We all know the story of the Trojan Horse. The Greeks cleverly concocted a plan to present to the Trojans, a valuable gift that in fact concealed those who would attack them from within.

Submitted for your consideration, two of today’s headlines about Obama from the valuable gift the Greek-heritaged Arianna Huffington has wheeled out in front of the Progressive’s castle, The Huffington Post:

“IS HE TRYING TO LOSE THE MIDTERMS?”


“THE EXPECTATION, I THINK, WAS AUDACITY – STEWART PRESSES OBAMA ON ‘TIMID’ POLICIES”

Unfortunately, I just blew the monthly PlanetPOV budget for huge red fonts but I thought an accurate representation would be most illustrative.

We are five days away and that Trojan Horse of a website co-founded by Andrew Breitbart, that bastian of Progressive thought, sounds the charge for Progressives to ATTACK…their own president and party. At the same time President Obama, President Clinton, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden and so many others in the Democratic Party are working tirelessly to get the vote out this upcoming Tuesday, Huffington Post is blaring headlines to discourage Progressives from turning out to vote.

One could argue, “Why should they support Obama and Dems, they are just trying to present fair and balanced news.”

One could reply, “I thought Fox News already has a web site.”

As we’ve discussed previously, there is a strain of Dems sometimes referred to as Purists, those who are angry towards and attack Obama for giving them only 90% of the ice cream that they wanted on their cone. Such short-sighted whiners would rather throw a tantrum and let the rich white kids steal all that ice cream from them while they kick and scream. However, that self-centered, instant-gratification-addicted segment of the Progressive community appears to those who oppose the Progressive agenda, as a nicely crafted, large and hollow wooden horse that would make a lovely gift for the Democratic Party.

And Arianna continues “proselytuting” her Third World America book on every media outlet (including Animal Planet) at the same time…an unrelenting assault on Obama and the Dems which supports a kind of the Reagan/Bush trickle-down economics.

And yet, people keep towing this Trojan Horsington Post  across their internet threshold into their Progressive homes where its anti-progressive contents sneak out to accomplish their goals.

There are many solid Progressives who write articles and blog at that site, which is what helps make that Trojan Horse so attractive. However, the editorial policy of constantly attacking Obama, his administration and Dems is undeniable. It is no secret that for financial gain, their headlines are often tabloid quality, sensationalistic and dishonest, just to get you to read an article and spend more time there (which translates into higher ad rates they can charge).  The question is, why can’t they exploit Progressives to make more money and yet still support their causes and elected representatives?

There is of course a very obvious conclusion to that…because they choose not to do so. And there is of course a very obvious motivation to that as well…because they don’t see it in their best interest.

There’s a name for someone who calls themself a Democrat and yet opposes the Democratic Party, their President and their agenda. “Ben Nelson”…or “Disingenuous” (if there’s a difference).

In this era of groups called, “Citizens United” which were all about handing control of our democracy away from citizens to corporations, it is fitting that a blog that positions itself as the premiere Progressive blog frequently runs anti-Progressive headlines that match those of Drudge Report and Fox News instead of moderate outlets like Yahoo News or legit progressive outlets like DailyKos.

And yet, because this Trojan Horse has been plastered in “Go Progressives!” bumper stickers, it is accepted without much critical thought that it’s contents naturally match its facade (Who ya goin’ ta believe, your critical thinkin’ or my bumper stickers?!”). Hosting articles by Progressives, having many thoughtful Progressives as bloggers and self-describing itself as Progressive helps insulate it from criticism and from being seen for having the agenda its editorial choices pursue.

It is not a site to be ignored, it is a site though that deserves just as much scrutiny as it aims at our Progressive president, officials, candidates and agenda. The belly of this beast needs to be opened up to sunlight as often as possible so that what’s hiding in it’s belly can be exposed to the light of day and disarmed.

