Russiagate -- 3rd Annual Review

In February 2018, I made the case that Russia-gate is overblown.  A year later, on March 25, 2019, I revisited the affair in Russiagate Redux - Falling Into the Trap.  I concluded:

I'm mad at the neoliberal and conservative groups for reviving the Cold War and making Trump (libertarian group) stronger by putting him on the truthful side of the Russiagate narrative. They fell into the blind hatred trap.  This is the same trap we fell into after 9/11 when our blind rage with regard to Islamic terrorists led us into an ill advised war in Iraq.  Once again we have been misled by neoconservatives exploiting a bad situation (9/11, Trump presidency) for their warlike purposes.

Another year later, I'm more convinced than ever that "Russiagate" was a horrific fraud perpetrated by the CIA and/or FBI.  It's horrific because of the McCarthyite hysteria that leading Democrats have bought into.  It's an apparent fraud because I have seen no credible defenses of the intelligence agencies' behavior.  Here are some examples from the past year.

Inspector General's FISA Investigation

Inspector general Michael Horowitz (appointed by Obama) investigated the surveillance of Carter Page by the FBI and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in general.  The FBI officials being investigated tried to defend themselves as follows back in April 2019:

“Former U.S. officials interviewed by the inspector general were skeptical about the quality of his probe,” Bertrand wrote in Politico last week. “They emphasized to Horowitz that information in a warrant application need not be wholly verified, as long as the reliability of the source of the information is disclosed to the court.” Democrats have insisted that the FISA court was given fair warning that Christopher Steele’s dossier was opposition research;  

Add up all this criticism — that the IG’s probe is of dubious “quality”; that Horowitz exposed his ignorance of the “FISA process”; that he is too hardheaded to listen to “explanations”; that the IG is prone to being “irked” — and what comes through isn’t a frustration with Horowitz’s failures, but fear of what he may do. Thus the need to discredit him preemptively. 

 When Horowitz's reports were released however, there was documentation of serious malfeasance.   From the NY Times, from December 11, 2019:  We Just Got a Rare Look at National Security Surveillance. It Was Ugly:

The Justice Department’s independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, and his team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. 

But the inspector general found major errors, material omissions and unsupported statements about Mr. Page in the materials that went to the court. F.B.I. agents cherry-picked the evidence, telling the Justice Department information that made Mr. Page look suspicious and omitting material that cut the other way, and the department passed that misleading portrait onto the court. 

To give just three examples: 

First, when agents initially sought permission for the wiretap, F.B.I. officials scoured information from confidential informants and selectively presented portions that supported their suspicions that Mr. Page might be a conduit between Russia and the Trump campaign’s onetime chairman, Paul Manafort. 

But officials did not disclose information that undercut that allegation — such as the fact that Mr. Page had told an informant in August 2016 that he “never met” or “said one word” to Mr. Manafort, who had never returned Mr. Page’s emails. Even if the investigators did not necessarily believe Mr. Page, the court should have been told what he had said. 

Second, as the initial court order was nearing its expiration and law-enforcement officials prepared to ask the surveillance court to renew it, the F.B.I. had uncovered information that cast doubt on some of its original assertions. But law enforcement officials never reported that new information to the court. 

Specifically, the application included allegations about Mr. Page contained in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Democrats. In January 2017, the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Steele’s own primary source, and he contradicted what Mr. Steele had written in the dossier. 

The source for Mr. Steele may, of course, have been lying. But either way, officials should have flagged the disconnect for the court. Instead, the F.B.I. reported that its agents had met with the source to “further corroborate” the dossier and found him to be “truthful and cooperative,” leaving a misleading impression in renewal applications. 

Finally, the report stressed Mr. Page’s long history of meeting with Russian intelligence officials. But he had also said that he had a relationship with the C.I.A., and it turns out that he had for years told the agency about those meetings — including one that was cited in the wiretap application as a reason to be suspicious of him.

So the FBI officials protesting anonymously were proven wrong about the specifics of the Carter Page surveillance.  And their insistence that the FISA process in general has been handled well has also been discredited:  IG Horowitz Found ‘Apparent Errors or Inadequately Supported Facts’ in Every Single FBI FISA Application He Reviewed (March 31, 2020):

The Justice Department inspector general said it does “not have confidence” in the FBI’s FISA application process following an audit that found the Bureau was not sufficiently transparent with the court in 29 applications from 2014 to 2019, all of which included “apparent errors or inadequately supported facts.”

McCabe admitted in January that the FBI has an “inherent weakness in the process” of obtaining FISA warrants. 

 Durham Investigation

In May 2019, U.S. Attorney General William Barr tasked John Durham with overseeing a review of the origins of the Russia investigation and to determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was "lawful and appropriate".  Similar to the Inspector General's investigation, we are getting self-serving leaks to the press that the investigator does not understand how the intelligence agencies work:  Justice Dept. Is Investigating C.I.A. Resistance to Sharing Russia Secrets.  

Mr. Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result — and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal, the people said. 

But officials from the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency have told Mr. Durham and his investigators that such an interpretation is wrong and based on a misunderstanding of how the intelligence community functions, the people said. National security officials are typically cautious about sharing their most delicate information, like source identities, even with other agencies inside the executive branch.

The Durham investigation has rattled current and former intelligence officers. Little precedent exists for a criminal prosecutor to review the analytic judgment-making process of intelligence agencies, said Michael Morrell, a former acting C.I.A. director who left the government in 2013. 

“This whole thing is so abnormal,” Mr. Morrell said. 

Prosecutors are ill equipped to assess how analysts work, he added. “The bar for making a legal judgment is really high. The bar for an analytic decision is much lower,” Mr. Morrell said. “So he is going to get the wrong answer if he tries to figure out if they had enough information to make this judgment.” 

But other intelligence officials, according to an American official, are reserving judgment about Mr. Durham, who previously spent years investigating the C.I.A. over its torture program and its destruction of interrogation videotapes without charging anyone with a crime. Two detainees died in the agency’s custody. 

Mr. Durham is a longtime federal prosecutor who has repeatedly been asked, under administrations of both parties, to investigate accusations of wrongdoing by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

So once again, we have an investigation of the intelligence agencies in process, and we have insiders telling the press that the investigators just don't understand how the intelligence agencies work.  As was the case with Horowitz investigation, the insiders seem to be trying to spin an investigation that is finding insider misconduct.

The Obvious Malfeasance

My personal observation, which I've documented here, is that the allegations of Trump collusion with Russia were fabricated by the FBI and/or CIA.  It's obvious to me.  I occasionally look at articles attempting to support the FBI/CIA and invariably I find them unconvincing and similar to the articles quoted above saying that the investigators just don't understand how the intelligence community works.  Frequently, they'll just quote an intelligence insider denying any wrongdoing, and leave it at that.  At most they'll say something like "Joseph Mifsud" is an international man of mystery, without following through on the obvious signs that he was a western intelligence asset.  

Another recent development was the dropping of charges against the Russian troll firm:

Before a pandemic, there was a time when we were relentlessly told to fear Russian social media accounts. Their juvenile memes not only elected Trump, but also "sowed chaos." When Mueller indicted 13 Russians over it, he was hailed as a hero. Well, DOJ just dropped the case: ...  

