https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar19/FB-GOOG-censorship3-19.html
When Are We Going to Tackle the For-Profit Monopolies Which Censored RussiaGate Skeptics?
The RussiaGate Narrative has been revealed as a Big Con (a.k.a. Nothing-Burger), but what's dangerously real is the censorship that's being carried out by the for-profit monopolies Facebook and Google on behalf of the status quo's Big Con.
This site got a taste of Facebook-Google-Big-Media's Orwellian Authoritarian-Totalitarian censorship back in 2016 when a shadowy fake-news site called PropOrNot aggregated every major alt-media site that had published anything remotely skeptical of the coronation of Hillary Clinton as president and labeled us all shills for Russian propaganda.
Without any investigation of the perps running the site or their fake-news methodology, The Washington Post (Jeff Bezos' plaything) saw fit to promote the fake-news on Page One as if it were journalistically legitimate. Why would a newspaper that supposedly values the integrity of its content run with such shameless fake-news propaganda? Because it fit the Post's own political agenda and biases.
This is the essence of Facebook-Google-Big-Media's Orwellian Authoritarian-Totalitarian censorship: sacrifice accepted journalistic practice, free speech and transparency to promote an absurdly obvious political and social agenda.
If there was any real justice in America, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai should be wearing prison jumpsuits for what Facebook and Google have done to American democracy. Both of these monopolies have manipulated news feeds, search results and what individuals are shown in complete secret, with zero public oversight or transparency.
The damage to democracy wrought by Facebook and Google is severe: free speech no longer exists except in name, and what individuals see in search and social media feeds is designed to manipulate them without their consent or knowledge--and for a fat profit. Whether Facebook and Google are manipulating users for profit or to buy off Status Quo pressures to start regulating these monopolistic totalitarian regimes or to align what users see with their own virtue-signaling, doesn't matter.
What matters is that no one can possibly know how Facebook and Google have rigged their algorithms and to what purpose. The typical corporation can buy political influence, but Facebook and Google are manipulating the machinery of democracy itself in three ways:
1. They are secretly censoring alternative media and skeptics of the status quo narratives.
2. They are selling data and ads to anyone interested in manipulating voters and public opinion.
3. They are providing data to the National Security organs of the state which can then use this data to compile dossiers on "enemies of the people," i.e. skeptics and dissenters who question the "approved" context and narrative.
That's a much more dangerous type of power than buying political influence or manipulating public opinion by openly publishing biased "commentary."
We all understand how America's traditional Corporate Media undermines democracy: recall how every time Bernie Sanders won a Democratic primary in 2016, The New York Times and The Washington Post "reported" the news in small typeface in a sidebar, while every Hillary Clinton primary win was trumpeted in large headlines at the top of page one.
But this sort of manipulation is visible; what Google and Facebook do is invisible. What their algorithms do is invisible, and the shadow banning and other forms of invisible censorship cannot be easily traced.
A few of us can trace shadow banning because we have access to our site's server data. Please consider the data of Google searches and direct links from Facebook to oftwominds.com from November 2016 and November 2018:
Nov. 2016: Google Searches: 36,779
Nov. 2016: links from Facebook: 9,888
Nov. 2018: Google Searches: 12,671
Nov. 2018: links from Facebook: 859
Oftwominds.com has been around since 2005 and consistently draws around 250,000 page views monthly (via oftwominds.com and my mirror site on blogspot, which is owned/operated by Google. Interestingly, traffic to that site has been less affected by shadow banning; Coincidence? You decide....).
Given the consistency of my visitor traffic over the years, it's "interesting" how drastically the site's traffic with Google and Facebook has declined in a mere two years. How is this shadow banning not Orwellian Authoritarian-Totalitarian censorship? It's akin to China's Orwellian Social Credit system but for private profit.
It wouldn't surprise me to find my photo airbrushed out of group photos on Facebook and Google just as the Soviet propaganda organs did when someone fell out of favor in the 1930s.
Fortunately, oftwominds.com isn't dependent on Facebook or Google for its traffic; other content creators who were skeptical of RussiaGate are not so fortunate. One of the implicit goals of shadow banning and filters is to destroy the income of dissenting sites without the content creators knowing why their income plummeted.
Strip dissenters of their income and you strip them of the ability to dissent. Yea for "free speech" controlled by for-profit monopolies!
Where's the "level playing field" of free speech? As long as Facebook and Google are free to censor and filter in secret, there is no free speech in America. All we have is a simulacrum of free speech in which parroting "approved" narratives is promoted and dissent is censored/banned--but without anyone noticing or even being able to tell what's been filtered, censored or banned.
So when are we going to tackle privately held monopolies which are selling user data to the highest bidder, obliterating free speech in secret and manipulating news feeds and search to promote hidden agendas? I've argued (see links below) that the solution is very simple:
1. Regulate Facebook and Google as public utilities. Ban them from collecting and selling user data to anyone, including federal agencies.
2. Allow a modest profit to each firm via display adverts that are shown equally to every user.
3. Require any and all search/content filters and algorithms be made public, i.e. published daily.
4. Any executive or employee of these corporations who violates these statutes will face criminal felony charges and be exposed to civil liability lawsuits from users or content providers who were shadow-banned or their right to free speech was proscribed or limited by filters or algorithms.
There is no intrinsic right for privately held corporations to establish monopolies that can manipulate and filter free speech in secret to maximize profits and secret influence. We either take down Facebook and Google and turn them into tightly regulated transparent public utilities available to all or they will destroy what little is left of American democracy....
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Monday, March 25, 2019
SC186-5
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/mueller-report-ends-a-shameful-period-for-the-press/
Mueller Report Ends a Shameful Period for the Press
The Mueller report’s categorical statement that Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia ends one of the most shameful periods in modern American journalism, one that rivals the mindless cheerleading for the Iraq War by most of the press. It further erodes and may prove fatal to the credibility of a press that has steadfastly rendered most of the country invisible and functions as little more than an array of gossiping courtiers to the elites.
“The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” U.S. Attorney General William Barr wrote in an official letter summarizing the findings of the inquiry by Robert Mueller.
The charge that Russia stole the election, that Vladimir Putin has secret “pee tapes” of Trump cavorting in a Moscow hotel with prostitutes or that Trump has been a longtime “Kremlin agent,” repeated by reporters whose work I admired in the past, is demagoguery as pernicious as the vile taunts and racist tropes that come out of the White House. The press endlessly repeated such allegations while ignoring the expanding social inequality and suffering of a country where half the population lives in poverty, as well as the collapse of our democratic institutions. These facts, not Russian manipulation, saw enraged American voters elect a demagogue who at least belittles the elites, including those in the press, who sold them out. The charge that Trump was a tool of Russia is entertaining. It attracts billions in advertising dollars. It allows the press to posture as a moral crusader. But over the past three years this obsession blotted out most of the real crimes committed by this administration and the reality most Americans endure.
The mainstream press, owned by the corporations that have extinguished the democratic state and are fleecing the public, as well as destroying the ecosystem on which we depend for life, does not hold its employers to account. The empty chatter about Russia, including in The New York Times, exposes the bankruptcy of the U.S. media. MSNBC and CNN, which long ago abandoned journalism for entertainment, have breathlessly clogged the airwaves with ridiculous conspiracy theories and fantasies and used them to justify a faux crusade.
Don’t expect any of this to change. Rachael Maddow, like Jack Tapper or any other fatuous news celebrity, will not be held to account for slogging through this fiction night after night. Maddow will still collect her $10-million-a-year salary. And the handful of reporters who exhibited journalistic integrity—Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Aaron Maté, Robert Scheer, Max Blumenthal and Katrina vanden Heuvel—will continue to remain on the margins of the media landscape. The press is an arm of the corporate-funded burlesque that has replaced the country’s political life and turned civic debate into a vast reality show.
