De
smerige en uiterst gewelddadige superpsychopaat Eric Prince, oprichter van
privé terreurleger Blackwater, kreeg bij tv zendgemachtigde MSNBC de
kans, zonder enige kritiek, zijn vuige oorlogspraatjes te
spuien……. Prince wil de oorlog in Afghanistan overnemen van het
Pentagon en belooft daarbij succes, een gedachte die goed viel bij
het beest Trump, zeker gezien ‘de resultaten’ van de oorlog die daar de laatste 17 jaar zijn geboekt*.
Volkomen
terecht merkte Stephen Miles van ‘Win Without War’ op, dat Prince in
Den Haag terecht zou moeten staan voor het Internationaal Strafhof
(ICC), al geldt dit ook voor een fiks aantal politici en
hooggeplaatste militairen, de CIA, NSA en ga nog maar even
door…….
Prince is als directeur van Blackwater, na fiks wat smerige oorlogsmisdaden omgedoopt tot Academi (ha! ha! ha! hoe verzint hij het??) en
is als zodanig één op één verantwoordelijk voor de moord en/of
verminking op/van een groot aantal burgers in o.a. Irak en Afghanistan…….. (waar men in de westerse reguliere media liever niet over spreekt….)
Lees
het volgende artikel van Jake Johnson, eerder gepubliceerd op Common
Dreams en door mij overgenomen van Anti-War en zie hoe de
geesten in de VS langzaam maar zeker worden klaargemaakt voor oorlogsvoering door
bedrijven als Academi…… Als dit gebeurt en er worden daarna
bovendien warbots ingezet**,
is het hek helemaal van de VS ‘oorlogsdam…..’ (een dam van ongeveer
5 centimeter hoog…)
Durden wijst op het steeds harder slaan op de ‘oorlogstrommel’ in mediaorganen als MSNBC, waar deze media oorlogshitsers als Prince en anderen hun gif laten spuien, oorlogshitsers die bijvoorbeeld aandringen bij Trump een volledige oorlog tegen Syrië te beginnen…. Terwijl i.p.v. de oorlog tegen de Taliban in Afghanistan te intensiveren met een psychopathisch huurlingenleger, deze oorlog eindelijk te beëindigen, totaal wordt genegeerd door die mediaorganen….. Een pleidooi onder andere gedaan door Stephen Miles van ‘Win Without War’, die kortweg stelde dat i.p.v. de oorlog te privatiseren, het beter is deze te beëindigen’, een waarheid als een koe zoals je begrijpt.
He
Belongs in the Hague’: MSNBC Slammed for Handing Erik Prince
Megaphone to Sell War
(CD) — Amid reports that
President Donald Trump is “showing
renewed interest”
in Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s plan to hand the war in
Afghanistan over to a private army led by an “American
viceroy,” MSNBC on
Friday happily gave the notorious war profiteer a cushy platform to
make his nonsensical
and dangerous pitch
to the president almost entirely unchallenged.
“Shame
on MSNBC for
giving Erik Prince a megaphone,” Stephen Miles, director of Win
Without War, wrote on
Twitter following Prince’s interview with MSNBC‘s
Andrea Mitchell. “He belongs in The Hague, not spewing his
warmongering for profit filth on television.”
Highlighting
the failure of both the deadly “conventional” approach the U.S.
has taken in Afghanistan over the past 16 years and Prince’s plan
to continue the war for profit, Miles went on to suggest an option
that—for obvious reasons—Mitchell and Prince both ignored, one
that is virtually
never aired on corporate media networks like MSNBC.
“What
if—hear me out—instead of privatizing the war in #Afghanistan, we
ended it,” Miles wrote.
“Crazy, I know.”
What if – hear me out – instead of privatizing the war in #Afghanistan, we ended it. Crazy, I know. But, maybe… #EndEndlessWar
MSNBC @MSNBC
NEW: President Trump is showing renewed interest in a proposal by Blackwater founder Erik Prince to privatize the war, officials tell @NBCInvestigates. http://on.msnbc.com/2PfBbiq
Erik Prince joins @mitchellreports now live on @MSNBC to discuss the details.
Watch
Prince’s full appearance on MSNBC,
during which the infamous mercenary was asked for his thoughts
on Omarosa but
wasn’t once seriously challenged on his “prescription
for endless war“:
Prince’s
appearance on MSNBC came
shortly after NBC
News reported
that Trump is growing increasingly impatient with his
own administration’s strategy and
looking toward Prince—the brother of billionaire Education
Secretary Betsy DeVos—for possible alternatives.
“When
Prince’s plan had Trump’s attention in 2017, it had the backing
of his former strategist Steve Bannon and the president’s
son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner,” NBC reported.
In
recent meetings, Trump “has pressed his advisers about Afghanistan
progress” and expressed interest in Prince’s plan to privatize
the war, NBC noted,
citing anonymous administration officials.
As
usually happens when Prince makes his periodic appearances on
corporate news shows to tout his opportunistic, for-profit war plan,
critics were quick to highlight his horrendous
track-record and
argue that his plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan would lead to
even less oversight and more bloodshed.
As head of Blackwater, Erik Prince’s mercenaries committed multiple war crimes in Iraq and were convicted for their involvement in the Nissour Square massacre that killed 17 civilians. He deserves an investigation, not contracts to wage a private war in Afghanistan.
* 17 jaar lang is de oorlog in Afghanistan gaande (…) en als de VS en de rest van de NAVO niet vertrekken uit Afghanistan, kan het nog jaren, of zelfs decennia duren voordat de oorlog is
afgelopen…. Moet je nagaan: Afghanistan is door de Nederlandse
regering (al onder Rutte2, dus onder mede hoofdverantwoordelijkheid
van de PvdA) veilig verklaard voor de terugkeer van
vluchtelingen….. Wat een enorme rotschoft moet je zijn, om alleen
al iets dergelijks te suggereren……….
**
Die warbots worden al ontworpen en klaargemaakt voor productie,
waarbij een drone in feite al een warbot is, de menselijke vinger aan
de knop van drones die worden uitgerust met kunstmatige intelligentie
(AI) zal spoedig verdwijnen, daar te veel dronepiloten geestelijk
doordraaien, nadat ze weer vrouwen en kinderen hebben vermoord, die
niet eens verdacht waren….. Het is dan ook zo dat meer dan 90% van
alle slachtoffers bij VS drone aanvallen niet eens verdacht zijn,
inderdaad meestal vrouwen en kinderen (alleen al het vermoorden
van verdachten is tegen internationale wetten en deze standrechtelijke executies, ofwel moorden, zouden moeten worden
behandeld als ernstige oorlogsmisdaden!)
‘De zoveelste bombastische reactie van Erdogan op de verhoging van de importtarieven op staal en aluminium uit Turkije’ en ‘de Turken zijn bevreesd voor de reactie van Trump, die er niet van houdt te worden geprovoceerd….’ Zo luidde het commentaar in het BBC World Service nieuws van 14.00 u. vanmiddag…..
Een en ander n.a.v. de importbeperkingen die Erdogan op elektronica uit de VS legt, waar m.n. de mobiele telefoons van Apple het moeten ontgelden, dit in reactie op de hiervoor genoemde importbeperkingen op Turks staal en aluminium…..
Erdogan kan wat mij betreft niet snel genoeg terechtstaan voor het meer dan lamme Internationaal Strafhof (ICC), maar een dergelijke manier van spreken is een gotspe, wie provoceerde wie in eerste instantie??? (en wie spreekt er meer bombastisch, Trump of Erdogan??)
Ach, hiermee maakt de BBC nogmaals duidelijk dat het niet alleen pal achter het voor het grote arme deel van GB desastreuze beleid van de regering May staat, maar er ook niet vies van is om de VS een veer in de smerige imperialistische reet te steken en dat zelfs doet door feiten weg te laten uit haar berichtgeving……
De BBC boogt er nog steeds op onafhankelijk te zijn, echter dat is een heel grote en smerige leugen, waar deze zendgemachtigde dagelijks wereldwijd miljoenen kijkers en luisteraars voorliegt dan wel de waarheid voor hen verdraait (zoals het voorbeeld hierboven)….
Het meest lullige is wel dat men bij de BBC de vuilbek vol heeft over ‘fake news’ (‘nepnieuws’), terwijl het zelf een groot leverancier is van dit ‘fake news’, neem de berichtgeving over de door de Britten gesteunde genocide in Jemen, of de illegale oorlogen van de VS tegen Afghanistan, Irak, Libië, Oekraïne en Syrië……. Uiteraard is de berichtgeving over de handelsoorlog tussen de VS en Turkije de opmaat voor nog veel meer ‘fake news…..’
Overigens zouden ook Trump en de duivels die hem omringen, terecht moeten staan voor het Internationaal Strafhof, alleen al vanwege de voortdurende massamoorden die de VS pleegt in illegale oorlogen, of vanwege de VS drone aanvallen waarbij verdachten standrechtelijk worden vermoord en meer dan 90% van de slachtoffers niet eens verdacht was (veelal vrouwen en kinderen…..)……
Het
Environmental Protecion Agency (EPA) is er o.a. om de burgers in de
VS te beschermen tegen gevaarlijke chemische stoffen, echter daar komt in de praktijk geen bliksem van
terecht, zo bleek afgelopen 1 juni, toen de EPA het gebruik van het zwaar kankerverwekkende asbest weer toestond……… Het moet dan wel gaan om ‘echt nieuwe
gebruiksregels’ (SNUR >> Significant New Use Rule)…….
Neemt
niet weg dat men ook asbest weer mag gebruiken voor dakbedekking en
de restricties zullen in de praktijk vrijwel niet tot verboden op het
gebruik van asbest leiden…..
Hoe
is ‘t mogelijk mensen..??!!! Een overheidsorgaan dat een stof toestaat waarvoor bij wijze van spreken kilometers aan bewijzen liggen dat het zwaar kankerverwekkend is…… Ach ja, zoals bij ons heel vaak de centen voorgaan op de volksgezondheid, is het in de VS een ‘nationale sport’ om de producten van bedrijven toe te staan die schadelijk zijn voor de volksgezondheid…… (men is zelfs bezig om de etikettering van deze stoffen niet langer verplicht te stellen, dan wel te alsnog te verplichten…..) E.e.a. blijkt ook weer uit het hieronder opgenomen artikel van Sydney Franklin dat werd gepubliceerd op National News Product Technology. Jaarlijks overlijden alleen in de VS al 40.000 mensen aan de gevolgen van asbestkanker (ook wel mesothelioom genoemd)…..
Moet je nagaan dat er in Washington al
vanaf begin vorig jaar een peperdure EU lobbyclub zit, die het liefst
vandaag nog het TTIP verdrag getekend wil hebben….. Als Trump al
geneigd zou zijn dit te doen, is het zeker, dat ook fabrieken die in
hun producten asbest hebben verwerkt, deze producten mogen gaan
verkopen in de EU, immers Trump heeft alleen oog voor de belangen van
VS bedrijven………
EPA
is now allowing asbestos back into manufacturing
The
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has enacted a SNUR (Significant
New Rule) allowing companies to use new asbestos-containing products
on a case-by-case basis. (Courtesy Mesothelioma + Asbestos Awareness
Center)
One
of the most dangerous construction-related carcinogens is now legally
allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a new rule by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Fast
Companyrecently
reported that on June 1, the EPA authorized a “SNUR” (Significant
New Use Rule) which allows new products containing asbestos to be
created on a case-by-case basis.
