John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Never Donate to Wikipedia - They Slander People Who Tell the Truth”
The problems with Wikipedia go well beyond slandering selected people.
The site long ago joined other American Internet tech giants such as Google and Facebook and Amazon in assisting the covert forces of the American power establishment.
Just as the Internet is now saturated with commercial advertising, it has become saturated with political propaganda and disinformation.
I think it started with many respectable-looking sites being created just for the purpose a decade or more ago, sites that tended only to publish certain points of view on many matters, that heavily censored material not in keeping with rather arbitrary standards, and whose sources of revenue, considering their expensive glossy appearance and frequent updating, were mysterious.
But just special-purpose sites proved not enough. The political-influence people have penetrated a great many broader, seemingly helpful sites, Wikipedia being perhaps the most obvious.
An alert reader can see it on Wikipedia, just in the number and speed with which articles on certain topics appear, as well as in the nature of how they are written. Always with a clear but fairly quietly-stated slant. Always quite professional in appearance, entirely unlike what we saw in the early days of Wikipedia.
It has become an entirely different kind of publication than what it was when it started.
Long and highly referenced pieces appear rather quickly, as if on command, about important geopolitical topics of the day. They just scream origins from teams, as in the CIA or State Department or Pentagon or NSA.
The teams of Wikipedia authors function much like the teams of "trolls" on the Internet who are paid by governments to disrupt discussions at various comment sites. Israel, for example, has run at least two groups of such “trolls” - organized IDF teams and others, as out-of-work students, paid subsidies - to diffuse discussions, plant disinformation, and just generally to kick dust in people's faces. At certain newspaper and political sites and especially on certain topics, they resemble swarms of flies.
Countless articles on Wikipedia now function the same way, though generally with far higher standards of respectable appearance and tone. Wikipedia does still want to maintain appearances of authority and respectability.
And on many topics, ones with absolutely no political dimension, as articles on math or nutrition or geology, there are good articles to be found, some perhaps even contributed by some of the same people submitting other stuff in order to keep bolstering the site's reputation for encyclopedic information.
But on any topic with any possible political or special-interest dimension – history, books and writers, journalism, cinema, social topics, and others – you will find the new class of “trolls” busily at work. Perhaps “worker-bee drones” would be a better descriptive name than “trolls.” The site is saturated with them. Well, there’s really only one set of interest groups, those serving American empire, with such large resources to do such a job.
In many ways, the total effort by the America’s establishment to influence us resembles what we saw once from the Catholic Church, despite great changes in form and technology. The Church published lists of acceptable books. It censored the contents of books and articles. It limited what was kept in libraries. It simply banned some books and writing. And not many decades ago, it tried hard for a long time to influence what commercial films people could see.
Authority with great power and immense interests to protect always behaves that way. No matter what the particular set of beliefs and ideologies. That’s just one of the reasons it remains always a battle to discover and establish truth.
Saturday, November 30, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: REASONS FOR AMERICA'S UGLY INTERVENTION IN VENEZUELA - AMERICA'S LACK OF SYMPATHY WITH RULE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW CONFIRMED YET AGAIN - A RATHER FASCIST-LIKE AMERICAN IMPULSE OBSERVED LONG AGO REMAINS ACTIVE - NO APOLOGIES FOR THE HOLOCAUST OF VIETNAM
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“This Is How Russia Keeps Venezuela Exporting Oil Despite US Sanctions
“With a little help from Rosneft under-siege Venezuela still manages to sell 500,000 bpd monthly”
_____________________
Response to a comment which said, “So why sanction Venezuela? it is not because her economy is Socialist or that her Socialism is not panning out as well as Caracas planned. If that was the reason then over 60% to 70% of the world's economies would also qualify for sanctions due to bad performance. The only conclusion I can arrive is that Venezuela under both Chavez and Maduro took a strong anti Israeli stand.”
I wouldn't doubt that that represents a part of the motive. Remember, Israel is part and parcel of America’s empire, a highly privileged and influential imperial colony in the Middle East.
However, the United States has done many ugly interventions over the matters of socialized governments or nationalized industries.
And it very much does want to reclaim Latin America for the Planter Class which cooperate historically so well with its policies.
The Lima Group is just part of an effort to drive new groups of "bad guys" from the continent.
Look at the new pressures on Cuba, Nicaragua, the coup in Bolivia, and the change in government in Brazil, which was certainly precipitated with behind-the-scenes management by CIA and State Department.
The United States is being hyper-aggressive now across Latin America.
I do wish the mass of Americans raised some objections, but they don't really.
Coups, interventions, and wars over such matters seem just fine with the large majority of Americans, people who have no investment with what the elites are doing but side with them through emotions conditioned by decades of disinformation and propaganda in their press and from their politicians, including both parties.
Look at the pathetic Elizabeth Warren's statements on the subject. Some liberal.
And a recent American poll shows a large majority of Americans supporting such interventions.
Minding your own business and civility and respect for rule of law just are not fundamental American values.
They are qualities vaguely associated with sissies and losers and the unpatriotic. Such attitudes reflect lifetimes immersed in the environment generated by corporate press, financially-compromised politicians in both parties, countless "think tanks" and promotional organizations supported by billionaires and corporations, the work of ugly outfits like the FBI, and just the intense hype of the Cold War, something which still echoes rather loudly in America.
It really is a huge, not-so-subtle hate campaign on a continuous basis. Indeed, now with Trump and his close associates it has burst out with some renewed vehemence. Imagine, just quietly accepting the fact that America, on at least two occasions, turned off all the fridges of Venezuela’s millions of ordinary people with attacks on the power grid? And also turned off the power for all kinds of life-saving machines? And its harsh embargo starves people and deprives them of medicine.
I've thought most of my life that a fundamental lack of empathy was savagely displayed by the American population during the Vietnam War.
Some tears and demonstrations for the 60 thousand of their own dead (a relatively tiny number over a 10-year war) while ignoring completely a true holocaust of about 3 million killed, a holocaust which included leaving behind a landscape of bomb craters and landmines and just saturated with poisons like Agent Orange.
Even making a hero of someone like John McCain, a lifelong nasty piece of work who was bombing civilians in a city when he was shot down. But the establishment required some symbol of American sacrifice given all that wilful horror and destruction inflicted on others for no reason, so a fake hero was manufactured.
Just a complete hell created for what? And you can even add to the toll, the million or so horribly killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Those monsters were enabled to take control because of America's constant interference in the country’s strictly neutral government, resulting in its collapse. And America never lifted a finger against “the Killing Fields.”
All that done in the name of the American people. And against the vague and meaningless threat of others’ belief in a different economic system. However mistaken that belief might have been, the incineration of millions was hardly helpful. It wasn’t even sane. It represented the mass burning of witches at the stake.
And the impulse remains alive in America.
It represents the unavoidable corruption of near-absolute power. Exceptionalism. I'll do it because I can, and I want to. A drummed-up Patriotism almost as poisonous as the fascism of 1930s’ Europe.
Indeed, an eminent American journalist and historian, who reported on the rise of Hitler, William L Shirer, said once that perhaps America would be the first country to go fascist voluntarily, so evident at the time were sympathetic voices and acts in American society.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“This Is How Russia Keeps Venezuela Exporting Oil Despite US Sanctions
“With a little help from Rosneft under-siege Venezuela still manages to sell 500,000 bpd monthly”
_____________________
Response to a comment which said, “So why sanction Venezuela? it is not because her economy is Socialist or that her Socialism is not panning out as well as Caracas planned. If that was the reason then over 60% to 70% of the world's economies would also qualify for sanctions due to bad performance. The only conclusion I can arrive is that Venezuela under both Chavez and Maduro took a strong anti Israeli stand.”
I wouldn't doubt that that represents a part of the motive. Remember, Israel is part and parcel of America’s empire, a highly privileged and influential imperial colony in the Middle East.
However, the United States has done many ugly interventions over the matters of socialized governments or nationalized industries.
And it very much does want to reclaim Latin America for the Planter Class which cooperate historically so well with its policies.
The Lima Group is just part of an effort to drive new groups of "bad guys" from the continent.
Look at the new pressures on Cuba, Nicaragua, the coup in Bolivia, and the change in government in Brazil, which was certainly precipitated with behind-the-scenes management by CIA and State Department.
The United States is being hyper-aggressive now across Latin America.
I do wish the mass of Americans raised some objections, but they don't really.
Coups, interventions, and wars over such matters seem just fine with the large majority of Americans, people who have no investment with what the elites are doing but side with them through emotions conditioned by decades of disinformation and propaganda in their press and from their politicians, including both parties.
Look at the pathetic Elizabeth Warren's statements on the subject. Some liberal.
And a recent American poll shows a large majority of Americans supporting such interventions.
Minding your own business and civility and respect for rule of law just are not fundamental American values.
They are qualities vaguely associated with sissies and losers and the unpatriotic. Such attitudes reflect lifetimes immersed in the environment generated by corporate press, financially-compromised politicians in both parties, countless "think tanks" and promotional organizations supported by billionaires and corporations, the work of ugly outfits like the FBI, and just the intense hype of the Cold War, something which still echoes rather loudly in America.
It really is a huge, not-so-subtle hate campaign on a continuous basis. Indeed, now with Trump and his close associates it has burst out with some renewed vehemence. Imagine, just quietly accepting the fact that America, on at least two occasions, turned off all the fridges of Venezuela’s millions of ordinary people with attacks on the power grid? And also turned off the power for all kinds of life-saving machines? And its harsh embargo starves people and deprives them of medicine.
I've thought most of my life that a fundamental lack of empathy was savagely displayed by the American population during the Vietnam War.
Some tears and demonstrations for the 60 thousand of their own dead (a relatively tiny number over a 10-year war) while ignoring completely a true holocaust of about 3 million killed, a holocaust which included leaving behind a landscape of bomb craters and landmines and just saturated with poisons like Agent Orange.
Even making a hero of someone like John McCain, a lifelong nasty piece of work who was bombing civilians in a city when he was shot down. But the establishment required some symbol of American sacrifice given all that wilful horror and destruction inflicted on others for no reason, so a fake hero was manufactured.
Just a complete hell created for what? And you can even add to the toll, the million or so horribly killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Those monsters were enabled to take control because of America's constant interference in the country’s strictly neutral government, resulting in its collapse. And America never lifted a finger against “the Killing Fields.”
All that done in the name of the American people. And against the vague and meaningless threat of others’ belief in a different economic system. However mistaken that belief might have been, the incineration of millions was hardly helpful. It wasn’t even sane. It represented the mass burning of witches at the stake.
And the impulse remains alive in America.
It represents the unavoidable corruption of near-absolute power. Exceptionalism. I'll do it because I can, and I want to. A drummed-up Patriotism almost as poisonous as the fascism of 1930s’ Europe.
Indeed, an eminent American journalist and historian, who reported on the rise of Hitler, William L Shirer, said once that perhaps America would be the first country to go fascist voluntarily, so evident at the time were sympathetic voices and acts in American society.
Friday, November 29, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AN INSIGHTFUL LITTLE ARTICLE RAISES FURTHER THOUGHTS ON TRUMP'S TRADE WAR AGAINST CHINA - TRUMP'S METHODS - ON GLOBALIZATION AND THE LONG-TERM INEVITABILITY OF MUCH GREATER TRADE AND MIGRATION - THE BACKWARDNESS OF "MAGA" - ON EXCEPTIONALISM - THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPETITION IN THE WORLD ECONOMY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY STEPHEN S ROACH IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“How Will the World Look After the US-China Trade War?
“Even a full decoupling from China would merely shift the trade deficit to other countries”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/how-will-the-world-look-after-the-us-china-trade-war/
Quite an insightful little article.
Trump must be hearing from many sources what a risky thing he has done, and at a time of many world economic weaknesses.
Even this man of so very little understanding is likely looking for something of a peaceful retreat. Nothing affects him more than the ego-driven fear over re-election, something that has motivated him to give away half of the Middle East, and any substantial economic downturn does just that.
It is a Trump pattern already well-established in many failed or incomplete efforts: a big explosion of words and acts gradually followed by a retreat into something quieter and vaguer, even undefined – what we saw with North Korea, Iran, you name it.
I very much hope the author is right about de-globalization not being a major risk, as it was in the 1930s. In the short term I mean. That has immensely destructive potential. In the long term, I have no doubt, no matter what the noise coming from the nationalist-populist-patriot crowd, globalization is the world's inevitable and increasing future trend. It is just as certain as the approaching dominance of Artificial Intelligence and all that that that implies for employment and careers and professions and even higher education.
Saying anything else puts you squarely with the Luddites who tried to stop the effects of the Industrial Revolution by smashing its new machines. It is easy to laugh at the Luddites now, but Trump’s sad MAGA crowd represents much the same thing, trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Only their numbers, many millions, make them momentarily seem something they are not.
World trade and migration are only going to grow long-term, and all parties need accepted agreements and rules and international organizations for conducting affairs. Trump’s attacks on many international organizations and practices represent an effort to please this crowd, but in the end, it is a politics going nowhere, rushing towards a dead end, because this is a crowd with no meaningful future.
Humility is not a style in America, but if the average demanding person of very limited skills and education and native intelligence could consider a moment the millions in, say, just India with humble jobs today, not having been born into the lucky lottery America was after WWII, but sometimes people of remarkable skills and talent, they would know the future does not belong to MAGA, not at all.
Several times in my life, I have met remarkable people from Third World countries, people doing the humblest jobs imaginable, but people, as a few moments conversation revealed, with great innate talent, greater than considerable numbers of our ordinary college graduates. A competitive economy tends to provide opportunity for such talent, and a competitive economy is what makes our total society better off. Arguing against globalism is much like arguing in favor of anti-competitive industries.
China already has done a great deal to release this immense human force, and it will do more as its middle class swells into hundreds of millions, but then there are a number of other countries coming along in waves of development.
Globalization has contributed to this possibility offering new opportunities and lives to countless millions. It has nothing to do with anyone “taking,” something from someone else, jobs or technology or anything else. It represents competition on a vast scale, competition with huge rewards. It is opportunity. It is the future.
The bellowing of the Trump crowd in the United States I think represents a last gasp for people with no understanding but a lot of attitude. The nationalist, populist events we’ve seen are going to remain just that, events, not foundations for our new reality. They have no substance to provide foundations for anything.
A sense of exceptionalism, unwarranted by any facts, but existing owing to years of just extraordinary good fortune for Americans after WWII, permeates both America’s privileged classes and ordinary people. They each have demands and expectations based on little more than the fact of being American. That is going to have to fade a good deal before America can comfortably slot itself into the world’s new realities, the multi-polar world.
That is why the international political difficulties are not going to go away for a while, but they do not have to take the form of self-destructive economic warfare. Almost every claim made by Trump about China as a world economic force and world trader is simply incorrect, and if you pursue sweeping policies based on false premises, it gets you nowhere except somewhere you really don’t want to be.
Trump does in all such matters remain a kind of joker in the deck however. Because, as many close observers have told us in books and articles, he simply does not listen to anyone.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY STEPHEN S ROACH IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“How Will the World Look After the US-China Trade War?
“Even a full decoupling from China would merely shift the trade deficit to other countries”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/how-will-the-world-look-after-the-us-china-trade-war/
Quite an insightful little article.
Trump must be hearing from many sources what a risky thing he has done, and at a time of many world economic weaknesses.
Even this man of so very little understanding is likely looking for something of a peaceful retreat. Nothing affects him more than the ego-driven fear over re-election, something that has motivated him to give away half of the Middle East, and any substantial economic downturn does just that.
It is a Trump pattern already well-established in many failed or incomplete efforts: a big explosion of words and acts gradually followed by a retreat into something quieter and vaguer, even undefined – what we saw with North Korea, Iran, you name it.
I very much hope the author is right about de-globalization not being a major risk, as it was in the 1930s. In the short term I mean. That has immensely destructive potential. In the long term, I have no doubt, no matter what the noise coming from the nationalist-populist-patriot crowd, globalization is the world's inevitable and increasing future trend. It is just as certain as the approaching dominance of Artificial Intelligence and all that that that implies for employment and careers and professions and even higher education.
Saying anything else puts you squarely with the Luddites who tried to stop the effects of the Industrial Revolution by smashing its new machines. It is easy to laugh at the Luddites now, but Trump’s sad MAGA crowd represents much the same thing, trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Only their numbers, many millions, make them momentarily seem something they are not.
World trade and migration are only going to grow long-term, and all parties need accepted agreements and rules and international organizations for conducting affairs. Trump’s attacks on many international organizations and practices represent an effort to please this crowd, but in the end, it is a politics going nowhere, rushing towards a dead end, because this is a crowd with no meaningful future.
Humility is not a style in America, but if the average demanding person of very limited skills and education and native intelligence could consider a moment the millions in, say, just India with humble jobs today, not having been born into the lucky lottery America was after WWII, but sometimes people of remarkable skills and talent, they would know the future does not belong to MAGA, not at all.
Several times in my life, I have met remarkable people from Third World countries, people doing the humblest jobs imaginable, but people, as a few moments conversation revealed, with great innate talent, greater than considerable numbers of our ordinary college graduates. A competitive economy tends to provide opportunity for such talent, and a competitive economy is what makes our total society better off. Arguing against globalism is much like arguing in favor of anti-competitive industries.
China already has done a great deal to release this immense human force, and it will do more as its middle class swells into hundreds of millions, but then there are a number of other countries coming along in waves of development.
Globalization has contributed to this possibility offering new opportunities and lives to countless millions. It has nothing to do with anyone “taking,” something from someone else, jobs or technology or anything else. It represents competition on a vast scale, competition with huge rewards. It is opportunity. It is the future.
