IDIOTIZED PUBLICS

SUBHUTI2—It’s two mafia (maybe more) factions in a war of all against all with us little people serially screwed, sitting on the sidelines, mystified and confused over what the hell is going on. It’s democracy for the oligarchs, who get to fight it out with all the dirty tricks at their disposal. The voting machine and dead voters are the strategy of one faction, but that hardly lets Trump and his faction off the hook.

DIANA JOHNSTONE—“authoritarian white supremacy” and “radical Marxist socialism” while offering absolutely nothing in terms of coherent public policy of benefit to the American people and the world. The politicians cling to ineffective office, while the future is being planned elsewhere.

Policy will be designed by the Global Governors, for instance at the next meeting in Davos of the World Economic Forum which, according to its founder and chairman Klaus Schwab, will lay out the “Great Reset” agenda for the Fourth Industrial Revolution that is destined to reshape all our lives. Nicolas Berggruen will be there with his ideas.  So will other billionaires. 

Why would an Israeli attack envenom U.S.-Iran relations? Because Israel would only undertake such an attack with the O.K. of the Trump administration. (“While it’s highly unlikely that Israel would have carried out the assassination without a green light from the Trump administration, a more direct U.S. role cannot be entirely discounted” — Trita Parsi at Responsible Statecraft.)

Now does anyone really think this was Trump’s idea? No: Israel is acting to its own devilish ends, and the U.S. government is signing off. Netanyahu has directly told Biden he must not reenter the Iran deal.

BBC News correspondent Orla Guerin got more than she bargained for when her questioning of President Aliyev about the supposed lack of media freedom in his country ended up with him grilling her on Julian Assange’s imprisonment. Guerin’s interview with Aliyev on Monday took an unexpected turn when the journalist alleged that the Azerbaijani people lacked access to non-state-sanctioned media and could not enjoy their human rights to the fullest, As evidence, she cited “many independent sources,” but did not name them. 

JONATHAN COOK—Biden isn’t over the finishing line quite yet, and there are likely to be recounts, court challenges and possibly violence over the result, but he seems all but certain to be crowned the next U.S. president. Not that that should provoke any kind of celebration. The rest of the world’s population, future generations, the planet itself – none of us had a vote – were always going to be the losers whichever candidate won. The incumbent, Donald Trump, miscalculated, it seems, if he thought dismissing his opponent as “Sleepy Joe” would be enough to damage Biden’s electoral fortunes. True, Trump was referring to the fact that Biden is a dried-out husk of the machine politician he once was. But after four years of Trump and in the midst of a pandemic, the idea of sleeping through the next presidential term probably sounded pretty appealing to liberals. Most of them have spent their whole political lives asleep.