More Uruguay

I posted about this last December, but I am posting this again since part of Trump's insane expansionism is based upon a continued reliance on fossil fuels. Energy independence makes more sense if we are talking about national security than relying on fossil fuels coming from other nations.

And Uruguay proves it can be done. 

 

Uruguay proves that energy independence is possible and good for the economy.

OK, time for a change from Palestine. And a bit of good news at that since this is indeed true.  On the other hand, the US politicians and media are so in the pocket of big money that you wouldn't know this.

Fact check this if you don't believe me.

And I can't believe the crap I am going through to get solar panels on my roof (and yes, the historical commission is a part of all that).

Actually, they did give approval since my house was built in 1980 and very modern, but there were still people who talked about "the historic character" is this area.

How to break the two-party hold on American politics

The problem with the "no Kings" movement is that they have no idea what they are talking about, which I affirm as someone who has lived in monarchies (UK, Canada, and Belgium). 

The real issue is the duopoly, which is realy only one party pretending to be different. The duopoly is the tool of the oligarchy, which is disgustingly obvious if one wants to admit it.

The US needs new players and parties that actually represent the people.

What if America had More Political Parties? - TLDR News

There are many advantages to ending the duopoly, but I am not sure I would go with the parties and the leaders proposed by this. While I talk about the Westminster system, coalition governments are much better than the gridlock which is endemic to the US system.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is gone. No big loss.

You would think I would be in deep mourning about this, but you are wrong.

There hasn't been any truly public media in the US for a long time. Commercials made their way into the public broadcasting long ago in the form of "underwriting". Money owns the narrative, which is why third parties and renegades such as Bernie Sanders got little coverage. The duopoly happily owns the US media.

And US media has long been consolidated in the hands of a few. You didn't need much of a brain to figure out that there were no real dissenting opinion. That was until the internet set it free. Then Speaker's corner came to your computer instead of having to get a soap box in Hyde Park. Of course, the Internet isn't really moerated so anyone can pretty much say anything.

It's nice to have media that are moderated with varied and informed opinions, but the US doesn't have that.

People say that Trump will bring fascism to the US, but the US has never really been a truly liberal democracy. It's had its propaganda, and the US is the best in the world at doing it: see Paul Weber's Propaganda: Nobody Does It Better Than America.

After all, the US Constitution does start with the words "We the people..." despite it having been mostly written in secret!

American propaganda, however, is much cleverer. American propaganda, they patiently explained, relies entirely on emotional appeals. It doesn’t depend on a rational theory that can be disproved: it appeals to things no one can object to.

And the US's most obvious propaganda is called ADVERTISING!

But don't worry, the Internet allows access to all sorts of opinions other than those given on main stream media. And media consolidation may drive more people to those alternatives. 

Ones that are free of propaganda.

and advertising.

What If America Had More Than Two Parties?

One of the main reform which needs to happen before the US can truly see "democracy" (or a republic). I like to quote Julius Nyerere: "The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them." On the other hand, there needs to be different parties to avoid the consolidation of power caused by the duopoly.

And the there really isn't a difference between a democracy and a republic:

Well, other than the founders had an unrealistic idea that the Roman republic was somehow stable and democracy was the equivalent of nihilism.

The problem with US media

 One thing I notice when I watch non-US media (Sky News Australia as an exception) is that they usually try to have opposing opinions. Not so in the US. I have yet to see a serious opposing opinion on the US media. For example, I have yet to see someone who voted for a third party in a discussion of why US politics is screwed.  Even Joe Rogan has not interviewed Jill Stein.

That's pathetic.

OK, I wanted a picture of steak frites...

On the other hand, it might be the reason so much bullshit fills the US debate. For example, instead of anyone questioning the concept of "gun rights" early on, it was accepted. No one in the media pointed out that was a ridiculous concept and totally out of line with history.

Likewise, I heard a Fox News piece on "Climate Change" hypocrisy which didn't feature anyone who had a real idea what goes on in the environmentalist community. So, they were making it sound as if people who are Green are vegan.

Tu rigole ! I like to eat meat, but I don't do it that much for various reasons: more in line with my health than the planet. Slow food, on the other hand, which is traditional and regional cuisine that encourages farming of plants, seeds, and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem makes more sense to me than having people go vegan. I'm not alone in this since people who push veganism can be shouted down for a lot of reasons: one of which is that truly being vegan is actually a difficult thing to do. Food needs to be certified as vegan!

On the other hand, it doesn't make sense to knock local meat production while eating quinoa flown in from South America.

Anyway, if you really want to get down to it: not having children is the best thing you can do to fight climate change. That gets really interesting when the vegans start their attempts to get people to go on their diet.

The problem is that things are indeed an echo chamber without opinions being challenged.

Propaganda

I find it interesting that to hear about Hunter Biden and his laptop one has to dig for that information in the US media. On the other hand, I was saying "WHOA!" when I heard about the Bidens and Ukraine. Lots of other things going on which have me wondering, but the silence is bothersome. Particularly from my co-bloggers.

