John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRAVDA
Bernie Sanders, being suckered in by some members of the US intelligence community concerning Russian election interference, made a serious error calling Vladimir Putin an "autocratic thug" and warning Russia to stay out of American elections.
He was trying to play tough guy, but the words are ridiculous and insulting to Russia and its elected President. Calling the leader of another country names reduces you to Trump’s level.
Bernie should have just dismissed the tired claims about Russia, made by some Democrats and members of the intelligence community, instead of treating them with any respect.
Sanders' words about President Putin are foolish, but, as a lot of people abroad do not understand, that is how American politics work, with lots of foolish nonsense.
Actually, if you removed all the foolishness from American politics, there wouldn't be a lot else left.
The existence of America’s gigantic, resource-consuming military-intelligence complex and the global empire which it serves tends to make that so.
America’s political establishment simply cannot talk about a great many ugly realities, from the nation's endless wars and coups and threats abroad to crumbling infrastructure at home and lack of competitiveness, plus the ugly truth about there being no resources leftover from imperial costs for important improvements.
The American people were bombarded with ferocious propaganda about "the communist conspiracy" for the entire Cold War period, a kind of toxic dump whose effects linger still, even though communism and the Soviet Union have been history for decades.
The residual effect of that long, massive Cold War effort provides an environment highly receptive to nonsense about Russia. And this particular kind of nonsense has some political benefits.
One is to offer an excuse for something, such as losing an election, as Hillary very much did in 2016.
Another is adding to America’s incessant, noisy rah-rah about itself, much as all the politicians feel obliged to wear little American-flag lapel pins to certify against any doubt about their place of origin and intensity of patriotic emotion.
It is hard to regard yourself quite so highly as America does without a contrasting darkness for comparison, and Russia serves that purpose.
After all, when it comes to elections, money and corruption and even fraud (as with Hillary Clinton in 2016) stand at the very center of what Americans call democracy.
It also offers a way of intimidating voters with the suggestion that they just might be “voting for Russia." Heavens!
Of course, Hillary's crowd really re-heated a pot of the old sludge back up in 2016, trying to find excuses for her loss despite burning through 1.2 billion dollars in campaign expenses. Apparently, some big donors to the party had expressed concern at her ferocious rate of spending.
And she couldn't admit that an insider at the Democratic Party put all those embarrassing DNC documents on a memory stick and handed them to Julian Assange to be published by Wikileaks.
Several top technical people, including a retired NSA expert, told us that that is what happened, and of course Assange himself said the material was not hacked by Russia.
I’m sorry to see a politician like Sanders joining in to even the slightest degree, but he is, after all, running for office in America.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BERNIE SANDERS MAKES A FOOLISH ERROR - AMERICAN SECURITY SERVICES FOOL HIM WITH YET MORE VICIOUS NONSENSE ABOUT RUSSIAN ELECTION MEDDLING - HE ENDS UP SOUNDING LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN HILLARY CLINTON AND DONALD TRUMP AND YOU CAN'T GO MUCH LOWER - BUT HE IS CAMPAIGNING IN A COUNTRY WHERE VICIOUS NONSENSE PLAYS A MAJOR POLITICAL ROLE - SET OF REASONS WHY BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE LABELLED WITH RUSSIA'S NAME KEEP REAPPEARING
Monday, February 24, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY BERNIE SANDERS HAS A GOOD CHANCE OF BEATING TRUMP - TRUMP IS NOT ALL THAT POPULAR AND IS A MINORITY PRESIDENT - ONE WHO HAS FAILED TO ACHIEVE MUCH - PLUS WEAKNESS IN THE WORLD ECONOMY THREATENS AN INCUMBENT, ESPECIALLY ONE WHO DID SO MUCH TO MAKE IT WEAK - WHO ELSE DO THE DEMOCRATS HAVE WHO CAN GENERATE ANY EXCITEMENT? - THE ESTABLISHMENT'S PLOT AGAINST BERNIE - RUSSOPHOBIA ENTERS STAGE LEFT
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Sanders' socialist revolution sweeps Sin City with Nevada caucus win”
Sanders is not a socialist, even though he has used the description himself.
He is just an old-fashioned progressive. His views resemble those of many old New Deal Democrats or those of Canada’s third major political party, the NDP.
It does seem to me that when the press keeps using the word “socialist,” it is assisting the anti-Bernie establishment now clearly at work with Buttigieg and Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton.
A reader below has said: “Bernie's nomination would all but guarantee a win for Donald Trump”
I believe that is not accurate. We even have a recent big-name poll that shows Bernie beating Trump by a decent margin. Trump is not wildly popular despite the enthusiasm of his base supporters, and he has been unsuccessful at most of what he has attempted. His crudity and name-calling have grown into a source of embarrassment for many.
Clint Eastwood, the actor and director and minor politician, is known to be quite conservative in his politics. He supported Trump in 2016, yet he has just announced that he is endorsing Bloomberg, going out of his way to criticize Trump for his inappropriate name-calling and tweeting.
Remember, Trump is a minority President. His base is not large enough to elect him. That's why he pulled in anti-war people not otherwise in his base in 2016, but he has sure let those people down.
In Iraq and Syria and Iran, he has intensified hostilities, very much so in Iran. The American-supported Saudi Arabian assault on Yemen continues. He has encouraged Israel’s aggressiveness and has virtually promised it perpetual total control of the Palestinians, instead of peace.
The recent agreement signed in Afghanistan represents almost no progress towards peace, and that’s if it even takes effect, something not at all certain owing to that country’s politics.
First, the Taliban wanted an agreement with all US troops leaving, but the US refused. Second, the agreement only reduces US troops to 8,600, the number that were there before Trump. Third, even that reduction doesn't take place until a year and half of "truce."
Trump could have set a schedule for pulling out all the troops, but he did not. Afghanistan is not and never was a threat. The US, despite its superior weapons and heavy use of bombing, has been stalemated by the impoverished Taliban who still control more than half the country. The longer the US stays there, the more chance hostilities will flare up again. Vietnam redux because the Taliban are the same kind of determined people the Vietnamese were.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the Pentagon intends to stay in Afghanistan for some time, considering Trump’s increased hostilities towards neighboring Iran and China, and Trump certainly isn’t going to oppose it.
Trump enjoys bragging about the economy, but the truth is there are serious weaknesses threatening every major economy, including that of the United States, and Trump himself has only contributed to making them worse. Sanctions, threats, tariffs, reduced trade, higher consumer prices, and wars do not strengthen economies. Just the opposite. And neither does the kind of debt Trump is piling up.
Bernie has a real chance of defeating Trump because Bernie inspires the young and energetic.
If they turn out in good numbers, it can be decisive.
Who else do the Democrats have? There's absolutely no excitement about Buttigieg or Bloomberg or Warren or Biden. None.
Tulsi Gabbard is a very attractive politician, but the Democratic establishment virtually exiled her from the race.
The Democratic establishment is now working against Bernie with Bloomberg and Buttigieg, but they are not having a lot of success. However, if Bernie doesn't secure enough votes in the primaries for a first-ballot convention victory, a brokered convention kicks in automatically, and establishment forces will almost certainly displace him.
Bloomberg has pockets deep enough to buy support – that’s how he managed to get himself into the Nevada candidates’ debate. Given the clear bias against Bernie within the party’s establishment, Bloomberg will get all the official cooperation he needs. Hillary Clinton pretty much heads up that establishment, and she has made negative public comments about Bernie while he campaigned, an unprecedented display of hostility within a political party.
Again, Bernie is not a socialist. He’s a progressive, and a very eloquent one. Trump is loud but about as eloquent as George Bush.
Bernie would need his eloquence to defeat the predictable smear about being some kind of communist, but I’m sure he has it in him.
It’s interesting that the re-emergence of threadbare tales about Russia interfering in American elections now contain the twist of Russia working to get Bernie elected.
ADDED NOTE
The terms of the signed American-Taliban agreement are somewhat different than those I read earlier, but as with all Trump’s “achievements” in foreign affairs, they lack clarity and certainty. And they do not represent a genuine peace Trump will certainly brag about in the upcoming election.
Troops will be reduced to 8,600 over the next five months. Five bases will be closed. All the rest of the American and NATO troops could leave by the end of 14 months if the Taliban adheres to the agreement’s conditions which include, importantly, holding peace talks with the Kabul government they do not recognize as legitimate.
That is a big “if” because Kabul is not a party to the agreement, and just exactly what is to be achieved between Kabul and the Taliban, in order for the remaining troops to leave, is not clear. And the government in Kabul has not yet even settled who won the last presidential election, so the Taliban’s actual negotiating partner is not known.
The deal promises to work on a large prisoner exchange between the Taliban and Kabul, but there are certainly disincentives for Kabul releasing large numbers of Taliban prisoners.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Sanders' socialist revolution sweeps Sin City with Nevada caucus win”
Sanders is not a socialist, even though he has used the description himself.
He is just an old-fashioned progressive. His views resemble those of many old New Deal Democrats or those of Canada’s third major political party, the NDP.
It does seem to me that when the press keeps using the word “socialist,” it is assisting the anti-Bernie establishment now clearly at work with Buttigieg and Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton.
A reader below has said: “Bernie's nomination would all but guarantee a win for Donald Trump”
I believe that is not accurate. We even have a recent big-name poll that shows Bernie beating Trump by a decent margin. Trump is not wildly popular despite the enthusiasm of his base supporters, and he has been unsuccessful at most of what he has attempted. His crudity and name-calling have grown into a source of embarrassment for many.
Clint Eastwood, the actor and director and minor politician, is known to be quite conservative in his politics. He supported Trump in 2016, yet he has just announced that he is endorsing Bloomberg, going out of his way to criticize Trump for his inappropriate name-calling and tweeting.
Remember, Trump is a minority President. His base is not large enough to elect him. That's why he pulled in anti-war people not otherwise in his base in 2016, but he has sure let those people down.
In Iraq and Syria and Iran, he has intensified hostilities, very much so in Iran. The American-supported Saudi Arabian assault on Yemen continues. He has encouraged Israel’s aggressiveness and has virtually promised it perpetual total control of the Palestinians, instead of peace.
The recent agreement signed in Afghanistan represents almost no progress towards peace, and that’s if it even takes effect, something not at all certain owing to that country’s politics.
First, the Taliban wanted an agreement with all US troops leaving, but the US refused. Second, the agreement only reduces US troops to 8,600, the number that were there before Trump. Third, even that reduction doesn't take place until a year and half of "truce."
Trump could have set a schedule for pulling out all the troops, but he did not. Afghanistan is not and never was a threat. The US, despite its superior weapons and heavy use of bombing, has been stalemated by the impoverished Taliban who still control more than half the country. The longer the US stays there, the more chance hostilities will flare up again. Vietnam redux because the Taliban are the same kind of determined people the Vietnamese were.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the Pentagon intends to stay in Afghanistan for some time, considering Trump’s increased hostilities towards neighboring Iran and China, and Trump certainly isn’t going to oppose it.
Trump enjoys bragging about the economy, but the truth is there are serious weaknesses threatening every major economy, including that of the United States, and Trump himself has only contributed to making them worse. Sanctions, threats, tariffs, reduced trade, higher consumer prices, and wars do not strengthen economies. Just the opposite. And neither does the kind of debt Trump is piling up.
Bernie has a real chance of defeating Trump because Bernie inspires the young and energetic.
If they turn out in good numbers, it can be decisive.
Who else do the Democrats have? There's absolutely no excitement about Buttigieg or Bloomberg or Warren or Biden. None.
Tulsi Gabbard is a very attractive politician, but the Democratic establishment virtually exiled her from the race.
The Democratic establishment is now working against Bernie with Bloomberg and Buttigieg, but they are not having a lot of success. However, if Bernie doesn't secure enough votes in the primaries for a first-ballot convention victory, a brokered convention kicks in automatically, and establishment forces will almost certainly displace him.
Bloomberg has pockets deep enough to buy support – that’s how he managed to get himself into the Nevada candidates’ debate. Given the clear bias against Bernie within the party’s establishment, Bloomberg will get all the official cooperation he needs. Hillary Clinton pretty much heads up that establishment, and she has made negative public comments about Bernie while he campaigned, an unprecedented display of hostility within a political party.
Again, Bernie is not a socialist. He’s a progressive, and a very eloquent one. Trump is loud but about as eloquent as George Bush.
Bernie would need his eloquence to defeat the predictable smear about being some kind of communist, but I’m sure he has it in him.
It’s interesting that the re-emergence of threadbare tales about Russia interfering in American elections now contain the twist of Russia working to get Bernie elected.
ADDED NOTE
The terms of the signed American-Taliban agreement are somewhat different than those I read earlier, but as with all Trump’s “achievements” in foreign affairs, they lack clarity and certainty. And they do not represent a genuine peace Trump will certainly brag about in the upcoming election.
Troops will be reduced to 8,600 over the next five months. Five bases will be closed. All the rest of the American and NATO troops could leave by the end of 14 months if the Taliban adheres to the agreement’s conditions which include, importantly, holding peace talks with the Kabul government they do not recognize as legitimate.
That is a big “if” because Kabul is not a party to the agreement, and just exactly what is to be achieved between Kabul and the Taliban, in order for the remaining troops to leave, is not clear. And the government in Kabul has not yet even settled who won the last presidential election, so the Taliban’s actual negotiating partner is not known.
The deal promises to work on a large prisoner exchange between the Taliban and Kabul, but there are certainly disincentives for Kabul releasing large numbers of Taliban prisoners.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S WAR ON HUAWEI IS JUST PART OF ITS WAR ON CHINA'S SUCCESS AND GROWING INFLUENCE IN THE WORLD - AND ALMOST EVERYONE KNOWS IT - IN THE END, AMERICA'S EFFORTS WILL MAINLY HURT AMERICAN INTERESTS - AMERICA AS A 21ST CENTURY LUDDITE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY IN UNZ REVIEW
“Huawei in the Crosshairs”
In the end, America’s prolonged and stubborn attack on Huawei is only going to harm its own interests.
It risks falling behind in applied technology, and a system like 5-G opens doors for other important advances.
For example, the Chinese have demonstrated a medical operation conducted by robot at quite a long distance, something only possible because of the speed and volume of information transmitted with 5-G.
America risks irritating all of its allies, many of whom are already irritated by threats and demands over what they are allowed to buy and from whom.
And since many of them are going to ignore American demands about Huawei, considering them unrealistic, it really begins to erode America’s traditional international authority.
It strains American credibility even farther because everyone knows America is only doing this as part of a hybrid economic war against China. It is playing the big ugly bully.
America’s allies know that it spies on everyone, with its NSA facilities and with built-in back doors in American technology and with the cooperation of Internet giants like Amazon and Wikipedia and Google and Facebook.
Huawei has been remarkably open about America’s accusations of spying, inviting foreign experts to examine its technology, building countries’ confidence in it.
America’s behavior speeds the day of Putin's multi-polar world emerging, something already well underway through ongoing natural evolutionary changes in various countries and changes in technology and changes in patterns of trade and growth in some markets over others.
And there’s the fact of America’s lack of competitiveness in so many things. It arrogantly demands that everyone help it regain its past position. America refuses to get busy improving its competitiveness with hard work and lots of investment.
Even its infrastructure is crumbling, but there’s always hundreds of billions for wars and coups which build and advance nothing.
No, America thinks it can issue diktats to regain its position of 1959. That’s literally impossible, and America looks foolish thinking it can.
Accusations of China’s stealing intellectual property are often incorrect and display ignorance about America’s own past.
From the late 18th century through the 19th, America stole intellectual property from Europe on a large scale – everything from new farm implements to books were brought home and copied with no royalties ever being paid.
The set of actions around Huawei provides a rather fitting symbol for America’s government at this time.
A 21st century Luddite.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY IN UNZ REVIEW
“Huawei in the Crosshairs”
In the end, America’s prolonged and stubborn attack on Huawei is only going to harm its own interests.
It risks falling behind in applied technology, and a system like 5-G opens doors for other important advances.
For example, the Chinese have demonstrated a medical operation conducted by robot at quite a long distance, something only possible because of the speed and volume of information transmitted with 5-G.
America risks irritating all of its allies, many of whom are already irritated by threats and demands over what they are allowed to buy and from whom.
And since many of them are going to ignore American demands about Huawei, considering them unrealistic, it really begins to erode America’s traditional international authority.
It strains American credibility even farther because everyone knows America is only doing this as part of a hybrid economic war against China. It is playing the big ugly bully.
America’s allies know that it spies on everyone, with its NSA facilities and with built-in back doors in American technology and with the cooperation of Internet giants like Amazon and Wikipedia and Google and Facebook.
Huawei has been remarkably open about America’s accusations of spying, inviting foreign experts to examine its technology, building countries’ confidence in it.
America’s behavior speeds the day of Putin's multi-polar world emerging, something already well underway through ongoing natural evolutionary changes in various countries and changes in technology and changes in patterns of trade and growth in some markets over others.
And there’s the fact of America’s lack of competitiveness in so many things. It arrogantly demands that everyone help it regain its past position. America refuses to get busy improving its competitiveness with hard work and lots of investment.
Even its infrastructure is crumbling, but there’s always hundreds of billions for wars and coups which build and advance nothing.
No, America thinks it can issue diktats to regain its position of 1959. That’s literally impossible, and America looks foolish thinking it can.
Accusations of China’s stealing intellectual property are often incorrect and display ignorance about America’s own past.
From the late 18th century through the 19th, America stole intellectual property from Europe on a large scale – everything from new farm implements to books were brought home and copied with no royalties ever being paid.
The set of actions around Huawei provides a rather fitting symbol for America’s government at this time.
A 21st century Luddite.
