On Tuesday, Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano, reported that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) which monitors overseas electronic communications, had helped Obama to wire tap Donald Trump after his victory in November.
White House Spokesman Sean Spicer repeated Andrew Napolitano’s statements to the media on Thursday, then after, pledged not to repeat these allegations anymore.
The Daily Telegraph, citing unnamed intelligence sources [always], reported on its website that Spicer and Trump’s national security adviser Lieutenant General Herbert McMaster had made formal apologies to Britain.
GCHQ, based in a futuristic building located in western England, is one of three main British spy agencies alongside the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service and the MI5 Security Service.
GCHQ has a close relationship with the NSA/CIA, as well as with the eavesdropping agencies of Australia, Canada and New Zealand in a consortium called “Five Eyes.”
Trump, who became president in January, tweeted earlier this month that his Democratic predecessor had wiretapped him during the late stages of the 2016 campaign.
On the “Fox & Friends” program, Napolitano said that rather than ordering U.S. agencies to spy on Trump, Obama had obtained transcripts of Trump’s conversations from GCHQ so there were “no American fingerprints” on it. [1]
On Tuesday, March 7 Wikileaks.org released a “new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Code-named “Vault 7″ by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.” [1]
The detail provided in these leaks is astounding, as sophisticated cyber attack methods are described in chilling detail. The targets of this massive operation are everyone, but more specifically anyone deemed as a political “threat to US interests.” Keep in mind that a deep state defines these ‘threats’ for us, and ‘national insecurity’ has grown into an enormous apparatus, whose basic structure can barely be traced even in the simplest of organizational diagrams:
This WikiLeaks ‘Vault 7’ data release should be reviewed by everyone with serious political interest. Understand that “anti-Russian” means anti-socialist, anti-leftist and anti-working class in Newspeak. Big Brother has more than just it’s eyes & ears on certain online organizations, as active cyber warfare (funded by taxpayers) is surely attacking Wikileaks, the World Socialist Web Site, and this site.
For Wikileaks it’s self-evident there is a US government campaign to neutralize & dismantle them. Julian Assange has been trapped in an Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly 4 years, on trumped-up rape charges. Bradley (Chelsea) Manning, who provided Wikileaks with the infamous Iraq War Log, has been locked in a military brigade for years. Edward Snowden, the ex-CIA programmer turned whistle-blower, who told the world about ubiquitous NSA spying, has had to flee to Russia fearing CIA reprisals.
Wikileaks has been attacked online through financial warfare, as ways to donate to this popular site have been restricted and even ‘gone dark’ at times. That only happens when a conscious deep state is focusing its invective on what it considers to be ‘rogue’ organizations. These are the ‘terrorists’ the US government is really fighting, as ISIS (and the rest) are actually CIA creations/assets.
By far the most dangerous online organization to the ruling class is WSWS.org, the World Socialist Web Site. What deep state planners fear more than anything is a revolution from below. That is a decisive force, which they can not control. Therefore, a ruthless & highly-sophisticated misinformation & suppression campaign must be directed against this site, and any sympathizers. As a daily reader for over 15 years, it is easy to spot changes in their organizational line, as well as monitoring the tone of their comments section– which is a more recently-added site feature (<5 years old).
Adding comments has been a great advance for the WSWS, as is their nascent Facebook presence. With this has come a noticeable increase in cyber attacks on the site, which experienced daily readers can notice. The most common tactic is the creating of fake profiles to spam the comments section with nonsense. These posts usually follow the same model: new handle, no profile picture, LONG posts that are perfectly spelled & punctuated, but incomprehensible gibberish.
Trolls are also a common tactic, and targeted at less-sophisticated readers who are still confused and therefore chomp down on well-placed bait. Forum moderators have a difficult time keeping up with all this, as the CIA-intelligence apparatus have endless resources to keeping pounding whomever they please. WSWS readers (working people) have to get better at recognizing these attacks for what they are, and then ruthlessly expose them as part of their growing political activism & education.
As far as RicSize.com goes, I have indisputable mathematical proof that my site has been the target of US intelligence cyber attacks. Analytics don’t lie. The level of growth & influence this site has gained in it’s 3+ years of online activity has amazed even its owner. The power that even one individual [!] can project through the Internet is MUCH more than most people realize. This has been noticed by US intelligence, and at this point I’ll even reveal a hidden strategy; I knew this site would be monitored from the start, and used that as part of my marketing/promotional operations.
The people spying on the other end are employed by the class enemy, but they are also human beings. Therefore they can be influenced to change their minds in certain cases. Since I had no fans to start, but I knew the CIA was listening, I decided to direct some of my propaganda towards them, since they were so interested in what I was doing. I have no idea what effect this has had on these organizations, but the intent was to create Edward Snowdens.
The cyber attacks on RicSize.com were seriously escalated in June of 2016. This coincided with political events, namely Election 2016. The DNC email leaks, and the possibility of a Trump presidency sent the Obama-controlled intelligence apparatus into overdrive against leftist organizations. The published piece that black-flagged this site for increased attack was “Maria Sharapova, PED’s & International Politics,” perhaps the most damning & explosive piece published on this site, which is quite a statement.