The bellowing of the Trump crowd in the United States I think represents a last gasp for people with no understanding but a lot of attitude. The nationalist, populist events we’ve seen are going to remain just that, events, not foundations for our new reality. They have no substance to provide foundations for anything.
A sense of exceptionalism, unwarranted by any facts, but existing owing to years of just extraordinary good fortune for Americans after WWII, permeates both America’s privileged classes and ordinary people. They each have demands and expectations based on little more than the fact of being American. That is going to have to fade a good deal before America can comfortably slot itself into the world’s new realities, the multi-polar world.
That is why the international political difficulties are not going to go away for a while, but they do not have to take the form of self-destructive economic warfare. Almost every claim made by Trump about China as a world economic force and world trader is simply incorrect, and if you pursue sweeping policies based on false premises, it gets you nowhere except somewhere you really don’t want to be.
Trump does in all such matters remain a kind of joker in the deck however. Because, as many close observers have told us in books and articles, he simply does not listen to anyone.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TWO KEY NATO MEMBERS CALLING NAMES IN PUBLIC? - FRANCE AND TURKEY - I TAKE IT AS A SIGN OF AMERICA'S DECLINE IN PRESTIGE AND INFLUENCE - A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT MACRON AND ERDOGAN
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“Macron should have his own ‘brain death’ checked before attacking NATO allies, Erdogan says”
It is a bizarre show, two key members of NATO speaking the way they have. I think the fact that it can happen, and openly, provides a further sign of America's declining prestige and influence.
Macron is simply an exceptionally weak figure, a would-be de Gaulle with absolutely none of de Gaulle's talents - his strength of character and daring and brilliance. Macron is right, though, about NATO, but he is unwilling and unable to do anything about it. So why even open his mouth?
Erdogan has always been a very independent-minded character, although rather an unbalanced one. But he is shrewd about power and wants to keep his position in NATO, so long as it gives him possibilities he wouldn't otherwise have, while continuing to cooperate and flirt with other forces.
Further thoughts on NATO and EU:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/29/john-chuckman-comment-more-on-the-ways-america-uses-nato-for-its-own-benefit-one-of-the-american-power-establishments-most-feared-possible-developments-in-world-affairs/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-trump-walk-away-from-nato-why-it-will-not-happen-even-if-he-has-the-authority-which-is-not-clear-natos-changed-purposes-serve-american-interests-so-why-shouldnt-it-pay/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“Macron should have his own ‘brain death’ checked before attacking NATO allies, Erdogan says”
It is a bizarre show, two key members of NATO speaking the way they have. I think the fact that it can happen, and openly, provides a further sign of America's declining prestige and influence.
Macron is simply an exceptionally weak figure, a would-be de Gaulle with absolutely none of de Gaulle's talents - his strength of character and daring and brilliance. Macron is right, though, about NATO, but he is unwilling and unable to do anything about it. So why even open his mouth?
Erdogan has always been a very independent-minded character, although rather an unbalanced one. But he is shrewd about power and wants to keep his position in NATO, so long as it gives him possibilities he wouldn't otherwise have, while continuing to cooperate and flirt with other forces.
Further thoughts on NATO and EU:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/29/john-chuckman-comment-more-on-the-ways-america-uses-nato-for-its-own-benefit-one-of-the-american-power-establishments-most-feared-possible-developments-in-world-affairs/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-trump-walk-away-from-nato-why-it-will-not-happen-even-if-he-has-the-authority-which-is-not-clear-natos-changed-purposes-serve-american-interests-so-why-shouldnt-it-pay/
Thursday, November 28, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TURKEY TESTS ITS RUSSIAN S-400 ANTI-AIRCRAFT RADARS AGAINST AMERICAN FIGHTERS IT ALREADY USES - NEW AMERICAN SANCTION THREATS - AMERICANS JUST CANNOT HANDLE TURKEY'S ERDOGAN - WHY THE THREATS ARE A WASTE OF BREATH
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Turkey Tests F-16s and F-4s Against S-400 Radars in Defiance of US Sanctions Threats
“Washington had optimistically called on Ankara not to "activate" the radars and to send them back
“Turkey has begun tests of the radars associated with its new Russian S-400s using American-made F-16 Viper and F-4 Phantom II fighters, defying warnings from the United States that this “activation” of the surface-to-air missile systems could prompt new sanctions.
“U.S. officials had been concerned that the Turkish military might conduct exactly these sorts of tests with the F-35, potentially giving Russia insights into the jets’ capabilities”
The United States just does not know how to deal with Turkey’s President Erdogan, after the failure of its one really serious attempt to do so, in the form of a coup.
That makes him an interesting man to watch, even though, in many respects, he is himself a pretty dark and unpleasant figure.
He will never give up the S-400s simply because Russia has no key to turn them off, as the United States and France very much do for their anti-aircraft equipment.
It is known that Sarkozy's France turned off Colonel Gaddafi's anti-aircraft missiles (expensive stuff he had bought from France) at the time America decided there had to be a "no-fly zone" in Libya, with all that almost automatically follows from that, like bombing the crap out of a place.
Besides, Erdogan is interested in getting Russia’s S-500 later and getting some contracts for Turkey to work on it.
Even though he and Putin do not see eye-to-eye on a good many things, I think Putin has him "hooked," at least enough to provide a continuing source of annoyance for American affairs.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Turkey Tests F-16s and F-4s Against S-400 Radars in Defiance of US Sanctions Threats
“Washington had optimistically called on Ankara not to "activate" the radars and to send them back
“Turkey has begun tests of the radars associated with its new Russian S-400s using American-made F-16 Viper and F-4 Phantom II fighters, defying warnings from the United States that this “activation” of the surface-to-air missile systems could prompt new sanctions.
“U.S. officials had been concerned that the Turkish military might conduct exactly these sorts of tests with the F-35, potentially giving Russia insights into the jets’ capabilities”
The United States just does not know how to deal with Turkey’s President Erdogan, after the failure of its one really serious attempt to do so, in the form of a coup.
That makes him an interesting man to watch, even though, in many respects, he is himself a pretty dark and unpleasant figure.
He will never give up the S-400s simply because Russia has no key to turn them off, as the United States and France very much do for their anti-aircraft equipment.
It is known that Sarkozy's France turned off Colonel Gaddafi's anti-aircraft missiles (expensive stuff he had bought from France) at the time America decided there had to be a "no-fly zone" in Libya, with all that almost automatically follows from that, like bombing the crap out of a place.
Besides, Erdogan is interested in getting Russia’s S-500 later and getting some contracts for Turkey to work on it.
Even though he and Putin do not see eye-to-eye on a good many things, I think Putin has him "hooked," at least enough to provide a continuing source of annoyance for American affairs.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HOW MOSCOW VIEWED ISRAEL AS AN AMERICAN NUCLEAR-ARMED THREAT FIFTY YEARS AGO - AN IMPORTANT INSIGHT INTO MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS OF THE TIME - AND AN IMPORTANT CLUE ABOUT ISRAEL'S COMPLEX NATURE - SOMETHING RARELY DISCUSSED IN THE WEST
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL WEAVER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“The Soviet-Israeli War 1967-1973: The Soviet Struggle vs Israel in the War of Attrition
“The Soviets played a far more direct, long-lived and impactful role in the notionally Egyptian-Israeli struggle than is generally understood"
https://www.checkpointasia.net/the-soviet-israeli-war-1967-1973-the-soviet-struggle-vs-israel-in-the-war-of-attrition/
"Soviet leaders not only supported Egypt’s agenda, they had their own goals in the region. Moscow considered Israel to be a nuclear-armed American threat to the Soviet heartland."
While the author says some things with which I disagree, that quote represents an important insight.
One virtually never examined in America’s press or in its politics.
Israel may be reasonably viewed as a kind of American colony in the Middle East, a highly privileged one, representing a special arrangement whereunder both Washington and Zionist-oriented Jews receive mutual benefits.
America got a colony in a very strategic position in the Middle East, and it got to play postwar protector of Jews – a role close to the opposite of its true long-term record in foreign affairs and in domestic arrangements.
Note, even in the 1940s, Jews were excluded in large numbers from prestigious American universities and private clubs. In the late 1930s, America actually turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany, confirming Hitler in his view that they were just as unwanted in America as in Germany.
Nevertheless, despite America’s rather dark history, its new postwar “good guy” role, assumed for the sake of obtaining a strategic Middle Eastern colony, was certainly welcomed by Jews at home and abroad, making for an enthusiastic army of cooperation in America’s colonial arrangements.
Israel, despite its genuinely colonial and dependent status – the country literally floats on a sea of public and private subsidies and a myriad of beneficial special arrangements and contracts with the United States, the total size of which few appreciate when they quote only America’s formal assistance - got to play refuge homeland for Jews, even though most of the world’s Jews do not live there and likely never will.
Israel’s work towards acquiring nuclear weapons had to be known to all the important insiders in America’s power establishment. There were just so many matters affected, including the theft of fissile materials in the United States, where American high officials and experts just had to see things happening.
So, too, Israel's later, 1970s, secret cooperation with South Africa in exchanging supplies of strategic materials like uranium ore for Israeli technical nuclear assistance. Nationalist (apartheid) South Africa, briefly before its collapse in the early 1990s, became a small nuclear power. It had at least half a dozen bombs or warheads. It was protected in the 1970s and into the 1980s, both because Washington valued it as an anti-communist fortress state in Africa and because of its important assistance to Israel.
In late 1979, the unmistakable double flash of a nuclear test was observed in the Indian Ocean by a special American satellite called Vela. The matter was suppressed and never allowed to be developed in the press. It is thought to have been a joint Israeli-South African test.
Clearly, on the whole, the American establishment approved of Israel's efforts on all fronts.
The only important voice against Israel's going nuclear in the early 1960s was that of John Kennedy. His view was never made public, only communicated through secret exchanges. He declared it a matter of national policy that Israel’s secret work at Dimona in the Negev desert not be allowed to create another, and illicit, nuclear state.
Of course, in doing so, Kennedy was - in just one more matter, as with Cuba or relations with the Soviet Union – going against the most powerful insider currents of the Dark State.
After Kennedy's death, Lyndon Johnson became the most expansive friend Israel ever enjoyed having in the White House, even more so than today’s Donald Trump.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL WEAVER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“The Soviet-Israeli War 1967-1973: The Soviet Struggle vs Israel in the War of Attrition
“The Soviets played a far more direct, long-lived and impactful role in the notionally Egyptian-Israeli struggle than is generally understood"
https://www.checkpointasia.net/the-soviet-israeli-war-1967-1973-the-soviet-struggle-vs-israel-in-the-war-of-attrition/
"Soviet leaders not only supported Egypt’s agenda, they had their own goals in the region. Moscow considered Israel to be a nuclear-armed American threat to the Soviet heartland."
While the author says some things with which I disagree, that quote represents an important insight.
One virtually never examined in America’s press or in its politics.
Israel may be reasonably viewed as a kind of American colony in the Middle East, a highly privileged one, representing a special arrangement whereunder both Washington and Zionist-oriented Jews receive mutual benefits.
America got a colony in a very strategic position in the Middle East, and it got to play postwar protector of Jews – a role close to the opposite of its true long-term record in foreign affairs and in domestic arrangements.
Note, even in the 1940s, Jews were excluded in large numbers from prestigious American universities and private clubs. In the late 1930s, America actually turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany, confirming Hitler in his view that they were just as unwanted in America as in Germany.
Nevertheless, despite America’s rather dark history, its new postwar “good guy” role, assumed for the sake of obtaining a strategic Middle Eastern colony, was certainly welcomed by Jews at home and abroad, making for an enthusiastic army of cooperation in America’s colonial arrangements.
Israel, despite its genuinely colonial and dependent status – the country literally floats on a sea of public and private subsidies and a myriad of beneficial special arrangements and contracts with the United States, the total size of which few appreciate when they quote only America’s formal assistance - got to play refuge homeland for Jews, even though most of the world’s Jews do not live there and likely never will.
Israel’s work towards acquiring nuclear weapons had to be known to all the important insiders in America’s power establishment. There were just so many matters affected, including the theft of fissile materials in the United States, where American high officials and experts just had to see things happening.
So, too, Israel's later, 1970s, secret cooperation with South Africa in exchanging supplies of strategic materials like uranium ore for Israeli technical nuclear assistance. Nationalist (apartheid) South Africa, briefly before its collapse in the early 1990s, became a small nuclear power. It had at least half a dozen bombs or warheads. It was protected in the 1970s and into the 1980s, both because Washington valued it as an anti-communist fortress state in Africa and because of its important assistance to Israel.
In late 1979, the unmistakable double flash of a nuclear test was observed in the Indian Ocean by a special American satellite called Vela. The matter was suppressed and never allowed to be developed in the press. It is thought to have been a joint Israeli-South African test.
Clearly, on the whole, the American establishment approved of Israel's efforts on all fronts.
The only important voice against Israel's going nuclear in the early 1960s was that of John Kennedy. His view was never made public, only communicated through secret exchanges. He declared it a matter of national policy that Israel’s secret work at Dimona in the Negev desert not be allowed to create another, and illicit, nuclear state.
Of course, in doing so, Kennedy was - in just one more matter, as with Cuba or relations with the Soviet Union – going against the most powerful insider currents of the Dark State.
After Kennedy's death, Lyndon Johnson became the most expansive friend Israel ever enjoyed having in the White House, even more so than today’s Donald Trump.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: POLLS IN BRITAIN ARE LOOKING FAVORABLE FOR ANOTHER DONALD TRUMP BEING ADDED TO THE STOCK OF WESTERN LEADERSHIP - BORIS JOHNSON IS A DANGEROUS MAN
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"As U.K. election poll predicts Conservative majority, Labour can't shake its most vexing problem: its leader"
The last thing the world needs is another Donald Trump, which is precisely what Britain has in Boris Johnson.
In almost every detail, only excepting an Eton accent.
This is a dangerous man. Britain will deeply regret his election, both in terms of the effects of BREXIT and of his readiness to put almost everything British (including the National Health Service) on the negotiating table with Trump for a big British-American trade deal to replace the EU.
His views on everything from migrants to military adventures are right in line with Trump's.
Jeremy Corbyn is a decent and thoughtful and fair-minded man on the whole - a fairly rare thing in Western national politics.
But he has been under relentless, well-organized attacks from special interests since his first days as leader.
Those who do not keep up with the British press may not appreciate the extent of the effort, but it has been like nothing I've seen before, often resembling the worst days of America's McCarthy era.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"As U.K. election poll predicts Conservative majority, Labour can't shake its most vexing problem: its leader"
The last thing the world needs is another Donald Trump, which is precisely what Britain has in Boris Johnson.
In almost every detail, only excepting an Eton accent.
This is a dangerous man. Britain will deeply regret his election, both in terms of the effects of BREXIT and of his readiness to put almost everything British (including the National Health Service) on the negotiating table with Trump for a big British-American trade deal to replace the EU.
His views on everything from migrants to military adventures are right in line with Trump's.
Jeremy Corbyn is a decent and thoughtful and fair-minded man on the whole - a fairly rare thing in Western national politics.
But he has been under relentless, well-organized attacks from special interests since his first days as leader.
Those who do not keep up with the British press may not appreciate the extent of the effort, but it has been like nothing I've seen before, often resembling the worst days of America's McCarthy era.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HOW HIGH THE CARBON TAX MUST REACH - JUST SOME OF THE REASONS IT IS A TERRIBLE IDEA - GOVERNMENT IS TERRIBLE AT FINDING CREATIVE NEW APPROACHES TO ANYTHING - AND MUCH OF THE TAX WILL JUST BE PUT INTO GENERAL REVENUE TO COVER IRRESPONSIBLE DEFICITS - GERMAN GOVERNMENT'S COSTLY WINDMILL FAILURE - BUT GERMAN INDUSTRY WANTS RUSSIAN GAS AND LOTS OF IT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Carbon tax must hit $210 per tonne by 2030 to meet Paris targets, report concludes
“The tax remains the most cost-effective tool for fighting climate change, says Ecofiscal Commission”
A sure route to destroying a country's international economic competitiveness. As well as further heavily eroding individual citizens' ability to budget for their needs.
Remember, too, the world faces an extremely serious economic event ahead, one that could result in years of stress like the Great Depression, no matter how much the central banks try ameliorating it.
It is unavoidable, and it will, at the very least, surpass the event of 2008. American trade policies and sanctions now are only hammering away more at the foundations of a fragile world economy.
It is a certainty that many competitors will not adopt such taxes, including the one to our South. Moreover, Canada's actual contribution to carbon dioxide is tiny, 1.6% of world emissions. We cannot, no matter how much we hurt ourselves economically, have much impact.
And if we are sure that carbon is driving the climate change we see - something I believe has not been convincingly proved - why aren't we building nuclear electric plants everywhere?
They are carbon-free and supply long-term, dependable electricity at literally a fraction of the cost of any of "the alternates" you care to name. Their construction in numbers, too, could provide important national economic stimulus for years to come.
Canada already suffers from many long-term economic problems. Its future in terms of good new jobs is not bright. Quite the opposite. It seems the height of folly to deliberately add high additional taxes in a jurisdiction not known for low taxation. Just self-flagellation.
And really, does anyone believe the Trudeau government has shown such wisdom and competence in any of its major undertakings, that it can be trusted in matters of such almost life-and-death importance?
__________________________
A comment below says, "however governments (including BC) have been putting carbon tax revenue into general revenue instead of putting it solely into green initiatives. When the money is put 100% into these initiatives, everyone could buy in."
Yes, indeed, to the first part. But the second part is highly questionable.
Government just is not in a position to judge, and of a disposition to do, such things wisely.
