John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“'Racist and inflammatory': Canadians upset by “Epoch Times” claim China behind virus, made it as a bioweapon
“Special edition delivered to homes to attract new subscribers”
I am sorry this kind of trash is being distributed in Canada.
Anyone who really keeps up with the news knows this is entirely wrong from beginning to end.
The Chinese lab at Wuhan is not for "bio-weapons." It is a world-recognized place for the study of certain viruses.
Many of its staff were trained at a similar lab in Galveston Texas.
Much of its equipment was installed by the French, who also have such a lab.
It is in part supported by an American scientific grant.
Its work is reported world-wide. All top science is international in nature.
The disease has absolutely no affiliation with the lab, and top experts have already studied the coronavirus gene sequence and they say it arose naturally and, at some point, made the jump from animals to people, in a place a good distance away from Wuhan.
That is just something which happens at times as viruses mutate. The virus for AIDS did exactly that, jumping from chimpanzees to people many years ago in what used to be the Belgian Congo. That fact does not make Belgium or the modern D R Congo responsible for AIDS.
Polio is another virus-caused disease, although it is not known just when and where it first arose. An early large polio epidemic hit Vermont in 1894. Is the United States then responsible for all the many polio victims who followed?
The idea that China is somehow responsible is being promoted by politicians and officials in Washington at the highest level, people who hate China owing to its economic success.
It is a totally irresponsible thing to do, but clearly the effort catches the attention of some, just as all forms of hate-speech do.
Readers may enjoy these related discussions:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/19483/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/19469/
FURTHER NOTE:
America has 4.2% of the world's population.
Yet America has 33% of the coronavirus infections and 27% of its deaths.
Trump’s government is desperately trying to blame the WHO and China for its own mismanagement.
Note, too, that back in the early days of China’s battle with the coronavirus, Trump was quoted in the press many times praising China’s brave efforts. But those quotes reflected a time when Trump was most focused on securing the best possible total trade deals with China.
Now his focus is on getting re-elected, despite his publicly-demonstrated incompetence in the pandemic, and doing so by blaming someone else, China and the WHO. This truly represents the worst possible kind of leadership, leadership that literally changes its facts to suit its latest purpose.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOME TRUMP TRASH ABOUT CHINA AND THE CORONAVIRUS HITS CANADA IN A FREE NEWSPAPER – HERE ARE SOME FACTS ABOUT THE WUHAN VIRUS LAB – NATURE OF ITS WORK – CONNECTIONS IN THE WORLD – ALL SERIOUS EXPERTS NOW HAVE SAID THE VIRUS WAS NOT MANUFACTURED – IT AROSE NATURALLY AND JUMPED TO HUMANS AS IT EVOLVED – JUST AS DID AIDS OR POLIO IN THE PAST – YOU DON’T HOLD COUNTRIES RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTS OF NATURE UNLESS YOU ARE IGNORANT AND HATEFUL – BUT THOSE WORDS DO DESCRIBE THE KIND OF PEOPLE WHO NOW RUN THE WHITE HOUSE - A FEW EYEBROW-RAISING STATISTICS ABOUT AMERICA AND THE VIRUS WHICH CONVINCINGLY DEMONSTRATE TRUMP’S GROTESQUE MISMANAGEMENT
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COMMENTS TO A STORY ABOUT THE RELEASE OF FBI FILES ON FAMOUS INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST ROBERT PARRY – THERE IS NO PLACE IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY FOR SUCH A POLITICAL POLICE FORCE, RESEMBLING EAST GERMANY’S OLD STASI IN MUCH OF ITS WORK – BUT WHO WOULD SENSIBLY CLAIM AMERICA IS A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY? – FBI KEPT FILES ON ANY AMERICAN WHO THOUGHT, WHETHER IN POLITICS OR THE ARTS OR SCIENCE – UNDER J EDGAR HOOVER, IT SERIOUSLY INTIMIDATED AND THREATENED PEOPLE AND YET NOTE HOW HIS NAME REMAINS UP IN BIG LETTERS AT THE HEADQUARTERS – A WORD ON MARTIN LUTHER KING’S ASSASSINATION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The FBI Investigated Robert Parry
“The bureau’s file on Robert Parry, the founding editor of Consortium News, was released last month”
The FBI investigated virtually anyone whose work wasn't on an assembly-line because the FBI had nothing useful to do, and largely still has not.
If you had a mind, if you thought about ideas - whether in politics or the arts or science - you were investigated. And likely still are. In many cases, “investigation” does not adequately describe what was invasive and intimate spying on prominent citizens.
The FBI has a long and terrible history of abuse, including J Edgar Hoovers years of quietly intimidating politicians in Washington with secrets from their private lives. He was even involved in intimidating Martin Luther King and trying to push him into committing suicide with threatening letters. More than a few serious people believe Hoover’s FBI was likely involved in King’s assassination, so intense was Hoover’s hatred of King.
The FBI is an institution which has no place in a truly democratic state, but then people who read and think know that the United States is not really a democratic state.
It runs a world empire by force of a gigantic military-security machine for the benefit of its oligarchs and giant corporations. It is a slightly-disguised plutocracy. And neither of its money-endowed political parties opposes any aspect of that reality.
Just as they don't oppose the godawful FBI. Some of the top Democrats even worked with people in the FBI to try nullifying Trump's election. Horrible as Trump is, truly horrible, that is not the way things should be done. The FBI was murkily involved in many aspects of the effort.
The past work of the FBI in many ways resembles the work of the infamous Stasi in East Germany.
You'll note despite decades of abuse of every description, J Edgar Hoover's name is still up in shiny big letters at the FBI Headquarters in Washington.
If you want a fuller idea of the FBI’s real record, see:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The FBI Investigated Robert Parry
“The bureau’s file on Robert Parry, the founding editor of Consortium News, was released last month”
The FBI investigated virtually anyone whose work wasn't on an assembly-line because the FBI had nothing useful to do, and largely still has not.
If you had a mind, if you thought about ideas - whether in politics or the arts or science - you were investigated. And likely still are. In many cases, “investigation” does not adequately describe what was invasive and intimate spying on prominent citizens.
The FBI has a long and terrible history of abuse, including J Edgar Hoovers years of quietly intimidating politicians in Washington with secrets from their private lives. He was even involved in intimidating Martin Luther King and trying to push him into committing suicide with threatening letters. More than a few serious people believe Hoover’s FBI was likely involved in King’s assassination, so intense was Hoover’s hatred of King.
The FBI is an institution which has no place in a truly democratic state, but then people who read and think know that the United States is not really a democratic state.
It runs a world empire by force of a gigantic military-security machine for the benefit of its oligarchs and giant corporations. It is a slightly-disguised plutocracy. And neither of its money-endowed political parties opposes any aspect of that reality.
Just as they don't oppose the godawful FBI. Some of the top Democrats even worked with people in the FBI to try nullifying Trump's election. Horrible as Trump is, truly horrible, that is not the way things should be done. The FBI was murkily involved in many aspects of the effort.
The past work of the FBI in many ways resembles the work of the infamous Stasi in East Germany.
You'll note despite decades of abuse of every description, J Edgar Hoover's name is still up in shiny big letters at the FBI Headquarters in Washington.
If you want a fuller idea of the FBI’s real record, see:
https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/
Monday, April 27, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WAYS IRAN HAS BEEN STRENGTHENED BY AMERICA'S LONG AND UNWARRANTED ANIMOSITIES - AND NEW PERCEPTIONS OF AMERICA IN THE WORLD
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS TV - AN INTERVIEW WITH AMERICAN ACADEMIC DANIEL KOVALIK
“Iran ‘stronger’ in world standing despite US animosities
“Iran has managed to achieve an even stronger standing in the world despite Washington’s animosities and the hurdles it has created to hamper such progress”
Iran has been strengthened and has gained in a number of ways.
It has become, by necessity, more independent in making and doing certain things, as with military equipment.
The electronics involved in sophisticated missiles and radars are very important things to develop for future competitiveness of all kinds.
Iran's non-nuclear ability to defend itself has clearly had a psychological effect on the United States, preventing it from striking Iran after the surprise downing of its most sophisticated drone, the Global Hawk, and again, given the strong rumors of some of America’s worst leaders, men like Mike Pompeo, wanting to strike Iran while it was tending the sick with the coronavirus.
Iran has strengthened some of the relationships it already had, as with Russia and China, developments which hold promise for the future, a future which is going to be very different in some ways after all the effects of the pandemic have subsided.
Iran's enemy of 40 years, enemy by its own choosing, the United States, has been seen by all the world in some of its ugliest deeds and postures. Without regard for rule of law. Imposing illegal sanctions on great parts of the world. Assassination. Threats. Depriving the sick. Immense arrogance. Even stealing the medical supplies of others. Constantly lying about both the situation at home and that abroad.
In short, the world has seen a king without his splendid costume creating the illusion of glory, Uncle Sam as an ugly naked figure with a pot belly and a foul mouth.
Indeed, the US has openly committed acts which we associate with terrorists or tyrants. There really is no other way to look at it, and I think much of the good-will the US has counted on and exploited for years has worn away.
Attitudes and relationships and trust are important in all business and diplomatic affairs.
The new perceptions will affect attitudes and relationships of all the world's countries, whether the countries are deemed allies or opponents of the US. It isn’t a pretty picture that the US has given us.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS TV - AN INTERVIEW WITH AMERICAN ACADEMIC DANIEL KOVALIK
“Iran ‘stronger’ in world standing despite US animosities
“Iran has managed to achieve an even stronger standing in the world despite Washington’s animosities and the hurdles it has created to hamper such progress”
Iran has been strengthened and has gained in a number of ways.
It has become, by necessity, more independent in making and doing certain things, as with military equipment.
The electronics involved in sophisticated missiles and radars are very important things to develop for future competitiveness of all kinds.
Iran's non-nuclear ability to defend itself has clearly had a psychological effect on the United States, preventing it from striking Iran after the surprise downing of its most sophisticated drone, the Global Hawk, and again, given the strong rumors of some of America’s worst leaders, men like Mike Pompeo, wanting to strike Iran while it was tending the sick with the coronavirus.
Iran has strengthened some of the relationships it already had, as with Russia and China, developments which hold promise for the future, a future which is going to be very different in some ways after all the effects of the pandemic have subsided.
Iran's enemy of 40 years, enemy by its own choosing, the United States, has been seen by all the world in some of its ugliest deeds and postures. Without regard for rule of law. Imposing illegal sanctions on great parts of the world. Assassination. Threats. Depriving the sick. Immense arrogance. Even stealing the medical supplies of others. Constantly lying about both the situation at home and that abroad.
In short, the world has seen a king without his splendid costume creating the illusion of glory, Uncle Sam as an ugly naked figure with a pot belly and a foul mouth.
Indeed, the US has openly committed acts which we associate with terrorists or tyrants. There really is no other way to look at it, and I think much of the good-will the US has counted on and exploited for years has worn away.
Attitudes and relationships and trust are important in all business and diplomatic affairs.
The new perceptions will affect attitudes and relationships of all the world's countries, whether the countries are deemed allies or opponents of the US. It isn’t a pretty picture that the US has given us.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A WRITER CLAIMS THAT A REFORM BILL FOR AMERICA'S ESPIONAGE ACT WOULD PROTECT JOURNALISTS LIKE JULIAN ASSANGE - WHY I STRONGLY DISAGREE AND REGARD THIS AS "HEAD IN THE CLOUDS" STUFF - AMERICA'S ELITES NEVER LET A LAW ANYWHERE STAND IN THE WAY OF WHAT THEY REALLY WANT - ASSANGE HAS ZERO SUPPORT FROM TRULY INFLUENTIAL AMERICAN FIGURES OR ELSE HE WOULD BE FREE ALREADY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEVIN GOSZTOLA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Espionage Act Reform Bill Would Protect Journalists Like Julian Assange
“U.S. congressional legislation that would protect members of the press who solicit, obtain or publish government secrets”
I'm sorry, but I do find this kind of stuff a bit tiresome.
It's literally "head in the clouds."
It absolutely is not just a lack of legislation working against Assange.
It is an almost complete lack of will, by politicians of both parties and powerful interests across the country.
No one important speaks up for or defends Assange. There are reasons for that, and they are powerful ones.
He could be free tomorrow if enough important people wanted it, but they clearly do not want it.
Freeing him works against the massive interests of the American military-security state in its main job of working to defend, control, and expand a global empire.
And that global empire serves virtually exclusively the interests of America’s “one percent.”
There’s nothing fair or principled about any aspect of it. Coercing and abusing and threatening others are about as far from principled as you can go.
No one important would support such legislation, if it even had any chance of protecting someone like Assange – or, perhaps that should be, especially if it had any chance of protecting Assange.
Remember, you have “the best Congress money can buy,” and the bulk of that money comes from the same “one percent” served by the empire and its military-security apparatus.
And in the end, is there even one law or rule or tradition that is not regularly broken in America’s relentless pursuit of global power?
Just ask the poor folks in Cuba or Venezuela or Nicaragua or Bolivia or Iran or Brazil or so very many other places.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEVIN GOSZTOLA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Espionage Act Reform Bill Would Protect Journalists Like Julian Assange
“U.S. congressional legislation that would protect members of the press who solicit, obtain or publish government secrets”
I'm sorry, but I do find this kind of stuff a bit tiresome.
It's literally "head in the clouds."
It absolutely is not just a lack of legislation working against Assange.
It is an almost complete lack of will, by politicians of both parties and powerful interests across the country.
No one important speaks up for or defends Assange. There are reasons for that, and they are powerful ones.
He could be free tomorrow if enough important people wanted it, but they clearly do not want it.
Freeing him works against the massive interests of the American military-security state in its main job of working to defend, control, and expand a global empire.
And that global empire serves virtually exclusively the interests of America’s “one percent.”
There’s nothing fair or principled about any aspect of it. Coercing and abusing and threatening others are about as far from principled as you can go.
No one important would support such legislation, if it even had any chance of protecting someone like Assange – or, perhaps that should be, especially if it had any chance of protecting Assange.
Remember, you have “the best Congress money can buy,” and the bulk of that money comes from the same “one percent” served by the empire and its military-security apparatus.
And in the end, is there even one law or rule or tradition that is not regularly broken in America’s relentless pursuit of global power?
Just ask the poor folks in Cuba or Venezuela or Nicaragua or Bolivia or Iran or Brazil or so very many other places.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A REPORT THAT IRAQ'S MILITARY IS TO ENTER TALKS WITH THE UNITED STATES ON THE SUBJECT OF AMERICA WANTING TO COMPLY WITH IRAQ'S REQUEST THAT ITS FORCES LEAVE THE COUNTRY - SOMETHING HERE IS JUST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE - AMERICA'S LEAVING IRAQ WOULD HAVE IMPLICATIONS FOR AMERICAN FORCES "STEALING OIL" IN EASTERN IRAQ - IMPLICATIONS WHICH WOULD MAKE ISRAEL VERY UNHAPPY - AND THAT IS SOMETHING TRUMP IS INCAPABLE OF DOING
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS TV
“Iraq serious about US troops pullout, negotiations will start next June: Spokesman
“Iraq’s Major General Khalaf noted that the two countries will next June discuss setting a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops in full compliance with the relevant parliamentary decisions, and a bilateral agreement on the matter will be worked out”
That just sounds too reasonable to be the complete truth.
After all, you are speaking of the United States, a country which never lets reasonableness, or indeed international law, stand in the way of it getting what it wants.
Perhaps they plan heavy new covert CIA forces in Iraq to replace uniformed soldiers or have some other scheme?
If US forces were to completely leave Iraq, as by rights they should, the American position in Syria's East would become unsustainable.
That would make Israel very unhappy.
The purpose of those forces is exactly to create difficulties for Syria’s future reconstruction effort. Trump’s demonic-clown muttering about “liking to steal oil” is just an asinine cover for the real purpose. Of course, they will steal the oil, too, while they are there.
Israel, in the background, was largely responsible for both wars - Iraq and Syria - and Israel doesn't like losing.
Has anyone ever once observed Trump doing anything other than what pleases Israel?
And, yes, as another comment noted, what does "next June" mean? A month away or thirteen months away?
And that's just for the start of talks.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FACTS ARE NOT ALWAYS STILL FACTS - AMERICA'S IMPERIAL HORRORS AND THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN WRIGHT IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“COVID-19: Neither China Nor the WHO Are to Blame for Trump’s Failures
“The U.S. president, in seeking to weaponize the virus to salvage his own reputation, has set his face against humanity.”
______________________
Response to a comment saying, “And inconvenient facts are still facts! Journalists should respect not distort them!”
That is so in science and in theory about other matters.
But it is plainly not the case for the United States in its international affairs.
For seventy-five years of American imperial wars and coups and intrusions, there has been no truth told about any of them.
Many countries overturned and some destroyed plus something on the order of eight to twenty million people killed.
You would not find an ordinary American citizen who could even sketch out the basic facts of any of that colossal toll.
And that very much goes for associated huge events such as 9/11 and the assassination of President Kennedy.
Truth in these matters is like the old “sound of one hand clapping.” You can’t hear it, and it may just as well not exist.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN WRIGHT IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“COVID-19: Neither China Nor the WHO Are to Blame for Trump’s Failures
“The U.S. president, in seeking to weaponize the virus to salvage his own reputation, has set his face against humanity.”
______________________
Response to a comment saying, “And inconvenient facts are still facts! Journalists should respect not distort them!”
That is so in science and in theory about other matters.
But it is plainly not the case for the United States in its international affairs.
For seventy-five years of American imperial wars and coups and intrusions, there has been no truth told about any of them.
Many countries overturned and some destroyed plus something on the order of eight to twenty million people killed.
You would not find an ordinary American citizen who could even sketch out the basic facts of any of that colossal toll.
And that very much goes for associated huge events such as 9/11 and the assassination of President Kennedy.
Truth in these matters is like the old “sound of one hand clapping.” You can’t hear it, and it may just as well not exist.
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DISTURBING NEW DISCOVERIES ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS
John Chuckman
COMMENT - TWO DISTURBING DISCOVERIES ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS
Two new studies reveal disturbing characteristics of the coronavirus.
