The US military has been unable to find any evidence that the Russian government paid bounties on US troops to Taliban-linked fighters in Afghanistan, confirming what was already obvious to anyone who hasn’t had their brain stem hijacked by mass media-induced Russophobia.

NBC News reports the following:

Two months after top Pentagon officials vowed to get to the bottom of whether the Russian government bribed the Taliban to kill American service members, the commander of troops in the region says a detailed review of all available intelligence has not been able to corroborate the existence of such a program.

 

“It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me,” Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. continues to hunt for new information on the matter, he said.

 

“We continue to look for that evidence,” the general said. “I just haven’t seen it yet. But … it’s not a closed issue.”

 

McKenzie’s comments, reflecting a consensus view among military leaders, underscores the lack of certainty around a narrative that has been accepted as fact by Democrats and other Trump critics, including presidential nominee Joe Biden, who has cited Russian bounties in attacks on President Donald Trump.

Like many other critical voices, I said from the beginning that there was no reason to believe the Russian bounties narrative and that the mass publication of baseless and nonsensical claims circulated anonymously by US intelligence operatives constitutes journalistic malpractice. There is no excuse for a reporter to ever present anonymous CIA press releases under the guise of news, especially when they make no sense; the US-centralized coalition in Afghanistan is a hostile occupying force and there are an essentially limitless number of people there who require no financial incentive to attack them.

But this is exactly what happened. Once the news media had reported the unsubstantiated rumor given to them by anonymous spies, spinmeisters like Rachel Maddow began presenting it as an objective fact that had been fully authenticated, and from there the entire Democratic political/media class began months of loudly babbling about how suspicious it is that the US president hadn’t confronted Vladimir Putin and sanctioned Russia in response to this verified fact.

And it was never anything of the sort. It was fake. But now aggressions have been ramped up against Russia, Trump has been painted as a Putin puppet who hates the troops, Senate Democrats have introduced a bill mandating sanctions on any Russians involved in this imaginary conspiracy, and legislation has been passed making it harder for Trump to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

The story did its job, and now that it’s proven false the same people who promoted it are uniformly ignoring the new evidence which clearly shows it to have been bogus.

This story has been so ubiquitously promoted within the establishment liberal echo chamber that it’s impossible to list all the dishonest portrayals it’s been given since June, but to pick just a few recent examples:

Again, that’s just a very few very recent examples. Now that their claims have proven false, how many of these highly influential people do you think are using their massive platforms to spread awareness of this fact? Take a wild guess.

If you said zero, you are correct. In fact Democratic Party influencers are even continuing to promote the debunked Russian bounties story many hours after the report debunking it became available on mainstream platforms. Andrew Bates, Director of Rapid Response for the Biden campaign, just tweeted that “Trump is giving Russia a pass for putting bounties on the heads of American service members.”

Again, this is hours after it’s been public knowledge that this is a completely false thing to assert.

And we can absolutely expect this to continue. We can absolutely expect establishment Democrats to continue bleating about Russian bounties in Afghanistan for as long as it is politically convenient to do so. They never let the lack of evidence for their position get in the way before, and they won’t let it get in the way now. The arguments that they make for their power-serving position are not designed to reflect truth or reality, they are designed to serve power. That’s exactly what echo chambers are for.

An email published by WikiLeaks in 2016 was sent by Democratic Party insider John Podesta to billionaires George Soros, Peter Lewis, John Sperling, and Herb and Marion Sandler in 2007 with a detailed and structured overview of material the group had covered during a meeting they’d had in September (to read the email click ‘Attachments’ and then ‘2008 Combined Fundraising, Message and Mobilization Plan’). Among the thing these powerful manipulators discussed was the creation of a “robust echo chamber” to be used in the party’s interests.

On page two of the attachment:

Control the political discourse. So much effort over the past few years has been focused on better coordinating, strengthening, and developing progressive institutions and leaders. Now that this enhanced infrastructure is in place — grassroots organizing; multi-issue advocacy groups; think tanks; youth outreach; faith communities; micro-targeting outfits; the netroots and blogosphere — we need to better utilize these networks to drive the content of politics through a strong “echo chamber” and message delivery system”.

