Friday, May 31, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE ON THE DANGERS OF "PATRIOTISM" - A GROWING THREAT IN THE WEST - I'M NOT REFERRING TO AFFECTION FOR YOUR COUNTRY - I'M REFERRING TO "MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG" AND THAT IS DEADLY POISONOUS STUFF - EXACTLY LIKE RELIGIOUS FANATICS READY TO KILL THOSE WHO DON'T EMBRACE THEIR VIEW
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BRENDAN O’NEILL IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“According to the British Army, It’s Extremist to Be a Patriot
Love of Britain suspect in an army which serves at the pleasure of Washington, DC
The Decline of Western Civilization”
"When soldiers – the people expected to give their lives to defend the nation – are being instructed that fondness for your nation is an iffy attribute, you know modern Britain is in serious moral trouble."
As far as it goes, yes, that is true.
But when you add: "What is bizarre, if not outright perverse, about these indicators of ‘right-wing extremism' is that just a few years ago such outlooks would have been seen as essential attributes for every aspiring soldier," I stop agreeing. You’ve literally changed the subject without saying so.
Whether you like it or not, the West does have a problem today with extreme right-wing patriot types.
I'm not saying there’s any problem with simple love or fondness for one's country.
Simple affection for one’s country is entirely a different thing than aggressive patriotism. It’s a little like comparing enjoying and having a fondness for one’s food with being a voracious hog who shoves others out of the way.
I'm referring to the "patriotism" Dr Johnson characterized brilliantly as "the last refuge of scoundrels" about two hundred and fifty years ago.
In that statement and in his rightly contemptuous words about "drivers of negroes speaking of liberty," Johnson was referring to men like Thomas Jefferson, the greatest hypocrite in American history and, interestingly, a heroic figure for many of today's extremists (See my link at the end of this).
There are many people with rather dark intentions who hide them behind the mask of patriotism, just as has been the case for centuries with certain people hiding their intentions behind the mask of religion.
Patriotism, of the extreme American type (“Love it or leave it,” “My country, right or wrong”), is after all just another form of extreme religious belief, of religious fanaticism, a secular form, just as communism and Nazism were.
Just look at the asinine example of Trump with his photo-ops of hugging and kissing the flag and the most extreme outbursts of patriotic nonsense. The man avoided service when it was his turn on the flimsiest excuse (see my link at the end of this), and he speaks contemptuously in public of many Americans just exercising their rights, and he is a man who would make a deal with the devil if there was enough in it for him.
Indeed, he already has made such deals, concerning Jerusalem and the Golan – things not in his gift to give away - and threatening an ugly, unnecessary war with Iran, and in the appointment to his government of men fit to serve in the old Gestapo or the Stasi – Bolton, Pompeo, and Abrams.
He has absolutely no principles beyond satisfying an immense ego. Yet he hugs the flag, salutes at parades, wears a flag lapel pin always, and likes to dress-up when addressing the troops in things like custom-made bomber jackets. All this while sending others off to die for meaningless imperial goals and killing innocents in many lands when he thinks they are in his way. He is the perfect example of corrupt and dangerous “patriotism,” very dangerous patriotism.
The poisonous stuff Dr Johnson condemned so long ago. And his words were just as meaningful as historic figures who warned of the Catholic Church’s corrupt and absolute hold on society centuries ago or of the threat of Soviet communism or of the equal threat of fascism in 1930s Europe.
We are never free of such things. Societies never reach a blissful equilibrium free of threats, although it is such a common illusion in the West that our societies have indeed reached just such a state. We must always be analyzing and criticizing what appears threatening. That is just part of the human condition.
See:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/john-chuckman-comment-trump-as-the-most-american-of-presidents-a-claim-which-should-infuriate-both-his-supporters-and-opponents/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/john-chuckman-comment-patriotism-and-nationalism-much-like-religion-in-blindly-praising-the-insupportable-nations-like-people-come-in-all-types-and-many-hardly-deserve-praise-patriotism-is-a-to/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: I THINK IT FAIR TO SAY THAT THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO NEGOTIATE, AT LEAST WITH SMALLER STATES - IT ONLY TELLS OTHERS WHAT TO DO - THE POWERFUL OBSERVATION OF LORD ACTON ABOUT POWER AND CORRUPTION IS ON FULL DISPLAY IN AMERICA'S RELATIONS - AMERICA LIKE A FLY FIXED IN AMBER
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LARISON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Biggest Obstacle to North Korea Nuke Deal Is That the US Is Not Agreement-Capable
“The US has thrown previous agreements with Libya, Iran and North Korea in the garbage before the ink was dry”
I very much agree with the author’s sentiments.
I know of absolutely no instance where the United states "negotiated" with a smaller state over something important, unless you count negotiating with Israel, which is, more or less, a branch or colony of the United States.
People who regard themselves as "the indispensable nation" have little regard for others, and especially when the others are small.
It's the unavoidable prejudice of a bully, and the record of the United States since WWII is a three-quarters of a century display of acting out the role of bully. And in recent years, it is only increasingly so with even less concern for what anyone thinks.
Not a war that America has fought since WWII - starting virtually all of them, in complete contravention of international law - has been about its own defense or even over any authentic principle.
All of them were about telling others what to do.
People with that kind of record do not understand what it is to negotiate.
I very much believe that at this stage in its history, the United States truly reflects the powerful observation of Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men...."
There's no avoiding corruption when you regard yourself as uniquely blessed by God and believe yourself "indispensable" and when you have more resources at your disposal than you know what to do with.
And that summarizes the situation into which the United States is stuck, much like a fly fixed in amber.
I refer to “the United States” but that is always shorthand for America’s privileged power establishment, the people who guide and decide, people who never even consult the hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans on such topics as war and foreign affairs in a political structure which has almost no resemblance to democracy.
For that last statement, see:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LARISON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Biggest Obstacle to North Korea Nuke Deal Is That the US Is Not Agreement-Capable
“The US has thrown previous agreements with Libya, Iran and North Korea in the garbage before the ink was dry”
I very much agree with the author’s sentiments.
I know of absolutely no instance where the United states "negotiated" with a smaller state over something important, unless you count negotiating with Israel, which is, more or less, a branch or colony of the United States.
People who regard themselves as "the indispensable nation" have little regard for others, and especially when the others are small.
It's the unavoidable prejudice of a bully, and the record of the United States since WWII is a three-quarters of a century display of acting out the role of bully. And in recent years, it is only increasingly so with even less concern for what anyone thinks.
Not a war that America has fought since WWII - starting virtually all of them, in complete contravention of international law - has been about its own defense or even over any authentic principle.
All of them were about telling others what to do.
People with that kind of record do not understand what it is to negotiate.
I very much believe that at this stage in its history, the United States truly reflects the powerful observation of Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men...."
There's no avoiding corruption when you regard yourself as uniquely blessed by God and believe yourself "indispensable" and when you have more resources at your disposal than you know what to do with.
And that summarizes the situation into which the United States is stuck, much like a fly fixed in amber.
I refer to “the United States” but that is always shorthand for America’s privileged power establishment, the people who guide and decide, people who never even consult the hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans on such topics as war and foreign affairs in a political structure which has almost no resemblance to democracy.
For that last statement, see:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IS KIM JONG UN REALLY THE ABSOLUTE RULER OF NORTH KOREA? REASON TO DOUBT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Is Kim Jong Un the Absolute Ruler of North Korea or Just a Hostage to the Shadowy OGD?
“Who really runs the place? Quite likely Kim is just one player of many, and not necessarily more powerful than the country's all-pervasive surveillance apparatus”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/is-kim-jong-un-the-absolute-ruler-of-north-korea-or-just-a-hostage-to-the-shadowy-ogd/
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Do we ever see a picture of Kim at a public function without a group of high-ranking military men around him?
The one that accompanies this article is only one of scores we’ve seen.
They officers often pretend to take notes of what KIm says in little notebooks, an act which seems to testify to his absolute authority, but I am sure they are there as a reminder that he is never free to say what just pops into his head.
Thursday, May 30, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE DEMOCRATS AND IMPEACHING TRUMP - DESPITE TRUMP'S MANY FOUL ACTIVITIES, IMPEACHMENT IS PROBABLY A BAD IDEA - A SILVER LINING TO TRUMP'S LIKELY RE-ELECTION
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON AN ARTICLE IN MOON OF ALABAMA
“Mueller Punts On Obstruction Charges - Impeachment Would Hurt The Democrats”
There is an excellent discussion of the impeachment issue here:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/05/mueller-punts-obstruction-to-congress-should-the-democrats-try-to-impeach-trump.html#comments
I agree with the author on the likely effects of impeachment.
I agree also with his assessment that with the Democrats lacking any charismatic candidate, Trump will be re-elected.
The Democrats actually have one in Tulsi Gabbard, but they will not embrace her. The establishment press avoids giving her almost any attention. She basically is poisonous to existing domestic establishment arrangements in America.
I am much distressed by the fact that Trump will likely win, but I am a realist, and Trump is the ugly in-your-face reality of contemporary America.
There is a bit of a silver lining to the dark clouds though.
Trump unquestionably is helping to speed along the evolution towards a new world order, the multi-polar world that is on its way to replacing America as world arbiter.
He has made many enemies, caused many leaders to become troubled about a future coupled to such a single-minded, selfish, and hostile place as America. And that very much includes important traditional European allies.
Readers may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/29/john-chuckman-comment-trump-and-china-and-his-whole-approach-to-trade-his-methods-resemble-some-very-unsavory-characters-the-dangers-he-represents-just-why-the-united-states-is-in-the-position/
And:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
COMMENT ON AN ARTICLE IN MOON OF ALABAMA
“Mueller Punts On Obstruction Charges - Impeachment Would Hurt The Democrats”
There is an excellent discussion of the impeachment issue here:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/05/mueller-punts-obstruction-to-congress-should-the-democrats-try-to-impeach-trump.html#comments
I agree with the author on the likely effects of impeachment.
I agree also with his assessment that with the Democrats lacking any charismatic candidate, Trump will be re-elected.
The Democrats actually have one in Tulsi Gabbard, but they will not embrace her. The establishment press avoids giving her almost any attention. She basically is poisonous to existing domestic establishment arrangements in America.
I am much distressed by the fact that Trump will likely win, but I am a realist, and Trump is the ugly in-your-face reality of contemporary America.
There is a bit of a silver lining to the dark clouds though.
Trump unquestionably is helping to speed along the evolution towards a new world order, the multi-polar world that is on its way to replacing America as world arbiter.
He has made many enemies, caused many leaders to become troubled about a future coupled to such a single-minded, selfish, and hostile place as America. And that very much includes important traditional European allies.
Readers may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/29/john-chuckman-comment-trump-and-china-and-his-whole-approach-to-trade-his-methods-resemble-some-very-unsavory-characters-the-dangers-he-represents-just-why-the-united-states-is-in-the-position/
And:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE ARGUMENT OVER WHETHER BEING TRANSGENDER IS A MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE - BASIC CIVILITY IS WHAT IS REQUIRED HERE - LIVE AND LET LIVE - NOT ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHAT WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Being transgender is not a mental health problem, WHO says
“World Health Organization has changed the classification of transgender in its diagnoses”
I don't think we really know. There really are no experts in these matters.
We all have a sexual component in our brains, not just in our organs.
But can that mental component be twisted or bent?
In any event, in these matters, our approach should always be: live and let live.
Accept people for what they say they are and avoid needless argument and unproved classification of others.
Basic civility in this as in in all matters, although we see damned little civility in this world, from small matters to the great matters of America just sweeping over others and calling them names.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Being transgender is not a mental health problem, WHO says
“World Health Organization has changed the classification of transgender in its diagnoses”
I don't think we really know. There really are no experts in these matters.
We all have a sexual component in our brains, not just in our organs.
But can that mental component be twisted or bent?
In any event, in these matters, our approach should always be: live and let live.
Accept people for what they say they are and avoid needless argument and unproved classification of others.
Basic civility in this as in in all matters, although we see damned little civility in this world, from small matters to the great matters of America just sweeping over others and calling them names.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA COMES UP WITH THE NAME "FREEDOM GAS" FOR ITS LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS EXPORTS - SHADES OF THE PAST'S "FREEDOM FRIES" AND "VICTORY CABBAGE"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump energy officials rebrand fossil fuels as ‘molecules of freedom’
“New terms, including ‘freedom gas’, have been the subject of widespread mockery”
This is the contemporary equivalent to the "Freedom Fries" replacing "French Fries" in American restaurants around the time of the illegal Iraq invasion, something France opposed at the UN.
A lot of fine French wine was publicly dumped by "patriotic" restaurants then too.
In WWI, sauerkraut disappeared from American menus to be replaced by "Victory Cabbage,"
Americans are such a bunch of babies.
Truly, whiny babies.
And they’ve found their perfect president in Trump, a world-class whiny baby.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump energy officials rebrand fossil fuels as ‘molecules of freedom’
“New terms, including ‘freedom gas’, have been the subject of widespread mockery”
This is the contemporary equivalent to the "Freedom Fries" replacing "French Fries" in American restaurants around the time of the illegal Iraq invasion, something France opposed at the UN.
A lot of fine French wine was publicly dumped by "patriotic" restaurants then too.
In WWI, sauerkraut disappeared from American menus to be replaced by "Victory Cabbage,"
Americans are such a bunch of babies.
Truly, whiny babies.
And they’ve found their perfect president in Trump, a world-class whiny baby.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DONALD TRUMP AND JOHN MCCAIN - DESPITE THE EFFORTS OF THE PRESS AND POLITICIANS TO SAY OTHERWISE THESE TWO MEN WERE CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH - MCCAIN WAS LIFETIME SLEAZE - A MANUFACTURED HERO FROM A GHASTLY TIME AMERICA DESPERATELY NEEDED ONE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS {AND REMOVED BY EDITORS]
“White House wanted McCain naval ship away from Trump during Japan trip: sources
“Trump tells reporters he didn't order a ship to move, but whoever did may have been 'well meaning'”
It is hard to understand why there's always been such enmity between these two.
We all understand what a nasty piece-of-work Trump is.
But not so many people realize that McCain was cut from the same cloth, despite all the recent funeral tributes and talk of him as a hero.
Here's a factual summary of McCain’s life done some while back that you may enjoy or, at least, learn from:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/john-mccain-a-matter-of-character/
I do believe McCain's example provides the classic example of a sow's ear made into a silk purse, of a manufactured hero, quite literally manufactured. It is an important testimonial to the power of the press and national politicians in creating myths.
Of course, we see that creative process repeated countless times in America’s brutal efforts abroad. Genuine monsters like Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince or Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu are granted status as good guys. Decent leaders, who happen not to be liked by America, with Ghaddafi being an excellent example, are vilified and even sometimes murdered.
With the complete disaster of the Vietnam holocaust (3 million Vietnamese were killed) and America still was humiliatingly defeated militarily, the establishment desperately needed a hero to make things seem better near the end. John McCain, son and grandson of American Admirals, got picked.
In fact, both McCain and Trump are genuine American grotesques, the kind of ugly folks the American empire calls on for its continued success.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS {AND REMOVED BY EDITORS]
“White House wanted McCain naval ship away from Trump during Japan trip: sources
“Trump tells reporters he didn't order a ship to move, but whoever did may have been 'well meaning'”
It is hard to understand why there's always been such enmity between these two.
We all understand what a nasty piece-of-work Trump is.
But not so many people realize that McCain was cut from the same cloth, despite all the recent funeral tributes and talk of him as a hero.
Here's a factual summary of McCain’s life done some while back that you may enjoy or, at least, learn from:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/john-mccain-a-matter-of-character/
I do believe McCain's example provides the classic example of a sow's ear made into a silk purse, of a manufactured hero, quite literally manufactured. It is an important testimonial to the power of the press and national politicians in creating myths.
Of course, we see that creative process repeated countless times in America’s brutal efforts abroad. Genuine monsters like Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince or Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu are granted status as good guys. Decent leaders, who happen not to be liked by America, with Ghaddafi being an excellent example, are vilified and even sometimes murdered.
With the complete disaster of the Vietnam holocaust (3 million Vietnamese were killed) and America still was humiliatingly defeated militarily, the establishment desperately needed a hero to make things seem better near the end. John McCain, son and grandson of American Admirals, got picked.
In fact, both McCain and Trump are genuine American grotesques, the kind of ugly folks the American empire calls on for its continued success.
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP AND CHINA AND HIS WHOLE APPROACH TO TRADE - HIS METHODS RESEMBLE THOSE OF SOME VERY UNSAVORY CHARACTERS - DANGERS HE REPRESENTS - JUST WHY THE UNITED STATES IS IN THE POSITION THAT IT IS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The US-China Decoupling
“The long, dense economic relationship appears to have passed its peak, writes Patrick Lawrence.”
