president vladimir putin

The Ministry of Focus Never Sleeps: Punditry by Other Means

Reality is serving up a changing-of-the-guard in America in no small order. The fourth estate et al is left punch-drunk following the political outcome of an election that was supposed to be ‘in the bag’. Media and the ‘celebrity’ interpretation of events failed to focus a vast numbers of disposed (deplorable) people on how to act. A billion dollars spent as voice-over failed to do the trick. An election that conveniently ignored America’s very deplorable foreign policy turned out to be a class event.

Hillary Clinton: Not Lesser Evil, Just Evil

. . . the potential first female president represent[s] a purely cosmetic form of diversity that works against the structural changes that need to be made at every level of culture and politics to expose and depose a political class that has acted with impunity to promote policies that benefit wealthy donors and powerful multinational corporations.
— Professor Catherine Liu

Dealing With Playground Bullies

In 1959, Phoenix, Arizona was growing like a weed.  As its population doubled every few years, I was working my way through the public school system, doing my best to obey most of the rules, or at least not get caught doing otherwise.  The teacher’s dreaded paddle was something to be avoided at all cost.  Dust and asbestos fibers from school construction filled the air as the little city burgeoned into the epicenter of the baby-booming desert Southwest.  As my school’s enrollment grew beyond its limits, boundary lines were redrawn in order to fill the classrooms of a newer school, a mile to

Inside the Invisible Government: War, Propaganda, Clinton and Trump

The American journalist, Edward Bernays, is often described as the man who invented modern propaganda.
The nephew of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psycho-analysis, it was Bernays who coined the term “public relations” as a euphemism for spin and its deceptions.
In 1929, he persuaded feminists to promote cigarettes for women by smoking in the New York Easter Parade – behaviour then considered outlandish. One feminist, Ruth Booth, declared, “Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!”

Warring with the Warrior Queen

Ding-dong the witch is dead. Take, as evidence, Donald Trump’s profanity-laden celebration of rape, the tape of which has just surfaced (and is already being followed by more of the same) If that won’t drive a stake through his genuinely iniquitous heart, nothing will. How dead? Metaphorically, he’s as dead as Moammar Gaddafi whom Hillary gleefully dispatched with the words, “we came, we saw, he died.” Judged by the rather manic look on her face she sure got a kick out of it.

The Honesty and Courage of Jill Stein

On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary’s policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia. He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia.
— Jill Stein, Real Clear Politics, October 12, 2016

Adam Curtis: Another Manager of Perceptions

Adam Curtis’ new, near three-hour documentary HyperNormalisation, showing on BBC iplayer, is being garlanded with predictable praise from liberal commentators. As ever, Curtis joins the dots in interesting, and sometimes compelling, ways. But HyperNormalisation also continues a trend by Curtis of using his insights to present a deeply conservative, disempowering and ultimately false impression of the world.

Cold War: Today, Tomorrow, Every Day till the End of the World

“Russia suspected of election scheme. U.S. probes plan to sow voter distrust.”
That’s the Washington Post page-one lead headline of September 6. Think about it. The election that Americans are suffering through, cringing in embarrassment, making them think of moving abroad, renouncing their citizenship; an election causing the Founding Fathers to throw up as they turn in their graves … this is because the Russian Devils are sowing voter distrust! Who knew?