Julius Caesar Trump.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/delta-ends-sponsorship-over-trump-002912904.html

I guess some corporations don't like it when you try to update Shakespeare to current times.

The same corporations would have withdrawn their support if Hillary Clinton had been first elected president in January of 2017 and later represented on stage in the personality of Julius Caesar--not a bit more far-fetched than Trump's personality in that stage-character.

The idea that there's anything less to fear from Clinton in the presidency than from Trump in the presidency is very naive.

Let them stage Julius Caesar with Trump represented as Caesar on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays; on Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays they can stage Macbeth with Hillary Clinton represented as Lady Macbeth.

ETA:

This sort of stuff--portraying Trump as "Caesar" in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar -- is juvenile. It's the wishful thinking of people who'd like everything to be solved in a neat and simple act. There's a seriously dangerous situation going on, a lynch-mob mentality at work among Trump's critics. Liberals ought to oppose lynch-mobs on principle--whether the target is one they regard as friend or foe. That this includes so many people who are used to thinking of themselves as politically "liberal" ought to be seen as outrageous. Liberals can't recognize the imperative of protecting the sanctity of the electoral process? They'd lend themselves to movements to depose Trump on purely specious pretexts? They don't get it that, by doing this, they're actually setting up a precedent by which any future president may be subjected to this treatment--hounded out of office simply because his opponents don't like him?

Recently, talk of allegations of Trump's lack of sound mental health has been renewed. There's no regret apparent in this speculation on the part of Democrats and Clinton-voters. They'd clearly be delighted if Trump--with or without good cause--could be removed from office because he was thought--with or without good grounds-- to be mentally unfit to serve.

Juvenile it may be but Trump himself is a juvenile. But personally I don't mind splitting the left from the center--don't mind more extreme ways of protesting. I don't want the left being taken over by centrists and turning themselves into a version of the right. And I don't mind things like this getting up the noses of those on the right....getting up the noses of the big shots at the Bank of America and/or Delta airlines or any other major corporation. A little bit of agit-prop is good for the soul.

The same corporations would have withdrawn their support if Hillary Clinton had been first elected president in January of 2017 and later represented on stage in the personality of Julius Caesar--not a bit more far-fetched than Trump's personality in that stage-character.

Bullshit. Absolute, complete, and utter bullshit.

In 2012, Delta sponsored a Guthrie Theater production of Julius Ceasar that used an Obama-like actor as Julius Caesar.

Conservatives lapped it up, so much so that American Conservative wrote an adoring article about the production. No one pulled their sponsorship.

So, as usual, you are completely full of shit with your "same corporations would have withdrawn their support" line.

The thing that did it here--that ginned up the outrage--was the video of the stabbing. Someone find a video of Obama-Caesar being murdered?

Some quick Googling and you can find any number of outcries over depictions of Obama's assassination. The director of Kingsman: The Secret Service went into spin mode over its depiction of an Obama assassination. The math teacher in Alabama who explained angles with reference to shooting Obama from a building. The FoxNews head who spoke of the assassination of "Obama" instead of "Osama" and made a nervous joke about it, etc. I see nothing particularly Republican in the tendency of people to jump at these things.

>2 proximity1: Your lynch mobs I think are seen as people finally becoming energized by liberals left of Clinton. Sanders harkened back to the excitement of progressive movements, and opposition to Trump appears to be keeping it going to some degree.

>5 timspalding: A bit disingenuous to pretend there is nothing different about depictions of or references to the first black president being shot from depictions of, well, any of the rest of them.

I am left of center and in a red state, I was a history major and I appreciate peaceful forms of protest, generally speaking. I dislike President Trump strongly, but I think that portraying the president being assassinated is a bad way to make any kind of point about anything. I thought Kathy Griffin was an idiot for posing for that photo, and I think this play is a bad look for anyone involved.

If people on the left want to stop Trump, we need to try something a little unconventional, and show up for a midterm election once in a while. And show up for the presidential in 2020. If people want to protest in the interim, that's just fine. But depicting a sitting president's assassination is not a good sign for democracy, decorum, or civil discourse.

7: Do you have any idea how many times a sitting President has been portrayed as Julius Caesar in a version of this play? It has been done at least a half a dozen times and yet somehow democracy has withstood this. It is almost a cliche to do a production this way.

>7 Dr_Flanders: That sounds reasonable, and of course your opinion is your sacrosanct right, but given the extreme violence of the US against civilians the world over on top of the extreme economic violence against its own people I am not sure decorum and civil discourse have any meaning. And certainly the nature of the government is oligarchis, so democracy does not apply either. My personal distaste for violence limits my own actions, but I am all for flag burning, for instance, and fun with effiigies.

>8 StormRaven: You are probably right. I am not saying democracy will not survive. I am saying that whatever point they were trying to make will be overshadowed, assuming they had any point to make. Democrats like myself lost this election because we didn't turn out in enough volume in the right places to win and because a significant amount of people felt too disgusted with either major party, so they voted third party (which means they may as well have thrown their vote away). If democrats are going to make something out of the current political climate, they are going to have to find a way to appeal to more people in Michigan, Penn, and whatever the other state was that Trump flipped...Wisconsin? Anyway, I just don't think it does any good.

>9 RickHarsch: I don't think this country is perfect by any stretch, and I think that in spite of what Fox News says, we are much less socialistic than we used to be. I don't know that I agree with everything you said, but I agree that the current situation is basically an oligarchy.

The question is, what do we do about it? I really don't think burning effigies improves the situation. You could make your point just as well with a sharply worded sign, without referencing assassinating a democratically elected president (at least, as far as we know, Russia). And with that sign, you would create less outrage on the other side, and maybe flip a couple of young or split ticket voters.

I am not saying the democratic party is necessarily going to fix everything either. Hillary Clinton was certainly chummy with Wall Street...but I do think that generally, democrats are better for the middle and working class.

A bit disingenuous to pretend there is nothing different about depictions of or references to the first black president being shot from depictions of, well, any of the rest of them.

This is morally repugnant. There are always differences but not differences that matter. The President is (1) a human and (2) the lawfully elected leader of the USA (even if we may hope he is lawfully removed from that position too). While there might be additional reasons to object to a Presidential assassination, the difference is hardly of kind.

Bullshit. Absolute, complete, and utter bullshit.

There are any number of examples of corporations shying off a controversial thing after an outrage campaign from the left. These things are happening more and more, and from both sides.

In 2012, Delta sponsored a Guthrie Theater production of Julius Ceasar that used an Obama-like actor as Julius Caesar.

These things work on simple memes. The graphic stabbing video helped, as did the fact it was Shakespeare in Central Park, where any yahoo could see it.

For the record, though, the Guthrie Theater corrected the facts--Delta sponsored other productions on the main stage at the Guthrie, but not Julius Caesar, which was produced on an ancillary page. No major controversy erupted over it; but Delta did not, in fact, sponsor it either. See https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Guthrie+Theater+pro... .

>2 proximity1:

"Liberals can't recognize the imperative of protecting the sanctity of the electoral process?"

That's hilarious considering we have a president who has absolutely no interest in investigating the level of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Not to mention all the voting law changes that are meant to make it more difficult for certain groups to vote. You have got to be kidding, sir.

I am saying that whatever point they were trying to make will be overshadowed, assuming they had any point to make.

They had the same point as when Caesar was portrayed as Obama. Or when Caesar was portrayed as George W. Bush. Or Reagan. Or Lincoln. Or any of the other times it has been done. Inserting references to contemporary political figures into Shakespeare's plays is incredibly common - so much so that anyone surprised by this just hasn't been paying attention.

They didn't expect huge backlash because this sort of allusion is routine in productions of Shakespeare's works. Or really, a lot of other staged drama as well. The only real difference now is that Trump is the internet-troll President who has supporters who react like outraged internet trolls.

