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US Domestic Tumult – Orchestrated or Not?


The Daily Bell 

US Domestic Tumult – Orchestrated or Not?
  • No, Russian Agents Are Not Behind Every Piece of Fake News You See  … Making everyone who shares fake news part of a Russian conspiracy is not helpful. One of the themes that has emerged during the controversy over “fake news” and its role in the election of Donald Trump is the idea that Russian agents of various kinds helped hack the process by fueling this barrage of false news. But is that really true?  – Fortune

 

Fortune has written a somewhat skeptical article about fake news, but misses the point so far as we are concerned.

Fake news exists and has an impact: That’s the basic thrust of the Fortune article – and others like it. It constitutes a kind of propaganda. The idea here is to grant “fake news” existence while presenting a moderate perspective.

In fact, the fake news “debate” is entirely illegitimate. It is what we firmly believe is a “dominant social theme,” elite sponsored propaganda that began suddenly and for reasons that have little or nothing with alerting Americans to Russia’s supposed interference in US elections.

From what we can tell, the fake news debate is actually further debasing the credibility of mainstream media. As we’ve written before, it serves the same function in the US that Muslim immigration has in Europe.

It’s helping destroy people’s faith in their society. We could see the process taking place during the recent elections. The pro-Hillary coverage of the mainstream media was so excessive that it’s hard to reach another conclusion.

Already sinking under a tidal wave of skepticism, the mainstream media reported on the election in such a way as to further alienate tens of millions – perhaps half the adults in the country, or even more.

Was this an unintended consequence of supporting Hillary? Not in our view, especially with the destruction of society going on in Europe.

The idea on both sides of “the pond” is ultimately to destroy culture and make nation states further amenable to globalism.

More:

…  One group [of proponents] is associated with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank funded and staffed by proponents of the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia, which says it has been researching Russian propaganda since 2014. 

The second group is something called PropOrNot, about which very little is known. Its website doesn’t name anyone who is associated with it, including the researchers who worked on the report. And the Post doesn’t name the group’s executive director, whom it quotes, because it says he is afraid of “being targeted by Russia’s legions of skilled hackers.”

The article goes on to point out that PropOrNot’s Twitter account “has only existed since August of this year. And an article announcing the launch of the group on its website is dated last month.”

The program is evidently being rushed out for some reason in stages, possibly to coincide with a challenge launched by Hillary Clinton that will result in recounting votes in three states to see if the US presidential election can be overturned.

Some other points from Fortune. In evaluating these points,. we can see that the Fortune article does  not discount “fake news.”It simply wants to re-position the argument, possibly to make it more believable:

  • There were questions about the “allies” listed on the PropOrNot website. Now the “allies” have been downgraded to “related projects” – whatever that means.
  • The Fortune article calls the thesis of orchestrated Russian intelligence effort aimed at the American election “flimsy.” It is evidently NOT a “nefarious scheme.”
  • Russian content supposedly redistributed by “useful tools of Russian propaganda” was purposefully written to appeal to conspiracy theories and “buzzy content.” But “are millions of people part of the problem?” The article suggests this is a “stretch.”
  • The idea of a network of 200 sites that “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda,” is proposed by PropOrNot. The idea is thus to “portray anyone who shared a salacious but untrue news story about Hillary Clinton as an agent of an orchestrated Russian intelligence campaign.”

Connecting hundreds of Twitter accounts into a dark web of Russian-controlled agents, along with any website that sits on some poorly thought-out blacklist, seems like the beginnings of a conspiracy theory, rather than a scientific analysis of the problem.

Again, if Fortune’s editors were really interested in debunking fake news, they could certainly present stronger arguments more forcefully.

We will  do it for them, Fake news is not just the beginnings of a conspiracy theory. It is part of a clear propaganda campaign aimed at degrading the alternative media including one of the largest quasi-libertarian news websites in the world, The Drudge Report.

It’s not yet clear who is behind these efforts but that will certainly emerge over time. As Ron Paul wrote recently, these attacks will doubtless continue.

It is also true that as we’ve already seen, there will be a good deal of push-back from the alternative media itself. And it will be hard to establish that 200-plus groups were in the knowing or unknowing control of Russia and Putin.

The connection currently is being “proven” via sleight-of-hand. There are similarities between alternative media websites when it comes to an editorial thrust because the people at the top of Western culture have a specific point of view and use specific tools, often violent, to stay in control. Thus criticisms tend to fall into specific patterns as well.

It is perfectly possible – in fact it is obvious – that some of these criticisms are similar to those launched by Russian writers and propaganda outlets. But that doesn’t mean there is any coordination.

Probably the same linkages could be observed between some other countries and the US alternative media as well. Iceland comes to mind, among others. It is easy to create a map of such linkages, but that doesn’t mean the conclusion is valid.

When it comes to the alternative media, it will be hard to establish the viability of what’s been claimed. On the other hand, such an establishment may not be necessary if authorities get involved on a formal basis.