The more the big news outlets try to spin this report, arguing that they need to see the full report rather than the attorney general’s summary, or that Jared Kushner sought to use the communications systems of Russian diplomats, the more credibility they will lose. And they do not have much credibility left. The lurid details of the president’s alleged sexual relations with a porn star and a Playboy bunny, and of “Russiagate,” have replaced journalism. These stories have nothing to do with the lives of most Americans. This descent into the inane and the tawdry gives immunity to Trump. In attacking the press he attacks an institution most Americans loath. And with good reason. The press, unwittingly, enhances a president it seeks to destroy. And its decline, accelerated by its collaboration with liberal Democratic elites who scapegoat Russia to avoid confronting their responsibility for trashing the country in the service of corporate oligarchs, will get worse. Little the press says about Trump will now be believed.
There was, of course, massive interference in our election by a foreign power—Israel. But try saying this naked truth out loud and you will suffer the character assassination, chanted by the unified chorus in the press and the political hierarchy of both parties, that was unleashed on Rep. Ilhan Omar. The engine driving our animosity toward Russia comes from the arms industry, which with the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s border—despite assurances given upon the unification of Germany that this would not happen—is making billions of dollars selling weapons to countries in Eastern Europe. The situation is also exacerbating tensions between two of the world’s biggest nuclear powers. But this is just one more suppressed truth.
The Trump administration has carried out policies that, rather than serve Russian interests, have further antagonized our relationship with Moscow. It has imposed sanctions. It is openly attempting to overthrow the government of a country that Russia supports, Venezuela. It is attempting to block the sale of Russian natural gas to Europe. It has sold weapons to Ukraine, a foe of the Kremlin. It has armed insurgents in Syria and carried out airstrikes, even as Russian troops seek to prop up the Syrian regime. But facts matter little to Russian-conspiracy theorists.
It is not only Trump who has obliterated the line between fact and fiction. It is the press. It hyped and reported allegations it never investigated or confirmed. And by doing this, repeating failures of the kind that appeared in its coverage of the invasion of Iraq, it has committed suicide. A nation that lacks a functioning press becomes a tyranny. This is not Trump’s fault, but our own.
Mueller Report Ends a Shameful Period for the Press
The Mueller report’s categorical statement that Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia ends one of the most shameful periods in modern American journalism, one that rivals the mindless cheerleading for the Iraq War by most of the press. It further erodes and may prove fatal to the credibility of a press that has steadfastly rendered most of the country invisible and functions as little more than an array of gossiping courtiers to the elites.
“The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” U.S. Attorney General William Barr wrote in an official letter summarizing the findings of the inquiry by Robert Mueller.
The charge that Russia stole the election, that Vladimir Putin has secret “pee tapes” of Trump cavorting in a Moscow hotel with prostitutes or that Trump has been a longtime “Kremlin agent,” repeated by reporters whose work I admired in the past, is demagoguery as pernicious as the vile taunts and racist tropes that come out of the White House. The press endlessly repeated such allegations while ignoring the expanding social inequality and suffering of a country where half the population lives in poverty, as well as the collapse of our democratic institutions. These facts, not Russian manipulation, saw enraged American voters elect a demagogue who at least belittles the elites, including those in the press, who sold them out. The charge that Trump was a tool of Russia is entertaining. It attracts billions in advertising dollars. It allows the press to posture as a moral crusader. But over the past three years this obsession blotted out most of the real crimes committed by this administration and the reality most Americans endure.
The mainstream press, owned by the corporations that have extinguished the democratic state and are fleecing the public, as well as destroying the ecosystem on which we depend for life, does not hold its employers to account. The empty chatter about Russia, including in The New York Times, exposes the bankruptcy of the U.S. media. MSNBC and CNN, which long ago abandoned journalism for entertainment, have breathlessly clogged the airwaves with ridiculous conspiracy theories and fantasies and used them to justify a faux crusade.
Don’t expect any of this to change. Rachael Maddow, like Jack Tapper or any other fatuous news celebrity, will not be held to account for slogging through this fiction night after night. Maddow will still collect her $10-million-a-year salary. And the handful of reporters who exhibited journalistic integrity—Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Aaron Maté, Robert Scheer, Max Blumenthal and Katrina vanden Heuvel—will continue to remain on the margins of the media landscape. The press is an arm of the corporate-funded burlesque that has replaced the country’s political life and turned civic debate into a vast reality show.
The more the big news outlets try to spin this report, arguing that they need to see the full report rather than the attorney general’s summary, or that Jared Kushner sought to use the communications systems of Russian diplomats, the more credibility they will lose. And they do not have much credibility left. The lurid details of the president’s alleged sexual relations with a porn star and a Playboy bunny, and of “Russiagate,” have replaced journalism. These stories have nothing to do with the lives of most Americans. This descent into the inane and the tawdry gives immunity to Trump. In attacking the press he attacks an institution most Americans loath. And with good reason. The press, unwittingly, enhances a president it seeks to destroy. And its decline, accelerated by its collaboration with liberal Democratic elites who scapegoat Russia to avoid confronting their responsibility for trashing the country in the service of corporate oligarchs, will get worse. Little the press says about Trump will now be believed.
There was, of course, massive interference in our election by a foreign power—Israel. But try saying this naked truth out loud and you will suffer the character assassination, chanted by the unified chorus in the press and the political hierarchy of both parties, that was unleashed on Rep. Ilhan Omar. The engine driving our animosity toward Russia comes from the arms industry, which with the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s border—despite assurances given upon the unification of Germany that this would not happen—is making billions of dollars selling weapons to countries in Eastern Europe. The situation is also exacerbating tensions between two of the world’s biggest nuclear powers. But this is just one more suppressed truth.
The Trump administration has carried out policies that, rather than serve Russian interests, have further antagonized our relationship with Moscow. It has imposed sanctions. It is openly attempting to overthrow the government of a country that Russia supports, Venezuela. It is attempting to block the sale of Russian natural gas to Europe. It has sold weapons to Ukraine, a foe of the Kremlin. It has armed insurgents in Syria and carried out airstrikes, even as Russian troops seek to prop up the Syrian regime. But facts matter little to Russian-conspiracy theorists.
It is not only Trump who has obliterated the line between fact and fiction. It is the press. It hyped and reported allegations it never investigated or confirmed. And by doing this, repeating failures of the kind that appeared in its coverage of the invasion of Iraq, it has committed suicide. A nation that lacks a functioning press becomes a tyranny. This is not Trump’s fault, but our own.
SC186-4
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/25/trump-is-going-to-repeat-this-until-november-2020-thanks-msnbc/
Trump Is Going To Repeat This Until November 2020. Thanks, MSNBC.
After news broke that Robert Mueller had turned in his final report without recommending any further indictments, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow began frantically retweeting blue-checkmarked Twitter pundits who claimed that since nobody knows the contents of the report yet, the news that the number of Americans indicted for conspiring with the Russian government is set at zero doesn’t matter.
Well guess what, Rachel? We know what the report contains now.
US Attorney General William Barr has sent a letter to congressional officials which you can read here. It contains the following unequivocal quote:
The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
A footnote on the document clarifies that the Mueller investigation defined coordination with the Russian government very broadly, to include not just overt coordination but any “agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference.” No such agreement, tacit or otherwise, was found to have taken place.
So that’s it then. The central and foundational claim of the Russiagate conspiracy theory has been found to have been completely baseless. The report asserts that Russia hacked and distributed Democratic Party emails (a claim that the public has still yet to see any hard evidence for), and “did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other” whether Trump committed obstruction of justice in the investigation of baseless collusion allegations, but the central and foundational Russiagate claim that Trump and the Kremlin conspired to steal the 2016 election has been killed. Finito. Case closed. Debate over.
And Trump is loving every second of it.
“No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!” tweeted America’s reality TV star president exactly as you would expect him to, taking some creative license with the actual contents of Barr’s letter.
This is your life for the next 594 days, America. You can expect to hear over and over and over again, from today until November 2020, that the president was victimized for over two years by a “WITCH HUNT” which was “COMPLETE and TOTAL FAKE NEWS!” All Trump will have to do to get re-elected is keep his economy narrative going and repeat the claim that he’s been unjustly persecuted by the establishment “swamp”.
