Americans’ trust in the media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly has edged down four percentage points since last year to 36%, making this year’s reading the second lowest in Gallup’s trend.

In all, 7% of U.S. adults say they have “a great deal” and 29% “a fair amount” of trust and confidence in newspapers, television and radio news reporting — which, combined, is four points above the 32% record low in 2016, amid the divisive presidential election campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In addition, 29% of the public currently registers “not very much” trust and 34% have “none at all.”

These findings, from a Sept. 1-17 poll, are the latest in Gallup’s tracking of the public’s confidence in key U.S. institutions, which began in 1972. Between 1972 and 1976, 68% to 72% of Americans expressed trust in the mass media; yet, by 1997, when the question was next asked, trust had dropped to 53%. Trust in the media, which has averaged 45% since 1997, has not reached the majority level since 2003.

After hitting its lowest point in 2016, trust in the media rebounded, gaining 13 points in two years — mostly because of a surge among Democrats amid President Donald Trump’s antagonistic relationship with the press and increased scrutiny of his administration by the media. Since 2018, however, it has fallen a total of nine points, as trust has slid among all party groups.

Democrats’ Trust in Media Dwarfs Republicans’ and Independents’

Partisans’ trust in the media continues to be sharply polarized. Currently, 68% of Democrats, 11% of Republicans and 31% of independents say they trust the media a great deal or fair amount. The 57-point gap in Republicans’ and Democrats’ confidence is within the 54- to 63-point range for the two groups since 2017.

While both Democrats’ and independents’ trust has slid five points over the past year, Republicans’ has held steady.

Historically, Republicans’ confidence in the accuracy and fairness of the news media’s reporting has not risen above 52% over the past quarter century. At the same time, Democrats’ confidence has not fallen below the 2016 reading of 51%. For their part, independents’ trust in the media has not been at the majority level since 2003.

Just as Americans’ trust in the three branches of government is faltering, so too is their confidence in the fourth estate — the media. Confidence in the media among Republicans over the past five years is at unprecedented lows. After a brief recovery in trust among Democrats and independents early in the Trump administration, their trust has fallen off a little in recent years. Democratic trust remains well above where it was before Trump came into office and made attacks on the media a core message of his presidency.

gallup.com

Gallup’s polling in Russia and in the United States finds almost identically high percentages of the public saying “Yes” to the question “Is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country, or not?”— 77% in Russia and 75% in America say “Yes” to that. However, one of America’s official propaganda-agencies, Voice of America News, headlined, on January 26th, “New Reports Highlight Russia’s Deep-Seated Culture of Corruption”. It’s from Charles Maynes in Moscow. (He also reports occasionally for USA Today, NPR, Public Radio International, and other U.S. media.) He opened by saying that

New reports from Transparency International and the Russian Academy of Sciences on education highlight a pervasive culture of corruption in Russia that persists despite efforts by the government and opposition activists.

The country scored 137th out of 180 countries in the Transparency International corruption index published last week.

Every year we have to find new words to describe the same thing,” Anton Pominov, the organization’s Russia director, told VOA.

“Russia tries to introduce anti-corruption measures without any will to implement them, without understanding why they should be done,” Pominov said.

It’s not clear whether the alleged “New reports” are “on education” or instead are more generally on “a pervasive culture of corruption in Russia,” and my attempts to contact Mr. Maynes failed. However, I was able to find an 89-page multinational report, Principles of Scientific Publication, from a “World Forum” (apparently not the group that runs the annual billionaires’ conclave in the Swiss town of Davos), which “Forum” was held in “Montreal, Canada—August 19, 20, 21” of 2020, and Maynes’s article seems to have been referring to an article in it, “Plagiarism crisis in Russia,” by Andrey Zayakin, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as being one of the two sources for his assertion that there is “a pervasive culture of corruption in Russia.” That article concerns a problem which is also very much present in the United States, and in many other countries. Zayakin’s only use, in it, of the sequence of letters “corrupt” is in his sentence, on page 11, “The most essential factor in retaining the corrupt system of PhD mills is [the] expiration statute for degree revocations claims.” His article actually isn’t, at all, about any “pervasive culture of corruption in Russia.” Zayakin was the only Russian whom Maynes cited as being a source allegedly confirming that there exists “a pervasive culture of corruption in Russia,” other than Dissernet dot org, which is a Russian organization to root-out and expose academic cheating. Other than that, Maynes’s only possible source for his allegation that there exists “a pervasive culture of corruption in Russia” was Transparency International, which will be discussed subsequently here.

Furthermore, also on January 26th, Gallup Analytics emailed to their subscribers, headlining “Most Russians See Widespread Corruption in Government” and opened:

Thousands of Russians took part in nationwide demonstrations last weekend to protest the detention of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and to rail against rampant corruption. In 2020, 77% of Russians said corruption was widespread throughout their government. This percentage has never dropped below 70% in the past 15 years.

77% of polled Russians, in 2020, said that corruption was “widespread.” However, that was also shown to have been the average Russian figure ever since Gallup started polling this, back in 2006. What was actually unique in their 2020 poll findings was instead that 19% of Russians had answered “No” on this. The previous high “No”s on that question was only 12% “No,” and it was in the immediately prior year, 2019. The previous high before that had been 11%, and this was in 2018. In 2016, the figure was only 6%, and that figure had also been the average “No” percentage ever since 2006. So: Gallup could, much more strikingly than they had done in their email, have instead headlined it as “All-Time High Percentage of Russians Say Government Corruption Is Not Widespread.” That headline would have given the exact opposite impression, and it doesn’t mislead, like their emailed headline did.

On 19 February 2015, Gallup had headlined “75% in U.S. See Widespread Government Corruption”, and showed the figures ever since 2007, when that percentage “Yes” in America had been 67%. The overall trend, in America, throughout that 7-year period has been upward. That report unfortunately omitted to indicate what percentage of Americans had answered “No” on this question. That report, additionally, showed the percentage “Yes” for each one of 37 countries, and America was the 13th-worst on that list. Lithuania, at 90% “Yes,” was the worst. Sweden, at 14% “Yes,” was the best. Russia wasn’t shown on that list. However, back on 18 October 2013, Gallup had headlined “Government Corruption Viewed as Pervasive Worldwide: Majorities in 108 out of 129 countries see widespread problem,” and they reported that “Czech Republic” had scored as having the highest percentage, 94%, of its population answering “Yes,” and Lithuania was #2 that time, at 90%, which was the same figure as was shown for Lithuania on the 2015 list. (“Czech Republic” showed as 83% “Yes” in Gallup’s 19 February 2015 article.) On that 2013 list, too, Sweden scored the lowest “Yes”s, at 14%. Perhaps the same samplings were being represented in 2013 and 2015, just being published in different years, regarding both Lithuania and Sweden. The 2013 list showed 80% of Russians as having answered “Yes.” The January 26th Gallup Analytics email “Most Russians See Widespread Corruption in Government” indicates that the percentage-figure was steadily in the 70s during each and every year after 2013. So, apparently, governmental corruption is declining in Russia and is increasing in America, but is, at present, approximately equal in both countries. And both of those countries seem to have lower corruption than do Czech Republic and Lithuania (both of which countries became U.S. vassal-nations after the Soviet Union ended in 1991. Russia, too, had started to be such during 1991-1999, but stopped being a U.S. vassal in 2000 when Vladimir Putin became President).

The Voice of America (always a hate-Russia site) mentioned in its January 26th article Transparency International (TI) as being one of their sources. They also mentioned the World Bank, which is widely recognized as being an extension of the U.S. Government. However, Transparency International was actually formed in 1993 as a spin-off from the World Bank in order to create corruption rankings of nations that would be weighted so as to show less ‘corruption’ in America’s allies and more corruption in countries that America’s billionaires have targeted for take-over. In other words, it is a significant part of America’s global imperialism. As we shall see here, a country pays dearly for having a lower TI rating. That cost isn’t only in international prestige; it is in billions of dollars:

A major excuse that the U.S. and its allies employ in order to ‘justify’ their imperialism is America’s global ‘anti-corruption’ campaign, and TI is part of that. Agents of U.S. billionaires had actually established Transparency International at the very same time as they did the Washington Consensus, as a means to rig the corruption-rankings of countries, so that the World Bank would be able to ‘justify’ charging higher interest rates to countries that America’s aristocracy aim to conquer (regardless of whether that conquest was by subversion — such as in Brazil — or else by sanctions, or by coup, or by military invasion). Charging higher interest rates to a given target-country softens it up so as to be less able to resist the imperialistic nation’s swallowing it up into its financial and economic web.

This imperialistic squid has many tentacles. For example, in 2008, Oxford University Press published Rebuilding War-Torn States, by Dr. Graciana del Castillo, and with a Foreword by Nobel economics laureate Edmund S. Phelps. The book’s Introduction said that the 2003 invasion of Iraq might not have been so bad for Iraq if only the U.N. had not “failed” to authorize it. The U.N. was blamed for not having approved it. This paean to U.S.-and-allied imperialism (even as gross as that case) devoted a chapter to “9: UN-led reconstruction following US-led military intervention: Afghanistan” (and one might notice here that euphemism of “intervention” instead of “invasion” — the brutal reality), in which Dr. Castillo said, on page 189, that:

“Private capital will not flow into the country — on the contrary, capital flight will continue — unless the security situation improves, electricity is restored, other basic infrastructure is built, a simple and non-corrupt legal and regulatory framework is in place, and human capital is upgraded. The earlier the economy shifts from reliance on foreign aid to trade and foreign investment, the better the peace transition’s outcome will be.” (That “trade and foreign investment” really helped the people of Iraq, and of Afghanistan, didn’t it?)

Dr. Castillo’s obituary at Columbia University’s Center of Capitalism and Society said that “Graciana was Associate Director of the Center on Capitalism and Society from 2008 until late 2009. She was an economist with a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University and occupied prominent positions in several international organizations, including Director of Sovereign Ratings at Standard & Poor’s, where she helped alleviate economic crises in several countries.” So, she had been S&P’s top person deciding how high an interest-rate to charge the impoverished people of Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

Wikipedia’s article concerning the Center on Capitalism and Democracy says “The Center on Capitalism and Society seeks to determine the means by which a country can successfully achieve economic success through its ability to generate and develop sound commercial ideas. The Center’s work is based upon a theory of capitalism where entrepreneurs and financiers are the key actors and the discovery of viable ideas is the essential activity. The director is Professor of Economics and Nobel-Laureate Edmund Phelps.” Workers are not “the key actors,” because “the discovery of viable ideas is the essential activity.” For example, the discovery of financial derivatives was an “essential activity,” but the sorts of things that people such as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Richard Strauss, Jonas Salk, or the people who build houses or other works of architecture, or who grow our food, do, are not. Will wonders never cease?

Of course Afghans might happen to find that they can make lots more money farming opium than as “entrepreneurs and financiers.” But who cares about them? Perhaps the Taliban does.

After all: America’s corruption is global, and globally imposed. Maybe that’s the big difference. This squid hungers to ravish everybody, everywhere.

The first rankings here will be Gallup Law and Order Index Scores. In 2019, Gallup asked nearly 175,000 adults in 144 countries the following 4 questions: (1) Do you have confidence in the local police force? (2) Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live? (3) Within the last 12 months, have you had money or property stolen from you or another household member? (4) Within the past 12 months, have you been assaulted or mugged? The Index result for each country is a composite score from those 4 answers. The rankings are added here, based upon Gallup’s scores:

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Gallup Law and Order Index Scores 2020 (ranking the scores of the 144 countries):

(RANK) Country Score

(1&2) Singapore 97, Turkmenistan 97,

(3) China 94.