There are lots of ways to rig an election, one of which is to control the information. It's one thing to call Fox News viewers misinformed. Especially if one doesn't get good information from their news source: and US media is terribly untrustworthy.

My first reaction to Fox News was to want to turn the Television to the window and take a walk the way Poles did during martial law in the 1980s. I feel that way toward US media as a whole now. Fortunately, I don't have to watch it, but I am curious as to how Joe Biden can manage to maintain power given his obvious flaws. There are too many questions, but one is labelled a conspiracy theorist if they mention them.

If I have any influence from the Soviet Bloc, it is to question the party line. Especially if that party line is left unchallenged. Add in that the people who question are persecuted for airing the opinions. It's nice that the internet allows for the publication of opposing viewpoints, but whether those viewpoints are seen is another matter.

The reality is that there may be another sham election where a weak candidate may end winning against a much stronger opposition. Where districts which should be impossible to win are won.

One doesn't need to be a conspiracy theorist to question that.

Is PBS Credible anymore?

I am going to make a disclaimer that I believe in true public broadcasting, but US public broadcasting is commercial. It has commercials in the form of "underwriting" by large corporations, which is pretty much the same thing as being commercial. Yes, the fact that it is not free of big money influence make it a part of the rest of US media. Big business can threaten to take away its money and PBS is SCREWED--BIG TIME!

Which takes us to this clip from PBS News Hour where one of the commentators says "There hasn't been any obvious gaffes, big scandals, or anything like that."

Funny how Hunter's Laptop has been missing from the media (and I never heard back from Burisma about my job application).

It will probably also be missing again this election cycle (PBS shut off comments to this).

  

I should add that these two clowns are from the New York Times and the Washington Post. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos who would be eating 50 cent burritos if the duopoly wasn't in power and was whacked by someone vaguely like Bernie Sanders enforcing US competition laws.

I live in hope for that day.

But this gets to where Fox News is wrong: The Democrats are nowhere near left wing. In fact, the Republicans have also strayed from their true populist roots, which makes it even funnier when I read Shot in the Foot's blog: they might want to look up Minnesota Justice Harry Blackmun. Or even better, look up Richard Nixon's comments about firearms ownership.

As I like to say, I was rather shocked when I watched a documentary about Nixon (on PBS) and realised how lefty he seemed in the early 1990s!

Sorry for the digression, but US Politics has moved to the right. The Democratic Party has pretty much extinguished anything vaguely New Deal-Roosevelt, which means that someone like Bernie Sanders has no part in that party. Which is why I distrust anyone who claims to be to the left and is associated with that party. It cannot be fixed from within.

The reason that Biden is president is that he appeals to the big donors, which is why the Tech giants can deny the existance of Hunter's laptop and what it means to Joe Biden. So, that really wasn't that much of a digression. 

There isn't much of a "lefty media" in the US other than some things on the internet (E.g.: Real News Network and Democracy Now), but they don't have much of an audience. Which means we are left with Fox News and Sky News Australia who get only part of the story, and are taken about as seriously as Democracy Now.

I feel like someone in occupied Europe trying to get reliable information when I look at the US media because it isn't there.

"All the News fit to Print" is propaganda, or at least explains their editorial policy in that they only feel they need to print what they believe should be printed. 

And Hunter's laptop and associated scandal is nowhere to be seen.

Russell Brand on why blindly ignoring Fox news is wrong

I hate that both sides are failing to acknowledge that there are problems with the system and "bickering about which propagandist network is the worse isn't going to save an American life, or improve the life of a single American child."

 

The fun thing about not only not using US media, but moving to another language

French media is talking about this in a disinterested manner.

And pointing out how much the Democrats have blown it with continuing their witch hunt on Trump while ignoring their own problems, which I'm not going to bother mentioning if you aren't aware of them by now.

This story is only "à la un" on the broadcast media. The print media are like the Private Eye "Heir of Sorrows" series where it listed off headlines from the British dailies. In this case, the French are concerning themselves with issues of French interest.

That is pretty much the strike relating to the change in retirement regulations making people have to wait longer to retire.

And you wonder why I prefer Europe to the US. Especially when the US has become a banana republic having to resort to political prosecutions instead of addressing the issues it needs to. The partisanism is totally disgusting to me.
 

