John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LAWRENCE DAVIDSON IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“The Cultural Problem of Cheating & Lying”

“This is not just a lesson for parents, schools, the courts, and the marketplace. It is also a necessary lesson for our politics. But we have not managed to come up with a way to vet our leaders so as to assure their long-term honesty and integrity — a process we have been searching for since the time of Plato. Nonetheless, we should try harder…”

 

Yes, indeed, but I do find the piece weak and rather squishy, avoiding as it does the real source of the problem and putting things into philosophical terms of a search for ways to insure truth in American politics and in the wider society. It actually gets quite preachy, but preaching doesn’t change the real political economy of a huge state, and, indeed, I think it effectively offers a kind false hope to hide behind.

A little like the people in America who periodically stand in a crowd on a hillside with their arms outstretched in a kind of supplication, waiting for the Second Coming. They are sincere, to be sure, I have no doubt, but their efforts are utterly pointless since they ignore science and the realities of the human condition.

There are bricks-and-mortar causes for the ailments of American society, and if you refuse to deal with those, you are in a very real sense lying to yourself and just adding to the total volume of American lying.

Given America’s empire and the vast and costly military/security services supporting it, I don’t think there is any option but for leaders to lie, and doing so almost continuously. The emergence of American plutocracy, which is what the empire serves, and money-driven politics at home are at the heart of the problem.

Can America’s leaders in Washington openly admit that they are starving children and depriving the sick of medicine in Iran and Venezuela and were working to do the same in Bolivia and still other places?

Even the ugliest, most powerful government officials or the plutocrats they serve do not happily take public credit for such grim acts. So, lying and cheating just become built into the society at the highest level. Almost everyone, no matter how malevolent their intentions and actions, wants at least a veneer of respectability, credit for worthy motives. Only the genuine psychopaths, of which America has more than a few in powerful positions because they are useful, are likely to want such credit, much like credit for scalps on display.

So, destroying someone else’s elected government invariably is transformed into fighting for democratic values. Venezuela’s unelected Guaido, absurdly swearing himself in as President without ever running for election and financing his activities with American intelligence agency funds as well as American-appropriated Venezuelan national assets, becomes the hope for democracy over the party of twice-elected Maduro and his thrice-elected predecessor, Chavez.

Again, except for the scalphunters, who would want credit for shutting down Venezuela’s electricity grid several times so that millions of poor ordinary people likely lost the food in their fridges? And many life-sustaining machines stopped working?

Such are the realities of empire. And there are just so very many examples, the story of Ukraine being a prominent and tragic one in recent years.

According to the delightful Victoria Nuland, a high State Department official who was overheard at the time, America spent five billion dollars on the coup in Ukraine, doing absolutely nothing for Ukraine’s people, overthrowing an elected government, and indeed wrecking the country in many ways. All done just to threaten the security interests of Russia along a huge border. Needless violence and intimidation, with plenty of killing along the way.

Parts of Ukraine seceded under the unpleasant language and cultural policies of the coup-installed government, and I think it pretty unlikely they will ever return. Thousands died in an unnecessary civil war over the matter. Great numbers of people sought work in other parts of Europe as the Ukrainian economy literally collapsed under a corrupt and incompetent American-installed administration.

Versions of neo-Nazism now openly flourish in Ukraine because the groups’ capacity to intimidate the government is useful in preventing any turning back to rational policies. Such groups, some subsidized by the State Department or American security services, threaten the government into not making reasonable concessions for peace.

Incidentally, Joe Biden, in his then role as presidential proconsul to Ukraine, assisting the coup government in getting things right – “right” meaning the way America wants them – was photographed warmly shaking hands with the commander of one such group, the Azov Battalion, a group whose marches much resemble those of Hitler’s Brownshirts of the 1930s.

The post-coup Ukrainian military demonstrated gross incompetence. Despite its far greater numbers and resources, it had poor leadership and lack of motivation and managed only to kill thousands of civilians in breakaway Eastern Ukraine. Its efforts to draft soldiers in Western Ukraine to send to fight in Eastern Ukraine resulted in embarrassingly high levels of running from the draft.

And all the previous coup government leader, Poroshenko, could talk about was how the Russians were invading and how brave Ukrainian soldiers were preventing Europe from being invaded. Absolutely absurd stuff, but our press and politicians credited it as truth. Somehow, with all such claims, the hi-tech, unarguable evidence of America’s fleets of spy satellites and sophisticated radars just manages to disappear. America would in fact know in a heartbeat if Russia invaded Ukraine, and it would not sit silently watching it happen.

So, we not only have thick clots of lies, we have the government of the United States treating us all as though we were totally ignorant of the realities of around-the-clock surveillance.

