John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS ABOUT THE AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY DEBATES

 

“Biden clashes with Warren, Sanders on health care in 3rd Democratic debate

“Candidates pare back some of the bickering that marked 2 earlier debates”

 

Pretty sad field.

The Party killed off the best candidate it had in years, Tulsi Gabbard.

None of these people really challenge the American war machine. Not one. Bernie comes closest, but he has mainly supported it and doesn’t seriously challenge it.

Elizabeth Warren has not only always voted for the hideous budgets, she openly says things like we’ve got to fight our way out of the situations in which we’ve become mired, whatever that stupidity means.

They are all establishment figures of little real promise. Not one of them is stirring or genuinely interesting.

Talk about this or that social program, which is what many of these candidates do, is a waste of breath when you’re spending a trillion dollars a year on the military, security, and spying.

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Response to a comment saying, “The richest country in the world cannot afford healthcare, only more weapons to ‘help’ those who disagree with them”

Well, yes, and just look at the urban and rural hellholes that pockmark the United States.

Genuine Third-World stuff, without even decent drinking water or schools.

That is the reality of America.

Plutocracy and empire and squalor and constant turmoil to serve and expand empire.

The people? Who are you kidding? They simply do not count, except in insincere political speeches.

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Response to a comment saying, “Biden and Obama bombed 6 countries while in office”

Yes, and very importantly, they started the industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program which uses drones and Hellfire missiles to incinerate people legally guilty of nothing. Thousands of them.

And Joe Biden advocated hard to Obama for starting it.

Wonderful people. Doing the same work as Argentina’s old military junta did when it “disappeared” thousands of people it didn’t like.

Only Obama and Biden both smile all the time.

And a lot of people believe their smiles are benign.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ITEM IN MOON OF ALABAMA

 

“There are freshmen from Michigan and Maryland in Congress who recently made some news with comments about the Zionist lobby. Some anti-imperialists and progressives lauded them for their efforts and defended them against attacks. But these are wolfs in sheep clothing.

“Rep. Ilhan Omar: ‘The people of Syria revolted against Assad’s repressive dictatorship 8 years ago today, demanding a more just and free government. Peace loving people around the world stand in solidarity with them in this struggle!’

“Rashida Tlaib: ‘The anniversary of the uprising against the oppression in Syria was yesterday. We must recognize the struggle of those who organized and stood up against injustice. It is my hope that we can see a Syria that is truly free one day.’”

 

I like Ilhan Omar for speaking out on Palestine, just as I like Tulsi Gabbard’s efforts to understand the ugly war in Syria. I admire them both for public courage.

But, please, this is America we are talking about.

To expect anyone in American politics to come along with completely fresh and informed and honest views is just dreaming.

Just as with Bernie Sanders’ so-called socialism or, indeed, anything at all about Sanders.

He’s a distinguished-looking bag of hot air.

He showed everyone what he was made of in his confrontation with the woman who plainly stole the nomination from him, Hillary Clinton.

He’s never been a strong voice against global empire, against the secret terror of the CIA, against the vast intrusions of the NSA, or against the monstrous waste and mass killing of the Pentagon.

And then we have that thoroughbred phony, Elizabeth Warren, making precious little noises all the time about progressive matters while voting for hateful defense and security budgets and never opposing all those wars and offering us in speeches smatterings of the establishment’s poison about Iran.

I’ve said it many times. There are no liberals, genuine liberals, in the United States, at least not in any positions of authority or influence. Not one in the national government. Not one in charge of a major news source. None guiding the nation’s great institutions and foundations and education establishments.

America is about empire and the wars required to sustain it, and that is pretty much it. The rest is elaborate window dressing, theater, playacting. Empires do not get built and maintained and expanded by nice guys, and the resources constantly pouring into empire leave no room for great human or humane efforts.

Another thing I’ve said many times is that you can have either an empire or a decent country, but you cannot have both. America made its choice, long ago.

The entire atmosphere of the place, the education system, the press, the churches, the politics – all immersed and saturated in war and the drive for empire with little room for other values. It can be seen and heard and felt in a thousand details.

What could be more blatantly unfair and anti-democratic than what we see being done to Venezuela today? Yet, where are the American voices against their government’s open use of threats and terror? The politicians? The editors? The great university heads? The church leaders?

Some might claim an excuse over events in Syria because many facts about responsibility for that set of atrocities remained well hidden for a long time. Many facts remain hidden still, despite our learning a good deal here and there.

But here, in the case of Venezuela, we see daily the blunt face of fascism telling people who they should vote for, who should swear himself in as President, who should control the country’s assets, and destroying the national power grid, an act of terror which undoubtedly killed and injured many and destroyed what was in the fridges of literally millions of the most ordinary people.

Why isn’t anyone shouting at the top of their lungs?

All this done by men who say they respect democracy and human rights and expect to be respected in the world as leaders.

You know, Hitler gave one of the great speeches about peace, not long before he started a new war. It was reported by that great journalist and chronicler of Nazi Germany, William Shirer.

And, under the Nazis, Germany had some window dressings of progressivity, various socialistic measures, if you will. It even sometimes held plebiscites.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JOHN KIRIAKOU IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“Neither Rain, Sleet, nor Snow Will Stop the Post Office From Spying on You

“It’s called the “Mail Cover Program” and it’s run by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Yes, even the Post Office is spying on us”

 

Good little piece.

I like the personal anecdote about sending his wife a card from prison (where this convicted CIA whistleblower spent just short of two years), something which highlights humble realities of life in a national security state.

“In general, Americans don’t–or at least haven’t–objected to a gradual loss of civil liberties and constitutional rights. That has to stop.”

The first part of that statement seems so true. But the herd behavior of populations, so counted upon by advertisers and marketers, is very much also counted upon by the power establishment and its security apparatus. I say “its” because that’s who is largely being served, not people in general.

I personally take a dark view of the second part of the statement, “That has to stop.”

There is no effective political mechanism for dealing with the situation.

The parties are both married to the security state through money.

Government by, of, and for the privileged and wealthy is what you have.

The combination of the various security mechanisms, the military, and the bought-and-paid-for members of the legislature work round the clock for their interests.

That is what the Dark State is, what America is.

Small independent voices heard in American politics are just that, small and independent. They are tolerated, but they have no power or hope of power.

The more prominent seeming-rebels – a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren – are just more of the same old, same old, dressed up in jeans and beads.

When you support activities like America’s outlaw work in Venezuela, when you support Dark State creatures like Hillary Clinton, and when you vote for Pentagon budgets, when you parrot all the lines about Iran or Syria, you are only a pretend critic, a potential reformer of nothing that counts. Moreover, even your more fanciful ideas about matters such as education and healthcare have zero chance ever without fundamental reform. That’s Sanders and Warren, completely.

The truth is that any kind of serious popular movement has almost no chance of accomplishing anything in a contemporary, advanced Western state. Just look at France’s Gilets Jaunes. There was a genuine, spontaneous popular movement and it started to have some impact, but France’s national security apparatus – and France is a state just like the United States in the way it is run – now appears to have quieted them with false accusations of being associated with anti-Semitism and a possibly contrived provocative event.

Sorry, but that really is how I see America, and I consider myself very much a realist.