Trump or Clinton?

=By=

donald_trump_hillary_clinton_sk_150619_16x9_992

Screen Shot 2016-01-23 at 2.38.28 PM

As a prefatory statement, let me say that Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is closest to my own values followed by Jill Stein of the Green Party. It is unlikely that either of these parties will garner enough votes in the upcoming election, though it would be interesting to see what would happen if the people would stand up and vote for one third party. Unfortunately, the system is structured in such a way that it would be almost impossible for a third party candidate to win even if they got the majority of votes on the states for which they are certified.

Every four years, Americans suspend disbelief, and pretend that there is some democratic process underway.

I’ve been asked to clarify where I stand on Trump vs. Clinton, and how the importance of this election lines up with my long-held analysis that the US is an oligarchical Republic but not the ‘Democracy’ it pretends to be. Rather, the ‘Optimates‘ (as in ancient Rome) on behalf of the Patricians (Oligarchs) choose the president, not the ‘Populares’ on behalf of the proletarians and plebians (the people). (Contrary to traditional views disseminated by upper class historians, Julius Caesar was a leader of the populares, and his reforms in favor of the masses prompted the aristocracy to call him a tyrant and plot his murder. For more on this, see Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, A People’s History Of Ancient Rome
.—Eds)
 ..
Within the US establishment, there are many individuals, many geniuses, a fair share of dullards, insatiable self-serving crooks, maniacs, and many big egos. Power is created and recreated everyday. Power can change hands very quickly, within a limited sphere of action, normally among the Optimates.
..
How do we reconcile that the Optimates choose the president they want anyway, but that simultaneously, ‘who’ the president is will have some distinct and concrete ramifications that separate him or her from the other candidate? It is complex, but can be explained in simple terms:
 ..
Simply put, whoever the establishment wants, they will get. But for the last year, they have been trying to sort out which way they will go forward.
 ..
If they choose Clinton, it is because they think they can maintain the same model they have been using, based on a particular type of Empire building on the neo-liberal model. It means they have some confidence in the efficacy of militarism, war, and adventurism. For this to be effective on a broader scale than under Bush, and more towards the very very scary direction we’ve seen under Obama, the left must be tied to the power institution (see Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson etc. etc.).
 ..
“When the thick veneer of propaganda is peeled off, it’s not that difficult to see that Clinton represents the party of war, imperialism, murder, and a wanton disrespect for civilized norms and the future of existence on planet earth…”
 …
If they choose Trump, it is because they do not think they can maintain the same model they have been using, and will draw themselves in, and do some time saving or re-configuring of the US economy and its power mechanisms, which takes into account the US’s diminished role in the world. This ‘America First’ is also called isolationism or non-interventionism. This is because the US is broke. It would want to hide its weakness and bankruptcy under the authoritarian-ish guise of a somewhat comical made-for-reality TV ‘Strongman’.  Americans could feel either very good or very scared about their president, instead of feeling either very good or very scared about the failing empire.
 ..
Unless this election turns out to be a real upset, with drastic differences between the Clinton and Trump ledgers, this will be a “51-49” race (actually, 47-48). That means that Diebold will come into play and perhaps be used to see the victory of the candidate which represents the 4-8 year plan. So it is not a question of who we vote for, but who they want for us. But even ‘they’ do not know who they want for us, and ‘they’ are divided.
 ..
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s clear that there is a serious contradiction: Clinton represents the party of war, imperialism, murder, and a wanton disrespect for civilized norms and the future of existence on planet earth; but those Americans focused purely on America’s navel-gazing internal boring drama crap, the stuff policy wonks get boners for, believe she is more ‘peace like’ in the sense that she nominally makes more well publicized nods at things which, symbolically, ‘feel’ like something ‘progressive’. At any rate, poverty and the incarceration of ‘minorities’, and as well the deportations of 1st peoples and indigenous peoples from their own historic migratory lands, increased under Obama and will increase under Clinton.
 ..
Trump, upsetting conventional analysis and norms, represents a ‘coup’ within a Republican party which no longer has a central locus of power in neo-conservatism, as these neo-conservatives, like the parasites they are, migrated into the Democratic Party where they are firmly entrenched for the coming decade or half decade. While breaking all of the internal American rules of ‘convention’ and ‘offending those with sensitive ears’, riling up the dangerous-because-still-uncivilized plebian populists, Trump is positioned to roll back US adventurism, and this has perhaps very little to do with any internal machinations of his psyche as a motivating force, or his own desires and proclivities. At the same time, if we take his words so far at face value (which we should not), he has verbalized numerous times this desire to de-escalate from any number of global conflicts, even floating the idea of recognizing the referendum in Crimea.
