48

Media Vermin Never Sleep

Cheap jokes as vectors for a nuclear Armageddon (or how I learned to laugh myself into an early eternity)

Patrice Greanville, January 15, 2019, via Greanville Post


Colbert doing his routine on 1.14.19. The whole shtick was about Trump, his putative treason, and the Russian menace. He has done this countless times. The more seductive a comic is, the more powerful, and when he’s telling lies the more dangerous.

Not funny

The resident idiots at CBS This Morning included a clip with Stephen Colbert that I found particularly irritating.[1] In the clip Colbert is supposed to serve merely as a presenting expedient for a truly stunning gymnastic performance by the terrifically charming Katelyn Ohashi, who seems made of rubber, but it turns out the whole deal is a ruse to allow Colbert to remind  the program’s audience (for the nth time) of Trump’s treason—that’s right, treason—and Russian perfidy, neither of which, by the unhinged liberaloid standards operating at CBS and sister networks, requires any proof.

Before examining Colbert’s participation in these charades more closely, let us recall that this is par for the course at CBS, an abject corporate entity which, along with its  sister networks and the nation’s leading newspapers, from the CIA-owned WaPo to the NYTimes, are fiercely pursuing a campaign to silence alternative media. CBS is in fact documented to be in bed with the sinister NewsGuard initiative, a newly-minted rightwing organisation created expressly to tighten the noose around the neck of dissident websites, thereby terminating effective free speech. (See here, and here and also here). All of this is done, of course, behind the usual barrage of lies and revolting hypocrisy that rule all liberaloid stratagems, the trademark of the current global system.

The underhanded campaign to kill free speech—a requisite for a veritable, airtight regime of fascism à l’américaine—issues and is inseparable from the current Russiagate hysteria, a hoax almost entirely authored and executed by the Democrats, in demonstrable complicity with the FBI, CIA and other sordid agencies of the American security state, with the enthusiastic assist of the mainstream media. None of this filth is democratic in the remotest way, which says something about the state of affairs in this nation, and the integrity —not of our politicians, for whom integrity or personal morality of any sort is a career killer and an alien concept—but of our supposedly more astute cultural tastemakers, among which lavishly paid prime time comedians —sycophantic court jesters is their accurate name—enjoy a place of disproportionate and highly toxic influence.

This is the framework, then, to judge this little monologue by Stephen Colbert. Please watch it in the sidebar below and answer me this question: Is this what you would really call honest comedy?

SIDEBAR

Watch this Late Show clip (on 1.14.19) with Stephen Colbert, the celebrity court jester who once cultivated an iconoclastic anti-establishment image, injecting the Russiagate venom under cover of a bad joke, just accusing Trump, again of, yea, let’s mention this in passing here… high treason, while supposedly celebrating the stunning accomplishment of Katelyn Ohashi. That this is typical Colbert these days confirms his status as a toxic media worm.

OK, so now you may see why we are so piqued this morning.

Perhaps you’ll agree with me at this point that what Colbert and others in his profession are doing is reprehensible in the extreme. For this guy is helping to fan the flames of an obnoxious propaganda conspiracy.[2] And he does it under the guise of innocent jokes, thereby normalising heinous falsehoods while his clueless public is completely unaware that they are actually absorbing a political advertisement, normalised brainwash, for the most dangerous and criminal product around, open-ended wars fuelled by neoliberalism in the age of nuclear superpowers. In this, Colbert and his ilk are simply weaponising humour. And that’s not all. As a collateral casualty, as Chris Hedges has noted, Colbert is also destroying satire, historically the ultimate refuge for truly iconoclastic minds:

Satire becomes destroyed in essence in the hands of figures like Colbert, Jon Stewart and others. They will attack the foibles of the system, but they are never going to expose the system, because they are all millionaires, they are commercially supported.

We have castigated Colbert in our pages before. In fact, do a search of our archives and you’ll find quite a few pieces devoted to this topic, including one by Steve Almond. Long recognised as a mordant social critic, Almond, surely one of  the most lucid voices working in this field, probably filed the definitive piece on the subject: The Joke’s On You. Are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Lulling Americans Into Submission? (2012)

Steve opened his withering attack with this fusillade:

Among the hacks who staff our factories of conventional wisdom, evidence abounds that we are living in a golden age of political comedy. The New York Times nominates Jon Stewart, beloved host of Comedy Central’s Daily Show, as the “most trusted man in America.” His protégé, Stephen Colbert, enjoys the sort of slavish media coverage reserved for philanthropic rock stars. Bill Maher does double duty as HBO’s resident provocateur and a regular on the cable news circuit. The Onion, once a satirical broadsheet published by starving college students, is now a mini-empire with its own news channel. Stewart and Colbert, in particular, have assumed the role of secular saints whose nightly shtick restores sanity to a world gone mad.

If you read the piece, and I do hope you do, you’ll see why Steve deserves all the praise he can get. Still, what Almond says—that Stewart and Colbert have now assumed the role of secular saints— is disturbing because Colbert and his pals[3], in deviously bolstering the system’s agenda, represent the maximum evil, combining criminal motives with arrogant imbecility, albeit a brand of imbecility satanically seductive, wrapped as it is in what appears to be unusual, “fun” cleverness. I’d say it does not get much worse or insidious than that.

Pushing the system’s agenda is itself a crime

No intelligent or decent person can support the global ruling class agenda, a blueprint chiefly spawned and implemented by the US section, the leading, most hyperactive and arguably reckless subset of this plutocratic pestilence. Why? You know the answer. Because it means death. Fuelled by an insatiable thirst for hegemony, indifferent to the level of sociopathy necessary to implement its designs, and invariably fixated on miserable, short-term objectives that only preoccupy the 0.00001%, of the human race, the neocon agenda is driving the US and the rest of the world to a very real age of de facto fascism, rapid ecocide, and endless wars, including the Big One, which will terminate the trajectory of our sorry species once and for all, leaving the planet a vast radioactive graveyard.

Even Reagan, the hidebound reactionary who had no love for the Russkies or communism, saw the wisdom of preserving some form of peace between the superpowers. This he did in typical American fashion, badly and misleadingly (his Star Wars initiative, a betrayal of detente, was a prime example of Washington’s ineluctable search for nuclear strategic supremacy to secure the path to a disabling first strike), but at least in those days the world, including the prostituted imbeciles populating the media, seemed to have a clear understanding that playing with nuclear matches is beyond stupid, it’s suicidal. All of that is gone, however, including an anti-war movement immolated on the altar of liberaloid charlatanry. Yes, that was a very imperfect and dangerous world, but one which had not yet acquired truly, 100%, Orwellian DNA.

The fact that the liberals who control so much of the major media in the anglophone world and the so-called “West” are unrelenting—nonstop, downright tedious—in their effort to keep afloat the leaden Russiagate psyop[4], which so far has yet to show a single thread of supportable evidence, is a sign that we are in the hands of a monstrous ruling clique whose minuscule sanity is only matched by its legitimacy.

Of course, it’s been said before, evidence does not matter to these journos, courtiers and politicians: what matters most is to keep the arms race going, the empire encroaching across the globe, as usual, and American exceptionalism triumphant and unchallenged. At any cost.

Summation

Reading the above you may have guessed I find this type of propaganda not simply intrusive, which is bad enough, but nauseating. Colbert, you abominable bastard, damn it, leave Katelyn alone!  Get yourself a different shtick. Something a little bit more honest. Of course, I know I am wasting my time. To clamor for decency from an avatar of a system built on gross indecency is idiotic. So let’s say I’m doing this for the record. For time will come to settle the accounts and people will need to recall who was doing what in humanity’s hour of greatest need.

Am I being singularly hard on Colbert? Perhaps. Perhaps not. As we know, there are plenty of drooling, equally opportunistic would-be replacements. That said, the popularity of low-lifes does not excuse their individual guilt. Many think—like Colbert, no doubt— that skewering Trump for fame, money and glory is not just awfully easy—given the gargantuan target—but virtually irresistible, a great way to sail into the sunset—with a hefty bank account.[5] But for now I single out Colbert because he’s singularly vile, and because I dislike turncoats: not too long ago Colbert strutted around as a man willing to speak truth to power. Now the power of money speaks to him, and the dialog never really started. Also, and this is not inconsequential, he plays to larger audiences than even Bill Maher and John Oliver, two comedians who, behind a veneer of defiant truth-telling, also carry a lot of the same systemic disease.

