Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has slammed Washington's alleged involvement in bombing the Nord Stream gas lines as one of the “dumbest” decisions taken in years, warning that the move will have “horrific”consequences for Europeans and further undercut the already “supremely useless” NATO alliance.

Despite countless Western bossy-boots beavering away in the media and beyond, generating worst-case projections as they strain to create a collective storyboard for “China: The Disaster Movie”, China, exasperatingly, keeps successfully pressing on towards its own clearly considered, affirmative future.

By Richard Cullen

When Mexican artist Diego Rivera was commissioned in 1932 to do a mural in the middle of Manhattan's Rockefeller Center, some might have wondered whether industrialist tycoon John D. Rockefeller Jr. knew what he was getting into.

In 1934, the legendary artist's work was chiseled off the wall.

Now, in Washington, D.C., the Mexican Cultural Institute has mounted a show that tells what happened to Rivera's mural.

March 9, 2014

BY ALLISON KEYES

"Man at the Crossroads: Diego Rivera's Mural at Rockefeller Center," is a whodunit tale that also illustrates the tensions between art and politics. Exhibition co-curator Susana Pliego says the Rockefeller family was aware of Rivera's leftist politics when it commissioned the work.

UFO defense: Washington turns to sci-fi to boost military spending

On the heels of the Chinese ‘spy balloon’ scare, the US is now being invaded by unidentified aerial craft – just in time for the new budget bill

After the so-called “Chinese spy balloon” passed over the US last week and was shot down, the US claimed that multiple “UFO’s” have since appeared in its airspace, as well as above Canada.

By Timur Fomenko, a political analyst 

It is an open secret: the government of Kiyv is losing militarily to the Russian army. The latter is advancing without hurrying and is building the defense of the regions that joined Moscow by referendum. But this inexorable reality hides others. For example, the fact that Turkey, still a member of NATO, supports Russia and provides it with spare parts for its army. Not only is the Atlantic Alliance losing, but it is cracking.

It is unlikely that President Vladimir Zelensky expects to win militarily. But it seems that he genuinely believes that he will succeed in turning Ukraine into something like Israel - a paramilitary state living with a sense of constant military threat.

Ukraine doesn’t have the military or economic resources of its own to achieve victory, and the resources provided by the West will never be enough to inflict a final defeat on Russia. Zelensky's calculation is likely based on the belief that by offering Ukraine as a tool for NATO to use against Russia, he will constantly mobilize Western support and thereby ensure his own survival, and that of his associates. 

By Andrey Sushentsov, Valdai Club program director

Look, it is one thing for reporters and line editors to abandon the fundamental principle of objectivity as they hurl their hatchets at those who provoke their prejudices—Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, this, that or the other governor or senator, this, that, or the other dissident. It is greatly, entirely another for the retired coots now posing as the profession’s wise men to elevate these derelictions to the principle of there-are-no-principles. 

My word. How far down the crater of corruption are those running American media’s newsrooms going to cascade? Land sakes alive, as my great aunt Louise used to exclaim.

By Patrick Lawrence / Original to ScheerPost

WE KNOW THE SECOND COLD WAR WAS STARTED BY THE USA WITH ITS MINIONS AT NATO AND EUROPE. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FIRST COLD WAR? GUS LEONISKY, CARTOONIST SINCE 1951, HAS LIVED THROUGH BOTH (OR THE SAME ONE CONTINUED) AND I SHOULD START BUILDING MY NUKE SHELTER NOW, SHOULD I BE ABLE TO DIG IT WITH A DESSERT SPOON. THE CARTOON ABOVE BY CHAPPATTE IS FUNNY THOUGH NOT QUITE CLOSE TO THE TRUTH. LOOKING FOR COMPETENCY ON A ROTATION BASIS, PUTIN HAS FOUND HIS LATEST GENERAL.... MEANWHILE:

By Jim Mamer / Original to ScheerPost

Storylistening: Narrative Evidence and Public Reasoning

In Storylistening, Sarah Dillon and Claire Craig provide a theory and practice for gathering narrative evidence that will complement and strengthen, not distort, other forms of evidence, including that from science.

The book focuses on the cognitive and collective functions of stories, showing how they offer alternative points of view, create and cohere collective identities, function as narrative models, and play a crucial role in anticipation.

