Hillary Clinton blames others for last year’s electoral defeat, never recognizing that many Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — found her public record appalling, as Dennis J Bernstein discusses with John Pilger.
By Dennis J Bernstein
Because of the failure of the corporate press to report fully on Hillary Clinton’s policy failures throughout her career, it was difficult for voters to perceive how dangerous her presidency might have been, although many Democratic voters bolted to Bernie Sanders and enough Americans voted against her last November to give Donald Trump his narrow Electoral College victory.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh on March 30, 2012. [State Department photo]
In the interview, I delve with Pilger into the career of Clinton as a hawkish U.S. senator who continued her interventionism as Secretary of State, not only voting for the Iraq War in 2002 but protecting the 2009 coup in Honduras and pressing for the “regime change” war in Libya that turned the once-prosperous country into a failed state. She also chuckled at the news of the rape-murder of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Dennis Bernstein: Hillary Clinton has been featured on Australian Media to talk about her new book and apparently to blame anyone and everyone for the fact that she lost the election to Donald Trump.
John Pilger: Actually, the interview I wrote about was conducted in New York but it was broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on their flagship current affairs program called “Four Corners.” The interviewer was someone with a reputation for hard-hitting interviews named Sarah Ferguson. I thought it was an extraordinary display of Clinton’s attempting to justify herself after all these months.
When I was in New York recently I read quite a few interviews conducted by female reporters with Hillary Clinton in which she was portrayed as a feminist and therefore all else should be set aside if not forgiven. This was what came across in the Sarah Ferguson interview. It opens with “your pain seemed almost visceral, describe your pain to us.” It was as if she were being invited to lie on a therapist’s couch instead of being interviewed. This has run right through interviews with Clinton by women journalists. The whole question of identity politics has such potency now that a corrupt politician who deceived and abused the electorate can be held up as a martyr.
There is nothing in the interview, for example, about why she described ordinary Americans who might have voted for Trump as “irredeemable and deplorable.” Nothing about how she earned from Goldman Sachs speeches a total of about $670,000, displaying the sort of greed that upset ordinary people in the US.
And of course there is the central issue of the emails leaked by WikiLeaks, which showed how involved Clinton has been with the whole violent, corrupt world of the Gulf and jihadism. The very people backing jihadism, especially Saudi Arabia, were donating large sums to the Clinton Foundation. All this is missing from this and other interviews. It shows how the power of identity politics can eclipse the facts. There was even a photograph I saw in New York of a reporter with her arm around Clinton, consoling her.
Dennis Bernstein: The feeling you get in watching this whole thing unfold is that this is a full-court press to distract from the content of the released emails.
John Pilger: It is very easy to distract attention from something if you simply don’t mention it. I have always felt that the most virulent form of censorship is censorship by omission. The whole nefarious state of the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation is simply left out of these interviews. Hillary Clinton is able to plead a kind of special case for herself because she is a woman and a feminist.
Dennis Bernstein: After this interview with the Australian Broadcasting Company, the producer referred to Julian Assange as “Putin’s bitch.”
John Pilger: The producer re-tweeted a troll message to advertise the interview with Clinton, and especially the component in which she defames Julian Assange. You have to remember, this is the state broadcaster in Australia, which is Julian Assange’s country. Assange pointed out that the ABC’s code was meant to prevent this kind of bias. It was a particularly bad interview but in a sense it was also a very typical one. It allowed a figure of great power and contention to say anything she wanted to say without challenge.
There was no mention of Libya in all of this. Libya was Hillary Clinton’s invasion. It was Hillary Clinton who famously rejoiced on camera the gruesome murder of Colonel Gaddafi. 40,000 people died in this criminal US and NATO invasion. None of this was mentioned, no solidarity with the women who died. There is no solidarity with the women who will suffer as a result of the coup in Honduras, which Clinton signed off on as secretary of state. Simply to make an exception of women like Hillary Clinton because she is a woman and would have been the first female president of the United States seems to me to be a very powerful form of censorship what we should be aware of.
Dennis Bernstein: Hillary Clinton laughed at Qaddafi’s on-camera assassination. She thought that was funny. She bragged about sustaining the coup in Honduras over the opposition of all the presidents in Central America, which has now led to Honduras being the murder capital of the world.
John Pilger: Her notoriety should be clear in the public consciousness. There she is on video saying, “[We] came, [we] saw, he died.” Gaddafi was murdered publicly with a knife. His convoy, which was trying to escape from Libya, was only intercepted because NATO aircraft identified where it was. She gloated at the murder of this man. We should be enlightening people as to the corrupt and very violent nature of individuals such as Hillary Clinton. We are letting the public down if we buy into these identity politics stereotypes. I am sure there are many feminists who find Hillary Clinton and what she has done appalling. But the media still present this woman as something very different from Trump. The grotesqueness of Trump has allowed many liberals in the United States to put aside the fact that Hillary Clinton really is the embodiment of a corrupt system.
A companion piece to censorship is double standards. With Hillary Clinton, it is an incandescent double standard. Many feminists foolishly went along with her call to support the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 on the premise that it would free the women of Afghanistan from the Taliban. Actually, it changed the position of women very little but it caused a great deal of suffering in that country.
