THE MAIL.

MAIL ARRIVING VIA THIS WEBSITE is more voluminous than I had at first anticipated. I appreciate all of it, including those letters that are other than supportive or constructive. I read every letter and answer all, although I ask readers’ patience in the latter task.

As the mail arrives, it often occurs to me that what readers of the column have to say may be of interest to other readers. These letters are posted here. To preserve readers’ privacy, those letters chosen are signed with initials only. There are occasional exceptions, as when a reader’s remarks deserve, in my view, all the light one could possibly shine on them.

]]  [[

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Shada.
My goodness. An old Review colleague. How delightful to hear from you. Big thanks for reading and taking the time to write.
We do our best–all we can do, of course. It is a matter of looking in the mirror each morning and knowing one has done something like the right thing. I often think of Admiral Farragut as he entered Mobile Bay: “Damn the torpedoes.” Farragut won the battle, it’s worth recalling.
If you’re still writing, perhaps we could bring you into The Scrum, a modest publication on the Substack platform I and two colleagues got going last autumn. Read in the right places, let’s say. Please have a look and then we can see what we might do. I just this morn published a piece on Biden’s rather unpromising China policies, “The China choice.”
Let us remain in touch in any case. Love to.
Best for now.
Patrick.

From: Shada Islam
Subject: “PATRICK LAWRENCE: Biden’s Missing Link with Europe”

Dear Patrick,

After endless US journalists and academics writing endlessly about the China fear and threat and pointing to how America is back and ready to lead the world again – it is such a pleasure to read your pieces!

I am also a former EU correspondent for FEER and currently run by own think tank and global advisory company. I have often yearned to hear responsible US commentators and am delighted to have found you. I write about similar themes and say similar things…albeit in a less outspoken manner. We Europeans are courteous as you know!

Anyway, please do get in touch if you think it worthwhile and go to my website to reach my articles and see the other stuff I get up to.

Best,
Shada Islam

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Peter.
Thanks immensely for reading the piece and taking the trouble to send along your own work. Grateful to have it.
What a sad, sad story. For some while after the early reports of American intrusions, I had trouble believing what I was reading. It was hard, from a personal point of view, to write that column.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From: Peter L.
Subject: Joshua Wong/Andrew Duncan/Marco Rubio – via Website

Hi Mr Lawrence,
I wrote for Asia Times for several years under the previous management and now do the Patreon thing. Last year I posted an article on how the producer of the Joshua Wong Teen v. Superpower movie funneled $500,000 to Marco Rubio’s failed presidential campaign in 2016, and the subsequent synergies between Senator Rubio’s efforts on behalf of HK activists and Joshua Wong’s activities and statements, particularly as they pertain to the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. In light of your critical article at Consortium News on US involvement in HK politics, I thought you might be interested! Here’s the link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/31709774 . It’s unlocked.
All best
Peter L.
in Los Angeles

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Thanks for this note, Richard.
As if happens I’m just now finishing a book about the collapse of our press. If you think of the title and have a sec, please pass it on.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From: Richard B.
Subject: PATRICK LAWRENCE: THE DAMAGE RUSSIAGATE HAS DONE

Have forgotten both book title and author but Lawrence assessment of damage done to American press brings to my mind word and concept I learned from reading it a few years back.. What remains of journalism now is just a simulacra.

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Chuck.
How good to hear from you after so long a time. I hope all’s well.
Never a dull moment this end, and that vane swings in all directions.
Just finished a book, No. 6, and am on revisions now. It’s called The Journalist and His Shadow–a book about the astonishing collapse of our press done as a weave of history, cultural crit, and personal reflection. Came out well.
Constant uncertainty on the material side of life, but I have learned to accept this part of being who I am, and so be it.
With two friends, we’re starting a publication on the Substack publishing platform. We’re calling it The Scrum and have expectations we can make something of it. Independent media: It’s where integrity has gone in our time. I think I will signal you when we launch: Perhaps you can get the word around.
I’ve copied Suzie, to whom: A Big Hello!
All v best.
Patrick

From: Chuck S.
Subject: Your deep dive into Wikileaks and CIA — Vault 7

Patrick, great article in Consortium News, which I will read again carefully before further comment except to say that you opened up a lot of complex information to those of us who are technically challenged, in ways that most people can understand. The misdeeds of our “intelligence community” (of which I was an insignificant part during the war in Viet Nam) are egregious and ought to be exposed — a difficult challenge. Thank you for taking some important steps in that direction.

I intend to share this with American and foreign friends in Ha Noi, also Vietnamese friends who are eager to learn the truth.

