Open Thread: Trump-Putin Summit and Mounting Hysteria
Kit
Yesterday, Trump and Putin met for a summit in Helsinki. The resulting hysteria, all throughout the mainstream media and in the minds of neocon and (self-described) “liberals” alike.
Just to be clear – it is not unusual for heads of state to meet. It is not unusual for leaders with different values or interests to discuss international politics. It’s the entire point of diplomacy.
The media at large appear to have forgotten this – giving thousands of column inches to insane ramblings employing words such as “traitor”, “treason”, “puppet” and “surrender”. Words which are rapidly losing their meaning.
Politico Magazine described the alleged Russian hacking as “our Pearl Harbor”, and demanded America “respond accordingly”. The author – a retired General in the US Army – is delightfully vague about what exactly that would entail.
The Guardian has over 13 stories – including half a dozen opinion pieces. Each more absurd than the last. Richard Wolffe does nothing but abuse both men between baseless accusation and the repetition of long-debunked nonsense. Whilst Peter Daou – a former employee of Hillary Clinton’s campaign – writes that Republican who still support Trump are “following him off a cliff to treachery”.
The Independent ran with “Vladimir Putin just humiliated Donald Trump. And Trump humiliated America”, a headline which belies the content of article somewhat, by far one of the most reasonable takes on either side of the Atlantic.
NewsWeek asks: “Did Trump Commit Treason at Putin Summit?”, before concluding – sensibly enough – that no, he probably didn’t.
CNN – predictably – went full CNN. Accusing Putin and Trump of “pulling the West apart”.
It wasn’t just print and digital media whipping up this storm. Social Media likewise worked itself into a frenzy – the Liberal twitterati working their followers up into lather not seen since the final scene of Frankenstein.
John McCain called it the most “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory”. John Brennan – ex-CIA head – called it “nothing short of treasonous”. Even Bernie Sanders – the man who was cheated of the Democratic nomination by DNC election rigging – got in on the act – calling it a “good day for Putin and a bad day for democracy”. In this way, Trump and Putin have done stirling work in exposing that – deep down – America’s political class is entirely homogenous. Neocons and “socialists” united in fighting an eternal war against an invented enemy.
The worst tweet on this subject – or perhaps any subject – must have been from Garry Kasparov:
I'm ready to call this the darkest hour in the history of the American presidency. Let me know if you can think of any competition.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) 16 July 2018
Nowhere in the media was coverage given to ANY facet of this meeting other than the fictional “collusion”. We don’t know if sanctions, Syria, Ukraine, Korea, Iran or Nordstream 2 were discussed – and what may have been said about each, if they were. Even the collusion was only really covered in general, rather than specific. Very few column inches given over to – even less real engagement with – Putin’s offer to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation, if the US reciprocated with Russia’s investigation into Bill Browder’s business associates, and possible tax crimes.
Important questions, then:
- What else was discussed by Putin and Trump? Syria, Ukraine or Iran?
- Why has no coverage been given to that? Is there nothing to say, or is something being hidden behind a smokescreen?
- Will Mueller accept Putin’s invitation to question the indicted Russians in Russia?
- What excuse will be used when Mueller inevitably turns this offer down?
- Why is the entire media machine turning against the Helsinki summit?
- Is it just about the need to keep Russia as an enemy to justify increased NATO defence budgets?
- Where do we go from here?
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Come on OffG, the prospect of peace breaking out is truly terrifying to any right thinking neo colonoialist (and the modern day missionaries that assist them)..
Jumping off the cliff of treachery, you say?. Dilly! Dilly!
The whole ballyhoo reminds of a group of self-indulged brats stamping their feet because they cannot get their own way – ‘We want a war, we want a war, not fair! we want a war’. Call me Oswald Spengler, but is the west now in terminal and irreversible decline?
Well all the signs are there. Which in fact is how we got Trump (and Brexit and a lot of other inconvenient things) in the first place. But nothing, it seems, stops the transatlantic clown car from hurtling towards the cliff of stupidity.
We have something in common: https://theconsentofthegoverned.wordpress.com
Thanks for this link Joel. Very interesting.
Thanks to the Skripal business I started digging around these sites to try and get better info on current affairs. Very interesting and much more fun than what I had been reading. I assume, possibly wrongly, that the newspapers and TV like RTE or the Guardian publish all this biased rubbish because they are being paid to do so. (In fact someone close to the Guardian hinted to me that this is the case.) My question is – who would be paying them? NATO? Does anyone have any idea?
probably not so much paying them but told what and what not to write and what to omit
@Lily. See OffG thread, present owners are funded by Sorosmwho is Rothschild’s #1 in the U$A. Previous ownership Guardian Trust had Rothschild representative on Board. The Guardian has been an unashamed cheerleader for Anglo Zio Capitalist resource wars at least since New Liebor came to power under TB.Liar. The last I read of BLiar, he had been elevated much higher than to the House of Lords — namely, to a directorship in House of Rothschild.
There is a bizarre groupthink that pervades the educated/professional classes in the ( english speaking ) West . If you do not go along with the groupthink you will find yourself in trouble regarding your career and social group. This almost certainly applies to Guardian contributors.
I recall when working for a blue chip UK company as a technical engineer , I briefly mentioned to a senior colleague that I thought the collapse of WTC7 on 9/11 was a bit strange.
The manager , who I had known and worked with for a number of years , immediately snapped ” I never knew you were one of those conspiracy theory nutters ? ” .
From that day on I was considered a less reliable character , and a less able engineer , by all the management team. Other employees asked what had I done to “piss off ” the senior management.
These days I am freelance , and living in the Salisbury Plain area near Amesbury I get to meet various MOD / Army / Intelligence officers and academics . I must admit I do go out of my way to engage them in conversation about various contentious issues such as Syria / NATO / Russia / 911 / Skripals etc. The groupthink is still there and so is the cold shoulder.
What staggers me is just how poorly , or should I say , selectively educated these people are. You would imagine that an Oxbridge educated military academic would at least have some knowledge of the Anthrax poisonings in Washington in the aftermath of 9/11. It was the Anthrax affair that the Bush administration used to link Iraq to Al Qaeda for gods sake.
He had never heard of Anthrax being used in the US and , yes you’ve guessed it , he called me a conspiracy theorist.
On the 50th anniversary of the JFK hit, EVERY fakestream media presstitute in Austfailure declared, straight-faced, that Oswald did it, and any opinions otherwise were ‘loony conspiracy theories’. You cannot imagine stupidity, ignorance, or mendacious hypocrisy that intense, but there it is, every day, in your face, and narcissistically adoring itself as the ‘Free Press’.
Just as the Australian MSM and politicians are currently occupying themselves with Russia shot down MH17.
Not only that, but the filthy narrative has now moved back to Abbott’s deranged assertion that Putin shot the plane down DELIBERATELY. I know it’s just projection, but the obvious question ‘ Why’ is never asked by any of our presstitute arthropods.
