John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL PETROU IN CBC NEWS
“It would be immoral for Canada to leave its ISIS members in Syria
“We should not make our problem one for the Syrian Democratic Forces to sort out”
"Allowing killers and sex slave-owners a comfortable life in Canada is not justice in the cosmic sense, even if it may be legally unavoidable."
The tone of some this piece, despite it asking Canada to do the right thing, is somewhat troubling for me, but far more troubling are some of the comments posted. The truth is that the whole phenomenon of ISIS is far more complex than is generally understood from the press.
First, many of those who went to join ISIS were just foolish young people doing what a lot of foolish young people always do. How many young men went to fight in various causes over decades, from, say, the Spanish Civil War to the IDF? There was a fair number of Canadians who enlisted for America’s Vietnam Holocaust. If they are Canadians, we have an obligation to allow them to return home.
Second, there is a huge amount of cynicism and dishonesty about ISIS. Yes, some of the more fanatical members it has attracted have done insane things, but then, I recall clearly so did large numbers of American soldiers in Vietnam and in Iraq and in Afghanistan. A number of ghastly mass killings and genuine atrocities and gross abuse of prisoners.
And at the times when America actually did get down to attacking ISIS in selected situations, instead of effectively helping them by destroying Syrian infrastructure as it mainly did, its bombing was so careless and massive, it may well have killed more civilians than ISIS ever did. Mosul and Raqqa were recipients of that treatment.
And just look at the IDF snipers shooting unarmed civilians every week in Gaza. More than two hundred have been killed and thousands wounded, many damaged badly for life by Israel’s illegal use of “butterfly” ammunition. I don’t know, but there are quite possibly some Canadian volunteers serving there. There certainly are in the IDF in general, but there is never a question raised about their eligibility to return home after serving in a military whose main job is occupation of several million people against their will, often using great violence against them, as at Gaza.
Recruiting these people for ISIS has also served American intelligence. As Edward Snowden explained, such operations identify potential sympathizers plus their contacts from countries all over, and then the security services have a record of them which they might not have had otherwise.
In fact, ISIS has largely served American interests. Many of the people who joined are just victims of an elaborate dark operation that appealed to their religious convictions or some form of nationalism or sense of adventure.
ISIS has never attacked anyone who wasn’t someone America and Israel dislike, and the main goal of the organization has been the destruction of Syria and the toppling of its government. Were ISIS a genuine independent phenomenon, a genuine fanatical jihadi-type group, its targets would have been, without question, Israel, the corrupt princes of Saudi Arabia, and any American outposts. Most assuredly that has never been the case.
So, who in fairness should be responsible for the crimes of ISIS? And, I should very much add, of al Nusra? I’m not against prosecuting any individual who can be proved to have committed atrocities, but we know that is extremely unlikely to happen with witnesses and documents scattered to the winds. Just as we know the people responsible at a distance not only won’t be prosecuted, they’ll never even be named. But under our laws, a Mafia Don ordering a killing is as responsible as the man pulling the trigger.
ISIS has been financed largely by Saudi Arabia, at least until the days it got such a foothold that it could steal on a large scale and “tax” those it occupied. In its early days, who do you think bought all the brand-new pick-up trucks running around the desert, the AK-47s, the food and fuel, and paid salaries? It represents a dark-op which got sometimes out of control, as is bound to be the case when dealing with the kind of people who join such gangs.
Just look at the Benghazi fiasco, something never explained to Americans and with good reason. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State under Obama, was running a secret operation to collect weapons and thugs in the chaos left in Libya after Ghadaffy’s murder so they could be sent to Syria to help create still another chaos. It just happened that some of thugs at Benghazi thought her ambassador, engaged in nefarious business, made a good, handy target. That’s how it is when you work with such people, trying to use them to your purposes.
American and Israeli weapons have been discovered in ISIS caches a number of times by the Syrian Army, just as they have for al-Nusra, another terrorist outfit supported by America and its allies.
Senior guys have been reported being helicoptered by Americans or Israelis to new locations at various times. Indeed, only this morning, there is a serious report of the ISIS leader, al Baghdadi, being transported by American vehicles between Iraq and Syria, despite countless past (phony) reports of his death.
Last, Canada just accepted a group of White Helmets as refugees. Despite misunderstanding and deception about that organization’s humanitarianism, it, in fact, has served the same dark interests. The White Helmets are affiliated with the cutthroats of al Nusra, and their main job has been to produce staged videos of (non-existent) gas attacks which were used to promote and defend American and British bombing in Syria. Even a senior BBC guy recently said the videos were clearly staged, although BBC itself was not happy about the observation.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ISRAEL PRESSES U.S. FOR RECOGNITION OF ILLEGAL GOLAN ANNEXATION - BIZARRE BUT NO MORE THAN U.S. RECOGNITION OF A SELF-SWORN PRESIDENT IN VENEZUELA - WESTERN FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLE OF THE RULE OF LAW ABANDONED - PERHAPS THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL CHANGE OF OUR TIME - THE LUNATICS RUN THE ASYLUM - AND WAR WITH IRAN A GOAL?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WHITNEY WEBB IN MINTPRESS
“With Oil, Water and Iran as Targets, US on Brink of Recognizing Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan Heights
“Israel is now pushing for the U.S. to recognize its sovereignty over the Golan for fear of losing it completely, even though such recognition could result in an all-out war between Israel and Syria, as well as with Syrian allies such as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.”
Recognizing someone's annexation of something which isn't theirs, in defiance of all international law and practice, is pretty strange, to say the least.
But then a lot the United States does today is pretty strange, such as recognizing a self-sworn President for Venezuela who never even ran for the office. And under the added circumstance of ignoring a twice-elected legitimate President because you don't like his views.
This is the kind of bizarre, almost Monty Pythonesque stuff you get into when you cease respecting the rule of law, something both the United States and Israel have very much done, rejecting one of the most important foundational principles of Western civilization.
"... even though such recognition could result in an all-out war between Israel and Syria, as well as with Syrian allies such as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah"
Yes, of course, and that could be exactly what is desired. War with Iran.
What a sick, sick state of affairs.
The lunatics run the asylum.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WHITNEY WEBB IN MINTPRESS
“With Oil, Water and Iran as Targets, US on Brink of Recognizing Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan Heights
“Israel is now pushing for the U.S. to recognize its sovereignty over the Golan for fear of losing it completely, even though such recognition could result in an all-out war between Israel and Syria, as well as with Syrian allies such as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.”
Recognizing someone's annexation of something which isn't theirs, in defiance of all international law and practice, is pretty strange, to say the least.
But then a lot the United States does today is pretty strange, such as recognizing a self-sworn President for Venezuela who never even ran for the office. And under the added circumstance of ignoring a twice-elected legitimate President because you don't like his views.
This is the kind of bizarre, almost Monty Pythonesque stuff you get into when you cease respecting the rule of law, something both the United States and Israel have very much done, rejecting one of the most important foundational principles of Western civilization.
"... even though such recognition could result in an all-out war between Israel and Syria, as well as with Syrian allies such as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah"
Yes, of course, and that could be exactly what is desired. War with Iran.
What a sick, sick state of affairs.
The lunatics run the asylum.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE RISE OF A DUAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA - PLUTOCRACY'S EFFECT ON DEMOCRACY RESEMBLES A TOP PREDATOR AMONG A GRAZING HERD - AN INTERESTING VIDEO BY TUCKER CARLSON, SOMEONE I NORMALLY DO NOT SEE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE AND VIDEO IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“TUCKER WATCH: Syria Withdrawal Is BS, Chicago’s Middle Class Has Disappeared! (Video)
Tucker Carlson of Fox News has been putting out great stuff for the last year, and we know not everyone catches his show, so we’re keeping you posted when we see something interesting”
https://russia-insider.com/en/tucker-watch-syria-withdrawal-bs-chicagos-middle-class-has-disappeared-video/ri26397
He definitely has something to say.
Nice to see substance in these two clips rather than empty partisanship or sales points for something. Damn little of the first in America’s press and far too much of the latter.
The Chicago situation provides a concise and dramatic example of trends across America. Division into have and have-not groups with a middle class – people regarded traditionally as hard-working builders of careers and families – becoming as thin as the hair on many middle-aged men’s heads.
Slashed taxes at the high end - thanks to a series of economic geniuses like Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Donald Trump - plus reduced job opportunities at the low end, the result of world competition and automation, have worked away for decades to generate a dual society, something undesirable from every point of view you can take.
Competition from other aspiring people abroad also has displaced many in America’s middle class. If industries and organizations grow abroad, as they naturally have been for decades since America’s heyday after WWII, all the important administrative and professional jobs grow with them. Real incomes for American middle-class workers have declined for many decades, providing one of the driving economic forces for both for two-income families and suburban sprawl as people search for space and amenities at a price.
The dual society is just one of the results of America's having become effectively a plutocracy, and plutocracy is a natural enemy of democratic government, much like a top predator among grazing herds.
The social/economic structure of contemporary America in many respects resembles that of France in, say, the 1770s.
The rich and privileged feel little or no obligation to the rest of society. There is a widespread, narrow prejudice often heard in America, “It’s my money, and I’ll keep it, all of it.” Otherwise, privileged people would actually welcome a fair share of taxes. The society has many problems to be solved and costs which need to be paid. The problems, including America’s immense debt, reflect irresponsible attitudes by America’s well-off and the politicians loyally serving them.
They are largely disconnected from their society.
And we get something similar at the other end of the economic spectrum. What connection with his or her society does a person with either no job or a very poor one and a decayed, crime-ridden neighborhood have with society?
And, because of the dominance of money-driven politics in America, that poor person has no sense even of a government or political parties concerned about him or concerned with correcting any problems he sees. Washington almost resembles a distant occupying power or, at best, a big glittery by-invitation-only bash for the well-off.
And to a great extent, that’s what it is. Its establishment concerns itself almost exclusively with imperial matters, military matters, and corporate matters today. There is not time or resources or inclination for the general population of the country, for their concerns and problems. They are addressed only at election-time, and then only superficially through the slick and empty appeals of advertising and marketing – slogans, sound-bites, and photo-ops.
Then it’s back to what really matters – wars and overthrowing countries, new military and security budgets, special considerations for corporate needs and desires, favors for the powerful, and the never-ending matter of getting campaign funds from the well-off, it being estimated that an America Senator on average spends about two-thirds of his or her time soliciting campaign funds. It really is government for, by, and of the well-off.
And so, a vicious cycle is established. Things only happen to please the rich and powerful, whether abroad or domestically. The poor fend largely for themselves and often against great odds with jobs disappearing in a changing world, rotting infrastructure, poor public transportation, and the fear of crime. They are not the ones living in the country’s many gated-communities and special enclaves. The well-off regard none of that even as remotely part of their concern.
But when you look at a country as a country, as a unified entity with common concerns and hopes and beliefs, what a national flag and anthem are supposed to convey, it is everyone’s concern when things start going so seriously amiss.
Moreover, the privileged class of people begins to become extremely corrupt in their views and practices – under that inviolable rule of power tends to corrupt - only adding to the vicious cycle of things. Donald Trump, in ethical as well as other terms, is perhaps the perfect president for the time, he almost symbolizes it with an entire lifetime of dodging taxes and responsibilities, mouthing platitudes about Patriotism, pushing others around, and having a highly developed attitude around privilege and entitlement.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE AND VIDEO IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“TUCKER WATCH: Syria Withdrawal Is BS, Chicago’s Middle Class Has Disappeared! (Video)
Tucker Carlson of Fox News has been putting out great stuff for the last year, and we know not everyone catches his show, so we’re keeping you posted when we see something interesting”
https://russia-insider.com/en/tucker-watch-syria-withdrawal-bs-chicagos-middle-class-has-disappeared-video/ri26397
He definitely has something to say.
Nice to see substance in these two clips rather than empty partisanship or sales points for something. Damn little of the first in America’s press and far too much of the latter.
The Chicago situation provides a concise and dramatic example of trends across America. Division into have and have-not groups with a middle class – people regarded traditionally as hard-working builders of careers and families – becoming as thin as the hair on many middle-aged men’s heads.
Slashed taxes at the high end - thanks to a series of economic geniuses like Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Donald Trump - plus reduced job opportunities at the low end, the result of world competition and automation, have worked away for decades to generate a dual society, something undesirable from every point of view you can take.
Competition from other aspiring people abroad also has displaced many in America’s middle class. If industries and organizations grow abroad, as they naturally have been for decades since America’s heyday after WWII, all the important administrative and professional jobs grow with them. Real incomes for American middle-class workers have declined for many decades, providing one of the driving economic forces for both for two-income families and suburban sprawl as people search for space and amenities at a price.
The dual society is just one of the results of America's having become effectively a plutocracy, and plutocracy is a natural enemy of democratic government, much like a top predator among grazing herds.
The social/economic structure of contemporary America in many respects resembles that of France in, say, the 1770s.
The rich and privileged feel little or no obligation to the rest of society. There is a widespread, narrow prejudice often heard in America, “It’s my money, and I’ll keep it, all of it.” Otherwise, privileged people would actually welcome a fair share of taxes. The society has many problems to be solved and costs which need to be paid. The problems, including America’s immense debt, reflect irresponsible attitudes by America’s well-off and the politicians loyally serving them.
They are largely disconnected from their society.
And we get something similar at the other end of the economic spectrum. What connection with his or her society does a person with either no job or a very poor one and a decayed, crime-ridden neighborhood have with society?
And, because of the dominance of money-driven politics in America, that poor person has no sense even of a government or political parties concerned about him or concerned with correcting any problems he sees. Washington almost resembles a distant occupying power or, at best, a big glittery by-invitation-only bash for the well-off.
And to a great extent, that’s what it is. Its establishment concerns itself almost exclusively with imperial matters, military matters, and corporate matters today. There is not time or resources or inclination for the general population of the country, for their concerns and problems. They are addressed only at election-time, and then only superficially through the slick and empty appeals of advertising and marketing – slogans, sound-bites, and photo-ops.
Then it’s back to what really matters – wars and overthrowing countries, new military and security budgets, special considerations for corporate needs and desires, favors for the powerful, and the never-ending matter of getting campaign funds from the well-off, it being estimated that an America Senator on average spends about two-thirds of his or her time soliciting campaign funds. It really is government for, by, and of the well-off.
And so, a vicious cycle is established. Things only happen to please the rich and powerful, whether abroad or domestically. The poor fend largely for themselves and often against great odds with jobs disappearing in a changing world, rotting infrastructure, poor public transportation, and the fear of crime. They are not the ones living in the country’s many gated-communities and special enclaves. The well-off regard none of that even as remotely part of their concern.
But when you look at a country as a country, as a unified entity with common concerns and hopes and beliefs, what a national flag and anthem are supposed to convey, it is everyone’s concern when things start going so seriously amiss.
Moreover, the privileged class of people begins to become extremely corrupt in their views and practices – under that inviolable rule of power tends to corrupt - only adding to the vicious cycle of things. Donald Trump, in ethical as well as other terms, is perhaps the perfect president for the time, he almost symbolizes it with an entire lifetime of dodging taxes and responsibilities, mouthing platitudes about Patriotism, pushing others around, and having a highly developed attitude around privilege and entitlement.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IMPORTANT POINTS AROUND ELECTRIC CARS - SOME OF THE ENTHUSIASM AROUND THEM LACKS SOUND FOUNDATION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Electric vehicles are approaching a tipping point — here's why
“EVs are starting to overcome the 4 top reasons many Canadians say they're wary of going electric”
Tipping point?
I don't want to rain on the parade, but really.
Electric cars are still a poor option for most purposes.
They are costly for what they offer. They are still not in the least practical for most of what we use transportation for. Remember, we had electric cars back before 1910, but there are real reasons they never took hold. A tank of gasoline is an immense reservoir of energy compared to any battery we have even now.
Battery technology may come, but it is not yet here.
Sales of electric cars have increased for very limited reasons.
There are niche opportunities such as urban delivery systems. Their charging and other problems can be handled as an integral part of the system. But, even in this use, they still present cost and possibly convenience problems.
Importantly, there are people's hopes despite realities. We have an awful lot of that these days. After centuries of traditional religion, we have new secular religions, especially amongst millennials.
Most importantly, there are all kinds of subsidies in place at various levels. Just immense. Tesla company is literally built on them. I don’t think it could exist otherwise.
It is a basic truth that when anything only flourishes on substantial subsidies, we are dealing more in hopes and dreams than reality. Transportation is a very practical service need, and losing sight of that fact can create a lot of confusion.
Even the green hopes and quasi-religious faith may be misguided. First, the electricity you use is only as “clean” as the source of generation. And things like windmills cannot provide base-load (that is the ability to flick a switch, 24-hours a day) power. Despite their own high cost and still-being-discovered, long-term maintenance issues, they require back-up generation, as the kind of gas plant Ontario’s McGuinty buried for a billion dollars worth of NIMBYISM. All the more expensive.
Second, research has shown unanticipated pollutant side-effects, such as much higher road and tire wear, sending large amounts of fine particulate matter into the air owing to the sheer weight of batteries. Increased wear means still more increased cost, too, although that’s not immediately clear to people
And then there's battery disposal. No small thing. If you look at the cost and efficiencies of any technology, you must look at full-cycle costs. That includes the processes to make the components right through to disposal.
If you fail to take account in any comparison, you only playing a shell game.
And, of course, the same goes for electricity generation itself.
Still, in many places or situations, electricity is effectively subsidized. Certainly, windmills are subsidized everywhere.