Chuck

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

All v well said, Jean. Thanks v much for writing. Kind regards. Patrick

From: Jean R.
Subject: PATRICK LAWRENCE: THE DAMAGE RUSSIAGATE HAS DONE

All so true…but you’ve missed the latest chapter of the on-going coup attempt: the Kovid-19 Koolaid & “The Great Re-set”. See my email in response to WaPo’s newsletter re. their Publisher’s Award:
Once-upon-a-time, I was briefly a subscriber but not sense the Pentagon Papers publisher has become The WaPo/BezosPost: nothing but an Imperial Media Mind Wash Machine for promoting and defending what’s left of “The Liberal World (dis-) Order”. So now you send me your mind pollution re. how you’ve awarded your correspondent for her ever so sophisticated & fashionable promotion of the Muzzling of citizens in violation of our free speech for Control & Conformity behavioral conditioning in preparation for “The Great Re-Set”: The Cowardly New World Order designed by The Elite & to be rolled out at their Davos meeting… the same incompetent ruling class, which nearly destroyed the global economy in 2008…but despite Their Banks being rescued with Our tax dollars by means of QE 1,2,3, etc….the economy was on its way to another collapse…until Gates-Bezos & Co. planned “What to Do With the Next Pandemic” last November…and Voilá! after WHO conveniently announced The Covid-19 Pandemic…The Plan was put in action with the Kovid Koolaid serving as the perfect drug & cover while The Lockdown & 24/7 Fear-Mongering further sabotaged the economy & could be blamed for the coming Collapse…& dire need for “The Great Re-set” (so dumb, They couldn’t even come up with a name other than Hillary’s gaff with her “Re-set Button” re. US-Russian relations!) Meanwhile, the Profits have been rolling in for the Bezos Cyber-Super-Market serving “Safer at Home” (NC Governor’s motto for his Authoritarian Edicts) consumers and for quack “Doctor” Gates, what with his investments in BigPharma and the prospect of The Vaccine to save the world…from what Censored medical science research has proved to be no worse than seasonal flu (See the Swiss Policy Research www.swprs.org )

So much for Givhan’s serving as one of your Imperial Scribes!

Jean R., psychologist/writer
Warrenton, NC
ps: also know that Robert Parry’s great Consortium News has been turned into a Censorship Machine with an electronic block against any comment writer/former contributor, whose writing does not fit little Joe’s small mind.

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Hello, Dr. N.
Thanks for reading the piece and for taking the time to write. Always appreciated.
I quite agree with you. The only thing that surprises me is the lengths to which we now go, the boldness of our desperate actions.
Write again whenever you may wish.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From: Rael N., M.D.
Subject: PATRICK LAWRENCE: HUAWEI, TIK TOK, WECHAT & OTHER HANDY TARGETS

Nothing the U.S. does vis-a-vis a world competitor in any realm, should come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the ‘Wolfowitz Doctrine’. Similarly, until the U.S. rejects the ‘Wolfowitz Doctrine; neoconservatism, & neoliberalism, one should not expect anything but more of the same.

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Hello, Liam.
Thanks v much for this note. You make such pithy points, and to a remarkable extent touch on thoughts I’ve also had. Uncharted waters–absolutely. This is not the world I was raised to live in (suburban New York, where ev’thing is presumed to be eternally as it is). Unprecedented: I think so, too.
In my last book I suggested that the US has 25 years, beginning from 2001, to decide whether it will alter course such that it finds a new, imaginative way forward, or insist on continuing as it is, so choosing decline. It has taken 20 years for the decision to be made in favor of the latter.
Your point about insurrection captivates me most. Will it all come to violence is a serious question, and there are plenty of grounds to think it will eventually have to. It’s not so wild a thought when one reconsiders the definition of violence. Is this country not already viciously violent in its social policies? Isn’t it violence to condemn people to poverty, to deprive them of medical care, and so on?
The spectacle of the Democratic Party’s impossible chicanery in preventing Sanders from winning to nomination–and he will be deprived of it, the only question being how they’ll get this done–brings all this to the fore in one’s mind.
Please write again when you’re so inclined. Nice to hear from thoughtful readers.
Do I take it you dwell in the Land of Eire?
My contacts are below.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From: Liam W.
Subject: Journal Post #52

There was an eruption of the collective consciousness nine or ten years ago, manifesting, for example, as “the Arab Spring” abroad, and the Occupy movement here in the U.S. This was the first resurgence of grass roots activism after the devastating, hope destroying result of the largest international anti war marches of 2003, whose efforts proved 100% futile.
But like the groundswell of anti war sentiment, the eruption of 2010 and 2011 were also extinguished, their humanitarian out cry totally ignored and drowned in a blizzard of white wash propaganda, lies and deceit from the ruling elite.
There are Bernie supporters now threatening the obviously corrupt DNC to vote for no other candidate than Sanders. Should Biden for example be selected, many will vote third party, or abstain all together, assuring another Trump victory.
We are in uncharted waters. I’m no scholar or historian but I can think of no precedents for the situation we find ourselves in, unless we go back to the armed insurrection against the British Crown and the Bankers that controlled it. Although it is ludicrous to think of armed revolt, something just as drastic must occur. As of this writing I guesstimate that approximately five to ten percent of the population would even see the necessity, much less try to craft a strategy. Uncharted waters Cu Chulainn. And like so many in the army of dreamers, tomorrow’s gonna be another working day, and I’m trying to get some rest.

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Alan.
Good day, and thank you for reading and taking a sec to write.
What an interesting question you pose. It is often on my mind. We could spend an evening talking this through.
My shorter answer is, we should all do more than we do.
Most of us seem to live by way of a convenient dodge. One can say, “I teach art to schoolchildren. It is a good thing to do, and my contribution.” It is a good thing, surely. Alter the profession, and you hear this always. But there is a fallacy buried in this thought. It has to do with our public, civic selves.
In the Anglo-American universe, our public selves and our consciousness of public space have been anaesthetized. They are asleep, inactive. What one does for a living doesn’t count. It is what one does beyond making a living, and in most cases this is nothing. Over here (assuming you’re in England), people take care of their consciences by voting, then concluding they’ve done their duty. Not at all so.
Watching the latest nonsense as Democrats settle on a nominee, my question is when people will take once again to the streets, to committee work, to organizing, and all the rest. I am old enough to recall the 1960s and know this is possible. We weren’t asleep then. The French also prompt these thoughts. They remain alive to civic action; their public selves are yet alive.
Ray McGovern, the noted whistleblower, had a good way of putting it: Not enough merely to say it’s raining. We must also build arks.
Although what I do as a professional is in some way a public commitment, and one I pay a high price for, I am as guilty on this point as anyone else.
Anyway, this is my answer, not v well conveyed, I am sure.
As to going all the way to the end merely complaining, I could not agree more. There is always an essential place for making something of beauty, whatever this may be. This involves honoring a certain part of oneself that is beyond corruption, a private self protected from incursion and invasion, a self wherein one’s ideals remain intact.
Let us remain in touch. My contacts are below.
Patrick.

