Trump's red line was "no nuclear weapon." Iran had accepted that for twenty years. Then somebody swapped in "no enrichment" – and the man reading the intelligence says they knew exactly what they were
ALL trump AND his GOP maga regime have is LIES and Magical Thinking!
Watch the 2004 movie 'Downfall'.
It is a True Story written by Hitler's own personal secretary, Traudl Junge, as she relives the last 10 days of Hitler and his Third Reich as they hide out in their bunker.
It focuses on the enormous amount of LIES and Magical Thinking to condone the massacre of their OWN civilian comrades...right outside their bunker.
It is a fascinating account of Human Nature and what people cling to in the End.
Sky Blue...Downfall is a HELL of a film...Bruno Ganz did something almost NOBODY manages...which is make the man ordinary enough...to be frightening.
And...you're pointing at the right thing IN it. Not the villainy. The sealed room. Everyone in that bunker...moving armies that no longer existed across a map...because the alternative was admitting...what was ACTUALLY happening ABOVE-ground. THAT...is the part that transfers.
Which...is really what Kent was describing, in a much smaller key; a president kept moving...meeting to meeting...hearing from people incentivized NEVER TO TELL HIM SOMETHING HE DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR.
Thanks for the recommendation, SK...well worth a rewatch!
Jack is correct, and the mechanism he has identified deserves to be named precisely, because it is a technique with a long history, not a one-off. Note what actually happened: not a policy failure, not a miscalculation, but a single substitution — “no nuclear weapon” for “no enrichment” — that converted a position a state had held for two decades into one it could never accept without appearing to surrender its sovereignty entirely. This is not diplomacy breaking down. This is diplomacy being engineered to break down, while retaining the appearance of having been offered in good faith.
File the date: 2003. Note what Kent describes as Iran’s posture since then — a deliberate distance from weaponization, observable and consistent for twenty years. Historians who study the collapse of negotiated settlements recognize this precise maneuver: redefine the acceptable outcome until it no longer describes anything the other side can survive politically, then point to their refusal as proof of bad faith. The word changes. The story writes itself afterward as though refusal were inevitable.
Note also the second mechanism Jack surfaces, because it is older and more dangerous than the first: the discrediting of the messenger in place of an answer to the message. Kent’s record is not incidental to this. It is the reason the attack had to be personal rather than substantive — three years in the Ranger Regiment, a dead wife killed doing work the country asked of her, eleven deployments, cannot be answered with “isolationist.” It can only be answered by trying to make the audience stop listening before the argument is finished. Jack is correct to notice that this is the tell. When the argument goes unanswered and the man goes attacked instead, the argument was airtight.
I will note one further thing, because it is the most disciplined moment in what Jack has reported: Kent’s refusal to finish the sentence about coercion. He lays out the timeline and stops exactly where the evidence stops. This is not evasion. It is the opposite of the propagandist’s method, which always finishes the sentence for you. A analyst who says “I don’t know” at the edge of his evidence is doing his job. Note that distinction carefully, because the temptation in urgent moments is to reward the person who tells the more complete story, not the person who tells the more honest one.
The number worth carrying forward is not the $37 million spent to defeat one primary challenger. It is the 104 votes against continued funding — a number that did not exist a few years ago. History does not move because the truth was told once, loudly. It moves because it was told enough times, by enough credible people, that refusing to hear it became more costly than hearing it. That is the actual mechanism of change, and it is slower and less satisfying than any of the alternatives on offer. It is also the only one that has ever worked.
Jane..."Diplomacy being engineered to break down, while retaining the appearance of having been offered in good faith"...that's good stuff..
You're right that it's a technique with a lineage...NOT an improvisation.
NAMING IT... as a recognizable HISTORICAL MANEUVER...does more work than any amount of outrage. Without question.
Your point about the propagandist always finishing the sentence for you...is right as rain. It's the cleanest test I've seen for WHO to TRUST...and...it explains why the honest voice ...so often loses to the COMPLETE one.
And...you've corrected my emphasis...correctly. The $37 million is the attention-getter. The 104 votes are the actual STORY.
Told enough times...by enough credible people...that refusing to hear it costs MORE than hearing it. That's the job. Thank you for doing it here, Jane!
Wow.. your article is a heavy duty synopsis that has many, many pieces that this 47th Regime will never ever expose or even acknowledge.
One thing runs constant next to Mr Kent- his findings are truth. And Truth is always shuttered and hidden as long as possible by this President & cohorts.