WikiLeaks logo
What we are seeing is an important issue–that of identity politics–being used as a cover for violent invasions of other countries. In the Australian interview the interviewer fed her the question, “How much damage did Julian Assange do to you personally?” Her answer was that she had a lot of history with him because she was secretary of state when WikiLeaks published a lot of very important information from our State Department and Defense Department. What Clinton failed to say, and what the interviewer failed to ask her, was that in 2010 WikiLeaks revealed that Clinton had ordered a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the United Nations leadership. This intelligence operation, signed by Clinton, went after things like credit card passwords and forensic details about the communication systems used by UN officials. It was by any measure totally lawless spying.
Dennis Bernstein: There is every indication that these key emails were leaked by someone at Democratic party headquarters who was upset that Hillary and the Democratic leadership undermined Bernie Sanders’ bid for the nomination.
John Pilger: I had a long, filmed interview with Julian Assange one year ago and I asked him outright where the Podesta emails had come from, if they had come from Russia, and he said no. It seems to me that there is every likelihood that these emails were the result of what you just described. Clinton really cut the ground from beneath Sanders. We know that the emails are completely authentic. They expose the Clinton Foundation and its greed and how important Saudi Arabia was to Hillary Clinton. After Saudi Arabia and Qatar had donated generously to the Clinton Foundation, Clinton as secretary of state approved the biggest arms sales in history, something like a total of $80 billion. As a result, total US arms sales to the world doubled. That is big business, that is big war-making, and I would say that is big corruption.
Dennis Bernstein: It is not an exaggeration to say that she was a warmonger, that she was someone who embraced war.
John Pilger: Yes, she was. All the polls during the election campaign last year indicated that Clinton and Trump were two of the most despised candidates to ever run for president. I suppose the people’s memory of that has been clouded over by the awful presence of Trump.
Dennis Bernstein: Anyone concerned about the plight of Palestinians has to recall Operation Cast Lead–which killed around 2,200 people, including about 500 children, with the bombing of schools and hospitals. When Clinton was asked about that, she said, “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
John Pilger: Compared to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Trump is a bit of a wimp. After Obama was elected and before he was inaugurated, he was on vacation in Hawaii where he met with members of his National Security and Defense Department team and he approved support for Israel’s attack on Gaza. So Obama’s first foreign policy act was to approve Israel’s onslaught on the people of Gaza. I think that wondering whether a politician like Clinton will ever do something requiring strong principles and a sense of social justice is really very naive. We have to see these people for what they are. Both Clinton and Trump are a symptom of the system and people must start concentrating on the system and how to change it.
Dennis J Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom. You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net.
Best show on KPFA in a very long time. Finally a story of relevance, fact, and truth.
Both of the Clintons have lived a life not worth living. They wouldn’t know that because both are psychopathic zombies. Somehow they have navigated themselves onwards through an underserved position of “prominence” by employing all narcissistic and demagogic means necessary.
They are submerged in a waste pond of psychopaths. They are enabled by all the others until they no longer serve a purpose. The top of this heap of alien intraspecies predators is far above them. Look to the old, old families and banking giants for the string-pullers. Always, Cui Bono?
With all of Vladimir Putin’s machinations in favor of Donald Trump how did Trump manage to come in second place amongst the voters? How did Trump get a smaller percent of the popular vote than Romney?
The American voters should never be judged by the electoral college because it doesn’t absolutely terrible job of representing voters. There would be no Trump presidency if this nation had voter equality.
Let’s just name it. Psychopathy. This is a pathocracy we live in. She is the perfect example of what one looks like/acts like. Glib presentation while delivering chilling and evil messages. Lack of conscience. Inability to feel empathy. Most of the elites fit this pattern. Please take a look at Dr. Robert Hare’s work on psychopathy. Study it. This is where we are. http://www.hare.org
“Many feminists foolishly went along with her call to support the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 on the premise that it would free the women of Afghanistan from the Taliban.”
I’m no fan of Hillary, however, I do think this is misleading. Far more important is how Baby Bush exploited American feminists’ longstanding efforts on behalf of Afghan women. The group called “Feminist Majority” were raising a lot of consciousness about the state of gender affairs in Afghanistan, even while Bush family interest were inviting and entertaining members of the ruling Taliban in Texas in the hope of securing access to the Caspian Sea oil deposits reachable through Afghanistan. The Taliban leaders denied them that access–which is one of the big reasons why Cheney regarded the attacks of 9/11 such a godsend.
After 9/11, as part of Bush-Cheney’s propaganda campaign to get the public behind making the Afghan intervention far more than just pursuing and capturing Osama, got Laura Bush to make that speech about women in Afghanistan, weirdly turning a sustained occupation, regime change, and state building effort into a kind of feminist project. That move certainly silenced any criticism of the “regime change” operation. What feminist could possibly argue with the end of the deeply misogynist Taliban regime?
So, point being that whatever Hillary was doing to drum up feminist support for the invasion shrinks to insignificance in the context of the much larger Bush-Cheney propaganda campaign to win support for a war that is still going on 16 years later.
The United States’ occupation of Afghanistan, and Saudi influences, have made it impossible for any revision or reappraisal of “The Taliban” over the last 15 or more years. In 2001, even before 09/11, they were the scourge of all right thinking people — blowing up the Buddhas and stoning women and banning alll recreation, most art, and holding mass executions, popularly attending in sports stadiums. Horrible beyond belief, hard to now assess in llight of all that has come since, including, but not limited to ISIS.
