Creeping Despotism Log #1

by THE Twank Mon Feb 13th, 2017 at 07:53:40 AM EST

This series is part of my last stand as the U. S. of A. sinks into grinding despotism, long overdue given how "we" rain hell upon other societies while watching sports matches on TV with ads for alcoholic beverages followed by drug treatment centers. Humorous, actually.

My 2 major sources for news information are Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman et al and Rachel Maddow. These are 2ndary sources but I've never had reason to doubt their accuracy. Every Monday I'll post a new diary covering the events of the previous week along with my take on what's happened.

Example: Everyone's giddy that a 3 judge Appellate Court kept The Tyrant's immigration ban in limbo and, apparently, he has no immediate plans to resubmit to SCOTUS. Victory, right? Not at all. He'll wait till he gets his court pick for the bench and win ALL rulings, 5-4. Good Bye check on the Tyrant. Good Bye Everything.

In California news, "Jerry Brown requests presidential disaster declaration for January storms " ; either the Tyrant will give CA the middle finger salute or there will be strings ... no ... ropes attached designed to turn the state over to Repubs. Just watch. California is definitely in the Tyrant's bomb sight.

California is already under attack. 106 of my fellow CA citizens have been rounded up for deportation and there's little we've done about it. THEY have guns, clubs, etc. and WE citizens have ... what(?) ... protests? Seems kinda one-sided. Needs to change.

An aside: Movie ... "Law Abiding Citizen" ... 2009 ... the Gerard Butler character ... VERY inspiring.

That's the intro.

Look what's happening out in the streets
Got a revolution
Got to revolution
Hey I'm dancing down the streets
Got a revolution
Got to revolution
Ain't it amazing all the people I meet
Got a revolution
Got to revolution
One generation got old
One generation got soul
This generation got no destination to hold
Pick up the cry
Hey now it's time for you and me
Got a revolution
Got to revolution
Come on now we're marching to the sea
Got a revolution
Got to revolution
Who will take it from you
We will and who are we
We are volunteers of America

Can't stand it no more
The people dying
Crying for help for so many years
But nobody hears
Better end soon my friend
It better end soon my friend
Can't take it no more
The people hating
Hurting their brothers
They don't understand
They can't understand
Better end soon my friend
It better end soon
Hey, everybody
Won't you just look around
Can't anybody see?
Just what's going down
Can't you take the time?
Just to feel
Just to feel what is real
If you do
Then you'll see that we got a raw deal
They're killing everybody
I wish it weren't true
They say we got to make war
Or the economy will fall
But if we don't stop
We won't be around no more
They're ruining this world
For you and me
The big heads of state
Won't let us be free
They made the rules once
But it didn't work out
Now we must try again
Before they kill us off
No more dying!
No more killing
No more dying
No more fighting
We don't want to die
No, we don't want to die
Please let's change it all
Please let's make it all
Good for the present
And better for the future
Let's just love one another
Let's show peace for each other
We can make it happen
Let's just make it happen
We can change this world
Please let's change this world
Please let's make it happen for our children
For our women
Change the world
Please make it happen
Come on
Come on
Please
Come on
It's up to me
It's up to you
So let's do it now
Yeah
Do it now
Can't stand it no more
The people cheating
Burning each other
They know it ain't right
How can it be right
Better end soon my friend
It better end soon my friend

Creeping Despotism Log #1 | 15 comments (15 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Creeping Despotism Log #1 (4.00 / 2)

For all of the songs and proclamations in the '60s I never saw actual revolution as a possibility. It was more just acting out anger, which is too easily dealt with by authoritarian forces - as we saw. To be successful we need to be more focused on the political arena and more concerned with practical accomplishment and boring detail. We will see how well this goes over 2017, by 2018 we need to be ready.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Mon Feb 13th, 2017 at 04:49:16 PM EST

Re: Creeping Despotism Log #1 (none / 0)

To be successful we need to be more focused on the political arena ...

I suspect by the next election cycle the political arena will be shut down ... the Repubs will game the system in all "Red" states and try to pick off the purples. That's why I'm backing the "California ... let's blow this popcicle stand" movement before it's too late. The Calexit movement is useless ... wrong people asking the rest of the loser continent if we MAY leave. It's like a kid moving out of the parent's home ... do it already, don't ask permission, life will be a little more difficult for a while but you won't be constrained by bullshit. California will finally wake up to the fact that the Fed. Govt. is now the enemy. It wants CA subjugated. What's that old saying, "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees"? That's what's coming ... look at N. Carolina.

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Mon Feb 13th, 2017 at 06:43:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Creeping Despotism Log #1 (4.00 / 2)

Bourgois ppl always as for permission to change allegiance from the class to which they owe allegiance. and aspiration, read: prosperity.

That's how stupid the "middle-class" is. Those who identify with economic structures erected by celebrities will ally themselves with the barriers to equity that trap them in rhetorical, puritan, and indefensible prison defending capitalism; until the "rent is too damn high".

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sun Feb 19th, 2017 at 09:34:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Creeping Despotism Log #1 (none / 0)

I will forever defend your right to confuse the crap out of me in my diaries. Speak on.

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Sun Feb 19th, 2017 at 09:43:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The real events of the 60s (none / 1)

The Origins of the Overclass

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.
The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface -- and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

by das monde on Tue Feb 14th, 2017 at 01:00:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The real events of the 60s (none / 0)

Interesting ... you might have a kindred spirit in Arthur Gilroy over at Booman. He frequently comments on the CIA.

