JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S TOTAL POLITICAL PARALYSIS - BOTH PARTIES ARE SHIPWRECKS - POLITICS WITHOUT MEANING - BUT MAYBE THAT'S JUST WHAT THE UNELECTED GOVERNMENT WANTS - WAR LOOMS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN ZERO HEDGE

‘Hillary Clinton: "The Right Is Afraid Of Me Because I Don't Die" ‘

The woman has no shame.

And she likely has some cancer-like disease in whatever gland it is that is that controls human ambition.

And, yes, she is right, she doesn't die, much the same as a vampire.

You do not have to be a follower of Trump's to wince whenever you see this woman's photo or read more words from her, and the photos and words just keep coming, as though she were running for office, which virtually certainly she is.

The stories tell us that only a stake through the heart stops a vampire. It appears that idealistic young Seth Rich tried delivering one and failed, losing his life in the effort.

It all reminds me of what a terrible, ghastly situation the Democratic Party is in.

This couple from hell, the Clintons, America's version of the Borgias, just will not stop. They are out there prowling around, constantly making noises and false accusations – as about the Russians being responsible for her loss – and no thought is even given to the consequences of such dangerous accusations. All that matters is her winning, no matter how she does it.

They have controlled the Party for a very long time, courtesy mainly of their money connections, and they intend to keep going, and the Party is incapable of shaking them off. It is in the middle of a long nightmare in which a succubus has sunk claws into its back. It cannot even look for fresh talent because virtually all its chief operators are beholden to this relentless couple.

I am sure there are many decent Democrats, people like the late Seth Rich, who know what a poisonous legacy the Party is encumbered with, yet see no clear way around it.

The woman and the Party were responsible for their defeat, yet neither can admit it for even a moment.

Many knew she was a poisonous candidate last time, but seeing her try again? That must be hard to swallow.

Especially when you consider that Trump was in many ways a weak candidate himself. He is not a good public speaker, and many of his ideas are weak and not well-considered, yet he was able to win with her running.

Of course, Trump had a couple of good points in foreign affairs - points worth something for many - but he has abandoned those and effectively abandoned supporters who were deeply concerned on those issues. He is a dues-paying member of the blood-soaked imperial establishment now in good standing.

So, I suspect the Hillary crowd, like a school of piranha, smells blood in the water. Trump will be highly vulnerable next time with his terrible record now in domestic affairs and his now perhaps even more terrible record in foreign affairs.

He is a shipwreck waiting to be blown into shore, though I doubt anything like impeachment will be involved. That is a monumental political task no one really wants to undertake. No, he will die a quiet political death the next time out with a record of failures and disappointments and nothing fresh possible to offer.

He quite literally has nothing to offer the great mass of voters now.

We have the now pretty crummy-looking pair of Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, whom we know now is a sleazy operator who tries pitching American citizenships to Asian investors in his family enterprises and who doesn’t keep good faith with his own employees, who embraces the bloody Netanyahu, and makes blunder after blunder. As for Ivanka, we thought she was pretty smart, but her total effect on her father has been disastrous. She is clearly less clever than we thought – God, look at who she married! This pair begins to rival the Clintons for putrescence. Who’d want them back?

We have health legislation that will deprive millions of coverage after all the blubbering against the failings of Obamacare, and there are failings indeed, but they won’t be repaired by Trump.

And we have torn-up trade treaties as a supposed route to increased American jobs, a poor strategy which could end up creating trade wars, not jobs.

And we have a pretty smarmy and confused set of policies around immigrants and refugees.

And then we can add increased military activity in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan, still more provocation against Russia, new provocations against China, idiotic threats against Iran, vast weapons sales for one of the world's most backward governments, virtual compliance with all of Israel's tyrannical acts and threats, and it is hard to see how he could even begin building a new constituency.

He will be completely vulnerable, and if there is anything a Clinton likes the smell of in the morning - after fresh napalm - it is vulnerability.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AUTHORITIES TIPPED OFF NUMEROUS TIMES ABOUT MANCHESTER BOMBER - WHAT THIS EVENT REALLY TELLS US ABOUT POLICE AND THE MILITARY AND DEALING WITH VIOLENCE NOT JUST TERROR

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Salman Abedi wasn't a lone wolf – he was a known wolf, and the Muslim community tried to warn us about him

Our Prime Minister was Home Secretary and in charge of MI5 when they were tipped off about Abedi – do the victims’ families have a right to an explanation of why the warnings were not heard?’

Of course, you are right.

The case only proves how pointless the "war on terror" is. Indeed, that very name is more of a theatrical slogan than a meaningful policy. It has been so since the beginning.

We've had many such examples over the last fifteen years or so, and if you look to the general record of criminality, you see the same thing.

There is a long record of police failing to deal with child molesters.

A long record of failing to deal with serial killers.

And how about massive fraudsters whose activities continue for years?

The truth is most traditional police and military are totally inept at preventing crime, even of the worst kind.

The average force member is not a bright light, and they are trained to follow orders, not to work cleverly in investigation.

That is just a fact, not an accusation.

So, any policy relating to large, international matters which depends upon them is guaranteed to fail.

But all the noise around their presence serves both as reassurance to the public (or is thought to do so) and as a visible advertisement telling people your government is at work for you.

Armed police or troops always dumped into the streets after an event are actually a symbol of how ineffective these organizations are at preventing anything. They are always reactive, always after-the-fact, and pretty much useless.

Just look at the current situation in Chicago with black gangs killing each other at alarming rates. Do you think Chicago has no police? Police just cannot stop this kind of anarchy.

Useless unless you are prepared to create military government.

But even then, police and military fail unless they are ruthless towards everyone. There was no terror in a place like Saddam's Iraq or the old Soviet Union. And much the same for Crusader Fortress Israel.

Of course, the genuine root cause of virtually all contemporary terror is America's abusive rampage through the Middle East and the terrible, yet always tolerated, terrors of Israel against millions of people. The US and Israel generate millions of victims and waves of anger and despair. Immense amounts, yet politicians like May or Hollande or Cameron or Blair never speak one word to the matter.

And that very rampage and organized oppression have been happily supported by the British and French governments.

All the nasty results we see in places from Manchester to Paris were in fact results of these very policies Theresa May supports. All of them.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA CREATES A PROBLEM IN EUROPE THEN IMPOSES ITS SERVICES AND DEMANDS BEING PAID FOR DOING SO - FORGOTTEN ARE 1775 AND BUNKER HILL AS AMERICA BECOMES THE NEW HESSIANS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK

"NATO Expansion Technique: First Create a Problem, Then Impose Your Services"

Exactly.

Europe's leaders are truly hopeless if they accept these new demands for billions of dollars.

You know, one of the proximate causes of the American Revolt, 1775, against Great Britain was when the British sent troops to Boston and demanded that they be quartered in people's homes. That led to the first conflicts at places like Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill.

Today, the US, effectively through NATO, occupies Europe, and now it wants the Europeans to pay for their own occupation.

This demand, of course, closely resembles the British demand to the people of Boston of about two hundred and forty years ago.

