The Damaged Political Psyche of the Left

thefederalist |  I have to admit, I was surprised to read this particular rant by Paul Krugman, the Nobel-winning economist and columnist for the New York Times (he won the Nobel for his work on economics, not his writing). Having read a New York Magazine piece that theorizes that some state election machines may have been “hacked,” thereby costing Clinton the election, Krugman declared:

[N]ow that it’s out there, I’d say that an independent investigation is called for…Without an investigation, the suspicion of a hacked election will never go away.

Really: “never?” Well. Krugman quickly backed off after Nate Cohn challenged this thesis (so much for “never”), but a number of hours later he shared a Vox piece: “The election probably wasn’t hacked. But Clinton should request recounts just in case.” Just in case!

It might be fair to say that Trump’s election kind of broke the brains of many people both left, right and center: nobody expected it and a great many people really didn’t want it to happen. But the Left seems to be taking it the hardest, and this is perfectly exemplified by Paul Krugman, a genuinely brilliant fellow who has started to sound like a tinfoil-hat-wearing neighborhood crank.

Just so we’re clear, the “suspicion of a hacked election” that Krugman latched onto—the one that “will never go away”—was spelled out this way:

While it’s important to note [the Center for Computer Security and Society] has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review — especially in light of the fact that the Obama White House has accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic National Committee.

Yes, it is surely “important to note” that there has been no “proof of hacking or manipulation.” But that doesn’t go far enough by half: there isn’t even any evidence of such, except for some voting patterns that, as Nate Cohn points out, vanish when you control for certain variables. Gabriel Sherman mixes up the cause and effect: proof is demonstrated after an investigation, the latter of which is undertaken only on the basis of strong-enough evidence—which doesn’t exist here (unless you’re an aggrieved liberal pundit, I guess).

Legislating Political Correctness in Canada

quillette |  The difference between the specifics of BillC-16 and the actual sweep of control it exerts over language is worrisome, especially now, when subjectivity rules and the definition of a hate crime can be decided by anyone who says they are a victim. If the past is any indication of the future, special interest groups — like those Cossman and Bryson support — will use that sweep, and the mob power behind it, either to expand the scope of the law or to make its words mean exactly what they want. This is what Peterson has been saying: not using the correct gender pronouns, especially in a government run institution like a university, can (and likely will) be classified as a hate crime, whether that crime is handled by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which is expensive and can result in financial ruin, or the criminal courts, which can result in a criminal record and jail time.

Cossman’s dissembling over these dangers is part of an established pattern of dissembling that many professors of Women Studies believe is necessary. For them, creative lying is compensation for the injustices women have endured for centuries. It’s a shady brand of feminism that gained momentum in the late 80s and receded in the 90s. However, judging by the vigour and confusion of the protesters supporting it now, it’s made a very successful, if malignant, comeback.

The real tragedy? Minority rights are worth protecting, but the configuration of suffering put forth by professors Cossman and Bryson is idiosyncratic, belonging to an incestuous academic sphere spinning on its own nepotism. When Bryson tries to refute decades of empirical data with her unfalsifiable social-constructionist theories it is a sign the incest has gone too far. A “body of work” may indeed suggest that biological sex isn’t an accurate reflection of everyone’s reality. But the real question is, is this body of work actually worth anything?

The Age of Disintegration

oftwominds |  The Credibility Gap: The Mainstream Media lauds itself and a self-serving, failing elite: check.

The Partnerships That Failed: the SillyCon Valley tech titans were supposed to "save" the neoliberal elite by managing social media the way the MSM managed broadcast propaganda/"news": check.

The Groups That Opted Out: nobody "important" noticed those who opted out of the neoliberal Kool-Aid: check.

The Undermining of Effort: if I don't get my way, I'll block yours. There is no common ground left.

Is there any doubt about the profound political disunity in America's ruling elite? I have addressed this many times over the past seven years, most recently a year ago in Profound Political Disunity Is Now Pitting Rising Elites Against Fading Elites (November 24, 2015).