(4&5) Iceland 93, Kuwait 93.

(6-10) Austria 92, Norway 92, Switzerland 92, United Arab Emirates 92, Uzbekistan 92.

(11&12) Azerbaijan 91, Tajikistan 91.

(13-17) Denmark 90, Finland 90, Luxembourg 90, Slovenia 90, Taiwan, Province of China 90.

(18-20) Egypt 89, Indonesia 89, Saudi Arabia 89.

(21&22) Georgia 88, Portugal 88.

(23&24) Netherlands 87, Spain 87.

(25-29) Canada 86, Germany 86, Kosovo 86, Malta 86, Vietnam 86.

(30-36) Armenia 85, France 85, Ireland 85, Japan 85, Jordan 85, Sweden 85, United States 85.

(37-41) Australia 84, New Zealand 84, Philippines 84, Poland 84, Serbia 84.

(42-49) Estonia 83, Hungary 83, Italy 83, Malaysia 83, Northern Cyprus 83, South Korea 83, Sri Lanka 83, United Kingdom 83.

(50-54) Bosnia and Herzegovina 82, Israel 82, Mauritius 82, Montenegro 82, Myanmar 82.

(55-60) Bangladesh 81, Iran 81, Iraq 81, Laos 81, Pakistan 81, Turkey 81.

(61-66) Cambodia 80, Croatia 80, Rwanda 80, Slovakia 80, Tanzania 80, Thailand 80.

(67-73) Belgium 79, Cyprus 79, El Salvador 79, India 79, Kazakhstan 79, Latvia 79, Lithuania 79.

(74&75) Greece 78, Lebanon 78.

(76-81) Albania 77, Belarus 77, Bulgaria 77, Kyrgyzstan 77, Moldova 77, Romania 77.

(82-84) Burkina Faso 76, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China 76, Nepal 76.

(85-87) Algeria 75, Jamaica 75, Palestinian Territories 75.

(88-91) Guatemala 74, Nicaragua 74, North Macedonia 74, Russia 74.

(92-95) Honduras 72, Panama 72, Tunisia 72.

(95-103) Costa Rica 71, Ethiopia 71, Libya 71, Mongolia 71, Morocco 71, Mozambique 71, Niger 71, Senegal 71, Uruguay 71.

(104) Paraguay 70.

(105-112) Benin 69, Bolivia 69, Comoros 69, Ghana 69, Ivory Coast 69, Mali 69, Ukraine 69, Yemen 69.

(113&114) Eswatini 68, Lesotho 68.

(115-120) Brazil 67, Chile 67, Colombia 67, Kenya 67, Togo 67, Zimbabwe 67.

(121&122) Malawi 66, Mauritania 66.

(123-128) Argentina 65, Republic of the Congo 65, Ecuador 65, Guinea 65, Madagascar 65, Nigeria 65.

(129) Dominican Republic 64.

(130-133) Cameroon 63, Chad 63, Namibia 63, Peru 63.

(134) Zambia 62.

(135&136) Botswana 61, Mexico 61.

(137) Sierra Leone 60.

(138) Uganda 59.

(139) Gambia 58.

(140) South Africa 57.

(141&142) Liberia 54, Venezuela 54.

(143) Gabon 52.

(144) Afghanistan 43.

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The second rankings are not actually rankings, but instead just listing, in increasing number of cases per million inhabitants (as of 27 October 2020), all of the world’s countries larger than 10 million population, showing for each of these countries the safety against coronavirus-19 infection, as measured by the number of cases per million inhabitants. (By cutting off at that population-size, some of the best-scoring countries, such as the world’s best-scoring one, which is Laos, which has only 3 cases per million inhabitants, and New Zealand, which has 388 cases per million, aren’t listed, but also some of the worst-scoring countries, such as the world’s worst, which is Andorra, which has 55,947 cases per million, but has only 77,305 inhabitants, are not listed. 10 million inhabitants is the cut-off point because almost all of the world’s population are in countries that have more than that number of inhabitants, but most of the world’s countries — over 60% of them — have less than ten million inhabitants.)

The data are as shown at the definitive website monitoring those numbers on a real-time basis, which is www.worldometers.info/coronavirus, on October 27th:

Vietnam 12, Cambodia 17, Taiwan 23, Burundi 46, Niger 50, Thailand 54, China 60, Yemen 69, Chad 87, Burkina Faso 117, DRC 124, Mali 171, Benin 209, Somalia 246, Uganda 250, South Sudan 257, Angola 291, Nigeria 299, Malawi 306, Syria 310, Sudan 311, Mozambique 386, Sri Lanka 392, South Korea 506, Zimbabwe 556, Cuba 582, Madagascar 608, Japan 768, Ivory Coast 771, Haiti 789, Ethiopia 809, Cameroon 850, Myanmar 847, Malaysia 856, Zambia 874, Guinea 879, Senegal 922, Kenya 923, Egypt 1,037, Afghanistan 1,044, Australia 1,076, Algeria 1,279, Indonesia 1,432, Pakistan 1,479, Ghana 1,527, Uzbekistan 1,953, Bangladesh 2,423, Greece 3,027, Venezuela 3,170, Philippines 3,377, Turkey 4,301, Tunisia 4,419, Azerbaijan 4,965, Germany 5,368, Jordan 5,379, Morocco 5,391, Nepal 5,454, India 5,740, Canada 5,818, Kazakhstan 5,865, Iran 6,816, Mexico 6,889, Poland 6,976, Ukraine 7,994, Italy 8,982, Ecuador 9,148, Saudi Arabia 9,868, Russia 10,491, Sweden 10,929, Romania 11,070, Iraq 11,243, Dominican Republic 11,472, Portugal 11,891, Bolivia 12,014, South Africa 12,037, UK 13,157, Netherlands 17,589, France 17,839, Colombia 20,077, Argentina 24,318, Spain 24,732, Czechia 25,045, Brazil 25,401, Chile 26,272, Peru 26,891, USA 27,024.

Since the sheer scale of the differences in the coronavirus performance of countries is hard to grasp, it might be best represented by the simple fact that, per million inhabitants, the USA has exactly 2,252 cases of Covid-19 infection for each single case per million inhabitants in Vietnam. It has 450 cases for each case in China. It has 46 cases for each case in Cuba. That’s how extreme the differences are — multiples, not merely percentages. However, America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns prospective U.S. travelers to Cuba, “Warning Level 3, Avoid Nonessential Travel” and “COVID-19 risk in Cuba is high. CDC recommends travelers avoid all nonessential international travel to Cuba.” That’s the U.S. Government’s highest warning level (“Level 3”). The U.S., which is 46 times more dangerous on Covid-19 than Cuba is, warns its travelers to stay away from Cuba because that nation is in the most dangerous category on Covid-19 risk. They do that with (warn people against) all nations that the U.S. Government (i.e., America’s billionaires) are hoping, eventually, to conquer, but have not yet turned into a vassal-nation (another U.S. colony). In other words: it’s a political warning, not actually based on the relevant data, at all. It’s just another U.S. Government lie, directed at whatever suckers trust what the U.S. Government says. According to the daily figures, shown at www.worldometers.info/coronavirus, for November 12th (the latest day as this is being written), Cuba has 11,324,473 people, and had on the prior day (November 11th) 37 new daily cases, whereas U.S. has 331,711,584 people, and had on the prior day an all-time-record high of 142,906 new daily cases; so, that’s 306,067 Cubans per new daily case, versus 2,321 Americans per new daily case. That ratio isn’t 46 times higher; it is 132 times higher; so, relatively speaking, Cuba is improving as compared to America. And the situation is even more extreme with regard to some other countries that the U.S. Government is aiming to conquer.

If the U.S. Government complains about this statement here, then it should first place Cuba into the lowest Covid-19 risk category (“Level 1”). Then it won’t be lying anymore about that matter. But how likely is such honesty from the American Government ever to happen? It could only happen if a Second American Revolution would happen before it — a Revolution to overthrow, this time, not Britain’s aristocracy, but America’s own aristocracy, which has effectively seized control over both of America’s political Parties.

“69% of Americans say they are more concerned about bias in the news other people consume than its presence in their own news (29%).” In other words: 69/29, or 2.38 times, as many Americans are closed-minded (prejudiced) regarding information-sources which don’t fit their ideology, than are not. Overwhelmingly in America, only Democratic Party information-sources are trusted by Democrats, and only Republican information-sources are trusted by Republicans. Each side distrusts the other’s information-sources. Gallup’s news-report aptly noted the important fact that “This plays into the political polarization in the U.S. national discourse.” The more prejudiced a population are, the more polarized it will be. Of course, one would expect this to be the case, but Gallup has now found striking new empirical evidence for it — that the public’s closed-mindedness is greatly increasing America’s political polarization. Each side is craving propaganda instead of truth, but each side’s voters want only the type of propaganda that is funded by the billionaires who also fund that side’s politicians and control that side’s ‘news’ media. Consequently, American politics is controlled by the conflict between liberal billionaires versus conservative billionaires — totally controlled by billionaires (instead of by the public). There is the liberal herd, and the conservative herd, but they’re both herds — not by the public in an actual democracy. And each of these two herds is controlled by its shepherd, who are its billionaires. (Here is how that’s done.) Billionaires control each Party and thereby control the Government. This is why the Government ignores the preferences of America’s public. As will be shown here, the September 11th Gallup findings help to explain how and why that results.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans can become exposed to the other side’s evidence and arguments unless they see those — the other side’s evidence and arguments, both for its own case and against the opposite side’s case (i.e., against the case that oneself believes). Not to see the opposite side’s viewpoint is to be blind to it, and thus to become locked into whatever oneself believes. This 69/29 is like a jury’s rendering its verdict and nearly three quarters of the jurors having not listened to — and thus not considered — the opposite side’s presentations. That’s a frightening situation to exist in any court of law, and it is an equally frightening situation to exist in any nation’s electorate.

As a consequence of Americans’ strong tendency to be closed-minded, America’s politics are, to a very large extent, driven more by prejudices than by the realities that the public are actually facing. Individuals are seeking for sources that will likeliest confirm what they already believe, and are seeking to avoid sources that are the likeliest to disconfirm their beliefs. This is consequently a population that’s highly vulnerable to being manipulated, by playing up to, and amplifying, the given Party’s propaganda, to which the given individual already subscribes. Republican Party billionaires (by their use of their conservative newsmedia and think tanks, etc., which they control) can easily manipulate Republican Party voters, and Democratic Party billionaires can, likewise, easily manipulate Democratic Party voters, by their liberal media, think tanks, etc. That’s billionaires, on each of the two sides, guiding each of the two Parties’ voters; and, therefore, the nation is an aristocracy — a country which is controlled by its wealthiest few — instead of an authentic democracy (which is controlled not by the numbers of dollars, but actually by the numbers of residents, each one of whom is independently and open-mindedly seeking for credibly documented facts). An aristocracy rules any such land. The public are not the rulers in such a nation. It’s not a democracy; it is a collective dictatorship, by its billionaires (its aristocracy). Both of the two Parties’ voters vote in accord with their billionaires’ agenda, but especially in accord with whatever is on the agenda that’s shared by both liberal and conservative billionaires — billionaires fund both of the national Parties: Democrats and Republicans, and thereby control both Parties. Billionaires, in each Party, have their very golden, very heavy, thumbs, pressing down hard upon the scale of any such ‘democracy’, such that regardless of which group of billionaires ends up winning any ultimate election, the public inevitably will lose, because it’s really just a contest between billionaires, who are stage-managing the nation’s entire political proceedings. This is like two boxers fighting in a ring, in which the selection-process which placed them there was corrupt; and, so, even if the ultimate winner is not equally corruptly pre-determined, the final result has nonetheless already been rigged (during the primaries). When the contenders have been selected by a corrupt process, the ultimate outcome cannot be a democracy.