According
to environmental advocates, this new rule gives chemical companies
the upper hand in creating new uses for harmful products in the
United States. In May, the EPA released
a report detailing
its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized
substances. The report states that the agency will no longer consider
the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in
its risk assessments.
This
news comes after the EPA reviewed its first batch of 10 chemicals
under the 2016 amendment to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act
(TSCA), which requires the agency to continually reevaluate hundreds
of potentially toxic chemicals in lieu of removing them from the
market or placing new restrictions on their use. The SNUR greenlights
companies to use toxic chemicals like asbestos without consideration
about how they will endanger people who are indirectly in contact
with them.
Asbestos
was widely used in building insulation up until it was banned in most
countries in the 1970s. The U.S. is one of the only nations in the
world that has placed significant restrictions on the substance
without banning it completely. The Asbestos
Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) revealed
in April that asbestos-related deaths now total nearly 40,000
annually, with lung cancer and mesothelioma being the most common
illnesses in association with the toxin. That number could rise if
new asbestos-containing products make their way into new buildings.
Asbestos
poses a major health risk for everyone who comes into contact with
it, both directly and indirectly. (Courtesy OSHA Safety Manual)
Healthy
Building Network (HBN),
an environmental advocacy group, told Fast
Company that
the fibrous material poses a major health risk for everyone exposed
to it, including those who mine it, those who handle it in industrial
facilities, as well as people near or inside renovation and
construction projects where it’s being used. HBN’s Board
President Bill Walsh said that the chlor-alkali industry is the only
industry in the country that still uses asbestos, reportedly
importing about 480 tons of the carcinogen each year from Russia and
Brazil.
Walsh
pointed out that chlorine-based plastics are commonly found in
building-product materials and that “virtually all” asbestos in
the U.S. is used in the industrial process to make chlorine. This
includes PVC and vinyl plastics, which is largely found in the
creation of pipes, tiles, flooring, adhesives, paints, and roofing
products.
As
the world’s largest exporter of asbestos, the Russian
company Uralasbest operates
an enormous open mine nearly half
the size of Manhattanin
a mountainous town 900 miles northeast of Moscow, according to the
Center for Public Integrity. The company has support from the
government and President Vladimir Putin, even though their economic
success exposes the local residents to major health risks. Once
referred to as “the dying city,” Asbest’s residents have
reported the carcinogenic dust is often found as a thick film over
garden vegetables, laundry lines, and even on the floors of their
homes.
Uralasbest,
a Russian mining company and the world’s largest supplier of
asbestos, posted a photo in June of President Trump’s face as a
seal on their shipping pallets. (Via the Uralasbest company Facebook
Page)
Earlier
last month, The
Washington Postnoted
that the Environmental
Working Group (EWG)
and the ADAO had discovered a controversial post on Uralasbest’s
Facebook page showing
photos of company pallets stamped with a seal of U.S. President
Donald Trump’s face. Trump has long been vocal about his
skepticism on the harmful effects of asbestos, citing in his 1997
book, The
Art of the Comeback,
that anti-asbestos efforts were “led by the mob.” In 2012,
he tweeted that
the World Trade Center might not have burned had the fire-retardant
material not been removed from the towers. It’s estimated that
400 tons of asbestos fiber went into the structures before the
developers stopped it from being used further in 1971.
Asbestos,
while already legal for some uses, has not been as widely used in
U.S. construction since nearly 60 countries forbid it from use over
40 years ago. Though the EPA is now easing its regulations against
integrating the harmful toxin and others like it under the Trump
administration, it will largely be the responsibility of local and
state governments, as well as companies and informed consumers to
counter these new federal moves. Walsh says it’s up to sustainable
building-product manufacturers and ultimately, architects to pressure
the market.
“Architects
really set the pace of design, in terms of aesthetics and materials
that we like,” he said. “If they start to incorporate
health-based criteria into their palette, it could really have an
influence on what the manufacturers produce.”
The
EPA told The
Washington Post it will
conduct further studies on the first 10 chemicals under the amended
TSCA and final risk evaluations will published in December 2019.
Lees
het volgende uitstekende artikel van Mike ‘Mish’ Shedlock, eerder
geplaatst op Mish Talk, de site van Shedlock, een artikel over de
handelsoorlog die Trump heeft ontketend met China, volgens Shedlock
niet alleen een dom ‘beleid’, maar ook uiterst hypocriet en
contraproductief.
The U.S. turned up the
heat Wednesday on China, with the Trump administration threatening to
more than double proposed tariffs on imports while Congress passed a
defense bill designed to restrict Beijing’s economic and military
activity.
The moves come as Beijing
and Washington have failed to ease an escalating trade dispute,
prompting the administration to seek additional leverage. The
administration, which has already affixed tariffs on billions of
dollars in Chinese imports, said it would consider more than doubling
proposed tariffs on a further $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to
25%, up from an original 10%.
Meantime, the Senate
approved a defense-policy bill that both tightens U.S.
national-security reviews of Chinese corporate deals and revamps
export controls over which U.S. technologies can be sent abroad. The
bill, which also restricts Beijing in areas ranging from cultural
activity to military exercises, passed the House a week earlier and
President Trump is expected to sign it into law.
Administration officials
are confident they have the upper hand in the trade fight because the
U.S. economy is strengthening while the Chinese economy shows signs
of growing slack. Moreover, China is more dependent on trade than the
U.S.
But that confidence so
far hasn’t translated into action.
President Trump has
threatened to apply tariffs to all $505 billion in Chinese goods
entering the U.S. if the two are unable to reach a settlement.
Washington has already applied tariffs to $34 billion worth of
Chinese imports, with another set of duties on $16 billion in goods
scheduled in the days ahead.
The U.S. threatened
Wednesday to make the next round of tariffs more punitive. In a
Monday White House meeting, Mr. Trump dismissed the original
administration plan for a 10% tariff on $200 billion in imports—the
next step in Mr. Trump’s escalation—and had his team bump up the
levy to 25%.
Another Tariff
Backfiring Moment
The administration didn’t
spell out a particular rationale for increasing the tariff. People
familiar with White House discussions say the reasons include anger
over the Chinese government’s failure to approve the merger of
U.S.-based Qualcomm Inc. and Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors ,
which forced the companies to scrap a deal aimed at boosting
Qualcomm’s reach into new markets.
Both sides lose. That’s
exactly what happens in trade wars.
More Losses
Coming
The proposed tariff
increase poses big risks for both the U.S. and global economy. A 25%
tariff would boost the cost of a range of U.S. imports at a time when
inflation has begun to pick up. It would become another factor for
the Federal Reserve to consider as it decides how quickly to raise
interest rates.
“This gets you
nothing,” said Fred Bergsten, founder of the Peterson Institute for
International Economics, a Washington, D.C., free-trade think tank.
“It adds to inflation pressure and interest rates and [would]
strengthen the dollar, which makes trade situation even worse” for
the U.S., he said.
It gets less than
nothing. Inflation will be temporary, and it will be followed by a
deflationary collapse in trade.
Three Ways China
Can Retaliate
Let the Yuan slide 25%
negating the tariffs.
Further limit US firms
ability to do deals in China
Halt
Rare Earth Exports. Rare earths are 17 minerals used to make cell
phones, hybrid cars, weapons, flat-screen TVs, magnets,
mercury-vapor lights, and camera lenses.
Option one has capital
flight risks for China of course. But US tariffs pose numerous risks
to the US and global economy as well.
Option two is a given.
Option three is rarely
discussed, but China has at least 80% of the global market.
Back in 2010, “rare
earth elements” became a hot topic in the national security and
foreign policy fields, mainly because of the political, economic, and
security turmoil that followed China’s defacto embargo of those
elements. In September of that year, China (the major supplier of
rare earth elements) suddenly reduced its export quotas by 40 percent
— not long after the collision of a Chinese fishing ship and a
Japanese Coast Guard vessel in the East China Sea. Due to the export
restriction, Japan found it difficult to fill its domestic rare earth
demands, and as a result the world market price of the elements
skyrocketed.
Eventually, when the WTO
ruled against China’s export restriction in 2014, and the market
price went back to the original (or even lower) level, media coverage
on rare earths declined dramatically. Are the risks in the rare earth
supply chain really gone? Probably not.
Called “the
vitamins of modern society,”
rare earth elements play a critical role in our daily life — in
both the economic and security domains. These elements are key
components of a vast array of products, including smart phones,
computers, light bulbs, electric cars, wind turbines, satellites,
cruise missiles, and stealth aircrafts. Some elements, like neodymium
and dysprosium, are highly demanded for the production of permanent
magnets, which are used for sensors and motors of these products. The
most noteworthy fact is that the more we go green and
technology-oriented, the more important these elements become to our
society.
Today, China enjoys a
monopoly in the rare earths market. It is estimated that in
2016, more
than 80 percent of
rare earth elements produced in the world were excavated in China.
The country is also believed to hold more than 30 percent of the
planet’s remaining rare earth element reserves. While many stopped
paying attention to rare earths after the dispute settlement at the
WTO, the market has been preparing for more potential turmoil.
It is costly to find
alternatives to low-priced Chinese rare earths, whether those
alternatives are opening and reopening mines, inventing new recycling
process, or developing substitutes. Nonetheless, in the current
situation, where China not only has major control over global supply
but has also begun stockpiling in preparation for future market
demand, continuing efforts to diversify the supply chain portfolio
are critical for the United States and its allies — from both
economic and security perspectives. It is not sustainable to rely on
Chinese rare earths, although they look very cost-effective in a very
short term. Now is the time to revisit the powerful dynamics of rare
earth elements and to establish a strategy to win the
soon-to-be-more-competitive battle of the market.
The Verge contradicts its
own headline in the body.
The whole process is
“expensive, difficult, and dangerous,” says former rare earth
trader and freelance journalist Tim Worstall. He tells The Verge
that, because of this, the West has been more or less happy to cede
production of rare earths to China. From the 1960s to the ‘80s, the
US did actually supply the world with these elements; all extracted
from a single mine in California named Mountain Pass. But in the
‘90s, China entered the market and drove down prices, making
Mountain Pass unprofitable and leading to its closure in 2002.
Worstall says there are
many reasons production moved overseas. Some of these are familiar:
cheap labor costs and a willingness to overlook environmental damage,
for example. But there’s also the fact that rare earth production
in China is often a byproduct of other mining operations. “The
biggest plant there is actually an iron ore mine which extracts rare
earths on the side,” says Worstall. This means that, unlike the
Mountain Pass mine, producers aren’t reliant on a single product.
“If you are trying to only produce rare earths, then you’re
subject to the swings and roundabouts of the market.”
