Exclusive: The Washington Post and other big media are hailing a new journalistic “golden age” as they punish President Trump for disparaging them, but is this media bias a sign of good journalism or itself a scandal, asks Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The mainstream U.S. media is congratulating itself on its courageous defiance of President Trump and its hard-hitting condemnations of Russia, but the press seems to have forgotten that its proper role within the U.S. democratic structure is not to slant stories one way or another but to provide objective information for the American people.
The Washington Post building in downtown Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Washington Post)
By that standard – of respecting that the people are the nation’s true sovereigns – the mainstream media is failing again. Indeed, the chasm between what America’s elites are thinking these days and what many working-class Americans are feeling is underscored by the high-fiving that’s going on inside the elite mainstream news media, which is celebrating its Trump- and Russia-bashing as the “new golden age of American journalism.”
The New York Times and The Washington Post, in particular, view themselves as embattled victims of a tyrannical abuser. The Times presents itself as the brave guardian of “truth” and the Post added a new slogan: “Democracy dies in darkness.” In doing so, they have moved beyond the normal constraints of professional, objective journalism into political advocacy – and they are deeply proud of themselves.
In a Sunday column entitled “How Trump inspired a golden age,” Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote that Trump “took on the institution of a free press – and it fought back. Trump came to office after intimidating publishers, barring journalists from covering him and threatening to rewrite press laws, and he has sought to discredit the ‘fake news’ media at every chance. Instead, he wound up inspiring a new golden age in American journalism.
“Trump provoked the extraordinary work of reporters on the intelligence, justice and national security beats, who blew wide open the Russia election scandal, the contacts between Russia and top Trump officials, and interference by Trump in the FBI investigation. Last week’s appointment of a special prosecutor – a crucial check on a president who lacks self-restraint – is a direct result of their work.”
Journalism or Hatchet Job?
But has this journalism been professional or has it been a hatchet job? Are we seeing a new “golden age” of journalism or a McCarthyistic lynch mob operating on behalf of elites who disdain the U.S. constitutional process for electing American presidents?
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)
For one thing, you might have thought that professional journalists would have demanded proof about the predicate for this burgeoning “scandal” – whether the Russians really did “hack” into emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and then slip the information to WikiLeaks to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
You have surely heard and read endlessly that this conclusion about Russia’s skulduggery was the “consensus view of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies” and thus only some crazy conspiracy theorist would doubt its accuracy even if no specific evidence was evinced to support the accusation.
But that repeated assertion is not true. There was no National Intelligence Estimate (or NIE) that would compile the views of the 17 intelligence agencies. Instead, as President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 8, the Russia-hacking claim came from a “special intelligence community assessment” (or ICA) produced by selected analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, or as Clapper put it, “a coordinated product from three agencies – CIA, NSA, and the FBI – not all 17 components of the intelligence community.”
Further, as Clapper explained, the “ICA” was something of a rush job beginning on President Obama’s instructions “in early December” and completed by Jan. 6, in other words, a month or less.
Clapper continued: “The two dozen or so analysts for this task were hand-picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies.” However, as any intelligence expert will tell you, if you “hand-pick” the analysts, you are really hand-picking the conclusion.
You can say the analysts worked independently but their selection, as advocates for one position or another, could itself dictate the outcome. If the analysts were hardliners on Russia or hated Trump, they could be expected to deliver the conclusion that Obama and Clapper wanted, i.e., challenging the legitimacy of Trump’s election and blaming Russia.
The point of having a more substantive NIE is that it taps into a much broader network of U.S. intelligence analysts who have the right to insert dissents to the dominant opinions. So, for instance, when President George W. Bush belatedly ordered an NIE regarding Iraq’s WMD in 2002, some analysts – especially at the State Department – inserted dissents (although they were expunged from the declassified version given to the American people to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq).
An Embarrassing Product
Obama’s “ICA,” which was released on Jan. 6, was a piece of work that embarrassed many former U.S. intelligence analysts. It was a one-sided argument that lacked any specific evidence to support its findings. Its key point was that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a motive to authorize an information operation to help Hillary Clinton’s rival, Donald Trump, because Putin disdained her work as Secretary of State.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
But the Jan. 6 report failed to include the counter-argument to that cui bono assertion, that it would be an extraordinary risk for Putin to release information to hurt Clinton when she was the overwhelming favorite to win the presidency. Given the NSA’s electronic-interception capabilities, Putin would have to assume that any such undertaking would be picked up by U.S. intelligence and that he would likely be facing a vengeful new U.S. president on Jan. 20.
While it’s possible that Putin still took the risk – despite the daunting odds against a Trump victory – a balanced intelligence assessment would have included such contrary arguments. Instead, the report had the look of a prosecutor’s brief albeit without actual evidence pointing to the guilt of the accused.
Further, the report repeatedly used the word “assesses” – rather than “proves” or “establishes” – and the terminology is important because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.” The report admits as much, saying, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
In other words, the predicate for the entire Russia-gate scandal, which may now lead to the impeachment of a U.S. president and thus the negation of the Constitution’s electoral process, is based partly on a lie – i.e., the claim that the assessment comes from all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies – and partly on evidence-free speculation by a group of “hand-picked” analysts, chosen by Obama’s intelligence chiefs.
Yet, the mainstream U.S. news media has neither corrected the false assertion about the 17 intelligence agencies nor demanded that actual evidence be made public to support the key allegation that Russia was the source of WikiLeaks’ email dumps.
By the way, both Russia and WikiLeaks deny that Russia was the source, although it is certainly possible that the Russian government would lie and that WikiLeaks might not know where the two batches of Democratic emails originated.
A True ‘Golden Age’?
Yet, one might think that the new “golden age of American journalism” would want to establish a firm foundation for its self-admiring reporting on Russia-gate. You might think, too, that these esteemed MSM reporters would show some professional skepticism toward dubious claims being fed to them by the Obama administration’s intelligence appointees.
President Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
That is unless, of course, the major U.S. news organizations are not abiding by journalistic principles, but rather see themselves as combatants in the anti-Trump “resistance.” In other words, if they are behaving less as a Fourth Estate and more as a well-dressed mob determined to drag the interloper, Trump, from the White House.
The mainstream U.S. media’s bias against Putin and Russia also oozes from every pore of the Times’ and Post’s reporting from Moscow. For instance, the Times’ article on Putin’s comments about supposed secrets that Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the White House had the headline in the print editions: “Putin Butts In to Claim There Were No Secrets…” The article by Andrew Higgins then describes Putin “asserting himself with his customary disruptive panache” and “seizing on foreign crises to make Russia’s voice heard.”
Clearly, we are all supposed to hate and ridicule Vladimir Putin. He is being demonized as the new “enemy” in much the way that George Orwell foresaw in his dystopian novel, 1984. Yet, what is perhaps most troubling is that the major U.S. news outlets, which played instrumental roles in demonizing leaders of Iraq, Syria and Libya, believe they are engaged in some “golden age” journalism, rather than writing propaganda.
Contempt for Trump
Yes, I realize that many good people want to see Trump removed from office because of his destructive policies and his buffoonish behavior – and many are eager to use the new bête noire, Russia, as the excuse to do it. But that still does not make it right for the U.S. news media to abandon its professional responsibilities in favor of a political agenda.
The run-down PIX Theatre sign reads “Vote Trump” on Main Street in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. July 15, 2016. (Photo by Tony Webster Flickr)
On a political level, it may not even be a good idea for Democrats and progressives who seem to be following the failed strategy of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in seeking to demonize Trump rather than figuring out how to speak to the white working-class people who voted for him, many out of fear over their economic vulnerability and others out of anger over how Clinton dismissed many of them as “deplorables.”
And, by the way, if anyone thinks that whatever the Russians may have done damaged Clinton’s chances more than her colorful phrase disdaining millions of working-class people who understandably feel left behind by neo-liberal economics, you may want to enroll in a Politics 101 course. The last thing a competent politician does is utter a memorable insult that will rally the opposition.
In conversations that I’ve had recently with Trump voters, they complain that Clinton and the Democrats weren’t even bothering to listen to them or to talk to them. These voters were less enamored of Trump than they were conceded to Trump by the Clinton campaign. These voters also are not impressed by the endless Trump- and Russia-bashing from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC, which they see as instruments of the elites.
The political danger for national Democrats and many progressives is that mocking Trump and thus further insulting his supporters only extends the losing Clinton strategy and cements the image of Democrats as know-it-all elitists. Thus, the Democrats risk losing a key segment of the U.S. electorate for a generation.
Not only could that deny the Democrats a congressional majority for the foreseeable future, but it might even get Trump a second term.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Trump took on the neo-cons and they are fighting back and I’m afraid they are winning. That’s what Russia-gate is all about. The neo-con version of reality.
What they need to do is vigerously investigate the Seth Rich murder.If He is the DNC leader then the “Putin did it ” narrative falls apart.Find out where his laptop is and pursue an investigation which obviously has serious national security implications.His parent’s objections should not stand in the way because of the nation’s need to know.Tom
Fear and Loathing in Montana?
Thompson admonishes:
“There are a lot of ways to practice the art of journalism, and one of them is to use your art like a hammer to destroy the right people — who are almost always your enemies, for one reason or another, and who usually deserve to be crippled, because they are wrong. This is a dangerous notion, and very few professional journalists will endorse it — calling it “vengeful” and “primitive” and “perverse” regardless of how often they might do the same thing themselves. “That kind of stuff is opinion,” they say, “and the reader is cheated if it’s not labelled as opinion.” Well, maybe so. Maybe Tom Paine cheated his readers and Mark Twain was a devious fraud with no morals at all who used journalism for his own foul ends. And maybe H. L. Mencken should have been locked up for trying to pass off his opinions on gullible readers and normal “objective journalism.” Mencken understood that politics — as used in journalism — was the art of controlling his environment, and he made no apologies for it. In my case, using what politely might be called “advocacy journalism,” I’ve used reporting as a weapon to affect political situations that bear down on my environment.”
Hammer them until they end up in bankruptcy. They’ll have their crook pals rob the public for some bailout scam to run up more debt to keep providing services like the Iraq project. War on terror turned into suicidal generals raving and selling themselves to Russian crooks.