>3 lriley:

But the question wasn't about any of these:

..." splitting the left from the center" ... ..."more extreme ways of protesting." ..." the left being taken over by centrists"... ..."turning themselves into a version of the right..". ..."getting up the noses of those on the right... ... "getting up the noses of the big shots at the Bank of America and/or Delta airlines or any other major corporation" or "A little bit of agit-prop (being) good for the soul"

The question was,



Do you mind a lynch-mob and lynch-mob mentalities running amok?

>12 timspalding: You go from disingenuous to utterly dishonest. You know perfectly well the discussion is not about actual assassinations. To me dishonesty is repugnant, and your posts have a highter repugnance rate than any other. Yours are worse than Carnophile's, for example, as he does not pretend to be other than how he presents himself. You stoop lower with your fakery than any poster here.

>13 Dr_Flanders:

I can explain at greater length--probably later, when I have more time.

the point is not complicated. The potential of Russian--or any other foreign state with the technical capacities-- "interference" in some absolute sense--simply to "interfere", to make an effort to influence the voters' decisions as to how to vote--this is an inevitable "given" of the world in which we live.

When I argue that the sanctity of the election outcome is to be respected--win or lose--I mean that this must be honored absent really clear indications of vote-rigging or other kinds of election fraud. There is still ZERO evidence that Russians officially or unofficially had anything to do with anything like that.

And in that case, there is ZERO ground for this lynch-mob stuff.

However, there are obvious tactically-useful things in it for the duopoly elite who apparently genuinely despise Trump. It's a powerful distraction from other more useful and important topics to consider or organized goals to pursue by organized action. But, most of all, it's another blow to the integrity of the already devastated political order. It demonstrates that people who think they are liberals are such as can be readily duped, misled down the garden path and used as immensely useful idiots for the elites in power who know Trump had no association with Russia in any organized plan to subvert the vote through ballot-machine rigging or the like but who don't give a damn as long as something serves their immediate, medium or long-term interests.

>17 proximity1:

I never said that we shouldn't respect the results of the election and I haven't heard any serious person in the government or news media allege that any votes were rigged or tampered with. I'll also point out that my initial post on this thread was a criticism of portraying a sitting president being assassinated, because I don't think it is appropriate. It is protected speech, but that doesn't mean it is a responsible thing to do.

Now, as to Russian interference, they did breach election related computers in 39 different states, according to Bloomberg this morning. There is a consensus among intelligence officials that they were behind the breach of the DNC and also breached some Republican targets, but only released DNC emails to the media. That is much more than a foreign power simply trying to sway voters. It is a direct attack on our election process, which our president seems reluctant to condemn or investigate. We need to know what happened and how we can avoid it in 2018. It ought to be a bipartisan concern.

On "lynch mob" stuff, I generally agree with you that people get a little carried away with some of these protests against the president, whomever he happens to be at the time. Maybe some of these anti-Trump protests seem a little rough to you. Take it from a Democrat living in Kentucky, I have seen a couple of "Tea-Party" protests in my day, and those really looked like lynch mobs, complete with burning effigies of a black man and everything. My main point here is that it is certainly not unique to Trump protests or liberals, regardless of what Breitbart says.

And if you are talking about a populace that is particularly likely to get duped, look at eastern KY. Most of those counties are among the poorest in the country. More of those people depend on government assistance, whether it is for food stamps or health care access, than almost anywhere else in the country. And they all vote overwhelmingly Republican. Then they find out later that they are going to lose their healthcare...

>16 RickHarsch:

I see no difference. By default, depictions of the assassination of a President are not essentially different whether the president is black or white. Of course, there may be differences, but the mere fact that the president is black does not make the depiction qualitatively different.

Depictions should, of course, always be judged in context, intent, etc.

And if you are talking about a populace that is particularly likely to get duped, look at eastern KY. Most of those counties are among the poorest in the country. More of those people depend on government assistance, whether it is for food stamps or health care access, than almost anywhere else in the country. And they all vote overwhelmingly Republican.

I find these sentiments so patronizing. Maybe they have political beliefs and opinions that can cut against their personal self interest. In other words, maybe they have principles.

>19 timspalding:

You might think it is patronizing. Where do you live? I live right in the middle of eastern KY. I work with these people, my friends and family are these people. The last thing I would do is try to patronize these people. And a lot of them do vote Republican on principle because they oppose abortion. But a bunch of them vote Republican because they think Obama was a Muslim, and Obamacare was chock full of death panels. These people are desperate for good jobs, and Trump sold them on bringing back coal jobs that aren't coming back no matter what a president or Congress do. Mitch McConnell started pumping the breaks on creating coal jobs the second he realized Trump was going to win. Trump promised these people a new healthcare plan that was going to cover more people, be cheaper, and be of better quality than the ACA. And a lot of people believe him.

>18 Dr_Flanders:

RE : "Now, as to Russian interference, they did breach election related computers in 39 different states, according to Bloomberg this morning. There is a consensus among intelligence officials that they were behind the breach of the DNC and also breached some Republican targets, but only released DNC emails to the media."

I'm not sure what exactly these "election-related computers" are. Your description makes it sound diabolical--as though the Federal Election Commission ran a centralized bureau controling national electronic voting systems throughout the nation and that the "Russians" infiltrated, breached, that system and actually manipulated the vote tabulations. I know, I know: you never said this.

In fact, what you are apparently claiming--via some Bloomberg (et al) reporting--is that parties believed to be Russian agents (we're to suppose this because of tracing of IP addresses depsite the fact that in the world-wide web, technically-proficient hackers can present any locale they might like as their source-IP address or because the supposed hacking-software resembles some believed previously used by Russian-based agents and thus assumed to be related to these people or groups) remotely hacked (broke into) various U.S. computer systems --

and did what? Pilfered files. Indeed, from an electoral campaign strategy point of view, these supposed files were--that is, if any of this ever actually even happened--sensitive files and this, together with the "fact" (allegation) that they (the hackers) leaked "only" that information which could be said to favor Trump's campaign is supposed to be strong circumstantial evidence of Russian mischief-making.

Then, you go on:

"That is much more than a foreign power simply trying to sway voters. It is a direct attack on our election process, ...

But, if voters had seen nothing more troublesome in what was revealed than in who hacked and revealed it and how, then how would these same acts have constituted election interference?

You do not explain to us in clear and coherent logic why the selective release of hacked data constitute per se "election interference" of such a diabolical kind. We're the hackers honor-bound to release a balanced view of the race? Would Trump's campaign be so bound?

Nor can any of us be confident that the file data released had their source in remote hackers' efforts worked on-line.

If, for example, I worked inside one of the campaigns--and I did once work as a volunteer within a national presidential campaign HQ-- and for one reason or another, I wanted to inform the public of sensitive information closely held by the campaign which I thought the voters ought to know about, I'd certainly prefer that all indications pointed to a remote on-line hack of the files so that my copying and anonymously releasing them to a third-party were not obvious.

As a consequence, voters we're able, were allowed, to learn of things about the Democratic opposition which we suppose the Trump organization wasn't itself aware of and about which it could not have informed the voting public--and these things certainly didn't make the Trump's Democratic opposition look good.

However, had Trump's campaign been otherwise aware of this information, it could and almost certainly would have released it to the press; in that case, who could have called that "election-campaign interference"?--all information which, if they'd been doing their jobs, the professional press would or might have discovered through traditional reportorial mehtods of journalistic practice if they hadn't been so co-opted by the political duopolistic elite class. And no one would have alleged that, in doing so, Trump's campaign was guilty of "interfering" in the election.

--- "which our president seems reluctant to condemn or investigate. We need to know what happened and how we can avoid it in 2018. It ought to be a bipartisan concern."


You're right. I regard it as vain and idle to condemn the Russians--its officials or popular opinion--for having had a partisan interest in the last U.S. presidential race. For no other reason than the fact that U.S. opinion itself was extremely divided over the two --or four--candidacies, I think it's hardly less certain that, in Russia and elsewhere, both within and outside official circles, including Putin's own group of apparatchiks, there were divided opinions as to who would be better "for Russia" in the White House.

