Category Archives: Disinformation
Bernie Sanders, CNN, Democrats, Disinformation, Health/Medical, Kyung Lah, Media, Medicare for all, Physicians for a National Health Program
July 18, 2019 Dave Lindorff
It is increasingly clear that the wagons have circled both in the Democratic National Committee and in the news media to shut down any possibility of a national health plan as proposed by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) or Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
The media for their part, keep touting — almost a year and a half before Election day, and just under a year after next year's Democratic primary voting and caucusing, that two "centrists" (who should be called the Establishment candidates, both neo-Liberals in the Clinton mold) — Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the "leading candidates" for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Biden is quoted favorably for perpetrating the lie that establishing a new "single-payer" program of government insurance covering everyone would mean "starting from scratch" and taking away everyone's current employer-funded, or Obamacare subsidized health insurance.
Meanwhile Harris, who was against Medicare for All before she was for it, and who now talks about "funding" it with taxes on Wall Street, is treated like the voice of reason, when in fact she's just blowing smoke and confusing the issue deliberately.
So let's get this straight. Funding a program of what Bernie Sanders and health care activists call Medicare for All, would cost an estimated $30 trillion over the next 10 years (that last bit about over ten years tends to get left out of articles criticizing the plan), as in this report in the National Review. But it's not just right wing media that obfuscate. In a CNN interview of Harris, reporter Kyung Lah just says Sen. Sanders says the plan will "require a middle class tax cut" to fund.
But Lah doesn't say, and Harris, who is smart enough to know, but doesn't want to admit publicly, that the US healthcare system today already costs more than $3 trillion per year and will cost much more than $30 trillion over the next 10 years.
Here's the real story. As things stand presently, health care costs in the US account for 18% of total US Gross Domestic Product. That is to say, 18 % of all economic transactions in the US, government and private sector, go for medical care. That's 18% of $21.1trillion in 1019, or about $3.7 trillion. In constant dollars over the course of the next decade that would be $3.7 trillion.
That figure includes the cost of Medicare for the elderly and disabled — a program that is already funded by taxes paid by individuals and their employers (the federal budget for Medicaid, financed by those taxes, is about $600 billion this year). Add to that the amount for Medicaid, which provides health benefits for one-in-five Americans unable to obtain private insurance and which is funded by the federal government and the states (also about $600 billion this year), and taxpayers are already funding some $1.2 trillion of the US health care bill through taxation. Then add in the cost of private insurance, paid by both employers and employees, or for those working at stingier employers, or for themselves, through insurance offered under the ironically named Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which is about $2.2 trillion, and the cost of medical care paid out-of-pocket because it's not covered by increasingly loophole-plagued insurance plans (another $400 billion, and Americans and their employers are already paying a total of $3.6 trillion per year for health care. But this haphazard free-marked/government-funded tacked-together chaos that we call American-style healthcare still leaves 30 million citizens uninsured!
Now note that all of those expenditures — all $3.6 trillion of it — would be eliminated to be replaced by dedicated taxes paid by citizens and private companies to fund a real Canadian-style system of what is being called Medicare for All. On top of that, there would be no more worrying about paying medical bills, worrying about whether pre-existing conditions would be covered, worrying about losing a house because of medical expenses, or losing benefits if one lost a job, or needed to go out on strike to fight for better pay or working conditions. Your publicly funded health care would be a right, just like the right of free speech or the right to vote.
So saying, as CNN reporter Lah does so disingenuously, that the Sanders Medicare for All plan will "require a middle-class tax hike" is a grotesque fraud on the public. Medicare for All, which even a right-wing Koch-Brothers study claimed disparagingly would cost $30 trillion in tax funding over a ten-year period, while true, would actually cost some $6-7 trillion less in constant dollars than the current joke of a "system" we have in the US.
I would point out, for those who don't know it, that Canada, our neighbor to the north, has had a kind of "Medicare for All" system in place since 1976 — in fact it's called Medicare. And that system, which covers the medical care of all Canadians, no exception, and is financed entirely by taxes paid by individuals and businesses, is so popular that even though Canada and its provinces (which actually administer the system) all have been governed more often by conservatives than liberals or socialists over the intervening years, not one government, even the arch-conservative federal government of Stephen Harper that preceded the current one led by Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau, dared to cut it or to try to undo it. To do so would be to face immediate ouster, so popular is Canada's Medicare program.
I would add that even in the UK, which has a truly socialist health care system, where much like our huge and, from a point of quality, if not access, excellent Veterans Health Care System, features public hospitals owned by the government and physicians and support staff who are government employees paid salaries, not fees for service, no conservative government has dared to try and undo the system put in place by a Labour government just after the end of World War II nearly three-quarters of a century ago.
Harris deserves to be pummeled in upcoming debates, at her campaign appearances and in the media for her failure to admit that Sanders' Medicare for All plan would not increase the costs of healthcare by raising taxes, but would reduce those costs by freeing those 160 million Americans who are currently in costly bondage to their employers, depending on them for offering mostly crappy private health insurance coverage that they would lose if they lost those jobs, would end taxes for increasingly privatized Medicare and for hard to get and always threatened Medicaid, and would slash the costs of prescription drugs (now running at close to $500 billion a year).
Meanwhile, while in place of those taxes, and while eliminating private payment and employer payment of insurance premiums, there would surely have to be taxes paid by individuals and businesses to fund a new public insurance system like Medicare for All, Harris and other half-hearted "backers" of the Sanders program — and Sanders himself — should be calling for massive cuts in military spending, now at a record $1.3 trillion per year, with some of the savings going to fund public healthcare. That would be real "national defense"!
I don't object to Harris's proposal in her pathetic CNN interview, that taxes be increased on Wall Street and the Financial sector to fund health care, but that's small beer compared to the funds available from cutting the US military down to size and ending the current imperial policy of endless wars and of military action instead of diplomacy in foreign affairs.
First though, we need an honest debate about Medicare-for-All — not one that hides the issue behind false warnings about "increased middle-class taxes" to fund it.
Everyone will save money under Medicare-for-All, and we will have a far, far healthier population to show for it. Even Sanders himself has done a poor job of making this point in his campaigning. Why doesn't he just say it: Americans will be financially, and medically, better off if they paid a bit more in taxes to obtain full coverage under Medicare for All and eliminated the premiums they and their employer now pay increasingly costly and less adequate private insurance coverage.
The clear advantage of government-provided over privately funded health care is why every other developed nation in the world, and many less developed ones, has some form of nationally-funded health care system that treats health care as a right, why every one of those countries has spends less total money as both a share of GDP and national budget, and on a per-capita basis than we do in the US, and yet, in all developed country cases and in many less developed countries, also have better health statistics (life expectancy, infant mortality rates, incidence of diabetes and untreated high blood pressure, etc.).
Time for some god-damned honesty about this issue from both our politicians and the media!
Corporate Media, Disinformation, Donald Trump, ethnic cleansing, Israel/Palestine, Jared Kushner, Land ownership, Land Theft, Mahmoud Abbas, Media Bias, Oslo Accords, Palestinian Authority, Propaganda, Settler Colonization, Transparency/Secrecy, US Congress, US Hypocrisy, US lies, Zionism
The Book of Palestine: National Liberation vs Endless Negotiations
July 9, 2019 Ramzy Baroud
Those who are still hoping that the new American agenda on Palestine and Israel is temporary, or reversible, should abandon this false hope. Washington's complete adoption of Israel's messianic, extremist policies regarding Occupied Palestine has been a long time in the making. And it is here to stay.
Despite the unmistakable clarity in the American political discourse regarding Palestine, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is still trapped in a 25-year long, ineffectual political paradigm. Unable to move past their disproportionate reliance on American validation, and lacking any real strategic vision of their own, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his men are operating within a clichés-centered trajectory of a 'negotiated peace' – a discourse that was, itself, invented and championed by Washington and its allies.
Newly-appointed (not elected) Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, conveyed this very sentiment in his June 24 interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "If you look at the literature, if you look at the statements, our President has been working by the book," he said.
What book was Shtayyeh referring to? Certainly not the book of international and humanitarian law, which has devised a clear path aimed at achieving Palestinian freedom, rights and territorial sovereignty.
It is, rather, a book that is written by Washington, from which brazen pro-Israel agenda has preceded the Donald Trump administration by decades.
This is, in fact, the core ailment of Palestinian politics, as practiced by the PA. Throughout the years, the PA has received hundreds of millions in American funds, in exchange for sidelining the UN in favor of a complete American hegemony over the so-called 'peace process'. Abbas' recent attempts at reviving the role of the UN and its affiliated institutions is a belated attempt at correcting a historical mistake.
What will it take for Shtayyeh, and his boss in Ramallah, to abandon the American option and, instead, to develop a rounded strategy that is founded on national unity, democratic representation and international solidarity? Much precious time has been lost subscribing to the one-sided American book, which has no room for a Palestinian discourse of national liberation, unconditional freedom and basic human rights.
While Trump's advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was referring to Palestinians as "hysterical and erratic," following the two-day Bahrain economic conference (June 25-26), US Middle East 'peace envoy', Jason Greenblatt, was challenging the very terminology used by the entire international community regarding the illegal Israeli Jewish colonies in Occupied Palestine.
"People (should) stop pretending (that) settlements, or what I prefer to call 'neighborhoods and cities,' are the reason for the lack of peace," the American envoy told participants at the 'Israel Hayom Forum for US-Israeli Relations'."
For the record, the widely-circulated right wing Israeli newspaper, 'Israel Hayom' which sponsored the conference, is financed by pro-Israel American casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson. The latter is known to be the primary advocate behind Trump's misguided policies in Palestine, including Washington's recognition of Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem as part of Israel's capital.
Greenblatt is but one of several unabashedly pro-Israel American politicians, who have taken the already biased US foreign policy to a whole new low. This clique also includes former US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and Washington's Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.
In an interview, also with 'Israel Hayom' on June 11, Haley tried to assure Israelis that "Israel should not be worried," about having to make any political concessions in exchange for Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital or of Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
"Through the Middle East plan (so-called 'Deal of the Century'), one of the main goals that Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt focused on was to not hurt the national security interests of Israel," Haley said. "They understand the importance of security; they understand the importance of keeping Israel safe."
While Haley's, Kushner's and Greenblatt's statements can be viewed as part of the ever-skewed, pro-Israel language emanating from Washington, one must not be too hasty. The fact is, Washington has now fully embraced the Zionist Israeli discourse without the slightest attempt at playing the role of the impartial arbitrator.
It is as if Haley et al are now members of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu's right wing Likud party.
But no one represents this blatant American realignment into the Israeli camp better than Ambassador Friedman, who has, in an interview with the New York Times, on June 8, backed any future Israeli annexation of parts of the Occupied West Bank.
A few weeks later, in a disturbing and highly symbolic gesture, the American Ambassador carried a sledgehammer and broke open a tunnel that snakes underneath the East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan. The tunnel, part of Israel's expansionistic policy in Occupied Jerusalem, has already damaged the foundation of over 80 Palestinian homes.
The determined and gratified look on Friedman's face spoke volumes about the 'hysterical, erratic' and extremist US foreign policy under Trump.
So what hope is left for the PA in Ramallah, now that Washington has taken all the political, financial and every other practical step to sideline Palestinians, to marginalize their rights and push them into submission? And what good will appealing to American sensibilities through CNN and any other platform do, considering that Washington's strategy is deeply entrenched and irrevocable?
Much can be said about Palestinian failure to change course when it became repeatedly clear since the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, that Washington has no interest in pressuring Israel to end illegal settlement construction and to respect international law. Worse, while Washington paid lip service to 'peace', it supported the Israeli war machine, military occupation and settlement construction with billions of dollars.
While it is good that the PA is finally waking up to the fact that subscribing to Washington's foreign policy book is a historic mistake, mere awareness is simply not enough.
It is time for the Palestinians to write their own book, one that is guided by the concept of national liberation, not endless negotiations; one that is predicated on unity, not mortifying factionalism; one that appeals to the whole global community, not to American handouts.