We know by now that faux rebel satirists like Colbert are really smooth and stealth warmongering disinformers, having perfected the craft of seamlessly injecting imperial messages into their streams of “harmless” jokes. I don’t find that funny at all. Further, strictly on comedic terms, Colbert does not deserve the pantheon because his routine is not based on truth, the essence of which allows comedy to acquire genuine greatness. George Carlin and other observational comics got great laughs by doing the opposite of Colbert and his ilk, that is, by piercing the lies of a supremely mendacious system to get at the ugly but indispensable truths. For while Carlin dug up the truth, Colbert buries it. It’s mendacity elevated to self-preening egotism—very well paid egotism.

Incidentally, this same fetid choir is pretty agitated of late because Trump—again—has been making noises about exiting NATO. Trump being Trump, he may be doing this for all the wrong reasons, but, if this came to pass it would be a boon for humanity, removing a huge threat and irritant to peace, not to mention an unconscionable waste of money and energy.  Reflexively, the response from the liberal camp has been, as was the case with the excellent idea of withdrawing the empire’s forces from Syria, a chorus of Jeremiads. Yes, once again these bastards pretend not to see the obvious good in this, preferring instead to shout from the rooftops about a danger which does not exist, and of course, yet another reason to bash Trump — illegitimately, from the right.

In view of the preceding, can anyone with half a brain doubt that such a toxic script, an inversion of truth and good sense of alarming proportions, yet so eagerly distributed by media sycophants like Colbert, and countless hacks in the Democrat party, is being directed by the boys in Langley and the Pentagon at the behest of the global plutocracy?

Notes:-

  • [1] Click HERE to watch the CBS This Morning clip containing the Stephen Colbert segment.
  • [2] I exclude Jon Stewart now from this fulmination because although he gave us the treachery of Iago Colbert, he has now wisely retired to a life of good deeds defending some of the most terribly tyrannized animals.
  • [3] Using Trump as a convenient foil, the alliance of the liberal class with the empire’s agencies of repression is the subject of commentary by Patrick Martin, in The FBI’s police state operation against Trump. Noting the subversive (in a bad way) aspect of this tacit combination, Martin warns that the liberals are, in effect, hatching a coup against the president, hand in glove with the spooks and military (italics mine):

By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Gestapo.

The agency also investigated four of Trump’s campaign aides over possible ties to Russia, and even made use of the notorious Steele dossier, consisting of anti-Trump gossip collated from Russian sources by a former British intelligence agent on the payroll of the Democratic Party.

After Trump fired Comey, according to the Times, “law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests…(sic)  Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. (sic) Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.”

The operations of the FBI, encouraged, aided and abetted by the Times, recall the paranoid rantings of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right group formed in the 1950s, whose founder, Robert Welch, notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II commander of Allied forces in Europe, was a “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.”

Claims that once were the province of an extremist group, on the fringes of American politics, are now embraced by the military-intelligence apparatus, appear on the front page of the most influential American daily newspaper, and dominate the network and cable television news.

While there is no evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Moscow, the Times report itself is evidence of a conspiracy involving the intelligence agencies and the corporate media to overturn the 2016 presidential election—which Trump won, albeit within the undemocratic framework of the Electoral College—and install a government that would differ from Trump’s chiefly in being more committed to military confrontation with Russia in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

A secret security investigation by a powerful police agency directed against an elected president or prime minister can be described as nothing other than the antechamber to a coup by the military or intelligence services.

  • [4] In other countries, who lack a Trumpenstein figure as a focal point to despise and to pelt around the clock, the local ruling classes have been forced to use plain old Russophobia as their bogeyman, and the charge (without evidence or with fabricated evidence) that Moscow is “meddling in their affairs.”  Britain leads the parade in this regard, at times surpassing the Yanks in sheer inventiveness, hypocrisy, and malice (witness their Skripal hoax, for example, and their crucial participation in the MH17 psyops, among other disinformation campaigns).
  • [5] “Trump’s unorthodox presidency has been a boon for the satire industry: Many late-night hosts are reaping more jokes and greater cultural authority by continuing the Shakespearean tradition of the jester speaking truth to power. But the rewards haven’t been spread evenly.  Liberal Stephen Colbert, lauded by fans for his skewering of the president, has added viewers, bucking a trend of declining audiences, to push “The Late Show” to No. 1 in late night (3.8 million viewers, up 19% over last year).” – USA Today, Comedy Scorecard)
Media critic and former economist Patrice Greanville is funding editor of The Greanville Post.

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Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton
Jan 23, 2019 6:26 AM

Hollywood is a dark cult of entertainment producers, actors and technology wizards using multidimensional occult art and practice techniques to indoctrinate the masses. Where else do you find sympathy, honor and special rights for vampire, zombie, Psycho, gangster rapper, rape, murder, violence, sexual perversion, incest, bestiality, homosexuality, lesbian, transgender, and pedophilia? Hollywood, along with Big Tech are the new world order standards by which secret societies harvest our youth for social programming, mind control, sexual exploitation, and power.

wardropper
wardropper
Jan 23, 2019 4:53 AM

I have always enjoyed Colbert’s humour from the start, but as was pointed out below, the world has changed since GWBush, and the ultimate catastrophe now threatening us seems too close to make much fun of.
But, for heaven’s sake, he is a comic satirist.
He is not a Mark Twain or a George Bernard Shaw – both men who could weigh the world seriously, while pointing out with their wit that some things were ridiculous enough to find extremely funny, or make us weep.
Colbert’s job is to be funny all the time, and his undoubted quick intelligence is required to devote itself to that exclusive task.
Our job, on the other hand, is not to take him seriously, while acknowledging that he provides us with plenty of food for thought.
There is really no need to criticize him more harshly than any other talented clown, and any rage he engenders is really our own fault for having unreasonable expectations of talented clowns.
Without belabouring the point much more, I’ll just comment that we don’t consider Beethoven to have been an inferior individual because he didn’t keep his apartment spotlessly clean, and neither is Colbert inferior because he does not save the world by matching Tolstoy in his compassion for humanity and its problems.
Few celebrities have ever had more than one supreme gift for us to enjoy. Colbert’s gift is quick, incisive, topical, superficial humour. We go to others for the truth, and I reckon there’s room for him alongside that truth.

djrichard
djrichard
Jan 23, 2019 4:20 AM

I’m guessing Colbert buys into the meritocracy. Which would make him consistent in his treatment of GWB and Trump. Neither had merit in being president and therefore were ripe for ridicule. But Colbert can’t see that the system itself is ripe for ridicule, even if it is meritorious. Probably because he sees himself (his merit) being validated by the system. For these types, the empire can be perfected, if only the right people were in place (those with merit).

John2o2o
John2o2o
Jan 22, 2019 11:28 PM

“We have castigated Colbert in our pages before.”

And when you have finished with him would you apply the knife to Oliver’s scrotum? We can’t stop the bastards breathing, but maybe we can stop them breeding!

I wasn’t too impressed by the gymnast – a little too full of herself. Arrogance comes so naturally to Americans. I much prefer the beautiful and glamorous Russian figure skater Elizaveta Tuktamysheva. Real class.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jan 22, 2019 10:10 PM

What’s so sad about all this is that not so long ago, during those oh-so-dark days of the Bush administration, I actually found Stewart and Colbert to be a breath of fresh air in a media landscape overcome with war-hysteria. But sadly, mainstream comedy is now just as unwatchable as mainstream news.

Even Reagan, the hidebound reactionary who had no love for the Russkies or communism, saw the wisdom of preserving some form of peace between the superpowers. This he did in typical American fashion, badly and misleadingly (his Star Wars initiative, a betrayal of détente, was a prime example of Washington’s ineluctable search for nuclear strategic supremacy to secure the path to a disabling first strike) …

Not Reagan’s biggest fan, but in his defense, it should be said that ‘Star Wars’ never really existed: it was just a (very) sketchy idea on the Pentagon’s drawing board. And FWIW, Reagan actually did promise that, once it was ready, he was going to share the plans with the USSR in order to render all ICBMs, east and west, obsolete. Obviously, we’ll never know now for sure whether he meant that; but it’s still worth noting.

