{"id":357611,"date":"2018-04-20T10:39:55","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T09:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ruling-class-operatives-say-the-darndest-things-on-devils-known-and-not\/"},"modified":"2018-04-20T10:39:55","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T09:39:55","slug":"ruling-class-operatives-say-the-darndest-things-on-devils-known-and-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ruling-class-operatives-say-the-darndest-things-on-devils-known-and-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruling Class Operatives Say the Darndest Things: On Devils Known and Not"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-101475\" src=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/04\/unnamed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"499\" \/><br \/>\n\u201cSolving Other People\u2019s Problems in the Middle East\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Establishment journalists and politicos write and say the darndest things, advanced as common sense under the sway of reigning nationalist and imperial ideology. Take the <em>New York Times<\/em>\u2019 chief White House correspondent Peter Baker.\u00a0 In a page-one \u201cnews analysis\u201d last Sunday, Baker wrote the following about Donald Trump\u2019s recent missile strike on Syria:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe strike brought home Mr. Trump\u2019s competing impulses when it comes to Syria \u2014 on the one hand, his manful chest-thumping intended to demonstrate that he is the toughest one on the international block, and on the other, <em>his deep conviction<\/em>that American involvement in the Middle East since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has been a waste of blood and treasure\u2026.He did little to reconcile those impulses with his retaliatory strike to punish the government of President\u00a0Bashar al-Assad\u00a0for a\u00a0suspected chemical attack\u00a0a week ago that killed dozens of people. But then again, he reflected the contradictions of an American public that is <em>tired of trying to solve other people\u2019s problems in the Middle East<\/em>\u2026.\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The sheer tonnage of bullshit contained in this short passage is striking. Baker lacked the decency to note that (as everybody knows) Trump\u2019s missile spasm was intended to distract U.S. public attention from his troubled political situation at home. It was a transparent dog-wag that worked for a day or two.<\/p>\n<p>Note Baker\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/04\/20\/ruling-class-operatives-say-the-darndest-things-on-devils-known-and-not\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cSolving Other People\u2019s Problems in the Middle East\u201d Establishment journalists and politicos write and say the darndest things, advanced as common sense under the sway of reigning nationalist and imperial ideology. Take the New York Times\u2019 chief White House correspondent Peter Baker.\u00a0 In a page-one \u201cnews analysis\u201d last Sunday, Baker wrote the following about Donald [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-357611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}