Hillary’s current challenge of the presidential election, and its outcome, will doubtless have an impact on these accusations as well. It is hard to tell what the Trump campaign is doing to forestall the almost inevitable manipulation that will  occur in the states where she is challenging the vote count.

Conclusion: Whether Hillary is able to declare victory or not, the next four years will be tumultuous indeed. Most people will conclude that the tumult is the inevitable outcome of political and media events. They will not grant the feasibility of it being orchestrated. But that is how it seems to us.

Editor’s Note: The Daily Bell is giving away a silver coin and a silver “white paper” to subscribers. If you enjoy DB’s articles and want to stay up-to-date for free, please subscribe here. 

More from The Daily Bell: Rand Corp. Blasts ‘Truth Decay’ – Wants Facts Determined by Appropriate Leaders

 From Populism to Fake News – The Psyop Continues

 

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Officials Behind $500 Million Vikings’ Stadium Subsidy Get Free Luxury Box Tickets for Family and Friends

Six government appointees, including the son of a vice president, who negotiated how much public money would be spent building the Minnesota Vikings’ new football stadium get free access to luxury boxes for all events in the stadium.

Which, you know, might call into question how hard they really negotiated for the taxpayers on that one.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that the six members of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA), the quasi-government agency created in 2012 to oversee the public subsidies for the building of U.S. Bank Stadium, get free tickets to two lower-level luxury suites for all events held there. Even though taxpayers covered more than half of the cost of the $1.1 billion stadium, which opened earlier this year, the public is being kept in the dark about who occupies those 36 seats and the adjoining luxury suites during Vikings home games and other events.

The team claims that the suites are used for “marketing purposes,” but the Star-Tribune‘s investigation found that family and friends of the board members are usually in attendance too.

Maybe the best part of the story is the moment when two members of the MSFA board (chairwoman Michele Kelm-Helgen and executive director Ted Mondale) try to justify their sweet, free, and secret perk by arguing that they “work long hours on game days and spent long nights negotiating on behalf of taxpayers during construction of the building, so having friends and family there is reasonable.”

Mondale, by the way, is the son of former U.S. vice president Walter Mondale and he has lived the life of a vice president’s son. After a brief stint in elected office during the 1990s, he’s settled into a rotating set of political appointments. He was appointed to the Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council by Gov. Jesse Ventura in 1999, and he used that post to push for the approval of a pair of ridiculously expensive light rail lines. With that public boondoggle in his resume, he was probably a natural fit on the MSFA board, to which he was named CEO by Gov. Mark Dayton in 2012, just as the new stadium deal was in the works.

Taxpayers in Minnesota might not have the same high opinion of the hard work done by Kelm-Hagen and Mondale. The public spent more than $500 million on the new stadium—enough to cover the entire playing field with $100 bills 10 layers thick, according to one local news station’s analysis—making it one of the largest public subsidies ever given to a privately-owned sports stadium.

The Star-Tribune says they were given the names of 12 current and former public officials who attended and paid for suite tickets to NFL games. After the initial request for information was made, several other officials—including the mayor of Minneapolis and her husband, several state commissioners, Minneapolis’ city attorney, and city council members—also wrote checks reimbursing the board for the tickets they had apparently used.

For anyone who isn’t part of this special cadre of insiders getting special access to the suites for free would hav to shell out more than $20,000 for season tickets in similar suites at the stadium. Since the six members of the MSFA board also have access to the suites for all other events at the stadium, the actual value of their seats is in excess of that figure.

The whole thing raises ethical questions since public officials in Minnesota are not allowed to receive gifts, including special privileges or access not otherwise available to the general public. That gift ban has a loophole allowing public officials to accept such special freebies if it’s part of their official duties.

It’s hard to understand how attending a football game is part of a city or state officials “duties” but that seems to be the defense being offered by the MSFA board members responsible for handing out access to the luxury suite—that’s why they’re talking about those “long hours” that they work on game days.

David Schultz, a Hamline University political science, law and ethics professor, tells the Star-Tribune that claim is “dubious at best” and adds that “beyond state law, it just looks bad.”

Schultz is right, but it doesn’t just look bad. It is bad. Aside from the ethical issues at play, the story should make clear one of the major problems with government subsidies for sports stadiums and other big, private development projects like this.

Political appointees who are supposed to be negotiating on behalf of the public in a stadium financing deal—or any similar process where the government is handing out millions of dollars for private development—have little incentive to look out for what’s actually in the public’s best interest and plenty of incentives to make sure the deal gets done. They can easily be captured by the special interests—in this case, the Minnesota Vikings and their owners—that stand to benefit from the subsidies with promises of perks like these.

The only way to prevent those ethical and political maneuvers from taking place is to not hand out the money in the first place. In Minneapolis, that (Viking) ship has sailed.

