John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Iran nuclear deal: Benjamin Netanyahu claims Israel has obtained 'secret files' showing Tehran still trying to develop weapons”
Netanyahu literally is insane.
Every real expert in the world says Iran has been scrupulous in following the nuclear deal.
Suddenly, not a great many days before Trump announces possible formal change in America's position on the nuclear agreement, along comes Netanyahu making outrageous new claims.
Netanyahu not only is an expert in nothing, he is a notorious bully and incessant liar.
Both Presidents Obama and Sarkozy were caught by reporters some while ago, with live mics they thought were off, telling each other that you cannot believe anything this man says.
That's pretty impressive testimony, two major national leaders.
This madman literally has wet dreams about war against Iran. He spent a great deal of money some years ago planning and preparing an attack but realized Israel just couldn't do it alone.
So, of course, now he undoubtedly wants America involved, and, who knows, maybe he'll get what he wants with Trump, who has acted the part of a American doormat for Netanyahu.
So, here we have a man whose country has attacked every neighbor that it has, some multiple times, demanding violent action against a modern Iran that has attacked no one.
And, of course, this lunatic not only lies about Iran's nuclear work (which, by the way, CIA said much earlier was not even aimed at weapons but instead more efficient nuclear power generation), his own country has about 150 nuclear bombs and warheads. We have that from a top authority, former President Carter.
________________________________
Response to a comment which said if Iran’s intentions were really peaceful, it would used a thorium reactor:
Pretty brainless comment.
Thorium reactors, while theoretically attractive, are still totally impractical.
And we might ask your question of Israel, why didn’t they use a thorium reactor?
There, the answer is clear. The Dimona facility has produced an estimated 150 nuclear warheads for Israel.
Against all international law.
Monday, April 30, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SCATHING LINES FROM COMEDIAN MICHELLE WOLF AT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER - SURPRISED SHE MADE IT TO THE PLATFORM - THE GREAT ORANGE ONE IS NOT PLEASED
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
“Michelle Wolf: the unstoppable rise of America's provocative political comic”
She had some very funny lines. The best jokes are always highly-concise truths, and she had a number of them.
I was amazed though that she made it to that platform.
Political correctness and downright dishonesty characterize almost all political discourse in America today.
And it's the same in the corporate press, very much so.
But in large populations of any kind, there always are outliers. Even in the old Soviet Union this was so.
Michelle Wolf is one of them, as are, very much, the people responsible for putting her on the platform.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
“Michelle Wolf: the unstoppable rise of America's provocative political comic”
She had some very funny lines. The best jokes are always highly-concise truths, and she had a number of them.
I was amazed though that she made it to that platform.
Political correctness and downright dishonesty characterize almost all political discourse in America today.
And it's the same in the corporate press, very much so.
But in large populations of any kind, there always are outliers. Even in the old Soviet Union this was so.
Michelle Wolf is one of them, as are, very much, the people responsible for putting her on the platform.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AN INTERESTING ODDITY - THE DISCOVERY OF SOME PRIMITIVE ARTWORK FROM PRISONERS OF WAR DURING THE SEVEN YEARS WAR - FOUND IN A BRITISH CASTLE USED AS A PRISON
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Long lost art of first major global war discovered in Kent
“Exclusive: Largest selection of pre-19th century prisoner of war art ever found in Britain”
A really interesting item.
Especially in light of the treatment of captives recorded in histories of the American Revolution of just over a decade after the Seven Years War.
History books tell us about how captured enemy were released "on Parole" to return home and not return to the conflict.
It makes 18th century war sound rather humane compared to what we know.
But this story raises questions about that.
Perhaps the humane treatment was reserved for officers?
After all, officers in all armies of the 18th century were regarded and treated as being quite different than ordinary soldiers.
And, of course, they were. Officers in the British army were generally titled individuals. Sometimes others with very good connections and drive did make it. Commissions had to be purchased for significant amounts of money.
Ordinary soldiers, by comparison, were viewed as trash by society. None of the public attitudes we associate with soldiers, say, in WWII were in evidence. Sometimes soldiers were poor fellows "shanghaied" into service, just as a great many of the Royal Navy's sailors were at the time.
But many were very poor men who joined for the very small King's bounty offered. A few dollars look attractive to a dirt-poor man. Whatever their background, their treatment in the service was brutal. Floggings, hangings, poor food, poor lodging, and about every abuse you can imagine.
The prison from the Seven Year War appears from the materials to have been quite brutal, much like an American maximum-security prison of today. And the guards appear to have been terrible abusers and thieves. That also is a story we've had a lot of experience with in our time.
I do hope the material is preserved and housed somewhere suitable
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Long lost art of first major global war discovered in Kent
“Exclusive: Largest selection of pre-19th century prisoner of war art ever found in Britain”
A really interesting item.
Especially in light of the treatment of captives recorded in histories of the American Revolution of just over a decade after the Seven Years War.
History books tell us about how captured enemy were released "on Parole" to return home and not return to the conflict.
It makes 18th century war sound rather humane compared to what we know.
But this story raises questions about that.
Perhaps the humane treatment was reserved for officers?
After all, officers in all armies of the 18th century were regarded and treated as being quite different than ordinary soldiers.
And, of course, they were. Officers in the British army were generally titled individuals. Sometimes others with very good connections and drive did make it. Commissions had to be purchased for significant amounts of money.
Ordinary soldiers, by comparison, were viewed as trash by society. None of the public attitudes we associate with soldiers, say, in WWII were in evidence. Sometimes soldiers were poor fellows "shanghaied" into service, just as a great many of the Royal Navy's sailors were at the time.
But many were very poor men who joined for the very small King's bounty offered. A few dollars look attractive to a dirt-poor man. Whatever their background, their treatment in the service was brutal. Floggings, hangings, poor food, poor lodging, and about every abuse you can imagine.
The prison from the Seven Year War appears from the materials to have been quite brutal, much like an American maximum-security prison of today. And the guards appear to have been terrible abusers and thieves. That also is a story we've had a lot of experience with in our time.
I do hope the material is preserved and housed somewhere suitable
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF LAUGHABLE RUBBISH THE GUARDIAN FILLS SPACE WITH - ON PROSTITUTION: "THE INSIDE OF A WOMAN'S BODY IS NOT A WORKPLACE"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
“Prostitution is not a job. The inside of a woman’s body is not a workplace”
“The inside of a woman’s body is not a workplace”
A remarkable statement, to say the least.
It argues against something no one is claiming.
The usual "workplace" for prostitution is a bed, although there are other places that sometimes do.
I do not like prostitution, but it is the right of every woman to choose it as employment if she wishes.
And there will always be large numbers who do so choose, just as there always have been. It is not called "the world's oldest profession" for nothing.
And if large numbers choose it, there should be legal protections for them.
I don't see how there is anything else sensible to say on that point.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
“Prostitution is not a job. The inside of a woman’s body is not a workplace”
“The inside of a woman’s body is not a workplace”
A remarkable statement, to say the least.
It argues against something no one is claiming.
The usual "workplace" for prostitution is a bed, although there are other places that sometimes do.
I do not like prostitution, but it is the right of every woman to choose it as employment if she wishes.
And there will always be large numbers who do so choose, just as there always have been. It is not called "the world's oldest profession" for nothing.
And if large numbers choose it, there should be legal protections for them.
I don't see how there is anything else sensible to say on that point.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JUST WHO IS IT STRAINING TO REASSERT AMERICAN GLOBAL SUPREMACY EMPHASIZING THE MILITARY? - TRUMP'S ODD SET OF SKILLS CAUSED HIM TO JOIN THE CLUB BUT HE DID NOT START THIS - SOME HISTORY - THIS WILL NOT END WELL
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“US Hybrid War Arrives to Replace Cold War
“The One World of Pax Americana that has existed since the end of the Cold War is already history. US global dominance is still in place, but the peace - "pax" - has been shattered”
This analysis has a great many merits but misses important points.
It certainly isn't just Trump who determined to reassert American global supremacy.
In fact, he could not do that alone. American Presidents simply do not have that much power on their own under the American Constitution.
The entire Washington establishment has been focused on reasserting American global supremacy for years. It reflects a combination of the establishment’s realization that with the growth of other nations abroad into competitors, America is in a relative decline. All the world’s trade statistics point to the fact.
After all, these people and their power flourished in a world where all their competitors were flattened by WWII. Every single one – Britain, France, Germany, Japan, et al. And countries which had not been competitors were destined to become new competitors – China, mainly – also were war-torn. Still other countries were not war-torn, but had yet to explode into modernity, something they are sure doing now – India, Brazil, Vietnam, etc.
America alone suffered no damage at home - even its war dead made the tiniest fraction of those of some other countries, leaving it with no huge unproductive burden of care for the badly injured and plenty of fresh manpower - and it was to enjoy the entire world as its market for industries which had been force-fed and had grown immensely in producing war supplies for itself and others.
The outcome of WWII literally put America on top of the world. But that was a position that absolutely could not be maintained indefinitely because it was based on transitory circumstances.
We have seen now through several presidencies an intense new effort to assert military power and influence. “Nobel Peace Prize winner’ Obama literally was bombing someone every day of his eight years. He once was reported to have said, jokingly, “I’m pretty good at this killing stuff!” While now the so-called National Defense Strategy document has been re-written to even more closely focus on Russia and China, it was under Obama that Russia gained the de facto status of pariah state, something Trump has made no effort to halt. So, he has just jumped on the anti-Russian bandwagon, so to speak, while always remaining careful not to speak directly against Putin, who, in my view, does likely hold compromising personal information on Trump.
America’s establishment has even busied itself creating a whole new vocabulary it now uses. We have terms like “strategic rivals” and “revisionist powers” used to describe Russia and China, terms in their vagueness much resembling Israel’s perennial use of “militant” to describe people it has shot. The Pentagon is calling Russia and China enemies in all but name.
The Chinese aptly describe these new Pentagon terms with, “If some people look at the world through a cold war, zero-sum game mindset, then they are destined to see only conflict and confrontation.”
Trump’s chief set of skills include an animal-like instinct for locating where power lies in any situation (almost like a dog immediately recognizing an alpha male) combined with an astonishing, plastic-like ability to quickly adapt to its needs and to gain politically (or economically) from them. Thus, we see all his campaign words versus his actions as President - on Russia, on Syria, on Israel, etc. We have close to a complete turnaround because this previous-non-politician has sniffed-out at close quarters just what the establishment wants.
America’s establishment has fixed on military power – of course, supported by economic, financial, and diplomatic power – as the route to maintaining dominance under all the evolutionary changes taking place in the world. Of course, a more intelligent and less aggressive response would have been to cut military spending drastically. Nothing is more resource-consuming and economically unproductive than the military. A certain amount is needed for genuine defense, of course. But spending seven hundred billion dollars a year, more than the rest of the planet together, is the opposite of what you do if concerned about relative economic decline.
The American establishment’s response is a kind of panic reaction to the changing situation in the world. And it has been happily encouraged, as by someone fanning a fire, by the influential group known as Neocons. They hold, as an article of faith, that America should use its great existing power to dominate and shape the world to its liking. Their primary interest is Israel, and they see an aggressive, massively-armed America as the best promoter of Israel’s interests. They also heavily push the anti-Russia campaign we see because Russia is viewed as standing in the way of their main goals.
This, of course, is just one additional avenue for Israeli influence on American government. America’s money-drenched campaign-financing and lobbying laws encourage huge influence from its home-grown Israel Lobby - perhaps the best organized and financed of all Washington many powerful lobbies. It literally can determine who is elected or not in many Congressional and Senate and even Presidential campaigns because it not only commands money, it commands all of America’s high-end press and broadcasting, which means they can make any candidate look good or bad, and it takes an awful lot of something else for any candidate to overcome that kind of opposition.
Interestingly, most of Trump’s latest appointments are Neocons, some of the most virulent in America. By comparison, in his first days, he tended to avoid such appointments, though even then some got in.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“US Hybrid War Arrives to Replace Cold War
“The One World of Pax Americana that has existed since the end of the Cold War is already history. US global dominance is still in place, but the peace - "pax" - has been shattered”
This analysis has a great many merits but misses important points.
It certainly isn't just Trump who determined to reassert American global supremacy.
In fact, he could not do that alone. American Presidents simply do not have that much power on their own under the American Constitution.
The entire Washington establishment has been focused on reasserting American global supremacy for years. It reflects a combination of the establishment’s realization that with the growth of other nations abroad into competitors, America is in a relative decline. All the world’s trade statistics point to the fact.
After all, these people and their power flourished in a world where all their competitors were flattened by WWII. Every single one – Britain, France, Germany, Japan, et al. And countries which had not been competitors were destined to become new competitors – China, mainly – also were war-torn. Still other countries were not war-torn, but had yet to explode into modernity, something they are sure doing now – India, Brazil, Vietnam, etc.
America alone suffered no damage at home - even its war dead made the tiniest fraction of those of some other countries, leaving it with no huge unproductive burden of care for the badly injured and plenty of fresh manpower - and it was to enjoy the entire world as its market for industries which had been force-fed and had grown immensely in producing war supplies for itself and others.
The outcome of WWII literally put America on top of the world. But that was a position that absolutely could not be maintained indefinitely because it was based on transitory circumstances.
We have seen now through several presidencies an intense new effort to assert military power and influence. “Nobel Peace Prize winner’ Obama literally was bombing someone every day of his eight years. He once was reported to have said, jokingly, “I’m pretty good at this killing stuff!” While now the so-called National Defense Strategy document has been re-written to even more closely focus on Russia and China, it was under Obama that Russia gained the de facto status of pariah state, something Trump has made no effort to halt. So, he has just jumped on the anti-Russian bandwagon, so to speak, while always remaining careful not to speak directly against Putin, who, in my view, does likely hold compromising personal information on Trump.
America’s establishment has even busied itself creating a whole new vocabulary it now uses. We have terms like “strategic rivals” and “revisionist powers” used to describe Russia and China, terms in their vagueness much resembling Israel’s perennial use of “militant” to describe people it has shot. The Pentagon is calling Russia and China enemies in all but name.
The Chinese aptly describe these new Pentagon terms with, “If some people look at the world through a cold war, zero-sum game mindset, then they are destined to see only conflict and confrontation.”
Trump’s chief set of skills include an animal-like instinct for locating where power lies in any situation (almost like a dog immediately recognizing an alpha male) combined with an astonishing, plastic-like ability to quickly adapt to its needs and to gain politically (or economically) from them. Thus, we see all his campaign words versus his actions as President - on Russia, on Syria, on Israel, etc. We have close to a complete turnaround because this previous-non-politician has sniffed-out at close quarters just what the establishment wants.
America’s establishment has fixed on military power – of course, supported by economic, financial, and diplomatic power – as the route to maintaining dominance under all the evolutionary changes taking place in the world. Of course, a more intelligent and less aggressive response would have been to cut military spending drastically. Nothing is more resource-consuming and economically unproductive than the military. A certain amount is needed for genuine defense, of course. But spending seven hundred billion dollars a year, more than the rest of the planet together, is the opposite of what you do if concerned about relative economic decline.
The American establishment’s response is a kind of panic reaction to the changing situation in the world. And it has been happily encouraged, as by someone fanning a fire, by the influential group known as Neocons. They hold, as an article of faith, that America should use its great existing power to dominate and shape the world to its liking. Their primary interest is Israel, and they see an aggressive, massively-armed America as the best promoter of Israel’s interests. They also heavily push the anti-Russia campaign we see because Russia is viewed as standing in the way of their main goals.
This, of course, is just one additional avenue for Israeli influence on American government. America’s money-drenched campaign-financing and lobbying laws encourage huge influence from its home-grown Israel Lobby - perhaps the best organized and financed of all Washington many powerful lobbies. It literally can determine who is elected or not in many Congressional and Senate and even Presidential campaigns because it not only commands money, it commands all of America’s high-end press and broadcasting, which means they can make any candidate look good or bad, and it takes an awful lot of something else for any candidate to overcome that kind of opposition.
Interestingly, most of Trump’s latest appointments are Neocons, some of the most virulent in America. By comparison, in his first days, he tended to avoid such appointments, though even then some got in.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IMPLAUSIBLE SPECULATION AS MORE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION FILES (STILL INEXPLICABLY EXCLUDING MANY) ARE RELEASED - THE ABSURDITY OF POINTING TO OSWALD MAINTAINED
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“JFK assassination files: What does a diplomat's suicide have to do with Lee Harvey Oswald?”
Interesting tid-bit, but that's all, and I think the answer to your question is a resounding “nothing.”
Unfortunately, we have never been told the truth about an assassination which marked a watershed in American history, and we've never been told the truth for precisely the reason that it was such a watershed.
Only a poorly-informed person or a security-establishment disinformation professional or a fool believes that Oswald killed Kennedy.
American officials even built a legend around Oswald’s supposed communism – of course, this was at a time in America when being labelled a communist was received the same way as being labelled a witch in 1600.
If you study even a few facts of his life, the claim is preposterous. He did do some posing as a communist sympathizer while working with right-wing groups, but it was a pretty obvious pose, perhaps part of his role as a paid FBI informant (we even have his FBI informant number and there was an uncashed FBI voucher in his belongings).
But, no, America officially asserts always that he was a communist, and a communist who hated something about America and President Kennedy. His own words and acts give the lie to that. He expressed admiration for Kennedy. He volunteered for the Marines at 17 years old. He also did other patriotic services.
Nothing about that fit is right.
If you want to read some analysis:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/1544/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/reflections-on-how-little-is-revealed-by-just-released-jfk-assassination-documents-and-just-some-of-the-many-reasons-why-there-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/john-chuckman-comment-further-thoughts-on-the-kennedy-assassination-someone-suggests-the-involvement-of-israel-a-real-possibility-but-cia-still-is-involved/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“JFK assassination files: What does a diplomat's suicide have to do with Lee Harvey Oswald?”
Interesting tid-bit, but that's all, and I think the answer to your question is a resounding “nothing.”
Unfortunately, we have never been told the truth about an assassination which marked a watershed in American history, and we've never been told the truth for precisely the reason that it was such a watershed.
Only a poorly-informed person or a security-establishment disinformation professional or a fool believes that Oswald killed Kennedy.
American officials even built a legend around Oswald’s supposed communism – of course, this was at a time in America when being labelled a communist was received the same way as being labelled a witch in 1600.