For a snapshot in time, this was the NYT homepage after the Russian troll farm indictment back in February 2018. Russia, we were told, "is engaged in a virtual war against the United States."

to people claiming this is all Bill Barr's doing: the motion to dismiss was signed by a prosecutor on Mueller team and another who worked closely w/ Mueller team.

and Justice Department Mueller against two Russian companies accused of funding the “troll farms” in the 2016 election:

The charging of the defendant brought MSNBC Rachel Maddow close to tears in proclaiming that “For me, personally, hearing these charges and hearing what they were charging these Russians for — it was the first time that I felt like finally, finally, for the first time since we realized all this was happened, finally, it feels like someone is defending us.” The emotion around the case often seem disconnected from the actual evidence both against the companies and more importantly on any real impact on the 2016 election. 

Prosecutors now say that the trial “unreasonably risks the national security interests of the United States.” It is a curious conclusion since they have been litigating the case for years...  That claim seemed like more of a spin in a case that never seemed to materialize into hard evidence to support these charges. 

So, from my perspective, after another year and a failed impeachment trial, the facts of Russiagate continue to point to a conspiracy theory invented by the intelligence community and swallowed whole by the Democratic establishment and the mainstream media.

The McCarthyite Hysteria

It's become common for opponents of the mainstream Democrats to be labeled Putin lovers.  For example, Hillary Clinton opined that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset.  Howard Dean tried to discredit a #MeToo charge against Biden by associating one media outlet that published it with Putin undermining the 2016 election.  Tara Reade herself, who claimed that she was assaulted by Biden, reported this:

I’m being called a Russian agent, this happened. Biden supporters would just write…you’re a Russian agent, you’re a bot. And it’s being silenced about sexual assault and sexual harassment.  It’s like McCarthyism
Yeah. He said, I know you live in _____, you know, we’re coming, you’re a traitor, you’d better get Putin to protect you. 

I've been mocked myself as a Russian dupe.  Rachel Maddow garnered a vast audience and made millions of dollars promoting Putin conspiracies on MSNBC with former CIA Director John Brennan as a frequent guest expert.  My closest friends and family bought into this.

I'm open to arguments that justify the intelligence community behavior in cooperation with the Democrats and the mainstream media.  I just haven't seen any in the 2 years since my initially skeptical reaction to Russiagate. 

MMT-rump

Hi Stuart!  Very timely question, as I was just reading an article on the subject.  My take on the article is that, 

1. Yes, MMT is being validated as a description of how the modern monetary system works.
2. Trump is hoping to take advantage of this to unleash the power of the federal government in a New Deal manner.  

Excerpt from the linked article:

we also had Mr. Trump tweeting:

 

“With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO, this is the time to do our decades long awaited Infrastructure Bill. It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country! Phase 4”

 

What fiscal deficits! $5.8 trillion is being bandied around in the way $580bn was two years ago. And yet, as Trump implies, what fiscal deficits? Rates are zero and are unlikely to be anything other than zero for a looooong time. The Fed will see to that. There is enormous domestic demand for some decent US infrastructure. And there is enormous global USD demand. In short, this is potentially about as clear an argument as one is going to see put forward by a politician for MMT – or here MMT-rump. As another aside, I had many conversations with colleagues when Trump was first elected, and the conclusion was always that if there was ever a US president prepared to use a crisis to go MMT, it was T: nobody even once went ‘Mmm’ about that prospect. Would you want to be a Democratic candidate running against spending $2 trillion on infrastructure in a weak economy? Good luck with that! 

In the same way that "only Nixon could go to China", it appears that only a Republican such as Trump can unleash the constructive power of the federal government in our current political climate.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Mental Models Face Coronavirus

It's been a rough month for populist conservatives.  Boris Johnson has the coronavirus.  Donald Trump is flailing.  Although Trump's popularity is doing well in polls, he continues to take a beating in the mainstream media and his leadership with regard to the pandemic has been incoherent.

• $2 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Bill Presents A Reckoning For Libertarians
• Trump’s Break With China Has Deadly Consequences

We all have our mental models of how the world works:

The fact is that people often cannot handle the truth.  This is neither good nor bad, but a fact of human nature.  The condition is known as epistemic learned helplessness.  This means that we tend not to go along with weird theories, even if the person propounding a theory seems to have logical arguments.  Most often, we do not have enough knowledge ourselves, in the specific domain under discussion, to argue with the proponent of the weird theory.  But we know that the theory is not backed by the experts we trust, that we do not have enough time to become experts ourselves, and that weird theories are often used to fool or cheat us into doing something we shouldn't.

With regard to contemporary politics, there are 4 prevalent mental models as I show in my diagram Political / Economic Quadrants.  Though we all tend to see ourselves in one of the quadrants, I believe there are underlying principles with merit in each of the quadrants; i.e. liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist.  I think we need to look toward socialism at the present time, and I think the liberalism, conservatism, and libertarianism are to some extent weird theories -- implausible models of how the world works.  Others look at socialism as a weird model.

Most of us interpret the coronavirus pandemic in the context of one of these four mental models.  Our natural tendency is to:

• Find validation for our mental model in the way events unfold.
• Avoid thinking about unpleasant ways in which our model does not fit with the way events have unfolded.

This is natural.  A social model is a big part of one's identity.  We can't afford to casually toss it overboard, and if it's working then we are due increased status in the community because we have demonstrated that we know what's right for the community.  The temptation is to blame others or to withdraw from the debate.  The former may be justified.  The latter may be prudent as one digests developments.

I think this is where we are societally at the moment -- angry and/or confused.  Liberals and socialists are angry at the conservatives and libertarians.  We believe that conservatives and, especially, libertarians have brought us to this dystopia.  Conservatives and libertarians are confused, as the pandemic has forced them to rethink their America first model.  Some are angry, lashing out at China in an attempt to vindicate their flawed mental model.  Other conservatives are even more angry at the libertarians, although they have already been angry in this regard since Trump came to power as a populist outsider.

Of course, socialists such as myself remain angry at liberals, and vice versa.  My view is that the liberals have increasingly adopted the right wing xenophobia, with regard to countries such as Russia and Venezuela.  And the reaction to the virus has proven that the issue of how to pay for sensible programs such as single payer, universal health care is misguided.  Money can be and is created out of thin air when necessary.

Liberals, on the other hand, see vindication of their anyone but Trump ideology, pointing again and again to the failures of his administration and him personally in handling the situation.

While acknowledging that the political battles are valid and necessary, I think it is also helpful to step back and consider the larger forces at work.

• The unipolar world of the U.S. led liberal-conservative empire continues to unravel.
• China and Russia have been successful in their defiance.
• The empire is deeply divided against itself.
• Liberal-conservative capitalism is proving inadequate to address 21st century problems.

Of course, as a socialist, I would say these things which support my worldview.  

I want to reiterate what I said earlier:  I believe there are underlying principles with merit in each of the quadrants; i.e. liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist.  Liberals want to reinforce good behavior, and discourage bad behavior.  Conservatives want to maintain societal order, without which we will perish individually.  Libertarians abhor groupthink, and stand up for the rights of individuals and minorities.  Socialist want justice and greater equality for humans.  These are all valid to a certain extent.