It will take good money from productive and solid enterprise and 'invest" it into many iffy and poorly-managed projects.
That is, to the extent that it just does not put it into general revenue, something tempting and likely for our many indebted governments.
Even if you accept the carbon hypothesis for global warming, you cannot crash-program your way out.
It is actually dangerous to think that you can.
There are just so many past examples.
Germany's vast effort over the last decade or so at wind farms has proved costly and inefficient by every measure. And the machines’ healthy life expectancy is surprisingly brief, on the order of 15 years before you have the major project of replacing all those huge turbines.
All done while sound solutions, including nuclear, are just ignored.
But please note, German industry is not so fluffy-headed. It wants natural gas from Russia, and lots of it. And it is getting it through several new major pipelines.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Carbon tax must hit $210 per tonne by 2030 to meet Paris targets, report concludes
“The tax remains the most cost-effective tool for fighting climate change, says Ecofiscal Commission”
A sure route to destroying a country's international economic competitiveness. As well as further heavily eroding individual citizens' ability to budget for their needs.
Remember, too, the world faces an extremely serious economic event ahead, one that could result in years of stress like the Great Depression, no matter how much the central banks try ameliorating it.
It is unavoidable, and it will, at the very least, surpass the event of 2008. American trade policies and sanctions now are only hammering away more at the foundations of a fragile world economy.
It is a certainty that many competitors will not adopt such taxes, including the one to our South. Moreover, Canada's actual contribution to carbon dioxide is tiny, 1.6% of world emissions. We cannot, no matter how much we hurt ourselves economically, have much impact.
And if we are sure that carbon is driving the climate change we see - something I believe has not been convincingly proved - why aren't we building nuclear electric plants everywhere?
They are carbon-free and supply long-term, dependable electricity at literally a fraction of the cost of any of "the alternates" you care to name. Their construction in numbers, too, could provide important national economic stimulus for years to come.
Canada already suffers from many long-term economic problems. Its future in terms of good new jobs is not bright. Quite the opposite. It seems the height of folly to deliberately add high additional taxes in a jurisdiction not known for low taxation. Just self-flagellation.
And really, does anyone believe the Trudeau government has shown such wisdom and competence in any of its major undertakings, that it can be trusted in matters of such almost life-and-death importance?
__________________________
A comment below says, "however governments (including BC) have been putting carbon tax revenue into general revenue instead of putting it solely into green initiatives. When the money is put 100% into these initiatives, everyone could buy in."
Yes, indeed, to the first part. But the second part is highly questionable.
Government just is not in a position to judge, and of a disposition to do, such things wisely.
It will take good money from productive and solid enterprise and 'invest" it into many iffy and poorly-managed projects.
That is, to the extent that it just does not put it into general revenue, something tempting and likely for our many indebted governments.
Even if you accept the carbon hypothesis for global warming, you cannot crash-program your way out.
It is actually dangerous to think that you can.
There are just so many past examples.
Germany's vast effort over the last decade or so at wind farms has proved costly and inefficient by every measure. And the machines’ healthy life expectancy is surprisingly brief, on the order of 15 years before you have the major project of replacing all those huge turbines.
All done while sound solutions, including nuclear, are just ignored.
But please note, German industry is not so fluffy-headed. It wants natural gas from Russia, and lots of it. And it is getting it through several new major pipelines.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RETHINKING CANADA'S ROLE IN THE WORLD? - BUT THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE - JUST NOT BY CANADA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NAHLAH AYED IN CBC NEWS
“Canada as a middle power in an upended world: Time for a foreign policy reset?
“Growing chorus of experts says it's time to rethink Canada's role”
Canada’s role in the world largely has already been “rethought,” only the rethinking has been done by others. We have abandoned the role of thinking for ourselves in international affairs – a role exemplified by leaders like Pierre Trudeau and Lester Pearson.
The United States is on a tear such as we have not seen. In recognition of its relative decline in the world since the postwar period, its establishment is taking ferociously aggressive action against those it labels as “adversaries.”
Canada’s new role is simply to support America’s effort and provide another favorable vote for it in all international forums and organizations. A cheerleader for empire. An empire now displaying open hostility and aggression and lack of respect for the rule of law in international affairs.
Trudeau’s past firing of Stephane Dion as Foreign Minister and his appointment of Chrystia Freeland in his place marked an historic step. Under Freeland, American foreign policy has simply dominated Canada. All of the work of the 20th century by eminent Liberals is gone. It has been across-the-board support for America’s ugliest policies abroad, albeit more quietly expressed.
Now, Trudeau has given her the title of Deputy Prime Minister, and it is clear she is being groomed as successor. Press coverage has been embarrassingly flattering of a person whose genuine achievements are so few.
Trudeau’s historic role will have been to bring her into government at a very high post and then to hand off the Liberal Party’s future to her. We have released confidential State Department documents about how well they regard her and how she represents Canada’s literally being on America’s side.
Our only party which, in past decades, stood up to America’s excesses while in office has pretty much resigned the role. Just really discouraging. The Conservatives, of course, following the fall of Diefenbaker, have long embraced American policy and can be counted on to continue.
____________________________
Note the term "middle power" is long out-of-date, having no meaningful application in the emerging world. It's actually a bit of empty self-flattery to use it.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NAHLAH AYED IN CBC NEWS
“Canada as a middle power in an upended world: Time for a foreign policy reset?
“Growing chorus of experts says it's time to rethink Canada's role”
Canada’s role in the world largely has already been “rethought,” only the rethinking has been done by others. We have abandoned the role of thinking for ourselves in international affairs – a role exemplified by leaders like Pierre Trudeau and Lester Pearson.
The United States is on a tear such as we have not seen. In recognition of its relative decline in the world since the postwar period, its establishment is taking ferociously aggressive action against those it labels as “adversaries.”
Canada’s new role is simply to support America’s effort and provide another favorable vote for it in all international forums and organizations. A cheerleader for empire. An empire now displaying open hostility and aggression and lack of respect for the rule of law in international affairs.
Trudeau’s past firing of Stephane Dion as Foreign Minister and his appointment of Chrystia Freeland in his place marked an historic step. Under Freeland, American foreign policy has simply dominated Canada. All of the work of the 20th century by eminent Liberals is gone. It has been across-the-board support for America’s ugliest policies abroad, albeit more quietly expressed.
Now, Trudeau has given her the title of Deputy Prime Minister, and it is clear she is being groomed as successor. Press coverage has been embarrassingly flattering of a person whose genuine achievements are so few.
Trudeau’s historic role will have been to bring her into government at a very high post and then to hand off the Liberal Party’s future to her. We have released confidential State Department documents about how well they regard her and how she represents Canada’s literally being on America’s side.
Our only party which, in past decades, stood up to America’s excesses while in office has pretty much resigned the role. Just really discouraging. The Conservatives, of course, following the fall of Diefenbaker, have long embraced American policy and can be counted on to continue.
____________________________
Note the term "middle power" is long out-of-date, having no meaningful application in the emerging world. It's actually a bit of empty self-flattery to use it.
Monday, November 25, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OUR PRESS'S INTERPRETATION OF LOCAL HONG KONG COUNCIL ELECTIONS FOLLOWING WEEKS OF VIOLENT DEMONSTRATIONS SEEMS QUITE DISTORTED - WHEN A SLOGAN ABOUT DEMOCRACY CAN MEAN SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY - IN FACT REVOLUTIONS ARE OFTEN MINORITY AFFAIRS - CLEAR EXAMPLE OF AMERICA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
'Democratic tsunami': Hong Kong pro-democracy camp dominates local elections
“Some winning candidates say result was akin to a vote of support for protesters
"Record turnout for Hong Kong council elections amid calls for full democracy"
I am not sure that that interpretation of the council vote, although widely broadcast in the West, is valid.
Many sources of information during the height of the demonstrations suggested that Hong Kong’s main population – shop owners, ordinary families, schools, commuters, businessmen of every description - were sick of the violence.
There was vandalism in the subways, on the streets, at the airport – with great numbers of shop windows smashed and heavy use of petrol bombs on the streets and on facilities like bridges. It is said that the police, after the arrest of the bulk of those demonstrators occupying the university, discovered a horde of several thousand stored petrol bombs.
Shouting “democracy” while you carry on with such violence does not put you on the side of the angels. And the actual economy of Hong Kong has measurably suffered.
The calls for "democracy" have been effectively disguised calls for separation of Hong Kong from the Mainland. Unquestionably stirred covertly by America as part of that country’s increasingly large and vicious hybrid economic war against China.
China has been officially declared an American “adversary,” and that seems to justify almost anything short of open warfare.
China, and I believe the overwhelming majority of Chinese people, simply would never let the separation of Hong Kong happen. A long shameful history of British colonialism cannot be validated.
It is important also to keep in mind that most revolutions and uprisings are minority affairs. The American Revolution itself was distinctly a minority affair with only about one-third of the colonial population being “Patriots.” They simply rode roughshod over the rights of others, and, if their war efforts hadn’t been hugely supported by the French Army and Navy (the French Court trying to hurt its British competitors in world empire), they would have failed, to a certainty, because of the sheer lack of interest in the general population over the long course of events.
No one knows what the long-term evolution of government will bring in China, but I feel confident saying that the evolution will occur under a unified China, and that very much includes Hong Kong.
Democratic government is something which happens over time virtually everywhere once a society grows and thrives and establishes a large middle-class.
The actual percentage of the population who could vote in Virginia near the time of the American Revolution was very similar to the percentage of China’s population represented today by members of the Communist Party, the only people whose vote counts in leadership elections - on the order of one percent. Things do change.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
'Democratic tsunami': Hong Kong pro-democracy camp dominates local elections
“Some winning candidates say result was akin to a vote of support for protesters
"Record turnout for Hong Kong council elections amid calls for full democracy"
I am not sure that that interpretation of the council vote, although widely broadcast in the West, is valid.
Many sources of information during the height of the demonstrations suggested that Hong Kong’s main population – shop owners, ordinary families, schools, commuters, businessmen of every description - were sick of the violence.
There was vandalism in the subways, on the streets, at the airport – with great numbers of shop windows smashed and heavy use of petrol bombs on the streets and on facilities like bridges. It is said that the police, after the arrest of the bulk of those demonstrators occupying the university, discovered a horde of several thousand stored petrol bombs.
Shouting “democracy” while you carry on with such violence does not put you on the side of the angels. And the actual economy of Hong Kong has measurably suffered.
The calls for "democracy" have been effectively disguised calls for separation of Hong Kong from the Mainland. Unquestionably stirred covertly by America as part of that country’s increasingly large and vicious hybrid economic war against China.
China has been officially declared an American “adversary,” and that seems to justify almost anything short of open warfare.
China, and I believe the overwhelming majority of Chinese people, simply would never let the separation of Hong Kong happen. A long shameful history of British colonialism cannot be validated.
It is important also to keep in mind that most revolutions and uprisings are minority affairs. The American Revolution itself was distinctly a minority affair with only about one-third of the colonial population being “Patriots.” They simply rode roughshod over the rights of others, and, if their war efforts hadn’t been hugely supported by the French Army and Navy (the French Court trying to hurt its British competitors in world empire), they would have failed, to a certainty, because of the sheer lack of interest in the general population over the long course of events.
No one knows what the long-term evolution of government will bring in China, but I feel confident saying that the evolution will occur under a unified China, and that very much includes Hong Kong.
Democratic government is something which happens over time virtually everywhere once a society grows and thrives and establishes a large middle-class.
The actual percentage of the population who could vote in Virginia near the time of the American Revolution was very similar to the percentage of China’s population represented today by members of the Communist Party, the only people whose vote counts in leadership elections - on the order of one percent. Things do change.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IN LIGHT OF PUTIN'S WORDS ABOUT LIVING IN CAVES WITHOUT HYDROCARBONS - SOME IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT AMERICA'S SHALE-OIL PRODUCTION TRUMP HAS EXPRESSED SUCH CHILDISH ENTHUSIASM OVER
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Putin Says Humanity Will End Up in Caves If It Abandons Oil and Nuclear
“The Russian energy balance is one of the greenest in the world due to the use of hydropower, nuclear energy and gas generation, Putin added, before going on to extol the value of traditional forms of fossil fuels”
"https://www.checkpointasia.net/putin-says-humanity-will-end-up-in-caves-if-it-abandons-oil-and-nuclear/#disqus_thread"
_______________________
Response to a comment saying, “Guess which country has based its totalitarian vision of establishing global energy dominance on the fracking of shale oil?”
Indeed.
And costs for shale oil are considerably higher than those for conventional production.
Producers can make only a fraction of what some other producers make.
The industry is capital-intensive, having done a lot of heavy borrowing to carry on to this point.
It requires a great deal of drilling into rock formations and the high-pressure injection of water and chemicals, apart from collection systems.
It needs good prices to recoup its costs.
But world prices are rather soft, and it's hard to see them climbing seriously for a long time.
Contributing to soft prices are a number of factors.
Weakening world economies, and plenty of analysts expect only more of the same, perhaps much more.
A surfeit of available oil supply, only artificially removed from markets by OPEC-Russian agreement. America’s illegal sanctions all over have also artificially reduced supplies, as with Iran and Venezuela. A return to political normality would restore these supplies to the market quickly.
We might well see growing failures in the shale oil industry as companies are unable to repay their debt.
Last, there are serious ecological problems around shale oil production.
The very process, fracturing formations and injecting chemicals, is increasingly viewed as a hazard to ground water.
It is also now is pretty well confirmed to cause at least minor earthquakes, and it has been banned for that reason in some jurisdictions.
Big new discoveries in conventional crude have been made recently, too. Iran, for example, has discovered a monster field. Russia is working overtime on its North Polar projects.
But America’s Beverly Hillbillies President thinks it’s all just great. His emotional and uninformed views here resemble those he has of so many important matters, as the workings of world trade and the deleterious effects of tariffs and sanctions and threats.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Putin Says Humanity Will End Up in Caves If It Abandons Oil and Nuclear
“The Russian energy balance is one of the greenest in the world due to the use of hydropower, nuclear energy and gas generation, Putin added, before going on to extol the value of traditional forms of fossil fuels”
"https://www.checkpointasia.net/putin-says-humanity-will-end-up-in-caves-if-it-abandons-oil-and-nuclear/#disqus_thread"
_______________________
Response to a comment saying, “Guess which country has based its totalitarian vision of establishing global energy dominance on the fracking of shale oil?”
Indeed.
And costs for shale oil are considerably higher than those for conventional production.
Producers can make only a fraction of what some other producers make.
The industry is capital-intensive, having done a lot of heavy borrowing to carry on to this point.
It requires a great deal of drilling into rock formations and the high-pressure injection of water and chemicals, apart from collection systems.
It needs good prices to recoup its costs.
But world prices are rather soft, and it's hard to see them climbing seriously for a long time.
Contributing to soft prices are a number of factors.
Weakening world economies, and plenty of analysts expect only more of the same, perhaps much more.
A surfeit of available oil supply, only artificially removed from markets by OPEC-Russian agreement. America’s illegal sanctions all over have also artificially reduced supplies, as with Iran and Venezuela. A return to political normality would restore these supplies to the market quickly.
We might well see growing failures in the shale oil industry as companies are unable to repay their debt.
Last, there are serious ecological problems around shale oil production.
The very process, fracturing formations and injecting chemicals, is increasingly viewed as a hazard to ground water.
It is also now is pretty well confirmed to cause at least minor earthquakes, and it has been banned for that reason in some jurisdictions.
Big new discoveries in conventional crude have been made recently, too. Iran, for example, has discovered a monster field. Russia is working overtime on its North Polar projects.
But America’s Beverly Hillbillies President thinks it’s all just great. His emotional and uninformed views here resemble those he has of so many important matters, as the workings of world trade and the deleterious effects of tariffs and sanctions and threats.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WAS PHYSICIST ROBERT OPPENHEIMER A SOVIET SPY? - THE SOVIETS' EXCEPTIONALLY STRONG HUMAN INTELLIGENCE NETWORKS OF THE 1940s AND 1950s - AMERICA AND SCARY ATTITUDES TOWARDS ATOMIC WEAPONS AS ITS ESTABLISHMENT READIED THEMSELVES TO ASSUME WORLD DOMINANCE AFTER WWII
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN WEAR IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Was Robert Oppenheimer a Soviet Agent?”
"https://www.unz.com/article/was-robert-oppenheimer-a-soviet-agent/"
The motives for so many Western spies serving the Soviet Union - and in the 1940s and 1950s the Soviets had the best "humint" on earth - were rather idealistic. This was largely true for the Cambridge Circle in Britain. They were concerned that America was going to "lord it over" the Russians and everyone else.
America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted.
Big, brawny America - its power establishment - very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII.
The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it.
You certainly did not have to be a communist to feel that way, but being one assisted with access to important Soviet contacts. They sought you out.
America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened.
It made little secret of its desire to keep such a monopoly, so brilliant people like Oppenheimer would be well aware of something they might well regard as ominous.
Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China - so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington.
A hugely important general like MacArthur was unblinkingly ready in 1950 to use atomic weapons in the Korean War to destroy North Korea’s connections with China.
I read several major biographies of Oppenheimer, and there is little to nothing concerning Soviet intelligence work. When I came across the Sudoplatov book with its straightforward declaration of Oppenheimer's assistance, it was difficult to know how to weigh the claim.
Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so.
Judging by what is suggested here, if Oppenheimer did help, it was in subtle ways like letting Klaus Fuchs, a fellow scientist and a rather distinguished one (but a Soviet spy), look at certain papers. But the scientific community always has some considerable tendency to share information, a tendency having nothing to do with spying.