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caleb36
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caleb36

In response to this article which confirmed my increasing suspicions that HuffPo is a right-wing Trojan horse, I vowed never to post on that site again, and indicated as such on my final post there yesterday. I am thankful to a popular poster on HuffPo named Chernynkaya who provided a link to this PlanetPOV article.

What an immense sense of relief I feel to have severed my connection with HuffPo! Arianna Huffington is good at marketing. She has created an alluring environment that attracts much like a drug. Many of the posters are intelligent and thoughtful. They apparently believe, as I did, that their input on the comment threads there matter, not realizing that by stirring up interest in the site, they are merely serving Huffington’s marketing purposes. Anyway, it is good to be free!

Khirad
Member

Welcome. A few of us go on over to the dark side still to save a few more souls, so welcome to the light!

Many more are getting wise to her game, but you are still among the elect few with your heightened degree of discernment. 🙂

boomer1949
Member

Welcome. How thoughtful of Cher to give a a shout out to AdLib’s post and to the Planet.

Regarding Ariana’s Republican Stripes and Cheshire Cat tendencies…a picture is worth a thousand words:

Amalfi Italy — August 2010

[img]http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/images/stories/ariannanewtamalfi.jpg[/img]

Questinia
Member

[img]http://www.indecisionforever.com/files/2009/10/huffington_mask.jpg[/img]

PatsyT
Member

Totally Love It Darling! You know at that size it is purrrr fect for the kitty!

kesmarn
Admin

That’s pretty close to her actual image… Except the eyes in this one have a little more depth and compassion than the real Aryana has in hers.

escribacat
Member

Scary. Love the pink eyes.

AuntieChrist
Member

http://flic.kr/p/7fTP86

To go with what Adlib rightly pointed out about such a shameless media wh*re.

ah cartoon

escribacat
Member

Excellent, Auntie. I think I’m gonna put this on my fridge. Did you make it?

Haruko Haruhara
Member

Boy, they’re deleting like CRAZY on HP right now.

That place is nuts!

SueInCa
Member

I call that group the “Microwave generation”. I try to blog over there with the idea of posting this site and definitely harangueing(sic) her for he shameless book. She is making money off the backs of the poor. She is no better than the people she mocks.

whatsthatsound
Member

I was disgusted by what I saw, and made two comments to that effect.

Maybe she should title her next book, “Shameless”

and (after my namesake)

There’s something happening here
what it is ain’t exactly clear
but there’s a lady with a site over there
telling us we’ve got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down

some people “faved” both comments, so clearly there is disgust from we who post comments there. It is so blatantly obvious that SHE is the one who is trying to lose the midterms for the Dems that it would be funny if it weren’t so disgusting.
Think I’ll “retire” from there again for a while.

Khirad
Member

The regulars are definitely on to it.

Marion
Member

Scores more people are seeing her for what she is. People laud her for her intelligence, but really, she’s not that bright. Her ego’s shoved her head up her ass so far, she can’t see the light of day,.

Her jump-the-shark moment was when she came on Rachel’s show, dissing the President, and, basically, preaching trickledown, telling people the President wasn’t “into” the middle class. Like Whoreanna knows, right.

Rachel’s FB page took a beating for that, but hundreds of people now know her for what she really is.

phread
Member
phread

Interesting comments, all…The corporate influence is everywhere…I believe fascism to be the true nature of America…I read -the writer’s name escapes now-that a fascist economy is a permanent war economy even in peace time.
This is for me striking as the Great Depression was ended by the war…but it was a guns or butter scenario, with Sweden being the first nation to deficit spend her way out of the GP, on butter. While nazi germany was second out of the GP by deficit spending on guns, followed by britain and then the US also on guns.
We find in 2010 the same dilemma, do we continue to spend on guns?
The Military Industrial complex has a death grip on all of us…fascists need to have “anti regime” conspiracies to rally the troops…

Here’s an old quote I feel is apropos:

kesmarn
Admin

Henry Wallace got it right, Phread.

phread
Member
phread

yeah he did…you’d think he was talking about fox noise…

whatsthatsound
Member

that is a great quote, in terms of how well it describes the situation now, sixty five years later.
On a separate matter, although I see what you mean about Sweden recovering from the Depression early from its “butter before guns” policy, I am guessing that if it had not been for Sweden’s economically brilliant policy of supporting the war efforts of both sides leading up to and during WWII, their Keynesian policy alone would have been unsustainable. So we may be looking at the depressing (pun unintended) fact that our entire world economy at present is buoyed by, and demands, war as one of its crucial elements. Maybe something like (off the top of my head) cars & gasoline, food, war, real estate and household devices and appliances (including diversions like TV), in maybe roughly that order.

