There are other ways to vote in the US elections than for the two major parties. The main stream media (MSM) which is notoriously one-sided and corrupt NEVER EVER mentions that there are other parties to vote for than the Democrats and the Republicans.
As in Australia where there is seldom mention of independents and others in the MSM one could be forgiven for believing one had very little choice.
The reverse is the truth and if people would explore deeper than the media which serve us our daily dross they would find to their great joy that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are loathed in equal measure and there are people standing for election who are honest and who have progressive policies and who will not take them to war at the drop of an NRA or equivalent.
The tragedy of elections is that mostly people are just too tired or disgusted to bother with any research into candidates and the truth is that most people are too tired at the end of yet another depressing day to bother about loathsome politics and even more loathsome politicians.
In Victoria in Australia we are about to have local government elections thrust upon us in the next few weeks and the evidence is that the major parties are, yet again, putting forward dummy candidates to make sure they get the votes one way or another.
Well, I have news for them - people have for many years already seen through this ploy and already in the last few years results have shown that people will no longer just vote like dummies.
Let us hope that in October in Victoria, Australia, and in the more vital international poll in the USA, people will vote for other than the corrupt main parties and remember there are worthwhile alternatives!
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Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillary Clinton. Show all posts
28 September 2016
10 April 2016
TRUMP AND CLINTON: CENSORING THE UNPALATABLE
March 29, 2016 CounterPunch
Trump and Clinton: Censoring the Unpalatable
A virulent if familiar censorship is about to descend on the US
election campaign. As the cartoon brute, Donald Trump, seems almost
certain to win the Republican Party’s nomination, Hillary Clinton is
being ordained both as the “women’s candidate” and the champion of
American liberalism in its heroic struggle with the Evil One.
This is drivel, of course; Hillary Clinton leaves a trail of blood and suffering around the world and a clear record of exploitation and greed in her own country. To say so, however, is becoming intolerable in the land of free speech.
The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama should have alerted even the most dewy-eyed. Obama based his “hope” campaign almost entirely on the fact of an African-American aspiring to lead the land of slavery. He was also “antiwar”.
Obama was never antiwar. On the contrary, like all American presidents, he was pro-war. He had voted for George W. Bush’s funding of the slaughter in Iraq and he was planning to escalate the invasion of Afghanistan. In the weeks before he took the presidential oath, he secretly approved an Israeli assault on Gaza, the massacre known as Operation Cast Lead. He promised to close the concentration camp at Guantanamo and did not. He pledged to help make the world “free from nuclear weapons” and did the opposite.
As a new kind of marketing manager for the status quo, the unctuous Obama was an inspired choice. Even at the end of his blood-spattered presidency, with his signature drones spreading infinitely more terror and death around the world than that ignited by jihadists in Paris and Brussels, Obama is fawned on as “cool” (the Guardian).
On March 23, CounterPunch published my article, “A World War has Begun: Break the Silence”. As has been my practice for years, I then syndicated the piece across an international network, including Truthout.com, the liberal American website. Truthout publishes some important journalism, not least Dahr Jamail’s outstanding corporate exposes.
Truthout rejected the piece because, said an editor, it had appeared on CounterPunch and had broken “guidelines”. I replied that this had never been a problem over many years and I knew of no guidelines.
My recalcitrance was then given another meaning. The article was reprieved provided I submitted to a “review” and agreed to changes and deletions made by Truthout’s “editorial committee”. The result was the softening and censoring of my criticism of Hillary Clinton, and the distancing of her from Trump. The following was cut:
At the root of this episode is an enduring unsayable. This is the need, the compulsion, of many liberals in the United States to embrace a leader from within a system that is demonstrably imperial and violent. Like Obama’s “hope”, Clinton’s gender is no more than a suitable facade.
This is an historical urge. In his 1859 essay “On Liberty,” to which modern liberals seem to pay unflagging homage, John Stuart Mill described the power of empire. “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians,” he wrote, “provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end.” The “barbarians” were large sections of humanity of whom “implicit obedience” was required.
“It’s a nice and convenient myth that liberals are the peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers,” wrote the British historian Hywel Williams in 2001, “but the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open ended nature – its conviction that it represents a superior form of life [while denying its] self righteous fanaticism.” He had in mind a speech by Tony Blair in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, in which Blair promised to “reorder this world around us” according to his “moral values”. The carnage of a million dead in Iraq was the result.