___________________
Response to another comment:
American Indianapolis-type racing cars have long been alcohol (methanol) powered.
I think it is related to track safety.
But alcohol still only has about 60% of the energy of gasoline. That's a huge difference. And it costs more.
Costs in all these matters are not just the concern of the Uncle Scrooge types. High costs in any activity block out society’s opportunity to do other worthwhile things. That is a very real effect.
Convenience, too, may be looked at as a cost. Imagine a trip to California in an electric vehicle, having to stop maybe every 150 or 200 miles to recharge, assuming the recharging facilities were even there. Apart from frequent stops, you would have to carefully plan out your route so you didn’t wind up on the desert somewhere with a discharged car.
When I saw a picture some while ago of a fairly large electric truck, all I could think of was, “Well, I wouldn’t want my fruits and vegetables delivered that way.” Of course, it likely comes with extra batteries wired together in the trailer, but that increases weight and cost.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Electric vehicles are approaching a tipping point — here's why
“EVs are starting to overcome the 4 top reasons many Canadians say they're wary of going electric”
Tipping point?
I don't want to rain on the parade, but really.
Electric cars are still a poor option for most purposes.
They are costly for what they offer. They are still not in the least practical for most of what we use transportation for. Remember, we had electric cars back before 1910, but there are real reasons they never took hold. A tank of gasoline is an immense reservoir of energy compared to any battery we have even now.
Battery technology may come, but it is not yet here.
Sales of electric cars have increased for very limited reasons.
There are niche opportunities such as urban delivery systems. Their charging and other problems can be handled as an integral part of the system. But, even in this use, they still present cost and possibly convenience problems.
Importantly, there are people's hopes despite realities. We have an awful lot of that these days. After centuries of traditional religion, we have new secular religions, especially amongst millennials.
Most importantly, there are all kinds of subsidies in place at various levels. Just immense. Tesla company is literally built on them. I don’t think it could exist otherwise.
It is a basic truth that when anything only flourishes on substantial subsidies, we are dealing more in hopes and dreams than reality. Transportation is a very practical service need, and losing sight of that fact can create a lot of confusion.
Even the green hopes and quasi-religious faith may be misguided. First, the electricity you use is only as “clean” as the source of generation. And things like windmills cannot provide base-load (that is the ability to flick a switch, 24-hours a day) power. Despite their own high cost and still-being-discovered, long-term maintenance issues, they require back-up generation, as the kind of gas plant Ontario’s McGuinty buried for a billion dollars worth of NIMBYISM. All the more expensive.
Second, research has shown unanticipated pollutant side-effects, such as much higher road and tire wear, sending large amounts of fine particulate matter into the air owing to the sheer weight of batteries. Increased wear means still more increased cost, too, although that’s not immediately clear to people
And then there's battery disposal. No small thing. If you look at the cost and efficiencies of any technology, you must look at full-cycle costs. That includes the processes to make the components right through to disposal.
If you fail to take account in any comparison, you only playing a shell game.
And, of course, the same goes for electricity generation itself.
Still, in many places or situations, electricity is effectively subsidized. Certainly, windmills are subsidized everywhere.
___________________
Response to another comment:
American Indianapolis-type racing cars have long been alcohol (methanol) powered.
I think it is related to track safety.
But alcohol still only has about 60% of the energy of gasoline. That's a huge difference. And it costs more.
Costs in all these matters are not just the concern of the Uncle Scrooge types. High costs in any activity block out society’s opportunity to do other worthwhile things. That is a very real effect.
Convenience, too, may be looked at as a cost. Imagine a trip to California in an electric vehicle, having to stop maybe every 150 or 200 miles to recharge, assuming the recharging facilities were even there. Apart from frequent stops, you would have to carefully plan out your route so you didn’t wind up on the desert somewhere with a discharged car.
When I saw a picture some while ago of a fairly large electric truck, all I could think of was, “Well, I wouldn’t want my fruits and vegetables delivered that way.” Of course, it likely comes with extra batteries wired together in the trailer, but that increases weight and cost.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: GETTING WHAT YOU WANT WITH CUSTOM-MADE TALES - "BIG INTELLIGENCE" IS MORE GUIDED BY GOVERNMENT THAN GUIDING IT - IT PROVIDES A PRODUCT WRAPPED IN PRESUMED CREDIBILITY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SCOTT RITTER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“US Accusation That Russia Was Violating the INF Treaty Is as Credible as the Iraq WMD Lie
"The US seems intent on following in the same path as previous intelligence failures in Iraq and Iran"
I certainly respect Scott Ritter and his expertise.
But, honestly, we are not looking at "intelligence failures."
We are looking at deliberately formulated lies.
The CIA, I'm sure knew that there were no special weapons in Iraq. It just had to. Dozens of genuine experts told us so before the American invasion.
But an invasion was what was wanted, and big bureaucracies like CIA produce what is asked of them.
Big Intelligence is more guided by government than guiding government. Always. That is just the nature of the institution.
MI6 in Britain performed exactly the same service for Tony Blair at the time.
And what do we see in the narrative around Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons efforts?
And in the narrative around Venezuela’s supposed suppression of democracy?
And the narrative around Syria’s supposed use of poison gas?
And on and on, a stream of tales, each custom-designed to assist in obtaining something America wants.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SCOTT RITTER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“US Accusation That Russia Was Violating the INF Treaty Is as Credible as the Iraq WMD Lie
"The US seems intent on following in the same path as previous intelligence failures in Iraq and Iran"
I certainly respect Scott Ritter and his expertise.
But, honestly, we are not looking at "intelligence failures."
We are looking at deliberately formulated lies.
The CIA, I'm sure knew that there were no special weapons in Iraq. It just had to. Dozens of genuine experts told us so before the American invasion.
But an invasion was what was wanted, and big bureaucracies like CIA produce what is asked of them.
Big Intelligence is more guided by government than guiding government. Always. That is just the nature of the institution.
MI6 in Britain performed exactly the same service for Tony Blair at the time.
And what do we see in the narrative around Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons efforts?
And in the narrative around Venezuela’s supposed suppression of democracy?
And the narrative around Syria’s supposed use of poison gas?
And on and on, a stream of tales, each custom-designed to assist in obtaining something America wants.
NOTE: When I say government guides Big Intelligence rather
than is guided, I’m referring to the intelligence-collection side of such
organizations, not to their far more ominous “operations” side.
Monday, February 25, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A WRITER SAYS CIA IS OUT OF CONTROL - OF COURSE IT IS - GIVEN ITS BASIC STRUCTURE, THERE REALLY IS NO WAY FOR IT TO BE OTHERWISE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“The CIA Is Out of Control, Has Been Since the 50's”
No other result is possible given all the circumstances of the organization.
You create a secretive organization which has relatively little oversight.
Its members are given to understand that they can lie, even under oath. Director Helms openly said as much during the Warren Commission’s investigation into Kennedy's assassination.
You pass laws, pretty much for appearances, about matters like the organization not spying on its own people, but the organization just goes around these laws with various subterfuges, and no one in authority corrects them. CIA has always spied on Americans through one device or another, especially by using other friendly intelligence services to get around the laws.
You give the organization virtually unlimited resources.
You task it with very dark deeds in other countries, great numbers of them, so that they become inured to such activities. As any student of human psychology knows, once people get used to doing things in one area of activity – such as dirty tricks in countries abroad - they will gradually slip into acceptance of using the same methods anywhere. People’s minds are not compartmentalized like a set of laws.
Moreover, on the “operations” side of the house – as opposed to the purely intelligence-collecting side, the CIA having what are almost two distinct businesses under one roof – the nature of the work involved requires the services of very specific types of individuals.
Narcissists and psychopaths, intelligent ones, are both needed by the organization and attracted to the nature of its well-paid work, people pretty well without conscience, as you may well understand by such operations as we do know about.
One, the CIA’s International Torture Gulag, a collection of black “rendition” sites scattered in several countries where kidnapped people are secretly imprisoned. I have no idea if it still operates, but it did for many years. The CIA’s current Director, Gina Haspel, headed up one of these, and her icy smile would have been one of the last things some unfortunates saw.
Two, America’s industrial-level extrajudicial killing operation with drones and missiles and kill lists, where employees sit in secret rooms in front of computer screens to play violent computer games with real humans. They kill people they know nothing about, people who have no legal rights, people who are legally guilty of nothing. They also frequently kill other bystanders in error, but neither bystanders nor targets are guilty of anything.
Three, the plotting against and overthrow of governments in other countries, often even democratic governments if they look like stumbling blocks to American interests. Just a few well-known examples include democratic governments in Guatemala, Chile, and Iran. A whole list of leaders has been eliminated since the 1950s, and an even longer list of countries have experienced destructive black operations.
Four, the utter corruption of many foreign leaders through the use of blackmail, threats, and secret payments. These are methods are used on leaders of “friendly” and allied countries. Talk about interfering in other people’s elections, CIA has been relentless in such activities.
CIA’s ability to do what would be unacceptable things is aided greatly by little accountability and plenty of resources.
In general, we all know what effects power has on people. It corrupts, and the closer you get to absolute power, the closer you get to absolute corruption.
Readers may enjoy these articles about CIA:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/the-cia-and-americas-presidents-some-rarely-discussed-truths-shaping-contemporary-american-democracy/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“The CIA Is Out of Control, Has Been Since the 50's”
No other result is possible given all the circumstances of the organization.
You create a secretive organization which has relatively little oversight.
Its members are given to understand that they can lie, even under oath. Director Helms openly said as much during the Warren Commission’s investigation into Kennedy's assassination.
You pass laws, pretty much for appearances, about matters like the organization not spying on its own people, but the organization just goes around these laws with various subterfuges, and no one in authority corrects them. CIA has always spied on Americans through one device or another, especially by using other friendly intelligence services to get around the laws.
You give the organization virtually unlimited resources.
You task it with very dark deeds in other countries, great numbers of them, so that they become inured to such activities. As any student of human psychology knows, once people get used to doing things in one area of activity – such as dirty tricks in countries abroad - they will gradually slip into acceptance of using the same methods anywhere. People’s minds are not compartmentalized like a set of laws.
Moreover, on the “operations” side of the house – as opposed to the purely intelligence-collecting side, the CIA having what are almost two distinct businesses under one roof – the nature of the work involved requires the services of very specific types of individuals.
Narcissists and psychopaths, intelligent ones, are both needed by the organization and attracted to the nature of its well-paid work, people pretty well without conscience, as you may well understand by such operations as we do know about.
One, the CIA’s International Torture Gulag, a collection of black “rendition” sites scattered in several countries where kidnapped people are secretly imprisoned. I have no idea if it still operates, but it did for many years. The CIA’s current Director, Gina Haspel, headed up one of these, and her icy smile would have been one of the last things some unfortunates saw.
Two, America’s industrial-level extrajudicial killing operation with drones and missiles and kill lists, where employees sit in secret rooms in front of computer screens to play violent computer games with real humans. They kill people they know nothing about, people who have no legal rights, people who are legally guilty of nothing. They also frequently kill other bystanders in error, but neither bystanders nor targets are guilty of anything.
Three, the plotting against and overthrow of governments in other countries, often even democratic governments if they look like stumbling blocks to American interests. Just a few well-known examples include democratic governments in Guatemala, Chile, and Iran. A whole list of leaders has been eliminated since the 1950s, and an even longer list of countries have experienced destructive black operations.
Four, the utter corruption of many foreign leaders through the use of blackmail, threats, and secret payments. These are methods are used on leaders of “friendly” and allied countries. Talk about interfering in other people’s elections, CIA has been relentless in such activities.
CIA’s ability to do what would be unacceptable things is aided greatly by little accountability and plenty of resources.
In general, we all know what effects power has on people. It corrupts, and the closer you get to absolute power, the closer you get to absolute corruption.
Readers may enjoy these articles about CIA:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/the-cia-and-americas-presidents-some-rarely-discussed-truths-shaping-contemporary-american-democracy/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ON THE IDEA OF BANNING A COMPANY LIKE HUAWEI - AND AN INADVERTENTLY AMUSING REFERENCE TO THE "FIVE-EYES" - WHAT THAT IS - NOTHING GOOD
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Huawei unveils bendable phone that'll take a bite out of your wallet”
___________________
Response to a reader comment:
Your words, I'm am sorry, show little appreciation for realities.
First, no company making good products should be banned. Anywhere. Anytime.
That's just a basic principle for an enlightened society.
Second, your reference to the "five-eyes" is amusing, though I’m sure not intended to be so.
That, in fact, is a spying system, one created by the United States a few decades back and employed by the participating countries, basically the English-speaking world, against their own citizens.
The concept originated with the fact that it is technically illegal for an American intelligence entity to spy on Americans.
The solution to that?
Get one of your allies to spy on your citizens while you spy on theirs, then simply exchange the information.
You think that is a good thing?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Huawei unveils bendable phone that'll take a bite out of your wallet”
___________________
Response to a reader comment:
Your words, I'm am sorry, show little appreciation for realities.
First, no company making good products should be banned. Anywhere. Anytime.
That's just a basic principle for an enlightened society.
Second, your reference to the "five-eyes" is amusing, though I’m sure not intended to be so.
That, in fact, is a spying system, one created by the United States a few decades back and employed by the participating countries, basically the English-speaking world, against their own citizens.
The concept originated with the fact that it is technically illegal for an American intelligence entity to spy on Americans.
The solution to that?
Get one of your allies to spy on your citizens while you spy on theirs, then simply exchange the information.
You think that is a good thing?
Sunday, February 24, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: UNTOLD SECRETS BEHIND THE BATTLE OVER AID DELIVERY ON VENEZUELA'S BORDER - IMPORTANT THINGS THE MAINLINE PRESS NEVER MENTIONS - HOW AMERICA USES SUCH AID DELIVERIES AS BLACK-OPS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY EVAN DYER IN CBC NEWS
"A battle over aid in Venezuela - and a border zone primed to explode"
Aid? What goes so often unreported in the mainline press is the way such "aid" is in fact used.
First, the pallets may well contain things other than just legitimate aid.
Second, and very importantly, the guys wanting to bring it into the country likely include American special forces disguised as aid workers. It's a black-op trick the United States has used before.
Only the other day, the International Red Cross, always concerned that it will lose its international credibility through misrepresentation, complained about misuse of its well-known symbol at the site. Some workers around the aid trucks were photographed wearing white t-shirts with big red crosses printed on them, people who in fact have no affiliation with the official Red Cross organization.
It’s a good way to infiltrate some really nasty actors into a country, actors equipped with deadly stuff and ready to assassinate and sabotage.
If you want to see some truth about the “humanitarian crisis” the US keeps announcing, see this where an independent reporter goes to a Venezuelan supermarket. It’s an eye-opener:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/investigating-venezuela-humanitarian-crisis-max-blumenthal-tours-supermarket-caracas/255404/
Please note also, several countries have already sent hundreds of tons of genuine aid to the government.
And, of course, the degree to which any real crisis situations may exist owes its origin to American sanctions and constant attacks on Venezuela’s international trade. Maduro has rightly pointed out that removing the arbitrary and severe American sanctions would be far more helpful to the people of Venezuela than some pallet-loads of bandages and tin cans. But that’s logical, and logic has no place in such dark operations.
Gee, and special thanks to the efforts of Trudeau and Freeland for helping make this all possible.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY EVAN DYER IN CBC NEWS
"A battle over aid in Venezuela - and a border zone primed to explode"
Aid? What goes so often unreported in the mainline press is the way such "aid" is in fact used.
First, the pallets may well contain things other than just legitimate aid.
Second, and very importantly, the guys wanting to bring it into the country likely include American special forces disguised as aid workers. It's a black-op trick the United States has used before.
Only the other day, the International Red Cross, always concerned that it will lose its international credibility through misrepresentation, complained about misuse of its well-known symbol at the site. Some workers around the aid trucks were photographed wearing white t-shirts with big red crosses printed on them, people who in fact have no affiliation with the official Red Cross organization.
It’s a good way to infiltrate some really nasty actors into a country, actors equipped with deadly stuff and ready to assassinate and sabotage.
If you want to see some truth about the “humanitarian crisis” the US keeps announcing, see this where an independent reporter goes to a Venezuelan supermarket. It’s an eye-opener:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/investigating-venezuela-humanitarian-crisis-max-blumenthal-tours-supermarket-caracas/255404/
Please note also, several countries have already sent hundreds of tons of genuine aid to the government.
And, of course, the degree to which any real crisis situations may exist owes its origin to American sanctions and constant attacks on Venezuela’s international trade. Maduro has rightly pointed out that removing the arbitrary and severe American sanctions would be far more helpful to the people of Venezuela than some pallet-loads of bandages and tin cans. But that’s logical, and logic has no place in such dark operations.
Gee, and special thanks to the efforts of Trudeau and Freeland for helping make this all possible.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: EUROPE'S BALTIC GAS WAR - WHAT AMERICA IS REALLY TRYING TO DO IS STOP A FUTURE (INEVITABLE) GERMAN-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE - WHAT LIQUIFIED NATURAL GAS (LNG) IS AND WHY IT IS NOT COMPETITIVE WHERE PIPELINE GAS IS AVAILABLE - IRRELEVANCE OF UKRAINE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“In the Gas War, Ukraine Is the Loser No Matter Who Wins
“Russia wants to pipe gas under the Baltic, the US wants to sell LNG [Liquified Natural Gas] from tankers via Baltic terminals. Where in this is the Ukraine?”
I worked for the Canadian oil industry, and I remember an energy conference in the United States during the Reagan era where it became clear that already Washington was working hard against Europe's using Russian gas.
