Thursday, March 11, 2021
ABOUT ME
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| ME, ROUGHLY: THE DECLINE IS SO RAPID NOW |
John Chuckman is former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He has many interests and is a lifelong student of history. He writes with a passionate desire for honesty, the rule of reason, and concern for human decency. John regards it as a badge of honor to have left the United States as a poor young man from the South Side of Chicago when the country embarked on the pointless murder of something like 3 million Vietnamese in their own land because they embraced the wrong economic loyalties. He lives in Canada, which he is fond of calling “the peaceable kingdom.”
John’s writing appears regularly on many Internet sites. He has been translated into at least ten languages and has been regularly translated into Italian and Spanish. Several of his essays have been published in book collections, including two college texts. He has published a book, The Decline of the American Empire and the Rise of China as a Global Power, published by Constable and Robinson, London. John also writes book reviews.
Apart from his writing since retiring from the oil industry, John has taught university courses in economics, done a good deal of private tutoring, served as a professional newspaper restaurant reviewer (he likes cooking), followed his favorite hobby of photography, and created a popular family of image blogs on the Internet.
John may be reached directly at: formersouthsideboy@gmail.com
SOME INTERNET SITES FROM JOHN CHUCKMAN:
CHUCKMAN'S PLACES ON WORDPRESS: FEATURING THE BELOVED URBAN VILLAGE OF SOUTH SHORE CHICAGO
CHUCKMAN'S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: CHICAGO NOSTALGIA AND MEMORABILIA
CHUCKMAN'S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: TORONTO NOSTALGIA
CHUCKMAN’S MONTREAL
CHUCKMAN'S PHOTOS ON WORD PRESS
CHUCKMAN'S KODACHROMES ON WORDPRESS: JOHN AND BOBBY LONG AGO
CHUCKMAN'S PORT STANLEY
CHUCKMAN'S BAYFIELD
CHUCKMAN'S GODERICH
CHUCKMAN'S ILES DE LA MADELEINE (MAGDALEN ISLANDS)
CHUCKMAN'S ART
CHUCKMAN'S ROBOTS
CHUCKMAN'S GALLERY OF GROTESQUES
CHUCKMAN'S CARTOON COMMENTS
CHUCKMAN'S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: 1920s ARCADE CARD BEAUTIES – THEIR CHARM AND GRACE AND WHIMSY
CHUCKMAN'S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: POLITICAL ESSAYS
CHUCKMAN'S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: COMMENTS FROM THE WORLD'S PRESS
CHUCKMAN'S MISCELLANEA OF WORDS
CHUCKMAN'S NON-SPORTS TRADING CARDS OF THE 1950S VOLUME 01 (OF 4 VOLUMES)
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: A NAZI UNIFORM AND BLOOD EARRINGS AND THE PRESS – I AM NOT AT ALL INTERESTED IN HARRY AND MEGHAN, NOR IN ANY OTHER CELEBRITIES – BUT I AM VERY MUCH INTERESTED IN THE PROCESS UNDERWAY WITH THIS COUPLE – IT IS IDENTICAL TO WHAT WE SEE WEEK-IN AND WEEK-OUT WITH AMERICA’S MOST HELLISH ACTIVITIES – MASS KILLING, DESTRUCTION, ABUSE, AND THE SUPPORT OF MONSTERS GET TURNED INTO WORKS FOR ENLIGHTENMENT VALUES LIKE DEMOCRATIC AND HUMAN RIGHTS – SOME OF THE EFFORT IS NOT EVEN BADLY INTENDED, JUST UTTERLY UNEXAMINED BY JOURNALISTS FILLING SPACE TO BE SOLD TO ADVERTISERS IN A JUGGERNAUT PRESS MACHINE WHICH MANY TIMES CAN’T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRUTH AND FICTION BECAUSE IT CANNOT BE BOTHERED SPENDING THE RESOURCES TO INVESTIGATE – IT IS JUST ONE SMALL CORNER OF THE CORRUPTION THAT IS MODERN AMERICAN SOCIETY
John Chuckman
COMMENT - A NAZI UNIFORM AND BLOOD EARRINGS AND THE PRESS
There are many reasons to criticize Meghan and Harry for
what they have done in their self-indulgent and destructive television
interview.
But perhaps none is more telling than the fact that the Queen is nearly 95 years old and Prince Philip is 100 and quite ill.
It is widely recognized, no matter what you may think of monarchy, that the Queen has served well and honorably. She commands great respect, and not just because of her title.
