The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

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The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby Belligerent Savant » Fri Sep 07, 2018 9:11 am

.

Per our pal C. Johnstone, reproduced in full below.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/we-a ... d6516f82a3




We Are Being Played

If any evidence existed to be found that Donald Trump had illegally colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election, that evidence would have been picked up by the sprawling surveillance networks of the US and its allies and leaked to the Washington Post before Obama left office.

Russiagate is like a mirage. From a distance it looks like a solid, tangible thing, but when you actually move in to examine it critically you find nothing but gaping plot holes, insinuation, innuendo, conflicting narratives, bizarre mental contortions to avoid acknowledging contradictory information, a few arrests for corruption and process crimes, and a lot of hot air. The whole thing has been held together by nothing but the confident-sounding assertions of pundits and politicians and sheer, mindless repetition. And, as we approach the two year mark since this president’s election, we have not seen one iota of movement toward removing him from office. The whole thing’s a lie, and the smart movers and shakers behind it are aware that it is a lie.

And yet they keep beating on it. Day after day after day after day it’s been Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. Instead of attacking this president for his many, many real problems in a way that will do actual damage, they attack this fake blow-up doll standing next to him in a way that never goes anywhere and never will, like a pro wrestler theatrically stomping on the canvass next to his downed foe.

What’s up with that?


In Opinion

In an anonymous Op-Ed, a senior Trump administration official says he and others are working ​to frustrate the president’s “misguided impulses.” https://nyti.ms/2Q6wEiP
12:51 PM - 5 Sep 2018
Image



As you doubtless already know by now, the New York Times has made the wildly controversial decision to publish an anonymous op-ed reportedly authored by “a senior official in the Trump administration.” The op-ed’s author claims to be part of a secret coalition of patriots who dislike Trump and are “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” These “worst inclinations” according to the author include trying to make peace with Moscow and Pyongyang, being rude to longtime US allies, saying mean things about the media, being “anti-trade”, and being “erratic”. The possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment is briefly mentioned but dismissed. The final paragraphs are spent gushing about John McCain for no apparent reason.

I strongly encourage you to read the piece in its entirety, because for all the talk and drama it’s generating, it doesn’t actually make any sense. While you are reading it, I encourage you to keep the following question in mind: what could anyone possibly gain by authoring this and giving it to the New York Times?

Seriously, what could be gained? The op-ed says essentially nothing, other than to tell readers to relax and trust in anonymous administration insiders who are working against the bad guys on behalf of the people (which is interestingly the exact same message of the right-wing 8chan conspiracy phenomenon QAnon, just with the white hats and black hats reversed). Why would any senior official risk everything to publish something so utterly pointless? Why risk getting fired (or risk losing all political currency in the party if NYTAnon is Mike Pence, as has been theorized) just to communicate something to the public that doesn’t change or accomplish anything? Why publicly announce your undercover conspiracy to undermine the president in a major news outlet at all?

What are the results of this viral op-ed everyone’s talking about? So far it’s a bunch of Democratic partisans making a lot of excited whooping noises, and Trump loyalists feeling completely vindicated in the belief that all of their conspiracy theories have been proven correct. Many rank-and-file Trump haters are feeling a little more relaxed and complacent knowing that there are a bunch of McCain-loving “adults in the room” taking care of everything, and many rank-and-file Trump supporters are more convinced than ever that Donald Trump is a brave populist hero leading a covert 4-D chess insurgency against the Deep State. In other words, everyone’s been herded into their respective partisan stables and trusting the narratives that they are being fed there.

And, well, I just think that’s odd.


Did you know that Donald Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame? He was inducted in 2013, and he’s been enthusiastically involved in pro wrestling for many years, both as a fan and as a performer. He’s made more of a study on how to draw a crowd in to the theatrics of a choreographed fight scene than anyone this side of the McMahon family (a member of whom happens to be part of the Trump administration currently).

You don’t have to get into any deep conspiratorial rabbit hole to consider the possibility that all this drama and conflict is staged from top to bottom. Commentators on all sides routinely crack jokes about how the mainstream media pretends to attack Trump but secretly loves him because he brings them amazing ratings. Anyone with their eyes even part way open already knows that America’s two mainstream parties feign intense hatred for one another while working together to pace their respective bases into accepting more and more neoliberal exploitation at home and more and more neoconservative bloodshed abroad. They spit and snarl and shake their fists at each other, then cuddle up and share candy when it’s time for a public gathering. Why should this administration be any different?

I believe that a senior Trump administration official probably did write that anonymous op-ed. I do not believe that they were moved to write it out of compassion for the poor Americans who are feeling emotionally stressed about the president. I believe it was written and published for the same reason many other things are written and published in mainstream media: because we are all being played.