Well, we all know where that led.

My God, the United States is truly the world’s greatest, unapologetic hypocrite.

I’m just waiting for Nikki Haley - who is given to blurting out clichés from American history for the benefit of the other, unenlightened, 95% of humanity - to offer something from events in Boston. Maybe, “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes”?

Somehow, I doubt she will, but it is certain that the more things change, the more they are the same.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DIA CHIEF ASSERTS NORTH KOREAN MISSILE STRIKE ON AMERICAN MAINLAND IS INEVITABLE - IT'S REALLY CALLED TELLING OFFICIALS WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR SO YOU'LL KEEP YOUR JOB

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“North Korea nuclear missile strike on US mainland is 'inevitable', says Defence intelligence chief”

Simply the statement of an idiot.

We have no basis for believing that, and this silly man has no basis for saying it, other than hoping to please his audience and keep his job.

Indeed, North Korea has a solid basis for feeling it might be the target of an American strike, a first strike.

The US, many will not realize, in the past made detailed plans for a massive first strike on the USSR in Kennedy's day. The Pentagon had it planned to the last detail.

It also made such plans for Mao's China.

And, please, for those who have not seen this horror, here is what the US did to North Korea in the Korean War:

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/03/why-do-north-koreans-hate-us-one-reason-they-remember-the-korean-war/

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JAMES WATSON WILLIAM SHOCKLEY AND THE OLD IQ DEBATE - CALLING SOMEONE RACIST OR ANOTHER NAME WITHOUT BASIS IS AN AMERICAN TRADITION - TRUMP AND LINCOLN EXPERIENCED IT - WHAT GENUINE PREJUDICE IS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN ZERO HEDGE

‘Discoverer Of DNA's Double-Helix Banned From U of I For "Failing Test Of Decency" ‘

Well, this is an old controversy.

I don't know that I've ever read a genuinely racist comment from James Watson, but he has made some extremely controversial comments, comments which anger many people, black people especially.

But saying something which angers some groups is not the same thing as being racist.

Racism is a kind of prejudice, and all prejudice is ignorance and superstition, whether religious or racial or political prejudices.

The opposite of prejudice is science, a method for discovering facts.

James Watson is criticized for exactly the same kind of statements made by William Shockley, another Nobel winner who helped discover the transistor.

Yet both these men read the literature of intelligence and its variations between groups, a literature informed by literally millions of IQ tests over decades, and drawn their conclusions from that. You may not like that, but it cannot accurately be called prejudice.

That literature of the distribution of intelligence is not a gutter or scurrilous literature, although, it arouses intense angers and controversies. It includes some pretty capable investigators and authors, such as Arthur Jensen, and their work is there to be scrutinized and criticized. It is not hidden away like secret nonsense or mumbo-jumbo.

I do not think that can fairly be called racist.

It could conceivably be incorrect, but it would need to be proven incorrect, and, so far as I am aware, it has not been proved incorrect, only discounted by social attitudes.

In general, that literature says Ashkenazi Jews and Asians have the highest average IQs, with Caucasian-type people second, and black people last. I stress that those data divisions are not just arbitrarily set by prejudiced views. Quite the opposite, they literally fall out of an immense body of data.

If we choose to ignore the data – as by saying the tests yielding the data were invalid or inaccurate measurements in some way, quite a common, though unproven, response by critics - we may examine instead some genuine intellectual successes in the world and see how they compare to the test results.

In the people who build businesses, the people who excel at science and math, and the people who invent complex new things both in technology and art - we do tend to see the same general groupings seen in the test data. That is a highly suggestive fact.

I don’t know, but I do know Americans are extremely ready to call people names like “racist,” and they do that at the drop of a hat when they do not like someone’s views. We see the same phenomenon at work regularly in America with other name-calling, as when people are called misogynists or anti-Semites or any other “-ist” or “-ite” you care to mention.

The current President of the United States – whether you like him or not, and I do not – has been at the receiving end of a storm of exactly such abusive name-calling, none of it with any basis in fact.

It does seem to be an American tradition, part, I think, of what critic Robert Hughes called America’s “culture of complaint.” Remember, in his day, that now most sainted of all American presidents, Abraham Lincoln, was often called “an obscene ape.”

When someone stops analyzing and criticizing facts and starts calling names, you can be sure, ipso facto, that you are dealing with another form of prejudice in the people calling the names, a genuine form of prejudice, and the very opposite of science, having nothing to do with facts.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CALL IT "THE DEEP STATE" OR SOMETHING ELSE THIS IS IN FACT WHAT AMERICA IS - YOU CANNOT DISTINGUISH THE TWO - NIKKI HALEY AND ORWELL - AMERICAN DOUBLETHINK AND AMERICAN HISTORY

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN GOVERNMENT SLAVES

GADDAFI PREDICTED AND TRIED TO STOP THIS TERROR WAVE IN UK, SO THE US MURDERED HIM

_________________

Response to another reader who wrote:

"It was not the US that murdered him....it was the agents of the deep state”

But, my friend, that IS the United states.

There is no other, alternate United States out there somewhere, as floating in space.

Americans typically have not recognized a fundamental truth.

The "deep state" or whatever you choose to call it, grew out of the American system of politics and of empire-building abroad. It is an organic, natural outgrowth of what started a very long time ago.

It was not imposed by just a few in secret. It does indeed serve just a few, but it was not imposed by them in some kind of coup or plot.

The fact is that you can have either a world empire or a decent country.

You cannot have both.

But few Americans recognize that. It really means that when schoolkids recite stuff about Teddy Roosevelt and San Juan Hill or about James Monroe and the Monroe Doctrine, they are reciting from the origins, the early building blocks, of what we see today.

Every element of the world empire - the CIA and 16 other intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, the State Department (as constituted), the major lobby groups, the bought-and-paid elections - works against having a decent country.

And you, indeed, do not have one.

Today it is a giant, aggressive, murderous thing demanding its own way with the entire 95% of the world who are not Americans.

Yet it always pretends it has other values, deep principles, blubbering bromides about them as it burns, bombs, and slashes.

Just read the words of half-wit Nikki Haley appointed as UN Ambassador.

Unbelievable pretensions of special goodness and worth for Americans, quoting inappropriate nonsense like Lincoln’s words on the Union, while defending mass killing, massive induced migrations, theft, and injustice. It is laughable.

It truly is nothing more than Orwell’s: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength.”

It involves what Orwell called doublethink, something extremely common in America.

You cannot console yourself with, "Oh, we're good guys. It's just all those bad guys of the deep state that are bad!"

That is utter nonsense.

Trump got elected playing with that same phony theme, and look at him now, a dues-paying member of the American imperial establishment. Threatening war in a number of places. Selling whole armaments industries to murderous thugs.

Truth is, you don't have a democracy at all.

You have a plutocracy which carries out an election stage play every four years.