In a paper describing
the Minamitori find published in Nature
Scientific Reports,
the Japanese suggest a hydrocycle could use centrifugal forces to
quickly separate out a lot of the unnecessary materials in the sea
mud. But this method is unproven.
“Nobody has ever done
it before, and no-one has proved it can work at an industrial scale,”
says Professor Frances Wall of the Exeter University’s Camborne
School of Mines. Wall tells The
Verge that
the Japanese team are doing “some nice work,” but says a huge
amount of research has yet to be done before the seabed becomes a
reliable source of these important elements. “There have been
literally hundreds of exploration projects [that have found rare
earth metals] and they’ve not been able to go forward through
production because they can’t prove they’ll make any money,”
says Wall.
Where’s the Mine?
Rare earths may not be
that rare but how long does it takes to start a mine and produce what
you need?
It was a WTO ruling that
eventually led to the price collapse, some four years later! And if
Trump has no use for the WTO, maybe China will decide the same thing.
Alleged Steel
Glut
Let’s step back for a
moment and look at what started this trade war: An alleged steel
glut. China supposedly was dumping steel below cost.
Complaining about
“dumping” is idiotic. If someone is providing goods cheaper
than you or they can make them, you are getting one hell of a good
deal! Period. End of story. If it hurts steel manufacturers, then it
benefits thousands of other companies that use steel.
And tariffs pick winners
and losers, mostly losers, all but the steel industry in fact. To
argue about this is absurd.
When someone Tweeted
about a steel glut today, I responded:
If
there is a “steel glut” then there is a “soybean
glut”. There are tens of thousands of gluts. Literally every
export can be deemed a glut.
And
again, if China is indeed subsidizing steel, then we should be
eternally grateful. Instead, Trump spits in their face.
Amazing.
By
the way, the US subsidizes Boeing and the entire defense industry by
fighting needless, counterproductive wars. And what about the sugar
lobby? Ethanol?
So
not only are we stupid, we are hypocrites.
Mike
“Mish” Shedlock
=============================
Voor meer berichten over deze handelsoorlog, klik op het label met die aanduiding, direct onder dit bericht.
Het
was al wel duidelijk, toen de VN een rapport uitbracht over de
schrijnende armoede onder een groot deel van de VS bevolking, dat de
Trump administratie dit niet zou pikken en inderdaad zo
gebeurde……
Met
veel pompeuze omhaal probeerde Trump gehakt van dit rapport te maken,
terwijl het VN rapport NB was gemaakt uit gegevens van… de VS
overheid….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Niet getreurd zal men hebben
gedacht, immers er zijn denktanks genoeg in de VS die alles willen
verklaren wat je maar wilt……..
The
Heritage Foundation, een neoliberale rechtse denktank, die hoewel
gevuld met welgestelde schoften*, al een rapport klaar had waarin werd
gesteld dat het aantal mensen dat in extreme armoede woont in de VS, de 250.000 niet te boven gaat, terwijl de VN sprak over 18,25 miljoen
mensen, waaronder een enorm aantal kinderen….. Kinderen die door deze armoede
gegarandeerd een trauma voor het leven oplopen, zeker gezien de grote
verschillen die zij dag in dag uit om zich heen, dan wel op tv
zien…. Bovendien wordt je in de VS al vroeg op school gepest als je
ouders arm zijn, ‘jouw ouders zijn losers, dus ben jij dat
ook…….’
Uiterst schandalig ook: de Council of Economic Advisers gaf de Trump administratie zelfs de tip niet te spreken over het feit dat de lonen amper zijn gestegen, daar dit in het straatje van de democratische oppositie past……. Terwijl een grote groep arme VS burgers meer dan één baan heeft en ondanks dat zo weinig verdient, dat ze niet rond kunnen komen…….
Lees
het volgende artikel van Jake Johnson dat gisteren verscheen op
Common Dreams en zie ons voorportaal…. Meer en meer probeert het
neoliberale tuig als leugenaar Rutte de situatie in de VS te kopiëren
naar Nederland……… Zie alleen al de klassenverschillen in
zorg, onderwijs en huisvesting, waar NB de armste Nederlanders
relatief het meest moeten betalen voor een onderdak, een schandaal
waar zelfs partijen als de SP aan hebben meegewerkt…… Iedereen
moet een derde van zijn inkomen verwonen aldus de SP >> mailwisseling
in mijn bezit….. Reken maar uit wat je dan overhoudt van een netto inkomen dat rond de € 1.200,– per maand ligt (en dat is een nog relatief hoog inkomen), waar ook nog eens de belastingen, stroom en gas van moeten worden betaald en wat betreft de laatste 2: dat door mensen die in veelal slecht of niet geïsoleerde woningen zijn gehuisvest…..
Published
on Friday, August 03, 2018 by Common
Dreams
‘Insidious’:
Emails Show Trump White House Lied About US Poverty Levels to
Discredit Critical UN Report
With
its attempt to falsify statistics and whitewash uncomfortable facts
about poverty in America, the White House once again demonstrated its
“contempt” for the poor, one critic argued
President
Donald Trump shows an executive order after signing it beside members
of his cabinet in the Oval Office of the White House on March 17,
2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images) (deze schoften staan zelfs te klappen als Trump een harde scheet laat….)
Infuriated
by a scathing
United Nations reportestimating
that over 18 million Americans are living in “extreme poverty”
and accusing the Trump administration of “deliberately”
making such destitution worse with its tax cuts for the rich, the
White House insisted in its June
responseto
the U.N. analysis that the United States is overflowing with
“prosperity” and that claims of widespread poverty are
“exaggerated.”
But
internal State Department emails and documents obtainedby Foreign
Policyand
the non-profit journalism website Coda Story show that the Trump
administration ignored advice of White House economic analysts and
knowingly lied to the public about the severity of American poverty,
which the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights
Philip Alston described as “shocking.”
Foreign
Policy reported
on Thursday that officials who were consulted last-minute on a draft
of the White House’s rebuttal of the U.N. findings “questioned
the accuracy of the data the administration was citing.”
Despite
the fact that the U.N. analysis cited government statistics to
bolster its claims about poverty in America, the Trump administration
opted to draw from a report by
the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which concluded that 250,000
Americans are living in extreme poverty—a stark contrast to the
U.N.’s conclusion that the correct number is 18.25 million.
The
Heritage report cited by the White House also concluded that the
conditions of the poor must be improving because many families living
in deep poverty own cell phones and DVD players.
“What
is your source for stating material hardship is down by 77 percent
since 1980?” Trudi Renwick, an economist at the Census Bureau,
wrote in an email questioning the Trump administration’s rebuttal to
the U.N.
Foreign
Policy reports
that it is unclear whether Renwick received a response, and the White
House kept references to the Heritage report in the final version of
its response.
This is not as dramatic as Trump’s tweets or bald-faced lies at press briefings. But in a way it is far more insidious; the contempt for facts is pervasive and maddening.
One
economic adviser also urged the White House to “not get into”
America’s steady economic growth, writing: “Already 8-9 years
long… which started under Obama and we inherited and then expanded.
But it will end prob[ably] in 1-2 years.” The Trump
administration ignored this advice, touting a “new era of
economic growth.”
While
the White House brushed aside the concerns of some officials, they
did modify parts of their response to the U.N. after advisers
questioned how truly prosperous the American economy is under Trump.
“Wages
haven’t really picked up, other than for supervisors,” an
official from the Council of Economic Advisers wrote in response to a
line in an early draft about workers’ salaries rising.
“This
triggers the left—best to leave it off.”
The
line was deleted from the final document.
In
contrast to the officials who raised questions about the White
House’s economic claims, Mari Stull, a senior State Department
adviser, attacked the U.N. report as “propaganda” in emails
and mocked the U.N.’s accurate claim that American child poverty
rates are among
the highest in the industrialized world.
“Based
upon my own experience, my sons are destitute poor and living off the
welfare state of Mom—so guess they contributed to the ‘youth
poverty’ crisis in America,” Stull wrote.
Bathsheba
Crocker, a former U.S. diplomat and vice president of humanitarian
policy at CARE, called Stull’s comment “unbelievable” and
wrote that it demonstrates once again the “contempt” the
Trump administration has for poor Americans.
Professor
Stephen Cohen prikt in een interview dat Aaron Mate afnam, fijntjes door de
Putin – Trump hysterie heen, de hysterie die in de VS ontstond na het gesprek dat
Putin en Trump voerden in de Finse hoofdstad Helsinki. Men raakt er
in de VS weer niet over uitgesproken, al heeft dat alles met de reguliere, over het algemeen rechtse neoliberale pers in de VS te maken,
uiteraard aangevuld met de democratische en republikeinse politici
die openlijk lobbyen voor het militair-industrieel complex……….
Vanaf
het eind van de Sovjet-Unie tot de ontmoeting van Trump en Putin, zet
Cohen duidelijk uiteen hoe we zijn voorgelogen, bijvoorbeeld over ‘de
oorlog van Rusland tegen Georgië’, via Oekraïne, De Krim tot
Syrië…..
Voorts
moet ik Cohen gelijk geven als hij stelt dat we nu blij mogen zijn met
Trump als president, daar hij niet meegaat in de oorlogshitserij die
zoveel VS politici in hun greep houdt. Zoals op deze plek al eerder gesteld,
wat is erop tegen dat men met elkaar spreekt en probeert oorlog te
voorkomen??? Oké Trump is een beest, maar liever een beest dat niet aanvalt dan bijvoorbeeld Obama die 2 volledige termijnen in illegale oorlogsvoering was verwikkeld, zelfs 2 illegale oorlogen extra begon en veel meer bommen liet afwerpen dan Bush in 2 termijnen…….
Cohen stelt voorts terecht dat het onder eerdere
presidenten de normaalste zaak van de wereld was om te spreken met
de Russische collega’s, terwijl dat nu als verraad wordt
neergezet, alleen om Trump af te kunnen zetten en ongebreideld oorlog te kunnen voeren, zoals de VS gewend is te doen…….
Cohen gaat ook in op de beschuldiging dat Putin journalisten laat vermoorden, terwijl daar geen bewijs voor wordt geleverd, sterker nog: Cohen stelt dat deze moorden alles te maken hebben met de georganiseerde misdaad in Rusland……
Lezen mensen en geeft het door, de hoogste tijd dat we met z’n allen weer ons gezonde verstand gebruiken en ons niet langer laten voorliegen en gek laten maken door de reguliere media en het grootste deel van de politici in ons land!
Video:
Debunking the Putin Panic With Professor Stephen Cohen
(RN) — President
Trump’s warm words for Vladimir Putin and his failure to endorse
U.S. intelligence community claims about alleged Russian meddling
have been called “treasonous” and the cause of a “national
security crisis.” There
is a crisis, says Prof. Stephen F. Cohen, but one of our own making…
Part
1:
AARON
MATE: It’s
The Real News. I’m Aaron Mate.
The
White House is walking back another statement from President Trump
about Russia and U.S. intelligence. It began in Helsinki on Monday,
when at his press conference with Vladimir Putin, Trump did not
endorse the claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. After an
outcry that played out mostly on cable news, Trump appeared to
retract that view one day later. But then on Wednesday, Trump was
asked if he believes Russia is now targeting the U.S. ahead of the
midterms.