A guy from the State Department was there - the scion of two American business-baron families, bearing a hyphenated last name denoting beer and electric organs - busily trying to make his points. I actually had a little discussion with him, and my unideological point of view caused him to say something to me along the lines of, "We would have thought someone from your company (looking at my name badge) would be on-side with us here."
That was over 30 years ago
So, trying to block Russian gas sales into Europe is not a new project, and anything in it concerning Ukraine is strictly coincidental. America cares nothing for Ukraine anyway, except for hoping to keep it as a thorn in Russia's side.
Washington fears, more than anything else in Europe, the emergence of a close German-Russian relationship, a rapprochement leading to something more intimate.
Such a relationship is “a natural" if you look at a map. Russia's vast resources and German heavy industry. And the idea has popped up again and again in one form or another for a couple of centuries. Napoleon. The Kaiser in WWI. Hitler.
And there have long been Germans, engineers and other specialists, who migrated to Russia to work on various projects. There are little leftover German communities in Russia, as I understand. Of course, Catherine the Great was actually a German Princess.
Any serious change in the German-Russian relationship changes the geopolitical map, makes NATO look more asininely outdated than it already is, and would favorably affect the long-term economics of both countries, each of them having very large markets. That last means more growth to compete with America, which really wants no competition that it can possibly avoid.
It's a "marriage made in heaven," as they say, and I think it will happen one day.
But Washington, in the meantime, will do everything it can to slow or cripple developments. Opposing German purchases of additional Russian gas is just one avenue of attack.
American proposals for LNG as an alternative to Russian gas are almost humorous. LNG is great for regions with no access to pipeline gas, but it is positively stupid anywhere that is within reasonable reach of pipeline gas.
LNG is more costly per unit of energy than pipeline gas, a fact which renders its users less competitive.
After all, you must first liquify it (cooling it to –260 degrees F) in a special plant. Then load and ship it in expensive, special-built ships which keep it at that temperature. And finally unload it into special-built storage facilities.
You would only do that in a location which has access to pipeline gas if you were seriously concerned with strategic/security issues. However, such concerns can be paranoid as well as genuine, and that is just the case here. After all, even under the Soviets, Russian gas was faithfully delivered to any of its customers, and today’s Russia is simply a country eager to do business with the world.
Or you might displace pipeline gas with LNG if you were full of old resentments and hatreds, such as we find clearly expressed in Poland or the Baltic states, resentments making you willing to pay a premium for energy. The economic irony is that these are not well-off countries to start with, so they are really hurting themselves over old grudges while enriching American LNG operators with sales they could not reasonably have hoped for.
Washington is only too willing to encourage them in this because it is so focused on trying to regain unquestioned superiority and influence in the world, something resembling its heyday back in the 1950s, an easy superiority which has been lost thanks to the natural growth and development of many countries in the decades after WWII.
The additional sales to American producers, of course, are regarded as a good thing, but that is not what primarily drives Washington in this matter.
Like all quests and crusades, this American one eventually will prove hopeless. The United States will be seen as Don Quixote, only this Don Quixote’s motivating dreams are about influence over others, not naïve ideals of good and evil and saving damsels in distress.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“In the Gas War, Ukraine Is the Loser No Matter Who Wins
“Russia wants to pipe gas under the Baltic, the US wants to sell LNG [Liquified Natural Gas] from tankers via Baltic terminals. Where in this is the Ukraine?”
I worked for the Canadian oil industry, and I remember an energy conference in the United States during the Reagan era where it became clear that already Washington was working hard against Europe's using Russian gas.
A guy from the State Department was there - the scion of two American business-baron families, bearing a hyphenated last name denoting beer and electric organs - busily trying to make his points. I actually had a little discussion with him, and my unideological point of view caused him to say something to me along the lines of, "We would have thought someone from your company (looking at my name badge) would be on-side with us here."
That was over 30 years ago
So, trying to block Russian gas sales into Europe is not a new project, and anything in it concerning Ukraine is strictly coincidental. America cares nothing for Ukraine anyway, except for hoping to keep it as a thorn in Russia's side.
Washington fears, more than anything else in Europe, the emergence of a close German-Russian relationship, a rapprochement leading to something more intimate.
Such a relationship is “a natural" if you look at a map. Russia's vast resources and German heavy industry. And the idea has popped up again and again in one form or another for a couple of centuries. Napoleon. The Kaiser in WWI. Hitler.
And there have long been Germans, engineers and other specialists, who migrated to Russia to work on various projects. There are little leftover German communities in Russia, as I understand. Of course, Catherine the Great was actually a German Princess.
Any serious change in the German-Russian relationship changes the geopolitical map, makes NATO look more asininely outdated than it already is, and would favorably affect the long-term economics of both countries, each of them having very large markets. That last means more growth to compete with America, which really wants no competition that it can possibly avoid.
It's a "marriage made in heaven," as they say, and I think it will happen one day.
But Washington, in the meantime, will do everything it can to slow or cripple developments. Opposing German purchases of additional Russian gas is just one avenue of attack.
American proposals for LNG as an alternative to Russian gas are almost humorous. LNG is great for regions with no access to pipeline gas, but it is positively stupid anywhere that is within reasonable reach of pipeline gas.
LNG is more costly per unit of energy than pipeline gas, a fact which renders its users less competitive.
After all, you must first liquify it (cooling it to –260 degrees F) in a special plant. Then load and ship it in expensive, special-built ships which keep it at that temperature. And finally unload it into special-built storage facilities.
You would only do that in a location which has access to pipeline gas if you were seriously concerned with strategic/security issues. However, such concerns can be paranoid as well as genuine, and that is just the case here. After all, even under the Soviets, Russian gas was faithfully delivered to any of its customers, and today’s Russia is simply a country eager to do business with the world.
Or you might displace pipeline gas with LNG if you were full of old resentments and hatreds, such as we find clearly expressed in Poland or the Baltic states, resentments making you willing to pay a premium for energy. The economic irony is that these are not well-off countries to start with, so they are really hurting themselves over old grudges while enriching American LNG operators with sales they could not reasonably have hoped for.
Washington is only too willing to encourage them in this because it is so focused on trying to regain unquestioned superiority and influence in the world, something resembling its heyday back in the 1950s, an easy superiority which has been lost thanks to the natural growth and development of many countries in the decades after WWII.
The additional sales to American producers, of course, are regarded as a good thing, but that is not what primarily drives Washington in this matter.
Like all quests and crusades, this American one eventually will prove hopeless. The United States will be seen as Don Quixote, only this Don Quixote’s motivating dreams are about influence over others, not naïve ideals of good and evil and saving damsels in distress.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A NICE PIECE ON VENEZUELA BY JOHN PILGER - A TRIBUTE TO CHAVEZ - AND AMERICA'S PRIVILEGED LITTLE BOYS PULLING THE WINGS OFF BUTTERFLIES THEY CATCH AS SPORT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN PILGER IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The War on Venezuela is Built on Lies”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/02/22/john-pilger-the-war-on-venezuela-is-built-on-lies/#comment-357288
Really nice tribute to Chavez, apart from the perspective brought to current events.
Why couldn't the elemental principle of leaving a country's affairs to its people be honored by the United States?
Even if Maduro were the kind of figure Trump's ugly crew keeps telling us he is, why would that give the United States the right or authority to intrude?
Who bestowed the mantle of right and authority in such matters upon the United States?
And the truth is that there is less potential harm from an individual national dictator – something Maduro clearly is not anyway - than there is from a global one.
Good God, America has made a huge number of mistakes in its own elections.
And it deeply resents even a suggestion of outside interference.
But it has made even more mistakes, far more disastrous ones, in its international behavior.
Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq? Libya? Chile?
Just to name a few. Millions of lives taken, vast amounts of destruction, and not one worthy goal achieved.
There is a very long list of costly, bloody errors by America since WWII, since the time it conferred upon itself the right to tell others, everywhere, what to do.
And not one of those errors offers an example America's leadership can learn from?
Really, what does that tell us?
"Don't bother us, we're playing with other people's lives and countries, and we’re having lots of fun!"
Ugly, very privileged little boys, busy pulling the wings off butterflies they’ve caught.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN PILGER IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The War on Venezuela is Built on Lies”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/02/22/john-pilger-the-war-on-venezuela-is-built-on-lies/#comment-357288
Really nice tribute to Chavez, apart from the perspective brought to current events.
Why couldn't the elemental principle of leaving a country's affairs to its people be honored by the United States?
Even if Maduro were the kind of figure Trump's ugly crew keeps telling us he is, why would that give the United States the right or authority to intrude?
Who bestowed the mantle of right and authority in such matters upon the United States?
And the truth is that there is less potential harm from an individual national dictator – something Maduro clearly is not anyway - than there is from a global one.
Good God, America has made a huge number of mistakes in its own elections.
And it deeply resents even a suggestion of outside interference.
But it has made even more mistakes, far more disastrous ones, in its international behavior.
Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq? Libya? Chile?
Just to name a few. Millions of lives taken, vast amounts of destruction, and not one worthy goal achieved.
There is a very long list of costly, bloody errors by America since WWII, since the time it conferred upon itself the right to tell others, everywhere, what to do.
And not one of those errors offers an example America's leadership can learn from?
Really, what does that tell us?
"Don't bother us, we're playing with other people's lives and countries, and we’re having lots of fun!"
Ugly, very privileged little boys, busy pulling the wings off butterflies they’ve caught.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DESPITE A POORLY-CHOSEN TITLE FOCUSING ON SWINE, DMITRY ORLOV REVIEWS A FINE SPEECH OF PUTIN'S - BUT HE MANAGES TO GO COMPLETELY OFF THE RAILS WITH WORDS ABOUT AMERICAN CONGRESSWOMAN CASIO-CORTEZ
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DMITRY ORLOV IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Putin Now Thinks Western Elites Are 'Swine'”
https://russia-insider.com/en/putin-now-thinks-western-elites-are-swine/ri26363
Putin's speech was excellent.
His priorities and projects are those of a truly gifted leader, which is exactly what he is. By far the greatest of our era.
Dmitry Orlov's summary of the speech is well-written and concise.
I liked the article - although its title is poorly chosen because it strays almost completely from Putin’s emphasis - until I came across the following two quotes:
"...you need to look no further than the astonishingly idiotic “Green New Deal” being touted by the freshman congresstwit (how’s that for a gender-neutral appellation?) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez..."
And: "...ignoramuses like Ocasio-Cortez, who think that transportation needs can be provided by electric vehicles powered by wind and solar..."
Well, to be very frank, the greatest ignorance displayed in the article is in Mr Orlov's choice of words and choice of target here. Just appallingly short-sighted.
As a former petroleum industry economist, I can assure readers that Ocasio-Cortez’s vision is unrealistic and rather flighty, but I can do so without calling her names, including made-up childish ones.
Coining a term like “congresstwit” for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is remarkable only for its lack understanding. It much resembles the pointless stuff one reads nauseatingly over and over from the Alt-right, words like “Libtards” Such terms are funny only to thirteen-year-olds with severe acne problems.
It’s name-calling – showing absolutely no different intent than Israel’s worst defenders who call critics “anti-Semites.” It’s not funny, it says nothing except something unfavorable about the writer, and it calls into question the writer’s judgment.
To my mind, even worse, is the choice of enemy here being attacked in these quotes. American political leadership is packed with vicious, arrogant, and even dangerous figures – a whole herd of them from Bolton and Pompeo and Rubio and Graham to Clinton and Obama and Wasserman-Schultz.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a very young, well-intentioned new politician, one with some the very naïve ideas of her generation, but one with no political power. Why would you pick her for an enemy? It shows a lack of judgment as well as, I believe, a strain of prejudice.
She is a target for many of the worst folks in the Alt-right camp, the real belly-over-the-belt types. People immensely more dangerous, given any political power, than she would be.
America has many dangerous demons, but she is not one of them.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DMITRY ORLOV IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Putin Now Thinks Western Elites Are 'Swine'”
https://russia-insider.com/en/putin-now-thinks-western-elites-are-swine/ri26363
Putin's speech was excellent.
His priorities and projects are those of a truly gifted leader, which is exactly what he is. By far the greatest of our era.
Dmitry Orlov's summary of the speech is well-written and concise.
I liked the article - although its title is poorly chosen because it strays almost completely from Putin’s emphasis - until I came across the following two quotes:
"...you need to look no further than the astonishingly idiotic “Green New Deal” being touted by the freshman congresstwit (how’s that for a gender-neutral appellation?) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez..."
And: "...ignoramuses like Ocasio-Cortez, who think that transportation needs can be provided by electric vehicles powered by wind and solar..."
Well, to be very frank, the greatest ignorance displayed in the article is in Mr Orlov's choice of words and choice of target here. Just appallingly short-sighted.
As a former petroleum industry economist, I can assure readers that Ocasio-Cortez’s vision is unrealistic and rather flighty, but I can do so without calling her names, including made-up childish ones.
Coining a term like “congresstwit” for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is remarkable only for its lack understanding. It much resembles the pointless stuff one reads nauseatingly over and over from the Alt-right, words like “Libtards” Such terms are funny only to thirteen-year-olds with severe acne problems.
It’s name-calling – showing absolutely no different intent than Israel’s worst defenders who call critics “anti-Semites.” It’s not funny, it says nothing except something unfavorable about the writer, and it calls into question the writer’s judgment.
To my mind, even worse, is the choice of enemy here being attacked in these quotes. American political leadership is packed with vicious, arrogant, and even dangerous figures – a whole herd of them from Bolton and Pompeo and Rubio and Graham to Clinton and Obama and Wasserman-Schultz.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a very young, well-intentioned new politician, one with some the very naïve ideas of her generation, but one with no political power. Why would you pick her for an enemy? It shows a lack of judgment as well as, I believe, a strain of prejudice.
She is a target for many of the worst folks in the Alt-right camp, the real belly-over-the-belt types. People immensely more dangerous, given any political power, than she would be.
America has many dangerous demons, but she is not one of them.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ELIZABETH WARREN ADDRESSES THE DEMOGRAPHY OF PALESTINIANS IN ISRAEL - A CLASSIC RACIST THEME FROM ISRAELIS LIKE NETANYAHU - BUT THEN I NEVER DID REGARD HER AS MUCH OF A LIBERAL
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
“Elizabeth Warren warns of ‘demographic realities, births… bearing down on Israel’ — racist code for Palestinian babies”
That is simply terrible.
Here's Elizabeth Warren appealing to people on the basis of an idea advocated by some of Israel's worst rogues.
Netanyahu referred once to the Palestinians as “a ticking time bomb in our midst,” and his remark is less vicious than what some other Israelis have said openly on the topic.
You cannot, by any measure, be regarded as liberal when you talk this way, but the truth is that that is the case for so many of America's “liberals.” They cannot genuinely be regarded as liberals.
I like to say, there are no liberals in America because you simply cannot have both a decent and humane country and a global empire. Classical liberalism and empire are opponents, not allies.
And it is a very rare American political figure who speaks against America’s empire or the work of its destructive, resource-absorbing military.
That's certainly true for Warren, who has supported its ugly budgets among other acts, but it is also largely true even for the otherwise-more-appealing Bernie Sanders.
Well, I've never been impressed by Elizabeth Warren, and now I'm even less impressed. Readers might enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/john-chuckman-comment-the-sad-hopes-of-those-called-wrongly-americas-liberals-elizabeth-warrens-candidacy-for-president/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
“Elizabeth Warren warns of ‘demographic realities, births… bearing down on Israel’ — racist code for Palestinian babies”
That is simply terrible.
Here's Elizabeth Warren appealing to people on the basis of an idea advocated by some of Israel's worst rogues.
Netanyahu referred once to the Palestinians as “a ticking time bomb in our midst,” and his remark is less vicious than what some other Israelis have said openly on the topic.
You cannot, by any measure, be regarded as liberal when you talk this way, but the truth is that that is the case for so many of America's “liberals.” They cannot genuinely be regarded as liberals.
I like to say, there are no liberals in America because you simply cannot have both a decent and humane country and a global empire. Classical liberalism and empire are opponents, not allies.
And it is a very rare American political figure who speaks against America’s empire or the work of its destructive, resource-absorbing military.
That's certainly true for Warren, who has supported its ugly budgets among other acts, but it is also largely true even for the otherwise-more-appealing Bernie Sanders.
Well, I've never been impressed by Elizabeth Warren, and now I'm even less impressed. Readers might enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/john-chuckman-comment-the-sad-hopes-of-those-called-wrongly-americas-liberals-elizabeth-warrens-candidacy-for-president/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: REFLECTIONS ON AMERICA'S MADELEINE ALBRIGHT - WHAT SHE REPRESENTED - THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF OLD TALES ABOUT SELLING YOUR SOUL TO THE DEVIL
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY ANDREW BACEVICH IN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE – SUBMITTED BUT NOT POSTED
“America: ‘Indispensable Nation’ No More
“Rather than seeing 'far into the future,' American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week”.
A very good piece indeed.
I think it summarizes something which sadly few Americans in power ever take into account.
After all, when all you do is scrabble and claw for power in an elite group which itself only scrabbles and claws for power in the world – a concise description of the work of America’s ruling power establishment - there isn’t a lot of time or room left for things like principles or even decency.
Madeleine Albright is a true American grotesque, and her words at various times - pompous, chilling, and even threatening - tell us all we need to know about her character. Actually, the words were a rather amazing feat of self-revelation by someone who likely truly believed she was summarizing something larger and worthier.
