Greg, I’m 75 years old. I’ve lived in the US from Eisenhower to Trump, a time of relative stability and prosperity. I’m deeply saddened that my grandchildren will not have that experience, and that we didn’t seem able to provide that for them. My hope is that dangerous times will allow courageous leaders to step forward. We will need them.
I'm 87 and remember, vaguely, FDR and Truman. I feel your sadness but want to assure you that it may not be so bad. My grandchildren are more prosperous than their parents and my children are more prosperous than I ever was.. I see lots of good things happening in our society. Good luck to all of your descendants.
Thank you, Bill. My children are certainly smarter and more prosperous than we are, but I honestly thought their children would live in a kinder more progressive world. It’s what I worked for my whole life. I was working on helping to bend the arc of history toward justice. Maybe it will. I hope so.
Dangerous times DO allow for that. Look at Lincoln. Look at Zelensky. No one thought either of those men would become who they became. This is an enormous country. Someone will step up.
Another perfectly-timed post, in sync with planetary patterns. Mars — goes retrograde at 6:33 PM ET, demanding focus on all things Mars, including steel. A heavy dose of reality reflects Mercury (how we need to think) square Saturn (hard, cold, truth). For starters. I'll order Steele's book --but not from Amazon.
This may be Greg's most important post and that's really saying something. Thank you for reminding me about the book. Too caught up in the election to pay attention. Thank you, too, for remembering it's always been Russia. Always.
I read this in the early morning light of a cold, gray morning with a hint of dampness. No one should have any illusions at this point in time. This can not be allowed to go to completion. Trump has managed to wrap himself in the fabric of the Constitution, a shallow veil of legitimacy to allow his passage to control of our destiny. And while we, too, as a nation are bound in the same wrapper, sometimes the greatest threat requires the most powerful action and even sacrifice to stop the action of a domestic enemy bound for our destruction. If this is indeed the land of the free and the home of the brave, it is the time to step up. Our future and our progeny depend up it.
There are plenty of mechanisms left to do so, and also plenty of time. Molly McKew wrote a great piece about this a few weeks ago: it just requires will. But who has the will? Biden, Garland, Schumer, even Harris seem to have melted away. But there is still time, and there is always hope.
I will not ever forget who trump is or the " like minded" people he surrounds himself with. I spent several months before trump's first election, reading everything i could about him, going back to articles from the early 90's. What I hope for is an explosion of malignant, narcissistic egos; that they clash so explosively, ( he, vance & musk)they "cancel" each other out. That people protest his policies so vehemently, that it topples his fragile ego into further spiraling dementia. Wishful thinking I know...but I want this alliance built in the furnaces of hell, to implode so badly, I'm hoping saner minds prevail & step in to assume control. Who those might be, I'm uncertain at this point, but am hoping it would be someone of the democrat party persuasion.
I was leery about getting this book because the "Steele dossier" that we heard about had so many inaccuracies. Now I will probably get this book to hear it from Steele himself.
We will survive this - it's just a question of what shape we will take when the destruction is quieted.
This is a test for humanity - we are in a crisis of information validation and it's uncertain how we will deal with it.
That's just the thing...they managed to weaponize the dossier to such a degree that they made him seem like some crank who didn't know what he was talking about. Quite the opposite is the case.
I wish someone was putting this under the tree for me this Christmas! I will look for it at my local library which is remarkably good. I’ve been fascinated from the get go with Steele ever since the Dossier was released because imho it was more or less factual. Plus, Coehn confirms in his first book ,which, although the jury is out for him I do have a signed of, specifically what type of proclivities amuse Herr trump especially in Vegas. The enigmatic & controversial, LM of twitter infamy, also discussed the Dossier & supports her fellow Brit, Christopher Steele. It’s all a spy novel come to life.
Greg, if only Obama had not done what he always did, dither and dither when he was aware of the Steele Dossier. Instead he left it to the useless FBI which I assume was already in transition period, knowing that the incumbent was going to either make it disappear or discredit the hell out of it. I read in the UK Guardian that he had to go into hiding as death threats from Trump’s people, Russia and even the UK were abound. Will get the book today.
Don't get me started on his miserable failures in this regard. There was SO MUCH he could have done, even after the 2016 election. Instead he went windsurfing.
Typical Democratic behavior. Focus on minutiae, ignore the big issues. No response on the invasion of Crimea, yes the ACA was big but a 2,000+ page mess that could have been so much better if not for all the pork barrel add ons and deletions. A talk big, carry a small stick guy. Yes I voted twice for him, had McCain not selected Palin the country might be in a better place today.