This happens not only regarding elections, but regarding particular issues. For example, in 2002 and 2003, “regime-change in Iraq,” and “Saddam’s WMD,” were just as much agendas of liberal billionaires’ media and think tanks as they were of conservative billionaires’ media and think tanks (and were thoroughly based on lies); so, a closed-minded public were actually trapped, into the lies that were agreed-upon by both sides of the domestic American political spectrum — the sides that are funded and controlled by the liberal billionaires, and by the conservative billionaires. The nearly $2 trillion cost of the invasion and military occupation of that country, and the consequent destruction of that country, were done for America’s billionaires, and produced nothing for the American people except that enormous public debt and those injuries and deaths to America’s soldiers and to Iraqis. And that’s typical, nowadays, in this (just as in any) aristocracy: the aristocracy are served; the nation’s public serve to them. (In the U.S., this has caused “U.S. Satisfaction at 13%, Lowest in Nine Years”, as Gallup headlined on 4 August 2020; and it has caused Americas’ satisfaction with their Government to have ranged from its all-time low of only 7% in 2008, to its all-time high of only 45% at the very start of 2020 — well below 50%, for as long as Gallup has surveyed this.)

What all of the billionaires want is what the American public get as their Government. It’s bipartisanship amongst its billionaires. That’s what produces this Government’s policies. It’s what determines the Government that Americans get. However, what is basic in making it a dictatorship of the aristocracy-type (such as this America is) is that the population is very prejudiced, not open-minded — not each individual constantly seeking solid evidence to change one’s mind about how society works (what the reality in the nation actually is), so as for one’s view to become increasingly accurate over time. Instead, one’s myths are constantly being fed. Such a public, as this, are not individuals, in a democracy, but more like mobs, very manipulable.

Often, America’s bipartisan views are based upon lies that virtually all billionaires want the public to believe. In such cases — and these instances are frequent — the truth is being simply ignored, or else outright denied, by both sides (and by the media, for both sides). Individuals’ prejudices are thus being increased, instead of reduced, by what the public see and hear in “the news.” Everyone has prejudices, and truth can predominate only if people are constantly skeptical of the sources that they are relying upon — constantly trying to root out and replace whatever false beliefs they have. This is the essence of scientific method. Democracy depends upon it. Aristocracy requires the opposite. America has the opposite.

Change away from this present situation, to a democracy, would be difficult. On both of America’s political sides, there needs to be far less trust of the Establishment (including its politicians, its media, its think tanks, etc.), in order for any real democracy to become able to exist. It’s not even able to exist now. And, therefore, it does not exist.

But what is even more depressing is that America’s educational system, most especially its colleges and universities, are encouraging, instead of discouraging, this situation, this closed-mindedness. The more educated an American is, the more closed-minded that person becomes — as is further shown in this same September 11th Gallup news-report:

“Whereas 52% of Americans with a high school education or less are more concerned about bias in others’ news than in their own [and 45% of that minimally educated group think that the news which they are reading might be biased], the figure is 64% among those with some college education and is even higher among college graduates (73%) and those with postgraduate education (77%) [and only 22% of that maximally educated group think that the news which they are reading might be biased].” The most-educated Americans are the most-manipulable (the most closed-minded) Americans.

No finding in this Gallup report was as extreme as the finding that the more highly educated an American is, the less open that person is likely to be to changing his or her mind (outlook) about the situation. In other words: the more educated an American is, the more closed-minded that person tends to become. Higher education in America increases, instead of decreases, an individual’s closed-mindedness. However, other contrasts which were almost as extreme are:

“Those who identify as liberal (80%) are more concerned than conservatives (68%) and moderates (65%) with other people’s media bias.” In other words: liberals are 80/65 or 1.23 times as closed-minded as are moderates, and are 80/68 or 1.18 times as closed-minded as conservatives are.

“While 58% of Black adults are more concerned about bias in others’ news than in their own, fully 73% of Asian Americans and 72% of White adults say the same.” Thus, African-Americans are 58/72.5 or 80% as closed-minded as are Euro-Americans and Asian-Americans.

This is the worst combination possible: it’s a closed-minded population, which is especially closed-minded amongst its most educated segment. The leading segment is also the most closed-minded segment. These are crucial agents of the billionaires, and they crucially inculcate into the next generation of Americans the aristocracy’s values.

This means that the leaders keep themselves, conceptually, inside a cocoon. They have minimal contact with the most vulnerable members of the society, which is the less-educated members. That enhances inequality of opportunity, throughout the society. Since the most-highly-educated Americans are the group that are the most-closed to opinions which are contrary to their own, it’s easy for the most-highly-educated Americans to view individuals who disagree with those persons’ views as being simply a “basket of deplorables.” Their disagreement then becomes their contempt. ‘Facts’ about politics are — for those persons, highly educated persons — more derived from their values and priorities, than their values and priorities are derived from the political facts. Scientific epistemology is being turned upside-down, regarding political issues, in such a country. Overwhelmingly, some sort of faith, instead of any sort of science, determines what individuals in such a country believe about politics. In every aristocracy, this is the way that both conservative and liberal persons view any persons in the general public who oppose themselves: they’re viewed as being a “basket of deplorables.” It’s the very essence of elitism — on both sides. (For prominent examples of this: both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had contempt for each-others’ voters — blotted them out.)

The leadership’s minimal contact with the public makes exceedingly unlikely the leadership’s compassion, concern about the sufferings that they, themselves, are causing down below. Actually, though every aristocracy claims to want to improve conditions for their public, the reality is that whenever doing that would entail their own losing power, that claim becomes exposed to be sheer hypocrisy — a lie; often a self-deception, and not merely a deception against the public. Deceiving themselves about their own decency is easy, because they have minimal contact with the most vulnerable members of the society, the very people whom they claim to care the most about (and to be working in politics to help). Fakery is built into each and every aristocracy. Americans’ strong tendency to be closed-minded causes the aristocratic con to be widely accepted as if it were instead truth. (Again: the “WMD in Iraq” con was a good example of this — the aristocracy’s media just blocked-out the reality.) Scientific studies have even demonstrated that the wealthier a person is, the less compassion the individual tends to have for people who are suffering.

Furthermore, since the less-educated persons aspire to be more-educated, they are — even without knowing it — aspiring to become less open to contrary views, instead of to become more open to such views. One bad consequence of this is: it strangulates imaginativeness, openness, and creativity, in favor of being rote, rigid, and bureaucratic. Another bad consequence of it is that the authority-figures, in such a society, are, in some important ways, actually inferior to the rest of the population. Moreover, America’s colleges and universities are not increasing their students’ open-mindedness (as they should) but the exact opposite — they are reducing their students’ open-mindedness. Even if professors are teaching some truths, the professors are training their students to be authoritarian, instead of to be open to a more truthful, comprehensive, and deeper understanding, which encompasses those truths, but also many more — which the majority of professors either ignore or else deny, because such deeper understanding violates the existing Scripture, or standard viewpoint (shaped by both sides’ billionaires). At least in the United States, this is now the normal situation. That Gallup poll showed it not merely weakly, nor even only moderately, but extremely.

This is a perverse situation, which bodes ill for the future of the entire nation. Any country which is like this is not only an aristocracy instead of a democracy, but it is greatly disadvantaged, going forward. It will be disadvantaged both in the arts and in the sciences. Its future will be stultifying, instead of dynamic. Aristocracies tend to be this way. Also, because it will remain highly polarized, its internal ideological frictions will waste a large proportion of the nation’s efforts. As a nation, its forward-motion, its progress, will thus largely be crippled, by its internal discord and distrust, between the two warring factions of its aristocracy — and friction between the respective followers on each side.

This describes a declining culture — a nation that is in decline.

That’s what this poll-report, from Gallup, indicates, as clearly as any poll-findings can.

It indicates a nation in decline.

During the Presidential primaries in the Democratic Party, a major point of difference between the two major candidates, Joe Biden versus Bernie Sanders, was whether billionaires are bad for the country: Biden said no; Sanders said yes. (This was a major reason why the billionaires made sure that Sanders would lose.) In any country where wealth-inequality is so extreme, there can be no authentic democracy. America’s extreme inequality of wealth makes democracy impossible in this country. America’s other problems follow from that. In reality, it’s a one-party state, and that party is controlled not actually by the counts of voters, but by the counts of dollars. It is an aristocracy; and its decline — to what has been documented here — follows from that fact. Whatever democracy America might once have had is gone now. It has become replaced by a land of mass-deceptions, which are bought and sold.

Gallup (an employee-owned company) normally sells the findings to wealthy investors throughout the world. In 2015, Gallup headlined, “75% in U.S. See Widespread Government Corruption”, and ranked only the 37 countries that the U.S. regime approves of, which the U.S. regime’s ‘Freedom House’ had ranked as having a ‘free press’ (meaning a press whose major ‘news’-media adhere sufficiently to the U.S. CIA’s advices). In rank order, the least corrupt of those 37 countries were: Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, and Germany — all of them ranging from only 14% corrupt, to 40% corrupt. The most corrupt, in rank order starting with the most corrupt, were: Lithuania, Portugal, Ghana, Spain, Czech Republic, and Slovenia — all of them at least 80% corrupt, which were actually ranked from 82% corrupt to 90% corrupt. 75% of Americans told Gallup they thought “corruption widespread throughout the government.” (We thus will call America “75% corrupt.”) Latvia was in the middle of the 37, at 63% corrupt. So: amongst ‘free press’ countries (governments that the U.S. regime isn’t aiming to regime-change), this percentage (63%) was the average rate of corruption (that is, of the population’s alleging corruption to be “widespread throughout the government”).

When Gallup published their complete poll-report, on 18 October 2013, which was headlined “Government Corruption Viewed as Pervasive Worldwide”, it included 129 countries. Shown here in rank order will be the 11 least-corrupt nations as indicated in that October 2013 Gallup news-report; and, for each nation, also — by way of comparison — the Transparency International (TI) corruption-rankings, in 2012, will be shown, because that was the year when Gallup’s data were being collected. (Click onto the link just above, if you want to see the complete 2013 Gallup article, with the scores shown for all 129, but Gallup provided there only the nation-by-nation scores, no rankings, and presented the 129 nations only in alphabetical order, instead of in rank order, perhaps so as not to give offence which might drive away potential clients that are in disappointingly low-scoring countries, such as America.) What is to be be shown here — for the first time anywhere — are the ranks that are based upon those Gallup-published scores.

As was noted at the outset here, Rwanda ranked there as #1 (it had the lowest percentage — it was the least viewed as corrupt) that year. Only 5% of Gallup’s Rwandan respondents answered “Yes” to “Is corruption widespread throughout the government in Rwanda or not?” For purposes of simplicity and brevity, we may call that a finding of “only 5% corrupt.”