DONALD
TRUMP: [Thank]
you all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.
REPORTER: Is
Russia still targeting the U.S. [inaudible]. No, you don’t believe
that to be the case?
DONALD
TRUMP: Thank
you very much, everyone. We’re doing very well. We are doing very
well, and we’re doing very well, probably as well as anybody has
ever done with Russia. And there’s been no president ever as tough
as I have been on Russia. All you have to do is look at the numbers,
look at what we’ve done, look at sanctions, look at ambassadors.
Not there. Look, unfortunately, at what happened in Syria recently. I
think President Putin knows that better than anybody. Certainly a lot
better than the media.
AARON
MATE: The
White House later claimed that when Trump said ‘no,’ he meant no
to answering questions. But Trump’s contradiction of U.S.
intelligence claims has brought the Russiagate story, one that has
engulfed his presidency, to a fever pitch. Prominent U.S. figures
have called Trump’s comments in Helsinki treasonous, and compared
alleged Russian e-mail hacking and social media activity to 9/11 and
Pearl Harbor. Those who also question intelligence claims or
warmongering with Russia have been dubbed traitors, or Kremlin
agents.
Speaking
to MSNBC, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul
declared that with Trump’s comments, the U.S. is in the midst of a
national security crisis.
MICHAEL
MCFAUL: Republicans
need to step up. They need to speak out, not just the familiar
voices, because this is a national security crisis, and the president
of the United States flew all the way to Finland, met with Vladimir
Putin, and basically capitulated. It felt like appeasement.
AARON
MATE: Well,
joining me to address this so-called national security crisis is
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus at New York University and
Princeton University. His books include “Failed Crusade: America
and the Tragedy of Post-Soviet Russia,” and “Soviet Fates and
Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.” Professor
Cohen, welcome. I imagine that you might agree with the view that we
are in the midst of a national security crisis when it comes to
Russia, but for far different reasons than those expounded on by
Ambassador McFaul.
STEPHEN
COHEN: There is a national security crisis, and there is a
Russian threat. And we, we ourselves here in the United States, have
created both of them. This has been true for years, and now it’s
reached crisis proportion. Notice what’s going on. A mainstream TV
reporter shouts to President Trump, “Are the Russians still
targeting our elections?” This is in the category “Are you still
beating your wife?” There is no proof that the Russians have
targeted or attacked our elections. But it’s become axiomatic. What
kind of media is that, are the Russians still, still attacking our
elections.
And
what Michael McFaul, whom I’ve known for years, formerly Ambassador
McFaul, purportedly a scholar and sometimes a scholar said, it is
simply the kind of thing, to be as kind as I can, that I heard from
the John Birch Society about President Eisenhower when he went to
meet Khrushchev when I was a kid growing up in Kentucky. This is
fringe discourse that never came anywhere near the mainstream before,
at least after Joseph McCarthy, that the president went, committed
treason, and betrayed the country. Trump
may have not done the right thing at the summit, because agreements
were reached. Nobody discusses the agreements. But to stage a
kangaroo trial of the president of the United States in the
mainstream media, and have plenty of once-dignified people come on
and deliver the indictment, is without precedent in this country.
And it has created a national crisis in our relations with Russia. So
yes, there’s a national crisis.
AARON
MATE: Let
me play for you a clip from Trump’s news conference with Putin that
also drew outrage back in the U.S. When he was asked about the state
of U.S.-Russia relations, he said both sides had responsibility.
DONALD
TRUMP: Yes,
I do. I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United
States has been foolish. I think we’ve all been foolish. We should
have had this dialogue a long time ago. A long time, frankly, before
I got to office. And I think we’re all to blame. I think that the
United States now has stepped forward, along with Russia, and we’re
getting together, and we have a chance to do some great things.
Whether it’s nuclear proliferation, in terms of stopping, because
we have to do it. Ultimately that’s probably the most important
thing that we can be working on.
AARON
MATE: That’s
President Trump in Helsinki. Professor Cohen, I imagine that this
comment probably was part of the reason why there was so much
outrage, not Just of what Trump said about the claims of Russian
meddling in the election. Can you talk about the significance of what
he said here, and how it contradicts the, the entire consensus of the
bipartisan foreign policy establishment?
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
did not vote for President Trump. But for that I salute him, what he
just said. So far as I can remember, no wiser words or more important
words have been spoken by the American president about Russia and the
Soviet Union since Ronald Reagan did his great detente with Mikhail
Gorbachev in the late 1980s. What
Trump just did, and I don’t- we never know, Aaron, how aware he is
of the ramifications of what he says. But in this case, whether he
fully understood it or not, he just broke with, and the first time
any major political figure in the United States has broken with the
orthodoxy, ever since at least 2000. And
even going back to the ’90s. That all the conflicts we’ve had
with post-Soviet Russia, after communism went away in Russia, all
those conflicts, which I call a new and more dangerous Cold War, are
solely, completely, the fault of Putin or Putin’s Russia.That
nothing in American policy since Bill Clinton in the 1990s did
anything to contribute seriously to the very dangerous conflict,
confrontation we have with Russia today. It was all Russia’s fault.
What
that has meant, and you know this, Aaron, because you live in this
world as well,it
has meant no media or public dialogue about the merits of American
policy toward post-Soviet Russia from Clinton, certainly through
Obama. It
may be changing now under President Trump. Not sure. It means if we
don’t have a debate, we’re not permitted to ask, did we do
something wrong, or so unwise that it led to this even more dangerous
Cold War? And
if the debate leads to a conclusion that we did do something unwise,
and that we’re still doing it, then arises the pressure and the
imperative for any new policy toward Russia. None of that has been
permitted, because the orthodoxy, the dogma, the axiom, is Putin
alone has solely been responsible.
So
you know, you know as well as I do what is excluded. It doesn’t
matter that we moved NATO to Russia’s borders, that’s not
significant. Or that we bombed Serbia, Russia’s traditional ally.
Or that George Bush left the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which was
the bedrock of Russian nuclear security and, I would argue, our own.
Or that we did regime change by military might in Iraq and Libya, and
many other things. Or that we provoked the Ukrainian crisis in 2004,
and supported the coup that overthrew a legitimate, elected,
constitutional president there. None of that matters. Oh, it was kind
of footnotes to the real narrative. And the narrative is, is that a
Russian leader Vladimir Putin in power was a horrible aggressor.
Killed everybody, somehow, with secret poisons or thieves in the
night who opposed him. And began this new cold or even worse war with
the United States.
No
historian of any merit will ever write the story that way. It’s
factually, analytically, simply untrue. Now Trump has said something
radically different. We got here in these dire circumstances because
both sides acted unwisely, and we should have had this discussion a
long time ago.
So for that, two cheers for President Trump. But whether he can
inspire the discussion that he may wish to, considering the fact that
he’s now being indicted as a criminal for having met Putin, is a
big question.
AARON
MATE: So
a few questions. You mentioned that some agreements were made, but
details on that have been vague. So do you have any sense of what
concretely came out of this summit? There was talk about cooperation
on nuclear weapons, possibly renewing the New START Treaty. We know
that Putin offered that to Trump when he first came into office, but
Trump rejected it. There was talk about cooperating in Syria. And,
well, yeah, if I can put that question to you first, and then I have
a follow-up about what might be motivating Trump here. But first,
what do you think concretely came out of this?
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well,
look, I know a lot, both as a historian, and I’ve actually
participated in some about the history of American-Russian,
previously Soviet, summits. Which, by the way, this is the 75th
anniversary of the very first one, when Franklin Roosevelt traveled
to Tehran to meet Stalin. And
every president, and this is important to emphasize, every president
since
Roosevelt
has met with the Kremlin leader. Some many times, or several times.
So there’s a long tradition. And therefore there are customs. And
one custom, this goes to your question, is that never, except maybe
very rarely, but almost never do we learn the full extent and nature
of what agreements were made. That
usually comes in a week or two or three later, because there’s
still the teams of both are hammering out the details.
So
that’s exactly what happened at this summit. There was no
conspiracy. No, you know, appeasement behind closed doors. The two
leaders announced in general terms what they agreed upon. Now,
the most important, and this is traditional, too, by meeting they
intended to revive the diplomatic process between the United States
and Russia which has been badly tattered by events including the
exclusion of diplomats, and sanctions, and the rest. So to get
active, vigorous diplomacy about many issues going. They
may not achieve that goal, because the American media and the
political mainstream is trying to stop that. Remember that anything
approaching diplomatic negotiations with Russia still less detente,
is now being criminalized in the United States. Criminalized. What
was once an honorable tradition, the pursuit of detente, is now a
capital crime, if we believe these charges against Trump.
So
they tried to revive that process, and we’ll see if it’s going to
be possible. I think at least behind the scenes it will be. Obviously
what you mentioned, both sides now have new, more elusive, more
lethal, faster, more precise nuclear weapons. We’ve been developing
them for a long time in conjunction with missile defense. We’ve
essentially been saying to Russia, you may have equality in nuclear
weapons with us, but we have missile defense. Therefore, we could use
missile defense to take out your retaliatory capacity. That is, we
could stage the first strike on you and you would not be able to
retaliate.
Now,
everybody who’s lived through the nuclear era knows that’s an
invitation to disaster. Because like it or not, we’ve lived with a
doctrine called MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction, that one side dare
not attack the other with a nuclear weapon because it would be
destroyed as well. We were saying we now have this primacy. Putin,
then, on March 1 of this year, announced that they have developed
weapons that can elude missile defense. And it seems to be true. In
the air and at sea, their dodgy, darty, quick thing- but they could
avoid our missile defense. So where we are at now is on the cusp of a
new nuclear arms race involving more dangerous nuclear weapons. And
the current START, New START Treaty will expire, I think, in three or
four years. But its expiration date is less important that the
process of talking and negotiating and worrying officially about
these new weapons had ended.
So
essentially what Trump and Putin agreed is that process of concern
about new and more dangerous nuclear weapons must now resume
immediately. And if there’s anybody living in the United States who
think that that is a bad idea they need to reconsider their life,
because they may be looking into the darkness of death. So
that was excellent. Briefly.
What
I hope they did- they didn’t announce it, but I’m pretty sure
they did- that there had been very close calls between American and
Russian combat forces and their proxies in Syria. We’re doing a
proxy war, but there are plenty of native Russians and Americans in
Syria in a relatively small combat cell. And there have been
casualties. The Russians have said at the highest level the next time
a Russian is killed in Syria by an American-based weapon, we will
strike the American launcher. If Russia strikes our launching pads or
areas, whether on land or sea, which means Americans will be there
and are killed, call it war. Call it war.
So
we need to agree in Syria to do more than, what do they call it,
deconfliction, where we have all these warnings. It’s
still too much space for mishap. And what I hope it think Trump and
Putin did was to try to get a grip on this.
AARON
MATE: Stephen
F. Cohen, professor emeritus at at Princeton University and New York
University, thank you. And stay tuned for part two. I’m Aaron Mate
for The Real News.
