Friday, October 28, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MICHELLE OBAMA SHOWERS PRAISE ON HILLARY CLINTON AT A RALLY - PRAISES HER (NON-EXISTENT) "PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS" - A CASE OF THE GREEDY PRAISING AND SEEKING FAVORS FROM THE UTTERLY CORRUPT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


Hillary's professional accomplishments?

Really, what would those be?

Marrying a young successful politician and enjoying years of genuine power, with no elected office, as wife of a Governor and a President, enjoying that power because she tolerated his endless predatory sexual behavior, something which gave her rather immense power over him?

By the way, Michelle, during Clinton's campaign against her husband for the presidential nomination in 2008, is on record as saying a number of times words to the effect, if you can't run your own family affairs, how are you qualified to run the affairs of the country?

She sings a different tune now that her husband has in the balance a rumored promised appointment to the Supreme Court should Clinton win.

Serving as junior Senator from New York for about 8 years, the only time she has ever been elected to anything, without a single notable accomplishment? She has to her credit precisely three pieces of genuinely insignificant legislation that she sponsored.

Serving as Secretary of State with her advocated horror of destroying Libya and overseeing weapons transferred to kill more people in Syria? Overseeing the disastrous mess at Benghazi?

The kind of human being Clinton is perhaps nowhere better summed up than her video-recorded remarks on Gaddafi's murder, "We came, we saw, he died, ha, ha,ha!"

Real class act.

And what can we say of Michelle out selling a woman we know she never liked simply because her husband might get a juicy appointment? Pure Bernie Sanders.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE GUARDIAN YET ONCE MORE TRIES UNDERMINING SYRIA'S PRESIDENT ASSAD - CLAIMING HIS RELATIVES AND FRIENDS ARE HIRED FOR UN RELIEF WORK - AS TIRESOME A PIECE OF PROPAGANDA AS YOU WILL FIND


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


Tiresome, really tiresome.

Assad is the legitimate president of the country.

And by all critical accounts, he is a rather decent one, demonstrating tolerance for Syria's many religious groups.

The country's Christians regard him as a protector.

He remains the most popular political figure in Syria.

The armed forces have remained loyal to him through five years of hell on earth, and that despite many efforts to bribe them by the same foreign states sponsoring Syria's agony under imported terrorists.

John Kerry's pronouncements from Washington on Assad's fitness for office carry about as much weight with thinking people all over the world as David Cameron's words on the EU.

There is nothing unusual in Britain or Syria with friends and relatives receiving responsibilities. Just look at David Cameron's honors' list. 


JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COLUMNIST ZOE WILLIAMS WRITES OF POLITICIANS' ABILITY TO NEVER GIVE A STRAIGHT ANSWER - YES BUT IT IS THE PRESS WHICH MAKES THE POLITICIANS' DUMBSHOW POSSIBLE


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ZOE WILLIAMS IN THE GUARDIAN


"Never give a straight answer: how I learned to talk like a politician'

The ultimate answer to this annoying practice is remarkably simple: stop interviewing politicians.

You never get any information anyway.

But the press would never do that, would it?

So who is the real villain?

Or is it a dark marriage of convenience?

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BRITAIN'S INDEPENDENT SAYS IN AN EDITORIAL THAT TRUMP'S RELATIONSHIP WITH PUTIN IS FAR MORE THREATENING THAN HILLARY - WHAT RELATIONSHIP? - A COMIC BOOK EDITORIAL WHOSE EVERY WORD IS FANTASY


COMMENT POSTED TO AN EDITORIAL IN THE INDEPENDENT


Truly, these are the words of an immensely ignorant person.

Obama and Clinton have turned the Mideast into a charnel house, but Trump is dangerous?

And dangerous because of his relationship with the most logical and sensible statesman on the planet, Putin?

Oh, and by the way, he in fact has no relationship with Putin.

The Independent is fast approaching becoming a graphic novel, which is the fancy term for a comic book.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COLUMNIST WRITES OF TRUMP'S RACISM AND CLINTON'S BIG TRUST PROBLEM WITH YOUNG BLACK AMERICANS - BUT TRUMP IS NO RACIST AND SOME BIG UGLY TRUTHS ABOUT CLINTON AND BLACKS: SHE IS NOT THEIR FRIEND AND HAS PROVED IT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR


I'm sorry, but there are seriously questionable assumptions here.

"... the unquestioned racism of Donald Trump..."

While it commonly enough thrown around in the anti-Trump establishment press, it is, in fact, simply an insupportable statement.

Trump has demonstrated no racism, and I think it quite unfair to assert that he has.

The assertion very much resembles the long series of Guardian accusations directed towards Jeremy Corbyn concerning anti-Semitism. They were themselves the ugliest form of McCarthyism.

Such accusations, made glibly ad with no evidence, surely are themselves a form of racism.

"If the country’s first black president could not disrupt the racial status quo, what can we expect Clinton to accomplish?"

Again, sorry, but the nation's first black president, sad to say, has been an extraordinarily ineffective one. You cannot name one thing he did or even tried to do for his own people.

Obamacare, his only big domestic legislation is failing badly. Bill Clinton himself has been quoted saying so in speeches. Word is, Hillary regards it as a failure too.

All Obama has proved is that if an attractive black person - and he was attractive in 2008 - runs, he can be elected. That ain't much of an achievement.

In international affairs, he has been a disaster, falling under complete control of the Pentagon-CIA establishment and simply engaging in wholesale killing. And that includes the deaths of a lot of black people too.

Hillary is as far from a friend of black people as you can get. We have her on video back during her husband's term of office talking about "black super-predators." You may find that easily on the Internet.

She of course championed the destruction of Libya to Obama and is recorded on video laughing about Gaddafi's murder. Gaddafi was one of black Africa best friends and allies as well as being a good leader for his people.

We also have the testimonial, again recorded, of a chef, a man from Buffalo, who prepared a big meal for the Clintons and friends, and says he heard Mrs. Clinton shout the n-word at a black man who upset her.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SILLY COLUMNIST OWEN JONES SAYS ELIZABETH WARREN IS THE PRESIDENT WE NEED BUT CANNOT HAVE NOW - WARREN'S SHABBY OPPORTUNISM - A WORD ON THE INDEPENDENT'S IGNORING OF THE GREENS' EXCELLENT JILL STEIN


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY OWEN JONES IN THE GUARDIAN


"Elizabeth Warren is the US president we need, but can’t have – this time"

If you, in fact, knew more about Elizabeth Warren, Owen Jones, you couldn't write that.

She is just another Bernie Sanders, speaking liberal-sounding phrases but retreating to dark political opportunism with some regularity.

Years ago, for example, Ms Warren gave a very convincing interview on a specific issue of interest to her, and the key information in the whole thing was how while Hillary seemed to listen to her advocacy and speak against the legislation with which she was concerned, the same legislation made its way into law not that long after with Clinton support.

And today she supports Clinton, likely the most corrupt and dishonest candidate ever to run, characterizations continuously confirmed by Internet leaks.

And what of the 15 years of imperial Neocon Wars, killing countless thousands of women and their families in the Middle East, wars embraced and advocated for - and even, in part, run by - Clinton?

Absolute, pure, unadulterated opportunism, having nothing to do with the kind of loftiness of which you write.
__________________________
Response to another reader’s comment about Guardian always overlooking Jill Stein and a genuine reform party in America, the Greens:

Well said, indeed.

The likely reason: Jill Stein is against the Neocon Wars.

