The Manchurian Candidate.

This day, the president of the United States of America is paying a visit to, what was up to 2016; the UK, or more accurately England and a small plot of land the president owns in Scotland. It will be given a grand welcome, not an official full blown state prepared visit, as it is labelled as a ‘business’ trip, albeit near everything has been rolled out for it to be largely seen as a state ceremonial occasion with all the big knobs and virginals made to tripsy around with as much deference, good grace, obsequiousness as can be mustered for the two day bash.

A small most disagreeable predicament is that the visit and the attention being lavished on the occasion, is not seen, by some, as a favoured occasion. That the UK should be entertaining it is challenged by a vociferous large representative section of the proletariat and they are doing their best to make themselves heard above the hard ring fence created around this visit to ensure that no nasty derogatory sounds reach the eyes or ears of the president, in case it causes some offence, which the UK state cannot afford to allow to happen now that it has the begging bowl out (once more) as result of the unfolding brexit calamity. 

What a difference, in presence, a president can make; one that the 1^st world Politian’s have still not been able to comprehend with any certainly as to what they are dealing with or can they be certain that the long term damage (for that is what the current occupier of the position is being distinguished for) can be prevailed over. That so much depends on the person that holds the office of the US president in formulating and holding to global policies and highlighting the inherent weakness of the accumulated 1^st world politicians unable to gather a matching orchestrated power; does not bode well for any timely unified alliances (as will be required) when dealing with an uninhibited unsophisticated personality exhibited by the contemporary occupier. 

The 44^th president of the USA was, for most people unexpected, welcomed and it would seem, to be man for the times.  Barack Hussein Obama, president from 2009 to 2017 gained an unenviable position as the intelligent articulate first ‘ameriblack’ to achieve the high office and after the bush years seemed to offer a hope that he would be a titular world leader in global affairs but as he said at the time he was not a president of the everyman world, he was elected just for the USA. He was clearly resented by many of the Republican Party, detested by some and throughout his office largely handicapped by the lack of overall power by the senate and congress.

He did what he could during his tenure and with his arrival after 2007/08 stepped into the fray of the liquidity crises (CC) which he soon realised with the help of G Brown of the UK, just had to be tackled. Which he did with some success leading to a revival of the economy, financial reforms, health care, external conflict de-escalation and other internal improvements but arguable with less active involvements on the world stage. Up to, during and after his campaign leading to his presidency, there were diabolical attempts to unseat him via a number of  spurious accusation, i.e. not America with the birthers brigade, illegal not an America subject, black, fraudulent, corrupt, in league with the devil and a closet communist.

To this was attached the idea that he was the modern equivalent of The Manchurian candidate? This wholehearted negativity and propagated ideas that were adamantly anti democrat (party) and racially partial can be in no doubt but why anyone in the US gave any credence to them was baffling however that he was installed against the adherence by some to these ideas, is only to be measured in the general stupidity, poorly educated, narrow experience and bigotry of elements of the hinterland populace. This should have flagged up warning on the departure of normal representational democracy and the increasing dysfunctional outlook with social division. It did not.

So, the film The Manchurian Candidate came out in 1962 a film of the cold war period and then a remake released in 2004. It lays out the tale of  a brainwashed person programmed to carry out a number of acts intent on overthrowing or infiltrating the white house, leading to the takeover and downfall of  the US with developed conflicts to benefit the instigators of the insurgent plan.

From a number of sources it would seem that the US has a plethora of individuals that would believe that an enemy (undefined but usually Russia, China, Socialist, liberal elites, Muslim etc) are intent on achieving an overthrow of some sort and if this is not an actual fact, it is the basis of a continuing spun conspiracy by others to achieve the same aim. Obama was seen at the time, as the Manchurian placement.

What is remarkable now, is that one of the prime instigators of the attack on Obama was and is now the 45^th president! A holder of the office whom it is thought has zero political ability, extremely dysfunctional, an ardent fabricator, racist, misogynist, abuser, amoral, inconsistent, untrustworthy and difficult to find of him any redeeming character features. Since taking office he has done nothing of any substance to aid the base of his popular support other than make undeliverable enriching script, which so far has meant handing wealth to the wealthy, impoverish the deserving poor, attempt to unravel ‘Obama Care’ and renege on any agreements that do not suit him or the dogma of “America 1^st” in all things. Along with this deconstruction he has turned on any country that may have, in the past, be regarded as a friend to the USA taking aim at NATO, immigration, politics of Europe and Politian’s, environmental and trading agreements; latterly also starting a trade war. He appears to be on an unscripted mission to upend Pandora’s Box and shake it out. 