In general, it should be understood, that Oppenheimer, despite all his brilliance, was a rather disturbed man all his life. Quite early on, as just one example, he attempted to poison someone he did not like. Only pure luck prevented the man's eating a lethally-laced apple. There were other disturbing behaviors too.
He was subject to severe emotional breakdowns.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN WEAR IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Was Robert Oppenheimer a Soviet Agent?”
"https://www.unz.com/article/was-robert-oppenheimer-a-soviet-agent/"
The motives for so many Western spies serving the Soviet Union - and in the 1940s and 1950s the Soviets had the best "humint" on earth - were rather idealistic. This was largely true for the Cambridge Circle in Britain. They were concerned that America was going to "lord it over" the Russians and everyone else.
America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted.
Big, brawny America - its power establishment - very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII.
The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it.
You certainly did not have to be a communist to feel that way, but being one assisted with access to important Soviet contacts. They sought you out.
America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened.
It made little secret of its desire to keep such a monopoly, so brilliant people like Oppenheimer would be well aware of something they might well regard as ominous.
Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China - so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington.
A hugely important general like MacArthur was unblinkingly ready in 1950 to use atomic weapons in the Korean War to destroy North Korea’s connections with China.
I read several major biographies of Oppenheimer, and there is little to nothing concerning Soviet intelligence work. When I came across the Sudoplatov book with its straightforward declaration of Oppenheimer's assistance, it was difficult to know how to weigh the claim.
Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so.
Judging by what is suggested here, if Oppenheimer did help, it was in subtle ways like letting Klaus Fuchs, a fellow scientist and a rather distinguished one (but a Soviet spy), look at certain papers. But the scientific community always has some considerable tendency to share information, a tendency having nothing to do with spying.
In general, it should be understood, that Oppenheimer, despite all his brilliance, was a rather disturbed man all his life. Quite early on, as just one example, he attempted to poison someone he did not like. Only pure luck prevented the man's eating a lethally-laced apple. There were other disturbing behaviors too.
He was subject to severe emotional breakdowns.
Friday, November 22, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SWEDEN HAS PLAYED A TRULY UNSAVORY ROLE IN THE JULIAN ASSANGE AFFAIR - UNDOUBTEDLY UNDER AMERICAN PRESSURE - BUT STILL SWEDEN USED TO BE SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT - A FEW REFLECTIONS ON THE SWEDEN THAT USED TO BE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
‘Now That [Julian] Assange Is Safely Locked Up, Sweden Drops Its “Investigation”’
"Continues to be detained in a high security prison, having completed an extreme sentence for not meeting the bail conditions for a charge that wasn’t and won’t be made"
Sweden, years ago, was in many ways a very admirable country.
It remained unaligned during the Cold War, staying out of NATO.
Sweden welcomed many American war resisters from the bloody, pointless Vietnam War.
It had a solid reputation in international humanitarian efforts.
It was a truly independent and reasoned voice in world affairs, although its small size limited its influence.
During the 1990s, Sweden, for reasons I do not understand, started cooperating much more closely with NATO, forming a kind of partnership. The timing is even odd, given the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It is under its closer relationship with the United States, that the country has acted in ways that go completely against its earlier, independent-minded history and reputation.
In the 1970s or even 1980s, Sweden would never have done what it has done to Assange with the phony charges that ended by making him a prisoner in Britain, clearly done at America's bidding.
The country's very progressive Prime Minister, Olof Palme, was assassinated in 1986, in a great mystery never solved.
Some have speculated that CIA might have been involved. Who knows, but it may well have affected the future course of events.
It wouldn’t surprise. It is said that at least one of the serious attempts at assassinating de Gaulle, a real thorn in the side of NATO, was CIA supported.
The airplane-crash death in 1961 of eminent Swedish diplomat, Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations and a much-disliked figure by the United States and some of its allies, was never properly investigated owing to various states’ lack of cooperation. It is thought by many to have been an assassination.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
‘Now That [Julian] Assange Is Safely Locked Up, Sweden Drops Its “Investigation”’
"Continues to be detained in a high security prison, having completed an extreme sentence for not meeting the bail conditions for a charge that wasn’t and won’t be made"
Sweden, years ago, was in many ways a very admirable country.
It remained unaligned during the Cold War, staying out of NATO.
Sweden welcomed many American war resisters from the bloody, pointless Vietnam War.
It had a solid reputation in international humanitarian efforts.
It was a truly independent and reasoned voice in world affairs, although its small size limited its influence.
During the 1990s, Sweden, for reasons I do not understand, started cooperating much more closely with NATO, forming a kind of partnership. The timing is even odd, given the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It is under its closer relationship with the United States, that the country has acted in ways that go completely against its earlier, independent-minded history and reputation.
In the 1970s or even 1980s, Sweden would never have done what it has done to Assange with the phony charges that ended by making him a prisoner in Britain, clearly done at America's bidding.
The country's very progressive Prime Minister, Olof Palme, was assassinated in 1986, in a great mystery never solved.
Some have speculated that CIA might have been involved. Who knows, but it may well have affected the future course of events.
It wouldn’t surprise. It is said that at least one of the serious attempts at assassinating de Gaulle, a real thorn in the side of NATO, was CIA supported.
The airplane-crash death in 1961 of eminent Swedish diplomat, Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations and a much-disliked figure by the United States and some of its allies, was never properly investigated owing to various states’ lack of cooperation. It is thought by many to have been an assassination.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE SITUATION BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA - AMERICA'S ROLE IN KEEPING THINGS JUST AS THEY ARE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“US-South Korea Talks on Trump’s $5bn Troop Payment Demand Collapse After Just 80 Minutes
“$5bn is politically impossible for Seoul as South Koreans understand the US is on the peninsula for its own reasons”
The enduring situation of North and South Korea with a lack of peace or any normal relations is pretty much the work of American policy and occupation.
North Korea only went through the huge sacrifice, for a relatively poor state, of developing nuclear weapons because it had endured three years of American carpet-bombing, killing one-fifth of its entire population during the Korean War.
America has always wanted North Korea to disappear, if not in an active war, then at least through the effects of strenuous sanctions and punishments. It has mostly never even talked to North Korea, until recently, and that effort now appears to have badly failed.
America wants unification of the Koreas, but under American terms.
The troops have never been in Korea just to keep peace or to defend democracy.
The fact is that South Korea, for most of its history, was governed by a series of slightly disguised authoritarian administrations. There was no democracy.
The United States was pleased, just as it was pleased with the series of tyrants who ran the artificially-created South Vietnam for some years.
As a side-effect of recent contacts, the leaders of North and South have established a relationship, an encouraging one. They are both quite intelligent and open to change. Moon is the most promising leader the South has had.
I think the two Korean leaders could, over a bit of time, iron things out themselves. There is a lot of goodwill. But the United States, without openly saying so, stands squarely in the way of that happening.
As in so many things, Washington’s view is “My way or the highway.”
I expect no breakthroughs. Washington is completely unwilling to make any serious goodwill moves, as with removing sanctions. And it is clearly keeping a tight rein on Moon in the South, so that he is not free to deal with the North.
Kim would be wise just to keep his nuclear arsenal in good shape, and I’m sure he knows that. He would very much like to be better integrated into the wide world, but the United States is not going to permit that.
And to add to the confusion and mess that prevails, along comes Trump demanding billions of dollars more from the South for its “defense.”
I wish there was something encouraging in the situation, but I fear there is not, not at all.
Trump’s Korean initiative has turned into something as stupid and indecisive as his efforts in Iran or Syria or…you name it.
_____________________
Response to another comment:
Of course, you are right. In theoretical terms.
“Kick the US out?”
How does anyone do that?
It isn't just America’s military power, it's the country’s immense financial and diplomatic leverage.
America is a determined bully with lots of dangerous toys. Three-quarters of a century of telling much of the world what to do has had its effects on the mindset of the entire Washington establishment.
It seems to me, we will only get real change, here and in other places, as American power diminishes relatively vis-a-vis China and Russia and others.
We are very much moving that way, but nothing of that nature happens quickly.
Unless, I should add, we have an economic catastrophe with the collapse of America’s economy and perhaps of the dollar, a not totally unrealistic possibility.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“US-South Korea Talks on Trump’s $5bn Troop Payment Demand Collapse After Just 80 Minutes
“$5bn is politically impossible for Seoul as South Koreans understand the US is on the peninsula for its own reasons”
The enduring situation of North and South Korea with a lack of peace or any normal relations is pretty much the work of American policy and occupation.
North Korea only went through the huge sacrifice, for a relatively poor state, of developing nuclear weapons because it had endured three years of American carpet-bombing, killing one-fifth of its entire population during the Korean War.
America has always wanted North Korea to disappear, if not in an active war, then at least through the effects of strenuous sanctions and punishments. It has mostly never even talked to North Korea, until recently, and that effort now appears to have badly failed.
America wants unification of the Koreas, but under American terms.
The troops have never been in Korea just to keep peace or to defend democracy.
The fact is that South Korea, for most of its history, was governed by a series of slightly disguised authoritarian administrations. There was no democracy.
The United States was pleased, just as it was pleased with the series of tyrants who ran the artificially-created South Vietnam for some years.
As a side-effect of recent contacts, the leaders of North and South have established a relationship, an encouraging one. They are both quite intelligent and open to change. Moon is the most promising leader the South has had.
I think the two Korean leaders could, over a bit of time, iron things out themselves. There is a lot of goodwill. But the United States, without openly saying so, stands squarely in the way of that happening.
As in so many things, Washington’s view is “My way or the highway.”
I expect no breakthroughs. Washington is completely unwilling to make any serious goodwill moves, as with removing sanctions. And it is clearly keeping a tight rein on Moon in the South, so that he is not free to deal with the North.
Kim would be wise just to keep his nuclear arsenal in good shape, and I’m sure he knows that. He would very much like to be better integrated into the wide world, but the United States is not going to permit that.
And to add to the confusion and mess that prevails, along comes Trump demanding billions of dollars more from the South for its “defense.”
I wish there was something encouraging in the situation, but I fear there is not, not at all.
Trump’s Korean initiative has turned into something as stupid and indecisive as his efforts in Iran or Syria or…you name it.
_____________________
Response to another comment:
Of course, you are right. In theoretical terms.
“Kick the US out?”
How does anyone do that?
It isn't just America’s military power, it's the country’s immense financial and diplomatic leverage.
America is a determined bully with lots of dangerous toys. Three-quarters of a century of telling much of the world what to do has had its effects on the mindset of the entire Washington establishment.
It seems to me, we will only get real change, here and in other places, as American power diminishes relatively vis-a-vis China and Russia and others.
We are very much moving that way, but nothing of that nature happens quickly.
Unless, I should add, we have an economic catastrophe with the collapse of America’s economy and perhaps of the dollar, a not totally unrealistic possibility.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA TAKES A DEADLY NEW STEP IN ITS DISPLAY OF ANTAGONISM TOWARDS CHINA - ONE THAT COULD WELL DESTROY THE RELATIONSHIP - HENRY KISSINGER'S WARNING - AMERICA'S INABILITY TO SHOW ANY UNDERSTANDING OR EMPATHY FOR THOSE IT HAS DECLARED TO BE "ADVERSARIES"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL SNYDER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
‘US-China Relations Have Just Been Destroyed, and Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again
‘The U.S. Senate just unanimously passed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019” and the Chinese are absolutely seething
‘"US and China are now enemies, and ultimately that is going to result in a tremendous amount of pain for the entire planet"’
https://www.checkpointasia.net/us-china-relations-have-just-been-destroyed-and-nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-again/
A troubling, but unfortunately accurate, summary of the situation.
It may prove nothing less than a world historical watershed, coming, as this stupid Act does, piled on top of all the other American complaints and demands and threats towards China.
An extremely dangerous turning point. Even that hideous old creature, Henry Kissinger, was just in the news warning about the possible catastrophic effects of a serious divide between America and China.
The article says, "The Chinese take matters of internal security very seriously." Of course they do, but please keep in mind that that is no less true of the United States.
With 17 massive national security agencies, I think it fair to characterize the United States as pretty much "apeshit" on the topic.
And just look at all the endlessly repeated brain-fried stuff about Russian election interference. It just never stops, almost like babbling from poor sick inmates of an asylum.
Despite their own paranoid level of concern about security, American leaders seem unable to understand, or have any sympathy with, the concerns of others.
A complete lack of empathy. I do believe we call that psychopathy.
_________________
A reminder to those, like members of America's Senate,who rant against what has been China's very restrained suppression of violent rioters.
Apart from all the violence in which America is today engaged abroad, while China is at war with no one, we should remember, a number of times in the past, the United States took far more deadly action against violent demonstrations by its own citizens than what we see in Hong Kong.
It shot people in the streets for such behavior. Just one instance, of many during the 1960s, was Detroit, 1967, when forty or so people were killed by the National Guard. American police and National Guard shot people, too, in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL SNYDER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
‘US-China Relations Have Just Been Destroyed, and Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again
‘The U.S. Senate just unanimously passed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019” and the Chinese are absolutely seething
‘"US and China are now enemies, and ultimately that is going to result in a tremendous amount of pain for the entire planet"’
https://www.checkpointasia.net/us-china-relations-have-just-been-destroyed-and-nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-again/
A troubling, but unfortunately accurate, summary of the situation.
It may prove nothing less than a world historical watershed, coming, as this stupid Act does, piled on top of all the other American complaints and demands and threats towards China.
An extremely dangerous turning point. Even that hideous old creature, Henry Kissinger, was just in the news warning about the possible catastrophic effects of a serious divide between America and China.
The article says, "The Chinese take matters of internal security very seriously." Of course they do, but please keep in mind that that is no less true of the United States.
With 17 massive national security agencies, I think it fair to characterize the United States as pretty much "apeshit" on the topic.
And just look at all the endlessly repeated brain-fried stuff about Russian election interference. It just never stops, almost like babbling from poor sick inmates of an asylum.
Despite their own paranoid level of concern about security, American leaders seem unable to understand, or have any sympathy with, the concerns of others.
A complete lack of empathy. I do believe we call that psychopathy.
_________________
A reminder to those, like members of America's Senate,who rant against what has been China's very restrained suppression of violent rioters.
Apart from all the violence in which America is today engaged abroad, while China is at war with no one, we should remember, a number of times in the past, the United States took far more deadly action against violent demonstrations by its own citizens than what we see in Hong Kong.
It shot people in the streets for such behavior. Just one instance, of many during the 1960s, was Detroit, 1967, when forty or so people were killed by the National Guard. American police and National Guard shot people, too, in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: YET AGAIN TRUMP GIVES WHAT IS NOT HIS TO GIVE - THE MATTER OF THE LEGALITY OF JEWISH SETTLEMENTS ON PALESTINIAN LANDS - CONTEMPT FOR THE RULE OF LAW FROM THE "LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD" - WHY TRUMP DOES WHAT HE DOES FOR ISRAEL'S NARROW INTERESTS - ISRAEL'S STATUS VIS-A-VIS AMERICA - HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE IDENTITY OF CONTEMPORARY JEWS VERSUS THE ANCIENT HEBREW PEOPLE
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DONALD MACINTYRE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump declaring Israeli settlements legal is indefensible – Palestinians deserve more than vote-grabbing
“The settlements, which are swallowing more and more land and resources, remain the biggest obstacle to a negotiated end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”
It's just the latest shameful chapter in the story of Trump's relationship with Israel.
He has proved the most servile and corrupt President since Lyndon Johnson in all matters touching Israel.
He has ignored international law a number of times to give Israel something that is not his to give – Golan, Jerusalem, West Bank properties – and he has created some ugly international situations on Israel’s behalf.
The unnecessary vicious assault on a law-abiding Iran – his just arbitrarily tearing-up of a valid treaty, extreme war-like sanctions, serious military threats, even using the word “obliteration for 80 million people – is a direct result of trying to please Netanyahu and the important big donors in the United States who want pretty much whatever Netanyahu wants.
So were Trump’s crazed steps against the United Nations – quitting UN Human Rights, quitting UNESCO, cutting UN Palestinian aid funds, threatening voting members in the General Assembly by telling them they are being watched how they vote, and owing the UN around a billion dollars in back dues.
A rather vicious and focused set of acts taken against international law and order.
The basic driving political force for these deeds in the United States is less votes, I think, than money.
America's campaign finance system is almost totally corrupt, as are its laws governing the activities of political lobbies.
It's often joked that America gets the best government money can buy, and it really isn't far from the truth.
The concept, "money is free speech" dominates American politics.
Israel has some of the best organized and financed lobby groups in the United States. It also has a clutch of American multi-billionaires who identify very closely with Israel for all of their huge campaign contributions. Those are Trump’s main targets for such policies.
The lobby groups not only supply cash but also expert professional and technical assistance with campaign work. They are also quite influential in press coverage in America’s “quality” press and broadcasting, all of which is managed with great deference to Israel’s interests.
As far as numbers, American Jews make up about 1.5% of the country’s population. “Fundamentalist” Protestants, depending on your definition, total between 6% and 25% of the population, the world’s largest such group and certainly a large segment of the electorate.
However, American Fundamentalist Christians are seen in polls as not being a particularly well-informed group, as you might expect with a good part of them waiting for the Second Coming of the Lord. Likely, in most cases, they not even aware of many of Trump’s acts, only having a general awareness of his friendliness towards Israel.
But the money and influence people of course follow and analyze and weigh the value of every step.
__________________
Response to another comment:
I think it is more complicated than that.
Israel, de facto, is an American colony in the Middle East, a special one with many extraordinary privileges. Many citizens freely move back and forth, and so does money and influence and technology.
Israel almost always operates on the two levels simultaneously - that of small "independent" country and American imperial colony.
