That the imperial hegemon feels entitled to deference is but a perk of empire.
“A wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him. He thus addressed him: “Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.”
“Indeed,” bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, “I was not then born.”
Then said the Wolf, “You feed in my pasture.”
“No, good sir,” replied the Lamb, “I have not yet tasted grass.”
Again said the Wolf, “You drink of my well.”
“No,” exclaimed the Lamb, “I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother’s milk is both food and drink to me.”
Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, “Well! I won’t remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.”
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.”
**************************
For a few more years, the US will have absolute power over other people and we will use that power in an absolutely corrupt way. When retribution finally comes our way, no one will shed a tear for us.
Funny that Aesop's fables are just as applicable today as when they were first told 2500 years ago. There is truly nothing new under the sun (as that other ancient truth teller, Ecclesiastes, noted).
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.”
I doubt if anyone, including our favourite writer has summed up any country, particularly the USA, as has this saying offered today by Feral.
The real life examples are so many, remembered mainly as lies leading to wars, with the saddest and most obvious one coming to mind as far back as 1963. Perhaps, some of the assassins are still alive today.
The Americans, one and all, who found a reason (pretext) to assassinate John Kennedy. The lies associated with that crime reads like a Hans Christian Andersen fairy story.
Since that event a long time ago now, we have seen the gradual decline in all decent values, the acceleration of the tyrant/s (with some minor exceptions) all starting with Johnson, all creating a lack of qualities in the leadership of the US, now sitting on rock bottom, apathetically tolerated by the voters year after year, resulting in the election of like-minded Members and Senators, one almost as bad as the other.
Power plays, graft, corruption, all daily occurrences in the city of deviant behaviour, Washington, corridors packed with Neocons playing out the anti ARAB / anti ASIAN instructions from their consultants in crime, illegally occupying stolen land in the Middle East.
Just look at the US targets...Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine , Lebanon, the threatening of almost all of South America at some time, countries such as Argentina, Brazil, British Guiana, Bolivia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. and with China and Iran in their sights. All non-Anglo Saxon heritage.
There is only one real master tyrant, the little middle eastern apartheid state called Israel, (with 400+ nuclear warheads) engaged full time in influencing a country of 330 million Americans, totally controlled like puppets-on-a-string.
Perhaps even the tyrannical USA takes note of such statements as this from Martin van Creveld, Israeli historian and academic when he said "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under”
Nothing will change in the world until that master (Israel) / servant (USA) relationship, as it exists today, ends forever with the USA adopting once again the values listed by their forefathers, seriously eroded over time and seemingly almost forgotten.
Really like your comment, add in Yugoslavia, Kosovo to the list of invaded countries as that was the beginning of the Middle East offensive... their forward base for the invasion.
This is the most beautifully (and visual) phrased statement about the state of journalism in the world today: "Instead we get the world's most powerful government represented by people whose only traits are the ability to skillfully avoid providing meaningful answers, receiving slobbering rim jobs from power-worshipping cronies who want nothing more than to be their friend. This is the exact opposite of a healthy dynamic, and the exact opposite of a functioning free press."
Bravo! Here's to a true free press not afraid to ask the tough questions and demand answers. (And no more slobbering rim jobs, please. You butt-kissers bring the entire profession of journalism down. You're gross.)
Noam Chomsky says that the factors predicting success in our “meritocracy” are a “combination of greed, cynicism, obsequiousness and subordination, lack of curiosity and independence of mind, [and] self-serving disregard for others.” So when journalists see “Harvard” and think “impressive,” I see it and think “uh-oh.”
