Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "The Grayzone"
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I always assumed that the Skripal story was either a set up - or Sergey Skripal had some unsavory (highly criminal) connections that backfired on him, and the UK government put it to good use. - it was just too weird and more and more inconsistencies became apparent. The German government also figured out that they had been sold a bill of goods. Of course they never officially retreated from their position.
They had supported the NATO ally UK (sanctions) immediately, no questions asked, but after 1 month the Speaker of the Foreign office and the Speaker of the Chanellor's office had a presser - and the journalists started pressing them on the Skripal affair as well.
Was it really sure that Russia was behind it ? (Some very interesting Pinoccio moves - body language - of an otherwise professional speaker that controlled his body well. Upright posture, no fidgeting around as one would expect. Except that he could not make the assurances "we have reliable documents from the U.K. government that Russia ..... " - he couldn't make that statement w/o touching his temples or his nose. Did it twice (or three times, I would have to check out the footage). The ONLY time he touched his face during the whole event.
Nope, they did not have any reliable documents - and what is more the insight that they had fallen for a ruse (alienating Germany from Russia to hinder them to buy gas and resume economice exchange) had created most likekely some strain behind the scenes. that is why he could not help himself when telling the lie, it was somewhat charged.
As for the U.K.
The immediate blame before any analysis. Unsucessfully putting pressure on Porton Down to "confirm" that the poison was produced in Russia. (which is impossible anyway).
The wording that they could get from Porton Down: A nerve agent out of the Novichok class, the kind of which was developed by Russia. (which in a scientific manner is not wrong, it is just meaningless to mention Russia in the sentence. That is all what the government got from their lab.
This is like saying "Penicillin, the kind of which was invented by a Scot". When dealing with recently produced Peniciline. it suggest an associatin that the medication was produced in Scotlande if you do not listen carefully.
The convoluted wording made it very obvious that the Theresa May government despereately tried to MAKE an connection to Russia, at least when it comes to messaging for the citizens.
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My take: these outlets started out good, but they are worn out over the decades. And most likely they want the good life - not necessarily riches, but the lure of ongoing financial stability. Their business model is a constant hassle. DN and TYT have a lot of staff and overhead. DN is usually good and they deliver substance with the many heads, whereas TYT has become a gossip mill, and employs a lot of airheads, that opinionate (and not even good). I think they always mixed in the gossipy side of things and also the rehashing & commenting on the content of big media, not many interviews.
But it had its charm when they were a (struggling) startup.
Chenk did not fall in line with MSNBC in the Obama era. (he got a show when TYT had already became a wel known channel, and had that gig for a year).
and it makes all outlets incl. the Intercept or PBS !vulnerable to accepting "big donors" / financiers. Same with the Intercept - what happened to the Snowden data base !!
I guess these people have a harder time to maintain double think and fool themselves that the money from rich "investors" does not impact them.
Of course it does. It in a weird twist - if humans are at a crossroads they usually have to get the small decisions right. If they compromise on those - it is a downhill slide from there. It is human nature to not want to admit in retrosprect that one had less than noble motives and to DOUBLE DOWN.
I think that is what we see with TYT - ANA senses they have given up a part of their integrity. And they are losing viewers, and are pissed at the likes of Jimmy Dore.
Aaron & Max plays nice with Jimmy (he does not always seem to be comfortable when Jimmy gets very ranty - and repetitive !) - but their channel needs the exposure if youtube shuts them down.
The recent episode where Jimmy reacted to the claim that he had made sexualized remarks about Ana when he was with TYT. - He likely ran his mouth, she was more pissed than he noticed, he felt bad when he noticed how much he had humilated her (in front of a group of people) and sent here a card, kinda apologizing .... Ana should have confronted him right there - not have brought it up now and publicly.
people change - she and Chenk also commented on the breasts and bodies of celebs back in the day, as part of the show ! - and Jimmy should not have explained the incident in detail justifying how he could make an off the cuff remark with how she had dressed.
He should have taken the high road - it was likely lewd because the explanation / justification NOW certainly was.
Max was on the segment when Jimmy "commented" on the accusations of
harrassment, I think even Max was uncomfortable with that - but did not
call out Jimmy on that.
