Hillary Clinton is American, owned by financial interests to whom she is completely in thrall, a rabid neo-conservative warmonger, completely uncritical of Israel and focused for any claim to be progressive entirely on identity politics. Which is also a precise description of today’s Guardian newspaper. The once august and intellectual title is now a shrill cheerleader for far right Blairites and wealthy American feminists.
The Guardian is as unabashed in its support for Clinton as in its support for the Blairites. The stream of “feminist” articles about why it would advance the cause of women to have a deeply corrupt right winger in the White House is steadily growing into a torrent. It is a perfect example of what I wrote of a month ago, the cause of feminism being hijacked to neo-conservative ends.
Bernie Sanders is not perfect – nobody is. But he understands that obscene and still burgeoning wealth inequality is the greatest problem of western society, and that the state framework supporting crazed banking structures is the root cause of this. The support for him is a sign of the inevitable popular reaction to the extreme inequality of society. Sanders is channelling that reaction effectively.
The establishment therefore circles its wagons around Hillary Clinton. The hope is that women can be persuaded it is an act of misogyny simply to stand in her way. The other great establishment hope is that the Democrat party machinery is so strong in black communities, that black Americans can be in effect ordered to vote for a woman who epitomises the system which disadvantages them, rather than an apostle of genuine change in the economic order. I retain hope the establishment may find that black Americans are cleverer than that.
The machinery used to manipulate identity politics – racial and gender – is all that Clinton has. If Clinton beats Sanders, it will be the perfect demonstration of the fact that identity politics has become the enemy of progress in society.
In the field of identity, Bernie Sanders would be the first non-Christian President of the United States. Would that not be wonderful in a country whose politicians feel the need to genuflect to swarms of religious evolution-denying nutters who believe foreign wars are good because they presage the Rapture?
And would it not be great if the first President since Carter not in thrall to Israel were Jewish?
why is making martyrs bad ?
“A martyr (Greek: μάρτυς, mártys, “witness”; stem μάρτυρ-, mártyr-) is somebody who suffers persecution and/or death for advocating, renouncing, refusing to renounce, and/or refusing to advocate a belief or cause as demanded by an external party.”
It is a bad thing in itself oh thick troll – I made it abundantly clear at the time that I wasn’t thinking of it in PR terms. Putting constructs on people’s words which they do not support and have made clear that they do not support is a technique that you constantly employ and it is wrong. Now apologise if you have the slightest shred of decency.
Resident Dissident; “It is a bad thing in itself oh thick troll”
LOL ! How can be “made things worse” for the martyr ?! The martyr by self-definition is already dead !! And your use of “creating a marty” tells us exactly to whom you are reffering to, ie those responsible for “creating” the martyr.
Either English not your first language, or you take people for fools !
I take you for a fool Macky, because that is what you are.
@Resident Dissident, I’m not the one who doesn’t understand the meaning of my own comments ! 😀
Not playing my little troglodyte.
@Resident Dissident, yes, best to quit before you lose the shirt off your back also ! 😀
Chris Rogers
19 Feb, 2016 – 12:05 pm
“…but the reality is not all Jews living in Israel are bad or support Zionism – their lives too are blighted.”
……………………………………………………………………………….
Absolutely true Chris but I have to point out that the majority of J.ws in Israel (and the UK) do support Zionism whether they are religious or not and most of them advocate a two state solution.
Even a two state solution in Israel/Palestine – which was a possibility a few decades ago – would leave an apartheid state run by J.ws for the benefit of J.ws.
The two state solution was never really on the cards anyway and Israel’s continued expansion of J.wish settlements into the occupied territories effectively rules this out in future.
A one state solution, where the lands of Israel/Palestine combine to form a fully democratic country, where all citizens are treated equally under the law, has to be embraced by the world J.wry to eliminate the obnoxious racial supremacism that is Zionism.
Introducton:
I’m writing this in a text editor and will then post it as a sequence of comments without reviewing the thread since last night, as I wish to avoid being influenced by any intervening contribution from Macky which, experience suggests, will consist of many pseudo-psychological insults devoid of substance but targeted to injure my self-respect to the greatest possible extent, and probably designed to stop me commenting at this blog I’ve worked to popularise and improve for most of a decade.
Firstly I must address the matter of Resident Dissident in order to be fair and balanced. I had forgotten that which follows – ahh, the deficiencies of my merely human mind. Recent abuse from Macky and her cohorts had distracted me from past events, but my night’s sleep refreshed my memory regarding both Macky’s and Resident Dissident’s behaviours in the past.
