Luck of the Irish, you say? The unfortunate disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 (Boeing 777) three weeks ago could not have been more timely to the American media, as it virtually replaced what could have been an embarrassing 24–7 coverage of the Crimean event, and the little publicized US-EU involvement in the geopolitical affairs of Russia and its former Soviet sister republic, Ukraine. Putin’s “misdeeds” against our sacrosanct ways in the West became just occasional “breaking news,” but not the focus, of the monotonous repetitive statements by panels of both aviation and terrorism experts, often with questionable or misapplied credentials, inundating the studios of CNN, Fox News, and other mainstream press . . . in most cases as “paid experts.”
A sad, yet to be resolved, tragedy involving 239 people and their families saved the day against the possible airing of America’s neo-fascistic dirty linen.
It took half a century to send a message back, this time without resorting to cunning from Connery. Oh, I remember those 1964 days well . . . and the mid-spring release of James Bond’s blockbuster movie; as Agent 007 performed his Cold War duties at Her Majesty’s service. Just six months past Jack Kennedy’s assassination, with Johnson firmly in command against the “beast from the East,” Communism, said trying to rape our immaculate virgin, Capitalism. Those were the days! Never had good and evil been so clear in the American mind! And for many, regardless of the realities in front of us, 50 years later, we still see the very same choices . . . if by other names.
“From Russia with Love,” had the right movie script and enough acting talent to wind us up with vigorous patriotic fervor when, not quite a generation removed from World War II, we still saw ourselves as liberators of Europe from Hitler and the undisputed leader of the so-called Free World. Back in 1964, there were three economic worlds: the US at the helm, economically and militarily, of the first; the third world nations—representing the pariah-poor, before we decided on a more politically correct term, “developing countries”; and the now-archaic second world, a Cold War construct for “the downcast commies” . . . a disappearing term after two other words entered our political lexicon in the 1980s, courtesy of Mikhail Gorbachev: Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness). Two words which heralded the demise of the Soviet Union as economic realities made extremist socialism its sacrificial lamb.
And here we are five decades after James Bonds’ 1964 exploits writing another movie script, a sequel that could go by the title, “To Russia with Sadness.” Sadness, indeed! A movie entirely written, produced and directed by the inane brain of Barack Obama, who decided to self-cast as a powerful leader but comes across as the global-village idiot for the entire world to see. How can a coherent man of state with a true chance to co-chair bringing permanent peace to the Middle East (Syria, Iran, Israel and Palestine) squander such opportunity . . . is Obama, for all his meaningless articulacy, a blundering fool?
It would have only taken a joint honest effort by Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama to bring about successful negotiations between all parties culminating in both peace and a new geopolitical healthy direction for the entire Middle East. One gets the feeling that Putin has been the leader extending out his hand to Obama during the past two years to attain such peace; and that Obama, for some unknown force majeure reasons, saw fit to spit on it.
American parasitic, crooked politicians (Republicans and Democrats) and the corporate media continuously make hay of Putin’s KGB credentials, as if the US’s CIA had been birthed in heaven and the KGB in the darkness of hell. Can Americans be so naïve and ignorant to accept that? If we listen to our friends and neighbors, apparently so!
For anyone who thought that VP Cheney’s exit from the neocon limelight whitewashed our military-industrial empire, I have a little secret to pass on to you: semper fidelis might be thought of as the motto of the United States Marine Corps . . . but it has become the motto for a resurgent fascist empire sprouting here in the US; or, that’s the thought coming to mind Tuesday morning as I listened to Obama make statements from The Hague that could only come from someone suffering from political delirium tremens, and not from a leading statesman.
Ben Tanosborn, columnist, poet and writer, resides in Vancouver, Washington (USA), where he is principal of a business consulting firm. Contact him at ben@tanosborn.com.
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To Russia with Sadness
Posted on March 27, 2014 by Ben Tanosborn
Luck of the Irish, you say? The unfortunate disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 (Boeing 777) three weeks ago could not have been more timely to the American media, as it virtually replaced what could have been an embarrassing 24–7 coverage of the Crimean event, and the little publicized US-EU involvement in the geopolitical affairs of Russia and its former Soviet sister republic, Ukraine. Putin’s “misdeeds” against our sacrosanct ways in the West became just occasional “breaking news,” but not the focus, of the monotonous repetitive statements by panels of both aviation and terrorism experts, often with questionable or misapplied credentials, inundating the studios of CNN, Fox News, and other mainstream press . . . in most cases as “paid experts.”
A sad, yet to be resolved, tragedy involving 239 people and their families saved the day against the possible airing of America’s neo-fascistic dirty linen.
It took half a century to send a message back, this time without resorting to cunning from Connery. Oh, I remember those 1964 days well . . . and the mid-spring release of James Bond’s blockbuster movie; as Agent 007 performed his Cold War duties at Her Majesty’s service. Just six months past Jack Kennedy’s assassination, with Johnson firmly in command against the “beast from the East,” Communism, said trying to rape our immaculate virgin, Capitalism. Those were the days! Never had good and evil been so clear in the American mind! And for many, regardless of the realities in front of us, 50 years later, we still see the very same choices . . . if by other names.
“From Russia with Love,” had the right movie script and enough acting talent to wind us up with vigorous patriotic fervor when, not quite a generation removed from World War II, we still saw ourselves as liberators of Europe from Hitler and the undisputed leader of the so-called Free World. Back in 1964, there were three economic worlds: the US at the helm, economically and militarily, of the first; the third world nations—representing the pariah-poor, before we decided on a more politically correct term, “developing countries”; and the now-archaic second world, a Cold War construct for “the downcast commies” . . . a disappearing term after two other words entered our political lexicon in the 1980s, courtesy of Mikhail Gorbachev: Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness). Two words which heralded the demise of the Soviet Union as economic realities made extremist socialism its sacrificial lamb.
And here we are five decades after James Bonds’ 1964 exploits writing another movie script, a sequel that could go by the title, “To Russia with Sadness.” Sadness, indeed! A movie entirely written, produced and directed by the inane brain of Barack Obama, who decided to self-cast as a powerful leader but comes across as the global-village idiot for the entire world to see. How can a coherent man of state with a true chance to co-chair bringing permanent peace to the Middle East (Syria, Iran, Israel and Palestine) squander such opportunity . . . is Obama, for all his meaningless articulacy, a blundering fool?
It would have only taken a joint honest effort by Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama to bring about successful negotiations between all parties culminating in both peace and a new geopolitical healthy direction for the entire Middle East. One gets the feeling that Putin has been the leader extending out his hand to Obama during the past two years to attain such peace; and that Obama, for some unknown force majeure reasons, saw fit to spit on it.
American parasitic, crooked politicians (Republicans and Democrats) and the corporate media continuously make hay of Putin’s KGB credentials, as if the US’s CIA had been birthed in heaven and the KGB in the darkness of hell. Can Americans be so naïve and ignorant to accept that? If we listen to our friends and neighbors, apparently so!
For anyone who thought that VP Cheney’s exit from the neocon limelight whitewashed our military-industrial empire, I have a little secret to pass on to you: semper fidelis might be thought of as the motto of the United States Marine Corps . . . but it has become the motto for a resurgent fascist empire sprouting here in the US; or, that’s the thought coming to mind Tuesday morning as I listened to Obama make statements from The Hague that could only come from someone suffering from political delirium tremens, and not from a leading statesman.
© 2014 Ben Tanosborn
Ben Tanosborn, columnist, poet and writer, resides in Vancouver, Washington (USA), where he is principal of a business consulting firm. Contact him at ben@tanosborn.com.