You have demonstrated that you are incapable of finding out. You will learn nothing, for example, from the rest of this post: Nothing I posted depended on your opinion of some of the superrich. Unbased? Your claim to find stereotypical leftist ideology in me, motivating my responses, was in error. I harbor no such ideology as you describe, and make no responses based on ideology I do not possess, and since you clearly know nothing about me I provide you with that information. I possess more and better information about me than you do (I know, for example, that I do not favor State ownership of the news business, preferring market competition) - a statement you have repeatedly described as offensive bragging, because you have repeatedly failed to learn that simple lesson from past discussions. Just as you failed to take the obvious lesson from this: Clearly you, like anyone, can see the direction of power there: one obtains political power by controlling mass media, one gains control of mass media through successful business dealings. Under capitalism, the businessman typically corrupts the politician, not the other way around. The threats, as well as the bribes, come from the businessman. So - - You were making claims purporting to be about my ideology, and instead illustrating your propensity to find propaganda in what is simple fact: the mainstream news is big business in my region - large, profitable (in theory), capitalistic, business. This is true regardless of anyone's ideology. It is relevant because you insist on two things: big and successful businessmen are typically honest, to the point that my claims to find rampant dishonesty in them is presumptively wrong - impossible on theoretical grounds; and the high level news media are entirely dishonest, to the point that my claim to easily find honest journalists among them is presumptively wrong - impossible on theoretical grounds. So in your theory: Matt Taibbi, James Fallows, Charles Pierce, and Michael Lewis - just pulling names offhand from the past couple of weeks reading - are dishonest minions producing propaganda, while Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch and Robert Pittman and Dan Abrams and Phil Griffin and so forth (again, pulling names from the last few days) are the honest employers of such propagandists. Do you see the problem? Here are the successful big businessmen in the field, non-politicians all, according to you typically honest: http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart Similarly with the politicians. It's easy for me to find honest high level politicians, past and present, in my part of the world; although the judgment is always contingent because the pressure of wealthy and powerful business interests is always there (Paul Wellstone throughout, Al Franken so far, Tim Walz so far, Russ Feingold so far, several more). And you cannot back up and revise your earlier arguments, like this: because the claims you denied were existence claims, and you denied them without inquiry or evidence. You made impossibility claims. And why is that relevant here? Because one key feature of the Trump phenomenon is that he did not "fool" (meaning "surprise") the actual journalists nearly as completely as he "fooled" the propagandists. There are many journalists who recognized Trump's threat, what and whom he represented, -> the nature of the Republican Party's voting base, in other words, not just the nature of Trump, years ago. There are others who picked up on his incoming status among the Republican Presidential field early on, while there were still many candidates and the propagandists were blind to it. And if you try to pretend that all of supposed high level journalism and politics is equivalently dishonest propaganda and corruption, to cover your own poor judgments, errors, and incapabilities, you betray them.
Well, here is the thing comrade, when you claim something is propaganda, you should have some evidence to back up that assertion and you don't. You never do. For you, that "propaganda card" is away of avoiding unpleasant facts. The "propaganda card" isn't the "get out of jail free card"you like to pretend it is.