She was granted a center-stage role in America for a while in exchange for ugly words and indecent behavior being presented in the guise of a grandmotherly figure.
A total creature of the American power establishment, one lacking judgment, wisdom, and morality.
She is a perfect example of the old tales about those who sell their souls to the devil.
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY ANDREW BACEVICH IN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE – SUBMITTED BUT NOT POSTED
“America: ‘Indispensable Nation’ No More
“Rather than seeing 'far into the future,' American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week”.
A very good piece indeed.
I think it summarizes something which sadly few Americans in power ever take into account.
After all, when all you do is scrabble and claw for power in an elite group which itself only scrabbles and claws for power in the world – a concise description of the work of America’s ruling power establishment - there isn’t a lot of time or room left for things like principles or even decency.
Madeleine Albright is a true American grotesque, and her words at various times - pompous, chilling, and even threatening - tell us all we need to know about her character. Actually, the words were a rather amazing feat of self-revelation by someone who likely truly believed she was summarizing something larger and worthier.
She was granted a center-stage role in America for a while in exchange for ugly words and indecent behavior being presented in the guise of a grandmotherly figure.
A total creature of the American power establishment, one lacking judgment, wisdom, and morality.
She is a perfect example of the old tales about those who sell their souls to the devil.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A SHARP AMERICAN CRITIC-COMEDIAN NAMED LEE CAMP REMINDS ME OF THE DAY THERE WERE MORE LIKE HIM - AND I DOUBT WE'D HEAR MUCH FROM HIM IF HE HADN'T BEEN PICKED UP BY RT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LEE CAMP IN MINTPRESS
“Everyone Has Fallen for the Lies About Venezuela
“It turns out sociopathy is addictive. Our American empire knows no bounds to its nation-building (after nation-destroying)”
Lee Camp is one of the sharpest American critic-comedians to come along in a while.
There used to be, by my memory, more such people in the United States.
People like George Carlin or Mort Sahl or Dick Gregory or the brilliant, but lesser known, David Frye.
Perhaps that is just another measure of how far down things have sunk in America?
And I doubt we'd hear much from Lee Camp if RT hadn't picked him up.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LEE CAMP IN MINTPRESS
“Everyone Has Fallen for the Lies About Venezuela
“It turns out sociopathy is addictive. Our American empire knows no bounds to its nation-building (after nation-destroying)”
Lee Camp is one of the sharpest American critic-comedians to come along in a while.
There used to be, by my memory, more such people in the United States.
People like George Carlin or Mort Sahl or Dick Gregory or the brilliant, but lesser known, David Frye.
Perhaps that is just another measure of how far down things have sunk in America?
And I doubt we'd hear much from Lee Camp if RT hadn't picked him up.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MAX BLUMENTHAL TOURS A SUPERMARKET IN CARACAS AND PUTS THE LIE TO THE AMERICAN TALE OF A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN VENEZUELA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MAX BLUMENTHAL IN MINTPRESS
“Investigating Venezuela’s ‘Humanitarian Crisis’: Max Blumenthal Tours a Supermarket in Caracas”
https://www.mintpressnews.com/investigating-venezuela-humanitarian-crisis-max-blumenthal-tours-supermarket-caracas/255404/
This is the way to speak truth to a world constantly under pressure by the United States to accept nonsense.
It is the very measure of the poor role of the American press today that it never does such things.
It never investigates anything. Not in Syria, Not in Libya. Not in Yemen. Not in Iran. Not in Ukraine. Not in Venezuela. Not in Cuba.
Because all that it does is rewrite and broadcast material it receives from Langley, Virginia.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MAX BLUMENTHAL IN MINTPRESS
“Investigating Venezuela’s ‘Humanitarian Crisis’: Max Blumenthal Tours a Supermarket in Caracas”
https://www.mintpressnews.com/investigating-venezuela-humanitarian-crisis-max-blumenthal-tours-supermarket-caracas/255404/
This is the way to speak truth to a world constantly under pressure by the United States to accept nonsense.
It is the very measure of the poor role of the American press today that it never does such things.
It never investigates anything. Not in Syria, Not in Libya. Not in Yemen. Not in Iran. Not in Ukraine. Not in Venezuela. Not in Cuba.
Because all that it does is rewrite and broadcast material it receives from Langley, Virginia.
Thursday, February 21, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JUST ONE MORE, OFTEN-OVERLOOKED ABSURDITY IN ISRAEL'S EFFORTS TO LABEL ITS CRITICS AS "ANTI-SEMITIC"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN COOK IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Everyone Is an Anti-Semite; at Least That's What the Media Say
‘The term has become so diluted that it has lost any meaning”
I've long thought the most revealing aspect of contemporary “anti-Semitism” charges involves the end of the political spectrum at which they are typically hurled.
Genuine anti-Semitism almost anywhere - Germany, the United States, Ukraine, France, Britain - is associated with the political Right, and generally the extreme Right.
If not outright fascist types, wearing armbands, then at least the suited, corporate types absolutely typified by old man Henry Ford, a man whose portrait graced the wall of Hitler’s Chancellery office. Hitler admired him greatly for his vitriolic views on Jews and other subjects.
But today's charges are heard mainly against the Left.
How can that be?
Because the Left embraces Western historical concepts of democratic and human rights, principles from the Enlightenment.
Well, there's simply not a lot of room in those profoundly important principles for the kind of activity regularly observed in Israel - occupation, abuse, illegal arrest, no voting rights, no defined human rights, theft of property, shooting unarmed people, and on and on.
That's why the Left - any real liberals or progressives - are so disliked in Israel. There is almost a “Hate Liberals Cult” to be found there. We see a version of it, too, in the United States with a portion of Trump’s supporters.
The automatic response from many prominent Israelis to any criticism from people who care about human rights and freedom is to call them "anti-Semitic."
It is of course, absurd on its face, but we do have a fair number of people in our world who don't really think about the words they say and hear. Think of the constant downpour of meaningless words in America’s mainline press and from many of its politicians. It just keeps coming, whether it makes any sense or not, as with America’s raging Russophobia.
Empty, meaningless, but very hateful words. Foaming-at-the-mouth words. And just so with so much of today’s “anti-Semitism” charges and insults.
As a thought experiment, go back to another time, say, that of the Third Reich in the mid-1930s. Is it the Right-wing, the German equivalents of Henry Ford and others, who opposed the Nazis? Who themselves were sent to concentration camps as political prisoners often? No, it was people of conscience, people of principle, the very people being insulted and called names today.
The many Henry Ford types in America, as well as those in Germany, actually made Hitler possible with generous financial contributions and other support. One may even think of close parallels today in support from wealthy outsiders for the worst excesses of Israel.
Readers may enjoy these discussions of the topic:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/john-chuckman-comment-my-definitive-points-against-the-ongoing-shabby-effort-to-conflate-criticism-of-israels-behavior-with-the-prejudice-of-anti-semitism-those-two-things-are-no-more-the-same-th/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/john-chuckman-comment-my-definitive-points-against-the-ongoing-shabby-effort-to-conflate-criticism-of-israels-behavior-with-the-prejudice-of-anti-semitism-those-two-things-are-no-more-the-same-th/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/03/john-chuckman-comment-what-really-drives-the-false-and-malicious-linking-of-liberals-to-anti-semitism-origins-and-true-nature-of-americas-very-strange-relationship-with-israel-some-parallels/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN COOK IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Everyone Is an Anti-Semite; at Least That's What the Media Say
‘The term has become so diluted that it has lost any meaning”
I've long thought the most revealing aspect of contemporary “anti-Semitism” charges involves the end of the political spectrum at which they are typically hurled.
Genuine anti-Semitism almost anywhere - Germany, the United States, Ukraine, France, Britain - is associated with the political Right, and generally the extreme Right.
If not outright fascist types, wearing armbands, then at least the suited, corporate types absolutely typified by old man Henry Ford, a man whose portrait graced the wall of Hitler’s Chancellery office. Hitler admired him greatly for his vitriolic views on Jews and other subjects.
But today's charges are heard mainly against the Left.
How can that be?
Because the Left embraces Western historical concepts of democratic and human rights, principles from the Enlightenment.
Well, there's simply not a lot of room in those profoundly important principles for the kind of activity regularly observed in Israel - occupation, abuse, illegal arrest, no voting rights, no defined human rights, theft of property, shooting unarmed people, and on and on.
That's why the Left - any real liberals or progressives - are so disliked in Israel. There is almost a “Hate Liberals Cult” to be found there. We see a version of it, too, in the United States with a portion of Trump’s supporters.
The automatic response from many prominent Israelis to any criticism from people who care about human rights and freedom is to call them "anti-Semitic."
It is of course, absurd on its face, but we do have a fair number of people in our world who don't really think about the words they say and hear. Think of the constant downpour of meaningless words in America’s mainline press and from many of its politicians. It just keeps coming, whether it makes any sense or not, as with America’s raging Russophobia.
Empty, meaningless, but very hateful words. Foaming-at-the-mouth words. And just so with so much of today’s “anti-Semitism” charges and insults.
As a thought experiment, go back to another time, say, that of the Third Reich in the mid-1930s. Is it the Right-wing, the German equivalents of Henry Ford and others, who opposed the Nazis? Who themselves were sent to concentration camps as political prisoners often? No, it was people of conscience, people of principle, the very people being insulted and called names today.
The many Henry Ford types in America, as well as those in Germany, actually made Hitler possible with generous financial contributions and other support. One may even think of close parallels today in support from wealthy outsiders for the worst excesses of Israel.
Readers may enjoy these discussions of the topic:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/john-chuckman-comment-my-definitive-points-against-the-ongoing-shabby-effort-to-conflate-criticism-of-israels-behavior-with-the-prejudice-of-anti-semitism-those-two-things-are-no-more-the-same-th/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/john-chuckman-comment-my-definitive-points-against-the-ongoing-shabby-effort-to-conflate-criticism-of-israels-behavior-with-the-prejudice-of-anti-semitism-those-two-things-are-no-more-the-same-th/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/03/john-chuckman-comment-what-really-drives-the-false-and-malicious-linking-of-liberals-to-anti-semitism-origins-and-true-nature-of-americas-very-strange-relationship-with-israel-some-parallels/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SENATOR MARCO RUBIO'S VIEWS ON AMERICAN COMPETITION WITH CHINA - JUST ONE MORE REASON WHY HE IS A PERFECT IDIOT
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SENATOR MARCO RUBIO IN BREITBART
“Exclusive — Sen. Marco Rubio: ‘The Chinese Effort to Supplant America Has No Precedent’
“China’s intense international push for global dominance is the biggest threat that America has ever faced, even more substantial than the one that the Soviet Union posed in the 20th century during the Cold War”
Rubio is an idiot. Certifiable.
China is not a danger to the United States in any way.
Unless you view healthy competition from another state as something dangerous.
Unless you view dynamic growth and wonderful new ideas as dangerous.
And economics is not a zero-sum game. Me or you, winner take all. It doesn’t work that way, and Marco Rubio only shines a light on his own economic illiteracy in effectively claiming that it does.
And “supplant” is not a criminal conspiracy charge. It is what naturally occurs when one country or company works very hard at its business while its competitor country or company does not, or, indeed, works hard at doing the wrong things.
Efforts like China's New Silk Road only enrich the world. They will help hundreds of millions to prosper more.
The Silk Road will be infrastructure serving the whole world. Sadly, America cannot even maintain its own national infrastructure. It is too busy spending on its immensely wasteful, totally non-productive gigantic military and security apparatus.
Efforts like American bombing in half a dozen countries only impoverish the world. Maintaining supplies and communications and services for somewhere between eight hundred and one thousand military bases scattered around the planet is about as fruitless and monstrous a task as you could conceive.
Nothing is a greater generator of waste and economic deadweight than a huge military.
It is kept only to dominate others. There is no economic or useful social rationale for it.
The last time I read about the history of empires, and especially their economic dimensions, they were shown to be extremely burdensome and negative institutions. Just as is the case for so many ego-satisfying activities carried on by leaders who think only of themselves.
Readers may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/31/john-chuckman-comment-empire-corrupts-all-the-principles-of-economics-as-well-as-principles-of-ethics-and-good-government-there-is-nothing-good-to-say-about-empire-and-the-american-one-is-no-excep/
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SENATOR MARCO RUBIO IN BREITBART
“Exclusive — Sen. Marco Rubio: ‘The Chinese Effort to Supplant America Has No Precedent’
“China’s intense international push for global dominance is the biggest threat that America has ever faced, even more substantial than the one that the Soviet Union posed in the 20th century during the Cold War”
Rubio is an idiot. Certifiable.
China is not a danger to the United States in any way.
Unless you view healthy competition from another state as something dangerous.
Unless you view dynamic growth and wonderful new ideas as dangerous.
And economics is not a zero-sum game. Me or you, winner take all. It doesn’t work that way, and Marco Rubio only shines a light on his own economic illiteracy in effectively claiming that it does.
And “supplant” is not a criminal conspiracy charge. It is what naturally occurs when one country or company works very hard at its business while its competitor country or company does not, or, indeed, works hard at doing the wrong things.
Efforts like China's New Silk Road only enrich the world. They will help hundreds of millions to prosper more.
The Silk Road will be infrastructure serving the whole world. Sadly, America cannot even maintain its own national infrastructure. It is too busy spending on its immensely wasteful, totally non-productive gigantic military and security apparatus.
Efforts like American bombing in half a dozen countries only impoverish the world. Maintaining supplies and communications and services for somewhere between eight hundred and one thousand military bases scattered around the planet is about as fruitless and monstrous a task as you could conceive.
Nothing is a greater generator of waste and economic deadweight than a huge military.
It is kept only to dominate others. There is no economic or useful social rationale for it.
The last time I read about the history of empires, and especially their economic dimensions, they were shown to be extremely burdensome and negative institutions. Just as is the case for so many ego-satisfying activities carried on by leaders who think only of themselves.
Readers may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/31/john-chuckman-comment-empire-corrupts-all-the-principles-of-economics-as-well-as-principles-of-ethics-and-good-government-there-is-nothing-good-to-say-about-empire-and-the-american-one-is-no-excep/
Monday, February 18, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THERE IS A REAL PRICE TO PAY IF CANADA SHOULD BAN CHINA'S HUAWEI FROM 5G NETWORKS - BUT MONEY IS JUST PART OF THE COST - AMERICAN POLITICAL LUDDISM BEING FOISTED ON THE PLANET - A BULLY TRIES TO TELL EVERYONE WHAT TO BUY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JANYCE MCGREGOR ON CBC NEWS
“Banning Huawei from Canada's 5G networks could be costly for taxpayers
“Terms of investment treaty allow Chinese to sue if government acts on security fears”
Money is just the beginning of the costs, and quite possibly the least of them.
There's our reputation for trustworthiness and dependability as a country doing business internationally.
There's the fact that China would seek opportunities for hurting export developments important to us, as they very much should under such circumstances.
And who needs or wants all that antagonism, completely needless antagonism? China normally displays absolutely no antagonism towards us. They are entirely civil, but our government’s behavior, under American influence, has helped change that.
Having served as the “homestay” for a wonderful Chinese student in Canada for the best part of three years and having come to know some of his many friends, I can say Canada was extremely well regarded. What a shame to throw that away, the opinions of bright young people who will influence their society for years to come.
There's the simple fact that China’s is the best technology of its kind on the planet right now. Banning it puts you behind. Besides, it stinks of new kind of Luddism. Political Luddism.
And, since the United States' entire purpose in all these events, from the start, was to hurt this excellent Chinese technology, for which they have no substitute, we would be playing the Pompeo-Pence-Bolton game, one without fair rules.
We all saw Pence the other day at a big Munich conference trying to tell Europeans what to do in a number of economic and development matters. He was received with stony silence by the audience at times. And with a powerful counter-argument from an old ally like Germany.
America is simply asking what it has no right to ask. Its behavior is blind, blundering, rude, and improper. It trying to fight an underhanded battle against major economic competition - Chinese technology, Russian natural gas, and other products - by proclaiming high principles which do not apply.
Is that the kind of world we want? One where a single big country feels it can order or pressure everyone over what it is that they buy and trade?
It represents insufferable arrogance and bullying. Is Canada going to effectively embrace and support the Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo and John Bolton types of this world? Encourage them in their totally inappropriate activity?
I sure hope not. For once, Justin, show a little backbone, and some independence of thought.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JANYCE MCGREGOR ON CBC NEWS
“Banning Huawei from Canada's 5G networks could be costly for taxpayers
“Terms of investment treaty allow Chinese to sue if government acts on security fears”
Money is just the beginning of the costs, and quite possibly the least of them.
There's our reputation for trustworthiness and dependability as a country doing business internationally.
There's the fact that China would seek opportunities for hurting export developments important to us, as they very much should under such circumstances.
And who needs or wants all that antagonism, completely needless antagonism? China normally displays absolutely no antagonism towards us. They are entirely civil, but our government’s behavior, under American influence, has helped change that.
Having served as the “homestay” for a wonderful Chinese student in Canada for the best part of three years and having come to know some of his many friends, I can say Canada was extremely well regarded. What a shame to throw that away, the opinions of bright young people who will influence their society for years to come.
There's the simple fact that China’s is the best technology of its kind on the planet right now. Banning it puts you behind. Besides, it stinks of new kind of Luddism. Political Luddism.
And, since the United States' entire purpose in all these events, from the start, was to hurt this excellent Chinese technology, for which they have no substitute, we would be playing the Pompeo-Pence-Bolton game, one without fair rules.