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Jill Stein Officially Files Recount Petition In Pennsylvania

Continuing her crusade against some seemingly imaginary election tampering claims, Jill Stein has just announced that she has officially filed a recount petition in the state of Pennsylvania.  According to The Hill, Stein released the following statement:

“We must recount the votes so we can build trust in our election system. We need to verify the vote in this and every election so that Americans of all parties can be sure we have a fair, secure and accurate voting system,”

Of course, per Stein’s fundraising page, the recount effort in Pennsylvania is a little more involved than Wisconsin and requires at least three voters in each election district to submit an affidavit to their county board of elections requesting a recount.  Luckily, Stein’s attorneys have agreed to supply the affidavit language.

“In addition to the costs of a recount, we also need to find at least three voters in each election district willing to submit an affidavit to their county board of elections requesting a recount. We will be working with our legal team to develop the affidavit language to send to those willing to do so.”

 

Meanwhile, with Trump’s lead at close to 70,000 votes in Pennsylvania, it’s almost certain that his victory in the state will stand absent the discovery of rampant voter fraud of some sort.

PA

 

So, congratulations on yet another recount milestone…while we suspect this process is completely useless, from a practical perspective, we hope that Stein is at least deriving some personal pleasure from wasting the money of disaffected Hillary supporters/

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OPEC Releases Schedule For Nov. 30 Meeting; Fails To Agree On Anything Else

In an intraday update on the current status of pre-summit negotiations taking place Monday in Vienna, an OPEC delegate told Bloomberg that there have been “no big changes in the position of either Iran or Iraq” at the high-level committee talks, which began 8 hours ago, in Vienna. As a reminder, both Iran and Iraq have sought exemptions from cutting oil production and according to the Algiers agreement in late September, Iran had been granted just that, however since then Saudi Arabia appears to have reneged on its concession.

So with both Iran and Iraq refusing to yield to Saudi will, there is little else to report:

  • OPEC COMMITTEE MEETING HAS NO AGREEMENT SO FAR: DELEGATE: BBG

So as OPEC has so far failed to reach an internal agreement two days ahead of the big meeting, Iran and Russia now appear to be having side talks:

  • PUTIN, ROUHANI AGREED TO COORDINATE ACTIONS ON COMMODITY MKTS
  • PUTIN, ROUHANI STRESSED IMPORTANCE OF OPEC EFFORT TO CUT OUTPUT
  • PUTIN, ROUHANI SEE OPEC EFFORT AS `KEY FACTOR’ IN STEADYING MKT

There was some good news, however: suggesting that OPEC can agree on at least something, today the OPEC website released a tentative draft of the Program schedule of event for the November 30 meeting, presented below.

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Ex-Security Chief’s Lawsuit over Alabama Governor’s Alleged Affair Exposes Corruption of Government

The former chief of Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley’s security detail, Wendell Ray Lewis, filed a lawsuit on Friday alleging that Bentley had admitted an extramarital affair to him, and accusing the governor and his alleged mistress, staffer Rebekah Mason, of invading his privacy by “putting him in a false light and position in the eyes of the public by stating that Lewis worked overtime which was not approved by the State of Alabama.”

The suit also accused the Republican Bentley, Mason, and other defendants of defamation, interfering with his post-retirement business relations, “constructive discharge,” and misconduct. A 2014 al.com story by John Archibald, cited in the lawsuit, estimated that Lewis made about $203,000 a year because of overtime he earned “following the governor across the globe.” At the time, Bentley said neither he nor anyone on his staff was involved in approving overtime, but defended Bentley’s promotion, which had also been questioned by Archibald.

Bentley’s attorney called the lawsuit baseless, pointing out that much of it included allegations (which he says the governor denies) which “have nothing to do with the actual legal claims asserted” by Lewis.

“Public records show that when Lewis worked for the state government, he made more than $661,615 over five years, based on the overtime he was paid,” Bentley’s attorney said in a statement. “But he chose to quit. That was his choice—no one else’s,” the attorney’s statement read, noting Lewis was now receiving more than $87,000 a year in retirement income from the state. “But now he is trying to force the State to give him more money,” the statement continued, “and to go so far as to extract money from the pocket of a governor who has never even taken a salary since he took office.”

In his lawsuit, Lewis alleged that by the fall of 2014 he was seeing subordinates he had supervised taking over his tasks, was frozen out of meetings, and stripped of various responsibilities, arguing that “over time the criticism, exclusion, and opprobrium became insufferable,” resulting in his “early retirement” in 2015.

Lewis alleges in the lawsuit that he had confronted the governor multiple times about the affair. “You know that you are getting into a touchy situation because we use state vehicles, we use state planes, to move about,” Lewis said he told the governor. “You’re requesting to put her in there, that’s a problem. This is bigger than you and Rebekah. This is about the State of Alabama.” Lewis alleges in the lawsuit that the governor asked him to break up with Mason for him. In March, the state auditor filed a complaint that Bentley and Mason may have misused state property.