Jimmy Dore should have given a general explanation (and who knows, he may have commented in a "funny" manner more often, the incident where he wrote her a card may be the only one where HE realizes he was kinda wrong).
The general explanation should have included that he would not do this these days (he did not give the impression that he has learned), did not mean to hurt or upset her, and that he has learned since then (judging from his current statements he hasn't learned).
Other than that: that is has no bearing on the current discussions (supposedly
this is about politics and policies and Syria).
It is also true that Jimmy Dore tried to keep the piece with TYT after he left, and never mentioned them by name. Only "left" channels that are wrong. I guess TYT was butthurt because they lost so many viewers and he grew fast and they are not doing good. So they started the feud, especially after the compromised on Force The Vote.
THERE it really paid off for the investors to have a grip on them.
Their gossipy, not substantitive "mainstream", obliging the DNC when it MATTERS * strategy drives viewers and supporters away -
They are all bark except ! when they masses try to organize and they could throw their weight aroung to support that.
Becoming mainstream while trying to appear as rebels, and a lot of rhetoric but undermining the efforts to do something - that is the Elizabeth Warren strategy, and it did not work well for neither.
It makes TYT MORE vulnerable of "having to take" big money and compromising even more, which makes them less attractive.
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Max is incorrect on the "Young Turks" (and the jab at Ana), that is a common (if now somewhat old fashioned) term for young rebels. The term is / was also used in the U.S. like that, and as Chenk has a Turkish background, that seemed to be an interesting name for a left leaning start up.
Chenk was not aware of the other meaning resp. did not even think of it, and certainly did not mean to invoke the genocide. Groups that were engaged in the Armenian genocide also were called young Turk or used that name themselves.
Ana - as an Armenian - found out about the old op-ed (resp. people dug up the old op ed - one can still see comments of trolls commenting on him and her being allegedly genocide deniers, so that was an attack on a left channel, they tried to dig up old stuff to discredit them).
Ana educated him on the matter and he learned to leave his Turkish patriotism behind. he had written an op ed on that when he was younger and a Conservative, he distanced himself from that.
People are influenced by their culture, and end up being tribal (and of course misinformed), many Turks get pissed if they are asked about the Armenian genocide, there was never an official reckoning and that of course influences what people hear (if they hear about it at all) as they grow up.
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@Kamikaze Joe The Nazis were Socialists like North Korea or Eastern Germany were/are democracies (they had / have it in the name of the country. And China is not Communist anymore. Oh and neither kamala Harris nor Nancy Pelois are "Progressives". At least Pelosi once claimed that title as well - which is ridiculous) - Using certain words that have a POSITIVE CONNOTATION and CLAIMING to be that is a marketing trick. For instance using the word socialists in the name (the Nazis wanted to fish in the vote pool of the left, the other voter segments were taken ! because the real left had been increasinly popular even during the monarchy and after WW1 they gained political influence, and in the bad times they had a message that spoke to the masses.
It is true that the nazis had the language of economic populism (same with Mussolini), to a degree they even used those policies (but outlawed the unions and suppressed the wages). The "conservative" niches of the haves and capitalists was taken, there were also nationalist groups. The obscure party needed to differentiate themselves in the 1920s. (In 1929 they got less than 5 % of the vote).
And they needed the mass vote to have strong results in elections (45 % in summer 1932, but the Nazis failed to find a coaliton partner, so the elections were repeated in Nov. and they lost some of the protest vote, they got 35 % of the vote. Still the strongest of the MANY parties in Germany and president Hindenburg (one of the pillars of divided power) followed the usual route to task the party with the highest vote share with the attempt of forming a government.
To everybody's suprise they were fast this time and opted to be a minority government. In difficult times such a government is bound to fail (but I think the Nazis had their O.K. from important people of the right (and especially the industrial leader), but they did not want to officially align themselves with the uglies. I guess some of the right assumed that the Nazis would deliver a blow against the left and the unions, then they would also fail, and they could take it from there.
Hindenburg (the president) let them form the minority government. He thought chancellor Hitler and his government would fail and then the conservatives might have their chance to come back to power. Well, that was a miscalculation of historic proportions, and in spring 1933 the old man was on his death bed. Hindenburg in good shape could have stopped the coup in slow motion of Hitler (it was not a violent takeover, the illegal actions against the resistance added up).