We all saw Pence the other day at a big Munich conference trying to tell Europeans what to do in a number of economic and development matters. He was received with stony silence by the audience at times. And with a powerful counter-argument from an old ally like Germany.
America is simply asking what it has no right to ask. Its behavior is blind, blundering, rude, and improper. It trying to fight an underhanded battle against major economic competition - Chinese technology, Russian natural gas, and other products - by proclaiming high principles which do not apply.
Is that the kind of world we want? One where a single big country feels it can order or pressure everyone over what it is that they buy and trade?
It represents insufferable arrogance and bullying. Is Canada going to effectively embrace and support the Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo and John Bolton types of this world? Encourage them in their totally inappropriate activity?
I sure hope not. For once, Justin, show a little backbone, and some independence of thought.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RECENT REVELATIONS OF CRAPPY BEHAVIOR BY THE FBI COME AS NO SURPRISE IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING OF ITS PAST - IT HAS A GOOD REPUTATION ONLY IN ITS OWN MIND
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN KIRIAKOU IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The FBI Came Close to Staging a Coup
“Andrew McCabe, a senior bureau official, provided the alarming evidence in a “60 Minutes” interview”
Yes, I think the headline is accurate.
However, for those who know some of the key history of the FBI, it comes as no revelation and no surprise.
J. Edgar Hoover literally intimidated his way through Washington for years.
He had his special personal and confidential files bulging with blackmail-quality stuff on Congressmen, Senators, and even Presidents.
And he used it, regularly, in quiet little meetings full of innuendo and implicit threats.
And how about the FBI's colossal failures on the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11? Oh, and there's the TWA Flight 800 downing, clearly by a US Navy Missile released in error, endlessly lied about.
In the case of Kennedy and 9/11, the events are coups of a sort. I don't think the FBI was responsible for them, but it sure as hell did not investigate them and bring the bad guys to justice, and it sure did not prevent them.
I'd call that total, crisis-level failure, if not actual playing footsie with coups and internal terror.
The FBI has always been a crappy excuse for a national police force, and I don't understand anyone's talking about the organization's reputation or integrity.
It never had any, except in the claims of its huge output of self-serving propaganda.
Here's an essay from some years back that sums it up pretty well:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN KIRIAKOU IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The FBI Came Close to Staging a Coup
“Andrew McCabe, a senior bureau official, provided the alarming evidence in a “60 Minutes” interview”
Yes, I think the headline is accurate.
However, for those who know some of the key history of the FBI, it comes as no revelation and no surprise.
J. Edgar Hoover literally intimidated his way through Washington for years.
He had his special personal and confidential files bulging with blackmail-quality stuff on Congressmen, Senators, and even Presidents.
And he used it, regularly, in quiet little meetings full of innuendo and implicit threats.
And how about the FBI's colossal failures on the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11? Oh, and there's the TWA Flight 800 downing, clearly by a US Navy Missile released in error, endlessly lied about.
In the case of Kennedy and 9/11, the events are coups of a sort. I don't think the FBI was responsible for them, but it sure as hell did not investigate them and bring the bad guys to justice, and it sure did not prevent them.
I'd call that total, crisis-level failure, if not actual playing footsie with coups and internal terror.
The FBI has always been a crappy excuse for a national police force, and I don't understand anyone's talking about the organization's reputation or integrity.
It never had any, except in the claims of its huge output of self-serving propaganda.
Here's an essay from some years back that sums it up pretty well:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHEN YOU ATTACK AN IMAGE OF THE MADONNA YOU MAKE A SERIOUS MISTAKE - THE ISRAEL LOBBY'S BLUNDERING ERRORS ARE STARTING TO TURN GENERAL PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS - FINALLY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NADA ELIA IN MONDOWEISS
“Attacks on Ilhan Omar seek to derail an acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering”
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/02/acknowledgment-palestinian-suffering/
That's just a beautiful picture of Ilhan Omar at the top of the page.
Honestly, it's a picture of the Madonna. Of human kindness and decency. Very powerful.
This is what the Soviet apparatchik-types of the Israel Lobby have chosen to attack.
What a mistake, but then so many of the things Israel and its lobby do today are clumsy, thuggish mistakes that they are beginning to affect general public perceptions. Finally.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NADA ELIA IN MONDOWEISS
“Attacks on Ilhan Omar seek to derail an acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering”
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/02/acknowledgment-palestinian-suffering/
That's just a beautiful picture of Ilhan Omar at the top of the page.
Honestly, it's a picture of the Madonna. Of human kindness and decency. Very powerful.
This is what the Soviet apparatchik-types of the Israel Lobby have chosen to attack.
What a mistake, but then so many of the things Israel and its lobby do today are clumsy, thuggish mistakes that they are beginning to affect general public perceptions. Finally.
Sunday, February 17, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: YOU FIND EFFORTS TO JUSTIFY ALMOST ANYTHING THESE DAYS - MY RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE CLAIMING THERE WAS A KIND OF DEMOCRACY IN HITLER'S GERMANY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WALSH IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Hitler's Germany: More Democratic Than Modern-Day Europe
"AMIDST MUCH TALK of the Brexit Referendum media has little to say about the only European nation that actually practised democracy for the people by the people. Hitler’s Germany not only invited the electorate to participate in running their own country, they did so with considerable success."
Oh, please, this is rubbish.
Yes, referenda were held by the Nazis.
Yes, results in the ninety-percent range were obtained.
But did they mean anything? They meant absolutely no more than votes in the USSR under Stalin.
The Nazis were quite skilled at manipulating people. Dr Goebbels was an early genius at the art of propaganda. And there was a pervasive sense of the Gestapo watching, everywhere, and they did.
No free vote anywhere ever gets results in the ninety-percent range. It just doesn't happen. People in no society are that cohesive about almost any subject.
Hitler, when he actually campaigned and ran for office in elections in the early 1930s, never achieved more than about 37% of the popular vote. His votes before that were significantly less, and he was almost certainly losing momentum after the 37% vote.
Hitler, after being constitutionally appointed Chancellor in 1933, by an aging President Hindenburg desperate and frustrated by the many divisions and fights in Germany during the early 1930s, only achieved his full power with a coup. The Reichstag Fire and new laws that swiftly followed plus waves of arrests were the Maidan event of their day.
After a few years of successful economic recovery and policies which put Germany at center stage again in Europe, Hitler did come to enjoy a period of some popularity, although its extent was never confirmed in any scientific fashion. He was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1938.
When it was clear Germany was going to war again, observers such as William Shirer noted a definite sense of cooling and lack of enthusiasm at mass gatherings.
But the Reich was not a society where one could freely voice opinions outside the views of government. The Gestapo was very active as internal secret police. The first concentration camps (not death camps) appeared early and were filled with German dissenters of many descriptions.
Many of the Nazi's dark internal policies were kept secret, policies like the killing of "subnormal" children and the sterilization of people judged unfit to reproduce, so they did not influence public opinion.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WALSH IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Hitler's Germany: More Democratic Than Modern-Day Europe
"AMIDST MUCH TALK of the Brexit Referendum media has little to say about the only European nation that actually practised democracy for the people by the people. Hitler’s Germany not only invited the electorate to participate in running their own country, they did so with considerable success."
Oh, please, this is rubbish.
Yes, referenda were held by the Nazis.
Yes, results in the ninety-percent range were obtained.
But did they mean anything? They meant absolutely no more than votes in the USSR under Stalin.
The Nazis were quite skilled at manipulating people. Dr Goebbels was an early genius at the art of propaganda. And there was a pervasive sense of the Gestapo watching, everywhere, and they did.
No free vote anywhere ever gets results in the ninety-percent range. It just doesn't happen. People in no society are that cohesive about almost any subject.
Hitler, when he actually campaigned and ran for office in elections in the early 1930s, never achieved more than about 37% of the popular vote. His votes before that were significantly less, and he was almost certainly losing momentum after the 37% vote.
Hitler, after being constitutionally appointed Chancellor in 1933, by an aging President Hindenburg desperate and frustrated by the many divisions and fights in Germany during the early 1930s, only achieved his full power with a coup. The Reichstag Fire and new laws that swiftly followed plus waves of arrests were the Maidan event of their day.
After a few years of successful economic recovery and policies which put Germany at center stage again in Europe, Hitler did come to enjoy a period of some popularity, although its extent was never confirmed in any scientific fashion. He was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1938.
When it was clear Germany was going to war again, observers such as William Shirer noted a definite sense of cooling and lack of enthusiasm at mass gatherings.
But the Reich was not a society where one could freely voice opinions outside the views of government. The Gestapo was very active as internal secret police. The first concentration camps (not death camps) appeared early and were filled with German dissenters of many descriptions.
Many of the Nazi's dark internal policies were kept secret, policies like the killing of "subnormal" children and the sterilization of people judged unfit to reproduce, so they did not influence public opinion.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE BASIC STORY OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND AMERICA'S DEEP STATE - A BRAVE AND SMILING-FACED WOMAN, REPRESENTATIVE ILHAN OMAR, TAKES THEM ON
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“The Israeli Lobby Is the Deep State”
There is definitely some truth in the title.
At the least, the Israel lobby is a component of the American Deep State, working closely, intimately, with its other components, including the Senate, the Pentagon, CIA, and the State Department.
The Neocons, for example, are entrenched in major Washington departments and agencies, very much including the State Department and the Defense Department, and they are influential in policy. In Trump’s government, Neocons fill several cabinet posts, important ones.
(For those who do not know the term "Neocon," it is short for Neoconservative and represents a small but influential American political movement with one of its main articles of faith being that the United States should not be shy about using military might to get what it wants in the world. They have openly advocated for various wars. The movement's connection to Israel is in the fact that that article of faith works to Israel's advantage in getting what it wants and in the fact that most of the prominent members of the movement are American Jews who keep Israel high in their considerations.)
It is all hard to sort out because Israel’s situation is complex and ambiguous, deliberately so. It is indeed a de facto Middle East colony of the United States, a very special kind of colony, one permitted the appearance and most of the activity of an independent state.
And Israel’s lobby is multifaceted. It certainly includes far more than just AIPAC, which is the main formal avenue for influencing political leaders and distributing campaign funds. There are a number of wealthy individuals, multi-billionaires, who make Israel a chief concern and make extremely large campaign donations as well as providing other services. There are literally lists of private organizations and foundations who work to influence opinions. And there are the chief members of America’s press and broadcasting, all of whom are dedicated to Israel’s welfare and never challenge its excesses.
Hollywood, too, does a lot of work to shape public opinion, even sometimes working directly for Israel, as with its annual big bash dinner to collect millions of dollars for the Israeli Army. It did a lot to support the White Helmets of Syria, who function, under the cover of being an NGO, as a propaganda film-making and advocacy group for Western bombing there. Recently, the luxurious gift bags given to all nominees at the Oscar Awards included a free five-star trip to Israel.
The entire Israel lobby in the United States is literally a kind of multi-corporate venture, quite a large one. It is able to bring pressures from many directions. President Truman, when he was being lobbied to recognize self-declared Israel in 1948, felt under the most intense, almost headache-inducing pressure. He told us so in his writing. Well, since then, the Israel lobby has done nothing but grow in sophistication and size. Now, after each national election, for example, there is a program of paid trips to Israel for all freshmen Congressmen, ostensibly friendly holidays but actually carefully planned information and influence and assessment sessions. Woe betide the new Congressman who turns down the invite or asks the wrong questions on the trip.
America defends even Israel’s worst bloody work because America’s establishment is literally embedded with Israel’s interests.
I admire young Omar's courage, and I note she usually has a sweet smile on her face.
This is a sincere and kindly critic, but a critic indeed.
And that's something you are not allowed to be in modern America. If you take the position of critic, you will pay a price, as Representative Ilhan Omar very much is being made to pay.
Her future sources of campaign funding will be hurt, as the Israel Lobby will go after any significant ones she has with suggestions of economic consequences for their businesses. Her mainline press coverage will be very unfriendly. She will be called “anti-Semitic” constantly. And any future opponent in her district will get some seriously focused support, not just in funds but in technical and expert support and in good press.
That is just the way it works. No lobby is better organized or more determined to get at its opponents. We’ve had various cases in the past of critical Congressmen being literally bulldozed. So, I hope her constituency connections are strong and resistant to pressure.
After all, America just fought a good fifteen years of the destructive Neocon Wars, mainly to remake the face of the Middle East for Israel's benefit. It spent countless billions in a vast effort trying to turn Israel’s blood-soaked neighborhood into something resembling a smiling Ozzie and Harriet suburb of the 1950s.
About two million people have been killed in this “crusade” and millions of hopeless refugees created, refugees afterwards ignored and disparaged in America.
Week after week, Washington just ignores Israeli soldiers cowardly kneeling behind a fence while ambushing civilians, shooting children, women, journalists, and medics as well as others just demonstrating for some rights.
It ignores, too, what is clearly the world’s largest existing concentration camp, a place called Gaza, where people have deliberately been kept in misery for over half a century.
And Washington, that intense defender of private property everywhere, just ignores the vicious thefts and attacks of "settlers" and Israel’s own government in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Just imagine the reaction were a poor and deprived group of American blacks to behave the same way in the suburbs of a city, say, Chicago or Detroit?
The National Guard would be sent in immediately to shoot those taking or destroying property, something they have indeed done a number of times in the past during racial riots.
And Washington, which regards itself as a great defender of democracy, at least in its speeches, simply ignores, decade after decade, the fact that Israel’s government holds millions under its control who do not want to be under its control. It holds them without rights of any kind, without votes, and without enjoying the basic Western principle of rule of law.
It's all beyond appalling, and then American officials go on and on with charges and accusations against a decent leader like President Maduro of Venezuela.
_____________________
Response to a comment saying almost half the bills passed in Congress this year mention Israel:
How about a State of the Union speech featuring Israeli interests? Bizarre.
George Washington, who started the practice of the State of the Union Speech, in his Farewell Address to the Nation, warned against “foreign entanglements,” and Israel is about as great an entanglement as you could come up with.
Trump has been Israel's greatest willing helper.
Willing, that is, in return for the kind of support Omar will not receive, for the kind of support she is being harshly criticized for openly discussing. He literally can expect tens of millions of dollars for his 2020 campaign in return for such lawless acts as moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“The Israeli Lobby Is the Deep State”
There is definitely some truth in the title.
At the least, the Israel lobby is a component of the American Deep State, working closely, intimately, with its other components, including the Senate, the Pentagon, CIA, and the State Department.
The Neocons, for example, are entrenched in major Washington departments and agencies, very much including the State Department and the Defense Department, and they are influential in policy. In Trump’s government, Neocons fill several cabinet posts, important ones.
(For those who do not know the term "Neocon," it is short for Neoconservative and represents a small but influential American political movement with one of its main articles of faith being that the United States should not be shy about using military might to get what it wants in the world. They have openly advocated for various wars. The movement's connection to Israel is in the fact that that article of faith works to Israel's advantage in getting what it wants and in the fact that most of the prominent members of the movement are American Jews who keep Israel high in their considerations.)
It is all hard to sort out because Israel’s situation is complex and ambiguous, deliberately so. It is indeed a de facto Middle East colony of the United States, a very special kind of colony, one permitted the appearance and most of the activity of an independent state.
And Israel’s lobby is multifaceted. It certainly includes far more than just AIPAC, which is the main formal avenue for influencing political leaders and distributing campaign funds. There are a number of wealthy individuals, multi-billionaires, who make Israel a chief concern and make extremely large campaign donations as well as providing other services. There are literally lists of private organizations and foundations who work to influence opinions. And there are the chief members of America’s press and broadcasting, all of whom are dedicated to Israel’s welfare and never challenge its excesses.
Hollywood, too, does a lot of work to shape public opinion, even sometimes working directly for Israel, as with its annual big bash dinner to collect millions of dollars for the Israeli Army. It did a lot to support the White Helmets of Syria, who function, under the cover of being an NGO, as a propaganda film-making and advocacy group for Western bombing there. Recently, the luxurious gift bags given to all nominees at the Oscar Awards included a free five-star trip to Israel.
The entire Israel lobby in the United States is literally a kind of multi-corporate venture, quite a large one. It is able to bring pressures from many directions. President Truman, when he was being lobbied to recognize self-declared Israel in 1948, felt under the most intense, almost headache-inducing pressure. He told us so in his writing. Well, since then, the Israel lobby has done nothing but grow in sophistication and size. Now, after each national election, for example, there is a program of paid trips to Israel for all freshmen Congressmen, ostensibly friendly holidays but actually carefully planned information and influence and assessment sessions. Woe betide the new Congressman who turns down the invite or asks the wrong questions on the trip.
America defends even Israel’s worst bloody work because America’s establishment is literally embedded with Israel’s interests.
I admire young Omar's courage, and I note she usually has a sweet smile on her face.
This is a sincere and kindly critic, but a critic indeed.
And that's something you are not allowed to be in modern America. If you take the position of critic, you will pay a price, as Representative Ilhan Omar very much is being made to pay.
Her future sources of campaign funding will be hurt, as the Israel Lobby will go after any significant ones she has with suggestions of economic consequences for their businesses. Her mainline press coverage will be very unfriendly. She will be called “anti-Semitic” constantly. And any future opponent in her district will get some seriously focused support, not just in funds but in technical and expert support and in good press.
That is just the way it works. No lobby is better organized or more determined to get at its opponents. We’ve had various cases in the past of critical Congressmen being literally bulldozed. So, I hope her constituency connections are strong and resistant to pressure.