People favoring that long series of horrors - "giving painful birth to a new Middle East" to quote Condoleezza Rice - are running The Guardian.

You can see it in everything from the attacks on Corbyn and Trump and against Brexit to the unexamined generalities repeated about Syria or Libya or Russia.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY SO MANY AMERICANS DO NOT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THE REAL CHOICE IN THIS ELECTION: TRUMP FOR PEACE AND CLINTON FOR WAR


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER


The choice is so simple that it is painful to realize how many Americans do not understand it.

But the entire establishment press of the United States (and Britain) has pounded unrelentingly against Trump. I don't recall anything quite like it in my lifetime.

And you have to ask yourself why that is. I guarantee that it is not because of some rude speech and oddly-styled hair.

A potty mouth is one thing, but dropping bombs on women and children in Libya, Syria, and Yemen is another.

Trump has shown some careless speech about women. Clinton literally has assisted in tearing apart thousands of women and their families.

And that's why America's establishment press is so overwhelmingly in her corner. They embrace wholeheartedly the Neocon Wars. After all, they've helped promote them for years. Papers like the New York Times or Washington Post and networks like CNN have been out beating the war drums from the start.

And maybe any too genteel or ineffectual type such as Obama simply lacks the capacity to get his way with the powerful men at the Pentagon and CIA.
__________________________________________

It is stunning how rude and brainless the Pentagon is in these matters.

Of course, always supported by the rather insignificant man who sits in a big chair in the Oval Office, pretending to be President.


JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BOB DYLAN CALLED ARROGANT AND IMPOLITE BY NOBEL ACADEMY MEMBER FOR FAILING TO CONTACT OR RESPOND TO THEM


COMMENT ON AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


No, you certainly do not have to accept a prize, but ordinary civility dictates telling them that's the case.

This way of handling things is simply bizarre.

We may have a wee bit of mental illness at work here.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FOR BERNIE SUPPORTERS A VOTE FOR HILLARY COMES HARD - I'LL SAY - AND AN ANSWER TO THE NOTION THAT THERE ARE THE SAME KIND OF PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES IN THIS ELECTION


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


The cheated being expected to vote for the cheater?

A cheater, moreover, with the personality of a werewolf?

I believe there is a lot of play in this population in casting a secret vote for Trump.
____________________

Response to a comment about “Left or right nothing will change
Same kind of people are running both sides”:

That is, for once, wrong.

Hillary represents no change, except possibly for the worst in war and world affairs.

Trump, no matter what you think of his personality, represents the possibility of some real change.

Just ask yourself, why does the establishment press, including very much the one you are reading, so overwhelmingly oppose Trump?

I can guarantee you that it isn't because he has had a nasty mouth or wears his hair oddly.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICAN OFFICIALS BAR RUSSIAN ELECTION POLL OBSERVERS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY


I think it very revealing that the United States is doing this.

However, in a larger sense, observers at polls are becoming an obsolete concept.

With computerized voting, fraud is just a hack away.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OBAMA'S INSIPID WORDS ON UNDERMINING DEMOCRACY WITH "RIGGED ELECTION" CLAIMS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


"Donald Trump's 'rigged election' claims 'undermine democracy', says Barack Obama"

Well, Mr. Obama, I might have thought rigged elections themselves undermine democracy far more than any words about them.

But these insipid words from Obama are what we've come to expect from a badly failed leader.

He and Clinton still speculate and make unsubstantiated charges about the source of WikiLeaks material rather than focusing on their content.

Well, there is one area in which Obama has been focused, and that is killing people - tens of thousands of them in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and a number of other places.

And Hillary has been his willing helper. Here is a woman who has helped tear thousands of women and their families to pieces.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BRITAIN'S INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER CLAIMS TO DO FACT-CHECKING ON TRUMP VERSUS CLINTON - IN VIEW OF THE PAPER'S RECORD THIS IS A RIDICULOUS CLAIM


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Oh, please, Independent editors.

Fact-checking by an organization which has demonstrated almost insane bias in recent matters?

Your treatment of Trump?

Your treatment of Corbyn?

Your treatment of Brexit?

The ridiculous pomposity of your claim to being able to do this is the stuff of parody.

Monty Python checks out the facts.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN ESSAY: YES, THERE WILL BE ELECTION FRAUD, AND ON A GRAND SCALE


YES, THERE WILL BE ELECTION FRAUD, AND ON A GRAND SCALE

America’s election system is designed only to give the theater of democracy with none of the substance

John Chuckman


It is a virtual certainty that the American establishment will resort to election fraud to help Hillary Clinton. They simply do not know what to do about Donald Trump. America’s election system was not designed to handle a phenomenon like him, a non-politician, a man with some genuinely fresh anti-establishment views, who quickly rides a wave of popularity to do a hostile take-over, as it were, of a major old-line party.

America’s election system is designed to give the theater of democracy with virtually none of the substance, but even in the face of that reality, election fraud in America still has a long history. Even though we are usually talking about two establishment candidates representing two establishment parties, the competitive instincts of the two rival gangs, each eagerly seeking power and privileges and appointed offices for themselves and their adherents, have often resulted in vote fraud. How much greater is the impulse now in that direction to defend against a candidate who actually wants to change something?

Despite an unprecedented spectacle of the press acting as a national public disinformation system united in one goal, to discredit Trump, including even polls deliberately engineered with sampling errors to give a false view of what is happening, and a massive effort to build Hillary up into something she is not, a decent human being, the momentum for Trump continues.

Even if you don’t have reliable numbers, you can just feel it from the very desperation of the establishment. The President spends much of his time flying around making insipid speeches for his party, the newspapers leap to publish every unconfirmed negative report about Trump or such absolute trivia as this or that movie star or pop star saying what an awful man Trump is. And you have to ask where all these voices were during decades of business deals in the great cities of America and other places which saw successful projects springing up all over with fanfare and publicity.

No, it is only now that the establishment actually feels of the hot breath of popular revolt against much of what it has done over the last two decades - its uniquely poisonous policy brew of constant war and completely ignoring most Americans - that we get this explosion of rumors, unproved accusations, and Joseph McCarthy-style innuendo. Before that, Trump was a highly productive member of society welcome at public events of every kind. After all, wealth and celebrity are always welcome in America. It is only change that is not.

Critics are right about a lot of unpleasant things in America, and their voices are simply not heard in its tight little press oligopoly. Is America’s establishment right about Syria? About Libya? About Yemen? About Israel? About NATO? About Russia? China? Being right in America today can be quite lonely.

America invented marketing. It is one of its few truly original contributions to culture. And the arts of marketing are intensely at work in politics there, to the extent there is often almost no substance despite all the carefully-packaged words. The immediate period after an American election resembles the experience of a person who has purchased a new product which quickly proves to work nothing like the advertising promises said it would.

American elections closely resemble a marketing battle between two oligopolistic corporations, as between Coke and Pepsi or McDonald's and Burger King. There are only two parties and that situation is controlled through countless institutional and regulatory gimmicks put into place by the two parties themselves.

America’s campaign financing system is a deliberate and effective method to discourage the birth or growth of any new parties. It is what economists call a barrier to entry into a market, the kind of thing which keeps non-political oligopolistic markets from becoming more competitive. The little ones are allowed to just struggle along on the margins for appearances and owing to the disproportionately high cost of eliminating them too

Most of the noise and intensity of American elections are just hollow, but it is the kind of stuff to which Americans are exposed in their economic life, day-in or day-out, so for ordinary people without the time to be well-informed, nothing could sound more normal.