Friday, February 21, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE ABOUT MICHAEL BLOOMBERG - WHAT HE APPEARS ACTUALLY TO BE DOING AS A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE (HE USED TO BE A REPUBLICAN) AND THE DARK STUFF BEING TURNED UP ABOUT HIM
John Chuckman
COMMENT – MORE ABOUT MICHAEL BLOOMBERG – WHAT HE APPEARS ACTUALLY TO BE DOING AS A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE AND THE DARK STUFF BEING TURNED UP ABOUT HIS PAST
With many articles now digging into his background, it is clear Bloomberg is a rather dark figure indeed, at least from the perspective of genuine liberal values.
Bloomberg’s motive as a Democratic candidate – note that he was a Republican as Mayor of New York - does appear to be the negative one of sabotaging Bernie. He is lobbying Democratic officials and donors to get behind him if Sanders can’t win enough support in the primaries for a first-ballot victory, a real possibility which automatically triggers a brokered convention.
Of course, ”lobbying” for a man of Bloomberg’s immense wealth (his net worth is said to be 65 billion dollars) likely means something more than just talking, American political parties and groups having insatiable appetites for money.
The Intercept reported that Bloomberg, as Mayor of New York, ran a large and detailed surveillance program against Muslim Americans. The Police Department’s “Demographics Unit” targeted Muslim Americans, their businesses, mosques, and restaurants, operating much like East Germany’s fabled Stasi.
Another article offered insight into Bloomberg’s attitude towards privacy and government. In 2014, he said, “We should hope the NSA is reading every e-mail.”
An alternative news source reported that Bloomberg is listed in Jeffrey Epstein’s “little black book.” His name is on page six, the article including an image of the page.
And we have a photo of Bloomberg socializing with Epstein’s companion and reputed procuress of young girls, Ghislaine Maxwell.
A Vanity Fair article last year included this from Ghislaine, “When I asked what she thought of the underage girls, she [Ghislaine] looked at me and said, ‘they’re nothing, these girls. They are trash.’”
Readers may enjoy my original comments about Bloomberg to which I had added other new observations in footnotes:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/02/01/john-chuckman-comment-a-few-words-about-michael-bloombergs-candidacy-an-establishment-figure-of-some-charm-and-ability-a-safe-choice-to-tell-the-world-america-is-returning-to-its-senses-but-a/
COMMENT – MORE ABOUT MICHAEL BLOOMBERG – WHAT HE APPEARS ACTUALLY TO BE DOING AS A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE AND THE DARK STUFF BEING TURNED UP ABOUT HIS PAST
With many articles now digging into his background, it is clear Bloomberg is a rather dark figure indeed, at least from the perspective of genuine liberal values.
Bloomberg’s motive as a Democratic candidate – note that he was a Republican as Mayor of New York - does appear to be the negative one of sabotaging Bernie. He is lobbying Democratic officials and donors to get behind him if Sanders can’t win enough support in the primaries for a first-ballot victory, a real possibility which automatically triggers a brokered convention.
Of course, ”lobbying” for a man of Bloomberg’s immense wealth (his net worth is said to be 65 billion dollars) likely means something more than just talking, American political parties and groups having insatiable appetites for money.
The Intercept reported that Bloomberg, as Mayor of New York, ran a large and detailed surveillance program against Muslim Americans. The Police Department’s “Demographics Unit” targeted Muslim Americans, their businesses, mosques, and restaurants, operating much like East Germany’s fabled Stasi.
Another article offered insight into Bloomberg’s attitude towards privacy and government. In 2014, he said, “We should hope the NSA is reading every e-mail.”
An alternative news source reported that Bloomberg is listed in Jeffrey Epstein’s “little black book.” His name is on page six, the article including an image of the page.
And we have a photo of Bloomberg socializing with Epstein’s companion and reputed procuress of young girls, Ghislaine Maxwell.
A Vanity Fair article last year included this from Ghislaine, “When I asked what she thought of the underage girls, she [Ghislaine] looked at me and said, ‘they’re nothing, these girls. They are trash.’”
Readers may enjoy my original comments about Bloomberg to which I had added other new observations in footnotes:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/02/01/john-chuckman-comment-a-few-words-about-michael-bloombergs-candidacy-an-establishment-figure-of-some-charm-and-ability-a-safe-choice-to-tell-the-world-america-is-returning-to-its-senses-but-a/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE TALE OF RUSSIA TRYING TO INFLUENCE AMERICA'S ELECTION HAS RESURFACED LIKE A BLOATED CORPSE FLOATING IN A STAGNANT POND - WHAT IS GOING ON - WHAT PUTIN ACTUALLY THINKS OF TRUMP
John Chuckman
COMMENT – THOUGHTS ON THE TALE OF RUSSIA AGAIN TRYING TO INFLUENCE AMERICA’S ELECTION
Political and ideological tales in America enjoy a remarkably long shelf life. I think the fact has to do with unchanging, iron-bound ideology and a simple lack of imagination.
Already, the stuff about Russia working to influence the approaching American election has resurfaced like a bloated corpse floating in a stagnant pond. It’s being repeated by American intelligence officials, American media, and Democratic politicians. 2016 redux.
Hillary Clinton used it as one of several fall-back explanations for her loss, something she had a brutally difficult time accepting as reality, having spent more money than some nations’ space programs have at their disposal. About 1.2 billion dollars.
The charges about Russia were silly then, and they are only sillier now.
But it is an intimidation tool in a country which listened to J. Edgar Hoover blubber for decades about “the communist conspiracy,” trying to tell voters that their votes are supporting Russia.
Russia wouldn’t dream of getting caught trying to manipulate an American election. There really is no reward important enough to be worth the risk.
Of course, facts make no difference in this kind of mumbo-jumbo, but Julian Assange already told us that Russia did not give him the damaging material about the Democrats in 2016.
Several distinguished American technical experts have repeatedly said that the material came from downloading to memory sticks by someone with access to DNC computers, not from hacking. That is the kind of statement that can be made definitively in such matters by an expert who recognizes the telltale signs.
Anyway, what has Trump done for Russia that possibly could have rewarded an effort on his behalf? Nothing.
Of course, individual Russians, both politicians and others, and news sources have their election favorites, just as is the case in America.
I believe a fair part of the Russian establishment does favor Trump, but there are some easy-to-understand explanations for the fact, and they have nothing to do with conspiracy.
First, Russia is a remarkably conservative country. This fact jumps out at you if you read some of its news sources, as I do regularly.
Second, while both American political parties are Pentagon-embracing War Parties with very little real difference between them, the Democrats do seem to make the most noise around hostility towards Russia.
Third, Putin is a very clever and subtle man. He knows what a hopeless putz Trump really is. There are reports of Putin and associates making fun of Trump in private.
If he does favor Trump, it is only because he knows how bad Trump is for America’s interests, America being a nation with about a century of hostility towards Russia. A poor leader like Trump making blunders and creating enemies with everything he does is a lovely situation to chuckle over with some vodka in Moscow.
Putin wouldn’t dream of doing anything to influence the matter, beyond his influence over Russia’s own now extensive English-speaking press, but so what? America’s press never stops talking about Russia, and in disparaging terms, calling it everything from a “regime” to a “kleptocracy.” And it is overwhelmingly the case that most Americans never see the Russian press.
COMMENT – THOUGHTS ON THE TALE OF RUSSIA AGAIN TRYING TO INFLUENCE AMERICA’S ELECTION
Political and ideological tales in America enjoy a remarkably long shelf life. I think the fact has to do with unchanging, iron-bound ideology and a simple lack of imagination.
Already, the stuff about Russia working to influence the approaching American election has resurfaced like a bloated corpse floating in a stagnant pond. It’s being repeated by American intelligence officials, American media, and Democratic politicians. 2016 redux.
Hillary Clinton used it as one of several fall-back explanations for her loss, something she had a brutally difficult time accepting as reality, having spent more money than some nations’ space programs have at their disposal. About 1.2 billion dollars.
The charges about Russia were silly then, and they are only sillier now.
But it is an intimidation tool in a country which listened to J. Edgar Hoover blubber for decades about “the communist conspiracy,” trying to tell voters that their votes are supporting Russia.
Russia wouldn’t dream of getting caught trying to manipulate an American election. There really is no reward important enough to be worth the risk.
Of course, facts make no difference in this kind of mumbo-jumbo, but Julian Assange already told us that Russia did not give him the damaging material about the Democrats in 2016.
Several distinguished American technical experts have repeatedly said that the material came from downloading to memory sticks by someone with access to DNC computers, not from hacking. That is the kind of statement that can be made definitively in such matters by an expert who recognizes the telltale signs.
Anyway, what has Trump done for Russia that possibly could have rewarded an effort on his behalf? Nothing.
Of course, individual Russians, both politicians and others, and news sources have their election favorites, just as is the case in America.
I believe a fair part of the Russian establishment does favor Trump, but there are some easy-to-understand explanations for the fact, and they have nothing to do with conspiracy.
First, Russia is a remarkably conservative country. This fact jumps out at you if you read some of its news sources, as I do regularly.
Second, while both American political parties are Pentagon-embracing War Parties with very little real difference between them, the Democrats do seem to make the most noise around hostility towards Russia.
Third, Putin is a very clever and subtle man. He knows what a hopeless putz Trump really is. There are reports of Putin and associates making fun of Trump in private.
If he does favor Trump, it is only because he knows how bad Trump is for America’s interests, America being a nation with about a century of hostility towards Russia. A poor leader like Trump making blunders and creating enemies with everything he does is a lovely situation to chuckle over with some vodka in Moscow.
Putin wouldn’t dream of doing anything to influence the matter, beyond his influence over Russia’s own now extensive English-speaking press, but so what? America’s press never stops talking about Russia, and in disparaging terms, calling it everything from a “regime” to a “kleptocracy.” And it is overwhelmingly the case that most Americans never see the Russian press.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S LATEST GROTESQUE APPOINTMENT - A PROVEN INCOMPETENT DIPLOMAT IS MADE DIRECTOR OF ALL NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES - NO EXPERIENCE BUT DOGGED LOYALTY AND READINESS TO PLEASE - THE CONSIDERABLE DANGER HERE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LARISON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (ANTI-EMPIRE)
“Trump Picks Fool Who Blew Up US-German Relations to Head US Intelligence Agencies
“Absurdly Grenell gets to also stay on as Ambassador to Berlin”
https://www.anti-empire.com/trump-picks-fool-who-blew-up-us-german-relations-to-head-us-intelligence-agencies/
I read before of the impact Richard Grenell, in his role as American Ambassador, has had in Germany, and it has been truly the opposite of what diplomacy is supposed to accomplish.
I agree with the author's assessment. Grenell offers a complete lack of expertise in intelligence, but he offers dogged loyalty and readiness to please, as with views and information never contradicting, only reconfirming, Trump’s own. That is always one of hazards of “Big Intelligence” - as when the CIA during the Cold War, over and over, produced annual assessments of the USSR that were wildly out of line with reality – their aim being to juice up their budgets. But in this case, it seems a guaranteed outcome.
Considering all the hotspots Trump has created in the world, how easy it would be for this kind of man to deliberately feed him dangerously slanted intelligence about any of them.
I think particularly of Iran, the focus of so many unwarranted, irrational American hatred – I think far more so than North Korea, a genuine renegade nuclear power - and a country we know that Israel’s Netanyahu would just relish seeing attacked. He has in the past, several times, manufactured various kinds of “evidence” that fortunately no one believed.
After all, in one of Trump's insane missile attacks on Syria, over a clearly faked poison gas event, it was reported at the time that it was Ivanka tearfully pleading with him about injured children that propelled him to act without any evidence.
As we all know from observation, Ivanka is pretty much what old Trump associate, Steve Bannon, once said she was, "dumb as a brick." Yet she has a deep mutual-admiration relationship with her father, much as this man will.
Maybe one of the qualities Trump looks for in major appointments is just sheer unlikability.
It is a feature of his every major appointment, except for former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was doomed from his first day on the job because he liked facts and was ready to disagree when he didn’t see any.
Being a truly dislikable man himself, Trump is comfortable with others of the same kind.
Almost something resembling a monster in an old fairy tale seeking the company of other monsters in the dark forest.
In the end, you just have to wonder what Trump thinks he is doing with all of his "work" as President.
He is piling up an amazing record of failures and half-done stunts and doing things that were better not done. He has to be the most unsuitable man ever for the role of a world leader.
All of it is destructive, his every act towards friends and foes. Even in the case of Israel, which he rewards like a Mafia Don recognizing a loyal soldier, he builds something that cannot have a stable future because it ignores so many interests. He is reviled from China and across most of the Middle East over to huge parts of Latin America. And while he likely believes he is making America a better place, he is doing quite the opposite, pushing the world’s leaders to speed the day of a new set of international relationships, while contributing to the instability of a world already under grave economic stress.
LATER NOTE
Well, apparently, Grenell's real task is just quickly taking a meat ax to some of the agencies, and he may only keep his title for a matter of weeks.
He's enough of a bastard for the job, for sure.
From CNN:
"Richard Grenell, the newly installed acting director of American spy agencies and loyalist to President Donald Trump, began his temporary tenure by moving aggressively to put his stamp on the intelligence community that Trump has repeatedly attacked.
"Grenell ousted a veteran intelligence officer on Friday who served as the number two at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, according to The New York Times, and on Thursday he brought on board a former staffer of Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican who's a staunch Trump ally.
"He also asked to see the intelligence behind the classified briefing last week where lawmakers were told Russia was interfering in the 2020 election to aid Trump, the Times reported."
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LARISON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (ANTI-EMPIRE)
“Trump Picks Fool Who Blew Up US-German Relations to Head US Intelligence Agencies
“Absurdly Grenell gets to also stay on as Ambassador to Berlin”
https://www.anti-empire.com/trump-picks-fool-who-blew-up-us-german-relations-to-head-us-intelligence-agencies/
I read before of the impact Richard Grenell, in his role as American Ambassador, has had in Germany, and it has been truly the opposite of what diplomacy is supposed to accomplish.
I agree with the author's assessment. Grenell offers a complete lack of expertise in intelligence, but he offers dogged loyalty and readiness to please, as with views and information never contradicting, only reconfirming, Trump’s own. That is always one of hazards of “Big Intelligence” - as when the CIA during the Cold War, over and over, produced annual assessments of the USSR that were wildly out of line with reality – their aim being to juice up their budgets. But in this case, it seems a guaranteed outcome.
Considering all the hotspots Trump has created in the world, how easy it would be for this kind of man to deliberately feed him dangerously slanted intelligence about any of them.
I think particularly of Iran, the focus of so many unwarranted, irrational American hatred – I think far more so than North Korea, a genuine renegade nuclear power - and a country we know that Israel’s Netanyahu would just relish seeing attacked. He has in the past, several times, manufactured various kinds of “evidence” that fortunately no one believed.
After all, in one of Trump's insane missile attacks on Syria, over a clearly faked poison gas event, it was reported at the time that it was Ivanka tearfully pleading with him about injured children that propelled him to act without any evidence.
As we all know from observation, Ivanka is pretty much what old Trump associate, Steve Bannon, once said she was, "dumb as a brick." Yet she has a deep mutual-admiration relationship with her father, much as this man will.
Maybe one of the qualities Trump looks for in major appointments is just sheer unlikability.
It is a feature of his every major appointment, except for former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was doomed from his first day on the job because he liked facts and was ready to disagree when he didn’t see any.
Being a truly dislikable man himself, Trump is comfortable with others of the same kind.
Almost something resembling a monster in an old fairy tale seeking the company of other monsters in the dark forest.
In the end, you just have to wonder what Trump thinks he is doing with all of his "work" as President.
He is piling up an amazing record of failures and half-done stunts and doing things that were better not done. He has to be the most unsuitable man ever for the role of a world leader.
All of it is destructive, his every act towards friends and foes. Even in the case of Israel, which he rewards like a Mafia Don recognizing a loyal soldier, he builds something that cannot have a stable future because it ignores so many interests. He is reviled from China and across most of the Middle East over to huge parts of Latin America. And while he likely believes he is making America a better place, he is doing quite the opposite, pushing the world’s leaders to speed the day of a new set of international relationships, while contributing to the instability of a world already under grave economic stress.
LATER NOTE
Well, apparently, Grenell's real task is just quickly taking a meat ax to some of the agencies, and he may only keep his title for a matter of weeks.
He's enough of a bastard for the job, for sure.
From CNN:
"Richard Grenell, the newly installed acting director of American spy agencies and loyalist to President Donald Trump, began his temporary tenure by moving aggressively to put his stamp on the intelligence community that Trump has repeatedly attacked.
"Grenell ousted a veteran intelligence officer on Friday who served as the number two at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, according to The New York Times, and on Thursday he brought on board a former staffer of Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican who's a staunch Trump ally.
"He also asked to see the intelligence behind the classified briefing last week where lawmakers were told Russia was interfering in the 2020 election to aid Trump, the Times reported."
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IN PRAISE OF RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SERGEY LAVROV - HOW RUSSIA IS BLESSED WITH LEADERSHIP IN THESE DANGEROUS TIMES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Lavrov at Munich: the Lone Voice for Peace”
Lavrov is simply one of the finest Foreign Ministers we’ve seen.
He is tireless in the pursuit of reason and cooperation and human decency in international affairs.
The contrast with the Land of Liberty’s Mike Pompeo just couldn’t be starker. Pompeo is a grotesque figure with all the legendary attributes of a gangster.
And Lavrov works for the most gifted statesman of our era, Vladimir Putin.
Russia really has been blessed because the US has made these very perilous times, not just for its so-called “adversaries,” but for all its friends and allies.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Lavrov at Munich: the Lone Voice for Peace”
Lavrov is simply one of the finest Foreign Ministers we’ve seen.
He is tireless in the pursuit of reason and cooperation and human decency in international affairs.
The contrast with the Land of Liberty’s Mike Pompeo just couldn’t be starker. Pompeo is a grotesque figure with all the legendary attributes of a gangster.
And Lavrov works for the most gifted statesman of our era, Vladimir Putin.