The more I study US politics, the less useful I find it to think of it in political terms. The two-headed one party system exists to give Americans the illusion of choice while advancing the agendas of the plutocratic class which owns and operates both parties, yes, but even more importantly it’s a mechanism of narrative control. If you can separate the masses into two groups based on extremely broad ideological characteristics, you can then funnel streamlined “us vs them” narratives into each of the two stables, with the white hats and black hats reversed in each case. Now you’ve got Republicans cheering for the president and Democrats cheering for the CIA, for the FBI, and now for a platoon of covert John McCains alleged to be operating on the inside of Trump’s own administration. Everyone’s cheering for one aspect of the US power establishment or another.

Whom does this dynamic serve? Not you.

If you belonged to a ruling class, obviously your goal would be to ensure your subjects’ continued support for you. In a corporatist oligarchy, the rulers are secret and the subjects don’t know they’re ruled, and power is held in place with manipulation and with money. As such a ruler your goal would be to find a way to manipulate the masses into supporting your agendas, and, since people are different, you’d need to use different narratives to manipulate them. You’d have to divide them, tell them different stories, turn them against each other, play them off one another, suck them in to the tales you are spinning with the theater of enmity and heroism.


As a result of the New York Times op-ed, if this administration engages in yet another of its many, many establishment capitulations (let’s say by attacking the Syrian government again), Trump’s supporters won’t see it as his fault; it will be blamed on the deep state insiders in his administration who have been working to thwart his agendas of peace and harmony. Meanwhile those who see Trump as a heel won’t experience any cognitive dissonance if any of the establishment agendas they support are carried out, because they can give the credit to the secret hero squad in the White House.

Would a billionaire WWE Hall of Famer and United States President understand the theater of staged conflict for the advancement of plutocratic interests, and willingly participate in it? I’m going to say probably.
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby dada » Fri Sep 07, 2018 12:46 pm

Yes, we are being played. But by whom, now? Is someone playing the players?

The two-headed one party system exists to give Americans the illusion of choice while advancing the agendas of the plutocratic class which owns and operates both parties, yes, but even more importantly it’s a mechanism of narrative control.


Even more importantly it's a mechanism of narrative control, yes, but so what. That is obviously obvious, even Johnstone can see that. If even Johnstone can see it, what of people in possession of cooler, strategic-minded heads, who think with originality and intelligence?

Pointing out that the American condition is the hypocrisy of fools only means anything, has any value inside of a strategy to combat it or exploit it. Otherwise it's the equivalent of sputtering out herp derps. Dressed in high-minded, logical, reasoned five-dollar words, but herp derps nonetheless.

Knowing the way this narrative control system works, the surrealist poet and stage manager doesn't try to undermine it, they simply write a new narrative, one that contains it. Thus using it to their advantage. Then the mechanism of narrative control becomes another tool in the greater narrative, producing only an illusion of narrative control. Virtual, in the computing sense, a 'clever simulation that's good enough to trick you.' But not in control of narratives, not doing what it was designed to do. It has been re-purposed, it functions to serve a greater narrative.

What is the new, greater narrative that the old mechanism of narrative control has been written into? Can it be seen, understood? First, one would have to look beyond the old mechanism, otherwise it isn't even a possibility in one's mind to be considered. But in looking beyond, one finds that this new narrative doesn't suddenly 'jump into focus,' it's there and yet not, nebulous, diffuse. How can one make the picture sharper, clearer? Maybe the correct approach would be to think like a real scientist does. A real scientist uses intuition and experiment to get at the essence of things.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this new narrative is a Russian narrative. By doing this we may be able to catch a glimpse of what this new narrative looks like. Johnstone points out that in the old mechanism of narrative control:

"Russiagate is like a mirage [...] And yet they keep beating on it. Day after day after day after day it’s been Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia."

What is the result of this? Russia, to those who are inside the Russiagate narrative, looms over them, immense. It absorbs their attention, they give up their power to it. It reminds of this Pomerantsev quote:

“There is a spate of prime-time documentaries about "psychological weapons." One is The Call of the Void. It features secret service men who inform the audience about the psychic weapons they have developed. The Russian military has "sleepers," psychics who can go into a trance and enter the world's collective uncounscious, its deeper soul, and from thence penetrate the minds of foreign statesmen to uncover their nefarious designs. One has entered the mind of the US president and then reconfigured the intentions of one of his advisers so that whatever hideous plan the US had hatched has failed to come off. The message is clear: if the secret services can see into the US president's mind, they could definitely see into yours; the state is everywhere, watching your every thought.”
― Peter Pomerantsev


To those who oppose the Russiagate narrative, it also absorbs their attention, they give up their power to it. Different narratives, same result,

From here, I think it's easy to see what a simple thing it would be to exploit this situation. One just allows it to do its thing, letting it serve the new narrative.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Sep 07, 2018 2:39 pm

Since Trump got elected, the entire VA beltway has been getting an education in McMahon Family Rules. It's starting to show in their end product now, I agree.

