The Wall Street Journal headline for today is:

President Donald Trump took steps Tuesday to revive two controversial oil pipeline projects that had been rejected by the Obama administration, moves that likely represent the leading edge of a sweeping overhaul of his predecessor’s environmental agenda. http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-set-to-take-action-on-keystone-dakota-pipelines-1485270333

This is another case of the media taking the opportunity, on a dull, unwitting readership, to create a false dilemma. In the spirit of Noam, I have complied by “clippings”, to let the story tell itself.  Here are the main things I discovered:

1. The Keystone Pipeline already exists – it begins in Steele City, Nebraska.  This bill concerns the “extension” to the pipeline.
2. The “rejection” of the Keystone Pipeline was in no way part of Obama’s environmental agenda.
3. Obama approved a portion of the Keystone Pipeline.
4. The Obama Administration approved other pipelines, namely the Trans-Pecos and Comanche Trail pipelines.

The point is accuracy in reporting. Obama was categorically NOT opposed to the Keystone Pipeline, in principal.  In fact, he supported it. He “rejected” the Keystone Extension project.  But even this rejection must be qualified.  Read on.

In March 2012, Obama endorsed the building of the southern segment (Gulf Coast Extension or Phase III) that begins in Cushing, Oklahoma. The President said in Cushing, Oklahoma, on March 22, “Today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done.” (“Remarks of the President” (Press release). The White House. 2012-03-22. Retrieved 2013-03-04.)

This is from the New York Times, 2012

RIPLEY, Okla. — President Obama stood in a red-dirt field before acres of stacked pipeline pieces on Thursday to illustrate his support for expedited construction of the southern leg of the Keystone XLoil pipeline. But his public declaration for the project pleased neither the industry and its Republican allies nor environmentalists.

That was clear hours later when several people interrupted his next speech, shouting “Stop the pipeline!” at Ohio State University, where Mr. Obama emphasized clean-fuel alternatives in his “all of the above” energy agenda. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/politics/in-oklahoma-obama-declares-pipeline-support.html)

I remember being surprised by this; but I also recall Obama’s logic, in an interview I heard.  He said that we are already transporting the oil – so the question is not whether we should or should not transport the oil. The problem is that we use the oil,regardless. His point was that alternatives, including truck or rail,would have a greater impact on the environment. This made sense to me. However, it also reveals the true issue, which, as usual, points to the true, hidden criminal: the American People: don’t demand the oil, and you won’t have this controversy.

Here is the history of the Obama Administration’s “rejection” (taken from Wikipedia: http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-set-to-take-action-on-keystone-dakota-pipelines-1485270333)

1. On November 30, 2011, a group of Republican senators introduced legislation aimed at forcing the Obama administration to make a decision within 60 days.^[51] In December 2011, Congress passed a bill giving the Obama Administration a 60-day deadline to make a decision on the application to build the Keystone XL Pipeline.^[47][52] In January 2012, Obama rejected the application stating that the deadline for the decision had “prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact”.
2. In March 2012, Obama endorsed the building of the southern segment (Gulf Coast Extension or Phase III) that begins in Cushing, Oklahoma. The President said in Cushing, Oklahoma, on March 22, “Today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done.”^[55]
3. In its supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) released in March 2013, the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs described changes to the original proposals including the shortening of the pipeline to 875 miles (1,408 km); its avoidance of “crossing the NDEQ-identified Sandhills Region” and “reduction of the length of pipeline crossing the Northern High Plains Aquifer system, which includes the Ogallala formation”; and stated “there would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed Project route.”^[2]   Note: this is the Obama State Department (i.e, a part of the Obama Administration).
4. On January 22, 2014 the Gulf Coast Extension (phase III) – approved by President Obama – was opened.^[12]
5. On April 18, 2014, the Obama administration announced that the review of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline has been extended indefinitely, pending the result of a legal challenge to a Nebraska pipeline siting law that could change the route.
6. A bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline was passed by the Senate (62–36) on January 29, 2015,^[64] and by the House (270–152) on February 11, 2015.^[65] President Obama vetoed the bill on February 24, 2015, arguing that the decision of approval should rest with the Executive Branch.^[66]
7. On 6 November 2015, the project of Keystone XL was rejected by the Obama administration after more than six years of review and initial approval by the Obama State Department.

