John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

 

“CNN Continues to Implode After RussiaHoax, It’s Much Worse Than People Realize

“They’re paying the price for lying relentlessly about the RussiaHoax, and a lot of other things”

 

CNN has always been both incompetent and dishonest.

I haven’t seen it in many years, but I can think of a number of prominent examples from the 1990s or the early 2000s.

As when it ran a truly idiotic piece of fraudulent video about Osama bin Laden’s supposed scientific laboratories in the mountain caves of Afghanistan where he was said to be developing poison agents for use as “weapons of mass destruction.”

It literally was a laughable piece of work by one intelligence outfit or another, and CNN’s using it showed no journalistic integrity or judgment at all. It was just gung-ho support for war.

Osama’s caves were, in fact, primitive, uncomfortable places of refuge and hiding, not fantastic and well-equipped places resembling scenes from Flash Gordon’s 1936 movie serial.

CNN did many such clownish stunts, and not just ones involving foreign affairs. Its work, for example, on the Richard Jewell affair, following the Atlanta Olympics bombing, was about as shabby and worthless as it comes. CNN always tried to fill airtime by spending almost no money or resources. Journalism had almost nothing to do with its activities of filling airtime and selling advertising spots, whose appeal was juiced-up with anything controversial.

For some reason, the network never was seriously attacked, as it is being attacked now, attacked for supposedly being part of the political Left, but CNN’s countless past idiocies had nothing to do with the political Left or Right. They stood on their own.

It seems that only with the failure of Special Counsel Mueller’s report to astonish anyone are CNN’s deficiencies being proclaimed, at least by a certain segment of those concerned with public affairs on the Internet. But of course, Mueller’s investigation was problematic from the start.

What Trump represented for many in America’s establishment had little to do with Russia, although the establishment’s enduring hatred of Russia provided a convenient tool for getting at him. I don’t know, but perhaps the people plotting the efforts against Trump were influenced in their choice of Russia by the fact that, long ago, Trump was helped through some of his real estate messes by Russian oligarchs extending financial assistance. It had nothing to do with politics or election campaigns.

The American public was, after all, brainwashed and harangued – in magazines, books, movies, television shows, speeches, and even prayers – about Russia for decades of the Cold War, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, no effort was ever made to detoxify a poisoned environment. That environment remains a nurturing place for all things Russo-phobic, Russia-gate being just one example. America’s establishment wants it that way because America’s establishment hates Russia.

You do not have to be a Trump supporter or a conservative to see the fraud in Russia-gate. It has always been pretty clear from the early rhetoric of people like CIA Director John Brennan. His words were silly, and just the fact that a CIA Director would speak out in that fashion on a domestic political matter told you a big game was being played. CIA Directors simply don’t do that.

The so-called Steele Dossier lacked respectability and believability from the start, and the people who pushed it were insincere. After all, you don’t pay big fees to a private agency like Steele’s if you want reliable confidential information. What are America’s seventeen security agencies in the business of doing? Steele’s private agency resembles an international-intrigue version of a shabby, old-fashioned detective agency, manufacturing dirt for a living. Again, from the statements of various people, it was clear the FBI was involved in the big game.

Now, when senior people from the FBI and the CIA behave the way they did, it can only mean that the president himself is sitting back in approval. It could not happen otherwise. Obama had served the establishment faithfully for eight years and had been richly rewarded for doing so, leaving the White House a man worth tens of millions of dollars after having entered it as a man of fairly ordinary middle-class means.

He was serving the same interests again when Russia-gate was devised and implemented.

The Special Counsel’s Report continued the game to the end. It investigated nothing worth investigating, such as Julian Assange’s receipt of leaks or the death of Seth Rich or a number of other eyebrow-raising events, and it just assumed Russia had been at work in shadowy ways. It looked only for evidence connecting Trump to those shadowy efforts and found none.

As far as calling CNN liberal or Left because of the slant of this or that host or commentator on prospects for the Mueller Report in the months before its publication, that claim is no more accurate than CNN’s own reporting is. The hosts’ efforts were just the same cheap trick of juicing things up to sell ad spots for months and months.

The network is not from the political Left, but it has been anti-Trump. Lots of people in the political Center and even a number of traditional, sound conservatives hate Trump and regret his being in office.

And, as we saw with Obama’s CIA and FBI, some who disliked Trump tried to prevent him from ever taking office. That, of course, is a serious matter warranting investigation, but it will never happen. How can you investigate America’s establishment, the power behind the throne? It cannot be done, any more than troops in the field can investigate Pentagon brass.

Virtually the entire American corporate press in the United States has shared the same viewpoint. They are embarrassed by Trump, as they should be. But originally, and far more importantly, they feared a few things that he might attempt as a political maverick, although those are no longer a concern.

Please note that when Trump acts in the establishment’s clear interests, he is supported. And that includes very much activities against Russian and Chinese interests. For America’s establishment, Russia remains the hated thing that it was in 1952. Only the words used and the volume of the rhetoric have changed.

It cannot be overemphasized that the one country that can obliterate the United States – China not quite having arrived at that point, although it is fast approaching it with new weapons such as longer-range ICBMs – and necessarily stands in the way of America’s doing some things, is not going to be warmly embraced by a class of people trying to have their own way with everyone everywhere.

Trump has his own game that he has played, a game of survival. Whether it was ever genuine or just a vote-getter designed for segments of voters, he has abandoned entirely the role of political maverick, one who just might shake-up parts of the establishment. He has become instead its most ardent supporter. He’s noisy, rude, and gauche in the way he does it, but that’s just fine as long as he does the right things.

