General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRainy Day, Dream Away
Rainy day, rain all day
Ain't no use in gettin' uptight
Just let it groove its own way
Let it drain your worries away yeah
Lay back and groove on a rainy day hey
Lay back and dream on a rainy day
- Jimi Hendrix
https://vimeo.com/170063784
As I prepare my first cup of coffee this morning, I look out the kitchen window. It has been raining for days and days, and my lawn has rapidly grown far beyond needing to be mowed. It is the only thing that the word rapid could be applied to around here. I then plop down in front of my computer and go to Face Book while I sip my cup of coffee. A friend from college has posted a drawing of a lady saying, Ow, my neck! I slept wrong! and underneath it, Getting Older Checkpoint: when you get hurt from sleeping.
After the first cup, I take my dogs out and feed them. Next, I feed the growing array of cats that inhabit my garage. Most of them are stray cats from God only knows where. I've had people in cars drop off two in my driveway when they were kittens; one of these now has kittens roaming around the garage. The cat population seems to come and go in cycles. My daughter's rabbit, which escaped its coop two years ago, hangs out with the cats.
Hobbling back inside, I pour my second cup of coffee. I complete my morning routine of stretches, and laugh when I realize that I am not alone in waking up sore in the morning. I had recently run into the lady who was my secretary at the clinic, who had just turned 85. She is active every day, and drives for four hours every week to visit her son. So I suppose not all of us share the same limitations.
Years ago, I remember that another spry older woman an Iroquois Clan Mother said that when the outside world is spinning at a rapid rate, it's important to enter a space within yourself to slow things down. Hence, I decide to avoid the television and computer, and even the book of the Mueller Report, and instead sit and listen to the rain. I cannot remember ever being bored perhaps I'm not smart enough for that and I've always enjoyed the opportunity to just listen to the rain and let my mind wander.
Still, I'm thinking about that report, and why the Trump administration is so intent upon hiding the evidence they claim exonerates Trump. We know much of the information contained in the two parts that have been released in redacted form. Yet, as Rachael on MSNBC continues to point out, we don't have anything from the counter-intelligence, national security investigation. Or do we? Would Bob Mueller's testimony assist us in recognizing those parts that have been released?
I think about Attorney General Barr's public activities. If we were to consider it in the context of an intelligence program, we could only conclude that it has been a perception management campaign, aimed at misleading the public into believing the Mueller Report is the exact opposite of what it really is. That's curious, because I remember when I was first reading Malcolm Nance's book The Plot to Hack America, I recognized that the Russian intelligence was running a perception management campaign within the United States. As I think of it now, I realize that Mr. Nance's outstanding book was actually an extremely accurate version of Part 1 of the Mueller Report.
Most of us older folks remember that the idea of subliminal advertising was a hot topic in the late 1950s through the early '70s. (I'll wait here until you return with popcorn and coke.) The Beatles' fans may recall Rev. David Noebel, the author of both Communism, Hypnotism, and the Beatles and The Beatles: A study in Sex, Drugs, and Revolution, warning us of the subliminal messages that Russian scientists inserted into the Beatles' songs. Ringo's drumming was especially dangerous, because it led unsuspecting girls to dance with wild abdomen.
On October 20, 1977, Carl Bernstein published a story on The CIA and the Media in Rolling Stone. It remains one of the most important works of journalism in modern history.
http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
Luckily, these days we don't have such an influence on the way the media reports stories, unless you include the numerous retired intelligence officers hired by virtually every cable news outlet. One might question the media's role in George H. W. Bush's war with Iraq to that of his son's. But one important difference is that everyone lied for the Elder, while some tried to warn the nation before W's war. Indeed, the Office of the Vice President's attempts to silence critics resulted in a large scandal.
Leading up to the 2016 presidential campaign, Russian military intelligence was focused on interfering with our election process. Trump's entering the race was icing on the cake. It provided the opportunity to move beyond creating discord, and then harming Hillary Clinton who they anticipated would win to actually helping Trump win. And it is essential to understand, as Malcolm Nance has pointed out, that this was their sequence of goals: first, disrupt, second, hurt Clinton, and eventually third, to help Trump.
Thus Russian military intelligence assessed several things: the divisions in each party during their primaries, the unfavorable burden each candidate in the general election carried and that is not dependent upon if it is an unfavorable that is justified by facts, the current technology that allows for mass communications including tasking organizations to provide bots to spread discord, and Wikileaks to publish stolen documents, identifying the best lies and misleading information to cause disruptions and acrimony, and perhaps the most significant, groups in the US that will be helpful in peddling information, disinformation, and misinformation to specific target audiences.
Each of these goals was met at a level that allowed Trump to win.
It's interesting, at least to me, to think back to some of the strange things that happened in 2016. The Mueller Report raises questions, I think, about the more than 200,000 voters purged from the rolls in Brooklyn in the six months prior to the primary vote. That has never been explained.
The good news in all of this reminds me of the cure for subliminal advertising: if you know it's there, you won't respond to it (or o they say). Democratic voters in 2018 were aware of events two years before, and we sure as hell voted accordingly. We need to keep this in mind as 2020 approaches, and not only in the presidential primaries and general election.
Thank you for reading this.
H2O Man
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Once I retired at the age of 69 I promised myself I would always start the day doing exactly what I want to do. It never gets old.