First, a study from Switzerland reveals how unlike colds or flu COVID-19 is.
Autopsies showed that the virus attacks blood vessels and causes multiple major organ failures in patients.
Second, Chinese scientists discovered that there are not just a few, but dozens, of virus mutations. It mutates rapidly.
The mutations affect deadliness, with the most aggressive strain having a “virus load” (the amount of virus per volume of body fluid) 270 times greater than the least potent.
The most potent strain is the one which came from Europe to infect New York. America’s West Coast is infected by a less deadly strain which came from China.
Rapid mutation of the virus is not encouraging for creating a universal vaccine, rapid mutation being the reason we have not developed a universal vaccine for the common cold or flu.
There are many things we still do not understand about the virus, including, importantly, whether a “cured” patient can be re-infected.
COMMENT - TWO DISTURBING DISCOVERIES ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS
Two new studies reveal disturbing characteristics of the coronavirus.
First, a study from Switzerland reveals how unlike colds or flu COVID-19 is.
Autopsies showed that the virus attacks blood vessels and causes multiple major organ failures in patients.
Second, Chinese scientists discovered that there are not just a few, but dozens, of virus mutations. It mutates rapidly.
The mutations affect deadliness, with the most aggressive strain having a “virus load” (the amount of virus per volume of body fluid) 270 times greater than the least potent.
The most potent strain is the one which came from Europe to infect New York. America’s West Coast is infected by a less deadly strain which came from China.
Rapid mutation of the virus is not encouraging for creating a universal vaccine, rapid mutation being the reason we have not developed a universal vaccine for the common cold or flu.
There are many things we still do not understand about the virus, including, importantly, whether a “cured” patient can be re-infected.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA’S SELFISH UNWILLINGNESS TO SHARE IN OIL PRODUCTION CUTS THAT IT DEMANDED HIGHLIGHTS SOME FUNDAMENTAL NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS - THOSE AFFECT FAR MORE THAN WORLD OIL MARKETS OR EVEN OTHER INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS – THEY EXPLAIN MANY UNPLEASANT PARTS OF AMERICA’S OWN SOCIETY – THE CURRENT SET OF CRISES HAS PUT THEM CENTER STAGE FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE - THE WORLD’S CHANGED PERCEPTIONS OF AMERICA WILL BE BUILT INTO FUTURE GLOBAL ARRANGEMENTS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“There Is No Russian-Saudi Oil War, it's a US-Saudi War Because the US Can't/Won't Cut Production”
"Everyone else cuts production, everyone else sees their revenues shrink, and everyone else pitches-in to put a floor under prices. Everyone except the “exceptional” American oil producers from the exceptional United States. They don’t have to do a damn thing."
Sharing the cuts is indeed a reasonable expectation to have, but when was the last time anyone observed the US doing anything reasonable?
"They don’t care about anyone but themselves." That could readily serve as the official motto for the country.
The irony is Americans act the same way internally towards their own people in many matters. Outside observers perhaps don't see that so much, but it is a reality of America.
That's why there is no healthcare system. That's why there are so many appalling slums and ghettos. That's why American primary public education is so weak that in tests, kids in poor little Cuba beat American scores. That's why American police kill an average of three Americans per day. And that's why the political system is totally corrupt and serves only the interests of the wealthy.
This is not a nation which cooperates. It is not a nation which shares. And, the truth is, it is not a nation that gives a damn about almost anything.
Part of the true spirit of America was captured in the often-repeated angry words, “Love it or leave it!” yelled at peace demonstrators during the long bloody, pointless Vietnam War.
We have seen many examples of that spirit in the current crises. Everything from keeping sick people in poor countries under severe sanctions to literally seizing medical supplies belonging to other countries. Delaying crucial decisions and arguing with everyone, blundering and lying, America’s leadership has shown no leadership, even to its own people. And no cooperation with others, more concerned about the dark factions that will play a role in its re-election than doing the right things for hundreds of millions of people.
The current crises put America on show as never before for all the world to see. The new perceptions will get built into future global arrangements.
Old Hollywood fantasy notions about America are drying up and blowing away like so much topsoil in the 1930s Dust Bowl.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“There Is No Russian-Saudi Oil War, it's a US-Saudi War Because the US Can't/Won't Cut Production”
"Everyone else cuts production, everyone else sees their revenues shrink, and everyone else pitches-in to put a floor under prices. Everyone except the “exceptional” American oil producers from the exceptional United States. They don’t have to do a damn thing."
Sharing the cuts is indeed a reasonable expectation to have, but when was the last time anyone observed the US doing anything reasonable?
"They don’t care about anyone but themselves." That could readily serve as the official motto for the country.
The irony is Americans act the same way internally towards their own people in many matters. Outside observers perhaps don't see that so much, but it is a reality of America.
That's why there is no healthcare system. That's why there are so many appalling slums and ghettos. That's why American primary public education is so weak that in tests, kids in poor little Cuba beat American scores. That's why American police kill an average of three Americans per day. And that's why the political system is totally corrupt and serves only the interests of the wealthy.
This is not a nation which cooperates. It is not a nation which shares. And, the truth is, it is not a nation that gives a damn about almost anything.
Part of the true spirit of America was captured in the often-repeated angry words, “Love it or leave it!” yelled at peace demonstrators during the long bloody, pointless Vietnam War.
We have seen many examples of that spirit in the current crises. Everything from keeping sick people in poor countries under severe sanctions to literally seizing medical supplies belonging to other countries. Delaying crucial decisions and arguing with everyone, blundering and lying, America’s leadership has shown no leadership, even to its own people. And no cooperation with others, more concerned about the dark factions that will play a role in its re-election than doing the right things for hundreds of millions of people.
The current crises put America on show as never before for all the world to see. The new perceptions will get built into future global arrangements.
Old Hollywood fantasy notions about America are drying up and blowing away like so much topsoil in the 1930s Dust Bowl.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP’S ILLEGAL SANCTIONS ON IRAN IN A TIME OF FRIGHTENING PANDEMIC – WHY TRUMP HAS BEEN SO VICIOUS TOWARDS A COUNTRY WHICH HAS DONE AMERICA NO HARM AND STARTED NO WARS – THE GENERAL UGLY NATURE OF SANCTIONS IS NOW COMPOUNDED BY ILLNESS – TRUMP REFUSES TO SEE BECAUSE HIS ONLY GOAL IN LIFE IS TO BE RE-ELECTED - AMERICAN ELECTIONS ARE ABOUT MONEY, BIG MONEY, AND FOREIGN POLICY IS UP FOR SALE – IT IS A VERY CORRUPT COUNTRY
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS TV
“How stupid have we been: Trump on US Mid East adventurism”
“We spent 8 trillion dollars in the Middle East, that’s with a “t”,... eight trillion. But if you need to fill a pothole, oh, we can’t do that. How stupid have we been, just stupid!”
What he says is, of course, absolutely true, but as so often with Trump, it is confusing and inconsistent.
He's the one making trouble in the region right now.
What's he's done just to Iran is terrible. Iran has hurt no one. Iran has started no wars. Iran was absolutely meeting its obligations under the international nuclear agreement for over four years.
Yet Trump just suddenly ripped up the agreement, started imposing all kinds of (illegal) sanctions, and sent war machines to threaten the country. He then assassinated a national hero, one who had taken no action against America.
Sanctions always, even in normal times, hurt the poor and the weak in a society, the better-off and privileged managing to insulate themselves. That is just what they do anywhere. So, they are reprehensible, but at a time of world pandemic, with Iran being hit hard, it just despicable to keep sanctions on the country.
Trump does all this for one reason only, to please some American oligarchs who, in return, will give his re-election campaign large donations and perhaps other support.
Elections in America are about money, and the country’s foreign policy is essentially for sale. Just an awful state of affairs. A totally corrupt society.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS TV
“How stupid have we been: Trump on US Mid East adventurism”
“We spent 8 trillion dollars in the Middle East, that’s with a “t”,... eight trillion. But if you need to fill a pothole, oh, we can’t do that. How stupid have we been, just stupid!”
What he says is, of course, absolutely true, but as so often with Trump, it is confusing and inconsistent.
He's the one making trouble in the region right now.
What's he's done just to Iran is terrible. Iran has hurt no one. Iran has started no wars. Iran was absolutely meeting its obligations under the international nuclear agreement for over four years.
Yet Trump just suddenly ripped up the agreement, started imposing all kinds of (illegal) sanctions, and sent war machines to threaten the country. He then assassinated a national hero, one who had taken no action against America.
Sanctions always, even in normal times, hurt the poor and the weak in a society, the better-off and privileged managing to insulate themselves. That is just what they do anywhere. So, they are reprehensible, but at a time of world pandemic, with Iran being hit hard, it just despicable to keep sanctions on the country.
Trump does all this for one reason only, to please some American oligarchs who, in return, will give his re-election campaign large donations and perhaps other support.
Elections in America are about money, and the country’s foreign policy is essentially for sale. Just an awful state of affairs. A totally corrupt society.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE CONCEPT OF RACE – SOMETHING OF THE WAYS IT WAS USED IN THE PAST – NO LONGER RECOGNIZED AS A VALID CONCEPT – IT STILL DOES ARISE SOMETIMES CONCERNING THE TROUBLES OF THE MIDDLE EAST – BUT THE FORCES AT WORK IN THE MIDDLE EAST HAVE LITTLE TO DO WITH RACE - JUST WHY WE HAVE SUCH A HUMAN CATASTROPHE IN THE REGION – TRUMP’S “DEAL OF THE CENTURY” ONLY FORMALIZES A STRUCTURE FOR THE FUTURE OF EXISTING APARTHEID – A BARBARIC PROPOSAL
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MONDOWEISS
__________________
Response to a comment:
Indeed, all authorities today reject the term "race."
It was always an artificial construct. It was used historically often almost as though you were talking about two different species, thus justifying abuse of one by the other. It has a history associated with imperialism and conquest and slavery, and it reached its height of destructiveness with the Nazis. The word has an indelible stain.
The word should be avoided, although you can find it repeated innocently in respectable places, being used as a short-hand grouping or sorting criterion.
There plainly are groups of people - whatever you choose to call them, as ethnic groups – who share many inherited physical characteristics such as skin tone and height, but that does not define a distinction called “race.”
But I think the word "race" has little to do with the terrible problems of the Middle East.
That situation arose because of the ugly effects of British and American imperialism, because of blundering interventions by American politicians, and because of the terrible abuse suffered by one group in Europe three-quarters of a century ago. Emotional connections with ancient cultural/religious things in the region for several religious groups also are thrown into the mix.
The almost constant intrusion of American politicians into the region's affairs for decades has pretty well created a mess. This intrusion is a result of America’s campaign- finance system, an anti-democratic horror that should have been eliminated long ago, and not just because of the Middle East. It essentially sets up a reward system for American politicians to intrude on behalf of those whose lobbies in America are largest and best financed, with the Palestinians really not even being in the contest.
Trump’s maliciously named “deal of the century” is just a structure for formalizing long-term the apartheid which already exists. It reduces the Palestinians even further to living in a set of discontinuous “Indian reservations” inside the bowels of Israel, seizes still more of the property that’s been theirs for centuries, and leaves them at Israel’s mercy in everything from water to the electromagnetic spectrum. It leaves them with no rights of any description. As a final insult, the authors openly doubt whether Palestinians are capable of governing themselves.
It is barbaric. But what else would anyone expect from Trump? He is barbaric in virtually everything he does.
But it is also something else. It is a set of conditions which cannot remain stable, no matter how much Israel is given the upper hand. It is hard to understand how Israel doesn’t see that, but fanaticism and greed are things that don’t leave a lot of room for reason.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN MONDOWEISS
__________________
Response to a comment:
Indeed, all authorities today reject the term "race."
It was always an artificial construct. It was used historically often almost as though you were talking about two different species, thus justifying abuse of one by the other. It has a history associated with imperialism and conquest and slavery, and it reached its height of destructiveness with the Nazis. The word has an indelible stain.
The word should be avoided, although you can find it repeated innocently in respectable places, being used as a short-hand grouping or sorting criterion.
There plainly are groups of people - whatever you choose to call them, as ethnic groups – who share many inherited physical characteristics such as skin tone and height, but that does not define a distinction called “race.”
But I think the word "race" has little to do with the terrible problems of the Middle East.
That situation arose because of the ugly effects of British and American imperialism, because of blundering interventions by American politicians, and because of the terrible abuse suffered by one group in Europe three-quarters of a century ago. Emotional connections with ancient cultural/religious things in the region for several religious groups also are thrown into the mix.
The almost constant intrusion of American politicians into the region's affairs for decades has pretty well created a mess. This intrusion is a result of America’s campaign- finance system, an anti-democratic horror that should have been eliminated long ago, and not just because of the Middle East. It essentially sets up a reward system for American politicians to intrude on behalf of those whose lobbies in America are largest and best financed, with the Palestinians really not even being in the contest.
Trump’s maliciously named “deal of the century” is just a structure for formalizing long-term the apartheid which already exists. It reduces the Palestinians even further to living in a set of discontinuous “Indian reservations” inside the bowels of Israel, seizes still more of the property that’s been theirs for centuries, and leaves them at Israel’s mercy in everything from water to the electromagnetic spectrum. It leaves them with no rights of any description. As a final insult, the authors openly doubt whether Palestinians are capable of governing themselves.
It is barbaric. But what else would anyone expect from Trump? He is barbaric in virtually everything he does.
But it is also something else. It is a set of conditions which cannot remain stable, no matter how much Israel is given the upper hand. It is hard to understand how Israel doesn’t see that, but fanaticism and greed are things that don’t leave a lot of room for reason.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A RECORD OF TRUMP’S SLOPPY AND VICIOUS WORDS DURING A PANDEMIC
John Chuckman
A RECORD OF TRUMP’S SLOPPY AND VICIOUS WORDS DURING A PANDEMIC
American intelligence warned the White House in November, 2019, about the outbreak in Wuhan, China. The warning had a number of specific observations about the nature of what was happening and was not theoretical.
Trump ignored the warning and took no action to prepare the United States, as at least making sure stocks of medical supplies were in order, which later very much proved not to be the case.
In late January, 2020, here was Trump being interviewed at Davos, Switzerland: “It’s going to be just fine,” Trump assured the interviewer. “We have it totally under control.”
In a speech in late February, 2020, Trump told a crowd, "Now, the Democrats are politicising the coronavirus… this is their new hoax."
Imagine using the word “hoax” for a disease? One that would shortly infect 2 million of the world’s people and kill at least 150,000?
By the third week of February, 2020, advisers made a list of measures they thought would soon be required, measures such as school closings, sports and concert cancellations, and stay-at-home orders, but Trump did not act on them until mid-March.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview recently that imposition of those policies sooner would have saved lives. It made Trump and his followers very angry, and Trump may just have toyed with idea of firing Fauci, but Fauci has held his position for thirty-six years and received many high honors, and firing him would bring tidal waves of criticism.
In April, 2020, at a briefing, Trump used the smarmy methods of gossip to spread the unsupported notion that the coronavirus pandemic began when the pathogen accidentally escaped a Chinese laboratory, saying, “more and more we’re hearing the story.”
Note that contrived language, “more and more we’re hearing the story.” Yes, indeed, and the “more and more” is from Trump’s own shabby crew retailing exactly the same gossip.
It is also very much from Trump’s old favorite news source, China-hating Fox News, a network which has earned a reputation for undependable reportage, rumor-mongering, and playing to fears to boost ratings. It is the “yellow rag” (an old newspaper expression for publications with low-grade, cheap journalism) of television news networks.
Imagine the leader of a huge country depending, in any way, on that kind of source for information? And on top of the fact that he previously ignored accurate reports of intelligence professionals? He understands the difference of course. He is just being vicious. It just comes naturally to him.
Chinese experts say that although the novel coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan, there are no facts to support that it originated there. A gene sequence in the virus, compared to a world database of related viruses is said to demonstrate that the virus was imported to Wuhan.
The US National Institutes of Health had awarded a $3.7million research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for work on such viruses. They certainly don’t do that for second-rate outfits. Top-level science is of course international in character, just as we see with the CERN particle accelerator or the International Space Station and the world’s huge network of international collaborations and conferences.
Yuan Zhiming, an expert from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said in an interview that it is absolutely impossible for the virus to have been leaked from the institute. The standards maintained there are world-class.
Dr Gerald Keusch, Professor of Medicine and International Health at Boston University, said that no release of virus from a high-level lab, such as the one in Wuhan, has ever happened. He added, “The Wuhan lab is designed to the highest standards with redundant safety systems and the highest level of training. Many of its research faculty trained at a similar laboratory in Galveston, Texas.” Note again, with the reference to training, the international nature of high-level science.
Trump’s many references to the “Chinese virus” and the “Wuhan virus,” instead of using the proper scientific name, is a direct appeal to prejudice and just one more in his long series of public efforts to denigrate and attack China – all of course reflecting resentment of Chinese economic success and competitiveness and not any wrongdoing. Trump’s effort was coordinated with the graceless Mike Pompeo, who tried imposing the same language on the G-7’s foreign ministers in a tele-conference. They declined to do so.
The White House was asked through diplomatic channels to stop using the terms, but when they wouldn’t, China took the unusual step - unusual, given that country’s quiet and respectful ways of conducting its affairs - of rebuking the American government in a public statement.
At the same briefing where Trump gossip-mongered about the virus’s origin, he also said with absolutely no evidence, “It took them a long time to realise what was going on, but I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on.” He added, “Tragically, other nations put their trust in the WHO.” That from the man who shortly before had cut funding to the WHO (World Health Organization) in an effort to deflect public attention from his own blundering.
It would be hard to recall statements and acts by the leader of a major nation which were more irresponsible than Trump’s towards the world’s most important health agency at a time of global crisis.
Here’s Trump again, at this writing, "A lot of strange things were happening, but there is a lot of investigation going on, and we are going to find out," Asked to comment on the likelihood of leaking from the Wuhan laboratory, he said, "All that I can say that whatever it came from, it came from China, in whatever form. 184 countries now are suffering because of that. And it’s too bad, isn’t it?"