I regard their doing so as ordinary and inevitable and no different, fundamentally, from Israelis having a powerful interest in helping one campaign and in the process doing nothing to help and as much as possible to hinder the opponents' campaigns. I frankly see no realist way to "avoid this in 2018" as you urge we make sure to do.

How, practically, are we supposed to achieve that?

>20 Dr_Flanders:

" But a bunch of them vote Republican because they think Obama was a Muslim, and Obamacare was chock full of death panels. These people are desperate for good jobs, and Trump sold them on bringing back coal jobs that aren't coming back no matter what a president or Congress do."

What the bi-coastal American elite top 1% won't tolerate is the idea that these Kentuckians have the right to make this political error in judgment. Instead, they'll see to it that the error's result--Trump's election to the presidency--is reversed, one way or another.

Nor does it appear to have much impressed you that the Clintons and the Obamas have, for their parts and in their own self-serving ways, each over two terms' eight years, savaged these desperate people of Kentucky, with results which are hardly if at all less harmful than what the Republicans have been doing.

If I were among them, I'd now be hoping that Clinton's defeat at last spelled the chance that the party might seriously change course--my only hope.

>21 proximity1: With respect, I didn't know that I HAD to explain why a major foreign rival hacking the databases of one of our two major political parties, and then disseminating that information week by week, in a concerted effort to undermine one candidate, is a threat to our democratically held elections. I didn't know I had to make the case that Vlad Putin doesn't get a vote in the U.S. presidential election. But okay, point taken.

Of course Russia has an interest in who wins the election. Nearly every country on the planet has some interest in the result of any U.S. Presidential election. But that doesn't mean they get to roll their sleeves up, hack one party and run a smear campaign using stolen data.

On your point about hackers favoring one party. They don't have a duty to be fair and balanced. They don't have a duty to anyone.

And I don't know the technical aspects of what it takes to determine where a cyber attack originated. You probably know more about it than I do, but the intelligence community has been pretty clear that the shenanigans prior to the 2016 elections were directed from the top of the Russian government. I would imagine they are better than both of us at determining who was behind this stuff.

Here is a link to that Bloomberg article, since you seem to have never heard of them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-stat...

And again. I am not saying or trying to imply that votes were tampered with, or the election was ultimately swayed one way or the other. I am simply making the point that the president seems to regard the prospect of Russian interference in the election as a threat to his legitimacy, when the issue is much more important than that.

And the Republican party as a whole has been beating the drum for stricter voter ID laws and less voter access to polls for years, under the guise of maintaining election integrity (Except when they get caught using them to intentionally suppress African-American voters, like in North Carolina). You would think that they would see Russian interference as a major concern, and I grant that some of them are expressing concern.

>22 proximity1:

Obamacare cut the uninsured rate in KY by over half. I am not saying democrats have a plan to fix eastern KY, but making drastic cuts to the medicare expansion and social safety net will be pretty devastating to not only the individuals using them, but also the healthcare industry in this area.

The idea that Obama was worse for KY than Republicans is hard for me to believe. I understand that we will probably disagree on that point. Natural gas is probably worse for eastern KY's economy than either party.

And who is trying to reverse the election in your mind? People who occasionally call for impeachment? Where have you been for the last thirty years or so? They investigated Bill Clinton for 6 years of his presidency, and held impeachment hearings. And plenty of people in the government and media advocated for investigations and impeachment proceedings on G.W. Bush and Obama. Calls for impeachment are not a new thing. If they are gaining more traction than they did in recent years, I'd say it has an awful lot to do with Trump not knowing how to keep his mouth shut and listen to his team, when he can't stop tweeting and saying suspicious or possibly incriminating things.

RE : "With respect, I didn't know that I HAD to explain why a major foreign rival hacking the databases of one of our two major political parties, and then disseminating that information week by week, in a concerted effort to undermine one candidate, is a threat to our democratically held elections."

Well, excuse me but, in fact, you do.

Because, as it happens by a matter of fact, the Russians, had they chose to, could have taken out full-page ads in the New York Times announcing their intentions:

"We, officials of Russia, don't see anything much to like about the prospects of Hillary Clinton following eight rather dismal years of the Obama administration and we are putting the American voter on notice:

"It shall be our purpose from here to election-day to produce and publish information by which we intend to convince you to vote to elect Clinton's opponent (pre-nomination "whoever that is" / post-nomination,) "Donald Trump". We're going to use our technical capabilities to provide you with the inside information you need but which no others are both willing and able to provide you. Once you've seen it, we're depending on you to draw the right conclusions.

We want Trump and we mean to convince you that you ought to want him, too.

Yours, sincerely,

Russians."

If that is your idea in sum of diabolical foreign interference in U.S. electoral affairs, then, again, I think you're being uselessly naive. We can't prevent that--and I'm not even convinced that we ought to want to. if the Rooskies can flood my in-box* with good, convincing reasons why I ought change my mind about the way I intend to cast a vote, I'm not opposed to that. If they can dupe me into changing my vote with specious arguments and false data, then that's my fault for not seeing through it.

_____________________

* It may be objected: "they're not just flooding your in-box, they're influencing or trying to influence millions of voters and many of them aren't as able as you to see through their deceptions. That's the problem with this."

That's true but it's also a given of the electoral system. If we're going to have an open, public election and allow the national electorate (adults of voting age) to participate, we have to accept that these people are susceptible--as I am--to being mislead and to making a mistake. God knows the U.S. national mass-media did all it could to mislead prospective voters about the choices. In the face of the opposition ranged against him, Trump's victory is nothing short of amazing. I know this isn't a popular opinion but, as unpleasant as it is, he or his campaign proved more able, more clever than the Clinton campaign when it came to getting people in the places needed to vote for Trump on election day. It's a pity (to some) that Clinton "won" so many pre-election-day polls by such whopping margins. The trouble was that she wasn't able to reproduce these "feats" on election day--despite having a bigger, heavier "thumb on the scale" than any candidate has had since the days of Tammany Hall.

>24 Dr_Flanders: "And who is trying to reverse the election in your mind?"


The New York Times, L.A. Times and Tribune newspapers editorial boards,

Charles Blow, Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd,

Prof. Laurence Tribe, (ETA: Prof. Robert Kuttner ¹,) Sens. Charles Schumer, Feinstein, and many others, House members Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Elijah Cummings, and many others, the editors and reporters at CNN, CNBC, the major movers-and-shakers of Hollywood and greater Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, most of the elite professoriate-- Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Chicago, Columbia, etc.,

-- in short, most of the corporate-political establishment elite are bent on finding a way to run Trump out of office on any feasible pretext, whether true or false.

All these and their appendages and hangers-on, sycophants whose jobs depend on serving the corrupt machine that runs our national and state political affairs--Republicans and Democrats.

The election of Trump demonstrated certain refreshing and bizzare facts:

it is not only socially and intellectually-approved mega-rich who may come to be president. A man ( or, we must suppose, a woman) of sufficient wealth but who is manifestly lacking in paper-credentials of high-brow-style educated-smarts can also under certain extreme circumstances become president. That is not entirely either unwelcome news or a bad thing in and of itself.

Now, we may go on to wonder: can a person, man or woman, who is intellectually fully qualified but manifestly lacking in gross wealth also become president?

To find the answer to such questions, the dreary routine must be occasionaly seriously shaken-up.

We'd be much worse off in my opinion if Clinton had been elected.

______________________________

1 (Prof. Robert Kuttner) : http://prospect.org/article/open-letter-republican-leadership,
http://prospect.org/article/what-will-it-take-dump-trump

>25 proximity1:

Fair enough, I don't think we are going to see eye to eye on this one. If you really think we ought to just give up and allow the Russian government to actively hack data from institutions in the United States, and use that information to try and influence votes one way or the other, then I think we are at an impasse, here. Legitimate democratic elections are hopeless and I am naive to believe that we, the wealthiest country in the world, could manage to pull them off in the present day.

Do you think we ought to even continue the charade of holding hopelessly illegitimate elections every two years, or should we just poll all our most heated rivals on the world stage and see who they would prefer to compete against? Maybe you are right, because I bet we would have the same president that we do right now.