Corporate Tax, Debt, debtors prison, Disinformation, educationalism, General, homeless, Housing/Homelessness, Hunger, Incarceration, Labor, Language, Portland City of Roses/Rocks, Poverty, Propaganda, Public Spaces, social Darwinism, Society, Tax Cuts, Tax reform
You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can't choose two out of three
June 30, 2019 Paul Haeder
The central argument of Amusing Ourselves [Neil Postman] is simple: there were two landmark dystopian novels written by brilliant British cultural critics – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell – and we Americans had mistakenly feared and obsessed over the vision portrayed in the latter book (an information-censoring, movement-restricting, individuality-emaciating state) rather than the former (a technology-sedating, consumption-engorging, instant-gratifying bubble).
— Andrew Postman
So what would Neil Postman say about this fellow [note title of this essay, referencing Jeff Bezos' proclamation on what work should mean to every breathing American], or the many fellows like Bezos who have zero patience for a world without disrupting economies tied to their authoritarian business plan of more billionaires deserving (sic) more power. Disruptive and destructive, and not just economies in the book sense, but structural violence and community disintegration, murdering people with debt, lack of housing, no medical care, suicide, that's Bezos, et al looking to capitalize on every penny gathered from every nanosecond in our individual human lives.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has seen his company grow into one of the world's biggest companies.
Back in 1997, Bezos told shareholders that employees at other companies "can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com, you can't choose two out of three."
Bezos acknowledges his high standards for employees every year, telling shareholders that "it's not easy to work here."
In the 24 years since Amazon was founded, CEO Jeff Bezos has seen his company grow from a modest online bookshop to one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Back in 1997, Bezos was already expecting big things out of his young company. In his annual letter to Amazon shareholders, Bezos described how much effort he expected from his employees.
"When I interview people I tell them, 'You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can't choose two out of three," Bezos wrote in the 1997 letter.
"Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com's success."
The New York Times reported in 2015 exactly how bruising the work environment at Amazon could be. Employees were reportedly expected to routinely work late, were encouraged to criticize coworkers' ideas at meetings, and were often found crying at their desks. Amazon disputed many of the claims in the Times investigation, though the newspaper defended its reporting.
God forbid we call Amazon Boss Bezos a plantation owner of a different mother, for sure. That Americans — living in small and large cities, far and wide — depend on the Amazon way as if Amazon is sutured into all aspects of American culture (sic) and hardwired into every new born's head. Same day delivery. A shopping cart that would be the envy of any Rothschild or Leona Mindy Roberts Helmsley.
This essay, first, was going to address those other masters of the Universe — Google Guys and Algorithm Titans. I barely criticized a billionaire in a DV article — Household Income, or Higher Planes of Consciousness?*
I criticized Nick Hanauer for his false balance, contrived bifurcation, and his new wind as a billionaire fighting what he calls the educationalism mindset that says that a good, grounded, deep and holistic education might be a thing of kings, whereas Nick says education backing and financing ain't worth diddly squat in capitalism until more people make more money to buy more things, or just to survive in his nihilistic world.
Taken with this story line, I embraced education as both a philanthropic cause and a civic mission. I co-founded the League of Education Voters, a nonprofit dedicated to improving public education. I joined Bill Gates, Alice Walton, and Paul Allen in giving more than $1 million each to an effort to pass a ballot measure that established Washington State's first charter schools. All told, I have devoted countless hours and millions of dollars to the simple idea that if we improved our schools—if we modernized our curricula and our teaching methods, substantially increased school funding, rooted out bad teachers, and opened enough charter schools—American children, especially those in low-income and working-class communities, would start learning again. Graduation rates and wages would increase, poverty and inequality would decrease, and public commitment to democracy would be restored.
— Nick Hanauer
In my email box, Google, of course, I get an unsolicited email from an organization for which I have never associated with or even pursued. It's the old surveillance state of Google and the internet Stasi, for sure —
Alas, Neil Postman was correct, in so far as what we say and do as writers really does not count — we are only as smart and deep and truthful as our masters will allow:
In my college economics class, we were taught that wages depend on productivity. The more productive or skilled workers are, my professors used to argue, the more they will be worth on the labor market and, therefore, the higher their wages will be. That's bunk.
Under this logic, the way to cure our economic woes – whether poverty, inequality, underemployment, or unemployment – is through education. By educating our citizens, we increase their human capital, making them more productive and, therefore, increasing their expected income.
It sounds good, right?
This seductive myth – of education as an economic cure-all – is something Civic Action founder Nick Hanauer calls "educationism." As Nick writes in a recent article for The Atlantic, it's a myth he used to believe, and it's a myth many wealthy elites still propagate. It's what leads philanthropists to donate billions of dollars to public schools and educational institutions.
There's just one problem: Educationism doesn't work. If it did, our middle class would be much better off.
In the last 40 years, while the real incomes of most Americans have been stuck, we've gotten a lot more educated. Almost everyone has a high school diploma and the share of Americans with a college degree has more than tripled since 1970."
But all that education hasn't translated into higher wages. In fact, if our incomes had done what my college profs told me – gone up with productivity – the average family today would be earning $29,000 more a year. An average of $105,000!
Of course, it's true that getting an education is likely to increase your own income. But that's not the same as raising incomes throughout the economy. Not when four out of five of the fastest growing jobs pay very low wages – jobs like cashiers and health care assistants. Meanwhile, the pay of most people who do have a college education barely keeps up with inflation.
What we do need to do is raise incomes for working families and the middle class throughout the economy. That's how we build an economy that works for all of us, not just the wealthy few. As Nick writes:
"In short, great public schools are the product of a thriving middle class, not the other way around. Pay people enough to afford dignified middle-class lives, and high-quality public schools will follow. But allow economic inequality to grow, and educational inequality will inevitably grow with it."
— Stephen Paolini, Civic Action, email with an ask for $ support
But then, this essay takes a twist, as they always seem to do when I deploy some ground-truthing. You see, most of us in the USA, the 80 percent of the population — many of which are on the skids, on the near skids, or those of us barely scraping by, and those of us who are unseen but are many short steps away from working for one of those sweatshops like we see with Amazon (there are so many warehouse jobs, forklift gigs, sorting careers) and finding down time in the back seat of our cars) — so-so tire of, really, the prognosticators writing away hard in semi-secure status — even the smartish ones on leftish magazines like The Nation, or digital forums like Truthout or Truthdig or The Intercept.
They have NO idea of what is real in the world, and that rarefied realm of citing this study or making this or that prediction, well, it is bombast at best, propaganda at worst, denuded of humanity in many cases.
Case in point — tens of millions of men and women wandering the land (US), in some warped version of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, really, in a society that eats-sleeps-dreams-believes the crap that Huxley warned of, and that which Neil Postman discussed. Oh the irony, those, that billionaire book salesman, Bezos, dead to the world, dead to us, the 80 percent, living, barely, in the middle of their hellish barbecue.
I was with three fellows — two literally are sleeping in campgrounds, and one fellow living with his parents. A million miles away from what any social worker or Sheryl Sandberg or Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren or any of the scions of Holly-dirt or anyone in the Trump Loony Bin Show, or those clamoring around an Obama or Oprah or Rachel Maddow. It's a triple sick experience even thinking about how vapid that so-called debate was yesterday with half of the half-wits of the Democratic Party wanting to play president.
So, a life of men truly on the extinction block, in several demographics. These fellows I hired on to help my spouse and I move from a rental to a house we had the temerity to purchase in a Time of Climate Heating, Oceans Rising, Food Wilting, Water Draining, Economies Imploding, Saber Rattling, and ICBM Immolating.
Their lives, broken down, seem to hold the familiar life story of many people I have worked with as a non-traditional social worker for the homeless, the just-out-of-prison returnees, and chronically physically and mentally ill. They work jobs, stacking halibut, packing shrimp, pounding two-by-fours, hauling goods, sorting things, cutting trees, landscaping, roofing. Both of these fellows are 50, living in campgrounds, one with false teeth, the other with nubs and rotting teeth.
Child support for children they have never seen, or can't see now. Felonies for this or that charge keeping them from even getting to first base on an apartment application. Vagabonds harassed by cops, and living life in a constant move. For my other helper, Brian, he's a former marine, working as a social services provider, has a wonderful child on the spectrum (autism) and is currently living with aging and sickly parents. All three fit the bill for zero tolerance in this society. Never reflected in the news stories, in the Mass Murdering Media, never on the minds of the One Percent, Point Zero Zero One Percent. I know for a fact, though, that those Little Eichmanns who populate the other 19 percent of the 20 Percenters, well, many of them have one degree of separation when it comes to family members with substance abuse issues, chronic mental or physical illness, depression, suicidal, schizophrenic, and homeless.
You get both barrels of human pain and human survival and some human triumphs when talking with real people, albeit, denigrated folk, disenfranchised humans.
They are really rough around the edges, but these fellows, Tommy and Devon, they are examples of struggle and defeat and some triumph, as Brian and I note and agree. They are so far from any of the discourse going on around the world — the complete irrelevance of all the trolling, all the internet crap, all the stuff that makes for an echo chamber that sucks humanity and human connection from the ether.
You look at Tommy, and you see a man on the skids. Big laughing screwed up face, almost Dickensian, crazy might be one moniker. Hustling and wanting to have people know that there was once a time when he had some normalcy, some sense of being a man in society — not on the skids. Though, Tommy would not see himself on the skids.
Brain injury 23 years ago when a van hit him head on as a pedestrian. And he still works, moves heavy furniture, and hammers roofs.
Devon, a former truck driver, someone who has a few years in the Marines, and as Brian states — people are only awakened to the level of how they have been able to access those tools necessary to be woken up. Yet, Brian states that he'd much rather be in the company of these men than the MSWs and other graduate-level punishers he's worked with, as I have also worked with, in the non-profit arenas as supposed social services workers.
They probably know nothing about this movement, which could affect Tommy and Devon:
When reporters for the International Amazon Workers Voice interviewed part-time Amazon "associates" (a cheap euphemism for "employees" used to disguise the exploitative relationship between workers and management at the company) in Baltimore to discuss their attitude toward Bezos' fortune, they were met with a torrent of disgust, calls for sharing the wealth, and social anger.
"Tell Mr. Bezos and the rest of management to come out of their offices and get on the shop floor" said one worker who identified herself as a single mother of two. "At the end of the day, they never feel what we go through in a day for $12 an hour. They get to sit down in their offices and get paid more than we will see in a year," she said.
Bezos' wealth typifies the way an increasingly small number of multi-billionaire CEOs and finance operatives extract ever more obscene sums from the international workforce. This process of ever-increasing wealth for the few and exploitation for the majority is reaching a political breaking point.
Explaining her work environment during the holidays, the working mother said, "they just had us move 100,000 packages in 5 hours, and at the end we aren't even paid enough to take care of our kids. I'm a single mother, I don't receive food stamps. My rent is $850 a month. I have to pay for gas, electricity, bus passes, plus raise two kids.
"If we decided to quit, who would move these packages out of the door?" she said, noting the social power of the workers employed by the company. "We are the ones making you rich."
Brian and I talk about Amazon, and the nefarious nature of how the guy at the Washington Post attacks the fourth grader Trump and others, while he is part of the Military Industrial Complex. From The Intercept:
Amazon's extensive relationship with the NSA, FBI, Pentagon and other surveillance agencies in the west is multi-faceted, highly lucrative and rapidly growing. Last March, the Intercept reported on a new app that Amazon developers and British police forces have jointly developed to use on the public in police work, just "the latest example of third parties aiding, automating, and in some cases, replacing, the functions of law enforcement agencies — and raises privacy questions about Amazon's role as an intermediary."
Then there's the patent Amazon obtained last October, as reported by the Intercept, "that would allow its virtual assistant Alexa to decipher a user's physical characteristics and emotional state based on their voice." In particular, it would enable anyone using the product to determine a person's accent and likely place of origin: "The algorithm would also consider a customer's physical location — based on their IP address, primary shipping address, and browser settings — to help determine their accent."