One of the best pieces I have read in a long time. The media has let their personal feelings and biases overwhelm and taint their responsibility as journalists to report facts and facts alone and have decided to spin everything to advance a point of view. On the positive side, it is a great opportunity for fair and even keeled journalism, though it is sad that the public clamors for this Hollywood style scandal reporting over true, factual news.
Robert Parry misses nothing. He is the best.
When Trump stops lying, the press will stop exposing the lies. If Trump makes Trump sound bad, don’t blame the press. No public figure in recent times deserves closer scrutiny and “constant vigilance” as much as this aberration: a real estate salesman cum reality show host who hoodwinked millions of voters, praised Russian help disparaging his opponent and perhaps even colluded with the Russians to help his own campaign. It should never have happened, it must never happen again.
The press isn’t being blamed here for making Trump sound bad. The writers here do not need the press to analyze Trump’s words and point out how “bad” he sounds when that is the case.
The press is being taken to task for their lack of professional standards, their stenographic proclivities, their foolhardy myopia and naively simpleton view of all things pertaining to Russia, and their peculiar lack of curiosity when it comes to important evidentiary findings.
The Russians did not disparage Clinton. But like a petulant cretin, she compared Putin to Hitler, and went out of her way to disparage, through thoughtless generalization, a significant percentage of the electorate. Sorry Charlie, but the adults in the room, including the Russian statesmen (who mind their own business), don’t need any help understanding just who and what Clinton is…she is much more transparent than you give her credit for.
Right on target about Clinton, Gregory.
As to Ronvent’s charges of Trump being a liar, I’m not sure that Trump knows enough or is intelligent enough to qualify as an actual liar, i.e., someone who makes statements contrary to their own belief in a deliberate attempt to deceive. I think his head is largely empty or full of misinformation. Whatever he tries to express is usually not done well, or at an utterly simplistic level. (Maybe the voters appreciate the 5th grade vocabulary?) He doesn’t see the inconsistencies and contradictions that he expresses from one day to the next. Of course, most politicians are walking contradictions, which must be why they are generally quite reluctant to call one another flat out “liars.”
“Maybe the voters appreciate…”
I needed a chuckle. Thanks.
Hahahaha. And Hillary was a saint.
Never was and never will be… even if there is an afterlife.
Trump Unveils $4 Trillion Budget Calling for Massive Cuts to Health & Food Programs
MAY 23, 2017
President Trump is unveiling a $4.1 trillion budget today. The plan includes massive cuts to social programs, while calling for historic increases in military spending. The budget proposes to slash $800 billion from Medicaid, nearly $200 billion from nutritional assistance programs, such as food stamps and Meals on Wheels, and more than $72 billion from disability benefits. The plan would also completely eliminate some student loan programs.
It would ban undocumented immigrants from receiving support through some programs for families with children, including the child care tax credit. In a rare proposed benefit for families, the budget allocates $19 billion for six weeks of paid parental leave for new families—a project that has been spearheaded by his daughter and senior White House adviser, Ivanka Trump.
The budget also calls for a historic 10 percent increase in military spending and another $2.6 billion to further militarize the U.S.-Mexico border, including $1.6 billion to build Trump’s border wall. The budget projects 3 percent economic growth—which economists say is widely unrealistic. Unlike previous presidents, Trump is unveiling his proposed budget while he is abroad, currently spending the day in Israel and Palestine before he heads to the Vatican tonight. David Stockman, former budget director for President Ronald Reagan, said, “This budget is dead before arrival, so he might as well be out of town.”
US Journalism’s New Golden Age
https://socialistworker.org/series/tales-from-the-trump-swamp
Trump cannot be convicted, if he is impeached, and I doubt the Republican Majorities, which will be maintained in two years, will allow impeachment to even come to a vote. The way the Democrats are going right now, If he is not assassinated, Trump will be reelected.
Tulsi Gabbard 2020!
With all the crap being thrown at him, I wonder if Trump will still want the job in 2020. America is close to ungovernable, if not there already.
derek leisure
May 23, 2017 at 10:51 am
yah…maybe u can be the first guinea pig for the Singularity Project
^^
Or are you among the lemmings, lost in the forest of “great expectations” from the group of Planners who ‘create their own reality’ – to the detriment of “we the People’ – and Humanity- at- large. (Malthusian Economic Model).
Are you in approval of analytics that mollify body counts as ‘collateral damage’ during our creation of “The New Middle East”?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/karl-roves-prophecy-were-an-empire-now-and-when-we-act-we-create-our-own-reality/5572533
Are you content with the unaccounted for death of innocent humans? malnutrition/starvation? forced displacement, refugees?
The United States’ training and arming of jihadist fighters? US/NATO air-strikes on weddings/funerals, the mass murder of civilians?
What part in these atrocities (Drone Warfare) does ANALYTICS play, – can you imagine, derek leisure?
– more than that, do you give a care???
CRITICAL READING
Trump, Comey, & the crisis in the US ruling class
How capitalism undermines social justice
iPhones aren’t why we can’t afford healthcare
Women workers began the Russian Revolution
What’s behind Trump’s Muslim ban
http://www.socialistworker.org
Or, how many of these headings may’ve
been written via US computer analytics ?
you have obviously never read from this site before…and we are well aware of the tech used by the Globalists
Narrow-mindedness is food and drink of “The People”
foreshadowed within Huxley’s Brave New World.
The greater majority of humanity, in the world today,
face starvation as a manner of leaving this world…
Others face manifold forms of deprivation
in a world where there is no peace
In scores of equivalence we
champion ourselves accordingly
Knowing / Denying that We Are
“The World’s Greatest Purveyor Of Violence.”
m-f, your comments are disorganized and without relevance, evidence, or argument.
You need to learn how to be relevant, and how to argue a case.
Instead you have disgraced yourself with a rational group.
Robert, you are underestimating democratic constituents. Or, should I say the progressive movement within the democratic party. I don’t capitalize because they’re a corporate owned entity, much like the republican party. We don’t have a democracy in this country. It’s an Oligarchy, or many prefer Kleptocracy.
As you know, our country was designed to balance power. This required a strong central government and a free and independent press (Fourth Branch of Government).
Neither of these exists, and haven’t for decades. Albert Einstein noted this in his famous dictum in the 1940’s, “Why Socialism”.
The power in this country has become a centralized mess. Billionaires buy seats in across state lines. The media stays quiet and assists because it keeps their revenues afloat. Without the billions in political ad revenues, most papers would fold. Broadcast TV actually protects these ad buyers by obscuring their contracts with them.
It’s all a farce. This whole country is a scam and the media is used to manufacture consent or social engineering. It’s been their role since the 50’s.
The Russia narrative is just a distraction while the Kleptocracy steals more and more from the American people. Austerity to the people and tax cuts and subsidies to the thieves. It’s a racket.
This self-righteous attitude among representatives of the mainstream media that they are under attack from authoritarian Trump and stand up for democracy is widespread. It can even be seen among European journalists, mainly those who uncritically accept all the suspicions from suspicious leakers and any evidenceless conspiracy theory about Russia.
Of course, it is important that newspapers write critically about a president. In the US, this does not require a lot of courage, which is a good sign. If there were excluvely positive reports about Trump in the mainstream media (which seems to be the case in the Saudi press, due to the complete lack of press freedom, it is not only impossible to write something critical about Saudi Arabia’s own government, but also about the US president), this would certainly be worrying.
But it should be obvious that there is more than one center of power in the United States. The mainstream media obviously is mostly critical of Donald Trump, but it seems to have given up any critical distance to the selective anonymous leakers from the deep state. The main agenda seems to be a neoconservative foreign policy agenda. When Trump follows it (e.g. with the Tomahawk attacks against Syria or a speech in Saudi Arabia in which he demonizes Iran), he receives some praise, but mostly – and especially when he attempts to have normal, constructive relations with Russia, like with many other countries, he is attacked in an extraordinarily harsh way.
What I find remarkable is that the focus of the mainstream media is completely divorced from what polls tell us about the prevailing opinions of the US public. Republican cuts to medicare and medicaid are very unpopular, and such actions go completely against Trump’s campaign rhetoric. But that is treated as a side issue in the mainstream media. His close alliance with Saudi Arabia and demonization of Iran also goes against many of the things Trump had said earlier and which lead to a certain popularity of Trump among some people who are critical of neocon foreign policy, but this, of course, is treated as something very positive in the mainstream media, a precondition for being “presidential”. If the goal of the Democrats will really be to run against Trump on the basis of evidenceless conspiracy theories about Russia (which will become increasingly difficult as time goes on and no proof is published), as it seems to be at the moment, they’re setting themselves up for almost certain defeat. The main question will then be whether someone who takes up really popular issues like economic inequality will succeed (either in the Democratic primaries or as an independent) – since Trump has also betrayed many of his campaign promises, such a rival could have a good chance. But if it is just Trump against a mainstream conspiracy theory peddling new cold war Democrat, a second victory by Trump is probably inevitable – Trump is inconsistent, but that is nothing new for American presidents, but the unhinged way in which evidenceless conspiracy theories are used by mainstream Democrats and the media that are close to them is, in my view, really a new development.
Yes, a new development and even more disturbing than anything Trump has said or done. The Dems are about as paranoid as Kim Jung-Un, but without the good reasons he has.
We are presently living through the American equivalent of China’s “Cultural Revolution.” Who, besides Hillary and the media elites, will finally be counted amongst our own “Gang of Four” when the ringleaders of this insurrection are finally identified in the history books? Well, if you fail to forcibly capture the office of “Big Brother,” I suppose the role of Emmanuel Goldstein is what you will eventually get. May you live long enough for that infamy to sink in, Hillary. And then, drop dead, beeyotch.
2. Obama
3. G W Bush the idiot front-man
4. Cheney in all of his malevolence
5. Turdblossom, who had the audacity to announce loudly to the World that we are now
an Empire (so, no longer a Republic)
6…I’m sure there are many un-named that belong on this list.
But before it “sinks in”, she needs to fear the infamy.
