John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK COCKBURN IN THE INDEPENDENT
"We live in a disintegrating world – and that only makes it a more dangerous place
“In many senses, we have long been living in an era of disintegration without quite realising it, as multinational federations break up and international organisations, such as the UN and World Trade Organisation (WTO), fragment or become moribund”
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-leave-eu-trump-scotland-ireland-a9312016.html
An interesting and thoughtful column, but I think the author has missed a key element in what he terms the disintegration of things.
And that is the aggressive posture of the US in trying preserve its privileges and expand them and to avoid its continuing relative decline.
Trump’s approach to almost all international organizations has been ugly. And it does not come from any sense of these organizations having failed, but from the sense of their failing to put the US first. It is, if you will, the most rudimentary selfishness. Just like his Mideast policies of giving away other people’s things in return for all the campaign contributions he could ever hope to spend.
Because of its imperial status, when America does something completely selfish in international affairs, it sends shockwaves through many places.
Trump is, though, only the bellowing rude end of the American political spectrum. He couldn’t do what he does if he had serious opposition from the rest of the American establishment, including the Democratic Party.But he has none. No defenders of civil relations with China, and certainly none for Iran or Venezuela or Russia.
No defenders of the UN – to whom the US owes one billion dollars in back dues – or of UNESCO or of the ICC or of the WTO.
No one, of course, defends the EU interest against the fragmentation of Brexit. America’s glad to see the EU weakened, and it will now, to some degree, have Britain at its mercy. From the American point of view, none of this is disintegration. It is new opportunity.
No prominent American politicians or public figures speak out against any of Trump’s outrages abroad.
The missing opposition reflects the aggressive posture of the entire American establishment in trying to reclaim what it regards as its lost place in the sun.
But Trump has failed at virtually his every international trade and affairs effort. Even his much-vaunted China deal amounts to remarkably little. It could almost be described as a tactical ploy by China rather than the beginning of any startlingly new relationship.
His international affairs pressures against Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Iraq are all failing, although, they do hurt a lot of people. His “deal” for Palestine is a nasty joke, a schoolboy prank, although it will bring him all the campaign contributions anyone could dream of having for the election. Self over international interests and fairness.
America’s effort to regain its place of 1959 and to avoid the inevitable multi-polar world emerging is without a doubt doomed ultimately to fail, but it can, and will, cause a good deal of pain in the meantime.
Look how long American pounded its head against a wall in Vietnam, creating literally a holocaust. And its now eighteen years of bombing peasants in Afghanistan. And its bloody, pointless invasion of Iraq which actually had side-effects working against America’s own interests.
America is slow learner, a very brutal one.
Friday, January 31, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JOURNALIST PATRICK COCKBURN'S INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS ON A WORLD HE REGARDS AS DISINTEGRATING - BUT HE LEAVES OUT AN IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION - THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS ANGRY REACTION AGAINST CHANGE HAVING SENT SHOCKWAVES THROUGH THE PLANET - AMERICA AS A SLOW AND BRUTAL LEARNER
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FEW WORDS ABOUT MICHAEL BLOOMBERG'S CANDIDACY - AN ESTABLISHMENT FIGURE OF SOME CHARM AND ABILITY - A SAFE CHOICE TO TELL THE WORLD AMERICA IS RETURNING TO ITS SENSES - BUT AMERICA IS NOT RETURNING TO ITS SENSES - IT IS RESENTFUL AND CHILDISHLY ANGRY AND IT IS "MOONING" THE ENTIRE PLANET AND TRUMP FITS THE NEED PERFECTLY - UPDATE INFORMATION ON BLOOMBERG AS A DARKER FIGURE THAN I KNEW
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (AND REMOVED BY EDITOR)
“Michael Bloomberg has spent well over $200M on presidential campaign so far
“Bloomberg, who is focusing on caucuses and primaries beginning in March, is self-funding his campaign”
He is, of course, absolutely pure American establishment, but there nevertheless is something appealing about him, at least compared to most of the leaders among the Democrats.
He has avuncular qualities, like Eisenhower. He has some charm. And he has quite a lot of success behind him.
He would be a very safe choice. He would be regarded by much of the world as a sign America is returning to its senses.
Or at least, returning to some sense of decorum and decency in public.
But America is not returning to its senses, not at all.
America is in a mood to display its very worst and be proud of it. It is "mooning" the planet.
It is charged up with all kinds of resentments and childish anger. I think it ready and willing to put on an extremely destructive display to let everyone know just how angry and frustrated it is.
Trump fits the need perfectly, and I'm pretty confident, given no unexpected storms like economic collapse or war, he will win and win big.
I don't know why Bloomberg waited so long to enter the campaign, but these days nothing makes a lot of sense in American politics.
ADDED NOTE
Now that he’s out making campaign speeches on various topics, I see Michael Bloomberg is a darker figure than I had realized.
He’s making some rather ominous statements about charging people with “domestic terrorism” and ”hate crimes” in the context of anti-Semitism, a very dangerous business given such recent history as the abuse of British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn on that subject.
Bloomberg also went out of his way to condemn the BDS movement, which of course encourages people to use peaceful, voluntary means to pressure Israel over its apartheid treatment of millions of Palestinians. Peaceful boycotts are what brought an end to apartheid South Africa.
Some of his statements on healthcare also strike me as pretty disagreeable.
We have serious allegations about crude, sexist, and misogynistic speech and behavior regularly in the office, and they come from a number of people.
He also made statements on violent crime, suggesting ninety-five percent of it came from Blacks. He defended a New York stop-and-frisk law that has since been judged unconstitutional.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (AND REMOVED BY EDITOR)
“Michael Bloomberg has spent well over $200M on presidential campaign so far
“Bloomberg, who is focusing on caucuses and primaries beginning in March, is self-funding his campaign”
He is, of course, absolutely pure American establishment, but there nevertheless is something appealing about him, at least compared to most of the leaders among the Democrats.
He has avuncular qualities, like Eisenhower. He has some charm. And he has quite a lot of success behind him.
He would be a very safe choice. He would be regarded by much of the world as a sign America is returning to its senses.
Or at least, returning to some sense of decorum and decency in public.
But America is not returning to its senses, not at all.
America is in a mood to display its very worst and be proud of it. It is "mooning" the planet.
It is charged up with all kinds of resentments and childish anger. I think it ready and willing to put on an extremely destructive display to let everyone know just how angry and frustrated it is.
Trump fits the need perfectly, and I'm pretty confident, given no unexpected storms like economic collapse or war, he will win and win big.
I don't know why Bloomberg waited so long to enter the campaign, but these days nothing makes a lot of sense in American politics.
ADDED NOTE
Now that he’s out making campaign speeches on various topics, I see Michael Bloomberg is a darker figure than I had realized.
He’s making some rather ominous statements about charging people with “domestic terrorism” and ”hate crimes” in the context of anti-Semitism, a very dangerous business given such recent history as the abuse of British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn on that subject.
Bloomberg also went out of his way to condemn the BDS movement, which of course encourages people to use peaceful, voluntary means to pressure Israel over its apartheid treatment of millions of Palestinians. Peaceful boycotts are what brought an end to apartheid South Africa.
Some of his statements on healthcare also strike me as pretty disagreeable.
We have serious allegations about crude, sexist, and misogynistic speech and behavior regularly in the office, and they come from a number of people.
He also made statements on violent crime, suggesting ninety-five percent of it came from Blacks. He defended a New York stop-and-frisk law that has since been judged unconstitutional.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S IMPEACHMENT TRIAL - LAWYER ALAN DERSHOWITZ OFFERS A DANGEROUS PRINCIPLE OF DEFENSE - BUT IT IS ONLY IN KEEPING WITH MUCH OF AMERICA'S LAWLESS BEHAVIOR IN THE WORLD TODAY - AND IT COMES AT A POINT WHEN THE TRIAL APPEARS READY TO CLOSE WITHOUT EVEN LISTENING TO KEY TESTIMONY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KAZI STASTNA IN CBC NEWS
“'A descent into constitutional madness': Legal defence of Trump's Ukraine quid pro quo draws ire
“Alan Dershowitz told senators that if a president believes his re-election is in the national interest, it's not wrong for him to do something to benefit his own electoral interest.”
Simply unbelievable.
But it does tell us how much genuine protection is offered by a piece of parchment kept in a display case, the American Constitution.
The underlying reality in American politics is that what powerful men with bad intentions want to do, they freely do.
This argument of Dershowitz's is just bizarre and unacceptable. A politician’s beliefs should determine the legality of his acts? My God, that's dangerous stuff.
But it is only in keeping with what we see in so many of America's activities today.
Bragging about stealing oil in Syria? The assassination of another country's national hero and making light of it in some remarks? Giving away things belonging to others, which very much are not yours to give away?
Is it any surprise that such a President would have such a defense offered?
The logic and legality here are in keeping with a Senate which appears ready to quickly close the trial down now without even listening to testimony that is central to the case, that of John Bolton.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KAZI STASTNA IN CBC NEWS
“'A descent into constitutional madness': Legal defence of Trump's Ukraine quid pro quo draws ire
“Alan Dershowitz told senators that if a president believes his re-election is in the national interest, it's not wrong for him to do something to benefit his own electoral interest.”
Simply unbelievable.
But it does tell us how much genuine protection is offered by a piece of parchment kept in a display case, the American Constitution.
The underlying reality in American politics is that what powerful men with bad intentions want to do, they freely do.
This argument of Dershowitz's is just bizarre and unacceptable. A politician’s beliefs should determine the legality of his acts? My God, that's dangerous stuff.
But it is only in keeping with what we see in so many of America's activities today.
Bragging about stealing oil in Syria? The assassination of another country's national hero and making light of it in some remarks? Giving away things belonging to others, which very much are not yours to give away?
Is it any surprise that such a President would have such a defense offered?
The logic and legality here are in keeping with a Senate which appears ready to quickly close the trial down now without even listening to testimony that is central to the case, that of John Bolton.
Thursday, January 30, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NATIVISM AND TRIBALISM IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND AFFAIRS - BRITAIN'S NIGEL FARAGE AND BREXIT - THE INDISPUTABLE LONG-TERM FUTURE FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND RELATIONS IS IN PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION - FARAGE AND TRUMP ONLY REPRESENT PAUSING A WHILE ALONG THE WAY TO SUBDUE A VICIOUS SPASM OF HICCUPS
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY TOM PECK IN THE INDEPENDENT
‘Nigel Farage raved about populism to EU parliament – right after an Auschwitz survivor spoke
‘It was fitting, in a strange way, that he should save his most crass moment till last”
Farage can be pretty crass, but much of the time he is something of a showman, a political version of the old music hall comics, and he does amuse a large number of people. After all, he has had a serious effect on the future of about 65 million British people.
The world makes no real progress under leaders like Farage.
Absolutely none.
He represents Nativism or Tribalism.
And there's lots of that around, but the fact doesn't make it worthy or admirable any more than other primitive superstitions and beliefs, of which we have many.
Just as we advanced from local village with no real connecting roads in the 16th century to superhighways and fleets of jets connecting everything, so our future in global trade and economics and society is in institutions like the EU, not in a music hall comic waving a plastic British flag.
And by the way, just getting to that Union Jack flag was a long and difficult history, from some tribal Celts conquered by Romans with later incursions of Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Norman French. England is a hybrid society, not some purest vision.
Historical change and development don't just stop at some moment that appeals to some people and stay stuck there.
That's the view of some religious cultish folks like Mennonites or Amish or Hasidic Jews. It's wrong for most people and packed with superstition, and it goes absolutely nowhere in terms of progress.
____________________
Response to a comment saying “Always the idiot ...”. Supported by many idiots.
Just as Jesus said, "The poor you have with you always", so with idiots.
It's just the human condition and why it takes so long to get anything worthwhile done.
____________________
Response to a comment saying, “In the 21st century democracy = populism”
That's simply not true.
We have very little democracy anywhere, but a great deal of “populism.”
The establishment uses populist movements as tools of control.
Just as Hitler was made possible by bankers and industrialists, both from Germany and America. The Third Reich just would not have existed without them.
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY TOM PECK IN THE INDEPENDENT
‘Nigel Farage raved about populism to EU parliament – right after an Auschwitz survivor spoke
‘It was fitting, in a strange way, that he should save his most crass moment till last”
Farage can be pretty crass, but much of the time he is something of a showman, a political version of the old music hall comics, and he does amuse a large number of people. After all, he has had a serious effect on the future of about 65 million British people.
The world makes no real progress under leaders like Farage.
Absolutely none.
He represents Nativism or Tribalism.
And there's lots of that around, but the fact doesn't make it worthy or admirable any more than other primitive superstitions and beliefs, of which we have many.
Just as we advanced from local village with no real connecting roads in the 16th century to superhighways and fleets of jets connecting everything, so our future in global trade and economics and society is in institutions like the EU, not in a music hall comic waving a plastic British flag.
And by the way, just getting to that Union Jack flag was a long and difficult history, from some tribal Celts conquered by Romans with later incursions of Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Norman French. England is a hybrid society, not some purest vision.
Historical change and development don't just stop at some moment that appeals to some people and stay stuck there.
That's the view of some religious cultish folks like Mennonites or Amish or Hasidic Jews. It's wrong for most people and packed with superstition, and it goes absolutely nowhere in terms of progress.
____________________
Response to a comment saying “Always the idiot ...”. Supported by many idiots.
Just as Jesus said, "The poor you have with you always", so with idiots.
It's just the human condition and why it takes so long to get anything worthwhile done.
____________________
Response to a comment saying, “In the 21st century democracy = populism”
That's simply not true.
We have very little democracy anywhere, but a great deal of “populism.”
The establishment uses populist movements as tools of control.
Just as Hitler was made possible by bankers and industrialists, both from Germany and America. The Third Reich just would not have existed without them.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IRAN AND AMERICA - AMERICA'S CEASELESS, STUPID HOSTILITY OF MORE THAN FORTY YEARS - NOW IRAN WILL CAMPAIGN LONG AND HARD AND VERY SUBTLY FOR AMERICA TO LEAVE ITS REGION - AMERICA WILL NOT COMPLETELY LEAVE THE MIDDLE EAST OWING TO THE IMPERIAL COLONY CALLED ISRAEL - WHAT ISRAEL COULD DO TO MAKE THE REGION A BETTER PLACE FOR EVERYONE - BUT TRUMP'S "PEACE PLAN" GOES JUST THE OPPOSITE WAY WITH PALESTINIANS TREATED AS A HERD TO BE PENNED IN
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THE SAKER IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“U.S in the Middle-East: Preparing for Disaster”
I comment only on the portion of the article concerning Iran. The author does make a number of fairly sweeping claims about the United States in the Middle East with which I disagree (see my added comment at the bottom).
The American forces were warned by Iraq about the missile attack, Iraq having been warned by Iran. That was necessary for Iran to do because American bases in Iraq are typically inside Iraqi bases.
Clearly, the intention was no deaths of Americans.
The American forces all took cover in some kind of shelters.
But anytime you have high explosives going off near people in an enclosure, you have a formula for concussions.
I fully expect the nature of the American shelters contributed to the result of about fifty cases of concussion.
Maybe that explains Washington’s reticence to talk about it. The “boyz” were hurt by their own inadequate equipment?
I am sure Iran’s “message” to America with its precision missiles was received ‘loud and clear.” That also is a topic not discussed a lot in the mainline press and by politicians, the precision of Iran’s missile technology. Its precision and the huge quantity of missiles Iran has stocked in underground bunkers give the country a genuine deterrence against arbitrary attack, especially given such rich target fields as Israel itself and the region’s large American military bases.
As far as Iran's efforts to get the US to leave the region, I think it fair to say, "You ain't seen nothing yet."
The effort will be subtle and unattributable and sustained over a long period.
There can be no question that blundering American leadership, always under the tug of Israel, has opened a Pandora’s box by assassinating a national hero, doing so publicly, bragging and even joking about it.
After all, Iran has suffered unwarranted American hostility for forty years.
And before that, it was the victim of America's “man in the Mideast,” the brutal Shah of Iran, installed by coup. The charming Shah with his SAVAK secret police who quite regularly pulled out the fingernails of prisoners.
Perhaps no country in the region has been more mistreated by America. The abuse has always been intensified by the fact that Israel hates Iran, not out of any phony claims about atomic weapons but just because it represents such a large and influential country in a region Israel thinks it should dominate.
And there’s the irony, too, that the illegal invasion of Iraq, forcefully advocated by Aerial Sharon and America’s Neocons, had the unwanted side-effect of strengthening Iran in relative terms by removing Saddam who was a natural and ruthless opponent of Shia Muslim power.
The US also encouraged and supplied Saddam Hussein in the bloody Iraq-Iran War of 1980-88, including seeing that he was supplied with poison gas weapons Saddam used heavily to even the odds of Iraq’s much smaller population. About a million and a half people died in that terrible war, a war I’m sure most average Americans would not even be aware of.
And when an American warship, in the final year of the war, shot down an Iranian airliner (Iran Air Flight 655 with 290 people aboard) over Iran’s own territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz, something the US refused even to apologize for, the commander of the warship was awarded a medal. It really is difficult to imagine more deliberately insulting behavior.
The full tale of America’s decades-long abuse of Iran I think is not widely appreciated in America, but it certainly is part of the national consciousness in Iran.
____________________
"Empires can survive many things, but once they are not feared anymore, then their end is near."
While I agree with that generalization, I think the case is not made that the US isn't feared anymore.
Iran strikes me as an exceptional case, taking into account some of the history of America's relations with it and perhaps its own people's special qualities. Not a lot of nations have three thousand years of history.
The complete US presence in the Middle East cannot be ended so long as there is Israel, which is effectively a very privileged imperial colony, an American pied-à-terre, more than it is a truly independent country.
Many or most of its influential citizens are dual US citizens, and the country literally floats on a tide of both public and private American subsidies unprecedented in history.
Given the immense influence of the Israel lobby in the US, I don't think there is any prospect of Israel's being diminished.
However, it might be possible for Israel one day to come to its senses about the Palestinians and make genuine efforts for genuine peace, instead of trying to pen them in like a herd of cattle.
It must be demoralizing for many to endlessly treat millions of people as Israel treats the Palestinians.
I am sure, at the least, it gets tiresome, and indeed, what could be more tiresome than the Trump "peace plan," which is nothing more than a revival of Nationalist South Africa's discredited system? It even arrogantly judges the competence of millions of people to govern themselves, people who have a far longer history in the region than modern Israelis.
It will not happen, and the Palestinian population – roughly the same size as the population of Jewish people in Israel and growing – is not going away, as so many Israelis in the past thought they would if just treated badly enough for a long enough period. That is a formula that has utterly failed. It has failed in practical terms, but it failed from the start in moral or ethical terms.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/01/29/john-chuckman-comment-trumps-bizarre-peace-plan-for-the-middle-east-having-nothing-to-do-with-peace-and-dead-on-arrival-new-permanent-apartheid-arrangements-as-clear-and-unfair-as-those-of-old/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THE SAKER IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“U.S in the Middle-East: Preparing for Disaster”
I comment only on the portion of the article concerning Iran. The author does make a number of fairly sweeping claims about the United States in the Middle East with which I disagree (see my added comment at the bottom).