That is what is so different about Trump. Despite his flaws and distasteful tendency to be a bigmouth, on some really important matters, matters of life and death, he is speaking truth and speaking it plainly. There is a kind of revolutionary quality in parts of his message. Of course, this in part reflects the fact that he has never before been a politician, only a successful, hard-nosed actor in the economic sphere.

That is something new in American elections, and the establishment is rather shaken by it. Therefore, the American press has created and sustained an unparalleled campaign of highly biased and even vicious reporting and commentary.

People abroad do not realize that about 90% of what Americans hear comes from just six big companies, none of whom, you may be sure, is interested in change and especially anything even slightly revolutionary. National broadcasting and national press have been so consolidated through years of massive mergers that there is no real alternative voice reaching most Americans.

And those huge news corporations - intimate members of the establishment, always supporting the government of the day in its imperial wars and projects - have made a concerted effort to diminish and demean Trump. Equally, they have universally praised and supported Clinton, despite her dark record of unethical personal behavior and violent public acts, despite having been responsible for the deaths of thousands of women and their families.

Never mind Trump’s private off-color remarks, here is a woman married for decades to a genuine sexual predator, a man who was having sex with a young intern right in the Oval Office. And she wants to bring him back into affairs in Washington, having promised to give him responsibility for economy?

Why did she tolerate decades of his disgraceful and even criminal behavior? Because it gave her serious leverage over him in office, whether as Governor of Arkansas or President of the United States. We have a hundred voices telling us of her violent temper and demands and the central role she would assume even though elected to no office.

She has always been about one thing only, and that is to enjoy power over others which she has exercised with brutal intensity, all while maintaining a bug-eyed, laughing face in public. She is without question a genuine sociopath.

Even when we see fascinating revelations about her inside political maneuvering and dishonesty from leaks on the Internet, the national press manages largely to ignore them or to diminish them. They do not catch fire. The techniques of public relations and damage control – outgrowths of marketing principles and psychological manipulation techniques – are employed to suffocate any fires.

We do see signs that the Internet is starting to have some real impact with the general population, and to the extent that is true, we also see the establishment working towards suppressing alternate and independent voices on the Internet by a variety of means.

America uses an awkward expression, “controlling the narrative,” to describe what the establishment is quietly undertaking, always trying not to assume the open appearance of old Soviet-style suppression of information or the promotion of heavy-handed disinformation while in fact assuming the substance of their purpose.

In the longer term, I am not convinced they can succeed. The Internet is an almost uncontrollable force, that is unless you actually suppress and control aspects of the Internet itself, something recent remarks by Obama – a man who is a strict disciple of secrecy and inner-sanctum privilege – suggest in vague and politically-correct language, there may well be efforts underway towards that goal.

This fact only adds to the importance of this election. If Trump loses, there can be no doubt, the secretive, manipulative, and ruthless Hillary Clinton will commission whatever efforts are required for information suppression. After all, a person ruthlessly pursuing war and secretive manipulation of world affairs can never be a friend to openness and truth, which are literally enemies of such goals.

The entire business of terror and fighting terror offers a great deal of latitude this way, suppression in the name of fighting terror, the great irony, of course, for America being that it does not consistently fight terror, it frequently employs it as a tool of statecraft. We’ve seen that in my lifetime in everything from the long covert battle against Castro and the hideous, pointless war in Vietnam to the employment of jihadists in Afghanistan, Libya, or Syria.

For some genuine history of American vote fraud, readers should see my lengthy comment on Obama’s recent speech, in which he told Trump to “stop whining”:





Tuesday, October 18, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S BOMBING EFFORT IN THE CITY OF MOSUL IRAQ - EVEN HERE WE COULD HAVE YET MORE FRAUD ABOUT ISIS WITH A HIDDEN INTENTION OF SENDING THOUSANDS MORE TERRORISTS FLEEING TO SYRIA - SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF THE HISTORY OF ISIS AND AMERICA'S BRUTAL HYPOCRISY


COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN BY ROBERT FISK IN THE INDEPENDENT


The American hypocrisy and brutality in all of this are breathtaking.

The Russians are called criminals for legally assisting the Syrian government in fighting the monsters, mainly al-Nusra, the US and its willing helpers have supported in Aleppo, Syria. Even today, new American TOW missiles are showing up there.

But it's okay for America to attack ISIS in the large city of Mosul?

I have no clear idea why the US has allowed ISIS to occupy Mosul for so long. After all, a determined effort would have eliminated them long ago.

But whatever the dark reason was, now they are finally assisting in driving them out.

But are they actually preparing another front, under the guise of fleeing America in Iraq, for a new assault against the government of Syria, given its recent successes against other groups of American-backed terrorists?

There are already reports of something like 9,000 ISIS fighters being given safe passage out of this region of Iraq to go to Syria.

If the history of ISIS is ever written - an authentic history, not a CIA-written one - it will be interesting, making a fascinating read.

When ISIS first left Syria and started its campaign in Iraq, it was a mob of guys with AK-47s and Japanese pick-up trucks. Six modern heavy tanks could have eliminated them, and Iraq had some modern tanks.

The ISIS forces made a lot of publicity for themselves with various beheadings and atrocities. This served the purpose of intimidating their future targets, the governments of Iraq and Syria, and also making prearranged running away of government troops seem a little plausible.

When the pick-up truck mob approached Iraqi forces, the soldiers fled, leaving their equipment behind. Undoubtedly the soldiers were bribed with wads of cash supplied by Saudi Arabia and Oman.

When ISIS had collected enough equipment to represent a bit of a serious force, they headed for Iraq's government. Interestingly, this was a man the Americans and Israelis hated, and he fled for his life.

After securing good portions of Iraq with no real opposition, many of the ISIS forces returned to Syria, now equipped with serious weapons to pursue America's (and Israel's) main target, Assad.

However, all the terror tactics had the unfortunate side-effect of horrifying the people in some of the very countries who were secret sponsors, as Britain and France along with the US.

So those countries, to keep up pretenses, had to announce campaigns against ISIS, campaigns which more fraudulent than real. Much American and allied bombing in Syria actually assisted ISIS, its primary mission of toppling Assad unfulfilled, by destroying government infrastructure.

Now finally, America has got around to really help get rid of them in Iraq, or at least seems to be doing so, for they may well just intend to drive them into Syria where America and its allies still want to eliminate the legitimate government of the country, having, in rather god-like fashion, declared it unfit to rule.

By the way, recent WikiLeaks material confirms what we have always believed: Hillary and Obama long ago were aware of huge amounts of assistance being sent to ISIS terrorists by Saudi Arabia and Oman. Of course they knew, it was all part of a brutal and hypocritical plan to destroy the beautiful, peaceful land of Syria simply because they didn't like its leader.



JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OBAMA TRIES MAKING FUN OF TRUMP'S WORDS ABOUT THE DEAD BEING RAISED TO VOTE - BUT VOTE FRAUD IN AMERICA IS NOT A LAUGHING MATTER AND NAMES REGISTERED TO VOTE FROM CEMETERIES IS AN ESTABLISHED TRICK - HERE'S JUST A LITTLE OF A SAD HISTORY - HILLARY'S WILLING HELPERS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


'Stop whining'

That's a pretty shallow approach to a very serious subject, but then, in most things, apart from all his killing in the Middle East, Obama is shallow.

Election fraud has been a reality in America all of my lifetime.