"Trump’s position on Huawei gives the game away: If the company is truly a national security threat, it makes no sense to offer it as a chip to be bargained in trade talks with Beijing."
That is absolutely the case for Huawei and national security concerns.
Trump has been caught before in this same kind of contradictory stance, as with tariffs on steel and aluminum.
I think the truth is that he is a man ready to use any gimmick to get what he wants, regardless of logic or facts or principle. Another way to say that is to speak of a criminal mentality.
It is exactly what the mob has always done in making someone an offer they can’t refuse. “Don’t want to pay protection money? Well, don’t be surprised if your joint gets burned down.”
Trump essentially wants to transfer huge amounts of trade surplus from China to the United States, not by any change in the economic activity or policies of the two countries but by fiat.
But of course, the world doesn't work that way.
The United States' trade deficits are its own doing, not China's. The United States doesn’t save, and it doesn’t tax adequately. It consumes, and a productive country like China is only too pleased to supply what it wants. That makes a flow of goods in one direction and a flow of money in the other. Economics 101.
Trump seems to think he can command the wind and the waves. He has an immense ego, and there is the fact that he is a good deal less clever than he thinks he is.
Trump believes that by intimidation and threats, he can make something happen that cannot happen through the ordinary operations of the economies. In this we see him most like the thugs that came to run a number of European countries in the 1930s.
He genuinely does not understand - or if he understands, he doesn’t care - what is behind the surpluses and deficits and just insists that they will be changed as a matter of his personal will. Does that not remind us of anyone from history?
At any rate, it comes down to his admiring “the strong man” and believing he, and he alone, can play that role for the United States. And there are more than a few Americans that believe him too. After all, the great American journalist and historian who documented the rise and fall of the Nazis, William L. Shirer, once said that he thought the United States might be the first country to go fascist voluntarily. He based that thought on his observation of many attitudes and beliefs and trends in the United States.
Trump’s "MAGA" is nothing more than thinking you can make that heart-warming post-WWII slogan, “the American Dream,” come alive again, many decades later and in an entirely different set of circumstances. “The American Dream” was based in a world where almost every competitor was prostrate from war while America remained relatively unscathed. So, America supplied, for a while, a huge share of the world’s demands, but its share has been declining ever since.
In today's world, all the old competitors have not only come roaring back, but a lot of new ones have come into being, and that reality is the future.
Naturally, many Americans want to believe otherwise. Trump’s base – the nation’s Wal-Mart shoppers and the residents of its huge gulag of trailer parks - certainly does, and its hopes come tinged with everything from superstition to religiosity.
America’s elites, the members of its power establishment, do not believe in the same way, but they are deeply concerned about America’s relative decline. They have been working away for years on the problem, as in their past bashing of Japan or China, but they are not ready to work for fundamental change in America, as, for example, in its tax and savings structures and its grotesque inequalities.
They do believe that America’s still great remaining strength can be used to extract concessions from the world without sacrificing anything at home and without sacrificing its role as the center of world empire, a role that comes with many perks and privileges. And while most of them do not like Trump’s style or background, I think for now they are willing to see whether he can get the ugly job done. One thinks of the infamous German industrialists and bankers – as well as notable American ones – with their early support for Hitler, although I do not mean to say the situations are identical.
You can try fighting by the methods Trump is using, but those methods risk, through acts like the blithe laying on of massive new tariffs and sanctions and uttering threats and ultimatums, not only reduced economic activity in the world, they risk ultimately real wars.
Even if they don’t go so far as war, they are shaking up some fundamental post-WWII arrangements that America is going to miss. Decades-old allies, like some of those in Europe, are beginning to re-think their relationship with such a hostile, single-minded America and to glance in other directions, as towards the very China Trump attacks and towards Russia, a country whose openness to business would have resembled a miracle under the communists and whose wealth of natural resources offers altogether new opportunities.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The US-China Decoupling
“The long, dense economic relationship appears to have passed its peak, writes Patrick Lawrence.”
"Trump’s position on Huawei gives the game away: If the company is truly a national security threat, it makes no sense to offer it as a chip to be bargained in trade talks with Beijing."
That is absolutely the case for Huawei and national security concerns.
Trump has been caught before in this same kind of contradictory stance, as with tariffs on steel and aluminum.
I think the truth is that he is a man ready to use any gimmick to get what he wants, regardless of logic or facts or principle. Another way to say that is to speak of a criminal mentality.
It is exactly what the mob has always done in making someone an offer they can’t refuse. “Don’t want to pay protection money? Well, don’t be surprised if your joint gets burned down.”
Trump essentially wants to transfer huge amounts of trade surplus from China to the United States, not by any change in the economic activity or policies of the two countries but by fiat.
But of course, the world doesn't work that way.
The United States' trade deficits are its own doing, not China's. The United States doesn’t save, and it doesn’t tax adequately. It consumes, and a productive country like China is only too pleased to supply what it wants. That makes a flow of goods in one direction and a flow of money in the other. Economics 101.
Trump seems to think he can command the wind and the waves. He has an immense ego, and there is the fact that he is a good deal less clever than he thinks he is.
Trump believes that by intimidation and threats, he can make something happen that cannot happen through the ordinary operations of the economies. In this we see him most like the thugs that came to run a number of European countries in the 1930s.
He genuinely does not understand - or if he understands, he doesn’t care - what is behind the surpluses and deficits and just insists that they will be changed as a matter of his personal will. Does that not remind us of anyone from history?
At any rate, it comes down to his admiring “the strong man” and believing he, and he alone, can play that role for the United States. And there are more than a few Americans that believe him too. After all, the great American journalist and historian who documented the rise and fall of the Nazis, William L. Shirer, once said that he thought the United States might be the first country to go fascist voluntarily. He based that thought on his observation of many attitudes and beliefs and trends in the United States.
Trump’s "MAGA" is nothing more than thinking you can make that heart-warming post-WWII slogan, “the American Dream,” come alive again, many decades later and in an entirely different set of circumstances. “The American Dream” was based in a world where almost every competitor was prostrate from war while America remained relatively unscathed. So, America supplied, for a while, a huge share of the world’s demands, but its share has been declining ever since.
In today's world, all the old competitors have not only come roaring back, but a lot of new ones have come into being, and that reality is the future.
Naturally, many Americans want to believe otherwise. Trump’s base – the nation’s Wal-Mart shoppers and the residents of its huge gulag of trailer parks - certainly does, and its hopes come tinged with everything from superstition to religiosity.
America’s elites, the members of its power establishment, do not believe in the same way, but they are deeply concerned about America’s relative decline. They have been working away for years on the problem, as in their past bashing of Japan or China, but they are not ready to work for fundamental change in America, as, for example, in its tax and savings structures and its grotesque inequalities.
They do believe that America’s still great remaining strength can be used to extract concessions from the world without sacrificing anything at home and without sacrificing its role as the center of world empire, a role that comes with many perks and privileges. And while most of them do not like Trump’s style or background, I think for now they are willing to see whether he can get the ugly job done. One thinks of the infamous German industrialists and bankers – as well as notable American ones – with their early support for Hitler, although I do not mean to say the situations are identical.
You can try fighting by the methods Trump is using, but those methods risk, through acts like the blithe laying on of massive new tariffs and sanctions and uttering threats and ultimatums, not only reduced economic activity in the world, they risk ultimately real wars.
Even if they don’t go so far as war, they are shaking up some fundamental post-WWII arrangements that America is going to miss. Decades-old allies, like some of those in Europe, are beginning to re-think their relationship with such a hostile, single-minded America and to glance in other directions, as towards the very China Trump attacks and towards Russia, a country whose openness to business would have resembled a miracle under the communists and whose wealth of natural resources offers altogether new opportunities.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CURRENT REALITIES OF SPYING BY EVERY AMERICAN HI-TECH COMPANY AND THE POWERFUL NSA COMPARED TO FAKE COMPETITION-SUPPRESSING FEARS PLANTED ABOUT HUAWEI
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Is Huawei a security threat to Canada? Risks could be closer to home, says columnist"
Yes, of course.
Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and other American hi-tech outfits all serve as CIA and FBI information collectors and conduits.
Backdoors and secret malware are features of the American technology we openly embrace.
There is nothing bad about Huawei, except in the eyes of an American government trying to destroy what it has not been able to compete with, a government which has come to the patently ridiculous point of organized national prejudice.
Here's a test for our stellar team in Ottawa, whether to go along. My guess is that they will, showing no more initiative and independence than they have in virtually all our relationships today with America.
Oh, and then there's America's NSA with its tens of billions of dollars in supercomputers and sophisticated traps and gimmicks, spying on everything, even all the West’s corporate headquarters to steal designs and data.
Remember when Mrs. Merkel was quite upset, back in Obama's time, to discover that they were even monitoring her private cell phone?
With that kind of American activity going on 24-7, we should join in the paranoid suspicions over a perfectly good company with the best technology of its kind?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Is Huawei a security threat to Canada? Risks could be closer to home, says columnist"
Yes, of course.
Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and other American hi-tech outfits all serve as CIA and FBI information collectors and conduits.
Backdoors and secret malware are features of the American technology we openly embrace.
There is nothing bad about Huawei, except in the eyes of an American government trying to destroy what it has not been able to compete with, a government which has come to the patently ridiculous point of organized national prejudice.
Here's a test for our stellar team in Ottawa, whether to go along. My guess is that they will, showing no more initiative and independence than they have in virtually all our relationships today with America.
Oh, and then there's America's NSA with its tens of billions of dollars in supercomputers and sophisticated traps and gimmicks, spying on everything, even all the West’s corporate headquarters to steal designs and data.
Remember when Mrs. Merkel was quite upset, back in Obama's time, to discover that they were even monitoring her private cell phone?
With that kind of American activity going on 24-7, we should join in the paranoid suspicions over a perfectly good company with the best technology of its kind?
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE ON THE WAYS AMERICA USES NATO FOR ITS OWN BENEFIT - ONE OF THE AMERICAN POWER ESTABLISHMENT'S MOST FEARED POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS IN WORLD AFFAIRS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DR PAUL KINDLON IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“70 Years of European Peace... Not Counting Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, etc”
“Progressives claim that the existence of the EU is justified by virtue of the fact that there has been peace on the continent for more than 70 years”.
For the most part, a good brief statement.
However, it contains a fundamental flaw, and that is the connection between American imperialism and the EU.
The accurate statement, I believe, is the connection between American imperialism and NATO.
It is, at least in theory, entirely possible for the EU to remain intact and end its subservience to the United States, doing that by ending its connection with NATO.
A viable and robust European military force needs to be created. In that, Merkel and Macron are right, although I must say that it is one of the only matters on which I can agree with the disagreeable Macron.
The huge expansion in recent years of both NATO and the EU, including many insignificant and relatively poor states, was a mistake, but a mistake encouraged by America who uses that new reality as a lever of power.
Those small and less significant states feel beholden to America for their elevation and in effect serve as "poison pills" inside the organizations.
The fundamental problem is the occupation of Europe by America, still, three-quarters of a century after WWII. It literally makes no sense, unless your viewpoint is Washington’s.
Of course, the occupation enables the United States to minimize Europe's impact on the world. By rights, Europe should become one of the major powers in an emerging multi-polar world.
But that is an outcome the United States' power establishment finds unacceptable. Hence, it does everything it can to avoid it. And what could be more effective in working against it than having your potential, serious competitor accept occupation voluntarily, even helping to pay for the privilege of being occupied?
With that occupation come many forms of American interference in Europe’s internal affairs - from intelligence and security matters to industry and politics – all working towards continued dominance.
The final, decisive role America has for NATO is to prevent one of the American establishment’s most feared possible outcomes in world affairs, the development of a close relationship - even an alliance, but certainly a tight economic relationship - between the major European countries, especially Germany, and Russia.
As even a glance at a map will tell you, that is the natural order of things, not NATO, stretching, as it does, across thousands of miles of ocean. Russia and Europe have an immensely long shared history and many common interests, and Russia today is keen to do business as never before.
The United States and Europe really do not have such history and common interests. Distance and cultural differences plus the huge impediment of America's insistence in always regarding itself as undisputed leader conspire against the unnatural regime of NATO.
By the way, Trump's godawful rude statements and awkward actions only further emphasize that last point, just one of the reasons I've called him the most American of Presidents, and that is not intended as a compliment.
It is, however, something working its way into the consciousness of European leaders, and it is bound to have an effect on Europe's future status.
One last thought. The rise of right-wing, anti-EU forces in Europe quite possibly is being covertly assisted by American intelligence with money flows and propaganda assistance. That is not certain, but the fact that it is plausible tells us something about current arrangements.
You may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-trump-walk-away-from-nato-why-it-will-not-happen-even-if-he-has-the-authority-which-is-not-clear-natos-changed-purposes-serve-american-interests-so-why-shouldnt-it-pay/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DR PAUL KINDLON IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“70 Years of European Peace... Not Counting Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, etc”
“Progressives claim that the existence of the EU is justified by virtue of the fact that there has been peace on the continent for more than 70 years”.
For the most part, a good brief statement.
However, it contains a fundamental flaw, and that is the connection between American imperialism and the EU.
The accurate statement, I believe, is the connection between American imperialism and NATO.
It is, at least in theory, entirely possible for the EU to remain intact and end its subservience to the United States, doing that by ending its connection with NATO.
A viable and robust European military force needs to be created. In that, Merkel and Macron are right, although I must say that it is one of the only matters on which I can agree with the disagreeable Macron.
The huge expansion in recent years of both NATO and the EU, including many insignificant and relatively poor states, was a mistake, but a mistake encouraged by America who uses that new reality as a lever of power.
Those small and less significant states feel beholden to America for their elevation and in effect serve as "poison pills" inside the organizations.
The fundamental problem is the occupation of Europe by America, still, three-quarters of a century after WWII. It literally makes no sense, unless your viewpoint is Washington’s.
Of course, the occupation enables the United States to minimize Europe's impact on the world. By rights, Europe should become one of the major powers in an emerging multi-polar world.
But that is an outcome the United States' power establishment finds unacceptable. Hence, it does everything it can to avoid it. And what could be more effective in working against it than having your potential, serious competitor accept occupation voluntarily, even helping to pay for the privilege of being occupied?
With that occupation come many forms of American interference in Europe’s internal affairs - from intelligence and security matters to industry and politics – all working towards continued dominance.
The final, decisive role America has for NATO is to prevent one of the American establishment’s most feared possible outcomes in world affairs, the development of a close relationship - even an alliance, but certainly a tight economic relationship - between the major European countries, especially Germany, and Russia.
As even a glance at a map will tell you, that is the natural order of things, not NATO, stretching, as it does, across thousands of miles of ocean. Russia and Europe have an immensely long shared history and many common interests, and Russia today is keen to do business as never before.
The United States and Europe really do not have such history and common interests. Distance and cultural differences plus the huge impediment of America's insistence in always regarding itself as undisputed leader conspire against the unnatural regime of NATO.
By the way, Trump's godawful rude statements and awkward actions only further emphasize that last point, just one of the reasons I've called him the most American of Presidents, and that is not intended as a compliment.
It is, however, something working its way into the consciousness of European leaders, and it is bound to have an effect on Europe's future status.
One last thought. The rise of right-wing, anti-EU forces in Europe quite possibly is being covertly assisted by American intelligence with money flows and propaganda assistance. That is not certain, but the fact that it is plausible tells us something about current arrangements.
You may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-trump-walk-away-from-nato-why-it-will-not-happen-even-if-he-has-the-authority-which-is-not-clear-natos-changed-purposes-serve-american-interests-so-why-shouldnt-it-pay/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE INSUFFERABLE PRETENSIONS OF FACEBOOK AND NATIONAL ELECTIONS - CANADA FALLS FOR AMERICAN INTERFERENCE IN OUR ELECTIONS IN THE NAME OF COUNTERING FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Facebook says it will blow whistle on attempts to interfere in election”
Unelected representatives of an out-of-control mega-corporation, Facebook, one which has demonstrated for years that it cannot be trusted about anything personal, are suddenly going to help police Canada's national election?
Truly, the whole Committee of Deputy Ministers' election initiative sounds like something dreamed up at the Russia and China Desks down in Langley, Virginia.
You know, something like that phony front organization, the Lima Group, Chrystia Freeland heads up for them as they seek to topple a democratic government?
We should have absolutely nothing to do with any of this. It smells to high heaven of being an American intelligence agency game.
Essentially, it comes down to a kind of interference in our election in the name of countering foreign interference. It's entree, a foot in the doorway.