I would only add that the 4th Estate is only necessary if they do their job. If they don’t, they are no longer necessary. We found that out in the 60’s and plenty of informative publications were started and circulated to counteract the heavy weight of approval Walter Cronkite gave to the Viet Nam war and it’s perpetrators. Also, American Blacks have NEVER had support from the so-called 4th estate so in the 60’s they had Teach-ins and sent spokespeople around to college campuses to teach us!!! I remember the great Roy Wilkins saying—“I don’t mind if you have private prejudices, but I do mind if you make private prejudices into public policies!” It was so brilliant and so concise that it has been my voting guide ever since. And it didn’t come from the then and now corrupt, corporate-serving self-congratulating 4th toady estate.
Funny how all the ones accusing Ateba of making a ruckus were the ones making a ruckus! How many bobbing heads does it take to prove they are airheads!?
Maybe they're "Bobble-heads"? I know people who pay good money to collect those bobble-headed dolls, but these poor butt-kissing excuses for journalists aren't worth a cent. Ateba and Xu are the real journalists. Notice they're not Americans/Westerners. Apparently they attend "bobbleheads journalism school" in the West nowadays.
Thank you for this. Dead on, as usual. The ‘most charitable’ view of Mr. Haq’s unfamiliarity with basic facts on Syria is, as you beautifully sardonic understatement, imply, is absurd. Of course he knows. It is another of those inconvenient facts, like the Israeli nuclear weapons program, that cannot and will never be acknowledged by the US or any of its stooges. The fact that Haq was forced to at least refuse to answer in the context of the death of a US contractor and wounding of 5 US servicemen IN SYRIA is, indeed, some fine journalistic work. It would be nice if this exchange had ‘resonance’. In other words, if it was followed up on by our tribe of lowly syncophants. The execrable Ted Koppel used that word as part of an explanation that was perfectly circular about something or other back when he was pioneering late- night propaganda on network tv before cable grabbed the model and ran during the America Held Hostage show that debuted in 1979 on the US version of ABC. Or, maybe, more recently. Why are you not reporting on that? It doesn’t have ‘resonance’! How does ANY story get ‘resonance’? By being reported on and stayed with, of course. It’s just amazing. Or, should be. Thanks again.
There really is no journalism. On March 28, 2023, Tucker Carlson said, "I really have no idea what 9/11 was all about. They blamed that on people hating us because we're free." I remember buying into that at the time, too. There were a few articles that tried to explain what really provoked those attacks. I'm not saying that I like or justify those attacks. I am saying, "They hate us because we're free," is a one sentence "explanation." I'd like the 20 paragraph explanation, please. But they never explain anything. They just impose they create:
* Bombings everywhere;
* Invasions;
* Surveillance of their own citizens;
* Censorship. I'm still mad about the censorship over 9/11, Ukraine, the "vax," and now these transgender mentally ill people who are shooting nine year olds. I see where there have been four separate cases of this, and heartless jackasses want to blame the weapon, and not the deeply disturbed person whom no one ever helped, other than to cut off their anatomy.
Caitlin has really helped open my eyes to all of the censorship, lies, lack of journalism, and the fact that our "leaders" never back up and give us an actual explanation of what is going on. They just get sanctimonious and humorless, and then they spy on you, and drop bombs, and hope you die so they can institute their agenda.
I've noticed that, too. We have ZERO journalism, unless you seek it out from YouTubers or podcasts or Substack. We have 100% propaganda from the NY Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and 90% of Fox. So irritating.
Now this is the first time I have ever heard such a wise suggestion. Taking just one simple but lengthy example, Palestine, mercilessly occupied by Israel for 70 years with the United Nations being fully aware of the facts and who through so many hundreds of resolutions still has not resolved this criminal occupation.
It has proven itself to be a very theatrical social club in New York and nothing more.The original intention was noble but now well past its prime, being just one more organisation that succumbs to US pressure and Israeli corruption.
It will do it for us. Any limpet so attached to the US will go down, some in flames and some by just attaching to the new leader, but they will go down.