Regarding Resident Dissident:
I have been defending Resident Dissident in reaction to the baseless accusations directed at him from a whole cabal of commenters. Resident Dissident has behaved well for a long time. However, in the past he has engaged in sock-puppetry. He admitted to one fairly trivial incident designed to bait Mary, but two more serious matters have never been fully explained.
It was Resident Dissident who posted a link to an anti-Semitic comment posted under the name “Flaming June” on the race-hate site Stormfront. “Flaming June” was a pseudonym being used by regular commenter Mary. Mary always opposed racism and I sincerely believe that she would never have had anything to do with Stormfront. Resident Dissident claimed to have simply “discovered” this comment. It had indeed lain undetected for some time before RD linked to it, but it seems very unlikely that any typical search would place that obscure comment high in a results list. The most likely explanation would seem to be that RD posted it himself to use against Mary at a later time, though without access to IP addresses this is impossible to prove.
For a long time someone was commenting under the name ESLO, who had remarkably similar outlooks and interests as Resident Dissident. Then a few incidents strongly suggested that RD and ESLO were actually the same individual. They continued discussions on each other’s behalf, and sometimes referred to themselves as ‘we’. But then something VERY interesting happened. The site team activated the “Identicon” patterns which accompany usernames. Each Identicon is uniquely derived from the e-mail address submitted with each comment; they are useful for exposing sock-puppetry because identical e-mail addresses will produce identical Identicons, no matter what the IP address or username.
Activation of Identicons revealed two things. Firstly that RD and ESLO had been submitting comments under the same e-mail address. But secondly, and more interestingly, that they both (or “both”) changed the e-mail address they were submitting comments under after Identicions were activated but before submitting their next comments. This latter point suggests that they understood the function of Identicons on WordPress blogs and wished to disguise the fact that they’d been submitting the same e-mail address. It argues strongly against the notion that “they” just innocently happened to be using the same e-mail address.
Of course none of this proves that RD, ESLO or whatever is a paid shill, but it suggests strongly that for RD, the end justifies the means.
Regarding Macky:
It is ironic that so many commenters label me a “troll” (actually they mean a shill; someone who posts ostensibly as themselves but in fact at the behest of some organisation or government) simply because I do not accept their hobby-horse single-issue campaigns and declare some very widely held positions. For instance Exexpat has labelled me as a “troll” because I believe that actual aircraft were flown into buildings on 9/11. RobG insists that I must be CIA because I don’t mention the Fukushima nuclear disaster at least once a day. Ironic, because Macky – who none of my accusers ever criticise – is the one person commenting at the site who actually claims that their on-line identity is false…
…I asked Macky to e-mail me so that I could write back explaining my experience of some of the difficulties of site moderation. On arrival Macky’s e-mail was very terse and unfriendly; only four words, as I remember but it arrived under a female name and of course included the e-mail address that it originated from.
I searched on that e-mail address and found various pages advertising a named person’s services and experience – a sort of CV. However, despite the name and e-mail address on those pages precisely matching Macky’s credentials on the e-mail I received, Macky has claimed not to be that person. This implies various possibilities. Macky may be using an associate’s e-mail address. Macky may be lying and actually is the person described on those pages. Or those pages may be entirely fabricated, a cover-identity for a fake on-line personality used for manipulating the course of discussion on social media sites such as this one.
But Macky is also highly averse to meeting any commenters from this blog in real life (as is, apparently, RD). Macky announced her intention of attending a Finkelstein lecture in London. Phil the anarchist offered to meet and say hello but Macky’s response seemed actually fearful. So here is another irony, that although Macky accuses me of paranoia, I have met dozens of commenters from this blog, whereas Macky seems too scared to meet any at all.
Macky seems very keen to undermine this site, repeatedly denouncing Craig, accusing the moderators of bias against her and her chosen favourites, and being heavily critical of everyone she knows to have worked for the site.
Of course this doesn’t prove she’s a shill, but you have to question the motives of someone who undermines the blog owner and those who have worked with him…
Conclusions
None of the above conclusively proves that either of these on-line identities, Resident Dissident and Macky, are agents working against the site, but of course agents would conceal that they were agents any case. That organisations deploying such agents exist is a matter of documentary record and it seems inconceivable that Craig’s site wouldn’t be targeted to some extent, especially considering the fairly frequent technical attacks it is subject to.
What I find completely baffling is that so many commenters assume that only the UK, US and Israeli governments would target Craig’s site. Craig is critical of many governments including Russia’s, and also commercial organisations such as Murdoch’s media empire, the BBC, and powerful individuals such as Usmanov – all such entities have the means and motive to deploy agents; Usmanov certainly pays someone to sanitise his Wikipedia page, for instance.
