democrat and the Republican parties and their candidates.  This shared monopoly prevents any anti-oligarchy party from emerging effectively to compete, under their rigged laws at the state level for establishing and funding national political parties.

The richest dump billions into both major Parties, their candidates and the election process, so if you are not a millionaire yourself or clearly supporting the policies of the wealthy, you have very little chance of success or of even being heard politically in the US.  The corporate media is the recipient of the lions share of this money which they get for selling the TV ads that the candidates and the special interest groups run; they are not interested in deeply criticizing or reforming a lucrative process that fills their own corporate coffers.  It’s a hell of a system, a total fraud on democracy, painted up to look like democracy.

In your opinion, is not the American presidential election a joke, when we know that the favourite candidate from the beginning is supported by Wall Street, Neocons, industrialists, AIPAC, etc.?  

Indeed the system that chooses and elects the American president is a farce, bought and paid for by the wealthy and the interests you mention.  This is why even in an election year as controversial as this one, most Americans will not vote.  The majority of Americans have lost faith in what has become a charade that betrays their interests.  The rise of both progressive populism via Bernie Sanders, and a nativist fascism via Trump and his takeover of the Republicans, screams loudly about just how foul and corrupt and simply weird the USA’s political system has become. There is a great, angry frustration with the political establishment, and many white voters especially are willing to cast a nihilistic vote for a racist, misogynist, narcissist who inherited his wealth and gained notoriety as a reality TV star.

Does not the election to the presidency of a militarist as Hillary Clinton constitute a threat to the world?

The election of either Clinton or Trump threatens the world simply because of the dominance of the American empire and their commitment to it.  Hillary is a proven militarist, which is why so many of the GOP neocons, who led what I call the Weapons of Mass Deception campaign that lied America into attacking Iraq, are choosing her over Trump.  They know she will fully fund and expand the American empire at all costs to the American taxpayers and people of the world who suffer under America’s militarism.  Hillary played an important role in the Iraq propaganda campaign led by Bush, Cheney and the neocons. Before naming her Secretary of State, Obama made it clear he would not investigate or hold anyone responsible for that grand and worsening bipartisan disaster.

Those who wrote the scenario of this presidential election are they not inspired by the French election of 2002, with Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jacques Chirac, both coming from the same system, where we saw the crushing victory of Chirac? Are we going to witness Clinton’s same landslide victory against Trump?

I don’t think that the nationalists who control the USA’s two party oligarchy are looking abroad for inspiration.  They are believers in American exceptionalism and empire, and write their own scripts as they go along, as the neocons did with their Project for the New American Century.  The rise of Trump within the Republican Party is a shocking phenomenon, because he defeated 15 others and the entire GOP establishment to seize the party for himself and his rabid reactionary grassroots voters.  No one in either party or the news media gave Trump any chance to win the nomination, but he did, while breaking about every rule thought to exist in American politics except one – have lots of money.  It is very possible that the smug attitude of the Democrats and the corporate media will backfire and that Clinton, who like Trump is disliked by a majority of voters, will lose to him.  It is certainly possible this year, when Trump has already accomplished the impossible.

Won’t Clinton’s victory in the presidential election be a victory of the oligarchy, the coronation of the plutocracy by democratic tools?

The oligarchy is already crowned, already firmly in control.  If Trump wins, they will begrudgingly accommodate one of their own class, however ignorant, narcissistic and offensive they find him.  But much of the Republican oligarchy, such as the neocons, the Koch brothers and the Bush family, have indicated they prefer Hillary.  In essence, the oligarchy wins no matter which party holds office, because the super rich own both parties. That is the brilliance of the bogus two-party system, it is really one oligarchy party with two wings, and both the Democrat and Republican wings support the military empire and the expansion of corporate power.

Doesn’t Bernie Sanders serve just as a kind of “trial horse” for Hillary Clinton? 

