John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
“I was wrong about anti-Semitism going away”
I am sorry, but no hatreds of any kind ever "go away."
That’s part of human nature, a good part of which is ugly.
But in a sense, it doesn't matter so long as we are well protected from their effects in society.
Hatreds are found everywhere and against many targets.
Just as in the United States, it is easy to find millions who still hate black people - the recent waves of anger about some football players respectfully kneeling during the national anthem as form of protest against police violence (American police, on average, kill three people a day) - proves that completely. So does a good deal of the Alt-right’s vehemence against Obama. It has a tone going well beyond just political differences.
What always matters is whether people's hatreds are allowed to affect our communities, to hurt people, and the truth is today, in advanced societies, that they are not, not in any significant terms. There is no tolerance of hatred in the press or in the government or in our social institutions. That's a big achievement.
Jews can go to any university, apply for any job, and live where they please. That was very much not the case in America, say, seventy-five years ago, but it is today.
I also think it appropriate to recognize and not hide from the fact that Israel's brutal behavior, as with snipers shooting down civilians in Gaza weekly, including women and children, definitely makes a lot of people angry, people with and without any hatreds. After all, decent people would not be decent if they weren’t affected by such horror.
Of course, that’s why Israel has such an intense bias against liberals because liberals focus on human and democratic rights and the rule of law. The people in Israel who hate liberals – and there are many of them, I know from my reading - do so because they perfectly understand that they are themselves in complete violation of such principles, some of Western civilization’s finest social and intellectual achievements over centuries of struggle.
It has been terrible to see a criminal like Netanyahu display himself as a leader for the Jewish people. No, he is no leader. He is an extremist, full of hatreds, and there are plenty of popularly-held hatreds in Israel to which he appeals, as we see with respect to both the Palestinians and to black refugees and black Jews who attempt to live in Israel.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRYING TO OVERTHROW YOUR GOVERNMENT ON BEHALF OF JOHN BOLTON - IN THE U.S. WHAT GUAIDO ATTEMPTED WOULD GET YOU BLASTED FULL OF HOLES OR TOSSED IN CHAINS INTO PRISON - SMILING AT TREASON - CONTEMPT FOR RULE OF LAW
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Venezuela's Guaido leads military uprising to oust Maduro
“Opposition leader says troops have joined him to end 'usurpation'”
Imagine trying to overthrow your country’s elected government at the behest of John Bolton?
If anyone in the United States pulled a stunt like that - and, remember, the US is loaded with armed extremist loons like militias and survivalists and Aryan churches - they would be stormed by federal agents and soldiers and either dragged away to prison in chains or shot.
I am not exaggerating in the least. He would be charged with treason, and I think we all know, from our memories of how the United States has treated prisoners at Guantanamo what kind of treatment he would receive in prison for treason.
But the same United States thinks all this is fine when it comes to other places. So much so, they encourage and materially support it.
Utter contempt for rule of law and blind belief that American laws should overrule everything else everywhere.
So, what are you doing today, Ms. Freeland (Canada’s Foreign Minister), to assist the charming Mr. Bolton?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Venezuela's Guaido leads military uprising to oust Maduro
“Opposition leader says troops have joined him to end 'usurpation'”
Imagine trying to overthrow your country’s elected government at the behest of John Bolton?
If anyone in the United States pulled a stunt like that - and, remember, the US is loaded with armed extremist loons like militias and survivalists and Aryan churches - they would be stormed by federal agents and soldiers and either dragged away to prison in chains or shot.
I am not exaggerating in the least. He would be charged with treason, and I think we all know, from our memories of how the United States has treated prisoners at Guantanamo what kind of treatment he would receive in prison for treason.
But the same United States thinks all this is fine when it comes to other places. So much so, they encourage and materially support it.
Utter contempt for rule of law and blind belief that American laws should overrule everything else everywhere.
So, what are you doing today, Ms. Freeland (Canada’s Foreign Minister), to assist the charming Mr. Bolton?
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: REAL REASON AMERICAN TROOPS WILL REMAIN ILLEGALLY IN N E SYRIA - ONLY PARTY WHICH HAS GAINED FROM TRUMP ELECTION - A PRESIDENT WHO HAS ACHIEVED LESS THAN NOTHING
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA BY MICHAEL DOUGHERTY
“Adventures in Trumpland”
_______________________
Response to another reader’s comment:
The real objection to leaving Syria's NE, where American troops are illegally based, comes from Israel, not the military.
Israel lost the overall effort to destroy Syria with the phony jihad mercenaries (ISIS, al Nusra, and others) they have supported - along with Saudi Arabia, the US, the UK, France, and originally Turkey - but its consolation prize has been this region's being prevented from rejoining Syria.
Anything to weaken and destabilize Syria – that’s Israel view.
And Trump, as Israel's greatest public servant, naturally goes along.
His announcement about a troop withdrawal from Syria was his typical, seat-of-the-pants stuff. He knew had made many who voted for him angry with his complete failure to stop the America's Neocon Wars in the Middle East, and he wanted to throw them a sop. He thought he was okay with bases in nearby Iraq. He wanted to be a hero, to have something to brag about.
But when reminded by his handlers of what he was doing, risking Israel’s consolation prize, he backed off completely, saying nothing. This represents a pattern we often see. He really is a coward.
He has to be the most absurd president ever, almost Monty Pythonesque, full of daily bellowing and boastfulness about himself, while delivering on none of his promises to any supporters. Not one.
His belly-over-the-belt base is not getting its wall. His anti-war supporters got only more possibilities for war, through careless threats and stupid sanctions. The stupid sanctions, as those against Iran, represent again servility to Israel.
Indeed, the only significant party which truly gained from his election was Israel, and of course that's all about Trump filling a huge campaign war chest for 2020. Quite bizarre but highly symbolic of just how twisted America’s political system is and of the strange achievements in an empire.
So, in a very real sense, the man has achieved less than nothing.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA BY MICHAEL DOUGHERTY
“Adventures in Trumpland”
_______________________
Response to another reader’s comment:
The real objection to leaving Syria's NE, where American troops are illegally based, comes from Israel, not the military.
Israel lost the overall effort to destroy Syria with the phony jihad mercenaries (ISIS, al Nusra, and others) they have supported - along with Saudi Arabia, the US, the UK, France, and originally Turkey - but its consolation prize has been this region's being prevented from rejoining Syria.
Anything to weaken and destabilize Syria – that’s Israel view.
And Trump, as Israel's greatest public servant, naturally goes along.
His announcement about a troop withdrawal from Syria was his typical, seat-of-the-pants stuff. He knew had made many who voted for him angry with his complete failure to stop the America's Neocon Wars in the Middle East, and he wanted to throw them a sop. He thought he was okay with bases in nearby Iraq. He wanted to be a hero, to have something to brag about.
But when reminded by his handlers of what he was doing, risking Israel’s consolation prize, he backed off completely, saying nothing. This represents a pattern we often see. He really is a coward.
He has to be the most absurd president ever, almost Monty Pythonesque, full of daily bellowing and boastfulness about himself, while delivering on none of his promises to any supporters. Not one.
His belly-over-the-belt base is not getting its wall. His anti-war supporters got only more possibilities for war, through careless threats and stupid sanctions. The stupid sanctions, as those against Iran, represent again servility to Israel.
Indeed, the only significant party which truly gained from his election was Israel, and of course that's all about Trump filling a huge campaign war chest for 2020. Quite bizarre but highly symbolic of just how twisted America’s political system is and of the strange achievements in an empire.
So, in a very real sense, the man has achieved less than nothing.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CANADIAN SENTENCED TO DEATH IN CHINA IN VICIOUS METH RING - WHY CANADA'S FOREIGN MINISTER FREELAND HAS A COMPLETE LACK OF MORAL AUTHORITY - SAUDI RECORD EXECUTIONS AND A BOY EXECUTED BUT NOT A WORD - YEMEN
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“China sentences Canadian to death for drug operation
“Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland condemned the penalty”
I do not support the death penalty ever, but far more than half the globe does. If you travel to those countries and break their harshest laws, what can you expect?
I really don't care what Chrystia Freeland says, and I'm quite sure China doesn't either. Her voice, in my view, has little sense of moral authority, and I can cite many reasons for saying that.
Saudi Arabia, for example, is having a record year so far for beheadings by a swordsman, their method of execution when it isn't crucifixion. The Saudis now are actually looking to hire more swordsmen.
Just the other day, a fifteen-year old boy was beheaded. His crime? Not part of a filthy meth ring, a drug by the way that causes thousands of deaths, his crime was posting critical things about the government on the Internet. Did we hear from Freeland on that?
Of course, the Crown Prince behind this terrible activity is the same man who had a journalist brutally murdered by his personal staff and butchered while still alive. Freeland has yet to say a serious word about that.
The boy, by the way, was a Shia Muslim, a minority in Saudi Arabia that has been ruthlessly persecuted. But we do not hear concern much over that either.
And how about that Saudi war of aggression in Yemen that is known to have killed thousands of women and children? Where's our voice?
There are a good many other equally appalling matters in other lands, but you see they all involve friends of the United States, so our government is silent.
This man's being Canadian has nothing to do with the matter of being part of a large international meth ring, something that is a serious crime anywhere, and in China, as a great many places, earns you the death penalty.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“China sentences Canadian to death for drug operation
“Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland condemned the penalty”
I do not support the death penalty ever, but far more than half the globe does. If you travel to those countries and break their harshest laws, what can you expect?
I really don't care what Chrystia Freeland says, and I'm quite sure China doesn't either. Her voice, in my view, has little sense of moral authority, and I can cite many reasons for saying that.
Saudi Arabia, for example, is having a record year so far for beheadings by a swordsman, their method of execution when it isn't crucifixion. The Saudis now are actually looking to hire more swordsmen.
Just the other day, a fifteen-year old boy was beheaded. His crime? Not part of a filthy meth ring, a drug by the way that causes thousands of deaths, his crime was posting critical things about the government on the Internet. Did we hear from Freeland on that?
Of course, the Crown Prince behind this terrible activity is the same man who had a journalist brutally murdered by his personal staff and butchered while still alive. Freeland has yet to say a serious word about that.
The boy, by the way, was a Shia Muslim, a minority in Saudi Arabia that has been ruthlessly persecuted. But we do not hear concern much over that either.
And how about that Saudi war of aggression in Yemen that is known to have killed thousands of women and children? Where's our voice?
There are a good many other equally appalling matters in other lands, but you see they all involve friends of the United States, so our government is silent.
This man's being Canadian has nothing to do with the matter of being part of a large international meth ring, something that is a serious crime anywhere, and in China, as a great many places, earns you the death penalty.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE AMAZING ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI (LEADER OF ISIS) AND HIS MANY MIRACULOUS ESCAPES - HE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS AN ASSET OF MOSSAD OR THE CIA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SOUTHFRONT
“IRAQI INTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL: ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI [LEADER OF ISIS] IS HIDING NEAR PALMYRA, PLANNING TO ENTER IRAQ”
I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Mossad or the CIA.
That's why he's had so many miracle escapes.
That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is.
And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince targets.
Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years.
ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SOUTHFRONT
“IRAQI INTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL: ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI [LEADER OF ISIS] IS HIDING NEAR PALMYRA, PLANNING TO ENTER IRAQ”
I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Mossad or the CIA.
That's why he's had so many miracle escapes.
That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is.
And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince targets.
Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years.
ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A UNIQUE AMERICAN TAKE ON RELIGION - BIG PROFITABLE AND POLITICALLY ACTIVE CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM SERVING AN EMPIRE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“America’s Wars Are Way Up; Church Attendance Is Way Down”
John Hagee is just another American Grotesque.
America has so very many of them, especially in its "churches" and in its politics.
This bizarre man was used by, and used, John McCain.
Need anyone say more, McCain being one of the most repellent ethical and political figures of his time?
Oh, I put "churches" in quotes because, as perhaps few outside America realize, major prominent movements of American Christian fundamentalism are often more forms of money-making enterprise and political influence than religion.
There's a whole list of such "pastors" who are, or were, effectively quite wealthy people by virtue of their work, many of them deeply involved in politics, including the politics around war.
It's a uniquely American take on religion. Of course, it makes a very nice fit with American imperialism. Societies do tend to create the kind of institutions their major concerns require.
Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Franklin Graham, plus a long list of others. These men are, or were, more empire and enterprise builders than religious leaders. One of their central concerns, Israel, is in fact an American colony in the Mideast, a heavily subsidized one, having little relationship to Biblical Israel.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“America’s Wars Are Way Up; Church Attendance Is Way Down”
John Hagee is just another American Grotesque.
America has so very many of them, especially in its "churches" and in its politics.
This bizarre man was used by, and used, John McCain.
Need anyone say more, McCain being one of the most repellent ethical and political figures of his time?
Oh, I put "churches" in quotes because, as perhaps few outside America realize, major prominent movements of American Christian fundamentalism are often more forms of money-making enterprise and political influence than religion.
There's a whole list of such "pastors" who are, or were, effectively quite wealthy people by virtue of their work, many of them deeply involved in politics, including the politics around war.
It's a uniquely American take on religion. Of course, it makes a very nice fit with American imperialism. Societies do tend to create the kind of institutions their major concerns require.
Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Franklin Graham, plus a long list of others. These men are, or were, more empire and enterprise builders than religious leaders. One of their central concerns, Israel, is in fact an American colony in the Mideast, a heavily subsidized one, having little relationship to Biblical Israel.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A WRITER SAYS ASSANGE'S ARREST MIGHT REVEAL MORE CORRUPTION THAN ALL PAST LEAKS - BUT WE SEE THAT SAME CORRUPTION DAILY IN AMERICA'S AFFAIRS AND BARELY A WORD IS SAID
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Assange’s Imprisonment Arguably Reveals Even More Corruption Than WikiLeaks Did”
"What’s even more interesting to me right now, though, is that if you think about it, the completely fraudulent arrest and imprisonment of Julian Assange arguably exposes more malfeasance by government and media powers than what has been revealed in all WikiLeaks publications combined since its inception"
The author is right.
But the entire set of ongoing American activities abroad is exactly of the same nature.
Utterly dishonest and destructive and controlling, from Syria to Venezuela.
It is hard to understand why there isn't more opposition and criticism of all the dirty work.
But there really isn't all that much.
The lesson to be learned is about what a herd of cattle Americans and Western Europeans have been reduced to.
Why wasn't there a crowd of a 100,000, or at least 10,000, at the embassy, making Assange’s arrest extremely difficult?
We live in a pretty sad world.
Those with power do pretty much as they please, and with very little opposition or criticism.
And the rule of law is given only lip service.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Assange’s Imprisonment Arguably Reveals Even More Corruption Than WikiLeaks Did”
"What’s even more interesting to me right now, though, is that if you think about it, the completely fraudulent arrest and imprisonment of Julian Assange arguably exposes more malfeasance by government and media powers than what has been revealed in all WikiLeaks publications combined since its inception"
The author is right.
But the entire set of ongoing American activities abroad is exactly of the same nature.
Utterly dishonest and destructive and controlling, from Syria to Venezuela.
It is hard to understand why there isn't more opposition and criticism of all the dirty work.
But there really isn't all that much.
The lesson to be learned is about what a herd of cattle Americans and Western Europeans have been reduced to.
Why wasn't there a crowd of a 100,000, or at least 10,000, at the embassy, making Assange’s arrest extremely difficult?
We live in a pretty sad world.
Those with power do pretty much as they please, and with very little opposition or criticism.
And the rule of law is given only lip service.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A WRITER ASKS WHAT WE KNOW OF TRUMP'S PEACE PLAN - HERE'S EXACTLY WHY IT DOESN'T MATTER IF WE EVER LEARN MORE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY YUMNA PATEL IN MONDOWEISS
“What we know about the American peace plan?”
The “peace plan” effort does seem a rather sick joke, just on its face, without knowing any details.
How can you have a “peace plan,” one involving two major parties, constructed virtually without consulting one of the parties?
And all of it being developed by Trump’s son-in-law, a man expert in none of the region's history or affairs and who is a very close friend of the other party?
And the “plan” is constantly hyped by this most bizarre of Presidents, one who has yet to deliver on a single significant promise he ever made, but one who has delivered unwelcome loads of crass prejudice and favoritism.
A President who has already “given” Israel, for the financial enrichment his own campaign in the next election, a number of things that he was, in fact, in no legal position to give.
_______________________
Response to another comment:
The plan will likely formalize occupation-apartheid arrangements, attempting to give them a gloss of legality.
But why is any of it the business of the United States? It has no international legal status over the Palestinians, over their lands and way of life.
The United States has only a heavily biased relationship with the dominant party, the one who has occupied and abused the other for more than half a century.
How very arrogant America is, the tacit assumption here being that only American and Israeli law have any status. Of course, both these states, America and Israel, have displayed a complete disregard for the rule of law for decades.
But the millions of Palestinians are going nowhere.
No matter what double-dealing nonsense Israel has written down on paper, the Palestinians remain the key reality.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY YUMNA PATEL IN MONDOWEISS
“What we know about the American peace plan?”
The “peace plan” effort does seem a rather sick joke, just on its face, without knowing any details.
How can you have a “peace plan,” one involving two major parties, constructed virtually without consulting one of the parties?
And all of it being developed by Trump’s son-in-law, a man expert in none of the region's history or affairs and who is a very close friend of the other party?
And the “plan” is constantly hyped by this most bizarre of Presidents, one who has yet to deliver on a single significant promise he ever made, but one who has delivered unwelcome loads of crass prejudice and favoritism.
A President who has already “given” Israel, for the financial enrichment his own campaign in the next election, a number of things that he was, in fact, in no legal position to give.
_______________________
Response to another comment:
The plan will likely formalize occupation-apartheid arrangements, attempting to give them a gloss of legality.
But why is any of it the business of the United States? It has no international legal status over the Palestinians, over their lands and way of life.
The United States has only a heavily biased relationship with the dominant party, the one who has occupied and abused the other for more than half a century.
