JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE UGLY USE TO WHICH ORLANDO IS BEING PUT - THE AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT'S PROGRAM OF GLOBAL "FULL-SPECTRUM" DOMINANCE - THE SIMPLE TRUTH OF EVENTS IN ORLANDO - THE WORLD'S UTTER LACK OF LEADERSHIP

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK COCKBURN IN THE INDEPENDENT

               

“Distortions over Isis involvement in Orlando play into the hands of the jihadists”

Maybe, but I think far, far more important is the fact that distortions play into the hands of the American establishment which now works night and day now to control events throughout the world, establishing what is so charmingly termed “full-spectrum dominance.”

Fear - often groundless fear – is the chief tool for this effort, and it works extremely effectively as men such as Hitler and Stalin knew full well in the past in making it a weapon of choice.

America’s efforts domestically include the NSA and 16 other security agencies plus intelligence-connected corporate allies like Facebook and Google and Microsoft plus a totally compliant, often groveling, press literally to spy on every detail of everyone’s life.

Its international efforts include about a dozen wars and conflicts, some using proxies and some using its own troops, plus a junta-like extra-judicial killing program plus the fomenting of coups in half a dozen places plus extreme, unwarranted aggression against Russia and China.

Its military/security efforts include everything from facial and behavioral recognition programs to a gigantic secret effort to upgrade its thermos-nuclear arsenal.

Its diplomatic and foreign relations efforts include efforts ranging from pressuring Ban Ki-Moon to remove Saudi Arabia from the UN’s list of child killers – where it very much belongs owing to its many atrocities in Yemen, including the use of cluster bombs on civilians – to the insane economic pressure being applied to Russia through Europe at Europe’s expense and to the continued complete toleration of one of the world’s most repressive states, its colony in the Middle East.

It needs public support for all this and more, and it keeps feeding logs to the fire to make people sweat.

Obama’s “home-grown extremist” and the crazed rhetoric of Clinton and Trump serve only to raise the intensity of the fire.

Please, this is just ignorant nonsense serving the purpose of scaring people into supporting more resources for the military and the security services.

The facts in this case are simple, and they have nothing to do with terror.

The man was a psychotic. His ex-wife says he was a manic-depressive who was very abusive to her and who had an intense dislike of gays.

Anything else you say is beside the point, if not deliberately blurring what should be the focus.

Whether he was Muslim or Zoroastrian makes not one whit of difference.

Add to his mental instability the fact that this man was freely able to buy powerful weapons and to work for a security firm handling weapons, and the blame for this horror is significantly on the shoulders of obtuse officials who made it all possible.

A proved psychotic person should never be able to buy guns, full stop.

While we have had many examples of events in the Age of Terror Superstition where newspapers and government officials make fools of themselves, this one is the topper.

His religion or ethnic background is just about as relevant as that of some paranoid schizophrenic who stabs a person on the street claiming he is Brutus and had to kill Caesar.

Every instance of this kind of twisted thinking is dangerous to our society.

Please think. The number of actual terror events is so small that they represent about the same risk you have in breaking your back in getting out of the bath tub.

And mass murder in the United States is not only not unusual, it is a regular part of the fabric of life in this extremely violent and aggressive society.

Meanwhile, American police shoot 1,100 Americans each year in the streets, and don't think all the foolish hype about terror makes them even more trigger happy?

Meanwhile, America fights vicious and illegal wars, killing thousands monthly.

Meanwhile, American drones assassinate innocent people regularly.

Meanwhile, Israel holds 5 to 6 million people against their will, abuses them terribly, and gets off as free as a bird, being treated as a victim rather than the perpetrator it certainly is, and for the most part the press says nothing and our governments say nothing.

Our world is full of genuine horrors, and we don't need to focus on fantasies about "terrorists. The word “terrorist” has become a kind of witch’s charm used without any thinking, the situation in Israel being the origin for this language. There people who make any effort for their own freedom or rights are immediately labelled “terrorists” and our press simply accepts the usage.

Now, I am certainly not saying there are no genuine terrorists in the world. After all, we had the IRA and ETA and others for years (and I might add Irgun and the Stern Gang), but the astute observer will have noticed we never treated those situations as we now treat so-called “international terror.”

There is good reason for that. Today’s so-called terror is mostly the natural reaction of many peoples to America’s huge, global program of aggression and control. And part of today’s so-called terror is the deliberate manipulation of people such as the members of ISIS by the United States and others to achieve their own dark purposes.