I’ve noticed this Groupthink too, in fact it’s there all the time. People feel comfortable and secure in this way. Being an outlier can cause you to lose your friends, lose your job and economic existence, seriously. Even if people may agree with you, they will not say so due to that fear and risks.
That is how the whole system builds concensus and the people who initiate that concensus process clearly collaborate in the first place, and they control the media to be able to achieve this result.
I would not normally vote for someone like Trump, I am traditional Labour, but the ridiculuous hysteria against this man is so pervasive and ridiculous, as well as against Russia and Putin, that my instinct to protect a truly free press and ultimately democracy is far higher priority than my dislike of Trump as a person. He is being vastly mis-represented by all the media. Russia too, and people who travelled to the world Cup began to see behind this new Iron Curtain of Disinformation we have created in the West.
Read His Ulfkotte’ s book, and you will have your answer.
Autocorrect garbled UDO ULFKOTTE’s name.
The Guardian has long been a CIA asset.
Apparently, the meeting was purely between Putin and Trump, plus presumably interpreters. Therefore there will be no leaks. Neither has gone into any detail about what they discussed. How the msm can get so foaming at the mouth without having a clue what they talked about, other than the presser afterwards, is remarkable. Much as I loathe the warmongering Churchill with millions of deaths on his charge sheet, he did say ‘jaw jaw is better than war war’. Not according to the MSM today.
I still find it, odd or puzzling, how the Guardian has lurched so far to the political right and has embraced the conflict and war doctrine aimed at Russia, and how it’s dragged so much of liberal and left opinion with it. How did this happen? Seemingly a tiny cabal of rabid and morbid anti-Russians now control the Guardian’s news production and no one else gets a look in. There’s virtually no dissent allowed at all. It’s all so predictable and boring, how they drone on and on about Russia being the source of all evil in the world. And the rest of the media are just as bad. It’s as if the State has succeeded in placing ‘agents’ in the heart of all the media and strangled any potential opposition or criticism.
Yes, output veers between rabid pro-war and ant-Russian propaganda, interspersed with simpering bouts of virtue signalling or identity politics.
But BTL there is a guerrilla war: clearly a substantial proportion of the readership are alienated by the Guardians lurch into fake news and anti-journalism.
The MSM in Britain really has been corrupted by market imperatives – survival at any cost seems to be the overarching philosophy, even if it means that meaningful reporting is now only available via alternative news sources..
Of course we have already been warned about the dire consequences of information gateways being controlled by amoral corporate interests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RortOTy4sHs
It’s more than 25 years since Chomsky and Herman outlined the propaganda nature of the Western ‘Free Press’, and it has grown so much more pronounced since that today it is simply mind-boggling in its dishonesty, hypocrisy, cynicism and hubris. Whenever I read an issue of Murdoch’s flag-shit, the ‘Australian’, in a library of cafe, I end up, as the priest said in the movie, feeling that I had had contact ‘…with spiritual evil’.
@Michael K
I was at a party the other night in a part of the UK ‘a long way from Middle England’. Catching up with friends. Slightly gentrified Greens, successful careers in ‘worthy causes’ and the arts, busy people, parents, mostly too busy to read further than the Guardian or do more than catch BBC Radio news.
Many are sold to the casual racism of Russophobia, identity politics (expressed in support of Obama and Hillary), the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory of Russiagate, the belief that EU is progressive etc. etc.
I spoke with one more awakened friend about Monbiot (who socialises in this circle), I said that if he came to the party that I would have to leave, and that I considered him disreputable, dishonest, perhaps even sinsister : a propagandist for warmongers. He was surprised at the strength of my feeling and opinion.
Monbiot showed up, and I left fuming (for a while anyway). Later I tried to explain to others how I felt they should know the arguments against his journalistic positions. They glazed over in the familiar way that says, “I think what you are saying is questionable and extreme, and I do not trust you enough to question my world view”.
It takes a lot of reading to understand what is going on, to see through the image cultivated by people like Guardian journalists, to unpick the lies and disinformation. Most people simply do not have the time or inclination. What can one do?
I wonder how the Guardian has been swung too. I can only guess that it took a lot of money – money that was spent in a very clever way. It is very significant to what is happening generally I would say. I think democracy is unwinding, and will contintue to unwind with the blessing of its most cherishing advocates : the so called ‘Liberal Left’.
I wonder too how the demographics line up. It is clear that the corporate/ state propaganda machine is losing ground daily, but how far along is the process? [e.g. Galloway is perhaps the leading populist voice for the kind of Left which has slipped away from the influence of Liberal lies. He has a third the number of Twitter followers as Owen Jones whom I trust about as far as I can throw up. The hipster overdrive channel Novara still boost NATO boy and totally fake Lefty Paul Mason…..so how many are awake to the propaganda model and its implications?]
Asked about things, I said to another friend, “If two milliion people joined, say, The Labour Party, and were prepared to spend a few hours a week getting a proper political education, and perhaps a day a week or a day a fortnight as an activist, the things could change.”
They are more interested in their new kitchen though.
It is not just about how they are not informed and not interested, but how they label anyone, who opposes them as the one with extreme and questionable views, as you pointed out.They just don’t want anybody to rock the boat and ask them to do something
Indeed, heavy handed enforcement of ‘community standards’ is central to the group-think ideology encouraged by Guardian censors.
What sticks in the throat are the endless articles about fake news or disingenuous guff about freedom of speech.
It is the same with the ecological Holocaust-the well-off Meanswells, safe in their cocoon of privilege and self-adoration, don’t want to know. They think that not using plastic straws will ‘ ..save the world’. I’ve often noted the inverse relationship between greed and intelligence, and end-stage Free Market capitalism simply exacerbates it to the point of parody.
….sounds like you should get yer self some new friends!!!!
This is the thing though, so many people out there who have grown up sharing many of the same values yet have been basically brainwashed. If they had made the time to do the reading, they would be just as outraged as I am about the behaviour of the Guardian (an dprobably more active in response)- but they haven’t, they trust it unwittingly, and trust its assertions which insist that counternarratives are unfounded, irrational or the interference of hostile enemies.
It is a theme of my life that I am surrounded by these (basically decent) people whom I cannot persuade to do a simple bit of reading.
Mog depressingly true, but the thing is reality will be imposed from outside, one way or another, personally i shipped out of Blighty decades ago as it was apparent even then that the country was effectively lost to BS, so i won’t hold my breath for anything radical happening in the UK to change its behaviour, or rather the behaviour of its elite class its simply not gonna happen
A friend of my father, a well-respected journalist and decent chap, would go into apoplexy if I suggested reading Chomsky re. the Palestinian tragedy. Like a reflex shot, but he did toil for years at Fairfax, where adoration for Israel and all things Jewish was MANDATORY. As it was and is in the Murdoch machine. The ABC deviate a little occasionally, but after a villainous campaign of abuse of their latest correspondent in the region, thoroughly pro-Israel but OCCASIONALLY speaking of the Palestinians as human beings, led by one of Parliament’s top Zionist stand-over merchants, she was replaced, by a young Jewish fellow. No possibility of any bias there, of course, but if they had appointed a Palestinian or some other Moslem, the fury that would be unleashed is horrible to contemplate.
