Month: January 2017

This is an astonishingly right-wing cartoon from the New Yorker currently being shared approvingly by liberals.

This is an astonishingly right-wing cartoon from the New Yorker currently being shared approvingly by liberals.

The target appears to be the anti-intellectualism of the ordinary person versus the skills and knowledge of an expert. But if so then this analogy is really a terrible one. What this really is an advertisement for authoritarianism where political rule is the province of a tiny technocratic elite. That’s because, the argument goes, running a society is just like flying a jet plane i.e. it’s an undemocratic dictatorship of the pilot and crew.

Interesting to watch so many liberals being so willing to throw democracy under a bus when things don’t go their way.

Originally shared by Craig Stellmacher

“They’re basically saying that the Russian intelligence services are completely inept.

“They’re basically saying that the Russian intelligence services are completely inept. That one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing, that they have no concern about using a free Russian email account or a Russian server that has already been known to be affiliated with cybercrime. This makes them sound like the Keystone Cops. Then, in the same breath, they’ll say how sophisticated Russia’s cyberwarfare capabilities are.”

Originally shared by Jeff Zahari

“Despite some esoteric aspects, the so-called Russian hacks, as promoted by interested parties in politics and industry, are firmly in the tradition of Cold War threat inflation….

Given that Russia’s defense budget is roughly one tenth of America’s, and that its military often cannot afford the latest weapons Russian manufacturers offer for export, resurrecting this old enemy might seem to pose a challenge to even the brightest minds in the Pentagon. Yet the Russian menace, we are informed, once again looms large.”

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/12/the-new-red-scare/