Here, then, to start with, are listed the corruption-percentages, and ranks, of the 11 least-corrupt nations, out of the Gallup-surveyed 129 nations:

1=Rwanda (ranked in 2012 TI as #50 out of 176 [but they say ‘198’] countries) 5%

2=Sweden (in 2012 TI #4 of 176) 14%

3&4=Singapore (in 2012 TI #5) & Denmark (in 2012 TI tied as #s1-3, one through three) 15%

5=Switzerland (in 2012 TI #6) 23%

6=NZ (in 2012 TI tied as #s1-3) 24%

7&8=Georgia (in 2012 TI #51) & Norway (in 2012 TI #7) 25%

9=Luxembourg (in 2012 TI #12) 26%

10&11=HongKong (in 2012 TI #14) & Finland (in 2012 TI tied as #s1-3) 30%

Near the middle of that Gallup 2013 ranking was:

63&64&65&66=U.S., tied with Guatemala, Nepal, Philippines, & Taiwan

At the very bottom were:

129=Tanzania 95% (ranked #102 out of ‘198’ — actually 176 — by TI)

(At the bottom of the TI rankings were 3 tied: Afghanistan, N. Korea, & Somalia.)

128=Kenya 93%

125&126&127=Greece, Nigeria, & Chad 92%

124=Uganda 91%

123=Lithuania 90%

120&121&122=Ghana, Cameroon, & Bosnia 89%

118&119=Portugal & Indonesia 88%

116&117=South Africa & Thailand 87%

U.S. ranked in the 2012 TI as being #19 out of 176 (‘198’), which, of course, is considerably worse than being #64 out of 129 (in the much more reliable Gallup survey), because TI itself is corrupt: it’s a U.S.-regime front.

Transparency International was founded in 1993 by former top officials of the World Bank. The World Bank had been initiated at the three-week, 1-22 July 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, in New Hampshire, and this was being done by appointees of the anti-imperialist Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and of the imperialist (or “pro-imperialist”) Winston Churchill, and so it wasn’t clear whether or not it would support imperialism. In fact, Wikipedia’s article on the “Bretton Woods Conference” states that:

In his closing remarks at the conference, its president, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, stated that the establishment of the IMF and the IBRD marked the end of economic nationalism. This meant countries would maintain their national interest, but trade blocs and economic spheres of influence would no longer be their means. The second idea behind the Bretton Woods Conference was joint management of the Western political-economic order, meaning that the foremost industrial democratic nations must lower barriers to trade and the movement of capital, in addition to their responsibility to govern the system.

This was before FDR died and Truman and the Cold War fundamentally changed things; and that Wikipedia article (being part of U.S. propaganda) falsely says that the attendees were representing “the foremost industrial democratic nations”, though many of those nations were actually dictatorships, such as Brazil, Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Egypt, China, and the Soviet Union.

Democracy had nothing to do with it. Imperialism did — and, after FDR’s death, nothing could stop the Bretton Woods system from being imperialistic at its very start. The exhaustively documented study by Eric Toussaint, The World Bank — A Critical Primer, opens its Introduction by noting that, “The list of governments resulting from military coups that were supported by the World Bank is impressive,” and these have all been U.S.-supported (and mostly were U.S.-perpetrated) coups. He also noted that, “the U.S. government has indeed enforced its views in those areas [of the World Bank’s operations] in which it is directly concerned.” Furthermore, and more generally: “The hidden agenda of the Washington Consensus aims … at maintaining the US global leadership. … For instance, the World Bank will only grant a loan on condition that a country’s water and sanitation services are privatized.” Billionaires — mostly American ones — end up receiving the profits from what would otherwise have been public works in foreign countries. Those “works” consequently ignore the poor. This is why the interests of the local poor are ignored, while the interests of global billionaires (and especially of U.S.-based billionaires) are advanced. On page 134, Toussaint refers to “the total cynicism inherent in the system, which results in artificially increased debt loads [in poor countries] that in no way correspond to the money injected into the economies of these countries.” The existing World Bank’s system is exactly what FDR had condemned and said absolutely must be replaced (and explained why it needed to be replaced). The book’s Chapter “24: An Indictment of the World Bank” is a scathing summary of this international gangland operation. (FDR had similarly described imperialism.) As one review of Toussaint’s book summed up the work: “The strategy, in a nutshell, is that providing infrastructure should fall on the state sector, and anything that might prove profitable should be given to the private sector (preferably favouring multinational corporations), i.e. privatisation of profits combined with the socialisation of the cost of anything not profitable.” John Perkins’s classic Confessions of an Economic Hit Man details the operations that Perkins had done for the World Bank and the benefits he had been providing to billionaires, and the destruction he had been perpetrating upon the residents in those vassal-nations. This wealth-transfer, from the masses to the classes — further impoverishment of the poor — is similarly the agenda of Transparency International, not just the World Bank’s agenda. TI assists it by producing their faked rankings. In a sense, boosted rankings are being bought and paid for.

So, actually, the World Bank’s history is also TI’s history — its pre-history, which shaped it. That goes back to the Bretton Woods Conference, on 1-22 July 1944.

Wikipedia’s article on the “Bretton Woods Conference” says that, “The institutions [World Bank and IMF] were formally organized at an inaugural meeting in Savannah, Georgia, on March 8–18, 1946.[13] Notably absent from Savannah was the USSR, which had signed the Bretton Woods Final Act but had then decided not to ratify it. The USSR never joined the IMF and IBRD.” However, actually, the Soviet Union did not sign the “Bretton Woods Agreements”. The U.S.S.R. was the only Bretton Woods attendee which did not. Signing was done actually at a ceremony in Washington, DC, on 27 December 1945. In the U.N.’s online pdf of that final document, at page 120, where it says, “Pour l’Union des” (Républiques socialistes soviétiques), there is a blank, no one listed even as attending, and it’s the only blank. Every other Bretton Woods attendee sent a representative, who signed. As early as 26 July 1945, Truman had personally expressed his hostility to Stalin; and, clearly, from that moment on, Stalin knew that the death of FDR on 12 April 1945 had changed everything. (Which it did.)

The reason why TI was created by the World Bank in 1993 is that, at that time, the World Bank’s Chief Economist was the extremely pro-imperialist and highly political American, Larry Summers; and the World Bank’s President was J.P. Morgan’s former long-serving CEO, Lewis Preston, who became appointed by U.S. President G.H.W. Bush as the World Bank’s President in 1991. On 24 February 1990, just before the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact equivalent to America’s NATO military alliance all ended in 1991, G.H.W. Bush secretly started instructing America’s allies that though the Cold War was ending on the Soviet side, the Cold War was secretly to continue on the U.S.-and-allied side. Consequently, a new excuse for it — no longer ‘capitalism versus communism’ — was needed; and anti-corruption would be that excuse. That’s why TI was created. I previously explained in detail how “TI was instituted by the U.S.-created World Bank, in order to handle the ‘corruption’-propaganda portfolio for the U.S. empire.” TI is specifically a U.S. imperialist operation. It’s an intrinsic part of the U.S. regime’s operation for achieving all-encompassing U.S. empire. It is not an objective credible rating-system, for anything.

Whereas Gallup is honest, Transparency International (TI) is corrupt. Instead of being owned by its employees, TI is funded by the U.S. and its European allies (in other words, it’s a U.S. Cold War, CIA-affiliated, operation), a U.S.-regime PR gimmick, in order for them to use those ‘corruption’-rankings against governments (ones that consequently get scored lower) which the U.S. aristocracy — its billionaires — want to regime-change — overthrow, control, take over, conquer. Almost all on the list of TI’s donors are controlled by U.S. billionaires. America’s TI ranking, as of 9 July 2019, of 23 out of 180 (and that’s a real “180”: TI didn’t fake that count, in that year), is said there to be from “Corruption Perceptions Index 2018”, but if one clicks through to the complete list (it’s in .xlxs, but also here for anyone to see), then the U.S. actually ranks there tied as #23-#24, below (starting from #1):

1-2=Denmark&NZ,

3=Finland,

4-6=Singapore&Sweden&Switzerland,

7=Norway,

8=Netherlands,

9-10=Germany&Luxembourg, 11=Iceland,

12-15=Australia&Austria&Canada&UK,

16=HongKong,

17=Belgium,

18&19=Estonia&Ireland,

20=Japan,

21=UAE&Uruguay,

23-24France&U.S.

All of those governments — both directly and indirectly — fund TI.

TI’s methodology is based on officials’ opinions, not on data. Their published “Methodology” is a scandal, filled with opacities, easy to manipulate in the dark, such as: “Transparency International reaches out to each one of the institutions providing data in order to verify the methodology used to generate their scores. Since some of the sources are not publicly available, Transparency International also requests permission to publish the rescaled scores from each source alongside the composite CPI score. Transparency International is, however, not permitted to share the original scores given by private sources with the general public.” (Elsewhere, I have further discussed TI’s methodology.) Their rankings are PR tools, not trustworthy information-sources. Anyone who cites TI’s ‘findings’ (except critically) is not to be trusted, because even if they are honest, they are trusting a hoax. Gallup is vastly more trustworthy than TI.

Not only do Rwandans know that their country is relatively outstanding against corruption, but even the countries that fund TI begrudgingly acknowledge it. On 22 July 2010, the BBC headlined “Rwanda has negligible corruption – Transparency” and reported that, “Incidents of bribery in Rwanda are negligible, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International says.” But TI’s rating of Rwanda was systematically an under-rating of that country’s outstanding performance, because the industrialized nations donate to TI, and they don’t want to be outshone by a third-world nation. “He that pays the piper calls the tune.” Rwanda has not been paying the piper. However, even the CIA-edited (and even written) Wikipedia acknowledges that Rwanda’s leader, Paul Kagame, “is popular in Rwanda,” and that “Rwanda’s economy has grown rapidly under Kagame’s presidency, with per-capita gross domestic product (purchasing power parity) estimated at $1,592 in 2013,[212] compared with $567 in 2000.[213] Annual growth between 2004 and 2010 averaged 8% per year.[214]” Unfortunately, this situation could rapidly change. For example: starting, in 2013, Rwanda’s debt/GDP ratio soared, from a long stable 20%, up to around 40% in 2017, and, during the three years of 2019 through 2021, Rwanda’s monthly debt-service payments due, mainly to the World Bank, will have soared from $2.688 billion to 23.341 billion. Will Rwanda still be enforcing its anti-corruption laws in 2022? Or will foreign billionaires instead be effectively in control over that country? Who knows? However, even on public debt, Rwanda isn’t yet anywhere near the worst countries. As of 2018, these were the 12 countries (out of 186) where public debt/GDP was actually over 100%: Barbados 123%; Cabo Verde 130%; Congo Republic 101%; Cyprus 112%; Greece 188%; Italy 130%; Japan 238% (but almost all domestic-owned); Lebanon 150%; Portugal 121%; Sudan 168%; U.S. 106%; Venezuela 159%. So, even on that, Rwanda outperforms U.S.

China’s Xinhua News Agency headlined on 10 December 2019, “What makes Rwanda one of least corrupted countries in Africa?” and opened with some of the explanation for Rwanda’s recent outstanding performance:

Rwanda, which ranks as one of the least corrupted countries in Africa, has made holistic efforts to fight corruption, officials and scholars told Xinhua on Monday, the date of this year’s International Anti-Corruption Day. The central African country ranked 48th among 180 countries across the world in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2018 published by Transparency International, making it the least corrupted country in East and Central Africa and the fourth least corrupted in the entire African continent.

Rwanda’s achievements in its fight against corruption can be attributed to several factors, including political will, awareness campaigns, and enforcement of laws, said Clement Musangabatware, Rwanda’s deputy ombudsman in charge of preventing and fighting corruption. … The unity of the Rwandan people in the fight against corruption has also contributed to eliminating vice, according to Rwandan Senator Juvenal Nkusi.