All of this is taking place as Amazon vies for, and is the favorite to win, one of the largest Pentagon contracts yet: a $10 billion agreement to provide exclusive cloud services to the world's largest military. CNN reported just last week that the company is now enmeshed in scandal over that effort, specifically a formal investigation into "whether Amazon improperly hired a former Defense Department worker who was involved with a $10 billion government contract for which the tech company iscompeting."
Bezos' relationship with the military and spying agencies of the U.S. Government, and law enforcement agencies around the world, predates his purchase of the Washington Post and has become a central prong of Amazon's business growth. Back in 2014, Amazon secured a massive contract with the CIA when the spy agency agreed to pay it $600 million for computing cloud software. As the Atlantic noted at the time, Amazon's software "will begin servicing all 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community."
Given how vital the military and spy agencies now are to Amazon's business, it's unsurprising that the amount Amazon pays to lobbyists to serve its interests in Washington has exploded: quadrupling since 2013 from $3 million to almost $15 million last year, according to Open Secrets.
What would the house-less Tommy and Devon say about this Byzantine world of hyper billions of dollars and hyper trillions of human hours wasted on the things of capitalism, of power and control, consumption?
I know many friends who wonder why we — people like me — still live in the US? Many wonder what it will take young people to stand down the systems of oppression. Some believe the young people have it, as in Greta the Carbon Dioxide Robin Hood, or AOC, the new face (sic) of American politics.
This system we have now is one where a few voices count (get read, heard, published, followed), and the majority of voices are just bursts of yelling in the woods, in campgrounds, in one's lovely home in the old sedan, in our own bedlam. People travelling from one insane place to another, but in that realm, a sanity sets in for guys like Tommy and Devon. The world is pretty clear-cut, and on many levels, these people have positive outlooks — toothless, no real estate or swelling investment accounts. Just that hard way forward. Cigarettes and bicycling miles a day. Places to shower. Places to get out of the rain without the bulldozers of misanthropy pushing them further and further into ditches or out on the periphery until they stare us all down, face to face, the coming of a New Brave World. Is it the entertaining ourselves to death cycle, or a little bit of the other — big brother, watching our every move, holding every syllable mouthed in a cloud server, every speck of mole cataloged, and every word penned or typed, collected to hold us at bay, hold us as prisoners of our own faulty beliefs?
Needless to say, Charles Dickens grew to hate the system and rail against it in his works. In his seminal novella "A Christmas Carol," Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by two portly men raising money for the poor.
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the [one of the gentlemen], taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.
"You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
— Charles Dickens, 1843, A Christmas Carol
Or, updated for 2020, as illustrated by a commentator on an article about Portland, OR, once the Rose City, now The City of Rocks:
To disrupt illegal camp sites set up by homeless in Portland, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is moving boulders onto the roadsides. The project will eventually cost about a million dollars, but ODOT argues this cost is less than the cost of dealing with existing campsites.
Many have pointed out that this policy does nothing to address the underlying problem or help the people in the camp, but only forces them to move somewhere else.
KGW8
—Scrooge/Marley, Edward Sullivan, Planetizen
A debtor's prison in London.
Corporate Media, Disinformation, Donald Trump, Iraq, John Bolton, Media Bias, Mike Pompeo, Militarism, Narrative, Propaganda, Sanctions, Social media, War, Weaponry
As Conflict With Iran Escalates, Path To Peace Can Be Found
June 25, 2019 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
The recent escalation of conflict between the United States and Iran threatens another US military quagmire that would create crisis and chaos in Iran, the region and perhaps globally as well as costing the US trillions of dollars. The US needs to change course — a deeply wrong course it has been on regarding Iran since the 1950s, escalating since Iran declared its independence in their 1979 Revolution. There is a path out of this situation, but it requires leadership from President Trump, which will only come if the people of the United States mobilize to demand it.
Peace Delegation to Iran at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, February 2019. Photograph from CODE PINK.
The Trump Story Of Last Minute Decision Not To Attack Iran, Doubted
The story repeated in the corporate media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, ABC News, and others is that President Trump called off a military attack on Iran at the last moment because he was told that 150 Iranians could be killed. It is evident this was the story being pushed by the White House. Initially, the story was that Trump stopped the bombing with ten minutes to spare, while the planes were already in the air. On Sunday, the story changed to Trump was asked for a decision by the Pentagon a half hour before the attack and said 'no' to the attack because he was told about civilian casualties.
This story is being doubted by many. Even on FOX News, two of its leading broadcasters, Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace, said Trump's story of stopping the attack at the last moment, "does not hold water" and "something is wrong here." They talked with former military officials and said it was highly unlikely that the president would not have been told of the likely casualties from the possible military scenarios.
Did President Trump really think the US could drop bombs on Iran and not kill people? Trump broke the record for bombs dropped in Afghanistan when in 2018 he dropped more than 5,200 bombs. The UN found that in 2019, the US and its allies were responsible for the majority of civilian deaths in Afghanistan. In 2017, President Trump loosened the rules on drone strikes causing a significant escalation in drone strikes. The US and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017 in Syria, reducing cities to literal rubble. With this record, how can anyone believe Trump was worried about a potential 150 deaths in Iran?
And, bombs are not the only way President Trump kills people. Economic coercive measures (aka sanctions) in Venezuela put in place by President Trump in August 2017 have resulted in 40,000 deaths. In Iran, Trump has escalated sanctions to choke the economy and create hardship for the Iranian people. Sanctions are as deadly as war but are worse because people find them to be more palatable than bombs.
If it was not a concern for the death of civilians, why did Trump not bomb Iran in response to the drone being shot down?
Iranian Surface to Air Missile Defense System on display in 2012 at an Iranian military parade (Ata Kenare, AFP-Getty Images)
Iran Shows it can Defend Itself Against a US Military Attack
One concern about the destruction of the US drone is whether it was over Iranian airspace when it was destroyed. Iran maintains that it was in their airspace. The US claims it was in international air space, but the US lacks credibility when it makes such claims. Perhaps one reason Trump has not acted is he knows Iran was within its rights.
Iran reports that they did not shoot down the drone until after giving several warnings to the United States. Major General Hossein Salami of the Revolutionary Guard said:
The downing of the US drone had an explicit, decisive and clear message that defenders of the Islamic Iran's borders will show decisive and knockout reactions to aggression against this territory by any alien.
According to Reuters, Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guard's aerospace division, said that a manned US Boeing P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane was also in Iranian airspace at the same time as the drone. Iran decided not to shoot it down because there were 35 people on board. Hajizadeh said the US "plane also entered our airspace and we could have shot it down, but we did not."
Reuters also reported that Iran received a message from the United States through Oman that a military strike was imminent and that Trump was against any war with Iran but wanted to talk to Iran about various issues. Iran responded:
We made it clear that the leader is against any talks, but the message will be conveyed to him to make a decision … However, we told the Omani official that any attack against Iran will have regional and international consequences.
Iran shot down the drone with a Surface to Air Missile that was an Iranian-produced defense system. This illustrates that a military conflict with the Islamic Republic would be very challenging for the United States. The Center for Strategic and International Studies reports that Iran has the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East. Tehran views missile defense as vital against Washington's aggression. The missile attack on the US drone shows Iran has aerial defense capability.
Military Times reports how difficult war with Iran would be, writing:
Iranian coastal defenses would likely render the entire Persian Gulf off-limits to U.S. Navy warships. Iran's advanced surface-to-air missile defenses would be a significant threat to U.S. pilots. And Iran's arsenal of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles put U.S military installations across the U.S. Central Command region at risk. The cost in U.S. casualties could be high.
The big problem for the United States is it simply does not have the military power to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, 30% of the world's oil supply transits the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Baqeri, stated reality clearly:
If the Islamic Republic of Iran were determined to prevent export of oil from the Persian Gulf, that determination would be realized in full and announced in public, in view of the power of the country and its Armed Forces.
Pepe Escobar explains the Iranian border of the Persian Gulf is lined up with anti-ship missiles and Iran's ballistic missiles are capable of hitting "carriers in the sea" with precision. He explains that blocking the Strait would dramatically increase oil prices and detonate "the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market; and that would collapse the world banking system, crushing the world's $80 trillion GDP and causing an unprecedented depression."
Iran's allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan are ready for joint operations in response to a US military war against Iran. According to Eliajah J.Magnier, they are prepared and on alert at the highest level. Joint operations will begin from the moment they are necessary. According to sources, Iran's allies will open fire against already agreed on objectives in an organized, orchestrated, synchronized and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last many months. The US will face war on many fronts very quickly.
The US lacks international support for a military attack on Iran. Russia, China, the European Union, and other major powers have called for de-escalation. A military attack on Iran would lead to a quagmire that could take a decade or more and end in defeat for the United States, destruction in Iran and chaos in the region. The US has spent more than $7 trillion since the beginning of the Iraq War and Iran is larger in geography and population as well as having a better military. The United States cannot afford another $7+ trillion dollar war for another decade. It would be an economic and military disaster that would further isolate the United States.
Peace Delegation to Iran visits the Tehran Peace Museum 2019 (Photograph from Popular Resistance)
Iran in Context and a Path Out of the US-Created Debacle
In our conversation on the Clearing the FOG podcast, which will air Monday, June 24, conflict resolution expert, Patrick Hiller, explained how sometimes to resolve a conflict, the conflict must be heightened. The US conflict with Iran is escalating in dangerous ways where perhaps both sides can see that the path to war will produce no winners and could be the greatest foreign policy error in US history.
President Trump can be the hero as the US heads into 2020 presidential elections but it will require him to stop listening to National Security Advisor, John Bolton and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who both want war with Iran. Their advice is the opposite of President Trump's criticism of war during his last campaign. They have teamed up to undermine Trump's negotiations with North Korea, prevent the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, led him into a failed coup in Venezuela and now to the brink of war with Iran. Trump would be wise to replace both Bolton and Pompeo.
The idiocy of Pompeo was shown this week when he claimed Iran's actions "should be understood in the context of 40 years of unprovoked aggression." Is Pompeo really that ignorant of history?
Popular Resistance has often reported on the US overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in August 1953. The CIA has confirmed its role in this coup as has the US State Department. This coup ended Iran's brief experience with a secular democracy. If that democracy had been allowed to flourish, the story of the Middle East would have been very different than the war, chaos and brutal governments we have seen since that time. Mossadegh was followed by the US puppet, the Shah, who brutally ruled the country until the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
After the Iranian Revolution, the US encouraged and supported the eight-year Iraq War against Iran with money, naval assistance, and weapons. The US provided Iraq with the ingredients for chemical weapons as well as intelligence on where to use them. More than one million people were killed and more than 80,000 were injured by chemical weapons in the war.
The US also killed 290 Iranians, including 66 children, when a US missile shot down a commercial Iranian airliner in July 1988. The US has never apologized for this mass killing of civilians. The US has imposed aggressive economic sanctions against Iran since they declared their independence and has consistently escalated those sanctions in an attempt to destroy their economy. And, the US has spent millions of dollars to build opposition inside Iran to the Iranian government as well as working with the opposition, MEK, secretly trained by the US military, which is branded a terrorist group by Iran (and used to be designated a terrorist group by the US).
The US has imposed economic sanctions since 1980 when the US broke diplomatic relations with Iran. President Carter put in place sanctions including freezing $12 billion in Iranian assets and banning imports of Iranian oil. The economic war and the illegal unilateral coercive measures have been escalated by every president, including by President Trump when he violated the carefully negotiated nuclear agreement. Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif painstakingly negotiated the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal between China, France, Russia, the UK, Germany, and the European Union for more than a decade. Instead of abiding by the agreement, the US violated it and escalated sanctions against Iran.
The US is also fomenting rebellion. The Trump administration has been seeking regime change through various actions including violence. Trump created a Mission Center in the CIA focused on regime change in Iran and spends millions of dollars to encourage opposition in Iran, working to manipulate protests to support a US agenda.
The path out of this mess is for President Trump to lead. He needs to acknowledge this history and the mistakes of his advisors, Bolton and Pompeo, rejoin the nuclear agreement, abide by it by lifting the illegal US sanctions and promise to abide by international law. It will take positive actions by the United States to make up for decades of aggressive abuses against Iran to bring Iran to the table of diplomacy.