Perhaps the most grotesque aspect of Ukraine’s post-coup military operations was the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, either in error or deliberately, an event which launched an industrial-sized cover-up with a shameless investigation which never even bothered to collect all the evidence, pieces of the plane and contents still being easily discovered in the region where it crashed. If you study the case, there are many powerful reasons for believing the Ukrainian military shot down the airliner with fighter planes, but imagine the risk to America’s five-billion-dollar coup investment if the truth had been broadcast right away? So, years of throwing dust in people’s eyes began, and now the matter is almost forgotten. And, again, no American satellite images or radar tracks were ever produced.

We have ugly stunt after ugly stunt – such as the infamous Skripal Affair of two years ago in Britain – done merely to hurt the interests of those America does not like. Truth is impossible, and the lying goes beyond all normal bounds to become a massive network of distortions, all dutifully attested to at the highest levels of government and by the corporate press which of course always serves the government which has so regulatory powers over it.

It was after all, Hitler himself in his 1925 book, Mein Kampf, who propounded the concept of “the Big Lie.” It proved a highly successful idea, and tyrants and seekers-after-power have never stopped employing it since.

That is the very nature of empire, and there is no escaping it. It is impossible to behave the way America does and not lie about it, massively and continuously.

I’ve said it many times, but there’s no shame in repeating such an important truth: you can either have a decent country or you can have an empire, but you cannot have both.

The infrastructure of empire is built on threats, oppression, subversion, coups, dishonesty, and no shortage of violence.

And there is always an underlying assumption that a relatively small number of people in the United States are somehow entitled to tell the other more than 95% of humanity how they are to run their affairs. Are you not implicitly lying about your democratic and human-rights values when you do that? Of course, it isn’t America’s roughly 5% of the world’s people making the claim, it’s a tiny fraction of that, the highly privileged.

There’s no way the establishment politicians in Washington – including the best Congress money can buy – can one day just take a kind of Boy Scout Oath to reform things. Believing that goes beyond naïve to asinine.

Fundamental change is required – including basic matters like a tax structure which supports the creation of plutocracy and the grotesque role of money in politics – but I don’t think Americans are prepared to undertake it, and perhaps they are not even able to do so, given the establishment’s powerful tools of self-defense.

Right now, the Democratic Party is working to shut out Bernie Sanders, and it has already pretty much shut out Tulsi Gabbard, yet neither of those two admirable politicians is even advocating large-scale change. That’s a good measure of how risk-averse America’s establishment is.

The other half of America’s money-controlled political duopoly, the Republican Party, supports a foul-mouthed madman who brags about stealing. Why? Because he vigorously continues the good work of imposing America’s will on the planet, and he actively works to hurt those who are going to become important parts of a very different future, as China and Russia.

Well, I believe sadly that America is stuck right where it is until larger events overtake it and the now-emerging multi-polar world becomes the dominant reality.

MAGA will be seen as a museum relic, like some Shaman’s pathetic talisman, representing futile efforts by America to claw its way back to where it was seventy years ago, pretty much king of the world.

Either that, or it is not impossible at all for genuine widespread and destructive war to emerge from America’s present global hostilities almost everywhere.

After all, what do bullies do when their demands are ignored but start throwing punches or using a weapon?

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA

“If Trump could pick the Democratic Party nominee, he’d pick Biden”

I couldn’t agree more.

Biden is a man who is able to generate no excitement or enthusiasm. He’s a place-filler. And a very temporary-looking one, given both his age and feeble behaviors.

He’s also a man with a rather shabby political record. Everything from his lousy treatment of Anita Hill decades ago in the Senate Judiciary Committee to his advocacy with Obama for extrajudicial killing on an industrial scale by the CIA.

I just can’t imagine how they are going to prevent some aspects of his behavior in Ukraine from surfacing. Ukraine itself might have incentive for providing evidence to ingratiate itself with Trump.

At the very least, and something we know without additional evidence, Biden’s behavior as Obama’s proconsul to the new coup-installed government of Ukraine included effectively taking a large bribe, one in the form of the appointment of his son to a company director’s position.

His son, Hunter, was completely unqualified for the position. He had no industry contacts or influence. It was in an industry about which he knew nothing, and it concerned a country whose language he could not even speak. On top of all that, he had a record as a serious drug addict. He received, for years, an unheard-of salary (for directors of companies) of $50 thousand dollars per month.

Biden also has the same annoying tendency as Hillary Clinton of just suddenly blurting out some claim about his past that’s just complete fiction, as his recent claim about being arrested when trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison decades ago. It resembled Hillary’s proven-false claim about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia.