A violent, unstable person with guns is a formula for disaster, and that is just what we have in the Orlando events. It was not terror of any description, but it already being exploited as terror to make people fear.

Oh where do we find a statesman capable of words like, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”? We have none.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NONSENSE ABOUT WHAT ALLAH WOULD SAY ABOUT ORLANDO - MUSLIMS SHOULD NOT VALIDATE THE IGNORANT ACCUSATIONS ABOUT ISLAM AND ORLANDO'S HORROR - WHY THERE HAS BEEN A STEADY STREAM OF MUSLIM HATRED SINCE 9/11

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY HIBA KHAN IN THE INDEPENDENT

"...this is what Allah would have said about Orlando"

Oh, please, I appreciate what the writer is trying to do, but this is pathetic.

Islam has nothing to do with Orlando, and the world's huge number of decent Muslims should not validate the ignorant accusations that it does.

The man was sick. The man was violent. The man hated gays, even though he may have been one. The man had guns.

What his religion was or for that matter any other personal characteristic of his matters not at all.

Society has gone off the deep end with Orlando, and there's a reason for that.

The reason is we've been fed a complete diet of suspicion and hatred of Muslims now for about fifteen years.

It's ignorant superstition for the most part where it is not deliberately stoked propaganda to serve America's rampage through the Middle East and Israel's murderous occupation.

It's amazing how well it works though.

We really are a pathetic species.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WRITER ASKS WAS ORLANDO WORTH IT FOR THE FREEDOM TO CARRY A GUN - JUST SOME OF THE SICK STUFF COMING OUT OF ORLANDO -NONSENSE ABOUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NASH RIGGINS IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Was the Orlando shooting worth it for the freedom to carry a gun?"

I'm sorry, but that's pretty close to sick.

You are twisting a hideous event - in its nature, much like a random strike by lightning - to make a political point.

And your facts are not even right.

"The Second Amendment of the US Constitution clearly outlines the right of all Americans to own a weapon."

Simply not true. 

It authorizes holding of guns for " a well ordered militia."

In the 18th century, this was the inexpensive way for a government to be prepared for attack, just as we see in Switzerland. It wasn't even an American idea. It was adopted from Britain, which, for long periods, since the time of Elizabeth tried to minimize state costs of defense.

And the majority of the "Founding Fathers" did not believe in the concept of a standing army (they wouldn't even recognize today's America).

 "But that particular piece of legislature [sic] was created in a time of immense instability..."

Wrong on all counts. It wasn't just legislation, it is part of the "Law of the Land," the written Constitution which supersedes all other legislation and which can only be changed in a long and costly fashion, even when the will exists to change it.

There was no special instability at the time of the Constitution's being written, which was long after the War of Independence was over.

You really should get your facts straight before writing an argument.

And while I criticize your words, I am not a gun supporter.

______________________________________

A few really dumb comments below, including some about the Second Amendment which could easily have been avoided by reading what it is you are talking about. Amazing how that works.

The facts of The Second Amendment are:

"One version was passed by the Congress, and a slightly different version was ratified.

"As passed by the Congress and preserved in the National Archives, with the rest of the original hand-written copy of the Bill of Rights prepared by scribe William Lambert, the amendment says:

"'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'

"Here is the amendment as ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, then-Secretary of State:

"'A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'"

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ERIC ZUESSE WRITES THAT GERMAN SPY AGENCY BND CONSIGNED ALMOST TO A ROLE AS A BRANCH OF CIA - THE GREAT MYSTERY OF ANGELA MERKEL VIS-A-VIS THE UNITED STATES

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ERIC ZUESSE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

Angela Merkel is a complete mystery.

She is a highly intelligent woman effectively leading the EU, a bloc of 500 million people.

Yet she seems to have not the least shame at her groveling behavior towards America.

And her groveling comes at a time of unprecedented American aggressiveness.

It's not as though she doesn't know what's going on in Syria, in Ukraine, in Eastern Europe, in the Baltics, in Libya, in the South China Sea, in Brazil, in Venezuela, and still other places.

America literally has gone on a terrible rampage, threatening to become a 21st century re-incarnation of Tojo's Japan.

All the world’s citizens have reason to be deeply concerned with these developments.

Yet Ms. Merkel, effective leader of one of the world's most powerful groups, only smiles at Obama and says, "Yes Sir, yes Sir, three bags full," every time this psychopathic man asks or suggests anything to her.