If you study even a few facts of his life, the claim is preposterous. He did do some posing as a communist sympathizer while working with right-wing groups, but it was a pretty obvious pose, perhaps part of his role as a paid FBI informant (we even have his FBI informant number and there was an uncashed FBI voucher in his belongings).
But, no, America officially asserts always that he was a communist, and a communist who hated something about America and President Kennedy. His own words and acts give the lie to that. He expressed admiration for Kennedy. He volunteered for the Marines at 17 years old. He also did other patriotic services.
Nothing about that fit is right.
If you want to read some analysis:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/1544/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/reflections-on-how-little-is-revealed-by-just-released-jfk-assassination-documents-and-just-some-of-the-many-reasons-why-there-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/john-chuckman-comment-further-thoughts-on-the-kennedy-assassination-someone-suggests-the-involvement-of-israel-a-real-possibility-but-cia-still-is-involved/
Saturday, April 28, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ISRAEL'S WEEK-LONG PASSOVER MASSACRE - VICTIM TOTAL IS STILL RISING - ISRAEL'S BRIEF HISTORY PROVES ONLY WHAT A GHASTLY FAILURE YOU GET WHEN YOU MADLY PURSUE THE WRONG OBJECTIVES
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Three dead and hundreds injured as protests on Gaza border turn violent
Total killed now stands at 41 since unrest started in March”
A ridiculous headline because of its ambiguity.
From the start, Israel's response has been violence, extreme violence.
The protests are noisy and unpleasant, but they have not really "turned violent."
The demonstrators are unarmed, but Israeli snipers keep shooting batches of them, killing, among others, two well-marked journalists and some children. Something in the neighborhood of a thousand have received wounds from guns.
Israel's only real purpose here is not in protecting itself from violence but to make the demonstrators feel the utter futility of their efforts, to demonstrate, yet again, Israel's overwhelming military strength and its readiness to kill on very little provocation and without compunction.
It’s all stuff we knew, but this brutal state never tires of showing us again.
This week-long event is only rightly termed the Passover Massacre.
__________________________
Response to a comment, “Israel was established largely to provide a safe haven for oppressed Jewish people”:
Yes, as to why, in part, Israel was re-created, but the great tragedy of it is that it was always something of an unrealistic project, bound to be a moral and ethical failure in the face of millions of Palestinians whose towns and farms were stolen as well as the notion that Israel must have only one kind of people. I know there are a fair number of non-Jewish citizens, but their presence was an accident of 1948, and important Israeli leaders do not regard them as either desirable or permanent. More than a few have advocated their expulsion.
As for the many more Palestinians in the occupied territories, they aren't going anywhere, no matter what horrors Israel inflicts on them. And just where would they go anyway? Who in the region is offering to take millions of refugees? Who anywhere is ready to take millions of refugees? The United States, whose grotesquely unbalanced support of Israel prevents a decent solution, isn’t ready to take even a limited number of refugees from its own bombing campaigns in places like Libya and Syria.
General Dayan, back in the days of the 1967 War, said Israel would have to make the Palestinians miserable enough to want to leave. And that's just what Israel has never stopped working toward, just with highs and lows in the harshness of the effort. But they are not leaving. The ugly sniper killings plus countless other incidents show Israel’s violent frustration with this reality.
In a way, the demonstrations and Israel's extreme brutality towards them hide something far larger and more fundamental and ongoing: conditions in Gaza, home to 1.5 million, are approaching the level of not being able to sustain human life, and that's entirely Israel's doing, its deliberate and immoral doing.
It is stunning that the world can sit back and watch this all happening. Virtually all of our Western press and politicians just shut their eyes. And even the press that does cover it in the smallest degree, often uses euphemisms to describe things.
It is simply the greatest single shame on earth at this time.
The men who lead Israel seem to have learned, from the suffering of their European ancestors under the Nazis, only how to be extremely brutal and vile themselves.
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Three dead and hundreds injured as protests on Gaza border turn violent
Total killed now stands at 41 since unrest started in March”
A ridiculous headline because of its ambiguity.
From the start, Israel's response has been violence, extreme violence.
The protests are noisy and unpleasant, but they have not really "turned violent."
The demonstrators are unarmed, but Israeli snipers keep shooting batches of them, killing, among others, two well-marked journalists and some children. Something in the neighborhood of a thousand have received wounds from guns.
Israel's only real purpose here is not in protecting itself from violence but to make the demonstrators feel the utter futility of their efforts, to demonstrate, yet again, Israel's overwhelming military strength and its readiness to kill on very little provocation and without compunction.
It’s all stuff we knew, but this brutal state never tires of showing us again.
This week-long event is only rightly termed the Passover Massacre.
__________________________
Response to a comment, “Israel was established largely to provide a safe haven for oppressed Jewish people”:
Yes, as to why, in part, Israel was re-created, but the great tragedy of it is that it was always something of an unrealistic project, bound to be a moral and ethical failure in the face of millions of Palestinians whose towns and farms were stolen as well as the notion that Israel must have only one kind of people. I know there are a fair number of non-Jewish citizens, but their presence was an accident of 1948, and important Israeli leaders do not regard them as either desirable or permanent. More than a few have advocated their expulsion.
As for the many more Palestinians in the occupied territories, they aren't going anywhere, no matter what horrors Israel inflicts on them. And just where would they go anyway? Who in the region is offering to take millions of refugees? Who anywhere is ready to take millions of refugees? The United States, whose grotesquely unbalanced support of Israel prevents a decent solution, isn’t ready to take even a limited number of refugees from its own bombing campaigns in places like Libya and Syria.
General Dayan, back in the days of the 1967 War, said Israel would have to make the Palestinians miserable enough to want to leave. And that's just what Israel has never stopped working toward, just with highs and lows in the harshness of the effort. But they are not leaving. The ugly sniper killings plus countless other incidents show Israel’s violent frustration with this reality.
In a way, the demonstrations and Israel's extreme brutality towards them hide something far larger and more fundamental and ongoing: conditions in Gaza, home to 1.5 million, are approaching the level of not being able to sustain human life, and that's entirely Israel's doing, its deliberate and immoral doing.
It is stunning that the world can sit back and watch this all happening. Virtually all of our Western press and politicians just shut their eyes. And even the press that does cover it in the smallest degree, often uses euphemisms to describe things.
It is simply the greatest single shame on earth at this time.
The men who lead Israel seem to have learned, from the suffering of their European ancestors under the Nazis, only how to be extremely brutal and vile themselves.
NOTE: While the deaths in Gaza appear to be reasonably consistently
reported, the wounded are not. It is difficult to get a fix on the number,
which, in any case is very high. Looking at different sources, one finds
different numbers. The UN, in its latest rather ineffectual call for an end to
the violence, cited more than 5,500 having been injured by gun shots.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR TRUMP? - IT WOULD BE THE FIRST MONTY PYTHONESQUE PEACE PRIZE AWARD - WORTHY CANDIDATES - A RATHER GRIM HISTORY FOR THIS LARGELY MEANINGLESS PRIZE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE INVESTMENTWATCH
“NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR TRUMP?”
Nonsense. If anything, Trump awkwardly stood in the way, called names, and made huge irresponsible threats, sending fleets of ships and missiles ready to fight a war. All while threatening new hostilities in still other places. The guy is literally a blowhard servant of the Pentagon and CIA He has demonstrated that many times in a fairly short period.
Prizes are about encouraging similar behavior in others. A peace prize to encourage others to threaten, intimidate, and call names? I do think that would be a parody of the concept, a Monty Pythonesque Peace Prize.
And if indeed he and others believe this blowhard approach is the key to success in nuclear disarmament, why is it not immediately applied to Israel, a nation whose nuclear weapons, in far greater numbers than North Korea’s, keep an entire region under constant threat and a nation with a long track record of aggression against its neighbors?
The new South Korean President, Moon Jae-In, had campaigned on his openness and willingness to go to North Korea. He very much struck me as an intelligent and sincere figure, coming especially after a previous very corrupt leader, only one of a number in Korea’s post-WWII period. Earlier decades featured, too, several figures who amounted to little more than thinly-disguised dictators, notably Rhee Syngman and Park Chung-Hee. That fact undoubtedly had a lot to do with the history of relations with North Korea.
Very quickly, though, after his election, the new president stopped talking in this open way and began parroting American rhetoric and taking unfriendly-looking measures, undoubtedly under great American pressure, while Trump sent ships and missiles. But the new president seems to have positioned himself finally to do the kind of thing he had campaigned for.
The only people involved with Korea who might deserve a prize are Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-In. Many have long said that if the two Koreas could be left to alone to sort their differences, that’s just what they would do, but the United States has never accepted that view, always putting itself into the middle of affairs and always refusing to talk to North Korea.
When they were finally allowed to get together, we got something promising, although everyone should be cautious about interpreting just what has happened. As I said, for over half a century America has refused even to speak directly with any North Korean leader, pressured others to do the same, refused even to recognize the country, and kept a heavily-equipped army at the border. Those attitudes are not going to evaporate suddenly.
However, we have other very worthy people for the Peace Prize, although I know with the highly politicized Peace Prize it will never be awarded to any of them. My number-one choice is Julian Assange, a genuinely heroic figure who has advanced people's understanding of government power and deception and offered insight as to how things really work.
But the prize is never awarded to people who would embarrass American imperial interests. Never. No, it goes to people who are often effectively servants of those interests (Aung San Suu Ky), or complete frauds (Barack Obama, Al Gore, Elie Wiesel), or even terrorists and mass killers (Henry Kissinger and Menachem Begin), or, most ineffectual of all, various organizations with vaguely peaceful-sounding objectives who stand to achieve very little that is real for peace (the EU or the Pugwash Conferences). It is quite a dismal record.
With all the Nobel hard-science prizes, tangible achievement is required, achievement of world importance, and certainly not just theory no matter how promising. But this is not the case for the Peace Price where the standard has no consistency or clarity at all over the years. Here and there, someone worthy is awarded it (Jimmy Carter, Bishop Tutu) but that truly is rare. The Prize has become close to meaningless.
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE INVESTMENTWATCH
“NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR TRUMP?”
Nonsense. If anything, Trump awkwardly stood in the way, called names, and made huge irresponsible threats, sending fleets of ships and missiles ready to fight a war. All while threatening new hostilities in still other places. The guy is literally a blowhard servant of the Pentagon and CIA He has demonstrated that many times in a fairly short period.
Prizes are about encouraging similar behavior in others. A peace prize to encourage others to threaten, intimidate, and call names? I do think that would be a parody of the concept, a Monty Pythonesque Peace Prize.
And if indeed he and others believe this blowhard approach is the key to success in nuclear disarmament, why is it not immediately applied to Israel, a nation whose nuclear weapons, in far greater numbers than North Korea’s, keep an entire region under constant threat and a nation with a long track record of aggression against its neighbors?
The new South Korean President, Moon Jae-In, had campaigned on his openness and willingness to go to North Korea. He very much struck me as an intelligent and sincere figure, coming especially after a previous very corrupt leader, only one of a number in Korea’s post-WWII period. Earlier decades featured, too, several figures who amounted to little more than thinly-disguised dictators, notably Rhee Syngman and Park Chung-Hee. That fact undoubtedly had a lot to do with the history of relations with North Korea.
Very quickly, though, after his election, the new president stopped talking in this open way and began parroting American rhetoric and taking unfriendly-looking measures, undoubtedly under great American pressure, while Trump sent ships and missiles. But the new president seems to have positioned himself finally to do the kind of thing he had campaigned for.
The only people involved with Korea who might deserve a prize are Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-In. Many have long said that if the two Koreas could be left to alone to sort their differences, that’s just what they would do, but the United States has never accepted that view, always putting itself into the middle of affairs and always refusing to talk to North Korea.
When they were finally allowed to get together, we got something promising, although everyone should be cautious about interpreting just what has happened. As I said, for over half a century America has refused even to speak directly with any North Korean leader, pressured others to do the same, refused even to recognize the country, and kept a heavily-equipped army at the border. Those attitudes are not going to evaporate suddenly.
However, we have other very worthy people for the Peace Prize, although I know with the highly politicized Peace Prize it will never be awarded to any of them. My number-one choice is Julian Assange, a genuinely heroic figure who has advanced people's understanding of government power and deception and offered insight as to how things really work.
But the prize is never awarded to people who would embarrass American imperial interests. Never. No, it goes to people who are often effectively servants of those interests (Aung San Suu Ky), or complete frauds (Barack Obama, Al Gore, Elie Wiesel), or even terrorists and mass killers (Henry Kissinger and Menachem Begin), or, most ineffectual of all, various organizations with vaguely peaceful-sounding objectives who stand to achieve very little that is real for peace (the EU or the Pugwash Conferences). It is quite a dismal record.
With all the Nobel hard-science prizes, tangible achievement is required, achievement of world importance, and certainly not just theory no matter how promising. But this is not the case for the Peace Price where the standard has no consistency or clarity at all over the years. Here and there, someone worthy is awarded it (Jimmy Carter, Bishop Tutu) but that truly is rare. The Prize has become close to meaningless.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FRANCE'S MADAME MACRON SAYS MELANIA TRUMP IS "REALLY FUN" - IT SURE DOES NOT SHOW IN PHOTOS - MELANIA RESEMBLES THE BRIDE STATUE ON TOP OF A VERY COSTLY WEDDING CAKE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Brigitte Macron says Melania Trump is ‘really fun’ but ‘can’t even go outside’”
Melania Trump is a beautiful woman, and she dresses beautifully.
And I know she is no dummy, speaking several languages as she does.
But there is something faintly disturbing in most photos of her.
She resembles the bride statue on the top of an extremely costly wedding cake.
There is something unreal and fantasy-like about her that is not at all appealing.
And she never really speaks or discusses anything, re-enforcing a fantasy-like image.
Of course, some might say, "well what would you expect of someone who would marry Donald Trump?" And there's undoubtedly truth in that.
It is mighty hard to see even a hint of what Madame Macron is talking about, she herself appearing in photos as quite a vivacious woman despite her age (65).
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Brigitte Macron says Melania Trump is ‘really fun’ but ‘can’t even go outside’”
Melania Trump is a beautiful woman, and she dresses beautifully.
And I know she is no dummy, speaking several languages as she does.
But there is something faintly disturbing in most photos of her.
She resembles the bride statue on the top of an extremely costly wedding cake.
There is something unreal and fantasy-like about her that is not at all appealing.
And she never really speaks or discusses anything, re-enforcing a fantasy-like image.
Of course, some might say, "well what would you expect of someone who would marry Donald Trump?" And there's undoubtedly truth in that.
It is mighty hard to see even a hint of what Madame Macron is talking about, she herself appearing in photos as quite a vivacious woman despite her age (65).
Friday, April 27, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: INEFFECTUAL OWEN JONES IN THE GUARDIAN ON TRUMP'S COMING VISIT TO BRITAIN - BIGOTRY IS THE SMALLEST FAULT TO BE FOUND IN TRUMP
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY OWEN JONES IN THE GUARDIAN
"Trump can come. But let him know Britain won’t stand for his bigotry”
And, as far as his bigotry, what is Britain going to do to show it won't stand for it? Stomp its tiny little feet?
The man is crude-mouthed, violent, ill-informed, given to sudden lurches, doesn't listen to anyone (except Netanyahu), proved inconstant to anyone close to him, and simply rude.
And your government goes with him, hand-in-hand. Kill people for no reason? Fine. Destroy things for no reason? Fine.
I only wish bigotry were Trump's serious problem, but it is not. It's just a little frosting on a poisoned cake.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY OWEN JONES IN THE GUARDIAN
"Trump can come. But let him know Britain won’t stand for his bigotry”
And, as far as his bigotry, what is Britain going to do to show it won't stand for it? Stomp its tiny little feet?
The man is crude-mouthed, violent, ill-informed, given to sudden lurches, doesn't listen to anyone (except Netanyahu), proved inconstant to anyone close to him, and simply rude.
And your government goes with him, hand-in-hand. Kill people for no reason? Fine. Destroy things for no reason? Fine.
I only wish bigotry were Trump's serious problem, but it is not. It's just a little frosting on a poisoned cake.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ANOTHER WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST? ONE WITH IRAN NOW BEING CONSTRUCTED - TRUMP SIMPLY DOING SOMEONE ELSE'S DIRTY WORK - SOME LEADER
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN (AND SURPRISINGLY LEFT UP BY EDITORS)
“Will the Iran nuclear deal survive Trump’s wrecking crew?
"If the US pulls out, we could be heading down the path of another senseless war."
Yes, indeed we could be headed for yet another war, and it is unbelievable.
There is, of course, only one real driver for this reckless and dangerous behavior: the government of Israel.
But it gets to stay back out of the spotlight because Trump is so ready to do their dirty work.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN (AND SURPRISINGLY LEFT UP BY EDITORS)
“Will the Iran nuclear deal survive Trump’s wrecking crew?
"If the US pulls out, we could be heading down the path of another senseless war."
Yes, indeed we could be headed for yet another war, and it is unbelievable.
There is, of course, only one real driver for this reckless and dangerous behavior: the government of Israel.
But it gets to stay back out of the spotlight because Trump is so ready to do their dirty work.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AS THEY USED TO SAY ON MONTY PYTHON "AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT" - PRINCE HARRY'S ROYAL WEDDING - GOD HERE'S A REAL FLYING CIRCUS
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Prince William to serve as best man Prince Harry at royal wedding”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/royal-wedding-harry-markle-william-1.4636121
Oh, I can hardly wait.
Just look at that almost surrealistically-posed photo at the top of the page.
It looks like something from the old television series, Twilight Zone (but done in artistically-muted colors).
Or some window dressing from an old department store with a penchant for the bizarre to attract shoppers.
The posed dullness of the image well suits Prince William, a pleasantly dull fellow indeed.
The dullness does not suit Prince Harry, a man who has proved himself genuinely mentally-imbalanced on a number of occasions with explosive, impulsive antics. These have included demanding to be sent to Afghanistan and afterwards bragging to people about having killed a man there. They include also his wearing a custom-made Nazi outfit, complete with swastika armband, some years ago to a cocktail costume party.