And I'm sorry to say, but Democrats have featured large in it.

Lyndon Johnson's first congressional election in Texas is documented by eminent biographer, Robert Caro, as fraudulent.

John Kennedy only was elected by Mayor Daley's 'boys" in Chicago working into the wee hours to see how the returns came in from Republican downstate Illinois so they could know how many Chicago votes they needed to generate to offset them.

I lived in Chicago then, and the fraud was painfully obvious. And, yes, there were names registered as voters from cemeteries, just as Trump speaks of.

Lyndon Johnson, lifetime crooked politician, also gave them Texas, which was the job expected of him as VP candidate.

As recently as 2000, we had large-scale fraud in Florida under Jeb Bush and in a couple of other states. Even with the fraud, George Bush was elected with far fewer total votes than Gore, owing to the peculiar and deliberately anti-democratic Electoral College set up by those non-believers in democracy, The Founding Fathers.

There are many, many such stories.

But I have to say, in my adult lifetime, I've not seen such blatant ballot fraud and voter suppression as happened in Hillary's campaign. Voter suppression – sending people to the wrong place or other fraternity-boy dirty tricks – seems to be growing in popularity.

Her record against Bernie in the primaries represents the most corrupt effort ever, and I'm not even thinking of the Wasserman interference at the DNC which only added to the whole thing.

At least a million ballots were destroyed in California and went uncounted.

Hundreds of thousands of likely Bernie supporters were removed from the registration rolls and unable to vote in New York when they showed up.

Voters in Arizona were sent to the wrong place and at some polling stations there were no ballots for people waiting to vote.

The early Caucus in Iowa, desperately needed by Hillary with her defeat in New Hampshire's primary, was highly irregular according to many witnesses.

In the Nevada caucus, fist fights almost broke out over the irregularities.

There are no formal remedies for most of these abuses in the United States, except of course for law suits which take a long time. Nevertheless, lawsuits have been started over Hillary’s “victory,” but it's not possible to "unelect" someone sitting in high office, so the remedies available to those bringing suits are doubtful.

An academic's statistical study of the 2016 primaries recently concluded that it was most likely Bernie actually won the vote, but we all see the results. Cheating works in America, and, judging by 2016, it is prospering.

Many outside the United States do not realize that voting procedures and rules and scrutiny for even national candidates are the responsibility of the individual states. So you have fifty sets of rules and at least fifty ways rules can be bent by local interests.

Also there are fifty sets of rules for even getting a name on the ballots for a national election, and these usually reflect much long-time local crafty party trickery and manipulation.

Another thing many outside America do not appreciate is that there is absolutely no federal agency in America to oversee elections or to insure fairness and uniformity in local voting. And that applies to the actual elections. As far as the primaries go, the things which can determine who will run in the actual election, they are understood as internal matters of a political party.

It is all a chaotic situation and easy to take advantage of, as Hillary’s people very much have done.

The whole thing is rather a joke, but those who’ve seriously studied American history know that country is only nominally democratic, even without the vote fraud.

By the way, vote fraud is likely easier now than ever with the advent of computerized voting. The machines widely used have been shown to be not very secure, and we've all seen what hackers can do today.

In addition, billionaire George Soros - one of Hillary's biggest contributors and someone we know from WikiLeaks material has intimate access even when she was Secretary of State and further the funder of such phony NGOs as MoveOn and White Helmets - is said to have serious board connections to the firm supplying voting machines in 16 states.

After all, we have the actual ads which were run during the primaries by a Soros' organization to hire people at $15 an hour to disturb Trump rallies with violent noisy attacks.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RUSSIA TODAY'S BANK ACCOUNTS BLOCKED IN BRITAIN - ASSANGE'S INTERNET SERVICE CUT - ARE THESE THE FIRST ACTS OF AN OBAMA-CLINTON WAR ON ALTERNATE AND INDEPENDENT MEDIA?


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY


RT bank accounts blocked in UK – editor-in-chief

This act, especially combined with the severing of Assange's Internet connection, is worrying.

Only recently Obama gave a rather disturbing speech about alternate and independent media.

I wrote a long comment on this.

His words contained disturbing notions of a new darker age of information.

These acts against RT and against Assange very much seem to be the first seedlings growing from Obama's disturbing speech.

Here was my response:


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN BLACKLISTED NEWS

“There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don’t have any basis in anything that’s actually happening in the world,” - Obama

None of these words of Obama's sound good.

His words are deliberately soft and politically-correct, but they are truly saying things no president should say.

The mainline press is now a shadow of its former self owing to corporate consolidation and concentration plus the rising costs of genuinely seeking stories abroad.

The fact that America's government today is so immersed in trying to re-order the lives of so many others on the planet, rather than working for its own people, also plays a large and increasing role, for the press must go along to keep the official explanations “out there."

Any paper or broadcaster who even tried to say, for example, what Syria is really about would put its contacts in government - contacts for leaks and information and for influencing policies regarding their industry - at total risk. They would be cut-off and have their taxes audited and be investigated for disloyalty and being under the influence of foreign powers just for a start.

It just cannot happen, and, besides, the corporate entities of news are no different to any other corporate entities from Microsoft to Coca-Cola. They have no interest in opposing the establishment. They are part of it.

As for the Internet and the tremendous growth of alternative news sources, I fully expect an assault of some kind to be mounted by Washington.

Banning or limiting sources like Sputnik or RT? Possibly creating the equivalent of The Great Wall of China against all independent journalists and commentators? A very active program of discrediting people in the alternative media? Making the saying of certain things illegal, censorship under the guise of hate-crime legislation? Search engines like Google – completely in the CIA’s pocket – ignoring some search requests or re-directing them? Going after ISPs who carry such media under spurious new laws? This whole precious structure of alternative media is highly vulnerable to determined opponents with good resources, I am sorry to say.

There are lots of possibilities, and we can be certain people with big resources are at work in gaining what they want, a virtual monopoly over the dissemination of information and the ability to put out disinformation with virtually no opposition.

Because the fundamental truth is the American government long ago stopped being a government for its own people. It is a government for special interests and aggression all over the planet, one that requires an endless stream of lies and misrepresentations to carry on.

That is at its heart of what this very strange presidential election is about. Trump is no angel, but angels are not very helpful in fighting the kinds of forces directing America today. And right now virtually all cautions have been thrown to the wind to discredit him.

Hillary awaits - arms out, bug-eyed clown smile turned on - her deliverance so that she may, in turn, deliver to the interests who put her where she is what they want. And just one of her duties will be to repress alternative media and sources of information, something very helpful too when you pursue the hellish policies of war she will pursue.


JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COULD YOU POSSIBLY COME UP WITH A MORE UNLIKELY IDEA THAN GOOGLE DOING "FACT CHECKING"? - I SUPPOSE IF YOU SUGGESTED FACEBOOK


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Google?

Fact checking?

You must be kidding.

Google doing fact-checking is just about as silly as The Independent doing it, another media organization, albeit a much smaller one, that always has an agenda in every story instead of just pursuing facts.

Not only has Google been deeply in the CIA's pocket for years, it has been a very active supporter of Hillary Clinton, going so far as to manipulate certain searches.

This has been proved by a recent study of search results.

Well, I guess there are enough suckers out there to believe that Google fact-checking would mean anything.