The Whitehouse press gallery has all been downhill since veteran reporter Helen Thomas was ejected for the crime of answering a question (asked outside the press gallery) honestly in an obvious set up which took some weeks to compile, none of her 'colleagues' made any attempt to aid her, she who had spent 67 years as a reporter much of that at the Whitehouse. They are a joke and exist only to gather 'un-named spokesperson close to the president' style deliberate leaks used by the whitehouse to cover their arses/promote some deceit/boost some program which sells out ordinary humans - sometimes in amerika, sometimes elsewhere on the planet.
As others have noted the last time anyone in the gallery stood up to a president was when Drumpf was in power and that bloke, one of nature's slimiest toadies got a raise & a book deal out of his ill mannered spiel, much worse than anything either Simon Ateba or Xu Dezhi have ever done.
The irony is that there were plenty of things to criticize Trump over when he was in power, but instead the press corps decided to chase a conspiracy theory so loopy, it would have gotten you laughed out of The John Birch Society, ca. 1961.
I hope it is your undeniable wit and not the withering of my soul, which leads me to laugh out loud as you point out the sheer lunacy in 'our' institutions who ostensibly stop war crimes.
That the imperial hegemon feels entitled to deference is but a perk of empire.
“A wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him. He thus addressed him: “Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.”
“Indeed,” bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, “I was not then born.”
Then said the Wolf, “You feed in my pasture.”
“No, good sir,” replied the Lamb, “I have not yet tasted grass.”
Again said the Wolf, “You drink of my well.”
“No,” exclaimed the Lamb, “I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother’s milk is both food and drink to me.”
Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, “Well! I won’t remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.”
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.”
**************************
For a few more years, the US will have absolute power over other people and we will use that power in an absolutely corrupt way. When retribution finally comes our way, no one will shed a tear for us.
Nor should they, for we do evil.
************************
Funny that Aesop's fables are just as applicable today as when they were first told 2500 years ago. There is truly nothing new under the sun (as that other ancient truth teller, Ecclesiastes, noted).
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.”
I doubt if anyone, including our favourite writer has summed up any country, particularly the USA, as has this saying offered today by Feral.
The real life examples are so many, remembered mainly as lies leading to wars, with the saddest and most obvious one coming to mind as far back as 1963. Perhaps, some of the assassins are still alive today.
The Americans, one and all, who found a reason (pretext) to assassinate John Kennedy. The lies associated with that crime reads like a Hans Christian Andersen fairy story.
Since that event a long time ago now, we have seen the gradual decline in all decent values, the acceleration of the tyrant/s (with some minor exceptions) all starting with Johnson, all creating a lack of qualities in the leadership of the US, now sitting on rock bottom, apathetically tolerated by the voters year after year, resulting in the election of like-minded Members and Senators, one almost as bad as the other.
Power plays, graft, corruption, all daily occurrences in the city of deviant behaviour, Washington, corridors packed with Neocons playing out the anti ARAB / anti ASIAN instructions from their consultants in crime, illegally occupying stolen land in the Middle East.
Just look at the US targets...Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine , Lebanon, the threatening of almost all of South America at some time, countries such as Argentina, Brazil, British Guiana, Bolivia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. and with China and Iran in their sights. All non-Anglo Saxon heritage.
There is only one real master tyrant, the little middle eastern apartheid state called Israel, (with 400+ nuclear warheads) engaged full time in influencing a country of 330 million Americans, totally controlled like puppets-on-a-string.
Perhaps even the tyrannical USA takes note of such statements as this from Martin van Creveld, Israeli historian and academic when he said "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under”
Nothing will change in the world until that master (Israel) / servant (USA) relationship, as it exists today, ends forever with the USA adopting once again the values listed by their forefathers, seriously eroded over time and seemingly almost forgotten.
Really like your comment, add in Yugoslavia, Kosovo to the list of invaded countries as that was the beginning of the Middle East offensive... their forward base for the invasion.
Not "we". "We" are not the US government. We are the US government's victims. I speak as a US citizen.