Six common mistakes foreign journalists covering Russian invasion of Ukraine make

 My note: I mention that I get my info direct from the sources. Well, they aren't really happy with how this war is being covered. And I agree with what they say here, so. This is the complete piece from the New Voice of Ukraine, posted with permission:

 https://english.nv.ua/nation/six-common-mistakes-foreign-journalists-covering-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-make-50227712.html

NV is publishing an open letter to the foreign media covering Russian invasion of Ukraine from Ukrainian media organizations, reporters, photographers, media managers and communication professionals

Dear colleagues,

On February 24 2022, Russia began an unprovoked full scale invasion of Ukraine, a massive escalation of their eight-year war in Donbas in east Ukraine. Russia’s war is conducted along four axes, attacking all major Ukrainian cities with missiles, air strikes and in most instances, ground forces. Untold numbers of civilians and servicemen have been killed. In just over three weeks, more than three million Ukrainians have become refugees in Europe. Four members of the media community have been killed by Russian forces: Oleksandra Kuvshynova, Brent Renaud, Evgen Sakun and Pierre Zakrzewski.

Russian forces kidnap Ukrainian journalists in order to silence them, thus a Ukrainian journalist Viktoriya Roschina and Oleh Baturin spent 6 and 8 days in captivity after disappearing. Ukrainian photojournalist Maks Levin disappeared on March 13th while reporting from the frontline near Kyiv. A publisher from Melitopol Mikhail Kumok and three journalists - Yevgeniya Boryan, Yuliya Olkhovska and Lyubov Chaika - has been also detained for 1 day and have been pressured to collaborate with Russian occupational regime in their city. 

Simultaneously Russia has been attacking our core values of truthful, fact-driven and honest reporting through continuous disinformation campaigns. Many people are not aware of the scale and depth of these campaigns, and their full impact is yet to be felt. 

Read also:

Ukraine’s culture, foreign ministers urge journalists to mind their language on Donbas conflict

The effectiveness of these disinformation narratives did not happen overnight. They took time to seep into public discourse, capitalizing on misrepresentations or misunderstandings over language, history and politics, and exacerbating existing divisions in society until they began to stifle civil discussion.

This is why, as individual journalists and organizations from the Ukrainian media community who have battled with Russian information warfare since 2014,  we would like to highlight the following points regarding the language used to describe this war. Some of them might not be obvious but are vitally important to us and a truthful representation of this war. We ask media organizations to share this with their newsrooms and audiences:

1. One common error is to use terms like “crisis”, “conflict” or “military operation”, or call it “Ukrainian” i.e. “Ukraine Crisis” or “Ukraine conflict”. This is a full scale invasion of, and war against, Ukraine. We ask you to correctly indicate Russia’s role in the war with the wording “Russia’s war in Ukraine” and/or “Russian invasion of Ukraine”, especially in captions, headlines, leads and hashtags.

Read also:

How to improve media coverage of Russian invasion — suggestions from Ukrainian analysts

2. At the same time, we ask not to overuse the phrase “Putin's war”. Even though there is a temptation to believe that this war started only because of the Russian president, several polls from diverse polling organizations (Savanta ComRes, VCIOM, the research project "Do Russians Want War?") have reported that the silent majority of Russians – roughly 60 percent – support the war. During the first week of the war, public support for Putin in Russia grew from 60 to 71 percent. Russian soldiers on the ground are firing missiles and bombs, and deliberately killing civilians. Many of them do not have access to the facts and to independent media, but this does not take responsibility away from them.

3. Many refer to the 2014 pseudo-referendums in the Ukrainian territories of Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts as explanations for Russian military aggression. This is misleading. The territories of Crimea, and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, were annexed and occupied by Russian forces in 2014. Crimea was annexed by Russia in an unequivocal violation of international law. The war in Donbas was exclusively orchestrated and supported by the Russian State. The pseudo-referendums and proxy republics are not recognised by the international community. Experts (Orysia Lutsevych, Andrew Wilson, and Nikolay Mitrokhin to name a few) emphasize that neither the creation of the puppet "republics" in Donetsk and Luhansk nor the conventional war would have happened without Russian involvement.  The current escalation demonstrates Russia’s desire to control the whole of Ukraine, and these “republics” are used as a platform for full-scale invasion and a tool for propaganda and disinformation. 

Read also:

Ukraine’s leading party chief blames foreign media for spreading fake news about Russian invasion

4. Additionally the quasi “republics” in Donbas are not another armed side of the conflict. They operate as part of the Russian army and mercenaries fighting in Ukraine. Using terms like “separatist-held areas” is therefore incorrect. Please consider using "Russian proxies".

5. Another common error we observe is to report Ukrainian and Russian positions as “two equal perspectives''. Russian positions are based on lies, propaganda and denial of the existence of Ukraine as a nation and state. Russian propaganda is not just “strategic communication” or another point of view, it is using disinformation to justify killing thousands of civilians and continuing a completely unprovoked war. 

The narrative that characterizes the war as a proxy one between Russia and the West denies Ukrainian agency - something that the Ukrainian people’s resistance to invasion clearly demonstrates. NATO is an alliance based on the right of sovereign nations to collective defense, enshrined in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. By focusing on ‘expansion’, the media are perpetuating the Kremlin’s justification for war and ignoring the democratic voice of the Ukrainian people who wish to live in peace, free from Russian aggression.