And the photo’s dullness certainly doesn't suit Meghan Markle, a beautiful woman and a very ambitious B-actress with her sights set on becoming a princess (Grace Kelly perhaps somewhere back in the thoughts?). Of course, the price for this fantasy is marrying the reality that is Prince Harry. But she is approaching forty years old, and in Hollywood, that's considered close to the end for most actresses whose mark was made only by looks. A Vanessa Redgrave or Maggie Smith or Judi Dench she is not.
Whatever else, the marriage represents one more Royal Family hanger-on set to live in high style off British taxpayers for the rest of her days.
Readers may enjoy this:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/john-chuckman-comment-britains-prince-harry-the-press-keeps-trying-to-gain-public-sympathy-for-this-unpleasant-and-unbalanced-man-with-rubbish-about-suffering-from-the-loss-of-his-mother/
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Prince William to serve as best man Prince Harry at royal wedding”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/royal-wedding-harry-markle-william-1.4636121
Oh, I can hardly wait.
Just look at that almost surrealistically-posed photo at the top of the page.
It looks like something from the old television series, Twilight Zone (but done in artistically-muted colors).
Or some window dressing from an old department store with a penchant for the bizarre to attract shoppers.
The posed dullness of the image well suits Prince William, a pleasantly dull fellow indeed.
The dullness does not suit Prince Harry, a man who has proved himself genuinely mentally-imbalanced on a number of occasions with explosive, impulsive antics. These have included demanding to be sent to Afghanistan and afterwards bragging to people about having killed a man there. They include also his wearing a custom-made Nazi outfit, complete with swastika armband, some years ago to a cocktail costume party.
And the photo’s dullness certainly doesn't suit Meghan Markle, a beautiful woman and a very ambitious B-actress with her sights set on becoming a princess (Grace Kelly perhaps somewhere back in the thoughts?). Of course, the price for this fantasy is marrying the reality that is Prince Harry. But she is approaching forty years old, and in Hollywood, that's considered close to the end for most actresses whose mark was made only by looks. A Vanessa Redgrave or Maggie Smith or Judi Dench she is not.
Whatever else, the marriage represents one more Royal Family hanger-on set to live in high style off British taxpayers for the rest of her days.
Readers may enjoy this:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/john-chuckman-comment-britains-prince-harry-the-press-keeps-trying-to-gain-public-sympathy-for-this-unpleasant-and-unbalanced-man-with-rubbish-about-suffering-from-the-loss-of-his-mother/
Thursday, April 26, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AT THE HEART OF AMERICAN HOSTILITY TO RUSSIA - RUSSIA SEEN AS A BARRIER TO THE WORLD DOMINATION AMERICA NOW PURSUES - UKRAINE AND SYRIA MANUFACTURED CRISES - SAD FATE OF OUR INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"'Pattern of misbehavior' keeps Russia from G7 ministers meeting, but it still dominates agenda"
This tells us just how ridiculous our international situation is. The main purpose of international organizations, such as the G7, is to keep the exchange of ideas and views among world leaders going, to talk rather than to act in isolation, and to gain understanding of the views of other major states.
But that is clearly not the way the G7 is being used today. As with the United Nations – which today is quieter and more passive than ever before in my lifetime, owing to American pressure, pressure about how to vote and for whom and pressure over anything displeasing with various episodes of unilaterally cutting-back its financial obligations, as we saw with UNESCO – the G7 is being used as a mechanism for American policy. And it seems to be willingly going along for the ride.
So, here we start with an important leader being the intense subject of discussions at the G7. That leader, an exceptionally rational and open-minded person, is perfectly ready to discuss any of your concerns, as are his major ministers. But the United States is absolutely determined to exclude that leader, and it uses its huge military, diplomatic, financial, and economic muscle with allies and partners to keep him isolated.
So, you never talk to the person who is the intense subject of your interest? That sure makes sense to me.
And what “misbehavior” (silly word) we can fairly ask? Taking steps to thwart the effects of an American-paid coup in a country on his border (a coup against an elected government, mind you)? Imagine what America would do if a third party did the same in, say, Mexico? There would be tanks in Mexico City immediately. Putin has invaded nothing. He, too, could easily have had tanks in Kiev, had he wanted to.
The coup government's own behavior has been scandalous and should be the subject of discussion. The government legislated against the language rights of one-quarter of Ukraine's population early on. That's precisely why the predominantly Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine unilaterally seceded.
The coup-government started a civil war with the two Russian-speaking regions in the East, also known as Donbas. The same coup-government has made a mess of the national economy, sending it into a tailspin. Corruption in the coup-government is so rife, even American-dominated Europeans can even smell it. For their inept efforts at civil war in the Donbas, the coup-government took new measures for a military draft in Western Ukraine. It has been a disaster with countless young men going into hiding.
But I think none of this really has a great deal to do with why the United States busies itself with labeling and treating Russia as a pariah state and pressuring its allies to do the same. These matters only provide a pretext. America is determined to reduce Russia since it sees it as one of the major stumbling blocks in its current drive for world dominance. Russia is the only country that can obliterate the US, China not having arrived at quite that level yet, although it is working on it. Russia’s geographical location, right next to Europe and close to the Middle East, areas of intense American involvement and interference, also strongly affects American official attitudes, as does, of course, Russia’s independent view of world events.
Of course, another irritant for America is the terrible situation in Syria, previously a peaceful and beautiful land, whose leader remains at least as popular as any leader in the West you can name. Russia has come to the assistance of an ally that was literally invaded by huge well-armed, well-paid gangs of terrorists. Of course, if you only superficially view American rhetoric about terror, you would say Russia is the hero of the piece. At any rate, it is only doing what every country is entitled to do, to help an ally by formal request.
The trouble is, in this instance, things are not quite what they seem. America employs complete double-think towards terror. Terrorists who oppose us, we hate. But terrorists who support us are not only just fine, we will support them. Support them covertly, of course, because the State Department would never declare such things openly. That is the situation in Syria which Russia has run up against in the effort to do what they are entitled under international law to do, defend an ally and fight terror, and they are also very much hated for this reason.
America never stops playacting the role of world defender of freedom, even while frequently its actions go in just the opposite direction. Its public image is assiduously cultivated as a kind of international comic-book superhero. Of course, all the confusion engendered with the general public by America’s two faces only helps the project along. It does take a bit of effort to inform yourself, and all of America’s corporate press is enlisted in the patriotic task of working against accurate information.
Contemporary America simply wants to dominate everything on the planet now. It’s reflected in the Pentagon’s slogan of recent years, “full-spectrum dominance.”
And this should be a profound cause of concern for everyone, but America’s immense economic, financial, diplomatic, and publicity muscle are at work preventing intelligent dissent from other countries. After all, every ordinary person understands how and why it is dangerous to have a dictator ruling a country. Then why is it any more acceptable to have a dictator ruling the planet? It’s not, of course. It’s even more dangerous.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"'Pattern of misbehavior' keeps Russia from G7 ministers meeting, but it still dominates agenda"
This tells us just how ridiculous our international situation is. The main purpose of international organizations, such as the G7, is to keep the exchange of ideas and views among world leaders going, to talk rather than to act in isolation, and to gain understanding of the views of other major states.
But that is clearly not the way the G7 is being used today. As with the United Nations – which today is quieter and more passive than ever before in my lifetime, owing to American pressure, pressure about how to vote and for whom and pressure over anything displeasing with various episodes of unilaterally cutting-back its financial obligations, as we saw with UNESCO – the G7 is being used as a mechanism for American policy. And it seems to be willingly going along for the ride.
So, here we start with an important leader being the intense subject of discussions at the G7. That leader, an exceptionally rational and open-minded person, is perfectly ready to discuss any of your concerns, as are his major ministers. But the United States is absolutely determined to exclude that leader, and it uses its huge military, diplomatic, financial, and economic muscle with allies and partners to keep him isolated.
So, you never talk to the person who is the intense subject of your interest? That sure makes sense to me.
And what “misbehavior” (silly word) we can fairly ask? Taking steps to thwart the effects of an American-paid coup in a country on his border (a coup against an elected government, mind you)? Imagine what America would do if a third party did the same in, say, Mexico? There would be tanks in Mexico City immediately. Putin has invaded nothing. He, too, could easily have had tanks in Kiev, had he wanted to.
The coup government's own behavior has been scandalous and should be the subject of discussion. The government legislated against the language rights of one-quarter of Ukraine's population early on. That's precisely why the predominantly Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine unilaterally seceded.
The coup-government started a civil war with the two Russian-speaking regions in the East, also known as Donbas. The same coup-government has made a mess of the national economy, sending it into a tailspin. Corruption in the coup-government is so rife, even American-dominated Europeans can even smell it. For their inept efforts at civil war in the Donbas, the coup-government took new measures for a military draft in Western Ukraine. It has been a disaster with countless young men going into hiding.
But I think none of this really has a great deal to do with why the United States busies itself with labeling and treating Russia as a pariah state and pressuring its allies to do the same. These matters only provide a pretext. America is determined to reduce Russia since it sees it as one of the major stumbling blocks in its current drive for world dominance. Russia is the only country that can obliterate the US, China not having arrived at quite that level yet, although it is working on it. Russia’s geographical location, right next to Europe and close to the Middle East, areas of intense American involvement and interference, also strongly affects American official attitudes, as does, of course, Russia’s independent view of world events.
Of course, another irritant for America is the terrible situation in Syria, previously a peaceful and beautiful land, whose leader remains at least as popular as any leader in the West you can name. Russia has come to the assistance of an ally that was literally invaded by huge well-armed, well-paid gangs of terrorists. Of course, if you only superficially view American rhetoric about terror, you would say Russia is the hero of the piece. At any rate, it is only doing what every country is entitled to do, to help an ally by formal request.
The trouble is, in this instance, things are not quite what they seem. America employs complete double-think towards terror. Terrorists who oppose us, we hate. But terrorists who support us are not only just fine, we will support them. Support them covertly, of course, because the State Department would never declare such things openly. That is the situation in Syria which Russia has run up against in the effort to do what they are entitled under international law to do, defend an ally and fight terror, and they are also very much hated for this reason.
America never stops playacting the role of world defender of freedom, even while frequently its actions go in just the opposite direction. Its public image is assiduously cultivated as a kind of international comic-book superhero. Of course, all the confusion engendered with the general public by America’s two faces only helps the project along. It does take a bit of effort to inform yourself, and all of America’s corporate press is enlisted in the patriotic task of working against accurate information.
Contemporary America simply wants to dominate everything on the planet now. It’s reflected in the Pentagon’s slogan of recent years, “full-spectrum dominance.”
And this should be a profound cause of concern for everyone, but America’s immense economic, financial, diplomatic, and publicity muscle are at work preventing intelligent dissent from other countries. After all, every ordinary person understands how and why it is dangerous to have a dictator ruling a country. Then why is it any more acceptable to have a dictator ruling the planet? It’s not, of course. It’s even more dangerous.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AFTER WEEKS OF GUARDIAN HYPE ABOUT NON-EXISTENT CHEMICAL WEAPONS ONE OF ITS DRONE WRITERS ASKS WHETHER THEY ARE SO MUCH WORSE THAN OTHER WEAPONS - AND AMERICA'S MOST DISTURBING AND COSTLY WEAPONS PROGRAM ON EARTH
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN (AND SURPRISINGLY LEFT UP)
"Why are chemical weapons worse than other weapons of mass destruction?"
No, of course they are not, on an intellectual level.
But the horror of chemical weapons comes from that vast blunder called the Great War where they first made a significant appearance.
Everyone was so appalled by the results of that huge bloodbath, which indeed served no purpose, that they looked for bits and pieces to try fixing. Chemical weapons were one of them.
Anyway, humanity often gets these inexplicable fixations, but goes right on with the killing and even developing new ways to kill.
I do think it important for people to understand, since the topic of poison gas has been much in the news recently, that the United States, despite the OPCW and chemical-weapons treaty, still maintains its large arsenal. Russia, by contrast, destroyed theirs under supervision.
Readers should note, too, that America's big, new drive to develop flexible and more "usable" nuclear weapons - a vast trillion-dollar project - is likely the most disturbing and dangerous weapons program on the planet.
It wants to develop, in effect, nuclear warheads which can be dialed down for "minor" uses or dialed back up to full power.
The temptation to use such weapons will be overwhelming. After all, the United States seriously planned the use of conventional nuclear weapons several times. Against China and the USSR in the 1950s and again in the 1960s. Also, in Vietnam and in Korea.
Of course, the United States remains the only state to have actually used nuclear weapons, twice, both times against civilians.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN (AND SURPRISINGLY LEFT UP)
"Why are chemical weapons worse than other weapons of mass destruction?"
No, of course they are not, on an intellectual level.
But the horror of chemical weapons comes from that vast blunder called the Great War where they first made a significant appearance.
Everyone was so appalled by the results of that huge bloodbath, which indeed served no purpose, that they looked for bits and pieces to try fixing. Chemical weapons were one of them.
Anyway, humanity often gets these inexplicable fixations, but goes right on with the killing and even developing new ways to kill.
I do think it important for people to understand, since the topic of poison gas has been much in the news recently, that the United States, despite the OPCW and chemical-weapons treaty, still maintains its large arsenal. Russia, by contrast, destroyed theirs under supervision.
Readers should note, too, that America's big, new drive to develop flexible and more "usable" nuclear weapons - a vast trillion-dollar project - is likely the most disturbing and dangerous weapons program on the planet.
It wants to develop, in effect, nuclear warheads which can be dialed down for "minor" uses or dialed back up to full power.
The temptation to use such weapons will be overwhelming. After all, the United States seriously planned the use of conventional nuclear weapons several times. Against China and the USSR in the 1950s and again in the 1960s. Also, in Vietnam and in Korea.
Of course, the United States remains the only state to have actually used nuclear weapons, twice, both times against civilians.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MACRON'S VISIT TO TRUMP - COLUMNIST ASKS WHETHER IT WILL "PAY OFF"?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
“Macron has taken a big risk with his trip to the US. Will the gamble pay off?”
Pay off?
In what currency?
It, of course, never hurts to be friends with an American President, even if he is a bizarre man like Trump.
Macron himself already has achieved record-low approval ratings for a French President in polls after just a few months.
Macron is hopeless, arrogant and blind to half-a-dozen realities in France and the world.
Truly, a complete creature of the establishment.
You know French Presidents in the past often formed their own political parties.
Were Macron to do that, it would be called The Establishment Party.
I truly wish him little luck in anything.
By the way, he can be quite fickle. On the Iran Nuclear Treaty, one of the very few areas he held a solid view, he's already been saying it needs some adjustment.
Does that reflect intense lobbying? Of course, it does, as well as his own weakness.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
“Macron has taken a big risk with his trip to the US. Will the gamble pay off?”
Pay off?
In what currency?
It, of course, never hurts to be friends with an American President, even if he is a bizarre man like Trump.
Macron himself already has achieved record-low approval ratings for a French President in polls after just a few months.
Macron is hopeless, arrogant and blind to half-a-dozen realities in France and the world.
Truly, a complete creature of the establishment.
You know French Presidents in the past often formed their own political parties.
Were Macron to do that, it would be called The Establishment Party.
I truly wish him little luck in anything.
By the way, he can be quite fickle. On the Iran Nuclear Treaty, one of the very few areas he held a solid view, he's already been saying it needs some adjustment.
Does that reflect intense lobbying? Of course, it does, as well as his own weakness.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ARROGANCE AND VIOLENCE ALMOST WITHOUT LIMIT TODAY FROM ISRAEL - "DEFENSE" MINISTER CLAIMS OTHERS NOT ALLOWED TO DEFEND THEMSELVES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Israeli Defense Minister Vows to Crush 'S-300, S-700, Etc' If Tel Aviv Feels Threatened
“Israel's Russia-born defense minister vows to keep on striking Syria "if attacked" regardless of what the Russians supply while the Intelligence minister predicts Moscow will send nothing”
Of course, what this arrogant and violent man is saying is something along these lines.
We can fly over and attack places in another country whenever we want.
If that county tries defending itself - as all countries are entitled to do under international law - we will only attack them more.
Does anyone wonder why Israel is at the very heart of almost all the ugly conflicts we see? The Neocon Wars? America's extrajudicial hi-tech killing system? Gaza's horror?
And all of this from the most law-breaking country on earth.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Israeli Defense Minister Vows to Crush 'S-300, S-700, Etc' If Tel Aviv Feels Threatened
“Israel's Russia-born defense minister vows to keep on striking Syria "if attacked" regardless of what the Russians supply while the Intelligence minister predicts Moscow will send nothing”
Of course, what this arrogant and violent man is saying is something along these lines.
We can fly over and attack places in another country whenever we want.
If that county tries defending itself - as all countries are entitled to do under international law - we will only attack them more.
Does anyone wonder why Israel is at the very heart of almost all the ugly conflicts we see? The Neocon Wars? America's extrajudicial hi-tech killing system? Gaza's horror?
And all of this from the most law-breaking country on earth.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AGAIN AMERICA POMPOUSLY ACCUSES CHINA OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE - AS BEFORE CHINA RESPONDS WITH AN AMERICAN LIST - STATE DEPARTMENT INSISTS ON CASTING AMERICA WITH JIMMY STEWART IN THE ROLE OF KING KONG
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“China accuses US of 'severe infringements' on human rights in report
“Beijing claims America poses as 'guardian of human rights' after State Department criticises Chinese rights record”
The American State Department regularly plays the charade of criticizing other countries for the kinds of crimes and abuses of which they are themselves guilty.
It does get a little tiresome. It’s a bit like regularly casting Jimmy Stewart in parts fit for King Kong.
Even dictators can be right sometimes, and China is very much right here.
The US has killed at least 8 million people, injured countless millions more, and created vast floods of terrified refugees since WWII with all of its imperial wars.
And the destruction even came all wrapped up in atrocities and use of terrible, inhuman weapons such as napalm, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, and other chemical weapons.
All of it in aggressive imperial wars, having nothing to do with rights or freedom.
And it constantly supports, and never once speaks up about, the world's greatest ongoing human rights horror - Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
Generations of abuse and oppression and deprivation, periodically interspersed with large massacres, plus approaching three thousand assassinations.
And all of that is apart from the ugly details of much of domestic American life, such as 1,100 killings a year by local police. Far more than any terrorist could wish to achieve. And it has the distinction of the world's largest prison population, too, and by a huge margin.