 ..
I have forecasted that since Sept 2013, the US lost its claim to unchallenged empire. In a way, we can thank an unassuming but finally larger than life person, Mother Superior Agnes Mariam de la Croix in Syria, who exposed the chemical weapons lie. (Obama’s “red line” had been set to trigger an attack by the US on account of putative Assad regime atrocities, but it was soon discovered that the chemical weapons attack had been carried out by the “rebels”, and facilitated by US and Saudi intel, with the notorious Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a royal bastard, literally, as chief plotter and coordinator.)  The fallout—unexpected by the imperialists—was swift: Britain could not be moved to bomb Syria, and the US —in a move to save face and gain some maneuvering time without letting go of its ultimate plan to overthrow Assad—pretended that Congress had to vote on such a matter. Not to mention that Russian diplomacy carved up the necessary space to let all sides save some face and agree to at least a momentary freeze on direct US assaults.
 ..
Therefore, I would like to see Trump win not because ‘we’ are going to have that call to make, but because of what it probably represents on the institutional level.
 ..
[dropcap]I [/dropcap]wrote in December of 2015 that a Trump presidency would radicalize elements of the left, especially those rank and file democrats tied to organized labor (safely in the hands of the Democratic Party) as well as community and civil organizations which comprise the non-profit industrial complex. Recently, Rafael Correa, also made a similar statement about Latin America and that a Trump presidency would be good for radicalizing Latin America – Democrats—as amply demonstrated by the nefarious “Obama effect”— lull everyone to sleep while the same crimes, or worse, take place. I can’t say I agree with his contradictory conclusion though that Hillary would be better overall, which he doesn’t seem to try to justify. Nevertheless, the logical part of his statement makes perfect sense.
 ..
Retreating to a world of make-believe, where formal democratic processes in the US would carry meaningful weight in political outcomes, I would say that Jill Stein and some of the energy around her and the Green Party platform, are closest to at least some of the values and positions that I would advocate for if I thought the US was a project that was either salvageable or worth saving. What is also important here in the Stein campaign is that the Green Party – through its name alone – reminds us of an another looming danger to the growing geopolitical conflict which threatens world war, and which has taken much of our attention away from the other – ecological disaster.
 ..
At the same time, the Clinton-bots will invariably say – and they would be right – that in the two-party winner-take-all system in the US, a vote for Stein is in effect a vote for Trump. Indeed, a vote for Stein would take votes from Democrats, and in swing states this would have a significant impact, especially since we are looking at a ’51-49′ election. For these reasons, we must also not get tripped up here.
 ..
To quote clear minded revolutionary and lucid thinker Mumia Abu-Jamal – “If Trump is the price we have to pay to defeat Clintonian neo-liberalism, then so be it”.  Trump is a challenge we are prepared to take, and some of the non-voters and Stein voters will be able to find energy moving forward – even more so if the following possible scenario takes place:
 ..
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f Trump is serious about winning, a very important strategic move would be to channel millions upon millions into the Stein campaign in swing states. I suspect that Gary Johnson’s Libertarians will get most of their financing in the coming months from organizations connected to the Clintons.
.. 
At any rate, these are very trying times. As I wrote in December of 2015 about the need to support Trump’s campaign, Americans need to understand that this time around they need to take one for the world team.
 ..
The Clintons are not just politicians, they are murderers, human traffickers, drug runners, and imperialists extraordinaire. Their resume would make King Leopold II of Belgium blush. Moreover, they are some of the most public living members of the deep state – in the executive branch—because of their direct and personal relationships with the military’s top brass as well as the owners of the military industrial complex, they can launch a war without congressional approval.  Trump, on the other hand doesn’t have such connections – indeed, his only connection to deep politics is through the Clintons. If the Trump campaign is not a total sham; which is to say, the Republican version of Obama – and there are indications that it is not, then what we have here would be an executive who would be quite ineffectual on foreign policy matters. 
 ..
In sum, what the world needs right now is an America with an ineffective and inexperienced ‘leader’, who doesn’t have connections to the military structures, and who will be coming to power through his own finances and mass popular support of millions of disaffected Americans. 