What the people want counts for close to nothing.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOMEONE ASKS WHAT IS WRONG WITH THERESA MAY'S STRATEGY ON TERROR - HERE IS THE SIMPLE AND HONEST ANSWER

COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Theresa May cuts a reassuring figure – but her anti-terrorism plans for the future leave a lot to be desired”

What is wrong with Theresa May's strategy on terror?

It's actually blindingly simple.

You cannot solve a problem if you ignore its cause.

Thinking otherwise resembles the mumbo-jumbo of medicine men or snake-oil salesmen versus the honest truths of science.

And we get a lot of mumbo-jumbo from May as we very much did from Cameron and Blair.

Corbyn has touched on the root cause, but people like May will only ignore it.

Corbyn is that rarest of things, an honest politician.

From my point of view, he understates things, but, essentially, he is right.

May and Cameron and Blair have lied non-stop on this matter because they are defending what cannot really be defended.

Readers may enjoy:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/john-chuckman-comment-here-is-what-you-need-to-know-to-find-your-way-through-a-deliberately-constructed-maze-of-confusion-about-modern-terror/

_______________________

Response to another reader’s comment:

You are right, but I don't know about a Corbyn victory.

I very much hope for it, but we all know that in real life the good guy, or the honest guy, does not always win. In fact, they rarely do.

The entrenched forces behind May - the corporate press, government and business elites, and very influential lobbies - cannot be underestimated.

We've all seen the way they have attacked Corbyn relentlessly since he first won the leadership, attacked both directly and indirectly, both fairly and unfairly, as with all that McCarthyite filth about non-existent anti-Semitism.

It is amazing how far he has come, as I always thought him capable of doing.

Yet he fights not just an ordinary political opponent but the representative of an immensely powerful establishment.

A cunning and quite dishonest opponent, ready to use whatever tools and tricks that establishment supplies her with.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO FIND YOUR WAY THROUGH A DELIBERATELY-CONSTRUCTED MAZE OF CONFUSION ABOUT MODERN TERROR

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN INVESTMENTWATCH

“Manchester Bomber Was Product of West’s Libya/Syria Intervention”

All of what we call "international terror" or "Muslim extremist terror" is nothing but blowback from America's Neocon Wars and outrageous actions in the Middle East.

The only exceptions to that statement involve the gangs of mercenary thugs the U.S. and its allies have supported in places like Syria and Libya.

Such gangs - variously named ISIS or Al-Nusra and still others - are no different to the gangs and armies of mercenaries which have been used in countless imperial wars before, except they don't wear uniforms and they make big noises about matters other than the real purpose of their filthy work.

It is all a big theatrical production, courtesy of support and funding and supplies from the United States, Israel, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and with support from willing helpers like Britain and France.

For example, were ISIS (aka, Daesh) really what it has claimed to be, a fanatical Muslim terror group, clearly it would attack Israel and Israeli interests, but it never does. Never.

Or it would attack the fat princes running Saudi Arabia, princes who in their private lives are well-known for ignoring the strictures of the very conservative Islam they claim to follow. It is only the poor people of Saudi Arabia who are left with those strict rules. And, of course, since now for years since 9/11, the Saudis have worked secretly hand-in-glove with the Israelis, this fact would make them doubly a target.

But again, Saudi Arabia and its horrible elites are never targets for such supposed radical fundamentalist terrorists.

The poor people of Syria, though, people governed by a fairly reasonable government, are targets. With at least a third of a million having been killed and countless injured and made homeless.

And so were the poor people of Libya targets, people previously governed by a man who gave them everything from free education to good water and peace and are now reduced to bloody chaos.

Every once in a while, some of the victims of, or sympathizers against, all of this paid state terror do manage to carry out an attack in revenge for what has been done to them or their families or homes. Such exactly is the nature of the attacks in Paris and this Manchester attack.

They are classic terror operations, but they are not the acts of mindless fanatics. They are works of revenge in response to immense injuries having been inflicted by Western authorities.

Britain and France both have long worked with the United States in actually assisting the paid mercenary “terrorists” working to overthrow the legitimate government of Syria. They supply weapons, they fly missions to destroy Syrian infrastructure, and they give special forces support – all while pretending to fight terror.

And do they really believe, while they fool much of their own populations with dishonesty and propaganda through the ever-accommodating corporate press, that no one else notices what they are doing?

In addition to fifteen years of horror in the Neocon Wars, burning and bombing their way through the Middle East, killing at least two million people, we have the terrible suppurating wound of Palestine and Israel’s terrible treatment of millions, always defended and protected by the United States and by those same governments in Britain and France.

How anyone believes that you can do what Israel and the United States have done without ugly consequences is beyond me. You can only oppress and abuse millions for so long without consequences. That is just human nature.

Of course, the Neocon Wars themselves largely relate to Israel. The United States has been trying to literally re-create the Middle East so that it might come to resemble some American suburban place for Israel’s benefit. Ozzie and Harriet’s charming suburb of the 1950s, or a contemporary American gated community complete with golf courses, so that migrants from America and Europe can pretend they have done nothing wrong to millions they oppress.

It is a horrible set of policies and acts absolutely no different in nature and quality to the works of tyrants of the 1930s or of places like Apartheid South Africa. Only the numbers of lives destroyed are less. Ethnic-cleansing, mass terror, mass killing, treating millions like cattle – that, with no exaggeration, represents the work of the United States and Israel for fifteen years.

I have never understood how rights-loving average Americans can view with indifference a bloody spectacle where even the ownership of a home or farm is not secure and where millions are penned-up as though in prison and, now, where millions are sent running in terror from cities being bombed to become despised refugees.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COVERAGE FOR THE MANCHESTER BOMBING GOES INTO OVERDRIVE SERVING TO BOOST SUPPORT FOR GOVERNMENT'S FILTHY POLICIES - SOME HARD PERSPECTIVE ON THE EVENT

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Manchester bombing live updates: Armed police raid city centre property in connection with arena suicide attack”

Of course, I do hope that readers have some appreciation of the fact that the United States in just one bombing run likely kills more innocent people than this.

And there have been countless bombing runs - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, etc.

Then there are the horrors the US and Britain support in places like Yemen.

Thousands of innocents torn apart, but The Independent gives us no serious coverage or stories or photos of that horror.

No, instead, the US and Britain sell the bloody Saudis tons and tons more weapons with which to kill. Billions and billions of dollars’ worth.

None of this makes any sense to an honest person, and I believe we have every right and ethical obligation to call what the US (and sometimes Britain) does state terror, at least as horrible as this event.

We live in a very sick and twisted world, largely of American creation as it pursues absolute domination across the planet.

The ugly and unavoidable truth is that sickening events like Manchester are what intelligence agencies call "blowback,” unwanted side-effects of dirty operations.

Please, in the 15 years of Neocon wars, America, with a little help from its friends, has killed something like two million people across the region (and that may well be an underestimate).

That means that scenes like this - hidden from our eyes by a corporate press that does no investigative reporting and governments which lie daily - have happened at least 100,000 times in the last 15 years.