Hindenburg had the ear of the military the upper class, but was also popular with the regular people. Hitler could not have acted against him (I wonder if the Nazis helped with his death, he was old, but it is strange that he deteriorated in the most critical time).
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Well, it is not "Antisemitism !" for a change. We can count our blessings. - I think it will wear off like the anti-semitism accusations. They are just crying "Wolf" too often. - The powers that be and the spy agencies are so incensed that The People might take the country that they are overdoing it.
PM May made a pig's ear out of the poisoning case with Novichok in Salisbury / the Skripals (where luckily only the hamsters and the cat died - because the investigators in hazmat suits went into the house (allegedly) and they somehow missed the cat and the 2 hamsters or guinea pigs (food bowls, toys, cages and all).
The Russian Foreign office started asking questions and in this day and age RT has a large viewership, so the Western media and politicians could not suppress the information.
The questions about the whereabouts of the pets went public - and then 1 month later the U.K. investigagor entered the house again (allegedly). Found the rodents dead and the cat in a very bad shape, so after a vet had examined her, they had to put her down. the animals then were burned (all of that allegedly). - call me petty, but I would have kept the animals as evidence. If they died of lack of food and water they obviously were not poisoned so the corpses would not have been a security risk.
And then someone died from Novichok in a perfume bottle that was wrapped in cellophane. Had found it at a sale in a box with offers. The partner of the woman that had died confirmed that it was wrapped in cellophane. so that was sad and very weird.
Russia was officially and immediately blamed, but the story got weirder and less plausible by the day.
methinks someone had an interest to have them sanctioned and to disrupt developing cooperations with other European countries (business) or that Trump would not engage in the Cold War 2.0.
The bodylanguage of the speaker on a German government press meeting one month later was very telling. Germany had supported U.K. no questions asked - and then the official narrative got more and more holes.
"The U.K. government had provided evidence that implicated Russia ...." (touches his nose later his eyebrow and again his nose). The camera was 5 minutes on the speaker while the journalists followed up on the Skripal affair and if the German reaction and unconditional support of the U.K. was justified in the light of the ongoing inconsistencies and open questions. This was a general press meeting, the Skripal affair and the sanctions on Russia were one topic that the journalists came up with).
The speaker was obviously trained and made a professional impression. Not fidgeting around is one thing they are trained in. He only touched his face / nose 3 times in these 5 minutes - and it was always when he made the claims how the German government had proof provided by May's government and acted on facts and good intelligence.
Yeah, right.
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I think that they may also try to poison any option for Gabbard to get a cabinet position in a Sanders admin. Many Sanders fans would like to see her as Secretary of State anyway (or Secretary of Defense) and that would set her up of course for becoming POTUS later. If Gabbard has many delegates behind her and gives them to Sanders this could help him to get the 50 % in the first round - no influence of the superdelegates. I think that is why the party elites and their donors urged Biden to run - he shows signs of slight cognitive decline and I think a rigorous campaign schedule is too much for him.
There is no need for him to win, his job is to suck up a part of the delegates in the primaries - and he is not going to give them to Sanders. I guess they hoped it would work better for Biden - and also that candidates like Kamala Harris would be stronger. Harris, Booker would be the logical recipients of the delegates that Biden can secure - enough so that Sanders or Warren do not win the first round on their own. Then the power of the Superdelegates = the elites can be leveraged.
I thought that Kamala Harris would be a major competition for Sanders - nope. It is Elizabeth Warren. Joe Biden is going to drop out at some point. The plan does not really unfold very well. Talking up the candidate of the month does not really work - the only candidate they CAN talk up is Warren. Biden is too goofy - mainstream media glosses over his gaffes, but the plan to fawn over him had to be abandoned (well recently on CNN age - the 3 frontrunners all over 70 - was discussed and one "commentator" said that age is important, but in the Trump era the wisdom card counts. And Biden can play it - so she says. Yeah: shoring up the Democratic votes for the Iraq war, throwing Anita Hill under the bus, being on the wrong side on bussing, pushing for Nafta, TPP, crime bill, bankrupcy bill - never mind all the nonsense he says now.
Yeah the wisdom of Biden shines - he has got the receipts.