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About the author
 joaquin2Joaquin Flores, Special Associate Editor; Belgrade Correspondent, is a Mexican-American expat based in Belgrade. He is a full-time analyst and director at the Center for Syncretic Studies, a public geostrategic think-tank and consultancy firm, as well as the co-editor of Fort Russ news service. His expertise encompasses Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and he has a strong proficiency in Middle East affairs. Flores is particularly adept at analyzing ideology and the role of mass psychology, as well as the methods of the information war in the context of 4GW and New Media. He is a political scientist educated at California State University. In the US, he worked for a number of years as a labor union organizer, chief negotiator, and strategist for a major trade union federation. His work at TGP can be found here


 

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Erdowin, Erdowon, Erdogan

=By= Jimmie Moglia

Erdrogan

Cartoon by Vinenzo Apicella


Editor's Note
In this tale spoken through veil of Shakespearean sensibilities, Jimmie Moglia looks at the recent coup attempt in Turkey to overthrow the evil Erdogan, and the look further into that shadowy character hidden near yon shrubbery in the Poconos (U.S.), Fehtullah Gulen. Given the revelations regarding Gulen, I must point out that he is playing a role in another story as well (I do love synchronicity) running here at The Greanville Post, The Failed Turkish Coup – An Exploded View, by GH Eliason, wherein is also pointed out Gulen's involvement with the power of a certain (U.S.) emigre voting bloc, and what have we here? Another look at Gulen's relationship to B. Clinton and the muddy footprints leading back to Turkey. (Cough) But there is also this thorny character Erdowin, Erdowon, Erdogan, with whom the U.S. has danced for years and who now (along with his family) is making a tidy sum facilitating the movement of ISIS (purloined) oil tankers across Turkish borders and to the Erdogan family controlled ports. The U.S. public really misses these interesting stories as they watch the corporate infotainment (aka "news") which "left" (MSNBC), "right" (FOX), and "center" (ABC & CBS) are all politely averting all eyes from the sordid tales of Erdogan and Gulen, well paid puppets both who think they be the wooden toy with the unfortunate birth defect of his proboscus who wanted to be a "real" boy. - R W

hing, hang, hog…
Hang hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

(Merry Wives of Windsor, act 4, sc.1)

To the articulate speculations of many analysts on the failed coup in Turkey I will not add the vanity of my conjectures – for, clearly, everything and its opposite seem equally possible. I cannot guess the past, nor sound the bottom of the aftertimes (1) – hence just a few serendipitous observations.

Literarily speaking, and considering his massacres, Erdogan could be compared to Macbeth. However, Erdogan lacks Macbeth’s tragic persona, blinded and thrust forward by destiny and ambition – after having completely misunderstood the witches’ predictions.

Furthermore, there is something noble in Macbeth – and in moments of lucidity he even feels the pangs of conscience.

“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”
(2)

Even without allowing for the influence of Lady Macbeth, ambitious schemer from behind the curtains, who suggests,

“…look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t.”
(3)

With Erdogan we know nothing of the influence of his wife (or wives?). And while endeavoring to add new strands to the fabric of his ambition, Erdogan remains a kind of Falstaff, somewhat thinner, but deprived of any ability to laugh at himself, at least at times.

“I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass(4)

picture od erdogan as an ornery corner-store ownerErdogan looks like an ornery corner-store owner, angry because there isn’t enough ice in the refrigerator.

As an aside, that ‘g’ in Erdogan is neither a vowel nor a consonant; it’s a conso-vowel – a true piece of Levantine lexicography. Those in the know have mastered the correct pronunciation, but I side with the German songwriter, who ended up in court for his sacrilegious lyrics. Where the refrain in his sinful song ends with “Erdoui, Erdouo, Erdouan.” Here is the original https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6e-X0PEeMneLR7xWaQ5PNOSzfUsBd9NZ

To return to the coup, out of these global sagas with multiple threads, often spring out characters, previously unknown to the world at large. In the instance, the “fetid mullah with the goulash,” which is my mnemonic trick to remember the very Turkish name of Fehtullah Gulen, with the umlaut on the ‘u’ of Gulen – the Turkish, not the more familiar German umlaut.
picture of fehtullah gulen, enemy of erdoganBut how could anyone follow the million strands that pop in and out from the wool-ball-like-world of global politics? Beyond a certain limit we can’t and, even if we could, “memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume.” (5)

In the instance, Fehtullah, by just looking at him, is the embodiment of the quintessential godfather who makes you offers that you cannot refuse. In real life, he is a proven metaphorical milker of US cows – characters often found in the great morass of wild privatizations, undertaken in the exceptional nation. Here the udders are the ‘charter schools’, a proven venue to suck taxes from the taxpayers, in the name of (never proven and actually disproven) efficiency in pedagogy. The millionaires who caught the gale of fortune, thanks to the charter-school racket, make a pretty hefty number.

Apparently, Fehtullah has imported scores of Turkish instructors to teach English to Americans in his charter schools, thanks to the farcical H1B visa scheme (foreigners can be imported when no Americans can be found, able to do the same job).

But all makes sense, when considering the strong ties between the fetid mullah and the Clinton Foundation. Which, as demonstrated in the blog “The Clintons’ War on Women” should be more accurately renamed “The Oral and Anal Sex Foundation.” http://wp.me/p2e0kb-1Xk

lion in sheep's skin clothingAnalysts agree that the fetid mullah is a CIA ‘asset’ – an interesting euphemism, suggesting a menacing innocence under a veneer of verbal neutrality. What kind of asset? an informer, schemer, killer, plotter, non-expendable terrorist or expendable patsy?

