John Chuckman
COMMENT ON AN ARTICLE BY JOHN KIRIAKOU IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“What was this CIA Officer [White House Whistleblower] Thinking?
“Given Langley’s intolerance for whistleblowing, the current case now in the headlines has a couple of curious features”
I guess I'm not greatly surprised to learn that a secretive organization, busy with the dirty work of empire, doesn't really like having whistleblowers around, despite its professing otherwise and having formal protocols and procedures in place for dealing with them.
“Omerta” must be a strict code just as surely as it is for that other (private enterprise) American mafia.
I remain unconvinced that CIA has any genuine interest in bringing down Trump, which is, of course, what they would have been doing if the still anonymous whistleblower, as hinted at, was a deliberate CIA plant in the White House.
I’m open to being convinced otherwise, but I just do not see a motive.
Trump appears to do the establishment's bidding in almost all matters.
In America's offshore branch establishment, Israel, a key associate in many CIA works, Trump could not be more popular.
Trump carries right on with all the violent projects across the planet.
What would be the CIA’s motivation for bringing him down?
And for any major Federal agency, especially one so sensitive in nature as CIA, to team up with the interests of just one of the two political parties, the Democrats, does seem an extremely risky thing to do. It isn’t plausible to my mind.
It was different when Obama was still president, as all the security agencies owe some allegiance to the President.
I think Obama, himself an immensely secretive man, had quite a few operations against Trump’s election underway. He certainly had the CIA Director publicly speaking against Trump. Since when do CIA Directors, on their own, do that? And on the basis of a custom-manufactured dossier from a former MI6 agent with all kinds of smarmy American contacts?
After all, how many times has CIA worked to manipulate and bend facts to give a sitting President supporting "evidence" for something that he, or they, wanted to do abroad? The invasion of Iraq was a glaring example of that. The various recruited and supplied mercenary groups – al Nusra, the White Helmets, ISIS - working against the government of Syria, pretending to be independent organizations or extreme jihadi types, are another.
Monday, September 30, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THERE ARE NO GOOD GUYS IN THE STORY OF TRUMP AND BIDEN AND UKRAINE - A FEW POINTS IN A MATTER THAT MAY WELL MEAN IMPEACHMENT - THE REAL STORY IS WHAT IT ALL TELLS US ABOUT AMERICA TODAY
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Democrats have fallen into Trump's impeachment trap, his supporters say
“Impeachment inquiry could cost the Democrats support of swing voters in 2020”
There are no good guys here.
Trump couldn't be more wrong in calling a foreign leader and effectively asking him to interfere in an American election by investigating Trump's most likely political opponent.
It's also clear, even though there is no mention in the [redacted] transcript, that American foreign aid money was first delayed to make Ukraine's President more responsive to Trump's inappropriate request.
We known Biden did some sleazy things in Ukraine, but Trump's approach is not the way to investigate them. Biden is even to be found in some old video joking about his activities in that country.
In addition to Biden’s own activities, there was the mysterious appointment of his son, Hunter, as a board member for a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings. A man of no known expertise or experience or reputation was paid about fifteen times the amount board members for big companies receive typically. Clearly, it stinks.
Biden, in fact, has a long career of sleazy political behavior, always done with a smile which many people read as incorrectly as they do Obama’s smile. Obama was, of course, Biden’s direct boss for the unpleasant activities.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/john-chuckman-comment-ah-the-excitement-of-joe-biden-entering-the-presidential-race-key-points-you-should-know-about-joe-biden-why-hes-just-one-more-example-of-pure-american-political-sleaze/
It's interesting how these matters center on Ukraine. After all, Ukraine was the target of an American-inspired coup, one which toppled an elected government, which is about as corrupt a practice as you can have from a nation styling itself a democracy, as America is fond of doing. Talk about interference in elections!
The Washington establishment is corrupt. All of it. Both parties. Top to bottom.
But whoever thought that running a ruthless global empire called for ethical or principled people in charge?
And America’s money-drenched political system absolutely guarantees that the right kind of people are in charge, people who eagerly serve the interests of empire.
____________________
Response to a comment saying “So absolutely disgusting to see just how brainwashed some people [modest Americas interviewed in the article] are”
It reflects the power over minds of ideology and cult-like beliefs.
America's football-game Patriotism is a religion, a very strange and powerful one.
____________________
Response to a comment about Trump’s suggesting that Adam Schiff, U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chair, should be arrested for 'treason'
Hard to imagine a President making such a public remark.
Trump has absolutely no sense of the dignity and decorum of his own office.
And effectively, his words express the most outrageous narcissism and paranoia.
It really is too bad that such words themselves cannot be grounds for impeachment.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Democrats have fallen into Trump's impeachment trap, his supporters say
“Impeachment inquiry could cost the Democrats support of swing voters in 2020”
There are no good guys here.
Trump couldn't be more wrong in calling a foreign leader and effectively asking him to interfere in an American election by investigating Trump's most likely political opponent.
It's also clear, even though there is no mention in the [redacted] transcript, that American foreign aid money was first delayed to make Ukraine's President more responsive to Trump's inappropriate request.
We known Biden did some sleazy things in Ukraine, but Trump's approach is not the way to investigate them. Biden is even to be found in some old video joking about his activities in that country.
In addition to Biden’s own activities, there was the mysterious appointment of his son, Hunter, as a board member for a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings. A man of no known expertise or experience or reputation was paid about fifteen times the amount board members for big companies receive typically. Clearly, it stinks.
Biden, in fact, has a long career of sleazy political behavior, always done with a smile which many people read as incorrectly as they do Obama’s smile. Obama was, of course, Biden’s direct boss for the unpleasant activities.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/john-chuckman-comment-ah-the-excitement-of-joe-biden-entering-the-presidential-race-key-points-you-should-know-about-joe-biden-why-hes-just-one-more-example-of-pure-american-political-sleaze/
It's interesting how these matters center on Ukraine. After all, Ukraine was the target of an American-inspired coup, one which toppled an elected government, which is about as corrupt a practice as you can have from a nation styling itself a democracy, as America is fond of doing. Talk about interference in elections!
The Washington establishment is corrupt. All of it. Both parties. Top to bottom.
But whoever thought that running a ruthless global empire called for ethical or principled people in charge?
And America’s money-drenched political system absolutely guarantees that the right kind of people are in charge, people who eagerly serve the interests of empire.
____________________
Response to a comment saying “So absolutely disgusting to see just how brainwashed some people [modest Americas interviewed in the article] are”
It reflects the power over minds of ideology and cult-like beliefs.
America's football-game Patriotism is a religion, a very strange and powerful one.
____________________
Response to a comment about Trump’s suggesting that Adam Schiff, U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chair, should be arrested for 'treason'
Hard to imagine a President making such a public remark.
Trump has absolutely no sense of the dignity and decorum of his own office.
And effectively, his words express the most outrageous narcissism and paranoia.
It really is too bad that such words themselves cannot be grounds for impeachment.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OBAMA AND THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE - THE WORLD WAS BRIEFLY CAPTIVATED BY THIS SMILING NEWCOMER AFTER GEORGE BUSH'S DEPRESSING YEARS - HOPES WERE VERY HIGH BUT ALL TO BE DASHED - CLEARLY THE NOBEL COMMITTEE MADE A BIG MISTAKE AWARDING THE PRIZE JUST FOR HOPE AND ENCOURAGEMENT AND FOR ZERO ACHIEVEMENT - BUT THEN THAT'S THEY DO SO OFTEN NOW MAKING IT A NEAR-MEANINGLESS PRIZE - JUST LIKE AMERICA'S MEDAL OF FREEDOM
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO A SATIRICAL ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Local Man Nominated for Nobel Prize After Constantly Complaining About the Heat
"Has done nothing notable in is life except for substantial complaining about the temperature"
___________________________
Response to a comment asking, “…how did Obama pull it off [the Nobel Prize]?”
It was easy to understand at the time.
After all, he did have a big boyish smile, and before he was President, he was even photographed wearing sandals once or twice. And there was that seemingly-brave business of his not wearing an idiotic American flag lapel pin during the campaign, something which became a nasty controversy. There were many little signs that here was someone who was going to be quite different
Remember the huge crowd in Berlin welcoming him? Hundreds of thousands of people. Just overwhelming images of Obama elevated a bit from them, reaching out, smiling. It was quite moving.
The world, briefly, was full of hope and expectation for better things towards the end of George Bush's depressing presidency. You could just feel it.
That's all Obama's Nobel Prize was about. It was a "hopes for better things" prize. The Nobel people have done that before. The Committee hopes in such cases to arm the recipient with more authority and strength for the tasks they see him or her doing.
It is a very poor practice. With that plus the many truly unworthy Prize recipients, even killers, all reflecting political pressures rather than merit, the Prize today in my view is close to meaningless.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/john-chuckman-comment-nobel-peace-prize-for-trump-it-would-be-the-first-monty-pythonesque-peace-prize-award-worthy-candidates-a-rather-grim-history-for-this-largely-meaningless-prize/
Meaningless, just as the Medal of Freedom is in the United States, with recipients such as Joe Biden and Madeleine Albright, both people who were, in fact, important supporters of mass killing.
And of course, the hopes for Obama were, before very long, dead. Obama proved a cold, arrogant and rather ruthless man and carried right on where Bush left off. His Nobel Peace Prize soon looked absurd.
https://chuckmancartoons.blogspot.com/search/label/CHUCKMAN%20CARTOON%20-%20OBAMA%20-%20AFTER%20LESS%20THAN%20THREE%20YEARS%20AS%20EMPEROR
https://chuckmancartoons.blogspot.com/search/label/CHUCKMAN%20CARTOON%20-%20OBAMA%20-%20HIS%20MASTER%27S%20MARK
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO A SATIRICAL ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Local Man Nominated for Nobel Prize After Constantly Complaining About the Heat
"Has done nothing notable in is life except for substantial complaining about the temperature"
___________________________
Response to a comment asking, “…how did Obama pull it off [the Nobel Prize]?”
It was easy to understand at the time.
After all, he did have a big boyish smile, and before he was President, he was even photographed wearing sandals once or twice. And there was that seemingly-brave business of his not wearing an idiotic American flag lapel pin during the campaign, something which became a nasty controversy. There were many little signs that here was someone who was going to be quite different
Remember the huge crowd in Berlin welcoming him? Hundreds of thousands of people. Just overwhelming images of Obama elevated a bit from them, reaching out, smiling. It was quite moving.
The world, briefly, was full of hope and expectation for better things towards the end of George Bush's depressing presidency. You could just feel it.
That's all Obama's Nobel Prize was about. It was a "hopes for better things" prize. The Nobel people have done that before. The Committee hopes in such cases to arm the recipient with more authority and strength for the tasks they see him or her doing.
It is a very poor practice. With that plus the many truly unworthy Prize recipients, even killers, all reflecting political pressures rather than merit, the Prize today in my view is close to meaningless.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/john-chuckman-comment-nobel-peace-prize-for-trump-it-would-be-the-first-monty-pythonesque-peace-prize-award-worthy-candidates-a-rather-grim-history-for-this-largely-meaningless-prize/
Meaningless, just as the Medal of Freedom is in the United States, with recipients such as Joe Biden and Madeleine Albright, both people who were, in fact, important supporters of mass killing.
And of course, the hopes for Obama were, before very long, dead. Obama proved a cold, arrogant and rather ruthless man and carried right on where Bush left off. His Nobel Peace Prize soon looked absurd.
https://chuckmancartoons.blogspot.com/search/label/CHUCKMAN%20CARTOON%20-%20OBAMA%20-%20AFTER%20LESS%20THAN%20THREE%20YEARS%20AS%20EMPEROR
https://chuckmancartoons.blogspot.com/search/label/CHUCKMAN%20CARTOON%20-%20OBAMA%20-%20HIS%20MASTER%27S%20MARK
Saturday, September 28, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE HOUTHI DO IT AGAIN - THIS TIME ON THE GROUND INSIDE SAUDI ARABIA - ONE IS REMINDED OF VIETNAM'S TET OFFENSIVE - SAUDI INCOMPETENCE - MORE EMBARRASSMENT FOR A LUMBERING BELLIGERENT AMERICA - SOMETIMES THE VICTIMS, THE LITTLE GUYS, DO WIN DESPITE IMMENSE RESOURCES ARRAYED AGAINST THEM
John Chuckman
COMMENT: YEMEN’S HOUTHI DO IT AGAIN – THIS TIME ON THE GROUND INSIDE SAUDI ARABIA
There are many incomplete reports of a rather spectacular Houthi victory over Saudi forces inside Saudi Arabia near a place called Najran. The Houthi managed to encircle three full brigades of Saudi forces. Thousands of Saudi forces have been captured, both Saudi and other allied forces.
Some Saudi senior officers were captured, and some were killed along with hundreds of troops in the army brigades. Hundreds of armored vehicles are said to have been captured. (I wonder, does that include any of the armored car/light tank-type vehicles Canada’s fatuous Trudeau government has sold the tyrant running Saudi Arabia?)
After the remarkable Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities - something which caught the United States and the Saudis flat-footed and embarrassed them before the world - the Houthi made a public offer to halt hostilities if the Saudis would reciprocate. But the Saudis have arrogantly ignored the offer and continued attacks on Yemen, killing, as always, plenty of women and children.
American and Saudi pride just won’t let them admit what a terrible error it was to start this war against a much smaller, much poorer country. I’ve read that some Pentagon generals at the time warned that it was a bad idea, that it underestimated the Houthi determination and toughness, and overestimated the ability of the Saudis. The Saudis have used a lot of foreign fighters because they themselves display considerable reluctance to do the dirty work of fighting.
If the reports prove accurate, this is as stunning a victory on the ground as the recent air attack on Saudi oil facilities. And it causes one to reflect back to 1968 and the Vietcong making American claims of progress in Vietnam look ridiculous with the remarkable Tet Offensive.
The Saudis have not as of this writing confirmed the Houthi claims, but then all they have done since the air attack is lie about the extent of the damage and lie about how long it will take to repair (it will be months, apparently) while joining America’s vicious asinine game of “Let’s blame Iran.” That’s just what bullies do when they are militarily embarrassed and there’s still someone else they would like very much to hurt.
The American Patriot (air defense) batteries were so completely ineffective in defending the Saudi oil facilities that I’ve seen a reference to the United States wanting to replace them in some locations for its own forces.
COMMENT: YEMEN’S HOUTHI DO IT AGAIN – THIS TIME ON THE GROUND INSIDE SAUDI ARABIA
There are many incomplete reports of a rather spectacular Houthi victory over Saudi forces inside Saudi Arabia near a place called Najran. The Houthi managed to encircle three full brigades of Saudi forces. Thousands of Saudi forces have been captured, both Saudi and other allied forces.
Some Saudi senior officers were captured, and some were killed along with hundreds of troops in the army brigades. Hundreds of armored vehicles are said to have been captured. (I wonder, does that include any of the armored car/light tank-type vehicles Canada’s fatuous Trudeau government has sold the tyrant running Saudi Arabia?)
After the remarkable Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities - something which caught the United States and the Saudis flat-footed and embarrassed them before the world - the Houthi made a public offer to halt hostilities if the Saudis would reciprocate. But the Saudis have arrogantly ignored the offer and continued attacks on Yemen, killing, as always, plenty of women and children.
American and Saudi pride just won’t let them admit what a terrible error it was to start this war against a much smaller, much poorer country. I’ve read that some Pentagon generals at the time warned that it was a bad idea, that it underestimated the Houthi determination and toughness, and overestimated the ability of the Saudis. The Saudis have used a lot of foreign fighters because they themselves display considerable reluctance to do the dirty work of fighting.
If the reports prove accurate, this is as stunning a victory on the ground as the recent air attack on Saudi oil facilities. And it causes one to reflect back to 1968 and the Vietcong making American claims of progress in Vietnam look ridiculous with the remarkable Tet Offensive.
The Saudis have not as of this writing confirmed the Houthi claims, but then all they have done since the air attack is lie about the extent of the damage and lie about how long it will take to repair (it will be months, apparently) while joining America’s vicious asinine game of “Let’s blame Iran.” That’s just what bullies do when they are militarily embarrassed and there’s still someone else they would like very much to hurt.
The American Patriot (air defense) batteries were so completely ineffective in defending the Saudi oil facilities that I’ve seen a reference to the United States wanting to replace them in some locations for its own forces.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DESPITE THE LOGIC AND ELOQUENCE OF THE WORLD'S FINEST FOREIGN MINISTER, RUSSIA'S SERGEY LAVROV, THERE IS NO WAY UN HEADQUARTERS WILL MOVE FROM NEW YORK - EXACTLY WHY THAT IS SO - LAVROV'S WORDS COME ON THE HEELS OF THE UNITED STATES (AGAINST ITS TREATY OBLIGATIONS) REFUSING VISAS TO SOME OF LAVROV'S STAFF
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Lavrov Says Moscow Will Raise Issue of UN Location After Russian Delegates Denied Visas
“Geneva makes far more sense than Empire's bosom”
I deeply admire Lavrov, and, as is his habit, he makes a sound logical argument, but I think there is no likelihood the United States will lose the UN headquarters.
Why? For the same reason that they obtained it in the first place, the threat of their taking their marbles and running.
The United States refused to join the previous League of Nations founded after WWI.
Knowing American attitudes, WWII Allies tended to support expectations of an American headquarters for the UN. It was viewed as a way of cementing America's support, always lukewarm at best for any international institution or organization.
And just look at the series of American anti-UN actions in recent years, from Bush to Trump.
Hateful rhetoric and, for periods of time, just arbitrarily refusing to pay its treaty-obliged dues until it saw changes it wanted in the organization.
Only recently, several important UN agencies were cut off entirely by the United States, such as UNESCO.
The excuse that the UN is "unfair" to Israel is offed as explanation for high-handed behavior, as though the United States enjoyed a special privileged position in judging what was fair or unfair compared to the other 95% of humanity represented by the UN.
But that notion of unfairness carries a huge amount of political weight in Washington where the pressures of one of the country’s most aggressive lobbies are acutely felt.