As with “Al-Qa’eda”, the actual identity of “The Taliban” has morphed… the governing shura, council of clerics that “governed” Afghanistan (which emerged after the Soviets left and the years later (partial) defeat of the war lords) is not the army of anti-occupation Afghans whose identity as jihadist (in my mind at least) is unclear, while ISIS has moved in more recently (with KSA funding/approval?) recruiting some Afghan Taliban and providing organization for migrant jihadi army / soldiers decamping from Syria and Iraq (I assume)
The Women of Afghanistan did well, playing Western guilt but inaction over Taliban atrocities into a feminist cause (even if RAWA quickly regretted the occupation — it didn’t help and made thing worse (back in 2005 maybe?) —
We were never there to liberate the women of Afghanistan. Like Iraq, there was an ever expanding list of “all good things” that would result from regime change and proper free market international development and proper democracy.
Emaciated widows, abandoned by their families, stoned to death for engaging in prostitution were a compelling image … so was rising hunger and the banning of education for women … it was “real enough” … but in hindsight probably not uniquely “Taliban” …
Your last sentence is a full condemnation of Hillary. She neither knew anything about foreign affairs nor cared about them. She had 2 strings to her fiddle and they were both very personal.
Bush & Heartless needed an excuse to go into Afghanistan to restore the production of heroin. The women’s abuse by the Taliban was the only valid excuse they could think of at the time and, of course it tied into a live wire cause in America.
Well, the old girl always wants to keep her fingers in every pie, so to speak. It’s part of her womens’ rights, LGBT nature. She still owns the DNC and thinks she’ll pick the woman candidate for 2020. She’s destroyed Sanders and Warren by their backing of her. She won’t/can’t touch the only exceptional woman on the political screen, Tulsi Gabbard.
Hillary and Trump are two foul blots on America’s records, but there are others from Nixon/Reagan to the Bushes. Obama was just a smudge by those standards.
Pilger’s last § is absolutely on target. Neither of these two corrupt, incompetent egomaniacs will go away until the system itself is changed. But, to what?
John Pilger is a ridiculous arsehole who hasn’t done any decent work in a decade or two
fuster, John Pilger is an excellent, distinguished, journalist and personality. Please spend an hour or two and review some of his documentaries, published less than four years ago (not decades ago). Visit his recent expose’ @ https://newint.org/features/2016/12/01/bikini-was-just-the-beginning/ and https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/11/human-radiation-experiments-in-the-pacific/ For an eighty year old guy, all I can say is-he’s got a lot of vigor AND -True Grit!
Fuster is a right-wing troll who endlessly haunted the discussions on the TruthDig site when I once commented there. Don’t waste your breath debating with him, he loves turning threads into poop-slinging matches. Viva the freedom fighter John Pilger!
I’m rather to the left, Tony, but you’re not all that deep of a thinker and you fail to discern what I’m trying to communicate.
and that you don’t really understand is not really all your fault.
I’m sure that you’re trying
thanks for the suggestion, elmer, but I’m fairly familiar with his work and none of it in late years has been worth a puddle of stale beer. his political views simply are wrong and they are shallow and they have come to color his work to too great an extent.
Pilger was once a reporter but instead now is merely the author of opinion pieces.
i prefer real and deep and honest reportage and am proud to be the father of a reporter who is left-leaning but honest and does not try to twist things to suit his ideology.
that he is such a journalist engaging in solid investigative reporting and honestly serving the public is not just my opinion. it is also the opinion of the Pulitzer Committee
Weekly, even daily, there is ample evidence that the Clinton camp via the DNC still control one of America’s two major political parties … they are not compromising with the Sanders insurgency, nor do they seem committed to crafting a vibrant message to replace Clinton’s promised “more of the same” because “America is already great” … there are millions of America who feel that “America” is them and that they (and the country) have been diminished … they seem blind to the ascendent role of neoliberal priorities in their increasingly dire circumstances, joylessness.
Like Trump, Clinton is is well established “brand” with marque power … and the party’s bench (while more attractive and better educated than the near dozen Republican youngsters who lost to Trump in 2016) is shallow and often surprisingly vulnerable … in part because the the party has been busily eating-their-young to give the entrenched DNC figures another decade, another cycle, another chance.
Remember also that if Clinton had won, she would be governing with even less Congressional mandate (numbers not ideas) that hobbled Obama’s “leadership” beyond fiat/declaration.
Thank You for precisely on-point comment, Susan Sunflower. It’s too often apparent to me that straight lies wield more misperceived and over-reported power than does Actual Fact in our “Press Briefing” fictional accounts of Narrative Fact ( Mike Huckabee’s daughter).
Susan, dear woman, the Sanders insurgency failed. the Sanders supporters (and I was one) are largely NOT drawn from the rank-and-file of the Democratic Party.
Sanders himself is not very popular, never has been politically influential and not long for public service, so there is no real reason why the Dem regulars would be wishing to cede power to his followers.
I believe that party reform is necessary as well as desirable, but some new leader will have to emerge for it to happen.
Sanders’ thing is over
and how differently would you describe “Obama’s Army” … the veterans of which, I suspect, largely populated the “Sander’s Army” … they weren’t mainstream democrats … they were largely first-time voters (regardless of their age) who were drawn to the radical “optics” of Obama … the not-DNC candidate … John Edwards’ campaign and popularity really should not be erased from 2008. I suspect his supporters “seamlessly” moved to Obama (as the not-Clinton).
