Nathaniel Heidenheimer Posted July 20, 2012 Author Share Posted July 20, 2012 (edited) By left-gatekeeping I mean attempts to control the left by intelligence agencies or their surrogates (foundations, academics, or publishing companies) who are 1) trying to maintain credibility with left audiences but only in order to 2) neutralize this audience so that the net effect of their writing/ pontificating is to A) split the left up even more make them get even localer than local so the connection between social movements and electoral politics is broken even more C) cover up key events in recent history [e.g. the RFK 1968 campaign where something was in danger of actually working, and turning it into a litmus test of what it means to be a good leftist [i.e. how much can you bash RFK ] D) disconnecting key policies from key events so that the youthful leftist is left thinking "why bother with the assassinations since there were no policy consequences and one dead Kennedy is no better than one dead Cuban] hence taking all consciousness away from such things as the legitimation (or not) of a completely corrupt political system, the legitimation (or not ) of a completely corrupt media system... etc. In short it is Using "left" to prevent left., and it easy because of money and because of the collapse of the teaching of history under Wall Street's testing and Charter school barrage, which does not leave enough time to let history explain how power works. Also, Paul, Obama and Clinton are rightists at different stages of the same, 45 year long, rightward movement, that includes the RFK and MLK assassinations, and the Democratic big wigs desertion of George McGovern, who, it is too often forgotten was a backer of RFK in 1968. Edited July 20, 2012 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted July 20, 2012 Share Posted July 20, 2012 Paul, there is only one party, the property party, with two right wings..... Clinton was famous for triangulation, remember "welfare reform"? For democrats, it is all about demonizing the least wealthy and powerful, just like the wing of the one party you seem to hold in such contempt! http://www.salon.com/2009/09/23/grayson_2/ Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) — my guest on Salon Radio today — yesterday pointed out that the bill passed by both the Senate and House to de-fund ACORN is written so broadly that it literally compels the de-funding not only of that group, but also the de-funding of, and denial of all government contracts to, any corporation that “has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.” By definition, that includes virtually every large defense contractor, which — unlike ACORN — has actually been found guilty of fraud. As The Huffington Post‘s Ryan Grim put it: ”the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.”..... http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2012/07/12/war-veteran-vote-florida/ The discredited group ACORN successfully used the minimum wage issue in Florida in 2004. ”In Red State Florida, Victory for Working People” John Atlas reported, “The decision for ACORN, which has chapters in 28 states, to invest heavily in a Florida campaign [to raise the minimum wage] was not made in haste. The group commissioned a statewide poll in November 2003 that found overwhelming support for increasing the state’s minimum wage, especially among low-income and minority residents … ACORN was betting that many low-income people, who might not otherwise register or vote, would do so to increase their pay, and once they went to the polls, they would vote overwhelmingly for a Democrat.” [Emphasis mine] Mr. Atlas noted, “ACORN budgeted over $2 million for the campaign. The reason ACORN had to be shut down by a near unanimous vote of both wings of the one party had to do with ACORN's unpardonable sin of successfully organizing a referendum in Florida overriding the right wing legislature's and governor's war against working people. ACORN is gone, but the Florida politicians are still working to undo the effects of the ACORN led referendum.: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-02-16/business/os-florida-tipped-minimum-wage-20120215_1_minimum-wage-darden-restaurants-restaurant-industry February 16, 2012| Restaurant servers, bartenders and other Florida workers who rely heavily on tips are expressing outrage about a plan moving through the Legislature that could slash their hourly wages. The bill (SB 2106), approved by a Senate committee Thursday, would allow restaurants and other employers to pay their staffs the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 an hour instead of Florida's minimum of $4.65. To qualify, companies would have to guarantee that employees would make at least $9.98 an hour, when tips are included...... .....But in an industry with high turnover, it wouldn't be long before many new employees would be making $2.13 an hour — a rate unchanged since 1991, critics said. Obama and almost all democrats are better advocates for Netenyahu and Likkud than they are for the least wealthy 240 million in America. When democrats retook the house in Jan., 2008, and passed a long overdue federal minimum wage increase, guess who they sold out ot the restaurant lobby, Paul? Tipped employees were left with the 1991 minimum wage level to fend for themselves against lobbyist influenced state legislators. If the "reactionary party" was so irrational, scarey, mean, would the "left of center" president, ratify its nascent policy of "preventive" aggressive war, a crime the U.S. claimed was the core crime against humanity? Would Obama turn back the PNAC driven trial balloons which were the crimes of the Bush presidency, lying our country into war with fake WMD claims, twisted manipulations, falsehoods linking Saddam to 9/11 and al Queda? Would Obama risk handing the crimes against the constitution he has crafted, setting a precedent for execution of Americans sans arrest, and on declaration of secret evidence, alone, masked as newly anointed "presidential powers." over to a scarey mean successor, such as Romney, Newt, or Chris Christie? Would "of the left" Obama, risk setting such precedent, if he was truly committed to the values and the concerns you ascribe to him? http://www.salon.com/2012/07/18/obamas_killings_challenged_again/ Wednesday, Jul 18, 2012 09:18 AM EDT .......The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights this morning filed a lawsuit in federal court against several Obama officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus. The suit is brought on behalf of the survivors of three American citizens killed in Yemen by the U.S. Government — killed specifically by the CIA and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command — with no due process and far from any battlefield: Anwar Awlaki and Samir Khan (killed together in a drone strike) and Awlaki’s teenaged son Abdulrahman (killed two weeks later). The suit alleges that the killing of these Americans violates their Constitutional rights (including their Fifth Amendment right to due process) because “the United States was not engaged in an armed conflict with or within Yemen” and “these killings rely on vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts.” While there is substantial dispute over the role, if any, that the senior Awlaki played in Al Qaeda plots (the Complaint alleges that he “was not then directly participating in hostilities within the meaning of the law of war”), nobody — not even the U.S. Government — claims that Khan or the American teenager were combatants of any kind. None of the three had ever been indicted, let alone convicted, by the U.S. Government...... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303448404577410151823906824.html May 17, 2012, 7:48 p.m. ET Detained and Confused A bad legal ruling abets a bad anti-antiterror amendment. ..... Mr. Hedges may loathe America, but he can't be arrested for that unless he joins or abets the other side. Judge Forrest claimed the law didn't "define precisely what 'direct' or 'substantial' support means." But as a legal and practical matter, the definition has been established by successive post-9/11 Presidents and the courts, particularly at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has repeatedly approved indefinite terrorist detentions. The legal claim also collapses on grounds of what lawyers call "redressability"—whether the plaintiffs can get relief. Even if the detention statute were tossed out, a genuine enemy combatant can still be detained under either the post-9/11 authorization to use military force or the President's war powers. Judge Forrest says the law violates due process, but even after the various challenges during the Bush years, the Supreme Court has only granted to enemy combatants the right to habeas corpus—a legal hearing...... http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_victory_for_all_of_us_20120518/ 18 May, 2012 by Chris Hedges ....Iraq War veteran Sgt. Shamar Thomas leads a demonstration in New York’s Grand Central Station to call attention to a law signed by President Barack Obama that granted extraordinary powers to the military. .... ......U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, in a 68-page opinion, ruled Wednesday that Section 1021 of the NDAA was unconstitutional. It was a stunning and monumental victory. With her ruling she returned us to a country where—as it was before Obama signed this act into law Dec. 31—the government cannot strip a U.S. citizen of due process or use the military to arrest him or her and then hold him or her in military prison indefinitely. She categorically rejected the government’s claims that the plaintiffs did not have the standing to bring the case to trial because none of us had been indefinitely detained, that lack of imminent enforcement against us meant there was no need for an injunction and that the NDAA simply codified what had previously been set down in the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act. The ruling was a huge victory for the protection of free speech. Judge Forrest struck down language in the law that she said gave the government the ability to incarcerate people based on what they said or wrote. Maybe the ruling won’t last. Maybe it will be overturned. But we and other Americans are freer today than we were a week ago. And there is something in this...... .......The government lawyers, despite being asked five times by the judge to guarantee that we plaintiffs would not be charged under the law for our activities, refused to give any assurances. They did not provide assurances because under the law there were none. We could, even they tacitly admitted, be subject to these coercive measures. We too could be swept away into a black hole. And this, I think, decided the case. “At the hearing on this motion, the government was unwilling or unable to state that these plaintiffs would not be subject to indefinite detention under [section] 1021,” Judge Forrest noted. “Plaintiffs are therefore at risk of detention, of losing their liberty, potentially for many years.” Paul, these were the sentiments of a Skull and Bones, Yale republican influenced by the effects of the last great failure of our prized economic "system". Wants 20 Billions Given To American Citizen Reading Eagle - Aug 13, 1933 Two govern mental measures for overcoming the depression arc proposed by Guy Mallon, Cincinnati lawyer, who has been active in civic affairs, in his book, ... Mallon, father of Neil Mallon, proposed spending one third of U.S. annual GDP as consumer stimulus, and if necessary, undertaking the distribution to each household twice, if the first round did not provide the required spending power to restore economic activity and employment. A comparable proposal today would involve initial distribution to households of $4.3 trillion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Owners%27_Loan_Corporation The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a New Deal agency established in 1933 by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation Act under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[2] Its purpose was to refinance home mortgages currently in default to prevent foreclosure. This was accomplished by selling bonds to lenders in exchange for the home mortgages.