#BernieSoLeftierThanThou Ambushed by Pro-Hillary Fake Left

There's the saying that if it walks and talks like a duck, then it's a duck, morons. You know who isn't a moron? That's me. I proved that with the series on my greatness. But I digress.

There is no point in reinventing the wheel. Donkeytale has challenged me to jump into the fake, medium movement fray and explain in my own inimitable way wtf truly happened at Netroots Nation 2015.

I was relieved to see that a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done. Wonkette is a snarky, little news aggregator which covered this.

Go to All Of U.S. America Was A Total Sh*t Show, How Was Your Weekend? Scroll down. It's the second entry. I suppose I am not the only one who likes to do the three or even nine blog entries in one diary schtick or is this yet another indication of schtick theft? Anyway, one of the links provided by Wonkette is to Haha What? Basically, I do not have to spell out why the #BernieSoBlack Twitter tag is so off-base. Why reinvent a wheel that already exists?

Let's cut to the chase. Two Black folks seem to be the driving force behind the recent Bernie bashing, Elon James White and Tia Oso. Let's get to Ms. Oso first.

The Black Lives Matter movement seems to be akin to Anonymous in that anyone can act on its behalf. I think BLM started as a Twitter hashtag. This is how low America has sunk. Politics has become a race to see which tags are trending and then to pile on with hidden agendas or useful idiocy. #BernieSoBlack was apparently started by a random regular guy and then took off. The guy who started the schtick seems to now have nothing much to do with it. It's like when the Breitbarts took over the #KimberlinStory, in which the dude who started or revived it taking it further than anyone else (moi), became the afterthought or that liberal fella according to Glenn Beck.

Co-optation can certainly take on a life of its own. That's not a bad sentence. I will hit enter on the monitor and start a new paragraph.

[UPDATE: donkeytale says that the felony charge was changed into a misdemeanor as part of the plea agreement.]

Tia Oso works for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. It looks legit, although I am not going to research them. One thing I did learn early (in this process started by donkeytale's breaking news on the Netroots Nation brouhaha) is that Oso is a convicted felon. I admit that doesn't necessarily have to be a deal breaker.

However, The Phoenix New Times has reported that Tia Oso embezzled over $11,000 from Arizona Citizens for the Arts/Arizona Action for the Arts in 2007-08. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a whopping three days in jail (in Mayberry?) and two years probation.

This wasn't someone getting busted for selling weed or anything else having nothing to do with one's general honesty. She stole money from a non-profit. I don't know if she works for the FBI or if she is simply very lucky to have found a lenient judge. I admit to having no clue about courts and sentencing. I do imagine that if I stole 11 grand, I'd be in prison for at least a couple years, not just three days.

The bottom line is that her kind of display at Netroots Nation was not what I envision as positive protest. As donkeytale pointed out on another thread, somehow this might end up helping Bernie Sanders acquire votes from folks who otherwise might have felt he is too much of a commie.

If anything, this article will broaden Bernie's appeal to the not so leftier than thou masses (you know, the ones he will need to attract to have any chance of uhhm, winning).

Oso has been getting major support from Elon James White.

The Bruenig article cited by Wonkette contradicts what those two would like us all to believe. He put up some startling quotes from Oso. She did an interview with David Dayen. The full transcript can be read here.

I remember when there was a big-ass protest against the Iraq War. It was going swell. It was a zeitgeist event, in some ways similar to the growing Thank You Youtube for Exposing Violent Police movement. The solidarity against the war seemed to lose steam once A.N.S.W.E.R. took over. What Oso and her crew did at Netroots Nation similarly brought everything to a screeching halt. It was confusing. One could understand the crowd booing O'Malley for his all lives matter moment. The going after Bernie Sanders part was quite ridiculous.

Donkeytale wonders whether Team Clinton was behind that. I don't know. I do know this. Daily Kos is part and parcel of fake leftism. Elon James White is part of Netroots. Finally, Oso's co-optation of #BlackLivesMatter was wholeheartedly facilitated by the Netroots Nation moderator and staff putting on the paid fake or useful idiot event.

 Methinks Elon doth protest too much?

Elon is all over Twitter flailing his typing fingers attacking Bernie Sanders in the twisted way described accurately by Bruenig. This is called Astroturf, Useful Idiocy, or Self-Promotion Within the Medium 101. It is the manufacturing of a false grassroots movement.

How does a convicted embezzler plus blogger Elon James White mixed in with #BernieSoBlack add up to a real story? I am with Wonkette and Bruenig.

As I try to figure out how to end this, Fareed Zakaria is on in the background. He is a confirmed plagiarist. Yet somehow he is meant to be viewed as a journalist. GTFO!

I called this a non-story at Twitter in pretty much real time. I posted the actual videos. I asked the creator of #BernieSoBlack directly, "Where's the beef?" He had nothing and there is a Vox article in which he "explains" himself and still it added no substance. One reason I want to completely quit Twitter is that I am putting time and energy into things which are not as satisfying as putting it all into blog entries. I no longer want any good stuff to get lost there.

I took on Dr. Jason Johnson of NBC. He wrote up an article basically doing a public relations schtick for the Tia Oso/Elon James White script. I think there were 50 people with Oso, but I am not sure. How do around 50 people end up speaking for all of #BlackLivesMatter?

I asked Johnson where his article was for Hillary Clinton saying all lives matter in an African American church. He had nothing. It seemed he didn't even know what I was referring to.