6. Finally, we implore you to include, engage and hear Ukrainian experts. The majority of international experts specialize in Russia or Eastern Europe. We ask to include Ukrainian experts, or those who have lived and worked in Ukraine in the journalism you publish about the war. 

Information warfare and disinformation academics and experts warn that Russian tactics, perpetuated by its supporters here in the West and abroad, have one objective: to divide, deceive, sow doubt and create enough distrust of information that people do not know what to believe, and question even the most well-evidenced facts. They will play on the truths we tell ourselves and promises which go unkept. They will attack sentiments shared by, and within, ethnic, gender, linguistic and socio-economic groups. Disinformation aims to oversimplify existing issues and turn victims into perpetrators. We see this already with Russians supporting this war believing they are fighting NATO and "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine. We have seen it in the past with disinformation targeting the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe and the truth behind the downing of flight MH-17 in 2014. 

A full and truthful account of this war is pivotal to defeating Russia’s information war, consisting of propaganda and manipulation targeted at Ukraine and at liberal democratic countries and institutions. Therefore, we believe that the public needs to be aware of how Russia will manipulate the effects of this war. They will attempt to weaponize behaviors which contradict our collective values, such as double standards towards refugees and racial discrimination against minority groups. They will attempt to hyper-charge the rise of nationalist movements, in order to deflect the blame from Russia to Ukraine, NATO and Europe.

We believe that it is important to raise these issues now, to allow for a civilized and open discourse on how to collectively tackle these and future issues which undoubtedly will arise from this war.

Signed,

Media organizations:

Commission on Journalism Ethics

Ukrainian Media Business Association

National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, - Sergiy Tomilenko, President

Institute of Mass Information - Oksana Romaniuk, director 

Internews Ukraine - Kostiantyn Kvurt, the head

Regional Press development Institute

Center for Democracy and Rule of Law 

Independent Media Council, Ukraine 

Ukrainian Media and Communication Institute - Diana Dutsyk, CEO

Detector media NGO - Natalyia Lygachova, head, chief editor

Souspilnist Foundation, - Taras Petriv, president  

Media Development Foundation - Eugene Zaslavsky, Executive Director 

Ukrainian Association of media psychologists and media educators - Lyubov Naydonova, President

Suspilne (UA: PBC) - Angelina Kariakina, head of news

Hromadske - Yuliia Fediv, CEO 

LB.UA - Sonya Koshkina, Editor-in-Chief

Ukrayinska Pravda - Sevgil Musaieva, chief editor 

Zaborona Media - Katerina Sergatskova, editor-in-chief, Roman Stepanovych, CEO

Realnaya Gazeta - Andrii Dikhtiarenko, chief editor 

Glavcom (Information Agency) - Mykola Pidvezianiy, chief editor 

Individual journalists, media professionals, experts

Emine Ziyatdinova, Independent Media consultant and documentary photographer. London, UK. 

Nina Kuryata, Independent Media consultant. Kyiv, Ukraine. 

Svitlana Ostapa, Supervisory Board of PJSC, the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, The Chair 

Maryna Synhaivska, "Ukrinform" National News Agency of Ukraine, Deputy Director General  

Liza Kuzmenko, Head of NGO “Women in the Media”, the CJE member 

Julia Smirnova, analyst and journalist, London

Olena Dub, journalist, media-consultant

Olga Yurkova, media trainer, media consultant

Marichka Varenikova, freelance journalist and producer 

Oksana Parafeniuk, freelance photojournalist and producer 

Tetiana Stroi, CEO of Donetsk Press Club, media trainer, media expert

Svitlana Yeremenko, CEO of Pylyp Orlyk Institute for Democracy, journalist, media expert

Roman Kifliuk, independent media expert

Anastasia Magazova, journalist and author, Berlin/Kyiv

Anastasia Vlasova, visual storyteller

Oksana Grytsenko, independent journalist

Tetiana Pechonchyk, head of the Human Rights Center ZMINA, the CJE member 

Andrii Ianitskyi, Center for Journalism at Kyiv School of Economics, the head

Veronika Melkozerova, the New Voice of Ukraine executive editor

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

All the News that's fit to print?

Or "The US media is as liberal as the large corporations that own them."

Part of propaganda is to stir up the emotions.

And no country does it better than the good old USA!

Unfortunately, my reaction when I saw all the gushing on about the Kurds was to think: "When the fuck has the US ever really cared about the Kurds?"

That wasn't the response that the US Media was hoping to elicit from me. I was supposed to be upset about what was going on in Syria.

Well, in another way than it is a mistake that has come back to bite the US in the ass.

Trump talks about fake news, which the US Main Stream Media likes to pretend it isn't. But there is a definite bias there.

FAIR.org has a fantastic piece on how most of the reporting on the situation in Syria misrepresents the facts.

You might want to compare NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's comments to Erdogan to Trump's letter.

