I recently read an intriguing book concerned with the exponential advances in technology and the impact thereof on human society. The author believes that the displacement of human labor by technology is in its very early stages, and sees little limit to the process. He is concerned with how this will affect–indeed, has already affected–the relationship between the sexes and of parents and children, as well as the ability of ordinary people to earn a decent living. It’s a thoughtful analysis by someone who clearly cares a great deal about the well-being of his fellow citizens.
Month: December 2017
A Pretty Good Explanation of the “Russia did it” story.
This is an article that was deleted from Huffington Post without explanation after a long time contributor submitted it.
Here is the Deep State at work.
A lesson of the 2016 campaign was that growing numbers of Americans are fed up with three decades of neoliberal policies that have fabulously enriched the top tier of Americans and debased a huge majority of the citizenry. The population has likewise grown tired of the elite’s senseless wars to expand their own interests, which these insiders try to conflate with the entire country’s interests.
America’s bipartisan rulers are threatened by popular discontent from both left and right. They were alarmed by the Bernie Sanders insurgency and by Donald Trump’s victory, even if Trump is now betraying the discontented masses who voted for him by advancing tax and health insurance plans designed to further crush them and benefit the wealthy.
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He is obviously not a Trump fan but his criticism of both sides sounds pretty accurate.
I’ve pitched numerous news stories critical of U.S. foreign policy to a major American newspaper that were rejected or changed in the editorial process. One example is the declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document of August 2012 that accurately predicted the rise of the Islamic State two years later.
The document, which I confirmed with a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. and its Turkish, European and Gulf Arab allies, were supporting the establishment of a Salafist principality in eastern Syria to put pressure on the Syrian government, but the document warned that this Salafist base could turn into an “Islamic State.”
But such a story would undermine the U.S. government’s “war on terrorism” narrative by revealing that the U.S.-backed strategy actually was risking the expansion of the jihadists’ foothold in Syria. The story was twice rejected by my editors and has received attention almost entirely — if not exclusively — on much-smaller independent news Web sites.
Again, he is a left winger but so was the guy who originally published the Deep State argument on Bill Moyer’s site.
The concerns may be distorted by the writer’s own bias but the reality is that we are all threatened.
Much of this spreading global hysteria and intensifying censorship traces back to Russia-gate. Yet, it remains remarkable that the corporate media has failed so far to prove any significant Russian interference in the U.S. election at all. Nor have the intelligence agencies, Congressional investigations and special prosecutor Robert Mueller. His criminal charges so far have been for financial crimes and lying to federal authorities on topics unrelated to any “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russians to “hack” Democratic emails.
It’s a long article and marred a bit by the writer’s left wing bias but it is worth reading.
In an otherwise well-buried interview between former interim CIA Director Mike Morell, (the temp director following Petraeus ouster used during initial Benghazi cover), there’s an admission by Morell about the politicized Deep State Intelligence leadership targeting candidate Donald Trump.
What this interview tells CTH is that the Intelligence Community, writ large, is on the precipice of massive institutional change -perhaps high level firings of remaining mid level operators and management- and those who participated in the historic politicization are now attempting to shape an explanation.
The CIA was participating in Hillary’s campaign.
Neptunus Lex – The Epilogue
After the Neptunus Lex website went down, shortly after his fatal accident, it very fortunately turned out that someone had saved most of the posts offline. For the last several years, Bill Brandt has been posting these restored posts, on an almost daily basis, at The Lexicans.
Sadly but inevitably, Bill has now come to the end of the saved posts. He has some eloquently-written concluding thoughts here.
Great job Bill, I’m really glad you’ve done this.
We can hope that perhaps some additional Lex posts will show up somewhere in the odd corners of the Internet.
Further Musings prompted by Sgt. Mom
Another Minnesotan, whose reputation like Keillor’s is pretty tawdry, seems about to be pushed from the Senate. Well, I am not all that sorry. Franken is reputed to be truly obnoxious. I was appalled by his posturing during the questioning of Gorsuch; his first election was shady. But Minnesotans re-elected him. The willingness of the Senate Democrats to discard him may say something about his general unpleasantness but probably a good deal more about their political calculations – recording preening, virtue signaling statements for use later.
Given his colleagues’ demands, we might remember the first came from Gillibrand. This is the woman who tied herself firmly to the Clintons, both of whose actions toward women were far more despicable than anything Franken has been charged with; on the other hand, she was quite willing to destroy the accused and comfort the accuser in what turned out (as any mature person expected) a hoax (or delusion) by a drama queen with mental problems, mattress babe. She dealt cynically and opportunistically with a girl who needed counseling a good deal more than a seat at Obama’s “State of the Union” address.