Sunday, November 27, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A POLITICAL STAGE PLAY: STARRING JILL STEIN AS LEAD IN THE WISCONSIN VOTE RECOUNT - HILLARY'S CAMP JUST HAPPENS TO SAY THEY'LL JOIN THE CHORUS - BROUGHT TO YOU BY A BITTER OLD RICH MAN WHO WANTS TO CHANGE WHATEVER HE CAN LAY HIS HANDS ON MUCH IN THE FASHION OF A TEENAGER DEFACING BUILDINGS EVERYWHERE WITH GRAFFITI - AKA GEORGE SOROS PRODUCTIONS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KATIE FORSTER IN THE INDEPENDENT


But a scam is exactly what it is.

Interesting, isn't it, that the initiative did not come from the blind ambition of Hillary? Jill Stein’s tiny percentage of votes could not possibly change enough to matter.

The Green Party's Jill Stein is being used as a stalking horse here.

Yes, that's the same Jill Stein who during the campaign said that Trump's thinking on foreign policy was preferable to Hillary's aggressiveness.

Who is responsible behind the scenes?

George Soros, Hillary's great intimate - as we saw in the Wiki-Leaks material, he regularly felt entitled to intimate access and to advise her on positions to take - and big financier and a billionaire dedicated to throwing his weight around in America and abroad.

His fake NGOs abroad, such as the phony White Helmets in Syria, have been directly associated with CIA activity in its efforts to re-make the face of the world.

His American NGOs, such as MoveOn.org, are associated with the early efforts to disrupt, in the fashion of Nazi street thugs of the 1920s, Trump rallies with hired strong-arm tactics.

A study has been made of the pattern of the supposed thousands of individual contributions to this recount cause.

The donations, in fact, come in neat little dollops with regularity, following a nice curve, the pattern of a computer bot operation - not of thousands of individuals acting.

So, Mr. Soros is able to contribute several million dollars - nothing for him, he has given Hillary tens of millions in the past - for this destructive purpose without the public's knowing it.

And Hillary of blind ambition gets a last, desperate try for what she has lusted after for decades, again without the public's knowing anything.

I don't know what is in it all for Jill Stein for taking the lead role in the play, but you can be certain something important has been promised.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FREEDOM OF THE PRESS - AMERICA VERSUS RUSSIA


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER


As for American media, they are free, too.

Free, that is, to do as their very small number of large corporate owners dictate they should.

And I have yet to hear of a large American corporation which does not cooperate, hand in glove, with the government of the United States on a vast range of matters.

We saw the snowstorm of trash thrown at Trump by virtually every one of them, a relatively small version of what the last couple of years were like on the subject of President Putin.

And we are all aware of the stories of the ways Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and other (non-media) giants cooperate fully with the CIA and NSA as well as how they worked in many surreptitious ways against Trump during the election.

Anyone who believes in the integrity of corporate journalism is simply someone not worth paying any attention to. Such ignorance and naivete disqualify anything they might say.

I think still the best statement ever made on American journalism is the one that says that to have a free press, you have to own one.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CASTRO'S ROLE IN HISTORY AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK


“Castro to Go Down in History as the Only One to Hold Out Against US Empire”

Absolutely.

He was extraordinarily brave and dedicated to his purpose, whether you agree with everything he did or not.

What a time it was, both frightening at times and exciting. I recall as a very young man what an exciting figure he was. Lots of young Americans admired him then.

The United States government threw just about everything they had - short of open war, which in those days it seemed to still have the desire to uphold appearances about - against him.

He survived in large part owing to the great loyalty of most of his supporters, a fact which is powerful testimony to the man's leadership.

There is the suggestion, from what we know of some of the CIA plots, that there was an insider in Castro’s retinue who was secretly working with the CIA. We don’t know his name, and, for all we know, he was in fact a counterintelligence figure working for Castro.

Despite many efforts, the forces after Castro in the United States failed in attempt after attempt to kill him, but then they went after John Kennedy, who had more or less guaranteed Castro's future to end the Cuban Missile Crisis, and killed him.

They even deliberately faked up the trail leading to Kennedy's assassination with clues and hints which were intended to link Castro to the assassination, thus warranting an American invasion of Cuba after all.

It sure wasn't poor little old Oswald, a man who actually liked Kennedy, doing any of that.

Who else still is not completely clear, but the crazed, fanatical Cuban refugees, trained and supplied by the CIA, along with some fanatical CIA guys working on the file have always seemed the strongest candidates to me.

Money for the plot undoubtedly came from the Mafia who had been working with the CIA in this dirty business and also were disillusioned with Kennedy.

That is of course the untold story of the Kennedy Assassination, an event which punctuates Castro's early years much like a giant historical exclamation point.




JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ONE OF THE LESS INSIGHTFUL ARTICLES APPEARING ON CASTRO'S DEATH - A HERO OR A TYRANT?


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RUPERT CORNWELL IN THE INDEPENDENT


"A hero or a tyrant? Fidel Castro's legacy will echo long beyond his death"

Would the silly author of this silly piece please name one great historical figure who was not complicated, complex, and viewed quite differently by different groups?

Winston Churchill? My God, the man used machine guns on third-world people, regarded the British Empire as sacred, called opponents names, thought nothing of giving one group's property to another group, made insider deals with hugely influential men, expressed contempt for ordinary voters on many occasions, admired Stalin in secret, plus many other delightful behaviors.

I do not say these things lightly, having read a number of biographies and a great deal of Churchill's own writing.

Only naive people think great figures are either black or white. Very naive people, the kind who should not even be writing articles about one.

Friday, November 25, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE INDEPENDENT SAYS HILLARY SET TO WIN 2.5 MILLION MORE POPULAR VOTES THAN TRUMP - THE COMPLETE LACK OF UNDERSTANDING SHOWN BY SUCH POP JOURNALISM - HOW AMERICAN ELECTIONS ARE REQUIRED TO WORK - THE LACK OF INTEREST AND DIFFICULTY IN CHANGING THE RULES - MORE ON AMERICAN "DEMOCRACY"


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Really, this is an idiotic column.

America's way of electing governments has never been what could be called democratic.

Indeed, the Founders went out of their way to call the new political entity a "republic" rather than a democracy. And the word "republic" is one of the most undefined terms in political science, meaning little more than government by some kind of representatives, however selected, and the absence of a monarch.

America has had many minority presidents, including the very George W Bush you mention, in 2000.

It is because of the Electoral College system set up by the Founders in the Constitution. These were mostly men who did not trust democracy and wanted safety valves against popular votes disturbing the privileges and wealth of the upper class.

Until 1913, the Senate, that most powerful body in the American government, was an appointed body for the same reason that the President is not directly elected by the people. All that grand pageant through the Nineteenth Century of American history, involving many famous and infamous names of Senators, was in fact about appointed officials, a fact few Americans even know.

The Electoral College system of election could be changed, but the Founders deliberately made it exceedingly difficult to change the Constitution they were creating. An amendment would require approval of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the President, and a vote in all fifty states. That’s a lot of effort and political capital spent to correct something that only pops up to irritate people once in a few decades.

The matter has never generated the intense public and political momentum necessary. Hillary Clinton, after Bush's minority win in 2000, said it should be abolished, but, as with so many things Hillary said, she never did much about it.

What your column boils down to is a statement something like Trump was elected exactly according to the rules for American elections with an added sentiment, owing to ignorance of history and the rules, of "Gee, that ain't democratic."

No, it is not, but then neither is America.

Added thoughts.

As a reader below has pointed out, does the rising Clinton total of popular vote include the 3 million non-citizens who are said to have voted, completely illegally?

This behavior was definitely a form of vote fraud, and it was encouraged and enabled by Obama and Clinton in a kind of burst of faux populism put on just to keep their losing cause going.