What kind of people deliberately create immense stress for two such aged and venerable figures?
Utterly thoughtless and unpleasant ones, for sure.
Just pure poison from a woman who could not handle the responsibilities she voluntarily assumed and, I am sure, was extremely closely advised of. She earned a reputation right from the start as a demanding, raging person in private. And a lot of that came from servants, not big shots. What kind of a person abuses servants? And later makes toxic excuses against others for the reputation she has earned?
As for Harry, he has a long track record of not just bad judgment, but genuinely unbalanced behavior, from demanding to be sent to Afghanistan in the Army and afterward bragging about killing a man there to once wearing a set of custom-made pajamas designed to resemble a Nazi officer’s uniform at a cocktail party (see the third photo here: https://www.rt.com/uk/517524-piers-morgan-skeptical-meghan-markle/ ).
Some judgment, but if you look back at the Spencer family, his maternal line, going back to the 18th century, you will find a good deal of that sort of thing.
The couple well suit each other, but it would demonstrate a little class – and people pretending to royalty are supposed to demonstrate class if nothing else – to keep these self-serving stories to themselves.
By the way, here is a superb example of Meghan’s grotesque lack of judgment.
Meghan was given a wedding gift of earrings by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, certainly one of the world’s bloodiest tyrants.
Despite warnings from others about their source, she proudly wore them at a State Dinner three weeks after Jamal Khashoggi’s grisly murder on orders from the Crown Prince. She still has them. There are many photos of her wearing them.
They are dazzling long dangles of diamonds.
Some effort toward making the world a better place, as she pretentiously likes to talk about doing in her self-promotional publicity, and just another example of stunningly bad judgment.
I wonder just whose ears the Crown Prince had them ripped from?
Friday, March 05, 2021
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE LOOMING PRESENCE OF TRUMPISM IN AMERICA
John Chuckman
COMMENT - THE LOOMING PRESENCE OF TRUMPISM IN AMERICA
There can be little doubt that Donald Trump will contest the
Republican Party’s nomination for president in 2024, and I think there can be
little doubt that the nomination is his for the asking. Who else brings such a
massive base of support to the party?
Tens of millions, brimming with enthusiasm.
As for the notion that two impeachments will stop him, that is just silly. In many people’s eyes, those rather lame efforts at impeachment only succeeded in diminishing the austere and rarified sense of the term. For his people, they only mean he beat the rap, twice.
If you note the statements of various Republicans who reportedly had set their sights on the same prize – Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo – you will note a definite change in the tone of their rhetoric from the days around the “insurrection” in the Capitol, a low point for Trump. You observe the same change in tone of Republican figures who have no intention of running for president, notably Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate’s Republicans.
Being a bastard in Washington is no disadvantage, so long as you are a successful bastard. That is a value of a militaristic society. After all, the military has always valued psychopaths and other “natural-born killers.” Look at some of the pardons Trump granted, to the most grotesque war criminals. There are many reasons to believe that not only will Trump return, but that he has a very good chance at being re-elected. This possibility hangs like a dark cloud over domestic politics as well as international affairs.
The international community was set back on its heels by four years of Trump’s crude brutality. There were very strong words quietly uttered, like America can no longer be depended upon, extraordinary words for an alliance going back three-quarters of a century. Its more intelligent leaders I’m sure recognize that the threat is not gone.
Joe Biden’s fatuous slogan, “America is back,” is recognized for what it is, a feel-good advertising slogan. It almost sounds like something for a breakfast cereal. It is wrong on two levels. First, on basic drives and policies – like American global supremacy – Biden represents no change but one of tone and civility, with a bit of embroidery around the edges in an effort to make threadbare goods look fresh.
Second, they have now seen, under Trump, an America many of them did not know existed, the America of Trump’s base, a huge segment of extremely unhappy and bellicose people. Even if Trump goes away, these demanding people remain. They add a strong element of instability and threat to what was once regarded as a settled social order.
And note, even before the next presidential election, mid-term Congressional elections could easily wipe away what little influence Biden has.
Trump’s people reflect many influences, but I think the greatest is one I’ve written about many times, the relative decline of America’s economy since the halcyon days of the 1950s. Many of these are people who do not understand and cannot accept the hard reality.
Having competition in anything makes a world of difference. In the 1950s, America had no competition in a war-flattened world. In 2020, it has lots of competition, very strong competition, with more coming along. The good jobs and incomes which once were treated by Americans as entitlements have of course migrated to the places doing great business.
