Wednesday, November 06, 2019

The US press demonizes

I saw an article by Andre Damon at WSWS and had to highlight it:


The Washington Post and New York Times, the newspapers most closely associated with the Democratic Party and the US intelligence agencies, are attempting to incite racially-motivated suspicions of Americans of Chinese ancestry.
Since the 2016 election, the Democrats have waged a hysterical campaign around unsubstantiated allegations of “foreign meddling,” initially focusing on supposed Russian efforts to intervene in American politics. But over the past year a similar sinister campaign has been mounted against China.
As part of this campaign, elements of the racialist thinking that prevails in Trump’s White House are making their way into the Democratic Party and its de facto news outlets.
In May, Kiron Skinner, Trump’s head of policy planning at the Department of State, said the US conflict with China is “the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.”
The Diplomat noted: “For the top strategic official in the US Department of State to make race a unit of analysis was shocking.” It commented that the statement prompted an outpouring of “criticism from scholars and analysts.”
In Foreign Policy magazine, Paul Musgrave condemned the “racist, and dangerous, lens of the new US statecraft.”
The South China Morning Post cited Cato Institute fellow Emma Ashford, who commented that “these ideas have been floated around in the Trump administration from day one.”
The newspaper paraphrased Ashford as observing that “Trump and senior officials in his administration had repeatedly made comments along thinly veiled racial and civilizational lines about Mexicans, Muslims and immigration.”



C.I. was just talking about that in Polly's Brew.  And she compared it to the way the press demonized Russia throughout Barack's presidency, really hitting their stride in 2013.

The press works overtime to sew divisions.  C.I. was actually talking about that for the roundtable we did Monday night for Hilda's Mix.  I'm going to ask her to address that topic in tomorrow's snapshot because it's important.  A lot of time, if she's covered something in one of the community newsletters, she moves on to other topics for The Common Ills because there's so much goingon and so little time to cover everything.  But Andre is reporting on a very important topic and C.I. could pull in her focus from Monday night to notice another area that the press (US) is working overtime on demonizing.


And I want to highlight something from today's snapshot:

And "he"?  I'm finding it hard to believe that a woman would write a defense for the Clinton marriage.  I think most women would either be silent on the topic or react the way Rosie O'Donnell did in her standup in the early '00s.  Hillary chose to be a doormat.  That's her choice.  But I don't see many women rushing forward to say, "It's true love!"  We tend to realize it's a man who knows he can cheat on his wife having his cake and his neighbor's cake and eating everything he can.  I guess, to some men, that might be an attractive marriage.  But women aren't really sitting around talking to each other asking, "Do you think the most romantic moment in the marriage was when Bill cheated on Hillary as governor or when he cheated on her as president?"


The full snapshot will be below but she really made me laugh when I read that passage.  Hillary's glorious marriage?  No.  Didn't exist.  She was a doormat happy to be repeatedly humiliated in public.  I do value vows and I'm happy that I've kept mine and stayed married.  But if I had a Bill in my life?  I'd be divorcing.  Once a cheater always a cheater?  That does describe Bill.  He's cheated repeatedly.


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Tuesday:


Tuesday, November 5, 2019.


In Iraq, the question remains: Where is Saba Al Mahdawi?


 1 hour ago

has been missing for 3 days. The 35 year old activist and medic was kidnapped by armed men on her way home from Tahrir Square, Baghdad. The car plate is known and so are the perpetrates. The has done nothing to rescue her.




In the US, another question remains -- why is Joe Biden still in the race?  Yes, trash like Alyssa Milano will forever try to prop him up.  Otherwise?  His support is dropping.  Young adult Americans have never been behind him.





  1.  Nov 1

Lily Levin of Buzzfeed had the audacity to ask Joe Biden about his SuperPAC support and climate change. His reply: “Take a look at my record, child. Look at my record.”
14 replies47 retweets94 likes


 Oct 31

Opinion: I Asked Joe Biden A Tough Question, So He Called Me A Child. He Wants To Be President? - 👏 I’m with Lily Levin! Such a bright, respectful but assertive young woman. You were right. He was wrong. With the youth is where our country needs to lead


 Oct 31
Replying to   and

Lily Levin for President!
2 likes


 Oct 31

Yea. This interaction between Lily Levin, a young activist, and was super cringy. If Biden hopes to attract young people, this is definitely not the way to do it.



1 like


 Oct 31

Today in teens vs. boomers: Here's 18-year old Lily Levin writing about her encounter with Joe Biden, who interrupted her question with "Look at my record, child". She's not impressed!
24 replies56 retweets147 likes





Tom Gara is incorrect.  Joe Biden is not a baby boomer.  He predates the baby boom by a few years  Basic demographics argue the boom begins in 1946.

Joe's disrespecting young voters and, especially, young women voters, with his response to Lily Levin.  Cedric ("Joe wants your vote but he doesn't want to interact with you"), Wally ("THIS JUST IN! WORTHLESS JOE BIDEN INSULTS YOUNG VOTERS!") and Ann ("Neither Joe Biden nor Alyssa Milano give a damn about women") addressed this issue.