Our leaders may well have no idea of what it is they actually are signing onto. Trudeau and Freeland sure have not distinguished themselves in that regard.
We need no American gimmicks for election security. Just the opposite, rejecting such nonsense is itself a security measure.
________________________
Response to a comment saying Facebook is acting as if it is a world government:
Well said.
Just an awful outfit.
And completely in the pocket of American intelligence.
________________________
Response to a comment saying, “Mark Zuckerberg seems like a trustworthy sort of guy”:
"Mark Zuckerberg seems like a trustworthy sort of guy"?
It is hard to believe anyone sincerely wrote that.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Facebook says it will blow whistle on attempts to interfere in election”
Unelected representatives of an out-of-control mega-corporation, Facebook, one which has demonstrated for years that it cannot be trusted about anything personal, are suddenly going to help police Canada's national election?
Truly, the whole Committee of Deputy Ministers' election initiative sounds like something dreamed up at the Russia and China Desks down in Langley, Virginia.
You know, something like that phony front organization, the Lima Group, Chrystia Freeland heads up for them as they seek to topple a democratic government?
We should have absolutely nothing to do with any of this. It smells to high heaven of being an American intelligence agency game.
Essentially, it comes down to a kind of interference in our election in the name of countering foreign interference. It's entree, a foot in the doorway.
Our leaders may well have no idea of what it is they actually are signing onto. Trudeau and Freeland sure have not distinguished themselves in that regard.
We need no American gimmicks for election security. Just the opposite, rejecting such nonsense is itself a security measure.
________________________
Response to a comment saying Facebook is acting as if it is a world government:
Well said.
Just an awful outfit.
And completely in the pocket of American intelligence.
________________________
Response to a comment saying, “Mark Zuckerberg seems like a trustworthy sort of guy”:
"Mark Zuckerberg seems like a trustworthy sort of guy"?
It is hard to believe anyone sincerely wrote that.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IT HAS BECOME A REGULAR EVENT FOR THE PRESS TO IMMEDIATELY CELEBRATE WEALTHY PEOPLE WHO SAY THEY ARE GIVING AWAY PART OF THEIR FORTUNE BEFORE THEY'VE DONE ANYTHING - WORDS ON AMERICAN FOUNDATIONS AND WHAT THEY DO
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Mackenzie Bezos [Mr. Amazon’s ex-wife] will give half of her $36 billion fortune away to charity”
Well, let’s see her actually give some of it away before she receives all the lavish praise and free publicity about her virtue.
Remember what Mr. Facebook said he’d do a while back?
Lots of publicity for a much-disliked man, but not a sign so far of anything real happening.
___________________________
Response to a comment about tax dodges:
That is exactly what American foundations, like the Gates’ Foundation, are all about.
They also provide an elaborate mechanism for endlessly signaling the founder’s virtue. The large numbers of an intact fortune, repeatedly cited in connection with the foundation’s name, do cause a great many to praise the founder’s merit for the rest of his days.
American foundations protect capital from tax so that the founder can play God with that capital as a lifetime post-career occupation. Charity does indeed get something, but it comes at the price of leaving a fortune untaxed and still usable for the founder’s fancies.
And what qualifies as “charity” under American law is quite a stretch at times.
The foundations also effectively provide elaborate lasting memorials to the founder after his or her death, serving much the same purpose as the building of great ancient tombs.
If you really want to be magnanimous, you do what Andrew Carnegie did. He literally gave most of his fortune away, and he gave it to the most carefully-considered and genuinely-worthy causes.
We see damned little of that, but we hear lots of noise around the "philanthropy" of some immensely wealthy people. It’s a new form of celebrity.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Mackenzie Bezos [Mr. Amazon’s ex-wife] will give half of her $36 billion fortune away to charity”
Well, let’s see her actually give some of it away before she receives all the lavish praise and free publicity about her virtue.
Remember what Mr. Facebook said he’d do a while back?
Lots of publicity for a much-disliked man, but not a sign so far of anything real happening.
___________________________
Response to a comment about tax dodges:
That is exactly what American foundations, like the Gates’ Foundation, are all about.
They also provide an elaborate mechanism for endlessly signaling the founder’s virtue. The large numbers of an intact fortune, repeatedly cited in connection with the foundation’s name, do cause a great many to praise the founder’s merit for the rest of his days.
American foundations protect capital from tax so that the founder can play God with that capital as a lifetime post-career occupation. Charity does indeed get something, but it comes at the price of leaving a fortune untaxed and still usable for the founder’s fancies.
And what qualifies as “charity” under American law is quite a stretch at times.
The foundations also effectively provide elaborate lasting memorials to the founder after his or her death, serving much the same purpose as the building of great ancient tombs.
If you really want to be magnanimous, you do what Andrew Carnegie did. He literally gave most of his fortune away, and he gave it to the most carefully-considered and genuinely-worthy causes.
We see damned little of that, but we hear lots of noise around the "philanthropy" of some immensely wealthy people. It’s a new form of celebrity.
Monday, May 27, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FAIRLY FACILE PIECE ON CHINA'S LEADERSHIP FACING POSSIBLE DANGER IF THE TRADE WAR GOES ON FOR LONG - THE NOTION THAT CHINA'S "SOCIAL CONTRACT" MIGHT BE BROKEN IF THE STATE FAILS TO DELIVER THE GOODS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DON PITTIS IN CBC NEWS
“A long trade war could threaten Communist Party legitimacy
“Looming U.S. election offers China short-term clout but it faces long-term dangers”
There is a grain of truth behind this analysis, but it is only a small, small grain.
I think the idea of the CPC losing face in China through a long trade war and "breaking the unwritten social contract" is largely theoretical. Indeed, it is largely wishful thinking.
It's the kind of stuff we expect from American "think tanks" whose fantastical outputs are always constructed on some element of plausibility.
China has built an entirely new model for national growth and development, and it works, absolutely. The many intelligent people running companies and organizations in China understand that.
The system has delivered. Indeed, it has delivered one of the great miracles of our age. I rank the rise of China in a few decades as being as remarkable as the coming of personal computers and the Internet.
Let’s take just one example of many. China now has 30,000 kilometers of high-speed rail in operation while we have none, and China is a very mountainous country making such construction far more demanding. The trains are fast compared to ours, but China’s just announced a new mag-lev train which travels at close to 600 kilometers per hour.
The train will revolutionize travel, likely making Elon Musk’s dingy sewer pipes in the ground irrelevant and eventually eliminating some forms of air travel. But speaking of flying, China is building more than two hundred new airports its planners calculate will be needed in just over fifteen years.
I think very few of our people have a grasp on the gigantic achievements in China. A temporary set-back in trade cannot overshadow these immense achievements, and it will be temporary, remembering that the United States is significantly hurting its own people with higher prices and other consequences as a result of Trump’s economic illiteracy, with his very own constituency likely being hurt the most.
The Chinese, far more than is the case for us, take the long view. Trump represents an unpleasant occurrence which must be endured for a time, and the Chinese are very good at doing just that.
This analysis also overlooks the rather intense patriotism of many Chinese. I say that having known many Chinese students studying in Canada. Their patriotism is not based on parades or speeches, but reflects deeply in-bred attitudes of a society with more than two thousand years of history.
________________________
Response to a comment:
Remember that the United States is significantly hurting its own people with higher prices and other consequences as a result of Trump’s economic illiteracy, with his very own constituency, those of modest means (his big “wall” supporters) who search for bargains, likely being hurt the most.
Farmers in the Midwest aren't doing too well either with the loss of huge soybean sales to China. And those smart mandarins running China will keep looking for political vulnerabilities to specifically target as retaliation.
And Trump has shown us, again and again in all his initiatives, a pattern of shooting off his mouth, acting rashly, and then quietly backing off.
He really is a rather cowardly lion.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DON PITTIS IN CBC NEWS
“A long trade war could threaten Communist Party legitimacy
“Looming U.S. election offers China short-term clout but it faces long-term dangers”
There is a grain of truth behind this analysis, but it is only a small, small grain.
I think the idea of the CPC losing face in China through a long trade war and "breaking the unwritten social contract" is largely theoretical. Indeed, it is largely wishful thinking.
It's the kind of stuff we expect from American "think tanks" whose fantastical outputs are always constructed on some element of plausibility.
China has built an entirely new model for national growth and development, and it works, absolutely. The many intelligent people running companies and organizations in China understand that.
The system has delivered. Indeed, it has delivered one of the great miracles of our age. I rank the rise of China in a few decades as being as remarkable as the coming of personal computers and the Internet.
Let’s take just one example of many. China now has 30,000 kilometers of high-speed rail in operation while we have none, and China is a very mountainous country making such construction far more demanding. The trains are fast compared to ours, but China’s just announced a new mag-lev train which travels at close to 600 kilometers per hour.
The train will revolutionize travel, likely making Elon Musk’s dingy sewer pipes in the ground irrelevant and eventually eliminating some forms of air travel. But speaking of flying, China is building more than two hundred new airports its planners calculate will be needed in just over fifteen years.
I think very few of our people have a grasp on the gigantic achievements in China. A temporary set-back in trade cannot overshadow these immense achievements, and it will be temporary, remembering that the United States is significantly hurting its own people with higher prices and other consequences as a result of Trump’s economic illiteracy, with his very own constituency likely being hurt the most.
The Chinese, far more than is the case for us, take the long view. Trump represents an unpleasant occurrence which must be endured for a time, and the Chinese are very good at doing just that.
This analysis also overlooks the rather intense patriotism of many Chinese. I say that having known many Chinese students studying in Canada. Their patriotism is not based on parades or speeches, but reflects deeply in-bred attitudes of a society with more than two thousand years of history.
________________________
Response to a comment:
Remember that the United States is significantly hurting its own people with higher prices and other consequences as a result of Trump’s economic illiteracy, with his very own constituency, those of modest means (his big “wall” supporters) who search for bargains, likely being hurt the most.
Farmers in the Midwest aren't doing too well either with the loss of huge soybean sales to China. And those smart mandarins running China will keep looking for political vulnerabilities to specifically target as retaliation.
And Trump has shown us, again and again in all his initiatives, a pattern of shooting off his mouth, acting rashly, and then quietly backing off.
He really is a rather cowardly lion.
Sunday, May 26, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ACTOR JON VOIGHT COMPARES TRUMP TO LINCOLN - THE ALT-RIGHT NEARLY PEES ITS PANTS WITH EXCITEMENT - I AM REMINDED OF A QUOTE FROM WRITER TRUMAN CAPOTE ABOUT ACTORS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN INVESTMENTWATCH
“Jon Voight’s POWERFUL Pro-Trump speech! Greatest President Since Lincoln!”
I can't imagine anyone wanting to quote Jon Voight, much less getting all choked-up about anything he’s said.
Over the years, he's said some remarkably dumb things.
One that stands out in memory is his saying he didn't think President Obama loved Israel enough.
Loved Israel enough? That's what a President of the United States is supposed to do?
Voight reminds me of an old quote from author Truman Capote. Capote hung around with the Hollywood crowd a good deal, being a prominent screenwriter and someone who liked to attend parties, doing lots of drinking and eavesdropping on the conversations of others.
Capote said actors were dumb, and the better the actors were, the dumber they were.
Jon Voight has definitely been a good actor, sometimes an excellent one.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN INVESTMENTWATCH
“Jon Voight’s POWERFUL Pro-Trump speech! Greatest President Since Lincoln!”
I can't imagine anyone wanting to quote Jon Voight, much less getting all choked-up about anything he’s said.
Over the years, he's said some remarkably dumb things.
One that stands out in memory is his saying he didn't think President Obama loved Israel enough.
Loved Israel enough? That's what a President of the United States is supposed to do?
Voight reminds me of an old quote from author Truman Capote. Capote hung around with the Hollywood crowd a good deal, being a prominent screenwriter and someone who liked to attend parties, doing lots of drinking and eavesdropping on the conversations of others.
Capote said actors were dumb, and the better the actors were, the dumber they were.
Jon Voight has definitely been a good actor, sometimes an excellent one.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THERESA MAY FINALLY DECIDES TO STOP TORTURING BRITAIN AND THE EU TO STEP DOWN - BREXIT WAS NOT HER ONLY GROSS FAILING - BRITAIN'S APPALLING RECORD OF LEADERS IN RECENT DECADES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MOON OF ALABAMA
“The Leaden Lady Steps Down
“It was high time for this to happen
“Theresa May has announced she is to stand down as Prime Minister on 7 June following months of mounting pressure over her failure to deliver Brexit”
It was indeed high time that Theresa May leave her office.
She is the second worst prime minister in modern British history.
It is just embarrassing what she has put Britain and the entire EU through over Brexit.
And it's not just what she's done around Brexit.
It's also her utterly servile posture towards American imperialism.
Good God, that whole ugly, made-up Skripal Affair with no evidence ever supplied and no one allowed to even talk to the "victims?"
All to increase the amount of Russophobia in the world and please the American government?
Making the most horrific charges in public without evidence against a major world leader?
And imagine wasting countless billions on the new Trident missile submarines and two huge aircraft carriers when the county's basic health services are in peril and British railroads can't even maintain good service? Some priorities.
Her appointment of Gavin Williamson as Defense Minister, a man who made some even more insane statements in public than Donald Trump? Well, at least she sacked him, but surely a five-minute interview should have confirmed him unfit to hold any cabinet post, much less defense?
She ranks second worst only to David Cameron, who created, needlessly and foolishly, the entire Brexit crisis.
Imagine thinking you can hold a general referendum on a devastatingly complex matter like Brexit, one which baffles experts?
Never mind its being called democratic, it was just plain stupid, in the extreme, asking people to vote on an immensely consequential matter with little understanding of it.
And at a time when xenophobia, never too far from Britain’s public consciousness, was rearing its ugly head. Something guaranteed to drive “leave” votes for the wrong reasons.
But Boris Johnson? The fart in a church service? As Prime Minister?
Britain really has had some terrible leadership for decades.
Good old Tony Blair and his lying and cheating help to illegally invade Iraq and kill a million people. Unlike May and Cameron, Blair was “effective” in getting what he wanted. It’s just that what he wanted was completely evil.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MOON OF ALABAMA
“The Leaden Lady Steps Down
“It was high time for this to happen
“Theresa May has announced she is to stand down as Prime Minister on 7 June following months of mounting pressure over her failure to deliver Brexit”
It was indeed high time that Theresa May leave her office.
She is the second worst prime minister in modern British history.
It is just embarrassing what she has put Britain and the entire EU through over Brexit.
And it's not just what she's done around Brexit.
It's also her utterly servile posture towards American imperialism.
Good God, that whole ugly, made-up Skripal Affair with no evidence ever supplied and no one allowed to even talk to the "victims?"
All to increase the amount of Russophobia in the world and please the American government?
Making the most horrific charges in public without evidence against a major world leader?
And imagine wasting countless billions on the new Trident missile submarines and two huge aircraft carriers when the county's basic health services are in peril and British railroads can't even maintain good service? Some priorities.
Her appointment of Gavin Williamson as Defense Minister, a man who made some even more insane statements in public than Donald Trump? Well, at least she sacked him, but surely a five-minute interview should have confirmed him unfit to hold any cabinet post, much less defense?
She ranks second worst only to David Cameron, who created, needlessly and foolishly, the entire Brexit crisis.
Imagine thinking you can hold a general referendum on a devastatingly complex matter like Brexit, one which baffles experts?
Never mind its being called democratic, it was just plain stupid, in the extreme, asking people to vote on an immensely consequential matter with little understanding of it.
And at a time when xenophobia, never too far from Britain’s public consciousness, was rearing its ugly head. Something guaranteed to drive “leave” votes for the wrong reasons.
But Boris Johnson? The fart in a church service? As Prime Minister?
Britain really has had some terrible leadership for decades.
Good old Tony Blair and his lying and cheating help to illegally invade Iraq and kill a million people. Unlike May and Cameron, Blair was “effective” in getting what he wanted. It’s just that what he wanted was completely evil.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MICROSOFT'S INVOLVEMENT IN YET ANOTHER BIG BROTHER HORROR - "ELECTIONGUARD" FOR VOTING MACHINES JOINS "NEWSGUARD" WITH ITS 1984 CONCEPT OF ASSURING READERS ABOUT THE TRUTH OF WHAT THEY READ - A FEW WORDS ON MICROSOFT'S UNINSPIRING HISTORY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WHITNEY WEBB IN MINT PRESS
“Microsoft’s ElectionGuard a Trojan Horse for a Military-Industrial Takeover of US Elections”
“The fact that we are handing over the keys of American democracy to the military-industrial complex — it’s like giving the keys to the henhouse to a fox and saying, ‘here come in and take whatever you want.’ It’s obviously dangerous.