He has done that kind of thing many times over many years, including a story about being asked to award a Silver Star to a heroic soldier in Afghanistan, an event which never happened. Again, he claimed he always opposed the invasion of Iraq when just the opposite is the case, he is remembered as an enthusiastic supporter, and an early one.

That kind of story-telling isn’t about the forgivable failings old age. It represents an inherent mental or psychological problem, the need to present yourself to others as being at the center of events. It’s almost a version of Munchausen’s syndrome.

Apart from his quirks and shabbiness, his whole political career has been sitting-on-the-fence establishment, never having created anything new or valuable, but always looking for an opportunity to advance himself.

Add his newfound propensity, much commented on in the press, for making what do seem to be age-related errors and forgetfulness, such as the very recent introduction of his wife as his sister, and his nice smile just won’t do it.

The Democrats are desperate, and they’ve put themselves in that position. There can be little doubt the party bigwigs have worked hard to discredit and defeat Bernie Sanders, a man who inspires much enthusiasm among voters, and especially young voters.

And they’re going to make the world desperate with four more years of the most remarkably ignorant and foul-mouthed man ever to be President.

It is possible the Democrats have a secret plan here. A writer has suggested that Michelle Obama, who ranks in polls as the most admired woman in America – yes, she does outpoll Oprah – could be waiting in the wings to save a divided convention.

While she has no qualifications, she is likable and well-spoken and carries a last name that still has luster for some Americans. She might well be able to defeat Trump, who, after all, had no qualifications when he ran. And what a delicious irony that would be, because Trump loathes anything associated with Obama.

The truth is, although we like to fool ourselves into believing otherwise, qualifications and experience no longer matter that much for the office of American President. The Dark State calls the shots on all significant matters of foreign policy and empire, and the various key party leaders do the same on domestic issues.

There is little of consequence a modern American President can truly decide, but his tone and manner and those of his appointments still do mean something for international relations, which have reached their lowest point in history under Trump.

America already has had a few “talking head” Presidents, ones who sit at the Oval Office desk smiling, make speeches with someone else’s words on a teleprompter, and sign pretty much whatever paper is placed before them by one of the “heavies.” At least this one would have a pleasant smile, and many would be happy about a woman finally being elected, and a second black American to boot. It would be widely applauded, and America just doesn’t get any applause anymore.

The object of the whole effort is to get rid of Trump, and if Michelle Obama can do it, the Democratic establishment plots will have achieved something worthwhile. While I’m fond of Bernie, as I’ve said before, his domestic programs would never be enacted by the best Congress money can buy, and there is little anyone can do to alter the affairs of empire. Those matters really are in other hands, as Trump’s many ridiculous flip-flops about Syria amply demonstrated.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER IN RUSSIA INSIDER

 

“The Charms of Elizabeth Warren”

 

https://russia-insider.com/en/charms-elizabeth-warren/ri27751

 

There are some good, sharp observations here. She’s a weak choice for many reasons.

Of course, the Dark State may actually find her a reasonable alternative to Joe Biden, who is undoubtedly their favorite, representing, as he does, a new version of brainless George Bush, someone who happily served as a figurehead president, smiling and signing every piece of paper shoved in front of him.

And it’s good to have an alternative. Biden is making a spectacle of himself with obviously blundering and forgetful statements on any number of matters, perhaps throwing away the lead he had.

Warren is an excellent Dark State alternative choice.

She has never represented opposition to the Pentagon and CIA and NSA. Never.

She has never opposed imperial wars and coups and interventions.

She has supported dutifully the Defense Department’s budgets.

She holds the attraction of a kind of American wholesome, harmless American professional woman, well-coiffed and well-dressed. The contemporary feminist political equivalent to one of those moms in 1950s’ television series, such as Harriet Nelson in “Ozzie and Harriet,” although Harriet had a kind of smoky undertone, as an old big band singer, missing completely from Warren.

Perhaps, June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley), doing the vacuuming wearing pearls in “Leave It to Beaver” is closer to the mark? June, having gone back to school and earned some degrees?

Despite her effort to appear as something of a human rights champion at home, she has not brought that much-unwanted perspective to foreign affairs. Not to attacks on Syria. Not to attacks on Venezuela. Not to attacks on Iran. Not to Israel’s attacks on everyone. She definitely gets passing grades from the establishment there.

It’s okay at home to blather on about such matters, just as it’s okay to blather about social programs. With their spending a trillion dollars a year – and all of it borrowed – the military-security establishment knows there is no chance for such words to go beyond speeches.

If the speeches make Americans feel good about the state of things, well, that’s just fine.

