THE JOHN OLIVER TWIST : Things Said and Unsaid.

This is the fifth article in our new series THE JOHN OLIVER TWIST, where we monitor tv's political comedians and hold them accountable. The original article, Court Jester as Propaganda Tool, can be found HERE. The second article, The Drumpf Affair and Little Bill Maher's Power Fetish, can be found HERE. The third article Waxing Brazilian and Waning Credibility can be found HERE, and the fourth, Out Trumping Trump on the Great Wall of Trump HERE.

ESTIMATED READING TIME : 7 MINUTES 12 SECONDS

A (relatively) brief post on the recent comings and goings of our favorite political comedian, Brave Sir John Oliver, and to a lesser extent, Little Bill Maher, over the last few months. Much has happened but I've been pressed for time so haven't been able to update you, dear reader, on the shenanigans these two faux truth tellers have been up to.

As I have tried to show in previous posts, John Oliver uses the Establishment Propaganda Model ™ to great effect to deceive and misinform his audience. Oliver is not the first comedian to use that model, but in recent years he has certainly been the most effective. Part of how you know he is such a good propagandist for the establishment is to see how the establishment has embraced his work. If Oliver were what he claimed to be, a rebel speaking truth to power, those in power would loathe or maybe even fear him, but they don't, they celebrate and embrace his every move. It seems every week following one of Oliver's shows the public is inundated with articles in the mainstream press about how Oliver's latest "takedown" or "evisceration" of one subject or another was so utterly brilliant. Even Oliver has poked fun at the embarrassing amount of gushing praise his work receives.

The thing about Oliver's "eviscerations" or "takedowns" are that they have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the subjects he takes on. Yes, they may raise some sort of momentary awareness, but that awareness evaporates almost as soon as the episode is over. The Atlantic magazine did a great piece on this recently where they exposed the reality that Oliver is all sound and fury signifying nothing. And that is part of the Establishment Propoganda Model™ as well. Feed the audience something to distract them and to give them the impression that they are well informed and making a difference, when in reality they are really being led down a cul-de-sac of self satisfaction with nothing at all changing in the long run. 

What has interested me the most in the last few months since my last John Oliver Twist post, has been the things that Oliver has left out of his segments, as opposed to what he has put in. This is a vital part of the Establishment Propaganda Model ™, focusing on certain, specific things, but leaving others out. For instance, on episode 10 of season 3, which aired on April 24, 2016, Oliver's opening segment was on Obama's trip to Saudi Arabia and how the Sauid's ignored him during his trip.

It was a cute bit, but if you watch it closely you realize that it entirely ignored the real reason the Saudi's were so angry with Obama. Saudi Arabia was furious with the U.S. over a bill that was up before congress that would allow victims of the 9-11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia over their role in those attacks. That is kind of a huge thing to leave out of the story, don't you think? It's like talking about O.J.'s marriage to Nicole and leaving out the stabbing. The funniest part of the whole thing is that two episodes later, on episode 12 of season 3, which aired on May 15, 2016, Oliver opened his main segment, which happened to be on the 9-1-1 emergency phone system and it's problems, by stating "9-1-1, a number we work hard to remember". Apparently Brave Sir John doesn't work so hard to remember those numbers when they point to Saudi complicity in terror attacks referred to by those same three numbers, and Obama's ass-kissing of those same, complicit Saudi's. 

The Saudi/Obama kerfluffle and Oliver's choice to willfully ignore the reason behind it, 9-11, is both odd and telling. It is also telling that just a few weeks later, Oliver did a little bit on Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who had lost his cat. Kadyrov is a real piece of work, no doubt about it, but Oliver made a big point, in fact he mentioned it twice, that Kadyrov's wikipedia page has an entire section dedicated to his human rights violations, as if this was some sort of remarkable "gotcha" point. As I said, Kadyrov, a Sunni Muslim, is a real piece of work (or a real piece of something else more odorous), but that said, you know another group of Sunni Mulsims who have a less than stellar track record on human rights…that's right...the Saudi's! Oliver never mentioned that fact in his piece on Obama visiting the royal kingdom to try and quell the fears of financial liability of the royal family over their role in 9-11. In fact, Saudi Arabia has such a horrendous human rights record that, unlike Kadyrov, they don't just have a mention of it on their wikipedia page…they have a whole wikipedia page dedicated to it!!

This is how the Establishment Propaganda Model™ works, some things are said and others not said. The assumptions underlying the establishment propaganda are never to be challenged, only blindly accepted. A great example of this shows up on Oliver's most recent episode, episode 13 of season three, which aired May 22, 2016. Oliver opened the episode by doing a segment on the turmoil in Venezuela, and the protests that have broken out there. The very first thing he shows about the protests is a video clip from ABC News which clearly states the context of the protests, that "on one side (of the protests) are students and the middle class, and on the other, police and the military."

That quote may seem like a minor part of a bigger segment, but this clip and statement are incredibly crucial in setting up the context of the protests and the premise of Oliver's argument that follows. This statement of "students and the middle class being on one side, and the military on the other", does all the work Oliver needs in setting audience expectations for who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in the Venezuelan situation.  And I am not saying that Oliver is wrong here, as he skillfully shows with the rest of the segment, Venezuelan president Maduro is, like Kadyrov, a real piece of work. What actually intrigued me the most about Oliver's Venezuela piece and his setting of context in regards to the protests, was that in a very similar situation in Brazil (episode 6, season 3, air date March 20, 2016), he completely ignored the context of those protests because he was taking the side of the right wing, the lighter skinned, the powerful, the rich and the military, against the black lower and working classes. Why would Oliver highlight the context in one case and ignore it in the other? The answer is obvious, the context helps him in the Venezuela argument, and undermines him in the Brazil argument. The key in both cases is that Oliver, just like the American Establishment, and just as the Establishment Propoganda Model™ would predict, calls for the overthrow or removal of an elected, left-wing, South American government that is less than friendly with the U.S.. The Venezuela/Brazil protests segments are damning and incontrovertible evidence of Oliver as a propaganda tool. Every liberal watching his show immediately sided with the "students and middle class" against Maduro in Venezuela, just as they would have sided with the black, poor and working class protesting in support of the left-wing President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, but Oliver intentionally never alerted them to the class warfare element of the Brazil situation.

This is how the Establishment Propaganda Model™ works, you manipulate the information you present in order to contort "reality" to your own ends. So, for instance, the mainstream media in the U.S. would ignore or treat as completely normal the U.S. military doing exercises on the Russian border, but would call Russian military exercises WITHIN THE BORDERS OF RUSSIA as provocative. An easy way to dissect this sort of propaganda is to simply turn it around and imagine what you would think if the media from another country…Russia say, did the same thing. Would you trust them, or believe them? Would you take them seriously? Of course not. If the Russians did a military exercise in Canada and the U.S. did a military exercise in North Dakota, who is the one being provocative? In this case, obviously the Russians. So this is one way you should watch and read the news and see through the propaganda model.

As previously stated, it is not always the things that are said that are revealing of the Establishment Propaganda Model™ at work, but what isn't said. For example, why does John Oliver choose the subjects he chooses? Why did he completely ignore 9-11 in regards to the Saudi/Obama situation when it was such a vital part of the story? Why hasn't he done a segment on the "28 pages" redacted from the 9-11 report which some believe implicate the Saudi's in the attack? Why hasn't he done a segment on the C.I.A. losing the torture report…talk about a situation ripe with comedy? Or better yet…why not do a bit on this press conference from last year by the State Department which talks about how the U.S. has  'long standing policy" to not support coups. it is relevant to both the Venezuela and Brazil situations…and come to think of it, the Ukrainian and Egyptian situations as well. This press conference is the height of comedy and should be right up Brave Sir John's alley…yet he ignored it. 

These are the types of questions viewers should be asking of Oliver and all of the other political comedians. These questions show that it isn't just what Brave Sir John says that proves he is a propaganda shill for the establishment, it is what he chooses NOT to say.

LITTLE BILL MAHER PUCKERS UP

As for Little Bill Maher…well…he has been up to his old ass-kissing tricks once again. Most of the episodes of Realtime with Bill Maher are dreadfully dull and inane. The only time my interest is piqued is when Bill bends over backwards (or just over) for an interview guest. On the 5th episode of season 10, which aired on February 12, 2016, Little Bill interviewed "journalist" Richard Engel. Engel was there to promote his book, and Maher was more than happy to let him "plug away".

What was so interesting in the interview was that Maher briefly mentioned Engel's being kidnapped in Syria. This kidnapping story is pretty amazing and is a twisting and turning tale of propaganda from start to finish. Engel was kidnapped by Syrian rebels who claimed to be Assad forces in an attempt to garner U.S. public support to invade Syria. Engel claimed that a group of Syrian rebels attacked his captors, killing many of them, and freed him. The purpose of the propaganda was to make Assad's troops out to be the bad guys, and the rebels to be the good guys. Except…there were no dead bodies…even though Engel claimed to have seen them. And the rebels didn't save Engel from Assad's forces, they saved him from themselves. It was all a ruse…one which, shock of shocks, NBC, the home of Brian Williams, gladly went along with. You know who else gladly went along with it? Little Bill Maher. The story had been quite clearly debunked and dissected by the time Engel made it the set of Realtime, but Little Bill Maher simply pretended that Engel's original story was the one that happened. In typical Maher fashion, he got on his knees, licked his lips and told Richard Engel that he was "so brave", much like his similar work with General Hayden this season.  This is a great example of the Establishment Propaganda Model™ in two respects…the first is what Maher (and Engel) didn't say, namely that the kidnapping was a ruse and propaganda ploy, and two, retelling the original story so that the truth of what actually happened goes down the memory hole, never to be seen or heard again.

Another hum dinger of an interview with Little Bill was on epsidoe 13, season 10, air date April 22, 2016. This time writer Lawrence Wright stopped by to discuss 9-11, Saudi Arabia and the 28 pages redacted front he 9-11 report. I was glad Little Bill was tackling this important issue…and then I saw the interview. This interview was a classic of the Establishment Propaganda Model™ in that it served no purpose but to obfuscate the truth, not reveal it. Take a look.

This interview is so incoherent as to be mind numbing…and that was its purpose. Wright speaks of Saudi complicity in the attacks due to a Saudi agent being in contact with the hijackers here in the U.S. He also spoke of Saudi government officials being involved by supporting the attack logistically. He also claimed that the U.S. intelligence community knew this as it was happening and were also in close watch over the hijackers their entire time in America. But then he says that the 28 pages aren't really worth much thought because all they will do is "embarrass" the C.I.A. Yes…"embarrass" is what he said. The idea that anything other than "embarrassment" is behind the nondisclosure of the 28 pages is never even mentioned or thought of. What an absurd idea!! How could it be anything other than fear of "embarrassment"? This ignores the fact that it isn't just 28 pages we haven't seen about 9-11 and the Saudi's, but 80,000 files. That's right, 80,000 files…not just 28 pages. That is a hell of a lot of "embarrassment" to cover up in an attempt to save face.

Later in the interview Wright goes on to "explain" that Saudi Arabia isn't responsible for any terrorism at all…only the ideology that creates terrorists. Got that? This comes just moments after he explains that Saudi Arabian officials were in direct contact and supported the hijackers on 9-11. If none of this makes any sense to you, then that makes two of us.

Of course those statements by Wright are in direct contradiction of one another. Maybe Wright was just drunk and rambling…not the craziest notion after watching the absurd interview, or maybe he was intentionally being obtuse and contradictory. Maybe that is his job, to muddy the waters, to obfuscate the truth, not to clarify it. And Little Bill Maher was all to happy to help Wright make a gigantic mess of things. Little Bill was giddy at the chance to be able to change the subject from 9-11 and Saudi and U.S. Intelligence "embarrassment" and make it about Pakistani child fuckers…seriously. Little Bill turned the redacted 28 pages of the 9-11 report into a story about Pakistani child fuckers. Pakistani child fuckers reinforces Little Bill's, and the establishment's, preferred worldview, and U.S. intelligence "embarrassment" and Saudi complicity in 9-11 do not. Concerned about Saudi Arabia, U.S. intelligence and terror attacks?Don't worry…Lawrence Wright and Bill Maher assure that there is nothing to see here.

Besides his interviews, Little Bill has been full of the usual idiocy in his comments over the last few months as well. A case in point is when he had a comedian on and talked about how he, Little Bill, doesn't tell his audience what they want to hear. He was very proud of this, wearing it as a badge of courage. Little Bill is a truth speaker who says the truth no matter what…consequences be damned!! In his next breath, Little Bill went out of his way to make a point blindly supporting Israel. Little Bill explained that Europe, who has always been adversarial with Israel, might now be more sympathetic to Israel since European countries are now being over run with Muslim immigrants from Syria. It was a staggeringly illiterate thing to say, historically speaking. In case Little Bill doesn't know, it was European Jews who immigrated into Palestine, not the other way around. And those European Jews brought with them a terrorist campaign against the locals which featured the invention of the car bomb!! Yes, Little Bill Maher doesn't tell his audience what they want to hear, unless that audience are his pay masters in the establishment, then he says exactly what they want to hear, especially about Israel, over and over again. Bravo Little Bill!! 

Also in keeping with the Establishment Propaganda Model™, Little Bill, just like Brave Sir John, hasn't mentioned on his show the C.I.A. losing it's torture report either. In addition, Little Bill keeps on banging home the idea of "liberals supporting liberal ideas" in regards to the Middle East and Islam. Either Bill is dumber than I think, or he is intentionally laying the foundation for more wars in the region against Islam. You see, you cannot argue for liberals to fight for liberal values in Middle Esatern countries, without also arguing for actual fighting in those countries. Little Bill is a neo-con in that he wants to reshape the middle east, and while he would say he is against another war there, his rhetoric betrays him. You can't tell people to fight for liberal values and then tell them not to actually fight.