How very arrogant America is, the tacit assumption here being that only American and Israeli law have any status. Of course, both these states, America and Israel, have displayed a complete disregard for the rule of law for decades.
But the millions of Palestinians are going nowhere.
No matter what double-dealing nonsense Israel has written down on paper, the Palestinians remain the key reality.
Saturday, April 27, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BEING ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY - THE UGLY REALITY OF AMERICAN POLICIES IN EVERY SPHERE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - WHERE WE ARE HEADED -THE RELIGIOUS-LIKE BLINDNESS OF IDEOLOGUES - THE HUMAN CONDITION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
_______________________
Response to a comment about the incredible society America could build if it didn’t spend all of its resources on the military-industrial complex:
No one in America’s power establishment is the least interested.
For Democrats and Republicans with political ambition, the route to success is through plutocracy and empire, America’s very social-political structure being deliberately constructed to channel them into that outcome. It is next to impossible for any individual, no matter how gifted and ambitious and idealistic, to rise while avoiding the constraints and demands of that immensely powerful structure.
Ordinary folks do not count at all anymore in America, despite a lot of fake political rhetoric, and there are no resources left for them anyway after the costs of war and empire. America’s power establishment views the concerns of ordinary Americans much as a great lord of the 18th century would view the concerns of peasants and servants – that is, not at all.
Both parties are factions of a single national imperial party, one which allows no straying from basics, one with immense resources for punishing anyone’s attempt. No candidate, except for one dutifully ignored by America’s entire corporate press and receiving no attention from national figures beyond scorn, Tulsi Gabbard, has any intention of seriously challenging anything important.
That very much includes Bernie Sanders, who so often makes interesting and pleasant noises but has no record of genuinely opposing empire and establishment and endless war. Simply the fact that he has a decades-long successful political career, with its concomitant reward of increasing personal wealth, under existing circumstances should tell you that. His noises are just that, noises, because even in the unlikely event he were elected, he would have zero capacity to realize any of his major social programs. The establishment doesn’t want them, any of them, and that just could not be clearer.
If you can't change the basic structures - money and lobbies completely driving politics, immense wealth and much abused privilege avoiding any real share of national burdens, insane commitments all over the world from Israel to 800 American military bases, an immense and democracy-corrupting military and security establishment, you cannot change anything of substance. Not a thing.
This of course is exactly the embarrassing situation, the impossible dilemma, into which Trump has fallen. Despite his throbbing ego-centric love of seeing himself as a strong and uniquely capable leader, he cannot change anything, as he may have wanted to change things in foreign and military affairs, because he has never had any inclination to change basics.
Trump has no capacity for doing so, even were he so inclined. He has demonstrated remarkable cowardice, repeatedly, in avoiding the establishment’s efforts to direct or destroy him, and he has literally grovelled to members of Israel’s Lobby in return for protection and financing, something making him part of the problem and not the solution.
It would take an almost revolutionary development, such as total economic collapse or a great war, to turn the reality of America’s situation around quickly. Those are highly unlikely events.
What we are likely to see is a continued, perhaps increasing, decline of America's position in the world, a decline well underway already. Loss of everything from the loyalty of traditional allies in the face of American arrogance and greed to the loss of the special place the dollar holds in the world, a place enabling the country to run gigantic deficits at least for a time.
The showy American circus we now see running just cannot continue indefinitely. It is often the case that people are fooled by noise and flash and displays of power, but they can only continue so long in the face of changing underlying realities.
Apart from America's international support network now becoming badly frayed, new competitors in the world, who didn’t exist during America’s post-WWII heyday, just keep coming on strong. There just is no putting everything back into Pandora’s box, as Trump pathetically tries doing.
America is rapidly losing every bit of good will it ever earned with a set of views and policies literally hostile to everyone else’s interests. You can’t attack other peoples’ interests and then turn around and expect their admiration and support. It cannot be done. Only a lunatic would try.
America has attacked every worthwhile organization which provides the other 95% of the world’s people a place from which to speak – the UN, the WTO, the ICC, and others - and it has attacked the direct national interests of dozens of individual countries, from Germany and India to China and Iran and even South Korea.
How can anyone even think that complete contempt for the rule of law, for the laws of other nations, for international law, and the substitution of America law applying to everyone, can possibly succeed in the long run? Only political ideologues, as blind as intense religious fanatics, can believe that.
People like Pompeo, Bolton, Abrams, Haley, and other absolutely miserable Trump appointments.
America is on the wrong side of history in almost every part of its foreign policy and diplomacy and hammer-blow trade measures, and the accumulating results of those are going to be very destructive for America’s position in the world.
That’s not Jeremiah speaking, that’s the cold and unrelenting reality of the human condition.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
_______________________
Response to a comment about the incredible society America could build if it didn’t spend all of its resources on the military-industrial complex:
No one in America’s power establishment is the least interested.
For Democrats and Republicans with political ambition, the route to success is through plutocracy and empire, America’s very social-political structure being deliberately constructed to channel them into that outcome. It is next to impossible for any individual, no matter how gifted and ambitious and idealistic, to rise while avoiding the constraints and demands of that immensely powerful structure.
Ordinary folks do not count at all anymore in America, despite a lot of fake political rhetoric, and there are no resources left for them anyway after the costs of war and empire. America’s power establishment views the concerns of ordinary Americans much as a great lord of the 18th century would view the concerns of peasants and servants – that is, not at all.
Both parties are factions of a single national imperial party, one which allows no straying from basics, one with immense resources for punishing anyone’s attempt. No candidate, except for one dutifully ignored by America’s entire corporate press and receiving no attention from national figures beyond scorn, Tulsi Gabbard, has any intention of seriously challenging anything important.
That very much includes Bernie Sanders, who so often makes interesting and pleasant noises but has no record of genuinely opposing empire and establishment and endless war. Simply the fact that he has a decades-long successful political career, with its concomitant reward of increasing personal wealth, under existing circumstances should tell you that. His noises are just that, noises, because even in the unlikely event he were elected, he would have zero capacity to realize any of his major social programs. The establishment doesn’t want them, any of them, and that just could not be clearer.
If you can't change the basic structures - money and lobbies completely driving politics, immense wealth and much abused privilege avoiding any real share of national burdens, insane commitments all over the world from Israel to 800 American military bases, an immense and democracy-corrupting military and security establishment, you cannot change anything of substance. Not a thing.
This of course is exactly the embarrassing situation, the impossible dilemma, into which Trump has fallen. Despite his throbbing ego-centric love of seeing himself as a strong and uniquely capable leader, he cannot change anything, as he may have wanted to change things in foreign and military affairs, because he has never had any inclination to change basics.
Trump has no capacity for doing so, even were he so inclined. He has demonstrated remarkable cowardice, repeatedly, in avoiding the establishment’s efforts to direct or destroy him, and he has literally grovelled to members of Israel’s Lobby in return for protection and financing, something making him part of the problem and not the solution.
It would take an almost revolutionary development, such as total economic collapse or a great war, to turn the reality of America’s situation around quickly. Those are highly unlikely events.
What we are likely to see is a continued, perhaps increasing, decline of America's position in the world, a decline well underway already. Loss of everything from the loyalty of traditional allies in the face of American arrogance and greed to the loss of the special place the dollar holds in the world, a place enabling the country to run gigantic deficits at least for a time.
The showy American circus we now see running just cannot continue indefinitely. It is often the case that people are fooled by noise and flash and displays of power, but they can only continue so long in the face of changing underlying realities.
Apart from America's international support network now becoming badly frayed, new competitors in the world, who didn’t exist during America’s post-WWII heyday, just keep coming on strong. There just is no putting everything back into Pandora’s box, as Trump pathetically tries doing.
America is rapidly losing every bit of good will it ever earned with a set of views and policies literally hostile to everyone else’s interests. You can’t attack other peoples’ interests and then turn around and expect their admiration and support. It cannot be done. Only a lunatic would try.
America has attacked every worthwhile organization which provides the other 95% of the world’s people a place from which to speak – the UN, the WTO, the ICC, and others - and it has attacked the direct national interests of dozens of individual countries, from Germany and India to China and Iran and even South Korea.
How can anyone even think that complete contempt for the rule of law, for the laws of other nations, for international law, and the substitution of America law applying to everyone, can possibly succeed in the long run? Only political ideologues, as blind as intense religious fanatics, can believe that.
People like Pompeo, Bolton, Abrams, Haley, and other absolutely miserable Trump appointments.
America is on the wrong side of history in almost every part of its foreign policy and diplomacy and hammer-blow trade measures, and the accumulating results of those are going to be very destructive for America’s position in the world.
That’s not Jeremiah speaking, that’s the cold and unrelenting reality of the human condition.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AH, THE EXCITEMENT OF JOE BIDEN ENTERING THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE - KEY POINTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT JOE BIDEN - WHY HE'S JUST ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF PURE AMERICAN POLITICAL SLEAZE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Joe Biden formally enters Democratic field for 2020 presidential race"
Oh, can't you just feel the excitement?
If he were the candidate, we'd watch two Pentagon-adoring old men slugging it out. Two who never have a bad word to say about all the killing and maiming and creating desperate refugees.
And they both embrace CIA dirty operations. Biden was the one who convinced Obama to start America's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program in which someone's name is put on a "kill list" by an anonymous CIA thug, and the person listed is afterwards incinerated by a missile controlled by another CIA thug playing real-life computer games in a secret basement or warehouse.
The regard for rule of law is just touching. As is the humanity.
Smiles mean nothing. Biden has a big one, but then that is almost characteristic of psychopaths. Obama, who bombed everyday somewhere for eight solid years and undoubtedly killed hundreds of thousands, has a boyishly charming one.
And two such genuinely sleazy individuals to boot, Biden and Trump. Although I do think Trump clearly leads in that quality.
By the way, it would be the first time that two men who have had hair transplants ran against each other (Biden got a new front hairline a couple of decades ago).
American politics really is about that meaningful.
Just a further word on sleaze.
Biden has a pretty sleazy record., including, when he was VP, going over to Ukraine to tell the government what to do and to seek concessions benefitting his son's finances.
Trump's entire career, of course, features sleaze, from working overtime to avoid paying taxes and cheating the folks who bought into many of his projects to cheating on his wife.
Class, all the way, that's the way they do things in America.
_______________________
Further information for those who think Biden's a nice, harmless old guy.
Two items from his voting record.
He supported legislation for an amendment that would allow the individual states to overturn Roe vs Wade on abortion.
He supported legislation that was regarded by the NRA as having saved peoples' gun rights.
I also watched the hearing over charges by law clerk Anita Hill against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991. Biden presided because he was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Biden’s handling of the hearing was dreadful, and I’ve since had a low opinion of him.
Anita Hill was a credible, calm, and well-spoken witness. But under Biden, she was put through ugly and embarrassing questioning. Anita Hill was treated as wrong-doer rather than as witness against one, nominee Clarence Thomas. It was Joe Biden rushing to save the Washington establishment from embarrassment over a poor Supreme Court nomination.
He ain't quite what a lot of people think he is.
Just as with Obama, big smiles can be so deceptive.
Biden’s exploitation, in his opening campaign advertising film, of the sad events at Charlottesville, Virginia, setting himself up pretentiously as doing “battle for the soul of this nation,” (in light of Trump’s widely criticized “moral equivalence” between neo-Nazis and anti-fascists) would be hard enough to accept on its own.
But Biden never so much as had the decency to ask the mother of the woman, Heather Heyer, killed at Charlottesville, whether it would be okay to use the event in his political advertising. That’s classic Joe Biden sleaze, with the same level of decency displayed as in his Anita Hill hearings.
But things go much farther than that in Biden’s “nation’s soul” stuff, far enough for those who understand to make them want to puke.
As Vice President, Biden was America’s imperial emissary for the dirty dealings in Ukraine. He takes credit for telling Yanukovych, the country’s recently democratically-elected President, to walk away after all the street demonstrations and violence, violence orchestrated and paid for covertly by America.
That very much included America’s support for Ukraine’s ugly Azov Battalion – an absolutely neo-Nazi outfit with swastika-like armbands and torchlight parades and hate-filled speeches - which threatened the elected government. There are photos of Biden with a big smile on his face shaking hands with neo-Nazi leader, Oleh Tyahnybok.
So much for Joe Biden and “America’s soul” – just empty words uttered with mock sincerity. About as meaningful as a Hillary Clinton photo-op of her eating some fried chicken with a group of black people at a local joint. She actually did that.
_____________________________
Response to a comment about Trump:
Trump is indeed a man of "no class." I couldn't agree more. It’s almost an understatement.
But do you call it "class" for America to have bombed its way through the Middle East over the last fifteen years, killing a good two million people and creating armies of desperate refugees? Overthrowing democratic governments? Running an extrajudicial killing operation on an industrial scale?
In some bizarre fashion, Trump is an almost perfect President for America today, a perfect symbol - crass, dishonest, violent, and brutally proud of all of it.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Joe Biden formally enters Democratic field for 2020 presidential race"
Oh, can't you just feel the excitement?
If he were the candidate, we'd watch two Pentagon-adoring old men slugging it out. Two who never have a bad word to say about all the killing and maiming and creating desperate refugees.
And they both embrace CIA dirty operations. Biden was the one who convinced Obama to start America's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program in which someone's name is put on a "kill list" by an anonymous CIA thug, and the person listed is afterwards incinerated by a missile controlled by another CIA thug playing real-life computer games in a secret basement or warehouse.
The regard for rule of law is just touching. As is the humanity.
Smiles mean nothing. Biden has a big one, but then that is almost characteristic of psychopaths. Obama, who bombed everyday somewhere for eight solid years and undoubtedly killed hundreds of thousands, has a boyishly charming one.
And two such genuinely sleazy individuals to boot, Biden and Trump. Although I do think Trump clearly leads in that quality.
By the way, it would be the first time that two men who have had hair transplants ran against each other (Biden got a new front hairline a couple of decades ago).
American politics really is about that meaningful.
Just a further word on sleaze.
Biden has a pretty sleazy record., including, when he was VP, going over to Ukraine to tell the government what to do and to seek concessions benefitting his son's finances.
Trump's entire career, of course, features sleaze, from working overtime to avoid paying taxes and cheating the folks who bought into many of his projects to cheating on his wife.
Class, all the way, that's the way they do things in America.
_______________________
Further information for those who think Biden's a nice, harmless old guy.
Two items from his voting record.
He supported legislation for an amendment that would allow the individual states to overturn Roe vs Wade on abortion.
He supported legislation that was regarded by the NRA as having saved peoples' gun rights.
I also watched the hearing over charges by law clerk Anita Hill against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991. Biden presided because he was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Biden’s handling of the hearing was dreadful, and I’ve since had a low opinion of him.
Anita Hill was a credible, calm, and well-spoken witness. But under Biden, she was put through ugly and embarrassing questioning. Anita Hill was treated as wrong-doer rather than as witness against one, nominee Clarence Thomas. It was Joe Biden rushing to save the Washington establishment from embarrassment over a poor Supreme Court nomination.
He ain't quite what a lot of people think he is.
Just as with Obama, big smiles can be so deceptive.
Biden’s exploitation, in his opening campaign advertising film, of the sad events at Charlottesville, Virginia, setting himself up pretentiously as doing “battle for the soul of this nation,” (in light of Trump’s widely criticized “moral equivalence” between neo-Nazis and anti-fascists) would be hard enough to accept on its own.
But Biden never so much as had the decency to ask the mother of the woman, Heather Heyer, killed at Charlottesville, whether it would be okay to use the event in his political advertising. That’s classic Joe Biden sleaze, with the same level of decency displayed as in his Anita Hill hearings.
But things go much farther than that in Biden’s “nation’s soul” stuff, far enough for those who understand to make them want to puke.
As Vice President, Biden was America’s imperial emissary for the dirty dealings in Ukraine. He takes credit for telling Yanukovych, the country’s recently democratically-elected President, to walk away after all the street demonstrations and violence, violence orchestrated and paid for covertly by America.
That very much included America’s support for Ukraine’s ugly Azov Battalion – an absolutely neo-Nazi outfit with swastika-like armbands and torchlight parades and hate-filled speeches - which threatened the elected government. There are photos of Biden with a big smile on his face shaking hands with neo-Nazi leader, Oleh Tyahnybok.
So much for Joe Biden and “America’s soul” – just empty words uttered with mock sincerity. About as meaningful as a Hillary Clinton photo-op of her eating some fried chicken with a group of black people at a local joint. She actually did that.
_____________________________
Response to a comment about Trump:
Trump is indeed a man of "no class." I couldn't agree more. It’s almost an understatement.
But do you call it "class" for America to have bombed its way through the Middle East over the last fifteen years, killing a good two million people and creating armies of desperate refugees? Overthrowing democratic governments? Running an extrajudicial killing operation on an industrial scale?
In some bizarre fashion, Trump is an almost perfect President for America today, a perfect symbol - crass, dishonest, violent, and brutally proud of all of it.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TWO PARALLEL LIVES HIGHLIGHT THE SAD STATE OF AMERICA'S RESPECT FOR THE RULE OF LAW PLUS ITS DANGEROUS ATTITUDES TOWARDS TWO FOREIGN STATES, RUSSIA AND ISRAEL
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America’s Real Foreign Agent”
Yes, indeed, Philip Giraldi.
Maria Butina's treatment at the hands of American officials has been scandalous.
But, recall that a very great deal of what American officials do today, in every part of the world, is scandalous.
Americans no longer seem to have any shame about abuse and reckless acts.
Butina has done nothing any thinking person would call a crime, yet she has been kept in jail and is threatened by more jail after conviction under an obscure law.
Jared Kushner, under the protection of the unbalanced Donald Trump, has joined a parade of American officials who deal in their country's intimate long-term interests with a foreign state, a demonstrably malevolent state, too, as seen in its actions towards others.
Kushner, a close friend of Israel’s Prime Minister, has been given the highest security clearance by his father-in-law, against the expert recommendation of the people who administer such matters.
No one appears to seriously complain about it, and he is under no threat or shadow whatsoever, while Ms Butina, a person of no influence and no secret attachments, a Russian who was studying at an American university, faces more time in jail for doing nothing more than being Russian.
