John Chuckman
COMMENTS – RECENT BITS AND PIECES FROM VARIOUS PLACES –
VOLUME THREE
I view these poll results about China’s citizens being among
the most willing to be inoculated as evidence of the spirit of cooperation
among China’s people.
That very quality is a powerful one contributing to China’s economic success.
The contrast with the US could not be starker.
I think we all know from our personal lives how much more powerful and constructive cooperation is than belligerence and divisiveness.
When a young Amish or Mennonite farmer (minor, very old-fashioned rural Christian religious sects) in the American Midwest needs a barn, the whole community comes together and gets it built remarkably fast. The example has never had widespread appeal for Americans.
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“Trump impeachment trial has to happen: Biden”
Yes, it is necessary to demonstrate rejection of Trump’s horrible behavior.
And conviction, the best of all possible worlds, would prevent him from again entering politics, as he plans to do in 2024. He has already collected a war chest of the best part of a hundred million dollars towards that goal.
But politics always distort realities and often disappoint hopes.
Biden has been quoted as saying that the Democrats do not have the votes in the Senate for conviction. Yes, they have some Republican support, but not enough for the two-thirds vote required for conviction.
There are serious political costs for some Republicans who would vote to convict Trump. Remember, almost half the entire American electorate voted for this man despite his many failures and stupidities. It is actually hard to underestimate the judgment of large portions of the American electorate. Just look at Trump’s own political career as well as the careers of a good many well-known American politicians.
And Trump is working overtime to deflect any efforts to convict hum. That is what his threat of starting a third political party is about. Its only purpose would be to punish Republicans by dividing the vote on the Right. Trump has lots of money to work with and plenty of fanatical followers to help.
A divided vote on the Right would make any Republican victory impossible.
For those reasons, I think a conviction is unlikely, though I wish it were otherwise.
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Policies like “Buy American” always reflect a kind of
desperation, and they go against sound economics.
They appeal to emotions and not to minds and will not contribute anything to American success.
Their only real purpose is as a war chant to hype-up Americans against people abroad.
From this and a few other acts, I think we can expect little from Joe Biden worth having except cancellation of some of Trump’s more lunatic diktats.
Biden has just been quoted as saying he thinks the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline – a large project to supply Europe with additional Russian natural gas – Is “a bad deal for Europe.”
That sounds like Trump without the grimace and abusive language.
Are hundreds of millions of Europeans incompetent to judge such important matters for themselves? Gas is needed for their economic future, and Russia, just next door, is where they can get it. It has massive reserves.
America in the past has pushed the unsatisfactory alternative of American liquified natural gas, a much more expensive option which would diminish European competitiveness and sell a commodity for which America has inadequate markets. That is certainly looking after your friends and allies.
It is America trying to control the planet.
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It is nonsense to write of a new significance in the street
demonstrations in Russia. They represent the US using its now classic technique
of street crowds to stir things up and promote instability. They’ve used the
technique many times in many places.
Please, something like a thousand times this many people voted for Putin. Perspective is everything.
You can find discontent in any country, if you look for it.
The United States is bristling with it. A foreign power could easily exploit it, if it weren’t for the fact the United States maintains seventeen different national security agencies, including, of course, undercover members in any organization regarded as at all questionable. They used to say, jokingly, that America’s pathetic communist party was kept alive by FBI agents paying dues.
Navalny remains a fairly minor figure in Russia despite American efforts to blow him up into something important. And those efforts have been huge in the last couple of years (see my discussions on the Navalny “poisoning” case. Also, the equally fraudulent Skripal “poisoning” case of a couple of years ago.).
The American Moscow embassy even rudely broke all diplomatic protocol by publishing the routes and times of unpermitted, anti-government demonstrations. Talk about interfering in another country’s internal affairs. Just shabby.
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Rejoining the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA) is one of the
most important things Biden can do.
However, it is difficult and complex despite the fact that the agreement ran smoothly for almost four years before the lunatic Trump suddenly tore it up and inflicted great harm on Iran for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
It is made difficult and complex because Israel has now high-handedly threatened several times to attack Iran if the US rejoins the agreement. Of course, Iran’s inevitable response to an Israeli attack would almost certainly drag the US into the conflict. Such are the disastrous possibilities that come from America’s being hogtied to an aggressive and unreasonable Israel.
Iran’s position in this matter is fair and reasonable: the US must rejoin the agreement without qualifications and end all illegal sanctions before the two nations can discuss anything.
The European signatories to the agreement could in theory be helpful here, but they have been of no help and almost spineless since Trump first destroyed the agreement, so I wouldn’t put much faith in them, the main European countries involved being just about as subservient to Israel’s unreasonable demands as the US itself.
I think it makes an interesting side note here the way one or two sick men can inflict so much damage in the world. For surely, Trump and Netanyahu are as close to lunatics running countries as we’ve had for a while. It is quite amazing how small a role reason and logic and dedication to law and justice often play in international affairs.
Just look at the genuine mass killer running Saudi Arabia, a barbaric horror terrorizing his own citizens and others, yet Trump and Netanyahu both love and protect him because he serves their interests.