Getting and KEEPING the “disaffected youth” vote (regardless of how astroturfed Obama’s campaign may have been **) should have been Job #1 for a party that had been failing and struggling on all levels (state, congress, executive) …
But as you point out, like Sanders, like Obama, “not real democrats” and they were (to the DNC) not just expendable, undesirables. … “radicals” the democrats have been trying to purge since 1960’s …
Susan, the Democrats weren’t trying to purge the ‘radicals” in the 60s. the “radicals” won…..and instead the Dixiecrats were purged.
and that was good as well as good for the Party for a little while.
but the radicals were good people but not-so-good politicians……. and we ended up with the intelligent, good-hearted and not-quite-competent Jimmy Carter.
and Carter is never to be forgiven for being such a lousy amateur-hour politician that he caused us to become saddled with the rapacious, venal, dishonest and quite felonious band of swine that was the Reagan administration.
Reagan was a genial, kind-hearted and brainless man who was merely a smiling puppet frontman for a criminal cabal.
that Reagan was allowed to return to private life at the end of his presidency and not insteaded indicted was had horrible consequences
The Hillary “feminists” were only ever interested in equality for women on Wall St. and in DC; the halls of power. In other words, their concern was never equality for women of lesser means, only for women power trippers like Hillary to have the chance to reek as much havoc on the rest of us as the boys’ club.
Hillary Clinton considers Lynn Rothschild (you know … of THE Rothschild international banking dynasty) one of her best friends. Think long and deeply about that fact, then understand the true root cause of wars of aggression (you know …the heinous and brutal phenomenon accurately described as the “Supreme Crime” at the Nuremberg Trials).
From 1993–1995, Lynn Forester de Rothschild has donated to all of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s federal races since 1992.
From 1993–1995, Rothschild served on President Bill Clinton’s National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council. From 1998–2000, she served on the US Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Committee.
Rothschild was a major donor and member of the Democratic National Committee’s platform committee in 2008. She transferred her support to Republican candidate John McCain when Barack Obama beat Clinton, becoming a minor celebrity on cable television at the time for attacking Obama in a series of interviews.
In a 2015 interview, Rothschild said “I love John McCain. .?.?. He is a very good friend and a person I really admire.”
Rothschild sits on the board of the McCain Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank formed in 2012 in cooperation with Arizona State University.
https://www.mccaininstitute.org/staff/lynn-forester-de-rothschild/
The current executive director of the McCain Institute is Kurt Volker, a former staffer of Senator McCain who went on to serve as Victoria Nuland’s successor as U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and presently serves as the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine. Volcker has been a Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council since 2009.
In the summer of 2016, while Bill and Hillary Clinton were in Martha’s Vineyard celebrating Bill’s 70th birthday, Hillary took her private jet 20 miles over to Nantucket where the Rothschild hosting a $100,000 per person fundraiser for Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The cozy interactions of Rothschild and leading pro-Israel Senators Clinton and McCain demonstrate how relationships between the political class, the corporate class and the banking class transcend party politics. As George Carlin said, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
Donald Trump has three positive aspects: He is not Hillary Clinton, he is not Mike Pence and he is bringing confusion to his party of corrupt, austerity-loving war mongers. Viva the freedom fighters John Pilger and Julian Assange!
Hi Tony-
I would add a fourth- His reneging on his promise of “America first” on both domestic and foreign policy has pulled back the curtain on the deep state oligarchs to reveal who really runs the show to anyone paying a little attention. Our chance for a real reformer and an end to our corrupt two party system in 2020 has increased as a result. The only reason he was elected in the first place is people are fed up with lying, war mongering, corporate shills that do nothing for the average citizen. Sometimes it’s darkest before the dawn.
Hello, SS, I have come to despair of a third party being formed to challenge the duopoly. The last presidential election put forward the two most despised candidates since the Civil War and yet the Green Party (polled just under three percent in 2000) could not achieve one percent. Sadly, I expect nothing will change much until our Potemkin economy and fiat currency crashes (that may be soon) and the political deck is shuffled. Lord knows what will come in the wake of that.
Hi Tony-
You may well be right. Jill Stein has always been a weak character, in my humble opinion. Ross Perot got close, and he was pretty weak as well. I think if Bernie hadn’t given up, and went over to the Greens instead, we could have reached a tipping point. We need somebody to get us over the 15% threshold to make the debates. Then all bets are off. I do share your sense of despair, however, and I don’t underestimate the lengths that TPTB are willing to go to to cling to power.
“Former Qatar Prime Minister: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and USA colluded and coordinated to fund Al Qaeda and destroy Syria.
ZEROHEDGE REPORT: Assad was nothing more than “prey” for the hunt, which aimed at destroying Syria.“ http://theduran.com/former-qatar-prime-minister-qatar-saudi-arabia-turkey-and-usa-colluded-and-coordinated-to-fund-al-qaeda-and-destroy-syria/
“…public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda.” Importantly, “this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for compensation claims.”
As the war in Syria continues slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documents which further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government. Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.”
In short, the names of the major and minor war criminals/war profiteers are coming to light. Halleluiah. It’s not bad at all to know the sources of comfortable living of the criminals/profiteers’ progeny. The compensation claims must be directed towards the specific warmongers and arm suppliers.
Anna, really, you don’t seriously think any court in America or any other Western country is going to allow Assad to sue them do you? The OPCW has just obeyed Washington’s orders and decided to find the Assad government guilty of using chemical weapons and this, notwithstanding the fact there is not one jot of evidence for it. As far challenges against the state are concerned, the courts in the USA as in Britain are not there to dispense honest justice, they are there to find in favour of the state. I can assure you, Assad won’t be suing anyone for any kind of compensation. He will be forever be trying to keep the Western terrorists from wrecking havoc in his country. You can be sure the Yanks haven’t given up on taking Syria just yet.