That really puts some perspective on the Manchester event, and perspective is everything when you really want to understand what happened.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A SMALL NOTE ON DETAILS OF TRUMP'S VISIT TO THE CENTERS OF THREE RELIGIONS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Donald Trump receives frosty reception in first meeting with Pope Francis at Vatican”

Two notable points on Trump's visit to the Pope.

Both his daughter and his wife wore veils - stylish ones, but veils - for his visit to the Vatican.

Yet in visiting Saudi Arabia - the central geography in the history of Islam, containing its holiest sites - they both wore not even the most modest head-covering.

Note, too, that when Trump visited the Wailing Wall (actually, in the Palestinian section of Jerusalem), he wore a yarmulke.

The yarmulke and the veils just happen to look rather ridiculous because Trump is simply not a religious man, not in the least.

So, why the different treatment in the sites of three religions? Just the same old prejudices that are in part behind the entire set of destructive wars in the Middle East.

As to the Pope's saying "a man who thinks about building walls and not bridges is 'not Christian'," well, yes, but Trump is not Christian in any event. Nothing wrong in not being Christian, but it is just a fact.

Of course, I forget the ridiculous Tony Blair, mass murderer and non-stop liar, actually does fancy himself some kind of christian, and a Catholic one at that.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP SEEN TRYING TO UNITE SAUDIS AND ISRAELIS AGAINST IRAN - I GUESS HE MISSED THE FACT THEY ALREADY ARE - DOES AMERICA WANT ANOTHER BIG MIDEAST WAR ? ISRAEL SURE DOES - SHIA VERSUS SUNNI MUSLIMS

EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK

“Tryst in Tel Aviv: Trump Tries to Unite Israel, Saudis With Anti-Iran Rhetoric”

God, Trump is a disappointment.

Israel and the Saudis have shared a hatred of Iran for years, each for its own reasons.

After all, Israel and Saudi Arabia are virtually secret allies now and both important supporters, now or in the past, of outfits like ISIS and al Nusra.

Neither of them likes anything to do with change or social reform or revolution or anything which could endanger their comfortable and oppressive stability and the comfortable rule of wealth in the region.

Israel hates genuine liberals, for example, almost as much as the House of Saud does, and that is because liberals are seen as important critics of Israel’s ugly human rights policies.

In general, Shia Muslims compare to Sunni Muslims today very much as Protestants did to Catholics in 16th century Europe.

In the light of the time, Protestantism then stood for progressive matters, as for example education of people so they could read the Bible, an idea Catholicism, representing the doctrine of Church authority interpreting the Scripture for people, opposed.

Protestants also simplified many things about worship, again things Catholicism opposed.

There are many parallels to today’s Sunni-Shia hostilities in the Middle East.

Israel, of course, couldn’t care less about these issues except to exploit them for its own purposes.

Israel’s key impulse is to be the leading state in the region, serving also as a kind of chief lieutenant and enforcer for the American empire there in a kind of symbiotic relationship in which Israel’s attention in the region on behalf of the United States is repaid by the United States’ continued support of Israel in the wider world.

Quite apart from immense financial and technical subsidies and privileges America sends pouring into Israel, America’s active work of suppressing criticism of Israel in everything from the United Nations and other international organizations to the calculated, relentless bias of its corporate press has been an important tool in making Israel’s often lawless behavior seem legitimate.

Iran, by virtue of its size – 70 million people - and resources, is destined, unless someone interferes, to itself become the region’s dominant state. Israel will do anything to stop that natural progress. And just so, Saudi Arabia for several reasons of its own, including the religious differences which are used to disguise other social and political and economic interests.

The Saudis once quite disliked Israel and acted in public ways to make their dislike apparent, but since 9/11, things have changed dramatically. The Saudis were terrified that America would invade and topple them, so they have worked hard to become especially cozy and accommodating with the United States and its colony, Israel.

They keep the close friendship secret because it would not go down well with a great many Saudi Muslims who are largely very conservative Sunnis, called Salafists. In the world of Islam, they might roughly be compared to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox, a people who although a minority in Israel determine many of its laws and policies because their parties always have the balance of power necessary for a larger party to form a government. In the matter of being almost violently intolerant of other religious groups or anyone intruding on their community, Muslim Salafists and Jewish Ultra-Orthodox are close relatives.            

My great fear here is that Trump – now, by all appearances, loyally on board with the very American imperial establishment of whom he seemed, rightly, so critical only months ago – is going to prepare the ground for another Mideast War such as the terrible one between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s. That war, given allowance for the size of the parties involved, was about as bloody as the First World War.

America did everything it could to stoke and facilitate that war, always hoping that both sides would be badly bled and weakened. It supplied some terrible weapons, too, including the poison gas used by Iraq on tens of thousands of Iranians. The American strategy much resembled that of America in Europe during WWII. They dearly wanted Germany and the Soviet Union to both be bled and weakened, and they didn’t truly invade until the conflict was largely decided and they feared the Soviets might overrun all of Europe.

Israel would just love such a war. The typical view, if we are to judge by public statements, of Israeli officials concerning Arabs and Persians is pretty unpleasant, downright racist at times. And Israel is ruthless enough to encourage just such a conflict to weaken all parties involved.

From Ariel Sharon to Benjamin Netanyahu, there have been countless calls and demands for invading Iran, one way or another. Netanyahu, after being frustrated in his efforts to have the United States attack Iran, made serious preparations for Israel’s doing so on its own. In one of the few decent acts of his blood-drenched record in foreign policy, Obama prevented that effort by telling Netanyahu he’d shoot his planes out of the sky. Iran, unfortunately, has become a national obsession for Israel’s furious leaders.

Being a nation which has attacked no one in its modern history and a nation which has suffered terribly under numerous American policies – from the 1953 coup which destroyed a democratic government and put the brutal Shah into office to the 1980-88 induced war with Iraq which saw about a million people die – is not enough to save you if you stand in the way of empire. There is no pity or even humanity in the works of imperial power.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SHAMELESS CALL TO ASSASSINATE A PRESIDENT AND ATTACK OTHERS BY ISRAEL'S THUG GOVERNMENT - AND NOT THE FIRST TIME

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ITEM ON YOUTUBE

 “Time to assassinate Assad & get to his allies in Iran – Israeli minister”

It is unbelievable that a government minister feels entitled to speak this way in public. And it is not the first time this has happened.

Were it any other country, the minister would be reviled, as he deserves to be.

Where are the voices of European leaders? Where is the voice of the UN Secretary-General? Where are the editorials of great newspapers?

But this is Israel, the world's black hole as far as respect for the rule of law and human rights are concerned, and so, the minister can speak this way without consequence.

You see, the US has his back, so to speak, while Israel, through its lobby, has the US government by the balls.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT A WASHINGTON SPECIAL PROSECUTOR'S APPOINTMENT, THE POSSIBILITY OF IMPEACHMENT, AND WHAT DRIVES THE WHOLE TRULY LUNATIC SPECTACLE

COMMENT WRITTEN IN RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Special prosecutor Robert Mueller 'will take Donald Trump from frying pan to fire' over Russia investigation"

Then there'll be a mighty thin meal because there is no meat here. Not a scrap. None.