Russia really has been blessed because the US has made these very perilous times, not just for its so-called “adversaries,” but for all its friends and allies.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE'S HALTING CANADA'S RAILROADS IS HAVING A SERIOUS IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY - ESPECIALLY THE CRITICAL SYMPATHY PROTEST IN SOUTHERN ONTARIO - PROTEST OVER GAS PIPELINE ROUTE IN BC AND POLICE PRESENCE ON INDIGENOUS LAND THERE - TRUDEAU SO FAR HAS SORTED NOTHING - BUT A WAY OUT DOES SEEM REASONABLY CLEAR
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“RCMP have offered to withdraw from Wet'suwet'en territory [in BC]
“Hereditary chiefs had said they wouldn't meet with government officials until the RCMP left”
Well, it does now seem, in light of new knowledge, the obvious thing to do.
We’ve learned that the critically-important Ontario blockade was about RCMP presence on Indigenous land in BC, not about the gas pipeline per se.
Even if they still have problems at the pipeline location in BC without the RCMP there, that is a lot less critical as far the nation's economy goes than the situation in Ontario. There would be time to deal with the BC problem.
The government should promptly look at the alternative route for the BC pipeline proposed by Indigenous leaders. It is more costly, but it possibly could be subsidized as the price of peace.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“RCMP have offered to withdraw from Wet'suwet'en territory [in BC]
“Hereditary chiefs had said they wouldn't meet with government officials until the RCMP left”
Well, it does now seem, in light of new knowledge, the obvious thing to do.
We’ve learned that the critically-important Ontario blockade was about RCMP presence on Indigenous land in BC, not about the gas pipeline per se.
Even if they still have problems at the pipeline location in BC without the RCMP there, that is a lot less critical as far the nation's economy goes than the situation in Ontario. There would be time to deal with the BC problem.
The government should promptly look at the alternative route for the BC pipeline proposed by Indigenous leaders. It is more costly, but it possibly could be subsidized as the price of peace.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP AND PELOSI SAID TO BE IN A DESPERATE FIGHT OVER FUTURE HEARTS AND MINDS - BUT EXCEPT FOR TRUMP'S GROTESQUELY CRUDE MANNER, I SEE LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO PARTIES, ESPECIALLY IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHIL THOMAS IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump and Pelosi’s desperate fight for the hearts and minds of the future
“From tearing up speeches to spinning ever more fabulous yarns, the speaker and the president are locked in a titanic struggle for the judgement of posterity”
"Trump and Pelosi’s desperate fight for the hearts and minds of the future"
Well, I don't really agree.
Trump is simply grotesque in his rudeness and noise.
But the Democrats' leaders, including Pelosi, while lacking his brutality, share most of his fundamental aims abroad.
They simply are not all that different.
None of them opposes the Pentagon/CIA/NSA imperial complex in the United States.
Do we hear any criticism of all the horrors the US has caused in the Middle East?
Of all the needless and violent coups and blockades and bombings and wars?
Of telling countries all over the globe how to run their affairs and from whom they must buy things?
Of blood-drenched friends like Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and Israel’s Netanyahu and the Generalissimo running Egypt?
The Democrats are just as much a War Party as the Republicans. Obama bombed every single day of his eight years. Hillary Clinton is downright bloodthirsty, as proved by some of her own words.
And while they talk of social programs at home, how is that possible with the Pentagon/CIA/NSA imperial complex devouring a trillion dollars a year, and all of it borrowed, national debt already piled up in excess of twenty-two trillion dollars?
None of the larger Democratic social proposals can possibly happen. There’s no room for them.
And no willingness either. Everyone of these Democratic leaders lives politically off the campaign donations of lobbyists opposed to large new social programs. Money runs American government.
You can have a decent country or you can have an empire. America chose empire a long time ago.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHIL THOMAS IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump and Pelosi’s desperate fight for the hearts and minds of the future
“From tearing up speeches to spinning ever more fabulous yarns, the speaker and the president are locked in a titanic struggle for the judgement of posterity”
"Trump and Pelosi’s desperate fight for the hearts and minds of the future"
Well, I don't really agree.
Trump is simply grotesque in his rudeness and noise.
But the Democrats' leaders, including Pelosi, while lacking his brutality, share most of his fundamental aims abroad.
They simply are not all that different.
None of them opposes the Pentagon/CIA/NSA imperial complex in the United States.
Do we hear any criticism of all the horrors the US has caused in the Middle East?
Of all the needless and violent coups and blockades and bombings and wars?
Of telling countries all over the globe how to run their affairs and from whom they must buy things?
Of blood-drenched friends like Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and Israel’s Netanyahu and the Generalissimo running Egypt?
The Democrats are just as much a War Party as the Republicans. Obama bombed every single day of his eight years. Hillary Clinton is downright bloodthirsty, as proved by some of her own words.
And while they talk of social programs at home, how is that possible with the Pentagon/CIA/NSA imperial complex devouring a trillion dollars a year, and all of it borrowed, national debt already piled up in excess of twenty-two trillion dollars?
None of the larger Democratic social proposals can possibly happen. There’s no room for them.
And no willingness either. Everyone of these Democratic leaders lives politically off the campaign donations of lobbyists opposed to large new social programs. Money runs American government.
You can have a decent country or you can have an empire. America chose empire a long time ago.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/john-chuckman-comment-how-american-politics-really-work-why-there-are-terrible-candidates-and-constant-wars-and-peoples-problems-are-ignored-why-heroes-like-julian-assange-are-persecuted-and-r/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP CRACKDOWN ON IMMIGRANTS SAID TO BE REDIRECTING MANY TO CANADA - GOOD AND CANADA SHOWS NO CONTEMPT FOR IMMIGRANTS - JUST A FEW MEMORABLE NAMES FROM THE PAST
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON GOVERNMENT SLAVES
“Due to Trump’s Immigration Crackdown, Immigrants Flock to Canada Instead of the United States”
If accurate, good.
Canada doesn't show contempt for immigrants the way Trump's America does.
There have been so many to North America that made remarkable contributions.
Scotland's Andrew Carnegie. Syria's Steve Jobs. Scotland's Alexander Graham Bell. Germany's Albert Einstein. Belgium's Audrey Hepburn. Hungary’s Joseph Pulitzer. Russia's Irving Berlin. France's Yo-Yo Ma. Holland's Willem de Kooning. Russia's Sergei Rachmaninoff. Italy's Frank Capra.
And so very many more.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON GOVERNMENT SLAVES
“Due to Trump’s Immigration Crackdown, Immigrants Flock to Canada Instead of the United States”
If accurate, good.
Canada doesn't show contempt for immigrants the way Trump's America does.
There have been so many to North America that made remarkable contributions.
Scotland's Andrew Carnegie. Syria's Steve Jobs. Scotland's Alexander Graham Bell. Germany's Albert Einstein. Belgium's Audrey Hepburn. Hungary’s Joseph Pulitzer. Russia's Irving Berlin. France's Yo-Yo Ma. Holland's Willem de Kooning. Russia's Sergei Rachmaninoff. Italy's Frank Capra.
And so very many more.
Monday, February 17, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE WORDS ON THAT GENUINE AMERICAN HERO, MUHAMMAD ALI - HE PAID A GREAT PRICE FOR OPPOSING AMERICA'S HOLOCAUST IN VIETNAM - A FEW OF MY FAVORITE ALI QUOTES
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Olympic protest ban is a corporate power play that could backfire badly on IOC”
“Fifty-three years ago, on April 28, 1967, at the U.S. Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston, Muhammad Ali refused to respond to the call of "Cassius Clay'' and dodged the draft during the Vietnam War”
I don’t agree with the author that Muhammad Ali’s actions were a “protest.” That is not a description that even nearly fits.
And neither does the expression “dodged the draft.”
Ali refused to take part in something horrible and did so at considerable risk to himself. He stood against a huge, ugly crowd at the time. There were all kinds of threats and name-calling. That’s far more than protest. And he was ready to accept the consequences of his acts.
His refusal represented deep personal conviction.
Some of his finest words then were along the lines, “I beats ‘em up, but I don’t kills ‘em,” and “I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong...No Viet Cong ever called me nigger,” and “I got nothin’ to lose standin’ up for my beliefs…So I go to jail, so what?”
Vietnam was an American imperial holocaust, with an estimated 3 million victims. Another million or so died in Cambodia after the collapse of a neutral government the United States had destabilized with many armed incursions and secret bombings.
I met Ali once, in Vancouver in 1971.
A charming man and someone I admired greatly. I’m sure he could see the admiration in my eyes.
I regret not telling him just why I so admired him.
It wasn’t about boxing, great as he was at that.
It was about his courage in standing up to a powerful establishment.
He paid a serious price, being deprived of earning his living for three years at his absolute prime. He was also fined and sentenced to five years in prison, a sentence he successfully appealed.
He was a genuine hero, the kind we so rarely see.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Olympic protest ban is a corporate power play that could backfire badly on IOC”
“Fifty-three years ago, on April 28, 1967, at the U.S. Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston, Muhammad Ali refused to respond to the call of "Cassius Clay'' and dodged the draft during the Vietnam War”
I don’t agree with the author that Muhammad Ali’s actions were a “protest.” That is not a description that even nearly fits.
And neither does the expression “dodged the draft.”
Ali refused to take part in something horrible and did so at considerable risk to himself. He stood against a huge, ugly crowd at the time. There were all kinds of threats and name-calling. That’s far more than protest. And he was ready to accept the consequences of his acts.
His refusal represented deep personal conviction.
Some of his finest words then were along the lines, “I beats ‘em up, but I don’t kills ‘em,” and “I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong...No Viet Cong ever called me nigger,” and “I got nothin’ to lose standin’ up for my beliefs…So I go to jail, so what?”
Vietnam was an American imperial holocaust, with an estimated 3 million victims. Another million or so died in Cambodia after the collapse of a neutral government the United States had destabilized with many armed incursions and secret bombings.
I met Ali once, in Vancouver in 1971.
A charming man and someone I admired greatly. I’m sure he could see the admiration in my eyes.
I regret not telling him just why I so admired him.
It wasn’t about boxing, great as he was at that.
It was about his courage in standing up to a powerful establishment.
He paid a serious price, being deprived of earning his living for three years at his absolute prime. He was also fined and sentenced to five years in prison, a sentence he successfully appealed.
He was a genuine hero, the kind we so rarely see.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BERNIE SANDERS IS THE CANDIDATE WHO CAN BEAT TRUMP - PETE BUTTIGIEG REPRESENTS A WORRIED ESTABLISHMENT'S EFFORT TO STOP BERNIE - THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUTH AND ENTHUSIASM IN DEFEATING TRUMP - IF BERNIE DID NOTHING ELSE THAN SERVE AS THE TRASHMAN CARTING OFF TRUMP, IT WOULD BE AN ACHIEVEMENT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
Buttigieg is one of the most “manufactured” American presidential candidates I can recall. Polished, smiling, well-dressed, bland, saying almost nothing with any meaning or force.
He is the establishment’s darling boy to beat Sanders. We’ll never know what went on to give him his “bump” in Iowa. I can’t help thinking Hillary Clinton-style tactics were at work. And Hillary herself, still the effective leader of the Democrats, has made some remarkably insulting public comments about Sanders.
Sanders is the man who can get rid of Trump in the election. His candidacy would motivate the young and enthusiastic. Turned out in large numbers, they would be decisive.
Most presidents achieve relatively little of note during their time in office. But having served as the trashman who carted off Trump would not be a bad historical achievement, even if Bernie got nothing else done.
As far as most of Bernie’s domestic proposals being enacted, I just don’t think that can happen in the United States. So, it’s hard to understand the establishment’s fears, but they are clearly concerned. Big power doesn’t like to take any chances.
As an interesting footnote, there was an article recently in a respectable alternative news source suggesting, from parts of his background, that Buttigieg may well have CIA connections.
I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all,
LATER ADDED NOTE
"Sanders Says He Would Consider a Preemptive Strike on Iran and North Korea"
“To prevent not even a threatened strike on the US, but a mere weapons test”
https://www.anti-empire.com/sanders-says-he-would-consider-a-preemptive-strike-on-iran-and-north-korea/#disqus_thread
Good God, is there not even one America politician who does not faithfully serve the war machine?
I guess it's about the same as asking if there is even one American politician who does not faithfully serve Israel’s aggressions and abuses.
Indeed, the two impulses come from the same place.
No wonder Tulsi Gabbard doesn't get a fair hearing from the Democrats.
FURTHER ADDED NOTE
In Bernie's favor, very much, we have this today from Al Jazeera:
'Senator Bernie Sanders says the United States must be "pro-Palestinian" as much as "pro-Israeli" and described the Israeli government as "right-wing" and "racist".'
'"Speaking during a televised town hall meeting in Nevada on Tuesday, the Democratic frontrunner for the US presidency said: "To be for the Israeli people and to be for peace in the Middle East does not mean that we have to support right-wing, racist governments that currently exist in Israel"'
And that about sums up why Israel and the Israel Lobby are known to be working against Bernie, who is Jewish.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
Buttigieg is one of the most “manufactured” American presidential candidates I can recall. Polished, smiling, well-dressed, bland, saying almost nothing with any meaning or force.
He is the establishment’s darling boy to beat Sanders. We’ll never know what went on to give him his “bump” in Iowa. I can’t help thinking Hillary Clinton-style tactics were at work. And Hillary herself, still the effective leader of the Democrats, has made some remarkably insulting public comments about Sanders.
Sanders is the man who can get rid of Trump in the election. His candidacy would motivate the young and enthusiastic. Turned out in large numbers, they would be decisive.
Most presidents achieve relatively little of note during their time in office. But having served as the trashman who carted off Trump would not be a bad historical achievement, even if Bernie got nothing else done.
As far as most of Bernie’s domestic proposals being enacted, I just don’t think that can happen in the United States. So, it’s hard to understand the establishment’s fears, but they are clearly concerned. Big power doesn’t like to take any chances.
As an interesting footnote, there was an article recently in a respectable alternative news source suggesting, from parts of his background, that Buttigieg may well have CIA connections.
I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all,
LATER ADDED NOTE
"Sanders Says He Would Consider a Preemptive Strike on Iran and North Korea"
“To prevent not even a threatened strike on the US, but a mere weapons test”
https://www.anti-empire.com/sanders-says-he-would-consider-a-preemptive-strike-on-iran-and-north-korea/#disqus_thread
Good God, is there not even one America politician who does not faithfully serve the war machine?
I guess it's about the same as asking if there is even one American politician who does not faithfully serve Israel’s aggressions and abuses.
Indeed, the two impulses come from the same place.
No wonder Tulsi Gabbard doesn't get a fair hearing from the Democrats.
FURTHER ADDED NOTE
In Bernie's favor, very much, we have this today from Al Jazeera:
'Senator Bernie Sanders says the United States must be "pro-Palestinian" as much as "pro-Israeli" and described the Israeli government as "right-wing" and "racist".'
'"Speaking during a televised town hall meeting in Nevada on Tuesday, the Democratic frontrunner for the US presidency said: "To be for the Israeli people and to be for peace in the Middle East does not mean that we have to support right-wing, racist governments that currently exist in Israel"'
And that about sums up why Israel and the Israel Lobby are known to be working against Bernie, who is Jewish.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CHINA'S LACK OF DEMOCRACY IS A CONCERN FOR THE CHINESE PEOPLE, NOT FOR OTHER NATIONS TRADING WITH CHINA - FROM A TRADING COUNTRY'S PERSPECTIVE, CHINA TODAY ACTUALLY REPRESENTS A MORE OPEN AND FAVORABLE PLACE THAN THE UNITED STATES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MURRAY BREWSTER IN CBC NEWS
Canada is waking up to China's quest for a 'new world order', says Japanese observer
_______________
Response to a reader comment which asks, “Are we destined to become a Chinese puppet, all for trade?”
China bombs and attacks no one. Lays out no daily sanctions. Makes no war. Doesn’t threaten a new country each day.
It lets others proceed in their own way. Like adults, instead of children.
Whether it is a democracy internally makes almost no difference. That is the concern of the Chinese people.
For relationships with other countries, China today actually represents a more open and favorable place than the United States.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MURRAY BREWSTER IN CBC NEWS
Canada is waking up to China's quest for a 'new world order', says Japanese observer
_______________
Response to a reader comment which asks, “Are we destined to become a Chinese puppet, all for trade?”
China bombs and attacks no one. Lays out no daily sanctions. Makes no war. Doesn’t threaten a new country each day.
It lets others proceed in their own way. Like adults, instead of children.
Whether it is a democracy internally makes almost no difference. That is the concern of the Chinese people.
For relationships with other countries, China today actually represents a more open and favorable place than the United States.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE HUMAN SPIRIT PREVAILS OVER MIND-NUMBING IDEOLOGY - FIVE-DOLLAR RUSTING REBAR LADDERS AND TRUMP'S COSTLY WALL
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Smugglers helping migrants scale Trump’s border wall ‘using $5 ladders’
“US Border Patrol has seen a rise in camouflage “hook-and-ladders” within the far south-west region of Texas since May last year, according to The El Paso Times.”
"El Paso’s urban stretch of border is said to be littered with the ladders, which are engineered out of rebar and match the rust brown colours of the wall."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-border-wall-smugglers-ladders-migrants-a9337866.html
I love it. Human ingenuity and enterprise win.
Low cost, easily made, and completely defeating Trump’s dumb wall.
The ladders could almost provide a symbol or metaphor for all of Trump’s many fumbling efforts.
Despite reckless, continuous, and noisy self-praise, the man has made a success of almost nothing.
But what does that tell us about the nearly half of America’s people who fervently support him?
This is a country suitable to lead the world?
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Smugglers helping migrants scale Trump’s border wall ‘using $5 ladders’
“US Border Patrol has seen a rise in camouflage “hook-and-ladders” within the far south-west region of Texas since May last year, according to The El Paso Times.”