The government of Rwanda has effectively combated corruption by creating a culture of transparency and accountability while making the cost of getting involved in corruption high, said Nkusi, noting that Rwandan officials are aware of the dire consequences of corruption.

The nation’s zero-tolerance policy, which is maintained by top leaders, is an “apparent consensus” among the political community regardless of party affiliation, said Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, an independent researcher on politics and public affairs.

On 4 August 2020, Kenya’s The East African headlined “KAGAME: We’re putting maximum pressure on the corrupt” and opened, “Rwandan public officials convicted of corruption risk facing hefty fines and auctioning of their property if convicted as the country steps up the fight against the vice in the face of dwindling domestic revenues which have come under enormous pressure during the coronavirus pandemic.” Another reason for this intensified enforcement might be to police the increased investment into the country by foreigners.

Furthermore, there are also other indicators of the rankings of various countries as regards corruption. On 15 April 2013, I headlined “How the U.S. Performs in Recent International Rankings” and reported that:

A much broader ranking-system, from the World Economic Forum, is “The Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013,” which ranks 144 countries, on a wide range of factors related to global economic competitiveness. … Corruption seems to be a rather pervasive problem in the U.S. On “Diversion of Public Funds [due to corruption],” the U.S. ranks #34. On “Irregular Payments and Bribes” (which is perhaps an even better measure of lack of corruption) we are #42. On “Public Trust in Politicians,” we are #54. On “Judicial Independence,” we are #38. On “Favoritism in Decisions of Government Officials” (otherwise known as governmental “cronyism”), we are #59. On “Organized Crime,” we are #87. On “Ethical Behavior of Firms,” we are #29. On “Strength of Auditing and Reporting Standards,” we are #37. On “Reliability of Police Services,” we are #30. On “Transparency of Governmental Policymaking,” we are #56. On “Efficiency of Legal Framework in Challenging Regulations,” we are #37. On “Efficiency of Legal Framework in Settling Disputes,” we are #35. On “Burden of Government Regulation,” we are #76. On “Wastefulness of Government Spending,” we are also #76. On “Property Rights” protection (the basic law-and-order measure), we are #42.

The U.S.’s overall “global competitiveness” ranking was #7. All of the “corruption” factors were listed under the heading of “Institutions,” and the United States’ overall “Institutions” ranking was #41. (Singapore had the #1 “Institutions” ranking. NZ was #2 on “Institutions.” All nations’ “Institutions” rankings were shown on pages 16-17. However, some of the “Institutions” factors, on the basis of which those ranks are generated, do not concern corruption. Furthermore, most of the information that was inputted to calculate these rankings came from the World Bank. Only the Gallup surveys are based upon perceptions by the public within each of the ranked nations.)

The summary for Rwanda said: “Rwanda moves up by seven places this year to 63rd position, continuing to place third in the sub Saharan African region. As do the other comparatively successful African countries, Rwanda benefits from strong and relatively well-functioning institutions, with very low levels of corruption (an outcome that is certainly related to the government’s non-tolerance policy), and a good security environment. Its labor markets are efficient, its financial markets are relatively well developed, and Rwanda is characterized by a capacity for innovation that is quite good for a country at its stage of development. The greatest challenges facing Rwanda in improving its competitiveness are the state of the country’s infrastructure, its low secondary and university enrollment rates, and the poor health of its workforce.”

Here were a few of Rwanda’s corruption (“Institutions”) ranks (shown in the report’s page 307): On “Diversion of Public Funds,” Rwanda was #37. On “Irregular Payments and Bribes,” it was #21. On “Public Trust in Politicians,” it was #6. On “Strength of Auditing and Reporting Standards,” it was #69 (and that was Rwanda’s worst “Institutions” rank). Rwanda’s overall “Institutions” ranking was #20. (However, page 77 of the report indicated that Rwnda was being rated on the basis of 2011 data, not 2012.)

So: for “Institutions,” U.S. was #41, and Rwanda was #20, whereas the 2012 TI “corruption” rankings were U.S. #19 and Rwanda #50. That contrast in rankings might be a fair indicator of how corrupt (bought and paid for) TI is. (Of course, if Gallup’s findings were the best measure of a country’s “corruption,” then that contrast against TI’s U.S. #19 and Rwanda #50 would instead be U.S #65 versus Rwanda #1.) Anyway, Rwanda was vastly less corrupt than the U.S. is. Whether Rwanda might have been #1 out of 129, or #20 out of 144, can be reasonably debated, but that it would have been #50 out of 176 (which TI claimed was instead out of 198) can be simply ignored — it is outside the bounds of reasonable credibility.

Associated with lack of corruption is honest police forces. On 28 June 2018, Rwanda’s leading daily newspaper, The New Times, headlined “Gallup report: Rwanda is second safest place in Africa”, and reported that 83% “of Rwandan residents have confidence in the local police force and … feel safe walking alone at night.” The safest countries were: Singapore 97%, and — in second through fourth place — “Norway, Iceland and Finland who tied at 93 per cent respectively. Rwanda came at 40 globally.” U.S. ranked at #35 out of 142 countries in this survey.

By contrast, as compared to the case of Rwanda — a country that is trying hard not to be corrupt — the U.S. Supreme Court has (see “Federal Public Corruption Prosecution After ‘Bridgegate’”) unanimously ruled, on 7 May 2020 (in Kelly v. U.S.), that unless direct bribery can be proven against a public official, any other type of abuse of public office (than direct bribery) is entirely legal, and not subject to penalty, under any U.S. criminal laws, regardless of any suffering that might have been perpetrated upon the general public, or upon any individual, by that official’s action, or decision. This landmark ruling concerned two subordinates, not the elected official himself; and, so, of course, elected officials themselves are now, essentially, totally immune in the U.S. Even their subordinates are safe, and therefore won’t have incentive to give plea-bargained testimony against their boss in complex corruption-cases. They’re already “home free.” A month later, on June 15th, this same U.S. Supreme Court, in yet another landmark decision, ruled by 8 to 1 that even low officials, such as police, are beyond the reach of the law if they even murder totally innocent persons, if it’s being done while they are on the job. The badge is their protection. (Of course, both of those rulings are likely to cause corruption in the U.S. to grow yet higher.)

As Nicole M. Argentieri, one of America’s top experts on corporate crime, commented about the Kelly v. U.S ruling, one result of the ruling is that “even conduct that the court unanimously characterized as an ‘abuse of power’ can escape prosecution.” The 9 ‘Justices’ didn’t consider the prevention of abuse of power by public officials to be a sufficiently high priority for it to be prosecuted, or even to be at all illegal. Of course, America’s courts aren’t supposed to be writing the laws, but prior rulings, from prior U.S. Supreme Courts, had interpreted America’s laws regarding corruption very differently. As Argentieri observed, “Between the 1940s and the 1980s, it was common for federal prosecutors to use federal fraud laws to prosecute public officials for ‘schemes to defraud citizens of their intangible rights to honest and impartial government’.” Corruption was prosecuted, but now it virtually cannot be. U.S. Supreme Court rulings such as these have made public corruption increasingly legal, and this year’s two rulings make it henceforth entirely legal. And, regardless of whether America’s now allowing public corruption should be attributed primarily to the legislative or to the judicial branch, it’s the current situation. And, yet, TI’s latest, 2019, ranking for the U.S. is #23 out of 198 countries (actually out of 176 countries); and their ranking for Rwanda is #51 (out of ‘198’), which pretends that Rwanda is quite a bit more corrupt than is the United States. TI’s rankings are thus worthless. They are pure propaganda, no news-value except for their own scandalousness and TI’s corruptness. And, as far as TI’s own ‘transparency’ is concerned, it’s yet another fraud. Itself is both opaque, and corrupt. Rwanda has tried hard to be neither.

TI’s ‘corruption’ scores affect how high an interest-rate the nation will pay on its sovereign debt. The IMF’s Public Financial Management Blog headlined on 15 September 2016 “The (Fiscal) Benefits of Transparency”, and reported: “A series of studies (Ciocchini et al 2003; Depken et al 2007; Remolona et al 2008) show that as scores on Transparency International’s (TI’s) Corruptions Perception Index (CPI) decrease, borrowing costs increase. These studies all show direct causality between corruption risk and borrowing costs, controlling for other influences.” Investors trust the fraud and therefore pay lots more for debt from ‘Transparent’ regimes than from low-scored ones. The IMF (the U.S. regime) can only be happy that the TI fraud works. However: taxpayers in any non-U.S.-allied country can only be sad that it does, because it raises their nation’s debt even further. The entire existing World Bank, IMF, and IBRD (‘International Bank for Reconstruction and Development’) system is set up so as to steal from taxpayers in low-income countries — such as Rwanda — in order to increase the wealth of foreign investors who invest in low-scored countries (which America’s billionaires want to conquer — which, if that happens, would increase their own wealth even more).

So: when the U.S. empire, starting in 1991, took anti-corruption as its new excuse for being imperialistic, replacing its old anti-communist excuse, what actually emerged in the U.S. itself has been a country in which around three-quarters of its own residents believe “corruption widespread throughout the government.” That’s tied with Guatemala, Nepal, Philippines, & Taiwan. According to any measure (except the fraudulent TI), Rwanda is far less corrupt than that. Whether it will remain so is another matter.

Telling people their lives suck is no way to win an election. As James Carville says, they’re losing their damn minds.

Peter VAN BUREN

The chaos of the primaries, the lack of a clear party vision in the last debate—are Democrats a progressive party, a party of moderates, a plaything for billionaires, or just people sniping each other for virtue points? It is time for concern.

Politics is always about the biggest story you tell and how voters see themselves in that story. If the Democrats lose in November, one of the main reasons—and the competition is strong—will be that they’ve gotten trapped inside a set of false narratives. Or they’re, in the words of James Carville, “Losing our damn minds.”

Think how powerful the narratives of “Morning in America” and “Hope and Change” were, and contrast those with the Dems’ “things suck more than you realize, people,” and you see where this is headed.

At the top of the list is the economy. The Democratic narrative is that the economy is bad, with a recession just around the corner (or maybe the corner after that, keep looking). Yet outside the debate hall, 59 percent of Americans say they are better off than they were a year ago. Overall quality of life is satisfactory for a massive 84 percent. Unemployment is at historic lows. Wages are up a bit.

The reality is bad enough for Dems. But the narrative problem is that they’re confusing a strong economy with economic inequality. The economy does benefit everyone, but it benefits a small percentage at the top much more. They have not gotten this message across to an electorate that is happy to have any job, content with some rise in wages, and, for the half of Americans who own some stock, want to see just enough growth in their 401(k) to suggest at least part of retirement won’t be dependent on canned soup being on sale. The Dems are running on a narrative that the economy is failing; Americans believe that if it is failing, it’s failing less than it did before, and that’s good enough.

Dems also insist on lumping blacks, Hispanics (30 percent of whom support Trump), Chinese, and everyone non-lily into “People of Color,” a classic case of one size fits none. It would be an award-winning SNL skit to watch Larry David’s Bernie try to convince a Chinese friend, a medical doctor with kids in the Ivies, that as a “POC,” his personal concerns have significant crossover with what’s happening to a guy uptown as played by guest host Samuel L. Jackson. It’s about money, stupid, not color.