It should be clear that the Obama administration was never against the Keystone Pipeline; nor did they have some environmental agenda, which was always used to defy the extension proposal.  It’s just not evident from any statement or actions on the port of Obama.  Note his reasons for veto above:

• the deadline for the initial bill would preclude adequate research (the Obama State Department later did the research, and gave the green light).
• the decision should rest with the Executive Branch (not the US Congress, duly elected by the People). Heard that before.

It was all summed up in Obama’s final words on the issue:

In his speech announcing the rejection of the pipeline on November 6, 2015, President Obama lamented the symbolic importance Keystone XL had taken on, stating, “for years, the Keystone pipeline has occupied what I, frankly, consider an overinflated role in our political discourse. It became a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel by both parties rather than a serious policy matter. And all of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”^[76]

I think NPR really came through on this piece of journalism:

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/12/12/505272992/the-russian-hacking-kerfuffle-what-we-do-and-dont-know

They probably stand alone among the media, who have profligated (I made that word up!) a pretty tenuous notion that it was Russian “hacking” – and nothing else! – that cost Hilary Clinton the Presidency and put Donald Trump there.

Here is the simple logic which deflates such a notion:

1. Hilary Clinton didn’t really lose the election, unequivocally. Another blazing news item is the discrepancy between the Popular Vote and the Electoral Vote. The Russian “hacking” argument says, essentially, that Hilary’s character was so defamed by these alleged Russian media artifacts, that she lost a significant part of her constituency? First, that doesn’t match the Popular results.  So, that refines the claim to say that the Russian meddling somehow influenced the Electoral College? How exactly? It would have to be shown, in a mathematical way, that enough votes shifted, from one or more States, from Democrat to Republican, so that the majority went to Repulbican, hence the Electoral College voted Republican. It would require a mathematical explanation, ultimately.  But, does it even really sound reasonable, in the first place?
2. The argument is unequivocal – it purports to rule out every other possible cause for her loss – right?  Aren’t we saying “Hilary Clinton lost the Presidency because of Russian hacking?” There is never any “and….failure to win Bernie’s constituency; failure to appeal to the Midwest laborer vote, etc.” No. The argument as presented is that if there had been no interference, Hilary Clinton would be the 45th President – no contest.
3. The most strikingly ridiculous part of all of this is that we are comparing some media items which defame Hilary in some way, to the mountain of media artifacts that defamed Trump throughout his campaign, and we are saying that Hilary’s defamation came out worse? Trump’s ludicrous Tweets alone should have cost him the Presidency, if this is really the argument.  He demonstrated bigotry, racism, sexism, philandering, ridiculous tax records – I mean, what did the Russians put out there that trumps all of the public embarrassment that Trump embodies? The NPR article says. That’s it? I mean, the DNC emails were mean-spirited, indeed, as were the “jokes” about Benghazi.  But ties to powerful bankers?  How does that lessen Hilary, in comparison to Trump?
   1. The messages revealed the gritty inner workings of the party elite and showed its preference for Hillary Clinton over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders supporters were outraged; the embarrassment prompted the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
   2. Later, WikiLeaks released emails from Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, which depicted her and the campaign’s ties to powerful bankers, internal jokes about the Benghazi investigation and other such exchanges.
   3. Parallel stories about the FBI’s investigation into the private email server that Clinton used at the State Department

That’s it? I mean, the DNC emails were mean-spirited, indeed, as were the “jokes” about Benghazi.  But ties to powerful bankers?  How does that lessen Hilary, in relationship to, of all people, Donald Trump?

NPR does not mention the “fake news” campaign, which is also regularly described as “hacking” (in a pretty non-technical sense, publishing fake news cannot be considered “hacking”, since anyone, including my mother, can do it. The Washington Post, famous for uncovering the Watergate scandal, did the most thorough investigation (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html?utm_term=.abba7b86a8b9). This is their conclusion:

Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.

So, it’s just spreading right-wing point of view across social media?  This is supposed to have lost – I mean actually functionally lost – the Presidency for Hilary Clinton? The WP goes on to say

There is no way to know whether the Russian campaign proved decisive in electing Trump, but researchers portray it as part of a broadly effective strategy of sowing distrust in U.S. democracy and its leaders.

Note that the rhetoric switches from the Democrats, to democracy, and from Hilary Clinton, to its leaders. The Democratic Party is hardly equivocal to Democracy, and Hilary does not represent the leaders of Democracy.  But back to the point – the point was that Russian “hacking” lost Hilary the Presidency.  The point was NOT that Russian “hacking” ruined our Democracy (it’s a Republic, by the way; abandoned Democracy when the popluation exceeded, say, 100).

