The decline and fall of Truthout: another casualty in greater war:

I believe Truthout -- its credibility now destroyed forever -- was deliberately sandbagged by the federal government, whether by agents of the regime or by other equally anti-progressive forces it matters not.

The logical suspects include Prosecutor Fitzgerald himself. Never forget that Fitzgerald is, after all, part of the system headed by George Bush -- the same system that produces successive outrages afterward labeled "scandals" merely as semantic sleight-of-hand: the labeling to conceal the fact that, just as Deadly Nightshade predictably produces poison berries, so does capitalism predictably produce its own toxins: Watergate, the savings-and-loan ripoff, Enron, the Valerie Plame affair, 9/11, Iraq, the aftermath of Katrina, NSA spying etc. ad nauseum.

To imagine that a Fitzgerald (or any other creature of U.S. capitalism) is going to make any significant systemic changes is no less absurd than imagining Santa Claus rules Christmas from a toy-factory at the North Pole. And endorsing an alternative news source by such a leak would indeed be a systemic change -- one of enormous and far-reaching magnitude.

The Left's failure to grasp this simple principle is worse than troublesome. Indeed it is yet another illustration of the dire truth that all the problems of the Left in the United States today can be summed up in two phrases: the reflexive, McCarthy Era anti-intellectuality that prohibits the development of a unifying theoretical base; and the frantic, empty-minded search for heroes -- a search the anti-intellectuality makes necessary precisely because the anti-intellectuality (deliberately) denies us the tools of self-liberation.

Were Truthout not caught up in this desperate search for heroes, the credibility-destroying debacle of the false Rove indictment -- a debacle that has shrunken Truthout's journalistic status to nothingness and condemned it to die of oblivion -- would never have happened at all.

Indeed what Truthout has fallen victim to is a classic disinformation campaign: a cunning amalgam of facts and falsehoods glued together by absurd hopes and wishful thinking. I sensed this from the very beginning -- why leak to Truthout when one could leak far more effectively to The Washington Post? -- but despite my dire suspicions (founded on nearly 50 years in journalism), I refrained from commenting until now more out of my own absurd hopefulness than anything else.

*********

Those who doubt the regime would employ such elaborate measures against Truthout and its ilk should study Operation CHAOS, the CIA’s overwhelmingly successful campaign to destroy the Counterculture from within. One of CHAOS's primary targets was the underground and/or alternative press, which the LBJ and Nixon administrations feared as the prime "subversive" force in the United States, fueling not just the anti-war movement, but also (and often more effectively) the feminist, environmentalist and back-to-the-land movements, as well as the earliest manifestations of the pagan renaissance. The Counterculture's signature self-description -- "revolution in consciousness" -- originated with East Village Other editor Walter Bowart sometime in 1966, and was disseminated across the nation by the era's three alternative news services: TransMundo (primarily a picture agency and the very first such organization); Liberation News Service (LNS); and Underground Press Service (UPS). Truthout was to the present era of electronic media precisely what these publications and news services were to the era of the Countercultural Rebellion -- and to imagine such information outlets don't matter "a whit" is to ignore the biggest lesson of all: how the energies of the Countercultural Rebellion were contained, suppressed and finally perverted into the zomboid consumerism of the '80s and politics of idiocy that have plagued us ever since.

*********

This is in fact the main reason I have no hope: anti-intellectuality of the sort identified above is both self-perpetuating and permanently crippling. Not only is no escape from it possible, but it has the added effect of constantly lowering the least common denominator -- the phenomenon commonly known as "dumbing down" carried to its most ruinous extreme. Hence the frantic and ultimately doomed search for heroes that has become the sole preoccupation -- indeed obsession -- of the U.S. Left: an obsession that (because of its yawning absence of any ideological foundation or even cautionary principles) can only end in defeat -- just like Truthout’s now obviously bogus claim Rove was indicted.

and I think there's a strong possibility that will happen, Truthout will only look like it jumped the gun.

and I think there's a strong possibility that will happen, DancingBear will only look like he jumped the gun.

Please, somebody save us from ourselves.

for insecurity and a refusal to admit that someone fucked up.

Some people can't do that. They're taking this whole thing personally, and that, my friend, as we well know. is a fatal flaw within themselves.

and was used by the government on an obscure website in order to ........ what?

What was the point of this trick?

And why didn't Leopold check out the "events" he reported, which he obviously didn't?

So, you're saying that Leopold and Pitt and Ash are all secret agents in the employ of the BFEE, or the government (all of it, or just part of it?), or some other entity that controls everything that we might read?

How do you know this? I'm curious.

I was thinking along the same lines. Destroy a website like Truthout by telling them that Rove has been indicted? Weird scheme if you ask me. It's Leopold who has shown he is a LOUSY journalist. Once could have been a big mistake, but TWICE?

and run with it? Truthout's story certainly got enough press coverage to damage them. Again, how many so called journalist have given bad info to all of us on our big screen? This whole thing smells to me.

I missed that.

Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post made fun of Leopold and Pit and Ash and truthout for what they did, but I haven't seen anyone else claim anything even close to the absurdities that were spouted in the story.

Of late, seems Howie is much like "The Decider" and is full of himself. There was a time that I felt he was fair, but as with so many others is now FULL of crap.

He's another person I have put on my list of "refusal to watch" simply because he no longer is "fair & balanced!"

Greg Palast said something on Democracy Now this morning and it made me think about all the LIES we've been fed. He was talking about Enron and all it's ramifications and said it was Economic Political Gangsterism! My first thought was... this is what has happened to journalism and is basically the same thing, Political Journalistic Gangsterism!

The FOURTH Estate has been hijacked and it started in earnest when The Bushbots started stirring the pot!

Why do we here at DU pick EVERYTHING apart? Aren't we just playing into their hands? For me, BEFORE DU... it was always TRUTHOUT! IMO too many here are finding fault and blowing this completely out of context. I can't say I was one who believed the article, but it wasn't because I had a problem with the reporters... it was because I've been fooled too many times. Not by the story, but HOW these corrupt people twist and spin all the facts and try to make EVERYONE else look like fools. These corrupt people go after EVERY person who DARES to shine a spotlight on ANY truth! I simply will not be sucked into ANYTHING anymore until it ACTUALLY happens. And that includes Fitz too! We will only know what THEY want us to know.

Until We The People stand up and start pointing finger "en masse" will THEY really feel any heat!

Most here think that Ken Lay was finally caught with his fingers in the cookie jar, but wait... there will be an appeal and how many remember Arthur Anderson??? Their conviction got reversed!

We are in big trouble in America, most of us know it... but each day, each hour or minute, it's getting deeper and deeper and we are sure to drown in the sea of brown foul smelling shit!

So we eat our own!

I was just asking the poster where in the media this truthout debacle has been written up.

Your screed, as cathartic as I hope it was for you - no one should walk around with that kind of tension built up within them - was totally unresponsive to my query.

So, now that you've gotten that out of your system, where was this truthout story in the mainstream media?

Information seems in short supply around here, but there sure is a lot of anger.

The government methodically destroyed the alternative press (of which I was a part for fully a decade). The alternative press was destroyed newspaper by newspaper, locality by locality. One of the many techniques employed was disinformation: campaigns exactly like the one that destroyed Truthout.

The destruction of Truthout was -- just as I said -- a classic intelligence operation. The specifics of how it was accomplished are less important than (A) the fact of its accomplishment and (B) what it tells us about ruling class intentions toward the Left -- "ruling class" including Prosecutor Fitzgerald as much as it does Unitary President Bush.

For a self-proclaimed "Old Lefty Lawyer," you have an astonishingly uninformed notion of how the government and the government's intelligence apparatus functions, the activities and people it targets and why they are targeted, and -- in general -- the nature of life in a police state. I very respectfully suggest you acquaint yourself with the history of European despotism, not only Nazi Germany but especially that of the years leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the subsequent Soviet Revolution of 1917 -- the revolution since overthrown by the Nazi police state after it was transported to the United States. (The links between the present-day U.S. ruling class and Nazi Germany were recently discussed in a very long, detailed and fully documented DU thread I cannot now find and do not have the time to search for. However if you want a link, please indicate and when I have more time I'll try to find it for you.)

How do I know what was done to Truthout? Obviously, my case is purely circumstantial -- but so is the case behind all the 9/11 LIHOP/MYHOP controversy. How do I reach such a conclusion? By the tools of objective analysis sharpened by my own ever-continuing education and repeatedly confirmed by half a century in journalism -- the underlying lesson of which is that the entire U.S. political process is corrupt beyond all popular conception, and in fact has been since it's inception. What makes it appear otherwise is that a few politicians have been sufficiently great they could not only escape corruption's awful undertow but rise above it: Franklin Delano Roosevelt by far the greatest of them all.