The American forces were warned by Iraq about the missile attack, Iraq having been warned by Iran. That was necessary for Iran to do because American bases in Iraq are typically inside Iraqi bases.
Clearly, the intention was no deaths of Americans.
The American forces all took cover in some kind of shelters.
But anytime you have high explosives going off near people in an enclosure, you have a formula for concussions.
I fully expect the nature of the American shelters contributed to the result of about fifty cases of concussion.
Maybe that explains Washington’s reticence to talk about it. The “boyz” were hurt by their own inadequate equipment?
I am sure Iran’s “message” to America with its precision missiles was received ‘loud and clear.” That also is a topic not discussed a lot in the mainline press and by politicians, the precision of Iran’s missile technology. Its precision and the huge quantity of missiles Iran has stocked in underground bunkers give the country a genuine deterrence against arbitrary attack, especially given such rich target fields as Israel itself and the region’s large American military bases.
As far as Iran's efforts to get the US to leave the region, I think it fair to say, "You ain't seen nothing yet."
The effort will be subtle and unattributable and sustained over a long period.
There can be no question that blundering American leadership, always under the tug of Israel, has opened a Pandora’s box by assassinating a national hero, doing so publicly, bragging and even joking about it.
After all, Iran has suffered unwarranted American hostility for forty years.
And before that, it was the victim of America's “man in the Mideast,” the brutal Shah of Iran, installed by coup. The charming Shah with his SAVAK secret police who quite regularly pulled out the fingernails of prisoners.
Perhaps no country in the region has been more mistreated by America. The abuse has always been intensified by the fact that Israel hates Iran, not out of any phony claims about atomic weapons but just because it represents such a large and influential country in a region Israel thinks it should dominate.
And there’s the irony, too, that the illegal invasion of Iraq, forcefully advocated by Aerial Sharon and America’s Neocons, had the unwanted side-effect of strengthening Iran in relative terms by removing Saddam who was a natural and ruthless opponent of Shia Muslim power.
The US also encouraged and supplied Saddam Hussein in the bloody Iraq-Iran War of 1980-88, including seeing that he was supplied with poison gas weapons Saddam used heavily to even the odds of Iraq’s much smaller population. About a million and a half people died in that terrible war, a war I’m sure most average Americans would not even be aware of.
And when an American warship, in the final year of the war, shot down an Iranian airliner (Iran Air Flight 655 with 290 people aboard) over Iran’s own territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz, something the US refused even to apologize for, the commander of the warship was awarded a medal. It really is difficult to imagine more deliberately insulting behavior.
The full tale of America’s decades-long abuse of Iran I think is not widely appreciated in America, but it certainly is part of the national consciousness in Iran.
____________________
"Empires can survive many things, but once they are not feared anymore, then their end is near."
While I agree with that generalization, I think the case is not made that the US isn't feared anymore.
Iran strikes me as an exceptional case, taking into account some of the history of America's relations with it and perhaps its own people's special qualities. Not a lot of nations have three thousand years of history.
The complete US presence in the Middle East cannot be ended so long as there is Israel, which is effectively a very privileged imperial colony, an American pied-à-terre, more than it is a truly independent country.
Many or most of its influential citizens are dual US citizens, and the country literally floats on a tide of both public and private American subsidies unprecedented in history.
Given the immense influence of the Israel lobby in the US, I don't think there is any prospect of Israel's being diminished.
However, it might be possible for Israel one day to come to its senses about the Palestinians and make genuine efforts for genuine peace, instead of trying to pen them in like a herd of cattle.
It must be demoralizing for many to endlessly treat millions of people as Israel treats the Palestinians.
I am sure, at the least, it gets tiresome, and indeed, what could be more tiresome than the Trump "peace plan," which is nothing more than a revival of Nationalist South Africa's discredited system? It even arrogantly judges the competence of millions of people to govern themselves, people who have a far longer history in the region than modern Israelis.
It will not happen, and the Palestinian population – roughly the same size as the population of Jewish people in Israel and growing – is not going away, as so many Israelis in the past thought they would if just treated badly enough for a long enough period. That is a formula that has utterly failed. It has failed in practical terms, but it failed from the start in moral or ethical terms.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/01/29/john-chuckman-comment-trumps-bizarre-peace-plan-for-the-middle-east-having-nothing-to-do-with-peace-and-dead-on-arrival-new-permanent-apartheid-arrangements-as-clear-and-unfair-as-those-of-old/
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S BIZARRE PEACE PLAN FOR THE MIDDLE EAST - IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PEACE AND IS DEAD ON ARRIVAL - ANOTHER STUNNING DIPLOMATIC EFFORT BY A MAN WITH A LONG LIST OF FAILURES - WINDOW-DRESSING FOR PERMANENT NEW APARTHEID ARRANGEMENTS AS SHAMELESS AND UNFAIR AS THOSE OF FORMER NATIONALIST SOUTH AFRICA
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON TRUMP’S BIZARRE PEACE PLAN FOR THE MIDDLE EAST
Jerusalem to be Israel’s “undivided” capital, but East Jerusalem is somehow also to be Palestine’s capital, an arrangement which sounds a bit like the Palestinians renting some retail store space in an Israeli Jerusalem shopping mall.
Trump’s foolish approach to foreign affairs is repeated in every major initiative he undertakes – North Korea, Iran, China, Venezuela, Syria or Iraq - and it is no less again in his “plan” for Israel and Palestine.
Trump glibly calls the plan “a two-state solution” and “a win-win.”
But how can something be a “two-state solution” when one of the “states” has not even been consulted?
Diplomacy always requires a thorough understanding of both sides in a conflict, listening to each of them about concerns and trying to discover a formula which works for both of them, but this is not what Trump has done. Not at all. Not even a pretense.
We have the plan’s formal announcement made with Trump in the smiling company of the leader of just one of the two ”states,” the one already holding all the power because it occupies the other.
We have the leader of the other “state,” the one being occupied, rejecting a plan he has had no role in creating right after it was announced. Rejecting it entirely.
Indeed, President Abbas said the Palestinians are ready to negotiate with Israel, but only under the auspices of the "Quartet," a set of international mediators which includes Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union.
The Palestinians will not negotiate in future with only the United States acting as mediator.
Abbas said the only way toward peace is to create a Palestinian state with borders from 1967 – that is, from before Israel’s conquest and occupation in a war - a consistent and fair demand made countless times in the past by many, including a few Israelis genuinely interested in peace, although there are not a great number of those because Israelis generally recognize that they are in control of the situation, and Trump only offers even more control. Israel’s decades of history have produced a national politics located almost exclusively on the Right.
If you look at maps of what Trump is proposing, what you see, unmistakably, is formalized apartheid. See the opening map here; https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/the-deal-of-the-century-is-apartheid/
The other “state,” the one now occupied, almost resembles an island chain, an archipelago, locked inside the boundaries of the primary “state.”
Every important power applicable to the island-chain “state” is held by the surrounding “state.”
The primary “state” actually gets to expand its territory at the expense of the island-chain ”state.”
The surrounding “state” gets to annex the Jordan Valley and many illegal Jewish communities inside the island-chain “state,” acts effectively fragmenting the island chain further still.
The surrounding “state” holds control of all borders, airspace, underground water, maritime authority, and even radio frequencies.
On the map, you see a geography superficially resembling some North American Indigenous reservations, undoubtedly a model some Americans working on the proposal had in mind.
The North American system of Indigenous reservations very roughly works, although only with many injustices suffered and outbreaks of violence over the years. It works at all largely because of the immense disparities in population size between island-chain and mainland populations.
But the Palestinians have just as large a population - perhaps now even somewhat larger owing to higher birthrates - as the Jewish people of Israel.
Palestinians also have many rights recognized internationally, both by major international organizations and by a great many individual countries. They do not stand completely on their own.
But there is another difference in Trump’s proposal from the structure of North American Indigenous reservations, one you cannot see on a map, and one that is profoundly important.
Residents of North American Indigenous reservations are full citizens of the huge country – the United States or Canada, as the case may be - which surrounds them. Full citizens, and free to travel anywhere.
The Palestinians are not to be citizens of Israel and are to have no rights of any kind there. And the meaning of citizenship even in their own designated areas is to so be so curtailed as to be close to meaningless. They get to vote for a government, their own, which governs almost nothing, and they cannot even freely travel between the broken bits of their island chain.
It is especially in this key detail that Trump’s proposal far more exactly resembles the infamous Bantustans of apartheid South Africa than North American Indigenous reservations.
The one consolation people who are concerned about justice have here is the fact that it was not many years after South Africa vigorously pursued its Bantustan “solution” that the entire apartheid house of cards collapsed from outside pressure.
Israel works very hard at preventing such pressure from abroad developing with its lobbies pressuring legislators to curtail freedom of speech (trying to conflate criticism of the public acts of a well-armed state with the superstitious beliefs of anti-Semitism) and freedom of association (by seriously penalizing advocacy for, or membership in, free-choice boycott movements, the very things that brought an end to South Africa’s once powerful apartheid arrangements). That may work for a time, but it so fundamentally unfair that it cannot provide a lasting foundation for a new apartheid.
It seems to me it would be so much easier for Israel to make a genuine effort at peace with its neighbors, something it has truly never done. All those millions of Palestinians are not going anywhere despite years of dreams and schemes in Israel to see them get up and leave.
ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT NOTE
The iffy provision for East Jerusalem becoming Palestine’s capital applies only “when the Palestinians have taken adequate steps towards becoming self-governing.”
The patronizing qualifier reflects Jared Kushner’s words last year about the Palestinians not being ready for self-government.
The words are certainly in keeping with a sense of Trump’s “plan” having nothing to do with peace. It is about establishing virtually perpetual apartheid.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT ADDITIONAL NOTE
Well, the mystery of how you can have both an undivided Israeli Jerusalem and a possible future Palestinian capital is solved.
Although Trump speaks of “East Jerusalem,” he is, as in so many matters, simply wrong. What the plan actually promises Palestinians as their capital, provided they earn it, is a place called Abu Dis. It is not part of East Jerusalem, and it is now separated from the Old City by an eight-meter high wall. An illegal one, of course. The place is a suburban village. So, my opening sarcasm about renting space for a capital in a mall may be no exaggeration.
This might represent the plan’s most gratuitous insult because Jerusalem is just as important, sacred, and historic to Palestinians as it is to Israelis, and in fact they have lived there many centuries longer than contemporary Israelis.
But it is hard to think of what could be a greater insult than telling millions of people they are not ready to govern themselves and must earn the right to do so. People who have had a society in the region for centuries before a re-creation of Israel was imposed on them.
If you spoke that way in America about any large group of people - say an ethnic group dominating a city or state - you would be regarded as bigoted and arrogant (as well as wind up in court). Those words, bigoted and arrogant, exactly describe the people promoting Trump’s plan.
COMMENT ON TRUMP’S BIZARRE PEACE PLAN FOR THE MIDDLE EAST
Jerusalem to be Israel’s “undivided” capital, but East Jerusalem is somehow also to be Palestine’s capital, an arrangement which sounds a bit like the Palestinians renting some retail store space in an Israeli Jerusalem shopping mall.
Trump’s foolish approach to foreign affairs is repeated in every major initiative he undertakes – North Korea, Iran, China, Venezuela, Syria or Iraq - and it is no less again in his “plan” for Israel and Palestine.
Trump glibly calls the plan “a two-state solution” and “a win-win.”
But how can something be a “two-state solution” when one of the “states” has not even been consulted?
Diplomacy always requires a thorough understanding of both sides in a conflict, listening to each of them about concerns and trying to discover a formula which works for both of them, but this is not what Trump has done. Not at all. Not even a pretense.
We have the plan’s formal announcement made with Trump in the smiling company of the leader of just one of the two ”states,” the one already holding all the power because it occupies the other.
We have the leader of the other “state,” the one being occupied, rejecting a plan he has had no role in creating right after it was announced. Rejecting it entirely.
Indeed, President Abbas said the Palestinians are ready to negotiate with Israel, but only under the auspices of the "Quartet," a set of international mediators which includes Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union.
The Palestinians will not negotiate in future with only the United States acting as mediator.
Abbas said the only way toward peace is to create a Palestinian state with borders from 1967 – that is, from before Israel’s conquest and occupation in a war - a consistent and fair demand made countless times in the past by many, including a few Israelis genuinely interested in peace, although there are not a great number of those because Israelis generally recognize that they are in control of the situation, and Trump only offers even more control. Israel’s decades of history have produced a national politics located almost exclusively on the Right.
If you look at maps of what Trump is proposing, what you see, unmistakably, is formalized apartheid. See the opening map here; https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/the-deal-of-the-century-is-apartheid/
The other “state,” the one now occupied, almost resembles an island chain, an archipelago, locked inside the boundaries of the primary “state.”
Every important power applicable to the island-chain “state” is held by the surrounding “state.”
The primary “state” actually gets to expand its territory at the expense of the island-chain ”state.”
The surrounding “state” gets to annex the Jordan Valley and many illegal Jewish communities inside the island-chain “state,” acts effectively fragmenting the island chain further still.
The surrounding “state” holds control of all borders, airspace, underground water, maritime authority, and even radio frequencies.
On the map, you see a geography superficially resembling some North American Indigenous reservations, undoubtedly a model some Americans working on the proposal had in mind.
The North American system of Indigenous reservations very roughly works, although only with many injustices suffered and outbreaks of violence over the years. It works at all largely because of the immense disparities in population size between island-chain and mainland populations.
But the Palestinians have just as large a population - perhaps now even somewhat larger owing to higher birthrates - as the Jewish people of Israel.
Palestinians also have many rights recognized internationally, both by major international organizations and by a great many individual countries. They do not stand completely on their own.
But there is another difference in Trump’s proposal from the structure of North American Indigenous reservations, one you cannot see on a map, and one that is profoundly important.
Residents of North American Indigenous reservations are full citizens of the huge country – the United States or Canada, as the case may be - which surrounds them. Full citizens, and free to travel anywhere.
The Palestinians are not to be citizens of Israel and are to have no rights of any kind there. And the meaning of citizenship even in their own designated areas is to so be so curtailed as to be close to meaningless. They get to vote for a government, their own, which governs almost nothing, and they cannot even freely travel between the broken bits of their island chain.
It is especially in this key detail that Trump’s proposal far more exactly resembles the infamous Bantustans of apartheid South Africa than North American Indigenous reservations.
The one consolation people who are concerned about justice have here is the fact that it was not many years after South Africa vigorously pursued its Bantustan “solution” that the entire apartheid house of cards collapsed from outside pressure.
Israel works very hard at preventing such pressure from abroad developing with its lobbies pressuring legislators to curtail freedom of speech (trying to conflate criticism of the public acts of a well-armed state with the superstitious beliefs of anti-Semitism) and freedom of association (by seriously penalizing advocacy for, or membership in, free-choice boycott movements, the very things that brought an end to South Africa’s once powerful apartheid arrangements). That may work for a time, but it so fundamentally unfair that it cannot provide a lasting foundation for a new apartheid.
It seems to me it would be so much easier for Israel to make a genuine effort at peace with its neighbors, something it has truly never done. All those millions of Palestinians are not going anywhere despite years of dreams and schemes in Israel to see them get up and leave.
ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT NOTE
The iffy provision for East Jerusalem becoming Palestine’s capital applies only “when the Palestinians have taken adequate steps towards becoming self-governing.”
The patronizing qualifier reflects Jared Kushner’s words last year about the Palestinians not being ready for self-government.
The words are certainly in keeping with a sense of Trump’s “plan” having nothing to do with peace. It is about establishing virtually perpetual apartheid.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT ADDITIONAL NOTE
Well, the mystery of how you can have both an undivided Israeli Jerusalem and a possible future Palestinian capital is solved.
Although Trump speaks of “East Jerusalem,” he is, as in so many matters, simply wrong. What the plan actually promises Palestinians as their capital, provided they earn it, is a place called Abu Dis. It is not part of East Jerusalem, and it is now separated from the Old City by an eight-meter high wall. An illegal one, of course. The place is a suburban village. So, my opening sarcasm about renting space for a capital in a mall may be no exaggeration.
This might represent the plan’s most gratuitous insult because Jerusalem is just as important, sacred, and historic to Palestinians as it is to Israelis, and in fact they have lived there many centuries longer than contemporary Israelis.
But it is hard to think of what could be a greater insult than telling millions of people they are not ready to govern themselves and must earn the right to do so. People who have had a society in the region for centuries before a re-creation of Israel was imposed on them.
If you spoke that way in America about any large group of people - say an ethnic group dominating a city or state - you would be regarded as bigoted and arrogant (as well as wind up in court). Those words, bigoted and arrogant, exactly describe the people promoting Trump’s plan.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON BREXIT - FORCES BEHIND IT - SOME PROSPECTS FOR BRITAIN, THE EU, AND THE UNITED STATES - BRITAIN HOPES TO PLAY ROBIN TO AMERICA'S BATMAN - EUROPE, WITHOUT BRITAIN'S STEADY PULL TOWARDS AMERICA, SHOULD LOOK EAST WHERE THE FUTURE REALLY LIES - AMERICA CANNOT FREE ITSELF FROM THE SELF-IMPOSED PRISON OF A MILITARY/SECURITY STATE CREATED FOR EMPIRE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GUILLAUME DUROCHER IN UNZ REVIEW
“Brexit Happening: Charles de Gaulle, Noted Anglo-Skeptic, Vindicated Beyond the Grave”
"In short, De Gaulle accused the British of being a kind of American Trojan Horse . . . and who could blame him?"
In that particular view, De Gaulle was ahead of his time for sure. He was a man with a number of deep insights, including his views on NATO, views which unfortunately Europe has drifted away from.
British membership represented a great strengthening of the EU. But that was never allowed to develop as fully as it should have. Britain’s classic island-bound xenophobia and feelings of special stature owing to its past world empire always were burrs under the saddle.
I believe Britain's xenophobes and those who still regard Britain as special owing to its history plus a government thoughtless enough to hold a referendum on so complex a matter, David Cameron's, are directly responsible for BREXIT. I do think Cameron was regretful about his own blundering. After all, it was the Conservatives, under Edward Heath, who struggled to get Britain admitted. And who wants a legacy of having destroyed something important?
In general, the powerful positive effects of a large economic union are things Conservatives tend to value highly. But the “small island” and “great empire” attitudes and feelings always were in conflict with the economic vision.
Europe’s relative decline in the world’s economy – owing largely to the same causes as America’s relative decline, the strong emergence of new competitors - undoubtedly has encouraged Britain’s establishment to want to leave. The EU’s tendency to create elaborate regulations in many aspects of society also has very much played a role. It is an odd tendency given the EU’s lack of cohesiveness in many matters, such as the Euro. Perhaps in part, regulation represents a kind of substitute or ersatz unity.