And it will work, because that claim will not be unfounded. As much of a corrupt establishment crony as Trump has proven himself to be, he does indeed have all the facts he needs to successfully sell the narrative that the political/media class has spent over two years pushing a baseless conspiracy theory that the highest levels of the US government had been infiltrated by the Kremlin, and he can indeed claim persecution and victimization in the process. He can easily leverage this into sympathy and support in his reelection campaign, and can use it to reinforce his tarnished image as an enemy of the beltway swamp. Those who’ve been selling the Russiagate narrative handed him this weapon.
So thanks, Rachel Maddow. Thanks Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and Eric Swalwell. Thanks CNN and MSNBC, Washington Post and New York Times. Thanks supposed progressives like Bernie Sanders and The Young Turks. Thank you to everyone who spent the first half of Trump’s term helping to push the Russiagate narrative, thereby helping to ensure another four years of this asshole advancing longstanding establishment agendas of war, nuclear brinkmanship and ecocide. Thank you so much for helping to inflict that upon our planet with no regard for the inevitable consequences of your actions.
So are any of the aforementioned offenders admitting any fault on this? Actually, it’s a surprisingly mixed bag.
Sure, you’ve got more Russiagaters than I can count moving the goalposts to possible financial crimes and frantically grasping at the straws of Mueller’s words in Barr’s letter regarding potential obstruction of justice, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” You’ve got MSNBC analyst and “Saint Mueller Preserve Us” t-shirt salesman Malcolm Nance starting up a whole new conspiracy theory that Barr has committed the “greatest scandal in history to coverup the greatest scandal in history,” I guess implying that Barr is lying about the contents of a report that will with absolute certainty be viewed and verified by other people. You’ve got some trying to pretend that Russiagaters never cared about Russiagate at all anyway.
But you’ve also got CNN’s Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter sharing Matt Taibbi’s excellent article titled “It’s official: Russiagate is this generation’s WMD“, which describes the mass media’s spectacular failures to ask the questions that needed to be asked and demand the evidence that needed to be demanded for the claims advanced in the Russiagate narrative. You’ve got NBC’s Ken Dilanian, an actual CIA asset who has been eagerly advancing the establishment Russia narrative, said that “this is a total legal exoneration of the president. Congress will want to know more, of course. But the topline: No conspiracy, no obstruction.” This is highly unusual behavior from such stalwart empire loyalists, and it may be taken as a turning point of sorts on this particular aspect of this particular subject, due solely to the total destruction of any basis for their previous narrative.
But, of course, the damage is already done. Trump has been handed a powerful political weapon which may have ensured his reelection to the White House, and, far, far worse, a new cold war with Russia is now underway which threatens the life of every organism on this earth, facilitated by a political/media class who convinced the public that they could hurt the president by demanding that he take a more hawkish posture toward Russia. That Pandora’s box won’t be un-opened by these new revelations.
This should be the end of the mass media. In anything resembling a sane world, Rachel Maddow would be unloading her desk into a cardboard box today, and Aaron Maté would become the most respected and highest-paid journalist in America.
This should be the end of the Democratic party. This dismal state of affairs is their fault, from the content of the leaked emails to their handling of it. They have had choices on the way to clean up their act but, they have blankly refused at every juncture. Not one thing has changed since the emails revealed that the DNC rigs its primaries, and yet here we are in the middle of another fake primary with everyone going along with it like it’s a real thing. It’s weird. In a healthy democratic republic the party would be dead already, and a new one would’ve taken its place fueled by fresh energy and enthusiasm but the donor-class corruption is so deeply entrenched that that possibility has seemed like a fantasy.
For now. The next couple of days are going to be very important. As the clamoring din of Russiagate falls into the memory hole, a large empty space will open up. As the pundits scramble to find the Next Big Thing to blare through the screens, the people will be left to their own devices for a few precious moments. They won’t know what to think. They may even have some of their own thoughts for once. The media landscape will resemble a demolition site. So why not use this space to push forward some new exciting ideas. Space means possibilities. Space means something new can be built. After the crushing disappointment of finally finding out that the whole thing was a bust, two years have been lost to the bumbling ineptitude of Pelosi and Schumer, and now impeachment is off the table, what has anyone got to lose? Let’s try something new.
Trump Is Going To Repeat This Until November 2020. Thanks, MSNBC.
After news broke that Robert Mueller had turned in his final report without recommending any further indictments, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow began frantically retweeting blue-checkmarked Twitter pundits who claimed that since nobody knows the contents of the report yet, the news that the number of Americans indicted for conspiring with the Russian government is set at zero doesn’t matter.
Well guess what, Rachel? We know what the report contains now.
US Attorney General William Barr has sent a letter to congressional officials which you can read here. It contains the following unequivocal quote:
The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
A footnote on the document clarifies that the Mueller investigation defined coordination with the Russian government very broadly, to include not just overt coordination but any “agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference.” No such agreement, tacit or otherwise, was found to have taken place.
So that’s it then. The central and foundational claim of the Russiagate conspiracy theory has been found to have been completely baseless. The report asserts that Russia hacked and distributed Democratic Party emails (a claim that the public has still yet to see any hard evidence for), and “did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other” whether Trump committed obstruction of justice in the investigation of baseless collusion allegations, but the central and foundational Russiagate claim that Trump and the Kremlin conspired to steal the 2016 election has been killed. Finito. Case closed. Debate over.
And Trump is loving every second of it.
“No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!” tweeted America’s reality TV star president exactly as you would expect him to, taking some creative license with the actual contents of Barr’s letter.
This is your life for the next 594 days, America. You can expect to hear over and over and over again, from today until November 2020, that the president was victimized for over two years by a “WITCH HUNT” which was “COMPLETE and TOTAL FAKE NEWS!” All Trump will have to do to get re-elected is keep his economy narrative going and repeat the claim that he’s been unjustly persecuted by the establishment “swamp”.
And it will work, because that claim will not be unfounded. As much of a corrupt establishment crony as Trump has proven himself to be, he does indeed have all the facts he needs to successfully sell the narrative that the political/media class has spent over two years pushing a baseless conspiracy theory that the highest levels of the US government had been infiltrated by the Kremlin, and he can indeed claim persecution and victimization in the process. He can easily leverage this into sympathy and support in his reelection campaign, and can use it to reinforce his tarnished image as an enemy of the beltway swamp. Those who’ve been selling the Russiagate narrative handed him this weapon.
So thanks, Rachel Maddow. Thanks Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and Eric Swalwell. Thanks CNN and MSNBC, Washington Post and New York Times. Thanks supposed progressives like Bernie Sanders and The Young Turks. Thank you to everyone who spent the first half of Trump’s term helping to push the Russiagate narrative, thereby helping to ensure another four years of this asshole advancing longstanding establishment agendas of war, nuclear brinkmanship and ecocide. Thank you so much for helping to inflict that upon our planet with no regard for the inevitable consequences of your actions.
So are any of the aforementioned offenders admitting any fault on this? Actually, it’s a surprisingly mixed bag.
Sure, you’ve got more Russiagaters than I can count moving the goalposts to possible financial crimes and frantically grasping at the straws of Mueller’s words in Barr’s letter regarding potential obstruction of justice, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” You’ve got MSNBC analyst and “Saint Mueller Preserve Us” t-shirt salesman Malcolm Nance starting up a whole new conspiracy theory that Barr has committed the “greatest scandal in history to coverup the greatest scandal in history,” I guess implying that Barr is lying about the contents of a report that will with absolute certainty be viewed and verified by other people. You’ve got some trying to pretend that Russiagaters never cared about Russiagate at all anyway.