Dems seem to be working this narrative into the ground in an effort to alienate as many voters as possible. Poor whites, too meth-addled to see Trump making false promises, deserve to be replaced by driverless delivery trucks. Poor blacks, it’s not your fault, because racism. Everyone else not white, whatever, go with the black folk on this one, ‘kay? An issue that could unite 90 percent of Americans gets lost. And if you don’t agree racism is the root cause of everything, from “top to bottom,” as Bernie says, well, you’re a racist! James Carville says for the Democratic Party to win it has to drive a narrative that “doesn’t give off vapors that we’re smarter than everyone or culturally arrogant.” Instead the strategy seems to be Dems turning from criticizing ideas to criticizing voters.

Much of the rest is a mighty credibility issue for the Dems. They have stuck with so many proven false narratives so long, no one believes them anymore. Trump did not work with Putin to get elected, yet Maddow on MSDNC is still pushing something similar even today. Do we really need to talk about how few Americans cared so little about impeachment? Trump did not start World War III. Roe v. Wade is still firmly the law.

But the transpeople! Dems have clung to the narrative that trans rights are somehow a major issue among voters. Biden tweeted, “Let’s be clear: Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time.” While most voters want to see transpeople treated decently, there is no national election issue here. Same for all the other virtuous baggage Dems drag around the social media. For example, rights and benefits for illegal immigrants. It makes them seem out of touch with mainstream America, a particular liability in an election likely to hinge on purple voters in swing states.

Dems also cling too hard to the narrative of Barack Obama. Maybe he deserves accolades for this or that, maybe not, but that the guy who seems to be the talk of the Democratic Party isn’t one of the people on the ballot does not indicate strength. Barack’s and Michelle’s formal portraits are touring the nation, apparently so Democrats can worship them like artifacts from some lost cargo cult, a “communal experience of a particular moment in time,” according to the National Portrait Gallery. Five equally desperate candidates, with Biden in the lead Art Garfunkel role, are airing ads featuring St. Barack.

Health care is a kitchen-table economic issue. A majority of Americans, regardless of party affiliation, rank cutting health care and drug costs as their top priority. That polls as far more important than passing a major health system overhaul like Medicare for All. Americans are not interested in converting the entire economy over to some flavor of socialism just so they can see a doctor. The bigger the change the Dems sell, the more it frightens people away.

Same for all the other free stuff Dems are using to troll for votes (college, loans, reparations). Each good idea is wrapped in a grad school seminar paper requiring America to convert its economy from something people have grown to live with into something they aren’t sure they understand. It is a hell of a narrative: Democrats turning an election against Trump into a sub-referendum on socialism lite at a time when Americans’ personal economic satisfaction is at a record high.

James Carville summed it up, saying, “We have candidates talking about open borders and decriminalizing illegal immigration. You’ve got Bernie Sanders talking about letting criminals and terrorists vote from jail cells. It doesn’t matter what you think about any of that, or if there are good arguments—talking about that is not how you win a national election…. By framing, repeating, and delivering a coherent, meaningful message that is relevant to people’s lives and having the political skill not to be sucked into every rabbit hole that somebody puts in front of you.”

Where once you had hope and change, now there’s the always exasperated Warren, the out-of-breath grumpy Bernie, that frozen Pete grin, Steyer giving his TED talks, Biden looking like the last surviving member of a rock band playing a Holiday Inn gig remembering when he and Barack once filled arenas, man. And now, Mike Bloomberg, cosplaying a Democrat. Oh well. The Beto revival of 2024 isn’t that far away.

If I were writing ad copy for the Republicans, I might try this: “Voters, do me a favor. Look out the window. Do you see a republic on the edge of collapse, Rome, the U.S. in 1860? Is your life controlled by an authoritarian? That’s what Democrats say is out there. But you don’t see that, do you? You see more people with jobs. You have a little more. And more kids down the block are home from war than are gearing up to fight in places like Libya and Syria that none of us really care about. Your choice is pretty straightforward at this point. Have a good night, and a good day at work tomorrow.”

theamericanconservative.com

As we know, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are bought, sold, and paid for by big business. For that reason, both have a history of avoiding the issues that are common to Americans of all political persuasions. Addressing such issues would undermine the profits of big business. They include free healthcare, living wages, quality work, secure pensions, unionization, etc.

In order to protect the profits of their business investors, both parties focus on the cultural differences between Americans. As campaigning for the election 2020 gets underway, we can expect the Trump-led Republican Party to increase its inflammatory nonsense in a deliberate effort to mobilize right-wing voters. We can also expect the culturally “liberal” mainstream media to happily take the bait and make Trump’s cultural illiberalism a big issue. As mega-corporations, they also want to avoid real issues.

Until Trump came along, the Republican Party whipped up support among Evangelical Christians by appealing to “moral” issues like abortion (as if free healthcare, for instance, isn’t a moral issue). Because Trump obviously isn’t a Christian, it would have been harder to sell him to Evangelical voters were it not for his platform of Islamophobia. Trump’s cultural provocations are used as a weapon to motivate Republican voters and conceal his egregious economic policies, like Executive Order 13772 on Core Principles for Regulating the United States Financial System, which seeks to further liberalize damaging financial markets.

Equally, in an effort to avoid core economic issues, establishment Democrats have traditionally appealed to cultural progressiveness, like gay rights.

MORAL DIFFERENCES

Morality is common to all human groups. But the precise expression of morality differs from culture to culture. The subjective and variable nature of morality and values makes it easy to use as a tool with which to manipulate voters.

In 2006, Gallup conducted a survey. The results suggested that 71% of Americans believed that the death penalty is morally acceptable, as is using human stem cells for medical research (61%), sex between unmarried people (59%), doctor-assisted suicide (50%), homosexuality (44%), abortion (43%), and suicide (15%). But when the data are extrapolated for political affiliation, differences emerge. Sixty-three percent of Democrats think that the death penalty is acceptable, 69% stem cell research, 65% premarital sex, 53% abortion, 53% homosexuality, 53% doctor-assisted suicide, and 18% suicide. Compare these figures on moral acceptability to Republicans: Death penalty 82%, stem cell research 53%, premarital sex 50%, abortion 30%, homosexuality 36%, doctor-assisted suicide 45%, and suicide 12%.

Just a year before, Glaeser et al. stated that attracting the average voter yields “high” electoral “returns.” As this is the case, they asked an important question: why political candidates take extreme positions (and remember, this is long before Trump). They refer to this political policy as “strategic extremism.” By 2005, religious attendance (overwhelmingly Christian) was as good a predictor of Republicanism as income. Interestingly, income as a predictor of Republican allegiance has been predictable since the 1960s, but religious fundamentalism as a predictor has grown in the same period. It is worth recalling that the late-1960s, but particularly into the 1970s, the US economy was deregulated by both Democrats and Republicans, leading to a decline in wages and the middle-class. Voter turnout among the highly religious increased by seven percentage points between 1976 and 1984, during which time Reagan’s managers fanaticized the Republican Party.

Glaeser et al. explain: “a politician deviating from the median will gain more from energizing his own supporters than he loses by further alienating his opponent’s supporters [sic].” On the abortion issue, the Democrats have moved further left since the 1970s (meaning that their position has been to side with the mother) and the Republicans moved further right (meaning that their position has been to preserve the embryo/foetus/baby no matter what). Team Trump didn’t explicitly try to mobilize the Christian right, though they did implicitly by standing on an anti-Islamic platform. Instead, they mobilized the amorphous alt-right: disenfranchised, usually-wealthy but not super-wealthy voters who considered the Republicans too left-wing. Reaching for the far-right in a country of moderates may seem counterintuitive, until we understand how small statistical shifts can result in significant, aggregate changes.

STRATEGIC EXTREMISM IN ACTION

The comparative secularization of Trump’s main Presidential campaign didn’t affect voter turnout. Pew reports that “white born-again or evangelical Christians and white Catholics, strongly supported Donald Trump,” slightly down from Bush in 2004 but slightly up from Romney the Mormon in 2012.

It is doubtful that many Americans who voted Trump actually voted for his Islamophobic, misogynistic caricature. Trump voters tended to be in the middle-to-upper-income bracket (regardless of gender and ethnicity) and were simply voting in their own economic and class interests. But Trump’s outrageous behavior generated media attention, which was good for the media because it boosted ratings. It was good for Trump’s campaign because the Democratic opposition was emotionally triggered by Trump’s antics and ended up looking hysterical instead of responding rationally. The Democrats had little choice because, having gotten rid of Bernie Sanders, the Democratic machine produced Hillary Clinton whose mandate was, like Trump’s, to avoid real issues. It was good for Trump because the more the “liberal” media hated his illiberalism, the more he could rally the support of his core voters who saw him as a political rebel battling the PC establishment.

Being a showman, Trump understands that attention is everything and ideology is nothing. Trump’s book The Art of the Deal (1987) reads: “I never get too attached to one deal or one approach” (p. 50); “even a critical story, which can be very hurtful personally, can be very valuable to your business” (p. 51); “if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you” (p. 56); “I play to people’s fantasies” (p. 58).

After Trump’s advisor Steve Bannon was fired or quit, he gave an interview to 60 Minutes, in which he confirmed that Trump’s illiberalism was designed to throw the opposition into psychological confusion, allowing Team Trump to gain the advantage. The “smart” Democrats, says Bannon, stuck to economic issues on the campaign, while Hillary Clinton played identity politics, which most Americans didn’t care about because almost no one sees themselves as racist (even if they are). “President Trump triggers—triggers—the left and they can’t handle it rationally and so long as they can’t handle it rationally, they’re not going to defeat him,” said Bannon.

Bannon’s alt-right followers only become significant demographically in the context elections because of small statistical changes in macro-systems, especially ones aided by an electoral college system. In an election such John McCain vs. Barack Obama, the alt-right wouldn’t have mattered: Obama had a higher approval rating (52%) than McCain (46%), and after eight years of a disastrous Bush presidency, Americans were hoping for change (Hope and Change). However, by 2016, Hillary Clinton represented more of the same. Most Americans knew Trump would be even worse than Clinton, so they reluctantly voted for Clinton. But just enough mobilized Republicans and far-righters were motivated to sway the election to Trump. In this respect, the alt-right becomes significant. The mainstream media, who overwhelmingly backed Clinton, did much to boost the profile of the otherwise obscure alt-right.

CONCLUSION

With the new socialistic Left gaining traction within the Democratic establishment, the 2020 campaign might see a greater focus on issues of the kind currently on display in the Democratic nomination rounds. This is unlikely because the Democratic Party machine will strive to filter out any challenge to corporate power, instead giving Americans an establishment figure like Creepy Joe “Nothing will change” Biden. We can expect a ramping up of Trump’s strategic extremism in concert with establishment Democratic slogans like “Make America Moral Again” or, more hopefully, a focus on real issues if a socialistic candidate does successfully battle the Party machinery.

counterpunch.org

Now that Mueller’s $40 million Humpty Trumpty investigation is over and found wanting of its original purpose (to retire Trump), perhaps the ruling class can return without interruption to the business of destroying the world with ordnance, greenhouse gases, and regime changes. A few more CIA-organized blackouts in Venezuela (it’s a simple trick if one follows the Agency’s “Freedom Fighter’s Manual”), and the US will come to the rescue, Grenada style, and set up yet another neoliberal regime. There is a small solace that with Trump, Pompeo, and Bolton, there is at least a semblance of transparency in their reckless interventions. The assessed value of Guaido and Salman, they forthrightly admit, is in their countries’ oil reserves. And Russians better respect the Monroe Doctrine and manifest destiny if they know what’s good for them. Crude as they may be, Trump’s men tell it like it is. And when Bolton speaks of “the Western Hemisphere’s shared goals of democracy, security, and the rule of law,” he is of course referring to US-backed coups, military juntas, debt bondage, invasions, embargoes, assassinations, and other forms of gunboat diplomacy.