"El Paso’s urban stretch of border is said to be littered with the ladders, which are engineered out of rebar and match the rust brown colours of the wall."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-border-wall-smugglers-ladders-migrants-a9337866.html
I love it. Human ingenuity and enterprise win.
Low cost, easily made, and completely defeating Trump’s dumb wall.
The ladders could almost provide a symbol or metaphor for all of Trump’s many fumbling efforts.
Despite reckless, continuous, and noisy self-praise, the man has made a success of almost nothing.
But what does that tell us about the nearly half of America’s people who fervently support him?
This is a country suitable to lead the world?
Saturday, February 15, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE EXTREMELY SENSITIVE TOPIC OF "HOLOCAUST DENIAL" - THE HOLOCAUST'S CONNECTION WITH THE INVASION OF RUSSIA, THE BLOODIEST EVENT IN HUMAN HISTORY - THE LOSSES OF RUSSIA AND AMERICA AND GERMANY IN THE WAR - AMERICA'S OWN KIND OF "HOLOCAUST DENIAL" ABOUT WHO WON THE WAR - HITLER'S VISION OF GERMANY'S FUTURE AND THE ROLE OF RUSSIA - AMERICA'S "MANIFEST DESTINY" - HITLER'S HATREDS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Holocaust Denial Should be Illegal in America, Say Many on the Left”
Years ago, I read some of the best authors on WWII and on the Nazi efforts to annihilate Jews and other people regarded as undesirable – eg. Gypsies, homosexuals, and other groups - these last being often left out of discussions. Once the Eastern Front was really active, large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war, about 3 million, also were murdered.
These matters are facts of history. Anyone who wants to deny them is free to do so, something the current President does with many matters almost daily, but you should do so in your private life, not in public. Even if you have reason to doubt some number or detail of that history, what is the point of insisting on it in so vast an enterprise of horror? Public insistence represents needless hostility and incivility towards others. Inappropriate laws around speech in a free society are a response to that hostility and incivility. I am not in favor of either course.
It was the invasion of the Soviet Union that provided a huge smokescreen for the operations of the death camps. Concentration camps had existed since the days after the Reichstag fire, but they were prisons for many thousands of communists and other people considered subversive, their operation not unlike America’s internment camps for Japanese Americans during the war. Some of those camps were then converted to death camps for the grim work of the final solution.
Hitler certainly did hate Jews, but in his early years he wanted them segregated and restricted, ultimately to be removed from all German or “Aryan” territories, something, sadly, much resembling contemporary Israel’s attitude towards Palestinians.
It is not clear just what generated his intense hatred, already obvious in “Mein Kampf,” 1925. In his early years in Vienna, Hitler actually had a Jewish friend or two. Although we can speculate, it is also not clear just what contributed to his embracing “the final solution.” Such matters of course are not documented.
The invasion of the USSR was the bloodiest event in all of human history, claiming the lives of 27 million Soviets. Those too are facts often overlooked, especially in America which regards itself as having defeated Germany, another kind of “holocaust denial,” if you will. For perspective, America’s total losses, including both Europe and the Pacific, were just over four hundred thousand, about one-and-a-half percent of Soviet losses.
Hitler’s nightmare vision for the USSR included removing tens of millions of people from the most desirable lands, reducing them to slavery or letting them die if they could not be useful. He very much hated Slavs and regarded them as inferior. Germans or other selected “Aryans” would repopulate such regions, effectively creating a Greater Germany. He saw the very physical size of the United States as a key part of its long-term success, and he wanted to emulate it.
Russia was always Hitler’s central focus, back to his days of writing “Mein Kampf.” Its acquisition was essential to his vision for Germany’s future. He viewed it in much the same way Americans had viewed their great trek westward complete with talk of “Manifest Destiny.” If he could have, he might have pursued that goal without getting tied up in the war in Europe which delayed the invasion and consumed resources.
German deaths in the war were about 8 million, overwhelmingly most of that number being at the hands of the Red Army.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Holocaust Denial Should be Illegal in America, Say Many on the Left”
Years ago, I read some of the best authors on WWII and on the Nazi efforts to annihilate Jews and other people regarded as undesirable – eg. Gypsies, homosexuals, and other groups - these last being often left out of discussions. Once the Eastern Front was really active, large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war, about 3 million, also were murdered.
These matters are facts of history. Anyone who wants to deny them is free to do so, something the current President does with many matters almost daily, but you should do so in your private life, not in public. Even if you have reason to doubt some number or detail of that history, what is the point of insisting on it in so vast an enterprise of horror? Public insistence represents needless hostility and incivility towards others. Inappropriate laws around speech in a free society are a response to that hostility and incivility. I am not in favor of either course.
It was the invasion of the Soviet Union that provided a huge smokescreen for the operations of the death camps. Concentration camps had existed since the days after the Reichstag fire, but they were prisons for many thousands of communists and other people considered subversive, their operation not unlike America’s internment camps for Japanese Americans during the war. Some of those camps were then converted to death camps for the grim work of the final solution.
Hitler certainly did hate Jews, but in his early years he wanted them segregated and restricted, ultimately to be removed from all German or “Aryan” territories, something, sadly, much resembling contemporary Israel’s attitude towards Palestinians.
It is not clear just what generated his intense hatred, already obvious in “Mein Kampf,” 1925. In his early years in Vienna, Hitler actually had a Jewish friend or two. Although we can speculate, it is also not clear just what contributed to his embracing “the final solution.” Such matters of course are not documented.
The invasion of the USSR was the bloodiest event in all of human history, claiming the lives of 27 million Soviets. Those too are facts often overlooked, especially in America which regards itself as having defeated Germany, another kind of “holocaust denial,” if you will. For perspective, America’s total losses, including both Europe and the Pacific, were just over four hundred thousand, about one-and-a-half percent of Soviet losses.
Hitler’s nightmare vision for the USSR included removing tens of millions of people from the most desirable lands, reducing them to slavery or letting them die if they could not be useful. He very much hated Slavs and regarded them as inferior. Germans or other selected “Aryans” would repopulate such regions, effectively creating a Greater Germany. He saw the very physical size of the United States as a key part of its long-term success, and he wanted to emulate it.
Russia was always Hitler’s central focus, back to his days of writing “Mein Kampf.” Its acquisition was essential to his vision for Germany’s future. He viewed it in much the same way Americans had viewed their great trek westward complete with talk of “Manifest Destiny.” If he could have, he might have pursued that goal without getting tied up in the war in Europe which delayed the invasion and consumed resources.
German deaths in the war were about 8 million, overwhelmingly most of that number being at the hands of the Red Army.
Friday, February 14, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: LYING AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT - BUT AS CRIMES OF EMPIRE GO, LIES ARE MERE POCKET CHANGE - THE INTERLOCKING SET OF CRIMES DEFINING EMPIRE - WHETHER ELECTED FAIRLY AT HOME OR NOT, AMERICA'S GOVERNMENT LOOKS AUTHORITARIAN TO MUCH OF THE REST OF THE WORLD
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THE SAKER IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Understanding Why They Lie and Why They Get Away with It”
I find the article somewhat jumbled, but its author has managed a few powerful truths on an important subject.
This phrase does hit the mark, "life in a reality-free world"
It is indeed a realty-free world when it comes to America's activities abroad.
But perhaps there should be little surprise at the fact.
Empire is inherently oppressive and anti-democratic.
We have a tiny percentage of the world's population (America has roughly five percent of world’s population, but America’s establishment, the people who truly count, represent a tiny fraction of one percent) telling everyone else what to do.
And America uses a great deal of violence to enforce its will – bombing, insurgencies, assassinations, wars, and coups. It cannot be otherwise.
In some cases, as with allies, it uses only the pressure of its globally-dominant financial institutions and markets, but that is still coercion, and it is very unwelcome.
Even granting American elections are somewhat democratic, the fact means nothing to those being forced to do what they do not wish to do.
Power is power no matter how granted, as by election, and abuse of that power is abuse no different than abuse by any other kind of government.
From the world’s point of view, America is a form of authoritarian government, and all authoritarian governments lie about what they are doing.
No one likes being openly credited with oppression and killing and theft. That is true even for governments as notorious in our memories as Stalin’s or Hitler’s or the former junta in Argentina, but it is equally true for America in its affairs abroad or for Israel in its affairs with its neighbors.
All that dirty work requires a lot of lying to cover over. America still likes to think of itself as descending from that small group of men pledging their sacred honors, and of course that is an absurd contradiction with today’s reality.
Despite those who work to inform themselves often recognizing the lies, they are a small minority of any society, and I think the lying, on the whole, does work. Much as with the tiresome and threadbare claims of commercial advertising, a sizable part of the population accepts them, or at least does not question them, having no motive for close examination.
And there is no need for guilt on the part of officials doing the lying. If you don’t feel guilty about killing and stealing, why would you feel guilty about some mere lies?
As crimes of empire, lies are just pocket change.
I’ve said many times that you can have an empire or you can have a decent country, but you cannot have both. America long ago chose empire.
You can take that principle a step further: you can have an empire or you can have a democratic state, but you cannot have both.
To say otherwise is as absurd as Israel’s claim to being a democracy while it occupies and abuses millions who enjoy no rights.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THE SAKER IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Understanding Why They Lie and Why They Get Away with It”
I find the article somewhat jumbled, but its author has managed a few powerful truths on an important subject.
This phrase does hit the mark, "life in a reality-free world"
It is indeed a realty-free world when it comes to America's activities abroad.
But perhaps there should be little surprise at the fact.
Empire is inherently oppressive and anti-democratic.
We have a tiny percentage of the world's population (America has roughly five percent of world’s population, but America’s establishment, the people who truly count, represent a tiny fraction of one percent) telling everyone else what to do.
And America uses a great deal of violence to enforce its will – bombing, insurgencies, assassinations, wars, and coups. It cannot be otherwise.
In some cases, as with allies, it uses only the pressure of its globally-dominant financial institutions and markets, but that is still coercion, and it is very unwelcome.
Even granting American elections are somewhat democratic, the fact means nothing to those being forced to do what they do not wish to do.
Power is power no matter how granted, as by election, and abuse of that power is abuse no different than abuse by any other kind of government.
From the world’s point of view, America is a form of authoritarian government, and all authoritarian governments lie about what they are doing.
No one likes being openly credited with oppression and killing and theft. That is true even for governments as notorious in our memories as Stalin’s or Hitler’s or the former junta in Argentina, but it is equally true for America in its affairs abroad or for Israel in its affairs with its neighbors.
All that dirty work requires a lot of lying to cover over. America still likes to think of itself as descending from that small group of men pledging their sacred honors, and of course that is an absurd contradiction with today’s reality.
Despite those who work to inform themselves often recognizing the lies, they are a small minority of any society, and I think the lying, on the whole, does work. Much as with the tiresome and threadbare claims of commercial advertising, a sizable part of the population accepts them, or at least does not question them, having no motive for close examination.
And there is no need for guilt on the part of officials doing the lying. If you don’t feel guilty about killing and stealing, why would you feel guilty about some mere lies?
As crimes of empire, lies are just pocket change.
I’ve said many times that you can have an empire or you can have a decent country, but you cannot have both. America long ago chose empire.
You can take that principle a step further: you can have an empire or you can have a democratic state, but you cannot have both.
To say otherwise is as absurd as Israel’s claim to being a democracy while it occupies and abuses millions who enjoy no rights.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IS SERGEI SKRIPAL OF THE INFAMOUS SKRIPAL AFFAIR, SOMEONE NOT SEEN IN TWO YEARS, IN FACT IN A BRITISH PRISON? A NEW BOOK MAKES THE CLAIM
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN HELMER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (ANTI-EMPIRE)
“Skripal in Prison — The First Book to Report the Truth”
Wow, what a story.
I’ve taken an interest in the Skripal case from the beginning, never for a moment accepting Theresa May’s feeble tale and unsupported public accusations against a major leader.
Many ideas swirl around those events, including Skripal conducting various dirty dealings with other intelligence services. Also, with being a contributor to Steele’s “dossier.”
Is it possible John Helmer, long-term resident in Russia, has received this information from Russian security services, who likely do know something of what actually happened?
A comment on the citations from critics:
Very disappointed to see the negative tone of what Joe Lauria of Consortium News said, “You are picking on a dead man who can’t answer for himself” Of course, not having seen the book, I don’t know just what Lauria is talking about, but it is a highly negative comment clearly intended to shut down discussion.
As for Jeremy Kinsman, former policy advisor to the most incompetent PM we have in the Western World, Justin Trudeau, who helped destroy Canada’s relationship with China, calling the author “a notorious conspiracy theorist,” all I can do is laugh.
Anyone who uses that threadbare term about anything marks himself out as making a propaganda point. The term was actually manufactured by CIA disinformation folks back in the 1960s as a put-down of all the researchers looking into the Kennedy assassination. And in the end, of course it was the Warren Report itself that proved the genuine “conspiracy theory.”
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/john-chuckman-comment-boris-johnson-throws-away-a-chance-to-improve-relations-with-russia-bringing-back-theresa-mays-fetidly-imagined-salisbury-attack-or-skripal-affair-and-demonstrating/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN HELMER IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (ANTI-EMPIRE)
“Skripal in Prison — The First Book to Report the Truth”
Wow, what a story.
I’ve taken an interest in the Skripal case from the beginning, never for a moment accepting Theresa May’s feeble tale and unsupported public accusations against a major leader.
Many ideas swirl around those events, including Skripal conducting various dirty dealings with other intelligence services. Also, with being a contributor to Steele’s “dossier.”
Is it possible John Helmer, long-term resident in Russia, has received this information from Russian security services, who likely do know something of what actually happened?
A comment on the citations from critics:
Very disappointed to see the negative tone of what Joe Lauria of Consortium News said, “You are picking on a dead man who can’t answer for himself” Of course, not having seen the book, I don’t know just what Lauria is talking about, but it is a highly negative comment clearly intended to shut down discussion.
As for Jeremy Kinsman, former policy advisor to the most incompetent PM we have in the Western World, Justin Trudeau, who helped destroy Canada’s relationship with China, calling the author “a notorious conspiracy theorist,” all I can do is laugh.
Anyone who uses that threadbare term about anything marks himself out as making a propaganda point. The term was actually manufactured by CIA disinformation folks back in the 1960s as a put-down of all the researchers looking into the Kennedy assassination. And in the end, of course it was the Warren Report itself that proved the genuine “conspiracy theory.”
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/john-chuckman-comment-boris-johnson-throws-away-a-chance-to-improve-relations-with-russia-bringing-back-theresa-mays-fetidly-imagined-salisbury-attack-or-skripal-affair-and-demonstrating/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A MOVING ARTICLE ABOUT THE EPIC FRENCH-VIETNAMESE BATTLE AT DIEN BIEN PHU - AMERICA DISPLAYED BREATHTAKING ARROGANCE DECIDING THEN TO GO AFTER THE VIETNAMESE - IT LOST BUT CREATED A HOLOCAUST - WHAT'S IT BEEN UP TO SINCE?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LINH DINH IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Dien Bien Phu”
https://www.unz.com/ldinh/dien-bien-phu/#comment-3715751
An interesting and well-written article. Some fascinating anecdotes.
It is of course a measure of America's arrogance that despite the nature of this battle, they proceeded with taking on the Vietnamese.
Of course, they paid a price, but as with most things America does abroad, the price they paid was small compared to the horrors they inflicted.
Roughly 60 thousand Americans dead versus an estimated 3 million Vietnamese in a true holocaust which also left behind a savage legacy of Agent Orange and landmines.
America's efforts also created the space for Cambodia's "killing fields" by toppling what had been a neutral government.
So, add another million or so souls.
And what has America done in recent years?
Terrorize most of the Middle East and kill a couple of million more with its Neocon Wars, creating many millions of refugees and again leaving behind horrors such as enough depleted uranium dust to kill people for decades to come.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LINH DINH IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Dien Bien Phu”
https://www.unz.com/ldinh/dien-bien-phu/#comment-3715751
An interesting and well-written article. Some fascinating anecdotes.
It is of course a measure of America's arrogance that despite the nature of this battle, they proceeded with taking on the Vietnamese.
Of course, they paid a price, but as with most things America does abroad, the price they paid was small compared to the horrors they inflicted.
Roughly 60 thousand Americans dead versus an estimated 3 million Vietnamese in a true holocaust which also left behind a savage legacy of Agent Orange and landmines.
America's efforts also created the space for Cambodia's "killing fields" by toppling what had been a neutral government.
So, add another million or so souls.
And what has America done in recent years?
Terrorize most of the Middle East and kill a couple of million more with its Neocon Wars, creating many millions of refugees and again leaving behind horrors such as enough depleted uranium dust to kill people for decades to come.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NEW CHARGES AGAINST CHINA'S HUAWEI FROM THE U S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT - IS THEIR WORD WORTH ANYTHING?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“New U.S. charges claim Huawei stole trade secrets, did business in North Korea"
US Department of Justice? You're kidding?
The same guys who have terrorized Julian Assange?
The same guys who can't even decide how to have an old Trump buddy found guilty of witness tampering and lying to authorities, Roger Stone, sentenced?
And part of the same US we just learned stole everyone's secrets for decades through secret ownership of the Swiss encryption firm, Crypto?
Oh, I sure trust their word on anything.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“New U.S. charges claim Huawei stole trade secrets, did business in North Korea"
US Department of Justice? You're kidding?
The same guys who have terrorized Julian Assange?
The same guys who can't even decide how to have an old Trump buddy found guilty of witness tampering and lying to authorities, Roger Stone, sentenced?
And part of the same US we just learned stole everyone's secrets for decades through secret ownership of the Swiss encryption firm, Crypto?