All diseases arise somewhere. Evolution at the micro- and macro-level never stops anywhere. Studies of the devastating viral disease, AIDS, suggest it arose in what today is the Democratic Republic of Congo, then the Belgian Congo, likely in the 1920s, the virus changing form and passing from chimpanzees to humans. Is Belgium or the DRC to be held accountable?
Trump’s suggestions of blame for China are those of a vicious, ignorant man. Unfortunately, judging by the number of his followers, there are a good many such people in the country.
Dr. Fauci was asked to comment about a possible artificial origin for the virus. He said "There was a study recently that we can make available to you, where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there, the sequences in bats as they evolve, and the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with the jump of a species from animal to human."
A RECORD OF TRUMP’S SLOPPY AND VICIOUS WORDS DURING A PANDEMIC
American intelligence warned the White House in November, 2019, about the outbreak in Wuhan, China. The warning had a number of specific observations about the nature of what was happening and was not theoretical.
Trump ignored the warning and took no action to prepare the United States, as at least making sure stocks of medical supplies were in order, which later very much proved not to be the case.
In late January, 2020, here was Trump being interviewed at Davos, Switzerland: “It’s going to be just fine,” Trump assured the interviewer. “We have it totally under control.”
In a speech in late February, 2020, Trump told a crowd, "Now, the Democrats are politicising the coronavirus… this is their new hoax."
Imagine using the word “hoax” for a disease? One that would shortly infect 2 million of the world’s people and kill at least 150,000?
By the third week of February, 2020, advisers made a list of measures they thought would soon be required, measures such as school closings, sports and concert cancellations, and stay-at-home orders, but Trump did not act on them until mid-March.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview recently that imposition of those policies sooner would have saved lives. It made Trump and his followers very angry, and Trump may just have toyed with idea of firing Fauci, but Fauci has held his position for thirty-six years and received many high honors, and firing him would bring tidal waves of criticism.
In April, 2020, at a briefing, Trump used the smarmy methods of gossip to spread the unsupported notion that the coronavirus pandemic began when the pathogen accidentally escaped a Chinese laboratory, saying, “more and more we’re hearing the story.”
Note that contrived language, “more and more we’re hearing the story.” Yes, indeed, and the “more and more” is from Trump’s own shabby crew retailing exactly the same gossip.
It is also very much from Trump’s old favorite news source, China-hating Fox News, a network which has earned a reputation for undependable reportage, rumor-mongering, and playing to fears to boost ratings. It is the “yellow rag” (an old newspaper expression for publications with low-grade, cheap journalism) of television news networks.
Imagine the leader of a huge country depending, in any way, on that kind of source for information? And on top of the fact that he previously ignored accurate reports of intelligence professionals? He understands the difference of course. He is just being vicious. It just comes naturally to him.
Chinese experts say that although the novel coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan, there are no facts to support that it originated there. A gene sequence in the virus, compared to a world database of related viruses is said to demonstrate that the virus was imported to Wuhan.
The US National Institutes of Health had awarded a $3.7million research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for work on such viruses. They certainly don’t do that for second-rate outfits. Top-level science is of course international in character, just as we see with the CERN particle accelerator or the International Space Station and the world’s huge network of international collaborations and conferences.
Yuan Zhiming, an expert from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said in an interview that it is absolutely impossible for the virus to have been leaked from the institute. The standards maintained there are world-class.
Dr Gerald Keusch, Professor of Medicine and International Health at Boston University, said that no release of virus from a high-level lab, such as the one in Wuhan, has ever happened. He added, “The Wuhan lab is designed to the highest standards with redundant safety systems and the highest level of training. Many of its research faculty trained at a similar laboratory in Galveston, Texas.” Note again, with the reference to training, the international nature of high-level science.
Trump’s many references to the “Chinese virus” and the “Wuhan virus,” instead of using the proper scientific name, is a direct appeal to prejudice and just one more in his long series of public efforts to denigrate and attack China – all of course reflecting resentment of Chinese economic success and competitiveness and not any wrongdoing. Trump’s effort was coordinated with the graceless Mike Pompeo, who tried imposing the same language on the G-7’s foreign ministers in a tele-conference. They declined to do so.
The White House was asked through diplomatic channels to stop using the terms, but when they wouldn’t, China took the unusual step - unusual, given that country’s quiet and respectful ways of conducting its affairs - of rebuking the American government in a public statement.
At the same briefing where Trump gossip-mongered about the virus’s origin, he also said with absolutely no evidence, “It took them a long time to realise what was going on, but I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on.” He added, “Tragically, other nations put their trust in the WHO.” That from the man who shortly before had cut funding to the WHO (World Health Organization) in an effort to deflect public attention from his own blundering.
It would be hard to recall statements and acts by the leader of a major nation which were more irresponsible than Trump’s towards the world’s most important health agency at a time of global crisis.
Here’s Trump again, at this writing, "A lot of strange things were happening, but there is a lot of investigation going on, and we are going to find out," Asked to comment on the likelihood of leaking from the Wuhan laboratory, he said, "All that I can say that whatever it came from, it came from China, in whatever form. 184 countries now are suffering because of that. And it’s too bad, isn’t it?"
All diseases arise somewhere. Evolution at the micro- and macro-level never stops anywhere. Studies of the devastating viral disease, AIDS, suggest it arose in what today is the Democratic Republic of Congo, then the Belgian Congo, likely in the 1920s, the virus changing form and passing from chimpanzees to humans. Is Belgium or the DRC to be held accountable?
Trump’s suggestions of blame for China are those of a vicious, ignorant man. Unfortunately, judging by the number of his followers, there are a good many such people in the country.
Dr. Fauci was asked to comment about a possible artificial origin for the virus. He said "There was a study recently that we can make available to you, where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there, the sequences in bats as they evolve, and the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with the jump of a species from animal to human."
Friday, April 17, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MANY THINGS SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH THE WAY AMERICA IS ORGANIZED AND GOVERNED A WRITER SAYS – NO SENSE OF THE PUBLIC GOOD IN THE COUNTRY - WHY THIS IS SO AND WHY IT CANNOT CHANGE THROUGH TRADITIONAL AMERICAN POLITICS – APPROACHING CHANGES IN THE WORLD – AMERICA’S CONTINUED DECLINE AND LOSS OF SPECIAL STATUS – THREATS AHEAD FOR WAR AND AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT AS AMERICA’S ESTABLISHMENT POSSIBLY PANICS OVER NEW REALITIES
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL BRENNER
“WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/04/ranting-in-a-time-of-plague.html#more
A powerful cris de coeur.
These things, all of them true, have little to do with American politics per se. Rather the shape of American politics is determined by more fundamental forces, by the drives of the class of people who actually own much of the country and determine its direction, not trusting that task to anyone who might in any way interfere with their investments.
And institutions like the military and security services, whose main duty is service to the empire which serves the oligarchs, also do not want anyone coming along who could disturb their vast investments and elaborate arrangements.
American politics are shaped to serve them, the American oligarchs, bettering their positions through tax legislation and other privileged treatments, minimizing commitments to the general population in any form of social legislation, and of course pursuing the course of empire through the gigantic expenditures – more than a trillion dollars a year - on the military and security services.
Both political parties suffer from the same disease, and political dialogue in America has reached something resembling a set of schoolyard bullies throwing punches and calling names. Almost nothing is ever said of real value and meaning for America’s people or for the world’s.
The very fact that some comments here dismiss the piece as political just reinforces the pathetic state to which America has sunk: it has become almost a universally adopted slogan, on all sides, that “If it ain’t my way, it’s political and not worth paying attention.”
It’s a formula which goes nowhere, which is precisely where American society has been headed for years. If what everyone else says can be dismissed as merely political, no meaningful exchange of ideas or cooperation is possible. There is only division and words of little help or sincerity.
Trump and Pompeo and Co. have actually worked mightily to exalt and dignify bullying as high-level policy – surely, about as corrupt and uncivil an approach as you could take.
The base cause has to do with the corruption and decline of "the indispensable nation" and its "exceptional leadership." Just the fact that those two self-serving phrases are used by some important Americans tells you something, even with no further investigation. Great families, great dynasties, and great corporations almost all have a limited time of greatness, and it is no different with empires and nation-states. What in their founders made them great is often missing in the makeup of their descendants.
Inherited great wealth without the hard-driving values of a creative founder tends to corruption and decay. That’s just one reason inheritance taxes, large ones, are important to a society. Otherwise, you do begin getting something resembling the France of Louis XV.
There are very real effects, too, always at work in society, captured by Lord Acton's great dictum about power and absolute power and corruption. The closer you reach to absolute power, the closer you are to absolute corruption. It’s a position America as a whole has occupied for a good while, often thinking of itself in god-like terms as of its right to wantonly change the national arrangements of other states.
An extremely corrupt society cannot build the institutions required for healthy growth and the population’s flourishing, institutions which serve all and thereby receive the support of all or most. The leaders of such a society serve mainly themselves and their close allies. Even the least sophisticated Americans sense that about their national government. As in the grotesque role of money and lobbies in Washington. As in the smarmy, hypocritical nature of both political parties.
As in the excessive role of the military and security services, inherently anti-democratic and anti-human rights institutions, in the society. As in America’s aggressive posture towards the rest of the world’s people, a genuinely 19th century imperial posture which breeds arrogance and contempt for others. As in the government’s failure to deal with many basic needs of national infrastructure, both material and human.
As in a government which cannot even decently govern itself – just for a start, look at its grotesquely reckless deficit spending decade after decade or its shirking all responsibility for serious reform after the 2007-8 Financial Crisis - spending much of its time telling others in the world what they should be doing and how they should be doing it.
Just writing those last words out, about America telling others, makes them seem almost absurd, yet they represent a truth at the very heart of modern American government.
What kind of political statement is it about a great country that the best it can hope for from an approaching election is getting rid of the bellowing lunatic now occupying the Oval Office? Everything else will remain pretty much the same, just without the noise and irritation? Trump does not determine the big policies despite his delusional words.
I do think the set of events outlined in the article – and especially America’s embarrassing display of ignorance and hostility and incompetence in the pandemic - suggests the country has effectively given a huge boost to its own relative decline, a decline already underway for some years by natural forces of development and evolution in many countries.
The full emergence of a multi-polar world in the not too-distant future will be greeted by many with enthusiasm. Better cooperation towards worthy ends and respect for all members of the community of nations will gradually emerge to replace America’s bullying and fierce ideology and unnecessary conflicts.
Americans love to disparage dictators and unelected governments in other parts of the world – that is, in places where the tyrants do not support American goals, otherwise being quite happy with all those who do, no matter how tyrannical towards their own people. How much less attractive and more dangerous is it to have a tyrant over a good portion of the world rather than in just one country? That is what empire is about. It cannot be democratic. It cannot truly honor human rights. It is about raw power over others, about bending hundreds of millions to your will in everything from how they govern themselves to how they develop their resources.
However, there is a real threat as new global arrangements unfold, and that is from the privileged thugs in Washington, the American Overseers and Gauleiters. They could start a war in their desperation and anger about losing their previously unquestioned place. That is what much of America’s extreme belligerence towards substantial portions of the world in recent years has been about, America’s establishment recognizing what has been happening gradually for years.
But the belligerence could grow to a new intensity, reaching a point where it goes out of control, especially given a perception that things are moving even faster and more certainly away from the extension of America’s privileged and central role.
The ugly bullies won't go quietly into the night, I fear.
FURTHER AFTERTHOUGHT
The establishment drive of recent years towards increased control both at home and abroad could simply drop the appearances of democratic government and become more openly despotic. All the rifles and pistols and shotguns in America – and there are several hundred million – could not make a dint in an American government, whether civilian or military, bent on such a course. America’s total military and armed police make an overwhelming force, and they are backed by many gigantic intelligence services, including the now everywhere-present NSA recording everything of significance about you.
Besides, time and again, despite a great deal of blowhard, faux bravery and toughness, all the Trump-like bluster and noise, through critical event after critical event, Americans have demonstrated themselves to be a remarkably passive population. Overwhelmingly compliant with huge, meaningless wars like Vietnam or the Neocon Wars. Overwhelmingly compliant through completely unexplained revolutionary events like the Kennedy assassination or, indeed, 9/11. Treated like children who can’t be trusted with facts and explanations, yet pretty much quietly accepting the treatment.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL BRENNER
“WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/04/ranting-in-a-time-of-plague.html#more
A powerful cris de coeur.
These things, all of them true, have little to do with American politics per se. Rather the shape of American politics is determined by more fundamental forces, by the drives of the class of people who actually own much of the country and determine its direction, not trusting that task to anyone who might in any way interfere with their investments.
And institutions like the military and security services, whose main duty is service to the empire which serves the oligarchs, also do not want anyone coming along who could disturb their vast investments and elaborate arrangements.
American politics are shaped to serve them, the American oligarchs, bettering their positions through tax legislation and other privileged treatments, minimizing commitments to the general population in any form of social legislation, and of course pursuing the course of empire through the gigantic expenditures – more than a trillion dollars a year - on the military and security services.
Both political parties suffer from the same disease, and political dialogue in America has reached something resembling a set of schoolyard bullies throwing punches and calling names. Almost nothing is ever said of real value and meaning for America’s people or for the world’s.
The very fact that some comments here dismiss the piece as political just reinforces the pathetic state to which America has sunk: it has become almost a universally adopted slogan, on all sides, that “If it ain’t my way, it’s political and not worth paying attention.”
It’s a formula which goes nowhere, which is precisely where American society has been headed for years. If what everyone else says can be dismissed as merely political, no meaningful exchange of ideas or cooperation is possible. There is only division and words of little help or sincerity.
Trump and Pompeo and Co. have actually worked mightily to exalt and dignify bullying as high-level policy – surely, about as corrupt and uncivil an approach as you could take.
The base cause has to do with the corruption and decline of "the indispensable nation" and its "exceptional leadership." Just the fact that those two self-serving phrases are used by some important Americans tells you something, even with no further investigation. Great families, great dynasties, and great corporations almost all have a limited time of greatness, and it is no different with empires and nation-states. What in their founders made them great is often missing in the makeup of their descendants.
Inherited great wealth without the hard-driving values of a creative founder tends to corruption and decay. That’s just one reason inheritance taxes, large ones, are important to a society. Otherwise, you do begin getting something resembling the France of Louis XV.
There are very real effects, too, always at work in society, captured by Lord Acton's great dictum about power and absolute power and corruption. The closer you reach to absolute power, the closer you are to absolute corruption. It’s a position America as a whole has occupied for a good while, often thinking of itself in god-like terms as of its right to wantonly change the national arrangements of other states.
An extremely corrupt society cannot build the institutions required for healthy growth and the population’s flourishing, institutions which serve all and thereby receive the support of all or most. The leaders of such a society serve mainly themselves and their close allies. Even the least sophisticated Americans sense that about their national government. As in the grotesque role of money and lobbies in Washington. As in the smarmy, hypocritical nature of both political parties.
As in the excessive role of the military and security services, inherently anti-democratic and anti-human rights institutions, in the society. As in America’s aggressive posture towards the rest of the world’s people, a genuinely 19th century imperial posture which breeds arrogance and contempt for others. As in the government’s failure to deal with many basic needs of national infrastructure, both material and human.
As in a government which cannot even decently govern itself – just for a start, look at its grotesquely reckless deficit spending decade after decade or its shirking all responsibility for serious reform after the 2007-8 Financial Crisis - spending much of its time telling others in the world what they should be doing and how they should be doing it.
Just writing those last words out, about America telling others, makes them seem almost absurd, yet they represent a truth at the very heart of modern American government.
What kind of political statement is it about a great country that the best it can hope for from an approaching election is getting rid of the bellowing lunatic now occupying the Oval Office? Everything else will remain pretty much the same, just without the noise and irritation? Trump does not determine the big policies despite his delusional words.
I do think the set of events outlined in the article – and especially America’s embarrassing display of ignorance and hostility and incompetence in the pandemic - suggests the country has effectively given a huge boost to its own relative decline, a decline already underway for some years by natural forces of development and evolution in many countries.
The full emergence of a multi-polar world in the not too-distant future will be greeted by many with enthusiasm. Better cooperation towards worthy ends and respect for all members of the community of nations will gradually emerge to replace America’s bullying and fierce ideology and unnecessary conflicts.
Americans love to disparage dictators and unelected governments in other parts of the world – that is, in places where the tyrants do not support American goals, otherwise being quite happy with all those who do, no matter how tyrannical towards their own people. How much less attractive and more dangerous is it to have a tyrant over a good portion of the world rather than in just one country? That is what empire is about. It cannot be democratic. It cannot truly honor human rights. It is about raw power over others, about bending hundreds of millions to your will in everything from how they govern themselves to how they develop their resources.
However, there is a real threat as new global arrangements unfold, and that is from the privileged thugs in Washington, the American Overseers and Gauleiters. They could start a war in their desperation and anger about losing their previously unquestioned place. That is what much of America’s extreme belligerence towards substantial portions of the world in recent years has been about, America’s establishment recognizing what has been happening gradually for years.
But the belligerence could grow to a new intensity, reaching a point where it goes out of control, especially given a perception that things are moving even faster and more certainly away from the extension of America’s privileged and central role.
The ugly bullies won't go quietly into the night, I fear.
FURTHER AFTERTHOUGHT
The establishment drive of recent years towards increased control both at home and abroad could simply drop the appearances of democratic government and become more openly despotic. All the rifles and pistols and shotguns in America – and there are several hundred million – could not make a dint in an American government, whether civilian or military, bent on such a course. America’s total military and armed police make an overwhelming force, and they are backed by many gigantic intelligence services, including the now everywhere-present NSA recording everything of significance about you.