Sadly, America really has grown into a place whose ugliness can compete with the very worst.
But it still feels entitled to pompously announce lists of abuses by others. Others who do not toe the American policy line, of course.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“China accuses US of 'severe infringements' on human rights in report
“Beijing claims America poses as 'guardian of human rights' after State Department criticises Chinese rights record”
The American State Department regularly plays the charade of criticizing other countries for the kinds of crimes and abuses of which they are themselves guilty.
It does get a little tiresome. It’s a bit like regularly casting Jimmy Stewart in parts fit for King Kong.
Even dictators can be right sometimes, and China is very much right here.
The US has killed at least 8 million people, injured countless millions more, and created vast floods of terrified refugees since WWII with all of its imperial wars.
And the destruction even came all wrapped up in atrocities and use of terrible, inhuman weapons such as napalm, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, and other chemical weapons.
All of it in aggressive imperial wars, having nothing to do with rights or freedom.
And it constantly supports, and never once speaks up about, the world's greatest ongoing human rights horror - Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
Generations of abuse and oppression and deprivation, periodically interspersed with large massacres, plus approaching three thousand assassinations.
And all of that is apart from the ugly details of much of domestic American life, such as 1,100 killings a year by local police. Far more than any terrorist could wish to achieve. And it has the distinction of the world's largest prison population, too, and by a huge margin.
Sadly, America really has grown into a place whose ugliness can compete with the very worst.
But it still feels entitled to pompously announce lists of abuses by others. Others who do not toe the American policy line, of course.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHAT AMY GOODMAN'S DEMOCRACY NOW ACTUALLY REPRESENTS - REAL LIBERALISM (DEFINED HERE) IS ABOUT AS SCARCE AS TRUTH OR DECENCY IN AMERICA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Democracy Now’s 'Alt Media' Platform for Humanitarian Imperialism in Syria
“Sprinkle it with bleeding heart rhetoric and pinkos will eat up all the western imperialism they are served and scream for seconds”
The headline is a bit over-the-top, but I understand where it comes from. I do object to anyone’s disparaging liberalism in general, something all too common these days. Genuine liberalism is sturdy and has its roots in the work of some of Europe’s finest political and philosophical minds over the last three centuries.
Amy Goodman does not represent that. She represents a brand of faux-liberalism, one found typically in contemporary America, which always features squishy political correctness and acceptance of American imperialism. They are in large part spokespeople for a “kinder, gentler” empire, truly odd hybrid types whose influence has widely extended into Western Europe and Canada now.
In effect, Amy Goodman and others like her are CIA shills.
Her brand of fluffy, ineffectual liberalism is just fine, if that's what she wants, but if you examine the net effect of her views, she unquestionably represents CIA interests.
There are a number of American liberals in this same category, and there long have been. Publications, distinguished ones, too, serve and have served this role. The old Saturday Review, Time Magazine, the New York Times, etc, etc. Some were actually penetrated by CIA and some were heavily subsidized.
What more effective way to help guide or control American domestic opinion? It's a gimmick that has been used by security services many times, and it works.
I have no idea whether she is aware or not of her situation. Often people in a position such as hers are quietly and secretly supported by the security services in their work and never know it.
Of course, she's happy to have a good, cozy job with a fair amount of ego-satisfying public exposure, and I'm sure she actually believes she is working for the common good.
But America is not, and never has been, a genuinely liberal nation.
And I'm talking about real liberalism - the philosophy that always respects human rights and democratic values and rule of law and always abhors bullies and aggressive war. That does not exist in America, except in scattered micro-populations.
How else could it be in a brutal empire, straining to control every last square inch of earth?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Democracy Now’s 'Alt Media' Platform for Humanitarian Imperialism in Syria
“Sprinkle it with bleeding heart rhetoric and pinkos will eat up all the western imperialism they are served and scream for seconds”
The headline is a bit over-the-top, but I understand where it comes from. I do object to anyone’s disparaging liberalism in general, something all too common these days. Genuine liberalism is sturdy and has its roots in the work of some of Europe’s finest political and philosophical minds over the last three centuries.
Amy Goodman does not represent that. She represents a brand of faux-liberalism, one found typically in contemporary America, which always features squishy political correctness and acceptance of American imperialism. They are in large part spokespeople for a “kinder, gentler” empire, truly odd hybrid types whose influence has widely extended into Western Europe and Canada now.
In effect, Amy Goodman and others like her are CIA shills.
Her brand of fluffy, ineffectual liberalism is just fine, if that's what she wants, but if you examine the net effect of her views, she unquestionably represents CIA interests.
There are a number of American liberals in this same category, and there long have been. Publications, distinguished ones, too, serve and have served this role. The old Saturday Review, Time Magazine, the New York Times, etc, etc. Some were actually penetrated by CIA and some were heavily subsidized.
What more effective way to help guide or control American domestic opinion? It's a gimmick that has been used by security services many times, and it works.
I have no idea whether she is aware or not of her situation. Often people in a position such as hers are quietly and secretly supported by the security services in their work and never know it.
Of course, she's happy to have a good, cozy job with a fair amount of ego-satisfying public exposure, and I'm sure she actually believes she is working for the common good.
But America is not, and never has been, a genuinely liberal nation.
And I'm talking about real liberalism - the philosophy that always respects human rights and democratic values and rule of law and always abhors bullies and aggressive war. That does not exist in America, except in scattered micro-populations.
How else could it be in a brutal empire, straining to control every last square inch of earth?
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HEAD OF OPCW REVEALS THERE WAS NO MATERIAL THAT CAN BE IDENTIFIED AS RUSSIAN INVOLVED IN SKRIPAL AFFAIR - NOTORIOUS BRILLIANT PRANKSTERS GET HIM ON THE PHONE THINKING IT IS THE LEADER OF POLAND CALLING HIM
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
OPCW Head Tells Pranksters Skripal Nerve Agent Not ‘Russian’
The nerve agent used in the Skripal affair can be produced by any country, the famous Russian pranksters Vladimir “Vovan” Kuznetsov and Alexey “Lexus” Stolyarov found out [while posing as the Poland’s leader in a call to OPCW – the kind of revealing trick they have done a number of times, including to the embarrassing Nikki Haley]
https://russia-insider.com/en/opcw-head-tells-pranksters-skripal-nerve-agent-not-russian/ri23278
Brilliant, just brilliant.
The information, of course, will be ignored by our corporate press, but it is definitive.
Many said or suspected as much, but it is always nice to have confirmation at the highest level.
These Russians deserve to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
Not that they'd ever get it - it is pretty well restricted to mediocrities and those serving American imperial interests - but the gesture would be nice.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
OPCW Head Tells Pranksters Skripal Nerve Agent Not ‘Russian’
The nerve agent used in the Skripal affair can be produced by any country, the famous Russian pranksters Vladimir “Vovan” Kuznetsov and Alexey “Lexus” Stolyarov found out [while posing as the Poland’s leader in a call to OPCW – the kind of revealing trick they have done a number of times, including to the embarrassing Nikki Haley]
https://russia-insider.com/en/opcw-head-tells-pranksters-skripal-nerve-agent-not-russian/ri23278
Brilliant, just brilliant.
The information, of course, will be ignored by our corporate press, but it is definitive.
Many said or suspected as much, but it is always nice to have confirmation at the highest level.
These Russians deserve to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
Not that they'd ever get it - it is pretty well restricted to mediocrities and those serving American imperial interests - but the gesture would be nice.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: POPE GIVES 3000 ICE CREAMS TO THE POOR OF ROME - THIS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE APPALLING PUBLIC RELATIONS STUNTS EVER
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Pope gives 3,000 ice creams to poor and homeless people
“Pontiff celebrates St George's Day with 'most needy' of Rome”
3000 ice creams?
From a man who commands immense resources?
From a man who claims to represent the views and intentions of Jesus?
Is this a joke?
No, it's simply the most appalling public relations stunt.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Pope gives 3,000 ice creams to poor and homeless people
“Pontiff celebrates St George's Day with 'most needy' of Rome”
3000 ice creams?
From a man who commands immense resources?
From a man who claims to represent the views and intentions of Jesus?
Is this a joke?
No, it's simply the most appalling public relations stunt.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: PIECE ABOUT CANADA'S UNPLEASANT FOREIGN MINISTER CHRYSTIA FREELAND - YES SHE IS UNPLEASANT AND HER BOSS JUSTIN TRUDEAU ALSO HAS PROVED LESS-THAN-PALATABLE - A WORD ON WHAT CANADA IS TODAY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Chrystia Freeland -- Ukraine's Foreign Minister in Canada
“Hosting the G7 Freeland has made the summit not all about vital Canadian interests, but Ukrainian ones”
Many of us are truly sick of her, but then many of us have become rather sick of her boss, too.
She's not only full of rah-rah Ukraine stuff but makes many ill-informed statements on other matters, and she is simply a rather graceless, unpleasant personality. Intense without much merit in her intensity. Her genetic make-up seems to have missed any of the charm or grace genes.
That superficially charming man, her boss, has been proved himself a terrible disappointment. Fluffy and without any worthy views or political courage, a rather servile figure to the US. Almost the opposite of his father, Pierre.
In the end, and I've said this before, Canada is, sadly, only a quasi-independent nation, virtually a colony of the US.
It has long been that way, but never before has it been more painfully obvious.
As is often the case with colonies, life in Canada has the merit of some relief from the intensity and visible insanity we see in Washington. That's a small blessing, but a real one.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Chrystia Freeland -- Ukraine's Foreign Minister in Canada
“Hosting the G7 Freeland has made the summit not all about vital Canadian interests, but Ukrainian ones”
Many of us are truly sick of her, but then many of us have become rather sick of her boss, too.
She's not only full of rah-rah Ukraine stuff but makes many ill-informed statements on other matters, and she is simply a rather graceless, unpleasant personality. Intense without much merit in her intensity. Her genetic make-up seems to have missed any of the charm or grace genes.
That superficially charming man, her boss, has been proved himself a terrible disappointment. Fluffy and without any worthy views or political courage, a rather servile figure to the US. Almost the opposite of his father, Pierre.
In the end, and I've said this before, Canada is, sadly, only a quasi-independent nation, virtually a colony of the US.
It has long been that way, but never before has it been more painfully obvious.
As is often the case with colonies, life in Canada has the merit of some relief from the intensity and visible insanity we see in Washington. That's a small blessing, but a real one.
Monday, April 23, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A WRITER'S ANALYSIS OF THE LAST MISSILE ATTACK ON SYRIA - A GENUINELY BIZARRE EVENT - WHERE THE PENTAGON IS HEADED FOR THE FUTURE - AND IT IS A TERRIFYING VISION - WHY WE NEED TO BE GLAD FOR RUSSIA AND CHINA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THE SAKER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Each 'Click' Brings Us One Step Closer to the 'Bang!'
“We survived April 14th. Doesn't mean it was a good idea.”
Interesting analysis. I thought especially that last about the Triad. Of course, the efforts to build more flexible and "usable" nuclear weapons underway in the US is related to this.
The analysis of the missile attack is definitely accurate, although I think the story of the attack goes even further, right down to a degree of coordination with Russian military about which areas would be safe to attack.
Any normal person would say, then why attack anything?
The answer is found in the virtually daily phone calls to the White House from Netanyahu plus the arrogant Israel Lobby, the single most politically influential lobby in the United States.
The fact that the US behaved in that way is further evidence of Russia's ability to effectively checkmate some of America's aggressive operations, at least where direct Russian interests are involved. it also serves the conclusions about the Triad.
Of course, in the longer run, America could save immense amounts of money doing away with much of its conventional forces. The more Russia manages to neutralize American conventional forces, the more incentive the Pentagon has to change over to a new approach.
Someday, the President or the Pentagon may just be able to press a button to fire a nuclear-capable missile - from a distant submarine or a distant plane - at a target in, say, Syria, without having a big show of forces nearby, forces which are vulnerable to Russia's best missile technology.
Depending on the situation and judgments made in Washington, the missile will carry conventional or dialed-back "new nuclear" or full-blown nuclear warheads.
That seems to be a guiding vision for the Pentagon, although we have to add emerging warfare from orbit to the mix.
In such an ugly world with one country working intensely to dominate everyone - ironically a country whose political rhetoric has always disparaged dictators in various countries - we need all be grateful for some counter-balancing force from Russia and China. And that is why they are especially hated right now in Washington, especially Russia because China has not yet quite arrived at the capacity to obliterate America. Russia has, and that is the major fact for all the lying hysteria about Russian aggression from the most aggressive country on earth.
There is no one else capable right now of counterbalancing, in any way, America’s juggernaut effort at dominating the planet. Europe, which has the potential, is totally subservient. Indeed, it is effectively occupied by NATO.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THE SAKER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Each 'Click' Brings Us One Step Closer to the 'Bang!'
“We survived April 14th. Doesn't mean it was a good idea.”
Interesting analysis. I thought especially that last about the Triad. Of course, the efforts to build more flexible and "usable" nuclear weapons underway in the US is related to this.
The analysis of the missile attack is definitely accurate, although I think the story of the attack goes even further, right down to a degree of coordination with Russian military about which areas would be safe to attack.
Any normal person would say, then why attack anything?
The answer is found in the virtually daily phone calls to the White House from Netanyahu plus the arrogant Israel Lobby, the single most politically influential lobby in the United States.
The fact that the US behaved in that way is further evidence of Russia's ability to effectively checkmate some of America's aggressive operations, at least where direct Russian interests are involved. it also serves the conclusions about the Triad.
Of course, in the longer run, America could save immense amounts of money doing away with much of its conventional forces. The more Russia manages to neutralize American conventional forces, the more incentive the Pentagon has to change over to a new approach.
Someday, the President or the Pentagon may just be able to press a button to fire a nuclear-capable missile - from a distant submarine or a distant plane - at a target in, say, Syria, without having a big show of forces nearby, forces which are vulnerable to Russia's best missile technology.
Depending on the situation and judgments made in Washington, the missile will carry conventional or dialed-back "new nuclear" or full-blown nuclear warheads.
That seems to be a guiding vision for the Pentagon, although we have to add emerging warfare from orbit to the mix.
In such an ugly world with one country working intensely to dominate everyone - ironically a country whose political rhetoric has always disparaged dictators in various countries - we need all be grateful for some counter-balancing force from Russia and China. And that is why they are especially hated right now in Washington, especially Russia because China has not yet quite arrived at the capacity to obliterate America. Russia has, and that is the major fact for all the lying hysteria about Russian aggression from the most aggressive country on earth.
There is no one else capable right now of counterbalancing, in any way, America’s juggernaut effort at dominating the planet. Europe, which has the potential, is totally subservient. Indeed, it is effectively occupied by NATO.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOMEONE WHO KNEW SYRIA WRITES OF SEEING PHOTOS OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED - I THINK THEN OF THE FIRE-BOMBING OF DRESDEN IN WWII - AN UNPARALLELED HORROR DONE BY SOME OF THE SAME ACTORS AT WORK IN SYRIA
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY EMAD NOR ELDEEN IN THE INDEPENDENT
“I was a tour guide in Syria – here's what it was like before the war
“Months after escaping to Egypt, I saw video footage showing the destruction on our street. I saw that my office had been destroyed by heavy shelling. My memories and all my hard work were literally turned into rubble”
I have some familiarity with Syria from documentaries, a remarkably beautiful and interesting historical place.
I can't say how distressing it is to see what has happened.
And most of those responsible for this are supposedly advanced and civilized states - America, Israel, Britain, and France - assisted by a bloody prince in Saudi Arabia and, originally, by a madman in Turkey.
But then, if you think about it, it was American and British forces who fire-bombed Dresden in WWII, a pointless act of vast terror intended only to inflict psychological hurt on Germans.
It killed no one still knows how many - estimates vary from 60 thousand to several hundred thousand - and they died horribly in the inferno and as the very oxygen in the air was sucked up. America and Britain’s act utterly destroyed one of Europe's greatest heritage sites.
As you might expect, the same folks have little reason to care about a place so far away as Syria, a place filled with even greater and far more ancient heritage sites. And the people are mainly Muslims, so who cares, really?
If you let your politics be controlled by psychopaths, this is what you get.
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY EMAD NOR ELDEEN IN THE INDEPENDENT
“I was a tour guide in Syria – here's what it was like before the war
“Months after escaping to Egypt, I saw video footage showing the destruction on our street. I saw that my office had been destroyed by heavy shelling. My memories and all my hard work were literally turned into rubble”
I have some familiarity with Syria from documentaries, a remarkably beautiful and interesting historical place.
I can't say how distressing it is to see what has happened.
And most of those responsible for this are supposedly advanced and civilized states - America, Israel, Britain, and France - assisted by a bloody prince in Saudi Arabia and, originally, by a madman in Turkey.
But then, if you think about it, it was American and British forces who fire-bombed Dresden in WWII, a pointless act of vast terror intended only to inflict psychological hurt on Germans.
It killed no one still knows how many - estimates vary from 60 thousand to several hundred thousand - and they died horribly in the inferno and as the very oxygen in the air was sucked up. America and Britain’s act utterly destroyed one of Europe's greatest heritage sites.
As you might expect, the same folks have little reason to care about a place so far away as Syria, a place filled with even greater and far more ancient heritage sites. And the people are mainly Muslims, so who cares, really?
If you let your politics be controlled by psychopaths, this is what you get.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FRANCE'S MACRON SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT SYRIA WHICH MAKES ME THINK OF GEORGE ORWELL - PERHAPS WRITING AGAINST ABUSE OF POWER AND TERROR HAS ALWAYS BEEN A WASTE OF TIME - IT JUST KEEPS COMING BACK IN NEW FORMS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SOUTHFRONT
“FRANCE’S PRESIDENT SAYS HE WANTS TO BUILD A “NEW SYRIA” WITH THE U.S.”
Don't you just love the profound dishonesty of that statement about wanting to help the U.S. "build" a new Syrian state?
It is positively Orwellian.
You build by warring. Well, Orwell did say, in 1984, “War is Peace.”
Does it ever occur that the Syrians might want to follow their own path? Why is it any more right to interfere in their affairs than it would be for third party to go to work on Corsica or Basque or Normandy?
Syria's current leader remains popular, is supported by major factions, including by almost all Christians who regard him as a protector of religious rights in the region, and by the army which has gone through five years of hell with him? He is as legitimate as it gets.