Blair’s crimes are not unusual. Since 1945, some 69 countries — more than a third of the membership of the United Nations – have suffered some or all of the following. They have been invaded, their governments overthrown, their popular movements suppressed, their elections subverted and their people bombed. The historian Mark Curtis estimates the death toll in the millions. With the demise of the European empires, this has been the project of the liberal flame carrier, the “exceptional” United States, whose celebrated “progressive” president, John F Kennedy, according to new research, authorised the bombing of Moscow during the Cuban crisis in 1962.
“If we have to use force,” said Madeleine Albright, US secretary of state in the liberal administration of Bill Clinton and today a passionate campaigner for his wife, “it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”
One of Hillary Clinton’s most searing crimes was the destruction of Libya in 2011. At her urging, and with American logistical support, NATO, launched 9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, according to its own records, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with uranium warheads. See the photographs of the rubble of Misurata and Sirte, and the mass graves identified by the Red Cross. Read the UNICEF report on the children killed, “most [of them] under the age of ten”.
In Anglo-American scholarship, followed slavishly by the liberal media on both sides of the Atlantic, influential theorists known as “liberal realists” have long taught that liberal imperialists – a term they never use – are the world’s peace brokers and crisis managers, rather than the cause of a crisis. They have taken the humanity out of the study of nations and congealed it with a jargon that serves warmongering power. Laying out whole nations for autopsy, they have identified “failed states” (nations difficult to exploit) and “rogue states” (nations resistant to western dominance).
Whether or not the targeted regime is a democracy or dictatorship is irrelevant. In the Middle East, western liberalism’s collaborators have long been extremist Islamists, lately al-Qaeda, while cynical notions of democracy and human rights serve as rhetorical cover for conquest and mayhem — as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, Honduras. See the record of those good liberals Bill and Hillary Clinton. Theirs is a standard to which Trump can only aspire.
A Response from Truthout and a Letter from Truthout’s publisher.
http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/35422-on-regrettable-and-false-accusations-of-censorship
This is drivel, of course; Hillary Clinton leaves a trail of blood and suffering around the world and a clear record of exploitation and greed in her own country. To say so, however, is becoming intolerable in the land of free speech.
The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama should have alerted even the most dewy-eyed. Obama based his “hope” campaign almost entirely on the fact of an African-American aspiring to lead the land of slavery. He was also “antiwar”.
Obama was never antiwar. On the contrary, like all American presidents, he was pro-war. He had voted for George W. Bush’s funding of the slaughter in Iraq and he was planning to escalate the invasion of Afghanistan. In the weeks before he took the presidential oath, he secretly approved an Israeli assault on Gaza, the massacre known as Operation Cast Lead. He promised to close the concentration camp at Guantanamo and did not. He pledged to help make the world “free from nuclear weapons” and did the opposite.
As a new kind of marketing manager for the status quo, the unctuous Obama was an inspired choice. Even at the end of his blood-spattered presidency, with his signature drones spreading infinitely more terror and death around the world than that ignited by jihadists in Paris and Brussels, Obama is fawned on as “cool” (the Guardian).
On March 23, CounterPunch published my article, “A World War has Begun: Break the Silence”. As has been my practice for years, I then syndicated the piece across an international network, including Truthout.com, the liberal American website. Truthout publishes some important journalism, not least Dahr Jamail’s outstanding corporate exposes.
Truthout rejected the piece because, said an editor, it had appeared on CounterPunch and had broken “guidelines”. I replied that this had never been a problem over many years and I knew of no guidelines.
My recalcitrance was then given another meaning. The article was reprieved provided I submitted to a “review” and agreed to changes and deletions made by Truthout’s “editorial committee”. The result was the softening and censoring of my criticism of Hillary Clinton, and the distancing of her from Trump. The following was cut:
Trump is a media hate figure. That alone should arouse our scepticism. Trump’s views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama … The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system … As presidential election day draws near, Clinton will be hailed as the first female president, regardless of her crimes and lies– just as Barack Obama was lauded as the first black president and liberals swallowed his nonsense about “hope”.The “editorial committee” clearly wanted me to water down my argument that Clinton represented a proven extreme danger to the world. Like all censorship, this was unacceptable. Maya Schenwar, who runs Truthout, wrote to me that my unwillingness to submit my work to a “process of revision” meant she had to take it off her “publication docket”. Such is the gatekeeper’s way with words.
At the root of this episode is an enduring unsayable. This is the need, the compulsion, of many liberals in the United States to embrace a leader from within a system that is demonstrably imperial and violent. Like Obama’s “hope”, Clinton’s gender is no more than a suitable facade.
This is an historical urge. In his 1859 essay “On Liberty,” to which modern liberals seem to pay unflagging homage, John Stuart Mill described the power of empire. “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians,” he wrote, “provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end.” The “barbarians” were large sections of humanity of whom “implicit obedience” was required.