Unfair? Well, the truth is that all Israel ever has experienced is criticism of its behavior, behavior so reproachable and opposed to founding principles of the UN that Israel, by rights, should have been expelled ages ago if it failed to change course. But any action like that, no matter how just, would just see the United States leave the organization.
You can’t win on arguments around principle where the United States or Israel are concerned, and that is for the simple reason that they both represent imperialism and the abuse of power
Israel not only hates the UN, as many past statements by its leaders demonstrate, it stands in defiance of a very long list of binding UN Resolutions, something that is true of no other state.
They are the very kind of Resolutions that might have been used by the United States as reasons for invading another country, one that it didn’t like. Instead, in Israel’s case, ignoring them is just fine and not to be commented upon.
Israel likes the UN only to the extent that membership confers some legitimacy to it, a country literally without borders, one refusing to adhere to borders set many decades ago. The UN also gives Israel the opportunity to make speeches on a large and influential stage. Otherwise, Israel ignores the UN in virtually everything it does, even going so far in the past as to kill official UN Observers during some of its aggressions.
No one wants the United States to leave the UN, but that would likely become a genuine threat with any notion of moving the headquarters.
The United States will keep pushing like the bully that it just naturally is, but I don't think it will push too far.
If it does go too far, as in failing regularly to issue visas to people from countries it doesn’t like, it only means the UN has lost all political support in a very angry and aggressive United States, and it just doesn’t care what the UN does.
AFTERNOTE: Iran's very fine Foreign Minister, Mohammad Zarif, on his visit to the UN, was also just refused permission to visit a stricken diplomatic colleague being treated in a New York cancer hospital. The vicious pettiness of American officials is remarkable.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Lavrov Says Moscow Will Raise Issue of UN Location After Russian Delegates Denied Visas
“Geneva makes far more sense than Empire's bosom”
I deeply admire Lavrov, and, as is his habit, he makes a sound logical argument, but I think there is no likelihood the United States will lose the UN headquarters.
Why? For the same reason that they obtained it in the first place, the threat of their taking their marbles and running.
The United States refused to join the previous League of Nations founded after WWI.
Knowing American attitudes, WWII Allies tended to support expectations of an American headquarters for the UN. It was viewed as a way of cementing America's support, always lukewarm at best for any international institution or organization.
And just look at the series of American anti-UN actions in recent years, from Bush to Trump.
Hateful rhetoric and, for periods of time, just arbitrarily refusing to pay its treaty-obliged dues until it saw changes it wanted in the organization.
Only recently, several important UN agencies were cut off entirely by the United States, such as UNESCO.
The excuse that the UN is "unfair" to Israel is offed as explanation for high-handed behavior, as though the United States enjoyed a special privileged position in judging what was fair or unfair compared to the other 95% of humanity represented by the UN.
But that notion of unfairness carries a huge amount of political weight in Washington where the pressures of one of the country’s most aggressive lobbies are acutely felt.
Unfair? Well, the truth is that all Israel ever has experienced is criticism of its behavior, behavior so reproachable and opposed to founding principles of the UN that Israel, by rights, should have been expelled ages ago if it failed to change course. But any action like that, no matter how just, would just see the United States leave the organization.
You can’t win on arguments around principle where the United States or Israel are concerned, and that is for the simple reason that they both represent imperialism and the abuse of power
Israel not only hates the UN, as many past statements by its leaders demonstrate, it stands in defiance of a very long list of binding UN Resolutions, something that is true of no other state.
They are the very kind of Resolutions that might have been used by the United States as reasons for invading another country, one that it didn’t like. Instead, in Israel’s case, ignoring them is just fine and not to be commented upon.
Israel likes the UN only to the extent that membership confers some legitimacy to it, a country literally without borders, one refusing to adhere to borders set many decades ago. The UN also gives Israel the opportunity to make speeches on a large and influential stage. Otherwise, Israel ignores the UN in virtually everything it does, even going so far in the past as to kill official UN Observers during some of its aggressions.
No one wants the United States to leave the UN, but that would likely become a genuine threat with any notion of moving the headquarters.
The United States will keep pushing like the bully that it just naturally is, but I don't think it will push too far.
If it does go too far, as in failing regularly to issue visas to people from countries it doesn’t like, it only means the UN has lost all political support in a very angry and aggressive United States, and it just doesn’t care what the UN does.
AFTERNOTE: Iran's very fine Foreign Minister, Mohammad Zarif, on his visit to the UN, was also just refused permission to visit a stricken diplomatic colleague being treated in a New York cancer hospital. The vicious pettiness of American officials is remarkable.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE HOPELESSNESS OF BELIEVING THAT ELECTION CAMPAIGNS CAN DEAL WITH "THINGS THAT MATTER"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROBYN URBACK IN CBC NEWS
“What's the difference between the Conservative and Liberal platforms? The colour
“This election essentially comes down to whose face you won't mind staring at for the next 4 years”
I very much like Robyn Urback's pieces in general
They tend to display a kind of realism and tough cynicism about political nonsense.
But this piece takes quite a different path, and I regard it as a bit naive.
"Let's talk about things that matter."
Please, when in political history were "things that matter" discussed in an election?
The very nature of our politics does not allow this.
And, since over time, in parliamentary governments, parliaments have been almost shoved off the stage by party leaders, we have something resembling any other form of human mock combat between a few individuals.
We have a contest between a few leaders, each trying, in a very condensed amount of time, to please the electorate with smiles and promises and lines crafted by someone else and each trying to overshadow the others.
Where on earth is there room in that structure for honest discussion of "things that matter"?
There is none. The expectation is extremely naive. If we want that kind of discussion to occur, we need to change our political system, hugely.
Our elections have become little more than efforts by voters to guess which of several leaders has the most suitable personality and intelligence and willingness to communicate.
That's not at all something terrible, but it isn't what Ms. Urback is talking about, nor do I think the situation has potential for much change.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROBYN URBACK IN CBC NEWS
“What's the difference between the Conservative and Liberal platforms? The colour
“This election essentially comes down to whose face you won't mind staring at for the next 4 years”
I very much like Robyn Urback's pieces in general
They tend to display a kind of realism and tough cynicism about political nonsense.
But this piece takes quite a different path, and I regard it as a bit naive.
"Let's talk about things that matter."
Please, when in political history were "things that matter" discussed in an election?
The very nature of our politics does not allow this.
And, since over time, in parliamentary governments, parliaments have been almost shoved off the stage by party leaders, we have something resembling any other form of human mock combat between a few individuals.
We have a contest between a few leaders, each trying, in a very condensed amount of time, to please the electorate with smiles and promises and lines crafted by someone else and each trying to overshadow the others.
Where on earth is there room in that structure for honest discussion of "things that matter"?
There is none. The expectation is extremely naive. If we want that kind of discussion to occur, we need to change our political system, hugely.
Our elections have become little more than efforts by voters to guess which of several leaders has the most suitable personality and intelligence and willingness to communicate.
That's not at all something terrible, but it isn't what Ms. Urback is talking about, nor do I think the situation has potential for much change.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CANADA'S GREEN PARTY GOES OVERBOARD - EVEN A LIKABLE AND ADMIRABLE PERSON CAN BE DEAD WRONG SOMETIMES - AGAIN THE RELIGIOUS OVERTONES OF SOME GREEN ADVOCACY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Green platform has some big fiscal holes, hidden costs Math errors and missing details cloud party's claim of transparency”
You know, there's green and there's Green. They are not the same thing.
The Green Party can have no idea of the immense costs their platform would bring.
Costs in dollar terms and in other terms, such as sound business and trade and development.
"green" in the sense of caring about nature is a good quality, and I very much share it.
But "Green" as in these kinds of massive, unknown, unproved schemes - almost resembling projects from the old USSR where they moved whole rivers and levelled mountains - is dangerous religious fanaticism.
I would just like to add that I very much like and admire Elizabeth May for a number of things.
But it is possible to have likable and admirable qualities and to still be dead wrong about some matters.
I rather like some of the Pope's qualities, but I wouldn't want him running a country.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Green platform has some big fiscal holes, hidden costs Math errors and missing details cloud party's claim of transparency”
You know, there's green and there's Green. They are not the same thing.
The Green Party can have no idea of the immense costs their platform would bring.
Costs in dollar terms and in other terms, such as sound business and trade and development.
"green" in the sense of caring about nature is a good quality, and I very much share it.
But "Green" as in these kinds of massive, unknown, unproved schemes - almost resembling projects from the old USSR where they moved whole rivers and levelled mountains - is dangerous religious fanaticism.
I would just like to add that I very much like and admire Elizabeth May for a number of things.
But it is possible to have likable and admirable qualities and to still be dead wrong about some matters.
I rather like some of the Pope's qualities, but I wouldn't want him running a country.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A LOT OF NOISE IN CANADA OVER CLIMATE CHANGE - SOME MUCH NEEDED PERSPECTIVE TO KEEP IN MIND - OVERTONES OF A RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM RATHER THAN A FACTUAL DISCUSSION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Worried about climate change? You've got a tough decision to make
“3 parties share a broadly aggressive approach to the problem - but there are devils in the details”
Just a reminder for perspective, and perspective is always important.
Canada, with emissions of a tiny, tiny fraction of the world's emissions, is realistically in no position to have any impact on global events.
And that's assuming something that is anything but certain, that carbon emissions even have anything to do with the realities of climate change.
The cold hard fact is while climate change is proven, its cause absolutely is not. A lot of people have gone off into hysterics about a matter they really do not understand. We are witnessing religious enthusiasm, not thoughtful inquiry and discussion.
But if Canada somehow decides to go for broke in the name of feel-good slogans, its economy literally will be destroyed vis-a-vis its competitors in the world.
Then we'll have no choice but use sailboats and bicycles for everything.
______________________
Response to a comment saying, “Question the validity so-called solutions and you are instantly labelled a denier”
Yes, yes, it much resembles being called a heretic in the Middle Ages.
Dangerous and irresponsible.
_________________________
Response to a comment saying, “Justin is used to listening to immature underdeveloped minds, giving Greta his time makes him happy”
[The article featured a photo of a rather insipid-looking Trudeau sitting, his chair near young Greta's, with his hands in his lap, listening intently to her almost frighteningly-intense face.]
Well, although he pretends otherwise, we've all seen the effective loyalty to Trump that Trudeau has displayed in international affairs, and there is no greater angry child on earth than Donald Trump.
Trudeau has actively supported Trump’s views, ignoring Canada’s more worthy traditions while helping create a complete mess.
________________________
Response to a comment saying amongst other things, “We
ALL have a conscience and we ALL know what we have done and continue to do is
WRONG. We do not own the Earth - the Earth owns us! What our generation has
done is worse than any other…”
Sorry, your words are religious words, not scientific or
logical ones.
And look at what religion did to Europe in the Middle Ages.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HOW THE BREXIT MESS IS REVEALING THE VERY WORST OF BRITISH POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS - THE REALITY BEHIND ALL "WESTERN DEMOCRACIES" - WE SEE GOVERNMENTS IN ALL CASES DESIGNED FOR STABILITY AND SERVICE TO AN ESTABLISHMENT, NOT FOR DEMOCRACY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN WRIGHT IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“the hard-fought constitutional battle over whether the country is to be ruled by executive fiat or parliamentary democracy”
"The Mammoth Stress Test of British Democracy"
What democracy? I don't see one in Britain.
First, any party rules in the British Parliament with the support of 30-something percent of votes, and it is even called a “majority government.”
Second, Johnson is not even elected, yet gets to have the title and powers of Prime Minister.
He's there by a majority vote of the members of the Conservative Party whose membership is about 160 thousand out of a population of around 65 million.
And he is able to ruthlessly push for the most consequential change that could be imagined. Even bending laws and traditions.
I don't see a scrap of democracy in evidence.
The fact is for virtually all of our "Western democracies" there are comparably unpleasant truths. Our governments were set up for stability and the service of an establishment, not for democracy.
________________________
Response to another comment:
"The Queen" question is a very important one. Boris Johnson has Her permission but the Supreme Court's condemnation?
Worse than confusing, I think.
I believe what we are seeing with The Queen vis-a-vis Blair's newly-constructed Supreme Court is a set of puzzle pieces which no longer together.
Not so much a question of "democracy" as just old and new institutions crudely patched together so that it is not clear whether they even work.
This whole matter of Brexit sure is highlighting the very worst in Britain's political institutions.
I'm against it entirely for many reasons, but especially the fact that post-EU Britain will become even a worse toady to America.
Trumpian America will extract a terrible price for any new trade agreement and other institutional arrangements. There are no loyalties or traditions or decencies or even ethics to be found in Trump and Company. And Britain will have no choice but to pay the price demanded.
So, the British people, who thought they were voting against being tied to a larger political entity like the EU, are going to discover that they effectively voted just for switching to another, and I think one a whole lot harsher and less sympathetic.
Although, it could be argued that it is not possible to become more grovelling than "the special relationship" already has made Britain for decades, I think that would be wrong. There are no limits with the Trump gang functioning more as a mafia than as a government.
As to your hope about the electorate getting rid of the lot of them in elections, I’m sure you know those kinds of things just do not happen.
As I said in my post above, all of our Western governments were set up for stability and the service of an establishment, not for democracy.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN WRIGHT IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“the hard-fought constitutional battle over whether the country is to be ruled by executive fiat or parliamentary democracy”
"The Mammoth Stress Test of British Democracy"
What democracy? I don't see one in Britain.
First, any party rules in the British Parliament with the support of 30-something percent of votes, and it is even called a “majority government.”
Second, Johnson is not even elected, yet gets to have the title and powers of Prime Minister.
He's there by a majority vote of the members of the Conservative Party whose membership is about 160 thousand out of a population of around 65 million.
And he is able to ruthlessly push for the most consequential change that could be imagined. Even bending laws and traditions.
I don't see a scrap of democracy in evidence.
The fact is for virtually all of our "Western democracies" there are comparably unpleasant truths. Our governments were set up for stability and the service of an establishment, not for democracy.
________________________
Response to another comment:
"The Queen" question is a very important one. Boris Johnson has Her permission but the Supreme Court's condemnation?
Worse than confusing, I think.
I believe what we are seeing with The Queen vis-a-vis Blair's newly-constructed Supreme Court is a set of puzzle pieces which no longer together.
Not so much a question of "democracy" as just old and new institutions crudely patched together so that it is not clear whether they even work.
This whole matter of Brexit sure is highlighting the very worst in Britain's political institutions.
I'm against it entirely for many reasons, but especially the fact that post-EU Britain will become even a worse toady to America.
Trumpian America will extract a terrible price for any new trade agreement and other institutional arrangements. There are no loyalties or traditions or decencies or even ethics to be found in Trump and Company. And Britain will have no choice but to pay the price demanded.
So, the British people, who thought they were voting against being tied to a larger political entity like the EU, are going to discover that they effectively voted just for switching to another, and I think one a whole lot harsher and less sympathetic.
Although, it could be argued that it is not possible to become more grovelling than "the special relationship" already has made Britain for decades, I think that would be wrong. There are no limits with the Trump gang functioning more as a mafia than as a government.
As to your hope about the electorate getting rid of the lot of them in elections, I’m sure you know those kinds of things just do not happen.
As I said in my post above, all of our Western governments were set up for stability and the service of an establishment, not for democracy.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: GIVEN ALL THE CONTROVERSY OVER TRUMP AND BIDEN ACTIVITIES WITH UKRAINE'S GOVERNMENT - DISHONORABLE, ALL OF THEM - HERE'S SOME BACKGROUND ON HOW UKRAINE ARRIVED WHERE IT IS - AND GUESS WHAT? IT WAS STILL MORE DISHONORABLE AMERICAN ACTIVITY
John Chuckman
SLIGHT EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (AND REMOVED BY AN EDITOR)
“Trump says he put 'no pressure' on Ukraine president during phone call
“Partial transcript shows U.S. president asked Zelensky for help in investigating Biden”
Of course, when it comes to doing dishonorable things, the entire matter of the coup in Ukraine, carried out with $5 billion in secret American aid - a fact we know from a rather blabby senior State Department official, Victoria Nuland - was about as dishonorable as it gets.
A democratically-elected government was overturned and driven away.
And there is all the hardship and damage that the coup caused. The secession of the Donbass region (part of eastern Ukraine) and a stupidly blundering civil war started by the coup-installed government that has killed thousands. Even a civilian airliner, packed with people, shot down, either deliberately or accidentally, amidst the chaos.
New language legislation, outrageously biased, was a major cause of secession. Ukraine is at least 30 percent Russian-speaking and has been for ages. Indeed, many regard the Ukrainian language as just a dialect of Russian used in Western Ukraine. Whether that is so or not, they are closely related. The two states have a thousand years of inter-related history.
Constant threats, including threats from outfits like the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia supported by America (there are photos of good old Joe Biden shaking hands with its leader) and used as part of the coup while also serving to keep any subsequent Ukrainian President intimidated into line as well as blunting efforts at reasonable peace with the Donbass. There are several ultra-nationalist organizations and parties serving those purposes.
Installing a man like Poroshenko as President for four years was a disaster. He proved completely inept, with rumors of corruption echoing everywhere he ever stepped. That’s why even a television comedian could handily defeat him in the last election, but the new President, too, faces internal forces of intimidation and great American pressures.
The Ukrainian economy was sent into a terrible crash by the consequences of the coup. No available amount of American assistance could hope to offset it. Ukraine lost many vital long-term relationships with Russia. Supplies. Markets. Ukraine has actually experienced huge losses in population with literally millions leaving to try finding employment and stabile lives somewhere else in Europe.
But it would be hard to name a single American foreign policy measure today which isn't dishonorable in the same way.
Trying to topple Venezuela's twice-elected government? New pressures brought to bear against Cuba? The trashing of the Iran nuclear agreement and subsequent war-like steps? The support of a bloody tyrant in Saudi Arabia? Encouraging the tyrant's ugly war on Yemen? Destruction of the INF Treaty in Europe? Withdrawal from UNESCO? Trade war with China? Russophobia as national policy?