Loser Trump can’t quit blaming Obama and Clinton for every dimwitted move he makes…..fluck off on this b.s.
Anyone who doubts that women can be as hateful, criminal, and evil as men – needs only to look at Hillary Clinton for the proof. She is truly one of the most disgusting humans alive today.
The Clinton’&Obama” bloody monument of Libya: http://www.voltairenet.org/article198534.html
“Horrific scenes unfolded in the streets, bridges, and security forces buildings where the demonstrators committed unspeakable crimes against humanity. Security forces, military personnel and policemen were slaughtered as their throats were cut, their hearts were taken out of their bodies and their bodies cut into pieces in a real show of brutality and savageness.
Belhaj is well-known to the CIA and Western governments. The CIA arrested him after his escape from Kandahar, interrogated and extradited to Libya in 2002 charging with terrorism. [15] In 2009, he and the LIFG members were released from prison under the General Amnesty Law. [16] Belhadj terrorist record speaks for itself. In 1994-97, he ordered a slaughter of 225 people and ordered the killing of the German tourists, Steven Baker and his wife Manuela Spiatzier in 1997. Nevertheless, he assumed a high-ranking position in Libya. He was a minister of Defence, and is responsible of Tripoli security, General Manager of Libyan prisons and responsible directly of Al-Senussi cell. Bearing in mind Belhadj’s criminal record, the ICC expressed its reassurance that Al-Senussi is in the safe hands and supported his trial in Libya.
The NATO and small Gulf countries ignored Belhadj terrorist activities and recognised him as a political and military leader and above all a businessman. He owned the biggest TV station in North Africa, biggest airline company in Libya, cement factory, properties in Spain and Turkey and a private airport in Tripoli. This airport, however, has been used to channel and transport the terrorists from Libya to Syria. These terrorists were financed which was estimated to be 160 billion worth of dollars in 2010.”
Belhaj and others are responsible of the misuse of Libya’s assets and putting an end to Libya’s development plan worth 200 billion of dollars according to the World Bank. Belhaj is one example to the warlords’ lavish life where the ordinary Libyan citizens were plunged into severe poverty.”
The US/NATO recognized Mr. Belhaj as their partner (in crimes). Note that his airport “has been used to channel and transport the terrorists from Libya to Syria. These terrorists were financed which was estimated to be 160 billion worth of dollars in 2010.” Money talk.
You are right Anna, and then there is the question of the 150 tons of gold bullion and a similar amount in silver that Gadaffi had earmarked for a pan African currency to rival the dollar. This of course was why the Americans had him murdered. No one appears to know what happened to this gold and silver bullion so if its not been filched by the Yanks and now safely tucked away in the American reserve, then perhaps Belhaj has it and has been using it to ferment terror all over the middle East.
I really don’t see why anyone is talking about Clinton anymore, she’s finished, isn’t she? Surely this evil spawn of Satan isn’t going to stand for president next time round? If this is the case surely the DNC should be looking for a new candidate and putting him or her in the spotlight. If Clinton does some how mange to force her way into being the candidate for the next presidential election I wonder how she would fare? With Trump being such a big stupid old fart she might just win it then God help us all!!
I am wondering if Trump will even run for a second term. He’s had his fun and jacked up his “brand”. It’s probably time to move on. Killary is getting pretty long in the tooth, and not looking very healthy, and has been shown to be carrying too much baggage, so I suspect we’ll get some new corporate approved faux-feminist to replace her. The DNC and the RNC will continue their filtering out of any “undesirables”, and the MSM will continue to carry their water. The accident of his Royal Orangeness was a one-off. Our only hope is that enough people become fed up that a genuine reformer can energize a third party and garner the 15% needed to make the National debates. And he or she better have well vetted body guards.
Skip “I am wondering if Trump will even run for a second term. He’s had his fun and jacked up his “brand”.
That is a standard MSM meme, but the “source” of Trump’s rise is a deep well of anger and frustration that is not widely understood. You need to go back to 2008 to see all of the missed signals, many missed by Obama himself:
2010: Election of Scott Brown
2010: Democrats lose the House
2011: Obama goads Trump at Correspondents Dinner
2012: Establishment Republican loses to Obama
2014: Eric Cantor loses his Primary
2015: John Boehner loses Speakership
2016: Trump elected President
2017: Flake / Corker / Hatch depart Senate
Frontline: The Divided States of America (Part I & II)
h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ZV2iuSa94
h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VNK8hejHnA
Obama always thought that the Republican “fever would break”, but what all seemed to miss, including the Republican leadership, that the Republican Party was remaking itself and it still has not completed the process. It is a 3 hour slog through that Frontline series, but worth it.
I am not arguing that it wasn’t “a deep well of anger” that gave rise to Trump. I agree completely. But Trump has the attention span of a six year old. A deep well of anger also gave rise to Bernie Sanders, but he was successfully thwarted by the DNC. Those other occurrences are also signs of the “deep well of anger” you mention, but every time the oligarchs of the two major parties manage to bounce back. I haven’t watched the Frontline series, but I think that we are not as divided as many people think. There are many on the left and the right who are fed up with TPTB, and are looking for solutions to address the ever widening economic divide, and the forever wars. However, with the power of the gate-keepers and the propaganda machine, I think the only possible avenue will be through a third party with a lot of grass roots support, and a really good candidate that rallies the troops and speaks truth to power. Only when they see a revolution on the horizon will the oligarchs budge even an inch.
I agree with all of that, but with the proviso that the Democrats don’t deliberately arrange things so Trump will remain the “least bad” option at the polling place. Joe Biden comes to mind here, and another run by Hillary would do it too.