Fire, hot pans, shouting, cooks sweating in a hot kitchen and absolutely nothing to prepare. That is the ridiculous spectacle we see right now in Washington.

Not everyone understands that impeachment is, in fact, a trial - a long, complicated trial involving some of the nation's finest legal minds at work.

I know the United States does many questionable and even brutally- stupid things, but I do think bringing someone important to a trial, a guaranteed international spectacle, with absolutely no evidence of any kind, just a lot of shouting and accusations, is not one of them. It is a guaranteed formula for failure. Does any thinking person, not a rabid partisan, believe the United States or the world deserve that?

It cannot happen because even the guys doing all the shouting know that they have nothing in the prosecutor's brief. However, the efforts and noise and groundless accusations can paralyze the government, blunt its efforts at any reasonable policy (such as, establishing a peaceful relationship with Russia). Of course, there are many other important matters, like the health of the entire Western economy, that the effort can also damage. An executive branch paralyzed by continuous and complete nonsense is dangerous for us all.

The politicians know they only have the accusations of angry partisans like Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi plus the questionable assertions of Mr. Comey, an old Democratic Hillary partisan and a man who proved himself inept while in office if we are to believe that very same group of accusers - Hillary, Schumer, Pelosi, etc - by their own words of just months ago, all easily still found on the Internet.

Of course, the real danger here is the massive effort to undo a properly-conducted election. A great deal of that effort is coming from the security services, especially the CIA, including some former members of that dark organization.

They don’t like Trump because he, early on, disparaged their importance (as many of us feel is more than fitting) and they have willing helpers in the arrogant walking wounded of the Democratic Party who just cannot believe both that they lost the election and that they had an insider (almost certainly the late Seth Rich) leak the official secrets of their corrupt internal workings. Better to blame the Russians on all counts, and blaming the Russians does also help feed the new Cold War fires now raging in Washington, fires set alight by that smiling psychopath, Obama, with his destructive drives and policies in Europe.

After all, isn’t that the kind of thing the CIA does abroad, often work to unseat legitimate governments? It did so in Ukraine. It did so in Libya. It did so in Egypt. It is working at doing so in Syria. And it did so in many other places. Well, now, the ugly activity has come home to roost, the ultimate form of what security agencies call “blowback.”

America is in the process of tearing apart what very little legitimacy it has left as a democratic state, and millions stand around and cheer because they have been hyped day-and-night by our pathetic corporate media who never work to explain what really is happening anywhere, only passing on the re-written press releases of officialdom.

If you want an accurate perspective on the matter, we have Stephen F. Cohen, distinguished Princeton professor and a genuine expert on Russian affairs, someone who many times in past years was consulted by the American government itself, saying this:

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/stephen-f-cohen-assault-trump-presidency-greatest-threat-us-national-security-today/ri19860

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE TRUMP-RUSSIA CIRCUS ROLLS RIGHT ON WITH ISRAEL NOW SAID TO BE SOURCE OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION SHARED WITH RUSSIA

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

“Washington Post: Trump Leaked ISIS Secrets to the Russians That Are So Sensitive, We Can't Even Talk About Them

“The gist of the newest manufactured 'scandal':

“As usual no evidence is offered

“White House has already denied it

“Is WaPo's position Trump should keep ISIS' secrets?” 

Thanks for summing up this latest Washington idiocy with some of your best amusingly-trenchant analysis.

Remember, The Washington Post is owned by the boss of Amazon, a man who is an open partisan for Hillary Clinton (all the chief American Internet-media companies support the War Party, aka, the Democrats) as well as being a willing helper in the CIA's exploits (again, as all the other big American Internet-media companies are).

As Mark Twain said, "Nothing can withstand the assault of laughter!"

It is almost beyond comprehension how the very center of the American empire - a place literally packed with highly-educated, highly-paid, privileged people with big-sounding job titles - behaves much the same as the 1960s' lunatic gang of the British "Carry On" movies.

Washington today regularly looks and sounds like a mob of badly-mannered children screaming and punching in the schoolyard, yelling words which make no sense and are intended only to hurt others.

And we are supposed to respect that?

Apart from every other argument of ethics, morality, and often-poor successes from insane projects, American leadership literally is unfit for the role it insists on having in the world.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE TRUMP-RUSSIA CIRCUS ROLLS RIGHT ON WITH ISRAEL NOW SAID TO BE SOURCE OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION SHARED WITH RUSSIA

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Israel was source of classified information Trump shared with Russia, say officials”

Well. if Israel was the source for the supposed information leak, as one commenter wrote in another newspaper, the US would undoubtedly have paid through the nose for it.

So you could say, Trump simply wanted to get some use from an over-priced trinket.

At any rate, this entire business remains totally asinine. It is a manufactured event, much resembling in tone packs of wolves howling at the moon.

Here's a refreshing view of it from an old Republican, no less:

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/david-stockman-russiagate-colossal-beltway-scam/ri19864

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA SET TO SELL $100 BILLION IN WEAPONS TO ONE OF THE MOST BACKWARD GOVERNMENTS ON EARTH - WHY? SOME FACTS ABOUT SAUDI ARABIA

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“US closes in on $100bn deal to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia”

What a wonderful thing to do.

One of the world's most backward places in everything from democracy and human rights to waging aggressive war - what a fine customer for a massive pile of arms equivalent to the entire GDP of some small lands.

But for the United States, Saudi Arabia represents a couple of things important to the global empire.

First, the Saudis are good buddies with Israel, virtually secret allies in many projects such as Syria and Yemen. And the Saudis share with Israel a repulsion for such things as truly democratic government, opposition to many of the demands of human rights, and a concern for protecting the position of privileged wealth in the region.

Second, they aren't Iran. Indeed, they are viewed as a bulwark against Iran's natural development as the region's leading country, given its 70 million population and resources.

Israel, which wants for itself the unquestioned position of the region's leading country, shares the Saudi view of Iran.

And note that Israel does not oppose such a vast weapons deal with an Arab state, something it most certainly would have done some years ago.

The Saudi position vis-a-vis Israel changed dramatically, although quietly (don't want to upset their own population, now, do they?), after 9/11.

The Saudis were terrified of being accused and perhaps even invaded following 9/11. They went almost overnight from openly anti-Israel statements and acts of many years to something resembling groveling after American expectations for its Middle Eastern colony.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BRITAIN'S JEREMY CORBYN QUOTED AS SAYING BRITAIN HAS NOT FOUGHT A JUST WAR SINCE 1945 - BRAVO - WE HAVE ALMOST NO LEADERS ADMITTING SUCH TRUTHS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Jeremy Corbyn: Britain has not fought just war since 1945'

Well said, M. Corbyn.

A profound truth, which I fear far too few understand.

After all, politicians generally will not admit this. And our corporate press never does anything but support the government of the day.

I only wish we had a few more leaders who had the insight and courage to speak as you have.

Good government is built on truth, just as good policies are based on science.