“Earlier this month, tech giant Microsoft announced its solution to “protect” American elections from interference, which it has named “ElectionGuard.”
“In this investigation, MintPress will reveal how ElectionGuard was developed by companies with deep ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities and Israeli military intelligence
“Newsguard [an insidious “truth-in-Internet-media-guarantee” system] was among the first initiatives that comprise Microsoft’s “Defending Democracy” program, a program that the tech giant created under the auspices of protecting American “democratic processes from cyber-enabled interference [which] have become a critical concern.” Through its partnership with Microsoft, Newsguard has been installed in public libraries and universities throughout the country, even while private-sector companies have continued to avoid adopting the problematic browser plug-in”
Quite apart from all of Microsoft's connections with the military and state security, to my mind it is one of the last hi-tech companies I would trust about any important matter.
Over many years, Microsoft indulged many predatory practices in its designs and marketing. It worked to put other firms out of business with deliberately-created compatibility problems.
Such sharp practices are part of how Bill Gates accumulated enough money to have a Foundation where he can pose as a kind of secular Dalai Lama and spend his days telling people who've approached him for project money whether they'll get it. As Robert Mitchum once said about film acting, “It sure beats working."
Microsoft's treatment of millions of customers during its introduction of Windows 10 was just shameful in my view, intruding into people's computers without being asked and replacing something people had purchased with something none of them had asked for.
It truly bordered on theft or vandalism, only Microsoft styled the activity as giving something free to its customers.
In the process, Microsoft caused countless incidents of damaging people's files. Large numbers of people discovered incompatibilities in what was downloaded that Microsoft had not anticipated. There were many stories of small businesses hurt and people literally crying over what had been done to their computers.
And it left people with a new operating system that had some dark corners to it in the way it transmitted customer information to Microsoft, all without transparency or permission.
No, Microsoft is an extremely disagreeable company, and putting them into a central role around American election ballots does seem to me reckless.
We also have numerous anecdotes from Africa concerning vaccines associated with the Gates Foundation which proved to contain unauthorized birth control chemicals. I have no way of knowing the truth of such stories, but there have been so many, it seems impossible they are without foundation.
All in all, an outfit to avoid wherever possible, and certainly not one to hand your elections over to.
By the way, another outstanding article on a very important topic by Whitney Webb.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WHITNEY WEBB IN MINT PRESS
“Microsoft’s ElectionGuard a Trojan Horse for a Military-Industrial Takeover of US Elections”
“The fact that we are handing over the keys of American democracy to the military-industrial complex — it’s like giving the keys to the henhouse to a fox and saying, ‘here come in and take whatever you want.’ It’s obviously dangerous.
“Earlier this month, tech giant Microsoft announced its solution to “protect” American elections from interference, which it has named “ElectionGuard.”
“In this investigation, MintPress will reveal how ElectionGuard was developed by companies with deep ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities and Israeli military intelligence
“Newsguard [an insidious “truth-in-Internet-media-guarantee” system] was among the first initiatives that comprise Microsoft’s “Defending Democracy” program, a program that the tech giant created under the auspices of protecting American “democratic processes from cyber-enabled interference [which] have become a critical concern.” Through its partnership with Microsoft, Newsguard has been installed in public libraries and universities throughout the country, even while private-sector companies have continued to avoid adopting the problematic browser plug-in”
Quite apart from all of Microsoft's connections with the military and state security, to my mind it is one of the last hi-tech companies I would trust about any important matter.
Over many years, Microsoft indulged many predatory practices in its designs and marketing. It worked to put other firms out of business with deliberately-created compatibility problems.
Such sharp practices are part of how Bill Gates accumulated enough money to have a Foundation where he can pose as a kind of secular Dalai Lama and spend his days telling people who've approached him for project money whether they'll get it. As Robert Mitchum once said about film acting, “It sure beats working."
Microsoft's treatment of millions of customers during its introduction of Windows 10 was just shameful in my view, intruding into people's computers without being asked and replacing something people had purchased with something none of them had asked for.
It truly bordered on theft or vandalism, only Microsoft styled the activity as giving something free to its customers.
In the process, Microsoft caused countless incidents of damaging people's files. Large numbers of people discovered incompatibilities in what was downloaded that Microsoft had not anticipated. There were many stories of small businesses hurt and people literally crying over what had been done to their computers.
And it left people with a new operating system that had some dark corners to it in the way it transmitted customer information to Microsoft, all without transparency or permission.
No, Microsoft is an extremely disagreeable company, and putting them into a central role around American election ballots does seem to me reckless.
We also have numerous anecdotes from Africa concerning vaccines associated with the Gates Foundation which proved to contain unauthorized birth control chemicals. I have no way of knowing the truth of such stories, but there have been so many, it seems impossible they are without foundation.
All in all, an outfit to avoid wherever possible, and certainly not one to hand your elections over to.
By the way, another outstanding article on a very important topic by Whitney Webb.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WORDS ABOUT A SCIENCE FICTION MASTERPIECE ON ITS FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY, RIDLEY SCOTT'S "ALIEN" - THE IMPORTANCE OF CASTING IN FILMS IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED - A COUPLE OF EARLIER GREAT SCIENCE FICTION FILMS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO A REVIEW BY ED CUMMING OF A CLASSIC FILM IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Alien: How Ridley Scott’s masterpiece has stayed relevant for 40 years
“The intergalactic horror film remains one of the most influential films in recent history”
“Alien,” and only Ridley Scott's original, none of the truly awful sequels, was indeed a masterpiece.
It ranks with the greatest science fiction films ever made.
It had a solid basic story to tell, and it told it extremely well. Great cinematography and editing.
Some of the scenes, such as that of the crew landing on the alien world in response to a beacon call, will remind old aficionados of some bubble gum trading cards of the 1950s – card sets like Bowman’s Jets, Rockets, and Spacemen, 1951, or Topps’ Space, 1958.
_______________________
If you’re interested, I’ve collected them and others on-line:
http://chuckmannon-sporttradingcards4.blogspot.com/
http://chuckmannon-sporttradingcardsvolume2.blogspot.com/
________________________
I attribute a good part of the success of “Alien” not to any special effects, although it does have those and they stand up well after forty years, but to the casting, something so often overlooked in science fiction films.
The cast made a wonderful ensemble, each totally believable in his or her role and each reinforcing the other cast members. You really felt something for this little group of people locked into a terrifying situation deep in space.
That is so true, it is hard to think of changing even one member of the cast without reducing the film’s effectiveness. That is something quite rare, and I can only recall a few other instances.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still,” and only the original 1951 version, has that same quality of everyone being so perfect for their parts that the entire film is lifted. This film also has a woman heroine, Patricia Neal, in what I think of as the performance of a lifetime. It was directed by Robert Wise and uses, somewhat late in the day, many techniques of film noir and uses them superbly well.
“The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” again only the original version from 1956, and directed beautifully by a young Don Siegel, also had absolutely perfect casting. One of the stars, Dana Wynter, qualifies I think in this film as the most beautiful 1950s-style woman of the decade. Every member of the cast is indispensable. Just perfect.
I don’t know whether Ridley Scott ever identified his sources for the story of “Alien,” but, being an old science fiction fan, I know them.
The main one was a ‘B” film from the 1950s, called “It, the Terror from Beyond Space,” starring Marshall Thompson. All the essential storyline for Alien is there, a low-tech production in venerable black-and-white.
Another “B” film, from the 1960s, “Planet of Vampires” starring Barry Sullivan has a different story, but the sequence with the discovery of the dead giant lifeform sitting in a chair is instantly recognizable.
_____________________
Response to a comment:
Yes, I tried to like Scott's "Prometheus," but it really was a failure. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
I think it proves how unimportant special effects can be, because it had them in spades.
But it lacked a solid story to tell, and, frankly, I thought some of the cast quite awful.
____________________
Response to a comment:
Yes, the Nostromo was refreshingly old and shabby instead of all spotless.
And how fitting that it was a giant ore-hauling ship, like one of those monster trucks and diggers that work in the Alberta tar sands.
______________________
Response to a comment about Sigourney Weaver’s role:
A true observation. Sigourney Weaver was terrific.
And when I saw the film again recently, I was struck by how very young she was at the time.
By the way, she made an interesting little film in Canada in 2006, called "Snowcake," one of the wonderful Alan Rickman’s last appearances.
It’s "small" film, but she is terrific as an autistic woman, and film has some very touching scenes.
COMMENT POSTED TO A REVIEW BY ED CUMMING OF A CLASSIC FILM IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Alien: How Ridley Scott’s masterpiece has stayed relevant for 40 years
“The intergalactic horror film remains one of the most influential films in recent history”
“Alien,” and only Ridley Scott's original, none of the truly awful sequels, was indeed a masterpiece.
It ranks with the greatest science fiction films ever made.
It had a solid basic story to tell, and it told it extremely well. Great cinematography and editing.
Some of the scenes, such as that of the crew landing on the alien world in response to a beacon call, will remind old aficionados of some bubble gum trading cards of the 1950s – card sets like Bowman’s Jets, Rockets, and Spacemen, 1951, or Topps’ Space, 1958.
_______________________
If you’re interested, I’ve collected them and others on-line:
http://chuckmannon-sporttradingcards4.blogspot.com/
http://chuckmannon-sporttradingcardsvolume2.blogspot.com/
________________________
I attribute a good part of the success of “Alien” not to any special effects, although it does have those and they stand up well after forty years, but to the casting, something so often overlooked in science fiction films.
The cast made a wonderful ensemble, each totally believable in his or her role and each reinforcing the other cast members. You really felt something for this little group of people locked into a terrifying situation deep in space.
That is so true, it is hard to think of changing even one member of the cast without reducing the film’s effectiveness. That is something quite rare, and I can only recall a few other instances.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still,” and only the original 1951 version, has that same quality of everyone being so perfect for their parts that the entire film is lifted. This film also has a woman heroine, Patricia Neal, in what I think of as the performance of a lifetime. It was directed by Robert Wise and uses, somewhat late in the day, many techniques of film noir and uses them superbly well.
“The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” again only the original version from 1956, and directed beautifully by a young Don Siegel, also had absolutely perfect casting. One of the stars, Dana Wynter, qualifies I think in this film as the most beautiful 1950s-style woman of the decade. Every member of the cast is indispensable. Just perfect.
I don’t know whether Ridley Scott ever identified his sources for the story of “Alien,” but, being an old science fiction fan, I know them.
The main one was a ‘B” film from the 1950s, called “It, the Terror from Beyond Space,” starring Marshall Thompson. All the essential storyline for Alien is there, a low-tech production in venerable black-and-white.
Another “B” film, from the 1960s, “Planet of Vampires” starring Barry Sullivan has a different story, but the sequence with the discovery of the dead giant lifeform sitting in a chair is instantly recognizable.
_____________________
Response to a comment:
Yes, I tried to like Scott's "Prometheus," but it really was a failure. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
I think it proves how unimportant special effects can be, because it had them in spades.
But it lacked a solid story to tell, and, frankly, I thought some of the cast quite awful.
____________________
Response to a comment:
Yes, the Nostromo was refreshingly old and shabby instead of all spotless.
And how fitting that it was a giant ore-hauling ship, like one of those monster trucks and diggers that work in the Alberta tar sands.
______________________
Response to a comment about Sigourney Weaver’s role:
A true observation. Sigourney Weaver was terrific.
And when I saw the film again recently, I was struck by how very young she was at the time.
By the way, she made an interesting little film in Canada in 2006, called "Snowcake," one of the wonderful Alan Rickman’s last appearances.
It’s "small" film, but she is terrific as an autistic woman, and film has some very touching scenes.
Saturday, May 25, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHAT THE CURRENT SCANDALS IN WASHINGTON MEAN - UGLY HABITS OF BOTH PARTIES IN AMERICAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS HAVE TAKEN HOLD IN THEIR OWN CAPITAL - A DANGEROUS MAN AND HIS DANGEROUS OPPONENTS - MONEY, THE MIDEAST, AND WORLD STABILITY - LAST DAYS OF ROME?
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON THE STILL-SWIRLING SCANDALS AROUND AMERICA’S 2016 NATIONAL ELECTION
While I am not a political partisan of any party, I believe there can be little doubt that important American agency heads and senior Democratic figures plotted along several lines either to discredit Trump before the election or to deprive him of office after the election.
He was viewed as a political outsider, a maverick, an unwelcome, intrusive figure whose entrance on the national stage might upset a lot of people’s relationships and plans. And it didn’t help that he was a rude and awkward man, given to expressing himself at times in words you might expect to see scratched inside a stall door at a public toilet.
All indications suggest that Obama - the always-smiling but taciturn and secrecy-embracing Obama, his record on whistleblowers and leakers as well as his eight-year record of bombing countless people demonstrating him as being quite ruthless - led this effort, closely allied with Hillary Clinton, the woman, we know from documents, who cheated repeatedly in the Democratic primary campaign to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders.
These are ruthless people, although most of the public is not used to thinking of American political figures in that way. It is a hard thing perhaps for ordinary Americans to absorb the idea that their own country, “sweet land of liberty” as it’s termed in the national theology, is run along lines, not of respect for democracy and rule of law, but of what is sniggered at in Third-world lands.
The totality of the Democrats’ efforts – consulting with discreditable people abroad, paying an ex-spy to create a false dossier on a political candidate, spying on a political campaign, making outrageous public charges, and still other acts – does seriously flirt with subverting democracy and Constitutional government, and that actually approaches the definition of treason.
However, I cannot find myself entirely outraged by the dark series of events because, for me, Trump’s own behaviors are so outrageous and extremely dangerous that they tend to overshadow what the others did. I don’t exonerate them, but we are now faced with terrifying new dangers both to peace and to the health and stability of the world’s economy.
And it is not to be said that the Democrats understood and anticipated such developments and are at least to be partly excused for that reason. No, indeed, they very much contributed to bringing it all on.
The Democrats’ activity reflects the heightened sense of privilege and exceptionalism we now see in so many - indeed in most – of the words and deeds coming from Washington. America’s establishment has comfortably assumed a belief in its being God’s contemporary chosen people, or, in the outrageously self-serving words of Madeline Albright, the “indispensable nation.” Well, considering yourself as indispensable and chosen by God has always had some terrible consequences for those wielding great power. We have the eloquent testimony of Shakespeare’s tragedies and histories to just that effect.
Trump was targeted because he was something of an outsider, someone who hi-jacked, in effect, one of the two old-line political parties, depriving other establishment figures, old-line Republicans like the Bushes or Romneys, of a nomination that “should” have belonged to one of them.
That sense of things does come with something of a threat to the prevailing system of the American power establishment, a system where both parties, no matter what their campaign words, always end by closely supporting the American plutocracy, its empire, and all of the agencies of government concerned with maintaining and extending the empire, especially the Pentagon and the CIA. Even a suggestion that an outsider might represent a threat to that established order was enough to drive a number of insiders to distraction.
Normally, those who challenge the establishment in any fashion are simply allowed to say their piece while being largely ignored by the press and other politicians, having few of their words reach most Americans, as well as suffering the tremendous impact of a campaign-finance drought, those funds always overwhelmingly being gifts from the wealthy. Tulsi Gabbard is the best contemporary example of that approach. There have been others, people with various points of view, from Ralph Nader to Ron Paul.
But a unique set of circumstances in 2016, enabled an “outsider” to get inside under the edge of the big-top tent and assume a position at center ring under the spotlights. The main contributing circumstance, I believe, was the nature of the Democrat’s own candidate, Hillary Clinton, a woman who inspires a great deal of fear and hostility, both outside and inside her own party. But the Democrats were stuck with her because her husband, Bill, has been the key link for years in a supply chain of large campaign-fund donors. No one ignores money in American politics. Had someone else run, most of these events likely would not have happened, and Trump would not now be President.
The new dangers to peace to which I referred can also be at least partly attributed to the work of the Democrats and their senior agency heads. Here is the reason. Trump felt seriously threatened at various points, as we know from reports. One of his ways of dealing with the threat was to approach some powerful and influential people for support and money, people whose primary focus was not the American political establishment but Israel.
The money would provide a war chest for the 2020 election campaign as well as against the threat of a costly impeachment. We’ve only learned recently from an analysis of old tax records that Trump is far less wealthy than anyone had imagined, having been burdened with huge debts for years.