[3] It was used to extend loans from shorter loans to fully amortized, longer term loans (typically 20–25 years). Through its work it granted long term mortgages to over a million people facing the loss of their homes. The HOLC stopped lending c. 1935, once all the available capital had been spent, and began the process of liquidating its assets.[4] HOLC officially ceased operations in 1951, when its last assets were sold to private lenders.[4] HOLC was only applicable to nonfarm homes, worth less than $20,000. HOLC also assisted mortgage lenders by refinancing problematic loans and increasing the institutions liquidity. When its last assets were sold in 1951, HOLC turned a small profit.[5][6] Mortgage foreclosure fraud, and foreclosures in general, in epic numbers, and the Obama administration effort? http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/yet-another-obama-big-lie-mortgage-fraud-investigation-not-even-staffed.html April 18, 2012 ....The Administration started undercutting Schneiderman almost immediately. He announced that the task force would have “hundreds” of investigators. Breuer said it would have only 55, a simply pathetic number (the far less costly savings & loan crisis had over 1000 FBI agents assigned to it). And they taunted him publicly by exposing that he hadn’t gotten a tougher release as he has claimed to justify his sabotage. We had assumed that the Administration would engage in a Potemkin version of an investigation, bringing a few cases close to the election to generate deceptive and useful “tough on crime” headlines. But having succeeded in protecting the banks, it looks like they can’t even be bothered to go through the motions. This update comes from the New York Daily News (hat tip Matt Stoller): On March 9 — 45 days after the speech and 30 days after the announcement — we met with Schneiderman in New York City and asked him for an update…As of that date, he had no office, no phones, no staff and no executive director. None of the 55 staff members promised by Holder had materialized. On April 2, we bumped into Schneiderman on a train leaving Washington for New York and learned that the situation was the same. Tuesday, calls to the Justice Department’s switchboard requesting to be connected with the working group produced the answer, “I really don’t know where to send you.” After being transferred to the attorney general’s office and asking for a phone number for the working group, the answer was, “I’m not aware of one.”… In fact, the new Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group was the sixth such entity formed since the start of the financial crisis in 2009. The grand total of staff working for all of the previous five groups was one, according to a surprised Schneiderman. In Washington, where staffs grow like cherry blossoms, this is a remarkable occurrence. We are led to conclude that Donovan was right. The settlement and working group — taken together — were a coup: a public relations coup for the White House and the banks… But for 12 million American homeowners, collectively $700 billion under water, this was just another in a long series of sham transactions..... http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/schneiderman-propagandist-confirms-report-of-lack-of-staffing-for-mortgage-fraud-task-force.html .....What does this really mean? Existing mortgage investigation efforts and case development have been consolidated into the task force. The fact that that number appears to be only 50 is pathetic. State attorneys general had been coordinating before the settlement. They didn’t need to bargain away many of their best theories of action in a broad release to continue those efforts. Oh, and the article confirmed the lack of a dedicated office and executive director. New York University law professor and former SIGTARP chief Neil Barofsky’s reaction: The comments reinforce concerns that I had when the Task Force was first announced, that it would just be a repository for existing cases around the country that would eventually be brought irrespective of whether a task force was formed or not. Of course, there is no need for a dedicated office or staff if all they are doing is rebranding existing cases as new “Task Force” cases. If that is the case, all they would really need is someone to craft the press releases and to stand on the podium to take credit for other people’s work, which, of course, is what most task forces do best. Let’s consider a different possibility. Recall that Schneiderman was embarrassed almost as soon as this effort was announced when he said the staffing of the effort would be in the hundreds and Lanny Breuer corrected him by saying it would be 55. The DoJ keeps maintaining that the number of people working on this effort now is over 50. It is increasingly looking like the 55 that were promised for this effort was simply the staff working on existing mortgage cases, plus per Barofsky, an executive director and maybe a PR person and “coordinator” to burnish appearances. In other words, both the critic’s and Administration’s accounts are probably true once you parse the definitions. Schneiderman and the world at large thought the underwhelming 55 that were promised to be tasked to this program would be dedicated additional resources. But the Administration appears to have simply added up the bodies working on existing efforts and rounded it up to 55 for the extra people who would have to be dedicated for PR purposes. Underestimating this Administration’s cynicism has been a losing trade, and there is no reason to think this case is an exception. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/from-an-unlikely-source-a-serious-challenge-to-wall-street-20120720 .......Here’s how the New York Times described it in an article from earlier this week entitled, "California County Weighs Drastic Plan to Aid Homeowners": Desperate for a way out of a housing collapse that has crippled the region, officials in San Bernardino County … are exploring a drastic option — using eminent domain to buy up mortgages for homes that are underwater. Then, the idea goes, the county could cut the mortgages to the current value of the homes and resell the mortgages to a private investment firm, which would allow homeowners to lower their monthly payments and hang onto their property. I’ve been following this story for months now – I was tipped off that this was coming earlier this past spring – and in the time since I’ve become more convinced the idea might actually work, thanks mainly to the extremely lucky accident that the plan doesn’t require the permission of anyone up in the political Olympus. Cities and towns won’t need to ask for an act of a bank-subsidized congress to do this, and they won’t need a federal judge to sign off on any settlement. They can just do it. In the Death Star of America’s financial oligarchy, the ability of local governments to use eminent domain to seize toxic debt might be the one structural flaw big enough for the rebel alliance to fly through...... Reports ‘Debate’ Over Taxes? Read On By David Sirota — Contrary to popular belief, even Barack Obama would give the wealthy a tax break. It’s a question of giving each of those households the equivalent salary of one butler (Obama’s plan) or three butlers (Romney’s plan). http://www.salon.com/2010/06/10/lincoln_6/ The Arkansas primary fight illuminates some unpleasant though vital truths about the Democratic establishment ......In other words, Obama exploited the trust that African-American voters place in him to tell them something that is just absurd: that Blanche Lincoln, one of the most corporatist members of Congress, works for their interests. Bill Clinton did the same with the Arkansas voters who still trust him. In light of all this, the next time some “conservative” Democrat such as Lincoln plays the Villain Rotation game and opposes some Good, Progressive Bill which the White House pretends to support — but, gosh darn it, just can’t get the 60 votes for — are we going to have to endure the excuse from Obama loyalists that Obama has no leverage over Democratic members of Congress?..... http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htmThe Distribution of Wealth in America There is very little data about the distribution of wealth in America. There is one source, <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/scfindex.html">the Survey of Consumer Finances</a>, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board, that does provide data from 1983. <img src="http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/WealthIncome07.gif"> <img src="http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/Wealth83_04.gif"> http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp195September 3, 2007 | EPI Briefing Paper #195 Economy's Gains Fail to Reach Most Workers' Paychecks by Jared Bernstein and Lawrence Mishel Research assistance from James Lin ....Conclusion Most workers have relatively little to show in terms of real wage and income gains over this recovery. The real wage of the typical male worker, for example, is up only 1% since 2000 and not at all since 2003. Even a broader measure like real average compensation has risen less than 1% per year and has barely budged since 2003. As of 2006, the median income of working-age families (those headed by someone less than 65) was down -4.2% in real terms over the cycle, a loss of -$2,375 (2006 dollars). Poverty, at 12.3%, remains 1.0 percentage point above its 2000 trough. .... ....When examined closely, the wage findings tell an important story about whso has and who lacks the bargaining power to benefit from today's economy. Economic elites talk up the economy, with bullish references to GDP, productivity, and job growth. But just whose economy are they talking about? Clearly, policy makers need to focus much more attention on real wage trends, inequality, and the productivity/wage gap. A central goal of economic policy must be to reconnect the living standards of the workers embodied in the tables and charts to the growth in the overall economy (see www.sharedprosperity.org). That will not occur simply because we wish it to, nor will it arise automatically from faster overall growth. It will be the result of deliberate policies to build institutions and mechanisms that enable working persons to claim their fair share of the growth they themselves are helping to create...... Democrats are there to give you a sense of security Paul, as you buy into the myth of demonizing the "other side." This is about maintaining the status quo, keeping change to an absolute minimum, manipulating the center right into believing they are center left with a left of center president "representing" them.: http://www.desototimes.com/articles/2011/10/03/opinion/editorials/doc4e8a26f6f3140056101347.txt October 3, 2011 The question is why. Obama’s slow progress on judicial appointments has drawn criticism from both the right and the left and from business groups and liberal advocates alike. And the numbers are conclusive as during Obama’s first year in office, judicial nominations trickled out of the White House at a far slower pace than in former President George W. Bush’s first year. Bush tapped 11 nominees for federal appeals courts in the fourth month of his tenure. Obama didn’t nominate his 11th appeals court judge until November, his 10th month in office.... 