George Carlin and other observational comics got great laughs by doing the opposite of Colbert and his ilk, that is, by piercing the lies of a supremely mendacious system to get at the ugly but indispensable truths.

Gawd, I do so miss Carlin! And Bill Hicks, too. They really were comedians for our time.

Ken Kenn
Ken Kenn
Jan 22, 2019 10:58 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

Satire is about pricking the pomposity of the inflated balloon of the self righteous and those who give out the givens.

All I can say about Trump is that if anyone had any proof of collaboration with those damn Russkies it would have been revealed by now – it hasn’t – so there isn’t any and he said she said etc etc is meaningless.

Yet still the game is played.

The game is perception – nothing more – nothing less.

Trump being Trump has his ideas and ideology and his Corporate minders have another set of ideas.

I am not a fan of the guy but come on – if you have evidence impeach him – if you don’t by all means criticise ( hey and who knows vote against ) and oppose him but don’t hide behind childish gossip a la Manifort met Assange nonsense. It patently isn’t true.

Stand in front of a Judge and say: ” Your Honour – we hold the perception that the accused had committed a crime but we have no proof whatsoever that he did.

The Judge won’t send you to a hotel overnight to consider he/she will send you home.

Colbert and his chums are the Jury members that should be sent home.

There is nothing to consider – except Trump’ s pompousness and his giving out of the ‘givens ‘

Nothing new there as he is a member of The Establishment and this is how they are all trained educationally.

It’s a nuance not a class schism.

Makropulos
Makropulos
Jan 22, 2019 5:53 PM

Colbert like the entire media are simply frothing with rage that Trump was elected and, more to the point, that despite being a Republican right-winger, Trump is actually saying more truthful things than the Democrats e.g. about media machinations. Colbert and co. are livid that the American public have departed the cosy little script whereby the liberals presented themselves as “left”.

aldkfj
aldkfj
Jan 24, 2019 9:43 PM
Reply to  Makropulos

The problem with MSM, at least in the last 40 years stems from two major events. First, the rescinding of the Fairness Doctrine during the Reagan Administration, and second Bill Clinton’s pushing and then signing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which allowed consolidation of ownership of cable, broadcast, and print media.

The former spawned Rush Limbaugh and right wing radio pushing the tenants of the Powell Memo, that the masses needed to be saved from “big government” and “welfare queens” and that universities had been overrun by leftist ideology, and that taxes should be cut (particularly for the wealthy and corporations), and that the military was way behind on funding, et al.

Then Clinton’s contribution. The most devastating of all, took ownership of all MSM from about 50 companies to a handful in just over a decade.

You think for a second that Trump is opposed to corporate interests owning the MSM? Sinclair has his back, and of course FOX, and CNN, and MSNBC, and NBC, CBS, NBC, and NPR. Every day.

I fail to see your point that Trump has any credence whatsoever as a critique of the Press, “the enemy of the people”, as he puts it. No, that’s not dangerous, right?

intergenerationaltrauma
intergenerationaltrauma
Jan 22, 2019 5:46 PM

This article is unfortunately spot on accurate in it’s analysis. One could argue that the propaganda pushed by these supposedly independent and sophisticated comedians is even more effective than the propaganda pushed by any of the establishment MSM as this “comedic” version of propaganda operates in “stealth” fashion, once removed from any real discussion of objective “truth,” and open to plausible deniability (it’s just a joke). Such an approach to providing propaganda embeds it into the normalized fabric of daily life in a very different way than watching an actual MSM news. The “hip” Colbert “jokes” of course come delivered with the unspoken questions: “are you hip,” “do you get the joke,” “or are you just another loser” because you might in any way question the typically evidence free deep state narratives being peddled by Colbert as “humor.”

Colbert and his ilk share the same moral terrain as the Nazi propagandists in the arts did – supposedly working from a position of artistic “independence” yet in actuality simply operating from a position of total amoral servitude to the deep state forces creating these narratives. Given this use of artistic comedic cover to cloud the reality of his service to power, I find Colbert (and others of his ilk) even more odious than the human self-parody known as “Rachel Maddow” with her regularly televised bouts of what appears to be some form of “demonic possession related to all things Russian.” The many “former” Nazis CIA director Allen Dulles brought into the agency in the 1950’s have no doubt assisted in creating the current reality which is that Americans are quite likely the most effectively propagandized peoples on earth. No openly authoritarian regime could ever hope to create such uniformity of thought (lack thereof actually) and such mindless acceptance of evidence-free deep state propaganda.

An important article. Thanks.

aldkfj
aldkfj
Jan 22, 2019 9:09 PM

Ironic that you, and the author don’t see that Trump is the epitome of deception, of Deep State trickery and the rest of the sorry f__ing mess. The billionaire globalist fake populist who represents big increases in military spending, dismantling of nuclear arms agreements while engaging in nuclear weapons buildup (far beyond Obama’s “modernization” program), who loosened rules of engagement in the ME to make it much easier to slaughter civilians “legally”, who appointed a former CIA director to head the State Dept (replacing his oil tycoon appt), who appointed CIA torture queen to run the CIA, who banned Muslims from travel as red meat to his racist base, who proposed a wall as more red meat to his racist base, who further entrenched corporate takeover of regulatory agencies, who restarted militarization program of police depts, who wants more torture, worse torture and to make it legal, who is AIPAC’s wet dream starting with his campaign speech to AIPAC and he sure has delivered, who is the neocon’s best chance to finally attack Iran, who is also Saudi Arabia’s wet dream with his son taking part in that orgy of MIC corruption, who ramped up once again the privatization of US prisons as per policy, who wants more surveillance not less, who is an ideologue for authoritarianism of police force, and the list could go on and on and on and on.

This is what drives me nuts about Trump leftists. They correctly make arguments against Bill and Hillary Clinton, Obama, Schumer, Pelosi, Feinstein and every other corporate ____ sucking Democrat in line with the DLC corporate servicing takeover of the party that spawned Clinton……..but for some bizarre reason, they can’t take that same yardstick of critical measure and apply it to Trump who is all of those things but much much much worse.

Much worse because of how in addition to all of the things he has in common with every other elitist oligarch Democrat or Republican, Trump intentionally stokes hatred domestically as a means to get power and as a means to maintain it. His Nationalist henchmen (sadly I think many Trump “leftists” find their secret real connection to him on this point) like Miller and Bannon support fascist movements overseas, and Trump is right there with them.

Yes, fascism has been a work in progress and Trump is the Deep State’s best bet for ramping up in the near term brutal fascism at home. No doubt the Deep State has factions. There is no doubt one faction adores and supports Trump.

Trump leftists to all of that? Meh.

As to Stuart, Colbert, Maher, Maddow and the rest……they carry the water for those who have taken over this country. The corporate coup that Chris Hedges so brilliantly writes about. And poor Trump beat up by the “enemy of the people” You think his base makes sophisticated arguments about the press? Or do you think they might think of Off Guardian as “the enemy” as well. And to that MSM supposedly all “liberal” and aligned against Trump. I mean is your analysis that f__ing weak? What, Trump doesn’t have plenty of allies in the MSM for his corporate friendly policies and his billionaire servicing policies, and his Wall Street lavishing policies, and his little people crushing policies?

Some leftists can chew gum and walk at the same time.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jan 22, 2019 10:19 PM
Reply to  aldkfj

Hmmm. I must confess, I really don’t see in his comment where ‘intergenerationaltrauma’ ever praised Trump. Nor did the author of the article he was commenting on. Have you had an eye-test recently?

Seriously though, what galls ‘Trump leftists’ like us is not criticism of Trump; we criticize him relentlessly! No, what galls us is the fact that MSM only criticize him for when he does–or promises to do–the right thing, like pulling out of Syria, or drawing down in Afghanistan, or–gasp!–talking about pulling out of NATO. Apart from that, the MSM (and phony comedians like Colbert) only criticize him for made-up horseshit like ‘Russiagate’. On the other hand, whenever Trump actually does something wrong, like increase defense spending, or sign another tax-cut for the rich, they are completely silent.

