The Women’s March in Washington D.C., as Broadcast [1]


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by Ann Garrison


If you watched it on TV, the Women’s March on Washington seemed to be a Democratic Party, Hillary-Is-My-President affair. “It was all about protection and equal opportunity for women and all racial and religious minorities, but that didn’t include protection from predatory financial institutions, from all intrusive spying, or from sacrifice to foreign wars for resources and global hegemony.”


Michael Moore urged everyone to start calling their Congressional reps every single day, and run, at the very least, for Democratic Party precinct delegate.”

I didn’t show up for the Womens’ March on the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. I didn’t go to DC or join the local Oakland and San Francisco manifestations. I was way too sick to go anywhere, but I hadn’t been planning to anyway.  What were we going to protest? That Donald Trump won the election?  That Hillary lost?  That Trump’s in Putin’s pocket?  That Trump is a pussy grabbing, wall building, climate change denying, health care abolishing, tax dodging, shit spewing, demagogue [3]? That his campaign nevertheless struck a chord in the heartland that Hillary’s did not and enabled him to win the electoral college? That he promised  to withdraw the U.S. from the Trans Pacific Partnership?  (As he did within his first few days in office.)

Were we to protest because Trump wants to create a Muslim registry?  That’s not good, but Bush did that; it was called the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) or INS Special Registration.  Obama maintained it until December 22, 2016, when he dismantled it so Trump would have to start over. 

Were we to protest because Trump might withdraw U.S. troops from Europe’s borders with Russia?  During the week of the inauguration, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reassured [4] us that President Obama had greatly reduced the risk of that by deploying thousands more troops to Norway and Poland on his last two days in office, meaning that there are now more troops deployed in Europe than at any time since World War II.  “Here’s the question,” Maddow said, “Is the new president gonna take those troops out?  After all the speculation, after all the worry, we are actually about to find out if Russia maybe has something on the new president?  We’re about to find out if the new president of our country is going to do what Russia wants once he’s commander-in-chief of the U.S. military starting noon on Friday. What is he gonna do with those deployments?  Watch this space. Seriously.”


Chris Hedges described the march as ‘tepid,’ but said that this is how movements start and that it might grow into something larger.”

Even if I hadn’t been sick, I was disinclined to march, but I switched on the broadcast reporting, alternating between CNN, MSNBC, Democracy Now,  and a raw video livestream, so this is my response to the broadcast spectacle, not to the event as experienced in the streets.  A number of my friends who were in the streets were elated by the size and energy of the crowds and say they had a more radical, more promising experience than what I saw broadcast.  Chris Hedges, speaking to TruthDig, described the march as “tepid,” but said that this is how movements start and that it might grow into something larger.  Not necessarily, but he thought it had it possibilities of growing into a more radical challenge  and I hope he’s right.

I hadn’t expected to be much interested in the broadcasts for the same reasons I was disinclined to go, but I was immediately mesmerized by what a carefully staged and confined spectacle it was, by what it accepted and what it didn’t, at least as broadcast.  The most glaring exclusions were opposition to U.S. wars, to the NSA’s spying on our every phone call and our daily lives, and to the Wall Street financialization schemes that led to the 2008 crash, the bank bailout, the foreclosures and the destruction of middle class wealth, including half  that of the Black population. [5]

CNN and MSNBC had one overriding concern: whether or not the Democratic Party could harness all this energy into wins in 2018 and 2020, or whether it would simply dissipate like Occupy and the Tea Party.  Democracy Now made no attempt to force that framework on it, but included no alternate analysis either.

The most glaring exclusions were opposition to U.S. wars, to the NSA’s spying on our every phone call and our daily lives, and to the Wall Street financialization schemes.”

The speakers who came to the podium all appeared to assume that the half million or more people present were all members of the Democratic Party and no one was more excited about this than filmmaker Michael Moore.  He urged everyone to start calling their Congressional reps every single day, to make it a part of their morning routine, as soon as they’d made the coffee.  He urged them to run for local office, city council, school board or, at the very least, Democratic Party precinct delegate.   