But you’ve also got CNN’s Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter sharing Matt Taibbi’s excellent article titled “It’s official: Russiagate is this generation’s WMD“, which describes the mass media’s spectacular failures to ask the questions that needed to be asked and demand the evidence that needed to be demanded for the claims advanced in the Russiagate narrative. You’ve got NBC’s Ken Dilanian, an actual CIA asset who has been eagerly advancing the establishment Russia narrative, said that “this is a total legal exoneration of the president. Congress will want to know more, of course. But the topline: No conspiracy, no obstruction.” This is highly unusual behavior from such stalwart empire loyalists, and it may be taken as a turning point of sorts on this particular aspect of this particular subject, due solely to the total destruction of any basis for their previous narrative.
But, of course, the damage is already done. Trump has been handed a powerful political weapon which may have ensured his reelection to the White House, and, far, far worse, a new cold war with Russia is now underway which threatens the life of every organism on this earth, facilitated by a political/media class who convinced the public that they could hurt the president by demanding that he take a more hawkish posture toward Russia. That Pandora’s box won’t be un-opened by these new revelations.
This should be the end of the mass media. In anything resembling a sane world, Rachel Maddow would be unloading her desk into a cardboard box today, and Aaron Maté would become the most respected and highest-paid journalist in America.
This should be the end of the Democratic party. This dismal state of affairs is their fault, from the content of the leaked emails to their handling of it. They have had choices on the way to clean up their act but, they have blankly refused at every juncture. Not one thing has changed since the emails revealed that the DNC rigs its primaries, and yet here we are in the middle of another fake primary with everyone going along with it like it’s a real thing. It’s weird. In a healthy democratic republic the party would be dead already, and a new one would’ve taken its place fueled by fresh energy and enthusiasm but the donor-class corruption is so deeply entrenched that that possibility has seemed like a fantasy.
For now. The next couple of days are going to be very important. As the clamoring din of Russiagate falls into the memory hole, a large empty space will open up. As the pundits scramble to find the Next Big Thing to blare through the screens, the people will be left to their own devices for a few precious moments. They won’t know what to think. They may even have some of their own thoughts for once. The media landscape will resemble a demolition site. So why not use this space to push forward some new exciting ideas. Space means possibilities. Space means something new can be built. After the crushing disappointment of finally finding out that the whole thing was a bust, two years have been lost to the bumbling ineptitude of Pelosi and Schumer, and now impeachment is off the table, what has anyone got to lose? Let’s try something new.
SC186-3
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/buyers-remorse/
Buyer’s Remorse
The Narrative is dead! Long live The Narrative!
That’s what played on CNN, NBC, and The New York Times yesterday as they struggled to digest the parting meal Robert Mueller served to the RussiaGate lynch mob: a nothingburger with a side of crow-flavored fries. Mr. Mueller was careful, though, to leave a nice red poison cherry on top with his statement that “…while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Mr. Mueller, who ought to know better, could not be more in error on that too-fine-a-point. The official finding that no crime was committed is, ipso facto, an exoneration, and to impute otherwise is a serious breach of his role in this legal melodrama. Prosecutors are expressly forbidden to traffic in defamation, aspersion, and innuendo in the absence of formal charges. So, it will be interesting to hear what Mr. Mueller has to say when Jerrold Nadler reels him into the House Judiciary Committee, as inevitably he will, to do to some ‘splainin.’
What actually happened with RussiaGate? A cabal of government officials colluded with the Hillary Clinton campaign to interfere in the 2016 election and, failing to achieve their desired outcome, engineered a two-years-plus formal inquisition to deflect attention from their own misconduct and attempt to overthrow the election result.
The Cable News characters, quite a few of them lawyers, were litigating the living shit out of the story on Sunday night in their usual spirit of obdurate rank dishonesty. For instance, Jeffrey Toobin, who plays Attorney General on CNN, went off on the infamous 2016 Trump Tower Meeting in which the president’s son, Donald, Jr., met with Russian lawyer Natalia V. Veselnitskaya. Toobin omitted to mention that Ms. Veselnitskaya was, at that very time, on the payroll of Fusion GPS, Hillary Clinton’s “oppo” research contractor. In other words, Trump Junior was set up.
That was characteristic of the collusion that actually occurred between the Hillary campaign, the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA, the UK’s MI6 intel agency, and the Obama White House, striving to prevent the election of a TV reality show star, and to disable him afterwards — also of the news media’s role in the whole interminable scam of RussiaGate. Their fury and despair were as vivid the night of March 24, 2019, as on November 8, 2016. And now they will attempt to spark off a sequel.
Rachel Maddow, for instance, struggling to maintain her dignity after two years playing Madame DeFarge on MSNBC, tried to console her fans with the prospect of Mr. Trump getting raked over the coals by the DOJ’s Southern District of NY prosecutors for crimes as yet unpredicted — really, whatever they might find if they turn over enough rocks in Manhattan. Perhaps she doesn’t know how the justice system actually works in this country: we prosecute crimes not persons. In places like Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany, you first choose a person to eliminate and then fit them to a crime. If no crime can be found, one is easily manufactured. In the USA, a predicate crime is required before you can launch a prosecution. Perhaps the actual Attorney General, Mr. Barr, will advise the avid staff of the Southern District of NY how this works.
There remains also, the rather sweeping panorama of misconduct and probable crime among the government (and former government) players in the agencies mentioned above. Does the full Mueller Report mention, for instance, that the animating document claiming that Trump colluded with Russia was manufactured by Mrs. Clinton’s employees? And that this document was used time and again improperly and illegally to prolong the inquisition? How could Mr. Mueller not acknowledge that? And if not, what sort of investigation was this?
You are forced to ask: did Mr. Mueller play an honorable role in this epic, multilayered scandal? And is Mr. Mueller himself an honorable character, or something less than that? I believe we’ll find out. The other team is coming to bat now — and just in time for MLB’s opening day, too. The Mueller report has been a shocking disappointment to the so-called “resistance,” but what about the as-yet-unreleased DOJ Inspector General’s report on these very matters? Or the parallel investigation of federal prosecutor John Huber, who is charged specifically with looking into the malfeasance of the RussiaGate investigators? Or whatever action the Attorney General himself launches in the wake of all this? Or whether Mr. Trump finally declassifies the mountains of documents behind the simple failure to find him guilty of any crime?
My favorite college professor and mentor, David Hamilton, once put a curious question to us when we were vexing him for some reason now forgotten: “Why,” he asked, “Did Achilles drag Hector around the city of Troy three times?”
We twiddled our cigarettes and pulled our chins.
“Because he was just that pissed,” he said.
Buyer’s Remorse
The Narrative is dead! Long live The Narrative!
That’s what played on CNN, NBC, and The New York Times yesterday as they struggled to digest the parting meal Robert Mueller served to the RussiaGate lynch mob: a nothingburger with a side of crow-flavored fries. Mr. Mueller was careful, though, to leave a nice red poison cherry on top with his statement that “…while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Mr. Mueller, who ought to know better, could not be more in error on that too-fine-a-point. The official finding that no crime was committed is, ipso facto, an exoneration, and to impute otherwise is a serious breach of his role in this legal melodrama. Prosecutors are expressly forbidden to traffic in defamation, aspersion, and innuendo in the absence of formal charges. So, it will be interesting to hear what Mr. Mueller has to say when Jerrold Nadler reels him into the House Judiciary Committee, as inevitably he will, to do to some ‘splainin.’
What actually happened with RussiaGate? A cabal of government officials colluded with the Hillary Clinton campaign to interfere in the 2016 election and, failing to achieve their desired outcome, engineered a two-years-plus formal inquisition to deflect attention from their own misconduct and attempt to overthrow the election result.
The Cable News characters, quite a few of them lawyers, were litigating the living shit out of the story on Sunday night in their usual spirit of obdurate rank dishonesty. For instance, Jeffrey Toobin, who plays Attorney General on CNN, went off on the infamous 2016 Trump Tower Meeting in which the president’s son, Donald, Jr., met with Russian lawyer Natalia V. Veselnitskaya. Toobin omitted to mention that Ms. Veselnitskaya was, at that very time, on the payroll of Fusion GPS, Hillary Clinton’s “oppo” research contractor. In other words, Trump Junior was set up.