“I wonder how the Guardian has been swung too. I can only guess that it took a lot of money – money that was spent in a very clever way.”
No swinging involved on the part of the Guardian (though Viner has all the subtlety of a big fat cow in a china shop compared to some of her predecessors).
“It is very significant to what is happening generally I would say. I think democracy is unwinding, and will contintue to unwind with the blessing of its most cherishing advocates : the so called ‘Liberal Left’.”
Liberal Left? Social Democracy? Weasel words and false flags. Neither has ever been otherwise. Been suckered? Tough shit. Next time, if there is a next time, do your homework before the exam.
Let’s face it, ‘democracy’ is a weasel word or false flag.
Great post. I personally would not have left the room when Monbiot came in.
I would have tried to have engaged him in conversation, try and gently probe and then point to the a much bigger and wider world out there of several billion people that thinks completely differently.
I would have tried to point out to him / them that all those people, including the Russians, can’t all be wrong, and to suggest that Guardian readers and the UK MSM is the only correct viewpoint is obviously arrogant to say the least.
We should not antagonise these people, simply engage in debate at every opportunity, time and time and again. Easier said than done, I know, but for us to jump into the escape hatch is not going to change anything.
it’s been a pro Blairite rag for decades, therefore its fully signed up to a progressive neoliberal agenda, wars, ragime change and all the Clintonite war like crap!
“I still find it, odd or puzzling, how the Guardian has lurched so far to the political right and has embraced the conflict and war doctrine aimed at Russia, and how it’s dragged so much of liberal and left opinion with it.”
The Guardian has never been other than a centre-right publication in the capital-L English “Liberal Party” tradition, which – like Keynsianism – has always seen the preservation of capitalism and oligarchy against the depredations of the under classss, usually by carefully titrating the amount of amelioration that needs to be dispensed to pacify and subborn their hoi polloi class enemy in any given situation. That you seem to have believed otherwise is a tribute to their professional expertise and/or a monument to your inattention.
You don’t need to take my word for that; it is neither an opinion nor a perception of their political position based on some interpretation of what they have published as “news” and “commentary” over the years; it is all there in black and white: they are proud of both their role in society and their success and have not been shy to state it openly – at the right times, to the right audiences. It is not their fault that you have not bothered to research their background adequately (if at all). You have been successered.
Only the “-right” part of that compound noun was meant to be rendered in bold type, though slipshod markup emboldening the entire paragraph is not something operationally amiss.
Typo too: for “seem” read “been“.
Typos upon on typos too: for “seem” read “seen“. Well past time for a nap.
That is the mark of The Beast-Soros, although he is just the front-man, a kindly, old, Jewish, philanthropist as Nick Cohen asserted.
Misattribution. To the extent Soros is involved it can only be in the latterly application of approval, imprimatur and funds. The (Manchester) Guardian was The (Manchester) Guardian long before George Soros was George Soros.
Research Operation Mockingbird … Originated in US but quickly adopted by UK also. Here’s a starter .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KZjxjlI4x8
CIA wasting US taxpayer’s money to bribe the Guardian to run up a false flag or two? Does the Tea Party know? What would you call that? “Taking coals to Newcastle”? The Guardian accepting the bribes? What would you call that? “Laughing all the way to the bank”?
I loooooove it !
To see all the warmongers in fits of anger over this is pure joy.
To expose the depth of depravity of the media stooges frothing at the mouth at the realization that they cannot control trump but only the narrative in the media ….
After a great world cup showing the old enemy is not so bad the only thing to top it would have been England in the final with Teresa May boycotting like a spoilsport …..
@cat. We didnt do so badly, Croatia played beautifully, and France pulled a cracker. There were thrills, spills and laughs all round to the end. A pity that St Theresa wasnt there to bless England, her intercession might have given Providence that nudge for our team over the last hurdle. But the England put on a jolly good show, to have got so far on their own steam.
Theresa doesn’t represent England, she, (?), represents the EU corporation and other private interests.
Perhaps it’s all too obvious to repeat, but the grassroots people are exceedingly ill-served both by the corporates, their presstitute media, and the wolves and sellouts that claim to ‘represent’ us. Time draws nigh for the torches and pitchforks methinks. Enough of their evil machinations and their servile idiotic society. For the sake of the little ones, a future and the planet, we can do better.
torches and pitchforks
You forgot to mention guillotines.
Personally, I think it smacks of desperation – kind of like a candle’s flame flaring up a half-second before dying. (fingers crossed!)
personally,I’m sick and tired of it all,so predictable everything has become,no more genuine discussions,always the same babble,total circus but playing with the lives of millions
The question is who gets extinguished first and sadly the likelihood it is Trump and those who voted for him, beaten by the big stick of lies and fake news of the Establishment and their neo-liberal PC’s.
It’s simply more pressure and rhetoric being applied to remove Trump and sideline Russia. The narratives that Trump and Russia are all bad are being strengthened. So not desperation, just knowledge that hysterical sensationalist headlines can draw in readers and sway people.
The corporate, neo-liberal, neo-conservative and mass media love-in will probably be brought down by economic failure, just not quite yet.
To be honest I have but skimmed a half dozen pieces looking for substance and have found none. The comments here from all you comment makers I have come to broadly agree with on many issues is pretty dissapointing though. Though I think most of you have acknowledged at some point that Trump is a weapon of mass distraction it seems to me he is so effective at it that he continues to distract you despite knowing that is his purpose.
Instead of following msm down over the event horizon of logic and deduction into the black hole of nonsense why not ponder what this summit was really for? It follows on the heels of three equally opaque meetings this year between Putin and Netenyahu. Given that Trump is a President selected by a group in which Bibi is very senior, perhaps even leader, it is this dimension that needs illumination. And I would be pretty surprised if understanding what’s going to be happening next hinges on the conversations of Putin and Netanyahu not Trump.
https://www.rt.com/news/433531-netanyahu-israel-security-trump-putin/
https://www.rt.com/news/433524-browder-steele-mcfaul-investigation/
Perhaps there is a kind of war taking place between the two big power mafia outfits in the US who can be defined loosely as the Zionist Republican old guard and the Catholic Clinton pack. For a few decades they had a sort of truce and shared the US presidency, jointly agreeing the selection of the puppet in chief. Hilary had been persuaded to allow the selection of Obama on the promise she would be next. The selection of Trump has perhaps broken that truce and the enraged Clinton led camp, and led to open hostility with the the Israeli dual national Zionists who have really been dominant since the time of Alan Dulles.