Actually, the whole silly process will just give Google more data about you and your personality and interests, as well as those of the large population of users.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: KEN LOACH SAYS BBC NEWS MANIPULATIVE AND DEEPLY POLITICAL - YES INDEED - ONLY READ IT IF YOU WANT A VERY PERVERSE BIT OF INFORMATION OR A LAUGH


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


We've known this for years.

It reached a new intensity under Tony Blair around the time of Dr. Kelly revelations and the Iraq invasion, and it has done nothing but become worse.

I glance at their Internet site only when I'm interested in the twist they are giving to an event in the world.

It is so consistently undependable on its facts that a tiny bit of perverse information may be gained by seeing how badly they beat up on a story.

It would be a fool's task to look for real information there, unless it was information about something fluffy or silly.

Unfortunately, it is a pattern of behavior followed in varying degrees by all the British press.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HILLARY'S PARKINSON'S DISEASE CONTINUES TO BE HEAVILY UNDERREPORTED - THE ESTABLISHMENT PRESS MAKING THINGS SEEM TO DISAPPEAR


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER


Trump has commented. That's why he's been asking for drug tests before next debate. There can be little doubt she was stuffed with some drugs to secure her behavior in the first two debates.

The alternative media have been loaded with material about her illness.

But the mainline US press ignores it or treats it like "conspiracy theory.' Trump's suggestion about drug tests is treated sarcastically.

And that includes the press in Britain. Papers like Guardian or Independent take a contemptuous tone almost as though they were owned by Americans.

It all shows how desperate the establishment is to protect her. After all, she's their go-to girl for continuing or increasing the bloody Neocon Wars.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OBAMA PREPARES THE GROUND FOR THE COMING ASSAULT ON ALTERNATIVE AND INDEPENDENT MEDIA - DISGUSTING WARS FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS AND REAL INFORMATION FOR THE PUBLIC JUST DO NOT MIX


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN BLACKLISTED NEWS


“There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don’t have any basis in anything that’s actually happening in the world,” - Obama

None of these words of Obama's sound good.

His words are deliberately soft and politically-correct, but they are truly saying things no president should say.

The mainline press is now a shadow of its former self owing to corporate consolidation and concentration plus the rising costs of genuinely seeking stories abroad.

The fact that America's government today is so immersed in trying to re-order the lives of so many others on the planet, rather than working for its own people, also plays a large and increasing role, for the press must go along to keep the official explanations “out there."

Any paper or broadcaster who even tried to say, for example, what Syria is really about would put its contacts in government - contacts for leaks and information and for influencing policies regarding their industry - at total risk. They would be cut-off and have their taxes audited and be investigated for disloyalty and being under the influence of foreign powers just for a start.

It just cannot happen, and, besides, the corporate entities of news are no different to any other corporate entities from Microsoft to Coca-Cola. They have no interest in opposing the establishment. They are part of it.

As for the Internet and the tremendous growth of alternative news sources, I fully expect an assault of some kind to be mounted by Washington.

Banning or limiting sources like Sputnik or RT? Possibly creating the equivalent of The Great Wall of China against all independent journalists and commentators? A very active program of discrediting people in the alternative media? Making the saying of certain things illegal, censorship under the guise of hate-crime legislation? Search engines like Google – completely in the CIA’s pocket – ignoring some search requests or re-directing them? Going after ISPs who carry such media under spurious new laws? This whole precious structure of alternative media is highly vulnerable to determined opponents with good resources, I am sorry to say.

There are lots of possibilities, and we can be certain people with big resources are at work in gaining what they want, a virtual monopoly over the dissemination of information and the ability to put out disinformation with virtually no opposition.

Because the fundamental truth is the American government long ago stopped being a government for its own people. It is a government for special interests and aggression all over the planet, one that requires an endless stream of lies and misrepresentations to carry on.

That is at its heart of what this very strange presidential election is about. Trump is no angel, but angels are not very helpful in fighting the kinds of forces directing America today. And right now virtually all cautions have been thrown to the wind to discredit him.

Hillary awaits - arms out, bug-eyed clown smile turned on - her deliverance so that she may, in turn, deliver to the interests who put her where she is what they want. And just one of her duties will be to repress alternative media and sources of information, something very helpful too when you pursue the hellish policies of war she will pursue.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: EVERY SMALL EXCUSE TO ATTACK TRUMP EVEN THE RE-OPENING OF THE NIXON LIBRARY - AND A NEW JOE MCCARTHY-STYLE SWIPE AT JEREMY CORBYN - PRESS PUTS ITS OWNERS' ATTITUDES ABOVE FACTS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


“...but some former officials say the disgraced ex-president would be ‘absolutely disgusted’ by Donald Trump."

Publishing that kind of vague generalization is simply not journalism.

It's the stuff of gossip columns.

If Trump is so terrible as The Guardians editors are convinced he is, then give readers some hard facts so they may make up their minds.

But the very fact that you print, day after day, innuendos, unwarranted generalizations, and just smears tells thoughtful readers you don't have any factual basis for your dislike, just one of attitudes.

So how are you any different from what you keep accusing Trump of?

You are not.

By the way, in a related matter of attitude over facts, we have yet another shameful article today trying to associate the decent Jeremy Corbyn with anti-Semitism.

An accusation of "Labour creating a safe space for vie anti-Semitic attitudes." I put it to you that nothing is more vile than just such accusations themselves and giving them substance by repeating them.

Comments there are, of course, not permitted.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AT LEAST IN WORLD AFFAIRS YOU CANNOT GET FURTHER FROM BEING A GENUINE LIBERAL THAN COLUMNIST NICK COHEN - YET HE PERSISTS IN CLAIMING THE TITLE WHILE DEFENDING AMERICA'S HORRORS IN SYRIA AND ATTACKING RUSSIA


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NICK COHEN IN THE GUARDIAN


"Who, on the left or right, will stand up for Syria?'

A truly confused bit of writing, Mr. Cohen, but I do believe the intention here is to confuse rather than inform.

"...the practical effect of Nato policy has been to give Russia a free pass, as Corbyn does."

Free pass? What on earth is that supposed to mean?

And why is decent Jeremy Corbyn thrown in? Seems to me a gratuitous little kick at a man Guardian editors and a number of its columnists have never ceased accusing and abusing?

Permit me to remind readers of the most basic fact of this situation. Russia was invited by a legitimate, elected government to help fight a literal explosion of genuine terror, terror financed and supported from outside the country.

All the murderous efforts destroying the beautiful and previously peaceful land of Syria by several countries takes place under the auspices and blessing of the United States.

It pretends that President Assad is a terrible man who cannot “be allowed” to continue ruling his own country, although just when or why God delegated to the United States the task of designating what is evil is unknown. The people of Syria, in any event, say otherwise, with every poll supporting him and the army remaining faithful.

Why does the United States do this? Essentially it is because Assad is an intelligent and independent-minded leader who keeps the interests of his own people foremost. But there are two very specific reasons intensifying the dislike of Assad’s independent-mindedness.

One, is a gas pipeline the United States wants built across Syria. Assad doesn’t agree with the project, and not agreeing with the United States can prove a very dangerous thing, even in your own country.

Second, Israel hates Assad and wants him gone, and in the politics of the United States the wishes of Israel play an outsized role.
               
To my mind, almost all fair-minded people and all true liberals would agree those make a pretty contemptible reason to tear a country apart and kill 300,000 people. How is it different to the worst war crimes? It’s not.

And how is NATO involved, unless you advocate it invading a country where it is not welcome?

Of course, what you are really saying is that you are upset that America's ugly plans for the region appear to have been thwarted, and all I can say - a genuine liberal, not a notional one - is a heartfelt hurray.