However, something happened as Michael Moore was putting the finishing touches on his vision that we all fix our sights on pushing the old Democratic leadership aside — despite all the good things they’ve done — and taking over the Party.  When he started a sentence with, “And when we take over the DNC. . . ,” Ashley Judd suddenly burst on the stage, rudely interrupting him, and starting her overwrought “I am a nasty woman” performance. Before she was done she had saluted a long list of other heroic “nasty women,” including not only Hillary Clinton but also Condoleezza Rice.

Michael Moore did not say “Excuse me, Ashley, but I haven’t finished explaining how we’re going to take over the DNC.”  Instead he tried to save face by saying, “Oh my God, here’s Ashley Judd.”

Here’s a list of other choice  moments created by a few of the other speakers:  

America Ferrera: “It’s been a heart-rending time to be both a woman and an immigrant in this country. Our dignity, our character, our rights have all been under attack, and a platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday. But the president is not America. His cabinet is not America. Congress is not America. We are America. And we are here to stay.”  

What’s wrong with that? America Ferrera is the daughter of Honduran immigrants.  She endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries and general elections, first in 2008, then in 2012.  The overthrow of populist Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya engineered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not change her mind.  Neither did the ensuing flood of Hondurans desperately trying to cross our borders to safety, most of all children.

Gloria Steinem:  “I’ve been thinking about the uses of a long life. And one of them is that you remember when things were worse. We remember the death of the future with Martin Luther King, with Jack Kennedy, with Bobby Kennedy, with Malcolm X. Without those deaths, for instance, Nixon would not have been elected and there would not have been many of the wars that we have had.”  

Huh?  These assassinations of the 1960s brought on the wars that destroyed Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and very nearly Syria?  The ongoing 15-year Afghanistan War?


Madonna and her ilk demonstrated the infuriating ignorance and pathetic naivete of these multimillionaire celebrity “activists”.  Hillary Clinton—”the Good”—did not win the election? Hillary??!! WTF! (Madonna’s net worth is put at $500 MM.)


Madonna: “It seems as though we had all slipped into a false sense of comfort that justice would prevail and that good would win in the end. Well, good did not win this election but good will win in the end. (sic) So what today means is that we are far from the end. Today marks the beginning, the beginning of our story. The revolution starts here. The fight for the right to be free, to be who we are, to be equal.”  

A ‘false sense of comfort” that “good” [Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party] could have won this election and will in the end?

Van Jones: “When Barack Obama went flying away in that helicopter, I felt like something beautiful was dying. And I felt that something that we had all worked for and that we had all given our hopes and our dreams to was dying.  And yet, with every breakdown, a breakthrough is possible, and today, because of you, something beautiful is being reborn in America. Something beautiful is being born right here and right now.”

The Democratic Party has obviously eaten Van Jones’s brain. 

Those notably absent from the stage included:

Chris Hedges, author of many books and fierce critic of the Democratic/Republican Party duopoly

David Swanson, Executive Director of World Beyond War and author of “War Is a Lie”

Ellen Brown, founder of the Public Banking Institute

Glen Ford, critic of capitalism, US wars, and the “Black Misleadership Class”

Glenn Greenwald, journalist who, with Edward Snowden, revealed that the NSA has left us nowhere to hide from its spying on all our communications and even our daily lives

Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, who called for immediately halving the military budget and instituting a “Green New Deal” to create sustainable infrastructure and employ all Americans

Michael Klare, critic of the U.S. war in Syria and the NATO buildup on Russia’s border

Naomi Klein, critic of disaster capitalism and pending climate destruction

Ralph Nader, public interest lawyer and activist and three time Green or independent candidate for president

In many ways, the event resembled the Democratic National Convention, which Counterpunch Editor Jeffery St. Clair called “a neutron bomb of identity politics.”  It was all about protection and equal opportunity for women and all racial and religious minorities, but that didn’t include protection from predatory financial institutions, from all intrusive spying, or from sacrifice to foreign wars for resources and global hegemony.