For instance: getting quite obvious nobody in the DNC had any intentions of stopping Kavanaugh's confirmation.

Via: https://therealnews.com/stories/democra ... h-hearings

As for the course of the proceedings, it seems to me, having followed them, that the Democrats, as usual, are engaging in a game of Kabuki theater here that is primarily designed to grandstand for political reasons to the television audience and to their base, and is using this to mobilize support for the November elections and also for fundraising purposes. I’ve gotten several solicitations already asking me for money with respect to Kavanaugh and the November elections.

The reason I say it’s Kabuki theater, however, is that in the New York Times yesterday it says, quote: “Republicans wryly noted that Democrats admitted they had confirmed conferred with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader over the weekend, about their hearing strategy.” So all this has been worked out and orchestrated in advance by the Republicans and the Democrats, and they’re basically going through the motions. I have concluded that they are not prepared to go to the mat, as I put it, to go for the jugular, to defeat Kavanaugh. So what we’re seeing here is a big game that they are playing, and have been playing for reasons other than defeating Kavanaugh.

And it’s critical that we defeat Kavanaugh. Because as I said, this will be an inflection point on the U.S. Supreme Court, the transition from Kennedy to Kavanaugh. And also I’m afraid for our, our democracy. It’s going to be do terrible things for women, for blacks, Latinos, Muslims, organized labor, poor people. The list of the environment, the list of these things go on where we’re going to have a solid five to four right-wing reactionary majority on the Supreme Court. And the way it has been portrayed by Kavanaugh and Republicans is that he’s clerked for Kennedy and isn’t that bad is belied by a study in the Journal of the American Bar Association that he will be just a tad, a slight, maybe not even a percentage point to the left of Clarence Thomas, who is the most reactionary justice on the United States Supreme court. You’d have to go back to the Herbert Hoover Supreme Court to find a justice that reactionary. And indeed, Clarence Thomas historically reminds me of Justice Taney, who wrote the Dred Scott decision, ruling that African Americans were not human beings, and instead were property of their masters. That’s how reactionary Thomas is, and Kavanaugh is going to be just as reactionary. And with Kavanaugh, you’re going to have a solid core of five hardcore movement Federalist Society people on there. So this could be a disaster.


With friends like Democrats, who needs enemies?
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:01 pm

So out of 16,000 takes on the letter from "Anonymous," did we really need Johnstone's? She's become the go-to naive red-pill substitute, now that Jones is discredited (about 15 years too late). (By the way, she once published a long defense of AJ as a bit off, but assured us his heart was in the right place, which she wisely took down, but I don't forget.) Now I'm supposed to be impressed she just discovered kayfabe and Wrestlemania? Golly gee, thanks.

The schtick happens to usually suffice for a correct analysis, but she's not a journalist and not much of an empiricist either:

What are the results of this viral op-ed everyone’s talking about? So far it’s a bunch of Democratic partisans making a lot of excited whooping noises, and Trump loyalists feeling completely vindicated in the belief that all of their conspiracy theories have been proven correct.


Yeah, no. I have yet to see any politicians take this thing on. Care to link to any? They know their own craft well enough not to be that stupid, before more is known about where this thing actually came from. And the "bunch of Democratic partisans" is just her phoning it in, her assumption it must be the case. Except it's not. Apparently she was too lazy to even go fish for an example (since you can always find one). I have contact to dozens of people who are not exactly "Democratic partisans" but thoroughly for Clinton and into the whole Russia thing. The vast majority are not whooping about Melania's column at all. (oops, did I give it away? okay, maybe it's not her) Almost everyone sees that whoever wrote this is just part of the same monstrous regime, playing the game Johnstone thinks she's the only one to have discerned.

.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby Belligerent Savant » Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:05 pm

.
I've no argument with the points raised here, nor is the OP link offered up as a blanket endorsement of Johnstone, as a "writer" or blogger.

That aside, the themes/concepts in the article have been lacking within these walls of late. Her underlying agenda is not as important as the overt message. After all, she's certainly not in a position to affect policy, and is therefore relatively harmless.

JR: perhaps we can arrange for a makeshift ring in Astoria and you and I can throw down, bare-knuckle style, for the title of RI Kayfabe Overlord. A fellow RI member can record the affair and post it up as a meme to be spread across the blogosphere. Clearly the odds are on your side.
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:14 pm

.

[While BS is blabbing this Marquis of Queensbury shit, hits him from behind with folding chair.]
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby Belligerent Savant » Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:47 pm

.