I suspect the actual percentage of total election votes for Macron or Theresa May likely would not match Assad’s support. Those countries, as for so many in the Western world, are ones where democratic institutions are carefully constructed and maintained to enable actual minorities to rule. The previous prime minister of Britain, David Cameron ruled with about 35% of votes.
What we have in Syria is Hell induced from the outside, by France along with the United States, Israel, Britain, Saudi Arabia, and, originally Turkey. Each with its own motives for picking the carcass.
500,000 killed to "build" a new Syria? Several million refugees sent fleeing for their lives to "build" a new Syria? Some of civilization's greatest ancient heritage destroyed to "build" a new Syria? Language just does not come falser, not in the most extreme advertising and not in outright propaganda.
Perhaps, a new state like Libya would be the model? A place once run for the benefit of its people and which remained at peace, but which is now reduced literally to chaos?
A new state like Iraq, occupied still by American military forces and heavy contingents of CIA, after a war killing a million people?
A new state like Afghanistan, where women and children and old men are still being bombed fifteen years after invasion?
Like Egypt's fresh spanking-new dictatorship?
Something resembling the merits of Saudi Arabia?
Macron has proved an even worse puke than I regarded him when he was elected. He has already demonstrated himself as America's official doormat in Europe. Even Trump doesn't say what he is saying, and it couldn't be more obvious whose words he is parroting.
Those words are from that wonderful government that now has shot thousands of unarmed Palestinians demonstrating for human dignity and rights near its border. The third massacre in not many years. This time the Israeli forces are using a form of dum-dum bullet, so that even the wounded get horrible injuries, as these expand and twirl going through an arm or leg or hip.
Of course, that wonderful government wants to hold on to the Golan Heights it stole from Syria. It also wants to enlarge that holding with another slice of Syria, “just a security perimeter.” With a strong leader like Assad out of the way and Syria cut up into weak Balkan-like regions, the world is Israel's oyster, as it were. That is, what the horrible war has always been about.
France used to give the world some great presidents, but in recent times, especially with Hollande and Macron, it has hit the very bottom for integrity and honor and independent thinking. It certainly is no longer true what Ben Franklin, as Ambassador to France, said, so long ago, about every man having two countries, his own and France.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SOUTHFRONT
“FRANCE’S PRESIDENT SAYS HE WANTS TO BUILD A “NEW SYRIA” WITH THE U.S.”
Don't you just love the profound dishonesty of that statement about wanting to help the U.S. "build" a new Syrian state?
It is positively Orwellian.
You build by warring. Well, Orwell did say, in 1984, “War is Peace.”
Does it ever occur that the Syrians might want to follow their own path? Why is it any more right to interfere in their affairs than it would be for third party to go to work on Corsica or Basque or Normandy?
Syria's current leader remains popular, is supported by major factions, including by almost all Christians who regard him as a protector of religious rights in the region, and by the army which has gone through five years of hell with him? He is as legitimate as it gets.
I suspect the actual percentage of total election votes for Macron or Theresa May likely would not match Assad’s support. Those countries, as for so many in the Western world, are ones where democratic institutions are carefully constructed and maintained to enable actual minorities to rule. The previous prime minister of Britain, David Cameron ruled with about 35% of votes.
What we have in Syria is Hell induced from the outside, by France along with the United States, Israel, Britain, Saudi Arabia, and, originally Turkey. Each with its own motives for picking the carcass.
500,000 killed to "build" a new Syria? Several million refugees sent fleeing for their lives to "build" a new Syria? Some of civilization's greatest ancient heritage destroyed to "build" a new Syria? Language just does not come falser, not in the most extreme advertising and not in outright propaganda.
Perhaps, a new state like Libya would be the model? A place once run for the benefit of its people and which remained at peace, but which is now reduced literally to chaos?
A new state like Iraq, occupied still by American military forces and heavy contingents of CIA, after a war killing a million people?
A new state like Afghanistan, where women and children and old men are still being bombed fifteen years after invasion?
Like Egypt's fresh spanking-new dictatorship?
Something resembling the merits of Saudi Arabia?
Macron has proved an even worse puke than I regarded him when he was elected. He has already demonstrated himself as America's official doormat in Europe. Even Trump doesn't say what he is saying, and it couldn't be more obvious whose words he is parroting.
Those words are from that wonderful government that now has shot thousands of unarmed Palestinians demonstrating for human dignity and rights near its border. The third massacre in not many years. This time the Israeli forces are using a form of dum-dum bullet, so that even the wounded get horrible injuries, as these expand and twirl going through an arm or leg or hip.
Of course, that wonderful government wants to hold on to the Golan Heights it stole from Syria. It also wants to enlarge that holding with another slice of Syria, “just a security perimeter.” With a strong leader like Assad out of the way and Syria cut up into weak Balkan-like regions, the world is Israel's oyster, as it were. That is, what the horrible war has always been about.
France used to give the world some great presidents, but in recent times, especially with Hollande and Macron, it has hit the very bottom for integrity and honor and independent thinking. It certainly is no longer true what Ben Franklin, as Ambassador to France, said, so long ago, about every man having two countries, his own and France.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE USE OF SKIN-LIGHTENING CREAMS BY PEOPLE OF COLOR DISCUSSED IN AN ARTICLE - I OFFER A LITTLE HISTORY AND COMPARABLE SITUATIONS
John Chuckman
COMMENT WRITTEN FOR AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN (BUT NOT POSTED AS COMMENTS WERE QUICKLY ENDED)
“Skin-lightening creams are dangerous – yet business is booming. Can the trade be stopped?”
It's not a pleasant fact, but it does appear from a great deal of observation, that people in general - both black and white - regard lighter skin as somehow better or more attractive. Not every single person, but many.
In a place like poor Haiti, all the people living up on the hill in relative wealth above the main city are light-skinned. Below, in all the slums and sprawl, are blacks.
In parts of Africa, the birth of an albino is regarded as positively the work of devils or magic. They are frequently hunted down and killed to be consumed as some kind of elixir meat.
Of course, in show business, it has always been the case. Michael Jackson and many, many others worked to lighten skin. Hair-straightening also was, and is, a common practice.
To my mind, it all says something about the human brain, perception, and emotional responses. I don't think it can be called, simplistically, just prejudice, as the pop articles we often see in The Guardian try telling us.
It is more fundamental. I doubt it is any more correctable than being homosexual is. Nothing with genetic roots is correctable by today’s science.
There are whole organizations and churches in the United States which are in the business of trying to do just that, "correct homosexuality." Millions believe that is possible. And there are “counselors” who make a living trying.
Just as when, long years ago, left-handed children in schools were seriously punished and determined efforts were made to "correct their deformity."
That's human beings. In need of another ten thousand years of evolution, at least.
COMMENT WRITTEN FOR AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN (BUT NOT POSTED AS COMMENTS WERE QUICKLY ENDED)
“Skin-lightening creams are dangerous – yet business is booming. Can the trade be stopped?”
It's not a pleasant fact, but it does appear from a great deal of observation, that people in general - both black and white - regard lighter skin as somehow better or more attractive. Not every single person, but many.
In a place like poor Haiti, all the people living up on the hill in relative wealth above the main city are light-skinned. Below, in all the slums and sprawl, are blacks.
In parts of Africa, the birth of an albino is regarded as positively the work of devils or magic. They are frequently hunted down and killed to be consumed as some kind of elixir meat.
Of course, in show business, it has always been the case. Michael Jackson and many, many others worked to lighten skin. Hair-straightening also was, and is, a common practice.
To my mind, it all says something about the human brain, perception, and emotional responses. I don't think it can be called, simplistically, just prejudice, as the pop articles we often see in The Guardian try telling us.
It is more fundamental. I doubt it is any more correctable than being homosexual is. Nothing with genetic roots is correctable by today’s science.
There are whole organizations and churches in the United States which are in the business of trying to do just that, "correct homosexuality." Millions believe that is possible. And there are “counselors” who make a living trying.
Just as when, long years ago, left-handed children in schools were seriously punished and determined efforts were made to "correct their deformity."
That's human beings. In need of another ten thousand years of evolution, at least.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MELANIA TRUMP PHOTOGRAPHED SMILING WITH BUSHES AT BARBARA'S FUNERAL - I OFFER AN EXPLANATION - A WORD ON WHAT OLD BARBARA WAS REALLY LIKE AND IT WAS NOT A SWEET OLD GRANNY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
"Why are the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas and Melania smiling so broadly at a funeral?"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/shortcuts/2018/apr/23/why-are-the-bushes-clintons-obamas-and-melania-smiling-so-broadly-at-a-funeral#comment-115025424
An interesting tid-bit.
I think the reasons are not even touched on by the writer. There are two basic factors.
First, the Bushes are visceral political enemies of Trump.
They are older-money establishment, and is found often with such people, ‘new money” is viewed with disdain.
A number of the Bushes have gone out of their way to express almost contempt for Trump.
George - the former President so many people dislike as much as British people dislike Tony Blair - actually said in public recently that Trump makes even him look good.
Of course, the fact that son Jeb lost the nomination to Trump, and lost badly, has a fair amount to do with the family's view. They very much have a sense of entitlement. When a Bush enters something, he’s supposed to finish first.
Second, recent revelations about Trump’s past personal behavior after he was married – an affair with a porn star and an another with a Playboy bunny-type – undoubtedly hurt Melania’s feelings badly. She is a very private woman.
Given her position, there really is no way for her “to get back” at him. Anyway, they don’t even sleep in the same bed. And everyone knows he listens to no one.
The idea of divorcing him is not attractive, especially for a woman in her position The publicity over the first divorce in the White House would be intense. And Melania loves the accouterments of wealth, as in 40 thousand-dollar dresses. A divorce would cut her off. He undoubtedly, given his personality type, had her sign a pre-nuptial contract with a fixed settlement.
So, the funeral, with Trump’s enemies, was a welcome, acceptable opportunity to express her feelings about Trump. I’m sure he got the message.
______________________
Response to a comment calling Barbara Bush amazing:
Amazing?
Barbara hardly qualifies as that, if you know more than just her smiling-granny photos.
An insider, who should know well, said she was a nasty drunk.
I can believe it since I remember a couple of her appalling public quotes.
The one was about not dirtying her beautiful mind with images of body bags being returned home from her son's war. She actually said that on television.
Another was a really disdainful and unpleasant comment about all the poor survivors of New Orleans (all black) huddled temporarily in the stadium in Houston, the Bush homestead town.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
"Why are the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas and Melania smiling so broadly at a funeral?"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/shortcuts/2018/apr/23/why-are-the-bushes-clintons-obamas-and-melania-smiling-so-broadly-at-a-funeral#comment-115025424
An interesting tid-bit.
I think the reasons are not even touched on by the writer. There are two basic factors.
First, the Bushes are visceral political enemies of Trump.
They are older-money establishment, and is found often with such people, ‘new money” is viewed with disdain.
A number of the Bushes have gone out of their way to express almost contempt for Trump.
George - the former President so many people dislike as much as British people dislike Tony Blair - actually said in public recently that Trump makes even him look good.
Of course, the fact that son Jeb lost the nomination to Trump, and lost badly, has a fair amount to do with the family's view. They very much have a sense of entitlement. When a Bush enters something, he’s supposed to finish first.
Second, recent revelations about Trump’s past personal behavior after he was married – an affair with a porn star and an another with a Playboy bunny-type – undoubtedly hurt Melania’s feelings badly. She is a very private woman.
Given her position, there really is no way for her “to get back” at him. Anyway, they don’t even sleep in the same bed. And everyone knows he listens to no one.
The idea of divorcing him is not attractive, especially for a woman in her position The publicity over the first divorce in the White House would be intense. And Melania loves the accouterments of wealth, as in 40 thousand-dollar dresses. A divorce would cut her off. He undoubtedly, given his personality type, had her sign a pre-nuptial contract with a fixed settlement.
So, the funeral, with Trump’s enemies, was a welcome, acceptable opportunity to express her feelings about Trump. I’m sure he got the message.
______________________
Response to a comment calling Barbara Bush amazing:
Amazing?
Barbara hardly qualifies as that, if you know more than just her smiling-granny photos.
An insider, who should know well, said she was a nasty drunk.
I can believe it since I remember a couple of her appalling public quotes.
The one was about not dirtying her beautiful mind with images of body bags being returned home from her son's war. She actually said that on television.
Another was a really disdainful and unpleasant comment about all the poor survivors of New Orleans (all black) huddled temporarily in the stadium in Houston, the Bush homestead town.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RUSSIA'S ANTI-SHIP MISSILES AND AIRCRAFT CARRIERS - THINGS HAVE INDEED CHANGED BUT SINKING AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER OUTSIDE OF A LARGER WAR WOULD ONLY START A WAR - AMERICA'S PROBLEM IS UNEQUALED CORRUPTION AND ARROGANCE - BUT EVENTS ARE CATCHING-UP - THEN WE'LL SEE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS START TO DISAPPEAR
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DMITRY ORLOVE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Russian Missile Tech has Made America's Trillion Dollar Navy Obsolete
“Times have changed and America can no longer project its military power like it did in Iraq. Those days are over.”
Good piece, and I agree with much of its logic.
But when it comes to the headline, I completely disagree: "Russian Missile Tech has Made America's Trillion Dollar Navy Obsolete"
Yes, that would be true to a great degree in actual conditions of war. The "flattops" would be going down like Manhattan buildings during 9/11.
But we are not at war, and even the US is not keen to start one with Russia, as we saw with the (extremely careful) missile attack in Syria.
Sink a "flattop," however, with its crew of five thousand or so, and you start a war, a war presumably Russia has no interest in starting. Any such war today could quickly escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. After all, the United States has not only actually used such weapons, it has planned or threatened to use them a number of times. Against North Korea. Against North Vietnam. Against Russia and China in the 1950s and again in the 1960s.
A well-known national political figure such as Hillary Clinton thought nothing of frantically shrieking, on camera, about obliterating Iran – a county of maybe 80 million – in recent years. Of course, she was working to pump up more campaign funds from the Israel Lobby, but what a level in politics to have reached, screaming about obliterating whole countries.
The author's analysis of the historical use of navies in the modern era is accurate.
What is going to destroy the flattops, and a whole lot else in contemporary America, is its outrageously out-of-control management of resources. The United States is run today by politicians and the institutional forces of the Deep State in a manner resembling the proverbial drunken sailors on leave.
It spends horrific amounts of money it does not have. It’s new flattops and everything else it commissions are paid with borrowing. The attitude here – “I want it all and I want it now!” has been a feature of American society at least since WWII.
Only today, it moves at “warp speed.” Vast new weapons system, all of them costly to run and maintain, a galaxy of costly-to-maintain overseas bases, and high-tech gear for every soldier. Just each helmet for an F-35 fighter plane costs a year’s wages or more for a middle-class American, and all of the supposedly marvelous stealth planes are unbelievably costly to service and maintain. My God, B-2 bombers must have their own air-conditioned hangers wherever they are located, and they consume many hours and millions of dollars in maintenance for every single hour in the air. Truly, drunken-sailor spending.
Did you know that during some of America’s wars in the Middle East, they supply troops with air-conditioned tents on the dessert? I read one item some years ago that the United States had spent 20 billion dollars on just doing that. Well, you can just imagine supplying all the gear and electricity-generation out in the middle of nowhere, on a desert. The stuff of hallucinations, surely.
And America now has 17 different national security agencies, all staffed with high-price personal who are equipped with the highest-cost equipment. America boasts a security service system which makes the old East German Stasi resemble amateurs. America spends countless billions – again, which it does not have – to know everything about the private lives of its own citizens as well as about people abroad.
America’s new NSA centers, alone, cost billions to build and billions more to keep running well, packed as they are with super hi-tech equipment and with bright minds expecting rewards commensurate with what they could command in Silicon Valley.
Of course, in the mad spending rush, we have immense waste, too. Isn’t that how it always is with profligate, gambling-casino spending? So, we have the costly jokes of many of America’s new ships which do not operate well and planes like the F-35, a plane which operates impressively when all conditions are just right and none of its costly equipment is “on the fritz,” as it so often is.
And just so with many of America’s “advanced” weapons, especially several types of the Navy’s latest fighting ships, which at times when they are running – the Zumwalt 4 billion-dollar destroyer or the new Littoral Combat ships or new super-flattops like the Gerald Ford which cost 13 billion dollars plus 5 billion is development - resemble a Monty Python comedy skit with break-downs and embarrassment.
The attitudes required for such insane spending now permeate deeply into American society. The Congress can no more balance a budget than it can say “no” to money from big lobby groups. The financial rules for Congress are absurd and should have been totally changed years, especially with regard to individual member’s campaign-financing costs and the practices permitted for lobby groups, which in Washington function like a chain of high-cost call girl rings. You cannot expect good laws or oversight from such people, and, of course, you don’t get them, at all.
The State Department equivalent of all this is the unremitting attitude of entitlement and arrogance in everything it touches. You can see it in the smug faces of the very people in recent years acting as its spokespeople. Truly, faces communicating an almost unbelievable sense of entitlement and arrogance.
Again, the State Department is something costly to maintain along with its twisted half-brother, the CIA (who are stationed in every embassy under State Department identity), dishing out millions here and billions there in subsidies, in rewards, in pay-offs, in incentives, and in bribes, year after year. Virtually every international organization has been compromised or suppressed in the process. And, of course, when you effectively lift the controls or oversight, you open things up to an even greater avalanche of corrupt spending with foreign states.
The attitude sinks down into the general society, too, and into the financial system serving them and business. That’s precisely why the United States gave the world its 2008 financial crisis, and that’s why it will give the world another financial crisis before too long.
It is this mountain of excess and waste and terrible management that will sink the flattops and a whole lot more in the Pentagon’s outrageous seven-hundred-billion-dollar budget, more than the rest of the planet spends on military.
A very wise man summed it up perfectly many years ago, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
America today is close to absolute corruption, and I think all of its institutions are far too weak and buried in the same mire to do anything about it.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DMITRY ORLOVE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Russian Missile Tech has Made America's Trillion Dollar Navy Obsolete
“Times have changed and America can no longer project its military power like it did in Iraq. Those days are over.”
Good piece, and I agree with much of its logic.
