Jussie Smollett's Hate Crime Hoax Exposes America's Shocking Skepticism Shortage

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 38 seconds

The Jussie Smollett story is a microcosm of what is wrong with America and the mainstream media.

 “It’s not a lie if you believe it” – George Costanza, Seinfeld

On Thursday, US actor Jussie Smollett was arrested in Chicago after being charged with filing a false police report.

Jussie Smollett, a gay, African-American actor who stars on the hit tv show Empire, claimed that on January 29th he was the victim of a hate crime when two White men hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him, punched, kicked and poured bleach over him, and then put a noose around his neck while taunting him by proclaiming “this is MAGA (Make America Great Again) country”.

Smollett’s story was dubious to some because the idea of two Trumpites out at 2 a.m. in Chicago hunting gay Black men with a noose and bleach in minus 20 degrees weather seems far-fetched…as does the idea that they would be pop-culturally aware enough to have watched Empire and recognize a marginal celebrity like Smollett in the first place.

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill

In the wake of Smollett’s unusual claims the media uncritically accepted his story and numerous celebrities such as Emma Watson, Katy Perry, Olivia Munn and Ariana Grande tweeted vociferous support. Actress Ellen Page gave a heart felt speech on The Late Show with Colbert laying the blame for Smollett’s attack at the feet of homophobic Vice President Mike Pence.

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Democratic presidential hopefuls chimed as well with Kamala Harris and Cory Booker both calling the attack a “modern-day lynching”, and a cavalcade of other politicians who tweeted their unquestioning support for Jussie and devout belief in his story.

 The problem with all of the belief in Smollett is that, like Ms. Page’s impassioned Late Show rant, it was entirely based on emotion and not reason.

As is usually the case when decisions are made on emotion and not reason, many now regret their embrace of Smollett because his story has come into question. The two alleged assailants are not MAGA hat wearing White men, but Black men who claim that Smollett paid them to stage the whole incident. According to reports, as of this writing the Chicago police believe this entire hate crime is a hoax orchestrated by Smollett.

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The media, celebrities and politicians who supported Smollett did so for the simple reason…it was easy. Smollett’s story confirmed all of their biases regarding Trump supporters who they believe are racist homophobes, and gave them the opportunity to signal their virtue and espouse their moral superiority.

This sort of indulging in one’s biases and signaling one’s virtue is epidemic in America and a big reason for that is social media.  Social media is built to be a personalized echo chamber that triggers emotion and shortcuts reason, and encourages a solidifying of instantaneous emotional reaction into permanent and intractable belief.

Another reason for this scourge of confirmation bias and virtue signaling is that the corporate press is not in the truth-telling business, they are in the tell people what they want to hear business. Just watch this MSNBC breaking news segment on the alleged attack on Smollett.

None of the professionals in this clip ever practice anything resembling journalism by actually questioning the voracity of the allegation. The anchorwoman Stephanie Ruhle is signaling her virtue so hard over this story, repeatedly declaring it’s a “horrible story” and “horrible to report” and then admitting she is “so shaken by the story”, that she can’t remember details of it.

This vapid emotional hyperventilation is a case study in cultural conditioning overpowering professional training. Ms. Ruhle, and the rest of the media who were so gullible regarding Smollett’s story, has been indoctrinated to quell skepticism regarding a “victim’s” story because doubt is now deemed the equivalent of assault. GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis made this clear when she commented on the Smollett story, “Jussie Smollett was victimized first in a hate-motivated and violent attack…and has since been doubly victimized as the subject of speculation by the media…” If reporters question Jussie Smollett’s story that doesn’t make them bigots, it makes them journalists.

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” – Vladimir Lenin

The confirmation bias and virtue signaling in American culture is not confined to the Smollett case. The establishment media’s handling of all Russia stories is equally rife with a pandering to biases and a self-righteous signaling of patriotic virtue.

For example, last fall both NBC News and the New York Times hyped a bizarre James Bond-level spy story claiming the Russians had developed a nefarious super secret sonic weapon and used it to attack U.S. personnel in Cuba. This story was riddled with logical inconsistencies but the press reported it as if Putin were pointing his sonic weapon at every American’s head. Of course, upon closer inspection, these “sonic attacks” weren’t attacks at all but horny crickets trying to attract a mate. 

The media’s reporting of similar stories detailing alleged Russian villainy is hysterical, literally. Whether it is Russia hacking the Vermont power grid or into C-Span, it seems there is no skepticism allowed when it comes to Russia. And similar to the Smollett case, if you dare question the voracity of these Russia stories your virtue/patriotism is questioned.

This suffocating of skepticism has led all Russia related stories to become sacrosanct and be considered gospel truth. Yet, just like in the Smollett story, if you look at the majority of Russia related reporting you will notice it is often based on reporters treating assumptions as facts.

“The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.” - Joseph Goebbels

The Smollett fiasco is small potatoes compared to the greatest example of media malpractice in recent memory, which was the Iraq war farce. The establishment media weren’t only entirely uncritical in regards to the Bush administration’s outlandish claims regarding WMD’s and an Iraqi connection with Al Qaeda, but were complicit in emotionally triggering the American people to sell them that insidious snake oil.

Back in 2003 during the build up to the war, dissent was verboten. The media were entirely in lockstep with the Bush administration and acted as stenographers to power as opposed to a check on it, with MSNBC even firing its highest rated host, Phil Donohue, because of his anti-war stance.

Just like the Smollett story and the reporting on Russia, in the Iraq war scam the media discarded skepticism in favor of confirmation bias and virtue/patriotism signaling. The disinformation the media disseminated during this period didn’t just lead to egg on their face, but blood on their hands, as thousands of U.S. service members and over a million Iraqis were killed or wounded.

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man” – Book of Jeremiah 17:5

It would be nice to think that those who fell under the spell of confirmation bias in the Smollett case would have learned their lesson, but if the response of filmmaker Ava DuVernay and author Roxanne Gay is any indication, nothing will change. As Ms. DuVernay told the Hollywood Reporter, “…this won’t stop me from believing others. It can’t.”

Ms. Gay echoed the sentiment, “I’m not going to stop believing people who say they have suffered”.

The media is also proving their inability to learn from their mistakes by once again singing in harmony with the Washington establishment chorus who hunger for a coup in Venezuela. The continuing media sycophancy towards American imperialism and militarism across the globe shows a shameful myopia and a stunning historical illiteracy.

As the Smollett story teaches us, confirmation bias is a very addictive drug, and as the corporate media’s Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Russia and Venezuela coverage shows, it is a dangerous and deadly one too…and the only remedy for this epidemic of idiocy is an ardent and unrelenting commitment to skepticism.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.com.

©2019

Scrooge Sends Season's Greetings From Syria

Estimated Reading Time: Longer than Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer but shorter than The Little Drummer Boy

Since it is the holiday season, I thought now would be a good time to try a different approach to my writing and actually say something nice for once. I know, I know, it is as big a shock to me as it is to you, but sometimes at Christmas there is a wondrous magic in the air that allows people to have their hearts opened and their perspectives changed…just ask Ebeneezer Scrooge (a role I once played…PHENOMENALLY…on stage!!).

In my case, I thought it would be a good time to give credit where credit is due for people who I usually chastise but who have recently done something good and honorable. The catalyst for my change of heart regarding these folks isn’t Scrooge, but Syria.

First on the list is everybody’s least favorite carnival barker, sideshow clown and general asshat Donald Trump. I loathe Trump with the intensity of a thousand suns and have for decades, but like a toddler, when he does something good, he deserves my encouragement. Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria is an excellent thing…a truly excellent thing.

My fear with Trump has always been that because he is such a needle-dicked, insecure bully and poseur, that he would start a war to bolster his flaccid virility and tenuous manhood. The fact that Trump is actually ending a war, or at least the U.S.’s involvement in one, is…and I can’t believe I am saying this…a courageous act.

Trump is going against the entire political and media establishment in America. The Military Industrial Complex, the Intelligence community and their lackeys and shills in the corporate media, and the Israeli lobby, do not take kindly to American militarism and imperialism in the Middle East being curtailed in any way. This is why I think Trump was brave to do this (we will see if he actually follows through) because he basically signed his death warrant or the death warrant of his presidency. The forces Trump is taking on with this Syria decision are not known for playing patty cake and they do not forgive or forget. When Kennedy reversed course on the war in Vietnam and shifted toward deescalation, he ended up with his brains all over Jackie’s nice Chanel suit, I would not be shocked if a similar fate awaited The Donald in one form or another. Robert Mueller might be laying in wait on his own grassy knoll as we speak with an indictment in his hands instead of a Mannlicher-Carcano. (Or don’t be surprised if one of the CIA’s friends in ISIS kills a bunch of people in America and Trump is blamed because he pulled out of Syria or as evidenced by Mnuchin’s signals to the big banks, that the propped up, phony, smoke and mirrors American economy has the rug pulled out from under it in order to knee cap Trump and Trumpism once and for all)

Of course, Trump could reverse course on his reversing course, or could start a war somewhere else that is bigger in scale, in a place like Iran, in order to appease the rabidly nefarious neo-con class, but for now, leaving Syria is a very good thing, and because of that I am saying…gulp…Thank you Mr. President.

There are a few other people that stand out for sticking to their convictions regarding Syria. Ted Lieu, the congressman from my neck of the woods, has been a vociferous attacker of Trump but he stood up for Trump’s Syria withdrawal. Republican Senator Rand Paul along with Democratic Representatives Ro Khanna and Tulsi Gabbard and Republican Justin Amash have all done the same. These people have shown themselves to be loyal to something higher than political party, they are loyal to their moral and ethical values and beliefs, and it is refreshing and encouraging to see politicians actually have principles and stand by them.