And further, academic studies have shown, Hillary in fact stole the nomination of her party from Sanders. It was a long and shameless set of behaviors, and things just do not come more anti-democratic than that.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A PHOTO OF OBAMA'S LAST HANDSHAKE WITH PUTIN - THE GENUINE AND DEADLY SYMBOLISM OF IT


COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN IN RUSSIA INSIDER


Putin's appearance is just what you might expect from an intelligent, extremely capable man who has done his very best to reason with a man who has done nothing but create chaos and disorder for eight years.

Obama is one of the biggest disappointments of my adult lifetime. A man who seemed bright and hopeful and a little out of the mainstream has done nothing more than sit like a ventriloquist's dummy on the knee of the most savage group in America and mouth platitudes while they murdered hundreds of thousands of people.

He leaves office having done almost nothing worthwhile at home or abroad, leaving a shambles of world affairs.

Yet he still enjoys some popularity, and I think it is because of his boyish smile (seen far less though than years ago), his baritone voice, and the general residual astonishment that a black man succeed in rising to the highest office. It is also because the general public in America is so abysmally poorly informed of what America actually does abroad, and why.

Imagine a black man who never did one worthwhile thing for his own people? A Peace Prize winner who has done nothing but generate war and death on a grand scale? A man who leaves office with his last big effort having been running around the country at the public's expense trying to promote the most corrupt and vicious candidate for President in memory? An arrogant man who never stops preaching his narrow concepts to others with his finger pointed up right under their noses?

An utter failure. An international shame.

The pictures are found here:

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TONY BLAIR SAYS HE WON'T RE-ENTER FRONTLINE POLITICS BECAUSE THE PRESS WOULD GO INTO DESTROY MODE - THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS SELF-SERVING EVIL MAN AND WHAT KEEPS PUSHING HIS NAME FORWARD


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


I don't think he ever had the proverbial "snowball's chance in hell," and I think this truly widely-despised man well knows it.

After all, he is genuinely evil, but he is clever like many truly evil men. Such a predatory animal knows when the odds are against him for fresh kill.

It is only the hack editors at The Independent and The Guardian who have promoted for some time this notion of Blair returning to politics as a kind of Don Quixote of Brexit.

But their judgment we may all judge for ourselves in the stream, the literal raging flood, of complete rubbish they have published day-after-day in the last year on the subjects Corbyn, Brexit, Clinton, and Trump.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RUSSIAN WRITER ASKS WHY SO MANY SEE TRUMP AS A "PEACENIK"- SOME PERSPECTIVE ON WHAT PEOPLE SEE


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY VICTOR KOTSEV IN RUSSIA INSIDER


"Peacenik" is far too strong a word. I can't imagine anyone really thinking this flag-waving American Oligarch is going to be anything remotely like that.

What thoughtful people do see is a man whose words suggest he is open to diminution of America's intense and blood-soaked aggression of recent years, and if that proves true, the world will be a better place.

A Peace Prize winner and a wannabe first woman President have left the American military-security establishment totally raging out of control, threatening and killing people in many lands.

I don't know whether their behavior was sheer incompetence in leadership or shared viciousness. It doesn't really matter.

What we do have a chance for some hard-headed sense and decency in policy, much as we see with President Putin.

The American imperial reality is not going to disappear any time soon, but that does not mean it has to act like a savage bully at all times in all places.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: EU PARLIAMENT APPROVES RESOLUTION EQUATING RUSSIA TODAY AND SPUTNIK TO ISIS PROPAGANDA - THE INFLUENCE OF OBAMA'S GENUINELY SICK GOVERNMENT - OBAMA'S DARK TALK OF FAKE NEWS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE POSTED IN SPUTNIK


Just disgusting. We can all hope it goes no farther into some kind of action.

We literally live in a world turned upside down in which war is peace and lies are truth.

It was in fact some of these very governments which supported and covered for ISIS in recent years.

This kind of stunt is just a way of criminalizing free speech and yet one more pointless attack on Russia.

Of course, it all reflects the influence of Obama's truly sick government.

At the same time, this utterly failed man uses his remaining time to talk up the fake idea of fake news in the alternate press and doing something about it.

Of course, the reality is that we have had absolutely nothing but fake news from the "credible" press for the entire era of the Neocon Wars.





JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COMMONS COMMITTEE SAYS WALTER MITTY TYPES WEARING FAKE MILITARY MEDALS SHOULD GO TO JAIL - FAR BETTER TO JAIL THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS FOR WASTING TIME AND RESOURCES ON NOTHING


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF


The members of the Commons Committee each need to get a life.

Jailing mentally-unbalanced people who pin some medals on?

What would be next, going after boys who dress up as policemen or firemen?

God, government can be an idiotic waste of resources at times.

Actually, it is the members of such committees who should face jail.

Jail for wasting the public's time and resources while attacking helpless people with problems.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ROYALS GET BIG PAY RAISE AND HARRY OFF TO FUN IN THE CARIBBEAN - WRITER SAYS THEY ARE THE TRUE SCROUNGERS IN BRITISH SOCIETY - AND A WORD ABOUT THE ROLE OF MONARCHY TODAY IN GOVERNMENT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Harry is not just a scrounger, he is pretty much a useless non-event of a human being.

His record of behaviors and statements is appalling, and that's based just on what we know, what hasn't been kept secret.

He undoubtedly received the worst of the Spencer (Diana’s family) genes, a family which has had many troubled and troubling people in its history.

Harry is the best argument there is for getting rid of the Monarchy after Elizabeth hangs up her crown.

He is a publicly-supported non-entity with virtually no ethics or purpose.

Monarchy is an outdated and slightly ridiculous institution whose cost to the public just keeps rising. Sentimentality around it is mostly uninformed of its actual costs and lack of genuine purpose.

Believing the Monarch serves as a kind of check on the powers of Parliament in the 21st century is nothing more than belief in a rather silly fable.

No modern democratic government would tolerate a Royal veto of anything, and, as we saw in the case of Tony Blair’s determined, dishonest campaign to drag Britain into a vast war crime - about as darkly serious a thing as a government can ever do - the Monarch made not a whit of difference.

Monday, November 21, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: EFFORTS TO VINDICATE BERNIE SANDERS ARE MISPLACED AND RATHER PATHETIC - HIS OWN ACTIONS PROVED HE WOULD HAVE MADE A WEAK PRESIDENT - THE REALITY OF POLITICIANS WHO CAN CAMPAIGN BUT NOT LEAD -ANOTHER READER'S COMMENT ON BERNIE AS PART OF 1960s' WHITE FLIGHT FROM CITIES TO PLACES LIKE VERMONT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF


"Vindication Of Sanders"

Sorry, but this is an extremely superficial view.

Bernie proved himself a poor prospect for President when he utterly capitulated to Hillary, abandoning the hopes and enthusiasm of millions of followers.

She embodied everything that he rightly said was wrong, and he still went ahead, campaigning for this murderous and utterly corrupt person.

It was Bernie's moment on the world stage, and he blew it, completely.

Well, if he could not stand up in private to Hillary and her flacks, he certainly could never hope to stand up to generals and admirals and high-level security people and the representatives of massive special interests.

Bernie’s behavior added strong evidence in support of the idea that a person may prove an excellent campaigner and a failure at actually doing anything worthwhile after campaigning.

Of course, Barack Obama had already provided convincing evidence for the truth of the idea.
________________________________________

Response to another reader’s comment about Bernie moving from New York to safe white Vermont:
There is truth in what you say.

There was a huge movement of urban whites out of the cities in the 1960s.

It was called White Flight, and I witnessed it first-hand in Chicago of the mid-1960s.