So we must limit broad name calling and focus on more specific points in seeking to achieve a viable meeting of the minds.  Here are some ways in which this can work during the current upheaval:

• We should cooperate with China and other countries in dealing with the coronavirus.
• Demonizing China has been factually incorrect and counterproductive.
• Demonizing other countries including Russia, Venezuela, Syria, and Iran has been factually incorrect and counterproductive.
• We need more and better public health.
• The U.S. has an overly complicated patchwork of medical insurance plans which provides inadequate care at an exorbitant cost.
• We can do more to combat climate change and deal with technology run amok.
• Government has the power to save corporations.  Government should also have the power to regulate corporations in the public interest.
• There is much waste in society that can be eliminated.  For example, many people can work from home, saving energy.  We can change dramatically without losing our lives and our values.

By focusing on more detailed issues and avoiding name calling, we stand a better chance of a finding common ground.  Respecting each other's mental models is part of understanding the enemy, which is crucial to winning the war.

Complexity v Coherence

I'm formulating a new rule for technology and scholarship in general.  It's something along the lines of "If something doesn't make sense after you've made a good faith attempt to understand it, it's probably wrong".  This probably applies to traditional religion, conventional wisdom regarding money, and quantum computing.

Liberalism

Following up on my last post, it seems that many politically prominent "liberals" are demagogues.

I’ve been a proud liberal my entire life, but these days I’m not sure that always a good thing. It (the value of liberalism) depends upon the specifics (details) of a particular issue, and also on how liberalism is defined. Liberalism is opposed to conservatism. Sometimes it’s good to be conservative — with regard to the environment for example.

Of course, most prominent American political "conservatives" haven't been in favor of environmental conservation in recent decades.  Liberals and conservatives became two political tribes with policy positions divorced from supposed underlying principles.  Nevertheless, economic liberalism supports global capitalist preeminence as opposed to economic conservatism which has favored restrictions on the emerging capitalists (bourgeoisie).  Thus, the Economist is a liberal magazine, while the Soviet Union was more conservative economically.  Labels are generally used to demonize those in opposing tribes, but there are competing principles which underlie the varying labels, and the principles are all worthy of respect, in my opinion.

Also, elitism is sometimes conflated with liberalism, in my view.  Back in the day, Christian was the equivalent of Liberal today.  Demagogues such as the seemingly liberal John Calvin would enforce their conventional views by calling their populist rivals heretics.  Similarly, the Democratic presidential candidates lined up to call Bernie Sanders a dangerous socialist who had once said something complimentary about Cuba under Castro. 

During the inquisition, political leaders across Europe denounced Jews, pagans, and Muslims as heretics.  In retrospect, we see this as bad.  But at the time, it was beyond the pale, so to speak, to defend these heathens and heretics.  Thus, today, Tulsi Gabbard is beyond the pale when she questions the U.S. role in Syria vis a vis that of Assad and Syria.  Supporting Trump with regard to the Russiagate investigation is likewise beyond the pale for liberals.  And God forbid that anyone should favor more socialism or have ever spoken positively with regard to Communist countries or leaders.  

I see political landscape in 4 quadrants -- Political / Economic Quadrants -- and I see some merit in each of the 4 labels; i.e. liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist.  I'm not in favor of using these as epithets and judging people by how they self-identify.  Details and circumstances vary and matter.

Demagogues for Fiscal Responsibility

(also against Putin and Castro)

Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, and Biden are classical demagogues.

demagogue A political orator or leader who gains favor by pandering to or exciting the passions and prejudices of the audience rather than by using rational argument.

They shout $50, $60, $70 trillion for single payer health care to scare people.  But single payer costs much less where it used in other countries, as compared to our existing system in the United States.  Single payer will reduce costs by cutting into the inefficient existing system.  This means that a lot of people who profit from the current system will make less money from it -- i.e. the vested interests.

Mayo Pete math (sponsored by Aetna):  Health care is free when provided by the private sector.

So the Democratic establishment is trying to scare us by acting as if a single payer system will bankrupt the country.  In fact, the country's health care system as a whole will be more efficient, but the vested interests that support the establishment will be adversely affected in the short run.

BE AFRAID.  THE COUNTRY WILL GO BANKRUPT (unspoken: if we do anything which will affect my campaign contributors' profits).

Demagogic logic:

1. Be afraid of Bernie!!  He will bankrupt the country.
2. Bernie will lose to Trump because people are afraid.

Of course, according to the demagogues, there are other reasons to be afraid of Bernie (who dares to take on some establishment interests).  For example, be afraid of Bernie because he is supported by the Russians! 

So it boils down to whether or not we should genuinely be afraid of Bernie because of his policy proposals.  The answer is a resounding no. We will not go bankrupt or suffer withering inflation if we implement a more efficient health care financing system.  Russia will not be controlling our government if Bernie wins.  This is just good old fashioned demagoguery.

For more on modern day demagogues' favorite subjects, please see Two Great Societal Lies.

Local v National Government

Michael Bloomberg stands for competence in local government.  His performance is controversial and disputed, but a case can be made that he did a decent job as mayor of one of the world's biggest cities (New York City).

Bernie Sanders was mayor of a considerably smaller city (Burlington Vermont).  His performance is less controversial.  By most accounts, he did a good job, but at a significantly smaller scale than New York City.

Following his mayoralty, Sanders moved to elected office in the United States national government, first as a representative and then as a senator.  This national experience sets him apart from Bloomberg, who has only local government experience.

Just as business and government are fundamentally different types of organizations (one's purpose is to maximize profits, the other's is to maximize the welfare of citizens), local and national governments are fundamentally different types of organizations.  One of the major differences is that a national government issues money, while a local government uses money.  A local government is like a business or a household with regard to money.  A national government, on the other hand, has the power to create money and does this regularly.  Thus, when Bloomberg says, "we can't afford all the programs that Bernie proposes" (paraphrasing), he is revealing his ignorance of how our national monetary system works.  Other Democratic candidates, such as Klobuchar and Buttigieg, share Bloomberg's lack of insight into how the national monetary system works.

Please see The Socrates Show, with guest Pete Peterson and Two Great Societal Lies.

Two Great Societal Lies

Throughout most of western (European and American) history, the Bible was beyond criticism.  Thus, for example, Galileo was tried and condemned by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633. He was prosecuted for his support of heliocentrism, the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the centre of the Solar System.  Protestants continued the tradition of Biblical / clerical infallibility.  For example, Michael Servetus was burned at the stake in 1553 by John Calvin for challenging the doctrine of the trinity.

By now, in western society, we moved beyond religious dogma.  However, there are certain illogical doctrines that are beyond challenge in elite society.  These were on full display in the Democratic presidential debate last night.

1. We "can't afford" to provide services such as universal health care.  This was pounded relentlessly by candidates Bloomberg, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar.  This is absurd on its face, as all other developed countries do this and spend less on health care than does the U.S.  But it is only one manifestation of the larger misconception that the national government has a limited supply of money.  As creator of the currency (U.S. dollar), our national government faces no monetary limits other than inflation (which has been trending lower for decades).
2. Russia interfered in our 2016 election and is uniquely evil (along with China and any other country that refuses to submit to our empire).  The Democratic candidates tried to outdo each other in denouncing Russia and Putin, along with China and Xi, and Cuba and Castro.  This is again obviously absurd.  It is well documented that most of the so-called Russian interference in the 2016 election was actually manufactured by U.S. and British intelligence.  And to claim that countries as Cuba actually have accomplished anything, in education for example, is beyond the pale.  Thus, establishment standard-bearer Joe Biden was shrieking at Bernie Sanders for actually saying this out loud.
   