Nor did it include any concern for the protection of women, families, and nations targeted by U.S. wars, drone assassinations, and covert destabilization.  I don’t know how the Womens’ March organizers and/or donors so carefully confined protest, but it was very confined, at least in the broadcast spectacle projected from the stage in Washington D.C.

I’m sure there were more radical off stage expressions in local marches and in D.C., but that’s what I saw on TV.  I hope Chris Hedges is right that it might contain the seeds of a more fundamental challenge.

Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/women%27s_march_on_dc_on_tv

Links

[1] http://blackagendareport.com/women%27s_march_on_dc_on_tv

[2] http://blackagendareport.com/taxonomy/term/6940

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHX031UoCXA

[5] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/feb/11/bernie-s/sanders-african-american-lost-half-their-wealth-be/



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Freedom Rider: Democrats Attack Trump from the Right


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by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley




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 Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. [10] Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com. 

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OpEds: Trumped

Steven Jonas, MD, MPHpale blue horiz
Special to The Greanville Post | Commentary No. 74B: “Trumped 

Dateline: January 21, 2017

“Trumped” is a word that has at least three distinct dictionary meanings.  One refers to card games in which a particular card or a particular suit outranks another, at all times during a given game, as in the game of Bridge.  Then there is: “to excel; surpass; outdo.”  And then there is “trumped up,” that is “to devise deceitfully or dishonestly, as an accusation; fabricate.” 

After this U.S. election season, another meaning may well be added to the list, if not in the dictionary cited, then perhaps in one or more others.  That would be something like “to be taken in/mis-led by, to be beaten by, to be evaded by, to be assaulted verbally and/or physically by, to be civilly or criminally discriminated against by, Donald J. Trump.”  In the context of Donald J. Trump, “Trump” is of course a proper noun.  However, since U.S. persons have never met a noun they didn’t want to verb, “Trumped” will like take on another verb identity in the U.S. lexicon (if not in that of English in general).


Many of us political observers/analysts have written extensively about this particular Trump for quite time.  One question about him that many of us have dealt with over time is: “is he crazy or “crazy like a fox.”  After being on one side, then the other, I have now come firmly on the side of “crazy like a fox.”  I think that this man is not out-of-control, ever.   I think that he only appears to be, on occasion, and I think that that is planned.  Since he started the Republican Party towards an openly racist platform in 2011, when he was one of the inventers of the fake news story about President Obama’s birthplace, religion, and etc., he has had the whole thing completely under control. [Obama,  of course, and the DLC, have their own style of deception, but their brand is actually far more effective in many ways the GOPers have yet to master.)

In sum I think that his speeches, gestures, yelling, put downs, personalizations and vehement personal attacks, are all planned, and unless he is really good at improv as an actor, rehearsed.  After all, if Hitler could rehearse all of his seemingly “spontaneous” gestures, facial expressions, and etc. (and it turned out that he did), Trump could too.  Trump is a past-master at following the number one Lee Atwater dictum of how to practice effective politics: “always attack; never defend.”

Trump may well write his famous tweets himself, but who can say that they are not ghost-written.  For he never seems to be sleepy during the day, and if he is up for significant hours during the night, following events and then tweeting about them, when does he sleep?

But what is happening now?  How are we and the nation going to get “Trumped” in this newest sense of the word?  Following what has been going involving both Trump, his cabinet-designees, and his staff appointments since the election, l don’t think that he is going to stay in the Presidency for very long.  (From the progressive side, I don’t think that this outcome should be met either by cheering or even feeling of relief for, as I have written, Mike Pence is even, in some ways, more dangerous than Donald Trump.)  I think that either he will be impeached (as I have projected in the past) or he will resign, with the appropriate flourishes about “patriotism and being able to serve the country better” on the one hand, and a series of vicious personal attacks and attacks on the media on the other. The latter—leaving aside the Trumpian character being discussed—well merited, as the mainstream media in the United States is a national and international disgrace.