What is not so encouraging are the plethora of politicians on both sides of the aisle who are slavishly addicted to American militarism. Most disheartening are not just the pro-war Democratic politicians, but everyday liberals who are so hypocritically opposed to Trump’s withdrawal from Syria (including the usually reliable Michael Moore).

It is truly astonishing but these supposedly liberal people are angry at Trump for ending U.S. involvement in a war. Of course most of these dopes didn’t even know the U.S. was so heavily involved in Syria in the first place (the U.S. occupies 1/3rd of the country), but that doesn’t matter, all that matters is if Trump is for something that means it must be bad. This is how the game works now, and the establishment has used that emotionalist response to great effect to get people to go against their own interests.

Liberals are currently being played by the establishment class. Liberals hatred of Trump has blinded them to reality, has muddied their mind, soiled their soul and left them with a permanent case of political myopia. Hating Trump is not a belief system, it is not an ideology, it is not a governing philosophy…it is a moral, ethical, political and philosophical cancer…and it is eating at the heart, soul and mind of liberalism and our democracy as it distorts the judgement and reason of both the liberal and conservative populace.

Great examples of this are how liberals now adore the FBI and CIA. War criminals like John Brennan, Michael Hayden and James Clapper are held up as guardians of all that is good and pure. Robert Mueller and James Comey, two of the worst deep state operators, are held up as paragons of virtue. George W. Bush, who lied us into a war that killed millions, tortured thousands and surveilled millions across the globe, is being rehabilitated in the media and held up as a decent man because he gave Michelle Obama a piece of candy at church…what the fuck?. None of the crimes of these people, from their deceptions on Iraq, to their support and involvement in torture and illegal surveillance, are ever mentioned when they are spoken of in such hushed and reverential tones by know-nothing talking heads. (as an aside, the reason for this might be because St. Barrack Obama decided to look forward and not backward, thus becoming an accomplice to war crimes after the fact…thanks Obama!)

Bush cronies and Iraq war demagogues like Max Boot, David Frum, William Kristol and Richard Painter are regulars on America’s liberal network MSNBC, and their complicity in war crimes and their moral and ethical depravity are never mentioned. Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush administration official even has her own show on the “liberal” network.

These national security establishment shills in the media pout and preen like cheap tarts at a red light street when it comes to Trump and his “lawlessness”…but international and domestic laws are nothing but props for these people as evidenced by their embrace of torture, surveillance, the use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus by U.S. forces and their support for the war in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan and their unabashed adoration Israel and its illegal occupation of the Palestine.

The establishment, in an impressive bit of propaganda jiu jitsu, has used the fear of Trump to bolster their grip on the minds of Americans, most especially liberal Americans who should know better, or at least think they know better.

If only liberals would stop claiming to be “woke” and actually wake the fuck up and realize that the #Resistance is being co-opted by insidious and duplicitous neo-cons. Understand this, all of these newly politically active liberal anti-Trumpers out there are being indoctrinated and propagandized to worship the military/intelligence industrial complex, and that will be disastrous for the future of America and the world.

The allegedly liberal NBC and MSNBC have been the worst agents of disinformation and propaganda in this respect. Proven Intelligence Agency asset, NBC’s Ken Dilanian, has been breathlessly reporting how Trump is endangering America by leaving Syria and how the Pentagon is in shock and horror at the news. I wonder if the CIA proof read Dilanian’s work which is his standard operating procedure.

Another example of MSNBC’s madness has been the lather raving Russophobe and liberal charlatan Rachel “Mad Dog” Maddow has been in for days now, particularly when 5 star douchebag and ”confirmed life-long bachelor” (*wink-wink*) General “Mad Dog” Mattis, announced, no doubt with his signature lateral lisp, his resignation as Secretary of Defense over Trump’s Syria withdrawal.

MSNBC has had a cavalcade of “national security experts” on as well to assure liberals that leaving Syria now is the worst decision ever and jeopardizes American lives. It is amazing to me that we are supposed to listen to and believe these “national security experts” as they are the same geniuses who got us into Iraq, which went so well, and Yemen, where that is going so well, and Libya, where that went so well, and Syria, which is again…going so, so well. These are the same moral and ethical stalwarts that have allied us with the deplorable terrorists of the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, which gave us 9-11, and the Nazi coup in Ukraine….both of which have gone so swimmingly.

These are the same “national security experts” who got us into Somalia in the 90’s, Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 80’s, South America in the 70’s and Vietnam in the 60’s…all of which worked out incredibly well too...right? RIGHT? Sadly, watching MSNBC has now turned into watching Soviet era state-tv or Fox News, where no voices in opposition to the war are ever allowed to be heard.

Watching the media’s hysteria in the wake of Trump’s Syria plan has been extremely enlightening and entirely disheartening. As far as I can tell, there have been no voices in the corporate media that have pointed out the most obvious fact about America’s involvement in Syria…namely that it is entirely illegal. Not only is it illegal under U.S. law, as congress has not approved the war, but it is also illegal under International law, as the U.S. is illegally occupying a third of Syria. The fact that the media instinctively supports any and all military action by the U.S., and only gets up in arms over a proposed withdrawal of troops, tells you all you need to know about who is pulling the strings on the information machine. U.S. military withdrawal from anywhere in the world, be it Japan, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, is entirely inconceivable to the corporate media, who are totally blind to their imperialism and militarism. Somewhere Noam Chomsky is nodding to himself saying, “I told you so, you stupid sons of bitches”

You know what else is never mentioned on NBC or anywhere else in the media? The Richard Engel scam that NBC participated in with anti-Assad forces (aka ISIS) when the reporter claimed he was kidnapped by Assad’s forces and then was saved by anti-Assad groups that killed his kidnappers. NBC hyped the story no end and kept up the charade after Engel was returned safely, even though the network knew that his story was bunk, and that the truth was that it was anti-Assad forces (aka ISIS, no doubt with an assist from the CIA) that kidnapped Engel in a bit of false flag political theater. I wonder why no one mentions that story when Syria is brought up?

Another topic that never gets explored are the alleged chemical weapons attacks that the U.S. blamed on Assad but that were in actuality false flag attacks by anti-Assad forces to dupe the American public into supporting more U.S. military intervention in the region. The media, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, simply regurgitates the dubious official story in regards to these attacks and blames it on Assad. I wonder why the corporate media doesn’t want to look to hard into those stories? I also wonder why liberals are so willing to accept them as proven fact? Maybe because they have stopped thinking rationally and are victims of their own emotionalism.

Speaking of emotionalism, remember when the media used a dead little Syrian boy washed ashore on a beach to try and get the U.S. more militarily involved in the Syrian war? Such naked pleas to emotion are a hallmark of manipulation and propaganda and are used to cover the truth, not reveal it, and in the case of that poor little boy, are a case of American foreign policy making it rain outside and then Americans complaining about the weather.

The truth is this, the U.S. and its intelligence agencies started the civil war in Syria. The intelligence community and their assets and shills in the corporate media have been feeding the American people a truck load of bullshit and blatant propaganda in order to drum up animus toward Assad and Syria (as well as toward Putin and Russia). This entire Syria (and Iraq before it) operation has been done for the benefit of neo-conservatives, Israel and powerful oil and gas interests that are all virulently opposed to Iran and Russia. The civil war in Syria that started in 2011 was, just like the coup in Ukraine in 2014, just another geo-political maneuver by the U.S. in an attempt to isolate, weaken and ultimately destroy Russia economically and eventually militarily by drawing Russia into two quagmires.

The U.S. has also been in a full scale, blatant and shameless propaganda war against Russia and Russians for a long time, but that shifted into overdrive in 2014 with the coverage of both Ukraine and the Sochi Winter Olympics. The saddest part of all this is that since it began under Obama, liberals have fully and whole-heartedly embraced the vicious anti-Russian xenophobia being peddled by the corporate media and our government. Liberals blind hatred of all things Russian went into the stratosphere with the alleged “hacking” of the election, which is such a foolish and vacuous story that it truly boggles the mind that liberals, who pride themselves on being so smart, fall for it. But to be fair, Russia makes an easy scapegoat, and it is much easier for Democrats to blame Russia than blame themselves.

Ok…I am not doing a good job of being filled with the Christmas spirit here, so I am going to end on a positive note. There is one media member in particular who has been the target of my ire and been on the receiving end of many a vicious drubbing from me over the years because he was consistently behaving like a brain-addled buffoon. An example of my distaste for this person is that I once eloquently and accurately described him as a “spittle-flecked, syphilitic baboon”. But since it is the Christmas season, I want to extend my thanks and gratitude and even my momentary respect to my favorite spittle flecked, syphilitic baboon…MSNBC’s Chris Matthews of Hardball fame.

Matthews actually stood up for genuine progressive values and principles when, during his “Let Me Finish” segment on Hardball last week, he fervently and ferociously took to task the neo-con and neo-liberal war mongers and chicken hawks who were so outraged by Trump’s withdrawal from Syria. I was genuinely shocked, and frankly moved, to see Matthews so boldly and brazenly take on the Washington Establishment and their default setting of war, war and more war.

What Matthews understands is that it is easy to get into a war and very difficult to get out of one. Once troops are in place, any attempt to withdraw them will be met with cries from war-mongering armchair tough guys of “appeasement” or “defeatism” or “anti-Americanism”. “Right-minded serious people”, as liberals like to think of themselves, will chastise any attempts at withdrawal by saying “now is not the right time” or that “we need a plan for the aftermath” or “we need to think about the children” or “what about our allies” or my favorite “we need to listen to the generals”, because yes, the people we need to listen to are the ones whose livelihood depends on maintaining war.