I'm sure the Conservatives in Britain were quietly encouraged every step of the way by American officials with visions of "the special relationship" coming to a new prominence in the world. Some people in Britain are inordinately and foolishly proud of that ”relationship,” which in reality means little beyond American insider influence, something now likely to much increase as Britain seeks new trade arrangements and a new role in the world, in both of which America must feature large.
America’s own vision of itself has changed over forty years, and all pieces on the gameboard are now used somewhat differently than they were. America, recognizing its own relative decline, is now a decidedly more desperate and aggressive imperial power. And that reality, unfortunately, is what Britain is hitching itself up to. Conservatives in Britain likely view themselves as having a new world importance teamed up with America, but their ability to influence the team will be close to non-existent. They will have traded disliked EU regulation for America’s shameless and destructive bullying, as it now descends literally to terrorizing states it regards as opponents.
Of course, Britain has its own share of bullies, and indeed, it now is led by one. They are the people who see a new role for Britain in the world alongside the United States, playing Robin to America’s Batman.
America is on a tear worldwide to do whatever it can to bolster its imperial status and stop its relative economic decline. It has become frenetic at the effort. And dangerous.
So, Britain’s leaving the EU has, forty years later, become something De Gaulle feared. BREXIT does seem to open a path for other European states with fears and insecurities to launch “leave” movements. The EU is much weakened at a time it needs to be strengthened, and America’s establishment can only try hiding its smile.
The EU always has had the potential to rival and outshine America, but the EU has weakened itself over time by admitting too many countries, and certainly too many of limited economic consequence. There were a few too many visionary views of what the EU could be as it expanded and not enough practical ones.
After all, that's what NATO is really about, keeping Europe effectively occupied and tied up with many obligations not in its own long-term interest, including obligations to buy American products and support American schemes in other parts of the world.
And the Europeans have for various reasons – from old WWII sentiments to Russo-phobia in former Eastern Bloc states - obligingly gone along. Europe still has some illusions about America, although Trump is certainly working hard to snuff them out. America’s narrow selfishness is entering Europe’s consciousness now, at least in the old and stronger parts of the EU. Some now see what De Gaulle saw.
Divide and conquer is always a principle used by empires abroad.
‘Anyway, Britain’s departure from the European Union opens the way for the Continentals to try, a bit more earnestly, to create a truly sovereign and independent “European Europe.”’
That is an encouraging thought, but there are so many things working against it, and those things certainly include the United States, which never wants to see a united, strong European state emerge as a competitor.
But I think the loss of Britain does represent at least one clear gain for Europe. It now should become easier for Europe to direct more attention towards Russia and China and Eurasia in general, and that is where the future lies.
The United States cannot realistically escape the prison it has constructed for itself with its massive military/security state required for empire, and that prison makes a far more unhappy place than Europe’s regulations.
There is too, unquestionably, a kind of smallness in the American vision to which Britain is attaching itself – ethical, moral, and inspirational smallness - and over the long term, small visions have no power.
ADDED NOTE REGARDING A STRONG STATEMENT MADE BY THE EU’S CHIEF NEGOTIATOR
“EU warns Boris Johnson that trying to use threat of US trade deal in ‘bidding war’ after Brexit will fail”
‘Michel Barnier [EU’s chief negotiator] also suggests UK will never earn the same ‘respect’ from US and China outside EU”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-us-trade-deal-brexit-trump-eu-michael-barnier9302571.h-atmler
Michel Barnier’s statement is close to perfect.
I like his “plans for 10 negotiating tables for the huge task ahead,” the fact that ‘border checks on goods will “become the norm” after Brexit,’ and that ‘a no-deal Brexit remained a “risk” at the end of 2020.’
Johnson and some of his gang may well have had intentions here.
After all, Johnson, like Trump, has the personality of a bully, just expressed in the tones of an Eton accent.
Who knows, it ain’t over ’til it’s over. The EU might look a little more attractive after some grueling negotiations and no special gains.
Readers may enjoy some earlier thoughts on the subject:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/11/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-great-often-unseen-danger-of-brexit-a-comprehensive-trade-deal-with-trumps-america-that-would-destroy-many-aspects-of-british-society/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GUILLAUME DUROCHER IN UNZ REVIEW
“Brexit Happening: Charles de Gaulle, Noted Anglo-Skeptic, Vindicated Beyond the Grave”
"In short, De Gaulle accused the British of being a kind of American Trojan Horse . . . and who could blame him?"
In that particular view, De Gaulle was ahead of his time for sure. He was a man with a number of deep insights, including his views on NATO, views which unfortunately Europe has drifted away from.
British membership represented a great strengthening of the EU. But that was never allowed to develop as fully as it should have. Britain’s classic island-bound xenophobia and feelings of special stature owing to its past world empire always were burrs under the saddle.
I believe Britain's xenophobes and those who still regard Britain as special owing to its history plus a government thoughtless enough to hold a referendum on so complex a matter, David Cameron's, are directly responsible for BREXIT. I do think Cameron was regretful about his own blundering. After all, it was the Conservatives, under Edward Heath, who struggled to get Britain admitted. And who wants a legacy of having destroyed something important?
In general, the powerful positive effects of a large economic union are things Conservatives tend to value highly. But the “small island” and “great empire” attitudes and feelings always were in conflict with the economic vision.
Europe’s relative decline in the world’s economy – owing largely to the same causes as America’s relative decline, the strong emergence of new competitors - undoubtedly has encouraged Britain’s establishment to want to leave. The EU’s tendency to create elaborate regulations in many aspects of society also has very much played a role. It is an odd tendency given the EU’s lack of cohesiveness in many matters, such as the Euro. Perhaps in part, regulation represents a kind of substitute or ersatz unity.
I'm sure the Conservatives in Britain were quietly encouraged every step of the way by American officials with visions of "the special relationship" coming to a new prominence in the world. Some people in Britain are inordinately and foolishly proud of that ”relationship,” which in reality means little beyond American insider influence, something now likely to much increase as Britain seeks new trade arrangements and a new role in the world, in both of which America must feature large.
America’s own vision of itself has changed over forty years, and all pieces on the gameboard are now used somewhat differently than they were. America, recognizing its own relative decline, is now a decidedly more desperate and aggressive imperial power. And that reality, unfortunately, is what Britain is hitching itself up to. Conservatives in Britain likely view themselves as having a new world importance teamed up with America, but their ability to influence the team will be close to non-existent. They will have traded disliked EU regulation for America’s shameless and destructive bullying, as it now descends literally to terrorizing states it regards as opponents.
Of course, Britain has its own share of bullies, and indeed, it now is led by one. They are the people who see a new role for Britain in the world alongside the United States, playing Robin to America’s Batman.
America is on a tear worldwide to do whatever it can to bolster its imperial status and stop its relative economic decline. It has become frenetic at the effort. And dangerous.
So, Britain’s leaving the EU has, forty years later, become something De Gaulle feared. BREXIT does seem to open a path for other European states with fears and insecurities to launch “leave” movements. The EU is much weakened at a time it needs to be strengthened, and America’s establishment can only try hiding its smile.
The EU always has had the potential to rival and outshine America, but the EU has weakened itself over time by admitting too many countries, and certainly too many of limited economic consequence. There were a few too many visionary views of what the EU could be as it expanded and not enough practical ones.
After all, that's what NATO is really about, keeping Europe effectively occupied and tied up with many obligations not in its own long-term interest, including obligations to buy American products and support American schemes in other parts of the world.
And the Europeans have for various reasons – from old WWII sentiments to Russo-phobia in former Eastern Bloc states - obligingly gone along. Europe still has some illusions about America, although Trump is certainly working hard to snuff them out. America’s narrow selfishness is entering Europe’s consciousness now, at least in the old and stronger parts of the EU. Some now see what De Gaulle saw.
Divide and conquer is always a principle used by empires abroad.
‘Anyway, Britain’s departure from the European Union opens the way for the Continentals to try, a bit more earnestly, to create a truly sovereign and independent “European Europe.”’
That is an encouraging thought, but there are so many things working against it, and those things certainly include the United States, which never wants to see a united, strong European state emerge as a competitor.
But I think the loss of Britain does represent at least one clear gain for Europe. It now should become easier for Europe to direct more attention towards Russia and China and Eurasia in general, and that is where the future lies.
The United States cannot realistically escape the prison it has constructed for itself with its massive military/security state required for empire, and that prison makes a far more unhappy place than Europe’s regulations.
There is too, unquestionably, a kind of smallness in the American vision to which Britain is attaching itself – ethical, moral, and inspirational smallness - and over the long term, small visions have no power.
ADDED NOTE REGARDING A STRONG STATEMENT MADE BY THE EU’S CHIEF NEGOTIATOR
“EU warns Boris Johnson that trying to use threat of US trade deal in ‘bidding war’ after Brexit will fail”
‘Michel Barnier [EU’s chief negotiator] also suggests UK will never earn the same ‘respect’ from US and China outside EU”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-us-trade-deal-brexit-trump-eu-michael-barnier9302571.h-atmler
Michel Barnier’s statement is close to perfect.
I like his “plans for 10 negotiating tables for the huge task ahead,” the fact that ‘border checks on goods will “become the norm” after Brexit,’ and that ‘a no-deal Brexit remained a “risk” at the end of 2020.’
Johnson and some of his gang may well have had intentions here.
After all, Johnson, like Trump, has the personality of a bully, just expressed in the tones of an Eton accent.
Who knows, it ain’t over ’til it’s over. The EU might look a little more attractive after some grueling negotiations and no special gains.
Readers may enjoy some earlier thoughts on the subject:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/11/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-great-often-unseen-danger-of-brexit-a-comprehensive-trade-deal-with-trumps-america-that-would-destroy-many-aspects-of-british-society/
Saturday, January 25, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DANISH PRIME MINISTER TRAVELS TO ISRAEL FOR HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE - BUT HER PURPOSE IS ACTUALLY SOMETHING ELSE AND RATHER DARK - THE HOLOCAUST WAS EUROPEAN AND HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MIDDLE EAST - SOMETHING PEOPLE LOSE SIGHT OF - ISRAEL HOLDS THE MEMORY CAPTIVE FOR ITS OWN PURPOSES OF EXPLOITING AND ABUSING OTHERS
John Chuckman
OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHON OFIR IN MONDOWEISS
“Denmark’s Prime Minister goes to Israel and uses the Holocaust to incite against immigrants”
“There is an ugly anti-Semitism in Denmark today, which wasn’t there earlier. Because of immigration” [Title given an interview with the Prime Minister]
https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/denmarks-prime-minister-goes-to-israel-and-uses-the-holocaust-to-incite-against-immigrants/comment-page-1/?unapproved=962938&moderation-hash=baf292d05b8cb399860b14d82058bfc1#comment-
The Holocaust, of course, had nothing to do with the Middle East, either contemporary or Biblical, but modern Israel holds it as a valuable and useful captive for its purposes of control and abuse of others.
(The Holocaust was an event involving two groups of Germanic Europeans, the Ashkenazi Jews who spoke a dialect of German, Yiddish, and many other Germans who were anti-Semitic and turned to Nazism in despair over effects of the WWI Versailles Treaty and the Great Depression.)
The Danish Prime Minister is doing the same thing Israel does, only for her own purposes, which are considerably less than heroic or admirable.
But, then, we have so many blurred and confused situations in the world today. So much of our geopolitical environment is manufactured.
And that fact simply reflects the impact of America's postwar global drive for empire, not exactly one of the world's great causes or projects for human and democratic rights
Quite the opposite, indeed. Empires suppress others. They could not exist otherwise.
And what is contemporary Israel but a highly privileged American imperial colony in the Middle East?
OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHON OFIR IN MONDOWEISS
“Denmark’s Prime Minister goes to Israel and uses the Holocaust to incite against immigrants”
“There is an ugly anti-Semitism in Denmark today, which wasn’t there earlier. Because of immigration” [Title given an interview with the Prime Minister]
https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/denmarks-prime-minister-goes-to-israel-and-uses-the-holocaust-to-incite-against-immigrants/comment-page-1/?unapproved=962938&moderation-hash=baf292d05b8cb399860b14d82058bfc1#comment-
The Holocaust, of course, had nothing to do with the Middle East, either contemporary or Biblical, but modern Israel holds it as a valuable and useful captive for its purposes of control and abuse of others.
(The Holocaust was an event involving two groups of Germanic Europeans, the Ashkenazi Jews who spoke a dialect of German, Yiddish, and many other Germans who were anti-Semitic and turned to Nazism in despair over effects of the WWI Versailles Treaty and the Great Depression.)
The Danish Prime Minister is doing the same thing Israel does, only for her own purposes, which are considerably less than heroic or admirable.
But, then, we have so many blurred and confused situations in the world today. So much of our geopolitical environment is manufactured.
And that fact simply reflects the impact of America's postwar global drive for empire, not exactly one of the world's great causes or projects for human and democratic rights
Quite the opposite, indeed. Empires suppress others. They could not exist otherwise.
And what is contemporary Israel but a highly privileged American imperial colony in the Middle East?
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CHINA'S CLAIMS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA AND ITS FORTIFIED ISLANDS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GREGORY POLING IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (NOW RENAMED AS ANTI-EMPIRE)
“The Pentagon Is Seriously Underestimating the Value of Beijing’s South China Sea Bases”
_____________________
Response to comment saying the author does not give Xi the credit he deserves for being a master planner
Indeed, that is so true.
And it is important to note that the Chinese do not claim exclusive use of waters in the South China Sea.
America's aggressive “Freedom of Navigation” displays tend to imply that China is interested in limiting passage through the waters, but as with so many claims from the United States anymore – eg, murdering Iran’s General Soleimani was “restoring deterrence” – the words are meaningless, just stuff to blur reality.
Except for foreign warships and regulated economic activities - say, commercial fishing or oil drilling, breaking Chinese regulations - that is not true. China has committed to peace in the region and promised to negotiate all disputes with any neighboring country. It promises to maintain services such as rescue at sea.
This is one of world's busiest commercial waterways with a third of all the world’s shipping passing through it.
The Chinese are claiming to be owners of two island chains and the resident regulators and defenders of all legitimate activities around them. That is in keeping with some other maritime situations in the world. It is important to have a single legitimate set of rules governing such places.
The Chinese have a couple of thousand years in the region plus documents from the close of WWII giving them authority over islands the Japanese had occupied, the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. The Spratly and Paracel Islands were occupied by Japan during the war.
China’s activities on the fortified islands very much also reflect concerns for the defence of southern China’s coast. They effectively have moved some coastal defences out to sea, dispersing them, making attack much more difficult for an aggressive United States. I tend to think of the fortified islands as a permanent small fleet of aircraft carriers and multi-function warships.
It is, after all, an outsider to the region, the United States, which maintains an intimidating military presence around China’s maritime perimeter, from the Philippines to South Korea and Japan.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GREGORY POLING IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (NOW RENAMED AS ANTI-EMPIRE)
“The Pentagon Is Seriously Underestimating the Value of Beijing’s South China Sea Bases”
_____________________
Response to comment saying the author does not give Xi the credit he deserves for being a master planner
Indeed, that is so true.
And it is important to note that the Chinese do not claim exclusive use of waters in the South China Sea.
America's aggressive “Freedom of Navigation” displays tend to imply that China is interested in limiting passage through the waters, but as with so many claims from the United States anymore – eg, murdering Iran’s General Soleimani was “restoring deterrence” – the words are meaningless, just stuff to blur reality.
Except for foreign warships and regulated economic activities - say, commercial fishing or oil drilling, breaking Chinese regulations - that is not true. China has committed to peace in the region and promised to negotiate all disputes with any neighboring country. It promises to maintain services such as rescue at sea.
This is one of world's busiest commercial waterways with a third of all the world’s shipping passing through it.
The Chinese are claiming to be owners of two island chains and the resident regulators and defenders of all legitimate activities around them. That is in keeping with some other maritime situations in the world. It is important to have a single legitimate set of rules governing such places.
The Chinese have a couple of thousand years in the region plus documents from the close of WWII giving them authority over islands the Japanese had occupied, the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. The Spratly and Paracel Islands were occupied by Japan during the war.
China’s activities on the fortified islands very much also reflect concerns for the defence of southern China’s coast. They effectively have moved some coastal defences out to sea, dispersing them, making attack much more difficult for an aggressive United States. I tend to think of the fortified islands as a permanent small fleet of aircraft carriers and multi-function warships.
It is, after all, an outsider to the region, the United States, which maintains an intimidating military presence around China’s maritime perimeter, from the Philippines to South Korea and Japan.
Friday, January 24, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A HEAVY DOSE OF SARCASM, WELL EARNED, FOR BRITAIN'S GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“The New Russian Government, A much-needed evolution but not a revolution”
___________________
Response to a comment which referred to the Guardian newspaper as very “left wing”
The Guardian is a terrible newspaper nowadays.
But it is not accurate to describe it as “left wing,” not at all.
Using that description is playing the Guardian’s own game.
The newspaper uses a great deal of window dressing that makes it appear “leftish” and progressive, features and filler material about minorities and women and the unfortunate. I suppose it’s intended to connect with the newspaper’s historic past and to provide a kind of sugar coating for what it truly advocates.
The Guardian’s heart and soul are pretty close to Tory in spirit. That is revealed through its choice of news stories covered, the slant given the stories, its editorials, the various public figures given regular favorable publicity, and even its highly-controlled and restrictive comment policies. Liberals don’t censor. The Guardian does, heavily.
It virtually led the howling mob attacking Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, and it used some really underhanded techniques, like running little human-interest items about British Jews who were afraid and were going to leave Britain to take up residence somewhere else. It did this several times in the course of its campaign. Once, the person’s destination was even Germany. Of course, any Jewish person who had anything unpleasant to say about Corbyn was given space to say it.
The paper raised no objections to direct interference in British domestic politics by several Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, who chimed in on Corbyn and anti-Semitism, and he was even mistaken in the facts he cited.
The Guardian is staunchly pro-Israel and pro-American empire, the two, of course, being tightly associated.
The Guardian has supported all of America’s bloody Neocon Wars and coups. It never raises any doubts or questions about matters like the externally-induced horrors in Syria. President Assad is always treated with disdain. Syria, in the Guardian’s manufactured reality, uses poison gas against its own people and deserves cruise missile attacks.
It has no problem with America’s torrent of invective and threats and sanctions against Iran, a country which has done in fact nothing wrong. It has no problem with severe war-like sanctions being used against tens of millions of innocent people to cause starvation and to deprive them of medications, vicious actions taken by the United States against Iran and Venezuela.
It despises Putin and Russia. It literally sometimes prints gutter-quality literature on those topics. It stands shoulder-to-shoulder with those who insist Putin has virtually invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea. And of course, he or his henchmen shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine, even though the Prime Minister of Malaysia says that is not the case.