If he hangs around long enough to be impeached, by his own party of course, it will have to do with policy.  As is very well-known, the Military-Industrial Complex is an essential engine of the US economy.  If it were not for the massive Federal government spending that supports it, the U.S. economy would likely collapse, not to mention stop enriching a cabal of defense contractors, hanger-ons and sundry affiliated plutocrats that constitute a singularly malevolent power within the folds of the so-called Deep State. So, any Trump-talk against NATO is against the interests of the dominant sector of the U.S. ruling class.  So, even more importantly, talk of cozying up to Russia has, unfortunately, entrapped more than one progressive into thinking that there is a “good side” to Trump.  There isn’t. (I am not oblivious to the huge bonus of de-escalating tensions with Russia, a peer nuclear power, a good that requires no further comment. If that is accomplished, it is something entirely desirable, for the United States and humanity, and something that no genuine progressive can obstruct or complain about. However, I will be explaining my rationale for suspecting even this promised deterrence in future columns.)

Saying that Trump would be a “good fascist” because he might get some reduction in the number of nuclear weapons on both sides (so that mankind could be wiped only five times over by a nuclear war instead of ten times] is like saying that Francisco Franco, the fascist Dictator of Spain, was a “good fascist” because he didn’t come into the Second World War on the side of the Axis Powers.  Why he didn’t even take over Gibraltar from the British, which he could have done easily, in June 1940, when Britain had all it could do just to get most of its troops home from Continent through Dunkerque and then prepare for the Battle of Britain.  No, Franco was a smart guy, and had a pretty good idea that the Allies would eventually win, especially after the U.S. came into the War, which they eventually did.  But, back to policy.


As I have said, BY HIS APPOINTMENTS THOU SHALT KNOW HIM.  Remember, that the former Ted Cruz leadership, including Steve Bannon, took over the campaign when they came on board in August.  This completed the takeover of the Trump campaign by the formal far right-wing of the Repub. Party which began with Trump’s pick of Pence as the VP nominee.  Trump — and it is likely not Trump himself who has made most of the picks, but rather the transition team under Pence’s leadership — has indeed loaded his cabinet with many top representatives of the dominant economic wing of the ruling class  It now has a control of the U.S. State unlike anything we have seen since March 3, 1933. This is the swamp on steroids.

They will not tolerate a whole series of Trump policies, like trying to make nice, or nicer, with Russia and possibly undermining NATO (see statements by General Mike “Mad Dog” Mattis, incoming Secretary of Defense), or actually building a physical wall at the Mexican border (a legal impossibility given land ownership, among other things) of which the incoming Secretary of Homeland Security, General John Kelly, is not supportive, to say nothing of his position on Russia as an adversary, not a friend.

Trump also has major differences of opinion with the Republican Congress on matters ranging from what should “replace” Obamacare (of which Trump was a leader of the racist campaign for its destruction, even though, again, Obamacare, originally and by definition is a capitalist Republican construct that favors the insurance industry at the expense of the public).  Trump says that he wants to retain major features of it, which absolutely cannot be done financially without some kind of “mandate,” even if called by another name, to the preservation of Social Security, which many Congressional Republicans essentially want to destroy, by “privatization.”  These conflicts would, in my view, eventually lead the Repubs. to remove him one way or another.  But there is also an alternate scenario, leading to his departure from the White House (if he ever actually moves there).

I do happen to think that both all the fuss over whether or not the Russians interfered in the election, whether or not Trump colluded with the Russians in said interference (and no documented proof of such interference has yet been made public, if it indeed even exists — if it does, that would be treason, of course), and whether or not there really is a “sex tape” (which, if one is actually produced, Trump would claim is photo-shopped and his supporters would believe him) will have little if any impact on Trump’s eventual departure from the Presidency.   For I believe, in the end, that he is crazy like a fox and never thought that he could win the office (and indeed would not have had it not been for the Comey and other parties interference, a prime example of Ruling Class, not Russian, intervention.)