_________
Edit: typing error.

as I believe I've already informed you. My credentials are far more solid than yours, I suspect, since I have no need to post such self-absorbed claptrap on a message board, especially with nothing to back it up. I was defending Black Panthers while you were ..... oh, who knows what you were doing.

Tin foil hat time, my friend, and that's kind of too bad. If you dare to post all this and characterize it as "circumstantial," you're as bad as Leopold. Although, I hope, not burdened with the despicable CV he's managed to accumulate for himself.

Admit it - a bad pseudo-journalist got taken for a ride inside his own head and tried to get buyers for his "book."

I suspect that sums it up.

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that figures.

That's all you've got.

Circumstantial = loony theory.

They just get thrown back for being too small.

Better to go read Mario Cuomo's "Why Lincoln Matters," a gorgeous book by a great man. I highly recommend it.

:rofl:

But I have this feeling that you think somebody does....

You're wrong about that. BTW.

Oops, almost forgot. :rofl:

I have a feeling about your motives as well... :rofl: don't look now but your mandate is showing....

you believe "a bad pseudo-journalist got taken for a ride inside his own head and tried to get buyers for his "book."?

Jason's only recent other take down by the MSM was on the Sec of the Army story - and I believe because of more info than just his reporting, that he had a lock on the truth. He comes into the discussion, in my opinion, as one very good smart investigative reporter. Why would he risk his career for the $10000 to $30000 he might get on his political book?

The statement below does not contradict any info I have seen - I'm just curious as to what makes you rather confident that the story was in error and has blown up on T.O. Indeed we all know the MSM can get an incorrect story line in their head, and after and despite body bags and court filings and the passage of years, the MSM will still be selling the lie because their ego's , careerism, and just plain laziness (and in some cases because they are a whore for the original story line provider and in some cases because they are not all that smart).

So I believe it is up in the air as to the eventual outcome on TO and Jason's credibility - it depends more on the ethics of the MSM than it does on truth. And the MSM seems to have ethics only when the blogs are holding them up by the short hairs. I suggest we do not fold too fast.


http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2006/5/21/115826/135

Information Sharing on the Rove Indictment Story

By Marc Ash,

Thu May 25th, 2006 at 06:41:28 PM EDT :: Fitzgerald Investigation


I'd like to break this posting into two categories: What we know, and what we believe. They will be clearly marked.

We know that we have now three independent sources confirming that attorneys for Karl Rove were handed an indictment either late in the night of May 12 or early in the morning of May 13. We know that each source was in a position to know what they were talking about. We know that the office of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will not confirm, will not deny, will not comment on its investigation or on our report. We know that both Rove's attorney Robert Luskin and Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo have categorically denied all key facts we have set forth. We know we have information that directly contradicts Luskin and Corallo's denials. We know that there were two network news crews outside of the building in Washington, DC that houses the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm that represents Karl Rove. We know that the 4th floor of that building (where the Patton Boggs offices are located) was locked down all day Friday and into Saturday night. We know that we have not received a request for a retraction from anyone. And we know that White House spokesman Tony Snow now refuses to discuss Karl Rove - at all.

Further, we know - and we want our readers to know - that we are dependent on confidential sources. We know that a report based solely on information obtained from confidential sources bears some inherent risks. We know that this is - by far - the biggest story we have ever covered, and that we are learning some things as we go along. Finally, we know that we have the support of those who have always supported us, and that must now earn the support of those who have joined us as of late.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I am beginning to see what looks like an orchestrated attack on TO. It would not surprise me at all. So, I am now going to email all those I know and ask them to support TO ~

They only win if you let them ~ and it makes me all the more determined to help any liberal blog that is under attack. So, support them, and NEVER GIVE UP!! TO must have touched a real nerve ~ I have never, ever seen anything like this attack against one blog which has been a real source of truth to those of us who had a hard time finding it for the past several years.

GO TRUTHOUT!! :bounce:

Wow.

until then I'll go with "not proven".......

They are to be served in as timely a manner as possible. An indictment is sealed, most often, when the risk of the defendant fleeing the jurisdiction is serious, but, in two weeks, Karl Rove ain't headed for Costa Rica or Brazil, so I suspect the reality might be something some people might now want to consider:

There is no indictment.

indictments and risk of flight is just one of them.... Now I know something is up...

but recently I was sued and the papers weren't served till 23 days (calendar days) after the suit was filed. Now I know this wasn't an indictment and maybe that's the diff, but I know I was sorely P-O'd when I found that though I still had a full 20 days to respond, a court date for a pre-hearing was less than 24 hours away when the papers were served. I had been home for the entire 23 days as well so it wasn't as though they couldn't locate me.

However, all that being said; I doubt Rove will be indicted. And IF Truthout was set up; well he should've done better fact-checking before publishing; surely one so well informed about the tricks the administration likes to pull should have had a bit more skepticism about the leak he was given.

that's not an indictment, it's just being served with a cause of action.

There is no comparison. Two different worlds.

That's an ugly trick some insurance companies, especially, like to pull - serving at the last possible minute, hoping to get a default judgment. It never works, though, because judges are hip to this bullshit.

I'm sorry you're in the system, though. Not a pleasant place to be, I know.

I wish you luck.

And, yes, when publishing any story, any journalist - with integrity and professionalism, that is - triangulates sources and doesn't forward if they don't pan out. This was disenguous, at best, and stupid, at worst.

Seriously, I hope your legal woes end quickly and happily.

right quick. He called them in a showed them two things, a likely corporate bankruptcy filing (if they pursued the suit) and a totally legit countersuit for fraudulent disclosure during the sale of the business to me. Since the lawyers for the plaintiff had been hassling me by phone and mail for two months I had all manner of letters and documents ready, but as a president of the corporation, I couldn't present them myself. They rolled right over. So my legal woes were short lived with a relatively happy ending.

Stay out of the system - but you already knew that.

Yeah, there are good lawyers out there, huh? I'm one of them, and hearing that you got really competent representation makes me proud - and glad for you.

Now, behave, and don't make that damn process server come after you again. (That was a joke....)

Always have a lawyer close by. That's a sad, but prudent, truth of our culture today.

My husband married me just for that reason, I think.

Again, congratulations.

numerous times now.

We got your point and some don't believe it. So there.

At least for me. :shrug:

and I'm still waiting for an outcome!

If journalism worked like that I could just say:

Man Lands On Mars!

There. Scoop of the century. When we land on Mars, remember who you got this scoop from.

known by your editor, who've given credible info in the past leads to a viable news item.

...and I'm disappointed by the speed with which so many are willing to write them off. As a newcomer to the world of DU it saddens me to see how quickly an ally is turned on. THIS IS A PROBLEM! Truthout kept me from going crazy in the early days of this administration when there was no where to turn and I cut them a lot of slack in the poison environment created by Bushco.

:hi:

:hi:

The debate in which you are participating is DU at its best.

idea and welcome to DU. Don't be put off by a few very dedicated detractors of liberal blogs ~ you'll come to recognize the same names in every topic relating to Jason Leopold's article after a while.

As a matter of fact, I would imagine that all this attention has increased TO's readership ~ and it might be a good time to place an ad there, if they take ads. Off to check that out ~ :hi:

and it's about TO more than Rove at this point, here at DU, thanks to slack assed 'journalism'.

TO, Leopold and all did this to themselves, you don't need a Rove machine for false scoops and huge egos.

The insanely repetitive and always vituperative attackers. But that's just me.

Why was there virtually no m$m coverage of the election fraud and Diebold's connections to the RNC, ... and so many other examples of slack-assed journalism that I tire just thinking of the tremendous numbers of sin by intentional omission that these so called journalists have hoisted onto the American psyche. They have been fed daily doses of lies.

Compare that with truthout small jump of the gun. How many innocent lives has Leopold taken because of his possible misreporting?

for vomitting up the unconfirmed, un-checked bile of the administration's news releases.

just because there are huge garantuan lies made by humongous megacorps with vested interest in making war and profits for themselves, excuses TO?
please explain

Who's blowing smoke up where?

the New York Times or Washington Post.

We know there are people at TO who want to get it right and we know that there are people at the NYT and WaPost who are paid to lie.

have an agenda more obvious than Cris Matthews!! Ha Ha.

:hi:

:D

It looks so shocked; so awed.

This has become way too personal for some posters.

:D

So appropriate
LOL

If Leopold and TO were duped or swiftboated by *Co or Fitz where's your compassion. Give them a break. Everybody is entitled to a mistake now and then. I can't understand that people here on DU have lost all faith in TO/Leopold.

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of the internet news and blogs in general, not just Truthout.
There's a whole segment of the population who won't believe anything that comes off the net,
and all of this just cements their suspicions.

In a world where we've been collectively decieved,
truthout is just fine, please move on.

Just like CBS news was.