   This is of course absurd.  Democracy is obviously an important concept, and the U.S. led empire does have certain basic democratic principles which generally prevail.  But this is not the only humanitarian standard by which we can judge countries.  And the U.S. supports many authoritarian governments who choose to cooperate with the empire to a greater extent than Cuba.  It's thus a great lie to claim that governments who stand up to the empire are irredeemable and cannot, by definition, have done anything good.

As with the imposition of Biblical / clerical infallibility, the current great lies are obviously absurd, yet strictly policed by the elite class.  Despite this societal blind spot, many wonderful scientific and artistic accomplishments take place in our society.  We have come a long way in terms of civil rights.  But the blind spots are dangerous to our survival as a nation and a species, just as the blind spots of yore led to absurd persecutions and devastating wars.

The Threat to Democracy

I believe that the most serious current threat to democracy in the United States is from our unaccountable intelligence services.  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans nor the mainstream media is willing to challenge these services, which are licensed to lie in the service of protecting our country from terrorism or foreign enemies such as Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela.  Inevitably, having this kind of power and mission has led to opportunities to mislead the public, to blackmail enemies, and to conduct false flag operations.

Various foreign countries and subnational groups are engaged in life and death struggles.  These include the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Israel-Iran conflict, the Shia-Sunni conflict, and the class conflicts in Venezuela and Bolivia.  Various parties in these armed conflicts are desperate and therefore will go to great lengths to get the United States, the world's supreme military power, involved on their side.  And so, despite perhaps having good intentions, we get involved at the behest of one faction or another.

In addition, we live in a global economy where American countries make profits around the world.  Naturally, our intelligence agencies are charged with protecting these interests.

So we have an enormous bureaucracy devoted to "intelligence", with a budget 10 times that of Russia's spy budget and in fact bigger than Russia's entire military budget.  For whatever reason, this sprawling and unaccountable bureaucracy has made enormous mistakes over the past decades (Iranian and Central American coups, Vietnam War, Iraq War).

I do not mean to imply that U.S. intelligence agents are bad people, or that the work they do is unnecessary.  Rather, I think it needs to be pointed out that they have an enormous budget in keeping with the status of the United States as the world's preeminent superpower.  While we've tried to build in safeguards against abuse of power, there is a huge incentive to subvert the safeguards in the pursuit of various agendas.

No politician has comparable power, so all must "play" with the intelligence community or lose power.  Thus, serial liar John Bolton is courted by the Democrats because Trump dared to oppose him.  The Democrats do this in the name of democracy, but they are 180 degrees wrong in basing their support for democracy on the foundation of what the intelligence community says.  Democracy should be more about what is publicly known and verifiable.

A Bernie Sanders presidency would provide better balance between the vested interests supported by the intelligence community, and the larger public who constitute the country's labor force, families, and future.

An Election as Part of a Movement

Populist movements are on the march across the neoliberal democratic world, along with various fringe or borderline areas.

In the United States, the Sanders candidacy represents a populist movement.  As such, it is similar to the Trump presidency.  In Britain, the Brexit movement toppled the neoliberal establishment.  In France, the Yellow Vests have been on the streets for over a year.  Populism has been rising in Germany.  The populist Sinn Fein party just scored an upset victory in Ireland.  Populists have dominated Italian politics in recent years.   Protests in Hong Kong are ongoing.  The Middle East has been rife with populist turmoil of one sort or another for decades.  Modi in India and Duterte in the Philippines are right wing populists, as are the leaders of Hungary (Orban) and Brazil (Bolsonaro).  Mexico and Venezuela have leftist populist leaders, while the leftist populist leader of Bolivia was recently deposed in a coup.  Civil protests are taking place throughout Chile.

Leftist populism is age related in the United States.  An Economist/YouGov poll released this week (written Feb 15) found that 60 percent of Democrats younger than 30 support either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren; among those 65 and older, the progressive candidates’ combined total was 27 percent.  Exit polls from New Hampshire affirmed this generational split, with Sanders winning 47 percent of voters 18 to 29, but just 15 percent of those over 65.

This is the context for the 2020 presidential election which finds Bernie Sanders as the leading Democrat trying to unseat Republican Donald Trump.   The old guard is under attack from both the left and the right, and from the next generation.  Reactionary forces have moved into high gear, employing vast quantities of advertising and scare tactics in an attempt to derail the populist movements.  We are told that Trump is such a threat to our democracy that we must rally behind the Democratic establishment to preserve liberal values.  In this view, establishment Democrats provide the only credible alternative to a second Trump term and the end of democracy as we know it.  This is indeed a frightening prospect.

I disagree with this reactionary political movement for two fundamental reasons:

1. In my opinion, the U.S. military intelligence complex is a greater threat to our liberal values than are Trump Republicans.
2. The Democratic establishment has proven ineffective in representing liberal values and presenting an alternative to Trumpian populism.

I will discuss the military intelligence complex below, but first I will address the argument as to whether Sandersonian populism can be more effective than the Democratic establishment  The best argument against Sandersonian democratic socialism, in my opinion, is that it's unrealistic.  I disagree with this argument, but it is a serious one.  Protest movements are by their very nature not sustainable in the long term, in large part due to the amount of energy and commitment it takes to maintain them*.  If Sanders is elected president, he will face formidable obstacles to implementing his agenda.  Congress will block him, corporations with vested interests will continue to oppose him, and the military intelligence establishment will undermine him.  A reasonable argument can be made that he will be unable to govern effectively, and that therefore his liberal ideals will be discredited.

Against this, we can see the fate of Democrats during the Obama presidency.  As a moderate, Obama swept into the presidency with Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, including 60 senators.  However, his Democratic administration was openly undermined by Republicans and, ultimately Democrats overall were discredited by the electorate as Republicans came to dominate all branches of government by 2016, including especially state governments.  Moderates failed in precisely the way that reactionary conventional wisdom predicts that Sanders will fail.

Looking at American and world history shows that real change in society is possible.  Slavery was abolished.  Women got the right to vote.  In the New Deal era, Social Security was passed and laws passed to help workers and the unemployed.  Throughout the western democratic world, health care is provided as a human right (except in the U.S., although we are much of the way there).  Minority rights are protected much more than they were in the past.  These advances did not result from singular electoral victories.  Rather they were the culmination of movements which eventually prevailed over vested interests and the status quo.

This is the light in which the Sanders candidacy is most constructively viewed.  Ian Welsh discusses this in more detail.

Bernie Sanders, like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter before him, wants to use mass appeal audience effects to renegotiate the country’s political and economic contract...  These movements operate by forcing conflict out into the open, on favorable terms and on favorable ground. Make the malignancy of power show its face in daylight. Gandhi and the salt march. MLK and the Selma to Montgomery marches. FDR picking fights and catalyzing popular support throughout the New Deal era, starting with the first 100 days. Occupy Wall Street changed American language and political consciousness by cementing the frame of the 1% into the lexicon. Black Lives Matter reminded America who it has been and still is on the streets of Ferguson...  Sanders understands very clearly what kind of coalition and movement he needs to ignite to accomplish the vision he’s putting out in his campaign. It’s an aspirational vision...  Elites may beat Sanders himself but they will not beat the movement he’s invigorating but did not create.