Historian Peter Turchin explores the dynamic of social disintegration in his new book Ages of Discord. The cycle of social disintegration and integration is essentially universal to complex societies--a reality I recently discussed in Ungovernable Nation, Ungovernable Economy (October 11, 2016)

USA 2017-2020: An Ungovernable Nation? (October 10, 2016)

The globalist, neoliberal, neoconservative consensus in the Ruling Elite has splintered, a reality I have described as a splintering of the Deep State, the unelected government that continues on regardless of which party or elected politico is currently in office.

I explored this years ago in Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity? (March 14, 2014) and more recently in Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary? (August 8, 2016), Why the Deep State Is Dumping Hillary (September 26, 2016) and These Blast Points on Hillary's Campaign... Only The Deep State Is So Precise (October 31, 2016).

What few in the pundit class see is that significant segments of the Deep State view the neo-con neoliberal strategy as an irredeemable failure. But the camp of neoliberals and globalists will not concede defeat and relinquish their hubris-soaked power without a fight.

Indeed, it is clear that this fading sector of the Deep State is now throwing everything in its power at Trump, his appointees, and anyone who dares question the fake-progressive neoliberal neocon narrative.

What is the Real Motivation After Decades of Hardcore Prohibition?

Independent |  World leaders have called for an end to the criminalisation of drugs.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy's annual report advocates the removal of both civil and criminal penalties for drug use and possession.

Prohibition of drugs has had "little or no impact" on the rate of drug use, the report says, with the number of drug users increasing by almost 20 per cent between 2006 and 2013 to 246 million people.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy panel includes former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, British businessman Richard Branson and the former presidents of Switzerland, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.

The report warns prohibition of drugs fuels mass incarceration and executions in contravention of international law and drives human rights abuses by those who supply drugs.

It cites examples of successful decriminalisation policies, offering Portugal as the best example, which replaced criminal sanctions for drug use with civil penalties and health interventions 15 years ago.

The Committee also denounces the "barbaric actions" of Philippino President Rodrigo Duterte, who calls on the public to execute those involved in the drugs trade. More than 3,600 people were killed during Mr Duterte's first 100 days in office as part of his brutal crackdown on drugs.  Fist tap Big Don.

Seeking Adventurous Humans...,

geneticsandsociety |  George Church hit a nerve when he recently discussed re-creating Neanderthals with an "adventurous human female" surrogate, in Der Spiegel. The media attention rapidly became fierce, with dozens of outlets carrying the remarks. Yesterday, Church told the Boston Herald that the whole kerfuffle was based on "poor translation." As for cloning a Neanderthal, he said, "I'm certainly not advocating it … I'm saying, if it is technically possible someday, we need to start talking about it today." 

It's good to hear Church disavowing the idea of using genetic engineering, synthetic biology and human surrogates to create a Neanderthal clone baby, at least for the time being. But it's disingenuous of him to shift all the blame onto the translation process. The phrase that clearly got the most attention was "adventurous female human" — and that comes straight from the prologue of his own recent book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves (co-authored with Ed Regis, published in October 2012):

If society becomes comfortable with cloning and sees value in true human diversity, then the whole Neanderthal creature itself could be cloned by a surrogate mother chimp — or by an extremely adventurous female human.

Is Church personally looking for a human surrogate to gestate a Neanderthal clone, right this minute? No. Is he willing to openly advocate for the scenario that he describes in some technical detail? Not forthrightly, and both in his book and in the interview that sparked the recent furor, he includes "ifs" and caveats. Does he think that the process will be technically feasible in the foreseeable future? Emphatically yes. He's been talking about this and similar projects for several years. For example:

New York Times, 2008, discussing the recreation of Neanderthals:

Dr. Church said there might be an alternative approach that would "alarm a minimal number of people." The workaround would be to modify not a human genome but that of the chimpanzee, which is some 98 percent similar to that of people. The chimp's genome would be progressively modified until close enough to that of Neanderthals, and the embryo brought to term in a chimpanzee.

"The big issue would be whether enough people felt that a chimp-Neanderthal hybrid would be acceptable, and that would be broadly discussed before anyone started to work on it," Dr. Church said.