So THAT really needs to change.

phread
Member
phread

My point is that Keynesian policy did work and can work again. The facts are there; it was in 1934 that Sweden became the first country to fully recover from the Great Depression. Why does everyone ignore Sweden’s success with Keynesian deficit spending? In fact, Germany, Britain and the USA engaged in deficit spending for war.

Referring to Sweden;”their Keynesian policy alone would have been unsustainable” this remark is of course false as all retro logic is false due to the fact it is unverifiable…

whatsthatsound
Member

not “of course false” because what I wrote was, “I am guessing that…..would have been unsustainable”.
Which just means we disagree on this point.
The point is, Sweden ramped up its armament spending in the thirties and forties like other countries, first to protect itself from Germany’s rising power and then just because there was so much money to be made helping to arm both sides.

phread
Member
phread

We do indeed disagree…the facts do not support you…Sweden was neutral in WW2 Sweden’s spending was on butter not guns…again fact.

phread
Member
phread

Sweden’s armament started in 1936 after Sweden had gotten out of the depression in 1934…

“In 1936, the Swedish government started to heighten its military preparedness as the international situation worsened. Military spending in Sweden went from US$37 million in 1936, to $50 million in 1937, to $58.6 million in 1938, and then increased over fivefold to $322.3 million in 1939. During World War II itself, military spending peaked at $527.6 million in 1942.”

Questinia
Member

Hi wts, what do you mean “Sweden supported war efforts on both sides”?

whatsthatsound
Member

Hi Q.
Sweden’s governmental policy of neutrality meant that the government could not interfere with Swedish industry selling its wares to whoever wanted it, and during the war there was a lot of demand for what Sweden had to offer. By some (probably not entirely accurate) estimates, the Nazi military machine was basically dependent on iron ore from Sweden. Meanwhile, Swedish producers sold iron ore and ball bearings, etc. to Great Britain, and the allied war effort.

If phread is reading this, I don’t dispute that Sweden was neutral during the war, I’m just saying that there was a mercantilist underbelly to this neutrality. So I don’t think Sweden was “above the fray”. They wisely chose a policy of not fighting, but they were in the fray in that their businesses were helping to supply the guns, not butter.

Khirad
Member

I’m gonna disagree with you too WTS.

Many critics have questioned just how “neutral” Sweden can be considered during WWII. It seems to mean they were all but occupied, but unlike the Swiss, allowed far greater collaboration with the Nazi government. How much of the economy was based on supplying Die Krupps and how much was on butter, I don’t know. This is where we could get to the bottom of this.

I would imagine, though, that the former was no small change. The Nazi War Machine did in fact rely on Swedish iron ore in great amount. They also prized Swedish women for their Lebensborn program, but that’s something else altogether…

whatsthatsound
Member

Hi, Khirad.
With people like you “disagreeing” with me, I’ll never need supporters! 🙂
I think we both have pretty much the same views about this.

Khirad
Member

Oops, I meant disagree in concert with you. 😉

whatsthatsound
Member

so we’re agreeing to disagree, eh? Gives new meaning to that old expression!

Questinia
Member

whatsie, your “agree to disagree” has taken on a new meaning!

phread
Member
phread

Points well made, WTS, if I might be allowed the use of shorthand…my original point is that Sweden was out of the GP first, in 1934, and by the few accounts I have been able to locate, it was NOT because of deficit spending for war…Germany was the second nation out of the GD, because of deficit spending for war.
What Sweden did after that may have been due to the threat of invasion and occupation by Germany, but with retro logic one can not make binding assertions.