In narrow terms he does have a point on some issues notable the underfunding of NATO by members with the US carrying the greatest financial load and only 4 others of the 29 members meeting their 2% of GDP commitment. Highlighting the weakness of Europe in tackling issues on its doorstep re Middle East is a problem and too much reliance on imported energy, also, although unpopular to mention, uncontrolled immigration flowing to Europe which will be a growing social and economic problem.

This from a president that has gone out of his way to also use China (holding 4trillion of US debt) as a cause of the lack of investment creating American industrial problems, hyping, then accommodating the North Korea propaganda machine and being best ongoing buddies to Russia’s Putin from the unravelling illegal favours given by Russian intent in his run to be US president!       

The Americans have for a long time had a dubious problem with communism, Russia and socialist, any obvious leaning by anyone labelled as a sympathiser with these attitudes is an anathema to mainly republicans wasp and their god given right to hold office in perpetuity and this has been helped by liberal democrats not reading the shift in the hardening diversity of the disfranchised. Trumpism brought out the anger, fear, perverted visions of the ‘left behinds’ offering a change to a better land and these people have still to see the foundations of any effective benefits being laid down. Thus far the signs are that thing will get considerable worse for them.

Much has been said about this man Trump, not much of it good nor, really understanding his flexible rational within or for the thing he says and has done. He is seen has a business man of some ill-repute so may have a simplistic view of doing business in a black and white way; if it were possible for him to bring any business acumen he may have to bear down on the damaged / corruption of the financial sectors of wall street against interest of main street with the same ferocity of flexible veracity intent, how much better could the future of the US be. As it is there is little point in waiting for his time to run out as it is most unlikely that the Trumpism effect will not be superseded any time soon or even undone so there is no point in looking into  Pandora’s box for the final bequest.

A view might be had that those that gave their ‘red neck’ backing to his campaign to clean out the swamp of (Washington?) of whatever un-American effluent they knew resided there, should have had nothing to be concerned about pre or post Obama. The real Manchurian candidate is already functioning very well; it resides within the 45^th holder of the presidential office.

© Renot

137181500

Rumours.

Rumours.

Mathew 24:6-8.

 ^“6And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

⁷ For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places.

⁸ All these are the beginning of sorrows”.

Unless one is an avid reader and watcher of news it will have by passed the consideration of many with their myopic attention, that the way external affairs of reality is laid before them via different media, has changed. It requires a much more attentive concentration to discern if what one is being presented with is a fair representation of an issue with evidential facts to support what is being offered. Without such diligent attention to the presentation of news it is uncertain that it can no longer can be relied on for its accuracy or overall impartiality in the reporting of serious news worthy events.

There has always been, since news became news for disseminating to a mass audience, a tendency for inferred bias leading one facet over another to offer a scripted interpretation of the events that make up the news being laid out. At its sometimes obvious, this could be construed as deliberate delivery of what is patently propaganda as it intentionally ignores any opposing facets that may have been observed in other media or indeed the actual personal experiences of those in the event that constituted ‘the news’ or more definitely news seen as it is offered up as the ‘official’ stance solely expressed by just one vested interested fraction. At its most disguised evasiveness, a news item may be observed portraying a ‘gloss’ or ‘spin’ on a certain element of the news for a particular advantageous purpose while underplaying or denigrating any contra facets.

There is now no news media that is wholly reliable. Those responsible for looking to report on stories and issues of the time, mainly journalist; in the main have carried out their role with some consideration and honesty albeit constrain within the scope of their particular expertise and the latitude allowed by the owners of the media for whom they may work for. However just reporting facts without an analysis of the influencing substance to the facts, would be, for many, very boring and uninformative as the onus is on the recipient to have some grasp of the subject or substance under report. In the main this accumulated attention to the ‘background’ of the events being reported is unlikely now as it  requires a rolling awareness and active participation to maintain the interest span that allows an individual to assemble their knowledge or assessment based on verifiable facts within the spread of a news worthy item. In some way, due to the speed at which news can be broadcasted and the range and volume of output, most people understand news now only as ‘strap line’ bites with little attention to any substance. Here news outlets perform the individual’s time saving function effort of filtering and interpretation of events with journalist doing their best to offer a consumable digests focusing of the salient points to make the news item, interesting. None can report just facts anymore without interjecting an interpretation as to their own view of the facts and in doing so, dependent on the veracity of the journalist, may lose the essential truth of reporting the actual complicit facts, such as they are. This interpretation being offered, one assumes is after an analysis of the whole range of facets that do make up news items and for easy assimilation it may be necessary to minimise the content within a limited presentational time frame or script.