Not sure what to say about Trump's handling of the situation, but I will say he is the perfect distraction for what is really going on right now. It's really easy to blame Trump for a situation which should never been allowed to have happen.

What's the alternative?

I hear a lot of people criticising Trump for the Syria thing, but I don't see any alternative solutions being offered. The problem is that this was a time bomb where the US was acting with NATO ally Turkey in Syria.

The Kurds were good for being proxy troops for the US, but they were a problematic ally. First off, the Turks (and US) lists them as being terrorists. Secondly, the Kurds' loyalty was to themselves and their goal of a nation. That was a goal that the US could never honestly promise. And while the Kurds will happily fight anyone: they won't do it for someone else unless the someone else is going to protect them.

That leads to problem one: the Kurds will shift loyalties to who ever will protect them. They were fighting with Assad early in the conflict. The US lured them away, but the Kurds made it clear that they would switch back to Assad if the US stopped protecting them. The problem is that the military isn't the body that makes the decision: the politicians are. The military isn't supposed to question: it's supposed to obey.

And the military can't make too many friends in a place where there are rapidly changing allegiances such as the Syrian Civil War. Learn a lesson from the Kurds, your loyalty is to yourself first.

The Kurds were an American ally against ISIS, not Turkey. The United States made no commitment to protect the Kurds against the Turkish army, much less assist them in maintaining a degree of independence in northern Syria that I know about. The United States was entitled to pursue its own interests in the region without some form of formal agreement. Neither Trump nor Obama defined those interests in a way that would justify a deepening military engagement in Syria. 

Leaving the few soldiers in the Kurdish zone endangers American lives. The Generals who felt strongly could have disobeyed orders if they felt such a strong tie to the Kurds, but then the blame would fall on them for endangering their troops in a Turkish invasion.

Next problem: the NATO Treaty.  The Treaty is a formal agreement, unlike whatever was between the US and Kurds. The existence of a Treaty ruled out a military response of any sort. A no-fly zone would be a no-no. Nothing says betrayal like shooting down an Ally's airplane.

On the other hand, Congress could declare war on Turkey if they feel as strongly as they purport to, but they won't.

The only real options are economic or diplomatic. The only real difference between what I would have done and what Trump did would have been to get international action to prevent the Turkish invasion. I also would have begun working on an exit strategy earlier. The Turkish invasion of Syria was not something which was in any way a surprise, yet no one did anything to prevent the problem.

The big problem is that there is a lot of bluster here. Congress is blustering. The Generals are blustering. The Turks are blustering. Trump is Blustering.

It's easy to play the blame game, but this was a disaster waiting to happen.  Too many people failed to act to prevent the problem.

At this point, the US should take a deep breath and look at how it got into yet another mess.

See also:

• Trump’s Ending of Wars Could Derail the Democrats

If Barack Obama made a really stupid decision about US troop deployment: wouldn't we hear about it?

Something that Senator Lindsay Graham would describe as “the dumbest idea in the world.”

What I am describing is something that would put the US into conflict with a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member.

Something which should have had congressional approval before being implemented. Something along the lines of funding an organisation which the US State Department lists as being a terrorist organisation.

Yet, that is exactly the situation that happened in Syria. After all the person who was president when the American-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War was Barack Obama.

There are a lot of things which stink to me about the US coverage of this event. The main one is the sudden sympathy for the Kurds.

But even more bothering is that Donald Trump is being blamed for something which sits squarely on Barack Obama's shoulders.

Yet even people who would have attacked Barack Obama are criticising Trump for this situation.

Trump was right? or who really committed treason?

Treason is the only crime defined in the US Constitution (Article III, Section iii):

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Prosecutions under this section are rare since it requires the act to take place during war time.

I'm no fan of Donald Trump.

On the other hand, whose administration decided to arm a group on the US State Department's list of Terrorist organisations. An action that would eventually lead to conflict with a NATO treaty ally?

Of course, you can't just blame Obama since congress knew, but did nothing about it. In a previously posted video, Lindsay Graham asks about the Kurds being listed as terrorists. Sen. Graham was among the harshest critics of Trump’s decision this week. Graham was once sympathetic to Turkish concerns and called the partnership with the Syrian Kurds “the dumbest idea in the world” in an April 2016 Senate hearing, given the PKK connection (clip mentioned above).

The question is who in the US was in charge on September 22, 2014 when the US began its involvement in Syria!

See also:

• The US played down Turkey’s concerns about Syrian Kurdish forces. That couldn’t last.

Syria, Trump Derangement Syndrome, and the Media

I have to admit to being baffled by the current reaction to Trump's decision to remove 50-250 soldiers from the Kurdish held area of Syria. Probably because I am somewhat aware of the situation, which means I see this as nothing new.

I'm no fan of Donald Trump, but the way the current Turkish invasion has been portrayed seriously makes me question the bias of US media. There has been absolutely NO discussion of some serious background points that put an entirely different spin to this story.