It remains one of America's most profound and unresolvable realities.

The very high violent crime rates among black males is the main driving force, not skin color.

The stats are unmistakable with young black men committing violent crimes at something on the order of 8 times that of others, and we find exactly the same thing in places as diverse as South Africa or the Caribbean.

In fact, in recent years, we have seen successful, middle-class American blacks doing exactly the same thing. Leaving urban areas, on a smaller scale, smaller because there are simply fewer of them.

There is much hypocrisy around this matter amongst genuine American liberals like Bernie.

And hypocrisy doesn't solve problems.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ROBERT KENNEDY JR SAYS SYRIAN WAR STARTED OVER EFFORT TO SECURE QATARI GAS PIPELINE - NO DOUBT THAT WAS IN THE MIX BUT IT IS A SUBSIDIARY MATTER USED TO COVER A TRUTH WHICH WOULD NOT GO DOWN WELL IN PARTS OF AMERICA


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN YOURNEWSWIRE


I think Robert Kennedy Jr. is right only in small part. The pipeline is indeed something the establishment would like to create.

But war in Syria, like Iraq, is part of a grand plan to re-mold the Middle East into Israel's liking and secure its hegemony there.

Politicians like Kennedy would never discuss it for fear of offending America's powerful Israel Lobby.

A kind of giant cordon sanitaire has been abuilding around Israel for years, and at an immense cost in human lives.

We have comments over the years from high American officials suggesting support for the concept.

Condi Rice once brutally called the screams of the hundreds of thousands killed in Iraq something to the effect of the screams of a new-born Middle East.

George Bush once candidly remarked on how much more Sharon demanded in the Middle East, saying something like I already invaded Iraq for him and how much more does he want?

In Iraq, American forces directly invaded, blatant aggression, and to the shock of much of the world.

In Libya and Syria and Yemen, surrogates were used with secret support, a very dirty business.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HOW OBAMA EXPLAINED TRUMP'S VICTORY TO HIS DAUGHTERS WRITES OLIVIA BLAIR IN THE INDEPENDENT - INGRATIATINGLY STUPID PROPAGANDA - COMMENT ON OBAMA AS A SUPREME SCAM ARTIST


COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY OLIVIA BLAIR IN THE INDEPENDENT


Perhaps, the same way he explained to them about the Easter Bunny?

Really, Independent editors, I don't see how you could possibly come up with a more ingratiatingly stupid piece of propaganda.
--------------------------------------------------------
Response to another reader’s comment calling Obama a scam artist of the highest quality:

It's all in the big smile and the baritone voice.

I actually welcomed this man's first election warmly, believing he represented some real change.

I resented reports early on that Bill Clinton had said in private that on talking with Obama "he just did not have it (the skills for being President)."

But it wasn't long before I understood.

He quickly proved not only a failure, a complete failure, but a horribly hypocritical failure.

And his level of arrogance is convincing evidence for mental illness.

By the way, great superficial charm combined with murderous lack of empathy are the hallmarks of a psychopath.

Readers may enjoy this image of extreme arrogance:







Sunday, November 20, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ABBAS RAISES THE MATTER OF ARAFAT'S ASSASSINATION SAYING HE KNOWS WHO DID IT AND PEOPLE WILL BE SURPRISED - WELL SOME OF US ALREADY DO KNOW WHO DID IT AND IT'S GUARANTEED NOT TO BE THE SAME NAME ABBAS MIGHT REVEAL - ABBAS'S CONTINUING ACT AS ISRAEL'S VERSION OF STEPIN FETCHIT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN COOK IN INTIFADA PALESTINE


There is little doubt that Arafat was murdered, and by the agency of Mossad.

About that time, Israel had reached a huge head of steam over Arafat. He wasn't permitted to attend even Christmas services, and then his compound was partly wrecked by Israeli tanks in the clearest personal threat.

Sharon had a meeting with George Bush, and he was reported by a few sources as asking Bush if he could be released from Israel's promise to not harm Arafat.

Bush, always the insipid and obsequious fool with Sharon, was reported as having readily agreed. It wasn't a great deal of time after that that Arafat died.

The Israelis may well have employed a dissident Palestinian to do the actual job, something which is a common practice with outfits like the CIA, who for example once used a reputed Castro insider to try killing Castro. 

But please, there are only a tiny number of sources on the planet for radioactive Polonium, and one of them is Israel's nuclear industry.

I think it more than likely here with his suggestions about who killed Arafat that the unelected Abbas wants to point the finger at a political rival rather than reveal any truth.

Abbas is pretty much a sad creature of Israel's. He is allowed, every once in a while, to do or say some seemingly challenging thing to reinforce his “creds” with his own people, but, in the end, Israel is quietly happy with him.

Of course, Israel would prefer there were no Palestinian government at all and, indeed, no Palestinians, but so long as it must keep up pretenses, Abbas is their man.

Readers may just have noticed that Israel never likes democratic leaders in its neighborhood. It likes unelected strongmen, while pretending otherwise, Arab “irrationality” and penchant for dictatorship being great propaganda phony talking points with the outside world for “the Mideast’s only democracy.”

That is why it hates Hamas. That was why it hated the elected Morsi government in Egypt and undoubtedly had it put on a CIA list for restorative action, restorative of military dictator ship.  

And that is why it such great secret allies of the Saudi Princes, with whom it shares so many interests, especially an aversion to human rights and genuine democracy as well as a preference for only one kind of people living in each country.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SUPPOSED ISIS ATTACK ON ISRAELI FOOTBALL TEAM IN ALBANIA FOILED - SIMPLY AN OUTRAGEOUS PROPAGANDA STUNT TO SUGGEST ISRAEL IS NOT CONNECTED TO OUTFITS LIKE ISIS WHEN IN FACT IT IS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LIZZIE DEARDEN IN THE INDEPENDENT


Really crap, almost laughable, propaganda which tries to tell the world ISIS is not Israel's friend.

ISIS has never once attacked Israel or Israeli interests, which, if you believe in the fantasy stories about what ISIS is, should be their number-one target.

No, Israel has always been one of the sponsors of ISIS and Al Nusrah.

And ISIS has done virtually all of its filthy work against the countries Israel hates most, Iraq and Syria. It is a very convenient arrangement.

Saudi Arabia, under American auspices, is one of the main sponsors and suppliers of ISIS, and Saudi Arabia and Israel basically have been secret allies for years.

They share many common interests, both essentially being privileged powers in the region and both representing very regressive interests against any form of popular government near them or even genuine democracy within their borders.

The Saudis would do absolutely nothing important that would harm Israel. Moreover, the overseer of both countries, the United States, would simply not allow it, but it has very much tolerated ISIS while pretending not to do so.

ISIS was the creature of America, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Israel - each of these having its own reasons for supporting it.

It was born in the insane tumult created by America's illegal invasion of Iraq (which was largely for Israel's benefit) and was fostered by these countries in a number of covert and overt ways. American servants like Britain and France also assisted, while pretending to fight them.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE DELUSIONAL RAMBLINGS OF AN UTTERLY FAILED BARACK OBAMA - HE THINKS HE DID A PRETTY GOOD JOB AND SHOOK THINGS UP - HE IN FACT LEAVES BEHIND A WASTELAND AT HOME AND ABROAD


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CNS NEWS


‘I Think I Did a Pretty Good Job’ as President; People Wanted to ‘Shake Things Up’

Obama is delusional.

The only shake-up for which he is responsible is the deaths of hundreds of thousands - men, women, and children - in the Middle East

He's slaughtered on a wholesale scale in Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

Of course, there is his wonderful system of extra-judicial killing at work in at least half a dozen places, no different to past outfits like the old Argentinian junta, except in its technology.