You perhaps could not find a better parallel pair of examples illustrating the extremes into which America has fallen.
A grotesque absence of respect for the rule of law.
Accompanied by equally grotesque, and dangerous, attitudes towards two other national states.
Hate anything Russian, no matter how unreasonable, no matter how trivial and unimportant.
Embrace Israel even more tightly despite its being covered in blood and gore and displaying absolutely no reason or fairness in any of its acts.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America’s Real Foreign Agent”
Yes, indeed, Philip Giraldi.
Maria Butina's treatment at the hands of American officials has been scandalous.
But, recall that a very great deal of what American officials do today, in every part of the world, is scandalous.
Americans no longer seem to have any shame about abuse and reckless acts.
Butina has done nothing any thinking person would call a crime, yet she has been kept in jail and is threatened by more jail after conviction under an obscure law.
Jared Kushner, under the protection of the unbalanced Donald Trump, has joined a parade of American officials who deal in their country's intimate long-term interests with a foreign state, a demonstrably malevolent state, too, as seen in its actions towards others.
Kushner, a close friend of Israel’s Prime Minister, has been given the highest security clearance by his father-in-law, against the expert recommendation of the people who administer such matters.
No one appears to seriously complain about it, and he is under no threat or shadow whatsoever, while Ms Butina, a person of no influence and no secret attachments, a Russian who was studying at an American university, faces more time in jail for doing nothing more than being Russian.
You perhaps could not find a better parallel pair of examples illustrating the extremes into which America has fallen.
A grotesque absence of respect for the rule of law.
Accompanied by equally grotesque, and dangerous, attitudes towards two other national states.
Hate anything Russian, no matter how unreasonable, no matter how trivial and unimportant.
Embrace Israel even more tightly despite its being covered in blood and gore and displaying absolutely no reason or fairness in any of its acts.
Friday, April 26, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MEANING OF PUTIN'S EASING OF APPLICATIONS FOR RESIDENTS OF BREAKAWAY RUSSIAN-SPEAKING EASTERN UKRAINE (DONBASS) TO APPLY FOR RUSSIAN PASSPORTS - IT'S NOT REALLY WHAT THE AUTHOR OF AN ARTICLE SUGGESTS - IT REFLECTS PUTIN'S CAUTION, STRATEGIC THINKING, AND LONG VIEW
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“So, It Begins: Moscow to Grant Russian Citizenship to Inhabitants of East Ukraine Rebel Republics
“It is now likelier that Donbass will eventually be incorporated into Russia, than that it will return under Ukrainian rule”
"Russian citizenship and passport make it all the more certain that in the case of a large-scale Ukrainian army offensive to retake the region for Kiev Russia will intervene"
I just do not see that happening.
First, Ukraine is too militarily incompetent to try it, as they've demonstrated over and over.
And there seems to be no great hunger, except among the minority Extreme Right in Ukraine, for war, a big war.
When Poroshenko tried drafting more soldiers in Western Ukraine, there was a big wave of draft-dodging
The country already has countless other problems generated by the total incompetence of Poroshenko.
Putin is always careful and moderate in his policies. I can't see him sending in the armed forces under almost any circumstances. Nevertheless, his granting the passports does serve to plant a doubt in any foolish Ukrainian planning.
Sending in troops would lend support to years-long American and British trumped-up charges against Russia, charges of supposed aggression. Far more severe sanctions, at the very least, would quickly follow, and I think Western intervention, although unlikely, could not be ruled out.
Putin takes the long view and has made many references to Donbass and its gradually increasing ties with Russia. The granting of citizenship for those who want to claim it is just one of these.
This could also be viewed as pressure on Ukraine to implement Minsk. The new Ukrainian President does give some promising signs, despite repeating boiler-plate rhetoric, such as his frequently having spoken in Russian during the election.
I very much suspect Putin regards Donbass over time as a lost cause for Kiev, and I tend to agree. But he is a patient man. If things are headed in that direction, why not just patiently wait? There’s nothing to be gained from war.
Donbass, almost certainly, will transition into a viable mini-state, one with many very close connections to Russia - trade, education, culture, migration, and special arrangements.
But there will be no joining the Russian Federation by request, as happened in the case of Crimea, at least for a good many years, not until Donbass has proved its viable independence, and no one much cares anymore.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“So, It Begins: Moscow to Grant Russian Citizenship to Inhabitants of East Ukraine Rebel Republics
“It is now likelier that Donbass will eventually be incorporated into Russia, than that it will return under Ukrainian rule”
"Russian citizenship and passport make it all the more certain that in the case of a large-scale Ukrainian army offensive to retake the region for Kiev Russia will intervene"
I just do not see that happening.
First, Ukraine is too militarily incompetent to try it, as they've demonstrated over and over.
And there seems to be no great hunger, except among the minority Extreme Right in Ukraine, for war, a big war.
When Poroshenko tried drafting more soldiers in Western Ukraine, there was a big wave of draft-dodging
The country already has countless other problems generated by the total incompetence of Poroshenko.
Putin is always careful and moderate in his policies. I can't see him sending in the armed forces under almost any circumstances. Nevertheless, his granting the passports does serve to plant a doubt in any foolish Ukrainian planning.
Sending in troops would lend support to years-long American and British trumped-up charges against Russia, charges of supposed aggression. Far more severe sanctions, at the very least, would quickly follow, and I think Western intervention, although unlikely, could not be ruled out.
Putin takes the long view and has made many references to Donbass and its gradually increasing ties with Russia. The granting of citizenship for those who want to claim it is just one of these.
This could also be viewed as pressure on Ukraine to implement Minsk. The new Ukrainian President does give some promising signs, despite repeating boiler-plate rhetoric, such as his frequently having spoken in Russian during the election.
I very much suspect Putin regards Donbass over time as a lost cause for Kiev, and I tend to agree. But he is a patient man. If things are headed in that direction, why not just patiently wait? There’s nothing to be gained from war.
Donbass, almost certainly, will transition into a viable mini-state, one with many very close connections to Russia - trade, education, culture, migration, and special arrangements.
But there will be no joining the Russian Federation by request, as happened in the case of Crimea, at least for a good many years, not until Donbass has proved its viable independence, and no one much cares anymore.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ON JONATHAN COOK'S NOTION THAT AMERICA'S ISRAEL LOBBY IS WEAKENING - WHY I THINK THIS A FALSE NOTION - MAYBE ONE DAY THERE WILL BE A BACKLASH IF ISRAEL KEEPS OVERPLAYING ITS HAND - BUT RIGHT NOW AMERICANS RESEMBLE A HERD QUIETLY GRAZING WHILE JUST OVER THE HILLS VICIOUS ARMIES CLASH AND THREATEN THE FUTURE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN COOK IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“UK Israel Lobby Adds Muscle as US Lobby Weakens
“British politics are being plunged into a stifling silence on the longest example of mass human rights abuses sanctioned by the West in modern history”
Worth reading, as are most things Jonathan Cook writes.
But I'm not sure I accept his notion of The Lobby's hold in the United States weakening in any way.
Yes, there finally are a few people in Congress who speak truth for the first time ever.
But look at the choke-hold Israel has on the county, despite those minor influences.
Many of Trump's most senior appointments are people serving Israeli interests to a record degree - Bolton, Pompeo, Abrahams, Kushner, and others.
And look at the things, not his to legally dispose of at all, that Trump has "given" Israel. It's shocking, but there are almost no voices in the United States saying so.
And by all accounts, Trump's big "peace plan" could have been written by members of Netanyahu's staff. There is no pretense of working with two sides to solve a problem involving two sides.
We have matters like Trump's "Syria withdrawal" reduced to dust under Israeli influence, for there is no other serious known interest keeping American military, illegally, in northwestern Syria.
Israel just wants instability for Syria and to deprive that state of the use of its own resources. It's just gangsterism, but America fully goes along.
And the steady drumbeat against law-abiding Iran is becoming deafening.
There is only one interest pushing this pointlessly destructive policy, Israel with its intense desire to dominate its region and benefit from all the favor of the United States in doing so.
America’s own long-term interests all dictate that it should work to establish good relations with Iran, a major and peaceful state with many things to offer in trade and friendship, but America cannot do so under Israel’s withering influence. It just keeps flagellating itself to exhibit its reverence towards one small and extremely belligerent state.
Israel is under absolutely no threat from Iran. It's just empty rhetoric, an excuse for itself promoting threats and belligerence.
Imagine a non-nuclear state attacking a nuclear state such as Israel, one with a sizable arsenal? One, moreover, doubly protected by America's nuclear arsenal. It's a darkly laughable idea, but it is never laughed at by anyone in Washington, it is only ritualistically honored and repeated.
Israel's destructive viewpoint prevails in almost all important matters. Even much of America’s intense Russophobia reflects stoking by Israeli interests. Israel simply views Russia, without saying so publicly, as a big stumbling block to the kind of American international dominance Israel would be very happy seeing.
There is not much to be hopeful about that I see. Perhaps, if Israel keeps so grotesquely over-playing its hand, there will be a backlash in the United States. But that’s only a “perhaps.” Americans, on the whole, just go right along with things, much resembling a herd of cattle quietly grazing in a pasture while just over the distant hills, vicious armies clash and threaten their future.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN COOK IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“UK Israel Lobby Adds Muscle as US Lobby Weakens
“British politics are being plunged into a stifling silence on the longest example of mass human rights abuses sanctioned by the West in modern history”
Worth reading, as are most things Jonathan Cook writes.
But I'm not sure I accept his notion of The Lobby's hold in the United States weakening in any way.
Yes, there finally are a few people in Congress who speak truth for the first time ever.
But look at the choke-hold Israel has on the county, despite those minor influences.
Many of Trump's most senior appointments are people serving Israeli interests to a record degree - Bolton, Pompeo, Abrahams, Kushner, and others.
And look at the things, not his to legally dispose of at all, that Trump has "given" Israel. It's shocking, but there are almost no voices in the United States saying so.
And by all accounts, Trump's big "peace plan" could have been written by members of Netanyahu's staff. There is no pretense of working with two sides to solve a problem involving two sides.
We have matters like Trump's "Syria withdrawal" reduced to dust under Israeli influence, for there is no other serious known interest keeping American military, illegally, in northwestern Syria.
Israel just wants instability for Syria and to deprive that state of the use of its own resources. It's just gangsterism, but America fully goes along.
And the steady drumbeat against law-abiding Iran is becoming deafening.
There is only one interest pushing this pointlessly destructive policy, Israel with its intense desire to dominate its region and benefit from all the favor of the United States in doing so.
America’s own long-term interests all dictate that it should work to establish good relations with Iran, a major and peaceful state with many things to offer in trade and friendship, but America cannot do so under Israel’s withering influence. It just keeps flagellating itself to exhibit its reverence towards one small and extremely belligerent state.
Israel is under absolutely no threat from Iran. It's just empty rhetoric, an excuse for itself promoting threats and belligerence.
Imagine a non-nuclear state attacking a nuclear state such as Israel, one with a sizable arsenal? One, moreover, doubly protected by America's nuclear arsenal. It's a darkly laughable idea, but it is never laughed at by anyone in Washington, it is only ritualistically honored and repeated.
Israel's destructive viewpoint prevails in almost all important matters. Even much of America’s intense Russophobia reflects stoking by Israeli interests. Israel simply views Russia, without saying so publicly, as a big stumbling block to the kind of American international dominance Israel would be very happy seeing.
There is not much to be hopeful about that I see. Perhaps, if Israel keeps so grotesquely over-playing its hand, there will be a backlash in the United States. But that’s only a “perhaps.” Americans, on the whole, just go right along with things, much resembling a herd of cattle quietly grazing in a pasture while just over the distant hills, vicious armies clash and threaten their future.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FEW MORE WORDS ON CANADA'S FOREIGN MINISTER CHRYSTIA FREELAND - ONE OF TRUDEAU'S MAJOR APPOINTMENTS AND A MINISTER HE MUCH DEPENDS UPON BUT ONE WHO GETS ALMOST NOTHING RIGHT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN HELMER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Ukraine's Anti-Globalist Vote Bad News for Canada's Russia Hating Foreign Minister Freeland”
The past is the past, and I wouldn't accept anyone’s using Freeland’s dark family history (involving the Nazis) against her if she were trying to be a fair and decent Foreign Minister, but she most certainly is not trying, so I do not object to others repeating the family tales she avoids.
Chrystia Freeland is an embarrassment to Canada and its traditional twentieth century image in the world, one of fairness and decency and moderation in international affairs.
She has done not a single thing right. Not about Russia, not about Ukraine, not about Venezuela, not about Saudi Arabia, and certainly not about the United States, the biggest bully on the world’s stage.
I don't know whether her family background plays a role in her attitudes, but it may. Genes are pretty decisive, and old attitudes and prejudices keep influencing younger generations brought up with them.
Of course, we have to add the name of her boss, Justin Trudeau, the guy who appointed her and appears to depend on her more than he does any other Minister. What a disappointment he has been compared to his father's independent-minded and sharply intelligent leadership of the same political party decades ago.
____________________
Response to a comment:
Her husband writes for The New York Times, the paper once, and best, described as "the official house organ for America's establishment," one closely connected with American intelligence.
That is a rather ominous connection.
Her language and attitudes resemble those of Nikki Haley, who served the interests of Israel better than those of the United States, and she repeated every piece of clap-trap that came along.
Freeland better represents the interests of the United States than those of Canada, and she repeats every piece of clap-trap that comes along.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN HELMER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Ukraine's Anti-Globalist Vote Bad News for Canada's Russia Hating Foreign Minister Freeland”
The past is the past, and I wouldn't accept anyone’s using Freeland’s dark family history (involving the Nazis) against her if she were trying to be a fair and decent Foreign Minister, but she most certainly is not trying, so I do not object to others repeating the family tales she avoids.
Chrystia Freeland is an embarrassment to Canada and its traditional twentieth century image in the world, one of fairness and decency and moderation in international affairs.
She has done not a single thing right. Not about Russia, not about Ukraine, not about Venezuela, not about Saudi Arabia, and certainly not about the United States, the biggest bully on the world’s stage.
I don't know whether her family background plays a role in her attitudes, but it may. Genes are pretty decisive, and old attitudes and prejudices keep influencing younger generations brought up with them.
Of course, we have to add the name of her boss, Justin Trudeau, the guy who appointed her and appears to depend on her more than he does any other Minister. What a disappointment he has been compared to his father's independent-minded and sharply intelligent leadership of the same political party decades ago.
____________________
Response to a comment:
Her husband writes for The New York Times, the paper once, and best, described as "the official house organ for America's establishment," one closely connected with American intelligence.
That is a rather ominous connection.
Her language and attitudes resemble those of Nikki Haley, who served the interests of Israel better than those of the United States, and she repeated every piece of clap-trap that came along.
Freeland better represents the interests of the United States than those of Canada, and she repeats every piece of clap-trap that comes along.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JAPANESE AMBASSADOR ADVISES CANADA ON SURVIVING "DIPLOMATIC BRAWL" WITH CHINA - COMPOUNDING THE BLUNDERS OF OUR GOVERNMENT BY HAVING A JAPANESE OFFICIAL COMMENT ON CHINA - HOSTILITY STILL OVER JAPAN'S ATROCITIES IN WWII CHINA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MURRAY BREWSTER IN CBC NEWS
“Canada is not the only country whose nationals are detained in China - Kimihiro Ishikane”
"Surviving a diplomatic brawl with China takes patience, discretion: Japanese ambassador"
Yes, and avoiding one in the first place takes more good sense and judgment than Canada appears to possess in its current management of foreign affairs.
By the way, having a Japanese official speak out on China's diplomacy also shows less than good judgment.
There is deep surviving hostility in China towards Japan for its massive war crimes before and during WWII.
I'm talking about genuine atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking and the documented use by the Japanese of germ warfare.
Then there's a number of other ugly matters like Japan's use of "comfort women," essentially prisoners employed involuntarily as prostitutes to serve Japanese soldiers.
I learnt of the depth of the hostility from a group of wonderful Chinese students studying in Canada whom I knew for nearly three years.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MURRAY BREWSTER IN CBC NEWS
“Canada is not the only country whose nationals are detained in China - Kimihiro Ishikane”
"Surviving a diplomatic brawl with China takes patience, discretion: Japanese ambassador"
Yes, and avoiding one in the first place takes more good sense and judgment than Canada appears to possess in its current management of foreign affairs.
By the way, having a Japanese official speak out on China's diplomacy also shows less than good judgment.
There is deep surviving hostility in China towards Japan for its massive war crimes before and during WWII.
I'm talking about genuine atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking and the documented use by the Japanese of germ warfare.
Then there's a number of other ugly matters like Japan's use of "comfort women," essentially prisoners employed involuntarily as prostitutes to serve Japanese soldiers.
I learnt of the depth of the hostility from a group of wonderful Chinese students studying in Canada whom I knew for nearly three years.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOME INTERESTING HISTORY OF PURITANISM IN AMERICA - IT EXPLAINS A LOT OF TODAY'S WARS AND BELLIGERENCE AND CLOSE-MINDEDNESS - THEY WEREN'T QUITE THE NICE FOLKS A BENIGN NAME LIKE "PILGRIMS" SUGGESTS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ALASTAIR CROOKE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
‘Will Israel-Loving Evangelicals Spur the US to War? Russia Is Taking Precautions’
https://russia-insider.com/en/will-israel-loving-evangelicals-spur-us-war-russia-taking-precautions/ri26836
Scary stuff, and well said as usual for Alastair Crooke.
"80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016, and his popularity amongst them remains high – in the 70s percent"
This seems a great puzzle. How can such strict, traditionally-minded people, when it comes to morals, support so enthusiastically this extremely crude man, a man who appears to be utterly without ethics or morals or any principle beyond his own survival?
I do think Mr. Crooke's examination of "rapture" thinking offers at least a partial answer.
There is, unfortunately, little rationality in the basic beliefs of people who can embrace such thinking, just as there is little rationality in people who are always out to damage or hurt others, as by wars and coups and dirty tricks. But that such people exist, and in large numbers, is undeniable.