Part of me wanted to subtitle this "I love it when Barack Obama gets us involved in pointless military exercises." US involvement in the Syrian Civil War began back on 22 September 2014 during the Obama administration.

YPJ girl soldiers: shouldn't they be in school?

It seems that the Trump detractors have been too willing to think that the "abandonment" of the Kurd was somehow "sudden" when anyone familiar with this will tell you that it is amazing it hasn't happened yet. The Kurds in Syria are tied to the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan). This group is considered a terrorist group by the United States, European Union, and NATO: to name a few. The YPG/YPJ's use of child soldiers should be embarrassing as fuck to people who are trying to make Syria's Kurds somehow "allies" of the west. The Kurds are no saints, but you wouldn't guess that from the current attention they are getting lately.

Andrew McCarthy gets to the crux of the matter:

The Kurds have been our allies against ISIS, but it is not for us that they have fought. They fight ISIS for themselves, with our help. They are seeking an autonomous zone and, ultimately, statehood. The editorial fails to note that the Kurds we have backed, led by the YPG (People’s Protection Units), are the Syrian branch of the PKK (the Kurdistan Worker’s Party) in Turkey. The PKK is a militant separatist organization with Marxist-Leninist roots. Although such informed observers as Michael Rubin contend that the PKK has “evolved,” it remains a formally designated foreign terrorist organization under U.S. law. While our government materially supports the PKK’s confederates, ordinary Americans have been prosecuted for materially supporting the PKK.

The fact is that:

"The Kurdish militias weren’t Washington’s first choice. U.S. attempts to train secular, anti-Assad, Syrian Arab forces to fight on its behalf cost hundreds of millions of dollars but produced just 5-50 fighters. The U.S. was forced to change tack and support Syrian Kurdish militias. The largest and most powerful of these were the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which were later called the “Syrian Democratic Forces” in the hopes of easing Turkish hostility and endearing the new fighting force to the predominantly Arab territories it began to conquer with U.S. air support."

What bothers me most about all this is the sudden concern for the Kurds, a group which has been fucked over for some time in the geopolitical struggles of this region. The Kurds say that they "have no friends, but the mountains." On the other hand, all the anti-Trump forces have developed a deep love for  these "strong allies of the US."

Another thing which is conspicuous in all this is the fact that Turkey and The Kurds have had an armed conflict going on since at least 1978. There have been two other Turkish "invasions" of Syria (2016 and 2018) prior to the latest. A Northern Syria Buffer Zone was created by agreement between Turkey, The Kurds, and the US. Turkey felt the Kurds were in breach of that agreement, which is the reason for the current mess.

An even more important point which is missing is that Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, as is the United States.  NATO, as a treaty adopted by the United States is part of US law (US Constitution Article VI, ii)! The Turks as co-signators of the treaty are our allies, not the Kurds.

As far as I know there is no formal agreement between the US and Kurds making them "allies" of any sort. In fact, the Kurds have fought with the Assad Regime and their Russian Allies during the Northern Aleppo offensive of 2016. The Kurds will fight with whoever promises to protect them at the moment. They aren't strong allies of anybody but themselves.

The Kurds can fuck back in the same manner as they have been fucked with in the political events of the region which makes it amusing when people try to make them out as "strong allies".  Anyone who says that appears to be ignorant about the Kurdish people. The Kurds will find that all this concern will vanish like writing in the sand after the next news cycle.

Scott Ritter, the man who was "the loudest and most credible skeptic of the Bush administration’s contention that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction" writes:

That Turkey, an American NATO ally, is waging war against the SDF (which the Turks label as YPG/PKK—more on that later), while at the same time targeting ISIS, the archenemy of the all these Kurdish groups, underscores the complexity of the regional politics at play in northern Syria today. Deciphering this alphabet soup goes a long way towards explaining why the Turkish actions are justified and why President Trump will ultimately be vindicated for pulling the troops out.  

The reality of the situation is as Scott puts it:

The American embrace of the SDF was always a temporary solution to the problem of ISIS. The United States never has supported a greater Kurdish nation. And while there’s been much lip service to the idea of using the SDF as a vehicle to destabilize the government of Bashar al-Assad, regime change has never been seriously pursued by the United States in Syria.

The most important point is raised by Andrew McCarthy:

 Our intervention in Syria has never been authorized by Congress. Those of us who opposed intervention maintained that congressional authorization was necessary because there was no imminent threat to our nation. Contrary to the editorial’s suggestion, having U.S. forces “deter further genocidal bloodshed in northern Syria” is not a mission for which Americans support committing our men and women in uniform. Such bloodlettings are the Muslim Middle East’s default condition, so the missions would never end.

A congressional debate should have been mandatory before we jumped into a multi-layered war, featuring anti-American actors and shifting loyalties on both sides. In fact, so complex is the situation that President Obama’s initial goal was to oust Syria’s Assad regime; only later came the pivot to fighting terrorists, which helped Assad. That is Syria: Opposing one set of America’s enemies only empowers another. More clear than what intervention would accomplish was the likelihood of becoming enmeshed, inadvertently or otherwise, in vicious conflicts of which we wanted no part — such as the notorious and longstanding conflict between Turks and Kurds.