The entire Middle East is in flames, and where there hasn't been great death, there have been other disasters like a return to dictatorship in Egypt.

He achieved absolutely nothing for his own people.

He achieved absolutely nothing in reforming the national financial regulation after the 2008 disaster.

He has done nothing but print money since he took office.

Nothing at all was done for the millions of victims in Gaza or the West Bank.

His proclaimed "strategic pivot" to Asia - ill-considered in the first place, is a complete shamble.

China will be stronger than ever, which is in fact good, and it will cooperate with countries like the Philippines. TPP is dead, and that's a good thing.

And the last great act of this pathetically ineffectual man was to vigorously support Hillary Clinton, the most corrupt candidate in American history.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF A WRITER WRITING WHAT HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT - DAVID USBORNE WRITES OF CHAOS IN THE TRUMP TRANSITION TEAM AT THE TOP OF THE TRUMP TOWER - AND A NEO-CON SURREPTITIOUS TACTIC BEING AVOIDED


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAVID USBORNE IN THE INDEPENDENT


This is a remarkably uninformed article, even by The Independent's standards.

They are not in chaos, not a bit.

Of course, there are debates and arguments going on, but Trump is one tough and smart man who would not permit chaos for five minutes.

What has indeed happened is that some Neo-con-friendly people have been shown the door.

They have tried doing to Trump's future administration just what they did to the pathetic Obama's - that is, to slip in numbers of vicious Neo-cons into important posts.

That tactic helped create Obama's virtually complete failure in foreign affairs.

He had high-ranking opponents within his own government, and he was too weak to ever take them on. Hillary Clinton, for example, was one of them.

Well, Donald Trump is not weak, I think we can all agree.

And this columnist doesn't know what he is writing about.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NONSENSE ABOUT PUTIN BEING EMBOLDENED BY TRUMP TO QUIT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT - AN EXAMPLE OF A WRITER WRITING WITHOUT THE LEAST IDEA OF WHAT SHE IS EVEN WRITING ABOUT - A NOT UNCOMMON PRACTICE IN TODAY'S PRESS


COMMENT POSTED TO A COLUMN BY LIZZIE DEARDEN IN THE INDEPENDENT


"emboldened"?

Truly nonsense written by someone who doesn't even understand the subject.

Russia was an early signer of the treaty, and to this day supports the ICC's principles.

Russia is withdrawing because the ICC has absolutely not lived up to its principles. It has been close to a complete failure in fact.

By the way, the countries which originally refused to sign the ICC treaty are some of the world's worst offenders.

They include the United States, Israel, Qatar, China, and a few others.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JENS STOLTENBERG OF NATO WARNS TRUMP AGAINST GOING IT ALONE - JENS CARRIES ON WITH HIS WELL-ESTABLISHED PERFORMING SEAL CIRCUS ACT BARKING OUT ON COMMAND YET ANOTHER TUNE COMPOSED BY WASHINGTON'S DIM-WITTED ESTABLISHMENT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Jens Stoltenberg has been performing a kind of circus clown act for years now. Only missing is the big red nose ball.

I might even compare him to one of those trained seal acts balancing various objects on the end of his snout while barking.

He has given so many stark warnings to this or that party - mainly, of course to Russia - that I rather imagine him at home over the dinner table giving stark warnings to his family, or perhaps, even sitting up in bed at night giving stark warnings to his unfortunate wife.

He is a thoroughly ridiculous figure, but the establishment newspapers treat him seriously and duly report his nonsense simply because this particular seal was trained by Obama, Clinton, and Company.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE FOOLISH AND MUCH-REPEATED NOTION OF GLOBALIZATION BEING A FAILURE - BUT THAT CAN BE BE TRUE ONLY IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THE WORD GLOBALIZATION MEANS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN BLACKLISTED NEWS


Sorry, I just do not agree that globalization is a failure.

Actually, it rather silly to use that expression because true globalization is a natural phenomenon, not a conscious effort or policy which is susceptible of failure.

Global interventionism is indeed a failure, one of the fundamental failings of the establishment which has been rejected by American voters.

And some free trade agreements may well be flawed. After all, we do not have truly free trade, we have managed trade governed by agreements.

But basic globalization is an inevitable step in the evolution of our world, and this author and others have some confusion as to what it means.

Where once, just a few centuries ago, goods traveled mainly between nearby towns with poor wagons and poor roads, now they travel across the globe. What makes globalization a reality is modern transport, telecommunications, and computers. It is not going away, ever. That would be the equivalent of saying we must stop technological progress, and that cannot be done, except by war.

It must not be confused with free trade agreements. They are not the same thing at all.

Globalization has made the world a richer place.

China and other Asian lands are all enjoying new prosperity.

American stores are packed with affordable, attractive goods of every kind.

Free trade agreements attempt to govern trade between different societies with regard to taxes, tariffs, government regulations, and special barriers such as unusual inspection or health requirements. These things can be adjusted and renegotiated, and they do not constitute globalization, except in very inaccurate speech.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP IS ACCUSED OF NEVER LISTENING TO ANYBODY - BUT HOW DO SPEND DECADES NEGOTIATING DEALS WITH PEOPLE YOU NEVER LISTEN TO?


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RUPERT CORNWELL IN THE INDEPENDENT


"Donald Trump has never listened to anybody in his entire life – why would he start now?"

Oh, please, you do not make $8 billion doing scores and scores of big business deals, face-to-face with other tough, smart people without ever listening to them!

That is simply ridiculous on the face of it.

But the fact that he is tough in his positions is an immensely important merit when you are dealing with Admirals, Generals, and the heads of vast international corporations.

Obama has proved pathetically weak and ineffective, an echo chamber for the views of a small coterie of others who are dangerous and not well informed. He is a total failure and has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

I think any open-minded reader can appreciate that.

It is almost beyond me how Rupert Cornwell spends time cooking up slop like this, serving it, and retaining any self-respect.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FRENCH PRIME MINISTER ADMITS MARINE LE PEN COULD WIN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN 2017


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MATT PAYTON IN THE INDEPENDENT


Marine Le Pen is an intelligent and fresh voice in French politics.

And the establishment in France has created much the same ugly circumstances that the establishment in the United States did, perhaps worse.

Francois Hollande has been the most ineffectual president in modern French history, much resembling Obama only without the superficial charm.

He obsequiously serves American and other special interests, and much of this effort by Hollande is not in France's own genuine interests.

For example, France is a traditional good friend to Russia, and now, under Obama's withering influence, French farmers are in a mess with billions in lost sales, and the country's heavy industry has lost both an important customer and its reputation for reliability with the stupid Mistral ship affair.

France's economy is doing poorly, and Hollande takes no decisive measures. Hs record on foreign policy is confused and blundering. And even on domestic security, he has performed abysmally. 

Hollande's approval rating is not much above zero.

The country can only benefit from Marine Le Pen if she is true to the best of what she has said.

I know, the Neo-con crowd hates her and likes to paint her with the same ugly name-calling they have Trump, but people need to think for themselves and look to genuine and legitimate interests, not slogans and propaganda.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SENATOR BOXER INTRODUCES A BILL TO ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE - A MATTER LIKELY TO GO NOWHERE


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF


Big deal.

Some readers may not be aware that a bill cannot do this.

It just isn’t that simple, or it would have been done. Hillary Clinton called for the College's abolishment after the 2000 fiasco election of Bush.

There have been quite a number of minority presidents owing to this backward institution created by Founders who feared democracy and did not like change.

The country would be better off without the College, but getting rid of it is a monumental task involving not just the Senate, Congress, and the President as in ordinary legislation but also a vote of all fifty states.

Constitutional Amendments in the US are huge, many-step affairs, sometimes taking years, and by the end of the process interest may even have been lost in the goal.