SLIGHT EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (AND REMOVED BY AN EDITOR)
“Trump says he put 'no pressure' on Ukraine president during phone call
“Partial transcript shows U.S. president asked Zelensky for help in investigating Biden”
Of course, when it comes to doing dishonorable things, the entire matter of the coup in Ukraine, carried out with $5 billion in secret American aid - a fact we know from a rather blabby senior State Department official, Victoria Nuland - was about as dishonorable as it gets.
A democratically-elected government was overturned and driven away.
And there is all the hardship and damage that the coup caused. The secession of the Donbass region (part of eastern Ukraine) and a stupidly blundering civil war started by the coup-installed government that has killed thousands. Even a civilian airliner, packed with people, shot down, either deliberately or accidentally, amidst the chaos.
New language legislation, outrageously biased, was a major cause of secession. Ukraine is at least 30 percent Russian-speaking and has been for ages. Indeed, many regard the Ukrainian language as just a dialect of Russian used in Western Ukraine. Whether that is so or not, they are closely related. The two states have a thousand years of inter-related history.
Constant threats, including threats from outfits like the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia supported by America (there are photos of good old Joe Biden shaking hands with its leader) and used as part of the coup while also serving to keep any subsequent Ukrainian President intimidated into line as well as blunting efforts at reasonable peace with the Donbass. There are several ultra-nationalist organizations and parties serving those purposes.
Installing a man like Poroshenko as President for four years was a disaster. He proved completely inept, with rumors of corruption echoing everywhere he ever stepped. That’s why even a television comedian could handily defeat him in the last election, but the new President, too, faces internal forces of intimidation and great American pressures.
The Ukrainian economy was sent into a terrible crash by the consequences of the coup. No available amount of American assistance could hope to offset it. Ukraine lost many vital long-term relationships with Russia. Supplies. Markets. Ukraine has actually experienced huge losses in population with literally millions leaving to try finding employment and stabile lives somewhere else in Europe.
But it would be hard to name a single American foreign policy measure today which isn't dishonorable in the same way.
Trying to topple Venezuela's twice-elected government? New pressures brought to bear against Cuba? The trashing of the Iran nuclear agreement and subsequent war-like steps? The support of a bloody tyrant in Saudi Arabia? Encouraging the tyrant's ugly war on Yemen? Destruction of the INF Treaty in Europe? Withdrawal from UNESCO? Trade war with China? Russophobia as national policy?
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TALK OF AN "ICE-FREE" ENVIRONMENT IN THE ARCTIC
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NICOLE MORTILLARO IN CBC NEWS
“New IPCC report highlights climate change effects on oceans and ice, and the Arctic is front and centre”
"What an ice-free Arctic really means, and why it matters so much"
First, I think it is a considerable exaggeration to speak of an "ice-free" Arctic.
"Ice-reduced" would be more accurate.
It will simply be one more revolutionary change in earth's history.
There have been many.
We will have to adapt.
Truly, what choice do we have? When we had the Ice Age, about ten thousand years ago, animals and people either adapted or perished.
Nature is a harsh, ferocious place, not a friendly, kindly one.
The Russians are making tremendous efforts to benefit from coming events in the North. We should be too.
Their preparations include a large fleet of giant ice-breakers so I guess they aren't banking on "ice-free."
The idea that we as a society can stop such momentous changes is illusory and dangerous. Almost childish, much like believing in Santa Claus.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NICOLE MORTILLARO IN CBC NEWS
“New IPCC report highlights climate change effects on oceans and ice, and the Arctic is front and centre”
"What an ice-free Arctic really means, and why it matters so much"
First, I think it is a considerable exaggeration to speak of an "ice-free" Arctic.
"Ice-reduced" would be more accurate.
It will simply be one more revolutionary change in earth's history.
There have been many.
We will have to adapt.
Truly, what choice do we have? When we had the Ice Age, about ten thousand years ago, animals and people either adapted or perished.
Nature is a harsh, ferocious place, not a friendly, kindly one.
The Russians are making tremendous efforts to benefit from coming events in the North. We should be too.
Their preparations include a large fleet of giant ice-breakers so I guess they aren't banking on "ice-free."
The idea that we as a society can stop such momentous changes is illusory and dangerous. Almost childish, much like believing in Santa Claus.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S INSANE MESS IN THE MIDDLE EAST - THE NEW SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ISRAEL AND SAUDI ARABIA AND HOW IT CAME ABOUT - HOW THEIR POSITIONS IN THE REGION ARE REMARKABLY SIMILAR - A FEW IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT 9/11, AN EVENT NEVER EXPLAINED - SAUDI GOVERNMENT HAD NO INVOLVEMENT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NESRINE MALIK (FROM THE GUARDIAN) IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Saudi Arabia Won’t Attack Iran. But It May Pay Someone Else To
“What do American Hessians cost these days?”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/saudi-arabia-wont-attack-iran-but-it-may-pay-someone-else-to/
"Meanwhile, Saudi looks on – as ever, the indulged and unpunished provocateur of the Middle East"
That leaves out, just as you might expect if you are aware of the extreme bias of “The Guardian,” one of the most bent newspapers on the planet, the real “unpunished provocateur,” the one behind many events involving Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Israeli influence is almost entirely responsible for Trump's blundering stupidities in the Middle East. His pointless hostility towards Iran and his support for Saudi Arabia’s bloodletting in Yemen and other places.
And, indeed, Israel is largely responsible for the new military status of Saudi Arabia, its having become a major ranking global spender on armaments.
Before the blood-brother bond between Netanyahu and the Crown Prince we see today, Saudi Arabia would never have been allowed to buy those mountains of American weapons.
"Talk of tens of billions of dollars in new American arms! Are you crazy, you schnook?" Netanyahu would have been on the phone to the President in the middle of the night.
They used to despise Saudi Arabia in Israel. Not that many years ago.
Now, they embrace almost as the closest allies. The embrace is never greatly publicised or bragged about – that could have serious consequences for the general, very conservative population of Saudi Arabia and for the stability of the Murderer Prince’s Crown.
But there has been a profound change as these two wealthy outsiders realize how much in common they have, and as the new Saudi Tyrant works hard to earn "creds" in the right places, doing all kinds of desired dirty work in Syria and Yemen and other places.
I call them “wealthy outsiders” because relative to the hundreds of millions who inhabit the region, they are both outsiders by culture and circumstances.
The Saudi Crown is only a little older than Israel itself is. It is not an ancient kingdom, as it likes to style itself.
It was formed very close to the time of Hitler’s accession to power in Germany, just a few months before. And just three years after the end of Hitler’s reign, Israel was created. In a region of truly ancient civilizations, they are both newcomers, and they are both viewed by many as usurpers.
And they are both rich usurpers. After all, in any society, being wealthy sets you apart from most of the population, as we see now so starkly with “the one percent” versus the rest in the United States.
The relative wealth of Saudi Arabia and Israel sets them apart from most of the Middle East.
The Saudis with immense reserves of oil, and Israel with immense flows of foreign aid and resources from the private sector in America and Europe. If you count both government and private sources, Israel is likely the most heavily subsidized entity in history.
So, they do have a lot in common when compared to the great mass of the Middle East. And they both need to protect what they have.
The importance of their both being kinds of wealthy outsiders trumps all ethnic or religious differences, at least for the ruling class. Ordinary folks in both places don’t count for much, just as is the case in most places.
Especially now that Saudi Arabia has totally ceased to make the sounds it made twenty years ago. Then it tried to appeal, as something of a leader, to the region’s Muslim masses, but that has now been forgotten for the most part.
Fear over the consequences of 9/11 drove the Saudi Crown away from some its old ways even before the new Crown Prince took over, killing and kidnapping and bombing his way to favor in American and Israeli eyes.
After all, America could have invaded immensely wealthy Saudi Arabia just as easily as it did impoverished Afghanistan. There were a number of facts in those events that easily could have been bent to supporting the purpose.
So, the Saudis began changing their ways even before Prince Bone Saw took command with a wave of kidnappings and huge ransoms and hidden violence, stuff Trump swept aside with words about correcting old corruptions in the Kingdom, such is the meaninglessness of words in American politics and international affairs.
It was quite noticeable to someone like myself who occasionally read some Saudi Internet publications. The tone and approach changed dramatically. Some of my old articles critical of affairs in the Middle East used to be reposted by editors on certain Saudi sites, but that stopped completely.
The good Prince wasn’t really first in line for succession, but the half-senile old King went along, undoubtedly having had words put into his ear about how favorably the fresh and progressive new Prince would be received in Washington and Tel Aviv.
So, established succession practices were dumped, and the Crown Prince started shedding a bright new light over the Middle East. It included a big PR build-up in the “Western” press, the good old Guardian, for example, being rather lavish with favorable articles about a man who would prove a mass killer.
There was also a big PR tour arranged in the United States in which the Crown Prince washed the blood from his hands long enough to shake hands and banquet with many American politicians and notables.
We observe now only a little gesture or word, here or there, about some event in the region made to appeal to the locals, something Israel completely understands, having itself a leader who has done nothing but lie for his entire career, thirteen years as Prime Minister, lying ceaselessly to his own people and to the leaders of other countries and international organizations.
_____________________
Response to another comment:
You have that wrong, as do many Americans.
The Saudi government intensely disliked Osama bin Laden, even though his family was a rich and influential one in the country. They did not like his opposition to American influence in the Kingdom. Being a rather devout Muslim, he viewed the American influence and presence at the very center of Islam almost as blasphemy or apostasy.
The government secretly paid Osama to stay out of the country. The Afghanistan Taliban government gave him refuge because he was viewed both as a hero in the fight against Soviet occupation and as a devout Muslim.
The Saudi government did not pay him to attack the United States. If you know anything, it's a preposterous notion. And had there been even a grain of truth to it, how much more attractive and rewarding it would have been for Washington to invade Saudi Arabia rather than bleak Afghanistan.
The Saudi elites were totally in bed with influential Americans. For example, money for George Bush's poorly performing little oil company came from Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Princelings regularly went to showplaces like Las Vegas, and they made many American investments. By the way, a little later, the Crown Prince himself was a friend and frequent visitor to Jeffrey Epstein’s establishment.
Your suggestion is one that a number of rather questionable American politicians have put out there, notably New York Senator Chuck Schumer.
Perhaps to divert attention away from certain serious facts, pretty much kept buried, like the two squads of Israeli spies who tracked the airplane gang travelling around the United States for a while and completely anticipated what happened, some of them even photographing the event from the roof of a truck they rented under the name of a non-existent moving company, something never explained.
The Israelis, so far as we know gave no notice to American authorities, although American authorities may well have already known. Whatever the case, 9/11 has never been explained.
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/
The Saudi payments, when discovered by investigators, were kept secret because people wouldn't understand, and now that the payments are known, they were right, people do not understand. They have even become a basis for trying to instigate unwarranted lawsuits, something Senator Schumer may well have been trying to encourage constituents to do.
Investigators were only trying to protect the Saudis, something completely in keeping with all past close elite relationships and having nothing to do with suspected guilt.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NESRINE MALIK (FROM THE GUARDIAN) IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Saudi Arabia Won’t Attack Iran. But It May Pay Someone Else To
“What do American Hessians cost these days?”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/saudi-arabia-wont-attack-iran-but-it-may-pay-someone-else-to/
"Meanwhile, Saudi looks on – as ever, the indulged and unpunished provocateur of the Middle East"
That leaves out, just as you might expect if you are aware of the extreme bias of “The Guardian,” one of the most bent newspapers on the planet, the real “unpunished provocateur,” the one behind many events involving Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Israeli influence is almost entirely responsible for Trump's blundering stupidities in the Middle East. His pointless hostility towards Iran and his support for Saudi Arabia’s bloodletting in Yemen and other places.
And, indeed, Israel is largely responsible for the new military status of Saudi Arabia, its having become a major ranking global spender on armaments.
Before the blood-brother bond between Netanyahu and the Crown Prince we see today, Saudi Arabia would never have been allowed to buy those mountains of American weapons.
"Talk of tens of billions of dollars in new American arms! Are you crazy, you schnook?" Netanyahu would have been on the phone to the President in the middle of the night.
They used to despise Saudi Arabia in Israel. Not that many years ago.
Now, they embrace almost as the closest allies. The embrace is never greatly publicised or bragged about – that could have serious consequences for the general, very conservative population of Saudi Arabia and for the stability of the Murderer Prince’s Crown.
But there has been a profound change as these two wealthy outsiders realize how much in common they have, and as the new Saudi Tyrant works hard to earn "creds" in the right places, doing all kinds of desired dirty work in Syria and Yemen and other places.
I call them “wealthy outsiders” because relative to the hundreds of millions who inhabit the region, they are both outsiders by culture and circumstances.
The Saudi Crown is only a little older than Israel itself is. It is not an ancient kingdom, as it likes to style itself.
It was formed very close to the time of Hitler’s accession to power in Germany, just a few months before. And just three years after the end of Hitler’s reign, Israel was created. In a region of truly ancient civilizations, they are both newcomers, and they are both viewed by many as usurpers.
And they are both rich usurpers. After all, in any society, being wealthy sets you apart from most of the population, as we see now so starkly with “the one percent” versus the rest in the United States.
The relative wealth of Saudi Arabia and Israel sets them apart from most of the Middle East.
The Saudis with immense reserves of oil, and Israel with immense flows of foreign aid and resources from the private sector in America and Europe. If you count both government and private sources, Israel is likely the most heavily subsidized entity in history.
So, they do have a lot in common when compared to the great mass of the Middle East. And they both need to protect what they have.
The importance of their both being kinds of wealthy outsiders trumps all ethnic or religious differences, at least for the ruling class. Ordinary folks in both places don’t count for much, just as is the case in most places.
Especially now that Saudi Arabia has totally ceased to make the sounds it made twenty years ago. Then it tried to appeal, as something of a leader, to the region’s Muslim masses, but that has now been forgotten for the most part.
Fear over the consequences of 9/11 drove the Saudi Crown away from some its old ways even before the new Crown Prince took over, killing and kidnapping and bombing his way to favor in American and Israeli eyes.
After all, America could have invaded immensely wealthy Saudi Arabia just as easily as it did impoverished Afghanistan. There were a number of facts in those events that easily could have been bent to supporting the purpose.
So, the Saudis began changing their ways even before Prince Bone Saw took command with a wave of kidnappings and huge ransoms and hidden violence, stuff Trump swept aside with words about correcting old corruptions in the Kingdom, such is the meaninglessness of words in American politics and international affairs.
It was quite noticeable to someone like myself who occasionally read some Saudi Internet publications. The tone and approach changed dramatically. Some of my old articles critical of affairs in the Middle East used to be reposted by editors on certain Saudi sites, but that stopped completely.
The good Prince wasn’t really first in line for succession, but the half-senile old King went along, undoubtedly having had words put into his ear about how favorably the fresh and progressive new Prince would be received in Washington and Tel Aviv.
So, established succession practices were dumped, and the Crown Prince started shedding a bright new light over the Middle East. It included a big PR build-up in the “Western” press, the good old Guardian, for example, being rather lavish with favorable articles about a man who would prove a mass killer.
There was also a big PR tour arranged in the United States in which the Crown Prince washed the blood from his hands long enough to shake hands and banquet with many American politicians and notables.
We observe now only a little gesture or word, here or there, about some event in the region made to appeal to the locals, something Israel completely understands, having itself a leader who has done nothing but lie for his entire career, thirteen years as Prime Minister, lying ceaselessly to his own people and to the leaders of other countries and international organizations.
_____________________
Response to another comment:
You have that wrong, as do many Americans.
The Saudi government intensely disliked Osama bin Laden, even though his family was a rich and influential one in the country. They did not like his opposition to American influence in the Kingdom. Being a rather devout Muslim, he viewed the American influence and presence at the very center of Islam almost as blasphemy or apostasy.
The government secretly paid Osama to stay out of the country. The Afghanistan Taliban government gave him refuge because he was viewed both as a hero in the fight against Soviet occupation and as a devout Muslim.
The Saudi government did not pay him to attack the United States. If you know anything, it's a preposterous notion. And had there been even a grain of truth to it, how much more attractive and rewarding it would have been for Washington to invade Saudi Arabia rather than bleak Afghanistan.
The Saudi elites were totally in bed with influential Americans. For example, money for George Bush's poorly performing little oil company came from Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Princelings regularly went to showplaces like Las Vegas, and they made many American investments. By the way, a little later, the Crown Prince himself was a friend and frequent visitor to Jeffrey Epstein’s establishment.
Your suggestion is one that a number of rather questionable American politicians have put out there, notably New York Senator Chuck Schumer.
Perhaps to divert attention away from certain serious facts, pretty much kept buried, like the two squads of Israeli spies who tracked the airplane gang travelling around the United States for a while and completely anticipated what happened, some of them even photographing the event from the roof of a truck they rented under the name of a non-existent moving company, something never explained.
The Israelis, so far as we know gave no notice to American authorities, although American authorities may well have already known. Whatever the case, 9/11 has never been explained.
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/
The Saudi payments, when discovered by investigators, were kept secret because people wouldn't understand, and now that the payments are known, they were right, people do not understand. They have even become a basis for trying to instigate unwarranted lawsuits, something Senator Schumer may well have been trying to encourage constituents to do.
Investigators were only trying to protect the Saudis, something completely in keeping with all past close elite relationships and having nothing to do with suspected guilt.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE REMARKABLE PARALLELS BETWEEN GRETA THUNBERG AND DONALD TRUMP
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROB SHANE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
"We are perilously close to becoming a society entirely governed by emotion over reason"
"The Cult of Greta Thunberg is an extremely disturbing one"
https://www.checkpointasia.net/the-disturbing-cult-of-greta-thunberg/
I completely agree.
But I also observe that her twisted facial expressions (in so very many photos) and unwarranted, self-righteous statements remind me exactly of someone else, someone of a far more advanced age and holding an immensely more influential position,
Every photo of her reminds me of Donald Trump.