In conclusion, both Brave Sir John and Little Bill Maher have been, as the Establishment Propaganda Model™ would predict, serving as useful tools to reinforce the establishment narrative, and not to attack it.  As much as I am loathe to do it, I will continue to watch these two dim-witted, establishment shill, asshats, week in and week out, all as a service to you, my dear reader. I hope you are grateful for this, the greatest of all sacrifices, that I willingly make for you. God help me!!

©2016

THE JOHN OLIVER TWIST : Out-Trumping Trump on The Great Wall of Trump

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MONDAY, MARCH 28, 2016, BUT DUE TO A TECHNICAL ISSUE, IT IS RE-POSTED AGAIN NOW. APOLOGIES TO ANY READERS WHO HAVE ALREADY SEEN IT.

ESTIMATED READING TIME: 8.5 MINUTES

This is the fourth article in our new series THE JOHN OLIVER TWIST, where we monitor tv's political comedians and hold them accountable. The original article, Court Jester as Propaganda Tool, can be found HERE. The second article, The Drumpf Affair and Little Bill Maher's Power Fetish, can be found HERE. The third article Waxing Brazilian and Waning Credibility can be found HERE.

John Oliver's HBO show "Last Week Tonight", took Easter weekend off, so you would think I would have no fodder for my John Oliver Twist article this week. You might also think that with it being Easter that I would be so busy with bunny related activites that I would have no time to write yet another John Oliver Twist article...you would be sadly mistaken on both counts. After last week's John Oliver Twist - Brazil article ran long (as most of my articles do), I decided against posting my analysis of Oliver's allegedly devastating takedown of Trump's Mexican border wall proposal. With no new material to dissect this week, I am free to go back a week to examine Brave Sir John's supposed evisceration of The Donald's cornerstone issue. Here is the relevant segment from the March 20, 2016 episode of "Last Week Tonight".

As someone who does not support a wall on the Mexican border, I found Oliver's argument on episode six of season three against Trump's wall to be, frankly…Trumpian in its vacuousness, speciousness and transparency. What made this "takedown" so absurd was how obviously flaccid it was to anyone with an open mind on the subject and half a brain in their head. A brief glance at Oliver's argument reveals it to be at best, amateurish. 

Brave Sir John challenged Trump for his ever changing estimate of the cost of building "his" wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. At first Trump said the cost would be 4, then 8, then 10, then 12 billion dollars. Not surprisingly, Trump is a bit fuzzy on the details, which is par for the course with The Donald and part of his appeal to his followers, you see Trump is a big "ideas man", he'll let others fill in the details. Regardless of where that number lands, it certainly is a lot of money. Oliver claims that Trump's estimate isn't the half of it, as there will be maintenance costs and all sorts of hidden building costs and such, which will greatly increase the ultimate final cost, which Oliver puts at roughly $25 billion. Brave Sir John points out that this is $77 per American, and that money would be more effectively and more wisely used buying each American a Palmer Waffle Iron rather than building a wall. Cute. He then joked that this plan, unlike Trump's would not offend Latinos…only Belgians. In a weird coincidence, the terror attacks in Belgium a few days later made that joke much less funny in hindsight.

The issue I have with this line of attack from Brave Sir John is this, if we have learned anything over the years it is that Americans never give a rat's ass how much something costs, especially if it is something that they want. Look at it this way, $25 Billion certainly is a hell of a lot of money, but to put it into perspective, it is a drop in the bucket compared to other government spending. When compared to say, Obamacare, which is something that Oliver's liberal audience would presumably support, and that program's cost over a ten year period, which is $2.76 trillion, or even just the increase in overhead for Obamacare over that same time period which is $270 billion. Liberals would not be swayed against Obamacare by a "cost" argument, just like conservatives, and most Americans, were not swayed against the Iraq war by the cost argument. Speaking of which, $25 Billion is still $5 billion less than the U.S. spent every single month in Iraq during the war. If you remember, that war was sold on the premise that oil revenue would pay for the war effort…or put another way…the Iraqi's would pay for the war. Sound familiar? It should, because The Donald is guaranteeing that Mexico will pay for building the wall.

Brave Sir John did step up and take on the claim by Trump that "Mexico will pay for the wall". He used two clips of former Mexican presidents saying that "no" and "fuck no" they won't be paying for Trump's stupid wall. These denials are absolutely meaningless in the debate and prove little except how paper thin John Oliver's anti-wall argument really is, because of course Mexican politicians are going to say that Mexico won't pay for the wall. Trump's argument is that Mexico will pay because they wouldn't want to endanger the $54 Billion trade surplus they have with the U.S. Brave Sir John countered that by saying that yes, Mexico does have a trade surplus with the U.S., but that money is not just sitting in some pile somewhere, it is Mexican businesses money. A glaringly obvious point is sitting right out there for all to see but Brave Sir John ignores it because to acknowledge it would scuttle his entire argument. That point is this, that if a President Trump (God help us all) is in power and says to Mexico, "hey, either you pay for this wall or I am going to put big tariffs on all Mexican products coming into the U.S.", a Mexican President might say "fuck you" to Trump, but Mexican business interests will say…"no...fuck you El Presidente, pay that orange haired gringo for his stupid wall". And in Mexico, as in the U.S., money talks and bullshit walks. The reason is simple and clear, Mexico needs the wealthy American market much more than America needs Mexican goods. Apparently Brave Sir John has never heard of the term leverage, or how to use it. For decades now, the U.S. has been idiotic with it's "free trade" policy, this fact is a great part of Trump's appeal to blue collar workers. If Donald Trump, or anyone else, becomes President, he or she would be very wise to tear up all the free trade agreements we've gotten ourselves into and end "free trade" as we know it because it is neither free, nor trade. America is the wealthiest nation on the planet, we are of much more value as a market to every other nation on earth, than those nations are valuable to us for their products. Sometimes being a bully has its uses, and in the trade debate, this is one of those times. 

Oliver's next line of attack was to claim that Trump's wall simply won't work in keeping out illegal immigrants because no matter how high it is, people will just get ladders one foot higher to climb it and use ropes to climb down on our side. Of course, this conveniently ignores the reality that a wall is much more easily manned than a wide open border. And since the wall will be manned anyone trying to climb it will be exposed to the people meant to protect the border who are working on the wall. This is an obvious point that any impartial observer would note, and it is an extremely silly argument against Trump's wall.

Oliver also makes the claim that "nearly half" of all illegal immigrants have come across the border at official checkpoints. Brave Sir John makes it seem like this is some magic bullet that proves that the wall is totally useless and a giant waste of time and money….case closed.  Of course, this does nothing of the sort…think about it, "nearly half" of all illegal immigrants cross at border checkpoints? "Nearly half" can also be said another way…"less than half"…or better yet try this on for size, "more than half of all illegal immigrants do not cross the border at a checkpoint". Think of it this way…if the U.S. could stop "more than half" of all crime, wouldn't that be a pretty tremendous accomplishment. Or "more than half" of all drugs coming over the border, or terrorists coming into the country or whatever it is you are trying to stop. Even though his supporters are too blind to see it, Brave Sir John's semantic gymnastics are again, little more than clever cover for a glaringly vacant argument. 

Oliver attempts to buttress his "wall is useless" argument by declaring that Trump's wall won't stop drugs coming into America either because drug cartels already build tunnels, or use catapults, or slingshots, or just have people throw drugs over the border in an attempt to evade law enforcement. Seriously…this is his argument. Think about that logic for a second, we should not build a wall because people will try and circumvent it? Yes, cartels will still try to get drugs into the U.S., I mean, you can't keep drugs out of a secured facility like a prison, so your not going to keep them out of an entire country, but does that mean we shouldn't try to keep them out? O.J. got away with killing two people, so I guess we shouldn't arrest anyone for murder. What the fuck kind of dimwitted logic is that and what sort of numb-nuts falls for it?

The biggest issue I have with Oliver's "takedowns" of Trump are that they are fighting fire with fire…or better said…Oliver fights emotionalism with emotionalism. Trump is the master of pushing buttons and playing on people's emotions, and to counter that, one must plug into reason, logic and rational thought, not with counter-emotions. Trump's proposal is certainly vacuous, but Oliver's attack of it is specious at best. What Oliver is really doing is not rationally countering Trumps proposal, but rather satiating his liberal audiences emotional and psychological desire to feel intellectually superior. Think of it this way, would Oliver's argument against the wall convince anyone who believes that we need a wall to change their mind? No…it would only reinforce the beliefs of those who are already against the wall. This sort of argument is perfectly Trumpian…empty, hollow and emotive. Trump does little more than posture, pose and preen, and although his liberal devotees don't, won't or can't see it…John Oliver does exactly the same thing. Both men are symptoms of the same disease that has become epidemic and is ravaging this country…emotionalism.

In terms of the specifics of the immigration debate…want me to let you in on a little secret? Here it is…the powers that be don't want to fix the illegal immigration issue, they want it to forever be a mess. You want to know why? Well…whether you do or don't , I'm going to tell you. Illegal immigration keeps wages down and undermines organized labor in the U.S. (whenever you hear someone say that "illegal immigrants do the jobs Americans don't want to do" tell them that sentence is incomplete. Here is the complete version, "illegal immigrants do the jobs American don't want to do…AT THAT WAGE". And therein lies the problem and the proof of downward wage pressure), which keeps American workers struggling to keep their heads above water, and keeps corporate profits way up. Corporate profits keep the the powers that be happy and low wages and neutered unions keep working people struggling and disorganized, and a struggling, disorganized person is one who is more worried about paying their bills than marching in the streets. Speaking of marching in the streets, illegal immigration also does something else, and this is a topic no one talks about…it keeps pro-U.S. corporatists, tyrants and right-wing fascists in power in Central and South America. If all illegal immigration into the U.S. were stopped today, and all of those poor people who come here for a better life were stuck in the shithole from which they came, then eventually, the pressure in their home countries would grow and grow until finally it would explode in a huge wave of revolution. It is easier for the U.S. to absorb these down-trodden people and use them as near slave labor, than it is for the U.S. to keep them where they are and let them grow in numbers and get more and more disgruntled until they finally lash out and overthrow our corporate puppets who run their country. Mexico is, of course, the greatest example of this. But the rest of Latin America is also riddled with nations that have gone through multiple revolutionary cycles. The region is also infested with drug gangs and cartels, which the U.S. works very hard to keep in business. What? Why would the U.S. do that? Well, for one, to destabilize our own inner cities through an influx of drugs so that the poor can never organize and protest effectively, and also so that the U.S. intelligence community can have an off the books way of raising money for their nefarious operations around the globe. 

Which brings us to the truth about John Oliver, that he is a propaganda tool for the establishment in arguing for the status quo. John Oliver's audience is overwhelmingly liberal, yet he argues time and time again against working people and for the powers that be, and the immigration debate is no different. Oliver's liberal audience should believe in a strong working class and a unionized labor force, but illegal immigration undermines unions and the working class while exploiting poor illegal immigrants for nearly slave wages. In his case against Trump, Oliver argues against using our leverage to strengthen America's trade position in favor of giving our power away to corrupt Central and South American governments like Mexico. John Oliver argues for the status quo and allowing the people of Latin America to escape their native lands for the U.S., which lets corrupt tyrants and corporatists favorable to the U.S. establishment to never be held accountable to their people and to prosper throughout the region. As highlighted with last weeks Brazil column, Oliver has a special hatred for any left or liberal government in Central or South America (Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina etc.) that does come to power through the people's vote and goes out of his way to denigrate and attack them. 

John Oliver's stance on immigration is once again proof of his being a propaganda puppet for the establishment, and his liberal viewers unwitting dupes in his charade. The biggest red flag about Brave Sir John being a warrior for the establishment is that he never makes an alternative proposal to Trump about what to do about illegal immigration. This shows that John Oliver wants to maintain the status quo, which benefits no one but those at the very top of the power structure in the U.S, in other words, the people to whom Brave Sir John answers.

In order to not be accused of doing just what Brave Sir John does, and not offering a counter proposal to Trump's immigration plan, let me offer my own. You want to solve the illegal immigration problem? Make it a crime punishable by prison time for a business to hire any illegal alien and enforce that law for everyone in the corporate power structure of the company. Deport a million illegal aliens, and I promise the rest will leave by their own accord because they can't work due to pulling the weed at the root, which is employment. If illegal immigrants have had children in the U.S., which makes those children citizens, then allow those people to stay under a green card (with all the worker protections that come with it) and garnish a portion of their wages for ten years, and make them become proficient in the English language. After ten years or a certain total sum paid in fines for coming here illegally, and once they have learned English, they become citizens. Finally, legalize narcotics, which will eliminate the need for the drug cartels to use violence, corruption and human exploitation in order to run their business. Wow…look at that, I just solved some of the biggest issues currently ailing our nation. But guess what…none of these things will happen, not because they can't happen, but because the establishment don't want them to happen. It is more beneficial to the power structure in the U.S. for the scourge of the illegal drug trade, the downward wage impact of illegal alien labor, and the upward corporate profit motive, to continue than it is to solve the problem. With shills like John Oliver…and his HBO partner in crime, little Bill Maher, consistently making the establishment case while pretending to be rebelling against the establishment, I am sure no one will notice, or do anything about it, which is just how they want it.

©2016

THE JOHN OLIVER TWIST : Waxing Brazilian and Waning Credibility

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 2016. DUE TO A TECHNICAL ISSUE IT IS RE-POSTED AGAIN. APOLOGIES TO READERS WHO HAVE ALREADY SEEN IT.