On the point about taking an ad out in the NYT, I'd be okay with that. It would be exactly what it looked like, Russia expressing an opinion. As opposed to Russia trying to smear one candidate to make her look less legitimate. Smear might not be the right word, since it appears that they DNC leaked stuff was all true.

But I give. You win. The Russians win. I am going to start growing my Uncle Joe Stalin mustache tonight!

>27 Dr_Flanders:

LOL!

"Do you think we ought to even continue the charade of holding hopelessly illegitimate elections every two years, or should we just poll all our most heated rivals on the world stage and see who they would prefer to compete against?"

I don't think we need to poll them--though, of couse, you're being facetious. I'm not. These things are going on. We don't have to ask them to mark a paper. tick a box.

The idea that we even need to "poll" them is again rather naive--as though it isn't rather clear who in Russia would prefer Trump and who there would prefer Clinton, or, likewise, in Israel, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, etc. You are aware that with few exceptions all the French social, political and corporate elite preferred Clinton, right?. Do you suppose that none of them sent advice? Internal data not available to the public? Do you seriously imagine that the Israelis didn't do likewise? Or the Japanese? All unofficially, of course, all through very "back" back-channels, of course--speaking of the faux outrage over Trump's early interest in or use of "back-channels."

The fact is, these things can be worked out without the help of the N.S.A., C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies.

"Smear might not be the right word, since it appears that they DNC leaked stuff was all true." *

Mirabile dictu! Not a trivial point, that!

More to the point : these data-- specifically, the Clinton campaign-DNC e-mail batches, released via Wikileaks-- have again and again been authoritatively excluded from having come from any non-U.S. source. These files, it has been stated by Wikileaks, which received and released them, came from U.S. sources. If anyone would know this, it would be those at Wikileaks. You're repeating the assumption that the DNC files were hacked by Russians when Wikileaks has explained that they came from a source inside the campaign or the national DNC organization.

At Least 6 TIMES Wikileaks Has Denied Russia Was their Source for Leaked DNC Emails – But Media Ignores It

Jim Hoft | Jan 2nd, 2017 8:45 pm


______________

( * emphasis added)

Welcome, Dr. Flanders. Please don't get discouraged. Pro and Con is actually fun sometimes, though we have our dry spells.

>17 proximity1:
I can explain at greater length

I sincerely believe you.

I think this would be a useful perspective to add to our consideration here (via Col. Lang's blog):
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/fake-news-and-the-rus...

As a former intelligence officer who participated in covert actions overseas (i.e., actions designed to shape foreign public opinion to fall in line with U.S. policy) I have watched with a mixture of amusement and horror the circus spun up around the ridiculous claim that Russia interfered with the U.S. Presidential election. I do not doubt that Russia, if it put its mind to it, could do a number on our national election. The Russians have an outstanding, capable intelligence service and a much more pragmatic view about the outside world. I can't say the same for the good old USA.

But where's the beef? Where's the actual evidence that Russia interfered in our elections in 2016? Please go back and take a look at the lamentable so-called intelligence assessment put out by Jimmy Clapper when he was still head of the the DNI.
...
Sounds very ominous. But it is still quite vague and non-specific. What exactly did those dastardly Rooskies do?
...
First, the NSA, CIA and, to a lesser extent, the FBI, believed that the Russians hacked into the DNC and John Podesta emails, then passed that content to to Wikileaks and DC Leaks, who subsequently published the information. Second, the Russians supposedly obtained access to "elements" (undefined) of US state or local electoral boards. Third, Russian media outlets, RT and Sputnik News, put out Kremlin friendly messages.

Is this a joke? That's not how the CIA used to steal/influence elections. in the past. We bought opposition candidates. We funded them and procured outside advisors for them. We sent bags of cash. Any sign that the Russians did these things? No.

The claim that the Russian intelligence service hacked the DNC and Podesta is without evidence. The FBI did not conduct a forensic examination of the computer of either the DNC or Podesta. The belief that the Russians did it is based on a very questionable Crowdstrike examination of the DNC emails. It is worth noting that one of the owners of Crowdstrike is a strong anti-Russian guy with close ties to Ukraine (Kiev) --hmm, no motive there for mischief. Right?

How about vote buying or rigged machines? No evidence of that either. There is zero evidence that any of the computer "attacks" on the "US state or local electoral boards" actually originated with the FSB, SVR or GRU. And, by Jim Clapper's own admission, those intrusions of the electoral boards did not alter the vote in any form or fashion.

One of the subliminal texts to this whole Russian conspiracy theory is the insistence that the Trump campaign colluded with Vladimir Putin or some Russian mobster to sabotage Hillary's campaign. That smear has been repeated endlessly on the cable channels and has become an article of faith to many Americans, especially Democrats who are in denial over Hillary's implosion.

So, why the vitriol towards the Russians? Why such a concerted effort to dirty up Trump with the brush of being a Commie dupe? This was done IMO in order to ensure that Trump's hands would be tied when it came time to deal with the Russians on issues like NATO and Syria.
...

On balance, I've arrived at the opinion that the entire affair, while not exactly fabricated from whole cloth, is being over-hyped by approximately an order of magnitude, for reasons essentially political.

A few pieces for background:

1. A keen historical contextualization of this type of panic, from Mark Ames (which I've shared before):
http://exiledonline.com/russia-blog-7-when-mother-jones-was-investigated-for-spr...

2. A rather lacerating portrait of what happens when intelligence agencies chase their own tails, from Adam Curtis (which I haven't):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b4...

3. An old German tank commander's musings (a lagniappe)
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/france-debunks-russian-hacking-claims-clint...

>29 krolik:

I appreciate it. I am enjoying it, believe it or not.

Fair enough, I don't think we are going to see eye to eye on this one.

proximity1 is little more than a troll. No one with any sense ever sees eye to eye with him.

He is higher class troll than Barney though.

34: That is a given.

Barney is not a troll. Barney is a genuine right wing LT member and poster.

That said, trolling is often done by non-trolls. StormRaven is still trolling Iriley. I have trolled Spalding. In this thread Spalding has out-trolled everyone. Trolling occurs, but I believe sometimes lunacy is mistaken for trolling, pedantry is mistaken for trolling, holier than thou personalities troll and will never realize it. The case in question, not Barney, the other case, seems to me to be a combination of lunacy and pedantry.

35: Barney is a genuine right wing LT member and poster.

He's just a troll of long-standing. His posts are little more than Breitbart talking points strained through an additional cheese cloth of stupid.

>37 StormRaven: That second part may be true, but I have a family full of folks with opinions like as to his and they are as genuinely held as such opinions can be. I welcome him heartily, and I think that unlike, say, Carnophile, Barney is not widely despised. Carnophile, of course, wants to be despised, so it's a different story.

Again, as I understand the concept, Barney is not a troll, just a feller with strong opinions that are hard to figure for people on a long arc of the political spheroid.

And here I thought these discussions would be more substantive than the average Facebook discussion.

Most of us have been here for years, some for more than a decade. We've been around the block on these conversations before.

>39 Dr_Flanders: I don't generally take part in facebook discussions, but I think I get the idea. I think here you will find more satisfaction generally. A lot of threads actually do remain almost entirely substantive. If I were to generalize I would say look for the women. Most of the bullshit (I include myself as an occasional purveyor of such) comes from males. And though #40 seems to suggest a sort of weariness, I think for the most part it doesn't hold. Sure, a lot of people have been here for years, a lot of interesting readers, well informed posters with a variety of resources. And the poster in question has been nothing if not energetic of late. On this thread alone you have met Iriley, Krolik, Davidgn and StormRaven, all of whom have impressed me one way or another over the years. So as Krolik suggests, please stick around if you've a sane voice to add.

>41 RickHarsch:

Certainly an interesting discussion. I appreciate the welcome. I look forward to hearing what you people have to say.

We should take a poll. Which is worse (with neither not being an option) A. one ruler of the free world plutocrat asshole pseudo-stabbed in a Broadway production or B. 23 million people that are going to lose their health care if the asshole plutocrat has his way? If Trump drops dead or gets assassinated don't expect me to feel bad---it ain't gonna happen.