Trump got what he wanted, increasing his sense of security, but the price demanded saw him give away things in the Middle East that were not his to give and begin a seriously threatening campaign against Iran, a country which Israel detests but one which had followed the letter of the law scrupulously in its multi-party nuclear agreement as well as being a country which has started no war in its modern history, despite having had a vicious war launched against it in the 1980s. Its record in wars and strife, despite the rhetoric of Trump or Bolton or Pompeo, compares immensely favorably with those of the United States and Israel.
The new dangers to economic stability are largely Trump’s work, his constant noisy haranguing, his many threats, his arbitrary imposition of large new tariffs, and his creation of an entire new branch of public service, one dedicated to illegally sanctioning people all over the world. I say “illegally” because all of the sanctions represent efforts to enforce American law on other people, ignoring the rule of law in other countries and ignoring virtually all international law and diplomatic protocol.
But while Trump is particularly rude and loud about the way he approaches other countries, the essence of what he tries to do is supported quietly by the American establishment, all of them from both parties. Big matters such as the rise of China and new relationships between Germany and Russia have been establishment concerns for decades. They foreshadow the emergence of a brave new world order, one very much not welcomed by America’s establishment.
The American establishment dreads its relative decline in importance to the world’s economy and its geopolitics. So, they appear, all of them, willing to support, at least for now, Trump’s crude efforts to extract concessions from countries like China by methods which really do reflect traditional mafia methods of gaining footholds in other people’s businesses, with “offers they can’t refuse.”
In the 1950s and 1960s Chicago where I grew up, restaurants and other businesses periodically burnt down for no explained reason. It was widely understood that it was the price of having refused to cooperate with “The Outfit,” to pay the required fees for services such as “protection,” that they offered.
So, we have an extremely complex and devious situation in Washington. Senior members of one major party came close to treason in their opposition to a newcomer. However, at the same time, the newcomer has proved himself so destructive in world affairs, in matters of trade and war, that some might almost be tempted to say that the efforts by Democrats and their senior agency heads were warranted.
But no reasonable person can say that. Rule of law is civilization’s greatest founding principle. Take that away, and you have the rule of the strongest, but it so happens that that is something both parties have long worked towards in America’s foreign affairs. There’s nothing of law or principle involved in any of America’s long string of colonial wars and coups and interventions since the end of WWII. They all involved forcing others to do as they were told. They all involved breaking innumerable laws and conventions and treaties. And they involved a great deal of killing and destruction. Now, that same long-accustomed approach has found a home at the very center of American power in Washington.
We were all treated to the most arrogant display of power and abuse and contempt for law with recent events in Venezuela. It’s never been so plainly on display, almost resembling the free summertime performance of a play in a neighborhood city park, even though it represented immoral and illegal practices America has used many times, perhaps with variations, such as more killing, here or there – in Ukraine, in Cuba, in Chile, in Guatemala, in Iran, in Nicaragua, and in other places. Maybe it is just a reflection of the incompetence of those in charge today that we saw the failed efforts so plainly, but that is just the kind of thing immense and unwarranted arrogance produces, a bizarre belief that if you say something should happen, it must happen.
The center of the American empire is in an unprecedented tangle of downright criminal behavior and fears, on all sides, and represents the greatest possible danger both to the world’s peace and its economic stability. I do not see how it all can end well, even if this or that particular crisis is diffused.
It really does remind one of tales of the last days of Rome, but if you find that an excessive comparison, there’s no escaping the fact that what we are seeing is the close-to-absolute corruption that accompanies close-to-absolute power.
COMMENT ON THE STILL-SWIRLING SCANDALS AROUND AMERICA’S 2016 NATIONAL ELECTION
While I am not a political partisan of any party, I believe there can be little doubt that important American agency heads and senior Democratic figures plotted along several lines either to discredit Trump before the election or to deprive him of office after the election.
He was viewed as a political outsider, a maverick, an unwelcome, intrusive figure whose entrance on the national stage might upset a lot of people’s relationships and plans. And it didn’t help that he was a rude and awkward man, given to expressing himself at times in words you might expect to see scratched inside a stall door at a public toilet.
All indications suggest that Obama - the always-smiling but taciturn and secrecy-embracing Obama, his record on whistleblowers and leakers as well as his eight-year record of bombing countless people demonstrating him as being quite ruthless - led this effort, closely allied with Hillary Clinton, the woman, we know from documents, who cheated repeatedly in the Democratic primary campaign to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders.
These are ruthless people, although most of the public is not used to thinking of American political figures in that way. It is a hard thing perhaps for ordinary Americans to absorb the idea that their own country, “sweet land of liberty” as it’s termed in the national theology, is run along lines, not of respect for democracy and rule of law, but of what is sniggered at in Third-world lands.
The totality of the Democrats’ efforts – consulting with discreditable people abroad, paying an ex-spy to create a false dossier on a political candidate, spying on a political campaign, making outrageous public charges, and still other acts – does seriously flirt with subverting democracy and Constitutional government, and that actually approaches the definition of treason.
However, I cannot find myself entirely outraged by the dark series of events because, for me, Trump’s own behaviors are so outrageous and extremely dangerous that they tend to overshadow what the others did. I don’t exonerate them, but we are now faced with terrifying new dangers both to peace and to the health and stability of the world’s economy.
And it is not to be said that the Democrats understood and anticipated such developments and are at least to be partly excused for that reason. No, indeed, they very much contributed to bringing it all on.
The Democrats’ activity reflects the heightened sense of privilege and exceptionalism we now see in so many - indeed in most – of the words and deeds coming from Washington. America’s establishment has comfortably assumed a belief in its being God’s contemporary chosen people, or, in the outrageously self-serving words of Madeline Albright, the “indispensable nation.” Well, considering yourself as indispensable and chosen by God has always had some terrible consequences for those wielding great power. We have the eloquent testimony of Shakespeare’s tragedies and histories to just that effect.
Trump was targeted because he was something of an outsider, someone who hi-jacked, in effect, one of the two old-line political parties, depriving other establishment figures, old-line Republicans like the Bushes or Romneys, of a nomination that “should” have belonged to one of them.
That sense of things does come with something of a threat to the prevailing system of the American power establishment, a system where both parties, no matter what their campaign words, always end by closely supporting the American plutocracy, its empire, and all of the agencies of government concerned with maintaining and extending the empire, especially the Pentagon and the CIA. Even a suggestion that an outsider might represent a threat to that established order was enough to drive a number of insiders to distraction.
Normally, those who challenge the establishment in any fashion are simply allowed to say their piece while being largely ignored by the press and other politicians, having few of their words reach most Americans, as well as suffering the tremendous impact of a campaign-finance drought, those funds always overwhelmingly being gifts from the wealthy. Tulsi Gabbard is the best contemporary example of that approach. There have been others, people with various points of view, from Ralph Nader to Ron Paul.
But a unique set of circumstances in 2016, enabled an “outsider” to get inside under the edge of the big-top tent and assume a position at center ring under the spotlights. The main contributing circumstance, I believe, was the nature of the Democrat’s own candidate, Hillary Clinton, a woman who inspires a great deal of fear and hostility, both outside and inside her own party. But the Democrats were stuck with her because her husband, Bill, has been the key link for years in a supply chain of large campaign-fund donors. No one ignores money in American politics. Had someone else run, most of these events likely would not have happened, and Trump would not now be President.
The new dangers to peace to which I referred can also be at least partly attributed to the work of the Democrats and their senior agency heads. Here is the reason. Trump felt seriously threatened at various points, as we know from reports. One of his ways of dealing with the threat was to approach some powerful and influential people for support and money, people whose primary focus was not the American political establishment but Israel.
The money would provide a war chest for the 2020 election campaign as well as against the threat of a costly impeachment. We’ve only learned recently from an analysis of old tax records that Trump is far less wealthy than anyone had imagined, having been burdened with huge debts for years.
Trump got what he wanted, increasing his sense of security, but the price demanded saw him give away things in the Middle East that were not his to give and begin a seriously threatening campaign against Iran, a country which Israel detests but one which had followed the letter of the law scrupulously in its multi-party nuclear agreement as well as being a country which has started no war in its modern history, despite having had a vicious war launched against it in the 1980s. Its record in wars and strife, despite the rhetoric of Trump or Bolton or Pompeo, compares immensely favorably with those of the United States and Israel.
The new dangers to economic stability are largely Trump’s work, his constant noisy haranguing, his many threats, his arbitrary imposition of large new tariffs, and his creation of an entire new branch of public service, one dedicated to illegally sanctioning people all over the world. I say “illegally” because all of the sanctions represent efforts to enforce American law on other people, ignoring the rule of law in other countries and ignoring virtually all international law and diplomatic protocol.
But while Trump is particularly rude and loud about the way he approaches other countries, the essence of what he tries to do is supported quietly by the American establishment, all of them from both parties. Big matters such as the rise of China and new relationships between Germany and Russia have been establishment concerns for decades. They foreshadow the emergence of a brave new world order, one very much not welcomed by America’s establishment.
The American establishment dreads its relative decline in importance to the world’s economy and its geopolitics. So, they appear, all of them, willing to support, at least for now, Trump’s crude efforts to extract concessions from countries like China by methods which really do reflect traditional mafia methods of gaining footholds in other people’s businesses, with “offers they can’t refuse.”
In the 1950s and 1960s Chicago where I grew up, restaurants and other businesses periodically burnt down for no explained reason. It was widely understood that it was the price of having refused to cooperate with “The Outfit,” to pay the required fees for services such as “protection,” that they offered.
So, we have an extremely complex and devious situation in Washington. Senior members of one major party came close to treason in their opposition to a newcomer. However, at the same time, the newcomer has proved himself so destructive in world affairs, in matters of trade and war, that some might almost be tempted to say that the efforts by Democrats and their senior agency heads were warranted.
But no reasonable person can say that. Rule of law is civilization’s greatest founding principle. Take that away, and you have the rule of the strongest, but it so happens that that is something both parties have long worked towards in America’s foreign affairs. There’s nothing of law or principle involved in any of America’s long string of colonial wars and coups and interventions since the end of WWII. They all involved forcing others to do as they were told. They all involved breaking innumerable laws and conventions and treaties. And they involved a great deal of killing and destruction. Now, that same long-accustomed approach has found a home at the very center of American power in Washington.
We were all treated to the most arrogant display of power and abuse and contempt for law with recent events in Venezuela. It’s never been so plainly on display, almost resembling the free summertime performance of a play in a neighborhood city park, even though it represented immoral and illegal practices America has used many times, perhaps with variations, such as more killing, here or there – in Ukraine, in Cuba, in Chile, in Guatemala, in Iran, in Nicaragua, and in other places. Maybe it is just a reflection of the incompetence of those in charge today that we saw the failed efforts so plainly, but that is just the kind of thing immense and unwarranted arrogance produces, a bizarre belief that if you say something should happen, it must happen.
The center of the American empire is in an unprecedented tangle of downright criminal behavior and fears, on all sides, and represents the greatest possible danger both to the world’s peace and its economic stability. I do not see how it all can end well, even if this or that particular crisis is diffused.
It really does remind one of tales of the last days of Rome, but if you find that an excessive comparison, there’s no escaping the fact that what we are seeing is the close-to-absolute corruption that accompanies close-to-absolute power.
Friday, May 24, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP AND IRAN AND INDICATIONS "TRUMP'S PEOPLE" DO NOT WANT WAR WITH IRAN - TRUMP PUT HIMSELF INTO DEBT TO PEOPLE WHO VERY MUCH WANT TO SEE IRAN HARMED - HE HAS NO ROOM FOR MANOEUVRE BESIDES BEING AS WEAK AS A PATHETIC WHINING CHILD
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY TED GALEN CARPENTER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Guess Who Doesn’t Want War with Iran? Trump Supporters
“Also known as: normal white people”
I am not sure that Trump wants war with Iran, but the truth is that it almost does not matter what he wants.
The people to whom he is beholden, greatly beholden, very much do want war with Iran. They are people he turned to for support and truckloads of campaign funds when he was at his lowest ebb over the possibility of being driven from office.
They gave him what he wanted, but, of course, at a price. Giving away what is not even legal for him to give away – Jerusalem and the Golan - plus all the unjustified, intense public hostility towards Iran are part of that price.
And do we have any evidence, ever, of Trump’s weak character overriding those who have some hold over him? None. He is a remarkable psychological case study in pretending to be just what he is not, a tough, independent-minded man. He’s a pushover with a rude, loud mouth and many transparent prejudices.
He is remarkably ineffectual, but keeps making loud noises about things being otherwise.
A silly man, in addition to all his other shortcomings.
See:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/11/john-chuckman-comment-why-trump-doesnt-rein-in-bolton-dismal-bolton-pompeo-and-abrams-are-part-of-the-price-trump-paid-for-political-support-against-threats-he-felt-and-getting-a-big-pile-of-ca/
Writer Ted Galen Carpenter borders on the ridiculous, again and again, but especially here.
You'd almost think he knows nothing about his own country, the United States.
But then, he has worked for years for one of those privately-subsidized American propaganda mills nicely styling itself as a “think-tank.”
America’s belly-over-the-belt types, the inhabitants of America's vast gulag of trailer parks, and the main patrons of Wal-Mart, perhaps less than anyone question what they hear on television.
And what do they hear there, 24-hours a day?
Iran bad, America good, America need fix Iran.
Please.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY TED GALEN CARPENTER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Guess Who Doesn’t Want War with Iran? Trump Supporters
“Also known as: normal white people”
I am not sure that Trump wants war with Iran, but the truth is that it almost does not matter what he wants.
The people to whom he is beholden, greatly beholden, very much do want war with Iran. They are people he turned to for support and truckloads of campaign funds when he was at his lowest ebb over the possibility of being driven from office.
They gave him what he wanted, but, of course, at a price. Giving away what is not even legal for him to give away – Jerusalem and the Golan - plus all the unjustified, intense public hostility towards Iran are part of that price.
And do we have any evidence, ever, of Trump’s weak character overriding those who have some hold over him? None. He is a remarkable psychological case study in pretending to be just what he is not, a tough, independent-minded man. He’s a pushover with a rude, loud mouth and many transparent prejudices.
He is remarkably ineffectual, but keeps making loud noises about things being otherwise.
A silly man, in addition to all his other shortcomings.
See:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/11/john-chuckman-comment-why-trump-doesnt-rein-in-bolton-dismal-bolton-pompeo-and-abrams-are-part-of-the-price-trump-paid-for-political-support-against-threats-he-felt-and-getting-a-big-pile-of-ca/
Writer Ted Galen Carpenter borders on the ridiculous, again and again, but especially here.
You'd almost think he knows nothing about his own country, the United States.
But then, he has worked for years for one of those privately-subsidized American propaganda mills nicely styling itself as a “think-tank.”
America’s belly-over-the-belt types, the inhabitants of America's vast gulag of trailer parks, and the main patrons of Wal-Mart, perhaps less than anyone question what they hear on television.
And what do they hear there, 24-hours a day?
Iran bad, America good, America need fix Iran.
Please.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: UKRAINE'S HUGE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS CANNOT BE SOLVED WITHOUT RUSSIA - AMERICA CARES ABOUT AS MUCH FOR UKRAINE'S PEOPLE AS IT DOES FOR THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF YEMEN OR SYRIA OR VENEZUELA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY OLGA SAMOFALOVA IN RUSSIA INSIDER
"Ukraine Will Be Able to Restore Its Economy Only by Cooperating with Russia"
A fundamental truth.
The coup-installed government wrecked many important economic underpinnings simply because they involved Russia.
Anti-Russian bias was stoked into a national obsession.
And all that was associated with Russia, including economic rationality, was ignored or insulted.
The relationship between the two countries is profound and goes back many centuries.
Absolutely absurd and self-destructive to think you can just toss a millenium of history overboard, overnight, but that is just exactly what the United States wanted when it invested five billion dollars into creating the coup in Ukraine.
The United States has never cared the tiniest bit about Ukraine or its welfare, and certain groups in Ukraine have been extremely foolish to believe otherwise.
The United States cares about hurting Russia, let the chips fall the chips fall where they may, including the health and growth of Ukraine. “Collateral damage” is what they call it in all of their many bombing campaigns.
Ukraine means no more to America than do the women and children of Yemen or Syria or Venezuela.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY OLGA SAMOFALOVA IN RUSSIA INSIDER
"Ukraine Will Be Able to Restore Its Economy Only by Cooperating with Russia"
A fundamental truth.
The coup-installed government wrecked many important economic underpinnings simply because they involved Russia.
Anti-Russian bias was stoked into a national obsession.
And all that was associated with Russia, including economic rationality, was ignored or insulted.
The relationship between the two countries is profound and goes back many centuries.