It has no problem with NATO, closely under American direction, running tanks up against the Russian border, sending risky, intrusive spy flights towards Russian airspace, doing armed cruises on the Black Sea, and carrying on with large-scale practice sea battles in the Baltic.
As far as The Guardian is concerned, the Salisbury Skripal Affair with Putin directly responsible for it - that indigestible mass of Theresa May accusations containing not a single proven fact - is a settled matter of history. It occasionally makes an effort to warm up the kettle, burning new bits flogged by security service outlets.
The Guardian played a sizable role in building up the public-relations image of that good friend of Netanyahu’s, the tyrant Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He was to be a dynamic and progressive new force in the Middle East. It even used chirpy little features about a few upper-class women being allowed to drive now to emphasize his fine qualities between executions, kidnappings, and launching wars.
It has attacked and lied about Julian Assange, one of the truest heroes of our time and a great investigative reporter/editor. But you see, Assange’s work works against America’s appalling injustices, and that just isn’t allowed. And it worked against candidate Hillary Clinton, world’s leading purveyor of Russophobia, killer of Libyans and Syrians as Secretary of State, and a favorite of Guardian editors.
I could cite many examples of how dreadful the Guardian has become, but here is my favorite:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/john-chuckman-comment-absurd-lengths-to-which-our-press-goes-to-attack-russia-britains-guardian-holds-hate-russia-day-today-some-of-its-stuff-is-so-ham-fisted-it-reads-like-1959-
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“The New Russian Government, A much-needed evolution but not a revolution”
___________________
Response to a comment which referred to the Guardian newspaper as very “left wing”
The Guardian is a terrible newspaper nowadays.
But it is not accurate to describe it as “left wing,” not at all.
Using that description is playing the Guardian’s own game.
The newspaper uses a great deal of window dressing that makes it appear “leftish” and progressive, features and filler material about minorities and women and the unfortunate. I suppose it’s intended to connect with the newspaper’s historic past and to provide a kind of sugar coating for what it truly advocates.
The Guardian’s heart and soul are pretty close to Tory in spirit. That is revealed through its choice of news stories covered, the slant given the stories, its editorials, the various public figures given regular favorable publicity, and even its highly-controlled and restrictive comment policies. Liberals don’t censor. The Guardian does, heavily.
It virtually led the howling mob attacking Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, and it used some really underhanded techniques, like running little human-interest items about British Jews who were afraid and were going to leave Britain to take up residence somewhere else. It did this several times in the course of its campaign. Once, the person’s destination was even Germany. Of course, any Jewish person who had anything unpleasant to say about Corbyn was given space to say it.
The paper raised no objections to direct interference in British domestic politics by several Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, who chimed in on Corbyn and anti-Semitism, and he was even mistaken in the facts he cited.
The Guardian is staunchly pro-Israel and pro-American empire, the two, of course, being tightly associated.
The Guardian has supported all of America’s bloody Neocon Wars and coups. It never raises any doubts or questions about matters like the externally-induced horrors in Syria. President Assad is always treated with disdain. Syria, in the Guardian’s manufactured reality, uses poison gas against its own people and deserves cruise missile attacks.
It has no problem with America’s torrent of invective and threats and sanctions against Iran, a country which has done in fact nothing wrong. It has no problem with severe war-like sanctions being used against tens of millions of innocent people to cause starvation and to deprive them of medications, vicious actions taken by the United States against Iran and Venezuela.
It despises Putin and Russia. It literally sometimes prints gutter-quality literature on those topics. It stands shoulder-to-shoulder with those who insist Putin has virtually invaded Ukraine and seized Crimea. And of course, he or his henchmen shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine, even though the Prime Minister of Malaysia says that is not the case.
It has no problem with NATO, closely under American direction, running tanks up against the Russian border, sending risky, intrusive spy flights towards Russian airspace, doing armed cruises on the Black Sea, and carrying on with large-scale practice sea battles in the Baltic.
As far as The Guardian is concerned, the Salisbury Skripal Affair with Putin directly responsible for it - that indigestible mass of Theresa May accusations containing not a single proven fact - is a settled matter of history. It occasionally makes an effort to warm up the kettle, burning new bits flogged by security service outlets.
The Guardian played a sizable role in building up the public-relations image of that good friend of Netanyahu’s, the tyrant Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He was to be a dynamic and progressive new force in the Middle East. It even used chirpy little features about a few upper-class women being allowed to drive now to emphasize his fine qualities between executions, kidnappings, and launching wars.
It has attacked and lied about Julian Assange, one of the truest heroes of our time and a great investigative reporter/editor. But you see, Assange’s work works against America’s appalling injustices, and that just isn’t allowed. And it worked against candidate Hillary Clinton, world’s leading purveyor of Russophobia, killer of Libyans and Syrians as Secretary of State, and a favorite of Guardian editors.
I could cite many examples of how dreadful the Guardian has become, but here is my favorite:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/john-chuckman-comment-absurd-lengths-to-which-our-press-goes-to-attack-russia-britains-guardian-holds-hate-russia-day-today-some-of-its-stuff-is-so-ham-fisted-it-reads-like-1959-
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE NATURE OF AMERICAN IMPEACHMENT - A POLITICAL ACT DESPITE BEING SET BY A RIGID CONSTITUTION - SOME OF THE CONSTITUTION'S MANY SHORTCOMINGS - ITS AUTHORS HAD LITTLE INSIGHT INTO THE COUNTRY'S FUTURE - HUGE UNANTICIPATED IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL PARTIES - CONSTITUTION OFTEN IGNORED BY WASHINGTON, ESPECIALLY WHERE RIGHTS ARE CONCERNED - HOW EMPIRE HAS DESTROYED LIMITS ON PRESIDENTIAL POWER - HOW AMERICA'S POLITICAL CULTURE OF EVERYONE HAVING THEIR OWN TRUTHS SUPPORTS POLITICAL IMPEACHMENT - AMERICA'S VIGOROUS WORK TOWARDS CREATING WORLD CHAOS
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Trump lauds U.S. economy at Davos as trial set to begin in Washington”
It cannot be stressed enough that American impeachment is largely a political act. I’ve written that before, but here is some background to support the claim.
Impeachment was not carefully designed by the Constitution's authors. They offered only a sketchy outline, perhaps naively believing that the provision would never be required in the brave new world they thought they were creating.
It is in fact just one of many instances where the American Constitution has proved inadequate or outdated in a complex modern world. For it is a world unlike anything the authors could imagine, a point which goes to the difficulty of writing constitutions intended to last for centuries. The Constitution is amendable, but only with much difficulty, a deliberate “safety” feature, but not one well suited to a rapidly changing world.
Its inflexibility in general terms has however never really stopped determined American governments from doing most of the nasty things they want to do. What is the most important part of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, has been ignored or trampled countless times. At least in part that reflects the fact that it costs a lot of money to bring a case before the Supreme Court. That is another of the Constitution’s weaknesses, justice often depends on money.
But it is not just in matters of citizens’ rights that the Constitution is often effectively ignored. American Presidents, now virtually on their own, decide to commit acts of war (the assassination of a foreign leader, for example, or mass missile launches against a country presumed to have crossed some “redline”). Perhaps they briefly consult key members of Congress, but that’s not what the Constitution says you must do for acts of war.
And now, much in the fashion of Roman emperors, American Presidents use Executive Orders to do many of the things they want to do, behavior that is about as far as you can go from the Constitution’s rules. The Founders likely would have been horrified by the term, Executive Order. But, just as with acts of war, the Congress accommodates the President. Much of the “unconstitutional” behavior reflects the fact of America’s global empire and its often exigent needs. It simply is not how the country was designed to operate.
Of course, with a population of more than 330 million and growing, the concept of single set of judges established in Washington near the time of the first American census of 1790, to serve a population of 3.9 million, also has inherent problems. And the world has only grown more litigious and infinitely more complex.
The Founders hoped, perhaps, in a time closely following the Enlightenment with all its new political and scientific attitudes, to create something concise and fundamental in the Constitution – architecture’s Mies van der Rohe’s “less is more” - with no extra baggage, but for various reasons, I believe they did not succeed. Constitutions don’t work quite the same way as general scientific principles. They govern dynamic and growing and changing societies – living things.
Where any rule or process is not precisely defined, an intensely political environment always works to shape and manipulate it. In Washington, everything becomes politicized, literally everything, right down to what in normal life would be dull process, such as budgeting. And so it is with impeachment.
There were no true political parties in early America, but there sure are now. They are gigantic and powerful corporations such as the Founders could not have imagined, taking in vast sums of money, and all of American political life revolves around them.
(Perhaps, more precisely put, that would be all of American political life, including the parties, revolves around money, but that gets us into a different topic, one I’ve discussed elsewhere, but it is again something which was not anticipated.)
It is no coincidence that all the impeachment trials have occurred in the modern era, the earliest being Andrew Johnson in 1868, a few years after the Civil War, a time of great partisanship and party loyalties.
Trump, Clinton, and Nixon (who resigned, under advice, rather than endure a vote) are all in the late modern era. More than one politician remarked that Clinton’s impeachment represented a wish by Republicans to get even over Nixon’s impeachment, an observation which again goes to impeachment’s political nature.
The Founders could not have imagined America’s set of relationships with the world two centuries after their work. That America would come to displace the Redcoats and Hessians who represented in American eyes a global tyranny called the British Parliament. What Trump is accused of having done, and I certainly believe he did, could not even have occurred in early America.
If Impeachment is largely political in nature, claims on all sides can be "right," and it comes down to who has the votes. There is no precise body of law and only a small, generalized list of charges to which to refer. The Constitution offers as an impeachment “penal code” only the words, "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors," with the last part not even defined.
By the way, “all sides being right” rather nicely fits in with America’s prevailing political culture where all sides have their own truths, and there are no verities or universally accepted authorities. There is no truth, only sets of attitudes.
Trump's just-developed line of defense has been summed up as "abuse of power is not impeachable." That may even be legally and technically correct. But of course, for the rest of world, it is a ridiculous and dangerous-sounding proposition, especially when it concerns such a powerful country as America, yet some very prominent lawyers in Washington are saying it.
I do think that gives us a terrible insight into what a cloudcuckooland America has become. In the most powerful country in the world, abuse of power may not be considered impeachable.
It's not just Trump, loud and extremely rude as he is. Others have enabled him, powerful Americans contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to his campaign war chest, which is filled to overflowing for the next election, and tens of millions of ordinary Americans voted for him. America just may be a ruder, more uncouth place than many appreciate.
It does seem the country is almost incapable of rational behavior anymore. The rule of law, that most fundamental building block of all civil society, is ignored by American leaders. Assassinations have become common practice, as have threats and aggressive wars and engineered coups. Sanctions, which are American laws which should apply only to Americans, are applied to all the world’s people, hurting tens of millions of innocents.
Constant lies are required to cover or attempt to explain away all of the criminal behavior. International trade and economic relationships are being destroyed by trying to put America first, ahead of all others. International treaties and agreements are being destroyed (the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, the Outer Space Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty and Strategic Arms Treaty with Russia are under threat) simply because America does not want to be bound by them. International organizations are being attacked or undermined – the UN (the US owes more than a billion dollars in back dues and often breaks its solemn treaty obligation to issue visas to leaders needing to come to New York), UNESCO (the US simply quit), the ICC (whose judges were openly threatened by a high American official), the WTO, the IJC, the OPCW, etc., etc.
International chaos is being actively promoted by Trump and much of the American political establishment. I only wish an impeachment conviction could halt or seriously impair those efforts, but I fear that it cannot.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Trump lauds U.S. economy at Davos as trial set to begin in Washington”
It cannot be stressed enough that American impeachment is largely a political act. I’ve written that before, but here is some background to support the claim.
Impeachment was not carefully designed by the Constitution's authors. They offered only a sketchy outline, perhaps naively believing that the provision would never be required in the brave new world they thought they were creating.
It is in fact just one of many instances where the American Constitution has proved inadequate or outdated in a complex modern world. For it is a world unlike anything the authors could imagine, a point which goes to the difficulty of writing constitutions intended to last for centuries. The Constitution is amendable, but only with much difficulty, a deliberate “safety” feature, but not one well suited to a rapidly changing world.
Its inflexibility in general terms has however never really stopped determined American governments from doing most of the nasty things they want to do. What is the most important part of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, has been ignored or trampled countless times. At least in part that reflects the fact that it costs a lot of money to bring a case before the Supreme Court. That is another of the Constitution’s weaknesses, justice often depends on money.
But it is not just in matters of citizens’ rights that the Constitution is often effectively ignored. American Presidents, now virtually on their own, decide to commit acts of war (the assassination of a foreign leader, for example, or mass missile launches against a country presumed to have crossed some “redline”). Perhaps they briefly consult key members of Congress, but that’s not what the Constitution says you must do for acts of war.
And now, much in the fashion of Roman emperors, American Presidents use Executive Orders to do many of the things they want to do, behavior that is about as far as you can go from the Constitution’s rules. The Founders likely would have been horrified by the term, Executive Order. But, just as with acts of war, the Congress accommodates the President. Much of the “unconstitutional” behavior reflects the fact of America’s global empire and its often exigent needs. It simply is not how the country was designed to operate.
Of course, with a population of more than 330 million and growing, the concept of single set of judges established in Washington near the time of the first American census of 1790, to serve a population of 3.9 million, also has inherent problems. And the world has only grown more litigious and infinitely more complex.
The Founders hoped, perhaps, in a time closely following the Enlightenment with all its new political and scientific attitudes, to create something concise and fundamental in the Constitution – architecture’s Mies van der Rohe’s “less is more” - with no extra baggage, but for various reasons, I believe they did not succeed. Constitutions don’t work quite the same way as general scientific principles. They govern dynamic and growing and changing societies – living things.
Where any rule or process is not precisely defined, an intensely political environment always works to shape and manipulate it. In Washington, everything becomes politicized, literally everything, right down to what in normal life would be dull process, such as budgeting. And so it is with impeachment.
There were no true political parties in early America, but there sure are now. They are gigantic and powerful corporations such as the Founders could not have imagined, taking in vast sums of money, and all of American political life revolves around them.
(Perhaps, more precisely put, that would be all of American political life, including the parties, revolves around money, but that gets us into a different topic, one I’ve discussed elsewhere, but it is again something which was not anticipated.)
It is no coincidence that all the impeachment trials have occurred in the modern era, the earliest being Andrew Johnson in 1868, a few years after the Civil War, a time of great partisanship and party loyalties.
Trump, Clinton, and Nixon (who resigned, under advice, rather than endure a vote) are all in the late modern era. More than one politician remarked that Clinton’s impeachment represented a wish by Republicans to get even over Nixon’s impeachment, an observation which again goes to impeachment’s political nature.
The Founders could not have imagined America’s set of relationships with the world two centuries after their work. That America would come to displace the Redcoats and Hessians who represented in American eyes a global tyranny called the British Parliament. What Trump is accused of having done, and I certainly believe he did, could not even have occurred in early America.
If Impeachment is largely political in nature, claims on all sides can be "right," and it comes down to who has the votes. There is no precise body of law and only a small, generalized list of charges to which to refer. The Constitution offers as an impeachment “penal code” only the words, "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors," with the last part not even defined.
By the way, “all sides being right” rather nicely fits in with America’s prevailing political culture where all sides have their own truths, and there are no verities or universally accepted authorities. There is no truth, only sets of attitudes.
Trump's just-developed line of defense has been summed up as "abuse of power is not impeachable." That may even be legally and technically correct. But of course, for the rest of world, it is a ridiculous and dangerous-sounding proposition, especially when it concerns such a powerful country as America, yet some very prominent lawyers in Washington are saying it.
I do think that gives us a terrible insight into what a cloudcuckooland America has become. In the most powerful country in the world, abuse of power may not be considered impeachable.
It's not just Trump, loud and extremely rude as he is. Others have enabled him, powerful Americans contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to his campaign war chest, which is filled to overflowing for the next election, and tens of millions of ordinary Americans voted for him. America just may be a ruder, more uncouth place than many appreciate.
It does seem the country is almost incapable of rational behavior anymore. The rule of law, that most fundamental building block of all civil society, is ignored by American leaders. Assassinations have become common practice, as have threats and aggressive wars and engineered coups. Sanctions, which are American laws which should apply only to Americans, are applied to all the world’s people, hurting tens of millions of innocents.
Constant lies are required to cover or attempt to explain away all of the criminal behavior. International trade and economic relationships are being destroyed by trying to put America first, ahead of all others. International treaties and agreements are being destroyed (the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, the Outer Space Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty and Strategic Arms Treaty with Russia are under threat) simply because America does not want to be bound by them. International organizations are being attacked or undermined – the UN (the US owes more than a billion dollars in back dues and often breaks its solemn treaty obligation to issue visas to leaders needing to come to New York), UNESCO (the US simply quit), the ICC (whose judges were openly threatened by a high American official), the WTO, the IJC, the OPCW, etc., etc.
International chaos is being actively promoted by Trump and much of the American political establishment. I only wish an impeachment conviction could halt or seriously impair those efforts, but I fear that it cannot.
Monday, January 20, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BRITISH LABOUR PARTY LEADERSHIP RACE AND THE UGLY INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL INTEREST CHARGES OF "ANTI-SEMITISM" - A POISONOUS ACCUSATION USED TO DEFEND A HEAVILY-ARMED STATE THAT ABUSES AND BLOODIES MILLIONS FORCED TO LIVE UNDER ITS AUTHORITY - FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN BRITISH ELECTIONS - WEAK POLITICIANS WHO FAIL TO CALL ON TRUTH - ISRAEL'S TERRIBLE "DEMOCRATIC VALUES" - TRUE LIBERALISM IS DEAD IN ISRAEL AND IN AMERICA - EMPIRE AND PRIVILEGED COLONIES HAVE NO ROOM FOR IT
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GILAD ATZMON IN UNZ REVIEW
“For the 0.5% Not the 99.5%”
“Our Labour leadership candidates have attended to whims uttered by a tiny privileged voice while ignoring at least 99.5% of the British public.
“Instead of returning to universal anti racist politics consistent with so-called ‘Labour values,’ the compromised contenders for party leadership bow to the demands made by the Board of Deputies…”
There is some important truth here.
Labour leadership candidates Emily Thornberry and Jess Phillips literally make your toes scrunch uncomfortably up inside your shoes when you read some of their squishy, self-serving pleas being passed off as principles.
But I regard their words and behavior more a matter of sheer political incompetence than anything else. Incompetence is to be found in politicians far more than is commonly realized.
As well, of course, we have corruption, as we saw with Tony Blair, who literally became wealthy in gratitude for his helping kill a million Iraqis to please Aerial Sharon. Tony’s “New Labour” meant a party dedicated to lobby funds and strongly pro-Israel policies. Tony helped lead the charge against Corbyn, too.