I'm sorry to disagree with your words about liberalism, but the word means a great deal to me, reflecting the culmination of a long and often painful history in Europe.

Real liberals do not support war, especially the kind of aggressive and dishonest war being fought in Syria.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: I SEE THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS SAYS REVEREND NOUGAYREDE - EUROPE'S WORST AND MOST TRANSPARENT HACK RIGHT-WING COLUMNIST ON ALEPPO


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NATALIE NOUGAYREDE IN THE GUARDIAN


"I see light in the darkness"

Thank you, Reverend Nougayrède.

How do you write such lines and expect anyone to keep reading?

I guess one should be a little grateful for providing a warning about the nature of the stuff to follow.

The words about Putin and Aleppo seem from a geopolitical fantasy world about Middle Earth or the Kingdom of God, bearing absolutely no relationship to what is happening.

Al Nusrah - an al Qaeda affiliate and bloody terrorists just as surely as ISIS - is entrenched in East Aleppo, and Putin is going after them, working with the forces of the country's legitimate government, unlike America who bombs where they are not even legally present.

Oh, but I forget, al Nusrah is blessed and supported and supplied by America - and, as it happens, Israel, who takes their wounded to hospitals in northern Israel for treatment.

Undoubtedly, that fact provides the motivation for writing this fantasy.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DAVID CROSBY OF THE BYRDS AND CROSBY STILLS AND NASH SAYS AMERICA IS NO LONGER A DEMOCRACY - YES BUT IT NEVER WAS ONE


COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN IN THE GUARDIAN


"America is no longer a democracy"

David Crosby definitely has that right.

However, I would add that, sadly, it never was one.

There truly was only the illusion, a rather elaborate illusion, but lot of people of Mr. Crosby's generation believe that it was true and some still do.

America is a plutocracy, full stop.

One whose interests are protected by a security-military establishment so massive that it threatens literally to engulf the planet.

Just try running for President without many hundreds of millions of dollars behind you or for Senator without tens of millions.

And just who gives you hundreds of millions of dollars? The people running America.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM UNDER ATTACK SAY PAID-HACK EXPERTS FROM HILLARY CAMPAIGN - INTERFERING IN ELECTIONS IS AN OLD AMERICAN PRACTICE


COMMENT ADDED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


‘Entire US political system ‘under attack’ by Russian hacking, experts warn"

There has not been a jot of proof for these claims about Russia

I suspect the "experts" cited here are employed by the Clinton campaign.

In a poor effort to cover the embarrassing revelations of WikiLeaks, Guccifer 2.0, and others, Hillary Clinton hasn't stopped making charges against Russia, sounding increasingly like a paranoid, old Cold Warrior.

President Putin had the most astute observation on this campaign, that all the noise ignored the content.

Whether most readers are aware, interfering in elections is not new.

The CIA has practiced it for decades, including secret transfers of money to candidates favored and secret pensions paid to promising (from the CIA's point of view) rising politicians.

These practices have been used in many places, and Europe's elections have been no exception.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ANNE PERKINS FEEBLE EFFORT TO CLAIM HIGH GROUND FOR MICHELLE OBAMA - A WOMAN OF NO ACHIEVEMENTS, A LOT OF SUNNY VACATIONS PAID FOR BY OTHERS, AND READY TO DO A CHEAP STUNT SPEECH AT THE DROP OF A HAT


COMMENTS MADE TO AN ARTICLE BY ANNE PERKINS IN THE GUARDIAN


Sorry, Anne Perkins, but I regard Michelle Obama's behavior as precisely the opposite of having dragged the election out of the gutter.

When you go around making speeches full of accusations and name-calling on a subject about which you cannot even be in full command of the facts, there is nothing elevated in your behavior.
____________________

'It has shaken me to my core'

Michelle's words.

The insincerity of those words is toe-scrunchingly painful.

Michelle grew up not far from where I grew up on the south side of Chicago, within a stiff walk, and all I can say is that if she never heard such locker room words growing up, she was wearing ear plugs.

And we had, for eight years, the greatest sexual predator who ever served as president in American history, and he was the spouse of Michelle's chosen candidate, but I don't recall Michelle ever saying a word about him.
_____________________

Response to another reader’s comment:

Her only achievement as First Lady was a "healthy” school-lunch program, a much discredited one.

But there were sure lots and lots of holidays in sunny places, all expenses paid.



JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: VOTERS SAY BLAIR WOULD DO BETTER THAN CORBYN AS LABOUR PARTY LEADER - THE INDEPENDENT TRIES YET AGAIN TO RAISE A POLITICAL CORPSE THAT'S STARTING TO SMELL


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Voters say?

When? Where? What election?

Oh, I see in a contrived poll The Independent has commissioned.

Independent editors, you can try pumping all the hot air you like into this political corpse, but the Dracula is not going to rise from his grave.

Indeed, his shriveled remains definitely are beginning to give off a rather putrid odor.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ARTICLE ABOUT ALEPPO BEING GROUND DOWN BY SAVAGERY - YES BUT WHOSE SAVAGERY? A TIGHT SUMMARY FROM THE BEST SOURCES ABOUT WHAT SYRIA AND ALEPPO ARE ALL ABOUT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


It's an American inspired war, every last dirty bit of it.

We even know to a certainty that Hillary, in her mess at Benghazi, was approving weapons being sent for transshipment into Syria.

We also know from the latest Wiki-leaks release that Hillary was completely aware that the Saudis were sending money and weapons into Syria for terror groups. And, please note, while she was at it, she took at least $10 million from them for her Clinton Foundation.

The transshipment of weapons included, according to Sy Hersh, one of our last remaining genuine investigative reporters and trustworthy journalists, small supplies of Sarin gas from the dead Gaddafi's stocks.

As some readers will know, this deadly stuff was later actually used by some of America's hired thugs on civilians, killing dozens, in an operation designed to give America an excuse ("crossing a red line" as Obama liked to put it) for an all-out air assault on Syria.

It failed thanks to informed and intelligent Russian intervention on Syrian chemical weapons.

The recent destruction of a UN convoy – blamed endlessly on Russia with no evidence - was the work of America's al Qaeda associate, al Nusra, who are the ones entrenched in Eastern Aleppo being bombed by Russia.

That act was designed to make the Russians look bad and to cover for America's direct war crime of bombing Syrian soldiers a couple of days before, killing eighty of them.

The US is furious, to frothing at the mouth, that the Syrian Army with Russian assistance are finally going to get rid of these mass murders, so that is what all the wall of propaganda is about these days. 

People who go on about Assad never bother to inform themselves about him. He’s a pretty enlightened leader for this part of the world. He tolerates all religions and has the support of Syrian Christians. Indeed, every poll shows a majority of Syrians like him. And the Syrian Army has stood by him for five years of this horror.

But the United States wants him gone for its own selfish reasons, so that justifies all this? Simply criminal, on a par with Tony Blair



JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AS OBAMA CAMPAIGNS FOR HILLARY AT THE PUBLIC EXPENCE HE "TRASHES" TRUMP AND URGES PARTY TO ABANDON HIM - TALK OF DECENCY FROM THIS MAN OBAMA? - AND AGAIN WHAT ALL THE PRESS ATTACKS ARE REALLY ABOUT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


“You just have to be a decent human being to say that’s not right.”

Simply beyond belief that the President of the United States has the time and the will to travel around speaking this way to the public.