Oh, I sure trust their word on anything.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE PROSPECT FOR REAL CHANGE IN AMERICA - SOME OBSERVATIONS ON BERNIE SANDERS AND PETE BUTTIGIEG - AMERICA'S POWER ESTABLISHMENT AND A POLITICAL SYSTEM DESIGNED TO PROTECT POWER
John Chuckman
EXTENDED COMMENT REGARDING A CAITLIN JOHNSTONE ARTICLE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Puppet Pete Says Revolution & Status Quo Aren’t Mutually Exclusive”
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/02/11/puppet-pete-says-revolution-status-quo-arent-mutually-exclusive/
I do like the “Puppet Pete” motif. Very suitable. He is a manufactured candidate if ever there was one. And he says some very odd things.
I don’t believe the American political system can possibly deliver meaningful change. And by the political system, I include the conditioning and attitudes of the country’s people, their public educations and their news sources and their various social institutions. Those are integral parts of the society, and they function to maintain the status quo, always allowing for a bit of leeway here or there, but only a bit, to maintain an appearance of democratic government.
Caitlin Johnstone’s “Change is going to come from people using the power of their numbers” is unrealistic. Huge numbers of Americans working towards change is not something that is going to happen under normal circumstances – that is, no social collapse owing to war or to the economy or to natural disaster.
A great many Americans, and not including the privileged elites, are simply satisfied with what they have. Look at how quiescent American society is with its many injustices and terrible wars. Where is the rage? Where are the demonstrations? Many buy into the concept, without even thinking about it, of America as a great set of lotteries, each person believing he or she has some chance at winning a jackpot. And Americans do love gambling and lotteries.
A season of political campaigning with one fairly charismatic candidate cannot be compared with huge numbers working over time for change. They are quite different things. A political campaign in America actually resembles a large sporting event, right down to details like campaign banners, hats, and t-shirts. Bernie’s enthusiastic crowds are not that much different than the enthusiastic crowds at a World Series. When the last game of the series is over, they return to routine lives.
(Just aside, revolution in America, given the country’s massive armed forces and national guards and military-style police forces, is simply an impossibility. It is the very argument I use against the feeble notion that the Second Amendment works to protect America against tyranny with an armed citizenry. The history of revolutions, while full of drama and great hopes, has not been a happy one. Bloodshed, disappointed hopes, and the emergence of new tyranny feature heavily. The Russian Revolution. The French Revolution. The American Revolution is misnamed since it was a colonial revolt against the mother country with the decisive assistance of a third country, France.)
Some on the Right regard Franklin Roosevelt as having been a terrible Left-wing threat to America at a time when its people were extremely vulnerable. And it was so in his own day, given one serious assassination attempt and a serious overthrow plot by a group of financial elites which came to light from the retired military hero, Major General Smedley Butler, they tried secretly recruiting to lead it.
In truth, Roosevelt saved the system, then genuinely under some risk of popular rebellion or civil war.
He was a gifted leader, and he did many interesting and unorthodox things. But the political establishment survived, and, indeed, today, his legacy, huge as it was, has mostly been buried. And that was already largely true forty years ago. In America, even the mighty works of Roosevelt had no longevity.
And that fact derives from the reality of an immensely wealthy American establishment and a great empire serving that establishment’s needs and desires.
Bernie himself, and I do like Bernie in many ways, it seems to me is not a force for great change. His social programs sound revolutionary to some Americans but that is only because they are so unfamiliar with how things work in much of the rest of the advanced world. That’s a measure of how extreme American social conditioning and education are.
But, regardless of how you view his proposals, if he were elected, he would be unable to deliver on them. No one is going to unseat the hundreds of members of Congress comfortably ensconced in how things are. The roles of lobbying and campaign financing in American politics are not going away. They are part of the foundations of the power establishment. Big social programs are not popular in either party, but more importantly, there are no means for enacting them. The Constitution’s system of divided government helps prop things-as-they-are up.
A new tax structure would be a fundamental need for change in America, a tax structure which shares better, does not keep feeding the cancerous growth of wealth disparity and generating plutocracy, and which largely pays for what the country does, putting a burden of responsibility on politicians.
But America already had something somewhat along those lines, and it was gradually dismantled. How could it ever be restored, short of a terrible set of circumstances like those of Roosevelt’s day?
The American military and security services spend about a trillion dollars a year, and literally all of it is borrowed, their total annual cost being very close to the annual increment in America’s massive debt. Where is there room for financing big social programs, even ignoring the hostile attitudes of politicians and their financial backers towards them?
The very sense of concern by the establishment we already see over Bernie – as reflected in everything from the nature of Buttigieg’s candidacy and Hillary Clinton’s shrill attacks to countless editorials and articles and comments – shows what little it takes to fire up its engines.
The massively important military and security and imperial establishment is something Bernie has never seriously challenged, and were he or any other candidate to try, I do think the fate of John Kennedy in Dallas serves as an indelible reminder of the consequences. There can be little doubt that Kennedy’s death reflected the fact of his having opposed the establishment on large and important matters abroad – matters including America’s relationships with Cuba and Russia.
While I love the puppet motif for Buttigieg, the author’s full expansion of the theme into America’s “puppet theater” makes little hard sense to me. America’s establishment is not any kind of illusion or performance or transitory thing. It represents immense and enduring power. There is only a sense of “theater” in the facts that it rarely bares its teeth at home and that the corporate press works full-time to generate certain illusions about it and what it does.
But you’ve only to look abroad at the terrible work of the Pentagon and security services to see that they are not just capable of baring their teeth but capable of tearing countries apart and destroying leaders. They avoid such behavior in America, on the whole, but they are equipped and remarkably experienced at jumping into action.
You cannot possibly have America’s massive investment in military and state security and imperial schemes and have it all up for possible change every four years in elections. The American political system is designed to protect against the possibility. In other words, you cannot have both an empire and an honestly democratic country.
That is just the way power works. America’s political system protects power. Everything from divided government and a two-party system and the role of money in politics plus other considerations are effectively part of the design. The country’s entire web of social and educational and political institutions has been shaped and colored by that same reality of power.
___________________
As an interesting footnote, there was an article recently in a respectable alternative news source suggesting, from parts of his background, that Buttigieg may well have CIA connections.
I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
AN ADDED NOTE
Sanders is the man who can get rid of Trump in the election. His candidacy would motivate the young and enthusiastic.
Most presidents achieve relatively little. Being the trashman for Trump would not be a bad historical achievement, even if he got nothing else done.
As far as most of Bernie’s domestic proposals being enacted, I just don’t think that can happen in the United States.
EXTENDED COMMENT REGARDING A CAITLIN JOHNSTONE ARTICLE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Puppet Pete Says Revolution & Status Quo Aren’t Mutually Exclusive”
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/02/11/puppet-pete-says-revolution-status-quo-arent-mutually-exclusive/
I do like the “Puppet Pete” motif. Very suitable. He is a manufactured candidate if ever there was one. And he says some very odd things.
I don’t believe the American political system can possibly deliver meaningful change. And by the political system, I include the conditioning and attitudes of the country’s people, their public educations and their news sources and their various social institutions. Those are integral parts of the society, and they function to maintain the status quo, always allowing for a bit of leeway here or there, but only a bit, to maintain an appearance of democratic government.
Caitlin Johnstone’s “Change is going to come from people using the power of their numbers” is unrealistic. Huge numbers of Americans working towards change is not something that is going to happen under normal circumstances – that is, no social collapse owing to war or to the economy or to natural disaster.
A great many Americans, and not including the privileged elites, are simply satisfied with what they have. Look at how quiescent American society is with its many injustices and terrible wars. Where is the rage? Where are the demonstrations? Many buy into the concept, without even thinking about it, of America as a great set of lotteries, each person believing he or she has some chance at winning a jackpot. And Americans do love gambling and lotteries.
A season of political campaigning with one fairly charismatic candidate cannot be compared with huge numbers working over time for change. They are quite different things. A political campaign in America actually resembles a large sporting event, right down to details like campaign banners, hats, and t-shirts. Bernie’s enthusiastic crowds are not that much different than the enthusiastic crowds at a World Series. When the last game of the series is over, they return to routine lives.
(Just aside, revolution in America, given the country’s massive armed forces and national guards and military-style police forces, is simply an impossibility. It is the very argument I use against the feeble notion that the Second Amendment works to protect America against tyranny with an armed citizenry. The history of revolutions, while full of drama and great hopes, has not been a happy one. Bloodshed, disappointed hopes, and the emergence of new tyranny feature heavily. The Russian Revolution. The French Revolution. The American Revolution is misnamed since it was a colonial revolt against the mother country with the decisive assistance of a third country, France.)
Some on the Right regard Franklin Roosevelt as having been a terrible Left-wing threat to America at a time when its people were extremely vulnerable. And it was so in his own day, given one serious assassination attempt and a serious overthrow plot by a group of financial elites which came to light from the retired military hero, Major General Smedley Butler, they tried secretly recruiting to lead it.
In truth, Roosevelt saved the system, then genuinely under some risk of popular rebellion or civil war.
He was a gifted leader, and he did many interesting and unorthodox things. But the political establishment survived, and, indeed, today, his legacy, huge as it was, has mostly been buried. And that was already largely true forty years ago. In America, even the mighty works of Roosevelt had no longevity.
And that fact derives from the reality of an immensely wealthy American establishment and a great empire serving that establishment’s needs and desires.
Bernie himself, and I do like Bernie in many ways, it seems to me is not a force for great change. His social programs sound revolutionary to some Americans but that is only because they are so unfamiliar with how things work in much of the rest of the advanced world. That’s a measure of how extreme American social conditioning and education are.
But, regardless of how you view his proposals, if he were elected, he would be unable to deliver on them. No one is going to unseat the hundreds of members of Congress comfortably ensconced in how things are. The roles of lobbying and campaign financing in American politics are not going away. They are part of the foundations of the power establishment. Big social programs are not popular in either party, but more importantly, there are no means for enacting them. The Constitution’s system of divided government helps prop things-as-they-are up.
A new tax structure would be a fundamental need for change in America, a tax structure which shares better, does not keep feeding the cancerous growth of wealth disparity and generating plutocracy, and which largely pays for what the country does, putting a burden of responsibility on politicians.
But America already had something somewhat along those lines, and it was gradually dismantled. How could it ever be restored, short of a terrible set of circumstances like those of Roosevelt’s day?
The American military and security services spend about a trillion dollars a year, and literally all of it is borrowed, their total annual cost being very close to the annual increment in America’s massive debt. Where is there room for financing big social programs, even ignoring the hostile attitudes of politicians and their financial backers towards them?
The very sense of concern by the establishment we already see over Bernie – as reflected in everything from the nature of Buttigieg’s candidacy and Hillary Clinton’s shrill attacks to countless editorials and articles and comments – shows what little it takes to fire up its engines.
The massively important military and security and imperial establishment is something Bernie has never seriously challenged, and were he or any other candidate to try, I do think the fate of John Kennedy in Dallas serves as an indelible reminder of the consequences. There can be little doubt that Kennedy’s death reflected the fact of his having opposed the establishment on large and important matters abroad – matters including America’s relationships with Cuba and Russia.
While I love the puppet motif for Buttigieg, the author’s full expansion of the theme into America’s “puppet theater” makes little hard sense to me. America’s establishment is not any kind of illusion or performance or transitory thing. It represents immense and enduring power. There is only a sense of “theater” in the facts that it rarely bares its teeth at home and that the corporate press works full-time to generate certain illusions about it and what it does.
But you’ve only to look abroad at the terrible work of the Pentagon and security services to see that they are not just capable of baring their teeth but capable of tearing countries apart and destroying leaders. They avoid such behavior in America, on the whole, but they are equipped and remarkably experienced at jumping into action.
You cannot possibly have America’s massive investment in military and state security and imperial schemes and have it all up for possible change every four years in elections. The American political system is designed to protect against the possibility. In other words, you cannot have both an empire and an honestly democratic country.
That is just the way power works. America’s political system protects power. Everything from divided government and a two-party system and the role of money in politics plus other considerations are effectively part of the design. The country’s entire web of social and educational and political institutions has been shaped and colored by that same reality of power.
___________________
As an interesting footnote, there was an article recently in a respectable alternative news source suggesting, from parts of his background, that Buttigieg may well have CIA connections.
I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
AN ADDED NOTE
Sanders is the man who can get rid of Trump in the election. His candidacy would motivate the young and enthusiastic.
Most presidents achieve relatively little. Being the trashman for Trump would not be a bad historical achievement, even if he got nothing else done.
As far as most of Bernie’s domestic proposals being enacted, I just don’t think that can happen in the United States.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE SILLINESS OF CALLING BERNIE SANDERS A "SOCIALIST"- HE'S AN OLD-TIME PROGRESSIVE - AND NOW WE HAVE BERNIE CLEVERLY REFERRING TO MICHAEL BLOOMBERG AS AN "OLIGARCH" WHICH IS AT LEAST INVOLVES A CORRECT DEFINITION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEITH BOAG IN CBC NEWS
“Did a 'socialist' win New Hampshire? Can anyone but an 'oligarch' catch him?
“As billionaire Michael Bloomberg picks up steam, the Sanders team has taken to calling him an oligarch”
I am fairly fond of Bernie, America having so few interesting or individualistic politicians and so many manufactured types, clones almost but with different hairstyles and wardrobe, but I am tired of his being called a 'socialist.'
I know, he has used the term himself, but it is entirely inaccurate.
Bernie is an old-fashioned progressive, especially concerning domestic social legislation.
He has never advocated the government's taking over ownership of the major parts of the economy, which is what socialism is.
In foreign and imperial affairs, he has never been a strong or across-the-board opponent of the massive American military-security-imperial apparatus, one of his disappointing weak spots.
He's kicked a tire or two in the past on this or that pointless conflict, but that's no more than some past Canadian Liberals have done.
Some socialist.
Bernie has a tendency to flamboyance and drama, and that's all his use of the term "socialist" has ever represented. The press should know better.
By the way, Bernie’s new use of the term “oligarch” to describe Bloomberg is a brilliant stroke of campaign rhetoric.
_____________________
Response to a comment:
He does indeed have authenticity. And he runs in a field of opponents with none.
AN ADDED NOTE
Sanders is the man who can get rid of Trump in the election. His candidacy would motivate the young and enthusiastic.
Most presidents achieve relatively little. Being the trashman for Trump would not be a bad historical achievement, even if he got nothing else done.
As far as most of Bernie’s domestic proposals being enacted, I just don’t think that can happen in the United States.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEITH BOAG IN CBC NEWS
“Did a 'socialist' win New Hampshire? Can anyone but an 'oligarch' catch him?
“As billionaire Michael Bloomberg picks up steam, the Sanders team has taken to calling him an oligarch”
I am fairly fond of Bernie, America having so few interesting or individualistic politicians and so many manufactured types, clones almost but with different hairstyles and wardrobe, but I am tired of his being called a 'socialist.'
I know, he has used the term himself, but it is entirely inaccurate.
Bernie is an old-fashioned progressive, especially concerning domestic social legislation.
He has never advocated the government's taking over ownership of the major parts of the economy, which is what socialism is.
In foreign and imperial affairs, he has never been a strong or across-the-board opponent of the massive American military-security-imperial apparatus, one of his disappointing weak spots.
He's kicked a tire or two in the past on this or that pointless conflict, but that's no more than some past Canadian Liberals have done.
Some socialist.
Bernie has a tendency to flamboyance and drama, and that's all his use of the term "socialist" has ever represented. The press should know better.
By the way, Bernie’s new use of the term “oligarch” to describe Bloomberg is a brilliant stroke of campaign rhetoric.
_____________________
Response to a comment:
He does indeed have authenticity. And he runs in a field of opponents with none.
AN ADDED NOTE
Sanders is the man who can get rid of Trump in the election. His candidacy would motivate the young and enthusiastic.
Most presidents achieve relatively little. Being the trashman for Trump would not be a bad historical achievement, even if he got nothing else done.
As far as most of Bernie’s domestic proposals being enacted, I just don’t think that can happen in the United States.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S DIRTY WAR ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS - NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT OPCW, THE ORGANIZATION WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO IMPARTIALLY INVESTIGATE CHEMICAL-WEAPONS CLAIMS - ITS 2019 REPORT ON DOUMA SYRIA SUPPORTING A BIG TRUMP MISSILE ATTACK WAS DISHONEST
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY AARON MATE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (ANTI-EMPIRE)
“New Leaks Shatter OPCW’s Attacks on Inspectors Who Blew the Whistle on Douma Report
"In the 2002 run up to the Iraq invasion Bolton engineered the ouster of OPCW's uncooperative chief”
The US for some time has conducted a dirty war against international organizations – the UN, the ICC, the ICJ, the WTO, UNESCO, the OPCW.
Bolton openly threatened International Criminal Court (ICC) judges with serious sanctions. This is the court which investigates war crimes.
The US owes the UN about a billion dollars in back dues.
The US withdrew completely from the important work of UNESCO.
The US withdrew all funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which supports Palestinian refugees.
The US has a number of times not complied with its treaty obligation to issue visas to diplomatic staff visiting the UN headquarters in New York.
And there are many more such activities.
These are not attacks on the Right Wing’s hobgoblin of "globalism," they are attacks on international law and order.
And civilization.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY AARON MATE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (ANTI-EMPIRE)
“New Leaks Shatter OPCW’s Attacks on Inspectors Who Blew the Whistle on Douma Report
"In the 2002 run up to the Iraq invasion Bolton engineered the ouster of OPCW's uncooperative chief”
The US for some time has conducted a dirty war against international organizations – the UN, the ICC, the ICJ, the WTO, UNESCO, the OPCW.
Bolton openly threatened International Criminal Court (ICC) judges with serious sanctions. This is the court which investigates war crimes.
The US owes the UN about a billion dollars in back dues.
The US withdrew completely from the important work of UNESCO.
The US withdrew all funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which supports Palestinian refugees.
The US has a number of times not complied with its treaty obligation to issue visas to diplomatic staff visiting the UN headquarters in New York.
And there are many more such activities.
These are not attacks on the Right Wing’s hobgoblin of "globalism," they are attacks on international law and order.