There are a lot of different players in the Syrian Civil War. It was a dangerous game for the US to have entered. Although, it wasn't really just the US that was involved here: Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve comprised soldiers from at least Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. There were more troops on the ground than the 50-250 US soldiers.

I find the media's story troubling because I see narrative in the US media which is highly partisan and interventionist. I see a concern which is based not on reality, but on a media image which couldn't be further from the fact.

But it sure is convenient for making Trump look bad.

See also:

• In supporting the Kurds in Syria, US has been playing fast and loose with the law
• A decade of policymaking failures is to blame for new Syria crisis
• The US has backed 21 of the 28 'crazy' militias leading Turkey's brutal invasion of northern Syria | The Grayzone
• Trump’s Betrayal of the Kurds Is Terrible, But the Answer Is Not Endless War 
• Why the Syria's Kurdish Militia Can't Do What Washington Wants 
• The U.S. played down Turkey’s concerns about Syrian Kurdish forces. That couldn’t last. 
•  A French Officer Speaks the Truth about the War in Syria
• Khury Petersen-Smith on Turkey & the Kurds
• State Department Maintains Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Designation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) 
• Explained: Why Turkey wants a military assault on Syrian Kurds
• Syrian Kurds say YPG no different than Daesh
• Why the Syrian Kurds Aren’t Necessarily Our Friends
• The Only Thing That Can Save the Kurds Is Themselves
• Eight Times the U.S. has Betrayed the Kurds
• Turkey and the Kurds: It’s More Complicated Than You Think  
• The War for Post-U.S. Syria Has Begun
• Trump says he’s ending the US role in Syria. That’s not true. 
• Trump is right to take troops out of Syria. Now they must leave Iraq and Afghanistan 
• What is the Situation in North-eastern Syria?
•  Who will rule the north?The Kurds are creating a state of their own in northern Syria
• The Kurds Once Again Face American Abandonment
• Dispatch: Anger on Turkish border as conflict reveals contradiction at the heart of Western Syria policy
• VOA: Coalition says 'Good Progress' in North Syria Buffer Zone
•  US withdrawal in Syria is only a small number of special operators, says Trump administration
• Wikipedia: Northern Syria Buffer Zone 
• Wikipedia: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)
• In Pictures: Turkey's military operation in northeast Syria

America Deserves Donald trump

Don't let the title cause you to think that I approve of the current US president. No, this is an affirmation that a nation gets the government it deserves.

And the US deserves Donald Trump for all its failing to properly address the issues that it faces. In particular, the failings of its rigged political system. But that is a symptom of something much larger. I would say that the anti-intellectualism which is a feature of US society is another contributing factor.

What really pissed me off isn't the election of Donald Trump and the failure to properly address the cause, but an ignorant statement made by someone in authority about US immigration. Although, not sure how much “authority" can be given to someone who is director of the US tenement museum. The comment was along the lines of people whose ancestors came here and became citizens somehow are similar to the "dreamers" of today.

Part of this was based on the fact that immigration laws weren't that strict up until the late 19th-early 20th Century; however there were still immigration laws.  That is a flawed argument for a myriad of reasons: the basic one being that laws change.  You can't legally try a case which happened in the past using current law or judge a modern case by outdated law.

Another issue at work here is the national myth that people came here for a better life, which wasn't always true.  The US needs to get in touch with its convict immigrant heritage since, besides slaves, not everyone came here for a better life.

Prior to the US War for Independence, the US was the dumping ground for England's convicts:

As the 17th century drew to a close, lawmakers sought a less harsh punishment that might still deter potential offenders; penal transportation with a term of indentured servitude became the more common punishment. This trend was continued by the Transportation Act 1717 (16 Geo. 3 c.43), which regulated and subsidized the practice, until its use was suspended by the Criminal Law Act 1776. With the American Colonies already in active rebellion, parliament claimed its continuance "is found to be attended with various inconveniences, particularly by depriving this kingdom of many subjects whose labour might be useful to the community, and who, by proper care and correction, might be reclaimed from their evil course". This law would become known as the Hard Labour act and the Hulks act for both its purpose and its result. With the removal of the important transportation alternative to the death penalty, it would in part prompt the use of prisons for punishment and the start of prison building programs. (source)

Of course, the situation here was solved by Australia, but that is an aside. The term "indentured servant" sounds a lot better than convict. it also plays into the aspirational aspect of the US myth: "your ancestors came to America as a Servant in hopes of a better life."

That plays out a lot better than your ancestors were shipped to the colonies to escape the noose.