But we have, for the most part, not had good government, either in Britain or the United States.

We have had governments motivated by agendas not all that different than religious fanaticism.

From strident insane levels of anti-communism to strident insane levels of anti-Muslim "extremism." It's all the same, Captain Ahab chasing the white whale, destroying lives every step of the way.

And just as Ahab miserably failed, so has the United States. North Korea was left a wasteland with an estimated 20% of its population killed. Vietnam saw an estimated 3 million killed by bombing "heroes" like John McCain.

Cambodia, destabilized by the US, saw a million die by the results. A million died in Iraq. So far, more than a third of a million in Syria. How many in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan?

There's a long list of lesser places too. And where do you see healthy democracy or great human rights in all that wreckage?

The United States' establishment has been dedicated to this immense destructive effort, and Britain, for the most part, has not had the leadership to resist their requests and demands.

What is really going on is a massive post-WWII effort by the United States to dominate in nearly every corner of the earth, and countries like Britain have gone along for the ride.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BERNIE SANDERS PROVES HIS MEDIOCRITY YET AGAIN ON THE JAMES COMEY FIRING - FACTS MISSING IN NIXON WATERGATE COMPARISONS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Bernie Sanders responds to Trump firing James Comey: 'What is the administration hiding?'”

This is pathetic.

Bernie only further proves what a weak and dishonest politician he is, just typical establishment under the phony cover of a self-declared "socialist."

No one with a fully-operating brain believes there is a shred of truth in the hysterical garbage about Russia, and even if there were, so what?

And you do not have to like Trump to say so.

Comey is a rather dark and devious character. He made Hillary furious. He serves Trump badly. No one can even guess what nonsense he is up to on the lunatic Russia business.

After all, he had that phony dossier, commissioned for big bucks by a Republican Trump opponent from an old British agent working as a glorified private detective, himself once. Did he do anything with it? Did he explain anything about it?

My only question is, why did Trump take so long?

_________________________________

“Interesting to note that Nixon was not brought down because of the Watergate break in, but because of the Watergate cover up. Trump may be brought down by Russian ties and the cover up.”

You do not understand what you are talking about.

Nixon's stupid Watergate scandal starts with an old-hand CIA man, James McCord, using the sloppiest method to secure the door with tape and catching an alert guard's attention. A long- experienced operative like McCord could not make that kind of error except deliberately.

McCord was hired by the secretive Nixon "Plumbers" outfit, but he was almost certainly a CIA plant.

It was a set-up to dump a President the CIA did not like for several reasons, including the fact that he ran his own parallel intelligence operatives and almost certainly the fact that he never accepted the phony Warren Commission Report.

He was too smart and experienced to believe that crock of an investigation. CIA undoubtedly feared he would stumble upon stuff he wasn't to know with his operatives out investigating in various sensitive places.

Once Nixon actually sought the undisclosed files on the Kennedy assassination, but was refused. The President refused by people supposedly serving at his pleasure!

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CHEAP-TRICK JOURNALIST ATTACKS HONEST POLITICIAN CORBYN BY WRITING ABOUT BRITISH POLITICIANS IN GENERAL NOT BEING UP TO THE JOB

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ANDREA WHITTAM SMITH IN THE INDEPENDENT

The one thing we have learned from the last two years is that our politicians are simply not up to the job

Displaying contempt for voters is the very opposite of rising to the level of events – but that is what Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have done, just like their predecessors

This is just another cheap shot at Corbyn.

What the author has to say about May or Cameron is correct. They are not up to the job.

Cameron was an insipid, smug, dishonest man.

May puts on a pleasant face to do very unpleasant things.

Corbyn is an honest and thoughtful man. I don't know whether he will be successful, but neither does this propaganda-oriented writer.

He has been attacked almost every day of his brief leadership at the behest of the very special interests piloting the Mays and Camerons of this world.

Wretched Tony Blair is the titular leader of the special interests, and barely a week goes by in which the corporate press does not promote and publicize him and his devoted acolytes.

What it really comes down to is political parties being bought-and-sold to special interests.

The basic structure of politics in Britain is corrupt and rather anti-democratic.

Just as is the case in France and overwhelmingly so in the United States.

In many ways, it is as though the entire Western history since the French Revolution has been expunged. We do not have democratic government. Cameron misruled with about 35% of the people's support, and he promoted special interests everyday of his term of office.

Money and special interests guide the fate and policies of Britain, France, and the United States.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FRANCE'S MACRON BLAMES MISOGYNY FOR TALK OF HIS OLDER WIFE - HE MISSES THE POINT - NOT MISOGYNY BUT FAIR CONCERN OVER PEDOPHILIA AND STUDENT-TEACHER SEX - OUR FIRST MEASURE OF A POLISHED MEDIOCRITY

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Emmanuel Macron blames 'homophobia' and 'misogyny' for obsession with his older wife"

Well, now, he would, wouldn't he?

These are favorite totemic words to be tossed about by today's establishment and corporate press. Just as prevalent and meaningless and tiresome as "anti-Semitism."

And if there is anything Macron is, it is establishment. France just elected a polished corporate vapidity as its president.

A very unattractive man who fits in well with the likes of Hollande or Fillon, polished, egotistical liars who offer the French people very little indeed.

And we know - from information posted on the Internet, but banned from all publication in France by the pathetic Hollande - that this man broke tax laws and plays covert games with his money.

As far as his wife goes - and I find her an attractive woman regardless of age - the source of people's concerns is nevertheless legitimate, teachers hopping into bed with students. She is twenty years older than he is because she was the 15-year old boy's teacher.

Is that something we really want to legitimize and paint as charming?

That is certainly what the establishment press has been doing.

Clearly, such personal behavior causes stress and grief for many witnesses, from parents to other students concerned with favoritism.

___________________________

Response to another reader:

I respect privacy, too, but it is not an absolute.

There are private matters that spill out into public concern because they involve serious ethical issues.

This is a case resembling a person shot in the abdomen whose 'guts" spill out on the floor for all to see.

If this age difference had been part of a relationship started later in life and under different circumstances than a pupil-teacher relationship, no one would have any business being critical.

But, you see, Macron is a man with almost no political background, so he has not had to face such criticisms.

He was hurriedly selected by establishment figures as someone to stuff into a hole in the political dykes.

They were desperate, given the known crippling crookedness of other potential Le Pen opponents such as Fillon, who superficially had seemed an attractive candidate.

Macron is a corporate milquetoast who just happens to have an ugly skeleton in his closet, and, given the circumstances, I think people have every right to object.

It is not about age. It is not about misogyny. It is about elevating a pretty ugly set of circumstances into acceptable behavior.

In today's world - with a lot of concern over sexual predators and pedophilia, the Jimmy Saviles and Rolf Harrises of this world about which there used to be silence - I do think people are not being unfair to criticize the behavior of this teacher with her young student.