I have said since he announced as a Democrat that this is a movie we have seen many times before, where a Jesse Jackson, or a Jerry Brown, or a Howard Dean, excite the liberal base, borrow the rhetoric of revolutionary change, create a populist left momentum, and then capitulate to embrace the winning mainstream Democrat at their convention, appealing to followers to do the same.  Perhaps if Bernie Sanders had understood a year ago the level of excitement and support he would generate, he would have done things differently.  But ultimately he will prove a shepherd for the Democrats, a pied piper, rounding up the lost leftist sheep, and it should be especially easy this year with Trump as the Republican nominee opposed by everyone from him to the Kochs to the neocons to the Bush family.  But yes, soon the Feel The Bern movement will morph into the anti-fascist Anybody But Trump coalition.

We are witnessing a very poor debate whose only stake seems to be the replacement of a black president by a woman.  Is this not one more manipulation?

You are rather certain that Hillary will follow Obama, and while that is a good bet, the bizarre, unprecedented rise of Donald Trump might surprise everyone and land him in the White House.  Obama succeeded because he was anti-Bush and he was not in the Senate when Clinton cast her damaging vote to help Bush attack Iraq.  That gave him his greatest electoral edge, he could campaign as having been against the war on Iraq.  The fact that he was African American inspired many who were, as I was, quite happy to see that someone other than a rich white man could actually be elected president.  However, Obama has proved to be a massive fraud and a disappointment.   Even before his taking the oath of office, he made it clear that there would be no investigation of the propaganda and lies that led America to attack Iraq.  Biden, Kerry and Clinton, key players in his Administration, helped lead America into war.  Blame the neocons for it, but blame those Democrats too.

Hillary will certainly parlay being the first woman president into millions of votes, and she will be running against a misogynist.  But again, most American don’t even vote, and those that do are voting against the candidate they dislike most.  So all bets are off at this early stage as to whether a Black president will now give way to America’s first female president, or whether Trump will be America’s first Billionaire TV Star president.

As a writer and progressive journalist, what is the reason, in your opinion, for the powerlessness of the progressive movement in the US and in the world? 

Here in the United States the progressive movement has never been able to see that the Democratic Party is the enemy and the grand co-opter and destroyer of fundamental change.  Bernie Sanders says he is fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party, but it has no soul, it sold out to the super rich long ago.  Bill and Hillary Clinton put the final nail into its remnant of progressivism when in the 1980s they and their pro-corporate Democratic Leadership Council made their Party a model of Republicanism, opening it to corporate donations, serving corporate interests blatantly, and making it almost impossible for a candidate like Sanders to beat a rigged system and win the Democratic nomination.

I wrote a piece for CounterPunch in March, 2013, explaining how after the failure of Al Gore in 2000, a group of super rich Democrats called the Democracy Alliance arose to fund the sort of liberal front groups, lobbies and think tanks that the Republicans had developed over the previous two decades.  Hillary supporter George Soros and others in the DA, including some big unions, poured money into these organizations, and they collaborated with liberal lobbyists in DC as well as with the new « netroots » online force for the Democrats, MoveOn.  MoveOn played a crucial role in transforming the anti-war movement that arose during the Bush years into a movement to elect Democrats in 2006 – 2008, completely co-opting that energy and leaving the US peace movement impotent and irrelevant today.

The professional progressive movement is now wholly owned by the liberal oligarchs;  its leaders are bright, young and well rewarded, and there is absolutely no real desire to do anything but co-opt grassroots progressives into choosing Democrats over Republicans every two years.  The Feel The Bern movement shows that if Bernie Sanders had the courage to break with the Democrats and form a new party or run as a Green, 2016 is a rare year when he could have great success.  But instead he and the rest of these professional progressives stay within the Democratic Party, thinking that one day they will control it.  It’s a delusion and a failure of vision, but their own rewards and salaries are nice, and they live within their own echo chamber of liberal propaganda from The Nation to The New York Times that reinforces their failure to confront the liberal oligarchy in the name of being realistic.