People will go a long way to get what they want in politics, to accommodate someone they believe will give it to them, a stunning example being Trump’s Christian fundamentalist supporters. They ignore the fact that the man is not a Christian, something usually important to evangelical Christians. They ignore his long record of immoral and treacherous behaviour with everyone from staff and business associates to his wife. They ignore his incessant lying in almost every task he undertakes. They ignore his rudeness and name-calling. They ignore his ready use of threats and violence. They ignore, in other words, much of what their own faith supposedly represents, just so that can obtain a few other things they value highly.

With the power establishment, as with any large group or organization, there are differences within their ranks, but those differences must never be confused with fundamental disagreements. When it comes to what it is that America actually represents today – maintaining or expanding its empire, conducting its colonial wars, supporting the Pentagon generously, never questioning the dirty operations of the CIA, and pursuing deep and destructive involvement in the Middle East – all individuals and parties are united and with no distinctions of liberal or conservative.

Oh, sure, Trump can still be seen as a maverick in his outbursts of outrageous language, but he cannot be seen that way in his actions. And he can be disliked for his words and manners, but words and manners aren’t what count where serious power is concerned. They can be tsk-tsked and effectively tolerated, so long as his actions are in keeping with the order of things, and with Trump, they very much are.

The Middle East remains on fire, hundreds of thousands having died and millions having been made refugees. America’s military and security services get their cups filled to overflowing. The Pentagon and CIA never had it so good. In the case of Obama’s massive extrajudicial killing enterprise with drones and missiles, for example, Trump even told the CIA that it can decide who dies. He doesn’t need to sign-off on “kill lists.” Countries like Venezuela that were under covert assault from Obama for years remain under assault, only the effort is even more intense and out in the open, as is so often the case with Trump. The mess Obama made of Ukraine remains a mess.

Some of the very people Trump has appointed, such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, are such loud and crude operators that they make little effort to hide what they do. They are proud of their ugly behavior, the kind of psychopathic behavior we see with serial killers keeping trophies of their victims.

The appointment of those men was directly influenced by the desires of Israel, as expressed through lobbyists and apologists in the United States to whom Trump turned for support against all the hostility he felt working against him. Israel now gets everything it asks for, including violent, unwarranted acts against Iran, and the genuine threat of war. And you don’t find Democrats opposing or criticizing any activities related to Israel. That just never happens.

And now, China very much shares in receiving hatred once mainly reserved for Russia, and that is owing to its new influence and prestige in the world, its increasing military might, its technological advances, its competitiveness, and its new associations with Russia. Those are all bad things in the eyes of people who work aggressively to tighten their hold on the world’s affairs, having experienced an unpleasant sense of impending loss through America’s relative economic decline over recent decades.

As he has amply demonstrated during his last two years in the spotlight, Trump is a loathsome man, a man without ethics or morals, a man of no principle beyond that of self-advancement, and a man without understanding in a great many matters, one who is literally at work disturbing the entire planet. But so long as he is disturbing it in ways that largely coincide with establishment interests, he is under no threat.

CNN has always been pro-establishment. Always been pro-American empire. Always been pro-Pentagon. To call it liberal or Left is absurd, but then much the same is true for any assertions about liberals and leftists in America. There are none. And when a few do appear, they are attacked tirelessly and viciously, as we see right now with a small group of junior Congresswomen.

 

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 SAMUEL MOYN IN THE GUARDIAN

 

 “The problem with Democrats is substance, not style

“Following Trump’s election, US liberals have blamed their failure on rhetoric. But politics is about much more than baiting voters”

 

The author starts with inaccurate assumptions.

Democrats and liberals are not the same thing at all.

Of course, some Democrats are liberals, but this is not a liberal party overall.

It is a war and empire party for sure.

The last Democratic President, Obama, still often is referred to as liberal, and I challenge anyone to support the characterization.

He was bombing people somewhere for every day of his eight years.

He was responsible for the chaos made out of Libya, a country whose leader, like him or not, kept his country at peace and was generous with the needs of his people.

He was also responsible for the start of the horror in Syria, which still continues, having killed about half a million.

He created millions of desperate refugees in Europe from his bombing in the Middle East.

He was responsible for the ominous “pivot” towards China after his march of destruction through the Middle East.

He started the American industrial-scale extrajudicial killing system using drones, something I would never have dreamed of seeing in the US years ago.

It was under his watch that the NSA and its massive domestic spying got really rolling.

He was almost a fanatic about secrecy and leaks and was always ready to punish leakers.

His one big domestic program, Obamacare, was a poorly-done compromise with big private health interests in the US. It never gained any affection from people with its very complicated and costly nature.

He did absolutely nothing for his own people, the poor blacks to whom he appealed in his campaign with “Yes, we can!” delivered in the rhythm of a black preacher.

He was involved in some pretty shady stuff we do not completely understand during the election with spying and other matters.

Please, there are no liberals in American, except some folks who gather in a few quaint shops in Vermont and Oregon and some professors no one listens to.

This is a massive brutal empire, and both parties fully support that central reality, which also leaves little resources or time or concern for the ordinary citizen. Indeed, years ago, both parties stopped talking about citizens and talked about consumers. They stopped talking about the poor and started talking about the middle class. The differences between the two parties are of the profound nature of any duopoly, as Coke versus Pepsi or McDonald’s versus Burger King.