Lillian...thank you. That means a lot on a piece this long.
The bit of this that REALLY stays with me is that Kent had the job. Senate-confirmed... principal adviser to the President on counter-terrorism.
He asked the questions the job requires...and got a damn WALL.
If that's what happens to the man INSIDE the building...it tells you what the REST OF US are up against. In short, it's not jack shit.
What I'd hold onto, Lillian...is that he keeps saying "I can't prove it"...and says it ANYWAY. That's the discipline that makes him damn hard to dismiss...and it's the standard I'm trying to hold MYSELF to here.
More coming...promise! Thanks for reading it all the way through. Seriously.
Virginia Cutler...you've named the MECHANISM...and...I'd add one thing to it.
Kent's version is that the Israeli professionals weren't hiding the objective at all; regime decapitation...indefinitely...and they said so out loud pro-to-pro. What got dressed up for American consumption...was the JUSTIFICATION...not the goal.
He's careful to say he does NOT blame them for pursuing their own interests. His line: "That's not on them. That's on us."
I keep coming back to that. Any doctrine that justifies EVERYTHING...is a doctrine nobody outside it...is obligated to fund.
We have the mid-term elections. If the result does not begin to right the course of the national juggernaut, we'll strike one of those icebergs that are waiting for us. And we'll be carrying too much speed and too few lifeboats.
And...the part people miss about Titanic...is that they SAW it. They had the warnings in hand. What they did NOT have...was anyone willing to SLOW DOWN...because slowing down...meant admitting the schedule was WRONG.
Midterms are the ONLY rudder we've got...and...the turning radius on a ship that size... is measured in miles...not moments. Which means...it has to start NOW...not in October.
I’ve long believed there are people VERY high up on the food chain, people whose names we’d likely not recognize, calling a lot of the shots. Call me a conspiracy theorist but…. if it makes sense, has plausibility and explains a lot…. well maybe we just haven’t uncovered the trail yet. Not a time to jump in with both feet! a well considered hmm while observing works better. And as Jack has taught us… ask “who benefits??”
All that said, there is waaay too much in the recent explanations (murders, assassination attempts, etc) that just doesn’t pass muster. This whole Iran deal has also quite honestly puzzled me. It still does. From a really cold strategic level, I can see at least a couple of possible goals: bomb them into oblivion then try to take over the resources… or involve the US to the point where WE’RE weakened and vulnerable. The latter seems more germane since we’re running out of ordnance…. Both create churning in my gut.
To the 7yr old question….. are we creating internal terrorists with ICE? are we also, potentially, disaffecting our own people through poverty, mistreatment, denial of opportunities to improve themselves to the point they throw in the towel and try to blow it all up?
The $$ in politics… I do believe people are waking up and starting to demand ‘clean’ candidates (meaning they eschew corporate or PAC funding). It looks like it’s scaring the hell out of the establishment parties…. witness the El-Sayed / Stevens Senate primary in Michigan. The lead up to the election will get nasty & I would not be surprised to see Mike Rogers (R candidate for the seat) get AIPAC $$…. (they contributed large to Stevens & she was endorsed by the Dem establishment ).
I don’t have answers but….. when there is a fellow with Joe Kent’s chops talking, it’s time to listen up, listen hard, start asking pointed questions and then… Read. Between. The. Lines….. might not tell you all you want to know but I’m betting it’s a good indicator of how the winds are blowing…. and right now, I’m pretty uncomfortable.
Thank you, Jack. This is a piece with a LOT to digest. Lots of implications.
Jack a lot of this is also being said by Malcolm and Jacob a Waj Lon Black man spy. Not the complete story as you just stated. Bottom line drumpf and kegsbreath did not listen. I read where they were told attacking was a bad idea but drumpf told them to go ahead and the toy soldier kegs breath was all in because ??? He’s a pretend soldier who has had no real experience. Sadly we will probably lose more lives before they all come home. Kent had the experience and knew the culture and no one listened. We have to watch what comes next…
ALL trump AND his GOP maga regime have is LIES and Magical Thinking!
Watch the 2004 movie 'Downfall'.
It is a True Story written by Hitler's own personal secretary, Traudl Junge, as she relives the last 10 days of Hitler and his Third Reich as they hide out in their bunker.
It focuses on the enormous amount of LIES and Magical Thinking to condone the massacre of their OWN civilian comrades...right outside their bunker.
It is a fascinating account of Human Nature and what people cling to in the End.
