“Rules lawyering” usually involves twisting a written rule toward unfair ends, not violating the rule directly. No-one here is claiming that either is ok, but they’re different situations.
No, but if it’s illegal (e.g. an unregistered foreign agent contributing materially to a campaign’s efforts) it’s not ok. It’s also a lot easier to address and get out of the way so we can (simultaneously) focus on the larger problems of the DNC.
Who’s telling us to ignore them? Certainly not Sanders and Our Revolution and the DSA. Not any of this site’s publishers or authors or commenters.
As for the MSM, I doubt many people here take CNN or MSNBC at their word. The NYT and WaPo, compromised though they are by the neoliberal consensus, have still done extensive analysis of how the Dems dropped the ball by losing sight of their true constituencies.
Looked at from the point of view of geopolitics and Putin’s need to keep delivering to his ultra-nationalist supporters it makes no sense that he wouldn’t make use all of the tools he learned about at the KGB/FSB when he now has them at his command. That doesn’t make him or the Russians evil, that makes him the autocratic leader of an authoritarian kleptocracy with territorial ambitions and a lot of legacy resources from Soviet days.
All the spins on “Watergate” to describe scandals involving government officials are definitely lazy MSM concoctions, but there are bigger issues here.
I have to say that article is problematic, especially if the author is white. There are probably better articles to cite to make some of the valid points this one contains.
The only Glen(n) Ford I’m familiar with is the film actor, but I’ll check out the site.
There are other problematic aspects to the article (e.g. positing Il Douche as some kind of champion against what his supporters would call the “deep state”) but I am relieved it wasn’t another instance of a white brocialist telling black folks what the problem “actually is.”
Agree to disagree then. I believe that he wants to undermine the confidence in liberal-democratic institutions not because they are liberal-democratic, but because they are the existing institutions. If fostering democracy and human rights (in other countries, of course) would make the other countries weaker and Russia stronger in comparison, I believe that he would happily do that.
To any Republican voter that may be reading this thread:
In my opinion, Putin not only interfered in the general election, but also during the Republican primary. He helped push Trump as the Republican candidate in order to discredit our democratic process and to diminish the status and credibility of the United States in front of the whole world. He knew that Trump was sympathetic to the current Russian dominant class, and that his grasp of international politics, economics, and of what the real interests of the United States people are was poor. It is not compatible to be an American patriot, or simply a proud American citizen, and supporting Trump. Trump is a puppet of Putin, and he is not making America great, he is willingly helping to make Putin’s Russia unaccountable and dominant.
Putin not only stole the election from the Democrat voters, he also stole the election from the Republican voters. Trump is a petard foisted on all of us by Putin.
One more thing: we should start calling Trump Pepe. In Spanish, people named José are frequently nicknamed Pepe because the Saint Joseph statutes frequently had “San José (P.P.)” as the name of the saint, P.P. meaning “Pater Putativus”, putative father (of Jesus) in Latin. In the case of Trump, Pepe would stand for Putin’s Puppet. Let’s start using it!
I’m glad you gave the reference to Adam Curtis’ “Hypernormalization”. I love Curtis’ anlyses!
In this case, it’s my sincere belief that whereas the issues in modern politics that brought Donald Trump to the fore are very real, the whole Russiagate thing is a fake - maybe not the intentions, but the proportions - designed to make you look the other way, just as the elevation of Gaddafi to a fake supervillain in the 80s and a fake hero of democracy in the 2000’s. In other words, it’s my sincere belief that you, Xeni and others jumping on the “Russia is a threat” bandwagon are being played.
There are all sorts of issues with Russia and Putin, but it’s not a geopolitical threat, and according to Obama and Hillary Clinton only a few years ago - cf. the Chomsky interview I posted - it’s not an enemy of the USA. So yes - I contend that the whole Russia thing is a smokescreen and you’re being played.
You may react angrily to this, and I’ll admit that history may yet prove me wrong. But frankly, I don’t think it will.
The outrage is less about “it’s infuriating that our enemies would do this to us!” than “it’s infuriating that people at the highest levels of our own government would be complicit in a hostile nation’s attack on our democracy!”
It would be, if it were true. Just as the “controlled demolition” theory of 9/11 would be infuriating if it were a fact.
Only I don’t think so. I think what Mueller will find will rather be, as in Manafort’s case, sleaze - and that Trump may go to jail for that, not this Russia business.