We, in the USA, have a decision to make, continue with supply side deficit spending that is destroying our economy by creating an inefficient market system through oligopoly, and protracted war. Or do we spend to rectify the demand deficiency we currently have.

The reason I find the Swedish experience interesting is it shows that deficit spending for war was not the only way to recover from the GD; this may present other options if there was an actual dialogue in the USA rather than corporate propaganda defending the failed status quo…

I do thank you WTS for making me think some more about this.

whatsthatsound
Member

I think your point is excellent, and I similarly thank you for the thinking opportunity. I agree with you that it is important to consider that a “butter” policy can work (and work for the U.S.), and the fact that the Swedish recovery preceded the arms buildup (which I wasn’t aware of until you pointed it out) is encouraging, to be sure. History has so much to teach us, and so often its best lessons keep going unlearned.

Questinia
Member

phread, my uncle is a software designer for the Swedish Stock Exchange. Maybe I should ask him what the deal is. He’s very knowledgeable. Not like the all-seeing, all-knowing Khirad, of course. But still.

phread
Member
phread

I found the aforementioned quote RE fascist economies:

Fascism was

Khirad
Member

I wish I had a link to this that got past HP screening.

We’re so person

ClusterFoxWarrior
Member

Arianna Huffington is a hypocrite in many ways. For one, she says she’s a “progressive” yet has been spotted hanging out with Newt Gingrich.

Arianna is the type of person who attacks everybody. She spent the last eight years attacking George W. Bush, now she’s attacking Barack Obama. She’s the kind of person that no matter how much you cave into her demands, it’s just NOT good enough.

As for her website, I’ve stopped commenting on many of the political related articles, posting on only the Entertainment related articles I find interesting. But overall, everyone on Trojanton Post has an ego… whether it be from the right winger posters who end up faving each others comments, or from the Purist posters who think they’re Mr. Big Shot with the Progressive Stripes, attacking President Obama and Democrats for not being far left enough and how they wont support Obama and the Dems and want to go third party, etc etc etc.

And it’s stupid how some words trigger a filter and send your post to pending, or how some threads are fully modded, and your comment takes about an hour to get posted, IF it gets posted at all. Also some Moderators with the badges and deleting privileges have become mod happy and delete posts at free will. It’s nothing short of a kindergarten playground.

Pepe Lepew
Member

I think you’re more right than you know with the “playground” comment — I liken it to junior high school hall monitors. Most of the moderators are good eggs, but some have let those asinine badges go to their heads; I’ve seen this creepy little clique of CM2s throwing their weight around, letting people know, “you better not mess with us … we’re tight with the HP mods… we’re the ELITE … ” It’s really pathetic. Give a certain personality type a little petty power and they go monkeyshit with it.

Kalima
Admin

I’m still trying hard to get my head around the fact that Howard Fineman has moved there as Senior Political Adviser, I used to like him on KO. Can’t believe that he’s swallowed her bs hook, line and sinker. What’s wrong with this picture?

I hardly go there, just to read Bob Cesca, I really need to close my account in this den of blatant hypocrisy, it’s only the nostalgic memories of conversations with older posters who are now no longer there that have kept me from closing it. That time we had there will never come back, and it wasn’t the place, it was the people I got to know. I really must go there to finish this soon.

AH is just a greedy media w***e who only thinks about herself, money and fame while she peddles insincere concern for the “little people.” Hope the rest of her “admirers” wake up to her scam soon, but that seems like wishful thinking when you stay to read some of the comments there.

Khirad
Member

Speaking of admirers, I think it’s telling that Arianna is a hot word and that every one of her blogs gets heavily, heavily modded. I mean, we say that a lot, but these things are like Ft. Knox of what they let through. Or, maybe like der Todesstreifen. Nothing unflattering gets through, or stays very long. It’s as if she mods her articles herself – and can’t you just see it?

