Quick Quips: Blame America – I Do

03/06/2019

Having been busy with university work the last two weeks, I have regrettably let my daily post spree falter yet again – although dare I say the 2000 words in the previous post counts for three or four standard posts? I think not, but I should have more time in the coming weeks. There’s no real limit to the number of things to talk about these days – mostly due to the US, as always.

• In the university piece I wrote, I referred to the whole “Russiagate” story as just a wild distraction that media dangled in front of captive audiences. Russia, WikiLeaks, Trump – it’s all connected! Never mind every other, more influential factor that led to Trump’s victory. Political writer Paul Street put together a disturbing CV of the Trump administration’s environmental policy, and he also blamed “Russiagate” coverage for stealing the limelight, in this case from a number of factors leading to geocide. He also doesn’t spare the Democrats, as much of the mainstream media tends to sometimes do.
• A group of Hondurans, including the country’s dictator President, have been caught up in an investigation by the DEA for drug trafficking and money laundering. Seeing that the Obama administration backed the coup that put Hernández in power, and that the Trump administration – Trump himself, in fact – congratulated his ‘reelection’, despite highly suspicious (rigged) circumstances, it will be interesting to see how much comes out of this.
• Speaking of illegal activities backed by the US, Israel is having quite the crisis at the moment. Another election is needed to decide between what Palestinian diplomat Hanan Ashrawi described as two different sides to a very “right-wing” government. Either the racist and religious party or the racist and secular party – they are the two choices Ashrawi saw, the latter of which current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called ‘left’. Truly an example of how little meaning the left and right labels have. Whoever wins, the Palestinians won’t.
• The Middle East’s favourite product of American nepotism, Jared Kushner, has no faith in Palestine’s future either. His long awaiting peace plan will hardly be accepted by the Arabs, a fact that Israel and the US undoubtedly already know and which they will use to condemn the ‘terrorists’ of not being willing to negotiate. I would hardly consider decades of oppression, illegal settlements, multiple invasions, and an economic and humanitarian blockade a worthy start for negotiations, but hey, can’t criticise Israel – maybe I’ll just have to be the leader of the UK Labour Party from now on.
• Quite some time ago, I saw a book called Island Off the Coast of Asia by Clinton Fernandes. This week (after requesting it from a friend) I got it as a belated birthday gift. Given the praise of it by Noam Chomsky on the front cover, it seems like it will be an interesting read when I get to it. Seeing as it is about Australian politics, which many of my hundreds of books are not, it will be a nice change to pick up a thing or two about my own country’s deeds – or misdeeds.
• For whatever reason, I ended up clicking on a video earlier today of Jordan Petersen. The gist of his advice was sound – be a better person, strive for goals in life, be the best you can in your professions, enjoy your work, etc. But he uses these rather common-sense ideas to turn around and say how great capitalism is, how amazing and necessary hierarchical systems are. He must’ve skipped over the part where work insecurity, financial insecurity, and the increasingly authoritarian nature of corporate workplaces – especially in third world countries – have significant negative effects on people. The system is designed to be oppressive, and Petersen’s fantasyland of a capitalist utopia is more far-fetched than the potential for a socialist, worker-run society.

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