What better way to get to "a state of siege" than to tank the economy and blame the Chinese and Russians?
Democracy can then be suspended before the next election and the "limited nuclear war" that was brainlessly conceived during the Reagan years can be initiated.
At first it will be limited to Korea, just to see what reaction the Chinese have. Then The Israelis will be allowed to nuke Iran, thus precluding (they hope) a Russian retaliation. And do you think once the ball gets rolling that Pakistan will stay out of it? and India? Not to mention the battlefield nukes that the Russians and Chinese and Americans have at their disposal.
We don’t need to wait for global warming to slowly suffocate us. The globe will be hotter than hell when Bolton and Co. get started.
Where is the "Designated Survivor" scenario when we need it... with Bernie Sanders as the DS...
"The US has more high-tech weapons than others, but those haven’t done it much good; it hasn’t won a war since 1945."
I don’t think winning is the point. Winning shuts down the perpetual motion money machine. Otherwise what economy is there left besides paper pushing on Wall Street?
This is an excellent article as regards its logic and ethical stance. But when you are down the rabbit hole and on the other side of the looking glass, standard logic does not apply.
The public mass, both the right-wingers and the faux left (who are actually right-of-center capitalist thinkers) are being played like the mythical fiddle that Nero played while Rome burned. Everyone is fascinated by the "fiddle" while it’s the burning of Rome which is the whole point. All these provocative presidential decrees are calculated distractions, like the Trump tweets, designed to keep you busy either cheering or booing while the real work of dismantling democracy goes on behind the scenes.
This is where the art of framing comes into play. Trump and his minions are masters of framing. Those who use standard logic are not, obviously.
A couple of weeks ago, on the 8 pm news, the main German television station (ARD) played a film clip (made by mobile phone) of the hate speech made by an AfD spokesperson. During the segment, this hate speech was constantly referred to and sections of it repeated and the various speakers always said what a "shame" it was.
Unfortunately, this type of reporting is what spreads the hate speech to millions of viewers who otherwise would never have heard about it, let alone actually heard the words used. So the tactic of creating a "shameful incident" actually succeeded in spreading the virus of intolerant speech to more people than would normally be reached by the group.
Instead, without quoting or showing clips of the speech, one could frame a response in such a way:
"Yes, I heard that one of those people from the far right said some disgusting things. But this is typical of how child molesters and wife-beaters operate. First they use words that incite and then they rape or beat their victims."
This is an example of framing. It does not attack a person in particular, it does not quote the perpetrator of the offending statement, it intimates, however, that these people belong to a certain class of predators that are rejected by people on all sides of the political spectrum. It criminalizes them through innuendo, which is exactly what is being done to the "logic" and "ethics" people by the right.
I know, it feels dirty to do it, but this is a street fight, not boxing with Marquess of Queensberry rules.
Perhaps it has slipped everyone's attention that the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are working together here to remove Assad and make that part of the world a Sunni stronghold as a buffer against the Shiites and of course Iran. That is why the PKK and the Kurds are not getting help either. It's part of the "controlled chaos" doctrine that JSOC and the US have been putting into practice since they were forced out of Iraq. The CC doctrine gives them free reign to initiate conflicts that pitch locals against locals, allowing the US to limit the number of soldiers it has to use. The Romans used a similar strategy in their conquests north of the Alps, pitching one tribe against the other until both were so exhausted that the Romans only had to march in and set up camp. The US doesn't want to necessarily occupy these places, but they want to set up camps to be able to have their rapid-deployment JSOC forces within easy striking distance of Iran and Russia. It's a strategic game of GO, with the end-game being a stranglehold on Russia, Iran and China so that they can be coerced into cooperation.
It has worked very well so far because there doesn't seem to be any counter-force ready to challenge the US. But the US is of course making the same mistake the Romans made, outsourcing critical services to mercenaries. The dysfunction at home is so bad now that it's only a matter of time until McRaven decides that he must cross the Rubicon and sweep those useless Senators from power in order to insure the plan of conquest remains in full function.
It would be nice to be looking back from the year 2100 to see how this story unfolds.
By the way: Does anybody really believe that Daesh was responsible for bombing Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia?
This situation reminds me of when Croesus, King of Lydia, sent his people to the Oracle at Delphi and asked if it was OK to attack the Persians. The Oracle replied that if Croesus attacked the Persians, he would destroy a mighty empire …
He heard what he wanted to hear. Interpreted it as he wanted to interpret it, attacked the Persians, and a mighty empire was destroyed. His own.
Of course the new empire believes that 1989 marked "the end of history," so no lessons will be learned from history and no heed will be taken from oracles like Juan Cole.
"But before we engage in any updates, the public must be convinced such updates are needed and won’t be used for non-terrorist purposes that chip away at our civil liberties."
Unfortunately "the public" is being efficiently distracted by Ebola, IS, reality TV, and the professional sports circus. A further erosion of civil liberties is guaranteed.
Harold Pinter, Ionesco and Samuel Beckett walk into a bar... and this is the result after they down a few and start writing the future!
Am I the only one in the audience laughing at what's going on in the world? I mean, in reality it's not hilarious, but hey, it's either laugh or ... that other thing.