Another example of an empty and unjustified derogatory claim. Are you really unable to have a discussion without such things? Really? My reply was in defense against your accusation "You were the one referring to their competitors as dishonest, Microsoft and Walmart forced to lobby in some fantasy of self defense. But there were dozens of such competitors, - so - - - - -- - .?" You doubt that the relevant (that means those who have initiated the game) competitors were among the superrich? Ok, this depends on how one defines the superrich - something one can argue about. And, in particular, I can start with some correction or clarification: To cooperate with the politicians, and, therefore, behave in a despicable way, is worth the money for managing a lobby only for sufficiently big firms. But, of course, these sufficiently big firms, usually organized as joint stock companies or so, are at least partially owned also by other people, beyond the superrich. The superrich have, of course, the resources necessary to organize a lobby, and usually do it. But they are not the only one to be despised for such behavior. Feel free to prove this accusation, giving a particular quote of what you think is wrong, and give some evidence which corrects my error. I have seen a lot of various aspects of leftist ideology in your claims, and, no doubt, some of these guesses may be wrong - but given this answer I'm unable to identify which particular pattern of leftist ideology I have wrongly identified. Of course, nobody likes it if his ideas are named (whatever) ideology. But so what? The question to argue about would be if you agree with a particular idea I have attributed to you, and classified as an example of leftist ideology, or not. Or, if you like, to argue if this particular idea is simply an objective description of reality, and not simply some leftist ideology. I have no problem at all accepting that you know much better what you believe than I, so, in the first case, this would be simply a correction of my misunderstanding of your claims. Given that such misunderstandings are typical, nobody has a problem with being corrected in such a way. But, please, correct the particular question where I have misunderstood you. And this one-directional interpretation is what I consider typical for leftist ideology. There is, of course, also the other direction. The politician proposes something which would obviously harm some superrich, and waits for bribes to forget about this proposal, or to modify it in an appropriate way. How often I have to correct this nonsense, until you stop to make such defamations? Sorry, after the first or second time I would accept that you have simply misinterpreted some of my sometimes too polemical claims. But I have now already repeatedly corrected such a possible misunderstanding, and if you repeat it nonetheless, this is already a case of intentional defamation. But, ok, the (n+1)th correction: 1.) I have no doubt at all that the mass media are big business. They are even very big business, with a degree of concentration much greater than necessary for technological reasons. 2.) The proposition that businessmen will be less successful if they are liars is a) only a statistical one, b) only about those businessmen who depend on long time volitional contracts with regular customers. So they do not apply to those who do not depend on regular customers (like used car salesmen, who can survive even if all their customers feel conned, because a single contract per customer is sufficient for them). And, in particular, the very big firms, which can afford lobbies and cooperate with politicians to reach their aims, are also not among those who depend on honesty. 3.) The media are known to lie. And, given the coordinated pattern of these lies, the problem is clearly not the particular journalist, but that a honest journalist, one who does not agree to lie, will find no job in the mainstream media. But, of course, there is no doubt that the owners force them to lie. 4.) The very base of my theoretical argument that honest journalists will not end up on the top is that a) there is a high level of concentration of power in the mass media, so that only a few big players control them essentially all, and b) that they lie, and in a rather consistent, at least seemingly coordinated, way. This argument presupposes that the big media tycoons are liars.
I deny the validity of your repeated attempts to confine certain parts of my argument to the "superrich", and not others. And I outright mock - as ignorant, goofy, silly, whatever you want to call it - your claim that Walmart and Microsoft initiated their lobbying and political influence operations in self defense only, or even primarily. Why do you say such things? Already done, every single time. Every. Single. Time. Right in front of you. Recently in this thread, say, I pointed out that I do not favor State ownership of the news media, as you projected unto me on your theoretical grounds. Your error there is typical of self-described "libertarian" or "anarchist" ideologues, who refuse to recognize the structure of power in any industrial capitalist society in which the power of capital is uncurbed and unregulated, and politicians depend on its favor for their jobs, careers, and personal prosperity. One does not need leftist ideology to disparage corruption in politics, to disparage the undue political influence of, say, Halliburton. Or Exxon. Or Goldman Sachs. Or the Koch brothers. Scott Walker is governor of Wisconsin right now because he does what the Koch brothers want him to do, not the other way around. That's a bad thing under almost all ideologies (fascism being the primary exception). The claim you made was that the actual businessmen and business community we have in the US national scene - the real one, the US national one, that we are talking about when we talk about Donald Trump and US national politics in this thread - was typically honest, and successful to the degree that is was honest (so greater success implied even greater honesty than average). You were objecting to my claim that it was easy for me to find dishonesty among the high levels of businessmen in the US. 1) "Successful" businessmen are typically honest, and the more honest ones are more "successful"; but big businessmen are not honest, and the ones who lobby politicians more are less honest. Got it. But I have been talking about businessmen with lots of money and wealth and influence and so forth, not "successful" ones - so your theoretical speculations about very "successful" businessmen, whose businesses are small and who don't have much money, don't really apply to my observations. Meanwhile: In the US almost all incorporated businessmen can afford such lobbies (via business organizations such as Chambers of Commerce, which exist at every level of American society from the town up) and they are often as ready to threaten and corrupt as "cooperate". To be an honest politician in the US (at any level) requires actually resisting pressure, threat, and bribery from businessmen - not merely refusing to initiate "cooperation". So your theoretical reasoning there does not apply to the community of businessmen vs the politicians at any level in the US. 1)Your theoretical conclusion was that I could not easily find honest journalists at a high level of the American news media. Since I can (see partial list above), either your theory or your reasoning, or both, need modification. 2) You contrasted that dishonesty of journalists with the honesty of businessmen, instead of blaming the dishonesty of the media on the dishonesty of businessmen. Just as you consistently blame the dishonesty of political corruption on the dishonesty of politicians. Why? Because Donald Trump is running partly on exactly that delusion, of honesty in business vs dishonesty in journalism and politics. And he has fooled many millions of Americans, especially self-described libertarians and other "independents", by pitching that line.
I have read a description of these stories where this point of view was presented, it seemed plausible to me. I do not have any particular sympathy nor for Microsoft (writing this on Linux) or for Walmart (never been there), nor for big firms in general, so I think I'm sufficiently unbiased in these stories. And I have, yet, no reason to change this, given that your only argument, up to now, is mockery. You may not know this, but mockery is not an argument too. Deleting the usual joepistole-type repetitions of how clever you are and how stupid I am, Agreement. So what, the point being? The typical implicit suggestion that libertarians are defenders of big business? Interesting to read what I have claimed. Can you prove this with a link to a quote? I have somehow completely forgotten to have talked about a US national scene. Not really. I'm objecting to your one-sided presentation, with a lot of honest politicians (ok, of course only among the left ones) and all the big businessmen evil. My view is a little bit different. There is the typical oligarchat - a lot of big business, cooperating with politicians. This "cooperation" consisting of bribing politicians to make laws the businessmen like, as well as of blackmailing of businessmen by politicians with proposals for laws which hurt them. It covers the left as well as the right wing in almost the same way. In other words, simply fascism as usual. Too complex for you? You need it much simpler, so that someone from the left can understand it? Such is life. There are honest ways to make money, and despicable ways to make them. How important they are, depends on the properties of the particular business. There is a lot of business where you depend on long time customers who trust you, and in such business the honest guys will be more successful. There are other types of business where the trust of customers is much less important - sailing used cars, for example. In such business the cheaters will be more successful. Some of the despicable ways - cooperating with politicians - are accessible only to the very rich. Not a really simple picture. Too complex for an ideology which needs evil capitalists as enemies. That such "Chambers of Commerce" play a big role is the typical property of corporatism, the economic system of fascism. Real middle class businessmen may play there some role, comparable to the role of union members in the unions, that means, they have to pay membership fees and participate in some elections. I doubt that any middle class businessman can use this chamber to bribe the local government to give him a good contract. And therefore I think that this is a quite different game, and irrelevant in this context. Your "honest", it seems, simply translates into left-wing, given that he has to resist evil pressure from the chambers of commerce, but not from the unions. But this is what one expects. The necessary correction has been already made. You have very different criteria for what is a honest journalist. Because the special role of the media in politics. Mass media are not business as usual - people creating something other people want to buy, as good as possible. Media are a possibility to make superprofits via influence on politics, by manipulating the masses. So, my general rules of business are not applicable. They may have been in the past, during the 19th century or so - but this was long ago. Today it is the ability to lie to the sheeple which makes owning the mass media useful. For those who want political power. If Hitler claims 2+2=4, I will not start to claim 2+2=5. And if Trump claims politicians and journalists are liars, I will not object too. Why should I care about Trump? The only thing I have to care is the danger that the next president of the US can start WW III. Here, Trump seems to be the least dangerous. Especially in comparison with Hitlary.