Warren would be an emergency from the point of view of the elites as well - but she likely could be made to compromise. She already sends out the signals and has backdoor meetings.
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npr and PBS have been captured (the oil industry buys PBS, which needs the funding to have sufficient budgets. Also for nice wages, and projects on the ground that cost money). That is easy and capturing them (or the likes of TYT) is very valuable.
They can do a little bit of barking (and they also do genuinely good work - within certain limits - that would not be covered by the other outlets) .....as long as they keep silent or adivise to "not do anything NOW" when it matters. Kind of like the "moderates" that Dr. King commented on that always adivised to WAIT - that are a worse enemy than the open enemies. Think the masses organizing, general strike looming, or Jimmy Dore tries to push the feckless Squad to force a vote on M4A.
A VOTE on it in The House, not that M4A is passed - which was unlikely.
Corporate Dems have a LOT of reasons to not want to go on record. It used to be that they could cast a vote as long as they knew it would not pass, and then to a 180 as soon as another vote came up (a few years later) where it could pass.
Lamestream media covered for them and it was much harder for voters to keep track on them. but now that is easy with help of the internet. So they likely have become more cautious to cast such votes, if they vote against it it will be used against them in the next primary.
If they vote for show for it now, but retract that support once it has more support in a few years - that vote is even worse, because then they cannot even pose as being "genuinely" concerned about M4A. They are exposed as the worst kind of turncoats, the attack ads would write themselves and they could expect a shitstorm online.
So a M4A vote even though it does not succeed (now) IS a big deal. And the progressives were too cowardly to rattle the cage and piss off the leadership, right out of the gate of the lauded Biden admin and Dems having a (smaller) majority in the House and a razor thin majority in the Senate.
As is - Corporate Dems can continue to spew some rhetoric. TALK is cheap and they can continue to serve the big donors while they pay lip service to how nice it would be to have "access" to affordable healthcare for all. "If only we would have the votes ... Or Republicans (and "moderate Democrats") would let us as at least pass the Public Option ... "
Which is safe when it comes to serving the big donors - unless someone (representatives / voters) PUSH HARD to DO something to really get it passed.
TYT (and likely also Sam Seder) shamefully adopted the strategy to jump on the breaks to hinder a mass organizing, pressure campaing (the DNC financier millions show their influence), and the alleged benefit from playing nice with the D leadership did NOT manifest. At. All. The Squad and progessives LOST committee positions. Katie Porter did a good job and went viral - and the big donors did not like being grilled by her. She was ostracized in her committee and had no support. AOC lost her committee position too. So what did their subservience get them ?
The lobbyists did the same to protect cigarettes - getting the can kicked down the road was good enough when they could not suprress the discussion about the dangers of smoking alltogether.
Then it is important to have people that undermine the strength of movements to get anything done, or to have steps in that direction. The right of women to vote was voted down several times, but the margins got smaller. Until it passed. The votes before were not in vain, they harmed politicians and added pressure.
TYT has to deliver a certain rhetoric, their target audience expects that. That is O.K. - as long as it is only talk it does not impact the bottom line of big biz = big donors.
Their value is that they reach people that do not watch MSNBC and cannot be propagandized in the conventional manner. And they reach young people.
btw I do not think that TYT cynically (with full awareness) sells out - humans usually engage in some double think exercises - and the (subconscious) discomfort may explain some things, it may be harder for them to do double think than for the usual media shills. Amnesty International has been utilized in the same manner (they are not completely compromized, just in some cases). Their reporting is normally completely ignored by MSM and politicians. Only a FEW times they are getting the spotlight - when their reports are used to justify starting a war. The alleged mass rapings in Libya were the pretext for the "humanitarian" bombings by NATO. The narrative (supported by AI but not from independent channels as would be their own requirement for substantiated reporting) was that soldiers of the the gov. army sexually assaulted the population with help of Viagra. That was not true, (it is possible that rapes happened, that is typical for times of unrest and war) but NOT not on a mass scale or tolerated by military brass - but when that lie became apparent the Islamists already had killed Gaddafi and seized control - only thanks to the NATO bombing.