Sine we have some of weakest most ineffectual leaders in modern history in Britain and France today, only Ms. Merkel could bring some change in direction, but she makes no apparent effort.

I am reminded of T.S. Eliot's “This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper.”

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TONY BLAIR LAUNCHES A LUNATIC ATTACK ON JEREMY CORBYN NOT SPEAKING OUT ABOUT BOMBING IN SYRIA - BLAIR AS ONE OF THE MOST UNETHICAL AND SLEAZIEST MEN OF OUR ERA AND HIS EFFORTS TO CARRY RIGHT ON WITH EVERY LIE AND DISTORTION POSSIBLE - OFFERING A FETID DREAMWORLD AS REALITY AND ATTACKING A DECENT MAN FOR HIS DECENCY

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Well, the first issue is why The Independent features this man making his lunatic claims?

You don't do the same for Anders Breivik, who is the closest in personality traits to Tony Blair of any person in the news I can think of.

Well, I suppose publicizing him has some merit, something like publicizing the circus is in town.

The totally twisted nature of what Blair is saying might not be apparent to all readers since it involves misinformation along several lines at the same time.

First, he's still defending the mass terror perpetrated on Syria by America, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia - with Britain and a few others in the cheering section - now for five years.

Now, I'm perfectly sure he knows otherwise in private, but he continues his tradition of lying, and lying on a grand scale. That's what he did, of course, to assist in killing a million people in Iraq and basically destroying its economy for a generation.

Second, he's still condemning President Assad who is not only the legitimate leader of Syria, widely supported, but a pretty decent leader overall for his people. In some areas, especially religious freedom, Syria is freer than most parts of the Middle East, especially some of those parts where the leaders commission Tony at sky-high rates on special tasks. Or those who've awarded him prizes and medals for his good work in mass murder. This is a real friend of democracy and human rights speaking here. 

He's continuing the entirely inaccurate American line about barrel-bombs, which is complete nonsense. Barrel-bombs are not terror weapons, they are weapons against terrorists. They are cheaper - important when your back is to the wall with American proxy killers - and they in some ways minimize greater damage. Only an idiot would assert that Assad deliberately drops them on his own people. Well, I've never regarded Tony as an idiot, just narcissistic, ravenously greedy serial liar.

And where was Tony's voice when America shipped quantities of deadly Sarin gas from collapsed Libya to Turkey for transshipment into poor Syria, where it was promptly used on civilians by America's proxies to create an excuse for a larger war directly involving America? Why, he was probably over in his counting house busy counting the latest shipment of blood dividends from America and Co. which is always generous afterwards to its bloody minions. It's rather like "blood diamonds" from which Tony has generated all his wealth.

Of course, he's also attacking Jeremy Corbyn, yet again, an incredible low-life attacking a decent man. Tony can't seem to stand the fact that a man of some honor and honesty might actually rule the country one day, so he does all that he can think of doing to throw mud.

After all, Tony worked very hard - it is hard work selling your soul and lying incessantly - to help create the mess we see in today's world, and he undoubtedly has a bit of pride of ownership about the rampage through the Middle East which likely has killed two million souls. So he sure doesn't want any decent man coming along to muck it all up.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: YET MORE ON ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE LEFT - THIS PIECE BY JACOB FURENDI BEING AN ESPECIALLY LAME ONE AND A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF POORLY-WRITTEN PROPAGANDA - BRIEF NOTE ON THE FABLE OF HEBREW BONDAGE IN ANCIENT EGYPT

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JACOB FURENDI IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Anti-Semitism is all the craze these days."

Simply mindless.

I can't believe an intelligent person could write such a sentence, and the author should be absolutely ashamed for doing so.

But I know he isn't because he is not writing to communicate facts or ideas.

He is writing propaganda.

Shameless propaganda, but given a playful tone as though it were the furthest thing from the writer's mind to create propaganda.

Another shovel-full of the ugly, smelly stuff we've had, on and off, for many weeks. Quite literally a witch hunt used as a political tool.

Get Corbyn and all like him. David Cameron hates him. Tony Blair hates him. The government of Israel hates him. And every opportunity will be taken to tear him and his supporters down for being nothing beyond decent politicians.

_________________________

Response to another reader’s comment about the writer referring to Jews in bondage in Egypt:

This statement is beyond "corny."