240 million or more of us, Paul, experience more dismal prospects each year that you embrace and defend the myth of a vibrant politic of two opposing parties of deep ideological differences. To Obomney or Pelosi-Boehner, it is a business, business as usual, by the most powerful, for the power that the most wealthy can buy. Your political take makes the unaccountable, but for most of us, it is death by a thousand cuts.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Trejo Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 (edited) Paul, there is only one party, the property party, with two right wings..... Clinton was famous for triangulation, remember "welfare reform"? For democrats, it is all about demonizing the least wealthy and powerful, just like the wing of the one party you seem to hold in such contempt! ... Tom, your view sees no difference between Democrats and Republicans, and so it offers no recourse within the US Democratic system. Yet given the entrenched, ingrained course of these two parties in the USA, there can be no social change, nor any movement of any kind at all unless the citizen participates in one or the other. The only alternative to these two parties in the USA is radical action, and the trouble with radical action is that it swings both ways. As evidence I will cite the streets of Berlin in 1932 when Adolf Hitler came to power because the Communists were scaring the heck out of the Germans. The Communist rallying cries came directly from Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto: abolilsh private property! abolish religion! abolish marriage! abolish nationalism! Yet such rallying cries are nothing less than declarations of war to common sense -- so it is no surprise that such rallying cries were met head-on with violence as the right-wing and left-wing took to the streets of Berlin, first with fists, and then with fire arms. I prefer the 1821 philosophy of GWF Hegel (Philosophy of Right) which implies that calling for the abolition of private property is calling for the abolition of the Law itself, since private property and personal responsibility have defined the Law since the Law was first written, and beyond. IMHO, radical proposals have not helped the cause of the left-wing (which I define as social reform), but have hindered social reform for 150 years. I shudder when I think about how many useful social programs were lost because they were overshadowed by these radical cries, or became associated with them in some way. The leftists that I admire are working for social reform in a common sense way: respectful of private property, religion, marriage and national identity. It seems to me that this is the best way to work for social reform. JFK himself obviously defined himself in terms of his private property, his religion, his marriage and his national identity as an American. JFK showed that a citizen can effect major social change in the world, all the while respecting the four pillars of Western civilization: property, marriage, religion and nationality. Best regards, --Paul Trejo Edited July 23, 2012 by Paul Trejo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Trejo Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 (edited) By left-gatekeeping I mean attempts to control the left by intelligence agencies or their surrogates (foundations, academics, or publishing companies) who are 1) trying to maintain credibility with left audiences but only in order to 2) neutralize this audience so that the net effect of their writing/ pontificating is to A) split the left up even more make them get even localer than local so the connection between social movements and electoral politics is broken even more C) cover up key events in recent history [e.g. the RFK 1968 campaign where something was in danger of actually working, and turning it into a litmus test of what it means to be a good leftist [i.e. how much can you bash RFK ] D) disconnecting key policies from key events so that the youthful leftist is left thinking "why bother with the assassinations since there were no policy consequences and one dead Kennedy is no better than one dead Cuban] hence taking all consciousness away from such things as the legitimation (or not) of a completely corrupt political system, the legitimation (or not ) of a completely corrupt media system... etc. In short it is Using "left" to prevent left., and it easy because of money and because of the collapse of the teaching of history under Wall Street's testing and Charter school barrage, which does not leave enough time to let history explain how power works. Also, Paul, Obama and Clinton are rightists at different stages of the same, 45 year long, rightward movement, that includes the RFK and MLK assassinations, and the Democratic big wigs desertion of George McGovern, who, it is too often forgotten was a backer of RFK in 1968. Nathaniel, if there is some group of people somewhere who can use the left-wing to prevent the left-wing, then they might be extraterrestial geniuses. I know of no human beings who fit that description. But if they do exist, then it could only demonstrate that the left-wing ideology is so poverty-stricken that it can be manipulated as easily as a small child. The latter remains possible; that is, the left-wing has been so disordered by 150 years of Marxist confusion that it no longer knows which way is up. If the left-wing has no unity (or is totally local, as you suggest) then this suggests a lack of Theory. This was part of the price that the left-wing had to pay for putting so many of its eggs in the Marxist basket, IMHO. Now that Marxism is as passe as the Berlin Wall and the USSR, perhaps the left-wing in America (and perhaps in the world) can start all over again on a more rational basis and concoct a Theory to unify itself. Currently, the best the left-wing has today, IMHO, is the Democratic Party (which isn't a Labor Party) which admittedly has copious room for improvement. That said, we should bear in mind the JFK speech on Civil Rights which changed America fundamentally for the better (IMHO). This was a product of the Democratic Party. We should also bear in mind the distinct possibility that opposition to Civil Rights legislation in the USA may have been a key factor in the JFK assassination. Best regards, --Paul Trejo Edited July 23, 2012 by Paul Trejo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathaniel Heidenheimer Posted July 23, 2012 Author Share Posted July 23, 2012 Paul there is a history of just such control in the US during WWII. See Brett Gary's book called Nervous Liberals. I would not use the term 'left wing" It was more about building a firewall on the political spectrum between left liberal an further left. Also there is the history of Encounter Magazine. Also I cannot emphasize enough the importance of "left" v left. This question is inherent any time there is top down manipulation with a few in the know who have the intention of consciously deceiving. This does not mean that everyone in, say , The Nation Magazine , in 1964 was conspiring. See for example how the Nations lead investigative reporter wanted to publish fierce exposes about the Warren Commission but was prevented from doing so by editor Carry McWilliams because A) Carry said he trusted his old law school chums on the WC and he was worried about another McCarthy Era if some spread rumors that USSR behind the assassination. Now did McWilliams actually believe these rationalizations? How would I know? But what is important is that the Conspirators, placed these egshells out there to be walked on very self-consciously and there is no doubt they were used for left-gatekeeping purposses in the JFK assassination. And more importantly it was MOST IMPORTANT that left liberal groups like readers of the Nation be convinced not to get loud over the assassination NOT BECAUSE OF THEIR SIZE IN NUMBER OF READERS .. but because this would have been the group who would have put the tail on the kite, i.e. connected the assassination with its wider political implications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 .......................... Tom, your view sees no difference between Democrats and Republicans, and so it offers no recourse within the US Democratic system. Yet given the entrenched, ingrained course of these two parties in the USA, there can be no social change, nor any movement of any kind at all unless the citizen participates in one or the other. The only alternative to these two parties in the USA is radical action, and the trouble with radical action is that it swings both ways. As evidence I will cite the streets of Berlin in 1932 when Adolf Hitler came to power because the Communists were scaring the heck out of the Germans. The Communist rallying cries came directly from Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto: abolilsh private property! abolish religion! abolish marriage! abolish nationalism! Yet such rallying cries are nothing less than declarations of war to common sense -- so it is no surprise that such rallying cries were met head-on with violence as the right-wing and left-wing took to the streets of Berlin, first with fists, and then with fire arms. I prefer the 1821 philosophy of GWF Hegel (Philosophy of Right) which implies that calling for the abolition of private property is calling for the abolition of the Law itself, since private property and personal responsibility have defined the Law