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Tue Feb 14th, 2017 at 06:48:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The real events of the 60s (none / 1)

Ok, I noticed him.

Elitism and Intelligence are closely tied both ways:

Considering the importance and all-consuming nature of the work I was doing at the Agency; considering the missionary zeal, sense of elitism and marvelous camaraderie among my colleagues there [...] -- considering all of this, one can see how easy it would have been for me to drop out of that world and immerse myself exclusively in the cloak-and-dagger life. And some of my colleagues at the Agency did just that. Socially as well as professionally they cliqued together, forming a sealed fraternity. They ate together at their own special favorite restaurants; they partied almost only among themselves; their families drifted to each other, so their defenses did not always have to be up. In this way they increasingly separated themselves from the ordinary world and developed a rather skewed view of the world. Their own dedicated double life became the proper norm, and they looked down on the life of the rest of citizenry. And out of this grew what was later named -- and condemned -- as the "cult" of intelligence, an inbred, distorted elitist view of intelligence that held above the normal processes of society, with its own rationale and justification, beyond the restraints of the Constitution, which applied to everything and everyone else.
"Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA" (1978, pg 86-87) -- William Colby, CIA Director 1973-1976

by das monde on Tue Feb 14th, 2017 at 12:38:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The real events of the 60s (4.00 / 3)

The CIA doesn't need to have it as one of it's actual operations. There is enough cross-pollination just from the class structure. The US State Department and intelligence communities (and the military officer class for that matter) have always been the playgrounds of Ivy Leaguers and southern equivalents, with an influx of Mormon water-carriers over the last 40 years. When I took a shot at the Foreign Service 35+ years ago, I was brought in for a look because they saw my degree from Utah State and thought I was LDS. I'm not, and my Michigan law degree just wasn't Ivy (a fact that never ceases to drive Wolverine alums up a tree). "It's a fine school, but it just isn't one of OUR schools, old boy. I'm sure you understand. The door is that way."

by rifek on Wed Feb 15th, 2017 at 02:19:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullverine speaks out (none / 0)

So you want a red badge, because you got dinged?

I grew up in MI and am a Bo-wolverine through and through. My dad was MI gov't, a black republican,criminal justice. CIA and FBI were still recruiting at Yale when I was there thirty years ago with Kearny, Booz, McKinsey, &tc. In fact one of my roomates, an immigrant, a Canadian trustafarian with Russian language skills got hired.

I didn't apply at all. So. Where's my 4-point up-vote for economic and political oppression by the man, punk?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sun Feb 19th, 2017 at 08:58:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullverine speaks out (none / 0)

Where's my 4-point up-vote for economic and political oppression by the man, punk?

Now now, let's watch the language. Where do you think you are ... the Booman Tribune? 😂 😝

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

by THE Twank (yatta blah blah @ blah.com) on Sun Feb 19th, 2017 at 09:22:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: bullverine speaks out (none / 0)

"Punk"? Whatever.

by rifek on Wed Feb 22nd, 2017 at 06:30:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "traced back to" (4.00 / 2)

John and Allen Dulles: "founding fathers" of the corporate culture of US intelligence agencies including the FBI that inexplicably (if MSM commentary is to be trusted) are meddling with and interfering in impunity of the the office of the POTUS.

Here is timely opposition to manufactured consent to "national security" courage, impunity, and heroic acts: secretive meddling and interference is a good thing.

The most historically interesting element of this moment is the rarity of seeing the CIA operating, in real time, not in its usual historical role as a covert arm of the presidency (which Congressman Otis Pike argued was its primary function), but as the sort of rogue elephant that Senator Frank Church and others long ago claimed it is.

The CIA as Kingslayer

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sun Feb 19th, 2017 at 07:59:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "I never saw actual revolution" (4.00 / 2)

Am I to understand then that Black Panther Party in CA, in particular, was not a revolutionary movement to subvert status quo with guns, independendent press, and breakfast? A generation decimated by US intelligence services?? Let me remind you.

How easily by contrast bourgeois "resistance" will be appeased. Low interest rates. Low taxes. Hillary for Mayor.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sun Feb 19th, 2017 at 08:30:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Creeping Despotism Log #1 (4.00 / 2)

The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine

[...] "with a mere ten `likes' as input his model could appraise a person's character better than an average coworker. With seventy, it could `know' a subject better than a friend; with 150 likes, better than their parents. With 300 likes, Kosinski's machine could predict a subject's behavior better than their partner. With even more likes it could exceed what a person thinks they know about themselves."
[...] the feedback is instant and the response automated: Did this specific swing voter in Pennsylvania click on the ad attacking Clinton's negligence over her email server? Yes? Serve her more content that emphasizes failures of personal responsibility. No? The automated script will try a different headline, perhaps one that plays on a different personality trait -- say the voter's tendency to be agreeable toward authority figures. Perhaps: "Top Intelligence Officials Agree: Clinton's Emails Jeopardized National Security."
Much of this is done through Facebook dark posts, which are only visible to those being targeted [...]
Dark posts were also used to depress voter turnout among key groups of democratic voters.

by das monde on Mon Feb 20th, 2017 at 05:18:09 AM EST

Re: Creeping Despotism Log #1 (none / 0)

Is this how nerd dreams come true?

by das monde on Mon Feb 20th, 2017 at 05:51:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Creeping Despotism Log #1 | 15 comments (15 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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Creeping Despotism Log #1

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