The affair was found out because the governor did not know his iPhone was synced to an iPad he gave his wife, according to the lawsuit, resulting in an incriminating recording eventually made public. Bentley apologized for making “inappropriate” comments to Mason but denied a physical relationship. He and his wife divorced last year.

Lewis says the governor told him Lewis had done nothing wrong after the overtime scandal broke (the governor pointed out in a different recording made public that Lewis was paid a similar amount of overtime to previous security detail chiefs), but that after the governor hugged him, he knew he was in trouble.

“When their conversation was over, Bentley hugged Lewis. Lewis knew that was it, the beginning of the end,” the lawsuit reads. “He thought to himself, ‘I don’t know how Jesus felt when Judas betrayed him, but I felt I was being betrayed.’ The only difference: Judas never hugged Jesus.”

Lewis also alleged that Spencer Collier, the now former secretary of the state law enforcement agency, told him that the governor had ordered him to use $430,000 in federal funds from the Department of Homeland Security to cover the salaries of the assistant to the chief of staff, the assistant in a Medicaid program, and the governor’s legal advisor to “look fiscally responsible.” This had left “some local police departments concerned that they were not getting federal funds,” according to the lawsuit.

The governor, the state chief justice, Roy Moore, and the House speaker, Michael Hubbard, were all embroiled in scandal this year. Hubbard was convicted on 12 felony ethics counts in June and sentenced to four years in prison.

Last week, Bentley used Survey Monkey to ask 400+ members of the GOP executive committee who they think should replace Sen. Jeff Sessions, who President-Elect Donald Trump said he would nominate for attorney general.

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Delta Bans Disruptive, Pro-Trump Passenger For Life

Following an outburst of snowflake-crushing on a flight from Atlanta to Allentown, Pennsylvania, Delta Airlines has banned a disruptive passenger from flying the airline ever again.

In a video of the event that went viral, the man is seen gesturing to other passengers, shouting “We got some Hillary bitches on here? …It’s your president. Every goddam one of you. If you don’t like it, too bad.”

Delta Airlines issued a public statement on the event:

“We are sorry to our customers who experienced this disruption. We have followed up with the teams involved and all agree that this customer should not have been allowed to continue on the flight.

 

Our responsibility for ensuring all customers feel safe and comfortable with Delta includes requiring civil behavior from everyone.

 

The behavior we see in this video does not square with our training or culture and follow up will continue so we can better ensure our employees will know they will be fully supported to make the right decisions when these issues arise.”

 

…

 

“This individual displayed behavior that was loud, rude and disrespectful to his fellow customers,” Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in a letter to employees. “‘He will never again be allowed on a Delta plane.”

While the man could have chosen his words more carefully, he did not accuse anyone of being a racist, a sexist, a bigot, a homophobe, a nazi, or hitler, and was factually correct with regard to Mr. Trump being every American’s president (no matter what they think). So we can only assume he was banned for calling Clinton supporters ‘bitches’?

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Learning Nothing, The Hoaxing Mainstream Media Doubles Down

Hold your real assets outside of the banking system in one of many private international facilities  –>    http://ift.tt/2cyFwvQ;

 

 

 

 

Learning Nothing, The Hoaxing Mainstream Media Doubles Down

Written by Nathan McDonald CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

 

 

 

 

The hoaxing, lying, dying Mainstream Media. Many names are given to this band of happy, merry hacks, that pretend to believe they are the “fourth estate”. Yet, those of us who are truly “awake” know better.

 

 

We can see them for exactly what they are, an extension of the corrupt establishment that attempts to rule over our daily lives and keep us in a constant state of confusion, informing us of half truths and guiding us sometimes gently, other times bluntly, away from the bigger picture.

 

 

During their onslaught against President-elect Donald Trump, the MSM put out hit piece after hit piece, filled with half truths and assumptions. They did whatever they could to get Hillary Clinton elected, discarding their honor, pride, and the truth in the process.

 

 

Fortunately for us in the liberty movement, they failed, and oh, how they failed. Throughout the campaign, I consistently wrote that the MSM was destroying their credibility in the process and causing people to snap out of their trances at a pace never before seen in western history.

 

 

You would think that this slice of humble pie would cause them to reassess their situation and take account of what they have done, possibly adjusting their strategy, or even apologizing to their dwindling readership. Yet, this is not the case – actually, it is quite the opposite.

 

 

The hoaxes continue, and the MSM has doubled down in its efforts to dismiss and discredit the very sources that largely resulted in Donald Trump getting elected – the Alternative Media, or as some like to call us, the NEW Mainstream Media.

 

 

These “lovers of freedom” have begun compiling lists that consist of any and all sources that disagree with their “loving” liberal agendas. Prominent names such as Ron Paul, the Drudge Report, and Zero Hedge are regularly included on these list of “fake news websites”.

 

 

If not labeling it as fake news, then it is simply being rubber stamped as “Russian propaganda“. The absurdity of the MSM knows no bounds and is truly shocking to watch unfold.