Archaeology, 2010:

Church proposes to use the MAGE technique to alter a stem cell's DNA to match the Neanderthal genome. That stem cell would be left to reproduce, creating a colony of cells that could be programmed to become any type of cell that existed in the Neanderthal's body. Colonies of heart, brain, and liver cells, or possibly entire organs, could be grown for research purposes.
This technique could also be used to create a person. A stem cell with Neanderthal DNA could be implanted in a human blastocyst — a cluster of cells in the process of developing into an embryo. Then, all of the non-Neanderthal cells could be kept from growing. The individual who developed from that blastocyst would be entirely the result of Neanderthal genes. In effect, it would be a cloned Neanderthal.
… "We could learn a lot more from a living adult Neanderthal than we could from cell cultures," says Church. Special arrangements would have to be made to create a place for a cloned Neanderthal to live and pursue the life he or she would want, he says. The clone would also have to have a peer group, which would mean creating several clones, if not a whole colony. According to Church, studying those Neanderthals, with their consent, would have the potential to cure diseases and save lives.

Colbert Report, 2012:

Are you playing god, sir? Because you have the beard for it.
We're engineers, we're fixing only things that are broken. …
Can you bring things back from the dead? ...
We can make copies of things that have elements of animals or bacteria and so forth that were extinct.
You guys are working on the wooly mammoth, right?
It's a possibility.

Bloomberg Businessweek, 2012:

Church has tests running in the lab around Neanderthal cells as he tries to determine what this species might have looked and acted like. ... "We have lots of Neanderthal parts around the lab. We are creating Neanderthal cells. Let's say someone has a healthy, normal Neanderthal baby. Well, then, everyone will want to have a Neanderthal kid. Were they superstrong or supersmart? Who knows? But there's one way to find out."

... How far off is this brave new world? Well, according to Church, probably not far at all. "The cheap human genome was supposed to arrive 50 years from now," he says. "It arrived this year. What if a cheap Neanderthal or mammoth arrives 50 years ahead of time?"

Want to Stay Healthy? You'll Need to Become a Hybrid

io9 |  Over the past several decades, biologists have refined their transgenic techniques, including the introduction of DNA microinjection, embryonic stem cell-mediated gene transfer, and retrovirus-mediated gene transfer. 

More recently, scientists have figured out how to modify the DNA of plants and animals to much greater degrees of precision. While techniques using bacterial and viral DNA enabled scientists to transport genes into the chromosomes of various organisms, the precise target for where the transgene was to eventually land could not be controlled. The CRISPR/Cas9 system, which normally allows the bacterial immune system to store DNA 'fingerprints' of viruses, now enables scientists to choose a specific region of the genome for either gene disruption (a gene knockout) or insertion (creating a more-precise transgenic organism).

This technology is extremely powerful because the original genes of an organism (its endogenous genes) provide a direct entryway for scientists to control, or edit, an organism's biology. For instance, if someone has a mutation that causes a disease in a particular type of cell, using CRISPR/Cas9 to replace the mutant gene with a normal gene could theoretically cure that disease. Likewise, it could be used to introduce a foreign transgene. 

So, for example, scientists have used CRISPR/Cas9 to correct B-thalassemia (a condition similar to sickle-cell anemia) in human blood cell lines. They also used it to fix a mutation causing a liver disease in mice (though their technique only corrected 0.4% of mutated liver cells, these cells were able to rescue liver function). Additionally, researchers recently used the technique to create programmable antibiotics that selectively targets undesirable microbes. 

Today, transgenic organisms are used for a number of purposes, from toxicology and the improvement of plants and livestock to the creation of animals that simulate human diseases. They can be divided into three major functions:

• To obtain information on gene function and regulation as well as on human diseases
• To obtain high value products (recombinant pharmaceutical proteins and xeno-organs and xeno-tissues for humans) to be used for human therapy
• To improve animal products for human consumption.

As noted by Emily Anthes , author of Frankenstein's Cat, genetically engineered animals could do real good for the world. As she notes in The New York Times, scientists have created transgenic salmon that can reach their adult size in a year and a half, rather than three years. There's also the famous "spider goats" — hybrid goats that secrete exceptionally strong strands of spider's silk, and transgenic glow-in-the-dark pigs and rabbits that use jellyfish DNA (the point of which kind of eludes me).