I suppose the point is that whether RD and Macky are agents or not, some of their behaviours on this blog are definitely the sort of behaviours we might expect from agents.
More and more we are living with covert surveillance and infiltration; consider the secret police who infiltrated environmental activist groups, even forming relationships and fathering children. We simply don’t know; we have to assume that we only see some tips of various potential icebergs. I guess that this is the source of the widespread suspicion we see; RobG’s “vermin” comments, Exexpat’s accusations against myself.
And the remedy? Be as open and friendly, as least like an agent as possible. Respect the opinions of other commenters. Admit error and be prepared to change your mind when presented with evidence.
I guess that’s the Best that any of us can do.
@ Chris Rogers 20 Feb, 2016 – 1:38 pm
Bit nit-picky, but Madeleine Albright said it was ‘worth it’ re 500,000 children’s deaths in Iraq, not 250,000.
Regarding general comments on who spreads propaganda, the following should be instructive: RT.com interviews insider and whistleblower Udo Ulfkotte – Sep 29, 2014:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_3-KWIfkc
Also, those who believe our MSM should check out ‘Operation Mockingbird’, which still obviousl continues, probably under a different name.
Re Libya, I wonder what happened to Libya’s very large gold reserves? If the Ukraine is anything to go by (one of the first moves of the Western backed new ‘Government’ was to allow the US to fly out ALL of their gold reserves – for safe-keeping, some would immediately say – but that is not the way Germany sees it; when they asked for the return of gold held by the US the US refused, offering them instead five tons a year – a figure they did not even keep to. And when the Germans asked just to see their gold stocks in the US, the US point blank refused!) I should imagine all Libyan gold is in US, British and French coffers by now.
Also re Libya, ‘Some 150,000 People Likely to Leave Libya for Europe in Next Weeks’:
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160221/1035114794/influx-refugees-libya.html
And re who is right and wrong re IS in Syria and Iraq:
‘Source: US Military Chopper Transfers ISIL Leaders from Fallujah to Unknown Location’:
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941202000537
‘Truthers’ such as myself have known the Yanks & it’s cohorts where backing, not fighting ISIS/ISIL/IS for yonks.
See ‘Yinon Plan’, formulated in 1982, by ‘guess who’.
Resident Dissident, I took the comment of yours that Macky referred to, regarding the creation of another martyr, as your desire that the conflict not be escalated.
I see Macky’s interpretation that you were concerned for Israel’s public relations as a suggestion for others; a smear against you. But then you criticise the Kremlin, don’t you? So Macky will use the Israel-Palestine conflict as a stick to hit you with, given the slightest chance.
I disagree that with your statement that the “punishment should fit the crime”; armed forces should not dispense summary justice, rubber bullets frequently maim and sometimes kill, and the soldiers would be safe from thrown stones in an armoured vehicle. They should have taken no action at all, just driven on.
But I believe that Israel prefers to escalate the conflict; Israel is much better armed and has a far more effective propaganda system, so it always gains more than Palestine does from conflict.
Macky 21 Feb, 8:45 am:
Why would you need to “hold back”, Macky? Which issues do you think might trouble me psychologically, hmm? Why would you even think that political issues, discussion of facts, might trouble me in any way?
Your dishonesty shines through yet again. When you exhaust your arguments, when the facts contradict the position you wish to project, you resort to personal abuse, and if I’m your target you disguise it as some sort of psychological diagnosis. This is because you are not an honest searcher after the truth, you are a propagandist, and to that end you abuse and manipulate.
What is “delusional” about my belief that you propagandise the Kremlin line? I challenge you to link to your three strongest criticisms of the Russian government. I doubt that you can even find one. Conversely, I can certainly remember your smears against the Russian opposition.
Yes I speak out about my emotional state. You apparently assume that everyone would do the same, but if you are honest with yourself you must know that is not true. You have no idea who else might be suffering. People keep matters to themselves, because if they didn’t bullies like you would use their vulnerabilities to try to silence them, like you try to silence me. So everyone must put on a front of being “tough” – Macky will accept no vulnerability.
People have to “treat me differently”? You are merely claiming a right to be disrespectful to whomever you choose. EVERYONE deserves respect, Macky.
And I do not “attack” you Macky; I criticise you. I report on your behaviour that I observe, and I tell you what I think is wrong about it.
You know perfectly well that I presented an argument for the defensive role of NATO in protecting the less powerful countries neighbouring Russia – you certainly SHOULD remember, since you turned around your argument above and used my disagreement with Craig in an attempt to ridicule me! I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. This is why I describe you as a liar; you don’t CARE which way you argue so long as it helps you WIN.