Is there any possibility at all we will hear you both in conversation? Arthur has guested on Prevail & the five 8. So not strangers to your work I imagine.
There's two people I've always hoped to hear you in conversation with. Steele & Cadwaladr. I think they'd appreciate how intelligently you approach the vital areas less astute interviewing conversationalists ever vere toward.
Please try make it so. 🙏
Are either under consideration/ negotiation? Have you asked?
(I've written this before reading btw - so - apologies if you cover this)
Was very thrilled to hear from Chris this morning. (After I wrote the comment above, if you remember I emailed him and elaborate on why it would be a great interview. That I was Willing it into existence)
Today I was not disappointed.
Without wishing to sound mushy, or saccharin; I cried when you, in all sincerity thanked him for everything he's done, I can only imagine the burden of 'knowing' he carries.
I felt his sincere appreciation for you saying that really come through.🫶
Yet to be thrust into the open without a choice, and makes him a target. It speaks to his character how he took it and flipped it to give voice to the extraordinary ensemble of
"diligent good guys" that colour his public advice.
Anyhoo thank you. It was excellent.
I will say I responded to Chris this morning pushing my
'potent Will' one step further to ask if available if he would come onto the thefive8 tonight.
There's gonna be follow up questions... Am I right?
Christopher Steele's studiously-researched revelations, and his treatment, including the defamations and the defamation lawsuits against him for bringing his info of Russian perfidy to the FBI, in many ways take us back in time to how Whittaker Chambers' 1940s disclosures in the same vein were smeared & discounted in their time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker_Chambers Soviet lying & the similar Putin-Trump m.o. In the face of known facts & reality was always as much a demonstration of their absolute power over mere humans & our petty beliefs in the essential value of truthfulness, as it's calculated to persuade us about what they are saying. I found these trends so alarming when they came into the open here in 2015 that I began saying that truth is a democracy's only immunity system, that we were in an emergent danger of political AIDS, and recommended that political and news lying be punished by five years in prison & $50,000 per lie fines. Telling lies in courts & on US government forms is criminal too, but of course my idea was never taken seriously. Talented people like you, LB, Craig Unger & Steele as a result are having to spend their lives like erudite workers taking out the garbage. Our future looks, consequently, literally terrible.
Thanks, Richard. I agree about the willful dissemination of lies. People think, "Oh, if this guy says something bad about you, just sue him." But it's not that easy. Lawsuits cost money and take time, and the outcomes are never certain. The rich assholes know this and exploit the system (which in Britain, in cases of libel, is way worse than it is here.) That would be a great start...
I'm just wrapping up reading, "How Fascism Works" by Jason Stanley, so this book is perfectly in line with what I'm reading, "not as a warning, but as a way to be prepared."
Since I am definitely one of those non-MAGAts walking around regularly saying, "what the fuck?" I finally realized that we are on our own. MAGAts should try to get themselves to this place too, not that I care what happens to them, or if they fall off a cliff, die in a fire, or are hit by a meteor. But I digress.
Trump and the cabal will not give one damn about any of the American people. His job now is to make the US over in his image, much like another dictator did in 1933 in Germany. There IS precedent, and we should all remember that that guy didn't START with concentration camps and ovens, it evolved over time. But now we must not speak his name in case there's a MAGAt within earshot to tell you that Trump is nothing like that other guy, even though history is repeating itself as we speak. People have cried, "Hitler" too many times and now the comparison is considered meaningless. Boy crying wolf and all.
What I'm learning from "How Fascism Works," written in 2018 by the way, long before the 2020 election, January 6th, or this year's debacle, is that what Trump has been doing since the escalator ride in 2015 is displaying nothing but fascistic behavior. The lying, denigrating the media as the "enemy of the people," labeling his opposition as "the enemy within," the hate and loathing of "the other," in the form of immigrants, women, LGBTQ+, and lying, lying, and more lying to the point of ridiculousness to us, and a base for him that COMPLETELY believes everything he says to the exclusion of anyone else. Much like insane people, do fascists KNOW they're fascists? Assuming Trump didn't attend night classes in "how to be a fascist," does he KNOW what he's doing, or is this just something that comes naturally to him, i.e., Fascist Brain? Does he know that fascism is wrong for a population? In the end, the answer to these questions doesn't seem to matter since nothing will change it now, but it's a curious thing to me.
Only 45 days until we enter the "Find Out" phase of American history. I'd also note that Monday, January 20, 2025, is the federal holiday for Martin Luther King's birthday. OBVIOUSLY, the universe is fucking with us, why THIS LONG, I don't know, but it is. Leaving this comment muttering, "What the fuck?"