Realistically, we the people have limited power in comparison to the .1% who own most of the wealth.  Whether we vote for Bernie or for Bloomberg or for Trump, they will continue to hold disproportionate power and continue to act in their own self-interest.  What we can do is make our preferences clear, and push for a better society for all by exposing problem areas to a wider audience.

Viewed from the global perspective, there are similar movements for change in many places, abetted by advances in communications technologies which expose problems to large audiences.  As the predominant global superpower, the U.S. leads the reactionary response to protest and unrest across much of the world.  The neoliberal establishment blames the ascendance of Trump in the U.S. on Russia.  China is blamed elsewhere.  Iran is seen as a major culprit in the Middle East.  Populism in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and Italy is blamed on racism.  Problems in Central America and South America are blamed on corrupt dictators, and so forth.  There is little self-awareness as to dysfunction of the U.S. led international system of neoliberal economics and politics.

The Democratic party establishment has demonstrated this lack of self-awareness to an extraordinary extent since the 2016 presidential election.  Trump's victory was blamed on Russia, Sanders, racism, and the FBI, although it was later revealed that the leadership of the FBI (including Director Comey) was anti-Trump and pro-Clinton.  Most troubling, the Democrats and the mainstream media have relied on faulty leaks from the FBI, CIA, and British intelligence sources to make their anti-Trump, pro-neoliberal establishment case.

I have written about this, providing detailed examples, many times.  For example, Robert Mueller played a lead role in trying to discredit Trump.  Mueller was given tremendous credibility by the Democrats and media despite his poor track record.  For example, as FBI Director in 2003, he asserted:

Baghdad has the capability and, we presume, the will to use biological, chemical, or radiological weapons against US domestic targets in the event of a US invasion.

When his investigation of Trump was concluded last year, finding no evidence of Trump conspiracy with Russia, it was widely dismissed by Democrats and the media.  Our democratic system has already been severely compromised by the intelligence community such that we ignore their being wrong and move on to their next batch of "leaks".   The impeachment process, initiated by a CIA "whisteblower" over investigation of possible corruption in Ukraine. was a massive distraction from the serious problems facing the country.  It demonstrated that Trump faces massive opposition in the public sphere, in contrast to the intelligence community which is largely unaccountable.

Thus, I disagree with the scare tactics promulgated by the Democratic establishment regarding Trump as a threat to our democratic system.  The greater threat to our democracy can be seen in the Democratic campaign for president in 2020.  Pete Buttigieg has become a favorite of the intelligence community and invested in the app which has prevented the Iowa caucus from being conducted fairly.  In a widely acknowledged fiasco, the Democratic establishment ended up giving Buttigieg more delegates than Sanders, despite Sanders winning more votes and documenting mathematical errors with regard to determining delegates.

Mike Bloomberg has entered the Democratic race and is throwing tons of money into a desperate attempt to stop Sanders.  No major media outlets endorse Sanders, nor do they cover his campaign fairly.  Vested interests are everywhere throwing money and misleading commentary in an attempt to preserve the status quo.  Hillary Clinton and Lloyd Blankfein are amongst these purveyors of fear.

Of course, political campaigns have always been rough and tumble events.  Thus, Republicans will say that Trump's lying and funding by vested interests are fair.  Democrats will say that stopping Trump is imperative and justify Bloomberg's Trump-like performance.   The U.S. as an empire cannot escape the desire of other countries (U.K., Israel, Ukraine) to affect the U.S. political scene.  That's reality.  But secretive and unaccountable intelligence agencies are best positioned to take advantage of this landscape, not a relative outsider such as Trump.

Again, a Sanders victory will not magically clear this up.  But it will provide an opportunity to expose real problems, including election misbehavior, to a wider audience.  The mainstream media will have to extend the Overton Window to encompass Sanders' bully pulpit.  This would be a great restorative measure for the U.S., and thus for the world as a whole as we struggle to evolve more effective democratic principles and reduce the need for populist protest.

Why I Voted for Bernie Sanders

I voted absentee ballot back in January.  For me, it was an easy decision to vote for Bernie Sanders.  I also voted for him in 2016, and events since then have reinforced my belief in his candidacy.

Earlier in the year, I was planning to vote for Elizabeth Warren.  She seemed like the candidate most likely to unite the Democratic party against Trump.  However, in my view, she faltered in recent months, showing a lack of conviction in the face of attacks from the establishment.  Her attack on Bernie Sanders, seemingly made in desperation as she was sinking in the polls, for supposedly thinking a woman can't win in 2020, was the decisive factor.  I discussed the reasons why in this post.

Attacking Sanders from the left is usually a bad idea.  He is perhaps the most consistent politician I can think of, going back to his civil rights advocacy in the 1960s.

Attacks from center seem similarly flawed to me.  I just watched this 2/9/2020 interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, and it gives a good idea of just how ridiculous some of the criticisms are.  As an example, he is criticized for being impractical with regard to health care.  His response that other countries cover everyone for half the cost per capita is unassailable.  As he tells Tapper, if Canada, Japan, and every country in Europe can provide universal coverage at a reasonable cost, so can we.

What Bernie has already accomplished is somewhat remarkable.  As Nathan Robinson says in Current Affairs,

The Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign has achieved a number of firsts. Never before in modern American history has a political movement been funded virtually entirely and directly by the working class...  Bernie has the most contributions of any candidate in 46 states, the most contributions ever by any presidential candidate at this point in the race... Sanders has actually out-fundraised all the billionaire-backed candidates, something many predicted confidently was impossible to achieve in U.S. politics... 

In 2016, Bernie Sanders promised to continue to build a popular movement, and since the narrow loss in that race, he hasn’t stopped. He’s helped Amazon workers secure $15 an hour, joined together with Walmart workers fighting for the same, helped Disney service workers win a contract, and has joined and boosted countless labor struggles in the past years... 

The first Jewish candidate for President ever to win a presidential primary in U.S. history, a man clearly deeply influenced by his Jewish origins, who spent time living in Israel on a kibbutz, has been absurdly pilloried as an anti-Semite in the media for the crime of recognizing the humanity of the Palestinian people... 

My impression is that the United States has been failing on a number of fronts.  Our economy has become overly financialized, with the marketplace becoming more of a counterproductive casino.  In addition, as the predominant global superpower, we have neglected international law and fairness in favor of bullying other countries. Our intelligence services are largely unaccountable and have captured both major parties and the mainstream media, with unfortunate effects on domestic politics.  Trump is a symptom of this state of affairs, more than a cause.