I then did a mini-socratisation and found this:

Jason Johnson has worked as a campaign manager for Republicans. In conclusion, while there is no verified proof Hillary Clinton was behind the ambush of the greatness which is Bernie Sanders, she might as well have been. In real time and even perhaps only mere days ago, this was a terrifying bit of schadenfreude for that greatness. However, to the blog gods I ask this: On what planet does "journalist" Jason Johnson have credibility? I rest my case.

fin

Preguntas que Buscan Respuestas

             This graph is from: It's official: Latinos now outnumber whites in California

Latinos now make up the majority of public school students in the two most populous states. California, as usual, got there first.

That influence will only grow as Latino parents – now in the majority – realize many of the schools their children attend are underfunded, said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley.

“It turns upside down how we think about California students,” he said.

“A lot depends on the extent to which Latino parents come together and organize,” Fuller added. “These are parents who historically have not had much political power. But as they are coming together and feeling their oats, they may organize around education.”

Texas, ironically California’s polar opposite from the standpoint of mainstream ideology, also became majority latino in its public school system during the previous school year.Texas Republicans have seen the future and it is to their south. Their legislative response? Underfund the growth in public education for the first time. A coincidence?

In 2011, the state [Texas] reached two landmarks. For the first time, Hispanics became the majority of public school students. And to cope with a historic budget deficit, the Legislature did not finance enrollment growth in the state’s schools — something that had not happened since the modernization of the state’s public school system in 1949. Though the first turning point passed quietly and the second with much political strife, they both underscored the challenges ahead as a dramatic demographic shift occurs in public school classrooms statewide.

By 2050, the number of Texas public school students is expected to swell to nine million from roughly five million now, and nearly two-thirds will be Hispanic, according to Steve Murdock, a demographer and director of Rice University’s Hobby Center for the Study of Texas. The overall percentage of white students will drop by half to about 15 percent. Without a change in Hispanics’ current socioeconomic status, that also means Texas students will continue to grow poorer — and their education more expensive — in the next four decades, Murdock added.

State population figures over the last decade show the shift is well under way in the public school system. Economically disadvantaged children in Texas classrooms make up 60 percent of all children in public schools, up from less than half in 2000. Students with limited English skills now make up 16 percent of them. Of about 979,000 children added to the state’s under-18 population from 2000 to 2010, 931,000 were Hispanic

Why are so many white middle class progressives seemingly oblivious to the demographic trend other than to wish defeat upon the political party most identified with latinos at this critical juncture of American, indeed Western, herstory?

Why are we not seeking to affiliate politically with minourities in their homes, joining and voting with them, supporting them with our dollars and our abilities, enhancing the future prospects for this tidal wave that will surely crush every obstacle in its path sometime after the middle of this century?

For this tidal wave represents also the future United States of America of our children and our grandchildren.

The Democrats should also emphasize their commitment to education, which Latinos consistently rate as a top concern. Consider that Latino college enrollment has soared in the last few years, according to the Pew Center, and the number of Hispanics receiving college degrees hit new highs. Democrats can contrast their positions on education – ensuring access to college, more funding for public schools – with the GOP’s focus on spending cuts. Romney’s advice to college students was “borrow money if you have to from your parents.” Ryan’s budget would slash funding for Pell Grants, which roughly 40 percent of Hispanic students rely on to attend college.

Likewise, Democrats should make a strong case for the Affordable Care Act. Gallup polling says that 40 percent of Hispanics are uninsured, the highest of any demographic. In Charlotte, the message must be loud and clear: the president wants to guarantee all Americans access to health care, while Romney has vowed to repeal “Obamacare.”

No less important is the Obama administration’s record on constitutional and civil rights. The Department of Justice has fought anti-immigrant laws in Arizona and Alabama. They have taken Sheriff Joe Arpaio to court for racial profiling, investigated Voter ID laws in South Carolina and Pennsylvania, and challenged discriminatory redistricting in Texas. Democrats need to highlight these legal battles to show that Obama is fighting for Hispanics.

Will a soon to be re-reformed (post-collapse) GOP manage to outflank progressives (yet again!) and gain share the future as they previously did by assimilating the white working class and religious voters during the 1980s?

It is progressives, after all, who naturally would seem to be most supportive of multiculturalism, as you would also expect progressives to support unions and the working class.

Racism is also the fundamental flaw in the white middle-class progressivism of the Green Party, or “third party” if you will, since this non-movement is all about symbolic default rhetorical positioning for future blog posts rather than practical (or even ideal) politics. Further, the assumptions used to gain this nihilist absurdist pose are steeped in as many false premises as any in the tea party platform.

When I read diary after diary by whiteysphereans begging for someone, anyone to take the lead for us, its like, ok, you’ve already been led down the drain by giving up your own right of self-assertion, a right the tea parties, for whatever their myriad faults, have demonstrated vociferously since Obama’s election. They have asserted themselves first in the streets, gaining power, self promotion and self identification and then crucially organising at precinct level to gain significance within the GOP.

And WMC progressives are talking about obamabots being trapped in veal pens?

Look first at the log in thine own eye, loosers.

The WMCP disconnect is ironic to say the least.

Another progressive rhetorical fallacy: the Green party represents leftism.

The Green Party is middle class consumerist/environmentalist. Where electorally empowered anywhere (Australia, Germany and Britain), the Greens policies, because of the need to lead and compromise in reality, turn out to be the practical equivalency of Blue Dog Democrats!

The Greens presented themselves as a party to the left of Labour (not too difficult one would have thought). Their policies are radical and many are worth supporting. But as with the situation in Ireland, consistency and veracity are called for. It is not enough to parrot truisms about being unable to challenge the status quo, no matter how urgent it is to do so. How can the Greens seriously challenge the corporate sector, the global corporations, climate change in the Arctic and the prospect of resource wars and famines, if they fall down at the first puff of wind from Eric Pickles and the Department for Communities and Local Government?