That was characteristic of the collusion that actually occurred between the Hillary campaign, the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA, the UK’s MI6 intel agency, and the Obama White House, striving to prevent the election of a TV reality show star, and to disable him afterwards — also of the news media’s role in the whole interminable scam of RussiaGate. Their fury and despair were as vivid the night of March 24, 2019, as on November 8, 2016. And now they will attempt to spark off a sequel.
Rachel Maddow, for instance, struggling to maintain her dignity after two years playing Madame DeFarge on MSNBC, tried to console her fans with the prospect of Mr. Trump getting raked over the coals by the DOJ’s Southern District of NY prosecutors for crimes as yet unpredicted — really, whatever they might find if they turn over enough rocks in Manhattan. Perhaps she doesn’t know how the justice system actually works in this country: we prosecute crimes not persons. In places like Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany, you first choose a person to eliminate and then fit them to a crime. If no crime can be found, one is easily manufactured. In the USA, a predicate crime is required before you can launch a prosecution. Perhaps the actual Attorney General, Mr. Barr, will advise the avid staff of the Southern District of NY how this works.
There remains also, the rather sweeping panorama of misconduct and probable crime among the government (and former government) players in the agencies mentioned above. Does the full Mueller Report mention, for instance, that the animating document claiming that Trump colluded with Russia was manufactured by Mrs. Clinton’s employees? And that this document was used time and again improperly and illegally to prolong the inquisition? How could Mr. Mueller not acknowledge that? And if not, what sort of investigation was this?
You are forced to ask: did Mr. Mueller play an honorable role in this epic, multilayered scandal? And is Mr. Mueller himself an honorable character, or something less than that? I believe we’ll find out. The other team is coming to bat now — and just in time for MLB’s opening day, too. The Mueller report has been a shocking disappointment to the so-called “resistance,” but what about the as-yet-unreleased DOJ Inspector General’s report on these very matters? Or the parallel investigation of federal prosecutor John Huber, who is charged specifically with looking into the malfeasance of the RussiaGate investigators? Or whatever action the Attorney General himself launches in the wake of all this? Or whether Mr. Trump finally declassifies the mountains of documents behind the simple failure to find him guilty of any crime?
My favorite college professor and mentor, David Hamilton, once put a curious question to us when we were vexing him for some reason now forgotten: “Why,” he asked, “Did Achilles drag Hector around the city of Troy three times?”
We twiddled our cigarettes and pulled our chins.
“Because he was just that pissed,” he said.
Sunday, March 24, 2019
SC186-2
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51313.htm
Countdown to “Full Spectrum Dominance”
The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020. With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking…
Back in 1997, the now-re-established US Space Command announced its commitment to “full spectrum dominance.” The Vision for 2020 explains that “full spectrum dominance” means military control over land, sea, air, and space (the so-called fourth dimension of warfare) “to protect US interests and investment.” “Protect” means guarantee operational freedom. “US interest and investment” means corporate profits.
The glossy brochure explains that, in the past, the Army evolved to protect US settlers who stole land from Native Americans in the genocidal birth of the nation. Like the Vision for 2020, a report by the National Defense University acknowledges that by the 19th century, the Navy had evolved to protect the US’s newly-formulated “grand strategy.” In addition to supposedly protecting citizens and the constitution, “The overriding principle was, and remains, the protection of American territory … and our economic well-being.” By the 20th century, the Air Force had been established, in the words of the Air Force Study Strategy Guide, to protect “vital interests,” including: “commerce; secure energy supplies; [and] freedom of action.” In the 21stcentury, these pillars of power are bolstered by the Cyber Command and the coming Space Force.
The use of the Army, Navy, and Air Force—the three dimensions of power—means that the US is already close to achieving “full spectrum dominance.” Brown University’s Cost of War project documents current US military involvement in 80 countries—or 40% of the world’s nations. This includes 65 so-called counterterrorism training operations and 40 military bases (though others think the number of bases is much higher). By this measure, “full spectrum dominance” is nearly half way complete. But the map leaves out US and NATO bases, training programs, and operations in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine.
As the US expands its space operations—the fourth dimension of warfare—the race towards “full spectrum dominance” quickens. Space has long been militarized in the sense that the US uses satellites to guide missiles and aircraft. But the new doctrine seeks to weaponize space by, for instance, blurring the boundaries between high-altitude military aircraft and space itself. Today’s space power will be harnessed by the US to ensure dominance over the satellite infrastructure that allows for the modern world of internet, e-commerce, GPS, telecommunications, surveillance, and war-fighting.
Since the 1950s, the United Nations has introduced various treaties to prohibit the militarization and weaponization of space—the most famous being the Outer Space Treaty (1967). These treaties aim to preserve space as a commons for all humanity. The creation of the US Space Force is a blatant violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of those treaties. In more recent decades, successive US governments have unilaterally rejected treaties to reinforce and expand the existing space-for-peace agreements. In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), allowing it to expand its long-range missile systems. In 2008, China and Russia submitted to the UN Conference on Disarmament the proposed Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects. This would have preserved the space-as-a-commons principle and answered US claims that “enemies” would use space as a battleground against US satellites.
But peace is not the goal. The goal is “full spectrum dominance,” so the US rejected the offer. China and Russia introduced the proposed the treaty again in 2014—and again the US rejected it. Earlier this year, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Last month, President Trump sent an unclassified memo on the new Space Directive-4 to the Vice President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, NASA, and the Secretaries of Defense and State.
The document makes for chilling and vital reading. It recommends legislating for the training of US forces “to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in, space, and to provide vital capabilities to joint and coalition forces.” Crucially, this doctrine includes “peacetime and across the spectrum of conflict.” As well as integrating space forces with the intelligence community, the memo recommends establishing a Chief of Staff of the Space Force, who will to join the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo also says that US space operations will abide by “international law.” But given that the US has rejected anti-space weapons treaties, it is barely constrained by international law.
In late-2017, Space.com reported on a $26.3m Department of Defense contract with Lockheed Martin to build lasers for fighter jets under the Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments program. The report says that the lasers will be ready by 2021. The article links to Doug Graham, the Vice President of Missile Systems and Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. In the original link Graham reveals that the Air Force laser “is an example of how Lockheed Martin is using a variety of innovative technologies to transform laser devices into integrated weapon systems.”
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) states in a projection out to the year 2050: “Economies are becoming increasingly dependent upon space-based systems … By 2050, space-based weapon systems may also be deployed, which could include nuclear weapons.” But this is extremely reckless. Discussing technologies, including the artificial intelligence on which weapons systems are increasingly based, another MoD projection warns of “the potential for disastrous outcomes, planned and unplanned … Various doomsday scenarios arising in relation to these and other areas of development present the possibility of catastrophic impacts, ultimately including the end of the world, or at least of humanity.”
“Full spectrum dominance” is not only a danger to the world, it is a danger to US citizens who would also suffer the consequences, if and when something goes wrong with their leaders’ complicated space weapons.
Countdown to “Full Spectrum Dominance”
The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020. With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking…
Back in 1997, the now-re-established US Space Command announced its commitment to “full spectrum dominance.” The Vision for 2020 explains that “full spectrum dominance” means military control over land, sea, air, and space (the so-called fourth dimension of warfare) “to protect US interests and investment.” “Protect” means guarantee operational freedom. “US interest and investment” means corporate profits.
The glossy brochure explains that, in the past, the Army evolved to protect US settlers who stole land from Native Americans in the genocidal birth of the nation. Like the Vision for 2020, a report by the National Defense University acknowledges that by the 19th century, the Navy had evolved to protect the US’s newly-formulated “grand strategy.” In addition to supposedly protecting citizens and the constitution, “The overriding principle was, and remains, the protection of American territory … and our economic well-being.” By the 20th century, the Air Force had been established, in the words of the Air Force Study Strategy Guide, to protect “vital interests,” including: “commerce; secure energy supplies; [and] freedom of action.” In the 21stcentury, these pillars of power are bolstered by the Cyber Command and the coming Space Force.
