Pots and Kettles in a Nettle… Pimping Out Poor Jules, by Ray Zwarich

Dear Mr. Lawrence, (and others, especially Mr Lauria, Mr. Hedges, and Robert Scheer & sons, and please forward as appropriate):
This is an open public letter addressed to Mr. Patrick Lawrence, one of our nation’s most brilliant commentators, and to a number of people on the so-called ‘left’, and to a few others, including among them a few people on the so-called ‘right’.
Mr. Lawrence (and all):
The glories of autumn are about to blossom here in New England… Eh? September is such a beautiful month, once that first Canadian cold front, usually following soon after Labor Day, dissipates the last stifling, humid dog days of August. This is the month, as the harvest begins to ripen to golden “amber waves of grain” in our bleeding nation’s fields, that we should “Try to Remember“. Do you know the song? An old favorite of mine since teen-age years, “when we were young and callow fellows”. (I was born in ’48. You?)
But like old Ti Jean, (Kerouac), October is my favorite month, as the maples, alders, and ash burst into their final glory before a long rest. You surely have a trip to the Berkshires planned?
I’m not planning to ‘hound’ you, sir, but now you know that as long as my poor old mistreated heart, (too many tragedies, too many good times, too much beer in younger days), keeps on ticking, and as long as you keep scribbling, I’ll be out here reading… closely… avidly… critically… and hopefully with continued great admiration.
But I do want to make certain that my ‘point’ has found its targeted way to its intended bull’s eye. “If the arrow is straight, and its point is slick, it can pierce through any armor, no matter how thick.” — adapted from LittleBobby’s ‘Restless farewell’
You use the finest, sharpest of lenses, Mr. Lawrence, finer than any Zeiss or Hasselblad rare glass, to examine the NY Times to identify and painstakingly analyze ‘propaganda’. But you appear to wear the proverbial “rose colored glasses” when you extoll the virtues of the disgusting propaganda-mill that you call the ‘independent media’. Pots and kettles. Pots and kettles. Locked in the ancient, fatal, human Dance of Death.
“The pot and the kettle got into a nettle, and called each other “black”. Each could see the other, but neither one could bother to see their own self-lack” — a Caliban original, to the cadence of a jump rope ditty…
“Know thyself if ye seek wisdom” — Graven over the entrance to the Temple of the Oracle, (at Delphi).
“People who should be allies must first stop being enemies” — Caliban
Did you see the Andy Kroll piece your publisher, Mr. Scheer, recently re-published from the execrably self-righteous, DANGEROUSLY self-righteous, Tom Englehardt’s propaganda site, TomDispatch, (a taxpayer subsidized corporation)?
I’ve heard Kroll’s name before, but I am not familiar with his work. How long has he been such a highly-skilled, sinister propagandist? Can you take off your rose colored glasses, Mr. Lawrence, and examine this piece as sharply as you do the NY Times?
This Kroll operative associates Michael Flynn with the PROVEN hoax, QAnon, which was propagated by shady characters operating from the Philippines, which has CIA fingerprints all over it. Mchael Flynn, as far as I know, had absolutely nothing to do with QAnon. Does this creepy propagandist. Andy Kroll,present any? Or isn’t he just cunningly making an association that does not exist, using the cunning propagandist’ ruse of juxtaposition? Creepy Kroll has apparently had some considerable training from Langley,.
Michael Flynn had his professional life destroyed, ‘canceled’ by the hysterical Woke Mob, for allegedly ‘consorting with the enemy’, as part of the PROVEN Russiagate Hoax, when he did absolutely nothing that everyone and anyone assigned to his office had done before him. He introduced himself to his diplomatic/intelligence colleagues from other nations, including those from Russia.
Not satisfied with already assassinating this man’s character, the Woke Mob, through their creepy operative, this sinister Kroll creep, now wants to sling their stinky poopy at this man yet again.
The “pseudo-oath”,  Creepy Kroll says? Referring to “Where we go one, we go all”. What does this Kroll propaganda operative find to be false about such an oath? He does not say… does he? The oath contains the kernel of a moral concept that I recall learning from Plutarch, MANY years ago.
When each of my daughters fledged the nest, when the whole family helped each move into her first dorm room, I gave them each a letter relating an anecdote from the preface to Plutarch’s ‘Lives’. To be brief: A young Roman officer is given a crucial and dangerous mission, which he must execute alone. Before he leaves on the mission, he visits with his grandfather, who says to him, “When you come to satisfy your commission, you do NOT say, “I have come”. You say “WE have come” “.
The January 6 “Insurrection”? Any reasoning and reasonable person watching the hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of video of that event knows that whatever else it might have been, it was NOT an attempt to capture power over the US government. Riot? Sure. Insurrection? Propaganda of THE most egregious kind, THE most sinister kind, straight from the pages of Orwell. These evil forces think they can cause people to disbelieve what we ALL saw with our own damn eyes. LOL… They can’t… but here ole Creepy Kroll tries yet again.
Looking at YOU, Mr. Lauria, (as Julian Assange’s self-styled ‘hero’), did you catch the part where Creepy Kroll discusses the Seth Rich case, and tells us that Jules is NOT a reliable source?
After the highly skilled and sinister Mr. Kroll tells us that “there is not one scintilla of evidence” that Seth Rich’s tragic death was anything more than a random armed robbery, (despite the fact that Mr. Rich’s watch, wallet, and money were not taken), then goes on to mention Julian Assange’s implication that poor Mr. Rich was indeed the source through which poor Jules, now rotting the Empire’s dungeons, obtained key information he published about the abject spiritual corruption of the Clintonista-Obama Gang that yet animates the evil, totalitarian DPM, (Demo Party Machine) which has now so obviously weaponized the FBI into an outright Gestapo, now arresting and prosecuting all its political opponents.