since the Law was first written, and beyond. IMHO, radical proposals have not helped the cause of the left-wing (which I define as social reform), but have hindered social reform for 150 years. I shudder when I think about how many useful social programs were lost because they were overshadowed by these radical cries, or became associated with them in some way. The leftists that I admire are working for social reform in a common sense way: respectful of private property, religion, marriage and national identity. It seems to me that this is the best way to work for social reform. JFK himself obviously defined himself in terms of his private property, his religion, his marriage and his national identity as an American. JFK showed that a citizen can effect major social change in the world, all the while respecting the four pillars of Western civilization: property, marriage, religion and nationality. Best regards, --Paul Trejo The modern state is essentially a bureacuracy that allocates resources. Most functions, including military functions involve wealth redistribution and can be understood as linked to creating conditions of equality within a capitalist context that tilts the other way. The flaw running through your post amounts to a refusal to think in either historical or social-system terms. instead, the arguments are moralistic, erasing anything analytic (nearly entirely, if you read the post carefully) and replacing analysis with a series of adjectives attached to the noun "radical" or substittue "socialist," and what is clear is that "radical / socialist" means functionally "empty space onto which i project whatever i want." There is no content to the category "radical" In Paul's post, it is negative space to be filled with projections, and most of those projections one way or another are about projections concerning Tom, apparently regarded as some kind of "blow up" Karl Marx to a degree that the "analysis" is mostly a personal attack against Tom, hysterical in that Paul manages to collapse "Karl Marx Tom" into a bigger make-believe label "radical.". The result is a claim repeated ad infinitum, that a "radical / socialist" is someone who wants to take Paul's money. because Paul regards himself as the embodiment of all things rational and serious (holy) the latter term because it is a given that money is sacred, so it follows that a "radical / socialist" as an abstraction the only point of which not based in ad hominem is "someone wanting to take my money" is immoral. And this is coherent in which jurisdiction? In what jurisdiction do Paul's arguments and comparisons adequately address the question of redistribution of wealth, considers its political functions, and the problems raised by an ideology that refuses to thoughfully consider that there are political functions determining the formulae and the degree of resdistribution of wealth, a necessity in softening the social consequences of tendencies of wealth concentration in existing capitalism, tendencies quite apparent if you trouble yourself to look at the actual history of capitalist systems over the past two centuries and don't replace them with simplistic, nostalgic nonsense. (It isn't 1821 anymore, a core function of the modern state is wealth distribution facilitated by central taxation, collection, and enforcement). When you feel you prosper under the existing order, you are resistant to changing it, and you believe it is something more than it is and have little incentive to notice or to accept that it may not be all things to all people. Is it possible you're conversing in the language of conservatives to whom capitalism is a sum of projections, a reverse of ....IMHO, radical proposals have not helped the cause of the left-wing (which I define as social reform), but have hindered social reform for 150 years...... Neoliberal "remedies" for problems political or ethical generated by acutely uneven distribution of wealth (compared, say, to the distribution in every other, vibrant top ten, ODC) are predictably: A.) Attempting to reduce the inevitable political blow back by maneuvering the state away from wealth redistribution functions. Globalization is emphasized as the core problem, not wealth concentration. Neoliberals concede that acutely uneven distribution of wealth is a problem, but claim that the only choice is to reduce political risks to the state through suspension of efforts to buy political consent for capitalism through redistribution of wealth. (We see this method at work in Western Europe in response to default on financial obligations by the "PIGS".) The problem of uneven distribution of wealth is sidestepped by politicians distancing themselves from it through the "necessity" of austerity programs. Neoliberals greatest benefit lies is in continuation of the existing order. The surest way to preserve the existing order is reducing the risk to its main institutions. B. The answer to the problem of selling this to the citizenry is solved through marketing. Neoliberals can be relied on to understand about the narrowed options generated by globalized capitalism exacting a bad but expedient choice, according to their own POV, but libertarians and populist conservatives must be swayed with the ideology they are anticipated (calculated to be easily manipulated) to embrace, that capitalism is a natural phenomenon and thus, cannot be opposed. C. When political crisis emerges, respond to it with violent repression. if you believe ( then you will have no problem with resorting to bullets to address the wealth concentration problem you avoided remedying via ballots. ......The only alternative to these two parties in the USA is radical action, and the trouble with radical action is that it swings both ways. As evidence I will cite the streets of Berlin in 1932 when Adolf Hitler came to power because the Communists were scaring the heck out of the Germans. The Communist rallying cries came directly from Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto: abolilsh private property! abolish religion! abolish marriage! abolish nationalism!..... Uneven distribution of wealth is a problem. Neoliberals admit to it, but then apply a political calculation that by reducing the risk the state is exposed to, they will extend their hold on political power for a longer period. Populist conservatives are manipulated into ratifying the choice taken by neoliberals to cease dealing with the problem of wealth concentration in order to preserve neoliberal political power by violent repression against populist conservatives, and everyone else, when the lid inevitbaly blows off. Who exactly, does this U.S. Democratic System, you are obviously wedded to, Paul, actually serve, and who does it screw over? How will the wealth (aka power) concentration trend in this "system" of yours ever be halted, let alone reversed, as a result of your political POV? I regard the trend as a political crisis which has emerged and accelerated, only in my own lifetime, a reversal of results achieved by the politics of the political will of my grandparents' and their parents' generations. Vibrant, actually competing political parties in the other ODCs of the world achieve political results counter to acute wealth concentration. Consider the effect of just 24 Israeli families controlling half of the wealth in Israel. Consider the absence of such aggravating factors in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. http://en.wikipedia....dices_over_time US income Gini indices over time Gini indices for the United States at various times, according to the US Census Bureau:[13][14][15] 1929: 45.0 (estimated) 1947: 37.6 (estimated) 1967: 39.7 (first year reported) 1968: 38.6 (lowest index reported) 1970: 39.4 1980: 40.3 1990: 42.8 2000: 46.2 2005: 46.9 2006: 47.0 (highest index reported) 2007: 46.3 2008: 46.69 2009: 46.8 The Gini index was 0.469 in 2010. .....The nation's official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 ─ the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009 ─ the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published...... Poverty The poverty rate in 2010 was the highest since 1993 but was 7.3 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available. Since 2007, the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage points..... http://www.nytimes.c....4.6900205.html The strains of Danish commitment Dec 27th 2007, 18:46 by Free Exchange | Washington, DC HOW do you keep 'em down on the egalitarian welfare state after they've seen low taxes? Well, according to this New York Times piece on the flight of talent from Denmark, increasingly you don't. The Confederation of Danish Industries estimated in August that the Danish labor force had shrunk by about 19,000 people through the end of 2005, because Danes and others had moved elsewhere. Other studies suggest that about 1,000 people leave the country each year, a figure that masks an outflow of qualified Danes and an inflow of less skilled foreign workers who help, at least partially, to offset the losses. The problem, employers and economists believe, has a lot to do with the 63 percent marginal tax rate paid by top earners in Denmark — a level that hits anyone making more than 360,000 Danish kroner, or about $70,000. That same tax rate underpins such effective income redistribution that Denmark is the most nearly equal society in the world, in that wealth is more evenly spread than anywhere else. Denmark is such an interesting case because it so closely resembles the kind of society I think the political philosopher John Rawls had in mind in his magnum opus, "A Theory of Justice": economically dynamic egalitarianism. But Mr Rawls ruled out emigration, as a simplifying stipulation. The Times article does an excellent job of showing how supra-national mobility rights in a not-so-simple world limit the feasibility of egalitarian welfare states that rely on punishingly high tax rates. Mr Rawls argued that a just society must be "well-ordered". And a well-ordered society must be stable, meaning that its members must willingly comply with its terms. When the "strains of commitment" of a social system are too great, we should expect non-compliance and a not-so-well-ordered system. Rawls' pragmatic argument against utilitarianism was precisely that it requires too much of us, overstrains our ability to prioritise the welfare of others over that of our families and ourselves. But Rawls' own version of egalitarian liberalism may ultimately fall to the same objection. The latter third of "A Theory of Justice" is supposed to show how a society implementing Mr Rawls' system of "justice as fairness" can generate allegiance from its citizens and thereby pass the stability test. In a nutshell, citizens will learn to see that such a system is just, which will inspire their native sense of moral rectitude, causing them to voluntarily adhere to its rules, even when it requires some sacrifice of them...... https://www.cia.gov/...ields/2172.html Field Listing - Distribution of family income - Gini index ............. Gini Denmark .........23.2 (2002) 24.8 (2011 est.) Norway ...... 