We saw no complaints about “anti-Semitism in Blair’s heyday. Somehow, after he left power, anti-Semitism just suddenly exploded inside the Labour Party the way Athena exploded from the forehead of Zeus. Extraordinary.
I long defended Corbyn as a decent and humane politician - qualities frequently missing in the profession - and I still believe that of him. The idea that he was ever "anti-Semitic" is bitterly laughable. And as a matter of fact, we have very little active anti-Semitism today in the West, and much of what self-serving Jewish fraternal organizations call anti-Semitism and enter as incidents in their computer records is just fair criticism of the barbaric policies of Israel, a heavily armed state abusing the powerless.
The whole campaign against Jeremy Corbyn was McCarthyism resuscitated in the service of a new cause. It should have been confronted exactly that way. Truth well-spoken can still be a powerful weapon. We have far too little of it in Western politics.
In the end, Corbyn did prove weak vis-a-vis the Israel lobby, but that's easier to judge from the outside than when you are being libeled and insulted and pelted with eggs week after week.
The lobby uses an old established principle. Throw enough crap at the wall, and some it will stick. It is a standard principle of the advertising industry and has always been instinctively applied by groups like Germany’s 1930s Brownshirts.
The lobby and Israel do not want fairness and decency anywhere near the affairs of Israel. You are not allowed to be fair. You must be totally for Israel and against anyone Israel regards as undesirable.
That was Corbyn unforgivable sin, being fair. And he could not be allowed near power. And talk about external interference, several Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, got directly involved in British party politics over the period of Corbyn’s leadership.
Israel - like a major part of racist cowboy America, notably all of Trump's crowd holding pick-up truck meets in Walmart parking lots - simply has no use for genuine liberals or progressives.
Why?
The essence of being a genuine liberal is deep regard for human and democratic rights. Obviously, Israel could not exist as it is today were liberal views to hold any sway.
And the same goes for America's imperialism abroad and its defense of the Plantation System in many parts of the world, as we see repeatedly in Latin America.
There almost are no liberals in America or Israel.
You do not even have a country in fact when you have an empire. Empire and military and security concerns dominate and provide most of the attractive career paths for talented people, crowding out everything else. The privileged rule, and ideology replaces thought. Resources are dedicated to war and secret security.
And what is Israel but a privileged strategic colony of the American empire? One pretending to represent high principles when the truth is literally the opposite. Israel’s best friends in the region are tyrants – Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince or Egypt’s Generalissimo - who keep their people suppressed and bloodied. Israel calls democratic organizations like Hamas “terrorists” for the same reason people such as Corbyn are attacked.
Some democratic values. But we do live in a world where painting the roses red has become an accepted practice. We see that in every word and activity of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson. And there are uncomfortable echoes today of what authoritarian states always busy themselves with doing.
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GILAD ATZMON IN UNZ REVIEW
“For the 0.5% Not the 99.5%”
“Our Labour leadership candidates have attended to whims uttered by a tiny privileged voice while ignoring at least 99.5% of the British public.
“Instead of returning to universal anti racist politics consistent with so-called ‘Labour values,’ the compromised contenders for party leadership bow to the demands made by the Board of Deputies…”
There is some important truth here.
Labour leadership candidates Emily Thornberry and Jess Phillips literally make your toes scrunch uncomfortably up inside your shoes when you read some of their squishy, self-serving pleas being passed off as principles.
But I regard their words and behavior more a matter of sheer political incompetence than anything else. Incompetence is to be found in politicians far more than is commonly realized.
As well, of course, we have corruption, as we saw with Tony Blair, who literally became wealthy in gratitude for his helping kill a million Iraqis to please Aerial Sharon. Tony’s “New Labour” meant a party dedicated to lobby funds and strongly pro-Israel policies. Tony helped lead the charge against Corbyn, too.
We saw no complaints about “anti-Semitism in Blair’s heyday. Somehow, after he left power, anti-Semitism just suddenly exploded inside the Labour Party the way Athena exploded from the forehead of Zeus. Extraordinary.
I long defended Corbyn as a decent and humane politician - qualities frequently missing in the profession - and I still believe that of him. The idea that he was ever "anti-Semitic" is bitterly laughable. And as a matter of fact, we have very little active anti-Semitism today in the West, and much of what self-serving Jewish fraternal organizations call anti-Semitism and enter as incidents in their computer records is just fair criticism of the barbaric policies of Israel, a heavily armed state abusing the powerless.
The whole campaign against Jeremy Corbyn was McCarthyism resuscitated in the service of a new cause. It should have been confronted exactly that way. Truth well-spoken can still be a powerful weapon. We have far too little of it in Western politics.
In the end, Corbyn did prove weak vis-a-vis the Israel lobby, but that's easier to judge from the outside than when you are being libeled and insulted and pelted with eggs week after week.
The lobby uses an old established principle. Throw enough crap at the wall, and some it will stick. It is a standard principle of the advertising industry and has always been instinctively applied by groups like Germany’s 1930s Brownshirts.
The lobby and Israel do not want fairness and decency anywhere near the affairs of Israel. You are not allowed to be fair. You must be totally for Israel and against anyone Israel regards as undesirable.
That was Corbyn unforgivable sin, being fair. And he could not be allowed near power. And talk about external interference, several Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, got directly involved in British party politics over the period of Corbyn’s leadership.
Israel - like a major part of racist cowboy America, notably all of Trump's crowd holding pick-up truck meets in Walmart parking lots - simply has no use for genuine liberals or progressives.
Why?
The essence of being a genuine liberal is deep regard for human and democratic rights. Obviously, Israel could not exist as it is today were liberal views to hold any sway.
And the same goes for America's imperialism abroad and its defense of the Plantation System in many parts of the world, as we see repeatedly in Latin America.
There almost are no liberals in America or Israel.
You do not even have a country in fact when you have an empire. Empire and military and security concerns dominate and provide most of the attractive career paths for talented people, crowding out everything else. The privileged rule, and ideology replaces thought. Resources are dedicated to war and secret security.
And what is Israel but a privileged strategic colony of the American empire? One pretending to represent high principles when the truth is literally the opposite. Israel’s best friends in the region are tyrants – Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince or Egypt’s Generalissimo - who keep their people suppressed and bloodied. Israel calls democratic organizations like Hamas “terrorists” for the same reason people such as Corbyn are attacked.
Some democratic values. But we do live in a world where painting the roses red has become an accepted practice. We see that in every word and activity of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson. And there are uncomfortable echoes today of what authoritarian states always busy themselves with doing.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ON MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY AN ARTICLE SPEAKS OF THE FBI'S VILIFICATION OF KING - BUT IT WAS MUCH HARSHER THAN VILIFICATION - THE FBI HAS A TERRIBLE RECORD - AND IN MANY OF ITS ACTIVITIES IT RESEMBLES EAST GERMANY'S OLD DREADED STASI
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Remembering the FBI’s Vilification of Martin Luther King”
It actually went far beyond “vilification” to threats and police-state behavior.
The FBI has such a shameful history in fact that I often am amused by those pointing to its recent election-period work against Trump as though it were somehow out of character for these well-dressed goons.
The FBI has always been bent to serving political interests and has demonstrated remarkably little concern for justice or rule of law over its history.
It is a tool of the establishment state and its plutocracy, not all that different in a good deal of its behavior from East Germany’s old Stasi.
The founder of the FBI, the man whose name is still up in large metallic letters on the FBI headquarters building in Washington, had a personal career of bending and intimidating legislators regularly with material from his “personal and confidential” files. He also worked cheerfully with a truly crooked President like Lyndon Johnson to dig up dirt on opponents.
It was J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI that did all of the investigating for the Warren Commission’s shabby report. Solid evidence often was discarded, weak evidence emphasized, testimony altered, and the conclusion of the report existed from the first hour in Hoover’s head.
Hoover was pretty much in bed with the Mafia, or at least badly compromised by it. The Mafia is said to have had Jeffrey Epstein-type compromising photos of closet-gay and cross-dresser Hoover. He never pursued the Mafia with vigor when it really started to grow to power during Prohibition and into the 1960s with other revenue sources.
He always busied himself with the virtually non-existent threat of communism inside America, a country where people have always shown little interest in left-wing ideology.
You may enjoy these:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/john-chuckman-comment-on-re-opening-the-kennedy-assassination-investigation-why-it-would-be-a-waste-of-time-the-nature-of-truth-where-empire-or-great-power-is-involved-some-truth-about-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/john-chuckman-comment-shameful-effort-by-the-fbi-to-drag-americans-back-into-the-cold-war/
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Remembering the FBI’s Vilification of Martin Luther King”
It actually went far beyond “vilification” to threats and police-state behavior.
The FBI has such a shameful history in fact that I often am amused by those pointing to its recent election-period work against Trump as though it were somehow out of character for these well-dressed goons.
The FBI has always been bent to serving political interests and has demonstrated remarkably little concern for justice or rule of law over its history.
It is a tool of the establishment state and its plutocracy, not all that different in a good deal of its behavior from East Germany’s old Stasi.
The founder of the FBI, the man whose name is still up in large metallic letters on the FBI headquarters building in Washington, had a personal career of bending and intimidating legislators regularly with material from his “personal and confidential” files. He also worked cheerfully with a truly crooked President like Lyndon Johnson to dig up dirt on opponents.
It was J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI that did all of the investigating for the Warren Commission’s shabby report. Solid evidence often was discarded, weak evidence emphasized, testimony altered, and the conclusion of the report existed from the first hour in Hoover’s head.
Hoover was pretty much in bed with the Mafia, or at least badly compromised by it. The Mafia is said to have had Jeffrey Epstein-type compromising photos of closet-gay and cross-dresser Hoover. He never pursued the Mafia with vigor when it really started to grow to power during Prohibition and into the 1960s with other revenue sources.
He always busied himself with the virtually non-existent threat of communism inside America, a country where people have always shown little interest in left-wing ideology.
You may enjoy these:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/john-chuckman-comment-on-re-opening-the-kennedy-assassination-investigation-why-it-would-be-a-waste-of-time-the-nature-of-truth-where-empire-or-great-power-is-involved-some-truth-about-the-fbi/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/john-chuckman-comment-shameful-effort-by-the-fbi-to-drag-americans-back-into-the-cold-war/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: "WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US" - A NEW PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE IN CANADA IS TO LOOK INTO THE COUNTRY'S TROUBLED RELATIONS WITH CHINA - BUT YOU DON'T NEED A COMMITTEE - YOU JUST NEED TO OPEN YOUR EYES - JUSTIN TRUDEAU'S SERVILITY TO TRUMP EXPLAINS THE SITUATION COMPLETELY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Special Canada-China committee to hold first meeting in Ottawa"
“A new special parliamentary committee created to examine Canada's fraught relationship with China will hold its first meeting today in Ottawa”
You really do not need a committee to understand the situation. Just open your eyes and look.
We’ve sadly followed Trump's foreign policies in many details, right up to willingly turning our excellent relations with China into a Northern Front in his war on China’s trade and influence.
We needlessly arrested a senior corporate executive, part of America's assault on Huawei. It was the equivalent of someone's arresting the head of Microsoft or Apple. This could have been avoided several ways, but our government chose not to do so.
We sailed a destroyer through the Taiwan Strait as though we were part of the American Navy. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of China knows that kind of behavior is openly insulting.
Trump's America means to be openly insulting, but does that mean Canada has to join the ugly mob?
Those critical decisions were made by Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, politicians who also have echoed negative Trump rhetoric about China many times, when in fact we've never had any reason not to keep on the best of terms with that great nation.
In the words of a famous old political cartoon character, Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us”
_______________________
Response to a comment saying, “The sooner we can wean ourselves off any dependence on China, the better”
Why do you say that?
First, we do not "depend" on China. We trade with them, and we are a trading nation.
Second, China is a great nation, one with an even greater future. Its New Silk Road is the greatest economic and trade project on earth, and it will offer immense future opportunities.
Why would anyone behave so foolishly towards them as you suggest?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"Special Canada-China committee to hold first meeting in Ottawa"
“A new special parliamentary committee created to examine Canada's fraught relationship with China will hold its first meeting today in Ottawa”
You really do not need a committee to understand the situation. Just open your eyes and look.
We’ve sadly followed Trump's foreign policies in many details, right up to willingly turning our excellent relations with China into a Northern Front in his war on China’s trade and influence.
We needlessly arrested a senior corporate executive, part of America's assault on Huawei. It was the equivalent of someone's arresting the head of Microsoft or Apple. This could have been avoided several ways, but our government chose not to do so.
We sailed a destroyer through the Taiwan Strait as though we were part of the American Navy. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of China knows that kind of behavior is openly insulting.
Trump's America means to be openly insulting, but does that mean Canada has to join the ugly mob?
Those critical decisions were made by Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, politicians who also have echoed negative Trump rhetoric about China many times, when in fact we've never had any reason not to keep on the best of terms with that great nation.
In the words of a famous old political cartoon character, Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us”
_______________________
Response to a comment saying, “The sooner we can wean ourselves off any dependence on China, the better”
Why do you say that?
First, we do not "depend" on China. We trade with them, and we are a trading nation.
Second, China is a great nation, one with an even greater future. Its New Silk Road is the greatest economic and trade project on earth, and it will offer immense future opportunities.
Why would anyone behave so foolishly towards them as you suggest?
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S STUNNING LINE OF DEFENSE IN THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT DEFENSE
Trump’s line of defense in the impeachment trial has been summarized now as “abuse of power is not impeachable.”
Good God, what has America come to?
COMMENT ON TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT DEFENSE
Trump’s line of defense in the impeachment trial has been summarized now as “abuse of power is not impeachable.”
Good God, what has America come to?
Sunday, January 19, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BORIS JOHNSON ORDERS TALKS FOR AN AMERICAN TRADE DEAL WITH TRUMP TO BEGIN DAY AFTER BREXIT - BRITAIN IS GOING TO PAY A SERIOUS PRICE - LEAVING THE EU, ESPECIALLY NOW, IS FOOLISH - WHERE THE UNITED STATES IS RIGHT NOW - THE NARCISSISTIC NATURE OF ALL TRADE TALKS WITH TRUMP
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LIZZY BUCHAN IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Brexit: Boris Johnson orders Trump trade talks to begin the day after UK leaves the EU”
This is where Britain is going to pay a serious price, negotiating a trade agreement with Trump.
It doesn't matter whether Boris Johnson gets along well with Trump or not.
Trump craps on friend and foe alike. On his work associates and even on his spouse.
Trump is completely about Trump, and every trade issue everywhere is about Trump being seen to have come out on top.
He is the most complete narcissist I can recall. He also has a large streak of really ugly ideology.
And his beliefs and practices are not fully rational, as he has demonstrated a number of times, as in just suddenly ripping up the Iran nuclear agreement or the INF Treaty or in assassinating another country’s national hero.
He has no respect for rule of law, and literally shows contempt for international order – i.e., the WTO, the ICC, the ICJ, the UN, UNESCO, OPCW, etc.
And please note, Britain leaves the EU and seeks closer connection with the US right at a time of its increasing general aggressiveness and efforts to dominate.
That includes Republicans and Democrats alike, Trump only being the loudest and ugliest of them. They all recognize and fear America’s relative decline over decades. America is simply not competitive at many things and has been overtaken by rising countries who are competitive. It was also spoiled by so many easy, golden years in the postwar period. It has a serious attitude problem.
So, we have its new Pentagon slogan about “full-spectrum dominance,” which is just a charming thing to go around muttering. America simply is going to attempt muscling its way into getting what it wants from others. It really believes it can fight and bully its way to restoring the “American Dream,” which is, of course, complete nonsense.
In the attempt, America is going to increase instability, insecurity, and uncertainty in the world. Combined with the country’s lack of respect for rule of law, it promises to make for dangerous times ahead.
It is a bad time to be leaving a huge organization like the EU and attaching your hopes to America. America is simply not what it once was, in both its competitiveness and its ethics.
The EU has failed in a number of ways, but it has in great part been very successful, as in delivering increased prosperity, and countries still queue up to join. It has more potential still, and it is not in the business of starting wars and trying to tell everyone else what to do.
Those last two activities have become almost a full-time occupation for America.
_________________
Response to a comment saying, “The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reports an average of 420 deaths a year in the US from salmonella. Figures from the UK show no deaths in recent years. Question for Brexiters. Are you happy to introduce US food-borne illness rates to the UK?”
Good point.
And there are a lot of other comparable ones.
America is a society with a deep gut dislike of regulation.
And, look out, National Health Service!
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LIZZY BUCHAN IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Brexit: Boris Johnson orders Trump trade talks to begin the day after UK leaves the EU”
This is where Britain is going to pay a serious price, negotiating a trade agreement with Trump.
It doesn't matter whether Boris Johnson gets along well with Trump or not.
Trump craps on friend and foe alike. On his work associates and even on his spouse.
Trump is completely about Trump, and every trade issue everywhere is about Trump being seen to have come out on top.
He is the most complete narcissist I can recall. He also has a large streak of really ugly ideology.
And his beliefs and practices are not fully rational, as he has demonstrated a number of times, as in just suddenly ripping up the Iran nuclear agreement or the INF Treaty or in assassinating another country’s national hero.
He has no respect for rule of law, and literally shows contempt for international order – i.e., the WTO, the ICC, the ICJ, the UN, UNESCO, OPCW, etc.
And please note, Britain leaves the EU and seeks closer connection with the US right at a time of its increasing general aggressiveness and efforts to dominate.
That includes Republicans and Democrats alike, Trump only being the loudest and ugliest of them. They all recognize and fear America’s relative decline over decades. America is simply not competitive at many things and has been overtaken by rising countries who are competitive. It was also spoiled by so many easy, golden years in the postwar period. It has a serious attitude problem.
So, we have its new Pentagon slogan about “full-spectrum dominance,” which is just a charming thing to go around muttering. America simply is going to attempt muscling its way into getting what it wants from others. It really believes it can fight and bully its way to restoring the “American Dream,” which is, of course, complete nonsense.
In the attempt, America is going to increase instability, insecurity, and uncertainty in the world. Combined with the country’s lack of respect for rule of law, it promises to make for dangerous times ahead.
It is a bad time to be leaving a huge organization like the EU and attaching your hopes to America. America is simply not what it once was, in both its competitiveness and its ethics.
The EU has failed in a number of ways, but it has in great part been very successful, as in delivering increased prosperity, and countries still queue up to join. It has more potential still, and it is not in the business of starting wars and trying to tell everyone else what to do.
Those last two activities have become almost a full-time occupation for America.
_________________
Response to a comment saying, “The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reports an average of 420 deaths a year in the US from salmonella. Figures from the UK show no deaths in recent years. Question for Brexiters. Are you happy to introduce US food-borne illness rates to the UK?”
Good point.
And there are a lot of other comparable ones.
America is a society with a deep gut dislike of regulation.
And, look out, National Health Service!