While the Zionists have near total control over the CIA the FBI is more sympathetic to Clinton, as is most of MSM and European power elites.
Again the Clinton camp is not friendly to Putin where as Putin does appear to have some level of cooperative dialog with Israel and the Zionist block. This has been kept as quiet as possible till now but is being forced into the light by the tactics of the Clinton pack, with European support.
The links don’t say much but they hint at something in my ill defined and poorly expressed effort to cut through the surface confusion.
All US politicians, without exception, are owned by zionism.
Twenty-five standing ovations, ten kneeling ovations and six fully prostrate, head-banging in adoration, ovations. AIPAC and the rich ‘donors’ were watching for signs of lack of enthusiasm, after all.
Putin is quite friendly towards Israel, apparently in part because of the large number of Russians living there. But I suspect that as a true friend, not a boot-licking bought and paid for stooge like the detritus of Western politics, Putin no doubt warns Bibi against too reckless aggression. Bibi and the Zionist terrorist racists who run Israel are so hate-crazed and aggressive that their belligerence is threatening not just the eternally brutalised Palestinians, the Israeli Arabs facing a mounting campaign of hatred and pernicious discrimination, or Israel’s neighbours, the victims of relentless Zionist aggression, but Israel itself. And, as numerous Zionist thugs have vowed over the decades, if they see Israel ‘going under’, say in a war launched against Iran, then they intend taking the world down with them-the infamous Samson Doctrine.
My favorite line from the article is: “Trump and Putin have done stirling work in exposing that – deep down – America’s political class is entirely homogenous. Neocons and “socialists” united in fighting an eternal war against an invented enemy.”
The line in Politico about this summit being “our Pearl Harbor” is reasonable if interpreted correctly. Oversimplifying and overgeneralizing, Politico and the rest of the ailing and failing, Ted Baxter, sock puppet, biased, fake news Mockingbird, dying legacy mass media consists largely of presstitutes and whorespondents working for and on behalf of the Deep State/globalist Sorosian NWO Mafia. Putin and Trump are both nationalists and each in their way represents a threat to the globalists. And when the two of them are working in tandem, the threat becomes an existential one.
So the Pearl Harbor analogy, although it is a bit over the top, is reasonable if you happen to be a globalist swamp creature.
V V Putin is an accomplished Judo / Aikido (also known as “The Art of Peace.”) practitioner
Fact Check:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/benjamin-wittes-underestimating-vladimir-putins-martial-arts-skills
At Helsinki he demonstrated the diplomatic equivalent. Not behind closed doors, or in smoke filled room, but in front of a collection of reporters. Reporters who you would think were aware of Seymour Hersh, I F Stone or Robert Parry.
For instance, we can bring up Mr. Browder, in this particular case. Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 billion in Russia and never paid any taxes neither in Russia or the United States and yet the money escaped the country. They were transferred to the United States. They sent [a] huge amount of money, $400,000,000, as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Well that’s their personal case. It might have been legal, the contribution itself but the way the money was earned was illegal. So we have solid reason to believe that some [US] intelligence officers accompanied and guided these transactions. So we have an interest in questioning them.
So here is an opening for the big SCOOP, and a chance for ‘The Establishment’ to Front Up. Or shut up.
The resulting hysteria shows which choice they made
There is a detailed / cross referenced (204page) account of the machinations of William Browder at various places around the net. Its also at:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iw13g58iw7a3e0j/TheKillingOfWilliamBrowder_Pr…
The writer is hedge fund manager Alex Krainer, and it the result of three years of careful research.
If you feel the need to be well informed, this book is a good place to start :-).
Naomi Klein makes similar points in ‘Shock Doctrine’ but why add to the fortune of that compassionate employer J Bezos??
“Krainer’s book is an indispensable contribution to understanding the connection between the looting of Russia during the disastrous shock therapy of the Yeltsin years, and the dangerous anti-Russian provocations of today. His insight into the duplicitous role of Bill Browder provides compelling evidence of how unscrupulous greed can lead to much larger crimes.” –Harley Schlanger, Schiller Institute
Both Moon of Alabama and Craig Murray have very good analyses today. I recommend them.
I prefer the Fraudian sewer-to see Evil lying, hypocritical, psychopaths foaming at the mouth in rabid ecstasies is truly hilarious. I knew Trump would be entertaining, but I under-estimated the fury of the ‘liberals’ at the failure of their gore bespattered Gorgon failing to ascend the Throne of Blood.
Digging deeper into the Fraudian cess-pit, I see that the Zionist lynch-mob has been mobilised against Corbyn, YET AGAIN. Labour’s refusal to adopt the entire Zionist ‘definition’ of ‘antisemitism’, that de facto outlaws all criticism of Israel, of Zionism and of any Jew, has the Zionist thugs and their Blairite stooges going barking mad. One apparently confronted Corbyn, shrieking at him that he was a racist antisemite. Which, of course, is standard Zionist hasbara tactics. After a while, if the Thought Criminals refuse to bow and grovel properly, you turn on Moshe Dayan’s ‘mad dog’ act, in an attempt to intimidate. And the fact that a coalition of anti-Zionist Jews has urged Labour to stand firm against the ‘antisemitism’ lynch-mob, was only mentioned at the end of the article.
Which makes me ponder just how Zionist control of Western politics and the fakestream media, and the adoption of hasbara tactics ie shameless lying, gargantuan hypocrisy, and screeching vilification and character assassination have been transferred wholesale to Western politics and propaganda. The frenzy of raw hatred directed at Trump and Putin is PRECISELY akin to that directed by the Zionists and their stooges at the Palestinians and their leaders, and at Moslems and Arab as well (except for Quislings or ‘friends’ like the Sordid Arabians)in the Western fakestream media and ‘entertainment’, Hollywood in particular. It is certainly not the only root of the crazed hatred flowing through the crumbling West like an open drain, but I believe it is a major factor.
“Which makes me ponder just how…”
גוש אמונים
Or, “Forget the useful idiot and associated idiots, who really killed Yitzhak Rabin?”
Or, “Why was it reported that gunshots rather than cancer that really killed Rabin?”
Or, “Who gave Yigal Amir cancer, how and why?”