Anyone clamoring for the U.S. to stay in Syria, or Iraq or Afghanistan, needs to pick up a history book. As the Pentagon Papers show, the Washington establishment and the Military/Intelligence Industrial Complex knew full well for years that Vietnam could never be won but sacrificed young American boys and men at the altar of American Empire and ego rather than do the right, but difficult thing.

The powers that be knew before any invasions ever took place that Iraq and Afghanistan were ultimately unwinnable wars, but winning those wars was never the point, fighting them was. Those wars in particular and the War on Terror in general, have generated billions if not trillions in profits for the weapons, construction, intelligence, surveillance, energy and technology sectors of the U.S. economy. War is big business and with the militarism of American Empire, business is booming. Pulling out of Syria is bad for the war business and bad for Israel which means it is bad for the business of corruption in Washington, which also booms during wartime. (As an aside, if you want to see real election meddling, turn your gaze from Russia and open your eyes to the real power behind the American throne…Israel)

And this is why I tip my cap to Chris Matthews, Ted Lieu, Ro Khanna, Justin Amash, Tulsi Gabbard, Rand Paul and even Donald Trump. These folks are swimming against the overpowering tide of blood-thirsty, greed-fueled war mongering, the deep-seeded moral and ethical depravity in the form of indifference to other people’s suffering among political elites and the shameless corruption of the Washington/media establishment and the Military Industrial Complex, and they deserve our praise for speaking up when everyone else, most depressingly liberals, are shouting for more war, more empire, more death and more destruction.

In conclusion, I wish all my readers, all my friends, all my enemies and everyone everywhere, even the spittle-flecked, syphilitic baboon Chris Matthews and spittle-flecked, syphilitic orangutan Donald Trump, a very Happy Christmas. May the celebration of the birth of Jesus bring about a birth of conscience in the halls of power and in the hearts and minds of less powerful people across the globe.

©2018

Captain America v Trump in Battle of the Useful Idiots

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 38 seconds

President Trump’s summit and press conference with Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki went so poorly that even superheroes and superhero wannabes went into hysterics over Trump’s alleged betrayal of the American intelligence community.

The reason for the media uproar in the wake of the Helsinki summit was that in reply to a reporter’s question Trump stated, or misstated depending on whom you listen to, that he believed Putin when the Russian leader claimed there was no Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

On CNN, that silver-spooned, silver-haired Silver Surfer clone Anderson Cooper, immediately responded to Trump’s performance by shrieking,

“You have been watching perhaps one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president at a summit in front of a Russian leader certainly that I’ve ever seen.”

Former head of the CIA John Brennan, who looks and acts frighteningly similar to Thing of the Fantastic Four, tweeted…

“Donald Trump’s press conference in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???”

Former director of the CIA and NSA Michael Hayden went full Hulk when in response to Trump’s contradicting the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Hayden monosyllabically rage tweeted…

“OMG. OMG. OMG”

Then a “real” superhero jumped into the fray. Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America in the Marvel franchise films who is the perfect representation of America because he is so boyishly handsome, ridiculously muscular, emotionally infantile and staggeringly empty-headed, tweeted of Trump…

“I don’t even know what to say. Today was a disgrace. @realDonaldTrump embarrassed America and should be ashamed of himself. Shame on anyone who chooses to ignore Russia’s interference in our democracy for the sake of Trump’s political well-being. I’m at a complete loss.”

I have a sneaking suspicion Mr. Evans is often at a complete loss…like when he comes upon a doorknob. Apparently the Captain’s twitter finger is even more powerful than his vibranium shield because he didn’t stop there…he followed up by tweeting…

“This moron, puppet, coward sided with Putin over our own intelligence agencies! On a world stage!! BASED ON NOTHING MORE THAN PUTIN’S WORD! Why? Can ANYONE answer that?? What the hell is happening. Politics aside, this is 100% un-American. Where are you @GOP???”

Captain America’s logic is pristine…I mean how could anyone in their right mind dare to question America’s saintly intelligence community about their limited and still evidence free “assessment” that Russia interfered in the American election?

Sure, the American intelligence agencies were asleep at the wheel on 9-11, wrong about WMD’s in Iraq, ran a secret rendition and torture program, spied on American citizens, international allies and the U.S. congress, and then lied and perjured themselves about all of the above in order to cover their backsides…but when it comes to what happened in the 2016 election we should totally take their word for it!

Evans was joined in his twitter rampage shortly thereafter by fellow Marvel talent James Gunn, who in addition to writing and directing the Guardians of the Galaxy movies also produced this year’s smash hit Avengers: Infinity War movie. Gunn re-tweeted this…

In an ironic case of “he who liveth by Twitter, dieth by Twitter”, Gunn, who is notoriously quick on the draw when it comes to tweeting, transformed into an ex-Marvel talent later in the week when he got fired from directing Guardians of the Galaxy 3 after some entirely unrelated decade-old tweets of his surfaced in which he joked about rape and pedophilia. No doubt Gunn’s Twitter handle will now be holstered.

While Gunn’s re-tweeted Thanos meme is legitimately funny, equating Thanos, the villain in Infinity War who kills half of all beings in the universe in order to restore balance, to Putin, is hysterical…literally.

The mainstream media may claim otherwise, but the truth is Putin is not some omnipotent super-villain intent on universal or even global domination. Putin presides over a nation with only the 9th largest population, 11th largest economy (by projected GDP) and the 4th largest military budget (which is nearly ten times smaller than the U.S. military budget), that is not a Thanos level of super villainy…that doesn’t even rise to the level of Ultron, Loki or Lex Luthor for goodness sakes.

If Putin were truly a Thanos-level super-villain he would at least have the world’s largest economy, largest military budget, more foreign military bases than any other nation in human history, the largest prison population, a vast worldwide eavesdropping surveillance system along with extra-judicial kill lists and also have fomented coups and waged wars  in such far off and diverse lands as Ukraine, Libya, Egypt, Honduras, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan. Of course in order to have all of those things Putin would have to be the President of the United States.

The reality is that Putin is nothing more than a Russian nationalist whose interest is in protecting Mother Russia and its people from existential threats, which historically for Russians are a much more pressing matter than for those of us living in the United States.

It is difficult for Americans like James Gunn and Chris Evans to grasp, but a little over 75 years ago the elite of the Nazi war machine were a stones throw from Moscow. Maybe if we Americans learned our history from somewhere other than Marvel movies we would know that it wasn’t Captain America that defeated the Nazis, it was the Soviets who broke the back of Hitler’s military monstrosity and who lost more than 26 million lives in the process.

Even in the last thirty years, Russians have had to survive the chaos and calamity that befell them when the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO encroached on their borders and America shamelessly meddled in their elections and economy.

The truth is that Anderson Cooper, John Brennan and Captain America Chris Evans, all inhabit different wings of the same American propaganda machine that has no interest in hearing differing or nuanced view points and has its heart set on demonizing and castrating Russia.

Cooper, a former intern at the CIA, cheerleads for American militarism and stokes the flames of Russo-phobia nightly on his CNN “news” show.

Brennan now plays a “serious” pundit on MSNBC, who routinely calls Vladimir Putin a “low-life thug”.

Since Brennan aided and abetted torture and treasonously spied on his own government while he was at the CIA, should he be considered a “high-life” thug because he is well paid as a member of the political and media establishment?

Chris Evans is also part of the American propaganda machine – the Hollywood wing. Is Evans aware that most of Hollywood, including Marvel and its parent company Disney, make movies in cooperation with the Pentagon? Does he know that in exchange for use of military equipment, personnel and expertise, the Pentagon gets creative control of those projects and eliminates any negative narratives that shed a bad light on the U.S. or its military to insure that those films will be coercive advertisements for American militarism?

Is Chris Evans aware and comfortable with the fact that America’s intelligence community also has a fruitful working relationship with Hollywood that has distorted history and whitewashed torture?

Does Chris Evans also support the cavalcade of anti-Russian films and television shows being churned out in recent years by Hollywood that brazenly dehumanize Russians and make Americans more susceptible to believe any negative story they hear about Russians in the mainstream media?

Maybe the vacuous gruel that is the Russiagate case will expand to become a sumptuous feast of evidence proving Putin’s guilt and Trump’s complicity. And maybe Trump is exactly what the media and Captain America claim he is…a useful idiot who is a “moron, puppet and coward”…but upon closer examination, the same could also be said of Evans who, wittingly or unwittingly, enables the Pentagon and Intelligence agencies’ militaristic and Russo-phobic propaganda campaigns to indoctrinate the American people to be gullible to the media, subservient to authority and aggressively belligerent toward Russians.

Add in the fact that liberals in Hollywood and the media are now so deeply in the throes of their virulent anti-Russian hysteria that they actually equate any alleged Russian election interference with the atrocities of 9-11 and Pearl Harbor, and you have a perfect recipe for a potential war…talk about useful idiots.

This article was originally published at RT.

©2018

Disturbing Dispatches From "Real America"

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 11 seconds

I just returned from two weeks spent outside of my Hollywood enclave in what some would describe as "real America" where I went on a road trip from Central Pennsylvania (aka Pennsyl-tucky) to Cape Cod with various stops in between. On my journey I spoke with some regular people about their thoughts on Trump and American politics and came away struck by the disconnect between those ordinary folks and the liberal bubble in which I exist.