*
* *
There
is much to criticize the Russian president for, says Professor
Stephen F. Cohen of Princeton and NYU, but
many US political and media claims about Putin are false – and
reckless…
Part
2:
AARON
MATE: It’s
The Real News. I’m Aaron Mate. This is part two with Stephen Cohen,
professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and
Princeton. In part one we talked about the uproar over the
Trump-Putin summit, and Trump’s comments about the U.S.
intelligence community and about cooperation with Russia. Now
in part two we’re going to get to some of the main talking points
that have been pervasive throughout corporate media, talking about
the stated reasons for why pundits and politicians say they are
opposed to Trump sitting down with Putin.
So
let me start with Jon Meacham. He is a historian. And speaking to
CNN, he worried that Trump, with his comments about NATO calling on
the alliance to pay more, and calling into question, he worried about
the possibility that Trump won’t come to the aid of Baltic states
in the event that Russia invades.
JON
MEACHAM: And
what worries me most is the known unknown, as Donald Rumsfeld might
put it, of what happens next. Let’s say Putin- just look at this
whole week of the last five, six days in total. What happens if Putin
launches military action against, say, the Baltics? What, what is it
that President Trump, what about his comments that NATO suggest thar
he would follow an invocation of Article 5 and actually project
American force in defense of the values that not only do we have an
intellectual and moral assent to, but a contractual one, a treaty
one. I think that’s the great question going forward.
AARON
MATE: OK.
So that’s Jon Meacham speaking to CNN. So, Professor Cohen, putting
aside what he said there about our intellectual values and strong
tradition, just on the issue of Trump, of Putin posing a potential
threat and possibly invading the Baltics, is that a realistic
possibility?
STEPHEN
COHEN: So,
I’m not sure what you’re asking me about. The folly of NATO
expansion? The fact that every president in my memory has asked the
Europeans to pay more? But can we be real? Can we be real? The only
country that’s attacked that region of Europe militarily since the
end of the Soviet Union was the United States of America. As I
recall, we bombed Serbia, a, I say this so people understand, a
traditional Christian country, under Bill Clinton, bombed Serbia for
about 80 days. There is no evidence that Russia has ever bombed a
European country.
You
tell me, Aaron. You must be a smart guy, because you got your own
television show. Why
would Putin want to launch a military attack and occupy the Baltics?
So he has to pay the pensions there? Which he’s having a hard time
already paying in Russia, and therefore has had to raise the pension
age, and thereby lost 10 percentage points of popularity in two
weeks? Why
in the world can we, can we simply become rational people. Why in the
world would Russia want to attack and occupy Latvia, Lithuania, and
Estonia? The only reason I can think of is that many, many of my
friends love to take their summer vacations there. And maybe some
crazy person thinks that if we occupy it, vacations will be cheaper.
It’s crazy. It’s beyond crazy. It’s a kind-.
AARON
MATE: Professor
Cohen, if you were on CNN right now I imagine that the anchor would
say to you, well, okay, but one could say the same thing about
Georgia in 2008. Why did Russia attack Georgia then?
STEPHEN
COHEN: I’m not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The
European Commission, if you’re talking about the 2008 war, the
European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia,
which was backed by the United States, fighting with an
American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly
unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that
he began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin,
which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and
Obama’s best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry
Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country
would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border
through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what
essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.
So
that- Russia didn’t begin that war. And
it didn’t begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by
[continents], the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in [20]14
after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to
happen. And I think it happened within 36 hours. The
Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and
betrayed. They use this word, predatl’stvo, betrayal, about
American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when
it wasn’t just President George Bush, all the documents have been
published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the
leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union that
under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be
NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two inches to
the east.
Now
NATO is sitting on Russia’s borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So
Russians aren’t fools, and they’re good-hearted, but they become
resentful. They’re worried about being attacked by the United
States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily, we are
under attack by the United States. And
this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being
put out that Russia somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been
sleeping. I didn’t see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is
reckless, dangerous, warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has
a better case for saying they’ve been attacked by us since 1991. We
put our military alliance on the front door. Maybe it’s not an
attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.
AARON
MATE: OK.
And in a moment I want to speak to you more about Ukraine, because
we’ve heard Crimea invoked a lot in the criticism of Putin of late.
But first I want to actually to ask you about a domestic issue. This
one is it’s widely held that Putin is responsible for the killing
of journalists and opposition activists who oppose him. And on this
front I want to play for you a clip of Joe Cirincione. He is the head
of the Ploughshares Fund. And this is what he said this week in an
appearance on Democracy Now!.
JOE
CIRINCIONE: Both
of these men are dangerous. Both of these men oppress basic human
rights, basic freedoms. Both of them think the press are the enemy of
the people. Putin goes further. He kills journalists. He has them
assassinated on the streets of Moscow.
Donald
Trump does not go that far yet. But I think what Putin is doing is
using the president of the United States to project his rule, to
increase his power, to carry out his agenda in Syria, with Europe, et
cetera, and that Trump is acquiescing to that for reasons that are
not yet clear.
AARON
MATE: That’s
Joe Cirincione.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
know him well. It’s worse than that. It’s worse than that.
AARON
MATE: Well
Yes. There’s two issues here, Professor Cohen. One is the state of
the crackdown on press freedoms in Russia, which I’m sure you would
say is very much alive, and is a strong part of the Russian system.
But let’s first address this widely-held view that Putin is
responsible for killing journalists who are critical of him.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
know I’m supposed to follow your lead, but I think you’re
skipping over a major point. How
is it that Joe, who was once one of our most eminent and influential,
eloquent opponents of nuclear arms race, who was prepared to have the
president of the United States negotiate with every Soviet communist
leader, including those who had a lot of blood on their hands, now
decide that Putin kills everybody and he’s not a worthy partner?
What happened to Joe?
I’ll
tell you what happened to him. Trump. Trump has driven once-sensible
people completely crazy. Moreover, Joe knows absolutely nothing about
internal Russian politics, and
he ought to follow my rule. When I don’t know something about
something, I say I don’t know. But what he just said is ludicrous.
And the sad part is-.
AARON
MATE: But
it’s widely held. If it’s ludicrous-. But widely held, yeah.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well,
the point is that once
distinguished and important spokespeople for rightful causes, like
ending a nuclear arms race, have been degraded, or degraded
themselves by saying things like he said to the point that they’re
of utility today only to the proponents of a new nuclear arms race.
And he’s not alone. Somebody called it Trump derangement
syndrome. I’m
not a psychiatrist, but it’s a widespread mania across our land.
And when good people succumb to it, we are all endangered.
AARON
MATE: But
many people would be surprised to hear that, because again, the
stories that we get, and there are human rights reports, and it’s
just sort of taken as a given fact that Putin is responsible for
killing journalists. So if that’s ludicrous, if you can explain why
you think that is.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well, I
got this big problem which seems to afflict very few people in public
life anymore. I live by facts. I’m
like my doctor, who told me not long ago I had to have minor surgery
for a problem I didn’t even know I had. And I said, I’m not going
to do it. Show me the facts. And he did. I had the minor
surgery. Journalists
no longer seem to care about facts. They repeat tabloid rumors. Putin
kills everybody.
All
I can tell you is this. I
have never seen any evidence whatsoever, and I’ve been- I knew some
of the people who were killed. Anna
Politkovskaya, the famous journalist for Novaya Gazeta was the first,
I think, who was- Putin was accused of killing. I knew her well. She
was right here, in this apartment. Look behind me, right here. She
was here with my wife, Katrina vanden Huevel. I wouldn’t say we
were close friends, but we were associates in Moscow, and we were
social friends. And
I mourn her assassination today. But I will tell you this, that
neither her editors at that newspaper, nor her family, her surviving
sons, think Putin had anything to do with the killing. No
evidence has ever been presented. Only media kangaroo courts that
Putin was involved in these high-profile assassinations, two of the
most famous being this guy Litvinenko by polonium in London, about
the time Anna was killed, and more recently Boris Netsov, whom, it’s
always said, was walking within view of the Kremlin when he was shot.
Well, you could see the Kremlin from miles away. I don’t know what
within the view- unless they think Putin was, you know, watching it
through binoculars. There is no evidence that Putin ever ordered the
killing of anybody outside his capacity as commander in chief. No
evidence.
Now,
did he? But we live, Aaron, and I hope the folks who watch us
remember this. Every professional person, every decent person lives
or malpractices based on verified facts. You go down the wrong way on
a one-way street, you might get killed. You take some medication
that’s not prescribed for you, you might die. You pursue foreign
policies based on fiction, you’re likely to get in war. And
all these journalists, from the New York Times to the Washington
Post, from MSNBC to CNN who churn out daily these allegations that
Putin kills people are disgracing themselves. I
will give you one fact. Wait. One fact, and you could look it up, as
Casey Stengel used to say. He was a baseball manager, in case you
don’t know.
There’s
an organization called the Committee to Protect American Journalists.
It’s kind of iconic. It does good things, it says unwise things. Go
on its website and look at the number of Russian journalists killed
since 1991, since the end of the Soviet Union, under two leaders.
Boris Yeltsin, whom we dearly loved and still mourn, and Putin, whom
we hate.Last
time I looked, the numbers may have changed, more were killed under
Yeltsin than under Putin. Did Putin kill those in the 1990s?
So
you should ask me, why did they die, then? And
I can tell you the main reason. Corrupt business. Mafia-like business
in Russia. Just like happened in the United States during our
primitive accumulation days. Profit
seekers killed rivals. Killed them dead in the streets. Killed them
as demonstrations, as demonstrative acts. The only thing you could
say about Putin is that he might have created an atmosphere that
abets that sort of thing. To which I would say, maybe, but originally
it was created with the oligarchical class under Boris Yeltsin, who
remains for us the most beloved Russian leader in history. So that’s
the long and the short of it. Go look at the listing on the Committee
to Protect Journalists.
AARON
MATE: OK.
So, following up on that, to what extent- and this gets a bit into
history, which you’ve covered extensively in your writings. To what
extent are we here in the West responsible for the creation of that
Russian oligarchal class that you mentioned? But also, what is
Putin’s relationship to it now, today? Does he abet it? Is he
entrenched in it? We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the
richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement with the
very corruption of Russia you’re speaking about. So both our role
in creating that problem in Russia, but then also Putin’s role now
in terms of his relationship to it.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I’m
going to give you a quick, truncated, scholarly, historical
perspective on this. But this is what people should begin with when
they think about Vladimir Putin and his 18 years in power. Putin came
to power almost accidentally in 2000. He inherited a country whose
state had collapsed twice in the 20th century. You’ve got to think
about that. How
many states have collapsed that you know of once? But the Russian
state, Russian statehood, had collapsed once in 1917 during the
revolution, and again in 1991 when the Soviet Union ended. The
country was in ruination; 75 percent of the people were in poverty.