Reasonable people can disagree about this.  There is always a temptation to naively embrace candidates making unrealistic promises.  I have probably been guilty of this in the past.  On the other hand, I think it is a good idea to strive to make the world a better place, and not to be deterred by cynicism or vested interests.  As I wrote in Facilitating Travel Along the Arc of Moral Justice,

In the early days of our nation, societal decisions were made by a restricted class of white men.  Now other races and genders participate and have power more commensurate with their numbers.  This "arc of moral justice" was facilitated not only by trade and communications technology, but also by explicit efforts to expand the discussion to include underrepresented points of view.  Thus, abolitionists made visible the injustices of slavery and featured the African American perspective.  Suffragettes expanded democracy to more specifically consider the concerns of women.  The progressive movement and the New Deal elevated the concerns of manual laborers to a more visible platform.  Gandhi, MLK, and Mandela brought similar tactics to their respective movements, forcing conflict out into the open, on favorable terms and on favorable ground.

In this, I was influenced by Ian Welsh's article entitled Does Bernie Sanders Know What He’s Doing?.  Quoting Welsh:

In peaceful social movements, “winning” means winning the hearts and minds of the majority of the society’s stakeholders to the point where they actively choose sides. First make them witnesses, then convert them into participants in the conflict. 

All Democrats, and Republicans for that matter, claim to be for helping the majority while protecting the rights of minorities.  Sanders has more credibility on this score than any of the other candidates, in my view.  Moreover, I like his slogan: "Not Me, Us".  Sanders is old and won't be around forever.  His candidacy is about a movement to address real problems more than it is about him as an individual, and that's the way it should be.

Facilitating Travel Along the Arc of Moral Justice

I've talked a lot about Getting to Yes as an effective guide to win-win negotiation.  But sometimes the other side is too powerful and won't negotiate in good faith.  An effective technique in these circumstances may be to expand the audience, as suggested by Ian Welsh in an article about the 2020 presidential election.  This fits well with my UU values, which are essentially humanist (plus respect for the interdependent web of all existence).

We UUs are humanist in the sense that we value humanity in general more than any particular race or ethnicity or other tribal affiliation.  We often find justice is attained as the participation in a discussion or democratic process is broadened to include more ethnicities and other types of sub-groups.   Fortunately, this happens more often as civilization evolves to a global level, with technology facilitating wider trade and broader and faster communication.

In the early days of our nation, societal decisions were made by a restricted class of white men.  Now other races and genders participate and have power more commensurate with their numbers.  This "arc of moral justice" was facilitated not only by trade and communications technology, but also by explicit efforts to expand the discussion to include underrepresented points of view.  Thus, abolitionists made visible the injustices of slavery and featured the African American perspective.  Suffragettes expanded democracy to more specifically consider the concerns of women.  The progressive movement and the New Deal elevated the concerns of manual laborers to a more visible platform.  Gandhi, MLK, and Mandela brought similar tactics to their respective movements, forcing conflict out into the open, on favorable terms and on favorable ground.

This is how the arc of the moral universe is made to bend towards justice.  As Ian Welsh said,

In peaceful social movements, “winning” means winning the hearts and minds of the majority of the society’s stakeholders to the point where they actively choose sides. First make them witnesses, then convert them into participants in the conflict.

Thus, at the societal level, we are guided by democratic humanist principles such as universal suffrage, free speech, majority rule, and respect for minority rights.  At the personal and small group level, we are guided by the humanist methods of Getting to Yes, striving for win-win negotiations wherever possible.  Here is a framework for building political values upon a solid foundation of personal values.  Form win-win coalitions to achieve personal and small group success.  At the societal level, success involves getting as many people into the discussion as possible, and forming a majority which rules based upon that constituency.  We want win-win relationships all the way up.

Elevator Speech on Impeachment

1. Democrats conducted illegitimate inquiry into Trump for > 3 years based upon discredited Steele dossier and similar false "intelligence" reports.
2. Bidens did engage in corrupt behavior in Ukraine.
3. Trump was justified in defending himself by looking into corruption on part of Democrats who had been attacking him and interfering with his foreign policy.
4. Delay of military aid to Ukraine is not unprecedented, as Biden similarly held up aid to Ukraine.  The weapons were ultimately delivered so this is no way a high crime or misdemeanor. 
5. Schiff has a conflict of interest in that he receives large amounts of money from firms supplying weapons to Ukraine and elsewhere.

There are conflicts of interests on both sides.  A real policy difference regarding Ukraine and Russia may underlie the interagency efforts to remove Trump.  Trump was the legitimately elected president and has legal authority to make foreign policy.  The bottom line is that the biggest threat to our democracy is the unaccountable military-intelligence community that works with the mainstream media in guiding the national discourse.

Off the Rails with Adam Schiff

There is much to dislike about Donald Trump:

• Narcissistic personality
• Tax cuts for rich
• Reckless policies with regard to environment
• Overly partisan in favor of Netanyahu
• Reckless in withdrawing from Iran nuclear deal (JPCOA)
• Reckless in killing Iranian general Soleimani
• Jingoistic

I could go on and on.  So why did a Democrat such as Adam Schiff go all out in attacking Trump for something he didn't do (collude with Russia)?  How did the quick pivot to Ukraine come about?  Is Schiff a hero for his perseverance in attacking Trump on issues of foreign policy, or is he a dupe distracting attention from Trump's very serious shortcomings?

Schiff is heavily supported by the military industrial complex.  

The defense contractors love him. Northrop Grumman ($16,217), SAIC ($11,005), Lockheed Martin ($10,298), Boeing ($10,208), Honeywell ($10,025), Raytheon ($7,040), and General Dynamics ($7,038) are all among his major donors.

Schiff is chairman of the the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  As such, he gets inside scoops from the CIA and other intelligence agencies.   His job is to support these constituents.  We Democrats appreciate his ability to bring the real power of the military intelligence complex to our side of the table.  And so the mainstream media, which doesn't not like Trump for many good reasons (see above), views Schiff as an asset, encouraging him in his attack on Trump from the military intelligence angle.

So Schiff has been doing his job as he sees it while becoming a national figure as opposed to a niche Democrat connected to the military intelligence complex.  He's too close to the intelligence community and thus unable to see big picture.  The Russia collusion charges were false charges initiated from within the intelligence community.  The Ukraine pivot was a counterattack by the intelligence community against the Trump administration which had successfully defended itself against the Russian collusion charges and was, legitimately, looking into how those false charges got taken so seriously in the first place.  Schiff and his mainstream Democratic supporters never accepted the truth regarding Russiagate as they gone too far out on the limb to plausibly return. 

And that's how we got to the point where Democrats are attacking Trump for things he didn't do, as opposed to his many glaring weaknesses.  Schiff is leading the Democratic and NeverTrump Republican lemmings over the cliff.

It's Klobuchar v Sanders for the Democratic Nomination

Bernie Sanders has a big advantage as the primary season kicks off.  He's alone on the progressive side, whereas the centrist vote will be split amongst 5 plausible candidates -- Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Bloomberg.  So my prediction is that Bernie will win Iowa and New Hampshire, where he is currently leading in the polls.  The momentum from these victories will propel Bernie to a win in the 3rd state, Nevada.  The leading centrist candidate, Biden, is heavily favored in South Carolina, the 4th state to have a presidential primary.  Biden may win there but, at best, it will be an underwhelming victory given expectations.