Besides, time and again, despite a great deal of blowhard, faux bravery and toughness, all the Trump-like bluster and noise, through critical event after critical event, Americans have demonstrated themselves to be a remarkably passive population. Overwhelmingly compliant with huge, meaningless wars like Vietnam or the Neocon Wars. Overwhelmingly compliant through completely unexplained revolutionary events like the Kennedy assassination or, indeed, 9/11. Treated like children who can’t be trusted with facts and explanations, yet pretty much quietly accepting the treatment.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: EMPIRE OF HATE - TRUMP'S VILE CAMPAIGN OF HATE AGAINST CHINA – USING AMERICAN MISERY AND FEAR ABOUT THE PANDEMIC TO WIN RE-ELECTION, THE ONLY GOAL THAT EVER REALLY COUNTS FOR THIS COMPLETE NARCISSIST AND BELLOWING INCOMPETENT – CHINA’S REAL EVIL IS OUTCOMPETING THE UNITED STATES, AN UNFORGIVABLE SIN – USING HATRED AS A TOOL FOR RULING – JOE BIDEN WILL SUFFER THE UGLY OLD CHARGE OF APPEASEMENT AND MAY NOT BE ABLE TO OVERCOME IT – THE UGLY NOISES OF SMARMY SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM – INTERESTING NOTE ON THE REAL REASON FOR THE VIETNAM WAR – AMERICANS ARE EASILY MANIPULATED
John Chuckman
EMPIRE OF HATE
Trump has begun a new campaign of hatred against China.
It is new only in its intensity and nastiness. Trump from the start has used China politically, accusing it of many evil trade and business practices in an effort to squeeze concessions from it while telling the folks back home he is fighting for them, for more benefits to good old America.
The truth is that the only evil practice of the Chinese has been to outperform and outcompete the United States on many economic and business fronts. You simply are not allowed to do that to the “indispensable” nation, embarrassing its “exceptional” leaders. It’s a form of lèse-majesté.
While China has worked to make itself the world’s factory, turning out almost every conceivable kind of good and machine, sending them, peacefully, everywhere across the seas, America has pretty much stopped making anything except an unholy number of weapons it uses in its ceaseless wars. It sells them, too, as the world’s greatest arms merchant, larger than all the other large ones combined. It sells them in captive markets to allies it pressures into buying them, and it sells them to many of the world’s worst tyrannies who support its policies.
The attack on Huawei has been until now the greatest single campaign in a virtual war of misinformation, unfair pressure, and uncompetitive practices against China – going so far as intimidating allies against using Huawei’s world-beating 5-G technology. But the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic brings a dazzling new opportunity, one much richer in possibilities to whip up fear and hatred than mere suggestions of spying, suggestions always a bit limp since everyone who counts knows America spies on everyone continuously, through the insidious NSA and the American hi-tech and on-line industries.
It is an unexpected political blessing from heaven. Perhaps it’s all those evangelical prayers for him being answered? After all, he is, in his own words, “the chosen one.” It provides the means for that most important task of all, getting himself re-elected. Everything he has ever said or done as President, a great deal of it very shabby, is dedicated to that task. Here is a man, with nothing to say worth hearing and who has done almost nothing worth doing, who insists on staying center-stage. Narcissism is his deepest quality.
Now, it very much appears he’s going to make China and his version of what China is supposed to have done in the pandemic the central focus of his re-election campaign. In brief, he’s saying it is a Chinese disease and that it’s quite possible China created it in a bio-lab and that in any event China has lied every step of the way and failed in its responsibilities to the World Health Organization (WHO), the same WHO Trump has recklessly cut-off from funding at a time of unprecedented world need owing to their asserted complicity and accommodation of China.
It is hard to imagine a more confused and dishonest stitched-together crazy quilt of stories. You might think they would convince few of anything, serving only as further evidence of Trump’s recklessness and viciousness. But, no, remember this is America, a country that has been almost continuously at war for decades without most of the people ever having any idea why they fighting, spending astronomical sums of money to kill people and destroy places they know nothing about.
Truly, anything is possible in America, and its first P. T. Barnum President is fully aware of the fact and ready to use it on a great new purpose, his re-election.
I am being unfair to Barnum who was indeed a grand-scale huckster and is credited with saying “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but he wasn’t foul-mouthed, and there is no evidence that he hated entire classes of people (refugees, many immigrants, Muslims, and those like China who embarrass America by their success) or that he abused tens of millions afflicted with both illness and illegal sanctions (Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and others) or that he carried on killing in any number of places (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and others) and supported others killing in still other places (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and others) or that he promoted discord and distrust on a vast scale (China, Iran, Russia, and others).
When the United States finally finished its decade-long orgy of killing in Vietnam – having killed an estimated 3 million people and turned that lush country into a landscape of smoldering bomb craters and toxic deposits of Agent Orange and other chemicals – virtually no Americans even understood what it had all been about. Just vague stuff like fighting for democracy (in an artificially-created rump state run by dictators, but dictators loyal to America) and Old Glory, the very kind of stuff Trump likes to bellow about.
And there were great numbers of Americans who believed for many years that the evil Vietnamese communists secretly held still more American prisoners, without ever asking themselves “what would be the sense of a poor country doing that?” Paranoia and superstition held sway, and the believers constituted a large movement, and it even had its own flag, demonstrating convincingly how far Americans will go in their misconceptions and myths. America’s government made no serious effort to correct them because it had its own purposes in harnessing that hate and confusion against Vietnam.
As an aside, the real reason for the Vietnam War is nicely sketched by an anecdote from America’s last truly crass president, Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was given to many obscene behaviors behind the scenes, like carrying on discussions with aides or interviewers while taking down his pants and relieving himself on the toilet with the door wide open. In those days, you could count on the press not to report such things. Once, when asked at a meeting just why America was fighting in Vietnam, Johnson promptly unzipped his pants and pulled out his (ample) penis, pointed to it, and growled something to the effect, “That’s the reason, Son.” (Johnson at least had the one grace of not displaying his crassness to the general public, a quality entirely missing in Trump’s makeup).
So, Trump has very fertile ground for sowing seeds of confusion and hatred and resentment, and sow them he will. It even provides him with a weapon directly against Joe Biden. He can associate Biden with dealings in China and thereby being a kind of shill for the communists. I’m sure we’ll hear the word “appeasement” introduced into the campaign against Biden.
There’s nothing like good old-fashioned fear and uncertainty, as of a dreaded disease, to whip your political constituency to a frenzy. And that kind of stuff will arouse those outside your own natural constituency too. At the same time, there is the added benefit for Trump of diverting public attention from the clearest series of blunders, misdirection, and just plain falsehoods in his own handling of America’s portion of the world crisis.
There is even the added benefit of stirring up America’s large murky pool of fear of foreigners – a theme for him from the beginning with the mater of immigration and refugees and walls – and all the better if they’re foreigners who look different.
Hatred is very elemental. It doesn’t need or seek elaborate explanations. Hitler well understood that, as I think all tyrannical temperaments do, and he used it skillfully as a tool for ruling.
Trump already has an orchestrated effort underway with various officials, including the Pentagon, making ugly assertions or suggestions. The assertions and suggestions will never require any proof - they couldn’t provide any in any case. For effect they just need the fact of high-level officials making them, echoing and re-inforcing each other. It is is enough in a time of fear.
We even have one of Trump’s smarmiest political allies, Senator Lindsey Graham, making loony statements about how China owes us reparations for all the misery and cost they’ve caused. Even if the coronavirus arose in China originally, something still not proved, since when is it a practice to charge nations for diseases which happen to arise within their borders?
The idea is intellectually ridiculous, but to people out of work and maybe losing their homes and afraid, it has an obvious vicious appeal. It’s a well-crafted piece of hate.
It’s the kind of thing you expect from Lindsey Graham, a man who matched John McCain in his unthinking enthusiasm for war and bloodshed and special interests.
EMPIRE OF HATE
Trump has begun a new campaign of hatred against China.
It is new only in its intensity and nastiness. Trump from the start has used China politically, accusing it of many evil trade and business practices in an effort to squeeze concessions from it while telling the folks back home he is fighting for them, for more benefits to good old America.
The truth is that the only evil practice of the Chinese has been to outperform and outcompete the United States on many economic and business fronts. You simply are not allowed to do that to the “indispensable” nation, embarrassing its “exceptional” leaders. It’s a form of lèse-majesté.
While China has worked to make itself the world’s factory, turning out almost every conceivable kind of good and machine, sending them, peacefully, everywhere across the seas, America has pretty much stopped making anything except an unholy number of weapons it uses in its ceaseless wars. It sells them, too, as the world’s greatest arms merchant, larger than all the other large ones combined. It sells them in captive markets to allies it pressures into buying them, and it sells them to many of the world’s worst tyrannies who support its policies.
The attack on Huawei has been until now the greatest single campaign in a virtual war of misinformation, unfair pressure, and uncompetitive practices against China – going so far as intimidating allies against using Huawei’s world-beating 5-G technology. But the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic brings a dazzling new opportunity, one much richer in possibilities to whip up fear and hatred than mere suggestions of spying, suggestions always a bit limp since everyone who counts knows America spies on everyone continuously, through the insidious NSA and the American hi-tech and on-line industries.
It is an unexpected political blessing from heaven. Perhaps it’s all those evangelical prayers for him being answered? After all, he is, in his own words, “the chosen one.” It provides the means for that most important task of all, getting himself re-elected. Everything he has ever said or done as President, a great deal of it very shabby, is dedicated to that task. Here is a man, with nothing to say worth hearing and who has done almost nothing worth doing, who insists on staying center-stage. Narcissism is his deepest quality.
Now, it very much appears he’s going to make China and his version of what China is supposed to have done in the pandemic the central focus of his re-election campaign. In brief, he’s saying it is a Chinese disease and that it’s quite possible China created it in a bio-lab and that in any event China has lied every step of the way and failed in its responsibilities to the World Health Organization (WHO), the same WHO Trump has recklessly cut-off from funding at a time of unprecedented world need owing to their asserted complicity and accommodation of China.
It is hard to imagine a more confused and dishonest stitched-together crazy quilt of stories. You might think they would convince few of anything, serving only as further evidence of Trump’s recklessness and viciousness. But, no, remember this is America, a country that has been almost continuously at war for decades without most of the people ever having any idea why they fighting, spending astronomical sums of money to kill people and destroy places they know nothing about.
Truly, anything is possible in America, and its first P. T. Barnum President is fully aware of the fact and ready to use it on a great new purpose, his re-election.
I am being unfair to Barnum who was indeed a grand-scale huckster and is credited with saying “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but he wasn’t foul-mouthed, and there is no evidence that he hated entire classes of people (refugees, many immigrants, Muslims, and those like China who embarrass America by their success) or that he abused tens of millions afflicted with both illness and illegal sanctions (Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and others) or that he carried on killing in any number of places (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and others) and supported others killing in still other places (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and others) or that he promoted discord and distrust on a vast scale (China, Iran, Russia, and others).
When the United States finally finished its decade-long orgy of killing in Vietnam – having killed an estimated 3 million people and turned that lush country into a landscape of smoldering bomb craters and toxic deposits of Agent Orange and other chemicals – virtually no Americans even understood what it had all been about. Just vague stuff like fighting for democracy (in an artificially-created rump state run by dictators, but dictators loyal to America) and Old Glory, the very kind of stuff Trump likes to bellow about.
And there were great numbers of Americans who believed for many years that the evil Vietnamese communists secretly held still more American prisoners, without ever asking themselves “what would be the sense of a poor country doing that?” Paranoia and superstition held sway, and the believers constituted a large movement, and it even had its own flag, demonstrating convincingly how far Americans will go in their misconceptions and myths. America’s government made no serious effort to correct them because it had its own purposes in harnessing that hate and confusion against Vietnam.
As an aside, the real reason for the Vietnam War is nicely sketched by an anecdote from America’s last truly crass president, Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was given to many obscene behaviors behind the scenes, like carrying on discussions with aides or interviewers while taking down his pants and relieving himself on the toilet with the door wide open. In those days, you could count on the press not to report such things. Once, when asked at a meeting just why America was fighting in Vietnam, Johnson promptly unzipped his pants and pulled out his (ample) penis, pointed to it, and growled something to the effect, “That’s the reason, Son.” (Johnson at least had the one grace of not displaying his crassness to the general public, a quality entirely missing in Trump’s makeup).
So, Trump has very fertile ground for sowing seeds of confusion and hatred and resentment, and sow them he will. It even provides him with a weapon directly against Joe Biden. He can associate Biden with dealings in China and thereby being a kind of shill for the communists. I’m sure we’ll hear the word “appeasement” introduced into the campaign against Biden.
There’s nothing like good old-fashioned fear and uncertainty, as of a dreaded disease, to whip your political constituency to a frenzy. And that kind of stuff will arouse those outside your own natural constituency too. At the same time, there is the added benefit for Trump of diverting public attention from the clearest series of blunders, misdirection, and just plain falsehoods in his own handling of America’s portion of the world crisis.
There is even the added benefit of stirring up America’s large murky pool of fear of foreigners – a theme for him from the beginning with the mater of immigration and refugees and walls – and all the better if they’re foreigners who look different.
Hatred is very elemental. It doesn’t need or seek elaborate explanations. Hitler well understood that, as I think all tyrannical temperaments do, and he used it skillfully as a tool for ruling.
Trump already has an orchestrated effort underway with various officials, including the Pentagon, making ugly assertions or suggestions. The assertions and suggestions will never require any proof - they couldn’t provide any in any case. For effect they just need the fact of high-level officials making them, echoing and re-inforcing each other. It is is enough in a time of fear.
We even have one of Trump’s smarmiest political allies, Senator Lindsey Graham, making loony statements about how China owes us reparations for all the misery and cost they’ve caused. Even if the coronavirus arose in China originally, something still not proved, since when is it a practice to charge nations for diseases which happen to arise within their borders?
The idea is intellectually ridiculous, but to people out of work and maybe losing their homes and afraid, it has an obvious vicious appeal. It’s a well-crafted piece of hate.
It’s the kind of thing you expect from Lindsey Graham, a man who matched John McCain in his unthinking enthusiasm for war and bloodshed and special interests.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NEW PRIORITIES AND LEADERS REQUIRED FOR AMERICA AFTER THE CORONAVIRUS AND THE MILITARY CANNOT GO BACK TO NORMAL SAYS A WRITER – BUT THERE IS ALMOST NO POSSIBILITY FOR SUCH DREAMY OUTCOMES - AMERICA’S MILITARY AND ITS POLITICS SERVE POWERFUL INTERESTS WHO AREN’T GOING AWAY ANY TIME SOON, THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY DO OWN AMERICA AND GIVE IT DIRECTION – SOME SPECULATION ON THE POSSIBILITY THINGS MIGHT BECOME WORSE IN POLITICAL AND EVEN MILITARY TERMS
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEVIN MARTIN IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“COVID-19: Ventilators Not Bombs
“Once we get past the Covid-19 crisis, the world’s most gargantuan military machine cannot go back to normal”"New priorities and new leadership are required. Returning to business as usual won’t do."
I don't see how that is at all possible in America.
Where is any new leadership to come from in what literally is a rigged political system, a kind of costly political theater giving Americans the illusion of democratic choice?
You have two parties, but both totally support empire and war because they both are funded by America's elites and plutocrats, the very people that empire and wars serve. Democrats are no less in support of war than Republicans. Obama spent eight solid years bombing people and toppling governments. The boyish smile never revealed any more aversion to killing and horror than did the dull viciousness of George Bush for the previous eight years.
In fact, you might well call the Democrats a war party with all the warrior presidents they’ve had – Truman, Johnson, Clinton, Obama. And Biden would just be another. Or, come to that, Cuomo or certainly Hillary Clinton.
The only difference between Democrats and Republicans is in arguing over a limited range of social issues, but that is an unproductive and almost frivolous exercise in America because there are no resources for large social programs. War and empire and security get them all, and they get not only money, they get all the attention and effort of ambitious upcoming politicians and bureaucrats. They can smell the money, and they follow the trail.
The immense sum burned through, year after year, by America’s military/security/imperial complex [Pentagon, CIA, NSA, plus still more large intelligence agencies and the State Department] is not even money the government has in its coffers. No, it is all borrowed. And the bill for the stupendous interest payments on it, in perpetuity, is what ordinary Americans receive from the arrangement, tax laws being so corruptly written that the powerful do not pay for their empire and the many evils it inflicts upon the world.
The colossal amounts of money American politics require also mean you cannot have a third party. The money is effectively "a barrier to entry." You cannot pull up a chair at this card game without a gigantic stake, right upfront. Just where does that come from?
America is, more than ever, about money and those who possess serious amounts of it. And very little else, regardless of what the national myths say.
The politicians serve those with money faithfully, pass laws which favor them, including tax laws which even further entrench wealth and divisions in the society, and pursue imperial policies abroad in their interests. All the rest - from flag lapel pins to homilies about the Founders and “sacred rights” - is pretty much a set of stage-show props, all with a strong overtone of that secular religion called Patriotism, something which serves to bind loyalties and discourage questions.
Massive agencies like the military and security services (seventeen of them in America) are the “worker bees” of empire. They have virtually nothing to do with either peace or defense. Agencies a tenth of their size would more than suffice for peace and defense. Russia’s military budget is less than one-tenth the size of America’s, yet certainly no one could say Russia’s peace and defense are not more than adequately funded.
American voters this year are going to be given yet another dreary political choice, this time between lifelong Party hack Biden and the grimacing lunatic in the White House, who, despite all of his noise about being in charge, does pretty much just what the power establishment wants him to do. He does so in a bellowing, reckless manner, but that just makes America look even more threatening and dangerous from abroad.
There isn’t much prospect for the author’s dreamy “new priorities and new leadership.” I like Bernie Sanders, but he’s never been a serious opponent of the military/security state, America’s ugliest problem, and, anyway, he’s now made the required political genuflection to Biden. The nearest you had was Tulsi Gabbard, but she was a critic only of selected portions of America’s blood-spattered imperial machinery, and you saw how promptly the Party suffocated her ambitions and efforts.
Far from “new priorities” and the American military not returning to its ways, there is the possibility things could grow a good deal worse after the pandemic. America has seen a lot of pleasant old fantasies about itself disappear, both among allies and opponents – the stuff of Jimmy Stewart movies of the 1940s. Illusions about America helped America, much as an excellent propaganda campaign would, in keeping its grip on many interests.