If these steps are taken, a positive relationship based on mutual respect can be developed between the US and Iran. It is the job of the peace movement and all those who seek stability and justice in the world to work toward this outcome.
Disinformation, George Galloway, Israel/Palestine, Jeremy Corbyn, Journalism, Prejudice, Viva Palestina, Zionism
Disinformation and False Accusations of Anti-Semitism
June 17, 2019 Heather Stroud
The smearing of George Galloway and widely reported disinformation that there was no evidence to support the claim that Viva Palestina delivered aid, raises serious concerns, not just in this case, but far beyond.
It is seriously disturbing how disinformation and lazy 'cut and paste' journalism has become common place within the monopoly media of the UK. One wonders where the professional and serious investigative reporting of old has gone.
With regard to the 'possibly liable' headlines of several national newspapers: Gaza charity 'may have delivered no aid' 'no evidence of charitable activity' and so forth…, as a participant of the Viva Palestina Convoy 2009/10, I can confirm that not only was medical aid delivered to Gaza, there is significant evidence to support this. The medical supplies were, in fact, accurately documented as required and submitted to customs officials in the countries we passed through. So, why didn't the charities commission, the government and the mainstream journalists find any evidence? Why didn't they speak to any of the hundreds of witnesses who would likely be willing to testify in a court of law, were they called upon to do so.
My conclusion is that they didn't look, which brings us to the more serious question: why didn't they look?
It doesn't take much imagination to consider why journalists and career politicians might have chosen not to look. It is frightening to consider how we have allowed ourselves to slide into this Orwellian condition of cognitive dissonance where investigative journalists and publishers are punished, criminalised and imprisoned for writing the truth, while the commonplace peddling of disinformation is rewarded.
To quote from George Orwell; "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." Julian Assange understands this more than most.
I'm not an investigative journalist; however, as a concerned citizen, my first question would be: Who were the people within the Charities Commission that instigated 'Viva Palestina' (a campaigning group), to register as a charity.
I remember that none of the participants of the convoy considered what we were doing as charity. Palestinians are not looking for charity. They want a political solution that offers dignity, freedom and justice. It was this political solution we were attempting to achieve by driving the convoy of politically decorated ambulances overland to Gaza. The symbolism of taking medical supplies was the powerful message that drew people from their homes to wave their support as we drove by.
Further questions we should all ask: "What was the motive in forcing a campaigning group to register as though it were a charity? Were those behind this move politically motivated in any way?"
Given all the false charges of anti-Semitism directed against George Galloway and many other outspoken critics of Israel's crimes against the Palestinians, it is credible to surmise that there 'might' have been political motives behind, not only forcing 'Viva Palestina' to fall under the power of the charities commission, but also the later investigation and false accusation – delivered ten years after the event: 'of the probability that no aid was delivered'.
Seriously, such throw away meaningless phrases such as.., 'may not have' 'high likely' … whatever happened to evidence-based accusations?
The convoys of ambulances packed with medical supplies, (Viva Palestina 2009) grew out of an inspirational idea put forward by George Galloway. Both within the UK and indeed globally, individuals were/and continue to be shocked by the brutal attacks on a largely defenceless population living under siege in Gaza. The Israeli 'Operation Cast Lead' of 2008/9 left around 1,440 people dead and many more thousand injured. Ten years on, Gaza continues to face a slow genocide so the motivation to place blame on those who speak out about these outrageous war crimes and crimes against humanity, are well entrenched within the establishment and media.
The aims of Viva Palestina were threefold: besides delivering ambulances and medical supplies to Gaza by driving across Europe, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt in convoy, our aim was to raise awareness as to the desperate plight of the Gazan people. The medical supplies will have been used up long ago; however, our intended aim of raising awareness and demonstrating love and solidarity toward the Palestinians is enduring.
Viva Palestina was not one person. It was an inspirational campaigning umbrella for more than a hundred and ten different groups that comprised around 500 people from an international collective of around 17 different nationalities. The largest contingent participating in the convoy came from UK, followed by Turkey, Malaysia, and Jordanian doctors.
I was one of four who represented the people of York. Besides contributing our own money we fundraised locally and were responsible for our own financial accounting. Although it's credible to believe that £1M was around the total sum of aid delivered, other than the international groups none of the local UK groups would have individually met the threshold of the £25,000.00 that was the excuse to force charity status on us. Our first purchase was an ambulance for which we paid £6,000.00. Having acquired the ambulance money came in more readily and we were able to purchase medical supplies, a defibrillator, and a second hand dialysis machine. This we handed over personally to doctors from the Red Crescent in Gaza. However spurious claims that we might have handed over aid (aid that we supposedly didn't have) to 'the ruling government' are misleading and disingenuous. Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine. Just like our government which has a financial responsibility toward the NHS, Hamas finances the main Al Shifa Hospital, along with a responsibility for the health services of the population of Gaza. Had we handed our ambulance and medical supplies over to them, as many did, this would have been absolutely legitimate.
In a report put out by the UK government based on the charity commissions findings, it is stated that trustees of Viva Palestina were found lacking in their assessment of the risks. I should add that all participants were aware that there were risks. It was discussed prior to departure of the convoy and during the journey on several occasions. Given the Egyptian military siege that took place in El Arish against all participants of the convoy, it would have been comforting to think our government thought well enough of us, to have made some diplomatic gesture toward protecting us. The only response I am aware of from them was: "You were advised not to go. You are on your own." Maybe behind the scenes they said something, but we were certainly not aware of it.
In contrast it was evident that the Turkish Government, the Malaysian Government and others, did take diplomatic steps to offer assistance to their citizens and as a result the military confrontation and siege ended with few casualties. Sadly this was not the case at the Rafa borders where Palestinians gathered in protest of our coming under siege by the Egyptian military. One Egyptian soldier was killed and a Palestinian was shot in the legs. If a reminder were needed, this tragedy reflects the brutality of conflict in this area of the world and what Palestinians in Gaza face on a daily basis.
We have normalised wars waged against civilians as though this were a natural condition of being human. Gaza continues to face a slow genocide, so the motivation for Palestinians during this current 'Great March of Return' arrives out of a sense of despair as they witness their country being steadily stolen away. Trump's declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel simply added fuel to an already simmering anger. This desperate act of resistance arises in the belief that it is better to die in dignity than to die slowly on one's knees.
The courage of the Palestinians comes from the belief that their individual death might trigger a global outrage that will finally bring justice and freedom for the children of their community. The realisation of this belief is slow in coming; however, it's this faith in our common humanity that gives them the courage to transcend fear. It was this same faith that persuaded us to undertake the long journey across Europe and beyond in hopes of stirring a conscious awakening of decent people to this injustice.
In contrast to our good will, disinformation and labels function as a way of de-legitimising genuine resistance to injustice, resistance to the theft of one's land, the theft of one's freedom, and resistance to the theft of many lives… resistance to all that is inherently wrong.
Palestinians and their democratically elected government, Hamas, are frequently described as terrorists by Israel, UK and its politically ideological Zionist supporters; however, when Israel bombs Gaza and drops white phosphorous on its civilian population, it is stated that Israel is defending itself.
Labels and calculated disinformation function as a way of diverting attention from legitimate outrage. People are afraid of the slurs and negative labels that might be attached to them; in the case of supporting Palestinians one is charged with being anti-Semitic. We just have to look at how these attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway and the participants of Viva Palestina, to see how labels, false charges and calculated disinformation have become weaponised.
Labels don't need truth to stick. Like lies they just have to be said often enough and with enough force to be intimidating and carry the power to turn a contrived falsehood into a popularly held truth. A false label is like the smelly stuff that clings to the bottom of your shoe if you are unfortunate enough to walk on the wrong part of the pavement. Evidently, George Galloway, like Jeremy Corbyn and all those of us on the Viva Palestina Convoy, have trodden in the wrong place by our physical endeavour to demonstrate an ongoing injustice and an unpalatable truth into the reaches of power.
Disinformation, Donald Trump, History, Militarism, Osama Bin Laden, Seymour Hersh, Thomas Jefferson
"Triumphant War Hero" Gets Re-elected?
June 16, 2019 William Manson
A bit splattered by the blood of thousands of its "collateral" victims, the old, tattered "Re-election Playbook" is being actively consulted once again. Back in 1787, Thomas Jefferson had adamantly insisted that the new U.S. Constitution stipulate only one presidential term, but his prescient warning was ignored. (Fortunately his other requirement, that a Bill of Rights be appended, was approved.) Like so many well-read 18th century politicians (including the young Napoleon), Jefferson looked to the history of the Roman Republic for cautionary precedents. He knew well that political opportunists like Julius Caesar had won their early mass popularity through their exploits as military conquerors. In the early stages of his political career, victorious general Caesar would march into Rome, leading a "Triumph" — an endless procession of chained war-captives and cartloads of plunder – before the admiring crowds of plebeians. His renown was such that, when he was off on his Gallic campaign, he convinced the Senate to pass a special edict allowing him to run for election as Consul in absentia (successful). His older rival Crassus, financier and slumlord ("the richest man in Rome"), even re-invented himself as a conquering general for political advantage (but he was fortunately, as Plutarch relates, led to his own destruction in Parthia–now Iraq).
Turning to U.S. political history, one could draw up quite a list of military generals who, celebrated by the public as heroes, sought greater political power by running for president (often successfully). And, of course, such cynical manipulation of the electorate continues up to the recent present. One major, if not the major, objective for waging war against non-threatening Iraq was to secure this, almost invariable, political advantage as the election year 2004 loomed ahead. As far as the timing of the attack was concerned (March 19, 2003), the self-impressed Rumsfeld had assumed that "victory" would be attained in a matter of weeks. And such "victory," in the aftermath of the vicious "Shock-and-Awe" bombing campaign, was indeed soon proclaimed, thus enabling Rove and his ilk to plan a gala, Roman-style "Triumph," with the military-attired and swaggering Bush landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, to a national frenzy of celebration and under a presumptuously boasting "Mission Accomplished" banner (May 1). Allowing for such a hugely popular, "patriotic" kick-off for an 18-month re-election campaign, the timing of May 1 seemed advantageous. (That Iraq had never been a threat, and that the alleged WMDs were never found, barely moderated this wellspring of popular acclaim for the "war hero" — at least for some months.)
In any event, we may now jump exactly eight years hence — to on or about May 1, 2011. Now it was Obama's turn to play military hero — in his own kick-off for re-election! So far, despite his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, as well as his well-publicized "kill list" (drones), he hadn't yet demonstrated the kind of ruthlessly unprincipled crushing of a "foreign" people which the majority of potential voters seem to relish. But he had a perfect, quicker, and far less expensive alternative: "take out" Osama bin Laden! Although the majority of Americans passively or willingly understood little or nothing about the geopolitical distinctions between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, they had been certain that "Saddam Hussein" — this moniker repeated over and over by Bush! — was the personification of all-that-is-evil. But by 2011 Saddam was dead — having been hanged after a kangaroo-court conviction — and Americans could once again redirect their hate toward an alternative Satan ("Goldstein" of Orwell's 1984 being unavailable). Obama's political handlers, like Bush's, agreed that an 18-month halo of heroic triumph would help considerably in the long march toward re-election–and they were right. Of course, Obama, in announcing "the killing of Osama bin Laden" to an awestruck citizenry (May 1, 2011), lied about the actual circumstances, as Seymour Hersh and others have noted. (E.g., the non-existent "fire-fight" which was claimed in order to re-sell the assassination team as heroic commandos.) And, of course, with the universally impressed and fawning media adding to the "Triumph," Obama virtually coasted, with only a few bumps, to re-election in November 2012.
As aforementioned, this "Re-election Playbook," however old and frayed, has nonetheless proven its ongoing usefulness to the recent crop of lying, opportunistic and murderous presidents. For Trump — as for virtually all insatiably ambitious presidents — political advantage will always trump any practical strategic (or even economic) considerations. Thus, deceptively cooking up the usual "justifications" for imminent war, this time with Iran, a nation which, as attested by the EU and other agencies had abided by the signed agreement only to see the U.S. under Trump unilaterally withdraw. Trump's hand-picked "national security" advisers are offering him huge political dividends: immense re-election financing from the likes of billionaire casino-mogul Sheldon Adelson (AIPAC), as well as the usual Big Oil industry funders (such as the Kochs, conspicuously represented in policy by their protege Pompeo).