Absolutely absurd and self-destructive to think you can just toss a millenium of history overboard, overnight, but that is just exactly what the United States wanted when it invested five billion dollars into creating the coup in Ukraine.
The United States has never cared the tiniest bit about Ukraine or its welfare, and certain groups in Ukraine have been extremely foolish to believe otherwise.
The United States cares about hurting Russia, let the chips fall the chips fall where they may, including the health and growth of Ukraine. “Collateral damage” is what they call it in all of their many bombing campaigns.
Ukraine means no more to America than do the women and children of Yemen or Syria or Venezuela.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE TRUDEAU GOVERNMENT'S INITIATIVE TO HAND OUT MONEY TO A HARD-SHIPPED PRESS IS POORLY CONSIDERED AND IS BEING HANDLED BADLY - FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS ABOUT THE ROLES OF THE PRESS AND GOVERNMENT
John Chuckman
SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ANDREW PORTER ON CBC NEWS
“The government just made its toxic media bailout plan even worse
“People in line for media bailout dollars shouldn't be the ones deciding who gets media dollars”
_____________________
Response to a comment:
Those assumptions about state-owned media sound good, but the reality, always, is more complicated and slippery than what is advertised.
There's little sense of genuine independence from state-owned media anywhere I that know of in Western countries, if you study carefully what they are say.
The most glaring example of all, perhaps, is the BBC, which, at least from Tony Blair's time of invading Iraq illegally and events around the death of Doctor Kelly, has been a mush when it comes to any matter concerning government policy. Literally a mush.
I feel certain in saying that all the journalists and editors on their own initiative did not decide to work that way.
_______________________
Response to a comment about these events removing our freedom of speech:
Oh, I do think that's going a bit far.
Our freedom of speech has never depended on the press, and a good thing, too.
What the press controls is the amplification of the individual's free speech so that many can hear it.
It tends universally to abuse that function.
Just one current example in the United States is the Democrats’ contest for leadership. All of the contestants are free to say what they wish.
However, there is really only one of them saying some of the tough things that really need saying, Tulsi Gabbard.
And guess which contestant is quoted the very least by the press and is frequently left completely out of articles analyzing the contest? You'd be right if you said, Tulsi Gabbard.
__________________________
"Holding power to account" has long been a fine-sounding phrase, but it is one pretty much devoid of meaning when it comes to the mainline press and broadcasting.
Instead, the press generally tends to support power, remembering corporations need to keep on the good side of government as well as on the good side of other powerful private establishment interests, and they have often misrepresented the reality of events to people.
Just as in wartime, when we know press organizations typically become propaganda outlets for the cause. It’s only somewhat less the case in peaceful times.
CBC has done a good job recently on domestic government events, however, that level of performance has not been the historical norm.
It is also not the norm even today for the country's international affairs.
I find CBC's reporting in international affairs just as lagging as that of any corporate news outlet.
And CBC, just like the corporate press, echoes our government's echoes of Washington's statements about what it is doing abroad. It investigates or contradicts nothing.
_______________________________
Response to a comment about informed voters:
Informed voters can make little difference to the quality of government or democracy where choices offered by parties are limited, as they very much are in our upcoming election.
Not one of our parties is offering an inspiring, or even an interesting, candidate.
It is actually through the political parties in, for example, the US that the establishment rather closely controls affairs.
Money, really big money, completely controls both parties there, making it almost impossible for any newcomer to be heard, always being drowned out, and so when it comes to war and ugly international affairs of empire, they both function as just two wings of one party, the American Imperial Party.
They differ only on social rhetoric, but with all the wars and imperial events, there are no resources left for any of that anyway, so it remains just rhetoric.
Things aren't quite that bad in Canada, but I very much sense our momentum is in the same direction.
Justin Trudeau's foreign policy is virtually indistinguishable from what Harper's would have been. And I find that very distressing and difficult to accept, especially coming from a party that gave us Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau.
________________________
Response to a comment saying, “If you think for one minute that this is not a political exercise as opposed to an exercise in saving the print media - notice that 4 of the 8 groups listed are from Quebec”:
I very much agree that this initiative is political. It really could not be otherwise.
Seems naive in the extreme to even suggest anything else.
However, I do not like the pointing of fingers at Quebec.
That is a highly destructive thing to do.
Highly destructive.
SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ANDREW PORTER ON CBC NEWS
“The government just made its toxic media bailout plan even worse
“People in line for media bailout dollars shouldn't be the ones deciding who gets media dollars”
_____________________
Response to a comment:
Those assumptions about state-owned media sound good, but the reality, always, is more complicated and slippery than what is advertised.
There's little sense of genuine independence from state-owned media anywhere I that know of in Western countries, if you study carefully what they are say.
The most glaring example of all, perhaps, is the BBC, which, at least from Tony Blair's time of invading Iraq illegally and events around the death of Doctor Kelly, has been a mush when it comes to any matter concerning government policy. Literally a mush.
I feel certain in saying that all the journalists and editors on their own initiative did not decide to work that way.
_______________________
Response to a comment about these events removing our freedom of speech:
Oh, I do think that's going a bit far.
Our freedom of speech has never depended on the press, and a good thing, too.
What the press controls is the amplification of the individual's free speech so that many can hear it.
It tends universally to abuse that function.
Just one current example in the United States is the Democrats’ contest for leadership. All of the contestants are free to say what they wish.
However, there is really only one of them saying some of the tough things that really need saying, Tulsi Gabbard.
And guess which contestant is quoted the very least by the press and is frequently left completely out of articles analyzing the contest? You'd be right if you said, Tulsi Gabbard.
__________________________
"Holding power to account" has long been a fine-sounding phrase, but it is one pretty much devoid of meaning when it comes to the mainline press and broadcasting.
Instead, the press generally tends to support power, remembering corporations need to keep on the good side of government as well as on the good side of other powerful private establishment interests, and they have often misrepresented the reality of events to people.
Just as in wartime, when we know press organizations typically become propaganda outlets for the cause. It’s only somewhat less the case in peaceful times.
CBC has done a good job recently on domestic government events, however, that level of performance has not been the historical norm.
It is also not the norm even today for the country's international affairs.
I find CBC's reporting in international affairs just as lagging as that of any corporate news outlet.
And CBC, just like the corporate press, echoes our government's echoes of Washington's statements about what it is doing abroad. It investigates or contradicts nothing.
_______________________________
Response to a comment about informed voters:
Informed voters can make little difference to the quality of government or democracy where choices offered by parties are limited, as they very much are in our upcoming election.
Not one of our parties is offering an inspiring, or even an interesting, candidate.
It is actually through the political parties in, for example, the US that the establishment rather closely controls affairs.
Money, really big money, completely controls both parties there, making it almost impossible for any newcomer to be heard, always being drowned out, and so when it comes to war and ugly international affairs of empire, they both function as just two wings of one party, the American Imperial Party.
They differ only on social rhetoric, but with all the wars and imperial events, there are no resources left for any of that anyway, so it remains just rhetoric.
Things aren't quite that bad in Canada, but I very much sense our momentum is in the same direction.
Justin Trudeau's foreign policy is virtually indistinguishable from what Harper's would have been. And I find that very distressing and difficult to accept, especially coming from a party that gave us Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau.
________________________
Response to a comment saying, “If you think for one minute that this is not a political exercise as opposed to an exercise in saving the print media - notice that 4 of the 8 groups listed are from Quebec”:
I very much agree that this initiative is political. It really could not be otherwise.
Seems naive in the extreme to even suggest anything else.
However, I do not like the pointing of fingers at Quebec.
That is a highly destructive thing to do.
Highly destructive.
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HAS NATIONALISM'S DAY COME? AS ONE WHO DISLIKES AMERICAN-THROWBACK THINKING, I SINCERELY HOPE NOT - PATRIOTISM IS JUST A FORM OF SECULAR RELIGION - FANATICISM IN SUPPORT OF EMPIRE MUCH AS WITH ISRAEL'S ULTRA-ORTHODOX "SETTLERS"
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAT BUCHANAN IN UNZ REVIEW
"Has the Day of the Nationalists Come?"
Let's hope not.
It would simply represent a giant step backward of over a century and a half.
Nothing good can come of smaller, narrower interests taking on new importance.
Indeed, it would only increase the opportunity for disagreement and conflict. It would make large-scale trade more difficult and less secure too.
Our world has become immeasurably richer through the effects of globalization and with degrees of free trade and with large economic groupings, like the EU, somewhat replacing the narrowness of 19th century nationalism.
Globalization is just what happens when advances in technology shrink the world and enlarge everyone’s potential markets. It is just one of the real economic effects of rapidly advancing technology in travel and communications.
Saying anything else is just economic illiteracy.
But people who cheer for narrow causes have rarely been renowned for their learning.
After all, we still have millions who believe the exact words some hermits, holed up in caves, scribbled on scrolls a few thousand years ago, are eternal truths. That is the basis for religions embraced with the same intensity and, yes, blindness, as nationalism, but even also for some nationalism too.
Words which reflect nothing of what the world has become, nothing of its complexity, nothing of its science, yet are embraced as though they were all-seeing and wise beyond reckoning. Just meaningless superstition.
Indeed, not just hermits, but in a good number of cases, genuine mentally-ill people - eg, the authors of texts like The Book of Revelations or Genesis or Leviticus.
There really seems to be no limit on the kind or amount of nonsense many humans are capable of embracing for some emotional satisfaction.
And it's just the same with fixating on a 19th century phenomenon like nationalism.
The coming of nationalism provided historical transition away from the empires, dukedoms, and kingdoms of the previous many centuries - not a final and definitive state for human political arrangements.
And, of course, many aspects of nationalism represent accidents of history, not rational arrangements, as, for example, the areal extent and resource endowment of the various nation states.
The original nationalisms found their generating force in narrow concepts like ethnicity or language spoken and frequently religion – hardly a rational basis for long-term arrangements. That kind of nationalism is just a few steps from tribalism. I trust no one is advocating a return to tribalism, although that, too, is something we do see here and there, as with the ultra-Orthodox in Israel.
Globalization – not so-called globalism – is a natural economic result of technology shrinking distances and enlarging markets. It’s been a steady process for centuries since people first travelled outside the confines of their native little villages on new roads with the new technology of wagons and horses’ bits and saddles, right on through the sailing technology which opened the New World.
The huge modern increases in trade and commerce engendered by globalization require increased international arrangements – protocols, regulations, financial arrangements, and treaties of every description.
Everyone wants to be able to sell their goods and services to the rest of the world in a well-regulated environment, just as they expect to do at home. So that requires all kinds of organizations and arrangements. Those comprise the “globalism” arrangements needed owing to the inevitable birth of globalization.
_____________________
Response to a comment:
Patriotism is just what the brilliant Dr Johnson called it when he said “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”
He was referring to rebelling American aristocrats like Thomas Jefferson.
“People,” he also said rightly, “who speak of liberty while being drivers of negroes.”
Here’s some interesting analysis of patriotism, that secular religion:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/john-chuckman-comment-patriotism-and-nationalism-much-like-religion-in-blindly-praising-the-insupportable-nations-like-people-come-in-all-types-and-many-hardly-deserve-praise-patriotism-is-a-to/
An American Patriot-type should find this interesting too:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAT BUCHANAN IN UNZ REVIEW
"Has the Day of the Nationalists Come?"
Let's hope not.
It would simply represent a giant step backward of over a century and a half.
Nothing good can come of smaller, narrower interests taking on new importance.
Indeed, it would only increase the opportunity for disagreement and conflict. It would make large-scale trade more difficult and less secure too.
Our world has become immeasurably richer through the effects of globalization and with degrees of free trade and with large economic groupings, like the EU, somewhat replacing the narrowness of 19th century nationalism.
Globalization is just what happens when advances in technology shrink the world and enlarge everyone’s potential markets. It is just one of the real economic effects of rapidly advancing technology in travel and communications.
Saying anything else is just economic illiteracy.
But people who cheer for narrow causes have rarely been renowned for their learning.
After all, we still have millions who believe the exact words some hermits, holed up in caves, scribbled on scrolls a few thousand years ago, are eternal truths. That is the basis for religions embraced with the same intensity and, yes, blindness, as nationalism, but even also for some nationalism too.
Words which reflect nothing of what the world has become, nothing of its complexity, nothing of its science, yet are embraced as though they were all-seeing and wise beyond reckoning. Just meaningless superstition.
Indeed, not just hermits, but in a good number of cases, genuine mentally-ill people - eg, the authors of texts like The Book of Revelations or Genesis or Leviticus.
There really seems to be no limit on the kind or amount of nonsense many humans are capable of embracing for some emotional satisfaction.
And it's just the same with fixating on a 19th century phenomenon like nationalism.
The coming of nationalism provided historical transition away from the empires, dukedoms, and kingdoms of the previous many centuries - not a final and definitive state for human political arrangements.
And, of course, many aspects of nationalism represent accidents of history, not rational arrangements, as, for example, the areal extent and resource endowment of the various nation states.
The original nationalisms found their generating force in narrow concepts like ethnicity or language spoken and frequently religion – hardly a rational basis for long-term arrangements. That kind of nationalism is just a few steps from tribalism. I trust no one is advocating a return to tribalism, although that, too, is something we do see here and there, as with the ultra-Orthodox in Israel.
Globalization – not so-called globalism – is a natural economic result of technology shrinking distances and enlarging markets. It’s been a steady process for centuries since people first travelled outside the confines of their native little villages on new roads with the new technology of wagons and horses’ bits and saddles, right on through the sailing technology which opened the New World.
The huge modern increases in trade and commerce engendered by globalization require increased international arrangements – protocols, regulations, financial arrangements, and treaties of every description.
Everyone wants to be able to sell their goods and services to the rest of the world in a well-regulated environment, just as they expect to do at home. So that requires all kinds of organizations and arrangements. Those comprise the “globalism” arrangements needed owing to the inevitable birth of globalization.
_____________________
Response to a comment:
Patriotism is just what the brilliant Dr Johnson called it when he said “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”
He was referring to rebelling American aristocrats like Thomas Jefferson.
“People,” he also said rightly, “who speak of liberty while being drivers of negroes.”
Here’s some interesting analysis of patriotism, that secular religion:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/john-chuckman-comment-patriotism-and-nationalism-much-like-religion-in-blindly-praising-the-insupportable-nations-like-people-come-in-all-types-and-many-hardly-deserve-praise-patriotism-is-a-to/
An American Patriot-type should find this interesting too:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: USING THE TERM "REGIME" FOR A GOVERNMENT - ON THE IDEA THAT ISRAEL DOES NOT WANT WAR WITH IRAN - NO, NOT A WAR ON ITS OWN BUT ITS GOVERNMENT RELISHES THE IDEA A PROXY WAR USING AMERICANS AS THEIR PROXIES
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ASS’AD ABUKHALIL IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“THE ANGRY ARAB: Iran’s Military Options
“As’ad AbuKhalil weighs Iran’s position at a dangerous point in U.S. relations, but says the prospects of war are not as high as Gulf regimes and Israel want them to be”
Why does the author use the term “regime” right from the beginning, repeating it several times?
It is the government of Iran.
Using the word “regime” in that fashion represents classic American propaganda mode and is off-putting for continuing with the article.
Poor choice or hidden agenda?
______________
Response to a comment saying, "Any analysis that is based on the notion that Israel wants war lacks credibility, because it defies logic":
Then how do you explain almost continuous war for seventy years?
And Israel is the cause of far more war than just the many it has been at the center of.
The horrible American Neocon Wars, killing a couple of million people and creating millions of refugees, are Israeli-inspired.
Ariel Sharon and others were pitching for them, behind the scenes, many years ago.
And it is very important to recognize that while some Israelis might not want war with Iran, that clearly is not the case for their dreadful government, especially if it can manage to arrange it so America and its allies do all the fighting while Netanyahu sits back, with his feet up, watching the show on television with a big bowl of popcorn.
"These Arab nations are armed to the teeth by China, Russia, and the US. Note that it is Iraq, not Israel, that gets the lion’s share of US aid. In spite of impossible odds, Israel persists in surviving."
Quite inaccurate. The Arab states are not armed at all on the same level with Israel. Just to start with, none have nuclear arsenals.
And it is important to recognize Israel is the most subsidized entity on earth. The total of all its public and private subsidies, coming in many shapes and forms, are like nothing ever seen before.
"US involvement in the Mideast is about protecting US oil interests in the region. Period. Israel is a separate issue"
No, it is not. Israel is de facto a colony of the United States in the region, a rather peculiar colony and one covered in religious myths and legends, but still a colony serving most of the purposes colonies have always served.
That is precisely why it so subsidized and privileged with many special arrangements from free trade to being given all kinds of large contracts.