 

 

But what do you expect? These are the organizations that dug their own graves through the lies they have told their supporters. Remember, these are the same organizations that told us Hillary Clinton had an over 90% chance of winning, up until the day of the election!

 

 

Perhaps we should simply let these organizations simply drift off into the sunset, as they continue to destroy themselves and what little credibility they have left. Perhaps, but not likely.

 

 

This is the time to continue down in our efforts. These are the ones who have declared war on us, the true lovers of free speech, liberty, and freedom. The time to double down OUR efforts is now. Press on and fight on.

 

 

Please email with any questions about this article or precious metals HERE

 

 

 

 

 

Learning Nothing, The Hoaxing Mainstream Media Doubles Down

Written by Nathan McDonald CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

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Wikileaks Releases Half A Million Diplomatic Cables From “Year Zero” Of The Modern Era

Coming on the sixth year anniversary of the infamous “Cablegate”, when on this day in 2010 Wikileaks made global headlines when it unveiled classified cables sent to the US State Department, revealing assessments of countries and details of eavesdropping, this morning WikiLeaks released more than half a million US diplomatic cables from 1979, covering various diplomatic events and incidents such as the Iranian revolution, Osama bin Ladin’s departure of his native Saudi Arabia for Pakistan to support the Mujahideen, the siege of Mecca, Saddam Hussein becoming president of Iraq and much more.

Consisting of 531,525 cables, the latest batch is also known as “Carter Cables III.”

In a statement on the Wikileaks website, Julian Assange, rumors of whose death or disappearance seems greater exaggerated, writes that “If any year could be said to be the ‘year zero’ of our modern era, 1979 is it. In the Middle East, the Iranian revolution, the Saudi Islamic uprising and the Egypt-Israel Camp David Accords led not only to the present regional power dynamic but decisively changed the relationship between oil, militant Islam and the world.”

He adds that “in 1979 it seemed as if the blood would never stop. Dozens of countries saw assassinations, coups, revolts, bombings, political kidnappings and wars of liberation.” In addition to the middle east, other notable events to take place during the year cited by Assange include the election of Margaret Thatcher as British PM and the Three Mile Island nuclear incident.

Among the cables is information on “China officially coming in from the cold” and Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States in a defining strategic re-orientation by both states. Other subjects covered in the cables include the USSR invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis, which saw 66 Americans taken hostage after 3,000 Iranian students raided the US embassy in Tehran.

As Assange concludes, This release brings to 3.3 million the number of US diplomatic cables published as part of the WikiLeaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD), the world’s largest searchable collection of United States confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications.

Readers can search the Carter Cables III here.

* * *

The full press release is below:

WikiLeaks releases more than half a million US diplomatic cables from the momentous year of 1979
By Julian Assange

Today, 28 November 2016, marking the six-year anniversary of “Cablegate”, WikiLeaks expands its Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD) with more than half a million (531,525) diplomatic cables from 1979.

If any year could be said to be the “year zero” of our modern era, 1979 is it.

In the Middle East, the Iranian revolution, the Saudi Islamic uprising and the Egypt-Israel Camp David Accords led not only to the present regional power dynamic but decisively changed the relationship between oil, militant Islam and the world.

The uprising at Mecca permanently shifted Saudi Arabia towards Wahhabism, leading to the transnational spread of Islamic fundamentalism and the US-Saudi destabilisation of Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden would leave his native Saudi Arabia for Pakistan to support the Afghan Mujahideen.

The invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR would see Saudi Arabia and the CIA push billions of dollars to Mujahideen fighters as part of Operation Cyclone, fomenting the rise of al-Qaeda and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

The 1979 current of Islamification spread to Pakistan where the US embassy was burned to the ground and Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed.

The Iranian hostage crisis would go on to fatally undermine Jimmy Carter’s presidency and see the election of Ronald Reagan.

Saddam Hussein? Took power in 1979.

The rise of al-Qaeda eventually bore the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, enabling the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and over a decade of war, leaving, at its end, the ideological, financial and geographic basis for ISIS.

The Iranian revolution and Saddam Hussein’s rise to power and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War would connect with the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua to produce the Iran-Contra affair and the indictment of 12 US administration officials including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

Elsewhere, Thatcher won in the UK, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Idi Amin fled Uganda and the ANC made the decision to militarily resist Apartheid.

In the United States, the Three Mile Island nuclear incident led to a turning away from the construction and development of new nuclear reactors, increasing the reliance on oil and coal for decades.

While the 1979 SALT II agreements made some progress in reducing the risk of nuclear war, nuclear preparations and testing were stepped up elsewhere. The US decided to place Pershing and Cruise missiles in Europe and a South African/Israeli nuclear test was detected by US early warning satellites.

China officially came in from the cold and Deng Xiaoping visited the United States in a defining strategic re-orientation by both states.

In 1979 it seemed as if the blood would never stop. Dozens of countries saw assassinations, coups, revolts, bombings, political kidnappings and wars of liberation.

