John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY FINIAN CUNNINGHAM IN RUSSIA TODAY
“Why the US really accuses Russia & China of weaponizing space”
I think it is interesting in this context to note Iran's release of photos from its new spy satellite. Clear, high-altitude shots of America's huge airbase, Al Udeid in Qatar, the largest in the Middle East.
Just a short time ago, an American senior military man dismissed Iran's satellite achievement, calling it a tumbling tin can with a webcam in orbit. Oh, how wrong he was.
We also see the remarkable recent videos of Iran's launching a couple of its new buried cruise missiles, a genuine and surprising innovation. With no evidence of anything even being there, suddenly smoke and flames erupt and a missile shoots up through the earth as though it were rising from water. Nothing like it seen before. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8572527/Iran-launches-underground-ballistic-missiles-day-attacking-mock-aircraft-carrier.html
The Iranians are very resourceful people, never to be underestimated. I recall that around the time of the country’s revolution in 1979, many bagfuls of shredded American documents were discovered at the embassy. The Iranians – of course, famous for beautiful hand-made Persian carpets – called in some of their best carpet-weavers in an effort to reconstruct the documents.
With an effort that would have strained the eyes and patience of most people beyond endurance, they succeeded in reconstructing them, much to the consternation of the United States because the documents revealed embarrassing secrets.
I cite the anecdote because the effort shows great imagination, skill, and perseverance under extreme circumstances. Shortly after its revolution, Iran was put through a terrible war – the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 – a war encouraged by the US to punish Iran and a war which saw heavy use by Iraq of poison gas weapons secretly supplied by the US or its allies. About a million Iranians and half a million Iraqis died in the war.
Since then, the US has kept almost constant pressure on Iran in one form or another. It hates Iran for embarrassing it during the revolution and for upsetting the comfortable local arrangement it had with the Shah, a much-hated figure in Iran who ruled brutally from 1953 when he was installed after a coup against the country’s elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The US also dislikes Iran because its size – a population the size of Germany’s – plus its vast oil and gas reserves make it the region’s natural leading country, something American imperial interests – Israel with the Pentagon and the CIA – much resent.
And in recent times, Iran has come under “maximum pressure,” the sociopathic Trump’s phrase, one much reminiscent of something from Mussolini. Terrible sanctions and threats and deprivation suddenly launched against a people who for four years dutifully fulfilled all international obligations under the Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a document Trump just decided arbitrarily to tear up.
Every expert and statesman confirmed that Iran had met its obligations, but that wasn’t enough for Trump. He was in search of huge campaign donations for the 2020 election, and the people who could supply them wanted Iran hurt. One of them actually has been quoted suggesting the use of nuclear weapons on Iran. These donors are American oligarchs obsessed with Israel and with the idea that Iran is Israel’s enemy, a notion Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has relentlessly promoted for all of his fourteen nasty years in office.
Iran’s demonstration of new military capabilities is all the more remarkable in light of this terrible history following the revolution. Once again, the rug-weavers have shown what they can do. The extent of their achievement under harsh, imposed conditions displays remarkable organization and talent and persistence.
They have put a satellite into orbit and built the large rocket that carried it there. They have created an entire family of missiles – ground-to-air, ground-to-ground, and ground-to-ship – and have demonstrated their precision a number of times, including the time they downed America’s largest and most sophisticated drone, one the size of an airliner, at night illegally flying over Iranian territory.
They have built three very large underground missile facilities, factories and storage areas. Now, they demonstrate the launch of missiles through ground where there is no structure of any kind visible. They are clearly in a position to rain precision missiles by the thousands on American bases in the region and on Israel, a country which never stops making public threats and has engaged in many acts of sabotage and terrorism against Iran.
Iran has created its first jet fighter, and it has a more advanced one in development. It has built some remarkably sophisticated drones, including one based on reverse-engineering an intruding American drone they managed somehow to force to the ground.
A truly remarkable set of achievements, done by a country under the most severe sanctions and threats. I think it likely only these weapons prevent a war being started by the US and Israel, both of whom have powerful political forces at work pushing in that direction.
Modern Iran has started no wars or aggressions – clearly quite the opposite of the case for the US. It works with Russia in Syria, by invitation of the Syrian government, to fight the kind of terrorist mercenaries America and a few of its allies, very much including Israel, put there to topple another government they don’t like, as they toppled the governments of Iraq and Libya, both instances of colossally stupid policy since the results proved counterproductive.
Libya, once a well-run and peaceful country, remains a chaotic wreck nearly ten years after being invaded, and its future is uncertain. The disappearance of an efficient, coherent government in Libya contributed much to the stream of hopeless refugees that has troubled Europe.
The terribly bloody and totally illegal American invasion of Iraq – with at least a million deaths and countless injuries and immense infrastructure damage – actually strengthened Iran’s position in the region. It removed an Iraqi government that had been very hostile to Iran. The current Iraqi government, while still under American pressure, is friendly with Iran, and they are doing some large projects together.
The Iraqi government has formally told the remaining American military to leave. So far, America refuses, but that can’t go on forever.
That’s how it is when you try playing God, as America has done so many times. It frequently goes wrong just in geopolitical terms, never mind morality or principles, things America always ignores in foreign affairs.
Technology makes it possible sometimes for some nations to compete militarily even against a giant like the US.
America holds no exclusive on daring new military weapons. It may be almost the opposite in some instances because America is so weighed down with countless bases, at least 800 of them, huge fleets worth tens of billions of dollars, plus huge bureaucracies burdened with tradition-bound thinking. Others may be more agile in new areas. And if they are under constant threat the way Iran has been, they again may prove the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention. Desperate people do sometimes work miracles.
After all, Russia and China, and perhaps soon Iran, have the missiles to sink an entire American fleet sent against them, and in fairly short order. That’s tens of thousands of men and hundreds of billions of dollars in equipment – ships and the costly aircraft they carry - lost in a brief time.
Technology can act as an equalizer. Little David’s slingshot bringing down Goliath.
Friday, July 31, 2020
Thursday, July 30, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL ARTICLES I’VE EVER READ PROVIDES A DIRGE FOR THE SORROWFUL STATE OF AMERICA
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CHRIS HEDGES IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“America’s Social Hell”
“This is Kabir’s America. It is our America. And our shame.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/29/chris-hedges-americas-social-hell/
This piece by Chris Hedges is one of the most powerful I’ve ever read.
It perfectly sums up a man’s broken life and the sorrowful world he inhabits with words that almost make you feel and see and smell its details.
It resembles a dirge for America.
I’m writing this with tears in my eyes, and I think I have to stop.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CHRIS HEDGES IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“America’s Social Hell”
“This is Kabir’s America. It is our America. And our shame.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/29/chris-hedges-americas-social-hell/
This piece by Chris Hedges is one of the most powerful I’ve ever read.
It perfectly sums up a man’s broken life and the sorrowful world he inhabits with words that almost make you feel and see and smell its details.
It resembles a dirge for America.
I’m writing this with tears in my eyes, and I think I have to stop.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA AND CHINA – ONLY ONE SOURCE FOR THE CONFLICT – NATIONS ONCE REGARDED AS MENACING NOW WELCOME COOPERATION – AMERICA AND EUROPE – AMERICA AND LATIN AMERICA – AMERICA IN DENIAL OF MANY UNPLEASANT FACTS – PROGRESS DOES NOT COME FROM BEING ARMED TO THE TEETH – HUMANITY’S ENGINE FOR PROGRESS – THE ROLE OF CRUSADER PRINCE IS BEING WRITTEN OUT OF THE PLAY WITH A NEW CAST OF CHARACTERS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN GLOBAL TIMES
“Tensions with US not China’s fault: Foreign Minister Wang Yi”
We would all like to see improved relations between China and the US.
But from where has all the motivating impulse for degrading them come?
It is not from China that we hear about notions like “decoupling,” or that we have ugly accusations about the misfortunes of a terrible disease, or that new illegal sanctions are announced weekly, or that we see withdrawal from many international organizations promoting peace and cooperation.
Those originate with only one party, America.
And the reason for such hostility is clear. America is simply not equipped to accept gracefully the success and rise of China. It is fearful of China’s ability to compete. And it is the same for any other competitor or potential competitor. Certainly, for Russia where every effort is made to impede its progress, from rendering its borders insecure down to trying to control its sale of resources such as natural gas to its neighbors.
That’s why Europe remains occupied three-quarters of a century after the world war. That’s why NATO has been expanded thirty years after the disappearance of the Soviet Union.
That’s why an arbitrary dogma like the Monroe Doctrine still plays a role in Latin America two centuries after an American in a frock coat announced it, a man who also owned a plantation worked by teams of slaves.
America’s power establishment has had control of almost all international organizations and arrangements since the end of WWII, and it is a bit frightened of losing that close-to-absolute power, as it inevitably must in an expanding and greatly diversifying world.
We cannot even pretend now that what we see in our world are the forces of American democracy and respect for rights versus a dark and frightening colossus, as communism was once regarded. That world, the foundation for so many institutions and arrangements, just does not exist anymore.
The world is becoming far more complex than such notions allow, and everyone with some understanding can see it. Those notions are still attractive to many in America because they put America in the role of crusader prince, but that role is simply being written out of a play which has a new cast of characters.
No, we see, by contrast now, plenty of darkness coming from America itself, both at home and in its activity abroad, and we see countries once regarded as menacing now operate as rational, understandable places whose pursuit of success is welcome to improving the world’s prosperity and cooperation.
America is in denial of many unpleasant facts – its overwhelming inequality, its brutality at home, its widespread prejudices, its money-driven politics, and the extreme violence it imposes on a great many other places in the world. Speeches from politicians or newspaper editorials cannot change what is plainly dark back into Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.”
Nations formerly regarded as menacing by America welcome business and trade from everywhere. They welcome cooperation. No one sensible can speak against that. That is humanity’s engine for progress.
Progress does not come from a place armed to the teeth and constantly making menacing gestures.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN GLOBAL TIMES
“Tensions with US not China’s fault: Foreign Minister Wang Yi”
We would all like to see improved relations between China and the US.
But from where has all the motivating impulse for degrading them come?
It is not from China that we hear about notions like “decoupling,” or that we have ugly accusations about the misfortunes of a terrible disease, or that new illegal sanctions are announced weekly, or that we see withdrawal from many international organizations promoting peace and cooperation.
Those originate with only one party, America.
And the reason for such hostility is clear. America is simply not equipped to accept gracefully the success and rise of China. It is fearful of China’s ability to compete. And it is the same for any other competitor or potential competitor. Certainly, for Russia where every effort is made to impede its progress, from rendering its borders insecure down to trying to control its sale of resources such as natural gas to its neighbors.
That’s why Europe remains occupied three-quarters of a century after the world war. That’s why NATO has been expanded thirty years after the disappearance of the Soviet Union.
That’s why an arbitrary dogma like the Monroe Doctrine still plays a role in Latin America two centuries after an American in a frock coat announced it, a man who also owned a plantation worked by teams of slaves.
America’s power establishment has had control of almost all international organizations and arrangements since the end of WWII, and it is a bit frightened of losing that close-to-absolute power, as it inevitably must in an expanding and greatly diversifying world.
We cannot even pretend now that what we see in our world are the forces of American democracy and respect for rights versus a dark and frightening colossus, as communism was once regarded. That world, the foundation for so many institutions and arrangements, just does not exist anymore.
The world is becoming far more complex than such notions allow, and everyone with some understanding can see it. Those notions are still attractive to many in America because they put America in the role of crusader prince, but that role is simply being written out of a play which has a new cast of characters.
No, we see, by contrast now, plenty of darkness coming from America itself, both at home and in its activity abroad, and we see countries once regarded as menacing now operate as rational, understandable places whose pursuit of success is welcome to improving the world’s prosperity and cooperation.
America is in denial of many unpleasant facts – its overwhelming inequality, its brutality at home, its widespread prejudices, its money-driven politics, and the extreme violence it imposes on a great many other places in the world. Speeches from politicians or newspaper editorials cannot change what is plainly dark back into Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.”
Nations formerly regarded as menacing by America welcome business and trade from everywhere. They welcome cooperation. No one sensible can speak against that. That is humanity’s engine for progress.
Progress does not come from a place armed to the teeth and constantly making menacing gestures.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: “AMERICA’S EVANGELICAL ENFORCER,” MIKE POMPEO – AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY LITERALLY FOR SALE – THE COMMON ROOT FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S MANY MAJOR PROBLEMS IS THE REALITY OF A PLUTOCRACY WITH DEMOCRACY-THEMED WINDOW DRESSING
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RAY MCGOVERN IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Presumptuous Pompeo Pushes Preposterous ‘Peking’ Policy”
A rant by Mike Pompeo regarding what the U.S. should do with China
A writer at The Guardian called Pompeo "America's Evangelical enforcer."
I cannot imagine a better summary description. Religious crank combined with mafia thug.
But let's not forget who appointed Pompeo and allows him to make so much noise in the world.
And let's not forget why he was appointed. To please some immensely rich American oligarchs so that Trump could keep the campaign funds flowing. His illegal policies in the Middle East, of course, reflect the same influence because the oligarchs are obsessed with Israel.
American foreign policy is for sale, quite literally.
Today, almost any major problem in American society you care to study brings you back to the same place – foreign policy, tax policies and extreme inequality, social unrest, police brutality, a stultified two-party system which yields no progress in anything, serving largely as a democracy-themed window-dressing.
And that place is the fact that America is effectively a plutocracy. Its immensely costly military-security service establishment – a trillion dollars a year – serves to maintain and expand a brutal global empire.
And whose interests does that global empire serve? Yes, the same plutocrats driving American government.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RAY MCGOVERN IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Presumptuous Pompeo Pushes Preposterous ‘Peking’ Policy”
A rant by Mike Pompeo regarding what the U.S. should do with China
A writer at The Guardian called Pompeo "America's Evangelical enforcer."
I cannot imagine a better summary description. Religious crank combined with mafia thug.
But let's not forget who appointed Pompeo and allows him to make so much noise in the world.
And let's not forget why he was appointed. To please some immensely rich American oligarchs so that Trump could keep the campaign funds flowing. His illegal policies in the Middle East, of course, reflect the same influence because the oligarchs are obsessed with Israel.
American foreign policy is for sale, quite literally.
Today, almost any major problem in American society you care to study brings you back to the same place – foreign policy, tax policies and extreme inequality, social unrest, police brutality, a stultified two-party system which yields no progress in anything, serving largely as a democracy-themed window-dressing.
And that place is the fact that America is effectively a plutocracy. Its immensely costly military-security service establishment – a trillion dollars a year – serves to maintain and expand a brutal global empire.
And whose interests does that global empire serve? Yes, the same plutocrats driving American government.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A JEWISH COMEDIAN SPEAKS SOME OF THE PLAINEST TRUTHS ABOUT ISRAEL EVER HEARD IN AMERICA – WHERE POWER IS CONCERNED, TRUTH IS RARE
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
“Israel is ridiculous, antiquated and based on lies about other people’s land, Seth Rogen says”
https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/israel-is-ridiculous-antiquated-and-based-on-ethnic-cleansing-seth-rogen-says-but-hes-afraid-to-tell-other-jews/
Seth Rogen is a very brave man. He has done nothing but speak the simplest truth, using no exaggeration or harsh words, but Israel's situation is something you are not allowed to be truthful about.
The mantra "There is no such thing as a Palestinian," first dishonestly spoken by Golda Meir, has been repeated many times by American politicians.
The last I recall was the appalling Newt Gingrich who went around sticking the line into speeches after receiving about 20 million dollars in campaign contributions from a certain American oligarch, a man who today heavily influences Trump's Middle East policy of lawbreaking.
Israel’s relationship with truth is very similar to America’s. And there is a very good reason for that. Israel in many ways resembles more an imperial colony than an independent nation, a very special colony with many privileges and huge public and private subsidies.
It is America’s pied-a-terre in the Middle East, and telling any truth about America’s global empire – its countless wars and conflicts and coups – is also something that really isn’t allowed.