She feared, it came, she…
Fuck America ! Don’t you realize than we are sick of hearing Nothing but shit about that sick country. American people are unable to clean the mess in Washington. Let us all decent world’s Citizen totally boycott everything made in that fucken country (This include all US Citizen). We must also require the removal of the UN headquaters from New-York…
This is all just so much high-fiving and whistling past the graveyard, on the part of MSM. It’s not even about Trump personally. LaRouche has it right; Trump just happens to be the first Prez of the New Era, officially born in May of 2017, in Beijing, with its Belt and Road Conference. The old post-war Anglo-American Imperium has expired. ALL of the inspiration and gravity lies with the Belt&Roaders, and Trump will find that irresistible, this is his “Great Crime” in the eyes of the expired Oligarchy (i.e. the Managerial Elite Courtiers of the Royal Dynasties still infesting Europe, and their colonial wannabes of Wall Street, Israel and KSA). Their efforts to derail the Belt&Roaders by derailing Trump will not succeed. It is clear (to those with eyes to see) that a new Zeigeist has arrived on the planet, and is reorganizing human thoughts and activities along Belt&Road lines.
A major new study out of Harvard University has revealed the true extent of the mainstream media’s bias against Donald Trump.
“The academics based their study on seven US outlets and three European ones. In America they analyzed CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox News, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.”
The graphs are telling re negative reporting on Trump: CNN and NBC (93% negative); CBS (91% negative); New York Times (87% negative); Washington Post (83% negative); Financial Times (84% negative); BBC (74% negative).
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/harvard-study-reveals-huge-extent-of-anti-trump-media-bias/
Six readings for a new age of journalism http://jour.sc.edu/news/csj/csjnov09.html
Process is at the speed of thought. https://onlinejournalismblog.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/newsdiamond.gif?w=625
It’s digital wilderness of mirrors!
Apthorp was not a formal organization that could be looked up in a phone book; in financial cant, it referred to a strategic alliance of several immense companies, including Machine-Phase Systems Limited and Imperial Tectonics Limited. … MPS made consumer goods and ITL made real estate, which was, as ever, where the real money was. Counted by the hectare, it didn’t amount to much…but it was the most expensive real estate in the world outside of a few blessed places like Tokyo, San Francisco, and Manhattan. …every new piece of land possessed the charms of Frisco, the strategic location of Manhattan, the feng-shui of Hong Kong, the dreary but obligatory Lebensraum of L.A. It was no longer necessary to send out dirty yokels in coonskin caps to chart the wilderness, kill the abos, and clear-cut the groves….
“Hackworth encounters a member of the peerage“
Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all. Reporting is hard, unless you’re a fairy tale artist and can make up your own facts. You have to be fair even if it’s fake. You can’t run a car wash and have cars coming out covered with mud and say we got the tar off, at least. Pay us! We busted off your mirror and that’ll be less to clean next time. It’s in the glove box which is now the mirror box. People can use the car wash to do first-aid. The only way to keep Obamacare alive is to steal an FBI sedan.
The Golden Age is over. Journalism is hard, so it’s the Diamond Age.
“Some cultures are prosperous; some are not. Some value rational discourse and the scientific method; some do not. Some encourage freedom of expression, and some discourage it. The only thing they have in common is that if they do not propagate, they will be swallowed up by others. All they have built up will be torn down; all they have accomplished will be forgotten; all they have learned and written will be scattered to the wind. In the old days it was easy to remember this because of the constant necessity of border defence. Nowadays, it is all too easily forgotten.
“New Atlantis, like many tribes, propagates itself largely through education. That is the raison d’être of this Academy.”
“Miss Matheson’s philosophy of education”
Journalism has made the USA prosperous.
Every day is game day, so get out there and go play.
I was hoping the collapse of the “Hillary Steps” at the summit of Mt Everest would turn into a good allegory for the current Hillary in the hopes she can no longer ascend to the top. But despite a first hand witness (mountaineer Tim Mosedale) seeing the Steps crumble, CNN says it didn’t happen, so the news can’t even agree on this issue. Maybe Wolf Blitzer checked it out. I mean this ‘tongue and cheek’ only as a distraction from some of the bot comments above which lend neither ideas nor clarity of thought to the articles or comments, as if some people are reading a foreign book with a bad translation, or simply pulling out quotes from some non sequitur tangent that some synapse sparked.
For Stiv: your comments and criticisms of Mr Parry have become increasingly redundant and meaningless. If a journalist doesn’t try to connect the dots, and often remarking what those ‘dots’ are, the short attention span readers of other papers, and maybe youself as well, will just cast off what is important to learn. Mr Parry is at least keeping the stories alive, with updates, so they don’t fall into the wastebin too soon. This is an important aspect of journalism and difficult to find on many sites. My suggestion is to skim what you think you know, and look for anything new which will help you understand the complexities of reporting more quality news these days. For me personally, I believe Mr Parry is providing a much needed service in our current media wasteland.
There are plenty of other sites where you can bash away to ease your distemper. Of course I mean this only in the most polite and respectful way.
Why do my comments usually go thru, but at other times “await moderation”?
If u do an edit to your comment…and there isnt a moderator available…it goes in the stack til they can review it…
“Trump provoked the extraordinary work of reporters on the justice, intelligence and national security beats,” sayeth the wise WaPo sage Milbank.
What extraordinary work? WaPo reporters are acting as dutiful stenographers for any CIA people who call them up with more anonymous gossip and hearsay re Trump. They’ve jumped the shark. WaPo is currently producing some of the laziest, most sloppy journalism I’ve ever seen–and when the stakes are so high.
Even the authoritarian, loyally pro-Hillary, old-skool liberal Dem in my newsroom, who only gets his news from NYT, WaPo, NPR and maybe CNN and MSNBC–and had never heard of the Intercept or ConsortiumNews–commented last week that the WaPo’s Trump revelation stories are a little too thinly sourced.
WaPo published several stories last week that were nothing more than some CIA guy calling up his buddy at the WaPo and passing on some random tidbits of rumor and gossip re Trump people talking to Russian people, or having some business connection to Russian people, or Trump talking to Lavrov, or Something. And the WaPo reporter breathlessly wrote it up and published it, without bothering to seek independent confirmation. Like I said, some seriously lazy crap.
A shameful abdication of professional journalism. If you’re going to use a blind source, the standards are higher. You need to call around and get independent corraboration from other sources.
Rule of thumb at my paper is you need at least three anonymous sources saying something to go with a blind-sourced story based on whatever they are saying–and you specify how many sources and where they work.
WaPo should at least say NSA official or CIA official. They’ve been writing stories making serious accusations based on a single anonymous “government official.” That’s stenography, not reporting. And Milbank calls this utter failure and abdication of professional reporting standards a “golden age of journalism”.
FWIW, I worked with Milbank on my college newspaper. He was a smug water-carrier for the Establishment even then–almost 30 years ago. He never met a bit of conventional wisdom he didn’t like–and could profit from. Preferred to sit on his butt from on high and write all-knowing editorials, rather than trouble himself to do any actual reporting.
The WaPo’s new “Democracy in Darkness” slogan is truly ludicrous. I suggest “Dutiful CIA Stenographers” insread. Or, perhaps, “We Don’t Give a Shit About Actual Journalism–We Just Write Up Whatever We Can Get People to Click On.”
Perfect summation F.G.Sanford, as always. Thank you!
I couldn’t believe my ears at what I heard Malcolm Nance claiming to an enrapt audience Sunday as I listened to this recording a few hours ago.
That is he “has and has had slam-dunk evidence of catching the Russians in the hacking act last summer in his CIA capacity” and man does he stoke and milk the crowd as Superman and the CIA/NSA being paragons of virtue.
And commensurately dishes dirt on Wikileaks source claims and anyone questioning the murder of Seth Rich as being suspicious. “On the Media”did the same thing in their spinning coverage on this week’s WNYC program.
This is the program as posted on KPFA’s website: Both it and OTM should be heard in all of their egregiousness as shills for the DS narrative. Totally in the tank.
“Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-13) Hosts Presidential Accountability Town Hall.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee hosted a town hall discussion on Sunday, May 21, at Martin Luther King Jr Middle School in Berkeley. The panel discussion, entitled “From Nixon to Trump: Perspectives on Presidential Accountability” featured John Dean and Malcolm Nance.
Special guests John Dean, was a key witness during the Nixon Watergate scandal and Malcolm Nance, a Retired US Naval Officer & and an expert in national security policy & anti-terrorism intelligence, discuss the legal, ethical, and moral limitations of presidential authority, and its impact on our district.
Moderated by Elizabeth Hillman, President of Mills College (Lee’s alma mater).”
https://kpfa.org/episode/barbara-lee/
Politico’s pundits now flatter, and praise with their partisan chatter.
Bob Mueller and Jim will make Trump’s chances slim – they’ll serve up his butt on a platter!
They got famous when Ashcroft was sick. They opposed Cheney’s sly legal trick.
But on torture, detention and things they don’t mention, they went right along with old Dick!
Water boarding was simply OKay. And rendition was mere child’s play.
It was not prejudicial or extrajudicial when due process could get in the way.
Entrapment schemes famously failing, and blackmail plots clearly prevailing,
The Politico team forgot that bad dream about Cointelpro scandals unveiling!
They’re talking up Comey and Bob. Righteous justice and virtue their job-
None can encroach with a biased reproach, they won’t implement any lynch mob!
Mike Whitney sheds light on the tale. Who knows if the truth will prevail?
Constitutional thrust may not be so robust – if The Empire’s plans could derail!
Will they honor the Forefathers’ hopes, and stick to juridical tropes?
Or will each contradiction be passed off as fiction, and sent for debunking to Snopes?
It sounds like the Warren Commission. Some “honorable men” with a mission.
They’ll investigate – with a plan to deflate – any finding that rules out sedition!
Chuck Schumer is Jimmy’s good buddy. There are links that the press fails to study.
When they spied on the Senate and broke every tenet, democracy got rather muddy.
Those guys are such virtuous saints. That’s the picture Politico paints.
Their pious oration defies condemnation, so bias won’t hazard complaints!
Rachel Maddow seems slightly unstable. She’s attached to the Russia-gate fable.
Pelosi’s indignant and Trump is malignant, so impeachment is back on the table!
Bernie backers are really irate. The press still avoids that debate.
Their lawsuit is claiming that primary gaming was rigged to screw their candidate!
The lawsuit is not in the news. It’s a topic they choose to recuse.
There could be upheaval if Clinton was evil – a scandal they wish to defuse!
So far, there are blind accusations. No evidence feeds allegations.