That the US is not already formally at war with Russia (even with NATO forces all along its borders) has only to do with the latter’s nuclear arsenal deterrent. Since World War II, a period some describe as a “a period of unprecedented peace,” the US war machine has wiped out some 20 million people, including more than 1 million in Iraq since 2003, engaged in regime change of at least 36 governments, intervened in at least 82 foreign elections, including Russia (1996), planned more than 50 assassinations of foreign leaders, and bombed over 30 countries. This is documented here and here.

Despite unending US and US-supported assaults on Africa and western and central Asia, the authors who see postwar unprecedented peace argue that it Russia and China, not the US, that represent the real threats to peace and deserve to be treated as “outcasts.” That NATO has warships plying the Black Sea and making port calls at the ethnically Russian Ukraine city of Odessa and is conducting war games from Latvia to Bulgaria and Ukraine represents unprecedented peace? While NATO, which together has 20 times the military spending of Russia and includes member states along virtually the entire perimeter of Russia, in Western propaganda Russia is the aggressor.

Although the US corporate media may have missed the news, the rest of the world gets the fact that the greatest threat to peace on the planet is Uncle Sam. In 2013, a WIN/Gallup International poll of 66,000 people in 65 countries found that the US was considered by far the most dangerous state on earth (24% of respondents), while Russia didn’t even register statistically on that poll. In 2017, a Pew poll found the same perception of US power and that such a view had increased to 38% and had grown in 21 of 30 countries compared to 2013. Even America’s neighbors, Canada and Mexico, see the US as a major threat to their countries, worse than either China or Russia. The mainstream media (MSM) stenographers’ myopia in failing to cover this story is not an oversight. Carl Bernstein, of Watergate exposé fame, documented in 1977 the fact that from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, the MSM (New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, and the rest) had regularly served as overseas informers for the CIA. It would be hard to believe that those ties are not still intact given the level of collaboration among the CIA, the MSM, and the Democratic Party in the Russiagate conspiracy drama.

Context is everything. In blaming others for the instability of the Middle East, it is important to bear in mind that for 36 years since Reagan launched air attacks on Beirut and parts of Syria, the US, and its ally Israel, has been using the greater Middle East region as a testing ground for its weapons systems. This has meant repeated bombing and droning of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Kuwait, and Sudan, and increased weapons sales to the region to assure continuous instability and profits. The US has “special forces” operating in two-thirds of the world’s countries and non-special forces stationed in three-quarters of them, altogether over 800 military bases and installations in as many as 130 countries (the Pentagon refuses to give the exact number). By comparison, apart from several bases in some of the former Soviet republics, Russia has a naval resupply facility in Vietnam and small temporary leased naval and airport stations in Syria. China opened a combined naval and army base in Djibouti in 2017 and an “unofficial military presence” in Tajikistan. There is nothing remotely close to equivalence.

We can expect a continuing outcasting of Russia, either under a second Trump presidency or, if the long dark shadow of the Clintons prevails, a Joe Biden White House. Biden claims without the benefit of evidence that currently “the Russian government is brazenly assaulting the foundations of Western democracy around the world,” as if the huge imbalance of military forces and the long history of US interventions against liberal democracies and socialist states were unknown or irrelevant. In his (and the establishment’s) heavy-handed uses of propaganda, Biden has learned well the tactics of Goebbels – repeat the lies often enough to make the imperial state appear as the victim.

With regard to a brazen assault on democracy, Biden might take a cue from Clinton, who knew how to capitalize on her power position by signing off on huge arms sales to the Saudis (e.g., a $29 billion sale of fighter jets to that country to be used against Yemen) and other Gulf States while securing tens of millions of dollars in donations from the sheikhs ($25 million from Saudi Arabia alone) to her private foundation, run by her husband. This is all the more contemptuous given that she acknowledged in 2013: “The Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons… clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region…and pretty indiscriminately – not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future.”

In other words, she knew the Saudis and other Gulf dictators were arming ISIS (ISIL) and other caliphate actors but continued to keep them as allies and patrons. She also took $800 thousand for her 2016 campaign (almost double what Trump received) and some $3 million for her private foundation from oil and gas companies after approving lucrative gas pipeline in the Canadian tar sands. Part of the foundation staff’s business was to arrange meetings of top donors meetings with the then secretary of state. Following Clinton and Obama’s lead and without a second thought, Trump has authorized US energy companies to sell the Saudi monarchy nuclear power technology and assistance.

In foreign policy, indeed, it’s hard to see any meaningful difference between Republican and Democratic administrations. Obama and John Kerry sent Undersecretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Victoria Nuland to Kiev’s Maidan to cheer on the 2014 coup, hand out sandwiches to protesters, and give marching orders to her ambassador there to arrange for Yatsenyuk to be prime minister and to “fuck the EU.” Poroshenko, a regular informer at the US embassy, as WikiLeaks revealed, was already in the bag for president. Biden was brought in to “midwife” and “help glue this thing” by pressuring the still-ruling Yanukovych to step down in favor of the US-designated coup leaders. Along the same lines, Trump’s then ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, joined Venezuelan protesters outside UN headquarters in New York, using a megaphone to publicly call for a coup against Maduro. “I will tell you,” she told the group, “the U.S. voice is going to be loud.”

Both the Ukraine and Venezuela interventions are in part a grand strategy to isolate Russia. However, the orchestration of a new Cold War against Russia and to implicate Trump as a Kremlin puppet has failed, and the problem for Russiagate propagandists is how to keep the conspiracy theory alive now that Mueller’s unsuccessful hunt for 5thcolumnists is in the dustbin. The leading Russia scholar, Stephen Cohen, who has been professionally marginalized because of his skepticism toward the CIA narrative, sees the impact of a larger scandal – the corruption of the Democratic Party and its minions in the media that formed an alliance with the spooks. He asks: “what about the legions of high-ranking intelligence officials, politicians, editorial writers, television producers, and other opinion-makers, and their eager media outlets that perpetuated, inflated, and prolonged this unprecedented political scandal in American history…?”

Another question is, how would the mainstream media financially survive an ending of Russiagate, if indeed the media moguls allow it to end? This spectacular failure of the “fourth estate” in covering the Clinton and Democrats’ defeat in 2016 greatly weakened their trust status, which has been in quite steady decline since the 1970s, especially among Republicans. Democrats tend to look more favorably on the largely partisan liberal MSM for obvious reasons. However, as of December 2018, according to an IPSOS/Reuters poll, only 44% of Americans has much (16%) or some (28%) confidence in the MSM, compared to hardly any (48%). On whether MSM news organizations are more interested in making money than telling the truth, 59% agreed with the former assessment. No known organization has published findings on MSM trust since the completion of the Mueller debacle.

What is to be made politically of the Russia obsession? Russiagate, which Matt Taibbi calls “this generation’s WMD,” can be seen as serving three broad major purposes. It has given the Democratic Party leadership and its partners in the CIA and MSM a cause célèbre inorder to salvage the status and image of the party and distract from its disastrous electoral defeats from 2008 to 2016. It thereby serves as an alternative reality to the widespread recognition that the ruling forces in the party have no genuine popular agenda and represent corporate, banking, neoliberal, and neoconservative militarist projects designed under Bill Clinton’s New Democrat agenda.

On foreign policy, Russiagate puts the Democrats to the right of the Republicans, similar to the way that John Kennedy in the 1960 campaign accused the Eisenhower (and VP Nixon) administration of weakening America’s defenses, which presently enables the energy and defense industries and their lobbyists to unduly influence the perception of international threats and flashpoints. Democrats in the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly for the 2019 $716 billion defense budget, over and above what even Trump requested. In 2018, five military contractors – Northrup Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon – provided key political leaders in both parties with $14.4 million in addition to $94 million spent on lobbying efforts that year. Oil & gas spent $89 million on the election campaign and $125 million on lobbying. And, third, it serves to stifle the political left in and outside the party and the demands for progressive legislative changes activated by Bernie Sanders in 2016 and by newer members like Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Tulsi Gabbard.

Where is the center of public political confidence these days? Certainly not with the mainstream media, which is even lower than that for Trump. Even in terms of its vaunted claims of press freedom, the US fares quite badly. Reporters Without Borders ranked the US number 45th worldwide (of 180 countries cited) in press freedom in its 2018 report. Tory-led Britain slid from 33rd in 2014 to 40th– only Italy and Greece were behind the UK among western European countries. And although Trump hasn’t helped with his attacks on the media (and more than reciprocated by the media’s extraordinarily hostile coverage of the president), the situation wasn’t much better under Obama, who threatened whistle blowers in the press with enforcing the 1917 Espionage Act. This is law that may be pressed against the journalist Julian Assange. There still exists no “shield law” guaranteeing journalists the right to protect their sources’ identities. Journalism students should be concerned for another reason as well:Newspaper employment between 2001 and 2016 has been cut by more than half, from 412,000 to 174,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

William Arkin, who quit NBC News as a political commentator last January, accused the station of peddling “ho-hum reporting” that “essentially condones” an endless US war presence in the Middle East and Africa. He also took the network to task for not reporting “the failures of the generals and national security leaders,” and essentially becoming “a defender of the government against Trump” and a “cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering.”

In his parting comments, he wrote: “I’m alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically … be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war.… Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War?”

It may be whistling in the wind, but there are more important things to worry about than whether “the Russians” exposed the DNC’s perfidious behavior in 2016. It would be more worthwhile for Democrats to demand programs that eliminate child poverty, which is at 20% in the US, compared to an OECD average of 13%. It might also be useful to concentrate a bit more on the white working class and working poor that went to Trump in 2016, whose kids make up 31% of  the child poverty bracket (black children are 24%, and Latino children are 36%).

And while they’re at it, they might try to change the fact that the US ranks 25thout of 29 industrialized countries in investments in early childhood education or the fact that the disgraceful American infant mortality rate at 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births is 50% higher than the OECD average (3.9%). Many of the parents of these less privileged children are serving long sentences in prison for non-violent crimes, the discarded citizens who form the highest incarceration rate in the world. Overall, the Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranked the US 18th out of 21 wealthy countries on measures of labor markets, poverty rates, safety nets, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. On the other hand, the US has more than 25% of the world’s 2,208 billionaires. This is American exceptionalism at its worst.

The corporate-run market system and the calamities it is bringing to the world depends on such distractions. As the New York Times journalist and defender of US global supremacy, Thomas Friedman, has noted, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” In his view, the system needs protecting, for which his “journalism” and most of the MSM are certainly doing their part.

Unless the rather soft left within the Democratic Party can somehow capture the public imagination, the Democrats’ political agenda, the MSM and their cohorts in the deep state will likely continue to report fake Russian conspiracies around the world. Russiagate is a propaganda industry that keeps on giving. In the longue durée of American elections, the question is what discourse will dominate the next campaign – social justice and a rational foreign policy or more aggressive polemics about Russia aimed at a steady pathway to nuclear war?

counterpunch.org

In fact, on January 18^th of just a year back, 2018, Gallup had headlined “World's Approval of US Leadership Drops to New Low”, and this plunge in the global rating of America’s leadership could reasonably cause a person to expect a decline in the American public’s view of America’s national image in foreign countries, but it’s not showing up, at all. The exact contrary is being displayed in the recent data. On February 25^th of 2019, Gallup bannered, “Americans' Perceptions of US World Image Best Since 2003”, and reported that “58% say US rates very or somewhat favorably in world's eyes.” This disparity between reality and the public’s view of reality, is clear in the data despite all of these polls’ having altogether ignored almost all of the Islamic-majority nations, where there has long been a very negative view prevailing both of the United States and of US leadership. (The US regime prefers its pollsters to sample mainly favorable countries regarding its public image around the world, and so that is what is done.)