Sky Blue...Downfall is a HELL of a film...Bruno Ganz did something almost NOBODY manages...which is make the man ordinary enough...to be frightening.
And...you're pointing at the right thing IN it. Not the villainy. The sealed room. Everyone in that bunker...moving armies that no longer existed across a map...because the alternative was admitting...what was ACTUALLY happening ABOVE-ground. THAT...is the part that transfers.
Which...is really what Kent was describing, in a much smaller key; a president kept moving...meeting to meeting...hearing from people incentivized NEVER TO TELL HIM SOMETHING HE DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR.
Thanks for the recommendation, SK...well worth a rewatch!
-Jack
Jack is correct, and the mechanism he has identified deserves to be named precisely, because it is a technique with a long history, not a one-off. Note what actually happened: not a policy failure, not a miscalculation, but a single substitution — “no nuclear weapon” for “no enrichment” — that converted a position a state had held for two decades into one it could never accept without appearing to surrender its sovereignty entirely. This is not diplomacy breaking down. This is diplomacy being engineered to break down, while retaining the appearance of having been offered in good faith.
File the date: 2003. Note what Kent describes as Iran’s posture since then — a deliberate distance from weaponization, observable and consistent for twenty years. Historians who study the collapse of negotiated settlements recognize this precise maneuver: redefine the acceptable outcome until it no longer describes anything the other side can survive politically, then point to their refusal as proof of bad faith. The word changes. The story writes itself afterward as though refusal were inevitable.
Note also the second mechanism Jack surfaces, because it is older and more dangerous than the first: the discrediting of the messenger in place of an answer to the message. Kent’s record is not incidental to this. It is the reason the attack had to be personal rather than substantive — three years in the Ranger Regiment, a dead wife killed doing work the country asked of her, eleven deployments, cannot be answered with “isolationist.” It can only be answered by trying to make the audience stop listening before the argument is finished. Jack is correct to notice that this is the tell. When the argument goes unanswered and the man goes attacked instead, the argument was airtight.
I will note one further thing, because it is the most disciplined moment in what Jack has reported: Kent’s refusal to finish the sentence about coercion. He lays out the timeline and stops exactly where the evidence stops. This is not evasion. It is the opposite of the propagandist’s method, which always finishes the sentence for you. A analyst who says “I don’t know” at the edge of his evidence is doing his job. Note that distinction carefully, because the temptation in urgent moments is to reward the person who tells the more complete story, not the person who tells the more honest one.
The number worth carrying forward is not the $37 million spent to defeat one primary challenger. It is the 104 votes against continued funding — a number that did not exist a few years ago. History does not move because the truth was told once, loudly. It moves because it was told enough times, by enough credible people, that refusing to hear it became more costly than hearing it. That is the actual mechanism of change, and it is slower and less satisfying than any of the alternatives on offer. It is also the only one that has ever worked.
#HOLDFAST
Jane..."Diplomacy being engineered to break down, while retaining the appearance of having been offered in good faith"...that's good stuff..
You're right that it's a technique with a lineage...NOT an improvisation.
NAMING IT... as a recognizable HISTORICAL MANEUVER...does more work than any amount of outrage. Without question.
Your point about the propagandist always finishing the sentence for you...is right as rain. It's the cleanest test I've seen for WHO to TRUST...and...it explains why the honest voice ...so often loses to the COMPLETE one.
And...you've corrected my emphasis...correctly. The $37 million is the attention-getter. The 104 votes are the actual STORY.
Told enough times...by enough credible people...that refusing to hear it costs MORE than hearing it. That's the job. Thank you for doing it here, Jane!
#HOLDFAST
-Jack
Wow.. your article is a heavy duty synopsis that has many, many pieces that this 47th Regime will never ever expose or even acknowledge.
One thing runs constant next to Mr Kent- his findings are truth. And Truth is always shuttered and hidden as long as possible by this President & cohorts.
Your writing is very much needed & appreciated.
Lillian...thank you. That means a lot on a piece this long.
The bit of this that REALLY stays with me is that Kent had the job. Senate-confirmed... principal adviser to the President on counter-terrorism.
He asked the questions the job requires...and got a damn WALL.
If that's what happens to the man INSIDE the building...it tells you what the REST OF US are up against. In short, it's not jack shit.
What I'd hold onto, Lillian...is that he keeps saying "I can't prove it"...and says it ANYWAY. That's the discipline that makes him damn hard to dismiss...and it's the standard I'm trying to hold MYSELF to here.