Valodya Begins The Lawful Purge of the Russian Bankster 5th Column

thesaker |  While the word was focused in rapt attention on the outcome of the US Presidential election, Vladimir Putin did something quite amazing – he arrested Alexei Uliukaev, Minister of the Economy of the Medvedev government, on charges of extortion and corruption. Uliukaev, whose telephone had been tapped by the Russian Security Services since this summer, was arrested in the middle of the night in possession of 2 million US dollars. Putin officially fired him the next morning.

Russian official sources say that Uliukaev extorted a $2 million bribe for an assessment that led to the acquisition by Rosneft (a state run Russian oil giant) of a 50% stake in Bashneft (another oil giant). Apparently, Uliukaev tried to threaten Igor Sechin, the President of Rosneft and a person considered close to Vladimir Putin and the Russian security and intelligence services.

Yes, you read that right: according to the official version, a state-owned company gave a bribe to a member of the government. Does that make sense to you? How about a senior member of the government who had his telephone tapped and who has been under close surveillance by the Federal Security Service for over a year – does that make sense to you?

This makes no sense at all and the Russian authorities fully realize that. But that is the official version. So what is going on here? Do you think that there is a message from Putin here?

Of course there is!

The Feminization of Western Politics: Stopped or Only Briefly Stalled?

unz |  Events following Trump’s victory should remove all doubt that American elections—and perhaps American life more generally—are increasingly being feminized. Hissy fits, snarky gossip and claims of dog-whistle hate are now major political weapons and millions in the Democratic coalition—women, blacks, gays, the campus-based cupcake nation—are desperately seeking sanctuaries. It would be hard to exaggerate this transformation. Try to imagine old-fashioned pols, typically males, hugging and crying as their candidate went down to defeat. Would Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daily “get the vapors” and tearfully whine about a Republican in the White House and with his ward-heeler cronies retreat to a safe space with cuddly puppies, playdough, and coloring books to begin the process of healing? Clearly, if such a response occurred post Nixon’s 1968 victory, the Mayor’s career would be over. Not even the dutiful Democratic Blessed Sisters of the Poor in his own parish could respect such a girly man and would demand that “Hiz Honor” take it like a man, down a few stiff ones with “the boys,” stop complaining and get busy stealing the next election.

As the onward march of feminization transforms losing an election into a psychological trauma requiring therapy, what’s next”? Perhaps an officially organized post-election “healing” with a pseudo scientific name—Post-Election Defeat Traumatic Stress Disorder—so therapists can try to bill insurance companies for its treatment.

Circle-Jerking Cost the Elite Cathedral Its Control of the Government

WaPo |  In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, incoming White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon advances another view. “The media bubble is the ultimate symbol of what’s wrong with this country,” Bannon told Michael Wolff. “It’s just a circle of people talking to themselves who have no f—ing idea what’s going on. If The New York Times didn’t exist, CNN and MSNBC would be a test pattern. The Huffington Post and everything else is predicated on The New York Times. It’s a closed circle of information from which Hillary Clinton got all her information — and her confidence. That was our opening.”

Corporate Media Hates Trump and Will Never Relent

unz |  Newly elected presidents are frequently afforded what is described as a “honeymoon period” in which the criticism of their campaign positions diminishes sharply as the public and media stand by to see what actually will develop as an administration takes shape. The honeymoon can sometimes extend well into the post-inauguration time frame, as it did with President Barack Obama, and it provides for a breathing space during which the new arrivals in the White House can set an agenda and learn how the government actually works.

Unfortunately, President-elect Donald Trump will apparently not enjoy such a courtesy, at least as far as the media is concerned. The mainstream media was unrelentingly hostile to Trump both during the Republican primaries and the presidential campaign itself. The assertions emanating from media apologists contending that Trump actually benefitted from the massive press coverage that he did receive ignores the fact that the reporting was almost always negative. If Trump benefited at all it was only because the public, seeing the outpouring of sheer hatred from a media that it already distrusted, came to believe that someone so vilified by a source so questionable must actually represent something worth supporting.