You do not call for violent revolution. Do you think that it is possible to defeat the big capital, the Neocons, the military-industrial complex, with a peaceful revolution?

Nothing would please the US establishment more, or lead more quickly to a full police state supported by a majority of Americans, than some sort of left wing political violence.  We saw in the 1960s and 1970s how the FBI under Nixon and Hoover encouraged violent protests, planted provocateurs, infiltrated the anti-war, Black Power and other movements with thousands of paid FBI informers, and destroyed it.  The American Left never recovered and what was called the New Left died.  The American people are easily frightened and quick to give up liberties if it appears that armed extremists are threatening their safety.  Anyone advocating violent revolution for the United States is a lunatic or worse.

Your writings call for an awakening against lobbies and other capitalist and imperialist domination forces and we notice a derision and despair that call for a better world where all hopes are allowed. How do you explain this Gramscian dialectic?

I am not a hopeful person, I do not believe that revolution is likely, nor that a revolution would necessarily produce and sustain something better.  Humanity is deeply flawed, self-destructive, and seems doomed in this century by greed to poison itself and destroy the Earth’s biosphere with its love of corporate consumerism and the resulting toxins and wastes.  People everywhere show their willingness to follow nationalist or religious leaders into horrific wars with catastrophic results.  The likelihood of nuclear war stays high; it’s a large miracle there has not been a nuclear attack since Nagasaki, but the access to weapons of mass destruction continues to spread.  Under Obama, the US and NATO are pursuing a New Cold War against Russia and China that is insanely dangerous.

Can typical people organize together around the world from the ground up to create and sustain a revolutionary society that is just, democratic and peaceful, given the control that corporate capitalism has over our lives and minds and governments?  We are completely enveloped by the corporate propaganda system from the moment of our birth on, and it allows the oligarchy to control our minds and lives from cradle to grave, in seamless invisible fashion, via marketing, advertising and public relations, reinforced by the news media.  Few are able to admit and see this, which is why I organized PRWatch and CMD in 1993 and co-authored my six books.

The word “lie” often comes up in your writing. Do you think that the United States will survive to their lies, such as the war in Iraq?

The Cold War journalist Izzy Stone said,  “All governments are run by liars, nothing they say should be believed.”  This is also true of corporate government, the few hundred global companies that dominate the world’s economy and dictate to and through the world’s governments.  The United States is very adept at failing to admit, much less confront, its lies.  The myth of American Exceptionalism is embraced and promoted by the bipartisan oligarchy and the media, and so we see that there is no real examination of the horrendous crimes and blunders of the government, from the war of genocide waged on Vietnam, to the illegal and devastating attack on Iraq that has led to ISIS, to the massive economic failure of 2008 where no one was held accountable and the fundamental problems never repaired.  So, no, in both the short term and certainly the longer term, these lies and self-deceptions undermine and destroy the fabric of American society.  The rise of Trumpism is very much a result of the deceptions that have been foisted on Americans, but it is a reactionary and destructive response, of course, that again is based on this myth of exceptionalism and aims to make America again « great ».

You are the founder of the Center for Media and Democracy. What is the role of this center?  

I founded CMD in 1993 to publish my news magazine PRWatch revealing how the business of public relations functions to thwart democracy and maintain the power and control of the rich and their corporations.  I also wanted to show how western governments use PR to control their citizens, and how corporate media is an echo chamber for both corporate and government propaganda.  I ran CMD until 2009, but then stepped down, feeling that I had taken its mission as far as I could after co-authoring six books through the Center.   I am now pursuing more personal interests neglected for all my decades as an activist and author.  I am no longer writing books or running an organization, and glad of it.   CMD continues under new leadership, but it has become much like other US progressive think tanks, part of the Democratic Party’s liberal echo chamber.  It has done some important work since I left in confronting and exposing ALEC, a brilliant rightwing operation that allows corporations to draft and write laws at the state level in the United States. CMD’s web address is www.PRWatch.org.

