That’s probably not the best example you could give ;). I’ve seen probably a hundred plugs for “Little Brother” on BB in just the past few months. And mind you, I don’t begrudge Cory for this.
What about independent journalism screams “I have enough money I don’t need to advertise my books” to you? His books are an extension of his journalism, and if you like his writing, his books are on offer as well.
Look, our discussions can get heated, and I really don’t mind being called names and obviously don’t mind calling names as well ;). Its how we argue where I’m from. I’ll be the first to admit I get carried away sometimes and likely do come off as a tin-foil hatter. I thought the fact that I’ve been a BB commenter for a long time now and don’t normally spout off like a lunatic might’ve earned me a little cred by now, but I guess not :(.
As for trains, Xeni, they do not go to unknown destinations. They follow these fixed routes known in the trade as “tracks”. Just because they didn’t invite you along for a ride does not mean the destination is “unknown”.
As for the “which side is lying” debate, remember 2003? The runup to the invasion and destruction of Iraq? Yellowcake ring a bell? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? You don’t have to like Mr. Putin to recognize that he has more credibility, while the US/NATO/EU side has less.
You have absolutely no clue about what I “get” or don’t. Stop presuming. It makes you seem like a damned kid or a tinfoil hat nutjob. Apparently you’ve been counseled to play nice. It’s good that you’re making the effort, because Reddit - Dive into anything is thataway.
Syria is another issue entirely, and my half-remembered “impression” before you “enlightened” us was that Assad had lost control of some of his nerve gas stocks which was played with by relatively unaffiliated morons. Conclusions were jumped to at the moment, but fell apart pretty quickly and were in no way a clear “narrative” of the Administration beyond the obvious, which was that Assad is a murdering fuckwit and it would be nice if someone came up with a credible plan for toppling his dictatorship. John McCain embraced that narrative, maybe, but you’re making the same kind of stretch as all the dumb worthless tea party fuckwits wishing for a new Benghazigate. Also, I didn’t think we should invade Syria. So the next time you presume to tell me what I think, stop. The next time you presume to tell an entire group of people that they are all sheep, please stick it up your jumper. Or stick it up the sheep at least. It looks like it’s feeling teased.
The “proof” you cite in the case of the Buk launcher amounts to some interesting details collected from an anonymous source. The only two germane facts relevant to blame that I picked out were the supposed Ukrainian uniforms, even though the separatists have been wearing both Ukrainian and Russian uniforms, from various media reports going back to the very beginning of this, including false-flag fuckwittery by the pro-Rus/Russian (possibly ex-military civilian) infiltrators during the protests against Yanukovich and the Crimean takeover. Also, the article cited beer bottles littering the launcher site, which makes plausible the claim that the site was the launcher, (poor judgment overcoming half-remembered training) but tends to argue against regular Ukrainian military. So that’s a wash. Initial assessments tend to suck, so your resultant snap judgment that the most credible conclusion is that the Buk crew were regular Uke military is sorta dumb. Forcing that interpretation on the rest of us as more credible than the obvious (off-leash separatist idiots shot a plane down) is beyond stupid, it’s intentionally confrontational and invites derision.
Like you I generally discount the official Ukrainian press releases. The location of the shootdown seems to square with the obvious, the small diversion of flightpath doesn’t seem weird especially because the relevant leg was converging on the destination, not taking a parallel or diverging track. Air travel corridors have considerable width and it isn’t just a safety margin, airplanes truly do vary quite a bit in when and where they make their turns. That doesn’t “prove” nothing was manipulated, but it sure as hell doesn’t point, in any way, to manipulation of the flightpath. I bring this up because this is the corollary of the official Ukrainian PR. They aren’t by definition lies, but the stink of bullshit begins strong. The stink on the Ukrainian intercepts might fade over time, but these particular stinks of the “anti-narrative” conspiracy nuts (ignorant lack of knowledge about air travel and other matters of physics) is only going to get worse.
And then there’s all the evidence that it was separatists, and separatists trying to cover it up. Personally, I think Putin is establishing some kind of separation, a “you break it, you bought it” policy with the separatists. This is a political calculation, and kind of embarrassing for him with the West, but hey, the families will get the remains back and the flight recorders may or may not provide useful information, depending on whether there’s useful information on them and whether or not they really were tampered with in a secret Moscow lab per the Ukrainian PR.
But really, unless you are willing to actually unsheeple yourself, this discussion will continue to go nowhere but mockery-ward.