That's not my presentation at all. Mine was not one-sided, and I said no such thing. For example, I specifically included at least one rightwing politician - Tim Walz - and could easily have included more (Jim Ramstad, from the past, say, was even Republican - although for honest rightwingers the pickings are much fatter in the Democratic Party these days). Every. Single. Time. You are almost never correct when telling me anything about my ideology, beliefs, or experiences. You can't even get my posting correct, and it's right in front of you. Why would you go so far out of your way to make a mistake like that? You have no evidence, no reason to say that, and you are wrong again. Every. Single. Time. btw: Not that significant union corruption of politicians fails to exist, especially in a few big cities and nationally, but most politicians in the US don't face it much. Besides: mostly via unions they face blocs of voters, which in a democracy are supposed to influence them. But they all face Chambers of Commerce, representing almost no voters at all. You were replying to me, and I am posting in this thread, about US politics, journalism, and businessmen including Trump - refer to the OP. If you want to amend your replies to me so that it's clear they don't apply to the journalists, businessmen, and political scene I am posting about, that would be good. I would be much more likely to take you seriously if you were not addressing matters familiar to me, and saying silly wrong things about them. So go back and fix your posts. It's your argument, not mine. Usually threaten, not bribe, at the lower levels. But both are common, at all levels. You need to gather information, before posting "doubts" so bizarrely naive and uninformed. No, I don't. You concluded that from theoretically deducing that my claim - to be able to find honest high level journalists easily - was false. In light of the falseness of that deduction, and the evidence provided you (I named a few run into just the past few days, without even having to search), and according to Popper, your reasoning or your theory or both need to be changed. Not your conclusions repeated. If you don't care about Trump, find another thread. If you think Trump is less dangerous for war than Clinton, you've been drinking your own koolaid. Remember your presumption of fascism behind Chambers of Commerce? That's in Trump's base. Is there some reason you would find Trump's fascism less warlike than average?
Donald Trump knows very little about the Internet The big D has suggested something should be done about the terrorist groups who use social media to recruit, to organise attacks and other nasty stuff. His solution? Have a chat with Bill Gates . . . I assume he will be supplying comedians for years to come with this kind of stuff--priceless! Er, also assuming he doesn't get to be POTUS and send all those loser comedians to Gitmo.
Where does Hillary fit in on her knowledge of the internet? It appears her email experiences showed a lack of knowledge.
I don't think her use of a private server is all that egregious. She didn't use it for classified material. The server was physically secured by US Secret Service agents. Politically, it wasn't a bright move.
it was the only email she had. she had no government email herself. rather strange. as to the 'classified material', she certainly received lots of that, even if she didn't send it.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Hillary says she used the appropriate email system for information marked at classified. The practice wasn't unique to Hillary Clinton, All previous secretaries of state for the last few decades used private emails as well and their servers were not protected by the US Secret Service.
I agree that the security risk is not significant - the insecurity of government servers may have been one of her motives - but still: she was going to a certain amount of trouble for no visible or declared reason except the ability to hide government correspondence from FOIA requests. She is the only one to have had no government server - to have done all her regular government stuff on a private server over which she had complete personal archive control, including hiding its archives from FOIA requests.
i've read she had no .gov email address herself. she had others do that on their .gov email addresses. i believe iceaura is correct - there appears to be no obvious reason to do it other than to avoid FOIA requests.