And on page four:

“Create a robust echo chamber with progressive messaging that spans from the opposition campaigns to outside groups, academic experts, and bloggers.”

Usually when you see the names Podesta and Soros presented together it just means you stumbled into a bad corner of the internet pervaded by sloppy thinking and an irrational trust in anonymous 8chan posts, but in this WikiLeaks email we actually get a useful glimpse into the reason people can keep babbling about something that’s completely divorced from the truth without being smashed by cognitive dissonance. The fact that echo chambers are actively created by establishment manipulators enables establishment-friendly narratives to remain afloat long after evidence should have sunk them.

Several weeks ago I tweeted “It’s clear that ‘Russia paid bounties to Taliban fighters’ is one of those narratives the propagandists decided to ram into mainstream consciousness until they force it to become consensus orthodoxy by repetition and sheer force of will, with zero interest in facts or evidence.”

This has indeed happened, and it will continue to happen. The oligarchs who rule over us have so thoroughly divorced the information ecosystem from truth that they can get people to believe just about anything. They do this because they understand that humans are storytelling animals and you control the humans by controlling the stories. We will be unable to fight lies with truth until we collectively understand this fact as well as our oppressors.

_____________________

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49 responses to “Democrats Ignore US Military’s Refutation Of ‘Russian Bounties’ Story”

  1. I don’t get how this was ever supposed to be a scandal. Isn’t it kind of the job of soldiers to kill enemy soldiers?
    I suppose if you Put in the Russian angle, then it is supposed to trigger the masses.

  2. Not a huge surprise the U.S. military can’t find evidence. The U.S. military depends on Russian cooperation to maintain their presence in Afghanistan, given the on-off relationship with Pakistan.

    The Russians hardly need set bounties for U.S. soldiers. They probably have had to pay people off NOT to stir the pot, creating a larger mess on their doorstep.

  3. Bingo! Of the four W’s, those being who, what, where and why, we are left to speculate only on the question of why. Obviously someone wants to keep Russia in the hotbox as a boogie man to justify certain attitudes and actions which might otherwise seem baseless. Speaking of which, the U.S. being baseless in Afghanistan is long overdue IMHO. One would think the Globalists would be satisfied with their expansion enabled by the newly formed Space Force whereby they can ultimately play their Star Wars games off-planet. Ballistics in the absence of gravity and atmosphere gets quite easy to calculate.

  4. When he was newly appointed head of the CIA at the time, William Casey stated in a moment of candor that he probably thought would never be made public: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false”. This was in February 1981, in response to a question from the newly inaugurated president Reagan who asked Casey what he saw as his goal as director of the CIA. The quote was recorded by Barbara Honegger, Assistant to the chief domestic policy adviser to the President, who passed it on to Senior White House correspondent Sarah McClendon who then made it public. See: http://truthstreammedia.com/2015/01/13/cia-flashback-well-know-our-disinformation-program-is-complete-when-everything-the-american-public-believes-is-false/

    As realtime debunkings of outputs from the CIA lie factory are now routine, unlike in 1981, so new lies must be concocted rapidly and on a continuous basis, over and above what Trump is doing to their mental health. The lies consequently become ever less coherent and plausible and easier to debunk — a vicious cycle that implies the CIA’s disinformation program not only can never be “complete”, but will only intensify as the empire Capitalism’s Invisible Army props up continues to disintegrate, and the lies for its preservation suffer the same fate in ever shortening and amnesic news cycles.

    Schadenfreude for the flailing kakistocracy is but a small consolation for all the harm and suffering it has inflicted and strives to prolong and intensify.