[..moments later, BS feigns capitulation, luring JR closer; just when JR motions for the final pin-down move, BS quickly rolls and sweeps his legs, bringing the mighty figure down to the ground with a sudden thud..]
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby Elvis » Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:51 pm

And a prize for the best costume! :lol:
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:01 pm

[Four of my bad guy friends invade the ring and beat the crap out of BS while his girlfriend and manager CJ gesticulates about the RULES from ringside. Oh, MY! Catch the climactic death match at the next Wrestlemania!!!]
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby Belligerent Savant » Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:28 pm

.

Step aside, V. McMahon. RI-WF is here to take over.
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby dada » Fri Sep 07, 2018 9:01 pm

You philistines. Totally ignorant of esoteric wrestling theory. smh.

The true meaning, underneath the powers you're playing with, here. I'm talking about the real deal, inner secrets of the rock n wrestling connection, alchemical symbolism buried within.

Mean Gene, Gorilla Monsoon. Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik. Hart Foundation. Junkyard Dog, Jimmy Superfly Snuka. George Steele. Roddy Piper. Road Warriors. Ric Flair and the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. You're like blind imbeciles stumbling around the ring after an eye gouge. All you see is Mike Tyson's Punch Out Japanese caricatures and sweaty kayfabe.

This is the real RIWF. If you're smart and lucky, prove yourself worthy, perhaps, perhaps, I'll send the 'managers' to initiate you in dream. Bobby Heenan, Freddie Blassie. Captain Lou Albano...
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby 82_28 » Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:10 pm

I mean who the fuck ever got into "professional wrestling" ever? Are any of you like me, when as a kid, and it would come on on Sunday mornings as kids would immediately change the channel after the morning cartoons just because it was so fake? It is no wonder the NFL would not allow this jackass in. Dump would have threatened to turn football into an extension of WWF/WWE. Haters, lovers or fence sitters, the NFL/American football ain't fake. It is brutally real. Everyone of those owners could see that dump had absolutely no business owning an NFL team.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:35 pm

Linda McMahon heads trumps Small Business Administration
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby Jerky » Sat Sep 08, 2018 12:28 am

Guys, I have both a hernia AND spinal arthritis. STOP MAKING ME LAUGH THIS HARD!!!

JackRiddler » 08 Sep 2018 00:01 wrote:[Four of my bad guy friends invade the ring and beat the crap out of BS while his girlfriend and manager CJ gesticulates about the RULES from ringside. Oh, MY! Catch the climactic death match at the next Wrestlemania!!!]
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Re: The Latest Kayfabe: Anonymous NYT Op Ed

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Sep 08, 2018 10:31 am

evidence would have been picked up by the sprawling surveillance networks of the US and its allies


evidence WAS picked up by the Dutch....they have the photos and the tapes

evidence of treason (just because we are at war and no one is noticing does not mean we are not at war) was not going to be leaked to the press ....this isn't about a campaign violation

this is about the largest political scandal in the history of this country...it is not about shoplifting

ask Manafort about those gaping plot holes, insinuation, innuendo.......he is as we speak now cooperating with Mueller so he will not spend the rest of his life in jail...you know who Manafort is don't you trump's campaign manager

as General Yellowkerk trump's NSA who is STILL cooperating with Mueller and has not been sentenced yet

you know who hasn't leaked? Robert Mueller so at this point you have no idea what you are talking about Ms. Johnstone

oh that C. Johnstone she's one smart cookie

trump must have practiced for hours to get that fake slur down pat.....he is one smart cookie


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG8r_z5yukE

as we speak we have un elected staff and a general running this country


Lindsey Graham's emails were also hacked but nothing public about that ...need a reason for blackmail?


see RT headline?......funny you could have wrote that......that trial was NOT about Russia ...but his next trial will be and that is why he is now cooperating

First 'Russiagate' trial shaking? Jury slow to reach Manafort verdict
https://www.rt.com/usa/436499-manafort- ... iberation/


guess what he was convicted and is now a felon...just like Gates....Flynn (he was conspiring to build nuclear power plants with Russia and having the US military guard them) ....George Papadopoulos.....Richard Pinedo....Alex Van der Zwaan...Cohen

for god's sake even Glenn Greenwald has seen the light

now regarded the indictments as genuine evidence of Russian hacking—the first he’d seen in two years. To think otherwise, he said, “you’d pretty much have to believe that Mueller and his team fabricated it all out of whole cloth, which I don’t believe is likely.”


watch out there's a storm a comin' next week


trump echoes the same talking points and disinformation as RT and Putin.....funny that

do you think Maria Butina was just over here for a pajama party?

Trump will undoubtedly face impeachment, says Watergate attorney
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 28241.html
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Sat Sep 08, 2018 11:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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