But when it comes to the headline, I completely disagree: "Russian Missile Tech has Made America's Trillion Dollar Navy Obsolete"
Yes, that would be true to a great degree in actual conditions of war. The "flattops" would be going down like Manhattan buildings during 9/11.
But we are not at war, and even the US is not keen to start one with Russia, as we saw with the (extremely careful) missile attack in Syria.
Sink a "flattop," however, with its crew of five thousand or so, and you start a war, a war presumably Russia has no interest in starting. Any such war today could quickly escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. After all, the United States has not only actually used such weapons, it has planned or threatened to use them a number of times. Against North Korea. Against North Vietnam. Against Russia and China in the 1950s and again in the 1960s.
A well-known national political figure such as Hillary Clinton thought nothing of frantically shrieking, on camera, about obliterating Iran – a county of maybe 80 million – in recent years. Of course, she was working to pump up more campaign funds from the Israel Lobby, but what a level in politics to have reached, screaming about obliterating whole countries.
The author's analysis of the historical use of navies in the modern era is accurate.
What is going to destroy the flattops, and a whole lot else in contemporary America, is its outrageously out-of-control management of resources. The United States is run today by politicians and the institutional forces of the Deep State in a manner resembling the proverbial drunken sailors on leave.
It spends horrific amounts of money it does not have. It’s new flattops and everything else it commissions are paid with borrowing. The attitude here – “I want it all and I want it now!” has been a feature of American society at least since WWII.
Only today, it moves at “warp speed.” Vast new weapons system, all of them costly to run and maintain, a galaxy of costly-to-maintain overseas bases, and high-tech gear for every soldier. Just each helmet for an F-35 fighter plane costs a year’s wages or more for a middle-class American, and all of the supposedly marvelous stealth planes are unbelievably costly to service and maintain. My God, B-2 bombers must have their own air-conditioned hangers wherever they are located, and they consume many hours and millions of dollars in maintenance for every single hour in the air. Truly, drunken-sailor spending.
Did you know that during some of America’s wars in the Middle East, they supply troops with air-conditioned tents on the dessert? I read one item some years ago that the United States had spent 20 billion dollars on just doing that. Well, you can just imagine supplying all the gear and electricity-generation out in the middle of nowhere, on a desert. The stuff of hallucinations, surely.
And America now has 17 different national security agencies, all staffed with high-price personal who are equipped with the highest-cost equipment. America boasts a security service system which makes the old East German Stasi resemble amateurs. America spends countless billions – again, which it does not have – to know everything about the private lives of its own citizens as well as about people abroad.
America’s new NSA centers, alone, cost billions to build and billions more to keep running well, packed as they are with super hi-tech equipment and with bright minds expecting rewards commensurate with what they could command in Silicon Valley.
Of course, in the mad spending rush, we have immense waste, too. Isn’t that how it always is with profligate, gambling-casino spending? So, we have the costly jokes of many of America’s new ships which do not operate well and planes like the F-35, a plane which operates impressively when all conditions are just right and none of its costly equipment is “on the fritz,” as it so often is.
And just so with many of America’s “advanced” weapons, especially several types of the Navy’s latest fighting ships, which at times when they are running – the Zumwalt 4 billion-dollar destroyer or the new Littoral Combat ships or new super-flattops like the Gerald Ford which cost 13 billion dollars plus 5 billion is development - resemble a Monty Python comedy skit with break-downs and embarrassment.
The attitudes required for such insane spending now permeate deeply into American society. The Congress can no more balance a budget than it can say “no” to money from big lobby groups. The financial rules for Congress are absurd and should have been totally changed years, especially with regard to individual member’s campaign-financing costs and the practices permitted for lobby groups, which in Washington function like a chain of high-cost call girl rings. You cannot expect good laws or oversight from such people, and, of course, you don’t get them, at all.
The State Department equivalent of all this is the unremitting attitude of entitlement and arrogance in everything it touches. You can see it in the smug faces of the very people in recent years acting as its spokespeople. Truly, faces communicating an almost unbelievable sense of entitlement and arrogance.
Again, the State Department is something costly to maintain along with its twisted half-brother, the CIA (who are stationed in every embassy under State Department identity), dishing out millions here and billions there in subsidies, in rewards, in pay-offs, in incentives, and in bribes, year after year. Virtually every international organization has been compromised or suppressed in the process. And, of course, when you effectively lift the controls or oversight, you open things up to an even greater avalanche of corrupt spending with foreign states.
The attitude sinks down into the general society, too, and into the financial system serving them and business. That’s precisely why the United States gave the world its 2008 financial crisis, and that’s why it will give the world another financial crisis before too long.
It is this mountain of excess and waste and terrible management that will sink the flattops and a whole lot more in the Pentagon’s outrageous seven-hundred-billion-dollar budget, more than the rest of the planet spends on military.
A very wise man summed it up perfectly many years ago, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
America today is close to absolute corruption, and I think all of its institutions are far too weak and buried in the same mire to do anything about it.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RESPONSE TO FAIRLY BACKWARD RELIGIOUS VIEW OF HOMOSEXUALITY - WOULD YOU HAVE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEAR DOWN THE SISTINE CHAPEL BECAUSE MICHELANGELO WAS HOMOSEXUAL?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY A RUSSIAN CLERGYMAN IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Your Church Accepts Homosexuals? - Time to Find a New One
“Some Protestant churches, where it is now common to have pastors that identify as gay or rewrite prayers to insert 'gender-neutral pronouns' are gradually losing all semblance of traditional Christianity”
I cannot accept such views.
If you believe in God, then God is responsible for all the world's creatures with all their many differences in everything from looks and intelligence to size and likes and dislikes.
Of course, that includes homosexuals. It is easily observed that homosexuality is fairly wide-spread, and you can even observe such behavior in dogs and other creatures. Something between ten and four percent of any human population is estimated to be homosexual. That compares with about two percent of world population who are red-headed. Homosexuality is neither perverted nor abnormal. Despite being unattractive to some others, homosexuals are different and nothing more.
Some very great historical figures are known to have been homosexual, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, just for starters. Should we abhor their art? My God, they better tear down the Sistine Chapel.
If you pause to think a moment, instead of reacting from attitudes of repulsion, you will realize how meaningless these kinds of views are. Would you, assuming you are a regular heterosexual person, be the least interested in homosexual activity? If you view it as a “sin,” is it a sin which holds any temptation for you?
I wouldn't be interested, but that certainly doesn't mean I condemn those who are or even those, another class of people who are attracted sexually to both sexes. It is a matter of their personal lives. And it is the product of their brains, those portions of them responsible for sexual drives and attractions.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY A RUSSIAN CLERGYMAN IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Your Church Accepts Homosexuals? - Time to Find a New One
“Some Protestant churches, where it is now common to have pastors that identify as gay or rewrite prayers to insert 'gender-neutral pronouns' are gradually losing all semblance of traditional Christianity”
I cannot accept such views.
If you believe in God, then God is responsible for all the world's creatures with all their many differences in everything from looks and intelligence to size and likes and dislikes.
Of course, that includes homosexuals. It is easily observed that homosexuality is fairly wide-spread, and you can even observe such behavior in dogs and other creatures. Something between ten and four percent of any human population is estimated to be homosexual. That compares with about two percent of world population who are red-headed. Homosexuality is neither perverted nor abnormal. Despite being unattractive to some others, homosexuals are different and nothing more.
Some very great historical figures are known to have been homosexual, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, just for starters. Should we abhor their art? My God, they better tear down the Sistine Chapel.
If you pause to think a moment, instead of reacting from attitudes of repulsion, you will realize how meaningless these kinds of views are. Would you, assuming you are a regular heterosexual person, be the least interested in homosexual activity? If you view it as a “sin,” is it a sin which holds any temptation for you?
I wouldn't be interested, but that certainly doesn't mean I condemn those who are or even those, another class of people who are attracted sexually to both sexes. It is a matter of their personal lives. And it is the product of their brains, those portions of them responsible for sexual drives and attractions.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER USES YET ANOTHER "PUSH POLL" TO INDIRECTLY ATTACK JEREMY CORBYN
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Millions of voters feel politically homeless and would back new centre-ground party, finds poll
“An exclusive survey for The Independent suggests people do not feel represented by the established political parties”
Oh, please, not another meaningless "push poll?"
You use them quite often, and they are meaningless in terms of enlightening people.
Their whole purpose is to push or influence people’s attitudes. Such polls reflect techniques in method which are not orthodox nor supportable for accurate results. Another word for doing this is propaganda.
Of course, the drive here comes from the lying, murderous Tony Blair and his still-considerable band of devotees.
You know, the very same ones who've been conducting McCarthyite attacks about "anti-Semitism" and anything else they can think of to throw mud at Corbyn, whom they hate for quite other reasons, especially his generous and humane views on Israel-Palestine and the use of military power where it does not belong?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Millions of voters feel politically homeless and would back new centre-ground party, finds poll
“An exclusive survey for The Independent suggests people do not feel represented by the established political parties”
Oh, please, not another meaningless "push poll?"
You use them quite often, and they are meaningless in terms of enlightening people.
Their whole purpose is to push or influence people’s attitudes. Such polls reflect techniques in method which are not orthodox nor supportable for accurate results. Another word for doing this is propaganda.
Of course, the drive here comes from the lying, murderous Tony Blair and his still-considerable band of devotees.
You know, the very same ones who've been conducting McCarthyite attacks about "anti-Semitism" and anything else they can think of to throw mud at Corbyn, whom they hate for quite other reasons, especially his generous and humane views on Israel-Palestine and the use of military power where it does not belong?
Saturday, April 21, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IS SALISBURY SAFE AFTER SKRIPAL AFFAIR? - OF COURSE - U. K. GOVERNMENT BEHAVIOR PARALLELS AMERICA'S FOLLOWING THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION - A COMMENTER RAISES THE CASE OF DR. KELLY'S KILLING BACK AT THE TIME OF THE IRAQ INVASION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Salisbury attack: Authorities deny giving mixed messages after official says 'toxic' nerve agent still present
“'City is safe for residents and visitors,' officials say amid preparations for decontamination”
Of course, Salisbury is safe.
It was never in danger from this fraud.
Had there been any genuine nerve agent discovered in a public place, the entire area would have been promptly evacuated and cordoned off.
This was done in a British town in recent memory over an anthrax scare.
Well, anthrax is nasty, but real nerve agents are 100% fatal.
And, please, where did the antidote to this supposed nerve agent come from? How was it administered? It absolutely must be administered within minutes to those exposed. Yet again, how was the nerve agent identified without a reference sample in Britain? That’s the way labs work. So, if the material existed in Britain, and who knows where else, why is Russia the certain suspect?
The fact that the Skripals survived tells us either they were not exposed to nerve agent or that they were quickly given an antidote, but the time-line of events and the place where the Skripals were found a considerable time after supposed exposure does not fit in with that last possibility at all.
I can accept anything, so long as we’re talking about facts, not government’s unsupported claims. You know those high-power public relations agencies which are sometimes called upon by corporations when there is a disaster, such as the Tylenol poisonings of the 1980s. Well, one of their first pieces of advice to senior executives always is to own up to what has happened. Credibility with, and future trust by, the public is built on freely offering truth from the start.
It is no different for the affairs of governments. The approach of Theresa May and Boris Johnson has been precisely the opposite.
My God, on a very small scale, this whole Skripal Affair reminds me of the blind insistence by official America that Oswald - a man with past intelligence associations, a poor shot in the Marines, someone who expressed admiration for the President, a man associated with a cheap rifle from hell - killed John Kennedy. And, of course, all that always ignores the numerous bits of powerful evidence we have for shots from the front, "the grassy knoll."
American officials even built a legend around Oswald’s supposed communism – of course, this was at a time in America when being labelled a communist was received the same way as being labelled a witch in 1600. If you study even a few facts of his life, the claim is preposterous. He did do some posing as a communist sympathizer while working with right-wing groups, but it was a pretty obvious pose, perhaps part of his role as a paid FBI informant (we even have his FBI informant number and there was an uncashed FBI voucher in his belongings). But, no, America officially asserts always that he was a communist, and a communist who hated something about America and President Kennedy.
Thinking people will recognize in that, the pattern of the old witch trials. It’s an ancient gimmick, but it still works on many human minds, at times, quite powerfully. The boys at MI6 and CIA understand that perfectly.
All of this is ridiculous, but it does show what governments can achieve if they lie and manipulate in a determined way and stick to the same implausible story over and over.
_____________________
Response to another comment, addressing events around Dr Kelly’s death in Britain near the invasion of Iraq:
Well said, and it is virtually certain Kelly was killed.
Perhaps not by British agents but others who feared that this international weapons expert had become a "loose cannon"
Kelly knew where a lot of "bodies" were buried, including the destination of the former Nationalist South Africa's nuclear fissile material (they had at least half-a-dozen nuclear warheads at the time of the apartheid government's collapse).
Kelly's public comments about claims of Tony Blair’s government concerning Iraq’s weapons had made him a threat for disclosure, at the very least, to the recipient of that South African fissile material. At least, that's my best guess. Of course, perhaps equally, a party who was desperate not to see the Iraq invasion derailed through expert testimony about what was really going on, had strong motives for killing him. It does just happen that there was a party matching both those criteria.
Again, in the Kelly case, there were all kinds of bits of evidence which render the verdict of suicide extremely unlikely.
You may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/john-chuckman-comment-revelation-of-tony-blairs-bloody-pact-with-bush-a-full-year-before-iraq-invasion-dr-kellys-murder-the-nightmare-toll-of-the-iraq-invasion-like-nothing-saddam-did/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Salisbury attack: Authorities deny giving mixed messages after official says 'toxic' nerve agent still present
“'City is safe for residents and visitors,' officials say amid preparations for decontamination”
Of course, Salisbury is safe.
It was never in danger from this fraud.
Had there been any genuine nerve agent discovered in a public place, the entire area would have been promptly evacuated and cordoned off.
This was done in a British town in recent memory over an anthrax scare.
Well, anthrax is nasty, but real nerve agents are 100% fatal.
And, please, where did the antidote to this supposed nerve agent come from? How was it administered? It absolutely must be administered within minutes to those exposed. Yet again, how was the nerve agent identified without a reference sample in Britain? That’s the way labs work. So, if the material existed in Britain, and who knows where else, why is Russia the certain suspect?
The fact that the Skripals survived tells us either they were not exposed to nerve agent or that they were quickly given an antidote, but the time-line of events and the place where the Skripals were found a considerable time after supposed exposure does not fit in with that last possibility at all.
I can accept anything, so long as we’re talking about facts, not government’s unsupported claims. You know those high-power public relations agencies which are sometimes called upon by corporations when there is a disaster, such as the Tylenol poisonings of the 1980s. Well, one of their first pieces of advice to senior executives always is to own up to what has happened. Credibility with, and future trust by, the public is built on freely offering truth from the start.
It is no different for the affairs of governments. The approach of Theresa May and Boris Johnson has been precisely the opposite.
My God, on a very small scale, this whole Skripal Affair reminds me of the blind insistence by official America that Oswald - a man with past intelligence associations, a poor shot in the Marines, someone who expressed admiration for the President, a man associated with a cheap rifle from hell - killed John Kennedy. And, of course, all that always ignores the numerous bits of powerful evidence we have for shots from the front, "the grassy knoll."
American officials even built a legend around Oswald’s supposed communism – of course, this was at a time in America when being labelled a communist was received the same way as being labelled a witch in 1600. If you study even a few facts of his life, the claim is preposterous. He did do some posing as a communist sympathizer while working with right-wing groups, but it was a pretty obvious pose, perhaps part of his role as a paid FBI informant (we even have his FBI informant number and there was an uncashed FBI voucher in his belongings). But, no, America officially asserts always that he was a communist, and a communist who hated something about America and President Kennedy.
Thinking people will recognize in that, the pattern of the old witch trials. It’s an ancient gimmick, but it still works on many human minds, at times, quite powerfully. The boys at MI6 and CIA understand that perfectly.
All of this is ridiculous, but it does show what governments can achieve if they lie and manipulate in a determined way and stick to the same implausible story over and over.
_____________________
Response to another comment, addressing events around Dr Kelly’s death in Britain near the invasion of Iraq:
Well said, and it is virtually certain Kelly was killed.
Perhaps not by British agents but others who feared that this international weapons expert had become a "loose cannon"
Kelly knew where a lot of "bodies" were buried, including the destination of the former Nationalist South Africa's nuclear fissile material (they had at least half-a-dozen nuclear warheads at the time of the apartheid government's collapse).
Kelly's public comments about claims of Tony Blair’s government concerning Iraq’s weapons had made him a threat for disclosure, at the very least, to the recipient of that South African fissile material. At least, that's my best guess. Of course, perhaps equally, a party who was desperate not to see the Iraq invasion derailed through expert testimony about what was really going on, had strong motives for killing him. It does just happen that there was a party matching both those criteria.
Again, in the Kelly case, there were all kinds of bits of evidence which render the verdict of suicide extremely unlikely.
You may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/john-chuckman-comment-revelation-of-tony-blairs-bloody-pact-with-bush-a-full-year-before-iraq-invasion-dr-kellys-murder-the-nightmare-toll-of-the-iraq-invasion-like-nothing-saddam-did/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE INDEPENDENT SAYS SOME OF THE THINGS IN THE STEELE DOSSIER HAVE TURNED OUT TRUE - BUT THAT'S ALWAYS TRUE OF PROPAGANDA - EVERYONE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS JUST STINKS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Steele dossier: Donald Trump denounced the document as fake, but some of its contents have turned out to be true”
Undoubtedly, the dossier contains some truths.
That is the way all the best propaganda is constructed.
Always the things the creators want to plant in public consciousness are blanketed in some true things, like seeds wrapped in a growth-nurturing material.
However, even in the unlikely case that this dossier could ever be proved to be completely accurate, that does not change one of the most fundamental issues in the whole matter.
Hillary Clinton and top Democratic Party officials paid the hefty costs of Mr. Steele's agency to produce the dossier. Now, that's some respect for democracy and fair play.
That dossier also became part of an application to the FISA Court - a special court which can authorize spying on political figures in the US.
Even if the court was made aware of the political origins of the dossier material, as we now believe was the case, just the submission by Obama's administration of this as supporting material for a warrant surely was highly questionable.