  5. In 2019 Kristian Niemietz of London’s Institute of Economic Affairs published a useful volume titled Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies.” He notes a tendency for socialists and neo-socialists to pitch their programs almost exclusively in terms of their hoped-for results rather than in terms of concrete social processes and actions they hope to set in motion. I have been saying this for years. Marxists provide strategies and tactics for forcing capitalists into financial ruin and economic chaos leading to the end of capitalist control and the start of communist. But communist states introduce a new set of evils and tyrants. Yeshua, the great liberator described several strategies and tactics for eventually eliminating all psychopaths and parasites of society. He explained everything in detail in cryptic language to avoid tyrants discovering and obstructing His plan for revolution. For 1700 years the Roman Catholic Church twisted and corrupted His lectures and brilliant revolutionary strategies through translation errors and/or massive censoring of relevant ancient records. The Catholic Church is the mother of abominations, collaborating with governments and oppressors in fraud, mind control and violent oppression.

    1. Well, then, why don’t you provide us with a corrected version of the Gospels (or the Apocrypha, or whatever)? Something positive instead of merely condemning one institution?

  6. The other week, before Caitlin first warned it was a sham, I thought to myself, secretly, that it was a sham, precisely because Caitlin taught me how to spot shams. Now it’s officially a sham; and I’d like to thank Caitlin for teaching me how to spot shams:

    Thank you, Caitlin.

  7. People have many ulterior motives for parroting back information that they know to be false. What is worse is people actually believing the nonsense, because their too lazy or disinterested in learning the truth. An intelligent person gathers and analyzes data before coming to a conclusion. However, that’s not how the majority of humans are wired. Most decide what they believe, then look only for information that substantiates their opinions. Often, the truth is generally discarded or ignored by them, because it doesn’t serve their purpose.

  8. Another excellent post – where do you find the time to compile all this. I need your energy and investigative skills… Take care and rest, you deserve it! I’m now on VK as Facebook has gone over to the dark side.

  9. How do we each, as single human beings, “know” absolutely anything about anything? How far can you see out your window? From how far away can you hear a conversation? If you’re like me, you depend upon much more than your own eyes or ears. You depend upon sources of information to act as extensions of your eyes and ears.
     
    What is “truth”, and just exactly how do we know truth when we see, hear or read it? How do we determine for our own individual selves HISTORICAL truth? What is the ultimate “standard” of truth?
     
    Is historical truth an accurate verbal or typed description of reality or a recording made by a video or film camera? Even if we had video/audio recordings, even from various angles, would we need oral or written words to “really understand” what our eyes and ears observed? If words are necessary, just exactly who or how many would/should write those words? If many write words, how would we decide which collection of words was/is the truth? Answer: We’d watch the recordings and decide for ourselves. WE determine the truth. But what function would all those words serve? Whom would they serve? Why would all those people write all those words; for example, would the writers be paid by someone to write them?
     
    This is our dilemma. Whom, Whom, WHOM! or WHAT do we trust to tell us the “truth” (especially nowadays and even more especially when there are no recordings made by recording devices)?
     
    Predictions of future events are even more problematic. For example, I sit at my computer and I read an article on the NYT website that there is going to be a solar eclipse on January 1, 2021 and that this eclipse will be visible from certain locations on the surface of Mother Earth. The writer of the article lists several sources of astronomical information — observatories, university departments of astronomy, etc.
     
    Not being an astronomer myself, and no longer trusting the NYT to report truth about anything past, present or future, I read this same information on several diverse web sites, newspapers and MSM and alternative media. Only after reading all of this do I believe with close to 100% certainty that there will be an eclipse on Jan 1 and that it will be visible from certain locations on Mother Earth.
     
    But much of humanity’s future is far less predictable than solar eclipses (isn’t it?!). For example, I believe a local weather forecast with FAR LESS certainty than the “forecast” of the solar eclipse. One might instinctively assume that human behavior would be the least predictable of all, but this is in fact not the case. It is not the case because the human animal is very delicate. It requires very simple things to survive. Therefore, within a given nation, on the whole, a herd of human beings is highly predictable. The proof of that proposition is that, on the whole, we can predict with only slightly less certainty than an eclipse that Rs or Ds will be elected by the herd to the office of POTUS and the vast majority of congress-people on November 3, 2020, AGAINST the herd’s own self-interest. Is the herd “free” to do otherwise? You tell me.
     
