should give pause.

a bearded man in a curious george hat is far more eloquent, concise, and salient than the vast majority of nattily attired well-paid media mercenaries.

get more in 10 than 60 from ben sharpio (for example).

good vid but like this one more...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3muoxysvKiw&feature=emb_rel_end

...and like his commercials too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbdDKuV56_4

And now the Traitor in Cheat wants to toss out the constitution AND the upcoming election, saying he's considering postponing the election until he gets Covid under control, so forever.

Schools can reopen immediately because it's safe to gather daily in groups of 40 snot nosed kids in small rooms, but the election must be postponed indefinitely because it's dangerous to line up once outside or be in a large room with 8-10 adult people.

Not that he has any authority to do that, but that's never stopped him before, especially with his sycophantic republicans backing him instead of the constitution and law.

You wanna talk riots, that's going to spark the burning of every federal building in America. There aren't enough foreign mercenaries he can hire to protect them all.

I bet you love the idea.

https://videosift.com/video/Trump-Publicly-Suggests-Postponing-The-Election

So you are saying that Obama is the one who turned our military into mercenaries?

I bet you could get FOX news to run with that story.

Your video, Trump Turns Our Military Into Mercenaries, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Counterpunch ran a rant by John Steppling yesterday, titled The Magic Liberal.

As you can deduct from the title, the author takes aim at liberals, with focus on their public reaction to Comey's defenestration and their sudden love affair with institutions (law enforcement/intelligence agencies) that have proven time and time again to be an enemy of the public.

Check out this (admittedly rather long) snippet:

And so we return to the firing of James Comey. And this story has less to do with the Trump’s motivations and the fact that Comey probably needed to be fired (though not because of anything to do with Russia Gate) than it does with the sudden open embracing of throughly corrupt and compromised institutions.

I’ve had people tell me the integrity of the Judiciary in peril. One wonders how such sentences can be uttered with a straight face. I have read people writing of the attack on Democracy signaled by Comey’s firing. What can that possibly mean to anyone who says it? The anti democratic actions of Obama over 8 years seems to pass unnoticed. What was NDAA? Obama expanded surveillance, prosecuted whistleblowers and expanded military tribunals. And this just scratches the surface. What was TTP for that matter?

And yet, if you can find me a liberal willing to actually debate this, I will clean your house for a year, free.

No, the New Victorian, the american white educated liberal is in crises. He or she is in a panic over Trump not because they fear global conflagration or nuclear annihilation, but because their Yoga class might get cancelled. They are forever aggrieved over the violation of feelings — of selected vulnerable groups. This never includes the poor, Arabs, Communists or Africans. Well, ok, on occasion it does include Africans but only in very broad abstract ways (i.e. when George Clooney argues for saving South Sudan or whateverthefuckever it was he was on about).

The adoration of the White Helmets, a proven group of psychopathic jihadist mercenaries is a perfect example. The White Helmets fit the white paternalist narrative. It is a form of colonial logic. The subaltern needs rescue. And its just so wonderful that some clearly teachable Arabs can help themselves with the rescue. Lets give them an Oscar. The style codes are what matters here.

Agreed. Both atrocious, derivative and soulless corporate comittee jobs IMHO.
Also what's with "at least they have female protagonists which is good"? When did every action sci fi have to feature an 8 stone girl beating up groups of 18 stone professional mercenaries like they're nothing? I mean why not just fly or shoot lasers from your fingers if physics means so little?

@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.

After 2 years of a difficult application process completed in a refugee camp, we have a duty to those who successfully completed our process. The same goes for non refugees who completed the process. That was the deal we made with them, and they've completed their part. No, becoming hostile won't help public opinion, but why would they care? Public opinion of them is already terrible when they've done nothing wrong, and that same opinion mirrored in Trump has cost them dearly. Now, imagine you're a pissed off displaced teenager who's just escaped war and gone through the lengthy application process with their surviving family in terrible conditions the whole time, you are accepted, and then some guy just says "nope, you escaped the wrong war torn country, Fuck off"....would you be pissed at them? Maybe pissed enough to do something stupid? Now imagine there are numerous organizations looking for people just like you who convince you to act on your adolescent anger. Do you not see how blocking those people creates terrorists where acting honorably and keeping our promisses would create allies?

They ARE angry at them, irate, but they are war refugees, not mercenaries. Most able to fight them already did, and we're killed by them, Assad, or Russia.

When doing everything right by our standards at great expense gets you a nice "Fuck off and die" , why would a sane person continue?

I think they get the brunt because 1) they don't stop refugee migrations and terrorists just walk in with refugees, a problem we don't share, and 2) because of their foreign policies, an issue we do share. Their populations, and even governments are becoming more xenophobic.
Also, I haven't heard of any terrorist acts in Greece, a country that's arguably helped the refugees the most.