“It’s a nice and convenient myth that liberals are the peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers,” wrote the British historian Hywel Williams in 2001, “but the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open ended nature – its conviction that it represents a superior form of life [while denying its] self righteous fanaticism.” He had in mind a speech by Tony Blair in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, in which Blair promised to “reorder this world around us” according to his “moral values”. The carnage of a million dead in Iraq was the result.
Blair’s crimes are not unusual. Since 1945, some 69 countries — more than a third of the membership of the United Nations – have suffered some or all of the following. They have been invaded, their governments overthrown, their popular movements suppressed, their elections subverted and their people bombed. The historian Mark Curtis estimates the death toll in the millions. With the demise of the European empires, this has been the project of the liberal flame carrier, the “exceptional” United States, whose celebrated “progressive” president, John F Kennedy, according to new research, authorised the bombing of Moscow during the Cuban crisis in 1962.
“If we have to use force,” said Madeleine Albright, US secretary of state in the liberal administration of Bill Clinton and today a passionate campaigner for his wife, “it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”
One of Hillary Clinton’s most searing crimes was the destruction of Libya in 2011. At her urging, and with American logistical support, NATO, launched 9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, according to its own records, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with uranium warheads. See the photographs of the rubble of Misurata and Sirte, and the mass graves identified by the Red Cross. Read the UNICEF report on the children killed, “most [of them] under the age of ten”.
In Anglo-American scholarship, followed slavishly by the liberal media on both sides of the Atlantic, influential theorists known as “liberal realists” have long taught that liberal imperialists – a term they never use – are the world’s peace brokers and crisis managers, rather than the cause of a crisis. They have taken the humanity out of the study of nations and congealed it with a jargon that serves warmongering power. Laying out whole nations for autopsy, they have identified “failed states” (nations difficult to exploit) and “rogue states” (nations resistant to western dominance).
Whether or not the targeted regime is a democracy or dictatorship is irrelevant. In the Middle East, western liberalism’s collaborators have long been extremist Islamists, lately al-Qaeda, while cynical notions of democracy and human rights serve as rhetorical cover for conquest and mayhem — as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, Honduras. See the record of those good liberals Bill and Hillary Clinton. Theirs is a standard to which Trump can only aspire.
A Response from Truthout and a Letter from Truthout’s publisher.
http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/35422-on-regrettable-and-false-accusations-of-censorship
Dear Jeffrey,
I’m writing in response to Counterpunch’s publication of a highly misleading and factually inaccurate article by John Pilger today regarding Truthout and our editor-in-chief Maya Schenwar, “Trump and Clinton: Censoring the Unpalatable“.
The idea that Truthout is stifling criticism of Hillary Clinton holds no water, and this takes very little time to verify – I’ve appended below a few of the many uncompromisingly critical articles we’ve published about her.
John Pilger’s history of excellent journalism is without question. However, the reality of this situation is that each and every writer who submits work to Truthout for publication or republication need to work with our editors, and treat them with some basic professional courtesy. That did not happen in this case.
It has long been Truthout’s policy that for articles to be featured as Truthout originals, they need to either be exclusive content or to be very substantially revised and rewritten versions of content that has appeared elsewhere. This was communicated to John Pilger, and his refusal to acknowledge this or to engage in civil discussion with our editors led to our decision not to republish this piece.
As Pilger states, the article had already been published elsewhere. Calling the decision not to run it again censorship is inaccurate – Truthout makes judgment calls as to what to republish every day, and a decision not to republish an article does not mean we are damning that piece by implication, let alone censoring it. Calling the decision politically-motivated censorship stemming from a desire to protect Hillary Clinton is wildly, maliciously inaccurate and easily demonstrable as false.
This article is a misrepresentation of Truthout, a misrepresentation of Maya Schenwar, and a misrepresentation of what “censorship” entails that does a disservice to the concept. It calls Counterpunch’s credibility into question for as long as this story remains on your site in its current form.
With thanks for your prompt attention to this matter,
Joe Macaré
Publisher, Truthout
www.truthout.org
jmacare@truthout.org
I’m writing in response to Counterpunch’s publication of a highly misleading and factually inaccurate article by John Pilger today regarding Truthout and our editor-in-chief Maya Schenwar, “Trump and Clinton: Censoring the Unpalatable“.
The idea that Truthout is stifling criticism of Hillary Clinton holds no water, and this takes very little time to verify – I’ve appended below a few of the many uncompromisingly critical articles we’ve published about her.