America has shown itself selfish and ruthless in a time of international emergency, even with friends, grotesquely putting itself first, not sharing and not listening. It was of course already doing so with its illegal sanctions and demands for other countries to buy only what America says they should buy, but things do take on a special grimness and moral force during an international medical emergency.
Seizing loads of medical masks ordered and paid for by other countries, as America did to Germany, to Canada, and to Cuba? Telling American suppliers not to fill orders for medical equipment from a neighbor like Canada? And what is anyone to say of keeping brutal sanctions (illegal – as virtually all of America’s sanctions are unsupported by international law) in place against countries desperately fighting a pandemic, people unable to get medicines and medical supplies, in Iran, in Venezuela, in Cuba? It is despicable behavior.
It is just a fact that certain kinds of vicious people, when observed in their ugly acts, respond by becoming yet more vicious, as if to say, “I’ll show you!” It was a behavior seen in the hideous character of Father Karamazov in Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.”
China and Russia have shown a spirit quite the opposite of America, taking the opportunity to share and to generate good-will. Poor little Cuba has made a good effort, and Iran, given the severity of its infection, has shared whatever it can with others. American propagandists of course say they are just being selfish, but that is a filthy interpretation. The great David Hume wrote to the effect, “What is more worthy than wanting to receive the credit for worthy deeds?” It is a profound observation.
No one can confuse creatures like Donald Trump or Mike Pompeo or Elliott Abrams or Thomas Modly with characters from a Jimmy Stewart movie. America has lost something it cannot replace. Illusions are like that, and when people have lost their illusions about you, they treat you differently.
At the same time, does anyone believe America’s powerful establishment has given up on its recent drive to dominate – with its Orwellian goal of “full-spectrum dominance” - whether that drive is led by Trump or by someone else? No, such massive and disruptive efforts reflect assumptions and attitudes of an entire privileged class.
Depending on the course of the disease and the depth of the depression into which the world is hurled, other great forces could come into play. The right conditions could see martial law imposed by the Pentagon. It does have contingency plans for doing just that.
Arrangements with Europe are likely to change. NATO has been ineffective in playing a pro-active emergency role. And it makes little sense in a depression for Europe to keep enforcing American sanctions against Russia or China when every possibility for productive trade should be seized as part of rebuilding the world’s economy. The EU itself has come under considerable stress, displaying inability to act in a unified, forceful fashion.
I think China has gained new admirers, despite America’s petty propaganda efforts. China’s Belt and Road Initiative in scores of countries provides a template for growth. With China’s demonstrated effective organization and efficiency and its special relationship with resource-rich Russia, there is little doubt China will overtake the United States shortly as the world’s leading economy. It isn’t far from being that now.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY KEVIN MARTIN IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“COVID-19: Ventilators Not Bombs
“Once we get past the Covid-19 crisis, the world’s most gargantuan military machine cannot go back to normal”"New priorities and new leadership are required. Returning to business as usual won’t do."
I don't see how that is at all possible in America.
Where is any new leadership to come from in what literally is a rigged political system, a kind of costly political theater giving Americans the illusion of democratic choice?
You have two parties, but both totally support empire and war because they both are funded by America's elites and plutocrats, the very people that empire and wars serve. Democrats are no less in support of war than Republicans. Obama spent eight solid years bombing people and toppling governments. The boyish smile never revealed any more aversion to killing and horror than did the dull viciousness of George Bush for the previous eight years.
In fact, you might well call the Democrats a war party with all the warrior presidents they’ve had – Truman, Johnson, Clinton, Obama. And Biden would just be another. Or, come to that, Cuomo or certainly Hillary Clinton.
The only difference between Democrats and Republicans is in arguing over a limited range of social issues, but that is an unproductive and almost frivolous exercise in America because there are no resources for large social programs. War and empire and security get them all, and they get not only money, they get all the attention and effort of ambitious upcoming politicians and bureaucrats. They can smell the money, and they follow the trail.
The immense sum burned through, year after year, by America’s military/security/imperial complex [Pentagon, CIA, NSA, plus still more large intelligence agencies and the State Department] is not even money the government has in its coffers. No, it is all borrowed. And the bill for the stupendous interest payments on it, in perpetuity, is what ordinary Americans receive from the arrangement, tax laws being so corruptly written that the powerful do not pay for their empire and the many evils it inflicts upon the world.
The colossal amounts of money American politics require also mean you cannot have a third party. The money is effectively "a barrier to entry." You cannot pull up a chair at this card game without a gigantic stake, right upfront. Just where does that come from?
America is, more than ever, about money and those who possess serious amounts of it. And very little else, regardless of what the national myths say.
The politicians serve those with money faithfully, pass laws which favor them, including tax laws which even further entrench wealth and divisions in the society, and pursue imperial policies abroad in their interests. All the rest - from flag lapel pins to homilies about the Founders and “sacred rights” - is pretty much a set of stage-show props, all with a strong overtone of that secular religion called Patriotism, something which serves to bind loyalties and discourage questions.
Massive agencies like the military and security services (seventeen of them in America) are the “worker bees” of empire. They have virtually nothing to do with either peace or defense. Agencies a tenth of their size would more than suffice for peace and defense. Russia’s military budget is less than one-tenth the size of America’s, yet certainly no one could say Russia’s peace and defense are not more than adequately funded.
American voters this year are going to be given yet another dreary political choice, this time between lifelong Party hack Biden and the grimacing lunatic in the White House, who, despite all of his noise about being in charge, does pretty much just what the power establishment wants him to do. He does so in a bellowing, reckless manner, but that just makes America look even more threatening and dangerous from abroad.
There isn’t much prospect for the author’s dreamy “new priorities and new leadership.” I like Bernie Sanders, but he’s never been a serious opponent of the military/security state, America’s ugliest problem, and, anyway, he’s now made the required political genuflection to Biden. The nearest you had was Tulsi Gabbard, but she was a critic only of selected portions of America’s blood-spattered imperial machinery, and you saw how promptly the Party suffocated her ambitions and efforts.
Far from “new priorities” and the American military not returning to its ways, there is the possibility things could grow a good deal worse after the pandemic. America has seen a lot of pleasant old fantasies about itself disappear, both among allies and opponents – the stuff of Jimmy Stewart movies of the 1940s. Illusions about America helped America, much as an excellent propaganda campaign would, in keeping its grip on many interests.
America has shown itself selfish and ruthless in a time of international emergency, even with friends, grotesquely putting itself first, not sharing and not listening. It was of course already doing so with its illegal sanctions and demands for other countries to buy only what America says they should buy, but things do take on a special grimness and moral force during an international medical emergency.
Seizing loads of medical masks ordered and paid for by other countries, as America did to Germany, to Canada, and to Cuba? Telling American suppliers not to fill orders for medical equipment from a neighbor like Canada? And what is anyone to say of keeping brutal sanctions (illegal – as virtually all of America’s sanctions are unsupported by international law) in place against countries desperately fighting a pandemic, people unable to get medicines and medical supplies, in Iran, in Venezuela, in Cuba? It is despicable behavior.
It is just a fact that certain kinds of vicious people, when observed in their ugly acts, respond by becoming yet more vicious, as if to say, “I’ll show you!” It was a behavior seen in the hideous character of Father Karamazov in Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.”
China and Russia have shown a spirit quite the opposite of America, taking the opportunity to share and to generate good-will. Poor little Cuba has made a good effort, and Iran, given the severity of its infection, has shared whatever it can with others. American propagandists of course say they are just being selfish, but that is a filthy interpretation. The great David Hume wrote to the effect, “What is more worthy than wanting to receive the credit for worthy deeds?” It is a profound observation.
No one can confuse creatures like Donald Trump or Mike Pompeo or Elliott Abrams or Thomas Modly with characters from a Jimmy Stewart movie. America has lost something it cannot replace. Illusions are like that, and when people have lost their illusions about you, they treat you differently.
At the same time, does anyone believe America’s powerful establishment has given up on its recent drive to dominate – with its Orwellian goal of “full-spectrum dominance” - whether that drive is led by Trump or by someone else? No, such massive and disruptive efforts reflect assumptions and attitudes of an entire privileged class.
Depending on the course of the disease and the depth of the depression into which the world is hurled, other great forces could come into play. The right conditions could see martial law imposed by the Pentagon. It does have contingency plans for doing just that.
Arrangements with Europe are likely to change. NATO has been ineffective in playing a pro-active emergency role. And it makes little sense in a depression for Europe to keep enforcing American sanctions against Russia or China when every possibility for productive trade should be seized as part of rebuilding the world’s economy. The EU itself has come under considerable stress, displaying inability to act in a unified, forceful fashion.
I think China has gained new admirers, despite America’s petty propaganda efforts. China’s Belt and Road Initiative in scores of countries provides a template for growth. With China’s demonstrated effective organization and efficiency and its special relationship with resource-rich Russia, there is little doubt China will overtake the United States shortly as the world’s leading economy. It isn’t far from being that now.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY HONEST INFORMATION DOES NOT REACH AMERICANS EVEN WHEN IT CONCERNS DISEASE – TWO PROFOUND DIVISIONS AT WORK IN AMERICAN SOCIETY HELP GENERATE CHAOTIC THINKING – PLUS SOCIAL RESTRAINTS AGAINST EVEN THE NASTIEST WORDS ARE GONE – BUT THERE IS A UNIFIED FACE DISPLAYED ABROAD BECAUSE THE WORKS THERE ARE SOLELY BY THE DARK STATE - A WORD ON THE LACK OF RESPONSE BY AMERICANS TO THE OBVIOUS MISERY INFLICTED ON SO MANY ABROAD
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RAY McGOVERN IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“What if Ignored Covid-19 Warnings Had Been Leaked to WikiLeaks?
“Julian Assange was arrested one year ago on Saturday and sent to Belmarsh Prison where he still languishes, a symbol of the Empire’s oppression”
Assange’s distressing case is only one of many places where you can see no honest information reaching people about what has taken place.
Quite apart from the efforts of the military/security state and its allies in the press to distort and block information, America today is an extremely divided society. One where no agreement on almost anything is possible.
It is almost impossible today to get a clear and factual message out in America about anything, including a life-threatening pandemic. The division serves the power establishment well in its dark tasks.
First, there is the wealth division, which today resembles something from 18th century France before the revolution. Its vastness is astonishing, and it affects everything in society, from attitudes and assumptions right down to information and healthcare access.
Then there is the political or ideological divide, which today is absolutely bitter. A tour of various Internet sites easily brings to mind the title of the early 1960s’ film, “Mondo Cane.”
You can also gain this sense of things just by reading the words of any high official from the White House. There has never in my lifetime been such speech with no effort at grace or politesse. Raw sewerage pouring from a pipe.
And need I remind readers that it is applauded by significant numbers? And even where it is not applauded, is there effective opposition to it?
It really is not a matter of free speech. It is a matter of almost ignorant pride in saying something even when you have no idea what you are talking about and readiness to ignore or disparage experts. There were once at least some social restraints against such destructive behavior, but they are gone in America.
The nation is literally incapable of doing anything – including distributing genuine information about a disease to its citizens – without a chorus of opposition and counter-claims and labelling experts as liars or incompetents.
The only place America appears to act in a unified fashion is abroad in its panoply of bloody wars, coups, intrusions, menaces, and blockades.
And that is because the people have absolutely no say in those affairs. They are run by America’s Dark State.
The people are indifferent for the most part because that is how Americans always have been about the suffering of others abroad. Only when they are affected by an activity themselves are they ready to raise their voices and demonstrate in opposition.
That is an unpleasant thing to have to say, but I am a pretty careful observer of human affairs, and I am now well-advanced in age, and that is my conclusion. I have seen it repeated too many times, as now with Washington’s crippling sanctions on countries desperately fighting a pandemic. There are no powerful voices or crowds speaking against this abomination in America.
That really is America’s face to the world today, and it is frightening.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RAY McGOVERN IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“What if Ignored Covid-19 Warnings Had Been Leaked to WikiLeaks?
“Julian Assange was arrested one year ago on Saturday and sent to Belmarsh Prison where he still languishes, a symbol of the Empire’s oppression”
Assange’s distressing case is only one of many places where you can see no honest information reaching people about what has taken place.
Quite apart from the efforts of the military/security state and its allies in the press to distort and block information, America today is an extremely divided society. One where no agreement on almost anything is possible.
It is almost impossible today to get a clear and factual message out in America about anything, including a life-threatening pandemic. The division serves the power establishment well in its dark tasks.
First, there is the wealth division, which today resembles something from 18th century France before the revolution. Its vastness is astonishing, and it affects everything in society, from attitudes and assumptions right down to information and healthcare access.
Then there is the political or ideological divide, which today is absolutely bitter. A tour of various Internet sites easily brings to mind the title of the early 1960s’ film, “Mondo Cane.”
You can also gain this sense of things just by reading the words of any high official from the White House. There has never in my lifetime been such speech with no effort at grace or politesse. Raw sewerage pouring from a pipe.
And need I remind readers that it is applauded by significant numbers? And even where it is not applauded, is there effective opposition to it?
It really is not a matter of free speech. It is a matter of almost ignorant pride in saying something even when you have no idea what you are talking about and readiness to ignore or disparage experts. There were once at least some social restraints against such destructive behavior, but they are gone in America.
The nation is literally incapable of doing anything – including distributing genuine information about a disease to its citizens – without a chorus of opposition and counter-claims and labelling experts as liars or incompetents.
The only place America appears to act in a unified fashion is abroad in its panoply of bloody wars, coups, intrusions, menaces, and blockades.
And that is because the people have absolutely no say in those affairs. They are run by America’s Dark State.
The people are indifferent for the most part because that is how Americans always have been about the suffering of others abroad. Only when they are affected by an activity themselves are they ready to raise their voices and demonstrate in opposition.
That is an unpleasant thing to have to say, but I am a pretty careful observer of human affairs, and I am now well-advanced in age, and that is my conclusion. I have seen it repeated too many times, as now with Washington’s crippling sanctions on countries desperately fighting a pandemic. There are no powerful voices or crowds speaking against this abomination in America.
That really is America’s face to the world today, and it is frightening.
Thursday, April 09, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA’S WAR ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF ALMOST EVERY DESCRIPTION - THE UNITED STATES AND THE RULE OF LAW – EMPIRES, LIKE DICTATORS DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE LAWS AND RIGHTS OF OTHERS – ARBITRARY MEASURES REPRESENT A RETURN TO BARBARISM AND “MIGHT MAKES RIGHT” AND AWAY FROM ENLIGHTENMENT PRINCIPLES – BUT THAT IS JUST WHERE THE US HAS BEEN HEADED FOR A WHILE - NECESSARY QUALITIES REQUIRED FOR ANY CLAIM TO DEMOCRACY
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY YASER ALASHQAR IN MONDOWEISS
“From Covid-19 to the ‘Deal of the Century’ — Palestine and international law”
Yes, Israel is a law-breaker, having broken international law a great many times in its relatively brief history.
It has been supported in the effort every step of the way by the United States, which, long ago, effectively suspended international law wherever it found it inconvenient, replacing it with American military and economic say-so. Empires do not recognize or respect the laws of others, just as dictators do not.
The United States intimidates and threatens every existing international organization, including the UN, for its own purposes, which frequently feature those of Israel. It often does so covertly, but not infrequently we see it operating in broad daylight. It no longer has any shame or reluctance in such matters. It’s almost as though the US believed that by destroying international organizations it could make everyone more dependent on itself.
Right now, the United States, which represents less than five percent of the world’s people, owes the UN about a billion dollars in back dues, which it high-handedly says can only be paid if the UN changes aspects of its organization to meet American demands.
Such obligations are set by treaties which are important parts of international law, ones America feels free to ignore when it chooses. Again, the US periodically denies foreign diplomats visas for attending meetings at UN Headquarters in New York, despite being bound by treaty always to issue visas promptly. Agreeing to do so was part of the deal for the prestige and benefits of having UN Headquarters in New York.
The US, not long ago, just impulsively quit such important UN organizations as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency, for Palestine Refugees).
Trump has called into question the WTO (World Trade Organization), the very heart of international order for world trade.
The US manipulates the IMF (International Monetary Fund) about which loans to member states should be approved or refused, and it has no legal authority to do so.
Not very long ago, the ICC (International Criminal Court) was publicly threatened by American Secretary of State Pompeo. Trump’s officials compromised the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) during its investigations in Syria, effectively destroying the credibility of an important and once-independent agency.
Today, and during a world pandemic yet, Trump attacks the WHO (World Health Organization) and threatens to stop supporting it.
The American government in its behavior today more closely resembles a gang of hoodlums or anarchists than a responsible government and respected member of the international community.
Just who then is in any position to stop the US from imposing additional law-breaking measures in Palestine, or anywhere else, as in its recent theft of oil from Syria or the illegal imposition of the “deal of the century” which does nothing more than steal land and commit millions of people to live under the laws of a country in which they enjoy no rights and no votes?
Or even to speak up against such illegal activity?
The answer is, no one.
The rule of law is the very foundation for all enlightened societies. It took Western civilization many centuries of struggle to make it so.
But here, it is just selfishly cast aside. Just as Trump cast aside the Iran Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), a working legal agreement between eight countries which had operated perfectly for more than four years.
It did not have to be this way. But America and Israel chose to make it so.
It actually represents a return to a form of barbarism, of “might makes right,” “maximum pressure,” leaving behind the entire set of Enlightenment principles. When it comes to such principles, just as with human rights, you cannot pick and choose which ones you support and which ones you reject. The entire structure loses its integrity that way.
You certainly can make no claim to democracy when that is how you behave. Nationalist South Africa and the American Confederacy both held elections and regarded themselves as democratic states.
But elections only count if they held under respect for the rule of law and for the equal rights of every individual governed. Otherwise, they really are a prop in a theatrical production.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY YASER ALASHQAR IN MONDOWEISS
“From Covid-19 to the ‘Deal of the Century’ — Palestine and international law”
Yes, Israel is a law-breaker, having broken international law a great many times in its relatively brief history.
It has been supported in the effort every step of the way by the United States, which, long ago, effectively suspended international law wherever it found it inconvenient, replacing it with American military and economic say-so. Empires do not recognize or respect the laws of others, just as dictators do not.