After all, America just fought a good fifteen years of the destructive Neocon Wars, mainly to remake the face of the Middle East for Israel's benefit. It spent countless billions in a vast effort trying to turn Israel’s blood-soaked neighborhood into something resembling a smiling Ozzie and Harriet suburb of the 1950s.
About two million people have been killed in this “crusade” and millions of hopeless refugees created, refugees afterwards ignored and disparaged in America.
Week after week, Washington just ignores Israeli soldiers cowardly kneeling behind a fence while ambushing civilians, shooting children, women, journalists, and medics as well as others just demonstrating for some rights.
It ignores, too, what is clearly the world’s largest existing concentration camp, a place called Gaza, where people have deliberately been kept in misery for over half a century.
And Washington, that intense defender of private property everywhere, just ignores the vicious thefts and attacks of "settlers" and Israel’s own government in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Just imagine the reaction were a poor and deprived group of American blacks to behave the same way in the suburbs of a city, say, Chicago or Detroit?
The National Guard would be sent in immediately to shoot those taking or destroying property, something they have indeed done a number of times in the past during racial riots.
And Washington, which regards itself as a great defender of democracy, at least in its speeches, simply ignores, decade after decade, the fact that Israel’s government holds millions under its control who do not want to be under its control. It holds them without rights of any kind, without votes, and without enjoying the basic Western principle of rule of law.
It's all beyond appalling, and then American officials go on and on with charges and accusations against a decent leader like President Maduro of Venezuela.
_____________________
Response to a comment saying almost half the bills passed in Congress this year mention Israel:
How about a State of the Union speech featuring Israeli interests? Bizarre.
George Washington, who started the practice of the State of the Union Speech, in his Farewell Address to the Nation, warned against “foreign entanglements,” and Israel is about as great an entanglement as you could come up with.
Trump has been Israel's greatest willing helper.
Willing, that is, in return for the kind of support Omar will not receive, for the kind of support she is being harshly criticized for openly discussing. He literally can expect tens of millions of dollars for his 2020 campaign in return for such lawless acts as moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem.
Friday, February 15, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TULSI GABBARD IS THE MOST APPEALING AMERICAN POLITICIAN IN A LONG TIME - THE REALITIES AWAITING HER SHOULD SHE EVER MANAGE TO GET ELECTED - ELIZABETH WARREN AND P. T. BARNUM
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN MINTPRESS
“Is Tulsi Gabbard for Real? America Is Ready for a Genuine Peace Candidate
“What Tulsi Gabbard is accomplishing might be measured by the enemies that are already gathering and are out to get her.”
Tulsi Gabbard is most appealing American politician to come along in a long time.
Not extreme enough in social/economic matters to be rejected automatically by the bulk of Americans, who are, in fact, very conservative and tradition-bound. Yet offering serious thoughts and efforts about peace.
And the courage to have actually done so basic a thing as talk to people in “the West’s” deliberately created hell of Syria.
And she even comes "packaged" as a veteran.
She would be hard to dream up. The more predictable political challenger types in America are represented by Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, both about as inauthentic as true liberals as it comes. Bone-marrow establishment, both of them.
But her chance of having any impact on the ferocious face of war America displays to the world literally is zero.
The size and resources of America's war party are almost beyond comprehension.
Were by some miracle she to become the candidate of the Democratic Party, either of two destinies would await her.
First, the Obama destiny, where a sometimes sandal-wearing young man bravely eschews the de rigueur American flag lapel pin during his campaign but ends up bombing people for every day of his eight years and indeed ends up adopting the dumb American flag lapel pin.
Or, second, the Kennedy destiny where a man who genuinely did threaten aspects of the American death machine left a fair part of his head splattered across a street in Dallas.
Anything else is just fantasy.
These are very powerful and devious people running the show in America. Anyone with her views on their wars would quickly be made to feel as embattled and threatened as President Maduro.
They'll let someone like Gabbard speak for a while to reinforce the happy notion that America is somehow something that it's not. After all, that’s what the press busies itself doing twenty-four hours a day.
But to actually take power and use it for peace? That’s like expecting a miracle. And I have it on good authority that miracles never extend beyond the confines of a sweet childish imagination.
__________________
Response to a comment about Elizabeth Warren’s good points:
Warren is a phony.
Truly among the worst, and America produces so many of them. After all, it is the native land of P. T. Barnum.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/john-chuckman-comment-the-sad-hopes-of-those-called-wrongly-americas-liberals-elizabeth-warrens-candidacy-for-president/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN MINTPRESS
“Is Tulsi Gabbard for Real? America Is Ready for a Genuine Peace Candidate
“What Tulsi Gabbard is accomplishing might be measured by the enemies that are already gathering and are out to get her.”
Tulsi Gabbard is most appealing American politician to come along in a long time.
Not extreme enough in social/economic matters to be rejected automatically by the bulk of Americans, who are, in fact, very conservative and tradition-bound. Yet offering serious thoughts and efforts about peace.
And the courage to have actually done so basic a thing as talk to people in “the West’s” deliberately created hell of Syria.
And she even comes "packaged" as a veteran.
She would be hard to dream up. The more predictable political challenger types in America are represented by Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, both about as inauthentic as true liberals as it comes. Bone-marrow establishment, both of them.
But her chance of having any impact on the ferocious face of war America displays to the world literally is zero.
The size and resources of America's war party are almost beyond comprehension.
Were by some miracle she to become the candidate of the Democratic Party, either of two destinies would await her.
First, the Obama destiny, where a sometimes sandal-wearing young man bravely eschews the de rigueur American flag lapel pin during his campaign but ends up bombing people for every day of his eight years and indeed ends up adopting the dumb American flag lapel pin.
Or, second, the Kennedy destiny where a man who genuinely did threaten aspects of the American death machine left a fair part of his head splattered across a street in Dallas.
Anything else is just fantasy.
These are very powerful and devious people running the show in America. Anyone with her views on their wars would quickly be made to feel as embattled and threatened as President Maduro.
They'll let someone like Gabbard speak for a while to reinforce the happy notion that America is somehow something that it's not. After all, that’s what the press busies itself doing twenty-four hours a day.
But to actually take power and use it for peace? That’s like expecting a miracle. And I have it on good authority that miracles never extend beyond the confines of a sweet childish imagination.
__________________
Response to a comment about Elizabeth Warren’s good points:
Warren is a phony.
Truly among the worst, and America produces so many of them. After all, it is the native land of P. T. Barnum.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/john-chuckman-comment-the-sad-hopes-of-those-called-wrongly-americas-liberals-elizabeth-warrens-candidacy-for-president/
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S UGLY DRUNKEN-SAILOR ACT TOWARDS VENEZUELA - SETTING NEW LOWS IN STATESMANSHIP AND RESPECT FOR LAW - A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR FUTURE BEHAVIOR BY OTHER STATES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY STEVE ELLNER IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Regime Change Made in the USA”
Yes, and I think nothing we've seen from the United States in quite a while generates more just plain contempt for America's government than this circus over Venezuela.
Frankly, American officials resemble nothing so much as a gang of drunken sailors standing on a street corner, leering and shouting rude things to every person passing.
Good God, such open contempt for the rule of law and diplomatic protocol and the very values of democracy from a nation that seems to think it actually sets high standards in the world.
How does it get more inappropriate, more threatening than American officials contacting members of Venezuela's armed forces and luring them to revolt?
Americans, is this the kind of work you elect your government to perform?
Unless the United States actually decides to invade, which I tend to believe for a few reasons it will not, I think this entire dangerously blundering effort in Venezuela is going to fail.
The man America opposes is popular, was elected twice, and for anyone reading his statements appears to have a higher standard of honesty than any senior member of the American government.
Maybe this whole matter will open up a new chapter in America’s relations with other countries.
I don't see why, after this, others should show any reluctance to butt into America's internal affairs.
Speak up. Advertise. Leak. There's a wealth of embarrassing and really dirty stuff packed away in Washington's closets.
It would be such a well-deserved reward.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY STEVE ELLNER IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Regime Change Made in the USA”
Yes, and I think nothing we've seen from the United States in quite a while generates more just plain contempt for America's government than this circus over Venezuela.
Frankly, American officials resemble nothing so much as a gang of drunken sailors standing on a street corner, leering and shouting rude things to every person passing.
Good God, such open contempt for the rule of law and diplomatic protocol and the very values of democracy from a nation that seems to think it actually sets high standards in the world.
How does it get more inappropriate, more threatening than American officials contacting members of Venezuela's armed forces and luring them to revolt?
Americans, is this the kind of work you elect your government to perform?
Unless the United States actually decides to invade, which I tend to believe for a few reasons it will not, I think this entire dangerously blundering effort in Venezuela is going to fail.
The man America opposes is popular, was elected twice, and for anyone reading his statements appears to have a higher standard of honesty than any senior member of the American government.
Maybe this whole matter will open up a new chapter in America’s relations with other countries.
I don't see why, after this, others should show any reluctance to butt into America's internal affairs.
Speak up. Advertise. Leak. There's a wealth of embarrassing and really dirty stuff packed away in Washington's closets.
It would be such a well-deserved reward.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE CARELESS TALK ABOUT CAPITALISM VERSUS SOCIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
“Is Canada a dangerous bastion of socialism? According to Trump, maybe
“Like the term liberal, socialism has many shades of meaning and some apply to us in Canada”
A mixed economy is what is always called for. It's what we in fact have. There is always the question of arriving at just the right balance, something which will vary from society to society.
And a mixed economy is exactly what the United States also has, just a different mix.
Complete bare-knuckles capitalism is best symbolized by the Mafia.
True socialism just does not produce adequate growth and innovation.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
“Is Canada a dangerous bastion of socialism? According to Trump, maybe
“Like the term liberal, socialism has many shades of meaning and some apply to us in Canada”
A mixed economy is what is always called for. It's what we in fact have. There is always the question of arriving at just the right balance, something which will vary from society to society.
And a mixed economy is exactly what the United States also has, just a different mix.
Complete bare-knuckles capitalism is best symbolized by the Mafia.
True socialism just does not produce adequate growth and innovation.
Friday, February 08, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MIKE POMPEO AND HEZBOLLAH IN SOUTH AMERICA WITH JESUS AND A HOST OF ANGELS - LUNACY AT THE TOP OF A THERMONUCLEAR POWER
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
"Trump’s Secretary of State Pompeo says Hezbollah is active in Venezuela”
The statement is pretty close to insane. But in the United States these days any wild or outrageous claim is treated as acceptable, so long as it advances the "narrative."
The statement is so far out that it doesn’t recognize what Hezbollah actually is. It is an organization which deters Israel from attacking Lebanon again, one created to push Israel out of the Southern portion of Lebanon it had illegally occupied for many years. What possibly would be its interest in Venezuela? Or even its capacity?
The statement reveals only what ignorant fantasy we are dealing with at the highest level of American government. Its only purpose is to exploit the fear associated with the notion of a so-called terrorist organization. Pompeo’s Hezbollah is a cartoon character Israel invented years ago and promotes for its own benefit. Ergo, we should attack Venezuela, destroying the legally elected government we don’t happen to like. Sure, that makes a lot of sense to me.
It’s a pretty sad state for a great nation to be reduced to, blurting out stuff like a drunk on a street corner.
Well, Pompeo is a "born again" fundamentalist Christian who brags of keeping an open Bible on his office desk. Someone who believes Satan is a real, living, breathing presence in the world. Someone who believes Jesus died for our sins twenty centuries ago. Someone who believes Jesus is returning with a blast of trumpets and a host of mighty angels.
Imagine, the relevance of the nightmarish words of the New Testament’s Book of Revelations or the crack-brained myths of the Old Testament to a thermonuclear power?
It’s scary to think about. But that is America today.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
"Trump’s Secretary of State Pompeo says Hezbollah is active in Venezuela”
The statement is pretty close to insane. But in the United States these days any wild or outrageous claim is treated as acceptable, so long as it advances the "narrative."
The statement is so far out that it doesn’t recognize what Hezbollah actually is. It is an organization which deters Israel from attacking Lebanon again, one created to push Israel out of the Southern portion of Lebanon it had illegally occupied for many years. What possibly would be its interest in Venezuela? Or even its capacity?
The statement reveals only what ignorant fantasy we are dealing with at the highest level of American government. Its only purpose is to exploit the fear associated with the notion of a so-called terrorist organization. Pompeo’s Hezbollah is a cartoon character Israel invented years ago and promotes for its own benefit. Ergo, we should attack Venezuela, destroying the legally elected government we don’t happen to like. Sure, that makes a lot of sense to me.
It’s a pretty sad state for a great nation to be reduced to, blurting out stuff like a drunk on a street corner.
Well, Pompeo is a "born again" fundamentalist Christian who brags of keeping an open Bible on his office desk. Someone who believes Satan is a real, living, breathing presence in the world. Someone who believes Jesus died for our sins twenty centuries ago. Someone who believes Jesus is returning with a blast of trumpets and a host of mighty angels.
Imagine, the relevance of the nightmarish words of the New Testament’s Book of Revelations or the crack-brained myths of the Old Testament to a thermonuclear power?
It’s scary to think about. But that is America today.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S STATE OF THE UNION REVIEWED BY A SUPPOSED ESTABLISHMENT CRITIC - NO WONDER AMERICA IS IN SO MUCH TROUBLE - EVEN THE CRITICS ADMIRE STUPIDITY SO LONG AS IT IS GENUINELY AMERICAN
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Trump's State of the Union: Good Content, Bad Optics”
"As for Trump himself, I think Trump was, and still is, sincere."
Sincere? Sincere about what?
It is actually troubling that anyone sees sincerity in this man of rash statements, contradictory acts, consistent name-calling, little genuine understanding, and who makes war while talking peace.
Truly a regrettable performance here by an author regarded as a critic of Washington's establishment.
The speech was one long string of American clichés and braggadocio, starting with his historically ignorant words about D-Day. While those relatively few 60 thousand American troops waded ashore with another 15 thousand dropped from the air, literally millions were engaged in total war on the Eastern Front, as they had been for almost three years. Total war America has never known and can’t even imagine.
And I think, given the state of American attitudes about, and relationships with, Russia, Trump only served the interests of Russophobia with his words.
His stuff about the Holocaust survivor was out-of-place and self-serving and, likely quite inaccurate in its details. But what is a Holocaust anecdote even doing in a speech about the State of the (American) Union? The man who started the practice of such speeches, George Washington, warned the nation against “foreign entanglements” in his Farewell Address. Well, Israel has been the great foreign entanglement of all time, draining the nation of resources and privileges and committing it to battles better avoided.
Why self-serving? Because Trump, as no president of recent years, has served Israel's interests almost as though he were a hired hand. Much of what he's done has been shabby and illegal, to say nothing of its ethics. He has literally lined the pockets of his 2020 political campaign at the expense of millions of other people.
He has quietly supported a long list of illegal and violent Israeli behaviors while, out of the other side of his mouth, he goes on and on attacking and threatening a sincere man like Maduro in Venezuela, just as he never stops attacking a law-abiding member of the international community Israel happens to hate, Iran.
Israel's often-violent new settlements in West Bank. Israel's ugly activities in East Jerusalem. Israel’s public slaughters at the border with Gaza. Israel’s constant bombardment of a country with which it is not at war, Syria. Right down to the intense efforts of Israel's lobby to curtail the rights of American citizens with national anti-free speech legislation.
And, just as his speech pandered to narrow Israeli interests, it pandered to America’s establishment, “the swamp” he so railed against it in the past, although one could easily argue that the stuff for Israel is part and parcel now of the American establishment.
Yes, Mr. President, the same Israel whose interests are at the very center of the wars in the Middle East you once decried when asking for people’s votes. The wars that have killed a couple of million people, made many millions into refugees, cost a couple of trillion dollars, and which have not abated in the least with two years of your attention.
__________________
Response to another comment:
Well said.
"This shit" is indeed "confusing," and the author has revealed some very big gaps in his grasp of events.
Not worth reading, except to understand the confused thinking of even critical Americans.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Trump's State of the Union: Good Content, Bad Optics”
"As for Trump himself, I think Trump was, and still is, sincere."
Sincere? Sincere about what?
It is actually troubling that anyone sees sincerity in this man of rash statements, contradictory acts, consistent name-calling, little genuine understanding, and who makes war while talking peace.
Truly a regrettable performance here by an author regarded as a critic of Washington's establishment.
The speech was one long string of American clichés and braggadocio, starting with his historically ignorant words about D-Day. While those relatively few 60 thousand American troops waded ashore with another 15 thousand dropped from the air, literally millions were engaged in total war on the Eastern Front, as they had been for almost three years. Total war America has never known and can’t even imagine.
And I think, given the state of American attitudes about, and relationships with, Russia, Trump only served the interests of Russophobia with his words.
His stuff about the Holocaust survivor was out-of-place and self-serving and, likely quite inaccurate in its details. But what is a Holocaust anecdote even doing in a speech about the State of the (American) Union? The man who started the practice of such speeches, George Washington, warned the nation against “foreign entanglements” in his Farewell Address. Well, Israel has been the great foreign entanglement of all time, draining the nation of resources and privileges and committing it to battles better avoided.
Why self-serving? Because Trump, as no president of recent years, has served Israel's interests almost as though he were a hired hand. Much of what he's done has been shabby and illegal, to say nothing of its ethics. He has literally lined the pockets of his 2020 political campaign at the expense of millions of other people.
He has quietly supported a long list of illegal and violent Israeli behaviors while, out of the other side of his mouth, he goes on and on attacking and threatening a sincere man like Maduro in Venezuela, just as he never stops attacking a law-abiding member of the international community Israel happens to hate, Iran.