In the extremes and contestations of the Cold War, 1979 saw some grim culture to go with the times: ACDC produced “Highway to Hell”, Francis Ford Coppola gave us Apocalypse Now, while for Pink Floyd it was just “Another Brick in the Wall”.

The Carter Cables III bring WikiLeaks’ total published US diplomatic cable collection to 3.3 million documents.

What follows are some example areas of events from 1979 covered in the new documents.

January

    1 US and China resume diplomatic relations
    7 Pol Pot deposed following Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia
    16 Shah flees Iran
    28 China’s leader Deng Xiaoping visits US

February

    1 Khomeni returns to Iran
    3 Khomeni creates Council of Islamic Revolution
    10 Iranian Revolution
    17 China invades northern Vietnam
    18 Snow in the Sahara
    25 Rhodesia bombs Angola ZIPRA camps in Operation Vanity

March

    13 Coup in Grenada
    15 Herat uprising in Afghanistan
    26 Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin sign Egypt-Israel peace treaty
    28 Three Mile Island nuclear incident
    30 British Conservative MP Airey Neave assassinated with car bomb

April

    1 Iran overthrows Shah officially: Iran becomes the Islamic Republic through national referendum
    2 Anthrax epidemic in Russia following biological weapons plant accident
    4 Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is executed
    11 Tanzanian invasion of Uganda; revolt against Idi Amin; fall of Kampala
    17 IRA bombing kills four Ulster Constabulary at Bessbrook, Northern Ireland

May

    1 Greenland granted partial autonomy from Denmark
    4 Margaret Thatcher elected UK Prime Minister
    25 American Airlines flight 191 explodes near Chicago

June

    4 Canada’s Pierre Trudeau defeated; Coup in Ghana
    18 Carter and Brezhnev sign Salt II arms treaty
    25 Baader-Meinhof assassination attempt in Belgium of NATO Supreme Allied Commander

July

    16 Saddam Hussein takes power in Iraq
    21 Sandinistas defeat Samoza in Nicaragua
    28 Indian PM Charan Singh elected

August

    3 Equatorial Guinea coup
    5 Polisario Front signs peace agreement with Mauritania
    11 Morocco annexes Western Sahara territory previously controlled by Mauritania
    23 South Africa bombs ZIPRA camps in Zambia in Operation Motel
    27 Eighteen UK soldiers killed by IRA at Warrenpoint in County Down, Northern Ireland

September

    3-9 Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement
    14 USColombia extradition treaty negotiated, opposed by Pablo Escobar cartel
    20 Bokassa overthrown in Central African Republic via France’s Operation Barracuda
    22 South African and Israeli nuclear test detected by US Vela satellite in southern Atlantic Ocean
    29 President Nguema of Equatorial Guinea executed

October

    1 First democratic elections in Nigeria; the birth of the second republic
    15 Coup in El Salvador
    16 French town of Nice hit by tsunami
    26 President of South Korea Park Chung-hee assassinated

November

    4 Iranian hostage crisis begins; 3,000 Iranian students raid US embassy, 66 hostages taken
    14 Carter issues Executive Order 12170 freezing all Iranian assets
    15 Anthony Blunt outed as the “Fourth Man” in Cambridge spy ring
    20 Hajj hostage crisis in Saudi Arabia
    21 US embassy in Islamabad set afire after false reports from Khomeni that US occupied Mecca

December

    11 Three of the ANC’s “Pretoria Six” escape from Pretoria Central Prison (Moumbaris, Jenkin and Lee)
    12 Decision to locate US Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe
    12 South Korea military coup
    21 Lancaster House agreement signed, leading to the creation of Zimbabwe and the election of Mugabe
    24 USSR invasion of Afghanistan

Search the Carter Cables III here.

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4 Categories of Castro Apologetics, and the Anti-Individualism That Knits Them Together

Written by the great Glenn Garvin. ||| ReasonAs America settles in for some prevent defense against ever-advancing authoritarianism at home, it is potentially useful to examine the categories of apologetics for the advanced authoritarian who just expired 90 miles away. Since bad political argumentation is fungible across ideological and partisan lines, chances are versions of these tacks will be deployed in service of hand-wavery about our current and future caudillos, as they certainly have been in the past.

Category 1: Trudeautastic euphemism. Amply covered in this space by Anthony Fisher and Nick Gillespie, this is the practice of cramming into a brief anodyne phrase one’s entire acknowledgment that just maybe there might be legitimate objections to a murderous dictator who impoverished his country and banned the Beatles while advocating first-strike nuclear attacks on the United States and throwing gays into camps. See, for example, the phrase “A controversial figure for sure,” in this glowing tribute from Peter Schwab, author of Cuba: Confronting the U.S. Embargo.

Category 2: The last gasp of Whataboutism. Or, “the enemy of the target of my domestic criticism is my ‘controversial figure.'”