Since all of the information that I gathered is entirely anecdotal it should be subject to skepticism as it may very well be a result of my own confirmation bias, but with that said, the conclusion I came to after this jaunt through "real America" is that I am positive that in the battle for hearts and minds here in America, Trump is winning and winning bigly.

As I spoke with these "regular people", none of whom are particularly political, it became clear that Trump is going to win in November of 2018 (Republicans will hold onto the House and Senate) and will win re-election in 2020.

One of the most glaring things that stood out to me in my travels were the remarkable number of American flags on display. It reminded me of my childhood in Reagan's America as I have not seen that sort of unadulterated display of patriotism since the 80's. But what was fascinating to me was that the definition of patriotism and even of America has changed dramatically. "America" is not what the media thinks it is..."America" is not its institutions - the FBI, CIA or the rest of the establishment and government. "America" is now regarded as only the "regular people" throughout the country and not the leadership class. This new "America" is stridently nationalist and populist and marginally traditionalist.

This new form of nationalist populism is striking because it doesn't bring with it a muscular and belligerent militarism like Reaganism, quite the opposite. The folks I spoke with had no interest in spreading American exceptionalism overseas at the end of a gun but what they were interested in was a nativist isolationism at home where immigration is either slowed or stopped, illegal immigration is dealt with swiftly and effectively and free trade is drastically reduced.

The people with whom I spoke are not members of any political party, are not active in politics and have voted for both Republicans and Democrats at one time or another.  Nearly all of these people, even the ones who usually vote Democrat, commented on how much they loathe the waves of immigration from Central America that they believe negatively effects the "American" culture.

On the bright side, no one I spoke with said they liked Trump, in fact, even among his most ardent supporters, he was routinely called a "jackass" or a "clown", but they still supported him because he "gets things done". To a person, the Trump "voters/supporters" were not enthralled with him personally but they were most definitely much more disgusted with business as usual in Washington than with Trump's antics. Each and every one of them expressed contempt for Washington and most especially the media.

The venom spewed towards the media by these folks was pretty intense. I was thinking about these "regular Americans" when I sat in an airport waiting for my flight home and saw the news of Trump's summit with Putin and his allegedly disastrous press conference afterwards. CNN had a headline on the screen that read "Trump throws intelligence agencies under the bus". I laughed when I read it because I knew how "real Americans" were going to see that headline and the media coverage of the Russia summit, and it was the exact opposite of what CNN and their establishment media cohorts intended.

According to "regular Americans", the intelligence agencies are symbolic of the corruption of Washington and they, along with the mendacious media, are not to be believed in the slightest. The disconnect between how "regular Americans" view the Trump-Putin summit and how the media and establishment view it, would absolutely shock those making a fuss over Trump's performance at the summit. In addition, the Russian election hacking story and Mueller probe did not even register on the radar of these "regular Americans", as the story held zero interest to them.  

The subjects that did resonate with them were immigration and the economy. They liked Trump's approach on immigration, including the Muslim ban, and were very pleased with the economy, even though many of them felt no tangible results from any of Trump's policies, and in a remarkable bit of disconnect, some even had felt negative consequences from his policies (tariffs).

These "regular Americans" consistently gave Trump the benefit of the doubt whenever he had made an error and blamed the media for being too tough on him. Trump, even though he is President and controls both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, is seen as an underdog and an outsider fighting against a thoroughly corrupt system. 

My discussions with these "regular Americans" put my Isaiah/McCaffrey Wave Theory research into very clear focus. In an almost horrifying realization...I discovered that the Churchillian archetype that was so prominent last year in the films Dunkirk, Darkest Hour and the television show The Crown, has manifested itself in the form of Trump (and to an extent in other authoritarians like Putin, Erdogan, Xi and Duterte) and not in resistance to him.

This Churchillian archetype has coalesced around Trump not in a war against an external enemy but rather in the internal civil war against the establishment (globalists). The Trump brand of nationalism, a concoction made up of a pinch of Reaganism, a dash of traditionalism and a glob of reality television populism, that my fellow Hollywoodites see as unadulterated fascism, is what the Churchillian archetype is fighting for, and that is a chilling realization when you understand how compelling that archetype currently is in our collective unconscious. This is why Trump is perceived by "real Americans" as the underdog and outsider and given the benefit of the doubt in his battle against the globalist establishment.

As Jung teaches, archetypes are neither good nor bad, they are amoral and can manifest and express themselves through a multitudes of ways. America being in the throes of the Churchillian archetype and Trump being the one through which it manifests, is a stunning turn of events, but it rather makes sense when you look at it through the prism of the other, overarching archetype also revealing itself in our world (and through Trump) at the moment...Mercury...the trickster god.

Psychologically and emotionally, Trump is terribly ill-equipped to carry the weight of the Churchillian archetype, nevermind the extremely powerful Mercury archetype, which is why we get such erratic and incoherent performances from him, but to be fair, Churchill was ill-equipped to carry the Churchillian archetype as well (which would explain his numerous battles with the Black Dog of depression)...and upon closer inspection the mythos surrounding Churchill is riddled with canyon sized cracks.

Trump supporters are not blind to his faults, they just don't care about them. Trump the man, just like Churchill the man, is almost irrelevant, it is the myth of Trumpism that matters just as it was the myth of Churchill that carried Great Britain through its Darkest Hour.

In the 80's, America fell for the flag waving, free market nonsense of Reaganism, and we still haven't even come close to recovering nearly 40 years later. Trumpism will have an even longer lasting effect on America, and it may very well be the end of the "American experiment" either because Trumpism wins, or because of the means the #resistance, including the intelligence community, use to rid themselves of this troublesome priest (Trump) will, like Brutus and friends when they conspired to eliminate the threat of Caesar to the Republic of Rome, lead to a path of self-destruction.

Regardless, those who think things will go back to normal when Trump is gone are in for a rude awakening...there is no going back. There is a new normal, and it is Trumpism. The fever of Trumpism is spreading and before it's done America and Americans across the political spectrum will be transformed into something they would not have been able to recognize a mere two years ago.

In conclusion, from my admittedly limited investigation into "real America", I came away stunned by the instinctual support not so much for Trump but for Trumpism out there. This is very bad news for anyone who opposes Trump (I know a lot of people who do), and I know the polls say otherwise, but my impressions are that his support is very strong and growing. Make no mistake about it...Trump is winning and the resistance is losing.

Deserving or not, Trump is the vessel in which the Churchillian archetype has manifested and is a vassal to the powerful Mercury archetype. One result of which is that the old knee-jerk patriotism of Reaganism has morphed into the new "nationalism" of Trumpism, and there is no breaking that spell in the short-term.

We can think that the buffoonish Trump is a joke...but the reality is that the joke is on us, and Mercury, as always, will get the last laugh...on all of us...including Donald Trump.

©2018

The Death of Stalin: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT.

The Death of Stalin, written and directed by Armando Iannucci, is a dark comedy about the power struggle in the Soviet Union in the aftermath of Josef Stalin's death. The film boasts a cast that includes Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor, Andrea Riseborough, Rupert Friend, Michale Palin and Jason Isaacs.

2018 has thus far been a less than stellar year for cinema. Granted, it is only March and prior to my most recent jaunt to the theatre I had only seen three other films, Black Panther, Red Sparrow and Annihilation, all of which were entirely underwhelming. But ever the optimist, I picked myself up by the bootstraps of my disappointment and made the journey to the local art house to try and break out of the rut of banality that had been the hallmark of my recent trips to the cineplex. 

Thankfully, The Death of Stalin was just what the doctor ordered as it was a powerful antidote to my bout of cinema blues. The Death of Stalin is a comedically taut, deliciously funny and masterfully paced film riddled with exquisite performances from an impeccable cast.

I knew nothing about The Death of Stalin prior to seeing it, except that I assumed that it was a comedy about the death of Stalin…and unlike that great cinematic fraud The Never Ending Story, The Death of Stalin is indeed a case of honesty in advertising. After seeing the film I read a little bit about the director, Armando Iannucci, and discovered that he is the creator of the HBO series Veep, which makes sense because The Death of Stalin is sort of like a super-dark version of Veep set in Stalin's Soviet Union. If you like Veep, you will enjoy The Death of Stalin.

The cast of The Death of Stalin is fantastic across the board, but Simon Russell Beale and Steve Buscemi are particularly good. Beale, who plays Beria, the Head of State Security, is a British actor whom I had the great fortune to see masterfully play Iago at the Royal National Theatre twenty years ago during my London days. Beale is a meticulous chameleon of an actor who, much like his equally gifted Shakespearean peer Mark Rylance, has been a master of the London stage for the majority of his career. I hope Beale gets the same level of recognition from a wider audience that Rylance has in his later career, as he is most deserving. Beale's Beria is a study in paranoid entitlement, bemused viciousness and the banality of evil that even at its most heightened never rings false.

Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Kruschev with his usual humorous flair and delivers an phenomenal performance. Alongside the comedy of Buscemi's Kruschev is a palpably frenetic desperation to save himself, and Russia, from falling out of the frying pan of Stalin and into the fire of some other brutal tyrant. Buscemi wraps Kruschev in a cloak of bitter cynicism that hides a rabidly patriotic soul. 

The supporting cast all give specific and technically precise performances filled with masterful comedic timing that they are an absolute joy to behold. 

Jeffrey Tambor, fresh off the abysmal atrocity that is/was Transparent, which was easily the worst and most repugnant television show I have seen, does a nuanced and hysterical turn as Malenkov, a member of Stalin's inner circle. Tambor is at his most insecure best as Malenkov, who is living proof that Stalin wanted to surround himself with only those considerably weaker than himself.