Vision requires courage, and courage requires mounting a challenge. On both, the Greens have been found sadly wanting.

How are White Middle Class Progressives racist? Because you’ve disassociated yourselves from the black and hispanic underclasses (the white underclass has long since disassociated itself from you) exactly on those issues over which the two parties (yes, Virginia, there are two parties, “uniparty” = empty rhetorical fallacy) are battling:

immigration

education funding

tax increases on the rich (Obama) vs tax increases on the middle class (Romney)

Medicaid

For instance, one would never know from reading WMCP rants against Obamacare that the Dems passed a HUGE increase in Medicaid expansion, and while SCOTUS weakened that part of the law, which I’m guessing most WMCP wanted tossed in total, a handful of states have already implemented it for which 500,000+ poor people (remember them?) have already benefitted.

The health care law required states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to all residents earning below 133 percent of the poverty line. That expansion was expected to provide coverage to about 17 million of the uninsured, roughly half of the total coverage expansion projected under the law. (The mandate on individuals to buy insurance, with substantial subsidies from the government and the establishment of exchanges where they can shop for competing coverage plans, is expected to provide the other half.)

One would never know how differently poor people are treated in the Red States:

In South Carolina, a yearly income of $16,900 is too much for Medicaid for a family of three. In Florida, $11,000 a year is too much. In Mississippi, $8,200 a year is too much. In Louisiana and Texas, earning more than just $5,000 a year makes you ineligible for Medicaid.

Governors in those five states have said they’ll reject the Medicaid expansion underpinning Obama’s health law after the Supreme Court’s decision gave states that option. Many of those hurt by the decision are working parents who are poor — but not poor enough — to qualify for Medicaid.

Republican Mitt Romney’s new running mate, conservative Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, has a budget plan that would turn Medicaid over to the states and sharply limit federal dollars. Romney hasn’t specifically said where he stands on Ryan’s idea, but has expressed broad support for his vice presidential pick’s proposals.

Shame on white middle class regressive progressives for turning their backs on the very poor in our society in exchange for nothing but empty, broken rhetorical idealism.

Just so you can maintain your blogging poses post-election.

History of the Whiteysphere: The Medium is the Massage

The DFQ2 War on Truman Show Terror Entrapment

If donkeytale doesn't want this screenshot to open up his medium is the conspiracy masterpiece, then fine, it's all mine.

I remember being inspired by this movie. It was like a modern day Vonnegut or wtf it's all in the mind adventure. It was like The Matrix. It was like 1984 by Orwell.

Truman is on television his whole life. Everyone is in on the scam but him. I am still working on a special snowflake theory for why the world is the way it is. Digressing.

The movie plot is outrageous. Or is it? Aren't most people in some way narcissistic and putting on performances? Krishnamurti and Barry Sanders were both greatness and at the top of their games. They quit! Dave Chappelle is another cat who said f*** off medium despite also being at the top of his game.

This blog entry isn't about Jim Carrey or Greece or even Krishnamurti. It is about the scam which is the war on terror and specifically with the arrests being made of so-called American terrorists. The latest one comes from Boston. His name is Alexander Ciccolo.

His dad is a Boston police captain. Instead of getting his son the mental health attention he desperately needed, he contacted the FBI who then hired Ciccolo for their own version of The Truman Show. You could say well, the dude wanted to shoot up people and blow up things. Get him the heck off of the streets any way you can!

You would be wrong.

I witnessed CNN's presentation of the story in real time. It was war on terror this. ISIS that. It was propaganda. What part of entrapment scams don't people understand? This is the problem with hiring non-journalists to do journalism. I thought Ted Turner was Mr. Progressive. How else could he have scooped on Jane Fonda? I was wrong. CNN is clearly a tool of the state apparatus.

Before the Fourth of July, the FBI and Homeland Security types warned of chatter leading up to our fake country's major holiday. What was that about, we collectively wondered, even though not one real terrorist has ever been stopped with Big Brother surveillance.

When Ciccolo turned out to be the prize, I knew immediately it was a hoax. Why? Name one terrorist who has been arrested who actually wasn't entrapped? If they were entrapped, then how do we know they were real terrorists? Not many details are forthcoming? Ask yourself why.

I found a snippet from Democracy Now which kinda sorta makes the same point with much less verbiage.

Name one case which doesn't sound like that, Brandon Darby or the Newburgh Four. I double down and gin up a dare at y'all. Internet. Cointelpro. (see Turner, Hal)

This is beyond being prescient. At this point we are talking Captain Obvious, unless of course we go back to CNN or The Washington Post.

Google sucks. I admit I'm a big hypocrite always plugging them. Donkeytale even has a bad taste in his mouth knowing that he is blogging on a platform which is Google.

But it definitely is pretty good for searching for stuff fast.

I am also finally using their news feature.

The problem with the internet is saturation. There is overpopulation as an issue. There is data overload on the net which is ever expanding. Those of us who jumped into the internet fray early enough had a much easier time maneuvering. We the collective trolls did some serious damage against the medium conspiracy. DKos was #1. Now they are irrelevant. That didn't just happen. And for all the goofiness which was stupiddy, he found the interview done by Markos in which he kissed CIA ass. That was a deal breaker! That was worse than his having been homophobic and Republican as a young adult. It was 2006. His being a fake leftist was in real time.

Kimberlin would always drone on about how he was being smeared and kept down by attention to a story that happened 32 years ago. How can I ever live again? What about my redemption, Mick?