What better way to get to "a state of siege" than to tank the economy and blame the Chinese and Russians?
Democracy can then be suspended before the next election and the "limited nuclear war" that was brainlessly conceived during the Reagan years can be initiated.
At first it will be limited to Korea, just to see what reaction the Chinese have. Then The Israelis will be allowed to nuke Iran, thus precluding (they hope) a Russian retaliation. And do you think once the ball gets rolling that Pakistan will stay out of it? and India? Not to mention the battlefield nukes that the Russians and Chinese and Americans have at their disposal.
We don’t need to wait for global warming to slowly suffocate us. The globe will be hotter than hell when Bolton and Co. get started.
Where is the "Designated Survivor" scenario when we need it... with Bernie Sanders as the DS...
"The US has more high-tech weapons than others, but those haven’t done it much good; it hasn’t won a war since 1945."
I don’t think winning is the point. Winning shuts down the perpetual motion money machine. Otherwise what economy is there left besides paper pushing on Wall Street?
This is an excellent article as regards its logic and ethical stance. But when you are down the rabbit hole and on the other side of the looking glass, standard logic does not apply.
The public mass, both the right-wingers and the faux left (who are actually right-of-center capitalist thinkers) are being played like the mythical fiddle that Nero played while Rome burned. Everyone is fascinated by the "fiddle" while it’s the burning of Rome which is the whole point. All these provocative presidential decrees are calculated distractions, like the Trump tweets, designed to keep you busy either cheering or booing while the real work of dismantling democracy goes on behind the scenes.
This is where the art of framing comes into play. Trump and his minions are masters of framing. Those who use standard logic are not, obviously.
A couple of weeks ago, on the 8 pm news, the main German television station (ARD) played a film clip (made by mobile phone) of the hate speech made by an AfD spokesperson. During the segment, this hate speech was constantly referred to and sections of it repeated and the various speakers always said what a "shame" it was.
Unfortunately, this type of reporting is what spreads the hate speech to millions of viewers who otherwise would never have heard about it, let alone actually heard the words used. So the tactic of creating a "shameful incident" actually succeeded in spreading the virus of intolerant speech to more people than would normally be reached by the group.
Instead, without quoting or showing clips of the speech, one could frame a response in such a way:
"Yes, I heard that one of those people from the far right said some disgusting things. But this is typical of how child molesters and wife-beaters operate. First they use words that incite and then they rape or beat their victims."
This is an example of framing. It does not attack a person in particular, it does not quote the perpetrator of the offending statement, it intimates, however, that these people belong to a certain class of predators that are rejected by people on all sides of the political spectrum. It criminalizes them through innuendo, which is exactly what is being done to the "logic" and "ethics" people by the right.
I know, it feels dirty to do it, but this is a street fight, not boxing with Marquess of Queensberry rules.
More about framing here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)
Perhaps it has slipped everyone's attention that the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are working together here to remove Assad and make that part of the world a Sunni stronghold as a buffer against the Shiites and of course Iran. That is why the PKK and the Kurds are not getting help either. It's part of the "controlled chaos" doctrine that JSOC and the US have been putting into practice since they were forced out of Iraq. The CC doctrine gives them free reign to initiate conflicts that pitch locals against locals, allowing the US to limit the number of soldiers it has to use. The Romans used a similar strategy in their conquests north of the Alps, pitching one tribe against the other until both were so exhausted that the Romans only had to march in and set up camp. The US doesn't want to necessarily occupy these places, but they want to set up camps to be able to have their rapid-deployment JSOC forces within easy striking distance of Iran and Russia. It's a strategic game of GO, with the end-game being a stranglehold on Russia, Iran and China so that they can be coerced into cooperation.
It has worked very well so far because there doesn't seem to be any counter-force ready to challenge the US. But the US is of course making the same mistake the Romans made, outsourcing critical services to mercenaries. The dysfunction at home is so bad now that it's only a matter of time until McRaven decides that he must cross the Rubicon and sweep those useless Senators from power in order to insure the plan of conquest remains in full function.
It would be nice to be looking back from the year 2100 to see how this story unfolds.
By the way: Does anybody really believe that Daesh was responsible for bombing Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia?
This situation reminds me of when Croesus, King of Lydia, sent his people to the Oracle at Delphi and asked if it was OK to attack the Persians. The Oracle replied that if Croesus attacked the Persians, he would destroy a mighty empire …
He heard what he wanted to hear. Interpreted it as he wanted to interpret it, attacked the Persians, and a mighty empire was destroyed. His own.
Of course the new empire believes that 1989 marked "the end of history," so no lessons will be learned from history and no heed will be taken from oracles like Juan Cole.
"But before we engage in any updates, the public must be convinced such updates are needed and won’t be used for non-terrorist purposes that chip away at our civil liberties."
Unfortunately "the public" is being efficiently distracted by Ebola, IS, reality TV, and the professional sports circus. A further erosion of civil liberties is guaranteed.
Harold Pinter, Ionesco and Samuel Beckett walk into a bar... and this is the result after they down a few and start writing the future!
Am I the only one in the audience laughing at what's going on in the world? I mean, in reality it's not hilarious, but hey, it's either laugh or ... that other thing.