While some agree with Lily Levin:


 Nov 1

is a rising star!

stay holding our politicians accountable!!
Biden’s support for former fossil fuel executives shows that he has continued to undermine low income communities of color—specifically Indigenous & Black communities—through environmental racism and injustice, both…




Some do not:


 Nov 1

: lily - I too am concerned but I am also a pragmatist. Biden’s not perfect but he has compassion earned by tragic life experiences; he has a good heart. Job #1: defeat Trump. In spite of your experience with him, he still has the best opportunity to win.  Peace.




Lily can take comfort in the fact that Servere13 is a raging idiot.  In the Tweet above he wants you to know that Joe Biden is someone who "has compassion earned by tragic life experiences."  What a load of nonsense.  Joe does love to play drama queen and cry in public; however, there's no sign that he has compassion.  Compassion would not have supported an illegal war on Iraq -- a war that continues.  Compassion would not have looked the other way at Nouri al-Maliki's secret prisons and torture chambers and insisted Nouri get a second term after the Iraqi people voted him out.  Compassion would not have led to silence from Joe as Nouri went on to spend his second term targeting Sunnis -- this targeting is what led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq.  That happened under Joe's watch.  Drama Queen Mother Joe had a lot of misfortune and, goodness knows, he loves to whine about it, but there's no indication that this misfortune made him more sensitive to the needs of others.  And "he"?  I'm finding it hard to believe that a woman would write a defense for the Clinton marriage.  I think most women would either be silent on the topic or react the way Rosie O'Donnell did in her standup in the early '00s.  Hillary chose to be a doormat.  That's her choice.  But I don't see many women rushing forward to say, "It's true love!"  We tend to realize it's a man who knows he can cheat on his wife having his cake and his neighbor's cake and eating everything he can.  I guess, to some men, that might be an attractive marriage.  But women aren't really sitting around talking to each other asking, "Do you think the most romantic moment in the marriage was when Bill cheated on Hillary as governor or when he cheated on her as president?"


Along with an inability to relate to young adults, Joe's still got his Hunter Biden problem.



 9 hours ago

John Solomon obtained emails showing Hunter Biden's Ukrainian gas firm Burisma indeed used an intermediary to reach out to the Obama admin to shape gov's perception of the company as "corrupt," name-dropping Hunter secure a meeting
10 replies39 retweets76 likes


Show this thread




  1.  38 minutes ago

.: "We also now know the name of the whistleblower. The whistleblower needs to come forward as a material witness bc he worked for Joe Biden at the same time Hunter Biden was getting money from corrupt oligarchs. I say tonight to the media, do your job & print his name."
/>

0:11

102 replies24 retweets70 likes


 1 hour ago

Sen. : "Hunter Biden made $50,000 a month. That's the definition of corruption. We know he got it only because of his family connections."
/>
120 replies37 retweets84 likes




I didn't realize the leaker wasn't being named by the press.




  1.   Retweeted
     Nov 2

Eric Ciaramella:

- Sent by to
   the

- Worked for
  

- Advised on
   “Ukraine policy”

- Invited operative
   to NSC

- Coordinated illegally with
   as fake
   whistleblower

Understand?
1,048 replies10,441 retweets15,315 likes




That's the leaker.  If he wants to try to start impeachment, he needs to appear publicly.  He's not a rape victim.  He's someone who insists that someone, somewhere, saw something and passed it on to people who told people in a Faberge Organics Shampoo kind of way.




And, according to the leaker, eventually it reached him.

You can't make charges for impeachment from behind a screen.  He's a leaker, he's not the great and powerful Oz.


The protests continue in Iraq.  In "Analyst: Iraq protests have 'overcome sectarianism," (ALJAZEERA), Ghassan al-Attiya observes:
For weeks before the protests, there were ongoing discussions around the extent to which the public has become frustrated with the political elite. The protests, however, started in Baghdad as completely peaceful demonstrations. Groups that are far removed from any political parties were responsible for organising the demonstrations.
Yet, the security forces responded to the demonstrations with heavy-handed tactics. But as the protests continued demonstrators from southern and central areas of Iraq joined the movement. That is when the protests became more violent as a Shia-Shia battle began to emerge. Protesters burned down the headquarters and offices of Shia political parties and armed groups.

There are regional and international powers that have an interest in the continuation of the protests. They have resorted to the media to serve this interest. There is no proof the movement has received any financial or military support from an external power, however.


REUTERS notes today, "Internet access in the capital Baghdad and much of Iraq has been cut off, internet blockage observatory NetBlocks said late on Monday as the country experiences a wave of anti-government protests."


 1 minute ago

Iraq shuts down internet again as protests intensify





 17 minutes ago

Cyber security NGO NetBlocks says that the blackout is 'the most severe telecommunication restriction to have been imposed by Iraq's government since protests began' on October 1.





ALJAZEERA reports 8 protesters killed yesterday (five in Baghdad).  REUTERS notes that 13 have been shot dead in the past 24 hours.  And Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:


 Talks on amendments to the Iraqi constitution began on Tuesday as internet access was cut in Baghdad amid renewed clashes in the capital.
The first meeting of a parliamentary committee that was formed last month to oversee the drafting of constitutional adjustments took place in parliament, with officials hoping it will help meet the public's demands and calm weeks of widespread protests.
Iraq has experienced massive anti-government demonstrations in Baghdad and across the mostly Shiite south since the beginning of October.
Protesters are calling for an overhaul of the political system established after the 2003 US-led invasion.
"The committee is represented by Iraq's three main components and all minorities," an Iraqi official, who wished to remain anonymous, told The National.




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