Few Americans understand the realities of Syria or Iraq or Iran or Yemen or Libya or Venezuela or, indeed, the realities going back to the horrors of Vietnam.
The Pentagon and CIA exist as the monstrous institutions they are in order to control much of the planet, not to defend America.
We have a new hero in Seth Rogen. Where power is concerned, truth is very rare.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PHILIP WEISS IN MONDOWEISS
“Israel is ridiculous, antiquated and based on lies about other people’s land, Seth Rogen says”
https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/israel-is-ridiculous-antiquated-and-based-on-ethnic-cleansing-seth-rogen-says-but-hes-afraid-to-tell-other-jews/
Seth Rogen is a very brave man. He has done nothing but speak the simplest truth, using no exaggeration or harsh words, but Israel's situation is something you are not allowed to be truthful about.
The mantra "There is no such thing as a Palestinian," first dishonestly spoken by Golda Meir, has been repeated many times by American politicians.
The last I recall was the appalling Newt Gingrich who went around sticking the line into speeches after receiving about 20 million dollars in campaign contributions from a certain American oligarch, a man who today heavily influences Trump's Middle East policy of lawbreaking.
Israel’s relationship with truth is very similar to America’s. And there is a very good reason for that. Israel in many ways resembles more an imperial colony than an independent nation, a very special colony with many privileges and huge public and private subsidies.
It is America’s pied-a-terre in the Middle East, and telling any truth about America’s global empire – its countless wars and conflicts and coups – is also something that really isn’t allowed.
Few Americans understand the realities of Syria or Iraq or Iran or Yemen or Libya or Venezuela or, indeed, the realities going back to the horrors of Vietnam.
The Pentagon and CIA exist as the monstrous institutions they are in order to control much of the planet, not to defend America.
We have a new hero in Seth Rogen. Where power is concerned, truth is very rare.
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE SELFISH ATTITUDES OF THOSE WHO OPPOSE MASKS AND SOCIAL-DISTANCING MEASURES – ATTITUDES THAT SEEM CONCENTRATED IN THE RIGHT-WING – HOW CAN YOU SENSIBLY ARGUE AGAINST MEASURES DESIGNED TO PROTECT EVERYONE? - SOCIETIES ALWAYS ASK SACRIFICE IN TIMES OF CRISIS – WHAT IS REVEALED IS A CLEAR LACK OF HUMAN EMPATHY – USING THE VIETNAM WALL AS A MEASURING STANDARD FOR THE SIZE OF A CRISIS SOME STILL CALL A “HOAX” – IT HAS KILLED ABOUT ELEVEN TIMES THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHOSE NAMES ARE ENGRAVED ON WASHINGTON’S VIETNAM MEMORIAL, AND IT HAS DONE SO IN FAR LESS THAN A TENTH OF THE TIME
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN FORT RUSS
“The Ultimate Divide and Conquer”
‘The whole concept of self-isolation and anti-social “distancing” is radically anti-human.’
Sorry, I regard that as totally incorrect.
These practices have to do with treating everyone equally at a time of great stress. They also have to do with overcoming the clear lack of human empathy some exhibit by insisting on their own way despite risking the health of others.
In great emergencies of all kinds - wars, natural disasters, riots, etc. - people are always expected to make sacrifices, and they generally do.
But somehow, in this terrible crisis – 650,000 dead worldwide, a figure which equals the toll of nearly eleven Vietnam War Memorials and achieved in far less than a tenth of the time – some believe they are entitled to ignore sacrifice. And they are the same people, generally, who early on called the pandemic a “hoax” – that’s some hoax, 650,000 dead and the toll climbing rapidly in many locations.
This selfish attitude seems to be found mostly on the extreme political Right and among the often-strange and genuinely anti-social Alt-right.
It is not what nationhood or patriotism or humanity or even common decency are about.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN FORT RUSS
“The Ultimate Divide and Conquer”
‘The whole concept of self-isolation and anti-social “distancing” is radically anti-human.’
Sorry, I regard that as totally incorrect.
These practices have to do with treating everyone equally at a time of great stress. They also have to do with overcoming the clear lack of human empathy some exhibit by insisting on their own way despite risking the health of others.
In great emergencies of all kinds - wars, natural disasters, riots, etc. - people are always expected to make sacrifices, and they generally do.
But somehow, in this terrible crisis – 650,000 dead worldwide, a figure which equals the toll of nearly eleven Vietnam War Memorials and achieved in far less than a tenth of the time – some believe they are entitled to ignore sacrifice. And they are the same people, generally, who early on called the pandemic a “hoax” – that’s some hoax, 650,000 dead and the toll climbing rapidly in many locations.
This selfish attitude seems to be found mostly on the extreme political Right and among the often-strange and genuinely anti-social Alt-right.
It is not what nationhood or patriotism or humanity or even common decency are about.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DON’T EXPECT MUCH FROM BIDEN – HE HAS A TRACK RECORD AND IT ISN’T ENCOURAGING – A CLEVER WAG RECENTLY WROTE THAT THE ELECTION AMOUNTS TO A CHOICE BETWEEN EATING A FULL BOWL OF SHIT (TRUMP) OR EATING A HALF BOWL OF SHIT (BIDEN) – AMERICA HAS A GIGANTIC NATIONAL INDUSTRY IN DEATH AND DESTRUCTION AND NEITHER CANDIDATE WILL DISTURB IT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LEONARDO FLORES IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Biden’s Vision for Venezuela Indistinguishable from Trump’s”
I don't understand why anyone would expect anything else.
Biden has a track record, a long one.
He happily supported every war and incursion and coup that came along. He has sometimes claimed that he was against invading Iraq – now universally recognized as a great strategic blunder, apart from its immorality - but that is just another of his smilingly-told little lies. He was in fact a very active cheerleader for launching it.
He even helped in a few cases, as in Ukraine where he functioned as Obama’s proconsul in a five-billion-dollar operation against an elected government.
He was photographed, grinning, while enthusiastically shaking hands with the commander of the Azov Battalion, as genuine a neo-Nazi outfit as you will find today, complete with armbands and torchlight parades.
It, along with some other similarly-inclined outfits, serves the US interest in keeping the post-coup governments intimidated enough to not make any concessions.
Biden also served as chief White House advocate for the godawful industrial-scale extrajudicial killing scheme that now runs like clockwork, killing people in various distant places, just as the Argentine junta once made thousands of people it didn't like “disappear.”
The war record of the Democrats was what swung enough marginal votes for Trump's election despite his own ugly personality, but he has utterly failed to change the direction of things and instead has started or extended hostilities in several places.
Elections have absolutely zero effect on the operations of America’s war machine.
You know, between the Pentagon and the secret security services, like the CIA, America has a trillion-dollar-a-year national industry in killing and destruction.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LEONARDO FLORES IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“Biden’s Vision for Venezuela Indistinguishable from Trump’s”
I don't understand why anyone would expect anything else.
Biden has a track record, a long one.
He happily supported every war and incursion and coup that came along. He has sometimes claimed that he was against invading Iraq – now universally recognized as a great strategic blunder, apart from its immorality - but that is just another of his smilingly-told little lies. He was in fact a very active cheerleader for launching it.
He even helped in a few cases, as in Ukraine where he functioned as Obama’s proconsul in a five-billion-dollar operation against an elected government.
He was photographed, grinning, while enthusiastically shaking hands with the commander of the Azov Battalion, as genuine a neo-Nazi outfit as you will find today, complete with armbands and torchlight parades.
It, along with some other similarly-inclined outfits, serves the US interest in keeping the post-coup governments intimidated enough to not make any concessions.
Biden also served as chief White House advocate for the godawful industrial-scale extrajudicial killing scheme that now runs like clockwork, killing people in various distant places, just as the Argentine junta once made thousands of people it didn't like “disappear.”
The war record of the Democrats was what swung enough marginal votes for Trump's election despite his own ugly personality, but he has utterly failed to change the direction of things and instead has started or extended hostilities in several places.
Elections have absolutely zero effect on the operations of America’s war machine.
You know, between the Pentagon and the secret security services, like the CIA, America has a trillion-dollar-a-year national industry in killing and destruction.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: HARRY AND MEGHAN AND BEING ROYAL – EMPTY NOTIONS ABOUT BECOMING “FREE” OR “ORDINARY” REMIND ME OF THE PHRASE “FINDING YOURSELF” REPEATED WIDELY IN THE EARLY 1960s – THE TRUTH OF THE CONTROVERSY AROUND THE COUPLE IS IN FACT CLEAR FROM MANY ANECDOTES AND WITNESSES – BUT STILL MANY PEOPLE AND POPULAR NEWS SOURCES GET IT WRONG – HUMANS ARE SUBJECT TO WILLFUL MISINTERPRETATION, ESPECIALLY WHERE EMOTIONS AND FANTASIES ARE ENGAGED – IS IT ANY WONDER THEN THAT FAR MORE CONSEQUENTIAL MATTERS , ONES GUARDED BY EXTENSIVE SECRECY AND EFFORTS AT MANIPULATION, AS IN WORLD AFFAIRS, ARE NOT UNDERSTOOD BY A GREAT MANY? – A WORD ON PRINCESS DIANA AND THE REAL CAUSE OF HER DEATH
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SEAN O’GRADY IN THE INDEPENDENT
“The Meghan and Harry drama is just like Brexit – there’s no cherry picking and it’ll all end in tears"
"...in their own terms, they probably never will find freedom."
Indeed, but I don’t think they are genuinely seeking to find “freedom,” whatever that facile favorite American word actually means.
What Meghan appears to want is just what she has obtained, being a world celebrity, a kind of fairy-tale princess, without any genuine responsibilities or restraints or obligations and able to indulge the inclinations of half her lifetime, the “unroyal” half.
Poor Harry is just along for the ride. He’s given up about the only activity he was any good at, marching around in uniform, waving to Royal watchers at parades and events. He has also given up his traditional family relationships. There really can be no return to those. And a place like LA, one of America’s more grotesque cities, cannot be comfortable for terribly long. Those are big prices to be paid.
Meghan is in her element. The glitter and noise of LA, a place always ripe with possibilities for an acting gig or paid public relations task. Always being photographed. She obviously loves being photographed. One got a sense from her time in the UK of almost narcissism in the way she responds to cameras. The head turns almost as if guided by a special radar to the lens of each one with the dazzling smile turned on.
And she even has her Mum living with her now.
She is one of the most strikingly beautiful women of this generation, but all the evidence over the last few years points to an unpleasantly demanding and unbending personality. Anyone who could make the charming Kate cry or start a row over what some children’s wedding outfits represents a lifelong emotional burden for poor Harry, with it now becoming obvious that it is not royal family and press snobbery or bias at work.
She did it all while blaming the press and certain royal factions, with plenty of suggestions floated about by friends about bias and perhaps racism – in truth, no one even thinks of Meghan as black, not in the least. But I’m sure, despite the many careful private lessons she was undoubtedly given in royal deportment and tradition, they think of her as American, and as a rather pushy American.
As for the press, that’s the price of the job she assumed and especially the way she assumed it, in fairy-tale commoner-to-princess style. But she wasn’t willing to pay the price. She wanted the celebrity and cameras without any personal cost. A fact in itself which suggests a difficult personality.
___________________
Response to a comment saying, “Why don’t they get some kind of virtuous jobs, and just get on with it? The fact they can’t says everything about how out of touch they are”
Absolutely, they don't know what “ordinary” means, and they really do not want to know.
It's all a preposterous mishmash, truly as confused – although different in style and without any associated politics – as the antics of Trump giving one of his press conferences. Information being conveyed to the public by someone with no information.
It's an embarrassing story, having no resemblance to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor of the 1930s, a story that had deep political roots, and little to Princess Diana, except in the fact that there are some genuinely unbalanced qualities at work under the surface.
____________________
Response to a comment about strong racism in the press against Meghan
I'm sorry, I recognize none of what you write as being what I observed.
Meghan is truly beautiful, and she was flattered enormously by being photographed, with her pictures published, constantly.
The only references to racism have been in suggestions from devoted admirers trying to excuse her behavior. I regard such references as unfair and, in fact, a kind of reverse racism.
The simple fact is that Meghan generated tensions and made extravagant demands as soon as she took up residence.
She demanded all kinds of things she had no business demanding, as with the children’s wedding outfits or a certain size and quality of residence compared with that of William and Kate. Demanding things, in and of itself, is outside the expected behavior of British Royals. She just did not understand that, or she, perhaps more likely, refused to understand it, displaying the attitudes of California, not Buckingham Palace.
And making Kate cry was extremely revealing. Kate is one of the best-tempered and nicest people in the Royal Family. They are a pretty cool bunch on the whole. She treated Meghan generously in the beginning. Meghan’s behavior was cruel and unnecessary, and I think many people understand that instinctively. Certainly, her husband, William, thought so. It caused him to speak privately to his brother, and that was the beginning of the end for that long friendship, adding still more stress to the situation.
Even in ordinary middle-class life, it is unacceptable to make another family member cry at a gathering. How much less so in the Royal Family with the eyes of the nation upon them? There are reasons for all that formality and protocol and tradition and restraint. The public should never look at the behavior of the Royal Family and see something going on which resembles a soap-opera melodrama. Avoiding that is a central part of the job. Meghan refused to do it from the start.
She also showed a lack of respect for her seniors, as it were, in the Royal Family. Like it or not, Kate’s position, being married to a certain heir, is senior to hers. And after all, what is royalty about but the line of succession? If you ignore that, you tear away at the institution’s foundation.
______________________
Response to a comment:
Charles, in fact, will make a decent and well-spoken King.
William is a decent and sensible type too. Just his choice in the charming and lively Kate shows balance.
Harry has always had problems of rashness and, frankly, a lack of effective intelligence – e.g., as in attending a party in a Nazi uniform some years ago or in demanding to be sent to Afghanistan and later bragging about killing a man there.
See: https://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2013/01/harry-is-prince-mad-he-does-have.html
Of course, there is the larger question of whether there should be any royalty at all.
I can't think of many areas of 21st century society where we adhere to concepts dating to BCE. Kind of like expecting to travel to the moon by broomstick.
_______________________
Response to a comment saying with their looks Harry and Meghan should rule
Well, who would have thought that looks are what royalty is all about?
I guess by your standards, they should dump the entire Royal Family and replace them with fashion models?
Preferably from California?
No wonder our world is so dangerously confused.
______________________
Response to a comment referring to the murder of Diana:
Diana was not important enough for anyone to plot killing her. What damage she could do, embarrassing the family, she had already done.
Diana was the victim of her own wild and rash temperament, the source of Harry’s inherited rashness.
Despite a sweet smile and glowing looks in public, she showed some dismaying qualities in private.
Roaring off into the night at high speed in the center of Paris? Just to avoid photographers?
She displayed her temperament in many ways. As with the literally thousands of obsessively-repeated phone calls she made to some people.
The numerous affairs, in some cases with completely inappropriate others, as with a security guard.
Reports of her almost hysterical behavior at times. Once, in the car, leaving behind the crowd who adored her and had presented her with flowers, she suddenly broke out into wild laughter about those very people.
The Spencer family is well known for having had some unbalanced behaviors here and there going back a couple of centuries.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SEAN O’GRADY IN THE INDEPENDENT
“The Meghan and Harry drama is just like Brexit – there’s no cherry picking and it’ll all end in tears"
"...in their own terms, they probably never will find freedom."
Indeed, but I don’t think they are genuinely seeking to find “freedom,” whatever that facile favorite American word actually means.
What Meghan appears to want is just what she has obtained, being a world celebrity, a kind of fairy-tale princess, without any genuine responsibilities or restraints or obligations and able to indulge the inclinations of half her lifetime, the “unroyal” half.
Poor Harry is just along for the ride. He’s given up about the only activity he was any good at, marching around in uniform, waving to Royal watchers at parades and events. He has also given up his traditional family relationships. There really can be no return to those. And a place like LA, one of America’s more grotesque cities, cannot be comfortable for terribly long. Those are big prices to be paid.