Democrats can’t unite unless Wasserman Schultz goes!

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The Democratic National Committee chair has thrown fuel on the flames of infighting just as the party faces a critical November election.

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

Source: Intrepid Report

To paraphrase the words of that Scottish master Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice, men—and women—go often astray, or “gang aft agley,” as they say in the Highlands. No one knows this better than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Twice now, the flight of her presidential aspirations has been forced to circle the airport as other contenders put up an unexpected fight: In 2008, Barack Obama emerged to grab the Democratic nomination away and this year, although all signs point to her finally grabbing the brass ring, unexpected and powerful progressive resistance came from the mighty wind of the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Certainly, Hillary Clinton is angered by all of this, but the one seemingly more aggrieved—if public comments and private actions are any indication—is Democratic National Committee chair and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Hillary surrogate who takes umbrage like ordinary folks pop their vitamins in the morning.

As we recently wrote, “ . . . She embodies the tactics that have eroded the ability of Democrats to once again be the party of the working class. As Democratic National Committee chair she has opened the floodgates for Big Money, brought lobbyists into the inner circle and oiled all the moving parts of the revolving door that twirls between government service and cushy jobs in the world of corporate influence.”

And that ain’t all. As a member of Congress, particularly egregious has been her support of the payday loan business, defying new regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would rein in an industry that soaks desperate borrowers. As President Obama said, “While payday loans might seem like easy money, folks often end up trapped in a cycle of debt.”

In fact, according to an article by Bethany McLean in the May issue of The Atlantic, “After studying millions of payday loans, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that 67 percent went to borrowers with seven or more transactions a year, and the majority of borrowers paid more in fees than the amount of their initial loan.”

A recent editorial in the Orlando Sentinel notes that 7 percent of Florida’s population “must resort to this predatory form of small-dollar credit—nearly the highest rate in the nation . . .” What’s more, “Based on a 14-day loan term, the typical payday loan . . . had an annual percentage rate of 278 percent. Many lenders advertise rates of more than 300 percent.” Let us repeat that slowly . . . 300 percent!

So why has Wasserman Schultz been so opposed to the CFPB’s proposed rules? She has said, “Payday lending is unfortunately a necessary component of how people get access to capital, [people] that are the working poor.” But maybe it has something more to do with the $2.5 million or so the payday loan industry has donated to Florida politicians from both parties since 2009. That’s according to a new report by the liberal group Allied Progress. More than $50,000 of that cash has gone to Rep. Wasserman Schultz.

But we digress. It’s the skullduggery going on within the Democratic Party establishment that’s our current concern and as we wrote in March, Rep. Wasserman Schultz “has played games with the party’s voter database, been accused of restricting the number of Democratic candidate debates and scheduling them at odd days and times to favor Hillary Clinton, and recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper that superdelegates—strongly establishment and pro-Clinton—are necessary at the party’s convention so deserving incumbent officials and party leaders don’t have to run for delegate slots ‘against grassroots activists.’ Let that sink in, but hold your nose against the aroma of entitlement.

Now Wasserman Schultz has waded into the controversy over what happened or didn’t happen last weekend when Sanders supporters loudly and vehemently objected to the rules at the Nevada State Democratic Convention. In truth, some behaved badly at the event and others made trollish, violent and obscene threats to Democratic state chair Roberta Lange via phone, email and social media. There’s no excuse for such aggressive, creepy conduct, and Sanders was quick and direct in apologizing for the behavior of the rowdies and bullies.

But there is a double standard at play here. Why, pray tell, shouldn’t the peaceful majority of Sanders people be angry at the slow-motion, largely invisible rigging of the political process by Wasserman Schultz and the Clinton machine—all for the benefit of Secretary Clinton?