Israel has been a tremendously hostile force from the start because it adopted the "iron wall" notion of dealing with its neighbors instead of trying to establish good relationships.
The only nations in the region Israel has good relations with are those ruled by absolute kings and tyrants, ones loyal to American policy. Israel pretty much hates and fears democracy in the Arab world and is a major factor in working against it on many fronts.
Israel played a large secret role in the overthrow of Egypt’s first elected leader, Mohamed Morsi, and it despises Hamas in part because it has worked as a democratic party. Israel is much more comfortable with an unelected figure like Mahmoud Abbas, even though, as is its way with all Palestinians, it often treats him with contempt.
That's because Israel has so little in common with its neighbors. It is populated largely by people of European origin - the Ashkenazi Jews - and will always feel rather alien in the region. Holding several million Arabic people as seemingly-perpetual prisoners also certainly does not work towards any kind of relationship with neighbors.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ASS’AD ABUKHALIL IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“THE ANGRY ARAB: Iran’s Military Options
“As’ad AbuKhalil weighs Iran’s position at a dangerous point in U.S. relations, but says the prospects of war are not as high as Gulf regimes and Israel want them to be”
Why does the author use the term “regime” right from the beginning, repeating it several times?
It is the government of Iran.
Using the word “regime” in that fashion represents classic American propaganda mode and is off-putting for continuing with the article.
Poor choice or hidden agenda?
______________
Response to a comment saying, "Any analysis that is based on the notion that Israel wants war lacks credibility, because it defies logic":
Then how do you explain almost continuous war for seventy years?
And Israel is the cause of far more war than just the many it has been at the center of.
The horrible American Neocon Wars, killing a couple of million people and creating millions of refugees, are Israeli-inspired.
Ariel Sharon and others were pitching for them, behind the scenes, many years ago.
And it is very important to recognize that while some Israelis might not want war with Iran, that clearly is not the case for their dreadful government, especially if it can manage to arrange it so America and its allies do all the fighting while Netanyahu sits back, with his feet up, watching the show on television with a big bowl of popcorn.
"These Arab nations are armed to the teeth by China, Russia, and the US. Note that it is Iraq, not Israel, that gets the lion’s share of US aid. In spite of impossible odds, Israel persists in surviving."
Quite inaccurate. The Arab states are not armed at all on the same level with Israel. Just to start with, none have nuclear arsenals.
And it is important to recognize Israel is the most subsidized entity on earth. The total of all its public and private subsidies, coming in many shapes and forms, are like nothing ever seen before.
"US involvement in the Mideast is about protecting US oil interests in the region. Period. Israel is a separate issue"
No, it is not. Israel is de facto a colony of the United States in the region, a rather peculiar colony and one covered in religious myths and legends, but still a colony serving most of the purposes colonies have always served.
That is precisely why it so subsidized and privileged with many special arrangements from free trade to being given all kinds of large contracts.
Israel has been a tremendously hostile force from the start because it adopted the "iron wall" notion of dealing with its neighbors instead of trying to establish good relationships.
The only nations in the region Israel has good relations with are those ruled by absolute kings and tyrants, ones loyal to American policy. Israel pretty much hates and fears democracy in the Arab world and is a major factor in working against it on many fronts.
Israel played a large secret role in the overthrow of Egypt’s first elected leader, Mohamed Morsi, and it despises Hamas in part because it has worked as a democratic party. Israel is much more comfortable with an unelected figure like Mahmoud Abbas, even though, as is its way with all Palestinians, it often treats him with contempt.
That's because Israel has so little in common with its neighbors. It is populated largely by people of European origin - the Ashkenazi Jews - and will always feel rather alien in the region. Holding several million Arabic people as seemingly-perpetual prisoners also certainly does not work towards any kind of relationship with neighbors.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A WORD ON "RUSSIA-GATE AS COUNT DRACULA" - SOMEONE CITES A NEWSPAPER, THE GUARDIAN, WHICH WEARS ITS HEAVY BIAS LIKE A BIG UGLY FUR COAT
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON A REVIEW OF A STEPHEN F COHEN BOOK IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
‘Russia-gate as Count Dracula
‘Ann Garrison reviews Stephen F. Cohen’s book, “War with Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate.”’
America’s establishment, with all this Russia-gate nonsense, has achieved still another end.
It has lost the confidence of tens of millions of people and a number of leaders because the deceit here is just so clear to unbiased people.
Really, when something smells as bad as this has smelled, and you still push it as truth, you not only lose credibility with thinking people, you truly do begin to look asinine.
The following contains a couple of interesting references to former NSA technical expert Bill Binney and the flimsy notion, still maintained by many Democrats, of Russian hacking for WikiLeaks:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/05/21/roger-stone-shines-new-light-on-russia-gate-hoax/
____________________
Response to a comment citing The Guardian:
The Guardian has become a pathetic newspaper.
It wears its heavy bias like a big ugly cheap fur coat.
In its hard news and views, The Guardian, despite its insistence on being regarded as progressive, is about as Tory as Theresa May. It is a constant defender of all the interests of American empire. Russophobia has been one of its staples for years.
I could cite many instances, but my favorite is found below, where I have critiqued a ridiculous set of Russia-hating articles some time ago.
See:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/john-chuckman-comment-absurd-lengths-to-which-our-press-goes-to-attack-russia-britains-guardian-holds-hate-russia-day-today-some-of-its-stuff-is-so-ham-fisted-it-reads-like-1959-pravda-atta/
COMMENT ON A REVIEW OF A STEPHEN F COHEN BOOK IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
‘Russia-gate as Count Dracula
‘Ann Garrison reviews Stephen F. Cohen’s book, “War with Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate.”’
America’s establishment, with all this Russia-gate nonsense, has achieved still another end.
It has lost the confidence of tens of millions of people and a number of leaders because the deceit here is just so clear to unbiased people.
Really, when something smells as bad as this has smelled, and you still push it as truth, you not only lose credibility with thinking people, you truly do begin to look asinine.
The following contains a couple of interesting references to former NSA technical expert Bill Binney and the flimsy notion, still maintained by many Democrats, of Russian hacking for WikiLeaks:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/05/21/roger-stone-shines-new-light-on-russia-gate-hoax/
____________________
Response to a comment citing The Guardian:
The Guardian has become a pathetic newspaper.
It wears its heavy bias like a big ugly cheap fur coat.
In its hard news and views, The Guardian, despite its insistence on being regarded as progressive, is about as Tory as Theresa May. It is a constant defender of all the interests of American empire. Russophobia has been one of its staples for years.
I could cite many instances, but my favorite is found below, where I have critiqued a ridiculous set of Russia-hating articles some time ago.
See:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/john-chuckman-comment-absurd-lengths-to-which-our-press-goes-to-attack-russia-britains-guardian-holds-hate-russia-day-today-some-of-its-stuff-is-so-ham-fisted-it-reads-like-1959-pravda-atta/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ONE OF MAINLINE JOURNALISM'S CHEAP TRICKS - JOURNALISM IS FREE AND WELCOME TO EXAMINE ANY POLITICIAN'S BELIEFS IN DETAIL BUT NOT TO SUMMARILY LABEL THEM AS "CONSPIRACY THEORY"
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS [FIRST PORTION REMOVED BY EDITORS]
“Ken Pereira, union whistleblower turned conspiracy theorist, joins forces with Maxime Bernier
"Charbonneau Commission's star witness now co-hosts a YouTube show about conspiracies”
Calling him a "conspiracy theorist" over 9/11, represents an effort put him down. When you use such terms, you are not conveying facts but prejudice. Name-calling is not journalism. You certainly can and should discuss what it is that he believes, but you cannot fairly dismiss him with such a term.
Millions and millions believe that that event was not what the official investigation said that it was.
Here are a few basic questions, never answered:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-survivor-says-even-the-simplest-questions-around-911-have-not-been-answered-by-government-yes-and-some-disturbing-truths-around-those-events-the-saudi-arabian-nonsense/
And the FBI has just released some documents around an intriguing aspect of 9/11 that in the past they denied:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/john-chuckman-comment-important-new-fbi-documents-about-9-11-are-released-an-excellent-article-on-them-will-they-just-go-ignored-much-as-that-last-most-revealing-document-released-on-the-kennedy/
______________________
By the way, the term "conspiracy theorist" was coined by the boys at CIA in the 1960s to be used to discredit the great many people who questioned the absurdly inadequate Warren Commission.
The press, always hand-and-glove with government and other large corporate interests - people often forgetting that that is where its interests really lie and not in some holy mission to find truth - has used the demeaning term countless times since, and I think it has become very tiresome.
The Warren Commission Report over the decades has indeed been shown to be literally full of holes, but the assassination is receding far into history, and it no longer grabs the public's imagination. The many dishonesties and contradictions of its investigation now arouse no widespread concern.
The ugly truth is that when you run a big brutal empire, you have to do all kinds of unsavory things to sustain or expand it, and they are generally not things you want publicized. The United States has been engaged almost continuously in such activity during our lifetime, hence there have been a great many deceptions and lies around its dark work, just as we see with Iran or Russia or Venezuela today.
And just think back on the few cases that we do know something about. The phony Gulf of Tonkin Incident that would ignite a war that would eventually kill 3 million Vietnamese. The non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq used to start another war, one that would kill a million people. Iraqi troops seizing baby incubators in Kuwait and tossing out the babies - good God, we learned that that one was created by a paid PR firm. It was a sad re-telling of the WWI British tale about Germans busy bayoneting babies, a claim made with deadly earnest looks in 1914.
No, the attempt to use that old CIA term, "conspiracy theory," I regard as a red flag for what is to follow.
Of course, there are loony theories in many things, but you don't use that broad fact against someone who may have valid reasons for his speculations. I don't know anything about this particular man or his views, but I don't like the writer's approach.
________________________
Response to a comment saying, “We have moved into the digital dark ages, from the age of information into the age of disinformation”:
What information?
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident? Saddam's weapons of mass destruction? Kuwaiti babies ripped from their respirators? Iran's atomic weapons? Syria’s use of poison gas on its own people?
It just ain't so. Where the stakes are great, governments tell lies. And some citizens do grow suspicious, which does not automatically make them kooks or anything else.
Scepticism, as the David Hume told us, is a healthy approach.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS [FIRST PORTION REMOVED BY EDITORS]
“Ken Pereira, union whistleblower turned conspiracy theorist, joins forces with Maxime Bernier
"Charbonneau Commission's star witness now co-hosts a YouTube show about conspiracies”
Calling him a "conspiracy theorist" over 9/11, represents an effort put him down. When you use such terms, you are not conveying facts but prejudice. Name-calling is not journalism. You certainly can and should discuss what it is that he believes, but you cannot fairly dismiss him with such a term.
Millions and millions believe that that event was not what the official investigation said that it was.
Here are a few basic questions, never answered:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-survivor-says-even-the-simplest-questions-around-911-have-not-been-answered-by-government-yes-and-some-disturbing-truths-around-those-events-the-saudi-arabian-nonsense/
And the FBI has just released some documents around an intriguing aspect of 9/11 that in the past they denied:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/john-chuckman-comment-important-new-fbi-documents-about-9-11-are-released-an-excellent-article-on-them-will-they-just-go-ignored-much-as-that-last-most-revealing-document-released-on-the-kennedy/
______________________
By the way, the term "conspiracy theorist" was coined by the boys at CIA in the 1960s to be used to discredit the great many people who questioned the absurdly inadequate Warren Commission.
The press, always hand-and-glove with government and other large corporate interests - people often forgetting that that is where its interests really lie and not in some holy mission to find truth - has used the demeaning term countless times since, and I think it has become very tiresome.
The Warren Commission Report over the decades has indeed been shown to be literally full of holes, but the assassination is receding far into history, and it no longer grabs the public's imagination. The many dishonesties and contradictions of its investigation now arouse no widespread concern.
The ugly truth is that when you run a big brutal empire, you have to do all kinds of unsavory things to sustain or expand it, and they are generally not things you want publicized. The United States has been engaged almost continuously in such activity during our lifetime, hence there have been a great many deceptions and lies around its dark work, just as we see with Iran or Russia or Venezuela today.
And just think back on the few cases that we do know something about. The phony Gulf of Tonkin Incident that would ignite a war that would eventually kill 3 million Vietnamese. The non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq used to start another war, one that would kill a million people. Iraqi troops seizing baby incubators in Kuwait and tossing out the babies - good God, we learned that that one was created by a paid PR firm. It was a sad re-telling of the WWI British tale about Germans busy bayoneting babies, a claim made with deadly earnest looks in 1914.
No, the attempt to use that old CIA term, "conspiracy theory," I regard as a red flag for what is to follow.
Of course, there are loony theories in many things, but you don't use that broad fact against someone who may have valid reasons for his speculations. I don't know anything about this particular man or his views, but I don't like the writer's approach.
________________________
Response to a comment saying, “We have moved into the digital dark ages, from the age of information into the age of disinformation”:
What information?
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident? Saddam's weapons of mass destruction? Kuwaiti babies ripped from their respirators? Iran's atomic weapons? Syria’s use of poison gas on its own people?
It just ain't so. Where the stakes are great, governments tell lies. And some citizens do grow suspicious, which does not automatically make them kooks or anything else.
Scepticism, as the David Hume told us, is a healthy approach.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FURTHER WORD ON QUEBEC'S PROPOSED "SECULARISM" LEGISLATION - WHAT SECULAR GOVERNMENT TRULY MEANS - THE SOVIET MODEL OF THE STATE AND RELIGION - DEMOCRACIES ARE CAPABLE OF TYRANNY OVER MINORITIES
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Premier François Legault has said the secularism legislation is moderate and represents the desires of a majority in the province.”
First, I do not regard the legislation as "moderate."
Is there such a thing as “moderate” petty tyranny from government?
Second, I doubt his claims about a majority. I observe absolutely no tension in Montreal around the many women on the streets and in stores who chose to exercise their freedom to wear the hijab.
Third, even if the bill were somehow demonstrated to be the will of the majority, since when is it the job of government - secular government, mind you - to accommodate prejudice or anti-religious feelings of any nature?
____________________
Response to a comment which called the proposed legislation, “pro-human rights”:
Nothing can be called "pro-human rights" which forbids people to wear the things they freely choose to wear, especially if what they wear is a matter of conscience for them.
Secular government means not just a government with no religious affiliation - something we already have - it also means government which in no way interferes in the religious beliefs and practices of citizens, of any of its citizens, even a single one.
That's what the old Soviet government practiced. It had no religious affiliation, but it interfered actively in citizens' personal religious lives.
Further, what this legislation is truly doing is flirting with Islamophobia, something for sure no government has any business doing.
__________________
Response to a comment:
That is correct, but a good many people seem to miss the point.
It is a simple fact that a bad-intentioned majority can keep any minority in perpetual tyranny of one form or another.
There is nothing sacred or automatic in a democracy which protects minorities. Democracies are perfectly capable of tyranny.
Power, once granted by any political mechanism, is power. It includes the power to abuse minorities, and we’ve seen that done many times, as in Nationalist South Africa or the American Confederacy – both of whose governments were democratic in form.
Only Charters or Bills of Rights, enforced by courts, can prevent, or at least ameliorate, that.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Premier François Legault has said the secularism legislation is moderate and represents the desires of a majority in the province.”
First, I do not regard the legislation as "moderate."
Is there such a thing as “moderate” petty tyranny from government?
Second, I doubt his claims about a majority. I observe absolutely no tension in Montreal around the many women on the streets and in stores who chose to exercise their freedom to wear the hijab.
Third, even if the bill were somehow demonstrated to be the will of the majority, since when is it the job of government - secular government, mind you - to accommodate prejudice or anti-religious feelings of any nature?
____________________
Response to a comment which called the proposed legislation, “pro-human rights”:
Nothing can be called "pro-human rights" which forbids people to wear the things they freely choose to wear, especially if what they wear is a matter of conscience for them.
Secular government means not just a government with no religious affiliation - something we already have - it also means government which in no way interferes in the religious beliefs and practices of citizens, of any of its citizens, even a single one.
That's what the old Soviet government practiced. It had no religious affiliation, but it interfered actively in citizens' personal religious lives.
Further, what this legislation is truly doing is flirting with Islamophobia, something for sure no government has any business doing.
__________________
Response to a comment:
That is correct, but a good many people seem to miss the point.
It is a simple fact that a bad-intentioned majority can keep any minority in perpetual tyranny of one form or another.
There is nothing sacred or automatic in a democracy which protects minorities. Democracies are perfectly capable of tyranny.
Power, once granted by any political mechanism, is power. It includes the power to abuse minorities, and we’ve seen that done many times, as in Nationalist South Africa or the American Confederacy – both of whose governments were democratic in form.