But the impressions of some find their opposites in others, who see in Fehtullah a harmless old man descended into the vale of years. (6)

Just a little research, however, yields a different picture. Apparently, Fehtullah is a galvanizing figure in the world of Turkish expatriates. Furthermore, maybe like Erdogan, Fehtullah dreams (or plans) a new Ottoman Empire carved out from the lands of neighboring nations and stretching from Instanbul to the remote Turkish province of Uyghur in Northwest China.

Fehtullah’s plan to gain power in Turkey, reads like a chapter extracted from the Pentagon’s manual on Fourth Generation Warfare. Here is an extract from a speech broadcast on Turkish television before Fehtullah fled to the US as a refugee.

You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria … like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it … You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey … Until that time, any step taken would be too early—like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all—in confidence … trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here—[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here. – Fethullah Gülen Sermon broadcast on Turkish television

cartoon on Erdogan and coup in TurkeyBack to the coup. The lightning-speed purge of thousands in Turkey, begun even before the last soldier was captured, suggests that the proscription list had been ready for a while, waiting for implementation. Leading to the concurrent nazification of the Turkish people, inflamed by religious fanaticism, helpless victim of carnage, or witness of carnage inflicted on neighbors.

Meanwhile the EU chancelleries bleat recommendations of caution and moderation, as the Turkish Falstaff giggles and (possibly) asks, “How about two or three more millions of undocumented migrants?” “Should I close your bases and become a Russian ally?” “Do you want me to stop from plotting to have Assad assassinated like Gheddafi or Saddam?” “And I warn you CIA & Associates. If you come after me I have hard evidence of so many skeletons in your cupboard, that if you move a finger against me I will tell the whole world.”

Still, these considerations do not answer the question as to which theory, about the sequence of recent horrible events, is correct. A massacre in Nice, a coup d’etat in Turkey with hundreds of victims, hundreds of civilian victims in Aleppo, thanks to bombing conducted by the US and France. The very France, victim in the same week of an attack, which, whether genuine or otherwise, traces its origins to France’s military aggression in North Africa and the Middle East.

In the circumstances, while seeking for truth, or at least plausibility, I adhere to two principles,

1) It comes directly from Oscar Wilde, “Believe anything, provided it is quite incredible”
2) It applies to America and its colonies, “Do not believe anything until it’s denied.”

Let’s apply a quick test.
Erdogan accuses the US of knowing about the coup, staged by the fetid mullah. The US denies it. (see principle 2).
A proscription list containing over 6000+ names of Turkish teachers, academics, judges, journalists, generals, colonels and others is ready within literally hours after the completion of the unsuccessful coup. That is incredible (see principle 1).
The US deny having any hand in the Turkish coup. (principle 2)

As for the massacre in Nice. Here is a drunkard, erotomaniac, bisexual, with a police record of violence, a thief who did not observed the Ramadan, ignored the Koran, did not attend mosques and ate pork. A perfect picture of the mentally unstable, manipulable, easily prey to illusions. And yet, as Italian journalist Fulvio Grimaldi points out, he is “radicalized” in the short space from one night to the next morning, before the rooster crows three times. Also, he did not shave for a week, prior to the massacre – no doubt, a flawless characterization of a polished and sophisticated planner of massacres. Who says so? French Security.
Applicable principles? Both one and two.

Talking of terrorism, it has evolved. I refer to a theme by the same Italian journalist. In his analysis, the classification begins with the terroristus rooseveltianus, driven to terrorism by provocation, believing to react to an imminent attack, as the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.

Next is the virtual terroristus johnsonianus, existing only in the Pentagon’s report about heavily armed North Vietnamese fishing boats attacking the US Navy in the golf of Tonkin.

I added the terroristus esperimentalis, embodied by Harvey Oswald, used as a test case to measure the acceptance at large of the fictional story (that he was the isolated killer of President Kennedy).

We then have the terroristus bushensis, disguised as a Saudi plane hijacker, a subway bomber, or a marathon watcher. Whose cover, however, is paper thin, and liable to be unmasked with consequences that would be catastrophic, without the iron-clad protection by the doctors of the image and by the industry of deceit, embodied in the domestic mainstream media.

Talking of which, given the noise raised by Turkish coups and French massacres, the corporate media did an excellent job of downplaying the latest revelations about the (until now officially secret) missing pages of the 9/11 official report. Whose conclusions, however, are that the Saudis did it. (apply principle #1).

Who writes here knows Saudi Arabia in person. Clearly, brilliance and intelligence can be found everywhere, but in Saudi Arabia even toothbrushes and toothpaste come from abroad. Assuming the Saudis capable of organizing 9/11 equates to having the King of Saudi Arabia discover the principles and the mathematics of quantum physics.

