Two weeks of Trump and heads are exploding all over the place

He can’t do that! Then he does it. Pulling the plug on USAID and NED is long overdue and highly laudable. Those are the two most potent tools that have been used to spread chaos throughout the world for the last half century. Sure, USAID does some legit humanitarian work, but mostly they stir up shit against foreign governments who are reluctant to take instruction from DC. Interesting to note that virtually all “independent media” in Ukraine has been silenced by the pause in USAID funding. How did we ever get to a place where we considered US-funded media in foreign countries to be “independent?” The retardation runs deep. Here’s another conundrum I’m grappling with; how is it possible for anyone on this planet to imagine that Trump’s coalition of billionaires are in fact the champions of the working class? The McDonald’s stunt and the garbage-truck stunt were brilliant PR strokes, but those were stunts, people! But here’s a bunch of working class hosers celebrating Mafia Don. Those stunts work! And that entire Gaza Riviera fantasy is beyond belief. You gotta give that new press secretary full marks for how she batted that back the next day. I’ll go out on a limb here and predict that both the working class and Arab Americans will regret their votes for Donny J sooner rather than later.

Globe and Mail reveals who is behind anti-Putin documentary "Navalny"

Barry Hertz has an interview with the Canadian director of the must-see documentary “Navalny” in the paper today. It’s an up-close look at the inner workings of Putin’s depraved, malevolent, paranoid, and incompetent inner circle. It made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival, and is now at Hot Docs in Toronto. It’s being heavily promoted by both CBC and the Globe. Director Dan Roher, a youngster with one previous doc under his belt, explains how the film came together. I was sitting around in lockdown, trying to figure out my next move… when in September 2020 I was invited to Vienna to meet this Bulgarian journalist, this Sherlock Holmes character named Christo Grozev. That trip turned into a visit to Kyiv. Christo said he might have a lead for Navalny. A week and a half later I met Alexy and it was now my job to convince him that not only was a documentary a good idea, but that it should be me who leads the project. It obviously wasn’t Dan Roher who lead the project, it was that “Sherlock Holmes character” Christo Grozev. Grozev has been “lead Russia investigator” at Bellingcat, which wants you to believe it is a collective of independent investigative journalists, since 2014. Oddly enough, this collective of independent journalists is funded by the US government via the National Endowment for Democracy. Odd, because the Assange case shows us all we need to know about America’s respect for independent journalism. Then again, it’s probably expecting too much of the journalists at CBC or the Globe & Mail to connect the dots.

Impeachment in the age of Cognitive Dissonance

Just in the past couple of days, the government of the United States has declared its support for the anti-China protests in China's Hong Kong, upended the global consensus on Israel's illegal settlement of Palestinian lands, and recognized the un-elected Anez as legitimate leader of Bolivia.

Meanwhile, we're treated to this impeachment circus, which is predicated on the fantasy that the US does not interfere in the affairs of other countries.

No country on earth does more behind-the-scenes arm-twisting, brow-beating, bribery, and extortion than does the US of A.

And that's just behind the scenes.

They don't mind destroying entire societies on centre stage, in full view of the entire world, on the flimsiest of fraudulent pretexts.

 See "shock and awe" for example.

The "Deep State" isn't all that deep. It's certainly not hidden from public view. The National Endowment for Democracy has a readily accessible website and issues reasonably transparent annual reports. They're proud to brag about where they're interfering!

But, we're supposed to believe that Trump did something out of the ordinary when he was strong-arming Zelensky?

Get outta here!

The narrative being spun out of the impeachment hearings beggars belief.

Joe Biden was America's point man for cleaning up corruption in Ukraine. That any country on the planet would need Washington's help in fighting corruption is a laughable proposition on the face of it, and of course another coarse example of brazen Yankee Doodle diddling in the affairs of a sovereign state.

While Joe was busy with that file, his boy Hunter coincidentally got a $50,000/month sinecure at one of Ukraine's most illustriously corrupt corporations. Hunter speaks neither Ukrainian nor Russian and has no qualifications to do anything whatsoever in Ukraine, save one.

His dear daddy was VP of the USA at the time.

If that doesn't stink, your sniffer ain't working.

Here we go again...

Bolivia just had an election, and the guy who won is not a favorite of Washington. Ergo, the election was obviously fraudulent.