It all stinks, and none of those involved in producing, commissioning, or using this thing come out smelling sweet. Perhaps, that’s the real story here.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Steele dossier: Donald Trump denounced the document as fake, but some of its contents have turned out to be true”
Undoubtedly, the dossier contains some truths.
That is the way all the best propaganda is constructed.
Always the things the creators want to plant in public consciousness are blanketed in some true things, like seeds wrapped in a growth-nurturing material.
However, even in the unlikely case that this dossier could ever be proved to be completely accurate, that does not change one of the most fundamental issues in the whole matter.
Hillary Clinton and top Democratic Party officials paid the hefty costs of Mr. Steele's agency to produce the dossier. Now, that's some respect for democracy and fair play.
That dossier also became part of an application to the FISA Court - a special court which can authorize spying on political figures in the US.
Even if the court was made aware of the political origins of the dossier material, as we now believe was the case, just the submission by Obama's administration of this as supporting material for a warrant surely was highly questionable.
It all stinks, and none of those involved in producing, commissioning, or using this thing come out smelling sweet. Perhaps, that’s the real story here.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE COMEY -TRUMP MEMOS - A GUARDIAN EDITOR SAYS THEY SHOW COMEY NO BETTER THAN TRUMP - NO THEY SHOW WHAT IT IS ALWAYS LIKE AT THE CENTER OF A HUGE THROBBING EMPIRE - A SUBTLE EFFORT TO SOFTEN WORDS ABOUT TRUMP
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JILL ABRAMSON IN THE GUARDIAN (AND SURPRISINGLY NOT TAKEN DOWN BY EDITORS)
“Comey's wish for a leaker's 'head on a pike'? Proof he's no better than Trump”
"Our founding freedom”?
"It shows a shared indifference to the first amendment"?
Rather reads as though Ms. Abramson hasn't left behind her American origins, even when addressing British readers.
I also find a touch of, "my, my, how terrible," here that doesn't sit well with this boy who was born, and spent nearly half his life, in America, a boy who takes an interest in important affairs.
These Comey-Trump recorded comments are absolutely no different to many conversations held by Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon and Hillary Clinton ("Can't we just drone him or something?" speaking of the honorable Julian Assange) and others, including, I strongly suspect, Barrack Obama, who is known to have abhorred leaks and embraced secrecy of every kind.
That's the ugly nature of things at the center of a great, throbbing empire. It, as Americans are fond of saying, "comes with the territory." They are also fond of saying, "Shit happens."
I also find in these words an interesting softening, a relative softening, of expressions concerning Donald Trump, certainly compared to past extreme statements in The Guardian. Just comparing Comey and Trump implicitly does this.
AFTERWORD:
Regarding the last point, readers may be interested in:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/what-trump-is-doing-in-jerusalem-and-why-he-is-doing-it/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JILL ABRAMSON IN THE GUARDIAN (AND SURPRISINGLY NOT TAKEN DOWN BY EDITORS)
“Comey's wish for a leaker's 'head on a pike'? Proof he's no better than Trump”
"Our founding freedom”?
"It shows a shared indifference to the first amendment"?
Rather reads as though Ms. Abramson hasn't left behind her American origins, even when addressing British readers.
I also find a touch of, "my, my, how terrible," here that doesn't sit well with this boy who was born, and spent nearly half his life, in America, a boy who takes an interest in important affairs.
These Comey-Trump recorded comments are absolutely no different to many conversations held by Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon and Hillary Clinton ("Can't we just drone him or something?" speaking of the honorable Julian Assange) and others, including, I strongly suspect, Barrack Obama, who is known to have abhorred leaks and embraced secrecy of every kind.
That's the ugly nature of things at the center of a great, throbbing empire. It, as Americans are fond of saying, "comes with the territory." They are also fond of saying, "Shit happens."
I also find in these words an interesting softening, a relative softening, of expressions concerning Donald Trump, certainly compared to past extreme statements in The Guardian. Just comparing Comey and Trump implicitly does this.
AFTERWORD:
Regarding the last point, readers may be interested in:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/what-trump-is-doing-in-jerusalem-and-why-he-is-doing-it/
Friday, April 20, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S DEMOCRATS LAUNCH LAWSUIT AGAINST TRUMP AND RUSSIA AND WIKI-LEAKS OVER ELECTION - HILARIOUS - THIS IS A COUNTRY FIT TO DOMINATE THE EARTH? THEY CAN'T MANAGE THEIR OWN AFFAIRS - A FEW FACTS
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Democratic Party sues Trump, Russia government and Wikileaks alleging they conspired to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.”
'The Democratic Party has filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the campaign of Donald Trump, the Russian government and Wikileaks, alleging all three conspired to swing the 2016 presidential election and saying the former reality television star did so “gleefully”.'
This is positively hilarious.
We know that it was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party who paid large amounts of money for the phony Steele Dossier, trying to discredit Trump and swing the election.
We also know, from many small bits of information, that Hillary and fellow senior Democrats put the fix in on a number of the Democratic primaries in order to steal them from Bernie Sanders.
Some of it was just the most old-fashioned, Chicago-ward-heeler election corruption.
And we have Julian Assange's word - and there is no more honorable man among us today - that it most definitely was not Russians who "hacked" the DNC computers.
He also has made it clear, as have several experts, that it was not a hack at all that produced that material.
It was a leak, and I think we can all guess the name of the responsible party. Unfortunately, he just no longer happens to be alive.
I do think the old saying about "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," applies here as few other places I can think of.
Good God, this is a country fit to dominate the earth? It isn’t capable of running its own affairs.
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Democratic Party sues Trump, Russia government and Wikileaks alleging they conspired to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.”
'The Democratic Party has filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the campaign of Donald Trump, the Russian government and Wikileaks, alleging all three conspired to swing the 2016 presidential election and saying the former reality television star did so “gleefully”.'
This is positively hilarious.
We know that it was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party who paid large amounts of money for the phony Steele Dossier, trying to discredit Trump and swing the election.
We also know, from many small bits of information, that Hillary and fellow senior Democrats put the fix in on a number of the Democratic primaries in order to steal them from Bernie Sanders.
Some of it was just the most old-fashioned, Chicago-ward-heeler election corruption.
And we have Julian Assange's word - and there is no more honorable man among us today - that it most definitely was not Russians who "hacked" the DNC computers.
He also has made it clear, as have several experts, that it was not a hack at all that produced that material.
It was a leak, and I think we can all guess the name of the responsible party. Unfortunately, he just no longer happens to be alive.
I do think the old saying about "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," applies here as few other places I can think of.
Good God, this is a country fit to dominate the earth? It isn’t capable of running its own affairs.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ABBY MARTIN'S INTERVIEW WITH MAX BLUMENTHAL THAT GOOGLE BLOCKED IN 28 COUNTRIES - SEARING TRUTHS ABOUT ISRAEL'S TREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS PRESENTED CALMLY AND WITH GREAT COMMAND OF FACTS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED ON AN ARTICLE WITH VIDEO IN RUSSIA INSIDER
Abby Martin Interview Critical of Israel Blocked by YouTube in 28 Countries
https://russia-insider.com/en/abby-martin-interview-critical-israel-blocked-youtube-28-countries/ri23002
My God, what a powerful interview.
Abby Martin does a fine job as interviewer.
Max Blumenthal is - I don't really like this much-used American term, but it is accurate here – “mind-blowing.”
Always calm, always careful in the words he chooses, and amazingly well-informed on details. I'm sure there are few American diplomats or scholars for the region who have an equal grasp of details.
And just in a careful, methodical recitation of the facts, what a powerful image he creates of what is actually going on, of the incredible bravery of Palestinians and of the genuine and increasing horrors of Israel's responses to their courage.
No wonder that YouTube has blocked this in 28 countries, YouTube of course being owned by Google which has become an integral part of American power establishment. Google's senior management is totally in what you might call the Hillary Clinton-Israel Lobby Camp.
A brave soul, Max Blumenthal. I am sure he is showered with hate mail and threats.
We receive so very little reportage, in “the West," from our corporate press about affairs in and around Israel. Just photo-ops and images of Netanyahu making speeches or threatening "terrorists.”
COMMENT POSTED ON AN ARTICLE WITH VIDEO IN RUSSIA INSIDER
Abby Martin Interview Critical of Israel Blocked by YouTube in 28 Countries
https://russia-insider.com/en/abby-martin-interview-critical-israel-blocked-youtube-28-countries/ri23002
My God, what a powerful interview.
Abby Martin does a fine job as interviewer.
Max Blumenthal is - I don't really like this much-used American term, but it is accurate here – “mind-blowing.”
Always calm, always careful in the words he chooses, and amazingly well-informed on details. I'm sure there are few American diplomats or scholars for the region who have an equal grasp of details.
And just in a careful, methodical recitation of the facts, what a powerful image he creates of what is actually going on, of the incredible bravery of Palestinians and of the genuine and increasing horrors of Israel's responses to their courage.
No wonder that YouTube has blocked this in 28 countries, YouTube of course being owned by Google which has become an integral part of American power establishment. Google's senior management is totally in what you might call the Hillary Clinton-Israel Lobby Camp.
A brave soul, Max Blumenthal. I am sure he is showered with hate mail and threats.
We receive so very little reportage, in “the West," from our corporate press about affairs in and around Israel. Just photo-ops and images of Netanyahu making speeches or threatening "terrorists.”
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE INCOMPARABLE FOREIGN MINISTER SERGEY LAVROV GIVES A LENGTHY INTERVIEW BREATHTAKING IN ITS DISPLAY OF KNOWLEDGE AND TOUCHING ON MANY ISSUES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“Putin & Trump will not allow armed confrontation between Russia, US – Lavrov”
Lavrov is the Incomparable Foreign Minister. The breadth of his knowledge and understanding have no match in any of the foreign ministries of today's world
He has a breathtaking, long interview, touching on many current issues, published in Sputnik today.
Here it is:
https://sputniknews.com/russia/201804201063740052-putin-trump-wont-allow-conflict-lavrov-interview/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“Putin & Trump will not allow armed confrontation between Russia, US – Lavrov”
Lavrov is the Incomparable Foreign Minister. The breadth of his knowledge and understanding have no match in any of the foreign ministries of today's world
He has a breathtaking, long interview, touching on many current issues, published in Sputnik today.
Here it is:
https://sputniknews.com/russia/201804201063740052-putin-trump-wont-allow-conflict-lavrov-interview/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHAT THE REAL DANGER OF IRAN IS FOR ISRAEL - BUT WOULD NEVER KNOW IT FROM ALL THE STORM OF FALSE CLAIMS IN ISRAEL
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Hillary's Sociopathic Wikileaks Emails: Kill Assad, Destroy Syria - Deep State Goal for 10 Years
________________________
‘Response to a comment, ‘"For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about -- but cannot talk about -- is losing their nuclear monopoly:"’
Yes, and all of Israel's whining and threats about Iran are related.
Israel sees itself as the central state of the Middle East Region, a miniature replica of what the United States is in the world in general.
Iran's size – with a population close to Germany's - and its vast economic potential, in fact, make it the "natural" dominant state of the region.
Israel cannot stand the thought. Israel’s leaders expect their tiny state - about 10% of Iran's population and almost no potential for significant growth in size - to be the region's directing power.
It all speaks to immense, unwarranted arrogance.
Iran is no threat to Israel, but Israel never stops playing that tune for all its loyal Congressional followers, the same people whose skirts Israel hides behind for money, back-up protection, and the waging of genuinely aggressive wars throughout the Middle East on its behalf.
The whole business creates almost a kind of surrealistic world of foreign affairs where almost nothing is what it seems to be, and almost nothing makes any sense in logic or in terms of principles or human values.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Hillary's Sociopathic Wikileaks Emails: Kill Assad, Destroy Syria - Deep State Goal for 10 Years
________________________
‘Response to a comment, ‘"For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about -- but cannot talk about -- is losing their nuclear monopoly:"’
Yes, and all of Israel's whining and threats about Iran are related.
Israel sees itself as the central state of the Middle East Region, a miniature replica of what the United States is in the world in general.
Iran's size – with a population close to Germany's - and its vast economic potential, in fact, make it the "natural" dominant state of the region.
Israel cannot stand the thought. Israel’s leaders expect their tiny state - about 10% of Iran's population and almost no potential for significant growth in size - to be the region's directing power.
It all speaks to immense, unwarranted arrogance.
Iran is no threat to Israel, but Israel never stops playing that tune for all its loyal Congressional followers, the same people whose skirts Israel hides behind for money, back-up protection, and the waging of genuinely aggressive wars throughout the Middle East on its behalf.
The whole business creates almost a kind of surrealistic world of foreign affairs where almost nothing is what it seems to be, and almost nothing makes any sense in logic or in terms of principles or human values.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOME SENSE FROM BRITAIN - LORD GREEN SAYS BRITAIN SHOULD MOVE TOWARDS FRIENDSHIP WITH ASSAD - NOTE ON ASSAD'S FRENCH LEGION OF HONOR IN RESPONSE TO AN OBTUSE COMMENT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Britain should 'move in the direction of friendship' with Bashar al-Assad, former UK ambassador to Syria says
“Lord Green says Britain must 'swallow our pride' and build relationship with Syrian dictator”
___________________________
Response to a comment saying, among other things, that Assad is being stripped of his Legion of Honor by France
Wrong.
Assad is not being "stripped" of his Legion of Honor, although there was discussion of that in France.
You are, of course, behind on the news, but that tends to be a hazard for propagandists.
Assad has already returned it to French officials, explaining he cannot wear an honor from people attacking Syria.
Macron, by the way, is immensely under the thumb of his country's Israel Lobby as well as serving as a French doormat for America.
He has shown that reality in many acts and statements.
A rather pathetic little man from the point of view of independent views and policies for France.
By the way, the Legion of Honor, like all such awards everywhere, serves only political and propaganda purposes.
Benito Mussolini was awarded one, and his name still remains on the list. Some honor.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Britain should 'move in the direction of friendship' with Bashar al-Assad, former UK ambassador to Syria says
“Lord Green says Britain must 'swallow our pride' and build relationship with Syrian dictator”
___________________________
Response to a comment saying, among other things, that Assad is being stripped of his Legion of Honor by France
Wrong.
Assad is not being "stripped" of his Legion of Honor, although there was discussion of that in France.
You are, of course, behind on the news, but that tends to be a hazard for propagandists.
Assad has already returned it to French officials, explaining he cannot wear an honor from people attacking Syria.
Macron, by the way, is immensely under the thumb of his country's Israel Lobby as well as serving as a French doormat for America.
He has shown that reality in many acts and statements.
A rather pathetic little man from the point of view of independent views and policies for France.
By the way, the Legion of Honor, like all such awards everywhere, serves only political and propaganda purposes.
Benito Mussolini was awarded one, and his name still remains on the list. Some honor.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE "RUSSIAN THREAT" NONSENSE RESEMBLES A MOVIE MONSTER THAT WON'T DIE - MORE THIRD-RATE ACTING PERFORMANCES FROM THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Senior MPs join forces to counter Russian threat
“Powerful committees to look at 'Russian malign influence, including dirty money and propaganda”
What threat?
This is ridiculous.
The only "threat" Russia poses is a threat to British and American unchallenged manipulation of truth.
It's unbelievable, just on the basis of facts we already know, that the press and governments are pressing the "Russian threat" scenario.
I feel infinitely more threatened by high officials who feel free to lie and distort even in the face of contradictory evidence, who feel free to launch missiles before there is a scrap of evidence, who have felt free, covertly, to work for the destruction of Syria for a half dozen years, and who support mercenary thugs abroad.
And every time I hear the word, "oligarchs" from America or Britain, I can only think of the heads of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, the Gates' Foundation, Apple, Soros, and quite a number of others. The effort to use this term as a pejorative one for Russia is joke, a not very funny joke.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Senior MPs join forces to counter Russian threat
“Powerful committees to look at 'Russian malign influence, including dirty money and propaganda”
What threat?
This is ridiculous.
The only "threat" Russia poses is a threat to British and American unchallenged manipulation of truth.
It's unbelievable, just on the basis of facts we already know, that the press and governments are pressing the "Russian threat" scenario.
I feel infinitely more threatened by high officials who feel free to lie and distort even in the face of contradictory evidence, who feel free to launch missiles before there is a scrap of evidence, who have felt free, covertly, to work for the destruction of Syria for a half dozen years, and who support mercenary thugs abroad.
And every time I hear the word, "oligarchs" from America or Britain, I can only think of the heads of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, the Gates' Foundation, Apple, Soros, and quite a number of others. The effort to use this term as a pejorative one for Russia is joke, a not very funny joke.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AN AMAZING SEGMENT OF A SHOW I HAD NOT HEARD OF CALLED THE JIMMY DORE SHOW - FEATURING A PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS I HAD NEVER HEARD OF SPEAKING ON MSNBC THE PLAIN TRUTHS ON SYRIA - I'M STUNNED IT EVER GOT ON AIR
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO A VIDEO ON INVESTMENTWATCH
"THE JIMMY DORE SHOW: Professor Stuns MSNBC Panel On Syria. Prof Jeffery D Sachs contradicts US war propaganda live on air, leaves MSNBC muppets in embarrassed silence.'
http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-jimmy-dore-show-professor-stuns-msnbc-panel-on-syria-prof-jeffery-d-sachs-contradicts-us-war-propaganda-live-on-air-leaves-msnbc-muppets-in-embarrassed-silence/
Absolutely brilliant!
Professor Jeffrey Sachs is simply wonderful - calm, informed, well-spoken, not at all argumentative. I actually didn't realize there were any people like him left in the United States, people willing to give an honest view of something terrible America has done.
Jimmy Dore does a great job here of tearing the establishment shit apart in stand-up comedic style. He leaves the calm facts to Professor Sachs, while he, with amazing skill, attacks the words of a hack admiral defending mass murder.
COMMENT POSTED TO A VIDEO ON INVESTMENTWATCH
"THE JIMMY DORE SHOW: Professor Stuns MSNBC Panel On Syria. Prof Jeffery D Sachs contradicts US war propaganda live on air, leaves MSNBC muppets in embarrassed silence.'
http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-jimmy-dore-show-professor-stuns-msnbc-panel-on-syria-prof-jeffery-d-sachs-contradicts-us-war-propaganda-live-on-air-leaves-msnbc-muppets-in-embarrassed-silence/
Absolutely brilliant!