What happened to the times when Julius Caesar was not about assassinating the President ?

>32 Dr_Flanders: & >39 Dr_Flanders:

Here's what we're competing with:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Dr_Flanders/booksread2017
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Dr_Flanders/booksread2016
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Dr_Flanders/currentlyreading
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Dr_Flanders/toread

Except for the writing of John Steinbeck, I have nothing to worry about.

Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Michael Chabon--- seriously?

>45 proximity1: That was a psychotic move and likely violates the TOS, not to mention various norms evolved to rein in the more dangerous lunatic tendencies in the human beast.

45: That sort of stalking doesn't make you look kind of unhinged at all.

Good advice

Use common sense. Be polite. Think before you post.

Check!

If you're upset by something or someone, try to calm down before responding.

N/A

Discussions can become heated and passionate. Don't forget that the person on the other side is human.

Check!

Remember that LibraryThing Talk is a public space; don't say anything to others that you wouldn't want a room full of people to overhear.
Check!

Avoid quoting or otherwise exposing private communication. While this does not necessarily violate the Terms of Service, you should consider whether it qualifies as a personal attack or a disclosure of private information.

Check / & N/A

Consider the context before posting. A political religious dispute does not belong in a knitting group.

Check!

How to deal with abuse*

If you come across an abusive post, click the "flag abuse" link. The flag will be visible only after it has been flagged twice. After four different users have flagged a post, it will be deleted.

Please do not flag posts as "abuse" simply because you disagree with what is said, or if someone criticizes your favorite book, author, or idea—that's not abuse, it's a difference of opinion. We welcome differences of opinion!

__________________________

Other helpful ideas:

Learn to read and interpret common English.

BTW : I _did_ flag posts #46 & #47 because these posts effectively refer to me--via characterizing my posts as the the product of a mind which is, I quote--

"psychotic" and "unhinged" unlike the post of mine to which 46 & 47 refer.

Currently, typical of Trump's collective / collected critics is the tendency to virulently denounce in Trump or others the very things which the critics themselves exhibit-- intolerance, close-mindedness, etc. In other words, as they decry their adversaries for, in effect, being tone-deaf. unable to recognize their errors and faults, these same are showing themselves master examples of the very same things.

Upon reading >39 Dr_Flanders: I decided to have a look at how our correspondent uses his reading time elsewhere. The information I posted is public and provided by the member himself. I offered an opinion as to the relative merits of his other elective reading. The complaint that anything in that violates the TOS is wildly--and typically--off the mark.

To those critics Please: go peddle your papers.

Thank you.

__________________

* I.e. What a reader/member alleges, regards as, etc., "abuse".

>48 proximity1:

Haha. That is an strange thing to do, but I don't have a problem with it. What do you want me to say? I think Michael Chabon is a fine writer.

And did you see intolerance in anything I posted?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-affects-virginia-primaries-not-expected-0808456...

my take away from virginia is that most voters like the middle. The far left does not seem to have that much appeal to the majority of dems. On the other hand the far right is much more influential on the republican side.

I would expect most states are similar in that the real majority is in the middle and the far left or far right has more sway as you get a republican or democratic majority in your state. overall the country is about 45/45 percent repub vs demo (with a 5% margin of error).

I think we are pretty evenly split and have been for a while... it will swing back and forth between whoever is upset enough to go vote.

And as much as people want to talk about how horrible hillary was... it was a very close election and I think she would have won if not for the james comey announcement before the election. Trump beat all the republicans and I think he would have beat Bernie by a bigger margin than Hillary.

Republicans treatment of bill clinton totally turned me against the republicans (and I didnt even like bill clinton). I wonder how many young people are making their party decision now based on how they view trump. It will have a long term impact.

And back on topic :
the outrage at the artistic depictions is stupid. I agree with businesses saying they dont want to be associated and acting on that, but people acting like this is a big problem and attacking people who do it is silly.

>50 rkchr: 'I wonder how many young people are making their party decision now based on how they view trump. It will have a long term impact.'

If the scope of the disaster is thoroughly presented, dissected, etcetera, then yes. I thought, though, the same of Reagan, and I was wrong. Perhaps had Dukakis pounded away at Iran/Contra...

>49 Dr_Flanders:

...", but I don't have a problem with it."

You don't have to have any. As you'll discover, various people are only to happy to take offense for you. They often seem to think of themselves as "liberals."

Back to the off-topic discussion of alleged interference in the presidential election-campaign--

>39 Dr_Flanders:

RE: >27 Dr_Flanders:

"Fair enough, I don't think we are going to see eye to eye on this one.

... " If you really think we ought to just give up and allow the Russian government to actively hack data from institutions in the United States, and use that information to try and influence votes one way or the other, then I think we are at an impasse, here. Legitimate democratic elections are hopeless and I am naive to believe that we, the wealthiest country in the world, could manage to pull them off in the present day.

"Do you think we ought to even continue the charade of holding hopelessly illegitimate elections every two years, or should we just poll all our most heated rivals on the world stage and see who they would prefer to compete against? Maybe you are right, because I bet we would have the same president that we do right now."

Mini-autopsy on this mini-discussion:

In your post, >27 Dr_Flanders: you sound a resigned note. Depsite your best efforts, I've supposedly failed to grasp your point and so you conclude there's nothing more for you to say in this matter—though we've wandered far from the original topic of Donald Trump as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

From my point of view, you haven't made a point. Instead, you're ignoring a principle which I suspect you'd claim that you usually respect. The principle in this case is that the worthiness, the validity, of reasoned arguments for or against some candidate for electoral office is independent of the person or persons making those arguments. Why doesn't that apply here? You haven't explained this. Instead, you've sarcastically indicated your frustration at my failure to come to your point of view.

In asking that you at least try and put up a respectable argument as to why this principle doesn't apply before concluding that I'm beyond the reach of your reason's force, I don't mean to concede that “the Russians” actually did interfere in the electoral campaign as you're suggesting or claiming they have. Rather, I'm saying that even if they had, you've dismissed, without any good cause I can see,the principle described above and done that apparently just because we're concerned here with Russians, and Russians amount to a hostile interest group as far as Americans are concerned politically. I'll accept that latter as typically true. It still doesn't prove that the Russians are per se categorically incapable of having anything useful and valid to say about Americans' presidential candidates' relative merits.

At this point, I really don't see what you have to say for your position as it's laid out in your comments. Your position lacks what I consider moral and intellectual respectability because there are some basic principles which it seems ought to apply here and you're dispensing with them for what seems to me no good reason—or none that you've bothered to state.

...", but I don't have a problem with it."
You don't have to have any. As you'll discover, various people are only to happy to take offense for you. They often seem to think of themselves as "liberals."

It is probably true that some people will take offense. We can't help that. I wouldn't say that that taking offense is a particularly liberal practice. I see an awful lot of people taking offense to one thing or another on all sides of the political spectrum. And I think it would be fair to say that a lot of people are selective about when they employ or claim offense, depending on whether it props up their viewpoint or argument at a given time. If you made the argument that people in general are too quick to take offense, I'd agree with you. I think everything from the supposed "war on Christmas" to the recent trend of liberal college students attempting to silence non-liberal views on campus, are troubling and an example of outrage as a political tool.

And on the principle you mention "the worthiness, the validity, of reasoned arguments for or against some candidate for electoral office are independent of the person or persons making those arguments", I'll say this. You are right to say that I generally agree with that principle. And I wouldn't disagree if you felt that a sarcastic response was a sign of resignation, because I did feel resigned. I'll tell you why I felt resigned, if you want to know. It doesn't have anything to do with me thinking you are incapable of grasping anything I can say. I am certainly not trying to assert intellectual superiority over you. On the contrary, you seem quite literate, and quite intelligent. If I had to make the call, I would say that you are clearly more literate than I, especially after looking at your reading list...and as you pointed out, I prefer to read the likes of John Steinbeck and Michael Chabon. Dig a little further and you will find some Michael Connelly and Stephen King, as well. I'll be honest, I don't think that I am even capable of reading some of the stuff you read, and I mean that sincerely. I was resigned, but I never intended to insult you personally, so I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

If my argument seems incoherent to you, it probably does lack some level of clarity. It probably should, because we have drifted far from the original debate, and I am not entirely sure what we are arguing about, from post to post. But anyway, here is the source of my resignation:

You expressed, or I thought you expressed skepticism that the Russians interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. Then you seemed to express skepticism about whether we should be concerned about said interference, even if it had occurred.