These facts myself and many progressives have had for a while, but we have never seen them presented be mainstream media.
We are in total agreement that your assessment and factual presentation of Clinton’s malicious and criminal actions have been censored by omission by mainstrean media.
Thanks for this discussion between Mssrs Pilger and Bernstein. Clinton will get a spotlight as long as she’s around, and it’s a pitiful ploy for her to blame others and use gender identity politics to divide.
Her long record speaks volumes if anyone cares to discern truth rather than image. Despite blather about human rights, her human rights record is abysmal. She and Nicholas Sarkozy bear huge responsibility for the tragedy of Libya’s dismantling by NATO and murder of Gaddafi, turning it from a successful African nation to a failed state, all based on a lie. Millions have died as a result, and Libya is a big destabilizing area for both the Middle East and Africa. That no western journalist can call her on that shows how they have their marching orders.
Listening to John Pilger made me think that just because you hate Trump you don’t need to love Hillary. In fact ditch Hillary and put together a true party for the people by the people, then go take down all the Trumps you want…power to the people! Wow, haven’t said that since the sixties.
I’m with you, Joe. Great comment.
There are two hidden forces working behind the scene, they are the strong undertow to most of our pressing political and economic problems, they are technocracy and autocracy. Technocracy forces the door open no matter what behind it and autocracy destroys all we hold dear; self respect, individuality, freedom of thought, democracy, equality and a high standard of living. Ask yourselves an important question, where do these rising political hacks come from? The Orange haired Trump? his swamp buddies (creatures), Obama of Illinois, really? so called rising stars like Hitlery (my favorite nick-name for her) are not just created out of thin air. They’re presence on the domestic and international stage are a direct result of those efforts by dark Powers and their agenda’s hidden from public view. Examples are many: The Council On Foreign Relations (CFR), the militant aspirations of Neo-Cons that somehow stubbornly remain in place: Richard Perle, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Haass, Morgan Freeman, several powerful Zionists in the United States who back the likes of a Benjamin Netanyahu, the Maurice Strong clique and they all work seamlessly together, carefully grooming the “Hitlerys” into High Office. Add to this violent milieu, the forward momentum of technocracy itself, it overshadows the greatest portion of our rather lopsided economy-the military-industrial-complex. Both east and west have their fair share of autocrats and too those technocracy “break-through(s)” that seem to appear with a ever increasing regularity, follow no particular pattern but can suddenly alter the course that politicians who remain in the public eye, must take and have already, mutually affixed their signatures to. For example; Iran/JAPOC. Technocracy continues to alter the battlefield too, even the where and when, or if, a new “stick” can be applied for the sake of political-economic control, such as the Russian ECM modules with “Khibiny” technology electronic jamming devises. By the way, this Magrav technology was originally discovered by Iranian-born nuclear engineer Mehran Keshes. There are other examples as well; faster laser beam separation of Fissionable uranium from residual reactor cores, especially a concern should a “breakout” occur away from a per-negotiated, peaceful civilian use of nuclear power (greatly feared in the West) again, in Iran and North Korea. Other potential modifications such as to breeder technology, perhaps happening right now at Yongbyon, North Korea reactor? Even the suspicion of what the precise capabilities of new high tech weapons really are; Shahab-3, China’s DF-ZF hyper sonic glider.. and others mentioned herein are developments that can throw our militarized culture and command economy into havoc. Yes, we still have a command economy (unchanged since the end of WW II) If there ever was a single worry that pulls the rug right out from under our present day autocrats, it’s that phrase “cutting edge”. The response to our enemies new “Iron sword” against the Bronze one, is to scare the hell out of them… HINT: we’re a bit crazy so don’t mess with us. This (madman) stuff was suggested by a recent CONSORTIUMNEWS article. Now we have an explanation as to the why-why these Hacks, these disturbing Personages like Hitlery, Trump, Morgan Freeman and the like, are allowed costly air time and given prestigious positions, precisely because they know how to frighten everyone! Further, the autocrats have left nothing (else) to chance, their “in house” selections for Senators and Representatives can now be expedited with huge sums of dark money, the same currency our Supreme Court managed to construe as “free speech”. This high court decision immediately translated into dividing our great nation into economic pie sections, where a handful of billionaires and their corporate moguls now freely lobby for some particular interest-be it more advanced weaponry, scrapping single payer health care, de-regulate money laundering, weaken the RICO Act, increase unjustifiable tax cuts and so on..
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program Had A Pretty Rough Week
That’s an example of throwing money at a project which is good only for enriching a bunch of already wealthy corporations and individuals.
h**p://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/15550/the-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-program-has-had-a-pretty-rough-week
Iran graduates a lot of engineers. I’m sure the bad to average ones do other work, but what happens to the best ones? It has been six years since Iran captured that RQ-170 drone. Who has it now? What did the Iranians get in exchange? Is there any connection with that and the “stealth” fighter Iran claims to be working on? The photos they release of the Qaher-313 are ridiculous, but are they working on a real one? Given Iran’s (and China’s) progress in anti-stealth radar they have a yardstick for measuring their progress! North Korea has been making some amazing progress with the nukes and long-range missiles. Part of that is from foreign technology, of course, but to what degree is Iran assisting? What is Iran getting in return?
You mentioned laser isotope separation. That’s another topic nobody is talking about anymore. Just about anybody with the necessary skills could do this, and without leaving very many hints around.