Only Charters or Bills of Rights, enforced by courts, can prevent, or at least ameliorate, that.
Monday, May 20, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: REFLECTIONS ON THE CHARACTER OF OBAMA IN LIGHT OF THE SENTIMENTAL MEMORIES OF A SENIOR STAFF AIDE - A FEW THOUGHTS ON WHAT TRULY IS REQUIRED TO BE PRESIDENT
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett offers an intimate look behind the scenes of his presidency
“One of the most influential black women of the 21st century talks about her time in the White House”
Gee, does she talk about the CIA’s "Kill Lists" put into Obama’s inbox regularly for his signature?
I cannot be sentimental about this man.
The boyish smile was so deceptive and deceives people still. It deceived me when he first took office. I liked him in the beginning and thought him very promising.
But there is the intrusive fact that he bombed people somewhere for every single day of his eight years in office.
He killed literally hundreds of thousands across a number of countries, made a chaos out of Libya, started the horrors in Syria, ran a coup in Ukraine, and created America’s extrajudicial killing program with drones.
There is nothing sweet or nice to remember. A very dark figure.
________________________
Response to a comment saying Obama lacked Trump’s mental illness:
Yes, he did, except that he is almost certainly something of a psychopath with the all smiling he did and all the killing he signed off on, psychopathy not qualifying so much as a mental illness as simply an “outlier” condition which is repeated in a small portion of the human population over and over, like albinism or autism or freckles.
He even "joked" once, saying to a group of associates, "Say, I'm pretty good at this killing stuff!" Well, it doesn’t get more stomach-churning than that.
Of course, he tolerated and supported such terrible efforts as Joe Biden convincing him that America needed a massive new drone-based CIA extrajudicial-killing industry or Hillary Clinton’s terrible advocacy at the State Department for inducing chaos in Libya and an effort to repeat its success afterward in Syria.
Such is the human material required to head the American empire in our time. The empire requires almost a constant flow of aggression and bloodshed as part of its maintenance work, to say nothing of its expansion plans.
Only those emotionally-equipped to support that effort need apply for the job of President. With some, like Trump, it’s pretty clear early-on what is happening, but with others, like Obama, it does require a bit of time to understand. He is, after all, well known as being an extremely secretive man, a required characteristic for his tough record of going after whistle-blowers and those who leak things to the press.
Surprising how popular he remains, but then most people don't really explore the details of events, even when it comes to killing hundreds of thousands of people and making refugees of millions. What they do know is comfortably confirmed to them, day after day, in America’s press and broadcasting, an activity which is an important part of their job.
And remember, the famous truth that millions of people, ordinary decent people, in the Soviet Union literally wept when the death of Stalin was announced.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett offers an intimate look behind the scenes of his presidency
“One of the most influential black women of the 21st century talks about her time in the White House”
Gee, does she talk about the CIA’s "Kill Lists" put into Obama’s inbox regularly for his signature?
I cannot be sentimental about this man.
The boyish smile was so deceptive and deceives people still. It deceived me when he first took office. I liked him in the beginning and thought him very promising.
But there is the intrusive fact that he bombed people somewhere for every single day of his eight years in office.
He killed literally hundreds of thousands across a number of countries, made a chaos out of Libya, started the horrors in Syria, ran a coup in Ukraine, and created America’s extrajudicial killing program with drones.
There is nothing sweet or nice to remember. A very dark figure.
________________________
Response to a comment saying Obama lacked Trump’s mental illness:
Yes, he did, except that he is almost certainly something of a psychopath with the all smiling he did and all the killing he signed off on, psychopathy not qualifying so much as a mental illness as simply an “outlier” condition which is repeated in a small portion of the human population over and over, like albinism or autism or freckles.
He even "joked" once, saying to a group of associates, "Say, I'm pretty good at this killing stuff!" Well, it doesn’t get more stomach-churning than that.
Of course, he tolerated and supported such terrible efforts as Joe Biden convincing him that America needed a massive new drone-based CIA extrajudicial-killing industry or Hillary Clinton’s terrible advocacy at the State Department for inducing chaos in Libya and an effort to repeat its success afterward in Syria.
Such is the human material required to head the American empire in our time. The empire requires almost a constant flow of aggression and bloodshed as part of its maintenance work, to say nothing of its expansion plans.
Only those emotionally-equipped to support that effort need apply for the job of President. With some, like Trump, it’s pretty clear early-on what is happening, but with others, like Obama, it does require a bit of time to understand. He is, after all, well known as being an extremely secretive man, a required characteristic for his tough record of going after whistle-blowers and those who leak things to the press.
Surprising how popular he remains, but then most people don't really explore the details of events, even when it comes to killing hundreds of thousands of people and making refugees of millions. What they do know is comfortably confirmed to them, day after day, in America’s press and broadcasting, an activity which is an important part of their job.
And remember, the famous truth that millions of people, ordinary decent people, in the Soviet Union literally wept when the death of Stalin was announced.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: REFLECTIONS ON CANADA'S FOREIGN MINISTER, CHRYSTIA FREELAND, AND THE APPARENT ABANDONMENT OF THE COUNTRY'S TRADITIONAL VALUES IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, FAIRNESS AND DECENCY
John Chuckman
POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“'Full steam ahead' on trade deal now that tariffs are lifted, Freeland says”
___________________________
Response to a comment which suggested Chrystia Freeland take over from Justin:
I see Freeland as an exceptionally disagreeable Canadian politician, a Liberal who might easily and comfortably have served under Stephen Harper.
She's smart, but so was Harper, and being smart is no guarantee of other emotional and personality qualities. Please recall her cutting public remark, completely gratuitous, about Jody Wilson-Raybould early in the SNC-Lavalin scandal. It was truly character-revealing.
Our distressing situation in Foreign Affairs is largely her doing, from making China justifiably angry to supporting America's coup in Venezuela against a democratic government, from echoing Washington’s ugly remarks about a law-abiding Iran to saying virtually nothing about Saudi Arabia's on-going slaughter in Yemen, in Syria, and at home against its minority Shia.
Not a word about record numbers of beheadings in Saudi Arabia, many of them simply people voicing criticism and a couple of them including teen-age boys. That is not the traditional approach of Canada in foreign affairs, but it very much is the approach of someone closely supporting American policy, Saudi Arabia’s ghastly new government being an important element in that policy.
I believe Trudeau has depended on her far too much, even for his own political good, precisely because he feels himself uncertain and ill at ease in large matters, and she seems sure and decided. This has given her an outsized influence, an influence which has not been in keeping with the reputation Canada enjoyed in the world for much of the twentieth century, a reputation earned by people like Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau and Paul Martin.
By all observation, she is reasonably comfortable with America's bleak current foreign policy. She even joins in on the slighting comments from Washington about Russia and Iran and Venezuela, comments not justified by any objective matter, not required of someone who isn’t a genuine partisan, and not representative of Canada’s traditional values of fairness and decency.
POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“'Full steam ahead' on trade deal now that tariffs are lifted, Freeland says”
___________________________
Response to a comment which suggested Chrystia Freeland take over from Justin:
I see Freeland as an exceptionally disagreeable Canadian politician, a Liberal who might easily and comfortably have served under Stephen Harper.
She's smart, but so was Harper, and being smart is no guarantee of other emotional and personality qualities. Please recall her cutting public remark, completely gratuitous, about Jody Wilson-Raybould early in the SNC-Lavalin scandal. It was truly character-revealing.
Our distressing situation in Foreign Affairs is largely her doing, from making China justifiably angry to supporting America's coup in Venezuela against a democratic government, from echoing Washington’s ugly remarks about a law-abiding Iran to saying virtually nothing about Saudi Arabia's on-going slaughter in Yemen, in Syria, and at home against its minority Shia.
Not a word about record numbers of beheadings in Saudi Arabia, many of them simply people voicing criticism and a couple of them including teen-age boys. That is not the traditional approach of Canada in foreign affairs, but it very much is the approach of someone closely supporting American policy, Saudi Arabia’s ghastly new government being an important element in that policy.
I believe Trudeau has depended on her far too much, even for his own political good, precisely because he feels himself uncertain and ill at ease in large matters, and she seems sure and decided. This has given her an outsized influence, an influence which has not been in keeping with the reputation Canada enjoyed in the world for much of the twentieth century, a reputation earned by people like Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau and Paul Martin.
By all observation, she is reasonably comfortable with America's bleak current foreign policy. She even joins in on the slighting comments from Washington about Russia and Iran and Venezuela, comments not justified by any objective matter, not required of someone who isn’t a genuine partisan, and not representative of Canada’s traditional values of fairness and decency.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S WARNING TO AIRLINES ABOUT BEING "MISIDENTIFIED" IN THE PERSIAN GULF RECALLS AMERICA'S 1988 DOWNING OF AN IRANIAN AIRLINER AND THE DEATHS OF NEARLY 300 SOULS - WORD ABOUT THE BUSH FAMILY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“US Diplomats Warn Airliners Risk Being ‘Misidentified’ in Persian Gulf
“US "misidentified" an Iranian airliner in 1988, killing 290 people”
I remember that disgraceful event well.
George H W Bush said he'd never apologize for the United States no matter what the facts, even to the needless, careless killing of almost three hundred people. Isn't that a rather god-like pose to strike?
I think it tells us something important. "Uber alles" stuff. Old Prescott Bush, who made the family fortune in banking and entered politics, after all, was a definite Nazi sympathiser.
Of course, a second horror later at Lockerbie, Scotland, whoever actually did it, was revenge for the Iranian airliner, and the American warship's brave captain is really at least in part responsible for both mass killings.
Boy, the US does decorate people for some mighty strange achievements.
The ship's captain being decorated for stupidly killing 290 people ranks right up there with the Medal of Freedom awarded to Madeleine "Mass Child Killer" Albright and Joe "Extrajudicial Killing Program" Biden.
And, of course, the current American warning to planes flying in the Persian Gulf is completely inappropriate.
There is no state of war. The warning represents unwarranted intimidation of Iran and of peaceful civilians and businesses in the region.
But who cares what you think? We're America, and we do as we please, with no apologies, ever.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“US Diplomats Warn Airliners Risk Being ‘Misidentified’ in Persian Gulf
“US "misidentified" an Iranian airliner in 1988, killing 290 people”
I remember that disgraceful event well.
George H W Bush said he'd never apologize for the United States no matter what the facts, even to the needless, careless killing of almost three hundred people. Isn't that a rather god-like pose to strike?
I think it tells us something important. "Uber alles" stuff. Old Prescott Bush, who made the family fortune in banking and entered politics, after all, was a definite Nazi sympathiser.
Of course, a second horror later at Lockerbie, Scotland, whoever actually did it, was revenge for the Iranian airliner, and the American warship's brave captain is really at least in part responsible for both mass killings.
Boy, the US does decorate people for some mighty strange achievements.
The ship's captain being decorated for stupidly killing 290 people ranks right up there with the Medal of Freedom awarded to Madeleine "Mass Child Killer" Albright and Joe "Extrajudicial Killing Program" Biden.
And, of course, the current American warning to planes flying in the Persian Gulf is completely inappropriate.
There is no state of war. The warning represents unwarranted intimidation of Iran and of peaceful civilians and businesses in the region.
But who cares what you think? We're America, and we do as we please, with no apologies, ever.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE INEPT BEHAVIOR OF GOVERNMENT IN CANADA RAISES DOUBTS EVEN IN THIS OLD-AGE "SMALL-L" LIBERAL ABOUT GOVERNMENT'S ABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE - THE EXAMPLE OF THE CITIZENSHIP GUIDE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Revamped citizenship guide still a work in progress as election nears
"...the existing guide — which is riddled with historical gaps and outdated information — as their primary document for preparing for the citizenship test"
Simply unbelievable.
This is precisely the same kind of poor work and oversight as we see in the government’s faulty payroll computer system.
It should be so easy for the Guide. It’s little more than a big pamphlet. Get just one quality researcher/writer, sit him or her at a desk with a computer for some weeks, and, presto, you get an intelligent, clear, sensible guide.
But that appears to be a task beyond those governing this business.
It's matters like this that do sometimes make you wonder whether government can get anything right.
I'm not a conservative, but as I grow old and read of event after event of this blindingly inept nature, doubts do come to mind.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Revamped citizenship guide still a work in progress as election nears
"...the existing guide — which is riddled with historical gaps and outdated information — as their primary document for preparing for the citizenship test"
Simply unbelievable.
This is precisely the same kind of poor work and oversight as we see in the government’s faulty payroll computer system.
It should be so easy for the Guide. It’s little more than a big pamphlet. Get just one quality researcher/writer, sit him or her at a desk with a computer for some weeks, and, presto, you get an intelligent, clear, sensible guide.
But that appears to be a task beyond those governing this business.
It's matters like this that do sometimes make you wonder whether government can get anything right.
I'm not a conservative, but as I grow old and read of event after event of this blindingly inept nature, doubts do come to mind.
Saturday, May 18, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IMPORTANT NEW FBI DOCUMENTS ABOUT 9/11 ARE RELEASED - AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE ON THEM - WILL THEY JUST GO IGNORED MUCH AS THAT LAST MOST REVEALING DOCUMENT RELEASED ON THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WHITNEY WEBB IN MINTPRESS
“Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
“New information released by the FBI has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center”
https://www.mintpressnews.com/newly-released-fbi-docs-shed-light-on-apparent-mossad-foreknowledge-of-9-11-attacks/258581/
An outstanding article, really outstanding.
Anyone who took an interest in 9/11 was aware of the "dancing Israelis" as well as a big gang of Israeli "art students" travelling around at the time.
Their presence raises immense questions, obviously.
But the press stayed quiet about these things, only known to some from a limited number of anecdotes.
The FBI has always stayed quiet. Other government officials stayed quiet.
When I read Anthony Summers book about 9/11, I was sorely disappointed. Summers wrote some fine work - especially the original "Conspiracy" about the Kennedy assassination - but the 9/11 book was something else entirely. He never even mentioned the Israelis.
That historical background gives us insight into just how powerfully Israeli interests affect the press and even law enforcement.
I don't know whether this release, interesting as it is, will become a dead end. After all, there are many, many serious questions around 9/11 and no one in authority ever touches them.
Readers may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-survivor-says-even-the-simplest-questions-around-911-have-not-been-answered-by-government-yes-and-some-disturbing-truths-around-those-events-the-saudi-arabian-nonsense/
We do have the example of the Kennedy assassination, a public killing of the nation's highest official, and not one important question around that has been answered. And there seems to be very little curiosity about it anymore.
Most of the last release of classified documents proved a big nothing, but there was one that was extraordinarily informative. It went virtually ignored by the press and certainly by government officials.
It clearly is a technique that works, ignoring questions or offering irrelevant responses over and over. It is used all the time now by politicians in campaigns and variations of it are used by lawyers in court.
Here is my discussion of that document which I think you may find interesting:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WHITNEY WEBB IN MINTPRESS
“Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
“New information released by the FBI has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center”
https://www.mintpressnews.com/newly-released-fbi-docs-shed-light-on-apparent-mossad-foreknowledge-of-9-11-attacks/258581/
An outstanding article, really outstanding.
Anyone who took an interest in 9/11 was aware of the "dancing Israelis" as well as a big gang of Israeli "art students" travelling around at the time.
Their presence raises immense questions, obviously.
But the press stayed quiet about these things, only known to some from a limited number of anecdotes.
The FBI has always stayed quiet. Other government officials stayed quiet.
When I read Anthony Summers book about 9/11, I was sorely disappointed. Summers wrote some fine work - especially the original "Conspiracy" about the Kennedy assassination - but the 9/11 book was something else entirely. He never even mentioned the Israelis.
That historical background gives us insight into just how powerfully Israeli interests affect the press and even law enforcement.
I don't know whether this release, interesting as it is, will become a dead end. After all, there are many, many serious questions around 9/11 and no one in authority ever touches them.
Readers may enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-survivor-says-even-the-simplest-questions-around-911-have-not-been-answered-by-government-yes-and-some-disturbing-truths-around-those-events-the-saudi-arabian-nonsense/
We do have the example of the Kennedy assassination, a public killing of the nation's highest official, and not one important question around that has been answered. And there seems to be very little curiosity about it anymore.
Most of the last release of classified documents proved a big nothing, but there was one that was extraordinarily informative. It went virtually ignored by the press and certainly by government officials.
It clearly is a technique that works, ignoring questions or offering irrelevant responses over and over. It is used all the time now by politicians in campaigns and variations of it are used by lawyers in court.
Here is my discussion of that document which I think you may find interesting:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
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