The rage of the media towards Trump continues unabated. The Washington Post, a scurrilous rag emanating out of the District of Columbia that claims to be a national “newspaper of record,” has a neocon editorial page that has never seen a war that it dislikes coupled with domestic and local reporting that is multicultural, inclusive and diverse to a fault. Its globalist agenda driven hacks seamlessly churn out news stories that are more editorials for a certain world view than they are reporting of actual events. It is “invade the world-invite the world” at its finest and reminds one of Hillary Clinton at her most effusive.

Language Shapes Reality

Vox |  The film’s premise hinges on the idea, shared by many linguists and philosophers of language, that we do not all experience the same reality. The pieces of it are the same — we live on the same planet, breathe the same air — but our perceptions of those pieces shift and change based on the words and grammar we use to describe them to ourselves and each other.

For instance, there is substantial evidence that a person doesn’t really see (or perhaps "perceive") a color until their vocabulary contains a word, attached to meaning, that distinguishes it from other colors. All yellows are not alike, but without the need to distinguish between yellows and the linguistic tools to do so, people just see yellow. A color specialist at a paint manufacturer, however, can distinguish between virtually hundreds of colors of white. (Go check out the paint chip aisle at Home Depot if you’re skeptical.)

Or consider the phenomenon of words in other languages that describe universal feelings, but can only be articulated precisely in some culture. We might intuitively "feel" the emotion, but without the word to describe it we’re inclined to lump the emotion in with another under the same heading. Once we develop the linguistic term for it, though, we can describe it and feel it as distinct from other shades of adjacent emotions.

Directness is a Working Class Norm

HBR |  Michèle Lamont, in The Dignity of Working Men, also found resentment of professionals — but not of the rich. “[I] can’t knock anyone for succeeding,” a laborer told her. “There’s a lot of people out there who are wealthy and I’m sure they worked darned hard for every cent they have,” chimed in a receiving clerk. Why the difference? For one thing, most blue-collar workers have little direct contact with the rich outside of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. But professionals order them around every day. The dream is not to become upper-middle-class, with its different food, family, and friendship patterns; the dream is to live in your own class milieu, where you feel comfortable — just with more money. “The main thing is to be independent and give your own orders and not have to take them from anybody else,” a machine operator told Lamont. Owning one’s own business — that’s the goal. That’s another part of Trump’s appeal.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, epitomizes the dorky arrogance and smugness of the professional elite. The dorkiness: the pantsuits. The arrogance: the email server. The smugness: the basket of deplorables. Worse, her mere presence rubs it in that even women from her class can treat working-class men with disrespect. Look at how she condescends to Trump as unfit to hold the office of the presidency and dismisses his supporters as racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic.

Trump’s blunt talk taps into another blue-collar value: straight talk. “Directness is a working-class norm,” notes Lubrano. As one blue-collar guy told him, “If you have a problem with me, come talk to me. If you have a way you want something done, come talk to me. I don’t like people who play these two-faced games.” Straight talk is seen as requiring manly courage, not being “a total wuss and a wimp,” an electronics technician told Lamont. Of course Trump appeals. Clinton’s clunky admission that she talks one way in public and another in private? Further proof she’s a two-faced phony.

The Hysterical Private Language of Higher-Ed

WaPo |  A doctoral dissertation at the University of California at Santa Barbara uses “feminist methodologies” to understand how Girl Scout cookie sales “reproduce hegemonic gender roles.” The journal GeoHumanities explores how pumpkins reveal “racial and class coding of rural versus urban places.” Another journal’s article analyzes “the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers.” A Vassar College lecture “theorizes oscillating relations between disciplinary, pre-emptive and increasingly prehensive forms of power that shape human and non-human materialities in Palestine.”

Even professors’ books from serious publishers are clotted with pretentious jargon. To pick just one from innumerable examples, a recent history of the Spanish Civil War, published by the Oxford University Press, says that Franco’s Spain was as “hierarchizing” as Hitler’s Germany, that Catholicism “problematized” relations between Spain and the Third Reich, and that liberalism and democracy are concepts that must be “interrogated.” Only the highly educated write so badly. Indeed, the point of such ludicrous prose is to signal membership in a closed clerisy that possesses a private language.