Of course, it also puts a different light on early American immigration in that blacks weren't the only people shipped to the Colonies against their will.  And do some research into indentured servitude in the Early North American Colonies if you are going to try and argue that it wasn't as bad as being a slave.

Of course, trying to draw a distinction between slavery and indentured servitude is useful if you want to divide people up by race. Add "Bacons Rebellion" in Virginia to the reading list.

But the real issue here isn't slavery or race as much as it is the aspirational aspect of immigration. As long as the myth is that people came here for a better life, one might "forgive" a person for breaking the law because they want a better life for their family.  On the other hand, Australia used to have cheap fares for immigrants up until recently, but now has incredibly strict immigration laws. Is there a lesson to be learned here?

Personally, I don't think an unlawfully present person's life happens to be better since they know they can be deported. The "dream" if there really is one is that people will someone ignore that the unlawfully present person is violating immigration law: even if it doesn't come with strong penalties.

But the real upshot here is that the US deserves a president who gives the appearance of possibly being much more affluent than he really is (isn't that the real issue with his tax returns?).  One doesn't need tax returns since there are multiple bankruptcies and other evidence his "wealth" has not been beneficial to those around him.

But the bottom line is all about the dream.  Maybe it's time for a strong dose of reality.

Thoughts on US Third Parties.

This comes from watching the French election, which is a similar legislative-executive system to the US.  I will also admit to voting Green from a disgust with the US duopoly (i.e., the Democrats and Republicans) and its stranglehold on the system.
In a way Dan Savage is correct, the third parties should be running candidates lower down the ticket, in particular for the legislature. That is because a third party would be more effective in pushing its agenda there, or at least in blocking other parties from pushing theirs. It is more effective to be a spoiler/fixer in the legislature than in an election.  Third parties will become a force to be reckoned with once they demonstrate they have power, but they need to be the force to do what the obstructionists in congress have been doing. Or to thwart the obstruction.
One of the Clintonista/Democrat talking points was that the party is a coalition of various political views, but the duopoly parties are failed coalitions.  In some ways, they have become titular left-right parties, although I would argue any difference is more in appearance and relation to hot button issues (e.g. abortion and gun control [1]).  The past election showed how detrimental relying upon hot button issues is to real issues (e.g., the environment).
Third parties are good for keeping politics real. Case in point are the presidential debates which are no longer run by the League of Women Voters.  The president of the LWV, Nancy M. Neuman, denounced this action when the LWV ceased having any real control over the debates:

"It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions," Neuman said. "The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."
Neuman said that the campaigns presented the League with their debate agreement on
September 28, two weeks before the scheduled debate. The campaigns' agreement was negotiated "behind closed doors" and vas presented to the League as "a done deal," she said, its 16 pages of conditions not subject to negotiation.
Most objectionable to the League, Neuman said, were conditions in the agreement that gave the campaigns unprecedented control over the proceedings. Neuman called "outrageous" the campaigns' demands that they control the selection of questioners, the composition of the audience, hall access for the press and other issues.
"The campaigns' agreement is a closed-door masterpiece," Neuman said. "Never in the history of the League of Women Voters have two candidates' organizations come to us with such stringent, unyielding and self-serving demands."
Neuman said she and the League regretted that the American people have had no real opportunities to judge the presidential nominees outside of campaign-controlled environments.

lwv.org/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud
I would that change is drastically needed in US politics, particularly its system of elections, but that will not come as long as the duopoly holds power.
I have pointed out that the Electoral College needs to be abolished, yet the fact that Clinton's "loss" was due to her failing to secure enough votes in the Electoral College is again overlooked and substituted for blame on everything except the existence of that body (as was the case in 1990).  Both times the "losers" won the popular vote.
Of course, abolition of the Electoral College is only one thing in what is probably a long wish list of electoral reforms needed in the US:

open debates run by an impartial body like the League of Women Voters, shorter election cycles, open primaries, ranked choice voting, return of the fairness doctrine and equal time rule (Trump used the lack of it to get shitloads of free publicity), campaign finance reform--if not publicly funded campaigns, easier access to the ballot for parties, reform or abolish the electoral college, end gerrymandering, handcounted paper ballots or receipts, and I am sure that is only the beginning.

While one can dream that there will be internal change, it doesn't seem likely since the parties still seem entrenched in the same behaviours which have led to the US political system being the disaster it is.
OK, we also need to add in media consolidation here since it is one way the "state" can get away with  form of censorship, but only allowing one message to get out.  Also controlling any opposing voices.
Any real change has to come through the system since violence will backfire and result in the wrong type of change.  Thus any dissenting parties best chance has to be to try and thwart the duopoly and use the duopoly's power against it.
Change has to come, but it must come by using the system to gain power and then force change.
[1] This is not to say gun control is not important (or abortion), but these issues have been used to get people to vote against their interests.  Neither is one of left and right, but of public welfare and safety.

The difference between US vs UK Ebola news coverage

From the show Russell Howard's Good News


BTW, that's Dele Adebola