25.8 (2000) 25 (2008) Sweden ...... 25 (2000) 23 (2005) France ....... 26.7 (2002) 32.7 (2008) Finland ...... 26.9 (2000) 26.8 (2008) Czech Republic . 27.3 (2003) 31 (2009) Germany ...... 28.3 (2000) 27 (2006) Netherlands .... 30.9 (2005) 30.9 (2007) Austria ........ 31 (2002) 26 (2007) European Union .31.6 (2003 est.) 30.4 (2010 est.) Canada ...... 32.6 (2000) 32.1 (2005) Belgium .......33 (2000) 28 (2005) Switzerland .....33.7 (2000) 33.7 (2008) Ireland ...... 34.3 (2000) 33.9 (2010) Spain ...... 34.7 (2000) 32 (2005) Australia ......35.2 (1994) 30.5 (2006) Korea, South ....35.8 (2000) 31 (2010) United Kingdom ..36 (1999) 34 (2005) Italy ...... 36 (2000) 32 (2006) New Zealand .....36.2 (1997) Japan ...... 38.1 (2002) 37.6 (2008) Israel ...... 38.6 (2005) 39.2 (2008) Ecuador 42 note: data are for urban households (2003) 47.3 (June 2011) Burundi ........ 42.4 (1998) Iran ........ 43 (1998) 44.5 (2006) Uganda ........ 43 (1999) 44.3 (2009) Nicaragua ...... 43.1 (2001) 40.5 (2010) Turkey ........ 43.6 (2003) 40.2 (2010) Nigeria ........ 43.7 (2003) Kenya ......... 44.5 (1997) 42.5 (2008 est.) Philippines .....44.5 (2003) 45.8 (2006) Cameroon ........44.6 (2001) 44.6 (2001) Uruguay ........ 44.6 (2000) 45.3 (2010) Cote d'Ivoire ...44.6 (2002) 41.5 (2008) United States ...45 (2004) 45 (2007) Jamaica ........ 45.5 (2004) Rwanda ........ 46.8 (2000) Malaysia ........46.1 (2002) 46.2 (2009) Mexico ........ 46.1 (2004) 51.7 (2008) China ........ 46.9 (2004) 48 (2009) Nepal .......... 47.2 (2004) 47.2 (2008) Mozambique ......47.3 (2002) 45.6 (2008) Madagascar ......47.5 (2001) Venezuela .......49.1 (1998) 39 (2011) Argentina .......48.3 (June 2006) 45.8 (2009) Costa Rica.......49.8 (2003) 50.3 (2009) Sri Lanka .......50 (FY03/04) 49 (2009) Niger ...........50.5 (1995) 34 (2007) Papua New Guinea 50.9 (1996) Thailand ........51.1 (2002) 53.6 (2009) Dominican Republic 51.6 (2004) 48.4 (2007) Peru ............52 (2003) 46 (2010) Zambia ........ 52.6 (1998) 50.8 (2004) Hong Kong........52.3 (2001) 53.3 (2007) El Salvador......52.4 (2002) 46.9 (2007) Honduras ........53.8 (2003) 57.7 (2007) Colombia ....... 53.8 (2005) 56 (2010) Chile .......... 54.9 (2003) 52.1 (2009) Panama ........ 56.1 (2003) 51.9 (2010 est.) Brazil ......... 56.7 (2005) 51.9 (2012) Zimbabwe ........56.8 (2003) 50.1 (2006) Paraguay ........58.4 (2003) 53.2 (2009) South Africa ....59.3 (1995) 65 (2005) Guatemala 59.9 (2005) 55.1 (2007) Bolivia ........ 60.1 (2002) 58.2 (2009) Central African Republic 61.3 (1993) Sierra Leone ....62.9 (1989) Botswana........ 63 (1993) 63 (1993) Lesotho 63.2 (1995) Namibia .........70.7 (2003) http://www.detroitne...ext|FRONTPAGE|s The Detroit News - 23 hours ago Including federal loans, Americans owe more than $1 trillion in student loan debt, the CFPB said. It has surpassed credit card debt as the http://news.google.c...st states&hl=en The Free Lance-Star - Nov 14, 1966 ....College is Getting More Expensive ...Members of the two higher education groups enroll about one half of all students in the nation's colleges and universities.... ....The median yearly cost of tu- ition, room and board for in- state student living at the public institutions was about $1000.... http://www.dollartim.../inflation.htm/ $1,000.00 in 1966 had the same buying power as $7,096.60 in 2012. Annual inflation over this period was 4.35%. http://seattletimes....tuition24m.html $20K in-state tuition may not be far off in Washington Originally published Monday, July 23, 2012 .....The total cost of attending the UW and Washington State University as an in-state undergraduate can actually be about $25,000 a year when factoring in the cost of books, transportation, living expenses and other student needs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Trejo Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) ... The modern state is essentially a bureacuracy that allocates resources. Most functions, including military functions involve wealth redistribution and can be understood as linked to creating conditions of equality within a capitalist context that tilts the other way. Tom, I actually agree with this perception, but I would add that the same definition applied to the most ancient forms of government we know, e.g. the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1770 BCE) whose codex we still possess. Hammurabi defined his charter as stifling the rich and powerful and supporting the poor and weak. Hammurabi called this, Justice. Hammurabi had a sense of equity. In other words, Tom, your definition of the modern state is essentially the same as the State in general throughout history, and that's why I agree with your perception. ... Who exactly, does this U.S. Democratic System, you are obviously wedded to, Paul, actually serve, and who does it screw over? How will the wealth (aka power) concentration trend in this "system" of yours ever be halted, let alone reversed, as a result of your political POV? I regard the trend as a political crisis which has emerged and accelerated, only in my own lifetime, a reversal of results achieved by the politics of the political will of my grandparents' and their parents' generations. Just as in Hammurabi's day, Tom, any effective Government will seek and preserve Justice by limiting the power and wealth of the strong, and standing up for the poor and the weak. Nothing has changed in this regard. In my position (call it Neo-liberal or whatever you want) I believe we should go back to the good old days of Ronald Reagan's tax policies, in which the rich paid up to 50% of their income. That's a step in the right direction. The excesses of the Bush legacy were the cause of our near-depression four years ago, and the rich have become giddy and silly because of those excesses -- this can be observed in the nonsense spouted by Bachman, Ginrich and Limbaugh today -- practically hebephrenic. ... Vibrant, actually competing political parties in the other ODCs of the world achieve political results counter to acute wealth concentration. Consider the effect of just 24 Israeli families controlling half of the wealth in Israel. Consider the absence of such aggravating factors in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. I like what the Northern Europeans have done -- but it would be proper to admit that their systems are also friendly to capitalism. Best regards, --Paul Trejo Edited July 25, 2012 by Paul Trejo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathaniel Heidenheimer Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 This topic is about what top-down fake leftists write to make" the left" not interested in the JFK assassination. I am of the opinion that any real leftist should be all over the political assassinations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Trejo Posted July 29, 2012 Share Posted July 29, 2012 Paul there is a history of just such control in the US during WWII. See Brett Gary's book called Nervous Liberals. I would not use the term 'left wing" It was more about building a firewall on the political spectrum between left liberal an further left. Also there is the history of Encounter Magazine. Also I cannot emphasize enough the importance of "left" v left. This question is inherent any time there is top down manipulation with a few in the know who have the intention of consciously deceiving. This does not mean that everyone in, say , The Nation Magazine , in 1964 was conspiring. See for example how the Nation's lead investigative reporter wanted to publish fierce exposes about the Warren Commission but was prevented from doing so by editor Carry McWilliams because (1) Carry said he trusted his old law school chums on the WC and (2) he was worried about another McCarthy Era if some spread rumors that USSR behind the assassination. Now did McWilliams actually believe these rationalizations? How would I know? But what is important is that the Conspirators, placed these eggshells out there to be walked on very self-consciously and there is no doubt they were used for left-gatekeeping purposes in the JFK assassination. And more importantly it was MOST IMPORTANT that left liberal groups like readers of the Nation be convinced not to get loud over the assassination NOT BECAUSE OF THEIR SIZE IN NUMBER OF READERS .. but because this would have been the group who would have put the tail on the kite, i.e. connected the assassination with its wider political implications. Nathaniel, if your concept of false-left versus true-left or left-gatekeeping is really real, then it must have started with the JFK cover-up. If so, then J. Edgar Hoover, a true rightist and stalwart opponent of Civil Rights legislation, was able to convince enormous numbers of leftists to support a false-left position. But what facts could have persuaded the leaders of the left to capitulate to such a direction? Perhaps the clue was given when Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren emerged from LBJ's meeting allegedly "in tears" when he realized he could not escape the duty of the Warren Commission -- which would doom his legacy in history to a fiasco. In other words, what facts could have persuaded Earl Warren himself to capituate to Hoover's new direction? In my estimation, the only facts with that sort of power were the facts of War -- not just the Cold War, but of Civil War. LBJ and Hoover probably believed that the Truth about the JFK slaying would cause a Civil War. During the Cold War, that could have led to a Nuclear War and a Nuclear Winter. Therefore, the only rational choice was to Lie Lie Lie about the JFK slaying. Thus, Earl Warren wept. Best regards, --Paul Trejo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Rigby Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 "Manufactured Dissent": The Financial Bearings of the "Progressive Left Media" By Prof. James F. Tracy http://www.globalres...xt=va&aid=32179 Global Research, August 3, 2012 Since the early 2000s US-based "left-progressive" media that purport to be independent have received tens of millions in grants and contributions while they have ignored some of the most important news stories of our time. History suggests a relationship between elite philanthropic sponsorship of such outlets and self-censorship toward pressing events and issues while concurrently maintaining a public semblance of issue-oriented rebellion and dissent. Why do the self-proclaimed left-progressive “independent” media repeatedly overlook, obfuscate or otherwise leave unexamined some of the most momentous geopolitical and environmental events of our time—September 11th and related false flag terror events, the United Nations’ "Agenda 21," the genuinely grave environmental threats posed by the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, geoengineering (weather modification), and the dire health effects of genetically modified organisms?