Institutions of supposedly higher education are awash with hysteria, authoritarianism, obscurantism, philistinism and charlatanry. Which must have something to do with the tone and substance of the presidential election, which took the nation’s temperature.

Trump Prepares to Do Battle with Peaking Energy and Huuuuuge Debt Bubbles

counterpunch |  Already we have seen how the Fed’s determination to enrich its constituents has resulted in one titanic asset-price bubble after the other. Imagine if that power was entrusted to just one individual who could be tempted to use that authority to shape economic events in a way that enhanced and perpetuated his own political power. Even so, after seven years of a policy-induced Depression that has increased inequality to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, we think it is high-time that the president use his power to choose the members who will bring the bank back under government control. Here’s more background from the LA Times:

“Donald Trump leveled unprecedented criticism at the Federal Reserve during the campaign. As president, he could get to quickly reshape it … Trump will have the opportunity to appoint as many as five new members to the seven-person Fed Board of Governors during his first year and a half in office. That includes a new chairperson to replace Janet L. Yellen, whose term expires in early 2018…

Trump hammered Yellen in the final months of the (presidential) campaign, accusing her of keeping the benchmark rate “artificially low” to help fellow Democrats President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

“I think she is very political and to a certain extent, I think she should be ashamed of herself.” Trump told CNBC in mid-September. At the first presidential debate two weeks later, he declared that “the Fed is being more political than Hillary Clinton.”

And Trump’s final campaign video included images of the Fed and Yellen, casting her has part of the “political establishment” that has “bled our country dry.”…

“Never before have we had an incoming president not just criticize how Fed policy has been executed … but accuse the Fed chair of undermining the institution by being in political cahoots with his opponent and the White House,” (James) Pethokoukis said. “We’re off the grid into uncharted territory.”… (Trump hammered the Federal Reserve as a candidate. As president, he could quickly reshape it, LA Times)

We can safely assume that the Supreme Court is going to reflect Trump’s corporate-friendly laissez-faire attitude towards big business, the question is: What can we expect from the Central Bank once it becomes the White House’s flunky?

The Energy Problem Behind Trump’s Election

ourfiniteworld |  The energy problem behind Trump’s election is not the one people have been looking for. Instead, it is an energy problem that leads to low wages for many workers in the US, and high unemployment rates in the European Union. (The different outcomes reflect different minimum wage laws. Higher minimum wages tend to lead to higher unemployment rates; lower minimum wages tend to lead to higher employment, but unsatisfactory wages levels for many.) The energy problem is also reflected as low prices of oil and other commodities.

To try to solve the energy problem, we use approaches that involve increasing complexity, including new technology and globalization. As we add more and more complexity, these approaches tend to work less and less well. In fact, they can become a problem in themselves, because they tend to redistribute wealth toward the top of the employment hierarchy, and they increase “overhead” for the economy as a whole.

In this material, I explain how inadequate energy supplies can appear as either low wages or as high prices. Basically, if energy supplies are inadequate, workers tend to be less productive because they have fewer or less advanced tools to work with. Their lower wages reflect lower productivity (Slide 20).  Slide 6 offers some additional insights.

Trump’s election seems to reflect the cooling effect that our energy problems are having on the economy as a whole. Citizens are increasingly unhappy with their wage situation, and want a major change. Trump’s election may at least temporarily have a beneficial effect, since it may work in the direction of reducing complexity.

Long term, however, it is hard to see that the policies of any elected official will be able to fix our underlying energy problems.

Suppressing Dissent, Controlling Minds, Performing 180° Reversals

medialens |  The idea that journalism should offer a neutral 'spectrum' of views was unceremoniously dumped during the US presidential election. Hillary Clinton was endorsed by the 500 largest US newspapers and magazines; Trump by 20 of the smallest, with the most significant of these – something called the Las Vegas Review-Journal - reaching some 100,000 readers.

As with Jeremy Corbyn, from the moment Trump became a genuine contender, he was drenched in vitriol by virtually the entire US-UK corporate press. The smear campaign was epitomised by the baseless, Ian Fleming-like suggestion that Trump was in cahoots with the establishment's other great bête noire, Putin – a propaganda-perfect marriage of Evil and Pure Evil.