John Pilger’s history of excellent journalism is without question. However, the reality of this situation is that each and every writer who submits work to Truthout for publication or republication need to work with our editors, and treat them with some basic professional courtesy. That did not happen in this case.
It has long been Truthout’s policy that for articles to be featured as Truthout originals, they need to either be exclusive content or to be very substantially revised and rewritten versions of content that has appeared elsewhere. This was communicated to John Pilger, and his refusal to acknowledge this or to engage in civil discussion with our editors led to our decision not to republish this piece.
As Pilger states, the article had already been published elsewhere. Calling the decision not to run it again censorship is inaccurate – Truthout makes judgment calls as to what to republish every day, and a decision not to republish an article does not mean we are damning that piece by implication, let alone censoring it. Calling the decision politically-motivated censorship stemming from a desire to protect Hillary Clinton is wildly, maliciously inaccurate and easily demonstrable as false.
This article is a misrepresentation of Truthout, a misrepresentation of Maya Schenwar, and a misrepresentation of what “censorship” entails that does a disservice to the concept. It calls Counterpunch’s credibility into question for as long as this story remains on your site in its current form.
With thanks for your prompt attention to this matter,
Joe Macaré
Publisher, Truthout
www.truthout.org
jmacare@truthout.org
25 February 2013
ONE THOUSAND DAYS WHEN ONE IS TOO MANY - AND HILLARY CLINTON'S ROLE!
There is so much horror in the United States of America, and so many lies spread by its government to conceal their human rights abuses, torture of its own citizens, and endless abuses of privilege - just think of how the United Nations is controlled by the US Government - that it is difficult to know where to start to catalogue or list the dictatorial behaviour of recent administrations dating way back when.
Lies to its citizens aided and abetted by the media - think Rupert Murdoch - concealment, promises, such as to close Guantanamo Bay when there never was such an intention! - we are fortunate to have brave people in the world such as Bradley Manning and Julian Assange and Emad Bernat and all the others who put their lives at risk on a daily basis to expose what governments do their best to conceal from the citizens of the world.
Thanks to the internet and these brave people all the secrets will out. Let us hope that people around the world will see how they are being sacrificed for the few who control and pull the strings. Their days will end and the sooner the better.
Thank goodness for organisations such as NationofChange and AlterNet and Mondoweiss and many others for keeping us as informed as possible!
One Thousand Days When One is Too Many
Think of that, count it off . . . 1,000 days; that is how long Bradley Manning has been incarcerated without a trial.
Even though he has been incarcerated for nearly three years most Americans have no idea what he did, why he did it or how he has been mistreated coming from the commander-in-chief to the courtroom at Fort Meade.The mass media has made sure to keep Americans ignorant about what is going on and why it is important. But many do see through the misinformation and are standing with Brad. We take action because like Brad, we want the truth to be told, the truth to be known and understood so we can improve the country.
In more than 55 cities this weekend and around the world, people will rally, hold forums, protest – take whatever action they can to lift the veil and expose the truth. Join them or create your own.What are some of the truths? There are so many. In this short newsletter, we want to focus on one – Hillary Clinton. She is the most popular woman in the world, according to polls. If she wants the presidency, the media tells us, it is hers. Yet, what do the Wikileaks documents which whistleblower Bradley Manning released show us? They show us she is not fit to be president and rather than being admired, she should be prosecuted. That will sound extreme to the ears of Americans who have had the truth hidden from them, but it is a factual statement.
The U.S. houses the United Nations. This gives the U.S. great opportunity to spy on UN diplomats when they come to New York for meetings. It is against the law to spy on diplomats when they come to such meetings.
But, the Wikileaks documents show that in 2009 Hillary Clinton ordered that foreign diplomats be spied on. She even ordered US diplomats to obtain DNA data, biometric data, iris scans and fingerprints as well as credit card and frequent flier numbers and so much more. Her orders, sent to 30 embassies, were fulfilling the request of the CIA for all sorts of information. The General Secretary, Ban Kai Moon (who was also spied on) called Clinton in for a meeting about this violation of law.
Did this get any media attention in the US? Were there calls for an investigation or a special prosecutor? No. Inside the US Empire there was silence from the mass media and political elite.When the Arab Spring in Egypt was on the verge of success, what role did Clinton play? She urged support for Omar Suleiman.
Then Manning’s Wikileaks documents exposed who Suleiman was. Suleiman was the man who did the dirty work for the authoritarian dictator of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. Not only did he do Mubarak's dirty work, but he was the go-to guy for Israel in dealing with Egypt, making all sorts of deals that allowed the abuse of Palestinians. He was the one who did the dirty work for the US Empire. He was the CIA liaison for the source of the misinformation campaign on WMDs in Iraq and people targeted by the US were renditioned to the torturous abuse of Omar Suleiman.