Meghan is in her element. The glitter and noise of LA, a place always ripe with possibilities for an acting gig or paid public relations task. Always being photographed. She obviously loves being photographed. One got a sense from her time in the UK of almost narcissism in the way she responds to cameras. The head turns almost as if guided by a special radar to the lens of each one with the dazzling smile turned on.
And she even has her Mum living with her now.
She is one of the most strikingly beautiful women of this generation, but all the evidence over the last few years points to an unpleasantly demanding and unbending personality. Anyone who could make the charming Kate cry or start a row over what some children’s wedding outfits represents a lifelong emotional burden for poor Harry, with it now becoming obvious that it is not royal family and press snobbery or bias at work.
She did it all while blaming the press and certain royal factions, with plenty of suggestions floated about by friends about bias and perhaps racism – in truth, no one even thinks of Meghan as black, not in the least. But I’m sure, despite the many careful private lessons she was undoubtedly given in royal deportment and tradition, they think of her as American, and as a rather pushy American.
As for the press, that’s the price of the job she assumed and especially the way she assumed it, in fairy-tale commoner-to-princess style. But she wasn’t willing to pay the price. She wanted the celebrity and cameras without any personal cost. A fact in itself which suggests a difficult personality.
___________________
Response to a comment saying, “Why don’t they get some kind of virtuous jobs, and just get on with it? The fact they can’t says everything about how out of touch they are”
Absolutely, they don't know what “ordinary” means, and they really do not want to know.
It's all a preposterous mishmash, truly as confused – although different in style and without any associated politics – as the antics of Trump giving one of his press conferences. Information being conveyed to the public by someone with no information.
It's an embarrassing story, having no resemblance to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor of the 1930s, a story that had deep political roots, and little to Princess Diana, except in the fact that there are some genuinely unbalanced qualities at work under the surface.
____________________
Response to a comment about strong racism in the press against Meghan
I'm sorry, I recognize none of what you write as being what I observed.
Meghan is truly beautiful, and she was flattered enormously by being photographed, with her pictures published, constantly.
The only references to racism have been in suggestions from devoted admirers trying to excuse her behavior. I regard such references as unfair and, in fact, a kind of reverse racism.
The simple fact is that Meghan generated tensions and made extravagant demands as soon as she took up residence.
She demanded all kinds of things she had no business demanding, as with the children’s wedding outfits or a certain size and quality of residence compared with that of William and Kate. Demanding things, in and of itself, is outside the expected behavior of British Royals. She just did not understand that, or she, perhaps more likely, refused to understand it, displaying the attitudes of California, not Buckingham Palace.
And making Kate cry was extremely revealing. Kate is one of the best-tempered and nicest people in the Royal Family. They are a pretty cool bunch on the whole. She treated Meghan generously in the beginning. Meghan’s behavior was cruel and unnecessary, and I think many people understand that instinctively. Certainly, her husband, William, thought so. It caused him to speak privately to his brother, and that was the beginning of the end for that long friendship, adding still more stress to the situation.
Even in ordinary middle-class life, it is unacceptable to make another family member cry at a gathering. How much less so in the Royal Family with the eyes of the nation upon them? There are reasons for all that formality and protocol and tradition and restraint. The public should never look at the behavior of the Royal Family and see something going on which resembles a soap-opera melodrama. Avoiding that is a central part of the job. Meghan refused to do it from the start.
She also showed a lack of respect for her seniors, as it were, in the Royal Family. Like it or not, Kate’s position, being married to a certain heir, is senior to hers. And after all, what is royalty about but the line of succession? If you ignore that, you tear away at the institution’s foundation.
______________________
Response to a comment:
Charles, in fact, will make a decent and well-spoken King.
William is a decent and sensible type too. Just his choice in the charming and lively Kate shows balance.
Harry has always had problems of rashness and, frankly, a lack of effective intelligence – e.g., as in attending a party in a Nazi uniform some years ago or in demanding to be sent to Afghanistan and later bragging about killing a man there.
See: https://chuckmangrotesques.blogspot.com/2013/01/harry-is-prince-mad-he-does-have.html
Of course, there is the larger question of whether there should be any royalty at all.
I can't think of many areas of 21st century society where we adhere to concepts dating to BCE. Kind of like expecting to travel to the moon by broomstick.
_______________________
Response to a comment saying with their looks Harry and Meghan should rule
Well, who would have thought that looks are what royalty is all about?
I guess by your standards, they should dump the entire Royal Family and replace them with fashion models?
Preferably from California?
No wonder our world is so dangerously confused.
______________________
Response to a comment referring to the murder of Diana:
Diana was not important enough for anyone to plot killing her. What damage she could do, embarrassing the family, she had already done.
Diana was the victim of her own wild and rash temperament, the source of Harry’s inherited rashness.
Despite a sweet smile and glowing looks in public, she showed some dismaying qualities in private.
Roaring off into the night at high speed in the center of Paris? Just to avoid photographers?
She displayed her temperament in many ways. As with the literally thousands of obsessively-repeated phone calls she made to some people.
The numerous affairs, in some cases with completely inappropriate others, as with a security guard.
Reports of her almost hysterical behavior at times. Once, in the car, leaving behind the crowd who adored her and had presented her with flowers, she suddenly broke out into wild laughter about those very people.
The Spencer family is well known for having had some unbalanced behaviors here and there going back a couple of centuries.
Thursday, July 16, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE DESTRUCTIVE URGE OF AMERICA’S POWER ESTABLISHMENT TO CONTROL EVENTS ELSEWHERE – IT SIMPLY DOES NOT BENEFIT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OR ANY OTHER PEOPLE – CHINA HAS THE CORRECT LONG-TERM STRATEGY – INVESTING AND BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE, BUILDING JOBS, BUILDING RELATIONS, AND BUILDING FOUNDATIONS FOR INCREASED FUTURE PRODUCTIVITY – AMERICA MAKES NO SERIOUS EFFORT TO IMPROVE ITS COMPETITIVENESS – ITS ESTABLISHMENT REGARDS ITSELF AS INDISPENSABLE AND DEMANDS THAT OTHERS SEE IT THAT WAY – SOME ABSURDITIES OF AMERICA’S MILITARY AND EMPIRE – HOT PIZZA HELICOPTERED TO TROOPS – STEAK DINNERS FOR THOUSANDS ON DISTANT HIGH SEAS – AMERICA CANNOT WIN A CONVENTIONAL WAR AGAINST CHINA
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GLOBAL TIMES
“Is new Cold War emerging between China and US? FM spokesperson suggests two countries work together”
I am afraid the power establishment in the US is just not prepared psychologically for China's rise and America's relative decline. It is a situation in some ways potentially worse than the Cold War.
After WWII, America enjoyed extravagant privilege and power by virtue of having been the last major nation standing.
Not only were all of its competitors broken, its own industries were massively geared up by the war effort, ready with new investment to supply the world's markets.
For some years, that set of circumstances generated a “golden era” for the United States. It even gave birth to an accompanying mythology, one summed up in the phrase, “The American Dream.”
However, bit by bit over the years, circumstances changed, as they always do in human affairs.
New, more efficient competitors emerged in many parts of the world, and, as they did so, America started to slip in its relative economic and trade importance.
America's establishment resents the changed circumstances, but I believe, realistically, there is little it can do, and much of what it could do, it is unwilling to do, still luxuriating in a sense of entitlement bred by many years of privilege.
It can bluster and threaten and sanction and lay tariffs to create pressure, but it cannot change fundamental economic realities.
You cannot browbeat your way to greater prosperity, as Trump has tried doing. The limits of his understanding are apparent in his very own election slogan, “Make America great again.” What the slogan really is saying is, “Make it 1953 again for America,” and that literally is an impossibility.
America makes little effort to improve its competitiveness, as by replacing a great deal of old infrastructure, reinventing a poor public education system, or downsizing the immense waste of its military/intelligence apparatus, something which consumes about a trillion dollars a year. America does not save and invest adequately. It is simply not willing to sacrifice for long-term goals, and that is a fundamental weakness of the society.
While every nation needs some military, America’s military is out of all proportion to any real need, and it literally burns through resources, producing little of value. You might as well shovel resources into a pit.
The military’s value to the power establishment is about control, and I think until America abandons the illusion of its being “the indispensable nation” that should control global events, we are not likely to see much progress.
Can you imagine just the cost of keeping armadas of military ships with their huge crews and supply needs in places as far flung as near China, near Iran, and near Venezuela? Steak dinners for crews of thousands on the high seas? I am reminded of the morale-boosting practice during America’s time in Vietnam of the Army regularly baking tons of fresh pizza and helicoptering it hot to troops in the field.
And what does any of it do to benefit the people of the United States or indeed the world? The answer is, of course, nothing. And just so for the 800 to 1,000 military bases the United States maintains around the world. All of that mighty effort and expense is about control.
Control is something very difficult to relinquish when you are long used to exercising it. But the truth is that the world’s changing economic realities just will not continue to support America’s old habits.
China invests and builds. And it is even doing so in many places abroad as part of its New Silk Road Project. These are investments that will benefit China, but they also will benefit hundreds of millions of others. In the whole process, productive work is generated, new positive relationships are established, and foundations for greater future productivity are laid.
America now tries intimidating a good portion of the world to do as its leaders wish them to do, but that will not build what China is building. It is a negative and unproductive way to run a great society, one motivated by looking back to a time when privileges were enjoyed with little effort.
China has the right long-term strategy.
Of course, America’s efforts at strong-arming everyone always run the risk of igniting war. It is difficult to see how the US could possibly benefit from that. It absolutely cannot win a conventional war with China. Every capital ship in the region would be sunk in a very brief time by China’s specialized precision missiles. The losses would be horrific, and the temptation to go nuclear would be great.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GLOBAL TIMES
“Is new Cold War emerging between China and US? FM spokesperson suggests two countries work together”
I am afraid the power establishment in the US is just not prepared psychologically for China's rise and America's relative decline. It is a situation in some ways potentially worse than the Cold War.
After WWII, America enjoyed extravagant privilege and power by virtue of having been the last major nation standing.
Not only were all of its competitors broken, its own industries were massively geared up by the war effort, ready with new investment to supply the world's markets.
For some years, that set of circumstances generated a “golden era” for the United States. It even gave birth to an accompanying mythology, one summed up in the phrase, “The American Dream.”
However, bit by bit over the years, circumstances changed, as they always do in human affairs.
New, more efficient competitors emerged in many parts of the world, and, as they did so, America started to slip in its relative economic and trade importance.
America's establishment resents the changed circumstances, but I believe, realistically, there is little it can do, and much of what it could do, it is unwilling to do, still luxuriating in a sense of entitlement bred by many years of privilege.
It can bluster and threaten and sanction and lay tariffs to create pressure, but it cannot change fundamental economic realities.
You cannot browbeat your way to greater prosperity, as Trump has tried doing. The limits of his understanding are apparent in his very own election slogan, “Make America great again.” What the slogan really is saying is, “Make it 1953 again for America,” and that literally is an impossibility.
America makes little effort to improve its competitiveness, as by replacing a great deal of old infrastructure, reinventing a poor public education system, or downsizing the immense waste of its military/intelligence apparatus, something which consumes about a trillion dollars a year. America does not save and invest adequately. It is simply not willing to sacrifice for long-term goals, and that is a fundamental weakness of the society.
While every nation needs some military, America’s military is out of all proportion to any real need, and it literally burns through resources, producing little of value. You might as well shovel resources into a pit.
The military’s value to the power establishment is about control, and I think until America abandons the illusion of its being “the indispensable nation” that should control global events, we are not likely to see much progress.
Can you imagine just the cost of keeping armadas of military ships with their huge crews and supply needs in places as far flung as near China, near Iran, and near Venezuela? Steak dinners for crews of thousands on the high seas? I am reminded of the morale-boosting practice during America’s time in Vietnam of the Army regularly baking tons of fresh pizza and helicoptering it hot to troops in the field.
And what does any of it do to benefit the people of the United States or indeed the world? The answer is, of course, nothing. And just so for the 800 to 1,000 military bases the United States maintains around the world. All of that mighty effort and expense is about control.
Control is something very difficult to relinquish when you are long used to exercising it. But the truth is that the world’s changing economic realities just will not continue to support America’s old habits.
China invests and builds. And it is even doing so in many places abroad as part of its New Silk Road Project. These are investments that will benefit China, but they also will benefit hundreds of millions of others. In the whole process, productive work is generated, new positive relationships are established, and foundations for greater future productivity are laid.
America now tries intimidating a good portion of the world to do as its leaders wish them to do, but that will not build what China is building. It is a negative and unproductive way to run a great society, one motivated by looking back to a time when privileges were enjoyed with little effort.
China has the right long-term strategy.
Of course, America’s efforts at strong-arming everyone always run the risk of igniting war. It is difficult to see how the US could possibly benefit from that. It absolutely cannot win a conventional war with China. Every capital ship in the region would be sunk in a very brief time by China’s specialized precision missiles. The losses would be horrific, and the temptation to go nuclear would be great.
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A PERFECT STORM BREWING IN AMERICA? A MISMANAGED PANDEMIC – ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL TURMOIL – GREAT UNREST OVER SOCIAL INJUSTICE AND SEVERE ECONOMIC INEQUALITY – INCOMPETENT AND UNCARING GOVERNMENT – BUSY WITH THE BUSINESS OF HURTING AND DESTROYING OTHERS RATHER THAN FIXING ANYTHING – SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CORONAVIRUS AND THE FUTURE OF OUR SOCIETY – COMPARING ASIA TO THE WEST
John Chuckman
COMMENT: UNCERTAIN TIMES FOR AMERICA
World-record numbers of infections and deaths and a sudden new strong upsurge in them, both due to incompetent management of the nation’s affairs; associated massive economic and financial disorder with deliberately-induced trade wars and illegal sanctions magnifying the insecurity of the world’s economy; unhappy large-scale demonstrations across the nation over past and present injustices; and deteriorating relations with the world, including both friends and opponents – those about sum up America’s current situation.
All of this comes to an extremely polarized American society, one where no one of any conviction or belief can say anything without generating waves of hostile criticism and sarcasm. Technology has magnified the reach and impact of the most thoughtless and inconsequential views, the kind of views which many years ago might have been limited to a few schoolyard insults of scribbled graffiti. So traditionally straightforward a matter as wearing a protective mask has become weighed down in vicious arguments, name-calling, and even fistfights.
At the heart of many of the divisions in American society is the stark reality of just how frighteningly unequal it has become through reckless government policies around matters of taxation and debt and military spending, much resembling France in the 18th century.
The pandemic has highlighted that stark reality, as have the demonstrations over a long history of grave injustices. There is a palpable sense of the heartlessness of American society, its lack of empathy. And that sense is not mistaken. It is a society so dedicated to Social Darwinism that it does not have a national healthcare system and embraces guns and war almost as though they were religious experiences.
America’s government – all major parts of it - commits large resources and a great deal of time to such matters as maligning and attacking China or Russia or Iran and attempting to overthrow countries like Venezuela or Cuba or Syria, not focusing its attention on deadly serious problems of health and economics and its own civil society. It is almost a public confession of godawful government, government ready to dedicate resources to destroying others rather than fixing anything at home.
These are indeed uncertain times for America. The only certainty about the outcome is a great deal of unhappiness ahead. These events could well become the perfect storm for extreme civil disorder, civil war or revolutionary uprising. People who have been made to feel they have no stake or importance in society can become very desperate people.
I never imagined such conditions arising in America, a place that for the decades of my lifetime has pretty well floated along like a cloud, the occasional thunderstorm disturbing, but not seriously threatening, the stability.
This is a country that continued the pointless, truly vicious war in Vietnam for a decade, suffering only one period of civil strife over the rising death rate for American conscripts. It continued until it had killed 3 million Vietnamese, a million Cambodians, and created a landscape from hell with poisons and explosives left behind that would continue killing for decades. But, except for a brief time, the music never really died in America.
And it somewhat repeated the performance with the brutal, meaningless Neocon Wars in the Middle East. It has destroyed several well-run societies, killed a few million souls, created many millions of refugees, and continues killing today. Because there were no conscripts involved in the more recent wars, there was virtually no opposition to them in American society.