And civilization.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A VERY UNFORTUNATE EDITORIAL IN THE INDEPENDENT ABOUT THE "REAL" CORONAVIRUS "SUPER-SPREADER"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN EDITORIAL IN THE INDEPENDENT
"The real coronavirus super-spreader is the global economy"
A very poor notion to be featuring in a headline, I think.First, it might at least as accurately be said of the human need to breathe.
Second, with the international economy under serious stress and with Trump’s Appalachian Throwbacks actively attacking it, the last thing we need is that kind of headline.
__________________
It is regrettable that The Independent has taken this tone.
There's more than a hint of International Trade Luddite there.
Readers may enjoy this recent summary analysis on the virus I've posted:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/02/08/john-chuckman-comment-additional-perspective-on-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-chinas-huge-efforts-the-virus-is-not-the-plague-it-is-not-very-lethal-rate-of-growth-already-is-slowing-ameri/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN EDITORIAL IN THE INDEPENDENT
"The real coronavirus super-spreader is the global economy"
A very poor notion to be featuring in a headline, I think.First, it might at least as accurately be said of the human need to breathe.
Second, with the international economy under serious stress and with Trump’s Appalachian Throwbacks actively attacking it, the last thing we need is that kind of headline.
__________________
It is regrettable that The Independent has taken this tone.
There's more than a hint of International Trade Luddite there.
Readers may enjoy this recent summary analysis on the virus I've posted:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/02/08/john-chuckman-comment-additional-perspective-on-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-chinas-huge-efforts-the-virus-is-not-the-plague-it-is-not-very-lethal-rate-of-growth-already-is-slowing-ameri/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: GROTESQUE HYPOCRISY FROM THE US AROUND SECURITY AND HUAWEI - REVELATION OF CIA'S LONG-TERM OWNERSHIP OF SWISS COMPANY CRYPTO, WORLD'S MAIN ENCRYPTION SUPPLIER - FRIENDS AND FOES HAD ALL SECRET COMMUNICATIONS READ FOR DECADES
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE FROM THE WASHINGTON POST REPEATED IN GOVERNMENT SLAVES
"CIA secretly owned world’s top encryption supplier, read enemy and ally messages for decades"
What grotesque hypocrisy we’ve had from the US over Huawei and security.
I do hope all the countries being heavily pressured by Washington over 5G networks take good note of this, realizing how little Washington represents their interests and how completely dishonest it has been with them.
We have no evidence that Huawei serves in any such capacity for China. The company has been very open to investigations by parties interested in its technology.
But the US just tossed the company in as part of its aggressive, hybrid war on China’s success and influence.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE FROM THE WASHINGTON POST REPEATED IN GOVERNMENT SLAVES
"CIA secretly owned world’s top encryption supplier, read enemy and ally messages for decades"
What grotesque hypocrisy we’ve had from the US over Huawei and security.
I do hope all the countries being heavily pressured by Washington over 5G networks take good note of this, realizing how little Washington represents their interests and how completely dishonest it has been with them.
We have no evidence that Huawei serves in any such capacity for China. The company has been very open to investigations by parties interested in its technology.
But the US just tossed the company in as part of its aggressive, hybrid war on China’s success and influence.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: "THE PEACE PLAN" SHOULD ALWAYS BE PUT IN QUOTES - INTERESTING FACT ABOUT THE NEW YORK TIMES AND ISRAEL - CONQUEROR GENERAL DAYAN SET ISRAELI POLICY FOR HALF A CENTURY IN 1967
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES NORTH IN MONDOWEISS
“The ‘NY Times’ should stop calling the Netanyahu/Trump proposal a ‘peace plan,’ without quotation marks”
Yes, indeed.
Do readers know, however, that the New York Times, some while back, confirmed an old suspicion of critics?
All of its articles concerning Israel are submitted to the Official Israeli Censor before publication.
Some independent journalism.
Some regard for fairness.
___________________
Response to a comment, saying, “There is no other way to interpret Trump’s message to Israel: Continue to be an Apartheid state of war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights violations and we blame the Palestinians for not embracing peacefully what you are.
But remember the words of General Dayan after the 1967 War to the effect that it would be necessary to make the Palestinians miserable enough to want to leave the captured territories.
That has been Israel’s consistent, if unspoken, policy for half a century.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES NORTH IN MONDOWEISS
“The ‘NY Times’ should stop calling the Netanyahu/Trump proposal a ‘peace plan,’ without quotation marks”
Yes, indeed.
Do readers know, however, that the New York Times, some while back, confirmed an old suspicion of critics?
All of its articles concerning Israel are submitted to the Official Israeli Censor before publication.
Some independent journalism.
Some regard for fairness.
___________________
Response to a comment, saying, “There is no other way to interpret Trump’s message to Israel: Continue to be an Apartheid state of war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights violations and we blame the Palestinians for not embracing peacefully what you are.
But remember the words of General Dayan after the 1967 War to the effect that it would be necessary to make the Palestinians miserable enough to want to leave the captured territories.
That has been Israel’s consistent, if unspoken, policy for half a century.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DISAPPEARANCE OF LIBERALISM IN AMERICA - A GOOD QUOTE AND A BRIEF COMMENT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROD DREHER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“How Today's America Resembles the Last Decades of the Russian Empire”
"In the US, all the ideological energy among the young is with increasingly illiberal versions of Left and Right. We may all miss liberalism once it’s gone, but it’s hard to find convinced, persuasive defenders today."
A deadly accurate observation, and I think a very sad one.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROD DREHER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“How Today's America Resembles the Last Decades of the Russian Empire”
"In the US, all the ideological energy among the young is with increasingly illiberal versions of Left and Right. We may all miss liberalism once it’s gone, but it’s hard to find convinced, persuasive defenders today."
A deadly accurate observation, and I think a very sad one.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A WRITER REFERS TO "PUTIN'S REGIME" INSTEAD OF "PUTIN'S GOVERNMENT" - USE OF THE WORD "REGIME" IS ALWAYS A RED FLAG FOR PROPAGANDA - THE VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION WHO TRY RUNNING THE WORLD FROM AMERICA - NOW THERE'S A TRUE "REGIME"
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL KLARE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“World War III’s Newest Battlefield
“Next month, U.S. troops are heading to a massive mock battle in a region of the Far North that is becoming a vortex of economic and military activity”
I do object to the author's use of the term, "Putin's regime."
It is the Russian government, full stop.
The use of that "regime" expression is so common in material from America that it is tiresome.
The phrase is a red flag concerning propaganda content, so why use it?
And by the way, anyone from a country where the president represents a minority of votes and the Congress literally runs on limitless amounts of lobby money and where a trillion dollars a year is spent on the military and state security, does seem slightly short-sighted about the meaning of the word "regime."
Remember, too, America represents about five percent of the world's population, yet in dozens of efforts, it tries to tell the other ninety-five percent how to run their affairs.
But even the “five percent” figure creates a big distortion, because the people who count, those who actually run America, represent just a small fraction of one percent of the world’s population.
Now, that is my idea of a “regime.”
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL KLARE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“World War III’s Newest Battlefield
“Next month, U.S. troops are heading to a massive mock battle in a region of the Far North that is becoming a vortex of economic and military activity”
I do object to the author's use of the term, "Putin's regime."
It is the Russian government, full stop.
The use of that "regime" expression is so common in material from America that it is tiresome.
The phrase is a red flag concerning propaganda content, so why use it?
And by the way, anyone from a country where the president represents a minority of votes and the Congress literally runs on limitless amounts of lobby money and where a trillion dollars a year is spent on the military and state security, does seem slightly short-sighted about the meaning of the word "regime."
Remember, too, America represents about five percent of the world's population, yet in dozens of efforts, it tries to tell the other ninety-five percent how to run their affairs.
But even the “five percent” figure creates a big distortion, because the people who count, those who actually run America, represent just a small fraction of one percent of the world’s population.
Now, that is my idea of a “regime.”
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S DIVIDED SOCIETY NOT ONLY GOES BACK TO THE CIVIL WAR, IT GOES BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THE COUNTRY - A FEW INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAT BUCHANAN IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Long Before Trump, We Were a Divided People”
Everyone is familiar with the terrible division of the Civil War and of slave-versus-free states, but America was characterized by serious division from the beginning.
It is estimated that the population of the colonies at the start of the Revolutionary War was in fact divided one-third Patriot, one-third Loyalist, and one-third indifferent.
It was a minority revolution or revolt.
If it hadn’t been for massive French assistance, the revolution would not have succeeded. The French were important at Saratoga with supplies and weapons but were absolutely decisive at Yorktown with ships, an army, supplies and money.
Even the general who selected the Yorktown Battle site was French. Washington wanted to fight elsewhere, which would have been a serious mistake.
Many young French noblemen who volunteered at the time noted the widespread indifference in the colonial population.
After the war, the Patriots treated the Loyalists horribly. Almost Pol Pot stuff. They burnt and stole homes. They tarred and feathered neighbors.They drove off thousands into exile.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAT BUCHANAN IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Long Before Trump, We Were a Divided People”
Everyone is familiar with the terrible division of the Civil War and of slave-versus-free states, but America was characterized by serious division from the beginning.
It is estimated that the population of the colonies at the start of the Revolutionary War was in fact divided one-third Patriot, one-third Loyalist, and one-third indifferent.
It was a minority revolution or revolt.
If it hadn’t been for massive French assistance, the revolution would not have succeeded. The French were important at Saratoga with supplies and weapons but were absolutely decisive at Yorktown with ships, an army, supplies and money.
Even the general who selected the Yorktown Battle site was French. Washington wanted to fight elsewhere, which would have been a serious mistake.
Many young French noblemen who volunteered at the time noted the widespread indifference in the colonial population.
After the war, the Patriots treated the Loyalists horribly. Almost Pol Pot stuff. They burnt and stole homes. They tarred and feathered neighbors.They drove off thousands into exile.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE EXTRAORDINARY JULIAN ASSANGE GIVEN THE GARY WEBB FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AWARD - BUT WHAT OF AMERICA'S MAINLINE PRESS AND OFFICIALS AND POLITICAL CANDIDATES WHO SAY NOTHING OF HIS POLICE-STATE TREATMENT? - WHAT KIND OF SOCIETY HAS AMERICA BEEN BUILDING?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has been awarded Consortium News‘ 2020 Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award for courage in the face of an unprecedented attack on press freedom”
I am glad the award was given to this extraordinary man.
Associating him with such honorable names as Gary Webb and Robert Parry couldn't be more fitting.
But I remain troubled by the dreary reality of America’s mainstream press and public officials in the matter. Despite a virtue-signalling squib here or there, as the article cites with Rachel Maddow and The New York Times, it is years of indifference, and worse.
And just the same for dear Chelsea Manning whose only motive was an anguished human response to American war atrocities she saw recorded on video. She has been crushed.
Assange's treatment has been nothing less than police-state stuff, but so few voices have been raised against it outside the alternative press. A few lines here or there, but no serious or sustained effort.
Of course, it is nowhere different with any of America’s contemporary brutal enterprises.
Do we see even one likely Democratic candidate speak to these matters? Do we hear from the heads of great charities or humanitarian organizations? The heads of great universities?
Public assassinations and theft and open contempt for rule of law are embraced. A half-mad, genuinely vicious President is allowed to give his activities new Orwellian names and, with a smile, go on to be widely cheered. No political leaders of either party express their disapproval because they do not in fact disapprove.
There is the added irony that Assange can offer key first-hand testimony around the contrived matter of Russian hacking, but no one wants the truth.
What kind of society has America been building? Truth and honor and human decency have almost no place because they interfere with the exercise of power.
We have about a trillion dollars a year dedicated to destruction, killing, oppression, and massive spying.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has been awarded Consortium News‘ 2020 Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award for courage in the face of an unprecedented attack on press freedom”
I am glad the award was given to this extraordinary man.
Associating him with such honorable names as Gary Webb and Robert Parry couldn't be more fitting.
But I remain troubled by the dreary reality of America’s mainstream press and public officials in the matter. Despite a virtue-signalling squib here or there, as the article cites with Rachel Maddow and The New York Times, it is years of indifference, and worse.
And just the same for dear Chelsea Manning whose only motive was an anguished human response to American war atrocities she saw recorded on video. She has been crushed.
Assange's treatment has been nothing less than police-state stuff, but so few voices have been raised against it outside the alternative press. A few lines here or there, but no serious or sustained effort.
Of course, it is nowhere different with any of America’s contemporary brutal enterprises.
Do we see even one likely Democratic candidate speak to these matters? Do we hear from the heads of great charities or humanitarian organizations? The heads of great universities?
Public assassinations and theft and open contempt for rule of law are embraced. A half-mad, genuinely vicious President is allowed to give his activities new Orwellian names and, with a smile, go on to be widely cheered. No political leaders of either party express their disapproval because they do not in fact disapprove.
There is the added irony that Assange can offer key first-hand testimony around the contrived matter of Russian hacking, but no one wants the truth.
What kind of society has America been building? Truth and honor and human decency have almost no place because they interfere with the exercise of power.
We have about a trillion dollars a year dedicated to destruction, killing, oppression, and massive spying.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IMMENSE COST OF AN AMERICAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER AND LIMITS TO ITS USE IN VIEW OF ANTI-SHIP MISSILE TECHNOLOGY - NOTE ON POLISH HORSE CAVALRY OPPOSING THE WEHRMACHT IN 1939 AND GENERALS ALWAYS FIGHTING THE LAST WAR
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOSEPH MCGRAW IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (ANTI-EMPIRE)
“Who Is Going to Risk a $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier in Combat?
“The price tag makes the carrier useless in peer-to-peer combat”
The headline is certainly accurate, but of course the US uses its aircraft carriers to intimidate countries which are not "combat peers."
It will be able to continue the bullying until the day that some of the best anti-ship missiles - Russia's or China's or good knock-offs - become available to such countries.
Iran, too - quickly advancing impressively in missile technology - may develop a first-rate anti-ship missile that could be made available to vulnerable countries the way it seems to have shared some technology with Yemen.
Iran has an anti-ship missile, but we don't know how good it is. It was thought enough of a potential threat recently for America to keep its carrier in the area a few hundred miles away from Iran's missile-lined shores for a time.
Technology does change everything.
By the way, the cost of carriers is immensely more than just a contractor's bill for building one.
Necessary escort and supply ships plus the maintenance of a crew on the order of three to five thousand on one ship, a crew that makes them even more of a target.
___________________
I cannot avoid the thought of the Polish General Staff maintaining its colorful 19th century horse cavalry and sending it against the invading Wehrmacht in 1939.
____________________
Response to another comment:
Sorry, no, I don't know of any myth on this subject of the Polish cavalry.
There was the incident of 1939. It is a memorable anecdote, and it serves I believe as a real lesson about generals and fighting the last war.
The classic, horrifying large-scale example of the same military thinking is represented by the trench warfare in WWI.
That was half a century after the same trench warfare was used in the American Civil War with ghastly consequences.
___________________
Response to another comment:
We can only hope that America’s bullying is coming to an end, but I see little sign of that happening "fast."
Stubborn people possessing immensely powerful weapons can go on making misery for a long time.
Witness America's pointless ten-year holocaust in Vietnam.
Or America's pointless eighteen years of blowing up peasants in Afghanistan to no gain at all.
As for China and Russia "not letting" America carry on gunboat diplomacy against relatively defenseless countries, I can't agree.
Neither of those sensible powers would risk major war with the US over such matters.
But they will work with many different chess moves toward obstructing or blunting America, as we've seen in Venezuela and Syria and now, perhaps, Iraq (where the government, frustrated by America’s refusal to leave the country, is exploring the purchase of either Russia’s S-300 or S-400 anti-aircraft missiles).
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOSEPH MCGRAW IN CHECKPOINT ASIA (ANTI-EMPIRE)
“Who Is Going to Risk a $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier in Combat?
“The price tag makes the carrier useless in peer-to-peer combat”
The headline is certainly accurate, but of course the US uses its aircraft carriers to intimidate countries which are not "combat peers."
It will be able to continue the bullying until the day that some of the best anti-ship missiles - Russia's or China's or good knock-offs - become available to such countries.
Iran, too - quickly advancing impressively in missile technology - may develop a first-rate anti-ship missile that could be made available to vulnerable countries the way it seems to have shared some technology with Yemen.
Iran has an anti-ship missile, but we don't know how good it is. It was thought enough of a potential threat recently for America to keep its carrier in the area a few hundred miles away from Iran's missile-lined shores for a time.
Technology does change everything.
By the way, the cost of carriers is immensely more than just a contractor's bill for building one.
Necessary escort and supply ships plus the maintenance of a crew on the order of three to five thousand on one ship, a crew that makes them even more of a target.
___________________
I cannot avoid the thought of the Polish General Staff maintaining its colorful 19th century horse cavalry and sending it against the invading Wehrmacht in 1939.
____________________
Response to another comment:
Sorry, no, I don't know of any myth on this subject of the Polish cavalry.
There was the incident of 1939. It is a memorable anecdote, and it serves I believe as a real lesson about generals and fighting the last war.
The classic, horrifying large-scale example of the same military thinking is represented by the trench warfare in WWI.
That was half a century after the same trench warfare was used in the American Civil War with ghastly consequences.
___________________
Response to another comment:
We can only hope that America’s bullying is coming to an end, but I see little sign of that happening "fast."
Stubborn people possessing immensely powerful weapons can go on making misery for a long time.
Witness America's pointless ten-year holocaust in Vietnam.
Or America's pointless eighteen years of blowing up peasants in Afghanistan to no gain at all.
As for China and Russia "not letting" America carry on gunboat diplomacy against relatively defenseless countries, I can't agree.
Neither of those sensible powers would risk major war with the US over such matters.