    There was a time when the NYT, WaPo, and the “respected” MSM TV reported a fair amount of “truth” other than solar eclipses, but that time is long gone. History has proven these sources’ unreliability or outright lying time and time again, especially during the last 29 years and even more especially since 9/11. It’s gotten so bad that it is likely that whatever it is that these sources report – for example, that Russia and China are aggressors and that Iran is the greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world, etc. — the truth is the exact opposite. This is pure projection. The increasingly obvious truth, even to cadavers, is that the US and its vassal states are the aggressors and greatest practitioners of terrorism in the world. But the reporting of these sources of lies is still, paradoxically, valuable for this very same reason.
     
    Therefore, I read a long list of sources of information every day before I arrive at what I believe “the truth” to be and I hope you do the same.
     
    Here’s a bit of truth that I know with absolute certainty. The Oligarchic Transnational Elite Collective (“OTEC” –remember, a hermit with the handle Ishkabibble coined that acronym on this spot, on September 15, 2020) — the microscopic percentage of the human population that owns or controls the vast majority of wealth, land and large scale capital equipment for its own astronomical profit – are today in a state of absolute panic. OTEC is panicking because its members know with 100% certainty that unless they very soon get total control over absolutely everything that their bewildered herds of voters can possibly see, read and watch every single day of their lives, as well as the “money” that the herds spend to survive, they will not be able to maintain the lifestyle to which they feel they are entitled. Sometimes earthquakes happen and asteroids strike and some good people cannot be bribed.
     
    OTEC does not do running-down-the-street, screaming-at-the-top-of-their-lungs panic. They realize, in their secret panic, that what they must do is completely eliminate all sources of information and money over which they do not have complete control. This is exactly what we see happening today. Again, formerly trusted, respected MSM are now spitting out near-100% lies 24/7 about anything of great economic or geopolitical importance. OTEC is trying like hell, spending whatever printed-out-of-thin-air money it takes, to get alternative/competing sources of information either outright eliminated or brought under total OTEC control. Assange/Wikileaks is THE perfect example of OTEC’s information siege. OTEC’s “Group of 30” slaves are diligently working on total money control.
     
    Joseph Goebbels spelled out the principles of effective propaganda during the Nazi era. By employing them, the Nazis brought an entire nation under total control. OTEC is attempting to do exactly the same thing in their nations as I type. “1984”-like revision of history by the MSM is in full swing.
     
    Even though we are unaware of it, we are soldiers dutifully marching to WWIII – the war that will truly end all wars. OTEC is arranging the upcoming false flags that will not only justify it but, OTEC hopes, make the masses beg and die for it. By voting for an R or D in the upcoming election, we pave the road to war. Don’t do it. Do not go gentle into that good war.

    1. It’s called “trust” and it’s your “trust” in believing or not believing, which is the true arbiter of your decision. If you trust what you are told, what you see and hear, and what you discover from your research, then the results are what you must use for your final assessment.
      For example, was Marlow assassinated or was he just killed a pub brawl. Did Richard III come down from York to kill the two young princes in the tower or did he rush down to save them. Was King George III really mad? Or, did he just have metal on the brain or a blood disorder. Was JFK assassinated by a loan shooter or was it an inside job. Is Covid-19 a real virus causing a pandemic or just a common coronavirus/bad flu which was manipulated by evil people to bring about Agenda 21. The list could go on forever, but that is not the point. The point I’m making is that you must be responsible for any conclusion you come too whether it be wrong or right. In the end it comes down to trust – there is I believe another ingredient that comes into play and that is your heart/love and common sense.
      Buddha put it most succinctly when he said: “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, not even if I said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense” My system is simple, never trust the official narrative, the government, or people in white coats, and always question everything.