Different words and beliefs, but the same narcissistic angry child.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROB SHANE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
"We are perilously close to becoming a society entirely governed by emotion over reason"
"The Cult of Greta Thunberg is an extremely disturbing one"
https://www.checkpointasia.net/the-disturbing-cult-of-greta-thunberg/
I completely agree.
But I also observe that her twisted facial expressions (in so very many photos) and unwarranted, self-righteous statements remind me exactly of someone else, someone of a far more advanced age and holding an immensely more influential position,
Every photo of her reminds me of Donald Trump.
Different words and beliefs, but the same narcissistic angry child.
Monday, September 23, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHAT IN THE WORLD IS ISIS DOING IN AFGHANISTAN? - LOYALTIES OF ISIS - THE DELIBERATELY CONFUSING FACE OF AMERICA'S HYBRID WARFARE - TALIBAN AND ISIS - AMERICA LOOKING TO CAUSE TROUBLE ON RUSSIA'S SOUTHERN BORDER? - SOMEWHAT SIMILAR SITUATION TO NORTHEASTERN SYRIA
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON THE PRESENCE OF ISIS IN AFGHANISTAN
For a while now, we’ve heard of ISIS forces appearing in parts of Afghanistan. What possible interest or purpose would ISIS have there? Afghanistan’s strict Islamic Taliban, with whom the United States has been at war for 18 years, certainly wouldn’t in theory be regarded as an enemy by any genuine jihadi warrior types, which is what ISIS pretends to be.
The Taliban would not likely welcome any group of outsiders into their country even if the outsiders were not hostile to them. So, there are real reasons for conflicts arising between ISIS and the Taliban. The presence of ISIS just complicates things for the Taliban, something favoring American interests. Any confusion for your enemy is welcome in the new hybrid form of warfare the United States has used in the Middle East.
ISIS – despite all the grotesqueries and disinformation over the years - has always basically served American interests by attacking those America opposes and never attacking American or Israeli or Saudi interests, the “natural” targets of any genuine jihadi types.
Well, the northern and northeastern portions of Afghanistan border on old Soviet Central Asian republics like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. So, we have American-supported Muslim proxy forces assuming some kind of role in the American-occupied Muslim country of Afghanistan next door to former Soviet Muslim republics which today are part of an organization called the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), one having many relationships with Russia.
The intention could even be to infiltrate some of the Central Asian Muslim countries with ISIS forces to create instability near Russia. The very large Central Asian country of Kazakhstan, located just above those I’ve mentioned, is right on Russia’s southern border.
There are Russian intelligence reports of ISIS groups being helicoptered by American forces, something we saw more than a few times in Syria with ISIS and al Nusra.
It does appear we are seeing something a little along the lines of what we see in northeastern Syria where thousands of American troops are illegally based. Their purpose is to assist native Kurdish Syrians in efforts to balkanize or disrupt Syria with the creation of a de facto eastern rump state – all done, mind you, in the good name of America staying around to fight ISIS.
Fighting ISIS has been used as a pretext by the United States either for keeping its military in a location, as is very much the case in northeastern Syria, or for bombing Syrian government infrastructure while pretending to bomb ISIS. If nothing else, that may be just the reason for the ISIS presence in Afghanistan, to keep American troops there. ISIS does come in handy.
COMMENT ON THE PRESENCE OF ISIS IN AFGHANISTAN
For a while now, we’ve heard of ISIS forces appearing in parts of Afghanistan. What possible interest or purpose would ISIS have there? Afghanistan’s strict Islamic Taliban, with whom the United States has been at war for 18 years, certainly wouldn’t in theory be regarded as an enemy by any genuine jihadi warrior types, which is what ISIS pretends to be.
The Taliban would not likely welcome any group of outsiders into their country even if the outsiders were not hostile to them. So, there are real reasons for conflicts arising between ISIS and the Taliban. The presence of ISIS just complicates things for the Taliban, something favoring American interests. Any confusion for your enemy is welcome in the new hybrid form of warfare the United States has used in the Middle East.
ISIS – despite all the grotesqueries and disinformation over the years - has always basically served American interests by attacking those America opposes and never attacking American or Israeli or Saudi interests, the “natural” targets of any genuine jihadi types.
Well, the northern and northeastern portions of Afghanistan border on old Soviet Central Asian republics like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. So, we have American-supported Muslim proxy forces assuming some kind of role in the American-occupied Muslim country of Afghanistan next door to former Soviet Muslim republics which today are part of an organization called the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), one having many relationships with Russia.
The intention could even be to infiltrate some of the Central Asian Muslim countries with ISIS forces to create instability near Russia. The very large Central Asian country of Kazakhstan, located just above those I’ve mentioned, is right on Russia’s southern border.
There are Russian intelligence reports of ISIS groups being helicoptered by American forces, something we saw more than a few times in Syria with ISIS and al Nusra.
It does appear we are seeing something a little along the lines of what we see in northeastern Syria where thousands of American troops are illegally based. Their purpose is to assist native Kurdish Syrians in efforts to balkanize or disrupt Syria with the creation of a de facto eastern rump state – all done, mind you, in the good name of America staying around to fight ISIS.
Fighting ISIS has been used as a pretext by the United States either for keeping its military in a location, as is very much the case in northeastern Syria, or for bombing Syrian government infrastructure while pretending to bomb ISIS. If nothing else, that may be just the reason for the ISIS presence in Afghanistan, to keep American troops there. ISIS does come in handy.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY BRITISH PRIME MINISTERS ALL LIE NOW - WHERE BORIS JOHNSON IS SURELY TAKING BRITAIN WITH HIS MANIC BREXIT EFFORTS - IRAN AND THE DELIBERATELY-PLANNED NEOCON WARS - GENERAL WESLEY CLARK'S LIST - CONDOLEEZZA RICE'S HORRIBLE WORDS - IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ZARIF'S FINE RESPONSE TO BORIS JOHNSON'S ACCUSATION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Boris Johnson says UK could join Trump in military action against Iran after Saudi Arabia attack
“'We think it very likely indeed that Iran was responsible,' says PM on way to New York, standing by US president's threat of action 'to defend Saudi'”
My, is there a single British Prime Minister now who ever speaks a word of truth?
There is absolutely no basis for Boris Johnson’s statement about Iran.
He’s only echoing what Washington blathers on about in defense of its murderous ally, the Saudi Crown Prince.
The attack on Saudi oil facilities was highly embarrassing for the United States, making it look inept.
So, Washington is quite angry.
Admitting that Yemen achieved that devastating result means admitting that the stupid bloody war in Yemen has failed, a war America encouraged and assisted Saudi Arabia in pursuing.
Washington is taking the opportunity to pile still more accusations and hatred against a state they've done nothing but hate and abuse for over forty years, Iran.
Boris Johnson sounds as asinine on this matter as Theresa May sounded on the Skripal Affair.
That was an ugly set of events never properly explained or indeed investigated. And, again, an event used for hurling accusations, at Russia in that case, without any sound evidence being provided.
All thinking people accept sound evidence, so why is it not routinely provided instead of accusations and name-calling?
Evidence is simply not what we get from some governments anymore, with Britain being one of the worst cases.
Of course, it's just a reflection of Britain having been reduced to a "Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full!" status vis-a-vis the United States.
It does seem likely that Brexit will render Britain into a totally helpless dependent of the United States when it no longer has a large organization like the EU behind it.
Britain will pay dearly for any trade agreement or special arrangement with Trumpian America.
But that’s the direction in which Boris Johnson is pushing hard.
I know many British people voted for a sense of independence from a larger entity in the EU referendum, but that’s not what they are lined up to get, which is indeed virtually complete dependence on the United States.
A European 51st state.
___________________
Response to a comment saying, “All these wars were planned 18 years ago”
Absolutely, the Neocon Wars in the Middle East were long planned.
Recall, the chilling words of Condoleezza Rice when she described the screams coming from Iraq as "the birth pangs" of "a new Middle East."
Some prominent Neocons even published a book about ridding the world of a series of governments.
Iran was on the secret list seen by General Wesley Clark years ago, and it was in the Neocon book.
Perhaps, with the surprising developments we see - the remarkable capability of Iranian missile and drone technology now demonstrated several times - the United States will be unsuccessful in destroying yet another country in the region.
I certainly hope so. War with Iran would be an extremely ugly business.
AFTERNOTE ON BORIS JOHNSON’S ACCUSATION FROM ANOTHER NEWS SOURCE:
"If Iran was behind this attack, nothing would be left of this refinery," Zarif [Iran’s Foreign Minister] told reporters in New York ahead of the UN General Assembly. The comment came after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was holding Tehran responsible.
Zarif also said he had no reason to believe Yemen's Houthi rebels were lying when they claimed responsibility for the attack on key Saudi oil facilities. He called it a "high-precision, low-impact" assault with no casualties.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Boris Johnson says UK could join Trump in military action against Iran after Saudi Arabia attack
“'We think it very likely indeed that Iran was responsible,' says PM on way to New York, standing by US president's threat of action 'to defend Saudi'”
My, is there a single British Prime Minister now who ever speaks a word of truth?
There is absolutely no basis for Boris Johnson’s statement about Iran.
He’s only echoing what Washington blathers on about in defense of its murderous ally, the Saudi Crown Prince.
The attack on Saudi oil facilities was highly embarrassing for the United States, making it look inept.
So, Washington is quite angry.
Admitting that Yemen achieved that devastating result means admitting that the stupid bloody war in Yemen has failed, a war America encouraged and assisted Saudi Arabia in pursuing.
Washington is taking the opportunity to pile still more accusations and hatred against a state they've done nothing but hate and abuse for over forty years, Iran.
Boris Johnson sounds as asinine on this matter as Theresa May sounded on the Skripal Affair.
That was an ugly set of events never properly explained or indeed investigated. And, again, an event used for hurling accusations, at Russia in that case, without any sound evidence being provided.
All thinking people accept sound evidence, so why is it not routinely provided instead of accusations and name-calling?
Evidence is simply not what we get from some governments anymore, with Britain being one of the worst cases.
Of course, it's just a reflection of Britain having been reduced to a "Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full!" status vis-a-vis the United States.
It does seem likely that Brexit will render Britain into a totally helpless dependent of the United States when it no longer has a large organization like the EU behind it.
Britain will pay dearly for any trade agreement or special arrangement with Trumpian America.
But that’s the direction in which Boris Johnson is pushing hard.
I know many British people voted for a sense of independence from a larger entity in the EU referendum, but that’s not what they are lined up to get, which is indeed virtually complete dependence on the United States.
A European 51st state.
___________________
Response to a comment saying, “All these wars were planned 18 years ago”
Absolutely, the Neocon Wars in the Middle East were long planned.
Recall, the chilling words of Condoleezza Rice when she described the screams coming from Iraq as "the birth pangs" of "a new Middle East."
Some prominent Neocons even published a book about ridding the world of a series of governments.
Iran was on the secret list seen by General Wesley Clark years ago, and it was in the Neocon book.
Perhaps, with the surprising developments we see - the remarkable capability of Iranian missile and drone technology now demonstrated several times - the United States will be unsuccessful in destroying yet another country in the region.
I certainly hope so. War with Iran would be an extremely ugly business.
AFTERNOTE ON BORIS JOHNSON’S ACCUSATION FROM ANOTHER NEWS SOURCE:
"If Iran was behind this attack, nothing would be left of this refinery," Zarif [Iran’s Foreign Minister] told reporters in New York ahead of the UN General Assembly. The comment came after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was holding Tehran responsible.
Zarif also said he had no reason to believe Yemen's Houthi rebels were lying when they claimed responsibility for the attack on key Saudi oil facilities. He called it a "high-precision, low-impact" assault with no casualties.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP AND BIDEN AND UKRAINE - ALL THE PROOF YOU WILL EVER NEED OF THE TOTAL CORRUPTION AT THE TOP IN AMERICA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Trump confirms he discussed Biden in call with Ukrainian president
“Reportedly asked Zelensky to investigate the former U.S. vice-president and his son”
Abuse of office?
You bet, in both cases, Biden's and Trump's.
Biden did go to Ukraine and, by all accounts, both did and demanded some inappropriate things.
Trump, of course, is inappropriate almost constantly. Good God, after all the phony noise about foreign interference in American elections, here he is, effectively seeking foreign interference in an upcoming election?
But that's just how the United States operates today.
Total corruption.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Trump confirms he discussed Biden in call with Ukrainian president
“Reportedly asked Zelensky to investigate the former U.S. vice-president and his son”
Abuse of office?
You bet, in both cases, Biden's and Trump's.
Biden did go to Ukraine and, by all accounts, both did and demanded some inappropriate things.
Trump, of course, is inappropriate almost constantly. Good God, after all the phony noise about foreign interference in American elections, here he is, effectively seeking foreign interference in an upcoming election?
But that's just how the United States operates today.
Total corruption.
Saturday, September 21, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ELIZABETH WARREN AND BERNIE SANDERS AND JOE BIDEN - EXACTLY WHY EACH OF THEM IS SO HOPELESS - AND WE ALREADY KNOW HOW HOPELESS TRUMP IS - BUT DON'T WORRY, AMERICA DOES NOT GO UNGOVERNED - THE FOLKS WHO KILLED KENNEDY ARE STILL RUNNING THE SHOW, PERHAPS MORE SO THAN EVER
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“The Charms of Elizabeth Warren”
https://russia-insider.com/en/charms-elizabeth-warren/ri27751
There are some good, sharp observations here. She's a weak choice for many reasons.
Of course, the Dark State may actually find her a reasonable alternative to Joe Biden, who is undoubtedly their favorite, representing, as he does, a new version of brainless George Bush, someone who happily served as a figurehead president, smiling and signing every piece of paper shoved in front of him.
And it’s good to have an alternative. Biden is making a spectacle of himself with obviously blundering and forgetful statements on any number of matters, perhaps throwing away the lead he had.
Warren is an excellent Dark State alternative choice.
She has never represented opposition to the Pentagon and CIA and NSA. Never.
She has never opposed imperial wars and coups and interventions.
She has supported dutifully the Defense Department’s budgets.
She holds the attraction of a kind of American wholesome, harmless American professional woman, well-coiffed and well-dressed. The contemporary feminist political equivalent to one of those moms in 1950s’ television series, such as Harriet Nelson in “Ozzie and Harriet,” although Harriet had a kind of smoky undertone, as an old big band singer, missing completely from Warren.
Perhaps, June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley), doing the vacuuming wearing pearls in “Leave It to Beaver” is closer to the mark? June, having gone back to school and earned some degrees?
Despite her effort to appear as something of a human rights champion at home, she has not brought that much-unwanted perspective to foreign affairs. Not to attacks on Syria. Not to attacks on Venezuela. Not to attacks on Iran. Not to Israel’s attacks on everyone. She definitely gets passing grades from the establishment there.
It’s okay at home to blather on about such matters, just as it’s okay to blather about social programs. With their spending a trillion dollars a year – and all of it borrowed – the military-security establishment knows there is no chance for such words to go beyond speeches.
If the speeches make Americans feel good about the state of things, well, that’s just fine.
_____________________
Response to another comment:
Sanders always sounds good, but it's an illusion to believe the sounds mean anything of substance.
First, he showed the world what kind of stuff he is made of in 2016, when he smilingly supported the woman who cheated him out of the nomination and who, indeed, represented the embodiment of many of the things that his strong campaign condemned.
How is someone like that supposed to stand up to a crowd of guys in big Armani suits and gleaming uniforms seated around huge oak tables in Washington?
His “programs,” like those of Warren or anyone else, are just blather, political entertainment at best. Maybe “fantasies” or “dreams” would be a better word. You are, after all, still allowed to dream or fantasize in America. What you are not allowed to do is to change much of anything.
So long as the Pentagon and the security establishment burn through a trillion dollars a year – money, they don’t even have, but just keep borrowing, putting immense future burdens on average Americans – no “program” of any description will see the light of day.
Furthermore, the American privileged class will not tolerate appropriately-serious new taxes. And just who is it that you think pays all the campaign expenses for “the best Congress money can buy”?
Bernie is an attractive candidate, at a glance, but with a little thought you realize he’s from Cloud-cuckoo-land. He actually doesn’t grasp the hard realities of the country in which he lives.
Vermont is a nice place – I’ve been there several times – pretty, charming, populated with a good many liberal college professor or artistic types, but it is completely out of step with America, the raw, unvarnished reality of a brutal global power representing the interests of a plutocracy.
Vermont - with its roughly one-third of one percent of the national population, unrepresentative economy and ethnic make-up - does a little remind me of Newt Gingrich’s unpleasant phrase about “a sandbox for yuppies,” his characterization of national public television.
The state does represent a kind of prettified Disneyworld attraction, “Precious Early Rural America Land.” Or a rural retreat for Americans fed up with the ugly realities of their own country, both at home and abroad. That’s certainly why Bernie himself went there, fleeing New York decades ago as part of America’s massive urban phenomenon known as “White Flight.”
I suspect the Pentagon and security establishments have no real problem with him making his speeches that are virtually guaranteed to have no effect.
He is not John Kennedy, someone who became a genuine threat to establishment arrangements of his time, arrangements which have only flourished and become deeply rooted for nearly sixty years.
Again, the overwhelmingly dominant reality of America, something affecting and distorting every aspect of its society, is that it represents a plutocracy and runs a brutal global empire for that plutocracy’s benefit.
If you don’t deal with that central fact, then you can deal with almost nothing but matters about as important as re-arranging the dinner table.
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“The Charms of Elizabeth Warren”
https://russia-insider.com/en/charms-elizabeth-warren/ri27751
There are some good, sharp observations here. She's a weak choice for many reasons.
Of course, the Dark State may actually find her a reasonable alternative to Joe Biden, who is undoubtedly their favorite, representing, as he does, a new version of brainless George Bush, someone who happily served as a figurehead president, smiling and signing every piece of paper shoved in front of him.
And it’s good to have an alternative. Biden is making a spectacle of himself with obviously blundering and forgetful statements on any number of matters, perhaps throwing away the lead he had.
Warren is an excellent Dark State alternative choice.
She has never represented opposition to the Pentagon and CIA and NSA. Never.
She has never opposed imperial wars and coups and interventions.