Many years ago, just after Bush was selected by the Supreme Court I had a conversation with a friend about the media stubbornly ignoring the facts about the entire Florida debacle over the votes, and deliberately giving us lies. We discussed the medias role in dictatorships and in the perception of the truthfulness, or lack thereof, of what the public perceives. She said something that has stuck with me. She said that people who live in dictatorships may not know the truth, but they do know theyre being lied to. For us, Im afraid were still having a problem grappling with that. Getting woke is hard to do.
To me Trump would have never been president without the Supreme Court selecting Bush and that stolen election.
H2O Man
(73,536 posts)I think of the Persian Sufi poet Rumi, who wrote:
This world and yonder world are incessantly giving birth: every cause is a mother, its affect the child.
When the effect is born, it too becomes a cause and gives birth to wonderous effects.
These causes are generation on generation, but it needs a very well lighted eye to see the links in their chain.
That sums up going from Nixon to Reagan to Bush to Bush to Trump. More, Watergate to Iran-Contra to Plame to the Trump-Russian scandal.
I weight different news sources differently. Just an old habit. But I think that quite a bit on MSNBC and CNN, and especially in the NY Times and Washington Post, is about as good as it has ever been in my life-time. Yet, I still prefer books overall.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)I watch MSNBC and feel pretty sure that theyre TELLING the truth, though they dont insist that their guests tell it by insisting on the facts. If they put opinions in their own category labeled opinion pieces they would at least stick to some sort of fact. It would even be OK to have opinion/counter opinion segments. Its hard not being able to trust them completely anymore. Its a slippery slope.
And I agree that all history is about either building on the past or building to destroy the past. All dots are connected. I just watched a series on CuriosityStream named Butterfly Effect which is quite good in that theme. Its also artistically done and amazing visually. I recommend it.
Me.
(35,454 posts)That was read to me this morning while I was making breakfast has to do with the Traitor's actual role in/and personal connection with Wikileaks.
That would not surprise me in the least.
Another thing that I expect Congress will uncover is something I'd heard, then read a post about by a forum member I respect. It has to do with a bank loan to Trump, that the Russians"bought" and forgave, that wasn't properly recorded on Trump's tax filings. I believe that we will learn more about that in mid- to late June.
malaise
(268,967 posts)The 2016 scandal in Florida is slowly seeping out
Here's the latest link
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/gov-desantis-russians-hacked-voting-databases-two-florida-counties-n1005461
H2O Man
(73,536 posts)Especially thanks for the article on Florida. Very, very important.
I've got to step out for a short while. An area newspaper recently had a long article (three pages) detailing some scandals with a NYS senator. He's a republican, of course. I'm meeting with a few people that an associate put me in contact with, who can provide more explosive information .....and then I'll send it along to the reporter. Kind of a "road map," you might say!
malaise
(268,967 posts)nature
Please give us details when you can
H2O Man
(73,536 posts)This fellow is corrupt, even by NYS republican standards. He used to be in law enforcement, and people tend to be afraid to publicly cross him. I can not in good conscience tell them not to be. But luckily the regional media knows that every tip I've provided them with in the last 40+ years proves to be fully accurate. And I'm not afraid of anyone. I don't feel the stick they carry.
malaise
(268,967 posts)Keep ém coming!!!
kentuck
(111,089 posts)"Thus Russian military intelligence assessed several things: the divisions in each party during their primaries, the unfavorable burden each candidate in the general election carried and that is not dependent upon if it is an unfavorable that is justified by facts, the current technology that allows for mass communications including tasking organizations to provide bots to spread discord, and Wikileaks to publish stolen documents, identifying the best lies and misleading information to cause disruptions and acrimony, and perhaps the most significant, groups in the US that will be helpful in peddling information, disinformation, and misinformation to specific target audiences."
coeur_de_lion
(3,676 posts)I especially love your practice of clearing your mind before sitting down to an important task. I'm not especially good at that and I love your reminders to be mindful and meditate. Or at least to listen to nature.
That's one of your gifts to the DU community IMHO. Your ability to get us all to chill out first, then take action. And we need to remember during this very scary time that we need to manage our stress level proactively.
I think about Attorney General Barr's public activities. If we were to consider it in the context of an intelligence program, we could only conclude that it has been a perception management campaign, aimed at misleading the public into believing the Mueller Report is the exact opposite of what it really is. That's curious, because I remember when I was first reading Malcolm Nance's book The Plot to Hack America, I recognized that the Russian intelligence was running a perception management campaign within the United States. As I think of it now, I realize that Mr. Nance's outstanding book was actually an extremely accurate version of Part 1 of the Mueller Report.
The one thing the mango mussolini is good at is managing perception of his base. He even managed to make some of us here on DU despair when we read Barr's ridiculous summary. Then we thought about it and said "hang on that just can't be right." And indeed it was nearly 100% bullshit.
He is good at perception management but terrible at governing. Just as he was a terrible businessman.
It will be hard to overcome the lies he's told. People still believe him. And they believe that since he has so far gone unpunished he must be innocent.
We really need Mueller's testimony and trump's tax returns to turn public perception so we can start impeachment proceedings.
So tell me Oh Wise One, what do you think our chances of obtaining those two things are? How long will it take to overcome trump obstruction?
Yours in Christ
Lionheart
llmart
(15,536 posts)However, I really got a giggle out of this line.
"Ringo's drumming was especially dangerous, because it led unsuspecting girls to dance with wild abdomen."