It makes for a bizarre and complicated relationship.
It compares in many ways to France's old relationship with Algeria, which France considered as an integral part of metropolitan France, although the relationship has dimensions making it still different in nature than that.
The concept of Israel includes the very emotional claim of being refuge for the world’s formerly terribly abused Jews. That claim of course ignores the healthy, prosperous situation of Jews in America and in many other places. It also ignores the fact that the majority of the world’s Jews do not live in Israel. Indeed, America alone has about as many Jews as Israel does.
______________________
Response to another comment:
Sorry, you are confused.
The Jews you speak of in London are European people, not Middle Eastern people. “Judea,” apart from being a long-dead concept like “Troy,” is not their place of origin.
The Ashkenazi and the ancient Hebrews are not the same people, except for the religion they profess.
The Ashkenazi go back on the order of 900-1000 years according to DNA work.
Their native language is Yiddish, a dialect of German.
Most of their customs and dress are derived from central and eastern Europe, as deli food and most of the dishes eaten on holidays.
Even the dress of the ultra-Orthodox does not reflect the Middle East at all, but central and eastern Europe of the 18th and 19th centuries.
It is most likely that the closest we have to direct descendants from the ancient Hebrews are indeed the Palestinians, and what a bitter irony that is. Two thousand years of history have made many changes in them, including religion, but it is a well-established historical fact that the Romans did not expel populations from conquered territories.
The Romans wanted the farmers farming and the taxpayers paying taxes. The whole “wandering Jews following expulsion from the Holy Land” story is just that, a story, one which more closely binds European Jews to the ancient Hebrews, but it just cannot be historical.
The Hebrews, at least some of them, clearly at some point in history became evangelical, having seen the great success of Christianity, which did start as a small Hebrew sect, and they proselytized in many regions, creating what became remote Jewish colonies.
A larger Jewish population gave more opportunity for marriage, too, something that is always problem for small groups. That is why there are varying traces of Semitic characteristics found in the DNA of Ashkenazi people.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DONALD MACINTYRE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump declaring Israeli settlements legal is indefensible – Palestinians deserve more than vote-grabbing
“The settlements, which are swallowing more and more land and resources, remain the biggest obstacle to a negotiated end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”
It's just the latest shameful chapter in the story of Trump's relationship with Israel.
He has proved the most servile and corrupt President since Lyndon Johnson in all matters touching Israel.
He has ignored international law a number of times to give Israel something that is not his to give – Golan, Jerusalem, West Bank properties – and he has created some ugly international situations on Israel’s behalf.
The unnecessary vicious assault on a law-abiding Iran – his just arbitrarily tearing-up of a valid treaty, extreme war-like sanctions, serious military threats, even using the word “obliteration for 80 million people – is a direct result of trying to please Netanyahu and the important big donors in the United States who want pretty much whatever Netanyahu wants.
So were Trump’s crazed steps against the United Nations – quitting UN Human Rights, quitting UNESCO, cutting UN Palestinian aid funds, threatening voting members in the General Assembly by telling them they are being watched how they vote, and owing the UN around a billion dollars in back dues.
A rather vicious and focused set of acts taken against international law and order.
The basic driving political force for these deeds in the United States is less votes, I think, than money.
America's campaign finance system is almost totally corrupt, as are its laws governing the activities of political lobbies.
It's often joked that America gets the best government money can buy, and it really isn't far from the truth.
The concept, "money is free speech" dominates American politics.
Israel has some of the best organized and financed lobby groups in the United States. It also has a clutch of American multi-billionaires who identify very closely with Israel for all of their huge campaign contributions. Those are Trump’s main targets for such policies.
The lobby groups not only supply cash but also expert professional and technical assistance with campaign work. They are also quite influential in press coverage in America’s “quality” press and broadcasting, all of which is managed with great deference to Israel’s interests.
As far as numbers, American Jews make up about 1.5% of the country’s population. “Fundamentalist” Protestants, depending on your definition, total between 6% and 25% of the population, the world’s largest such group and certainly a large segment of the electorate.
However, American Fundamentalist Christians are seen in polls as not being a particularly well-informed group, as you might expect with a good part of them waiting for the Second Coming of the Lord. Likely, in most cases, they not even aware of many of Trump’s acts, only having a general awareness of his friendliness towards Israel.
But the money and influence people of course follow and analyze and weigh the value of every step.
__________________
Response to another comment:
I think it is more complicated than that.
Israel, de facto, is an American colony in the Middle East, a special one with many extraordinary privileges. Many citizens freely move back and forth, and so does money and influence and technology.
Israel almost always operates on the two levels simultaneously - that of small "independent" country and American imperial colony.
It makes for a bizarre and complicated relationship.
It compares in many ways to France's old relationship with Algeria, which France considered as an integral part of metropolitan France, although the relationship has dimensions making it still different in nature than that.
The concept of Israel includes the very emotional claim of being refuge for the world’s formerly terribly abused Jews. That claim of course ignores the healthy, prosperous situation of Jews in America and in many other places. It also ignores the fact that the majority of the world’s Jews do not live in Israel. Indeed, America alone has about as many Jews as Israel does.
______________________
Response to another comment:
Sorry, you are confused.
The Jews you speak of in London are European people, not Middle Eastern people. “Judea,” apart from being a long-dead concept like “Troy,” is not their place of origin.
The Ashkenazi and the ancient Hebrews are not the same people, except for the religion they profess.
The Ashkenazi go back on the order of 900-1000 years according to DNA work.
Their native language is Yiddish, a dialect of German.
Most of their customs and dress are derived from central and eastern Europe, as deli food and most of the dishes eaten on holidays.
Even the dress of the ultra-Orthodox does not reflect the Middle East at all, but central and eastern Europe of the 18th and 19th centuries.
It is most likely that the closest we have to direct descendants from the ancient Hebrews are indeed the Palestinians, and what a bitter irony that is. Two thousand years of history have made many changes in them, including religion, but it is a well-established historical fact that the Romans did not expel populations from conquered territories.
The Romans wanted the farmers farming and the taxpayers paying taxes. The whole “wandering Jews following expulsion from the Holy Land” story is just that, a story, one which more closely binds European Jews to the ancient Hebrews, but it just cannot be historical.
The Hebrews, at least some of them, clearly at some point in history became evangelical, having seen the great success of Christianity, which did start as a small Hebrew sect, and they proselytized in many regions, creating what became remote Jewish colonies.
A larger Jewish population gave more opportunity for marriage, too, something that is always problem for small groups. That is why there are varying traces of Semitic characteristics found in the DNA of Ashkenazi people.
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WORDS ABOUT "LIBERALS" AND BOLIVIA'S COUP BRING SOME THOUGHTS - AMERICA'S WIDESPREAD MISUSE OF THE WORD "LIBERAL" - CAN YOU BE A LIBERAL AND SUPPORT A BRUTAL EMPIRE? - THE GENERALLY UNNOTED ROLE OF WHITE SUPREMACISM IN AMERICA'S COUPS AND INTERVENTIONS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Bolivia’s White Supremacist Coup Regime Determined to Quench Resistance in Blood
"The fury of Bolivians cheated of their elected government has to be subdued with terror"
While I am in sympathy with much of this article, I very much object to the following:
"The one time there is an actual white supremacist takeover the liberals predictably line up behind it"
First, the word "liberal" is misused so often today, it is becoming meaningless, and this quote represents just another misuse.
No liberal can possibly support the coup. Liberals don’t ignore democratic principles, they are defined by them.
The fact is that there are almost no liberals in the United States and in many places under its dominance. But isn't that what you expect to find at the heart of an empire? Its people all nurtured on twenty-four-hour-a-day political cant and corporate press propaganda?
America is a place, after all, where a football player can't even make a brief, respectful gesture of protest against police violence without literally being booed and heckled, even insulted by high officials.
Empire- and Pentagon-loyalists like Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden and most of the Democratic contenders are not liberals, no matter what views they may hold about social programs.
In fact, America’s political party system leaves almost no room for careers in opposition to empire and the crushing weight of the military and security services.
By definition, empire and the military represent the antithesis of democratic and human values. They represent telling others what to do and using force if they don’t.
Second, we have had other "white supremacist" takeovers. Very much so.
As in Ukraine. That coup could not have happened without the work of Right-wing extremists like the Azov Battalion.
America’s covert support of such outfits in 2014 was publicly displayed by photos of America’s appointed Proconsul to the Coup Government, Joe Biden, smiling broadly, while vigorously shaking hands with the commander of that dreadful outfit.
You could argue that all American-induced coups and interventions abroad are of that nature, even if some of the actors used inside the target country are not white. You do have to use the material at hand for a coup, don’t you?
The guys running the show from Washington could very much be viewed as sympathetic to many of the world’s "white supremacists." Just look at photos of the faces gathered around the Cabinet table or sitting in attendance at the Oval Office.
And the long-term record supports that impression. Until the actions of others in the world made it no longer sustainable, Washington vigorously defended and cooperated with the former white Nationalist government of South Africa, just as today it vigorously supports the brutality of Israel’s apartheid government.
Washington has had a hand in many coups and interventions against genuinely democratic governments over the years, but they were democracies with either “non-white” majorities or major “non-white” components of support, as in Egypt or Iran or Libya or Guatemala or Panama or Chile or Haiti.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Bolivia’s White Supremacist Coup Regime Determined to Quench Resistance in Blood
"The fury of Bolivians cheated of their elected government has to be subdued with terror"
While I am in sympathy with much of this article, I very much object to the following:
"The one time there is an actual white supremacist takeover the liberals predictably line up behind it"
First, the word "liberal" is misused so often today, it is becoming meaningless, and this quote represents just another misuse.
No liberal can possibly support the coup. Liberals don’t ignore democratic principles, they are defined by them.
The fact is that there are almost no liberals in the United States and in many places under its dominance. But isn't that what you expect to find at the heart of an empire? Its people all nurtured on twenty-four-hour-a-day political cant and corporate press propaganda?
America is a place, after all, where a football player can't even make a brief, respectful gesture of protest against police violence without literally being booed and heckled, even insulted by high officials.
Empire- and Pentagon-loyalists like Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden and most of the Democratic contenders are not liberals, no matter what views they may hold about social programs.
In fact, America’s political party system leaves almost no room for careers in opposition to empire and the crushing weight of the military and security services.
By definition, empire and the military represent the antithesis of democratic and human values. They represent telling others what to do and using force if they don’t.
Second, we have had other "white supremacist" takeovers. Very much so.
As in Ukraine. That coup could not have happened without the work of Right-wing extremists like the Azov Battalion.
America’s covert support of such outfits in 2014 was publicly displayed by photos of America’s appointed Proconsul to the Coup Government, Joe Biden, smiling broadly, while vigorously shaking hands with the commander of that dreadful outfit.
You could argue that all American-induced coups and interventions abroad are of that nature, even if some of the actors used inside the target country are not white. You do have to use the material at hand for a coup, don’t you?
The guys running the show from Washington could very much be viewed as sympathetic to many of the world’s "white supremacists." Just look at photos of the faces gathered around the Cabinet table or sitting in attendance at the Oval Office.
And the long-term record supports that impression. Until the actions of others in the world made it no longer sustainable, Washington vigorously defended and cooperated with the former white Nationalist government of South Africa, just as today it vigorously supports the brutality of Israel’s apartheid government.
Washington has had a hand in many coups and interventions against genuinely democratic governments over the years, but they were democracies with either “non-white” majorities or major “non-white” components of support, as in Egypt or Iran or Libya or Guatemala or Panama or Chile or Haiti.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: VLADIMIR PUTIN SPEEDS UP HIS PREVIOUS FORECAST OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE DOLLAR AND I'M INCLINED TO THINK HE IS RIGHT
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Vladimir Putin Predicts the Speedy Collapse of the Dollar
"This is not the first time Putin has said that dollar’s status as the world reserve currency is being eroded (and that America’s own weaponization of it was to blame)....It is the first time however that he has expressed the opinion that US dollar will exit the scene sooner rather than later."
Indeed.
And there are other forces at work in the world towards the same end.
But I do think America's completely ignoring of what the world actually wants in a reserve currency is key.
Nations want a safe and assured store of value and internationally-acceptable medium of exchange, not something controlled by political ideology and effectively requiring users to offer a pledge of allegiance to a foreign power.
America's extreme weaponizing of the dollar speaks of arrogance and corruption and rot from within.
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Vladimir Putin Predicts the Speedy Collapse of the Dollar
"This is not the first time Putin has said that dollar’s status as the world reserve currency is being eroded (and that America’s own weaponization of it was to blame)....It is the first time however that he has expressed the opinion that US dollar will exit the scene sooner rather than later."
Indeed.
And there are other forces at work in the world towards the same end.
But I do think America's completely ignoring of what the world actually wants in a reserve currency is key.
Nations want a safe and assured store of value and internationally-acceptable medium of exchange, not something controlled by political ideology and effectively requiring users to offer a pledge of allegiance to a foreign power.
America's extreme weaponizing of the dollar speaks of arrogance and corruption and rot from within.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE QUESTION OF HUMAN AGENCY - BASIC REALITIES OF FOSSIL FUELS - BASIC PROBLEMS WITH MAJOR ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES - THE NATURE OF JUSTIN TRUDEAU, THE MAN WHO IS GOING TO PITCH POOR CANADA INTO A COSTLY GRETA THUNBERG CRUSADE - TRUDEAU TOES THE LINE OF TRUMP'S MURDEROUS CHAOTIC INTERNATIONAL POLICIES - YET IN THE VITAL DOMESTIC ECONOMIC MATTER OF ENERGY HE IGNORES TRUMP AND WANTS TO DRIFT OFF INTO FEEL-GOOD FANTASY
John Chuckman
SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"For better or worse, Trudeau's next 4 years are going to be about climate change"
Even if you believe human activity drives the climate change we do see - and that remains an unproven hypothesis no matter what evangelists like Greta Thunberg say - Canada's contribution to the world's carbon dioxide is a tiny, tiny fraction.
Our share of emissions is 1.6% of the world's.
And we have our massive forests contributing the other way.
Nothing Canada can possibly do would make a significant difference to the world.
But there are lots of things we can do that will hurt our economy, vis-a-vis international competitors who do not embrace the Greta Thunberg’s theology.
And there are lots of things we can do that will further rupture Canada's new East-West divide.
I feel confident in suggesting Trudeau likely will undertake all or most of them.
He already has established a record across a range of portfolios as the worst Liberal government of modern times.
Now he's determined to top that by becoming the worst government, period, ignoring real problems while pursuing massive unproven solutions to the unproven problem of human agency.
__________________
Fossil fuels will play an important role for decades to come.
There just is no substitute for their density of energy content. Their use in petrochemicals and the vast distribution system we have in place also have no substitutes.
Alternates today are totally inadequate and every one of them has problems and hazards of its own.
Batteries are still inadequate in their capacity for serious transportation needs. They are also very heavy, with the weight having been demonstrated to create extra forms of pollution while driving, as with road surface and tire dust particles flung out by higher rates of wear and tear.
Their full-cycle manufacture is in fact demonstrated as carbon-generating.
And their disposal is already creating horrors in some parts of the world as the leach ugly chemicals into groundwater after being dumped to rot in masses.
Windmills are an expensive joke. They cannot supply baseload power (24 hour-a-day reliability when you hit a light switch). They are always backed-up by other generation as by gas-fired (fossil) plants. They also kill millions of migrating birds. And they are a visual blight in some locations. Their long-term maintenance record is not good.
Solar has some limited promise in special applications, but again cannot provide baseload power. Solar panels are costly, not terribly efficient, and, as they age, they give off all kinds of nasty chemicals. Disposal is a problem, just as for batteries. So is full-cycle manufacturing.
There are no magic formulas unless you want to share the fantasies of Greta Thunberg who hitches rides across the Atlantic from wealthy folks in costly yachts constructed with petrochemical hulls.
__________________
Really, the prospects for our country are enough to make you cry.
Off on a costly fantasy crusade with the actual cause of climate change yet unproven.
Treating a world-class industry and resources as though they were unimportant.
We have an industry which is the envy of many in the world.
Extremely high new taxes, like the carbon tax, of absolutely no proven efficacy for their intended ultimate goal, which is to slow or to halt climate change.
All kinds of missed opportunities abroad for the sale of a valuable resource.
Missed development and jobs and legitimate new tax revenue on a big scale.
Additional alienation in the country between East and West.
Our international posture, in everything except energy, lined up almost toe-to-toe with the United States of Donald Trump.
That's lined up as in not opposing such ugly activities as coups, interventions, war-like sanctions, bombing in a half dozen places, and supporting genuine tyrants.
Saudi Arabia, China, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Russia - you name the place, Canada under a so-called Liberal government, stands with the United States.
What a delightful future our Flower Child Prime Minister has lined up for us, assisted by his Neocon-lite, well-regarded-in-Washington, Foreign Minister.
__________________
A comment (below) makes the astute observation, ‘[Justin] Trudeau is not, and never was, a "complicated man".’
I'm glad he picked up on that.
It is so very true.
Pierre Trudeau was an extremely complicated man, a reflection I believe of his razor-sharp intelligence and unusual education.
We do not see anything remotely like that in Justin.
A good observer watching him just a brief time realizes there isn't a hint of anything complicated there.
In photos of Justin Trudeau with other Western leaders, their interactions can be quite revealing.
There is none of the attention and admiration and even awe Pierre could command. Justin is sometimes actually left to the side of a group of leaders, seeming to be ignored in photos I've seen. Given enough formal respect, I'm sure, because he does represent Canada, but no more than that, no more at all.