Take this into account, from the NPR article

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in September that the Republican National Committee also was hacked during the campaign.

Well, well.  So the Russian “hacking” damaged Hilary significantly – or the DNC, anyway – but had what, the opposite effect on the RNC?

The bottom line is this: the Russian “hacking” argument needs to be expanded beyond the facebook bytes and Tweets: what is the actual position? The only real question is this:

• if the Russians took votes away from Hilary, where did those votes go? One can’t imagine that these were closet Republicans, just waiting for unsubstantiated claims against Hilary, for them to “swing” all the way to the Right? Right? It seems more likely that the 1,000,000 Bernie supporters, who deserved to be the most offended by the “hacked” emails (the emails weren’t actually “hacked” – that is, they were not altered: what the DNC Chair said about Bernie was the (her) truth), might have chosen not to vote at all.  But one can hardly imagine that they voted for Trump.
• who was swayed by this dys-information?  Who read those Tweets, and acted on them?  Staunch Hilary supporters?  Reading what, the Breitbart Twitter feed?  Word: the staunch Hilary supporters don’t even really know what these media artifacts even say – at least they didn’t until after the election.  Democrats read Democrat social media, and believe it all; Republicans read Republican media, and nothing else. So,
• Who, exactly, did the Russian influence?

this is a shout out to my new friends in the Traveler scene – you’re standing still, doing nothing.  and I need you, we all need you, to stop sucking air. we all need you to do that which needs to be done now. let me explain.

dressing in hippie rags, jamming the d chord, living on the street, has all been done.  it cannot be done again, at least not in the same context it was done by the hippies in the 60’s, or, the way Woodie Guthrie did it, or , the context that was applied to any of the countless movements from the past, in the United States, which contained the element of social diaspora.

what I mean by “done” is this: the Hegelian Dialectic.  It goes, thesis, antithesis, synthesis.  In terms of the 60’s, the restless youth met the status quo as thesis and antithesis.  Then, they merged. Yes, that’s the secret – there was no winner, and no one came out unscathed.  And what the synthesis is, in your face, right now, is yoga gentrification in Washington DC, it’s Whole Foods, that does indeed brings you vegan butter any day of weeks, but also ass rapes you and the People of America on the way out the door, with dense ties to markets share and Wall Street.  Do you see?  It was a synthesis, which means the hippies did not disappear.  It was not a failed experiment that you all need to do again – because it cannot be done again.

If you listen Gil Scott Heron today, you are wasting time.  Because if the Black Panthers marched onto the steps of the White House today with guns, it would be STUPID, right?  Because the President of the United States is Black, and so is his entire family!  Likewise, we don’t listen to James Brown sing about a “Funky President”. Not exactly for the same reason as Gil Scott Heron, but for the same reason as Whole Foods.  Obama is neither the thesis, nor the antithesis: he is a synthesis. That’s right: he’s not just Black; he’s White too.  That’s how it turned out.  The hard thing to see is that, once the Dialectic has run, you can’t run it again because your rally want Nihilism or something.

So back to you guys.  The revolution that is available now is not on the streets of Portland.  Instead, it is on the streets of Mumbai.  Actually, it is in the business colleges of Mumbai.  yes, the revolution that you could take part in is way out there – not in here.  It is in the World, not Haight-Asbury. And here’s the cool thing: it DOES take your traveler skill. What you need to do, instead of drop out and turn in, is to get your IBMA at an Indian University, (because their language of study is English and they are  concurrent, not latent).  Weird, right?  Wow, that’s not as cool as having dreads and listening to Marley. But look, all this  will require that you be able to smoke the chillum before class, and then ride your twin cycle through the streets of Mumbai, whiffing the vanilla smell of brown heroin. And then you need to visualize the Real World, which is this cyberspace concept that rules the minds of all people, but they are unaware.  Do you see this, the new On the Road?  The new Baba Ram Das?  It is so much higher, faster, farther.  Get on it!

Because what you are doing is not hypothesis versus thesis: it’s the past versus the future, and that is actually not a real “battle”, right?  Because no matter what you’ve read, the past ceases to exist immediately. The present is inconceivable, only feel-able.  And so what really exists is a future continuum. There is no such thing as living in the past. Revolution means full circle. YOU ARE STANDING STILL.

Yes.  We don’t need for you to re-enact the 60’s, to relearn how to bop, to deepen your consciousness with acid. Really, it’s kind of like watching Star Wars again.