You mentioned that Russia could have just bought ad space in the NYT, and I conceded that I'd be okay with that, because an open argument from Russia about their concerns relating to the U.S. election would be open and transparent. People could consider the argument and the source, and decide what they thought about the Russian government's opinion on the matter.

But the U.S. intelligence community has been pretty consistent in saying that the Russian government ordered massive election interference in the U.S. election. Congressmen on both sides have acknowledged that it happened, and that it is concerning. The recent leaked NSA document indicates that it went much further than just stealing emails from the DNC to provide opposition research for the Republican candidate. That document indicates that Russia used spyware or phishing emails to at least attempt to gain access to voter registration rolls, etc. I find all of that pretty troubling.

And I got the impression that you are skeptical of either the U.S. government or intelligence community has the ability to make those determinations, or that you don't find that level of election interference to be troubling. If either of those impressions are correct, then I am resigned insofar as debating Russian interference in the U.S. election with you. Not because I think you are incapable of following my wonderful prose, but because you don't buy the intelligence and I do. With all that we have heard about the scope of interference, I can provide no further argument to convince you, other than what has been reported, acknowledged and affirmed by various people within our government or the intelligence community.

To be more concise and coherent, if you don't accept the basic premise that the Russian government interfere, that the type of interference differed from the normal diplomatic/back channel avenues that France or Germany might use, and that we should be concerned about said interference, then we fundamentally disagree on the topic, and I resign myself to the fact that we aren't going to agree. If that wasn't coherent enough, if was the best I can do, but the fault lies with myself, my intellectual facilities, my humble Breathitt County, KY, USA education, and my proletarian reading habits.

>53 Dr_Flanders:

RE: "And I got the impression that you are skeptical of either the U.S. government or intelligence community has the ability to make those determinations, or that you don't find that level of election interference to be troubling. If either of those impressions are correct, then I am resigned insofar as debating Russian interference in the U.S. election with you. Not because I think you are incapable of following my wonderful prose, but because you don't buy the intelligence and I do. With all that we have heard about the scope of interference, I can provide no further argument to convince you, other than what has been reported, acknowledged and affirmed by various people within our government or the intelligence community.

"To be more concise and coherent, if you don't accept the basic premise that the Russian government interfere, that the type of interference differed from the normal diplomatic/back channel avenues that France or Germany might use, and that we should be concerned about said interference, then we fundamentally disagree on the topic, and I resign myself to the fact that we aren't going to agree."
_______________________________

My reading and other experience has taught me to be skeptical when the press reports that intelligence agencies have "learned,"... "found...", "discovered..."

In the 1970s, I followed the coverage of Senator Frank Church's United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities closely. That was my introduction to the world of intelligence agencies and I've never since quite lost interest in the topic. But, after a while, the SNAFU's are so familiar--all the agencies are prone to the same kinds of faults. They've all made similar blunders, taught them to their recruits, and then made variations on them in the following years.

Gordon Thomas's books were my primary-course reading:

a) Journey Into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and…
b) Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad

I also have Secret Wars: One Hundred Years of British Intelligence Inside MI5 and MI6 by Thomas and started to read it but it read so much like the stories in the other agencies that I put it down--meaning to finish it later and still haven't. One of these days, though!

followed by James Bamford's
Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency

followed by Tim Weiner:
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

and a novel! : The Company: A Novel of the CIA
by Robert Littell

The novel's events were strangely familiar and I eventually recognized that the novel was essentially a presentation of a narrative of much of the actual history of C.I.A. vs. K.G.B. and East German Stasi in Berlin in the 1960s. The characters' names were changed but they paralleled the lives and events of key people in the C.I.A.'s Berlin station.

After reading these (all of them very good), it's very hard to take reports of the feats of our (and other's) intelligence agencies at face value.

Then, living in France (where I read the above-mentioned books) from before the time of George W. Bush's election, I followed the events of Sept. 2001 and all afterward through both U.S. and French news media--mainly Le Monde's daily metropolitan edition and some news weeklies and regular radio coverage by Radio France International and, via internet, The New York Times. So (no thanks to the Times' coverage) I simply never bought the rationale of the Bush White House. No "WMD"--I did not believe the claims that there were these weapons hidden away ready for use against "us." Nor did many French people--including then-president Jacques Chirac-- who went on record doubting his own intelligence agencies' seeming corroboration of U.S. agencies' claims--they (U.S. agencies) kept having their work sent back to be done over until they got the answer Bush was looking for. (He told U.S. diplomats and other high officials that he did not agree with the intelligence agencies' assessments--they didn't make sense to him. And he was right.)

People often said after the fact that "everyone was fooled"--meaning everyone had bought into the story of the WMD and so one couldn't be blamed for having been naive. I knew that wasn't true. Not everyone had been taken in; far from it.

The trouble is that, when intelligence agencies' work is taken and used openly to back up actual or proposed policy initiatives, it's bound to be tainted by partisan influence--or it wouldn't be instrumentalized for these political purposes in the first place. So, whether it's the Obama admin. or the Bush admin. or some other, whenever a president says that he has proof of "X" from his intelligence agencies, if there is anything at all the slightest bit "off" about the claims, they should be disregarded as the product of partisan maneuvering--this is as true in France, Germany, Russia or Britain as in the U.S. Heads of state cannot help themselves. They'll all fall for such temptations and the agencies, being under their control, can hardly do other than give them what they are insisting on having.

______________

P.S.

I'm just curious. Suppose that the tables were turned and, rather than rooting--assuming they were--for Trump, the Russians had been angling to help Clinton and in the process were trying to undermine Trurmp's campaign. As, I gather, a Clinton supporter, first, what would your reaction have been to Trump's claims that the Russians were secretly in league with Clinton and opposed to him? What would your reaction and course of action be? Drop support for or question the propriety of voting for Clinton?

And, second, do the--how do I put it?-- "affinities" for Israel on the parts of so many senators and congress mebmbers-- Senator Schumer or Feinstein--(or, for that matter, to take one of the very few politicians I've actually been able to admire, former Senator Feingold of Wisconsin)-- or Congressman Hoyer or Nancy Pelosi or other ardent friends of Israel in the U.S. congress not trouble you in the least for similar reasons that it seems that Trump does when it comes to the Russians? How do you get around that?

________________________

ETA : Recommended reading

(from The National Review (Online) )

Can You Obstruct A Fraud?

by Andrew C. McCarthy
June 15, 2017 1:30 PM
@AndrewCMcCarthy

| Maybe Trump objected to the fraudulent notion, which Comey led the world to believe, that Trump was under investigation for collusion.
_____________________________

----On March 30, 2017, by his own account, then-FBI director James Comey told President Donald Trump that Trump himself was not under investigation — the third time he had given him that assurance. In fact, Comey told Trump that he had just assured members of Congress that Trump was not a suspect under investigation.

Think about that.

*** *** ***

...Patently, Comey and the FBI did not believe Trump had obstructed an investigation by lobbying on Flynn’s behalf. And just as patently, that’s because Trump did not do so: You cannot act corruptly – as the obstruction statute requires the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt – if you do not believe what you are doing is against the law. Since Trump had as much authority as any prosecutor or FBI agent to weigh the merits of prosecuting Flynn, he cannot have acted corruptly in doing so.

So, given that no one who was aware of the facts believed that Trump had committed obstruction at the time the conduct occurred, why is Trump now reportedly under investigation for obstruction?