Ironically, Trump may well turn out to be the final nail in the coffin of the manifestly stalled human attempt to become civilised. As leading climate scientist Michael Mann has noted, Trump's stance on climate stability may mean 'game over' for it and us.

But elite media did not oppose Trump because of his climate views – no question was raised on the issue during the presidential debates and, as Noam Chomsky observes (below), the issue was of no interest to journalists. On the other hand, Edward Herman comments, a declared lack of enthusiasm for foreign conflict, notably with Russia, 'may help explain the intensity of media hostility to Trump'.

Inevitably, our drawing attention to the awesome level of media bias drew accusations that Media Lens was an unlikely 'apologist' for Trump's far-right declarations promoting racism, misogyny and climate denial. When we asked Guardian commentator Hadley Freeman why, in comparing Trump and Clinton, she mentioned Clinton's email server scandal but not her war crimes, she interpreted this as an endorsement of Trump:

The roots of the Clinton-Trump fiasco lie in decades of 'liberal' media refusal to challenge the increasing venality, violence and suicidal climate indifference at the supposedly rational end of the political spectrum. Virtually the entire 'liberal' journalistic community saw great hope in Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, while treating genuinely honest and compassionate political commentators like Chomsky, Edward Herman, John Pilger, Howard Zinn, Harold Pinter, Chris Hedges, Jonathan Cook and many others as quixotic freaks who may be mentioned in passing, published once in a supermoon, but otherwise ignored.

As Slavoj Zizek observed: 'The real catastrophe is the status quo.' When liberal journalism slams the door on reasoned arguments and authentic compassion, other doors swing wide for the likes of Trump.

The default corporate media excuse for ignoring 'our' crimes is that elected politicians have been chosen to serve by the people, and it is the task of journalism to support, not subvert, democracy. But of course democracy is profoundly subverted by a lack of honest media scrutiny. Structural media distortion is so extreme that, despite bombing seven countries, Barack Obama continues to be depicted and perceived as an almost saintly figure. 

Hillary Clinton was indisputably the preferred establishment candidate, backed by virtually the entire US-UK corporate press.

'Mainstream' media did not merely support Clinton, they declared propaganda war on Trump. As we have seen in this brief sample, even BBC journalists thought nothing of ridiculing Trump's 'narcissistic personality disorder' – unthinkable language from a BBC reporter describing an Obama, a Cameron, or indeed a Clinton.

The intensity of establishment support for Clinton meant that journalistic performance was filtered by host media and self-censorship. As the former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told us in an interview:

    '[T]he whole thing works by a kind of osmosis. If you ask anybody who works in newspapers, they will quite rightly say, "Rupert Murdoch," or whoever, "never tells me what to write", which is beside the point: they don't have to be told what to write. It's understood.'

The moment the vote was cast, pressures filtering out criticisms of Clinton and less hysterical coverage of Trump were lifted. The result is a semblance of balance that allows stunningly extreme 'mainstream' media to enhance their ill-deserved reputation for 'fairness' and 'impartiality'.

Will Trump's Truths Go More Than Skin Deep?

thedailybell |  This Bloomberg article is focused not on the top people in this conspiracy but on the “little people” who do the bidding of higher ups and have learned  how to survive in an internationalist environment and profit from it.

But in our view, these are probably NOT the people that Trump’s voters really voted against. Many of Trump’s voters, like Trump himself, understand that the problems go far beyond academics, bureaucrats and corrupt tycoons.

In fact, this Bloomberg article is a perfect example of a kind of elite propaganda. It is trying to convince us that we need to “listen” to the anger of Trump voters and then, we are instructed, the intelligentsia needs to react.

American intellectuals may violently disagree with the average Trump voter on most things. They may have access to facts that prove that voters wrong. But there’s no way they — we — can go on dismissing and ridiculing these people without dooming themselves to irrelevance and provoking further backlash.

This is in fact the fondest hope, no doubt, of those tasked with defending the REAL culprits from exposure and attack. Such individuals are the ones running the world’s largest corporations and leading the most powerful nation states.