In case you missed it (or didn’t bother to read it), that was the substance of the article.

mark
mark
Jan 23, 2019 1:45 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

When Trump bombed Syria, he was immediately praised to the rafters. By the MSM, by the Neocons, by all the right on progressive Democrats.

mark
mark
Jan 23, 2019 1:37 AM
Reply to  aldkfj

A few points, Dear Aldkfj:-

1.The nuclear weapons build up.
This was Obongo’s programme, not Trump. Obongo decided to spend $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000,) on more shiny new nuclear weapons, just after picking up his Nobel Peace Prize. The Orange Man inherited this programme from Obongo. It’s not his. Though he did nothing to change it. Just let it ride. The price tag on all this shiny new WMD has since risen to $1.7 trillion. Raytheon, Lockheed etc. had to factor in all the graft and kickbacks. No doubt it will rise in due course to 2 or 3 or 4 trillion or whatever. But your mate Obongo’s fingerprints are on that one. Strange how we never hear a peep of protest from people like you when Obongo does something. When the Orange Man does exactly the same (or substantially less) your howls of outrage bring the house down.

2. Dismantling nuclear arms agreements and treaties.
The Orange Man is just carrying on with a venerable US tradition of welshing on agreements it has freely entered into. Ever heard of the ABM Treaty? 2004. That one’s down to Dubya. The Orange Man was busy banging Stormy Daniels when that one went down. Or NATO enlargement? 1990s. Down to your hero Clinton. The Orange Man was busy grabbing pussies at the time.

3. Rules of engagement in the Middle East.
Drone Queen Obongo slaughtered thousands with his killer robots. Waged war in 7 or 9 or 109 countries simultaneously, whatever it was, we’ve all lost count. Had a kill list of people to be incinerated once a week. Without a peep of protest from you, the MSM, or the Hollywood Aristocracy, who were all busy telling us how “cool” Obongo was. Dubya was the one who sent 3 million troops on rotation through the Middle East, killing 2 million Moslems to add to the 2 million already killed by his Daddy since 1991. The Orange Man was just doing his dodgy property deals at the time, busily swindling everybody. In the Mad Warlord stakes, he probably comes a very poor third behind Obongo, Dubya, and Daddy Bush.

4. The CIA’s Miss Whiplash.
Haspel was busy running her own concentration camp in Thailand under Dubya and your hero Obongo, as part of the US global gulag of concentration camps, secret prisons and torture chambers. Like Obongo said, “We tortured some folks.” True, the Orange Man promoted her to be the boss of the US Secret Police. Maybe he thought he had to do something to appease the women’s movement. It’s obviously a right on, progressive, diversity thing to do to appoint a woman as secret police boss and torturer in chief.

5. The Muslim Ban.
It was Obongo who first banned Moslems from the countries concerned before the Orange Man. He just continued Obongo’s policy. Like it was Obongo who built parts of the existing southern border wall. Like it was Obongo who deported more illegal immigrants than Trump. Like it was Obongo who separated illegal immigrant children from accompanying adults for their own welfare (the adults were often not their relatives.) And the footage of “putting children in cages” is old footage from Obongo’s time, recycled by the fake news media to blame Trump.

6.Militarised police departments.
Also dates from Dubya and Obongo.

7. AIPAC’s Wet Dream.
Have you never heard Obongo/ Bush/ Clinton, all the other 30 shekel whores, grovelling to AIPAC on their bellies? How is Trump different? It was Obongo who decided to give Arab East Jerusalem to the Kikenreich. Trump was just implementing a piece of legislation he had inherited. He shouldn’t have done it – but how is he different?

8. Attacking Iran.
Do you seriously think Clinton would not have already attacked Iran by now? “If I am elected we will take military action against Iran.”

9. MIC corruption.
$21 trillion ($21 million million) has “gone missing” from the military budget. The vast majority of this NOT on the Orange Man’s watch.

10. Privating prisons.
It was the Clintons, both of them, who gave a huge boost to the prison industrial complex, increasing the prison population from 700,000 to 2 million, mainly young black men, with long mandatory prison sentences for non violent offences. Trump has done nothing to improve this. But he didn’t create it – he just inherited it, along with everything else.

11. Trump is much much much worse.
How? Really? He hasn’t started any new major wars (yet.) He has tried to withdraw from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. And improve relations with Russia. Without much luck, largely due to Neocon/ Democrat/ MSM sabotage.

I could go on….and on….and on.

By all means hate, loathe and despise the Orange Man to your heart’s content. But apart from some crude language and a bit of pussy grabbing, he differs not one jot from his predecessors. In fact his record to date is a lot better (though that’s not saying very much.)

milosevic
milosevic
Jan 23, 2019 12:23 PM
Reply to  mark

milosevic
milosevic
Jan 23, 2019 12:23 PM
Reply to  mark

aldkfj
aldkfj
Jan 24, 2019 9:09 PM
Reply to  mark

You perfectly illustrate my point. Trump leftists, like yourself, hold the absolutely correct and accurate yardstick to the Hillary and Bill Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein, and every other Democrat that comprise the corporate servicing power center of the Democratic Party and who work in tandem with Republicans in forwarding the interests of billionaires, large corporations, neoliberal economic policies of privatization and “austerity”, and the rest of the sorry mess.

I didn’t allude to this in my post? And here you are making me out to be a DNC “correct the record” type troll.

The reason Hasper was in a position for Trump to further her career in the CIA was that Obama and Feinstein ran cover for her. Obama’s role was to block any criminal investigation into torture by the CIA (or any other agency for that matter including the US military) but rather investigate and prosecute Kiriakou for being the whistle blower. And for Feinstein’s role, she ran an “investigation”, or rather a fact gathering for the purpose of covering it up…..published a “finding” and “summary” that concluded that “mistakes were made”, and then sent the classified report to Obama who of course sat on it, handed it off to Trump and the coverup was complete.

I don’t recall during the campaign hardly a peep from Trump leftists about his calls to have more torture, worse torture, and to make it legal.

Perhaps you can point me to one of your posts condemning Trump for his support for torture.

Most of your post is just chock full of right wing FAKE NEWS such that the footage of kids in cages was from “Obongo’s time”.

I was well aware of Obama’s horrible immigration policy, of how he deported more “illegals” by far than any previous Administration, and how he employed private companies to imprison the families.

That doesn’t justify you being an obviously, foaming at the mouth Trump supporter.

I talked about Clinton privatizing prisons, did I not? What do you mean Trump has just simply done nothing to improve it. His redneck former DOJ Sessions rescinded a Sally Yates’ directive to phase out such private prisons. Did I just defend Obama’s role in privatizing prisons? No I did not. But can you point me to your critique of Trump for ramping it back up?

Oh yes, he’s better.

I pointed out that Obama put in place a “modernization” nuclear weapons program. I was pointing out that breathless Trump supporters on the left, like yourself, of course never criticize Trump for calling for a nuclear weapons buildup on top of that. How about the new Space Force? Huh?

How about this racist Nationalist movement that Trump stokes for power? Something tells me that you are just fine with this. No? Point me to one post where you have called Trump out for this. Miller and Bannon? You good with those jerks? Now be honest!

Your MIC item is a riot! What, I have defended Rumsfeld – one of the architects of the false flag 9/11 – in his convenient announcement just before the “big event”? What? Trump’s months long campaign promise to increase the military budget and his subsequent actions to do just that are no big deal to you? Well of course not, you are a Trump supporter.

And his AIPAC love fest, his Saudi Arabia love fest, his neocon dream appointment of Bolton to start paving the way for war on Iran……..all of this of course you love, because you are a Trump supporter through and through.

Got any more right wing talkiing points for me? Come on, something about FAKE NEWS!!!!

As if my criticism of Trump and his supporters from.”the left” requires me to be some adherent to the corporate servicing tripe that flows from the mouth of Rachel Maddow, or the insidiously annoying talking heads at NPR, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, ad nauseum.

See you think you have me in a box? What box? I’m not in that box. I rail about how the DLC spawned Bill Clinton and how Clinton did more to screw over the masses and pretty much seal the deal of the corporate coup (that Chris Hedges writes about) than any other President.