      1. I would add, if I may, in school, you were REQUIRED to get multiple POVs for an A on a research project. That does not mean watching Rachel Maddow, then listening to her hand picked, counterpoint ‘pro-Trump’ guest. These are coordinated b.s.

        Read the opposition, your favorites, then read more opposition, then something new. Yes, that means Brietbart, Jimmy Dore, Fox, NPR, WSJ, NYT, history, then start all over. After a while, clues emerge. You can read between the lines. It helps to break out the echo chambers.

  10. Another WorldView Is Possible Avatar
    Another WorldView Is Possible

    Yes Caitlin…more proof that a ‘Biden contingency’ could mean a Global Thermonuclear war for Dr. Strangelove-inspired Empire. http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-top-scientists-confirm-u-s-goal-now-is-to-conquer-russia-disarming-enemies-with-a-surprise-nuclear-first-strike/5588524

    Zbigniew Brzezinsky and Dick Cheney seem to have designed this awful Empire, and Clintonite Quislings have helped them do it, every step of the way.

    Ted Lieu represents the US’ Endless Warmachine – ahead of my district – which being Western LA and Santa Monica – speaks to the failure of democracy, defeated by “Democracy”©(TM). I think that I’ll be voting for whoever is opposing Ted – as per the usual, and yet he’ll still coast to Victory, in one if the most progressive areas in the country. It speaks to the power of that MOCKINGBIRD Media monopoly, and the Echo Chamber that you helped publicize and expose. At this point, we can only hope for a benevolent Diety, and an afterlife filled with appropriate rewards, and endless sadistic punishments – if we hope that justice will prevail.

    1. The present American empire is the outcome of plans and policies cooked up around 1900 by such as (T) Roosevelt and Wilson. It proved not possible to put them into effective action until World War 2 left the US as just about the last man standing. The general American plan was to change the old colonial empires and defeated enemies into a collection of satellites mostly through economic means; in the case of those areas not yet controllable, to surround them with a sort of cordon sanitaire which would prevent their revolutionary faiths (communism or Islam) from spreading. They would then be allowed to stew in their own juice, preferably with minimal violence, until they were ready the join the empire. The idea man was George Kennan and the architects included Truman, Marshall, Acheson, Eisenhower, and so on — the Founding Fathers of the New World Order. The plan almost worked; as of around 1990, capitalism was the only game in town and someone could write a book called _Empire_ without having to say which one. Too bad for the plan that their successors blew it.

      1. Great comment! However, I disagree with the conclusion you state in your last sentence. Quite obviously to me, after conducting another in a long line of false flas such as the Gulf of Tonkin, the US will attack Russia while simultaneously screaming to the world that Russia has attacked the US. The question is: how will the Russian military respond — with a full-scale retaliatory nuclear attack on the US and all of its world-wide military bases, even in bordering nations? The US Elite are betting that Russia won’t.

  11. Beyond the pandemic, economic collapse, and civil unrest, Vivos proffers a sprawling list of situations in which a bunker might be useful: solar flares, super volcanoes, “killer asteroids,” civil wars. Some scenarios are yet more esoteric. A bunker might be useful in case a “Planet X” shows up—an eventuality also known as the Nibiru Cataclysm, a conspiracy theory that goes back to the 1990s, promoted by a medium who received messages from aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system.

    But who needs to worry about the lost planet of Nibiru when what is going on right now is going on right now? “I’m not saying this is what happened,” Vicino told me, spooling out a hypothetical that he started thinking about this winter. “Start a pandemic. Hide the antidote. Allow it to get out of control. Quarantine countries. Stop international trade. Create a global economic collapse. Usher in a worldwide depression. Allow food riots and starvation. Watch the population kill itself off. Allow governments to collapse. The final thing is: Restore what’s needed once the population is reduced by 95 percent.” He paused for effect. “Now, that’s scary. That’s a conspiracy!”
    ~
    This timely article can be read here:
    The Bunker Magnates Hate to Say They Told You So
    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/09/rising-s-vivos-and-the-booming-bunker-economy/616240/