Even so, the matter did not go down well with Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Newspaper Al Hayat, reputed to reflect the views of the Saudi Monarchy, recently published an article from which I extract the following,

“September 11 is one of winning cards in the American archives, because all the wise people in the world who are experts on American policy and who analyze the images and the videos [of 9/11] agree unanimously that what happened in the [Twin] Towers was a purely American action, planned and carried out within the U.S. Proof of this is the sequence of continuous explosions that dramatically ripped through both buildings… Expert structural engineers demolished them with explosives, while the planes crashing [into them] only gave the green light for the detonation – they were not the reason for the collapse. But the U.S. still spreads blame in all directions. [This policy] can be dubbed ‘victory by means of archives.’

On September 11, the U.S. attained several victories at the same time, that [even] the hawks [who were at that time] in the White House could not have imagined. Some of them can be enumerated as follows:


1.   The U.S. created, in public opinion, an obscure enemy – terrorism – which became what American presidents blamed for all their mistakes, and also became the sole motivation for any dirty operation that American politicians and military figures desire to carry out in any country. [The] terrorism [label] was applied to Muslims, and specifically to Saudi Arabia.
2.   Utilizing this incident [9/11], the U.S. launched a new age of global armament. Everyone wanted to acquire all kinds of weapons to defend themselves and at the same time battle the obscure enemy, terrorism – [even though] up to this very moment we do not know the essence of this terrorism of which the U.S. speaks, except [to say that] that it is Islamic…
3.   The U.S. made the American people choose from two bad options: either live peacefully [but] remain exposed to the danger of death [by terrorism] at any moment, or starve in safety, because [the country’s budget will be spent on sending] the Marines even as far as Mars to defend you.
Lo and behold, today, we see these archives revealed before us….we see a bill in Congress accusing Saudi Arabia of being behind it [sic]. This is after the previous Iraqi regime was accused of being behind it. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were also blamed for it, and we do not know who [will be blamed] tomorrow! But [whoever it is], we will not be surprised at all, since this is the essence of how the Americans, that are civilized and respect freedoms and democracy, operate.


The nature of the U.S. is that it cannot exist without an enemy… [For example,] after a period during which it did not fight anyone [i.e. following World War II], the U.S. created a new kind of war – the Cold War… Then, when the Soviet era ended, after we Muslims helped the religions and fought Communism on their [the Americans’] behalf, they began to see Muslims as their new enemy! The U.S. saw a need for creating a new enemy – and planned, organized, and carried this out [i.e. blamed Muslims for terrorism]. This will never end until it [the U.S.] accomplishes the goals it has set for itself.”

The real prime movers behind the ISIS or IS stateInterestingly, the article prefers to point the finger at the USA, rather than Israel, acknowledged by many as the mastermind and producer of the event. Which is possibly a sign of the equivalence in thought and action between the Saudi elite and Israel – or that the Saudis are more afraid of Israel than of the US – a credible hypothesis, pregnant with meaning.

In this context, and apart from the puzzling Turkish coup, Erdogan reconciles with Israel, which, however, was already a practical ally in the effective protection of ISIS. ISIS being the ideal Orwellian friend-enemy of the US of A, target and source of enormous profits for the military-industrial-lobbying cabal – its members sunk into the bottomless gulf of insatiability.

The last specimen in the Darwinian evolution of terrorists is the terroristus Hollandiensis, the sacrificial calf, recruited among the disenfranchised, rejected, unstable and manipulable, living in the urban social underground and sent on stage to enact a play directed from behind the scenes. He may live next door and causes his neighbors to be distilled almost to jelly into the act of fear (7) – thus justifying all the chains wrapped around them to ensure their security.

In the US, the NSA (National Security Administration), considering the billions invested, has proven a disappointment, not to say a failure. But that is easily remedied through lexical tactics practiced in the comments by operators of the engines of propaganda – simply using the term “mass murder” rather than “terror”. Forgetting that terror, by any other name, remains diabolical and makes a mockery of the reasons for which the well-protected coprocracy (***) ensnares the ever more helpless and irrelevant citizens, for the latter’s own protection.

Through all this there is a kind of autism in the opinion of the people in the West, which prevents them from understanding what really moves beyond appearances, and therefore from controlling what their own coprocracy is plotting behind their back. Consequently they cannot discern whether the interests brought forth by the rulers are those the citizen takes for granted, or if citizens are considered but intimidatable and expendable pawns, a’ la 9/11.

In the end it is this kind of attitude that feeds a state of fear and impending doom – thus furthering the myth of a war of civilizations. With which Western leaders deprive their own citizens of the civilization that they conquered.

*** For a reading on ‘coprocracy’ refer to the blog, “Spectacle, Ornaments and Marionettes” http://wp.me/p2e0kb-1VA

** 1. King Henry IV, part 2
** 2.3.5. Macbeth
** 4. Merry Wives of Windsor
** 6. Othello
** 7. Hamlet
In the play (starting quote).
The Welsh Master Evans (whose accent is reproduced by the misspellings) teaches Latin to William Page, son of Mr. and Mrs. Page. But the Welsh pronunciation prompts Mistress Quickly to deliver a sarcastic remark and to give her own interpretation to Evan’s Latin lesson.