The use of the Army, Navy, and Air Force—the three dimensions of power—means that the US is already close to achieving “full spectrum dominance.” Brown University’s Cost of War project documents current US military involvement in 80 countries—or 40% of the world’s nations. This includes 65 so-called counterterrorism training operations and 40 military bases (though others think the number of bases is much higher). By this measure, “full spectrum dominance” is nearly half way complete. But the map leaves out US and NATO bases, training programs, and operations in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine.
As the US expands its space operations—the fourth dimension of warfare—the race towards “full spectrum dominance” quickens. Space has long been militarized in the sense that the US uses satellites to guide missiles and aircraft. But the new doctrine seeks to weaponize space by, for instance, blurring the boundaries between high-altitude military aircraft and space itself. Today’s space power will be harnessed by the US to ensure dominance over the satellite infrastructure that allows for the modern world of internet, e-commerce, GPS, telecommunications, surveillance, and war-fighting.
Since the 1950s, the United Nations has introduced various treaties to prohibit the militarization and weaponization of space—the most famous being the Outer Space Treaty (1967). These treaties aim to preserve space as a commons for all humanity. The creation of the US Space Force is a blatant violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of those treaties. In more recent decades, successive US governments have unilaterally rejected treaties to reinforce and expand the existing space-for-peace agreements. In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), allowing it to expand its long-range missile systems. In 2008, China and Russia submitted to the UN Conference on Disarmament the proposed Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects. This would have preserved the space-as-a-commons principle and answered US claims that “enemies” would use space as a battleground against US satellites.
But peace is not the goal. The goal is “full spectrum dominance,” so the US rejected the offer. China and Russia introduced the proposed the treaty again in 2014—and again the US rejected it. Earlier this year, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Last month, President Trump sent an unclassified memo on the new Space Directive-4 to the Vice President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, NASA, and the Secretaries of Defense and State.
The document makes for chilling and vital reading. It recommends legislating for the training of US forces “to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in, space, and to provide vital capabilities to joint and coalition forces.” Crucially, this doctrine includes “peacetime and across the spectrum of conflict.” As well as integrating space forces with the intelligence community, the memo recommends establishing a Chief of Staff of the Space Force, who will to join the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo also says that US space operations will abide by “international law.” But given that the US has rejected anti-space weapons treaties, it is barely constrained by international law.
In late-2017, Space.com reported on a $26.3m Department of Defense contract with Lockheed Martin to build lasers for fighter jets under the Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments program. The report says that the lasers will be ready by 2021. The article links to Doug Graham, the Vice President of Missile Systems and Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. In the original link Graham reveals that the Air Force laser “is an example of how Lockheed Martin is using a variety of innovative technologies to transform laser devices into integrated weapon systems.”
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) states in a projection out to the year 2050: “Economies are becoming increasingly dependent upon space-based systems … By 2050, space-based weapon systems may also be deployed, which could include nuclear weapons.” But this is extremely reckless. Discussing technologies, including the artificial intelligence on which weapons systems are increasingly based, another MoD projection warns of “the potential for disastrous outcomes, planned and unplanned … Various doomsday scenarios arising in relation to these and other areas of development present the possibility of catastrophic impacts, ultimately including the end of the world, or at least of humanity.”
“Full spectrum dominance” is not only a danger to the world, it is a danger to US citizens who would also suffer the consequences, if and when something goes wrong with their leaders’ complicated space weapons.
Saturday, March 23, 2019
SC186-1
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51310.htm
US-Germany Rift Set To Blow
This is going to get very ugly. Germany is openly defying US President Trump's demands to spend more on its NATO budget. Already the American ambassador to the country is crying foul, prompting German calls for his expulsion.
Of all the countries in the European Union, it is Germany that's been mostly on the receiving end of Trump's wrath since he entered the White House. In two years, the bilateral relation between Washington and Berlin has plummeted under the weight of Trump's withering verbal attacks.
The American president has assailed Germany for unfair trading practices over its lucrative auto exports; and he has virtually accused Berlin of treason in its dealings with Russia for natural gas supply, threatening to slap economic sanctions on German firms over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project under the Baltic Sea.
Germany has vehemently rejected Trump's accusations, saying its auto industry is a big investor in creating American jobs, and that its energy policies are a sovereign matter based on objective market principles.
But above all his complaints, Trump has continually rebuked Germany for not spending enough on NATO commitments, sniping that the country is freeloading on American military protection. At a NATO summit last year, Trump hectored German Chancellor Angela Merkel to raise her country's annual military budget to the designated NATO target of 2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
For many years, especially after the end of the Cold War, German military spending has lagged at around 1 per cent of GDP. Trump contends that, as Europe's largest national economy, Berlin should at least double its defence budget.
Latest figures, however, show that German military spending is nowhere near reaching the 2 per cent target that Trump has been fulminating about. Indeed, the trend appears to be one of declining expenditure by Berlin on military, not increasing.
That caused earlier this week US ambassador Richard Grenell to decry Germany's "failure" to live up to its NATO commitments.
Grenell is something of a Trump cypher. It is not the first time the envoy has harangued Germany in terms that his boss in the White House could have almost written for him. Grenell has been slamming Berlin over the Nord Stream 2 gas project with Russia and in its dealings with Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.
His condemnations this week regarding Germany's military budget have again sparked furore among the country's politicians and media, eliciting further public calls for the envoy to be expelled owing to his alleged gross interference in Berlin's internal affairs. "An ambassador is not supposed to act like the spokesman of an occupying power," said Wolfgang Kubicki, the deputy leader of the Free Democrat Party.
The New York Times this week reported "the timing couldn't be worse" for US-German relations. Next month marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the NATO alliance. A major celebration is due to take place in Washington DC for the occasion. The atmosphere will be severely chilled by Germany's truculent defiance of Trump to boost its commitment to NATO.
Out of some 30 members in the US-led NATO bloc, only seven countries have managed to raise their military budgets to the 2 per cent of GDP target that Trump has clamoured for. That target figure predates Trump's presidency. But since the end of the Cold War, many European members of NATO have reduced military spending. Trump has made it an obsessive issue and has even threatened to pull the US out of NATO if European members don't pull their financial weight.
Germany and others should call Trump's bluff and say, "go ahead!" — pull your troops, missiles and warplanes out of Europe. US forces in Europe have never been about "protection" and have always been about "projection" of American hegemonic power over European vassals, in particular, to prevent a normal and natural relationship with Russia progressing.
The American obsession with military spending needs to be vigorously challenged. What is this pathological addiction for? It is of course about milking the civilian economy to fatten the profits of giant military companies. It's a racket that requires the poisoning of international relations with Russia and China, among others, in order to sustain the charade of syphoning off public money.
The greatest security threat to Western societies is the massive growth of poverty, deprivation and inequality, according to a new OECD report. The whole scaremongering about Russia and other "foreign enemies" is a risible ruse for the obscene misuse of public money by a military-industrial complex that is a colossal parasite on society. A laughable contradiction is that Trump is supposed to be a "Russian puppet", according to his domestic political enemies, and yet he is pushing the anti-Russia pretext on behalf of the military-industrial complex more than any president.
Germany and most NATO members are just right to ignore Trump's dictate about dubious defence spending. The money would be much better invested in productive and genuinely beneficial social development.
One senses a showdown looming between Washington and Berlin. Germany has for too long been allowing itself to be kicked around by an American "occupying power". Under Trump, the insulting humiliation has only become more acute. How long can Berlin tolerate this abusive taskmaster? Especially when there is growing opposition in the German and wider European public despising the American overlord and its dictates.
US-Germany Rift Set To Blow
This is going to get very ugly. Germany is openly defying US President Trump's demands to spend more on its NATO budget. Already the American ambassador to the country is crying foul, prompting German calls for his expulsion.