Putin
said- and this obsesses him. If you want to know what obsesses Putin,
it’s the word ‘sovereignty.’ Russia lost its sovereignty-
political, foreign policy, security, financial- in the 1990s. Putin
saw his mission, as I read him, and I try to read him as a
biographer. He says a lot, to regain Russia’s sovereignty, which
meant to make the country whole again at home, to rescue its people,
and to protect its defenses. That’s been his mission. Has it been
more than that? Maybe. But everything he’s done, as I see it, has
followed that concept of his role in history. And he’s done pretty
well.
Now,
I can give you all Putin’s minuses very easily. I would not care
for him to be my president. But let me tell you one other thing
that’s important. You evaluate nations within their own history,
not within ours. If
you asked me if Putin is a democrat, and I will answer you two ways.
He thinks he has. And compared to what? Compared to the leader of
Egypt? Yeah, he is a democrat. Compared to the rulers of our pals in
the Gulf states, he is a democrat. Compared to Bill Clinton? No, he’s
not a Democrat. I mean, Russia-. Countries are on their own
historical clock. And you have to judge Putin in terms of his
predecessors. So people think Putin is a horrible leader. Did you
prefer Brezhnev? Did you prefer Stalin? Did you prefer Andropov?
Compared to what? Please tell me, compared to what.
And
by the way, that’s how that’s how Russians-. You want to know why
he’s so popular in Russia? Because Russians judge him in the
context of their own what they call zhivaya istoriya, living history;
what we call autobiography. In
terms of their own lives, he looks pretty darn good. They complain
out him. We sit in the kitchen and they bitch about Putin all the
time. But they don’t want him to go away.
AARON
MATE: All
right. Well, on that front, we’re going to wrap this up there.
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York
University and Princeton. His books include “Failed Crusade:
America and the Tragedy of Post-Soviet Russia,” and “Soviet Fates
and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.”
Professor Cohen, thank you.
STEPHEN
COHEN: You
forgot one book.
AARON
MATE: I
did not say I was reading your, your complete bibliography.
STEPHEN
COHEN: It’s
called-. It’s called “Confessions of a Holy Fool.”
AARON
MATE: Is
that true? Or are you making a joke.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Somewhere
in between. [Thank you, Aaron.]
AARON
MATE: Professor
Cohen, thank you. And thank you for joining us on The Real News.
Alan
Macleod schreef afgelopen vrijdag een artikel op FAIR, waarin hij uitlegt hoe
de Russiagate samenzweringstheorie de machthebbers dient, ook al valt de Trump administratie onder die machthebbers, die zoals je begrijpt geen baat
heeft bij de hysterie die de democraten hebben losgemaakt in de
VS….
Met
veel voorbeelden toont Macleod aan dat politiek en media deze
Russiagate complottheorie dag in dag uit aan de mens ‘voeren……’ (lees: de bevolking hersenspoelen met een dikke leugen) Overigens, zelfs al zou je dit belachelijke complot geloven, moest er
de laatste bijna 2 jaar toch wel wat twijfel zijn ontstaan over
beweringen als dat Rusland de Brexit, of het Catalaanse referendum
zou hebben gewonnen. Op deze plek stelde ik al een minstens een
maand voordat deze 2 claims in de media verschenen, dat het niet
ondenkbaar zou zijn, als men Rusland de schuld zou geven van deze 2
zaken en verdomd dat is precies wat er gebeurde……
Overigens
de oplettende lezer, kijker, luisteraar moet toch minimaal getwijfeld
hebben over de claim dat Rusland de verkiezingen in de VS voor Trump
had gewonnen, zeker gezien de bedragen die Rusland daarvoor gebruikt
zou hebben, bedragen die volkomen in het niets wegzakken bij de enorme bedragen waarmee de campagnes werden gevoerd……
Lees
hoe Macleod fijntjes de boosaardige hysterie en complottheorie blootlegt, wellicht ten overvloede, echter als je ziet hoe deze
uiterst ronduit belachelijke samenzweringstheorie telkens weer wordt
herhaald, kan het geen kwaad een feitelijke uitleg te geven en aan te
tonen dat de democratische partij voor het grootste deel is verworden tot een corrupte,
rechtse partij met oorlogshitsers! (waar een groot deel van de aanhangers deze koers van harte steunt, maar vergeet niet dat ook deze aanhang werd en wordt voorgelogen door de vips in de democratische partij, figuren als Hillary Clinton en Obama en dat uiteraard gesteund door een groot deel van de reguliere media in binnen- en buitenland….)
Jammer dat Macleod in zijn laatste woorden stelt dat Rusland als de VS probeert haar invloed te doen gelden op verkiezingen elders, daar is geen nanometer bewijs voor, terwijl er voor VS bemoeienis met verkiezingen elders honderden meters aan bewijs voorhanden is……
How
the Russiagate Conspiracy Benefits Those in Power
(FAIR) — To
the shock of many, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential elections,
becoming the 45th president of the United States. Not least shocked
were corporate media, and the political establishment more generally;
the Princeton Election Consortium confidently
predicted an
over 99 percent chance of a Clinton victory, while MSNBC’s
Rachel Maddow (10/17/16)
said it could be a “Goldwater-style landslide.”
The
election of Donald Trump came as a shock to many
(Independent, 11/5/16).
Indeed,
Hillary Clinton and her team actively
attempted to
secure a Trump primary victory, assured that he would be the easiest
candidate to beat. The Podesta emails show that
her team considered even before the primaries that associating Trump
with Vladimir Putin and Russia would be a winning strategy and
employed the tactic throughout 2016 and beyond.
With
Clinton claiming,
“Putin would rather have a puppet as president,” Russia was by
far the most discussed topic during the presidential debates
(FAIR.org, 10/13/16),
easily eclipsing healthcare, terrorism, poverty and inequality. Media
seized upon the theme, with Paul Krugman (New
York Times, 7/22/16)
asserting Trump would be a “Siberian candidate,”
while ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden (Washington
Post, 5/16/16)
claimed Trump would be Russia’s “useful fool.”
The
day after the election, Jonathan Allen’s book Shattered detailed,
Clinton’s team decided that the proliferation of Russian-sponsored
“fake news” online was the primary reason for their loss.
Within
weeks, the Washington
Post (11/24/16)
was publicizing the website PropOrNot.com,
which purports to help users differentiate sources as fake or
genuine, as an invaluable tool in the battle against fake news
(FAIR.org, 12/1/16, 12/8/16).
The website soberly informs its readers that you see news sources
critiquing the “mainstream media,” the EU, NATO, Obama, Clinton,
Angela Merkel or other centrists are a telltale sign of Russian
propaganda. It also claims that when news sources argue against
foreign intervention and war with Russia, that’s evidence that you
are reading Kremlin-penned fake news.
The
Washington Post (11/24/16)
was one of the first media outlets to blame the election results on
Russian “fake news.”
PropOrNot
claims it has identified over 200 popular websites that “routinely
peddle…Russian propaganda.” Included in the list were Wikileaks,
Trump-supporting right-wing websites like InfoWars and
the Drudge Report, libertarian outlets like the Ron
Paul Institute and Antiwar.com, and
award-winning anti-Trump (but also Clinton-critical) left-wing sites
like TruthDig and Naked Capitalism. Thus
it was uniquely news sources that did not lie in the fairway between
Clinton Democrats and moderate Republicans that were tarred as
propaganda.
PropOrNot
calls for an FBI investigation into the news sources listed. Even its
creators see the resemblance to a new McCarthyism, as it appears as
a frequently
asked question on
their website. (They say it is not McCarthyism, because “we are not
accusing anyone of lawbreaking, treason, or ‘being a member of the
Communist Party.’”) However, this new McCarthyism does not stem
from the conservative right like before, but from the establishment
center.
That
the list is so evidently flawed and its creators refuse to reveal
their identities or funding did not stop the issue becoming one of
the most discussed in mainstream circles. Media talk of fake news
sparked organizations like Google, Facebook, Bing and YouTube to
change their algorithms, ostensibly to combat it.
However,
one major effect of the change has been to hammer progressive outlets
that challenge the status quo. The Intercept reported a
19 percent reduction in Google search
traffic, AlterNet 63 percent
and Democracy
Now! 36 percent. Reddit and Twitter deleted
thousands of accounts, while in what came to be called the
“AdPocalypse,” YouTube began
demonetizing videos from independent creators like Majority
Report and
the Jimmy
Dore Show on
controversial political topics like environmental protests, war and
mass shootings. (In contrast, corporate outlets like CNN did
not have their content on those subjects demonetized.) Journalists
that questioned aspects of the Russia narrative, like Glenn Greenwald
and Aaron Maté, were accused of being agents of the Kremlin
(Shadowproof, 7/9/18).
The
effect has been to pull away the financial underpinnings of
alternative media that question the corporate state and capitalism in
general, and to reassert corporate control over communication,
something that had been loosened during the election in particular.
It also impels liberal journalists to prove their loyalty by
employing sufficiently bellicose and anti-Russian rhetoric, lest they
also be tarred as Kremlin agents.
Thomas
Friedman (Morning Joe, 2/14/18)
pointedly compared email hacking to events that the US responded to
with major wars.
When
it was reported in February that 13 Russian trolls had been indicted
by a US grand jury for sharing and promoting pro-Trump and
anti-Clinton memes on Facebook,
the response was a general uproar. Multiple senior political figures
declared it an “act of war.” Clinton herself described Russian
interference as a “cyber
9/11,”
while Thomas Friedman said that it was a “Pearl
Harbor–scale event.”
Morgan Freeman’s viral video, produced by Rob Reiner’s Committee
to Investigate Russia, summed up the outrage: “We have been
attacked,” the actor declared;
“We are at war with Russia.” Liberals declared Trump’s refusal
to react in a sufficiently aggressive manner further proof he was
Putin’s puppet.
The
McCarthyist wave swept over other politicians that challenged the
liberal center. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein refused
to endorse the Russia narrative, leading mainstream figures like
Rachel Maddow to insinuate she
was a Kremlin stooge as well. After news broke that Stein’s
connection to Russia was being officially investigated, top Clinton
staffer Zac Petkanas announced:
Jill
Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill
Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill
Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill
Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill
Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill
Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill
Stein is a Russian agent.
Jill
Stein is a Russian agent.
“Commentary”
that succinctly summed up the political atmosphere.
In
contrast, Bernie Sanders has consistently and explicitly endorsed the
Russiagate theory, claiming it
is “clear to everyone (except Donald Trump) that Russia was deeply
involved in the 2016 election and intends to be involved in 2018.”
Despite his stance, Sanders has also been constantly presented as
another Russian agent, with the Washington
Post (11/12/17)
asking its readers, “When Russia interferes with the 2020 election
on behalf of Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders, how will liberals
respond?” The message is clear: The progressive wave rising across
America is and will be a consequence of Russia, not of the failures
of the system, nor of the Democrats.
Outlets
like Slate (5/11/18)
warned of a sinister connection between Black Lives Matter and
Russia.
It
is not just politicians who have been smeared as Russian agents,
witting or unwitting; virtually every major progressive movement
challenging the system is increasingly dismissed in the same way.