She has supported dutifully the Defense Department’s budgets.
She holds the attraction of a kind of American wholesome, harmless American professional woman, well-coiffed and well-dressed. The contemporary feminist political equivalent to one of those moms in 1950s’ television series, such as Harriet Nelson in “Ozzie and Harriet,” although Harriet had a kind of smoky undertone, as an old big band singer, missing completely from Warren.
Perhaps, June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley), doing the vacuuming wearing pearls in “Leave It to Beaver” is closer to the mark? June, having gone back to school and earned some degrees?
Despite her effort to appear as something of a human rights champion at home, she has not brought that much-unwanted perspective to foreign affairs. Not to attacks on Syria. Not to attacks on Venezuela. Not to attacks on Iran. Not to Israel’s attacks on everyone. She definitely gets passing grades from the establishment there.
It’s okay at home to blather on about such matters, just as it’s okay to blather about social programs. With their spending a trillion dollars a year – and all of it borrowed – the military-security establishment knows there is no chance for such words to go beyond speeches.
If the speeches make Americans feel good about the state of things, well, that’s just fine.
_____________________
Response to another comment:
Sanders always sounds good, but it's an illusion to believe the sounds mean anything of substance.
First, he showed the world what kind of stuff he is made of in 2016, when he smilingly supported the woman who cheated him out of the nomination and who, indeed, represented the embodiment of many of the things that his strong campaign condemned.
How is someone like that supposed to stand up to a crowd of guys in big Armani suits and gleaming uniforms seated around huge oak tables in Washington?
His “programs,” like those of Warren or anyone else, are just blather, political entertainment at best. Maybe “fantasies” or “dreams” would be a better word. You are, after all, still allowed to dream or fantasize in America. What you are not allowed to do is to change much of anything.
So long as the Pentagon and the security establishment burn through a trillion dollars a year – money, they don’t even have, but just keep borrowing, putting immense future burdens on average Americans – no “program” of any description will see the light of day.
Furthermore, the American privileged class will not tolerate appropriately-serious new taxes. And just who is it that you think pays all the campaign expenses for “the best Congress money can buy”?
Bernie is an attractive candidate, at a glance, but with a little thought you realize he’s from Cloud-cuckoo-land. He actually doesn’t grasp the hard realities of the country in which he lives.
Vermont is a nice place – I’ve been there several times – pretty, charming, populated with a good many liberal college professor or artistic types, but it is completely out of step with America, the raw, unvarnished reality of a brutal global power representing the interests of a plutocracy.
Vermont - with its roughly one-third of one percent of the national population, unrepresentative economy and ethnic make-up - does a little remind me of Newt Gingrich’s unpleasant phrase about “a sandbox for yuppies,” his characterization of national public television.
The state does represent a kind of prettified Disneyworld attraction, “Precious Early Rural America Land.” Or a rural retreat for Americans fed up with the ugly realities of their own country, both at home and abroad. That’s certainly why Bernie himself went there, fleeing New York decades ago as part of America’s massive urban phenomenon known as “White Flight.”
I suspect the Pentagon and security establishments have no real problem with him making his speeches that are virtually guaranteed to have no effect.
He is not John Kennedy, someone who became a genuine threat to establishment arrangements of his time, arrangements which have only flourished and become deeply rooted for nearly sixty years.
Again, the overwhelmingly dominant reality of America, something affecting and distorting every aspect of its society, is that it represents a plutocracy and runs a brutal global empire for that plutocracy’s benefit.
If you don’t deal with that central fact, then you can deal with almost nothing but matters about as important as re-arranging the dinner table.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: KEY POINTS ON THE JUSTIN TRUDEAU "BLACK FACE" CONTROVERSY - THIS MAN SIMPLY CANNOT CONTINUE TO REPRESENT THE COUNTRY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“What we know about Justin Trudeau's blackface photos — and what happens next
“From resignations to reactions, here are the questions being asked about the bombshell photos”
Some points I think very important.
First, we have three recorded events, not just one, and given Trudeau's reluctance to say whether there were still more, I think it likely there were.
Whether there were more or not, this tasteless dress-up was a recurring theme for Trudeau, something he obviously thought quite funny, so, to get a laugh, he repeated it and repeated it still again. And the last time he did it, he was almost 30 years old, not an adolescent.
Second, the last event, the one from the school where he taught, happened in 2001, a good thirty years or so after society had already given its verdict on this kind of behavior.
Third, Trudeau, close to instantly, dropped a thoroughly decent man, Hassan Guillet, as a candidate when an influential service organization made an accusation against him.
Trudeau did not investigate nor did he give the accused man a proper opportunity to discuss the matter, and he left the poor candidate shocked by the surprise action.
Why does Trudeau's own behavior allow such completely different treatment? And behavior where we have photographic evidence.
Fourth, how can he possibly represent Canada now at international gatherings such as the UN or the G20 without arousing derision and sarcasm and perhaps some anger? He cannot.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“What we know about Justin Trudeau's blackface photos — and what happens next
“From resignations to reactions, here are the questions being asked about the bombshell photos”
Some points I think very important.
First, we have three recorded events, not just one, and given Trudeau's reluctance to say whether there were still more, I think it likely there were.
Whether there were more or not, this tasteless dress-up was a recurring theme for Trudeau, something he obviously thought quite funny, so, to get a laugh, he repeated it and repeated it still again. And the last time he did it, he was almost 30 years old, not an adolescent.
Second, the last event, the one from the school where he taught, happened in 2001, a good thirty years or so after society had already given its verdict on this kind of behavior.
Third, Trudeau, close to instantly, dropped a thoroughly decent man, Hassan Guillet, as a candidate when an influential service organization made an accusation against him.
Trudeau did not investigate nor did he give the accused man a proper opportunity to discuss the matter, and he left the poor candidate shocked by the surprise action.
Why does Trudeau's own behavior allow such completely different treatment? And behavior where we have photographic evidence.
Fourth, how can he possibly represent Canada now at international gatherings such as the UN or the G20 without arousing derision and sarcasm and perhaps some anger? He cannot.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY CANADA'S JUSTIN TRUDEAU SHOULD STOP OFFERING APOLOGIES AND JUST RESIGN
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY AARON WHERRY IN CBC NEWS
Champion of diversity or high-profile hypocrite? Who is Justin Trudeau, anyway?
All human beings contain contradictions - but when politicians undermine their own images, they pay a price
Trudeau is worth no additional discussion. How many words should be written and read about such a disappointing man?
For me, it is his basic performance in office that most counts, and that has not only been awful, it has, in foreign affairs, shut the door on all of our best Liberal 20th century traditions. Just slammed it shut.
Failed important promises such as vote reform? Ignored major national problems such as our oil industry's plight? Childish antics on trips abroad several times? Letting down conscientious ministers in a scandal?
Those are all important, but flying down to plead with Donald Trump to help him in difficulties with China, difficulties caused entirely by his own decisions and those of his Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, is more than I can stomach.
Not having the judgment even to understand that Donald Trump is, literally, the last man on earth with any influence over China, or even much regard for Canada, is almost beyond understanding.
Trudeau is hopelessly disappointing when it comes to statesmanship or leadership.
The discovery that, for a major part of his years, the man regarded black-face routines as funny and worth repeating is "icing on the cake," as it were.
Here is complete lack of judgment repeatedly displayed, combined with the arrogance to still ask for your vote.
He should resign. Instead we get another "apology" to add to the stack he has already freely distributed on a dozen subjects.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY AARON WHERRY IN CBC NEWS
Champion of diversity or high-profile hypocrite? Who is Justin Trudeau, anyway?
All human beings contain contradictions - but when politicians undermine their own images, they pay a price
Trudeau is worth no additional discussion. How many words should be written and read about such a disappointing man?
For me, it is his basic performance in office that most counts, and that has not only been awful, it has, in foreign affairs, shut the door on all of our best Liberal 20th century traditions. Just slammed it shut.
Failed important promises such as vote reform? Ignored major national problems such as our oil industry's plight? Childish antics on trips abroad several times? Letting down conscientious ministers in a scandal?
Those are all important, but flying down to plead with Donald Trump to help him in difficulties with China, difficulties caused entirely by his own decisions and those of his Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, is more than I can stomach.
Not having the judgment even to understand that Donald Trump is, literally, the last man on earth with any influence over China, or even much regard for Canada, is almost beyond understanding.
Trudeau is hopelessly disappointing when it comes to statesmanship or leadership.
The discovery that, for a major part of his years, the man regarded black-face routines as funny and worth repeating is "icing on the cake," as it were.
Here is complete lack of judgment repeatedly displayed, combined with the arrogance to still ask for your vote.
He should resign. Instead we get another "apology" to add to the stack he has already freely distributed on a dozen subjects.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AN EXCELLENT PIECE ON THE DRONE ATTACK OF SAUDI OIL FACILITIES - AMERICA'S UNRELENTING AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE HOSTILITY TOWARDS IRAN - ITS SOURCE - THE SECRET AMERICAN GOVERNMENT LIST OF NAMES GENERAL WESLEY CLARK SAW YEARS AGO - IRAN'S AMAZING ACHIEVEMENTS IN DRONES AND MISSILES THWART BULLIES - WORLD ASKED TO BELIEVE A SAUDI CROWN PRINCE WHO HAD A MAN DISMEMBERED ALIVE AND BURNT IN A BBQ
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAVID C HENDRICKSON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Iran Teaches Empire That ‘Maximum Pressure’ Goes Both Ways
“This isn't how Trump’s war on Persia was supposed to go
“Trump is in a tight spot of his own making, with neither escalation nor retrenchment looking to be attractive options.”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/iran-teaches-empire-that-maximum-pressure-cuts-both-ways/
Just an excellent piece, bringing together the many threads of this event.
I will only disagree on Israel's motives.
The fear of Iran has been largely manufactured. Of course, when a government chooses to terrify its own citizens, as Netanyahu’s government has, there will be some people who are genuinely afraid.
But when we talk of the attitudes and demands of a state, we talk about its government, not a group of people reading newspapers. Israel for many years has had a totally irresponsible government. No wonder it works so well with the irresponsible and confused Donald Trump.
Nuclear powers, and one moreover further backed up by a superpower, are not afraid of being attacked by a non-nuclear state.
I'm sure Israeli intelligence has a good grasp of the facts around Iran's nuclear work. Netanyahu has just lied about it for years, as he lies about just about everything.
We have a very sick man leading a state which is in a peculiar situation.
And we have another sick man, perhaps only slightly less so, leading the superpower supporting Israel.
Israel’s real motives – those of its leaders – are about Iran’s size and influence in the region. Israel wants no competitor for influence. The states with which it shares some closeness are run by tyrants who toe the American imperial line.
And that’s something Iran most certainly does not do, toe the American imperial line. That was true for other states in the region too, but Israel’s influence in Washington got them all attacked and dismembered or destroyed.
It's been a huge price in decency and barbarism and ‘Western” values that Washington has paid for its relationship with Israel. That secret list, seen and discussed some years back, by General Wesley Clark, of Middle Eastern countries to be toppled over a period of years included Iran as well as the others that have been since incinerated by America’s Neocon Wars.
It is interesting to note while Pompeo rants on and on about Iran’s responsibility, America just killed about thirty civilians in a misdirected drone attack in Afghanistan. The deaths are nothing new, America having killed many thousands there needlessly, but the method of misdirected drones has a huge irony.
Iran’s hard work on developing technology for drones and missiles, work undertaken under the tremendous duress of American sanctions and of America’s flagrant support for Saddam Hussein in starting a years-long, vicious war against Iran, just maybe has effectively removed Iran’s name from the list Wesley Clark saw and talked about.
It has truly made a contribution to the struggles of others, like Yemen, against imperial bullying.
Saudi statements that the oil-facility attacks were “unquestionably sponsored by Iran” are literally meaningless. As are statements about there being “no way the attacks were launched from Yemen,” while Yemen openly and repeatedly claims responsibility.
Statements from Saudi Arabia are proof of absolutely nothing, in this or any other matter. We must remember the recent record of the very state making the claims.
Its launching the bloody war on Yemen, including the incompetent killing of more civilians than soldiers. Its long covert support for the terror in Syria which has killed half a million. Its bloody suppression of the Shia minority at home. Its record level of executions, including the execution of teen-agers. And most relevant of all, perhaps, its Crown Prince’s clear guilt in having a man, a journalist, dismembered alive. Does anyone in his or her right mind take anything the Saudi government says seriously?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DAVID C HENDRICKSON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Iran Teaches Empire That ‘Maximum Pressure’ Goes Both Ways
“This isn't how Trump’s war on Persia was supposed to go
“Trump is in a tight spot of his own making, with neither escalation nor retrenchment looking to be attractive options.”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/iran-teaches-empire-that-maximum-pressure-cuts-both-ways/
Just an excellent piece, bringing together the many threads of this event.
I will only disagree on Israel's motives.
The fear of Iran has been largely manufactured. Of course, when a government chooses to terrify its own citizens, as Netanyahu’s government has, there will be some people who are genuinely afraid.
But when we talk of the attitudes and demands of a state, we talk about its government, not a group of people reading newspapers. Israel for many years has had a totally irresponsible government. No wonder it works so well with the irresponsible and confused Donald Trump.
Nuclear powers, and one moreover further backed up by a superpower, are not afraid of being attacked by a non-nuclear state.
I'm sure Israeli intelligence has a good grasp of the facts around Iran's nuclear work. Netanyahu has just lied about it for years, as he lies about just about everything.
We have a very sick man leading a state which is in a peculiar situation.
And we have another sick man, perhaps only slightly less so, leading the superpower supporting Israel.
Israel’s real motives – those of its leaders – are about Iran’s size and influence in the region. Israel wants no competitor for influence. The states with which it shares some closeness are run by tyrants who toe the American imperial line.
And that’s something Iran most certainly does not do, toe the American imperial line. That was true for other states in the region too, but Israel’s influence in Washington got them all attacked and dismembered or destroyed.
It's been a huge price in decency and barbarism and ‘Western” values that Washington has paid for its relationship with Israel. That secret list, seen and discussed some years back, by General Wesley Clark, of Middle Eastern countries to be toppled over a period of years included Iran as well as the others that have been since incinerated by America’s Neocon Wars.
It is interesting to note while Pompeo rants on and on about Iran’s responsibility, America just killed about thirty civilians in a misdirected drone attack in Afghanistan. The deaths are nothing new, America having killed many thousands there needlessly, but the method of misdirected drones has a huge irony.
Iran’s hard work on developing technology for drones and missiles, work undertaken under the tremendous duress of American sanctions and of America’s flagrant support for Saddam Hussein in starting a years-long, vicious war against Iran, just maybe has effectively removed Iran’s name from the list Wesley Clark saw and talked about.
It has truly made a contribution to the struggles of others, like Yemen, against imperial bullying.
Saudi statements that the oil-facility attacks were “unquestionably sponsored by Iran” are literally meaningless. As are statements about there being “no way the attacks were launched from Yemen,” while Yemen openly and repeatedly claims responsibility.
Statements from Saudi Arabia are proof of absolutely nothing, in this or any other matter. We must remember the recent record of the very state making the claims.
Its launching the bloody war on Yemen, including the incompetent killing of more civilians than soldiers. Its long covert support for the terror in Syria which has killed half a million. Its bloody suppression of the Shia minority at home. Its record level of executions, including the execution of teen-agers. And most relevant of all, perhaps, its Crown Prince’s clear guilt in having a man, a journalist, dismembered alive. Does anyone in his or her right mind take anything the Saudi government says seriously?
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP DUMPS JOHN BOLTON AND WE READ, EVEN FROM THE LEFT, FANTASY HOPES THAT NOW AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY MIGHT TAKE SOME NEW DIRECTIONS - JUST AS ON THE RIGHT THERE IS A MYTH OF TRUMP BEING HELD BACK BY OTHERS WITH LITTLE RECOGNITION THAT THE PROBLEM IS TRUMP - LATER, TRUMP MAKES HIS NEW APPOINTMENT AND IT'S A LULU
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Now That Washington’s Most Dangerous Man is Sacked
“This week provides chances to monitor resets in Trump’s foreign policy after John Bolton’s destructive tenure.
“Bolton was the most irrational impediment to Trump’s foreign policy aspirations, but hardly did he act alone.”
Very strange statement by my reckoning.
Yes, Bolton is, and always has been, an “irrational impediment.”
But no more so than the man who appointed him in the first place.
In fact, Trump is so twisted, so inconsistent, I don’t understand anyone speaking of his “foreign policy aspirations.”
This is in a sense the ultimate American president. “The real thing,” as it were.
Rude. Given to personal insults. Rushed and impatient. Highly prejudiced on many topics. Ignorant of many matters he insists on speaking of. Offering no fresh insights on anything. Truly dishonest. Grasping. Unfaithful, to staff and even family.
God, he’s like something from a movie. An American horror movie.
One that symbolically speaks about the dark realities of America with its abuse of power and pretty close to complete corruption.
_______________________
ADDED LATER FROM ANOTHER SOURCE…
“Trump selects Robert O'Brien to be his next national security adviser
“O'Brien most recently served at U.S. State Department as envoy for hostage affairs”
I am sure he's just a charmer.
I found a quote from a book O’Brien “wrote” which suggests his quality:
“The Obama Administration’s foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries and disheartened our allies. Indeed, Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is a 1938 moment.”
Now, even if you don’t like Obama, and I don’t, the statement is absurd, the nuclear agreement being Obama’s one worthy success in eight years of foreign affairs, years mostly spent killing people.
O’Brien’s last notable mission was a trip to Sweden to represent Trump’s strange interest in the case of an American rapper called ASAP Rocky. The rapper had been detained in Sweden, facing charges for assault. Perhaps, Trump saw this as a way to lure black votes?
O’Brien’s success in such an important task undoubtedly earned him some “points” with Trump towards appointment as National Security Advisor. Makes sense to me.
His presence In Sweden was inappropriate, interfering in the country's internal affairs, its normal police activities.
But that's what the United States does today, throughout the world, interfere in the internal affairs of others.