If May 1, 2019 has come and gone, Trump may still have ample time — with the enthusiastic support of his flag-waving base (and the reliably acquiescent media) — to ride the crest of a trumped-up Iranian war, into re-election in November of next year. But if that scenario doesn't quite materialize, there is always the tried-and-true fallback: the venerable "October Surprise"!
China, Disinformation, Media, Michele greenstein, Rick Sanchez, tank man
Smearing China
June 8, 2019 Kim Petersen
Foreign Affairs, a staunch brick in the establishment media edifice, just resurrected the events of Tiananmen Square from 30 years ago in "The New Tiananmen papers."
… the number of demonstrators increased to perhaps as many as a million, including citizens from many walks of life. The students occupying the square declared a hunger strike, their demands grew more radical, and demonstrations spread to hundreds of other cities around the country. Deng decided to declare martial law, to take effect on May 20.
But the demonstrators dug in, and Deng ordered the use of force to commence on the night of June 3. Over the next 24 hours, hundreds were killed, if not more; the precise death toll is still unknown. The violence provoked widespread revulsion throughout Chinese society and led to international condemnation, …
Sounds like more of the same old from corporate-state entities.
Elsewhere comes the imposing figure of United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who appears, as if on cue, with an "aggressive soundbite" about China that was reported by RT.
China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang dismissed the smear as "nonsense."
RT America anchor Rick Sanchez characterized the Chinese response as, "You are gonna criticize us because of what happened at Tiananmen Square three decades ago?"
At this point my bullshit detector clicked into action.
Continued Sanchez, "This Tiananmen Square thing, um, that's a heck of an insult right to go after something that is so sensitive to them?"
Tiananmen Square thing!? At least Sanchez didn't utter the M word (massacre).
Sanchez' protege, Michele Greenstein, however, had done her homework. She pointed out how effective the Tiananmen Square thing had been in demonizing China and that many had fallen for the "imperialist line." Imagine that, hearing the word imperialist uttered on media? America's imperialist line even! The Tiananmen Square thing she averred has been "thoroughly discredited." She provided many examples of media people who had recanted their testimonies of that time, and added, "There's still not a lot to prove it [a massacre] happened."
Sanchez responded immediately. He, apparently, couldn't let that stand. He asserted,
But we're not gonna give them [China] a pass either because things that happened during that era in Tiananmen Square, whatever happened there was not good. It wasn't exactly a glowing example of freedom in any country so.
Greenstein deferred to her senior colleague, "You could certainly say that."
At first blush, it seems as though Greenstein is in agreement with the sentiment expressed by Sanchez. But what exactly do her words mean? Those words by themselves are actually very non-committal on Greenstein's part because, of course, people can certainly say whatever they want. That is what freedom of speech and freedom of expression are about.
Sanchez can often be heard on air to state, "This is the news with Rick Sanchez where we believe it is time to do news again."
But what Sanchez did in this instance was opine; he did not do news. Probably no entity should be given a free pass. That would be contrary to investigative journalism and reporting the facts as the evidence points them out to be. But Sanchez singled China out specifically, and in so doing he cast an aspersion on China. He provided no evidence to substantiate his opinion. He failed to discuss what it was that was not good, so that was left hanging over China.
Should Disinformation be Allowed to Run Rampant?
Recently, ABC News ran a headline, "Tiananmen Square 30th anniversary: How China erased iconic 'tank man' image for young people." My experience is that this is true. Very few Chinese people seem to know who the "tank man," as the anonymous person has come to be known, is. Very few Chinese people seem to know much, if anything, about what happened in Tiananmen Square at that time. But for some reason people outside China deem that they know better.
A thought experiment is in order. Imagine someone puts out a false story about you that is very unflattering, downright embarrassing and damaging, and then spreads that lie far and wide and never lets up on spreading the lie. How would you feel? If you could stop the lie, even make it disappear, would you not do so?
By analogy, if the events surrounding the student-led protests from 30 years ago in Tiananmen Square have been twisted in an exceedingly Machiavellian manner to cast mendacious aspersions on the Chinese government, is the Chinese government not within its rights as an unfairly maligned party to remove and stymie the lies?
As for the tank man? What do you see in the below video? Do you see an evil government and vicious military at work?
Or do you see tanks concerned about harming another human being, stopping to avoid a collision, attempting to maneuver around the man? Do you agree, as the man in the video says, "They [the tank personnel] are showing a lot of restraint"?
How is it that this video clip carries such negative connotations in western monopoly media? Ask yourself if a person in the US had dared to step in front of a line of tanks, would he would have been escorted away with kid gloves?
The participants at the 2004 Halifax International Symposium on Media and Disinformation unanimously declared:
1. Disinformation—its creation and propagation—is a crime against humanity and a crime against peace;
2. Those responsible for the creation, propagation, and orchestration of disinformation campaigns should be indicted for crimes against humanity and peace.
Therefore, China, in blocking disinformation, is arguably acting in prevention of a crime against humanity.1
Doing the news again
What does Sanchez know about freedom in China? What does he know about freedom in China compared to other countries? What about freedom from poverty which China is on target to achieve in 2020?
RT is by far one of the best video news outlets. There are so many guests that appear on RT that would never or rarely be permitted to appear on corporate-state news outlets.
Rick Sanchez himself is usually quite, quite good. So please, Mr Sanchez, don't opine. Do the news. Go ahead and dig into the "Tiananmen Square thing," and bring the historical background information and facts to light. What was it that happened in Tiananmen Square (or thereabouts)? Whatever happening was it that was not good? Who was behind the "not good" happening?
I suggest a good place to start is with Wei Ling Chua who researched and wrote Tiananmen Square "Massacre"? The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence.2 Chua has quite compellingly exposed the disinformation surrounding so many facets about what the corporate-state media first reported happening in Tiananmen Square 30 years ago.
Granted it can be a slippery slope when the boundaries of disinformation are breached by blocking information that someone doesn't like.
See review.
Ava Duvernay, Censorship, Central Park Five, Cuckoo's Nest, Disinformation, Existentialism, General, Hope/Awareness, Huxley, Journalism, Language, Literature, Media, Narrative, Orwell, Philosophy, Salvation Army, social workers
Caught in Their Fun House
June 5, 2019 Paul Haeder
America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
— Hunter S. Thompson
Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.
— Phillip Levine
I'm digging the DV piece, "The Idiot" by Jason Holland, since in a critical mass sort of black hole kind of way, his main thesis is reflective of the experiences many of us in the bloody trenches of dying capitalism see/feel/believe minute by minute.
And after all our idiotic overcomplicated plots and schemes, they are but to mask simple truths the idiot facade tries so desperately to avoid; the inner torments of being afraid of not being good enough, not measuring up to our peers, not meeting arbitrary expectations we either accept from others or set for ourselves, or quite simply feeling like we are not worthy of love. So we play these pointless high stakes games which have a rewards as meaningless and worthless as a plastic trophy just to prove our worth. The idiot is a temporal state of being, although many are finer long term examples of displaying the behaviors of the idiot; however none of us are the perfect idiot. To avoid the affectations of being in an idiotic state it takes conscious effort to live our lives moment to moment with authenticity, to be in a state of awareness of our actions, to always be willing to suffer for something worthwhile and to be consistently well reasoned examiners of what constitutes something worthwhile.
That authenticity, moment to moment existence — and it should be a reveling of life — is good, but there is a bifurcating of sorts when many of us are still subject to the masters of Big Brother and Big Business. We are suffering the dualism of the Century, and the more we know, the more we seek and the more we grapple, well, the more emancipated we are, but in that freedom comes some pretty harsh treatment by the masters and their sub-masters and all the Little Eichmann's that keep the Capitalist's trains moving like clockwork toward the global demise set in their plastic worlds!
And some of us think Dachau and Auschwitz were bad! We have already seen a hundred of them since 1945.
For me, I have the benefit of being a writer, and at this time, I have this new gig I created myself to bring to the Oregon Coast a sense of the people who are here living or who come here to set down their own stories . . . people who do things to make this world better and themselves better. Something in the draw that brings my subjects for my pieces here to the coast of Oregon. These are people, and they are not perfections or cut-outs or pulverized remnants of humanity that Capitalism mostly demands in it shark tank of inane media manipulation and marketing.
I crack open humanity and get people's contexts — entire stories upon stories laid down, strata by strata, and cover their own formula for the art of living in harmony in a world of disharmony. Reading my stuff, I hope, will allow readers of this rag, Oregon Coast Today, and its on-line version a better sense of authenticity via people they may or may not even run across in their own lives of being the consummate busy tourist and consumer.
A few of the pieces will be worthy of DV display, and I hope that my attempt at drilling down and "getting people" for who they are and how they got here will better the world, in some small shape. Really small, but small wonders sometimes are the ionic glue of a bettering world.
What is more compelling than the average person captured in a truthful narrative, as counterpoint to a society that delves into the celebrity, the spectacle, the idiocy as Jason puts forth in his piece, "The Idiot."
In many ways, talking to people who have lived authentic (albeit struggle-prone) lives, or who are just embarking on a nascent stage of multiple iterations of living, I get my sense of grounding in a very flummoxed world of inanity and crass disassociation, as in the disease of pushing away humanity and pushing away the natural world to hitch oneself to the perversions of the billionaire class.
Time and time again, daily, my friends who are still in struggle — still trying to make sense of the perverted world of idiots controlling the message, the economy, the environment, the culture, and the mental-physical-spiritual health of the world, as if this is it, Trump 2.0 — give me news feed after news feed of the quickening of not only idiocy that capitalism and consumerism and war engender in our species, but also examples of the inhumanity driving the agendas of the Fortune 500 Class, the Davos crowd, the Aspen Institute gatherings, et al.
Yet, my friend, Joe the Farmer from Merced, hits the nail on the head by providing his own retort to example after example of the cruelty of capitalism and the US of I — United States of Idiots?
If this doesn't slap the Hell out of you and rub your nose into the proverbial dog shit of what a criminally insane, inhumane, cruel and thuggish enterprise our government has become, then there is absolutely no hope for your soul. The truth tellers like Manning, Assange, Snowden and others, the brave young guys like Tim DeChristopher that monkey wrenched the sale of oil leases to public lands to try and protect the environment, this fellow that is showing his human side by providing water and aid for those dying in the desert sun, are all facing prison terms or maybe even the death penalty. Their crime? Being a compassionate human being.
What in the fuck is wrong with this country? The republicans enact cruel legislation to protect criminal enterprises, slash taxes for the obscenely rich, while removing any social or environmental protections for the population, (the Flint Michigan water system for example).
The republicans are ruthlessly attacking the environment and endangered species, turning their backs on infrastructure that is endangering peoples lives, while the spineless democrats sit idly by, wringing their hands. The democrats won't take action against the most openly corrupt president we have ever had, that is daily destroying everything in this country as well as the rest of the world with his insane military budgets, trade wars and climate policies. The democrats response to Trump is to promote Joe Biden, a compilation of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Strom Thurman and just about every other corporate whore they could steal parts off of to make their democratic very own version of Donald Trump.
Both the republicans and the democrats promote austerity for the working people and the poor, while stuffing the oligarchs pockets with gold. Both political Parties support endless war and war profiteers but slash budgets for schools, infrastructure, health care and the elderly. Both political Parties shower money on the police state and a corrupt system of justice and private prisons. Both political Parties are turning their heads to what the oil industry is doing to our water and air with fracking and are in fact have promoted legislation to let the oil industry off the hook when it causes unbelievable environmental damage. Both political Parties are doing nothing to check the nuclear industry that is a environmental time bomb waiting to go off and have promoted legislation to limit the industries liability when it does.
What is wrong with the American people that they sit on their collective asses and do nothing while all this is happening? Are they that fucking stupid? Are they that lacking in human decency? Are they that politically dumbed-down that they won't even fight for their own interests?