I'm sure he's widely regarded as a “lightweight.” After all, there's some pretty sharp minds among leaders of, say, the G-20. They aren't easily fooled by a nice smile.
SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"For better or worse, Trudeau's next 4 years are going to be about climate change"
Even if you believe human activity drives the climate change we do see - and that remains an unproven hypothesis no matter what evangelists like Greta Thunberg say - Canada's contribution to the world's carbon dioxide is a tiny, tiny fraction.
Our share of emissions is 1.6% of the world's.
And we have our massive forests contributing the other way.
Nothing Canada can possibly do would make a significant difference to the world.
But there are lots of things we can do that will hurt our economy, vis-a-vis international competitors who do not embrace the Greta Thunberg’s theology.
And there are lots of things we can do that will further rupture Canada's new East-West divide.
I feel confident in suggesting Trudeau likely will undertake all or most of them.
He already has established a record across a range of portfolios as the worst Liberal government of modern times.
Now he's determined to top that by becoming the worst government, period, ignoring real problems while pursuing massive unproven solutions to the unproven problem of human agency.
__________________
Fossil fuels will play an important role for decades to come.
There just is no substitute for their density of energy content. Their use in petrochemicals and the vast distribution system we have in place also have no substitutes.
Alternates today are totally inadequate and every one of them has problems and hazards of its own.
Batteries are still inadequate in their capacity for serious transportation needs. They are also very heavy, with the weight having been demonstrated to create extra forms of pollution while driving, as with road surface and tire dust particles flung out by higher rates of wear and tear.
Their full-cycle manufacture is in fact demonstrated as carbon-generating.
And their disposal is already creating horrors in some parts of the world as the leach ugly chemicals into groundwater after being dumped to rot in masses.
Windmills are an expensive joke. They cannot supply baseload power (24 hour-a-day reliability when you hit a light switch). They are always backed-up by other generation as by gas-fired (fossil) plants. They also kill millions of migrating birds. And they are a visual blight in some locations. Their long-term maintenance record is not good.
Solar has some limited promise in special applications, but again cannot provide baseload power. Solar panels are costly, not terribly efficient, and, as they age, they give off all kinds of nasty chemicals. Disposal is a problem, just as for batteries. So is full-cycle manufacturing.
There are no magic formulas unless you want to share the fantasies of Greta Thunberg who hitches rides across the Atlantic from wealthy folks in costly yachts constructed with petrochemical hulls.
__________________
Really, the prospects for our country are enough to make you cry.
Off on a costly fantasy crusade with the actual cause of climate change yet unproven.
Treating a world-class industry and resources as though they were unimportant.
We have an industry which is the envy of many in the world.
Extremely high new taxes, like the carbon tax, of absolutely no proven efficacy for their intended ultimate goal, which is to slow or to halt climate change.
All kinds of missed opportunities abroad for the sale of a valuable resource.
Missed development and jobs and legitimate new tax revenue on a big scale.
Additional alienation in the country between East and West.
Our international posture, in everything except energy, lined up almost toe-to-toe with the United States of Donald Trump.
That's lined up as in not opposing such ugly activities as coups, interventions, war-like sanctions, bombing in a half dozen places, and supporting genuine tyrants.
Saudi Arabia, China, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Russia - you name the place, Canada under a so-called Liberal government, stands with the United States.
What a delightful future our Flower Child Prime Minister has lined up for us, assisted by his Neocon-lite, well-regarded-in-Washington, Foreign Minister.
__________________
A comment (below) makes the astute observation, ‘[Justin] Trudeau is not, and never was, a "complicated man".’
I'm glad he picked up on that.
It is so very true.
Pierre Trudeau was an extremely complicated man, a reflection I believe of his razor-sharp intelligence and unusual education.
We do not see anything remotely like that in Justin.
A good observer watching him just a brief time realizes there isn't a hint of anything complicated there.
In photos of Justin Trudeau with other Western leaders, their interactions can be quite revealing.
There is none of the attention and admiration and even awe Pierre could command. Justin is sometimes actually left to the side of a group of leaders, seeming to be ignored in photos I've seen. Given enough formal respect, I'm sure, because he does represent Canada, but no more than that, no more at all.
I'm sure he's widely regarded as a “lightweight.” After all, there's some pretty sharp minds among leaders of, say, the G-20. They aren't easily fooled by a nice smile.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JORDAN'S KING ABDULLAH FLIES ALL THAT WAY TO TALK WITH JUSTIN TRUDEAU ABOUT "EXTREMISM" - DOES IT GET ANY SILLIER? - BUT INEPT TRUDEAU GETS TO PLAY STATESMAN FOR THE CAMERAS AND THE KING GETS A BREAK FROM TAKING PARADE SALUTES IN JORDAN - BOTH WILL DUTIFULLY IGNORE THE WORLD'S PRIME EXAMPLE OF VIOLENT EXTREMISM
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Jordan's king to meet in Ottawa today
“PMO says Trudeau, King Abdullah II will discuss ways to counter violent extremism”
Actually, this kind of "high-level' visit much resembles Trudeau's recent song-and-dance routine seeking a Temporary UN Security Council Seat.
It's public relations aimed at his image as statesman and world figure. This visit represents a very low-risk effort by Trudeau’s handlers since there is zero hard content involved.
The King of Jordan is a decent man, but he is about as important to the world’s affairs as the fancy silk drapes which hang in his palace windows.
And how much more proof can anyone require of Trudeau’s complete absence of a statesman’s talents than his last four years of achieving nothing, except occasionally embarrassing the country with dress-up stunts abroad?
____________________
Hard to imagine why King Abdullah would even bother with the long trip, but the King, too, likes to feel as though he has a role to play beyond standing in splendid uniform to take the salute at parades in Jordan.
If they truly wanted to talk about extremism and violence, of course, the world's outstanding example is just south of Ottawa, but how much do you want to bet Trump's America doesn't get a mention?
Trudeau’s actually been quite the willing helper for that gang, whether by conviction or intimidation, who knows? Jordan’s King has absolutely no latitude in such matters, being, as he is known to be, virtually a prisoner of his powerful neighbor, America’s Middle Eastern colony.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Jordan's king to meet in Ottawa today
“PMO says Trudeau, King Abdullah II will discuss ways to counter violent extremism”
Actually, this kind of "high-level' visit much resembles Trudeau's recent song-and-dance routine seeking a Temporary UN Security Council Seat.
It's public relations aimed at his image as statesman and world figure. This visit represents a very low-risk effort by Trudeau’s handlers since there is zero hard content involved.
The King of Jordan is a decent man, but he is about as important to the world’s affairs as the fancy silk drapes which hang in his palace windows.
And how much more proof can anyone require of Trudeau’s complete absence of a statesman’s talents than his last four years of achieving nothing, except occasionally embarrassing the country with dress-up stunts abroad?
____________________
Hard to imagine why King Abdullah would even bother with the long trip, but the King, too, likes to feel as though he has a role to play beyond standing in splendid uniform to take the salute at parades in Jordan.
If they truly wanted to talk about extremism and violence, of course, the world's outstanding example is just south of Ottawa, but how much do you want to bet Trump's America doesn't get a mention?
Trudeau’s actually been quite the willing helper for that gang, whether by conviction or intimidation, who knows? Jordan’s King has absolutely no latitude in such matters, being, as he is known to be, virtually a prisoner of his powerful neighbor, America’s Middle Eastern colony.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: POPE HAS DOUBTFUL NOTION ABOUT ADDING "ECOLOGICAL SINS" TO CHURCH TEACHING - BUT HE DOES TRY TO BE CREATIVE AND MODERNIZE THE CHURCH - AND AT LEAST HE DOES NOT SERVE THE HELLISH DEMONS OF TRUMP
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
‘Pope Francis Wants to add "ecological sin" to Church teachings’
“I must confess,” the pope said, departing from his prepared remarks, “that when I hear some speeches, some person in charge of order or the government, I am reminded of Hitler’s speeches in 1934 and 1936.”
I think we all know just who he means.
And I couldn't agree more.
While I don't agree with all of the Pope’s proposals on sin and ecology, I give him full marks for thinking creatively to serve worthy goals and to modernize a much out-of-date Church.
The Pope has a mixed past record, for sure, but which leader doesn't?
At least he doesn't serve the hellish demons served by Trump - oppression in the Middle East, killing in half a dozen lands, stealing the resources of others by gunpoint, support of bloody tyrants like those of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, prejudice and hatred of migrants and Muslims, systematic extrajudicial killing, and warlike sanctions hurting tens of millions of civilians.
And that alone is something to embrace.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
‘Pope Francis Wants to add "ecological sin" to Church teachings’
“I must confess,” the pope said, departing from his prepared remarks, “that when I hear some speeches, some person in charge of order or the government, I am reminded of Hitler’s speeches in 1934 and 1936.”
I think we all know just who he means.
And I couldn't agree more.
While I don't agree with all of the Pope’s proposals on sin and ecology, I give him full marks for thinking creatively to serve worthy goals and to modernize a much out-of-date Church.
The Pope has a mixed past record, for sure, but which leader doesn't?
At least he doesn't serve the hellish demons served by Trump - oppression in the Middle East, killing in half a dozen lands, stealing the resources of others by gunpoint, support of bloody tyrants like those of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, prejudice and hatred of migrants and Muslims, systematic extrajudicial killing, and warlike sanctions hurting tens of millions of civilians.
And that alone is something to embrace.
Sunday, November 17, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HONG KONG PROTESTS TAKE NEW TURN IN VIOLENCE - THE GREAT IRONY OF HONG KONG'S TRULY SORDID BRITISH HISTORY - THE FIRST OPIUM WAR - CHINA'S RESPONSE YET REMAINS RESTRAINED COMPARED TO ANY OTHER SUCH CIVIL DISTURBANCE WE SEE - COMPARE MACRON'S BLOODY TOLL ON THE STREETS OF PARIS AGAINST THE "GILETS JAUNES"
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Hong Kong protesters fire arrows from campus fortress
"Demonstrations stretch into 6th month with demands for independent inquiry into police brutality"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-university-clashes-1.5362707
I do think they've signed their own death warrants. I mean that figuratively, of course, but once serious violence is underway, anything is possible. Chaos so easily sets in as in so many of America’s ugly conflicts abroad.
No country can permit young gangs to carry on this way, using bows-and-arrows against authorities from a homemade fortress. The one photo shows a professional hunting bow being used, a very lethal weapon, not some amateur or symbolic effort.
It has nothing to do with words about "democracy" or "freedom. No country permits this. It is violent anarchy.
Apart from everything else, the demonstrators are demanding what cannot be given, that China relinquish its title to a region. It is not possible, and for many reasons.
Just the symbolism is terrible. Hong Kong was a British colony, not a democracy, not a symbol of anything glorious. Indeed, it was a colony with a sordid history.
Its British history is intimately bound up with the First Opium War of the late 1830s and early 1840s against China. Britain flooded China with opium grown in its colony, Bengal, creating vast numbers of miserable addicts.
The Chinese Emperor even wrote Queen Victoria pleading for a halt to the terrible trade. He was ignored, and after a brief time as the emperor tried to throw out the merchants himself, British gunboats were sent, the very origin of our term 'gunboat diplomacy."
Such is the glorious heritage of British Hong Kong.
As for demands around an investigation of police brutality, all I can say, as an impartial observer and an advocate for human rights, is that China’s restraint has been remarkable, given the levels of violence in the city’s streets and subways and at its airport for months.
There are many comparisons to be made from contemporary events, but France’s President Macron, in the very heart of Paris, has killed about a dozen of the Gilets jaunes demonstrators, crippled scores for life, and wounded many hundreds more - all accompanied by massive violent arrests.
LATE NOTE:
The protesters, barricaded at the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, are reported to be using gasoline bombs on surrounding streets. They have set fire to a nearby bridge associated with the Cross-Harbour Tunnel, an important traffic artery they have been blockading from their campus location.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Hong Kong protesters fire arrows from campus fortress
"Demonstrations stretch into 6th month with demands for independent inquiry into police brutality"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-university-clashes-1.5362707
I do think they've signed their own death warrants. I mean that figuratively, of course, but once serious violence is underway, anything is possible. Chaos so easily sets in as in so many of America’s ugly conflicts abroad.
No country can permit young gangs to carry on this way, using bows-and-arrows against authorities from a homemade fortress. The one photo shows a professional hunting bow being used, a very lethal weapon, not some amateur or symbolic effort.
It has nothing to do with words about "democracy" or "freedom. No country permits this. It is violent anarchy.
Apart from everything else, the demonstrators are demanding what cannot be given, that China relinquish its title to a region. It is not possible, and for many reasons.
Just the symbolism is terrible. Hong Kong was a British colony, not a democracy, not a symbol of anything glorious. Indeed, it was a colony with a sordid history.
Its British history is intimately bound up with the First Opium War of the late 1830s and early 1840s against China. Britain flooded China with opium grown in its colony, Bengal, creating vast numbers of miserable addicts.
The Chinese Emperor even wrote Queen Victoria pleading for a halt to the terrible trade. He was ignored, and after a brief time as the emperor tried to throw out the merchants himself, British gunboats were sent, the very origin of our term 'gunboat diplomacy."
Such is the glorious heritage of British Hong Kong.
As for demands around an investigation of police brutality, all I can say, as an impartial observer and an advocate for human rights, is that China’s restraint has been remarkable, given the levels of violence in the city’s streets and subways and at its airport for months.
There are many comparisons to be made from contemporary events, but France’s President Macron, in the very heart of Paris, has killed about a dozen of the Gilets jaunes demonstrators, crippled scores for life, and wounded many hundreds more - all accompanied by massive violent arrests.
LATE NOTE:
The protesters, barricaded at the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, are reported to be using gasoline bombs on surrounding streets. They have set fire to a nearby bridge associated with the Cross-Harbour Tunnel, an important traffic artery they have been blockading from their campus location.
Saturday, November 16, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP NOW WANTS JAPAN TO TO PAY FOUR-TIMES AS MUCH FOR ITS OCCUPATION BY AMERICANS - THE DECADES-LONG GRIM REALITIES OF AMERICA'S OCCUPATION FOR ORDINARY JAPANESE - WHAT JAPAN SHOULD DO BUT CANNOT...YET
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAM NUSSEY IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Trump Demands Tokyo Quadruple Payments for US Troops in Japan
“America still has 54,000 soldiers in Japan, wants $8bn a year for the privilege of having a staging ground to invade East Asia from”
Actually, Japan should demand exactly the reverse.
“You, Mr. Trump, must pay us quadruple if we continue to let you keep troops in Japan.”
There is a many years-long history of American troops assaulting women, raping women, brutalizing people, stealing, being vandals and being just plain careless, like the recent incidents of American bomb casings falling from the sky in a residential area.
Many in Japan - a country with extremely low crime rates and strong social pressures on behavior - would describe the American troops as thugs they are forced to endure.
After all, America's Army gets pretty desperate for recruits to fill all its imperial ranks. Standards only go ever lower in the effort.
And the American bases represent places Japanese people do not want to see occupied. And polluted. Heavily polluted.
Nothing is worse than the sum-total of American military pollution at a long-term facility. Some of the most polluted sites on earth are left behind by America's military in various places. They even do a poor job inside the United States.
Sludge and chemicals of every description. Radioactive materials. Old munitions and tires. Old electronics and batteries. Immense piles of every kind of trash. Sometimes even dumped vehicles and rusting drums of God-knows-what.
But the people are not really free to express that to Americans, and their current Prime Minister, Abe, is almost pitiful in his bowing and scraping to American interests.
It is quite shameful, even humiliating, for a country with such proud and ancient traditions.
It will indeed be a fine day when they can eventually shake off the occupation and speak with their own voice in the world.
But America is heavily embedded in Japan with corporate and government and military and financial interests and, I'm sure, plenty of bribery and corruption and pressure.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAM NUSSEY IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Trump Demands Tokyo Quadruple Payments for US Troops in Japan
“America still has 54,000 soldiers in Japan, wants $8bn a year for the privilege of having a staging ground to invade East Asia from”
Actually, Japan should demand exactly the reverse.
“You, Mr. Trump, must pay us quadruple if we continue to let you keep troops in Japan.”
There is a many years-long history of American troops assaulting women, raping women, brutalizing people, stealing, being vandals and being just plain careless, like the recent incidents of American bomb casings falling from the sky in a residential area.
Many in Japan - a country with extremely low crime rates and strong social pressures on behavior - would describe the American troops as thugs they are forced to endure.
After all, America's Army gets pretty desperate for recruits to fill all its imperial ranks. Standards only go ever lower in the effort.
And the American bases represent places Japanese people do not want to see occupied. And polluted. Heavily polluted.
Nothing is worse than the sum-total of American military pollution at a long-term facility. Some of the most polluted sites on earth are left behind by America's military in various places. They even do a poor job inside the United States.
Sludge and chemicals of every description. Radioactive materials. Old munitions and tires. Old electronics and batteries. Immense piles of every kind of trash. Sometimes even dumped vehicles and rusting drums of God-knows-what.
But the people are not really free to express that to Americans, and their current Prime Minister, Abe, is almost pitiful in his bowing and scraping to American interests.
It is quite shameful, even humiliating, for a country with such proud and ancient traditions.
It will indeed be a fine day when they can eventually shake off the occupation and speak with their own voice in the world.
But America is heavily embedded in Japan with corporate and government and military and financial interests and, I'm sure, plenty of bribery and corruption and pressure.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP PARDONS SOME GENUINE AMERICAN WAR CRIMINALS AGAINST ADVICE OF SENIOR OFFICERS - TRUMP ALWAYS MANAGES TO FIND THE LOW ROAD - DOING SO IS JUST PART OF HIS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JASON DITZ IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Trump Pardons War Criminals to Show Just How Pro-Military He Is
“Come 2020 nobody is going to out-hawk him”
“The Pentagon’s commanders are deeply concerned about these moves, and had been trying to talk Trump out of them. They argue that military discipline will suffer if soldiers believe they can ignore military rules on the assumption of a pardon.