Wasserman Schultz claims the party rules over which she has presided (and manipulated) are “eminently fair.” She told CNN on Wednesday morning, “It is critical that we as candidates, we as Democratic Party leaders, everyone involved needs to make sure that we can take all the steps that we need to, to ensure that the process is not only run smoothly but that the response from the supporters of both candidates is appropriate and civil.”

In response to the DNC chair’s remarks, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver talked to CNN, too, and said Wasserman Schultz had been “throwing shade on the Sanders campaign since the very beginning . . . Debbie Wasserman Schultz has really been a divider and not really provided the kind of leadership that the Democratic Party needs.”

The Nation’s Joan Walsh, a Clinton supporter critical of the Sanders campaign, concurs: “Once again, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz escalated a conflict that she should have worked to defuse,” she writes. “ . . . Wasserman Schultz is not helping her friend Hillary Clinton with her attacks on Sanders. Just the appearance of fairness can go a long way in assuaging worries about fairness. Wasserman Schultz’s defiant rebuke to the Sanders camp has made it worse.”

So, too, has her abolition of the restraints that had been placed on corporate lobbyists and big money—now they can write checks bankrolling what doubtless will be swank and profligate parties during this summer’s Democratic National Convention. At The Intercept, Lee Fang and Zaid Jilani report that a number of the members of the Philadelphia host committee “are actively working to undermine progressive policies achieved by President Barack Obama, including health care reform and net neutrality. Some . . . are hardly even Democratic Party stalwarts, given that many have donated and raised thousands of dollars for Republican presidential and congressional candidates this cycle.”

This is a slap in the face to progressives calling for a halt to big money and allowing lobbyists to buy our elected officials. And it’s contrary to what Hillary Clinton herself has said about money and politics on the campaign trail. The Sanders movement has shown that lots of cash can be raised from everyday people making small donations. His supporters and all of us should be outraged that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and convention officials have kowtowed not only to the corporate wing of their own party but also to those high rollers who back the opposition and ideas antithetical to a democracy.

Rep. Wasserman Schultz is facing a primary challenge for the first time this year, her opponent a law professor, activist and progressive Sanders supporter named Tim Canova. But the primary’s not until late August, long after the Democratic National Convention. Unless she steps down now or Hillary Clinton has her removed, Philadelphia will be dominated by someone who represents everything that has gone wrong with the Democratic Party and Washington. At the convention’s opening session, Debbie Wasserman Schultz will be bringing the gavel down squarely on progressive hopes of returning the party to its legacy as champion of working people and the dispossessed.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Time for her to go.

 

Bill Moyers is the managing editor of Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com.

Michael Winship is the Emmy Award-winning senior writer of Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com, and a former senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group Demos. Follow him on Twitter at @MichaelWinship.

Gurus of the progressive community . . . Chomsky and Goodman

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Amy Goodman Say Something for FB Promo

By Dave Alpert

Source: Intrepid Report

There was a time when I, like tens of thousands of my progressive partners, held Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman in awe. After all, Amy informed us and Noam spoke for us, coherently explaining the issues. However, as I became more aware and more informed, I realized that there were great differences between their thinking and mine.

In many instances, our gurus spoke with forked tongue. Although Amy’s program Democracy Now! was informative, there were many areas of reporting that were out of bounds and were not reported on.

One could legitimately claim that reporters cannot report on everything and they would be right. But let us be honest. When 9/11 occurred, it was an historical event and an event that changed the course of history. Where was Amy? Relatively silent. She invited David Ray Griffin, who has written several books illustrating the lies and misdirections of the government’s narrative about that day, to Democracy Now! which one could claim was a significant journalistic move.

However, instead of interviewing him so that he could reveal to her listening audience the facts that he had accumulated that put into question the government’s explanations of that day, she paired him with a pro-government guest who spent the hour attacking Griffin personally and ignoring any of the data Griffin produced. It became a three-ring circus and helped sabotage any impetus the Truth Movement might have gained within the progressive community. Was that her goal? I’m not sure I can answer that but it was a successful strategy, progressives seemed reluctant to support the Truth Movement. The Movement was being portrayed as one in which there were marginal “conspiracy nuts” leading the charge and should be avoided.