Thanks, Steve. I think Trump has both the natural instinct for this, the lack of morals necessary to do it, the warped sense of entitlement, the psychopathy. But I think he also had training, from Roy Cohn at least and god knows who else on his many sojourns to the USSR.
One thing that are really really good at is appropriating language in advance. Like, as you say, they call Obama Hitler so many times that the comp loses meaning. Ditto antifa, woke, stop the steal, pedo, etc.
We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice...although right now it is crooked in every sense of the word...
I read it recently. As the article suggested, we apparently don't understand the Russians all that well, which may be why we appear to underestimate them and cant anticipate well enough, their next step. I know with respect to social media, back in 2015-2016, it felt to me like everything on social media was suspect & largely still is currently, imo. Perhaps it is, because our focus pivoted to the Middle East, after 9/11 & the focus wasn't about cultivating further expertise on Russian strategies. God knows it should have been, given their (essentially) own admissions to tampering with our elections, in one form or another; since at least 2016. I recall something written in 2015 or 16, that Gov DeSantis in Florida, was advised by the FBI, that it appeared there may have been russian interference in a local election in South Florida during that time. Test run? Who the " f" knows. Didn't hear any more about it; but it would be nice to know if I missed it & someone else knows what the results of the FBI's investigation turned up.
Greg, I’m 75 years old. I’ve lived in the US from Eisenhower to Trump, a time of relative stability and prosperity. I’m deeply saddened that my grandchildren will not have that experience, and that we didn’t seem able to provide that for them. My hope is that dangerous times will allow courageous leaders to step forward. We will need them.
I'm 87 and remember, vaguely, FDR and Truman. I feel your sadness but want to assure you that it may not be so bad. My grandchildren are more prosperous than their parents and my children are more prosperous than I ever was.. I see lots of good things happening in our society. Good luck to all of your descendants.
Thank you, Bill. My children are certainly smarter and more prosperous than we are, but I honestly thought their children would live in a kinder more progressive world. It’s what I worked for my whole life. I was working on helping to bend the arc of history toward justice. Maybe it will. I hope so.
Bill, I love your optimism. Sincerely. Thank you.
Dangerous times DO allow for that. Look at Lincoln. Look at Zelensky. No one thought either of those men would become who they became. This is an enormous country. Someone will step up.
Just got the book.
It's a good one. Obviously...
Another perfectly-timed post, in sync with planetary patterns. Mars — goes retrograde at 6:33 PM ET, demanding focus on all things Mars, including steel. A heavy dose of reality reflects Mercury (how we need to think) square Saturn (hard, cold, truth). For starters. I'll order Steele's book --but not from Amazon.
Yes, better to buy elsewhere. Fascinating about the planets. I do feel some Mars energy, now that you mention it...
TGIF🎉🎉🎉Will have to steel myself to read this book; times like this I wish I still drank.😉
Honestly it made me feel better to read it, as angry-making as it was.
Oh, good; thanks for that insight!
This may be Greg's most important post and that's really saying something. Thank you for reminding me about the book. Too caught up in the election to pay attention. Thank you, too, for remembering it's always been Russia. Always.
Thanks, Susan. Me too...so much stuff swirling around, and our own emotions to deal with on top of it. But the enemy is who the enemy is. Always.
I read this in the early morning light of a cold, gray morning with a hint of dampness. No one should have any illusions at this point in time. This can not be allowed to go to completion. Trump has managed to wrap himself in the fabric of the Constitution, a shallow veil of legitimacy to allow his passage to control of our destiny. And while we, too, as a nation are bound in the same wrapper, sometimes the greatest threat requires the most powerful action and even sacrifice to stop the action of a domestic enemy bound for our destruction. If this is indeed the land of the free and the home of the brave, it is the time to step up. Our future and our progeny depend up it.
Thought. It appropriate column William to post this video. Pete Hegseth as DOD chief. Giving props to “Dr. Strangelove movie from 60z.
https://youtu.be/P6WD7B_I_9c?si=QqZYXq-dLFjz3mzX
Hop it works. J.
Heaven help us.
That's a great movie, though. "You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
There are plenty of mechanisms left to do so, and also plenty of time. Molly McKew wrote a great piece about this a few weeks ago: it just requires will. But who has the will? Biden, Garland, Schumer, even Harris seem to have melted away. But there is still time, and there is always hope.