Opportunities and resources shift with relative success. It represents no underhandedness, just the relentless fact of competition.
Americans, right down to the most modest workers, took that lucky and temporary situation of the postwar period as the way things were meant to be. America was just the best. God had especially blessed her. But that belief had no more substance than the many conflicting beliefs of various religions. It was comforting for the believers, but that is all. Beliefs don’t build cars or ships or create new technology or launch space craft.
Trump promised discontented Americans that he could do something for them, but, as in so many matters, he was wrong. Starting trade wars will not enrich American workers. But his people do not understand that he was wrong. They simply believe strongly that he was not given a chance to finish his work. It is a version of Hitler’s politically-effective “stab in the back” claim. So, they await his return or the coming of an equivalent figure.
There is more than a little of the Second Coming of Christ in these matters, the Lord returning to set things right for his people, which is why the irreligious Trump does stunts like pose for pictures with a Bible.
Trump’s people are not going away. They represent a genuine political force now in America. A very large one.
Joe Biden is proving even more ineffective than some believed he would be. Already he has broken promises for domestic policy. Notable ones, such as the kind of assistance people can expect from the COVID recovery efforts. In foreign affairs, he has made – with one or two exceptions, like renewing the New START Treaty with Russia – the same major errors as Trump. Aggression towards China, aggression towards Iran, aggression towards Russia, aggression towards Venezuela and Cuba and a number of other states. Support for 13th century princes and tyrants and war criminals, just so long as they serve America’s purposes in their region.
He has greatly increased troops in Iraq, where they are not welcome. He has re-supplied troops illegally occupying Syria while stealing its resources, and it appears he will not leave Afghanistan. He has also bombed the Syrian border and killed twenty-two government militia who had every right to be there and are in the business of genuinely fighting the terrorists of ISIS. And so far, he has made a complete mess of returning to the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA) Trump stupidly discarded.
It is not a promising start. Exactly such action leaves Trump room to come along and say. “See, I told you about forever wars,” and there are a good many who will listen. Given his large base, Trump only needs an increment from the center to win again.
America’s attention remains focused on telling others how to run their affairs. It is a dead-end policy that does not recognize the many ongoing changes in the world. And, of course, continued focus on empire and the military means ignoring the needs of your own people. The need for better education and training, for infrastructure of every description, the need of alleviating poverty – in sum, the need to make Americans more competitive than they are.
But Biden is dutifully following the elites and their interest in maintaining control and their own privileged positions in the world. It is a pursuit that does nothing for a great many Americans while consuming vast resources.
Can you even imagine what it costs to send an aircraft carrier and its accompanying ships to the South China Sea? Thousands of men to be fed morale-boosting meals every day? Eight thousand miles from the coast of America? And for what? So arrogant men like Secretary of State Blinken can feel important.
I do not think Biden is going to be a very successful president. That creates an opening for Trump and his red-meat crowd.
Clearly, a political system which offers voters a choice between Biden and Trump is bankrupt. It reflects the elites looking only after themselves. The resources of the country – physical, monetary, and human capital – are focused on the system of empire which benefits America’s plutocracy and its serving elites.
America’s long-term political irresponsibility, through such matters as taxation and anti-trust, has allowed a monstrously unequal society to evolve. And this comes at a time of great and rapid change in the world, change which America is not really equipped to handle.
We likely face a great deal of disappointment and grief before America can come to grips with the fact that it is not exceptional.
Joe Biden will be too old to contest the next election, and
likely Kamala Harris will be the Democrats’ candidate. While Harris has a
number of appealing qualities, I think it clear she is pretty much Biden with a
warm smile and a white pants suit.
Thursday, March 04, 2021
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RECENT BITS AND PIECES – BIDEN AND RELEASING THE CIA REPORT ON JAMAL KHASHOGGI’S BRUTAL MURDER – WHY IT TELLS US NOTHING – I SEE NO OUTRAGE IN BIDEN’S MOTIVE FOR RELEASING THE REPORT, ONLY HIS PUBLIC-RELATIONS EFFORTS TO APPEAR HUMANE AND SYMPATHETIC – JUST RECALL BIDEN’S FIFTY-YEAR RECORD ON IMPERIAL BRUTALITY – REFERENCE TO AN INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE ARTICLE ON THE UIGHUR PEOPLE OF CHINA WITHOUT AMERICA’S SICK FANTASIES ABOUT GENOCIDE – AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN ACTION: NEW SECRETARY OF STATE TALKS WITH UNELECTED NOTHING, JUAN GUAIDO, IN VENEZUELA INSTEAD OF THE DULY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF PRESIDENT MADURO – A COMPARISON OF THE MAIN INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS OF AMERICA AND CHINA – PRESIDENT XI’S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT RECENT WORDS ABOUT AMERICA – TRUDEAU AND BLINKEN FARCE ABOUT CANADA’S (SELF-MADE) PROBLEMS WITH CHINA – CANADA’S IDIOTIC RECENT GENOCIDE CHARGES AGAINST CHINA – AUSTRALIA’S DESTRUCTIVE PRIME MINISTER MORRISON AND IGNORING HIS COUNTRY’S FUTURE
John Chuckman
COMMENTS - RECENT BITS AND PIECES – VOLUME NINE
“Biden’s Waning Outrage at MbS”
I don't believe there ever was outrage.