Israel's often-violent new settlements in West Bank. Israel's ugly activities in East Jerusalem. Israel’s public slaughters at the border with Gaza. Israel’s constant bombardment of a country with which it is not at war, Syria. Right down to the intense efforts of Israel's lobby to curtail the rights of American citizens with national anti-free speech legislation.
And, just as his speech pandered to narrow Israeli interests, it pandered to America’s establishment, “the swamp” he so railed against it in the past, although one could easily argue that the stuff for Israel is part and parcel now of the American establishment.
Yes, Mr. President, the same Israel whose interests are at the very center of the wars in the Middle East you once decried when asking for people’s votes. The wars that have killed a couple of million people, made many millions into refugees, cost a couple of trillion dollars, and which have not abated in the least with two years of your attention.
__________________
Response to another comment:
Well said.
"This shit" is indeed "confusing," and the author has revealed some very big gaps in his grasp of events.
Not worth reading, except to understand the confused thinking of even critical Americans.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE VERY PECULIAR NATURE OF TRUMP'S MANY LIES - HIS PRECARIOUS POSITION WITH THE WASHINGTON POWER ESTABLISHMENT - THE USE THEY MAKE OF HIM - SOMETHING OF WHERE WE ARE HEADED
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
In a way, Trump is worse and more dangerous than a typical liar
But I'm not sure Trump even knows when he is lying.
Basically, as we've seen and heard from him in so many matters, Trump's reality is whatever he wants it to be.
It's a mental condition, not unlike psychopathy.
He is happy with the tales he tells, and he expects others to be happy with them, too. When they are not, he just insults them, calling them liars or other nasty names.
I think the only safety for the world from a man like this lies in the fact that he is unable to act on many of his tales. The establishment lets him rant on, but indeed blunts any of his acts that it doesn't regard as in keeping with its pre-existing agenda. Unfortunately for countless millions of ordinary people, that pre-existing agenda is itself also threatening.
America wants nothing so much as a return to the 1950s, or rather a return to the relative importance of America in the world of that time, to the respect that it enjoyed then, because the world has grown away from a reality once so comfortable for America. The trouble is that the effort to return to that world can only involve aggression, threats, Mafia-like pressures and extortions because it is something entirely artificial being imposed, something going against many natural developments of the last seventy-five years.
This is what we are seeing right now, whether it’s America telling Europe where it can buy its natural gas or telling China how it should sell its products or telling third countries that they should not buy any of Russia’s military technology or allowing its colony of Israel literally to seize the homes and assets of Palestinians, or telling countries like Venezuela who they should elect so that resources can be treated the way America wants them treated.
This is the vision for our near-term future, and what is Trump’s role in it?
Trump can be seen now as frantically trying to retain his job as President. Much like a drowning man waving his arms and splashing desperately. He actually tries now to outdo the establishment with its own agenda as a way to demonstrate his usefulness to them and to ward off the threat he is under. Nothing of the few sensible changes Trump first offered, changes the establishment regarded as threatening, is going to be realized. The tiny change he recently offered in Syria, for example, has already been distorted into something beyond recognition.
After all, official agencies of the American government, set to work by the previous administration and portions of his own party did try to unseat him, and he remains threatened by ongoing investigation. He knows that the threat isn’t just about supposed collusion with Russia, which has always been a dark fairy tale which tried to exploit America’s throbbing hangover from the Cold War.
However, Russophobia in general isn’t just that. It is the implicit recognition of Russia as a stumbling block to America’s reassertion of world dominance, an extremely important point. I think Russia is viewed in Washington much as ancient Carthage was viewed by the rulers of the Roman Empire, clearly a very dangerous perspective.
And America is reinforced in that view by those running its powerful colony in the Middle East. That is how they, too, see Russia, as a stumbling block to America’s complete dominance, the situation they embrace as best for their own interests.
This chaotic, dishonest, and raging man, Trump, has a closet bulging with skeletons, and a well-resourced investigation could come up with any number of them. Embarrassment or indictment or forced resignation rather than impeachment are definitely ongoing possibilities for him, and here is an ego that regards itself as just too big to fail.
The fact that this bizarre man was elected tells us something about America, and that is that there are tens of millions who feel powerless, who feel no one really represents them. There is a good deal of desperation.
And they are absolutely right to feel the way they do, but they only added to the list of their own woes by electing a man who can do nothing for them and whose recklessness is shaping up itself as extremely dangerous - in Venezuela, In Syria, in Palestine, in Iran, in Yemen, in North Korea, and in a list of other places.
The government of a world empire, one working to redouble its authority over others, has next to no use for the ordinary people of its own country, except when it comes to filling uniforms, but Trump pretends that he has because the belly-over-the-belt set are his people, his political base. That’s why, while other promises are forgotten, “the wall” has not been - that costly, pretty much pointless project means a lot to “his people.” Depriving him of it provides a natural path to weakening him for the 2020 election. Hard to see any compromise possible there.
The threat of war is as constant now as it was under Obama, and I believe it is becoming even more so. After all, even if Trump cannot decide everything as he likes to pretend he does, he still influences the international situation, its tone and direction, and he adds only more instability and recklessness.
And in China, the same recklessness has already started serious aspects of economic war. This is unbelievably dangerous to the health of world society, given the many economic weaknesses we see, especially in the United States, with debts and deficits and various bubbles generated by low interest rates and artificially pumped-up liquidity.
His grand illusion of “Make America Great Again” - just a re-tread of the now-irrelevant “American Dream” slogan – is causing buttons to be pushed that were best left untouched. The establishment knows his slogan is rubbish, but they are using him to undercut China, a country they resent and fear and a country they have wanted to undercut for a long time. It was Obama, answering to the same masters, who spoke of a “pivot to Asia.”
China is definitely on a natural path to becoming the world’s premier nation, and if there is anything the American establishment can do to torpedo that, it will. Trump and his economically-illiterate talk of China stealing American jobs is useful. Of course, no one is going to start closing factories in China and reopening them in America – Trump’s foggy-brained vision of the future – but attacking China so relentlessly can slow it down, something America’s newly assertive establishment views as useful.
The simple goal of the people who really run America is to reassert their authority worldwide. They cannot do that through economic competition anymore and they cannot do it through the immense respect America once enjoyed after WW II, but they sure can work on the military and financial and foreign policy fronts to become a more threatening bully that makes incessant demands and seizes opportunities as they come along.
They are working hard to undermine the elected government in Venezuela in part because the guy they have lined up as “leader” there has promised he would sell off the government’s big petroleum assets. But it’s more than just that. Venezuela is just one piece in a large puzzle. America wants a return in Latin America also to the 1950s, a time when an unquestioning giant plantation system was dominated by American-compliant governments. Cuba is very much back on the list of targets after Venezuela, as are several other states. The “Lima Group” is just one more Cold War-style front organization for getting what you want from others. They help do your dirty work, giving your arrogant demands an appearance of wider respectability, in return for favors and considerations. Hitler’s willing helpers, as it were. Something of the same role Israel enjoys in the Middle East.
Serious world economic collapse is not just a dark fantasy, it is a real possibility, given the many frailties we see. Things are now slowing in China. Things are slowing in Germany. Europe is rife with division. None of the American establishment has been willing to bear the least burden to rebalance things in America, to correct dangerous excesses. Instead of paying the taxes they should have to pay down debt, they received more outrageous tax cuts. It is behavior which almost exactly parallels that of the great dukes and churchmen of France in the years leading to the French Revolution.
In this they are blood brothers, Trump and the Washington establishment. Trump’s entire career is one of fighting taxes and taking unfair advantages with no regard for the consequences to others and society at large. Trump’s personal real estate empire reflects the efforts over years of accountants and tax lawyers constantly battling government more than it does anything else. He has been a decades-long chiseller in slow motion, which is why he refused to release his tax records.
So, too, in military matters. Overwhelmingly, these establishment people avoided military service, as Trump very much did at the very height of horrors in Vietnam. The guy who regularly has his picture taken in custom-made bomber jackets and other military gear welcomed no opportunity to wear them when they weren’t just political costumes. He’ll hug the flag for countless photo-ops, but it never occurred to him to risk anything personal for it.
But the American establishment is always ready to send others off to war to inflict God-knows-what on the poor people of the world. They do it in the name of “freedom,” but they mean only the freedom to control and exploit. That’s what those American flag lapel pins they all insist on wearing really mean.
And the costliest, least economically-beneficial institution in America, the military and its associated security establishment, just keeps getting more money than it knows what to do with. It now consumes more than a trillion dollars a year. This works towards the large economic threat, but it also adds still more to the threat of war. Great standing military machines have always in the past proved to be agents for war, not for peace.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
In a way, Trump is worse and more dangerous than a typical liar
But I'm not sure Trump even knows when he is lying.
Basically, as we've seen and heard from him in so many matters, Trump's reality is whatever he wants it to be.
It's a mental condition, not unlike psychopathy.
He is happy with the tales he tells, and he expects others to be happy with them, too. When they are not, he just insults them, calling them liars or other nasty names.
I think the only safety for the world from a man like this lies in the fact that he is unable to act on many of his tales. The establishment lets him rant on, but indeed blunts any of his acts that it doesn't regard as in keeping with its pre-existing agenda. Unfortunately for countless millions of ordinary people, that pre-existing agenda is itself also threatening.
America wants nothing so much as a return to the 1950s, or rather a return to the relative importance of America in the world of that time, to the respect that it enjoyed then, because the world has grown away from a reality once so comfortable for America. The trouble is that the effort to return to that world can only involve aggression, threats, Mafia-like pressures and extortions because it is something entirely artificial being imposed, something going against many natural developments of the last seventy-five years.
This is what we are seeing right now, whether it’s America telling Europe where it can buy its natural gas or telling China how it should sell its products or telling third countries that they should not buy any of Russia’s military technology or allowing its colony of Israel literally to seize the homes and assets of Palestinians, or telling countries like Venezuela who they should elect so that resources can be treated the way America wants them treated.
This is the vision for our near-term future, and what is Trump’s role in it?
Trump can be seen now as frantically trying to retain his job as President. Much like a drowning man waving his arms and splashing desperately. He actually tries now to outdo the establishment with its own agenda as a way to demonstrate his usefulness to them and to ward off the threat he is under. Nothing of the few sensible changes Trump first offered, changes the establishment regarded as threatening, is going to be realized. The tiny change he recently offered in Syria, for example, has already been distorted into something beyond recognition.
After all, official agencies of the American government, set to work by the previous administration and portions of his own party did try to unseat him, and he remains threatened by ongoing investigation. He knows that the threat isn’t just about supposed collusion with Russia, which has always been a dark fairy tale which tried to exploit America’s throbbing hangover from the Cold War.
However, Russophobia in general isn’t just that. It is the implicit recognition of Russia as a stumbling block to America’s reassertion of world dominance, an extremely important point. I think Russia is viewed in Washington much as ancient Carthage was viewed by the rulers of the Roman Empire, clearly a very dangerous perspective.
And America is reinforced in that view by those running its powerful colony in the Middle East. That is how they, too, see Russia, as a stumbling block to America’s complete dominance, the situation they embrace as best for their own interests.
This chaotic, dishonest, and raging man, Trump, has a closet bulging with skeletons, and a well-resourced investigation could come up with any number of them. Embarrassment or indictment or forced resignation rather than impeachment are definitely ongoing possibilities for him, and here is an ego that regards itself as just too big to fail.
The fact that this bizarre man was elected tells us something about America, and that is that there are tens of millions who feel powerless, who feel no one really represents them. There is a good deal of desperation.
And they are absolutely right to feel the way they do, but they only added to the list of their own woes by electing a man who can do nothing for them and whose recklessness is shaping up itself as extremely dangerous - in Venezuela, In Syria, in Palestine, in Iran, in Yemen, in North Korea, and in a list of other places.
The government of a world empire, one working to redouble its authority over others, has next to no use for the ordinary people of its own country, except when it comes to filling uniforms, but Trump pretends that he has because the belly-over-the-belt set are his people, his political base. That’s why, while other promises are forgotten, “the wall” has not been - that costly, pretty much pointless project means a lot to “his people.” Depriving him of it provides a natural path to weakening him for the 2020 election. Hard to see any compromise possible there.
The threat of war is as constant now as it was under Obama, and I believe it is becoming even more so. After all, even if Trump cannot decide everything as he likes to pretend he does, he still influences the international situation, its tone and direction, and he adds only more instability and recklessness.
And in China, the same recklessness has already started serious aspects of economic war. This is unbelievably dangerous to the health of world society, given the many economic weaknesses we see, especially in the United States, with debts and deficits and various bubbles generated by low interest rates and artificially pumped-up liquidity.
His grand illusion of “Make America Great Again” - just a re-tread of the now-irrelevant “American Dream” slogan – is causing buttons to be pushed that were best left untouched. The establishment knows his slogan is rubbish, but they are using him to undercut China, a country they resent and fear and a country they have wanted to undercut for a long time. It was Obama, answering to the same masters, who spoke of a “pivot to Asia.”
China is definitely on a natural path to becoming the world’s premier nation, and if there is anything the American establishment can do to torpedo that, it will. Trump and his economically-illiterate talk of China stealing American jobs is useful. Of course, no one is going to start closing factories in China and reopening them in America – Trump’s foggy-brained vision of the future – but attacking China so relentlessly can slow it down, something America’s newly assertive establishment views as useful.
The simple goal of the people who really run America is to reassert their authority worldwide. They cannot do that through economic competition anymore and they cannot do it through the immense respect America once enjoyed after WW II, but they sure can work on the military and financial and foreign policy fronts to become a more threatening bully that makes incessant demands and seizes opportunities as they come along.
They are working hard to undermine the elected government in Venezuela in part because the guy they have lined up as “leader” there has promised he would sell off the government’s big petroleum assets. But it’s more than just that. Venezuela is just one piece in a large puzzle. America wants a return in Latin America also to the 1950s, a time when an unquestioning giant plantation system was dominated by American-compliant governments. Cuba is very much back on the list of targets after Venezuela, as are several other states. The “Lima Group” is just one more Cold War-style front organization for getting what you want from others. They help do your dirty work, giving your arrogant demands an appearance of wider respectability, in return for favors and considerations. Hitler’s willing helpers, as it were. Something of the same role Israel enjoys in the Middle East.
Serious world economic collapse is not just a dark fantasy, it is a real possibility, given the many frailties we see. Things are now slowing in China. Things are slowing in Germany. Europe is rife with division. None of the American establishment has been willing to bear the least burden to rebalance things in America, to correct dangerous excesses. Instead of paying the taxes they should have to pay down debt, they received more outrageous tax cuts. It is behavior which almost exactly parallels that of the great dukes and churchmen of France in the years leading to the French Revolution.
In this they are blood brothers, Trump and the Washington establishment. Trump’s entire career is one of fighting taxes and taking unfair advantages with no regard for the consequences to others and society at large. Trump’s personal real estate empire reflects the efforts over years of accountants and tax lawyers constantly battling government more than it does anything else. He has been a decades-long chiseller in slow motion, which is why he refused to release his tax records.
So, too, in military matters. Overwhelmingly, these establishment people avoided military service, as Trump very much did at the very height of horrors in Vietnam. The guy who regularly has his picture taken in custom-made bomber jackets and other military gear welcomed no opportunity to wear them when they weren’t just political costumes. He’ll hug the flag for countless photo-ops, but it never occurred to him to risk anything personal for it.
But the American establishment is always ready to send others off to war to inflict God-knows-what on the poor people of the world. They do it in the name of “freedom,” but they mean only the freedom to control and exploit. That’s what those American flag lapel pins they all insist on wearing really mean.
And the costliest, least economically-beneficial institution in America, the military and its associated security establishment, just keeps getting more money than it knows what to do with. It now consumes more than a trillion dollars a year. This works towards the large economic threat, but it also adds still more to the threat of war. Great standing military machines have always in the past proved to be agents for war, not for peace.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HONEST TULSI GABBARD AND AMERICA'S VICIOUS ESTABLISHMENT PRESS - FOR THE ROLE OF 2020 WOMAN OUTSIDER CANDIDATE THEY HAVE KAMALA HARRIS - OBAMA REDUX - A PLEASANTLY SMILING SAY- AND DO-NOTHING
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Media Meltdown: Honest, Consistent Liberal Candidates Must Be Russian Plants
“Proof by Reductio ad Russiam”
______________________
Response to a reader’s comment,
'“an adversary of the United States [journalist/interviewer reference to Assad].
'”Whatever the fuck that means”':
It means that Israel likes the American troops to be in Syria, whether it makes sense to anyone else or not.
This summarizes the status of a government of 330,000,000 people vis-a-vis another government of 8 million.
And you simply cannot explain that on television. Or anywhere else in the United States.
Or you get into even deeper shit than Tulsi Gabbard already finds herself.
This is a subject area without logic or coherence as far as American broadcasters and press are concerned.
Gabbard is an independent-minded, tough, and intelligent woman, just the kind the establishment (which of course includes the major broadcasters and newspapers) does not want to see running for president.
I think these folks have already determined the outsider, the woman they would support, Kamala Harris, a fresh-looking figure who apparently slept her way into the California political establishment in recent years and has not a critical word to say about anything that matters.
Obama redux.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Media Meltdown: Honest, Consistent Liberal Candidates Must Be Russian Plants
“Proof by Reductio ad Russiam”
______________________
Response to a reader’s comment,
'“an adversary of the United States [journalist/interviewer reference to Assad].