But the uncertainties around a rapidly-growing disease, rapidly-growing economic and financial turbulence, social disorder based on a long history of injustice, a terribly inept national government serving only the rich and influential, an entire world affected, and the insane insistence and waste of resources on the effort to have America dominate the planet, when it cannot even run its own society – these constitute an extraordinary set of circumstances, and I think no one can safely predict the outcome.
NOTES ON THE CORONAVIRUS AND OUR FUTURE SOCIETY
Some facts we have learned about the virus suggest the possibility we may not be able to control it completely without the tremendous economic cost of adopting new ways of living. Immunities to the virus, as in recovered patients, only last a limited time, a couple of months, and you can be infected more than once. The virus continues to mutate and, already in the recent past, produced a stronger strain.
Even if a good vaccine is discovered – and all major countries are working on candidates almost on a Manhattan Project-like basis – we have the unholy attitude against vaccination which has taken fierce hold in many Western countries, almost a kind of mass hysteria.
We see the same thing around so simple a measure as wearing a protective mask, which is intended to protect not just the wearer but others near him or her. Serious study has shown that wearing a mask is the single most effective measure a person can take, yet a great many actually view such a reasonable measure as a form of tyranny. It is a very revealing attitude concerning a society’s empathy and willingness to make just the slightest sacrifice for the common good.
It is notable that societies like China or Vietnam do not have those problems, and it is not a matter of their governments using armed force against citizens. It is simply a greater intuitive acceptance of social responsibility. I think it does suggest something about those likely to inherit the earth.
COMMENT: UNCERTAIN TIMES FOR AMERICA
World-record numbers of infections and deaths and a sudden new strong upsurge in them, both due to incompetent management of the nation’s affairs; associated massive economic and financial disorder with deliberately-induced trade wars and illegal sanctions magnifying the insecurity of the world’s economy; unhappy large-scale demonstrations across the nation over past and present injustices; and deteriorating relations with the world, including both friends and opponents – those about sum up America’s current situation.
All of this comes to an extremely polarized American society, one where no one of any conviction or belief can say anything without generating waves of hostile criticism and sarcasm. Technology has magnified the reach and impact of the most thoughtless and inconsequential views, the kind of views which many years ago might have been limited to a few schoolyard insults of scribbled graffiti. So traditionally straightforward a matter as wearing a protective mask has become weighed down in vicious arguments, name-calling, and even fistfights.
At the heart of many of the divisions in American society is the stark reality of just how frighteningly unequal it has become through reckless government policies around matters of taxation and debt and military spending, much resembling France in the 18th century.
The pandemic has highlighted that stark reality, as have the demonstrations over a long history of grave injustices. There is a palpable sense of the heartlessness of American society, its lack of empathy. And that sense is not mistaken. It is a society so dedicated to Social Darwinism that it does not have a national healthcare system and embraces guns and war almost as though they were religious experiences.
America’s government – all major parts of it - commits large resources and a great deal of time to such matters as maligning and attacking China or Russia or Iran and attempting to overthrow countries like Venezuela or Cuba or Syria, not focusing its attention on deadly serious problems of health and economics and its own civil society. It is almost a public confession of godawful government, government ready to dedicate resources to destroying others rather than fixing anything at home.
These are indeed uncertain times for America. The only certainty about the outcome is a great deal of unhappiness ahead. These events could well become the perfect storm for extreme civil disorder, civil war or revolutionary uprising. People who have been made to feel they have no stake or importance in society can become very desperate people.
I never imagined such conditions arising in America, a place that for the decades of my lifetime has pretty well floated along like a cloud, the occasional thunderstorm disturbing, but not seriously threatening, the stability.
This is a country that continued the pointless, truly vicious war in Vietnam for a decade, suffering only one period of civil strife over the rising death rate for American conscripts. It continued until it had killed 3 million Vietnamese, a million Cambodians, and created a landscape from hell with poisons and explosives left behind that would continue killing for decades. But, except for a brief time, the music never really died in America.
And it somewhat repeated the performance with the brutal, meaningless Neocon Wars in the Middle East. It has destroyed several well-run societies, killed a few million souls, created many millions of refugees, and continues killing today. Because there were no conscripts involved in the more recent wars, there was virtually no opposition to them in American society.
But the uncertainties around a rapidly-growing disease, rapidly-growing economic and financial turbulence, social disorder based on a long history of injustice, a terribly inept national government serving only the rich and influential, an entire world affected, and the insane insistence and waste of resources on the effort to have America dominate the planet, when it cannot even run its own society – these constitute an extraordinary set of circumstances, and I think no one can safely predict the outcome.
NOTES ON THE CORONAVIRUS AND OUR FUTURE SOCIETY
Some facts we have learned about the virus suggest the possibility we may not be able to control it completely without the tremendous economic cost of adopting new ways of living. Immunities to the virus, as in recovered patients, only last a limited time, a couple of months, and you can be infected more than once. The virus continues to mutate and, already in the recent past, produced a stronger strain.
Even if a good vaccine is discovered – and all major countries are working on candidates almost on a Manhattan Project-like basis – we have the unholy attitude against vaccination which has taken fierce hold in many Western countries, almost a kind of mass hysteria.
We see the same thing around so simple a measure as wearing a protective mask, which is intended to protect not just the wearer but others near him or her. Serious study has shown that wearing a mask is the single most effective measure a person can take, yet a great many actually view such a reasonable measure as a form of tyranny. It is a very revealing attitude concerning a society’s empathy and willingness to make just the slightest sacrifice for the common good.
It is notable that societies like China or Vietnam do not have those problems, and it is not a matter of their governments using armed force against citizens. It is simply a greater intuitive acceptance of social responsibility. I think it does suggest something about those likely to inherit the earth.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA AND WORLD DOMINATION – JOHN BOLTON AND OTHER AMERICAN “CREATURES OF THE NIGHT” – THE RECORD OF AMERICA’S PAST WITH FASCISM – A FEW NOTABLE EXAMPLES FROM THE 1930s – THE AMERICAN BUND AND AMERICAN EUGENICS LAWS – IBM AND OTHER CORPORATIONS COZY WITH THE NAZIS - PRESCOTT BUSH AND FRED TRUMP – LYNCHINGS AND ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT – “GOING FASCIST VOLUNTARILY” - THE HYBRID WAR AGAINST CHINA IS BECOMING FANATICAL AND HAS THE STINK OF PREJUDICE AND HATRED
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL BRENNER IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Impossible Dream”
The former national security adviser [John Bolton]reveals a national goal that is simple and blunt: American dominance of the world
__________________________
Response to a comment saying, “Clearly the US wants world domination”
Well, I think that just might be behind what has been adopted as an official slogan at the Pentagon: "full-spectrum dominace."
It is a frighteningly Nazi-like slogan, but it is official American policy well into the 21st century.
And how do so many “creatures of the night” come to power in America, as Bolton, Pompeo, Abrams, Grenell, and Trump?
They represent the very types, had they been born a little earlier and in Europe, who would have “worked towards the Fuhrer,” a common popular slogan in 1930s Germany.
That isn’t even the slightest exaggeration. Just the observation of someone who has been a lifelong student of history and biography.
It was the great American journalist and writer, William L. Shirer, who once remarked that perhaps America would be the first nation to go fascist voluntarily.
He too was not exaggerating. He was an exceptionally able observer who covered Hitler and the Nazis before the war for the Chicago Tribune.
There was the Bund movement in America, quite a large one, even with a kind of Hitler Youth group, indistinguishable in their uniforms from those in Germany. There were the American eugenics laws, which came before those in Germany and involuntarily sterilized many thousands of “unfit” Americans.
There, of course, was the KKK in its heyday, and lynchings were common enough still in the 1930s that Eleanor asked Franklin to do something about them, but he felt it was politically impossible. Few Americans today know that in parts of the South, a lynching in the town square was sometimes the occasion for family picnic gatherings.
There was the founder of Shirer’s own newspaper, “Colonel” Robert McCormick, an intensely right-wing figure. Henry Ford, who published an appalling book about the Jews and a man Hitler admired, keeping a photo of him in his chancellery office. The Rockefeller Foundation’s financial support for eugenics. The heads of many major American corporations who gave valuable assistance to Hitler’s government. IBM’s strategic alliance with the Nazi government notably contributed to the efficiency of the eventual work of the Holocaust. Personalities like public hero, Charles Lindbergh, and Wallis Simpson, a keen Hitler admirer, the woman who would marry the British King. Walt Disney used to send copies of his latest cartoons to Mussolini, who was very fond of them.
The current President’s father, Fred Trump, was an open advocate of racist and fascist views. He associated with the KKK in New York and refused renting apartments to black people in his buildings. Given some of his son’s godawful pronouncements and appointments, I think it would hard to say the President, Fred’s favorite son and heir, was not significantly influenced by him.
The father and grandfather of two American presidents, Prescott Bush, banker and later Senator, worked for Brown Brothers Harriman (another eminent American name), a firm which assisted the Nazi government’s financial arrangements through its relationship with Fritz Thyssen, German industrialist and important early Hitler supporter. Bush was on the boards of some Thyssen companies designed to move assets around for Hitler’s rearmament efforts in Germany.
There’s a rich vein of American history supporting the likes of John Bolton. And, while widely unknown, I think for many who do know, it is no more disturbing than statues of John C. Calhoun or Confederate leaders in the town square.
I also believe that a great deal of the motive force in the current vicious economic and psychological war against China reflects racial prejudice. It has become almost fanatical in character, giving off the stink of hatred, as in, “How could ‘they’ possibly compete with us without cheating and lying and stealing?”
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL BRENNER IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“The Impossible Dream”
The former national security adviser [John Bolton]reveals a national goal that is simple and blunt: American dominance of the world
__________________________
Response to a comment saying, “Clearly the US wants world domination”
Well, I think that just might be behind what has been adopted as an official slogan at the Pentagon: "full-spectrum dominace."
It is a frighteningly Nazi-like slogan, but it is official American policy well into the 21st century.
And how do so many “creatures of the night” come to power in America, as Bolton, Pompeo, Abrams, Grenell, and Trump?
They represent the very types, had they been born a little earlier and in Europe, who would have “worked towards the Fuhrer,” a common popular slogan in 1930s Germany.
That isn’t even the slightest exaggeration. Just the observation of someone who has been a lifelong student of history and biography.
It was the great American journalist and writer, William L. Shirer, who once remarked that perhaps America would be the first nation to go fascist voluntarily.
He too was not exaggerating. He was an exceptionally able observer who covered Hitler and the Nazis before the war for the Chicago Tribune.
There was the Bund movement in America, quite a large one, even with a kind of Hitler Youth group, indistinguishable in their uniforms from those in Germany. There were the American eugenics laws, which came before those in Germany and involuntarily sterilized many thousands of “unfit” Americans.
There, of course, was the KKK in its heyday, and lynchings were common enough still in the 1930s that Eleanor asked Franklin to do something about them, but he felt it was politically impossible. Few Americans today know that in parts of the South, a lynching in the town square was sometimes the occasion for family picnic gatherings.
There was the founder of Shirer’s own newspaper, “Colonel” Robert McCormick, an intensely right-wing figure. Henry Ford, who published an appalling book about the Jews and a man Hitler admired, keeping a photo of him in his chancellery office. The Rockefeller Foundation’s financial support for eugenics. The heads of many major American corporations who gave valuable assistance to Hitler’s government. IBM’s strategic alliance with the Nazi government notably contributed to the efficiency of the eventual work of the Holocaust. Personalities like public hero, Charles Lindbergh, and Wallis Simpson, a keen Hitler admirer, the woman who would marry the British King. Walt Disney used to send copies of his latest cartoons to Mussolini, who was very fond of them.
The current President’s father, Fred Trump, was an open advocate of racist and fascist views. He associated with the KKK in New York and refused renting apartments to black people in his buildings. Given some of his son’s godawful pronouncements and appointments, I think it would hard to say the President, Fred’s favorite son and heir, was not significantly influenced by him.
The father and grandfather of two American presidents, Prescott Bush, banker and later Senator, worked for Brown Brothers Harriman (another eminent American name), a firm which assisted the Nazi government’s financial arrangements through its relationship with Fritz Thyssen, German industrialist and important early Hitler supporter. Bush was on the boards of some Thyssen companies designed to move assets around for Hitler’s rearmament efforts in Germany.
There’s a rich vein of American history supporting the likes of John Bolton. And, while widely unknown, I think for many who do know, it is no more disturbing than statues of John C. Calhoun or Confederate leaders in the town square.
I also believe that a great deal of the motive force in the current vicious economic and psychological war against China reflects racial prejudice. It has become almost fanatical in character, giving off the stink of hatred, as in, “How could ‘they’ possibly compete with us without cheating and lying and stealing?”
Monday, July 13, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ARREST OF GHISLAINE MAXWELL – UNLIKELY THAT THE GREAT MYSTERY OF EPSTEIN’S OPERATION WILL EVER BE CLEARED UP – IT INVOLVES TOO MANY POWERFUL AND FAMOUS PEOPLE – AND IT ALMOST CERTAINLY INVOLVED AN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY – GHISLAINE LIKELY TO TRADE THE TAPES SHE HAS IN A PLEA BARGAIN – THAT WILL BE THE END OF IT BECAUSE EPSTEIN’S COPIES WILL CERTAINLY HAVE BEEN SEIZED AND DESTROYED AFTER HIS ARREST AND KILLING – IN RESPONSE TO ANOTHER COMMENT, SOME IMPORTANT WORDS ON ANOTHER GREAT MYSTERY, THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
‘Will Maxwell Sing?’ Video with Whitney Webb & Ari Ben-Menashe
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/09/watch-cn-live-will-maxwell-sing-with-whitney-webb-ari-ben-menashe/
It is all quite interesting, but it is all a huge mystery we not likely to get to the bottom of because of the big names of those associated.
As was said, why now? What is really going on? That perhaps is the greatest mystery.
It certainly isn’t a sudden burst of conscience in the Justice Department.
Ghislaine had been long associated with Epstein. Photographed and quoted many times with many witnesses to their relationship and crimes.
And I do agree with the observation made on the video that she was likely his superior. He played the role of a glorified chump.
Her connection through her father, Robert, to Israeli intelligence is central. Her father is said to have introduced Ghislaine and Epstein in 1991.Her father was given a big funeral in Israel, and a former Israeli Prime Minister said he was their most important spy.
I note Bill Clinton’s name rarely comes up in the corporate press in connection with this, but we know he was close to Epstein. I believe he flew on the “Lolita Express” 28 times according to logs.
Just some of the names involved by various reports: Ehud Barak, Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Bill Gates, Alan Dershowitz.
These are not the kinds of names the Justice Department would prosecute or even embarrass.
The entire island was wired for video, so none of the men involved could go anywhere with the young women without being photographed.
Ghislaine is said to have a copy of the set of videos recorded. That would certainly make a powerful piece of insurance against prosecution.
Maybe she’ll turn them over in a plea bargain, and that will be the end of the entire story. I’m sure Epstein’s copies of the tapes were seized and destroyed.
________________
Response to a comment raising the matter of the Kennedy assassination:
I was, for quite a while, years ago, a student of the assassination, having read most of the important books.
I had never believed the CIA officially was involved, only that a few rogue, lower-level people were, those working closely with the Cuban refugees and being General Ripper-style ferocious haters of all things communist, the matter of Cuba being central to the assassination.
But in light of an important document, I’ve changed my mind. Here is my discussion of the single most important assassination document the government ever released. They released it about at the end of the releases. Most of the releases were a waste of time. You wondered why they had ever bothered to hide them, but not this one. People have to have a little background to appreciate it, as I explain in my comment.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
I was also influenced by the important book, “Mary’s Mosaic.” Here is a brief discussion:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/john-chuckman-comment-a-new-book-on-cia-murders-of-western-leaders-plus-another-important-book-lead-to-my-revaluation-of-the-kennedy-assassination/
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
‘Will Maxwell Sing?’ Video with Whitney Webb & Ari Ben-Menashe
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/09/watch-cn-live-will-maxwell-sing-with-whitney-webb-ari-ben-menashe/
It is all quite interesting, but it is all a huge mystery we not likely to get to the bottom of because of the big names of those associated.