Can we add 2+2, Mr. Lauria? Not one scintilla of evidence?… Oh…. other than the minor inconsequential evidence direct from ‘the horse’s mouth’? LOL… Gee… Where did the execrably self-righteous Englehardt find this Kroll creep, who so obviously has CIA written all over him?
What is it you people think the CIA does, in the course of executing a ‘psy-op’?
Did ANY of you read Berstein’s ‘Operation Mockingbird’? Do ANY of you know that Gary Webb ostensibly committed suicide, according to the official coroner’s report, by shooting himself TWICE in the head? (The actual gruesome autopsy photos can be seen online. He shot himself in the temple, but then shot himself again about two inches back?).
Didn’t your idolized hero, Mr Lauria, Robert Parry, earn his chops by his revelations concerning the very Iran-Contra scandal that Gary Webb died in pursuing?
Independent Media, Mr. Lawrence? Independent? LOL… Are you a naive child?
Most all of them, these so-called ‘independent’ media, even those that aren’t run outright as CIA ‘psy-ops’, are taxpayer subsidized 501 C(3) corporations. I have examined MANY a 990 tax form, Mr. Lawrence. Most of these ‘independent’ media get most of their income from Wealth Foundations. Independent ? Oh I see… Has the old adage been suspended? Does he who pays the piper then sit back and watch the piper call his OWN tune?
Again, sir. I do hate to be disrespectful, but are you a naive child? You do NOT look like one, but when you extoll the ‘independent’ media, you certainly do sound like one.
According to financial reports, (curiously I could not find Consortium News’ 990s, though as taxpayer subsidized outfits, all 501 C(3)s are required to publicly post their 990s), in 2020 (the most recent report I could find), CN raised a bit over $300k. Almost a third of that, (30%), went directly into Joe Lauria’s pocket. Mr. Lauria’s self-paid salary in 2020 was $90k. Have you given yourself a raise since then, Mr. Lauria? The selfless hero of truth, justice, the underclass, and Julian Assange, pays himself more than 87% of the US population makes.
Hmm… The hero bid’ness certainly pays well… Eh?
How much of the taxpayer subsidized money CN raises has gone to you, Mr. Lawrence? I’m a taxpayer, sir… I subsidize your ‘independent media’ income, sir, whenever you are paid by a 501 C(3) publisher. Therefore it is my RIGHT to ask, and your moral OBLIGATION to answer.
The above ‘income’ questions are rhetorical. I don’t care how much you make, sir, nor how generous Mr. Lauria is in granting himself raises. But I was disgusted to receive Mr. Lauria’s recent fund-raising appeal shamelessly pimping out Julian Assange. Mr. Lauria is using Mr. Assange’s plight as subject matter to ‘sell’, to earn his generous income, boasting about how many articles CN has posted about Assange. (508, if I recall Mr. Lauria’s prideful claim correctly)
How much good have those 500+ articles done Jules? Isn’t he still rotting in a dungeon?
Why isn’t the self-aggrandizing ‘social justice hero’, Mr. Lauria, using his communication capacity to ORGANIZE on Jules’ behalf?
I KNOW why… Because Joe Lauria is NOT a ‘serious’ person. THAT’s why.
You are a superlative writer and commentator, Mr. Lawrence, but you are NOT a ‘serious’ man… We ALL already KNOW that the NY Times, along with ALL the Mass Media, has been relegated to being a disgusting propaganda outlet. Why do you feel compelled to keep ‘proving’ what we ALL already know, sir?
Well… OK… Not ALL… but recent polls show that only something like 13% (or 16%, or whatever) of our population any longer thinks that newspapers are ‘credible’. Who’s your audience, sir? You think any of that small percentage that still needs convincing reads ‘independent’ media? Really??
What is your motive, sir, in compulsively proving to the choir what the choir already knows is true? I could say the same about Greenwald, or Taibbi, or any number of people who have such high opinions of themselves as ‘independent’ commentators.
I DO think you are a SINCERE person, sir. I have no doubt of that. Human motives are complex, with layers overlaid upon complex layers. Within the complex structure of your own motives, how dominant is the simple desire simply to earn applause, to feed your ego?
I can’t answer that question, but I CAN see that despite how brilliantly perceptive a commentator you are, like Mr Lauria, or Mr. Scheer, or the retchingly self-adoring, self-righteous Tom Englehardt, you are not a ‘serious’ man.
What’s your motive for writing, Mr. Lawrence? Why should I, or anyone else, consider you a SERIOUS man?
There is currently NO organized political opposition, in our entire woebegone nation, to the power of the Ruling Elites under whose yoke we, and most of the world lives. NONE! Nada! Zilch! The crazed forces of this confused edifice that so absurdly calls itself ‘the left’ is nothing but an agency of the Democratic Party.
On the so-called ‘right’, we have confused people who are agents of the Republican Party,
Don’t we surely ALL know that BOTH these parties are fully controlled, (fully OWNED actually), agencies of the Ruling Elites?
NO organized edifice exists in our bleeding nation that actually opposes the Ruling Elites themselves. I am ‘working with’, (as the saying goes), SERIOUS people who aim to create one.
People who should be allies must FIRST stop being enemies.
C’mon, Mr. Lawrence. Get SERIOUS! You could be SUCH a valuable part of our efforts, (as could Mr. Lauria, Mr. Scheer, et al).
People who should be allies must FIRST stop being enemies.
Did I mention that?
Caliban
R Zwarich
Bent Birch Farm
63 Webber Rd
Brookfield, Ma 01506
774 449-8030