Following what he has been doing since the election, I have come to the conclusion that, not thinking he would win, Trump had three objectives in mind all along: one was to vastly expand his already world-wide brand (including possibly starting up a “Trump TV”).  The second, related one, was to vastly increase his wealth and that of his family.  (Of course, no one but his accountants know about how much he is worth, but whether it’s a lot or not so much, he is now in a position to vastly increase it.)  He also knows, that for all of his squirming on “handing over the business(es)” hither and yon, there is no way that he will eventually be able to get out of being hung on conflicts-of-interest (over and over again) as well as the nepotism and emoluments statutes.   The third was to establish his own, far-right, but Trumpist, not Republican, political party.  It would be modeled on the European far-right parties, and of course he would be completely untrammeled (as if he is much “trammeled” now). In that sense he could emulate France’s Le Pen trajectory.

And so, if impeachment is not set in motion, I do think that at a time of his choosing, with a speech that will curdle milk at a thousand yards, he will resign while rallying a significant chunk of his minority of electoral support to him personally (thereby giving the Repubs. a very serious problem).  It will also present all of the anti-Trump forces, ranging from the (reactively) progressive wing of the Democratic Party, to a variety of non-socialist anti-fascist forces of various stripes, to a variety of socialist parties of various stripes, an historic opportunity to finally end the Civil War, rid the country of the plague of the Doctrine of White Supremacy, and point it in as progressive direction as can be achieved under capitalism (not that progressive, but better than we have now), under (I hope) the banner of a newly-minted Popular Front.  More on the latter anon.

In conclusion, unless he is impeached, we shall all be Trumped, with the man having the last word, at least for now.


 

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JonasSteve-BOND1

Senior Editor, Politics, Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at StonyBrookMedicine (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 35 books.  In addition to his position on The Greanville Post, he is: a Contributor for American Politics to The Planetary Movement; a “Trusted Author” for Op-Ed News.com; a contributor to the “Writing for Godot” section of Reader Supported News; and a contributor to From The G-Man. Furthermore, he is an occasional contributor to BuzzFlash Commentary Headlines and The Harder Stuff.  Dr. Jonas’ latest book is Ending the ‘Drug War’; Solving the Drug Problem: The Public Health Approach, Brewster, NY: Punto Press Publishing, (Brewster, NY, 2016, available on Kindle from Amazon, and also in hardcover from Amazon.

His most recent book on US politics is The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022: A Futuristic Novel (Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013, Brewster, NY), and available on Amazon.


Also Recommended: GLEN FORD:  As the Democrats Press for War, the Left Must Demand Peace and Social Transformation (https://www.greanvillepost.com/2017/01/12/as-the-democrats-press-for-war-the-left-must-demand-peace-and-social-transformation/)


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Bashing Trump’s Justifiable Outrage Over Disgraceful Press Coverage

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STEPHEN LENDMAN

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C     olumbia J School is a factory to turn out cookie cutter, unthinking cogs for the capitalist media machine, more concerned with jobs and careers than with the real-world principles and duties of journalists confronting entrenched power. —The Editor


 MAIN IMAGE ABOVE: Kyle Pope, Editor & Publisher, Columbia Journalism Review.