Andrea Riseborough is terrific as Stalin's daughter Svetlana who must navigate life without her powerful father, as warring factions try to use her as a pawn in their chess match. Svetlana is not as weak and delicate as she pretends to be, but she isn't nearly as strong and resilient as she thinks she is. Riseborough has the least flashy of all of the roles in the film but her comedic subtlety and dramatic chops make her Svetlana a vital part of the film's artistic success. 

Rupert Friend plays Stalin's drunken, hockey-team losing son Vasily with aplomb. Friend nearly steals the entire show with his volcanic drunken tirades that seem to have no end and no discernible beginning.

Jason Isaacs masterfully plays famed Soviet General Zhukov. Isaacs' Zhukov is a pitbull in a parade uniform and he has little time, and less tolerance for the political machinations of the backstabbing politburo. Isaacs brings a force and energy to the film that elevates the comedy and the drama to an even higher level. 

The rest of the cast, including Paddy Considine, Michael Palin, Olga Kurylenko and Adrian McLoughlin all do stupendous and seamless work that keep the film right on track. 

An interesting note regarding the acting is that the entire cast never uses a "Russian" accent. Nor do they all use a coordinated "British" accent which some films use to signify a foreign language without alienating American audiences. Instead in The Death of Stalin all of the actors speak in their disparate native tongues, accents included. This is a very wise choice since comedy, and this type of specific verbal comedy in particular, is difficult enough in an actor's first language, adding any accent and most especially a Russian one, would make it nearly impossible. What is so interesting about this languid language/accent approach is that it comes across as so coherent, effortless and comedically harmonious as to be unnoticeable. 

Director Iannucci plays to his comedy strengths in The Death Of Stalin even more so than he does in his stellar HBO show Veep. Veep is a heightened comedy that refuses to acknowledge any connection to a real world or actual human behavior. In The Death of Stalin on the other hand, Iannucci has made a very funny comedy that is propelled by genuine human behavior. The Death of Stalin, as absurd as it can be, is still based on a solid realism despite its being so funny.

A very effective tactic by Iannucci is how he deftly handles the rather glaring issue of the brutality of Stalin's Great Terror by only giving the audience the perspective of those in Stalin's inner circle. Viewers are unconsciously connected to the protagonists like Beria and Kruschev in the inner circle and Iannucci never explicitly shows the violence and savagery for which these men are responsible. It isn't until we are fully on board and rooting for the good guys to win that we see what the good guys (and we) are capable of, and it isn't a pretty sight. 

It is impossible to watch The Death of Stalin and not relate it to the politics of our day. For instance, the backstabbing paranoia and positioning of Stalin's inner circle before and after his death certainly resembles the daily drama emanating from the Trump White House. The Trump purges of cabinet members is less bloody than Stalin's, but the impulse behind them is the same. Trump instinctually surrounds himself with people that are intellectually, and even physically, smaller than he is because, like Stalin he wants to be The Big Man. Beria, Kruschev, Malenkov and the rest of Stalin's ass kissing brigade have counterparts right here at home in Trump's cabinet, and could easily pass as Bannon, McMaster and The Mooch. 

Even Stalin's kids are reminiscent of the Trump children. Svetlana, the doe-eyed beauty trying to manipulate her "royal" standing for all it is worth, is Ivanka plain and simple. And speaking of simple, Stalin's son Vasily is as if Don Jr. and Eric Trump were morphed together into one drunken ball of entitled moronity. 

The Death of Stalin is also relevant in the context of the headlines of today due to the plethora of anti-"Russia" news. Russia is currently the enemy du jour and is blamed for everything that could, did or will go wrong in the world. The Death of Stalin is, like the recent Red Sparrow, a rather shameless piece of anti-Russian reinforcement propaganda meant to buttress people's preconceived negative feelings about those conniving and brutal Russians.

I cannot speak to the historical accuracy of The Death of Stalin, but the fact that Stalin and Russia were the subject of a film at all is indicative of the wave of anti-Russian resentment and hysteria fomented by a calculated Russo-phobic propaganda campaign. For instance, would this film have been made if it were about the machinations behind the scenes when Ariel Sharon was in a coma? Or about when FDR died? or Mao? or JFK? No…of course not. American audiences have been primed to accept that Russians are a particularly loathsome and untrustworthy bunch, so it is acceptable to laugh at them and highlight the worst of them when they are at their most despicable. 

That is why The Death of Stalin is in theaters now, because it buttresses and reinforces the anti-Russian madness by reminding people that Russia, at its core, is only Stalin's Soviet Union during the Great Terror, and nothing else. Nuance need not apply when it comes to the Russia of today, just tune in to MSNBC or read the Washington Post for proof of that. 

You may be asking what difference does it make if there is anti-Russian propaganda? Well, the biggest issue is that it makes Americans gullible to any anti-Russian story thrown out there. The poisoning of a former Russian spy in the UK? Must be Russia, and no proof or evidence is needed to back up that claim. Same with the claims of Russian "hacking" of our elections, voting machines and even our power grids…all unsubstantiated but accepted as Gospel Truth by the opinion shapers in the establishment media. Unproven claims that Russia started a war by invading Ukraine, shot down MH17 and rigged elections in Crimea are treated the same way.

The propaganda campaign against Russia is not just dangerous because people are primed to believe any outrageous claim against that country, but because of where that belief will inevitably lead…a catastrophic war. The biggest problem with the anti-Russian hysteria and hatred that has become mainstream here in America, is that it is lead by the people who would usually be anti-war, liberals and Democrats. With incessant rhetoric being spouted by liberals about how Russia has "attacked America" or "committed an act of war", there will be no speed bumps on the road from a cold war with Russia to a hot one…and that will not end well for anyone. 

The real lesson of The Death of Stalin is the corrupting influence of authoritarianism on the soul. With authoritarianism on the rise across the globe and in our collective consciousness, The Death of Stalin is now compulsory viewing. The important thing to remember is that authoritarianism isn't just on the rise in the form of Trump, Erdogan, Putin and Xi…but in the hearts and minds of regular people…even those who may share your ideological beliefs. For instance, there has been a spate of people silenced or exiled for daring to question Democratic or liberal orthodoxy. I know this because I am one of them. I was exiled by numerous friends who did not like what I wrote about the last election, and instead of talking to me about it, or God forbid debating it, they exiled me…and my family…from their circle. This is metaphorically just like Stalin's Great Terror where he eliminated those who dare think for themselves or speak truth to power. 

The great danger of our time is not so much Trump, who is a bumbling buffoon of a man and an even worse president, but rather our authoritarian response to him. #TheResistance has proven itself to be a hypocritical outlet for the authoritarian impulses of establishment Democrats. Watch these alleged liberals discard history down the memory hole and contort themselves in all sorts of illogical ways in order to embrace the intelligence community (CIA, NSA, John Brennan, Michael Hayden and John Clapper) and the FBI (and James Comey, Robert Mueller and Andrew McCabe) all in the hopes of destroying Trump and regaining power. With authoritarians, Truth and actual history have no meaning in the quest for power and revenge, and so it has become with establishment Democrats and certain sections of the left. If you can watch The Death of Stalin through the prism of liberal authoritarianism, it will be a very enlightening experience indeed, especially if you're a liberal who likes to banish people with opinions that challenge your own. 

In conclusion, even though The Death of Stalin is yet another piece of anti-Russian propaganda, it is a finely-crafted, exquisitely made piece of propaganda, and that is to the credit of its remarkable cast and director Armando Iannucci. I recommend you put in the effort to see The Death of Stalin in the theatre as it will most assuredly entertain you as it did me. And if you are able to look past the surface of the film and see it not just as another Russo-phobic hit piece, but as a clarion call against all forms of authoritarianism…especially the authoritarianism that lives inside your own heart…and mine, then it might just make you more than laugh, it might even make you think…and cry in despair.

©2018

The Death of Edward S. Herman and the Death Knell for Liberalism in America

Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes 18 seconds

Last week Edward S. Herman, professor emeritus at the Wharton School of Business and teacher at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, died at the age of 92. In addition to his stellar academic career, Herman is best known for co-writing with Noam Chomsky the seminal book in the field of media analysis and criticism, Manufacturing Consent.

Manufacturing Consent is a staggeringly brilliant book. It is such a paradigm defining and altering work that I believe it, along with the Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self, should be mandatory reading and viewing for every citizen, voter and consumer of media in the United States. It is impossible to watch the news, read the newspaper or follow political debate the same way after digesting Herman and Chomsky's theories on the media and their propaganda model in Manufacturing Consent and Curtis' revelatory documentary on psychology, public relations and control of mass democracy.

A great example of the immense importance of learning and understanding Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model was on display recently with the slavish reception by the establishment media of Ken Burns' newest documentary, The Vietnam War. Burns uses a great deal of energy and time (the film runs nearly 18 hours) to make a film that, consciously or unconsciously, goes full bore in proving the existence Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model. Burns' documentary is an homage to the limits of establishment thinking and debate, not a true and honest critical assessment of the war or of America. If you haven't seen Burns' film, read Manufacturing Consent before you do, and if you have seen it, read Manufacturing Consent and watch the film over again. 