This article had been published in March, when women’s tennis star Maria Sharapova was ‘temporarily suspended’ by the US-led World Anti-Doping Association (WADA), as part of their ongoing campaign to exclude Russian athletes from the Rio 2016 Olympics. Sharapova is a Russian citizen, who works globally, and lives in Los Angeles with dual citizenship. This piece was instantly popular, as the US media & the WTA universally lined-up against Sharapova, with their typical righteousness & hypocrisy. This piece was the only English-language source for any facts on the case, and there was to be a hearing in a few weeks to decide the matter.
Months came & went, and this site was steadily growing in daily readership. On June 9, 2016 a 2-year suspension was handed down to Sharapova, and this site instantly exploded. The Sharapova piece was shared globally on an unprecedented scale, and it obviously provoked the wrath of US intelligence, who were ramping up their bogus ‘Anti-Russian’ campaign, which they have continued up to this writing.
The cyber attacks on this site were certainly successful, from a US intelligence standpoint. Daily views of RicSize.com were cut by two-thirds from mid-June 2016 though January 20, 2017. On January 21, 2017 site viewership immediately jumped 50%, and has remained at that level.
There are only two explanations for this sudden up tick, 1) increased popular interest in socialist politics; and 2) a change in deep-state intelligence policy. I believe both to be in play, as consumption of anti-fascist literature has increased since Donald Trump became US president. With that, Trump’s ‘soft’ stance towards Russian president Vladimir Putin has set off a raging internecine deep state power struggle. There now appears to be a window of opportunity for socialists to press their agenda, as the ruling class is divided with infighting. This will not last, as the whole US political system is unstable and in terminal crisis. Socialism must gather momentum and build its ranks, before fascism decides to sweep away the final remains of parliamentary democracy and establish an official police state.
These examples cited above are the leading edge of a cyber warfare campaign, which is designed to eliminate personal privacy, by controlling everyone on this planet through manipulation & blackmail. If you knew everyone’s secrets, you would be powerful too! These are actually elitist cowards, spying behind their computer screens in their hidden bunkers. All their personal ‘lives’ are no doubt similar in theme.
Check out this enlightening tidbit from the Wikileaks dump called ‘Fine Dining,’ which is customized CIA hacking that targets any computer system. The name is a reference to the fact that once this malware is installed, it allows the CIA to feast on its data, without detection. According to Wikileaks, “Notably absent from their target list is any reference to extremists or transnational criminals.” What this proves is the CIA’s sole purpose is to manipulate & control population groups through criminal covert action & spying. [2]
Vault 7 shows that automobile on-board computer systems can be remotely hijacked by the CIA, causing a high-speed wreck that leaves no fingerprints. Essentially this is drone assassination of US citizens, and it is widely speculated to have been the method used to kill Michael Hastings.
“Hastings, who was 33 when he died, was the Rolling Stone reporter who wrote an article in 2010 that led to the removal of General Stanley McChrystal from his post as ranking US commanding officer in Afghanistan. Hastings perished at around 4:30 a.m. after losing control of his car and crashing into a tree while traveling at about 100 mph.” [3]
All this must end. We as a society can no longer allow this level of brazen criminality to go unchecked. The direction this is heading is clear, and it is catastrophic. Anyone reading this needs to become more politically active & militant in their fight against fascism, which has become the final-crisis stage of modern capitalism. The only vehicle to defeat fascism is revolutionary socialism, led by a class-conscious internationally-united working class. Those organizations listed above (this site include) are fighting short-stacked, and therefore must be supported by those who care about the fate of civilization & human culture. United we can win.
A strange event happened during the 2017 Oscar ceremony on Sunday evening (2-26), as a bus full of Hollywood tourists were allowed to briefly mingle with A-list celebrities, live on camera [1]. It was taken by most as a gag by host Jimmy Kimmel, but in all seriousness this spontaneity needs to happen more often– and from both sides.
The best actors/directors are artists who want to connect with their audiences, but are separated by an ultra-wealthy Hollywood milieu, which insists on idolizing & isolating its ‘stars,’ so they can be bought-off to serve as ruling class propaganda. The only way consistently better films will made, is when these artists reach into the working class and truly understand modern realities.
Why is this important? Because we now have a celebrity who became President of the United States. Donald Trump has been handed the keys to the White House by liberalism, and has installed fascists Stephen Bannon & Sean Spicer as his chief policy architect & spokesman. Joseph Goebbels was once quoted that when he heard the word “Art,” he always reached for his revolver. What this means is, there are no longer any US political institutions which will protect free speech or tolerate dissent from the working class. To these points, the push for fans & celebrities to reach a better mutual understanding becomes a critical task. The strength of the working class (which produces everything), needs a voice; and the best revolutionary possibility is from athletes/celebrities connecting with their fans. In turn, celebrities need their fans, and if they don’t unite with them, there won’t be any culture in the future to discuss.
A special subset in the discussion of celebrities, are professional athletes. This is because athletes (unlike Hollywood actors) often come from poverty, and most of the rest from middle-class means. When athletes become high-profile & well-paid professionals, they often reach back into their communities of origin.
With that said, most professional athletes today need to listen better, and step outside themselves more. That can be difficult for a young man/woman who suddenly is thrown into the celebrity spotlight, with ‘instant’ money & fame. They’re often told they’re now too cool for their old friends (by industry flatterers), and that they can do whatever they want– because they deserve it. They usually do so for awhile, only because it’s natural at that young age. The problem comes when spending (or whatever other addictive habit) gets out-of-control, and the career crisis hits; and there’s no back-up plan.
