The total abdication of the media has, frankly, shocked me.
At one point in my earlier life I was a newspaper reporter for a national daily. As a reporter, I dug through sources faithfully and, to the best of my ability, tried to be both critical and fair. I don’t see reporters doing this today. Most reporters are insiders, now, with hefty mortgages and big salaries. They don’t write copy that jeopardizes either their “status” or income. “Access” is the name of their game which is why they look paranoically crab-wise toward each other, an ignore us and non-Westerners.
The media has become an arm of the government. By “Government” I mean anyone associated with the Biden administration, aligned international organizations and the neo-liberals who have taken over the State Department. Few reporters have seriously criticized the government, exposed their wrongdoings or asked them to defend their actions. Right now, they’re salivating over Trump’s legal problems, which to any objective observer appears politically motivated — persecution not prosecution. Reporters know that Trump is being politically persecuted by the Biden administration but are too afraid to write about it. In part this is because viscerally, they hate Trump. Like a choir singing their lines, they eagerly help the administration by carrying out this contemporary witch hunt.
Though I’m not a Trump supporter, I do champion the idea that all dissenting opinions should be heard, debated and exposed. By persecuting Trump, they’ve made him in to the face of American dissent. Because of the Biden administration’s persecutory acts, Trump now personifies American disgust with the incompetence and dishonesty of the federal government. Bernie Sanders used to do this as well, but he has been comped and is now just another insider. Only Trump is left. In the public eye, Trump has become the only oppositional character who is willing — or forced? — to bravely challenge the established order of neo-liberalism in DC.
Recently Trump claimed that had he been president (not Biden) America would not be in this proxy war. I mostly agree with him on this. He got along with Putin, after all, and had a gut-level understanding of Putin. Had Trump been president, we’d surely have other problems, but not this one. Not war.
Only a deep, intuitive trust between political leaders makes peace possible. It’s how wars are avoided — through sincere relationships, honest dealing and good diplomacy.
The US, Biden and the hushed voices of the intelligence agencies and State Department do not have these good qualities. They’re perceived as belligerent warmongers, who are full of themselves and pushy toward others. For this reason, most of the world dislikes American government elitists though not ordinary Americans.
The timing of Trump’s persecution (which the media treats as more important than the fall of Bakhmut and the slow grind of losing in the Ukrainian war) is, to put it mildly, suspect.
Lets go back in time.
First, Seymour Hersh — twice! — exposed the US’s complicity in the Nordstream pipeline sabotage. The medias response?
Crickets.
Nordstream was a rock the media dare not turn over because they they were too comped to confront what was surely under it (Hint: Biden, Blinky, Nuland, et. al.) It was for them easier to play dumb and lie — but the media chose to lie by omission, mostly, though Biden, as usual, tells whoppers. The media covers for Biden every day. They are sycophants, not reporters, which is why we ignore the media and go straight to eyewitness accounts and specialized commentary on the Internet. To find truth, we skip over their propaganda, which, frankly, is easy to do.
Hersh predicted, by the way, that the upcoming summer will be disastrous for Europe. I agree with this as well. This summer, it will slowly dawn on ordinary Europeans that America is a selfish ally, one not to be trusted and best to be relegated to the other side of the Atlantic.
Hersh’s story won’t go away, however. It keeps percolating to the surface because it’s an unsolved mystery — mysteries have a gravitational-like pull on inquisitive minds. Though those who follow this story know the answer to the mystery, the media feigns ignorance. It has become, then, a story with a slow fuse. Eventually, this fuse burn down until the story detonates and Western lies are exposed, the American and European lies told by the political class, the lies of those who claim to be leaders.
The Ukrainian war-story won’t go away either. It’s turning into a epic tragedy for the neoliberals who are trying to rewrite it. Their pet project in the Ukraine isn’t as fun as they thought it would be. Losing is such a bitch particularly when one’s nemesis is winning.
Russians know how to win real wars, the ones that take place with blood, in buildings and on frigid ground. They don’t imagine themselves to be morally superior war-winners, as the West does. They don’t brag about their enviable values. They don’t believe that the PR/propaganda war is as important as reality. Instead, they doggedly and determinedly fight with real guns at real enemies … and win.
Russians are not as facile as Americans/Brits at the propaganda war but they are slowly getting better at it. As propagandists, they smartly pegged this war as one between Eurasian cultural traditionalism and Western social secularism. Zelensky’s persecution of Christians in the Ukraine is exactly what the rest of the world expects Western leaders to do. They’re living up to the world’s worst impression of the West. Though persecuting religious believers may be acceptable in Western nations, it is a Western PR disaster in the eyes of the world writ large — secularists in DC are so blind to religion and values that they can’t understand this. To Westerners, a world without religion is near-heaven and a world without Christians sheer bliss.
Thus, they’re blowing it, once again. The images of shacked and tortured priests, bombed and ransacked churches and Ukrainians laughing at praying Christians (one of them sported a pro-Satan T-shirt) immediately soured the ROW (rest of the world) against the West. Their comments were like invectives. There’s true anger and disgust out there. It would behoove Westerners to remember that most people in the world believe in God. This may be difficult for secular Western leaders to understand, so I’ll spell it out. Here’s the loyalty pyramid:
- Loyalty to and identification with congregation and neighborhood trumps loyalty to religious denomination and regional political structures.
- Similarly, loyalty to religion, community and family trumps loyalty toward denomination and regional political collectivity.
- Loyalty to ideology trumps loyalty to nation.