[1] In fact, these phenomena together point to a verifiable transnational political economic framework against which a mass social movement could readily emerge. Yet over the past decade the actual function of such journalistic outlets has increasingly been to "manufacture dissent"--in other words, to act as the controlled opposition to the financial oligarchs and an encroaching scientific dictatorship that to an already significant degree controls the planet and oversees human thought and activity. Indeed, many alternative media outlets that appear to be independent of the power structure are funded by the very forces they are reporting on through their heavy reliance on the largesse of major philanthropic foundations. With the across-the-board deregulation of the transnational financial system in the late 1990s and consequent enrichment of Wall Street and London-based investment banks and hedge funds, the resources of such foundations and charities have increased tremendously. Consequently, the overall funding of "activist" organizations and "alternative" media has climbed sharply, making possible the broadly disseminated appearance of strident voices speaking truth to power. In fact, the protesters and journalists alike are often tethered to the purse strings of the powerful. As a result, "Dissent has been compartmentalized. Separate "issue oriented" protest movements (e.g. environment, anti-globalization, peace, women's rights, climate change) are encouraged and generally funded as opposed to a cohesive mass movement."[2] The efforts of financial elites to influence left-progressive political opinion goes back a century or more. In the early 1900s, for example, the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations decisively shaped the trajectory of elementary and higher education. Yet a less-examined development is how such influence extended to the mass media. A specific instance of such interests seeking to influence the Left community specifically is the establishment of The New Republic magazine at a decisive time in US history. Purchased Political Opinion: The Founding of The New Republic Throughout the twentieth century powerful financial interests have sought to anticipate and direct American left wing social movements and political activity by penetrating their opinion-shaping apparatus. This was seldom difficult because progressives were usually strapped for funds while at the same time eager for a mouthpiece to reach the masses. In 1914 Wall Street’s most powerful banking house, J.P. Morgan, was willing to provide both. “The purpose was not to destroy, dominate, or take over but was really threefold,” historian Carroll Quigley explains. “(1) to keep informed about the thinking of Left-wing or liberal groups; (2) to provide them with a mouthpiece so that they could “blow off steam,” and (3) to have a final veto on their publicity and possibly on their actions, if they ever went “radical.” There was nothing really new about this decision, since other financiers had talked about it and even attempted it earlier. What made it decisively important this time was the combination of its adoption by the dominant Wall Street financier, at a time when tax policy was driving all financiers to seek tax-exempt refuges for their fortunes, and at a time when the ultimate in Left-wing radicalism was about to appear under the banner of the Third International.”[3] As an example, in 1914 Morgan partner and East Asia agent Willard Straight established The New Republic with money from himself and his wife, Dorothy Payne Whitney of the Payne Whitney fortune. "’Use your wealth to put ideas into circulation,’ Straight had told his wife. ‘Others will give to churches and hospitals.’"[4] The idea of funding such an organ partly developed between the wealthy couple after they read Herbert Croly’s The Promise of American Life, in which the well-known liberal author assailed the foundations of traditional Progressivism, with its Jeffersonian doctrine of free enterprise and inclination for decentralized, unrestrictive government. In such a laissez-faire arrangement, Croly reasoned, the strong would always take advantage of the weak. “Only a strong central government could control and equitably distribute the benefits of industrial capitalism. ... guided by a strong and farsighted leader.” Toward this end Croly proposed a “constructive” or “New Nationalism”, and a medium to reach a captive audience could promote such ideals on a regular basis.[5] As Croly recalls, Straight "hunted me up and asked me to make a report for him on the kind of social education which would be most fruitful in a democracy. Thereafter I saw him frequently, and in one of our conversations we discussed a plan for a new weekly which would apply to American life, as it developed, the political and social ideas which I had sketched in the book ... We hoped to make it the mouthpiece of those Americans to whom disinterested thinking and its result in convictions were important agents of the adjustment between human beings and the society in which they live."[6] Straight designated Croly editor-in-chief of The New Republic's and the young socialist writer Walter Lippmann, who by his mid-twenties was an adviser to presidents and a member of the shadowy Round Table Groups, was approached to be a founding editorial board member and subsequently entrusted with gearing the American readership toward a more favorable view of Britain. Croly later noted how Straight was hardly liberal or progressive in his views. Rather, he was a regular international banker and saw the magazine’s purpose “simply [as] a medium for advancing certain designs of such international bankers, notably to blunt the isolationism and anti-British sentiments so prevalent among many American progressives, while providing them with a vehicle for expression of their progressive views in literature, art, music, social reform, and even domestic polices.”[7] Following establishment of The New Republic, Straight considered purchasing The New York Evening Post or The Washington Herald. "He longed for a daily newspaper," Croly recalls, "which would communicate public information in the guise of news as well as in the guise of opinion and which would be read by hundreds of thousands of people instead of only tens of thousands, to serve as his personal medium of expression."[8] Straight and Payne Whitney’s son, “Mike” Straight, carried on The New Republic through the 1940s in close alignment with Left and labor organizations, even providing Henry Wallace with a position on the editorial staff in 1946 and backing Wallace’s 1948 presidential bid. With Willard Straight’s early death in 1918 another Morgan partner, Tom Lamont, apparently became the bank’s representative to the Left, supporting The Saturday Review of Literature in the 1920s and 1930s, and owning the New York Post from 1918 to 1924. Lamont, his wife Flora, and son Corliss were major patrons to a variety of Left concerns, including the American Communist Party and Trade Union Services Incorporated, which in the late 1940s published fifteen union organs for CIO unions. Frederick Vanderbilt Field, another well-heeled Wall Street banker, sat on the editorial boards of The New Masses and the Daily Worker—New York’s official Communist newspapers.[9] Progressive-Left Media's Financing Today Since the 1990s the framework for guiding the Left has developed into a vast combine of powerful, well-funded philanthropic foundations that function on the behalf of their wealthy owners as a well-oiled mechanism of opinion management. Such philanthropic entities oversee formidable wealth that today's heirs to the Straight and Payne Whitney tradition seek to shield from taxation while. At the same time they are able to employ such resources to influence political thought, discourse, and action. Further, following the broad-based 1999 protests of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, global elite interests recognized the importance of developing the means to “manufacture dissent.” Such foundations no doubt exert at least subtle influence over the editorial decisions of the vulnerable progressive media beholden to them for financing. This is partially due to the personnel of the foundations themselves. The task of doling out money frequently falls to foundation officials who are retired political advocates with certain notions about what organizations should be funded and, moreover, how the money should be spent. As Michael Shuman, former director of the Institute for Policy Studies observed in the late 1990s, “A number of program officers at progressive foundations are former activists who decided to move from the demand to the supply side to enjoy better salaries, benefits and working hours. Yet they still want to live like activists vicariously... by exercising influence over grantees through innumerable meetings, reports, conferences and “suggestions” . . . Many progressive funders treat their grantees like disobedient children who need to be constantly watched and disciplined.”[10] Doling out grant money to a journalistic outlet is especially controversial since genuine journalism is inherently political given its inclination toward pursuing and examining the decisions and policies of power elites. As Ron Curran of the Independent Media Institute notes, money from foundations “has engendered a climate of secrecy at IAJ (Institute for Alternative Journalism n/k/a Independent Media Institute [iMI]) that’s in direct conflict with IAJ’s role as a progressive media organization.” He continues, “the only money nonprofits can get these days is from private foundations–and those foundations want to control the political agenda.”[11] If funding is any indication of sheer influence over progressive media, that influence has grown by leaps and bounds at the foremost left media outlets since the 1990s. For example, between 1990 and 1995 the four major progressive print news outlets, The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, and Mother Jones received a combined $537,500 in grants and contributions. In 2010, however, The Nation Institute (The Nation) alone received $2,267,184 in funding, The Progressive took in $1,310,889, the Institute for Public Affairs (In These Times) accepted $961,015, and the Foundation for National Progress (Mother Jones) collected $4,725,235.[12] These figures are for grants and contributions alone and do not include revenue generated from subscription sales and other promotions. Alongside the overall compromised nature such funding can bring, the tremendous increase over the past decade suggests one reason for why specific subject matter that is off-limits for coverage or discussion. With the development of the internet several new alternative-progressive outlets have emerged between the late 1990s and early 2000s, including Alternet, Democracy Now, and satellite channel Link TV. Recognizing their influence a vast array of “public support” has likewise made these multi-million dollar operations alongside their print-based forebears. For example, between 2003 and 2010 Democracy Now has taken in $25,577,243—an annual average of $3,197,155, with 2010 assets after liabilities of $11,760,006. Between 2006 and 2010 the Pacific News Service received $26,867,417, or $5,373,483 annually. The Foundation for National Progress (Mother Jones) brought in $46,623,197, or $4,662,320, and Link TV raised $54,839,710 between 2001 and 2009 for average annual funding of $6,093,301.