As was said, why now? What is really going on? That perhaps is the greatest mystery.
It certainly isn’t a sudden burst of conscience in the Justice Department.
Ghislaine had been long associated with Epstein. Photographed and quoted many times with many witnesses to their relationship and crimes.
And I do agree with the observation made on the video that she was likely his superior. He played the role of a glorified chump.
Her connection through her father, Robert, to Israeli intelligence is central. Her father is said to have introduced Ghislaine and Epstein in 1991.Her father was given a big funeral in Israel, and a former Israeli Prime Minister said he was their most important spy.
I note Bill Clinton’s name rarely comes up in the corporate press in connection with this, but we know he was close to Epstein. I believe he flew on the “Lolita Express” 28 times according to logs.
Just some of the names involved by various reports: Ehud Barak, Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Bill Gates, Alan Dershowitz.
These are not the kinds of names the Justice Department would prosecute or even embarrass.
The entire island was wired for video, so none of the men involved could go anywhere with the young women without being photographed.
Ghislaine is said to have a copy of the set of videos recorded. That would certainly make a powerful piece of insurance against prosecution.
Maybe she’ll turn them over in a plea bargain, and that will be the end of the entire story. I’m sure Epstein’s copies of the tapes were seized and destroyed.
________________
Response to a comment raising the matter of the Kennedy assassination:
I was, for quite a while, years ago, a student of the assassination, having read most of the important books.
I had never believed the CIA officially was involved, only that a few rogue, lower-level people were, those working closely with the Cuban refugees and being General Ripper-style ferocious haters of all things communist, the matter of Cuba being central to the assassination.
But in light of an important document, I’ve changed my mind. Here is my discussion of the single most important assassination document the government ever released. They released it about at the end of the releases. Most of the releases were a waste of time. You wondered why they had ever bothered to hide them, but not this one. People have to have a little background to appreciate it, as I explain in my comment.
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/
I was also influenced by the important book, “Mary’s Mosaic.” Here is a brief discussion:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/john-chuckman-comment-a-new-book-on-cia-murders-of-western-leaders-plus-another-important-book-lead-to-my-revaluation-of-the-kennedy-assassination/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP WANTS EXTRADITION OF EX-BRITISH SPY CHRISTOPHER STEELE - THE PROBLEM WITH AMERICA IS MUCH BIGGER THAN TRUMP’S MANY STUPIDITIES – THE SAME KINDS OF THINGS ARE DONE BY THE DEMOCRATS AND BY THE SECURITY AGENCIES AND BY THE MAJOR NEWS SERVICES – DONE JUST WITH LESS NOISY BELLOWING AND CRUDITY – THE ENTIRE AMERICAN POWER ESTABLISHMENT IS CORRUPT – THE PHONY RUSSIANS-AND-TALIBAN STORY, A STORY THAT IGNORES EVEN HOW INTELLIGENCE AGENTS WORK – THERESA MAY’S SALISBURY FAIRY TALE, THE SKRIPAL AFFAIR, A CONTRIVED FANTASY BY A DISHONEST AND SERVILE BRITISH PM TRYING TO PLEASE WASHINGTON – SOME EXCELLENT SKRIPAL LINKS
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump demands extradition of former MI6 officer Christopher Steele over Russia dossier”
'This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail' Trump tweeted on Saturday
Well, Trump almost never opens his mouth without saying something outlandish or dishonest or stupid.
But the problem with America is much, much bigger than that.
Because the same thing is true of the major Democrats and of the major security agencies and of the major news services.
It’s just they don’t all do it with such loud noises and rude words.
But they do the same kinds of things.
As the completely phony recent story about the Russians and the Taliban shows us. Only one of many such creations, including the “hacking” of the Democratic National Committee’s computers.
And of course, Christopher Steele, a sleazy ex-British spy in the business of creating such products as the Trump "dossier" for big fees, was paid for the work by Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
It is total corruption in America. Principles and ethics have been cast aside in the mad rush of the power establishment to serve the wealthy and maintain and expand an empire.
________________________
Response to a comment calling into question my characterization of the Taliban story as phony and saying I probably reject to Skripal attack too
It is laughable on its face that the Taliban would require bounties to kill Americans with whom they have been at war for 19 years.
And the story shows ignorance of how intelligence works.
Wire transfers?
My God, Afghanistan is swimming in US cash, cash from many things, including payoffs and bribes of every description, but especially opium, which the former Taliban government had banned, but the US invasion brought roaring back to the extent that street prices dropped and violence among American city drug dealers soared owing to efforts to maintain or grab turf.
Spies pay for things in untraceable cash, just as does the Mafia, a closely related kind of oganization.
This phony story very likely has its origin from someone in the Afghan government security services wanting to sink the deal between the Taliban and the US.
And if you don't understand by now, you never will, Putin is too clever and careful to ever have such an operation undertaken.
He is a remarkable statesman.
And Theresa May’s Salisbury fairy tale never happened. I’ve studied the matter, and there is not one bit of real evidence. Indeed, there are dozens of contradictions in the official story.
And where are the Skripals? You know, the pair found on a bench, either pretending to be sick or sick from what was most likely a fentanyl overdose? British officials turned them into victims of Russian intelligence supposedly using an exotic nerve agent, with absolutely no proof, and they have not been heard from again. Talk about disappearing people.
An extremely dishonest and servile PM trying to give American authorities something to make them happy.
Some good background on the Skripal Affair readers may enjoy:
https://russia-insider.com/en/bbcs-new-propaganda-film-about-salisbury-poisonings-pack-lies-aimed-russia/ri30680
https://www.anti-empire.com/buying-the-official-skripal-poisoning-story-requires-believing-40-absurd-or-implausible-claims-at-the-same-time/
https://fort-russ.com/2020/06/revealed-5-facts-bbcs-the-salisbury-poisonings-forgot-to-mention/
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
“Trump demands extradition of former MI6 officer Christopher Steele over Russia dossier”
'This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail' Trump tweeted on Saturday
Well, Trump almost never opens his mouth without saying something outlandish or dishonest or stupid.
But the problem with America is much, much bigger than that.
Because the same thing is true of the major Democrats and of the major security agencies and of the major news services.
It’s just they don’t all do it with such loud noises and rude words.
But they do the same kinds of things.
As the completely phony recent story about the Russians and the Taliban shows us. Only one of many such creations, including the “hacking” of the Democratic National Committee’s computers.
And of course, Christopher Steele, a sleazy ex-British spy in the business of creating such products as the Trump "dossier" for big fees, was paid for the work by Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
It is total corruption in America. Principles and ethics have been cast aside in the mad rush of the power establishment to serve the wealthy and maintain and expand an empire.
________________________
Response to a comment calling into question my characterization of the Taliban story as phony and saying I probably reject to Skripal attack too
It is laughable on its face that the Taliban would require bounties to kill Americans with whom they have been at war for 19 years.
And the story shows ignorance of how intelligence works.
Wire transfers?
My God, Afghanistan is swimming in US cash, cash from many things, including payoffs and bribes of every description, but especially opium, which the former Taliban government had banned, but the US invasion brought roaring back to the extent that street prices dropped and violence among American city drug dealers soared owing to efforts to maintain or grab turf.
Spies pay for things in untraceable cash, just as does the Mafia, a closely related kind of oganization.
This phony story very likely has its origin from someone in the Afghan government security services wanting to sink the deal between the Taliban and the US.
And if you don't understand by now, you never will, Putin is too clever and careful to ever have such an operation undertaken.
He is a remarkable statesman.
And Theresa May’s Salisbury fairy tale never happened. I’ve studied the matter, and there is not one bit of real evidence. Indeed, there are dozens of contradictions in the official story.
And where are the Skripals? You know, the pair found on a bench, either pretending to be sick or sick from what was most likely a fentanyl overdose? British officials turned them into victims of Russian intelligence supposedly using an exotic nerve agent, with absolutely no proof, and they have not been heard from again. Talk about disappearing people.
An extremely dishonest and servile PM trying to give American authorities something to make them happy.
Some good background on the Skripal Affair readers may enjoy:
https://russia-insider.com/en/bbcs-new-propaganda-film-about-salisbury-poisonings-pack-lies-aimed-russia/ri30680
https://www.anti-empire.com/buying-the-official-skripal-poisoning-story-requires-believing-40-absurd-or-implausible-claims-at-the-same-time/
https://fort-russ.com/2020/06/revealed-5-facts-bbcs-the-salisbury-poisonings-forgot-to-mention/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WE ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE TRAITS DESCRIBED IN MARY TRUMP’S BOOK ABOUT HER UNCLE, THE PRESIDENT – WE SEE AND HEAR THEM ACTED OUT DAILY BY THIS STRANGE MAN – WHAT DO THEY MEAN WHEN YOU ADD THEM UP?
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
I think we all are familiar with the traits and characteristics Mary Trump describes in her book.
They’ve been on display every day of her uncle’s time in office.
He always puts himself at the center of events, even when he has no contribution to make. He does this even with true experts, aggressively pitting uninformed views against expert ones.
It is the purest narcissism we’ve ever seen.
That he has little or no empathy for others we see in his constantly firing people, calling people vicious names, speaking badly of those who used to work for him, and willingness to hurt millions with his sanctions and threats even at a time of global medical emergency.
He knows very little about any subject, save manipulating people. He is a natural-born flim-flam man or con-artist.
He uses selected people like tools or props to suggest normality - his wife, his daughter, his son-in-law.
I do think what we see adds up to a psychopath, perhaps a low-grade one, not one who keeps mementos of dead victims, but a psychopath.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
I think we all are familiar with the traits and characteristics Mary Trump describes in her book.
They’ve been on display every day of her uncle’s time in office.
He always puts himself at the center of events, even when he has no contribution to make. He does this even with true experts, aggressively pitting uninformed views against expert ones.
It is the purest narcissism we’ve ever seen.
That he has little or no empathy for others we see in his constantly firing people, calling people vicious names, speaking badly of those who used to work for him, and willingness to hurt millions with his sanctions and threats even at a time of global medical emergency.
He knows very little about any subject, save manipulating people. He is a natural-born flim-flam man or con-artist.
He uses selected people like tools or props to suggest normality - his wife, his daughter, his son-in-law.
I do think what we see adds up to a psychopath, perhaps a low-grade one, not one who keeps mementos of dead victims, but a psychopath.
Tuesday, July 07, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WE DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR HISTORY’S VERDICT ON TRUMP – HISTORY CANNOT ADD A LOT – WE HAVE SEEN AND HEARD HIM IN THE RAW – HE ISN’T COMPLEX – HE IS OBVIOUS AND BRUTAL AND HE HAS FAILED AT NEARLY EVERYTHING HE HAS TRIED – HIS FOCUS THROUGH IT ALL HAS BEEN HIS OWN RE-ELECTION – BUT NOW IT SEEMS HE MAY EVEN FAIL AT THAT - CHANGES IN AMERICA’S STATURE IN THE WORLD
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
We don't need to wait for history's verdict on Trump.
Time I think cannot add much of importance to our knowledge of Trump, nor can it cast a mellowing light of complexities on him. We’ve seen and heard him in the raw, and he is not complex or subtle. He is obvious. And brutal.
He has failed at every important task. Virtually all of his energies have been focused on the narcissistic task of being re-elected, rather than on improving his country or the world, and it is beginning to appear, he will fail even at that.
The entire foreign policy of the United States in the Middle East has been bent and manipulated by his chasing after the support of some very wealthy and influential Americans. It is the kind of activity which has long plagued the country’s foreign policy, but Trump has taken the effort to grotesque new heights. He has destroyed peaceful, working arrangements and generated conflict where there needn’t have been any. He has shown contempt for the rule of law, again and again, and nowhere has he expanded peace and good order.
Traditional allies in Europe - Germany and France especially - are actually talking about a future without America. Unprecedented words. He has insulted them many times, actually calling some of them names in abusive phone calls, and he insists on telling them where they are allowed to buy their resources, their military gear, and how much more they should be contributing to support the United States.
His idea of America’s relationship with its allies resembles that of the legendary coal-mining town’s “company store” with its captive market of poor workers.
His efforts with China are almost pure destructiveness. You cannot make yourself richer by trying to impoverish others. And with the world on the edge of economic collapse, it is madness to assault its second-largest economy.
His illegal sanctions against many countries help choke-off still more of the world’s economic activity.
Sanctions also work towards the day when the dollar loses its privileged place, a day that will be very costly to America’s power and influence. Using the dollar as a weapon, as Trump has done, is destructive. You force your politics and ideology onto people only wanting a dependable medium of exchange and store of value. Resentments now are added to other existing incentives to replace the dollar.
A number of countries have developed new ways to carry on business without the dollar. They are of course less efficient, but people learn by doing. And now we have technology, that changer of all things, entering the picture. There are experiments in a number of countries around digital currency, including the concept of a gold-backed digital currency.
The United States has lost a great deal of its moral authority through efforts at coercion rather than leadership, through efforts at telling rather than showing, and through revelations of the many dark corners in its own society. Hypocrisy does not sit well with moral authority or respect. I’m not sure moral authority, much as with virginity, can ever be restored, but it is a certainty that it cannot by restored through the activities America pursues full-tilt.
Trump is one of those people who mistake fear for respect, and he works very hard at being feared. But people get tired of living in fear. It is not a creative force. I can only remember my favorite line from Franklin Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
No one with any decency insults people, as Trump has the Chinese, who were the first victims of a disease, calling them its cause. Trump not only displays sociopathic lack of empathy here, but genuine ignorance. Already in a couple of European countries and in Brazil, scientists studying drainage water have proved the coronavirus was present in November of 2019. Again, he does this for votes, not for any benefit to the United States or the world. Votes from some of the ugliest segments of American society.
His treatment of the world's great international organizations – WTO, UNESCO, ICC, WHO, UN, and others – promotes anarchy. But I suppose he sees that as a way to make room for the United States to step in to take their places. So, we are really talking about tyranny. The attacks also elevate hate, hate coming right from the lips of a President. And their purpose is to motivate the votes of those same ugly segments of American society, ones which have always resented the influence, or even the presence, of foreigners.
He has torn-up sound, working treaty after sound, working treaty, making the world a far more dangerous place. These destructive acts are accompanied by record expenditures for the military, a military, remember, which has fought only wars of imperial aggression since WWII. The blessings for humanity include a new family of nuclear weapons, some designed to be more “usable,” and a new Space Force to militarize one of the few areas of humanity’s international efforts not militarized.
Again, returning to the perilous state of the world’s economy, nothing is more wasteful and non-productive than huge military expenditures. You might as well shovel resources into a furnace or bury them in a pit. And, given all the stresses to be experienced yet through the weakened world economy, such weapons significantly increase the risk of war.
Trump’s record on COVID-19 is simply chaos. He’s actually hiding from the pandemic now, not talking about what is happening in the country. The world’s greatest number of deaths, 133,000 at this writing, exceeding past expectations, and the growth of the infection is now increasing as a result of careless re-openings encouraged by Trump. An earlier study by Columbia University had said about 54,000 more Americans will have died than if the President had acted earlier when he was given good information, but it may well prove more than that. He continues with the deadly example of never wearing a mask when sound research has proved it to be the single most effective preventative measure anyone can take. And he insists on holding political rallies with no social-distancing or masks, indulging childish fantasies about there being no threat.
Feel-good politics in the midst of a disease and economic crisis. But that is the nature of his constituency, shown also by their embrace of his nonsense about making a country in relative decline great again, doing so with no investment and no discipline and no hard work. Doing it just by attacking other countries and demanding they give back what they’ve “taken” with their competitiveness. America just needed to find the inspired leader to take on the job, and they have him now in Preacher Trump. It is religion, dangerous cultish religion, but America has a big population to which that appeals, perhaps something the world hasn’t understood until now.
