John Chuckman

COMMENT ON BRITAIN’S WORST PAPER, THE GUARDIAN

 

I have before called The Guardian, once a broadsheet newspaper of respectable dullness, today’s worst newspaper in the world when it comes to journalism.

As if to further bolster its claims, below is a list of items taken from the front page around noon on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration. The titles – ranging from genuinely childish to asinine – tell the story of a newspaper which has become almost a case study in “fake news,” fake news from the establishment, the most dangerous kind. A paper that was once respectably tedious has become flashily, even garishly, irresponsible, bombastic, and prejudiced.

When it isn’t conducting all-out assaults on someone its editors hate – examples have included Jeremy Corbyn, a thoroughly decent political leader of the British Labour Party, against whom they conducted a months-long McCarthyite campaign over completely unsupported charges of anti-Semitism to comments on his dressing in an unacceptably ugly way, and Donald Trump, who has had everything from the speculated small size of his penis featured to a hundred unsupported claims of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia hurled at him.

When they aren’t furiously attacking someone, they literally are falling over themselves trying to build up someone they do like for whatever reason – examples include proven criminal lowlife and liar, Tony Blair, inept, never-closes-his-mouth politician, Owen Smith, and London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, who does nothing but grant self-promoting interviews. Establishment all, and quite dismally so.

To spice things up and maintain some kind of vague claim about still being a progressive publication, we get a long trail of useless or genuinely rubbishy articles along the lines of what it is like trying to have sex when you have wooden legs or the perils of a vegetarian in a restaurant trying to avoid inhaling the smoke from barbequed meats. Then we have declarations of how someone bravely faces all the waves of misogyny that are crashing over us, or why I am getting a German passport to leave the UK, horrible place that it has become for racism and prejudice. These articles enlighten no one about anything, but they do make loud self-applauded claims of tolerance and allow for eye-catching, trashy headlines to raise readership, and they employ the well-established advertising principle of great repetition keeping a theme on readers’ minds as though it really were something important.

In eight years of Obama’s continuous killing in half a dozen countries, there was never a concern raised, never a doubt expressed over what was going on. More than that, there was very little truth told about those events, the bloody events of Syria’s induced horror, for example, always being blurred over, never explained, and indeed, outright lied about many times, with re-written versions of the official line from Washington being offered as reportage and analysis. Shabby almost beyond belief because, while it is all just what we expect from a Washington Post or New York Times, this is a British paper and one with historic attachments away from the power establishment.

That is because today’s Guardian marches shoulder-to-shoulder not with the ordinary workers of its past, but with the ghastly establishment who brought us the bloodshed, refugees, and terror-blowback of the Neocon Wars. It joined their team, so to speak, some years ago. We see that in everything from its reportage and comment to its regular efforts to rehabilitate an utterly discredited lying killer like Tony Blair and its sycophantic support – and that’s not in the least an exaggeration – of Hillary Clinton, who, without a doubt, would have proved the most duplicitous and murderous President ever.

 Here is The Guardian dump of Trump-hating articles for Inaugural Day:

 

“The honeymoon is already over for President Trump”

Richard Wolffe     – whom I would like to ask, what honeymoon would that be?

 

“Late-night hosts on the inauguration: ‘How is that a president?’”

Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers took aim at the inauguration proceedings and shared concern over the future: ‘We’re so fucked’     – note the language declaring how tolerant The Guardian is.

 

“Women will march against Trump. We may lose, but it’s still worth it”

Suzanne Moore     – who undoubtedly writes from a leather wing chair in a comfortable Mayfair flat.

 

“Music: this week’s anti-Trump songs reviewed’

Michael Hann     – note that is just “this week’s.”

 

‘I’m going to speak out as often as I can, otherwise I can’t live with myself’

Paul Auster     – well, I don’t think he has to worry about an outlet: The Guardian will print his every gasp.

 

“How to Trump-proof your life (in a minute) – video”        – now, there’s assinity, and writ large.

 

“The Peace Ball: black brilliance and resistance on the eve of the Trump era”

Steven W Thrasher     – who should be asked; resistance to what?

 

“Why the next four years will be a test for all of us’

Yaa Gyasi     – a test in what? Writing meaningless article titles?

 

“Why my seat at the inauguration is empty”

 “I will not be celebrating the swearing-in of a president who rode racism, sexism, xenophobia and bigotry to the White House”   

Barbara Lee      – she may have left some name-calling quality out, but I don’t know what it would be.

 

“Terrified of Trump: What we learned at Davos 2017”       – someone was sent to Davos to learn nothing.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE POSTED IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

One of my basic rules in sorting through the induced chaos of our world is: I believe absolutely nothing the Pentagon says, ever.

The Pentagon’s trail of lies and propaganda is so long and twisted, it’s not worth bothering to sort out any of its new statements. You will always stand a better chance of being informed just by following the simple rule of ignoring them.

But, even were the Pentagon right in this instance, there’s a simple response.

Stay in your own part of the world and quit trying to intimidate and threaten others in half a dozen places.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NATALIE NOUGAYREDE IN THE GUARDIAN

 

I have rarely seen such an unperceptive and truly meaningless piece of writing. It is a very good example of words used just to hear yourself.