ESTIMATED READING TIME : 11 MINUTES

This is our third article in our new series, THE JOHN OLIVER TWIST, where we monitor TV's political comedians and hold them accountable. The original article, COURT JESTER AS PROPAGANDA TOOL can be found HERE. The second article, THE DRUMPF AFFAIR AND LITTLE BILL MAHER'S POWER FETISH, can be found HERE.

This past Sunday, March 20, 2016, John Oliver was at it again on his HBO show "Last Week Tonight". As Always, Brave Sir John was the right-wing establishment wolf dressed in a rebellious left-wing sheep's clothing. The topics this week on episode 6 of season 3…protests in Brazil and Donald Trump/s xenophobic border wall. Let's take a closer look to see where Brave Sir John pulled the bait and switch on his starry-eyed, lapdog, liberal followers. Here is the Brazil protest segment of the episode for those of you who were lucky enough to miss it.

The opening segment was on Brazil, which happens to be in the midst of a terrible economic downturn, and the anti-government protests that have rocked the country recently. The protests are in response to alleged widespread corruption by the left-wing Workers Party government of President Dilma Rousseff and her mentor and predecessor Lulu Da Silva, involving the state-owned oil company Petrobras and an investigation known as Operation Car Wash. The anti-government protestors are calling for Rousseff to be impeached, and for Rousseff and Lula to be charged with crimes. It is, as NBC's Chuck Todd recently re-tweeted, a case of the "People vs. The President"…or at least that is what the media establishment in the U.S., John Oliver included, and Brazil, would have us believe. Brazil's political situation is certainly a potential comedic goldmine, so let's take a closer look and see if John Oliver went down the right mine shaft or if he gave his viewers the shaft.

Here is a little context on the "anti-government protests" of which Brave Sir John is so enamored. Take a look at this picture of the protestors….notice anything a little funny?

In case you are color blind I'll help you out, the protestors are overwhelmingly white. In fact, according to polls cited by Joshua Howet Berger of yahoo News, the protestors against Rousseff and her leftist government are "significantly richer, whiter and more educated than Brazilians at large." At the largest anti-governemnt protests in Sao Paulo, 77% of the demonstrators self identified as white, and 77% were university graduates. In the entirety of Brazil these numbers are dramatically lower, with 48% of the population White and only 13% university graduates.

To expand our context a bit more, understand that Brazil's population of 200 million people is roughly 50.7% Black/Brown, and Black/Brown people make up a disproportionately larger percentage of the populace living in poverty, 70%, than they do of the overall population. Black/Brown people also make up 68% of homicide victims and 62% of the prison population. In other words, Brazil has a pretty serious race problem. In addition, according to a study by the BBC, "Brazil has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world." If we broaden our context to Brazilian history, the deep roots of that income and racial inequality are easy to see as Brazil was the last country in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery in 1888.

What does any of this have to do with John Oliver and his Brazil bit? Well, take a look at this other picture. This was taken of a family heading out to attend the anti-government protest of which John Oliver is spoke and supports.

This picture should be the Holy Grail for a rebellious liberal comedian like Oliver as it captures perfectly the hypocritical core of the protests against the left wing government. Rich, white people, with their pure-bred dog, out to protests their suffocating oppression at the hands of the left wing government with their black nanny in tow wearing her uniform, pushing their two children.  HOLY SHIT!! Is this not the kind of picture that gives a supposed liberal comedian like Brave Sir John wet dreams? I can hear his voice…"Keep up Maria!! We can't be late to the anti-government protest!! We need to oust this oppressive left-wing government which forces us to pay you a livable minimum wage!! It's for your own good Maria!! Followed by…""Maria you need to wear all whtie today so you match little Fifi, my husband and I are wearing matching green and yellow, so you should wear the same color as the dog since you and Fifi are equals in my eyes!!Viva La Revolucion!!" But Oliver never mentioned this infamous picture, nor did he ever mention the racial component (white) of the anti-government protests, or of the pro-government protests that followed (Black/Brown).

The closer you look at what Brave Sir John kept out, the curiouser his Brazil segment becomes. Another aspect that Oliver failed to mention can be found in a terrific article at The Intercept written by Glenn Greenwald, which tells us that the white, wealthy, anti-government protestors are being relentlessly egged on by the corporate Brazilian media which are owned by a small group of, not surprisingly, rich, white oligarchs with a long track record of nefarious political activities. The main culprit is a media monster known as Globo, which is basically the Fox News of Brazil. How bad is Globo? Well, in 1964 there was a military coup in Brazil which overthrew a democratically elected left wing government, just so you know, this coup was backed and funded by the U.S., another little factoid that Brave Sir John would never mention. Anyway, this coup led to over twenty years of brutal, right-wing, pro-U.S., military dictatorship which tortured, murdered, disappeared and imprisoned political opposition. This coup was fully supported by Globo and the rest of the oligarch media and their ownership of a handful of plutocratic families, which described the coup as "a noble defeat of a corrupt left wing government." If that sounds eerily reminiscent of what is going on in Brazil right now…well, it would seem with U.S. backed right wing South American coups, as with fashion, everything old is new again.

So what we have is John Oliver, a darling of the liberal class here in America, taking the side of the wealthy, white, right-wing Brazilians and their mouthpiece media monster Globo, which is basically a Portuguese language Fox News on steroids, in their attempt to overthrow a democratically elected left wing government that has, through various government programs like raising the minimum wage, lifted tens of millions our of poverty and hunger, many of those millions being the poor Black/Brown Brazilians who are now protesting in support of the government. Let that sink in for a minute. A very understated comparison would be if John Oliver were supporting the Tea Party and Fox News in an attempt to remove Obama from the Presidency because of Obamacare.

Well, you may ask…what about the corruption? There is no doubt that the terribly flawed left wing Worker's Party government of Rousseff is corrupt…but you know who else is corrupt? The right wing governments that preceded Lulu And Rousseff in office and the one that would take her place if she is impeached. In fact, according to that same article by Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept, "five members of the impeachment commission are themselves being investigated as part of the same corruption scandal that is threatening to bring down Rousseff. Of the 65 members of the House impeachment committee, 36 are currently facing legal proceedings." The right wing opposition leader who would replace Rousseff if she were impeached is Vice-President Michel Temer, who, surprise, surprise, has also been identified as having accepted bribes in the same scandal that embroils Rousseff. Hold onto your hats because, shock…the opposition Senate leader, Aecio Neves, has also been implicated five times in this same exact scandal. Another understated but apt comparison would be when during the 90's, republicans like Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston tried to impeach Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky affair, when they themselves were having affairs. In the opening of the Brazil segment, John Oliver says in a very dismissive and throw away fashion, that "the Rousseff government claims the charges are politically motivated", ummm…yeah…you think that might be a possibility? Goodness knows it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

So now we have an executive branch, president Rousseff and her predecessor Lulu, ensnared in corruption allegations, and the legislative branch tarred by the same corruption investigation, but at least the judiciary has clean hands in all of this…right? Right? RIGHT? Oh dear. Even this part of the story is rife with unbelievable corruption. Brave Sir John mentioned a "smoking gun" audiotape of a wiretapped conversation between Rousseff and Lulu that was released by the court which seems to indicate that Rouseff and Lulu were in cahoots to get Lulu protection from prosecution by making him part of her cabinet. With the help of Mr. Greenwald once again, a closer investigation of this "smoking gun" reveals that the judge who leaked the audiotape, Sergio Moro, obviously did so as a political maneuver to embarrass Rousseff and Lulu and to create the same street protests of which Brave Sir John is so enamored. A brief glance at the facts surrounding this audiotape, that Brave Sir John portrayed as powerful proof of Rousseff's and Lulu's looking guilty but which is, in reality, much more ambiguous than he claims, shows that the audiotape was illegally obtained after Moro's warrant had expired, and it was released to the media without any due process and only hours after the tape was made. This, of course, didn't stop the right wing Globo from dramatizing this "bombshell" revelation with all the journalistic integrity we have come to expect from out own 'Fair and Balanced" friends at Fox.

Oliver also mentioned that twenty judges have vowed to block Rousseff's attempt to get Lulu onto her cabinet, a move that Oliver described as an "outright revolt". It is an interesting choice of words because Oliver praises this "outright revolt" by the judiciary, but never mentions the judges connections to the upper class, white protests and the right wing opposition party. A judicial revolt is not democratic, and in fact, subverts the will of the populace in Brazil which over the last four presidential election has elected Lulu and Rousseff to the nations highest post. In the last presidential election alone, 54 million Brazilians voted for President Roussef. Would John Oliver's sycophant fans think he was so wonderful if he spoke the same way about Jstice Scalia and the Bush v. Gore decision of 200 which discontinued recounts and put the man with fewer votes, Bush, into the white house? Or the Senate republicans who are blocking Obama's Supreme Court nominee in his final year in office? Both of these pale in comparison to what is happening in Brazil right now but it gets the point across that Brave Sir John is up to no good and his liberal fans are none the wiser. 

In regards to the state-run oil company Petrobras scandal, Brave Sir John was quick to point out that the only two words more suspicious than "state-run" are "oil company". He then quickly corrected himself and gave this list of the most suspicious two word phrases…1. Open Marriage 2. Well-spoken 3. Homeopathic remedy 4. State-run 5. father-daughter 6. Oil company 7. Discount sushi. As always Brave Sir John is nothing if not "clever", but beneath this clever cloak lies a steely establishment dagger. What is this establishment dagger? Let's take a closer look.

Brave Sir John's favorite tactic is to completley ignore context when attacking any country except the U.S. In his assault on the left in Brazil, he makes the blanket statement that "State-run" is a suspicious word. Good to know…I hope his liberal sycophants in the U.S. are listening so that they understand that single payer healthcare…which would be "state-run"…is very suspicious. As are social security, medicare, medicaid, law enforcement and the military to name but a few. Also, according to Brave Sir John the question becomes…why would ANY country have a state-run oil company? To Brave Sir John that idea is utter lunacy…the implication being that those dipshit Brazilians are just idiots. This is where context would help a great deal because as with nearly every country in South America, Brazil has a very long and dark history of being raped, ravaged, pillaged and plundered by Europeans and American colonialist powers. Brazil's natural and human resources have been exploited for centuries by powerful outsider interests which subjugated much of the populace and stole most of the resources. This might be an important fact to point out when discussing the desire by Brazilians to nationalize their oil industries.

And as a supposed beacon of liberalism, Brave Sir John might also want to point out that it was U.S. multi-national companies that as recently as late last century were the ones leading the charge to exploit Brazil and its resources, and also destroying its Amazon rain forest in the process. But Brave Sir John would never do that because that would mean standing up to the Establishment which is anathema in the weak kneed world of John Oliver.

It also would have been helpful in regards to the "state-run" issue, to point out that the U.S. was behind the coup in 1964 that overthrew the democratically elected left wing government and installed a brutal right wing military dictatorship. That right wing dictatorship ruled from 1964 to 1985…which might be important piece of information if you are trying to explain why, after returning to democracy in 1986, Brazil would eventually in 2002 embrace the left wing Worker's Party and "state-run" oil companies after decades of severe right wing dictatorial rule and the exploitation by multi-national companies that came with it.

The context of the '64 coup might also be useful in understanding that not everything his what it appears to be in Brazil, namely that these wealthy, white, right wing protests might be backed by powerful foreign interests…like…I don't know…the United States, which has a very long and odious history of partaking in such covert operations in the region. 

These facts are uncomfortable for Brave Sir John because they go against the establishment narrative that he routinely espouses and vociferously defends. As does the fact that in 2013 it was revealed that the U.S. was spying on President Rousseff and intercepting her texts, emails and phone calls…which might be an indicator that they were trying to dig up dirt on her to get her removed from her democratically held office of President.

Why would the U.S. want to remove Rousseff and her left wing government from office? This is a geo-political move by the U.S. to strangle the potential economic, military, and political rival of the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) in the cradle. Removing the threat of the BRICS alliance guarantees that the world remains a uni-polar one, with the U.S. at the top, and not a multi-polar one where the BRICS are an admittedly weaker, although viable, alternative to U.S. domination. This is also why the U.S. has made covert moves against Russia in the form of the coup in Ukraine and the war in Syria. Coincidentally, or not, the moves against Putin and Russia also involved the Olympics, the 2014 Socchi Winter Olympics, which brought a great opportunity for a propaganda victory by the west over Putin. The moves against Rousseff coincide with this summer's Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

What makes the Rio Olympics interesting is that there is also a massive corruption scandal swirling around them that is centered on the same ruthless construction monopolies at the heart of the Petrobras/Car-Wash investigation that has enveloped Rousseff, but the political party involved with the Olympic corruption is the center right opposition party to the Worker's Party, so for the time being that investigation has been thwarted.

Construction magnate Marcelo Oderbrecht, whose company Odebrecht was at the heart of the Petrobras corruption, was sentenced to 19 years in prison for his role in that scandal. Odebrecht was also involved in building much of the World Cup and Olympic venues, but the company's criminality in those cases has been ignored for now. As a Rio based journalist told The Nation's Dave Zirin, " The contrcution Indistrial Complex in Brazil is similar to the Military Industrial Complex in the U.S. Instead of Haliburton and the Carlyle Group, Brazil has Odebrecht and all the rest ." Brave Sir John has taken on FIFA corruption on his show, so why not take on Olympic corruption in Rio? Why not expose the Construction Industrial Complex  and its connection to the opposition trying to take down the Worker's Party in Brazil? This seems to be fertile ground for a comedian whose legion of fans are avowed liberals, does it not?