“Trump’s position is built around showing that he is so pro-military that he can excuse war crimes, including murder, on the basis that the soldiers are supposed to be killing the enemy anyhow”
Trump invariably appeals to the lowest instincts in every matter with which he becomes involved.
The Pentagon officers who tried appealing to him not to grant these shameful pardons, on the basis of the need for military discipline are, of course, absolutely right.
But "right" - like "decency" or "fairness" or "justice" - has no hold on this contemporary American popular hero. This bizarre dyed-phosphorescent yellow cockatoo-like cartoon figure, strutting around with a big paunch and an even bigger mouth.
He finds his audience and applause in latrines and sleazy bars and trailer parks everywhere. He’ll need all the votes he can get next year.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JASON DITZ IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Trump Pardons War Criminals to Show Just How Pro-Military He Is
“Come 2020 nobody is going to out-hawk him”
“The Pentagon’s commanders are deeply concerned about these moves, and had been trying to talk Trump out of them. They argue that military discipline will suffer if soldiers believe they can ignore military rules on the assumption of a pardon.
“Trump’s position is built around showing that he is so pro-military that he can excuse war crimes, including murder, on the basis that the soldiers are supposed to be killing the enemy anyhow”
Trump invariably appeals to the lowest instincts in every matter with which he becomes involved.
The Pentagon officers who tried appealing to him not to grant these shameful pardons, on the basis of the need for military discipline are, of course, absolutely right.
But "right" - like "decency" or "fairness" or "justice" - has no hold on this contemporary American popular hero. This bizarre dyed-phosphorescent yellow cockatoo-like cartoon figure, strutting around with a big paunch and an even bigger mouth.
He finds his audience and applause in latrines and sleazy bars and trailer parks everywhere. He’ll need all the votes he can get next year.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE ANTI-IMPEACHMENT STUFF JUST INCREASES IN ITS OUTRAGEOUSNESS - NOW WE'RE TALKING OF COUPS - SIMPLY IGNORANT AND DANGEROUS - TRUMP'S CHARACTER AND HIS BASE POLITICAL SUPPORT SUCCINCTLY CHARACTERIZED - THE NATURE OF CONSTITUTIONAL IMPEACHMENT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS IN RUSSIA INSIDER
"Democrats' Game-Plan: Brainwash Americans Into Hating Trump, Stage Coup Against Him"
Maybe it's time for this author to put away his keyboard. This piece is asinine. Truly.
No one needs to "brainwash" millions of Americans into hating Trump.
He is already well and truly hated. He is a hateful man.
Rude and name-calling, Genuinely foul at times. Dishonest in the extreme. Disloyal to associates and family. Often cowardly and a bully towards the weak. Never reads. Never listens. Has an extraordinarily big mouth. Possess a vast store of ignorance. Flip-flops regularly. More concerned with re-election than the country's interests. Venal. Servile to the interests of another state because that generates huge amounts of campaign contributions. Irreligious and hypocritical.
He has his loyalists, of course, as did many other unpleasant and even dangerous men before him.
His wear big dumb red hats, waddle around in Walmart stores for entertainment, dislike immigrants and Muslims, generally have bellies hanging over their belts, watch lots of television, eat McDonalds and donuts, and a fair portion go to bed each night expecting to be awakened by the Lord’s Second Coming.
How about just letting the impeachment investigation take its normal course without all the dire nonsense? If the politicians believe Trump should be impeached and convicted, then so he should. That's the Constitutional path.
Talk of coups is outrageous. Impeachment, as it has always existed in America, is implicitly a political process. Even the Constitution's words on the nature of acceptable charges are brief and not well-defined, open to interpretation. Despite the legal formalities, there is no court of appeal, no supreme court, just the vote each politician, answering to his or her constituents, offers after reviewing the facts. That is the law of the land.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS IN RUSSIA INSIDER
"Democrats' Game-Plan: Brainwash Americans Into Hating Trump, Stage Coup Against Him"
Maybe it's time for this author to put away his keyboard. This piece is asinine. Truly.
No one needs to "brainwash" millions of Americans into hating Trump.
He is already well and truly hated. He is a hateful man.
Rude and name-calling, Genuinely foul at times. Dishonest in the extreme. Disloyal to associates and family. Often cowardly and a bully towards the weak. Never reads. Never listens. Has an extraordinarily big mouth. Possess a vast store of ignorance. Flip-flops regularly. More concerned with re-election than the country's interests. Venal. Servile to the interests of another state because that generates huge amounts of campaign contributions. Irreligious and hypocritical.
He has his loyalists, of course, as did many other unpleasant and even dangerous men before him.
His wear big dumb red hats, waddle around in Walmart stores for entertainment, dislike immigrants and Muslims, generally have bellies hanging over their belts, watch lots of television, eat McDonalds and donuts, and a fair portion go to bed each night expecting to be awakened by the Lord’s Second Coming.
How about just letting the impeachment investigation take its normal course without all the dire nonsense? If the politicians believe Trump should be impeached and convicted, then so he should. That's the Constitutional path.
Talk of coups is outrageous. Impeachment, as it has always existed in America, is implicitly a political process. Even the Constitution's words on the nature of acceptable charges are brief and not well-defined, open to interpretation. Despite the legal formalities, there is no court of appeal, no supreme court, just the vote each politician, answering to his or her constituents, offers after reviewing the facts. That is the law of the land.
Friday, November 15, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: I DO BELIEVE OBAMA FORMED A "GET-TRUMP" TASK FORCE - BUT AMERICA HAS FAR DEEPER PROBLEMS THAN WHAT THAT REPRESENTS FOR LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT - WHY, EXCEPT IN MATTERS OF STYLE AND CIVILITY AND TASTE, IT GENUINELY MAKES LITTLE DIFFERENCE WHO IS ELECTED PRESIDENT - THE OFFICE SIMPLY DOES NOT POSSESS THE POWER SO MANY BELIEVE THAT IT DOES
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Did Obama Order CIA to Form 'Trump Task Force' to Throw Election for Deep State?”
Yes, I do think something along those lines did happen.
People like the CIA Director never come out in public on their own the way Brennan seemed to do.
Of course, just as in the case of a President's nodding approval of matters like coups abroad, no written record would be kept of Obama's approving such an operation.
An operation against Trump would be a suitable farewell from a President like Obama who displayed in office an addiction to secrecy and the approval of huge amounts of disruption and violence abroad.
(I’ve speculated before that Obama may possibly have been CIA himself. There had been previously “a made man” in the White House, George H W Bush, a man whose CIA credentials are unmistakable.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/john-chuckman-comment-further-speculation-on-obamas-being-cia-in-light-of-revelations-about-routine-violations-of-privacy-by-nsa-and-fbi-during-his-terms/ )
I want to be clear that while I share a belief in such a scheme with many Trump supporters, I share absolutely nothing else. I regard Trump as a repulsive and ineffective man, a terrible, counterproductive representative for his country, and I can at least understand why establishment interests might want to interfere with his election.
It is, anyway, a serious question whether any American President still does decide matters around the fundamental course of the nation, especially since Kennedy had half of his head blown onto the streets of Dallas after trying to do so against an establishment grown very powerful and arrogant during its long period of unquestioned operations in America’s postwar years.
What a President actually decides anymore in weighty matters of state and international affairs and what he smilingly just signs off on as “recommendations” from the Dark State are not clear matters at all. And I’m sure that they are intended not to be clear, that illusions are to be maintained.
Yes, there are certainly differences in language and emphasis and attitude allowed among presidents, but there is a deep, connecting vital tissue in all their important acts. The differences between a good deal of the actual work of Bush and Obama and even Trump abroad are not so great as people would like to think.
The establishment does not like Trump, but in much of foreign affairs, at least where enemies and opponents and rivals and wars are concerned, it has managed to keep him on what it regards as the right path. They can have no serious complaints.
However, his natural-born crudeness has been abrading away at certain other longstanding arrangements. He has irritated and offended a lot of old friends and allies and connections in the world. That fact could well be an underlying basis for impeachment efforts. If so, the impeachment will succeed.
The days of believing that a person's simply being elected to office should decide the direction of things for America do seem distant and rather naïve, almost quaint, now that the country has become a gigantic global empire with countless trillions of dollars at stake.
A little like thinking in terms of men in frock coats and wigs still signing off on matters with quill pens, but a lot of Americans do live with illusions of one kind or another concerning government and how it works.
It is not hard to find thousands of almost embarrassing references on the Internet to The Republic and Armed Patriots and Rights in the Age of America’s NSA State. Just as with religious belief, where we can find millions in the 21st century who believe in miracles and see important parts of life as bookplate illustrations from an edition of the King James Bible.
But even the security-services people, despite their limitless resources and ruthlessness, still do sometimes get things wrong. We see bungled coups and wars abroad and bungled plots at home.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/02/john-chuckman-comment-why-modern-presidents-cannot-set-american-foreign-policy-even-if-they-want-to-do-so-founding-of-american-empire-after-ww-ii-the-needs-all-empires-share-whether-american-or-s/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/01/john-chuckman-comment-trump-and-foreign-policy-heres-a-man-making-lots-of-noise-and-pretending-to-be-in-charge-but-on-all-really-important-matters-he-is-not-in-charge-any-more-than-obama-was/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/john-chuckman-comment-trump-is-no-longer-running-the-show-more-on-the-cia-and-americas-presidents-a-democratic-society-cannot-have-a-cia/
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Did Obama Order CIA to Form 'Trump Task Force' to Throw Election for Deep State?”
Yes, I do think something along those lines did happen.
People like the CIA Director never come out in public on their own the way Brennan seemed to do.
Of course, just as in the case of a President's nodding approval of matters like coups abroad, no written record would be kept of Obama's approving such an operation.
An operation against Trump would be a suitable farewell from a President like Obama who displayed in office an addiction to secrecy and the approval of huge amounts of disruption and violence abroad.
(I’ve speculated before that Obama may possibly have been CIA himself. There had been previously “a made man” in the White House, George H W Bush, a man whose CIA credentials are unmistakable.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/john-chuckman-comment-further-speculation-on-obamas-being-cia-in-light-of-revelations-about-routine-violations-of-privacy-by-nsa-and-fbi-during-his-terms/ )
I want to be clear that while I share a belief in such a scheme with many Trump supporters, I share absolutely nothing else. I regard Trump as a repulsive and ineffective man, a terrible, counterproductive representative for his country, and I can at least understand why establishment interests might want to interfere with his election.
It is, anyway, a serious question whether any American President still does decide matters around the fundamental course of the nation, especially since Kennedy had half of his head blown onto the streets of Dallas after trying to do so against an establishment grown very powerful and arrogant during its long period of unquestioned operations in America’s postwar years.
What a President actually decides anymore in weighty matters of state and international affairs and what he smilingly just signs off on as “recommendations” from the Dark State are not clear matters at all. And I’m sure that they are intended not to be clear, that illusions are to be maintained.
Yes, there are certainly differences in language and emphasis and attitude allowed among presidents, but there is a deep, connecting vital tissue in all their important acts. The differences between a good deal of the actual work of Bush and Obama and even Trump abroad are not so great as people would like to think.
The establishment does not like Trump, but in much of foreign affairs, at least where enemies and opponents and rivals and wars are concerned, it has managed to keep him on what it regards as the right path. They can have no serious complaints.
However, his natural-born crudeness has been abrading away at certain other longstanding arrangements. He has irritated and offended a lot of old friends and allies and connections in the world. That fact could well be an underlying basis for impeachment efforts. If so, the impeachment will succeed.
The days of believing that a person's simply being elected to office should decide the direction of things for America do seem distant and rather naïve, almost quaint, now that the country has become a gigantic global empire with countless trillions of dollars at stake.
A little like thinking in terms of men in frock coats and wigs still signing off on matters with quill pens, but a lot of Americans do live with illusions of one kind or another concerning government and how it works.
It is not hard to find thousands of almost embarrassing references on the Internet to The Republic and Armed Patriots and Rights in the Age of America’s NSA State. Just as with religious belief, where we can find millions in the 21st century who believe in miracles and see important parts of life as bookplate illustrations from an edition of the King James Bible.
But even the security-services people, despite their limitless resources and ruthlessness, still do sometimes get things wrong. We see bungled coups and wars abroad and bungled plots at home.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/02/john-chuckman-comment-why-modern-presidents-cannot-set-american-foreign-policy-even-if-they-want-to-do-so-founding-of-american-empire-after-ww-ii-the-needs-all-empires-share-whether-american-or-s/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/01/john-chuckman-comment-trump-and-foreign-policy-heres-a-man-making-lots-of-noise-and-pretending-to-be-in-charge-but-on-all-really-important-matters-he-is-not-in-charge-any-more-than-obama-was/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/john-chuckman-comment-trump-is-no-longer-running-the-show-more-on-the-cia-and-americas-presidents-a-democratic-society-cannot-have-a-cia/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FEW WORDS ON AMERICAN TRIUMPHALISM FOLLOWING ITS BELIEF IN "WINNING" THE COLD WAR - BUT THERE IS ANOTHER UNDERLYING CHRONIC CONDITION WHICH DRIVES AMERICA'S TRAGIC SITUATION OF WAR AGAINST SO MUCH OF THE WORLD
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LARISON IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Americans Can Thank Their Elites' Arrogant Belief That They 'Won the Cold War' for Twenty Years of Actual Wars”
https://russia-insider.com/en/americans-can-thank-their-elites-arrogant-belief-they-won-cold-war-twenty-years-actual-wars/ri27870
Good piece.
Triumphalism is always extremely dangerous because it is one of those high emotional states that blinds people to careful thinking.
And we can never have enough of that, careful thinking.
I always liked George Kennan despite his being rather incorrectly identified by many as a kind of Cold Warrior.
He was a clear writer and a sound thinker.
America's State Department and other parts of government today do not seem to have such people.
Or, if they do, the people all stay with their heads down while America busies itself with bombing and threats and coups and bombast.
In the end, I think the real truth governing a place like America is that of Lord Acton on the nature of power.
America has been close to absolute power since WWII.
So, I think we should expect little else but the near absolute corruption we see in Washington.
It is a condition which trumps all other human impulses, including those of good sense, fairness, and just decency.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LARISON IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Americans Can Thank Their Elites' Arrogant Belief That They 'Won the Cold War' for Twenty Years of Actual Wars”
https://russia-insider.com/en/americans-can-thank-their-elites-arrogant-belief-they-won-cold-war-twenty-years-actual-wars/ri27870
Good piece.
Triumphalism is always extremely dangerous because it is one of those high emotional states that blinds people to careful thinking.
And we can never have enough of that, careful thinking.
I always liked George Kennan despite his being rather incorrectly identified by many as a kind of Cold Warrior.
He was a clear writer and a sound thinker.
America's State Department and other parts of government today do not seem to have such people.
Or, if they do, the people all stay with their heads down while America busies itself with bombing and threats and coups and bombast.
In the end, I think the real truth governing a place like America is that of Lord Acton on the nature of power.
America has been close to absolute power since WWII.
So, I think we should expect little else but the near absolute corruption we see in Washington.
It is a condition which trumps all other human impulses, including those of good sense, fairness, and just decency.
Thursday, November 14, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SEARCHING FOR LOGIC IN THE DETAILED WORKINGS OF AMERICAN EMPIRE - A FRUITLESS TASK
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“WATCH: US Occupying Troops Peacefully Pass Through Syrian Army Checkpoint
“Where is the threat that Pentagon claims warrants killing Syrian soldiers if they cross arbitrary lines in their own country?”
If you search for logic in many of the close-up workings of the massive enterprise called America's empire, you will look in vain.
There was no logic in the insane holocaust conducted in Vietnam, killing about 3 million people.
And the toppling of the neutral government of Cambodia, which resulted in the Khmer Rouge obtaining power to kill another million or so souls, hardly represented a masterstroke of far-sighted policy.
The continuing war in Afghanistan defies all logic. Eighteen years of slaughtering peasants to achieve absolutely nothing.
The bloody invasion of Iraq has been called by American experts the most destructive act in memory of American foreign policy. Its major results strengthened exactly those the United States would have chosen not to strength.
The chaos of Libya and massive flows of refugees hardly speak logical goals.
The American-encouraged and -supplied Saudi killing in Yemen also has produced little beyond terrible press, close ties to a bloody tyrant, and has literally shaken the Saudi Throne with the ability of poor Yemen to respond effectively.
All the stupidly unnecessary coups and attempts at coups, as in Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Iran, and still other places have contributed what new security or wealth for Americans?
And while one mediocre, murderous, not-particularly-bright American President after another busies himself with such tasks, what do we see elsewhere?
China at peace for decades and with some of the greatest plans for human progress ever made underway with its Belt and Road Initiative (The New Silk Road) plus great numbers of massively productive projects from long-distance high-speed rail lines and galaxies of gleaming new airports to nuclear power stations and big new achievements in space and in fundamental science.
Likely with Huawei’s 5G Networks, being adopted by dozens of countries despite American faux warnings, we are seeing only the beginnings of things to come in applied technology. China certainly is making breakthroughs in military technology, from missiles and fighter planes and hypersonic vehicles to new non-traditional weapons like lasers and railguns.
And it forms friendships and ties with people all over the earth without ever hurling threats or enforcing its own laws illegally on others as sanctions.