From: Alan K.
Subject: How we can influence change

Patrick,

I’ve just read your recent article in Consortium News: Mike Pompeo’s Latest Delusion. It was a welcome palliative to read a good rant on the ‘bloviator’ of State and his toady sidekick. But palliatives don’t last long and, like opiates, can become addictive. I too rant when I see what the US is doing to itself and the world, or how Europe has spinelessly succumbed and mimicked. But I don’t want to go screaming to my grave like a Munchian parody. How can we influence change? Is writing enough?

Alan

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Good morn, John.
And sorry the brief lapse: I was columnizing ydy.
I was immensely pleased to see your note and I am just as immensely grateful to have you as a reader and you’ve taken a sec to write. In my (our) corner of the garden, encouragement such as yours counts a great deal. It doesn’t put a chicken in the pot, but it is just as sustaining.
I circulated your letter among a few close friends when I first read it. Ray McGovern, some Nation people, others. In my covering note I said, “This kind of comment makes all the infra-dig scapegoating well worth it. It only looked like we suffered a defeat. We won.”
McG and I and a few other VIPS people wait for the moment the truth of the mail matter can no longer be ignored in the corporate press. In my view, all the evidence needed to prove the case is already available. It is only a matter of surfacing it.
This was my sin when I wrote that 9 August 2017 piece for The Nation: I was nothing more than a messenger, but I surfaced evidence where it was not supposed to be seen. I paid dearly, but the mark was made. You assure me of this w/ your note.
Pls remain in touch.
All v best for the hols.
Rgds.
Patrick.

From: John M.
Subject: Russiagate

Dear Patrick,

I have emailed you before about your outstanding writing on US foreign policy and “Russiagate.” And meant to send a note on your fine Bolivia article for Consortium News.

But I write again to say bravo and thank you because I just finished reading your August 9, 2017 Nation essay on the 2016 DNC Hack. I have read thousands of pages on this issue, written op eds on it for the nearby Ashland Tidings, and discussed it with Jeremy Kuzmarov in our Russians Are Coming, Again (May 2018), but for some reason I do not recall having read your excellent Nation review of evidence, claims, and counter-claims. But in the land of aging, perhaps I did and this is simply a senior moment.

The surgical nature of the VIPs and your review of the evidence becomes more extraordinary each day as the impeachment show moves on, and the bogus claims about Putin and Russia relentlessly continue. Today’s nearby Medford Tribune has a front page headline story citing Pelosi and something about things leading to Putin. Like our endless imperialist wars, this story never stops, fed the Maddow Kool Aid gang and others.

The great tragedy is that too many otherwise reasonable and progressive people around here have swallowed the Kool Aid.

Stay the course.

Best,

John M.

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Robert.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to write.
Clinton appears to be in the considering-it phase. I think in the end she will conclude there is no point, but this is the remark of someone who sees no point.
She is relentlessly combative, still profoundly bitter about 2016, still thoroughly resistant to any thought that the loss was her own doing. It’s hard to predict the conduct of someone in this psychological condition.
It may come down to sheer politics. The Democratic mainstream is lining up militantly against any kind of Warren or Sanders nomination: Obama came out the other say saying he will publicly campaign against either if either appears near the nomination. If Biden collapses–and he is artificially propped up now, not least by the corrupted press–Clinton could judge that there are indeed second chances in American life after all. Parenthetically, Biden will coast past “Burismagate” well enough in the nomination fight. But as the Democratic nominee, his doings in Ukraine will enver survive the scrutiny.
The name of the game is blocking an even mildly “progressive” nomination. If Clinton is the best available technology, they will deploy it.
V best.
Patrick.

From: Robert S.
Subject: PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Impeachment Pantomime

I concur with your view of the impeachment hearings. Not being a Trump fan, he’s preferable to the warmonger Hillary Clinton. Do you think she’s running again and if so what are her chances?

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

D.C.
Thank you for taking a sec to write, and for your nicely incisive note. You are quite right on the pariah point. It is not always pleasant, this status, but quite often it is enormously so, it confirms one’s integrity, and I would not have it any other way on balance.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From: DC R.
Subject: PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Predictable Mess on Syria’s Border with Turkey

Middle East Special Negotiator.former US Ambassador to Turkey and Iraq James Jeffrey and his assistant Matthew Palmer, , testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 22, 2019 : https://www.c-span.org/video/?465519-1/syria-envoy-james-jeffrey-testifies-consulted-us-troop-withdrawal

I found this clip to be tremendously educational. It takes a little while to get going, and Jeffrey’s responses are reliably provided with dry understatement. But much of what he says completely undermines the narrative put forth by the American mass media (that spectrum ranging from Fox News to PBS, as it were.) Which is, coincidentally enough, roughly the same narrative espoused with great grandiloquence by the majority of Jeffrey’s Congressional interrogators. It’s interesting to hear how often Jeffrey corrects them without explicitly contradicting them, lol. Now that’s diplomacy in action.

If I had more time, I’d extract some of the more entertaining excerpts from the transcript. But readers will have to do without the spoilers, for now.

Also-

—BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN

as earlier announced, with little fanfare in the American press- overshadowed by Congressional hearings, you know

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-centcom-chief-says-anti-operations-resume-coming-days-weeks

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Take your own advice, Brucie. Re-read the piece. All your questions are answered in it. Rgds. P.L.