“Whataboutism” refers to the Cold War commie tactic, embraced by many domestic doves, of immediately changing the subject from communist tyranny to American sin, whether it be in domestic treatment of minorities or foreign militarism abroad. Since Castro’s Revolution promised (though did not deliver) the abolition of racism while providing safe harbor to several fugitive Black Panthers, in addition to surviving multiple attacks both literal and attritional from the Yanquis to the north, the whataboutism was rich with potential examples.

You could see this prematurely world-weary tic all over this weekend’s Twitter, including from the presidential candidate who won 1.04 percent of the popular vote:

You could also read it on the Instagram feed of famously lefty Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello:

“With what morality can the US leaders talk of human rights in a country where there are millionaires and beggars, where blacks face discrimination and great masses of Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and Latin Americans are deprecated, exploited and humiliated?”-Fidel. While I don’t agree with all that Fidel Castro did[*] there is ample reason why he is vilified in the US and yet remains a huge hero throughout the Third World. By defying Yankee imperialism for 50 years, instituting the best healthcare, child immunization and literacy systems in the Western Hemisphere (surpassing the US and Canada), exporting doctors to countries in need all over the globe (the Bush administration turned down his offer to send medical teams to New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina), and being an unrepentant advocate of the poor and exploited it is no surprise that millions will mourn his passing. Audioslave was the first US rock band to ever play in Cuba and that experience will be one I will always treasure, especially the trip we took to a former country club of the wealthy that had been turned into a free college for gifted musicians. #vivalarevolucion #RIPFidel

* See Category 1. (Also, read my Rage Against the Machine anecdote from 1998 Havana here.)

Category 3: Yeah, I remember my first beer. During big news events it’s hard to stand out amongst the cacophony of commentary, so hats off, I guess, to Ronald Howell, who—God help his students—”teaches English and journalism at Brooklyn College.” This is how Howell marked Castro’s passing in the New York Daily News:

Okay, the media failed supremely in not realizing Americans could elect an empty-headed, knee-jerk liar as President. But, still, I say the greatest media shortcoming of the past half century was not recognizing that Fidel Castro was the most dedicated and powerful proponent of racial justice the world has ever known.

That would be news to, among many other people, the late Black Panther hijacker Bill Brent, who I interviewed at length in Havana 18 years ago, and who at the time of his death was working on a book documenting the Revolution’s failures on race relations. Though apparently the Medium account of Black Lives Matter hasn’t quite caught up.

Category 4: Celebrity testimonials. Since the actually revolutionary portion of the Revolution, as the great Glenn Garvin has documented in the pages of Reason (and if you haven’t read Garvin’s Miami Herald Castro obit, drop what you’re doing and check it out now), the bearded bastard has played Western intelligentsia like a flute. Not unlike the way Vaclav Klaus was able to dine out for decades among Anglo-American free-market types with a few well-chosen Thatcher quotes and digs at Al Gore, Castro warded off international skepticism by cultivating key sympathizers.

Or as Ronald Howell puts, it, “Castro’s commitment to black Americans was shown early on, notably in 1960, when he came to New York City fresh from his leftist revolution in Cuba, and sat with Malcolm X in Harlem, cameras clicking for all the world to see.” New photo op proves it!

What do these four categories of apologia have in common? My theory stems in part from a seemingly innocuous line in a rather pointless front-pager in today’s New York Times about Fidel Castro’s approach to sports:

Castro banned professional sports in Cuba in 1961, and several years later, said, “Anybody who truly loves sport, and feels sport, has to prefer this sport to professional sport by a thousand times.”

His strategy worked for decades as Cuba played baseball against mostly amateur competition, or non-major leaguers, winning 18 championships in the Baseball World Cup from 1961 to 2005 and three Olympic gold medals from 1992 to 2004.

Italics mine. By what measuring stick could you say that Castro’s strategy of banning professional sports “worked”? From the perspective of the individual fans? No, they saw vastly inferior baseball, once the AAA Havana Sugar Kings left town, there were no more professional leagues to attract Major League Players to play during the winter, and the island’s best either defected or stagnated against lesser competition. From the perspective of the individual athletes themselves? Obviously not; here’s how the great post-Revolution émigré Luis Tiant put it in an interview with ESPN.com:

You couldn’t leave. You had to defect. That was hard, but the worst was worrying about your family and what could happen to them. They lectured you on what they would do to your family if you did not come back. That was the system. So many great players were unable to develop because they couldn’t get out. There were so many good players who stayed.

[Castro] hampered the development of baseball. Cuba was the country with the most Latin American players in the majors until the regime took over and set everything back. It’s incredible, all those players that were unable to succeed, so many good ones. When I played, when I left, there were 50 or 60 players as good as me or better than me. And they could never get out. They all stayed there.

No, the only way in which you can say Castro’s authoritarian banning “worked” is if you deny the plight and agency of the individual, and subsume it all in favor of an up-down measurement of the collectivized state. This is, in the final analysis, what all these categories of apologetics have in common—the euphemism, the whataboutism, the juvenilia, the outsourcing of judgment to celebrities: They all gloss over or plow under or just ignore the fate of individual people suffering under a dictatorship.