by Stephen Lendman

With few exceptions, media scoundrels relentlessly bashed him throughout the political season. Vilification continues daily post-election, inventing reasons to denigrate him, an unprecedented example of political presstitution at its worst. An open letter to him from the US press corp, written by Columbia Journalism Review editor-in-chief and publisher Kyle Pope, warrants a reader response. Trump and his team can speak for themselves.
Pope: “You’ve banned news organizations from covering you.”
Fact: False! He leveled sharp criticism as justified, including blasting CNN as fake news. He should have applied that label to the entire scoundrel media establishment, suppressing hard truths, substituting managed news misinformation and Big Lies – about him and on virtually all other important issues. Any news organization and their members are free to cover him. He’s free to ignore any ones he wishes.
 …
Pope: “(Y)our press secretary is considering pulling news media offices out of the White House…”
 ..
Fact: False! Incoming press secretary Sean Spicer said space is being sought to accommodate a larger number of journalists – not change the workspace for White House reporters. At the same time, Trump is entitled to challenge members of the press spreading malicious lies about him. No one should put up with abusive practices.
 …
Pope: “You’ve taken to Twitter to taunt and threaten individual reporters and encouraged your supporters to do the same.”
 …
Fact: Western media scoundrels are a national disgrace. Trump should respond when they blast him irresponsibly.  Twitter is his favorite way of communicating. He’s able to reach millions, free from misquotes and distortions. Earlier I called him America’s tweeter-in-chief, encouraging him to keep tweeting.
..
Pope: “You’ve avoided the press when you could and flouted the norms of pool reporting and regular press conferences.”
 …
Fact: Advice referees give prize fighters to protect themselves at all times especially applies to presidents and other heads of state. If he wishes, Trump is entitled to avoid press corps members denigrating him maliciously.
He’s yet to assume office, so it’s unknown how often he’ll hold press conferences. Franklin Roosevelt, serving nearly four terms, held far more than any other president. They were more informal affairs in pre-television days than how they’re held today.
 ..
Pope: “You’ve ridiculed a reporter who wrote something you didn’t like because he has a disability.”
 …
Fact: Trump debunked the accusation as a malicious lie.
 …
Pope: Press “access is preferable, but not critical.” Lacking it is “a challenge we relish.”
 …
Fact: Trump has no problem with responsible reporting. Denigrating him without just cause is another matter entirely.
 …
Pope: “Ground rules are the prerogative of the press.”

Fact: That type attitude would antagonize anyone.
 …
Pope: “We decide how much airtime to give your spokespeople and surrogates.”
 …
Fact: How much time isn’t the issue. Responsible truth-telling matters most – what’s sorely lacking in mainstream Western reporting, turning journalism into presstitution.
 ..
Pope: “Facts are what we do…”
 …
Fact: Media scoundrels suppress them, substituting fake news. (Pope is clearly as bad as the presstitutes he sanctimoniously defends or delusional.—Editor)
 ..
Pope: “(W)hile you may seek to control what comes out of the West Wing, we’ll have the upper hand in covering how your policies are carried out.”
 …
Fact: If reporting on Trump follows the pattern seen throughout the political season and post-election so far, expect endless rubbish substituting for responsible journalism.
 ..
Pope: We’ll set higher standards for ourselves than ever before.”
 …
Fact: Presstitutes make street whores look good by example. Case closed!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."  ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com



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Russia Must be Destroyed: John McCain and the Case of the Dodgy Dossier


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 by JOHN WIGHT


Delanda est Cathargo (in English “Carthage must be destroyed”) are words that come down to us from ancient history. They were spoken by the famed Roman soldier, statesman and orator Cato the Elder, and have never been more relevant than now, today.

The Rome of our time is Washington, Russia is Carthage, and today’s Cato the Elder is US Senator John McCain, whose quest for conflict with Russia is unbounded. Indeed, for Mr McCain the belief that Russia must be destroyed has been elevated to the status of a self evident and received truth.


Origins of the ‘dodgy dossier’

It was McCain who passed the ‘dodgy dossier’ on Trump to the FBI, after receiving it from former UK ambassador to Russia, Sir Andrew Wood. Contained within the dossier is information purporting to reveal how Trump has been compromised by Russian intelligence over various sexual encounters with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. Compounding the scandal, adding to the lurid nature of it, are reports of the existence of a second Russian dossier on the president-elect.