The world is an increasingly dangerous place, and all the US can do is try to get another war for Israel. A bigger and better tax cut for the super rich. Figure out still another way to make the poor people even poorer. Treat us all like Palestinians and get the US infrastructure into the same shape as Puerto Rico’s.
Zachary Smith, I suppose the condensed version of my rather long winded statements can be summarized this way: Be it a Clinton, Trump or Bernie, the techno-crates and their bureaucracies seem to be overtaking areas of negotiation once reserved strictly for diplomats and politicians. Initially, the North Korean and more recently, Iran deals were agreed to on the advise of technicians and technical evaluations, thus-a new technocracy has re-emerged . I really can’t convince myself that showmen (Trump) or great performances from that actress, Hitlery, with her rantings and ravings can’t substitute for the new level of respect that tech experts and their attendant bureaucrats have. For example; IAEA inspectors (Iran deal) or U.N. observer missions in Syria UNSMIS. Generally speaking, even those NGO’s seem to get more things done than all the top dogs put together…
You forgot Kissinger. He has Trump’s ear, sadly.
I would suppose that’s a perfect capsule summary. Trump is awful. Horrible beyond words, even. Yet when any comparison is made, Hillary manages to edge him out in the “worse” category.
These days I’m on a funk whenever I hear the latest about Global Warming. If only the Orange Blowhard would get some sense. Grow a brain, or something. But then I think about how Hillary would have been exactly as bad, only without the mindless braying.
That’s the reason for the misery. We were screwed whichever one of the two dopes won last November. About all I can do these days is hope for something to unexpectedly good to happen. Fat chance, but I can hope.
h**ps://avionod.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/then-a-miracle-happens.gif?w=490
Really excellent conversation, by the way.
Zachary He is not pulling the anti-AGW stuff out of his hat. He and his supporters just want a reasonable response to stuff like this:
h**p://www.wsj.com/video/opinion-journal-how-government-twists-climate-statistics/80027CBC-2C36-4930-AB0B-9C3344B6E199.html
h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIEGo8E9s_8
h**ps://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/05/in-their-own-words-climate-alarmists-debunk-their-science/#3b7329a368a3
It should be easy enough to sort out / debate, and especially imperative to do so if you are talking about altering the energy economy of the entire world. But all you get is the same old strategy: “label and disparage” – as “science deniers” – if that is the best the AGW side can do, good luck with that… Trump is the result.
*And is it really a far out assumption? You have a side willing to rig a Democratic election and concoct a phony Russia-Gate narrative and they are to be trusted with honestly reporting the climate record? That is asking a lot.
/The grotesqueness of Trump has allowed many liberals in the United States to put aside the fact that Hillary Clinton really is the embodiment of a corrupt system./
That pretty much sums it up. On the liberal side the election was about “grotesqueness” and on the other side it was about “policy”. No matter how grotesque Trump is, a certain class of people finally found, after decades of searching, a candidate that would actually listen to them.
People just got tired of the standard liberal ploy:
Never debate policy: instead label the opponent as a bigot, racist and homophobe.
Then re-frame the election as one about bigotry and racism vs compassion and tolerance.
Actually, the more grotesque Trump is the more his people love him. Supporting him is like driving a spike into an extremely corrupt and unresponsive system, and then reveling in the carnage caused by his disruption.
For the last time, kids, tomorrow is trick-or -treat in most communities (some locales host it on October 31) and Hillary Clinton is not the President. One more time, Donald j Trump is the president. HRC is a citizen just like you and me. Now, can we get on with NIGER!!!!!
and the private e-mails? Stop talking about Clinton, and start talking about Trump. He is your president. Deal with him, and stop talking about HRC.
I think Pilger is just saying to go after Trump and to secure a true and real change just ditch Hillary. In other words tina construct a new platform, but by all means don’t build it around Hillary or people like her. Pilger wants people to start seeing these politicians of ours for what they are. I think Pilger is truly flabbergasted that Hillary does these interviews, and still no hard questions about her past. This is where Pilger gets into the depth of it, but I hear him saying see this woman for what she is. Then after you get over her, like you say tina, let’s really get ourselves together and put together a citizen platform the majority of us can agree on then go after Trump all you want. Just thought I’d give you my opinion tina. Take it easy. Joe
I won’t stop talking about Hillary Rodham Clinton until she is behind bars wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Her crimes are many but perhaps NOW Sessions will go after regarding the Uranium One deal and pay to play with The Clinton Foundation (a giant, international charity fraud scam) to the tune of $145 million!
I hope I live to see her and her husband and everyone associated with their crimes indicted, cuffed and perp-walked.
She is a disgusting human being. Male or female is of no consequence in these matters.
The Kaganzation of Ukraine, which started on Clinton watch, is moving to a next, neo-Nazi phase: http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/10/mosiychuk-assassination-attempt.html
“…the assassination attempt on Mosiychuk [the former deputy commander of the infamous neo-Nazi Azov Battalio] is the initial phase of an escalation of the conflict between the Nazis and Jewish oligarchs headed by President Poroshenko, an escalation which is transitioning from a political to a “hot”, or armed phase. Ironically enough, it is the Jewish oligarch Kolomoysky who is financing the operations of such Nazi revolutionaries. Indeed, all of the “Ukrainian revolutions,” as is well known, have been done with Jewish money and through the hands of Ukrainian Nazis. By all accounts, Mosiychuk himself is one of the key figures behind preparing a Nazi coup d’etat.”