Things become very mixed up with such influence.
Not a lot of people will be aware that America, during the 18th and 19th centuries, experienced what were called three "Great Awakenings." These were almost hysterical mass movements in fundamentalist religion.
I've always attributed at least a part of America's nastiness to the Puritans who migrated there in substantial numbers in the 17th and 18th centuries. The American Puritans, over time, morphed into a number of Protestant sects and denominations.
America calls them “the Pilgrims,” people who were fleeing religious persecution in Europe. It associates them in a highly positive way with the Thanksgiving holiday and with many good qualities.
But what the Pilgrims really represented was a group of intense extremists who made themselves unwelcome in England and on parts of the Continent owing to their religious intolerance and truly ugly behavior.
They had obnoxious practices such as barging in and deliberately disturbing the religious services of other, more traditional Christians, such as regular Church of England. They felt this crude behavior was justified by their having the true faith while all others were false.
They also were responsible for considerable damage to the art and relics of the great ancient English Cathedrals with their ugly rampages through them, running inside smashing and breaking things, justifying themselves by the same concept of their having the true faith and hating the idolatry represented by the cathedrals.
So, this was an important core group in Colonial America, and people of this kind had considerable influence on early American institutions and laws and education. They made for what I view as a very pernicious heritage, one that still can be felt in America.
The “friendly” view of their influence, the view that dominates in America, is one that emphasizes matters like their support for public education. Puritans had always thought it important that every individual should be able to read the Word of God.
Unfortunately, this positive belief in education was intimately mingled with vicious anti-Catholicism. The Puritans back in England despised Catholicism and their contempt for the “high” Church of England, Queen Elizabeth the Great’s church, was about its being too Catholic. Echoes of this are heard to this day in Northern Ireland and were the root of “the troubles” in the 1960s.
Anti-Catholicism, as few Americans understand, was actually one of the key motivators for the American Revolution. It most certainly was not all about freedom and rights. Britain, as part of reforms to try halting the predation of Colonial Americans on western Indian lands, had put parts of the colonies under the administration of Quebec province. Well, that caused the same kind of explosion of hatreds we saw in the 1960s in Northern Ireland with “the troubles.”
Americans, as is not widely known, for decades after the Revolution, followed the annual practice of burning the Pope in effigy on Guy Fawkes Day. Old hatreds die very hard.
The best comparison I can make for what America has experienced with the Puritans, accurate in a great many respects, are today’s ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, a people whose extreme behaviors keep all kinds of civil strife and disturbances going and a people who have little respect for the views and religious practices of others. And note that Israel’s ultra-Orthodox have an influence on the country far beyond their numbers. Their noise and violence and political minority parties become part of every Israeli government because Israel’s fractured political system demands coalitions to form a government.
I often think we are, in so many things, the victims of genealogy. Our behaviors in many things are not governed by rational thought and a desire to make things better, but by drives to change and dominate others, drives inherited in our genes.
Now, I’m certainly not saying that all Americans are like that, but enough of them are, and Americans in influential political and cultural positions. Since the re-creation of Israel, they have had some powerful allies in Zionist-oriented Jews in America, again a minority but quite significant.
So, I do believe this history explains many of the attitudes we see in America today, the belligerence, the belief in there being only one truth, the intense self-righteousness of the John Bolton types. By the way, descent from a Pilgrim family in America is widely held to be a genuine distinction, equivalent to descent from a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
America has many such distinctions, all involving a kind of aristocratic attitude foreigners might not expect to find in America. There are organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution and the United Daughters of the Confederacy plus a number of others that all involve and value family descent.
This tendency goes back to the earliest times of the Republic with the Society of the Cincinnati in George Washington’s time, an organization that inspired a good deal of fear and concern in others. America is also characterized by the widespread embrace of fraternal organizations. There are dozens of different ones, but some of the most important confer distinction on their members.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ALASTAIR CROOKE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
‘Will Israel-Loving Evangelicals Spur the US to War? Russia Is Taking Precautions’
https://russia-insider.com/en/will-israel-loving-evangelicals-spur-us-war-russia-taking-precautions/ri26836
Scary stuff, and well said as usual for Alastair Crooke.
"80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016, and his popularity amongst them remains high – in the 70s percent"
This seems a great puzzle. How can such strict, traditionally-minded people, when it comes to morals, support so enthusiastically this extremely crude man, a man who appears to be utterly without ethics or morals or any principle beyond his own survival?
I do think Mr. Crooke's examination of "rapture" thinking offers at least a partial answer.
There is, unfortunately, little rationality in the basic beliefs of people who can embrace such thinking, just as there is little rationality in people who are always out to damage or hurt others, as by wars and coups and dirty tricks. But that such people exist, and in large numbers, is undeniable.
Things become very mixed up with such influence.
Not a lot of people will be aware that America, during the 18th and 19th centuries, experienced what were called three "Great Awakenings." These were almost hysterical mass movements in fundamentalist religion.
I've always attributed at least a part of America's nastiness to the Puritans who migrated there in substantial numbers in the 17th and 18th centuries. The American Puritans, over time, morphed into a number of Protestant sects and denominations.
America calls them “the Pilgrims,” people who were fleeing religious persecution in Europe. It associates them in a highly positive way with the Thanksgiving holiday and with many good qualities.
But what the Pilgrims really represented was a group of intense extremists who made themselves unwelcome in England and on parts of the Continent owing to their religious intolerance and truly ugly behavior.
They already were something of a problem in Queen Elizabeth
the Great’s day during the 16th century, one which grew during the 17th
century. Their extremism, which played an important role in the so-called
English Revolution, became a serious problem.
They had obnoxious practices such as barging in and deliberately disturbing the religious services of other, more traditional Christians, such as regular Church of England. They felt this crude behavior was justified by their having the true faith while all others were false.
They also were responsible for considerable damage to the art and relics of the great ancient English Cathedrals with their ugly rampages through them, running inside smashing and breaking things, justifying themselves by the same concept of their having the true faith and hating the idolatry represented by the cathedrals.
So, this was an important core group in Colonial America, and people of this kind had considerable influence on early American institutions and laws and education. They made for what I view as a very pernicious heritage, one that still can be felt in America.
The “friendly” view of their influence, the view that dominates in America, is one that emphasizes matters like their support for public education. Puritans had always thought it important that every individual should be able to read the Word of God.
Unfortunately, this positive belief in education was intimately mingled with vicious anti-Catholicism. The Puritans back in England despised Catholicism and their contempt for the “high” Church of England, Queen Elizabeth the Great’s church, was about its being too Catholic. Echoes of this are heard to this day in Northern Ireland and were the root of “the troubles” in the 1960s.
Anti-Catholicism, as few Americans understand, was actually one of the key motivators for the American Revolution. It most certainly was not all about freedom and rights. Britain, as part of reforms to try halting the predation of Colonial Americans on western Indian lands, had put parts of the colonies under the administration of Quebec province. Well, that caused the same kind of explosion of hatreds we saw in the 1960s in Northern Ireland with “the troubles.”
Americans, as is not widely known, for decades after the Revolution, followed the annual practice of burning the Pope in effigy on Guy Fawkes Day. Old hatreds die very hard.
The best comparison I can make for what America has experienced with the Puritans, accurate in a great many respects, are today’s ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, a people whose extreme behaviors keep all kinds of civil strife and disturbances going and a people who have little respect for the views and religious practices of others. And note that Israel’s ultra-Orthodox have an influence on the country far beyond their numbers. Their noise and violence and political minority parties become part of every Israeli government because Israel’s fractured political system demands coalitions to form a government.
I often think we are, in so many things, the victims of genealogy. Our behaviors in many things are not governed by rational thought and a desire to make things better, but by drives to change and dominate others, drives inherited in our genes.
Now, I’m certainly not saying that all Americans are like that, but enough of them are, and Americans in influential political and cultural positions. Since the re-creation of Israel, they have had some powerful allies in Zionist-oriented Jews in America, again a minority but quite significant.
So, I do believe this history explains many of the attitudes we see in America today, the belligerence, the belief in there being only one truth, the intense self-righteousness of the John Bolton types. By the way, descent from a Pilgrim family in America is widely held to be a genuine distinction, equivalent to descent from a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
America has many such distinctions, all involving a kind of aristocratic attitude foreigners might not expect to find in America. There are organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution and the United Daughters of the Confederacy plus a number of others that all involve and value family descent.
This tendency goes back to the earliest times of the Republic with the Society of the Cincinnati in George Washington’s time, an organization that inspired a good deal of fear and concern in others. America is also characterized by the widespread embrace of fraternal organizations. There are dozens of different ones, but some of the most important confer distinction on their members.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE MAIDAN MASSACRE THAT STARTED THE COUP IN UKRAINE - A RECONSTRUCTION INVESTIGATION - BUT THE PEOPLE WHO BANKROLLED THAT HARDLY WANT TO SEE THE TRUTH - EXAMPLE OF THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY IVAN KATCHANOVSKI IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Buried Maidan Massacre and Its Misrepresentation by the West”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/22/the-buried-maidan-massacre-and-its-misrepresentation-by-the-west/?unapproved=364203&moderation-hash=514a244d7072f4d7a4f47866bb613513#comment-364203
Good piece on details of the massacre.
But, of course, interests far removed from the streets of Kiev were involved in the matter.
Remember, we have the overheard words of Victoria Nuland, American Neocon and former high State Department official, that the United States spent $5 billion dollars on the coup.
As far as, “changing the wound locations invalidates the entire reconstruction,” well, yes, but that same practice, precisely, was part of the investigation into John Kennedy’s murder.
We have ample testimony and supporting evidence around what was done in the President’s autopsy to be certain of that.
Yet, the complete fabrications of the Warren Report still stand. No large crowds are seen or heard demanding justice.
If that’s the case in the United States, with its being such a center of world attention and publicity, why would we expect anything more in Ukraine?
The people who staged this clearly understood that they did not have to worry about such details.
And, oh, by the way, we have the same kind of ongoing fraud in the investigation of the downing of Flight MH-17 over Ukraine.
The incompetent Ukrainian armed forces, proven so in Donbass, led by the most incompetent government in perhaps European history, that of Poroshenko, were without question responsible for that event.
Yet years later, the Dutch, under great American pressure not to embarrass their freshly-installed coup government, sit on the evidence and have made only the most generalized and prejudiced statements, ignoring substantial evidence.
Fake news? That’s nothing. We have fake events now, regularly.
That’s what happens when you run a vast empire and employ all kinds of manipulation and dirty tricks for its support and expansion and to injure those you regard as adversaries, as the United States does full-time now. Truth is the first and most certain victim of such dark work.
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY IVAN KATCHANOVSKI IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Buried Maidan Massacre and Its Misrepresentation by the West”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/22/the-buried-maidan-massacre-and-its-misrepresentation-by-the-west/?unapproved=364203&moderation-hash=514a244d7072f4d7a4f47866bb613513#comment-364203
Good piece on details of the massacre.
But, of course, interests far removed from the streets of Kiev were involved in the matter.
Remember, we have the overheard words of Victoria Nuland, American Neocon and former high State Department official, that the United States spent $5 billion dollars on the coup.
As far as, “changing the wound locations invalidates the entire reconstruction,” well, yes, but that same practice, precisely, was part of the investigation into John Kennedy’s murder.
We have ample testimony and supporting evidence around what was done in the President’s autopsy to be certain of that.
Yet, the complete fabrications of the Warren Report still stand. No large crowds are seen or heard demanding justice.
If that’s the case in the United States, with its being such a center of world attention and publicity, why would we expect anything more in Ukraine?
The people who staged this clearly understood that they did not have to worry about such details.
And, oh, by the way, we have the same kind of ongoing fraud in the investigation of the downing of Flight MH-17 over Ukraine.
The incompetent Ukrainian armed forces, proven so in Donbass, led by the most incompetent government in perhaps European history, that of Poroshenko, were without question responsible for that event.
Yet years later, the Dutch, under great American pressure not to embarrass their freshly-installed coup government, sit on the evidence and have made only the most generalized and prejudiced statements, ignoring substantial evidence.
Fake news? That’s nothing. We have fake events now, regularly.
That’s what happens when you run a vast empire and employ all kinds of manipulation and dirty tricks for its support and expansion and to injure those you regard as adversaries, as the United States does full-time now. Truth is the first and most certain victim of such dark work.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HOW FITTING THAT A COMEDIAN SHOULD BE ELECTED PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE, A COUNTRY REDUCED TO A SHAMBLES BY INCOMPETENCE - THERE ARE HINTS HE MAY TRY SOMETHING WORTHWHILE - EXPECT U.S. PRESSURE IF HE DOES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Ukrainian Election: Western Puppet Poroshenko Crushed by Professional Comedian Zelensky”
How completely fitting that a comedian should be elected president of the shambles President Poroshenko has made of Ukraine.
You really could not have imagined such a scenario just a short time ago.
Poroshenko, displaying the most extraordinary and easy-to-spot incompetence, has overseen his country's decline by every possible measure - economic decline, citizens leaving, civil war, destruction of ancient ties, making a mess of energy supplies, and inducing a general malaise - and he could not have come to a better end.
Zelensky may just offer some real hope with his references to the Minsk Accords and his very symbolic willingness to speak Russian many times during his campaign.
Of course, the poisonous and pointless hatred for all things Russian is what has guided Poroshenko on his blundering, destructive, wounded-ox path. You get nothing positive out of such spitefulness.
But Zelesky will be under heavy pressure from the ugly mob in Washington who created the mess in the first place. They invested a lot of money in making a mess of Ukraine, five billion dollars according to the overheard words of the extremely unpleasant Victoria Nuland, Neocon and former high State Department official.
If they can get nothing else, they are surely happy with instability and turmoil on Russia's border in Ukraine and have little motive to see it change. It is, after all, a form of that infamous American "hybrid warfare."
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Ukrainian Election: Western Puppet Poroshenko Crushed by Professional Comedian Zelensky”
How completely fitting that a comedian should be elected president of the shambles President Poroshenko has made of Ukraine.
You really could not have imagined such a scenario just a short time ago.
Poroshenko, displaying the most extraordinary and easy-to-spot incompetence, has overseen his country's decline by every possible measure - economic decline, citizens leaving, civil war, destruction of ancient ties, making a mess of energy supplies, and inducing a general malaise - and he could not have come to a better end.
Zelensky may just offer some real hope with his references to the Minsk Accords and his very symbolic willingness to speak Russian many times during his campaign.
Of course, the poisonous and pointless hatred for all things Russian is what has guided Poroshenko on his blundering, destructive, wounded-ox path. You get nothing positive out of such spitefulness.
But Zelesky will be under heavy pressure from the ugly mob in Washington who created the mess in the first place. They invested a lot of money in making a mess of Ukraine, five billion dollars according to the overheard words of the extremely unpleasant Victoria Nuland, Neocon and former high State Department official.
If they can get nothing else, they are surely happy with instability and turmoil on Russia's border in Ukraine and have little motive to see it change. It is, after all, a form of that infamous American "hybrid warfare."
Monday, April 22, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MIKE POMPEO AT TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY - NOTHING SO REVEALS THE STINKING ROT AS THIS - AMERICA HAS PRETTY WELL TOUCHED BOTTOM - THE MEANING OF WORDS - WHETHER THE BIBLE OR THE CONSTITUTION
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON AN ARTICLE AND VIDEO IN CITIZEN FREE PRESS
‘I Was the CIA Director – We Lied, We Cheated, We Stole’ - Mike Pompeo
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/i-was-the-cia-director-we-lied-we-cheated-we-stole/
What we see here is big fat Mike Pompeo, ensconced comfortably in a chair on stage, smiling and laughing away in front of an audience at Texas A & M University about lying, cheating, and stealing in the CIA.
‘…a Christian religious news broadcaster was the only media that seemed to pick up on Pompeo’s words last week, and described it as follows: “that’s not the resume of the Secretary of State… that’s the resume of Satan.”’
The person writing the brief piece at Citizen Free Press characterized the religious broadcaster’s words as “extreme overreaction.”
Sorry, I’m not a fundamentalist, not even a Christian, yet I regard the religious broadcaster’s words as no overreaction at all. Just bitter truth, put into religious terms, about a man in very high office who brags of leaving his Bible open on his desk at work and who claims to be a “born again” Christian.
I don’t see the point or meaning of either claim, Bible or Christian identity, if what you do is cheat, lie, and steal - and, of course, we should add, left out in the piece, kill – laughing about it all.
The writer of this sick little squib in Citizen Free Press clearly shares Pompeo’s humorous attitude towards depravity and power. Any means to an end. We all knew anyway, so big deal.
Well, yes, I did know, but seeing this kind of treatment of the ugly facts tells us yet something new.
No ethical or moral standards and no principle beyond getting what you want, anyway you want. And laughing about it? I’m not sure America hasn’t touched bottom.
My God, what do words even mean?
And why should the words of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights mean anything either? Or of international law or protocols?
They don’t. As we’ve amply seen in the CIA’s International Torture Gulag for “rendered” (kidnapped) innocent people? And in its industrial scale extrajudicial killing program, America’s hi-tech version of what the old Argentine junta used to do when it “disappeared” thousands of legally innocent people grabbed off the street?
I find this sick and frightening, both Pompeo’s psychopathic words and humor and the response of the anonymous writer of the little piece. We hear no objection from the audience either.
But it all has the great value of ripping away the covers and exposing with the extreme clarity and sight and smell of a bleeding carcass, American values at the highest level of power, at a gathering in a major university, as well as at the level of some anonymous Internet scribbler.
If you're really paying attention, you understand how profoundly corrupt America has become.
COMMENT ON AN ARTICLE AND VIDEO IN CITIZEN FREE PRESS
‘I Was the CIA Director – We Lied, We Cheated, We Stole’ - Mike Pompeo
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/i-was-the-cia-director-we-lied-we-cheated-we-stole/
What we see here is big fat Mike Pompeo, ensconced comfortably in a chair on stage, smiling and laughing away in front of an audience at Texas A & M University about lying, cheating, and stealing in the CIA.