Yeah, whatever, he wasn't let out until the early 2000s and that was from a parole violation. He lost a lawsuit to the Carl Delong family and was not making good faith restitution. Larissa Alexandrovna was talking up some exoneration nonsense and how BK had won money for false imprisonment. That had nothing to do with 32 years ago. That had to do with real lies posted in modern blogging times. Stupid conspiracy theories revolving around election fraud getting big boy attention on major "democratic" forums and blogs was not from 32 years ago.

I nailed that story. That is historical fact. That the search engine was a lot easier back then is the main point. After a certain amount of time, it became a million copy and pastes from the Breitbart crowd for search results. The true history was almost lost.

That was then and this is democracy now! I plug in "FBI Entrapment" to Google News and lots of stuff pops up.

Accused terrorists from Chicago were lured by extremists—and the U.S. government

Local terrorism cases—from a fake bomb outside Wrigley Field to a car bomb outside a downtown bar—reveal authorities using tactics bordering on entrapment.

That's called pussyfooting. Can people be a little bit pregnant? What does bordering on entrapment mean?

Accused Massachusetts Terrorist Defends ISIS in Taped Interrogation

His own father, Boston Police Captain Robert Ciccolo, allegedly alerted the FBI about his estranged son's interest in ISIS, and he was then placed on surveillance. Police took the man into custody on gun charges after he bought two pistols and two rifles from an undercover FBI confidential informant on July 3.

How is that not entrapment?

And of course we will never find out more except for court documents that will get no press. I understand that this kid is mentally ill and has some violent tendencies. I refuse to trust the official narrative that this is terrorism.

The United States since 9/11 has escalated a campaign to create fake terrorism.

If this guy Ciccolo was such a dangerous man, why did he have to get weapons through the FBI?

Take your propaganda and shove it.

More from Newsweek:

FBI: U.S. Authorities Thwarted July 4 Terrorist Attacks

I'm calling the bluff. This is a hoax.

Here are some more search results. I'm done.

ATF Race-Discrimination Case Loses Some Fire

CHICAGO (CN) - For the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the stash-house sting, in which an undercover operative entices suspects to rob nonexistent drug stash houses, has become something of a specialty.

Though the agency claims that these operations have put some of the nation's most "violent, hardened criminals" in prison, with little actual risk, the tactic has come under increasing fire from a number of federal judges.

More than 1,000 people have gone to prison in the agency's operations, but a federal judge who dismissed charges against two California defendants last year described the ATF as "trawling for crooks in seedy, poverty-ridden areas - all without an iota of suspicion that any particular person has committed similar conduct in the past."

Seven Illinois suspects found similar relief Monday from the en banc Seventh Circuit.

They were snared when an ATF agent posing as a disgruntled drug runner whispered about a stash house that supposedly contained 50 kilos of cocaine, worth more than $1 million.

Paul Davis recruited six others to help him rob the stash house...

FBI arrests Ohio man who allegedly plotted attack on US Capitol

Life after the sting: ‘(T)error’ doc explores FBI use of paid informants

Tarik Shah, jazz bassist and karate master, is serving 15 years; his family maintains he is victim of entrapment.

 Role of FBI informant in eco-terrorism case probed after documents hint at entrapment

US law enforcement accused of using entrapment to ensnare ‘terrorists’

Did Chris Christie Send Entrapped Innocents to Jail? Re-examining the Case of the Fort Dix 5

Sundance 2015 review: (T)ERROR – is entrapment always this boring?

This documentary uses incredible access to informants and suspects to show how the FBI incites terrorism in order to catch its targets – but spends far too long on exposition,

Another Uncle Tom Identified

                                                                John Hope Bryant

This guy is very rich and is an establishment power player. He has worked with both the Bush and Obama administrations. His schtick is that capitalism solves everything and that this idea must be applied to struggling inner cities.

How did I land on this guy for a blog topic? A link to a headline concerning Twitter prompted me to click on the bait.

I’m ashamed of the way I am on Twitter

Yawn! Twitter is a glorified chat board which allows one to add links, videos, and screenshots. Newspapers and t.v. media like to grab tweets pertaining to current events and present that as news. Pornbots, spambots, political and spy factory operatives, and other miscellaneous paid fakes and useful idiots also love Twitter.

From my perspective, the only good thing about Twitter is to promote one's writings. I am not ashamed of my Twitter experience. There's simply not enough room to express oneself. It is extremely alienating as a hate machine and is the epitome of shallow thinking. The medium is indeed the message and more so when limited to 140 character posts and no guarantee anyone will respond or it tends to be people popping in out of nowhere to waste time or run interference.

Francis Holland thinks Twitter is where the movement is at. He showed his true colors, no pun intended, when he stepped back from critiquing Teach for America. Just because someone is Black does not guarantee they are fighting for Black regular guys. Or even if a Black man is leftier than thou, that is no guarantee they will maintain Gambini-like introspection to keep the wolves out of the hen house.

Obama has been the ultimate Uncle Tom. Margaret Thatcher was the ultimate Aunt Teeeena in regards to women's rights. You'd think people would have learned something from The Wizard of Oz, primarily that oftentimes the emperor is merely lip-servicing the acquisition of new clothes or wtf.

The new boss is the same as the old boss, motherf***ers.

At the bottom of the Twitter article, it says,"This article was written in partnership with Zocalo Public Square."

Part of the medium as conspiracy involves mindless and endless web surfing. Twitter is wonderful for that. We curate our individual experience. We follow the people we respect and trust, for the most part. Look at all the links being thrown around, a seemingly infinite amount to incarnations which in theory can provide us with 80-100 years as who we currently are. But I digress to something not new under the sun. We are both the problem and the solution.

