The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Grizzly » Thu Apr 05, 2018 4:21 pm


Burn the Kremlin....It's worked before!
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby overcoming hope » Thu Apr 05, 2018 5:34 pm

seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:37 pm wrote:Flynn ...National Security Advisor is not a person of consequence?

Flynn was planning with Russians to build nuclear power plants all around the middle east and have the U.S. military guard them BEFORE trump was president

Paul Manafort was trump's campaign manager...not a person of consequence?

Do you know who picked Mike Pence for VP? Paul Manafort

Rick Gates went to work for and became the campaign's number two not a person of consequence?

Do you know how the FBI takes down mobs?

bottom up


I'll admit I don't know much about Flynn, but I do know a little about his replacement John Bolton and I don't think that is anything to celebrate. And when we say there has been 100 indictments i sure hope we aren't including the 13 random Russians working at a click bait farm, cause that is the silliest thing I've heard in a long time so if we are lets subtract that from the total.
overcoming hope
 
Posts: 489
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:32 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 05, 2018 5:36 pm

really interesting that you know nothing about Flynn

if you do not know much about him how can you make such a statement with such little knowledge

let's just put aside the 13 Russians ....they are not that important to the trump/mob investigation but I will look for how many charges are against them and get back to you or you can figure it out...like I said they are not important to the mob investigation

funny you seem to know more about them than you do Flynn

here is their indictment ..I'm checking it right now ...seems like 8 counts but I could be wrong

https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download

ok here they say 2 counts each so that would be 26?

The Russians were part of a company called the Internet Research Agency, which Special Counsel Robert Mueller described as a "Russian organization engaged in operations to interfere with elections and political processes." The individuals were indicted on two counts and -- if upheld -- the defendants will be forced to turn over profits made from the operation, or risk losing assets of similar value. It is unclear how the courts will uphold the charges against the individuals, especially if they are no longer in the United States.

The 13 Russians used stolen identities from American citizens to promote political activist campaigns that were mostly pro-Trump. Affiliated groups also held rallies in favor of Hillary Clinton. The individuals were never cited for tipping the election in favor of Trump, but were blamed for falsifying documents and foreign meddling in the election.

They were charged with two counts.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/ ... ent=safari


but in any event if you want to be informed about stuff BEFORE you conclude anything read this because Flynn ...National Security Advisor is a person of consequence...biggley along with others that I have OP's about but I am sure you haven't read them either or care to ....you seem to have made up your mind in advance

Will Flynn bring back Yellowcake to WH Menu after 1-21-17?

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40188
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Jerky » Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:00 pm

Your diagnosis and prescription for prophylaxis are both intriguing and commendable, Pear, but I think a case could also be made that the ills plaguing our global realpolitik aren't the result of insufficiently reflecting the will of "the people"; rather, to borrow a phrase from Nietzsche, the source of the problems afflicting our governments, corporations, NGOs and civilization(s) in general at the moment, stem precisely from the fact that they are "human... all too human."

What if our flaws, our fears, our defects and weaknesses, infect our cultural creations and are amplified by/within them in a horrible echo chamber feedback loop? It's always difficult to shake off that kind of political stasis, even as things fall apart all around us, especially when we are in a period of increased hyperpartisanship and the kind of ideological rigidity we see in fundamentalist religions, or in political movements that demand 100% adherence - or, at the very least, demand forceful declaration of 100% adherence - like with the Free Market Absolutism of the American strain of libertarianism.

We've done such a bang-up job of atomizing ourselves into individuated consumption/labor nodes that it's taken them less than one generation to get the vast majority of us to simply shrug and accept the fact that we're going to be the first generation in a really long time to be significantly worse off than the generation that gave birth to us.

The Powers That Be (or those that Would Be) have done such a good job of weaponizing our doubt that we've reached a point where a significant percentage of the population is now ready to entertain the idea that the Earth is flat. And as a consequence of living our lives online and in our heads more than ever before, there's people who are willing to trust their own memories over physical, empirical evidence that their memories are in error... the Mandela Effect being the ultimate side-effect of true solipsistic alienation. There are people who believe they're being targeted by the government with exotic weapons that make their hair turn grey or fall out, weaken them, make them forget things... because they didn't have much contact with aunts, uncles, grandparents growing up, so they're ignorant of the aging process.