That, quite simply, is how America's Founders planned it.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BERNIE SANDERS SAYS HE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELECTED PRESIDENT - BUT BERNIE YOUR OWN ACTIONS SHOW US THAT YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN A POOR PRESIDENT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF


All I can say is that it is good thing that you were not elected, Bernie.

You seemed a worthy man during your campaign, but you proved a sniveling coward in the end, giving in to corrupt Hillary who truly represents everything you said you opposed.

No one can change the monstrously powerful American military/security/corporate establishment who is a coward, Bernie.

It cannot be done. America's awful power structure is not in the business of respecting nice words.

And if there is one thing that needs doing, it is changes in the institutions that gave us the bloody Neo-con Wars.

Trump at least stands a good chance for some real reform. I'm more convinced than ever.

Friday, November 11, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN ESSAY: WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS ELECTION?


WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS ELECTION?


John Chuckman

Brushing away the extreme claims and rhetoric of much election analysis, there are some observations which deserve attention. These unfortunately mostly provide hard lessons and not a lot of encouragement for people who hold to principles of democracy, enlightenment, and progressivity.

The election demonstrated perhaps better than ever, and better than has been generally been recognized, that American is, indeed, a plutocracy. It took a genuine American Oligarch, a multi-billionaire, a man with a lifetime’s economic empire-building, to defeat a family which could provide the very definition of being politically well-connected, a family which had laboriously constructed and carefully maintained a kind of deep well ever-flowing with money for their ambitions.

It was the ever-flowing well of money, drilled by Bill Clinton with help from some extremely shady friends, such as Jeffrey Epstein, that made the Clintons keystone establishment figures in the Democratic Party. It was not personal charm or exceptional political generalship – although Bill, in his heyday, displayed some of both of those – that earned the Clintons their place, it was the money, the “mother’s milk of politics.” In what is euphemistically called “fund raising,” many hundreds of millions of dollars were provided for the party over the last couple of decades by Bill Clinton’s efforts.

Hillary fully appreciated the fact that money buys power and influence. She lacked Bill’s superficial charm, but she certainly more than shared his ambition.  On the charm front, when she was ready to move into running for office, she adopted, perhaps under Bill’s tutelage, a kind of forced clown face with arched eyebrows, bugged-out eyes, and a smile as big as her lips would allow, and these expressions were accompanied by little gestures such as briefly pointing to various on-lookers or waving helter-skelter whenever she campaigned.

Her gestures reminded me of something you might see atop a float in a Christmas Parade or of the late Harpo Marx at his most exuberant. These were not natural for her. They were never in evidence years ago when she spent years as a kind of bizarre executive housewife, both in a governor’s mansion and later in the White House, bizarre because she indulged her husband’s non-stop predatory sexual behavior in exchange for the immense power it conferred on her behind the scenes over her far more out-going and successful politician-husband.

Anyway, Hillary knew that gestures and simulated charm do not get you far in American politics. She determined to build a political war chest long ago, and there are many indications over the years of her working towards this end of making this or that change in expressed view, as when running for the Senate, when sources of big money suggested another view would more acceptable. She was anything but constant in the views she embraced because when she ran for the Senate she spent record amounts of money, embarrassingly large amounts.

In her years of speaking engagements, she aimed at special interests who could supply potentially far more money than just exorbitant speaking fees. Later, in the influential, appointed post of Secretary of State - coming, as it does, into personal contact with every head of government or moneyed, big-time international schemer - she unquestionably played an aggressive “pay for play” with them all. Covering up that embarrassing and illegal fact is what the private servers and unauthorized smart phones were all about.

A second big fact of the election is that both major American political parties are rather sick and fading. The Republican Party has been broken for a very long time. It hobbled along for some decades with the help of various gimmicks, hoping to expand its constituency with rubbish like “family values,” public prayer and catering to the Christian Right, and anti-flag burning Constitutional amendments, and now it is truly out of gas. That is precisely why a political outsider like Oligarch Trump could manage to hi-jack the party.

He was opposed by tired, boring men like Jeb Bush, seeking to secure an almost inherited presidency, and a dark, intensely unlikable, phony Christian fundamentalist like Ted Cruz, and it proved to be no contest. It was a remarkable political achievement, but I think it was only possible given the sorry state of the party.

The Republican Party had been given a breather, some new life, by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. He had an extremely mixed record as President, but he was popular, held in some affection, and did have a clear vision, but his effect on the party was not lasting. Trump could be seen as another Reagan, but I think the comparison is superficial. Trump literally hi-jacked the party, and he was not deliriously crowned by its establishment.

The Republican Party itself was formed not long before Abraham Lincoln’s candidacy out of the remains of worn out and collapsed predecessors, including the Whigs and Free-Soil Democrats. Parties do not last forever, and here was Trump creating something of a minor political revolution inside a tired and fairly directionless old party, a phenomenon which I do not think was sufficiently noticed.

The press was too busy attacking him from the start to take notice or do any intelligent analysis, and he was attacked precisely for the potential damage to the establishment he represented. His most promising quality is his potential for creating a new coalition of interests and one excluding the continuation of the Neocon Wars Hillary vigorously embraced and would expand.

But the Democratic Party is in serious trouble, too. It has a great deal of internal rot, as the Wiki-Leaks material from the DNC clearly shows us. Arrogance, lack of direction, ignorance of the people it has always claimed to serve, bad decision-making, and the absolute prostrate worship of money are the major symptoms.

It would have been impossible for the party to have so made up its mind and committed its resources to Hillary Clinton without serious rot. She has always had strong negatives in polling, always been (rightly) suspected concerning her honesty.

The Wiki-Leaks material tells us about many internal conflicts, including harsh high-level judgments of Hillary’s decision-making, resentment over the back-stabbing character of daughter Chelsea who is said to resemble Hillary in her behavior and attitudes, and the belief of some that Hillary just should not have run. And, frankly, she had become for many a rather tiresome, used-up figure from whom absolutely nothing spectacular in politics or policy could possibly be expected. But they not only blindly supported her, they broke all their own party rules by internally and secretly working to defeat a legitimate and viable contender, Bernie Sanders.

Sanders might well have been able to win the election for the Democrats, but their establishment was blind to the possibility and rejected his candidacy out-of-hand. After all, there were Bill and Hillary beckoning to their running well of money. In hindsight, it might be just as well that Sanders was cheated out of the nomination. He proved a weak individual in the end, giving in to just the forces he had claimed to oppose and leaving his enthusiastic followers completely let down. He may well even have been secretly bribed by money from the Clintons since he bought a fairly expensive property not long afterward. But, in any event, there he was, out on the hustings, supporting everything he ever opposed personified in Hillary Clinton. Men of that nature do not stand up well to Generals and Admirals and the heads of massive corporations, a quality which I do think we have some right to expect Trump to display.

Another important fact about the election is that it was less the triumph of Trump than the avoidance of Hillary that caused the defeat. The numbers are unmistakable. Yes, Trump did well for a political newcomer and a very controversial figure, but Hillary simply did badly, not approaching the support Obama achieved in key states, again something reflecting the documented fact that she is not a well-liked figure and the Party blundered badly in running her. But again, money talks, and the Clintons, particularly Bill, are the biggest fundraisers they have had in our lifetime. No one was ready to say no to the source of all that money.

Now, to many Americans, the election result must seem a bit like having experienced something of a revolution, although a revolution conducted through ballots, any other kind being literally impossible by design in this massive military-security state.  In a way, it does represent something of a revolutionary event, owing to the fact that Trump the Oligarch is in his political views a bit of a revolutionary or at least a dissenter from the prevailing establishment views. And, as in any revolution, even a small one, there are going to be some unpleasant outcomes.