But Trump leftists rail about Trump, the billionaire globalist promoting corporate interests on steroids? The largest corporate tax cuts in history? Not a peep. Perhaps you can direct me to a comment you have made criticizing Trump for cutting taxes on corporations and billionaires.

You must have been freaking out when Trump loosened the rules of engagement in the ME. No? Did I just defend US foreign policy in the ME? No. Would I oppose troops pulling out of Syria? No. Well good for Trump, pulling troops out of Syria…….now it’s four months to withdraw. But in reality it’s right now, the four months is from FAKE NEWS, right?

So Trump is pulling out of NATO? When is that going to occur. You suppose his appointed generals are going for this? I mean, you fell for the FAKE NEWS that Trump wants to pull out of NATO? You might check with Pompeo, you know the CIA guy that Trump apppointed…….who states that Trump is for a NATO that is stronger than ever, and that Trump wants more money flowing into NATO from European Allies.

Kind of goes along with his big weapons buildup, right?

Yeah, that Trump is a real peacenik I tell ya. And yes I have opposed NATOs actions in Eastern Europe in particular. The double cross against Russia of promises after the breakup of the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand to Russia’s borders. Of how the Ukraine mess was one engineered by the West, in particular US NGOs and how Hillary Clinton’s NATO stance was absolutely dangerous and the subsequent demonization of Russia with this whole Russia gate episode.

Surprised by that last paragraph? Thought you had me!!!

Do I think Putin is an enlightened person? Far from it. He’s a huckster, just like Trump.

Don’t worry, Trump won’t be indicted. He is too deeply invested (pardon the pun) in corporate power center that runs this country to actually be in danger in Mueller’s investigation. He will ultimately be protected because too many corporations could be implicated if the sleaze monster Trump’s sleaze were ever fully revealed. He’s a corporate tycoon, a mob boss, of the first order.

Pelosi has his back ultimately, so don’t worry. Your Trump will be just fine.

Heck, he might even win the next election with your support!

mark
mark
Jan 25, 2019 12:14 AM
Reply to  aldkfj

I’m not sure what a “Trump leftist” is. I don’t think I am one. I’ve always thought vaguely of myself as a moderate realistic conservative with a pragmatic view of policies. A strong dislike of parasitic financial capitalism and the looting kleptocracy that passes for our economic system, instead of a genuine free market that would see failing banks simply liquidated and the high and mighty subject to the same laws as everybody else. An even stronger dislike of wars and out of control military spending and the chaos and suffering they bring. A desire for a society that works for at least 99% of the population. State health care, education and welfare. Maybe that’s leftist, I don’t know.

I don’t want to form any fan club for Trump. I think many of the things he has done are appalling. Jerusalem, Iran, Yemen and Venezuela spring to mind, among many other things. All I would say is that Clinton would probably have been (at least marginally) worse. There are a few positive aspects to Trump – calling out the corrupt MSM for what it is. Criticism of globalism. But I wouldn’t get that enthusiastic about anything. I think it’s legitimate to ask people frothing at the mouth over Trump, where were you when Clinton/ Obongo and the like were doing exactly the same or even worse? Why does Clinton get a free pass because she’s got a vagina? Why does Obongo get a free pass because he’s (half) black?

I have pointed that the US is the world’s torture queen, under Bush/ Obongo/ Orange Man alike and Trump thinks torture is great while America carries on giving lofty sermons to the rest of humanity about their human rights failings. More the hypocrisy than anything else.

The kids in cages and the border guards pouring away water left for illegal immigrants footage dates back as far as 2011. I think every dollar spent on nuclear weapons is a dollar wasted and a dollar stolen from people in need. I agree entirely on the point with that notorious Trump leftist Eisenhower. As for insane Reaganesque fantasies of militarising space, what can you say about the self evident colossal waste and appalling dangers it brings? But this just represents a continuity with Reagan’s deranged policies, Dubya’s welshing on the ABM Treaty, and Obongo’s missile deployments on Russia’s doorstep.

Military budget. Trump wanted to increase military spending by $50 billion. The Democrats insisted a measly $50 billion wasn’t nearly enough and increased it by $80 billion instead, to $718 billion. The true figure is actually $1,134 billion. I have pointed out to anyone who will listen that this is literally more than the rest of the world combined, and the US economy is being driven over a precipice. But why focus exclusively on Trump? Didn’t Reagan double military spending? Haven’t Bush/ Obongo thrown away $6 trillion on crazy wars? Trump’s part in all that to date has been fairly minor by comparison. Like the $21 trillion that has “gone missing” – most of it not on Trump’s watch.

You talk as though AIPAC never existed before the Orange Man arrived on the scene. And Bolton had never held an official post before Trump. He should be in jail or swinging on the gallows. But who appointed him UN ambassador? Was it Trump?

The vast bulk of what Trump does is just a continuation of US policy over the past 30 years. The gargantuan military build up, the aggression and slaughter abroad, the gross inequality and transfer of wealth upwards, the failure to provide for the needs of the vast bulk of the population.

I don’t object to anyone criticising the Orange Man for all this and much more. But I think it is legitimate to ask have you been asleep for the past 30 years? Would it be okay if Trump was a woman or black?

intergenerationaltrauma
intergenerationaltrauma
Jan 23, 2019 1:45 AM
Reply to  aldkfj

aldkfj – “Trump leftists” ??? Am I to assume that you are a member of the valiant – “Resistance” – one who insists that in an article about “comedians pumping out deep state propaganda” that you have duly noted a transgression on my part through me unwittingly failing to mention “the Orange One” and to bring him into this discussion no matter how tangentially? If I admit my transgression, will it go any easier for me?

I must say I’m not sure why you would think that “projecting your own issues” onto other commentators is a good way to engage in any meaningful dialogue with them. For example it is quite mystifying that you would make the assumption from anything I wrote that I somehow consider – “MSM supposedly all “liberal.” What a bizarre thing to deduce and project onto someone else, especially since in reality I consider all MSM bat-shit crazy – “reactionary.” It is also bizarre to assume my critique of these comedian propagandists is somehow “Trump” related, much less a “defense of Trump” in some fashion. My concern, since you’ve insinuated otherwise, is a completely insane new Cold War being promoted by the MSM through the “Russiagate” nonsense. This disturbs my sleep. I have yet to sleep poorly due to any worries about whether Trump is being the subject of too many jokes.

Though such lack of rational observations in your post quite mimic typical troll behavior, I’ll gladly give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume you’ve contracted a particularly virulent case of “Trump Derangement Disorder.” Good luck with clearing that up – whatever you do – don’t watch even one episode of Rachel Maddow or you may simply lose all touch with reality permanently. Trust me on this, I’ve seen it happen. It’s not pretty.

But hey, thanks for the heads up on this issue. I’ll be sure to start any comments in the future with a reference to the “Orange One” and how completely odious he is, and how only “Trump Leftists” (whatever that term might mean in your fevered brain) refrain from proudly making this disclaimer at every opportunity. Hey, as long as we’re now in completely Orwellian territory, remind me again, has Oceania “always been at war with EastAsia,” or has it “never been at war with EastAsia?” I can’t seem to keep it straight. I’m obviously having trouble following the proper script these days.

milosevic
milosevic
Jan 23, 2019 12:49 PM

has Oceania “always been at war with EastAsia,” or has it “never been at war with EastAsia?” I can’t seem to keep it straight.

Both statements are simultaneously true. If you have a problem with that, you’re not exercising proper reality control.

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.

Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world.

— George Orwell, 1984

aldkfj
aldkfj
Jan 24, 2019 9:15 PM

See my comment to Mark. Thanks o’ bunch.

mark
mark
Jan 22, 2019 5:04 PM

The main thing about slimy, sneering little turds like Colbert, Oliver and Maher, is that they just aren’t very FUNNY.
Trump must be God’s gift to all comedians.
Any comedian worth his salt should be able to work up a good routine on him that would produce laughs from anyone, regardless of whether they love or loathe Trump or are completely indifferent to him.
Instead, all we get is very tedious, cringeworthy sniping and virtue signalling.