OffGuardian asks proper journalistic questions about the summit while most of the mainstream media suffers a chicken-hawk / chicken-little panic attack while drinking its bathwater and drumming for a “humiliating” punitive final solution to Russia. Investors, as occurred with the 911 “attack,” are hungrily gaming what the desired effect will be on the NYSE? In other news, Russia, responding to American warmonger angst is financing an Aaron Sorkin (Charlie Wilson’s War, West Wing) musical drama mini-series (provisionally titled Getting Smarter) to explicate and exorcise the scope, scale, pathos, history and romantic delusions of the “deep state” and the characteristic absence of life and humanity in the perverse pale-faced castrati mandrinate who serve its mission. The mini-series promises to compel ordinary Americans to rise-up and destroy their elite ivy covered amoral educational institutions and topple the absurd corporate insider class with humiliating mockery sufficient to acheive their serial cascading suicide. Meanwhile, Canada in an attempt to recover its 1st degree groveling vassal status, is promising to further subsidize and reduce taxes on the western armaments industry, declare it environmentally sustainable and free it from the yoke of bureaucracy, political payola, public criticism and trade unionism. After which Harper will return in jesus boots and become the queen’s governor general with dictatorial powers. and so to bed, perchance to dream…
I spent a few hours yesterday, when it was too wet and wild to venture outside, watching Youtube videos describing China’s simply amazing progress, in every field. There is the real enemy, the not at all phantom menace that has the deranged civilizational supremacists of the Yankee Reich, its Five Eyes stooges and co-conspirators and the other Western oligarchies so deranged with fear and rage. Russia is just a way-station, a source of great loot to be pillaged again, as the country is vivisected by some New Yeltsin. The performance of the Western fakestream media hate-machine grows more frenzied and extreme every time Putin tweeks their Exceptional noses, and smirks at it. I love his smirk!!!!
Why must China be considered an enemy? China has invested billions in the “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) infrastructure: civil engineering – as opposed to the uncivil kind of the West’s MIC. Since the US hegemony was founded on the Pearl Harbor myth, then the creation of OSS/CIA, the moral arc has been plunging ever lower and has no redeeming features. Sic transit gloria mundi. China has suffered centuries of Western exploitation, but may not be as inhuman as the Anglo-American model, but surely can be no worse?
China is considered an enemy because it is NOT the USA, it is NOT Western, it is NOT Judeo-Christian, and its people are ‘mere Asiatics’. And it has had the effrontery to create the most successful economy in history, and a society that is non-aggressive, co-operative and generally beneficial to its people and those who desire friendly relations.
Thanks for the clarification. We are in total agreement. China has beaten the Capitalists at their own game, but the losers will not take defeat kindly. I imagine China will have anticipated and prepared well in accordance with Sun Tzu insight.
Yes they are ready and here is a good insight.
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/3470-china-has-been-preparing-for-a-trade-war-for-over-a-decade
The Chinese are ready. They, I imagine, fully anticipated the frenzy of Western racist angst that would be unleashed once they rose to global pre-eminence. They know history, not just their own, but that of the 500 years of European aggression, pillage, destruction and genocide around the world. I just wonder how sanguine they are about humanity’s chances of surviving the Real Evil Empire’s rabid death-throes. But they are doing their best, and we, in Austfailure, as ever, are doing our boot-licking worst.
China are the enemy because they have a plan, along with Russia, to trade outside the doller, and hopefully drag a bunch of other countries with them, thus de-dollarising the global economy, and bringing the US war machine down, they basically see the dollar as a form of weaponised currency which America uses to ‘harvest’ the economies of the world, thus recycling the currency back to America at every one else’s expense
i suspect they see the Euro currency as part of this scheme therefore it makes no sense for that currency to fail from their perspective, so any notion that China or particularly Russia want to bring down the EU i think doesn’t make sense, after all, if the Americans have ‘managed’ Europe for decades, then surely it makes strategic sense for Russia and China to turn the European block into a tool to be used against America, its essentially a form of asymmetric geopolitics, although from an American perspective its all beginning to look like a very serious existential threat to American hegemony which is why Trump is against multilateral trade, the WTO and so called trade deals like TTP and TTIP, basically he wants to try and peal countries away from globalisation because he and his advisers know China is the biggest beneficiary of the current form of globalisation and hence its biggest supporters along with the EU, don’t forget Merkal is still very keen on TTIP, because she sees it as a soft power tool, not only against America but also against Russia and China
the question is once the Chinese achieve their goals will they be so keen on globalisation? currently they have Putin to give them a big guarantee for energy, but unlike the Chinese leader, Putin has less than six years left, I’d suggest its six years from now when the world will reach crunch time, which will also coincide with the American electoral cycle , i suspect its then that America will go for regime change in Russia, if they fail then its curtains for them as their, and unfortunately our only options will be all out war, and I’d expect the Guardian and western MSM to back all of the aforementioned
so basically the Chinese and Russians are playing a kind of good cop, bad cop routine, in which so far the Russians have taken most of the heat, but without Russia, or rather with a pro western Russia its curtains for china!
under Obama , and now Trump, the Americans are trying every trick in the book to prevent what many predict is the end of American hegemony, they ain’t gonna go down without a fight thats for sure
so six years from now, or thereabouts, is crunch time!
The Chinese have made plain, over and over again, that Xi, at present, has only one extra five year term. The ‘President for Life’ guff is typical Western bull-shit propaganda.
I find it funny and sad that the Russian hating and bombing the Middle East seems all for nothing except for possibly gaining more control over international affairs. Yet at the same time China is going strength to strength, the West will not be able to influence China or even do much. Imagine if we imposed severe sanctions against China, our economies will collapse. China appears to be mostly keeping its head down and getting on with the job of economic and developmental progress and extending their economic influence across the planet.
It looks like the future is China’s, which considering our behaviour is probably a good thing.
I just wish we fixed our own problems and co-operated fairly with the rest of the world…
As is so often the case in recent years, especially with Ukraine in 2014, the media have gone overboard with their partisanship. It’s a sign of desperation.
It will be interesting to see, by the end of the week, what the public’s opinion of the press is. Wouldn’t be surprised if the press made itself less trusted than ever.
If Trump is reelected with the popular vote as well as the electoral college in 2020, will the press continue to call Trump supporters uneducated morons?
The MSM is accelerating its own death spiral.
“I’m ready to call this the darkest hour in the history of the American presidency. Let me know if you can think of any competition.”
How about nuking 2 Japanese cities to test out a new toy knowing that it would be unnecessary in order to win WW2?
Illegally bombing large chunks of Asia in order to further its ambitions in Vietnam?
Illegally invading Iraq and turning the middle east into a lawless meat grinder of jihadist madness?
As commander in chief the US president is responsible for all this and more. The real question is where to stop.
Kasparov, like many chess champions, is deranged.
I kind of think that Trump’s supposed ‘narcissism’ is based on his fear, which is widespread among the ruling elite, that the US simply can’t go on like this anymore. It doesn’t have the money and more importantly, it doesn’t have enough support from the people for all these incredibly destructive and costly wars. A substantial majority of ordinary Americans want the system to fix America first, not the rest of the world. This is a major problem for the ruling class who see it as imperative that that the US conquers the world in order to maintain its’ position as the only remaining western empire. Only China and Germany have shown that one doesn’t need to create a vast and expensive world empire in order to flourish economically. Money and trade can succeed where brute military force fails.
The real insanity is continuing to believe that the MSM is sane, wishes to hold elite power to account, is anything but an outsourced whoring PR channel for MIC/bankster interests.