Each time Trump names a new appointment, I feel as though I'm reading about changes reported from police wiretaps at the Mafia's headquarters.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Now That Washington’s Most Dangerous Man is Sacked
“This week provides chances to monitor resets in Trump’s foreign policy after John Bolton’s destructive tenure.
“Bolton was the most irrational impediment to Trump’s foreign policy aspirations, but hardly did he act alone.”
Very strange statement by my reckoning.
Yes, Bolton is, and always has been, an “irrational impediment.”
But no more so than the man who appointed him in the first place.
In fact, Trump is so twisted, so inconsistent, I don’t understand anyone speaking of his “foreign policy aspirations.”
This is in a sense the ultimate American president. “The real thing,” as it were.
Rude. Given to personal insults. Rushed and impatient. Highly prejudiced on many topics. Ignorant of many matters he insists on speaking of. Offering no fresh insights on anything. Truly dishonest. Grasping. Unfaithful, to staff and even family.
God, he’s like something from a movie. An American horror movie.
One that symbolically speaks about the dark realities of America with its abuse of power and pretty close to complete corruption.
_______________________
ADDED LATER FROM ANOTHER SOURCE…
“Trump selects Robert O'Brien to be his next national security adviser
“O'Brien most recently served at U.S. State Department as envoy for hostage affairs”
I am sure he's just a charmer.
I found a quote from a book O’Brien “wrote” which suggests his quality:
“The Obama Administration’s foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries and disheartened our allies. Indeed, Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is a 1938 moment.”
Now, even if you don’t like Obama, and I don’t, the statement is absurd, the nuclear agreement being Obama’s one worthy success in eight years of foreign affairs, years mostly spent killing people.
O’Brien’s last notable mission was a trip to Sweden to represent Trump’s strange interest in the case of an American rapper called ASAP Rocky. The rapper had been detained in Sweden, facing charges for assault. Perhaps, Trump saw this as a way to lure black votes?
O’Brien’s success in such an important task undoubtedly earned him some “points” with Trump towards appointment as National Security Advisor. Makes sense to me.
His presence In Sweden was inappropriate, interfering in the country's internal affairs, its normal police activities.
But that's what the United States does today, throughout the world, interfere in the internal affairs of others.
Each time Trump names a new appointment, I feel as though I'm reading about changes reported from police wiretaps at the Mafia's headquarters.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE ATTACK ON SAUDI ARABIA'S CRUDE OIL TREATMENT FACILITIES - A WHOLE SET OF SERIOUS EMBARRASSMENTS FOR THE UNITED STATES - WHICH NOW BUSIES ITSELF TRYING TO TURN IT INTO AN EXCUSE TO ATTACK IRAN - HOW MILITARY TECHNOLOGY CAN CHANGE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE MIGHTY AND THE NOT-SO-MIGHTY
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump threatens Iran after Saudi attack: 'I don't want war but US is more prepared than any country’
“Iran denies being behind attacks and vows to defend itself”
"The US has claimed the rebels could not have carried out the attacks, and US officials have briefed selected media outlets that it believed Iran was responsible."
How can you "brief" anyone about something for which you have no evidence? You can tell them a story, but you can’t “brief” them.
The words make no sense, but then how much coming from Washington these days does make sense?
Trump and Pompeo keep talking angrily about Iran's responsibility, but they have backed their inflammatory words with absolutely no proof.
Pompeo, after recent accusations, said he would be supplying definitive proof, effectively an admission that he had no proof for what he had just been saying.
Indeed, in a report today, the Saudis are said to have told a major news source that no definite proof of responsibility has emerged from investigations.
Remember, these people, Trump and Pompeo, have demonstrated unrelenting hostility towards Iran for many months. That suggests motives for their assertions going way beyond any effort to understand truth.
American officials, also, are likely quite embarrassed at what the Houthi have achieved, and when you embarrass the very powerful, you make them very angry.
Their embarrassment would be compounded by the Houthi claim that they had inside help from Saudi Arabia. The strikes absolutely display an understanding of a huge and very complicated industrial facility. They understood exactly what parts to target for good effect.
The Houthi achievement suggests an important change emerging. Monster states in future are likely to have a harder time bullying smaller ones who are equipped with such new, effective, and not overly-costly military technologies as drones.
That is actually some good news coming out of these events. Good news, of course, the United States does not welcome.
There is yet a further source of embarrassment here for the United States. The air-defense systems Saudi Arabia bought from them, and very much had in place, utterly failed to defend anything.
Meanwhile, Trump blows on and on about how no one is better prepared for war than America.
An ugly child stomping his feet and making threats.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump threatens Iran after Saudi attack: 'I don't want war but US is more prepared than any country’
“Iran denies being behind attacks and vows to defend itself”
"The US has claimed the rebels could not have carried out the attacks, and US officials have briefed selected media outlets that it believed Iran was responsible."
How can you "brief" anyone about something for which you have no evidence? You can tell them a story, but you can’t “brief” them.
The words make no sense, but then how much coming from Washington these days does make sense?
Trump and Pompeo keep talking angrily about Iran's responsibility, but they have backed their inflammatory words with absolutely no proof.
Pompeo, after recent accusations, said he would be supplying definitive proof, effectively an admission that he had no proof for what he had just been saying.
Indeed, in a report today, the Saudis are said to have told a major news source that no definite proof of responsibility has emerged from investigations.
Remember, these people, Trump and Pompeo, have demonstrated unrelenting hostility towards Iran for many months. That suggests motives for their assertions going way beyond any effort to understand truth.
American officials, also, are likely quite embarrassed at what the Houthi have achieved, and when you embarrass the very powerful, you make them very angry.
Their embarrassment would be compounded by the Houthi claim that they had inside help from Saudi Arabia. The strikes absolutely display an understanding of a huge and very complicated industrial facility. They understood exactly what parts to target for good effect.
The Houthi achievement suggests an important change emerging. Monster states in future are likely to have a harder time bullying smaller ones who are equipped with such new, effective, and not overly-costly military technologies as drones.
That is actually some good news coming out of these events. Good news, of course, the United States does not welcome.
There is yet a further source of embarrassment here for the United States. The air-defense systems Saudi Arabia bought from them, and very much had in place, utterly failed to defend anything.
Meanwhile, Trump blows on and on about how no one is better prepared for war than America.
An ugly child stomping his feet and making threats.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: "FAKE ARGUMENTS ABOUT FAKE NEWS" - WHAT GOVERNMENT AND THE CORPORATIONS THAT SERVE IT ARE REALLY DOING IN THE CONTROVERSY OVER WHAT IS TRUE - A FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTIC OF TRUTH THAT GOVERNMENTS AND CORPORATIONS DISLIKE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DR BINOY KAMPMARK IN SOUTH FRONT
“FAKE ARGUMENTS ON FAKE NEWS”
"The battle over what is the fake and authentic in news easily dovetails into regulations of control and limitations on expression"
Yes, indeed. Some of the battle is more like a deliberate covert operation intended to do just that, to lead to control of speech.
We have so many fraudulent claims about what is true and what is not true. As though any authority, government or non-government, even understood the truth in many cases.
Some of these claims are laughably ridiculous, as from a company like Facebook piously talking about “truth” after years of abusing users, being dishonest with them, and just plain cheating in various practices such as the ranking of news stories and the purchase of “likes” from overseas computer operations to affect advertising rates.
The claims about truth come out of the fact that America and its close allies have an immense amount of dark work going on in various places, dark work to shore up empire.
And governments always lie about dark work. Always.
Truth about events comes out of the free flow of ideas, just as in science. It is a dynamic and fluid thing, not fixed and immutable. Not able to be set like the hands of a clock.
But governments, like that of the United States and the corporations that loyally serve it, have little tolerance for the concept. They see truth as what they say it is, because they want reality to be what they say it should be.
Although their efforts are never quite so crude and blunt as what we came to expect from openly totalitarian societies, and they always pay lip service to principles around human and democratic rights, the innate conflict in trying to tell people what is true itself screams a kind of truth, a not very pleasant one.
It’s a new form of tyranny, and it derives completely from the desire to control others without appearing to do so.
FOOTNOTE: A RELATED RESPONSE TO A DIFFERENT ARTICLE, ONE ON THE RUSSIA, TURKEY AND IRAN SUMMIT IN ANKARA CONCERNING SYRIA
But what a huge job it is trying to allow truth to prevail where great forces simply do not want it.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DR BINOY KAMPMARK IN SOUTH FRONT
“FAKE ARGUMENTS ON FAKE NEWS”
"The battle over what is the fake and authentic in news easily dovetails into regulations of control and limitations on expression"
Yes, indeed. Some of the battle is more like a deliberate covert operation intended to do just that, to lead to control of speech.
We have so many fraudulent claims about what is true and what is not true. As though any authority, government or non-government, even understood the truth in many cases.
Some of these claims are laughably ridiculous, as from a company like Facebook piously talking about “truth” after years of abusing users, being dishonest with them, and just plain cheating in various practices such as the ranking of news stories and the purchase of “likes” from overseas computer operations to affect advertising rates.
The claims about truth come out of the fact that America and its close allies have an immense amount of dark work going on in various places, dark work to shore up empire.
And governments always lie about dark work. Always.
Truth about events comes out of the free flow of ideas, just as in science. It is a dynamic and fluid thing, not fixed and immutable. Not able to be set like the hands of a clock.
But governments, like that of the United States and the corporations that loyally serve it, have little tolerance for the concept. They see truth as what they say it is, because they want reality to be what they say it should be.
Although their efforts are never quite so crude and blunt as what we came to expect from openly totalitarian societies, and they always pay lip service to principles around human and democratic rights, the innate conflict in trying to tell people what is true itself screams a kind of truth, a not very pleasant one.
It’s a new form of tyranny, and it derives completely from the desire to control others without appearing to do so.
FOOTNOTE: A RELATED RESPONSE TO A DIFFERENT ARTICLE, ONE ON THE RUSSIA, TURKEY AND IRAN SUMMIT IN ANKARA CONCERNING SYRIA
But what a huge job it is trying to allow truth to prevail where great forces simply do not want it.
Monday, September 16, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OLEG SMOLENKOV AFFAIR EXTENDS LIFE OF RUSSIA-GATE LUNACY - PUTIN HAD NO ELECTION INTERFERENCE PLAN BECAUSE NOTHING HAPPENED - DNC MATERIAL WAS NOT HACKED BUT LEAKED FROM INSIDE - YET SETH RICH MURDER HAS GONE ALMOST WITHOUT INVESTIGATION - CIA OFTEN FAILS IN GATHERING AND ASSESSING DEPENDABLE INFORMATION - BUT CIA HAS A GOOD RECORD OF DOING BAD THINGS TO OTHERS - WORK OF OPERATIONS SIDE RESEMBLES THAT OF THUGS WITH LIMITLESS RESOURCES
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SCOTT RITTER IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Spy Who Failed
“Oleg Smolenkov’s role as a CIA asset and the use of his data by the director of the CIA to cast doubt over the 2016 U.S. presidential election”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/14/the-spy-who-failed/
Were it not so powerful militarily and financially, the United States would be the laughingstock of the world.
This entire business about a CIA Russian spy is just another avenue travelled in America’s nonstop Russophobia lunatic wanderings.
The DNC material was not hacked as a number of true experts have told us, including the key one now languishing in a British prison.
Putin had no plan because nothing ever happened.
Nothing.
And I think we’ve all seen that when Putin plans something, it happens.
The article is interesting for its laying out of elaborate security procedures – kind of a high-level, almost academic “police procedural” – but I do feel in the end it is not that helpful, much as I respect Scott Ritter expertise.
When nothing has happened, it does seem a bit odd to scrutinize every piece of fiber and bit of dust and to construct a massive scenario of “what ifs.”
Meanwhile, the murder of Seth Rich, a genuine and meaningful event, goes virtually uninvestigated.
No wonder you are in so much trouble, America, and no wonder you make so much trouble for others.
__________________
Response to a comment saying, “Clods like these (add the Clintons) should have their post-employment millions confiscated and put on trial”
Sorry, but “Big Intelligence” is always a failure, and on many levels.
It is not a matter of any “clods.”
It is a matter of the very nature of the institution and the nature of the people who use its output.
The CIA only has a good record at doing bad things.
I refer to its operations side and the havoc and violence they have released through the decades.
They are an army of richly-equipped thugs without uniforms, interfering in the business of others, “lying, cheating, and stealing.”
The true intelligence gathering and evaluating side of things fails and always has to a great extent.
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SCOTT RITTER IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Spy Who Failed
“Oleg Smolenkov’s role as a CIA asset and the use of his data by the director of the CIA to cast doubt over the 2016 U.S. presidential election”
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/14/the-spy-who-failed/
Were it not so powerful militarily and financially, the United States would be the laughingstock of the world.
This entire business about a CIA Russian spy is just another avenue travelled in America’s nonstop Russophobia lunatic wanderings.
The DNC material was not hacked as a number of true experts have told us, including the key one now languishing in a British prison.
Putin had no plan because nothing ever happened.
Nothing.
And I think we’ve all seen that when Putin plans something, it happens.
The article is interesting for its laying out of elaborate security procedures – kind of a high-level, almost academic “police procedural” – but I do feel in the end it is not that helpful, much as I respect Scott Ritter expertise.
When nothing has happened, it does seem a bit odd to scrutinize every piece of fiber and bit of dust and to construct a massive scenario of “what ifs.”
Meanwhile, the murder of Seth Rich, a genuine and meaningful event, goes virtually uninvestigated.
No wonder you are in so much trouble, America, and no wonder you make so much trouble for others.
__________________
Response to a comment saying, “Clods like these (add the Clintons) should have their post-employment millions confiscated and put on trial”
Sorry, but “Big Intelligence” is always a failure, and on many levels.
It is not a matter of any “clods.”
It is a matter of the very nature of the institution and the nature of the people who use its output.
The CIA only has a good record at doing bad things.
I refer to its operations side and the havoc and violence they have released through the decades.
They are an army of richly-equipped thugs without uniforms, interfering in the business of others, “lying, cheating, and stealing.”
The true intelligence gathering and evaluating side of things fails and always has to a great extent.
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ALTERNATIVE NEWS SOURCES ARE SUBJECT TO ERRORS AND BIAS JUST AS MAINLINE NEWS SOURCES ARE - THE NEED FOR SCEPTICISM TOWARDS ALL PRESS AND MEDIA - YOU MUST EVALUATE FOR YOURSELF - NO LISTS OF GOOD SOURCES AND NO CORPORATE "SEALS OF APPROVAL" CAN BE TAKEN AT FACE VALUE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ERIC ZUESSE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Boycott the Empire's Lying Press: Here's a Handy List of Reliable Alternative Media”
Oh, this is silly.
First, in any complex matter that you really want to understand, you don’t ignore or “boycott” those about whom you are concerned or doubtful.
You try understanding just what it is they are doing and why they are doing it, and what it is they are trying to do changes regularly with circumstances.
You know, you can even learn something from the bias and dishonesty of others.
Second, while I follow a good deal of the alternative and foreign press and regard them as very important to my understanding of events, they have no exclusive on accuracy or honesty or lack of bias.
Enlightened scepticism is our best approach in all matters concerning news sources.
Third, anyone claiming to point out the true and dependable sources should be treated with scepticism. It’s no different in principle to corporate truth-determining, fact-checking gimmicks we now see regularly put “out there.”
If you want truth, you must work for it. Like all precious commodities, no one is giving truth away free to you. Good information in anything is costly, never free. You must evaluate.
There are sources to be trusted more than others, but it takes effort to learn who they are, but even then, they will be subject to making mistakes and, definitely subject to displaying some bias.
Bias for each news source is a little like a code you must understand to decipher the underlying message.
You might enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/john-chuckman-comment-on-truth-and-our-press-and-media-the-new-and-pretentious-nonsense-of-fact-checking-by-the-same-press-and-media-only-way-to-get-some-truth/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/john-chuckman-comment-american-efforts-to-block-the-truth-of-the-activities-in-which-they-are-engaged-that-has-become-harder-than-it-once-was-the-important-role-of-modern-russian-media-the-impo/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/06/08/john-chuckman-comment-latest-american-phony-truth-in-media-project-the-trust-project-what-we-really-see-revealed-in-all-such-schemes-they-are-in-line-with-americas-efforts-to-control-the/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/26/john-chuckman-comment-microsofts-involvement-in-yet-another-government-inspired-horror-electionguard-for-voting-machines-joins-newsguard-with-its-1984-concept-of-assuring-readers-about-th/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ERIC ZUESSE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Boycott the Empire's Lying Press: Here's a Handy List of Reliable Alternative Media”
Oh, this is silly.
First, in any complex matter that you really want to understand, you don’t ignore or “boycott” those about whom you are concerned or doubtful.
You try understanding just what it is they are doing and why they are doing it, and what it is they are trying to do changes regularly with circumstances.
You know, you can even learn something from the bias and dishonesty of others.
Second, while I follow a good deal of the alternative and foreign press and regard them as very important to my understanding of events, they have no exclusive on accuracy or honesty or lack of bias.
Enlightened scepticism is our best approach in all matters concerning news sources.
Third, anyone claiming to point out the true and dependable sources should be treated with scepticism. It’s no different in principle to corporate truth-determining, fact-checking gimmicks we now see regularly put “out there.”
If you want truth, you must work for it. Like all precious commodities, no one is giving truth away free to you. Good information in anything is costly, never free. You must evaluate.
There are sources to be trusted more than others, but it takes effort to learn who they are, but even then, they will be subject to making mistakes and, definitely subject to displaying some bias.
Bias for each news source is a little like a code you must understand to decipher the underlying message.