Truthout got too close to the truth, on too many things and the axe fell!

Edit...I hope T O comes back from the low blow. I think they try to do the right things, just like Dan on CBS tried.

Brian Ross writing in the Blotter that he (who has been investigating and reporting on US Air Marshalls) the NY Times and I think the Wash. Post are being surveilled. Who knows what tricks are being played out here.

The WH says they're in the prosecuting mood where reporters and whistle-blowers are concerned.

We see Congress being marginalized more and more by the WH.

There's Bush* signing Presidential Powers over to Negroponte, allowing corporate entities to lie with no penalty to their stockholders in the name of National Security.

The DOJ can't investigate the NSA because the NSA won't authorize them through vetting.

Gonzalez and Negroponte are scaring the shit out of me. Everyone it seems is warring at one another - allies fighting with one another in the media, in Congress, on the net - and it seems to me it all points directly back to those two men.

It's all so insane!

get even, or to try and discredit, or silence and intimidate someone who rubs them the wrong way...you don't need to look at Truthout...Look instead at Joe Wilson and his wife.

Now look at how many Freepers and trolls have tried to shut down the flow of information on DU and other dem chatboards and blogs.

Look at the public attacks on Move On.

Hell the GOPers have even turned on each other, when one steps out of the neocon party line!

Rove and his fellow criminals, would love to control the internet, like they control the MSM.

Keep up the good work.

oh . . . phew!

still there!
http://truthout.org/

before I begin, your post is very thoughtful and considerate.


1. Truthout and Jason Leopold were victims of an elaborate ruse and hoax desinged to discredit a basically unknown website outside of partisan activist progressive circles. The false information was distributed to multiple sources in a manner to convince TO and JL if the stories 100% certainty.

or

2. Jason Leopold exaggerated and made up the entire story.

or

3. JL and TO were done in by terrible sourcing.


The first seems least likely to me. The last, most likely. The 2nd, possible given JL's past.


BTW, Truthout pulled any reference to the indictment story from their home page. There used to be a prominent banner headline proclaiming the indictment story. That is no longer visible (interesting the ABC is sticking by their story link is up), and the indictment story can be uncovered only by clicking on the Fitz calling link. There is ZERO reference to the story on their homepage at the moment.

Mr. Fitzgerald calling. Click on that and it takes you to the story.. I guess that would be considered a reference as it leads to the story....

It's been removed for reasons TO has not commented on. There are many other Rove/Libby stories with links on their home page, Karl Rove's indictment surely would be the biggest of any Rove/Libby/Plame story.

No mention. It's a stealth retraction. No responsibility.

before you changed your thread and I was just pointing out that there was to a certain extent...

Anything with indictment on it. I see three other stories related to the Plame leak story.

http://truthout.org/

There is no reference to the indictment. There used to be a dedicted banner announcement to the indictment, it's now gone.

the banner references the story... You want to break it down, but you did post reference in your OP which you changed....

I don't think you can spin that.

It's there or it's not.

Pssst, it was pulled.

I can admit that.. But what is it to you?


That was not the post though before it was changed...

much respect to begin with.

Why did they target TO? What do they have to gain by making a blogger look foolish? If they did it to MSNBC, then I can see it.

wanted to discredit the progressive media?

truthout.org.

Not bloody likely before the Mary 12 fairy tale, and certainly not bloody likely now.

A nice convergence of egos and delusion, I'd say, and a coterie of devoted followers who refuse to face reality. That's pretty much what it was, even as the True Believers continue to wait for - what? - a video of the Patton Boggs "lockdown"? Or a definition of a term unknown in the law: "twenty-four business hours to get (affairs) in order"? (That one was especially terrific, because Leopole admitted in an NPR Wisconsin interview that he had no idea what the term meant - and never bothered to look it up. Now, THAT's responsible journalism, wouldn't you say?)

Perhaps they're waiting for Rove to make his move, try to flee the country, and watch the shootout at the airport as the FBI and NSA and CIA and Girl Scouts Selling Cookies (they're more dangerous than the first three, I believe) all go after him and serve him with his indictment as he tries, feverishly, to get to Costa Rica, where Robert Vesco (is he still alive?) and Karl Rove will sit around, drinking pina coladas, and whispering in longing tones about how good Richard Nixon was back in the days of the Imperial Presidency.

Yeah, Karl Rove and the White House put those snakes in Leopold's head.

I think those snakes have been in that head for a long time. Read his CV and draw your own conclusions.

Great post!

Intuition? Info from your circle of contacts? What? Where? When? Other than snide remarks, you have had little to offer in the way of real, concrete evidence that TO was/is wrong. I'm sure you see yourself as much smarter, better educated, and well connected than any of the rest of us, but you don't give us the benefits of any evidence you may have uncovered using your valuable counter-intelligence skills--just snark, and rather hateful and condescending snark at that. When you have something more concrete to add to the discussion, I'll be happy to read it.

... of the death of Truthout are over the top to say the least. Truthout is over if the principals want to quit. Making a single error, regardless of how great, is not the end of the world for any organization.

I have no clue what happened. I don't think they made the story up out of whole cloth, but who knows.

I've made mistakes in my life. Luckily, my friends and family did not chose to abandon me for dead over it. I'm not going to abandon anyone over a single mistake, and I don't think most others will either.

For me, personally, I'm not going to trust anything Jason Leopold says, but I'll give Will Pitt the benefit of the doubt. But then, I've never looked to a single source for my news anyway.

a story that didn't unfold as the story claimed, then every single news media source in the world would be out of business.

Sounds to me like you're trying to frame the debate in such as way as to discredit truthout, which only lowers YOUR credibility, IMO.

found he could peddle wishful thinking to the credulous....it MUST be a conspiracy. (snicker)

The OP paints with a brush as big as Texas. The generalizations come at the reader like swarm of angry bees.

I urge all readers of this thread not to be baited or swayed by the OP's post and to make their own mind up about the true scale of Leopold's severely damaged credibility. Personally, I will wait until I see a pattern of mistakes or distortions by Truthout before I look elsewhere for news and commentary. One bad story by a relatively small liberal web site is a tempest in a teacup compared to the cesspool that is the corporate media in America today. In short, put the Truthout affair in perspective.

As far as this being a set-up, I still don't understand why Truthout. The OP wonders why Truthout would be leaked to and concludes that it was a "classic set-up". If it was a set-up or a misinformation campaign designed to confuse and demoralize liberals that read Truthout or follow Will Pitt on DU, wouldn't it be infinitely more effective if you forced a discussion of the failure on boards like DU? Maybe a constant stream of posts dissing not only Leopold, but also anyone else who is involved with Truthout in any way would help sow those seeds of doubt and confusion. The OP's very first line should scream out to the reader that they should tread carefully through the rest of the post. Upon reading the SECOND blanket condemnation of Truthout by the OP, the reader should be very suspicious of the motives of the poster.

Will Pitt has another book coming out. Discrediting him or his information might have been desirable.

Perhaps that was part of his idea of getting attention, but, boy, did he shoot himself in ass!

Who would read a book written by a liar? Ask Jayson Blair how well his "book" sold.

"On what date were indictments (sealed or unsealed) delivered to Rove or Rove's lawyers?"

Until then we don't know whether Leopold's most important news - that Rove had received indictments - is true or false.

Leopold has admitted that he screwed up by repeating what he was told -- "24 business hours" when he did not know what 24 business hours meant, nor (apparently) did he know whether something public would or would not happen at the end of that time period or whether Rove would be able to delay/prevent by filing motions, by turning states' evidence.

We don't know what is what yet - and we may not for some time.

Finally - truthout is being judged pretty damned harshly - what about ABC News? They still standing by their report that Hastert is 'in the mix' of the investigation even while Hastert and DOJ are denying the story?

I feel SO BETRAYED by ABC News! The CREDIBILITY OF ABC News has been DESTROYED!

and in a much more dignified manner than I wanted to. :toast:

And agree with your suspicions.

getting more hits than ever as a result of the obvious campaign against them by a few, very determined bashers. I think it has more to do with some kind of personal jealousy of either Will Pitt or Jason Leopold, or both myself. The posts are childish and serve more to drive people OVER to Truthout than anything else.

Who would care enough to do that? It is one of hundreds if not thousands of such sites, far too small of a fish to arouse the fed's interest.

Lay this conspiracy theory to rest. The more interesting question is how did truthout ever get itself into such a terrible mess?

Has anyone seen or heard of Leopold lately?

stories that turned out not to be true...I find you post a little weird..

Drudge is still there despite that and hnundreds of other bloopers.

sex scandals. We dull dems get into what politicans are doing on the floor of the House & Senate.

I am probably as close as one can come to being a congenital cynic and skeptic, and yet TruthOut has lost *nothing* in my book.