The historical truth of politics is that you never know from just what surprising source change may come. Lyndon Johnson, life-long crooked politician and the main author of the horrifying and pointless Vietnam War, did more for the rights of black Americans than any other modern president. Franklin Roosevelt, son of wealthy establishment figures, provided remarkable leadership in the Great Depression, restoring hopes and dreams for millions. Change, important, change, never comes from establishments or institutions like political parties. It always comes from unusual people who seem to step out of their accustomed roles in life with some good or inspired ideas and have the drive and toughness to make them a reality.

I have some limited but important hopes for Trump. I am not blind or delirious expecting miracles from this unusual person, and after the experience of Obama, who seemed such a promising young figure but fairly quickly proved a crushing, bloody disappointment, I can never build up substantial hopes for any politician. And what was the choice anyway? Hillary Clinton was a bought-and-paid one-way ticket to hell.

Trump offers two areas of some hope, and these both represent real change. The first is in reducing America’s close to out-of-control military aggressiveness abroad. This aggressiveness, reflecting momentum from what can only be called the Cheney-Rumsfeld Presidency, continued and grew under the weak and ineffectual leadership of Obama and was boosted and encouraged by Hillary as Secretary of State. Hillary, the feminists who weep for her should be reminded, did a lot of killing during her tenure. She along with Obama are literally responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of women and their families, many of them literally torn apart by bombs.

The other area of some hope is for the welfare of ordinary American people themselves who have been completely ignored by national leaders for decades. George Bush’s lame reaction to Hurricane Katrina (before he was internationally shamed into some action) has become the normal pattern for America’s national government when it comes to ordinary Americans.

The truth is that the legacy of FDR has withered to nothing and no longer plays any role in the Democratic Party, and of course never did in the Republican Party. By welfare, I do not mean the kind of state assistance that Bill Clinton himself worked to end. Nothing can impress someone not familiar with America’s dark corners more than a visit to places like Detroit or Gary or Chicago’s South Side, parts of New Orleans, or Newark or dozens of other places where Americans live in conditions in every way comparable to Third World hellholes. No, I mean the people’s general well-being. Trump’s approach will be through jobs and creating incentives for jobs. I don’t know whether he can succeed, but, just as he asked people in some of his speeches, “What do you have to lose?” Just having someone in power who pays any attention to the “deplorables” is a small gain.

People should never think of the Clintons as liberal or progressive, and that was just as much true for Bill as it is for Hillary. His record as President - apart from his embarrassing behavior in the Oval Office with a young female intern and his recruitment of Secret Service guards as procurers for women he found attractive on his morning runs - was actually pretty appalling. He, in his own words, “ended welfare as we know it.” He signed legislation which would send large numbers of young black men to prison. He also signed legislation which contributed to the country’s later financial collapse under George Bush. He often would appoint someone decent and then quickly back off, leaving them dangling, when it looked like approval for the appointment would not be coming. His FBI conducted the assault on Waco, killing about eighty people needlessly. A pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was destroyed by cruise missiles for no good reason. There were a number of scandals, including the suicide of Vince Foster and the so-called Travelgate affair, which were never fully explained to the public. It was his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who answered, unblinkingly, a television interviewer’s question about tens of thousands of Iraqi children who died owing to America’s embargo, “We think it’s worth it.”  He committed the war crime of bombing Belgrade. When news of the horrors of the Rwanda genocide were first detected by his government, the order secretly went out to shut up about it. No effort was made to intervene.

No, any real change in America could never come from people like the Clintons, either one of them.


Wednesday, November 09, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AN EDITORIAL CALLING TRUMP'S ELECTION A DARK DAY FOR THE WORLD - YES, IT IS A DARK DAY FOR SOME OF THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OF COURSE FOR AMERICA'S CEAUSESCU FAMILY OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE CLINTONS - BUT MOST OF THE WORLD IN FACT CAN BREATHE EASIER


COMMENT POSTED TO AN EDITORIAL IN THE GUARDIAN


Well, that might be The Guardian view, but I am afraid it is a sadly uninformed one.

Considering the overwhelming bias The Guardian has shown this last year, virtually leaving any pretense of fairness and balance and just basic journalistic principles behind, of course you are disappointed.

But your disappointment certainly does not translate into "a dark day for the world."

Anything but.

For the great mass of the American people, Trump's election means they are going to breathe some fresh air for a change.

And even more important, Trump's election means the great mass of the world's people are not going to be now thrust to the very edge of nuclear war.

His opponent was simply a bought-and-paid-for one-way trip to hell.

I just couldn't be happier.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE ROLE OF THE PRESS IN THE 2016 AMERICAN ELECTION - STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH


COMMENT ON THE PRESS IN THE 2016 ELECTION


Below is a list of articles from the main page of The Guardian newspaper site on just a single day, at about noon the day after the election.

Where’s the journalism? The extreme bias and complete lack of balance and even judgment are painfully obvious to anyone, and there has been a steady diet of this for months.

The summary effect resembles Chinese water torture done using sewerage for the drips.

Here you will find a complete explanation of why the mass of Americans just revolted against the establishment with their ballots.

Of course, The Guardian is a British paper, but we see reflected in the titles the Washington establishment’s total dominance of the information people receive even in Britain.
_____________________________________________________

“How do I tell my daughter that America elected a racist, sexist bully?”
Jessica Valenti

“The US has elected its most dangerous leader. We all have plenty to fear”
Jonathan Freedland

“A rightwing supreme court could be Donald Trump's most insidious legacy”
Scott Lemieux

“The Guardian view on President-Elect Donald Trump: a dark day for the world”
Editorial

“Globalisation is dead, and white supremacy has triumphed”
Paul Mason

“So much has been broken by this election, but we can’t collapse in on ourselves”
Suzanne Moore

“Former Ku Klux Klan leader and US alt-right hail election result”

“’I worry this will empower racist’s: US Muslims on Trump's victory”

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE BIASED GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER'S MOST DEPENDABLY-BIASED COLUMNIST, JONATHAN FREEDLAND, SAYS ON THE MORNING AFTER THAT AMERICA HAS ELECTED ITS MOST DANGEROUS LEADER - AND ONCE AGAIN FREEDLAND COULDN'T BE MORE WRONG


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN FREEDLAND IN THE GUARDIAN


Dangerous, Jonathan Freedland?

Dangerous for whom or for what special interests?

For your personal hobby horses, yes, very likely.

And not many will be very sad about that. You along with the great crowd of mainline journalists have totally ignored your responsibilities in this election.

There has not been a scrap of fair and honest reportage. And the American people have declared that they are sick of such behavior by a privileged establishment.

For the great mass of the American people, no, Trump is not dangerous. They are going to breathe some fresh air for a change.

And even more important, Trump is not dangerous for the great mass of the world's people who want peace. No, they are not going to be now thrust to the very edge of nuclear war.

His opponent was simply a bought-and-paid-for one-way trip to hell.

And just wait until Trump's Justice Department gets into the foul inner workings of the Clinton Foundation, that gushing ever-renewed fountain of money for the most corrupt family in American political history.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S VICTORY EXPOSES BROKEN AMERICAN POLITICS AND LACK OF TRUST IN THE ESTABLISHMENT SAYS ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK - ABSOLUTELY AND THIS IS A REVOLUTION



COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK


Absolutely.

Revolutions only happen when conditions have been pushed beyond the mass of the people's ability to tolerate them.

And this is indeed a revolution.



JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: PERHAPS THE DEFINITIVE STATEMENT OF OBAMA'S LEGACY



COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER


"Obama’s Legacy: A Waterboy for Washington Foreign Policy Groupthink"

I just love that headline.

It is so painfully, hilariously true.