The real crimes are leaks and surveillance techniques, never mind murky Clinton Foundations!
Fox and Friends have been talking to Newt. He’s a partisan old right wing coot.
His points were astute and seem hard to confute. They put Russia-gate into dispute!
There are claims that Rod Wheeler recanted. Mainstream stories seem awfully slanted.
Was a dead horse’s head at the foot of his bed, or has more propaganda been planted?
It’s a cinch that somebody will lose. The truth is so easy to bruise!
Between news that is fake and war profits at stake, they’ll make offers that none can refuse!
Who is our Vito Corleone?
As usual great stuff, and filled with plenty of thought provoking detail.
Someone today said, that Trump will return from his Middle East trip to face his impeachment. Not to get too concerned because this was Joy Behar on ‘the View’ who had made this prediction. Yet, what if the comedian talk show host is right? Should we wonder to where, or why Joy feels this way? On Bill Maher’s show David Frum made some pretty dark forecasts for Donald Trump’s future. Now I realize these people I have mentioned are only pundits and talk show hosts, but could their remarks be signs of what’s to come?
Just thought I’d mention this subliminal messaging, as to keep the peripheral noise in the overall picture. There must be something to this method of analyzing since Jared Kusner targeted Trump campaign commercials to be aired on ‘the Walkind Dead’. The battle isn’t only being fought on CNN or FOX. The undercurrent is the comedy and talk show circuit media, that influence a lot of people.
Good stuff F.G.
I’m waiting to hear what comes out of the supposed Kim Dotcom bombshell. If he really has the scoop, things will get exciting. If the pundits judged President Trump strictly based on his body count, then at least so far, he looks like an angel compared to Bush and Obama. The hypocrisy is stunning. I wonder what Dotcom’s got. Speaking of things people got, I gotta wonder what the Clintons got on Comey that made him give her a pass. People don’t think back far enough. I’m thinking 1996 is a better place to start looking at current events. Hey, but maybe now that they’re in Rome, Pope Frank can work a little magic. Stranger things have happened…
With the Kim Dotcom (internet pirate of copyrighted material) federal prosecution ongoing, I’m curious what he claims, and whether it is mere threat. He was last heard to be under threat of US extradition from New Zealand.
In a prosecution of two networks of internet pirates, the federal judiciary was nothing but obstructive, and Google continued to host one of their primary websites, but one of the investigative agencies appealed to shut down most of the piracy websites. Apparently a battle of oligarchies, or between oligarchy and a few good people.
The pirates as well as Google may be suppressing social critics by giving away their work for free, just as Google simply disappears their work from searches.
F.G. Sanford: “I gotta wonder what the Clintons got on Comey that made him give her a pass.”
Comey gave Clinton — No Pass.
He tossed that up at a- – pull the plug (or not) pull the plug moment.
It should’ve never reached debate in that dangerously dis-apropos moment in World and U S History.
” I gotta wonder what the Clintons got on Comey ” — F.G. Sanford
how can we hide our eyes from Money In Politics and/or stand in defense of the MAGA politics of Nationalism?
Dostoyevski and liberal freedom ought to be our preferred choice. Along with honesty and truth.
Who is the Rasputin in the room??
Robert Parry quotes Washington Post Dana Milbank:
“Trump provoked the extraordinary work of reporters on the intelligence, justice, and national security beats, who blew wide open the Russia election scandal, the contacts between Russia and top Trump officials, and interference by Trump in the FBI investigation.”
*on the intelligence—as indicated above borrowed from a scummy outfit named Crowdstrike
*on justice—where is justice for Seth Rich or for Sanders and Sanders supporters re DNC manipulation to deny Sanders the nomination?
*on national security beats—strong and getting stronger indications the national security beat itself, not wanting either candidate, arranged the leaks and faked the cover-up, while all the press had to do was say: “Yes, I see. That does make a good story.”
*contacts between Russia and top Trump officials—have shown nothing toward interference in the election or anything unreasonable and damaging politically, only, potentially, in Trump’s previous business dealings.
*interference by Trump in FBI investigation—Trump’s blundering that he wanted Comey on his side and off the investigation, foolishly and broadly announced to this same “golden period” journalism was about as stupid and lame an interference I can imagine.
Comey’s firing does not constitute “interference’ when the Assistant District Attorney Rosenstein himself argued the case for him to be terminated.
My God, talk about hubris and delusion. Miranda’s comment above on the Clinton crowd as only talking to each other seems appropriate here also. Milbank and colleagues are slapping each other on the back instead of, “Do you smell something?”
yes,,,If the dems and their presstitutes blare “russia did it and Trump was in on it!!” long enuff and loud enuff, it does tend to drownd out the few independents calling to investigate actual known tampering with the Democratic Primary election and collusion to commit the same…we have the documents for crying out loud…all thanks to those who provided them for us…why is there no public outcry for this investigation? follow the money…Thankfully Seth Richs case is gaining some traction…
The scandal of MSM coverage is even more clear when they don’t attack Trump.
Just about the only time WaPo, NYT et al put away their knives was for favorable coverage of the stupid, useless Syria bombing. They have also been relatively subdued as he lavished praise on SA and Israel. And, inexplicably to me, there has been everything short of a complete coverup of the beating of US citizens? by Turkish security thugs in downtown Washington DC just a few days ago. This is a much worse infringement on the rights of US citizens than supposed Russia meddling. There is actually proof of it happening!
The MSM could outrage every American by playing this footage non-stop, putting pressure on Trump to do something difficult during his ME trip. Instead, they remain muted for the same reason as Syria/SA/Israel. They don’t really care about getting rid of (racist, sexist, oligarch) Trump – they just want him to fall in line with traditional US exceptionalist policy – like Obama. Pretty gross, really.
agreed…any news their paymasters want…
The US political system suffers from bipolar disorder.
i had to share this headline from Defending Democracy Press…it was too funny to not share..:>)
“The Church of Satan is distancing itself from Donald Trump”
ROFL
D
We who follow current events more closely than the average US consumer of “news” have been aware for a long time that The Washington Compost and the New York Time machine are nothing but stenographers to the power trippers in DC and on Wall St.
They’ll resort to the basest of tactics to cover their own and their masters’ butts when confronted with contradictory evidence. It does make me shake my head when people tell me they rely on these cretins for reliable information.
Kudos for another excellent article. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s comparison of the yankee mainstream press to Pravda and Izvestia, quoting the old line that there is no Pravda (truth) in Izvestia and no news (Izvestia) in Pravda is an accurate take on the contemporary mainstream press.
An Integrated-methods Approach is better than an Analytics-only Approach
When analytics is top-of-mind and investments—in the form of software and a new team—have been made, the bias towards analytics is inevitable, though it significantly narrows the pool of solutions. Instead, organizations should focus on understanding the problem deeply and coming up with the best combination of tools, which may or may not include analytics.
In a third case study, a mega hospital in Asia was confronted with an increased incidence of falls resulting in serious injury. From a design-thinking approach, one would track the patient journey, find out the pain points and brainstorm solutions. An analytics approach would link disparate datasets and analyze for risk factors to predict fall risk of new patients.
Integrating Design Thinking (DT), Analytics and Behavioral Insights (BI) along the solution value chain leverages the strength of each method to produce a better solution. Analytics can begin with patient segmentation: Among 2000 patients, how many unique behavioral clusters emerge? Behavioral segmentation, informed by analytics, provides the unique types of patients that DT can track through patient journeys. Thereafter, hypotheses can be quantitatively tested through analytics, revealing a list of risk factors for patient falls. BI picks up the baton to pilot test interventions and roll out the most successful program.
Similarly, in policy formulation and evaluation this trio of techniques presents different means to acquire evidence, which will not be robust if only one method is used. Analytics, no matter how powerful, should be used with other techniques to build the best solution.
“:,
.”
?.. The Ultimate Conquest Of Civilization?
Time for moderator intervention: “mild-ly fercicious” is apparently trying to interfere with the site. This “comment” is spam, apparently pasted randomly from the middle of an irrelevant essay.
yah…i agree he needs to make some sense or leave…
Good point. I thought the same thing as no coherent thoughts were expressed in any of the comments regarding even the m-f previous drivel. It seems like a bot, without decent AI programming. It’s just disjointed, and random spittle.
You all ought to discover the powers of analytics, cloud computing, Behavioral Science and Artificial Intelligence as the New Frontier in International Politics.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?419028-1/thomas-friedman-discusses-thank-late
yah…maybe u can be the first guinea pig for the Singularity Project
How about we discover “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. Perhaps International Politics could be based on the sovereignty of nations and the advancement of general welfare and political rights for all. How about we conduct good faith diplomacy to see how cooperation, not conflict, can lead to these goals. Let’s be human…it really doesn’t have to be all that complicated.
It is now more like the ‘golden showers’ of journalism as the yellow journalist engage in anything that will make them a buck, anything that will advance their egocentric careers and anything that will keep them in good standing with the deep state.
Watch Bill Maher interview Boris Epshteyn, and watch how agitated Maher gets when Epshteyn doesn’t buy into ‘the all 17 intelligence agencies’ narrative. The video is over 11 minutes, but the part where Maher goes off the rails starts at around the 3:55 minute mark.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-20/hbo%E2%80%99s-bill-mahar-bets-100-rubles-trump-%E2%80%9Cwill-be-out-christmas%E2%80%9D
Maher’s rant is what’s wrong with this whole ‘Russia meddled’ in our U.S. elections story. Robert Parry is right the average voter isn’t that stupid, and the Democrat’s are going regret losing elections once more, and then some. Of course the Democrat’s will no doubt just blame their losses on Russia…ho convenient.
Aren’t people tired of over paid comedians telling them about politics? for many, this is where they get what they think is news.
i thought most of us got tired of listening to the Kool Kids in middle school?
Yes Danny, and then these certain few get their own talking points from Bill, and this becomes the official truth of the pseudo left. Bill Mather represents HuffPo group think, and not consortiumnews group think. At least I feel that with the reporting none on this site, that we group thinkers, if we are, are at least assessing the truth. HuffPo leaves out a lot of detail, and where possible goes to cultural issues. Bill Maher is an example of the way people on the left shut you down. So sad.