You speak of the "Left" as though you're outside of it, rather than as a concerned member.

Respectfully disagreeing with a few statements regarding Truthout, Fitzgerald, and the Left:

Truthout's credibility is "destroyed forever".

Even if we receive definitive proof that a certain story was in error, by this standard all outlets of the corporate media would have met the same fate thousands of times over. This statement is equivalent to saying that it's taken for granted that no one now believes, or will ever again believe, anything from Truthout. That just isn't true.


To imagine that a Fitzgerald (or any other creature of U.S. capitalism) is going to make any significant systemic changes is no less absurd than imagining Santa Claus rules Christmas from a toy-factory at the North Pole. And endorsing an alternative news source by such a leak would indeed be a systemic change -- one of enormous and far-reaching magnitude.

If the primary point of this paragraph is that Fitzgerald did not, and would not, leak information to Truthout in order to effect a paradigm shift in media, I'll grant that. If it implies in the first sentence that Fitzgerald operates within a capitalist system which he will not overthrow, I'll grant that too. But Fitzgerald is clearly working not to change the system of law, but to use it as intended, whether or not potential lawbreakers are members of the current group in power. The rule of law is in effect, it would appear, performing the self-correcting function in our democracy that it is supposed to.


...all the problems of the Left in the United States today can be summed up in two phrases: the reflexive, McCarthy Era anti-intellectuality that prohibits the development of a unifying theoretical base; and the frantic, empty-minded search for heroes -- a search the anti-intellectuality makes necessary precisely because the anti-intellectuality (deliberately) denies us the tools of self-liberation.

Anti-intellectuality? The left? We eggheads, we poets, we readers and idealistic crusaders for a more just society? We professors, we scholars, we musicians and dancers and actors? We religious seekers who've looked around the globe for religious traditions that speak to the deeper experiences of life that may seem unknown to the churches of our parents?

And what is the need for a "unifying theoretical base"? When has America ever had such a thing? Isn't this the genius of the Constitution, that out of many voices and vastly different perspectives, the proper step forward is chosen for the benefit of the many, instead of the few?

Lastly, "the frantic, empty-minded search for heroes"? This, more than the other points, is really so much more characteristic of the Right than the Left that it fairly boggles the mind. I think of the cults of Reagan, of W, of Falwell and Robertson and Dobson. Blankly imputing this motivation to Truthout as though it were a given compounds the error.


Time will tell, but I fully expect to see that this attempt to write their epitaph and sell off their golf clubs and furniture was premature.

but I've no idea as to who the source might be. I posted this last Monday, and it was locked almost immediately after I had posted it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1259876

Was Jason Leopold Misled? Was he Targeted? James Hatfield Revisited...
I have posted several times my suspicions that Leopold was "Rathered" or "Hatfielded". I was researching Hatfield to refresh my memories, and ran across several opinions that are similar to mine, i.e. that Leopold was used as a target to feed misinformation to by his 'sources', and was so chosen because he, like Hatfield, had a dubious past. His past could thus be used to discredit him, even though his sources may have given him the truth, the partial truth, or outright lies. It is of extreme interest to note that Rove was presumably one of Hatfield's sources, and chillingly, one of his sources threatened Hatfield's family members prior to the publication of his book! Wouldn't this be so ironic and Roveian; to find another Progressive author with a past, who this time writes to expose Rove.

There are two recent links below which compare the circumstances of Hatfield and Leopold. Following this are links and snips from articles about Hatfield. Apparently, he never divulged his sources for his book Fortunate Son, but strongly hinted that one of the sources was none other than Rove himself. Also ironic, is the fact that Hatfield repeatedly states that there was never denial or refutation of the facts in his B* biography.

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/05/rove-hatfield-leop...
<snip>
I don’t want to dump all over Leopold, as, unlike everybody else, he seems to be trying. On the other hand, his background makes him, exactly like James Hatfield, an excellent target for Rovean disinformation. The Rove pattern is to pick somebody with an iffy history to spread rumors about a touchy topic, rumors which have a basis in truth but which are technically wrong, and then use the character of the person reporting the rumors to deflect attention from the real issues. They used the same method in dealing with Bush’s military service, or lack thereof.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=...
This Google page contains numerous links strongly suggesting that Rove himself was one of Hatfield's Sources

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=3...

<snip>
Jason Leopold -Truthout vs. Karl Rove- White House

by JOSHUA FRANK (EDITOR'S NOTE: Did Jason Leopold & Truthout.org get bushwhacked by the Karl Rove Spin-Lie Machine for the "Karl Rove Indicted" story? It happened to J.H. Hatfield, author of Fortunate Son, who was fed the story of George Bush Jr.'s cocaine conviction, then discredited publicly when it was revealed that Hatfield had done time for an unrelated fraud charge. Thus the Bush cocaine story was also discredited just in time for the 2000 presidential election. Later Hatfield was either suicided or committed suicide himself.)

Jason Leopold should be used to it. He's been the target of media assaults for years now, really ever since he began breaking stories about Enron’s fiascos and the California energy crisis as a writer for Dow Jones Newswire. .....

tp://www.lovearth.net/fortunateson.htm

Bush Accuser Dies Of Drug Overdose

<snip>
Was This A Payback Murder For His Writing Fortunate Son, Or Did
He Really Commit Suicide By Overdosing On Prescription Drugs?

by Irene Noguchi
The troubled author of a biography accusing President Bush of hiding a three-decade-old cocaine arrest committed suicide Wednesday. James Howard Hatfield, 43, was found in a hotel room in Springdale, Ark., and appeared to have died from a overdose of prescription drugs, police said. Hatfield wrote Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President in 1999. The book cited unnamed sources in claiming that Bush was arrested in 1972 but that his case was expunged. Bush, who was campaigning for president when the book was published, denied the allegations.
Soon after Fortunate Son was released by St. Martin's Press, the company discovered that Hatfield had been convicted in 1988 of attempted murder of his former supervisor. It recalled 70,000 copies in October 1999 and left an additional 20,000 books in storage.
**********
"He did have a past that he was working very hard to put behind him," Hicks said.
In "Fortunate Son," Hatfield said three unnamed sources claimed a judge had expunged Bush's case and given him community service as a favor to his father, who was ambassador to the United Nations at the time. The incident raised questions of how well publishers screen the credentials of authors and check facts in their books. Hatfield was convicted in 1988 of paying a hit man $5,000 to murder his former boss with a car bomb. Both passengers in the vehicle, the intended victim and a colleague, escaped unharmed when the bomb malfunctioned. After news of that conviction surfaced, it was also discovered that Hatfield had pleaded guilty to embezzlement in 1992. (Original article in Washington Post July 20, 2001; link doesn't work)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/19/fortunate /

The biography, which was supposed to debut next January, was hastened out the door three months early by its publisher St. Martin's on account of startling allegations: that Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession and had his record expunged with the help of family connections.

...Hatfield relies on three unnamed sources to nail down his disturbing allegations about Bush's supposed cocaine arrest.

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/2001/05/Jim_Hatfiel...

BUZZFLASH.COM INTERVIEW WITH JIM HATFIELD:

BuzzFlash: Why was the Bush Campaign so scared of Fortunate Son being published? Hatfield: For the obvious reason--everything contained between its covers is the truth. Pure and simple. Here it is a year-and-a-half later and no one has ever disproved anything in "Fortunate Son." The biography has withstood the test of time and, trust me, there has been an army of conservatives who would have given up their first born to destroy this book. But they had to settle with trying to destroy me instead. But to their absolute utter dismay, I'm still standing. My e-mail signature is from writer Langston Hughes and it fits me like a glove: "I've been insulted, eliminated, locked in, locked out, and left holding the bag. But I am still here."