In watching a variety of news reporting media one can hear the interpretation being played out in the use of words to describe events and the way a certain placed contextual word in a sentence can form the overall perspective of delivery. Given the constraint of news deliver time there is an obvious  tendency to be succinct with the news worthy item but at the same time to offer a good truthful factual ‘report’ on what is the subject matter. Yet the change of a word by different reporters on the same issue, although superficially of similar in meaning, with cursory reading, changes the whole tone of the report delivery and the emphasis of the report is placed in a different perceptive milieu particularly when some descriptive wording is weakened or given much higher preference or indeed some element of the actual facts of what should be reported are quite clearly ignored or ‘played down’. In many ways this is not such a difficulty depended on the nature / seriousness of the issues being reported on. The main particulars should remain the same but can often be deliberately or potentially misleading with selectivity and with loaded ‘strap line’ news promotion as the introduction to the subject matter it is uninformative in overall meaning or context but it is ‘headline grabbing, for casual attention.      

With the advent of internet driven information output and the vehicles on it, apps: like twitter, face book, reddit and individual created presentations; the ‘normal’ methods of pushing news out with the assimilation of it to a consuming public, it has become very hard for papers, radio and TV to maintain competitive influence; they have the traditional means to hold onto the mantel of information provider (papers, radio, TV) and these established providers are still looked on as a reliable source but in an effort to be readable and economically viable they have become much more selective in the range of ‘news’ that is deemed to be of interest to their ‘readers’. In some cases it is noticeable that just like popular soap mediums; plays, films, dramas etc there is a degree social / cultural / PC ‘creativeness’ to avoid or limit exposure on some topics of contention if in reporting on them would raise a fierce backlash and be accused of bias or of not being balanced (this particularly applies to the BBC) but also to a less extent the Guardian, or even RT and al jazeera. As an example, the lack of critical under-reporting of news; the Jewish/Israeli Palestinian problem, the rise in crime activity by migrants throughout Europe, the disguised Russia insurgent activity in Ukraine to destabilise it after the forced annexation of Crimea, the mess caused and ensued by the west in Libya, Iraq and Syria. If reports cause affront to the responsible state authority, a quiet word will be had.          

So what has rumours got to do with the portent? It is disputable but most people of the world do not have access to good quality truthful news. Most people do not give any concentrated effort to be a regular reading / listeners to news to gain an informed insight to what is being reported, there is generally no continuity to their attention span and no self created historical awareness to be able to discern a trend in a variety of reported news, vis a vie vested interest, bias, or comparability of news reporting styles. They are at the mercy of strap line news and do not know that there is a measure of manipulation taken place to form their opinion and there is ample evidence to see that there is some deliberate direction of injecting miss-directive contra facts, creating false news and a play to be consistent in the deniability to the truth in issues. Some media have become much more elastic with the actuality of truthful reporting driven by the need to pander to the pressure of its editorial and directive ownership and to influence the readers’ assumptions.

One might expect misinformation to be an acknowledging purveyed tool of dictatorships and countries of unsophisticated news distribution but it is particularly unacceptable and distastefully dangerous in developed ones. This avoidance of a truth for an alternative created reality is also notably matched by the adoption, by  ‘key note’ speaker, on some issues to filibuster any question, dissemble, be economical with the actuality of facts or as is currently seen in parliament and the white house, being mendacious, actually lying (miss reporting - “inadvertently misled”) and finding some mechanism to deflect blame / responsibility. There have of recent times been some good examples of such outright deceit; of course we have the outrageous Trumpism effect, pronouncement and action which in some cases are obvious reconstruction of a fancied reality but in the UK, a country with a parliament that one may have assumed held itself to high representational ingenuous standard, has fallen into the same disingenuous roles seen in the antics of people like Johnson, Gove, Rudd, IDS, Patel, Davis, Fox. Mogg, McVey and an assembled host of other mp’s who live and lie on a different hard brexit planet.  

State management of news in countries such as Israel, Poland, US, China, Russia and now the UK has become dangerously accepted as a game of confounding truth; obscuration, miss direction, and direct denial in the face reliable fact, it is designed to create a perplexity upon a topic so that only an ardent follower of diverse media will be able to extract salient fact from artifice fiction. For the vast majority that don’t examine news detail and gain only the strap line intent, then where is their truth to be had!

This slide into deliberate under-reporting has been noted by some journalist and to their credit they have been attempting to raise the alarm to it but for now it seems the whole world is in a trap of being enmeshed in a range of expanding false news and no obvious way of challenging the lying purveyors with consequences.

So Rumour can be taken as a warning; fool enough people to believe lies, mistrust a truth, allow manipulative mendacious acts on democracy; do nothing about it and perhaps enough will engender a conflict.  

© Renot

315182015