Where was Noam Chomsky on this issue? Despite the significance of 9/11, Chomsky has remained relatively passive concerning this event.

During an interview on Democracy Now!, Noam Chomsky stated that he believes Osama bin Laden was probably behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. The statement was curious because in earlier interviews Chomsky described the evidence against bin Laden as thin to nonexistent, which was accurate and, no doubt, explains why the US Department of Justice never indicted bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks.

In two peer-reviewed papers published in 2008–2009, independent scientists reported finding residues of nanothermite, an incendiary, military level explosive which is capable of cutting through steel, in dust samples from the collapsed World Trade Center. The scientists also found tiny flakes of unexploded nanothermite.

How did this explosive material get into the dust at the WTC? Certainly, one could conclude that the explosives were used to bring down all three towers (WTC #7 collapsed later that day in free fall time despite the fact a plane never touched it).

This evidence of explosives coupled with the testimony of many New York City firemen, who claimed they heard a continuing series of explosions before the towers collapsed, and the testimony of Willie Rodriquez, a maintenance worker in the towers, who stated that there was an explosion in the sub-basement before any planes flew into the towers, make it clear that it was the explosives, not the planes that brought the towers down. The question now is, who planted these explosives in the three buildings that collapsed? It takes time to set up a controlled demolition which means the explosives had been placed in the buildings prior to 9/11. Does this sound like a conspiracy to anyone?

In response to a question at the University of Florida recently, Noam Chomsky claimed that there were only “a minuscule number of architects and engineers” who felt that the official account of WTC Building 7 should be treated with skepticism. Chomsky followed-up by saying, “a tiny number—a couple of them—are perfectly serious.” The reality is that close to 2,500 architects and engineers have expressed their doubts about the government’s explanation of how and why the towers fell. It doesn’t matter how many professionals or intellectuals are willing to admit it. The facts remain that the U.S. government’s account for the destruction of the WTC on 9/11 is purely false. There is no science behind the government’s explanation for WTC 7 or for the Twin Towers and everyone, including the government, admits that WTC Building 7 experienced free fall on 9/11. There is no explanation for that other than the use of explosives.

Also, Chomsky’s assumption that only a small number of architects and engineers have expressed support for the notion that the towers fell because of explosives planted in the buildings and that a much larger majority of architects and engineers have remained silent, is the argument of the absurd. It is equivalent to implying that if 10,000 New Yorkers claim the schools are substandard, because the rest of New Yorkers remain silent, the schools cannot be considered substandard.

Chomsky and Goodman are bright, knowledgeable, intelligent people. What has influenced them to avoid confronting the government regarding the events of 9/11?

The fact that 9/11 investigators had already presented substantial documented evidence for: prior warnings, Air Force stand-down, anomalous insider trading connected to the CIA, withdrawal of most of the U.S. fighter planes from the east coast to participate in military exercises on that particular day, cover-up of the domestic anthrax attacks, inconsistencies in identities and timelines of “hijackers” did not appear to influence either Amy or Noam.

Their influence on people who view themselves as progressive cannot be over estimated. When I began questioning the government’s role regarding 9/11, several of my friends responded to me negatively and said specifically that if my suspicions had any legitimacy, Chomsky and Goodman would be speaking out.

Ever since the events of 9/11, the American Left and even ultra-Left have been downright fanatical in combating notions that the U.S. government was complicit in the attacks or at least had foreknowledge of the events.

This kind of response from Chomsky regarding possible government conspiracies is not new. He still insists that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in Dallas. Anyone who still supports the Warren Commission hoax after 50 years of countering proofs is either ill-informed, dumb, gullible, afraid to speak truths to power or a disinformation agent.