The fact that this government corruption has been allowed to go on for years evidently proves that Americans are that stupid and lacking of compassion and politically dumbed-down. Thank God for guys like Dr. Warren the others that are trying to slap some sense into the American public to show us what courage and being humane is all about. Dr. Warren and company shouldn't be put in jail but our so called leaders sure as Hell should be for their crimes against humanity.
He's talking about a desert saint of sorts, Scott Warren, who has the power of his call to duty to give water in milk cartons to anyone crossing the Arizona desert. Now that is a hero, yet, he is facing decades in prison. America!
The charges against Warren "are an unjust criminalization of direct humanitarian assistance" and "appear to constitute a politically motivated violation of his protected rights as a Human Rights Defender," states Amnesty International's Americas regional director Erika Guevara-Rosas.
"Providing humanitarian aid is never a crime," Guevara-Rosas added in a statement last week. "If Dr. Warren were convicted and imprisoned on these absurd charges, he would be a prisoner of conscience, detained for his volunteer activities motivated by humanitarian principles and his religious beliefs."
Yet how many humans in this crime country even give a rat's ass about one man who is doing the good that all men and women should be doing?
Read the great piece about these water bearers on the border at the Intercept by Ryan Devereaux.
So, here, whatever will come of my new column, "Deep Dive: Go Below the Surface with Paul Haeder," starting June 7, well, I hope people reading this rag — 18,000 and counting and as they are compelled to hit each longer version of each of my profiles on line, Oregon Coast Today — will understand that life is the sum total of one's search for meaning and worthy work and community involvement.
Maybe this compulsion toward narrative has always been inside me during my early root setting living in Canada, Maryland, Paris, Edinburgh, Arizona . . . then on that walkabout throughout Latin America, Europe, Vietnam, USA, Central America!
When times get tough, the storyteller gets writing. Ha. Believe you me, the stories we all have collected in this Marquis de Sade world of capital and artery-clogging entertainment and constant death spiral the elites have banked as their Appian Way to Complete Dominance, they make for so much more validation of humanity than anything Hollywood could make.
Point of fact — I attempted to watch the film, Vice, about Dick Cheney, his perverse family, the perversity of neocons fornicating with neoliberalism. It was one of Hollywood's "cutting edge" dramas. Written and directed by a Saturday Night Live writer. All the usual suspects with Hollywood multi-millions stuffed in their jowls — Christian Bale, Amy Adams, et al.
It wasn't that good, but I sensed that the filmmakers were all about trying to make something that was "different." I didn't nod off during the viewing. But, I unfortunately had the DVD so I went to the extras section, and then, the behind-the-scenes of the making of Vice. This is when things went south real quickly with neoliberal, Democrat-leaning Hollywood creeps. We get every goofy platitude about each and every department's genius in making this film. Every actor fawns the other actor for his or her amazing performance.
Then the Limey, Christian Bale, yammers on and on about he was all about making Dick Cheney human, going into his good side, being cognizant of Cheney, the human. Rubbish and this is the quality of men, adults, in our society — multimillionaires with gobs of limelight and credit and awards and houses and yachts thrown at them, and they can't even begin to attack the cause — capitalism, rampant competitiveness, droll I-got-mine-too-bad-you-can't-get-yours thinking. Hollywood is the anti-culture, the flagging bumbling money changers, the money makers, the money grubbers, and well, everything is about the pockets and the suits and the "executive producers," i.e. Bankers.
Oh god, what a trip going into these Hollywood people's hot yoga, macrobiotic diet, four-hour-a-day workout minds. The director, McKay, actually thinks this drama — make-believe — has given the world new stuff, new insights, new news about the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush-Reagan-Bush world of prostitute politics.
As if there were no real journalists working on all the pre-September 11 illegalities of the republican party and then the post-September 11 evisceration of the few rights the people of the world and USA had before full spectrum war on our planet.
As if journalists hadn't cracked open the Koch brothers, the fake think tanks, all the pre-Truman/post-Truman lies of empire, from Roy Cohen, through to the rigged systems of oppression. Way before any trivial Hollywood wannabe open her eyes.
Entertainment and a few laughs at the expense of millions of bombed-dead people, millions more suffering-a-lingering-death daily because of Hollywood and USA policies and the evangelicals and the Crypto-Christo-Zionists bombing "the other" back to the stone age. The movie, Vice.
Racists, misogynists, misanthropes, one and all. Yet, we gotta love these democrat-leaning guys and gals making films, having millions stuffed up every possible orifice until their brains gel.
Insight into the flippancy that is Hollywood the Power Broker! Watching people like Amy Adams and Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell play this soft-shoe goofball show, and then in the little "Making of the Movie Vice" documentary (sic-infomercial) blathering on and on about the greatness of the script and every cog of the machine that churns out this pabulum, well, it steels me to continue my small-time, no-fame, big-effing-deal gig writing people profiles to bring some sense to a world captured by capital . . . idiocy!
Oh, how we fall in line. Over at Counterpunch, that cloistered world of writers has the countdown for 2018 — Best Films of the Year, as in the most conscious, socially (give me a effing break!) that is. Nothing in American society once it floats on the offal barrel is sacred, socialist, communist.
Peak TV is creating more opportunities for independent film directors, and for new stories to be told. More films from around the world are released on streaming every day, and Netflix spent an estimated 13 billion dollars on content just this year. More cash available can sometimes mean more stories by and about communities of color, women, transgender and gender nonconforming people, and other communities Hollywood has long ignored. But the movie industry is still primarily about making profit, and it's main business is reinforcing the status quo, including churning out films that glorify capitalism, war, and policing.
Below are 2018's top ten conscious films that made it through these barriers, plus twenty more released this year that you may want to check out.
Hollywood doesn't have a great record in covering presidential politics (remember Kevin Costner in Swing Vote?). Vice, comedy director Adam McKay's follow up to The Big Short, explores the Bush/Cheney presidency, attempting to make history and polemic accessible to a wide audience. It's not as effective as his previous film, but it's a good history, especially for those less familiar with the ins and outs of the early 2000s corporate power grab.
Lighten up already, many a friend and acquaintance tell me. "You are going to burn out like one of the bulbs you use underwater to do your night dives. Way too much shining the hoary light onto the more hoary caverns of American society. Let things go."
Ha, well, how can we? We are entertained to death, as Neil Postman states:
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
This book [Amusing Ourselves to Death] is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
And so it goes, as I trail the acrid dust devil of injustice — my own and the veterans' and families' I helped just months ago in Portland as a social worker for, drum roll, homeless veterans (and some came with families, including babies and service dogs).
I've written about it here and elsewhere — the Starvation Army. The deceitful, unethical, possibly murderous Starvation Army. You see, where I worked, I had these insane Nurse Ratched's lording over grown men and women treating them like criminals, and infantiles, and the constant berating and recriminations. It was anything but social work 101. Anything but trauma-informed care. Anything but caring people, enlightened helpers; instead, think mean, warped people who within their own broken self's, do all the wrong things for veterans.
I decided to jump ship, and, alas, a few lawyers advised me I couldn't get far with a hostile workplace complaint until I went through the state of Oregon's, Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) quasi-judicial pathway.
There was great harm put upon the veterans, great harm put upon the staff, because a director was all into herself and her self-described Jesus Saves bullshit, yammering on about her former cocaine addiction and booze abuse and 350 pounds of flesh, as well as her own failings as a mother. This place has 100 people living in it temporarily, while Starvation Army receives taxpayer money, all part of the poverty pimping Starvation/Salvation Army's SOP.
In the end, relying on idiots in any state bureaucracy to carry forth an investigation was not my idea of justice. I did my due diligence and filed grievances, first with the Starvation Army, and, then with BOLI. I contacted VA officials, state politicians, and the media. To no avail. They too are accomplices!
To make a long and stupid Byzantine story short, my prediction of zero assistance and zero admonishing from the state to the executive director and the higher ups of the Starvation Army played out. BOLI is a toothless and empty-hearted agency, staffed by soulless Little Eichmann's counting their paychecks and amassing points to their state sourced pension fund.
I have moved on, as usual, and the injustice perpetrated upon me is minor in the scheme of things. The veterans, however, already foisted with trauma, PTSD, administrative rape, etc., are still vulnerable to the Nurse Ratched's of the inhumane social services that serves (sic) non-profits and religious crime syndicates like the Starvation Army.
Here, "How the Salvation Army Lives Off (and thrives with) a Special Brand of Poverty Pimping"
Here, "Alcohol, Atheism, Anarchy: The Triple A Threat to the Pro-Capitalist Salvation Army"
Here, "Insanity of Social Work as Human Control"
I have since my departure been in contact with a few veterans, and talked a few off the proverbial ledge — several that wanted to off themselves because of the Nurse Ratched's they encounter at the Starvation Army, in the VA, and in non-profits. This is the reality, and it's sick, in real perverted American time — "Hundreds witness veteran shoot and kill himself in VA waiting room"
In December, Marine Col. Jim Turner, 55, put his service uniform on, drove to the Bay Pines Department of Veterans Affairs, and shot himself outside the medical center, leaving a note next to his body.
"I bet if you look at the 22 suicides a day you will see VA screwed up in 90 percent," it read.
This is Trump, this is Biden, this is Clinton, this is the lot of them, callous and broken capitalists, who have sold their souls to the devil and brains to Jeff Bezos, et al.
And it ain't going to get fixed until we cut away the cancer. Really cut away, daily, in small acts of defiance, great collective acts of beating the system.
Not sure what that great director Ava Duvernay says about more and more movies like her 13th or this new Netflix mini-series on the Central Park Five, When They See Us will do to eventually get enough Americans (70 percent are racist to the core) to demand change in the criminal injustice system of private prisons, Incarceration Complex, Profitable Prosecutions. That all those cops, dailies, elites, deplorables, Trumpies, and Trump said terrible terrible things about these 5 juveniles, calling them animals, or super predators like the Clinton Klan, well, imagine, an insane 2016 runner for the highest crime lord position of the land, POTUS, Donald Trump, after these five men were released after all the evidence found them innocent, sputtering with his big fat billionaire's fourth grader's words that the Central Park Five are guilty, guilty, guilty.
The press coverage was biased. There was a study done by Natalie Byfield, one of the journalists at the time for the New York papers who later wrote a book about covering the case, and it saw that a little more than 89 percent of the press coverage at the time didn't use the word "alleged," that we had irresponsibility in the press corps at the time not to ask second questions and literally take police and prosecutor talking points and turn those into articles that people read as fact, and proceeded to shape their opinions about this case that essentially spoils the jury pool, so that these boys were never given a chance.
Trump's comments in his ads that he took out in 1989 were taken out just two weeks after the crime was announced—they hadn't even gone to trial, so it was impossible for them to have an impartial jury pool. The printing of their names in the papers for minors, and where they lived, was a jaw-dropper. All of this was done by "reputable" papers in New York that we still read, so I'm curious how these papers take responsibility for their part in this, and also possibly use this to review the part they play in other cases that may not be as famous as this.
Thus, she makes my case — the callous and racist and sexist and xenophobic US Press, and here we are today, 2019, enter Amusing Ourselves to Death and a Brave New World.
The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.
— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, "Preface"
Alas, though, we have to keep those words coming, even sent to the great gray hearts and souls populating those state agencies whose workers are supposed to investigate the workplace safety concerns of workers, and are supposed to prevent workplace harassment.
I write to break through the fog, and to envelop a new way of seeing my world, for me and for the few readers that dabble in even attempting to start, let alone finish, these missives.
Huxley was right — " Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced." Brave New World, "Chapter 4"
Bill McKibben, Chelsea Manning, Climate Change, Disinformation, Elizabeth Kolbert, John Pilger, Julian Assange, Lenin Moreno, Media, Noam Chomsky, OPCW, Theodore Postol, WGSPM, Whistleblowing, WikiLeaks
Life Or Death: Corporate Media or Honest Media?
May 25, 2019 Media Lens
Relying on the corporate media, including BBC News, to provide a reliable account of the world is literally a matter of life or death, on many levels.