The Iraq lie was more of an issue because the war in Iraq cost a lot of money, and also life of U.S. soldiers, and troops were there. But the U.S. voters allow their government to start wars on lies when it only is a disaster for the unfortunate brown people in other countries. Hardly any reporting about the CATASTROPHIC outcomes in Libya, even less so than in Iraq or Afghanistan.
AFTER the WMD lie to start the war against Iraq AI doing propganda for the war machine (likely the CIA placed someone !) was valuable. The war against Libya and Syria was planned over the course of several years. The CIA claiming there were mass rapings would have been met with scepticism (WMD's anyone), so it was very valuable to have AI be the willing / duped / foolish / bought messenger of the war machine. Another example: Alleged torture on a mass scale in Sednaya prison in Syra. The logistics and other details make that also very implausible. (Torture likely happens in Syria and also happned before 2011, but not at the scale and at that spot, not as AI claims. Likely the same way it happens in Egypt, Jordan and the oil rich theocracies.).
We were propagandized to expect a genocide once the Islamists in the Eastern part of Aleppo would be defeated (the defeat of the rebels was expected since summer 2016, so the propaganda was full on, incl. a little girl / her mother / an intel team around the clock tweeting form the occupied area).
That massacre was supposed to happen as soon as the Syrian and Russian army would clear the Eastern part of Aleppo from the jihadists that occupied it.
Well, genocide did not happen in Dec. 2016, there were pictures of auto parades and people on the street celebrating, so a major part of the population was VERY happy they were gone. Genocide in aleppo narrative could not be pulled off (RT and a few independents were on the ground, in the age of the internet it is hard to suppress the footage). So MSM dropped the genocide and "last hospital in Aleppo" narrative and moved on without any explantion.
That was just before Christmas 2016 and I wondered whether there would be a new wave of propgaganda. They would not just give it a rest, would they.
Why, of course ! They waited until after the holidays (for max. impact) and in early January they warmed up the AI supported narrative of Sednaya torture prison. Which was a story that they had launched 2 years ago, and there was no new material (to avoid the word evidence) - so what was the reason to give that AI report a lot of attention again at that particular time.
Which is highly unusual, AI is hardly ever mentioned, and now ALL the large networks (also in the Europan countries ! ) covered it. The media of the relevant first world countries has been captured long ago and they also know what is within the allowed range of opinion and what would not do to report.
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Everybody seems to feel the need to have that disclaimer (even though Assad is a war criminal). Including Lawrence Wilkerson so there might be something to it. I do not know where to put Assad - somewhere between authoritarian caught between a rock and a hard place ... to dictator who does not mind having torture used (and sometimes chemical weapons, I think there were cases, not in 2013, 2017 and 2018, the cases that were heavily reported on in the Western media).
In one interview (with friendly media, I think RT) his body language changed visibly when he talked about the reconciliation process. he seems to feel very positive about it. (people that have fought with the rebels are reintegrated into the military and into society).
the Russians and the Syrians flew brutal bombing attacks in "rebel" strongholds which killed also many civilians - so did the U.S. / NATO once they could be bothered to go against the "rebels" (= ISIS, Al Qaeda, ...). Their bombings in Iraq and parts of Syria were as brutal.
Difference being that the U.S. and NATO had a choice: they could have forced the parties to the negotiating table and stop funding the moderate terrorits (and step on the toes of Saudi Arabia).
ISIS was allowed to sell oil from occupied Syrian oilfields to Turkey, that really helped with funding, so at the time when they were a miltiary success story they paid best for the recruits. (John Kerry in September 2016: We wanted ISIS to become stronger in Syria, that would weaken Assad).
Then ISIS also attracted a lot of men from other groups. Not all of them were the hardcore fight-till-the-end fanatics. This is why ISIS brutally punished everyone they suspected of wanting to defect.
That also showed at the end of 2016, most of the various groups that occupied the Eastern part of Aleppo took the deal the UN had negotiated. Each group played the warlords in one specific area, which was the reason the civilians could not get out, bribing one group got you only to the next crossroad. The UN bussed them out and over to Idlib.
Only 3000 hardcore fighters stayed in Aleppo when the Syrian government army and the Russians came in mid December 2016. They left a corridor so those who changed their mind (when the commander could not control them anymore) and wanted to flee had a chance - in order to avoid the house to house battles.
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