I object to lewd speech, but, in God's name, on a world scale of things, this is absolute trivia.

And when you add the fact that this is a recording of a private conversation made by some schmuck over a decade ago, this spectacle is reduced to a bizarre parody of ethics.

Meanwhile, Obama kills in a half dozen states, sends streams of weapons to murderous governments, creates millions of refugees, and keeps a "kill list" for extrajudicial executions on his Oval Office desk.

What Obama and Clinton started in Syria is one long set of atrocities, ghastly crimes against humanity, and no one even speaks up.

And Syria is just a repeat on a larger scale of what they did together in Libya.

If you want more true horror, tens of thousands of women torn apart, not just insulted, vote for Clinton.

And, of course, the final searing irony here is that while Trump uses unpleasant words, Hillary's husband is a certified, lifelong sexual predator with a whole line of women testifying to the fact, and she actually promised to have him back in action in her administration on the economic file.

I do believe The Guardian editors have joined with the other establishment press in a kind of lynch mob hysteria here, and all thinking people know this is not over old lewd words.

It is a desperate try to have the blood-drenched Clinton elected and the Neocon Wars continued.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER FEATURES A POLL WITH CLINTON HAVING A 14-POINT LEAD - ONLY TROUBLE IS THEY DIDN'T BOTHER TO CHECK: THE POLL HAS BEEN COMPLETELY DISCREDITED - FRAUDULENT POLLING NOW A WEAPON IN THE WAR ON TRUMP


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


I'm sorry, but you are quoting a poll that is demonstrated to be deliberately tilted. It has no statistical validity.

It used a tiny sample, and it used a pool of people pre-determined to lean towards the Democrats.

These are easy games to play with polls, if you are so inclined.

Here is a definitive analysis of this poll:


God, not only is our press oppressively biased, but polling is now being used the same way.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IS THE UNITED STATES PREPARING A FALSE FLAG IN SYRIA? - WITH PHOTOS AN ARTICLE ASKS WHAT AMERICANS ARE DOING PAINTING SOME OF THEIR FIGHTER JETS IN RUSSIAN COLORS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER


Good piece.

I'm sorry to say the thought could well be true.

After all, isn't the entire horror in Syria a kind of false flag in the first place, albeit one that seems to be failing?

I just can never fully absorb the appalling fact of Obama, Kerry, and Clinton all being instrumental in this set of atrocities in a once peaceful and beautiful land.

What are the lives of 300,000 people or the massive flood of refugees created, almost de-stabilizing Europe, compared to the geopolitical goal of getting rid of a government you don't like and reducing its state to the kind of fragments we see in Iraq?

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ANOTHER TAKE ON THE SUPPOSED RAVAGES OF BREXIT - THIS ONE ON STANDING FOR AN OPEN AND TOLERANT SOCIETY - BUT IF YOU WANT THAT YOU MUST START AT THE TOP


COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN BY WILL HUTTON IN THE GUARDIAN


"Let’s stand up for a vision of an open, tolerant and outward-looking country"

I do not understand what that means, Will Hutton.

Of course I recognize the words as a kind of contemporary boilerplate expressions used by many Guardian columnists in the paper’s ongoing efforts to appear a bastion of liberal or progressive views.

But in all the paper’s "red meat" columns and editorials and in its selection of stories and in its selection of what readers are allowed to comment on, The Guardian stands pretty solidly behind the establishment, and I don’t believe anyone sensible could claim Britain’s establishment has the tone you advocate.

If you want a society that truly is good, then those with power and influence must themselves practice accordingly. Do you really think it is alright for a Prime Minister to insult his opponent in public and about trivial matters, never apologizing and never paying a price in the press treatment of him?

Is it ‘open, tolerant and outward-looking’ to conduct a relentless campaign against a decent man like Jeremy Corbyn, including months of baseless charges of anti-Semitism?

Is it ‘open, tolerant and outward-looking’ to advocate and promote the political influence or return to politics of a man like tony Blair who likely never uttered a truth more than twice in his entire life and who assisted in the killing of perhaps a million souls?

Is it ‘open, tolerant and outward-looking’ to never question what is going on in half a dozen blood-drenched places in this world, as in Syria, Libya, Yemen, or Iraq? To report only and exactly what might well be contained in Pentagon’s dishonest press releases?

Seems to me you are preaching yet another form of secular religion and doing it in a highly unlikely forum.

A nation is pretty much the sum of the acts of its people, and the more privileged and powerful those people, then the greater their responsibility.

You cannot put a moral burden on the small people of a place which its great have ignored.



JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IN THE ONGOING NON-STOP ATTACK ON TRUMP BY A BIASED PRESS WE FIND ROBERT DE NIRO QUOTED FOR THE SECOND TIME RECENTLY - YES THAT'S THE ACTOR EXPERT ON POLITICS AND ETHICS - MEANWHILE A LITTLE KNOWN SCANDAL IN FRANCE WHERE DE NIRO APPEARS INVOLVED


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


Robert de Niro has given us some fine performances, but he is not reputed to be one of Hollywood's brightest lights.

Quite the opposite, in fact, according to some.

So why are we seeing him, yet again, featured in The Guardian as though he had something important to say?

Because he says bad things about the Big Bad Wolf, aka, Donald Trump.

And anyone, literally anyone, who says bad things about Donald Trump can get a free advert in The Guardian.

Have you sought the views of Bugs Bunny on this?
_______________

And, speaking of Robert de Niro, are readers aware of this delightful fact?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-sex-scandal-that-wouldnt-lie-down-1185127.html

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES ABOUT TRUMP THREATENING CLINTON IN THE DEBATE - A PROPAGANDA GIMMICK REPEATED BY A NUMBER OF ESTABLISHMENT PAPERS


COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN IN THE INDEPENDENT


"Threaten" is not the right word.

"Promised" is far closer to the mark, but it doesn't make quite the sensational anti-Trump headline does it?

The fact is, Hillary broke a whole list of laws in her term as Secretary of State.

Some of them are glaringly obvious to even a non-legal mind.

But an ineffectual FBI Obama-appointee Director, who reports to an ineffectual Obama-appointed Attorney General, who had held a secret airport meeting with good old Bill, chose to lay no charges.

This was corruption in its purest form at the highest level.

But it just can't compare, can it, to some lewd, locker-room remarks secretly recorded by a schmuck more than a decade ago.

Well, the press may not get it, but an awful lot of the public does.

Saturday, October 08, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: EFFORT TO EQUATE TRUMP'S LEWD COMMENTS OF YEARS AGO WITH BILL CLINTON'S LIFETIME PREDATORY BEHAVIOR - BEHAVIOR ACCOMMODATED AND COVERED-UP BY HILLARY BECAUSE OF THE POWER IT GAVE HER OVER HER HUSBAND


EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN IN THE INDEPENDENT


You are playing games, Rupert Cornwell. No one, thinking about what they are saying, can compare Trump's behavior to Bill Clinton's.

Some lewd and tasteless remarks made years ago compared to Clinton's lifetime record of genuinely predatory behavior and Hillary's long-term accommodation of it?

Clinton is not just a dog that has been difficult to keep on the porch. That analogy deliberately makes light of his ghastly history and of Bill and Hillary’s ghastly relationship.

The man is a complete predator and always has been.

Remember that Bill Clinton was having oral sex with a White House intern right in the Oval Office?

How about the Secret Service agent who said Bill, during his morning jog, would see an attractive woman waiting for the tours of the White House and would ask one of the agents to speak to her.