I grew up and saw Israel and Egypt hold peace talks – they were warring protagonists, not sabre-rattling oil economies. It was reported as the height of statesmanship, whatever you thought about the politicians concerned.
I saw Germany reunited and the Cold War end. Dreadful scandal, both those things.
I saw as an adult bilateral agreement in London to pursue peace talks in Northern Ireland with two sides who had been blowing each other up for two generations. The US helped to broker the talks and there has been mostly peaceful existence now for almost a generation.
Right now, by those standards, the US and Russia should be getting Turkey, Syria, Israel, KSA, the Emirati statelets and Iran around a table and the EU should be helping them to do so.
India and Russia should be getting all the Stan republics into conference to resolve the eyesore of Afghanistan and the US should be ordered out of Afghanistan. Neither Russia nor India should be taking their place.
Canada and Mexico should be brokering talks about the various messes created in the American land mass, focussing on the role of US military training in fomenting coup over many decades. The US should be in the dock, not the Chair.
An honest broker needs to be found to chair talks on Korea: that will not be China, Russia, the US nor Japan. Australia and New Zealand might be suitable.
African leadership should be brokering talks on the ongoing calamities in the Horn of Africa.
This diplomacy is what prevents all out warfare.
Why are the Western Presstitutes so opposed to it?
What makes you think that Australia, the 51st state, would be an “honest” broker?
Austfailure is more a second Puerto Rico, or Micronesia-a stooge state owned by the USA, that obeys orders at all times.
operation Mockingbird, as previously mentioned. The Military Industrial Complex has as its intelligence/propaganda arm the CIA, who own all mainstream media operatives, whether those operatives know it or not.
If the Republicans and Trump win the mid term elections big time then I would fear for Trump. He’ll wind up like Kennedy.
Which Kennedy?
Both JFK and RFK.
The Mainstream media is losing its power to shape events and frame debates. That is why it is becoming increasingly hysterical. And the hysteria is informed by a desperate need to discredit all other forums of opinion, particularly sites like this one, as deranged, beyond the pale, dominated by anarchists and their gulls.
It is best to be patient: to point out the absurdity of the sort of views that Gary Kasparov and the Guardian promote and to appeal to the quiet common sense of the majority. Most people are aware of the fact that such talks are useful.
The same sort of hysteria was manifested over the talks with Korea: there are a large number of people who get rich and remain powerful by leeching on to organisations such as NATO and the rest of the imperial apparatus.
The trick will be for those who support peace and dialogue to insist on the delivery of the peace dividend which most people have been waiting for since 1990. Instead they have seen their wages fall and their sense of security in society decline.
That is something that the Labour Party has to stress. As to Bernie Sanders, it is easy to understand what his motives are. And they are sordid and nasty.
Sanders was in on the scam right the way through. The REAL election meddling and interference and rigging was Clinton and Washerwoman Schlitz’s efforts to steal the nomination for the gore bespattered Gorgon, and Uncle Bernie rolled right over, like a good little puppy, and sold the Bernouts down the river. And Putin made him do it!
I heard about half a minute of “reporting” on Putin/Trump from Channel 4 last night and that was enough. I couldn’t believe the frothing hysteria of it. It’s all along the lines of the “darkest moment in the entire history of the world” – and it shows how utterly desperate and hyperbolically paranoid these political/media servants have become.
Agreed, the wretched Jon Snow and his team showed an extraordinary degree of biased ignorance by interviewing half a dozen people all of whom were violently anti Trump, and not one in his favour. The most amusing part of watching these liberal neo-fascists is to see the jaw dropping incredulity on their faces when commenting on Trump as if they had never before encountered a man who had the honesty to express different ideas and values to their own died in the wool establishment CIA/MI6 entrenched warmongering hate filled views. Perhaps if Jon Snow had changed his appalling cheap nylon tie in the past five years one might give him the benefit of the doubt, but no it is still there befitting his stale mentality to a tee.
I saw part of a post-Summit Sky News report from Helsinki this a.m. The female reporter out in Helsinki said scoffingly that when Putin was asked [I think she was referring to his interview with Fox TV] about the indictment of 12 Russians and the ‘Novichok’ events “he said he wanted to see evidence”. She delivered his response with the most snide and incredulous tone as if to say why on earth does he require evidence when we all know that the accusations alone are enough to prove Russia guilty. She then went on to say, almost ‘tutting’ as she said it, “He wanted to see the evidence…They tried to hand him the indictment but he just put it on the table. Even when the evidence was presented to him, he wouldn’t take it”. So that’s it then. We are all supposed to take on board Sky’s opinion that he is a most fickle, unreasonable individual who has the audacity to demand evidence and won’t just concede and agree with what he is told. Life is so simple in the world populated by ‘Sky’ and the rest of the simpletons out there.
Our whole MSM is an absolute disgrace. We know that already, but unfortunately Joe and Jane Bloggs don’t realise it and they lap it all up.
An indictment is no more than an allegation. It is proof of nothing.
The Western ‘liberals’ are natural fascists in utero. And the TOTAL Groupthink, the complete absence of any dissenting opinion or any honest examination of the facts ends with the presstitutes competing with each other to be seen as the most hysterically politically correct.
It was exactly the same with the BBC’s Jon Sopel reporting on the Trump-Putin tete-a-tete. He commented on Trump’s scepticism regarding the ‘collusion’ with Russia with a final, hysterical and unrestrained outburst that ‘Trump wanted evidence! of ‘collusion’ after all the US authorities had done to ‘prove’ that collusion had taken place.
These people are little more than scripted dummies: mannequins with the strings being pulled by the unseen manipulaters off stage.
Luciana puts it much better than me.
”As in Thomas Mann’s novella, Mario and the Magician (1929), there is, once again in Europe, a concentration of hypnotic, seductively perverse “evilness” in the air. It is carried by a reactionary western wind that blows from centers on both sides of the Atlantic.
It induces opiated stupor and passive complicity with the performance of demagogic magicians, harnessing and twisting the fears, the desires, and the frustrations of masses of people. The greatest, most deceptive magician of them all—Mann’s hunchbacked mesmerizer, Cavaliere Cipolla—is the Western media.”
Luciana Bohne
The entire Western fakestream sewer is behaving in precisely the manner that the Murdoch cancer has been operating in Austfailure for decades. The bias is TOTAL, and the hate and fear-mongering (and rank disinformation) against a plethora of targets eg unions, environmentalists, the Indigenous, refugees, Moslems, Russia, China, Iran, the Palestinians, teachers, ‘do-gooders’, ‘the morally vain’, ‘post-modernists'(a weird obsession)has long been deranged and hateful. It has measurably helped to make our society worse-stupider, more ignorant, more greedy, more class hating, more vicious. And the cancer pursues vendettas, against leading unionists, environmentalists, Leftists etc, with utter viciousness and they continue even decades post-mortem, as in the case of the historian Manning Clark, dead since 1991.