It’s the same in the UK with things like Private Eye.
It used to target establishment figures under Peter Cook.
Since that slimy little turd Heslop took over, it just goes after anti establishment figures like Galloway, while presenting itself as being “ever so daring.” Utter garbage.

Try making people laugh, folks. That’s what comedians are supposed to do.

bevin
bevin
Jan 22, 2019 4:22 PM

Bullying and mocking its victims; lynching and dealing in the relics of the dead are traditional occupations of white South Carolina a state in which blacks were once a majority after the indigenous population had been hunted and sold into slavery elsewhere.
Among the Palmetto State’s contemporary heroes are Nikki Haley, former governor, Senator LIndsay Graham, warmonger and international nuisance and Colbert. Those from the past include Pitchfork Ben Tillman, Wade Hampton and John C Calhoun. South Carolina, whose first Constitution was written by John Locke has been the epicentre of nastiness for centuries.
John Oliver is from the West Midlands.

nomad
nomad
Jan 22, 2019 3:10 PM

thanks. i hadnt seem colbert in years. and then last night happened to pass by his monologue by accident. i found his mlk joke offensive and trivializing. ugh.

0use4msm
0use4msm
Jan 22, 2019 2:53 PM

McCarthyism with a laugh track, it’s an admittance that the second time is as farce.

Joerg
Joerg
Jan 22, 2019 2:02 PM

Excellent article – hitting the spot!

There are still some (older) commedians, who have not been corrupted:
“John Cleese: The UK ‘is in a mess’” (also true for other counrties – e.g. Germany) . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bteXcJAEKgY

Paolo
Paolo
Jan 22, 2019 1:36 PM

I used to really appreciate this guy during the Bush years, now i can’t bear his ignorant pseudo informed satire. John Oliver is even worse, his moronic grin as if we’re are all on the same clever smart team. What an ignoramus. I guess Jon Stewart knew when to get out.

Savorywill
Savorywill
Jan 22, 2019 1:10 PM

I was happy to see that last clip with the actual gymnastics of a truly talented person. But Stephen Colbert is a complete douchebag and I am glad that I only had to watch and listen to his utter ridiculous drivel here, as I never watch MSM. I can’t be bothered wasting my brain space, as much of there is it, with such drivel. That guys sucks so bad!

rtj1211
rtj1211
Jan 22, 2019 12:16 PM

The evidence for ecocide is not there. Damage to ecology, certainly. But not ecocide. The evidence is growing that restoring world ecology is happening and the tools to accelerate that are emerging.

1. The recognition that aquifers and groundwater are key to solving water shortages is now unmistakeable.

Riparian buffer zones, reintroduction of beavers, creating leaky dams are now acknowledged to increase river flow during drought, decrease flood peak, recharge groundwater and increase green vegetation.

All over the northern hemisphere, projects using such technologies/ancient wisdoms are show step change in ecologies on the 5-20 year timescale.

2. Planting trees is now mainstream political policy.

The Caledonian Forest in Scotland, the new Northern Forest project in England, the tree project from Mauritania to Djibouti, the greening of cities are all now core political action.

3. Construction practice is now designed with ecology in mind.

Energy budgets are now key to design, water harvesting, green roofs, on site drainage to groundwater is now de rigeur.

4. Community design including groundwater recharge is now a proven strategy.

Davis CA showed the past 40 years that use of roadside ditches with associated trees can see groundwater restoration within a generation. The whole world can adapt such simple wisdom to their own climatic realities.

The dead end of scaremongering about global warming is being progressively replaced by focussed environmental actions from the bottom up.

By 2030, politicians will only be elected with specific, cost-effective environmental actions with demonstrable benefits. Specific metrics will include:

1. Reduction in mudslide damage through repair of denuded creeks building vegetation, water sinks and groundwater in the formerly damaged creeks.
2. Specific tree planting and surface water draining programmes increasing well being in towns and reducing need for sewers to remove surface water.
3. New construction programmes requiring energy neutral housing, on site water drainage to groundwater, climate-appropriate gardens and green spaces, thereby reducing water consumption by double digit percentages within one term of office.
4. Headwater restoration programmes increasing groundwater recharge, reducing flood damage bills, extending time periods of flow in seasonal streams, improving biodiversity in upstream wetlands and regenerating native upland forests.
5. On farm programmes to prevent contamination of neighbouring rivers with fertilisers, improving aquatic health within rivers.

When the hydrology problem has been addressed, the deforestation has been addressed, then you can see just how dangerous ‘global warming’ might or might not be.

The low lying fruit are all in low tech restoration of ancient wisdoms destroyed in the 200 year dash to riches.

bevin
bevin
Jan 22, 2019 4:32 PM
Reply to  rtj1211

There is much truth and necessary optimism in what you write. But the current reality in Ontario, where all of the remedial movements which you mention are at work, is that the destruction goes on and its momentum is dreadful.
Consider the roll back of almost all environmental safeguards and the cancelling of carefully constructed regulation of the aquifers and flood plains as well as ending the long established tree seed plant and reforestation projects, which are exemplified in the Philistine Bill 66 currently before the ontario Legislature.
And then there is the coming holocaust in Brazil.
While there is increasing understanding of the need for ecological renewal the sheer weight of capitalist exploitation, together with the increasing grip of profiteers on governments and the destruction of democracy overwhelms the small forward steps with long marches in the opposite direction.

BigB
BigB
Jan 23, 2019 4:32 PM
Reply to  bevin

Let’s agree, for hopes sake at least, that the current state of the biosphere is reversible, with the correct mitigation policies. Nonetheless, alarmists, such as myself, still have every right to be alarmists. The point is, if we carry on acting as we do, the biosphere will soon be beyond the point of its inherent resilience, its plasticity, and homeostatic ability to self-regenerate. It is a brave person who can put forth the argument that we have not passed that point already. In truth, no one knows …but we are soon to find out.

What should be made clear, is that isolated and geographically diverse mitigation schemes can have only limited effect under the global capitalist system. The sustainability vectors and the unsustainability vectors would, at best, cancel each other out as a systemic stasis. But stasis is not possible under capitalism, it cannot degrow – it must grow. Ergo, capitalism and environmentalism are mutually exclusive and systemically incompatible.

This is equally true of actually existent socialism, or any hybrid theories of ‘green’, ‘ethical’, or ‘sustainable’ capitalism, acting within a mixed economy. The capitalist/socialist growth and valorisational vectors cancel out the ‘commons’, syndicalist, nationalised, or whatever mixed elements one chooses. They will quickly be reabsorbed by the capitalist element. Even the ‘debt jubilee’, were it ever acceptable, only slightly forestalls the inevitable commodification of all of nature, including human nature (not that we are in any way separate from our environment – damaging Nature is a form of abusive self-harm).

As a quick illustration: we are currently at 170% of the planetary resource boundaries – i.e. 70% ecological overshoot. Any political economic theory that has growth fundamentally vectored in has to push the boundaries further. At 200%, we are doubling the planets capacity to sustain us (i.e. even sustainable resources are depleted and unsustainable). Does this seem likely to anyone? Because I foresee systemic failure before that point. When, I do not know? …But the trend is clear, even if the date is not.

In case no one has noticed, capitalism is moribund, and barely capable of weak systemic growth – even with everything in its favour (i.e. externalising all unwarranted costs, and debt funding financialisation (making money from money)). Internalising extraneous costs – like human welfare schemes or the cost of environmental regeneration – would collapse capitalism. Where does that leave ecology, human and environmental?

We need to reduce our environmental footprint by at least 70%; better would be 90%. That means all profligate wastage has to go, starting with capitalists! We cannot sustain a vast, profligate, and parasitic global, hierarchical superstructure, and hope to survive. The ones who are promoting this idealism, of ethical capitalism, are the ones at the top of the pyramid. They will all be at Davos by now, planning next years strategy of political and ecological deceit. They want us to believe that we can carry on the parasitism indefinitely. Or find a system that keeps them as apex parasites. The biosystem cannot afford them. Do not be taken in by their deceit.