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A SUCCINCT STATEMENT OF WHAT TODAY'S AMERICAN ELECTION IS ABOUT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


Everyone who cherishes peace hopes for Trump.

He has a great many faults, and this writer is not even a conservative, but Trump is a strong and independent-minded individual who may just be able to rein in the Pentagon and security services, now virtually out of control under the ineffectual hand of Obama. We have war in half a dozen places and more threatened, including Obama’s insane efforts at the very borders of Russia and in the South China Sea.

Trump has spoken words on international affairs we are not used to hearing from Washington, refreshingly open and intelligent words, words which have marked him as an enemy of the establishment, earning him an all-out assault from the very political figures and corporate news media who have given us our world of mass killing and threats of more war, and those words stand out from all the other publicity clutter around him.

As for Hillary, she is a gift from the gods to the professional killing class in Washington. She is time-tested and thoroughly bought-and-paid-for in the fields of killing and love of war.

It is too bad that the first woman candidate had to be such a hopelessly corrupt and vicious character – I would readily praise a good liberal woman candidate – but make no mistake, this woman is a proved sociopath and a fellow traveler of the most appalling of the blood-drenched Neocon crowd.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FOOLISH ATTACK IGNORING A REALLY IMPORTANT NEW POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT THAT TRUMP REPRESENTS - PARTIES HAVE LIMITED LIVES - HISTORY OF REPUBLICAN PARTY


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMIE WEINSTEIN IN THE GUARDIAN


'The Republican primary featured a slew of conservative superstars. But we picked Donald Trump, a man devoid of principle, who has split the party in two"

Jamie Weinstein offers us a perfect example of utterly biased and rather unthinking political writing.

First, the Republican Party, as perhaps many in Britain will not realize, has been broken for a very long time.

It has hobbled along for some decades on rubbish like “family values,” catering to the Christian Right, and anti-flag burning Constitutional amendments, and now it is out of gas.

Tired, boring men like Jeb Bush, seeking to secure an almost inherited presidency, and dark, unlikable, phony Christian fundamentalists like Ted Cruz are hardly any thoughtful person’s idea of conservative superstars.

The Republican Party was given a breather, some new life, by Ronald Reagan. He had a very mixed record, but he was popular and did have a clear vision.

Which brings us to point number two. Donald Trump represents a very similar phenomenon. The amazing thing about him is that this non-politician succeeded literally in hi-jacking a tired and boring party, bringing some new life and, what is really important, a new possible coalition of supporters, including anti-war centrists and even liberals. Mr. Weinstein is blind to this reality.

The Republican Party itself was formed not long before Abraham Lincoln’s candidacy out of the remains of worn out and collapsed predecessors, including the Whigs and Free-Soil Democrats.

Parties do not last forever, and here is Trump creating something of a minor political revolution inside this tired and fairly directionless old party – a phenomenon which I do not think has been much noticed. But, of course, the press has been too busy attacking him from the start to take notice or do any intelligent analysis, and he is attacked precisely for the potential of what he represents, a new coalition of interests and one excluding the continuation of the Neocon Wars Hillary would duly embrace and expand, something not at all in the long-term interests of the people of the United states.

Last, I am sorry, but it is just plain ignorant of the facts to call Trump “devoid of principle.’ That epithet were far better used for Hillary Clinton.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP SAYS "RIGGED" TO FBI'S SECOND DECISION NOT PROCEED AGAINST HILLARY - WHY HE IS RIGHT - AND AN OLD NEWSPAPER PROPAGANDA TRICK WITH PHOTOS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Rigged?

You bet it's rigged.

Please, without any detailed knowledge of the e-mails, we can see serious problems here.

First, it is literally impossible to have read 650,000 e-mails in days. At best, they would have used a high-speed computer program to search the discs for certain key words, and I don’t think anyone should pretend that that is an acceptable substitute for reading the material, or at least a substantial random sample of it.

Second, we have two unauthorized computers owned by two unauthorized people are discovered to contain literally truckloads of material? And they held it off the site of its origin.

Those computers were being used as covert back-ups.

The FBI was never informed of their existence in the first investigation, which is withholding evidence.

If that isn't intent, I don't know what is.
_______________________________

Response to a reader comment about how nasty Trump looks in all his photos:

Well, take pride in your ignorance.

You appear to lack even the ability to understand that The Independent's editors consistently select unfavorable images of Trump to run.

It's a kind of implicit demonization.

And just the opposite for Hillary. She's always smiling or dramatic, never furious or tired or glum, these latter being often-seen faces of Hillary.

Really, it is a very old cheap propaganda gimmick.

Yet, it sure still fools people such as yourself.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IN A REVIEW OF NEW ARCHITECTURE A COLUMNIST CALLS THE NEW HERZOG AND DE MEURON HAMBURG GERMANY PHILHARMONIC HALL "A MIRACLE"


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


Miracle?

Much of it is downright homely.

Take photo: "On the up … internal staircases'

That's just dreary suburban shopping mall architecture. I've seen variations dozens of times, and never liked it the first.

Take photo: “Like Giza masterminded by Liberace”

That is not a friendly object. It is slightly forbidding. Monumental and uninviting. Set for a science fiction film.

Take photo: "Unparalleled scale of ambition"

The upper half is indeed interesting, but it looks as though it were placed upon an old warehouse - a bit like a glowing Fabergé egg on a wharf building.

Take photo: “An ocean liner of architectural virtuosity.”

Well, you may well think so, but it looks to me again as an undistinguished wharf building with a huge array of some strange new solar panels piled on top. Perhaps a kind of power station.

I'm sorry, but no matter how much they spent and how long they took, it resulted in the birth of a mediocrity.

Photos may be seen here:



JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FLUFFY LITTLE ARTICLE ABOUT A TELEVISION SHOW RAISES WITH A PHOTO THE SPECTER OF MADELEINE ALBRIGHT - A TRUE NEOCON HORROR


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE GILMORE GIRLS IN THE GUARDIAN


Oh, that photo of Madeleine Albright cuddling with a youngster, how tender and charming.

I wonder how many viewers of this television series appearance knew of her horrible words at the time of the American embargo of Iraq in the 1990s?

She was asked during an interview on American television at the time about the tens of thousands of Iraqi children dying under the effects of the severe embargo her government - the Clinton government - was imposing.

Her unblinking answer was, "We think it's worth it."

Only recently this ghastly person was pronouncing on Russian news sources like Sputnik and RT, good sources for seeing the other side of American policies, and she was advocating suppression.

A true Neocon horror.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ARTICLE BRAGS SCOTLAND GENERATES ENOUGH WIND ENERGY TO POWER "ALMOST EVERY HOUSE FOR A MONTH" - THE REALITIES OF WIND POWER AND THE UNANALYZED EXPECTATIONS OF SOME ADVOCATING IT


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


Wow, for a whole month!

And the other eleven?

Actually, it's not the other eleven months about which to be concerned because wind power is intermittent and cannot be depended upon.

So, for every wind project, you must build traditional capacity somewhere in the region as back-up.

And that small, undependable bit of wind power is very expensive to consumers, costing many times per unit of energy what other forms of generation cost.

It is costly to install, costly to maintain, and costly in terms of always needing back-up capacities of other kinds.

If it weren't for the other sources to absorb and spread out the wind power costs, consumers would be paying a fortune for power - intermittent, undependable power.

Great portions of the public couldn't even afford the cost of such power. The poor would suffer most, and this is already a fact in some jurisdictions.

There actually are lots of people who say, why don't we just get on with it and build as much of this capacity as possible, asking this with no appreciation of costs or the economics of energy and as though the whole matter were just one of getting new technology installed fast enough.

Articles such as this only help promote fantasy ideas in the minds of the general public about power.