The author, obviously busy with his propaganda purpose and self-indulgent attitude, apparently has no idea that the enslavement in Egypt never happened.

Not one archaeological find, not one, has supported a myth which is the same class with Jonah and the big fish and Lott's wife. And archaeology in Egypt has been deep and extensive. Indeed, the name "Moses" is of Egyptian origin and not Hebrew.

We also know today that the men used to build monuments like the pyramids were not slaves, but well-looked after workers. We have discovered where they lived and a good deal about how they were treated, which was rather well.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ROBERT FISK SAYS KILLERS AT ISRAELI SHOPPING CENTER WANTED TO PROVOKE NEW DEFENSE MINISTER INTO ACTING ON SOME OF HIS UGLY PROMISES - I DON'T AGREE - THE TRUTH ABOUT ISRAEL'S OCCUPATION IS MOTIVE ENOUGH FOR VIOLENCE - I AM ONLY SURPRISED THERE IS NOT MORE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROBERT FISK IN THE INDEPENDENT

I think Robert is into his decline.

This analysis is not convincing, nor is the piece especially informative.

No matter who is Defense Minister or any other official, Israel keeps millions of people in a kind of perpetual prison with no rights whatever, unless you count having your home or farm stolen, whenever it pleases the Israelis, as a kind of perverse right.

Actually, I am always amazed at the general passiveness and peacefulness of the Palestinians.

Just as I remain amazed at the West's indifference to the nightmare situation Israel perpetuates virtually without censure.

We often hear empty words about how restrained Israel is, as in not eliminating all those people in one fashion or another, and I cannot believe what I hear.

Restrained is keeping 5 to 6 million people with no hopes, no rights, no votes, and no future? Actually, some might view the situation as just as terrible as mass murder, and we are well into a third generation being kept this way. Truly, one of the most disgraceful situations on the planet.

And we always are dishonest about it, as in calling it a war. It isn’t a war and never has been. It is overwhelming oppression with the rare small explosion of violence from a few of the oppressed.

How can anyone be surprised by any such event, given the context? And how can anyone speak of wanting to provoke anyone? The only surprise is that there is not a massive explosion of human frustration and rage.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JOHN LICHFIELD WRITES IF TRUMP GAVE A GETTYSBURG ADDRESS - NOTE ON LINCOLN'S PROSE - MY COMPARISON BETWEEN TRUMP AND KENNEDY - SOME POSSIBILITY OF A GREAT PRESIDENT

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN LICHFIELD IN THE INDEPENDENT

I mostly liked this.

Lincoln's speeches were biblical in cadence and phrasing, even though Lincoln was not in the least religious, as we know from his intimate friend biographer, Herndon.

This likely reflected the largely self-taught nature of his education. He went to school less than two years, but his native intelligence pushed him I'm sure to read and re-read the few books available to him.

Actually, and I know some readers will object, Trump has aspects of John Kennedy. No, he isn't literary. No, he isn't fascinated by history. And, no, he doesn't have the kind of "class" Kennedy had.

But Trump shares with Kennedy a bold spirit and some disdain for conventional wisdom of the establishment of his time.

Kennedy in private was extremely disdainful of the military, the State Department, and the corporate chiefs of his day who were not willing to compromise for the country as a whole.

I don't recall anyone's observing the fact, but that outlook is very much shared by Trump.

Both men were raised in wealth so that they were comfortable and self-assured, yet both men reflect a bit of a higher purpose as it were.

Trump's patriotism is genuine and deep, and, while I am not an admirer of excessive patriotism, it seems to motivate him to do something good for his country.

If he gets a chance, he could prove a great president.

Yes, he has policies I don't agree with and, yes, he could disappoint, but I am pretty sure there's something there of considerable worth.

You simply do not get everything when you elect someone as a leader. You get a bundle of qualities, some of which you like and some of which you don't like.

America's recent policies have made the world a very dangerous place, and they have put America in the position of being a mass killer comparable to the old Argentine junta. If Trump can moderate these poisonous tendencies, he will have done a good work for the world, not just America.

As for Hillary, she's simply a blood-stained, lying psychopath. She'll choke us in blood and venom.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: STUFF ABOUT HILLARY AS CANDIDATE TELLING EVERY LITTLE GIRL, YES YOU CAN DREAM BIG AND BE ANYTHING YOU WANT - WHAT HILLARY AS CANDIDATE REALLY MEANS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

'To every little girl who dreams big: Yes, you can be anything you want - even president'

Most people would agree with the generality.