@Clark, I asked you not to address or discuss me, not that I’m adverse to engaging, but because you simply can’t handle it emotionally. All that you written about me is complete baloney, and I could expose it as such by refuting every single thing you have stated, but I prefer to let people use their commonsnse, not only based on how they view my interactions here, but also based on my extensive several years long written record here, for I have nothing to hide; whats more, if there is anybody who does want to pick-up on anything you have said about me, then I welcome that & will engage with that person, but I really do not wish to engage with you.
“Democratic Mid-election Woes”
Episode 1 – The Urgent Phone Call
HC: Barack, is that you?
BO: No it’s Genghis Khan…. (sigh)….. what is it now Hillary?
HC: Look, you need to stop bombing Libya. It’s making me look bad.
BO: Come again?
HC: (getting shrill.) It’s MAKING ME LOOK BAD!!! It’s the middle of the presidential campaign and the last thing I need is people asking “why are we bombing Libya, Hillary? You told us you solved that problem”
BO: Relax Hillary. It just my typical counter-productive gesture to fool people into thinking that I am doing something to fight terrorism, ok?
HC: (flying off the handle) Don’t give me that patronizing chauvinistic “relax Hillary” nonsense, Mr. Indecision Unlimited. Don’t you know there is a special place in hell for presidents who diss their ex-Secretary of States?!?
BO: Hey sister, chill! (shoots a crumpled Hillary campaign leaflet at his paper basketball hoop)
HC: (calms down) I’m sorry, it’s just that I am so supremely competent and have such tremendous experience so I get touchy when anyone does anything to tarnish that image.
BO: Ah yes, “Hillary – Confident and Experienced”. What did that Wall St.-approved slogan cost your campaign? $20 million dollars?
HC: Ha. Joke’s on you Barry. Didn’t cost me a bean. The Clinton Foundation covered it.
BO: What?!? But that’s unethical!
HC: Oh grow up. You sound like that old tosser Sanders. Hey did you see Nevada? We are just getting warmed up……..
BO: (muttering) The warmth of Bernie breathing down your neck?
HC: …….and we are being flooded with establishment feminist endorsements! Everyone is beginning to realise that I will go the end of the galaxy and beyond to defend the dignity and rights of every woman.
BO: (muttering) Yeah, just like you defended Monica Lew-
HC: Hey Barry. Do you hear a buzz on the line? Are we being tapped?
BO: (pauses) Look. The NSA is worried.
HC: What?!?
BO: You did such an amazing job advancing ISIS’ interests in Libya and Syria that they reckon you might be part of their inner circle. They’re hoping you’ll lead them to some really big fish. BTW, there’s a thank you letter that I forgot to forward to you.
HC: (steam coming from her ears) From who? The National Organisation for Women? AIPAC?
BO: No. From Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.
HC: (shrieking at the top of her lungs as all glass within a one-mile radius shatters completely) I am really, really sorry that I devoted so much of my valuable time serving you!!!! (slams down the phone)
BO: (sighs) Me too.
To be continued…………
@Njegos, Nice one, political humour can be very potent !
Thanks Macky.
@Paul Barbara 2.22 AM,
Excuse from getting the number wrong, however, Madeline seems to follow dictums utilised by Stalin, namely one death being a tragedy, whilst 500,000 no doubt is but a statistic – regrettably, I usually believe all death is a tragedy, unless those being killed actually deserve, which is in fact the case with those who support IS, or, warmongers who continue in their wicked ways, such as Blair and the NeoCons.
@Doug,
Sorry I did not notice your post and admit far too many, be they Jews or Christians, support Zionism, which as you can see I don’t, but also many Jews don’t, as witnessed on many University Campuses across the USA, so it does seem fair to say that Zionism is tarring these folk with a brush. As for a Palestinian State, well they had one, but alas it was stolen and justice cries that something must be done and a Two-State solution would offer some recourse to justice, but concur that a single state where all are equal is preferable but not something I see on the horizon – maybe when the USA finally implodes!!!!
RD: What have you got to say to that? Did you indeed post on some White-Power site to besmirch Mary’s good name? (Good, other than she’d like to see you put against a wall and shot as an Enemy Of The People should you dare to disagree with her about anything at all, of course.)
Clark,
I too am not engaging with you (and haven’t for some weeks now) until you
1) Stop trolling
2) Sort your head out
3) Stop acting like an officer of the court on the 9/11 thread
Your posts of late show no signs of any of the above.