Progressives (Liberals)

@Lash,

The Clinton machine... ha! It must be as finely oiled and tuned as Trump's white house. :-)

@blatham,

They've been doing this forever. They're good at it. And now that experts are depreciated and honest journalists are hated or disregarded, they don't even need to hire or manipulate actual influencers. All you need to do is pretend you're one of these angry American on the Internet...

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Yes. You've got a good grasp of the thing.

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I really have to thank edgarblythe for posting the article How Society Dies. I liked it so much I posted another piece by the author on the Trump thread.
That entire article is worth reading but these descriptions of political "purists" seem particularly apt with regard to our discussions here.

Quote:

It’s hard to see from outside the UK, but Labour had been taken over by a certain kind of person. You know the kind of college leftist who’d condemn you for not being a perfect comrade, communist, socialist, vegan…even though you basically believed in healthcare and education for all…you just made the mistake of liking a nice meal or wearing a nice outfit once? And then they chastised you for it, like little Torquemadas or Cromwells, forever? That kind of person.

(...)

You know the kind of college leftist that would attack you for wearing nice shoes or liking the wrong kind of fashion and art and music…lecturing you about what Lenin thought about what Trotsky thought about what Che thought about…even if you basically believed in a decent society with healthcare and education for all..thus causing you to walk away and roll your eyes?

(...)

There was some irritating idiot college leftist, spouting Lenin at you, calling you a bad comrade for liking decent wine and eating meat and taking your kids to the mall and buying them nice things every so often.

One needn't be the incarnation of Margaret Thatcher to find these people ineffective and objectionable.

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@Olivier5,

Hubris can bring down giants.

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@blatham,

Why thanks. It's not been just in the US by the way. Western Europe has been another prime target of course, all the way back. If you remember, it used to be done through opinion leaders: left-leaning artists, fellow travelers and journalists would be kindly invited to tour the USSR and they would be well taken care of. Now they spend on the hackers what they save on the escorts.

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@Olivier5,

I keep insisting that everybody needs to read Larry Tye's book "The Father of Spin", the story of Edward Bernays who was Freud's nephew and really the most brilliant and influential creator of modern marketing techniques. Bernays had written a book titled "Propaganda" (negative connotations of that term only arrived after WW2 and the Hitler crowd). Indeed, that book was found in Goebbel's library. The modern and very common practice of corporations setting up "astro-turf" entities pretending to be grass-roots we-the-people phenomena was a Bernay's creation, for example.

There are two essential reasons to read this book. First, to understand how such propaganda gets done thus making us each more immune from the thing and second, so that we grasp that these techniques are now, almost 3/4 of a century later, are far more developed and sophisticated than what Bernays got up to.

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@blatham,

Sounds interesting. From the same era, I recommend Technique du Coup d'Etat by Malaparte, who explains how technically one can bring down a state.

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@Olivier5,

The adventures of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret in the USSR.

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@Lash,

Who are you calling a giant?

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Are you ******* kidding me?

Quote:

Doug Adams
@DougNBC
Update per
@AlexNBCNews
Rep. Shimkus is out of the country visiting his son in the Peace Corps in Tanzania.
Still nothing from
@TulsiGabbard
on why she is missing the impeachment vote today

This is a bad faith player. NOT to be trusted. She could still appear for the vote on articles but I'll wager she doesn't.

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@blatham,

Oh, well, color me surprised.

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Quote:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC
No normal person would be able to get away with attempting to extort a foreign power to compromise our country.

But all too often, the most corrupt and powerful people grow so accustomed to life with impunity that standard accountability feels to them like unjust persecution.

This is a very bright and talented young lady. She continues to impress.

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If one bothers to look.

By BEATRICE PETERSON
Wednesday, December 18, 2019 7:18AM
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is calling for President Donald Trump's censure on the eve a full House vote Wednesday on the articles of impeachment.

The resolution, which Gabbard planned to introduce late Tuesday, suggests that the president put personal political gain over national interest.

Gabbard has said she remains undecided on impeachment.

"I'm taking this time for myself to be able to review everything that's happened, all the information that's been put forward," Gabbard told a crowd at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, on Monday. "And just all the factors that go into really trying to figure out what what is the best action to take for our country. And for democracy. It's not a simple or easy decision to make."

She is the only member of the House in the 2020 Democratic presidential field eligible to vote on Wednesday. Although she remained undecided about impeachment, Gabbard told voters, "I think it's really important that every member of congress cast their vote based on what's in the best interest of the country rather than based on political implications."

In recent months she has gained support across the ideological spectrum, including Republican, libertarian and independent voters, as well as Democrats.

The former vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said she's focused on making the right decision, instead of the decision that might turn away the least amount of voters that she's garnered this election cycle.

"Throughout my political life, I have always done my best to make decisions and cast votes based on what I believe is the right thing to do," the Hawaiian congresswoman told reporters earlier this week. "Even when that decision causes political damage to my quote-unquote, you know, career reelection chances, that is not a factor for me in my decision-making process whatsoever."

https://abc7chicago.com/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-for-president-trumps-censure/5763049/

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@Olivier5,

That dirty machine you’d mentioned.
The Tammany Hall of the modern south.

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@Lash,

LOL. Only in your mind is Hillary a "giant". :-)

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@Olivier5,

How Russian Propaganda Showed Up in an Italian Murder Trial

Quote:

ROME — Few disputed the guilt of Vitaly Markiv, a Ukrainian who also holds Italian citizenship, when an Italian court sentenced him to 24 years in prison this summer.

Most of the evidence showing that he had helped coordinate an artillery strike in a conflict zone of his native country, killing an Italian war photographer, had been retrieved from his electronic devices.

But it raised eyebrows when the court released its reasoning in the fall showing that among the evidence presented by Italian prosecutors were reports from publications that are generally considered outlets for Russian propaganda.
... ... ...

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@Walter Hinteler,

Interesting.

This sentence made me laugh:

Quote:

The prosecutor saw it as an admission of guilt, despite Italian journalism’s usual lack of rigor.

As we all know, American journalism is the epitome of rigor, right? :-))

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@Olivier5,

Yeah. The term ‘the Clinton machine’ isn’t acknowledged as a mammoth wide-ranging power structure with lawyers, politicians, media personalities etc who pop up oddly to defend certain shady people in the news — to do dirty work for the Clintons.

Just go back to sleep.

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Biden who?

'Warren endorsed by hundreds of former Obama staffers'

https://www.axios.com/elizabeth-warren-barack-obama-alumni-endorsements-cf57b5d1-5282-4f87-81bf-ab779688eca8.html

1 Reply

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