John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY CRAIG MURRAY IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“The Simple Explanation for the Betrayal of Britain’s Envoy

“Craig Murray has a strong hunch about why someone would leak Kim Darroch’s scathing comments about Trump”

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/10/the-simple-explanation-for-the-betrayal-of-britains-envoy/?unapproved=374384&moderation-hash=9e2db8191c3309ba52faed708becf841#comment-374384

 

Very interesting little article.

The portrait here of Kim Darroch is so different than what we see in the mainline British press, it is actually a bit startling.

His newspaper portrait in Britain, at least in the press I read, is of an extremely able man, a classy diplomat.

But what we have here is a kind of British Trump, a crude loud-mouth and abusive man.

This is a terrific example of how a story can be made to appear almost unrecognizably different.

The truth? I am not sure when it comes to government and foreign policy anymore we ever get any truth.

Deception and misrepresentation are the norms simply because governments like those of the United States and Britain are engaged full-time in so many dark imperial projects all over the world.

The people never voted for much of what is being done in their name and might well not support much of it, if only they knew.

I’m afraid this is just one more fragment of evidence – along with such matters as what really has happened in Syria, what really is going on with Iran, why the United States never acts to rein in Israel and impose a fair settlement, day-and-night Russophobia, the assault on China, and so much more – telling us what a dreamworld we now live in. Perhaps “nightmare” is a more fitting word than “dream.”

Almost nothing in our press and from our politicians is real anymore. There’s an entire world of government activity that goes unreported and unexamined. If one insists on using the unattractive term “fake news,” – unattractive because of the class of people who regularly use it – its main application should be to Western governments.

Obviously, under such circumstances, references to “democracy” or even “democratic” are meaningless. The people are simply not aware of what their “elected” governments are doing.

Whatever Kim Darroch’s character really is and whatever the motivation for someone leaking his embarrassing past confidential observations of Donald Trump, the observations, of course, remain valid. We know that from the best possible source, our own regular observations.

Trump is indeed an emperor without any clothes. An embarrassingly obvious man in his words and acts. But, as with so many things in Washington, you are really not allowed to say that.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WHITNEY WEBB IN MINTPRESS

 

“The Trust Project: Big Media and Silicon Valley’s Weaponized Algorithms Silence Dissent

“Given the Trust Project’s rich-get-richer impact on the online news landscape, it is not surprising to find that it is funded by a confluence of tech oligarchs and powerful forces with a clear stake in controlling the flow of news.’

 

https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-trust-project-big-media-and-silicon-valleys-weaponized-algorithms-silence-dissent/259030/

 

Thanks, another solid piece from Whitney Webb.

Of course, America’s big hi-tech media companies and corporate press are not in the nasty business of misrepresenting what is true simply out of their convictions, although they are able to stage a rather impressive piece of mass theater with each of them having speaking parts claiming heroically otherwise.

Multi-billionaire companies and people are very little concerned with philosophical questions such as, “what is truth?” or with fundamental matters such as scrupulous honesty.

Oh, yes, they are much concerned over the appearance of honesty, the appearance of concern for truth, but that is another matter entirely.

Otherwise, they simply would not be billionaires. Becoming exceedingly wealthy requires a steady focus on very different matters. There are no high rates of financial return for honesty or principle.

I don’t see why anyone would doubt that, especially in light of America’s present extremely aggressive efforts to bend the entire planet to its will – in the Middle East, in Russia, in China, in South America, and in Europe.

Threats, illegal sanctions, wars, coups, proxy armies, lies, and a high general level of hostility and arrogance all play a role, day-in and day-out. America simply insists on applying American law to the entire planet, ignoring the laws of other nations and the laws of international organizations. Which, of course, in the end, comes down to gaining an immense benefit for America’s corporations and its power establishment.

America’s foreign policy now intimately serves its establishment in securing economic advantages through force and concessions, advantages the establishment seems unable to secure through traditional product excellence and fair competition. American foreign policy today has little to do with diplomacy.

After all, what is “the American power establishment” but a collection of America’s wealthy corporations and individuals, supported by a compliant Congress and such intimidating and powerful agencies as the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA?

That combination of power is something many people struggle to find proper language to describe, using terms such as the Dark State, the unelected secret government, or even “the swamp.” Millions instinctively understand that something real is at work influencing events, though they may not have a good name or definition for it.

In the end, it comes down to America’s plutocracy supported by powerful agencies supplied by a completely accommodating national government.

Despite centuries of intellectual ferment and struggle and reform and revolution in the West around human rights, freedoms, and democracy, we remain pretty much ruled by wealth, just as people in 18^th century, pre-revolutionary France were.

The centuries of struggle have produced an elaborate stage play of democracy, not the actual thing. Oh, there have been gains, such as it no longer being acceptable for a nobleman’s carriage to run down a peasant in its way on the road or for a nobleman to rape a peasant’s daughter, claiming Droit du seigneur. The gains are about civility and behavior, not about governing.

 Money’s dominating politics, with the only serious source for that money being the wealthy, tells you who still calls the shots. The situation is identical for both political parties in America, and it is no different in Western Europe.

We really have no record of our corporate press ever deeply concerning itself over journalistic integrity. Lip service, yes, of course. But experience over time demonstrates the opposite in its normal practices.

There is clear self-interest in all the new schemes to certify “what is true and what is not” in the press and media, and the only truth about those schemes is that what ordinary people and philosophers mean by “truth” has nothing to do with any of it.

It’s sad how such schemes so readily gain a solid foothold in American society, gain a kind of ersatz reality, much as with Russophobia, which has been just another tactic in the power establishment’s efforts to secure global supremacy.

Please notice the complete contradiction between all the earnest stuff about truth and the quiet acquiescence in persecuting Julian Assange or Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden, people who gave us indisputable and great truths.

I have a personal theory as to why that is so, one I think with a good deal of substance.

It involves the role and influence of Puritanism in American history, which is extensive, going back at least to “the Pilgrim Fathers.” Now, those were people who always ferociously believed that they had the truth, and to the total exclusion of all others. They were also people who very much believed that wealth and material success were signs of God’s approval and special blessing.

Note the very terms used today, as “The Trust Project” or “News Guard” or “Election Guard” are dead giveaways of Twenty-First Century Puritanism.

Readers might enjoy this:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/john-chuckman-comment-some-history-of-puritanism-in-america-it-explains-a-lot-of-todays-wars-and-belligerence-and-close-mindedness-they-werent-quite-the-nice-folks-a-benign-name-like-pilgri/

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

The New York Times is very much like American foreign policy.

On the outside, it’s all lip service to truth and integrity.

On the inside, it’s exactly and precisely the opposite.

The paper has a long history of prejudices and bad intentions and twisted journalism and work for the secret services while pompously trumpeting its superior merits.

It is, literally, as sick an institution as the State Department, no matter who happens to be serving at its head.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

You really do not need new evidence about the hopeless state of the news at BBC.

Every perceptive reader of BBC’s Internet site knows what a patchwork of half-truths and public relations puke BBC News has become.

It is just painfully obvious in the selection of stories, the selection of descriptive words, the images selected, and what is missing.

I check it daily just to see what games they are playing on any particular day.