I would be interested to know if there have been any studies (not sure how they would go about it) to see how many fighters in Syria are locals and how many are foreign mercenaries (not including the Russian army). I don't deny that you may be 100% correct, but I would like to see some figures to confirm, and to see just how bad this issue has gotten. For all I know, the Syrian secessionists (if that's what the original local revolutionists should be called) are all gone and the fighters of today are nearly all foreign invaders, I just don't know, I've never seen data about that.

Absolutely. We've had our share of - primarily Austrian and French - mercenaries as part of our internal wars. These were groups who enlisted for one of the fighting parties.

In Syria, however, you've had thousands of mercenaries who were not fighting for the government or the "rebels", but for their own. And we're not just talking about ISIS carving out pieces of Syria for their own caliphate, but also other jihadists who merely want to turn Syria into another failed state, like Libya.

To describe this as a civil war distorts the nature of this conflict, it makes it sound as if it were a struggle for control between two groups of Syrians. It may have been at some point years ago, but it hasn't been for a long time.

Mali is looking awfully similar by now, too. Lots of foreign fighters in nation states that were only ever stable on paper anyway -- a recipe for disaster.

Um....there were also plenty of foreign mercenaries fighting on both sides in our (US) civil war. That is the norm, not something odd.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_enlistment_in_the_American_Civil_War

Also, note how she refers to it as a war. Not a "civil war", mind you, but a war. The difference lies in the thousands of foreign mercenaries fighting against the Syrian military.

@bcglorf

interesting how you classify the protesters as angry mob and rioters.

see,
this all on tribal land,owned by native americans,who welcomed this "angry mob" and "rioters" and the police are there NOT at the behest of the tribal elders,but DAPL,a private corporation attempting to push a private pipeline,for private profit,through privately owned land.

DAPL had even hired private mercenaries to keep the landowners off their construction site,who used attack dogs,mace,rubber bullets and worked alongside the police.it got so bad at one point that they had pulled police officers from FIVE states to keep those pesky landowner rabble down!

on a good note,those ancillary officer teams bowed out after a few days,saying that it was immoral and they were unwilling to participate.so the "police" you are referring to are most likely private security.

Funny how the perspective you tell the story from changes it entirely even while keeping to the overall same facts.....and then add some context.

democracynow has been doing excellent work on this situation,as has countercurrentnews:

https://www.democracynow.org/topics/dakota_access

http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/11/north-dakota-becomes-first-u-s-state-legalize-use-armed-drones-police-defend-illegal-pipeline/

http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/10/ohio-swat-state-police-deployed-north-dakota-crack-dapl-pipeline-protesters/

http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/11/sheriffs-leave-standing-rock-saying-completely-unethical/

and if you wanna berate those hiring the private thugs:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/dial-a-cop-20161031

Mike Pence Will Be the Most Powerful Christian Supremacist in U.S. History

Hell of a line, isn't it? Normally I'd blow this off as your run-of-the-mill hyperbole, but it's Jeremy Scahill, which made it a must-read for me. Well worth the time. For instance, I didn't know that Pence was buddy-buddy with Eric Prince himself. Yes, that's Blackwater's Eric Prince. Christian Supremacists with a mercenary army -- think about that for a minute.

The notion that guns and mercenaries from the west are flooding in is simply untrue. You have the curious responsibility of explaining how the US has been incapable of removing Assad if it has provided such overwhelming support as you claim. What is true, is that Assad overreacted to the Arab Spring protests, unlike say Jordan decided to fire on protests almost immediately and brought a civil war on his hands.

Meanwhile, we also know the origin of the trajectory of the Sarin rockets fired were from areas of government control. We know Assad had a chemical weapons program. We know the volume of the attacks was almost certainly unattainable by anyone other than a state actor. We know that most of the victims were either civilians or the opposition. It's also a curious that these attacks only seemed to occur in Syria.

Again your idea that oil is still a motivation for US involvement in the Middle East is an outdated concept. The US surpassed Saudi Arabia as the largest global producer in the world thank to shale oil. The price of oil has crashed as a result and will likely remain low for a prolonged time as a result. The only beneficiary who stands to gains from revisiting the conflict between the US and Russia is Putin because it boosts his domestic popularity to be locked in a struggle with the US.

Many governments in the Middle East regularly throw out the excuse that anything that goes wrong (and is usually their fault) is a result of a US conspiracy. Egypt has regularly done it, Turkey has just recently blamed the attempted coup on the US even though the incentives for the US are clearly for a stable government there to provide a base from which to attack ISIS in Iraq. You should not be so gullible as to believe this is always the case just because the US has intervened covertly in the past.