They do not inform, and in the long term may actually be quite harmful to the public interest.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A TRUMP ATTACK FROM A JEREMIAH OF THE NEW GREEN RELIGION - TRUMP WOULD MEAN "PLANETARY DISASTER"- IT DOES NOT GET SILLIER THAN THIS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT


'planetary disaster'?

Good God, sounds like the contemporary, secular version of 'The End of Time is coming!'"

This is nonsense, utter nonsense.

The fact is we do not know whether human agency is the cause of current climate change.

Yes, there is climate change, but then the earth's history has involved innumerable instances of climate change and in many forms.

It would be far, far less costly to adjust to the changes in climate than to make a monstrous planetary effort at engineering its prevention, an effort that, even if undertaken, may fail.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SECOND-RATE COLUMNIST SAYS A PRESIDENT TRUMP WOULD MAKE AMERICA DEPLORABLE AGAIN - PATHETIC CHOICE OF WORDS - I WONDER DOES THE WRITER EVEN KNOW THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD - AMERICA IS DEPLORABLE


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANA NUCCITELLI IN THE GUARDIAN


"President Trump would Make America Deplorable Again"

I really wonder where this writer has been hiding herself?

America is deplorable.

A giant system of extrajudicial assassinations, much like the old Argentine junta, only with hi-tech methods?

Watching women and their families torn apart in the tens of thousands in Libya or Syria or Yemen?

Supporting bloody tyrants like the ones ruling Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, and Egypt?

Selling everyone immense amounts of modern weapons to do their dirty work?

Meanwhile back at home, the police shoot about three people in the streets each day, millions in places like Detroit live as though they were in a Third World country, money literally dominates Washington and determines all priorities, and the country is incapable of running genuinely free and fair elections.

I really think the writer should get out a little more and see what's going on before hitting her keyboard.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICAN MILITARY TESTS ELECTRICAL BRAIN STIMULATION TO MAKE EMPLOYEES MORE PRODUCTIVE - BIG POTENTIAL HERE FOR THE BUZZ-CUT THUGS WORKING AT EXTRAJUDICIAL ASSASSINATIONS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


Oh, boy, am I excited.

Now, maybe they can make them all better killers.

I guess the efficiency of the young buzz-cut thugs the CIA uses in its extrajudicial killings is not quite good enough.

So here's the answer: turn them into murderous electro-zombies.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE MOVIE "AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON" TO BE RE-MADE BY THE ORIGINAL DIRECTOR'S SON - HOLLYWOOD'S SAD RECORD OF RE-MAKES OF GOOD AND EVEN GREAT FILMS - AND A TIRED PATTERN OF THE SONS OF SUCCESSFUL MEN IN ENTERTAINMENT MAKING CAREERS OUT OF THEIR FATHERS


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN


I enjoyed the original greatly, a genuinely original and entertaining combination of horror and comedy.

But I cannot imagine someone doing a remake.

Seems a bizarre and trivial idea, but then Hollywood is loaded with such ideas, having tried insipid remakes of great films - a few of Hitchcock's best, for example - and remakes of good little foreign films (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert comes to mind), almost all of which stank to high heaven.

The son of the original director doing it smacks of the days of Frank Sinatra Junior making a kind of career out of imitating his father poorly.

But, you see, if you can get just enough people through the doors of cinemas for a week or two, even such dud projects can be profitable, and that is the only thing that ever counts in Hollywood.

I'm sure there are good copies of the original on DVD, a much better entertainment value than tickets for this thing when it shows up.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE LANGUAGE OF HACK POLITICAL WRITING - THE GUARDIAN'S PAUL MASON ON "FARAGE'S MOB"


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL MASON IN THE GUARDIAN


"Farage’s mob"?

That's pretty shabby language for millions of British people.

Much resembling Clinton's "deplorables."

Both expressions communicate a sense of arrogance and contempt.

Of course, it is precisely such attitudes by the establishment that create the phenomena of Trump and Farage and others.

Gee, why is it okay to use such language for people whose language you disapprove of?

Seems it comes from a not altogether different place.

Friday, November 04, 2016

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IN AN INTERVIEW ASSANGE VERIFIES THAT RUSSIA WAS NOT THE SOURCE FOR WIKI-LEAKS - SOME BELIEVE THAT INSIDERS IN WASHINGTON ARE RESPONSIBLE - A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE CLINTON FAMILY'S SICKENING CORRUPTION AND WHY IT MIGHT TROUBLE SOME AUTHORITIES


COMMENT POSTED TO A JOHN PILGER INTERVIEW IN RUSSIA TODAY


The latest thinking is that the leaks are out of Washington itself.

That explanation is held by some serious people.

Some of the establishment may simply have come to regard the Clintons as out of control and more dangerous by a good measure than the press likes to describe Trump as being.

Just think how careless and dangerous are Hillary’s claims about Russian influence in the election. She has not an ounce of proof. Her claim, made in public, that America’s seventeen security agencies agree is a complete lie. The FBI has only recently said it sees no evidence, and other agencies mostly have never addressed the matter.

Their corruption is so deep and extreme I like to refer to the Clintons as America’s Ceausescus.

We haven't even scratched the surface of the Clinton Foundation, a gigantic, on-going casino operation generating wealth for all the Clintons, much of the wealth originally coming from sources who do not represent the best interests of the United States and its people.

Hillary Clinton, for example, wears $10,000 Armani suits regularly. Actually, I believe one outfit was put at $11,000.

Yet here is a woman who has only held a high-level job for only twelve years of her adult life, eight years as Senator and four as Secretary. These jobs pay well, but they do not make you wealthy, and only truly wealthy people can afford to wear Armani regularly.

She has been a housewife most of her time, but a truly bizarre housewife, one who has tolerated and even supported her husband’s well-known predatory sexual behavior. Why would she do that? Because it gave her serious power over her husband, first as Governor of Arkansas and then as President.

We have the testimony of a great many people about her ability to guide and influence policy because her husband was simply afraid of her. She is credited with some terrible decisions, including the FBI assault at Waco and the bombing of Belgrade. Here was a “housewife” who attended White House staff meetings and made he views keenly felt. The suicide of Vince Foster, an old family friend and Deputy White House Counsel, is said to have come after a savage, terrifying attack on work of his at just such a staff meeting.

The Clinton degradation is especially highlighted by their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire convicted-pedophile, who lives on a private island where he keeps a stable of underage girls for the use of visitors and himself. Bill Clinton is recorded on Epstein’s private plane’s log as having visited 28 times. 

And there is no way Hillary couldn’t be fully aware because Jeffrey Epstein played a major role in creating the Clinton Foundation as well as donating substantial amounts of money.

The pardon of Mark Rich, a major billionaire fraudster who was given a pardon as Clinton left the White House, is another example of extreme corruption. This man was to be tried in one of America’s biggest tax evasion trials, but he walked free thanks to large contributions to the Clinton Foundation. Contributions which continued later from members of Rich’s family.

Her Clinton daughter, Chelsea, too, lives an exceedingly high life style, yet she has never held an important or even responsible job. She has lived off her relationship with the Clinton Foundation, and in extreme luxury. Some charity that is.

The crossing of lines in foreign policy with personal wealth generation from abroad and from unsavory characters may just have been the "straw that broke the camel's back” for some high in the establishment who decided to break ranks with the leaks. It truly is third-world government corruption stuff.

It is also possible that someone important sees what the bought-and-paid-for Clinton means for future American foreign policy, perhaps something dangerous and unwanted, given the network of people and countries to which she is beholden.

That quote from Julian Assange is profound and deadly accurate:

“Hillary Clinton is just one person. I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person, because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick – for example faint – as a result of going on, and going with their ambitions. But she represents a whole network of people, and a whole network of relationships with particular states.”