The last time that Gallup surveyed America’s global public image (and this isn’t the world’s approval of US leadership, but approval of the US itself, such as was measured and reported by Gallup’s report issued on 25 February 2019) was in "1991 Feb 28-Mar 2”, and the global public image of the United States was overwhelmingly favorable at that time — 95% favorable versus only 3% unfavorable — by far the highest of any country rated at that time, though today a few countries are nearly as high as that: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, UK (“Great Britain”), Japan, and Norway, all show nearly as high in Gallup’s global polling now, as America did then. Gallup's surveys never mentioned any other of the Scandinavian countries than Norway, nor mentioned Switzerland nor Netherlands, so those countries (which might even lead the ratings if they had been included) might likewise have been close to what America’s sky-high global approval-rating had been, at the time of the Cold War’s supposed end, in 1991. (Secretly, the US Government actually continued the Cold War even though Russia was unaware of the fact, and this one-sided and secret, purely aggressive, continuation was and is kept secret from both the American and global publics.)

However, Pew has been polling this matter — the global image of the US itself — ever since, in 2008, Pew started taking it over from the Office of Research of the US Department of State.

When Pew introduced their 2018 report concerning this matter, of America's global image, on 2 October 2018 at the CSIS or Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the first question raised after the presentation was about America’s overall public image, and the presenter, with apparent reluctance, summed it up by acknowledging, at 29:05, “The US is definitely seen in a much more negative light than it was a few years ago. … People [worldwide] are much less likely to express a favorable opinion of the US … By and large on the questions we asked at least, we see much more negative views around the globe.”

One would reasonably expect this fact to be showing up in the American public’s view of how foreigners see America, but it’s not showing up, at all; and, in fact, the exact opposite is being displayed in the data. Obviously, then, the major news-media that over 95% of the US public receive their ‘news’ from have been hiding from the public the realities which are causing this steep plunge in America’s (the American nation’s) global approval-ratings. Whereas the approval-rating of the US went down, the American public thinks it has instead gone up, and only the country’s major ‘news’-media can be to blame for that extreme US fantasy-world, which is being displayed in the data. It’s the very same fantasy-world — and for the very same reasons — which overwhelming majorities of the American people believed in 2002 and 2003, when the US regime imposed the fraud that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction (“WMD”) and that he supported Al Qaeda. All of the US mainstream, and virtually all of its minor, news-media were stenographically pumping these (even the most blatant) lies to the public, and therefore they’re co-responsible along with the US dictators for America’s having destroyed Iraq. That couldn’t have happened without the propaganda-operation’s compliance. And America has the same national press now as it did then, though some of the corporate names have changed since 2002. The ownership and control of America’s major news-media are obviously being very wrongly determined, and America cannot even possibly become again a functioning even partial democracy unless and until that situation — the system for determining the control of the corporations that constitute the US ‘news’-reporting oligopoly — is fundamentally and permanently (perhaps even Constitutionally) amended. America’s stenographic press merely uncritically reports the Government’s bipartisan lies (not the Democratic or the Republican Party’s lies, which can and do become exposed, but instead  the lies that both Parties spout — the bipartisan lies which reflect the US regime. These are lies such as that WMD existed in Iraq in 2002, and that Russia and not the US is the world’s aggressor-nation seeking global conquest, and that America protects peace around the world, instead of its being the world’s top perpetrator of coups and of military invasions, by far the world’s biggest aggressor). America cannot become a functioning, actual, democracy, at all, unless and until the ownership and control of its major news-media has become ripped away from the present controllers and also becomes legally fully accountable in honest courts for any propaganda (regime-pumped lies) that it issues. Neither domestic policy nor international policy can be democratic in such a nation. America’s major ‘news’-media are obviously not trustworthy. Consequently, America isn’t a democracy. (Consequently, this news-report, which is exposing America’s major ‘news’-media as being instead national propaganda-media, is going to be rejected — not published — by all of them, though it’s being submitted to all of them, as well as to most other US international-news reporting sites.)

The full written 2018 report from Pew is online as “America’s International Image Continues to Suffer.” It opens by saying: “A year after global opinion of the United States dropped precipitously, favorable views of the US remain at historic lows in many countries polled. In addition, more say bilateral relations with the US have worsened, rather than improved, over the past year.”

The following highlights are taken from Pew’s verbal presentation to the CSIS:

[19:56] 70% say no to “US takes into account the interests of other countries.” 28% say yes to that.

[21:53] “Fewer Now Say US Takes into Account Their Interests.” The change (which is since the end of Obama’s Presidency) is -31% in Germany, -23 South Africa, -22 Brazil, -19 Mexico, -17 France, -16 Kenya, -16 Italy, -13 Indonesia, -13 UK, -13 Canada, -12 South Korea, -11 Philippines, -10 Japan, and -8 Spain. In Russia, 15% said yes to that question at the end of Obama’s Presidency, and that figure then soared to 41% in 2017, but it declined to only 26% in 2018. Perhaps now it’s again around 15%, as more and more Russians come to recognize that the US regime is set upon conquering Russia — recognize that anti-communism (prior to 1991, when the Soviet Union ended) was only an excuse for building America’s global control, an empire controlling the entire world, and that America, after the death of FDR and increasingly since then, is fascist, no authentic democracy at all. This fascism certainly explains Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2011-2018, Yemen 2015-now, Ukraine 2014 (a US coup in February 2014 that the regime instead calls a Russian ‘invasion’, which occurred thereafter in response and was no invasion at all, but defensive for Russia, against a fascist regime on its doorstep), and Venezuela 2017-now.

[22:51] “US Perceived to Be Less Involved in Tackling Global Issues.”  Percentages saying “less” involved, as opposed to “more” involved, were found in every EU country that was surveyed, except that it’s equal (= percentages), 22% saying US is both “less” and “more” involved, in Poland — but nowhere else that Pew was polling in Europe. Basically, Trump’s rejections of the Paris Climate Agreement and of the nuclear agreement with Iran, and his outlawing refugees from Syria and some other nations the US bombed, and his determination to wall-off the US from Mexico, have cemented the global public’s view of America as being a hostile country. But nonetheless, Gallup was able to headline on February 25^th, “Americans' Perceptions of US World Image Best Since 2003”.

Gallup’s findings regarding not the world’s favorability toward the US but the American public’s estimation of how favorably the world views the US, were reported there, and opened:

Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe the US rates "very" or "somewhat favorably" in the world's eyes. Though the current figure is up just slightly from the 55% recorded last year, it represents the highest figure Gallup has found since 2003.

The increase in the overall figure is the result of an increase in the percentage of political independents saying the US is rated favorably abroad, up eight percentage points, from 50% to 58%. Meanwhile, the views of Americans identifying as Republican or Democratic haven't changed.

So: America’s non-aligned or “independent” voters are even more deceived about this matter — especially about the stark decline in the public’s approval of America — than America’s partisan voters are.

This Gallup report furthermore says:

At the same time, Americans are fairly upbeat about the country's global image, the percentage satisfied with the position of the US in the world today is also at a relatively high ebb.

Whereas in 2019 Gallup finds that 58% of Americans think the world views America favorably, versus 41% unfavorably, and in 2018 these figures were almost as high, 55% favorably and 45% unfavorably, the figures in the very first month of Trump’s being in the White House were the reverse, 42% favorably versus 57% unfavorably; and, back in 2016 they were 54% favorably versus 45% unfavorably — almost but not quite as high as today. In fact, the current 58% favorably versus only 41% unfavorably is the rosiest view that Americans have displayed in these Gallup polls regarding how they think foreigners view the US, extending all the way back to Gallup’s polling on 14-16 April of 2003 — 61% at that time thinking the world viewed the US favorably, versus 37% unfavorably, and this was just a month after the US had invaded and destroyed Iraq.

So: Ever since America’s Government destroyed Iraq on 20 March 2003, Americans haven’t had a rosier view of foreigners’ opinions of the United States.

Such a deceived nation’s public is, obviously, a reflection of that nation’s ruling regime, both its Government and its stenographic mainstream ‘news’-media, which won’t publish reports such as the present one, because such reports, as this one, would be exposing the deceived public that results from America’s fraudulent and highly controlled (by America’s 585 billionaires) mainstream press. This reality of the press-problem in America is not what they call ‘fake news’ media, but it’s instead the mainstream media themselves that present to their public actually false ‘news’, real lies (that are the official government lies, bipartisan lies), to such a huge extent as to achieve this enormous disparity between the reality and the public’s warped view of that ‘reality’, regarding America’s international image. What’s important here is not this particular news-item itself, nearly so much as it is what that news-item means — what it indicates. What it indicates is enormous.

This news-report is therefore being offered free of charge to all US media to publish, so as to help rectify the rabidly false impression that exists. Obviously, any news-media that aren’t publishing this report are trying to hide this reality — they evidently, and quite clearly, want to continue this particular deception of the public. But the sites that publish this are honest — as any reader here can easily verify by clicking onto this article’s links.

Anyone still calling America “the land of the free” is delusional at best. Things continue to go from bad to worse in the United States, and people are feeling it.  So much so, that a record number of Americans no longer want to live in the United States at all.

Once known as the land of opportunity, the U.S. is now more like the land of tax slave and debt slave.  Unfortunately, it isn’t the enslavement to debt or the government that is disturbing those the most.  It’s dissatisfaction with the current ruling class.

According to Gallup, the recent poll they conducted showed that the 16% of Americans overall who said in 2017 and again in 2018 that they would like to permanently move to another country if they could is higher than the average levels during either the George W. Bush (11%) or the Barack Obama administration (10%).

While Gallup’s World Poll does not ask people about their political leanings, most of the recent surge in Americans’ desire to migrate has come among groups that typically lean Democratic and that have disapproved of Trump’s job performance so far in his presidency: women, young Americans and people in lower-income groups. – Gallup

Which means these people don’t wish to be free, they simply want a different master somewhere else. And women appear to be angrier than men that their desired master isn’t controlling them, and their fellow slaves chose subservience to someone else. What’s truly horrifying about this particular poll is that Americans, for all intents and purposes, have simply accepted the fact that they are required to be enslaved by the political elites.

The 30% of Americans younger than 30 who would like to move also represents a new high — and it is also the group in which the gender gap is the largest. Forty percent of women younger than 30 said they would like to move, compared with 20% of men in this age group. These gender gaps narrow with age and eventually disappear after age 50. – Gallup

The desired destination for these slaves appears to be the Canadian plantation. With much higher taxation (theft), they are under the delusion that the political masters in that particular area will give them better living conditions. But Gallup makes it perfectly clear that the desire to move is much higher than any intention to actually do so. It is highly unlikely that Americans will be flowing into Canada. In fact, since Trump’s election, Canadian statistics show only a modest uptick in the number of Americans who have actually moved to Canada.

This is simply more evidence of the ever-widening political divide in the United States.  Discontent will not go down when a different master is voted on.  It’ll amplify once again and people will constantly wonder why they are unhappy until they wake up and realize they were born onto a tax plantation and immediately into debt slavery.

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