So, re-election is valued even over people’s health, Trump believing that only his “game-show host” or “televangelist” style of campaigning can arouse his political base sufficiently.
Tell-all books by insiders abound with juicy details of his truly bizarre private behavior, with perhaps the best one coming along shortly from his niece, Mary Trump, a psychologist.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
We don't need to wait for history's verdict on Trump.
Time I think cannot add much of importance to our knowledge of Trump, nor can it cast a mellowing light of complexities on him. We’ve seen and heard him in the raw, and he is not complex or subtle. He is obvious. And brutal.
He has failed at every important task. Virtually all of his energies have been focused on the narcissistic task of being re-elected, rather than on improving his country or the world, and it is beginning to appear, he will fail even at that.
The entire foreign policy of the United States in the Middle East has been bent and manipulated by his chasing after the support of some very wealthy and influential Americans. It is the kind of activity which has long plagued the country’s foreign policy, but Trump has taken the effort to grotesque new heights. He has destroyed peaceful, working arrangements and generated conflict where there needn’t have been any. He has shown contempt for the rule of law, again and again, and nowhere has he expanded peace and good order.
Traditional allies in Europe - Germany and France especially - are actually talking about a future without America. Unprecedented words. He has insulted them many times, actually calling some of them names in abusive phone calls, and he insists on telling them where they are allowed to buy their resources, their military gear, and how much more they should be contributing to support the United States.
His idea of America’s relationship with its allies resembles that of the legendary coal-mining town’s “company store” with its captive market of poor workers.
His efforts with China are almost pure destructiveness. You cannot make yourself richer by trying to impoverish others. And with the world on the edge of economic collapse, it is madness to assault its second-largest economy.
His illegal sanctions against many countries help choke-off still more of the world’s economic activity.
Sanctions also work towards the day when the dollar loses its privileged place, a day that will be very costly to America’s power and influence. Using the dollar as a weapon, as Trump has done, is destructive. You force your politics and ideology onto people only wanting a dependable medium of exchange and store of value. Resentments now are added to other existing incentives to replace the dollar.
A number of countries have developed new ways to carry on business without the dollar. They are of course less efficient, but people learn by doing. And now we have technology, that changer of all things, entering the picture. There are experiments in a number of countries around digital currency, including the concept of a gold-backed digital currency.
The United States has lost a great deal of its moral authority through efforts at coercion rather than leadership, through efforts at telling rather than showing, and through revelations of the many dark corners in its own society. Hypocrisy does not sit well with moral authority or respect. I’m not sure moral authority, much as with virginity, can ever be restored, but it is a certainty that it cannot by restored through the activities America pursues full-tilt.
Trump is one of those people who mistake fear for respect, and he works very hard at being feared. But people get tired of living in fear. It is not a creative force. I can only remember my favorite line from Franklin Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
No one with any decency insults people, as Trump has the Chinese, who were the first victims of a disease, calling them its cause. Trump not only displays sociopathic lack of empathy here, but genuine ignorance. Already in a couple of European countries and in Brazil, scientists studying drainage water have proved the coronavirus was present in November of 2019. Again, he does this for votes, not for any benefit to the United States or the world. Votes from some of the ugliest segments of American society.
His treatment of the world's great international organizations – WTO, UNESCO, ICC, WHO, UN, and others – promotes anarchy. But I suppose he sees that as a way to make room for the United States to step in to take their places. So, we are really talking about tyranny. The attacks also elevate hate, hate coming right from the lips of a President. And their purpose is to motivate the votes of those same ugly segments of American society, ones which have always resented the influence, or even the presence, of foreigners.
He has torn-up sound, working treaty after sound, working treaty, making the world a far more dangerous place. These destructive acts are accompanied by record expenditures for the military, a military, remember, which has fought only wars of imperial aggression since WWII. The blessings for humanity include a new family of nuclear weapons, some designed to be more “usable,” and a new Space Force to militarize one of the few areas of humanity’s international efforts not militarized.
Again, returning to the perilous state of the world’s economy, nothing is more wasteful and non-productive than huge military expenditures. You might as well shovel resources into a furnace or bury them in a pit. And, given all the stresses to be experienced yet through the weakened world economy, such weapons significantly increase the risk of war.
Trump’s record on COVID-19 is simply chaos. He’s actually hiding from the pandemic now, not talking about what is happening in the country. The world’s greatest number of deaths, 133,000 at this writing, exceeding past expectations, and the growth of the infection is now increasing as a result of careless re-openings encouraged by Trump. An earlier study by Columbia University had said about 54,000 more Americans will have died than if the President had acted earlier when he was given good information, but it may well prove more than that. He continues with the deadly example of never wearing a mask when sound research has proved it to be the single most effective preventative measure anyone can take. And he insists on holding political rallies with no social-distancing or masks, indulging childish fantasies about there being no threat.
Feel-good politics in the midst of a disease and economic crisis. But that is the nature of his constituency, shown also by their embrace of his nonsense about making a country in relative decline great again, doing so with no investment and no discipline and no hard work. Doing it just by attacking other countries and demanding they give back what they’ve “taken” with their competitiveness. America just needed to find the inspired leader to take on the job, and they have him now in Preacher Trump. It is religion, dangerous cultish religion, but America has a big population to which that appeals, perhaps something the world hasn’t understood until now.
So, re-election is valued even over people’s health, Trump believing that only his “game-show host” or “televangelist” style of campaigning can arouse his political base sufficiently.
Tell-all books by insiders abound with juicy details of his truly bizarre private behavior, with perhaps the best one coming along shortly from his niece, Mary Trump, a psychologist.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE EQUALITY OF NATIONS – AMERICA’S FIERCE OPPOSITION TO THE PRINCIPLE – THE CASES OF RUSSIA AND CHINA AND IRAN – I BELIEVE THE CORONAVIRUS-INDUCED DEPRESSION WILL LIKELY BECOME A WATERSHED EVENT TOWARDS MAJOR CHANGES IN THE WORLD – SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT AN AMUSING IMAGE FROM TRUMP’S JULY-THE-FOURTH RALLY AT THE BASE OF MOUNT RUSHMORE, AN IMAGE LOADED WITH THE CONTRADICTIONS OF AMERICAN SOCIETY
John Chuckman
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
Embracing the Equality of Nations
The decline of the West should come as no surprise, yet the U.S. still wages a ferocious fight against the prospect of equality among nations.
"But it is inarguably the case that the U.S. stands alone in waging so ferocious a fight against the prospect of equality among nations."
I don't agree with all the words of Patrick Lawrence's article, but it contains some fine insights, and that is one of them.
I think of the way Putin in all his talks, speaks of the "partners," and I like that very much. No politician in America would speak that way. Not one.
Russia is an ancient state, roughly a thousand years old, although not nearly as old as the civilizational states of Persia and China, yet America has contempt for them all. And I think “contempt” is the right word.
None of these three states is guilty of any aggression or threat today. They all just want to go about their business, but the United States is determined not to let them. The Russia we see today is a Russia America would have been amazed by had it emerged from communism in the 1960s and allowed enterprises and business to flourish and demonstrated no inclination to threaten anyone, only to defend itself, and with a highly intelligent leader always ready to strike a deal on any matter of concern.
But is America amazed? No, quite the opposite, it is filled with hatreds and takes every opportunity to undermine Russia.
China I regard as one of the miracles of my lifetime. The changes, over, say, fifty years, are stunning. China also threatens no one, and China also is ready to do business with anyone. Even though it is a nuclear power, China keeps a minimal arsenal, about one-twentieth that of the United States so as to not suggest an effort to dominate and just sufficient to ward off a surprise attack. Like Russia, it is developing many defensive weapons, such as powerful anti-ship missiles to protect its huge coast from American armadas. China also has a truly remarkable leader in Xi, its wonderful Silk Road Project being his initiative.
But does America regard China as a miracle and take full advantage to build the strongest and most mutually beneficial connections? No, again now it is the opposite, hostility and resentment, resentment over China’s competitiveness. The former Maoists have proven superior at what were supposed to America’s key abilities, innovating and building things to serve the world. Most well-informed analysts expect China to emerge as the world’s leading economy within not many years.
Iran, since its revolution, has been constantly plagued by the United States, which encouraged the hideous Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s and saw to it that Saddam had enough poison gas weapons to even the odds with Iran’s much larger population. And Saddam used them on tens of thousands. By rights the United States should have been charged with a grave war crime, but it wasn’t, as it never is in its countless aggressions, owing to its financial power and influence. Since then, Iran has simply not been allowed to develop normally. It has been under constant harassment and abuse from the United States, despite the fact that modern Iran has attacked no one. But it has managed by skill and intelligence to develop missiles with pin-point accuracy which make the United States think twice about attacking. Allowed to flourish peacefully, I believe Iran, too, would amaze us.
Why is America so hateful towards Iran? Simply because its size – a population the size of Germany’s - and oil wealth make it the natural hegemon for the region, a position Israel arrogantly regards as its own by virtue of its American connection and armaments. Iran has never threatened Israel, never attacked Israel, and all experts agree that its nuclear program was never about weapons.
In all three cases, it is America which leads the charge. The Europeans go along because they are traditional allies and they are under virtual occupation, but with no great enthusiasm. Again, America’s financial power serves as a club ready to be used against them if they do step out of line.
I do believe that the coronavirus-induced depression is going to become a watershed event towards major change, the United States having shown no leadership of any kind but only making constant demands and threats. It has also lost immense moral authority, having many dark aspects of its society revealed.
_____________________
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/06/patrick-lawrence-embracing-the-equality-of-nations/
I just love that image selected for the article. It contains so many of America’s contradictions and even reminds me a little of the old Mad Magazine.
There’s the President and his wife, people who are husband in wife in name only according to many witnesses, standing much like the figures on top of an expensive wedding cake.
Both with their showboat Patriotic salutes during the anthem being played, of course, by a military band.
A President who avoided military service during a war through a flimsy excuse and a man whose whole career is built on devious manipulations of taxes and debts and reportedly even the odd bit of help from a Mafia.
An altogether shabby man dressed in extremely expensive clothes, as he always is, with one of his almost laughable red “power neckties.”
His wife of course is wearing an expensive dress, although this one looks to have been selected less for its haute couture than a suggestion of down-hominess, considering the nature of the crowd and the location in the Midwest.
The stage for their performance sits at the base of Mount Rushmore, a monument built on someone else’s land, a Sioux tribe.
Lots and lots of flags.
It does look like a Disneyland tableau.
COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PATRICK LAWRENCE IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
Embracing the Equality of Nations
The decline of the West should come as no surprise, yet the U.S. still wages a ferocious fight against the prospect of equality among nations.
"But it is inarguably the case that the U.S. stands alone in waging so ferocious a fight against the prospect of equality among nations."
I don't agree with all the words of Patrick Lawrence's article, but it contains some fine insights, and that is one of them.
I think of the way Putin in all his talks, speaks of the "partners," and I like that very much. No politician in America would speak that way. Not one.
Russia is an ancient state, roughly a thousand years old, although not nearly as old as the civilizational states of Persia and China, yet America has contempt for them all. And I think “contempt” is the right word.
None of these three states is guilty of any aggression or threat today. They all just want to go about their business, but the United States is determined not to let them. The Russia we see today is a Russia America would have been amazed by had it emerged from communism in the 1960s and allowed enterprises and business to flourish and demonstrated no inclination to threaten anyone, only to defend itself, and with a highly intelligent leader always ready to strike a deal on any matter of concern.
But is America amazed? No, quite the opposite, it is filled with hatreds and takes every opportunity to undermine Russia.
China I regard as one of the miracles of my lifetime. The changes, over, say, fifty years, are stunning. China also threatens no one, and China also is ready to do business with anyone. Even though it is a nuclear power, China keeps a minimal arsenal, about one-twentieth that of the United States so as to not suggest an effort to dominate and just sufficient to ward off a surprise attack. Like Russia, it is developing many defensive weapons, such as powerful anti-ship missiles to protect its huge coast from American armadas. China also has a truly remarkable leader in Xi, its wonderful Silk Road Project being his initiative.
But does America regard China as a miracle and take full advantage to build the strongest and most mutually beneficial connections? No, again now it is the opposite, hostility and resentment, resentment over China’s competitiveness. The former Maoists have proven superior at what were supposed to America’s key abilities, innovating and building things to serve the world. Most well-informed analysts expect China to emerge as the world’s leading economy within not many years.
Iran, since its revolution, has been constantly plagued by the United States, which encouraged the hideous Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s and saw to it that Saddam had enough poison gas weapons to even the odds with Iran’s much larger population. And Saddam used them on tens of thousands. By rights the United States should have been charged with a grave war crime, but it wasn’t, as it never is in its countless aggressions, owing to its financial power and influence. Since then, Iran has simply not been allowed to develop normally. It has been under constant harassment and abuse from the United States, despite the fact that modern Iran has attacked no one. But it has managed by skill and intelligence to develop missiles with pin-point accuracy which make the United States think twice about attacking. Allowed to flourish peacefully, I believe Iran, too, would amaze us.
Why is America so hateful towards Iran? Simply because its size – a population the size of Germany’s - and oil wealth make it the natural hegemon for the region, a position Israel arrogantly regards as its own by virtue of its American connection and armaments. Iran has never threatened Israel, never attacked Israel, and all experts agree that its nuclear program was never about weapons.
In all three cases, it is America which leads the charge. The Europeans go along because they are traditional allies and they are under virtual occupation, but with no great enthusiasm. Again, America’s financial power serves as a club ready to be used against them if they do step out of line.
I do believe that the coronavirus-induced depression is going to become a watershed event towards major change, the United States having shown no leadership of any kind but only making constant demands and threats. It has also lost immense moral authority, having many dark aspects of its society revealed.
_____________________
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/06/patrick-lawrence-embracing-the-equality-of-nations/
I just love that image selected for the article. It contains so many of America’s contradictions and even reminds me a little of the old Mad Magazine.
There’s the President and his wife, people who are husband in wife in name only according to many witnesses, standing much like the figures on top of an expensive wedding cake.
Both with their showboat Patriotic salutes during the anthem being played, of course, by a military band.
A President who avoided military service during a war through a flimsy excuse and a man whose whole career is built on devious manipulations of taxes and debts and reportedly even the odd bit of help from a Mafia.
An altogether shabby man dressed in extremely expensive clothes, as he always is, with one of his almost laughable red “power neckties.”
His wife of course is wearing an expensive dress, although this one looks to have been selected less for its haute couture than a suggestion of down-hominess, considering the nature of the crowd and the location in the Midwest.
The stage for their performance sits at the base of Mount Rushmore, a monument built on someone else’s land, a Sioux tribe.
Lots and lots of flags.
It does look like a Disneyland tableau.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: EPSTEIN AND HIS FRIEND GHISLAINE MAXWELL, DAUGHTER OF THE LATE CROOKED PRESS BARON ROBERT MAXWELL WHO WAS SAID TO HAVE BEEN AN IMPORTANT SPY FOR ISRAEL – SOME RECENT FINDINGS IN THE CASE – AN INDUSTRIAL-SCALE HONEY-TRAP ON EPSTEIN’S ISLAND AND THE QUESTION OF FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE – NEW YORK PROSECUTORS FIND VERY LARGE UNEXPLAINED MONEY TRANSFERS BETWEEN BANK ACCOUNTS OF EPSTEIN AND GHISLAINE – EPSTEIN’S WEALTH NEVER EXPLAINED – HE DID NOT WORK AND WAS NOT A FINANCIER - EPSTEIN’S DEATH WAS MURDER – LINK TO AN INTERESTING ARTICLE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
Many Epstein victims in the UK yet to come forward, US fund lawyer says
"the disgraced American financier killed himself before facing trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges"
There is no factual basis for that statement.
The security videos mysteriously ceased working. The guards "fell asleep" so the required regular checks did not occur.
The broken bones in Epstein’s neck suggest a powerful set of hands.
And the high-security institution uses only paper sheets which cannot be used to hang yourself.
Plus, Epstein had no reason to kill himself, still having plenty of money and highly-placed friends.