But they will work with many different chess moves toward obstructing or blunting America, as we've seen in Venezuela and Syria and now, perhaps, Iraq (where the government, frustrated by America’s refusal to leave the country, is exploring the purchase of either Russia’s S-300 or S-400 anti-aircraft missiles).
Monday, February 10, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RESULTS OF A LARGE POLL REVEAL CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARDS NATO - GREAT CHANGES HAPPENING EVERYWHERE - HOW THE US USES NATO AFTER THE END OF THE USSR - SOME AMERICAN-RUSSIAN COMPARISONS - AMERICA'S DESPERATE NEED FOR A BIG ENEMY - HOW AMERICA'S PRESS WORKS TO SUPPORT EMPIRE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“The Trump effect: How the U.S. president may be reshaping attitudes toward NATO
“The president's pressure tactics may be undermining support for the alliance in Europe”
Latest Pew Research Centre survey of the attitudes of individual countries toward the 70-year-old North Atlantic Alliance show declines in support, some quite significant.
I do not think this result can be reduced to Trump’s effect, although he certainly does have an effect. His efforts serve perhaps to speed the impact of other ongoing changes.
Europe and America are changing, and in many ways, just as the entire world is changing. Changing technology - with its impact on everything from jobs and entire industries, even to what comes to be regarded as a natural resource, to trade and information and social patterns, right down to attitudes and beliefs – is a tremendous force, one that is now accelerating constantly.
Big things tend to change slowly, absent revolutions or great wars, but they do change. Once enough real change has accumulated, people begin to alter their previous worldview. And if there is anything NATO represents; it is a worldview or philosophy, an obsolete one as it happens
NATO has been largely obsolete for decades. The Red Army and the USSR do not exist. A "live and let live" man leads Russia. And the same is true in China. A lot of Europeans, especially in the larger countries of NATO understand this. But it takes time for new realities to be fully absorbed by a large society.
During the period following the end of the USSR, the US began using NATO in new ways, including as a cover for many of its imperial aggressions so that the headlines would read, "NATO attacks..." instead of "The US attacks...." That way a plausible sense of international cooperation is generated by a country that has done little but attack and diminish genuine international organizations such as the UN.
The US also uses NATO as a giant company store now, almost forcing members to buy the costly weapons it wants them to buy.
Something which has long been true, remains so, the US effectively uses NATO for the peaceful occupation of Europe, a place that is potentially a serious world competitor in every way. The US influences Europe's policies from the inside, and it keeps intimately aware of what Europe is doing, in what resembles a gigantic espionage operation.
Since the fall of the USSR, the US has made sure that many militarily insignificant countries are added to NATO, countries like Estonia, Croatia, and Macedonia. This had several purposes, besides just provoking Russia with US promises made in the past against doing so being openly broken. Membership expansion effectively dilutes the votes of the original larger NATO states, states like France or Germany that are known to be tiring of American attitudes and policies, something understood in general terms before this poll was conducted.
The additions also increase NATO’s costs since the small states have little to contribute beyond their geography and add new responsibilities. They likely significantly increase risk, too, since some of the small states have extremely hostile attitudes towards Russia. You might say, by including them, the US has added some strong new seasoning to the broth.
The dangers represented by NATO are increased by American policies like ending the INF Treaty.
Were war to break out in Europe, it would almost certainly be the result of American actions, and it would be suicidal for Europeans. Russia's extremely sophisticated missiles, from short to long range, could blanket every European city. And the US has no effective defense to offer. The Patriot anti-missiles are just not effective under many circumstances.
So why carry on this way, wasting countless billions of dollars? And Europe has lost many billions more in trade with Russia owing to US-imposed sanctions, unwarranted, illegal sanctions. How much better for everyone - except for America and its need to control everyone - to establish the best relations for peace and increased prosperity.
It is distressing to see Canada's poll approval percentage so high. We are in no danger at all from Russia, and truly never have been. I think Canada today suffers from a bit of Stockholm Syndrome by having lived so close to the threatening beast who constantly beats its chest.
_________________________
Response to a comment below, saying, "So you think Putin is a " live and let live" kind of guy do ya?"
He is open for business on fair terms with anyone in the world, something never true of the USSR. All of Russia’s laws have changed to favor business and finance.
He is very much in favor of a world order where each state finds its own approach without any pressure to conform. The US today takes virtually the opposite view. Putin supports enlightened international organizations, again almost the opposite of what we see today from the US.
He keeps the emphasis on peace and economic growth, having achieved some marvelous results, such as seeing Russia become the world’s largest grain exporter. The old USSR used to import substantial quantities of grain.
Russia's military budget has been kept at a small fraction of the US's, and Putin has even cut it again now.
He has developed missiles and other hi-tech items which should keep Russia secure for a long period of sustained growth, something he has declared many times to be his most important goal, unfortunately a goal the US keeps trying to hack away at with sanctions and other pressures.
The pressures from the US include the threat of a new arms race with several torn-up treaties, increased military spending, new kinds of nuclear weapons being developed, and the creation of a whole new military branch, the Space Force. But Putin has been firm in repeatedly saying Russia will not enter an arms race. He will of course make the needed adjustments in Russia’s forces to counter any new direct US threats.
Russia is at war with no one, except with some terrorists in Syria (who are actually mercenaries paid and supplied by US associates), where the country’s President asked Russia to help. America, by contrast, sits on territory both in Syria and in Iraq, countries where it was not invited and where it has been asked to leave but refuses to do so. It even steals crude oil from Syria and has tried blackmailing Iraq into giving it half of its crude production, a fact Iraq’s previous Prime Minister, Adil Abdul-Mehdi, revealed to the world not long ago.
The US is at war or threatening war or promoting disturbances and coups in many places. It makes threats somewhere almost daily. It occupies several places illegally. It assassinates leaders. It sends warships and planes and drones regularly to intimidate Russia and others. It conducts very large-scale war games near Russia – an extremely dangerous practice since it is very easy to misinterpret things done in the movements of thousands of troops and their armored and air support - and it has run its tanks right up against Russia’s border. It has quit or threatens to quit several important treaties, including INF and Open Skies.
Putin is a calm and very thoughtful pragmatist, never making threats and always ready to discuss important affairs, the very opposite of Trump.
Putin's Russia would have looked like a gift from the gods decades ago during the heyday of the USSR, but we aren't allowed to accept or admire it now that the US is on such a tear all over the planet to try re-establishing its authority and making it as though it were back in its golden era.
We see immense shows of aggression to try achieving that illusory goal - against Russia, against China, against a number of countries in Latin America, against Syria, against Iraq, and against Iran. Even displays of (non-military) aggression towards old allies like Europe if they do not conduct their affairs according to US demands, demands concerning the most ordinary matters of commerce, as from whom they buy their natural gas supplies or some of their electronics.
The Neocon Wars in the Middle East have seen the US kill about two million and create millions of refugees, refugees who also had a seriously destabilizing effect on allies in Europe.
And it is remarkable how all that savagery was conducted without the general public’s ever being informed about just what was happening and why and certainly never having been consulted in any way. The control of the “Western” press in this new age of American imperial wars and interventions and coups is as effective as anything experienced in the old USSR, although it takes quite a different form.
It is voluntary on the part of the existing limited number of large corporations who dominate as news sources and who are as much a part of the American establishment as its major defense contractors. For them to behave in any other fashion would of course invite reprisals in terms of regulatory authorities, taxes, and just access.
We should keep in mind that the US always needs an enemy, a big enemy, to justify its monstrous military-security establishment, to keep it motivated, and to keep the budget dollars flowing. The enemy serves a purpose not unlike Satan has done for the Church. The military-security establishment does have its main job in securing and expanding America’s global empire, but, my goodness, that is never to be discussed openly in the hallowed halls of “the Republic” or never to become an issue in its strange elections between two money-driven official parties. Better, a big enemy you’ve endowed with all kinds of terrors as justification.
They spend a total of about a trillion dollars a year on being able to kill and to oppress and to spy.
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“The Trump effect: How the U.S. president may be reshaping attitudes toward NATO
“The president's pressure tactics may be undermining support for the alliance in Europe”
Latest Pew Research Centre survey of the attitudes of individual countries toward the 70-year-old North Atlantic Alliance show declines in support, some quite significant.
I do not think this result can be reduced to Trump’s effect, although he certainly does have an effect. His efforts serve perhaps to speed the impact of other ongoing changes.
Europe and America are changing, and in many ways, just as the entire world is changing. Changing technology - with its impact on everything from jobs and entire industries, even to what comes to be regarded as a natural resource, to trade and information and social patterns, right down to attitudes and beliefs – is a tremendous force, one that is now accelerating constantly.
Big things tend to change slowly, absent revolutions or great wars, but they do change. Once enough real change has accumulated, people begin to alter their previous worldview. And if there is anything NATO represents; it is a worldview or philosophy, an obsolete one as it happens
NATO has been largely obsolete for decades. The Red Army and the USSR do not exist. A "live and let live" man leads Russia. And the same is true in China. A lot of Europeans, especially in the larger countries of NATO understand this. But it takes time for new realities to be fully absorbed by a large society.
During the period following the end of the USSR, the US began using NATO in new ways, including as a cover for many of its imperial aggressions so that the headlines would read, "NATO attacks..." instead of "The US attacks...." That way a plausible sense of international cooperation is generated by a country that has done little but attack and diminish genuine international organizations such as the UN.
The US also uses NATO as a giant company store now, almost forcing members to buy the costly weapons it wants them to buy.
Something which has long been true, remains so, the US effectively uses NATO for the peaceful occupation of Europe, a place that is potentially a serious world competitor in every way. The US influences Europe's policies from the inside, and it keeps intimately aware of what Europe is doing, in what resembles a gigantic espionage operation.
Since the fall of the USSR, the US has made sure that many militarily insignificant countries are added to NATO, countries like Estonia, Croatia, and Macedonia. This had several purposes, besides just provoking Russia with US promises made in the past against doing so being openly broken. Membership expansion effectively dilutes the votes of the original larger NATO states, states like France or Germany that are known to be tiring of American attitudes and policies, something understood in general terms before this poll was conducted.
The additions also increase NATO’s costs since the small states have little to contribute beyond their geography and add new responsibilities. They likely significantly increase risk, too, since some of the small states have extremely hostile attitudes towards Russia. You might say, by including them, the US has added some strong new seasoning to the broth.
The dangers represented by NATO are increased by American policies like ending the INF Treaty.
Were war to break out in Europe, it would almost certainly be the result of American actions, and it would be suicidal for Europeans. Russia's extremely sophisticated missiles, from short to long range, could blanket every European city. And the US has no effective defense to offer. The Patriot anti-missiles are just not effective under many circumstances.
So why carry on this way, wasting countless billions of dollars? And Europe has lost many billions more in trade with Russia owing to US-imposed sanctions, unwarranted, illegal sanctions. How much better for everyone - except for America and its need to control everyone - to establish the best relations for peace and increased prosperity.
It is distressing to see Canada's poll approval percentage so high. We are in no danger at all from Russia, and truly never have been. I think Canada today suffers from a bit of Stockholm Syndrome by having lived so close to the threatening beast who constantly beats its chest.
_________________________
Response to a comment below, saying, "So you think Putin is a " live and let live" kind of guy do ya?"
He is open for business on fair terms with anyone in the world, something never true of the USSR. All of Russia’s laws have changed to favor business and finance.
He is very much in favor of a world order where each state finds its own approach without any pressure to conform. The US today takes virtually the opposite view. Putin supports enlightened international organizations, again almost the opposite of what we see today from the US.
He keeps the emphasis on peace and economic growth, having achieved some marvelous results, such as seeing Russia become the world’s largest grain exporter. The old USSR used to import substantial quantities of grain.
Russia's military budget has been kept at a small fraction of the US's, and Putin has even cut it again now.
He has developed missiles and other hi-tech items which should keep Russia secure for a long period of sustained growth, something he has declared many times to be his most important goal, unfortunately a goal the US keeps trying to hack away at with sanctions and other pressures.
The pressures from the US include the threat of a new arms race with several torn-up treaties, increased military spending, new kinds of nuclear weapons being developed, and the creation of a whole new military branch, the Space Force. But Putin has been firm in repeatedly saying Russia will not enter an arms race. He will of course make the needed adjustments in Russia’s forces to counter any new direct US threats.
Russia is at war with no one, except with some terrorists in Syria (who are actually mercenaries paid and supplied by US associates), where the country’s President asked Russia to help. America, by contrast, sits on territory both in Syria and in Iraq, countries where it was not invited and where it has been asked to leave but refuses to do so. It even steals crude oil from Syria and has tried blackmailing Iraq into giving it half of its crude production, a fact Iraq’s previous Prime Minister, Adil Abdul-Mehdi, revealed to the world not long ago.
The US is at war or threatening war or promoting disturbances and coups in many places. It makes threats somewhere almost daily. It occupies several places illegally. It assassinates leaders. It sends warships and planes and drones regularly to intimidate Russia and others. It conducts very large-scale war games near Russia – an extremely dangerous practice since it is very easy to misinterpret things done in the movements of thousands of troops and their armored and air support - and it has run its tanks right up against Russia’s border. It has quit or threatens to quit several important treaties, including INF and Open Skies.
Putin is a calm and very thoughtful pragmatist, never making threats and always ready to discuss important affairs, the very opposite of Trump.
Putin's Russia would have looked like a gift from the gods decades ago during the heyday of the USSR, but we aren't allowed to accept or admire it now that the US is on such a tear all over the planet to try re-establishing its authority and making it as though it were back in its golden era.
We see immense shows of aggression to try achieving that illusory goal - against Russia, against China, against a number of countries in Latin America, against Syria, against Iraq, and against Iran. Even displays of (non-military) aggression towards old allies like Europe if they do not conduct their affairs according to US demands, demands concerning the most ordinary matters of commerce, as from whom they buy their natural gas supplies or some of their electronics.
The Neocon Wars in the Middle East have seen the US kill about two million and create millions of refugees, refugees who also had a seriously destabilizing effect on allies in Europe.
And it is remarkable how all that savagery was conducted without the general public’s ever being informed about just what was happening and why and certainly never having been consulted in any way. The control of the “Western” press in this new age of American imperial wars and interventions and coups is as effective as anything experienced in the old USSR, although it takes quite a different form.
It is voluntary on the part of the existing limited number of large corporations who dominate as news sources and who are as much a part of the American establishment as its major defense contractors. For them to behave in any other fashion would of course invite reprisals in terms of regulatory authorities, taxes, and just access.
We should keep in mind that the US always needs an enemy, a big enemy, to justify its monstrous military-security establishment, to keep it motivated, and to keep the budget dollars flowing. The enemy serves a purpose not unlike Satan has done for the Church. The military-security establishment does have its main job in securing and expanding America’s global empire, but, my goodness, that is never to be discussed openly in the hallowed halls of “the Republic” or never to become an issue in its strange elections between two money-driven official parties. Better, a big enemy you’ve endowed with all kinds of terrors as justification.
They spend a total of about a trillion dollars a year on being able to kill and to oppress and to spy.
Saturday, February 08, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A GOOD ARTICLE RAISES THOUGHTS ABOUT THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION - AN EVENT OF CENTRAL IMPORTANCE TO AMERICA'S CONTEMPORARY IDENTITY - ROLE OF JIM GARRISON - I OFFER A SMALL LIBRARY OF REFERENCES TO MY WRITING ON THE SUBJECT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY EDWARD CURTAIN IN UNZ REVIEW
“The United States of America’s Doll House
“A Vast Tapestry of Lies and Illusions”
https://www.unz.com/article/the-united-states-of-americas-doll-house/
A nice piece of work.
I love the Harold Pinter quote.
And Jim Garrison, despite some mistakes made and a great deal of libel heaped on him, was simply a remarkable man. I read his very articulate books and saw him in interviews.
He never had quite the complete picture, as you might expect with all the clever, well-paid people of CIA and FBI working against him. And America's mainline press was dedicated to diminishing and defaming him. So how else could it be?
But he got an awfully lot right, and his efforts should have made more of a difference to more Americans, but he was literally portrayed as a person with mental problems and as a crook. Just the intensity of the efforts to do so should tell you something.
I was long a fairly serious student of the Kennedy Assassination, and I understand many of the details that were routinely glossed over or misrepresented.
The fact is Kennedy was the only President in modern American history to oppose the unelected establishment. He did so on several important matters.
And he did so at a time when the CIA, under the pleasant and avuncular Eisenhower who wanted to avoid open military hostilities, had given the Agency free rein pretty much to do as it pleased in many parts of the world.
The CIA was arrogant with its success and privilege and deeply resented Kennedy’s approach to exerting Presidential authority. Kennedy’s threats and firings after the Bay of Pigs fiasco plus his later efforts to establish good backchannel communication with Russia and, to a lesser extent, Cuba, made him a doomed man. His relations with Israel and its determination to acquire nuclear weapons went against the grain of the establishment. His important relationship with Mary Pinchot Meyer was also a dark cloud over him, and Mary was murdered a year after Kennedy, her murder never solved.
An important bottom line consideration concerning the Warren Commission was Bertrand Russell’s profound question, never answered, “If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?”