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BORIS JOHNSON THROWS AWAY A CHANCE TO IMPROVE RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA - RESUSCITATING THERESA MAY'S IMPOSSIBLY SICK FANTASY OF A "SALISBURY ATTACK" OR "SKRIPAL AFFAIR" - AND DEMONSTRATING JUST HOW SUBSERVIENT BRITISH LEADERS ARE NOW TO THE WHIMS OF THE UNITED STATES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CONRAD DUNCAN IN THE INDEPENDENT
"Boris Johnson tells Putin there will be no normalisation of UK-Russia relationship..."
“Prime minister warns Russian leader that Salisbury attack ‘must not be repeated’”
It's a pity and very short-sighted.
And, of course, it's just blindly doing what the US wants done, demonizing Russia. British servility over respect for truth.
Salisbury attack? What Salisbury attack? It's based on nothing of substance.
Britain has never provided us with convincing evidence that anything happened other than two people got sick on a bench, and they did so after a lengthy period of time completely at odds with the known effects of nerve agents, which kill in a few minutes, at most.
I have a strong bias for facts and will accept what's proved.
Even if it were to damage the most exemplary world statesman of our time.
But hurling ugly accusations with no evidence only damages the British Prime Ministers doing it, people already recognized for mediocrity and no strong attachment to truth.
All Salisbury has ever been is assertions and scraps of information with no cohesive meaning, and no one has ever been allowed once to interview the “victims.” They’ve been made to disappear, itself a rather ominous fact. The claims of the Skripal Affair are as convincing as Theresa May’s long-winded and tedious efforts with the EU.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-interesting-new-fact-on-salisbury-englands-skripal-affair-why-the-official-british-version-is-false-it-has-has-never-met-the-test-of-reason/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CONRAD DUNCAN IN THE INDEPENDENT
"Boris Johnson tells Putin there will be no normalisation of UK-Russia relationship..."
“Prime minister warns Russian leader that Salisbury attack ‘must not be repeated’”
It's a pity and very short-sighted.
And, of course, it's just blindly doing what the US wants done, demonizing Russia. British servility over respect for truth.
Salisbury attack? What Salisbury attack? It's based on nothing of substance.
Britain has never provided us with convincing evidence that anything happened other than two people got sick on a bench, and they did so after a lengthy period of time completely at odds with the known effects of nerve agents, which kill in a few minutes, at most.
I have a strong bias for facts and will accept what's proved.
Even if it were to damage the most exemplary world statesman of our time.
But hurling ugly accusations with no evidence only damages the British Prime Ministers doing it, people already recognized for mediocrity and no strong attachment to truth.
All Salisbury has ever been is assertions and scraps of information with no cohesive meaning, and no one has ever been allowed once to interview the “victims.” They’ve been made to disappear, itself a rather ominous fact. The claims of the Skripal Affair are as convincing as Theresa May’s long-winded and tedious efforts with the EU.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-interesting-new-fact-on-salisbury-englands-skripal-affair-why-the-official-british-version-is-false-it-has-has-never-met-the-test-of-reason/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IS IT JUST THE SILLY SEASON OR AM I BECOMING SENILE? - MEGHAN AND HARRY AGAIN - NO, I THINK I JUST LIKE THE CHANCE TO SORT THE REALITIES OF CHARACTERS AND CLAIMS HERE MUCH AS I DO FOR STATESMEN - AND I FIND A LOT OF PHONY CLAIMS AND DISINFORMATION IN THIS STORY - HARRY TELLS PEOPLE HOW HE FEELS ABOUT WHAT HAS HAPPENED - BUT JUST WHAT HAS HAPPENED? - MY INTERPRETATION OF EVENTS WHICH ARE BEING PORTRAYED VERY DIFFERENTLY
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
“U.K. still home despite plans to spend time in Canada with wife Meghan, he says”
"Prince Harry says he's saddened by move to step back, but wants 'more peaceful life'"
Translation: He had to do something to end Meghan's moods and anger at home about "how she was being treated."
Poor Harry.
She's an extraordinarily beautiful woman, but all the evidence of her brief time on stage points to a touchy and difficult temperament.
Smiles before the camera. Something very different when the camera is gone and she is not pleased about something.
She brought tensions to the family, even tears - future Queen Consort Kate, a charming woman, is reported to have been reduced to tears by Meghan on at least one occasion.
And this is not a family given to strong expressions of emotion, so Meghan would automatically feel alone or isolated, causing her to lean on and expect more support from Harry.
Meghan is an intensely ambitious woman who thought she wanted to be a Duchess, until she discovered what's really involved.
Given the way she smiles for the cameras, flicking instantly on like a light bulb when they are pointed at her, I'm pretty sure her vanity loves press attention, but she thinks she's entitled to receive only the part she regards as positive.
When she found that’s not the way it works and even more when she discovered herself at the center of numerous family conflicts, she picked up her marbles, tossed her tiara, and headed (almost) home.
__________________________
A comment below asks: "What's Harry going to do when the princess leaves him?"
An astute observation. Yes, indeed, and I think that's guaranteed in the not too-distant future.
She's so temperamental and ambitious, and she's done the "Duchess thing" now. It's old history.
And of course, she'll want to return to the United States at some point.
She has by far the best chance of the two at making money in some kind of career.
I've actually always regarded Harry as a bit slow.
The story here is really not about the press, it's about a strong temperamental woman who wanted something desperately, until she actually experienced it for a short while.
I think there can be little doubt she'll want to return to the US because most Americans never quite like other places the way they do good old America.
And Harry is saying Britain is still home. I can't imagine Meghan going back to the UK, even for a visit. She literally ran away.
Harry is going to very much miss his "job" of walking about in uniform, smiling to grateful Royal-watcher crowds. He was pretty good at it, and it's hard to imagine much else he would be good at.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
“U.K. still home despite plans to spend time in Canada with wife Meghan, he says”
"Prince Harry says he's saddened by move to step back, but wants 'more peaceful life'"
Translation: He had to do something to end Meghan's moods and anger at home about "how she was being treated."
Poor Harry.
She's an extraordinarily beautiful woman, but all the evidence of her brief time on stage points to a touchy and difficult temperament.
Smiles before the camera. Something very different when the camera is gone and she is not pleased about something.
She brought tensions to the family, even tears - future Queen Consort Kate, a charming woman, is reported to have been reduced to tears by Meghan on at least one occasion.
And this is not a family given to strong expressions of emotion, so Meghan would automatically feel alone or isolated, causing her to lean on and expect more support from Harry.
Meghan is an intensely ambitious woman who thought she wanted to be a Duchess, until she discovered what's really involved.
Given the way she smiles for the cameras, flicking instantly on like a light bulb when they are pointed at her, I'm pretty sure her vanity loves press attention, but she thinks she's entitled to receive only the part she regards as positive.
When she found that’s not the way it works and even more when she discovered herself at the center of numerous family conflicts, she picked up her marbles, tossed her tiara, and headed (almost) home.
__________________________
A comment below asks: "What's Harry going to do when the princess leaves him?"
An astute observation. Yes, indeed, and I think that's guaranteed in the not too-distant future.
She's so temperamental and ambitious, and she's done the "Duchess thing" now. It's old history.
And of course, she'll want to return to the United States at some point.
She has by far the best chance of the two at making money in some kind of career.
I've actually always regarded Harry as a bit slow.
The story here is really not about the press, it's about a strong temperamental woman who wanted something desperately, until she actually experienced it for a short while.
I think there can be little doubt she'll want to return to the US because most Americans never quite like other places the way they do good old America.
And Harry is saying Britain is still home. I can't imagine Meghan going back to the UK, even for a visit. She literally ran away.
Harry is going to very much miss his "job" of walking about in uniform, smiling to grateful Royal-watcher crowds. He was pretty good at it, and it's hard to imagine much else he would be good at.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IMPEACHMENT CALLED "A MALICIOUS INDICTMENT" - TIRESOME INCORRECT STUFF FROM THE RIGHT WING - AND TRUMP HAS COMMITTED SO MANY CRIMES AND STUPIDITIES NOW THAT GETTING RID OF HIM WOULD RAISE AMERICA'S STATURE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAT BUCHANAN IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“A Malicious Indictment Mitch Should Toss Out” [the impeachment]
Tiresome stuff, Mr. Buchanan.
Trump has committed so many stupidities and crimes – including now, assassination of a foreign leader in return for big campaign contributions – that almost any excuse to get rid of him would raise the stature of the United States.
Anyway, while the indictment represents far from the worst he’s done, it is valid. His behavior was wrong.
I doubt he’ll be convicted, but, who knows, we could just get lucky?
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAT BUCHANAN IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“A Malicious Indictment Mitch Should Toss Out” [the impeachment]
Tiresome stuff, Mr. Buchanan.
Trump has committed so many stupidities and crimes – including now, assassination of a foreign leader in return for big campaign contributions – that almost any excuse to get rid of him would raise the stature of the United States.
Anyway, while the indictment represents far from the worst he’s done, it is valid. His behavior was wrong.
I doubt he’ll be convicted, but, who knows, we could just get lucky?
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA IS REDUCED TO OFFICIAL STATE MURDER IN RETURN FOR CAMPAIGN FUNDING
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
"ADL lies about me so as to shut down discussion of Israel’s role in Soleimani killing”
There can be little question about Trump's motives.
It is reported this morning in the mainline press that Trump bragged about the killing to a crowd at a big fundraising dinner.
Just sick, official state murder for campaign donations.
That's what America is reduced to.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
"ADL lies about me so as to shut down discussion of Israel’s role in Soleimani killing”
There can be little question about Trump's motives.
It is reported this morning in the mainline press that Trump bragged about the killing to a crowd at a big fundraising dinner.
Just sick, official state murder for campaign donations.
That's what America is reduced to.
Friday, January 17, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MUHAMMAD ALI - A GENUINE HERO
John Chuckman
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY STEVE BUNCE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Cassius Clay vs Sonny Liston: The amazing night Muhammad Ali became champion of the world
“On what would have been Muhammad Ali’s 78th birthday, reflections on the night Cassius Clay announced himself on the world stage”
I met Ali once, in Vancouver in 1971.
A charming man and someone I admired greatly.
I regret not telling him why I so admired him.
It wasn’t about boxing.
It was about his courage in standing up to the American establishment over its holocaust in Vietnam (3 million killed).
He paid a serious price, being deprived of earning his living in his prime.
He was a genuine hero, the kind we so rarely see.
COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY STEVE BUNCE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Cassius Clay vs Sonny Liston: The amazing night Muhammad Ali became champion of the world
“On what would have been Muhammad Ali’s 78th birthday, reflections on the night Cassius Clay announced himself on the world stage”
I met Ali once, in Vancouver in 1971.
A charming man and someone I admired greatly.
I regret not telling him why I so admired him.
It wasn’t about boxing.
It was about his courage in standing up to the American establishment over its holocaust in Vietnam (3 million killed).
He paid a serious price, being deprived of earning his living in his prime.
He was a genuine hero, the kind we so rarely see.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CAN YOU IMAGINE THE LARGE AND FRANTIC BUREAUCRACY REQUIRED FOR TRUMP'S ONGOING SANCTIONS LUNACY ? - AND DEFINING THE REAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AMERICA'S DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS - CONSEQUENCES OF EMPIRE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BEN NORTON IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Under US Pressure, Social Media Companies Suspend Venezuelan, Iranian & Syrian Accounts
“Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are censoring content that conflicts with Washington’s pro-war narrative”
Can you even imagine the large and frantic bureaucracy Trump has created just to dream up, explore, implement, and review sanctions of a hundred different kinds for a hundred different countries?
It truly represents a form of public lunacy, besides an immense waste.
I regard it as dramatic evidence of America's decline in meaning, quite apart from its decline in economics and in ethics.
_________________________
Response to a comment asking, "How many distinctions are left between parties in our system?"
When it comes to empire, with its trillion-a-year military/security establishment, the answer is "none."
And it's been that way a very long time, something remarkably few Americans seem to appreciate.
The Democrats can go on and on debating this or that social program, but with the country focused on empire and spending a trillion borrowed dollars a year on it, the debates are literally a political game show. There's no possibility of enacting significant social legislation of any description.
Apart from the hot air blown over proposals for social programs, when it comes to war and empire, the Democrats are indistinguishable from Republicans.
Indeed, the Party has given the world some full-time killer Presidents in Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama.
Even progressive politicians like Sanders or Warren never really question how a free society can have a Pentagon and a CIA and an FBI and an NSA and engage in endless wars and coups.
Any politician who does raise that absolutely fundamental matter, such as Tulsi Gabbard, is simply ignored by the Party hierarchy and by the country’s corporate press.
The work for empire is very rewarding for the elites committing their talents to it, and to hell with the rest of the people.
The country is governed by and for plutocratic empire and its establishment servants.
You really do not have a country when you have an empire. And you certainly do not have a democracy.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BEN NORTON IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Under US Pressure, Social Media Companies Suspend Venezuelan, Iranian & Syrian Accounts
“Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are censoring content that conflicts with Washington’s pro-war narrative”
Can you even imagine the large and frantic bureaucracy Trump has created just to dream up, explore, implement, and review sanctions of a hundred different kinds for a hundred different countries?
It truly represents a form of public lunacy, besides an immense waste.
I regard it as dramatic evidence of America's decline in meaning, quite apart from its decline in economics and in ethics.
_________________________
Response to a comment asking, "How many distinctions are left between parties in our system?"
When it comes to empire, with its trillion-a-year military/security establishment, the answer is "none."
And it's been that way a very long time, something remarkably few Americans seem to appreciate.
The Democrats can go on and on debating this or that social program, but with the country focused on empire and spending a trillion borrowed dollars a year on it, the debates are literally a political game show. There's no possibility of enacting significant social legislation of any description.
Apart from the hot air blown over proposals for social programs, when it comes to war and empire, the Democrats are indistinguishable from Republicans.
Indeed, the Party has given the world some full-time killer Presidents in Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama.
Even progressive politicians like Sanders or Warren never really question how a free society can have a Pentagon and a CIA and an FBI and an NSA and engage in endless wars and coups.
Any politician who does raise that absolutely fundamental matter, such as Tulsi Gabbard, is simply ignored by the Party hierarchy and by the country’s corporate press.
The work for empire is very rewarding for the elites committing their talents to it, and to hell with the rest of the people.
The country is governed by and for plutocratic empire and its establishment servants.
You really do not have a country when you have an empire. And you certainly do not have a democracy.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A RATHER LIGHT AND FLUFFY SUBJECT BUT ONE TOUCHING SOME IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES - MEGHAN AND HARRY COMING TO LIVE IN CANADA - CANADA'S RELATIONSHIP WITH BRITAIN AND THE CROWN'S ROLE IN CANADA'S GOVERNMENT - NO ROOM FOR RESIDENT ROYALS
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON MEGHAN AND HARRY COMING TO LIVE IN CANADA
I tend to agree with a good part of an editorial view published in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper about Meghan and Harry and their plans for living in Canada.
Canada has no aristocracy, and while it retains an attachment to the British Crown, as do a number of Commonwealth countries, the attachment is rather special in nature, involving no resident royalty. The country’s Governor-General, who represents the Crown, is always a Canadian appointed for a limited term.
There is also something almost demeaning in the notion that a Prince and a Duchess without enough to do back home can be shipped off to Canada until everyone figures out what their future roles are going to be.
And that does appear to be the couple’s situation, that they wanted for some time different kinds of duties than the ones they were doing, ones opening them to less press criticism, which I believe is especially upsetting to Meghan’s fairly volatile personality, and nothing yet has happened.
Meghan and Harry, as private citizens, would be welcome.
As Royals, they might be welcome for a formal tour or visit.
But they are not welcome coming to live as Royals, either as full-time Royals trying to figure out their future roles or coming under some kind of confusing concept such as part-time Royals.
It is rather patronizing that two highly privileged people think they can now both retain their privileges and live as private people, doing so in a country of which neither is a citizen.
And a great many Canadians would agree that a half-million dollar a year bill for security is completely out of order.
The very fact that they intend to try seems to me a confession of the confusion I have always associated with Harry, a man who has long appeared to have inherited his mother’s unbalanced psychological tendencies, which, despite her charm and beauty, were evident from many reports and anecdotes. They were the very tendencies that drove her to her death. Diana's family, the Spencers, has a history.
Harry’s record of unbalanced behavior is briefly highlighted here with images:
https://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2013/01/harry-is-prince-mad-he-does-have.html
NOTE ON FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
“Prince Harry and Meghan will give up royal titles, public funding
“Statement from Buckingham Palace says Sussexes also want to repay cost of Frogmore Cottage refurbishment”
If the report is accurate, and they give up the titles and public money, that settles my issues for residence in Canada.
The matter of security costs is unclear, but Canadians should not be paying them.
The couple already is being granted many privileges. For instance, they did not have to go through the same process other would-be immigrants must go through. They are being allowed to gracefully jump the queue.
I am glad they are going to repay the Queen for Frogmore Cottage.
She gave that charming place to them as a gift, and just before all this business about quitting broke, the Queen was apparently unhappily surprised to learn they had spent a few million, and not from their own funds, on renovations.
The costly renovations not long before leaving do further suggest issues of judgment and stability.
COMMENT ON MEGHAN AND HARRY COMING TO LIVE IN CANADA
I tend to agree with a good part of an editorial view published in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper about Meghan and Harry and their plans for living in Canada.
Canada has no aristocracy, and while it retains an attachment to the British Crown, as do a number of Commonwealth countries, the attachment is rather special in nature, involving no resident royalty. The country’s Governor-General, who represents the Crown, is always a Canadian appointed for a limited term.
There is also something almost demeaning in the notion that a Prince and a Duchess without enough to do back home can be shipped off to Canada until everyone figures out what their future roles are going to be.
And that does appear to be the couple’s situation, that they wanted for some time different kinds of duties than the ones they were doing, ones opening them to less press criticism, which I believe is especially upsetting to Meghan’s fairly volatile personality, and nothing yet has happened.
Meghan and Harry, as private citizens, would be welcome.
As Royals, they might be welcome for a formal tour or visit.
But they are not welcome coming to live as Royals, either as full-time Royals trying to figure out their future roles or coming under some kind of confusing concept such as part-time Royals.
It is rather patronizing that two highly privileged people think they can now both retain their privileges and live as private people, doing so in a country of which neither is a citizen.
And a great many Canadians would agree that a half-million dollar a year bill for security is completely out of order.
The very fact that they intend to try seems to me a confession of the confusion I have always associated with Harry, a man who has long appeared to have inherited his mother’s unbalanced psychological tendencies, which, despite her charm and beauty, were evident from many reports and anecdotes. They were the very tendencies that drove her to her death. Diana's family, the Spencers, has a history.
Harry’s record of unbalanced behavior is briefly highlighted here with images:
https://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2013/01/harry-is-prince-mad-he-does-have.html
NOTE ON FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
“Prince Harry and Meghan will give up royal titles, public funding
“Statement from Buckingham Palace says Sussexes also want to repay cost of Frogmore Cottage refurbishment”
If the report is accurate, and they give up the titles and public money, that settles my issues for residence in Canada.