The big problem is, that one is allowed, within the unrepresentative media bubble, to attack and ridicule the nasty Republicans and the dumb, nationalist, rednecks; only one can’t do it to the Democrats and the ‘liberals.’ That is going too far. One isn’t allowed to reject both political factions, because there is no alternative allowed. And this is despite the last election showing that a substantial groundswell of ordinary Americans were ready to do just that. Support a ‘fascist’ or a ‘socialist’ rather than the Democrats or Republicans. That’s a really significant shift and one the ghastly Guardian steadfastly refuses to address, preferring instead to blame the Russians for the ‘bad’ election result. Does a Oxbridge education really destroy one’s capacity to think independently, or does it start earlier? How can one have an effective ruling elite that no longer has the capacity to think properly? I think they’re doomed, when their ideas no longer have even a tenuous link to reality and increasingly more and more people can see this. Civil war or revolution loom on the horizon unless there’s a shift, a reckoning.
Sorry. You did read it, of course. It’s unhinged. Where does the Guardian find these people? Their hatred of Trump is… irrational and bizarre. He’s a billionaire businessman who’d rather build hotels and casinos in the Crimea than bomb Russia. Wow! what a fiend he is!
Next it’ll be argued that Trump is too dangerous, too treacherous and his supporters too deplorable and stupid, too easily manipulated by the Russians; to allow them to vote for Trump next time around, so let’s find a way to make sure he can’t stand again.
The ruling class in the US, and not just there, are simply ‘losing it’, big time. Too many people for comfort are not following them and are ready to disobey and seek other answers to their problems. The ‘liberals’ and the fake left are gonna lose again next time, probably worse than before, especially if the awful Clintons are still running the Democratic Party.
That a guy like Trump whips both the twin establishments inside the Democrats and Republicans, and the pundit church and the media priesthood too, tells one something profound about how corrupt and degenerate the US political system is. Yet, these lessons are ignored and the blame pushed onto the Russians! It’s like we’re heading for a civil war, if we don’t attack the Russians first!
Trump’s major crime, I think, and I think he’s supported by powerful figures within the Establishment and the US Military, but they cannot openly support him for obvious reasons… is that he doesn’t think that the US can successfully confront Russia and China, at the same time, pushing them closer and closer into a truly formidable economic and military alliance. China’s a bigger threat than Russia economically, so why confront Russia like this, when it’s really China one has to fear? The other factions think one can do both, fight Russia and China together. Trump and his group think this is a simply crazy strategy and completely unecessary.
Trumps problem, and that of the US, is that the long entrenched Deep State of the military industrial war profiteers including the paranoid CIA, cannot control their annoyance that their stooge Hilary Clinton lost the election and Trump who wants a peaceful outcome with Russia and Syria has upset their plans. Trump is fighting a constant battle not just with Mueller but with other CIA placements such as Pompeo who he need appease for the time being despite their animosity to him. He is a brave man since the last President to challenge the CIA and Deep State was Kennedy and now should the desperate efforts being made to bring Trump down by denigration and fake news fail their will come a point where assassination will become the last choice.
Absolutely right but they know they risk a new civil war if they do so.
The anti-Trump bias is so deeply entrenched and it is exceeding difficult to red-pill cosseted, well-off “intellectuals” on this side of the Atlantic who are sticking to the Liberal history of publications like The Guardian/C4 while refusing to find alternate sources of news.
We are entered into a binary world of political schism that seems insoluble…
Sanity.For me both Russia and IS are great countries both lost in the old cold war story.Sanders I hope will have some more creative ideas eg. saying what he would have done in Trump’s place and preparing for being president: getting beyond this negative thinking.
Sanders is nothing but a phony sheep-dog.
Why are our erstwhile defenders of western democracy silent on the $400-million bribe Hillary’s campaign received from Russian gangster-oligarchs?
Seems obvious this was a down payment on another colour revolution.
They’re silent because if benefited Killary Klingon not Trump. Had it benefited Trump they’d have impeached him with it.
I’m from Dublin and I’m going to take this opportunity to add the our very own Irish Times to the growing number of neocon ‘liberal’ presstitutes working for the propaganda arm of NATO. Because there is no Offguardian or Media Lens in Ireland this enables them to get away with murder (or at least supporting it around the world)! Here are two of their headlines from today which I couldn’t even be arsed reading beyond because I think they alone speak sufficiently about the drivel contained in each article. Nor am I’m going to link to the articles because they don’t deserve the ad revenue.
First headline – “Trump’s humiliating performance contrasts with Putin’s control” and second headline – “A delusional Donald Trump plays to Vladimir Putin’s agenda”.
One only wonders now if Green Day will ever allow their 2003 hit ‘American Idiot’ be renamed to ‘Liberal Idiot’ – all the lyrics in the rest of the song can stay the same, just change the title!
A. Don’t forget RTE, Tv3, snivelling grovelling autocue readers, Joe ‘working class hero’ Duffy will let us know what to think I’m sure, the whole media industry here as you know stinks.
Yep, RTE are a disgrace Denis. In fact here is a recent complaint I sent to them which I’m sure Offguardian don’t mind me publishing here.
“Dear Madam/Sir
Regarding your recent article – “Trump call for Clinton inquiry ‘highly inappropriate'”. Yet another overtly biased headline from RTE. Serious question – Do you honestly feel that there isn’t an overt pro-Clinton and anti-Trump bias in the headline alone? I mean, why shouldn’t Trump investigate Clinton. Afterall, she is a crooked Wall Street warmongering puppet and we have the wikileaks to prove it. She was also part of a nefarious scheme to sabotage the Sanders primary, not that RTE really focused on this other than to fearmonger us about baseless ‘Russian hacking’. And why haven’t you told us about the DNC lawsuit against Hillary – this is huge news surely? Why didn’t Primetime ever give Julian Assange – the man at the centre of this – a decent 30 minute interview? You mean you didn’t know about any of this? Then why are you journalists and why am I paying you? I can find this damning information against Hillary Clinton very effortlessly on Google, all of the facts verifiable too, and so should you. Or maybe you did. Then why do you have such contempt for the Irish population that you won’t inform them? Why do you consistently present such biased headlines with regards to US affairs.
Why is there a constant barrage of pro-Clinton/Obama yet anti-Trump reporting from RTE? I don’t particularly like Trump either but I have that luxury, you’re supposed to be objective in as far as you possibly can. Why do you love the Democrats so much when they are spewed from the same corporate monster as the Republicans, just with a more ‘liberal’ face. Why can journalists like John Pilger or Glenn Greenwald investigate and expose such wrongdoings but you can’t (or don’t).