Hey Joe…the Dems only saving grace may be the general public outrage on this new Budget Bill being introduced today…This abomination of a Bill appears to be worse than originally supposed…ALOT of Americans are going to be devastatingly hurt by these human services cuts,,,70 or 80 million angry citizens might drown out the MSM…If you have family in nursing homes or assisted living etc…u will want to join this fight…And all of it is so the richest people in this country can have more millions…This goddamned government!!! might as well be Feudal England!!!
It’s hard to get the word out, when all media is owned by the corporate elite. People should run business, and not the other way around. Big business is way to big, and it is manipulative through its media outlets, as to control the masses. I know you know this, but I haven’t a clue to how to get the word out, and how to improve any of this atmosphere we all live in….give me a moment, I’ll get back to you.
… contempt for Trump?
It is the Unlimited Imperialists along the lines of Alexander, Rome, Napoleon and Hitler who are now in charge of conducting American foreign policy. The factual circumstances surrounding the outbreaks of both the First World War and the Second World War currently hover like twin Swords of Damocles over the heads of all humanity.
Professor Francis A. Boyle
MF, this site is read primarily by rational people; so you will not find kindred spirits here unless you state evidence and argument rather than grandiose and unsupported claims. Maybe you have good reasons, but no one can tell from the comment.
This is not a Golden Age. This is AIPAC Puppets angry at Trump for not being their puppet.
Before the election all the cultural liberals along with their leaders of Clintonista politicians and the tamed mainstream media were convinced that HRC would win big. There is a video clip of Rachel Maddow, in her super smug manner with her guffawing expression at her own ‘revelations’, talking about how Trump was going to lose big time, losing even states that had been red for decades.
Contrast that with how they were right after the election results came in. They were in shock. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth. They couldn’t believe it.
What explains this? It’s simple. They only talked to each other and only got each other’s perspectives. When they found out that near half the country vehemently disagreed they were in shock. “I had no idea!”
But since then they have rebuilt their narrative and now they are smugly convinced that Trump is being destroyed and everyone agrees with them that he is the worst president in history and he is nothing but a joke who will be driven by office soon. They have no idea, as Robert Parry points out, that this behavior is actually solidifying Trump’s support among the ‘deplorable.’ I’m sure that if they keep this up the 2018 election will be a massive win for Trumpists- the GOP will take more states and have a filibuster proof Senate. Election night 2018 will be a deja vu all over again of election night 2016, not just in a GOP win but in shock and weeping and gnashing of teeth of the cultural liberal and their elite rulers.
How can this happen again? Because they only talk to each other. They are still only talking to each other. The cultural liberal out there only listens to MSNBC and only, if they’re a little more ‘informed’, reads the NY Times and/or Washington Post. Their online life is limited to memes posted by other cultural liberals on Facebook which were made by Clintonista organizations, tweets on Twitter by cultural liberals, and articles on Huffington Post written by Clintonista surrogates (or if they are a little more ‘informed’, they get articles written by Clintonista surrogates on the DailyKos.) Meanwhile the Clintonista political elite and their tame media only talk to each other at their cocktail parties and think repeating the views of one another is journalism.
I tell you, if 2016 didn’t wake them up, neither will 2018. Oh, we’ll have a few weeks of shock and weeping and gnashing of teeth, maybe even some pulling out of hair, but by 2019 they’ll have some more anti-Russia nonsense to explain things or something else their puppet masters make up out of thin air.
Of course this assumes that we get that far along before the current Russia hatred doesn’t get us into WWIII.
The harsh reality is that the world is more unequal than at any time in history, with a few billionaires owning more wealth than the majority of its population and billions of people barely able to survive. In Britain, tens of millions have been plunged into dire poverty by successive governments, including those led by Cameron in which May played a pivotal role.
While millions will be made to suffer, the super-rich and corporations will continue to have money shovelled into their gaping maw. The manifesto states, “Corporation Tax is due to fall to seventeen per cent by 2020—the lowest rate of any developed economy—and we will stick to that plan…”
Confederation of British Industry Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn supported the manifesto, stating, “With the world watching, now is the time to send a clear signal that the UK is open for business. Firms will be therefore heartened by proposed increased R&D spending, planned corporation tax reductions and a commitment to act on business rates.”
While slashing billions from benefits and from pensioners, the manifesto commits to almost unlimited military spending in preparation for war. It states, “As a global power, we have a responsibility to sustain our fine armed forces so that they can defend the realm, our overseas territories and our interests around the globe… We will play a leading role in NATO and maintain the ability to conduct strike operations, peacekeeping, security missions and the deployment of a joint expeditionary force. We will maintain the overall size of the armed forces, including an army that is capable of fielding a war-fighting division. We shall expand our reach around the world.”
The manifesto commits to the renewal of the £200 billion Trident nuclear missile system and boasts that Britain has the “biggest defence budget in Europe and the second largest in NATO. We will continue to meet the NATO commitment to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defence and we will increase the defence budget by at least 0.5 percent above inflation in every year of the new parliament.”
Fully £178 billion in spending on new military equipment is outlined, with the document stating, “Two new aircraft carriers will project British military power for the next fifty years.”
To facilitate British imperialism’s war crimes, the manifesto confirms that UK troops will no longer be subjected to the European Court of Human Rights, and “persistent legal claims… which undermine the armed forces…”
The manifesto’s pledge to protect and even increase workers’ rights, post-Brexit, is the most contemptible of all its claims. What is being prepared is a massive onslaught against the working class, with a bonfire of every regulation that impedes the global competitiveness of big business. Following more than a year of strikes by workers at rail companies, who are opposing the introduction of driver-only operated trains and the loss of thousands of jobs, the manifesto pledges, “We will work with train companies and their employees to agree minimum service levels during periods of industrial dispute—and if we cannot find a voluntary agreement, we will legislate to make this mandatory.”
The anti-immigrant measures of the government are to be stepped up, as a central means of dividing the working class. The manifesto states, “It is our “objective to reduce immigration to sustainable levels, by which we mean annual net migration in the tens of thousands, rather than the hundreds of thousands we have seen over the last two decades.”
The harsh reality is that the world is more unequal than at any time in history, with a few billionaires owning more wealth than the majority of its population and billions of people barely able to survive. In Britain, tens of millions have been plunged into dire poverty by successive governments, including those led by Cameron in which May played a pivotal role.
While millions will be made to suffer, the super-rich and corporations will continue to have money shovelled into their gaping maw. The manifesto states, “Corporation Tax is due to fall to seventeen per cent by 2020—the lowest rate of any developed economy—and we will stick to that plan…”
Confederation of British Industry Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn supported the manifesto, stating, “With the world watching, now is the time to send a clear signal that the UK is open for business. Firms will be therefore heartened by proposed increased R&D spending, planned corporation tax reductions and a commitment to act on business rates.”
While slashing billions from benefits and from pensioners, the manifesto commits to almost unlimited military spending in preparation for war. It states, “As a global power, we have a responsibility to sustain our fine armed forces so that they can defend the realm, our overseas territories and our interests around the globe… We will play a leading role in NATO and maintain the ability to conduct strike operations, peacekeeping, security missions and the deployment of a joint expeditionary force. We will maintain the overall size of the armed forces, including an army that is capable of fielding a war-fighting division. We shall expand our reach around the world.”
The manifesto commits to the renewal of the £200 billion Trident nuclear missile system and boasts that Britain has the “biggest defence budget in Europe and the second largest in NATO. We will continue to meet the NATO commitment to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defence and we will increase the defence budget by at least 0.5 percent above inflation in every year of the new parliament.”
Fully £178 billion in spending on new military equipment is outlined, with the document stating, “Two new aircraft carriers will project British military power for the next fifty years.”
To facilitate British imperialism’s war crimes, the manifesto confirms that UK troops will no longer be subjected to the European Court of Human Rights, and “persistent legal claims… which undermine the armed forces…”
The manifesto’s pledge to protect and even increase workers’ rights, post-Brexit, is the most contemptible of all its claims. What is being prepared is a massive onslaught against the working class, with a bonfire of every regulation that impedes the global competitiveness of big business. Following more than a year of strikes by workers at rail companies, who are opposing the introduction of driver-only operated trains and the loss of thousands of jobs, the manifesto pledges, “We will work with train companies and their employees to agree minimum service levels during periods of industrial dispute—and if we cannot find a voluntary agreement, we will legislate to make this mandatory.”
The anti-immigrant measures of the government are to be stepped up, as a central means of dividing the working class. The manifesto states, “It is our “objective to reduce immigration to sustainable levels, by which we mean annual net migration in the tens of thousands, rather than the hundreds of thousands we have seen over the last two decades.”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/22/tory-m22.html
Yes “the world is more unequal than at any time in history, with a few billionaires owning more wealth than the majority of its population and billions of people barely able to survive.”
But you have not stated whose “manifesto” you are referring to, or why that would be relevant, and as neither are the subject of this article, or of the comment you are replying to, why do you make this comment?
It appears that you are trying to damage this website with insults, irrelevancy, and unsupported extreme statements.
Narrow-mindedness is food and drink of “The People”
foreshadowed within Huxley’s Brave New World.
The greater majority of humanity, in the world today,
face starvation as a manner of leaving this world…
Others face manifold forms of deprivation
in a world where there is no peace
we champion ourselves accordingly
Knowing / Denying that We Are
“The World’s Greatest Purveyor Of Violence.”
a very good description….they are the Kool(aid) Kids….
I was a liberal Democrat my whole life. Always believed in their domestic agenda meant to help the least among us, in spite of the fact that far too often it just sounded like lip service. What the GOP offered was always far worse. Dem foreign policies had caused me to abandon them from time to time (as for example, during the Vietnam War), but I never signed on to the Republican or conservative philosophy of world domination by military force and economic hegemony by the top 1%.
I simply did not vote for long stretches when I could stand neither party. It was always clear what both major parties, plus the high profile “3rd parties,” such as the Libertarians or Greens, stood for as the media USED to be fairly objective and accurate. Lately the media has become nothing more than a propaganda tool for the Democrats, frankly ever since they became committed neocons on foreign policy and neoliberals on economic policy. So, you can’t depend on finding any truth there.
But, I really didn’t need the “mainstream” corporatist propagandists to uncover either the orthodox conservative Republican platform or the Trumpian variant of it, even though the media tried like the dickens to keep it obscured or confused. There was still nothing much of value there, other than Trump’s assertion that he would be a man of peace looking to re-establish a rapprochement with Russia.