'”Whatever the fuck that means”':
It means that Israel likes the American troops to be in Syria, whether it makes sense to anyone else or not.
This summarizes the status of a government of 330,000,000 people vis-a-vis another government of 8 million.
And you simply cannot explain that on television. Or anywhere else in the United States.
Or you get into even deeper shit than Tulsi Gabbard already finds herself.
This is a subject area without logic or coherence as far as American broadcasters and press are concerned.
Gabbard is an independent-minded, tough, and intelligent woman, just the kind the establishment (which of course includes the major broadcasters and newspapers) does not want to see running for president.
I think these folks have already determined the outsider, the woman they would support, Kamala Harris, a fresh-looking figure who apparently slept her way into the California political establishment in recent years and has not a critical word to say about anything that matters.
Obama redux.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NANCY PELOSI'S "F-U" MOMENT - I'M NOT FOND OF HER BUT SHE SHOWS SHE IS STILL A PRETTY FORMIDABLE OPPONENT FOR TRUMP
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Nancy Pelosi’s ‘sarcastic’ clapping steals Trump’s thunder at State of the Union Address”
Her causing him to delay the State of the Union Address worked beautifully to make him look small and weak to his political base. No tactic could be more effective against an ego-maniac like Trump.
Of course, the reality is that he is small and weak. A coward and an ineffective leader who blusters and threatens and calls names. I have no general admiration for Pelosi, but she demonstrates she has the ability still to be a pretty formidable opponent.
Pelosi’s odd clapping at the end of the speech, with fingers all pointed towards Trump (someone called it her “fuck you” gesture), and her accompanying facial expression, somewhere between sarcasm and contempt, made a very effective statement.
What can one make of Trump’s erratic behavior with swings between nasty statements about other politicians and his scripted words about working together?
The man literally is absurd, and really nothing he says about anything is worth paying attention to and applauding. Pelosi filled the formal polite requirement of the staged event but let everyone see clearly what she really thought.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Nancy Pelosi’s ‘sarcastic’ clapping steals Trump’s thunder at State of the Union Address”
Her causing him to delay the State of the Union Address worked beautifully to make him look small and weak to his political base. No tactic could be more effective against an ego-maniac like Trump.
Of course, the reality is that he is small and weak. A coward and an ineffective leader who blusters and threatens and calls names. I have no general admiration for Pelosi, but she demonstrates she has the ability still to be a pretty formidable opponent.
Pelosi’s odd clapping at the end of the speech, with fingers all pointed towards Trump (someone called it her “fuck you” gesture), and her accompanying facial expression, somewhere between sarcasm and contempt, made a very effective statement.
What can one make of Trump’s erratic behavior with swings between nasty statements about other politicians and his scripted words about working together?
The man literally is absurd, and really nothing he says about anything is worth paying attention to and applauding. Pelosi filled the formal polite requirement of the staged event but let everyone see clearly what she really thought.
Tuesday, February 05, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FACTS AND SOME HISTORY AROUND WHY CANADA'S NOW LEADING THE SHABBY "LIMA GROUP" AGAINST VENEZUELA'S ELECTED GOVERNMENT IS SO ASTONISHING
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAN COHEN AND MAX BLUMENTHAL IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Making of Juan Guaidó: US Regime-Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader
“The Washington favorite has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization”
____________________
Response to a comment from a Canadian reader:
It is astonishing what has been done here by Liberals, Trudeau and Freeland.
I don't think our subservience to Washington has ever been so openly and embarrassingly declared, and in a very bad cause.
Trudeau’s father gave Washington the finger over doing business in Cuba and over its massive slaughter in Vietnam.
Pearson was literally grabbed by the lapels and slammed into a wall by LBJ when he refused to send some troops to Vietnam.
Chretien told Washington he was not sending troops to Iraq without a United Nations’ mandate, something the United States failed to get.
Current Venezuelan developments are clearly a coup-in-slow-motion.
Of course, the good old boys who gave you Pinochet and the horrors of Nicaragua and Honduras and Guatemala are hard at work.
I just never thought I'd see the government of Canada assisting them. Openly.
"Canada pledges $53M to help Venezuelan refugee crisis," is a headline from this morning's CBC.
Whenever we hear the word "refugee" we are softened and accepting, as we very much should be.
But this act of Trudeau’s is an exploitation of those instinctive reactions by Canadians.
That money, or much of it, will wind up supporting the efforts of a self-proclaimed president and fighting the efforts of an elected president, effectively assisting an American dark project.
Please remember who is the world's great creator of refugees. American bombing in the Middle East has created millions of them.
And American interference in Central America has created tens of thousands more.
Then America turns around and virtually refuses to help the desperate people whom it made desperate.
The people from Central America are turned away by armed forces at the border with Mexico. The people from Syria and Libya and other places are called names by the American President and banned from applying in the US. as refugees.
Meanwhile, a recent poll in Venezuela indicates 65% support for Maduro with about 20% support for America's usurper candidate, and that comes in the midst of the effects of an intense American economic war against the country, causing widespread hardships.
Of course, these hardships are blamed on Maduro by the United States, with, I’m sorry to say, Canada parroting them.
Compare Maduro’s poll to single-digit support for France's Macron, a man demanding Maduro give way. And note Mexico's new president has reiterated his lack of support for this American effort. Oh, that our Prime Minister had that kind of courage and conviction.
Italy, for example, is openly against this.
The majority of Organization of American States is against this, which is precisely why the Lima Group, with about a third of OAS members, was created in the first place. It represents custom-tailored consent for American demands.
They are the most American-compliant countries. It is effectively a CIA-front organization for toppling Latin American elected governments, an organization with no history and no official status. It just is intended to sound impressive. And it has several more Latin American states it is going to target in future.
France's Macron keeps interfering in this matter. Here is a man, Macron, with literally single-digit public support in polls and with something close to a national revolt on his hands, telling a man thousands of miles away, who enjoys the support of 65% of his country, what to do.
Britain's Prime Minister is quite unpopular and has had a badly-handled, ongoing crisis over the European Union. She would likely lose were an election held, but she, too, feels justified interfering.
Not one leader in Europe enjoys Maduro’s level of support. And Trump is not popular either. Any decent opponent could likely defeat him in 2020, if he is not first indicted or impeached.
Here's how open and transparent Canada has been on this matter of the Lima Group - as reported today, without editorial comment, by Sputnik:
'Canada’s foreign ministry has denied accreditation to Sputnik and RIA Novosti for a meeting of the Lima Group foreign ministers on Venezuela in Ottawa.
'"Thank you for your interest in the 10th ministerial meeting of Lima Group in Ottawa. This email is to let you know you have NOT been accredited as media," the Canadian Foreign Ministry said in its original letter, notifying journalists about the refusal.
'"The ministry did not cite any reasons behind its decision in the letter."'
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAN COHEN AND MAX BLUMENTHAL IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Making of Juan Guaidó: US Regime-Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader
“The Washington favorite has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization”
____________________
Response to a comment from a Canadian reader:
It is astonishing what has been done here by Liberals, Trudeau and Freeland.
I don't think our subservience to Washington has ever been so openly and embarrassingly declared, and in a very bad cause.
Trudeau’s father gave Washington the finger over doing business in Cuba and over its massive slaughter in Vietnam.
Pearson was literally grabbed by the lapels and slammed into a wall by LBJ when he refused to send some troops to Vietnam.
Chretien told Washington he was not sending troops to Iraq without a United Nations’ mandate, something the United States failed to get.
Current Venezuelan developments are clearly a coup-in-slow-motion.
Of course, the good old boys who gave you Pinochet and the horrors of Nicaragua and Honduras and Guatemala are hard at work.
I just never thought I'd see the government of Canada assisting them. Openly.
"Canada pledges $53M to help Venezuelan refugee crisis," is a headline from this morning's CBC.
Whenever we hear the word "refugee" we are softened and accepting, as we very much should be.
But this act of Trudeau’s is an exploitation of those instinctive reactions by Canadians.
That money, or much of it, will wind up supporting the efforts of a self-proclaimed president and fighting the efforts of an elected president, effectively assisting an American dark project.
Please remember who is the world's great creator of refugees. American bombing in the Middle East has created millions of them.
And American interference in Central America has created tens of thousands more.
Then America turns around and virtually refuses to help the desperate people whom it made desperate.
The people from Central America are turned away by armed forces at the border with Mexico. The people from Syria and Libya and other places are called names by the American President and banned from applying in the US. as refugees.
Meanwhile, a recent poll in Venezuela indicates 65% support for Maduro with about 20% support for America's usurper candidate, and that comes in the midst of the effects of an intense American economic war against the country, causing widespread hardships.
Of course, these hardships are blamed on Maduro by the United States, with, I’m sorry to say, Canada parroting them.
Compare Maduro’s poll to single-digit support for France's Macron, a man demanding Maduro give way. And note Mexico's new president has reiterated his lack of support for this American effort. Oh, that our Prime Minister had that kind of courage and conviction.
Italy, for example, is openly against this.
The majority of Organization of American States is against this, which is precisely why the Lima Group, with about a third of OAS members, was created in the first place. It represents custom-tailored consent for American demands.
They are the most American-compliant countries. It is effectively a CIA-front organization for toppling Latin American elected governments, an organization with no history and no official status. It just is intended to sound impressive. And it has several more Latin American states it is going to target in future.
France's Macron keeps interfering in this matter. Here is a man, Macron, with literally single-digit public support in polls and with something close to a national revolt on his hands, telling a man thousands of miles away, who enjoys the support of 65% of his country, what to do.
Britain's Prime Minister is quite unpopular and has had a badly-handled, ongoing crisis over the European Union. She would likely lose were an election held, but she, too, feels justified interfering.
Not one leader in Europe enjoys Maduro’s level of support. And Trump is not popular either. Any decent opponent could likely defeat him in 2020, if he is not first indicted or impeached.
Here's how open and transparent Canada has been on this matter of the Lima Group - as reported today, without editorial comment, by Sputnik:
'Canada’s foreign ministry has denied accreditation to Sputnik and RIA Novosti for a meeting of the Lima Group foreign ministers on Venezuela in Ottawa.
'"Thank you for your interest in the 10th ministerial meeting of Lima Group in Ottawa. This email is to let you know you have NOT been accredited as media," the Canadian Foreign Ministry said in its original letter, notifying journalists about the refusal.
'"The ministry did not cite any reasons behind its decision in the letter."'
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BIG FAKE INTERNATIONAL GET-TOGETHER IN CANADA CELEBRATED BY NEWS COVERAGE SAYING NOTHING WE DIDN'T KNOW - "LIMA GROUP" EMBRACES OPPOSITION AND CALLS ON VENEZUELA'S MILITARY TO QUIT MADURO - SELLING HOT AIR
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
“Lima Group embraces Venezuelan opposition leader Guaido, calls on military to quit Maduro"
My, what a surprising piece of news!
An outfit designed for exactly that purpose, meeting for exactly that purpose, led by a Canadian Foreign Minister dedicated to that purpose, did as it was supposed to do.
Really, the meeting was a publicity stunt, a bad joke, and the news story is roughly the equivalent of, "It snowed today somewhere in Canada."
This is what's called generating some noise to cover over a general dead silence.
Most of the world does not care what America's and Canada's wishes are for the future of Venezuela.
Venezuela is the business of Venezuelans.
God, Foreign Minister Freeland is a tiresome, droning politician.
Kind of an uninteresting ventriloquist's dummy whose levers are radio-controlled from Langley, Virginia.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
“Lima Group embraces Venezuelan opposition leader Guaido, calls on military to quit Maduro"
My, what a surprising piece of news!
An outfit designed for exactly that purpose, meeting for exactly that purpose, led by a Canadian Foreign Minister dedicated to that purpose, did as it was supposed to do.
Really, the meeting was a publicity stunt, a bad joke, and the news story is roughly the equivalent of, "It snowed today somewhere in Canada."
This is what's called generating some noise to cover over a general dead silence.
Most of the world does not care what America's and Canada's wishes are for the future of Venezuela.
Venezuela is the business of Venezuelans.
God, Foreign Minister Freeland is a tiresome, droning politician.
Kind of an uninteresting ventriloquist's dummy whose levers are radio-controlled from Langley, Virginia.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE REAL PROBLEMS FOR CRITICS REACHING THE PUBLIC WITH NEWS STORIES - NATURE OF MASS AUDIENCES - MUCH OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY JUST NATURALLY HELPS THE BAD GUYS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Dissidents Must Understand the Difference Between Fact and Narrative
"The reason I talk about narrative so much is because it’s ultimately what all our problems boil down to"
I just think this is not accurate analysis.
It gives credit for almost mystical powers to the establishment.
And it gives credit equally to critics for understanding what is actually going on and being able to explain it.
Both assumptions are generally unwarranted.
The truth is closer to being that critics mostly never know exactly what the establishment is doing. They often have bits and pieces of truth but with no convincing, cohesive picture.
There simply is a lack of resources to really dig into events, especially for non-establishment investigators and critics.
It does take substantial resources to really find out about things, which is precisely why so many newspapers today have few if any foreign correspondents and investigative reporters. Under the financial pressures that newspapers are under, they do not have the resources. Independent critics have far less.
But, equally, working against being able to communicate events to the general public is the sheer indifference of a great part of the public to such matters as international affairs. They just don't care. We've seen evidence of that many times. The establishment very much counts on that reality.
Take just one of dozens of examples, Syria. Despite many little efforts and some real revelations, I don't believe events there have ever been convincingly enough stated to affect the general public.
But even if they had, much of the public would continue its quiet faith in government and the big press, just like Catholics who still go to church faithfully after learning priests or even bishops are pedophiles.
The “foreign factor” also enters here. After all, “it’s just a bunch of foreigners out there,” and that sentiment, in so many words, is often sensed or heard in the United States. Just as desperate refugees from abroad can be described as a mob of criminals and sexual deviates – something repeated daily by some politicians and some press in the United States.
It's a pretty big step to question foundational things, a step a good many people are not able or willing to take. That is also something the establishment counts on.
I think the only time critics have an opportunity to really shake things up is with really graphic information, as when cops are secretly photographed shooting or beating an unarmed man.
In Vietnam, pictures of Marines burning down civilian homes had quite an impact. Such images speak instantaneously to people and are next to impossible to explain away. We also had the instance of pictures of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. They had quite an impact for a time even though the worst of them were never released to the public.
It doesn’t have to be photos, it can be transcripts or letters, although they must be concise and unmistakable. Huge volumes of data, as we get from Wikileaks, often do not impact the general public. They are just too demanding to take in, too unfocused. That requires interpreters, and we do have them, but as soon as we have interpreters, we are a step removed from immediacy.
There very few opportunities for doing these things, especially photos. It just does not happen very often that someone with the inclination is in a position to access and release such stuff. Even then, many will ignore what they see, rather than disturbing the quiet of their universe.
There are many forms of religion or faith at work in human beings, and people’s politics are certainly among them. As a species, we are less rational than we generally credit.
And “There are none so blind…”
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Dissidents Must Understand the Difference Between Fact and Narrative
"The reason I talk about narrative so much is because it’s ultimately what all our problems boil down to"
I just think this is not accurate analysis.
It gives credit for almost mystical powers to the establishment.
And it gives credit equally to critics for understanding what is actually going on and being able to explain it.
Both assumptions are generally unwarranted.
The truth is closer to being that critics mostly never know exactly what the establishment is doing. They often have bits and pieces of truth but with no convincing, cohesive picture.
There simply is a lack of resources to really dig into events, especially for non-establishment investigators and critics.
It does take substantial resources to really find out about things, which is precisely why so many newspapers today have few if any foreign correspondents and investigative reporters. Under the financial pressures that newspapers are under, they do not have the resources. Independent critics have far less.
But, equally, working against being able to communicate events to the general public is the sheer indifference of a great part of the public to such matters as international affairs. They just don't care. We've seen evidence of that many times. The establishment very much counts on that reality.
Take just one of dozens of examples, Syria. Despite many little efforts and some real revelations, I don't believe events there have ever been convincingly enough stated to affect the general public.
But even if they had, much of the public would continue its quiet faith in government and the big press, just like Catholics who still go to church faithfully after learning priests or even bishops are pedophiles.
The “foreign factor” also enters here. After all, “it’s just a bunch of foreigners out there,” and that sentiment, in so many words, is often sensed or heard in the United States. Just as desperate refugees from abroad can be described as a mob of criminals and sexual deviates – something repeated daily by some politicians and some press in the United States.
It's a pretty big step to question foundational things, a step a good many people are not able or willing to take. That is also something the establishment counts on.
I think the only time critics have an opportunity to really shake things up is with really graphic information, as when cops are secretly photographed shooting or beating an unarmed man.
In Vietnam, pictures of Marines burning down civilian homes had quite an impact. Such images speak instantaneously to people and are next to impossible to explain away. We also had the instance of pictures of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. They had quite an impact for a time even though the worst of them were never released to the public.
It doesn’t have to be photos, it can be transcripts or letters, although they must be concise and unmistakable. Huge volumes of data, as we get from Wikileaks, often do not impact the general public. They are just too demanding to take in, too unfocused. That requires interpreters, and we do have them, but as soon as we have interpreters, we are a step removed from immediacy.
There very few opportunities for doing these things, especially photos. It just does not happen very often that someone with the inclination is in a position to access and release such stuff. Even then, many will ignore what they see, rather than disturbing the quiet of their universe.
There are many forms of religion or faith at work in human beings, and people’s politics are certainly among them. As a species, we are less rational than we generally credit.
And “There are none so blind…”
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