It's like we're having a number of simultaneous planet-wide panic attacks all wrapped up in a vast existential crisis, and we have no idea how to stop it. And we DEFINITELY don't have the will. One group sees someone as a good leader with great ideas, and another group instantly pops up to accuse him or her of being a dangerous revolutionary or cult leader. What one person sees as valuable education, another calls brainwashing, indoctrination.

I'm rambling now, and probably off topic. Apologies. I've been in a pretty black mood of late.

Jerky

peartreed » 30 Mar 2018 23:30 wrote:I agree that both Russia and the USA under Trump are kleptocratic oligarchies under continuing development and expansion - until viable, organized oppositions can be formed on a massive government and social scale to stop them. That is not a realistic expectation in the short term. The situation has to first become known.

The veil is lifting gradually by slow revelations like the Mueller investigation. The closer it gets to the truth the more vulnerable it becomes to being stopped cold. Intelligence organizations need to live up to their name and stay the course.

If one or another regime falls through its own incompetence, it will be replaced by another like it – as long as the door remains open for today’s political and psychological mind manipulation of the masses through corrupted, instant media.

The recent, ongoing investigations have further revealed the real likelihood of confidential mutual support, objectives, hidden financing and laundering systems.

Neither Russia nor the US government is orchestrating this global grab for power and control alone, as the corporate and industrial conglomerates are in on it too. It comes down to their shared mandate - the pursuit of maximum profit, power and position over resources – both natural, manufactured and – obviously - human.

I also agree that we’re on the brink of self-destruction because of the territorial competitions implicit in military and economic and social dominance by region. The wannabe empire oligarchs also have fragile egos prone to temper and meltdowns. Power mad paranoiacs press buttons. Nuclear means the next war is the last.

Short of an alien invasion from a parallel universe, we have to find the courage within ourselves to organize ourselves into an effective counterforce and take control of the same tools the oligarchs use to manipulate us. It's not left versus right. It's survival versus death.

Expect fatal retaliation.

That’s a near-impossible task that can only begin individually with self-sacrificing idealism, ideas and action - and a commensurate commitment to communicate with like-minded, motivated people to join forces to, together, gradually bring about the needed change. It first requires awareness of the problem demanding a solution.

The priority pursuit of profit has to give way to the pursuit of peace.

It’s a race to the finish already underway as we look up from the starting blocks.

I’m not sure anyone would bet a pay day on the success of that goal reversal.
User avatar
Jerky
 
Posts: 2240
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:28 pm
Location: Toronto, ON
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Fri Apr 27, 2018 1:09 am

Jill Stein breaks silence, completing handover of documents to Senate Committee. (Full Statement)

“We are facing a precarious historic moment. Democracy is threatened by interference in our elections, and by interference in our civil liberties. Likewise we are endangered by warmongering, rampant militarism, nuclear confrontation and accelerating climate change. To solve any of these interlinked problems, we need a functioning democracy and a voting system we can have confidence in.

As first steps to restore trust in that system, we are calling for a nonpartisan Emergency Commission for Election Protection & Voting Justice, as well as international negotiations for an election non-interference treaty. These should be stepping stones toward broader international dialogue to address other urgent looming threats that endanger not only our democracy, but our very survival.

Handing Over Materials to Senate Committee

Today, cooperating with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, our campaign has completed the handover of materials in response to the Committee’s request. The information provided includes documents regarding my 2015 visit to Russia to speak at RT‘s 10th anniversary conference on media and international relations, an extension of my trip to the UN climate conference in Paris, where I also spoke with international leaders and activists. The materials include records of the campaign’s payment for my trip to Russia as well as longstanding Green Party policy objectives of promoting dialogue and diplomacy as essential alternatives to war, nuclear confrontation and climate catastrophe.

Interference in Our - or Any Country’s - Elections Is a Blow Against Democracy.

We take very seriously the issue of interference in our elections, as demonstrated by our continuing efforts to conduct the first and, according to public information, the only 2016 post-election examination of vulnerable US voting machines, a critical cross check on election security that should be routine.

Interference in our - or any country’s - elections is a strike against democracy - whether the intruder is a foreign government, criminal network or domestic actor.