Not at all.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CORPORATE CONCENTRATION GIVES AN ILLUSION OF CHOICE IN BUYING - MORE IMPORTANTLY IT GIVES AN ILLUSION OF DEMOCRACY IN GOVERNMENT

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN INVESTMENTWATCH

“Illusion of choice: 6 corporations control 90% of US media outlets, 10 corporations control almost every product bought by consumers globally, 1 non-profit institution controls US presidential debates, 1 family owns the banks in all but 3 countries across the globe” 

To "Illusion of choice' of choice you can add Illusion of democracy.

Such concentration of corporate wealth and influence is at the root of all the nation's most serious problems.

In a way, it very much is as though we were talking about the great aristocracy and church officials of France before The Revolution, say, in 1780.

Many of the problems are similar.

And while America maintains an elaborate Potemkin Village of democracy, the underlying reality is that these people run the show.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: U.S. AND DICTATORS GET ALONG JUST FINE BUT THEY MUST BE "OUR" DICTATORS - HERE IS A NAIVE JOURNALIST WHO DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HIS SUBJECT

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAVID USBORNE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Donald Trump's dangerous flattery of foreign dictators shows how little he cares about human rights”

Trump's?

Where has the author been? Travelling in deep space?

America's friends abroad for decades have included the likes of Ceausescu's Romania, the Shah's Iran, Diem’s South Vietnam, Thieu’s South Vietnam, Pinochet's Chile, the House of Saud, Mubarak's Egypt, Occupying Israel, Marcos’s Philippines, the totally-crooked PRI in Mexico (for over 70 years), the former junta in Argentina, the absolute monarchs of Bahrain and Kuwait and Oman, and on and on.

Morals and values and ethics never count in American foreign policy.

Never, although a great wall of meaningless words to the contrary is constantly under repair and extension by Washington’s army of PR flacks.

The only thing that counts with this throbbing imperial power is: are you with us or against us?

Always.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: YET ANOTHER WINDBAG AMERICAN GENERAL SOUNDS OFF ABOUT RUSSIA - RUSSIA'S DEFENSE MINISTRY ASKS WHY SUCH BLOWHARDS ARE HIRED - ANSWER GOES TO ROOTS OF AMERICAN CULTURE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

Russian Defense Ministry Wonders Why Pentagon Hires So Many Blowhard Windbags

The Ministry is particularly amazed by US Special Operations Command General Raymond Thomas and his recent testimony before the Senate, during which he proclaimed Russia “one of the five main threats for the USA”

Being a blowhard or an arrogant windbag is considered a talent in many parts of American society.

In sales and marketing work of various kinds.

In fundamentalist Christian ministries.

Certainly, in politics.

And the military has always enjoyed and rewarded them.

It's been this way a long time. You could call it part of the national culture.

Making windbag declarations is a way to try distinguishing yourself when you really have not done anything worth talking about.

It is also part of Andy Warhol's famous comment about "having your fifteen minutes of fame."

A very astute observer of American society, Robert Hughes, years ago wrote a book called The Culture of Complaint. It described the way America has an endless set of polarizing internal conflicts and organizations and leaders who make a lot of noise but end by changing or solving little.

The sheer involvement in the conflict seems an end in itself. He attributes it to America's Puritan heritage, and, if the Puritans were anything, they were people who loved to point at others and damn them as wrong.

To my mind, the idea explains a lot about America and its position in the world.

Creatures like General Raymond Thomas regularly pop up and disappear in America's Culture of Complaint.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA LOSING WORLD LEADERSHIP - EUROPE COULD REPLACE IT E.U.'S MOGHERINI SAYS - THERE IS SOME TRUTH IN THAT - BUT EUROPE HAS JUST NO LEADERSHIP

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY

“‘US losing world leadership, Europe can replace it’ – EU top diplomat Mogherini”

There is a grain of truth here.

But Europe simply lacks leadership.

The major countries are all led by weak personalities who loyally follow the American lead.

And, in effect, they allow themselves to be occupied through the illusion of NATO.

They allow themselves to support destructive policies such as that imposed on Syria - which of course generates the awful army of migrants now upsetting Europe - or America’s stupid coup in Ukraine which generates needless hostilities on the borders with Russia and costs European industry billions in sanctions.

There is not a single voice in power speaking to these terrible matters.

Always, for real change anywhere in the world, it takes great leadership.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CHEAP PRESS TRICK OF COMMISSIONING AN IFFY POLL TO SUPPORT WHAT THEY ADVOCATE REPEATED YET AGAIN WITH CORBYN IN BRITAIN

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Majority of Labour voters want Corbyn to quit immediately if he loses general election, poll reveals”

You just will not let up on the man, will you?

From the day he was elected you've attacked him, allowing short intervals of relenting so you don't sound like a pre-recorded message being played endlessly.

Political polls, as anyone who understands a little about their production, are the easiest things in the world to play with for getting the result you want.

God, do you recall the totally ridiculous American polls you hyped in headlines before the 2016 Presidential election?

I do, and there was one after another of incompetent or crooked ones presented saying things which obviously weren't true.

Hillary sits dejected in a corner rather than in the Oval Office, having been rejected despite phony poll after phony poll saying it would be otherwise.

Political polls today are frequently a form of fake news, fake news done and presented by the corporate press.

The role of the press is supposed to be objectively presenting what has actually transpired in the world.

But the corporate press long ago abandoned that role, if, indeed, it ever performed it.

You are full-time advocates, and advocates which use highly questionable practices and techniques.

You are not advocating, at least openly, for Theresa May, although that may well be the net real effect of your efforts, but for the Tony Blair political ghouls gathered in dark corners hoping to pounce for fresh blood to extend their existence.

Well, the one good thing we can say about this article is at least you are not back into the moral filth of hurling accusations of anti-Semitism, but I will be surprised if that McCarthyite line does not return before the election is over.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA’S STATE DEPARTMENT COOPERATES IN ISRAEL’S NASTY GAME OF CALLING ITS CRITICS NAMES - IN THIS CASE THE CRITICS ARE AMERICA'S OWN CITIZENS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LAWRENCE DAVIDSON IN CONSORTIUMNEWS

"It is anti-Semitic to “deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor)"

A definition written in Tel Aviv. Completely meaningless since no one on the planet denies Jews their democratic rights. No one.

That is a strawman argument, and it is so clearly intended to fog up the genuine issue of Israel’s denying millions of their every right – democratic rights, human rights, rights to peaceful lives, and even the right of secure home ownership.

It is so patently false and twisted that I think such lobby-induced efforts serve only to offend fair-minded people.

Most of us know when people are being seriously disingenuous with us or attempting to manipulate us, as with cheap scam artists or Bible-thumping tent preachers.

This kind of nonsense from Israel initiates exactly the same kind of reaction in any informed and reasonable person.

I do not even understand what Israel thinks it achieves with such clearly manipulative and dishonest stuff. It is as effective as Don Quixote tilting at windmills, and the truth is it seems a one-way trip to nowhere.

I do know that, try as desperately as you will for years, long term, you can't keep a badly leaking boat afloat with mumbo-jumbo.

All Israel has to do is clean up its stinking human-rights mess, stop imposing on and abusing others, stop stealing homes and farms and gas fields and water, and return to its accepted 1967 borders.