The Democrats single-handedly, irrespective of Republican input, destroyed all credibility with me when Barack Obama started picking fights with Russia, instigating a coup in Ukraine and blaming Putin for all the consequences of that. It was stupid and dangerous, yet he constantly doubled down on the trash talk and ill-advised sanctions which harmed mostly our NATO and EU vassal states. He looked for every flimsy excuse to ratchet up the confrontations with that country, especially wherever there was a military engagement going on, as in Syria. He seemed like a crazy man possessed, constantly trying to taunt them into a military confrontation that could easily escalate into a nuclear conflagration. Moreover, he had the entirety of the establishment power centers behind him, including the Deep State, the MIC, the intelligence community, the warmongering neocon whack jobs, the rank and file Democratic party AND the entire “mainstream” propagandist media which he purposefully recruited to demonize Putin after they had done such a convincing job to tar and feather the Taliban, Saddam, Gadaffi, and Assad in recent years.
So, I did not have to do a lot of personal searching, analysing and separating “wheat from chaff” amidst the purposeful confusion and red herrings in the presstitute media to conclude that the Democrats and their leadership were the problem and not the solution. With her snide half-baked bellicose remarks, Hillary early on convinced me that she was even crazier than Obama and would probably be the end of civilisation if she were elected to replace the jerk. What I’m saying is that I could have monitored only the bullshit put out by the Democrats, and buried my head in the sand to all other input, as you say the loyal Democratic party members and their public supporters, like Maddow, Maher, Colbert, Huffpo, NYT, WaPo, etc, have done, listening only to each other in group think, but I still would have conclusively realised that they had gone collectively insane.
Ergo, once more, as a rational person who wants peace because I value life, I cannot support them at the ballot box. In fact, considering the line-up of witless crazies, like Pelosi and Schumer, that they have in their leadership, the sooner the party can be purged of them through a series of electoral catastrophes (a few more “shellackings” for the ObamaNation, or abomination, if you prefer, that has become the Democratic party) the better off this country will be.
This country has a slow learning curve, its voters are mostly clueless about facts, logic, objective reality and principles like cause & effect, so it will probably take a long time to accomplish this. Liberalism or progressivism will probably have to suffer many setbacks under Republican regimes, whether headed by Trump, Pence, Rubio, Cruz or whomever else they manage to stick into office, before people get a clue and start to reverse the process by electing REAL Democrats and real progressives rather than Blue Dog Republican-lite politicos.
Maybe old fashioned liberalism never makes a comeback and whatever it is that the Greens or the Libertarians are offering gets its first chance to guide the direction of American society. By the time the present cycle of madness runs its course and such a change becomes possible the much discussed Millennials will be of age to run the place. We will mostly be dead or institutionalised and will have little to say about what they choose to do. One thing’s for sure, they will certainly know that the Boomers and GenX were here by the size of the repair job we are leaving to them.
Great comment, Realist. The one thing that Trump and Obama have in common is that they both ran on platforms that they immediately reversed upon being elected. Bill Clinton was guilty of this as well. Even W ran on a platform that ridiculed “Nation building”. I believe this proves that the President is no longer in charge, especially on matters of foreign policy and trade.
Until we have systemic change, the “Deep State” will run the show. The rich will get richer, the middle class will disappear, and the serfs will be fighting for crumbs. The Forever War will be our main staple. Refugees will continue to flood Europe. Heroin will continue to thin our population of the “undesirables.” Meanwhile, we blindly march toward Armageddon.
Ergo? Nixon proposed National Health Care Insurance in his 1974 State of the Union Address . The proposal was quickly beaten down by the Democrats, particularly from the Auto Workers Union states, who assumed that they were going to get a better deal from the next obviously Democratic administration. Then those same Democrats acquiesced to a peanut farmer from a Right to work state in 1976, then did it again in 1992 when Bill Clinton defeated Jerry Brown while professing his intent to sign NAFTA. . Just what were you smoking? Democrats talk smack but never put economic justice on their front burner. Sure the Republicans are worse but at least they aren’t as phony. I will never vote for another either of the above for a Federal position.
“Ergo” means “therefore.” Yeah, therefore, for the reasons attached, I cannot support the Democrats.
What are YOU smoking if you think I was defending the Dems in my remarks? You say Dems “talk smack” but never put economic justice “on the front burner.” I said they delivered mere “lip service” to that agenda. Why are you disagreeing with me when we are making essentially the same complaint about them?
Simple, I like therefore better than ergo. Albeit as opposed to although elicits are even more extreme reaction. I vote for Jerry Brown every time he runs, he is too fiscally prudent to be a real Democrat and for several years , like Sanders called himself an Independent. I voted for Sanders too but he’s not a real Democrat either. Sadly , i knew what I was doing . , PS Puffin’ the good stuff. . Bubblegum. Nigerian Dream, etc.
With the Seth Rich story poised to discredit the entire “Russia did it” fabrication, the Deep State and its minions will be forced to distract the public and overwrite its past narrative with a new one – a tried and true tactic that has served them all too well, repeatedly, for decades.
To accomplish that (given just how aggressively and relentlessly they have been hammering their fabrication into their target audiences for months), something – or things – truly spectacular and fearsome will likely be required. As they have clearly demonstrated an extremely dark and compunction-free penchant for such innocent-assassinating gambits, I truly loathe the prospect of where their machinations might take matters – likely soon.
Thereafter, it will be all anyone will be talking about, overrunning every media channel and publication, 24/7, for days on end. Soon enough, there’ll be little or no memory that the ever was a “Russia did it” fable, the telling of which was abandoned long before it was ever finished.
That is, if we leave everything up to them and their minions (which, of course, include the MSM).
Not if we take back control of our own discourse – something we had before, back in the internet’s emerging days (at least as far as the general public was able to access it, i.e., the early 1990’s). Primitive by today’s standards; but very effective, nonetheless.
Tough to do, perhaps, given how “they” have positioned themselves so handily upstream and have had backdoors and sniffers installed everywhere and in everything. But ingenuity is a marvellous thing, while hubris and arrogance are stultifying influences. Thus, despite seemingly overwhelming odds, I still like our chances.
Bruce – and the “Russia did it” story was probably to distract the public from the Clinton Foundation, Clinton’s use of a private server, the erasing of emails, the destruction of hard drives.
Clinton needs to be investigated.
Bruce Dickson …..I really like your attitude . Hell on the MSM !
Why wasn’t the Seth Rich story blown up to huge proportions due to Seth’s relationship to the DNC? I mean when a campaign field office gets paint balled this makes the news to create sympathy, and to case suspicion upon the rival party. So why did the Rich murder get ignored, when it could have been exploited?
My thinking is in no way a slam dunk, and I don’t mean it to be, but I want you to trash this thought of how the DNC distanced itself away from Seth Rich. Furthermore even if Seth’s murder was a random one, his being in the news without a suspect in custody would hurt the blame Russia theme. Either way, Seth’s murder must have an explanation, and Seth’s name be amongst the possible Wikileaks source pool.
Good point. Perhaps some Dems wanted an investigation, while higher-ups thought they “shouldn’t care” due to internal dissension. Perhaps a dark operations branch represented in the DNC by someone’s contact, likely a major “donor” with gangland connections like the zionists or Saudis, or a dark state connection to secret operations. More DNC sources are needed but unlikely. But it is quite suspect that the matter is not front-center for the DNC or our zionist mass media.
F Me . The Age of Aquarius is way over. This is the Disinformation Age. Pathetic double down on think speak and double think is the flavor of the day. It’s just exactly like those dudes like Orwell and Aldous Huxley and Nostradamus and anybody else who ever took a little too much whatever already knew was going to happen. It’s like the Google Car, It’s already here. What passes for Journalism is what that dossier says Trump was into on the bed in Moscow that Obama and Michelle supposedly slept in . Golden Shower Fu to the Max. These pukes get out of College or the Military or (Classified , ,,,. only on an as need to know basis) and they’ll take a job executing people by drone in the CIA if their uncle can’t get them a job as a “journalist”.
Confusion will be our epitapah
Trump gets what he deserves. You can blame “fake news” but he’s the main purveyor. You can blame a press that is “slanted” when he’s the one that is crooked. You can say an uneducated populace is the “true sovereigns” of democracy when, truly, only an informed populace can only hold such promise.
Parry, you have become party to the problem and this website has devolved into a “groupthink” mode that repeats the same lame diatribe over and over and bypasses an important role you once held. There is little news here anymore..certainly not from you….just the rant of someone who’s felt dissed ever since you got put on that stupid “fake news” list ( and then was removed, right?).
As with any reporting, it takes some analysis and crosschecking from the reader to discern “biases” or “misinformations”. Thanks to earlier reporting here, I’ve been able to quickly move through some of the worst cases of this and open other’s eyes to what the true case may be. Thank you for that, but please get off your horse and get back to real news and out of the “opinion” phase you’ve been on. A look at some of the clowns you’ve attracted lately should give you a hint that you are in the wrong direction.
Sincerely, a financial contributor, ~S
Stiv, ” You can say an uneducated populace is the true sovereigns of democracy when, truly, only an informed populace can hold such promise.” That’s great thinking! Let’s reinstitute literacy tests again! I live in the South, and the democrats used to use them to disenfranchise some poor whites and all blacks. I’m afraid they abolished them in 1965 voting right act. Sorry, probably would have worked…
You’re so right, Stiv.-
Simply stated, Trump is a national disaster and the hate Hillary crowd here are the equivalent of Jim Jones’ koolaid swallowers.
Do they seriously imagine world peace under the dunderhead Trump?
The Middle East is about to light-up from American made ordinance and Israeli fire power and Turkish military thugs aligned against Iran and other Shia States in the region.
“The thief comes not but to steal, kill and destroy” —-
That is essentially Trumps mission in his first (and hopefully last) foreign trip as POTUS.
Where was the proposal for PEACE IN THE REGION anywhere in his 30 minute proclamation of WEAPONIZATION spoken to these Providing Protectors of Jihadists terrorists?