(Figure 1) Media Organization 501© 3 Total Support 2001-2010 Average Annual Support 2001-2010 Net Assets After Liabilities (2010) Democracy Now Productions Inc. Yes $25.577,243 (from 2003) $3,197,155 $11,760,006 Schumann Center for Media and Democracy Yes NA $3,471,682 (2010) $33,314,688 Nation Institute (The Nation) Yes $22,246,533 $2,224,653 $4,798,831 Pacific News Service Yes $26,867,417 (2006-2010) $5,373,483 $712,011 Foundation for National Progress (Mother Jones) Yes $46,623,19 $4,662,320 -$1,189,040 The Progressive Yes $8,702,146 $870,215 $5,493,782 Link TV Yes $54,839,710 (excludes 2010) $6,093,301 $1,533,308 Institute for Public Affairs (In These Times) Yes $4,469,119 (excludes 2006, 2007) $558,640 -$114,532 Institute for Independent Media (Alternet) Yes $14,441,678 $1,444,168 $900,585 Figure 1. Grants, Gifts, Contributions, and Membership Fees of Select “Independent Progressive” Media or Media-Related Organizations 2001-2010 (unless otherwise noted). Based on 2001-2010 IRS Form 990s. Bill Moyers’ Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which funds The Nation Institute and online news organ Truthout, has net assets of $33,314,688 and brought in $3,471,682 in 2010 income.[13] Because these organizations assert under their 501c3 status that they have no overt political agenda, all income is untaxed.[14] Nor are they required to list the sources of their funding—even especially generous contributions. As the early 1990s grant figures for The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, and Mother Jones suggest, nickel-and-dime contributions constitute a small percentage of such outlets' overall "public" support. Funding and Self-Censorship / Conclusion Given the extent of foundation funding for left-progressive media, it is not surprising how such venues police themselves and proceed with the wishes of their wealthy benefactors in mind. As Croly observed concerning The New Republic, the Straights and Payne Whitneys "could always withdraw their financial support, if they ceased to approve of the policy of the paper; and in that event it would go out of existence as a consequence of their disapproval."[15] Indeed, this is the left news media's greatest fear. In light of these dynamics and the big money at stake the progressive media's censorial practices are understandable. At the same time self-censorship involves a fairly implicit set of social and behavioral processes. As Warren Breed discovered several decades ago, journalists' socialization and workplace routinization constitute a process whereby newsworkers themselves internalize the mindset and wishes of their publishers, thereby making overt censorship unnecessary.[16] We may conclude that a similar process is in play when today's "progressive" journalists and their editors share or accept many of the same interests, sentiments and expectations of those who hold the purse strings--and who would likely disapprove of attending to certain "controversial" or "conspiratorial" topics and issues. With this in mind the foremost concern with such media is the uniform declaration of their "alternative" and "independent" missions--claims that are as problematic and misleading as Fox News' "fair and balanced" mantle. A more appropriate (and honest) moniker for the foundation-funded press is a caveat emptor-style proclamation: "The following content is intended to impart the illusion of empowerment and dissent, yet can leave you uninformed of the most pressing issues of our time, in accordance with the wishes of our sponsors." Notes [1] On false flag terror see Daniele Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, New York: Routledge, 2005. On Fukushima see Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Ongoing Crisis of World Nuclear Radiation, ed. Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa: Centre for Research on Globalization, January 25, 2012, http://www.globalres...xt=va&aid=28870. For ongoing reportage see Enviroreporter.com. On Agenda 21 see Rachel Koire, Behind the Green Mask: UN Agenda 21, The Post-Sustainability Press, 2011. On geoengineering and weather modification see Project Censored 2012 Story #9, "Government Sponsored Technologies for Weather Modification," Censored 2012: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2010-2011, New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011, 84-90, http://www.projectce...r-modification/. On genetically modified organisms see Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods, White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2007, and F. William Engdahl, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, Ottawa: Centre for Research on Globalization, 2007. [2] Michel Chossudovsky, "Manufacturing Dissent: The Antiglobalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites," GlobalResearch.ca, September 20, 2011, http://www.globalres...xt=va&aid=21110 [3] Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World In Our Time, New York: MacMillan, 1966, 938. [4] Ronald Steele, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1980, 60. Payne Whitney would continue to fund the publication until 1953. [5] Steele, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, 59. [6] Herbert Croly, Willard Straight, New York: Macmillan & Company, 1924, 472. [7] Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 940. [8] Croly, Willard Straight, 474. [9] Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 945-946. [10] Michael Shuman, “Why do Progressive Foundations Give too Little to too Many?” The Nation, January 12, 1998, 11-16, The Nation ( January 12): 11–16. Available at http://www.tni.org/archives/act/2112 [11] Ron Curran 1997. “Buying the News.” San Francisco Bay Guardian, October 8, 1997. Cited in Bob Feldman, “Reports from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks—Foundation Managed Protest,” Critical Sociology 33 (2007), 427-446. Available at www.irasilver.org/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2011/ 08/Reading-Foundations-Feldman.pdf [12] Feldman, “Reports from the Field.” [13] All tax-related information obtained through GuideStar, http://www2.guidestar.org/Home.aspx, and Foundation Center, http://foundationcenter.org/ [14] Progressive-left finger pointers such as Center for American Progress and Media Matters for America are similarly awash in foundation funding and require separate treatment. [15] Croly, Willard Straight, 474. [16] Warren Breed, "Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis," Social Forces, 33:4 (May 1955), 326-335. Available at https://umdrive.memphis.edu James F. Tracy is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University and blogs at www.memorygap.org Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Trejo Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 (edited) Why are the lies aimed at the "Left" about JFK far and away the most important lies? Because they are the dominant lies of the JFK history, and therefore they reveal the general character of the conspirators, that's why. Before Lee Harvey Oswald was blamed for the killing of JFK (without any eye-witnesses) the news media in the USA and even in Dallas was suspicious of the ultra-right wing in Dallas (with special attention to Kennedy nemesis, the resigned Major General Edwin A. Walker and his comrades in the John Birch Society). Just one month before the JFK killing in Dallas, the ultra-right wing in Dallas had made a spectacle of Dallas by protesting, heckling and physically abusing Ambassador Adlai Stevenson for making a speech promoting the United Nations in Dallas (on 24 October 1963). According to the JBS (John Birch Society), the United Nations was a Communist Plot. General Walker himself had made several speeches on that very same topic in 1961 and 1962, after he resigned from the Army (being the only US General to resign from the Army in the 20th century). The JBS -- and ex-General Walker -- taught that all US Presidents starting with FDR had been Communist traitors, and that JFK was the worst of them. According to the ultra-right, letting Cuba go Communist without enforcing the Monroe Doctrine was proof of treason, and therefore deserving of the firing squad. Just one year previously, ex-General Walker had proven himself to be an enemy of JFK by promoting a race riot on the Ole Miss campus, organizing thousands of ultra-rightists to protest the admission of a black Air Force Veteran, James Meredith (encouraged by Civil Rights activist, Medgar Evers, who had been assassinated less than six months before JFK was assassinated). In those bloody riots of Ole Miss (ca. 1 October 1962) hundreds were wounded and two were killed. Yet a Mississipi Grand Jury let ex-General Walker go free. Encouraging the ultra-rightists in that way was a poor choice, in retrospect. The Warren Commission suspected that ex-General Walker was a major force behind the black-bordered ad (Welcome, Mr. Kennedy) in the Dallas Morning News of 22 November 1963, as well as the "Wanted for Treason: JFK" handbills that circulated throughout Dallas on 24 October 1963 as well as on 22 November 1963. Yet the witness that the Warren Commission obtained to confirm or deny Walker's participation in these JBS-related attacks on JFK was the close companion of ex-General Walker, namely, Robert Allen Surrey -- publisher for Walker's American Eagle Publishing Company, as well as for George Lincoln Rockwell and his American Nazi Party. Robert Allen Surrey was the only one of hundreds of witnesses before the Warren Commission who pleaded the fifth amendment -- dozens of times. Surrey was pointedly asked if General Walker had played any role in the "Wanted for Treason: JFK" handbills, and Surrey pleaded the fifth amendment to defend his silence. We should add that Lee Harvey Oswald was not a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA. Athough Oswald claimed to be an officer of the FPCC (Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which was friendly to Castro), the FPCC in New York City openly denied any such status for Oswald, or any leadership role in the FPCC. In other words, Oswald lied about it. But the Warren Commission didn't care about that -- they were only too happy to have this fake Communist play the patsy for the crime of the century. And who helped Oswald mockup his fake Communist credentials? The evidence points to ultra-rightists in New Orleans, particularly among Cuban Exile revolutionary groups who vowed to seize Cuba back from the Communists; including DRE (Carlos Bringuier) and INCA (Ed Butler) and their associates. Oswald didn't hang out with Communists, but with Cuban Exiles -- which is hard evidence that Oswald wasn't a Communist. Further, the official position of the US Government today (according to HSCA documents preserved online by NARA at http://history-matte...eport_0063a.htm is that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, but had accomplices. The Warren Commission sought to suppress any evidence that Oswald had accomplices -- and the only plausible reason for that suppression is that the Warren Commission knew very well who the accomplices were. They weren't Communists (because if they were, this fact would have been center stage for the world to see). Obviously, then, the Warren Commission lied about Oswald having accomplices because those well-known accomplices were just the opposite -- ultra-rightists -- and the Warren Commission had ample motivation to protect these ultra-rightists. In conclusion, the lies aimed at the "Left" about JFK are the most important lies, because these lies provide our key clues about the general character of Oswald's actual accomplices. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos> Edited August 26, 2012 by Paul Trejo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathaniel Heidenheimer Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 Paul, I would argue that some of the far right groups you mention here may have played minor facilitating roles, but when we speak of "lies aimed at the left" we are more interested in lies with the following objective TODAY but not THEN because they would not have worked as well then, (and didn't because people were too close to the events and the rewriters of history had not had enough time for Hersh's and Chomskies to do their thing: to get the post 1980 "left" and left-liberals to think that Kennedy's policies were not significantly different from those of Johnson and the key figures in the permanent military and intelligence bureaucracies. To use a metaphor of a horse and its rider, the truth of the horse (how the assassination and immediate cover up happened) might be handled by all kinds of cross spectrum mixing up. But the truth about the rider (JFK's actual policies both as enacted and as they were still inchoate in the violent contradictory chrysallis of the National Security State in which a nominal leader struggled almost alone against a teeny bopper on steroids listening to Freddy Boom Boom Cannon (the NSC and JCS) THAT truth about POLICY has to come from sources that APPEAR left, because otherwise the audience that should be most interested in the assassination would be. Hence the rider must be removed from the horse, policy removed from the assassination. Otherwise you have the JFK assassination WITH its policy implications, and JFK and the Unspeakable is #1 by teatime. Now you might argue, why would the liberals, right and center care if the left think that JFK was, in essence a Cold War rightist ? Sometimes left opinion IS allowed to matter. If what they are typing confirms the belief that the right and establishment want the public to know then the Non-truth e.g. that JFK was JUST ANOTHER Cold Warrior will be cited by the right and corporate "Center" in such a way as to say "look even that leftist Chomsky says JFK was hugely responsible for Vietnam therefore etc...." Only rightist lies emerging from ""left""""""" mouths can knock the rider off the horse. That is something to think about as we approach the 50th. The rider must be put back on the horse, because if you do not directly confront the audience that that deception is aimed at, you surrender a small but very disproportionately influential audience, who are subjected to the writers who scramble the picture of JFK's policies for the entire spectrum and are only able to do so because of their disguise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 It is verboten at the wikipedia article on Earl Warren to post anything related to his and his daughter's often reported associations with persons named in multiple newspapers and books as organized crime figures. JFK's wikipedia article is "fair game" for the inclusion of single sourced "dirt". (Yes, there is a recent sub-section added to the JFK artice to highlight "extra-marital relationships") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy#Extra-marital_relationships 238^ Reeves 1993, pp. 315–316. 239^ Bone, James (February 17, 2010), "How JFK's Riviera romance led to years of longing", The Times, London. Retrieved April 2, 2010. 240^ Reeves 1993, p. 289. 241^ Dallek 2003, p. 475. 242^ Dallek 2003, p. 58. 243^ Alford 2011. I took a look at the factual support for this.: Mary Pinchot Meyer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Pinchot_MeyerMary Pinchot Meyer and John F. Kennedy reportedly had "about 30 trysts" and at least one author has claimed she brought marijuana or LSD to almost all of ... Was Socialite Mary Pinchot Meyer Executed by the CIA? « Sip With ... sipwithsocialites.com/.../was-socialite-mary-pinchot-meyer-executed-... Apr 23, 2012 – Mary and JFK had “about 30 trysts” and at least one author has claimed she brought marijuana or LSD to almost all of these meetings. Cold Cases: Famous Unsolved Mysteries, Crimes, and Disappearances ... - Page 223 books.google.com Hélèna Katz - 2010 - 401 pages - Google eBook - Preview Jim Truitt, Anne's ex-husband, said that Mary and Jack had met 20 to 30 times in the White House during their romance. A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential ... - Page 193 books.google.comNina Burleigh - 2009 - 380 pages - Google eBook - Preview Walter Lippmann. although Bradlee did not mention Mary in his account of the dinner in his 1976 book about Kennedy!'/' The White House relationship between Mary Meyer and President Kennedy was first revealed by journalist James Truitt in 1976, and later corroborated by Ben Bradlee's eyewitness description of Mary's diary and by Tony Bradlee's comments to journalists. Mary apparently told the Truitts about her meetings with the president while they were happening, and Truitt kept notes with dates. times, and details.18 It is unclear whether Mary knew of or approved of Truitt's note—taking, although she did tell a female friend during this period that she regarded her trysts with Kennedy as interesting history. The question is whether or not Jim DiEugenio is unreasonable in his criticism of examples such as this, given the sourcing of the "proof" supporting the stated conslusions.: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmeyerM.htm .....In October 1961, Mary began visiting John F. Kennedy in the White House. It was about this time she began an affair with the president. Mary told her friends, Ann and James Truitt, that she was keeping a diary about the relationship. In 1962 Mary made contact with Timothy Leary, the director of research projects at Harvard University. Leary supplied LSD to Mary who used it with Kennedy. Leary also claimed that Mary helped influence Kennedy's views on nuclear disarmament and rapprochement with Cuba. It was later discovered that the FBI was keeping a file on Mary.... http://www.ctka.net/djm.html Beware: The Douglas/Janney/Simkin Silver Bullets By James DiEugenio .....When I reviewed David Talbot's book Brothers, I criticized his section on Mary Meyer. Someone posted a link to my review on Simkin's forum. Simkin went after my critique of Talbot's Meyer section tooth and nail. (I should add here that Simkin has a long history of doing this. He goes after people who disagree with him on Meyer with a Bill O'Reilly type intensity. Almost as if he is trying to beat down any further public disagreement about his view of what happened to her.) In my review I simply stated that Talbot had taken at face value people who did not deserve to be trusted. And I specifically named Timothy Leary, James Truitt, James Angleton, and David Heymann. And I was quite clear about why they were not credible. At this time, I was not aware of an important fact: it was Simkin who had lobbied Talbot to place the Mary Meyer stuff in the book. Further, that he got Talbot in contact with a guy who he was also about to use to counter me. His name is Peter Janney. Janney has been trying to get a screenplay made on the Meyer case for a while. He advocates the work of the late Leo Damore.... Who has more influence over readers not already committed to "the narrative" of JFK as serial adulterer, illegal drug user, in the White House, the prominent conspiracy researcher or the "nothing to see here, move along" McAdams's serving up prominent links in google search results? In these examples, are the references Nina Burleigh describes, from Leary, Truitt, Ben Bradlee and his ex-wife, and a vaguer confirmation from "a friend of Mary's" enough to state these practices attribute to JFK, as fact? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathaniel Heidenheimer Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 Tom, can you explain how this relates to the left-gatekeeping? and or why you chose this thread to post this on rather than the longer one about Mary's Mosaic? There may be a connection, and it skipped by me amid the excerpts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tom Scully Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 .............. You will notice how, especially since 1980 the so called "left" i.e. read allowed-to-be -published, is almost exclusively focussed on social history to the virtual exclusion of political history. You need both folks. ................... Excuse me, Nathaniel, what I take in, is what I put back out. I have a new thread up, asking for a discussion of who the Kennedy couple actually were, because I cannot tell, judging by their choice of friends. I know who the Rockefellers are, I can anticipate much of their agenda and priorities. There are so many "on the left," I cannot figure out. For instance, Mr. Janney had a father who worked his whole career for an agency created by a panel chaired by Robert Lovett, with the legislation bringing it into existence authored by..... wait for it..... Clark Clifford. Janney had an uncle in business with Laurence and David Rockefeller; Frank Pace, Jr., who had a close friend, Roswell Gilpatric, a boyhood (lifelong) buddy, from summers on Mt. Desert Island, with the Rockefellers. Janney makes it clear he is a progressive, clashing with his father over the Viet Nam war and the counter culture of the 1960's. What does Janney devote himself to writing about, Mary Meyer and rumors surrounding her life and death. John is viewed by elements of the retired intelligence community as a "socialist." Five years after DiEugenio's "Silver Bullets" article, what does John elect to post on his own JFK Assassination Research forum? ............... But there was also distance. “There was always a layer of reserve between us, which may explain why we never kissed,” she writes. “The wide gulf between us — the age, the power, the experience — guaranteed that our affair wouldn’t evolve into anything more serious.” It is this passage that makes me believe the story. ..... I won't post an further if these are not examples of OT as you would prefer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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