While Pursuing Concerns About Foreign Interference, We Should Not Ignore Domestic Interference in Plain Sight

Concerns about foreign interference should not distract us from interference in plain sight originating from within our own borders. That includes the actions of the Democratic National Committee, which biased its party’s own primaries, effectively disenfranchising millions of Bernie Sanders’ voters; corporate media that gave Donald Trump billions in extra free airtime because he was “damn good” for network profits, in the words of CBS’ CEO; or voter suppression schemes like voter ID laws, Interstate Crosscheck and felon disenfranchisement that systematically deny millions of Americans their constitutional right to vote.

New Election Threats Posed by Big Data/Microtargeting/Psy-Ops Tower Over Primitive Russian Social Media Strategies

Recent revelations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal underscore the expanding scope of election interference. The scandal represents a disturbing convergence of a massive data privacy violation with a “military-style”, “full-scale propaganda machine”, as described by whistleblower Christopher Wiley.

The cutting-edge tactics of the Cambridge Analytica scandal make alleged Russian social media meddling look primitive and insignificant by comparison. Cambridge Analytica is accused of using without permission the private information of up to 87 million people, assembling thousands of data points on individuals to craft micro-targeted messages in a campaign of mass manipulation with the scale and sophistication of military-style psy-ops. The actions of the Russian Internet Research Agency, on the other hand, appear to be the opposite of sophisticated and strategic. The lack of targeting, timing and relevance of the vast majority of their Facebook ads underscores the doubts expressed by investigative reporters who’ve suggested the Internet Research Agency may in fact be a “click-bait” factory intended to generate advertising revenue, and not an election meddling operation. The insignificant numbers of the Internet Research Agency’s social media posts - compared to the vastness of the social media universe - further diminishes the claim that it had significant impact on the election outcome. Facebook posts from the Internet Research Agency amounted to a mere 0.0004% of total Facebook content; Russian-associated tweets accounted for 0.02% of election related tweets, and Russian-linked Youtube videos had hit totals only in the hundreds, hardly the stuff of viral transmission.

While the full extent of the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal is as yet unknown, the huge quantities of data harnessed for state-of-the-art microtargeting and manipulative messaging suggest that it is the Cambridge Analytica-type threats that truly endanger our elections and demand protections to safeguard our democracy.

We Call for Emergency Commission to Advance Many Urgently-Needed Solutions

Cambridge Analytica is not alone in using this new, malignant form of election interference that combines big data, micro-targeting, and psyops. It adds yet another danger to the existing threats to secure and just elections. To restore confidence in our elections, each type of interference can and must be remedied, but time is short before the 2018 elections. Therefore, we are calling for a nonpartisan, Emergency Commission on Election Protection & Voting Justice to oversee urgently-needed immediate as well as longer-term solutions to ensure a secure and just vote.

We must end voter suppression schemes and ensure the constitutional right to vote. Prior to the 2018 election, we need a rapid transition to paper ballots, especially in the 12 states that still use the most vulnerable electronic machines lacking any paper record whatsoever; cybersecurity best practices, universal rigorous post-election audits, and routine post-election recounts as warranted. Congress has provided substantial funding for cybersecurity in the March, 2018 Congressional budget. The funding should prioritize paper ballots, and be expedited to ensure reforms are in place by the 2018 midterms.

To begin addressing the abuses of big data, micro-targeting and military-style psyops, privacy protections must be created for personal data and internet/social media communications. In the rush to guard against propaganda and “fake news”, however, we must ensure that the rights of free speech and political opposition - increasingly stifled in current social media and conventional press - are restored and protected.

We must also take on the fundamental corruption of our elections that has been so normalized that it’s rarely even discussed: the stranglehold of big money over the entire process. We can break this stranglehold by establishing public financing for political campaigns and free air time for ballot-qualified candidates, which would greatly diminish the cost of political campaigns. We can expand voter choice and end fear-based elections through Ranked Choice Voting, which liberates voters to vote for what they want, instead of against what they dislike. And we can ensure voters are informed about the greater range of choices that they are clamoring for - by creating a new presidential debate commission not controlled by the two establishment parties. For further details see http://www.votingjustice.us .

We Must Also End US Interference in Other Countries’ Elections

To effectively deal with foreign election interference, we must address the fact that the US is not only a victim of election interference, but a leading perpetrator of it as well, whether through nonviolent or violent means. Given our track record, it is simply unrealistic and unethical to expect other countries to respect the sovereignty of foreign elections unless we commit to doing so as well. Effectively ending election interference requires international diplomacy and treaties. The Emergency Commission would provide consistent long-term public education, advocacy and watch-dogging that will be required to overcome resistance to the reforms required to achieve truly fair elections.

We Support Corruption Probe but Decry Misuse of “Russiagate” for Warmongering, Censorship, Political Repression

We support the investigation of potential concrete crimes related to corruption, quid pro quo deals, money laundering, financial conflicts of interest, and obstruction of justice. Such investigations should not be tainted by misuse of “Russiagate” in broader political discourse for the purpose of promoting censorship, warmongering and politically-motivated efforts to intimidate and silence political opposition to the bipartisan political establishment.

The letter we are releasing today from our lead attorney, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, to the Senate Intelligence Committee details how their bipartisan investigation into our campaign - the flagship of an independent opposition political party - intrudes into First Amendment rights protecting freedom of speech and political liberty for all Americans. While we provided documents responsive to the Committee's requests, we declined to provide Constitutionally protected materials, including the internal policy deliberations of our campaign, the flagship for an opposition political party. This request intrudes into the First Amendment rights of political and associational freedom that are critical to political liberty for all Americans.

Such Constitutional threats add to the dangerous current climate in which progressive political opposition, social movements, and the anti-war community are being targeted with censorship, surveillance and political intimidation. This includes recent censoring of social media and the internet, blacklisting progressive and anti-war media and organizations, restricting the right to protest, expanding surveillance, and disparaging social movements like Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock water protectors, anti-pipeline activists, and the gun control movement as “tools” of “Russian interference”.

“Russiagate” is also being used to argue for aggressive foreign policies, disparage peace advocates and justify massive military expenditures. This is all the more alarming in the setting of the resurgent cold war, accelerating nuclear arms race, and 17 years of unbridled US militarism that has proven disastrous abroad and devastating to human needs at home.

Emergency Commission and Treaty Can Restore Confidence in our Elections & Act As Stepping Stone to International Dialogue for Peace, Nuclear Weapons Ban & Climate Action.

In short, we are endangered by interference in our elections, interference in our civil liberties, by unbridled militarism and needless warmongering. On all these counts, we must defend our imperiled future and the democracy it depends on.

A military-industrial-surveillance complex is now deeply entrenched within the bipartisan political establishment and much of the corporate media. This dangerous juggernaut must not be allowed to twist legitimate concerns about election interference into support for political repression, censorship and warmongering. Instead, we can begin restoring confidence in our democracy right now with a nonpartisan Emergency Commission for Election Protection & Voting Justice and international negotiations for an election non-interference treaty. These should be stepping stones toward broader international dialogue for nuclear disarmament as called for in the recent UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons, for major reductions in military budgets, and for steeply accelerated climate action. These actions would go a long way to actually begin reducing dire threats that endanger not only our democracy, but civilization as we know it. Time is short. We must not be diverted from this task.”

https://www.jill2016.com/stein_senate_statement
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby bks » Wed May 02, 2018 4:30 pm

I wrote this 18 months ago, shortly after the PropOrNot/Washington Post scandal broke. Think it holds up, and if anything I underestimated the hysteria media would channel in an effort to diminish their role in bringing the US to the brink. Links at original.

https://mediacriticism.org/2016/11/30/m ... behind-it/


“Fake News” Conspiracy Panic and (Some of) What’s Behind It

NOVEMBER 30, 2016 / BKS / EDIT

(UPDATED BELOW) The burgeoning panic over “fake news” came to an early crescendo on Thanksgiving when the Washington Post trumpeted a report by a shadowy organization calling itself PropOrNot. Its website claims the group is made up of data-minded volunteers devoted to collecting “public-record information connecting propaganda outlets to each other and their coordinators abroad” in order to “act as a central repository and point of reference for related information, and organize efforts to oppose it.” Their “immediate aim” was to bring attention to alleged efforts by Russia to influence the US presidential election.

The Post’s story claimed the group’s analysis uncovered more than 200 websites with a reach of more than 15 million Americans that were “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season.” PropOrNot created a list of sites alleged to have transmitted propaganda wittingly or as “useful idiots,” one which included decidedly credible outlets like Naked Capitalism and Polk Award-winner Robert Parry’s consortiumnews.com. The list as a whole reads like a Borges-inspired fever-dream, a hodgepodge of sites many of which appear to have nothing remotely in common with one another except for their placement on the list (blackagendareport.com on a list with the nazi d a i l y s t o r m e r?)

PropOrNot has also released a Chrome browser plug-in that flags sites PropOrNot has “identified” as carriers of propaganda:

Screen shot 2016-11-25 at 6.49.03 PM.png

A Twitter account bearing the group’s name has already admitted that PropOrNot lied about some of the groups it claimed were allied with it. At the time of the Post’s story, there was no way to confirm how it came up with the seemingly absurd reach estimates the Post eagerly touted.

A number of journalists were quick to signal boost the story, some breathlessly, and others who should know better initially did the same, either unaware or insufficiently concerned about what they were supporting: Screen shot 2016-11-25 at 1.18.36 PM.png

Some good analyses have been published that cast further doubt on both the motives behind and the substance of PropOrNot’s research and the Post’s dubious decision to publicize it. The whole thing may even be threatening to fall apart. (We’ll update this post with an analysis of the research that was recently – and belatedly – made available.)

Why Media Panic
If the current fake news freak-out were limited to claims that Russia is using social media to influence SU social media channels in low-cost, mostly low-impact ways, there’d be little reason to object. Rival countries do that kind of thing. You may recall the US military sought to achieve a similar set of objectives beginning several years ago which, critics argued at the time, could “encourage other governments . . . to do the same.” Funny how there was no comparable expression of concern at that time in the US press.

Nor was this effort something new in the social media age: US mil/intel is far and away the world’s leader in resources devoted to the science of coercion, happily directing communication-based psyops against foreign governments deemed hostile to US interests as well as nurturing and covertly influencing the domestic manufacture of consent in a variety of ways. The silence with which this history is typically greeted by media outlets reflects a degree of willful ignorance befitting a society that’s too content with its political immaturity.

So let’s offer a working hypothesis about the confluence of circumstances driving the coverage and reception of “fake news.” Stung by 1) the supposed insouciance of the public’s choice of a boorish, deranged plutocrat and family friend of the Clintons to lead the country and 2) the insurgency inside the Democratic party to displace its moribund leadership, a subsection of media outlets ideologically aligned with the Democratic party’s leadership have undertaken a conspiracy panic against entities deemed hostile to it. We’re witnessing an effort to re-contest an election by spreading fear about nefarious foreign influence that’s allegedly being channeled through libertarian and left-leaning news sites. In service of these ends, no concrete evidence need be provided, and no verbal construction of the situation is too dire. In fact, the current dynamics helpfully reveal similarities between partisan liberalism and the forms of political irrationality against which it tries to define itself.

It’s crucial to remember that the panickers aren’t primarily concerned with the sanctity of elections – their relative indifference to the manipulative forms of public management revealed in the Podesta emails, and their lack of outrage over the Clinton-aligned DNC’s leadership pondering ways to sabotage the Sanders campaign make that clear. (And recall the Putin-blaming the Clinton campaign engaged in as an attempt to distract once the DNC’s lack of neutrality was revealed.) Nor do they seem to care much about the long history of public manipulation resulting from truly disturbing “fake news” campaigns brought to us by “genuine news” outlets- the kind that unfold over months or years, engineered by government operatives who capture elite journalists for the purpose of advancing horrifying, or even murderous goals. No, what mostly concerns them is that the bad guys won this time, and therefore those on the margins who are perceived to have gotten in the way must be punished. The PropOrNot list is just the latest form of an ugly brand of dissent management we will see in the weeks and months to come, as the need to produce scapegoats for Trump’s retrograde presidency grows in intensity.

Second, the panic also seems tied an attempt at institutional resuscitation by an industry that has seen much of its revenue soaked up by the social media giants that now dominate it. Facebook is a primary target here. Many digital communication scholars have called for Facebook to become more transparent about the specific determinants of its news feed algorithm and to offer researchers a closer look at the oceans of data it collects and makes available to its customers. I support these efforts, but also believe they’re highly unlikely to succeed until a more honest discussion ensues about how to dismantle the conditions that gave rise to the possibility of these behemoths becoming so dominant in the first place. This is a big subject better addressed in detail at a later time. For present purposes, what matters is the enormous reservoir of anxiety produced by Facebook’s shockingly swift emergence as a news force and the threat it is perceived to pose to legacy news outlets.

For some perspective on the present panic, it’s useful to recall another episode in media history where a new technology (in this case, the internet) was responsible for hand-wringing over future prospects. Twenty years ago, several major corporate news outlets led a conspiracy panic against the San Jose Mercury News and reporter Gary Webb, who in August of 1996 had the audacity to publish a devastating series of articles exposing CIA complicity in the crack cocaine epidemic inside the US. The backlash against the series proved punishing to him. He never fully recovered, and the ruin in which his career was undeservedly left surely contributed to his suicide in 2004.

The substance of the series was explosive enough: CIA assets were shown to have funneled cocaine into America’s inner cities and used the proceeds to help fund a covert war in Central America, with what Webb suggested (entirely correctly) was CIA’s careful cooperation. Far from discrediting the series, the CIA’s own internal investigations eventually revealed far more involvement by the CIA, DEA and other federal officials than was originally suggested by Webb, much of it to shield the CIA assets from prosecution inside the US. Unfortunately the results of those investigations were made public long after Webb’s reputation had been sullied. An indispensible summary of the affair and its aftermath reaching up to the present day can be found here and here.

But what also made the story an incendiary one was its mode of dissemination. The story was posted on something known as the World Wide Web, and visitors from across the planet could view it and click on hyperlinks that opened new pages with documentation for the startling claims being presented. Soon the SJMN website was getting more than 100,000 additional hits per day, and the story could not be contained to the margins of social awareness. Following a massive wave of publicity, the elite journalism-centered backlash kicked in.

As Jack Bratich, author of Conspiracy Panics: Popular Culture and Political Rationality notes:

Any discussion of conspiracy panics, following the moral panics framework, would need to examine the way that the news media articulates these problems and the proposed solutions (as with the classic work Policing the Crisis). But more than looking at journalism as an institutional support for conspiracy panics, this book examines what conspiracy panics do to the support discourse itself. Journalism has increasingly become a subject of concern regarding its public role and its relation to governance. Understanding professional journalism as a discourse that governs at a distance through rationality gives a glimpse into the broader political rationality. (p. 23, my emphasis)

In the case of Dark Alliance, Bratich argues, the corporate press engineered a panic that both characterized Webb and the other professionals at the SJMN as irresponsible conspiracy theorists guilty of violating truth-telling protocols of the profession, and which sought to code the internet as an “anarchic, turbulent, and disorderly” space where dangerous information careened wildly. In this way, the press sought both a reinvigoration of its diminishing cultural authority as gatekeepers of valid information, and a way to incorporate the “untameable, irrational world” of the internet into mainstream journalism in a controlled fashion.

Panic: Making Media Great Again
Today, Trump’s electoral bombshell has a shellshocked media class feeling a need for institutional resuscitation that’s arguably never been greater -but neither is its collective denial over the course of events that’s brought it to this precipice. Understand that a noxious parasite like Trump could never have done this himself – he needed a host from which to draw energy. He found that host in the form of the professional press. And why? Because like the president elect and Richard Nixon before him, the professional press long ago decided it too couldn’t really have a conflict of interest. Contemptible media executives like Les Moonves gleefully jettisoned any remaining public commitment they may have felt in order to turn the election cycle into a bloated, disfigured cash cow while simultaneously rubbing the public’s face in the fact they were doing so. More troublingly, the press as a whole for many years has behaved as if it was no big deal to ingratiate itself to the political class in hopes of joining it, all the while it was supposed to remain adversarial. But it was an enormous problem.

It’s not like this is a secret – even the most cloying, openly partisan and press-identified media critics can see it (even if they are constitutionally incapable of understanding what it would take to remedy it). The requirement to perform faux responsibility ensures its acknowledged, but they won’t emphasize or insist on it, of course, since that would be bad manners and might risk their place on the inside. Yet there’s no way to understand the historic levels of hostility toward the professional press without closely examining how it came to conceive of itself in ways that no longer required true adversarialism, and how it also became determined to let itself off the hook for that failure. This blog project will be a small effort to highlight past work done to illuminate this professional descent and – time and interest permitting – undertake some original work to further explore it.

Judging in part by the mostly bullshit panic over fake news, there doesn’t appear to be much appetite for serious soul-searching in the rapidly emptying newsrooms of a soulless industry. But because journalists must perform a sense of responsibility in keeping with the level of their self-regard, plenty of simulacra (to borrow a phrase) will abound. The studious avoidance of the bottom-most, structural realities attending the fake soul-searching genre is far preferable to actually confronting the ways profit-based media models produce perversities that sicken news culture and the rest of society. Certainly, as Upton Sinclair understood, legacy media won’t be rushing to join a discussion about how failed commercial media models might be overcome. It’s apparently more important they serve up pathetic, contemptible blacklists from a bogus watchdog groups espousing points of view that are mind-numbingly simplistic and openly propagandistic. Good to know.

Let’s not take our eyes off the ball. The hyperventilation over fake news cannot be permitted to obscure the responsibility the “genuine news” industry bears for abandoning the public interest in pursuit of inclusion within the political class. Press-led conspiracy panics offer hyperbolic distractions designed to forestall fearless, ruthless, and needed scrutiny. They also, of course, when effective, can offer opportunities for short-term resuscitation. So expect them. You can also expect a nasty reckoning for media in the months to come as they are dislogded from an assortment of comfortable assumptions they’ve operated under for a long, long time. There will be a lot to watch for as this process develops, and there should be plenty more to say.

But one thing is for sure: panic will not make corporate media great again because, like America, it never was great.



UPDATE: The Washington Post distanced itself from its own report, long after it was obvious to most that the story was full of holes:

screen-shot-2016-12-07-at-9-19-56-pm

Naked Capitalism had a pretty pointed and clever takedown too.
bks
 
Posts: 1093
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 2:44 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby MacCruiskeen » Wed May 02, 2018 5:00 pm

Thanks for this.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

TESTDEMIC ➝ "CASE"DEMIC
User avatar
MacCruiskeen
 
Posts: 10558
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:47 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Rory » Wed May 02, 2018 5:11 pm

Yeah, ditto for me also. Great writing
Rory
 
Posts: 1596
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:08 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby MacCruiskeen » Wed May 02, 2018 5:35 pm

Things have only gotten worse since bks wrote that great piece: From today's Guardian ("International Edition"):

Your country needs you to fight fake news, UK journalists told
Defence minister says armed forces need specialist skills to counter cyber-propaganda

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... lists-told


The UK's War Minister is now openly recruiting mercenary hacks in the war against wrongthink. Heavily-indebted recent graduates willl be sorely tempted to join their ranks.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

TESTDEMIC ➝ "CASE"DEMIC
User avatar
MacCruiskeen
 
Posts: 10558
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:47 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Rory » Wed May 02, 2018 5:51 pm

IMG_20180502_144216.jpg


Kanye, is a Russian Plot Twist, in this evergreen insane conspiracy
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Rory
 
Posts: 1596
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:08 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed May 02, 2018 5:54 pm

DAMN, YE, THE PEOPLE DON'T
TRUST YOU
BUSH DON'T LIKE BLACK PEOPLE,
BUT YOU THINK DONALD
TRUMP DO?
DON'T MEET WITH DONALD TRUMP
AND TALK ABOUT US, YE
YOU AIN'T GOT THE ANSWERS JUST
LIKE YOU TOLD SWAY

- Uncle Murda

Image
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Grizzly » Wed May 02, 2018 6:06 pm

Journalists challenge their inclusion on a US drone ‘kill list’

Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American citizen and journalist working in Syria, escaped being killed by drone strike on five occasions, including two strikes on cars he was travelling in. Two additional strikes were executed on his independent news agency, On the Ground News, while he was working in the studio.
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed May 02, 2018 6:11 pm

Trump asked CIA official why drone strike didn’t also kill target’s family: report
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ll-targets


Trump must make known 'deadly' changes to US drone policy: NGOs
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/ ... 17166.html


How Many Civilians Did Trump Kill in Drone Strikes Last Year?
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/ ... last-year/


Trump Administration Seeks to Expand Sales of Armed Drones
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/us/p ... sales.html


Trump gives green signal to export 22 lethal Predator-B drones to India
https://www.financialexpress.com/defenc ... a/1153036/


Trump threat puts European role in lethal US drone strikes under new scrutiny
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/ ... -scrutiny/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Rory » Wed May 02, 2018 6:14 pm

It's amazing to me how invested some russiaphobes have become invested in the propaganda they were fed. Like all that cold war trash they absorbed, and now given the outlet, it's consuming them with deluded bigotry
Rory
 
Posts: 1596
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 2:08 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed May 02, 2018 6:17 pm

good thing there are no russiaphobes posting here
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 55 guests