One easy (low cost) athletic retirement plan, is to be gracious & nice to the fans during your career. They will always love you for that, and find ways to take care of you. It’s the ‘star jerks’ who suffer most in retirement, because no one needs their used-up talent anymore. There’s a saying in Show Business that goes, “Be nice to people on the way up, because you’ll be seeing them on the way down.” The very best athletes understand that sports are an entertainment business, and are prepared for this. The way to maximize marketability during & after a sports career, is to: 1) win; and 2) be as attractive & pleasant as possible. I’m not sure in which order, but that’s what people want to watch and that’s what sells product.
Getting back to the athlete-fan relationship, with a ‘star’ career under control an athlete wields enormous clout. This power can be used to pile-up ever more money, but also it can be used to create real relationships with fans, who are part of the society we all live in. This happens when athletes and their fans make an honest attempt to better understand one another.
That’s why I’m a huge fan of the Players Tribune, launched October 1, 2014. This is an online venue for athletes only, to speak their minds. It is long overdue, as for too long ESPN & mass-media outlets have had 100% control over every sports narrative. I’ve been told the Internet has changed everything, and here it is again; with athletes finally representing themselves. Honestly, I don’t ever need to hear from Stephen A Smith, Buster Olney, Mike Lupica… and the rest– ever again. They don’t have anything positive or intelligent to say, so why bother with them?
The deeper issue here is: what’s causing all this hate? In the final analysis, it is the class separation between athletes/celebrities and their fans that is fueling this anger. It is erupting on the social media feeds of every celebrity, no matter how popular, every day. Why? It is because valid & rational concerns aren’t being listened to by their political representatives, and therefore celebrities often become the surrogate recipient of these frustrations. This is because high-profile athletes/celebrities have a level of wealth & access to power, which working people can only dream of. Sports, like money & politics, are very emotional subjects.
Celebrities are also widely seen by the public as the source of the problem, or at least strongly associated with it. The celebrity-fan relationship is not the same as the voter-politician relationship. Politicians really don’t care whether they’re liked, they just want votes when it counts, and most people today understand that. If they have an image problem, they usually prefer to throw money at it. The notable exception is Donald Trump, who prefers Twitter, which only proves he considers himself a celebrity first.
Celebrities NEED their popularity, and it has to come from them, because that’s all being a celebrity is. This hooks artists, athletes & entertainment professionals who achieve star-level status. They become ‘married’ to their fans, in a way that if the fans leave (divorce), their careers’ are often finished. This makes them more accountable to working people who vote, and it is actually a qualitative difference in terms of revolutionary potential.
Wrapping all this up where we began (at the Oscars), film goers can aid this revolutionary process by rejecting Hollywood trash (and the rest), with their criticisms & wallets. The truth is, famous artists (along with athletes & other celebrities) care intensely about their fans, and are subject to their influence– especially via social media. There are many serious artists who desire to make better films, but have been locked into commercialization. The problem is, these artists too often view their fans as some vague entity, and not enough as individuals with intelligent human concerns.
This is where Marxist art criticism plays a crucial role in revolutionary strategy. Building a foundation with more fan-celebrity interaction, provides the building blocks for a socialist cinema of the future. It will be one that represents the world more fairly, and lets artists express their creativity more freely. This is an all-important battleground, as control of the mass media (in the end) will be of decisive revolutionary importance.
As far as what socialism will mean politically, it means we tell everybody everything. No more secrets & lies. No more war & inequality. Criminals are humanely punished, and rehabilitated– if possible. Everybody gets a home, food, education, medical, a career, retirement, etc… as the resources are now in place, they just don’t get fairly distributed under capitalism. Celebrities & their fans everywhere would easily adapt to all this, but it requires leadership & action. The question becomes, who wants to lead?
Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Sean Spicer held what’s called a ‘gaggle’ with reporters, where he responds to questions on the record but without television cameras present. Controversy erupted when Spicer took the unprecedented step of barring major media organizations from the briefing. Among the journalists who were prevented from attending were those from the New York Times, CNN, the BBC and the Los Angeles Times. Other establishment news outlets, as well as right-wing journalists from Breitbart News, the Washington Times and One America News Network were allowed to attend. Reporters from Time magazine and the Associated Press declined to participate in the briefing because their peers were turned away.
“We’re going to aggressively push back,” Sean Spicer said, according to a recording of the session provided by a reporter who was allowed to attend. “We’re just not going to sit back and let, you know, false narratives, false stories, inaccurate facts get out there.” The fact the President of the United States is sworn to defend the constitution, which explicitly means freedom of the press, is lost on Spicer and his cohorts. Fascists are not people who can be debated & persuaded, especially once they have seized power. They only understand hatred & violence.
In that spirit, president Donald Trump simultaneously escalated his attacks on journalists as “the enemy of the people.” He accused the New York Times and CNN of being, “a great danger to our country.” The fact Trump lost the popular vote count by nearly 3 million, meaning a majority of American people disagree with him, means nothing to a sociopath who demands absolute loyalty & obedience as commander-in-chief of the military.