This is the most beautifully (and visual) phrased statement about the state of journalism in the world today: "Instead we get the world's most powerful government represented by people whose only traits are the ability to skillfully avoid providing meaningful answers, receiving slobbering rim jobs from power-worshipping cronies who want nothing more than to be their friend. This is the exact opposite of a healthy dynamic, and the exact opposite of a functioning free press."
Bravo! Here's to a true free press not afraid to ask the tough questions and demand answers. (And no more slobbering rim jobs, please. You butt-kissers bring the entire profession of journalism down. You're gross.)
Noam Chomsky says that the factors predicting success in our “meritocracy” are a “combination of greed, cynicism, obsequiousness and subordination, lack of curiosity and independence of mind, [and] self-serving disregard for others.” So when journalists see “Harvard” and think “impressive,” I see it and think “uh-oh.”
the quote above
was indeed
the Kicker.
.
the Fourth Estate
being a Necessary
indeed an Essential
requirement for a free
Citizenry/an Informed E-
Lectorate we herby declare
the USOFA a Fourth Estate-free
Propaganda-makers/lovers Utopia
.
& invite all ye Billionaires
to come Share in the
Pillaging of the
Populace.
.
relax. it's just
Capitalism.
I would only add that the 4th Estate is only necessary if they do their job. If they don’t, they are no longer necessary. We found that out in the 60’s and plenty of informative publications were started and circulated to counteract the heavy weight of approval Walter Cronkite gave to the Viet Nam war and it’s perpetrators. Also, American Blacks have NEVER had support from the so-called 4th estate so in the 60’s they had Teach-ins and sent spokespeople around to college campuses to teach us!!! I remember the great Roy Wilkins saying—“I don’t mind if you have private prejudices, but I do mind if you make private prejudices into public policies!” It was so brilliant and so concise that it has been my voting guide ever since. And it didn’t come from the then and now corrupt, corporate-serving self-congratulating 4th toady estate.
our Lack of a Vibrant
4th Estate is what's gotten
us here to FOX & fiends and
Corporatized Infotaintment dis-
Guised as "news" -- they're turning
US into one Harvestable Citizenry here
solely to be Farmed by the Most Cunning.
Haj spoke like a mouthpiece for the American military who would be even been embarrassed by his amateur stupidity in confronting the issue.
The Un is so without credibility and may become another League of Nations which expired for losing its mind in upholding its charter.
Hopefully it can be saved from certain death by this kind of reporter revealing it’s ridiculous biases .
Lenin referred to the League of Nations as "that thieves' kitchen".
Funny how all the ones accusing Ateba of making a ruckus were the ones making a ruckus! How many bobbing heads does it take to prove they are airheads!?
Maybe they're "Bobble-heads"? I know people who pay good money to collect those bobble-headed dolls, but these poor butt-kissing excuses for journalists aren't worth a cent. Ateba and Xu are the real journalists. Notice they're not Americans/Westerners. Apparently they attend "bobbleheads journalism school" in the West nowadays.
I wonder if they pay for those courses?
Thank you for this. Dead on, as usual. The ‘most charitable’ view of Mr. Haq’s unfamiliarity with basic facts on Syria is, as you beautifully sardonic understatement, imply, is absurd. Of course he knows. It is another of those inconvenient facts, like the Israeli nuclear weapons program, that cannot and will never be acknowledged by the US or any of its stooges. The fact that Haq was forced to at least refuse to answer in the context of the death of a US contractor and wounding of 5 US servicemen IN SYRIA is, indeed, some fine journalistic work. It would be nice if this exchange had ‘resonance’. In other words, if it was followed up on by our tribe of lowly syncophants. The execrable Ted Koppel used that word as part of an explanation that was perfectly circular about something or other back when he was pioneering late- night propaganda on network tv before cable grabbed the model and ran during the America Held Hostage show that debuted in 1979 on the US version of ABC. Or, maybe, more recently. Why are you not reporting on that? It doesn’t have ‘resonance’! How does ANY story get ‘resonance’? By being reported on and stayed with, of course. It’s just amazing. Or, should be. Thanks again.