**********************

BuzzFlash: Do you expect the White House to unleash a counterattack against you and your book? Hatfield: You betcha! It's Bush and his gang's modus operandi. Usually when a hard-hitting biography of someone is published, the subject ignores it and refuses to comment on the book because discussing or refuting it or even calling the author horse hockey, only draws more attention to the book--the opposite of what the biographical subject wants. When "Fortunate Son" was first published in October 1999, there was an orchestrated plan to discredit me on a daily basis publicly, while the Bush lawyers were privately pressuring Saint Martin's Press to take the unusual step of recalling all copies. While George W. was calling the cocaine arrest allegation "science fiction" and "ridiculous" (but never denying it), his father gave Fox News an exclusive interview and bold-faced lied. He claimed his lawyers had been in contact with me and was threatening to sue (neither I nor my attorney ever heard from any legal representative of the Bush family). The elder Bush also said I alleged in the book that he "bribed a judge" to insure his son's cocaine arrest was expunged. Using my sources' own words, I detail how he used his political influence with a judge friend in Houston to make sure George W. got community service and the record expunged. The Bush campaign also drafted former Harris County (Houston) District Attorney Carol S. Vance to issue a statement debunking the allegations that the charges against Bush were expunged by a GOP judge, claiming that they could not be true because no Republicans served as judges in the county at the time. Vance's statement does not prove that what I asserted was false. Actually, it validates my procedural process of corroboration when dealing with anonymous sources. Two of the three stated it was simply a "state judge" who expunged Bush's cocaine arrest, while only one of them said, "Republican." By late 1999, all 59 state district judges were Republicans, whereas in 1972 they were all Democrats. Was it a simple mistake on the part of one of my sources, or purposely planned to discredit me at a later date, as my publisher, Sander Hicks, believes (as do quite a few others). And then, of course, the final nail in the coffin during that week in October 1999 was the eventual front page story in the Dallas Morning News that I had a checkered past. Suddenly the media was more obsessed with the life of the biographer than the subject of an even-balanced but unflinching biography of a man that eventually became president. Confederate General Robert E. Lee once said, "When you're too weak to defend, you must attack." And that's exactly what the Bush campaign did. This time it will be the White House. Actually, they've thrown everything at me but the kitchen sink, both personally and professionally. Also, like I said earlier, not one single statement in "Fortunate Son" has been disproved during the past year and a half. What truly worries me and wakes me up in a cold sweat during the middle of the night, is what one of my confidential sources for the cocaine arrest told me when it was announced that Soft Skull Press was going to re-publish the book less than 3 months after St. Martin's Press recalled it: "Jim, we're not done discrediting you. The wheels are already in motion for more of the same." Then he went on to say if I "valued the lives" of my wife and baby daughter (whom he called by their first names), "then you'll cancel this publishing deal right now, today." It makes you wonder why the Bushes so desperately want this book suppressed. What's contained in its 400+ pages that scares the hell out of them?

http://www.barbelith.com/cgi-bin/articles/00000058.shtm...

According to Hatfield, during the writing of Fortunate Son he had contacted Rove and Johnson and interviewed them at length. Hatfield mistakenly assumed that Johnson and Rove weren't aware of his 1988 conviction for solicitation of capital murder. Rove and Johnson realised that, in Hatfield, they had found their solution to Bush's drug problem. A flawed author.
**********
He had, he claimed, received death threats levelled at him and his family from prominent and important right wingers.
**********
He was clearly taken by surprise when the press turned against him and when his criminal record was unearthed and used to discredit the work he did on the biography

I think he was naive enough to believe what most Americans like to believe about America, that democracy still means something here, that the truth will get a hearing, that evil when exposed will be brought down."
***********************************
Moderator's Response:

This is such a fluid story, we're going to limit speculation as well as we can for now without limiting discussion. There are a couple of active threads that cite some current info, updates. Please see:

don't cause too many readers to fixate on TruthOut and miss your broader points.
:thumbsup:


The set up and damaged credibility were deliberate as well, it appears.

"...anti-intellectuality of the sort identified above is both self-perpetuating and permanently crippling. Not only is no escape from it possible, but it has the added effect of constantly lowering the least common denominator -- the phenomenon commonly known as "dumbing down" carried to its most ruinous extreme."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1261692

Truthout appeared classy yet internet kicked back. At first the comments that Truthout was set-up was puzzling as it seemed they weren't that damaging to "the other side." Maybe they were.

Your points about the 60's and 70's underground press makes sense when you hear Repubs. bash that era and how it demoralized our Nation. I am from that era and it felt liberating to hear the media loosen up and as one magazine had plastered all over it's cover "Is God Dead." That signaled to me that one was able to question things that were not politically correct back then. People could object in masses to the terrible Viet Nam war. Girls/women had the right to an abortion, education, a life! Now we are once again not allowed new ideas, back to 1950 would suit the repubs. just fine - follow the rules - don't ask questions.

Credibility destroyed forever. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Oh the drama. Seriously, you reaching just a tad there?

Truthout is fine. Their respect from people who actually know a damn thing about them is fine. And we still don't know one way or the other what in the world is up with or happened to rovey. So this whole thread is wayyyyyyyyy over the top.

Bwahahahaha!

the so-called "mainstream" (i.e. corporate) media spreads EVERY DAY.

But for some reason I'm supposed to completely disregard a liberal information source because they dropped the ball ONCE? Fuck that.

and that Bush should have nipped that sucker in the bud and NEVER given him so much POWER!

I had to post because I just saw Carlson on Tweety spouting the same crap you are saying ...BLAME EVERYTHING ON FITZ...as if he had anywhere near the power that Starr had as an INDEPENDENT Prosecutor.

I think what you say belongs down in the 9/11 Forum for it's trashing of Fitzgerald and insinuation that goes along with whomever wrote the check to Carlson tonight. SHEESH...!!!!

I know we are all anxious for the announcement that rove is indicted, but there is NO evidence that Fitz is either corrupted or corruptable. His handling of this is totally unlike the Ken Starr show.

I really hate to see recommendations adding up on stuff like this. And I kick myself for wasting my time on it.

He has a record and a history and -- unlike Karl Rove, for example -- he hasn't been subject to accusations of dirty tricks or leaking.

It's odd that you should pick on him, when there are so many possible * administration sources running around.

here on DU. Thank you so much!

It's a shame that it's going to take losing everything for people to finally wake up and realize that "having no hope" does not equate to having no power. It will be a power truly of and for the people when this realization finally occurs and I hope so badly that I am alive for the Revolution.

is based on an incident of not-dissimilar magnitude: the false armistice reported by United Press on November 7, 1918 -- four days before the actual armistice on November 11, 1918.

Taught to earlier generations of journalists (including mine) as an object lesson of the damage done by bad reporting, the report, flashed by UP around the world, so severely damaged the one serious competitor to Associated Press that it became forever after a wire-service also-ran. Even after its merger with Hearst's International News Service (INS) to become United Press International, the false armistice continued to haunt and paralyze its marketing efforts, with the result that -- though it lingers on as what used to be called a "mailer service" (delivery of its stories by mail rather than teletype), it is now effectively dead.

Truthout was acquiring a reputation as a go-to news source far beyond DU circles -- at least out here on the West Coast -- and was favored not only by progressive activists but by liberals and Leftists of many stripes, even the less active. But with the false-indictment story, all that was changed -- just as the false armistice story of November 7, 1918 changed United Press and its prospects forever.

"...the frantic and ultimately doomed search for heroes that has become the sole preoccupation -- indeed obsession -- of the U.S. Left: an obsession that (because of its yawning absence of any ideological foundation or even cautionary principles) can only end in defeat..."

Just not that lovable?

:shrug:

are we doing here? :hi:

:hi:

How big are the closets? :hi:

and walk-ins, darling. Only the best for you. :hi:

Walk-ins! :loveya:

for which I have such contempt. It very methodically purged all its Marxists (and therefore all its intellectuals) in its quiveringly craven reaction to the Anti-Communist Reign of Terror (and, yes, that's exactly what it was)-- the Reign of Terror that peaked with McCarthy but has lingered into the present. Ever since then it has not only lacked any unifying analysis but has viciously opposed anyone who even suggests such an analysis is essential. Here is a link about how that hatefulness is expressed via feminism -- a hatefulness which (as the author herself acknowledge to me in a subsequent letter) is a phenomenon not just of the Women's Movement but of American society in general, particularly the bourgeoisie:

http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm

But its anti-intellectuality is not my only difference with the U.S. pseudo-Left: I am a person who knew poverty and neglect in my childhood, and because of that and my blue-collar origins (and the fact that in my adult life I have taken time away from journalism to work in blue-collar jobs) -- this pseudo-Left is typically as hostile to me and my kind as it is to any genuine Ku Klux Kredneck. This hostility arises from the bigoted, classically bourgeois assumption that a man with sweaty brow, grimy clothes and dirty hands -- whether dirtied in garage, factory, print shop, barn or the engine room of a commercial fishing vessel -- is a man with a stupidly fascist outlook. Such bigotry and its associated class-antagonisms -- carefully nurtured by ruling-class operatives in spite of the fact it was clearly identified and deplored at length in eloquent essays by the late Jack Newfield -- is precisely what destroyed the Democratic Party 38 years ago and why George Bush is in the White House today.


_________
Footnote: the Newfield work I cited appeared in a series of Village Voice reports following the 1968 donnybrook in Chicago and again in the aftermath of the 1972 McGovern debacle. Because of their relevance to today's events -- especially the crisis in U.S. politics -- it is a damn shame they're not available on line.

well, what you call "pseudo". Whatever.

You see us as anti-intellectual, anti-blue-collar, bigoted, and hostile those who labor in garages, factories, printshops, barns and engine rooms. Even though half of us work such jobs (at least those lucky enough to be employed at present). None of the rest of us were raised in poverty or neglect, with blue-collar origins.... I see.