Kalima
Admin

In the beginning in 2007′ I posted on her blog a few times, it was literally hours before it was shown, and with my time difference, I couldn’t be bothered to wait.

She either does it herself, or has a trained seal to do it for her. Nothing unflattering has ever made it to the thread, only the “Mirror, mirror on the wall” types get through, you know the ones that proclaim that she is “the fairest of them all.”

Khirad
Member

I’ve been noticing a huge uptick in purist trolls.

Including one long-winded one asking us, what, even if Dems were to keep the house, would we expect the failure of the “faux-progressive” Obama to do?

If you’ve spent any time there you will know this notorious purist.

My question was – why had I not seen them regularly since they were trying to kill the HC bill so we could “start over”?

At first I thought they were just a delusional purist in their own constructed reality where everyone pays attention to process and everyone has the facts and the same passion as they do.

Now, I’m not so sure I can even give them that.

It’s all very, very fishy how they popped up again most vociferously a week before midterms.

I call Trojan horseshit.

Kalima
Admin

Khirad, that sounds like the paid RW trolls we had there during the primaries in 08′, you can’t believe a word they post, it’s just to try to make Dems and Progressives doubt in Obama’s agenda. Every comments that sticks, means a dollar something in their pockets. In 08′ there were some who openly admitted to being paid to cause doubt. I’d take their comments with a grain of salt if I were you, they only post the daily “talking points” from the people who pay them.

Pepe Lepew
Member

Actually, when I became utterly CONVINCED that the site had become inundated with paid posters was during the debate over health care reform. The site was just LOUSY with trolls, I mean they literally outnumbered the liberals, then after health care reform passed, dozens of them simply “vanished.”

Kalima
Admin

I was no longer posting at this time Pepe, but I’m sure that you are right.

Now just before the elections, with so many crazy choices of tea party nutters, I’m sure the paid trolls are very busy on HP, trying to dig holes.

kesmarn
Admin

AdLib, I saw that crimson tide of a headline over there today, as well. The odd thing is that it was attached to an article that was almost entirely irrelevant to, and disconnected from, the headline. The article was, if I’m not mistaken, narrowly focused on some comments Obama had made about the foreclosure crisis and the need to make sure that people who did not actually merit assistance did not get it. Many of the comments I skimmed through had a sort of “What the….?” reaction to the headline:story incongruity.

I guess the real question (the one we probably know the answer to) is: “Is HP Trying to Lose the Mid Terms for Obama?”

On a related issue: I’m taking a sort of wait-and-see approach to this weekend’s Jon Stewart DC event. But I can’t deny that I’m also disappointed in the way he handled the Obama interview on his show. It made me wince to see the president being laughed at. Maybe my perception of that is all off. (I’ve seen large segments of the interview, but not the whole, thing.) So maybe I’m missing something. But what I saw was disheartening this close to the election. I don’t think it helped the Dem cause at all.

I realize this is not an original observation, but — the right never, ever, ever breaks ranks. Even when they have personal disagreements, they keep them under wraps to win elections. This weekend John Boehner is going to come to northern Ohio to campaign for Rich (Nazi-Boy) Iott. I doubt that even he really wants to do that. But that’s how far they will go to maintain a united front that’s virtually impenetrable.

On the other hand, we on the left don’t stand up to Fox. We don’t stand up to Limbaugh. We don’t stand up to Beck. And when one of our own, like Alan Grayson stands up forcefully to someone like “Taliban Dan,” this is what happens to the levels of support he has:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/forecasts/house/florida/8

EDIT: Just to clarify — when I say “we” I don’t mean “we” on the Planet! I mean the left in America in general tends to lack unity. And this makes it easier for people like Aryana to divide and conquer.

Pepe Lepew
Member

I Remember the halcyon days of 2006 when we all thought HuffPost was genuinely a pure place for progressives to gather. It was OUR playground.

It was all a sham. We were sold a false bill of goods, my friends.