There really is no journalism. On March 28, 2023, Tucker Carlson said, "I really have no idea what 9/11 was all about. They blamed that on people hating us because we're free." I remember buying into that at the time, too. There were a few articles that tried to explain what really provoked those attacks. I'm not saying that I like or justify those attacks. I am saying, "They hate us because we're free," is a one sentence "explanation." I'd like the 20 paragraph explanation, please. But they never explain anything. They just impose they create:
* Bombings everywhere;
* Invasions;
* Surveillance of their own citizens;
* Censorship. I'm still mad about the censorship over 9/11, Ukraine, the "vax," and now these transgender mentally ill people who are shooting nine year olds. I see where there have been four separate cases of this, and heartless jackasses want to blame the weapon, and not the deeply disturbed person whom no one ever helped, other than to cut off their anatomy.
Caitlin has really helped open my eyes to all of the censorship, lies, lack of journalism, and the fact that our "leaders" never back up and give us an actual explanation of what is going on. They just get sanctimonious and humorless, and then they spy on you, and drop bombs, and hope you die so they can institute their agenda.
Remember how the flu disappeared in 2020?
Right now I'm noticing Muslim terrorists have disappeared.
I've noticed that, too. We have ZERO journalism, unless you seek it out from YouTubers or podcasts or Substack. We have 100% propaganda from the NY Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and 90% of Fox. So irritating.
Thus explains the utter mess! The UN should be dismantled!
Now this is the first time I have ever heard such a wise suggestion. Taking just one simple but lengthy example, Palestine, mercilessly occupied by Israel for 70 years with the United Nations being fully aware of the facts and who through so many hundreds of resolutions still has not resolved this criminal occupation.
It has proven itself to be a very theatrical social club in New York and nothing more.The original intention was noble but now well past its prime, being just one more organisation that succumbs to US pressure and Israeli corruption.
It is a disgrace.
It will do it for us. Any limpet so attached to the US will go down, some in flames and some by just attaching to the new leader, but they will go down.
The Whitehouse press gallery has all been downhill since veteran reporter Helen Thomas was ejected for the crime of answering a question (asked outside the press gallery) honestly in an obvious set up which took some weeks to compile, none of her 'colleagues' made any attempt to aid her, she who had spent 67 years as a reporter much of that at the Whitehouse. They are a joke and exist only to gather 'un-named spokesperson close to the president' style deliberate leaks used by the whitehouse to cover their arses/promote some deceit/boost some program which sells out ordinary humans - sometimes in amerika, sometimes elsewhere on the planet.
As others have noted the last time anyone in the gallery stood up to a president was when Drumpf was in power and that bloke, one of nature's slimiest toadies got a raise & a book deal out of his ill mannered spiel, much worse than anything either Simon Ateba or Xu Dezhi have ever done.
The irony is that there were plenty of things to criticize Trump over when he was in power, but instead the press corps decided to chase a conspiracy theory so loopy, it would have gotten you laughed out of The John Birch Society, ca. 1961.
And I think this “assault” on a mostly useless press (except for Helen) started after Watergate.
My God, that is powerful stuff, Caitlin.
This.......is speaking truth to power.
I hope it is your undeniable wit and not the withering of my soul, which leads me to laugh out loud as you point out the sheer lunacy in 'our' institutions who ostensibly stop war crimes.
His name is appropriate, Haq (hack).
"Look, I'll leave your analysis to you." <----- Stealing This, can't wait to use it. ;~p Another terrific post. Fantastic reporting, Thank You.
They don't allow journalists willing to do that in the door. Go ask Michael Tracey.
Ah, just sit down and mind your manners.
Hahahaha. I know, right?
The house slaves always protect their master.
Great piece, thank you. The influence of the evil empire is staggering. Historically I fear karma is not going to be kind to Amerika.