The matter of security costs is unclear, but Canadians should not be paying them.
The couple already is being granted many privileges. For instance, they did not have to go through the same process other would-be immigrants must go through. They are being allowed to gracefully jump the queue.
I am glad they are going to repay the Queen for Frogmore Cottage.
She gave that charming place to them as a gift, and just before all this business about quitting broke, the Queen was apparently unhappily surprised to learn they had spent a few million, and not from their own funds, on renovations.
The costly renovations not long before leaving do further suggest issues of judgment and stability.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CANADA'S TRUDEAU GOVERNMENT CONTINUES ITS SHAMELESS SHILLING FOR TRUMP - NOW CALLING FOR A SEPARATE "CRIMINAL" INVESTIGATION OF THE CRASH OF UKRAINE INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES FLIGHT 752 IN IRAN - THIS HAS NOT BEEN THE PRACTICE FOR MILITARY DOWNINGS OF CIVILIAN AIRLINERS INCLUDING SEVERAL BY THE UNITED STATES AND ONE BY ISRAEL - IT IS A DISTRACTION FROM TRUMP'S 35 PUBLIC MURDERS IN IRAQ, THE CAUSE OF ALL THE INTENSE NEW HOSTILITIES
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Canada calls for an independent criminal investigation into Flight PS752 crash
“Foreign Minister Champagne is in London today meeting with Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan and U.K. representatives”
Calling for an independent "criminal" investigation here is totally inappropriate.
We didn't call for that in the many other cases involving militaries and the loss of civilian airliners, including several by the United States' military and one by Israel's.
This represents rather shameful service to Trump's war-like White House, but then that has been a notable and consistent feature of Trudeau's government, supporting the Trump White House in foreign affairs.
Iran very much is sorry for what happened and is taking all reasonable steps. It has given the black-box data to other interested parties, including Canada.
It would be nice to see some understanding here instead of an effort to whip-up the mob.
It sure ain't Iran who started all the hostilities in the region.
And this event serves nicely to detract from the fact that the United States publicly murdered 35 people in Iraq, including Iran's General Soleimani, in the weeks previous. Talk about criminal acts.
_____________________
THIS ADDITIONAL COMMENT WAS REMOVED BY AN EDITOR
Here is something readers should find extremely interesting.
It is written by a former CIA senior analyst.
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/who-targeted-ukraine-airlines-flight-752-iran-shot-it-down-but-there-may-be-more-to-the-story/#comment-3664167
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Canada calls for an independent criminal investigation into Flight PS752 crash
“Foreign Minister Champagne is in London today meeting with Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan and U.K. representatives”
Calling for an independent "criminal" investigation here is totally inappropriate.
We didn't call for that in the many other cases involving militaries and the loss of civilian airliners, including several by the United States' military and one by Israel's.
This represents rather shameful service to Trump's war-like White House, but then that has been a notable and consistent feature of Trudeau's government, supporting the Trump White House in foreign affairs.
Iran very much is sorry for what happened and is taking all reasonable steps. It has given the black-box data to other interested parties, including Canada.
It would be nice to see some understanding here instead of an effort to whip-up the mob.
It sure ain't Iran who started all the hostilities in the region.
And this event serves nicely to detract from the fact that the United States publicly murdered 35 people in Iraq, including Iran's General Soleimani, in the weeks previous. Talk about criminal acts.
_____________________
THIS ADDITIONAL COMMENT WAS REMOVED BY AN EDITOR
Here is something readers should find extremely interesting.
It is written by a former CIA senior analyst.
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/who-targeted-ukraine-airlines-flight-752-iran-shot-it-down-but-there-may-be-more-to-the-story/#comment-3664167
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FASCINATING SUGGESTION CONCERNING THE DESTRUCTION OF UKRAINE INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES FLIGHT 752 IN IRAN - DID AMERICAN CYBER-WARFARE PLAY A ROLE?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Who Targeted Ukraine Airlines Flight 752? Iran Shot It Down but There May be More to the Story”
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/who-targeted-ukraine-airlines-flight-752-iran-shot-it-down-but-there-may-be-more-to-the-story/#comment-3664167
Just a terrific piece of informed speculation.
Quite plausible.
It suggests, too, as with the turning off of everyone’s electricity in Venezuela, how powerful and dangerous cyber-warfare can be.
And secretive. Certainly, something which appeals to an imperial power which has long used all kinds of proxies and false-flag operations, the United States.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP GIRALDI IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Who Targeted Ukraine Airlines Flight 752? Iran Shot It Down but There May be More to the Story”
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/who-targeted-ukraine-airlines-flight-752-iran-shot-it-down-but-there-may-be-more-to-the-story/#comment-3664167
Just a terrific piece of informed speculation.
Quite plausible.
It suggests, too, as with the turning off of everyone’s electricity in Venezuela, how powerful and dangerous cyber-warfare can be.
And secretive. Certainly, something which appeals to an imperial power which has long used all kinds of proxies and false-flag operations, the United States.
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY LOOKING MORE THREADBARE AND MEAGRE THAN EVER - THE IMPOVERISHED FIELD OF DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES - FOCUS ON JOE BIDEN'S RECORD OF LYING AND SLEAZE - DEMOCRATS SUPPORT WARS AND COUPS AND SPECIAL INTERESTS JUST LIKE TRUMP - TRUMP'S SITUATION SUMMED UP
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAM HUSSEINI IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Biden Has Been Lying About His Record on Iraq for Years
“Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his surrogates such as former Secretary of State John Kerry continue to falsely claim that he did not favor the Iraq invasion”
Biden has always been a pretty sleazy operator. And not just in his lying about his enthusiasm for invading Iraq. Look back at his record as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the matter of Anita Hill’s charges about a Supreme Court nominee. Shabby.
He consistently supported wars and coups through his career. He worked closely with Obama on carrying some of them out. He served as Obama’s proconsul in Ukraine for a coup against an elected government, and appears to have gained financially from the work.
All the wars and coups, of course, involve deceit about what is actually taking place. So, he’s had a lot of practice with avoiding truth.
Biden is credited with helping convince Obama to start America’s extrajudicial killing industry. A hi-tech update of the old Argentine Junta’s “disappearing” people by the thousands without any charge or trial or defense. Now, a nameless operator sits at a screen playing computer games with real human beings.
Remember, he received the Medal of Freedom from Obama – that’s Obama of the jocular statement, “Hey, I’m pretty good at this killing stuff!” - and you don’t get that award without doing some seriously dirty work for America’s empire. Just ask Madeline Albright.
Somehow, Biden’s smile and folksy way of talking fool a lot of people.
Same phenomenon we saw with Obama.
___________________
Response to a comment saying, “Trump will be laughing his head off if Biden is the nominee”
Unless external events intervene – real possibilities include economic collapse or war with Iran – Trump will likely be re-elected. He's the devil they know, and he has many bamboozled into thinking he has achieved something. It is not hard to bamboozle large portions of America, the land of P. T. Barnum and Hollywood and Madison Avenue. If the impeachment fails, as seems likely, he will have come through an ordeal, gaining some sympathy and receiving, as it were, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
News services are so manipulated in the United States that most people have no real understanding of what is going on in the world. A war might even help Trump if enough people believe Iran is evil and a threat to dear old America, and that he is there with his absurdly posed faces and bellowing to protect them. Americans have heard the claim that Iran is somehow malign repeated in the press in one form or another for forty years, and you would not find any Democratic candidate saying otherwise for fear of losing special-interest campaign funding.
Money replaces information in telling your story and getting it “out there.” Always remembering that owing to America’s antiquated, anti-democratic Electoral College system, only some people in certain marginal or swing locations need to be convinced of any such story. Those places receive intense campaigns of market research and polls and then advertising regurgitating what the polls say people want to hear. You can win with a minority, as Trump did in 2016 and as George Bush did in 2000. Trump, by virtue of his various services to special interests, some in complete violation of international law, will have the mother lode of cash.
The Democrats just do not have good material on offer. No spark. No heroism. Dull establishment views.
Bernie Sanders has his strong points, but he is old, has had a heart attack, and showed serious weakness vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton and her theft of the nomination in 2016.
Tulsi Gabbard, a really promising politician, is simply ignored by the Democratic establishment and the press.
It really doesn’t matter which of the candidates wins. They are all married to the Pentagon and war and empire, and with the United States spending about a trillion dollars a year, of borrowed money, for the military/security establishment, no social program of any consequence can possibly be enacted.
All the leading Democratic candidates worship at the altar of the Pentagon and CIA and special interests in the Middle East, just as Trump does.
American “democracy” is looking more threadbare and meagre than ever.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAM HUSSEINI IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Biden Has Been Lying About His Record on Iraq for Years
“Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his surrogates such as former Secretary of State John Kerry continue to falsely claim that he did not favor the Iraq invasion”
Biden has always been a pretty sleazy operator. And not just in his lying about his enthusiasm for invading Iraq. Look back at his record as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the matter of Anita Hill’s charges about a Supreme Court nominee. Shabby.
He consistently supported wars and coups through his career. He worked closely with Obama on carrying some of them out. He served as Obama’s proconsul in Ukraine for a coup against an elected government, and appears to have gained financially from the work.
All the wars and coups, of course, involve deceit about what is actually taking place. So, he’s had a lot of practice with avoiding truth.
Biden is credited with helping convince Obama to start America’s extrajudicial killing industry. A hi-tech update of the old Argentine Junta’s “disappearing” people by the thousands without any charge or trial or defense. Now, a nameless operator sits at a screen playing computer games with real human beings.
Remember, he received the Medal of Freedom from Obama – that’s Obama of the jocular statement, “Hey, I’m pretty good at this killing stuff!” - and you don’t get that award without doing some seriously dirty work for America’s empire. Just ask Madeline Albright.
Somehow, Biden’s smile and folksy way of talking fool a lot of people.
Same phenomenon we saw with Obama.
___________________
Response to a comment saying, “Trump will be laughing his head off if Biden is the nominee”
Unless external events intervene – real possibilities include economic collapse or war with Iran – Trump will likely be re-elected. He's the devil they know, and he has many bamboozled into thinking he has achieved something. It is not hard to bamboozle large portions of America, the land of P. T. Barnum and Hollywood and Madison Avenue. If the impeachment fails, as seems likely, he will have come through an ordeal, gaining some sympathy and receiving, as it were, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
News services are so manipulated in the United States that most people have no real understanding of what is going on in the world. A war might even help Trump if enough people believe Iran is evil and a threat to dear old America, and that he is there with his absurdly posed faces and bellowing to protect them. Americans have heard the claim that Iran is somehow malign repeated in the press in one form or another for forty years, and you would not find any Democratic candidate saying otherwise for fear of losing special-interest campaign funding.
Money replaces information in telling your story and getting it “out there.” Always remembering that owing to America’s antiquated, anti-democratic Electoral College system, only some people in certain marginal or swing locations need to be convinced of any such story. Those places receive intense campaigns of market research and polls and then advertising regurgitating what the polls say people want to hear. You can win with a minority, as Trump did in 2016 and as George Bush did in 2000. Trump, by virtue of his various services to special interests, some in complete violation of international law, will have the mother lode of cash.
The Democrats just do not have good material on offer. No spark. No heroism. Dull establishment views.
Bernie Sanders has his strong points, but he is old, has had a heart attack, and showed serious weakness vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton and her theft of the nomination in 2016.
Tulsi Gabbard, a really promising politician, is simply ignored by the Democratic establishment and the press.
It really doesn’t matter which of the candidates wins. They are all married to the Pentagon and war and empire, and with the United States spending about a trillion dollars a year, of borrowed money, for the military/security establishment, no social program of any consequence can possibly be enacted.
All the leading Democratic candidates worship at the altar of the Pentagon and CIA and special interests in the Middle East, just as Trump does.
American “democracy” is looking more threadbare and meagre than ever.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HOW WORDS ARE USED IN OUR NEWS SOURCES TO GIVE IMPRESSIONS THAT MAY NOT BE ACCURATE - A NOTE ON THE PERNICIOUS AND WIDESPREAD PRACTICE OF "FACT CHECKING"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THOMAS DAIGLE ON CBC NEWS
“Toronto-based fact-checking site tries to loosen Iranian regime's grip on the truth
“FactNameh purports to reach 1 million Iranians”
“Iranian regime”? Why are you using that term?
It is the Iranian government.
Its president is elected. Very much so. The Leader is not, but he serves a role similar to the British Queen in many ways.
Use of the word "regime" in any news source is always a signal that what follows is propaganda.
Please note that you do not use the term "Saudi regime" despite its being a genuine tyranny. Nor do you call the British government serving the unelected Elizabeth II a regime.
Poor work, CBC, but then you've been rather active in promoting America's line on Iran, the line our Prime Minister embraces and promotes. A Prime Minister, by the way, elected by just less than one-third of voters.
And note the claim of reaching one million Iranians, even if true, is actually a pretty small one. That’s slightly more than one-percent of the population of the country.
I'll add the thought that the term "fact checking," used virtually anywhere in media is an inappropriate claim. It not only often represents pretensions by people not qualified by their hard knowledge, but more generally it represents a mechanism for persuasion - that is to say, propaganda.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THOMAS DAIGLE ON CBC NEWS
“Toronto-based fact-checking site tries to loosen Iranian regime's grip on the truth
“FactNameh purports to reach 1 million Iranians”
“Iranian regime”? Why are you using that term?
It is the Iranian government.
Its president is elected. Very much so. The Leader is not, but he serves a role similar to the British Queen in many ways.
Use of the word "regime" in any news source is always a signal that what follows is propaganda.
Please note that you do not use the term "Saudi regime" despite its being a genuine tyranny. Nor do you call the British government serving the unelected Elizabeth II a regime.
Poor work, CBC, but then you've been rather active in promoting America's line on Iran, the line our Prime Minister embraces and promotes. A Prime Minister, by the way, elected by just less than one-third of voters.
And note the claim of reaching one million Iranians, even if true, is actually a pretty small one. That’s slightly more than one-percent of the population of the country.
I'll add the thought that the term "fact checking," used virtually anywhere in media is an inappropriate claim. It not only often represents pretensions by people not qualified by their hard knowledge, but more generally it represents a mechanism for persuasion - that is to say, propaganda.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IF IT'S TRUE PUTIN'S BIG NEW REFORMS IN THE GOVERNMENT OF RUSSIA ARE ABOUT HIS BEING ABLE TO HOLD ONTO POWER LONGER, THAT MIGHT NOT BE SUCH A BAD IDEA - HE REPRESENTS AN IMPORTANT FORCE FOR GEO-POLITICAL SANITY IN OUR WORLD
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
"Putin announces constitutional reform in possible bid to hold onto power indefinitely"
If we had a guy with Putin's demonstrated talents - well informed, sound judgment, high intelligence, pragmatism, farsightedness, superb statesmanship - I'd want him to remain in power indefinitely too.
Look what our forms of election have given us in "the West": Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, and Justin Trudeau. Not a serious leader in the bunch.
Not only is there not a serious leader in the bunch, but there are a couple of genuinely dangerous, reckless ones.
I am exaggerating about wanting anyone to stay indefinitely, of course, but just barely, and my basic points are valid. Putin represents an important force for geo-political sanity in our world.
Note that the ultimate intent of Putin's dramatic reforms is not so clear as this article suggests. We'll have to wait and see, but I am confident that this remarkable man would do nothing to harm the interests of his country, including its interests after he is gone.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
"Putin announces constitutional reform in possible bid to hold onto power indefinitely"
If we had a guy with Putin's demonstrated talents - well informed, sound judgment, high intelligence, pragmatism, farsightedness, superb statesmanship - I'd want him to remain in power indefinitely too.
Look what our forms of election have given us in "the West": Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, and Justin Trudeau. Not a serious leader in the bunch.
Not only is there not a serious leader in the bunch, but there are a couple of genuinely dangerous, reckless ones.
I am exaggerating about wanting anyone to stay indefinitely, of course, but just barely, and my basic points are valid. Putin represents an important force for geo-political sanity in our world.
Note that the ultimate intent of Putin's dramatic reforms is not so clear as this article suggests. We'll have to wait and see, but I am confident that this remarkable man would do nothing to harm the interests of his country, including its interests after he is gone.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HOW TO RUN A ONCE-GREAT COMPANY INTO THE GROUND...OR EVEN AN ENTIRE COUNTRY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE SHEDLOCK IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Orders at Boeing Drop to a 16-Year Low, Making a Trump War on Airbus That Much More Likely
“Another excuse for Trump to expand economic conflict onto Euro-poodle ‘allies’”
How to run a once-great company into the ground.
Cutting corners and lying…and ending with causing many deaths.
You might say that's the story for the entire United States in its activities abroad.
Cutting corners and lying…and ending with causing many deaths.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE SHEDLOCK IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Orders at Boeing Drop to a 16-Year Low, Making a Trump War on Airbus That Much More Likely
“Another excuse for Trump to expand economic conflict onto Euro-poodle ‘allies’”
How to run a once-great company into the ground.
Cutting corners and lying…and ending with causing many deaths.
You might say that's the story for the entire United States in its activities abroad.
Cutting corners and lying…and ending with causing many deaths.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IRAN'S ACCIDENTAL DOWNING OF AN AIRLINER - WE ALREADY DO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED - AND THE ONE PERSON WHO SHOULD BE CHARGED, DONALD TRUMP, CERTAINLY WILL NOT BE - ETHICS AND THE RULE OF LAW SHOULD STILL MATTER - BUT NOT TO OUR POLITICIANS SHILLING FOR TRUMP AND LYING ABOUT IRAN - WHAT KIND OF A WORLD DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR CHILDREN? - CALLS FOR PUNISHING IRAN IGNORE THE BIG TRUTHS AND IGNORE HOW PAST AIRLINER SHOOTDOWNS BY AMERICA AND ISRAEL WERE TREATED
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Iran says some arrests made for downing of Ukrainian plane, but gives no details”
A comment below speaks of a "mistake" (in quotes to express doubt or contempt for Iran’s explanation) and of our never being able to learn what happened.
That is simply incorrect.
It already is known, and in some detail. It involved a communication-connection error with an officer in charge of a missile battery some distance from others.
Of course, everyone was under great pressure from constant American threats, and there were reports of American cruise missiles being launched.
Given the height and speed of the airliner at the moment, its radar signature on the remote unit’s radar, not at all the latest technology, resembled that of a cruise missile.
The reports had to be treated seriously, and split-second decisions had to be made.
After all, the United States had just used missiles to kill 35 people, including Iran’s General Soleimani, in Iraq in the previous few weeks.
Ultimately, only one person is responsible for all of it. His name is Donald Trump, and he busies himself with threats and violent acts against a nation which has attacked no one in its modern history and is known by all experts to have followed scrupulously its nuclear treaty obligations, the treaty Trump just suddenly one day decided to rip-up.