I don't know why you bother with us if you find us so contemptuous, but I especially don't understand why you bother with something as insignificant as a website article when you have so many other more important issues with the left.

Huh. Some kinda thing I seem to be overlooking.

and for precisely the reason I stated.

I'm truly sorry if I offended a fellow blue-collar worker.

But I speak not only as a union member but as a former Democratic activist -- twice a PC -- who was driven out of the Democratic Party in Washington state literally by its spit-in-our-faces viciousness against (1)-anyone who served in the military during the Vietnam era; (2)-anyone who owns firearms (especially anyone with a carry permit); (3)-anyone who works at "raping Mother Earth" -- that is, loggers, commercial fishers, farmers, miners etc.; (4)-blue collar workers in general, and (5)-intellectuals: that is, people willing to look coldly and objectively at our present circumstances and attempt with all the inputs at hand, which by definition includes (but is surely not limited to) Marx to find a solution before it is too late -- which in fact it may already be.

I post on this site as part of a small minority of DU contributers who (1)-hope beyond all reason for hope that America will wake up to the renewed and thoroughly tyrannosauric threat of capitalism before it is too late and who (2)-see in a reconstituted, resurrect-the-New-Deal Democratic Party the possible fruition of such (foolish) hopes.

is that you stated that you had no hope. Now you say that you have some hope, however slim and qualified.

Most people on DU join and participate here because they have hope (however dashed and slim and frustrated) that by working together (instead of calling one another bigoted and elite), we might join our energies, determination and intellects to do just what you are looking for: the New Deal Democratic Party.

Some people regard this board as just social entertainment, but there is real dedicated serious work going on here, too. It is also a clearing house for information- coming in and spread far and wide. Research. Activism. Education. If TO had a blip, or stumbled, or fell on their face, or took a swan-dive into the septic tank head-first, or will be proven to be correct.... is a small matter to me.

What bothers me is the current treatment of DUers with an attitude of 'kick a guy when he's down', 'rub it in his face', 'give the knife a twist'.... point and laugh at someone who tripped & fell, yelling, "Told ya he was clumsy! What an asshole!", rather than helping the guy up and saying, "Ya should tie yer fucking shoes before you run." That might be the guy who will warn you tomorrow that the school bully is readying to set your locker on fire.

Cyberspace is next battlefield in the war for hearts and minds.

Multiple sources were vetted. Ash and Pitt continue to stand behind their sources despite all that has happened. That leads one to believe they are either the world's worst editors OR they were taken for a ride by someone. The story behind the story may take longer to figure out than getting news from Fitzgerald.

The story behind the story may take longer to figure out than getting news from Fitzgerald.

"F*cked By The News: How A Non-story Became the Story"

an old paradigm on a new world.?

Full spectrum dominance ?

come, now...

or is the fineness of your rhetorical questioning statements indicative of just such an assumed hierarchy in logic. Some people skip pages, some people read the last page before they buy the book. Personally, I think all of it is diversionary because the sky is falling and nobody has control of the rain soaking the ground even though everyone is reporting it is still sunny. The old laws don't apply and a new perspective is being imposed (subtly) while we speak This means Pitt is irrelevant even if he were to do the same pony trick every few years.

The old laws do not apply...

The intellectual is a cache in someone's file...

we have a planet bouncing off the roof of the world, anything can happen. and might. the restraints imposed by privilege are no guarantee.

NO nobody gives a crap in a reality beyond these machinations. something is afoot that can't be scribed (de or as).

Maybe, someone who thinks they can control the conversation thinks this is important like it used to be . Afoot, there are storms aloft and hidden from view (coyly) that might assume a different reality.

I'm not buying the relevance of this discourse even though it has a pleasing presentation...

After reading all the comments I can see that we all took something different from it. How'd you do that? JK

really past time to get real now. Leopold fucked up royally, and truthout fucked up totally by running his bullshit story that he likely knew was bullshit. It had nothing to do with truthout being "sabotaged" deliberately, get fucking real. You don't see this happening with other liberal blogs, because they actually are careful about printing stories and don't print shit from discredited "journalists" like Leopold. Time to quit blaming everything and everyone other than Leopold and truthout. Our side is capable of fucking up, too, you know.

times of secrecy in government and attacks on all we hold dear (fear) we sometimes break our own rules. Happened in the run up to Iraq for all the MSM. And they are still there.

What I find interesting was that the second the rumour of Rove's indictment was put up here at the DU.. someone was giving a narrative about how this would be the pinacle and hold the true and only meaning to Leopold's career. Now - breaking news on Rove and equal time in the early momments given to a narrative that would be excessively personal?

Come one.. We are not so stupid.

Read the Harper's article on backstabbing, the right's constant narrative and lack of sacrifice. Really good.

Everyone dealing with sociopaths in their government or in the political arm of the government (is there any other arm of the Bush admin?) has to deal with the fact that they will be emotionally overcome and need to read themselves the riot act... I will not break my own rules.. I will not go solely on emotion.. I know now.. I know my weaknesses... I know myself.. I will not make the mistakes of the NYTimes, CBS News, Truthout... all which survive... I will learn from their mistakes. And redouble my efforts to be authentic.. and use that as my guide (what the political arms hates about you so much.. psychopaths always, always attack integrity first.. cause it is the most dangerous to them.).

And the issue itself isn't really settled yet.

It doesn't mean they get everything wrong even if they were.

Nobody's perfect, you know.

"the Left" hardly invented big man politics, the search for heroes. It is very popular on "the Right" too. And in "the Middle". It is true that it is a problem, it's sort of inherently un-democratic to want some daddy-figure to tell you what to do and take care of everything for you. But to say that all is hopeless because the permanent utopian solution of mass self-rule has not imposed itself yet is a bit histrionic. And the achievements of the counter-culture were more significant than you allow, even if they did not bring about millenial change and the permanent end of history. It is no accident that forty years on the bashing of the hippies and all they stood for continues. We won. And the reactionaries continue to struggle vainly in the attempt to undo what we accomplished. Do you think a "Protection of Marriage" amendment would have been considered NECESSARY in 1960?

Edit: It's worth mentioning that, at the time. "fuck leaders" was a very hippie sort of sentiment.

they were gunned down by orders of the Czar in Petrograd, 22 January 1905.

If it pleases you to believe your own predictions of the future, so be it, but the Czar got his ass kicked in 1917. It is true that the proletarian revolution didn't pan out entirely, but the Czar was toast.

even to include large groups of women. (Google for instance "battalion of death".) Our population has no such training. We were deliberately and forever denied such training by Richard Milhous Nixon -- specifically for the purpose of aborting future revolutionary activity. Without such training, revolution is quite simply impossible -- precisely why the Bush Regime (contrary to all the ludicrously selfish paranoia) will never reinstate the draft.

Beyond that, history proves beyond any equivocation that once a nation reaches a certain level of internal oppression -- and our nation past that with the unavenged assassinations of the 1960s -- liberation is possible only from without.

So it's not "clairvoyance," it's a working knowledge of history -- the one subject of which most Americans (thanks very specifically to corporate-run public schools) are guaranteed to know almost nothing: the cornerstone of why we are most ignorant population in the industrial world.

I said the counter-culture had great success in changing American society. There has been a reaction to be sure, but the tendency now appears more in the direction of a USSR-style collapse than a Nazi-style putsch here, not that the Bushites would not give it a shot. And it is worth noting that modern Americans are far better armed that the Russian peasants of 1905 or 1917, and are far less trained to unquestioning obedience. And the overthrow of the Tsar was not done by the proletariat. The Putsch carried out by the Bolsheviki was, and the Death Battalions were among those that fought the Bolsheviki and lost. One of Lenin's first efforts was to get the proletariat armed. According to John Reed in "Ten Days That Shook The World" (IIRC) the Death Battalions were not all that effective. Of course, he was somewhat of a propagandist.

As one historical naif to another, Sir....

"We have met the enemy, and he is us."

"What good are enemies if you can't blame stuff on them?"

That is their use, and I always try and keep a few around for a rainy day.....

It's lasting legacies include feminism, Environmentalism and -- most important of all -- the resurrection of the Great Goddess (whether you accept her as mere metaphor or objective reality it matters not). And you are partially correct about the reaction, but only partially correct: while the Counterculture failed to achieve even one of its objectives, its values -- in a sloppy, faddish sort of way -- did bring about a long-overdue loosening of the bonds of Abrahamic prudery. But all that is past: the future the Bush Regime is imposing on us is theocracy, and the reason for the imposition is that capitalism learned long ago that the most sexually frustrated workers are also the most productive: they sublimate their sexual energies into making profits for their overlords.

In this contest, it is you, Sir -- perhaps blinded by the love-in glitter-dust and distracted by the Hare Krishna tambourines -- who do not understand what is happening.