The official claim stinks almost as badly as Theresa May’s fairy tale about Sergei Skripal and Russian nerve agent.
________________
Response to a comment saying, “Latest rumours are suggesting that the paedo-ring was actually an Israeli sponsored honey-trap”
Several good analysts familiar with intelligence services have suggested that.
Remember, Ghislaine’s father, Robert Maxwell, the crooked press baron, was himself an important spy for Israel according to Israeli sources. And it is believed that Epstein and Ghislaine were introduced by her father just before his death in 1991. They remained close friends until Epstein’s death in 2019.
Also, very large amounts of money were involved here, many millions. Epstein is often loosely referred to as a financier, but he had no known work in the field. His money is a complete mystery.
We have just learned from the investigations of New York prosecutors that tens of millions of dollars have been discovered going back and forth between Epstein’s bank accounts and Ghislaine’s.
There is no clear reason why that was done. She is said to have had fifteen bank accounts, and in a number of countries.
The entire island was wired for video.
Couples could go nowhere they weren’t photographed.
It was an industrial-scale honey-trap.
Ghislaine was said by some earlier to have all the videos of the rich and famous making out with young girls. If so, you would think that that would provide some powerful insurance against prosecution.
I note in the news today, officials are taking no chances with the just-arrested Ghislaine. Instead of being sent to the same facility where Epstein was killed, she has been sent elsewhere. Ghislaine’s entire history of avoiding prosecution is itself a source of mystery. There are many witnesses from their earliest days tying them together in the work of using young girls.
Here is an interesting article, giving insight into some recent political developments in the case.
https://www.pravdareport.com/society/144734-epstein_scandal/
And here are some interesting facts and speculations by a very good analyst:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/07/09/judgement-day-for-ghislaine-maxwell-finally-arrives-or-maybe-not/
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
Many Epstein victims in the UK yet to come forward, US fund lawyer says
"the disgraced American financier killed himself before facing trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges"
There is no factual basis for that statement.
The security videos mysteriously ceased working. The guards "fell asleep" so the required regular checks did not occur.
The broken bones in Epstein’s neck suggest a powerful set of hands.
And the high-security institution uses only paper sheets which cannot be used to hang yourself.
Plus, Epstein had no reason to kill himself, still having plenty of money and highly-placed friends.
The official claim stinks almost as badly as Theresa May’s fairy tale about Sergei Skripal and Russian nerve agent.
________________
Response to a comment saying, “Latest rumours are suggesting that the paedo-ring was actually an Israeli sponsored honey-trap”
Several good analysts familiar with intelligence services have suggested that.
Remember, Ghislaine’s father, Robert Maxwell, the crooked press baron, was himself an important spy for Israel according to Israeli sources. And it is believed that Epstein and Ghislaine were introduced by her father just before his death in 1991. They remained close friends until Epstein’s death in 2019.
Also, very large amounts of money were involved here, many millions. Epstein is often loosely referred to as a financier, but he had no known work in the field. His money is a complete mystery.
We have just learned from the investigations of New York prosecutors that tens of millions of dollars have been discovered going back and forth between Epstein’s bank accounts and Ghislaine’s.
There is no clear reason why that was done. She is said to have had fifteen bank accounts, and in a number of countries.
The entire island was wired for video.
Couples could go nowhere they weren’t photographed.
It was an industrial-scale honey-trap.
Ghislaine was said by some earlier to have all the videos of the rich and famous making out with young girls. If so, you would think that that would provide some powerful insurance against prosecution.
I note in the news today, officials are taking no chances with the just-arrested Ghislaine. Instead of being sent to the same facility where Epstein was killed, she has been sent elsewhere. Ghislaine’s entire history of avoiding prosecution is itself a source of mystery. There are many witnesses from their earliest days tying them together in the work of using young girls.
Here is an interesting article, giving insight into some recent political developments in the case.
https://www.pravdareport.com/society/144734-epstein_scandal/
And here are some interesting facts and speculations by a very good analyst:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/07/09/judgement-day-for-ghislaine-maxwell-finally-arrives-or-maybe-not/
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE MISTAKEN NOTION THAT PUTIN HAS BEEN MADE “PRESIDENT FOR LIFE” IN RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES – THE IMMENSE IMPORTANCE OF PUTIN FOR RUSSIANS IS NOT APPRECIATED BY OUTSIDERS – THE POST-SOVIET DEPRESSION HE PULLED THEM OUT OF – PUTIN’S IMPORTANCE FOR RUSSIANS RESEMBLES THAT OF FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT FOR AMERICANS IN THE !930s – HIS ROLE IN RUSSIAN INFRASTRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT AND GIVING RUSSIANS NEW PRIDE
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
Response to a comment below, saying, “The Russians need to think about "President for Life" thing”
I’ve read that notion repeated by others.
But it is simply incorrect.
He does not become President for Life.
He is allowed to run in the next several elections, something he would otherwise not have been able to do.
Russians think of Putin the way Americans thought about FDR in the 1930s and 1940s, whom they elected an unprecedented four times. FDR was a remarkable leader who came along at a time of great national need, and just so Putin.
Putin pulled Russia out of a terrible depression after the Soviet Union’s collapse, a depression few people in North America know anything about.
He’s given Russians new pride, too, emphasizing Russia’s heroic efforts to defeat Hitler. 27 million Soviets died doing that, and the overwhelming majority of all Germans killed in the war were killed by Soviets, about 75%.
And new pride with some truly magnificent churches built. The Soviets had banned religion, but Russians are religious people.
Also pride about successes with remarkable new weapons like the world’s finest anti-aircraft and anti-missile missiles, new-concept hypersonic attack missiles, the “black hole,” almost undetectable, submarines, and advanced new radars and electronic countermeasures. Yet Russia spends about one-tenth of what the US spends and one-twentieth of what NATO in total spends. It focuses expenditures on what is necessary to defend Russia, not on trying to compete with America’s sprawling global presence.
And pride in agriculture. Russia now exports huge volumes of grain. The Soviets used to import. And Putin has smartly emphasized GM-free grains giving Russia a large, specialized market.
He’s also built important new infrastructure, from great bridges and rail lines to airports and spaceports and highways. And he has made the application of artificial intelligence a major national project.
Adroit efforts in foreign affairs have restored at least some of the sense of international importance Russia once enjoyed. The success can only be appreciated fully by understanding that the United States works hard to create barriers and difficulties at every turn, Russia remaining a focus of its resentments despite having left communism far behind. The American-financed coup in Ukraine, intended as a major disturbance on Russia’s border, is just one example of meddling – with its many terrible consequences from civil war and secession to the shooting-down of an airliner and many Ukrainians fleeing for jobs elsewhere and a new prominence for neo-Nazi parties in the struggling country.
And Russia has taken big new initiatives in Asia and in its own Northern development, initiatives with great promise for the future.
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
Response to a comment below, saying, “The Russians need to think about "President for Life" thing”
I’ve read that notion repeated by others.
But it is simply incorrect.
He does not become President for Life.
He is allowed to run in the next several elections, something he would otherwise not have been able to do.
Russians think of Putin the way Americans thought about FDR in the 1930s and 1940s, whom they elected an unprecedented four times. FDR was a remarkable leader who came along at a time of great national need, and just so Putin.
Putin pulled Russia out of a terrible depression after the Soviet Union’s collapse, a depression few people in North America know anything about.
He’s given Russians new pride, too, emphasizing Russia’s heroic efforts to defeat Hitler. 27 million Soviets died doing that, and the overwhelming majority of all Germans killed in the war were killed by Soviets, about 75%.
And new pride with some truly magnificent churches built. The Soviets had banned religion, but Russians are religious people.
Also pride about successes with remarkable new weapons like the world’s finest anti-aircraft and anti-missile missiles, new-concept hypersonic attack missiles, the “black hole,” almost undetectable, submarines, and advanced new radars and electronic countermeasures. Yet Russia spends about one-tenth of what the US spends and one-twentieth of what NATO in total spends. It focuses expenditures on what is necessary to defend Russia, not on trying to compete with America’s sprawling global presence.
And pride in agriculture. Russia now exports huge volumes of grain. The Soviets used to import. And Putin has smartly emphasized GM-free grains giving Russia a large, specialized market.
He’s also built important new infrastructure, from great bridges and rail lines to airports and spaceports and highways. And he has made the application of artificial intelligence a major national project.
Adroit efforts in foreign affairs have restored at least some of the sense of international importance Russia once enjoyed. The success can only be appreciated fully by understanding that the United States works hard to create barriers and difficulties at every turn, Russia remaining a focus of its resentments despite having left communism far behind. The American-financed coup in Ukraine, intended as a major disturbance on Russia’s border, is just one example of meddling – with its many terrible consequences from civil war and secession to the shooting-down of an airliner and many Ukrainians fleeing for jobs elsewhere and a new prominence for neo-Nazi parties in the struggling country.
And Russia has taken big new initiatives in Asia and in its own Northern development, initiatives with great promise for the future.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CANADA’S AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA BUTTS INTO RUSSIA’S INTERNAL AFFAIRS – WHY TRUDEAU WILL DO ANYTHING FOR A CHEAP HEADLINE WHICH MAKES SOME CANADIANS THINK HE IS A CHAMPION OF RIGHTS AND LIBERALISM IN THE WORLD, WHICH IS ANYTHING BUT THE TRUTH – TRUDEAU’S POLITICAL SITUATION AND HIS TOTAL DEFERENCE TO THE UNITED STATES IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CHRIS BROWN IN CBC NEWS
“Putin allies accuse Canada of interfering with Russia's gay marriage vote”
“Gay marriage ban prompts warning from Canadian ambassador to Russia — and calls for her head”
This is dishonest and very hypocritical stuff from Canada's ambassador to Russia.
I completely support gay marriage, but others in the world do not, including many states we call friends or allies. Canada itself did not offer this freedom to its citizens until 2005. And it wasn’t until 2015 that all fifty states in America enjoyed it.
It is never an ambassador's place to speak on internal matters in a country. Never. I'm sure even Justin Trudeau knows that fundamental principle, but he is playing political games with this for audiences back home.
After all, his last election effort was disastrous, and he holds office with just under one-third of total votes. His recent determined and costly effort to obtain the prestige of a temporary UN Security Council seat was decisively and embarrassingly turned down. Canada simply no longer enjoys the international reputation it once had.
When is the last time you heard the Russian Ambassador to Canada speak about Indigenous affairs in the country, which include many shameful matters?
And while we have this cheap shot about Russia – which just happens to be a big target for Washington these days, and if there is anything Trudeau has proven good at, it is pleasing Washington – where is Canada on a matter as destructive as trying to overthrow the twice-elected government of Venezuela through starving and depriving millions?
Why, Canada Chairs the CIA-front, the Lima Group, promoting the effort, and Canada echoes every dishonest claim about Venezuela coming from Washington. Very admirable.
Where is Canada on the bloody horrors of Saudi Arabia, including a war on the poor people of Yemen, record numbers of beheadings inside Saudi Arabia, support for the terrorists in Syria, and a clear case of grisly political murder recorded by Turkish Intelligence for all to hear?
Why, it is busy selling billions of dollars worth of armored cars to Saudi Arabia. After all, Saudi Arabia is a much-valued Trump associate.
And where is Canada's voice about America's grim efforts in Cuba now, in Bolivia, in Somalia, in Iran, in Syria, in Iraq, in Palestine, and in other lands?
Nowhere to be heard. Ever. And we are talking about a lot of damage deliberately done to tens of millions of people. Plus, a good deal of downright theft.
But, boy, we sure have time for our ambassador to make a cheap headline with an inappropriate comment about Russia’s internal affairs.
Is Trudeau trying to wreck relations there, just as he has done with China at the behest of Washington?
More likely, he is just trying to win a few political points with voters back home who regard him as liberal. In foreign affairs, he is anything but.
And, of course, anything said by any ally against Russia these days is treated as worthy of a gold star by the shabby men in Washington to whom Trudeau consistently defers.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CHRIS BROWN IN CBC NEWS
“Putin allies accuse Canada of interfering with Russia's gay marriage vote”
“Gay marriage ban prompts warning from Canadian ambassador to Russia — and calls for her head”
This is dishonest and very hypocritical stuff from Canada's ambassador to Russia.
I completely support gay marriage, but others in the world do not, including many states we call friends or allies. Canada itself did not offer this freedom to its citizens until 2005. And it wasn’t until 2015 that all fifty states in America enjoyed it.
It is never an ambassador's place to speak on internal matters in a country. Never. I'm sure even Justin Trudeau knows that fundamental principle, but he is playing political games with this for audiences back home.
After all, his last election effort was disastrous, and he holds office with just under one-third of total votes. His recent determined and costly effort to obtain the prestige of a temporary UN Security Council seat was decisively and embarrassingly turned down. Canada simply no longer enjoys the international reputation it once had.
When is the last time you heard the Russian Ambassador to Canada speak about Indigenous affairs in the country, which include many shameful matters?
And while we have this cheap shot about Russia – which just happens to be a big target for Washington these days, and if there is anything Trudeau has proven good at, it is pleasing Washington – where is Canada on a matter as destructive as trying to overthrow the twice-elected government of Venezuela through starving and depriving millions?
Why, Canada Chairs the CIA-front, the Lima Group, promoting the effort, and Canada echoes every dishonest claim about Venezuela coming from Washington. Very admirable.
Where is Canada on the bloody horrors of Saudi Arabia, including a war on the poor people of Yemen, record numbers of beheadings inside Saudi Arabia, support for the terrorists in Syria, and a clear case of grisly political murder recorded by Turkish Intelligence for all to hear?
Why, it is busy selling billions of dollars worth of armored cars to Saudi Arabia. After all, Saudi Arabia is a much-valued Trump associate.
And where is Canada's voice about America's grim efforts in Cuba now, in Bolivia, in Somalia, in Iran, in Syria, in Iraq, in Palestine, and in other lands?
Nowhere to be heard. Ever. And we are talking about a lot of damage deliberately done to tens of millions of people. Plus, a good deal of downright theft.
But, boy, we sure have time for our ambassador to make a cheap headline with an inappropriate comment about Russia’s internal affairs.
Is Trudeau trying to wreck relations there, just as he has done with China at the behest of Washington?
More likely, he is just trying to win a few political points with voters back home who regard him as liberal. In foreign affairs, he is anything but.
And, of course, anything said by any ally against Russia these days is treated as worthy of a gold star by the shabby men in Washington to whom Trudeau consistently defers.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE MINDLESS AMERICAN NOTION OF “DECOUPLING WITH CHINA” – AMERICA’S CONCERN WITH DOMINANCE RATHER THAN SOUND NATIONAL POLICY – WHICH IS PRECISELY WHY AMERICA TODAY IS SO DANGEROUS
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS T V
"Decoupling from China will be detrimental to US" [Decoupling is the notion that the US should sever all relations with China]
Of course, it will.
There are real and mutually-beneficial reasons for all those many relationships.
Take them away, and you impoverish everyone.
It is hard to believe sometimes how backward the United States can be in some of its thinking.
But the people running America today are dedicated only to dominance, not to rational policy.
Which is precisely why they are so dangerous.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS T V
"Decoupling from China will be detrimental to US" [Decoupling is the notion that the US should sever all relations with China]
Of course, it will.
There are real and mutually-beneficial reasons for all those many relationships.
Take them away, and you impoverish everyone.
It is hard to believe sometimes how backward the United States can be in some of its thinking.
But the people running America today are dedicated only to dominance, not to rational policy.
Which is precisely why they are so dangerous.
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: JEFFERSON AND THE SLAVE REVOLT IN HAITI – JEFFERSON ACTUALLY ASSISTED NAPOLEON IN TRYING TO PUT IT DOWN – JEFFERSON HATED THE NOTION OF A BLACK REPUBLIC OF FORMER-SLAVES – IT OFFENDED HIS SENSE OF THE ESTABLISHED ORDER – JEFFERSON THE RACIST AND SEXUAL ABUSER – WHY NAPOLEON FAILED IN SUPPRESSING THE REVOLT
John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARLENE DAUT IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“UPRISING: When France Extorted Haiti – The Greatest Heist in History
“There’s never been a more clear-cut case for reparations”
When Napoleon tried to crush the Haitian revolt, he found a willing helper in President Thomas Jefferson who extended the French considerable assistance.
