Restoring the Utility of a Free Press

The Free Press Under Assault from Incipient Oligarchs

A Free Press has to have these three Attributes:

• Free And Unfettered Access to News Sources and events
• A means to get paid and eat
• A means to reach their audiences

Currently all three of these attributes of a free press are under assault

The Free Press in the United States is under attack from enemies & counterfeiters. These overt enemies want to either take over and control the news for corrupt partisan purposes, or to shut down legitimate news and substitute "entertainment" and propaganda. The usurpers are succeeding principally by buying networks, local TV and Radio and replacing local news staffs with centralized propagandists and central instructions. This is concentrating ownership of news and creating local monopoly and reinforcing local, regional and national oligarchic power. Meanwhile Counterfeit news is propagated by partisans with no means to verify and validate accuracy. This news is often picked up by the Oligarchic news as if it were the real thing.

If this is allowed to continue the Utility of honest and accurate reporting will be replaced with agitation propaganda, advertising & purely partisan information.  This is already happening with Companies like Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting. And the influence of front office and back office powers over editing and content is felt across the media. Meanwhile many qualified veteran reporters are doing web broadcasts or blogs. That is not a stable or efficient substitute to truly free press.

This is a threat to both the Democratic Party and Democracy. Until it is fixed we have to act as inadequate substitutes for the press ourselves.

Dirge for the Deep State

When they broadcast their hate
Talking darkly about the "Deep State"
Pirates told long and dark tales of piracy
And laid cause to ugly dark conspiracy.

The Deep State does nefarious Deeds
Government is the enemy
They said from their captains Desk
While working at some Agency.

While piling cash on a legislators desk
They'd spin their tale of perfidy and woe.
The pirate captains in the room all agreed!
To take a vow among themselves
The Deep State must go!

They feared the Deep State,
Afraid They'd be caught.
But they were rarely even sought
Many of the policemen They'd bought!

While sailing seas of Industry
The pirate captains talked
Of regulative perfidy
The bureaucrats kept telling them

They couldn't take the last whales from the seas
Or drown the earth in poison.
At such regulations they balked.
The Deep State was their enemy.

And the captains in their washrooms
Told tales of Deep State Tyranny
As they waged their private wars
And smuggled arms to all combattants!
"Pick a side" the Captains would say
"We can't let the Deep State get in the way
When there is money to be made!"

When they broadcast their hate
At the men and women of the Deep State
When they attacked big Gubbornment!
The pirates took out their guns & took Aim
They'd put an end to the Deep State!

Many of the Deep State Agreed
Government was inefficient
And there was too much greed!
But the pirate captains had other needs
They were after efficient loot!

They won power telling tales
Of dark conspiracy & pirate sails
The pirates called the "deep state" piracy
And vowed to terminate it.

The Pirate Captains had other plans
For the millions of professionals
In their hands.
They lined them up, calling all hands,
And took aim and fired.

Oh, the Deep State now we mourn
Millions of lives gone
Pirates in charge
The looting has begun
And the killings.
The Deep State was our Government.

Christopher H. Holte

Legalizing A Corrupt Election Process

Vote Suppression, hacking, massive official fraud

Increasingly, with the help of databases of personal information and unlimited money for buying politicians, planting fake information and by manipulating pretty much everyone, We have people who think they can buy our elections with impunity and manage our Democracy. This is bigger than mere fraud. This threatens the survival of our republic's Democracy. If the Russians weren't involved it would be harder to get anyone paying attention, but Trump is a walking Confessional.

Trump has to be stopped before he can legalize and institutionalize a corrupt election process, loyalty requirements and his tyrannical policies. This post focuses on his efforts to corrupt the election process.

Hannah Arendt On Revolution Liberty and Freedom

Why Revolutions Occur, Succeed, Fail

In this lecture, which Hannah Arendt, probably authored & may or may not have given to her students, Hannah Arendt talks about liberty, Freedom, why revolutions occur, why they succeed, why they are a result of the "disintegration" of the legitimacy and effectiveness of the lands where the revolution occurs, and why when they fail disintegration intensifies. When she wrote this, it had been more than 20 years since World War II. And with the rise up of former colonial countries then and now:

"Revolutions have become everyday occurrences since, with the liquidation of imperialism, so many peoples have risen “to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them.”

To Read the Lecture in it's text, visit:

http://lithub.com/tag/hannah-arendt/

Bill Browder's Testimony and Trump/Russia

The only mention of Trump Russia I saw in the general news today was from Sarah Sanders, who said the whole thing was a fraud. But in reality, Bill Browder (who I always get mixed up with one of my favorite actors Ben Browder), was testifying about it. Bill Showed up. They also were supposed to take testimony from Glenn Simpson of Company Fusion GPS that produced the Trump Dossier, that kicked off so much trouble, but Glenn refused to testify. Apparently he would plead the 5th amendment if they put him up for testimony. Bill Browder did testify, and he told the whole story, including the fact that the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, works for Vladimir Putin. Browder verified that the June 9th Meeting was about "The Magnitsky Act." [see drip drip drip post] and further explained why Putin so much wants to repeal the Magnitsky Act. It turns out that the Trump Dossier may in part be something created by Russian FSB in order to blackmail Trump. They bribe Trump, and they hold the ability to "bring him down" in reserve as extortion. Hence the term "Kompromat."

PS the Russians were only letting us adopt the very sick and ill among Russian Children, so when he retaliate for the Magnitsky act, many of those children simply died. Please Read the Atlantic Article or go to CSPAN to hear Bill Browder's testimony. Or listen to Randi Rhodes Broadcast that she gave today where she dissects all this. It is Amazing Stuff.

https://t.co/Jl7EMVPqEr

Of Pigeons and Pirates

Smoketown Pigeons

Early in the morning,

Smoketown sleeps at last!

But the pigeons from their eyrie

Come and go seeking their repast.

 

From their Hilltop keep.

They stand watch in their tower

All the town do they see.

But the only thing on their little minds

Is where their next meal may be.

 

The Tower is their fortress

Its bell is painted white

In flocks they come and go.

Dancing in the air!

Christopher H Holte‏ @CHHolte 7/26/2017

Note: Had to share this before I forgot it!

Pirates Bones

The pirates will come and go

Leaving whale bones mouldering on the beach

With bones of ships & men

 

Their treasure is an illusion

Vanishing in black smoke

Only trinkets of idle scrimshaw

To tell the tale of men and sail.

Treasure Gone!

 

They hunted beheameth to near extinction

Then dug the soil seeking His remains

Reveling in gushing poison

Building empires built on oil!

 

In the ancient game of piracy

The captain's crew comes to town

Promising ease and riches

Spreading paper all around!

Their promises are lies

 

And those who see their invisible cloth

Find a knife in an alley way.

While the glamoured masses scoff

"It can't be other than a new great day!"

 

But their promises are hollow

Their king a glibe practiced grifter

Soon they've robbed the town naked

And depart, seeking riches swifter!

 

Dead men tell a mournful tale

Broken bones, evidence of disease.

Nature recovers but remembers

The land mourns lost virginity.

Rachel weeps.

 

And animals make their homes

In the ruined bones

castles of extraction

Become pigeon eyres.

Smoketown sleeps

Dreaming disturbing nightmares.

Christopher H Holte‏ @CHHolte 7/26/2017

I had two different thoughts here that kind of meshed in a fugue of analogy. One was from watching the pigeons in my local Church. The other is the pressing weight of our American History.

"Deep State" B.S. And Reality

Conspiracy Mongering "The Deep State"

In reading a book by Mike Lofgren titled "The Deep State," I didn't have high expectations for clear argumentation, despite the blurb claiming that Lofgren was encouraged to write the book by Bill Moyers. Sure enough reading it, it's the same kind of bait the base and blame the usual suspects playing out, except Mike is attacking the establishment! Mike manages to mix into a conspiratorial stew the forces of the media, bureaucracy & government, mixing left and right conspiracy stories to create a completely incoherent narrative.

"Bill Moyers! What were you thinking! I thought you were a progressive?

Anyway, the book became a textbook for both the far left and the far right. It was a text for Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders and the Trump Campaign. Which is why I waded through it in the first place.

This essay is at Bill Moyer's Website:

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/