More coming...promise! Thanks for reading it all the way through. Seriously.
-Jack
Lillian and Jack, I thank you both. Having just shared this eye opening article with my comment that it is a lot to proces.
I appreciate seeing your comment, Lillian. It connects to my thinking and adds some grounding.
Jack, your response to Lillian also adds to my processing. Thank you. Yes, I shall stay tuned.
#HoldFast!
"Speculative Narrative"
Netanyahu’s plans, capabilities, and intentions are fairly obvious at this point. Also the world view, "Never Again" can justify anything.
Virginia Cutler...you've named the MECHANISM...and...I'd add one thing to it.
Kent's version is that the Israeli professionals weren't hiding the objective at all; regime decapitation...indefinitely...and they said so out loud pro-to-pro. What got dressed up for American consumption...was the JUSTIFICATION...not the goal.
He's careful to say he does NOT blame them for pursuing their own interests. His line: "That's not on them. That's on us."
I keep coming back to that. Any doctrine that justifies EVERYTHING...is a doctrine nobody outside it...is obligated to fund.
Thanks, Virginia...for reading this closely!
-Jack
“That’s on us.” Indeed.
We have the mid-term elections. If the result does not begin to right the course of the national juggernaut, we'll strike one of those icebergs that are waiting for us. And we'll be carrying too much speed and too few lifeboats.
James...too MUCH speed and too FEW lifeboats.
That's the entire thing in eight-simple-words.
And...the part people miss about Titanic...is that they SAW it. They had the warnings in hand. What they did NOT have...was anyone willing to SLOW DOWN...because slowing down...meant admitting the schedule was WRONG.
Midterms are the ONLY rudder we've got...and...the turning radius on a ship that size... is measured in miles...not moments. Which means...it has to start NOW...not in October.
Well said, James. Truly. Thanks for being here!
-Jack
Need to reread 7 or 8 times. Thanks, Jack!
I’ve long believed there are people VERY high up on the food chain, people whose names we’d likely not recognize, calling a lot of the shots. Call me a conspiracy theorist but…. if it makes sense, has plausibility and explains a lot…. well maybe we just haven’t uncovered the trail yet. Not a time to jump in with both feet! a well considered hmm while observing works better. And as Jack has taught us… ask “who benefits??”
All that said, there is waaay too much in the recent explanations (murders, assassination attempts, etc) that just doesn’t pass muster. This whole Iran deal has also quite honestly puzzled me. It still does. From a really cold strategic level, I can see at least a couple of possible goals: bomb them into oblivion then try to take over the resources… or involve the US to the point where WE’RE weakened and vulnerable. The latter seems more germane since we’re running out of ordnance…. Both create churning in my gut.
To the 7yr old question….. are we creating internal terrorists with ICE? are we also, potentially, disaffecting our own people through poverty, mistreatment, denial of opportunities to improve themselves to the point they throw in the towel and try to blow it all up?
The $$ in politics… I do believe people are waking up and starting to demand ‘clean’ candidates (meaning they eschew corporate or PAC funding). It looks like it’s scaring the hell out of the establishment parties…. witness the El-Sayed / Stevens Senate primary in Michigan. The lead up to the election will get nasty & I would not be surprised to see Mike Rogers (R candidate for the seat) get AIPAC $$…. (they contributed large to Stevens & she was endorsed by the Dem establishment ).
I don’t have answers but….. when there is a fellow with Joe Kent’s chops talking, it’s time to listen up, listen hard, start asking pointed questions and then… Read. Between. The. Lines….. might not tell you all you want to know but I’m betting it’s a good indicator of how the winds are blowing…. and right now, I’m pretty uncomfortable.
Thank you, Jack. This is a piece with a LOT to digest. Lots of implications.
Jack a lot of this is also being said by Malcolm and Jacob a Waj Lon Black man spy. Not the complete story as you just stated. Bottom line drumpf and kegsbreath did not listen. I read where they were told attacking was a bad idea but drumpf told them to go ahead and the toy soldier kegs breath was all in because ??? He’s a pretend soldier who has had no real experience. Sadly we will probably lose more lives before they all come home. Kent had the experience and knew the culture and no one listened. We have to watch what comes next…
#HOLDFAST
Teri
I missed lots of this. I’m gonna have to go back over it.
Of course, it’s possible I caught it all and then forgot it.
I hate when that happens. 😢