You might enjoy:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/john-chuckman-comment-on-truth-and-our-press-and-media-the-new-and-pretentious-nonsense-of-fact-checking-by-the-same-press-and-media-only-way-to-get-some-truth/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/john-chuckman-comment-american-efforts-to-block-the-truth-of-the-activities-in-which-they-are-engaged-that-has-become-harder-than-it-once-was-the-important-role-of-modern-russian-media-the-impo/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/06/08/john-chuckman-comment-latest-american-phony-truth-in-media-project-the-trust-project-what-we-really-see-revealed-in-all-such-schemes-they-are-in-line-with-americas-efforts-to-control-the/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/26/john-chuckman-comment-microsofts-involvement-in-yet-another-government-inspired-horror-electionguard-for-voting-machines-joins-newsguard-with-its-1984-concept-of-assuring-readers-about-th/
Sunday, September 15, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HONG KONG DEMONSTRATORS FOOLISHLY WRECKING THEIR OWN CITY'S FUTURE - LETTING AMERICAN AGENTS WHO HATE CHINA INCITE THEM - JUST A FEW WORDS ON THE BLESSINGS OF AMERICAN "DEMOCRACY" - PERSPECTIVE ON CHINA'S CAREFUL HANDLING INCLUDING WHAT AMERICA IS DOING TO THE POOR PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA - CANADA'S DISGRACEFUL ROLE THERE THANKS TO CHRYSTIA FREELAND
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Violence flares as thousands defy police ban to march in downtown Hong Kong
“Latest pro-democracy protest Sunday comes day after 12 arrested, 25 injured in mall clash”
These foolish demonstrators are going to "kill the goose that laid the golden egg."
The kind of international business interests which make Hong Kong hum and thrive are completely averse to this kind of chaotic public behavior.
Of course, the demonstrators are being covertly encouraged and supplied by the American State Department as part of Trump's war on China, but still, it is their home, and they foolishly work hard promoting its decline.
And, you know, a lot of what we call "democracy" in the "West" isn’t quite what it's cracked up to be. The realities don’t come anywhere near the glib slogans.
Americans in 2016, had a choice in voting for President between two figures taken from Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. No matter which of them won the election, the Pentagon and CIA and NSA were the real winners. Average people had to lose.
The American Congress has been characterized, quite accurately, as "the best government money can buy." It serves the interests of those who provide it with generous campaign funds, without exception.
Average Americans see their tax dollars spent on wars and killing and spying, themselves having no healthcare, often poor schools, and even contaminated drinking water in a number of cases.
America's wonderful police forces kill an average of three Americans per day, every day, more than any terrorist could dream of. America's prisons are packed. The country has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
______________________
Response to a comment saying, “What is happening to the people of Venezuela is shameful. What's worse is Canada is involved due to Freeland.”
Thank you. A vital perspective.
What America has done in Venezuela is far more terrifying than what we see in Hong Kong.
The United States is denying millions of people food and necessities through embargo, and it has cut their ability to trade and earn a living.
It has turned off their entire electrical grid several times, hurting millions of ordinary people. It literally has stolen some of the country's assets abroad to hand over to an unelected opposition.
There was an attempt on President Maduro’s life. And all kinds of serious threats and rumblings continue in an effort to intimidate and create fear.
China has been what can only be called genuinely restrained in the face of the demonstrations, and despite the annoying fact that they know the demonstrators are incited and financially supported by State Department representatives.
Also, compare the killing and maiming of the Les Gilets Jaunes by Macron in the streets of Paris. Eleven have been killed.
Or, even worse, the mass killing of more than two hundred unarmed demonstrators by Netanyahu in Gaza, territory over which he legally doesn’t even have any authority.
I regard Chrystia Freeland as a disgrace.
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Violence flares as thousands defy police ban to march in downtown Hong Kong
“Latest pro-democracy protest Sunday comes day after 12 arrested, 25 injured in mall clash”
These foolish demonstrators are going to "kill the goose that laid the golden egg."
The kind of international business interests which make Hong Kong hum and thrive are completely averse to this kind of chaotic public behavior.
Of course, the demonstrators are being covertly encouraged and supplied by the American State Department as part of Trump's war on China, but still, it is their home, and they foolishly work hard promoting its decline.
And, you know, a lot of what we call "democracy" in the "West" isn’t quite what it's cracked up to be. The realities don’t come anywhere near the glib slogans.
Americans in 2016, had a choice in voting for President between two figures taken from Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. No matter which of them won the election, the Pentagon and CIA and NSA were the real winners. Average people had to lose.
The American Congress has been characterized, quite accurately, as "the best government money can buy." It serves the interests of those who provide it with generous campaign funds, without exception.
Average Americans see their tax dollars spent on wars and killing and spying, themselves having no healthcare, often poor schools, and even contaminated drinking water in a number of cases.
America's wonderful police forces kill an average of three Americans per day, every day, more than any terrorist could dream of. America's prisons are packed. The country has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
______________________
Response to a comment saying, “What is happening to the people of Venezuela is shameful. What's worse is Canada is involved due to Freeland.”
Thank you. A vital perspective.
What America has done in Venezuela is far more terrifying than what we see in Hong Kong.
The United States is denying millions of people food and necessities through embargo, and it has cut their ability to trade and earn a living.
It has turned off their entire electrical grid several times, hurting millions of ordinary people. It literally has stolen some of the country's assets abroad to hand over to an unelected opposition.
There was an attempt on President Maduro’s life. And all kinds of serious threats and rumblings continue in an effort to intimidate and create fear.
China has been what can only be called genuinely restrained in the face of the demonstrations, and despite the annoying fact that they know the demonstrators are incited and financially supported by State Department representatives.
Also, compare the killing and maiming of the Les Gilets Jaunes by Macron in the streets of Paris. Eleven have been killed.
Or, even worse, the mass killing of more than two hundred unarmed demonstrators by Netanyahu in Gaza, territory over which he legally doesn’t even have any authority.
I regard Chrystia Freeland as a disgrace.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: YEMEN'S BRILLIANT ATTACK ON MAJOR SAUDI OIL FACILITIES - WE NATURALLY ROOT FOR THE LITTLE GUY (YEMEN) AGAINST THE BLOODY BULLY (SAUDI ARABIA) WHO STARTED ALL THE KILLING - BUT SOME VERY NASTY WORDS ARE COMING FROM WASHINGTON AND THIS COULD GO VERY WRONG FOR...IRAN - YES, AMERICA'S WASHINGTON BOZOS ARE BLAMING IRAN
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Saudis Have You Had Enough? Time to Tap Out and Sue for Peace”
“Ten drones controlled by Yemeni Houthi forces hit two major Saudi oil installations last night and caused several large fires”
While this is encouraging for those of us who root for the little guy (Yemen) against the bully (Saudi Arabia), it could take a very wrong turn.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Neocon’s Neocon, is now making quite threatening noises over the attack, suggesting in fact that Iran was behind it.
The ever-ready-to-grovel-for-Israel Senator Lindsey Graham is suggesting bombing Iran's oil fields in reprisal.
There are of course no limits to the stupidities towards Iran of which Washington is capable.
I'm sure that violent war criminal, Netanyahu, would welcome any aggression for which he could take credit during the Israeli election.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard has gone out of its way to make blunt statements that American bases and aircraft carriers are within range of its very capable missiles.
Ah, what a wonderful world America bestows upon us. Each day brings a bounty of threats and stupidities and danger.
AFTER NOTE:
I've long suspected that Senator Lindsey Graham - always ready to leap to his feet when the word "Israel" is uttered by anyone and shout "More!" if the topic is aid money or bombing of people Israel doesn’t like - was the victim, years ago, of a Mossad honey-trap.
Video would be deadly to the career of a man who pretends he's straight in the Southern Baptist constituency he represents. It is hard to account for his tireless watchdog efforts on Israel’s behalf otherwise.
Such things have certainly happened before. Closet-gay and cross-dresser, J Edgar Hoover, apparently was caught early on in such a trap by the Mafia, which likely explains his notorious ineffectiveness against organized crime.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Saudis Have You Had Enough? Time to Tap Out and Sue for Peace”
“Ten drones controlled by Yemeni Houthi forces hit two major Saudi oil installations last night and caused several large fires”
While this is encouraging for those of us who root for the little guy (Yemen) against the bully (Saudi Arabia), it could take a very wrong turn.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Neocon’s Neocon, is now making quite threatening noises over the attack, suggesting in fact that Iran was behind it.
The ever-ready-to-grovel-for-Israel Senator Lindsey Graham is suggesting bombing Iran's oil fields in reprisal.
There are of course no limits to the stupidities towards Iran of which Washington is capable.
I'm sure that violent war criminal, Netanyahu, would welcome any aggression for which he could take credit during the Israeli election.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard has gone out of its way to make blunt statements that American bases and aircraft carriers are within range of its very capable missiles.
Ah, what a wonderful world America bestows upon us. Each day brings a bounty of threats and stupidities and danger.
AFTER NOTE:
I've long suspected that Senator Lindsey Graham - always ready to leap to his feet when the word "Israel" is uttered by anyone and shout "More!" if the topic is aid money or bombing of people Israel doesn’t like - was the victim, years ago, of a Mossad honey-trap.
Video would be deadly to the career of a man who pretends he's straight in the Southern Baptist constituency he represents. It is hard to account for his tireless watchdog efforts on Israel’s behalf otherwise.
Such things have certainly happened before. Closet-gay and cross-dresser, J Edgar Hoover, apparently was caught early on in such a trap by the Mafia, which likely explains his notorious ineffectiveness against organized crime.
Saturday, September 14, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FAITHFUL ATTACHMENT TO A BLOODY TYRANT PRINCE IS PERHAPS THE CLEAREST MEASURE OF WASHINGTON'S CORRUPTION AND ROT
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK COCKBURN IN THE INDEPENDENT
“The Saudi Crown Prince plans to make us forget about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi before the US election
“A further difficulty the crown prince will face in trying to reboot his nation’s image is that the Khashoggi affair has energised a wave of criticism from former friends, including Republican senator Marco Rubio”
What better symbolizes the utter corruption of Washington than its continued close ties with that grotesquely brutal murderer, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia?
Yes, Trump is especially guilty, but he is only a rude chief representative for the entire Washington establishment.
Rather than drain "the swamp," he ended up giving jobs to many of its inhabitants. On major matters, he and they are pretty much indistinguishable.
Except for his frequent incoherence, he represents nothing really different compared to all the rest of "the best government money can buy."
Of course, there is the Israeli connection. Netanyahu and the Crown Prince have a mutual admiration society. They are covert allies in many projects, all of them involving blood and death. Kind of “blood brothers,” you might say.
Sadly, Trump and much of Washington dance to Netanyahu's tune for the Middle East. We have the ongoing spectacle of a great power dictated to by what is effectively one of its own colonies, albeit a rather special one in the immense attention and subsidy it receives.
The virulent hatred and unwarranted attacks we see against Iran, efforts to strangle a major economy of more than eighty million people and hurling ugly threats of war - Trump recently, like Hillary Clinton a few years ago, having actually threatened Iran with the word "obliteration" - are the direct products of that sick and inappropriate relationship.
Netanyahu, with his putrid "moral army" lined up regularly behind a fence to shoot unarmed Palestinian demonstrators, including women and children, is absolutely no different in character than the murderer Saudi Crown Prince. The screams of Netanyahu’s victims are indistinguishable from the screams the Crown Prince’s victims.
Hypocrisy is just thick in the air when Washington here or there accuses some government whom it doesn't like of brutality or terror. We hear the words regularly, but the people voicing the charges themselves have blood up to their armpits.
Washington both tolerates and exploits genuine terror for its goals and desires, day-in and day-out.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK COCKBURN IN THE INDEPENDENT
“The Saudi Crown Prince plans to make us forget about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi before the US election
“A further difficulty the crown prince will face in trying to reboot his nation’s image is that the Khashoggi affair has energised a wave of criticism from former friends, including Republican senator Marco Rubio”
What better symbolizes the utter corruption of Washington than its continued close ties with that grotesquely brutal murderer, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia?
Yes, Trump is especially guilty, but he is only a rude chief representative for the entire Washington establishment.
Rather than drain "the swamp," he ended up giving jobs to many of its inhabitants. On major matters, he and they are pretty much indistinguishable.
Except for his frequent incoherence, he represents nothing really different compared to all the rest of "the best government money can buy."
Of course, there is the Israeli connection. Netanyahu and the Crown Prince have a mutual admiration society. They are covert allies in many projects, all of them involving blood and death. Kind of “blood brothers,” you might say.
Sadly, Trump and much of Washington dance to Netanyahu's tune for the Middle East. We have the ongoing spectacle of a great power dictated to by what is effectively one of its own colonies, albeit a rather special one in the immense attention and subsidy it receives.
The virulent hatred and unwarranted attacks we see against Iran, efforts to strangle a major economy of more than eighty million people and hurling ugly threats of war - Trump recently, like Hillary Clinton a few years ago, having actually threatened Iran with the word "obliteration" - are the direct products of that sick and inappropriate relationship.
Netanyahu, with his putrid "moral army" lined up regularly behind a fence to shoot unarmed Palestinian demonstrators, including women and children, is absolutely no different in character than the murderer Saudi Crown Prince. The screams of Netanyahu’s victims are indistinguishable from the screams the Crown Prince’s victims.
Hypocrisy is just thick in the air when Washington here or there accuses some government whom it doesn't like of brutality or terror. We hear the words regularly, but the people voicing the charges themselves have blood up to their armpits.
Washington both tolerates and exploits genuine terror for its goals and desires, day-in and day-out.
Friday, September 13, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OF COURSE AMERICA SHOULD LEAVE AFGHANISTAN - IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THERE - BUT I CRITICIZE AN ODD AMERICAN WAY OF DISCUSSING THE FACT - 9/11 WAS NEVER INVESTIGATED BUT AN INVASION TO AVENGE IT STILL OCCURRED - THE TALIBAN - THE CORRUPTION OF POWER AND THE MILITARY THAT DOMINATE AMERICA LIKE DRUGS - SAUDIS KEEP COSY WITH AMERICA'S POWERFUL - THE INSANE AND MEANINGLESS WAR ON TERROR - ISRAEL'S BIZARRE POSITION IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND WHY IT GENERATES ENDLESS VIOLENCE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL SCHEUER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Now, Mr. President, With Respect, Cut the Crap and Get Out of Afghanistan”
"Mr. President you are surrounded by advisors who are morons, liars, money-grubbers, mineral-chasers, war-lovers, and democracy crusaders, as well as generals who cannot tell the difference between winning and losing"
There are some truths here, including, of course, the main point about the urgent need to just get out of Afghanistan.
But they are often poorly stated and, importantly, as I will explain, mixed and blurred with a lot of other matters. The author’s language, too, loses credibility and can distort meaning, although a remarkable number of Americans seem to believe otherwise, that such language reinforces truth.
Overall, the language is indicative of much of what the author has to say – again, getting beyond the one essential point about the need to leave Afghanistan – so much of it really being not much more than bellowing from a disillusioned imperial acolyte.
Exclamation points from the gut. But I have never been a reader or a writer who admires the use of exclamation points.
I do think attitudes in the use of language reflect what an essentially violent country America is, both abroad and at home. And that’s why others often cannot understand it, and why it cannot understand them.
After all, this author, by his own admission, spent many years of his life working towards a pointless goal in Afghanistan. It took him an awfully long time to realize anything about what he was doing (in an undoubtedly well-paying job). Such is the strength of preconceptions and religious mumbo-jumbo prejudices like “God Bless America” Patriotism.
It's actually quite hard to understand America's establishment on the subject of Afghanistan.
After all, America, especially in its rural areas, is packed with gun-toting, get-out-of-my-face types who hate most government and authority.
Well, that's what the Taliban represent in their poor, hardscrabble country.
That's all they've ever represented.
They are not concerned about the bureaucrats living in Kabul unless the bureaucrats interfere with them, as they have been doing incessantly under American prompting.
And they certainly aren’t concerned about the world at large, about geo-political matters, except to the extent, again, that any of it impinges on their society and way of life. Certainly, an invasion and occupation of 18 years would tend to do that.
If anyone should be able to understand the Taliban, Americans should.
But they don't or they refuse to do so.
The entire war was a waste over misunderstanding and America’s emotional need for vengeance after 9/11. Americans never even bothered to understand 9/11, to investigate it, to get at its causes, and to identify its authors accurately. They just demanded vengeance and the satisfaction of seeing lots of things get blown up.
No one understands 9/11 to this day, but the chaotic war in Afghanistan heads towards twenty years of destruction and waste.
The war never had a legitimate cause. And the truth is that all of America’s reactions, viewed from a distance, represent a kind of massive chaotic black comedy or primitive ritualistic cleansing ceremony.
The Taliban never were terrorists in the sense that we understand the word. Yes, they are rude, backward, mountain-men types who don’t hesitate to use violence against enemies, but that is not what we mean when we use the word “terrorist.”
The Taliban had given bin Laden, a devout Muslim and a genuine hero in the fight against Soviet occupation, a refuge away from the Saudi Arabia establishment that hated him, an establishment totally in bed with America.
George Bush’s oil operations were assisted by Saudi Princes. Bush was actually never astute enough to start or run a serious business on his own, and the Saudis were always looking for ways to flatter and influence Americans from big-name families. Just as they gave rare gifts and donated to the Clintons.
That's all. So, you start and maintain an 18-year war over that?
Just insanity, believing your own propaganda about the Taliban.
Truly, America has been the most inept imperial power since WWII, fighting many meaningless wars and achieving very little, except profits for the defense industry and relatively well-paid jobs for many young Americans who might otherwise have swept floors or been unemployed.
The final irony of it all is America’s adopting for its Israeli-inspired Neocon wars, wars designed only to attempt remaking much of the Middle East to the liking of America and Israel, the very methods of terror.
In Syria, in Libya, and elsewhere, young CIA recruits are supported in behaving like mythical jihadi types when all they really are is old-fashioned mercenaries without uniforms. They never battle against what genuine jihadis would battle against, which would be Israel and the corrupt Saudi Princes and American influence.
No, they fight, with terrorist methods, governments which have done a fairly decent job for the bulk of their people, governments such as those of Gadhafi or Assad, but who remain independent-minded and do not toe the American imperial policy line.
That position, not toeing the line, is simply not allowed. Better to kill a couple of million people, create tens of millions of refugees, and destroy whole societies, which is literally what America has done in the Middle East in cooperation with Israel. Always while bellowing about terrorists and tyrants.