  12. “…the mass publication of baseless and nonsensical claims circulated anonymously by US intelligence operatives constitutes journalistic malpractice. There is no excuse for a reporter to ever present anonymous CIA press releases under the guise of news, especially when they make no sense…”
    .
    When one expects a liar to tell the truth, they’re going to be waiting a very long time. And they’ll always be bitterly disappointed. But when one knows he/she is listening to a liar, they know what they are hearing are lies. And they can have some fun with that. Know the source of your information, and you know the truth of that information.
    .
    As “The Castaways” sang many years ago… “Liar, liar, pants on fire… Your nose is longer than a telephone wire.”
    .
    “The oligarchs who rule over us have so thoroughly divorced the information ecosystem from truth that they can get people to believe just about anything. They do this because they understand that humans are storytelling animals and you control the humans by controlling the stories.”
    .
    People will believe anything because they do not trust their own judgment. They do not want to make the effort to think for themselves. They want someone else to tell them what to think and what to do. They want to exist in a lifetime bubble of ignorant bliss based upon lies fueled by falsehoods and misplaced trust. Living a happy life constructed out of contrived nonsense.

  13. When integrity is the rule, fallacies and errors are brought honestly into the open, where they can be seen and discarded.-Leonard E. Read

    1. Another WorldView Is Possible Avatar
      Another WorldView Is Possible

      Write-in Jesse Ventura… Voting fir Trump just encourages the Democrats to join the GOP in moving farther and farther to the right. Voting for a third (non-aligned) candidate speaks to a rejection of the Corporatist/OVERT Fascist War and Extinction Duopoly Party.

      1. Uh, er, I don’t think Jesse Ventura has 10s of millions of ppl who will vote for him, and maybe win… and I can’t think of any good reason to vote for him, tho he’s an…uh..ok…guy. If it’s a choice between the Anglo-American elites & Dude (old enuf) to remember when he went to school that the British System is antithetical to the American System, even if he doesn’t understand what he’s doing, I’ll take the pro American System guy. Even a Canadian, Matt Ehret, who like most in Britain colonies have American true facts hidden from them in school, knows Trump has balls, if not the brains, to expose ‘the Global Oligarchical System’. Now, we simply get him back to talking about working with Russia & China, like US used to do (tho he’ll probably be assassinated if he does), so there’s that.

        https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/13/the-historic-clash-of-two-opposing-geopolitical-paradigms/

        1. Another WorldView Is Possible Avatar
          Another WorldView Is Possible

          Well then you don’t REALLY oppose the system… You just support the system’s second choice. But Trump is stil connected to eveything that you claim to oppose. He’s been ‘besties’ with Netanyahu for more than 20 years. He does whatever the Likud Genocidal Party wants him to do – and supports their choice for the position of Saudi Ruler (MBS). Never forget, that $hillary and her team, told their network of spies in the Corporatist STATE Media – to promote Trump’s candidacy. Or that she and Trump have both a long collaborative relationship, and many friends in common – like Sheldon Adelson, Epstein and Maxwell.

          You just want to vote for the “winner” that brings a completely naked fascism to power, it seems. Jesse Ventura isn’t mathematically eliminated – and more people supporting his far-better policy ideas, and talking about him, makes his viability grow. Merely endorsing Trump – encourages the worst tendencies within American society and Government to further dominate the host organism.

          Under Trump OR Biden – war in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, China, and Russia are almost inevitable. Jesse Ventura doesn’t mouth opposition to this – he would have the competency to actually prevent the military and Itelligence Agencies from doing it. If past is prologue – Trump will just let all of that evil occur, at whatever timetable those Agencies and Departments want them to. And Trump will act like he’s in charge, and deliver justifications for those actions – that don’t actually justify them. And then in 2024 – you’ll get the Mike Pompeo Dominionist “Regency”.

  14. If the Democrats, no, if Americans and world leaders would remain focused on the abusive empirical powers that are separating children from their parents at the US southern border and continued cruelty of children in cages, the USA might be in healthier shape. Instead the MSM throws bullshit stories used to distract the simple minded. Keep an eye on reality of what all can see and know as fact.