But Clinton, who certainly knew all this, called on Suleiman to investigate Egypt’s violence and thought he’d be the perfect replacement for Mubarak. When this all came out in Egypt, not much was said about it in the US but Clinton’s pick, Suleiman, was no longer a viable candidate.
Clinton announced last week that she will be doing public speaking after she rests from her arduous job as Secretary of State. No doubt she will reap the pay-off for her years of hard work for the transnational corporations for whom US foreign policy is designed. The Wikileaks documents again show the truth of that fact. Of course, the American people are told we go to war for democracy, protection of human rights and the rights of woman in Afghanistan.
Sadly, the mass media says these things over and over so Americans learn to believe them, even though the Wikileaks documents show US foreign policy is of, by and for big corporations.
Anyone who has followed the Manning case has seen his mistreatment by the government from his initial incarceration to his abusive prosecution. Under military law, Manning was supposed to be arraigned within 120 days of his arrest but it took well over 600 days to do so.During that 600 days Manning was driven to near suicide. First he was kept in abusive conditions in Kuwait: kept awake at night and only sleeping during the day, his cell searched regularly, torn apart by guards and he was kept away from other prisoners. Manning thought he was going to die in an 8 by 8 animal cage in Kuwait.
He rejoiced when he was being put on a plane, not knowing where he was going, but knowing it was better than where he was. When he landed at BWI airport, he was so happy to be in the United States – to be home. But, he soon learned things would not get better as he was held in solitary confinement for nine more months at the abusive Quantico Marine Base, where every five minutes he was required to respond to the question, "Are you alright?", and throughout the day not allowed to lie down or sit leaning against the wall in his cell. These are only two examples of many abuses he suffered.
No one else will ever suffer at the Quantico brig because it is now being closed, no doubt in part due to the notoriety Manning supporters heaped on the base with repeated protests until Manning was released and finally treated appropriately.
That’s right, activists made a difference. It was after our final protest where dozens were arrested and paramilitary units, helicopters and horses were turned against us that he was put in appropriate pre-trial confinement. Occupy, veterans and other activists have consistently supported Manning. We are in solidarity because we all want transparent and peaceful government.
That is why what we do this weekend makes a difference. 1,000 days. It needs to be memorialized, forced into the consciousness of Americans misled by mass media propaganda that prefers to focus on Manning's sexuality rather than the facts contained in the documents he released.
Really, that is the essence of it. Manning took on the heart of American corporatocracy – the Empire. The media cannot even let us know how big the national security state really is, always understating the real annual cost of our $1.3 trillion security state; never acknowledging that the US has more than 1200 bases and outposts around the world. In fact, no one in the media or political class ever even acknowledges that the US is an Empire. It is almost amusing because it is so absurd.
We live in the largest Empire in world history but the media, political class and the plutocrats behind them never acknowledge the US is an Empire.That is why Manning has been mistreated from the initial release of the “Collateral Murder Video” showing the U.S. military killing journalists and others in Iraq, Manning became a target of the Empire. He has lifted the veil so the truth can be seen.
And, no doubt it will. As the U.S. Empire fades, as all empires do, people will examine the Wikileaks documents and be amazed at what they contain—a daily history of the Empire’s military and diplomatic corps. That treasure trove will show a very corrupt, abusive and violent empire. Manning will be on the right side of history and so will those of you who stand with Brad.
Let’s make his 1,000 days in prison something all Americans are aware of by joining on of the events this weekend and if there is no event in your area, create one. Go to your local paper and ask them to report on Manning, the Wikileaks documents and to start a discussion about US Empire.
Manning said in chat logs that he hoped to start a debate in the US so we could improve the country. Let’s use this weekend to help make that a reality.
Kevin Zeese JD and Margaret Flowers MD co-host Clearing the FOG on We Act Radio 1480 AM Washington, DC and on Economic Democracy Media, co-direct It's Our Economy and are organizers of the Occupation of Washington, DC. Their twitters are @KBZeese and @MFlowers8. Zeese is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bradley Manning Support Network.
This article is based on a weekly newsletter by Occupy Washington, DC. You can sign up to receive it free here.
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About Me
- Mannie De Saxe
- Preston, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- 90 years old, political gay activist, hosting two web sites, one personal: http://www.red-jos.net
one shared with my partner, 94-year-old Ken Lovett: http://www.josken.net
and also this blog. The blog now has an alphabetical index: http://www.red-jos.net/alpha3.htm