Bolivia is another one of those countries where the US government-funded "Non-Governmental Agency" the National Endowment for Democracy has been generously building capacity and stuff, which boils down to funding any group of malcontents who promise to make trouble for the government the USA does not approve of.

The US immediately declared the election fraudulent, and was instantly backed up by the usual ass-kissers in the EU and its South American vassal states. No surprise there.

But it prompts this scoldy story by Evan Dyer at CBC; Canada not ready to condemn Bolivia's election. The tone suggests that Canada is being remiss in not puckering up in sync with the other toadies.

Don't worry, Evan; we'll surely pucker up soon enough. Give it 48 hours.

Getting in front of Zelensky

There's a reason Ukrainian voters voted overwhelmingly for political neophyte Volodymyr Zelensky this year; they're sick of the status quo. They saw in Zelensky hope for both a winding down of the conflict in the east, and a long-promised clean-up of Ukraine's famously corrupt political culture.

According to a feature story by Sarah Lawrynuik in the Toronto Sunday Star today, six months in, the natives are once again getting restless. Now they're afraid Zelensky will "capitulate" to Putin.

Lawrynuik's sources include a couple of disgruntled ex-pats who were "forced" out of Crimea, a few "patriots" who volunteered to fight in Donbas, and a couple of people with very close ties to foreign NGOs that have been meddling in Ukraine since well before the US-sponsored "Revolution of Dignity." There's not a whiff of "balance" to be found in the story.

A glance at a map and a passing acquaintance with Russia-Ukraine history would suggest that Russia has far more legitimate interests in Ukraine than does the US. This point of view is of course not shared by Washington, which continues to shower "pro-democracy activists" in Ukraine with lavish funding from the National Endowment for Democracy.

Their motto; "supporting freedom around the world," needs to be a little more specific. What freedoms are they supporting? The freedom of grifters like Biden and Trump to meddle in Ukraine's affairs? Lawrynuik recycles the three-year-old story of the alleged Surkov emails, reassuring us they "were judged to be authentic by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab."

Well duh! What else would we expect from NATO's propaganda arm?

"Military consultant" Glen Grant gets quoted a lot. He's a former UK army guy who's been making mischief in Eastern Europe on behalf of NATO for years. Last year he published an essay in the Western-sponsored Kyiv Post titled How Ukraine can build an army to beat Putin.

Those are the voices from Ukraine that the Toronto Star editorial board sees fit to represent to us what is happening in Ukraine. They're exclusively voices that want to push Zelensky towards further conflict with Russia.


That's not why 73% of Ukrainian voters made him their president. Western war-mongers need to shut up, butt out, and let him do his job.

Sticking it to the Ayatollahs

ACTIONS NOT WORDS screams the all caps headline on page O3 of today's Globe and Mail. It's the only story in the entire paper with an all caps headline, so it must be very important.

The gist of the piece is that Canada must do more to bring freedom and democracy to Iran, where a "freedom movement" erupted into widespread street demos in December. The caption under the picture informs us that "Iranian protesters chant slogans at a rally in Tehran, on Dec. 30."

That was my first chuckle. Those may well be Iranians chanting slogans, but they're carrying placards bearing the likeness of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Some doofus photo editor used a picture of a pro-government rally to illustrate an anti-government screed!

The authors of the piece should set off some alarms if you were expecting an honest opinion piece on the state of freedom and democracy in Iran. Nazanin Afshin-Jam Mackay, we are told, "is a long-time Iran human rights activist." She is also the wife of former Defence Minister Peter "Pinocchio" Mackay. If you follow her "activism" you'll be well aware it consists mostly of pining for the good old days of Iran's liberal democracy that prevailed from 1953 right up until the Ayatollahs came along and wrecked everything in 1979.

Her co-author is Shuvaloy Majumdar, whose last headline in a Canadian paper came after Trump announced the US embassy move to Jerusalem in December. Majumdar thought that a jolly good idea and argued that Canada should follow the American example, just to, you know, promote peace and human rights in the Middle East.

Majumdar turned up in Harper's inner circle after spending a few years in Afghanistan, spreading freedom and democratic goodness on behalf of the "International Republican Institute," one of the numerous US government "Non Government Organizations" charged with meddling in the politics of other countries. He was the mastermind behind Baird's decision to sever diplomatic relations with Tehran in 2012, a self-defeating exercise in idiocy unmatched in recent diplomatic history.