The complacency in the liberal media concerning this rapid fascist takeover is serving to chloroform the public. The dangers of fascism have quickly made themselves apparent, as anti-immigration hatred, a police state build-up, and militarism are all unquestionably on the march. The Democratic party has done nothing to sound the alarm, proving once again they are the most duplicitous enemy of the working class. Madmen have assumed control, while leading Democratic stick-figures Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders can barely summon up a mild-to-hysterical protest, before kneeling to the diktats of reaction.
The beacon of liberalism responded to Spicer’s unprecedented media exclusion with yet another mealy-mouthed statement. “Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties. We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations… Blah, blah, blah….” The point is, no political action from the working class is ever discussed or encouraged from these media outlets or any other liberal establishment. No conclusions are ever drawn, as it’s always a collective “oh, shucks” and “move on.”
This is because these liberals defends capitalism above all else, and fear a revolution from below more than fascism– out of class interest. They view fascism as a tool to subdue workers’ discontent and maintain order, yet fail to realize this is the exact type of failed political ‘thinking’ that led to WWII in Europe. The workers of the United States and around the world must unite internationally as class brothers & sisters to fight the rising tide of fascism. They are the only political force that can stave off a future fascist nightmare, but they need to be armed with class consciousness and an international socialist perspective.
If the current bourgeois political trajectory is allowed to continue at this pace, the working people of the world will barely get a chance to ‘protest’ the jackboot of fascism crushing the face of humanity– forever. That last sentence is a paraphrase from George Orwell’s vision of humanity in 1984, quoted in an interview. Sales of that classic novel, describing a totalitarian state manipulated by deep & powerful forces (Big Brother), have surged since Donald Trump became President-elect.
The crisis hour for humanity is nearing, and bold planning & action will be necessary to avert disaster. Working people need to understand that the fascists in charge don’t care a whit about human culture & society. These haters are angry people, who have lost their humanity, and yet have been allowed to hold the reins of power through the complete irrationality of capitalism. They are the least-qualified class of people to rule, yet they now exercise dominance over much of the world and it’s resources. The workers of the world need to organize & strike simultaneously and soon, to send a message of strength to each other that they will no longer be ignored in political & economic discussions.
As articulated in my recent final update to “Fascism Wins Election 2016,” fascism theoretically relies on two public elements. One is the dictator, who masquerades as the clown for as long as possible to entertain the masses. The dictator initially appeals to the lowest vermin in society with hysterical racism & bullying prejudice to establish his political base. Those dissatisfied with the current economic situation also become persuaded by his charms & promises (which he never keeps), and become part of this loose constituency through their complacency. When disparity become the society norm, fascism sweeps away parliamentary rule and society becomes a police state. Liberals worship wealth & celebrity above all else, and therefore accept this dictator as legitimate on behalf of their constituents. That’s half the playbook.
The other decisive element for fascism to gain control over society is a brilliant, yet diabolical propaganda minister. Under Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, it was Joseph Goebbels as the criminal mastermind running the show– all the way down to their ends in a Berlin bunker. Goebbels was the one who organized and kept Hitler respectable, just long enough to fool people into a second World War. US political policy (foreign & domestic) is now largely determined by press secretary Sean Spicer, who coordinates with the hidden deep state in a manner similar to Goebbels. Notice that it is Sean Spicer who is constantly correcting, re-shaping and ‘clarifying’ (into line with deep state interests) whatever ‘absurdities’ loud-mouthed President Trump blurts out. Trump’s ego won’t let him publicly admit he is being manipulated, yet surely he must know that he is, somewhere in his demented mind. As long as Donald Trump thinks he’s fooling most of the people, Spicer will continue to be the voice he most relies upon.
Therefore, any serious political critiques and attacks must be directed at this vital node. This Trump/Spicer focal point is the clearest representation of conflicting US ruling class interests, and its exposure is necessary to crack the capitalist facade and defeat fascism. Any political writings that ignore the importance of this theoretical point, are seeking to shift focus in other directions and become part of this evil propaganda machine meant to disorient people to the dangers ahead.
In comparing Sean Spicer to a movie villain, look no further than The Godfather– Part 3, in which Enzo Robutti brilliantly portrays Don Licio Lucchesi, the nebulous underworld figure who can invisibly pressure a high-level financial deal with the Vatican and simultaneously order the massacre of NYC mafia-family heads. Lucchesi’s Black Hand reaches into both worlds with subtle yet powerful influence, and makes certain all ships are sailing in the same direction. This is the power that Sean Spicer now wields which must be recognized and organized against in order to defeat fascism.
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Marxists will be the leaders of the soon-to-come global anti-capitalist revolution, which with the rise of Donald Trump, becomes all-the-more urgent [1]. Brief outlines of Marxism are here,here & here. Marxists are powerful people who can’t be fooled by media hype & shifting political winds, due to their study of, and adherence to dialectical materialism. In short: the police, Zionism, Christianity & patriotic nationalism are all tools of the ruling class to maintain social & economic inequality. These are weird ideas [2].
Marxists aren’t born, they are made. It takes a long period (years) of intense study, reading & polemics to acquire a Marxist-level of political mastery. There are many who boldly claim the title, but like everything else, there are few who are actually deserving. The most-common trap for youngsters who want to change-the-world-for-the-better is the yoke of liberalism on the left, and the lure of anarchist terrorism on the right.
Liberalism is now dead, crushed by the millstones of history; it is currently being consumed by a revolutionary upsurge on the left & fascism on the right. Every ‘liberal’ Democratic party member, along with all their supporters became political orphans on 11/09/16. It has been a soul-searching odyssey for some, but all have since moved into (or at least towards) one of these two remaining camps. For others, this decision was a no-brainer.
The Democratic Party still exists in name, but they no longer pretend to matter in terms of power. At this point they have little clout at any level against the Republicans, and even less inclination to use it. Fascism has assumed control, and is wasting no time in showing its fangs. Anti-immigration racism at the borders & abroad will eventually be violently turned against working-poor whites in America who made up Trump’s popular constituency. This is now open class warfare at its most rapacious, with its bottomless appetite for greed & destruction.
Before liberalism suddenly expired, there existed a ~40-year period of senility. Liberals had a difficult time remembering facts, and therefore never learned any important political lessons. Do you see all those liberals sitting on the fence? You can’t see them now, they’re in the past tense.
A major focus of this polemica is to unmask the irrationality of these supposed ‘intellectuals’ who dominate U.S. media & academia. This intelligentsia is in fact reactionary. That’s why Marxism is officially forbidden in political discourse.
Socialism is a powerful idea, for which the elite who meet at Davos have no answers; other than more hardship, hatred & violence. Any middle-class supporters of capitalism perpetuate this fraud with their feminist, racialist and gay hysterics– which are thoroughly philistine. This toxic mixture has politically anesthetized too many people, and paved the path for a Trump presidency.
The right-wing anarchist ‘message’ is: nothing matters, so do what you want. Instant id gratification– always. Anarchism is not a political theory, it’s a dead-end which has too many 20th century illustrations– most notably the failed adventurer Che Guevara. Che and his guerrilla army raised the aspirations of millions everywhere in the 1960’s, then became isolated and was finally hunted down in the jungle by a CIA-backed Bolivian military. His millions of supporters had vanished, as he was betrayed by an informer, and quickly executed after his capture. According to Wikipedia, “Guevara’s known preference for confrontation rather than compromise, which had previously surfaced during his guerrilla warfare campaign in Cuba, contributed to his inability to develop successful working relationships with local rebel leaders in Bolivia, just as it had in the Congo.” In fact, it was Guevara’s failed perspective that revealed his political bankruptcy. The fact the Western hemisphere’s third world is no better off today, and in every significant measure much worse, is living proof of these political failures.
Being Marxist means you are blacklisted politically. This extends into economy & art, where Marxism is 100% not welcome by the establishment. The truth hasn’t been popular for a long time, and Rule #1 is: this fictional narrative must continue without question. What passes for ‘Art’ in modern bourgeois society reflects this vulgarity.
Marxists are the first ones to be assassinated (‘liquidated’ is the bourgeois term) when wars are about to start, or end. Therefore it takes great courage and strong character to become this form of leader. People often proclaim their admiration for revolutionaries, but only for the ones who are already dead, living ones are mostly viewed as “too dangerous.” When Marxist revolutionaries are alive, they are always active. Marxists are ruthlessly marginalized & suppressed, until they break into popular consciousness, at which point they are immediately vilified by mass media and all the institutions behind them. This keeps their message ignored, misunderstood and hated by the public until their influence can be curtailed, and its leaders ‘liquidated.’ Terrorist acts disorient the public [3]. They are often false flag operations. To discover covert intentions, simply ask: who benefits?
Disconnecting oneself from any human thoughts or feelings makes all this possible. This is the virtual world on the modern technocrat, draped in luxury– yet empty & lifeless inside. Surviving with one’s brains & principles intact may be the most difficult feat in modern living, but it has now become an essential task on a global scale for species survival. Only an internationally united working class armed with Marxism can defeat fascism. The only path which ends inequality & war, is to replace capitalism with socialism.
Disclosures of dirty official secrets & war crimes have repeatedly rocked the established order since WikiLeaks emerged in 2010. This video currently has over 15 million views:
Julian Assange is the founder & brains behind Wikileaks, a whistle-blowing online organization which publishes classified state secrets for the world to read & discover. Assange has currently been held-up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London for four years, due to trumped-up (politically motivated) rape charges– which are being pressed by Swedish authorities at U.S. government behest. With whistle-blowers Edward Snowden in exile in Russia and Bradley (Chelsea) Manning locked away in a U.S. military prison, Assange too is a political prisoner. This serves as a chilling reminder of the cost one may have to pay for opposing elite interests.
July 10, 2016: Seth Rich a 27-year-old staffer for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was shot twice twice in the back of the head on his way home in Washington, D.C. around 4 a.m. He died later in the hospital and the circumstances remain murky, as D.C. police insist the murder was the result of a botched armed robbery– but have no leads. Rich’s wallet, cell phone & watch were still with him when his body was found. Seth Rich was in charge of DNC voter expansion data and had access to a wide range of information about the inner workings of the Democratic party.
The content of these emails remains mostly undiscussed in official media, as the emails were from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta. The major revelations (among the many) were that the DNC was illegally funnelling money away from Bernie Sanders and towards Hillary Clinton, in order to help her gain the Democratic nomination. Any mention of this email content today is tantamount to treason, and implies being an “agent of Putin” by the media, but back then this was still an issue Hillary Clinton and the Democrats were trying to contain.
July 24, 2016: Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (pictured above w/ VP Joe Biden) resigned, as she was heavily implicated in the email scandal which revealed her improprieties in favor of Clinton.
August 9, 2016: WikiLeaks announces a $20,000 reward for information leading to the killer of Seth Rich. A few days later Julian Assange gave this extraordinary interview with Dutch television station Nieuwsurr via Skype, in which he openly questioned the official narrative: [1]
Assange: Whistle-blowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often significant risks. There was a 27-year old that works for the DNC who was shot in the back … murdered … for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.
Host: That was just a robbery wasn’t it?
Assange: No. There’s no finding.
Host: What are you suggesting?
Assange: I am suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that.
Host: But was he one of your sources, then?
Assange: We don’t comment on who our sources are.
Host: But why make the suggestion?
Assange: Because we have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States and that our sources face serious risks … that’s why they come to us so we can protect their anonymity.
July 2016: Begins a sharp escalation of the anti-Russian (pro-war) campaign, that was (and still is) supported in bourgeois circles. Under the academic influence of structuralism, positivism and postmodernism; the NY Times, Washington Post, the Nation, Newsweek & Time now churn out their virulent pseudo-left red-baiting, in all its irrationalist & idealist forms– on an unprecedented scale. Gays, feminists, dissidents, ex-radicals and other ‘nonconformists’ who complain about everything (yet can’t be bothered with facts) populate their rank-and-file, and the purpose of this campaign is to keep this ‘middle class’ layer as self-satisfied & politically inactive as possible. As evidence to its effectiveness, the left-wing 2016 post-election protests quickly met a cold & lonely death. [2]
October 7, 2016: WikiLeaks publishes thousands of emails retrieved from John Podesta’s private Gmail account. Reading Podesta discuss Hillary’s “public” and “private” political positions, as well as her grovelling to the financial aristocracy of Goldman Sachs, only reinforced the popular notion that she’s a fraud.
As a final footnote on ‘Russian hacking,’ evidentially John Podesta’s password was ‘password,’ and he gave it out freely to other staffers. Julian Assange is now famously quoted as saying, “A 14-year-old kid could have hacked Podesta.” [3]
These are the incompetent and sociopathic zombies who make up Washington’s elite. It’s impossible for the ruling class to frame any of this logically, so we the people are again subjected to a propaganda blitz where official lies, hysterical red-baiting, and implausible denials never end.
October 25, 2016: Huge Obamacare premium increases announced for 2017. This, more than anything else, cost Hillary Clinton and the Democrats on Election Day.
October 28, 2016: A letter from FBI Director James Comey to Congress announcing new “investigative steps” in the probe of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, exposes raging conflicts within the national security apparatus. It still rages on, with no public input.
November 8-9, 2016: After being written off and given no chance by nearly every political expert, Donald Trump wins the Electoral College and the US presidency, despite losing the popular count by ~2.8 million votes. President Barack Obama immediately declares everything over, as the entire 18-month election process (a completely degraded spectacle) was just “an intramural scrimmage.” Mass media and the entire political intelligentsia immediately shift to the right, going into overdrive on the ‘Russian hacking’ narrative as the reason for Donald Trump’s victory.
January 6, 2017: The 50-page US intelligence report (purported to contain ‘bombshells’) provides no evidence that Russia was responsible for hacking into the email of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The report consists of unsupported conclusions by the CIA, FBI and NSA, using the phrase “we assess” 19 times, without a single fact to demonstrate Russian involvement. [4]
This is capitalism 2017, and its masters have evil designs on humanity’s future. These fascist philistines only care about themselves, so if working & young people want better, they are going to have to unite among themselves and fight for it. As Trotsky once pointed out, “No devil has ever cut off his own claws.” We the workers & youth must unite internationally across all industries under the banner of revolutionary socialism to win true freedom, peace & equality.
MLB’s 16-member Today’s Game Era Committee is an offshoot of the old Veterans Committee. It nominates non-playing personnel and players who were passed over during Baseball Writers Association of America election period.
Harold Baines, Albert Belle, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Davey Johnson, Mark McGwire, Lou Piniella, John Schuerholz, Bud Selig and George Steinbrenner were the candidates considered by this committee for the 2017 Hall of Fame class.
These are the 16 people who make up that committee, which voted Bud Selig into the MLB HoF, against the expressed will of baseball fans everywhere. At least 12 of them voted for him:
Hall of Famers: Johnny Bench, Whitey Herzog, Eddie Murray, Jim Palmer, Tony Pérez, Frank Robinson, Ryne Sandberg, Ozzie Smith
Executives: Bill Giles, David Glass, Andy MacPhail, Jerry Reinsdorf
Media: Bob Elliott, Tim Kurkjian, Ross Newhan, Tom Verducci
Bud Selig will be inducted, along with Atlanta Braves GM John Schuerholz and any players elected by the BBWAA (announced January 18) at Cooperstown, N.Y. on July 30– which also will be Selig’s 83rd birthday.