The United States intimidates and threatens every existing international organization, including the UN, for its own purposes, which frequently feature those of Israel. It often does so covertly, but not infrequently we see it operating in broad daylight. It no longer has any shame or reluctance in such matters. It’s almost as though the US believed that by destroying international organizations it could make everyone more dependent on itself.
Right now, the United States, which represents less than five percent of the world’s people, owes the UN about a billion dollars in back dues, which it high-handedly says can only be paid if the UN changes aspects of its organization to meet American demands.
Such obligations are set by treaties which are important parts of international law, ones America feels free to ignore when it chooses. Again, the US periodically denies foreign diplomats visas for attending meetings at UN Headquarters in New York, despite being bound by treaty always to issue visas promptly. Agreeing to do so was part of the deal for the prestige and benefits of having UN Headquarters in New York.
The US, not long ago, just impulsively quit such important UN organizations as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency, for Palestine Refugees).
Trump has called into question the WTO (World Trade Organization), the very heart of international order for world trade.
The US manipulates the IMF (International Monetary Fund) about which loans to member states should be approved or refused, and it has no legal authority to do so.
Not very long ago, the ICC (International Criminal Court) was publicly threatened by American Secretary of State Pompeo. Trump’s officials compromised the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) during its investigations in Syria, effectively destroying the credibility of an important and once-independent agency.
Today, and during a world pandemic yet, Trump attacks the WHO (World Health Organization) and threatens to stop supporting it.
The American government in its behavior today more closely resembles a gang of hoodlums or anarchists than a responsible government and respected member of the international community.
Just who then is in any position to stop the US from imposing additional law-breaking measures in Palestine, or anywhere else, as in its recent theft of oil from Syria or the illegal imposition of the “deal of the century” which does nothing more than steal land and commit millions of people to live under the laws of a country in which they enjoy no rights and no votes?
Or even to speak up against such illegal activity?
The answer is, no one.
The rule of law is the very foundation for all enlightened societies. It took Western civilization many centuries of struggle to make it so.
But here, it is just selfishly cast aside. Just as Trump cast aside the Iran Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), a working legal agreement between eight countries which had operated perfectly for more than four years.
It did not have to be this way. But America and Israel chose to make it so.
It actually represents a return to a form of barbarism, of “might makes right,” “maximum pressure,” leaving behind the entire set of Enlightenment principles. When it comes to such principles, just as with human rights, you cannot pick and choose which ones you support and which ones you reject. The entire structure loses its integrity that way.
You certainly can make no claim to democracy when that is how you behave. Nationalist South Africa and the American Confederacy both held elections and regarded themselves as democratic states.
But elections only count if they held under respect for the rule of law and for the equal rights of every individual governed. Otherwise, they really are a prop in a theatrical production.
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BERNIE CHEATED A SECOND TIME BY THAT MOST DEMOCRATIC OF AMERICAN POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY – WHY JOE BIDEN WON’T RUN – TRUMP'S MARX BROTHERS' IMITATION OF HOW YOU HANDLE A PANDEMIC - HE IS VULNERABLE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Bernie Sanders ends Democratic campaign for president”
Poor Bernie, cheated out of a fair contest twice by the Democratic Party with that charming modern-day version of Lucretia Borgia, Hillary Clinton, actively working against him both times.
She and her husband remain powerhouses in bringing money into the party from “the one percent,” which means automatically they still have influence. They and their money connections seriously dislike Bernie. Some democracy.
I just do not believe the Democrats will run Joe Biden because he is not electable. He's serving as a kind of "stalking horse."
He's a place-filler until the moment they ask him to step back, something that the dutiful lifetime political apparatchik will certainly do, possibly greeting the request with relief and welcome. He just looks too shopworn and threadbare to campaign.
Not that Trump is all that tough an opponent, having achieved very little of substance with his graceless rude mouth and ignorant claims. The sound I think has grown tiresome to a great many voters outside his extremist minority faction, but Biden causes many people simply to laugh.
They'll run someone like New York Governor Cuomo, a tough strong voice with a famous name, and someone who has made his presence felt in the coronavirus disaster daily.
Or just maybe, a woman, with a remote possibility for Michelle Obama, who ranks in polls as the most admired American woman, ahead even of Oprah. No question she could shine on stage against a grimacing blowhard like Trump. Yes, it’s a playful suggestion, but it does have merit. Any approach that rids the world of Trump has merit.
She's not qualified and has no political experience, but, as I’ve said before, that almost doesn't matter any more in America. All serious foreign policy and imperial war decisions are made by the Dark State, a very real presence in America.
Domestic policy decisions of any consequence are all made by the senior Congressional leaders.
You just have to be electable, and all the guys behind the curtain will take care of the rest. George Bush absolutely proved America no longer even needs a President except to fulfill the legal requirements in the Constitution.
The last President who believed he could decide important foreign affairs matters against the preferences of the Dark State, just because he happened to be elected, left part of his head in Dealey Plaza. Trump’s many comedic flip-flops in foreign affairs demonstrate the same reality.
Trump is quite vulnerable for his terrible handling of the Coronavirus crisis. It now turns out he was warned by detailed intelligence that an “out of control” disease had broken out at Wuhan in China in November, 2019. He did nothing and later was considerably disparaging of any threat.
Towards the end of January this year, he answered a question about whether he had any concerns over what was then known to be happening in China, with, “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control.” Later, as the disease hit the US, he kept blaming and insulting the Chinese, claiming they were hiding the truth.
Almost unbelievably, he has just threatened to stop supporting the World Health Organization right in the middle of a world-scale pandemic. He falsely claims they have been in bed with China.
He handed national responsibility for medical supplies to son-in-law Jared Kushner, a man of no expertise and no proven ability beyond collecting slumlord rents, but a man, just like Trump, always ready to blame someone else, as he has blamed the states’ governors for lack of preparedness.
Trump has demonstrated sheer chaos at some of his briefings in the White House. He even claimed his efforts had saved the lives of two million Americans, a number pulled from thin air by a man who has done nothing.
His handling of the crisis virtually defines incompetence, and in a life-and-death matter.
Trump makes a huge amount of ugly noise, like a loud fart in a church service, but despite the establishment of both parties not being comfortable with his hillbilly manners, on big matters like beating up on China or Iran or Syria, he is doing what the establishment wants done, otherwise it would not happen.
I suppose there is also a remote possibility of Hillary running again, but that is what got Trump elected in the first place. She has her admirers, but many consider her toxic. If Bernie had been allowed to run by the Democrats in 2016, instead of being cheated, he likely would have been President. He was a strong and eloquent campaigner who appealed to the young and energetic. That was his historic opportunity, but he missed it, and now even some of his former admirers are disappointed with him.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Bernie Sanders ends Democratic campaign for president”
Poor Bernie, cheated out of a fair contest twice by the Democratic Party with that charming modern-day version of Lucretia Borgia, Hillary Clinton, actively working against him both times.
She and her husband remain powerhouses in bringing money into the party from “the one percent,” which means automatically they still have influence. They and their money connections seriously dislike Bernie. Some democracy.
I just do not believe the Democrats will run Joe Biden because he is not electable. He's serving as a kind of "stalking horse."
He's a place-filler until the moment they ask him to step back, something that the dutiful lifetime political apparatchik will certainly do, possibly greeting the request with relief and welcome. He just looks too shopworn and threadbare to campaign.
Not that Trump is all that tough an opponent, having achieved very little of substance with his graceless rude mouth and ignorant claims. The sound I think has grown tiresome to a great many voters outside his extremist minority faction, but Biden causes many people simply to laugh.
They'll run someone like New York Governor Cuomo, a tough strong voice with a famous name, and someone who has made his presence felt in the coronavirus disaster daily.
Or just maybe, a woman, with a remote possibility for Michelle Obama, who ranks in polls as the most admired American woman, ahead even of Oprah. No question she could shine on stage against a grimacing blowhard like Trump. Yes, it’s a playful suggestion, but it does have merit. Any approach that rids the world of Trump has merit.
She's not qualified and has no political experience, but, as I’ve said before, that almost doesn't matter any more in America. All serious foreign policy and imperial war decisions are made by the Dark State, a very real presence in America.
Domestic policy decisions of any consequence are all made by the senior Congressional leaders.
You just have to be electable, and all the guys behind the curtain will take care of the rest. George Bush absolutely proved America no longer even needs a President except to fulfill the legal requirements in the Constitution.
The last President who believed he could decide important foreign affairs matters against the preferences of the Dark State, just because he happened to be elected, left part of his head in Dealey Plaza. Trump’s many comedic flip-flops in foreign affairs demonstrate the same reality.
Trump is quite vulnerable for his terrible handling of the Coronavirus crisis. It now turns out he was warned by detailed intelligence that an “out of control” disease had broken out at Wuhan in China in November, 2019. He did nothing and later was considerably disparaging of any threat.
Towards the end of January this year, he answered a question about whether he had any concerns over what was then known to be happening in China, with, “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control.” Later, as the disease hit the US, he kept blaming and insulting the Chinese, claiming they were hiding the truth.
Almost unbelievably, he has just threatened to stop supporting the World Health Organization right in the middle of a world-scale pandemic. He falsely claims they have been in bed with China.
He handed national responsibility for medical supplies to son-in-law Jared Kushner, a man of no expertise and no proven ability beyond collecting slumlord rents, but a man, just like Trump, always ready to blame someone else, as he has blamed the states’ governors for lack of preparedness.
Trump has demonstrated sheer chaos at some of his briefings in the White House. He even claimed his efforts had saved the lives of two million Americans, a number pulled from thin air by a man who has done nothing.
His handling of the crisis virtually defines incompetence, and in a life-and-death matter.
Trump makes a huge amount of ugly noise, like a loud fart in a church service, but despite the establishment of both parties not being comfortable with his hillbilly manners, on big matters like beating up on China or Iran or Syria, he is doing what the establishment wants done, otherwise it would not happen.
I suppose there is also a remote possibility of Hillary running again, but that is what got Trump elected in the first place. She has her admirers, but many consider her toxic. If Bernie had been allowed to run by the Democrats in 2016, instead of being cheated, he likely would have been President. He was a strong and eloquent campaigner who appealed to the young and energetic. That was his historic opportunity, but he missed it, and now even some of his former admirers are disappointed with him.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ARTICLE SHOWS CHANGE IN AMERICAN ATTITUDES TOWARDS WAR CRIMES BY ITS SOLDIERS OVER 50 YEARS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
‘Collateral Murder’[Chelsea Manning/WikiLeaks horrific Iraq helicopter video] and the My Lai [Vietnam] Massacre
Comparing the reaction to the evidence of two war crimes reveals how much the United States has changed in the past 50 years
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/05/collateral-murder-and-the-my-lai-massacre/
Well, fifty years of practice in killing and lying has honed the country’s skills.
That is what America is really good at doing now.
And it has become so ordinary that barely anyone raises an objection.
Apart from all your warfare and threats, America, just look at what you are doing now to sick people and children in Yemen and Iran and Venezuela. They can’t even buy medicines and medical supplies in the midst of a pandemic.
You do this right out in the open, with no shame, and displaying almost a sense of demonic pride in the White House.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
‘Collateral Murder’[Chelsea Manning/WikiLeaks horrific Iraq helicopter video] and the My Lai [Vietnam] Massacre
Comparing the reaction to the evidence of two war crimes reveals how much the United States has changed in the past 50 years
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/05/collateral-murder-and-the-my-lai-massacre/
Well, fifty years of practice in killing and lying has honed the country’s skills.
That is what America is really good at doing now.
And it has become so ordinary that barely anyone raises an objection.
Apart from all your warfare and threats, America, just look at what you are doing now to sick people and children in Yemen and Iran and Venezuela. They can’t even buy medicines and medical supplies in the midst of a pandemic.
You do this right out in the open, with no shame, and displaying almost a sense of demonic pride in the White House.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP THREATENS TO QUIT SUPPORTING THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC AND ADDS THE UNSUPPORTED CLAIM THAT IT IS “CHINA CENTRIC”
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GLOBAL TIMES
US plan to halt WHO funding (calling the organization "China centric") to hurt international. cooperation on COVID-19 pandemic, China's Foreign Ministry said
Trump has done this with several important international organizations. He pulled the US out of UNESCO and out of UNRWA.
The US owes the UN back dues of about a billion dollars, too. Trump has called into question the WTO. The ICC was publicly threatened by his Secretary of State.
Trump’s officials compromised the OPCW during their investigations in Syria.
The American government in its behaviors today more closely resembles a gang of hoodlums or anarchists than a responsible government.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GLOBAL TIMES
US plan to halt WHO funding (calling the organization "China centric") to hurt international. cooperation on COVID-19 pandemic, China's Foreign Ministry said
Trump has done this with several important international organizations. He pulled the US out of UNESCO and out of UNRWA.
The US owes the UN back dues of about a billion dollars, too. Trump has called into question the WTO. The ICC was publicly threatened by his Secretary of State.
Trump’s officials compromised the OPCW during their investigations in Syria.
The American government in its behaviors today more closely resembles a gang of hoodlums or anarchists than a responsible government.
Monday, April 06, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT - FOR THOSE WHO OBJECT TO GOVERNMENT MEASURES IN THE PANDEMIC, SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
John Chuckman
COMMENT - GOVERNMENT CORONAVIRUS MEASURES
Something to think about...
Who are the most capable and rational leaders we have in the world today?
Without a doubt, Russia's Putin and China's Xi.
And how are they handling these events in their countries?
COMMENT - GOVERNMENT CORONAVIRUS MEASURES
Something to think about...
Who are the most capable and rational leaders we have in the world today?
Without a doubt, Russia's Putin and China's Xi.
And how are they handling these events in their countries?
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FRENCH TV PRESENTER MAKES VICIOUS JOKE ASIDE AS CHINA’S REMEMBRANCE SERVICE FOR VICTIMS OF THE PANDEMIC IS BROADCAST – TRUMP AND POMPEO AS CHEERLEADERS FROM HELL
John Chuckman
FRENCH TV PRESENTER MAKES VICIOUS JOKE ASIDE AS CHINA’S REMEMBRANCE SERVICE FOR VICTIMS OF THE PANDEMIC IS BROADCAST – TRUMP AND POMPEO AS CHEERLEADERS FROM HELL COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN GLOBAL TIMES
French television presenter Emmanuel Lechypre (BFM TV) whispered a sentence on a show Saturday as he introduced to the audience the mourning ceremony for victims who died in the COVID-19 outbreak in China, in which he whispered “they are burying Pokémon” in French.
What an outrageous thing for anyone to say. Just without conscience or thinking. A cheap joke in the face of death.
I agree with the comment below by "see boon piow" concerning anti-Chinese sentiments in the West.
Unfortunately, that faction has some rather prominent cheerleaders in the US.
The country's President and, especially, its Secretary of State have made shameful public comments.
There are always some people who resent success, and modern China has been a phenomenal success.
FRENCH TV PRESENTER MAKES VICIOUS JOKE ASIDE AS CHINA’S REMEMBRANCE SERVICE FOR VICTIMS OF THE PANDEMIC IS BROADCAST – TRUMP AND POMPEO AS CHEERLEADERS FROM HELL COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN GLOBAL TIMES
French television presenter Emmanuel Lechypre (BFM TV) whispered a sentence on a show Saturday as he introduced to the audience the mourning ceremony for victims who died in the COVID-19 outbreak in China, in which he whispered “they are burying Pokémon” in French.
What an outrageous thing for anyone to say. Just without conscience or thinking. A cheap joke in the face of death.
I agree with the comment below by "see boon piow" concerning anti-Chinese sentiments in the West.
Unfortunately, that faction has some rather prominent cheerleaders in the US.
The country's President and, especially, its Secretary of State have made shameful public comments.
There are always some people who resent success, and modern China has been a phenomenal success.
Sunday, April 05, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HOW BADLY SOME AMERICANS ARE TAKING DISEASE-PREVENTION MEASURES – TRUMP'S MISHANDLING OF EVENTS - FIRST OUTLINE OF HOW OUR WORLD WILL CHANGE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN ANTI-EMPIRE
“Belarus’s Lukashenko Warns Global Elites Using COVID-19 to Reshape World Order”
He may here or there say something agreeable, but Alexander Lukashenko is not an agreeable man. Quite the opposite, he is an authoritarian, as we know from numerous examples.
Note: some Americans are handling government disease-prevention measures very badly, and with extreme attitudes, as we see from citing a man like Lukashenko and in the comment and response below.
__________________
Response to a comment, saying, “Authoritarian? The governor of my state has closed almost every business, and if you walk into Wal-Mart (open because they sell groceries), you have to tell them what you are going to buy, to determine if it is deemed essential. I’d vote for Lukashenko to replace him, if I could.”
Please, keep some perspective. Telling an employee what you are going to buy in the store far more closely resembles what everyone routinely tells border authorities when entering a country than anything remotely like genuine authoritarianism.
_____________________
Quarantines were common in America in the first part of the twentieth century. A sign was fixed to the front door of a house or business, quite routinely.
It stated the period that the premises would be under quarantine with no one allowed to enter or leave, as two weeks or a month, depending on the nature of the disease.
Those were diseases whose transmission and effects were well understood. Transmission of the coronavirus is still not completely understood. I see new suggestions and theories regularly.
Some viruses are transmitted only by bodily fluids, as by sneezing or coughing. Others are airborne. Some can be transmitted from a surface, with active infection times varying greatly from hours to days.
When this disease first appeared in China, we knew virtually nothing about its transmission, but we knew it affected a large number of people in a short time, and it killed a good many.
The Chinese government, a very cautious institution, took it deadly seriously once it understood what was happening. They took extreme measures, and they stopped the spread of the disease in a densely populated country.
I find this set of events very interesting. It is a revolutionary thing that has happened - for society, for governments, and for America’s position in the world.
America has not only been shown to be completely unprepared, despite all its arrogance and braggadocio and wealth, once the political pressure was on, it showed itself as a criminal actor – everything from stealing other countries’ medical supplies (from both allies like France and opponents like Cuba) to denying relief to hard-hit societies like Iran and Venezuela – along with a stream of sickening lies from Trump and Pompeo.