From: Bruce G.
Subject: UkraineGate whistleblower

Mr. Lawrence, re-read your article on Ukraine Gate published in Consortium News. Doesn’t it defy reason that if “everyone Knows” the identity of the whistle blower, including the WH, that Trump also knows and is thus complicit in the very “hoax” he rails against? This doesn’t strike you as strange, even bizarre?

What is your point? That Trump’s excesses are all excused by decades of bad behavior on both sides of the aisle or…what, exactly?

Thank you for your time!

]  [

From: Jackson R.
Subject: Arms Sales

I’m not sure if the topic of arms sales is one that you’re imminently familiar with, but based on your articles I have the feeling that you’re at least aware of their importance to US foreign policy. I was wondering what your views are when it comes to how the transfer of military equipment and technology have been used in places like Saudi Arabia to support US Exceptionalism and neo-colonial structures.

]  [

From: Paul S.
Subject: your text “American empire…”

Hello,
I have read your text on the site Checkpoint Asia. Your point of view is surprisingly close to mine, this is why I writ you. I live in Switzerland and publish my texts on my blog (in French)
facebook.com / paulspoliticalblog
(without spaces). My aim is to elaborate ideas for a post-occidental world (I have seen that you also use this term). I would enjoy to have some contacts with you.

Best regards
Paul

]  [

From Peter M.:
Subject: PATRICK LAWRENCE: IT WAS KIM THAT WALKED AWAY

Hi Patrick,

enjoyed your article on Trump and Kim.

regards,

Peter M.

]  [

From MB:
Subject: Journal Entry #45

Having now read this excellent piece, Patrick, it is striking how much McCarthy’s analysis (which obviously comes from a different point on the ideological spectrum) matches up so well with yours.  He’s no fan of Russia, or Assange for that matter. But he sees the broader implications.

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Barbara.

You’re v welcome, and I thank you for writing. I trust Nicaraguans, for whom I wish the best, understand that failure once is rarely the end of the story.

Kind regards.

Patrick

From Barbara L.:
Subject: PATRICK LAWRENCE: In Venezuela, US Forgets What Century It Is

Thank you for this piece. I have paid more attention to Latin America than to Ukraine and Syria, so I especially appreciate your brief summary that places these two countries within the global pattern of regime-change attempts. My only quibble with this commentary is that you imply that the US will try regime change in Nicaragua if it succeeds in Venezuela. The US already *did* try regime change in Nicaragua, in collusion with various elites and “civil society” organizations long supported by NED – in April – July 2018. The debate about Nicaragua continues, but mostly at the international level. Most people in Nicaragua got a pretty good taste of what the opposition was capable of, and they’re not interested. Not to say that the US might not try again. One difference between Venezuela and Nicaragua is that much of Nicaragua’s economy is in the small-business and social sectors, which makes it a bit more robust and resistant to economic sanctions.

]  [

From WHD:
Subject: Journal Entry #39

I have never been a fan of Trump. His world view is generally odious to me in the particulars. This decision however is the first truly presidential thing he has done.

That makes a false flag attempt on his life very likely indeed, as the probably 3 trillion we spend every year on “security” in all it’s privatized forms, is 3 trillion of motive to keep the status quo, warpigging gravy train in perpetual motion. No amount of fat tax cuts for the wealthiest imperial monopolists is likely to protect him. His base of course will tear this country apart if they succeed in assassinating him. These imperial warpigs are not as omnipotent as people think.

I truly hope Trump surrounds himself with people who actually believe in pulling back on the war machine. I will support him in that at least.

Here’s hoping

]  [

From EL:
Subject: Journal Entry #39

I’m with GKJames;’ comment. Imputing strategy and a program of goals to Trump is like saying that a roomba has a master plan to clean a carpet..

]  [

From GKJames:
Subject: Journal Entry #39

I struggle with this analysis.

First, “Trump” and “policy” in the same breath causes synapses to fry. That the president, an id- / impulse-driven creature if there ever was one, has “policies” is belied by the evidence, assuming the conventional understanding of the term: a thought-through approach to an issue, including input from people who know things, a cost/benefit calculation, the national (vs. personal) interest, and consideration of unintended consequences.

Second, many of us agree with the principle of reducing the American affection for bang-bang/shoot-shoot. But the reduction (if it happens at all) won’t occur in a vacuum even if his well-known lack of interest in details tells us that the president believes it does. To criticize the critics of the Syria withdrawal decision, then, for being reactionaries elides from the discussion the source of (i) his original 2016 campaign impulse, which was to be contrarian merely for the sake of it, i.e., consideration of matters beyond applause garnered at rallies never figured in the equation; and (ii) his recent Syria impulse, which was triggered by nothing more than Erdogan’s asking, What are you still doing in Syria [now that ISIS has been defeated]? Averse to thought as the US president is, he instantly decided to give the order to withdraw. (That this left the execrable Bolton, also on the phone, speechless is one hell of a life-is-a-double-edged-sword moment.)

Third, no reasonable person disagrees with the importance of “gaining control over the military-industrial complex”. If it happens to be this president who gets that ball rolling, great. But how likely is that to happen in a meaningful way? For starters, he’s chosen Patrick Shanahan, a Boeing executive and poster-boy for the defense industry’s influence at the Pentagon and in Congress. And does anyone of sound mind really believe that, when defense contractors start bleating — be it to Congress or, in the case of Academi LLC (f/k/a Blackwater), directly to the White House via Kushner — about the loss of jobs in the US and lucrative business opportunities outside it, this president is going to insist on reining in the military-industrial complex? (See, Khashoggi dismemberment and sales to Saudi Arabia.) As with everything else, the president shows no sign of seriousness, precisely why he is so easily manipulated by various constituencies, and why there is zero need for any of these constituencies to go through the trouble of offing him. Bluster aside, he is more inconsequential than his predecessors.