 

 

Initial Image. Cartoon by Vinenzo Apicella

 


About the author
 

Moglia: A natural teacher of complex topics.Jimmie Moglia is a Renaissance man, and therefore he's impossible to summarize in a simple bioblurb. In any case, here's a rough sketch, by his own admission: Born in Turin, Italy, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.  Appearance: … careful hours with time’s deformed hand,  Have written strange defeatures in my face (2); Strengths. An unquenchable passion for what is utterly, totally, and incontrovertibly useless, notwithstanding occasional evidence to the contrary. Weaknesses: Take your pick. Languages: I speak Spanish to God, French to men, Italian to women and German to my horse. My German is not what it used to be but it’s not the horse’s fault. Too many Germans speak English. Education: “You taught me language and my profit on it Is, I know how to curse.” (3); More to the point – in Italy I studied Greek for five years and Latin for eight. Only to discover that prospective employers were remarkably uninterested in dead languages. Whereupon I obtained an Engineering Degree at the University of Genova. Read more here.

 

Would you like to own a dictionary that gives you a listing of all possible Shakespearean quotes, suggestions on how to use them and a description of the context in which they appear in the original – just like this one? Get the book “Your Daily Shakespeare” or the Kindle Version at $5.99 – go to http://yourdailyshakespeare.com/book-store to see a short animation and/or to purchase.

Source: Your Daily Shakespeare.

 


 

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Money Talks: Trump Does a U-Turn on Israel

 


By JONATHAN COOK
horiz grey line

tgplogo12313


Trump-poster-convention

Nazareth.

The grubby underside of US electoral politics is on show once again as the Democratic and Republican candidates prepare to fight it out for the presidency. And it doesn’t get seamier than the battle to prove how loyal each candidate is to Israel.

Trump-speech-Ind.-Fox

New depths are being plumbed this week at the Republican convention in Cleveland, as Donald Trump is crowned the party’s nominee. His platform breaks with decades of United States policy to effectively deny the Palestinians any hope of statehood.

The question now is whether the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, who positions herself as Israel’s greatest ally, will try to outbid Trump in cravenly submitting to the Israeli right.

It all started so differently. Through much of the primary season, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had reason to be worried about Israel’s “special relationship” with the next occupant of the White House.

Early on, Trump promised to be “neutral” and expressed doubts about whether it made sense to hand Israel billions of dollars annually in military aid. He backed a two-state solution and refused to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

On the Democrat side, Clinton was challenged by outsider Bernie Sanders, who urged “even-handedness” towards Israel and the Palestinians. He too objected to the huge sums of aid the US bestows on Israel.

Sanders exploited his massive support among Democrats to force Clinton to include well-known supporters of Palestinian rights on the committee that drafts the party’s platform.

But any hopes of an imminent change in US policy in the Middle East have been dashed.

Last week, as the draft Republic platform was leaked, Trump proudly tweeted that it was the “most pro-Israel of all time!” Avoiding any mention of a two-state solution, it states: “Support for Israel is an expression of Americanism. … We reject the false notion that Israel is an occupier.”

The capitulation was so complete that even the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based apologist group for Israel, called the platform “disappointing” and urged the Republican convention to “reconsider”. After all, even Netanyahu pays lip service to the need for a Palestinian state.

But Trump is not signaling caution. His new advisers on Israel, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt, are fervent supporters of the settlements and annexation of Palestinian territory.

Trump’s running mate, announced at the weekend, is Indiana governor Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian and a stalwart of pro-Israel causes.

So why the dramatic turnaround?

Candidates for high office in the US need money – lots of it. Until now Trump has been chiefly relying on his own wealth. He has raised less than $70 million, a fifth of Clinton’s war-chest.

Trump-GOPersThe Republican party’s most significant donor is Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate and close friend of Netanyahu. He has hinted that he will contribute more than $100 million to the Trump campaign if he likes what he sees.

Should Netanyahu offer implicit endorsement, as he did for Mitt Romney in the 2012 race, Christian Zionist preachers such as John Hagee will rally ten of millions of followers to Trump’s side too – and fill his coffers.

Similar indications that money is influencing policy are evident in the Democratic party.

Trump’s new advisers on Israel, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt, are fervent supporters of the settlements and annexation of Palestinian territory.

Sanders funded his campaign through small donations, giving him the freedom to follow his conscience. Clinton, by contrast, has relied on mega-donors, including some, such as Haim Saban, who regard Israel as a key election issue.

That may explain why, despite the many concessions made to Sanders on the Democratic platform, Clinton’s team refused to budge on Israel issues. As a result, the draft platform fails to call for an end to the occupation or even mention the settlements.

According to The New York Times, Clinton’s advisers are vetting James Stavridis as a potential running mate. A former NATO commander, he is close to the Israeli defence establishment and known for his hawkish pro-Israel positions.

trumpConfederateClinton, meanwhile, has promised to use all her might to fight the growing boycott movement, which seeks to isolate Israel over its decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory.

The two candidates’ fierce commitment to Israel appears to fly in the face of wider public sentiment, especially among Democrats.

A recent Pew poll found 57 per cent of young, more liberal Democrats sympathised with the Palestinians rather than Israel. Support for hawkish Israeli positions is weakening among American Jews too, a key Democratic constituency. About 61 per cent believe Israel can live peacefully next to an independent Palestinian state.

The toxic influence of money in the US presidential elections can be felt in many areas of policy, both domestic and foreign.

But the divorce between the candidates’ fervour on Israel and the growing doubts of many of their supporters is particularly stark.

It should be dawning on US politicians that a real debate about the nation’s relationship with Israel cannot be deferred much longer.



NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

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Reprise of The 1961 Bay of Pigs Cuban Invasion

=By= Rowan Wolf and Jimmie Moglia

The Bay of Pigs during the Kennedy administration is instructive about the extent to which the US will go to set up justification for taking aggressive action. In the video below, Jimmie Moglia provides an engaging discussion of the Bay of Pigs, as 2016 is the 50th anniversary of this almost event.

Eisenhower, who preceded Kennedy, was vehemently negative towards Cuba and Castro. Plots were hatched and set in motion by the CIA that would take fruition under Kennedy, and without his knowledge. As noted earlier this year by Robert Kennedy Jr.,  in his article published by IPS, “Sabotaging U.S.-Cuba Détente in the Kennedy Era,” :

To the CIA, détente was perfidious sedition.  Adlai Stevenson [at the time U.S. ambassador to the United Nations] had warned President John F. Kennedy that “unfortunately the CIA is still in charge of Cuba.”  The agency, he said, would never allow normalisation of relations.

JFK was involved in secret negotiations with Fidel Castro designed to outflank Foggy Bottom [Washington] and the agents at Langley [CIA], but the CIA knew of JFK’s back-channel contacts with Castro and endeavoured to sabotage the peace efforts with cloak and dagger mischief.

In April 1963, CIA officials secretly sprinkled deadly poison in a wetsuit intended as a gift for Castro from JFK’s emissaries James Donovan and John Nolan, hoping to murder Castro, blame JFK for the murder, and thoroughly discredit him and his peace efforts.

The agency also delivered a poison pen to hit man Rolendo Cubelo in Paris, with instructions that he use it to murder Fidel. William Attwood [a former journalist and U.S. diplomat attached to the United Nations asked by JFK to open up secret negotiations with Castro] later said that the CIA’s attitude was: “To hell with the President it was pledged to serve.”

“There is no doubt in my mind. If there had been no assassination, we probably would have moved into negotiations leading to a normalisation of relations with Cuba” – William Attwood, U.S. diplomat asked by John F. Kennedy to open secret negotiations with Castro, speaking of JFK’s assassination.”

Many exile leaders openly expressed their disgust with the White House “treachery”, accusing JFK of engaging in “co-existence” with Fidel Castro.  Some Cubans remained loyal to my father, but a small number of hard, bitter homicidal Castro haters now directed their fury toward JFK and there is credible evidence that these men and their CIA handlers may have been involved in plots to assassinate him.

The Kennedy guilt – both President John Kennedy and then Attorney General Robert Kennedy -over The Bay of Pigs misadventure lies in the nasty truth that the Bay of Pigs invasion was set up as a CIA plot and was not known at the time to JFK. JFK hesitated at the point of an actual strike and unwittingly foiled the CIA plot. Regardless of that, as noted above, the CIA was furious and continued their effirts to undermine relations between the US and Cuba, and until this spring we have continued operating under this ruse as if it were reality.

The CIA was willing to hoax the US into nuclear war, nuclear war, and two formally powerful men – one a President and the other the US Attorney General – both ended up assassinated. Here is certainly not the place to get into who was “really” behind the Kennedy assassinations, but the synchronicity leaves a sour taste in one’s mouth.

Without further discussion, here is Jimmie Moglia:


About the author
 

Moglia: A natural teacher of complex topics.Jimmie Moglia is a Renaissance man, and therefore he's impossible to summarize in a simple bioblurb. In any case, here's a rough sketch, by his own admission: Born in Turin, Italy, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.  Appearance: … careful hours with time’s deformed hand,  Have written strange defeatures in my face (2); Strengths. An unquenchable passion for what is utterly, totally, and incontrovertibly useless, notwithstanding occasional evidence to the contrary. Weaknesses: Take your pick. Languages: I speak Spanish to God, French to men, Italian to women and German to my horse. My German is not what it used to be but it’s not the horse’s fault. Too many Germans speak English. Education: “You taught me language and my profit on it Is, I know how to curse.” (3); More to the point – in Italy I studied Greek for five years and Latin for eight. Only to discover that prospective employers were remarkably uninterested in dead languages. Whereupon I obtained an Engineering Degree at the University of Genova. Read more here.

