I no longer write a great deal about the everyday machinations of the current regime. “The eruptions and the news stories about them,” Rebecca Solnit notes, “stumble over each other, dogpile, shove each other aside, crowd each other out of our attention, shout each other down.” There are many other places, with writers far more knowledgeable, to find that news and sort out what’s important.

However, as we’ve unwisely entered Israel’s war against Iran, I did want to share three observations that I am keeping front of mind.

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First, don’t believe promises made by people without principles.

Since he entered the political arena, Donald Trump has said he would not get the US into a Middle Eastern War. He just did. The escalation was announced on social media, of course, with language appropriate for a fifth grade bully. As Tressie McMillian Cottom wrote in the New York Times, Trump’s violent talk is “the official political communication strategy of the ruling party and its followers. And that ruling party is stripping this country for parts.” It is what you do when you don’t have principles beyond self-enrichment and self-preservation.

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Second, this is what happens when politicians just trying to stay out of prison are elected to a nation’s highest office.

Solnit, again:

“It’s worth remembering that this is a war of aggression started by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a criminal who is massively unpopular in his own country. And that Netanyahu opposed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA with Iran that was preventing Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon – until Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018, against the wishes of the four major powers who, with the US, negotiated the deal and in opposition to the wishes of the majority of Americans.”

And of course, Donald Trump is a convicted felon 34-times over.

An online commentator had a good piece of advice.

“Some of the things they say may be true. Many of the things they say most assuredly won’t be. But please remember that informing you with truth is never their goal when they talk to you.. They don’t spend their time trying to give you the best facts that they have at their disposal. They spend their time trying to create the story you will swallow that lets them do what they want at your expense.

Maybe some day we’ll know what’s gone down, but it won’t be tonight and it won’t be tomorrow.

The people who are controlling the narrative, Donnie and Bibi, very much need you to believe them because they are criminals and the only thing keeping them out of jail is their ability to stay in office.”

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Finally, the corporate media loves a good war.

Political cartoonist Ann Telnaes captured this observation perfectly back in 2003:

Ever since William Randolph Hearst fanned the flames to ignite the Spanish American War (and probably well before that time), America’s corporate media has been extremely hawkish when it comes to war. Don’t expect any difference this time. Solnit, in yesterday’s column, wrote that “the worst of the mainstream media will get behind it, as they did the lies that justified getting into the Iraq war, and that will confuse the people who rely on those news sources. Brand new Iran expert Van Jones ranted on CNN that “Iran is not a normal country” as he justified the attack.”

It was my wise grandmother who said, “Don’t believe what you hear and only half of what you read.”

Good advice to follow in these times.

More to come . . .

DJB

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UPDATE apropos of #3: As home subscribers to the New York Times, we saw this full-page ad in Sunday’s edition . . . the same day I posted this piece on MORE TO COME. As one online commentator wrote, this is a sneaky way to insert an honest headline into the NY Times.

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Fact-check image by Wendy Alison from Pixabay