But it got Baird and Big Steve a pat on the back from Israel's PM Netanyahu, another long-time activist for human-rights in Iran. Funny how so many "human-rights activists" who are tireless advocates for the oppressed in Iran never have a word to say about the human rights of people who live under Israeli occupation. By all accounts, Jews in Iran enjoy far greater freedom and human rights than Palestinians in the West Bank.

Given the authorship, the opinions expressed are pretty much what you'd expect. Us good, them bad. We must therefore help freedom flourish in Iran the way it's flourishing in Iraq and Libya and Afghanistan and all the other beneficiaries of our meddling, and never forget that those Ayatollahs have rendered their country an isolated pariah state.

In fact, more countries have embassies in Iran than in Israel, so we should perhaps take more care in who we label a pariah state.

Ironically, the Mackay - Majumber rant shares page O3 with another opinion piece about the December demonstrations, this one penned by U of T luminaries Farhaan Ladhani, Peter Loewen, and Janice Gross Stein. They actually did some research to measure support for the protests by the Iranian public.

Their conclusion? "We found that support for the protests is thin. Only 27 per cent of respondents agreed that they supported them... "

Hmm... looks like the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute and the Open Society folks have lots more work ahead of them before Iran is ripe for the plucking.

Uncle Sam's adventures in Africa

The recent media kerfuffle over US troops in Niger didn't so much concern US troops in Niger as it did the Trump condolence call to one of the widows of the servicemen who died there. As such, the "story" wasn't about US troops in Africa, but about whether or not the POTUS is an a-hole, as if the answer to that question is somehow inconclusive and the matter requires further debate.

A host of your top-end US politicos have since come forward to claim that they had no idea there were US troops in Niger. According to some of the stuff I've been reading (admittedly on non MSM sites) the only country in Africa that does NOT have US boots on the ground is Zimbabwe. Not to worry; the National Endowment for Democracy (that US government "non-government organization" - and a shout-out to Orwell is in order here) have been busy beavers there, tilling the soil to prepare for the inevitable demise of the crotchety Bobby Mugabe. 

According to General Thomas Waldhauser, AFRICOM boss, the US has an "enduring interest" in Niger and is there to fight terrorists and create stability.

Of course!

Just like they'll soon be fighting terror and bringing stability to the entire continent!

They've been bringing stability to Somalia for forty years now, with underwhelming results. One could argue that Somalia enjoys far less stability today than it had when America first started gifting them stability, but that's another place where the US has "enduring interests."

Just like they'll soon have enduring interests all across Africa!

And might these "interests" have anything to do with the best interests of Africans?

Not likely. After all, Uncle Sam's regime doesn't run the USA in the best interests of 350 million Americans; it's unlikely that they've got the best interests of 1.2 billion Africans in mind.

No, General Waldhauser is talking about the enduring interests of America's one percent, the clique of war-profiteers and their acolytes who are determined to rule the world.

While I didn't notice much in the way of congratulatory reportage, AFRICOM celebrated it's tenth anniversary this month.

They're just getting started...

Alex Navalny proves freedom of speech stronger in Russia than USA

Let's do an experiment.

If you're a confirmed Obama hater, gather up a few dozen of your supporters, and march down Pennsylvania Avenue shouting "this regime must be destroyed!"

Whadya figure's gonna happen?

Do you think the Washington authorities will be content to escort you back home to serve your house arrest term?

Or might something more ominous lie in store for you?

Likewise those fake "punk rockers," Pussy Riot. Let them bring an "Obama Prayer" to defile the National Cathedral and see what happens.

The NED crowd promote the fiction that America is some sort of "exceptional" role model to the rest of the world when it comes to matters of liberty and freedom of speech.

Like all great prevailing fictions, this one holds a kernel of truth; if you speak for big capital in America you will enjoy great freedoms.

If not, you're out of luck.

And quite often dead or in jail.

While NED mischief-making has been exposed as a total fraud in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine, we're still giving Hong Kong the benefit of the doubt?

Of course we are!

Because millions can be aroused by the inspirational example of a young lad who is born with a yearning for freedom and democracy in his heart...

Fuck off already; this entire HK democracy gambit is phonier than a three dollar bill.