‘…a Christian religious news broadcaster was the only media that seemed to pick up on Pompeo’s words last week, and described it as follows: “that’s not the resume of the Secretary of State… that’s the resume of Satan.”’
The person writing the brief piece at Citizen Free Press characterized the religious broadcaster’s words as “extreme overreaction.”
Sorry, I’m not a fundamentalist, not even a Christian, yet I regard the religious broadcaster’s words as no overreaction at all. Just bitter truth, put into religious terms, about a man in very high office who brags of leaving his Bible open on his desk at work and who claims to be a “born again” Christian.
I don’t see the point or meaning of either claim, Bible or Christian identity, if what you do is cheat, lie, and steal - and, of course, we should add, left out in the piece, kill – laughing about it all.
The writer of this sick little squib in Citizen Free Press clearly shares Pompeo’s humorous attitude towards depravity and power. Any means to an end. We all knew anyway, so big deal.
Well, yes, I did know, but seeing this kind of treatment of the ugly facts tells us yet something new.
No ethical or moral standards and no principle beyond getting what you want, anyway you want. And laughing about it? I’m not sure America hasn’t touched bottom.
My God, what do words even mean?
And why should the words of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights mean anything either? Or of international law or protocols?
They don’t. As we’ve amply seen in the CIA’s International Torture Gulag for “rendered” (kidnapped) innocent people? And in its industrial scale extrajudicial killing program, America’s hi-tech version of what the old Argentine junta used to do when it “disappeared” thousands of legally innocent people grabbed off the street?
I find this sick and frightening, both Pompeo’s psychopathic words and humor and the response of the anonymous writer of the little piece. We hear no objection from the audience either.
But it all has the great value of ripping away the covers and exposing with the extreme clarity and sight and smell of a bleeding carcass, American values at the highest level of power, at a gathering in a major university, as well as at the level of some anonymous Internet scribbler.
If you're really paying attention, you understand how profoundly corrupt America has become.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SERIES OF COMMENTS ON AMERICAN SANCTIONS AND IRAN - WHY AMERICA HATES IRAN - IMPORTANT DETAILS OF IRAN'S PAST TREATMENT BY THE U.S. - REAL REASON ISRAEL HATES IRAN - DEMOCRACY IN THE WEST? - EXTREME DANGER OF A WORLD DICTATOR
John Chuckman
SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (SOME REMOVED)
“U.S. to end exemptions on Iranian oil sanctions for 5 nations, including China
“China, Japan, South Korea, India and Turkey had previously been allowed to keep importing, but no more”
Here are arrogant men trying to control what they call American foreign policy, deciding who may buy and sell things across an entire planet.
Some dedication to human freedom, freedom of speech and choice and commerce. To say nothing of contempt for the rule of law in attempting to apply American law to all countries on earth.
Can you imagine the manpower committed to this lunatic sanction enterprise, those keeping track of the thousands of arbitrary sanctions set against any number of countries? Literally, an American Bureaucracy of Apparatchiks.
Just unbelievable. Meanwhile, the same men have sold blood-soaked Saudi Arabia tens of billions in armaments.
And the same men bomb a dozen lands, make constant new threats, create piteous masses of refugees, overturn governments, and just generally try telling everyone what to do.
They support human freedom and democratic ideals nowhere that I can see, including at home, where spying on everyone and working to restrict free speech have become norms, along with repressive and brutal police tactics.
They are, by far, the world's largest weapons merchant, spreading still more death and destruction.
They are, by a huge measure, the planet’s biggest investor in death. Their combined military and security budget is greater than those of all other major countries, and they now burn through about a trillion dollars a year.
And that from a country with $22 trillion in accumulated debt? Talk about irresponsible. How are they fit to tell anyone else what to do? They are not. Their financial behavior alone endangers the futures of us all.
They are now publicly committed to spreading belligerence into space, a place they once pretended wanting to keep peaceful.
And poor dear old Canada has the team of Trudeau and Freeland not only going along with every bit of it but actively supporting and cheerleading substantial portions.
I'm sure, Pierre's spirit does not rest comfortably with that.
_________________________
Response to a comment about the American coup in Iran which destroyed democratic government and created the situation now:
Intelligence services have a word for such results.
It's called "blowback."
They've experienced it in other places, too, such as Afghanistan.
But they really do not seem to learn.
That's the nature of ideologues, like the folks running America.
They are just like religious fanatics. They never learn either.
________________________
Response to a comment referring to the difficulties of democratic government:
Where do you see democracy?
America has a minority president.
And it is often said that it has the finest Congress money can buy.
In Canada, governments rule having the support of a high-thirties per cent of voters.
Regularly.
The British Parliament works exactly the same way.
That's why we needed the vote reform Trudeau so let us down on.
_____________________________
Response to a comment about people defending Iran in the comments here:
That's a mischaracterization of what I read here and what I write.
No one said anything about Iran as a "bastion of freedom."
That's actually what’s called a red herring or straw man argument in logic.
The Iranians mind their own business for the most part. Also, Iran has started no wars, not one. The United States starts them all the time, as does Israel.
Indeed, Iran has been, instead, attacked several times, including the major, horrible war of the 1980s started by Saddam's Iraq with lots of American encouragement and assistance.
And there is only one country in the Middle East with genuine illicit nuclear weapons, not make-believe ones. Can you guess which one? Here's hint, it isn't Iran.
And the United States in fact loves tyrants and dictators in the Mideast, as in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, etc. That is, so long as they are ones who toe the American policy line. They keep the people suppressed. Israel very much appreciates that too.
But a single world dictator is surely the worst of all possibilities, and that's what the US works towards now vigorously. It's our greatest threat to peace and freedom and fairness.
________________________
Response to a comment about religion causing these problems:
Religion is often cited as the cause of the Mideast’s turmoil, but I think it actually plays a rather small role.
In reality, power politics and geopolitical drives control international affairs. Religion is just a convenient cover. Almost used as a kind of disinformation item in the West.
The United States sees Israel as its pied-a-terre in the Middle East.
Effectively a kind of colony, a colony quite different than any other.
It is kept afloat by immense subsidies, unlike any other situation we can find in the world.
The closest comparison might be France and Algeria before de Gaulle.
Algeria was viewed for a very long time literally as a part of France.
The final break-up was extremely bloody and dirty.
_______________________________
Response to another reader comment:
That's exactly the case.
The United States so resented Iran that it secretly encouraged and assisted a huge and terrible war against it in the 1980s.
Why did it so hate Iran? Because Iran resented the bloody, torture-employing Shah installed by the United States in the 1950s after a coup toppled the country’s genuinely democratic president, a man hated by Western oil interests.
The pressures in Iran rose to fever pitch and the revolution was the result. When the creepy Shah fled Iran for American protection, people only became angrier. Iranians embarrassed the United States by patiently piecing together numbers of shredded embassy secret documents – the remarkable work of Iranian carpet weavers – documents which were very revealing about American manipulation.
America resented losing Iran as its important foothold in the region. The Shah was America’s man there, and he was encouraged to buy large volumes of American weapons with his oil revenue, much as we see happening in Saudi Arabia today.
America’s government has never forgiven Iran, and today, Israel's pleas for overturning Iran only add pressure. Israel, a nuclear power, is not really threatened by Iran as it pretends to be, but Israel does not want this huge country to be a competitor in the region for influence. It wants to be the key regional power, serving the US and reaping many benefits.
And the United States did more than just encourage Saddam. It saw to it that Iraq was supplied with chemical weapons so that it might overcome Iran's huge manpower advantage of nearly four-to-one.
Saddam used these chemical weapons, horribly killing tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers caught not expecting such things. No one in the United States said one word against the atrocities. America’s elites were pleased with the results of bleeding and weakening Iran.
The war was literally the equivalent of a world war for Iran with loss of about a million people.
______________________________
Response to a comment complaining about the anti-American tone of many comments:
In case you hadn't noticed, in most societies, there is dislike for bullies, dislike for would-be dictators, dislike for killers, and dislike for liars.
It has nothing to do with Canadians in particular.
Remember, the United States, which is ramming all this down everyone's throat, represents less than 5 percent of the world's population.
Very democratic in spirit, right?
The same less-than 5 percent has eviscerated parts of the UN, the ICC, the WTO, and many other international forums from which the other 95 percent of humanity might get to speak.
Actually, of course, it really isn't America's 5 percent or so of the globe doing all this. It's the very privileged American power establishment, something like the 1 per cent of its own nation.
Ordinary Americans have virtually no say. And their Congress has been, rightly, described as the best that money can buy.
SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (SOME REMOVED)
“U.S. to end exemptions on Iranian oil sanctions for 5 nations, including China
“China, Japan, South Korea, India and Turkey had previously been allowed to keep importing, but no more”
Here are arrogant men trying to control what they call American foreign policy, deciding who may buy and sell things across an entire planet.
Some dedication to human freedom, freedom of speech and choice and commerce. To say nothing of contempt for the rule of law in attempting to apply American law to all countries on earth.
Can you imagine the manpower committed to this lunatic sanction enterprise, those keeping track of the thousands of arbitrary sanctions set against any number of countries? Literally, an American Bureaucracy of Apparatchiks.
Just unbelievable. Meanwhile, the same men have sold blood-soaked Saudi Arabia tens of billions in armaments.
And the same men bomb a dozen lands, make constant new threats, create piteous masses of refugees, overturn governments, and just generally try telling everyone what to do.
They support human freedom and democratic ideals nowhere that I can see, including at home, where spying on everyone and working to restrict free speech have become norms, along with repressive and brutal police tactics.
They are, by far, the world's largest weapons merchant, spreading still more death and destruction.
They are, by a huge measure, the planet’s biggest investor in death. Their combined military and security budget is greater than those of all other major countries, and they now burn through about a trillion dollars a year.
And that from a country with $22 trillion in accumulated debt? Talk about irresponsible. How are they fit to tell anyone else what to do? They are not. Their financial behavior alone endangers the futures of us all.
They are now publicly committed to spreading belligerence into space, a place they once pretended wanting to keep peaceful.
And poor dear old Canada has the team of Trudeau and Freeland not only going along with every bit of it but actively supporting and cheerleading substantial portions.
I'm sure, Pierre's spirit does not rest comfortably with that.
_________________________
Response to a comment about the American coup in Iran which destroyed democratic government and created the situation now:
Intelligence services have a word for such results.
It's called "blowback."
They've experienced it in other places, too, such as Afghanistan.
But they really do not seem to learn.
That's the nature of ideologues, like the folks running America.
They are just like religious fanatics. They never learn either.
________________________
Response to a comment referring to the difficulties of democratic government:
Where do you see democracy?
America has a minority president.
And it is often said that it has the finest Congress money can buy.
In Canada, governments rule having the support of a high-thirties per cent of voters.
Regularly.
The British Parliament works exactly the same way.
That's why we needed the vote reform Trudeau so let us down on.
_____________________________
Response to a comment about people defending Iran in the comments here:
That's a mischaracterization of what I read here and what I write.
No one said anything about Iran as a "bastion of freedom."
That's actually what’s called a red herring or straw man argument in logic.
The Iranians mind their own business for the most part. Also, Iran has started no wars, not one. The United States starts them all the time, as does Israel.
Indeed, Iran has been, instead, attacked several times, including the major, horrible war of the 1980s started by Saddam's Iraq with lots of American encouragement and assistance.
And there is only one country in the Middle East with genuine illicit nuclear weapons, not make-believe ones. Can you guess which one? Here's hint, it isn't Iran.
And the United States in fact loves tyrants and dictators in the Mideast, as in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, etc. That is, so long as they are ones who toe the American policy line. They keep the people suppressed. Israel very much appreciates that too.
But a single world dictator is surely the worst of all possibilities, and that's what the US works towards now vigorously. It's our greatest threat to peace and freedom and fairness.
________________________
Response to a comment about religion causing these problems:
Religion is often cited as the cause of the Mideast’s turmoil, but I think it actually plays a rather small role.
In reality, power politics and geopolitical drives control international affairs. Religion is just a convenient cover. Almost used as a kind of disinformation item in the West.
The United States sees Israel as its pied-a-terre in the Middle East.
Effectively a kind of colony, a colony quite different than any other.
It is kept afloat by immense subsidies, unlike any other situation we can find in the world.
The closest comparison might be France and Algeria before de Gaulle.
Algeria was viewed for a very long time literally as a part of France.
The final break-up was extremely bloody and dirty.
_______________________________
Response to another reader comment:
That's exactly the case.
The United States so resented Iran that it secretly encouraged and assisted a huge and terrible war against it in the 1980s.
Why did it so hate Iran? Because Iran resented the bloody, torture-employing Shah installed by the United States in the 1950s after a coup toppled the country’s genuinely democratic president, a man hated by Western oil interests.
The pressures in Iran rose to fever pitch and the revolution was the result. When the creepy Shah fled Iran for American protection, people only became angrier. Iranians embarrassed the United States by patiently piecing together numbers of shredded embassy secret documents – the remarkable work of Iranian carpet weavers – documents which were very revealing about American manipulation.
America resented losing Iran as its important foothold in the region. The Shah was America’s man there, and he was encouraged to buy large volumes of American weapons with his oil revenue, much as we see happening in Saudi Arabia today.
America’s government has never forgiven Iran, and today, Israel's pleas for overturning Iran only add pressure. Israel, a nuclear power, is not really threatened by Iran as it pretends to be, but Israel does not want this huge country to be a competitor in the region for influence. It wants to be the key regional power, serving the US and reaping many benefits.
And the United States did more than just encourage Saddam. It saw to it that Iraq was supplied with chemical weapons so that it might overcome Iran's huge manpower advantage of nearly four-to-one.
Saddam used these chemical weapons, horribly killing tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers caught not expecting such things. No one in the United States said one word against the atrocities. America’s elites were pleased with the results of bleeding and weakening Iran.
The war was literally the equivalent of a world war for Iran with loss of about a million people.
______________________________
Response to a comment complaining about the anti-American tone of many comments:
In case you hadn't noticed, in most societies, there is dislike for bullies, dislike for would-be dictators, dislike for killers, and dislike for liars.
It has nothing to do with Canadians in particular.
Remember, the United States, which is ramming all this down everyone's throat, represents less than 5 percent of the world's population.
Very democratic in spirit, right?
The same less-than 5 percent has eviscerated parts of the UN, the ICC, the WTO, and many other international forums from which the other 95 percent of humanity might get to speak.
Actually, of course, it really isn't America's 5 percent or so of the globe doing all this. It's the very privileged American power establishment, something like the 1 per cent of its own nation.
Ordinary Americans have virtually no say. And their Congress has been, rightly, described as the best that money can buy.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FEW CRITICAL THOUGHTS ON EARTH DAY - A BIT MORE ON ELECTRIC CARS AND WIND TURBINES - THE OVERLOOKED ROLE OF AMERICA'S MILITARY IN PUMPING OUT VAST QUANTITIES OF POISONS
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES WHITTINGHAM IN CBC NEWS
“Earth Day is no longer relevant
“We're way beyond small, everyday actions in our households”
"The planet now finds itself in grave danger."
Good God, what's next? Gwyneth Paltrow selling Goop?
I am all for responsible behavior around our environment, but this kind of secular green religion is annoying.
Our biggest hazard right now is America bombing and killing in a dozen lands and spending vast amounts on being able to do a whole lot more of it.
Incidentally, the American military has the worst record on earth for putting godawful filth into our environment.
Agent Orange. Depleted uranium dust. Burn pits. Chemical agents of every description. Dumps for fuels. Old warships sunk into the ocean. Immense expanses of radioactive test sites and waste.
And did you know they spent $20 billion a year for air-conditioned tents in the hot desert while they were destroying Iraq like a horde of Goths?
_____________________
Response to a comment about a new study of pollution associated with electric cars:
That's only the latest finding against electric cars.
Some while back, a study determined electric vehicles put a lot of crap into the environment in unexpected ways.
For example, they throw off more tire dust and wear down road surfaces faster owing to the weight of the batteries.
Of course, inefficiencies like stopping more often count too.
And in all cases involving electric power, you must consider how the power is generated. There are many negative results around some countries' experience with wind turbines for example, and those come in addition to high costs for the limited power the turbines generate.
There are a number of problems associated with wind turbines around maintenance, durability, ability to withstand extreme weather, and killing literally millions of birds.
Also, as relatively few people understand, wind turbines cannot provide base-load power - that is, power available 24 hours per day. They always need backup generation, and just what do you think the backup consists of?
You'd be right if you said the kind of billion-dollar gas plant the irresponsible Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, wantonly destroyed because of NIMBYISM.
You know, I've seen pictures of electric cars going back to 1908. They are anything but a new idea. There are real reasons they never flourished.
Despite all our advances, the technology still is not there. Batteries are a key problem. Electricity generation, too, if you insist on nonsense like wind turbines.
Again, we have too much green religion entering these matters. No, we have not yet found salvation and the keys to the kingdom with electric cars or with windmills.
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES WHITTINGHAM IN CBC NEWS
“Earth Day is no longer relevant
“We're way beyond small, everyday actions in our households”
"The planet now finds itself in grave danger."
Good God, what's next? Gwyneth Paltrow selling Goop?
I am all for responsible behavior around our environment, but this kind of secular green religion is annoying.
Our biggest hazard right now is America bombing and killing in a dozen lands and spending vast amounts on being able to do a whole lot more of it.
Incidentally, the American military has the worst record on earth for putting godawful filth into our environment.
Agent Orange. Depleted uranium dust. Burn pits. Chemical agents of every description. Dumps for fuels. Old warships sunk into the ocean. Immense expanses of radioactive test sites and waste.
And did you know they spent $20 billion a year for air-conditioned tents in the hot desert while they were destroying Iraq like a horde of Goths?
_____________________
Response to a comment about a new study of pollution associated with electric cars:
That's only the latest finding against electric cars.
Some while back, a study determined electric vehicles put a lot of crap into the environment in unexpected ways.