Of all the countries in the European Union, it is Germany that's been mostly on the receiving end of Trump's wrath since he entered the White House. In two years, the bilateral relation between Washington and Berlin has plummeted under the weight of Trump's withering verbal attacks.
The American president has assailed Germany for unfair trading practices over its lucrative auto exports; and he has virtually accused Berlin of treason in its dealings with Russia for natural gas supply, threatening to slap economic sanctions on German firms over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project under the Baltic Sea.
Germany has vehemently rejected Trump's accusations, saying its auto industry is a big investor in creating American jobs, and that its energy policies are a sovereign matter based on objective market principles.
But above all his complaints, Trump has continually rebuked Germany for not spending enough on NATO commitments, sniping that the country is freeloading on American military protection. At a NATO summit last year, Trump hectored German Chancellor Angela Merkel to raise her country's annual military budget to the designated NATO target of 2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
For many years, especially after the end of the Cold War, German military spending has lagged at around 1 per cent of GDP. Trump contends that, as Europe's largest national economy, Berlin should at least double its defence budget.
Latest figures, however, show that German military spending is nowhere near reaching the 2 per cent target that Trump has been fulminating about. Indeed, the trend appears to be one of declining expenditure by Berlin on military, not increasing.
That caused earlier this week US ambassador Richard Grenell to decry Germany's "failure" to live up to its NATO commitments.
Grenell is something of a Trump cypher. It is not the first time the envoy has harangued Germany in terms that his boss in the White House could have almost written for him. Grenell has been slamming Berlin over the Nord Stream 2 gas project with Russia and in its dealings with Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.
His condemnations this week regarding Germany's military budget have again sparked furore among the country's politicians and media, eliciting further public calls for the envoy to be expelled owing to his alleged gross interference in Berlin's internal affairs. "An ambassador is not supposed to act like the spokesman of an occupying power," said Wolfgang Kubicki, the deputy leader of the Free Democrat Party.
The New York Times this week reported "the timing couldn't be worse" for US-German relations. Next month marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the NATO alliance. A major celebration is due to take place in Washington DC for the occasion. The atmosphere will be severely chilled by Germany's truculent defiance of Trump to boost its commitment to NATO.
Out of some 30 members in the US-led NATO bloc, only seven countries have managed to raise their military budgets to the 2 per cent of GDP target that Trump has clamoured for. That target figure predates Trump's presidency. But since the end of the Cold War, many European members of NATO have reduced military spending. Trump has made it an obsessive issue and has even threatened to pull the US out of NATO if European members don't pull their financial weight.
Germany and others should call Trump's bluff and say, "go ahead!" — pull your troops, missiles and warplanes out of Europe. US forces in Europe have never been about "protection" and have always been about "projection" of American hegemonic power over European vassals, in particular, to prevent a normal and natural relationship with Russia progressing.
The American obsession with military spending needs to be vigorously challenged. What is this pathological addiction for? It is of course about milking the civilian economy to fatten the profits of giant military companies. It's a racket that requires the poisoning of international relations with Russia and China, among others, in order to sustain the charade of syphoning off public money.
The greatest security threat to Western societies is the massive growth of poverty, deprivation and inequality, according to a new OECD report. The whole scaremongering about Russia and other "foreign enemies" is a risible ruse for the obscene misuse of public money by a military-industrial complex that is a colossal parasite on society. A laughable contradiction is that Trump is supposed to be a "Russian puppet", according to his domestic political enemies, and yet he is pushing the anti-Russia pretext on behalf of the military-industrial complex more than any president.
Germany and most NATO members are just right to ignore Trump's dictate about dubious defence spending. The money would be much better invested in productive and genuinely beneficial social development.
One senses a showdown looming between Washington and Berlin. Germany has for too long been allowing itself to be kicked around by an American "occupying power". Under Trump, the insulting humiliation has only become more acute. How long can Berlin tolerate this abusive taskmaster? Especially when there is growing opposition in the German and wider European public despising the American overlord and its dictates.
Friday, March 22, 2019
SC185-15
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/22/us-completely-invalidates-all-of-its-own-arguments-about-crimea/
US Completely Invalidates All Of Its Own Arguments About Crimea
Well the worst Putin Puppet of all time is at it again, this time tweeting that the US must recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel despite the fact that the Israeli occupation of that Syrian land is illegal under international law.
“After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!”, Trump’s tweet reads.
Russian parliament member Oleg Morozov made a statement in response to Trump’s proclamation, saying that “Russia will never agree to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Golan. Trump is damaging the international community and the Arab world”.
Trump’s tweet follows a report last week that his administration has deliberately softened the US government’s language concerning the Golan Heights in a way that is favorable to Israel, referring to the region as “Israeli-controlled” instead of “Israeli-occupied” as it had always previously been. This is just one more of the many, many ways in which the facts demonstrate a virulently anti-Russia posture by the Trump administration in the face of a funhouse mirror mass media narrative which claims the exact opposite, another of those facts being the administration’s sanctions and hawkish posturing over the Russian Federation’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“More red meat for Trump’s Evangelical base,” tweeted journalist Mark Ames in response to Trump’s tweet. “Doubt anyone will care about US hypocrisy since hypocrisy is what defines us—rewarding Israel’s armed seizure/colonization/annexation of Golan; yet punishing Russia’s Crimea annexation, which at least had local majority-Russian support.”
“How do the delusional @Maddow #Russiagate peddlers explain that ‘Putin puppet’ @realDonaldTrump still refuses to recognize Russian annexation of Crimea, but just did Netanyahu’s bidding and recognized illegal Israeli annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights?” asked Electric Intifada‘s Ali Abunimah.
“Putin will use this as a pretext to justify Russia’s annexation of Crimea,” former US ambassador to Israel Martin S. Indyk told the New York Times. “The Israeli right will use it as a pretext for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. It is a truly gratuitous move by Trump.”
“Twaddle,” tweeted the Global Policy Institute’s George Szamuely in response to Indyk’s NYT statement. “Putin doesn’t need any ‘pretext to justify’ anything. The return of Crimea to Russia took place 5 years ago, via a referendum in accordance with the constitution of Crimea. Putin won’t bring up the Golan because the two situations are so different.”
In an excellent article for Strategic Culture titled “US Duplicity over Golan Demolishes Posturing on Crimea” written prior to Trump’s statement, journalist Finian Cunningham breaks down the differences and similarities between Washington’s position on Crimea versus the Golan Heights, and explains how its current push to validate Israel’s annexation completely invalidates its own arguments about Crimea. I highly recommend checking out Cunningham’s article in its entirety for anyone who’s interested in this, as its arguments are largely unassailable, but here are some excerpts:
Israel has occupied the western part of the Golan since 1967 as a spoil from that war. In 1981, Tel Aviv formally annexed the Syrian territory. However, the UN Security Council in 1981, including the US, unanimously condemned the annexation as illegal. The resolution mandates Israel to return the land to Syria which has historical claim to the entire Golan. The area of 1,800 square kilometers is a strategic elevation overlooking the northern Jordan Valley.
If Washington confirms its recent indications of recognizing the Golan as officially part of Israel, the development would mark an egregious flouting of international law.
Claims by Washington and the European Union of “illegal annexation” of Crimea by Russia are the central basis for five years of economic sanctions imposed on Moscow. Those sanctions have contributed to ever-worsening tensions with Russia and the build-up of NATO forces along Russia’s borders.
Those claims are, however, highly contestable. The people of Crimea voted in a legally constituted referendum in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine and to join the Russian Federation. That referendum followed an illegal coup in Kiev in February 2014 backed by the US and Europe against a legally elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Historically, Crimea has centuries of shared cultural heritage with Russia. Its erstwhile position within the state of Ukraine was arguably an anomaly of the Cold War and subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union.
In any case, there is scant comparison between the Golan Heights and Crimea, save, that is, for the latest hypocrisy in Washington. While Crimea and its people are arguably historically part of Russia, the Golan Heights are indisputably a sovereign part of Syria which was forcibly annexed by Israeli military occupation.