To close out the Brazil piece, Brave Sir John in passing states that there were "pro-government rallies" as well. In his next breath he went on to the next segment. Ummm…the fact that there were "pro-government" rallies is kind of an important point, and it actually undermines the majority of the segment that preceded that acknowledgment. A closer inspection of both the anti and pro-government rallies also reveals something quite extraordinary that Brave Sir John might wanted to enlighten his audience with. Namely, that the people who dislike Rousseff and the Worker's Party are openly calling for a military coup to overthrow the government and to, in a wonderful bit of Orwellian flourish, "restore democracy". The Brazilian oligarch class is pissed off by the social changes that have taken place in Brazil during the 13 years of Worker Party rule in the country…changes like a higher minimum wage and greatly reduced poverty and hunger. As Duke University historian John French told Yahoo News, that wealthy, white Brazilians are "discomforted by the fact that people are rising to places where they're not supposed to be, for example, a lot of poor people are now flying in airplanes, which really outrages them because airports used to be an upper-class preserve. Or the tripling of the number of people going to higher education."

If this story were based in the U.S. wouldn't John Oliver and his ilk be in total support of the impoverished Black minority fighting against an uprising by wealthy white elites? The answer is, of course, yes. In fact, race would be the central issue in the story for people like John Oliver….you know how I know that…because he makes it the central issue later in the same episode with his segment on Trump's Mexican wall. But in the case of Brazil, since it has a leftist government, Brave Sir John takes the side of American corporate and foreign policy establishment interests which loathe the Worker's Party and Rousseff and Lulu, over that of its historically dispossessed and marginalized poor Black/Brown population. If anyone else were doing that, Brave Sir John would call them a racist…so what does that make him…a racist, a hypocrite and an imperial asshat?

With the Brazil segment Oliver did what he always does in regards to South and Central America, he attacked only the leftists who stand for their native people against the U.S. establishment…remember his assault on President Correa of Ecuador last season? Why would Brave Sir John, a supposed liberal, only attack South American leftists and their policy? And why wouldn't he openly declare that was what he was doing? The answer is obvious, he was covertly doing the dirty work for the U.S. establishment by inoculating his liberal audience from thinking critically about America's imperial foreign policy in the region.

Brave Sir John's modus operandi is to completely ignore context and nuance when trying too make an argument, and the Brazil story is testament to that. Oliver's turning a blind eye to the crucial context of these protests is damning and incontrovertible confirmation that he is an agent of disinformation who intentionally obfuscates the truth and deliberately misinform his audience. 

Will Brave Sir John's liberal audience actually inform themselves about the slow-motion coup taking place in Brazil and hold John Oliver accountable for being a lackey to the establishment and powerful here in America? It is doubtful, you know why? Because he distracts his intellectually self-satisfied minions by wrapping his imperial foreign policy and establishment ass kissing, in a fuzzy, warm blanket of domestic liberalism. You know how I know that? Because, in keeping with his tried and true formula, he followed up his assault on the Worker's Party of Brazil, with the delicious liberal red meat of deconstructing the reasoning and logistics of Donald Trump's xenophobic Mexican wall. The liberal establishment swooning over Oliver when he takes on Trump reaches uncomfortably pornographic proportions, so I wouldn't count on much self-refelction from that crew of mindless, yet self-satisfied dupes. 

The truth of what John Oliver is really up to with his HBO show is very clear to see for those interested in looking. When presented with the choice of siding with the wealthy, white, fascist oligarchy or the downtrodden and their very flawed leftist government, Oliver chooses the former. Time after time, when given the choice between the powerful and those fighting for the powerless, Brave Sir John chooses the powerful. While his audience are overwhelmingly avowed liberals, Brave Sir John knows where his bread is truly buttered…on the side of the establishment and empire. Well done, Brave Sir John, another episode of "Last Week Tonight" and another misinformation mission accomplished. 

UPDATE I - MAY 25, 2016

Some new information has come to light on the coup in Brazil…I am pretty positive that Brave Sir John won't do a segment on this material because it is inconvenient to his rabid pro-U.S. establishment argument. Please read the following.

RIGHT WING/FASCIST COUP IN BRAZIL

UPDATE II - JUNE 3, 2016

The hits keep on coming down in Brazil. Please read this new piece from Glenn Greenwald…another bit of information that Brave Sir John won't share on his show.

INTERIM PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL RECEIVES 8 YEAR BAN ON RUNNING FOR OFFICE

And for more information on John Oliver and Brazil, check out the new John Oliver Twist : Things Said and Unsaid 

©2016

THE JOHN OLIVER TWIST : The Drumpf Affair and Little Bill Maher's Power Fetish

ESTIMATED READING TIME: 10 MINUTES

This is the second article in our new series THE JOHN OLIVER TWIST, where we monitor tv's political comedians and hold them accountable. The original article, Court Jester as Propaganda Tool, can be found HERE.

There has been a great deal of chatter about John Oliver's latest episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight and Oliver's "masterful takedown" of all things Donald Trump. I think the episode is noteworthy, but not for the same reason others seem to think so. I believe the episode is noteworthy because it lays bare, not just the vacuousness of Donald Trump, but also the vapidity of Brave Sir John and his flaccid humor.

The problem with Oliver's Drumpfening, is not that he attacked Donald Trump, who has been a boil on the ass of America for over thirty years, but rather that he only diagnosed the symptom (the boil) and not the disease (the corrupt establishment) from which it sprang. This is John Oliver's modus operandi, he zeros in on a very specific, and frankly, insignificant issue, and self-aggrandizingly beats it death, all the while whistling past the graveyard of the bigger looming issue. It is this larger issue, the disease if you will, that needs to be addressed, ridiculed and dissected, not the superficial symptom. 

Oliver's Trump episode exposes his adamant and willful ignorance of the larger, more pressing issues from which these smaller issues come. The Egyptian economic crisis is a perfect example. Oliver made fun of Egyptian President el-Sisi and his opulent arrival via a $200,000 red carpet to an event where he tells Egyptians that there must be spending cuts to basic services in  order to save money as the country goes through economic hardship. Oliver followed up with a scathing attack on a tongue-in-cheek el-Sisi speech where he tells Egyptians that they can "sell him" in order to raise money. It was funny because it is such an obvious display of corruption and narcissism on the part of El-Sisi. Oliver rightly took the leader to task for such nonsense. What Oliver didn't do…was take the United States to task for being the ones behind putting El-Sisi into power and keeping him there.

A brief history lesson shows us that the U.S. backed the brutal dictator Hosni Mubarek for decades until he was overthrown by the "Arab Spring" protests. A democratic election followed that put the Muslim Brotherhood in charge of Egypt. This was unacceptable to the U.S. and it's ally Israel, so the U.S. quickly went about undermining the Muslim Brotherhood's government and supported a coup by another military leader in the vein of Mubarek, this time with the aforementioned nefarious narcissist General el-Sisi. So Oliver shows what a venal and delusional leader el-Sisi is but ignores how and why he got into power in the first place. Brave Sir John also fails to mention that the US is backing el-Sisi, who besides being corrupt, is a savage tyrant who tortures and brutalizes the same democratic forces we once praised in Egypt. Because if Oliver pulled that particular string of inquiry into el-Sisi and Egypt, then he begins questioning the U.S. and the establishment, and Brave Sir John  has proven that he will never, under any circumstances, take on or stand up to, the U.S. establishment in general, and its foreign policy in particular. Even though Brave Sir John wears the mask of the fearless rebel, he is actually a chickenshit sycophant whose actual job is to protect authority, never attack it.

Oliver followed the el-Sisi bit with his much adored Trump rampage. It was a very effective evisceration of the unscrupulously hollow man behind the Trump brand. But, regardless of whether you like Trump or not, there is a much deeper, and more relevant story behind him and his political rise than his obvious lies and despicable behavior. That story is…how in the hell did the Trump phenomenon even become possible in the first place?

The answer to that question is obvious to anyone with eyes to see. The political, media, financial, and corporate establishment of this country has spent years demeaning, belittling, exploiting and deceiving the populace for their own personal wealth and gain. No one trusts or should trust politicians, the government, the media, Wall Street or corporate America. The failure across the board of the establishment and its exploitation of the working class, is the fertile ground upon which the demagogue Trump gained his foothold and blossomed into a most unlikely voice for the forgotten. 

It is not without a tremendous amount of irony that a silver-spooned, self-serving billionaire has become the symbol of the exploited. As Oliver points out, Trump's whole game is just pure bullshit, but so is John Oliver's, as Trumps lies are lies of commission, while Oliver's lies are lies of omission. Oliver never even attempts to pull the Trump weed at its root, instead preferring to pluck the dandelion by its Orange-haired head, insuring that the ground from which this toxic flower blossoms will never be held to account, guaranteeing that another, maybe even more repugnant, weed will bloom from the same soil the next time around. 

Oliver's target audience, those on the political left and in the establishment, already loathe Trump with a fiery passion, so by simply taking down Trump, Oliver is just doing what he always does, reassuring his audience that they are really, really smart and superior, all the while making sure they never actually question the root causes of such problems, only their superficial existence.

Those...and please pardon the pun...Trumpeting Oliver's masterful annihilation of all things Trump are really only buttressing the trivial type of thinking from which a man like Trump can gain traction. It is a strange bit of political and intellectual Jiu Jitsu, but the reality is that Oliver's empty attack on Trump's shallowness will only reinforce the type of thinking, or more accurately, the shortcuts to thinking, that brought a man like Trump to political prominence in the first place. I doubt Oliver's minions will be self aware enough to break through their own sense of self-satisfaction to see that they are just as vacuous and mindless as the buffoons who praise and follow Trump. Both groups, those who love Trump and those who love Oliver, are embracing the easy, the simple and the thoughtless at the expense of the meaningful, the important and the sophisticated.

LITTLE BILL MAHER LOVES FELLATIO!!

A brief note on another impotent clown who wears the rebel mask but refuses to actually take on the powerful…Little Bill Maher. On Friday nights Realtime with Bill Maher, Maher shamelessly interviewed former NSA and CIA chief General Michael Hayden. The interview touched upon Hayden's new book, thoughts on surveillance and on the Apple/FBI battle over the iPhone of the San Bernadino shooters.

Little Bill Maher is, on his very best day, a third rate hack of a comedian and an intellectual dwarf. To his credit, Maher is very good at hosting "Realtime" and at keeping the show moving as his panels are usually populated by a collection of dullards so lacking in wit and insight as to be mind numbing. Watching a chimp smelling his own poop would be a vastly more entertaining and intellectually stimulating exercise.  

In keeping with Little Bill's patty cake interview style that he used with propagandists Judith Miller and Kathryn Bigelow, Maher went the extra mile last week. Fridays interview with Hayden was nothing short of pornographic as Maher spent the entire interview fellating General Hayden on live television. Little Bill empathized with Hayden for doing such a hard job and never getting credit for it. BOO-HOO. Maher said that Americans demand better intelligence after a terror attack but then want less surveillance when no attacks have occurred. To Maher this showed how Americans are coddled and stupid, something Little Bill would know a lot about since he is a spoiled pampered dipshit. Little Bill even chastised his audience for cheering Apple for taking on the FBI.

What was really great was that Maher told his audience that they have no idea what a dangerous and scary world we live in because terrorists REALLY want a nuclear bomb and to set it off in America. OH NO….WITTEW BIWW IS SCAWED!!!!  Maher sounded more like Dick Cheney's fluffer than an insurgent comedian.

Little Bill went on to say that the intelligence services only make the news when they don't stop an attack. He claimed that the NSA, CIA et al have stopped attacks, but that all of the attacks that they have stopped, and how they have "kept us safe" since 9-11, are not front page news. Maybe it isn't front page news because it isn't even remotely true. The idea that the NSA has kept us safe from any attacks and that is why they need such vast surveillance on regular Americans is a piece of steaming horse shit that has been debunked many times. Little Bill repeating that lie proves he is out to deceive, either his audience, himself, or both.

The NSA and other intelligence agencies have regularly lied to Congress and undermined our democracy by spying on ordinary Americans and on the U.S. Congress that is tasked with oversight of that same intelligence community that is doing the spying. Little Bill knows these things, but he chooses to ignore them in order to leave his pre-concoeved worldview unchallenged. Instead Maher lets his irrational hatred and fear of Muslims override the rational, easily observable facts on the subject of surveillance and the intelligence agencies.

Little Bill finished Fridays interview with the most egregious form of bootlicking imaginable when he gushed to General Hayden…"Thank you for you service." Thank you for your service? This to a man, General Hayden, who is an agent of tyranny, who has lied to congress about torture and committed numerous war crimes,  one more heinous than the next.

Little Bill Maher is a shill for the establishment elite, who uses his position to fortify authoritarians and war criminals. It is amusing that Maher is so in lock step with the intelligence community in regards to surveillance since the most animated and aggressive he has ever been on television was when he physically ejected a bunch of 9-11 Truthers from his studio audience. Maybe someone should remind Little Bill that the intelligence agencies had lots and lots of surveillance on the 9-11 hijackers, yet did nothing to stop the attacks. 

Someone should also tell Little Bill that more surveillance won't keep us safe. Being smarter about our foreign policy, and keeping our nose out of other people's business most certainly will. But that line of thinking doesn't mesh with Little Bill's nuanced world view which is Islam = Bad, US establishment = Good.  

It is mealy-mouthed cowards like Little Bill Maher that make despots like Bush, Cheney and yes, even Donald Trump possible. Brownnosing Little Bill is willing to give up all of our liberties for the straw man of perfect security. What a wonderful couple…the straw man of perfect security and the boogie man of scary Muslim terrorists, maybe Little Bill can blow both of them when he's done with General Hayden. Little Bill Maher should grow a pair of balls and stop playing the rebel while he kisses establishment ass, and start actually being the rebel by kicking the establishment in the ass.

©2016

Citizenfour : A Review and Random Thoughts

ESTIMATED READING TIME :  23 MINUTES

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act " - George Orwell

Citizenfour is the Academy Award winning documentary that chronicles whistleblower Edward Snowden's release of classified National Security Agency materials to journalist Glenn Greenwald and the ensuing NSA spying scandal. The film is directed by Laura Poitras and co-produced by Steven Soderbergh.

Edward Snowden, in case you don't know, was at the time of filming in 2013, a twenty nine year old U.S. citizen who worked as a system administrator for the National Security Agency under a sub-contract with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. It was at his job at the NSA that he surreptitiously obtained thousands of classified documents that exposed massive government spying and data collection programs. Once Snowden had taken possession of these documents, he then anonymously contacted director Poitras, and later journalist Glenn Greenwald, then of The Guardian newspaper, and set up a rendezvous in Hong Kong where he revealed the classified documents and explained their meaning and significance. The first face to face meeting took place on June 3, 2013 in Snowden's Hong Kong hotel room and the meetings continued for the next week. These meetings were filmed and make up a significant portion of Citizenfour.

In trying to disseminate the information he had gathered, Snowden had originally tried to reach out to Greenwald, but when they could not find a secure way to communicate, he contacted documentarian Laura Poitras, using the codename "Citizenfour" to protect his identity, hence the title of the film. Snowden couldn't have chosen a better film maker to document his story. I had not seen any of Poitras' work prior to Citizenfour. After seeing the film and being blown away by the sublime skills of the filmmaker, I eagerly searched out her earlier work. Both My Country, My Country (2006), about the first Iraqi election post-Saddam and The Oath (2011), about a pair of terrorists and their divergent paths, are remarkable documentaries and make up the powerful first two-thirds of what Poitras describes as her "post 9-11 trilogy" which she completes with Citizenfour.

Poitras, unlike many documentarians of our time, is notable in that she disappears behind the camera and never interjects her presence into the unfolding story. Her filmmaking confidence is highlighted by her lack of a need to direct action or explain circumstances. Poitras' minimalist presence creates documentaries that make the viewer feel like they themselves are behind the camera and, oddly enough, are eavesdropping and prying into the lives of the film's subjects. Even in Citizenfour, where she IS a part of the story, she never makes herself an obvious part of it,  but rather treats herself as just another character in the unfolding drama.

Poitras masterfully creates an ominous sense of menace lurking throughout the story of Citizenfour. This foreboding sense of menace is palpable, as is the tension. The tension building was so effective that there were times in the film when Edward Snowden would walk over and stare out the window of his Hong Kong hotel room and I wanted to yell at him "get away from the god damn window!!" While Snowden's story naturally has tension and hidden menace within it, Poitras adroitly enhances them with her use of camera framing, color scheme and temperature, and Trent Reznor's moody and eerie soundtrack.

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson

Citizenfour also excels at conveying to the viewer how colossal and invasive the surveillance and spying programs the government employs truly are. As Snowden tells us in the film, every piece of communication or information traveling over the internet or by phone is collected by the intelligence community of either the United States or the United Kingdom. Internet history, Skype, Facebook, emails, texts and a whole host of other information, are all collected, spied on and tracked. That information, including physical location through the use of cell towers, can be used to show where you have been, who you have been with, what you have done and what you have talked about. This surveillance is done in close collaboration with the technology and telecom companies. And to be clear, this is not just "meta-data" as it has been portrayed elsewhere in the media, but rather, this surveillance and data collection scoops up content as well as meta-data, and not just of foreigners but of United States citizens.

The spying programs, with names like Tempora, Prism, Special Source Operations, Boundless Informant, Stellar Wind and X-Keyscore, may seem benign or passive yet they are anything but. The scope and scale of the spying is so invasive, the intelligence gathered so vast and the government ability to misuse that information so gargantuan, that it is inconceivable to even think of ever reigning the behemoth of the surveillance state back in line. As Snowden says in the film, "This is about state power versus people's ability to oppose that power." And that is why the state will never willingly relinquish this near-omnipotent spying power. History teaches us that once a state takes a power, it never peacefully gives that power up. It will use it's ever expanding power to insure its continued existence and dominion over those who would dare dream to oppose it.  Governments and government power only expand, and never peacefully contract. This is the lesson that our founding fathers knew all too well, but it is one that our current society has forgotten in our distracted and disgraceful civic sloth.

Edward Snowden presciently says while in Hong Kong, that the media strategy against him will be to make him the story, in order to distract from the rampant government spying he has revealed. Snowden knows the playbook of the establishment and their lackeys in the media all too well.  And sure enough, when Glenn Greenwald's story breaks and Snowden shares his identity, the usual suspects in the establishment press and government come out in droves with old rusty knives drawn. By employing the tactic of focusing on his personality, the government and its lapdogs in the press hope to obfuscate and undermine the legitimacy of the information he has exposed. The establishment is all too eager to make this an emotional issue and not a rational one. They do this by trying to convince us that Snowden is simply a narcissist out for attention, or a troubled man with a checkered past, or a loser with a history of failure behind him and last but not least, a traitor, who hates and betrayed his country.

Many Americans bought into these foolish narratives hook, line and sinker, and still do. I doubt many of those opposed to Snowden would sit down and watch Citizenfour since the media has already told them what to think about the man and the situation, which is a terrible shame. The film is a powerful antidote to the venomous disinformation and distractions spewing forth from the government and establishment media. In the film, Snowden comes across as a person who loves his country very much, but doesn't trust his government. To me, that is the mark of a civic-minded, sane, reasonable, rational and logical person. Snowden seems to be an intelligent, fiercely principled and genuinely decent person, which is in stark contrast to the shills in the government and establishment press who attack him and question his motives and integrity (in my opinion, anyone working in government or establishment media questioning the integrity of ANYONE, no matter what they are accused of doing, is the height of comedy).

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison

The government claims that this vast amount of surveillance is necessary for national security and to stop terrorism. Snowden and Greenwald make a convincing case in the film  that the spying isn't just for national security but also for political, industrial and economic reasons.  For instance, the U.S. has spied on its allies, including but not limited to, officials and citizens from Germany, Brazil, France and Spain. It was even revealed that the NSA tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone for a full decade starting in 2002, even before she ever became Chancellor.

In regards to surveillance keeping us safe from terrorists, National Security Agency General Director Keith Alexander has claimed that 54 terror plots have been thwarted through these spying programs. Of course, a closer look at Alexander's claims proves them to be false, and at best, maybe one terror plot was discovered by this vast spying. Keith Alexander was lying with the 54 plots-stopped claim, but that shouldn't be a surprise, Keith Alexander is a liar, it's his job to lie. He has lied to congress and the American public, but he isn't alone, lying is par for the course for those in the government and the intelligence community when it comes to surveillance. So many intelligence agencies and officials lie about so many topics, one wonders why anyone besides their stenographers in the establishment press ever believes a word that comes out of their mouths. 

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice." - Charles de Montesquieu

Joining Alexander in lying to congress, which is a crime punishable with prison time by the way, is Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who lied to congress about surveillance. Will Alexander or Clapper be held to account for their criminal conduct? No, of course not. And neither will CIA director John Brennan, under whose leadership the Central Intelligence Agency spied upon the senate for having the temerity to actually investigate it. And neither will George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush gang for ordering torture. And neither will Barrack Obama for ordering "extra-judicial killings" of American citizens. None of these people will be held to account because the law doesn't apply to people like them, only to people like us, proving America is no longer a nation of laws, just a nation with laws. When you hear those in power pontificate about "law and order", what they really mean is "ORDER and law". To those in power, laws are meant to not only keep other people in order, but to keep the order of things where they are the ones atop the hierarchy. In their minds, "Laws and punishment for thee, but not for me!!" 

One final example of the two-tiered justice system for the elites is the recent case of General David Petreaus. Petreaus, if you remember, was the four-star darling of the neo-cons, the hawks and the mainstream media for his "surge" in Iraq, although his popularity probably had more to do with his "surge" in media glad handing and public posturing than in any battlefield success. Petreaus was then appointed the Director of the CIA, and proceeded to have an affair with his biographer with whom he shared troves of highly classified notebooks. For sharing classified materials, including the identity of agents, for no other reason than foreplay, Petreaus got a slap on the wrist in the form of losing his job but getting no jail time. But Edward Snowden reveals a massive government conspiracy of criminal spying on innocent American citizens and we get government officials openly talking about assassinating him or executing him. And people question why Snowden won't return to the U.S.?

"Speak the truth but leave immediately after" - Slovenian Proverb

Another favorite distractionary tactic by the establishment is to imply Snowden is a spy or a coward for not returning to the U.S. to face the charges pending against him. President Obama, Hillary Clinton and others have said that Snowden should have just gone through the chain of command at the NSA with his concerns and he would have gotten whistleblower protections by doing so. This is false. First, because Snowden says he did bring his concerns to his superiors and was either ignored or told to keep quiet. And secondly, because Snowden was under a sub-contract, and not an employee of the federal government, meaning he was not eligible for whistleblower status.

The other issue regarding Snowden and getting a fair trial, is that due to the law used against him, he cannot defend himself by claiming the government was committing crimes. The law, the Espionage Act, was originally meant to be used against spies, but in recent years has been used to prosecute people who have withheld information or shared information with the media. In fact, Obama has used the Espionage Act more than twice as much as all the other presidents in history…combined. What makes this all the more despicable is that Obama has used the act against whistleblowers and not spies. So much for Obama's pre-election pledge to be more transparent. It is obvious that Snowden could not get a "fair trial" under the law used to charge him, he could only give the government the opportunity for a show trial.

And as for the "spying" allegations, there is no credible evidence whatsoever that Snowden has turned over any classified information to any foreign government, including the Russians and Chinese.

"Truth is treason in an empire of lies" - Ron Paul

On Saturday, July, 20, 2013, British intelligence officials stormed The Guardian newspaper in London and demanded that the hard drives which contained the Snowden material on them be destroyed. In an act of monumental cowardice, The Guardian submitted to the request and destroyed the hard drives in front of the impatient intelligence officials.  The Guardian explained the reasoning behind their acquiescence was because of a "threat of legal action by the government". Oh no, NOT THAT!! Why not let the legal process play out? Why not force the government to actually have to prove their case in court. Even if you lose the case and have to destroy the hard drives, you still maintain your adversarial relationship with government and, more importantly, the public's trust in your journalism.

The Guardian aren't the only ones the intelligence community has bullied. Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, was detained using an anti-terrorism law at Heathrow airport by British Intelligence for nine hours and was not allowed any legal representation. Even upon Miranda's release, British officials refused to return seized possessions, including his laptop, cellphone and USB sticks.

Citizenfour director, Laura Poitras, was repeatedly held by U.S. custom officials after her film My Country, My Country came out in 2006. During the filming and editing of Citizenfour she moved to Germany in order to escape the strong arm tactic of the intelligence community.

The treatment of Miranda, Greenwald and Poitras has paled in comparison to the whistleblowers who have stayed in America and faced trial.  For example, torture is a crime according to U.S. law, but the only person prosecuted in regards to torture is the whistleblower who confirmed it, John Kiriakou, who spent nearly two years in federal prison. Other whistleblowers have been arrested and charged too, like Thomas Drake and Bradley Manning (who was sentenced to 35 years in prison and later became Chelsea Manning) as two examples, while none of the crimes and war crimes they exposed were ever prosecuted. And just note that Kiriakou, Drake and Manning were all charged under the aforementioned Espionage Act.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Edmund Burke

In the United States, "Good Citizens" allowing the police or intelligence agencies to spy upon them is anathema.  To be not only a good citizen, but a patriot, one MUST resist government intrusions. This isn't optional, it is required. According to the Declaration of Independence, it is their duty, "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government". To use a more recent quote, from V for Vendetta, "People shouldn't fear their government, governments should fear their people". 

There are those who tremble at the sight of every jihadi video and threat, and run to government to protect them from the boogie man of the day, be it God-fanatic terrorists or back in the day, God-less communists. These people should understand one thing, government is not here to protect them, it is here to protect itself.

The reality behind this instinct to defer to authority is one that has been deeply ingrained in us as children. Children rely on authority, in the form of their parents, to keep them safe, fed and alive. That hard wiring of the brain during its development in infancy, is a difficult thing for people to overcome even once they have grow up. Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, did some famous studies on the psychology of obedience in 1963. In a nutshell, Milgram's experiment tested whether regular people, when prompted by an authority figure, would give electric shocks to other people in the context of a test if they gave the wrong answer to a question. Milgram's basic conclusion states, "Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we were brought up. People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right and/or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace."

Milgram's work is in many ways relevant to this issue in that it shows people's strong, unconscious tendency towards obedience to authority. Milgram's experiments in obedience help us to understand the deep seeded psychological need some of us have to defer to authority and why some may reflexively defend government spying and decry Snowden for revealing it. 

Another psychologist, Abraham Maslow, came up with the "hierarchy of needs" theory in 1943. This theory states that people are motivated by the impulse to fulfill an unmet fundamental need. In Maslow's theory, he created a hierarchy of five needs, and one of the most important foundational needs is "safety". According to Maslow, people are motivated to satisfy their need for "safety". This "need for safety", or more accurately stated in relation to our topic, this "need for a feeling of being safe", may be another one of the psychological reasons for people to be so obedient to authority when it comes to surveillance.

In previous posts I have written about social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's excellent book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, which may also shed some light on the "obedience to authority" issue as well. In the book, Haidt hypothesizes that people can be divided in their political thought due to differing moral priorities. A few examples of the moral priority categories Haidt describes are Authority, Liberty and Fairness. So according to Haidt's approach, some people may have Authority as a greater moral priority than Fairness or Liberty. If someone is hard wired that way, it is easier to understand why they would find Snowden contemptible because he challenged and usurped authority and undermined the hierarchy. And, of course, the opposite is true as well, if someone has Liberty or Fairness as higher on their moral priorities than they would be less inclined to see anything wrong with Snowden revealing incriminating evidence against those in authority. 

In addition to Milgram's, Maslow's and Haidt's work, our old friend cognitive dissonance rears its head once again when we look at the obvious contradictory thought involved in the war on terror and civil liberties. Cognitive dissonance, if you'll recall from previous posts, is defined as "psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously" . The contradiction, or "incongruous attitude", at the heart of the war on terror is that people in power tell us that we must give up some rights, liberties and freedoms in order to protect ourselves from terrorists...who want to take away our rights, liberties and freedoms. We are told "they" (the terrorists) hate us for our freedoms, and in order to counter their attack upon our freedoms, we must reduce those freedoms. On its face this idea is absurd, to preempt a tyranny we fear so much with our own self-imposed tyranny. In order for this illogical premise to survive even the most basic scrutiny of reason, one must either contort oneself with extraordinary dexterity in order to create a willful blindness to it, or be under the unconscious sway of both cognitive dissonance and the psychological need for security in the form of Maslow/Milgram's work we touched upon previously. As a culture, it seems we would rather follow our more primitive impulses, and embrace authority and self deception in the search for that feeling of being safe, rather than the more psychologically difficult yet more evolved task of looking at these issues with the rational mind rather than the emotional one.

"It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen " - Homer Simpson

There are also those people who defend the NSA by saying "if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about". This whistling past the graveyard is little more than a short cut to thinking. Spying isn't about what you may or may not be doing wrong. Spying is about control. Spying is about defanging, declawing and defeating any and all dissent and protest. Government tyranny sees no political ideology or party. Surveillance kicked into high gear under Bush and it has gotten even worse under Obama. According to the material Snowden released, The U.S. government has over 1.2 million people on its watch list. I would be willing to bet that that government watch list includes a considerable number of people from "Occupy Wall Street" AND the "Tea Party". And if pro-spying citizens think they are safe by being "good government bullshitters"*, guess again. As history shows us, the playing field will shift, it always does, and they will eventually be on the wrong side of the goal posts.

An important thing to remember is that the intelligence community is not an elected branch of government. But they are very capable and more than willing to spy upon our elected representatives, who, of course, are outraged when it happened to them, but not so much when it happened to us. I am speaking about both my former congresswoman, Jane Harman, and my current senator Dianne Feinstein. Both of whom have spent their political careers as little more than shills for the intelligence community, but who were incensed when they learned they were on the receiving end of the surveillance they so supported when it was directed at regular citizens. In Harman's case (linked above), she showed tremendous political and moral flexibility by aiding and abetting not only the criminality of the U.S. intel community but also the Israeli intelligence community. 

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson

The intelligence community now has the capability to bully and blackmail elected officials who try to exercise their Constitutional role of governmental oversight. How can a democracy flourish when there is an unelected, unaccountable, extremely powerful group (the intelligence community) running roughshod over the Constitution which is meant to keep them in check? Technology has outpaced the ability for oversight of the use of that technology. Corruption, the human impulse for power and self preservation in government officials, make a "just trust us" approach to government powers in general, and surveillance powers in particular, an obvious act of futility, if not outright insanity. 

With an overly muscular and aggressive intelligence community and a neutered congress with no interest in oversight and a subserviently compliant establishment press, we are left with government only as an act of theater. In the final analysis, we only have the appearance of a democratic republic but not the actual practice of one.

If, as a citizen, your instinctive response is to always and every time defer to authority and mindlessly "OBEY", then you are one of those fools who have given up liberty for security, and you deserve, and will get, neither.  One should never confuse their government for their country as so many often do. "A waving flag is a blindfold for the fool." - Me

"Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it" - Emily Dickinson

Some call Edward Snowden a traitor, others a hero. Some call him a leaker, others a whistleblower. Regardless of what you call him, thanks to Edward Snowden, willful ignorance and blindness is no longer an option in regard to government surveillance. Our republic can survive another heinous terrorist attack, no matter how awful, but it cannot and will not survive the obliteration of the liberties and freedoms upon which it was built. Sadly, if the United States government continues to trample the most basic principles upon which it was founded, it does not deserve to survive, and it most assuredly will not. Snowden's decision to bring to light the crimes of the government was a last ditch effort to save the republic from itself.

In the United States of America we now have "First Amendment Zones" where protestors are 'allowed' to voice their dissent away from eyes and ears of their political representatives and fellow citizens. Government officials openly break the law by lying to congress and face no punishment. The Intelligence community spies on American citizens and other branches of government and no one is held to account. Civil liberties, which our Constitution tells us are granted by God, are now little more than a nuisance and punch line to those who have sworn to defend them. We have an executive who uses imperial powers in the form of extra-judicial killings of American citizens. Not only have we tortured and killed people in our charge, we openly celebrate the torture and the war criminals who committed it. 

Everything chronicled in the previous paragraph and in the film Citizenfour, from the spying to the lying to the lack of legal accountability, sounds like something that would happen in some backwoods banana republic or a despotic, tyrannical dictatorship. Which brings us to the only rational conclusion possible once we study all of the facts presented to us, and that is that those who still think the United States of America is a force for moral good in the world, a "shining city on a hill", have lost their mind or moral compass or, very likely, both.  One must disabuse oneself of the notion that the United States of America is anything other than, at best, an amoral imperial kleptocratic aristocracy/oligarchy or, at worst, a mentally deranged, immoral, evil empire. To think anything else in the face of the current reality is an act of extraordinary self delusion, albeit an unconsciously self preserving one in terms of psychological health. The hard, brutal truth is that America is not a "shining city on a hill" anymore, it is a plague spreading its imperial disease across the globe, suffocating freedom and liberty in its wake.

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever " - George Orwell

In conclusion, Citizenfour is an extraordinary documentary well worth your time. It would also be worth the effort to watch Laura Poitras' other films My Country, My Country and The Oath. As great a film as Citizenfour is, one can't help but feel overwhelmed by the stark and bleak reality of the dystopian world it reveals to us. The government spying leviathan will not return to its lair in the deep and its slumber any time soon. It is wide awake, voraciously hungry and here to stay. Americans, and the rest of the world, must try to navigate this perilous world under the surveillance beast's watchful eye. We will be at its cold, bureaucratic mercy for the foreseeable future. As George Orwell presciently said, "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever ". Thanks to our insidious intelligence community, and their chicken-shit apologists in the form of weak kneed politicians, access addicted establishment 'journalists' and a pliable electorate populated by feeble-minded dupes and dopes, we better get very used to the taste of boot leather. We are going to be having more than our fill of it in the years and decades to come.

© 2015

*Goodfellas

For further reading on the history of all things Edward Snowden and NSA spying. Please check out The Guardian, which has a full primer on the NSA spying including the actual files that are here and Glenn Greenwald's Guardian work here . Also check out Glenn Greenwald's new website The Intercept.

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TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE CURIOUS CASE OF CHRIS KYLE

Truth, Justice and the Curious Case of Chris Kyle

"Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night" - Bette Davis

A few weeks ago I was reading online about the defamation lawsuit filed by Jesse Ventura against former Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle. The case sounded pretty interesting, so, I borrowed from a friend a copy of American Sniper, the autobiography of Chris Kyle, and read it. It was a very compelling read.

Here is a little background on Chris Kyle and his story:  Kyle was a Navy SEAL sniper from Texas. He claims to be the deadliest sniper in American history with over 160 'confirmed' kills. Confirmed kills are defined as kills with at least one other witness besides the shooter. Kyle served four tours of duty in Iraq and was awarded two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars for Valor for his actions during the war. Upon returning to Texas after his tours of duty were over, he settled down with his wife and two kids, started a security firm and wrote a book about his experiences as a sniper. The book, American Sniper, became an instant success and propelled Chris Kyle into a sort of celebrity status. Kyle also worked helping other war veterans deal with PTSD when they returned from the war. On February 2, 2013, Chris brought a vet suffering from PTSD to a shooting range where the vet shot and killed both Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield.  

The Court Case

In the lead up to the defamation case going to trial, all of the legal experts on television and in print said that it was highly unlikely that Jesse Ventura could win the case because the bar was set very high in defamation cases concerning celebrities. According to these various experts, in order for Ventura to win he would need to prove that not only did Chris Kyle lie about him, but also prove that he did so maliciously and that he prospered from it.

Despite the very high burden of proof, on July 19, 2014, Jesse Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota, WWF wrestler, TV show host and Former Navy SEAL (technically he was in the pre-cursor to SEALs, the UDT) won a defamation lawsuit against deceased former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, author of American Sniper to the tune of $1.8 million. In the book, Chris Kyle, claimed to have punched 'Scruff-face', later identified by Kyle on both the The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel and The Opie and Anthony radio show as Jesse Ventura, in a SEAL bar in California after Ventura said some nasty things. Here is the passage in question from the book:

After the funeral, we went to a local bar for the wake proper. (for Navy SEAL and Medal of Honor winner Mike Monsoor who was killed in action in Iraq)

As always, there were a bunch of different things going on at our favorite nightspot, including a small party for some older SEALs and UDT members who were celebrating the anniversary of their graduation. Among them was a celebrity I'll call Scruff Face.

Scruff served in the military; most people seem to believe he was a SEAL. As far as I know, he was in service during the Vietnam conflict but not the actual war.

I was sitting with Ryan (a SEAL who was wounded and blinded in the Iraq war) and told him that Scruff was holding court with some of his buddies.

"I'd really like to meet him, " Ryan said.

"Sure". I got up and went over to Scruff and introduced myself. "Mr. Scruff Face, I have a young SEAL over here who's just come back from Iraq. He's been injured but he'd really like to meet you."

Well, Scruff kind of blew us off. Still, Ryan really wanted to meet him, so I brought him over. Scruff acted like he couldn't be bothered.

All right.

We went back over to our side of the bar and had a few more drinks. In the meantime, Scruff started running his mouth about the war and everything and anything he could connect to it. President Bush was an asshole. We were only over there because Bush wanted to show up his father. We were doing the wrong thing, killing men, woman and children and murdering.

And on and on. Scruff said he hates America and that's why he moved to Baja California. 9/11 was a conspiracy.

And on some more.

The guys were getting upset. Finally, I went over and tried to get him to cool it.

"We're all here in mourning." I told him. "Can you just cool it? Keep it down."

"You deserve to lose a few," he told me.

I was uncharacteristically level-headed at that moment.

"Look," I told him, "why don't we just step away from each other and go on our way?"

Scruff bowed up again. This time he swung. 

Being level-headed and calm can last only so long. I laid him out.

Tables flew. Stuff happened. Scruff face ended up on the floor. 

I left.

Quickly. 

I have no way of knowing for sure, but rumor has it he showed up at the BUD/S graduation with a black eye.

That is the story that was proven to be untrue in the court proceedings. Jesse Ventura didn't say those things to Chris Kyle or any other SEAL.  Chris Kyle did not hit Jesse Ventura. The entire episode never occurred. Or to put it another way, Chris Kyle lied. To put an even finer point on it, Chris Kyle lied to make himself look good.

Chris Kyle, The Hero Archetype and Fantastical Tales of Wonder

Having read the book, I went and did some more research of Chris Kyle and his life. The things I found were pretty astounding. If you thought the Jesse Ventura fight was a hell of a yarn, wait until you get a load of some of the other stories Chris Kyle told about himself but left out of his book. 

Chris told many people, and some reporters, that just after his return from Iraq in 2009, he was carjacked by two men at a gas station on a remote Texas highway. Chris asked the men if he could reach into his truck to get his keys, and as he did he pulled a pistol from his waistband and shot both men in the chest from under his armpit. The two men were killed instantly. Chris called the police and waited for them while leaning against his truck. The police came, Chris handed them a phone number to call at the Pentagon. The cops called the number, and the people at the Pentagon told the cops that Chris Kyle was a war hero and a Navy SEAL. The police also went inside and watched the gas station surveillance video of the incident. The cops then let Chris go on his way. Chris claimed he got emails from cops all across the country after the incident thanking him for "keeping the streets clean". Great story. Except none of it is true.  Not a word. There were no carjackers, no dead bodies, no cops, none of it. He made the whole thing up. His big mistake was then telling the story to his SEAL friend, Marcus Lutrell, author of Lone Survivor, and Marcus put the story in his second book, Service: A Navy SEAL at Work. Now it wasn't just a tall-tale, it was in the public record, and it is demonstrably a lie. The New Yorker magazine and other journalists have investigated the story. They all come to the same conclusion. There were no carjackers. There were no dead bodies. There were no cops. None of it happened. No police departments know anything about it, no coroner ever saw the bodies, no gas station had any surveillance video or ever heard of such a thing and no cops ever responded to the scene and called the Pentagon. 

The second story that was told by Chris Kyle was that he and another SEAL were sent by the government to New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Once they got to New Orleans, Chris and another sniper went to the roof of the Superdome, and started shooting looters in the city. Chris Kyle said this to many people, he also said this on tape. Chris claims to have killed thirty looters all on his own. Helluva story. Only problem is…there's not a speck of truth in it. Once again this is a total fabrication, or to put it less delicately, a complete, bold faced lie. Chris Kyle never went to New Orleans after Katrina. He never shot 'looters'. Just like with the carjackers, there are no bodies and no documentary or corroborating evidence it occurred. None. Chris Kyle lied. Again. 

Don't take my word for it...Here are two links to in-depth articles about these two stories. (New Yorker-  LINK     Washington Post -   LINK)

Taya Kyle, Chris's wife, fought in court to make sure that both of those stories were kept out of the Jesse Ventura defamation lawsuit because she didn't want her husband to be "labelled a liar". Smart woman. The stories were kept out of the lawsuit, and yet, incredibly, Ventura still proved Kyle was lying about the bar room fight (or non-fight, as it turned out).

These stories are so fantastical that only a true believer could ever think them anything other than fairy tales. So the question becomes, why would Chris Kyle tell such patently absurd stories? 

Rambo, Red Meat, and the Spitting Protestors Canard

Chris Kyle told other lies as well, but these he put in his book. They are smaller lies compared to the car jacking and Katrina stories, but they are important nonetheless because they show a pattern of lies and embellishment that is troubling. One lie is about when Chris first went to deploy for Iraq. Here is the passage from the book:

Generally, when SEALs go out for a deployment or come back, we do so very quietly - that's the nature of special operations. There are usually few people around except for our immediate families; sometimes not even them. In this case, because of when I was heading out, it happened that I passed a small group of protestors demonstrating against the war. They had signs about baby killers and whatever, protesting the troops who were going over to fight.

Great story. It really is. We have poor Chris Kyle was going off to war to fight for our freedoms and he had to go past these assholes calling him a baby killer. That would be pretty infuriating…except…it isn't true. It never happened. There may have been protestors, but none of them had "baby killer" signs or were protesting the troops. This is at worst pure fantasy, at best a great embellishment. San Diego and Coronado, California are very pro-military areas. There are huge populations of active service and retired military people living there. A protestor with a "baby killer" sign would stick out like a sore thumb. That would also make not only the local news, but national news. And other vets would have reported the same thing on their own websites or chat rooms. None of that happened. There is no reporting, or evidence that there were ever any protestors with "baby killer" signs anywhere near San Diego or Coronado California. Or anywhere else for that matter.  Never. Nor were there any pictures taken of those signs or news reports about them. Chris Kyle lied again. 

This lie is not a new one, it is really just an urban myth from the Vietnam era, popularized by a monologue in the Sylvester Stallone film, First Blood. In his speech Stallone's character, Vietnam veteran John Rambo says, "And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting. Calling me baby killer!" Sound familiar? Yes, just like American hero, John Rambo, Chris Kyle was called baby killer by protestors. This doesn't pass the smell test. It didn't happen to John Rambo because he isn't a real person, and it didn't happen to Chris Kyle either because it is factually untrue. As for the spitting protestor canard, please read the book The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and Legacy of Vietnam by Jerry Lembcke. His book dismantles the myth of the vicious Vietnam war protestor spitting on the poor, returning vet. Here is a link-  LINK.

We Found Them!!

Another lie Chris Kyle tells in his book is about those pesky missing WMDs. Here is the passage:

At another location, we found barrels of chemical material that was intended for use as biochemical weapons. Everyone talks about there being no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they seem to be referring to completed nuclear bombs, not the many deadly chemical weapons or precursors that Saddam had stockpiled.

Maybe the reason is that the writing on the barrels showed that the chemicals came from France and Germany, our supposed Western allies.

What a groundbreaking story. This is interesting insight from someone who was there and can tell us first hand. Except of course, it is all a lie. Completely fabricated. Totally untrue. There were no barrels of WMD, and the story wasn't covered up because it would offend our allies France and Germany. The story couldn't be covered up because it never happened. This is something that can be easily checked and verified. You can do it yourself. I did. It is a lie. There is no proof or evidence that this incident occurred. Even if you simply apply logic and reason, this story crumbles. The US would gladly embarrass the French over WMDs. Remember the "Freedom Fries" nonsense? The French were our national punching bags for years because they didn't "back us in Iraq". If we had the chance to rub their "cheese-eating-surrender-monkey" noses in it, we certainly would have taken it.

So why would Chris Kyle lie about shooting car jackers and looters, and "baby killer" signs and WMDs? The answer is two-fold. Firstly, he did it to reinforce his status as a hero. Chris Kyle embodied the Hero Archetype. His fans would be the first to tell you this. He was a hero for fighting for his country, he was a hero for killing so many Iraqis, he was a hero for saving American lives. This is his story, and it's the story he tells in American Sniper, and it is why he is beloved by so many. But, like all archetypes, the Hero Archetype has a life of its own. Chris Kyle was submerged in it and overcome by it. He even says in his book that he felt "invincible". It could be easy to see how he would be swept away by all the hype and praise and glory. He knew he didn't kill any car jackers or looters, but he could have…and that was all that mattered in his mind. He BELIEVED that he did, even while he KNEW that he didn't. The archetype made him BELIEVE it, his rational mind KNEW it was false, but the rational mind almost always takes a back seat when the archetype is in town.

The following is the definition of the Hero Archetype: "HERO: He is a character who predominantly exhibits goodness and struggles against evil in order to restore harmony and justice to society".  That is the Rambo story. That is also the story of Chris Kyle, or to be more exact, that is the story Chris Kyle tells, to us and, more importantly, to himself.

So why the other lies about the "baby killer" signs and the WMDs? This is simply, in a storytelling and narrative sense, to reinforce the hero's struggle by giving him multiple foils and also to give context to his journey. As a storytelling device, these lies do two things for Chris. One, they make him a sympathetic figure who overcomes not only physical danger in the form of enemies on the battlefield, but also gives him a spiritual strength by making him a martyr for fighting to protect people who hate him. Secondly, the stories make him out to be 'The Truthteller'. Chris Kyle knows the REAL truth, and he is the only one brave enough to actually tell it.  Kyle's 'Hero journey' was not only against the evil hordes of Iraqis and Muslims, both of whom he calls "savages" in his book, but against the evil opposition back home in the form of anti-war people, Jesse Ventura being a prime example. The protestor and WMD lies are about feeding red meat to a certain segment of the population, people who are not only pro-war, but anti-liberal. These folks buy a lot of books, as Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly can attest. The stories and lies Chris Kyle told were the juicy, delicious red meat of which they dream. Chris Kyle became a hero to them not only because he killed lots of Iraqis, but also because he had slain all sorts of uncomfortable factual dragons as well. In other words, Chris Kyle told people what they wanted to hear, and those people loved him for it. How many people heard Kyle tell the story of punching Ventura and thought, "Yes, finally somebody shut that loud mouth up!". He proved to these folks that, "Yes! Anti-war people DO hate the troops, just like I thought all along". And "Yes, there WERE WMDs in Iraq…SEE…BUSH WAS RIGHT!!! I WAS RIGHT!!" Except, of course, they weren't, and we know that now. But Chris Kyle let these people live in a world of fantasy and call it reality. He was very good at doing that sort of thing, especially with himself.

The Usual Suspects

What has been interesting in the aftermath of the verdict against Chris Kyle is that the media has gone into hyper-drive in attacking Jesse Ventura, and not Chris Kyle. Kyle is a proven liar, yet no one talks about that. They all talk about how could Jesse Ventura sue a poor widow. I find this baffling. What is even more baffling, and frankly appalling, is how they so thoroughly misrepresent the facts of the case and misinform the populace.

Anderson Cooper, of CNN, proved once again there is no depth so low that his journalistic integrity won't sink to it, when he said of Ventura, "Has he no shame?" Cooper had nothing at all to say about Chris Kyle and his lying, and made no mention of the very public and provable other lies Kyle told besides his Ventura lie. Shouldn't the question be, "Chris Kyle, have you no shame?", but it isn't. Proving once more, that truth has no meaning for Anderson Cooper. 

The question becomes…why isn't the media up in arms over Chris bullshitting them? Remember when Oprah had a conniption when she discovered author James Frey had lied to her about his book A Million Little Pieces? Why aren't the media directing their venom at Chris Kyle for having lied to make himself out to be more than he was, rather than attacking Jesse Ventura? The answer, of course, is that the media is in the same business as Chris Kyle…the "giving people what they want" business. Watch and listen, if you dare, to these three fine examples of journalistic integrity over at "Fox and Friends". WARNING: Steve Doocey Alert .

Every media outlet, all the cable channels and every other talking head, is saying how disgusting Ventura is, and not saying a word about Chris Kyle except to call him a hero. The question from everyone is, "Jesse…why won't you give the money back to this widow?" As opposed to being, why did Chris Kyle lie about this incident to enrich himself and what other lies has he told? Everyone is up in arms that Ventura would "sue a widow". The facts of the case are, he sued Chris Kyle, and then Kyle died in the lead up to the trial. All along Ventura said he'd drop the suit if Kyle just retracted the statement. Kyle wouldn't do that. He decided to stick to the lie, then tragically, Kyle was killed. Why is that Ventura's problem? Ventura didn't lie, Kyle did.

Watch this CBS This Morning interview with Ventura the day after the court decision. Notice how dismissive and oppositional all the questioners are.

Notice in particular the "journalist" , and I use that term very very loosely, Norah O'Donnell, being intentionally obtuse and misstating the facts of the case…"there WAS an argument... correct?". No Norah, there wasn't, THAT IS WHY WE HAD A TRIAL!! You beautiful, yet vacuous dipshit!

Heads I win, Tails You Lose and the Magic of the Rearview Mirror

The other thing talking heads and writers have been saying of Jesse Ventura is that he should have "dropped the lawsuit when Chris Kyle died, then he could have saved his reputation!" Or "Ventura sued to save his reputation but has damaged it by winning the lawsuit against a widow!". This sort of logic is a shortcut to thinking. If Ventura had dropped the lawsuit people wouldn't say "Oh, what a great guy", instead they wouldn't say anything at all and would still despise Ventura for his 'conspiracy theories'. Then they would recall how Chris Kyle punched him out for bad-mouthing America, and when Ventura would say that wasn't true, these same talking heads would say, "Well, if it weren't true you should have sued for defamation!!" This is how the game works. Heads they win, tails you lose. As my grandmother used to say, "damned if you do, damned if you don't." The same thing would have happened if Ventura dropped the suit when Chris Kyle was killed. The media likes to play the game of hindsight with everyone except themselves.

Charity Begins at Home and The Money Trail

One final lie that has been told ad nauseam, is that Chris Kyle and his family donated all the proceeds from the sale of the book American Sniper to families of vets. The Kyle's say that 100% has gone to charities that support other vet families. This is an out and out lie, and a really despicable one that is repeated constantly by the corporate media. The truth is…the family has only given 2% of the profits to charity. The profits from the book belong to the Kyle family, and they should do with them what they please, but what they shouldn't do is tell people they are giving the money away in order to look good, while they in fact keep the money. The Kyle family has made over $6 million from the book, and that number will increase with further book sales and from an upcoming movie starring Bradley Cooper and directed by Clint Eastwood. So why isn't the corporate media up in arms over Chris Kyle and his wife lying repeatedly about the profits and proceeds from the book? Instead of asking Jesse Ventura why he doesn't give the money he is owed back to the Kyle family, why not ask the Kyle family why they keep lying about giving money to vets when they don't?

To further inform yourself, please read this really thoughtful and smart article over at The New Republic that give the facts of the case and dispel the myths that the media is selling. LINK

I Come To Bury Truth, Not To Praise It

Truth has become the enemy in America. It is hated and despised. The people who hate the truth the most are the ones who are in power. That is why the media is so quick to heap vitriol upon Ventura and not question the legacy of Kyle. Lies are celebrated. Lies are tonic for the ills that truth reveals. You never saw anyone taken to task for lying about the Iraq war. No one, not a government official, or a pundit or a journalist or a media personality, lost their job over lying about or being wrong about Iraq.

The lies that the media has wrapped itself in for the sake of ingratiating itself to power are easily observed. In regards to the Iraq war alone, the fellating of power by the media, and by the public, is amazing and easy to see. First we had the march to war…the lies Bush and company told about WMDs and Iraq's involvement in 9-11. Then we had the farce of the Jessica Lynch story, which Chris Kyle repeats in his book without the slightest regard to the truth. Then we have the charade of the death of Pat Tillman, a true American hero, who is violated and desecrated in death by the same government and media that duped him into serving in the first place.

This is why the media hates Jesse Ventura in particular. Ventura was vociferously against the Iraq war. He was right, and the corporate media, and most of the public, were wrong. They were either duped or complicit, but Ventura saw through the smokescreens. He is also a 9-11 Truther. This drives the corporate media and establishment types batty. It is a direct assault on their authority. It is sort of amusing and ironic that the term "Truther" has become derogatory in the media and in America. Telling the truth, or asking questions looking for it, is a sure fire way to get on the wrong side of the corporate media, Jesse Ventura is living proof of that.

Watch the news clips above, and search out others, and notice something…no one…not a single person, is interested in the truth. The truth is never mentioned, never alluded to, never a consideration. Truth is the real victim in this case. Truth is the forgotten one. The old Superman slogan was , "Truth, Justice and the American Way". Notice how, if you look closely at that saying, it is clear that "truth and justice" are not the same thing as the "American Way". And so it is.

The Righteous Mind, Cognitive Dissonance and The Suspension of Disbelief

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who wrote an interesting book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. In it, he describes the things that people believe are their greatest moral priorities. The six categories are Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Liberty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation. For example, liberals may think that Fairness is the most important thing to them morally and conservatives may think that Loyalty is the most important thing to them morally. It is an interesting idea, and it comes into play with the Chris Kyle story. The one thing that does not appear on the Moral Foundations category list is…The Truth (honesty). 

If The Truth were an option for moral priorities, it would not come in first for either liberals or conservatives. Try having a discussion with a liberal about Obama or race, for instance, and you will quickly find out that The Truth comes in a very distant third to fairness and care. Conservatives, at least in my experience, put both authority and loyalty above The Truth. I spoke with a conservative friend of mine recently and he talked about wanting to talk in public about some semblance of The Truth, but in the next breath he said he could "never bad mouth his country". This sort of thinking and struggle is too common, people have an interest in The Truth, just not when The Truth conflicts with another, more importantly held belief, and most certainly not when The Truth can make them either uncomfortable or unpopular, which it often can. People will do all sorts of logical and moral gymnastics to maintain their belief system and world view and to keep The Truth at arms length. 

Cognitive Dissonance is "psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously". People will contort in all sorts of ways to avoid seeing the uncomfortable truth that is right in front of their eyes and facing that conflict. So we have an American war hero who you may feel is beyond reproach because of his service, and yet he is proven a liar in a court of law. So you lash out, either at Ventura, or the jury, in order to reject the new information that clashes with your strongly held belief in Chris Kyle. What usually occurs when people are presented with new information that clashes with their strongly held belief, is that they "seek to preserve their current understanding of the world by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding the new information or by convincing themselves that no conflict really exists." 

A personal example, years ago in the 1990's, I was having a conversation with an older friend, someone twice my age. We were talking politics and he was talking about how much he respected and admired George H.W. Bush (The 41st President, not Dubya, the 43rd). I asked why he admired him and he said "because he is a self made man!". I thought this strange, and told him that George H.W. Bush was a lot of things, but a "self-made man" was not one of them. He vehemently disagreed and asked what proof I had of that. I told him that George H.W. Bush was the son of a senator, and not just any senator, but Prescott Bush, one of the most powerful senators of his time, and also a very powerful banker. I also told him that the Bush family was one of the most powerful and richest families in the country and had been for a long time. I told him that calling George H.W. Bush a self made man was like calling John F. Kennedy a self made man, or better yet, Teddy Kennedy. The man gave me a look of disdain and told me in not so many words, that I was full of it (he hated the Kennedy family no end). "Bush wasn't the son of a senator, he came up the hard way and made a life for himself", the man told me. The guy got pretty indignant about the whole thing and was positive he was right. A little more background on this friend, he wasn't a Johnny come lately to the Bush train, he had supported Bush back in 1980 in the republican primary against Reagan. He was a huge Bush supporter. So I told him I'd go home and look it up. So I looked it up and sure enough, George H.W. Bush is the son of a powerful senator who was also a banker. I told my friend the news, and his response was fascinating, he simply said…"but Bush is a self made man". I was left scratching my head. First off, how could such a strong supporter of Bush (41) not know he was the son of a senator? Secondly, how could that same person simply ignore the evidence of that fact and continue to believe what he believed before? The answer is obvious, it is the power of cognitive dissonance. The man didn't know that fact because it didn't fit into his narrative of who Bush (41) was (his strongly held belief) and was an inconvenient fact (new information that challenged his strongly held belief), so he was unconsciously blind to it in order to avoid or reduce his mental and emotional conflict. Secondly, he didn't want to change his narrative once the new information was blatantly obvious because that would take some great effort, so he simply ignored it again, this time consciously, and went back to his previously held belief in order to avoid mental and emotional angst. This man should fear not though, he is not alone, for we all have our blind spots, and as the term 'blind spots' suggests, we can see them in other people, but rarely see them in ourselves.

Suspension of disbelief is "a willingness to suspend ones critical faculties and believe the unbelievable, sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment." Suspension of disbelief is usually spoken of in reference to watching a movie, for instance, we know that Sandra Bullock isn't really in danger in outer space, but we suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy it for entertainment purposes. People do this constantly and consistently in regards to real life as well. Read the stories Chris Kyle told in his book and elsewhere. Read the alleged 'Jesse Ventura fight'. If you are a fair minded, independent observer of those stories, don't they come across as absolutely, and obviously false? Don't they seem to be blatantly made up and absurd? When I first read the Ventura part of the book, I thought…"well, that story is a hunk of horseshit". I've been in a few bar fights and seen a few more. That story is such blatant, self-serving nonsense that only the most die-hard true believer could ever buy it. People suspend their critical thinking, or 'suspend their disbelief' in order to 'preserve their current understanding of the world' and 'reject the conflicting information'.

For instance, if you think it is totally believable that Chris Kyle was sent to New Orleans by the US government and ordered to shoot US citizens, and yet you think Jesse Ventura is a loon for saying the US government capable of killing its own citizens on 9-11, then you may suffer from a form of cognitive dissonance. In order to diminish the mental conflict of these opposing beliefs, you will suspend your disbelief for the story about Chris Kyle yet maintain what you consider 'critical thinking' about the Jesse Ventura story. Another example might be if you believe that Chris Kyle shot two car jackers and officials made the bodies disappear and there is no record of it at all, yet you think that it is impossible for any conspiracy to prosper because 'no one would keep their mouths shut', then you may suffer from cognitive dissonance, and you might treat the malady with a small dose of suspension of disbelief applied in just the right area, the 'car jackers' story, in order to maintain your previously held worldview.

People need to believe, because without that belief, whether it be in their heroes, their country, their church, their world view, their ideology, their political party, or their own goodness, they will crumble. They MUST believe in order to be able to face the day. If their belief system is shown to be a fraud, they wouldn't have anything to stand upon, and everything about them would be a lie, and that would mean they would be mentally and emotionally obliterated. Their identity would be shattered. They would cease to exist. Without their belief system/identity, they are nothing, they are cast into the dark abyss, the void of 'not knowing'. That is a frightening prospect for most people.

We as humans need to bend reality in all sorts of bizarre ways in order to be able to survive and keep our psyche in tact. We ignore some things, and focus on others, all in an attempt to make 'reality' fit what we want it to be. We suspend our disbelief so that we can be loyal to our country, or our president or whatever is important to us. We hold contrasting beliefs and attitudes simultaneously in order to make our belief system make some sort of sense to us internally, even when it makes no sense externally. This is the human condition. It is not a disease that only infects those of a certain political party or religion, it is a disease that infects mankind, and it is epidemic.

So we create American Heroes to convince ourselves that we, as a country and as a people, are good. We are the moral ones in the world. Bush wouldn't lie because he's the type of guy you want to have a beer with. Jessica Lynch was held hostage by those filthy, Iraqi, Muslim hordes who are savages…except she wasn't. She was saved by Iraqis who saw a young woman terribly injured and brought her to a hospital and cared for her. Pat Tillman was a true American hero who gave his life saving his comrades and fighting for America and against Al-Qaeda, except he really was gunned down in a terrible case of friendly fire and had serious doubts about the missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Chris Kyle punched that no good 9-11 truther Jesse Ventura out in a bar because he badmouthed America and the troops. Except Ventura never said those things and Chris Kyle never did those things. Just like there were no filthy hippie protestors with "baby killer" signs, and there were no WMDs that Chris Kyle and Chris Kyle alone found in a basement in Iraq. Just like he didn't shoot two car jackers in the middle of nowhere Texas, and he didn't shoot looters in the aftermath of Katrina. None of those things are true…but that doesn't mean there aren't people who desperately need them to be true.

The Manichean and the Search for Empathy

A Manichean philosophy is one that sees the world in black and white. With the Manichean there is no gray area. Things are either good or evil, you are either with us or against us. Chris Kyle spells out very clearly in his book that he sees the world in black and white. This is a sensible and logical way to look at the world for a soldier in combat. You are trying to kill your enemy, your enemy is trying to kill you. I am good, he is bad. A war zone is a tough place for nuance to make a living. So for Chris Kyle, all the Iraqis are savages and evil. He doesn't like Muslims either. To make things clearer he gets a crusader cross tattooed on his arm. Message sent and received. He is good, his enemies are bad. Black and white. While a Manichean philosophy can serve you well in wartime, it can have its drawbacks in peace time. For instance, if you view the world as black and white, that means if someone tells a lie, then they are a liar. Liars are bad people because lying is wrong. If we hold Chris Kyle to the same standard he holds the rest of the world then some uncomfortable things come into question.

The Jesse Ventura story Chris Kyle told is a lie. I have also pointed out the other lies he has told. The uncomfortable question about Chris Kyle now is…did he lie about anything else? We don't know the answer to that question. Kyle claims to be the deadliest sniper in American history. He claims to have 160 'confirmed' kills (as stated before, 'confirmed' kills are kills witnessed by another soldier besides the shooter). That statistic has not been confirmed in any way by the US Navy or Pentagon. It would be very helpful if the Navy at least released some information about the kills and whether they really happened or not. There are other uncomfortable questions that we can probably never get the answer to. Namely, of the kills Chris Kyle actually does have, how many of them were "good" kills. Did he kill innocent people. He was questioned about shooting an Iraqi man who Chris claims had a weapon, but who witnesses claim only had a Koran. Maybe Chris was telling the truth about that incident, but as we have seen, Chris' version of the truth, and the actual Truth can often times be two totally contradictory things.

It has been proven in court that Chris Kyle lied about someone else to make himself look good and to enrich himself. Does that mean he was a bad father? A bad husband? A bad son? Does it mean the work he did with fellow veterans suffering from PTSD wasn't a good, kind and noble thing to do? Does it mean he wasn't a good friend and comrade to his brothers in arms? Does Chris Kyle being a liar mean that Chris Kyle is a bad person? If Chris Kyle answered that question about someone else, he would say "Yes", at least according to his own acknowledged Manichean world view. I see things differently. I don't think people are the worst thing they have ever done. I think we are all deeply flawed human beings struggling to make our way in a confusing and frightening world. I think Chris Kyle lied about a lot of things. I also think Chris Kyle did a lot of good for veterans who were suffering and struggling upon their return to 'the world'. I think Chris Kyle was probably a great dad, and a great husband, a fantastic son and a terrific comrade in arms. I don't think he was a terrible human being…I think, like all of us, he was a terribly human - being. I wish Chris had lived long enough to be able spend some time in the 'gray area', and to see others in all their contradictions and complexity.

Truth is Beauty, Beauty Truth

The uproar over the last few days, the knee-jerk reaction to the verdict, the vitriol spat on Jesse Ventura and the national sainthood bestowed upon Chris Kyle were all very predictable. In America emotion rules the day. Instant gratification means we have an impulse and we have to follow it. Facts, truth and reason have no place in our current culture, except as objects of ridicule and scorn. We know what we know and we know it is right because we FEEL it is right. We would rather shout someone down than go inward and question ourselves, our beliefs, our worldview, because God forbid we are wrong, then the whole house of cards will tumble and no one wants that.

I've been wrong many, many times in my life. I don't mean kind of wrong, or misspoke a fact or something. I mean spectacularly, horrifically and catastrophically wrong. There have been a few times in my life when I have discovered, much to my chagrin, that everything I know is wrong. Everything. It is a pretty disconcerting thing to find that out. Truth be told it is earth shattering. It leaves you seriously out of balance and frankly in a state of despair. The one benefit of having been through those experiences though, is that it has left me with a hunger for the Truth above all else. The Truth about the world and the Truth about myself. I cherish Truth over loyalty, authority, fairness and care. Which I guess makes me neither a liberal or a conservative.  Having survived the 'everything you know is wrong'  apocalypse also helps you see through the bullshit that is often being sold to you, particularly by the media.  The bullshit the media spews out piles up so fast you need wings to stay above it.* If your loyalty is only to the Truth, you will see the world in a vastly different way. It can be a pretty isolating and difficult thing to do, but it is better than lying to yourself. Or at least it is to me. That is not to say that I have some ownership of the Truth, not at all, believe me. The Truth is just as elusive to me as it is to anyone else. And it can be just as uncomfortable to me as it for anyone else. Hell, I didn't want to write a blog piece talking bad about Chris Kyle. I'm sure I'll get a bunch of angry emails from his fans calling me all sorts of names. But the truth is the Truth, and I feel like I need to speak it, even when it is unpopular, or maybe particularly when it is unpopular.

My one hope is that the people who are attacking Jesse Ventura, and who are reflexively defending Chris Kyle, can step back and not only take a closer looks at the facts of the case and facts about the man himself, but also take a deeper look into themselves, and let their loyalty be to the Truth and not to their preconceived notions.

Final Thoughts

The fans of Chris Kyle say he is an American Hero. They say he is the embodiment of all that is good about this country. I actually slightly disagree with that. I think Chris Kyle is not the perfect American, but rather the perfect embodiment of America. He was brave, yet a bully. He was selfless, yet selfish. He was humble, yet a braggart. He was brilliant, yet dense. He was a bullshitter, yet sincere. He was heroic, yet cowardly. He was the perfect embodiment of America in all of its manic contradictions and hypocrisies. And as the court case has proven, Chris, in the true American fashion, was more interested in marketing himself than in telling the Truth.

So I sincerely ask you to keep Chris Kyle, his comrades, both fallen and those still with us, and their families in your thoughts and prayers. And also keep the millions of Iraqis, both friend and foe, alive and dead, in your thoughts and prayers as well. But also try and take time to stop and remember...the Truth.

One Final Final Thought

I realize that many people may be upset, or angry or offended by this piece. This is a topic which causes emotions to run very high and for people to take great offense. You may not like what I have written and you may hate me for having written it. That is your prerogative.

You may also think that Chris Kyle and I have nothing at all in common. You would be wrong about that. A few days before Chris was tragically killed, he posted this on his Facebook page, "If you don't like what I have to say or post, you forget one thing, I don't give a shit what you think. LOL".

Couldn't have said it better myself, Chris. Rest in Peace.

*Apocalypse Now

© 2014

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