But here we are dealing with a specific case.

Likely the most unethical woman on the planet, a truly ruthless person with a ferocious, almost uncontrollable temper, and one who has gladly supported every major piece of bloodshed in her time.

So, this specific case is not one to celebrate.

Quite the opposite, should she manage to be elected, we will all regret it deeply.

The staged photos of the smiling face with arms always outstretched is not the face of Hillary Clinton. It is the extremely well-rehearsed act of a near-psychopath.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HILLARY ANNOUNCED BY THE PRESS AS THE CANDIDATE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY JUST BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA PRIMARY - A FEW OBSERVATIONS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

I'm glad you put "clinching" the nomination in quotes.

She is only candidate presumptive, and she is only that because of the undemocratic business of Super-delegates in the Democratic Party.

And this announcement on the eve of the country's largest primary is a highly questionable tactic, intended undoubtedly to discourage supporters of Bernie from voting in the primary.

No one becomes the candidate until the convention, and many things can happen between now and the convention.

This move of Super- delegates to her is nothing less than an insider pressure tactic on Bernie to withdraw.

But I'm pretty sure he's made of sterner stuff than that.

They've already appealed to him in private, but he wishes, rightly, to continue his magnificent effort.

If Bernie wins in California today, the Party insiders are going to look very foolish, although more acts of voter suppression by Hillary’s followers may prevent that embarrassment, and there are rumors about extensive questionable use of provisional ballots. This very press announcement on the eve of the nation’s largest primary is of course itself a bit of underhandedness.

If he does win, they will have created an impossible situation by crowning a presumptive candidate who simply is not popular nor well-liked.

Trump is certain to defeat her, absolutely certain.

Bernie is their only hope, but the fact that he is not viewed in that way is testimonial to the overwhelming power of money in American politics.

The Clintons are literally bought and paid for, many times over, with big money. The Party's Super-delegates are only reminding us of the fact.

FOOTNOTE:  I note, after writing this, that the Los Angeles Times reports more than two million ballots not counted yet, a substantial portion of the total.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WEST DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THAT IT MAY BE REJECTING LAST CHANCE FOR A PRO-WESTERN RUSSIA - WHAT AMERICA'S ARROGANT POLICIES TOWARDS RUSSIA HAVE ACTUALLY ACHIEVED

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

How very true, and regrettable.

Not even a hint of a genuine leader in the West.

The statesman of a lifetime in Russia.

Opportunities missed.

Dangers increased.

Everybody made poorer.

That, in a nutshell, is what America's policies of recent years are doing.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE DEATH OF MUHAMMAD ALI - MY TRIBUTE TO THIS EXCEPTIONAL MAN

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

I greatly admire Ali, but my admiration is not just for his boxing prowess.

It is for his genuine courage in standing up for what is right, and he did so against a great ugly roaring crowd.

He refused to go to the insane Vietnam War, citing his beliefs as a newly-converted Black Muslim.

He said "I beats 'em up, but I don't kills 'em," and “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” among other memorable lines on the matter.

He paid for his beliefs. Many of the ugly crowd called him names, with the usual bellowing American Patriot stuff about “Love it [America] or leave it!” heard. The political establishment worked hard to ruin his career and succeeded to a considerable extent, but he was just too big a world figure for them to crush him, as they would lesser people.

He stuck to his beliefs, and of course he was always right. Vietnam proved a disaster for all involved, a genuine holocaust with an estimated 3 million Vietnamese killed and their land left wrecked with bomb craters and land mines and saturated with ghastly Agent Orange, something which is crippling and killing children to this day. More bombs were dropped there than in all of WWII, including early versions of cluster bombs to cut bodies to ribbons and shiploads of hellish napalm to burn flesh right off the bones of living people.

Much of this is forgotten today, both the complete horror America inflicted on a country which never attacked it and the courageous stand of Ali. Had there been more like him, perhaps the foul Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon would have failed earlier before creating so much destruction.

Ali stood tall against the crowd, much like Dr. Stockman in “An Enemy of the People,” and he eventually prevailed, regaining his career with his talents and natural charm, and eventually became one of the most loved popular figures of the century.