I will not ever forget who trump is or the " like minded" people he surrounds himself with. I spent several months before trump's first election, reading everything i could about him, going back to articles from the early 90's. What I hope for is an explosion of malignant, narcissistic egos; that they clash so explosively, ( he, vance & musk)they "cancel" each other out. That people protest his policies so vehemently, that it topples his fragile ego into further spiraling dementia. Wishful thinking I know...but I want this alliance built in the furnaces of hell, to implode so badly, I'm hoping saner minds prevail & step in to assume control. Who those might be, I'm uncertain at this point, but am hoping it would be someone of the democrat party persuasion.
Let them clash and batter against each other and explode harmlessly somewhere over the ocean, like one of Musk's crappy spaceships.
I was leery about getting this book because the "Steele dossier" that we heard about had so many inaccuracies. Now I will probably get this book to hear it from Steele himself.
We will survive this - it's just a question of what shape we will take when the destruction is quieted.
This is a test for humanity - we are in a crisis of information validation and it's uncertain how we will deal with it.
That's just the thing...they managed to weaponize the dossier to such a degree that they made him seem like some crank who didn't know what he was talking about. Quite the opposite is the case.
I wish someone was putting this under the tree for me this Christmas! I will look for it at my local library which is remarkably good. I’ve been fascinated from the get go with Steele ever since the Dossier was released because imho it was more or less factual. Plus, Coehn confirms in his first book ,which, although the jury is out for him I do have a signed of, specifically what type of proclivities amuse Herr trump especially in Vegas. The enigmatic & controversial, LM of twitter infamy, also discussed the Dossier & supports her fellow Brit, Christopher Steele. It’s all a spy novel come to life.
There's a very interesting passage about Cohen and the alleged Prague trip. I read it on the Afterhours last night...
Greg, if only Obama had not done what he always did, dither and dither when he was aware of the Steele Dossier. Instead he left it to the useless FBI which I assume was already in transition period, knowing that the incumbent was going to either make it disappear or discredit the hell out of it. I read in the UK Guardian that he had to go into hiding as death threats from Trump’s people, Russia and even the UK were abound. Will get the book today.
Don't get me started on his miserable failures in this regard. There was SO MUCH he could have done, even after the 2016 election. Instead he went windsurfing.
Typical Democratic behavior. Focus on minutiae, ignore the big issues. No response on the invasion of Crimea, yes the ACA was big but a 2,000+ page mess that could have been so much better if not for all the pork barrel add ons and deletions. A talk big, carry a small stick guy. Yes I voted twice for him, had McCain not selected Palin the country might be in a better place today.
Is there any possibility at all we will hear you both in conversation? Arthur has guested on Prevail & the five 8. So not strangers to your work I imagine.
There's two people I've always hoped to hear you in conversation with. Steele & Cadwaladr. I think they'd appreciate how intelligently you approach the vital areas less astute interviewing conversationalists ever vere toward.
Please try make it so. 🙏
Are either under consideration/ negotiation? Have you asked?
(I've written this before reading btw - so - apologies if you cover this)
Oh, I would love that. Not sure how much press he does, but we will try for sure.
Was very thrilled to hear from Chris this morning. (After I wrote the comment above, if you remember I emailed him and elaborate on why it would be a great interview. That I was Willing it into existence)
Today I was not disappointed.
Without wishing to sound mushy, or saccharin; I cried when you, in all sincerity thanked him for everything he's done, I can only imagine the burden of 'knowing' he carries.
I felt his sincere appreciation for you saying that really come through.🫶
Yet to be thrust into the open without a choice, and makes him a target. It speaks to his character how he took it and flipped it to give voice to the extraordinary ensemble of
"diligent good guys" that colour his public advice.
Anyhoo thank you. It was excellent.
I will say I responded to Chris this morning pushing my
'potent Will' one step further to ask if available if he would come onto the thefive8 tonight.
There's gonna be follow up questions... Am I right?
Hope he does.
Smell ya later
Cathy
Christopher Steele's studiously-researched revelations, and his treatment, including the defamations and the defamation lawsuits against him for bringing his info of Russian perfidy to the FBI, in many ways take us back in time to how Whittaker Chambers' 1940s disclosures in the same vein were smeared & discounted in their time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker_Chambers Soviet lying & the similar Putin-Trump m.o. In the face of known facts & reality was always as much a demonstration of their absolute power over mere humans & our petty beliefs in the essential value of truthfulness, as it's calculated to persuade us about what they are saying. I found these trends so alarming when they came into the open here in 2015 that I began saying that truth is a democracy's only immunity system, that we were in an emergent danger of political AIDS, and recommended that political and news lying be punished by five years in prison & $50,000 per lie fines. Telling lies in courts & on US government forms is criminal too, but of course my idea was never taken seriously. Talented people like you, LB, Craig Unger & Steele as a result are having to spend their lives like erudite workers taking out the garbage. Our future looks, consequently, literally terrible.
