NYT & Russia

Sun Jan 22 17:53:54 CST 2017

I agree as well, Ish, with only one small quibble: I think that Obama,
Clinton, and much of the corrupt big businesses in the U.S. are all
perfectly liberal. That's why I take issue with the conflation of 'liberal'
and 'leftist' in the U.S....liberal is just the slightly more progressive
(arguably progressive in a mostly performative/cosmetic sense) way of
understanding and working within a certain paradigm which still always
values capital over human life and that vehemently defends a 'freedom' that
really means free enterprise, 'free market,' etc. Freedom not for the many
people of color who are slaughtered by police or the poor who struggle to
feed themselves, but the freedom to have maybe a person or two who isn't a
straight white male at the top making all of that suffering possible.

Liberals are no friends of the left, and I think that people in the U.S. in
particular need to really start understanding and thinking about this
distinction. I remember talking to a French guy in Kyrgyzstan and hearing
him say that he and his friends and the media often argue about liberalism
vs. socialism. That doesn't happen here...though maybe it's beginning to a
bit more. But there's a complete misunderstanding of the political
spectrum, and I unfortunately saw it exemplified even more in the Women's
March, where signs talked about contemporary Russia as if it's still the
Soviet Union (?) or accused Trump of turning the USA Communist because of
his relationship with Putin (???????)

Socialism and leftist politics aren't simply liberalism extended a bit
further; they are incompatible with liberalism. I don't think most people
in the US who identify as liberal or conservative really understand that.

Liberals accuse the left of being 'class reductive,' but in my leftist
communities I don't see that at all. The discussions are very much centered
around being emancipatory for all people, and on centralizing voices that
historically have been and still continue to be marginalized. Race, gender,
and class are all examined in depth, and any 'brocialists' (the caricature
that is often painted to discredit the left) are asked to self-criticize or
leave immediately.

Rather than leftists being 'class-only,' I see liberals as being
'class-never,' so to speak. They maybe want more identities represented in
the upper echelons of society, but they don't want any fundamental change
in how society is structured and how systems function. The banks should be
a little nicer with their public image, people of different sexualities and
races should be able to be at the top making life miserable and unlivable
for the multitudes suffering at the bottom...that's liberalism. So Chuck
Shumer, Hillary Clinton, wealthy elites of all flavors all perfectly
represent liberalism to me. And as someone on the left, they're no friends
of mine.

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 3:20 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Also agree...
>
> Www.innergroovemusic.com
>
> On Jan 22, 2017, at 6:01 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> in my imagination that comes very close to what TRP might think.
>
> (And that nisei with his Twinkle, twinkle kiru  is but another NYT reader,
> an asshole with a glib tongue, if you aks me ...)
>
> 2017-01-22 21:08 GMT+01:00 <kelber at mindspring.com>:
>
>> Agree 100%, Ish.
>>
>>
>> Laura
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> >From: ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>> >Sent: Jan 22, 2017 1:11 PM
>> >To: Pynchon-l <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> >Subject: Re: NYT & Russia
>> >
>> >Did readers the NYT vote for Trump?
>> >The NYT? The NYT wouldn't have changed any votes that mattered.
>> >
>> >
>> >The democrats and those who support them still don't get the country
>> >they live in.
>> >
>> >Only the foolish people who call themselves liberals and progressives
>> >and at the same time think that Obama and Clinton are liberal and
>> >progressive politicians,and that celebrities, who send their children
>> >to the same schools Trump sends his kids to, who fly first class or in
>> >private jets, but should be the folk heroes and spokespersons of a
>> >movement to take the country back from Trump, only these foolish
>> >people, these people who march with Chuck Schumer, who voted for the
>> >Clintons, the candidates of Wall Street and Walmart, only these
>> >educated consumers of Hollywood and save the world guilt could
>> >fantasies that  if only the NYT had skewered the brash billionaire and
>> >connected the conspiracy dots that put him in bed with Putin, if only
>> >more people had listened to Michael Moore, if only those stupid
>> >rednecks who voted for Trump....
>> >
>> >On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 11:01 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/22/
>> new-york-times-public-editor-says-paper-might-have-been-
>> too-timid-on-trump-and-russia/?utm_term=.be45a101e8ce
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> journalists in the past two weeks have come down hard on BuzzFeed for,
>> in
>> >> their view, publishing too much information about President Trump and
>> >> Russia. This week, the New York Times's public editor criticized the
>> >> newspaper for, in her judgment, publishing too little.
>> >>
>> >> Liz Spayd wrote on Friday that "a strong case can be made that the
>> Times was
>> >> too timid in its decisions not to publish the material it had" in the
>> weeks
>> >> before Election Day. She was referring to "several critical facts" the
>> paper
>> >> knew — that "the FBI had a significant and sophisticated investigation
>> >> underway on Trump, possibly including FISA warrants" and that
>> "investigators
>> >> had identified a mysterious communication channel" between Trump and
>> Russia.
>> >>
>> >> [Intelligence chiefs briefed Trump and Obama on unconfirmed claims
>> Russia
>> >> has compromising information on president-elect]
>> >>
>> >> For Hillary Clinton's aides and supporters, Spayd's critique adds fuel
>> to
>> >> their contention that the outcome of the election might have been
>> different,
>> >> had there been more coverage of Trump's alleged ties to the Kremlin.
>> >>
>> >> The Times ultimately did publish some of what it knew about the FBI's
>> >> investigation, one week before the election — but only after Slate and
>> >> Mother Jones ran their own stories. According to Spayd, the Times "had
>> the
>> >> goods" weeks earlier.
>> >>
>> >> "It's hard not to wonder what impact such information might have had on
>> >> voters still evaluating the candidates," Spayd wrote, considering what
>> could
>> >> have happened if the Times had published sooner. "Would more sources
>> have
>> >> come forward?"
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >-
>> >Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20170122/bfa2b0d9/attachment.html>