                                         We are all Rachel Dolezal

Donkeytale is correct. Maybe we mailed it in too much with lazy writing and research. Maybe what we produced was purple hazy. You and he and I and them are the walrus.

Uhm, so I googled that thingie place involved with the Twitter dude and ended up on this article:

When Is Rioting the Answer?

Four people wrote short essays. John Hope Bryant caught my eye. Yet, I now see there is an interesting individual described as:

Noche Diaz is freedom fighter who splits his time between Baltimore and New York City. He is currently facing jail time for protesting killings by police.

I don't know about him, but I just spent the morning trying to figure out Bryant. This guy is a fierce believer in capitalism.

An interesting blog has already questioned what is truly up with this Bryant dude.

John Hope Bryant - Allied With "The Problem" Rather Than Forcing "The Problem" To Change In Pursuit Of Better Outcomes

This anonymous blogger seems to be an African American kindred spirit with those of us who speak of a fake left from a whitey-spheric perspective. He has blogged a lot on fieldnegro. Field's big schtick has been his own variation on Malcolm X's concept of the field negro versus house negro. 

                                        Malcolm X - The House Negro and the Field Negro

I haven't read much at that website. The blogger refers to Field Negro as Filled Negro. If interested, plug "site:withintheblackcommunity.blogspot.com/ filled negro" into Google.

I will not throw fieldnegro under the bus, but I can see how he might be what is considered as fake left. He tends to be very focused on the ills of the Republican Party. On the surface he may seem to be Mr. Progressive fighting for social justice, but what if his net effect is to support the Democratic Leadership Council, the heart of fake leftism?

Field is small potatoes compared to Mr. Bryant. It would be punching down to blame fake leftism from the African American angle on a relatively small time blogger. To expose John Hope Bryant would definitely be punching up. That's my perspective.

A space is created for making a difference. In donkeytale's new entry on Greece, he alludes to this idea and that such opportunities are rare. Greece has the opportunity to go hard left, to basically reboot their society on higher values than experiencing hardships for the benefit of fat Greeks and Germans.

Just because someone moves into such a space does not mean they are worthy of such power and the means to shape the social structure. After the 2000 election debacle, a huge space was created to challenge the fairness of U.S. elections. Brett Kimberlin and Brad Friedman moved into that space. It was the right topic dominated by the wrong people.

Deray Mckesson has moved into a space. He is 100% part and parcel of Teach for America. Police brutality and mayhem must be stopped. Again, this is about the right topic with the wrong person propped into leadership.

Anyone can move into the spaces. Social change can be both negative and positive. George Bush and his henchman devised the no child left behind bullshite. Bryant was a part of that administration. He also works with the Obama administration. He is a rich Black man portraying himself as God's gift to the Civil Rights movement.

When Michael Brown was assassinated by Darren Wilson, many of us attempted to move into that space. You have to strike while the iron is hot! This was an opening to put the police mafia on trial by masses of people.

Teach for America moved into the space and so did Bryant.

A Statement for the Family of Michael Brown

Isn't that special? Perhaps if he was a regular guy speaking from the heart, it would have been a special and important piece. The cynic in me says that John Hope Bryant was simply doing his job as a rich Black man with an insatiable appetite for power and influence.

What kind of douchebag would allow David Horowitz to write the introduction to his book?

Leave No Community Behind with introduction by David Horowitz

The medium is truly the conspiracy. How could anyone ever describe Bryant in the same way as Martin Luther King, Jr.? The following was penned by Obama's former spiritual advisor Joshua Dubois:

Bryant speaks like Martin Luther King on an auctioneer’s stand—a frenetic ball of energy and ideas, seamlessly mixing civil rights maxims with financial advice at 100 miles an hour.

 The medium is the message, the conspiracy, and a bottom line acceptance of capitalism.

What kind of decent thinker would ever compare MLK with a capitalist pig cult member?

From The Uncompromising Anti-Capitalism of Martin Luther King Jr.:

Detroit is suffering under extreme economic distress. It appears to have the largest percentage of African Americans living in any one U.S. city. Thus, it is no surprise Bryant sees it as a big space to move in with his pro-capitalism schtick.

Bryant: Raising low credit scores will boost Detroit

His buddy Ryan Mack showed up in the comments.

Is this the kind of person who sounds like a real activist?

We need to drive such paid fakes out of the activism racket. If the medium pretty much always boils down to capitalism, how can that ever promote positive social change?

From Detroit Doesn't Need Hipsters To Survive, It Needs Black People:

Last month, Thomas Sugrue, the scholar who literally wrote the book on Detroit, traveled to the Motor City to deliver a tough message to business and political leaders. Detroit's comeback, he said, depends on whether the city can improve the lives of working-class African-Americans.

 "Revitalization" is a buzzword in the city, which filed for bankruptcy last year and grapples with widespread blight and high unemployment and poverty rates. In spite of all this, Detroit is often celebrated as a hipster paradise and tourist destination by national media outlets.

But Sugrue said Detroit's recent successes in its downtown area and in Midtown, the city's cultural center, aren't benefiting the majority of residents.

Sugrue is the author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis, published in 1996 and lauded as the seminal work on the rise and fall of Detroit. He's also the David Boies Professor of History and Sociology and director of the Penn Social Science and Policy Forum at the University of Pennsylvania. Growing up on Detroit's northwest side, Sugrue remembers watching his neighborhood change from nearly all white to predominantly African-American. He spoke to The Huffington Post from the Philadelphia airport last week, shortly before an appearance at the annual Detroit Policy Conference (on this year's agenda: revitalizing the city's neighborhoods, diversifying the local economy and promoting a better relationship between the city and its suburbs).