Imagine, for example, a Russian dissident living in the UK who had published copious evidence of Russian war crimes, and who had then sought political asylum in an embassy in London. Imagine if that dissident were then expelled from the embassy, under pressure from Russia, immediately imprisoned in a high-security prison here and faced with the prospect of extradition to Russia to face life imprisonment or the death sentence. There would be a massive uproar in the Western media. Western political leaders would issue strong statements of disapproval and demand the freedom of a brave dissident. The case of Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, is much worse. He is being pursued relentlessly by a powerful country, the United States, of which he is not even a citizen.
US prosecutors are now reportedly helping themselves to Assange's possessions, including medical records and two manuscripts. Baltasar Garzon, international legal co-ordinator for the defence of Assange and WikiLeaks, urged international bodies to intervene in what he called: "an unprecedented attack on the rights of the defence, freedom of expression and access to information."
It is extremely worrying that Ecuador has proceeded with the search and seizure of property, documents, information and other material belonging to the defence of Julian Assange, which Ecuador arbitrarily confiscated, so that these can be handed over to the agent of political persecution against him, the United States.
The US is undoubtedly looking for evidence to build a bogus case against Assange to lock him away for life for alleged crimes against the world's number one rogue state. As Noam Chomsky has long observed, the US behaves like the Mafia writ large. You go against their power at your peril.
The incentives for Ecuador, under a Washington-friendly government led by Lenín Moreno since 2017, to behave in this appalling manner are obvious. A report in The Canary spelled it out: "Ecuador is raking in new [trade] deals with the UK and US after handing over Julian Assange."
In Sweden, surely under US pressure, prosecutors have now applied for a warrant for Assange's arrest. Craig Murray provided the vital background to this latest disgraceful development, pointing to the: "incredible and open bias of the courts against Assange […] since day 1."
The former British diplomat is clear about the crucial importance of the work of WikiLeaks and Assange:
Julian Assange revolutionised publishing by bringing the public direct access to massive amounts of raw material showing secrets the government wished to hide. By giving the public this direct access he cut out the filtering and mediating role of the journalistic and political classes.
Murray pointed out the contrast with the Panama Papers, detailing how the super-rich hide their money, covered by the Guardian and other 'mainstream media' outlets with great fanfare. However, contrary to media promises, such coverage:
only ever saw less than 2% of the raw material published and where major western companies and individuals were completely protected from revelation because of the use of MSM ["mainstream" media] intermediaries.
Or compare Wikileaks to the Snowden files, the vast majority of which have now been buried and will never be revealed, after foolishly being entrusted to the Guardian and the Intercept. Assange cut out the intermediary role of the mediating journalist and, by allowing the people to see the truth about how they are governed, played a major role in undercutting public confidence in the political establishment that exploits them.
John Pilger, a staunch defender of Assange and WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning, as all journalists should be, said via Twitter:
The filthy war on Julian #Assange and Chelsea Manning, whose heresy is to have revealed the crimes of great power, intensifies. Craven Sweden plays to its theatre of darkness while Assange the prisoner is denied even his glasses.
Manning is yet again back in prison, following a brief spell of freedom. She has steadfastly refused to testify to a secret grand jury in Virginia that is attempting to entrap her into revealing incriminating evidence about her past communications with WikiLeaks. The reluctance of corporate journalists, and even human rights groups, to support Manning, Assange and WikiLeaks is symptomatic of a broken political system still masquerading as 'democracy'.
Missing Headlines on Douma
The freedom of the Western media, then, is a cruel deception. In reality, the corporate media has paved the way for war after war: Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen; and possible future wars in Venezuela and Iran. On and on it goes. Last week, a leaked document from the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), directly contradicted the concocted 'consensus' that Syrian President Assad's forces dropped canisters containing poison gas from helicopters over Douma on April 7, 2018, killing dozens of civilians. The claim was crucial to the justification given by Western governments for launching air strikes on Syria one week later, relayed dutifully by the Guardian in its headline: "Syria: US, UK and France launch strikes in response to chemical attack."
The leaked report was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM), a group of independent scholars and researchers, and signed by Ian Henderson, an engineering expert who, as independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone noted, has been listed in leadership positions on OPCW documents as far back as 1998 and as recently as 2018. The report concluded:
In summary, observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest that there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.
WGSPM concluded in their analysis of the leaked engineering report that it is: "beyond reasonable doubt that the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018 was staged."
Theodore Postol, professor of science, technology, and international security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave his initial assessment of the leaked report and concurred that the alleged chemical attack was staged:
The OPCW engineering assessment unambiguously describes evidence collected by the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) that indicates two analyzed chlorine cylinder attacks were staged in April 2018 in Douma. The holes in the reinforced concrete roofs that were supposedly produced by high-speed impacts (impact at speeds of perhaps 100 m/s or more, 250 mph) of industrial chlorine canisters dropped from helicopters were instead created by earlier explosions of either artillery rockets or mortar shells. In one event a chlorine canister that was damaged on another occasion was placed on the roof with its head inserted into an existing crater hole, and in the other case a damaged chlorine cylinder was placed on a bed supposedly after it penetrated the building roof and bounced from its original trajectory into a bed. In both cases the damage to the chlorine cylinders was incompatible with the damage to the surroundings that was allegedly caused by the cylinder impacts.
Shockingly: "35 deaths that were originally attributed to these staged chlorine events cannot be explained and it cannot be ruled out that these people were murdered as part of the staging effort."
Postol emphasised: "the voices that come through the engineering report are those of highly knowledgeable and sophisticated experts."
But the dissenting engineering analysis was 'entirely unmentioned in the report that went to the UN Security Council'. Postol concluded:
This omission is very serious, as the findings of that report are critical to the process of determining attribution. There is absolutely no reason to justify the omission of the engineering report in the OPCW account to the UN Security Council as its policy implications are of extreme importance.
Caitlin Johnstone commented:
This should be a major news headline all around the world, but of course it is not. As of this writing the mass media have remained deathly silent about the document despite its enormous relevance to an international headline story last year which occupied many days of air time. It not only debunks a major news story that had military consequences, it casts doubt on a most esteemed international independent investigative body and undermines the fundamental assumptions behind many years of western reporting in the area.
The OPCW confirmed that the document is genuine. However, rather than address the serious questions about its omission in its official report to the UN, the OPCW merely said that they would now be 'conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of the document in question.' They added that they would not be commenting further 'at this time'.
Journalist Peter Hitchens asked:
What is going on at the OPCW? It is a valuable organisation, containing many fine people, with a noble purpose, but has it been placed under pressure, or even hijacked, by political forces which seek a justification for military intervention in Syria? Given that a decision between war or peace, affecting the whole world, could one day hang on its judgements, I think the whole world is entitled to an inquiry into what is happening behind its closed doors.
Our searches of the ProQuest newspaper database confirm that there has not been a single mention of this devastating document in any 'mainstream' US or UK national newspaper except in an opinion column by Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday. It is truly remarkable, but predictable, that corporate media journalists have ignored an expert assessment that casts serious doubt on the official narrative on Douma and, therefore, the West's 'justification' for bombing Syria.
There is no mention on the BBC News website of the leaked OPCW report. This is consistent with the 'public' broadcaster's central role in maintaining and supporting the case for UK state policies. As Caitlin Johnstone astutely observed, the BBC's preferred mode when it comes to foreign policy is fact-free war propaganda. Even when the press reported fresh US claims of a 'possible Assad chemical attack in Syria' – likely a propaganda effort intended to deflect attention from the leak – journalists managed to avoid mentioning the newly published OPCW report.
A news article in the small-circulation Morning Star is the only other exception to the craven silence in the national press. The overwhelming media acquiescence for Western foreign policy is surely a performance that the old Soviet press of Pravda, Izvestia, et al. could only have dreamt of.
Human Extinction
But the greatest calamity resulting from the myth of a free and fair media is the inexorable rush towards climate breakdown. In 1982, Exxon scientists predicted that atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide would reach 415 parts per million (ppm) by around this year; which is exactly what has happened. In pre-industrial times, the concentration was much lower; around 280 ppm. The last time it was this high was 2.5 to 5 million years ago, during the Pliocene epoch, well before modern humans evolved. Global sea level was 25m higher than now and global temperatures were 2-3 degrees Celsius higher.
As Kyla Mandel noted in an article for ThinkProgress:
Despite this knowledge, the company chose not to change or adapt its business model. Instead, it chose to invest heavily in disinformation campaigns that promoted climate science denial, failing to disclose its knowledge that the majority of the world's fossil fuel reserves must remain untapped in order to avert catastrophic climate change.
Over ten years ago, in January 2009, New Scientist reported that: "Billions could go hungry from global warming by 2100."
As we have documented in media alerts and books since then, there has been warning after warning from reputable scientists, and things are worse now than they were in 2009. Governments have not merely 'done nothing'; they have promoted and perpetuated corporate policies that are destroying the planet's ecosystems and unleashing climate instability.
The World Health Organisation states that climate change is already leading to 150,000 deaths annually around the world. Researchers fear that the number may well double by 2030, even if serious emissions reductions begin today. Relevant factors include malnutrition, heat stress and increased incidence of diseases such as malaria. Death rates will likely worsen even further because of population displacement, reductions in labour productivity from farmers trying to work in hotter conditions, and disruptions to health services because of destructive weather and climate. Climate change could also force more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030, increasing their vulnerability to ill health and disease.
The corporate disinformation campaign to block or slow action to tackle climate breakdown has therefore already led to huge numbers of people dying and suffering from illness. It will only get worse, potentially leading to a mass extinction of species, including humans.
When will senior BBC News editors and journalists, funded by the public licence fee, make the climate emergency central to their reporting? How long before economics and business correspondents notice the utter absurdity of ignoring climate breakdown in their reports, day after day? Last December, we asked BBC News business editor Simon Jack when he would address the climate crisis. He had never responded to us before. He replied this time: "Very soon."
Over four months later, he published a piece on his blog titled, 'UK's biggest money manager warns on climate catastrophe'.
It began:
The world is facing a climate catastrophe and businesses around the world must address it urgently or face the ultimate sanction for a public company, shareholders who refuse to back them any more.
That is not a message from an environmental action group but from the largest money manager in the UK, Legal & General Investment Management, which manages £1 trillion worth of UK pension fund investments.
Its climate warning was the top of a list of concerns about the way companies are run.
A serious message indeed; surely there could be nothing more pressing. 'Climate catastrophe'; 'top of a list of concerns', 'ultimate sanction'. Would this mark a sea change in the business editor's reporting? Seemingly not. Simon Jack's reporting since then has been business as usual.
Our previous media alert highlighted the valiant campaigning and protests by Extinction Rebellion, and at least some degree of serious media coverage has been generated recently. But peaceful protests need to proliferate, intensify and seriously disrupt government policies and industry practices that are continuing to pump up dangerous global levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Bill McKibben and Elizabeth Kolbert, two well-respected writers on climate, believe that although 'the political tide could be turning on climate change', they are both deeply concerned that it is too little, too late.
McKibben, whose book The End of Nature was published thirty years ago, told journalist David Remnick in a New Yorker interview:
The argument about climate change was over by the early nineteen-nineties, when scientists had reached a very robust consensus. We'd won the argument. We were just losing the fight, because the fight was not about data and reason and evidence. It was about the thing that fights are always about: money and power.
Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction about the human-driven mass loss of species, warned in the same interview:
We have not yet experienced the full impact of the greenhouse gases we have already put up there. And once we do [in] a decade or so, there's a sort of a long tail to that, we will have put up that much more. So we're always chasing this problem […] Once we decide, "Oh, we really don't like this climate," you don't get the old climate back for […] many, many, many generations. So we are fighting a very very, very uphill battle. […] maybe we can avoid the worst possible future. But I don't think at this point we can avoid a lot, a lot, a lot of damage.
The outlook is so pessimistic that the best McKibben can hope for is that global warming is slowed down 'to the point where it doesn't make civilizations impossible.' But it is 'an open question' as to whether even that is attainable.