Finally, it’s beyond dispute that White House occupants are up against the entire policy machinery of the government; one against many, even if the one is the Commander-in-Chief. But, for better or worse, that machinery has long reflected the consensus, the source for which is the electorate, whose preferences are carried out by elected representatives. There’s a reason why South Carolinians (as but one example) repeatedly inflict Graham and his self-proclaimed foreign policy expertise on the country: they love what he does and how he does it. Certainly, there is a Deep State. But, by and large, the public doesn’t mind it, which is why it will endure and prosper long after the current president leaves office.

]  [

From JH:
Subject: Journal Entry #39

I’m thinking that the chances that Trump will complete his first term are less now. I think impeachment or assassination are his fate. The United States government has become like a rogue elephant. Large, uncontrollable, and running amok. The deep state already thinks that it is an imperium and will continue to behave that way until either the economy collapses under the weight of debt or we get in a war with Russia/China. The first would be painful but the second would be disastrous.

]  [

From Larry:
Subject: The Nation Article

Mr. Lawrence,
First I want to thank you for writing the article in The Nation magazine about the supposed Russian “hack.” We are sadly living in a time where the media that we used to rely on to look into these critical issues have abandoned it. If it were the Trump administration making the same claims, our media would be crawling all over it looking for any holes and inconsistencies.

I just re-read your piece and was curious if there is anything new to add. Are the conclusions still valid? Has there been any additional evidence that the group can analyze? Have you been in contact with any of those that helped reach the conclusions on whether their findings still show that there was NO “hack”? If you have any links to updated reports or conclusions from those groups, please share them with me.

Have a good weekend.
Larry

]  [

From R.A.:
Subject: Correction to article on Korea

Vancouver, Canada
Hello Patrick,
I sent the folowing correction note to The Nation today (July 6):

Hello The Nation,
In the concluding paragraph of his article, Patrick Lawrence writes, ‘Shortly after Pyongyang’s missile launch, Xi Jinping sat with Vladimir Putin in Beijing …’ I believe he is referring to the meeting of the two that took place in MOSCOW, on July 4, 2017.
R.A.

I thank RA of Vancouver for his corrective. The change was immediately made (and noted in italics) in the column. –P.L. 

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

L. Waramaug,
Monday aft 4th.

Maria.
What a v generously supportive and encouraging letter. I thank you immensely for it. I have thought all along since publishing Time in 2013, This book will find its way and have its day. You keep the conviction alive.
It has seemed to me just lately that all I said in Time No Longer lies before us yet more clearly than it did when I wrote in 2011-12.
Anyway, always v pleased and honored to hear from another reader whom the book reached and spoke to.
By all means gush, of course.
You’re surviving Scott Walker, I take it. Of all the things he did, I thought ripping into the Univ. of Wisc., one of the country’s premier institutions, w/ all sorts of superb historians (esp the historians) to its credit,–this was Walker’s crudest act.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From M.D.:

Dear Mr. Smith,

I just finished reading your book, “Time No Longer”. What a magnificent book! I found it clear but not simple in it’s analysis and opinion. This book helped me to understand how this insane election outcome happened, although it clearly didn’t discuss the particular peculiarity of 2017 US politics. This makes the book prescient which is always a test of validity for any theory. Many of the points you made in your book helped clarify and expand upon so many of my own ideas which were sort of swimming around in my head, looking for some sort of cohesion. You also introduced me to so much in the way of new insight and perspective.

No doubt, my note is less scholarly than many you normally receive. I am no historian or academic. But that only adds to the praiseworthiness of your work! It was very clear and engaging to a middle aged physical therapist in a smaller city in Wisconsin! We seek our understanding, too. Thank you for writing such an important book and making it accessible without sacrificing weight or content. The ability to do that is rare and beautiful.

Would it be inappropriate for me to gush a bit about how much I admire your work? I kind of want to do that.

Sincerely, Maria D.

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Allen.

How v kind of you to say. Thank you. Pleased you liked the jottings. Elese, now famed as “S.V.D.,” tells me, People want to hear about you–what you’re like, and all that. As a hack, I’m v instinctively wary of the first person deployed in the service of autobiography, but there it is.
Thanks again.
The McG piece deserves all the eyes it gets, as does Hersh’s, of course–and speaking of which, this:

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/white-house-says-it-will-fake-chemical-weapon-attacks-in-syria.html

Kind regards.
Patrick.

Reply from A.B.:

Had not seen your piece on Hersh when I wrote earlier. Came to Hersh’s piece via McGovern, though.
Had spotted your Italian journal entry earlier, but saved it for a time when I was settled and unrushed.
Glad I did. It was one jewel after another, reflecting in the light.
Thank you for writing about these true things in these times.
A

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Allen.
Thanks for the note. Not sure how you came upon my remarks on Hersh’s piece (assuming you did), but you see the problem easily enough. Do not forget all we used to say about the suppression of the truth in the Soviet period. The great writers had to publish abroad. Are we so different in our predicament now?
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From A.B.:
Subject: Hersh

Seymour Hersh can’t get published in the U.S. or in Britain.
There’s not a more gifted and thorough journalist in our generation, to my mind.
His piece doesn’t even show up in searches for news on Syria.
Say it ain’t so, Joe.

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:
Norfolk,
Sunday morn 25th.