For years, Sugrue pointed out, Detroit's revitalization has largely been limited to improvements in the greater downtown area. "What does a city revitalizing even mean at this point? I'll tell you -- it means, is it appealing to better-off people, tourists and writers," he said. "The signs of a city's success are people sitting in outdoor cafes. It's beautifully landscaped streets. It’s new high-rises going up. It's restaurants."

We now know Atticus Finch was a racist. We should also now know that John Hope Bryant is a capitalist pig making money off of an ability to move into rare spaces meant to be occupied by true thinkers and humanists.

Tsipras Blinks: Will Fake Leftism Prevail in Greece?

                      Greek crisis: Tsipras returns to Athens to gather support for bailout deal

One week ago the Greek people delivered a searing referendum result. Two/thirds told Angela Merkel to stuff it where the sun don't shine.

OTOH, polls also indicated that the Greeks wanted to remain in the euro. With this type of national schizophrenia to guide him, the often puzzling and self-contradicting Alexis Tsipras went back to his bosses in Brussels and got his hat handed to him.

As of this morning anyway, a badly shorn Greece remains in the Euro with yet another bailout at the cost of $50 billion collateral of hard assets, including one assumes both the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

Many of us winners standing on the sidelines were hoping for a Grexit and a return to a devalued drachma, which would have wiped out the debts of Greece and the paper assets of many Greeks (which is why they desire to remain in the euro). This would be a truly leftist maneuvre that as an added benefit would roil markets from Beijing to New York and put the flimsy German Empire AKA the Eurozone under debilitating pressure to merely survive.

Krugman is one of those who joined me in wishing economic collapse on all parties. The Greeks, he argues, have already suffered a collapse and the deal to which Tsipras agreed this morning will certainly end the immediate banking crisis and restore badly needed cash flow to the average citizen and business but at what long term cost?

He also passes along rumours that Syriza never had a Plan B to return to the drachma in any event and Tsipras was actually hoping the "yes" side would prevail in last week's referendum to give him the cover he needed to capitulate. In fact the resounding "no" vote gave him cover to act like an actual leftist however he chose to be mindful of the short term desire of his countrymen to remain in the euro, the future be damned.

Eh, well, this morning's events take the starch out of another leftist moment of truth, of which there are few enough these days that shouldn't be wasted.

There is still hope. The national Parliament must complete the about face by ratifying the draconian bailout terms by Wednesday. The people's reaction will be the most interesting. Will they be relieved or ready to fight back against the PTB?

As well, several neoliberal parliaments in northern Euro countries who have already voted not to give the Greeks one more centavo (or wtf they call it in Europe) must also capitulate and do an about face and ratify a third bailout for Greece. Indeed, Merkel's Germany must do the same.

And this begs the hypothetical: in his leftist moment of truth, what would Bernie do?

I think I already know the answer.

Basketball Related Post

I am from Boston. When I talk sports, it is mostly going to be about the Celtics. Most basketball fans seem to need to get a grip. Pierce and KG were traded two years ago to the Nets. The 1st year rebuilding team was okay for a bad one because they were competing for their basketball lives. Danny tried his best to tank them to compete for a top three pick, but it only got us #6. That turned out to be Marcus Smart. He is very good. In his own way he is going to take over the Paul Pierce captain role. He is already an all-star at defense and he has improved on his offense. For most of last year he played on a bum ankle. That's why he wasn't able to get to the rim. Now he is pulling off Dwyane Wade maneuvers, using his strength to hang in the air and muscle in layups over taller players.

So keep an eye on him. Evan Turner is not that good and I don't see where he fits in too much. However, Evan Turner has ice in his veins and will make big plays. If he stays, expect a 20 minute type carved role. I do believe Smart is destined to be a point guard. That could change if someone turns out better than him and is tall enough where Smart can move to shooting guard.

Isaiah Thomas is exceptional. He and Smart are the cream of the crop of the roster. If Smart shows any signs of being an effective point guard, I don't see much room for Evan Turner. Jae Crowder is a million times better at small forward. The rookies are doing well, but who knows how much they will get to play during the season. R.J. Hunter is turning some eyes. He is well-advanced in contrast to the James Young deer in the headlights schtick.

Sullinger is on the clock. It is now or never for him to lose the weight. The Celtics have a million power forwards and guards. The roster is not exactly balanced. But it's early. People expect Danny to make more moves.

David Lee and Amir Johnson are good players. Zeller is underrated for a center. I think Olynyk will fine-tune his game finally. He has a very good attitude and skills that don't grow on trees.

Stevens is a basketball genius. The Celtics should be looking forward to their third straight 25-30 win season. Instead they won 40 last year and made the playoffs. This year they could win 50 and surprise some more.

Stevens took ragtag leftovers, U.S. high school basketball crumbs and molded them into contenders. Look it up. It was at Butler.

There's also less and less deadwood on the current roster, even if we still await the saviour at center.

Gerald Wallace is gone. Johnson and Lee are on one year deals.

The C's will probably not win it all, but anyone thinking they won't continue on from last year and win games is deluded.

Last year I predicted the C's would go 41-41. No lying. I was off by one game. This year I will not try to be as specific and say they will be around the 50 win mark, enough to turn even more eyes.

The Nets could easily go down the tubes. We have their draft pick the next three years. The Celtics don't have to tank. In addition, this recent trade to Dallas of Deron Williams means Dallas isn't tanking. We have their pick also. So maybe the reality is Brooklyn and Dallas lost that trade and Boston won. It is all about Boston.

Other teams are wary of trading with Ainge. He is getting the reputation of never losing trades. For Rondo, we got Crowder and potentially another above average rotation player.