I found it striking that the same week that an original thinker and true resister to power, Edward S. Herman, died, America and what currently passes for American liberalism did something to signify its own philosophical, intellectual and ethical debasement and death. On Monday of last week the Justice Department forced the news channel RT America, to register as an agent of a foreign power in order to avoid legal penalties for their employees. (Full disclosure, I am a current contributor to RT.com. I have been informed that I am not effected by RT America being forced to register as a foreign agent because RT and RT America are two different entities. If any readers have legal insight into my situation please feel free to share it with me as I obviously want to stay in full compliance with American law.)

What was so dismaying about the RT America situation was not the Justice Department going after them, it was the absolute glee that democrats, establishment liberals and #theresistance showed upon learning the news. The intellectual corruption of democrats and establishment liberals knows no bounds, and this was proven by their embrace of the targeting of RT America and their joy at the silencing of an anti-establishment dissenting voice.

The reason that there was such vicious glee emanating from liberals in regards to RT America being targeted and sanctioned, is because liberals have been conditioned to believe that Russia in general, and RT America in particular, is the sole reason for Trump being president. The mainstream media, in fulfilling their position as the propaganda arm for the elites and the military-intelligence industrial complex, has continuously beat the anti-Russia and anti-RT drum.

Liberals are so blinded by their rage at Trump that they are signing on to the criminalization of their own political beliefs. Have liberals read the DNI report about "Russian Interference" in the 2016 election? Every single person I have spoken to about this subject has said that they haven't read the report. And for some, maybe they feel that reading in black and white the reality of the situation, which is contrary to what they imagine it to be, might make their fantasies of nefarious Russians co-opting America's sacred elections disintegrate and leave them with no one to blame but themselves. And not only have these folks never read the DNI report, they have never watched the channel RT America, but in their ignorance are so thoroughly convinced of RT's villainy that they not only cheer its destruction, some also actually express a hope for my personal imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay. 

I have written about this willful blindness and intellectual and philosophical suicide of liberals before, and Edward S. Herman wrote about it in the last article he ever published. If liberals read the DNI report they will quickly learn that the intelligence community has zero evidence that Russia interfered in the election. None. They also would learn that the intelligence community are criminalizing the exact things in which liberals claim to believe and hold dear. 

For instance, the DNI report spends the majority of its time claiming that the cable news channel RT America was a key piece of the Russian election interfering campaign. The smoking gun evidence the DNI report gives for RT guilt? The fact that RT America hosted third party debates, extensively covered the negative environmental impact of fracking, highlighted the Occupy Wall Street movement, claimed that Wall Street is ruled by greed and that America has a police brutality problem. Are there any liberals reading this who don't wholeheartedly agree with RT's position on those issues? I sincerely doubt it. And yet, liberals have unquestioningly swallowed all the anti-RT and anti-Russia stories the media keeps feeding them. 

The other problem with blaming RT for Trump's victory is that it is completely absurd on its face because RT barely registers in terms of viewers here in America. Cable news channels like Fox News have around 2.2 million viewers in prime time alone, whereas RT doesn't even come close to having 30,000 viewers for an entire day. RT is also not carried by many cable providers in America, thus reducing their reach even more. The claim that RT is some evil Putin-controlled leviathan vomiting its propaganda across the whole of America is ludicrous. 

The fact that liberals were so quick to embrace the demonization of RT is a bad sign for the future of liberalism and America. We need more dissent in America, not less, and if we simply allow America's corporate media to be the gatekeepers for Truth, we will only get the sanitized version that those in power wants us to hear. 

I just finished reading James W. Douglass remarkable book, JFK and the Unspeakable. In Douglass' book he shows how JFK was surrounded by enemies in his own government and administration because he refused to buy into the virulent anti-Soviet/communist propaganda of the time. JFK had to try and restrain anti-communist madmen like General Curtis LeMay and General Lyman Lemnitzer who were itching for a nuclear first strike against the Soviets. It is remarkable that 54 years later it is the alleged liberals here in America who, just like Lemnitzer and LeMay, are so blindly and rabidly anti-Russian they will gladly cut off their political nose to spite their face. 

A brief look at history, and a reading of Manufacturing Consent, tells us that we must be ever vigilant against the propaganda we are fed by our elite corporate overlords. The establishment media has always been in lock step with every bit of nonsense the elites try and sell us. Look no further than the Iraq war or the financial collapse of 2008 for an example of the corruption of our mainstream press. 

I understand on an emotional level why liberals are so happy to scapegoat RT for Trump and the state of our nation. But to do so is hopelessly adolescent, foolish and is a shot cut to thinking. Trump is an atrocious human being, but all that is wrong with America didn't begin with Trump. Look at Yemen, where the Saudi's are perpetrating a genocide, including famine, upon the Yemeni population. The U.S. backed Saudi war on Yemen didn't start with Trump, it started under Obama. Notice also that if you want to see coverage of the war in Yemen you will need to watch more RT and less American media because the U.S. press is barely covering that abomination, and when it does cover it, it does so without mentioning America's involvement in it at all. For proof of this read this Washington Post article on Yemen which remarkably never mentions U.S. responsibility for the conflict and also read this Alex Emmons piece at The Intercept which skewers a recent 60 Minutes segment which conveniently neglected to reveal U.S. involvement as well. 

Liberals blaming Russia and RT for Trump's victory are alleviating themselves from the desperate need to look in the mirror and learn from their failings. Pointing the finger at Russia for unsubstantiated claims of election interference and supporting punitive actions against RT America will, in the long run, end up being a self-destructive act for liberals that criminalizes liberal beliefs and limits dissent and oppositional voices. Of course, I am well aware that my pleas for rationalism will be lost amongst the whirlwinds of emotionalism that have accompanied our current hurricane of anti-Russian hysteria. 

To be clear, I loathe Trump with the fury of a thousand suns and I think he is as crooked as a dog's hind leg. If Mueller digs into his business dealings such as those uncovered by Adam Davidson of The New Yorker with his tremendous investigative journalism, then Mueller will have Trump dead to rights. The same may also be true of Obstruction of Justice charges against Trump for his handling of Comey and the Russian investigation. That said, I just don't think the actual charge of Russian election interference at the core of this whole thing is a viable one. I will gladly change my opinion if and when the intelligence community ever releases any actual, tangible evidence of Russian hacking. As of right now, there is just as much a chance that the DNC's and Clinton campaign's emails were leaked as opposed to hacked. Why doesn't the intelligence community show proof of the claim that Russia hacked the emails? And why in the world do people trust the intelligence agencies after all of the lying and shenanigans they have pulled over the years?

At this moment, and this could change with more evidence, it strikes me that the claims of Russian election interference are just like the claims of the intel community in the case for the Iraq war, and just like the Gulf of Tonkin incident that made the case for the war in Vietnam…in other words, there is no "there" there. All of the evidence of Trump administration figures meeting with supposed "Kremlin-connected" Russians (according to the establishment media every Russian is a "Kremlin-connected" one) mean nothing without proof of the hacking of the DNC/Clinton emails which is the center of the election interference case. Until that is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the rest is all nonsense. 

In conclusion, I think a collective madness has descended upon the United States in general and democrats/liberals in particular. Liberals lionizing the intelligence community have very short memories and are incredibly naive…do they really think the intelligence agencies don't lie to them? The reality is that the intelligence agencies CONTINUOUSLY LIE… the sooner you figure that out the better off you will be. RT America's tag line is "Question More", and regardless of what you feel about RT, that is sage advice that we should all take to heart, especially regarding stories that we so desperately want to be true. 

In honor of the great Edward S. Herman, I wholly encourage everyone to go read or re-read Manufacturing Consent. Once you do you will have the ability to read between the lines of the carefully crafted propaganda we are continually fed by the establishment media and discern something closer to the actual Truth of our nation and our world. It is only with the tools taught to us by Herman and Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent that we are able to break free from our media-induced myopia and wake up from our ignorant slumber to see the glaring Truth that has been hiding in plain sight all along, right in front of our nose. 

©2017

I encourage you to please go read Matt Taibbi's excellent article on Herman's work and death and also read Edward S. Herman's entire final piece at Monthly Review as it is a great primer for Manufacturing Consent. 

Theatre of the Absurd : Road to Damascus Edition

Estimated Reading Time : 6 minutes 12 seconds

CIRQUE du TRUMP AND THE MEDIA CLOWNSHOW IN FULL EFFECT

It was just a little over a week ago when reports, followed by horrific images, of a chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria danced across our television sets here in America. Since then, of course, we have seen our brave and noble media search long and hard in a righteous quest for the Truth of this sad story...Oh…wait…no we haven't…quite the contrary in fact, we have seen our mendacious media shovel lie after lie onto the furnace of our war loving culture.

Trump's reactionary and retaliatory lobbing of cruise missiles onto an airfield in the middle of nowhere Syria a few days after the chemical attack was like a double shot of Viagra for the chronically flaccid "liberal" media, who quickly stood at attention and saluted their brave Commander in Chief and the "beautiful weapons of war" he unleashed. Does this sound absurd to you, well it should, because it most assuredly is.

This same media has been ranting since the election that Trump is unfit to serve as President, and is unhinged and dangerous, if not compromised by the Russians, but the second he uses force and kills people he magically becomes presidential? What the hell is going on here? The short answer…the media is in the tank for the deep state in all its forms (the military industrial complex, the surveillance state, Wall Street, the corporatacracy, etc.), and Trump got played by the Deep State's national security wing and now they have him securely in the boat - hook, line and sinker.

The result of this will be that we will see more muscular military interventions in Syria and we may see a large military action, if not full out war in North Korea in the very near future. The Deep State beat Trump like a drum, he was the proverbial guy who brings a ham sandwich to a chainsaw fight, and now they will use him to get everything they want…more war, more empire, more surveillance, more tyranny, more globalism. 