One can only see this for what it is– political horse-trading & backroom deal making. A straw poll on Bud Selig’s popularity among baseball fans would run 90+% negative. This is well-deserved for:
1.) Being the Steroid Commissioner
2.) Cancelling a season & World Series in 1994
3.) Attempting to contract the Montreal Expos & Minnesota Twins
4.) Bankrupting the Montreal Expos, then MLB’s subsequent gutting of the franchise from 2003-05 [1]
5.) The 2002 All-Star game hosted in Milwaukee, which was to be his triumphant farewell to a Brewers franchise he owned & mismanaged for over 20 years, which turned into a fiasco by going extra innings [!] with both managers running out of pitchers. Selig intervened by stopping the game, which ended in a tie & a hail of boos for the commissioner from the hometown crowd
6.) Refusing to be at the game when Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s career HR record, proving more his own gutlessness & lack of leadership than anything else
That’s just off the top of my head.
Selling MLB to Fox hasn’t helped the game in any way either; outside of enriching owners, management, and star veteran players. More exploding graphics, late starts, soaring prices and Joe Buck in our faces isn’t good for baseball. This is why many fans have turned to free advanced media to get around as much of the hype & commercialization as possible. It isn’t easy.
What Selig did best was make money for the owners, and the owners are the ones who control the game– including the HoF committees. That’s how Selig breezes in on his 1st ballot, when an entire generation of all-time great players are shut out. [2]
This hypocrisy is simply class struggle, as this is a labor/ownership issue, with management & the media co-opted as tools to control & scapegoat the players. The message sent in the Selig (& Schuerholz) HoF selection is, ownership & management take no responsibility for the PED era– it’s all on the players. That position is irrational, contrary to the facts, and insulting to the intelligence of baseball fans everywhere. When bootlicks like Richard Justice apologize for this garbage, they need to be shouted down. [3]
Baseball fans everywhere are disgusted by this selection, and the only way towards improvement is for fans to start speaking their minds, and more importantly with the wallets. These institutions need to be ruthlessly exposed for their corruption, no longer deserving of fan support. That is the only message the people running the game will understand. It is the only path towards the betterment of the game.
All photographs from Reuters, “Closing in on Mosul.” [1]
Most captions read something like: Shi’ite fighters fire artillery towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirt of Tal Afar west of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Photographer
Since titles & captions frame an image, here are a few of my own:
Business as usual, Iraqi ‘freedom fighters’ clown for the Western media during their ‘battle’ with ISIS REUTERS/Stringer
Iraqi special forces stupidity REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
War trenches as refugee encampments REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
The Road Warrior: Part 2016 REUTERS/Stringer
The ‘good guys’ fire their payload REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
No more parents REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
Inhumanity REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
Civilians targeted REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
Tigris ‘River Raid’ (Activision 1982/Pentagon 2016), courtesy of Stratfor/Airbus/Handout via REUTERS
Post ‘Election 2016’ notes: The Democratic party is a dead letter, now chloroforming the masses while handing the reins of power to fascism. Bernie Sanders as party head proves the complete bankruptcy of liberalism. Protests will continue to spread and their militancy will increase. Revolutionary activism needs to focus on bringing as many of these energized (yet demoralized) elements from the collapsed left into the politics of socialism.
On the right, the ruling class is divided on Donald Trump due to his egocentricity & unpredictable temperament. There are powerful deep-state figures who highly disprove of him, and predictably Trump doesn’t respect them either. That’s the focal point for a split on the right. Trotsky would define the incoming Trump administration as Bonapartist, due to its instability. That needs to be the Marxist theoretical basis for all revolutionary strategy in preparation for a permanent socialist revolution.
Throughout ‘Election 2016’ there seemed little hope for Republican nominee Donald Trump, who could barely stop shooting himself in the foot every time he opened his mouth. This immediately won him the support of all the racists, bigots & reactionaries; which is enough to win the Republican nomination, but not the general election. Hard-core Republicans and undecided working voters needed Trump ‘under control’ just enough to justify their vote for a bigoted, sexist demagogue. This is a measure of how much working people hate Hillary Clinton & everything the Democrats now represent. For much of this past campaign, Republican loyalists distanced themselves from Trump, with many outrightly rejecting his legitimacy. Virtually the entire ruling establishment was behind Hillary Clinton in 2016, from Wall Street to the Pentagon/CIA to Hollywood & the corporate media.
The difficulties she had with Bernie Sanders in the primary have already been discussed here. The first major sign she was cracking in the general election, was her fainting from exhaustion on 9/11 at a ceremony at Ground Zero. Her physical weakness, and lack of grit was exposed– a huge red-flag. Trump & his strategists pounced on it, and it gave their campaign a much-needed shot-in-the-arm.
Hillary Clinton lied (as always) to hide her poor constitution, and the media covered for her, as they did time after time in ‘Election 2016.’ Every time a damaging Wikileaks exposure of her criminality was released, the media would go into overdrive to bury the content (red-baiting Russia), while scandalizing Donald Trump. The problem for the Democrats was: Trump plays that game much better. He can take a punch and isn’t afraid to get dirty. Hillary on the other hand had never really won anything, her New York senate seat & Secretary of State from 2009-13 were given to her as a part of political favors & back-room power-broker deals. Love & marriage– you understand, right?