But our politicians never address the matter fairly or accurately. They are all under Washington’s thumb and shill for Trump, some even asking for further hostile measures against Iran.
It is a shameful situation for Canada to be in.
What kind of a country do you want for your children?
Ethics matter, or why does anyone bother go to church or synagogue to pray and read scripture?
And the rule of law matters. In these matters, Trump has been in complete contempt of the rule of law.
Trump is given a free hand by our politicians to commit murder in public. And to make vicious threats, day after day. Please remember that in ordinary civil society, uttering serious threats can put you into prison.
If Trump’s vicious activities don’t cause our government to speak up, what would?
Certainly not the bloody terrors of Saudi Arabia, courtesy of Trump’s good pal, the Crown Prince. Our government says nothing about his murder, executions and bombing of civilians. Nothing.
We have constructed a society with all kinds of barriers against ethics, and we have learned nothing from the bloody horrors of the past.
All the hypocrisy towards Iran, charging it with crimes it has not committed, makes our ethics and respect for rule of law devoid of meaning.
_______________________
"Iran says some arrests made for downing of Ukrainian plane"
There really is only one arrest that should be made.
Complete responsibility for this mistake made under the threats and pressures of war, as well as for related violent events, is Donald Trump's alone.
It is of course a sign of Canada’s now close-to complete subservience to Trump's White House that this indisputable truth is not heard.
Harry Truman famously said, “The buck stops here,” a reference to the expression, “passing the buck”, but that sense of responsibility is totally ignored by Trump. Instead, a steady line of new lies and tales are spun daily to justify what cannot be justified.
And our guys just go along.
_______________________
Response to a comment about there being no justice after Iran’s downing of an airliner:
Please.
Where was the justice when the United States shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 Iranians above the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s own territorial waters, in 1988?
The captain of the American warship that downed that airliner was even awarded a medal.
Or where was the justice when Israel sent 114 people aboard an airliner - Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 - to their deaths in 1973 over the Sinai?
A known, clearly marked airliner, trying to return to Cairo, was downed by two Israeli fighters. There were no repercussions at all for Israel.
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Iran says some arrests made for downing of Ukrainian plane, but gives no details”
A comment below speaks of a "mistake" (in quotes to express doubt or contempt for Iran’s explanation) and of our never being able to learn what happened.
That is simply incorrect.
It already is known, and in some detail. It involved a communication-connection error with an officer in charge of a missile battery some distance from others.
Of course, everyone was under great pressure from constant American threats, and there were reports of American cruise missiles being launched.
Given the height and speed of the airliner at the moment, its radar signature on the remote unit’s radar, not at all the latest technology, resembled that of a cruise missile.
The reports had to be treated seriously, and split-second decisions had to be made.
After all, the United States had just used missiles to kill 35 people, including Iran’s General Soleimani, in Iraq in the previous few weeks.
Ultimately, only one person is responsible for all of it. His name is Donald Trump, and he busies himself with threats and violent acts against a nation which has attacked no one in its modern history and is known by all experts to have followed scrupulously its nuclear treaty obligations, the treaty Trump just suddenly one day decided to rip-up.
But our politicians never address the matter fairly or accurately. They are all under Washington’s thumb and shill for Trump, some even asking for further hostile measures against Iran.
It is a shameful situation for Canada to be in.
What kind of a country do you want for your children?
Ethics matter, or why does anyone bother go to church or synagogue to pray and read scripture?
And the rule of law matters. In these matters, Trump has been in complete contempt of the rule of law.
Trump is given a free hand by our politicians to commit murder in public. And to make vicious threats, day after day. Please remember that in ordinary civil society, uttering serious threats can put you into prison.
If Trump’s vicious activities don’t cause our government to speak up, what would?
Certainly not the bloody terrors of Saudi Arabia, courtesy of Trump’s good pal, the Crown Prince. Our government says nothing about his murder, executions and bombing of civilians. Nothing.
We have constructed a society with all kinds of barriers against ethics, and we have learned nothing from the bloody horrors of the past.
All the hypocrisy towards Iran, charging it with crimes it has not committed, makes our ethics and respect for rule of law devoid of meaning.
_______________________
"Iran says some arrests made for downing of Ukrainian plane"
There really is only one arrest that should be made.
Complete responsibility for this mistake made under the threats and pressures of war, as well as for related violent events, is Donald Trump's alone.
It is of course a sign of Canada’s now close-to complete subservience to Trump's White House that this indisputable truth is not heard.
Harry Truman famously said, “The buck stops here,” a reference to the expression, “passing the buck”, but that sense of responsibility is totally ignored by Trump. Instead, a steady line of new lies and tales are spun daily to justify what cannot be justified.
And our guys just go along.
_______________________
Response to a comment about there being no justice after Iran’s downing of an airliner:
Please.
Where was the justice when the United States shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 Iranians above the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s own territorial waters, in 1988?
The captain of the American warship that downed that airliner was even awarded a medal.
Or where was the justice when Israel sent 114 people aboard an airliner - Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 - to their deaths in 1973 over the Sinai?
A known, clearly marked airliner, trying to return to Cairo, was downed by two Israeli fighters. There were no repercussions at all for Israel.
Monday, January 13, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ON THE NATURE OF TRUMP'S LEADERSHIP AND OF HIS FOLLOWERS - SOME ASPECTS OF AMERICAN SOCIETY PERHAPS NOT WIDELY UNDERSTOOD
John Chuckman
COMMENT – ON THE NATURE OF TRUMP’S LEADERSHIP AND OF HIS FOLLOWERS
Donald Trump is something new to the American presidency. In style and language, he is the first president from Dogpatch, the fictional home of the old Sunday newspaper comics character, Li'l Abner. It is remarkable for a man who seems also to like dress-up occasions with tuxedos or tails and resorts and mansions, but there is just no denying the identifiable mindset and attitudes. It’s the Beverly Hillbillies living in an expensive Fifth Avenue apartment.
A Trump political base supporter has many Dogpatch qualities, especially in wanting little to do with international arrangements of any kind, except bombing, or real progress which necessarily entails uncomfortable change. The attitudes towards foreigners and minorities are what you’d find in Dogpatch, as well as the conviction that much of that ugly world out there just wants to take things from Americans.
Trump understands all of that in his gut. He is not thoughtful or at all intellectual or analytical, but he has the animal cunning and instinctive understanding of a high predator.
When Trump showily hugs a big, thick, satiny American flag to his cheek, posing for a photo with a slightly crazed smile as though he were under the spell of a drug or a sensuous woman, he’s providing a kind of American patriotic parody of a Russian Orthodox Church icon. That flag, for those Americans, hugged that way, captures their constellation of beliefs and dislikes, including providing a symbol of their home team ready to take on all foreigners. It absolutely does not represent rule of law, democratic values, and close regard for human rights.
Emerson wrote of most men “living lives of quiet desperation,” and I think there’s much truth in that, but I believe confusion is the state of a good portion of humanity, more than many people would care to admit. And Trump’s crowd is confused. That’s one of the reasons his supporters are so enthusiastic about him. He is confused, quite apparently about a good many things, and that makes a kind of brotherhood bond.
As does the fact that he refuses to admit to ever having any confusion, insisting on just stomping his feet and charging ahead like a bull. Confidence. Leadership. At least what his crowd understands as leadership.
Part of the confusion we see fairly widely in America represents a lack of critical education. America’s public-school system is risk-averse and politically extremely touchy. It has little tolerance for the kind of educators who impart genuine critical thinking.
Part of the confusion represents irrationality, mental imbalance, forms and shades of madness, conditions remarkably common in people. Think about all our biases and prejudices and fears, think about our superstitions, our religions, our politics, think of all our violent crimes and senseless vandalism, and you may agree with me that we are much less rational than we credit ourselves with being.
Trump’s supporters recognize their qualities reflected in him. Trump is not a man who reads, at all, and he is not a man to listen patiently to experts. He is in fact an extremely impatient man. Those, too, are defining characteristics for a goodly portion of America’s people, and he is their man. Expressions like, “He don’t take no guff!” and “She thinks her sh-t don’t stink!” are ones I’ve heard repeated many times through my life. They are “as American as cherry pie.”
Great leaders, and Trump is anything but, do not necessarily mirror the nature of their followers. Instead they are able to fashion a set of actions and policies with which many can identify or take pride in at least some portion. Putin is a very good example. I don’t think a great many Russians resemble him. He is an exceptional person in many qualities, but he is able to construct a program, parts of which most Russians can identify with and take pride in. That is sophisticated leadership. What Trump offers is more along the lines of nativism and tribalism.
Many years ago, journalist Tom Wicker wrote a book about Richard Nixon called “One of Us,” and that phrase captures what the people of Trump’s political base see in him. Never mind the wealthy status and resorts and tuxes and endless rounds of golf, he is one of us. That makes for a strong bond, such people relishing Trump’s exalted status combined with the crude way he enjoys it, a kind of bringing things down to their level, the kind of thing some old comedy teams, such as the Marx Brothers, used to do in movies.
No high-falutin airs. Likes watching television and eating hamburgers. Often believes he’s done something when he hasn’t, reminding one of that old American architype, the gracious and gentile Southern Colonel who in fact never was a Colonel.
Trump’s always ready with a new outpouring of words to defend what he has done badly. Never at a loss for words even when the words contradict what he’s already said. Confusion. Irrationality. “Bull sh-t baffles brains,” another phrase once commonly heard in America.
The confusion of people who would never think of taking “the Lord’s name in vain” supporting a man who does so regularly. The confusion of people who like wars and anything where America gets to come out on top supporting a man who avoided military service through a feeble excuse, a college basketball player incapacitated by heel spurs?
The confusion of people who for the most part do not like people who are not like themselves, as say, Muslims or Mexicans or Chinese. There’s no denying it, various strains of racism have always been part of the American social-political fabric, likely originating both in the long-lived institution of slavery and in the brutal wars on indigenous people that came with the long westward expansion. Related also are America’s Mexican and Spanish wars and hostilities and acts for limiting or preventing Chinese migration to the West Coast.
Perhaps, too, the great waves of earlier migration, mainly from poor parts of Europe, brought the prejudices of many different peoples, for it is fundamental part of human nature to have prejudices. Prejudice is not the property of any one people. It is society’s job to control its possible effects and to enforce fairness, but it cannot make prejudice go away. A President or any high official who gives off a sense of indulging prejudice, as Trump does even if he isn’t personally acting on it, is working against the proper duty of government. Some of Trump’s people love him for that.
Americans are people with a lot of resentments and anger. You can feel the anger in American society in many places just by walking around on the streets. Hard to get a good job and keep it. Hard to earn enough to have the things an American thinks he should have. It’s been like that while, for a good many years since the blindly happy days of “the American Dream.” It is, of course, just a symptom of America’s relative economic decline in the world. And whatever Trump says, fantasizing for his political supporters, there is little to be done for that but hard work and sacrifice and investment for the future.
But that hardly provides an attractive, snappy political program. Far more appealing are fantasies, like MAGA, and bellowing aggression towards those who are doing well because they do understand those principles, like the Chinese. And so much more readily embraced when the opponent is different. Differences enable people to visualize hatreds, much like statues of demons on Cathedrals.
It wouldn’t occur to many that all that borrowed money spent on the Pentagon and foreign wars could have been spent instead on the homeland equivalent of China’s New Silk Road, vast infrastructure improvements that would generate jobs for many years to come, improve the nation’s future competitiveness, and at least leave things of worth behind when the inevitable time comes to pay the bills for all the borrowing. But that’s just not the way most Americans were raised to think.
In reality, their political system makes it almost impossible for Americans to choose such a path. As I’ve explained elsewhere, the Pentagon and security services serve empire, and empire serves the establishment and the plutocracy. It generates careers and wealth for all the participants, and it’s just too bad for everyone else. The political system isn’t structured for change. No one with power wants change. And Trump’s delusions about grabbing from the rest of the world and giving it to Americans represents a one-way trip to nowhere. It represents, in effect, a continuation with new rhetoric and raises the risks of war and conflict along the way, but, of course, that’s music to the ears of much of the establishment.
No, the Pentagon is regarded much like the photo of Trump hugging the flag. A holy icon. It has been brainwashed into the society.
COMMENT – ON THE NATURE OF TRUMP’S LEADERSHIP AND OF HIS FOLLOWERS
Donald Trump is something new to the American presidency. In style and language, he is the first president from Dogpatch, the fictional home of the old Sunday newspaper comics character, Li'l Abner. It is remarkable for a man who seems also to like dress-up occasions with tuxedos or tails and resorts and mansions, but there is just no denying the identifiable mindset and attitudes. It’s the Beverly Hillbillies living in an expensive Fifth Avenue apartment.
A Trump political base supporter has many Dogpatch qualities, especially in wanting little to do with international arrangements of any kind, except bombing, or real progress which necessarily entails uncomfortable change. The attitudes towards foreigners and minorities are what you’d find in Dogpatch, as well as the conviction that much of that ugly world out there just wants to take things from Americans.
Trump understands all of that in his gut. He is not thoughtful or at all intellectual or analytical, but he has the animal cunning and instinctive understanding of a high predator.
When Trump showily hugs a big, thick, satiny American flag to his cheek, posing for a photo with a slightly crazed smile as though he were under the spell of a drug or a sensuous woman, he’s providing a kind of American patriotic parody of a Russian Orthodox Church icon. That flag, for those Americans, hugged that way, captures their constellation of beliefs and dislikes, including providing a symbol of their home team ready to take on all foreigners. It absolutely does not represent rule of law, democratic values, and close regard for human rights.
Emerson wrote of most men “living lives of quiet desperation,” and I think there’s much truth in that, but I believe confusion is the state of a good portion of humanity, more than many people would care to admit. And Trump’s crowd is confused. That’s one of the reasons his supporters are so enthusiastic about him. He is confused, quite apparently about a good many things, and that makes a kind of brotherhood bond.
As does the fact that he refuses to admit to ever having any confusion, insisting on just stomping his feet and charging ahead like a bull. Confidence. Leadership. At least what his crowd understands as leadership.
Part of the confusion we see fairly widely in America represents a lack of critical education. America’s public-school system is risk-averse and politically extremely touchy. It has little tolerance for the kind of educators who impart genuine critical thinking.
Part of the confusion represents irrationality, mental imbalance, forms and shades of madness, conditions remarkably common in people. Think about all our biases and prejudices and fears, think about our superstitions, our religions, our politics, think of all our violent crimes and senseless vandalism, and you may agree with me that we are much less rational than we credit ourselves with being.
Trump’s supporters recognize their qualities reflected in him. Trump is not a man who reads, at all, and he is not a man to listen patiently to experts. He is in fact an extremely impatient man. Those, too, are defining characteristics for a goodly portion of America’s people, and he is their man. Expressions like, “He don’t take no guff!” and “She thinks her sh-t don’t stink!” are ones I’ve heard repeated many times through my life. They are “as American as cherry pie.”
Great leaders, and Trump is anything but, do not necessarily mirror the nature of their followers. Instead they are able to fashion a set of actions and policies with which many can identify or take pride in at least some portion. Putin is a very good example. I don’t think a great many Russians resemble him. He is an exceptional person in many qualities, but he is able to construct a program, parts of which most Russians can identify with and take pride in. That is sophisticated leadership. What Trump offers is more along the lines of nativism and tribalism.
Many years ago, journalist Tom Wicker wrote a book about Richard Nixon called “One of Us,” and that phrase captures what the people of Trump’s political base see in him. Never mind the wealthy status and resorts and tuxes and endless rounds of golf, he is one of us. That makes for a strong bond, such people relishing Trump’s exalted status combined with the crude way he enjoys it, a kind of bringing things down to their level, the kind of thing some old comedy teams, such as the Marx Brothers, used to do in movies.
No high-falutin airs. Likes watching television and eating hamburgers. Often believes he’s done something when he hasn’t, reminding one of that old American architype, the gracious and gentile Southern Colonel who in fact never was a Colonel.
Trump’s always ready with a new outpouring of words to defend what he has done badly. Never at a loss for words even when the words contradict what he’s already said. Confusion. Irrationality. “Bull sh-t baffles brains,” another phrase once commonly heard in America.
The confusion of people who would never think of taking “the Lord’s name in vain” supporting a man who does so regularly. The confusion of people who like wars and anything where America gets to come out on top supporting a man who avoided military service through a feeble excuse, a college basketball player incapacitated by heel spurs?
The confusion of people who for the most part do not like people who are not like themselves, as say, Muslims or Mexicans or Chinese. There’s no denying it, various strains of racism have always been part of the American social-political fabric, likely originating both in the long-lived institution of slavery and in the brutal wars on indigenous people that came with the long westward expansion. Related also are America’s Mexican and Spanish wars and hostilities and acts for limiting or preventing Chinese migration to the West Coast.
Perhaps, too, the great waves of earlier migration, mainly from poor parts of Europe, brought the prejudices of many different peoples, for it is fundamental part of human nature to have prejudices. Prejudice is not the property of any one people. It is society’s job to control its possible effects and to enforce fairness, but it cannot make prejudice go away. A President or any high official who gives off a sense of indulging prejudice, as Trump does even if he isn’t personally acting on it, is working against the proper duty of government. Some of Trump’s people love him for that.
Americans are people with a lot of resentments and anger. You can feel the anger in American society in many places just by walking around on the streets. Hard to get a good job and keep it. Hard to earn enough to have the things an American thinks he should have. It’s been like that while, for a good many years since the blindly happy days of “the American Dream.” It is, of course, just a symptom of America’s relative economic decline in the world. And whatever Trump says, fantasizing for his political supporters, there is little to be done for that but hard work and sacrifice and investment for the future.
But that hardly provides an attractive, snappy political program. Far more appealing are fantasies, like MAGA, and bellowing aggression towards those who are doing well because they do understand those principles, like the Chinese. And so much more readily embraced when the opponent is different. Differences enable people to visualize hatreds, much like statues of demons on Cathedrals.
It wouldn’t occur to many that all that borrowed money spent on the Pentagon and foreign wars could have been spent instead on the homeland equivalent of China’s New Silk Road, vast infrastructure improvements that would generate jobs for many years to come, improve the nation’s future competitiveness, and at least leave things of worth behind when the inevitable time comes to pay the bills for all the borrowing. But that’s just not the way most Americans were raised to think.
In reality, their political system makes it almost impossible for Americans to choose such a path. As I’ve explained elsewhere, the Pentagon and security services serve empire, and empire serves the establishment and the plutocracy. It generates careers and wealth for all the participants, and it’s just too bad for everyone else. The political system isn’t structured for change. No one with power wants change. And Trump’s delusions about grabbing from the rest of the world and giving it to Americans represents a one-way trip to nowhere. It represents, in effect, a continuation with new rhetoric and raises the risks of war and conflict along the way, but, of course, that’s music to the ears of much of the establishment.
No, the Pentagon is regarded much like the photo of Trump hugging the flag. A holy icon. It has been brainwashed into the society.
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