Russia has turned, in response to deliberate American policies, from Europe to a considerable degree to embrace Asia, and China in particular, further strengthening China’s hand. Imagine, it is even building one of its advanced over-the-horizon anti-ICBM radars for the Chinese?
Russia has great numbers of huge projects from Arctic LNG to developing the Northern Sea Route. It has expanded to become the world’s preeminent exporter of grain, grain which tempts markets with the promise of no Genetically Modified content.
Russia is a mighty builder of bridges and rail lines and gas pipelines and nuclear power plants, including a new floating-style one to serve its northern-development projects and could usefully serve many remote locations in the world.
At peace, but having developed several major defensive military systems that are the envy of the world, including its multi-layered anti-craft, anti-missile systems, all while spending a fraction of what America burns through annually on its military. It also has a number of remarkable new weapons from hypersonic vehicles, an unlimited-distance, atomic-powered cruise missile, and lasers to its “blackhole” submarines.
Where is the logic of empire? It’s only in the heads of the establishment men in Washington who scrabble for personal wealth and high position through its complex, immensely well-funded workings.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“WATCH: US Occupying Troops Peacefully Pass Through Syrian Army Checkpoint
“Where is the threat that Pentagon claims warrants killing Syrian soldiers if they cross arbitrary lines in their own country?”
If you search for logic in many of the close-up workings of the massive enterprise called America's empire, you will look in vain.
There was no logic in the insane holocaust conducted in Vietnam, killing about 3 million people.
And the toppling of the neutral government of Cambodia, which resulted in the Khmer Rouge obtaining power to kill another million or so souls, hardly represented a masterstroke of far-sighted policy.
The continuing war in Afghanistan defies all logic. Eighteen years of slaughtering peasants to achieve absolutely nothing.
The bloody invasion of Iraq has been called by American experts the most destructive act in memory of American foreign policy. Its major results strengthened exactly those the United States would have chosen not to strength.
The chaos of Libya and massive flows of refugees hardly speak logical goals.
The American-encouraged and -supplied Saudi killing in Yemen also has produced little beyond terrible press, close ties to a bloody tyrant, and has literally shaken the Saudi Throne with the ability of poor Yemen to respond effectively.
All the stupidly unnecessary coups and attempts at coups, as in Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Iran, and still other places have contributed what new security or wealth for Americans?
And while one mediocre, murderous, not-particularly-bright American President after another busies himself with such tasks, what do we see elsewhere?
China at peace for decades and with some of the greatest plans for human progress ever made underway with its Belt and Road Initiative (The New Silk Road) plus great numbers of massively productive projects from long-distance high-speed rail lines and galaxies of gleaming new airports to nuclear power stations and big new achievements in space and in fundamental science.
Likely with Huawei’s 5G Networks, being adopted by dozens of countries despite American faux warnings, we are seeing only the beginnings of things to come in applied technology. China certainly is making breakthroughs in military technology, from missiles and fighter planes and hypersonic vehicles to new non-traditional weapons like lasers and railguns.
And it forms friendships and ties with people all over the earth without ever hurling threats or enforcing its own laws illegally on others as sanctions.
Russia has turned, in response to deliberate American policies, from Europe to a considerable degree to embrace Asia, and China in particular, further strengthening China’s hand. Imagine, it is even building one of its advanced over-the-horizon anti-ICBM radars for the Chinese?
Russia has great numbers of huge projects from Arctic LNG to developing the Northern Sea Route. It has expanded to become the world’s preeminent exporter of grain, grain which tempts markets with the promise of no Genetically Modified content.
Russia is a mighty builder of bridges and rail lines and gas pipelines and nuclear power plants, including a new floating-style one to serve its northern-development projects and could usefully serve many remote locations in the world.
At peace, but having developed several major defensive military systems that are the envy of the world, including its multi-layered anti-craft, anti-missile systems, all while spending a fraction of what America burns through annually on its military. It also has a number of remarkable new weapons from hypersonic vehicles, an unlimited-distance, atomic-powered cruise missile, and lasers to its “blackhole” submarines.
Where is the logic of empire? It’s only in the heads of the establishment men in Washington who scrabble for personal wealth and high position through its complex, immensely well-funded workings.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DEMONSTRATORS IN HONG KONG TAKE A DANGEROUS NEW TURN - WHY CAN'T THE UNITED STATES JUST LEAVE OTHERS IN PEACE? BUT THAT IS JUST WHAT BULLIES DO
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (AND REMOVED BY EDITOR)
“Hong Kong students arm themselves for showdown amid talk of curfew
“Students build barricades, stockpile arrows, petrol bombs and other weapons”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-1.5358937
These are now just armed street thugs, hoping to overthrow a government.
The only difference is in their parroting of phrases likely taught them by an employee of the United States State Department.
The United States just never leaves anyone anywhere in peace anymore.
They just pulled a coup in Bolivia against its elected government and placed an unelected opposition person in as new temporary president.
They're still trying to topple the legitimate government of Venezuela.
They've created a new set of problems for both Nicaragua and Cuba.
They never stop threatening what has been a law-abiding and peaceful Iran. The warlike sanctions today resemble an effort to starve out 80 million people.
They have the whole world in turmoil over their brutal trade war with China. Markets and economic performance have been affected badly everywhere.
They sit, heavily armed, where they have no business even being, having literally stolen Syrian oil fields.
And of course, their CIA operators sit at banks of computer screens daily trying to kill someone somewhere, someone with no legal charges against him - extrajudicial killing just like the old Argentine junta used to do when it “disappeared” people, only now it’s done with drones and Hellfire missiles which incinerate the victim.
Julian Assange is dying in jail, ailing and aging visibly, merely for having told the truth.
Chelsea Manning, too, is treated like a vicious criminal instead of a decently-motivated, conscientious truth teller.
And they continue to try intimidating Russia and keep sanctions in place costing Europeans billions of dollars a year in trade.
They keep telling everyone what they may buy and what they may not – people from little Serbia to Turkey and to India. Again, the threat is always war-like sanctions.
What a blight they've become to international affairs.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (AND REMOVED BY EDITOR)
“Hong Kong students arm themselves for showdown amid talk of curfew
“Students build barricades, stockpile arrows, petrol bombs and other weapons”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hong-kong-1.5358937
These are now just armed street thugs, hoping to overthrow a government.
The only difference is in their parroting of phrases likely taught them by an employee of the United States State Department.
The United States just never leaves anyone anywhere in peace anymore.
They just pulled a coup in Bolivia against its elected government and placed an unelected opposition person in as new temporary president.
They're still trying to topple the legitimate government of Venezuela.
They've created a new set of problems for both Nicaragua and Cuba.
They never stop threatening what has been a law-abiding and peaceful Iran. The warlike sanctions today resemble an effort to starve out 80 million people.
They have the whole world in turmoil over their brutal trade war with China. Markets and economic performance have been affected badly everywhere.
They sit, heavily armed, where they have no business even being, having literally stolen Syrian oil fields.
And of course, their CIA operators sit at banks of computer screens daily trying to kill someone somewhere, someone with no legal charges against him - extrajudicial killing just like the old Argentine junta used to do when it “disappeared” people, only now it’s done with drones and Hellfire missiles which incinerate the victim.
Julian Assange is dying in jail, ailing and aging visibly, merely for having told the truth.
Chelsea Manning, too, is treated like a vicious criminal instead of a decently-motivated, conscientious truth teller.
And they continue to try intimidating Russia and keep sanctions in place costing Europeans billions of dollars a year in trade.
They keep telling everyone what they may buy and what they may not – people from little Serbia to Turkey and to India. Again, the threat is always war-like sanctions.
What a blight they've become to international affairs.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY DO PEOPLE CHEER OFTEN EVENTS HAVING NO RELATIONSHIP TO THEIR OWN WELFARE? HUMAN BEHAVIOR IS SIMPLY NOT ALL SUBJECT TO RATIONAL ANALYSIS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Stock Market Cheerleading: Why Do We Celebrate the Super-Rich Getting Richer?
“What exactly do we get out of the central banks blowing up the stock market valuations for the ultra-rich?”
I think there are many reasons, including some offered in comments.
But I do think there is something fundamental, and rather primitive, in human nature contributing to this phenomenon.
Why do people in cities almost automatically cheer their hometown sports teams, even though perhaps not one member of the team comes from the hometown and the owner may be some faceless corporation or distant oligarch?
Human behavior simply is not all subject to rational analysis.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Stock Market Cheerleading: Why Do We Celebrate the Super-Rich Getting Richer?
“What exactly do we get out of the central banks blowing up the stock market valuations for the ultra-rich?”
I think there are many reasons, including some offered in comments.
But I do think there is something fundamental, and rather primitive, in human nature contributing to this phenomenon.
Why do people in cities almost automatically cheer their hometown sports teams, even though perhaps not one member of the team comes from the hometown and the owner may be some faceless corporation or distant oligarch?
Human behavior simply is not all subject to rational analysis.
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A NOTE ON JOHN MCCAIN'S REMARKABLY BAD CHARACTER - PLUS A REVEALING REFERENCE IN THE CONTROVERSY OVER J. EDGAR HOOVER'S ETHNICITY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RON UNZ IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“John McCain: When "Tokyo Rose" Ran for President
“What Was John McCain's True Wartime Record in Vietnam?”
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-when-tokyo-rose-ran-for-president/#comment-3556301
While I’ve never studied his war years as a prisoner, over which there are so many claims and counterclaims, almost nothing could surprise me about John McCain.
I wrote the following summary some years ago concerning the nature of his character. All of it is documented.
This was a man whose basic character frankly just plain smelled bad, but a boyish smile always seemed to pull him through, as well, of course, later, the general vague notion that he was a war hero. Being both son and grandson of admirals helped, and he exploited that fact to the maximum for all of his military career.
But of course, the ugliness and pointless destruction of Vietnam cried out for the manufacture of heroes at the time, and, well, what do you know, they came up with one.
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/john-mccain-a-matter-of-character/
JOHN CHUCKMAN ESSAY: JOHN MCCAIN: A MATTER OF CHARACTER
P.S. On J Edgar Hoover’s reported black ancestry, here is a remarkably revealing early photograph:
https://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-post_9171.html
Hoover was not just a deeply-closeted gay, he was a rather flamboyant crossdresser at home and at parties, according to biographer, Anthony Summers.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RON UNZ IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“John McCain: When "Tokyo Rose" Ran for President
“What Was John McCain's True Wartime Record in Vietnam?”
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-when-tokyo-rose-ran-for-president/#comment-3556301
While I’ve never studied his war years as a prisoner, over which there are so many claims and counterclaims, almost nothing could surprise me about John McCain.
I wrote the following summary some years ago concerning the nature of his character. All of it is documented.
This was a man whose basic character frankly just plain smelled bad, but a boyish smile always seemed to pull him through, as well, of course, later, the general vague notion that he was a war hero. Being both son and grandson of admirals helped, and he exploited that fact to the maximum for all of his military career.
But of course, the ugliness and pointless destruction of Vietnam cried out for the manufacture of heroes at the time, and, well, what do you know, they came up with one.
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/john-mccain-a-matter-of-character/
JOHN CHUCKMAN ESSAY: JOHN MCCAIN: A MATTER OF CHARACTER
P.S. On J Edgar Hoover’s reported black ancestry, here is a remarkably revealing early photograph:
https://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-post_9171.html
Hoover was not just a deeply-closeted gay, he was a rather flamboyant crossdresser at home and at parties, according to biographer, Anthony Summers.
Monday, November 11, 2019
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S NEW "PASTOR" PAULA WHITE - "BRINGING TRUMP TO CHRIST" OR BRINGING MILLIONS OF CHUMPS IN FOR ANOTHER FLEECING?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
"Charlatan or saviour: What will Trump’s controversial new pastor [Paula White] bring to the White House?"
Oh, please, there is only one thing a "pastor" like this woman brings to the White House of a "president" like Trump.
America has an entire subculture of empire-building televangelists and monster-church pastors who really are in the business of creating illusions to scam people out of their money in the Name of the Lord. It’s a rather unique American institution, at least on the scale it exists in America.
This woman’s background puts her in the same camp as much grander past operators, such as Pat Robertson, Robert Schuller, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham, and Oral Roberts. So, of course, she’s very comfortable with a shabby figure like Donald Trump, just as he is with her.
Her sole purpose is to provide plenty of opportunities for stagey photos like the one you have at the top of the article. She’s a hired, roving photo-op for Christ.
Such images go down like cotton candy with the Religious Right, a group Trump counts on fairly heavily for political support.
In the case of this appointment, the pubic relations folks managed to hit two targets at once, the Religious Right and women, at least some women.
Trump has always been an irreligious man. Almost grotesquely so. That’s just an established fact.
But photos of this slight woman with her well-practiced sympathetic expressions looking up into his looming hulk of a face give pathetic believers something to fantasize over, her bringing him “to the Lord.”
Most of America’s huge flock of offering plate-chasing evangelists or pastors, like this woman, wouldn’t be able to contribute much of anything to anyone, except claptrap.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
"Charlatan or saviour: What will Trump’s controversial new pastor [Paula White] bring to the White House?"
Oh, please, there is only one thing a "pastor" like this woman brings to the White House of a "president" like Trump.
America has an entire subculture of empire-building televangelists and monster-church pastors who really are in the business of creating illusions to scam people out of their money in the Name of the Lord. It’s a rather unique American institution, at least on the scale it exists in America.
This woman’s background puts her in the same camp as much grander past operators, such as Pat Robertson, Robert Schuller, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham, and Oral Roberts. So, of course, she’s very comfortable with a shabby figure like Donald Trump, just as he is with her.
Her sole purpose is to provide plenty of opportunities for stagey photos like the one you have at the top of the article. She’s a hired, roving photo-op for Christ.
Such images go down like cotton candy with the Religious Right, a group Trump counts on fairly heavily for political support.
In the case of this appointment, the pubic relations folks managed to hit two targets at once, the Religious Right and women, at least some women.
Trump has always been an irreligious man. Almost grotesquely so. That’s just an established fact.
But photos of this slight woman with her well-practiced sympathetic expressions looking up into his looming hulk of a face give pathetic believers something to fantasize over, her bringing him “to the Lord.”
Most of America’s huge flock of offering plate-chasing evangelists or pastors, like this woman, wouldn’t be able to contribute much of anything to anyone, except claptrap.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FOUNDER OF ONE OF THE GREAT FRAUDS OF OUR TIME, THE WHITE HELMETS IN SYRIA, IS FOUND DEAD - HE WAS A BRITISH MI6 AGENT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BEL TREW IN THE INDEPENDENT
“James Le Mesurier: White Helmets backer found dead near his home in Istanbul
“Former army officer helped start the White Helmets, credited with saving thousands of lives in Syria”
People who read widely have known for quite some time that The White Helmets are a fraud.
There are countless tidbits of evidence for the claim, but you have to search them out. You won’t find them in any of the corporate press in America or the parts of Europe, like Britain, which are under America's thumb.
Most of the Western corporate press goes on praising them, and of course dear old Hollywood even gave them an “documentary film” Oscar.
That’s the very same Hollywood that each year holds a big gala dinner to raise millions and millions of dollars for Israel’s army. The army whose main job is to harshly occupy millions of people who have no rights, and an army, over the last year, which has weekly busied itself ambushing unarmed Gaza protesters from behind a fence, killing about 300 and wounding thousands.
I wouldn’t doubt Hollywood even supplied expertise and supplies for the make-up work used in White Helmet films, but I don’t know that.
The job of The White Helmets has always been to promote local divisions inside Syria and to create provocations that can be used to justify more American or British bombing at desired locations.
They mounted and filmed several “rescue operations” from poison gas attacks which they staged themselves, trying to incriminate Syria’s government. They film their own stuff and distribute it to the Western press. Undoubtedly, they also perform other covert work such as “bomb spotting.”
Their films all have been frauds, using everything from child actors (documented by some critics) and Hollywood make-up to other mislabelled footage.
This outfit represents a true ethical low point in America's diligent efforts at hybrid and proxy war in the region, a fake humanitarian organization to promote real death and destruction.
How absolutely fitting that it was founded by one of the creeps from MI6.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BEL TREW IN THE INDEPENDENT
“James Le Mesurier: White Helmets backer found dead near his home in Istanbul
“Former army officer helped start the White Helmets, credited with saving thousands of lives in Syria”
People who read widely have known for quite some time that The White Helmets are a fraud.
There are countless tidbits of evidence for the claim, but you have to search them out. You won’t find them in any of the corporate press in America or the parts of Europe, like Britain, which are under America's thumb.
Most of the Western corporate press goes on praising them, and of course dear old Hollywood even gave them an “documentary film” Oscar.
That’s the very same Hollywood that each year holds a big gala dinner to raise millions and millions of dollars for Israel’s army. The army whose main job is to harshly occupy millions of people who have no rights, and an army, over the last year, which has weekly busied itself ambushing unarmed Gaza protesters from behind a fence, killing about 300 and wounding thousands.
I wouldn’t doubt Hollywood even supplied expertise and supplies for the make-up work used in White Helmet films, but I don’t know that.
The job of The White Helmets has always been to promote local divisions inside Syria and to create provocations that can be used to justify more American or British bombing at desired locations.
They mounted and filmed several “rescue operations” from poison gas attacks which they staged themselves, trying to incriminate Syria’s government. They film their own stuff and distribute it to the Western press. Undoubtedly, they also perform other covert work such as “bomb spotting.”
Their films all have been frauds, using everything from child actors (documented by some critics) and Hollywood make-up to other mislabelled footage.
This outfit represents a true ethical low point in America's diligent efforts at hybrid and proxy war in the region, a fake humanitarian organization to promote real death and destruction.
How absolutely fitting that it was founded by one of the creeps from MI6.
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