Does anybody with their wits about them seriously believe that the people of Hong Kong are spontaneously rising up in revolt because Beijing wants to hold veto power over who can run for mayor?

That's beyond retarded!

But the National Endowment for Democracy and its affiliates, all "NGO's" funded by the US government, have been seeding dissent in Hong Kong for many years.

Given the successes of past NED democracy promotion campaigns, I suppose that we can take comfort in the prospect of having Hong Kong look more like Libya down the road.

Here's the National Endowment for Democracy fanning the embers in HK six months ago

These spontaneous outbursts of democratic activism that seem to erupt on a regular basis, most recently in Hong Kong, take a lot of organizing, planning, and orchestration before they blossom forth on the front pages of the world's newspapers.

Nobody does more to stir up these spontaneous rebellions than the non-partisan democracy promoters at the US government funded non-governmental organization the NED.

Pretty much every spontaneous eruption of democracy activism in the last thirty years has behind it a rich legacy of NED and related US government funded NGO's funding the organizing, planning, and orchestration. When Victoria Nuland boasted about the US having invested five billions in the spontaneous uprising in Ukraine that overthrew the democratically elected Yanukovych in Ukraine, this was the kind of "democracy promotion" she was talking about.

Unfortunately, as often as not, once America's pot-stirring succeeds in fomenting violence in the streets, the result is not "democracy," but disaster. Look how busy NED was promoting democracy in Libya when that little revolution sparked up.

And oddly enough, they were busy in Syria as well in that fateful year.

There's two great examples of how America's obsession with "democracy promotion" promotes anything but.

Not that a track record of abject failure will slow down the democracy promoters at the NED. After all, they've simply taken over what was once a CIA mandate; to sow dissent in societies that are not sufficiently slavish in their adoration of America.

It's got nothing to do with democracy. It's got everything to do with maintaining America's privileges as the unassailable Big Dog in the global dog pack.

Honouring God's bagman in China

A week ago Foreign Minister John Baird stood on a podium in Vancouver and made a lovely speech about the centrality of human rights in the Canadian identity. The occasion was the third annual John Diefenbaker Defender of Human Rights and Freedom Award Ceremony.

Mr. Baird made his speech mere blocks from a downtown neighbourhood where dozens of native women have gone missing over the years.

The recipient of the Diefenbaker award this year was Cardinal Joseph Zen, a Catholic. Seems Catholics win this award every year!

Not that there is anything wrong with that. Many Catholic advocates for human rights have sacrificed their lives advocating for the rights of the indigenous and poor people in places like Honduras and Colombia, countries with which Canada has recently concluded trade agreements. Their advocacy is a part of something once called "liberation theology."

This is not the sort of advocacy for which Cardinal Zen was being honoured. He is more of a political theologian, and what he primarily wants to liberate is the Chinese masses from the horrors of communism. To that end he was embroiled a few years ago in a scandal in which it was revealed that he had used the church to funnel millions of dollars from Hong Kong billionaire Jimmy Lai to "underground churches" on the mainland.

Ironically, Lai made his original fortune by exploiting Chinese workers in garment sweatshops. There is no record of Cardinal Zen proclamations in favour of the rights of exploited garment workers.

The original Diefenbaker recipient was Reverend Ben Yoon, who runs a South Korean NGO largely funded by the National Endowment for Democracy whose mission is to bring freedom and democracy to North Korea. The NED is a "non-government organization" financed entirely by the US government.

That's another irony.

Where freedom and democracy gain a beach-head, low wage sweatshops are sure to follow.

One might wonder if these people are being rewarded for standing up for human rights, or if they are being rewarded for promoting unfettered capitalism.

It's almost as if some rights are considered righter than others here in the most righteous nation of nations.

Only a couple of weeks before Baird's speech, James Anaya, UN Special Rapporteur for the rights of indigenous people toured the same neighbourhood as part of his cross-country investigation of the plight of First Nations people in Canada. He called on the government of which Baird is a Minister to launch an inquiry into the fate of the hundreds of missing and murdered aboriginal women.

Anaya also called on the federal government to launch a "comprehensive and nationwide" inquiry into the case of missing and murdered aboriginal women, something the federal government has so far refused to do.

If we're half as keen on human rights as we like to let on, would we not expect our government to jump on this recommendation?

After all, aren't aboriginal women human too?