The primary ecological mitigation policy is to end capitalism. Or it will end us.

binra
binra
Jan 23, 2019 5:47 PM
Reply to  BigB

We simply need a true and honest account as a basis for decisions. While pollution, war and sickness is profitable it persists. But we do not have such a way of thinking while identity politic operates polarised division.
For everyone sees their shadow in each other.
And so regaining the capacity for communication is the first order – which requires the undoing of the ‘mind-capture’ or conditioned reaction in ourselves – as the transparency to the Receptive as the opening from projected guilt to relational honesty.

I see it that a deceit based system is by definition at war with honest accounting – not just in terms of wealth but in the framing of values. Nothing in the world but is as we choose to see it and so do we then respond.
So why do we see as we do or perhaps to the point – what do we get out of it?

Deceit may be a way of masking the true because its exposure would attract pain of penalty of loss.
We learn this from the earliest age as part of survival in personality development.
Deceit can also be a way of masking an intent to redirect or target any such penalty or loss behind apparently positive intentions or even necessary moral imperatives.

Balancing our account is both an individual and a collective appointment with truth as self-honesty – however in fear of truth, the inevitable reckoning can be delayed or evaded by any and every means – at whatever cost – while others pay it. But in fact, we pay for our own in the exchange of life and love for illusion acted out.

Everything comes home to the mind that thinks it – because in truth it never really left. Unconsciousness is a splitting off of part of the self/reality in support of a surface bubble of the ‘conscious waking’ state.
But this also is both an individual and collective responsibility or ‘choice’ regardless being put ‘out of sight and out of mind’.

The Cartesian split of mind and matter – proceeded to subordinate mind to matter and then drop mind as a mere subjective illusion within material processes.
But matter or form does not in and of itself mean anything, nor does it give meaning to itself or anything else – being absent the capacity of creation.
Mind is creative by definition and via definitions.
Playing the victim in littleness, lack and scarcity is a mental construct imbued with power to regain what it lost, was denied or deprived of. Hence the urge to possess, protect investments and control outcomes against loss. Hence power struggle or more aptly, the split mind.

binra
binra
Jan 22, 2019 7:43 PM
Reply to  rtj1211

The ability to restore health to the Earth is more a matter of the will to heal, than of lack of ways to go about it.
Because the environmental sin has been cultivated as a managed identity, it is generally used as a proxy or power source for corporate leverage – particularly through the CO2 demonising psyop as a means to shift to a global energy control system in which original sin is replaced with ‘carbon footprint’ from moving or doing anything. This system is not intended to be ‘user’ editable, so much as a technocratic result of parameters overseen by AI wielding sysadmins of those who OWN it.

The will to heal is the recognition and relinquishment of the will to hate – particularly in the uncovering of hate or toxic debts that are held and exchanged as if a currency of WORTH.

The will to destroy is our default – albeit as a ‘side effect’ of power struggle or ‘will to power’ from a belief in lack, denial and deprivation. This belief is ‘built in’ to our acquired and inherited sense of self and world.

Recognizing our true nature is shared is of A DIFFERENT FOUNDATION.

I believe this rises spontaneously from no longer protecting the false (foundation) by allowing it to remain hidden behind a mind of diversionary evasions or deceits – that actively WANT to see others evil as a mitigation or displacement of our own. (The need to use ‘other’ as an enemy/hate object). However self-hatred remains no less active for being denied and projected onto others – but a bubble sense of self-vindicating righteousness can take ‘joy’ from the sacrifice of others – as if transferring its sin and consequence to others.

The sacrifice of the Living in exchange for a fantasy sense of self-gratification is the nature of ‘selfishness’ that is no less demanding sacrifice of our Living Self. The ‘devil’s bargain’ is always a lose/lose presented as a temporary gain over another’s loss, and a loss of the wholeness in which to evaluate anything truly.

So yes – to the gist of undoing the pushed narrative of climate alarmism – but this is serving to hide a more broad spectrum threat that includes pervasive biocidal and toxic degradation. We are the canaries in our own mine – but as we fall silent, our system administrators read it as approaching victory, and we adapt to joylessness amidst the background of a silent scream, as normal – as reality in which to ‘survive’.

aldkfj
aldkfj
Jan 22, 2019 9:31 PM
Reply to  binra

I mean, jet streams all screwed up, the Arctic set to be ice free in the summer within a decade, positive feedback loops advancing warming exponentially……..what’s to be alarmed about? Trump doing his best to dismantle every meek measure to reign in fossil fuel production and consumption but instead accelerate both on steroids……what’s to be alarmed about?

Those pesky climatologists.

binra
binra
Jan 22, 2019 11:41 PM
Reply to  aldkfj

https://drtimball.ca/2019/another-climate-propaganda-story-promoting-the-normal-as-abnormal/

You can take the ride on what you are being fed – but why would you want to buy into a negative feedback loop by feeding it your energy and attention?

The true need is kept hidden by false flags to ‘stories’ that hack into human guilt and apocalyptic terrors, along with the sacrificial rituals of the ‘chosen’ ones upon those they are directed to sacrifice. There is nothing new in the pattern excepting it runs behind the mask of ‘science’ as accepted truths of expert elites – or toxic ‘bollox’ hidden within complex instruments of deceit.

Before taking the bait – check the framing for what is actually being said and who it takes you for.
Climate change is simply true for this world IS change.
Defending a mind or model against change is a false or futile investment in a fantasy given power (at expense of true).
Institutional and corporate science is an established investment of identity and reinforcement for the model that is SETTLED by enforced CONSENSUS. In other words under a coercive and tyrannous dictate.

Earth’s poles have been ice-free before and will be again.
Climate alarmism is a political set up – but any vector of inducing fear as the ‘uniting’ against a framed enemy works the same result – but this one targets the guilt associated with the desecration of life as an inescapable self-hatred associated with inevitable destruction that we must act NOW!!! to mitigate.
When Jesus called to come now – did he manipulate guilt and fear as the means?
By their fruits you know them.

Fear and deceit work the politics of wielding hate and vengeance of the few upon the many – and on Life on Earth, and DO the very things – but worse – than are so hatefully projected onto living people whose sin is their carbon footprint and who die in billions within computer simulations. But always with a rolling date and adjusted models!

Living in fear mode (F or F) over-breates and evacuates the body of CO2 – without which O (oxygen) cannot be released to where it is needed. We have ways to starve ourselves of life even amidst abundance. Fear is the hack of a mind manipulation in division and doubt to a confusion tended by the shepherds of fear. Scarcity is the basis of maintaining ‘control’. Look around you!

Fear is the energy source of a negative ‘economy’ and guilt locks the door in un-payable debts for irrevocable sins.
If you walk out of line to even QUESTION this ‘reality’ then you have to own the truth of your own invested beliefs and allegiances – and put them behind you in opening to truth that you/we do not manufacture, rather than cling to the comfort of a settled consensual identity farm.

mark
mark
Jan 23, 2019 2:05 AM
Reply to  aldkfj

I’m old enough to remember all the “experts” and “scientists” telling us all a new Ice Age was imminent.
You’d have to fight off marauding polar bears and packs of timber wolves every time you went out to post a letter or buy a bottle of milk.
But that didn’t come about and instead we had Global Warming.
The Sahara Desert was going to extend as far north as Birmingham and we’d all be growing dates and coconuts in our front gardens.
Now they seem to have hedged their bets with “Climate Change.”
So any kind of weather is proof of this, whether it’s hot, cold, dry or wet. I wish I could get Ladbroke’s to take a bet like that.

Sometimes you see dramatic footage of bits of icebergs breaking off the polar ice caps.
See! It’s global warming! The ice caps are melting! We’re doomed! We’ll all be drowned!
What is really happening is that the polar ice caps are growing and expanding.
The pressure of the new ice in the middle is forcing bits off as it pushes out towards the edges.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Jan 25, 2019 6:05 AM
Reply to  mark

Lunatic denialist gibberish, every syllable testament to malignant ignorance.

binra
binra
Jan 25, 2019 8:15 PM

Lu-na-tic de-ni-a-list gib-ber-ish, ev-e-ry syll-ab-le tes-ta-ment to ma-lig-nant ig-nor-ance.