The complete idiocy and ineffectiveness of organizations like NATO has been embarrassingly revealed. It has carried on as usual with nonsense like expanding its membership to meaningless micro-states looking for handouts and prestige (thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union) and has not used its vast resources to help anyone.
China and Russia and even little Cuba have shown everyone a willingness to help, to give real help while Trump just keeps making inappropriate remarks and doing little.
The world will not soon forget America’s wretched performance. It will be seeking new international ways to protect from such events, and I think they can only be global in nature.
Better early warning systems, better coordination, establishing best practices, and more. New measures to secure international trade in a badly damaged world economy. New avenues of international cooperation, and the United States is not going to be viewed as the leader in any of it.
There is going to be a new set of norms when this is all over, and I believe that, here as elsewhere, Trump’s malign influence will only have speeded the arrival of what he and the rest of the American establishment most dread, the end of American hegemony and the emergence of the a multi-polar word.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN ANTI-EMPIRE
“Belarus’s Lukashenko Warns Global Elites Using COVID-19 to Reshape World Order”
He may here or there say something agreeable, but Alexander Lukashenko is not an agreeable man. Quite the opposite, he is an authoritarian, as we know from numerous examples.
Note: some Americans are handling government disease-prevention measures very badly, and with extreme attitudes, as we see from citing a man like Lukashenko and in the comment and response below.
__________________
Response to a comment, saying, “Authoritarian? The governor of my state has closed almost every business, and if you walk into Wal-Mart (open because they sell groceries), you have to tell them what you are going to buy, to determine if it is deemed essential. I’d vote for Lukashenko to replace him, if I could.”
Please, keep some perspective. Telling an employee what you are going to buy in the store far more closely resembles what everyone routinely tells border authorities when entering a country than anything remotely like genuine authoritarianism.
_____________________
Quarantines were common in America in the first part of the twentieth century. A sign was fixed to the front door of a house or business, quite routinely.
It stated the period that the premises would be under quarantine with no one allowed to enter or leave, as two weeks or a month, depending on the nature of the disease.
Those were diseases whose transmission and effects were well understood. Transmission of the coronavirus is still not completely understood. I see new suggestions and theories regularly.
Some viruses are transmitted only by bodily fluids, as by sneezing or coughing. Others are airborne. Some can be transmitted from a surface, with active infection times varying greatly from hours to days.
When this disease first appeared in China, we knew virtually nothing about its transmission, but we knew it affected a large number of people in a short time, and it killed a good many.
The Chinese government, a very cautious institution, took it deadly seriously once it understood what was happening. They took extreme measures, and they stopped the spread of the disease in a densely populated country.
I find this set of events very interesting. It is a revolutionary thing that has happened - for society, for governments, and for America’s position in the world.
America has not only been shown to be completely unprepared, despite all its arrogance and braggadocio and wealth, once the political pressure was on, it showed itself as a criminal actor – everything from stealing other countries’ medical supplies (from both allies like France and opponents like Cuba) to denying relief to hard-hit societies like Iran and Venezuela – along with a stream of sickening lies from Trump and Pompeo.
The complete idiocy and ineffectiveness of organizations like NATO has been embarrassingly revealed. It has carried on as usual with nonsense like expanding its membership to meaningless micro-states looking for handouts and prestige (thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union) and has not used its vast resources to help anyone.
China and Russia and even little Cuba have shown everyone a willingness to help, to give real help while Trump just keeps making inappropriate remarks and doing little.
The world will not soon forget America’s wretched performance. It will be seeking new international ways to protect from such events, and I think they can only be global in nature.
Better early warning systems, better coordination, establishing best practices, and more. New measures to secure international trade in a badly damaged world economy. New avenues of international cooperation, and the United States is not going to be viewed as the leader in any of it.
There is going to be a new set of norms when this is all over, and I believe that, here as elsewhere, Trump’s malign influence will only have speeded the arrival of what he and the rest of the American establishment most dread, the end of American hegemony and the emergence of the a multi-polar word.
Friday, April 03, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND ITS POSSIBLE INFLUENCE ON THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL TRADE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"My Take on Covid-19 “Conspiracy Theories”
I agree with Mr. Robert's early sentiments in this piece.
But I do not think the statement below in any way follows, nor do I agree with it:
“The neoliberal globalism of recent decades has left the United States and Europe extremely vulnerable. We must not contribute to making this vulnerability worse, and we must replace neoliberal globalism with a less dysfunctional system at the earliest opportunity."
Global trade and arrangements have enriched the lives of countless millions over recent decades. That includes Americans, who get excellent products at prices which fit their budgets, to tens of millions in Asia who have come out of poverty. And countless new business opportunities have arisen in many places.
It has been a rather glorious human achievement.
In light of disease, new precautionary measures need to be taken for the future, but these measures need to be global. Under global organization, we can have everything from an early warning system to best practices for all and immediate coordination. That is the proper way for the future.
The results of Trump’s style of thinking about anything are illustrated in the America’s present 1,200 Coronavirus deaths per day. It could have been prevented to a large degree. Look at the examples of Germany, Russia, and China.
While I expect adjustment problems in global trade for a time, the economic arguments overall for it are immensely powerful. Arguing against globalism much resembles the Luddites in the Industrial Revolution arguing against and destroying machines. The machines just kept coming, and Luddites soon were largely forgotten.
Unfortunately, Luddite thinking about many matters is precisely the level of Donald Trump’s thinking, the most uninformed and stubborn man ever to be president.
It seems absolutely parochial to me to argue against global trade because of a disease outbreak.
Trade between various places inside a country had such events in the past countless times. No one advocated an end to the trade between points east and points west inside the US because of an outbreak of, say smallpox. We do need better preparedness, but it is needed on a global basis.
Of course, if America chooses to disengage, China stands ready and willing to take its place. The Belt and Road Initiative is well along. It is inherently international in character, preparing a peaceful path for China’s coming world economic dominance. And China’s now close friend, Russia, with its Northern Route Initiatives and new Eurasian emphasis, will enhance and complement developments.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"My Take on Covid-19 “Conspiracy Theories”
I agree with Mr. Robert's early sentiments in this piece.
But I do not think the statement below in any way follows, nor do I agree with it:
“The neoliberal globalism of recent decades has left the United States and Europe extremely vulnerable. We must not contribute to making this vulnerability worse, and we must replace neoliberal globalism with a less dysfunctional system at the earliest opportunity."
Global trade and arrangements have enriched the lives of countless millions over recent decades. That includes Americans, who get excellent products at prices which fit their budgets, to tens of millions in Asia who have come out of poverty. And countless new business opportunities have arisen in many places.
It has been a rather glorious human achievement.
In light of disease, new precautionary measures need to be taken for the future, but these measures need to be global. Under global organization, we can have everything from an early warning system to best practices for all and immediate coordination. That is the proper way for the future.
The results of Trump’s style of thinking about anything are illustrated in the America’s present 1,200 Coronavirus deaths per day. It could have been prevented to a large degree. Look at the examples of Germany, Russia, and China.
While I expect adjustment problems in global trade for a time, the economic arguments overall for it are immensely powerful. Arguing against globalism much resembles the Luddites in the Industrial Revolution arguing against and destroying machines. The machines just kept coming, and Luddites soon were largely forgotten.
Unfortunately, Luddite thinking about many matters is precisely the level of Donald Trump’s thinking, the most uninformed and stubborn man ever to be president.
It seems absolutely parochial to me to argue against global trade because of a disease outbreak.
Trade between various places inside a country had such events in the past countless times. No one advocated an end to the trade between points east and points west inside the US because of an outbreak of, say smallpox. We do need better preparedness, but it is needed on a global basis.
Of course, if America chooses to disengage, China stands ready and willing to take its place. The Belt and Road Initiative is well along. It is inherently international in character, preparing a peaceful path for China’s coming world economic dominance. And China’s now close friend, Russia, with its Northern Route Initiatives and new Eurasian emphasis, will enhance and complement developments.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OBSERVATIONS AROUND TOUGH MEASURES TAKEN AGAINST CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC - THE HUMAN CONDITION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN ANTI-EMPIRE
"There is no scientific consensus for a lockdown"
That is true, but the statement has no force in this matter.
First, what is a politician to do when numerous experts warn and recommend a strong initiative? Just ignore them and risk the political consequences?
But we can go further than that. Strong measures do seem to have been appropriate if you look at the disease levels in several different countries.
The US now has reached 1,200 deaths per day, largely owing to Trump's incompetence, unpreparedness, and delay.
Germany, Russia, and China have been extremely successful. With large populations, it is often the case that you cannot take just fine-tuned measures.
Fine-tuned measures would be most desirable to a reasonable mind, but they cannot be effective with all the many unreasonable people in any large population.
And we have many fools and malicious people. God, there are even reported incidents out there of people coughing into the faces of others for a laugh.
Humanity has at least as many unintelligent and mentally disturbed and reckless hormone-driven individuals as it has sensible people. It is unfortunately the human condition.
We see strong restrictions in wars and disasters where martial law is often used. Sweeping measures are needed to assure an effective level of compliance.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN ANTI-EMPIRE
"There is no scientific consensus for a lockdown"
That is true, but the statement has no force in this matter.
First, what is a politician to do when numerous experts warn and recommend a strong initiative? Just ignore them and risk the political consequences?
But we can go further than that. Strong measures do seem to have been appropriate if you look at the disease levels in several different countries.
The US now has reached 1,200 deaths per day, largely owing to Trump's incompetence, unpreparedness, and delay.
Germany, Russia, and China have been extremely successful. With large populations, it is often the case that you cannot take just fine-tuned measures.
Fine-tuned measures would be most desirable to a reasonable mind, but they cannot be effective with all the many unreasonable people in any large population.
And we have many fools and malicious people. God, there are even reported incidents out there of people coughing into the faces of others for a laugh.
Humanity has at least as many unintelligent and mentally disturbed and reckless hormone-driven individuals as it has sensible people. It is unfortunately the human condition.
We see strong restrictions in wars and disasters where martial law is often used. Sweeping measures are needed to assure an effective level of compliance.
Thursday, April 02, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: PUTIN SAYS THE RICH MUST PAY FOR CORONAVIRUS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY
"Putin Says 'The Rich Must Pay' for the Corona-Virus "He’s going to tax the rich. "It’s a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren’t asked"
Indeed. This is just one of many matters which help define genuine leadership.
Putin always seems to keep in mind the wider interests of his society - whether in military matters or foreign policy or economic projects or a natural disaster. He has a completely different style, but with the gifts and instincts and vision of an FDR.
Trump is just a fumbling pretender, a carnival barker, a noisy infomercial salesman.The wider interests of society never cross his mind. He just keeps selling himself as of central importance, pretending he has command over affairs, regularly claiming achievements where none exist.
He serves America’s plutocracy and its power establishment, unfailingly, while mouthing outlandish clichés and slogans about the people. He serves the establishment in war and empire, and he serves it in domestic policies which do not consider the public good, whether in matters of taxation or healthcare or compassion or attention to important infrastructure.
What ordinary American benefits from trying to destroy the government of Venezuela or Iran or Cuba? What benefits come from aggression towards China and Russia? None.
Huge sums are squandered just to hurt others and tell them how they should run their societies. Ordinary Americans are burdened with tens of billions in costs to achieve nothing of worth.
As if the world doesn’t have enough pain and misery already, American leadership is dedicated to creating still more.
The rather bad joke of America telling others how to run their affairs is that America cannot run its own.
Look at the record of response to the pandemic. Russia has produced remarkable results so far and shows every promise of continued success. And a relatively poor country like Cuba has given a great deal of expert assistance to others. Much-maligned China is emerging as a world-class model of how these things should be done.
America has a rapidly growing chaos of disease, finance, economy, aggression, and fear. The government is ineffectual and noisy.
It looks stupid constantly trying to blame and label others, as with its ceaseless accusations against China.
You do not build a future that way, and it could well be that the terrible set of problems in which America finds itself may produce long-lasting disastrous results and instability in much of what Americans regard as normal society.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY
"Putin Says 'The Rich Must Pay' for the Corona-Virus "He’s going to tax the rich. "It’s a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren’t asked"
Indeed. This is just one of many matters which help define genuine leadership.
Putin always seems to keep in mind the wider interests of his society - whether in military matters or foreign policy or economic projects or a natural disaster. He has a completely different style, but with the gifts and instincts and vision of an FDR.
Trump is just a fumbling pretender, a carnival barker, a noisy infomercial salesman.The wider interests of society never cross his mind. He just keeps selling himself as of central importance, pretending he has command over affairs, regularly claiming achievements where none exist.
He serves America’s plutocracy and its power establishment, unfailingly, while mouthing outlandish clichés and slogans about the people. He serves the establishment in war and empire, and he serves it in domestic policies which do not consider the public good, whether in matters of taxation or healthcare or compassion or attention to important infrastructure.
What ordinary American benefits from trying to destroy the government of Venezuela or Iran or Cuba? What benefits come from aggression towards China and Russia? None.
Huge sums are squandered just to hurt others and tell them how they should run their societies. Ordinary Americans are burdened with tens of billions in costs to achieve nothing of worth.
As if the world doesn’t have enough pain and misery already, American leadership is dedicated to creating still more.
The rather bad joke of America telling others how to run their affairs is that America cannot run its own.
Look at the record of response to the pandemic. Russia has produced remarkable results so far and shows every promise of continued success. And a relatively poor country like Cuba has given a great deal of expert assistance to others. Much-maligned China is emerging as a world-class model of how these things should be done.
America has a rapidly growing chaos of disease, finance, economy, aggression, and fear. The government is ineffectual and noisy.
It looks stupid constantly trying to blame and label others, as with its ceaseless accusations against China.
You do not build a future that way, and it could well be that the terrible set of problems in which America finds itself may produce long-lasting disastrous results and instability in much of what Americans regard as normal society.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENTS: TO AN ARTICLE ON NATIONALISM BEING A FORCE FOR GOOD
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"A Light in the Darkness – the Topic of Nationalism"
H G Wells said it best: “Our true nationality is mankind.”
There is nothing less promising for humanity’s future than the re-emergence of nationalism.
Poisonous stuff in almost every aspect.
________________________
Response to another comment
I’m not a New Englander in spirit, as in good fences make good neighbors. It’s a parochial sentiment.
And we don’t have to look as far as Hitler for destructive aspects of nationalism.
Trump does a pretty good job of promoting nastiness and conflict in the world, largely in the name of nationalism and narrow self-interest.
______________________
Response to a comment saying, "As automation systems get more advanced, it is not a bad idea to have a nation with a slightly smaller homogeneous population."
I respectfully disagree.
The only homogeneity genuinely needed involves talent, good will, and cooperation.
And Demographic Transition in all advanced countries promises not just mean a slightly smaller population. It promises, without in-migration, a falling population.
A population can only be maintained at a fertility rate of about 2.1, but in much of the advanced world, we see rates more like 1.5. That means declining populations.
And what nations even have homogeneous populations? Virtually none of the traditional "powers" from Germany to the US. None of the smaller traditional states from Sweden to Canada.
China, Russia - sort of. Their populations, in fact, have many kinds of ethnic groups in them, something often not appreciated by those abroad.
The prospects for future job creation are indeed unknown, over some fairly long time horizon. AI will eventually have large impacts, but I think we have to deal with those as they arise, not in some undefined dreamy notions now.
But we know what they have been and what they likely will be over some time once the pandemic is over.
All bets are, of course, off if our current terrible set of problems - disease, economy, finances, aggression, and fear - create a revolutionary storm with some brave new world beyond that we cannot imagine, something not at all impossible.
_______________________
Response to another comment:
Yes, I understand what you are saying, and many institutions over certain portions of their history do perform functions outside their primary ones to advance something worthwhile for a whole society. I’m sure it has been so at times for nationalism.
Certain Protestants come to mind concerning education. Because they wanted people to read the Bible for themselves, they boosted the idea of widespread education. But I do not associate Protestants today at all with any progressive cause like that, at least the great bulk of them.
Nationalism today is, to my mind, unpleasantly narrow stuff. I, me, mine. It really is a larger-scale extension of tribalism, which I do not think anyone associates with anything good today, although, thousands of years ago, it undoubtedly served useful purposes.
I very much admire past efforts to create international organizations for trade and other important matters. Many good things happened in the postwar period along those lines.
Many of those organizations and arrangements are now under attack by staunch nationalist types, like Trump. (What an irony that such a hugger-of-his-flag for photo-ops and one who makes many military threats avoided military service, and on the flimsy excuse of bone spurs in a college basketball player!)
In the end, the attacks will only make the world a poorer place. They will also increase the likelihood of conflict. Since Trump’s crowd is deliberately using a kind of hybrid economic warfare to extract advantages for itself, it is busy right now increasing the likelihood of conflict.
Nation-states, too, are haphazardly created over the centuries. There is almost no pattern or consistency, some getting a wonderful natural endowment, and others getting very little indeed. Are international borders and armies to lock that extreme unfairness in for all time? What’s admirable about that?
There are many other matters at work too. All advanced countries have passed through Demographic Transition, and their populations cannot replace themselves without in-migration.
Some advanced countries actually face population decline, as Japan.
So, international migration will be a larger and larger part of things. Changes in climate will also affect these movements. The changes will not be the same in all places, and some populations will need to move. International order and authority will absolutely be required.
There are many other considerations, but I’ll leave it there.
Of course, anything I say is predicated on the current storm of difficulties not turning into a catastrophe, a world-shaking set of events, and I think that is not impossible.
I do think the pandemic, when it is over, may create demand for additional international measures, an international authority around medical matters and warning systems and unified responses and best practices. That would be a very good thing.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"A Light in the Darkness – the Topic of Nationalism"
H G Wells said it best: “Our true nationality is mankind.”
There is nothing less promising for humanity’s future than the re-emergence of nationalism.
Poisonous stuff in almost every aspect.
________________________
Response to another comment
I’m not a New Englander in spirit, as in good fences make good neighbors. It’s a parochial sentiment.