LACK OF EVIDENCE

The Syrian chemical weapons attack was certainly gruesome, and the blame for it was quickly assigned to Syrian leader Bashar Assad, and then, conveniently, Russian President and Assad ally, Vladimir Putin. The problem with that is that there has been zero evidence or proof shown that Assad or Putin were behind the attacks. The US says it has undeniable proof, but won't share it, which is a pretty strong indicator the evidence is either weak or non-existent. Take a quick read of the Intel report on the subject and try not to hurt yourself looking for anything substantial. Talk about Theatre of the Absurd!!

As is the custom regarding these types of things, the MSM conveniently avoided or ridiculed anyone who questioned the "official" narrative of Assad and Putin being to blame for the Sarin gas attack in Idlib. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's assistant during his infamous 2003 Iraq WMD presentation at the U.N., went on All In with Chris Hayes this week and questioned the official story, saying it was nonsense and spoke openly about a false flag attack by anti-Assad rebels trying to lure the U.S. into the Syrian civil war. Wilkerson knows of what he speaks, as he has openly admitted being an unwitting aid in the hoax that led to the ill-fated U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Hayes was silent during Wilkerson's Syrian false flag claims and never follow up on the topic and quickly changed the subject. Once Wilkerson was off air though, Hayes told his next guests that Wilkerson was way off target and totally wrong, it was unquestionably Assad who is to blame for the sarin atrocity. This was a cowardly and cheap trick by Hayes to avoid having to answer tough questions about the chemical attack claims being made by the U.S. government. Hayes should have jumped all over Wilkerson and had a thorough going over of the case, but he didn't, probably because he knows the case is paper-thin if not non-existent. Hayes' failure to cross examine Wilkerson was cowardly, and his back stabbing him when he wasn't there to defend or debate was the height of cheap shots. 

Another bit of absurdist disinformation put out there by the deep state and its national security wing, was when former presidential candidate and CIA agent, Evan McMullen, claimed on Bill Maher's HBO show that Assad isn't fighting ISIS, but rather is allied with ISIS. This is a typical maneuver out of the deep state playbook, muddy the waters and obfuscate the truth to such a degree that up is down, and reality is impossible to discern. McMullen is, like his sleepy-eyed Intel agency cohort and MSNBC darling, Malcolm Nance, a complete and total bullshitter.. McMullen and Nance play the roles of serious men, but they consistently spout nothing but absurdities, be wary of everything either one of them claims.

HISTORY OF FALSE FLAGS BY SYRIAN REBELS - EXHIBIT A

There is a lot of mention in the corporate media of a 2013 chem attack in Syria as further proof of Assad's guilt in the most recent attack, but there is never any mention of the facts about that 2013 attack, which are very different than the MSM would have you believe.

The 2013 attack was the one that "crossed the red line" that Obama had set about Assad using chemical weapons. Then, as now, the media were quick to jump on the flimsiest of Intel assessments that stated that the Assad regime was to blame. The problem with using this 2013 attack as proof of Assad being guilty now is that the opinion about who is to blame for the 2013 attack has shifted away from Assad and to the rebels due to investigative reporting (Links HERE , HERE , HERE , HERE). The U.N. representative investigating the 2013 claim believes that anti-Assad rebels used Sarin gas in order to draw the west into the Syran civil war. Not a bad plan…and it almost worked…and it might even work this time since we are much more primed for war with Syria and Russia by our repugnant press.

Seymour Hersch was the one who really broke the 2013 story wide open. I highly recommend you read his piece about that attack and where the chemical weapons came from, it would be highly insightful in understanding the current Syrian situation. 

The key take away from Hersh's reporting is that the 2013 chemical weapons attack was a false flag attack by Turkish intelligence and the anti-Assad rebels. This is pretty important information to have if you want to understand what is happening now. Of course, the MSM and the Establishment will ridicule and belittle anyone who says such things, even rising star congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and label them as "unserious" or worse still, "conspiracy theorists", but that doesn't mean they are wrong. 

A big clue as to what the Establishment is up to is that no one ever mentions the 2013 attack as a false flag. It is either held up as proof of Assad's depravity or it is ignored. This is a glaring red flag that we are being sold a "Gulf of Tonkin" level bill of goods regarding this recent chemical weapons incident. 

HISTORY OF FALSE FLAGS BY SYRIAN REBELS - EXHIBIT B

Another intriguing topic that gets no mention in regards to this current attack and the Syrian rebel forces, is the Richard Engel false flag kidnapping. If you are not aware of the story, which wouldn't be surprising since the MSM wants you to not be aware of the story, it is a remarkable one. The short version is this, NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel, was kidnapped in Syria and his captors said they were Pro-Assad Shiites. The brutalized him and his compatriots and then a group of anti-Assad Sunni rebels saved him. Engel went on NBC continuously and told the story of his brutal Iranian trained, Shiite captors and his heroic Sunni rebel saviors. The only problem was…it was all a ruse. Engel, PROBABLY wasn't in on it and was the dupe, but it turns out the anti-Assad rebels kidnapped him and made it look like Assad forces did it. it was a propaganda piece, from start to finish…and Engel, NBC, and America bought it. Doesn't this Engel kidnapping, combined with the Sarin false flag attack in 2013 give ample evidence to at least question the "official story" of this most recent chemical weapons attack? Wouldn't the most prudent thing to do is BE SKEPTICAL? 

In one of the more remarkable exchanges that highlight the absurdity of msm coverage of this situation, NBC's Brian Williams, who is a well known liar who has no business being on television or reporting on anything, interviewed Richard Engel. Of course, Williams, his trousers still tented from the "beautiful" missile strike by US forces against Syria, never mentioned Engel's false flag experience in Syria, they both just traded smiles and serious looks about how guilty Assad and Putin obviously were.  If Brian Williams were a real journalist, he may have asked something along these lines..."Richard Engel, you were the victim of a scary kidnapping that was a ruse in order to drum up support in America for the Anti-Assad rebels, is there any chance this chemical weapons attack and the subsequent news coverage out of that area, are a similar disinformation campaign meant to stir the west in general, and the US in particular, to act on behalf of the down trodden rebels?"  Instead we got little more than hot and heavy breathing about our presidential leader and the brave men and women lobbing missiles from hundreds of miles away at an enemy they will never see. Typical soft-serve bullshit from Brian Williams and the impotent gang at NBC.

LACK OF CONTEXT

Two final points you won't hear discussed by the MSM regarding Syria that are a dead giveaway that they are shoveling nothing more than disinformation and propaganda. The first is the complete lack of any historical context. Like the fact that Assad, who every talking head says is a monster, was our ally in the war on terror. Did you know that? Did you know that we sent prisoners to him to be tortured? Assad is certainly a monster, but he has been our monster, and to try and pretend like our hands are so clean regarding this guy is outrageous. And it is even more despicable when we take the moral high ground in regards to Putin and Russia and their support of Assad. You hear a lot of "how could they?" from the dipshits populating cable news. Maybe we should look in the mirror to answer that question. 

And finally, along the same lines, there has been an evolution in the Syria chemical weapons attack story that is entirely predictable…that it is all Putin's fault. Putin has become the scapegoat for everything wrong in the world. It is beyond absurd, and our getting high and mighty about it is the height of hypocrisy. Does anyone remember Iraq and Saddam Hussein using chemical weapons on his own people, the Kurds, and in his war with Iran? Do we all suffer from such a severe form of historical amnesia? Saddam, our ally, used our chemical weapons, with the aid of our Intelligence agencies and military, to gas his own citizens and Iranians. We had no problem with it back then, but apparently now we are horrified by such outlandish behavior.

Of course, years later the MSM and establishment conveniently forgot the details of the Saddam situation and only highlighted his use of chemical weapons. That worked out well for them in deceiving the ill-informed public and successfully making the case to invade Iraq in 2003.

Our newfound horror at middle eastern tyrants using chemical weapons, and our anger at nations who support those tyrants, is the most historically illiterate and obnoxiously hypocritical stance imaginable. This doesn't strengthen our standing as a moral and ethical beacon for the world, it only highlights how full of shit we are. 

By the standards that we blame Putin for Syria, we ourselves are to blame for the innumerable atrocities taking place in Yemen right now at the hands of the Saudis, where millions are on the verge of starvation and have been subject to the most heinous of war crimes. Will we hold ourselves to the same standard we hold Putin and the rest of the world? of course not, because we are absolutely, 100% full of shit. 

WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING HERE?

What I think is really going on in Syria is something you will never hear anywhere in the establishment media. What I think is actually happening will be ridiculed as being "unserious" and "conspiratorial", which is fine. But here is my assessment of the situation. 

The Syrian civil war is a proxy-pipeline war. Russia and Iran want an Iranian gas pipeline to go through Syria into Europe, while the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia want a Saudi pipeline to go through the Syria in to the European market. Russia and Iran want to weaken Saudi Arabia and the U.S., and the U.S. and Saudi Arabia want to weaken Russia and Iran. It is a geopolitical and business chess game. 

Secondly, and this definitely gets me labelled "unserious", but I think that the U.S. created ISIS in order to attack and bring down Assad and wreak havoc in the middle east. Our war on ISIS is little more than Kabuki theatre. We trained, armed and supported them from day one. If we had really been trying to destroy them, they'd be destroyed. Russia entered the Syrian civil war to defeat ISIS and shock of shocks…they are actually doing it. The whole "arming moderate rebels" routine was a total charade, and that seems very obvious to me. We are fighting a war on terror and yet we are allied, arming and supporting both ISIS and Al Qaeda in their holy war (Sunni vs. Shia) against Assad. 