…
In other words, the turn toward closer relations with Saudi Arabia and the related Gulf oil sheikdoms is bound up with US imperialism’s mounting conflict with China, which it has identified as the principal challenge to the drive for American global hegemony. Washington is determined to dominate Asia, including China, by maintaining the military power to choke off the region’s energy imports.
The fact that the sclerotic House of Saud, one of the world’s last absolute monarchies, has become a lynchpin of Washington’s imperialist strategy, not only in the Middle East but globally, is a measure of the crisis of American and world capitalism.
Oil revenues, which account for fully 90 percent of the kingdom’s export earnings, have been cut nearly in half since 2014. Last month, the government was forced to reverse itself on austerity measures that hit the military and public employees over fear that declining living standards and rising unemployment are creating the conditions for social revolt.
In the predominantly Shia Eastern Province, the center of the kingdom’s oil production, security forces laid siege to the town of Awamiyah, a center of resistance to the regime, during the week preceding Trump’s visit. Combined with the failure of the Saudi bid to topple the Assad regime in Syria by supporting Al Qaeda-linked militias and the regime’s inability to retake Yemen from the Houthi rebels, the deepening domestic crisis is creating the conditions for revolutionary upheavals against Washington’s principal ally in the Arab world.
http://www.WSWS.org
sorry..you are just wrong about us…we dont like trump and we dont like Killary…but us clowns here are so overjoyed that u could ride your high horses thru our commentary and say nothing but insults…we are so impressed…go back to your ashamed elitist Dem fantasy and continue to lose peoples respect…and votes…lol
or you could help us organize a real third party and quit being assholes…
regards
D
@Stiv with apologies to D for using this reply here:
Parry’s reviews are essential as we try to keep up with this developing false story and its complexity, with its beginning just about a year ago and revelations via leaked emails of the corruption of both the DNC and The Clinton Foundation.
At this time important developments (broken by Fox News last week) is that leakers are coming forward (to keep up with these check with Zero Hedge, daily, and deal with the new security harassment taking place with that site) to expose Seth Richards as the leaker from inside the DNC. Also surfacing is that intelligence agents, some of whom may be involved in creating Guccifer 2.0, are capable of faking rogue whistleblowers, such as Guccifer 2.0.
Further, we should recall how important the January 6 announcement was, because at that time debunking the supposed intelligence was not as strong as it has become (including via Robert Parry). In this article, Robert does not mention that we now know Clapper relied on Comey’s input for that January 6 report. Clapper called his “estimate” at that time “moderate.” Comey relied entirely on Crowdstrike, an intelligence agency hired by Clinton to deal with the damage done from the leaked emails on DNC corruption. Crowdstrike has been exposed as phony and biased with aggressive attitudes toward Russia, besides being in the employ of Clinton to do “the investigation.”
Comey’s estimate was “high.” This “high” estimate he allowed himself tho the FBI conducted NO investigation itself. Comey has subsequently richly revealed himself as a political animal instead of doing the job he’s supposed to be doing.
I’m not sure who Brennan of the CIA relied on for its assessment of “high” but suspect it, too, was from Comey. Most important, there was no “17 agencies” relied on for this weighty Jan 6 report, now so foundational to the MSM. All of it came from the phony Crowdsrike.
This is what Parry has been covering and keeping us clear on, just as he done in the past with what happened in Ukraine, as another example.
On the other hand, you, Stiv, continually complain and add nothing whatever to the discussion except mindless comments blasting this forum, which you obviously do not read. Your input thus = pathetic.
Well said…i mostly called him what he is….an asshole
can we kick the can back to What Really Happened in Libya
after the WORLD WIDE release of that U S christian pastor
setting fire to the Koran? was that not a PROVOKED EVENT?
that was A cover-up for A Massive Weapons Transfer from
Gadafys’ arsenal into waiting hands of ISIS Fighters
organized by
CIA/Mossad agent provocateurs & MIC WarMongers?
During the mid Seventies, after the Church Commission and after the Carter presidential victory, Saudi Arabia stepped in to run our foreign security service, the CIA and its counter intelligence. Stansfield Turner had fired thousands of CIA personnel after the election of Carte and the ellte decided they needed their own intelligence services. They started the Safari Club. Arms dealers like Kasshogi, Gobinafar, Prince Bandhar and the head of the Saudi Security, Prince Turki worked with the CIA to set up BCCI to help them move the slush money off of weapons contracts they had skimmed money from to off the book wars. Iran Contra was one. BCCI handled most of this.
The Safari Club also gave ten million to William Casey, former CIA’s pet peeve: the Italian Social Christian party. Bandhar got away with hundreds of millions.
The Saudis funded the supposed hijackers. they are Muslim Brotherhood followers, Wahabi fascists and they are responsible for both the rise of fundamentalist Islam and and holding up the America economy with a petrol dollar.
We just gave them another hundred million or was it billion? Since the 70’s the Saudis have become one of the co-owners of the mortgage on America.
Thanks for correcting mild-ly fercicious’s “the turn toward closer relations with Saudi Arabia”,
But you have made primarily unsupported claims about this site; please supply evidence and argument for these:
1. No comment here has seenTrump as more than a possible peacemaker or lesser warmonger;
2. No one but the Hillarists have tried to force Trump to do otherwise.
3. There are few readers here who do not know about the Trump reversal on KSA due to the Hillarists;
4. Readers know that Hillary was the supporter of the zionist/Saudi alliance for US wars in the Mideast;
5. I do not recall any commenter here merely “hating Hillary,” which is Hillarist “misogyny” nonsense;
6. If you supported Hillary or opposed Trump, then you knowingly supported those wars.
It is quite another matter whether “Washington is determined to dominate Asia, including China, by maintaining the military power to choke off the region’s energy imports.”
In defense of Mr. Parry, yes he does go over a lot of the same ground repeatedly, with minor variations based on the news of the day, but on the other hand the message hasn’t sunk in yet. I don’t really think of his writings as news but as analysis. And the analysis is sound, IMHO. It’s interesting that even though the particulars change from day to day, the fundamental story withstands the changes intact.
But you forgot to argue any of your points:
1. that any recognition of the many repetitions of the Dem/WallSt/zionist/KSA/MIC madness in the MSM constitutes “a groupthink mode that repeats the same lame diatribe”?
2, that somehow “Trump gets what he deserves” with no intervention of law or reason?
3. that Trump is “the main purveyor” of “fake news”?
4. that Trump is “the one that is crooked”?
5. that readers other than your trollmates are “the clowns” the site has “attracted lately”
I’m sure that an argument with evidence for any of those points would be revealing indeed.
You must have a very inflated opinion of yourself to suppose that everyone can be fooled by mere smearing and pretending to be a donor to the site. Reminds of the used car salesman who assumes that everyone is a greater fool.
I quickly learn to skip comments of troll commenters, I am sure others here too. The first sentence is usually enough. This skill is needed to filter out professional paid and volunteer trolling which is overtaking most comments sections everywhere. The nick/tag can change, but the content never does.
Stiv- I wonder if you’re really reading Bob’s articles carefully or the MSM critically, given so much demonstrated obfuscation in the latter’s reporting. As for Trump, yes, he blows hot air and peddles misstatements, but where he has spoken a few important truths- and he has- whether or not one may believe he is motivated to follow through, those truths should not be twisted, or discredited as fake news, by the MSM or disgruntled readers to satisfy a different political agenda.
Robert Parry–I am so grateful for your work. It keeps me sane in this neo-everything era. As the Yuppy-scum retreat into their portfolios, leaving the Obusha pile of shit behind, I lose track of the new-young who are trying to over come the MSM and get a new, decent message out there. You help so much by keeping the spotlight on the perfidy of the elites, but I wonder if you could turn that analytical genius on the Bernie movement and track how they are doing. Surely the most popular politician in America deserves consortium attention.
Putin showed principles to speak out and show his strong objection to Clinton’s large role in destroying Libya. Apparently MSM approve of Libya’s destruction? Their principles are subservient to their corporate marching orders.
And reflecting on Clinton’s loss, has anyone seen such little campaigning in such a long, drawn-out campaign? She didn’t even bother with several Midwestern states that put Trump over the top in electoral votes.
More and more people, it seems from comments on websites and in public, aren’t bothering with MSM. I don’t.
“On a political level, it may not even be a good idea for Democrats and progressives who seem to be following the failed strategy of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in seeking to demonize Trump rather than figuring out how to speak to the white working-class people who voted for him, many out of fear over their economic vulnerability and others out of anger over how Clinton dismissed many of them as “deplorables.” Robert Parry
Thank you Robert Parry! I certainly agree and I have two thoughts your readers may enjoy. (1) The Hillary Neocons and Neoliberal’s will never get it. And, (2) There is a new type of international news aggregator addressing neoliberalism and democracy in multiple geographic locations and multiple languages. I see this type of specific journalism leading the way in the future and threatening the MSM. Possibly we can simply avoid the MSM into irrelevance in favor of actual facts…
Link here: http://www.defenddemocracy.press
Bob Van Noy, that’s a great site. Thank you for the link. I’m signed up.
You’re welcome, spread the word…
McAfee interrupts the path to that site claiming that it “exhibited one or more risky behaviors” and was “Dangerous” as a “Web Category: Malicious Sites, Politics/Opinion” McAfee is an obligatory installation on Windows 10, which has recently “updated” to remove the advanced-user option of disabling its automatic theft of all user personal information and entire user disk contents to unspecified commercial and surveillance entities.
So it couldn’t possibly be time yet to “Defend Democracy.”
Sam F, Try this link instead it is Michael Hudson explaining the purpose of the Delfi Initiative…
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnzRNIZ79dczuuJStgo3tFw
Hmm… I kieep getting McAfee popups on my Windows 10. I thought it was a spam program that required payment to use. I subscribe to Norton, so I have not (yet) received dire warnings.
I’m really glad I didn’t allow Windows 10 on any of my computers. When I’m using a Win10 machine belonging to a friend or relative I’m barely able to navigate the internet. File operations are out of the question. Regarding popups, I’m usually happy with the YesScript addon – it allows me to individually block scripts on sites where the the scenery is too chaotic and distracting. A few of those sites in turn block my view of them. When that happens I just shrug and move on.
Try a different search engine.
I found this page this morning (Tuesday) so be persistent, I’m convinced it’s a great site.