The discrepancy between the White House’s positions on Crimea and the Golan Heights can easily be explained by the nature of America’s overarching imperialist agenda. The US-centralized empire, of which Israel is an inseparable part, operates much like the creature in the 1958 movie The Blob: its goal is to absorb as many geostrategic territories into itself as possible, growing larger and stronger with every absorption. The Golan Heights is a resource rich region dominated by plutocratic interests and provides Israel with a third of its water supply, as well as a strategically valuable location for attacking and undermining the unabsorbed nation of Syria and its unabsorbed Iranian and Hezbollah allies.
Crimea, meanwhile, is another highly strategically important location, but its control shifted outside the blob of empire when its people chose Moscow over Kiev. The blob of empire is strengthened and enlarged with the addition of the Golan Heights, but weakened and shrunk with the loss of Crimea.
We see this dynamic playing out all over the globe. Bolsonaro’s election in Brazil was a huge victory for the blob, strengthening its ability to attack and absorb other unabsorbed nations like Venezuela. This is why John Bolton recently tweeted that “We’re proud to make Brazil a Major Non-NATO Ally, and look forward to working with them on Venezuela, Iran, and China. A great meeting with a strong new strategic partner!”, and why Bolsonaro refused to deny the possibility of Brazil aiding the US in military action against Venezuela during his press conference with the president the other day.
The tight network of US allies which functions as an empire on foreign policy is constantly attempting to expand roughly eastward and southward, and to undermine the interests of any government which presents an obstacle to that expansion. Many people have grown very rich by the exploitative and frequently violent nature of this expansion, in precisely the way colonialists and conquistadors grew very rich with the exploitative and frequently violent expansion of European power into the rest of the world hundreds of years ago. The alliance of secretive government agencies and thieving plutocrats has been ensuring a concurrent metastasizing of corporate and government power along the waves of that expansion, and it won’t stop until either the empire is overthrown, the world is completely absorbed, or these bastards get us all killed in a nuclear holocaust with their reckless imperialist aggression.
US Completely Invalidates All Of Its Own Arguments About Crimea
Well the worst Putin Puppet of all time is at it again, this time tweeting that the US must recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel despite the fact that the Israeli occupation of that Syrian land is illegal under international law.
“After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!”, Trump’s tweet reads.
Russian parliament member Oleg Morozov made a statement in response to Trump’s proclamation, saying that “Russia will never agree to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Golan. Trump is damaging the international community and the Arab world”.
Trump’s tweet follows a report last week that his administration has deliberately softened the US government’s language concerning the Golan Heights in a way that is favorable to Israel, referring to the region as “Israeli-controlled” instead of “Israeli-occupied” as it had always previously been. This is just one more of the many, many ways in which the facts demonstrate a virulently anti-Russia posture by the Trump administration in the face of a funhouse mirror mass media narrative which claims the exact opposite, another of those facts being the administration’s sanctions and hawkish posturing over the Russian Federation’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“More red meat for Trump’s Evangelical base,” tweeted journalist Mark Ames in response to Trump’s tweet. “Doubt anyone will care about US hypocrisy since hypocrisy is what defines us—rewarding Israel’s armed seizure/colonization/annexation of Golan; yet punishing Russia’s Crimea annexation, which at least had local majority-Russian support.”
“How do the delusional @Maddow #Russiagate peddlers explain that ‘Putin puppet’ @realDonaldTrump still refuses to recognize Russian annexation of Crimea, but just did Netanyahu’s bidding and recognized illegal Israeli annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights?” asked Electric Intifada‘s Ali Abunimah.
“Putin will use this as a pretext to justify Russia’s annexation of Crimea,” former US ambassador to Israel Martin S. Indyk told the New York Times. “The Israeli right will use it as a pretext for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. It is a truly gratuitous move by Trump.”
“Twaddle,” tweeted the Global Policy Institute’s George Szamuely in response to Indyk’s NYT statement. “Putin doesn’t need any ‘pretext to justify’ anything. The return of Crimea to Russia took place 5 years ago, via a referendum in accordance with the constitution of Crimea. Putin won’t bring up the Golan because the two situations are so different.”
In an excellent article for Strategic Culture titled “US Duplicity over Golan Demolishes Posturing on Crimea” written prior to Trump’s statement, journalist Finian Cunningham breaks down the differences and similarities between Washington’s position on Crimea versus the Golan Heights, and explains how its current push to validate Israel’s annexation completely invalidates its own arguments about Crimea. I highly recommend checking out Cunningham’s article in its entirety for anyone who’s interested in this, as its arguments are largely unassailable, but here are some excerpts:
Israel has occupied the western part of the Golan since 1967 as a spoil from that war. In 1981, Tel Aviv formally annexed the Syrian territory. However, the UN Security Council in 1981, including the US, unanimously condemned the annexation as illegal. The resolution mandates Israel to return the land to Syria which has historical claim to the entire Golan. The area of 1,800 square kilometers is a strategic elevation overlooking the northern Jordan Valley.
If Washington confirms its recent indications of recognizing the Golan as officially part of Israel, the development would mark an egregious flouting of international law.
Claims by Washington and the European Union of “illegal annexation” of Crimea by Russia are the central basis for five years of economic sanctions imposed on Moscow. Those sanctions have contributed to ever-worsening tensions with Russia and the build-up of NATO forces along Russia’s borders.
Those claims are, however, highly contestable. The people of Crimea voted in a legally constituted referendum in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine and to join the Russian Federation. That referendum followed an illegal coup in Kiev in February 2014 backed by the US and Europe against a legally elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Historically, Crimea has centuries of shared cultural heritage with Russia. Its erstwhile position within the state of Ukraine was arguably an anomaly of the Cold War and subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union.
In any case, there is scant comparison between the Golan Heights and Crimea, save, that is, for the latest hypocrisy in Washington. While Crimea and its people are arguably historically part of Russia, the Golan Heights are indisputably a sovereign part of Syria which was forcibly annexed by Israeli military occupation.
The discrepancy between the White House’s positions on Crimea and the Golan Heights can easily be explained by the nature of America’s overarching imperialist agenda. The US-centralized empire, of which Israel is an inseparable part, operates much like the creature in the 1958 movie The Blob: its goal is to absorb as many geostrategic territories into itself as possible, growing larger and stronger with every absorption. The Golan Heights is a resource rich region dominated by plutocratic interests and provides Israel with a third of its water supply, as well as a strategically valuable location for attacking and undermining the unabsorbed nation of Syria and its unabsorbed Iranian and Hezbollah allies.
Crimea, meanwhile, is another highly strategically important location, but its control shifted outside the blob of empire when its people chose Moscow over Kiev. The blob of empire is strengthened and enlarged with the addition of the Golan Heights, but weakened and shrunk with the loss of Crimea.
We see this dynamic playing out all over the globe. Bolsonaro’s election in Brazil was a huge victory for the blob, strengthening its ability to attack and absorb other unabsorbed nations like Venezuela. This is why John Bolton recently tweeted that “We’re proud to make Brazil a Major Non-NATO Ally, and look forward to working with them on Venezuela, Iran, and China. A great meeting with a strong new strategic partner!”, and why Bolsonaro refused to deny the possibility of Brazil aiding the US in military action against Venezuela during his press conference with the president the other day.
The tight network of US allies which functions as an empire on foreign policy is constantly attempting to expand roughly eastward and southward, and to undermine the interests of any government which presents an obstacle to that expansion. Many people have grown very rich by the exploitative and frequently violent nature of this expansion, in precisely the way colonialists and conquistadors grew very rich with the exploitative and frequently violent expansion of European power into the rest of the world hundreds of years ago. The alliance of secretive government agencies and thieving plutocrats has been ensuring a concurrent metastasizing of corporate and government power along the waves of that expansion, and it won’t stop until either the empire is overthrown, the world is completely absorbed, or these bastards get us all killed in a nuclear holocaust with their reckless imperialist aggression.
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