And we don’t have to look as far as Hitler for destructive aspects of nationalism.
Trump does a pretty good job of promoting nastiness and conflict in the world, largely in the name of nationalism and narrow self-interest.
______________________
Response to a comment saying, "As automation systems get more advanced, it is not a bad idea to have a nation with a slightly smaller homogeneous population."
I respectfully disagree.
The only homogeneity genuinely needed involves talent, good will, and cooperation.
And Demographic Transition in all advanced countries promises not just mean a slightly smaller population. It promises, without in-migration, a falling population.
A population can only be maintained at a fertility rate of about 2.1, but in much of the advanced world, we see rates more like 1.5. That means declining populations.
And what nations even have homogeneous populations? Virtually none of the traditional "powers" from Germany to the US. None of the smaller traditional states from Sweden to Canada.
China, Russia - sort of. Their populations, in fact, have many kinds of ethnic groups in them, something often not appreciated by those abroad.
The prospects for future job creation are indeed unknown, over some fairly long time horizon. AI will eventually have large impacts, but I think we have to deal with those as they arise, not in some undefined dreamy notions now.
But we know what they have been and what they likely will be over some time once the pandemic is over.
All bets are, of course, off if our current terrible set of problems - disease, economy, finances, aggression, and fear - create a revolutionary storm with some brave new world beyond that we cannot imagine, something not at all impossible.
_______________________
Response to another comment:
Yes, I understand what you are saying, and many institutions over certain portions of their history do perform functions outside their primary ones to advance something worthwhile for a whole society. I’m sure it has been so at times for nationalism.
Certain Protestants come to mind concerning education. Because they wanted people to read the Bible for themselves, they boosted the idea of widespread education. But I do not associate Protestants today at all with any progressive cause like that, at least the great bulk of them.
Nationalism today is, to my mind, unpleasantly narrow stuff. I, me, mine. It really is a larger-scale extension of tribalism, which I do not think anyone associates with anything good today, although, thousands of years ago, it undoubtedly served useful purposes.
I very much admire past efforts to create international organizations for trade and other important matters. Many good things happened in the postwar period along those lines.
Many of those organizations and arrangements are now under attack by staunch nationalist types, like Trump. (What an irony that such a hugger-of-his-flag for photo-ops and one who makes many military threats avoided military service, and on the flimsy excuse of bone spurs in a college basketball player!)
In the end, the attacks will only make the world a poorer place. They will also increase the likelihood of conflict. Since Trump’s crowd is deliberately using a kind of hybrid economic warfare to extract advantages for itself, it is busy right now increasing the likelihood of conflict.
Nation-states, too, are haphazardly created over the centuries. There is almost no pattern or consistency, some getting a wonderful natural endowment, and others getting very little indeed. Are international borders and armies to lock that extreme unfairness in for all time? What’s admirable about that?
There are many other matters at work too. All advanced countries have passed through Demographic Transition, and their populations cannot replace themselves without in-migration.
Some advanced countries actually face population decline, as Japan.
So, international migration will be a larger and larger part of things. Changes in climate will also affect these movements. The changes will not be the same in all places, and some populations will need to move. International order and authority will absolutely be required.
There are many other considerations, but I’ll leave it there.
Of course, anything I say is predicated on the current storm of difficulties not turning into a catastrophe, a world-shaking set of events, and I think that is not impossible.
I do think the pandemic, when it is over, may create demand for additional international measures, an international authority around medical matters and warning systems and unified responses and best practices. That would be a very good thing.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ON COMMUNISM AND PLUTOCRACY - CHINA AND AMERICA
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON COMMUNISM AND PLUTOCRACY
________________________
Response to a comment saying, "I think neither Communism nor Plutocracy offers anything close to an ideal environment for the creation of virtuous citizens."
Indeed, but China does not have communism.
It very much is a mixed economy, one run under a national party.
There is a well-understood consensus there. The businessmen raise no serious objections so long as the government delivers.
And so far, it very much has delivered.
America is very close to being a complete plutocracy. It has allowed itself to fall into that state through many bad practices.
Both parties are run under a corrupt big-money system.
The empire abroad serves the plutocrats.
The set of dark institutions like the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, serve to maintain and expand the empire.
Note that China has no empire and that it is not at war with anyone.
And note its magnificent efforts abroad - the Belt and Road Initiative and others - are establishing cooperative links all over the world.
Investment and a flow of projects for China to work on for many years to come. All done in a spirit of partnership and cooperation. No bombs, no threats, no sanctions, no blockades.
It is a very enlightened project and will make life better for countless millions of people.
Whose life is made better by American threats and sanctions and bombing?
Only the plutocrats and the establishment which serves them faithfully.
Those are huge differences, and over time they are going to look even larger.
COMMENT ON COMMUNISM AND PLUTOCRACY
________________________
Response to a comment saying, "I think neither Communism nor Plutocracy offers anything close to an ideal environment for the creation of virtuous citizens."
Indeed, but China does not have communism.
It very much is a mixed economy, one run under a national party.
There is a well-understood consensus there. The businessmen raise no serious objections so long as the government delivers.
And so far, it very much has delivered.
America is very close to being a complete plutocracy. It has allowed itself to fall into that state through many bad practices.
Both parties are run under a corrupt big-money system.
The empire abroad serves the plutocrats.
The set of dark institutions like the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, serve to maintain and expand the empire.
Note that China has no empire and that it is not at war with anyone.
And note its magnificent efforts abroad - the Belt and Road Initiative and others - are establishing cooperative links all over the world.
Investment and a flow of projects for China to work on for many years to come. All done in a spirit of partnership and cooperation. No bombs, no threats, no sanctions, no blockades.
It is a very enlightened project and will make life better for countless millions of people.
Whose life is made better by American threats and sanctions and bombing?
Only the plutocrats and the establishment which serves them faithfully.
Those are huge differences, and over time they are going to look even larger.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENTS: TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK COCKBURN ON AMERICA'S COMING DECLINE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK COCKBURN
“The US Has Faced Decline Before – But Nothing Like What’s to Come”
I regard this as one of Mr. Cockburn’s more perceptive columns.
He has definitely captured some important truths here.
They are hard ones for Americans to accept.
I find it remarkable how well China is handling matters like information and assistance to the world.
It comes at a time of tireless misinformation and blundering from American leadership.
And the whole world can plainly see that.
Also, despite all the pain and suffering now and in the coming months, the US busies itself still with pointless, unnecessary hostilities in Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and many other locations, making yet more people more miserable.
By contrast, there’s China offering cooperation, partnership, and help.
Xi’s intelligence and mild manner couldn’t be in more contrast to the grimaces and stream of noisy errors from Trump.
Putin very much also is making an effort abroad but Russia’s resources are considerably less than China’s.
We are fortunate to have two such gifted leaders to help offset some of the chaotic rumblings of Washington.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK COCKBURN
“The US Has Faced Decline Before – But Nothing Like What’s to Come”
I regard this as one of Mr. Cockburn’s more perceptive columns.
He has definitely captured some important truths here.
They are hard ones for Americans to accept.
I find it remarkable how well China is handling matters like information and assistance to the world.
It comes at a time of tireless misinformation and blundering from American leadership.
And the whole world can plainly see that.
Also, despite all the pain and suffering now and in the coming months, the US busies itself still with pointless, unnecessary hostilities in Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and many other locations, making yet more people more miserable.
By contrast, there’s China offering cooperation, partnership, and help.
Xi’s intelligence and mild manner couldn’t be in more contrast to the grimaces and stream of noisy errors from Trump.
Putin very much also is making an effort abroad but Russia’s resources are considerably less than China’s.
We are fortunate to have two such gifted leaders to help offset some of the chaotic rumblings of Washington.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A FEW IMPORTANT FACTORS SEEN IN REVOLUTIONS AND AMERICA'S SITUATION
John Chuckman
POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“COVID-19: The Craziest Things About America Highlighted by this Virus
“The corporate cronyism of America’s political system has been highlighted with a massive kleptocratic bailout”
In revolutions, a common factor is the elites' lack of response to wider social/economic problems.
This was definitely true of the French and Russian revolutions.
It should perhaps be noted what has arisen in America before the current crisis, and that is the immense divide between the "one-percent" and the great mass of the population.
The divide has arisen through things like a tax system which puts no responsibility on the super-privileged, while, at the same time, a great deal of the government's activities serve those same people - eg, the Pentagon/security complex and the empire abroad that it is designed to serve.
Many aspects of that structure are not stable, and they now are to be put under great stress.
I think all bets are off as to the ultimate outcome.
America's domestic future might well be very different than many would have assumed just a short time ago.
And that goes for its international arrangements too.
POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CAITLIN JOHNSTONE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“COVID-19: The Craziest Things About America Highlighted by this Virus
“The corporate cronyism of America’s political system has been highlighted with a massive kleptocratic bailout”
In revolutions, a common factor is the elites' lack of response to wider social/economic problems.
This was definitely true of the French and Russian revolutions.
It should perhaps be noted what has arisen in America before the current crisis, and that is the immense divide between the "one-percent" and the great mass of the population.
The divide has arisen through things like a tax system which puts no responsibility on the super-privileged, while, at the same time, a great deal of the government's activities serve those same people - eg, the Pentagon/security complex and the empire abroad that it is designed to serve.
Many aspects of that structure are not stable, and they now are to be put under great stress.
I think all bets are off as to the ultimate outcome.
America's domestic future might well be very different than many would have assumed just a short time ago.
And that goes for its international arrangements too.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE ON THE CIVIL WAR AND SLAVERY - A WORD ON JEFFERSON
John Chuckman
__________________________
Response to a comment about the American Civil War:
Thanks for that.
The cause of the war pretty much jumps out at you if read enough good material.
It is of course nice for a government to have loftier motives handy to use as propaganda. And entire studies have been done on what really was a revolution, far more of a revolution than the first one.
Also, the North felt under considerable pressure from parts Europe, especially Britain which bought Southern cotton for its textiles. Having such a motive to display was helpful in the battle of ideas.
During the horrors of Vietnam, politicians in America actually spoke about democracy versus communism, just an absurdity since South Vietnam was governed by dictators.
Studies suggest American slavery, left intact, would have lasted a fairly long time, but it would have died on its own as it became uneconomic, as from the competition of new machines.
It was, of course, a terrible institution, but America has never really honestly dealt with its ugly history. It keeps hiding from it actually. That's why there are no grand and moving monuments. And no form of reparations were ever given to help millions of very poor people.
Jefferson has a big glorious monument, and the fact is Jefferson never held down a job. He lived off the avails of more than two hundred slaves. He died a bankrupt, owing friends money he borrowed. He had a great taste for luxury items, from shiny new carriages to silver buckles for his shoes and, yes, ice cream in 18th century rural Virginia.
And it is not as though everyone in the world thought slavery was normal. Many thoughtful people spoke against it.
The redoubtable Dr Samuel Johnson in Britain wrote of America's founders as "drivers of negroes speaking of liberty."
Johnson especially took aim at Jefferson, and the famous quote, "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels" was said to have been aimed with him in mind.
Readers may enjoy this on Jefferson:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/
__________________________
Response to a comment about the American Civil War:
Thanks for that.
The cause of the war pretty much jumps out at you if read enough good material.
It is of course nice for a government to have loftier motives handy to use as propaganda. And entire studies have been done on what really was a revolution, far more of a revolution than the first one.
Also, the North felt under considerable pressure from parts Europe, especially Britain which bought Southern cotton for its textiles. Having such a motive to display was helpful in the battle of ideas.
During the horrors of Vietnam, politicians in America actually spoke about democracy versus communism, just an absurdity since South Vietnam was governed by dictators.
Studies suggest American slavery, left intact, would have lasted a fairly long time, but it would have died on its own as it became uneconomic, as from the competition of new machines.
It was, of course, a terrible institution, but America has never really honestly dealt with its ugly history. It keeps hiding from it actually. That's why there are no grand and moving monuments. And no form of reparations were ever given to help millions of very poor people.
Jefferson has a big glorious monument, and the fact is Jefferson never held down a job. He lived off the avails of more than two hundred slaves. He died a bankrupt, owing friends money he borrowed. He had a great taste for luxury items, from shiny new carriages to silver buckles for his shoes and, yes, ice cream in 18th century rural Virginia.
And it is not as though everyone in the world thought slavery was normal. Many thoughtful people spoke against it.
The redoubtable Dr Samuel Johnson in Britain wrote of America's founders as "drivers of negroes speaking of liberty."
Johnson especially took aim at Jefferson, and the famous quote, "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels" was said to have been aimed with him in mind.
Readers may enjoy this on Jefferson:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENTS: ON LINCOLN AND THE CIVIL WAR AND SLAVERY
John Chuckman
COMMENT ON LINCOLN AND THE CAUSE OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
____________________
Response to a comment saying,” the US inherited slavery and, in fewer than one hundred years, fought a bloody fratricidal war to end it”
Sorry, that is wrong.
The Civil War was not about slavery.
It was about the power of the Federal Government versus the states. States’ Rights.
Lincoln effectively conducted a second revolution to establish the pre-eminence of the central government.
He himself said he would welcome leaving slavery in place if the country could be whole.
Lincoln personally disliked slavery, but was never ready to start a massive war over it.
His legacy, sadly, is American imperialism.
The US came through the war having become a major industrial power, and afterward seriously began to use that power to take from others. Ironclad ships, Gatling guns, and other military technology.
Remember, this was a lawyer who did a lot of work in Salem, Illinois for the Illinois Central corporation.
As with so many events and people in American history, we have inherited rather childish, fantasy interpretations of them.
COMMENT ON LINCOLN AND THE CAUSE OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
____________________
Response to a comment saying,” the US inherited slavery and, in fewer than one hundred years, fought a bloody fratricidal war to end it”
Sorry, that is wrong.
The Civil War was not about slavery.
It was about the power of the Federal Government versus the states. States’ Rights.
Lincoln effectively conducted a second revolution to establish the pre-eminence of the central government.
He himself said he would welcome leaving slavery in place if the country could be whole.
Lincoln personally disliked slavery, but was never ready to start a massive war over it.
His legacy, sadly, is American imperialism.
The US came through the war having become a major industrial power, and afterward seriously began to use that power to take from others. Ironclad ships, Gatling guns, and other military technology.
Remember, this was a lawyer who did a lot of work in Salem, Illinois for the Illinois Central corporation.
As with so many events and people in American history, we have inherited rather childish, fantasy interpretations of them.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOME NOTES ON GEORGE WASHINGTON
John Chuckman
COMMENT – SOME NOTES ON GEORGE WASHINGTON
Washington had a reputation as a sharp dealer.
He was in the business of surveying land - often Indian land he had no right to - and selling lots to newcomers at the highest possible prices.
When the continental congress couldn't pay the troops salaries, they issued some future-claims scripts. Washington bought up some of these at very heavy discounts from men desperate for a little cash.
His wife, Martha Custis, a widow, was the richest woman in the colonies when he married her.
He was not a sympathetic figure at all
A real would-be aristocrat.
Cold and aloof.
He hated even being slightly touched by anyone, as at a gathering.
Yes, the French regarded him as a murderer for his ambush leading up to the Seven Years War (aka The French and Indian War).
By the way, his great young dream was to acquire a British officer's commission. He tried quite hard to get one.
But they didn't offer them to colonists.
It was a serious disappointment for him, and it likely colored his views later.
When he attended the continental congress, he did so wearing an officer's uniform of his own design he had tailored. Pretty silly. But he was signalling the job he wanted.
When he became the first president, he wore a sash and sword, like European noblemen of the time, as part of his official dress.
Later, he treated some people who had helped the cause badly.
Thomas Paine – author of the very influential tracts like “Common Sense” - was for a while in prison during The French Terror, and Washington didn't lift a finger to help.
America under Washington did not pay back the generous loans France had extended owing to the influence of Ambassador Ben Franklin.
To top it all off, he was a pretty poor general. Really only one minor victory. Others are responsible for the decisive victories at Saratoga, General Benedict Arnold in that case, and the most important battle at Yorktown, French General comte de Rochambeau in that case.
Washington hadn’t even wanted to go to Yorktown. He wanted to attack New York. It would have a terrible blunder and lost opportunity. Yorktown ended the war, but it was almost completely the work of the French. Even French ships on the water, blocking any British escape.
COMMENT – SOME NOTES ON GEORGE WASHINGTON
Washington had a reputation as a sharp dealer.
He was in the business of surveying land - often Indian land he had no right to - and selling lots to newcomers at the highest possible prices.
When the continental congress couldn't pay the troops salaries, they issued some future-claims scripts. Washington bought up some of these at very heavy discounts from men desperate for a little cash.
His wife, Martha Custis, a widow, was the richest woman in the colonies when he married her.
He was not a sympathetic figure at all
A real would-be aristocrat.
Cold and aloof.
He hated even being slightly touched by anyone, as at a gathering.
Yes, the French regarded him as a murderer for his ambush leading up to the Seven Years War (aka The French and Indian War).
By the way, his great young dream was to acquire a British officer's commission. He tried quite hard to get one.
But they didn't offer them to colonists.
It was a serious disappointment for him, and it likely colored his views later.
When he attended the continental congress, he did so wearing an officer's uniform of his own design he had tailored. Pretty silly. But he was signalling the job he wanted.
When he became the first president, he wore a sash and sword, like European noblemen of the time, as part of his official dress.
Later, he treated some people who had helped the cause badly.
Thomas Paine – author of the very influential tracts like “Common Sense” - was for a while in prison during The French Terror, and Washington didn't lift a finger to help.
America under Washington did not pay back the generous loans France had extended owing to the influence of Ambassador Ben Franklin.
To top it all off, he was a pretty poor general. Really only one minor victory. Others are responsible for the decisive victories at Saratoga, General Benedict Arnold in that case, and the most important battle at Yorktown, French General comte de Rochambeau in that case.
Washington hadn’t even wanted to go to Yorktown. He wanted to attack New York. It would have a terrible blunder and lost opportunity. Yorktown ended the war, but it was almost completely the work of the French. Even French ships on the water, blocking any British escape.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)