  15. Remember when the television broadcast signal was switched from analogue to digital, in the US? It was mandatory. Everyone had to buy a silly digital signal reciever for their television sets. 2008 ish, if I remember correctly.

  16. This is another example of democrats obsessing with trump to the point where they have to imitate his behavior, because they want to convince his voters to vote for Biden. Like maybe if we run with baldfaced lies, that will turn them on. Instead of doing anything, any thing to enpower the so called base, that by now used to make up their voting constituency. Its as if the democrats are secretly run by republicans who are too embarassed to admit theyre republicans because of all the shit talking theyve done.

    1. Democrats and Republicans are interchangeable. They play their parts as needed in a very bad form of kabuki theater. Trump is the oddball who can’t remember his lines.

      1. I’m not sure what you are saying?

        Are you saying both parties are controlled by one force and this Democrat / Republican fight is simply just theater (much like a fixed boxing match).

        Or, are you saying these are factions fighting among themselves but the end result is the same for the average person (much like rival organized crime gangs fighting for control over a geographic area but the average person in that area is subject to extortion regardless of which gang wins)?

        1. Yes, they are both controlled by the ruling class under capitalism. You can see this clearly if you study history which shows that U.S. policies, both foreign and domestic, always favor the rich, regardless of who is in power.
          The two-party system is a sham to fool people into believing we have a choice. Two sides of the same coin.

  17. The Democrats could make up any lie to attack Trump. Why lie about Russian bounties and why now? Are they trying to depress Trump’s base to limit their turnout at the voting booth? Or are they actually worried Trump will not leave office voluntarily (assuming he loses) and that a transition of power will be resolved by force. Are their lies are an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the military? One or all of the above or something else? I do not know. Comments are welcome.

    1. Ever heard a rich person admit that they were flat out wrong about something? Me neither, not in person anyway. They’re not lying, they’re convincing themselves that their Russia story was true all along.

  18. MSM is owned by the pharmaceutical business, being its largest advertiser, and has been infiltrated by the CIA for more than 50 years. To expect truth from them is delusional. To expect any reasonable responsible behavior from any gang of Psychopaths In Charge is psychotic. Or just plain willful ignorance. Congratulations to Public Education for their success in creating at least one generation of biological robots.

  19. A person’s race, religion, sex, etcetera shouldn’t matter, but obviously it does whether we like it or not, and I would just like to say that as a white person my observation is that on the whole, white people are by and large, shit people; of course we all know why that is because white people can be further divided into other smaller groups, but membership in these other groups are for the most part are self reporting, and as we all know, white people are for the most part are filthy, conniving, theiving, hypocrites who are for the most part not above raping and eating their own kids; they, us white people are the trash of the universe, so of course trash will lie and say that it’s not trash, but, of course, trash is exactly what we are, and we should be wiped off the face of the earth before we murder every living thing on this planet.

    1. You go first.
      I don’t know about the Arab slave traders, but I do know that the Portuguese slave traders did not run around the African Continent kidnapping people for their slave market. All they had to do was set up trading posts on the coast and offer to buy slaves. Africans provided them.
      There is no race that is fundamentally more guilty, nor more innocent than any other. You should use other sources for your edification besides the constant barrage of propaganda you apparently consume.

  20. The deception effectiveness window. This term means that every deception has limited lifespan. Eventually it will be exposed. People who use deception recognize this. They want to keep people deceived just long enough to get them to go along with a certain action, such as supporting a new war or electing a particular person. After that the deceivers don’t care if it is exposed, the deed is done and they have gotten what they wanted.

    1. I think, though, that we could ask for a higher quality of propaganda. The Russian bounty story is like something out of the Arabian Nights, which I guess is par for the course in the region where it is set, except the Arabian Nights is generally entertaining.