McKibben added:
There are scientists who tell you we're already past that point. The consensus, at least for the moment, is that we've got a narrow and closing window, but that if we move with everything we have, then, perhaps, we'll be able to squeeze a fair amount of our legacy through it.
This is terrifying, and it should drive media coverage of the problem with huge urgency and scope. The real prospect that all of humanity's achievements – in art, science, music, literature, philosophy – might be wiped out of existence, should compel dramatic action.
Journalist Jonathan Cook, freed from the need to kowtow to state or corporate interests in his reporting, states our predicament clearly and honestly:
'Climate collapse is so close at hand, the window to avert our fate so narrow, that only the insane, the deeply propagandised and those so alienated from the natural world that they have lost all sense of themselves and what matters can still ignore the reality. We are teetering over the precipice.'
Now is the time, says Cook, for 'genuine populism': a widespread, grassroots struggle to overturn 'turbo-charged neoliberal capitalism', including the corporate media, before it destroys us all.
Censorship, CIA, Corruption, Democrats, Disinformation, Donald Trump, Fake News, FBI, Hillary Clinton, Media, Media Bias, Media Censorship, Militarism, Opinion, Propaganda, Russia, United States, US lies, US Media, US Terrorism, US War Crimes, War Crimes, War Industry
Forevergate: The Pernicious Persistence of the Russian Collusion Delusion
May 20, 2019 William Hawes
The official investigation into Russian collusion is over, after three harrowing, nerve-wracking years. I kid, of course. After endless news cycles, and various non-stories and wild-goose chases disseminated by mainstream media, one would think the country could move on. Yet this hasn't been the case. It seems pretty straightforward: delusions about Russia continue because they serve empire.
Most serious people who have not had their brains parasitized by the ridiculous hand-wringing and caterwauling of mainstream media pundits understood Russiagate for what it was: a bunch of half-baked allegations against obviously corrupt yet incompetent stooges of the Trump campaign and administration, cobbled together to appear as some sinister, shadowy plot against America. That does not mean that Donald Trump is not a repugnant, amoral, serial liar who would do anything within his power to engage in damage control in regards to the behavior of his corrupt and incompetent lackeys, as well as himself. It simply means, in regards to collusion, there is no there, there.
Examine nearly any foundational element of the alleged Trump-Putin collusion fairy tale and it falls apart immediately. When Donald Trump acts illegally, as he has in the past with various real estate scams, he does it out in the open, in full view. He does not seem to have the mental capacities to collude and conspire, he is simply a billionaire: he gives orders, even if often he does not have to state them openly, as Michael Cohen told us, and he gets what he wants. Partially this is why liberals vilify him so much, obviously: he has removed the curtains of empire to show how things are really run, how white supremacy and unchecked greed and corruption has always been at the core of US hegemony.
Moreover, I do not see anyone even in alternative media circles asking about Russia's side of the equation. Would Vladimir Putin look at the pro-con, cost-benefit analysis of conspiring with a clown such as Trump and determine, let's do this? I would say probably not. What would the endgame be? Would Trump pull out of NATO, would Trump give his tacit approval of the transfer of Crimea, or even attempt to thaw relations concerning Ukraine? Hell, no. These are liberal fantasies: demented, fevered nightmares of the national security state falling apart at the hands of an ignoramus. US imperial rule does not allow for any significant aberrations in foreign policy, regardless of who is president.
To some degree, US imperial policy is on rails, and who is in charge simply doesn't matter. Presidents are puppets, figureheads. Putin must understand this on some level. Although to an extent post-Soviet Russia has been seeking approval from the West, and forming tacit alignments with such basket cases as Orban's Hungary, as well as becoming more engaged with other xenophobic nationalist-populists in Europe, the Kremlin simply does not vitally need US approval. It may, however, broach certain topics in specific policy areas where overlapping interests are well-established.
The costs of Russia getting caught by actually concretely, materially, and intellectually conspiring with any incoming US administration (by setting the entire US on wild Neo-McCarthyite witch-hunts and restarting a New Cold War, which is essentially what has happened anyways without any collusion) would vastly outweigh the benefits.
I mean, come on, the Steele document, Wikileaks being pawns of the Russians, a handful of Facebook ads having any significant effect on election results? It's frankly ridiculous that these fabricated fairy tales could send any rational group of people into an investigative furor. It's even more absurd considering, frankly, that probably lots of corporate leaders, Democratic "elite" consultants, spooks at Langley, national security "experts", and political operatives were taking a look at this 3rd-rate paperback fiction before any investigation was launched, and deciding, yes, let's go with this.
What it does seem to mean, and what hardly anyone wants to admit, is that this steaming pile of horseshit was, in fact, concocted by our intelligence agencies (and possibly at the behest of the Clintons' networks within the national security state to avert eyes from the Clinton Foundation scandal) to help to distract, divide, and hypnotize the public. This is what is called a disinformation campaign/psychological operation, a "psy-op".
Every media story devoted to the Russiagate hoax takes away from any and all of the failed policies and spinelessness of the Democrats. It also benefits conservatives and elite corporate interests as well, because there is less time to cover things like global warming, militarism, increasing income inequality, Trump's deregulations which have gutted federal agencies, etc.
The hypocrisy is astounding, and the analysis is completely ahistorical, considering the nefarious meddling, subterfuge, coups, and death the US has doled out for decades by interfering in overseas elections. Not to mention the assassinations, funding death squads, the massacres and genocides committed in the wake of US covert foreign policy. There is no existent US democracy to interfere in.
If you're biting on the "Russian hackers" and "Russian spies" nonsense, well, there's not much hope for you either. It is well within the possibilities of many intelligence agencies to fake an attack or make digital signatures appear to be coming from other countries. As for whether any of these so-called Russian "agents" actually has any significant influence in the Kremlin hierarchy, it is pure speculation. From an examination of the Mueller report, which is all we can do with all the redacted evidence, it appears many of these shadowy Russian figures are marginal figures, and/or are simply sponges and spivs vying for a wee bit of influence in Moscow, rather than member of some deep-cover GRU operation.
The vast majority of citizens understand that Hillary Clinton lost because of her hubris, her frigid personality, and, most obviously, her stupidity as she failed to campaign in key battleground states.
Further, if we are asking questions as to what countries influence our elections, the obvious answers would have to be NATO allies and Israel. Even Bill Clinton faced charges of election subterfuge due to his supposed backing from Chinese money.
Hands down, you can pretty much guarantee that Cambridge Analytica, Facebook's and Youtube's own algorithms which favor sensationalist and hateful content, and probably a host of other unknown shady corporations influenced the election far more than Russia could have. I can guarantee that Russiagate has been the biggest boon for cybersecurity, surveillance, and counter-terror corporations since 9/11.
Another point is the issue of "back-channels" from the Trump campaign and transition teams to the Putin administration. As if nearly every leader of a sovereign nation does not establish back-channels with other allies and enemies (see: Nixon to China, among many examples), simply because national leaders have enemies within their own government who will leak or sabotage any efforts at dialogue, whether they are corrupt or not.
How naïve does one have to be to recoil in shock at the notion that the most powerful governments in the world establish diplomatic back-channels with shady, corrupt officials and spies?
If you want to open the book on political corruption, you will probably find every member of Congress, every high-level member in State and Defense, every Cabinet member and their top-tier underlings, every senior financial person at Treasury and the Fed have conflicts of interests if they are not openly taking bribes, stock buybacks, or whizzing in and out of corporate positions (the "revolving door" phenomenon) to deregulate and consult for the industries which stand to benefit from the wanton dismemberment of our regulatory agencies.
The elites are not honest in public, but I'd assume most of them are self-aware enough to realize what they are doing occurs in a legal gray area, if not being outright criminal. The liberal and some "never Trump" and "principled" conservative media, however, cannot even be bothered to reflect on whose interests are being served by pandering to the national security state. These mainstream journalists have managed to rehabilitate the image of our abhorrent domestic and foreign security and intelligence agencies.
When your beliefs align with those who support US Empire, you might want to critically question them. There was absolutely no "objective" reporting (an abstract fantasy these hacks hang their hats on) regarding alleged election interference in mainstream sources. What almost certainly happened was that key figures in DC, whether politicians, technocrats, or intelligence assets or agents fed running lies to their puppet mouthpieces such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc.
Elite interests threw chum in the water and watched as the mainstream journalist feeding frenzy ensued. Not only did they take the bait hook, line, and sinker; there were no internal checks among news agencies about the origins of the hogwash theories they disseminated.
If one hazards to take a best guess as to where this all originated, it's as simple as three letters: C-I-A. US intelligence involvement in concocting the collusion yarn is conspicuously absent in media analysis, a telling omission.
The psychology of this nonsense is interesting insofar as it reveals deep-rooted liberal tendencies: rather than engaging in self-reflection as to the reasons of Clinton's loss, Trump's victory can only be an aberration. In this dream-world impeachment is always on the horizon, and America can undergo a return to normalcy by replacing Trump with a "rational", neoliberal democratic centrist.
The denialism of mainstream liberals knows no bounds and we should not be hesitant to laugh at the ridiculousness of allegations of Russian hacking and collusion. What might also be helpful is to remind the chattering classes that their thoughts are not their own. By examining the historical and material forces at play, one is forced to confront the facts that only very elite interests in the military-industrial complex could be responsible for stringing along our compliant media for so long.
Again, every multinational corporation, every authoritarian government agency, every arms dealer, fossil fuel emitter, financial speculator, agribusiness corporation, medical and insurance company, as well as the FBI, CIA, and our vast imperial apparatus stood to benefit as mainstream media devoted so much time, energy, and bandwidth towards such a ridiculous, divisive, and painfully obvious intelligence disinformation ploy.
That, in fact, may have been the point, and the initial culprits in the US security state may never be found. Nor does the Russiagate hoax require any specific people directing the media. The deviousness of our system is that it does not need individual conspirators. To paraphrase Gore Vidal: "There is no need for the elite to conspire. They all think the same." The system vomits forth new idiotic post-truth narratives on both liberal and conservative sides to sooth frayed nerves by offering palliatives to those frightened by resurgent racist and nationalist tendencies, and to satiate a public beholden to spectacle. Rather than trying to untangle the contradictions and travesties inherent to capitalism and empire, any fairy tale will do. No one can seem to figure out who is responsible for our nation's slow collapse, and there can't be a public reckoning for whoever was disseminating this collusion nonsense either, because the national security state is cowardly and faceless. Empire and capitalism cannot bear to have their true faces unmasked.
The faceless people behind the scenes are not heroic American spy-warriors or clever, righteous assassins we see portrayed in popular TV, movies, video games, etc. Nor does any real power reside in the "Russian hacker", a classic case of US projection (Stuxnet anyone?). What the stereotype does play into is a racist and absurd caricature of seedy Slavic programmers deviously plotting to destroy democracy in America from troll-farms in St. Petersburg.
The real faceless people of today are khaki-wearing doofuses overseeing server farms in Northern Virginia, the uniformed killers wandering the corridors of the Pentagon E-ring whose schemes lead to genocide abroad, free market-worshipping chauvinist tech-bros in Silicon Valley constructing our ever-surveilled digital hellscape who mine the need for human connection and community for profit, diplomat dilettantes plotting coups in US embassies which increasingly resemble bunkers, the stuffed-suit lawyers and financial parasites who plunder whole continents and construct tax havens for the super-rich, and the anonymous shareholders, CEOs, and owners of nesting-doll conglomerates which oversee trillions of dollars stolen from workers and direct trillions more from public treasuries.
Russiagate will continue on to provide cover for ruling class criminality. It functions in US political discourse to evade the examination of capital's true nature, to lead down blind alleyways in the long tradition of America's "paranoid style". As the climate crisis intensifies, as the rising tides of authoritarianism destroy lives and sap energy from ordinary workers and citizens, the simulation of democracy must be maintained at all costs. What better way than for the elites to distract and confuse the public, remain in the shadows, and feign responsibility for their crimes against the planet and humanity than to foment unrest between the two leading nuclear powers, simultaneously enrage and anesthetize the public with a feel-good story about a former FBI director taking down a President, and shift away public attention from the imperial paroxysms of violence erupting all over the globe?
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