In all the conflicts that have agitated history, there has always been a camp of good and a camp of absolute evil. This is at least what emerges from the great political declarations and the media hammer-therapy that can be observed in the opposing camps. At the end of the conflict, history is written by the winner. This one often brings his adversaries before a court in charge of condemning and executing the leaders of the losing side. The camps of good and evil are then perfectly identified with regard to history.

by Dominique Delawarde

WE ARE OFTEN INVITED BY TV ADVERTISING, OR ANY ADVERTISING FOR THAT MATTER, TO ENJOY WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ENJOY. 

WE RARELY SEE ADVERTS THAT ARE GOING TO TELL US COME AND BUY THIS DANGEROUS PRODUCT SO YOU CAN EXPERIENCE PAIN. EVEN POLITICAL THINGIES.

SAY FOR EXAMPLE, WE DECRY FASCISM OR NAZISM, AND COMMUNISM, BUT WE DON’T TELL THE CUSTOMER THAT THIS OR THAT IS GOING TO TURN YOU INTO A MURDERER OR A SLAVE OF THE SYSTEM. WE DON’T SELL YOU FASCISM OR NAZISM — WE SELL YOU THE DISCREET EXCELLENT COMFORTS ASSOCIATED WITH SUCH IDEALS. SO ALL SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT WILL CLAIM TO POSSESS THE ONLY KEYS TO FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, FRATERNITY AND HAPPINESS. THE BEST SYSTEM APT AT LYING HERE IS THE DEMOCRATIC CONSTRUCT THAT USES CAPITALISM AS ITS TOOL — A TOOL OF ENTICING YOUR APTITUDE TO BE GREEDY AND SOCIOPATHIC IF YOU WANT TO MAKE IT TO THE TOP OF THE PILE. 

Last week, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh offered the most detailed account to date on the US Navy’s involvement in rigging Nord Stream to blow. Mainstream reporting on the bombshell story has been minimal, except to attack Hersh, who has over 60 years of journalistic experience, as a “discredited” or “controversial” journalist.

WE, CARTOONISTS, HAVE A HALF-DUTY TO CHALLENGE THE ESTABLISHMENT. WE SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH AND WHEN WE FIND IT, IT’S OFTEN QUITE UGLY BECAUSE THE EMPERORS ALWAYS PARADE WITH NO CLOTHES. ALWAYS.

IN THE 2019 CARTOON ABOVE BY A UKRAINIAN ARTIST, OLEH SMAL, WE SEE ZELENSKY AS A CLOWN PROPPED UP BY HIS TV APPEARANCES. HE HAS DESTROYED HIS OWN PIANO, PROBABLY WITH HIS DICK. MY GUESS IS THAT THE CARTOON WAS MADE JUST BEFORE OR AROUND THE TIME ZELENSKY WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF “UKRAINE” WITH PROMISES OF THIS AND THAT. AS THEY SAY “PROMISES, PROMISES…”

Hypocrisy: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behaviour that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel…

Middle English: from Old French ypocrisie, via ecclesiastical Latin, from Greek hupokrisis ‘acting of a theatrical part’, from hupokrinesthai ‘play a part, pretend’, from hupo ‘under’ + krinein ‘decide, judge’.

IT HAS TO BE SAID THAT HYPOCRISY IS TOO WEAK A WORD TO DESCRIBE THE PRESENT WESTERN POLITICS AND MEDIATIC THEATRES.

OURS IS DOUBLE DEALING, LYING DANGEROUSLY, CREATING FALSE NARRATIVES, KNOWINGLY BEING OF BAD FAITH FOR PROFIT, FIGHTING DIRTY WITH LOW BLOWS, CORRUPTING THE REFEREE, NASTILY DESTROYING WHAT CAN SHOW OUR NASTINESS, USING UNREASONABLE MANTRAS AS REASON, BEING PHILOSOPHICALLY CORRUPT.... 

SO WHAT WORD EXISTS TO SUM UP ALL THIS :

The self-proclaimed "moral" superiority with which the rule of a small elite over the masses can be justified is guaranteed by socially approved doctrines and beliefs, such as "containment is Enlightenment ideology" or "diversity is strength ". These axioms make the rule of those currently in power seem reasonable to almost all members of society and satisfy the masses' instinctive need for legitimate domination, as opposed to emotionally "forced" alpha domination.

by Constantin von Hoffmeister