My surmise: The Obama administration and the intelligence community conflated the real threat of Russian interference in the American electoral process with the false narrative of Trump-campaign collusion in the interference. In an explosive announcement that departed from Justice Department protocols against commenting on investigations, then-director Comey gave congressional testimony that induced the media to report, and much of the public to believe, that Trump was a prime suspect in an FBI investigation, focused on a suspected conspiracy between his campaign and Russia to tamper with the election process. The FBI was even assessing whether criminal charges should be filed.

Trump knew that this was not true because Comey had repeatedly told him it was not true — both before and after Comey’s March 20 congressional testimony. Yet, in what Trump had to find an exasperating and inexplicable stance, Comey refused to state publicly that Trump was not under investigation, even though — in a deviation from both law-enforcement guidelines and the assurances he had given the president — Comey had led the world to believe that Trump was under investigation. According to Comey’s testimony, the president even said it would be good to find out if any of Trump’s ‘satellites’ — his associates — had done anything wrong.

Trump did not do anything to interfere with the investigation of Russia’s interference in the election. According to Comey’s testimony, the president even said it would be good to find out if any of Trump’s “satellites” — his associates — had done anything wrong.

What the president appears to have objected to, and to have sought help refuting, was what he saw as the fraudulent claim — subtly advanced by Comey and perhaps others in the intelligence community — that he personally had colluded with Russia in connection with the election, and that he was a criminal suspect.

That is not obstruction of an investigation. It is objection to a narrative — a narrative that the intelligence agencies knew was false yet refused to correct, no matter how much it was, and is, damaging Trump’s capacity to govern.

_________________________________________

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448674/trump-wanted-comey-refute-false-not...

(Italics and hyper-link appear as in the original opinion essay's text and formatting.)

>54 proximity1: 'People often said after the fact that "everyone was fooled"--meaning everyone had bought into the story of the WMD and so one couldn't be blamed for having been naive. I knew that wasn't true. Not everyone had been taken in; far from it.'

I was in Slovenia at the time and I assumed everyone knew the US was lying, that from first mention of war in Iraq they were manufacturing a casus belli. Their lies seemed transparent, and their impatience, a quite unnecessary impatience if they were telling the least bit of truth, made everything all the more difficult to believe. I assumed that 2001 had made the press fear the government.

#55---FWIW where I worked about 75% of the people there were all for invading Iraq and another 10% were on the fence and it was a while before some (not all) figured out what horseshit it was. Colin Powell's address to the United Nations reminded me so much of Graham Greene's plot for Our Man in Havana. All the pictures of buildings containing WMD and all I was thinking was vacuum cleaner parts. I never believe it and I'm still pissed that we're still in the region but it's oil and Israel and don't piss off the Saudis. All those people murdered and maimed--all the resources stolen--and all a pack of lies.

And the people who made the war--who benefitted most from it--none of them have gone to prison. Chelsea Manning went to prison and they'd throw Assange in the deepest dark hole if they could. But the ones responsible for all the misery--nothing bad happens to them. They're heroes.

14 years of mayhem and counting, coming on 16 if you start with Afghanistan.

#57--and another 4 years minimum.

Tonight a conservative activist named Laura Loomer stormed the Shakespeare stage, and shouted about stuff. She was swiftly removed, as she should have been. Shouting people down, in a private setting like a play or a lecture, is not free speech, but the denial of free speech.

I'd like to hear what @StormRaven thinks of this. Except, I already know, since he addressed the question of storming the stage before, with respect to students storming the lecture halls of Milo.

I wrote: "Inviting or disinviting someone is a matter of legitimate discretion. But attempting to stop someone from speaking by repeatedly shouting them down, rushing the stage, blockading the way in, or staging a small riot, are not; they are violations of free speech."

And he replied: "No, those are example of free speech." Then later "The examples you gave were not of 'coercive force', they were of people engaging in their own free speech rights in reaction to someone else. Nothing about free speech says it has to be done politely." (source https://www.librarything.com/topic/247750#5944829)

The theater is pressing charges. I presume StormRaven thinks this is a disgrace. Conservative loonies have every right to shut down speech they don't like, just like the left.

"Like" >59 timspalding:

;^)

Ms. Loomer screamed about how the play was "political violence"—a view now being parroted on right-wing social media. In other words, a pernicious idea has spread: violence is no longer violence, but situations people find hurtful. Ick.

>61 timspalding: A circumstance fairly rippling with latent irony.

>59 timspalding: Shouting people down, in a private setting like a play or a lecture, is not free speech, but the denial of free speech.

I don't know that I'd call an outdoor performance in the middle of Central Park that is free to attend "a private setting" but freedom of speech doesn't exist in a vacuum. Its practice is dependent on and responsive to the context of whatever stage is being fought over.

>63 southernbooklady:

Note that, according to the theatre's public information:

"Tickets to The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park are FREEand are distributed, two per person, at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park onthe day of the show."

In other words, admission is not "open", it's by ticket only. And a person may only get two tickets. Thus, entries are limited and require a positive request--you have to show up to get a free ticket when they're distributed. Though free of charge, requesting and accepting a ticket is very much like implying that you're a good-faith entrant to the production's presentation. Were they to ask you before giving the tickets, "Are you interested in seeing the performance or in protesting and denouncing it?" what should a woud-be protester answer?

--this works "both ways," of course: whether the production is an outrage to "liberals" or "conservatives."

There is a troublesome aspect to this issue: it mixes up two things which are sometimes quite distinct and sometimes inextricably united depending on circumstances--the production of artworks and the expression of political opinions, beliefs-- sometimes through or via artwork.

Unfortunately, this adds a complicating factor.

ETA:

In this case, it can be argued that the producers/director, by presenting Caesar in a Trump-like persona, are deliberately making some kind of political statement and, as such, that's protected under the First Amendment. It shouldn't matter what exactly the "statement" 'says' --but, in this case, what is the political statement being made by by presenting Caesar in a Trump-like persona?

I don't know that I'd call an outdoor performance in the middle of Central Park that is free to attend "a private setting"

It's a performance in a public space, but one assigned to a particular play, for which you need tickets and you are assigned seats. You would, obviously, not be allowed to show up at the stage and claim it, or even half of it, to put on a performance of Brigadoon at the same time.

The situation is fanciful, but equivalent. The government must be neutral toward content--competing performances of Brigadoon on the same footing as competing with the performance of "loud conservative asshole." Both must be prevented.

but freedom of speech doesn't exist in a vacuum. Its practice is dependent on and responsive to the context of whatever stage is being fought over.

So, in a sense, yes it does. Most importantly, it exists in a vacuum as regards the content of the speech. But perhaps we're talking about different things. What do you think you're talking about?

These things are, perhaps, a lot simpler if one understands that the law protects two things--property and speech, and that, when understood as "negative rights," they never conflict. Public spaces assigned to private use are special case of that, but hardly a head-scratcher.

>64 proximity1: Though free of charge, requesting and accepting a ticket is very much like implying that you're a good-faith entrant to the production's presentation. Were they to ask you before giving the tickets, "Are you interested in seeing the performance or in protesting and denouncing it?" what should a woud-be protester answer?

Presumably such a question was not asked, though. I'd love to have seen the media coverage if they had!

But in my experience there is an expectation of "good faith" that the ticket holder implicitly or (more likely) explicitly agrees to -- it's usually along the lines of "no photos, no flash cameras during the performance, no recordings, do not be disruptive, etc, etc.

Not that the last had ever stopped audiences at Shakespeare productions in the past -- if you put on a bad performance, the audience would be sure to make its displeasure known!

What I did find interesting, and a sad commentary on the paucity of political discourse in America today, was in the coverage of the protesters outside of the performance:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/17/theater/julius-caesar-trump-protesters-centra...

"People like me, I don't even know if they'd let me in," Ms. Pujol said outside the Delacorte Theater, home of Shakespeare in the Park. "I am not far right, no one here is far right. We're only accused of being far right because we love America."

I don't even know if they'd let me in. It's as if people who disagree can't even be in the same physical space. The concept of, say, "sharing the stage" -- is anathema. And implicit in the way free speech is practiced is the idea that when we speak, everyone else has to shut up and listen.

>65 timspalding: So, in a sense, yes it does. Most importantly, it exists in a vacuum as regards the content of the speech. But perhaps we're talking about different things.

Well, I'll admit that I don't see the easy equivalancy that you draw between the DePaul incident and the Julius Caesar production. In neither case was anyone arrested for what they were saying, so their freedom of speech remains upheld.

The woman who interrupted the Shakespeare performance wasn't arrested because she was pro-Trump. She was charged because she disrupted the performance. So the content of the speech -- both of the play and the protester -- are both still protected.

The right to the stage, though, that's open to interpretation. The Milo Yiannopoulos incident at DePaul University seems to me to be a different kind of stage, with a different set of expectations and a different context, than a Shakespeare play in Central Park. Yiannopoulos, for example, built his reputation on provoking his audience. If he gets people yelling he considers that a success.

The student protesters on the other hand were, from what I understand, responding to a lack of leadership and increased racist incidents on the campus of the university they attended. So that "lecture" (I use the term loosely) carried a much less formalized format, in a much more volatile situation. With predictable results -- people got angry.

In the end I think the only real commonality between Shakespeare and Yiannopoulos is that speech always gives rise to more speech. You can try to funnel it into appropriate channels, but if people are angry enough they'll burst out of the confines you've tried to keep them in. In which case it stops being an issue of free speech altogether, and starts becoming an issue of public safety or something along those lines. If you're angry enough, I suppose the price of being arrested is worth it for the chance to shout out whatever you want to say.

The theater is pressing charges. I presume StormRaven thinks this is a disgrace.

What I actually think is that you're engaged in a ridiculous false equivalence that illustrates just how weak your arguments are.

Well, I'll admit that I don't see the easy equivalancy that you draw between the DePaul incident and the Julius Caesar production. In neither case was anyone arrested for what they were saying, so their freedom of speech remains upheld.

So, in both cases, the core legal issue is one of property and its use, and sponsoring organization has the opportunity to act or not. In the latter case, they did. In the former, they decided not to—no one was arrested for shutting down Milo.

Strictly speaking, that's fine. It's the University's prerogative to decline to eject people for rushing the stage, unless they made some sort of legally binding promise not to. Their stage, their rules. And if they want, they can delegate that rule making to others, such as angry students.

One could push this further. The university has no obligation to punish students who destroy student newspapers—as happened when I was in college. And they might decide to allow students to ransack the library and burn books on the quad. In the strictest sense, private organizations can do as they like, and, so long as the state does not intervene, and the university is not breaking some sort of promise or violating some other sort of law, our Constitutional right to free speech is protected. (Caveat: Public universities may have other obligations, but DePaul is not public.)

In a larger sense, however, there are issues at stake. I do not think DePaul should have allowed Milo to be invited. But a university that has extended such an invitation should not then allow an angry group of students to cancel the talk and shut the speaker up. Already we've seen the tactic spread far beyond obvious pariahs, to talks by mere pro-life speakers, not to mention the ethicist Peter Singer—formerly hated mostly by right! I see no reason to think it will stop there. And I think it's a problem.

In which case it stops being an issue of free speech altogether, and starts becoming an issue of public safety or something along those lines.

This is a dangerous principle. I'd prefer universities to ensure the security necessary to hold their events, and do whatever is necessary to prevent "public safety" from being a thugs' veto.

How, for example, do you feel about Anita Sarkeesian? I, at least, think universities, like the University of Utah, should offer her extensive security, so she can give her talks in peace, despite the constant anonymous threats against her. By not doing so, universities force her to decide between safety and talking. In such situations, she chooses safety, and students are deprived of her words. In effect, she is silenced.

No one has been arrested, though, for anything, let alone for the content of their speech. Does that mean it isn't about free speech but "public safety"? Does it mean it doesn't matter?

>67 southernbooklady:

You have a very interesting point here:

" In neither case was anyone arrested for what they were saying, so their freedom of speech remains upheld.

The woman who interrupted the Shakespeare performance wasn't arrested because she was pro-Trump. She was charged because she disrupted the performance. So the content of the speech -- both of the play and the protester -- are both still protected."

But it is very hard to claim that these two enjoyed equal protection of their rights; purists could object that the theatre isn't under the government's (theoretical and principled) obligation to protect rights impartially but a valid principle is there whether it's legally-obligated or not.

ETA

ALSO, it's usually overlooked So, Let's NOT OVERLOOK IT: Freedom-of-speech (FOS) is a collective right. It would be useless if there were no audiences allowed within earshot of the speaker. Thus, you cannot protect a meaningful freedom of speech simply by allowing everyone to speak at once and, good luck trying to hear anything in it. An audience has just as much interest in the speaker's freedom (right) to speak as the speaker does in the audience's freedom (right) to hear. Not all rights are meaningful only as collectively held rights but some are and FOS is one of them. Also, a strong case could be made that deliberately disruptive "speech-acts" (shouting down another speaker, blocking an entry, invading the stage, etc.) are not examples of freedom of speech since they carry no "argument". Instead, as acts, they have just one objective and that object is not to convince or persuade the audience of something but rather to deny audiences the opportunity to be convinced, persuaded, by another's speech--which is an argument, an attempt to persuade.-- in the first place. Thus, such pseudo-free-speech acts don't deserve protection. FOS does not mean one's right to keep one's opponent from the exercise of his FOS.

And Tim >69 timspalding: has some very interesting analysis and replies.

"One could push this further. The university has no obligation to punish students who destroy student newspapers—as happened when I was in college. And they might decide to allow students to ransack the library and burn books on the quad. In the strictest sense, private organizations can do as they like, and, so long as the state does not intervene, and the university is not breaking some sort of promise or violating some other sort of law, our Constitutional right to free speech is protected. (Caveat: Public universities may have other obligations, but DePaul is not public.)

"In a larger sense, however, there are issues at stake.

...

"This is a dangerous principle. I'd prefer universities to ensure the security necessary to hold their events, and do whatever is necessary to prevent "public safety" from being a thugs' veto.

"How, for example, do you feel about Anita Sarkeesian? I, at least, think universities, like the University of Utah, should offer her extensive security, so she can give her talks in peace, despite the constant anonymous threats against her. By not doing so, universities force her to decide between safety and talking. In such situations, she chooses safety, and students are deprived of her words. In effect, she is silenced. ... Does that mean it isn't about free speech but "public safety"? Does it mean it doesn't matter?"

I agree. The university administration need not be in agreement with the views of everyone to whom it offers a speaking platform but, if a platform is offered, that should come with an implied understanding that the university has authority and intends to use it to make the speaker's appearance a practical and reasonable event for the speaker and the interested audience.

"Boo-ing" a play's performance, a play's players' art is not the same thing as what the protester at The Public Theatre was doing. One can like and approve a drama, its author and, when done well, the performance and still find some presentations of the same work unworthy of applause or, for some, even polite respectful quiet. That's an artistic protest, not a political protest --though it might have a direct relation to some politically-motivated decision by the play's director who might, for example, decide to present Caesar as a Trump-look-alike. And that is why I said this is a complicated issue involving both politics, rights, and views of artists' freedom to practice their arts.

Here, Shakespeare's art is one aspect; the players' interpretations and performances another, the director's directorial decisions of staging and costume, etc., still others. Some of these can be quite well done even as others are quite badly done.

If 'twere done, 'twere best that it be done well. Else 'twere better it not be done.

___________________

In practice, universities shall earn reputations according to their capacity to ensure a safe and sensible place for speakers to speak and their audiences to hear them. If they fail to, they'll earn a reputation as unreliable and the public will take this into account in evaluating whether it's worth bothering attending a planned event. If universities expect to hold such events, they'd better expect to have to live up to the practical demands which make them worth the audience's time and trouble to attend. Or else they should expect lots of empty seats.

>51RickHarsch

I know what side it would send me to, but I dont pretend to know what side it will send everyone to. I suspect it will firm up about 1/2 in each direction.