“Once more, America will have to step in to save us…”

What an incredibly patronizing statement, loaded with unwarranted assumptions, the smugness of a David Cameron, and the insouciance of a would-be Paris salon hostess.

How can a country which cannot run its own affairs help anyone? America is in bad shape on almost every front, yet it insists on a new monomaniacal drive to re-make the face of the earth.

And how is that drive financed in a country which cannot balance its books, its trade balances, or any other measure of self-regulation you care to cite? By abusing its fortunate position as world reserve currency, pumping out endless dollars for all the world’s suckers to hold.

In fact, America is the source of many of Europe’s greatest problems.

It was America’s irresponsible, greed-based financial crisis in 2008 that tipped the world into dangerous economic territory from which it has not recovered.

It is American aggressive policies which are pushing Europe into untenable positions vis-a-vis Russia, a natural partner for Europe in everything from energy supplies to a market for consumer goods and farm products.

Aggressive American policies have pushed Europeans towards greater military spending at a time when realistically it is completely unnecessary.

NATO itself is today nothing but a mechanism to keep America at the center of European affairs, a very costly mechanism both in terms of military spending and in terms of divisiveness with Europe’s natural partners.

It is American aggressive policies concerning the Mideast which have caused all the misery of Syria and Libya and Iraq, resulting in all the terrible migration of refugees.

It is American influence, especially through its unceasing facilitator, Ms. Merkel, that has transported these woes into Europe.

Look at the madman, Erdogan, an unbalanced and genuinely dangerous man, and the risky games Europe is driven to play with him.

Europe, left to itself, might end many of its relations with him, but it is American insistence on the geo-political importance of Turkey that keeps Europe from responding as it should.

Good God, what could be more insane than a member of NATO shooting down a Russian plane and then running behind NATO’s skirts? It reflects the same insanity which drives Erdogan to slaughter Kurds, imprison journalists, and assassinate opponents.

The sum total of American policies is effectively crushing Europe almost like a glacier rolling over the continent, and here is this silly salon-voice saying you need more.

_____________________________

Response to another reader’s comment:

American policy has generated the refugee crisis which is the cause of most xenophobic reactions in Europe.

Any country would be hard pressed to accommodate what is happening today.

Every population has its share of nasty people who will react badly to such huge new stresses.

Every population has a natural distribution of everything from plug-uglies to mental cases. You can’t make that fact go away. Wise governments don’t create situations which stress them and bring them to the fore.

But Europe under American influence has done just that.

I cannot imagine a more bankrupt policy than paying a violent lunatic like Erdogan – a key player in creating the horror – to help, but that is what Europe is doing.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Mark Steel is just a second-rate propagandist.

Of course, China has its flaws, and some serious ones.

But perspective is everything.

After all, let’s not forget that Britain did help mightily in killing about a million people in Iraq, the creation of a couple of million miserable refugees, and the destruction of large parts of an advanced society for generations.

And Britain happily supports America’s horror in Syria, the letting-loose of tens of thousands of well-equipped cutthroats in an effort to destroy a beautiful land.

I haven’t heard any public cries from Downing Street over the Saudi terror campaign in Yemen, including the use of cluster bombs on civilians. Perhaps I missed something?

No, I don’t think I did. There was nothing either about all the Saudi beheadings and a sentence of crucifixion either. But there was a huge secret arms sale and a project for building prisons in one of the world’s great tyrannies.

Please, stuff like this of Mr. Steel’s is just clap-trap. I doubt very much he raised his voice on such other atrocities as Israel’s murderous abuse of several million Palestinians for half a century. This remains the world’s single greatest example of a complete squashing of human rights and decency: the Palestinians have no votes, no rights, no future, and they can’t even enjoy their homes and farms with any security. Again, that is a matter about which we never hear from good old David or Mr. Steel for that matter.

After all, for David to do so, even slightly, would seriously harm relations with Rupert Murdoch, a man, by the way, whose British publishing empire was built in part on hacking the intimate telephone conversations of hundreds of unfortunate people, including victims of violent crime. To say nothing of casting a pall over those delightful country weekends with Rupert’s designated creature in Britain, red-haired bombshell Rebekah Brooks

Interesting, despite China’s shortcomings in human rights, it has pretty well lived in peace with its neighbors for its entire modern existence.

That certainly cannot be said of the United States or its colony in the Middle East, the two most dangerous states in the modern world, both of whom get David’s unlimited support and affection.

______________________

America has given us nothing but wars and coups and “interventions” since the end of the Second World War. The toll of their attempts to control the planet, including such glorious episodes as the Vietnam War, has been literally as many people killed – mostly civilian, as is the case in all modern war – as were killed in the Holocaust.

Three million victims just in Vietnam, another million in Iraq, a million in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Chile, Guatemala, and on and on.

Israel, America’s colony in the Middle East, has behaved as a miniature replica of the mother country. It has done nothing but kill and suppress people for 65 years, having invaded every neighbor that it has, many of them two or three times.

I don’t see how anyone can write what Mark Steel writes without being entirely ignorant of modern history or deliberately ignoring it. In either case, the result is not worth publishing.