That’s a lesson for all of us. When your argument about a politician or a policy or a system waves an impatient hand when presented with acts of individual repression, it’s a good time to step back from the keyboard or microphone or legislative drafting session and check yourself. Human beings are not here on this earth to provide propaganda fodder for a despot’s statistics bureau; they are here to be free and to pursue happiness as they see fit.

The United States falls short of this ideal every day, which provides excellent reason to get up and get after it in the morning. But recognizing failure here (preferably by its non-euphemistic name) does not grant a blanket excuse for downplaying it elsewhere.

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Can An OPEC Deal Save Venezuelan Oil From Total Collapse?

With the nation's currency in full-fledged hyperinflationary collapse, OilPrice.com's Nick Cunningham notes that at times it seems that Venezuela’s economic crisis cannot get any worse. Food shortages, electricity blackouts, and scarce medical supplies have created a humanitarian disaster in Venezuela. However, with each passing month the situation deteriorates, and the crisis appears to be entering a dangerous new phase.

Venezuela’s currency has lost about 60% of its value so far in November, the worst monthly decline on record.

Inflation is thought to be hovering at around 400 percent, according to Bloomberg, although some analysts put it as high as 1,500 percent. “Inflation is going to keep rising, there’s a risk of default, and the political situation is becoming more tense each day. People prefer to protect their money,” Asdrubal Oliveros, director of Caracas-based economic consultancy Ecoanalitica, told Bloomberg.

The horrific humanitarian crisis is only deepening, with food shortages becoming so acute that Venezuelans are starting to flee in large numbers, heading to Colombia, or Brazil, or even setting sail on small boats to seek food, shelter and work on some Caribbean islands. This could yet turn into a major refugee crisis. Venezuela is dangerously short on medical supplies, and the conditions in the country’s hospitals are some of the worst in the world outside of Syria.

The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is hoping it will soon get some relief. China has decided to invest $2.2 billion into Venezuela’s decrepit oil sector, in exchange for a larger share of the country’s output. By some estimates, China has dumped $65 billion into Venezuela over the past decade, making the South American country too big to fail for Beijing. Venezuela has been paying that toll back in oil, earmarking some 550,000 barrels per day in output for China. But the latest deal will bring that obligation up to 800,000 barrels per day.

Venezuela needs the investment to repair crumbling energy infrastructure, which is leading to steady declines in oil production. Venezuela’s refineries are also in a sorry state. An explosion recently engulfed a PDVSA refinery. Also, Reuters reports that the country’s refining network is operating at just a third of capacity.

So the Chinese investment is welcome, but it also means that it will have less oil left over for sale. At this point, the government of Nicolas Maduro has little choice. For selfish reasons, China is trying to keep Venezuela’s oil sector from total collapse. “The imperative is to ensure no disruption of oil flow,” said Mei Xinyu, a senior researcher with China’s Ministry of Commerce, according to Bloomberg. “The political situation takes a back seat to the importance of oil production. Even if the opposition party takes power in the future, they’ll still need Chinese loans to pump out oil.” And while China has often been a friend to Venezuela in a time of need, even China’s confidence in its South American ally is wearing thin. Bloomberg reported that the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. is cutting non-oil investments in Venezuela, noting an “unstable investment climate” and a “growing default risk.”

Maduro has also made an all-out effort to convince fellow OPEC members to agree to cut production at the upcoming meeting in Vienna. He’s confident that a deal is within reach, although one might say that he is simply putting on a brave face because OPEC is the only hope he has left. Oil analysts see oil rising to at least $55 per barrel if OPEC agrees to cut output, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of a dozen investment banks. The flip side is that crude prices could fall back to $40 if OPEC fails. At the time of this writing, Saudi Arabia had backed out of a meeting with non-OPEC members scheduled for Nov. 28 because Saudi

Needless to say, Venezuela’s immediate future could get a lot worse if the Vienna talks fall apart. The state-owned PDVSA recently missed a bond payment, which started the clock on a 30-day grace period before the company is in default. The Venezuelan government has been careful over the years to meet all its debt obligations in order to stay in good stead with the bond markets, so the late interest payment is a bad sign about the deteriorating finances of the state. JP Morgan still believes PDVSA will make the payment, and the deal that Venezuela made with creditors a few weeks ago to extend repayment terms provided a bit of breathing room. But the government’s cash reserves are down to a rather meager $10 billion.

While the short-term crisis is acute, there aren’t a lot of reasons to be any more confident about the longer-term. There are still very decent odds of a major debt default at some point, which will only make the crisis worse, if that is possible. Venezuela is a “failing state,” as The New Yorker put it recently. The country has already lost roughly 300,000 barrels per day this year. More losses could be coming.

Judging by the decoupling of default risk and oil prices in recent weeks, it appears Maduro has crossed the tipping point…

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