_____________________

Response to another comment:

Sanders always sounds good, but it’s an illusion to believe the sounds mean anything of substance.

First, he showed the world what kind of stuff he is made of in 2016, when he smilingly supported the woman who cheated him out of the nomination and who, indeed, represented the embodiment of many of the things that his strong campaign condemned.

How is someone like that supposed to stand up to a crowd of guys in big Armani suits and gleaming uniforms seated around huge oak tables in Washington?

His “programs,” like those of Warren or anyone else, are just blather, political entertainment at best. Maybe “fantasies” or “dreams” would be a better word. You are, after all, still allowed to dream or fantasize in America. What you are not allowed to do is to change much of anything.

So long as the Pentagon and the security establishment burn through a trillion dollars a year – money, they don’t even have, but just keep borrowing, putting immense future burdens on average Americans – no “program” of any description will see the light of day.

Furthermore, the American privileged class will not tolerate appropriately-serious new taxes. And just who is it that you think pays all the campaign expenses for “the best Congress money can buy”?

Bernie is an attractive candidate, at a glance, but with a little thought you realize he’s from Cloud-cuckoo-land. He actually doesn’t grasp the hard realities of the country in which he lives.

Vermont is a nice place – I’ve been there several times – pretty, charming, populated with a good many liberal college professor or artistic types, but it is completely out of step with America, the raw, unvarnished reality of a brutal global power representing the interests of a plutocracy.

Vermont – with its roughly one-third of one percent of the national population, unrepresentative economy and ethnic make-up – does a little remind me of Newt Gingrich’s unpleasant phrase about “a sandbox for yuppies,” his characterization of national public television.

The state does represent a kind of prettified Disneyworld attraction, “Precious Early Rural America Land.” Or a rural retreat for Americans fed up with the ugly realities of their own country, both at home and abroad. That’s certainly why Bernie himself went there, fleeing New York decades ago as part of America’s massive urban phenomenon known as “White Flight.”

I suspect the Pentagon and security establishments have no real problem with him making his speeches that are virtually guaranteed to have no effect.

He is not John Kennedy, someone who became a genuine threat to establishment arrangements of his time, arrangements which have only flourished and become deeply rooted for nearly sixty years.

Again, the overwhelmingly dominant reality of America, something affecting and distorting every aspect of its society, is that it represents a plutocracy and runs a brutal global empire for that plutocracy’s benefit.

If you don’t deal with that central fact, then you can deal with almost nothing but matters about as important as re-arranging the dinner table.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

“A Congress without compromise serves no one”

Yes, indeed.

But Mr. Simpson is spitting against the wind.

Extreme and divisive attitudes absolutely characterize United States’ politics, the same kind of politics Harper works diligently towards establishing in Canada.

But the principle in Mr. Simpson’s quote is only in part true.

The Congress can serve no genuine purpose for the community at large, but it perfectly serves special interests.

The battle between the individual (or regional) interest and the community (or national) interest is an old one for any legislative body, but once you allow the special-interest payment for government though campaign contributions – which is exactly what the U.S. has and what Harper works towards – then the community interest will virtually always loose.

It is almost an unwritten rule of representative government.
__________________________

“The political stalemate in the U.S. should give pause to those who clamour for an elected upper chamber in Canada.”

A good point.

And with Harper working towards special-interest financing of elections, the situation would only be more pathetic.
_________________________________

“The problem in the USA is and always has been that it is not a multi-party democracy, but a two-party power sharing agreement that gives special interest groups enormous power to sway political decisions by promising to deliver blocks of voters over single issues. It does not matter who is in power.”

Also a good point.

It is a duopoly in politics, and everything true of duopolies in economics is true in politics.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOK IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Sorry, this article is delusional.

Remodeling America is an imaginary concept.

Despite changes over the last two centuries such as universal franchise, America manages a great deal to be what it was two centuries ago.

An aristocracy of wealth and influence, where only a small number of people’s views genuinely count and one bent on imperial expansion.

The entire political system is stacked against serious change.

Congress is the best money can buy, and that goes for both parties.

The two parties are an opportunistic duopoly representing almost no principles at all.

The Washington establishment of the Pentagon/CIA/NIA/FBI actually form an unelected continuing government behind the elected government.

The last president who tried challenging that unelected government died in Dallas November 22, 1963.

Obama is personally an enlightened man of considerable depths, but he is ambitious to be and remain president. That wish is virtually incompatible with “remolding America.”

American exceptionalism is now everywhere and always the rule, whether it is making a war crime/ invasion into legitimate foreign policy or the Secretary of State putting pressure on Italy over a woman, one from a well-off family, fairly convicted of murder.