Any reaction from the diligent ADL? Any peep from AIPAC? Kolomoysky is an Israeli citizen and a pillar of the Jewish community of Ukraine. He has been financing the Ukrainian neo-Nazis for several years already; Kolomoysky is also implicated in the downing of MH17. Still no interest from the Israel-occupied US Congress? Amazing.
In Canada, the neo-Nazi sympathizer and proud progeny of a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Kristiya Freedland has been deciding the Canadian foreign policies; the policies are aggressively hostile towards Russia.
In the US, the “victims” of Holocaust from Kagans’ clan have been plotting and implementing the collaborative projects with Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Interesting times.
Just to reiterate –– “all of the “Ukrainian revolutions” have been done with Jewish money and through the hands of Ukrainian Nazis.” And the Jewish vigilantes are busy fighting against BDS… – Imbeciles. Look at Ukraine!
Hey Annie go on the Saker, the Saker recently addressed the situations we are encountering in Ukraine and the world in a in-depth article. The Saker spoke to what you wrote here. Joe
Why should We ignore what Clinton has to this Country. That is what All Democrats want to do is forget. So what if they Broke Laws , it’s Ok, No Big Deal! HRC, Mueller, Podesta, All need to Pay… They Will!
It is obvious by your comment that you are a troll either from ShareBlue, or from one of the other David Brock affiliated propagandist outfits that have infiltrated comments sections across the internet, beginning during HRC’s campaign. I’ve been seeing this talking point: “stop talking about Hillary” repeated ad nauseum for the past couple of weeks. I am pointing this out so that other commenters here do not waste their time trying to reason with you, since you are clearly a paid troll.
like Timothy answered I am amazed that someone able to make $7869 in four weeks on the
computer . find out here…
My father, a very abusive man, and very old school in his attitude about a women’s need for education, did everything he could to prevent me from going to college even though he didn’t have to pay a dime, since I went to college on a scholarship. Coming from that background I’ve always considered myself a feminist. I defied him! However knowing Clinton’s background well in terms of her militancy, her lack of empathy, she reminds me of my father. Voting for someone based on their sex is no different then voting for someone based simply on the color of their skin. It’s interesting, and not mentioned here, that when she ran against Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign most women I know voted for Obama, as I did, even though Madeleine Albright threatened us with hell and damnation.. She threatened the same for women in 2016, and that from the mouth of someone who thought the deaths of five hundred thousand children in Iraq was worth it. The whole thing is no more then a political tool used by some women to climb the political ladder and a disgusting tool at best.
Yes Annie, she seems to have a hard core of feminist followers and a considerably larger number of women followers that view her as the lesser of two evils, a kind of antidote to Trump. She poses as both female role model and victim; a strange dichotomy that has worked for her in the past. Unfortunately education has become a secondary issue for women as well as men as colleges become more and more career training centers without regard to the issues that are so vital in a civil society.
I’m sure that many women did vote for her as opposed to Trump, “the lesser of the two evils,” but the majority didn’t. However gender identity was really played up in the 2016 campaign. Remember she was also running against Bernie Sanders, and Albright’s remark was “…that women who vote for Bernie Sanders are buying a one-way ticket to “a special place in Hell.” It’s become a tool to brow beat women into voting for a candidate based on their sex, Identity politics, which doesn’t play well in my book. That she poses as a female role model and victim is once again using her femaleness as a tool to manipulate voters. If you’re a real feminist you stand up as a human being, and don’t use your sex as a means of obtaining your goals.
Aye Annie, apart from Albright’s remarks, I can remember similar sex-biased endorsements coming from the likes of Gloria Steinem… the mirror image of the mindless endorsements that many men gave to Trump.
I don’t know Bob. The two men I know that voted for Trump are really living on the edge, financially speaking. They voted for him wanting to believe he would really make things better. There’s a lot of men and women out there who were hoping for the same, and I can’t fault them for that, although I didn’t trust him in that regard. I certainly don’t trust the Republican party who represents the top 1% in this country to support him, if he even wanted to improve the lives of these people. Steinem goes back to the sixties, and there was a significant inequality between men and women especially in the work place, and in government positions, and no doubt there still is. I doubt if Steinem threatened hell fire and damnation as Albright did. For Hillary to use herself as a woman besieged by a male dominated world borders on the absurd. After all, she even got Obama to back up her desire to wipe out Gadhafi, and Obama went against many in the Pentagon who expressed reservations about such an attack, and her back ups were Rice and Powers.
Do you really mean sex, rather than gender? I have no clue about HRC’s sex, but to the best of my knowledge, she is gender -female.
In my books, in this day and age, there not many heroes one can point to, but John Pilger definitely is.
If you don’t mind me saying so; and apparently, so are you!
As I’m sure you are aware gaining the insight it takes for self-examination is a hard-won battle.
Truth telling is reassurance, supposedly, that there is still some wisdom in us Homo sapiens.
JP is the personification of a truth seeker. Without a doubt!
In my books, in this day and age, there not many heroes one can point to, but John Pilger definitely is.
If you don’t mind me saying so; and apparently, so are you!
As I’m sure you are aware gaining the insight it takes for self-examination is a hard-won battle.
Truth telling is reassurance, supposedly, that there is still some wisdom in us Homo sapiens.
JP is the personification of a truth seeker. Without a doubt!
“I have always felt that the most virulent form of censorship is censorship by omission. “…right on, Dennis…of course it must be remembered that Rupert Murdoch controls a good portion of Australia’s press. The soft-ball questions were more like snow-balls but it remains to be seen how much of Hillary’s public will remain snowed.