I think the Deep State is not going to let Syria go. We are going to get more and more involved in that war, and will try and lure Russia into even deeper involvement. The Deep State wants to destroy Putin and Russia at any cost. They started a coup in Ukraine and a civil war in Syria in order to distract and drain the Russians. It might very well work. 

This is what I think is going on in that part of the world. I realize some, if not most, people will think that is batshit crazy. That's ok. Who cares what I think, right? The reason I come to this conclusion is that when you understand the script the deep state plays by, you can see how they try to manage and manipulate the masses to get what they want. Syria and the chemical weapons attack is a great example…and frankly, so is the Russian hysteria sweeping the globe. 

Whatever the Truth is, we will probably never know for certain, especially since we are little more than slack-jawed fools sitting by, watching in awe as a Theatre of the Absurd production unfolds before our eyes. The best thing we can do, regardless of whether the topic is Syria, Russia, North Korea, China or anything else that comes up, is keep our eyes and minds open, and to always and every time demand proof of the claims that those in authority make. Do not trust, but verify. Every. Single. Time. 

UPDATE 4/14/17 : A great piece from top-notch reporter Robert Parry published just this morning is worth reading as it further fortifies my argument against the conventional wisdom regarding Syria. 

UPDATE 4/18/17 : An MIT weapons expert is claiming that the Syrian chemical weapons attack was staged on the ground and did not come from an air assault. He also says that the White House report contains "no evidence", both points further buttressing my argument against the "official narrative".

©2017

John Oliver - Shameless Establishment Shill

FOR THE PREVIOUS JOHN OLIVER ARTICLES CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW

1. COURT JESTER AS PROPAGANDA TOOL - 2. THE DRUMPF AFFAIR AND LITTLE BILL MAHER'S POWER FETISH - 3. WAXING BRAZILIAN AND WANING CREDIBILITY -4. OUT TRUMPING TRUMP ON THE GREAT WALL OF TRUMP - 5. THINGS SAID AND UNSAID.

Estimated Reading Time : 5 minutes 02 seconds

This Sunday, February 12, 2017, season 4 of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight premieres. If the first three seasons are any indication, viewers can expect no deviation from the official party line by the establishment’s favorite comedy accomplice.

John Oliver is a charlatan who appears to be a rebellious liberal comedian speaking truth to power, but is really a shameless shill for the ruling class in the U.S. Oliver specializes in telling his liberal audience and those in the establishment exactly what they want to hear. He never genuinely challenges or questions the U.S. power structure, making him an agent of the status quo, which is why the media love him so dearly.

In order to maintain most favored status among liberals, Oliver assails universally loathed entities like FIFA, the NCAA, tobacco or televangelists. Or he’ll investigate a wonky subject like infrastructure, voter ID laws or reforming the bail system. While Oliver gets quite a lot of attention for these stories, they only generate heat, not light. Nothing changes as a result, not even popular opinion since Oliver is only preaching to the converted in the liberal echo chamber.

When it comes to potentially controversial topics, like the rare times he looks at the U.S. political, military and media establishment, John Oliver gives his sycophant fans the soft sell. In the 89 Episodes of Last Week Tonight that have aired, they have shown 250 segments. In those segments, Oliver has scrutinized issues pertaining to the U.S. military and foreign policy just 11 times, that’s 4.4%. In contrast, the show has dedicated 14 or 5.6 % of their segments to Russia, Putin and Russia’s foreign policy. And those numbers do not include the innumerable one-liners at Russia’s expense scattered throughout various other segments, as Putin is Oliver’s favorite comedy whipping boy.

VIDEO LINK

Even when Oliver looks into issues like drones, torture, Guantanamo Bay or NSA spying, he does so with the gentlest of tones and the kindest of language. For example, in regards to drones he called U.S. strikes, which killed civilians, “a little disturbing”. At end of the segment he concluded that now “might be the time to think about drones”. So his scathing assessment of the drone program was that it might now rise to the level of “thinking about”? And I guess “might” was the operative word in his statement since Oliver has never returned to the topic.

Contrast this delicate approach to the U.S. with his scorched earth campaign against Putin, where Oliver leads a cacophony of establishment media voices preaching a Russian hysteria. Oliver has assured his audience that the “brutal Russian dictator” shot down MH17, invaded Ukraine, committed war crimes in Syria, murdered Boris Nemtsov and would starve and freeze the population of Crimea once winter arrived. Oliver’s stance on Russia is just as vacuous, assumption-filled and fact-free as the rest of the mainstream media. A braver comedian would challenge the current prevailing presumptions, but courage is obviously not John Oliver’s strong suit.

Even when Oliver is mildly critical of the U.S., like he was in his torture and Guantanamo Bay pieces, he deflects those American failures by pointing to other nations that he feels are much, much worse, like Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Sudan. He also avoids using moral and ethical frameworks to argue against alleged U.S. failings, instead favoring arguments about “image”.

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Oliver’s main thrust on torture was that it causes “serious harm to America’s image”. He had an entire segment titled “The CIA’s Public Image” which dealt with how the CIA handles its social media. Of all the things to talk about regarding the CIA, their social media prowess seems to be the most frivolous, which is probably why Oliver chose it. In Oliver’s interview with NSA chief Keith Alexander, an important part of the conversation was on the NSA’s image and how to change it for the better, not on its Orwellian surveillance programs.  When it comes to questioning the U.S. establishment, Oliver never dare wander into the heart of the matter, only stay on the surface and stick to appearances.

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The discussion with Keith Alexander was also enlightening when contrasted with Oliver’s interview with Edward Snowden. Watching the Alexander and Snowden interviews side by side, it is easy to see where Oliver’s loyalties lie. Oliver uses the softest and most playful tone with Alexander, where he is extremely aggressive and nasty with Snowden.

The Snowden interview also reveals Oliver’s tactic of obfuscating uncomfortable issues. Oliver spends the first half of his Snowden segment making the story about how frightened he is to be in Russia. He is fearful because Snowden is late, the old KGB building is across the street and Russians are no doubt listening to his every word. You could come away from these bits thinking it is Russia that’s been eavesdropping on the world and not the U.S. But that was Oliver’s point with the Snowden interview and many other segments, to distract from U.S. crimes by imagining foreign ones.

The cherry on top of the Snowden episode was when John Oliver blamed Edward Snowden for the “major f***- up” of the New York Times publishing information that allegedly named a secret agent and a target.  In John Oliver’s world, the New York Times is sacrosanct and above blame, but that scoundrel Snowden makes for a convenient scapegoat.

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Lies of omission are littered throughout Last Week Tonight episodes as well. When Oliver did a segment on Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia, he made the story about how rude the Saudi’s were to the president but gave no context at all. According to Oliver, the Saudi’s just randomly decided to hate Obama. Of course, the actual context is pretty important, Obama went to Saudi Arabia to calm the royal family over the 9-11 lawsuits and the congressional bills opening up the Saudi’s to liabilities for the attacks. Why Oliver would ignore this is beyond me.

When Oliver doesn’t ignore context is also revealing. In two segments on Ramzan Kadyrov, the Sunni strongman in Chechnya who had lost his cat, Oliver went to great lengths to give Kadyrov’s ties to Putin. He also spoke of Kadyrov’s Wikipedia page, which has a section about his human rights abuses, and spoke of it as if it were some sort of smoking gun. This is curious, as there was no mention of human rights abuses when another group of despotic Sunni Muslims, the Saudi’s, were the topic. And the Saudi’s don’t just have a section on their Wikipedia page about human rights abuses, they have a whole page dedicated to their human rights abuses! But Kadyrov is an enemy of the U.S. establishment and the Saudi’s are protected by it, so Oliver acted accordingly.

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Oliver only uses context when it supports the official narrative, not when it undermines it. A case in point was his coverage of the protests in Brazil against the left-wing Workers Party government. Oliver made that story about left wing corruption in Brazil, and nothing more. A closer examination of those protests reveals that a major factor was class and race, with wealthy Whites protesting against the government and poor Black/Brown people protesting for it. Race and class would normally be things that someone like John Oliver, and his liberal audience, would focus on, he certainly would in relation to the Tea Party or Trump supporters here in the U.S. But in South America, the official U.S. narrative is left-wing, populist governments are “no bueno”, and so  Oliver, whether it be in regards to Dilma Rousseff in Brazil or Rafael Correa in Ecuador, propagates that position.

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In contrast to his coverage of Brazil, watch this segment on turmoil in another left-wing South American country, Venezuela. In it, Oliver opens the segment with a news story that clearly defines the context of the protests, with the poor and working class on one side, and the military and police on the government side. Why clarify the struggle in Venezuela so distinctly but keep the Brazil situation murky at best? Because context in the Venezuela story supports the establishment media narrative that Oliver wants to sell, and it undermines it in the Brazil story.

And finally, the most remarkable proof of Oliver being an establishment shill occurred on the season three finale. Oliver actually pleaded with his audience to subscribe to the New York Times and the Washington Post in order to counter Trump and fake news. This was the first time John Oliver ever made me laugh out loud, as buying the Times and Post as an antidote to fake news is like treating obesity with a diet of pizza and ice cream.

It is too bad that Oliver’s insipidly predictable comedy and insidious support for all things establishment are so beloved by his minions. They obviously don’t know it yet, but John Oliver isn’t laughing with them, he’s laughing at them, all the way to the bank.

Previously published on Saturday February 11, 2017 at RT.

©2017