I feel honored to have met him once, in Vancouver in 1971. We spent a couple of minutes chatting after he finished a demonstration of rope-jumping tricks in a hotel lobby, sharing the background of living on Chicago’s South Side.  He put his fist up for me to put mine against as he returned to his room. I’m sure he could see the admiration in my face, something he was used to seeing in the faces of fans, but I will always regret not telling him why I really so admired him. 

Footnote: I’ll just add that today in Syria we can see that America’s establishment learned nothing from a decade’s slaughter in Vietnam, except to not use drafted troops in its deliberately created horrors. Once again, they are killing and maiming and making armies of refugees, only now they use proxies gathered and supplied from the four corners of the earth.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A POLITICIAN BRAVELY OPPOSES A NEW LOUISIANA LAW REQUIRING A DAILY BRIEF READING FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE - SHE IS ATTACKED - FACTS ABOUT THE DECLARATION THAT LIKELY FEW OF THE ATTACKERS KNOW, NEVER HAVING READ THROUGH IT

COMMENT

The Declaration of Independence, while having some good opening lines, is on the whole a pretty tedious thing to read, a special pleading of great length.

The opening lines were written by Jefferson in draft but edited significantly by Franklin.

The document would have been even more tedious than it is (after the opening) had it not been for the Continental Congress’s extensive effort at reducing Jefferson's verbiage, an act which appalled Jefferson.

The part of the Declaration which is most annoying, and laughable, is Jefferson's effort to put the slave trade as a terrible British crime, an amusing effort “to have your cake and eat it too.”

Well, Economics 101 tells you need demand, not just supply, to have a market.

What the grand hypocrite, Jefferson, was doing here is expressing concern over the falling price of human flesh. He owned over 200 slaves (and freed not one at his death) and new supplies were reducing his stock's value.

The document is only regarded for the opening words, but even those words aroused great cynicism as when the great Dr. Samuel Johnson dismissed "drivers of Negroes talking of freedom."

After the opening words, we have a long list of silliness, which in some ways today resembles what you might expect as a list of grievances against white males from BLM or a radical feminist professional protester.

It really is that silly in what it tries to blame on Whitehall, especially when we have the words of contemporary visitors from Europe telling us how free the early colonies seemed compared to many places.

The slave-trade stuff was the topper though. It reminds me of America, as the world's greatest arms exporter whining about this or that place that just having sold a small quantity of arms somewhere.

There's junk about taxes, too, although we know, again from contemporary visitors, the colonists were not heavily taxed by standards of the day. Of course, Americans still hate taxes and portray that hatred almost as something from Scripture, always forgetting taxes are essential to good government anywhere, and I think we all know America today has anything but good government.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SCHOLAR STEPHEN COHEN LOOKS AT FIVE FOREIGN POLICY QUESTIONS RAISED BY TRUMP AND TAKES HIM VERY SERIOUSLY - BUT THERE IS AN IMPORTANT SIXTH TO BE ADDED

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY STEPHEN COHEN IN RUSSIA INSIDER

This is a good piece.

I might add another important Trump foreign policy question.

He asked why Israel can't pay for its own defense.

That is a huge and very important question.

The attitudes reflected in Trump's questions are the reason Israel - and ipso facto Israel's powerful lobby in the US - do not like Trump.

The Neo-con views (eg. people like Victoria Nuland) which have dominated in Washington for a couple of decades reflect two essential desires. One, America should use its muscle everywhere and maintain dominance, including overthrowing governments not liked. Two, Israel remains at the center of American foreign policy concerns. The two beliefs are interrelated because so very many of the leading Neo-cons are American Jews with a keen interest in Israel.

These parallel Neo-con concerns have been highly destructive and are responsible for at least two million deaths, stretching from the invasion of Iraq to the continued efforts to destroy Syria.

The only candidate even likely to review this nightmarish system is Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders might have some inclination here but he has very little chance of winning.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK SAYS AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT HATES AND FEARS TRUMP - AND THAT IS THE TRUTH -EXACTLY WHY THAT IS SO - AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM IN THE WORLD AND THE NEOCON PROGRAM OF AMERICAN AGGRESSION

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK

The US establishment fears anyone who is independent-minded.

That applies to foreign leaders like Putin, Assad, or Qaddafi and that applies to American politicians, including Trump or Ralph Nader or decades ago, John Kennedy.