Thanks, Richard. I agree about the willful dissemination of lies. People think, "Oh, if this guy says something bad about you, just sue him." But it's not that easy. Lawsuits cost money and take time, and the outcomes are never certain. The rich assholes know this and exploit the system (which in Britain, in cases of libel, is way worse than it is here.) That would be a great start...
Thanks for the book recommendation.
of course!
I'm just wrapping up reading, "How Fascism Works" by Jason Stanley, so this book is perfectly in line with what I'm reading, "not as a warning, but as a way to be prepared."
Since I am definitely one of those non-MAGAts walking around regularly saying, "what the fuck?" I finally realized that we are on our own. MAGAts should try to get themselves to this place too, not that I care what happens to them, or if they fall off a cliff, die in a fire, or are hit by a meteor. But I digress.
Trump and the cabal will not give one damn about any of the American people. His job now is to make the US over in his image, much like another dictator did in 1933 in Germany. There IS precedent, and we should all remember that that guy didn't START with concentration camps and ovens, it evolved over time. But now we must not speak his name in case there's a MAGAt within earshot to tell you that Trump is nothing like that other guy, even though history is repeating itself as we speak. People have cried, "Hitler" too many times and now the comparison is considered meaningless. Boy crying wolf and all.
What I'm learning from "How Fascism Works," written in 2018 by the way, long before the 2020 election, January 6th, or this year's debacle, is that what Trump has been doing since the escalator ride in 2015 is displaying nothing but fascistic behavior. The lying, denigrating the media as the "enemy of the people," labeling his opposition as "the enemy within," the hate and loathing of "the other," in the form of immigrants, women, LGBTQ+, and lying, lying, and more lying to the point of ridiculousness to us, and a base for him that COMPLETELY believes everything he says to the exclusion of anyone else. Much like insane people, do fascists KNOW they're fascists? Assuming Trump didn't attend night classes in "how to be a fascist," does he KNOW what he's doing, or is this just something that comes naturally to him, i.e., Fascist Brain? Does he know that fascism is wrong for a population? In the end, the answer to these questions doesn't seem to matter since nothing will change it now, but it's a curious thing to me.
Only 45 days until we enter the "Find Out" phase of American history. I'd also note that Monday, January 20, 2025, is the federal holiday for Martin Luther King's birthday. OBVIOUSLY, the universe is fucking with us, why THIS LONG, I don't know, but it is. Leaving this comment muttering, "What the fuck?"
Thanks, Steve. I think Trump has both the natural instinct for this, the lack of morals necessary to do it, the warped sense of entitlement, the psychopathy. But I think he also had training, from Roy Cohn at least and god knows who else on his many sojourns to the USSR.
One thing that are really really good at is appropriating language in advance. Like, as you say, they call Obama Hitler so many times that the comp loses meaning. Ditto antifa, woke, stop the steal, pedo, etc.
We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice...although right now it is crooked in every sense of the word...
Excellent column
Thanks, Cal!
Greg, not sure if you are familiar with the so-called "Gerasimov Doctrine" — oft called "hybrid warfare" (it's neither a doctrine nor invented by Valery Gerasimov - Chief of the Russian Military) but this article is worth read in terms of helping to better understand Russia: https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/1981229/on-the-gerasimov-doctrine-why-the-west-fails-to-beat-russia-to-the-punch/
Thanks, John. I know about it but it's always good to review.
I read it recently. As the article suggested, we apparently don't understand the Russians all that well, which may be why we appear to underestimate them and cant anticipate well enough, their next step. I know with respect to social media, back in 2015-2016, it felt to me like everything on social media was suspect & largely still is currently, imo. Perhaps it is, because our focus pivoted to the Middle East, after 9/11 & the focus wasn't about cultivating further expertise on Russian strategies. God knows it should have been, given their (essentially) own admissions to tampering with our elections, in one form or another; since at least 2016. I recall something written in 2015 or 16, that Gov DeSantis in Florida, was advised by the FBI, that it appeared there may have been russian interference in a local election in South Florida during that time. Test run? Who the " f" knows. Didn't hear any more about it; but it would be nice to know if I missed it & someone else knows what the results of the FBI's investigation turned up.