Professor Jeffrey Sachs is simply wonderful - calm, informed, well-spoken, not at all argumentative. I actually didn't realize there were any people like him left in the United States, people willing to give an honest view of something terrible America has done.
Jimmy Dore does a great job here of tearing the establishment shit apart in stand-up comedic style. He leaves the calm facts to Professor Sachs, while he, with amazing skill, attacks the words of a hack admiral defending mass murder.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DO NOT CANCEL IRAN NUCLEAR AGREEMENT - EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARIANS SEND AN OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS - INDEED AND THERE IS ONLY ONE COUNTRY PUSHING HARD FOR THE CANCELLATION - THE SAME ONE SHOOTING UNARMED DEMONSTRATORS IN GAZA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN (AND QUICKLY REMOVED BY EDITORS)
“An open letter to the US Congress: don’t let Trump rip up the Iran deal
“It was a major breakthrough, drastically reducing the risk of a nuclear arms race. Abandoning it now will do lasting damage”
My God, yes.
Iran has scrupulously adhered to the treaty.
Every expert knows that.
Only a warmonger like Netanyahu wants things otherwise, and he has been ceaselessly pressuring Trump and his officials and influential Congressmen on this.
Yes, that's the same Netanyahu of the Passover Massacre of unarmed Palestinians demonstrating against their imprisonment, as well as of two previous massacres.
Abrogating the treaty opens a Pandora's box of ugly possibilities.
Who can have faith in the future negotiating with a nation, the US, that acts in this way?
Iran also has alternative avenues concerning nuclear weapons it could pursue if pushed, very much including working with China.
This idea is just brutally stupid, but being brutally stupid hasn't stopped a set of wars, the Neocon Wars, which have killed about two million people, sent millions fleeing as refugees, and achieved very little that is meaningful.
And those wars, intended to give "birth to a new Middle East," are very much the love children of Netanyahu and his predecessor Ariel Sharon.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN (AND QUICKLY REMOVED BY EDITORS)
“An open letter to the US Congress: don’t let Trump rip up the Iran deal
“It was a major breakthrough, drastically reducing the risk of a nuclear arms race. Abandoning it now will do lasting damage”
My God, yes.
Iran has scrupulously adhered to the treaty.
Every expert knows that.
Only a warmonger like Netanyahu wants things otherwise, and he has been ceaselessly pressuring Trump and his officials and influential Congressmen on this.
Yes, that's the same Netanyahu of the Passover Massacre of unarmed Palestinians demonstrating against their imprisonment, as well as of two previous massacres.
Abrogating the treaty opens a Pandora's box of ugly possibilities.
Who can have faith in the future negotiating with a nation, the US, that acts in this way?
Iran also has alternative avenues concerning nuclear weapons it could pursue if pushed, very much including working with China.
This idea is just brutally stupid, but being brutally stupid hasn't stopped a set of wars, the Neocon Wars, which have killed about two million people, sent millions fleeing as refugees, and achieved very little that is meaningful.
And those wars, intended to give "birth to a new Middle East," are very much the love children of Netanyahu and his predecessor Ariel Sharon.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IS SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM BEING BLACKMAILED? VERY LIKELY CONSIDERING HIS EXTREME AND ALMOST LAUGHABLE BEHAVIOR - SOME HISTORY OF "HONEY TRAPS"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WAYNE MADSEN IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Israel Is Blackmailing Lindsey Graham Over His Homosexual Lifestyle”
Of course, they are. But not just about his lifestyle, which is known in Washington but not back home with conservative Southern Baptist types in his constituency.
Undoubtedly, Mossad caught him in a "honey trap" years ago, got high resolution photos, and quietly advised Lindsey Graham.
This has happened before. The Mafia is said to have had photos of J.Edgar Hoover. Hoover privately was a homosexual and cross-dresser, as a reputable biography tells us.
That fact explains why Hoover did not go after the Mafia in the post-Prohibition era. He wasted vast resources going after almost non-existent Communists. It was said at one time, a third of America's small Communist Party consisted of FBI Agents or informers.
Hoover, and his boyfriend, Senior FBI Agent Clyde Toland, used to vacation at Mob resorts regularly, never having to pay for a room or their racetrack bets on horses.
Lindsey Graham is undoubtedly operating under the same kind of guidance.
How else does one explain Graham's extraordinary behavior for years? A heart just gushing with love for this one little country?
Israel is known to conduct such operations. Tzipi Livni, a high-ranking politician, served years ago in Mossad and did honey traps, although her variety resulted in the deaths of the victim.
Former Israeli nuclear technician and whistleblower, on the subject of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Mordechai Vanunu, was captured and bundled off to Israeli prison after a honey-trap encounter.
When Israel's name is mentioned anytime in the halls of Congress, Graham is on his feet immediately, jumping up down.
When funds for anything for Israel are mentioned, Graham again leaps up and starts bellowing about "It's not enough!"
He resembles a monkey-on-a-stick at times. Quite laughable.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WAYNE MADSEN IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Israel Is Blackmailing Lindsey Graham Over His Homosexual Lifestyle”
Of course, they are. But not just about his lifestyle, which is known in Washington but not back home with conservative Southern Baptist types in his constituency.
Undoubtedly, Mossad caught him in a "honey trap" years ago, got high resolution photos, and quietly advised Lindsey Graham.
This has happened before. The Mafia is said to have had photos of J.Edgar Hoover. Hoover privately was a homosexual and cross-dresser, as a reputable biography tells us.
That fact explains why Hoover did not go after the Mafia in the post-Prohibition era. He wasted vast resources going after almost non-existent Communists. It was said at one time, a third of America's small Communist Party consisted of FBI Agents or informers.
Hoover, and his boyfriend, Senior FBI Agent Clyde Toland, used to vacation at Mob resorts regularly, never having to pay for a room or their racetrack bets on horses.
Lindsey Graham is undoubtedly operating under the same kind of guidance.
How else does one explain Graham's extraordinary behavior for years? A heart just gushing with love for this one little country?
Israel is known to conduct such operations. Tzipi Livni, a high-ranking politician, served years ago in Mossad and did honey traps, although her variety resulted in the deaths of the victim.
Former Israeli nuclear technician and whistleblower, on the subject of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Mordechai Vanunu, was captured and bundled off to Israeli prison after a honey-trap encounter.
When Israel's name is mentioned anytime in the halls of Congress, Graham is on his feet immediately, jumping up down.
When funds for anything for Israel are mentioned, Graham again leaps up and starts bellowing about "It's not enough!"
He resembles a monkey-on-a-stick at times. Quite laughable.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AGE OF MASS MIGRATIONS - INDEED IT IS AND HERE'S WHY - AMERICA'S REACTION ONLY ENHANCES ITS REPUTATION FOR BRUTALITY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN INVESTMENTWATCH
“French President Macron: Europe Entering the Age of ‘Unprecedented’ Mass Migration”
This is just a fact, although there are few things Macron says with which I can agree.
But it is not just Europe. It is the world.
Population growths and declines, climate changes, wars, and other huge matters drive this.
Indeed, for "Western" countries with low birth rates - that's all of them, a natural side-effect of relative prosperity - flows of migration are essential to avoid declining population size and all that entails for economies.
In the future, "Western" countries will have to accept migrant flows, or they will decline in size and keep declining.
Recent, much-publicized large migration in Europe has been due to one thing only, and that is America's unconscionable wars in the Middle East. Millions driven from their homes in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and more.
Americans sit back and pooh-pooh Europe's problem, but that reaction only adds to the general impression of America today as a brutal place that kills people abroad on a massive scale, and then refuses to even help with the horror they create for millions of desperate refugees.
Mrs. Merkel made the error of accepting too many refugees at once, and that naturally hurt her politically. But she really was, I believe, acting out of some appropriate compassion. She has supported, at least tacitly, America's mass-killing Neocon Wars. She undoubtedly feels guilt over it, as everyone involved rightly should.
It would appear Americans are free of such decent feelings, even though it is their government and their tax dollars doing all the killing.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN INVESTMENTWATCH
“French President Macron: Europe Entering the Age of ‘Unprecedented’ Mass Migration”
This is just a fact, although there are few things Macron says with which I can agree.
But it is not just Europe. It is the world.
Population growths and declines, climate changes, wars, and other huge matters drive this.
Indeed, for "Western" countries with low birth rates - that's all of them, a natural side-effect of relative prosperity - flows of migration are essential to avoid declining population size and all that entails for economies.
In the future, "Western" countries will have to accept migrant flows, or they will decline in size and keep declining.
Recent, much-publicized large migration in Europe has been due to one thing only, and that is America's unconscionable wars in the Middle East. Millions driven from their homes in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and more.
Americans sit back and pooh-pooh Europe's problem, but that reaction only adds to the general impression of America today as a brutal place that kills people abroad on a massive scale, and then refuses to even help with the horror they create for millions of desperate refugees.
Mrs. Merkel made the error of accepting too many refugees at once, and that naturally hurt her politically. But she really was, I believe, acting out of some appropriate compassion. She has supported, at least tacitly, America's mass-killing Neocon Wars. She undoubtedly feels guilt over it, as everyone involved rightly should.
It would appear Americans are free of such decent feelings, even though it is their government and their tax dollars doing all the killing.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DEATH OF BARBARA BUSH - I AGREE WITH ROGER STONE THAT SHE WAS ONE NASTY PIECE OF WORK - IT DOES RUN IN THE FAMILY THAT CLAWED ITS WAY TO THE TOP
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROGER STONE IN INTELLIHUB
Roger Stone: ‘Barbara Bush was a mean-spirited vindictive drunk’
I couldn't agree more.
She actually left a record of appalling quotes.
There was the one about not troubling "her beautiful mind" with ugly stuff like body bags coming home. Coming home from her son’s war.
There was the one disparaging and almost pinching her nose over the unfortunates from the New Orleans disaster who were being temporarily housed in Houston. It literally was the equivalent of Marie Antoinette and letting peasants eat cake.
The woman was just plain ugly, right down to the bone.
Never understood the general public embrace of her as a "dear old granny" type.
But the entire Bush family features ugly traits, going back three generations. That is, after all, how they clawed their way to top.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROGER STONE IN INTELLIHUB
Roger Stone: ‘Barbara Bush was a mean-spirited vindictive drunk’
I couldn't agree more.
She actually left a record of appalling quotes.
There was the one about not troubling "her beautiful mind" with ugly stuff like body bags coming home. Coming home from her son’s war.
There was the one disparaging and almost pinching her nose over the unfortunates from the New Orleans disaster who were being temporarily housed in Houston. It literally was the equivalent of Marie Antoinette and letting peasants eat cake.
The woman was just plain ugly, right down to the bone.
Never understood the general public embrace of her as a "dear old granny" type.
But the entire Bush family features ugly traits, going back three generations. That is, after all, how they clawed their way to top.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: UPCOMING NASTY ONTARIO ELECTION - RUN TRULY BAD CANDIDATES AND THIS IS WHAT YOU GET - IN FORMER YEARS THIS KIND OF STUFF DID NOT HAPPEN IN CANADA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Wynne, Ford 'throwing punches at each other' as tone of Ontario election campaign turns nasty
“Even the premier is warning voters to expect a 'vicious' battle”
Well, if you have unpleasant (or worse) candidates, I think a nasty campaign is predictable.
Doug Ford strikes many as not much better than a thug. Indeed, a Globe and Mail extensive investigation a few years ago documented his history as a drug dealer. One man who was remiss in his bill was kidnapped and kept somewhere unknown for a considerable period of time.
He was also a big supporter of his late brother, perhaps the most appalling, law-breaking personality in the history of Canadian politics. If you have any doubt of that, read this article documenting the claim:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/time-wounds-all-heels-what-torontos-rob-ford-fiasco-is-about-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it/
As for Kathleen Wynne, her record in terms of good government is pretty appalling. She's a continuation of Dalton McGuinty, not a nasty man at all, but the most incompetent premier the province has ever had. He made a "train wreck" of the province's energy supply.
He squandered billions on inappropriate programs or programs which didn't work. He virtually bought his re-election with giving away a holiday which cost the province half a billion dollars, and I have never seen such abusive use of the advertising budgets of provincial agencies as in that campaign. There was a flurry of costly taxpayer-paid ads for virtually every agency of government.
Of course. there was the billion-dollar burial of the gas-fired generating station strictly for political reasons.
Wynne isn't McGuinty, but you could be forgiven for thinking she was a close relative. No effective apology for king-sized disasters. No basic turn in direction.
So, the province is very much ready for fresh government, but all the PCs have offered is a thug.
As for the NDP's Andrea Horwath, she, unfortunately, is a past-proven mediocrity with poor political judgment.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Wynne, Ford 'throwing punches at each other' as tone of Ontario election campaign turns nasty
“Even the premier is warning voters to expect a 'vicious' battle”
Well, if you have unpleasant (or worse) candidates, I think a nasty campaign is predictable.
Doug Ford strikes many as not much better than a thug. Indeed, a Globe and Mail extensive investigation a few years ago documented his history as a drug dealer. One man who was remiss in his bill was kidnapped and kept somewhere unknown for a considerable period of time.
He was also a big supporter of his late brother, perhaps the most appalling, law-breaking personality in the history of Canadian politics. If you have any doubt of that, read this article documenting the claim:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/time-wounds-all-heels-what-torontos-rob-ford-fiasco-is-about-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it/
As for Kathleen Wynne, her record in terms of good government is pretty appalling. She's a continuation of Dalton McGuinty, not a nasty man at all, but the most incompetent premier the province has ever had. He made a "train wreck" of the province's energy supply.
He squandered billions on inappropriate programs or programs which didn't work. He virtually bought his re-election with giving away a holiday which cost the province half a billion dollars, and I have never seen such abusive use of the advertising budgets of provincial agencies as in that campaign. There was a flurry of costly taxpayer-paid ads for virtually every agency of government.
Of course. there was the billion-dollar burial of the gas-fired generating station strictly for political reasons.
Wynne isn't McGuinty, but you could be forgiven for thinking she was a close relative. No effective apology for king-sized disasters. No basic turn in direction.
So, the province is very much ready for fresh government, but all the PCs have offered is a thug.
As for the NDP's Andrea Horwath, she, unfortunately, is a past-proven mediocrity with poor political judgment.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COMEY'S BOOK A PLEA FOR DECENCY? - A SIMPLISTIC STATEMENT - NATURE OF AMERICA'S POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT ALLOWS LITTLE OF THAT - WHAT COMEY REVEALS ABOUT HIMSELF - ALL WRAPPED UP IN THE GUARDIAN'S USUAL CENSORSHIP AND ITS OWN BAD TASTE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JILL ABRAMSON IN THE GUARDIAN (AND PROMPTLY REMOVED BY EDITORS)
"James Comey has issued a plea for decency. When will Republicans listen?"
First, I'm not sure that James Comey is, or has ever been, in a position to plea for decency.
He's a political animal, a Washington operator, and former head of an agency with a terrible record, quite literally, America's Stasi.
I don’t like Trump’s comic-book term for Washington, the swamp, but there is, undeniably, a big truth in it. People who’ve made their careers there, really should be assumed as not being able to pass the smell test. It is that bad.
If you doubt that statement about the history of the FBI, read this essay:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
But even in Comey’s book, where he does strive to give an overall impression of being a Sunday School teacher, we find some remarkably petty, ugly observations. As of Trump’s hair or the size of Trump’s hands. That last is in almost unbelievably bad taste, but I’m a reader who recalls The Guardian, during Trump’s campaign, running a number of ugly, suggestive articles on that very topic. Anything to stop someone you didn’t like. So perhaps back in your shop, that is regarded as decent?
Second, why would you ask about Republicans listening, as though Democrats were free of any nastiness you can cite for Republicans?
I won't go through the long list, but, believe me, as a lifelong follower of events, there is not a lot good to say along the lines of decency for the Democrats.
The progressive world - especially outside the United States - likes to believe that America's Democrats still have real values. But that view is simply not accurate.
FDR, a gigantic figure, still colors memories, but his legacy in America disappeared decades ago.
And even his legacy had its dark areas, as in his refusing to speak out against lynchings in the South - where families sometimes organized picnics to watch a lynching still in the 1930s - for fear of losing the support of Southern Democrats. Eleanor even pleaded with him, but he disagreed with her.
FDR also was a pretty big consumer of the political dirt J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI used to collect voluminously. It could be used to twist the arms of opponents, whether in his own party or the opposition.
Both the major parties of the United States are in fact branches of the same American Imperial Party. They differ only with regard to a limited number domestic social issues, things the Deep State could care less about, but when it comes to wars and the military and the 17 national security agencies and major lobbying groups, they are as one.
Most of the awful wars in which America has involved itself since WWII were with Democrats in the driver's seat, and none of those wars had anything to do with national threats or even matters of principle, although they were all lied about to justify them to ordinary Americans. They were all wars of aggression. Imperial wars, and, maybe, it’s only me, but imperial wars are about as far as you can get from decency.
A conservative estimate for the United States in the post WWII period would be killing 8 million people. I’m pretty sure it’s higher than that, but when you add in all the destruction and refugees and wounded left behind, it is a massive horror.
And, what few realize, is that because the poorer societies who have been targets of these wars have younger age structures - higher numbers of children in proportion to adults than found in advanced societies – a great fraction of that awful toll has been children. You can’t carpet bomb or cluster bomb or napalm such countries without killing many, many children.
Democrats also have a long history of fairly cozy relations with the American Mafia. That is not an accusation, it is simply a fact. Hardly a decent association. Even John Kennedy was contaminated with that. There have been many other genuinely sleazy associations for Democrats, as that of Bill Clinton with a notorious convicted pedophile billionaire who helped him set up the Clinton Foundation, itself a subject of many legitimate questions around corruption. There are 26 logged trips aboard that man’s private airplane, widely referred to as ‘the Lolita Express.”
The bottom line, as Americans are quite fond of saying, is that America’s leadership, virtually all of it, is corrupt, as corrupt as a literally money-drenched political system can make them. Ever see a modern President not leave office as a multi-multi-millionaire, even if he entered in somewhat humble circumstances? Obama very much comes to mind. A second-tier university lecturer and a junior United States Senator for half a term left the Presidency with a vast fortune.
As a very wise man said, “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)