It looks like Embiid is out for another season. Philadelphia is nuts. Of course the NBA is a crap shoot, especially with all the twists and turns of the collective bargaining agreement.

Embiid will probably never amount to anything in the NBA. It's unfortunate, but that's too fricking bad for Hinkie. Those fans are stupid too. I would not watch or pay for any of that crap. One of these stupid seasons where they have no chance and never improve amounted to Joel Embiid whose photo is in the dictionary for two phrases, damaged goods and wasted pick.

The Celtics will be like a professional college team. They are all in it together. The chemistry is excellent. And if a guy like Sully turns out to be sour grapes, Danny and Brad would have no qualms telling him to stay away from the team. They did it to Bogans.

I admit that if Sully finally  gets it together, I will root for him. I am pretty sure he will be traded.

There are too many bigs: Jerebko, Sully, Olynyk, Zeller, Mickey, Amir Johnson and Lee.

Jordan Mickey can go to the D league. I guess all could still be on the roster for the season. But two of them are not going to be happy as the fifth and sixth bigs off the bench. Stevens likes to use four of them. At some points he had to go with five of them for a rotation, all five were good with not much room for comparisons. But going with five bigs for a rotation is a strain. These guys need roles and continuity.

I see a trade happening. Seven PF/Centers is too much. I'm guessing preseason starts in three months, so maybe I should give it a rest.

Take that you Media Hogg

Reading comprehension is victim number one in the fried internet era, just as it was in the fried post-World War II era.

"The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable,' he writes, then points a finger at words like democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic and justice.

"Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.... Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Orwell continues: "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible....Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." In our time, too.

He observes: "Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

We all need to do a better job. The ability to reason and ascertain the truth is much more fundamental than fixing education and the economy, although I agree that the economy needs fixing through a more fair tax scheme and redistribution of wage income, and in the form of higher minimum wages.

Fixing education seems a bit more difficult than fixing the economy, in fact I am not sure how that could be done in the real world.

It is always up to the individual at some level to educate herself. Everything else that is considered education by some will always be viewed as brainwashing by others.

Politics can never be separated from education and so we cannot attain a Platonic ideal form in the real world. Sad to say. We can only do so in our own mind.

Today, obviously our entire reality down to our personal preferences is easily available to the PTB with a single mouse click.

Abandon hope all ye who log in anywhere.

Let me also state that the price I paid still resonates. Up my ass.

Russia and the US are partners in fomenting corporate capitalism. Anybody who allows themselves to get caught up in memefying Syria and Ukraine, etc as some significant struggle between sociopolitical rivals simply has succumbed to propaganda and fallen onto the scrap heap of infotainment reactionism.

The only subtle degree of separation between these global capitalist nation states (including also China) is in how the levers of power controlled by public versus private sectors differ in each state.

The relative power of one sector over the other may not be applied exactly the same in Russia and US but the net effect on the public is still the same: we are fast becoming cyber serfdom caught up in the infotainment melodrama of Ukraine while Exxon does mega deals with Russian state controlled oil companies and consolidates ever more economic power among the economic elites.

From Counterpunch:

In a nutshell, then, the United States executive branch is being driven by corporate forces that transitively dictate the long-term strategic goals of the intelligence services. Activists like William Blum have spent their lives investigating and carefully recording this reality. For additional illumination check out the War and Peace Studies performed by the Council on Foreign Relations during World War II on behalf of the State Department. It's a flat out recipe for neoliberal hegemony. As Canadian filmmaker Scott Noble demonstrated in his movie "Counter-Intelligence," the United States is part of a corporate empire and the intelligence services are the Praetorian Guard of this empire.

So Glenn, does this mean that addressing mass surveillance, and the mass subversion which enables it, will entail tackling the related problem of corporate state capture? Or, as Sheldon Wolin refers to it, the specter of inverted totalitarianism. 

Finally, I don't think society should have to rely on hi-tech billionaires to support our interests in the halls of Washington. Corporate pressure is not the solution. Corporate pressure is the problem.

As I mentioned earlier, the fossil fuel industry, the defense industry with its appendages in hi-tech, and the plutocrats of Wall Street are largely directing the U.S. government. Our elected leaders are their proxies. The NSA's surveillance machine is but a small part of a much large private sector data aggregation machine. Both systems exist to further the aims of the economic elite. Ed Snowden has confirmed as much. I believe his words were: "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation"

Certainly, there are technical aspects to the global surveillance apparatus and the mass subversion campaign that enables it. And there are also economic aspects. But, at its core, this is a political problem. We should not expect the oligarchs to willfully hobble themselves. Recall the forces of popular pressure behind Woman's Suffrage, the New Deal legislation, and Civil Rights. American citizens must politically mobilize, rise like lions from our collective haze of empty consumption and reality TV to retake (and remake) our government.

******

Bill Blunden is an independent investigator whose current areas of inquiry include information security, anti-forensics, and institutional analysis. He is the author of several books, including The Rootkit Arsenal , and Behold a Pale Farce: Cyberwar, Threat Inflation, and the Malware-Industrial Complex. Bill is the lead investigator at Below Gotham Labs.

Oopsies

                                Whitney Curtis/Getty Images

                                (from Hillary Clinton's 3-Word Misstep: 'All Lives Matter')

I apologise in advance for bumping donkeytale out of the top slot. This wasn't some sordid hoe can i miss you, here are a couple videos. The Medium is the Conspiracy should be taught in classrooms and now it's been bumped by Hillary Clinton.

But this isn't about her. It's about how the medium keeps telling us who can and cannot be our president. Multiple sources are saying hey fellas, it's a feel good story, but don't bet on Bernie.