Nope – it didn’t make a haiku.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Jan 23, 2019 10:07 AM
Reply to  rtj1211

Meanwhile, in Australia (a first world nation last time I looked), fish are dying in their millions in the Murray Darling, wild horses are dying of thirst, the Great Barrier Reef is dying, our government has approved the construction of the largest coal mine in the world and in some towns and cities tomorrow temperatures will reach almost 50c.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
GOODBYE TOMORROW.

binra
binra
Jan 23, 2019 11:25 AM
Reply to  Fair dinkum

Your insinuation is that extreme weather events are caused by man made CO2.
That’s IT! Settled. Failure to groupthink is crime against Humanity – no much worse than that (because humanity is but vermin destroying the Planet) – so the crime is of ecocide or the generation of an extinction event. Not altogether a charge without merit – but nothing to do with CO2 and everything to do with toxic thinking of deceit and manipulation, running as ‘normal currency’.

So your insinuation is that extreme weather events are caused by man made CO2.
Along with this is YOUR powerlessness in relation to a guilty humanity that has not only dealt you destruction, but deprived you of your future and of which you are a part.

Is this what you want? For it is what you are choosing to believe and support as a belief.
Mass migrations due to climate change have occurred before. Expand your focus!
These are very challenging times but they are the times in which we ARE alive.
Giving power away to false protectors is part of buying a false flagged story.
Fear not only sells, it induces a sense of lack in which we ‘sell our soul’.

As for extreme weather. Is this a result of redirecting polar jet streams?
My understanding is of an Electric Universe in which the Earth is within a Solar electric field and not merely shone upon by electromagnetic frequencies across a ‘vacuum’ of space.
I am not waiting on official acceptance or for settled science to release the ‘standard model of care’ as the basis for diagnosis and prognosis.

You don’t know what the future holds but you are clearly capable of acting as if there is none.
Why not free your curiosity and imagination from morbid self-defeating despair?

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Jan 25, 2019 6:07 AM
Reply to  binra

Idiotic ignorance.

binra
binra
Jan 22, 2019 11:32 AM

Using the word ‘vermin’ for other people in public expression is something I associated with genocidal insanity.
The distinction between human thinking and human beings is the difference between equating humanity with vermin or a virus on the Earth (ie:an evil) and recognizing that false thinking is distorting our perception and appreciations of our self, each other and our world. Once false thinking adulterates and subverts the mind, it runs as a narrative masking identity.

The matrix of a masking ‘reality’ overlay is never one alone doing unto others – but always an entanglement in which we play a part of correspondence that is kept hidden by our focus in survival as the mask. Like an iceberg – we have a surface ‘reality’ that is intended to look away from what lies beneath and protect from exposure or reliving of hated or intolerable conflicted self.

Losing our capacity to maintain a surface ‘reality’ is the nature of the beast – or rather the draining of the swamp that reveals the ‘beast’ as hateful deceit.

This is a time of Choice – because what was kept hidden kept our power to choose hidden.
If others seem to give allegiance to the lie, is not a dictate on our own choice. Witnessing to an alternative to fear-slavery is extending light in which others may begin to recognize who they are NOT – instead of running with baited hook of the fear that their fear is truth.

What has the power to deny truth but the giving of power to something else?
What could truth be feared as the ‘attack upon’ or ‘destroyer of’ but this something else?
If we recognized our own fear of exposure to truth, we would have some basis for compassion for others in their own particular patterns of attempt to filter, distort or deny it.

But only insofar as we have some compassion for our self in place of judgement of a surface selection over a shadow of rejection. Who does not hate being deprived and denied – and seek to regain what was their right from the treacherous and deceitful.

What goes around, comes around.

J'Accuse News (@NewsAccuse)
J'Accuse News (@NewsAccuse)
Jan 22, 2019 11:22 AM

Pistachio-pitchman Stephen Colbert’s paycheck came from the characters profiled in Yasha Levine’s “Oligarch Valley: How Beverly Hills billionaire farmers Lynda and Stewart Resnick profit from the Iran sanctions they lobbied for” https://mondoweiss.net/2013/07/oligarch-valley-how-beverly-hills-billionaire-farmers-lynda-and-stewart-resnick-profit-from-the-iran-sanctions-they-lobbied-for/

binra
binra
Jan 22, 2019 10:52 AM

What’s new?
War – as the assertion of narrative reality – is the battle for the mind of illusion in which all ‘sides’ join in denying truth.
Rather than personalise the attack and thus suffer the gift we give others, better to see that the ego or the mind of the denial of truth, never sleeps, but is active in defence of illusion against truth and in belief that its illusion is truth, and is attacked and so is justified in attacking back.
Don’t listen to lies. Don’t look for truth where it is not to be found.
Narrative identities are entanglements in hate.
The gift we give, is the fruits by which we know ourselves.
To give ourselves to hate is a form of worth-ship.
Owning the hate that is our own, is part of recognising we do not want it.
While we give it cause in the world of our perception and belief – we have no power to release it and recognise our freedom.

Others may well be behaving insanely – but to see this is a different perspective that calls upon Sanity to be restored rather than revenge.

The voice for illusion is as loud as our willingness to hear it.
Its appeal for our attention uses everything in our mind …against it.
War on truth is war on sanity or rather insanity in which war replaces truth as the means and condition of salvation. The insane belief that separation and denial save us from fear is the fragmentation and limitation of consciousness. “Slavery is Freedom” – or a tyrannous mind maintains its reality as your own, by using fear and guilt over terror.

The attempt to hide our fear is giving power to the belief it must needs be hidden and that calls on every trick or ruse of diversion and displacement by which to hide it in others. Fear is division that then sees and acts insanely – knowing not what it does – because it knows only as fear directs.

MichaelK
MichaelK
Jan 22, 2019 10:51 AM

I used to quite like Colbert, Maher, Stewart et al, during the Bush era. I had my doubts and felt uneasy though. They seemed a bit too self-satisfied for my tastes and too partisan. I mean laughing at conservative Republicans and their dire leaders is just a little too easy. Then everything changed when Obama was elected. He looked like everything the liberal/left had dreamed about for decades. A Black President! Think of the symbolism.

But the way Obama looked wasn’t enough, there has to be some substance underneath the smooth, glossy, surface of hip liberalism US style. Only there wasn’t. Underneath Obama was hollow and the surface merely a thin, veneer, a husk. Underneath was a conservastive Republican from the 1950’s. Obama sent out so many liberal cultural signals which made the rich liberals swoon over him, but for ordinary people he was a disaster. Probably one of the worst presidents ever. A president who achieved virtually nothing of lasting value after eight years in power, apart from paving the way for the rise of Donald Trump. But Colbert and the rest of the liberal media elite still simply adore him beyond reason.

Colbert seems deranged. He’s not funny. He’s frightening. He reminds me of a powerful lord mocking a little old woman being dragged towards the stake to be burned as a witch after a show-trial. Once one believes in the existance of witchcraft, finding the guilty witches is the easy part.

It’s the towering conceit of Colbert that’s so shocking. The colossal egotism. Never for a second does one sense the slightest doubt about the story of Trump’s treachery in his mind. Great comics often embrace our flaws, our doubts, or insecurities, our folly, our ignorance. Satire examines the tragedy of human existance. The lies and certainties we believe to be true with a comincal passion. Our ability to delude ourselves into stupidity and ridiculousness for the noblest of reasons, because the mirror we loving gaze into reflects a false image and not the truth.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Jan 22, 2019 11:35 AM
Reply to  MichaelK

Vanity heaped upon hubris.
He’s got a lot in common with the Orangutang

harry stotle
harry stotle
Jan 22, 2019 10:06 AM

All foretold – Colbert and shysters like him are the kind of artifacts predicted in a post-truth world.
Put another way the MSM is its own hermeneutically sealed judge and jury.

binra
binra
Jan 22, 2019 11:38 AM
Reply to  harry stotle

The Main Stream Mind – in all its seeming parts. Is the investment in its own (self) conviction.
The opening of the mind to that it may be wrong about itself may seem destructive to its sense of defence and therefore denied, but … what if we are wrong about ourselves because we are thinking from a false basis and yet ‘love and protect’ our thought as our self?

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Jan 22, 2019 9:58 AM

It must be difficult for Colbert and his slimy ilk.
Not biting the hands that feed them, while licking their arses at the same time.
The pinnacle of contortionism?