”The other book is I.F. Stone’s The Haunted Fifties, 1953–1963. The great Izzy’s commentary in I.F. Stone’s Weekly during those egregious years was among the few available sources of sanity in a nation of anti-Russian zombies. “To have kept his head in the hurricane of corrupted speech, ritualized patriotism, paranoid terror, and sudden conversions to acceptability,” Arthur Miller wrote in a foreword to the collection, “required something more than his wits and investigative talent and a gift for language.” It did—and does, so let us take a lesson. Stone endured, Miller observed, because he had faith that “a confident, tolerant America” would eventually come back to life.” By Patrick Lawrence
It explains the significance of the I.F. Stone award to this very site…
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/are-we-witnessing-a-coup-operation-against-the-trump-white-house/
The remaining supporters of a failing empire always double down on it’s mistakes and claim they are actually victories. As their lies become more transparent to one and all they desperately dream up lots of new one’s to cover themselves. They become like a man on a mountain of loose rocks running downhill faster to avoid the avalanche he has triggered behind him. The media are in the process of totally discrediting themselves…..
They are not punishing Trump. They are just Team Hillary having a hissy fit.
And yes, this very long hissy fit is doing them a lot of damage.
Would Trump deserve attack? Yes. Is this it? No. This is just frantic expression of hate. It is not focused, nor linked to balanced respectable judgment. It delights in flights of rhetoric, the wilder the better. It pleases only those who feel the same, convinces nobody else, and alienates a great many who were unsure.
Mark–you are so right. And it’s starting to be obvious to many Hillary voters. I live in a very liberal town and walking the neighborhood I meet lots of Hilary voters who are sick and tired of her snotty ” come back”, in leather no less, and her attempt to get in front of the parade of anti- trump voters. A couple of young women I’ve talked to call Hillary ” Missy”. “Just because Missy wanted her turn, we got trump.” No body’s fooled. And this next year, Hill’s ability to disrupt the democrats efforts to move off dead center and a little too the left will just increase.
I have noticed that also. Those who were angry at me in January for criticizing Hillary as a warmonger, have now seen that she is more so than Trump. There is an uneasy truce in social gatherings, trying to avoid the Trump issue as divisive among good people, which is a conditional standing-down by Hillary supporters, a recognition that the lesser evil was not so obvious.
Soon many progressives should be able to forget Hillary and unite in opposition to Trump for real reasons. That would put him under pressure to do some good. But the Hillarists and MSM have done possibly irreparable damage in preventing Trump from doing the one good thing he promised: to get us out of crazy Mideast wars for Israel. We are still in those wars by giving and selling tens and hundreds of billions in weapons to Israel and KSA.
For that we must pursue the exposure of Israelgate until the zionist controlled MSM are gone forever.
“Trump provoked the extraordinary work of reporters on the intelligence, justice and national security beats, who blew wide open the Russia election scandal …” Excuse me for my ignorance, but I thought ‘blew wide open’ involved some sort of preliminary investigatory process resulting in hard evidence? As far as can make out, all the Washington Post and the rest of the corporate did was act as a compliant mouthpiece for the intelligence services, who hired some Brit ex-MI6 spook, who, in turn paid a few disgruntled Russkies to make something up about Trump and his cronies. Extraordinary work indeed.
Does that count as a fake news report on a fake news report from a fake? Must be the first scoop of its type.
Agreed–except it was the Clinton campaign that hired the ex-M16 spook to write that bogus report.
It was originally the Jeb Bush campaign that commissioned the Opposition research, Mr. Christopher Steele, and his private firm to conduct an investigation and after he dropped out of the race, they sold, or passed on the “Dossier” and info to the DNC. So no , you are not correct, the Clinton campaign did not hire former M-16 spook. Christ, this is Robert Parry’s site, at least try to get your facts correct when posting
sorry, by “he” I was referring to Jeb Bush dropping out, not Christopher Steele. Mea culpa.
They “blew it wide open” alright…out their proverbial arses. And it still stinks to high heaven because it’s stuck on their well-heeled soles. They had better heed Mr. Parry’s warning…they’ve already lost a lot of the older life-long Democrats.
“Democracy” died in darkness at the DNC convention when they turned the lights off above the good people from Oregon chanting “no more war.” That’s when the lights went down on democracy WaPo!
I wonder in how many different ways Robert is gonna prove the same already proved by him and others and acknowledged by readers of all objective websites like this one, hard fact that MSM is nothing but a operatives of Deep State, there is no question about. Overpaid MSM has not intention to cover anything what we ordinary underpaid people would remotely call reality.
I am born optimist and I believe that people especially within Deep State fused Media are not stupid they are cruel, insidious, deceitful, opportunistic and greedy but not stupid even if they seem to act in a way that can only be characterized as utterly stupid.
In fact if they were really stupid it would have terrified me.
McCarthyite hysteria will continue as scheduled but I will not be watching next episode. I rather watch something more reality based and more exciting like grass growing.
So long as we must bear the MSM hysterical diversions from the exposure of the DNC corruption and the Clinton campaign control by extremists, and the MSM demonizing of Russia in support of the militarist agenda of the MIC and Mideast extremists, we will need the better journalism of Mr. Parry to educate less familiar readers.
Those who would like to petition the NYT to make Robert Parry their senior editor may do so here:
https://www.change.org/p/new-york-times-bring-a-new-editor-to-the-new-york-times?recruiter=72650402&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
While Mr. Parry may prefer independence, and we all know the NYT ownership makes it unlikely, and the NYT may try to ignore it, it is instructive to them that intelligent readers know better journalism when they see it. A petition demonstrates the concerns of a far larger number of potential or lost subscribers.
yes. Deep State is a code word for Israel and Central Banks (Bauer Inc.).
Big White Elephant. Most know this but do not want to be punished for saying the obvious.
Just like Congress and State Dept.
There is no way out. We are finished.
Deep state, first used in Turkey but popularized by Peter Dale Scott, means the confluence of big oil, banks, Zionism and the house of Saud and the alphabet soup and military.
Danny Weil: You are Spot On Mate! This is what the USA is facing. Our State Department and Congress are 100% compromised. Good folks like Warren cannot do much and will be silenced if they try. I have no idea how the USA can get out of this.
Tom
Elizabeth Warren has already been bought and paid for by AIPAC. Remember, she was 100% in favour of the last Israeli massacre in Gaza. So before people get too enamoured of her they had better take a good look at who owns her. She could well be another Hillary Clinton with better camoflage.
Did you ever read David Koch’s platform from 1980 for the Libertarian Party? Sorry, I do not post links. Please read for yourself. There is no deep state, there is only pure capitalism. No public funding for anything. Everything that exists should be free from regulation, and sold to the highest bidder. These people find it funny that the populace believes in any kind of ideology, what matters is unfettered markets, money. So what if there is or is not a deep state, so what if the MSM is right or left or neither, whatever will advance the libertarian agenda is helpful.
Three major components of any power system of society of control are:
1. Sword (violence) ;
2. Word (propaganda and legitimacy) ;
3. Money (financial control via money control).
While it is a fat and difficult philosophical book try it, full of references to anything that was written on the subject:
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri: Empire, 1999. Harvard University Press.
(Free online)
Tina: “Deep State” is a term to describe Organized Crime within the seemingly “Legitimate” State i.e. the Politicians we argue over etc. This is a culture of Crime, and Organized now on an International Level. This is NOT a “Conspiracy” it is a Culture that has been around since Kingdom Come, but now has the West in its captivity via Central Banking.It directs the Foreign Policy the Western Nations. BRIC is a response to this. Every City Council has to deal with the folks that want to go around the rules i.e. Contractors etc. On a National level it is larger and on the International Level it is Central Banks, Zionists etc. This is a pretty straightforward explanation. Capitalism is one avenue they use. Marxism is another. Read Anthony Sutton from Stanford/Hoover Institute who came across the direct and original documents of the Internationalist at Hoover and paid an heavy price for this. His books are excellent. Conspiracy Folks are in line with Star Trek Fans and Star Wars Video mentality. Juvenile and mislead. Entertaining but lame.
https://kpfa.org/program/guns-and-butter/
The May 10 program features F. William Engdahl discussing his book “Gods of Money”. I listened to the program Sunday and started reading the Kindle edition that night. Fascinating.
“The influential Times of London reacted vehemently to Lincoln’s Greenback issuance. In an editorial clearly written on behalf of the City of London bankers, it declared, If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then
that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.” from “Gods of Money” by F. William Engdahl
THE SHAME OF US ELITES
Robert Parry’s article, “US JOURNALISM,S NEW GOLDEN AGE?” was a
courageous article which needed the expression he eloquently provided.
As one who opposes almost everything the current administration
has done or sought to do (as well as what the Obama-Clinton)= would
have done as well), the sophomoric attacks of the media and its
innuendo are inexcusable.
Can one imagine the very same reporters and news organizations
making the same nasty comments, implicit and explicit,
about Obama or Clinton? While every Donald Trump campaign-style
rant of hate and war are underlined and repeated again and
again and again. And of course, while there is no real “evidence” beyond
the tabloid variety..
Meanwhile–or have we so soon forgotten?—the very same
so-called “liberal-progressives” passionately oppose
the shadow of an examination of what is really going on
in the name of “God” (the UN Resolution to examine
apartheid measures in Palestine/Israel).
Who is lying?
Who is hypocritical while billions of dollars are given
to Saudi Arabia (and other Gulf states) for the explicit
purpose of defeating a sovereign Member of the United
Nations?
Shame!
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Well stated. It has long been obvious that the corporate media is nothing but a propaganda machine that serves its corporate masters. The fact that six corporations own 96% of the media should drive this point home.The NYT and WP are particularly egregious because the so-called “educated” class believes they publish the gospel truth.
Kalen, re: “I wonder in how many different ways Robert is gonna prove the same already proved by him and others and acknowledged…”
No, this piece is different. Here, Robert rises to poetry. Poetry as in Justice William O. Douglas inspired court opinions.
I share your frustration with the self deception of the MSM and the seeming futility of trying to break through that denial.
However this is a truly inspirational piece and makes it a little easier to get through another theater of the absurd day.
Cheers :)
Correct. Deep State is another name for Rothschild Inc (Bauer/Red Shield) that include Saudis, AIPAC, Central Banks and their Gentile Executioners. State Sponsored Terrorism is this too.