Gary.
Thanks for the note, which sounded a v sympathetic ring when it arrived. Your thoughts are exactly mine: I don’t like Trump, but I like the democratic process more than I dislike the president. Perfectly simple. We’re on the v same page in this.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From G.F.:
Subject: Soft coup and CIA and Trump

And if the soft coup doesn’t work?

Seems I recall what happened to another president who didn’t agree with the CIA’s foreign affairs agenda about fifty or so years ago. Of course, if it does happen again, it will be a thousand times more subtle than that. And, in fact, so subtle, that most people won’t even know it did happened.

Glad to see that you’re writing about this, and at least making those in power think twice about acting completely beyond the law. I happened not to be a Trump fan, but I am a fan of democracy, which the liberal media is making a mockery of, as usual, along with the CIA.

And, just for the record, no, I’m not a right wing-fanatic, nor a religious nut. I happen to by apolitical.

And like so many other Americans whose voices are never heard, a hell of a lot smarter than the average over-educated, or over-connected idiot, form the left or the right, who always manages to get himself elected President.

]  [

From C.M.A.:
Subject: Whitney interview part 2?

Please tell me you haven’t left The Nation. I’m impatiently awaiting the second installment of your discussion with Joel Whitney. Did I miss it?

Enjoyed your letter published in the May 22-29 print edition of TN. Although I hadn’t realized that you were an actual supporter of “the most reactionary president in living memory!”. Silly me. Apparently I’ve been misreading you all this time.

Thanks! And take care!
Kind regards,
Cara

]  [

Reply J.v.d.V.:

Hi Patrick,

Thanks very much for your quick and informative reply. I must say that I’m somewhat surprised to hear that the Trump Administration is even talking to the AIIB – it seems to me somewhat at odds with the general direction of his public foreign policy. I’m not surprised that the US contribution to the AIIB capital base is the remaining point of negotiation – it may not play well for the US to be financing infrastructure investment overseas. That being said, if past accessions of major Western economies are anything to go by, I doubt that we’ll be hearing in public how much capital the US will (still hypothetically) be putting in. Incidentally, if you do have any information about how much other countries have paid in, that would be much appreciated.

We are working for a few Japanese government bodies, keeping them abreast of developments generally related to One Belt One Road – so the information about Trump’s team negotiating membership of the AIIB would naturally be highly interesting to them.

Best wishes,

J.

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:

Norfolk,
Monday aft 19th.

Johan.
Hello, and thanks for your note.
I have a few quite treasured sources left over from my correspondent days, which I spent primarily in Asia. They provide me w/ a kind of reach I wouldn’t ordinarily enjoy. My good fortune. A good columnist used to be someone who had been around many bushes and withdrew from the field to reflect on events w/ authority. I may or may not be good, but that is how I came to the craft. Nowadays, people declare themselves columnists when they’ve no such experience–w/ the result that the quality of their work fails to rise to the occasion and the craft is discredited.
In any event, it was one of these sources, writing via e-mail from Beijing at the time of the Belt and Road summit, who gave me the information. He’s a former investment banker of some note, now an investor w/ a strong (vertical) presence in commodities. He knows his stuff, is v plugged in at v high levels, and proves out consistently.
So I have it from a sound source, tout court. He added, and this didn’t make the column, that the effort was under the direction of Wilbur Ross at Commerce and that the remaining point of negotiation was (this did make the column, I think) how much the U.S. would be required to contribute to AIIB capital.
I don’t know how you intend to use this information, but I stand behind it and can say w/o hesitation that it comes from a highly accurate source–and has not been refuted since I published.
I hope this is of some help.
My contacts are below it you’d like to be further in touch.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From J.v.d.V.:
Subject: Trump negotiating AIIB membership?

Dear Patrick,

I just came across your piece in The Nation, “How China is Building the Post-Western World” – wondering if you can expand at all upon your claim that Trump officials are negotiating a US accession to the AIIB?

]  [

From D.P.:
Subject: Not A Single One

Hi Patrick-

I hope you’re making progress on the latest project and just wanted to note the absence of comments on your last Nation piece. It’s worthwhile, engaging, highly relevant, and no one had anything to say about it?

At least there’s been some good news – the UK election was the pre-quake tremor. I see Corbyn at No 10 within six months, which will be a joy. Had the DNC not spiked Bernie Sanders’ campaign, we might have had a similar explosion in the youth vote.

Regards,

Dave

]  [

From F.S.:
Subject: your letter to the nation re “russiagate” etc

thanks!
couldn’t agree with you more..if you’re interested,my opinion, or at least several expressions of it, can be found at my blog:

legalienate

]  [

From J.S.:
Subject: Bravo on your The Nation article about a coup

Hi Patrick,

Bravo! on your The Nation article about a coup going on.

I especially liked your point about the importance of being FOR something, not just against something. In that spirit I think you may enjoy my book, “NO RICH AND NO POOR: The Populist Goal We CAN and Must Win” on sale at Amazon.com. Perhaps you’d like to review it also.

The link on Amazon is https://www.amazon.com/NO-RICH-POOR-Populist-Goal-ebook/dp/B071S6HCVX/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495399923&sr=1-1&keywords=no+rich+and+no+poor

All the best.

John S.
editor of PDRBoston.org

]  [

From M.M.:
Subject: one of your articles

The CIA, from inception to approximately early 1980’s was never liberal. I have a library of over 800 books on just this period of U.S. history. They were ultra right wingers, atheists, Ayn Rand one of their gods.Thanks.