So, by the end of February, Bernie will be far ahead in the race with Super Tuesday only 3 days away (on March 3 following the February 29 South Carolina primary).  The centrist candidates will be in disarray with Biden on the downswing and no clear alternative.  The short turn-around from S. Carolina to Super Tuesday will help Bernie and put the centrist Democrats into a big hole following Super Tuesday.  It will be at this point that the establishment Democrats rally the wagons and unite behind a single candidate to take on Bernie.

Amy Klobuchar is the only realistic choice for the centrists.  Biden has a ton of baggage at odds with what the voters want.  And he has low credibility as he attempts to twist his record to fit current preferences (Iraq, Social Security, bankruptcy).  Warren's niche was as a bridge from Sanders to centrists, but she burned the Sanders span.  Warren is now one amongst many in the centrist camp, and weak there for her equivocation and flirtation with the progressives.  Buttigieg hasn't caught on as a serious contender for a broad swathe of the party, include blacks and Hispanics.  Bloomberg is a billionaire making a mockery of Democratic ideals.  That leaves only Klobuchar as a viable alternative to Sanders.

Klobuchar is something of a Hillary Clinton clone.  She is a hardline centrist whose major selling point is that she is a feminist.  Certainly there is a large market for this type of candidate in the Trump era.  She has no major negatives, and the centrist Dems will coalesce around her in early March as the best possibility to avoid the Bernie tide.

Fortunately for Bernie supporters such as myself, there will not be much time for a Klobuchar movement to take hold.  Between the S. Carolina primary on February 29 and Super Tuesday on March 3, there are only 3 days, with 1345 delegates in play on March 3.  Another big primary day is March 10, with 362 delegates in play.  Another 577 will be in play on March 17.  The Klobuchar consensus will have to build very fast to hold its ground against an ascendant Bernie, and it seems unlikely that the dysfunctional center will perform well.

When the smoke clears on March 18, there will only be 1532 delegates left in play, as opposed to 2,439 already committed by the early primaries.  61% of the delegates will have been committed by the time the centrists get their acts together.  Sanders' lead may be insurmountable by that time.  Klobuchar will have Clinton rump in her camp, but that will be a negative as well as a positive.

If in fact Sanders does have an insurmountable lead on March 18, it will take a month or two for that to sink in.  Ultimately, Michael Bloomberg may decide to run as a 3rd party candidate.  That would most likely help Bernie as he would then be running against 2 New York billionaires.  The electorate may be polarized, but New York billionaires are not that popular that they will be able to win over the majority of American voters across the nation.  There will be many defectors on both the left and right, leaving the door wide open for a Sanders victory.

So Sanders can possibly be our next president.  If he wins, his job will be very difficult, as he will be trying to govern in the face of great skepticism if not intractable opposition.  If there is a 1929/2000/2008 style stock market bust, that may help him convince more people of the need for great change.  Populists such as Sanders and Trump would not be doing as well as they are if the country was running smoothly.

The Rovian Tactics of the Labour and Democrat Parties

Two lifelong progressives have been smeared in Rovian fashion by their own parties.

• Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite.
• Bernie Sanders is a misogynist.

I'll vote again for the Green party if this keeps up.

More here and here.

Warren - Sanders Dustup

• Private conversation between friends which occurred 13 months ago
• 2nd hand report provided to media several weeks before Iowa caucuses
• No context provided
• Out of character for Sanders
• In character for Warren:
• Native American controversy
• Fired for being pregnant controversy

Stupid or Evil?

Klobuchar, Biden, and Buttigieg:  "We cannot afford to cut health care expenditures by 50%."

Warren:  "I won't say whether or not Bernie said that a woman cannot win the presidency (a Rovian assertion that goes against everything Bernie's ever said or done).  But I disagree, a woman can win the presidency."

Biden: "I made a mistake in voting for the authorization for the Iraq war in 2003.  But I won't be fooled again!"

Four Common Weaknesses of Political Thought

Four Common Weaknesses of Political Thought

And Their Implications for the 2020 Presidential Campaign

1.     Racial Reductionism

2.     Racial and Ethnic Nationalism

3.     False Equivalence

4.     Great Man Theory

Reductionism

The inspiration for this section comes from Adolph Reed, in an article entitled

The Trouble With Uplift, How black politics succumbed to the siren song of the racial voice.

Reed's long and academic essay boils down to a denunciation of identity politics, and of racial identity politics in particular: 

The politics thus advanced is profoundly race-reductionist…  if American racism is an intractable, transhistorical force—indeed, an ontological one, as Ta-Nehisi Coates has characterized it—then it lies beyond structural political intervention…  Coates and other proponents of reparations seem unconcerned with the strategic problem of piecing together the kind of interracial popular support necessary to actually prevail on the issue… Winning anything politically—policies or changes in power relations—is not the point. That is why the jeremiads offered by contemporary racial voices so commonly boil down to calls for “conversations about race” or equally vapid abstractions like “racial reckoning” or “coming to terms with” a history defined by racism.

Implications for 2020: Focus on economic issues for the majority.  Briahna Joy Gray:

Barack Obama’s two campaigns are a powerful model for what a presidential pitch centering economics, rather than race, sounds like. As Michael Gerson, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush and Bob Dole observed, Obama’s 2012 stump speech was “very much an FDR Democratic class-warfare speech … He’s very much running on economic populist themes in tough economic times.” Highlighting class, Obama was able to win decisive numbers of white voters in crucial midwestern states. Despite his own identity, he won. Twice. Democrats should not let Trump’s racism drive them away from that effective strategy. 

Reed and Gray oppose reducing complex matters to racial foundations.  Rather, they favor interracial politics addressing concrete societal issues.

Racial and Ethnic Nationalism

Inspired by Norman Finkelstein, in an article entitled

Why the UK Labour Party should not adopt the IHRA Definition or any other definition of anti-Semitism.

Racial nationalism is related to race-reductionism.  Reed opposes reductionism in which a nation is seen as the sum of its constituent races.  Finkelstein opposed racial nationalism in which race is equated with national identity.  Reed's essay was about race and politics in the United States focusing on black-white relations.  Finkelstein's essay is about race and politics in the United Kingdom, focusing on relations between Jews and gentiles and the state of Israel.

Prodded by the anti-Corbyn Jewish Labour Movement, the (Labour) Party’s leadership poured into the code a mass of verbal sludge that polluted the venerable principle of free speech. Now British-Jewish elites are terrorizing Corbyn to accept a purported definition of anti-Semitism that, one, is and couldn’t but be gibberish, two, exemplifies ethnic special pleading, three, is not just pointless but also stifles vital debate, and, four, has nearly nothing to do with anti-Semitism and nearly everything to do with shielding Israel from deserved condemnation...

“A man curses,” Malcolm X surmised, “because he doesn’t have the words to say what’s on his mind.” Something similar can be observed about he who reflexively reaches for epithets like anti-Semite and racist. It’s an impoverished, ignorant, slovenly substitute for rational dialectic. If he is so blessed as to possess the mental tools to engage in such a dialectic, it’s also inexcusable.

Implications for 2020:   The U.S. Democrats are comparable to the U.K. Labour Party.   Boris Johnson is comparable to Donald Trump.  Ridiculous accusations of anti-Semitism tore apart the Labour Party and helped Boris Johnson win.  Accusations of racism, including those of anti-Semitism, are often reductionist, reducing complex issues and motives to simplistic stereotypes. 