The establishment is all about keeping itself on top of the heap, unchallenged. In the last decade and a half, its agenda has been molded by the Neocons, a group who wants the US always to apply its full strength to get what it wants in the world. The Neocons, while uttering the words of classical liberal ideas to justify themselves, are as far from genuine liberals as you can get. They are in fact advocates of America working as the world’s schoolyard bully.

The Neocons have always had an undeclared agenda for their advocacy, and that is support for Israel. Given all its atrocious behaviors and its inefficient economy (it is in fact the most subsidized entity on earth), Israel is unlikely to have a long-term future without the US always acting as a bully boy and supplier of subsidies and a whole set of special privileges, which range from access to the highest political levels at unbelievably frequent times to plums like a free-trade treaty and access to American technology.

Not that Israel is being threatened by anyone, but it is almost certain to collapse of its own weaknesses eventually, very much in the fashion of the former Soviet Union. There are great parallels, and both lasted as long as they did through an almost mystical belief in what was being done.  The USSR lasted a long time, but there were such fundamental weaknesses - as no market-sensitive price system and an unwilling, burdensome empire - which doomed it to ultimate collapse.

Exactly the same analysis applies to Israel. It is not an efficient economy, it holds to the extremely outdated concept of being home to only one kind of people, its military/security costs are gigantic in relation to its size, it functions as a garrison state, and it holds millions of people against their will. Basically, you cannot build a long-term viable state on such weak foundations.

The Neocon program, which included everything from destroying Iraq and Libya to the current efforts to destroy Syria with proxy terrorist-fighters, is a terribly brutal one. It includes acts like the induced coup in Ukraine to attack the stability of one of their greatest foes, contemporary Russia. It needs to tolerate violent madmen like Turkey’s Erdogan because such men too are thorns in Russia’s side. The difficulties created by these events have provided the perfect vehicle, too, for re-asserting America’s predominance over Europe, some of whose leaders the American establishment views as naive children playing with dangerous strangers like Russia.

Right now they are pushing things dangerously close to war in Europe and in the South China Sea. Trump simply threatens these arrangements, and he is hated by the Neocons, who of course use less-than-honest arguments about his being a dangerous man. Bernie Sanders, too, represents something of a threat, but not so great a one because he has happily worked inside the framework for years. Trump is a complete political outsider. Hillary Clinton is the official candidate for all Neocons and an establishment which genuinely embraces the idea of American exceptionalism and America’s right to tell almost everyone what they should be doing.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ROBERT CORNWELL SAYS HILLARY GOES ON THE ATTACK AGAINST BOTH BERNIE AND TRUMP - SO WHAT? - FEW TRUST ANYTHING SAID BY THIS VISION FROM HELL

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROBERT CORNWELL IN THE INDEPENDENT

So what?

The woman is an insane vision from hell.

What she says matters not a jot to the great majority of humanity.

Only the special interests she serves so slavishly care about her words.

She embodies absolutely everything that is wrong with American politics.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MATTHEW NORMAN WRITES OF PEOPLE BEING BORED WITH HILLARY BUT IT IS NO TIME FOR A NOVICE LIKE TRUMP - HERE'S A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF DISHONEST JOURNALISM -UNDECLARED AGENDAS IN JOURNALISM - THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE NEOCONS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MATTHEW NORMAN IN THE INDEPENDENT

You are right about people being bored with Hillary.

But it's not just that she has been in the lights for 25 years, it's a palpable sense of knowing what it is she'll say on any matter combined with an almost certain knowledge that she is only speaking words, reciting a script as it were with no connection with her future acts.

"With the Middle East in relentless turmoil this is no time for a novelty act novice like Donald Trump"

Here it seems apparent to me, Matthew Norman, that you are supporting an undeclared agenda.

The Middle East is a mess precisely because of the acts of people allied with Hillary Clinton, notably the Neo-cons and the Israel Lobby.

The destruction of the Middle East is one of the very things that needs to be stopped. Only Trump offers even a dim hope of doing so.

It is a completely false assertion to write of "a novelty act like Trump" That might sound cute, but I believe you know better than that, or should if you belong in your job.

Every President starts as something of a novelty.

But more important than that, when you have entrenched problems like those in the Middle East and the excessive influence of the Neo-cons, it is then precisely the time for a fresh set of ideas and openness to doing things differently.

And that's what so many are hoping for from Trump, but that's also precisely why there is universal antagonism towards him from Neo-cons and Israel Lobbyists.

Readers may enjoy this analysis;

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/trumps-five-questions-us-foreign-policy/ri14540