Oh, there has been some genuine “international terror,” a relatively small amount, especially in Europe. It represents little more than efforts to get some revenge for what has been inflicted upon the Middle East in the bloody, bloody Neocon Wars. It would never have occurred otherwise. People don’t just kill and put their own lives at risk for no reason at all, as George Bush’s lamentably stupid words about terrorists being jealous assumed.
I find the author’s last words about American generals and cabals by them and their incompetence especially alarming. It has the tone of American militia types who eat freeze-dried rations and live at the bottoms of old missile silos in the American West. A bit deranged.
The problem isn’t generals, incompetent of not, the problem is the very existence of a gigantic military with no purpose other than enforcing empire. Belief that it represents anything else at all, such as legitimate defense and patriotic duty is the beginning of all problems and disillusion.
Remember always, the realities and effects of power, and of nearly absolute power in particular. And how else can you possibly describe the Pentagon and CIA and NSA and the Washington establishment?
We have close to absolute corruption on a massive scale.
FOOTNOTE CONCERNING ISRAEL AND ITS MANY WARS, INCLUDING THE NEOCON WARS – MATTERS QUITE APART FROM THE TALIBAN AND AFGHANISTAN ALTHOUGH IT ALL GETS JUMBLED TOGETHER IN PROPAGANDA ABOUT TERROR AND THE SUPPOSED NATURE OF ISLAM
Modern Israel represents something a little like a huge American corporate subdivision - a bit like Disney’s original project called Celebration, Florida - only one built with Biblical and Sunday School themes to justify putting it on another people’s land.
It has taken almost continuous war and violence to support the development, and there are few signs of that violence abating.
Its residents are mostly of European descent and have attitudes much different than those native to the region, an almost predictable source of unending strife.
In many respects, its face towards the rest of the Middle East, with its hundreds of millions of people, much resembles that of the fortress redoubts built by European Crusaders during the Middle Ages.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL SCHEUER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Now, Mr. President, With Respect, Cut the Crap and Get Out of Afghanistan”
"Mr. President you are surrounded by advisors who are morons, liars, money-grubbers, mineral-chasers, war-lovers, and democracy crusaders, as well as generals who cannot tell the difference between winning and losing"
There are some truths here, including, of course, the main point about the urgent need to just get out of Afghanistan.
But they are often poorly stated and, importantly, as I will explain, mixed and blurred with a lot of other matters. The author’s language, too, loses credibility and can distort meaning, although a remarkable number of Americans seem to believe otherwise, that such language reinforces truth.
Overall, the language is indicative of much of what the author has to say – again, getting beyond the one essential point about the need to leave Afghanistan – so much of it really being not much more than bellowing from a disillusioned imperial acolyte.
Exclamation points from the gut. But I have never been a reader or a writer who admires the use of exclamation points.
I do think attitudes in the use of language reflect what an essentially violent country America is, both abroad and at home. And that’s why others often cannot understand it, and why it cannot understand them.
After all, this author, by his own admission, spent many years of his life working towards a pointless goal in Afghanistan. It took him an awfully long time to realize anything about what he was doing (in an undoubtedly well-paying job). Such is the strength of preconceptions and religious mumbo-jumbo prejudices like “God Bless America” Patriotism.
It's actually quite hard to understand America's establishment on the subject of Afghanistan.
After all, America, especially in its rural areas, is packed with gun-toting, get-out-of-my-face types who hate most government and authority.
Well, that's what the Taliban represent in their poor, hardscrabble country.
That's all they've ever represented.
They are not concerned about the bureaucrats living in Kabul unless the bureaucrats interfere with them, as they have been doing incessantly under American prompting.
And they certainly aren’t concerned about the world at large, about geo-political matters, except to the extent, again, that any of it impinges on their society and way of life. Certainly, an invasion and occupation of 18 years would tend to do that.
If anyone should be able to understand the Taliban, Americans should.
But they don't or they refuse to do so.
The entire war was a waste over misunderstanding and America’s emotional need for vengeance after 9/11. Americans never even bothered to understand 9/11, to investigate it, to get at its causes, and to identify its authors accurately. They just demanded vengeance and the satisfaction of seeing lots of things get blown up.
No one understands 9/11 to this day, but the chaotic war in Afghanistan heads towards twenty years of destruction and waste.
The war never had a legitimate cause. And the truth is that all of America’s reactions, viewed from a distance, represent a kind of massive chaotic black comedy or primitive ritualistic cleansing ceremony.
The Taliban never were terrorists in the sense that we understand the word. Yes, they are rude, backward, mountain-men types who don’t hesitate to use violence against enemies, but that is not what we mean when we use the word “terrorist.”
The Taliban had given bin Laden, a devout Muslim and a genuine hero in the fight against Soviet occupation, a refuge away from the Saudi Arabia establishment that hated him, an establishment totally in bed with America.
George Bush’s oil operations were assisted by Saudi Princes. Bush was actually never astute enough to start or run a serious business on his own, and the Saudis were always looking for ways to flatter and influence Americans from big-name families. Just as they gave rare gifts and donated to the Clintons.
That's all. So, you start and maintain an 18-year war over that?
Just insanity, believing your own propaganda about the Taliban.
Truly, America has been the most inept imperial power since WWII, fighting many meaningless wars and achieving very little, except profits for the defense industry and relatively well-paid jobs for many young Americans who might otherwise have swept floors or been unemployed.
The final irony of it all is America’s adopting for its Israeli-inspired Neocon wars, wars designed only to attempt remaking much of the Middle East to the liking of America and Israel, the very methods of terror.
In Syria, in Libya, and elsewhere, young CIA recruits are supported in behaving like mythical jihadi types when all they really are is old-fashioned mercenaries without uniforms. They never battle against what genuine jihadis would battle against, which would be Israel and the corrupt Saudi Princes and American influence.
No, they fight, with terrorist methods, governments which have done a fairly decent job for the bulk of their people, governments such as those of Gadhafi or Assad, but who remain independent-minded and do not toe the American imperial policy line.
That position, not toeing the line, is simply not allowed. Better to kill a couple of million people, create tens of millions of refugees, and destroy whole societies, which is literally what America has done in the Middle East in cooperation with Israel. Always while bellowing about terrorists and tyrants.
Oh, there has been some genuine “international terror,” a relatively small amount, especially in Europe. It represents little more than efforts to get some revenge for what has been inflicted upon the Middle East in the bloody, bloody Neocon Wars. It would never have occurred otherwise. People don’t just kill and put their own lives at risk for no reason at all, as George Bush’s lamentably stupid words about terrorists being jealous assumed.
I find the author’s last words about American generals and cabals by them and their incompetence especially alarming. It has the tone of American militia types who eat freeze-dried rations and live at the bottoms of old missile silos in the American West. A bit deranged.
The problem isn’t generals, incompetent of not, the problem is the very existence of a gigantic military with no purpose other than enforcing empire. Belief that it represents anything else at all, such as legitimate defense and patriotic duty is the beginning of all problems and disillusion.
Remember always, the realities and effects of power, and of nearly absolute power in particular. And how else can you possibly describe the Pentagon and CIA and NSA and the Washington establishment?
We have close to absolute corruption on a massive scale.
FOOTNOTE CONCERNING ISRAEL AND ITS MANY WARS, INCLUDING THE NEOCON WARS – MATTERS QUITE APART FROM THE TALIBAN AND AFGHANISTAN ALTHOUGH IT ALL GETS JUMBLED TOGETHER IN PROPAGANDA ABOUT TERROR AND THE SUPPOSED NATURE OF ISLAM
Modern Israel represents something a little like a huge American corporate subdivision - a bit like Disney’s original project called Celebration, Florida - only one built with Biblical and Sunday School themes to justify putting it on another people’s land.
It has taken almost continuous war and violence to support the development, and there are few signs of that violence abating.
Its residents are mostly of European descent and have attitudes much different than those native to the region, an almost predictable source of unending strife.
In many respects, its face towards the rest of the Middle East, with its hundreds of millions of people, much resembles that of the fortress redoubts built by European Crusaders during the Middle Ages.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE CONCEPT OF "PEAK OIL" - WHY THOMAS MALTHUS WAS SO COMPLETELY WRONG IN THE LATE 18TH CENTURY - BOTH ABOUT THE LIMITS TO RESOURCES LIKE FOOD AND ABOUT POPULATION GROWTH - HOW OUR FOOD WILL BE PRODUCED BEFORE VERY LONG - HOW HUMAN POPULATIONS STOP GROWING AND EVEN SHRINK - A WORD ON INTELLIGENT SCEPTICISM
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY F WILLIAM ENGDAHL IN RUSSIA INSIDER
'Peak Oil' Turns out to Be Complete Nonsense - Affordable Global Reserves Seem Virtually Limitless
__________________
Response to a comment:
Yes, there is not yet evidence enough about the formation of oil, whether it is a geological process or biological, as perhaps most commonly assumed. If it proves to be a continuous geological process, operating out of the earth’s interior as this article’s author assumes, reservoirs may indeed be virtually unlimited over time.
As for your comments on Malthus, he unknowingly left out something that has proved to be extremely important, growth of productivity.
It is that fact that makes his reckoning so bleak.
And so completely wrong, as we've proved with immense growth of productivity in all industries and especially farming.
And I think we have big leaps ahead still.
The day is coming we won't even need most of our farm fields.
We'll grow most of what we eat in hi-tech, hi-rise facilities. They will be right in or near cities, so fleets of transport trucks will no longer be needed. Chemical sprays perhaps also will not be needed.
The facilities will be controlled by complex computer programs and will need little attention.
And there will be harvests multiple times a year.
After that, who knows, maybe totally synthetic stuff, requiring no horticulture at all?
Like oil basins, future productivity of food production is not "cut-and-dried," as Malthus unwittingly assumed.
Much the same productivity argument applies to petroleum too, actually. We 've been able to make completely synthetic gasoline for many decades. Nationalist South Africa had a few synthetic fuel plants, based on a technology from WWII Germany.
It is much more expensive fuel, but, as with all technologies, costs come down over time. And higher product costs stimulate more efficient user technologies, as more efficient cars.
But before even getting to synthetic fuel, the world still has huge resources of "unconventional" oil - very heavy sources of crude that are more difficult and costly to extract and refine. The Alberta tar sands and the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela and still other places have vast deposits.
Again, such oil is more expensive because it must be "upgraded" and extraction deals with far greater volumes of material to be handled than classic light crude, but costs do come down over time.
Malthus, in his concept of a growing mismatch between population and its needed resources, also assumed continuous growth of population. Again, he was quite wrong, as the experience of all advanced countries now has proved.
The socio-economic fact of Demographic Transition brings population growth to a halt in all advanced nations. Births do respond to increased affluence and the likelihood of the survival of almost all children born - that is, to falling death rates.
Infant mortality (deaths of children before reaching five-years old) provided a big portion of historical death rates.
In Malthus’ day, infant mortality claimed a good half of children born. People kept having children as a response. After all, there were no pensions or care facilities for aging parents. Your children, especially for rural people, were the embodiment of both.
Today, some countries without adequate in-migration, actually face declining population, a very serious problem, as is the case for Japan.
____________________
Response to a comment saying, “A word to the wise: never take anything Engdahl says at face value. I made that mistake once and quoted him in a book. The man is a dangerous loon, a Larouchite and a fantasist”
Never take anything that anyone says at "face value." That is, anything about which you have little personal knowledge.
Intelligent scepticism is the best guiding philosophy. David Hume was right.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY F WILLIAM ENGDAHL IN RUSSIA INSIDER
'Peak Oil' Turns out to Be Complete Nonsense - Affordable Global Reserves Seem Virtually Limitless
__________________
Response to a comment:
Yes, there is not yet evidence enough about the formation of oil, whether it is a geological process or biological, as perhaps most commonly assumed. If it proves to be a continuous geological process, operating out of the earth’s interior as this article’s author assumes, reservoirs may indeed be virtually unlimited over time.
As for your comments on Malthus, he unknowingly left out something that has proved to be extremely important, growth of productivity.
It is that fact that makes his reckoning so bleak.
And so completely wrong, as we've proved with immense growth of productivity in all industries and especially farming.
And I think we have big leaps ahead still.
The day is coming we won't even need most of our farm fields.
We'll grow most of what we eat in hi-tech, hi-rise facilities. They will be right in or near cities, so fleets of transport trucks will no longer be needed. Chemical sprays perhaps also will not be needed.
The facilities will be controlled by complex computer programs and will need little attention.
And there will be harvests multiple times a year.
After that, who knows, maybe totally synthetic stuff, requiring no horticulture at all?
Like oil basins, future productivity of food production is not "cut-and-dried," as Malthus unwittingly assumed.
Much the same productivity argument applies to petroleum too, actually. We 've been able to make completely synthetic gasoline for many decades. Nationalist South Africa had a few synthetic fuel plants, based on a technology from WWII Germany.
It is much more expensive fuel, but, as with all technologies, costs come down over time. And higher product costs stimulate more efficient user technologies, as more efficient cars.
But before even getting to synthetic fuel, the world still has huge resources of "unconventional" oil - very heavy sources of crude that are more difficult and costly to extract and refine. The Alberta tar sands and the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela and still other places have vast deposits.
Again, such oil is more expensive because it must be "upgraded" and extraction deals with far greater volumes of material to be handled than classic light crude, but costs do come down over time.
Malthus, in his concept of a growing mismatch between population and its needed resources, also assumed continuous growth of population. Again, he was quite wrong, as the experience of all advanced countries now has proved.
The socio-economic fact of Demographic Transition brings population growth to a halt in all advanced nations. Births do respond to increased affluence and the likelihood of the survival of almost all children born - that is, to falling death rates.
Infant mortality (deaths of children before reaching five-years old) provided a big portion of historical death rates.
In Malthus’ day, infant mortality claimed a good half of children born. People kept having children as a response. After all, there were no pensions or care facilities for aging parents. Your children, especially for rural people, were the embodiment of both.
Today, some countries without adequate in-migration, actually face declining population, a very serious problem, as is the case for Japan.
____________________
Response to a comment saying, “A word to the wise: never take anything Engdahl says at face value. I made that mistake once and quoted him in a book. The man is a dangerous loon, a Larouchite and a fantasist”
Never take anything that anyone says at "face value." That is, anything about which you have little personal knowledge.
Intelligent scepticism is the best guiding philosophy. David Hume was right.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE DISTINCTLY UNPROMISING FIELD OF REMAINING DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES DEBATE - THREADBARE DEMOCRACY AT WORK - THE MILITARY ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - AMERICA POCKMARKED BY URBAN AND RURAL HELLHOLES WHICH ARE IGNORED - BIDEN AND OBAMA SMILED THEIR WAY THROUGH MASS KILLING
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS ABOUT THE AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY DEBATES
“Biden clashes with Warren, Sanders on health care in 3rd Democratic debate
“Candidates pare back some of the bickering that marked 2 earlier debates”
Pretty sad field.
The Party killed off the best candidate it had in years, Tulsi Gabbard.
None of these people really challenge the American war machine. Not one. Bernie comes closest, but he has mainly supported it and doesn't seriously challenge it.
Elizabeth Warren has not only always voted for the hideous budgets, she openly says things like we've got to fight our way out of the situations in which we’ve become mired, whatever that stupidity means.
They are all establishment figures of little real promise. Not one of them is stirring or genuinely interesting.
Talk about this or that social program, which is what many of these candidates do, is a waste of breath when you're spending a trillion dollars a year on the military, security, and spying.
___________________
Response to a comment saying, “The richest country in the world cannot afford healthcare, only more weapons to ‘help’ those who disagree with them”
Well, yes, and just look at the urban and rural hellholes that pockmark the United States.
Genuine Third-World stuff, without even decent drinking water or schools.
That is the reality of America.
Plutocracy and empire and squalor and constant turmoil to serve and expand empire.
The people? Who are you kidding? They simply do not count, except in insincere political speeches.
________________________
Response to a comment saying, “Biden and Obama bombed 6 countries while in office”
Yes, and very importantly, they started the industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program which uses drones and Hellfire missiles to incinerate people legally guilty of nothing. Thousands of them.
And Joe Biden advocated hard to Obama for starting it.
Wonderful people. Doing the same work as Argentina's old military junta did when it "disappeared" thousands of people it didn't like.
Only Obama and Biden both smile all the time.
And a lot of people believe their smiles are benign.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS ABOUT THE AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY DEBATES
“Biden clashes with Warren, Sanders on health care in 3rd Democratic debate
“Candidates pare back some of the bickering that marked 2 earlier debates”
Pretty sad field.
The Party killed off the best candidate it had in years, Tulsi Gabbard.
None of these people really challenge the American war machine. Not one. Bernie comes closest, but he has mainly supported it and doesn't seriously challenge it.
Elizabeth Warren has not only always voted for the hideous budgets, she openly says things like we've got to fight our way out of the situations in which we’ve become mired, whatever that stupidity means.
They are all establishment figures of little real promise. Not one of them is stirring or genuinely interesting.
Talk about this or that social program, which is what many of these candidates do, is a waste of breath when you're spending a trillion dollars a year on the military, security, and spying.
___________________
Response to a comment saying, “The richest country in the world cannot afford healthcare, only more weapons to ‘help’ those who disagree with them”
Well, yes, and just look at the urban and rural hellholes that pockmark the United States.
Genuine Third-World stuff, without even decent drinking water or schools.
That is the reality of America.
Plutocracy and empire and squalor and constant turmoil to serve and expand empire.
The people? Who are you kidding? They simply do not count, except in insincere political speeches.
________________________
Response to a comment saying, “Biden and Obama bombed 6 countries while in office”
Yes, and very importantly, they started the industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program which uses drones and Hellfire missiles to incinerate people legally guilty of nothing. Thousands of them.
And Joe Biden advocated hard to Obama for starting it.
Wonderful people. Doing the same work as Argentina's old military junta did when it "disappeared" thousands of people it didn't like.
Only Obama and Biden both smile all the time.
And a lot of people believe their smiles are benign.
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