Multiple media outlets,
including CNN (6/29/18), Slate (5/11/18), Vox (4/11/18)
and the New
York Times (2/16/18),
have produced articles linking Black Lives Matter to the Kremlin,
insinuating the outrage over racist police brutality is another
Russian psyop. Others claimed
Russia funded the riots in Ferguson and that Russian
trolls promoted the
Standing Rock environmental protests.
Meanwhile,
Democratic insider Neera
Tanden retweeted
a description of Chelsea Manning as a “Russian stooge,” writing
off her campaign for the Senate as “the Kremlin paying the extreme
left to swing elections. Remember that.” Thus corporate media are
promoting the idea that any challenge to the establishment is likely
a Kremlin-funded astroturf effort.
The
tactic has spread to Europe as well. After the poisoning of Russian
double agent Sergei Skripal, the UK government immediately blamed
Russia and imposed sanctions (without publicly presenting evidence).
Jeremy Corbyn, the pacifist, leftist leader of the Labour Party, was
uncharacteristically bellicose, asserting,
“The Russian authorities must be held to account on the basis of
the evidence and our response must be both decisive and
proportionate.”
The
British press was outraged—at Corbyn’s insufficient jingoism.
The Sun‘s
front page (3/15/18)
attacked him as “Putin’s Puppet,” while the Daily
Mail (3/15/18)
went with “Corbyn the Kremlin Stooge.” As with Sanders, the fact
that Corbyn endorsed the official narrative didn’t keep him from
being attacked, showing that the conspiratorial mindset seeing Russia
behind everything has little to do with evidence-based reality, and
is increasingly a tool to demonize the establishment’s political
enemies.
The
Atlantic Council published
a report claiming
Greek political parties Syriza and Golden Dawn were not expressions
of popular frustration and disillusionment, but “the Kremlin’s
Trojan horses,” undermining democracy in its birthplace. Providing
scant evidence, the report went on to link virtually every major
European political party challenging the center, from right or left,
to Putin.
From
Britian’s UKIP to Spain’s Podemos to Italy’s Five Star
Movement, all are charged with being under one man’s control. It is
this council that Facebookannounced it
was partnering with to help promote “trustworthy” news and weed
out “untrustworthy” sources (FAIR.org, 5/21/18),
as its CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with representatives from some of the
largest corporate outlets, like the New
York Times, CNN and News
Corp,
to help develop a system to control what content we see on the
website.
“We
are at war,” Morgan Freeman assures us
on behalf of the Committee to Investigate Russia.
The
utility of this wave of suspicion is captured in Freeman’s
aforementioned video.
After asserting that “for 241 years, our democracy has been a
shining example to the world of what we can all aspire to”—a
tally that would count nearly a century of chattel slavery and almost
another hundred years of de jure racial disenfranchisement—the
actor explains that “Putin uses social media to spread propaganda
and false information, he convinces people in democratic societies to
distrust their media, their political process.”
The
obvious implication is that the political process and media ought to
be trusted, and would be trusted were it not for Putin’s
propaganda. It was not the failures of capitalism and the deep
inequalities it created that led to widespread popular resentment and
movements on both left and right pressing for radical change across
Europe and America, but Vladimir Putin himself. In other words,
“America is already great.”
For
the Democrats, Russiagate allows them to ignore calls for change and
not scrutinize why they lost to the most unpopular presidential
candidate in history. Since Russia hacked the election, there is no
need for introspection, and certainly no need to accommodate the
Sanders wing or to engage with progressive challenges from activists
on the left, who are Putin’s puppets anyway.
The
party can continue on the same course, painting over the deep cracks
in American society. Similarly, for centrists in Europe, under threat
from both left and right, the Russia narrative allows them to sow
distrust among the public for any movement challenging the dominant
order.
For
the state, Russiagate has encouraged liberals to forego their
faculties and develop a state-worshiping, conspiratorial mindset in
the face of a common, manufactured enemy. Liberal trust in
institutions like the FBI has markedly
increased since
2016, while liberals also now espouse a neocon foreign policy in
Syria, Ukraine and other regions, with many supporting the vast
increases in the US military budget and attacking Trump from the
right.
For
corporate media, too, the disciplining effect of the Russia narrative
is highly useful, allowing them to reassert control over the means of
communication under the guise of preventing a Russian “fake news”
infiltration. News sources that challenge the establishment are
censored, defunded or deranked, as corporate sources stoke mistrust
of them. Meanwhile, it allows them to portray themselves as arbiters
of truth. This strategy has had some success, with Democrats’
trust in media increasing
since the election.
None
of this is to say that Russia does not strive to influence other
countries’ elections, a tactic that the United States has employed
even more frequently (NPR, 12/22/18).
Yet the extent to which the story has dominated the US media to the
detriment of other issues is a remarkable testament to its utility
for those in power.
Fair
bracht vorige week dinsdag een bericht over de ‘aandacht’ van MSNBC (een
mediaorgaan in de VS dat als ‘verzetszender’ wordt gezien tegen
Trump) voor de rol van de VS in de oorlog die de Saoedische coalitie
voert tegen de sjiieten in Jemen…… Een oorlog die voor de
sjiieten is uitgedraaid op een ‘volwaardige’ genocide………
Het
gezeur over de relatie van Trump met ‘pornoster’ Stormy Daniels kwam van 2 juli 2017 tot 2 juli 2018 maar liefst 455 keer terug in de MSNBC berichtgeving, tegen 0 keer de VS steun aan de genocide die de Saoedische coalitie in Jemen uitvoert………
Vreemd
is het wel, immers MSNBC doet niets liever dan Trump demoniseren, wat
wil je nog meer als je ziet dat hij een genocide tegen de sjiitische
bevolking van Jemen steunt, zowel militair als middels leveringen van rollend en vliegend oorlogstuig, plus ‘natuurlijk’ de levering van wapens en
munitie……. Ach zo vreemd is het nu ook weer niet, immers MSNBC is
o.a. grootlobbyist voor het militair-industrieel complex en zoals je
weet dat complex draait op zoveel mogelijk oorlog, om de winsten voor
de aandeelhouders zo hoog mogelijk te houden…….
Lees
het artikel van Adam Johnson, hieronder overgenomen van Anti-Media, echter wel met een kleine aantekening: Johnson
stelt dat onder Trump de bemoeienis met Jemen veel agressiever is
dan onder Obama, echter onder Obama is de steun voor de genocide
begonnen en onder Obama werden de clusterbommen geleverd die
Saoedi-Arabië heeft afgeworpen op
Jemen…… Onder Obama begon de VS met het in de lucht bijtanken van
de bommenwerpers en straaljagers van de Saoedische coalitie, zodat deze zo efficiënt mogelijk de enorme oorlogsmisdaden konden en kunnen uitvoeren…..
Ook
hebben speciale troepen van de VS onder Obama meerdere keren
ingegrepen op Jemenitische bodem en nam de VS de regie over de
bombardementen voor haar rekening (om nog maar te zwijgen over de het grote aantal moorden in Jemen middels drones*, ook dat werd onder Obama geïntensiveerd…)…. Gezien het voorgaande heeft Trump amper
meer gedaan dan op de Jemenitische winkel letten……..
In
One Year, MSNBC Covered Stormy Daniels 455 Times, War in Yemen 0
Why
is the No. 1 outlet of alleged anti-Trump #resistance completely
ignoring his most devastating war?
(FAIR) As
FAIR has noted before (1/8/18,3/20/18),
to MSNBC, the
carnage and destruction the US and its Gulf Monarchy allies are
leveling against the poorest country in the Arab world is simply a
non-issue.
On
July 2, a year had passed since the cable network’s last segment
mentioning US participation in the war on Yemen, which has killed in
excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over a million
cases of cholera.
The US is backing a Saudi-led
bombing campaign with
intelligence, refueling, political cover, military hardware and, as
of March, ground
troops.
None of this matters at all to what Adweek (4/3/18)
calls “the network of the Resistance,” which has since its last
mention of the US’s role in the destruction of Yemen found time
to run
over a dozen segments highlighting
war crimes committed by the Syrian and Russian governments in Syria.
By
way of contrast, as MSNBC was
marking a year without mentioning the US role in Yemen, the PBS
NewsHour was
running a three-part
series on
the war, with the second part (7/3/18)
headlined, “American-Made Bombs in Yemen Are Killing Civilians,
Destroying Infrastructure and Fueling Anger at the US.”
The NewsHour’s
Jane Ferguson reported:
PBS
NewsHour (7/3/18) examining the remains of US-made cluster bombs in
Yemen.
“The
aerial bombing campaign has not managed to dislodge the rebels, but
has hit weddings, hospitals and homes. The US military supports the
Saudi coalition with logistics and intelligence. The United States it
also sells the Saudis and coalition partners many of the bombs they
drop on Yemen.”
MSNBC chat
show/Starbucks commercial Morning
Joe did
run one segment (4/25/18)
that vaguely mentioned the war on Yemen, but failed to note the US’s
role in it at all, much less that Washington is arming and backing
the conflict’s primary aggressor. Instead, they did the perverse
inversion––previously mastered by Washington
Post’s
Jackson Diehl (FAIR.org, 6/27/17)—of
not only ignoring the US’s major role in killing thousands, but
painting the US as a noble haven for refugees. The schlocky segment,
an interview with writer Mohammed Al Samawi, was a shallow mixture of
“interfaith” pablum, poverty porn and self-congratulations to the
US for taking in refugees (without, of course, acknowledging that
they’re seeking refuge from a crisis the US has created).
For
a bit more context, in the time period of July 3, 2017, to July 3,
2018, MSNBC dedicated
zero segments to the US’s war in Yemen, but 455
segments to Stormy Daniels.
This isn’t to suggest the Stormy Daniels matter isn’t
newsworthy—presidential corruption is per se important. But one has
to wonder if this particular thread of venality is 455 stories more
important than Trump aggressively supporting a war that’s killing
hundreds of people a month, injuring thousands, and subjecting
millions to famine and cholera. Did MSNBC editors,
poring over the latest academic foreign policy literature, really
come to the conclusion Trump’s war in Yemen isn’t important? Or
is MSNBC simply
fueled by partisan Russia dot-connecting and stories that allow them
to say “porn star” as much as possible?
What seems most likely is MSNBC has found that attacking Russia form the right on matters of foreign policy is the most elegant way to preserve its “progressive” image while still serving traditional centers of power—namely, the Democratic Party establishment, corporate sponsors, and their own revolving door of ex-spook and military contractor-funded talking heads (3/26/18). After all, Obama backed the war on Yemen—though not nearly as aggressively as Trump has—and it’s difficult to make a coherent left-wing, anti-war criticism when the current Republican in office is simply carrying out your guy’s policy, but on steroids.
In
any event, it’s not like any Yemenis are going to pull ads, turn
down appearances, or phone Comcast higher-ups
complaining. So, who cares? To be poor and brown—to say nothing of
not serving the immediate partisan interests of the Democratic
party—is evidently to not matter much in the eyes
of MSNBC producers and on-air talent.