For example, they throw off more tire dust and wear down road surfaces faster owing to the weight of the batteries.
Of course, inefficiencies like stopping more often count too.
And in all cases involving electric power, you must consider how the power is generated. There are many negative results around some countries' experience with wind turbines for example, and those come in addition to high costs for the limited power the turbines generate.
There are a number of problems associated with wind turbines around maintenance, durability, ability to withstand extreme weather, and killing literally millions of birds.
Also, as relatively few people understand, wind turbines cannot provide base-load power - that is, power available 24 hours per day. They always need backup generation, and just what do you think the backup consists of?
You'd be right if you said the kind of billion-dollar gas plant the irresponsible Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, wantonly destroyed because of NIMBYISM.
You know, I've seen pictures of electric cars going back to 1908. They are anything but a new idea. There are real reasons they never flourished.
Despite all our advances, the technology still is not there. Batteries are a key problem. Electricity generation, too, if you insist on nonsense like wind turbines.
Again, we have too much green religion entering these matters. No, we have not yet found salvation and the keys to the kingdom with electric cars or with windmills.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TIME MAGAZINE AND ITS OLD RELATIONSHIP WITH CIA - MOST GLARING EXAMPLE DECADES AGO WAS TIME'S OWNERSHIP AND TREATMENT OF THE ZAPRUDER FILM OF KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Time Magazine: Putin's Nefarious Plot to Dominate the World
“A key US fake-news outlet claims that Trump's election was just the beginning. Russia has far more ambitious goals”
Time has always been a faithful servant of America's establishment.
It has close CIA connections, as can be seen in many of its behaviors over decades.
The Luce family, who owned it for a long time, were neighbors and social peers with high CIA officials.
One of the most revealing of Time’s past behaviors was that around the Zapruder film of Kennedy's assassination.
Time-Life Corporation bought the film from Mr. Zapruder quickly for a fortune.
It was kept away from the public for many years.
It was deliberately mischaracterized to the public for a long time.
CIA had access to the film and, without question, used technical experts in its Rochester labs to alter it in certain details. We have testimony for that.
For example, the exploding head we see today is a creation. The original film showed, according to expert testimony, just what you would expect from a bullet in the head, from the front, a plume of ejected material at the rear.
If you are interested:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/john-chuckman-comment-old-phony-and-cia-shill-dan-rather-cited-second-time-recently-against-trump-fake-news-from-one-of-the-corporate-presss-old-experts-in-fakery-the-record-on-the-zapruder-fil/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/reflections-on-how-little-is-revealed-by-just-released-jfk-assassination-documents-and-just-some-of-the-many-reasons-why-there-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Time Magazine: Putin's Nefarious Plot to Dominate the World
“A key US fake-news outlet claims that Trump's election was just the beginning. Russia has far more ambitious goals”
Time has always been a faithful servant of America's establishment.
It has close CIA connections, as can be seen in many of its behaviors over decades.
The Luce family, who owned it for a long time, were neighbors and social peers with high CIA officials.
One of the most revealing of Time’s past behaviors was that around the Zapruder film of Kennedy's assassination.
Time-Life Corporation bought the film from Mr. Zapruder quickly for a fortune.
It was kept away from the public for many years.
It was deliberately mischaracterized to the public for a long time.
CIA had access to the film and, without question, used technical experts in its Rochester labs to alter it in certain details. We have testimony for that.
For example, the exploding head we see today is a creation. The original film showed, according to expert testimony, just what you would expect from a bullet in the head, from the front, a plume of ejected material at the rear.
If you are interested:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/john-chuckman-comment-old-phony-and-cia-shill-dan-rather-cited-second-time-recently-against-trump-fake-news-from-one-of-the-corporate-presss-old-experts-in-fakery-the-record-on-the-zapruder-fil/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/reflections-on-how-little-is-revealed-by-just-released-jfk-assassination-documents-and-just-some-of-the-many-reasons-why-there-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/
Sunday, April 21, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JARED KUSHNER AND DONALD TRUMP AND THE MIDEAST PEACE PLAN - SOME OF THE MOST BIZARRE DIPLOMACY EVER SEEN - BUT YOU MUST CONSIDER THE NATURE OF THE MEN ENGAGED - THE REAL DANGER FOR THE PALESTINIANS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
“Kushner plan demands Palestinians ‘surrender’ but they may commit suicide first — French diplomat”
I do think Kushner goes beyond being dry and lacking courage, as the interview suggests.
Far beyond.
Imagine the immense arrogance of assuming a task for which you are utterly unqualified? One in which you have no expert knowledge? One in which you have no relationships with one of the two essential parties involved? One in which you have the clearest bias and close association with the other?
It would be laughable were it not so threatening in its consequences.
But that is how every scrap of foreign policy coming from Trump’s dismal White House has been. A demonic version of a Monty Python skit.
I see in Kushner, a man utterly without genuine ethics or principles.
A kind of low-grade psychopathic character, which, by the way, is what we do so often find in the finance field.
Israel-Palestine is a human problem, a profound human problem.
Any effort at setting it right requires people with genuine human empathy as well as good expert knowledge, plus a whole lot more.
My characterization of Kushner much resembles what I see in Trump, the bizarre leader who made this appointment.
We see an almost complete lack off empathy for others.
There is a contempt for expert knowledge.
There is an unwillingness, or maybe it’s just an inbred inability, to listen to others.
And there is a man who clearly lives in his own little world, telling himself outright lies and ignorant notions and rejecting anyone who does not embrace what he says. His is a kind of cloud-cuckoo-land world.
No useful solution is even possible from such people. I don’t even understand why anyone would expect one from them, but that is perhaps a reflection of the strange political environment we have lived in for years.
Over fifteen years of America killing people and tearing countries apart in the Mideast while treating a set of lies about the ghoulish, murderous activity as arguments to be considered seriously. Mass murder and destruction regarded as the rebirth of a region, that last being the very expression Condoleezza Rice once used in describing cries and screams of American wars as the pangs of birth.
You can't build the foundation for a building when you lack forms even to pour concrete into, but that is what this bizarre American effort by Trump attempts to do.
I fear the ultimate outcome may be something terrible. No matter how much they are cheated and abused, the Palestinians, millions of them, are not going away. But the Palestinians could finally lose all hope and all patience and become unbelievably desperate.
They would be met by an Israeli government already proven eager to kill and maim and abuse on a grand scale, by a leader even more psychopathic and ruthless than Trump or Kushner.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
“Kushner plan demands Palestinians ‘surrender’ but they may commit suicide first — French diplomat”
I do think Kushner goes beyond being dry and lacking courage, as the interview suggests.
Far beyond.
Imagine the immense arrogance of assuming a task for which you are utterly unqualified? One in which you have no expert knowledge? One in which you have no relationships with one of the two essential parties involved? One in which you have the clearest bias and close association with the other?
It would be laughable were it not so threatening in its consequences.
But that is how every scrap of foreign policy coming from Trump’s dismal White House has been. A demonic version of a Monty Python skit.
I see in Kushner, a man utterly without genuine ethics or principles.
A kind of low-grade psychopathic character, which, by the way, is what we do so often find in the finance field.
Israel-Palestine is a human problem, a profound human problem.
Any effort at setting it right requires people with genuine human empathy as well as good expert knowledge, plus a whole lot more.
My characterization of Kushner much resembles what I see in Trump, the bizarre leader who made this appointment.
We see an almost complete lack off empathy for others.
There is a contempt for expert knowledge.
There is an unwillingness, or maybe it’s just an inbred inability, to listen to others.
And there is a man who clearly lives in his own little world, telling himself outright lies and ignorant notions and rejecting anyone who does not embrace what he says. His is a kind of cloud-cuckoo-land world.
No useful solution is even possible from such people. I don’t even understand why anyone would expect one from them, but that is perhaps a reflection of the strange political environment we have lived in for years.
Over fifteen years of America killing people and tearing countries apart in the Mideast while treating a set of lies about the ghoulish, murderous activity as arguments to be considered seriously. Mass murder and destruction regarded as the rebirth of a region, that last being the very expression Condoleezza Rice once used in describing cries and screams of American wars as the pangs of birth.
You can't build the foundation for a building when you lack forms even to pour concrete into, but that is what this bizarre American effort by Trump attempts to do.
I fear the ultimate outcome may be something terrible. No matter how much they are cheated and abused, the Palestinians, millions of them, are not going away. But the Palestinians could finally lose all hope and all patience and become unbelievably desperate.
They would be met by an Israeli government already proven eager to kill and maim and abuse on a grand scale, by a leader even more psychopathic and ruthless than Trump or Kushner.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S NEW FILM
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN STATIONGOSSIP
“What David Attenborough told BBC viewers about this raging orangutan fighting a digger is only part of the truth... and that's just one of the flaws in the great naturalist's 'alarmist' new documentary”
Good piece.
David Attenborough is properly credited for the fine work he has done in the past. I've long enjoyed his work.
But even the best do make mistakes.
And it seems he did make a mistake in the tone of this new film.
I'm sure aspects of climate change are underway. Yet that has been true, off and on, for hundreds of millions of years. There is nothing fixed about climate.
Our world is one where earthquakes and volcanoes can suddenly appear, where shorelines erode, where whole seas and lakes have sometimes disappeared, where countless animal species have died off and new ones arisen, where vegetation has changed many times both in its kind and extant, where new mountains arise, where old mountains erode, where currents in the oceans shift, were the magnetic pole fluctuates, and where temperatures and winds and humidity can all vary over time.
It is wise to keep an eye on things, but that very much is what science does now, virtually around the clock. It is the first time in human history we have had such armies of expertly-trained people engaged full-time and equipped with powerful new machines of every description.
Whether humans can do anything better than adapting to change over time, I don't know, but I tend to be skeptical. I’m open to being proved wrong, but nothing I’ve read has yet quite done that for me.
As far as joining the kind of secular religious movements around the environment and the planet earth we see from many Millennials today, count me out. These are people who have countless fad diets and alternative health practices, use Facebook and other uninformative social media, and often make heroes of scoundrels and quacks. Many of the things I read or hear being said seem contemporary secular equivalents of mumbo-jumbo from the time of religious wars after the Reformation, as about just how the Host should be held during Mass, or something you might expect from Mary Baker Eddy, who was once immensely popular.
We really do not understand the complete nature of the huge and complex machine with which we are tinkering, our planet, and it is itself a dangerous business to undertake vast projects which may themselves prove either wrongheaded or dangerous.
Perhaps, at best, useless, wasting huge resources best used for future adaptation.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN STATIONGOSSIP
“What David Attenborough told BBC viewers about this raging orangutan fighting a digger is only part of the truth... and that's just one of the flaws in the great naturalist's 'alarmist' new documentary”
Good piece.
David Attenborough is properly credited for the fine work he has done in the past. I've long enjoyed his work.
But even the best do make mistakes.
And it seems he did make a mistake in the tone of this new film.
I'm sure aspects of climate change are underway. Yet that has been true, off and on, for hundreds of millions of years. There is nothing fixed about climate.
Our world is one where earthquakes and volcanoes can suddenly appear, where shorelines erode, where whole seas and lakes have sometimes disappeared, where countless animal species have died off and new ones arisen, where vegetation has changed many times both in its kind and extant, where new mountains arise, where old mountains erode, where currents in the oceans shift, were the magnetic pole fluctuates, and where temperatures and winds and humidity can all vary over time.
It is wise to keep an eye on things, but that very much is what science does now, virtually around the clock. It is the first time in human history we have had such armies of expertly-trained people engaged full-time and equipped with powerful new machines of every description.
Whether humans can do anything better than adapting to change over time, I don't know, but I tend to be skeptical. I’m open to being proved wrong, but nothing I’ve read has yet quite done that for me.
As far as joining the kind of secular religious movements around the environment and the planet earth we see from many Millennials today, count me out. These are people who have countless fad diets and alternative health practices, use Facebook and other uninformative social media, and often make heroes of scoundrels and quacks. Many of the things I read or hear being said seem contemporary secular equivalents of mumbo-jumbo from the time of religious wars after the Reformation, as about just how the Host should be held during Mass, or something you might expect from Mary Baker Eddy, who was once immensely popular.
We really do not understand the complete nature of the huge and complex machine with which we are tinkering, our planet, and it is itself a dangerous business to undertake vast projects which may themselves prove either wrongheaded or dangerous.
Perhaps, at best, useless, wasting huge resources best used for future adaptation.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FEW WORDS ON THE IDEA THAT HARRY AND MEGHAN ARE BREAKING ROYAL TRADITION - THEIRS IS ACTUALLY A SAD STORY SPEAKING TO THE HUMAN CONDITION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED (AND REMOVED) TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Are Harry and Meghan breaking tradition — or setting trends?”
And truly, does anyone care?
The monarchy itself is very problematic.
But this couple goes way beyond problematic.
Here is a man demonstrated on many occasions to be rash and foolish and, yes, showing definite signs of mental instability.
He has done things from bragging about killing a man in Afghanistan, a place he demanded he be sent, to the time he showed up at a drinking party, years ago, in a costume tailored as a Nazi uniform.
(image: http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2013/01/harry-is-prince-mad-he-does-have.html)
There is, after all, a long record of that in the Spencer family from which Diana came.
He is boring and uninteresting to boot.
She is an extraordinarily beautiful woman, but her only achievement is as a "B" actress and her intense, burning ambition to become a princess is hardly an attractive quality or anything to recommend her to young women.
She pays an immense price for that ambition, too. A lifetime with Harry. I regard theirs as a sad story, almost tragic. It does tell us something though about the human condition.
COMMENT POSTED (AND REMOVED) TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Are Harry and Meghan breaking tradition — or setting trends?”
And truly, does anyone care?
The monarchy itself is very problematic.
But this couple goes way beyond problematic.
Here is a man demonstrated on many occasions to be rash and foolish and, yes, showing definite signs of mental instability.
He has done things from bragging about killing a man in Afghanistan, a place he demanded he be sent, to the time he showed up at a drinking party, years ago, in a costume tailored as a Nazi uniform.
(image: http://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2013/01/harry-is-prince-mad-he-does-have.html)
There is, after all, a long record of that in the Spencer family from which Diana came.
He is boring and uninteresting to boot.
She is an extraordinarily beautiful woman, but her only achievement is as a "B" actress and her intense, burning ambition to become a princess is hardly an attractive quality or anything to recommend her to young women.
She pays an immense price for that ambition, too. A lifetime with Harry. I regard theirs as a sad story, almost tragic. It does tell us something though about the human condition.
Saturday, April 20, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TULSI GABBARD HITS A HOMERUN WITH HER EPITHET ABOUT "TRUMP MAKING AMERICA SAUDI ARABIA'S PROSTITUTE" - AND HERE'S SOME INSIGHT INTO THE UGLY RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN AMERICA AND SAUDI ARABIA AND ISRAEL
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Gabbard Campaign Video Slams Trump for Making US 'The Prostitute of Saudi Arabia'”
She's a clever, attractive politician.
'The Prostitute of Saudi Arabia' is an extremely well-chosen epithet.
First, it just contains a lot of ugly truth, but there is a deeper level of truth behind it.
If she had said, 'The Prostitute of Israel,' a phrase truer still, she would have called down a massive storm on her head.
You see, Trump's relationship with Saudi Arabia is directly related to his relationship with Israel. He embraces a bloody murderer Crown Prince because Israel embraces him, and rather warmly. The Crown Prince helps with a lot of dirty work nowadays in the region – the bloodbaths in Yemen and Syria and his brutal suppression of Saudi Arabia’s own Shia population - and none of the powerful care in the least about the fate of a journalist who was critical of him.
The Crown Prince is effectively Israel’s man in Saudi Arabia, tested and proven now through his many dirty tasks, and for his sake, Israel allows all kinds of things it would not have years ago, as America’s selling tens of billions in arms to Saudi Arabia.
So, from Trump’s point of view, he gets to make Israel happy - of course, making its lobbyists in the United States happy – he gets to sell tens of billions in new weapons to Saudi Arabia, and he secures what he sees as the stability of one of the world’s most important oil producers, the one, owing to the nature of its production, in a position to most easily turn spigots up or down and drive oil prices in a direction favored by the United States at the moment. It’s quite a deal, a genuine deal with the devil.
Saudi Arabia has no fan club in the United States, except a rather quiet one among the exclusive membership of the American power establishment, one even quieter since the Khashoggi butchery.
Outside elite circles, the Saudis suffer from the Islamophobia which characterizes much of American society. American Christians and Jews, almost instinctively, do not like Islam. Apart from resentment over the growth and vibrancy of Islam as a religion worldwide, in their minds, Islam is just kind of automatically lumped in with the notion of enemies of Israel.
And, of course, American politicians and press have provided a steady diet of Islam-hate to boost popular support for the terrible Neocon Wars in the Middle East, wars which have claimed about two million lives, created millions of desperate refugees who came close to destabilizing Europe, and cost America unholy amounts of money. But ideologues with an idée fixe, such as those driving America’s policies, care not a bit about costs, either human or financial, because they never pay them.
There are also the carefully planted and nurtured notions about Saudi responsibility for 9/11. These started at a time when Saudi Arabia was not such a faithful friend of Israel. And they continued until not very long ago with controversy over releasing the short secret preface to the official 9/11 report, a preface which ended up proving nothing against Saudi Arabia, but that fact didn’t stop the press and some politicians from playing endless games of suggestion and innuendo. All that, of course, serves to remind Saudi Arabia that it had better keep to the “true path,” that is, Washington’s.
In addition, absolute monarchs tend to be frowned on by the general American public, even though America itself is no great democracy. A common attitude in parts of the United States about monarchs is summed up in an expression I’ve heard, “He thinks his shit don’t stink!” This is even said sometimes about non-absolute monarchs from friendly states, such as Britain’s Elizabeth.
But America’s establishment carefully, although somewhat quietly, supports and grooms all of the absolute monarchs in the Middle East who toe the American policy line, especially with regard to Israel.