Very simply it is that capitalism is resuming its customary tyrannosauric savagery -- which is precisely what unites the class-traitors of the DLC and the overt fascists of the Far Right in clandestine purpose. Capitalism was terrified into pseudo-gentility by the Soviet Revolution and further restrained by the New Deal (which U.S. capitalists, with the help of the German Nazi Party, then attempted to overthrow). The coup failed, and, like a great earthquake, World War II relieved many of the built-up stresses of class warfare. But after the war, the New Deal was quickly subverted by the Anti-Communist Terror, and now with the death of the U.S.S.R., capitalism can resume its customary practices -- practices we see vividly illustrated in the body count, whether in post-Katrina New Orleans, in the coal mines of Appalachia, among the victims of the Medicare Prescription Drug Lord Benefit, or on the battlefields of Iraq.

And make no mistake: because of her feminist and environmentalist implications, the resurrected goddess is as much an enemy of capitalist patriarchy as Marxism is. That is why the capitalists are busy inflicting on the world a new Dark Age of theocracy -- actually the continuation of the same Dark Age that began with the Edict of Milan, when Christianity was made mandatory in all of Westernesse. Our great liberation from those unspeakably blood-drenched centuries of wretchedness was achieved only by violent revolution, and after a partial interregnum of only 217 years is now being reimposed with a vengeance: Christian theocracy in the West, Islamic theocracy everywhere else, and capitalism thereby enshrined as a divine order beyond challenge -- this time (unless some outside force musters enough strength to stop it) a Dark Age that will unavoidably last forever.

Is that Czarist Russia had been thoroughly defeated in a major war, that involved the majority of the adult male populace, and had subjected over half of them to death of serious wounds, under the aegis of one of the most stunningly incompetent officers' corps ever to grace the planet.

If you were to enquire closely into occassions of revolution in major powers, you will find that military defeat, economic collapse, and imbecility prevailing in the ruling class, are always present, and the only other factopr of importance is whether or not the armed forces, including the police, remain largely loyal to the state, or desert it.

It is also, by the war, not wise to put too much stress on the tales of woman soldiery in Russia in the First World War; they are beset by a great deal of exaggeration and folk-lore. The phenomenon was quite limited. This is not true with regard to the Second World War, however. It is a fact that ancient tribes in what is now the southern Ukraine and parts of the Crimea did indeed counr wom,en in their military ranks, fighting as entire peoples, but according to the Romans, anyway, the Celts of Europe did so as well.

bolstered by Herodotus, that the Celts and the Scythians were kindred peoples.

Asides aside, none of the factual observations made above weaken the point I made, which is that a population methodically deprived military training cannot successfully revolt. Ownership of (and familiarity with) firearms is only half the equation. The other half of the equation is not only training in the tactical use of firearms, but training in weapons systems in general -- training that most U.S. males had in common, but that every U.S. generation since Vietnam has been (deliberately) denied.

Indeed this fact -- the fact of the untrained population -- makes all those other facts that were cited almost irrelevant.

And that is not even addressing the bourgeois selfishness (and thus utter passivity toward any authority that will guarantee their bread and circuses) for which Americans are notorious (and increasingly despised) everywhere else on the planet. As I noted elsewhere, it came out after the collapse of the Soviet Union the KGB had decided that supporting any revolutionary or even pre-revolutionary activity in white America was a fool's errand: save for a tiny few, the population was sated to imbecility on fads and trinket materialism, then and forever.

The KGB's conclusion -- with which I emphatically agree -- was that there will never, ever be a second American revolution. Such ferment, the KGB estimated, will only come from oppressed minorities: and white Americans are much too racist to ever accept such leadership.

You would seem to be suggesting that the widespread leftist agitation against the draft in the late sixties and early seventies, generally viewed as a rousing success and good thing overall in leftist circles subsequently, was actually an effort by the ruling elite to secure itself from any possibility of revolution in the future.

I just wonder why you think that. It doesn't make sense.

Fitzgerald doesn't have anything to gain by destroying a media outlet.

Bushco's different. The liberal media, which is basically Air America, a couple of newspapers, Keith Olbermann and a long string of websites, is a definite threat to them.

Consider something, fellow DUers: what part of the liberal media would Bush most like to see destroyed? In order: Olbermann, Air America, the newspapers and the internet. Olbermann's first because he's on television.

I believe although I cannot prove that Bush's syncophants seeded this phony indictment story with every liberal news outlet they could find, in hopes that one would pick it up and run with it. KO didn't fall for it. Air America seems not to have fallen for it. Same for the newspapers...but they got Truthout. Which sucks, so far as they're concerned, but they'll take it.

OTOH, if they seeded the false indictment story, Truthout or whoever picked it up, and then Fitz really did indict Rove, Truthout would have looked like a genius. They felt this was a risk worth taking.

suspects. As to motive, it's relatively simple: by legal necessity, prosecutors are control freaks; it's part of their job description. From the beginning, Truthout has with a rare diligence sought to violate prosecutorial and grand-jury confidentiality; the easiest, most permanently devastating tactic to end that quest is the false leak -- something all seasoned journalists know enough to beware of. (One of the rules of thumb in dealing with a leaker is to question his/her motives even before questioning the alleged revelations.)

More likely is the sure presence of Bush Regime infiltrators on Fitzgerald's staff: given the Abhwer/Gestapo black-ops expertise the U.S. government acquired after World War II, I would assume such a presence as an absolute certainty. The Trotsky axiom applies: in any gathering of three opponents of the regime, at least one is an agent of the Okhrana (the Czar's secret police).

In the case of staff infiltrators, the operational purpose would be double-edged: discrediting Truthout and besmirching Fitzgerald himself with the fallout from the leak, whether true or false. The latter merely adds to the (correct) public perception that government in the U.S. -- including the judicial system -- is corrupt from top to bottom, which thereby besmirches Fitzgerald's entire quest. It also dulls the public interest: a few more such episodes -- perhaps even one more -- and the public will simply turn its eyes elsewhere, with the mass media following suit.

This is all basic psychological warfare. Never forget that the Russian word for "disinformation" is dezinformatsiya -- a Russianization of an English term, which traces the concept directly back to its origins in the Abhwer/Gestapo-dominated CIA.

hero to the common people and thus threatens to undermine our control.

but truthout isn't going anywhere.

In all honesty...

I don't know what story you're talking about. Today was my day off.

Do you still stand behind the validity of the story in the same manner you did 2 weeks ago? That's a simple yes or no.

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is here:

http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2006/5/21/115826/135

I stand by every word you'll find on that link. Period, end of file.

I misunderstood your original post; I thought there was some new story that came out today. I didn't realize you were referring to the original story. See above.

As for "as if" and "humoring" me, I hate to break it to you, but I do take days off. Today, in fact, was nice. I woke up, got my car inspected, and drove to New Hampshire. I am currently on The Slowest Dialup Connection In The World; it took 45 minutes to open truthout, open the blog, copy that link, open DU, and post here. Ergo, this'll likely be my last post for several days. If you can't find the answer to your qution in the above link, you'll just have to buff up your coping skills.

I'm going to have a smoke on the porch and watch the rain on the lake.

I figured you HAD to know about the shit-storm it's caused here and you HAD to know the question was coming.

is that like smoke on the water? One of my favorites... Make it two smokes and don't worry, be happy....:hi:

.

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The only folks I know that throw around the kneepad mantra are F*E*P*R*. Reminiscent of the Monica days I suppose.

Why the cutsie little knee-pad remark??? That is why I spelled it out, cause it is just as insulting as saying it.....

wrong place

:hi:

surely the underlying message in the OP did not escape you.

has been going on at DU because of TO, you, Leopold, etc.! How is Leopold? Do you think he was 'Rathered?' or 'Hatfielded?' or do you still bellieve him and his sources? It's good to see you.

He has changed his own story. First he wrote on May 12th Rove HAD been indicted, then this week in an interview much discussed here he said rove was GOING TO BE indicted on May 12th or 13th.

Game Set Match.

No rathering, he blew it. Had his sources said Going to Be that's what he should have written.

The fact Pitt stands by the story to this day is bizarre.

They did it all themselves.

No one to blame.

it!

continue to do, you included.

Enjoy the hell out of that rain on the lake Will, I know how peaceful that can be. Hope you have a great long weekend and may your beer be cold and plentiful. :)

They'll be so disappointed.

You say "They" are hard at work to destroy TO, so I have to ask who they are and how many of them are there. Also How much are they getting paid, and by who?

What is gained by destroying TO, and how much is money do you think someone is spending to do it?

If not a paid bunch of "whores" as lala called them, are you saying there are hobbyists doing this for fun? Are they Democrats or Republicans?

This is the only place I see all of these conspiracy theories about people out to destroy TO or Pitt.