Despite any of these dark forebodings, Election Day arrived with prognosticators and political physicians of all stripes pronouncing her fit for the presidency. Reuters gave her a 90% chance of winning, as voting was going on that afternoon. By 6:00 PM EST, a chill had blown over the Hillary camp, as early returns showed strong turnout for Trump supporters, with lagging enthusiasm for her campaign. This cold rapidly turned to high fever, as she lost North Carolina, Florida, Ohio & Wisconsin with losing projections in most of the remaining of the battleground states.
Evidently now realizing her entire political career was in the death grips of pneumonia, Hillary rushed out of the convention center where it had been planned for her to give a victory speech. In retrospect, it is doubtful she even considered a concession speech before then. The election hung in the balance from ~10:00 PM to ~3:30 AM, with Hillary now fatally diagnosed and privately convalescing on her luxury political death-bed, tweeting convulsively before & after her concession call to the man she previously insisted was “unfit for the presidency & dangerous to all of us.”
Today is Sunday, November 13th, and it’s been four full days (so Christian resurrection is now impossible) since the world learned Donald Trump is U.S. president-elect. Hillary Clinton is still lamely insisting (through the ever-compliant media) that the FBI email leaks in late October were what cost her the presidency. No mention anywhere of double-digit Obamacare premium increases across-the-board, which were announced a few weeks earlier. There can be no such honesty from a campaign as corrupt as this, even after it’s all over.
After those increases were made public, Donald Trump lyingly promised he would, “repeal Obamacare if elected!” That hit home for many, many underprivileged & overworked American voters– of all ethnicities.
When real competitors lose, they seriously reflect on what cost them. When spoiled losers blow it, they point fingers & blame others in order to deflect their own inadequacies. Hillary Clinton has huddled up with her team of advisers one last time, and they will instruct her on what to do & say. This entitled, post-modern feminist (what a mess that is!) was handed everything and never won anything. She just blew her last ballgame, which was for all the marbles, and she’ll never admit it’s on her.
Just ANOTHER item to add to the long list of: Things Working People Hate about Hillary.
The collapse of the Democratic party, that was noted here on Election Night, is now in full view for all to witness. With nearly all the returns in, Hillary Clinton will win the U.S. popular vote by a (likely) margin of 1-2 million votes, despite losing the Electoral College which actually determines the presidency. Young people & energized Democratic party supporters everywhere are protesting the unfairness of this whole process, and they certainly aren’t giving any mandate to Donald Trump & the Republican party; yet all the major Democrats from Barack Obama to Hillary & Bernie on down, have pledged their support to an individual they had labelled as “dangerous” and “unfit” for over a year.
The air of unreality that pervades this whole post-modernist political drama makes it difficult for most observers to comprehend what’s going on? We the people are expected to absorb all this, much the way a television drama cuts to a commercial during a suspenseful climax. We are trained to go from watching the near death of our beloved hero, to soap commercials, and not question its rationality or propaganda message. TV leaves you on hold for next week’s episode, promising that by then everything will work out. That analogy applies here.
Class forces are in play, and make no mistake, that is what is ruling the day behind the scenes. The Clinton’s have been hustled off-stage, and escorted (by limousine) into political exile. Their hundreds of millions in money wealth will ease them. Hillary Clinton didn’t even bother to face the camera and speak to her shocked & disbelieving supporters (who needed SOMETHING from her) the night everything went down. That points to her overall class contempt for those who actually work & care, as well as her own personal gutlessness & banality. Not a serious thought in her head, really. [1]
The same goes for bourgeois feminism, black racialism (BLM), and LGBT activism; all of whom have nothing helpful to add. At this point identity politics must be seen for what it is; a middle-class construct meant to enable fear-mongering of sexism, white racism, and homophobia– all meant to stranglehold any class-conscious political discussion.
To be a socialist, one must understand events from a class perspective. Regardless of how the average U.S. voter decided (Dem/Rep), they are going to be the ones paying the bill under Trump’s capitalism. The working class vote for this demagogic billionaire was a Molotov cocktail thrown at the ruling establishment, but the only victory most of his supporters will get is similar to the vicarious pleasure of watching a favorite team win the Super Bowl. You get bragging rights and you can wear some paraphernalia to show others you are superior, but it really doesn’t help your everyday situation. You’re on your own for that, buddy.
That was the deal in voting for ANY capitalist party candidate, including the Libertarians & Greens. The plurality of the eligible electorate actually didn’t vote of either major party, as you can see here [2]:
This “Silent Plurality” remains ignored by most bourgeois commentators. When accounting for the billions of dollars that were utterly wasted on this entire ‘Election 2016’ campaign, it must be recognized for what it was, which is the worst boondoggle in political history in terms of cost & content. Nothing was ever seriously discussed, from domestic jobs & living standards to global warming & militarism. The corporate media was complete filth on every channel, and online, from start to now.
Any remaining energized Democratic party supporters that are still protesting, must soon come to the conclusion that their party is dead. The Democrats were set-up to win, yet collapsed in the face of economic realities. They offer no resistance to fascism, and in fact are now in league with them. They always were.
The best elements of the youth, workers, and all these above-mentioned disparate & shattered movements must find the correct political orientation, otherwise they will end up as worker ants without a queen, atomized & left to perish without leadership.