* Aanvallen met drones op mensen die worden verdacht van zaken die de VS niet zinnen, het gaat dus niet om ter dood veroordeelden!! Waar meer dan 90% van de dodelijke slachtoffers door deze standrechtelijke executies niet eens werden verdacht! Zoals je begrijpt bestaat het overgrote deel van deze vermoorde en niet verdachte (burger-) slachtoffers uit vrouwen en kinderen, ronduit een misdaad tegen de menselijkheid die strafrechtelijk vervolgd zou moeten worden door het Internationaal Strafhof (ICC) in Den Haag………
De fratsenmaker Juncker, voorzitter van de Europese Commissie was gisteren in Washington om met Trump te spreken over de handelsoorlog die Trump tegen de EU voert. En ja hoor, na een relatief kort gesprek was men eruit: de EU zal de handelsbelemmeringen voor VS bedrijven opheffen, zodat wij straks ook genetisch gemanipuleerd ‘Frankensteinvoedsel’ tot ons kunnen nemen, zonder dat we het weten, daar de VS bedrijven die dit voedsel produceren tegen labeling zijn met het etiket ‘genetisch gemanipuleerd….’ (met zo’n labeling laat een groot deel van de klanten dergelijke levensmiddelen uiteraard staan)
Als vlag op de strontschuit zal de EU grote hoeveelheden genetisch gemanipuleerde soja uit de VS importeren…. Trump zat daar mee in de maag, daar een deel van zijn achterban onder de sojaboeren is te vinden en na de importheffingen op Chinese producten door de VS, stelde de Chinese regering een grote importheffing in op soja uit de VS………
Overigens is de import van sojabonen uit de VS, een grove schoffering van de Chinese regering, daar deze regering zoals gezegd in reactie op de voortdurende handelsoorlog van de VS tegen haar land, besloot een fikse heffing op soja uit de VS te leggen…… Anders gezegd: de EU helpt de VS met haar handelsoorlog tegen China, benieuwd wat men daar in China van denkt…….
Dan nog de EU import van vloeibaar gas (LNG) uit de VS, deze import was al lang het doel van de Trump administratie, daar de VS over grote voorraden (gesubsidieerd) schaliegas beschikt…… Bovendien komt hiermee het Nordstream 2 (NS2) project in gevaar, gas import uit Rusland via pijpleidingen, overigens veel goedkoper dan het gas uit de VS……. Het NS2 project was trouwens al een doorn in het oog van de VS
De Nederlandse media spraken vanmorgen vol lof over Juncker en stelden dat dit een ongekende prestatie is……. ‘Een geweldige prestatie’ dat Juncker zich en daarmee de hele EU, in het pak heeft genaaid……..
Als tegenprestatie zal Trump binnenkort nog eens kijken naar de VS heffingen op staal en aluminium uit de EU……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
Mocht alles doorgang vinden, zoals dit vanmorgen werd gebracht, is een TTIP verdrag met de VS niet meer nodig en kan de peperdure TTIP lobby-missie van de EU in Washington naar huis…… Reken maar dat Juncker al afspraken heeft gemaakt over het toestaan van o.a. gentech voedsel uit de VS……. Zo heeft de EU en hebben de afzonderlijke EU lidstaten straks niets meer te vertellen over wat er wel in niet verkocht mag worden binnen de EU……
Kortom zonder enig contact met de EU bevolking of het EU parlement heeft Juncker als een autocraat knopen doorgehakt in Washington….. Ach zo werkt de EU nu eenmaal…….
Zoals vandaag al eerder gesteld: NEXIT, voor het te laat is!
Zelfs
in de rest van het westen dragen media en politiek hun steen bij,
maar de hysterie in de VS na het bezoek van Trump aan Putin slaat
alles. Men vergelijkt deze ontmoeting en het hele Russiagate gebeuren nu zelfs met de aanslagen van 911 en de aanval van Japan op Pearl Harbor tijdens WOII….. Terwijl dit hele Russiagate is gefundeerd op los zand, ofwel Russiagate is niet
gefundeerd op werkelijke feiten en gebeurtenissen…… Voorts is het natuurlijk een gotspe om te stellen dat het inzetten op vreedzame banden met Rusland, is te vergelijken met grote aanslagen of zelfs zaken die in WOII plaatsvonden..!!
Er zijn zelfs ‘journalisten’ die beweren dat ze alle bewijzen hebben gezien, die zouden aantonen dat Rusland de VS presidentsverkiezingen in 2016 heeft gemanipuleerd, terwijl degenen die over deze zogenaamde bewijzen gaan, keer op keer stellen deze niet openbaar te kunnen maken vanwege de ‘nationale veiligheid…’ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Bewijzen kunnen niet geheim zijn als je een ander land beschuldigt van dergelijke manipulaties, de inwoners van de VS (en de rest van de wereld) hebben alle recht dergelijke bewijzen te zien, bewijzen die allesbehalve een gevaar voor de staatsveiligheid zijn, daar ze niet bestaan.
Echter, als bekend wordt dat de geheime diensten FBI, CIA en NSA alweer hebben gelogen, zou dat de geloofwaardigheid van deze leugen-instituties nog verder onderuit halen, uiteraard is dat een gevaar voor de topgraaiers van die diensten, graaiers en machtswellustelingen die deze leugens tot in het oneindige blijven herhalen……
Lees
het volgende artikel van Caitlin Johnstone, mooier kan je het niet
brengen (en geeft het door, tijd dat de reguliere media hun
lezers/kijkers verliezen, zolang ze hun onafhankelijkheid hebben
ingeleverd voor geldgewin en lobbyisme t.b.v. het ijskoude
neoliberalisme en het militair-industrieel complex):
Russiagate
Is Like 9/11, Except It’s Made of Pure Narrative
(CJ Opinion) — The
last few days have been truly amazing. I didn’t even write an
article yesterday; I’ve just been staring transfixed by my social
media feeds watching liberal Americans completely lose their minds. I
can’t look away. It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck,
and everyone on the train is being
really homophobic.
I’ve
been writing about Russiagate since it started, and I can honestly
say this is the worst it’s ever been, by far. The most hysterical,
the most shrill, the most emotional, the most cartoonishly
over-the-top and hyperbolic. The fact that Trump met with Putin in
private and then publicly expressed doubt about the establishment
Russia narrative has sent some political factions of America into an
emotional state that is indistinguishable from what you’d expect if
Russia had bombed New York City. This despite the fact that the
establishment Russia narrative consists of no actual, visible events
whatsoever. It is made of pure narrative.
I don’t think the US media has ever been nuttier than they are right now. It would be comical if it wasn’t so dangerous. They are harming the national psyche in a profound way
I
don’t even know where to start. Everyone has been completely mad
across the entire spectrum of what passes for America’s political
“left” today, from the usual suspects like Chuck Schumer and
Nancy Pelosi and their indistinguishable Never-Trump Republican
allies, all the way to supposedly progressive commentators like Cenk
Uygur and Shaun King. Comparing this pure narrative non-event to
Pearl Harbor is now commonplace and mainstream. I just watched a
United States Senator named Richard Blumenthal stare right into the
camera refer to the hypothetical possibility of future Russian cyber
intrusions as “this 9/11 moment.”
“We
are in a 9/11 national emergency because our country is under attack,
literally,” Blumenthal told
CNN while
demanding a record of Trump’s meeting with Putin at the Helsinki
summit. “That attack is ongoing and pervasive, verified by
objective and verifiable evidence. Those words are, again, from the
director of National Security. And this 9/11 moment demands that we
do come together.”
Nothing
about the establishment Russia narrative is in any way verifiable,
and the only thing it has in common with 9/11 is the media coverage
and widespread emotional response.
September
11 had actual video footage of falling towers. You could go visit New
York City, look at the spot where those towers used to be, and see
them not being there anymore. You could learn the names of the people
who died and visit their graves and talk to their family members.
Exactly how it
happened is a matter of some debate in many circles, but there is no
question that it happened. There was an actual event that did happen
in the real world, completely independent of any stories people tell
about that event.
Russiagate
is like 9/11, but with none of those things. It’s like if 9/11 had
all the same widespread emotional responses, all the same nonstop
mass media coverage, all the same punditry screaming war, war, war,
except no actual event occurred. The towers were still there,
everyone was still alive, and nothing actually happened apart from
the narrative and the emotional responses to that narrative.
Russiagate
is 9/11 minus 9/11.
This
is what I’m talking about when I say that whoever
controls the narrative controls the world.
Whoever controls the stories that westerners are telling each other
has the power to advance concrete agendas which reshape global
geopolitics without any actual thing even happening. Simply by
getting a
few hand-picked intelligence agents to
say something happened in a relatively confident way, you can get the
entire media and political body advancing that narrative as
unquestionable fact, and from there advance sanctions, new military
operations, a far more aggressive Nuclear Posture Review, the casting
out of diplomats, the arming of Ukraine, and ultimately shove Russia
further and further off the world stage.
As we
discussed last time,
the current administration has actually been far more aggressive
against Russia than the previous administration was, and has worked
against Russian interests to a far greater extent. If they wanted to,
the international alliance of plutocrats and intelligence/defense
agencies could just as easily use their near-total control of the
narrative to advance the story that Trump is a dangerous Russia hawk
who is imperiling the entire world by inflicting insane escalations
against a nuclear superpower. They could elicit the exact same
panicked emotional response that they are eliciting right now using
the exact same media and the exact same factual situation. They
wouldn’t have to change a single thing except where they place
their emphasis in telling the story. The known facts would all remain
exactly as they are; all that would have to change is the narrative.
Public
support for Russiagate depends on the fact that most people don’t
recognize how pervasively their day-to-day experience is dominated by
narrative. If you are intellectually honest with yourself, you will
acknowledge that you think about Russia a lot more now than you did
in 2015. Russia hasn’t changed any since 2015; all that has changed
is the narrative that is being told about it. And yet now the mass
media and a huge chunk of rank-and-file America now view it as a
major threat and think about it constantly. All they had to do was
talk about Russia constantly in a fearful and urgent way, and now US
liberals are convinced that Vladimir Putin is an omnipotent
world-dominating supervillain who has infiltrated the highest levels
of the US government.
If
humanity is to pull up and away from its current path toward either
ecological disaster, nuclear armageddon or Orwellian dystopia, we are
necessarily going to have to change our relationship with narrative.
As long as the way we think, vote and organize can be controlled by
the mere verbiage of the servants of power, our species will never be
able to begin operating in a sane and wholesome way. If all it
takes to make us act against our own interest is a few establishment
lackeys speaking a few words in a confident tone of voice, if mere
authoritative language can hypnotize us like a sorcerer casting
spells, we are doomed to slavery and destruction.
So
stop staring transfixed by the narratives, and begin looking at the
behavior and motives of the people advancing them instead. Stop
staring at the movie screen they’re constantly drawing your
attention to, turn around in your theater seat, and look at the
people who are running the projector. The way out of this mess is to
begin ignoring the stories we’re being hypnotized with and start
critically examining the people who are conducting the hypnosis.
Ignore the stories and stare with piercing eyes at the storytellers.
The difference between the official narrative and the actual reality
of this world is the difference between fiction and fact. Evolve
beyond.