I think it's perhaps natural to be protective of friends but you don't serve those friends if in your defense your behavior reflect poorly on them.

and see you back on DU. I know, you just wanted to see the new ad layouts. :-)

That's it. Just... Hi

Missed you

:hug:

Or so I've heard.

"Oh, how can you be in two places at once, when you're not anywhere at all"
-Firesign Theater-

Dream on. :popcorn:

:popcorn:

to the truth. I Believe.

who expect truth in journalism. For people who just like to read creative and quality writing, it'll be around for a long time.

an alleged writer of alleged nonfiction with a presumably dependable paycheck.

(On that one I gotta go run an errand. Be back in about an hour.)

"Truthout -- its credibility now destroyed forever..."

Since that can't be proven in any way, it's an opinion. We're all entitled to one.

Also, "obviously bogus claim" has yet to be disproven, and that's the bottom line.

"Destroyed forever"? DUer, please.

One lousy story plus some confused backpeddling does not equal destruction--and your theory about how it happened seems as tenuous as Leopold's latest scoop-that-wasn't.

say they will continue to read it and that the truth isn't all out yet.

:sarcasm:

Thanks be to Gawd that there is no such thing as a retraction either...

they would 'Rather' go after bigger targets.

and anyway, in this climate of 'journalism' (ahem), you'd think 'reporters' have to be extra careful. or something.

First of all, I can think of many times when the mainstream media has dropped the ball, a certain WMD rush to war comes to claim.

CBS news and Dan rather anyone?

Now, I think that the whole CBS thing was almost a way to make the press look bad, those evil anti-bush media!

Maybe that could occur here, but not too likely. I've thought of it. But, whoever leaked the information to truthout, would have to have some sort of reason. And it appears that truthout is standing by their sources, who they believe has no reason apparently, to spread false information.

Unless we know who the sources are, or are privy to the case, i don't understand why people are so quick to dismiss truthout. Sure, the may have jumped the gun. But until we all know what is going on in this case, I am going to withhold judgement.

I believe something was going on with rove, maybe he wasn't indicted. Maybe he never will be. Maybe he was and it is sealed. Or maybe he put in some last minute plea. Hell, i don't know. I am not going to dismiss a whole organization based on a case, where NONE Of us really know what is going on.

If the story turns out to be bogus, and truthout acknoledges that, then sure, i am not gonna blow them off for one story. Does it hurt them? Yes. But i would still trust them 34890385034850348503 times more than any mainstream media outlet.

Thirteen people recommended this thread! :eyes:

How about comparing Truthout's factual correctness to, say, that of the Washington Post or the New York Times -- or the US Government?

Who has the greater credibility? I'm still going to trust Truthout about a thousand times more than the Times or the Post or the LA Times or any of them. Judith Miller? Made a mistake of timing? GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!

I'm sorry I do not have the patience to gather and recapitulate all of her lies. And compare them to the weensy eensy truth-telling that the Times allowed in the build-up to the war, in order to maintain any credibility whatsoever. (BY this I mean, they did print some opinion pieces by weapons inspectors who, of course, was eventually smeared. Basically, he was just nuts, because he disagreed. He was an inspector from the first gulf war.)

Let me see, when else did they print they truth? I seem to remember an article -- my goodness, it might have even been by Ms. Miller herself -- about how long chemical weapons KEPT. For instance, most nerve agents break down so quickly that there would not very likely be any VX left from prior to the first Gulf war. But on the other hand mustard gas had a long shelf life. And about how hard it is to aerosolize and disperse biological agents like anthrax, which we did find mountains of, and destroyed, documented in the UN video "Hide and Seek in Iraq".

There was a story line there, something like, Gulf war number one happens, inspectors go in, they find a shit load of stuff more than we really expected, and, gee whiz, there's all this nasty, nasty shit, and they blow it up. And then they set up these sanctions.

So, prior to this war, some reasonably intelligent weapons expert posits what weapons Iraq could reasonably expect to have. Not much. This article appears once. Nothing in it, to my memory, ever appears again. Then the war drums start beating, and all those facts about chemical and biological weapons went down some NY Times memory hole, dug by Judith Miller. The New York Times had printed one OPINION PIECE by an expert about biological and chemical weapons. Now, this one piece, I guess, gives it the right to say it allowed the truth to be printed. But then it printed the most ridiculous falsehoods over and over and over and over and over again for it seems to me a couple of years, without ever even allowing any expert voices that just KNEW THE FACTS to be heard.

This was all propaganda, back in 2001. Pure propaganda, by the NY Times, our "paper of record".

So I am astonished to see folks still carrying on about how we should wake the media up, or convince them, or write to them, or write to the publishers, or the ombudsmen, or whatever.

They DO NOT GIVE A SHIT. They belong to CORPORATIONS. They will do what they believe is required to maintain the barest appearance of honesty, and no more.

They will shrug off stolen elections. They will, after four or five years, geez, report that, my god, it seems the intelligence was fixed. When it becomes overwhelmingly clear.

Do you remember how many people have come out of the Bush Administration just to tell us that? That have just been buried as nutcases? For years? What buries them? Our frigging media! Yes, they report what they have to say, once, twice, or thrice, but they OVERWHELM that voice with the other one.

They have gotten so good at it, we don't even notice it.

Democracy is finished, until we find a way around it. Keith Olbermann, wonderful human that he is, is not enough. Have you not noticed how they shut him up once in a while? And Anderson Cooper? They do shut them up now and then`.

Hey, remember back before the war -- I get many of you have forgotten this -- Tweety was wild, nuts opposed to invading Iraq. He was insane about it, touring the country, going to colleges. Well, they finally put him in his place. The rest of the media just -- buried him. He gave in. And now he is who he is. Don't you remember?

Anyone who resists too much -- eventually gets buried.

Forgive my ranting. I want someone to talk to me seriously about finding a way to doing what I keep saying we need to do. Which I know nothing about. I figure someone here does. I don't. Please don't insist I go out and do all the research. Isn't that what a BB is about? I have to go back to work, and I will not have time. Commute three hours a day, work 9 - 10 a day, with the controlled MEDIA no less, and when shall I do this research? I would do it in the wee hours, but I have this other little problem....

I was one of the most critical of the way Truthout handled the Leopold/Rove story and even I don't think their credibility is destroyed. A little tarnished maybe, but certainly not destroyed.

but hardly destroyed by their mistake.

nice suggestive technique there...

Or is this more of the same faith-based reporting that DU fell for before?


Notice that you say things like "Those who doubt the regime would employ such elaborate measures...". I don't doubt that they WOULD, but I would like to see evidence that THEY DID, which is what you claim.

I'm NOT saying your claim is false. I'm saying I would like to see bonafide, non-speculation, non-hearsay EVIDENCE.

Thanks!

there'd be precious few stops on the information highway today. Hey, I'm disappointed that the TO story didn't go down as reported and I feel real bad for the people involved. They have a reasonably long and accurate history of reporting the stories that are important to us and that need to be told. I'm not willing to torch a progressive outlet based on a single case of getting a story wrong. If we play to a non-existent standard of higher rules for our media, I think we'll end up with our principles intact and no media to represent them.

Obviously, the news story, as reported is wrong...but I'm not willing to doubt the essential fact of Rove's imminent indictment. TO has a fine stable of writers who are good at their trade. They learned a nasty journalistic lesson. I think it will serve them well going forward.

I SHOUT SIEG HEIL TRUTHOUT!

They just relied on untrustworthy sources & an untrustworthy reporter & are too stubborn/arrogant to admit to the mistake. When Leopold starting adding random details that contradicted his original story, I sort of decided he was making the whole thing up. Official gov. sources would be more consistent w/their disinformation.

because now I've seen it all.

>The logical suspects include Prosecutor Fitzgerald himself. Never forget that Fitzgerald is, after all, part of the system headed by George Bush --<

That's right, Patrick Fitzgerald woke up at 3 AM on the couch in his office a couple of weeks ago, cackled evilly to himself, and said, "Hey! I don't have enough to do! I think I'll concoct an EVIL PLAN to destroy an Internet-based news website!" Do you realize that he has TWO full-time jobs? I'll bet he has to schedule a trip to the men's room. Somehow, I don't think this is a priority for him.

Do you know anything about the guy? He's gone out of his way to show that he's not interested in shilling for a party, he's not interested in running for office. Evidently, the Republicans asked him to run against Mr. Obama, he told them "no". (I'll bet he said, "Hell, no," but I wasn't standing there at the time.) He's not interested in being a partner at a law firm, fame or fortune. He is interested in the truth and the rule of law. If he finds that Bush or Cheney broke the law, he'd go after them as surely as he has been going after the corrupt political hierarchy in Illinois.

You might want to look further for the supposed mastermind of this plot. I'd bet my car it's not PJF.

Julie

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