  21. “The oligarchs who rule over us have so thoroughly divorced the information ecosystem from truth that they can get people to believe just about anything. They do this because they understand that humans are storytelling animals and you control the humans by controlling the stories. We will be unable to fight lies with truth until we collectively understand this fact as well as our oppressors.” No, even that understanding will not suffice for truth to triumph over lies, because one story can only be fought with another. What we desperately need right now is a new story, a counter-narrative, telling the truth as best we can see it but doing so much more. The failure of the left to come up a new story since the workers’ paradise failed to materialize has left it engaging in an endless (and ultimately tiresome) bitch-fest about the neoliberal status quo. Only when such dystopian thinking gives way to utopian visions, new stories about the nature and meaning of reality, the ultimate context in which we live our lives, will the left again gain traction and perhaps–who knows or dares to dream–again set the world on fire.

    1. Exactly right, Newton. Well said.
       
      But pleading with average members of the bewildered herd to imagine the intimate details of a better world will get the same result as pleading with a cat to attempt to play a Chopin etude. Unless both animals perceive their lives to be literally at stake, which they are, they’re not going to give it a try. When they do reach that perception, which IMO upcoming events will literally force upon them, it will already be too late.

      1. Magnificent etude. Thank you for two minutes of beauty in what has become a very ugly world–not nature but the one of human creation. I don’t expect that many average people will be able to come up with new utopian visions, new socioeconomic blue prints, but aren’t we supposed to still have some genuine intellectuals around, some creative, cutting edge-type thinkers? Or have they all become what Kierkegaard called paragraph-eaters, academics more interested in their careers than in doing anything significant, much less risky, for the world? Where the hell is our 21st Century Thomas Paine or Edward Bellamy?

  22. So Trump got pierced by lies. Why should I feel sorry for Trump when lies are all that he spouts? Americans have been lying to themselves for decades if not centuries, the logical conclusion had them electing a proudly ignorant, bare-faced liar as President. The world can no longer pretend US citizens know anything about the world, their own best interests, or the best interests of their longest allies and best friends. US citizens have put the world through 3 great recessions in 20 years, destroying decades of lower and middle class wealth. US citizens can’t be expected to defend democracy, expand human rights, maintain the incorruptible rule of ‘law’, or manage the most important part of world’s economy.

  23. Ms Johnstone, the ” owners and the masters ” keep the ” general public ” entranced with fake news and other nonsense so that the public ignores just how stupid and idiotic ” the government charade actually is “. When world war III begins everyone on this planet will be on the battlefield still completely unaware of just how and why they were manipulated into hell on earth. ” Your Service Is No Longer Required ” – the owners and the masters have finally decided to get rid of all of you!

  24. There is a lot of desperation and shouting down coming from the players on the left side of America’s uniparty. Some of them face criminal charges, serious ones, if they lose power. I’m not saying the right-side of the uniparty is better. They are not, just different. The Clintons and Bushes are all on the same team, for instance, since Iran-Contra. About 9.5% of the apparently asymptomatc UT students who wanted to go to a football gams, and had to take a COVID test, showed positive. That’s an interesting slice of the college pie for 3 weeks into classes. Felt ok, they did. Me, I’m starting a banana grove this fall and winter, to compliment the vegetable gardens, mixed orchards and avocado orchard.
    https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/09/covid-goes-to-college.html

  25. So here’s some more filthy little lies in action, which obviously isn’t happening since far more important things than total annihilation are afoot.

    https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23218/russian-flotilla-appears-off-syria-as-accusations-fly-ahead-of-assads-next-big-offensive

    And, of course, everyone knows that Assad will use chemical weapons against his own people, but let’s forget about all that for now; aren’t there any football games being televised?

  26. Egotists rarely, if ever, admit fault or error.
    They don’t know how to.

    1. All we seem to have now in public life are rightists.

  27. Democrats prefer shared delusions to reality.

  28. Russians killed thousands of CIA funded ISIS terrorists in Syria
    “We killed hundreds of Russians in Syria” ~ madman Pompeo
    America is ruled by UNIPARTY psychopaths

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