There is nothing unreasonable in those expectations, and absolutely nothing anti-Semitic either, since anti-Semitism, as with all extreme prejudices, is just unreasonable superstition. We are talking about hard facts here, not superstition.

Most criticism would end immediately. But Israel deliberately chooses not to do so. It won’t even seriously discus doing so.

All such measures as those imposed on America’s State Department only scream growing desperation in the campaign to defend what cannot be defended.

Short of creating a Stalinist set of institutions in America, you cannot stop people from criticizing what richly deserves being criticized.

In the end, criticism of Israel is not, and can never be, anti-Semitism.

Israel is a state, and if it wants to be viewed as a legitimate state and not some kind of Crusader Fortress Enclave, it must meet the international standards and laws set for all states.

But it does not do so. It does not follow the most basic rule of law, it abuses millions, it wages aggressive war, seemingly without end, always safely protected by an American government which creates such bizarre institutions as the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.

It only answers critics by calling them names and working to entrench nonsense like this, as though it were in any way the business of America's government to influence how anyone regards a foreign state.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HILLARY'S SHABBY RUSSIA SCRIPT IS RE-CYCLED IN GERMANY - EUROPE'S LEADERS TODAY LITTLE MORE THAN A GANG OF SCHOOL KIDS YELLING AMERICAN SLOGANS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

'German spy chief warns Russia cyber-attacks aiming to influence elections'

I think you've worded that incorrectly.

It should read along the lines:

"German spy chief echoes official script from Washington (fully endorsed by his direct boss, Mrs. Merkel, a confessed admirer of Hillary Clinton who wrote the first draft of the script to explain her miserable defeat) about Russia influencing elections."

Please, is there even one country in the West whose top leaders today behave in anyway different to a gang of unthinking children all yelling the same nonsense in the schoolyard?

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOMETHING ABOUT NORTH KOREA AND THE UNITED STATES EVERYONE SHOULD READ - UGLY TRUTHS NEVER COVERED BY OUR PRESS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Readers may enjoy this brief explanation of why North Korea feels the way it does about America.

The points are historical facts, ones never, never featured in corporate press:

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/03/why-do-north-koreans-hate-us-one-reason-they-remember-the-korean-war/

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FBI'S JAMES COMEY CALLS RUSSIA GREATEST THREAT ON EARTH - INTERPRETING WORDS FROM A MAN WHO HAS AMPLY PROVED HIMSELF A COMPLETE ASS - SAD HISTORICAL RECORD OF THE FBI

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK

“FBI Director James Comey Names Russia ‘Greatest Threat’ on Earth”

Comey, as he already amply demonstrated during the Presidential election campaign, is a total ass, but then you pretty well have to be one ever to be appointed to the post he holds.

After all, J. Edgar Hoover set the tone for the FBI for all time - a paranoid, dog-faced man who never did a thing to make America or the world a better place, who indeed used to blackmail Congressmen and Presidents with the secret files he had accumulated.

His record included many horrible acts, from trying to get refugee Albert Einstein deported to his plan to discredit and threaten Martin Luther King with the results of covert spying. His record in the Warren Commission investigation of John Kennedy’s assassination was a disgrace, his FBI having been given sole role as investigators for the Commission. His personal animus towards Kennedy was legendary.

He was notorious for letting the Mafia have a free ride after Prohibition ended while he chased non-existent communists all over America. It was said that meetings of the small American Communist Party were filled half, along with their collection plates, by his undercover agents.

There was a reason he never worked seriously against the Mafia which was able to establish itself firmly into American life.

He and his gay boyfriend (not conjecture but established fact by several biographers), Clyde Tolson, used to vacation for free at some of the Mafia’s resorts and gambled at their racetracks.

It has been reported by a prestigious investigative reporter that Hoover had been caught in compromising photos by the Mafia, and that's why he never made serious trouble for them.

His main aim in life was to stay in control of the Agency he largely built as a monument to himself, and he did a great many discreditable things to do so.

Well, that’s quite a pair of shoes for Comey to fill. I don’t think he can, but he is trying. He bays to the same moon as the main Washington establishment does.

Washington resembles cloudcuckooland with thermonuclear weapons.

Readers may enjoy:

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NEW BOOK SAYS WRITER HEMINGWAY WAS A SOVIET SPY - THE PERSPECTIVE WE NEED FOR ALL SUCH CLAIMS ESPECIALLY WHEN WRITTEN BY EX-CIA OFFICIALS AT A TIME OF AMERICA'S SECOND WAVE OF ANTI-RUSSIAN HYSTERIA

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Ernest Hemingway 'was secret Soviet spy', claims new book

Written by a former CIA officer it says the famed author was recruited in 1940”

We can have no idea of the truth here.

Spies and former spies, like the author, almost always use books or memoirs to plant false or confusing information. It is almost standard practice.

I've seen it done many, many times, going back to Kim Philby's book written in Moscow or General Sudoplatov's claim in his memoir that American physicist, Robert Oppenheimer, was a spy for Stalin. There was also the CIA’s manufactured Penkovsky Papers which became a best seller in the 1960s.

Given the author's CIA status and given today's crazed witch-hunt hysteria in Washington, I am inclined to dismiss the claim as a trick saying, "See, even venerable figures could be connected to the nasty Russians." That is as likely an interpretation as can be given without more knowledge, which we will never see.

"A classified KGB file smuggled out of Moscow" stinks like a rotting fish carcass.

It is a virtual repeat of the now proved-phony dossier on Trump supposedly from "Russian sources" according to a British spy (read: close CIA associate) working as a highly-paid private detective for an unidentified well-off Republican.

I should add that if somehow it were true that Hemingway ever worked for Stalin's KGB, it is not hard for a well-informed person to understand.

The United States was a virtual insane asylum on the subject of the Soviet Union. At various times, it literally planned in detail a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Russia. The last I know of was in the early 1960s when John Kennedy left a Pentagon briefing with the comment that he was sick to his stomach at what he heard.

The Pentagon was packed with crazed figures like General Curtis Lemay, a certifiable psychopath who had bombed his way through countless victims.

Many famous figures in the world were repelled by what they saw and heard in the United States.

Disapproving of the Stalinist state was one thing, but accepting the intent to incinerate tens of millions of people was something else entirely.

Such attitudes secretly permeated through much of Britain's intelligentsia in the 1940-50s when the phenomenon of the Cambridge spy ring arose. It was not hard to be motivated against madmen in the United States who clearly were ready to commit mass murders in order to hold on to a monopoly on nuclear weapons and essentially become the world's great bully-dictator.

Tragically, these latter impulses still motivate large parts of the American establishment. Listening to high-level clowns who should (and, in fact, do) know better talk about Russian influence in American politics is enough to turn one's stomach it is so patently without evidence and intended to drive the hysteria of witch hunts.

We should all be extremely cautious about the dangerous nonsense being tossed about in Washington and repeated over and over in the corporate press, and books like this deserve being treated with the strongest skepticism.