 

Rowan Wolf, PhD
Rowan WolfIs Managing Editor of The Greanville Post and Director of The Russian Desk. She is a sociologist, writer and activist with life long engagement in social justice, peace, environmental, and animal rights movements. Her research and writing includes issues of imperialism, oppression, global capitalism, peak resources, global warming, and environmental degradation. Rowan taught sociology for twenty-two years, was a member of the City of Portland’s Peak Oil Task Force, and maintains her own site Uncommon Thought Journal. She may be reached by email at rowanwolf@greanvillepost.com

 

Also see:

JFK Facts – Memory/Truth/Meanting

Salim Lamrani. .Robert Kennedy Jr.’s 25 Truths on the Secret Negotiations between Fidel Castro and President KennedyInline image 2.  CRG – June, 2016.


 

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Fissures in World Capitalism: the British Vote


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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he collapse of world markets is telling evidence of capitalism’s stake in maintaining a renewed Cold War, indispensable to its logic of global confrontation as a sustaining developmental force and dependence on a disproportionate, heavy-laden defense sector for America and drawing in its allies. The European Union, historically, was first and foremost the economic underpinning to solidify NATO, itself from first to last an obviously military alliance. Together, EU and NATO represented America’s stalking horse in its posture of world intervention and counterrevolution. Obama’s “pivot” to the Far East, his Pacific-first geostrategic framework, complements and extends the US geopolitical vision of global, unilateral dominance—military, ideological, economic.

brexit3DailyExpressWith Britain’s vote, we see a magnificent—even if Britons voted on other grounds—objective determination to put a roadblock into the American Grand Design of universalizing its own brand of monopoly capitalism (and heading off a projected nuclear holocaust), in which systemic financialization erodes and supplants the US manufacturing base via outsourcing, foreign investment, and securing predictable sources of raw materials, including of course oil.

Consternation and worse reigns supreme in both the capitalist and defense communities, the architectural splendor of simultaneous containment, even isolation, of Russia and China, now on hold, yet hardly surrendered, as America, for its own self-identity, reified the idea of the Pervasive Enemy to accompany its doctrine of Permanent War. Blowback, after all, has some validity, as America’s warmongers pressed too far: Obama’s modernization of the nuclear arsenal, provocative incursion in the South China Sea, pressures on NATO to occupy the borderlands of Russia. Whether or not inadvertent, Britons have thwarted the US move toward the greater fascistization of a once-democratic polity, yet no longer recognizable as such.

How will America react to the British vote? Probably by intensifying, as is already happening, its Cold War rhetoric, and translating that into more aggressive policies of containment vis-a-vis a growing list of enemies presumed waiting in the wings. Counterterrorism, which has become a catch-all for creating a mindset for ideological conformity, will be a useful instrument for confusing radicalism and terrorism, in order to suppress the former as in Latin America and Africa. Secretly, I suspect, American policy makers hoped for the Britain-EU outcome, so as to beef up European defenses, continue the rearming (encouragement of a nuclear capability) of Abe’s Japan, and feel relief in pursuing the abominable policy of armed drone targeted assassination.

My Comment in The New York Times on Erlanger’s article, “Britain Votes to Leave E.U.,” follows:

Delighted! There has been such evasiveness about the meaning of the campaign. British exit from the EU is a vote AGAINST the renewed Cold War. The elephant in the room is NATO. Obviously, the EU is its economic counterpart, and was never conceived in isolation as a mere trading bloc.

With Britain out, hopefully others will follow, the EU will tighten its ship as an economic union and NATO, now presently at Russia’s borders, will be forced to rethink its dangerous course.

Britain did the right thing, even if only intuitively; for only in the defense establishment of the West was the true nature of the vote, and its implications, discussed. Yes, if NATO unravels, along with an EU unravelling, the world will be a step closer to peace and the avoidance of a nuclear holocaust.

I’m ashamed that Corbyn didn’t see this, or worse, did, but has been less than frank. Now, Britain, for the first time since the end of World War II, can break its dependence on the US and perhaps,just perhaps, lead the world on a middle course away from bipolarization.

I am thrilled by the results–the ticking clock toward WAR has been slowed down, until perhaps good sense can prevail.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 Norman Pollack Ph.D. Harvard, Guggenheim Fellow, early writings on American Populism as a radical movement, prof., activist.. His interests are social theory and the structural analysis of capitalism and fascism. He can be reached at pollackn@msu.edu.

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