Biden and Obama helped kill so many people, many hundreds of thousands, and create so many millions of refugees, I don’t see how outrage over one more death could possibly affect them.
And the truth is, we have learned nothing new about the murder.
From Turkish President Erdogan’s first revelations of the butchery, using espionage recordings and photos, we really have known.
The people doing the grisly work were insiders, a privileged elite group in Saudi Arabia. There was no way the gang of them could just fly somewhere and kill someone without top-level authority.
Shortly later, Gina Haspel, Director of CIA, was reported to have told Trump the Crown Prince was responsible.
Still later, the truly sick Trump made a public joke about having protected the Crown Prince and how the Prince owed him for doing so.
The hideous Crown Prince is central to the American Dark State’s intentions for the region.
No one was ever going to disturb that cozy, settled arrangement over the mere dismembering of an unconscious man with a bone saw, spattering his blood all over the floor of the study in the Saudi Istanbul Consulate, even a man with good American connections like Jamal Khashoggi who wrote for the Washington Post.
The report really adds nothing.
The story of America’s global empire since the end of WWII is one running with rivers of blood – all the wars and coups and incursions and assassinations, all of them about brutal control, having nothing to do with principles or self-defense.
It has been estimated the US has killed 20 million through it all.
Joe Biden was around for nearly fifty years of that effort and supported everything.
Gee, he even got the Medal of Freedom, joining such American humanitarian luminaries as Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger.
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Here is a well-done article on Xinjiang Region of China and the real situation of the Uighur (Muslim) people there, not the sick American fantasy of genocide.
I think readers would find it interesting.
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“Reminiscent of Trump era, US secretary of state speaks
with Venezuela’s Guaido”
American democracy in action.
Ignore the seven-times elected government of the country, one it does not like, and sneak around dealing illegally with an unelected “opposition.”
Can you imagine what American officials would say and do if another major country behaved that way inside the United States?
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China builds, everywhere. It forms partnerships, everywhere.
HI-speed railroads, highways, dazzling bridges, tunnels through mountains,
airports, ports. It works to improve life for hundreds of millions of people.
While America conducts wars and coups and blockades and makes constant threats and sanctions even against sick people and spends a trillion dollars a year on its military and security services.
Which approach do you think builds a better world?
Americans like Secretary of State Blinken are just afraid of losing their class’s privileged positions dating back to the postwar period. They want to lead everyone and tell everyone what to do even though they cannot compete. They want gold medals for losing the race.
China has the world’s most dynamic economy. And China threatens no one. Talk about containing it is like talk about containing a hurricane, a force of nature.
The words of proud fools.
I very much like what President Xi said recently, “The biggest source of chaos in the present-day world is the United States.”
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“U.S. stands with Canada on efforts to free Kovrig,
Spavor from China: secretary of state”
What is news about that?
Only the stock photo of the American Secretary of State has changed over two years.
Trudeau and Blinken know perfectly well what should be done to resolve this problem – releasing the inappropriately-detained Meng Wanzhou of Huawei, a victim of Washington’s jealous rage and resentment over China’s economic success – but they will not do it.
Not only that, but Canada just got through insulting China once again with its absurd American-generated “genocide” charges – these around an ethnic population that is actually growing healthily.
This is leadership?
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Australia’s Prime Mister Morrison may well go down as the
most destructive leader in the country’s history.
He has managed literally to destroy a good fraction of the country’s vital trade and spoil its relations with the country which one glance at a map will tell you represents Australia’s future prosperity.
His reward? A pat on the head from Washington.
Let’s just see how important that empty gesture is as China overtakes the American economy in just a few years and, after that, proceeds to build an economy several times the size of America’s.
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