JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY TIMOTHY GARTON ASH IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

The West?

Stop the slaughter in Syria?

It is the West – in the form, at least, of the United States and Israel – responsible for the slaughter’s happening in the first place.

Those countries have dumped weapons and intelligence and money into the hands of gangs representing God-knows-what, and they are responsible for the hideous consequences.

If another country tried doing this in the United States – and there are millions of malcontents and oddballs in the United States – it could certainly get a bloody rebellion going, although, of course, it would end miserably with America’s massive armed forces.

The United States has pulled this dirty trick before. One of the worst instances was Kissinger’s getting the Kurds to revolt in Iraq. It ended with thousands killed and the United States cowardly leaving them to their fate, as it generally has done in such cases.
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‘Couldn’t the author’s criticisms of Russia about its relationship with Syria also be made of the U.S. and its relationship with Saudi Arabia?

‘”Hypocrisy has its own elegant symmetry.” – Julie Metz’

Indeed.

And how about America’s relationships with Bahrain, Yemen, Somalia, Egypt under Mubarak, Pinochet, Ceausescu, Marcos, the late Shah, General Thieu, the PRI in Mexico, etc., etc.

Until we get to its relationship with Israel, one the world’s most bloody-minded states and one that breaks every international law and code of behavior, yet is always supported, heavily armed, and given great privileges by the United States.

Hypocrisy indeed.

And let’s not forget the million dead in Iraq, the 3 million in Vietnam, the horrors of Cambodia (caused by America’s intervention toppling a neutral government – the same game it plays today in Turkey).

The entire record since WWII is one of hypocrisy, arrogance, and stupid brutality.

America has nothing to teach anyone.
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For “Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,” author Timothy Garton Ash’s credit line, you should read: “Sinecure Holder at one of America’s great privately-funded Right Wing Propaganda Mills.”

Very little ever written by “Fellows” or “Senior Fellows” at the Hoover Institution is honest analysis, virtually all of it tending to support the imperial hegemony of the United States in high-blown doubletalk.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL BOSKIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Boskin’s home, the Hoover Institution, is little more than a glorified propaganda mill, much like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute.

It serves as a cozy sinecure for right-wing economists who’ve retired from true academics to spend their last years in leather armchairs offering up ready-made phrases and stock answers for right-wing causes.

Boskin’s “government can’t pick winners” is a really tired cliché, much like a tire with almost no tread which has been worn thin by overuse in the United States for over forty years. He, or anyone, should be ashamed of such unoriginal and largely meaningless language.

The larger truth is: no one can pick winners, certainly including private enterprise. There are countless examples of major corporations becoming train wrecks only recently, let alone over decades.

The truth is, and always has been, that intelligent government policies help reduce risk to business and promote growth.

In everything from property rights to zoning regulation and from infant-industry protection to regulating financial institutions, government is indispensable.

The early United States used many broad and deep forms of government protection, and it still does in a great many industries, especially in agriculture. And we see the creative arts there demanding all kinds of protective and even excessive laws for their digital products.

That despite the fact that much of early United States publishing was built on theft of European material. Dickens, for example, was furious the way American publishers regularly stole his works and paid him nothing. Those same publishers are some of the big American houses today.

And if you think government is unimportant just look at the economic explosion we call China.