The dossier’s originator has been revealed as former British MI6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who now runs a private intelligence company and has, according to reports, gone into hiding in the UK, supposedly fearing assassination by Russian agents.

The fact that Mr Steele hasn’t set foot in Russia for a number of years and reportedly, on behalf of Trump’s enemies within the Republican Party establishment, paid for the information contained in the 35-page dossier, recently released with the caveat that its contents cannot be verified, should have been more than enough to have it instantly dismissed as, well, fake news?

In his most recent article on the dossier for the UK’s Independent website, Patrick Cockburn writes, “I read the text of the dossier on Donald Trump’s alleged dirty dealings with a scepticism that soon turned into complete disbelief,” prior to observing how, “In its determination to damage Trump, the US press corps has been happy to suspend disbelief in this dubious document.”


Convenient timing of the dossier’s appearance

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ore significant than the fact this dossier was not immediately dismissed is the timing of its emergence and subsequent publication by the US news site, BuzzFeed. It comes on the very cusp of president-elect Donald Trump’s official inauguration as the 45th President of the United States on January 20th, and the very point at which his cabinet appointees were being grilled over their views of Russia, the threat Russia allegedly poses to the US and the West, during their official Senate confirmation hearings.

A political coup against Trump is underway 

By now most people are aware, or at least should be, of Washington long and ignoble history when it comes to fomenting, planning, supporting, and funding political and military coups around the world – in Central and Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere the CIA and other US agencies have brought down countless leaders and governments that have refused to toe the line when it comes to serving US interests.

In unprecedented fashion, what we have in this instance are those same deep state actors, working in conjunction with the US liberal establishment, currently engaged in a coup designed to destroy the Trump presidency – if not before it begins then certainly soon after, with the prospect of impeachment proceedings against him already being mooted in Washington circles.

During his recent press conference, Trump felt minded to declaim against Washington’s bloated intelligence community, accusing it of releasing the dossier to the media, an allegation US intelligence chiefs have denied. The result is an unprecedented open war between the country’s next president and his soon-to-be intelligence services that has pitched the country into a political crisis that grows deeper by the day.


Russia’s demonization

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the question of why the US deep state and Washington’s liberal establishment are so intent on maintaining Russia in the role of deadly enemy, the answer is very simple – money.

Huge and powerful economic and ideological interests are tied up in the new cold war of the past few years. We’re talking the country’s previously mentioned gargantuan defense and intelligence budgets, continuing US support and financing of NATO, along with reason for the continued existence and funding of the vast network of political think tanks in Washington and throughout the West, all of which are committed to sustaining a status quo of US hegemony and unipolarity.

Russia’s emergence as a strategic counterweight to the West in recent years has and continues to challenge this hitherto uncontested hegemony emanating from Washington, providing lucrative opportunities for organizations, groups, and individuals with a vested interest in the resulting new cold war. For those of a sceptical persuasion in this regard, I refer you to the chilling warning issued by former US President Dwight D Eisenhower prior to leaving office in 1960 to make way for his replacement, John F Kennedy.


Don’t fuck with the military industrial complex

Eisenhower: He warned us good, and we paid little attention.

In his televised farewell address to the American people in 1961, Eisenhower said, “we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.”

He continued, “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.”

Finally, Eisenhower warned the American people how “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Though neoconservatives may no longer be in the driving seat in Washington, neoconservative ideas undoubtedly are. And prime among them is the idea that not only must Russia be destroyed but also anyone who would dare stand in the way of this narrative, up to and including President-elect Donald J Trump.



NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS • PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP CLICK HERE

 John Wight is the author of a politically incorrect and irreverent Hollywood memoir – Dreams That Die – published by Zero Books. He’s also written five novels, which are available as Kindle eBooks. You can follow him on Twitter at @JohnWight1  

MAIN IMAGE: John McCain, a thoroughly malignant figure in world politics, ugly inside out. 


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