Simplistic stereotypes are prevalent in U.S. foreign policy these days, on both sides of the political aisle.  Trump, Netanyahu, Pompeo, and Bolton on matters of foreign policy beat the war drums with regularity, often supported by Democrats (with regard to Venezuela and Iran, for example).  Democrats treat Putin as the devil incarnate, and take a tough military line in the new Cold War and it's current hotspot of Ukraine.  Rational discussion takes a back seat to epithets such as Moscow Mitch or Assad-lover.

Israel's racial nationalism may be a reaction to the German racial nationalism which brought us the holocaust.  Religious nationalism and ethnic nationalism are variations of this disease.  Nationalism, aka tribalism, is positive and necessary at some level.  It is generally good to bring one's group together behind a common set of values and goals.  Democrats can be successful by keep the focus on our group -- the United States -- and not being distracted by foreign affairs of only tangential interest to our voters.

We are multi-racial and multi-ethnic empire, and our success requires that we transcend race and ethnicity, both in our domestic affairs and our foreign allegiances. 

False Equivalence

Inspired by:

David Katz, in an article entitled
The “Double Genocide” Theory, The New And Official Form of Holocaust Denial

and

Mike Davis

On the Crimes of Socialism and Capitalism

Let's talk about socialism.  Bernie Sanders is a socialist, and he is one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.  Democrats will need the votes of his supporters to win the presidency in 2020.  Yet many Democrats fear the socialist label, seeing it as providing the Republicans with a lethal weapon. 

The Democrats have already boxed themselves into a corner somewhat by governing on the basis of what the Republicans will say as opposed to what is best for the country.  Thus, for example, Obamacare was crafted not as an efficient healthcare financing system, but rather as something that the Republicans wouldn't be able to discredit as socialist.  Now the Democrats are in the position of defending an inefficient, Republican system (originally developed by Republicans for Mitt Romney in Massachusetts).  And that didn't stop the Republicans from tarring Obama as a socialist.  (Obamacare was better than what we had before, and Democrats wouldn't have had the votes to institute a Canadian style system.  But they could have tried to do the right thing, and then fallen back on what became "Obamacare" as a compromise.  It could then have been termed Blue Dog care.)

So we Democrats should try to do the right thing, as opposed to being driven by what the Republicans will say.  What is the right thing with regard to socialism?  How can we Democrats be united in facing the inevitable charges the Republicans will make equating Democratic policies with Stalinism and Venezuelan government?  The truth is that democratic socialism works remarkably well in western Europe.  We have many socialist type programs in the U.S. such as universal, free public education through grade 12, Social Security, Medicare, the highway system, etc.

Implications for 2020:   Many socialist programs are very popular and successful in the United States and elsewhere.  The Democrats should speak up about these, while rejecting the name calling behavior.  The label is not so important as is the record of various social programs.  Republicans will be clearly engaging in false equivalence when they compare Democratic policies to those of Stalin or Hugo Chavez.  There is a vast difference between Norway and Stalinist Russia, for example. 

At a deeper level, the articles referenced above (The Double Genocide and On the Crimes of Socialism and Capitalism) explore catastrophes such as the Holocaust, and famines in capitalist and socialist countries.  In particular, Nazism is making something of a resurgence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Centrists, including Democrats, have been getting uncomfortably close with Nazis in places such as Ukraine.  Democrats should not only steer clear of Nazis, but should speak out forcefully against Nazi activity.  Trump voters are not in general equivalent to Nazis, but there are real Nazis about including some we've supported in Ukraine and the Baltic countries.

There are some political issues where outrage is genuinely appropriate.  In addition to Nazism, fake news by the mainstream media is another, in my opinion.   Quoting myself from Ranking Outrageous Behavior on a Societal Scale:

Outrage is warranted. The establishment, led by the intelligence community, now lies brazenly about matters of war and peace. There is no investigation or reporting of these lies. This is worse than Vietnam and Iraq 2003, in my opinion. As hard as this may be to take, Trump's talk of fake media is true, in my opinion, and therefore the outrage supporting Trump's abominable presidency is somewhat justified. So don't hate your neighbor. Rather pull together behind the need to reclaim an honest press and an honest discussion of foreign policy, including the role of intelligence agencies in domestic politics.

Great Man Theory

The Adolph Reed article mentioned above (under Reductionism) got me thinking about how we often deify individuals and downplay political movements.  Slavery in the U.S., for example, wasn't ended by the heroic exploits of any one person, black or white.  Rather it was a combination of people of both races in a political alliance.

My friends worry about Bernie Sanders' age, and this is certainly reasonable.  Bernie's campaign slogan, Not Me. Us., addresses this, I think.  Suppose Bernie is elected president, yet dies in office or becomes debilitated.  Would everything he stood for be for naught?  I don't think so.  I think he would have a capable vice president. I think he would have expanded the nation's consciousness as to what is possible in terms of dealing with the serious problems facing our nation and world.  I think he would have made some good appointments, and that future leaders would step up to fill the void created by his incapacitation.

It's not about Bernie or any of the candidates.  It's about political movement -- getting people together to address real problems. 

"America's" Achilles Heel

Now that the U.S. has attacked Iran, the Iranians are deciding how best to conduct war against the United States.  The answer, to me, is fairly obvious.  The way to defeat the United States is to harm the domestic political viability of the U.S. president.  Make the U.S. suffer in such a way that the president will be blamed.  If successful, this will result in a new U.S. administration and a likely retreat from war.

Thus, the Iranians (and other Trump/U.S. adversaries such as the Chinese) will likely be engaged in a battle for public opinion -- U.S. public opinion to be precise.  (The attack on Iran has already helped Iranian leaders in solidifying Iranian public opinion behind the current rulers.)   While I belittle the theory that the Russians affected the 2016 U.S. presidential election, I think it plausible that Iran, in a more active war with the U.S., can affect the 2020 elections.

The table is set for Iran due to the fact that America is greatly divided against itself, with Trump being hated by a large percentage of the U.S. electorate.  They would be wise to find the wedge issues in U.S. politics, and try to break these wide open.  Trump himself is the biggest wedge.  By making their war with the U.S. a war with Trump, the Iranians will find many Americans receptive to their perspective.

The obvious targets, then, are related to Trump personally.  Attacking his properties and personal allies could be somewhat popular amongst the American electorate, and extremely divisive.  Would Dems and never-Trump Republicans rally behind him?  Doubtful.  An even more efficacious approach would coordinate such attacks with China, Russia, and other "resistance" countries.

Ranking Outrageous Behavior on a Societal Scale

Ranking Outrageous Behavior on a Societal Scale

Tis the season to be jolly, but it's important to speak up about the truth as one sees it.    Please click on the link to read my thoughts on this subject.   Bottom line:


Outrage is warranted. The establishment, led by the intelligence community, now lies brazenly about matters of war and peace. There is no investigation or reporting of these lies. This is worse than Vietnam and Iraq 2003, in my opinion. As hard as this may be to take, Trump's talk of fake media is true, in my opinion, and therefore the outrage supporting Trump's abominable presidency is somewhat justified. So don't hate your neighbor. Rather pull together behind the need to reclaim an honest press and an honest discussion of foreign policy, including the role of intelligence agencies in domestic politics.