Michael Morrissey stated, in one of his articles, “Rethinking Chomsky,” in 1994, “we should be clear about the stand that ‘America’s leading intellectual dissident,’ as he is often called, has taken on the assassination. It is not significantly different from that of the Warren Commission or the majority of Establishment journalists and government apologists, and diametrically opposed to the view ‘widely held in the grassroots movements and among left intellectuals’ and in fact to the view of the majority of the population.”

Michael Parenti states, “Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Iran-contra was a conspiracy of immense scope, much of it still uncovered. The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as “a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft, and bribery,” the greatest financial crime in history.”

However, the word conspiracy is often used by those in power, who have participated in a conspiracy to advance their own power and/or wealth, as a label to marginalize and neutralize those who seek to reveal the conspiracy. Thus we, as a society, have developed what Parenti calls conspiracy phobia.

The behavior of both Chomsky and Goodman have led me to conclude that they hesitate to see the conspiracies for fear that such acknowledgment would compromise their reputations. Either that or they are controlled by powerful people who censor their behavior. We cannot afford to accept what they say at face value.

Chomsky’s questionable political positioning is still evident today. On May 17, Chomsky appeared on Democracy Now! and was asked by Amy Goodman to speak on the Syrian crisis. Chomsky is a linguist and words are very meaningful to him. So what he said and how he said it is significant.

“It’s necessary to cut off the flow of arms, as much as possible, to everyone. That means to the vicious and brutal Assad regime, primarily Russia and Iran, to the monstrous ISIS, which has been getting support tacitly through Turkey, through—to the al-Nusra Front, which is hardly different, has just the—the al-Qaeda affiliate, technically broke from it, but actually the al-Qaeda affiliate, which is now planning its own—some sort of emirate, getting arms from our allies, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Our own—the CIA is arming them.”

I found it particularly informative that he describes Assad’s regime as vicious and brutal and places Russia and Iran right alongside ISIS.

If Assad’s government is really brutal and vicious, why did 86% of the Syrian people vote for him in the last election. Also, let it be clear that it was Russian’s entrance into the conflict last September that led to the retreat of ISIS from many cities and villages, a success that the U.S. had avoided for a year. Syrians who were freed from ISIS rule were openly happy to welcome Assad’s “brutal” army into their villages. Many Syrian refugees began returning to their homes.

Chomsky also managed to portray the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as terrorists in their conflict with Britain. He conveniently omitted the context for their behavior . . . the brutality of British rule against the Irish Catholics for hundreds of years.

Both Amy and Noam are extremely influential and have attained a degree of power amongst progressives. It is crucial that we remain aware of what they are telling us, how they are framing it, and what it is they are not telling us. Both seem to have provided, and continue to provide today, a cover from the left for the U.S.’s imperialist agenda.

Chomsky is called upon to address various issues periodically. Amy, on the other hand, is viewed every week, Monday through Friday. It is easy to identify her evolution into someone slightly to the left of MSNBC.

With the world collapsing around her, she offers relative silence on issues such as the U.S. supported takeover of the Ukrainian government by neo-Nazis, the surrounding of Russia by U.S. and NATO military forces, the threat of WW3 which would likely be a nuclear war, the Syrian crisis and the U.S. desire to overthrow Assad’s government, the humanitarian crisis in Libya, the coup to oust Dilma Rousseff from office in Brazil, the ongoing collapse of the Venezuelan economy and the threat to the Madero government (please note: both Rousseff and Madero are progressive thinkers—is the U.S. behind the collapse of their governments?). She does not address the continuous wars sponsored by the U.S. and NATO countries in their imperialistic ventures.

Instead, most of her time is spent covering the election and interviewing guests who have recently published books. Her program has mellowed. Most of her guests are establishment people, people MSNBC would not hesitate to have on. The radical view, the view that challenges the establishment, is no longer part of her coverage.

Amy’s audience expects to get the news coverage and the variety of views the MSM does not provide. Today’s Democracy Now! no longer provides that.

 

Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents.