Aaron Maté: "It looks like Luke Harding has logged off."

[MacCruiskeen]

https://youtu.be/9Ikf1uZli4g (link added on edit)

Aaron Maté, admirable son of an admirable father.

[JackRiddler]

This video was a beast.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Excellent interview.

Perfect snapshot/microcosm of the discourse on the collusion topic.

Those taken by the rabble-rousing/smoke (in affirmation of their pre-set notions) vs. those seeking substantive evidence of collusion, which has yet to be presented.

[JackRiddler]

.

Providing evidence has never been the point. This is an attempt, which I believe has come together largely through instinct and desperation, to restore a hegemonic view of a global-ideological enemy that provides a meaningful struggle for the nation as a whole to engage. It's supposed to be everywhere, this Russian thing, controlling everything. It's a global, universal explanation for 20,000 different things going on in the West as neoliberalism transitions into feudalism and fascism rises as the prospective next phase, already several stages along. Today I even read an analysis of why Kavanaugh is in reality Putin's pick. Bet you didn't see that one coming. Ha. Every new damn thing that happens gets sorted into the same pattern. Total denial of homegrown reality. But if the first time of Russia as enemy (and the second, and the third) were all as tragedy, now the true farce has arrived. The narrative is fascinating for having achieved such a strong and monofocal consensus far into the power elite, while carrying along such a thin slice of the population. It's got all the non-FOX-type corporate media in its grip, and yet most people are not even aware of it. Everyone knows and most despise every move Trump makes, but they're not scanning the Russia story. It has its fans, who are very dedicated to it, and beyond them interest in it falls off the cliff. Its stones sink without causing ripples. It is also not a very large element within "the resistance" to Trumpian politics, which is widespread and focused on mostly real and pressing issues. It's hardly an element in the electoral pasting that the Republicans appear set to receive (insha allah), which is all about wealth inequality and the violent rhetoric of the Trump regime. It's pretty clear that not even Mueller believes in it; as a prosecutor who likes to win, he is pursuing indictable but unrelated crimes. In the history of the American system there has probably never been such a complete disjunction between power elite and corporate media on the one side, and majority population on the other. These people are also usually among those lamenting the insulated, self-reinforcing worldview bubbles we are all supposedly trapped in through social media and tech, which cause "polarization" and prevent wonderful things like the "unity" and "civility" that "Americans" supposedly used to enjoy. In this, they are projecting their own experience, offering up the most advanced example of the bubble phenomenon. In their frustration they may soon turn to attacking the majority who persist in not giving a shit about the supposed Russian interference as "vulgarians," a term that they circulated back when the majority didn't much care about the Clinton-Lewinsky-Starr affair. The establishment had conniptions about that. But back then everyone was talking about the show, even if they didn't care. Now, it's as though it's not even happening. Trump's dick (another parallel) is more of a Twitter trend. It's like the biggest failed psychological operation ever, acting primarily on its operators.

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[Belligerent Savant]

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Providing evidence has never been the point.

Quite right. My drive-by comment was intended as a reference to the arguments made by those 'receiving' the narratives (the consumers) rather than those manufacturing them.

It's like the biggest failed psychological operation ever, acting primarily on its operators.

Indeed. Difficult to resist rubber-necking at the spectacle.



"H.L. Mencken said the word rubberneck is 'almost a complete treatise on American psychology' and 'one of the best words ever coined'."
The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech
https://books.google.com/books?id=j41z0 ... ng&f=false

[MacCruiskeen]

The future Sir Luke Harding, sweating and floundering, his grin a rictus, desperate to log off:

You're a collusion-denialist.

That's telling 'im, Luke. Don't mince words.

Mr Harding is currently writing a book about how the evil Russians colluded evilly to fail to kill the Skripals by spraying perfume on their doorknob. (Working title: The Knob That Failed.) Should be worth an MBE at least.