Remember the little story of American soldiers seen repairing the solid gold toilet plumbing of the Emir of Kuwait during the First Gulf War? Likely it wasn’t supposed to get out, but it did in all that chaos, and it serves as a very fitting symbol of Official America’s relationship with the region’s authoritarian princes and kings.
Israel closely embraces all the region’s absolute monarchs, as it does its absolute dictators such as the one in Egypt, because it likes neighboring rulers who tightly control their populations, as these monarchs certainly do, and keep any wild notions of democracy among large Arab populations suppressed.
So, you can attack Saudi Arabia in public almost with impunity, something certainly not true of the country for which Saudi Arabia now often plays the role of proxy and serves as a secret close ally, Israel.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Gabbard Campaign Video Slams Trump for Making US 'The Prostitute of Saudi Arabia'”
She's a clever, attractive politician.
'The Prostitute of Saudi Arabia' is an extremely well-chosen epithet.
First, it just contains a lot of ugly truth, but there is a deeper level of truth behind it.
If she had said, 'The Prostitute of Israel,' a phrase truer still, she would have called down a massive storm on her head.
You see, Trump's relationship with Saudi Arabia is directly related to his relationship with Israel. He embraces a bloody murderer Crown Prince because Israel embraces him, and rather warmly. The Crown Prince helps with a lot of dirty work nowadays in the region – the bloodbaths in Yemen and Syria and his brutal suppression of Saudi Arabia’s own Shia population - and none of the powerful care in the least about the fate of a journalist who was critical of him.
The Crown Prince is effectively Israel’s man in Saudi Arabia, tested and proven now through his many dirty tasks, and for his sake, Israel allows all kinds of things it would not have years ago, as America’s selling tens of billions in arms to Saudi Arabia.
So, from Trump’s point of view, he gets to make Israel happy - of course, making its lobbyists in the United States happy – he gets to sell tens of billions in new weapons to Saudi Arabia, and he secures what he sees as the stability of one of the world’s most important oil producers, the one, owing to the nature of its production, in a position to most easily turn spigots up or down and drive oil prices in a direction favored by the United States at the moment. It’s quite a deal, a genuine deal with the devil.
Saudi Arabia has no fan club in the United States, except a rather quiet one among the exclusive membership of the American power establishment, one even quieter since the Khashoggi butchery.
Outside elite circles, the Saudis suffer from the Islamophobia which characterizes much of American society. American Christians and Jews, almost instinctively, do not like Islam. Apart from resentment over the growth and vibrancy of Islam as a religion worldwide, in their minds, Islam is just kind of automatically lumped in with the notion of enemies of Israel.
And, of course, American politicians and press have provided a steady diet of Islam-hate to boost popular support for the terrible Neocon Wars in the Middle East, wars which have claimed about two million lives, created millions of desperate refugees who came close to destabilizing Europe, and cost America unholy amounts of money. But ideologues with an idée fixe, such as those driving America’s policies, care not a bit about costs, either human or financial, because they never pay them.
There are also the carefully planted and nurtured notions about Saudi responsibility for 9/11. These started at a time when Saudi Arabia was not such a faithful friend of Israel. And they continued until not very long ago with controversy over releasing the short secret preface to the official 9/11 report, a preface which ended up proving nothing against Saudi Arabia, but that fact didn’t stop the press and some politicians from playing endless games of suggestion and innuendo. All that, of course, serves to remind Saudi Arabia that it had better keep to the “true path,” that is, Washington’s.
In addition, absolute monarchs tend to be frowned on by the general American public, even though America itself is no great democracy. A common attitude in parts of the United States about monarchs is summed up in an expression I’ve heard, “He thinks his shit don’t stink!” This is even said sometimes about non-absolute monarchs from friendly states, such as Britain’s Elizabeth.
But America’s establishment carefully, although somewhat quietly, supports and grooms all of the absolute monarchs in the Middle East who toe the American policy line, especially with regard to Israel.
Remember the little story of American soldiers seen repairing the solid gold toilet plumbing of the Emir of Kuwait during the First Gulf War? Likely it wasn’t supposed to get out, but it did in all that chaos, and it serves as a very fitting symbol of Official America’s relationship with the region’s authoritarian princes and kings.
Israel closely embraces all the region’s absolute monarchs, as it does its absolute dictators such as the one in Egypt, because it likes neighboring rulers who tightly control their populations, as these monarchs certainly do, and keep any wild notions of democracy among large Arab populations suppressed.
So, you can attack Saudi Arabia in public almost with impunity, something certainly not true of the country for which Saudi Arabia now often plays the role of proxy and serves as a secret close ally, Israel.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHO WAS JAMES MONROE? AND WHY WOULD HIGH AMERICAN OFFICIALS CITE HIS "DOCTRINE" TODAY - JUST ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF THE DANGEROUS ABSURDITY INTO WHICH AMERICA SINKS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
‘Bolton: Latin America “Must Remain Free from Internal Despotism”, Will Have Its Fate Decided by “Western Hemisphere”
‘Top tier mental gymnastics from Bolton to explain why Washington DC should have more say in Venezuela than Caracas’
The Monroe Doctrine.
An unwarranted idea from a second-rate American president, the country's fifth, a man who was a lifetime slaveholder, one, by the way, who also advocated the export of freed slaves to some hellhole in Africa.
Imagine the idea of sending people, who had finally managed to earn their freedom in one way or another, people whose families may have resided in America for more than a century, off to places they’d never seen just because you regarded them as undesirable residents?
The man and his ideas are hardly things on which to base foreign affairs nearly two centuries later.
But it really does say something about contemporary America that a high official would speak of Monroe in public with pride and arrogance, almost as though the Doctrine were a kind of secular scripture.
America just becomes more dangerously absurd with each passing week.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
‘Bolton: Latin America “Must Remain Free from Internal Despotism”, Will Have Its Fate Decided by “Western Hemisphere”
‘Top tier mental gymnastics from Bolton to explain why Washington DC should have more say in Venezuela than Caracas’
The Monroe Doctrine.
An unwarranted idea from a second-rate American president, the country's fifth, a man who was a lifetime slaveholder, one, by the way, who also advocated the export of freed slaves to some hellhole in Africa.
Imagine the idea of sending people, who had finally managed to earn their freedom in one way or another, people whose families may have resided in America for more than a century, off to places they’d never seen just because you regarded them as undesirable residents?
The man and his ideas are hardly things on which to base foreign affairs nearly two centuries later.
But it really does say something about contemporary America that a high official would speak of Monroe in public with pride and arrogance, almost as though the Doctrine were a kind of secular scripture.
America just becomes more dangerously absurd with each passing week.
Friday, April 19, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BERNIE SANDERS AND ANN COULTER TOGETHER BIZARRELY PROVIDE PROOF OF THE UTTER MEANINGLESSNESS OF AMERICAN POLITICS - A HOLLOW GAME OF ENTERTAINING WORDS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON INVESTMENTWATCH
'Ann Coulter says she could vote for Sanders if he changed views on immigration, “I don’t care about the rest of the socialist stuff”'
Ann Coulter, I have to say, is one of the most poisonous, often hate-filled, voices in American politics, and she loves attention, which is just what a quote like that one guarantees her. Yet I feel sure that here she is being reasonably honest.
Why? Because she knows perfectly well that none of Bernie's rhetoric around new social measures stands any chance whatsoever of ever becoming reality.
Bernie knows that, too, surely, but he ignores - whether naively or deliberately, I don’t know, neither being to his credit as a politician - the hard realities of Congress and the Washington establishment.
I regard that as a kind of dishonesty on his part, luring voters with what would be good concepts in a normal, non-imperial state, while being aware they cannot go beyond being pleasant-sounding rhetoric in the kind of state America actually is.
There's no room for anything else while burning through a trillion dollars a year on the military and secret security services on top of having $22 trillion in accumulated debt.
There is simply no interest by most Washington Representatives and Senators, as well as by the financial interests funding most of their elections. The establishment is fixed on empire and on the reassertion of American authority in the world as the way to build careers.
It's hard to imagine how American politics could possibly become hollower than they are. Every politician’s words, whether from the Left or the Right, on almost any topic ever discussed - from Russia-gate and national healthcare to Venezuela and China - are about as true and authentic as the Washington Post discussing Russia or Donald Trump discussing peace.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON INVESTMENTWATCH
'Ann Coulter says she could vote for Sanders if he changed views on immigration, “I don’t care about the rest of the socialist stuff”'
Ann Coulter, I have to say, is one of the most poisonous, often hate-filled, voices in American politics, and she loves attention, which is just what a quote like that one guarantees her. Yet I feel sure that here she is being reasonably honest.
Why? Because she knows perfectly well that none of Bernie's rhetoric around new social measures stands any chance whatsoever of ever becoming reality.
Bernie knows that, too, surely, but he ignores - whether naively or deliberately, I don’t know, neither being to his credit as a politician - the hard realities of Congress and the Washington establishment.
I regard that as a kind of dishonesty on his part, luring voters with what would be good concepts in a normal, non-imperial state, while being aware they cannot go beyond being pleasant-sounding rhetoric in the kind of state America actually is.
There's no room for anything else while burning through a trillion dollars a year on the military and secret security services on top of having $22 trillion in accumulated debt.
There is simply no interest by most Washington Representatives and Senators, as well as by the financial interests funding most of their elections. The establishment is fixed on empire and on the reassertion of American authority in the world as the way to build careers.
It's hard to imagine how American politics could possibly become hollower than they are. Every politician’s words, whether from the Left or the Right, on almost any topic ever discussed - from Russia-gate and national healthcare to Venezuela and China - are about as true and authentic as the Washington Post discussing Russia or Donald Trump discussing peace.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CHINA'S AMAZING TECHNICAL ADVANCE - ITS NOMINALLY "COMMUNIST" STATE OFFERS A NEW MODEL FOR ADVANCE - AMERICA BEGINS RESEMBLING WHAT CHINA WAS - WITH SECULAR RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEFS IN ITSELF
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY FRED REED IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Yesterday’s Country: Don’t Worry, They Can’t Innovate
“The Chinese invented paper, compass, gunpowder and printing yet Americans convinced themselves they couldn't innovate”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/china-is-tommorows-country-america-is-the-past/#disqus_thread
While we have a few unneeded pejoratives here, nevertheless, this is a good collection of stories on the amazing scientific and technical progress China is making.
It is just stunning that only forty years ago, China was ruled by a secular equivalent of the Middle Ages' Catholic Church.
In so short a time they have leapt, literally leapt, to a leadership role in a number of fields and a challenger in others.
I regard this achievement of China's sudden rise as one of two great miracles of our time, the other being personal computers and the Internet.
They both are genuinely revolutionary in their effects for the entire world.
The native talent and ability at application one sees in Chinese people - and I have known several Chinese students studying abroad quite well - are what have been unleashed after being long suppressed.
What a gigantic pool of talent and human capital.
And China, while still nominally "communist," has in fact morphed into something else, a country focused on meritocracy and led by some exceptionally intelligent people.
It is offering a new model of development to the world.
While the United States in fact takes retrograde steps in becoming something more like what China was - severe ideologues spending great time and effort on often meaningless achievements, such as trying to dominate everyone, instead of competing.
My God, the 1950s and American notions turned on their heads.
By the way, the business, often heard in the past about China not being able to innovate, comes from the same place as fairy tales like the American Dream and its even more childish Trumpian update, Make America great again.
Americans, under the effects of a long easy dominance after WW II - a dominance as much the result of luck in having all competitors flattened as in their own efforts - really have come to believe, again as a form of secular religion, that they are special. God has blessed their enterprise. And America is indispensable. Always and everywhere such beliefs engender foolishness.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY FRED REED IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Yesterday’s Country: Don’t Worry, They Can’t Innovate
“The Chinese invented paper, compass, gunpowder and printing yet Americans convinced themselves they couldn't innovate”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/china-is-tommorows-country-america-is-the-past/#disqus_thread
While we have a few unneeded pejoratives here, nevertheless, this is a good collection of stories on the amazing scientific and technical progress China is making.
It is just stunning that only forty years ago, China was ruled by a secular equivalent of the Middle Ages' Catholic Church.
In so short a time they have leapt, literally leapt, to a leadership role in a number of fields and a challenger in others.
I regard this achievement of China's sudden rise as one of two great miracles of our time, the other being personal computers and the Internet.
They both are genuinely revolutionary in their effects for the entire world.
The native talent and ability at application one sees in Chinese people - and I have known several Chinese students studying abroad quite well - are what have been unleashed after being long suppressed.
What a gigantic pool of talent and human capital.
And China, while still nominally "communist," has in fact morphed into something else, a country focused on meritocracy and led by some exceptionally intelligent people.
It is offering a new model of development to the world.
While the United States in fact takes retrograde steps in becoming something more like what China was - severe ideologues spending great time and effort on often meaningless achievements, such as trying to dominate everyone, instead of competing.
My God, the 1950s and American notions turned on their heads.
By the way, the business, often heard in the past about China not being able to innovate, comes from the same place as fairy tales like the American Dream and its even more childish Trumpian update, Make America great again.
Americans, under the effects of a long easy dominance after WW II - a dominance as much the result of luck in having all competitors flattened as in their own efforts - really have come to believe, again as a form of secular religion, that they are special. God has blessed their enterprise. And America is indispensable. Always and everywhere such beliefs engender foolishness.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FROM SOME SPECIFIC ARGUMENTS AROUND RUSSIA-GATE AND THE MUELLER REPORT TO THE FAR GREATER MEANING OF THE EVENTS - WHY THAT MEANING WILL NOT PENETRATE AND INFLUENCE AMERICA'S NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LAZARE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
Russia-gate and Mueller Report points
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/18/the-guccifer-2-0-gaps-in-muellers-full-report/?unapproved=363785&moderation-hash=44e700dd37937ccf8115dd36076b4fe1#comment-363785
Some of the arguments made here - as that of the impossibly brief time between the claimed receipt of hacked material and WikiLeaks' publication, leaving no time for WikiLeaks to review many thousands of documents, something they always do - seem unassailable to me. It just could not happen that way.
Of course, we know from several independent experts in the recent past that the DNC material was unmistakably a leak, and not a hack, but the people in Washington, all busily promoting their various dark agendas, are not going to accept so simple and clarifying a fact.
The twists and turns in this whole story are just dizzying, as indeed they are meant to be. It is next to impossible to set out the full tale with proof which cannot be denied or contradicted by one side or the other.
Of course, that suggests a pattern, the pattern of intelligence operations.
And, of course, the United States, vis-Ã -vis the rest of the world, has been in the business of hiding what it is doing, spreading disinformation, and leaving confusion behind as it proceeds with its ferocious recent program of aggression. The Washington elites have all become practiced experts in it.
But now we can unmistakably see the same pattern being used inside the United States.
The United States never was, or even pretended to be, a democracy. Most of the Founders, being men of wealth and property, feared democracy. And in the course of America’s imperial march across the continent, democratic values and ethics never played any role. But this kind of activity, right at the heart of national political life, makes an even stronger statement.
It is a statement literally of the ruling establishment’s contempt for ordinary Americans and their right to have even the slightest understanding of events in which their government has been involved.
Just about every part of the power establishment has played a part in this – the corporate press, the Democrats, the Republicans, the FBI, the CIA, and loyal hangers-on like Britain’s MI6.
I see that as the key lesson to be learned from the entire set of events around “Russia-gate.” But I am equally sure that it will not come to be understood and absorbed into consciousness for the most part inside the United States.
The same forces will just continue their tug-of-war with all kinds of political posing and press noise that tells you almost nothing.
You see, that is simply the mentality of imperial rule.
The vicious struggle for renewed pre-eminence the United States has underway in the world – bombing in a dozen lands, supporting brutal dirty wars, assassinations, efforts to topple governments, including democratic ones, sanctions laid in every direction, new threats made weekly, and a ceaseless effort to impose American law everywhere (the essence of what Assange’s arrest really means) – simply leaves no room or inclination for honesty or openness in the imperial capital. Quite the opposite, indeed.
What a very sad state for America to have come to, but there cannot be the slightest doubt that it is the case. Every critically-minded person in the world not associated with, or benefitting from, the operation of America’s empire, understands this.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LAZARE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
Russia-gate and Mueller Report points
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/18/the-guccifer-2-0-gaps-in-muellers-full-report/?unapproved=363785&moderation-hash=44e700dd37937ccf8115dd36076b4fe1#comment-363785
Some of the arguments made here - as that of the impossibly brief time between the claimed receipt of hacked material and WikiLeaks' publication, leaving no time for WikiLeaks to review many thousands of documents, something they always do - seem unassailable to me. It just could not happen that way.
Of course, we know from several independent experts in the recent past that the DNC material was unmistakably a leak, and not a hack, but the people in Washington, all busily promoting their various dark agendas, are not going to accept so simple and clarifying a fact.
The twists and turns in this whole story are just dizzying, as indeed they are meant to be. It is next to impossible to set out the full tale with proof which cannot be denied or contradicted by one side or the other.
Of course, that suggests a pattern, the pattern of intelligence operations.
And, of course, the United States, vis-Ã -vis the rest of the world, has been in the business of hiding what it is doing, spreading disinformation, and leaving confusion behind as it proceeds with its ferocious recent program of aggression. The Washington elites have all become practiced experts in it.
But now we can unmistakably see the same pattern being used inside the United States.
The United States never was, or even pretended to be, a democracy. Most of the Founders, being men of wealth and property, feared democracy. And in the course of America’s imperial march across the continent, democratic values and ethics never played any role. But this kind of activity, right at the heart of national political life, makes an even stronger statement.
It is a statement literally of the ruling establishment’s contempt for ordinary Americans and their right to have even the slightest understanding of events in which their government has been involved.
Just about every part of the power establishment has played a part in this – the corporate press, the Democrats, the Republicans, the FBI, the CIA, and loyal hangers-on like Britain’s MI6.
I see that as the key lesson to be learned from the entire set of events around “Russia-gate.” But I am equally sure that it will not come to be understood and absorbed into consciousness for the most part inside the United States.
The same forces will just continue their tug-of-war with all kinds of political posing and press noise that tells you almost nothing.