How about the well-known story of an unfortunate Arkansas man whose security camera caught images of then Gov. Clinton regularly coming and going from a neighbor's house, Miss Gennifer Flowers? He was beaten up by state troopers after word of what he saw got out.

And I'm sure we can all recall good old Hillary standing up for Bill on television in 1992, lying through her teeth that there was no affair with Gennifer (a 12-year one, in fact).

How about the fact that Bill is documented as having made 28 trips to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's private island where he keeps a stable of underage girls for the use of such visitors?

This is the same Mr. Epstein who was important in creating the Clinton Foundation, a corrupt organization which still plays a major role in the political life of Hillary.

How about the several women who say Bill Clinton raped them? A number say Hillary threatened them to keep quiet, and, as we all know, Hillary likes to blubber to women’s groups that a woman accuser should always be believed.

Through all this great long record, Hillary has been the chief enabler, actually going far beyond enabler, a word which might elicit a little sympathy for her, she in fact has been something far stranger and more unpleasant, a kind of direct supporter and protector.

It has long given her power over her husband, much in the same fashion reputed Mafia photos of the late J. Edgar Hoover, long-term Director the FBI, in homosexual acts gave the Mob power over Hoover.

There can be little doubt the Mafia had such photos because Hoover and his partner, Associate FBI Director, Clyde Tolson, used to vacation for free at Mob resorts and race tracks.

Hoover never seriously went after the Mafia, one of the great threats to society of his day, instead contenting himself with looking under the bed for "Commies."

And when Bill was President, Hillary used her power many times to get some pretty awful things done, such as breaking the stand-off at Waco with an FBI tank assault which killed about 80 people, including a number of children. She reportedly wanted the stand-off out of the headlines.

The suicide of Vince Foster is thought to have related to his reaction to that horror as well as to her brutal treatment of him during a White House staff meeting.

She also pushed her husband on the bombing of Belgrade, a disgraceful war crime.

I'm glad Trump has said he would never even think of withdrawing. What he did was unpleasant, but no one in full command of their faculties could call it serious, not in the same way the bizarre dual-behavior of Bill and Hillary is serious. We need Trump’s kind of toughness in the White house to deal with the Pentagon and CIA, the ruthless powers who have treated Obama as a weakling they can ignore.

Friday, October 07, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE TRUTH ABOUT AMERICA'S HI-TECH COMPANIES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SECURITY MAFIA AKA THE CIA


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN ACTIVIST POST


Response to a reader asking when will people learn to dump Google in favor of a more user and privacy friendly search engine:

Every major hi-tech company is in the CIA's pockets.

Every one - Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, etc.

The security services always make them “an offer they can't refuse."

And look at how some of them have prospered.

Google, a decade or so back, was a little outfit with some new ideas and a very promising motto about doing no harm.

Today, it is a monstrosity with maps and cars and phones and a hundred other interests, and the motto has disappeared. This is what working closely with the Mob will get you.

All the things that Google is involved with are the very things a security service would want to control - all forms of gathering and controlling information about countless people and places. It is a kind of security agency fifth columnist made to appear to be serving the public.

Facebook so clearly serves the same interests, and the truth is it that offers no product even worthwhile as Google's are. Facebook is just a giant information-vacuum machine with bells and whistles designed to appeal to the thoughtless whims of teenagers.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE SILLINESS FROM BRITISH COLUMNIST OWEN "MUST" JONES - THIS TIME ABOUT LABOUR NEEDING TO TAP INTO PUBLIC'S ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT FURY


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY OWEN JONES IN THE GUARDIAN


I think if you did a computer search for the word "must," Owen Jones almost complete works would feature in the answer.

Apart from that, it really is difficult to make any sense of a piece like this one.

"It [Labour] needs new ways to tap into anti-establishment fury"

Well, that's just exactly what Jeremy Corbyn represents, and Owen Jones has pretty much floated along on the waves of The Guardian's long and ferocious attacks on this thoroughly decent man.

Theresa May's shift to the center, promising to leave behind the Conservative Party's public school-boy past - a truly politically astute move - might well bring her to the point The Guardian and Tony Blair acolytes have long pushed for the Labour Party.

So what is it Owen Jones wants, other than to find some words to fill the next column?

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY THE UNITED STATES DELIBERATELY CREATES CHAOS AND DESTRUCTION IN MANY PLACES IN THE WORLD - A TERRIBLE FACT TOO FEW APPRECIATE


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER


Response to a comment saying they are not blind but want chaos and destruction:

"They want chaos and destruction - all over the world"

Yes, that is a serious truth, not widely appreciated.

The use of this method of attacking those you don't like is an old one, but it's been freshened up by the contemporary American War Party, the Neocons and their associates.

The method historically was used, for example, in the Iran-Iraq War, encouraged and supplied by the United States in hopes of running down two governments it did not approve of.

Now there are many variations in the method and many targets.

The costs of direct American action in all of the areas in which it believes it has the right to interfere would be immense.

The costs are not just monetary. They include widespread disapproval in the world as was the case for Iraq's illegitimate invasion. They include possible inadvertent conflicts with other states. And it includes the risks of war crimes, as was very much the case in Iraq.

The induced-chaos method also allows the US to maintain a stance of (somewhat) plausible denial, as all of these interferences in the affairs of other states are technically illegal.

This is a "nice" way to sidestep legality.

It is a much cheaper approach to induce chaos.

Iraq's invasion was immensely costly.

So in Libya and Syria and other places, America used the method of induced chaos.

It of course also did this in Ukraine.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA COULD POSSIBLY GO TO WAR OVER SYRIA


COMMENT POSTED ON SEVERAL NEWS SITES


The one word, definitive answer to all of America's ghastly efforts in Syria is "Israel."

Israel wants Assad gone and Syria weakened and broken up as Iraq is.

So that becomes American policy.

Kill the best part of half a million, create millions of refugees, and wreck a beautiful land just because Israel dislikes Assad.

What a glorious chapter in human history.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RUSSIA LAUNCHES MASSIVE NUCLEAR WAR TRAINING EXERCISE - WHY THEY ARE WISE TO DO SO - AMERICA'S GROWING FURY OVER THE FAILURE OF ITS OWN HORRORS IN SYRIA


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Indeed, and they are wise to do so.

America has just entered a period of unprecedented hostility and aggression towards Russia.

All of the unnecessary piling on of NATO forces in Eastern Europe despite not an indication of bad intent by Russia.

The "mouthpiece" for the State Department, John Kirby, recently irresponsibly talking of more Russians in body bags and possible jihadist attacks in Russia.

Samantha Power's remarkably vicious attacks at the United Nations.

Vague threats about new kinds of weapons being given to the 'jihadists," weapons that threaten Russian forces who are legally in Syria.

Ash Carter at the Pentagon making insanely hostile statements.

And war monger Hillary Clinton even introducing a major anti-Russian theme to pump up her flaccid campaign.

And the decisive step taken by the world's only vicious Peace Prize winner of halting all discussion and cooperation over Syria - a genuine Cold War threat.

America is just splutteringly furious over the success of Russia and the Syrian Army against their paid mercenaries and fanatics in Syria.

Their entire purpose in starting all this - the deaths of a third of a million people, the creation of floods of refugees running for their lives, the destruction of a beautiful land - was to topple the legitimate government of Syria while making it appear they were not doing it.

This entirely evil work's success is threatened, so they are starting to become very angry and hostile.