Over the years, I’ve done a good deal of serious writing on the assassination. Readers will find some intriguing material in the following:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/1544/
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/2017/12/14/john-chuckman-comment-further-thoughts-on-the-kennedy-assassination-someone-suggests-the-involvement-of-israel-a-real-possibility-but-cia-still-is-involved/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/john-chuckman-comment-an-article-on-parts-of-the-last-century-of-american-history-raises-thoughts-of-the-deadly-mix-of-ingredients-for-war-brewing-now-in-americas-establishment-note-on-kennedy-as/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/29/john-chuckman-comment-the-guardian-offers-an-impoverished-list-of-kennedy-assassination-books-i-offer-a-few-of-the-best-although-a-couple-of-them-are-now-hard-to-get/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/john-chuckman-comment-a-new-book-on-cia-murders-of-western-leaders-plus-another-important-book-lead-to-my-revaluation-of-the-kennedy-assassination/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/john-chuckman-comment-some-really-interesting-historical-stuff-on-the-assassination-of-john-kennedy/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/john-chuckman-comment-heres-an-additional-batch-although-still-not-all-of-the-reasons-that-kennedys-assassination-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-remarkable-dull-little-photograph-of-george-h-w-bush/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/john-chuckman-comment-time-magazine-and-its-old-relationship-with-cia-most-glaring-example-decades-ago-was-times-ownership-and-treatment-of-the-zapruder-film-of-kennedys-assassination/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/john-chuckman-comment-the-absolute-nonsense-of-suggesting-that-54-years-after-kennedys-assassination-similar-circumstances-now-work-against-trump-why-kennedy-actually-died-why-trump-wont/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-the-kennedy-assassination-and-israels-nuclear-weapons-program-lyndon-johnson-almost-custom-tailored-to-israels-desires-of-the-time-the-book-final-judgment-jack-rub/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/john-chuckman-comment-conspiracies-are-real-enough-especially-in-america-when-stakes-are-high-but-the-label-conspiracy-theory-is-just-a-dirty-little-game-to-help-cover-them-up/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/john-chuckman-comment-writer-calls-lyndon-johnson-a-political-hero-in-fact-he-was-the-most-demonic-man-ever-in-the-oval-office-despite-lots-of-competition/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/11/04/14114/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/27/john-chuckman-comment-release-of-secret-jfk-files-why-was-this-junk-ever-secret-is-the-question-to-ask-i-offer-just-some-of-the-reasons-the-killing-had-to-be-a-conspiracy-here/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/john-chuckman-comment-israels-1967-attack-on-intelligence-ship-u-s-s-liberty-during-its-six-day-war-of-conquest-the-only-mystery-has-always-been-lyndon-johnsons-bizarre-reaction-what-he-crea/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/john-chuckman-comment-just-a-few-of-the-many-flaws-in-the-warren-commissions-report-a-sham-investigation-that-investigated-nothing/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY EDWARD CURTAIN IN UNZ REVIEW
“The United States of America’s Doll House
“A Vast Tapestry of Lies and Illusions”
https://www.unz.com/article/the-united-states-of-americas-doll-house/
A nice piece of work.
I love the Harold Pinter quote.
And Jim Garrison, despite some mistakes made and a great deal of libel heaped on him, was simply a remarkable man. I read his very articulate books and saw him in interviews.
He never had quite the complete picture, as you might expect with all the clever, well-paid people of CIA and FBI working against him. And America's mainline press was dedicated to diminishing and defaming him. So how else could it be?
But he got an awfully lot right, and his efforts should have made more of a difference to more Americans, but he was literally portrayed as a person with mental problems and as a crook. Just the intensity of the efforts to do so should tell you something.
I was long a fairly serious student of the Kennedy Assassination, and I understand many of the details that were routinely glossed over or misrepresented.
The fact is Kennedy was the only President in modern American history to oppose the unelected establishment. He did so on several important matters.
And he did so at a time when the CIA, under the pleasant and avuncular Eisenhower who wanted to avoid open military hostilities, had given the Agency free rein pretty much to do as it pleased in many parts of the world.
The CIA was arrogant with its success and privilege and deeply resented Kennedy’s approach to exerting Presidential authority. Kennedy’s threats and firings after the Bay of Pigs fiasco plus his later efforts to establish good backchannel communication with Russia and, to a lesser extent, Cuba, made him a doomed man. His relations with Israel and its determination to acquire nuclear weapons went against the grain of the establishment. His important relationship with Mary Pinchot Meyer was also a dark cloud over him, and Mary was murdered a year after Kennedy, her murder never solved.
An important bottom line consideration concerning the Warren Commission was Bertrand Russell’s profound question, never answered, “If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?”
Over the years, I’ve done a good deal of serious writing on the assassination. Readers will find some intriguing material in the following:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/1544/
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/2017/12/14/john-chuckman-comment-further-thoughts-on-the-kennedy-assassination-someone-suggests-the-involvement-of-israel-a-real-possibility-but-cia-still-is-involved/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/john-chuckman-comment-an-article-on-parts-of-the-last-century-of-american-history-raises-thoughts-of-the-deadly-mix-of-ingredients-for-war-brewing-now-in-americas-establishment-note-on-kennedy-as/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/29/john-chuckman-comment-the-guardian-offers-an-impoverished-list-of-kennedy-assassination-books-i-offer-a-few-of-the-best-although-a-couple-of-them-are-now-hard-to-get/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/john-chuckman-comment-a-new-book-on-cia-murders-of-western-leaders-plus-another-important-book-lead-to-my-revaluation-of-the-kennedy-assassination/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/john-chuckman-comment-some-really-interesting-historical-stuff-on-the-assassination-of-john-kennedy/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/john-chuckman-comment-heres-an-additional-batch-although-still-not-all-of-the-reasons-that-kennedys-assassination-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-remarkable-dull-little-photograph-of-george-h-w-bush/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/john-chuckman-comment-time-magazine-and-its-old-relationship-with-cia-most-glaring-example-decades-ago-was-times-ownership-and-treatment-of-the-zapruder-film-of-kennedys-assassination/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/john-chuckman-comment-the-absolute-nonsense-of-suggesting-that-54-years-after-kennedys-assassination-similar-circumstances-now-work-against-trump-why-kennedy-actually-died-why-trump-wont/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-the-kennedy-assassination-and-israels-nuclear-weapons-program-lyndon-johnson-almost-custom-tailored-to-israels-desires-of-the-time-the-book-final-judgment-jack-rub/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/john-chuckman-comment-conspiracies-are-real-enough-especially-in-america-when-stakes-are-high-but-the-label-conspiracy-theory-is-just-a-dirty-little-game-to-help-cover-them-up/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/john-chuckman-comment-writer-calls-lyndon-johnson-a-political-hero-in-fact-he-was-the-most-demonic-man-ever-in-the-oval-office-despite-lots-of-competition/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/11/04/14114/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/27/john-chuckman-comment-release-of-secret-jfk-files-why-was-this-junk-ever-secret-is-the-question-to-ask-i-offer-just-some-of-the-reasons-the-killing-had-to-be-a-conspiracy-here/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/john-chuckman-comment-israels-1967-attack-on-intelligence-ship-u-s-s-liberty-during-its-six-day-war-of-conquest-the-only-mystery-has-always-been-lyndon-johnsons-bizarre-reaction-what-he-crea/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/john-chuckman-comment-just-a-few-of-the-many-flaws-in-the-warren-commissions-report-a-sham-investigation-that-investigated-nothing/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ON TRUMP INVITES THOUGHTS ON TRUMP'S CHARACTER AND THE NATURE OF HIS "LEADERSHIP" - WHY HE SUCCEEDS POLITICALLY DESPITE CLOSE TO COMPLETE FAILURE ACHIEVING ANYTHING - COMPARE PUTIN AND XI - POWER ESTABLISHMENT HAS ITS OWN REASONS TO SUPPORT TRUMP - A GREAT UGLY TRUTH ABOUT AMERICA: HE IS THE PERFECT CONTEMPORARY PRESIDENT
JOHN CHUCKMAN
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BRAD GRIFFIN IN UNZ REVIEW
“Trump’s Chumps”
https://www.unz.com/article/trumps-chumps/
Some strong points here, not all of them, but a number.
"He has been a disappointment on all fronts."
No statement could be more accurate.
Trump is a failure, but one with a very loud mouth and a rather twisted psychology that magically converts all failures into successes. Nothing factual ever fazes him.
And the ability to just keep going is a great asset in politics, even if it means you keep going to do destructive things. Your actions communicate strength and purpose and determination to ordinary people.
After all, much of the ordinary public literally has no idea what is going on, abroad or at home, so poorly informed are they by the mainline press and the political establishment.
Trump does a daily war dance of self-praise, finding new phrases to whoop and chant, describing his almost complete failure in opposite terms.
But because he is doing, overall, the power establishment's work - against China, against Iran, against Russia, for Israel, and in Latin America - they not only do not oppose him, they support him. Any opposition is pretty tepid, falling within the generally accepted limits of political rhetoric.
He does his work rudely and utterly without grace.
He wears his ignorance as though it were a finely-tailored suit.
But the power establishment is okay with the grotesque style, so long as they get the results they want. And they do.
The desired results are negative, not positive, achievements.
But that is the essence of imperial America today, to do harm to others in order to improve its own relative standing. It does almost nothing positive anymore anywhere. It threatens friends and foes alike. It destroys international organizations and order. It supports the creation of chaos, as in Syria or Libya or Yemen or Palestine.
The contrast of America’s now-constant threats and hostilities with China’s great Belt and Rail Initiative couldn’t be starker. Or with Putin’s pragmatic “live and let live” philosophy. We see destruction versus creation. Coercion versus cooperation. Ignorance versus information. Darkness versus light.
So, Trump, with all of grotesqueries and lies, provides almost the perfect contemporary President.
Sorry, America, but that is a very great, if ugly, truth.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BRAD GRIFFIN IN UNZ REVIEW
“Trump’s Chumps”
https://www.unz.com/article/trumps-chumps/
Some strong points here, not all of them, but a number.
"He has been a disappointment on all fronts."
No statement could be more accurate.
Trump is a failure, but one with a very loud mouth and a rather twisted psychology that magically converts all failures into successes. Nothing factual ever fazes him.
And the ability to just keep going is a great asset in politics, even if it means you keep going to do destructive things. Your actions communicate strength and purpose and determination to ordinary people.
After all, much of the ordinary public literally has no idea what is going on, abroad or at home, so poorly informed are they by the mainline press and the political establishment.
Trump does a daily war dance of self-praise, finding new phrases to whoop and chant, describing his almost complete failure in opposite terms.
But because he is doing, overall, the power establishment's work - against China, against Iran, against Russia, for Israel, and in Latin America - they not only do not oppose him, they support him. Any opposition is pretty tepid, falling within the generally accepted limits of political rhetoric.
He does his work rudely and utterly without grace.
He wears his ignorance as though it were a finely-tailored suit.
But the power establishment is okay with the grotesque style, so long as they get the results they want. And they do.
The desired results are negative, not positive, achievements.
But that is the essence of imperial America today, to do harm to others in order to improve its own relative standing. It does almost nothing positive anymore anywhere. It threatens friends and foes alike. It destroys international organizations and order. It supports the creation of chaos, as in Syria or Libya or Yemen or Palestine.
The contrast of America’s now-constant threats and hostilities with China’s great Belt and Rail Initiative couldn’t be starker. Or with Putin’s pragmatic “live and let live” philosophy. We see destruction versus creation. Coercion versus cooperation. Ignorance versus information. Darkness versus light.
So, Trump, with all of grotesqueries and lies, provides almost the perfect contemporary President.
Sorry, America, but that is a very great, if ugly, truth.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ADDITIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON CHINA'S CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK - CHINA'S HUGE EFFORTS - THE VIRUS IS NOT THE PLAGUE - IT IS NOT VERY LETHAL - RATE OF GROWTH ALREADY IS SLOWING - AMERICA'S EXTREME HOSTILITY AND THE SPREAD OF PANIC BY EXCESSIVE PRESS COVERAGE - ROLE OF AMERICAN DISINFORMATION
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"What if China fails to contain the coronavirus outbreak?"
Sorry, I find that a poor headline to be running. Indeed, rather irresponsible.
First, China is doing everything humanly and scientifically possible.
The effort is enormous and costly, everything from closing large areas down to instantly building containment hospitals and conducting massive research and testing.
Two, the virus still is not the plague the press is making it out to be. It is spreading faster than anyone first thought, but infection is a fairly mild experience for many.
The numbers who have died do not yet resemble what we see every flu season in, say, the United States. Many thousands die, especially the old, unnoted year after year.
Three, the rate of growth is definitely slowing, its graph line is flattening, and there are indications that the outbreak will wind up in a fairly short time period, perhaps a couple of weeks or so.
Four, in light of Trump's extreme hostility towards China, unfortunately shared to some degree by Trudeau's disagreeable government, everyone should be very guarded about negative statements during these events.
It can look very much like joining America’s many efforts to discredit or belittle China.
And last, the CBC’s coverage has been excessive. Maybe half a dozen stories a day. That generates its own sense of panic for many.
______________________
Reply to a comment below, saying: "We're all doomed unless the Canadian government can keep anybody who has been to China out of Canada."
Doomed? Please, this is not a matter for superstition or religion. Many who get the virus are not even seriously affected.
Your words reflect the excessive coverage of the press in promoting fear.
And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that American security agencies are at work fanning the flames, getting “stories” out there.
Trying to seriously damage China's economy, hurt its reputation. They certainly did that during the Hong Kong demonstrations and riots.
They do such things routinely, pumping out rumors and fears. They do it in places like Iraq, and they do it in places where they are trying to overthrow a government, as in Venezuela or Bolivia. It's called disinformation, and the CIA has platoons of clever, well-paid people who work to generate and distribute it.
Oh, and by the way, viruses spread in many ways. Already there have been cases abroad of people who had no contact with China.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
"What if China fails to contain the coronavirus outbreak?"
Sorry, I find that a poor headline to be running. Indeed, rather irresponsible.
First, China is doing everything humanly and scientifically possible.
The effort is enormous and costly, everything from closing large areas down to instantly building containment hospitals and conducting massive research and testing.
Two, the virus still is not the plague the press is making it out to be. It is spreading faster than anyone first thought, but infection is a fairly mild experience for many.
The numbers who have died do not yet resemble what we see every flu season in, say, the United States. Many thousands die, especially the old, unnoted year after year.
Three, the rate of growth is definitely slowing, its graph line is flattening, and there are indications that the outbreak will wind up in a fairly short time period, perhaps a couple of weeks or so.
Four, in light of Trump's extreme hostility towards China, unfortunately shared to some degree by Trudeau's disagreeable government, everyone should be very guarded about negative statements during these events.
It can look very much like joining America’s many efforts to discredit or belittle China.
And last, the CBC’s coverage has been excessive. Maybe half a dozen stories a day. That generates its own sense of panic for many.
______________________
Reply to a comment below, saying: "We're all doomed unless the Canadian government can keep anybody who has been to China out of Canada."
Doomed? Please, this is not a matter for superstition or religion. Many who get the virus are not even seriously affected.
Your words reflect the excessive coverage of the press in promoting fear.
And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that American security agencies are at work fanning the flames, getting “stories” out there.
Trying to seriously damage China's economy, hurt its reputation. They certainly did that during the Hong Kong demonstrations and riots.
They do such things routinely, pumping out rumors and fears. They do it in places like Iraq, and they do it in places where they are trying to overthrow a government, as in Venezuela or Bolivia. It's called disinformation, and the CIA has platoons of clever, well-paid people who work to generate and distribute it.
Oh, and by the way, viruses spread in many ways. Already there have been cases abroad of people who had no contact with China.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE BUTTIGIEG BANDWAGON - BUTTIGIEG AS A "MANUFACTURED" CANDIDATE - WHAT HAPPENED IN IOWA TO GIVE HIM HIS "BUMP" IS NOT UNDERSTOOD AND MAY NEVER BE KNOWN - ROLE OF HILLARY CLINTON IN REPRESENTING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S ESTABLISHMENT
John Chuckman
EXPANDED COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ERIC GRENIER IN CBC NEWS
“Buttigieg is up, Biden is down in post-Iowa polls — and that has big implications”
Let's not join the American establishment’s bandwagon promoting Pete Buttigieg.
Sanders is clearly, by several measures, the favorite with crowds.
Pete Buttigieg almost represents a manufactured candidate, one manufactured by an establishment which much dislikes Sanders.
Custom-tailored to be smiling, well-dressed, civil, and polite, but he stands for almost nothing, certainly not where any of the great issues of the day are concerned, at home or abroad, but especially abroad.
Just look at Hillary Clinton's shabby recent public statements about Sanders, as with, “Nobody in Washington likes working with him.” The statements come from the very horse's mouth of Washington establishment.
And, I'm sorry to say, but just what happened in Iowa’s Caucus to give Buttigieg his "bump" going into New Hampshire is still not understood and may never be. Hillary’s people used half a dozen different dirty tricks and strategies in the various primaries of 2016 to hand her the Party’s nomination.
While many of them have been uncovered, they are not common public knowledge because the mainline press largely avoided publicizing them and establishment politicians never discuss them. If you can hide all the horrors of America’s Neocon Wars, how much easier a task to hide ordinary political dishonesty? Such is democracy in America
The Shadow computer application company is well connected with the Democratic establishment. Its CEO worked in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
EXPANDED COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ERIC GRENIER IN CBC NEWS
“Buttigieg is up, Biden is down in post-Iowa polls — and that has big implications”
Let's not join the American establishment’s bandwagon promoting Pete Buttigieg.
Sanders is clearly, by several measures, the favorite with crowds.
Pete Buttigieg almost represents a manufactured candidate, one manufactured by an establishment which much dislikes Sanders.
Custom-tailored to be smiling, well-dressed, civil, and polite, but he stands for almost nothing, certainly not where any of the great issues of the day are concerned, at home or abroad, but especially abroad.
Just look at Hillary Clinton's shabby recent public statements about Sanders, as with, “Nobody in Washington likes working with him.” The statements come from the very horse's mouth of Washington establishment.
And, I'm sorry to say, but just what happened in Iowa’s Caucus to give Buttigieg his "bump" going into New Hampshire is still not understood and may never be. Hillary’s people used half a dozen different dirty tricks and strategies in the various primaries of 2016 to hand her the Party’s nomination.
While many of them have been uncovered, they are not common public knowledge because the mainline press largely avoided publicizing them and establishment politicians never discuss them. If you can hide all the horrors of America’s Neocon Wars, how much easier a task to hide ordinary political dishonesty? Such is democracy in America
The Shadow computer application company is well connected with the Democratic establishment. Its CEO worked in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
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