You see, that is simply the mentality of imperial rule.
The vicious struggle for renewed pre-eminence the United States has underway in the world – bombing in a dozen lands, supporting brutal dirty wars, assassinations, efforts to topple governments, including democratic ones, sanctions laid in every direction, new threats made weekly, and a ceaseless effort to impose American law everywhere (the essence of what Assange’s arrest really means) – simply leaves no room or inclination for honesty or openness in the imperial capital. Quite the opposite, indeed.
What a very sad state for America to have come to, but there cannot be the slightest doubt that it is the case. Every critically-minded person in the world not associated with, or benefitting from, the operation of America’s empire, understands this.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: LOOKING AT CLAIMS OF NORTH KOREA'S HACKING AND BANK ROBBERIES AND DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING - I'M NOT NAIVE TO THINK NORTH KOREANS ARE SWEET INNOCENTS BUT THESE CLAIMS ARE SUSPICIOUS - CIA'S ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Sanctioned North Korea Makes Due by Cyber-Robbing World Banks
“Pyongyang has trained up the world’s greatest bank-robbing crews. In just the past few years they've pillaged $650 million for their nation. That we know of.”
Interesting, if true.
We always should reserve some doubt about people who have defected from anywhere and are telling us "secrets" about the place from which they defected.
As just one of the possibilities, fake defectors have long been used by intelligence services. It went on through the entire Cold War, including some spectacular examples.
That mention of counterfeiting hundred-dollar bills casts some real doubt.
A few years back, large numbers of virtually perfect counterfeit one hundred-dollar bills were showing up regularly.
Our press all joined in pointing to North Korea.
There is always reason to doubt a story, especially one of that nature, simply from the fact that you see the whole corporate press repeating it.
As one former CIA disinformation officer told us years ago, he used to sit down at his “mighty Wurlitzer organ” to get his stories "out there," the keys of the organ being the various cooperating members of the corporate press.
I simply do not believe the North Koreans were creating the currency without real evidence.
The North Koreans just would not have the ultra hi-tech presses required.
And we do know the CIA does all kinds of criminal activity to earn off-the-books cash, from selling drugs to gun running, so why not counterfeiting some perfect notes?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Sanctioned North Korea Makes Due by Cyber-Robbing World Banks
“Pyongyang has trained up the world’s greatest bank-robbing crews. In just the past few years they've pillaged $650 million for their nation. That we know of.”
Interesting, if true.
We always should reserve some doubt about people who have defected from anywhere and are telling us "secrets" about the place from which they defected.
As just one of the possibilities, fake defectors have long been used by intelligence services. It went on through the entire Cold War, including some spectacular examples.
That mention of counterfeiting hundred-dollar bills casts some real doubt.
A few years back, large numbers of virtually perfect counterfeit one hundred-dollar bills were showing up regularly.
Our press all joined in pointing to North Korea.
There is always reason to doubt a story, especially one of that nature, simply from the fact that you see the whole corporate press repeating it.
As one former CIA disinformation officer told us years ago, he used to sit down at his “mighty Wurlitzer organ” to get his stories "out there," the keys of the organ being the various cooperating members of the corporate press.
I simply do not believe the North Koreans were creating the currency without real evidence.
The North Koreans just would not have the ultra hi-tech presses required.
And we do know the CIA does all kinds of criminal activity to earn off-the-books cash, from selling drugs to gun running, so why not counterfeiting some perfect notes?
Thursday, April 18, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DISSECTING TRUDEAU'S LETTER TO NEWLY-ELECTED (VERY) CONSERVATIVE ALBERTA PREMIER JASON KENNEY - I AM NO FAN OF KENNEY BUT TRUDEAU'S LETTER IS WEAK AND REVEALS A LACK OF UNDERSTANDING
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAVID THURTON IN CBC NEWS
“Jason Kenney [Alberta’s newly-elected, aggressively conservative Premier] won big — and the Ottawa-Alberta relationship is about to get unruly
“His federal connections give him a nationwide profile few premiers enjoy. How will he use it?”
Apart from my many other concerns over Trudeau, I actually don't think he is up to any battle with seriously aggressive opponents such as Kenney in Alberta or Ford in Ontario.
He just does not have the stuff it takes.
He virtually glided into office last time, glided on his name and looks.
And since that time, he has managed to disappoint many Liberal Party interest groups who supported him, while also managing to disappoint many other wider interests.
I'm sure he's going to try playing Little David to an army of Goliaths, but he is not Little David, and his words and behaviors are ineffective.
Just read the limp words of Trudeau’s letter to Kenney.
"Together, we will address issues of importance to Albertans and all Canadians."
Yuck, such language, verbal tofu.
" …to create good, middle class jobs"
Why just Middle Class? That sounds genuinely American in its appeal (after all, in America, politicians cannot speak of class – everyone is Middle Class), and the qualifier only weakens stronger words.
“…while getting our natural resources to market."
Again, weak and ineffective. How about even using the name of the problem? Building badly-needed pipelines, as Trudeau has so far failed to do.
An economy can't function without road and rail networks, which is all pipelines are, transport networks.
"…at the heart of Alberta's prosperity…"
Good God, is he blind? Or does he refuse to look? Alberta's decline is exactly what Kenney’s election reflects.
"…the province can remain competitive in our changing economy."
Competitive, for Alberta, means the pipelines to markets Trudeau has done so little to provide.
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAVID THURTON IN CBC NEWS
“Jason Kenney [Alberta’s newly-elected, aggressively conservative Premier] won big — and the Ottawa-Alberta relationship is about to get unruly
“His federal connections give him a nationwide profile few premiers enjoy. How will he use it?”
Apart from my many other concerns over Trudeau, I actually don't think he is up to any battle with seriously aggressive opponents such as Kenney in Alberta or Ford in Ontario.
He just does not have the stuff it takes.
He virtually glided into office last time, glided on his name and looks.
And since that time, he has managed to disappoint many Liberal Party interest groups who supported him, while also managing to disappoint many other wider interests.
I'm sure he's going to try playing Little David to an army of Goliaths, but he is not Little David, and his words and behaviors are ineffective.
Just read the limp words of Trudeau’s letter to Kenney.
"Together, we will address issues of importance to Albertans and all Canadians."
Yuck, such language, verbal tofu.
" …to create good, middle class jobs"
Why just Middle Class? That sounds genuinely American in its appeal (after all, in America, politicians cannot speak of class – everyone is Middle Class), and the qualifier only weakens stronger words.
“…while getting our natural resources to market."
Again, weak and ineffective. How about even using the name of the problem? Building badly-needed pipelines, as Trudeau has so far failed to do.
An economy can't function without road and rail networks, which is all pipelines are, transport networks.
"…at the heart of Alberta's prosperity…"
Good God, is he blind? Or does he refuse to look? Alberta's decline is exactly what Kenney’s election reflects.
"…the province can remain competitive in our changing economy."
Competitive, for Alberta, means the pipelines to markets Trudeau has done so little to provide.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FURTHER WORD ON QUEBEC'S PROPOSED "SECULARISM" BILL - MONTREAL'S MAYOR, WHO BRAVELY SPOKE IN OPPOSITION TO IT, RECEIVES A THREAT, CONFIRMING THE REAL NATURE OF THE BILL
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Montreal mayor target of physical threats after coming out against secularism bill”
I'm very sorry to learn this. I admire the Mayor for stating her views in public.
But I think the incident does point to something important.
The Quebec government’s "secularism" bill has very little to do with secularism, I'm afraid. That name is just political whitewash.
The kind of people who would threaten the Mayor wouldn't even know the definition of the word "secularism."
This bill flirts with Islamophobia. A terrible thing to do, sadly appealing to the Trump-like in our society.
Quebec already is secular, completely. It needs no legislation.
Indeed, the government's interfering with what religious garments people may wear to work definitely goes in the opposite direction, towards becoming less secular.
A very unwelcome piece of legislation on all points.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Montreal mayor target of physical threats after coming out against secularism bill”
I'm very sorry to learn this. I admire the Mayor for stating her views in public.
But I think the incident does point to something important.
The Quebec government’s "secularism" bill has very little to do with secularism, I'm afraid. That name is just political whitewash.
The kind of people who would threaten the Mayor wouldn't even know the definition of the word "secularism."
This bill flirts with Islamophobia. A terrible thing to do, sadly appealing to the Trump-like in our society.
Quebec already is secular, completely. It needs no legislation.
Indeed, the government's interfering with what religious garments people may wear to work definitely goes in the opposite direction, towards becoming less secular.
A very unwelcome piece of legislation on all points.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A DMITRY ORLOV INTERVIEW PACKED WITH PERSPECTIVE AND PIQUANCY AND OTHER THINGS - SUBJECTS INCLUDE UKRAINE AND THE UNITED STATES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN INTERVIEW WITH DMITRY ORLOV IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“The US Empire is Very Much Over - The Saker Interviews Dmitry Orlov”
https://russia-insider.com/en/us-empire-very-much-over-saker-interviews-dmitry-orlov/ri26807
This is indeed a most interesting interview.
Orlov is at his best for much of it. Lots of interesting tidbits fall from his lips, and he uses some colorful language in which to express them.
He is one of those people who just seem to vacuum up facts and anecdotes for later use.
I especially enjoyed his material on Ukraine, although, as Orlov is wont to, he goes over the top in his descriptions of Ukrainians into unnecessary pejoratives.
Still, there's a lot here to think about.
Perspective with piquancy.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN INTERVIEW WITH DMITRY ORLOV IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“The US Empire is Very Much Over - The Saker Interviews Dmitry Orlov”
https://russia-insider.com/en/us-empire-very-much-over-saker-interviews-dmitry-orlov/ri26807
This is indeed a most interesting interview.
Orlov is at his best for much of it. Lots of interesting tidbits fall from his lips, and he uses some colorful language in which to express them.
He is one of those people who just seem to vacuum up facts and anecdotes for later use.
I especially enjoyed his material on Ukraine, although, as Orlov is wont to, he goes over the top in his descriptions of Ukrainians into unnecessary pejoratives.
Still, there's a lot here to think about.
Perspective with piquancy.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE MOST UNUSUAL AND INTERESTING ARTICLE ON CLIMATE CHANGE I'VE EVER READ
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CHRIS HEDGES IN TRUTHDIG
“Saying Goodbye to Planet Earth”
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/saying-goodbye-to-planet-earth-2/
The most interesting article I've seen on climate change.
Quite a different approach.
No sense of climate religiosity or mumbo-jumbo.
Just a genuinely long-term view from a scientific voice, looking at the distant past and at other worlds.
I love the introductory perspective of the mere 10,000 years for everything to happen that has happened as far as humanity goes.
It's such a brief, brief time span.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CHRIS HEDGES IN TRUTHDIG
“Saying Goodbye to Planet Earth”
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/saying-goodbye-to-planet-earth-2/
The most interesting article I've seen on climate change.
Quite a different approach.
No sense of climate religiosity or mumbo-jumbo.
Just a genuinely long-term view from a scientific voice, looking at the distant past and at other worlds.
I love the introductory perspective of the mere 10,000 years for everything to happen that has happened as far as humanity goes.
It's such a brief, brief time span.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: GERMANY SURPRISES BY INDEPENDENCE IN RESPONSE TO A CALL BY BRITAIN'S GAVIN WILLIAMSON (POSSIBLY EUROPE'S MOST ABSURD PERSON) FOR YET ANOTHER PROVOCATIVE BIG DISPLAY ON RUSSIA'S BORDER
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BRIAN CLOUGHLEY IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Germany to Sit Out UK-Led Maneuvers on Russia's Doorstep, Seeks to Cut Deals With Moscow”
https://russia-insider.com/en/germany-sit-out-uk-led-maneuvers-russias-doorstep-seeks-cut-deals-moscow/ri26790
Good piece.
I really like that first paragraph because it captures the situation in Britain perfectly.
Talk about inept government, Britain has it in spades.
Gavin Williamson, the Defence Minister, of course, is one of the most absurd figures in Europe. He tries regularly to compete with Trump for brainless remarks. He may even be winning the competition.
Nice quiet diplomatic statement by Mrs. Merkel. I'm actually a bit surprised.
But she has been showing more independence of mind recently in the face of Trump's graceless, dumb assaults on just about everything in Europe.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BRIAN CLOUGHLEY IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Germany to Sit Out UK-Led Maneuvers on Russia's Doorstep, Seeks to Cut Deals With Moscow”
https://russia-insider.com/en/germany-sit-out-uk-led-maneuvers-russias-doorstep-seeks-cut-deals-moscow/ri26790
Good piece.
I really like that first paragraph because it captures the situation in Britain perfectly.
Talk about inept government, Britain has it in spades.
Gavin Williamson, the Defence Minister, of course, is one of the most absurd figures in Europe. He tries regularly to compete with Trump for brainless remarks. He may even be winning the competition.
Nice quiet diplomatic statement by Mrs. Merkel. I'm actually a bit surprised.
But she has been showing more independence of mind recently in the face of Trump's graceless, dumb assaults on just about everything in Europe.
Monday, April 15, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CHEAP EFFORT AT "SOFT" ATTACK ON ASSANGE - PATHETIC BUT CONSIDER THE SOURCE FROM A CANADIAN PROPAGANDA MILL MUCH LIKE AMERICAN "THINK TANKS" - ASSANGE IS A JOURNALIST AND HE DOES WHAT CORPORATE JOURNALISM STOPPED DOING LONG AGO, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING - TECHNOLOGY'S EFFECT ON WHISTLEBLOWING - THE MANY ILLEGALITIES IN ASSANGE'S ARREST
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WESLEY WARK ON CBC NEWS
“Julian Assange and WikiLeaks did a disservice to whistleblowing
“The classic principles of whistleblowing involve righting a specific wrong through targeted exposure”
The author is, of course, entitled to hold whatever views he wishes.
But these views of Assange and WikiLeaks are to my mind narrow, unimaginative, and with a touch of unpleasant spitefulness.
Unimaginative? Yes, the author has no concept that technology changes everything, including the very nature of whistleblowing.
The fact is that Assange will be celebrated for years to come as a very important figure for his time, a very courageous one too.
Chelsea Manning - well, courage and human decency do not come any finer. Her motives were the best, and I could only wish they were to be found more frequently in this age of mass killing and unnecessary American imperial wars.
There are so many illegalities and irregularities in Assange's arrest, I'm not sure he will ever be brought to trial, but he will be put through years of trouble and expense for sure.
Secret police entering an embassy? A country rescinding political asylum status? Cancelling his naturalized citizenship? And doing so for a big fat loan from the US? And we are talking of American laws which have no legal application in other countries. And then there was that instantaneous, vindictive sentence from a British judge over his bail?
Appalling, all of it. And just one more example of America’s elbowing everyone out of its way.
_____________________
Response to another comment:
Absolutely, he is a journalist. He has won a large number of awards as a journalist.
He is the classic investigative reporter, only one scaled-up immensely by the power of technology.
And he fills that role at a time when it virtually no longer exists in corporate journalism.
Corporate papers and broadcasters, all of them, only rally and support the national government's policies, and that's true in every major western country under America’s corrosive influence.
Not one of them would think of embarrassing his or her government with truth about dark deeds, and they are engaged in many dark deeds under the influence of America's new imperial drives in the Middle East and other places.
Corporate journalists simply do not do journalism anymore. They carry-on an elaborate charade which often validates government disinformation and propaganda.
________________________
Response to a comment about author Wesley Wark being and a faculty member of the Munk School of Global Affairs:
The Munk School has offered some appalling lecture series, including from a creep like Tony Blair. It pretty much functions like one of the many American think-tanks, that is, as a propaganda mill.
____________________________
Response to a comment saying “Assange made his bed, now he has to lay in it:”
Gee, how did you ever come up with such an imaginative new turn of phrase?
Stale old words for stale old minds.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WESLEY WARK ON CBC NEWS
“Julian Assange and WikiLeaks did a disservice to whistleblowing
“The classic principles of whistleblowing involve righting a specific wrong through targeted exposure”
The author is, of course, entitled to hold whatever views he wishes.
But these views of Assange and WikiLeaks are to my mind narrow, unimaginative, and with a touch of unpleasant spitefulness.
Unimaginative? Yes, the author has no concept that technology changes everything, including the very nature of whistleblowing.
The fact is that Assange will be celebrated for years to come as a very important figure for his time, a very courageous one too.
Chelsea Manning - well, courage and human decency do not come any finer. Her motives were the best, and I could only wish they were to be found more frequently in this age of mass killing and unnecessary American imperial wars.
There are so many illegalities and irregularities in Assange's arrest, I'm not sure he will ever be brought to trial, but he will be put through years of trouble and expense for sure.
Secret police entering an embassy? A country rescinding political asylum status? Cancelling his naturalized citizenship? And doing so for a big fat loan from the US? And we are talking of American laws which have no legal application in other countries. And then there was that instantaneous, vindictive sentence from a British judge over his bail?
Appalling, all of it. And just one more example of America’s elbowing everyone out of its way.
_____________________
Response to another comment:
Absolutely, he is a journalist. He has won a large number of awards as a journalist.
He is the classic investigative reporter, only one scaled-up immensely by the power of technology.
And he fills that role at a time when it virtually no longer exists in corporate journalism.
Corporate papers and broadcasters, all of them, only rally and support the national government's policies, and that's true in every major western country under America’s corrosive influence.
Not one of them would think of embarrassing his or her government with truth about dark deeds, and they are engaged in many dark deeds under the influence of America's new imperial drives in the Middle East and other places.
Corporate journalists simply do not do journalism anymore. They carry-on an elaborate charade which often validates government disinformation and propaganda.
________________________
Response to a comment about author Wesley Wark being and a faculty member of the Munk School of Global Affairs:
The Munk School has offered some appalling lecture series, including from a creep like Tony Blair. It pretty much functions like one of the many American think-tanks, that is, as a propaganda mill.
____________________________
Response to a comment saying “Assange made his bed, now he has to lay in it:”
Gee, how did you ever come up with such an imaginative new turn of phrase?
Stale old words for stale old minds.
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