Variation on an Iteration Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You're probably familiar with this one. But it frequently occurs to mind that this is one of those issues we encounter from time to time in which our chance to make some progress is squandered for the sake of superficial politics. Last month, Katie Massa Kennedy↱ noted: [Hillary Clinton] is singularly delineated as "bought by Wall Street"―even with former Democratic nominees Al Gore and John Kerry receiving millions in campaign contributions from the so-called "big banks" during their presidential runs, including hefty sums from both Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. When Republicans launched their dubious investigation into a "corrupt," "manipulative" and "dirty" Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server while Secretary of State― regardless of Colin Powell implementing the same practice during his tenure― this character assassination, quite troublingly, inspired many liberals to co-opt these very words, rewarding the carefully-crafted Republican fallacy and giving them new life in the progressive sphere. Private servers never were a bright move; this much we can all pretty much recognize. But the transformation from legal and nobody seems to be paying attention to legal but insanely evil and how could anyone ever think of doing such a terrible awful horrible evil evil evil did I mention evil because we can't call it evil enough is something that happens from time to time, and it usually involves Republicans complaining about Democrats. We might recall, for instance, the manner in which Republicans have abused the word "unprecedented" to death while complaining, essentially, that Barack Obama is pretty much like other presidents before him. You know. It happens. From time to time. We can certainly blame the conniving politicians, but also the crafty and devious lawyers and political handlers whose job it is to parse legal and ethical boundaries; we must also, however, at the very least make note of the general lack of vigilance, which is the perpetual obligation of Liberty. In this case, we might consider the sudden exponential growth and vicious sharpening of concerns over politicians using private email servers. For American society, there is a missed opportunity. Consider the potential― • So it's finally time to talk about all this and figure it out? ―versus the acting reality― • We must necessarily pretend this is shocking and new as if nobody has ever done it so that we can bawl about how evil it is because Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton! We kind of did the same thing with Barack Obama and domestic surveillance. And Barack Obama and executive authority. Honestly, we've had years―even generations―to complain about domestic surveillance; if it's finally time ot have that discussion the one thing we can do to blow it is pretend it's brand spankin' ne'er before even imagined new in order to bawl about someone we don't like. If executive orders are so problematic, you know, fine, we are Americans and can figure this out. About the only thing we can do to erase every potential opportunity for progress from such a discussion is start screaming about how mundane orders are suddenly unprecedented. And, you know, it's like, really? We're finally going to have the discussion about private email servers and the public record, and the only thing we can do to screw this up is start screaming about how evil and shocking and unprecedented this all is. It never was a bright move, and that cuts both ways. The only reason it matters this time is because it's Hillary Clinton. Somebody wake me when Congress and the Justice Department alike audit Colin Powell's record. Oh, and hey, did you hear? Apparently Hillary Clinton is the first politician to ever be so low-down, dirty, and evil as to get paid for a speech. And, yeah, you're perfectly welcome―even encouraged―to laugh. What gets me is that all of this stuff has its important contexts, but none of those contexts are actually in play. This is all about an excuse to blubber and bawl that the sky is falling in order to blame someone. It happens. But damn it's something stupid and discouraging to witness. ____________________ Notes: Massa Kennedy, Katie. "Your Gleeful Liberal Takedown of Hillary Clinton Is Affirming Institutional Sexism". The Huffington Post. 22 March 2016. HuffingtonPost.com. 10 April 2016. http://huff.to/1XM06r7
Will the FBI bother trying to indict Hillary Clinton, or will they just pretend it's too much trouble. After all, they might lose, and then look, you know, stoopid!
Well, if they don't have evidence, then, you know, they really would look stoopid if they charged her. That's what Republicans do. That's not what the DOJ does. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Idk.. The whole spectacle is just so strange its hard make heads or tails of any it. While I don't buy into that theory either, I do think this is the kind of the thing though he could come out and admit if (when) he loses to actually save face to some extent. i.e. Disown his hatred filled base (which I think everyone can agree he didn't create! Its been there for awhile...) and show how easy it was to take advantage of them, then take credit for putting what might be a potentially successful president (Hillary) in the white house. How many people would believe it though?
I haven't convicted her of anything. I understand the FBI want to question her about certain emails that were on her private server, something about classified secrets yada yada. And I note that several Republicans are convinced she'll be dragged off in chains any day now. As news stories go in America's political arena, it's just another day at the office.