- National identity trumps international identity. This includes ALL international, non-land-based collectivities such as the EU, WEF, etc.
- Small trumps large.
- Known trumps unknown.
- Faith trumps politics.
- Localism trumps larger political collectivities
- And, the family as the smallest unit of community, trumps everything else except faith.
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The economy, too, is blowing up because of neoliberal policies. For one, the EU imposed price caps on oil/gas are a joke. China, India and Japan — the three biggest Asian economies — are all buying Russian energy, ignoring the price cap. So is the rest of the world. Similarly, sanctions are a joke. They remind me of the scrawny kid on the playground pretending to be a bad ass who gets it handed to him good and hard. Every sanction that EU weenies imposed on Russia has had the effect of weakening Western standing in the world. Western leaders could have stopped, pivoted and cut their losses, but pride, an inflated sense of their own importance and delusional ideological presuppositions have prevented them from recognizing their own weakness as well as the folly of their behavior. They making fools of themselves. Daily. People in the ROW are mocking them, not only behind their backs, but increasingly to their faces. It’s not pretty.
Non-Western world leaders now intuit the weakness of the West. Like animals, they are poised to pounce when enough Western blood can be smelled in the water. Ordinary people, too, spontaneously and simultaneously are sensing the weakness of supposed leaders. They’re angry. Protesting. Voting them out (witness yesterday’s demise of Finland’s dumb, cutsy and compliant president.)
These populist protests are ignored by Biden’s media.
France, for example, is a tinderbox which could soon explode. French protests are NOT easing in intensity but are, in fact, becoming more vehement, frequent and impassioned. No longer are these protesters angry about the rise in retirement age. Now, they’re also angry — sheer anger qua anger — about the meaningless war in the Ukraine (how dare their government start and fund a war when their own pensions are devalued by inflation!) Yes, inflation, too, is a huge vector of anger for ordinary Europeans. When there isn’t enough money in piggy banks to buy necessary energy and food — hysterical images of Macron slipping off his expensive watch under the table during an televised interview were widely shared (oops!) — people’s anger morphs into something more substantial such as a revolt. Rightfully so. Their government took to itself the power to regulate the economy and jobs; it assumed the responsibility to provide for retirees and pensioners. If the government takes on these obligations, it must do them well. Socialist countries such as France will quickly fall when the government doesn’t make good on it’s most basic promises. Is it time for a Sixth Republic?
Here’s the neoliberal conundrum. France has not met it’s own promises to it’s people. Neither has England, America … add your country here. The West has lied repeatedly both to it’s people and in an international context. Remember the Minsk-2 accords? The promises crudely broken. Lies easily told. Had Western government not lied so often and blithely, they’d be trusted in times of turmoil. But they continually lie … and the people know it. Trust has evaporated.
Do I predict revolution in France? No, not yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Macron is toppled. That man is tone-deaf to the pleading of French citizens. His eyes are fixated on Brussels and Kiev; he is blind to the Parisian suburbs, and the French know it. They intuit his standoffishness. Macron comes off as a egoistic, scrappy poseur. It’s not just Macron the people dislike so much. It’s Brussels. Europeans feel they’ve been shoved to the side by the neoliberals in Brussels who are pursuing a war both expensive and unnecessary.
They don’t want war. They want peace.
- Would Europeans prefer to let Ukraine be absorbed into Russia or go to war against Russia?
- Would they prefer peace with limits on NATO expansion or World War 3?
- Would they choose prosperity with Russia as an ally or poverty with Russia as a foe?
- Would they choose to be a true nation-state or be crushed under the jackboot of the supra-national, unelected EU?
- Would they accept the need for Russian energy so they can work in real, private-sector jobs, or willingly be forced into make-work jobs in the make-believe “green” economy?
- Would they choose to be jabbed or “risk” letting the virus run it’s course?
- Would they choose the quantity and timing of foreign immigration? Would they choose those particular immigrants or prefer others?
- Do they hate Putin so much they want to kill Russians, or would they rather get along or ignore Russians?
Putting it this way makes the choice stark, doesn’t it?
Back to Trump. The timing of his persecution is such that it gives the media an excuse to ignore the pivotal defeat in Bakhmut and the upcoming fiasco of a tragic and ineffective Ukrainian offensive. Only delusional neoliberals still think that Ukraine can win this war without the direct involvement of the US and NATO (the US military’s European branch). If the US gets involved, all hell will break loose, though less for Americans than for Europeans.
Europeans have effete militaries that can’t win a war against Russia-sans-China, let alone defend it’s own lands against this seasoned and angry competitor. America’s military may be better equipped but it, too, has been weakened by what used to be called “political correctness” and is now called “wokism.” The US military is an extension of Biden’s social policy, a place for careerism, not warriorism. It, like the European armies and NATO, has ZERO chance of winning against Russia.
I’m sure cooler heads in DC are aware of this, but am not so sure that aware people are willing to express their concerns. In a careerist military, honesty means that promotional cycles leave truth-tellers behind. Parroting back to neoliberals whatever they want to hear will guarantee a militarist another star or bar, which is very important to many — no, MOST — military careerists. At this point, the military is just another failed bureaucracy, one wearing uniforms instead of street clothes. It’s not strong enough to win.
So, yeah, Trump is a timely and convenient distraction. He’s the last-gasp hope of government propagandists and their media sycophants. He’s their attempt at diverting our attention from neoliberal failures abroad and at home. That’s what this is about. The Trump persecution is an elaborate, well-timed cover-up of Biden’s political incompetence and the failed and failing ideology of neoliberalism abroad.