]  [

From R.G.G.:
Subject: Impeachment

In an article, ‘Are We Witnessing a Coup Operation Against the Trump White House?,’ you asked if the ‘Cold War’ was as idiotic as the current neo-version. I suspect so – but the press then was afraid of being branded as communist and so the information available was at least as unreliable as now. Maybe even more so given that there was no ‘alternative’ media readily available. That would be especially true if one was a mono-lingual english-reader. I was then, until I took Russian in both high school and college, totally dependent on the approved view of the ‘Good, the Godly, the Great’ America. While getting my hands (or eyes) on any Russian language news was nigh on impossible, what was available was mostly anti-American/capitalist and therefore unreliable as well.

In my view, Americans are (by and large) haters — whether called Manifest Destiny or Exceptionalism – most Americans are taught from birth to automatically hate the ‘other’ and Russia is today THE other to hate.

]  [

From P.Y.:
Subject: How China is building the post Western world

Patrick,

Bravo ! Wonderful piece you wrote. I shared it with many friends and they all are very much impressed.
You are absolutely right, the major US press, NYT, WSJ basically ignored the whole Chinese new Silk Road Initiative. Last time we saw you was Dori and I attended your wedding in the HK Club in 1989. We moved back to Seattle in 1990 and now we live in Kirkland, WA.
We visited your old friend D.L. in Geneva several years ago. Had wonderful time. If you ever come to Seattle, please let us know. My phone no. is xxx-xxx-xxxx. Again, thanks for your most perceptive article about China. Best,
Paul

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:
Norfolk,
Sunday morn 25th.

Connie.
Hello.
I’m v grateful for your note and of course your kind words. You must forgive me for this late reply. I have been traveling. I’m v happy to send the books w/ autographs. How shall we do this? I propose I autograph them for you, get them packaged up, arrange for them to be mailed, and then advise the cost including the postal fees. I would send via the U.S. Post Office, air mail, unless you have another idea.
Do stay in touch, and thanks again for your interest in the work.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From C.M.P.:

Dear Patrick,

Your recent article in The Nation about China led me to this site-I have found a gold mine! I appreciate your candid observance of current events and find myself agreeing with you on many a issue. What separates you from most journalists/writers is that you dig into the real issues rather than going with the pomp and circumstance, and that you are not a perpetuating ideologue. In particular, I find your take on China thoroughly refreshing, especially in the midst of all the value-laden reports from both sides of the Pacific. I listen to this Podcast program on China called Sinica and I think you would be an ideal candidate for an interview. I may just write to them and suggest they look you up (although you may already know them after being in Asia for so long).

As an aspiring writer, I also very much admire your style of writing–succinct, pungent, with just enough sarcasm. I would be honored if I could get your autographed books (Time No Longer and Somebody Else’s Century). I am including my courier address below, although being in China i don’t know if it’s possible. If not, I will just have to order them on Amazon and have them brought back from the States.

Sincerely,

Connie

]  [

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:
Norfolk,
Monday morn 24th.

Dave.
Thanks v much for the note. And your generous encouragement is well, well received. Ev’one who writes gets a reply–en principe, I should add, and it often takes ages for me to get to it. But yours jumps the queue.
Your one-sentence summation of our current condition goes straight to what I find myself so often writing against: Too few of us understand the gravity of the moment–what time it is, as I sometimes put it. It is always difficult, and for ev’one, to grasp one’s time as history: We are in it, history’s actors. But it is not impossible. This consciousness of history, I consider, is essential. It is how one comes to understandings such as yours.
Keep reading. You now know where to find me. A fine spring to you.
Kind regards.
Patrick.

From D.P.:
Mr Lawrence-

Recently a friend introduced me to your writing and I’m blown away. You have the tone, command, and skill of the great dissenters – Gore Vidal, Alexander Cockburn, and more currently Chris Hedges. It’s a challenge and joy to read your columns. I’m genuinely surprised to find them running in The Nation.

Unlike the novelty klaxon sounded at every closely-managed election, we *are* living in a time when we’ll either get our collective act together or, as Chomsky has said, there won’t be much more human history to discuss. In America, the growing demographic and political clout of the Millenial generation offers at least some hope.

I’m sure you’re quite busy – no need to reply.

Best wishes,
Dave
Plymouth, MA, USA

]  [

From M.S.:
Dear Mr. Lawrence,

I merely wanted to drop a line and say how much I have enjoy reading your articles over the past year since discovering your column on “salon.com“. I appreciate your fresh takes and perspective on foreign policy issues affecting the US. This subject, which has always received far too little critical attention from mainstream sources, is fascinatingly complex and like you say is often covered without enough historical context. Thanks for being a bright source in our internet political coverage.

Regards,
Mark

]  [

Re Journal Entry, April 9th 2017; The Crisis of the Liberal Order and Pankaj Mishra’s ‘Age of Anger’, April 6th 2017; Famine Could Kill 20 Million in Africa and Yemen—Why the Deafening Silence? March 24th 2017:

From A.B.:
Thanks for the call on Thursday. I appreciated it greatly.
As I appreciate that you are still doing thoughtful work.
Since the column on Yemen, I have been unable to escape the thought that for the cost of just building one aircraft carrier, 13 million starving people in Yemen could be fed for a decade.
The other haunting is the concept you articulated in the (dense for me) Nation column and your journal entry: there is now no means to self-correct.
Global warming is hardly a concern if we are unlikely to make it through the next four years.
Experiments such as Lula are important, even if imperfect. But the U.S. had to squash that too.
Pray for Bolivia after the UN profile in courage.
Do keep at it.
Allen in Oregon

]  [

Re Trump Acts on Obama’s ‘Red Line’ by Launching Missiles at Syrian Targets, April 6th 2017:

From A.B.:
Your thoughtful work has been an inspiration to me for years as I’ve watched our profession descend into hell. Each column has taken a deep, faceted look at an international problem, with proper skepticism.
So I was deeply disappointed when I saw you took the gas attack in Syria at face value, as presented by our government and the fawning versions of reporters we now have in New York and Washington.
Does it make any sense for Assad to order a gas attack in broad daylight in a town full of White Helmets just after the U.S. declared that removing him was no longer a priority? And when he’s winning the war with conventional weapons, which he has in virtually unlimited supply?
Who benefits? Who has solid evidence? A bunch of staged photos in rebel-held territory mean nothing.
This smells of a false flag, or a strike that hit one of the many labs for chemical weapons production in al-Quaida territory. Best guess is that the rebels took a bunch of prisoners and decided they could use them by gassing them. If so, it sure worked.
And you got truly taken, in my estimation.
I do hope you come back with something more on this that meets the ordinary standards of your extraordinary work.
Allen (former AP, Post-Dispatch, WSJ, and many small community papers)

]  [

Re Journal Entry, January 9th 2017:

Reply from Patrick Lawrence:
Norfolk,
Sunday aft 23rd.

Tim.
Thanks v much for this note. I always appreciate it when readers take a moment to write. And especially, I have to say, readers of the Journal. My working assumption is that when I post in Cu Chulainn I am whispering in the wind.
It’s interesting to read these thoughts coming from a former advisor to Mr. Blair. I couldn’t be more thoroughly in agreement. In my view, and w/ reference to the American scene, I do not think this egregious righteousness we now see among liberals is at bottom a political question. It is a psychological question. There is something far deeper than politics driving these people.
I started an essay a couple of months ago w/ the working title “On the Pleasures of Hating Donald Trump.” The title comes from the great Hazlitt, who wrote “On the Pleasures of Hating” for The Plain Speaker in 1826. In it he explored all the psychological purposes served by one’s contempt of others. My brief essay became an extended essay, and the extended essay shaped up as a brief book, and now the brief book shapes up to be more than brief. When I am well enough along I will start posting bits of text. I mention all this because I think it goes to your points.
We are amid the more or less complete collapse of principled disinterest in our institutions and consequently the collapse of institutional authority. Few of us could be prepared for a reality of this magnitude, but this is not an excuse to avoid it. We are required to renovate the frame of all our thinking.
Again, I am grateful to see your note. Do keep reading, and we can remain in touch.
Kind regards.
Patrick Lawrence.

From Tim:
Agree with the Comments on Trump. As a former Blair Government advisor, though from a more left of centre background in a mining town in Wales, I have been shocked at the infantilism of my former colleagues and indeed comrades at both Brexit and the Trump victory. Bad losers isn’t the half of it. There is a massive arrogance and ignorance at the heart of this. The latter is the more ironic given that ‘educated’ upset Remainers and Clinton worshippers appear not to know what Joe Average knows before he gets up in the morning: that the EU is a busted flush, is anti-democratic and has no idea what to do about the economy or migration. Similarly the non educated knew that Hillary would not bring the change the country and they needed. And she ran a dud campaign based on another idiocy – identity politics. The wonder is not that the non educated have been taken in by fake news. It’s that the educated have been taken in by fake politics.

]  [

Re It’s Paul Krugman vs. Noam Chomsky: This is the history we need to understand Paris, ISIS, November 17th:

From M.R.:
WTF? Chomsky’s name does not appear once in your article.

Mark.

From K.B.:
Thanks for talking sense.

Just finished your recent piece on Salon. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am saddened every day by the way people swallow their stories whole without any investigation. From Christians who don’t realize that the Last Supper was probably a Passover sedar to “conservatives” who don’t understand that they’re actually radicals, we have become a nation of frightened AND ignorant people. Sad, sad, sad. Thanks for turning on a flashlight in a VERY dark room.

I’ve been working on a history of the modern period comparing it to the Axial Age (800-200 BCE). If you’d ever like to discuss some of these issues, feel free to get in touch.

Ken.

From B.R.:
The post I read on Salon today is about the first I stayed with. Alternet usually (it seems to me) does better.

I’d like to edit your column. Some nerve, huh?

I’ll have to reread to see how a Krugman/Chomsky dialectic works in your thinking.

I am 80 y o & have a politically aware son who is 50. We read different writings. By occasionally reading what he reads, I observe changes in meanings of words and new words with meaning I have to look up.

I bought Naomi Klein’s book but I don’t have to read it because I knew it already. I just read Superforecasting by Tetlock—not really a lot of news there, either.

Since you are well positioned to educate Americans, I encourage you to write for the full spectrum of us. You churn out a lot of copy. Maybe some of it could be targeted toward the people with the least sense of history.

Maybe “root of evil” is not good language for U.S. interference in democratically elected governments elsewere . . . but it is, IMO, criminal.

(Which is a culturally defined word , too.)

Language, semantics, are important. For example, there is no such thing as race and there is no such thing as identity. Yet people live their lives as though there is/were. Political discussion needs its lexicon cleaned up and polished.

Whaddyathink ?

Barbara.

]  [

Re We brought this on ourselves: After Paris, it is time to square our “values” with our history, November 15th:

From S.B.:
Apropos we brought this on ourselves, what manner of being colonizes, unleashing a near genocidal fury upon millions for close to one hundred years, with added flourish at the dawn of the 21st century, and expects no retribution especially at home?  Perhaps a “civilized” apex predator hotly mournful at the loss of some of its own kind, blithely uncaring of its prey’s losses and lamentations. Sociopathy undergirds and subverts this rank order, at home and abroad.

Let us hope that a Syrian ceasefire fashioned in Vienna by a Congress of Great Powers, together with the Iran nuclear deal, ushers in a new era. See link below.

Best,
Sioan.