Jefferson was very much a racist, as he pretty much confessed in his book, “Notes on Virginia,” and in his letters.
He could not accept the notion of a black republic of ex-slaves being created.
It seemed to him like a threat to the established order, an order which very much included Jefferson’s more than 200 slaves as well as his arrangement with one of them, a young girl serving as his mistress starting at age of thirteen.
He saw himself as a great man of leisure, like an English noble.
Napoleon’s effort in Haiti was a disaster, largely because tropical disease decimated the army of 50,000 he sent.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARLENE DAUT IN CONSORTIUM NEWS
“UPRISING: When France Extorted Haiti – The Greatest Heist in History
“There’s never been a more clear-cut case for reparations”
When Napoleon tried to crush the Haitian revolt, he found a willing helper in President Thomas Jefferson who extended the French considerable assistance.
Jefferson was very much a racist, as he pretty much confessed in his book, “Notes on Virginia,” and in his letters.
He could not accept the notion of a black republic of ex-slaves being created.
It seemed to him like a threat to the established order, an order which very much included Jefferson’s more than 200 slaves as well as his arrangement with one of them, a young girl serving as his mistress starting at age of thirteen.
He saw himself as a great man of leisure, like an English noble.
Napoleon’s effort in Haiti was a disaster, largely because tropical disease decimated the army of 50,000 he sent.
Wednesday, July 01, 2020
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BOSTON TO REMOVE ITS COPY OF THE LINCOLN EMANCIPATION MEMORIAL – AMERICA’S USE OF LINCOLN AS A KIND OF SAVIOR OR REDEEMER FIGURE TO EXPUNGE THE SHAME OF SLAVERY FROM AMERICAN HISTORY – LINCOLN’S NATURE – WHAT THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION WAS – IF STATUES AND MEMORIALS ARE TO SERVE REMEMBERING THE PAST, THEY MUST BE TRUTHFUL – OTHERWISE THEY ARE JUST ADVERTISING OR PROPAGANDA, WHICH IS THE CASE FOR A GOOD MANY OF AMERICA’S HISTORICAL MONUMENTS – IDEAS FOR GENUINE MEMORIALS ABOUT SLAVERY – AMERICA HAS NEVER DEALT TRUTHFULLY WITH THE SUBJECT – BUT THEN AMERICA HAS NEVER DEALT TRUTHFULLY WITH MUCH OF ITS HISTORY – AMERICA IS A VERY CONSERVATIVE SOCIETY AND IN MANY WAYS RESEMBLES THE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’ CHARACTER, BIG DADDY, AND HIS LIFE AS “A POUNDING FIST”
John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“Boston to pull Lincoln emancipation memorial following activist outcry over ‘demeaning’ depiction of freed slave”
The statue in Boston (from 1879), a copy of one in Washington (1876), is indeed demeaning. I doubt that it was intended to be so, but that is the insidious nature of prejudice, molding and shaping people’s perceptions.
While handsomely sculpted, it is patronizing. One can almost hear the crouching slave figure saying, Thank ya, Massa."
Lincoln, an interesting and admirable man in real life, is given the pose of a demigod waving his powerful hand above the crouching slave. See photo:
https://www.rt.com/usa/493428-boston-remove-lincoln-statue/
It is best for this monument to be stored away. If there ever were to be a museum of rejected American historical monuments displayed with clarifying, truthful text about them, this would make a good candidate. But it says absolutely nothing about slavery or, indeed, about Lincoln. It misrepresents a complex and tragic set of events with a simplifying, church-worthy tableau.
It is important to understand that the Emancipation Proclamation was used by Lincoln as a war measure against the South. He hesitated for a while about the idea. He was, remember, a lawyer, a quite successful one who did some of his work in Springfield, Illinois, for corporations such as the Illinois Central Railroad. The War itself was not about slavery, but the Proclamation greatly helped to influence views of it being so, as with European powers.
Lincoln respected the concept of property, although he personally disliked slavery. And laws around property were an important building block of American society. Violating them might have undesirable consequences. There was even an issue of compensation for lost property.
It is a common misconception that Lincoln was an Abolitionist. He was not. That was a misconception shared by the states that seceded to form the Confederacy after Lincoln took office as President.
The Proclamation was not a universal document such as the Bill of Rights. It was carefully crafted to its purpose. A preliminary version was issued in the Fall of 1862, to warn rebelling states about what was coming in 1863, if they did not drop their arms. None of the Confederate states did so. The Proclamation covered slaves only in rebelling states. Border states, where slavery was practiced, which remained loyal to the Union were exempted. From 1863, If a slave escaped the territory of the Confederacy and made it to Union lines, he or she was deemed permanently free. It is easy to see how that was intended as a weapon
The United States has long used Lincoln as a kind “savior figure” to redeem its vast and shameful history of slavery. A history never adequately acknowledged in any of its political or popular culture. Even many academic texts and biographies treat the subject rather gingerly, with some being plainly dishonest. There are no monuments in Washington to remember slavery itself. None. Instead, the place is littered with monuments to slaveholders like Jackson, Madison, Monroe, Jefferson, and Washington – many a pedestal or wall engraved with words like “liberty.” And when I visited places like Mount Vernon (Washington’s Plantation) many years ago, the slave quarters were literally almost disguised.
The Lincoln Memorial serves as a kind of ersatz slavery memorial – as when Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered from its steps - but it doesn't really do the job. Lincoln sits in white marble like Zeus on a massive throne in Mount Olympus overlooking the Mall.
What's needed to memorialize and remember slavery is a huge and agonizingly accurate depiction of, say, a slave auction, where slaves were held bound and often partly stripped to display their physical attributes, of course that included young female slaves being ogled and considered for purchase by visiting planters who lived in near isolation in the hinterlands.
Or, perhaps better still, a massive, powerful set of figures showing the "gang-system" of field slavery, used on large plantations and developed a while before the Civil War. Men were chained together in long rows or blocks to march through fields as a single unit, almost as human predecessors to large agricultural machines. It was the most brutal form of slavery, but it was economically efficient in its day and it gained widespread acceptance.
There would be several such blocks, one following behind the other, each block having assigned tasks, as from digging holes to seeding and to hoeing, an early version of “division of labor” and specialization of tasks, the reasons for its economic efficiency. Experts have said this system might well have continued into the early 20th century when machines began to appear. Just imagine marching all day chained to others in a sweltery Southern climate and having your pace constantly forced by those to whom you were chained? A genuine nightmare, but a genuine and important piece of American history.
Or you might have a huge bas relief of the top deck of a slaving ship with its human cargo, individually bound up and arranged like cordwood or rolls of carpet over most of the deck, arranged closely so as to minimize the cost of shipment per human being. Imagine the terrifying situation in a storm or with roaring waves? Many slaves died on the harsh journeys of several thousand miles, slowly powered by sail, their numbers being counted as just part of the cost of doing business. The bodies were tossed overboard.
Such suggestions would memorialize authentic history and give viewers something serious to think about. The existing Emancipation Monument does no such thing. It is benign. It makes viewers feel comfortable about the history. It is redeeming in nature. It even makes Lincoln something he was not. And that is why it is entirely unsuitable. And those descriptions, benign and not informative, fit a great many of the historical monuments in the United States now being challenged by demonstrators.
It is simply a false argument to speak about people forgetting history where there is little or no history to be found.
Although, as I’ve said, Lincoln personally disliked slavery, he was perfectly willing to keep the institution if the rebellion ended. He said so a number of times.
The Emancipation Monument is unpleasant in its tone. Lincoln the standing, suited demigod waving a hand over a nearly-naked, cringing man.
It represents nothing from history. If you want to remember history, it must be truth. Otherwise, you are engaged in propaganda or advertising.
While I am encouraged by some recent developments in America – God, the last state using the Confederate battle flag as part of its state-flag design has finally dropped it – I don’t believe the total changes are likely to be extensive. I would be happy to be proved wrong.
America is a very conservative country, far more so than many recognize. It isn’t just conservative in the sense of party affiliation. No, it is far deeper than that. It is “bred in the bone.” Its entire history has been taken up with expansion and conquest. It resembles Tennessee Williams’ character, Big Daddy, and his life as “a pounding fist.”
A FEW RELATED TOPICS WHICH MAY BE OF INTEREST
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/08/02/john-chuckman-comment-reference-to-americas-current-inability-to-have-intelligent-political-discussion-in-fact-it-is-an-illusion-to-think-things-were-ever-much-different-highlights-of-an-extrem/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/john-chuckman-comment-never-mind-iran-theres-a-vast-and-terrible-history-of-riots-and-quelling-riots-in-americas-past/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/john-chuckman-comment-some-history-of-puritanism-in-america-it-explains-a-lot-of-todays-wars-and-belligerence-and-close-mindedness-they-werent-quite-the-nice-folks-a-benign-name-like-pilgri/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/12/john-chuckman-comment-original-intent-and-americas-supreme-court-the-concept-is-part-of-the-creed-of-americas-civic-religion-the-supreme-court-has-always-been-conservative-only-varying-i/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/john-chuckman-comment-a-childish-effort-to-distinguish-wars-of-self-defense-from-wars-of-aggression-american-history-has-lots-of-wars-but-not-one-was-about-self-defense-empire-means-aggression/
EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA TODAY
“Boston to pull Lincoln emancipation memorial following activist outcry over ‘demeaning’ depiction of freed slave”
The statue in Boston (from 1879), a copy of one in Washington (1876), is indeed demeaning. I doubt that it was intended to be so, but that is the insidious nature of prejudice, molding and shaping people’s perceptions.
While handsomely sculpted, it is patronizing. One can almost hear the crouching slave figure saying, Thank ya, Massa."
Lincoln, an interesting and admirable man in real life, is given the pose of a demigod waving his powerful hand above the crouching slave. See photo:
https://www.rt.com/usa/493428-boston-remove-lincoln-statue/
It is best for this monument to be stored away. If there ever were to be a museum of rejected American historical monuments displayed with clarifying, truthful text about them, this would make a good candidate. But it says absolutely nothing about slavery or, indeed, about Lincoln. It misrepresents a complex and tragic set of events with a simplifying, church-worthy tableau.
It is important to understand that the Emancipation Proclamation was used by Lincoln as a war measure against the South. He hesitated for a while about the idea. He was, remember, a lawyer, a quite successful one who did some of his work in Springfield, Illinois, for corporations such as the Illinois Central Railroad. The War itself was not about slavery, but the Proclamation greatly helped to influence views of it being so, as with European powers.
Lincoln respected the concept of property, although he personally disliked slavery. And laws around property were an important building block of American society. Violating them might have undesirable consequences. There was even an issue of compensation for lost property.
It is a common misconception that Lincoln was an Abolitionist. He was not. That was a misconception shared by the states that seceded to form the Confederacy after Lincoln took office as President.
The Proclamation was not a universal document such as the Bill of Rights. It was carefully crafted to its purpose. A preliminary version was issued in the Fall of 1862, to warn rebelling states about what was coming in 1863, if they did not drop their arms. None of the Confederate states did so. The Proclamation covered slaves only in rebelling states. Border states, where slavery was practiced, which remained loyal to the Union were exempted. From 1863, If a slave escaped the territory of the Confederacy and made it to Union lines, he or she was deemed permanently free. It is easy to see how that was intended as a weapon
The United States has long used Lincoln as a kind “savior figure” to redeem its vast and shameful history of slavery. A history never adequately acknowledged in any of its political or popular culture. Even many academic texts and biographies treat the subject rather gingerly, with some being plainly dishonest. There are no monuments in Washington to remember slavery itself. None. Instead, the place is littered with monuments to slaveholders like Jackson, Madison, Monroe, Jefferson, and Washington – many a pedestal or wall engraved with words like “liberty.” And when I visited places like Mount Vernon (Washington’s Plantation) many years ago, the slave quarters were literally almost disguised.
The Lincoln Memorial serves as a kind of ersatz slavery memorial – as when Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered from its steps - but it doesn't really do the job. Lincoln sits in white marble like Zeus on a massive throne in Mount Olympus overlooking the Mall.
What's needed to memorialize and remember slavery is a huge and agonizingly accurate depiction of, say, a slave auction, where slaves were held bound and often partly stripped to display their physical attributes, of course that included young female slaves being ogled and considered for purchase by visiting planters who lived in near isolation in the hinterlands.
Or, perhaps better still, a massive, powerful set of figures showing the "gang-system" of field slavery, used on large plantations and developed a while before the Civil War. Men were chained together in long rows or blocks to march through fields as a single unit, almost as human predecessors to large agricultural machines. It was the most brutal form of slavery, but it was economically efficient in its day and it gained widespread acceptance.
There would be several such blocks, one following behind the other, each block having assigned tasks, as from digging holes to seeding and to hoeing, an early version of “division of labor” and specialization of tasks, the reasons for its economic efficiency. Experts have said this system might well have continued into the early 20th century when machines began to appear. Just imagine marching all day chained to others in a sweltery Southern climate and having your pace constantly forced by those to whom you were chained? A genuine nightmare, but a genuine and important piece of American history.
Or you might have a huge bas relief of the top deck of a slaving ship with its human cargo, individually bound up and arranged like cordwood or rolls of carpet over most of the deck, arranged closely so as to minimize the cost of shipment per human being. Imagine the terrifying situation in a storm or with roaring waves? Many slaves died on the harsh journeys of several thousand miles, slowly powered by sail, their numbers being counted as just part of the cost of doing business. The bodies were tossed overboard.
Such suggestions would memorialize authentic history and give viewers something serious to think about. The existing Emancipation Monument does no such thing. It is benign. It makes viewers feel comfortable about the history. It is redeeming in nature. It even makes Lincoln something he was not. And that is why it is entirely unsuitable. And those descriptions, benign and not informative, fit a great many of the historical monuments in the United States now being challenged by demonstrators.
It is simply a false argument to speak about people forgetting history where there is little or no history to be found.
Although, as I’ve said, Lincoln personally disliked slavery, he was perfectly willing to keep the institution if the rebellion ended. He said so a number of times.
The Emancipation Monument is unpleasant in its tone. Lincoln the standing, suited demigod waving a hand over a nearly-naked, cringing man.
It represents nothing from history. If you want to remember history, it must be truth. Otherwise, you are engaged in propaganda or advertising.
While I am encouraged by some recent developments in America – God, the last state using the Confederate battle flag as part of its state-flag design has finally dropped it – I don’t believe the total changes are likely to be extensive. I would be happy to be proved wrong.
America is a very conservative country, far more so than many recognize. It isn’t just conservative in the sense of party affiliation. No, it is far deeper than that. It is “bred in the bone.” Its entire history has been taken up with expansion and conquest. It resembles Tennessee Williams’ character, Big Daddy, and his life as “a pounding fist.”
A FEW RELATED TOPICS WHICH MAY BE OF INTEREST
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/08/02/john-chuckman-comment-reference-to-americas-current-inability-to-have-intelligent-political-discussion-in-fact-it-is-an-illusion-to-think-things-were-ever-much-different-highlights-of-an-extrem/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/john-chuckman-comment-never-mind-iran-theres-a-vast-and-terrible-history-of-riots-and-quelling-riots-in-americas-past/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/john-chuckman-comment-some-history-of-puritanism-in-america-it-explains-a-lot-of-todays-wars-and-belligerence-and-close-mindedness-they-werent-quite-the-nice-folks-a-benign-name-like-pilgri/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/12/john-chuckman-comment-original-intent-and-americas-supreme-court-the-concept-is-part-of-the-creed-of-americas-civic-religion-the-supreme-court-has-always-been-conservative-only-varying-i/
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/john-chuckman-comment-a-childish-effort-to-distinguish-wars-of-self-defense-from-wars-of-aggression-american-history-has-lots-of-wars-but-not-one-was-about-self-defense-empire-means-aggression/
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