One reason Obama beat Clinton was because of the Black vote. Sanders polls at his best with bleeding hearts, hippies, white progressive voters. He also has come right out and declared himself a socialist. On paper he should have no chance.

Thank you Hillary, you stupid moronic unqualified war monger, bank lover. When did Jimmy Carter take off? I'm pretty sure early in his race most were like, who?

Sanders has taken care of business by jumping into a quick second place.

The tentative debate schedule is Iowa in August, NH in September, South Carolina in the Fall, Nevada in November/December, and two more to be determined for next January.

Hillary made an unforced error. She said all lives matter in a Black church. Do I have to explain this one? I doubt it. Anyone who doesn't understand this is not going to be able to tie their shoes, let alone have an adult discussion with mailed in greatness.

If she is going for the racist white Democrat vote, she already had it for those who always vote. The people who got her message were Blacks. Of course they will now move to Bernie. They have just never heard of him before. Now Black people have an incentive to see who has the best chance to upset Hillary Clinton for the nomination.

Maybe I am a Homer, in this case for the dude who is my New England Patriot neighbour. Maybe this is why I feel like mocking those giving Sanders no chance.

I've said this before, but not many people vote. There is a whole progressive zone of folks out there who probably never vote. Sanders needs to get votes that usually go for no one.

If it's a two person race, then phase one is a Sanders victory and Hillary's people should chew a few fingernails.

The medium can go fuck itself. I'm voting for Bernie Sanders and you should too.

The Medjium es tu smoke it, ese

The impact on the public of the NSA revelations is not dissimilar to the impact of the Pentagon Papers but there was more immediacy to the crisis back then because it involved a real war where kids fresh from high school were being sent involuntarily to die for, well for....nothing that had any bearing on the safety and well-being of the US. By the time the Papers were released the kids who were in the direct line of fire through the military draft already knew. No one in my circle of friends was shocked at My Lai because one of us had an older brother who came home from his tour of duty and regaled us with stories about the widespread breakdown of discipline in the ranks, along with the common abuse and murder of suspected "Viet Cong" who were often enough 15 year old Village girls. So the true impact of the Pentagon Papers focused on the formerly brain dead establishment forced to recognize that their kids had been right all along to resist the war. Those of us in the direct line of fire on the internet also know these facts of the spying and the stolen information. You have been on the forefront of opening eyes, mine included. My contribution has been a critique over the value of the internet. We were sold a bill of goods that it was a tool for freedom. Clearly, it is exactly the opposite. And as I have been stating, the government intrusion is only one aspect of the problem. The private sector, ironically championed by the GG's, teh Snowdens and the Assanges, has thoroughly invaded not just our lives but our subconscious and unconscious minds. The true revelation here is that the populace at large, the overwhelming majority in fact, already have turned ourselves completely over to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, all of whom have provided access of that data to the Government. So the real significance of Snowden's revelations: we the sheeple are willing and able to be shorn any time all the time by the PTB. We'll take it and we'll like it. And the irony is that even with that level of acceptance of total control the Government is too incompetent to take effective action with the information anyway, as in the recent case of the Isla Vista chick hater, where they had the videos (and didnt watch them), they went to his apartment beforehand (and didnt search it). This is a victory for the Constitution yes, but do the dead Santa Barbara kids and their parents care about a piece of parchment at a time like this? Mark my words, as the government continuously falters along with the decline of Western Civilisation we are now in the beginning of the final stages whereby the people wont overthrow the Government, they will simply allow Google (or its successor in techno-fascism) to assume total control of our lives in reaction to government failure to deliver. If you think things are bad now, just wait and watch what happens when the coup d etat by the Infotainment Industrial Complex is finally complete. Google is now openly requesting in a pop-up boxes that we to let them collect info from our online habits and physical location so they can better predict what we want to do and where we will go to do it. How much more can our freedom be impacted than that? We have completely relinquished control over the direction of our thought processes and freedom of movement when we buy into Google. And I say this as I type on a Google product. Can the loss of freedom of association be far behind? Too much is made of Sunstein's recommendation to plant paid fakes on blogs. The "aha! moment". Yes, yes, of course. Snitches are standing by. We all know that. The Russians do it quite openly. They're paid fakes are crawling all over the internet with bad English pushing the Putin love. But Sunstein's critique, which actually dates from 2001, is spot on wrt the damage caused by the stratification of users by their inclinations and biases. Google has created the ultimate form of mind control and they are dedicated to refining and perfecting artificial intelligence to the point where the thinking not only will be done for us but our own minds won't even be required. GG and Snowden have done and will do nothing to slow or subvert the private sector in the relentless pursuit of the ultimate control. If anything, their revelations may simply hasten the demise of confidence in our governement (already at an all time low) and the private sector will then be more able to quickly fill the breach than it already has done. And for what purpose? Most people willingly allow Google to get inside their minds every day. The fact that the government has co-opted these processes for their own ends hardly fazes the overwhelming majourity. They just don't care. Thus, GG and Snowden are reduced (not their fault or doing I add) into infotainment commodities bought and sold to satisfy the need for expressing indignation and outrage among a large but still easily controlled group of infotainment consumers (leftists and libertarians). And guess what? Those consumers r us! Make no mistake. Snowden and Assange are historical figures. However, like Ellsberg their impact on the body politic may prove fleeting as the silent majourity simply move on with their lives in any event. Where is the outrage that has conspicuously gone missing? Where is the outrage that was at a fever pitch and boiled over frequently into the streets during the 60s and 70s? Nowadays, it's easily contained and hermetically sealed within any number of polarised groups. On the internets.