This is for you, @MiekeEoyang - people have the right to criticize Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Michele Flournoy or whatever other militarist and imperialist Biden/Harris rolls out without being slimed with your cynical, deceitful accusations of misogyny and racism.
This is their tactic: they think if they drape a rainbow flag over Raytheon, or celebrate LGBT Day at CIA, or herald the first woman of color on the Citibank board, you’re barred from criticizing them. That’s their scam. It deserves nothing but contempt.
I expressed contempt for this tweet last night (see above) but I haven’t yet adequately expelled the disgust and loathing I have for it. It belongs as a Hall of Fame exhibit showing why Democratic Party neoliberals and militarists are indescribably deceitful and repulsive:
Weimar Jews and the Holocaust that followed have become fun little playthings - media toys - for journalists to casually toss around, use and exploit to make themselves feel way more important than they are and to elevate fear. This is repugnant and offensive, @camanpour.
TV personalities on MSNBC and CNN know the only chance they have to keep people watching is to terrorize them into high levels of adrenaline and fear. So they have spent 4 years shrieking about fascist coups, concentration camps, and Nazi dictatorships. It's deplorable.
Beyond the lies, these media outlets relentlessly try to keep fear, hatred and polarization levels as high as possible for their own petty goals of ratings and profits. Beyond the lies and conspiracies they spew, the divisions they disseminate are toxic:
"The same factions that constantly claim to abhor Fake News and disinformation continue to be the most aggressive and shameless propagators of it -- especially the media."
"Where is the evidence that Russia was involved in this New York Post story? And how can media outlets who endorsed and spread this and now refuse any self-critique expect anything but distrust and scorn from the public when they do this?"
For liberals angry Trump is wrestling control away from Pentagon officials to end the 19-year-old war in Afghanistan:
Don't worry: Biden, Ben Rhodes & Susan Rice will quickly find new wars, ensuring the beautiful rainbow diversity of the Raytheon & Boeing boards still thrive.
"Trump promised those troops would be home by the holiday. But while the White House pushed hard on the Pentagon to fulfill that wish, DoD leaders resisted, saying instead any withdrawal needed to be "conditions-based.'"
It's outrageous that Trump is trying to control foreign policy instead of relinquishing power to the permanent clatch of Pentagon warmongers, General Dynamics lobbyists, and CIA operatives, say the people who insist that only conspiratorial crazies believe there's a Deep State.
Key detail in this @NYMag story on the pro-censorship movement inside NYT by its own employees: NYT tech reporters were angry that the anti-censorship posture of NYT editors would impede their campaign to pressure Silicon Valley to censor more robustly:
The role that mainstream **journalists** have played, of all people, in taking the lead to demand that Silicon Valley oligarchs more aggressively control and censor the internet -- the greatest threat to a free and open internet after mass surveillance -- cannot be overstated.
Just ponder the warped mentality of someone who chooses journalism as a career, then devotes themselves to trying to silence the ability of others to be heard by converting themselves into petulant tattletales who demand that Facebook, Twitter & Google censor dissenting voices.
A really powerful & illuminating new 1-hour documentary “The Rise of Bolsonaro” — features Marielle’s assassination & battle of her widow, the coup against Dilma, @davidmirandario’s campaign for Congress, and much more. Can’t recommend it highly enough:
What’s so great about this film is its relevance not just for people interested in Brazil but democracy globally. Directed by Danish filmmakers Christian & Jacquline Prener, it avoids pat, cheap answers to explain Bolsonaro, focusing on underlying pathologies. With @Snowden tool!
The widow of Marielle — the favela-raised, black LGBT Rio Councilwoman brutally assassinated in March, 2018, by militias connected to the Bolsonaros — is @monica_benicio, one of the world’s bravest women, now running for that seat. Election this week.
Very interesting @AOC interview in NYT today, where she says: "the history of the [Democratic] party tends to be that we get really excited about the grass roots to get elected. And then those communities are promptly abandoned right after an election."
She also says, amazingly, that she is often not sure she wants to stay in politics -- primarily because of cowardly, anonymous attacks (my characterization) from within her own Party, which often treats her as its enemy, someone to be banished:
I understand the left has some valid critiques of AOC. I have some of my own. But she's in an impossible position - the huge platform & expectations means she's bound to disappoint some people sometimes - but, with Biden/Harris, the left needs critics from inside more than ever.