And these individuals may be found in higher places still, plotting the propaganda that the rest of us imbibe. Also managing central bank strategies and even plotting our gradual progress toward a new world war.

The Bloomberg article ends by suggesting that a lot of the irritation of Trump voters is aimed at political correctness and that the US needs “an open conversation about what ails it, not … one that tiptoes around speech taboos about racism, misogyny and sexual discrimination.”

Once more – hooey. Our guess is that like Donald Trump himself, many of his voters – perhaps tens of millions are quite aware that the world’s problems extend far beyond political correctness and “intellectuals.”

Calling People Racist Isn't Effective at Reducing Racial Bias

vox |  So how do we have a better conversation around these issues, one that can actually reduce people’s racial prejudices and anxieties?

The first thing to understand is how white Americans, especially in rural areas, hear accusations of racism. While terms like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias” intend to point out systemic biases in America, for white Americans they’re often seen as coded slurs. These terms don’t signal to them that they’re doing something wrong, but that their supposedly racist attitudes (which they would deny having at all) are a justification for lawmakers and other elites to ignore their problems.

Imagine, for example, a white man who lost a factory job due to globalization and saw his sister die from a drug overdose due to the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic — situations that aren’t uncommon today. He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.

Maybe he does have some level of white privilege. But that doesn’t take away from the serious problems he sees in his world today.

This is how many white Americans, particularly in working-class and rural areas, view the world today. So when they hear politicians and journalists call them racist or remind them about their privilege, they feel like elites are trying to distract from the serious problems in their lives and grant advantages to other groups of people. When Hillary Clinton called half of Trump voters “deplorable,” she made this message explicit.

“Telling people they’re racist, sexist, and xenophobic is going to get you exactly nowhere,” said Alana Conner, executive director of Stanford University’s Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions Center. “It’s such a threatening message. One of the things we know from social psychology is when people feel threatened, they can’t change, they can’t listen.”

Has Political Correctness Become a Codeword for Hate?

WaPo |   I will never again use the term “political correctness.” Whatever rhetorical value the term may have once had is far more than offset by what has been unleashed in the name of resistance to it since the presidential election.

I have made no secret over the years of my conviction that the sensitivities of individuals or members of various group should not be permitted to chill free speech on college campuses. I have the scars to show for speaking out against overdoing the idea of microaggression, the regulation of Halloween costumes and the prosecution of students for taking part in sombrero parties – all of which have struck me as “political correctness” run amok.

But the events of the last week are giving me pause about that term and its usage and the complex issues underlying it. It’s not that I now think speech codes are wise or that we should stamp out microaggressions wherever they are perceived. Rather, my reaction is to the way President-elect Donald Trump has been heard during the campaign and the terrifying events his election has set off.

The fight for academic freedom and for ideological diversity on college campuses should and will go on. But given what opposition to “political correctness” has licensed, it time to retire the term.

Justice Requires Heads on Poles - Granny Goodness Would Be a GREAT Start

freep |  Speaking at President Gerald Ford's alma mater, The Rev. Jesse Jackson called for President Obama to issue a blanket pardon to Hillary Clinton before he leaves office, just like Ford did for Richard Nixon.

Stopping short of saying Clinton did anything wrong, Jackson told a large crowd of University of Michigan students, faculty and administrators gathered at daylong celebration of his career that Obama should short-circuit President-elect Donald Trump's promised attempt to prosecute Hillary Clinton for use of a private e-mail server.

"It would be a monumental moral mistake to pursue the indictment of Hillary Clinton," Jackson said. He said issuing the pardon could help heal the nation, like Ford's pardon of Nixon did.

"President Ford said we don't need him for trophy. We need to move on. President Nixon wasn't convicted of a crime. He didn't apply for a pardon. (Ford) did it because he thought it would be best for the country.

"Hillary Clinton has not been tried, but there are those who want to drag her for the next three years. It will not stop until they find a reason to put her in jail. That would be a travesty."

In 1974, Ford, a University of Michigan alumnus, issued a full and complete pardon of Nixon for any crimes he may have committed. He said the pardon was in the best interests of the nation.

Jackson's comments came at the end of a long day in Ann Arbor, which included him dropping in on an anti-Trump rally held by students on campus.