"Unlike Washington - who already knows everything, with no evidence
whatsoever (remember 9/11?) - Moscow will take its time to know the
basic journalistic facts of what, where, and who, and engage on proving
the truth and/or disproving Washington’s spin.
“The historical record shows Washington simply won’t release data if it
points to a missile coming from its Kiev vassals. The data may even
point to a bomb planted on MH17, or mechanical failure - although
that’s unlikely. If this was a terrible mistake by the Novorossiya
rebels, Moscow will have to reluctantly admit it. If Kiev did it, the
revelation will be instantaneous. Anyway we already know the hysterical
Western response, no matter what; Russia is to blame.”
The truth is that Putin is behaving more like an adult through this whole thing, not rushing to judgment but asking people to patiently await more evidence. The US government is in SOP mode, flinging enough disinformation/information around to make it impossible to discern reality.
Ready Seymour Hersh’s piece on the Syria chemical attack. Of course the information in his report has not been picked up the MSM (I’m putting on my tinfoil hat now) so you’re excused for not knowing about it. Here it is in the London Review of Books: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin. TL;DR is it was Syrian rebels working with Turkey.
As for this horror show in Ukraine, I still maintain, as I did through the vast majority of my posts, that there is simply not enough information to know what happened yet. Yes, I got worked up when I was barraged with all sorts of assertions of certainty from all sides and started sounding too certain about the events. But I maintain that the “evidence” from Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews is as credible as any of the other “evidence” we’ve had so far. After Syria, and the rush to war, and the subsequent hushing up of what really happened, I feel strongly that judging anything based on the immense noise being thrown up by the US government and its lackeys in the US media (and its inarguable that they are lackeys at this point) is just foolish.
Btw, you should really read Hersh’s piece. Its not only highly informative but fascinating as well.
Explain to me how waiting to pass judgment until there is more evidence is less desirable behavior than the US government running around with their hair on fire.
As Pepe Escobar writes:
"Right off the bat they were all lined up - the invariably hysterical
reams of “experts” of the “US intelligence community” literally foaming
at their palatial mouths at “evil” Russia and “evil” Putin; intel
“experts” who could not identify a convoy of gleaming white Toyotas
crossing the Iraqi desert to take Mosul. And yet they have already
sentenced, they don’t need to look any further, instantly solving the
MH17 riddle. "
Yes, there is. In fact, that claim has been made continuously for months without even a shred of proof from anywhere. Its just part of the western narrative that we’re expected to swallow w/o proof. By now, anything the US government says needs real proof or we have to assume its a lie. They’ve been that serially dishonest with everything from the NSA Snowden revelations, to the runup to the Iraq war, Vietnam war, Syrian (almost) war, the ongoing Ukraine war, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Since we’re talking about Ukraine here, the lies have poured so fast the past months its impossible to keep them straight. Even the origins of the civil war, which was an American-backed coup staged by two virulent neo-Nazi groups (financially backed by the US via USAID and the CIA) have been obfuscated so that even the few Americans that actually follow this stuff are often confused. Russia’s “aggression” against Crimea and Ukraine is painted as the beginning of this madness when that is simply a flat out lie. As we know, Russia’s grab for Crimea was in response to NATO’s continuing expansion east (despite promises made to not do that very thing) into Ukraine. The president of Ukraine needed to obtain funding from somewhere, and Putin’s offer was more generous and didn’t come with the inevitable neoliberal looting that IMF “assistance” always entails, and so he was deposed violently and somehow the coup government is now the “legitimate” government and those fighting for restoration of the popularly elected government are “rebels”. The whole thing is so upside according to western media narratives it makes one’s head spin.
The US government lies about almost everything. The national security state is predicated on mountains of lies, so pray tell why we should believe anything that they say, ever?
I have an Irish friend, lovely chap, should be a lawyer really, given his method of caning people who argue with him. He finishes the argument with the simple epithet
Wait, which vehicle movements are we talking about? The ones the Ukrainians claim were missiles being transported back to Russia? That story was debunked: globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.se/2014/07/video-of-rebel-buk-launchers-headed.html.
Or, if you’re referring to the weaponry and supplies Putin has been supposedly providing to the eastern Ukrainians, its up to the group making the claims to prove them. You’d think the US government would have spy satellite information showing at least some of this but for some curious reason we’ve not been given a single grainy photograph.