While all you ever do with Trump is target him with frivolous criticism, all you could ever seemed to do with Obama was lavish him with frivolous praise. Why did RTE love Obama so much, and you could only ever report on the smooth jokes he told at Washington dinners (written by a speech writer) or what he actually had for dinner. You evidently celebrate multiiculturalism at RTE yet you never once informed the Irish population that this smooth war criminal dropped over 26000 bombs on non-white people in 2016 alone!! (If you did report this, please link it to me). This is verifiable, as are many of Obama’s other horrendous crimes which you never bother to report. You mean you didn’t know about any of this? Then why are you journalists? Or maybe you did know all this. Then why do you have such contempt for the Irish population that you won’t inform them? Evidently, there are also strong third wave feminist undertones in RTE’s reporting. Then why did you love Hillary Clinton so much? She supported every war since 1999, wars that killed many girls and women?
Here is another typical biased headline from RTE “Obama to defend ‘core values’” and here is the first sentence in the article – “US President Barack Obama has said he will weigh in as a citizen if the Trump administration challenges values he holds dear”. This is absurd. How does Obama represent ‘core values’? Did you not know that Obama has nothing but contempt for American values – he allowed Citibank to choose his first cabinet which is hardly democratic, he extrajudicially killed overseas people with drone attacks which is extremely unconstitutional(innocent until proven guilty) and he has unconstitutionally NSA surveyed an entire population without their consent – you mean you didn’t know about the Snowden revelations? So how does any of this pertain to ‘core values’. Is this competent journalism do you think?
Why are you constantly trying to stoke a new cold war with all this meaningless McCarthy-ite Trump/Russia nonsense. So what if Trump or someone related to him met a Russian somewhere while doing business – many politicians/business people have. And if Trump is trying to avoid a confrontation with Russia by actually establishing a positive relationship with Putin, then why aren’t you applauding this. Because this is no laughing matter – if it all goes belly up and there is a nuclear war between two super-powers, then you, me, and our children will be obliterated. And if you’re so interested in these Russia-gate story, why haven’t you given credible coverage to Seth Rich?
As for Caitriona Perry’s Twitter page. Questionable how her political opinions seem to be very similar to her reports for RTE … but I guess it’s her own Twitter page at the end of the day. All I know is that if I had a Twitter page, I’d be inclined to exercise good judgement so my opinions are not in anyway compromising the work I do. Enough said.
I could go on.
It troubles me deeply that I have to pay my TV licence but what can I do – the rest of my family want a television. And I’m pretty sure, you know this too. So think carefully about your reply this time, make it a robust one. I know there’s a lot of questions here. But I took a lot of time to compose this email so I’m sure you’ll be delighted to answer everyone of them. I want to know I’m getting value for my licence money. I do intend publishing this letter where possible.
Yours sincerely”
@A.Moynihan – excellent letter. Despite your final paragraph, If you are fortunate enough to receive a response I can see it being brief but polite, along the lines of “Thank you for your comments which have been noted”.
Thanks Judy. at the time I was more just venting my anger than expecting any real satisfactory response from RTE. And thank God I did keep my expectations realistically low! I may as well go the whole hog and publish the full exchange between myself and RTE that took place after that original complaint . I’m sure Offguardian won’t mind … but RTE might! Fuck them. This is what followed after the my original letter that I posted above:
“RTE reply:
I wish to acknowledge your email of 04.08.17 and thank you for taking the trouble to write to us. Your email has been forwarded to RTÉ Feedback (cc’ed above) and will be noted in the weekly diary of comment from viewers and listeners which is circulated to all senior editorial and managerial executives including the Director-General and the Managing Director of RTÉ News and Current Affairs.
My Reply
So, I’m not going to get my robust reply from RTE, answer each of the questions I posed to RTE. Is this what you’re telling me? I spend an hour composing an email whereas you copy, paste and forward a template reply in ten seconds?
Where can I, as a licence payer, access this ‘weekly diary’ and learn what those senior editorial executives took away from my email?
RTE Reply
I wish to acknowledge your email of 08.08.17 below and refer to previous correspondence.
The log of audience comments is for internal circulation only and while feedback by viewers and listeners is welcomed, I hope you will understand that we invest as much as possible of our resources, including license fee revenue, to producing broadcast and online content and therefore cannot dedicate any of those resources to responding to commentary such as your email of 04.08.17 in the way you request.
My Reply
In the interest of transparency, why not publish/make this log of audience comments and feedback that you’ve informed me about on the RTE website? Create a ‘feedback’ section or something similar. It wouldn’t put too much of a squeeze on your resources and I’d be very convinced you were taking feedback seriously.
RTE Reply
I wish to acknowledge your email of 14.08.17 and thank you for taking the time to reply. I have forwarded your email to David McKenna for his information. An initiative such as the one suggested below has been in discussion for some time and while we see the value in principle there are very real resourcing issues,”
THE END
I didn’t bother pursuing it any further.
Andrew – well there you go…that demonstrates that my expectation was essentially correct! And multiple times over! It happens time and time again. Those of us with a desire to force people to publicly acknowledge, or think about, the error of their ways by going to the trouble of raising well thought out and factual questions are fobbed off with meaningless and bland responses such as those you received from RTE. I have tried to do likewise with MPs in two constituencies I have lived in over the past 4 years and have never even had an acknowledgement so at least, for what it’s worth, you’ve achieved more than I’ve been able to do, albeit from a media body! I don’t suppose any of these ’empowered’ bodies (MSM and politicians) even bother going to the trouble these days of keeping their own internal record of the nature of the comments they receive which they can then follow up with their journalists or ‘researchers’ (now there’s a misnomer if ever there were) respectively.
JJ
Thing is Judy, you’ll notice the tone of exasperation in my writing to RTE. That’s because I sent them a few emails of complaints/suggestions in the past that were actually polite (as recommended) but all I got were unsatisfactory vapid ‘polite’ responses back. In fact, I would rather they just sent me an honest reply along the lines of …
‘Dear Mr Moynihan.
Who do you think you are, you little proletarian shit?! Why should we, the propaganda mouthpiece for this neoliberal corporatocracy answer to you? Now shut up and pay your licence!
Yours sincerely.
RTE.
PS. Fuck off.”
Obama represents US aggression, impunity for torturers, drone missile killings of innocents and aggression against Russia in installing fascists in power in Ukraine. He represents the greatest attack on whistle-blowers in all US history, the war drive to ‘bring China down’, and thirty trillion in free money for the banksters and nada for the rabble. And he represents the complete takeover by the Israel First Lobby of US governance at the highest level. THOSE are his true values.
Did you get an answer from Rte – – beyond the standard “Thank you for your communication, we are looking into it”, and we etc, etc? Somehow, I feel you didn’t.
Stopped reading the Irish Times years ago, because of its “liberal agenda” and fake news . I T columnists like Fintan O Toole and Kevin Myers (although they got rid of him) make me sick.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/17/republicans-donald-trump-russia-treachery
Just look at this stuff in the ghastly Guardian today, and… weep.
Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen such universal unanimous condemnation based on complete and utter lies of someone trying to achieve peace since Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin.